Corsair the Rational Pirate

Well Now This is Just Wrong

There are people in this world called "Japanese". They live, not unsurprisingly, mostly in Japan (although they have ben spotted in many other countries). Japan is an island. Over the many centuries that the Japanese have lived on this island they have had little contact with people from other countries. This has led them to create strange and interesting Japanese things that the people in the other countries find... strange and interesting. And sometimes strange and nauseating. This is one of those times.

Ice cream was invented in Europe possibly during the 17th century. No one exactly knows when. Since that time there have been hundreds, if not thousands of flavors created around the world. They range from Vanilla to Rocky Road to Pumpkin. All of them share a few characteristics. They are cold. They are sweet. They are edible to most humans.

The trend in making ice cream ingestible seems to have come to a stop. And the ones to put a stop to the eating of this most enjoyable sweet treat? Why those very same Japanese people I mentioned earlier. And the reason ice cream is no longer edible? Well, not all ice cream is inedible, only the kind mentioned here.

"Why has the history of delicious ice cream come to a crashing halt after so many hundreds of years", you ask? Four words. "Ox Tongue Ice Cream".

Enough has been said.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:28

Corsair the Snarky Pirate!

snark�y

Pronunciation: (sn�r'kE), [key]
�adj., snark�i�er, snark�i�est. Chiefly Brit. Slang.
testy or irritable; short.

or

snark�y Pronunciation Key (sn�rk)
adj. Slang snark�i�er, snark�i�est

Irritable or short-tempered; irascible.

[From dialectal snark, to nag, from snark, snork, to snore, snort, from Dutch and
Low German snorken, of imitative origin.]

snarki�ly adv.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:00

Heads I win, Tails You Lose

God is getting a lot of the credit for flying down out of the sky and transporting the poor men who were trapped in the mine all those hours up to the surface where he cured their gout, built them new houses, and finally took annoying Uncle Billy up to heaven. It was a miracle!

Unless it wasn't. What it might have been was men and women and machines and processes working the way that they were built, trained, and employed. These people did not just show up there at random and begin drilling. They had a plan develped by men and carried out by deceidedly ungodlike individuals.

Why then is God getting all the credit and none of the blame? He did, in fact, move that old mine that was filled with water 300 feet in closer to the new mine so that the miners would break through and almost drown. That was the real miracle! Oh, he didn't do that? That was a faulty map drawn by men many years ago? I see. well, couldn't he have intervened back then when the map was being drawn and fixed it so that the nine miners wouldn't become trapped in 2002? A little proactive miracling would seem to work wonders.

Well, how about this article:

When they were finally pulled to safety, long after most of us had given up hope, the thanks went first to God, and then to the men who had worked past exhaustion to save their lives. A handwritten message, put in the window of Andrea's Restaurant and set against an American flag, said it all for the citizens of Quecreek, Penn.:
"Thank you God 9 for 9."
All along the streets in the town and on the highway leading into town a visitor was overwhelmed with the evidence of thanksgiving. One billboard spelled it out in lights: "God gave us a miracle." Gov. Mark Schweiker, who presided over the rescue effort and kept up the spirits of family, friends and drillers, agreed: "When I told the families the men were alive," the governor said, "someone yelled, 'Praise the Lord!'"

Men shouldn't even have needed to be involved. Just stand around praying and wait for them to show up!

And how is it that God doesn't get any brickbats thrown his way when the following happens:

The dark is never quite so black as at the bottom of a mine, and religion is never quite so heartfelt as when all other hope has vanished. And nothing quite so quickly captures the public's attention and fascination as the rescue of man when he is buried alive, the attempt to beat man's most primitive terror. They still sing the ballad of Floyd Collins in the hills of Kentucky, about the young spelunker who was trapped in a cave deep below the surface of the earth and died when lodged beneath a fallen boulder, but not before a Baptist preacher crawled a half-mile on his belly to read Scripture to him, and hear his Christian testimony. Two decades later the nation stood still for a week while rescuers raced to save little Kathy Fiscus, a tot who fell into an abandoned shaft. She, too, died alone with her terror.

I am sure that the first quote out of the religious after they pulled that poor dead girl out of that hole was that God wanted her to be an angel that is why he called her early or some such self deluding drivel. The poor girl died alone in a dark hole. Where was her miracle? Did her parents not pray loudly or sincerely enough?

Pull your heads out, people. Without the intervention of human beings working together, those nine men would have died. Technology saved them. Technoogy built, tested, and employed by men and women. Not some ethereal being floating in the sky. Show me the bible verse where it describes mining equipment used to save trapped miners. You won't because it is a book of terrors mixed with silliness mixed with feel-good psycho babble written by goat herders thousands of years ago and mistranslated many times since then. Bah!

