Let's Go To The Videotape!

I could probably just posts links to Tigerhawk all day on the Idiom, it's just that good. Here's a little treat though that I just had to share with our readers. Enjoy this Hamas videoclip produced after Hamas took control of the Palestinian Authority in January 2006 elections . This video, in about 60 seconds, explains better than any essay why, nearly 13 years after Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin shared an uncomfortable handshake on the White House lawn, there is still not peace between Israel and the Palestinians. If anyone still has the least bit of sympathy for the "Palestinian cause" look at that video and remember that the folks who put that song and dance number together are the elected representatives and voice of the Palestinian people. And maybe the video will distract you from whatever crack you have been smoking as well. The video is just another display of the kind of muslim extremism that is the root of the United State's war on Al-qaeda, the invasion of Iraq, and bloody protests against certain Danish cartoon publishers.

Not wearing green

Despite loving bagpipes, Kid Various is NOT celebrating St. Patrick's Day.

St. Patrick's Day celebrates difference, and promotes tribalism and sectarianism (not to mention rank Mick hooliganism...)

The Kid only celebrates holidays open to ALL Americans, those being:

MLK's Birthday
Lincoln's Birthday
Washington's Birthday
Memorial Day
Independence Day
Labor Day
Halloween
Election Day
Veteran's Day

Leave your petty tribalisms behind!

They Killed The Scientology Episode. You Bastards!

You all have been following the dust up over at South Park as Isaac Hayes, "Theme from Shaft" vocalist and voice of the character "Chef", has left South Park, claiming that the show is hateful toward religion.

As noted by Matt Stone, that religion is not Christianity, Mormons, Judaism or Islam (which Isaac had no problem with) but rather specifically Scientology. And coincidentally, Hayes is a follower of L. Ron's "religion." Well, well. We guess it's all fun and games until it's your ox getting gored.

But in the latest move over the ever more infamous episode entitled "Trapped in the Closet," it seems that Tom Cruise, noted Scientologist has actually succeeded in getting Viacom to pull the episode from rotation. A repeat of "Trapped in the Closet" was supposed to air Wednesday night, but was pulled without explanation.

Well it seems the explanation is in. Allegedly, Tom Cruise has threatened to boycott any promotion for the upcoming Mission Impossible 3 if Viacom (parent company of Comedy Central) did not put the Scientology episode on ice.

Scientologist are well noted for their lack of humour.

And Viacom, money grubbing bastards that they are, folded like a cheap camera. (In the digital photography age, does anyone even know what that mean anymore?)

In response, Parker and Stone released the following public statement (even though they were ordered by Viacom not to comment) which is the most startlingly brilliant FU we have ever seen. via Andrew Sullivan

So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun! Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies. Curses and drat! You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail! Hail Xenu!!!

- Trey Parker and Matt Stone, servants of the dark lord Xenu.

We at The Idiom stand in awe. God that's so f'ing funny...

Hail Xenu!

Science Marches On

A scientific breakthrough?

Scientists have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 2 billion degrees Kelvin, or 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit. This is hotter than the interior of our Sun, which is about 15 million degrees Kelvin, and also hotter than any previous temperature ever achieved on Earth, they say.

They don't know how they did it.

Superheated gas? We know how they did it -- someone in the lab probably had some spicy mexican food the night before. "Man, I shouldn't have eaten that burrito!"

The feat was accomplished in the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories.

. . .

The Z machine is the largest X-ray generator in the world. It’s designed to test materials under extreme temperatures and pressures. It works by releasing 20 million amps of electricity into a vertical array of very fine tungsten wires. The wires dissolve into a cloud of charged particles, a superheated gas called plasma.

A very strong magnetic field compresses the plasma into the thickness of a pencil lead. This causes the plasma to release energy in the form of X-rays, but the X-rays are usually only several million degrees.

Sandia researchers still aren’t sure how the machine achieved the new record. Part of it is probably due to the replacement of the tungsten steel wires with slightly thicker steel wires, which allow the plasma ions to travel faster and thus achieve higher temperatures.

