More Babby Videos!

'Cause you don't have anything better to do, right?

Too Funny Not to Link.

For you poor saps that weren't included in dad's e-mail: Dave Barry's year in review 2009.

Key quote:

In February, Congress passes, without reading it, and without actually finishing writing it, a stimulus package totaling $787 billion. The money is immediately turned over to American taxpayers so they can use it to stimulate the economy.

No! What a crazy idea THAT would be! The money is to be doled out over the next decade or so by members of Congress on projects deemed vital by members of Congress, such as constructing buildings that will be named after members of Congress. This will stimulate the economy by creating millions of jobs, according to estimates provided by the Congressional Estimating Office's Magical Estimating 8-Ball.

Now for the important stuff....

Baby Videos!

Wow. Just... wow.

How does one respond to this e-mail?

from: LaKeitha <snip> <<snip>@yahoo.com>

to: <snip; ya'lls know my e-mail address>

date: Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 2:10 PM

Well, let me just start by saying that I hope you accept my appology for being a BITCH to you. As you already know, I have very strong feeling for you; no I love you so much, and I was hurt. Well here goes the stuff I can never say to your face...

I never wanted you to leave me, I wanted you to help me figure out how to keep loving you and T at the same time. You bring to me the things that he does not and thats the thing that kept me hanging on. On a shitty day, you could always brighten it. I needed to hold on to you for just a little while longer. As you said, I guess I was not prepared for the sudden stop.

Why did I hurt so bad? cuz I always feel that the people you love and if they love you, should never hurt you. I get so much of that already that you were my protector, my haven from all of the people that did not mean any good to me.

I believe that out of the mouth, the heart speaks. so what you said (wrote) to me was really what your heart was saying. I respect that and I just was taken back and I definately acted inappropriately.

I know what my heart wants, but my reality cant make that happen and I have to come to tearms with that.

Can we be friends? I don't know cuz I will probably always want more. It took all of me today not to come over and kiss you today, so I don't know if I could draw that line. Im already so far over the line.

Thank you for the Christmas Gifts... you are correct, everything in there has

lets just leave it at that... Thank you

your BFF

Perhaps she meant to send it to "joecool(the_black_one)@gmail.com"

My co-worker tried to convince me that I should pretend to be my wife, and pretend that I thought she was writing my husband who had just broken up with her, and get on the author's case for having an affair with my husband. That seems too much like kicking her while she's down, though. I'm too nice for that.

Although it is tempting....

Idiot of the Day/Week/Month.

"The Taliban can perhaps be admired for their conviction to their faith and their sense of loyalty to each other," says Rt. Rev. Stephen Venner, the new Anglican bishop to the British Armed Forces.

More (via WDTPRS)

Other quotes:

The Taliban have been responsible for public beatings, amputations and executions, and have launched bomb attacks on Afghans. They often refer to foreign forces as “Crusaders”. The bishop said some of their methods of combat were not honourable or acceptable, but he argued that it was unhelpful to demonise them. (What do they have to do before we can speak negatively about them?)

“We have to involve all the people of Afghanistan to find justice and prosperity for all,” he said.

I like Fr. Z's comment: "And the Taliban are… what… going to change their minds and decide to cooperate with the Westerners? If we talk nicer about them are they going toooooo… stop beating their women?"

Also QFT in the article is Col. Richard Kemp:

“Elements in the Taliban do not act from a religious perspective and it is important to turn them around.

“But there are many others who will not be persuaded. Their central creed and ethos is about violent oppression.

“In many ways it is a mistake to compare their faith of extreme holy war with the kind of religion of peace and understanding that the bishop follows. They wouldn’t show understanding of his faith.”

I like that guy already.

What is it about the mindset of leftists that makes them unable to understand that there are, you know, bad people out there who cannot be reasoned with? Oh, right, they do understand. They just think the bad people who can't be reasoned with are those on the right, Christians, and those who disbelieve fabricated numbers about global temperature trends.