Update: Brian Tiemann at Grotto11 comments on my "snarky" (I like that word.. Corsair the Snarky Pirate!) post.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:35

Corsair Loves a Girl in Uniform

No more need be said!

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 16:13

There Woulda Been a Serious Ass Whooping Going On

Disgusting (and badly dressed, apparently) perp gets caught in the act:

LOMITA, Calif. (AP) - A man who allegedly scaled a backyard fence and grabbed a 5-year-old boy was chased down and captured by neighbors alerted by screams from the boy's mother, authorities said.

Randall Turner, 51, was arrested and booked for investigation of false imprisonment.

See, now, had Corsair the Rational Pirate been involved in this sort of situation I do believe it wouldn't have been the police that needed calling. I do believe the local emergencey Medical Technicians would have had to put in an appearence as Mr. Boy-loving perp would have been curled up in the foetal position with many unspecified internal injuries. Aftr all the little girls disappearing these days, I am not sure I would have been able to restrain myself... from killing him completely, I mean.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 15:18

Well, Isn't That a Pleasent Thought?

Says here:

Richard Gorham, a former Alaska entomologist, once estimated a naked person on the North Slope with no repellent in summer could die of blood loss within three hours.

The authors of "The Mosquito Book," a light-hearted fact-filled tome, calculated it would take just over a million bites to completely drain a person of blood, given that a mosquito ingests about one-millionth of a gallon per bite.

Being a native Minnesotan (many years removed) I can tell you about mosquitoes. Flew off with my baby brother once, sweartagawd! Had to run inside and get the BIG can of OFF to shoot him down!

And speaking of OFF. Does anyone remember the smell of OFF in the old days? Always knew you had it on cause you stunk of it. Now they got scentless kinds and lemon scented and Old Spice scent for all I know. What was wrong with the old smell. I loved the smell of OFF in the morning, it smelled like home!

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 13:27

Some People Have to Go and Ruin Everything

You know those people who come out with medical studies every couple of months telling the American people that eating hamburgers or popcorn, or cheese or anything else that people like to ingest is bad for them? This of course is intended to ruin the experience of chowing down on some highly carcinogenic substance our ancestors would have killed for.

Well, here is another highly enjoyable activity that has now ben ruined by evil-doers (they should be included in Bush's Axis of Evil!):

When men were stopped in the streets of Columbia and asked if they wanted to lick a woman's breast many thought their dreams had come true.

The women would pose seductively outside glitzy bars and restaurants and encourage goggle- eyed men to stop their cars and take a closer look.

But after helping themselves to what was on offer, the men would wake up hours later to find their wallets and cars missing.

Dayum! Is nothing sacred anymore? Where is a guy supposed to go to get his breast-lickin' in if he is worried about being relieved of his valuables? What has the world come to?

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:26

I Don't Need Religion, Thank You

USS Clueless is having a discussion on religion and marriage and now children. Well let me say 11 years married, three children, no church and everyone is happy. So there.

What really struck me in the article, however was the following:

I keep running into this. It seems to be widely accepted by Christians that atheists are hedonistic, and selfish, and that the only thing which is important to them is their own feelings and their own happiness and be damned to everyone else. Like any other generalization about a group as diverse as atheists, it's possible to find people who are like that, but most are not, and I'm not. I never said that my own happiness was of paramount concern.

I have read and heard those and similar attacks on us non-religious. "Athiests don't believe in anything", "Atheists think they don't have to follow the rules since you won't be punished by god", "Since you don't beleive in God and heaven, why don't you just kill yourself and get it over with." It is this last one that really gets to me.

I don't believe there is a place in the sky where we go after we die and play harps and sit at god's feet. Blech if there is. Mark Twain said it in "Letters From the Earth"

His heaven is like himself: strange, interesting, astonishing, grotesque. I give you my word, it has not a single feature in it that he actually values. It consists -- utterly and entirely -- of diversions which he cares next to nothing about, here in the earth, yet is quite sure he will like them in heaven. Isn't it curious? Isn't it interesting? You must not think I am exaggerating, for it is not so.

Singing and playing instruments and being all happy-happy-joy-joy with people you despise on Earth. Eww.

Anyway. The "why don't you just kill yourself" argument is backwards when pointed at the atheist. Atheists have every reason to want to live as long as they can and experience as much joy (which can be defined as making others happy despite what the religious think) as possible while he is on earth. Since there is nothing else after death you have to have your fun now!