One thing that puzzles scientists is that the high temperature was achieved after the plasma’s ions should have been losing energy and cooling. Also, when the high temperature was achieved, the Z machine was releasing more energy than was originally put in, something that usually occurs only in nuclear reactions.

Sandia consultant Malcolm Haines theorizes that some unknown energy source is involved, which is providing the machine with an extra jolt of energy just as the plasma ions are beginning to slow down.

Unknown energy source? Releasing more energy than was originally put in? Wacky stuff. Sounds alot like a nuclear fusion reaction. It recalls the "cold fusion" research in the late 1980's that was widly discredited. Who knows though, perhaps this is a break through that could lead to practical uses of fusion power. You know, like improving porno somehow, the same way every other technological advances has been used to make smut better.

Mangling Cliches

I was reading through comments on another blog today and a commenter tried to trot out the old cliche "Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat." However, what the commenter actually had typed was "Snacking victory from the jaws of defeat." For some reason this just struck Mrs. Surly and I as incredibly funny. Then, after we had our laugh, Mrs. Surly and I returned to our normal wary silence.

Stupid Hippies!

Its official -- liberals, much like our own Kid Various, are evolutionary dead ends:

Childlessness and small families are increasingly the norm today among progressive secularists.

Translation: hippies are too self-involved to make babies.

In Utah, where more than two-thirds of residents are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 92 children are born each year for every 1,000 women, the highest fertility rate in the nation. By contrast Vermont - the first to embrace gay unions - has the nation's lowest rate, producing 51 children per 1,000 women.

Just wait a few years and all the hippie scum will be gone. Soon every state will be red.

This correlation between secularism, individualism and low fertility portends a vast change in modern societies. In the USA, for example, nearly 20% of women born in the late 1950s are reaching the end of their reproductive lives without having children. The greatly expanded childless segment of contemporary society, whose members are drawn disproportionately from the feminist and countercultural movements of the 1960s and '70s, will leave no genetic legacy.

. . .

Tomorrow's children, therefore, unlike members of the postwar baby boom generation, will be for the most part descendants of a comparatively narrow and culturally conservative segment of society. To be sure, some members of the rising generation may reject their parents' values, as often happens. But when they look for fellow secularists with whom to make common cause, they will find that most of their would-be fellow travelers were quite literally never born.

Progressives' own self-centered worldviews will eventually lead to their gradual extinction. Sweet, sweet irony!

UPDATED: A poster responds to my sacasm with more sacasm and knocks my characterization of liberls as selfish. Well, it is selfish for educated people not to have children, even -- "gasp" -- liberals. If educated people don't have children the future of the country will be entrusted to well -- stupid people. With apologies to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., one generation of imbeciles begets another. But don’t take my word for it, take Tom Mortenson's, senior policy analyst at the Pell Institute for Opportunity in Higher Education, in Salon, well known communis-- I mean liberal website:

“The most educated women have the fewest children -- this is not rocket science, it's just the way things work. We need women to have 2.1 children [in order to maintain the U.S. population], but the recent Census Bureau reports show that American women with bachelor's degrees average only 1.7. You can do the math -- if we continue this way the white population is headed for extinction.

Having worked for decades to increase educational opportunities across class, race and gender lines, Mortenson knows his talk about women's responsibility to preserve the species will get him in trouble -- indeed, it already has. He says his daughter, age 29 and childless (but equipped with a master's degree), won't speak to him on the subject. But even his fatherly concern ("I want my daughter to have it all, but I worry that in old age she'll be lonely") can't disguise some of the insidious implications underneath those concerns: that educated white women might single-handedly be responsible for the decline of Western civilization.”

Iraqi Tet?

There has been constant speculation that the Enemy will attempt an "Iraqi Tet." A militarily insignificant, but boldly psychologically damaging attack that will sway public opinion in the Homeland. Our friend on the ground in Iraq, Mr. Democracy, chimes with commentary on this piece describing a foiled Tet attempt:

Everybody here has been anticipating the Tet moment for years and there may have been one in the works.

"A senior Defense Ministry official confirmed the plot, and said the 421 al-Qaida fighters involved were actually recruited to storm the U.S. and British embassies and take hostages. Several ranking Defense Ministry officials have been jailed in the plot, the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, said the al-Qaida recruits were one bureaucrat's signature away from acceptance into an Iraqi army battalion whose job it is to control the gates and main squares in the Green Zone. The plot was discovered three weeks ago."