For a thought experiment: suppose someone were to make a rather innocuous statement about their own, personal belief that marriage involves a man and a woman. For argument, this person can also be somewhat airheaded and wear a bikini. How does the left treat such a person? Demonize him, of course! He is evil! He is hate-filled, homophobic, and prejudiced! In short, accuse him of behaving towards gays exactly how they behave towards him.

Now, suppose that that person not only thinks that marriage involves a man and a woman, but that those who think otherwise are the devil, homosexuals themselves ought to be beheaded, and woman can be publicly beaten on a whim and treated like trash. Suddenly, the mindset shifts from demonizing that person, to thinking "golly, gosh, gee. Demonizing him gets us no where. We need to work with him to secure a better, brighter future."

I think it is [insert that SF author's name here; you know who I'm talking about] who talks about PC being a disease of the mind that prevents those afflicted with it from seeing the evil except where it's not. His key quote (from this very interesting post):

No matter how many people are killed, and no matter how loudly and clearly the Jihadists announce their intentions, our public figures will continue to insist that George Bush is the only threat and the only enemy. From time to time they will also admit that the world is in grave danger from large Oil Companies or from unbridled consumerism or from fundamentalist Christianity.

What was of interest was that in the comments to that very post, many people confirmed exactly that statement: that, despite that a murderer had massacred dozens while shouting "Allah Ackbar," the only threat they were able to see was that a Christian Theocracy might try to use that petty distraction to take over the country.

Another example was from a semi-recent Family Guy episode, in which Stewie invents a device that allows him to travel to parallel universes. After he and Brian use it an end up in a place that looks like something out of the Jetsons—flying cars, futuristic technology, etc.—Stewie explains that this is a universe where Christianity never existed, and therefore science was free to develop unhindered.

Of course, this is absurd. As Michael Flynn has demonstrated, it was Christianity that gave rise to the scientific revolution. And since it was Christendom that turned back the Muslim invaders, not once, but three times—at Vienna, Tours, and Leponto—and saved Western Civilization, in a universe where Christianity never existed, we would all be living much like the Taliban, in caves milking goats.

Seth MacFarlane suffers greatly from the disease of leftism, and it is ironic that, should the Taliban and their ilk be successful, he will be one of the first with his head on the chopping block, what with his shows featuring so much crude sexual humor.

And of course, the disease of PC is as old as the disease of leftism. When the United States was in a decades-long standoff with perhaps the most evil nation the world has ever seen, save perhaps Carthage or the Aztecs, and our enemy had so many spies within our government that even a drunk from Wisconsin, listing random names from the top of his head, could guess a few, the only threat the leftists of the time were able to see was that of the drunk. I once read an interesting article pointing out how stupid it is that McCarthyism has become synonymous with witch hunts—looking for evil where none exists—when the term for that should be "liberalism". (Are you now, or have you ever been a Global Warming Denier? An evangelical Christian? A "homophobe"?)

I have read many articles and posts that try to explain why this mindset exists, and I must say I still do not understand it. This is a very rare thing for me to say. As C.S. Lewis says, "I believe in Christianity for the same reason I believe in the sun. Because not only can I see it, but by it I can see everything else." The wondrous thing about Christianity is it so thoroughly explains human behavior, with the concepts of a fallen human nature, original sin, and yet a burning desire for God and the divine. In it, one can see the cause of great atrocities and evils that men commit against their fellow men, such as the holocaust, but also one can see the reasons for such great sacrifices and acts of love, sometimes in the middle of these tragedies, such as the sacrifice of St. Maximilian Kolbe.

I get why people do evil things—original sin makes us selfish—and I even get why people go to such great lengths to cover up their evil—the conscience forces them to face their guilt or deny it. So I get why the left attacks Christians; if one is in love with sin, one does not want to be confronted with the fact of his sin, so one becomes violently opposed to those who point out the sin. "The Revenge of Conscience" spells out that case with more clarity than I could muster in my lifetime. But I absolutely do not get why leftists are willing to defend those who point out the sin not with words, but with the sword. This would be akin to if King Mwanga of Uganda—reproached by the Christian missionaries for raping boys—sent St. Charles Lwanga and his companions to their deaths then, upon having war declared upon him by his worst enemy for the same crimes, he said "aw, we just need to hug it out."

