This will make you laugh out loud. It could just as easily apply to blogging and commenting on blogs. This gem comes via Reader_I_Am at Done With Mirrors. Who may or may not have been able to get back up off the floor by now. I'm typing this from the floor myself…….
Blogosphere, Humor | Gaius Saturday, 16 September , 2006 | 
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The Associated Press informs us that the Dutch are now, on average, the tallest people in the world. the average height for men is over six feet, while woman stand at 5' 7".
In the last 150 years, the Dutch have become the tallest people on Earth — and experts say they're still getting bigger. It is a tale of a nation's health and wealth.
Prosperity propelled the collective growth spurt that began in the mid-1800s and was only interrupted during the harsh years of the Nazi occupation in the 1940s — when average heights actually declined.
With their protein-rich diet and a national health service that pampers infants, the Dutch are standing taller than ever. The average Dutchman stands just over 6 feet, while women average nearly 5-foot-7.
Ask Pieter Gijselaar about the problems of the very tall.
At more than 6-feet-10 1/2, he spends a lot of time ducking through doorways and guarding against minor head injuries. In an economy-class airline seat, he only fits in the emergency exit row. He had to have the seat of his Volkswagen Golf specially fitted and blocks put under the legs to raise his office desk.
But Gijselaar, a 28-year-old real estate agent, says he has it easier than his father, who is 6-foot-5.
"Buying clothes and shoes is not a problem anymore. You can always find stores that sell large sizes," he said. "But it's not cheap. I don't get any discounts off the rack."
Though people tend to stare, Gijselaar says being head, shoulders and trunk above everyone else makes an impression. "People don't forget me. If you meet me a year from now, you'll remember who I am."
There are, of course, many advantages to being very tall. There are also many drawbacks if you are well outside the norm that most thing are designed for. Experts say that they foresee the Dutch getting even taller in the next 50 years or so. Which will bring great benefits to the world. Average people will be able to use Dutch wooden shoes as canoes! The mind boggles at the possibilities.
Humor, World news | Gaius | Comments Off
Tigerhawk has a very, very harsh assessment of the Muslim "rage" that has greeted the speech by Pope Benedict XVI. It is quite brutal on both the choices made and on those cultural relativists that are essentially reducing the "Muslim Street" into animals unable to control their base instincts.
Predictably, the greatest beneficiaries of the Western enlightenment blamed reason, the true victim of Muslim rage through the ages. The editors of The New York Times said this morning, to the eternal discredit of that once great paper, that
[t]he world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly. He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology, demonstrating that words can also heal.
This is obscene. Apart from its factual inaccuracy — there is no evidence that any of the enraged Muslims "listened carefully" to the words of the pope — this is like blaming a beaten wife for provoking the bastard who throttles her. It is the leaders of prayers in the mosques of the Muslim world who call on their faithful to riot in the streets. It is they who sow pain and incite violence, and anybody unburdened by a loathing of Western civilization knows it. Pope Benedict has nothing to apologize for. The leading clerics of the Muslim world have a great deal to apologize for.
Neither the pope nor the Muslim clerics are the only actors here. Tens of thousands of Muslims chose to act in violence or condone violence yesterday. Millions more supported them in this, the evidence being that Muslim politicians jumped on the bandwagon. These millions of Muslims are hardly candles in the wind, helplessly manipulated by the imams. They chose their religion. They chose their mosque. They chose not to "listen carefully" to the words of the pope. They chose to take to the streets in rage, and they chose to burn and attack and kill perfectly innocent people, all on the say-so of one or another demagogue in a turban. They are not children, however much the cultural relativists who absolve the rioters and their sympathizers infantalize them. I condemn these people for making bad choices; liberals, such as the editors of the New York Times, refuse to condemn them because they believe that Muslims are incapable of choices. I may deplore the choices of these rioting Muslims, but the New York Times holds them in contempt, regarding them as nothing more than wild animals. Just as we all blame humans who antagonize an animal into a violent response, the New York Times blames Westerners who "sow pain," as if Muslims have the free will of a cornered wolf.