Religios on the other hand should be most happy when, while sitting in church, a big twister comes by and drops the roof on the congregants. All those people are going straight to heaven, are they not? There they can wear robes and sing and play harps (which they would all hate to do on earth) and they won't have to have sex anymore (which they would all like to do on earth. See Mark Twain, above).

What the religious are saying in effect is "Don't take my religion and fear of god away or I might go nuts!" With nothing to stop them they might kill abortion doctors or fly planes into buildings or torture witches or get granny to send in her life savings to some blow dried blow hard or deny life saving medical treatments to their children or rant and rave on street corners destrying other people's peace and quiet or... Oops, they already do that.

Is all religion bad. No, of course not. Is it pretty much a waste of time. Yes but as long as they leave me alone they can do whatever they want.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 12:04

WRONG, You Idiot! Elvis is King!

It never ceases to amaze me the stupid, moronic things that religious people do to get themselves in trouble. If they are not out slaying infidels, or sleeping with their "sheep", or making total asses of themselves on street corners with the shouting and the gesticulating, they are getting temselves fired for being idiots!

A U.S. Secret Service agent on a Detroit anti-terror task force has been suspended after he admitted scrawling an anti-Islamic epithet on a Muslim prayer calendar during a search of a suspect's home last week, authorities said yesterday.

The agent, a 10-year veteran whose name has not been released, was removed from the U.S. Attorney's Joint Terrorism Task Force in Detroit Wednesday and placed on administrative leave with pay pending the outcome of an internal investigation, the Secret Service said yesterday.

The agent admitted writing "Islam is Evil, Christ is King" on a calendar posted on the refrigerator in the Dearborn home of Omar Shishani, authorities said. The agent was part of a team executing a search warrant July 18.

Gee, didn't Jeesus say "Go forth and write stupid shit in calendars?" Well, I guess Ibetter do that then. Nimrod. Total clueless fool. Fantasy-land-living-in jamoke!

Federal authorities described the agent as a religious man who had no prior disciplinary actions at the agency.

That they know about.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 11:08

And This is a Bad Thing?

John O'Sullivan is waxing nostalgic on the "good old days" in Europe when everyone got their "Sunday go to meeting" clothes on and bowed down together in church... When they weren't out slaughtering their neighbors for not "worshipping" exactly the way they did, I guess.

When Pope John Paul II arrived in Toronto this week for the World Youth Day Congress, he was arriving in continent that is still significantly religious � and leaving a continent that seems to have abandoned religion for agnosticism and material affluence.

Yeah, got to hate that material affluence. Much better we should live in shanty towns and go to church. No thanks, I will take my digital camera and food processor any day.

Missionaries are certainly needed in Western Europe. Regular church attendance there has sunk to single digits-0seven percent for most Christian denominations in Britain, even lower in France and Germany. By comparison with this gloomy picture, North America still looks moderately devout. About 40 percent of Americans and 20 percent of Canadians say they go to church regularly � and probably at least half of them are telling the truth.

If Europe is a post-Christian society, then North America is still a moderately observant one. But both exist in a world where Asia, Africa and Latin America are passionately devout.

So the places where people are most free to think and live like they want are rapidly becoming less religious. I guess there is something wrong with that if you have some sort of vested interest in forcing people to go to church.Those places where people are not as - shall we say - advanced as us tend to spend more time in church... Lamenting their economic predicatment. Soon as they join the first world they get to spend Sunday at home.

You know what? I am not crying at all about people making a decision to not spend their time at church. Now if we could just get some of the churches to close down and make better use of all that land.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 16:40

Well, There's Something You Don't See Everyday!

Koreans are always accused by the "oh so righteous" in the West of loading down the dinner table with the likes of Snoopy, Lassie, and Old Yeller (although Old Yeller might tend to be a bit tough). What they are not so good at is eating crow.

Turns out that was what was served recently in North Korea after they spent the last month or so warning of war due to the naval clash in the Yellow Sea. Now it seems that they have had a change of heart (or at least they would have had a change of heart were they actually to possess such an organ).

North Korea ( news - web sites) expressed regret to South Korea ( news - web sites) Thursday over a naval clash last month that killed five southern sailors, and offered to renew talks in a gesture Seoul swiftly welcomed as "highly significant."

North Korea's change of tack and tone just a day after it issued a bellicose warning of more troubles over a disputed Yellow Sea border stopped short of accepting blame for the June 29 attack by the North's navy on its southern counterparts.

"Feeling regretful for the unforeseen armed clash that occurred in the west sea recently, we are of the view that both sides should make joint efforts to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents in future," the telephone message said.

"Because we want to kill all you capitalist pigs, we're sorry we only got five of you! Wait until next time." is kind of the way I read it.