Perhaps G.K. Chesterton comes close to solving the problem. In his introduction to The Everlasting Man he states the purpose of his book was to point out that many of the criticisms shown towards Christianity in his day were simply because the critics were too close, and that if they just stepped back and looked at it from the same distance from which they saw the Oriental religions/philosophies, they would be able to better understand it. I get this up to a point. Perhaps the leftists hate Christianity because it is at home. It is like their neighbor criticizing them for doing evil as opposed to an unknown man on the other side of town. But this still does not work for me, because when that unknown man from the other side of town comes to your door and beats your wife and daughter because you're evil, he is no longer distant and remote. So when a Muslim commits a massacre in Fort Hood, Texas, The United States of America, I fail to see how the criticism is remote and distant.

I think Mark Shea is probably closest to the (hehe) mark. In an article he wrote a while ago (which I don't have a link to. Sorry. Take my word for it), he mentions that he and Philip Pullman agree on something: that those who oppose the Church will unite with whoever they can find, no matter how much they disagree, in order to oppose Her. Apparently, in one of the books in the His Dork Materials trilogy, a character—a leader of the witches, I think (it's been a while since I read the article)—gives some speech about how in their upcoming fight against the eeeeeeevil Magisterium, they would find themselves allied with those with whom they otherwise have nothing in common, and with whom they would normally be enemies.

Mark Shea agreed with this point, and drew the parallel to alliances made against the Real Magisterium. I suppose this makes sense from the diabolical chess point of view—the devil plays his pawns as one team—but not from the human reason point of view. The pawn can't see the whole chess board, so why should he trust the black pawn next to him, who in other circumstances would slit his throat? I mean, it's not like the pawns actually believe there's an all-seeing and all-evil mind behind their moves.... Right?

I suppose I may have stumbled across a partial answer while reading an article by Theodore Dalrymple (quoted here by John C. Wr—that SF author) and also in an interview with Andrew Klavan (again, quoted here). The two key quotes were thus:

British intellectuals, as George Orwell once remarked, have long harboured a hatred of their own country and its culture. This attitude has deeply infiltrated the political class and has therefore come to affect legislation. All cultures are equal except ours, which is the worst. (Dalrymple)

And:

So desperate are they to display their tolerance, to claim virtue and open-mindedness for themselves, so secretly ashamed and guilt-ridden and self-hating are they, I guess, that they will give aid and comfort to a philosophy that turns everything they’re supposed to stand for on its head. (Klavan)

This made me wonder. Is the leftist hatred for Christianity and tolerance towards those less tolerant than Christianity born from some sense of guilt and self-loathing? Perhaps.

Perhaps the left does indeed recognize the truth of G.K. Chesterton when he wrote in Heretics:

Everything else in the modern world is of Christian origin, even everything that seems most anti-Christian. The French Revolution is of Christian origin. The newspaper is of Christian origin. The anarchists are of Christian origin. Physical science is of Christian origin. The attack on Christianity is of Christian origin. There is one thing, and one thing only, in existence at the present day which can in any sense accurately be said to be of pagan origin, and that is Christianity.

If that is the case, that the left does, in some subconscious way, recognize that all their institutions and customs and laws, everything they hold dear—the university; the scientific revolution; the ideas of the rights of man; the desire for social justice, equality, tolerance; the importance of reason and intellect—if they recognize that all these things are Christian, but hate Christendom for whatever reason, be it the faults—real or imagined—of ages past, or the simple condemnation of the wrongs they commit, then they would have no choice but to hate themselves.

Christians, of course, do not have to hate ourselves for the wrongs we have committed. We have Christ's redemption to wash clean the sins of the past. We can admit that the crusaders shouldn't have killed the jews, that Galileo shouldn't have been rebuked by the inquisition, and that indulgences shouldn't have been sold without hating the crusades, the inquisition, and the acquisition of indulgences. But when you reject Christ, you reject all means of partaking of his redemption. You find yourself part of a culture that has committed wrongs, but with no way to have those wrongs forgiven. The only recourse is to hate the institution.