He's exactly right here. By treating the Muslim street as being unable to control itself, to say that they are compelled to act by the actions of a single man in the West, even if he is the Pope, is to treat them as if they were children. It is also a sickening display of cultural chauvinism masquerading as multiculturalism.
UPDATE: Related: McCain at Rightlinx. See A Blog For All for a good roundup.
Here's the Washington Post article on the decision by the World Health Organization to endorse the residual spraying of DDT indoors in an effort to control mosquitoes - and save about a million lives a year. It has a bit more detail that the article I linked yesterday about this.
"Indoor residual spraying with DDT and other insecticides will again play a major role in [WHO's] efforts to fight the disease." Arata Kochi, director of the organization's malaria department, said at a news conference in Washington. "WHO will use every possible and safe method to control malaria."
The endorsement is only for once- or twice-yearly spraying of the pesticide on the inside walls of dwellings, especially mud and thatched huts. Used that way, DDT functions as both an insect repellent and — when a blood-engorged female mosquito lands on the wall to digest its meal — an insecticide.
One application costs about $5. Most of that cost is labor, as it is sprayed on by professional applicators, and each packet of the pesticide must be strictly accounted for.
About 1 million people die each year of malaria, most of them African children under age 5.
WHO expects opposition to the policy change from some environmental groups. Kochi appealed directly to them in his announcement.
"I am here today to ask you, please help save African babies as you are helping to save the environment. African babies do not have a powerful movement . . . to champion their well-being," he said.
Expect some to persist in screaming about this, no matter what. This decision is 30 years and 30 million deaths too late.
World news | Gaius | Comments Off
Well, at least the mayor of Gallatin, Tennessee has a sense of humor. Even when his good nature is taken advantage of, he can still laugh about it. Mayor Don Wright was happy to allow some filmmakers to use his office for a few hours to shoot some scenes for a film. They sort of failed to tell him what the movie was, though.
"I had no idea what the movie was about," Wright said on Friday. "They told me it was about a superhero woman and there was no nudity or offensive stuff in it. Other than that, I really didn't have a clue."
According to the Thong Girl Web site, heroine Lana Layonme wears a red thong under a cape as she flies over Nashville repelling a villain who is trying to turn country music performers into rappers. The movie is the third in a series released only on DVD.
"They said it was family friendly," said Wright who let the locally-based crew use his office for two hours. "We've had a lot of movies filmed in this area during the past few years. In fact, I think Sally Field was in one of them. Anyhow, I thought it was good for business."
Incidentally, the Thong Girl Films Site is currently inaccessible because it ran out of bandwidth. Not that we were trying to look. We here at Blue Crab Boulevard are always doing research to help our readers out. We only read the articles. Honest.
He took little Suzie to the Junior Prom
Excitable boy, they all said
And he raped her and killed her, then he took her home
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he's just an excitable boy
After ten long years they let him out of the home
Excitable boy, they all said
And he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones
Excitable boy, they all said
Well, he's just an excitable boy(Warren Zevon/LeRoy P. Marinell, Excitable Boy)
The late Warren Zevon was, in my opinion, had an amazing ability to make strong social commentary while at the same time making that commentary enormously entertaining. Which is why I led this post with the catchy Excitable Boy, a song that harpoons the social apologists who excuse dangerous behavior until it metastasizes into monstrous behavior. It seemed to fit this particular news item.
LANCASTER, Wis. - A judge on Friday dismissed charges of attempted sexual assault against three men accused of trying to dig up a woman's body to have sex with the corpse, noting that Wisconsin has no law against necrophilia.
The men still face lesser charges.
Twins Nicholas and Alexander Grunke, 20, and Dustin Radke, 20, were arrested after an alleged attempt to dig up the body of a 20-year-old woman who was killed Aug. 27 in a motorcycle crash. Officials said a caller reported suspicious activity in the cemetery Sept. 2, and deputies found someone had dug down to her vault.
Authorities said the three were not acquainted with the woman but had seen an obituary with her photo.