North Korea, of course, is known for never being wrong or admitting their mistakes (I guess that would take too long each morning) so getting any sort of mea culpa out of them is a major acheivement. Just don't expect them to follow up with anything meaningful.

In fact, they will probably pull off some new stunt soon so that this whole apology thing gets pushed off the front page.

Watch for it.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:35

Cool New Internet Thing

Before the internet there were games and toys and things to play with. Since the advent of the Internet some of these games have been moved to the web while other completely new games and fun have been created. I just ran across one in the WaPo this morning that I just had to participate in.

Where do those dollars go?

For people who can't keep track of a buck, there's the Where's George? Web site at www.wheresgeorge.com -- a sort of underground Internet society that's open to anyone with a dollar to his name and a bit of daring in his soul.

No, the rascals at Where's George? won't help you balance a budget, but they will attempt to trace your folding money as it bounces around the country.

I just signed up this morning and added what few pieces of money I have on me and now all I want to do is run right out, cash my paycheck into a bunch of small, unmarked bills and get to entering.

I feel an obsession coming on!

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:48

Who Woulda Thunk It?

What Was Your PastLife?

Me?!? I guess this tough guy persona is all a load of hogwash.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 15:12

I've Been Chalked

Google! DayPop! This is my blogchalk: English, United States, Chantilly, South Riding, corsair, Male, 36-40!

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 14:22

California Dreamin'

I was in California over the weekend for my 20th high school reunion. I enjoyed the reunion thing and, strangely, the people who attended didn't look all that bad. I guess that was why they attended. If they were looking bad they stayed home.

Now on to the state of California. Not the State, mind you, the state. What a mess! Garbage strewn about the highways, dirt everywhere, buildings and bridges falling apart. Yuck. I went back for a quick visit to the old school (Independence High School in San Jose) and was astounded by how badly maintained it was. The place only opened in 1976 and yet it was completely falling apart. Nothing had ever been painted since it was opened. Same colors, same paint. The only painting that had been done was over all the grafitti on the walls. And then they never could find the same color of paint to cover things up with. Different colors of beige paint everywhere. Blech.

The freeways were the same way. Don't they have prisoners in California? Can't they get out on the roads and pick up the garbage? Can't anyone pick up the trash? It just looks... third-worldish.

And I guess I never noticed it while I was living there all those years, but there is nothing nice or beautiful or natural about looking at dead weeds. It does not rain in the summer in California. Therefore all the things that grow during the winter months end up dying by June. Some wax poetic on the golden colors of California's hills glowing in the sunlight. Bullshit. Buncha dead weeds choking the hills and leading to fire danger. Looks like shit, actually.

Now that I am living in Virginia, I have noticed how nice it is to have growing things around all summer. Green, cool, clean. I think the rain washes away a lot of the trash on our roadways as well. Things just look nicer.

If there is any other plant that touches you so much as a tall, green tree I don't know what it is. we have lots of trees here. Not as many as there used to be, of course, but enough to give you a taste of what it used to look like around here. Sure, they spend half their lives devoid of leaves and dead looking. But when they are growing and waving in the wind, and giving me shade... Nothing beats them. California is not so lucky. Many fewer trees. Not enough to hide the decay going on in that state.

It is a shame really. But I am happy I moved.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:22

I Feel a Movie Marathon Coming On!

According to this article, there are cinema masterpieces out there in the world (loved by all, apparently) that I have never heard of!

The song My Country is best, in particular, was chosen as the theme of the multi-part feature film the Nation And Destiny, which is appreciated as one of the world's masterpieces. 58 parts of the film have been released so far.

58 PARTS? Talk about long winded! And no wonder the film (films?) is so beloved by all. What a wonderful subject it portrays:

Pyongyang, October 7 (KCNA) -- The Korean Film Studio recently produced part 5 of "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow," part 56 of the multi-part feature film "the nation and destiny". The film teaches the profound truth that people in our era should maintain revolutionary principles and live with pure heart and clean hands anytime, anywhere and under any circumstances, always cherishing faith and sense of obligation towards the party and the leader who give the most valuable political integrity to them and help them lead a worthy life.
The film stresses that a revolutionary should consider a revolutionary principle, class principle as absolute faith that allows no concession even among kinsmen.

Ah, what wonderful sentiments. Don't think for yourselves. Let us do it for you, stupid prole!

I wonder if it comes out on DVD?

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:45

Argh! Sailing Out West!

Corsair the Rational Pilot (isn't third person annoying?) will be sailing out West for a couple of days to try and keelhaul some landlubbers. Posting may or may not take place until Monday or Tuesday.