The left, however, feels no guilt over the sins of the Muslims. To them, I reason, it does not matter whether Christians or Muslims have committed the worse crimes. They are part of Christendom, but not of Islam, an therefore have guilt about the one, but not the other.

This is the only way I can make sense of the issue. I do not, otherwise, understand why one would hate the one who says you are a sinner, but love the one who wants to behead you for your sin.

Now With Even Less Original Content!

A couple quick things. Firstly, I forgot this in the Friday link dump:

Her California accent sounds almost exactly like The Murloc's cousin.

I used to think that I had a neutral “American” accent, until I recently started doing voice work for my company’s training videos. This involves me recording and listening to my own voice a lot, and I’ve noticed two speech quirks that come through frequently. Firstly, I say “buh-n” instead of “button” and “frinstance” instead of “for instance”. It takes a lot of mental concentration to speak without the accent, and I end up re-recording a lot.

Secondly, go here to listen to the awesome "Gloria" that I heard at a Christmas concert I went to on Sunday. As I told my friend who sang in the choir, I wasn't aware anyone was still writing great sacred music.

Friday LinkDump.

I officially have too many web socializing services. With two blogs, twitter, and fazebōōk (as Fr. Roderick says), I'm never sure where I should post a link that I came across. Do I tweet it? Link it on Facebook? Post it here? All of the above? Then what of those poor people who follow me on Twitter, are friends on Facebook, and subscribe to this blog's RSS? Do I just force them to suffer through the same content 3 times?

My general philosophy is that I created my twitter feed for a) Damien's birth and b) to replace the headlines on this blog. The old system involved me directly editing the page code, and once I deleted a headline, it was forever lost to the mists of time. Twitter was supposed to just be a replacement for that, so I prefer not to put links there.

The Other Blog is supposed to be purely literary issues, so it's not exactly the best forum for funny ThemTubes vids. And I've been trying to get away from the lower forms of blogging on this space, and only most, insightful, informative, or funny (original) things here (which is why I haven't posted anything of late). That sort of leaves Facebook, but since most of you losers who read this aren't FB friends of mine, you're not able to indulge in my fine and high quality links (I said that with a straight face!). And I don't think most of my old friends from college are too terribly interested in the random things I come across on the intertubes.

So what do you think. Should I go ahead and post stupid links to odd things I find here? I have this mental image of people seeing that FU-News has been updated in their RSS then getting here and seeing just a link and thinking "aw, I was expecting an insightful, informative, and funny post about how to apply operations research to create a Cross Sums puzzle for Condo Shopping Space Pirates that speak in Olde Englishe." (Actually, that's not true, I also have this mental image of half my readership not caring less about Space Pirates... hence the Other Blog.)

Well, anyways, I need to post something, lest I forget how, so while I'm writing an informative, insightful, and funny post (I've got one coming, I swear!), here are, in order, the five lowest forms of blogging.

Fifth Lowest Form of Blogging: Link (with comment).

(Also, obligatory John C. Wright reference.)

On the Misery of Modern Women.

QFT: "Feminism is the daydream of a sexual predator come true." (That could never be construed as offensive in any ways, could it? Of course not! (Can anything Mr. Wright says ever not be taken to offend?))

Reminds me of Mom's saying: "feminism is the best thing to happen for men."

John Wright does, of course, clarify that he's not talking about simple equal rights: "Feminism, in its modern form, has little or nothing to do with Suffragettes, or those who sought legal equality between the sexes. It has everything to do with Marxism as it applies to sex. Marx analyzes all human relationships as power struggles between collectives, which always are assumed to enjoy a perfect unity of interests."

