For your cartoon viewing pleasure

Here's another Disney flick you'll never see in a rerun on TV.


Très cool side note: by a stroke of good luck, our family inadvertently acquired the original sheet music for this song (hoarding isn't always bad). And no, it's not for sale. Yet.
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Worst photoshop job of all time

This photo was actually posted on the SUN website. Yes, on a news website. You know, where journalists work. Making news.  (It has now mysteriously disappeared, however, not unlike some of their former excellent program hosts).  My buddy Theo Caldwell says he can remember when this snap was taken. Cuz he was in it. Try to guess where he was standing. No, really, try. You'll never guess.

For the love of all that's truthful and classy, can't you guys at SUN even try? Oy vay.

This kind of reminds me of a recent family photo:

I am, of course, on the far left (no wonder my girls are so beautiful!)
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My new MacBook

and I are getting on splendidly this week--- perhaps because it's been shut down since last Thursday and is now gathering dust in my bedroom.
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Happy birthday Mr. Beazly

So much for the box of homemade candy I was planning to mail you a week ago... (Trying to remember what the road to hell is paved with...) In honour of your birthday, a Savage Chickens cartoon:

Happy Thanksgiving

To all our lovely American readers! Sure, there's always way too much negative crappy stuff going on in the world, but there is also much to be thankful for, and maybe we need to focus on that a little more often. God is good.
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And scientists actually wonder sometimes

why people laugh at them. From our killer headlines file:
Scientists find huge caribou herd thought lost in Canada

How in blazes do you lose, actually lose an entire herd of caribou--even in Canada? Gary Larson, where are you when we need you?
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I note with disappointment

That in the new Macbook user's manual, under Chapter 4 ("Problem, Meet Solution"), subheading "Problems That Prevent You from Using Your Macbook Pro", there is no category for "Basic Stupidity."

PS, all you Gnostics (Apple fans): so far, I hate this thing. (This after hearing, from TOOOO many people, "You'll LOVE it.") Only time will tell.
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"Then there was the tired old liberal in a sweater..."

The one, the only, Standford Nutting. And the nut behind him, Kevin O'Brien. Interesting interview. 

"We have two choices in dealing with the Standord Nuttings of the world: to laugh at them or to kill them. It’s more effective to laugh at them."

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The only time I like these words

"Winter Conditions Exist, Icy or Slippery Sections, Swirling Snow, Drifting Snow"

...is when they are followed by "Travel not recommended." Winter has truly arrived in my part of the world.

(Not an actual picture of my street, but it could be.) 

Steyn would have something to say about this

80 is the new 65 when it comes to retirement, survey says.

On the issue of Social Security there was an age divide. Those in their 60s expect Social Security to provide 46 percent of their retirement funding. But more than a quarter of Americans in their 20s and 30s expect no income at all from Social Security during their retirement.

Duh! There's a reason for this. Read After America. 

I recently read an article in the Cdn Reader's Digest called "60 is the new 20". It was written by a retiring civil servant, who was looking forward to a long, fun retirement, after having a cushy, easy, and pointless government job all his life. It was supposed to be funny, but after reading Steyn, the piece made my blood boil. Just who does that retiree think is paying for his well-padded retirement?
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Stupid and stupider

Because Dumb and Dumber just won't cut it this time. Which is more asinine, the secular world in general, or Benetton in particular?

"Benetton had said its "Unhate" campaign was aimed at fostering tolerance. It featured photo montages of purported enemies kissing."

Where to begin? The pope doesn't hate anyone, whereas Benetton's "unhate" campaign is openly hateful of the Catholic Church and the Holy Father. Tolerance, anyone?


Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven.
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Just in case my daughters ever visit the blog

THIS is what I want when my current mixer (lovingly dubbed "The Kitchen Chump 2000" by Mrs. Beazly) goes to its eternal reward--or for a certain milestone birthday, whichever comes first.

Isn't it just the loveliest, most shiniest piece of kitchen art you've ever seen?

Oh, and I also want the pasta attachment. MMmmmmmm.... fresh, soft, whole wheat pasta...
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Lysol is a blessing from the Lord

I'm not sure why, but that's the first thing that popped into my head upon reading these words:

By 4:30 a.m., the park was empty, wiped clean of any traces of the camp that had been there since Sept. 17.

It's about time. Some of their grievances were/are legit, but crapping, fornicating, and shooting up in public is not. There have to be better ways to change the world.


Irony nugget: "A state court judge held a hearing Tuesday afternoon on the legality of the eviction."
Excuse me? Zuccotti park is PRIVATELY OWNED. As for "legality", what the hell has been going on there daily for the past two months?
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"I don’t now I thinke gust do what you want."

One of the many comments from public school kids replying to the query: "Would you like to be home-schooled?" It's an NY Times piece, further discussed by Pundette. Amusing, yet profoundly sad.

i think that homeschooling is ok but public schools are better because its almost like life you are going to have to deal with people that you dont like in life and school shows this at times.i dont think this could preper us for the real world because your not comunicatingi with people as much as you would at school.for most people it is a good learning activity

Every so often

You have one of those "I'm glad I'm homeschooling" moments. It makes all the other more, ahem--challenging-- times worthwhile. The other day the Misses Pinkerton were playing Scattergories. The letter was "H" and one of the categories was "authors". My 9-year-old wrote down Hilaire Belloc. It warms the cockles of a mum's heart.
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Margaret Wente explains

the Occupy movement. (Just to give our readers a break from the Steyn--though who could ever need one?)