Have a piratical weekend. Don't drink nuthin that I wouldn't drink!

Argh

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:25

Bible Cheese?

Why is someone searching for "bible cheese"?

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 13:11

Great Aircraft Carrier Article

Aircraft carriers do not come along all that often (once every eight years or so). Therefore great articles about building aircraft carriers are equally as rare. Here is one you will enjoy:

It's the most technologically challenging, toughest-to-manufacture product. It delivers more striking power than the combined navy and air forces of most nations. It's the nuclear-powered, Nimitz-class, U.S. Navy aircraft carrier. Eight patrol the oceans of the world. The ninth, the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan, is nearing completion at Newport News Shipbuilding, the world's only maker of full-sized aircraft carriers, nuclear or otherwise. The yard's 550 acres of sheds, cranes, dry docks, piers, and century-old brick buildings sprawl 2 1/2 miles along Virginia's James River near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.

Read the article then go look at some pictures.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 12:54

North Korea Once Again Doing Bad Things

Who would have thought that the People's Democratic Republic of Korea (sort of like the old Holy Roman Empire joke - It was neither Holy, Roman or and Empire - North Korea in no way belongs to the "People", is "Democratic", or is a "Republic". More precisely it is a Dictatorship) would take cut-price rice from a country trying to help them out and resell it on the open market. Not North Korea! A paragon of virture and fortitude (I don't know if they ever actually said that about themselves, but they might have). Read all about it here:

North Korea may be selling cut-price rice from Thailand to third countries and paying people here to stay quiet about it, a Democrat MP said yesterday.

House budget committee member Pichet Panvichartkul urged the Commerce Ministry to scrap the 300,000-tonne rice deal with North Korea.

Under the contract 50,000 tonnes of rice was to have been sent to North Korea in the last six months, with Pyongyang paying for it over two years.

Play with snakes, you have to expect to get bit.

They then go on to say that:

North Korea, which owes US$1.5 million from a previous rice deal, and has tens of million dollars more to pay under this one, had bought the rice on a ``humanitarian, government-to-government'' basis.

Don't expect to ever get your money back, suckers. Here is a simple test. Read a history book (widely available, I am lead to believe) on Noth Korean debt. i was able to find the following in only a couple of minutes:

During the early 1970s, North Korea, probably noting the more rapid economic development of the South, attempted a large- scale modernization program through the importation of Western technology, principally in the heavy industrial sectors of the economy. Unable to finance its debt through exports that shrank steadily after the worldwide recession stemming from the oil crisis of the 1970s, the D.P.R.K. became the first communist country to default on its loans from free market countries.

In 1979, North Korea was able to renegotiate much of its international debt, but in 1980 it defaulted on all of its loans except those from Japan. By the end of 1986, the North's hard-currency debt had reached more than $4 billion. It also owed nearly $2 billion to communist creditors. The Japanese also declared the North in default. By 1993, North Korea's debt was estimated at $10 billion.

People just keep giving these losers money. The North Koreans are idiots and so are their creditors.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:49

I'm a Skeptic but Not About This

If you have ever read anything I ever wrote you would have to conclude that I have anger management problems, interpersonal realtionship problems, religious issues, and that I am skeptical of anything that cannot be proved to me firsthand through science and reasoning.

I like to read conspiracy theorist to see just how far from reality other people are willing to go and still remain physically in our plane of existence. Places such as the Enterprise Mission where, I think, they have actually been to Mars and have the vacation snaps of pyramids, sphinxes (sphinxi?), and extragalactic McDonalds.

Other places, such as Bad Astronomy attempt to explain things in a scientific and rational manner. I would like them to try and explain this however! Incontravertible proof that the moon landings were faked! I know you might not believe it, I sure didn't... At first! But just look at something like this and say that you don't now have doubts:

Ha! Refute that, skeptic boy!

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:37

Nothin' But Errors These Days

Having issues with blogger. I couldn't post the lovely shot of the hip-hugging belly for a couple of days and today I am not allowed to update my template. Get something like:

Error 503:Unable to load template file: /home/Templates2/3321253_a.html (server:page)

Ahh, well. You get what you pay for (unfortunately)

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:03

Now This is Why We Live in the West

This is why "We" are better than "Them." Did you kow that in some backward-ass countries it is against the law to show off one's belly if one is a female (and who would want to look at men's bellies anyway)? It could get you beaten, dragged through the streets, stripped of your clothes, and probably raped. Men in some places are so infantile as to not be able to control their sexual urges when it comes to women. When "they" get here, however, it is another story. Witness the last days of the 9/11 hijackers when they visited strip clubs before going home to grovel before Allah.