And in that quote, he perfectly put into words an idea that had been floating around at the back of my mind, but had never been able to express. In my conversations with my feminist co-worker, there was always something present—if not overtly at least subtly, in the background—in her world view, and the larger feminist world view that always just seemed wrong to me: that feminism is, at its heart, a Marxist power struggle.

After reading Wright's post, it made me note all the other places I'd seen this idea, such as in my Sociology text book in college (which was largely Marxist). It suddenly struck me that there's my problem with modern, third-wave, whatever-the-hell-you-want-to-call-it pseudo-feminism. True Feminism shouldn't be looking for a power struggle. True Feminism shouldn't see taking the power men have as the desirable goal, the final outcome, and that therefore women need to shed the shackles of femininity and become like men. True Feminism ought to be, as Feminists for Life puts it, about seeking dignity and equality for all persons. Femininity is part of women's dignity and casting it to the wayside does not serve their purpose.

So what is the great triumph of the modern feminist movement if they have not even won happiness for women? What does it profit women to gain the entire world, but to be miserable? As Dennis Prager would say, Happiness is a Serious Problem.

Fourth Lowest Form of Blogging: Baby Pictures!

(Baby feet pictures, actually.)

Dino feet!

We've got zee lions, only in Kenya!

Third Lowest Form of Blogging: Un-commented links.

O Come, O Come, Liturgical Blue.

(Be sure to listen to the song.)

QUAERITUR: What rubrics to follow at Mass in case of gunfire?

Key quote: "I believe there is a little known rubric which calls for the deacon and subdeacon (who in any event should be packing) to take out, reverently, their 9mm and return fire. As I read it, they are to recite the Maledictory Psalms while firing. At the change of a clip/magazine, they may bow, or duck."

Second Lowest Form of Blogging: YouTube vids.

(Gotta bunch for you here)

(From Word On Fire)

Fr. Barron has a series on YouTube that I have recently become a follower of, where he comments on all sorts of topics from modern culture. Check it out. Some of his good ones include:

Protestantism and Authority.

The Vatican Investigation of American Nuns.

Comments on District 9.

Senator Edward Kennedy.

Answering the Skeptics (this one's good; relates to John Wright's post).

Comments on Angels and Demons.

Why is there so much disorder in the universe?

On "The Audacity of Hope".

Hallelujah Chorus as sung by monks with a vow of silence.

(H/T Everyone on the Internet. If you had not seen this previously, congratulations, you are officially the last person to the party.)

Lowest Form of Blogging: Lolcats!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Life

Well, Joe guessed correctly and first that the previously mentioned batch file is an implementation of Conway's Game of Life.

I wrote a slightly better implementation in C#, and it allows more than just 2 states, but it's not very sophisticated:

While I was writing that version, however, I stumbled across a much more advanced implementation (in the same way that the B-2 is more advanced than a kite), called Golly.

I highly recommend checking it out, but I should warn you that it might cause you to waste hours if not days staring at the blinkenlights.

Programming Contest

What does the following batch program do? Try to take a guess before running it yourself:

@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion

set NUMROWS=10
set NUMCOLS=10

REM // These start at 10 so they're always 2 digits
set nFirstRow=10
set /a nLastRow=nFirstRow+NUMROWS-1
set nFirstCol=10
set /a nLastCol=nFirstCol+NUMCOLS-1

REM // This is a capital oh, not zero
set ON=O
set OFF=.
set Var1=0
set Var3=1

:Initialize
REM // CELLrrcc
for /L %%I in (%nFirstRow%,1,%nLastRow%) do (
 for /L %%J in (%nFirstCol%,1,%nLastCol%) do (
   set CELL%%I%%J=%OFF%
 )
)

