Geekdom at its best

Matt Yglesias asks the question that I think is on every right-thinking American's mind these days:

Hot topic of debate around the house yesterday -- can you kill a vampire by cutting off its head?

The comments are simply...fantastic to read. I say this as a dedicated fan of the CRPG Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, one of the best CRPG's I have ever played. And I have found that the best way to kill a vampire is to use the Mass Hallucination discipline to weaken him or her, then a few hard blows with a severed arm generally does the trick.
OMG. I'm a geek. I think I will go home and play my game or write about Pat Buchanan. They both involve vampires anyway.

Hitler was an okay guy!

I am going to comment more on this later. But Pat Buchanan is a complete fucking idiot and a fascist to boot.

An excerpt from his Worldnetdaily column:

If the objective of the West was the destruction of Nazi Germany, it was a "smashing" success. But why destroy Hitler? If to liberate Germans, it was not worth it. After all, the Germans voted Hitler in.


If it was to keep Hitler out of Western Europe, why declare war on him and draw him into Western Europe? If it was to keep Hitler out of Central and Eastern Europe, then, inevitably, Stalin would inherit Central and Eastern Europe.

Was that worth fighting a world war – with 50 million dead?

The war Britain and France declared to defend Polish freedom ended up making Poland and all of Eastern and Central Europe safe for Stalinism. And at the festivities in Moscow, Americans and Russians were front and center, smiling – not British and French. Understandably.

Yeah, that Hitler...not a threat until Britain and France declared war. Jesus.

On Jason Varitek and the Sox Staff

Eric Wilbur of the Boston Globe writes in his blog what I think many Sox fans are thinking today:

It isn’t just that Clement is winning, it’s the way that he is winning. We’ve all heard how much of a hurdle the walks have been for the former Chicago Cub, how he loses concentration on the hill. In his first two appearances of the season, Clement walked three and five, respectively, and the groans began. But look at what he’s done lately, or should we say what Jason Varitek has helped him do lately. In four of his last five games, Clement has walked just one batter, and not altogether coincidentally, has pitched shutout ball in two of those appearances

I am going to go out on a limb here, but I think Jason Varitek has got to be the best Sox catcher since Rich Gedm..err...Carlton Fisk. When was the last time the Sox had a catcher that had such an effect on a staff? He is worth every penny and has already more than shown that he is the captain, my captain. Hope he keeps keeping the staff anchored, as he has with both Clement and Arroyo.
Now, if he could just do something about Keith F'N' Foulke...

The Air Force: atheist Cult or Christian Crusaders?

Jesse Taylor at the New and Improved Pandagon makes a good point about how some on the right are painting the complaints of pro-Christian bias at the Air Force Academy as just another example of the 'persecution' of Christians.

It [the USAF religious accommodation code] is, however, highly accommodating to any personal expressions of worship, which is why it's so awful for conservative Christians (I'd assume in a nation of 80% Christians, the Air Force isn't the second home to atheists that Clemmons makes it out to be, which means he's simply denying the Christianity of a significant portion of his fellow recruits).

There is no assault on Christians. None. It's a ridiculous and ignorant statement to make, particularly as this blogger sums up his piece with a description of the large chapel in the middle of the Air Force Academy.

Yeah, that chapel is actually used for the moneychangers and prostitution. The idea that Christians are a minority is a joke. Hell, the idea that conservatives are a minority in the Air Force is a joke.
Funny story time: I separated from active duty in '99; my flight supervisor, a really great Senior Master and a strong Christian (damn that anti-Christian bias!) wrote me a 'humorous' letter of recommendation saying that I was great, but he had to apologize because somehow I was still a liberal Democrat (in his eyes, anyway). Ha Ha Ha. Sense any potential for bias on his part there? He wasn't biased, really, but if I were as sensitive as these righties are, I could have done some interesting things with that letter.

Business Bailout, Business Betrayal

Concerning the smart planners over at United Airlines, and the direction of unionization, business, and the economy, my favorite Cranky Yankee has this eloquent point:

'WAKE UP AND SMELL THE FUCKING COFFEE!'

Yeah, and of course the taxpayers are stuck with the billion dollar bailout of the pension fund. I don't blame the union; it has every right to seek the best deal for its members. Apparently, United wildly overestimated its future earnings, which led to the pension agreement in the first place.

'Love, Honor, and Sodomize'

This has to be one of the most distrurbing pieces I have ever read concerning a government official. It concerns Dr. W. David Hager, whose dissent from the majority helped block emergency contraception from over-the-counter sales. A brief excerpt only (you have to read it for yourself at The Nation; thanks to Kevin Drum for the heads up):

Back at Asbury, Hager cast himself as a victim of religious persecution in his sermon. "You see...there is a war going on in this country," he said gravely. "And I'm not speaking about the war in Iraq. It's a war being waged against Christians, particularly evangelical Christians. It wasn't my scientific record that came under scrutiny [at the FDA]. It was my faith.... By making myself available, God has used me to stand in the breach.... Just as he has used me, he can use you."

Up on the dais, several men seated behind Hager nodded solemnly in agreement. But out in the audience, Linda Carruth Davis--co-author with Hager of Stress and the Woman's Body, and, more saliently, his former wife of thirty-two years--was enraged. "It was the most disgusting thing I've ever heard," she recalled months later, through clenched teeth.

According to Davis, Hager's public moralizing on sexual matters clashed with his deplorable treatment of her during their marriage. Davis alleges that between 1995 and their divorce in 2002, Hager repeatedly sodomized her without her consent. Several sources on and off the record confirmed that she had told them it was the sexual and emotional abuse within their marriage that eventually forced her out. "I probably wouldn't have objected so much, or felt it was so abusive if he had just wanted normal [vaginal] sex all the time," she explained to me. "But it was the painful, invasive, totally nonconsensual nature of the [anal] sex that was so horrible."

This is the man who cares so much about women and their health that he allegedly raped and sodomized his wife repeatedly for decades. Scumbucket of the highest kind. But...he isn't a liberal Democrat, so these charges are without merit. Duh.