Becky's average customer is about 30 years old, she says, although she also caters to high-school girls and women in their 40s and 50s.

Jeans at her store typically measure just 3 inches to 7 inches from crotch seam to top of the waistband, and Becky is considering selling an even more revealing, Brazilian-style jean.

"They are ridiculously low - lower and tighter," she said, adding that South American women inspiring them are "gorgeous and empowered by their curves."

Becky's customers also buy the low-rise underwear she stocks, she said.

"Older women are starting to wear G-strings and thongs (with low-cut pants)," she said. "You can't wear your granny panties with these."

Her customers are well aware of the message their attire sends to the opposite sex, she believes. Guys often shop with their wives and girlfriends at her store. When a woman comes out of the dressing room modeling low-cut jeans, the man's eyes "pop out of their heads," she said.

This only holds true, however until Corsair the Rational Princesses reach puberty. Then it's granny panties for everyone!

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 16:27

Test

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 16:25

It Just Doesn't Work

It was this stupid Windows 2000 box I am forced to endure every day. After rebooting the farking thing and waiting 5 minutes while it decided whether it was going to come back up, thinks look OK in Mozilla now.

I am not the only one with problems in Windows land:

I really, really hate fucking Windows and the fact that things just fail for no reason, and you can never tell whether it's hardware or software. You never know who's to blame, or whom to ask for help. I don't want to depend on computers anymore, either, so I won't update my website very often. I don't even want to play computer games, anymore. Now that I've tried XP, I've sworn never to updrage anything ever again. I just hate computers. I started out on an Amiga 1000 when I was eight years old and since then, all I ever wanted to do is program computers and develop kickass video games. Now, I can't even stand to look at one. It's not the hardware that bugs me, it's the fact that programmers are just so stupid and don't understand basic design principles, like labeling, and telling the user what the program needs, instead of trying to find it automatically, and simply quitting if the program can't find it. Many programmers in the world just deserve to be thrown into a pit and lit on fire. I just wish my job didn't require such an intimate knowledge of them. But then, who has a choice? Everything is computerized these days and it's driving me nuts!

Got this via Grotto11 and I couldn't agree more.

I am a Mac user (oops, just lost half of the few users that come aournd here for a quick read) and proud of it. I have an Apple rainbow sticker on my car window. I waited in line for two hours for the very first Apple store to open in Tyson's Corner (and have the t-shirt to prove it). I have only owned four of the things in my life (IIGS, 630, 7100, G4), but that is because they last so long I didn't feel the need to get a new one every 18 months. I currently use a G4/466 running OS X and have never had one problem with it. It just works. I am starting to do little iMovie sorts of things (which will require that I get a DVD burner soon... and it will just work). I have iPhoto and iTunes running all the time. I play on the unix side occasionally. It is a tool that I like to play with.

On the other hand, I have a Win2K IBM laptop at work that blows. Give it enough time and you are forced to reboot due to excessive paging. Want to switch from one app to another hidden down on the bar thing? Be prepared to wait a minute or two while it picks it up off the page file. It does have 384 MB (or some such number) of RAM so you would think it could handle a few apps now and then. Well, you would be wrong. It can't. I can't delete some old programs using the Add/Delete system thing since something somewhere got corrupted. Things run at startup that I don't want to run and other things don't startup when I want them too. It may be a function of the crappy IBM laptop that I am forced to endure... But I am sure it would run great with Linux.

I am sorry if you like Windows. Sort of like trying to get people to go to Wendy's instead of McDonalds. You can go to McDonalds and you can eat there and you will not die (not right away, at least). But there is so much better just around the corner I sort of feel sorry if you do not go and explore other possibilities.

Peace!

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 13:08

Well, that was telling

Just looked at this site using Mozilla 1.0

Yuck. Didn't work at all. the page was a million miles wide and 2 million miles long.

I will have to look into fixing that.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 11:05

Does Nothing For Me

Ann Coulter is often called a "Conservative Talk Show/Columnist Babe" but for the life of me I can't figure out why. I saw her last night for a few minutes on Fox spouting off this or that and I can say that she just doesn't do it for me. Something about the face:

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:26

What a Prick

Some shit for brains named Howard Zinn is currently on Diane Reeeehmmm on NPR spouting the "It was all our fault" line of blaming the victim. Says our policies in the Middle East made lots of people mad and that a small percentage got angry enough to cause the 9/11 thing.

His reaction to the attack would have been to loo kat our foreign policy and move soldiers out of Saudi, drop the sanctions on Iraq, and look at our policies in the "occupied Palestine." Sounds like he got all his talking points from Chomsky.