if %1[==[ goto :Pattern5
goto :Pattern%1
:Pattern1
REM // What is it?
set CELL1110=%ON%
set CELL1111=%ON%
set CELL1112=%ON%
goto :Render
:Pattern2
REM // What is it?
set CELL1011=%ON%
set CELL1112=%ON%
set CELL1210=%ON%
set CELL1211=%ON%
set CELL1212=%ON%
goto :Render
:Pattern3
REM // What is it?
set CELL1314=%ON%
set CELL1315=%ON%
set CELL1413=%ON%
set CELL1414=%ON%
set CELL1514=%ON%
goto :Render
:Pattern4
REM // What is it?
set CELL1314=%ON%
set CELL1413=%ON%
set CELL1414=%ON%
set CELL1415=%ON%
set CELL1514=%ON%
goto :Render
:Pattern5
for /L %%I in (%nFirstRow%,1,%nLastRow%) do (
 for /L %%J in (%nFirstCol%,1,%nLastCol%) do (
   if !RANDOM! GTR 16383 set CELL%%I%%J=%ON%
 )
)

:Render
cls
set Var2=0
for /L %%I in (%nFirstRow%,1,%nLastRow%) do (
 set ROW=
 for /L %%J in (%nFirstCol%,1,%nLastCol%) do (
   set ROW=!ROW!!CELL%%I%%J!
   if !CELL%%I%%J!==%ON% set /a Var2=Var2+1
 )
 echo !ROW!
)
echo P:%Var2% / G:%Var1%
if %Var2%==0 goto :EOF
if %Var3%==0 goto :EOF

:Advance
set Var2=0
set nRow=%nFirstRow%
set Var3=0
:AdvanceRow
set nCol=%nFirstCol%
if %nRow%==%nFirstRow% (
 set nPrevRow=%nLastRow%
 set /a nNextRow=%nRow% + 1
) else if %nRow%==%nLastRow% (
 set /a nPrevRow=%nRow% - 1
 set nNextRow=%nFirstRow%
) else (
 set /a nPrevRow=%nRow% - 1
 set /a nNextRow=%nRow% + 1
)
:AdvanceCol
if %nCol%==%nFirstCol% (
 set nPrevCol=%nLastCol%
 set /a nNextCol=%nCol% + 1
) else if %nCol%==%nLastCol% (
 set /a nPrevCol=%nCol% - 1
 set nNextCol=%nFirstCol%
) else (
 set /a nPrevCol=%nCol% - 1
 set /a nNextCol=%nCol% + 1
)
set nSum=0
if !CELL%nPrevRow%%nPrevCol%!==%ON% set /a nSum=nSum+1
if !CELL%nPrevRow%%nCol%!==%ON% set /a nSum=nSum+1
if !CELL%nPrevRow%%nNextCol%!==%ON% set /a nSum=nSum+1
if !CELL%nRow%%nPrevCol%!==%ON% set /a nSum=nSum+1
if !CELL%nRow%%nNextCol%!==%ON% set /a nSum=nSum+1
if !CELL%nNextRow%%nPrevCol%!==%ON% set /a nSum=nSum+1
if !CELL%nNextRow%%nCol%!==%ON% set /a nSum=nSum+1
if !CELL%nNextRow%%nNextCol%!==%ON% set /a nSum=nSum+1
set NEWCELL%nRow%%nCol%=!CELL%nRow%%nCol%!
if %nSum% GTR 3 (
 set NEWCELL%nRow%%nCol%=%OFF%
) else if %nSum%==3 (
 set NEWCELL%nRow%%nCol%=%ON%
) else if %nSum% LSS 2 (
 set NEWCELL%nRow%%nCol%=%OFF%
)
if not !NEWCELL%nRow%%nCol%!==!CELL%nRow%%nCol%! set /a Var3=Var3+1

set /a nCol=%nCol% + 1
if not %nCol% GTR %nLastCol% goto :AdvanceCol
set /a nRow=%nRow% + 1
if not %nRow% GTR %nLastRow% goto :AdvanceRow

for /L %%I in (%nFirstRow%,1,%nlastRow%) do (
 for /L %%J in (%nFirstCol%,1,%nLastCol%) do (
   set CELL%%I%%J=!NEWCELL%%I%%J!
 )
)
set /a Var1=Var1 + 1
goto :Render

Twenty imaginary gold doubloons to the pirate that first guesses correctly. I think I might have created the worst-performing implementation of this particular algorithm.