One finds it difficult, no, make that impossible, to understand this kind of behavior. It is beyond the comprehension of anyone with anything approaching normal humanity.
Crime, Weird Stuff | Gaius | Comments Off
There are all too many people around the world and even in this country who vilify the United States. Critics say we are seeking hegemony, that we are the greatest threat to world peace, etc., etc., etc. The same critics laud the UN and pay homage at every turn to the holiest of holies: "International Law". It would be a good thing for those critics to read this article from the Washington Post. It is a primer on what true evil is and what it means.
GRAIDA, Sudan, Sept. 15 — The tall, light-skinned man reeking of sweat and cigarettes often gallops his horse right into the nightmares of Darelsalam Ahmed Eisa, 18. Each time, she said, he throws her to the ground, pushes up her skirt and forces himself inside her while muttering: " Abdah. Abdah. Abdah ."
Slave woman. Slave woman. Slave woman.
He was in her dreams just last night, she recalled, as real and horrifying in his green camouflage uniform as he was the day he raped her two months ago. But when Eisa awoke this morning, there was no time for terror, no time for tears. She covered herself in an orange and blue cloth, grabbed the family's ax and departed for the perilous Darfur countryside, out of the relative safety of a sprawling camp for people displaced by the violence in this region of western Sudan.
In the wilderness, Eisa can find grass for the donkeys and firewood for cooking. But it is also where government-backed militias known as the Janjaweed roam, terrorizing villagers. Violence and disease in Darfur have killed as many as 450,000 people since 2003, and an estimated 2 million have been forced to flee their homes.
The government and a rebel group reached a cease-fire agreement in May, but since then, rapes in and around camps for people displaced by the fighting have surged, aid groups and residents say. The International Rescue Committee has recorded more then 200 sexual assaults among residents of a single camp near Nyala, a town in South Darfur state, during a five-week period in July and August.
More and more often, women in Darfur face the starkest of choices: risk being raped by leaving the camps in search of firewood and grass, or starve. If they invite their brothers or husbands along to protect them, the Janjaweed will still rape the women, they say, and kill the men.
But the most exalted and holy UN does nothing. The government of Sudan commits genocide by proxy and the world turns away. But should a pair of panties be placed on a detainee's head by a misguided soldier who is later prosecuted and imprisoned for performing the action, all hell will break loose. The critics will scream themselves into a frothing rage over the beastly Americans.
There is a certain warped perspective in play here, don't yo think? Perhaps it would be a good thing for critics to study the primer a bit more.
War, World news | Gaius | Comments (1)
David Ignatius of the Washington Post had the opportunity to sit down and talk one-on-one with President Bush about Iran. The interview is an important one, in that it basically deflates most of the accusations swirling around the Bush administration and the plans for what to do about Iran. Bush is trying, quite hard, to find a diplomatic solution and not trying to rush to war.
Bush's comments were a clear public signal of the administration's strategy in the confrontation over Iran's nuclear program. In recent days, the Washington rumor mill has been bubbling with talk that the administration is planning military options for dealing with the crisis, perhaps in the near term. But Bush's remarks went in a different direction. His stress was on reassuring Iran that the United States recognizes its ambitions to be an advanced nation, with a robust civilian nuclear power program and a role in shaping the Middle East commensurate with its size and power. The red lines for America involve nuclear weapons, military threats to Israel or the United States, and Iran's links to terrorist groups.
Bush's comments tracked the offer the United States and its allies have made to Iran if it agrees to suspend its enrichment of uranium. He proposed that the West supply enriched uranium to Iran and other countries, and collect the nuclear waste. He argued that this global program "would be a solution that would answer a deep desire from the Iranian people to have a nuclear power industry."
On Iraq, Bush said Maliki's visit to Tehran was "aimed at convincing the Iranians that a stable Iraq is in their interest. They have said so many times, and I think Prime Minister Maliki is now attempting to find out what that means, and how the Iraqi government can work with the Iranians to create a sense of stability."