Oh oh, now talking about casualties in Afghanistan. Will he use the discredited casualty numbers? Yep! He used them! Prick. He claims that if only more people could read about our atrocities in the newspapers, we would all rise up and demand that the government stop the violence! Pshaw!

Now the callers have started. First putz bemoaned our non-participation in the ICC.

"We should be number one, but not in military power."

"War is wonderful device to distract us." Maybe you don't remember, someone else attacked us! We are supposed to sit still and take that? Corsair the Rational Pirate is quickly becoming Corasir the Queasy Vomiter listening to this shit.

How is it that all the callers on this show are peacenik cowardly wierdoes?

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 11:25

Let us All Feel Bad About This

Corsair the Rational Pirate is a working man. Gets up everyday, goes to work, mortgage, car payments, the whole deal. So I feel for a person who might lose their biggest possesion: their house. Fire, flood, earthquake, whatever. When someone loses their house it is a huge tragedy. Except...

Except when the house in question is this one:

The house on Dallas' fashionable north side was listed at $44.9 million. According to Christie's Web site, it had 43,000 square feet of interior space and its architecture mimicked a French chateau.

It offered such features as a gift-wrapping room, butler's pantry, wine cellar with a tasting room, custom marble tubs carved in Italy and a 16-car garage, the listing said.

My only reaction to this? BWAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!

Sixteen car garage?! Gift wrapping room?! This was not a house. It was a monstrosity that needed to be excised. Oh don't give me that crap about people can do what they want with their money and this is a free society and all that shit. Let us get this straight. NO ONE NEEDS 43,000 SQUARE FEET OF HOUSE!! Whatever self-important blowhard bought that house deserved to be shunned.

Call me Corsair the Rational Populist.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 11:20

Nit-Picking North Koreans

North Korean demands for reunification with the south have gotten serious. Not only do they want the end of US "imperialist occupation" and a change in the the South's government and piles of unmarked won delivered to the park bench at 3:10 pm (and don't tell the police) AND hookers for all the government officials (I am not excatly sure about all these demands) they also want to knock down a statue!

North Korea has added a new demand to its campaign for the withdrawal of American troops from South Korea ( news - web sites): Take down a statue of U.S. General Douglas MacArthur.

A statue of MacArthur overlooks Freedom Park in the port city of Inchon, where he led a landing by U.S.-led United Nations ( news - web sites) forces in September 1950 that reversed communist North Korea's invasion of South Korea three months earlier.

"There is no room in this land for his dirty statue to remain standing," the official North Korean newspaper Minju Chosun said in one of several reports this week claiming that there was a growing South Korean movement to remove the memorial.

"It is an intolerable national disgrace that the statue of MacArthur, the sworn enemy of the Korean nation, remains standing in South Korea till now," it said.

Here is a picture of the "dirty statue":

Granted, It could probably use a good washing up, but that is no reason to remove it! You wanna get rid of some statues, start with all the statues of the real ememy of the Korean people. The one who started a war that killed millions of Koreans and Chinese and Americans. The one whose economic policies have led to the deaths of perhaps 2 million more from disease and starvation. The one whose political practices have led to millions of people living in ignorance and fear. That evil doer's name? Kim Il Sung!

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:39

Random Corsair the Juvenile Humorist Thought

While driving in this morning I heard some anti death penalty blowhard on NPR go on and on and on about executing minors. The way he was speaking, of course, left the impression that we were strapping junior up to old sparky and driving up the power bill. In fact what happens is the convicted miscreant is executed many years after being found guilty. The "minor" might be 30 at that point. This was never mentioned in his screed, of course, would have muddied the waters of his argument.

Then I hear something that makes me get all sophomoric. He said one of the groups that was against executing minors was some Catholic anti death penalty organization.

My immediate reaction was "Yeah they are against it! Reduces the pool of potential young boys down whose pants you want to slip your dirty old hands!"

I chuckled, at least. You don't have to.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:39

Wow...

Victor Davis Hanson says it all about our Saudi "friends".

Nothing to add, sorry.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 12:16

Our Invisible Deity is Better than Their Invisible Deity

Far be it for Corsair the Rational Pirate to find fault with other people's handling of their religious practices... Ahhhh, who am I kidding?! I can't help but chuckle when one group of religio-nuts gets their panties all in a bind because of something that looks suspiciously like stupidity to those of us on the outside.

Says here in this WaPo article that the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod have gone and done just that (binded up their panties, I mean):

NEW YORK, July 8 -- A minister with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has been suspended for participating in an interfaith service at Yankee Stadium for the families of those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Wouldn't want our god to think we were compassionate or anything, would we? He might come down here and start smiting us all in some kind of old testament rage-sort-of-thing. Shaaaa!