I'm not exactly sure how the Enemy expected this to succeed, given that, yes, Iraqis do guard the entrances to the IZ - but in conjunction with American soldiers. They might be counting on the confusion factor, but I'm sure that once things started to go down, the life expectancy of an Enemy infiltrator would be short.

Even more so, I don't see how an attack on the Embassy would be able to net even one hostage. I wouldn't want to give anything away, but let's just say, any assault on the Embassy will fail. Spectacularly. Iraqis do NOT guard the points of access to the Embassy, so they couldn't infiltrate the system. Even I, as an American, have to jump through hoops to get on the grounds. And any assault by Iraqis with long arms would be put down far from the Embassy entrance.

But perhaps they don't need the attack to be successful. Maybe they're just counting on the fact that if they have the balls to attack the Embassy, people back home will freak out. Apparently that's what happened in the Tet Offensive. What, like one guy got over the Embassy wall in Saigon? (This was a little before my time.) Tactical and operational failure. Strategic victory.

Facts from the ground. Good to know. Remember, the Enemy is counting on your weakness to win!

Also in this article...

The government security apparatus, within two months, would begin trying to absorb all of the independent militia forces except for the Mahdi Army of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. "We must think of another solution for them," he said.

Kid Various can think of several solutions, all making liberal use of the Jersey term "Whack."

Excercise Class

When this hits the local L.A. Fitness, Kid Various is so going to the gym...

The dance school is the first in Singapore to introduce pole dancing which is a new form of exercise adopted by women from all over the world.

Beats the hell out of spinning class...

Mr. Pibb + Red Vines = Crazy Delicious!

It's all the rage. Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell's "Lazy Sunday" rap. It's actually a good rap despite being a "Spinal Tap" type parody.

You could call us Aaron Burr, the way we're dropping Hamiltons!

Heh...

World's Biggest TV Star Divorcing

That's right, David Hasselhoff, star of the most watched television show in the world, Baywatch, is getting divorced from Pamela Bach, his wife of 16 years.

Kid Various is appalled this is even news. Apparently the World's Biggest TV Star has a temper...

Less than a month after filing for divorce, the estranged wife of
David Hasselhoff has filed for a court order on a claim of domestic violence by the former "Baywatch" star, according to court records.

Actress Pamela Bach, 42, made the filing Monday against Hasselhoff, 53, in Los Angeles Superior Court, summary records on the court's Web site show.

At a private hearing, Bach also asked for a temporary restraining order against the actor, but a judge denied the request, instead instructing the two to stay away from each other.

Kid Various can't comment on the merits of a restraining order due to domestic violence, however he can wholly get on board with a restraining order preventing Hasselhoff from ever appearing in front of a camera again.

Documents pertaining to the hearing have been sealed by the court to protect the pair's two teenage daughters and their privacy, Goldsman said.

Bach was granted custody of one daughter while Hasselhoff was given custody of the other, publicist Judy Katz said Wednesday.

What are they a china set? "You take this one - I'll take the other..."

Of course, the real question is, who will get to keep Gary Coleman?

Greatest picture EVER!

One Chance Out Between Two Worlds!

Kid Various was looking at this page and buying some very funny T-shirts (including parodies on those excrable, trendy "Che" shirts) and ran across this design.


However, The Kid immediately parsed the text as "Noblis." Once again betraying his Eastern Establishment Elite upbringing.

Because latin makes so much sense on this T-shirt.

Oy! Caught between two worlds! Between reason and the romantic! Between populist and elitist! Between democracy and oligarchy! Between Locke and Rousseau!

The Kids will still never understand NASCAR though.

One chance out, between two worlds...
Fire! Walk with me!

Freedom Is On The March!

Let's see them blow off President Bush now!

There are no cars, roads or dentists and the only ambulance is a converted tractor, but Sark — a tiny self-governing island in the English Channel — embraced the modern world Wednesday, when legislators voted to swap its feudal government for democracy.