The administration appears to be doing two things here. It is trying to get word out to the critics of the administration that he is not planning a war anytime soon. More importantly, he is using Ignatius as a conduit to Iran and its leadership, knowing that the reporter has numerous contacts in Tehran. He clearly hasn't ruled anything out, but he has made it abundantly clear where the red lines are.
Under no circumstances should you accept a contract to whack Portland, Oregon resident Susan Kuhnhausen. After all, she strangled the last one sent to kill her. As in to death. With her bare hands.
PORTLAND, Ore. - When Susan Kuhnhausen returned home from work one day earlier this month, she encountered an intruder wielding a claw hammer. After a struggle, the 51-year-old nurse fended off her attacker by strangling him with her bare hands.
….
Neighbors praised the woman for her bravery, and investigators said they believed the dead man — Edward Dalton Haffey — was burglarizing Kuhnhausen's home. But after an investigation, police now say the intruder Kuhnhausen strangled was apparently a hit man hired by her estranged husband — Michael James Kuhnhausen Sr. — to kill her.
The 58-year-old husband was taken into custody Thursday and charged with conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder. He was ordered held on $500,000 bail.
Haffey had worked as a custodian under Kuhnhausen at an adult video store, according an affidavit filed by the Multnomah County District Attorney's office.
Kuhnhausen and his wife were in the process of getting a divorce, and she told officers "her husband was distraught about the divorce and wanting to reconcile but that she was insisting on the divorce," the affidavit states.
A background check showed Haffey had served lengthy prison terms for conspiracy to commit aggravated murder and convictions for robbery and burglary.
Inside a backpack Haffey left at the scene was a day planner with "Call Mike, Get letter," scribbled on the week of Sept. 4, the affidavit said. Michael Kuhnhausen's cell phone number was jotted on the inside of a folder, it said.
An emergency room nurse who lives in a southeast Portland neighborhood, Susan Kuhnhausen arrived home on the evening of Sept. 6 to find Haffey coming at her with a claw hammer.
She was struck in the head and wrested the weapon away, but the struggle continued and Haffey bit the nurse, according to police. A large woman, she was eventually able to get the slight Haffey into a chokehold and police later found him dead in a hallway. An autopsy revealed the cause of death as strangulation.
Police say she acted in self-defense.
Sometimes there is a certain amount of black humor that just seems to happen in the world, isn't there? An incident like this sounds like it came out of a movie. Only nobody would have believed it in the movie.
Criminal Masterminds | Gaius | Comments Off
The deputy leader of the Islamic-based party that rules Turkey called comments made Pope Benedict XVI "medieval". Meanwhile, demonstrations have begun and effigies are already being burned. The Vatican continued to try to speak reasonably about the issue and the uproar.
Father Miguel Ayuso Guixot, head of the Vatican's Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies, told the Guardian he feared the Pope's words had been "misinterpreted". He added: "The Pope has worked tirelessly for inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue and for tolerance."
In Turkey, however, where the Pope is due to visit in November, the deputy leader of the ruling party said Benedict had "a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the middle ages". Salih Kapusuz added: "He is going down in history in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini."
Representatives of the two million Turks in Germany, where the comments were made, also expressed deep annoyance. The head of the Turkish community, Kenan Kolat, said they were "very dangerous" and liable to misunderstanding.
In Beirut, Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, one of the world's top Shia Muslim clerics, said: "We demand that [the Pope] apologises personally, and not through [Vatican] sources, to all Muslims for such a wrong interpretation." An influential Iranian cleric branded his remarks "absurd". Ahmad Khatami told worshippers at Tehran University: "The Pope has insulted Islam."
By last night the protests had not spilled over into the kind of violence seen in February in protest against the Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad. But Diaa Rashwan, a Cairo-based analyst of Islamic militancy, warned that the comments were "more dangerous than the cartoons because they come from the most important Christian authority in the world. The cartoons just came from an artist."
A veiled hint that "pontaneous"rioting is planned to break out as soon as the correct flammable materials are collected presumably. One can safely assume that the Pope's quotation of a 14th century Byzantine emperor is simply unacceptable to people operating with a 7th century mentality. Much too advanced.
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