These people make up the Occupier generation. They aspire to join the virtueocracy – the class of people who expect to find self-fulfillment (and a comfortable living) in non-profit or government work, by saving the planet, rescuing the poor and regulating the rest of us. They are what the social critic Christopher Lasch called the “new class” of "therapeutic cops in the new bureaucracy." 

The trouble is, this social model no longer works. As blogger Kenneth Anderson writes, “The machine by which universities train young people to become minor regulators and then delivered them into white-collar positions on the basis of credentials in history, political science, literature, ethnic and women’s studies – with or without the benefit of law school – has broken down. The supply is uninterrupted, but the demand has dried up.” 

It’s not the greedy Wall Street bankers who destroyed these people’s hopes. It’s the virtueocracy itself. It’s the people who constructed a benefit-heavy entitlement system whose costs can no longer be sustained. It’s the politicians and union leaders who made reckless pension promises that are now bankrupting cities and states. It’s the socially progressive policy-makers in the U.S. who declared that everyone, even those with no visible means of support, should be able to own a home with no money down, courtesy of their government. In Canada, it’s the social progressives who assure us we can keep on consuming all the health care we want, even as the costs squeeze out other public goods.

Do read the whole thing. Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be social workers or government bureaucrats. Think doctor, dentist, plumber, electrician, bricklayer instead. 

h/t SDA

Requesting prayers

for a very dear friend who has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
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From our Killer Headlines file

Fake exorcist arrested for molesting trusting women

The sub-title is almost as good: "Confesses to 'inappropriate' touching in court but blames his actions on the devil"

Saudi Arabia’s religious police arrested an Egyptian man claiming to have exorcism and spiritual healing powers for molesting many women by telling them he can rid their bodies of the devil through their sexual organs.In court, he blamed the devil for his acts.

Instead of jail time, he'll probably receive some kind of government award, and get his own talk show. The mainstream media won't carry this story, cuz the perpetrator is not a Catholic priest. 

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A picture is worth 99% of words

 Hey, buddy. Neither are you.

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Invasion of the cranky vegans

Coming to a university near you. h/t Steynian gold, in one little teaser:


"Ryerson U, a Human Rights Tribunal and a 37-year-old student make this one a nominee for Story of the Year"


The actual story (National Post) is about a vegan student who feels discriminated against because her college faculty (Social Work) won't let her to do her PhD on (wait for it) animals. 

Sinem Ketenci, 37, who immigrated from Turkey as a young woman and studied at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay before doing a master’s at Ryerson, alleges a senior professor disagreed with her comparison of maltreated animals with marginalized people, said the connection was “very inhuman and racist,” and pressured Ms. Ketenci’s untenured supervisor into withdrawing his recommendation of her PhD candidacy at other schools, which she called an academic “kiss of death.”

Which, as we know, is the exact same thing as being swallowed by a python, or having your throat ripped out by a pack of hyenas. She may have a case. Solid proof that she is PhD material:


1) Whiny and pathetic, not afraid to play the race card, which is entirely immaterial in this case:
“If I were white, born here, this case would not have happened,” she said.


(Oh please! Would you have been able to achieve a university degree if you'd stayed in Turkey?)


2) Has elevated obfuscation to an art:

“I believe that the faculty’s reaction has its basis in the strict religious belief of ‘men’s domination over animals’ that racialized people’s suffering should not be spoken about in the same context of animal suffering and that sympathy for animal suffering is not as important as sympathy for racialized peoples’ suffering,” her complaint reads. “It is as if one must choose and cannot believe in both.”

3) No sense of logic or ethical consistency:

a) The woman says she has been a vegan for three years, and a vegetarian for seven before that, so her commitment is a decade long and serious, but she admits to a certain ethical looseness.Asked whether her sneakers have leather detailing, for example, she shrugs it off with a maybe, as if it is the exception that proves the rule.“Animals shouldn’t be treated like animals either,” she quips. “Increasing animals’ value, I am not decreasing the value of humans.”

b) (On being accused of racism): “How am I being racist if ‘race’ is a part of my identity?”


Umm, we ALL have 'race' as part of our identity. Unless white is not a 'race'. Does that mean only whites can be racist? Or that no one can be racist. Or that we're ALL racist? 


All in all, it seems to have left her scarred for life: 

In an interview Monday, Ms. Ketenci said the fallout has extended to her personal life, costing her friends among fellow students, and left her “traumatized.”

 Wow, that's tough, but it's not as bad as being killed and eaten by a predator, which would have happened if she'd been an animal in the wild. 


She is asking for $15,000 compensation. Try getting that from a tribunal of goats or rabbits. Maybe humans and animals aren't equivalent after all. 