Jeez, who even knew there was country named Sark?

Of course, like the aging Marxists in Academe, not everyone is happy with the rise of Liberty

"Feudalism is a great system and has worked very well for the island. What people wanted was an option of no change at all," resident Jennifer Cochrane said by telephone from her island home.

Man, talk about being behind the times. Like 500 years. No matter, maybe she can market red T-shirts with Richard the Lionheart on them or something to sell to gullible college students.

Anyone Who Can Count Could Have Foreseen This

After the recent flirtation with civil war in Iraq, sunnis are starting to come the obvious f*cking conclusion that it's in their interests for the U.S. to stay in Iraq.

BAGHDAD — Two years ago, doctor Riyadh Adhadh cursed the U.S. soldiers who had overrun his homeland, toppled the Sunni-dominated government and tormented prisoners at Abu Ghraib. A member of the city council, he loudly demanded that American troops leave Baghdad.

Last week, his Sunni Arab neighborhood under attack by Shiite militiamen, Adhadh found himself huddled over the telephone in panic, begging the U.S. Embassy to send American soldiers.

The moment of bitter irony for the 52-year-old father of six is emblematic of a sharp shift in Iraqi opinion. Three years after the March 2003 invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein, with the threat of civil war looming, leaders of a nervous Sunni Arab minority have started to drop demands for an immediate U.S. withdrawal.

"We've changed our ideas," Adhadh said. Iraq's current government, dominated by Shiites, has been "abusing people more than the Americans," he said. "Iraqi security is the responsibility of the Americans. They have established this type of government — this will be written in history. We are living in a jungle."

For the longest time, the Iraqi sunnis have really believed that the only thing standing between them and regaining power is the American military. When in reality, the only thing standing between them and a genocide is... the American military.

Jesus, we've been going around with this for two and a half f*cking years! It's not rocket science man!

And remember, you heard it here first.

Just Bad All Around

This page creeps Kid Various out tremendously.

It gives you a map of any are in the U.S. and highlights where all the registered sex offenders live. How creepy is that? That you can look into the darkest secrets of the people living all around you. That you can never escape from your past? As an American, Kid Various feels wigged out by people having this sort of power.

But it's also creepy on a whole different level. That being that Kid Various is surrounded by child sex offenders!!! Oral copulation with a minor under 14 years old? Ugh! Skeevy!!! And these are only the people who are actually caught and processed! What the hell is wrong with people??? It's utterly fightening.

So basically, this thing is bad all around.

It would have been better had Kid Various just never run across this page...

Going Up?

[GENERAL TURGIDSON] He who controls the space elevator will control all the space elevator operator jobs, and space observation deck revenue for the next century!

Mr. President, we cannot allow, a space elevator GAP!

So of course the US wants it, China wants it and so does Japan. If and when it does become reality, the country that gets a Space Elevator first will likely have a stranglehold on space commerce for a long time.

Take THAT Hippie!

Take that you Che Guevarra T-shirt wearin' mother-f*cker!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that universities that get federal funds must allow military recruiters on campus, even if their law schools oppose the Pentagon's policy prohibiting openly gays and lesbians from serving.

That's unanimous, as in all nine - so you can't even blame Alito.

And Good Riddance, Too

Although Kid Various, just like all other 12 year olds, was thrilled when the space shuttle Columbia first lifted off from the Cape in 1981 - 25 years of operation have shown the shuttle program to be an amazingly expensive boondoggle that has a lousy safety record to boot. It never was able to deliver on what it promised (a reusable orbiter to get the costs down of launching payloads into orbit) and out of 5 orbiters built, we lost 2. This program has been a failure on just about every measurable level and basically demonstrates the general inability of government to innovate and manage large-scale projects.

Which is why The Kid will be celebrating the retirement of the Atlantis in 2008 and the general elimination of the program in 2014.

That's great. Now when do we get our space elevator?

NASA's "space bus." Fare: $500 million. Please have exact change ready...

Did You Ever Wonder Why...

How come all actors in adult films are referred to as "porn stars?"

To be a star, by definition, is to be an outstanding example in your field. It's impossible for everyone to be a star.

What we need are more "porn character actors."