"To participate with pagans in an interfaith service and, additionally, to give the impression that there might be more than one God, is an extremely serious offense," wrote the Rev. Wallace Schulz, the Missouri Synod official who suspended Benke.

No, to be a muddle headed, wrong thinking, inbred loon is an extremely serious offense. Going to a memorial service is what makes people human. I gues that leaves Wallace and his ilk right out.

And by the way, what the hell kind of church names itself after Missouri? Are they trying to look like trailer dwelling, banjo players or is that just a plus for us non-believers?

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:47

Amir Butler is an Idiot (But That is a Given)

And the proof is:

A man (who happens to be Egyptian) killed some people at LA Airport today. In the absence of any other information on the killer's motives, it's pretty clear that it was an act of murder. Yet, according to Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, it was noting short of a fully-fledged terrorist attack. What's the proof for that?

Peres said it was clear whoever carried out the attack chose the 4th of July,
America's independence day, as the setting for the shooting.

There were other murders on the Fourth of July in the United States, where the victims were not Jews and the perpetrators were not Muslims. Are these also acts of terror?

Yes it was murder (defined as: ...the act of killing another human being with "malice aforethought". Malice aforethought is defined to be the intent to kill or to inflict bodily injury, either express or implied. If a deadly weapon is used, intent to kill will necessarily be implied by a court of law.)

But what was the reason for the murder? Was he trying to rob someone? Was he getting back at an ex-lover? Was he cleaning his gun? NO! He went there precisely to kill Jews. How do I know this? I don't. But why else go to the El Al ticket desk? The same El Al that is the Israeli national airlines? Why not run down to the local grocery store or over to the park? Because then he wouldn't have had such a Jewish target rich environment. Might have ended up killing a Korean or a Mexican immigrant. Can't have that. Wouldn't have sent the same message.

Who got killed (you know, the victims so cavalierly dismissed as "some people" by Amir-idiot)?

He shot dead a 20-year-old female El Al ticket agent -- an Israeli national -- and a 46-year-old man who was a diamond importer, investigators said. Four others were injured, including a 61-year-old woman who was shot and wounded, a man who was pistol-whipped by the gunman, and the El Al security chief who was stabbed in the back, officials said.

So, Amir, yes this was a terrorist attack. He did in for the express purpose of instilling terror into people. Specifically Jewish people. And no wonder given the filth spewing forth daily in the Arabic media describing Jews as dogs needing to be killed. "Arab governments support the killing of Jews (and have been trying to do so since 1948), so why don't I get in on a little of the fun?"

Now, turn it around and have a Jew kill "some people" over at Egypt Airlines and the hew and cry of Jewish evil would drown out the Space Shuttle engines revving for liftoff.

Putz.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 22:43

Damn Those American Provocateurs!

No wonder North Korea is so touchy! Look at the degradations which they are forced to endure!

It stoops to such infamy to provoke our side as displaying the flags of Denmark and Norway, which did not participate in the Korean War, in the conference room of the "military armistice commission" jointly used by both sides.

Unbelievable! Denmark and Norway! Those dens of inequity! Those sinks of loathing and pulchritude (whatever that means)! Those... Those... Countries in Europe! I must retire to my sitting room as I feel a case of the vapors coming on!

However... at least it wasn't France.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 22:42

North Korea Lives in a Fantasy World

Those nutjobs up in North Korea have once again demonstrated that they have only a tenuous grasp on reality. Last weekend the North Koreans and the South Koreans (brothers in everything except... everything) got in a little shoving match on the high seas which resulted in four South Korean deaths and perhaps as many as 30 North Koreans.

North Koreans response to all this:

The timing of the incident has mystified diplomats and diplomatic analysts. In comments published late on Monday by the North's official KCNA news agency, the North Korean Foreign Ministry said it was preposterous of Washington to accuse Pyongyang of an "armed provocation."

"All facts clearly prove that the incident was orchestrated by the United States to drive a wedge between the North and South of Korea because it was displeased with progress made in the inter- Korean relations," the ministry said.

The State Department wasted no time in responding to this.

"That claim is completely spurious," Jo-Anne Prokopowicz, a department spokeswoman, told Reuters in Washington. She did not elaborate.

WHAT THE...??? Orchestrated by us? Since when did we tell you where to drive your frigging boats? I can't help it if some wacked out North Korean shit-boat captain, hopped up on Kim Jong Il brand bathtub gin and communistic fervor, goes for a southern joyride and runs into the boys from the south!

Stupid assholes.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 22:41