What kills me (as always) is that my tax dollars are, in one way or another, supporting this nearly-middle-aged college student's  existence, lifestyle, grievances and "education."

I'm sure she will triumph in the end: 

When her qualitative research project about animal rights activism in social work was denied this year, leading ultimately to this complaint, Ms. Ketenci’s response was to suggest a new one about the “marginalization and systemic discrimination of animal rights activists.”

Gotcha, Ryerson.

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I thought I was the only one

...who thought the villain from Monsters vs. Aliens, Gallaxhar, looked like a certain POTUS.

But it turns out I'm far from alone. My 9-year-old, on seeing the photos, chimes in: "And they're the same too! Except that Obama wants to destroy America, instead of the whole world." Kids say the darndest things.
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It's Election Day in Saskatchewan!

Go vote!
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Steyn sums up Oakland

More specifically, the "Occupy" riots of last week: 

I don’t “stand with the 99%,” and certainly not downwind of them. But I’m all for their “occupation” continuing on its merry way. It usefully clarifies the stakes. At first glance, an alliance of anarchists and government might appear to be somewhat paradoxical. But the formal convergence in Oakland makes explicit the movement’s aims: They’re anarchists for statism, wild free-spirited youth demanding more and more total government control of every aspect of life — just so long as it respects the fundamental human right to sloth. What’s happening in Oakland is a logical exercise in class solidarity: The government class enthusiastically backing the breakdown of civil order is making common cause with the leisured varsity class, the thuggish union class, and the criminal class in order to stick it to what’s left of the beleaguered productive class. It’s a grand alliance of all those societal interests that wish to enjoy in perpetuity a lifestyle they are not willing to earn. Only the criminal class is reasonably upfront about this. The rest — the lifetime legislators, the unions defending lavish and unsustainable benefits, the “scholars” whiling away a somnolent half decade at Complacency U — are obliged to dress it up a little with some hooey about “social justice” and whatnot.

At least someone is still blogging

Even if it's depressingly, well, depressing... The one, the only, Pundette.


But when the parents themselves have never fully embraced adulthood, the goal of bringing a child to independent maturity (the real point of child-rearing, by the way) becomes a difficult trick to pull off.
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More sounds of silence

Life with only one computer in the family is taking its toll. Our main PC died two weeks ago and everyone is competing for time on my crummy laptop. Needless to say, I'm at the bottom of the priority list. High school students doing online classes, and hubby doing financial stuff have bumped me somewhat lower on the must-use-computer ladder. I'm biting the bullet and ordering a new laptop this week.
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It is a noise which to cleave the head

One of the many reasons DOH kind of worships the ground upon which Mark Shea treads... 


He introduced us to this, "English as She is Spoke", an 1855 Portuguese-English phrasebook composed by one Pedro Carolino, who did not, of English, one word speak. 


The following gems come from the page titled "Familiar Phrases".


I am catched cold.
I not make what to coughand spit.
(which explains how I've felt for the last two weeks)

Do not might one's understand to speak.
You mistake you self heavily.
(which perhaps describes DOH on any given day)



This one is eerily prescient of modern education: 
Apply you at the study during that you are young.




And oh, there's so much more. Enjoy. And thanks, Shea! Now I'll have even less time to get my housework done. 


Take that boy and whip him to much!
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Rousing

Happy All Saints' Day!



I had to post this version, because I couldn't find my favourite one on YouTube (new lyrics by Carey Landry and Buddy Caesar, co-arranged by David Haas and Marty Haugen, and accompanied by kazoo, pan flute and bongo drum).
Language Warning on the Brit version: Militant, Sexist/Patriarchal, Christocentric
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Corporations rule the world

We may not like it, but it's true, and not likely to change any time soon. Boycott campaigns don't tend to work, cuz, like pretty much all the products you buy in any given category (soap, jeans, hot chocolate powder, alternative music) are ultimately manufactured by the same corporation anyway. As the cow said in Babe, "The way things are is the way things are." And the only way you can avoid it is to quit shopping. Entirely. Forever. And get some land and raise your own potatoes and chickens, and never leave.

I'm tired of celebs, politicians (even the POTUS!), and now (incredibly) corporate-owned CEOs droning on in support of the OWS protestors. Steyn:

 Indeed, the default political position of your average CEO — "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" — was pioneered by a generation of Brit rockers raising awareness for fashionable causes while sheltering their royalties beyond the reach of Her Majesty's Treasury.
So today we have maverick corporations expressing solidarity with the oppressed . . . well, I was going to say "workers" but that doesn't seem quite the word for "Occupy Wall Street," does it? Non-workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your six-figure college debt!

 [...]

 Rockers pretend to be revolutionaries, then tenured professors do, and then CEOs of multinational subsidiaries for whom solidarity with deadbeats they'd never dream of hiring offers an electric tingle that the Rotary Club lunch can't match.

Check your hypocrisy at the door, Ben and Jerry. 


Corporations rule the world. Getting all upset about it won't really help. Demanding that the gubmint "do something" about it won't help, because, practically speaking, the gubmint is wholly owned and operated by corporations. And lastly, defecating on Wall Street won't help. Go home, people. Do something useful. 
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