This time its in Finland and I am guessing that many people read reports that didn’t mention he was a Muslim. Another case of sudden jihad syndrome to welcome in the New Year.

Update: It seems another Islamist has inspired to attack this time it was against the creator of one of the MoToons, the Somali failed but methinks we are going to see more of this.

Someone tried it in Somalia last month. So the whole “isolated” incident line be peddled by Obama is a bit untrue methinks?

Radical Christians… the true story and rather amusing.

And might get them to boycott CPAC. This is what one would refer as a result as the AFA are a pretty vile bunch of people. More on this row here.

What is interesting the Birchers don’t seem to be making a fuss, that I know of. They are also co-sponsors and are not known for being open-minded.

Be sure to check out this week’s Haveil Havalim for all the best of the Jewish blogosphere. Please make sure to check out the Carnival of Latin America over at Fausta’s. Please check out the Britblog Carnival for your British blogging fix.

Its developing… news here.

Not only are Nigerians keen to rip people off with spam emails, at least one wants to blow us out of the sky. The evil scumbag lived in Mayfair in London before deciding to kill a plane-load of people.

And the TSA make flying life miserable again for all flyers, instead of profiling and/or searching people more from suspect countries/likely terrorists. Political correctness should not have any place in our security. Can we please chat to el Al and learn how to do security?

Yet another nail in “poor and desperate al Queda” terrorist meme… the scumbag was a wealthy kid who got bored.

Music Reviews: White Wizzard, Savage Messiah, Skeletonwitch, Mind Key, Cain’s Offering & Walken

to all of you and I hope the season brings you joy. I’m going to be doing a lot of running around in the next few days, so I probably won’t be posting again until the New Year

Wonderful Christmassy picture courtesy of b3ta. That’ll cure the damned chimney-spelunker.

Snopes.com:

Christmas carols and other holiday songs, rife as they are with seldom-heard words and phrasings and clever wordplay, are fertile fields for the sowing of mondegreens - especially when children, with their limited vocabularies, are involved. (We note that Mondegreens are based upon a genuine misunderstanding of lyrics, a distinctly different phenomenon than the deliberate creation of parodic lyrics such as “Jingle Bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg,” or “We three kings of Orient are, tried to smoke a rubber cigar.”)

A smoking cliche’, of course, the author uses the pot issue as a cudgel for a good bash. Well attempts, the commenters are having a wonderful time explaining while the piece is just another bit of statist bollocks.

According to the author’s defenders… basically if you disagree you are stoner and mentally ill.

And the “for the children” argument has been wheeled out in defence of prohibition.

Update: This is the best social conservative bash at libertarians. Its so bizarre and daft it make me laugh out loud.

But adults-only libertarians are closet socialists. They’re anti-liberty, and anti-family. All they do is defend porn, illegal welfare-dependent immigrants and crazed drug addicts whom destroy private properties. If they were pro-liberty they wouldn’t censor Christian voices on their websites. Or make excuses for bloodthirsty dictators.

I examine it over at PJM.

A response from an Airline captain who seems to have completely missed both the question mark at the end of the title and the general gist of the post. The sarcasm in his response is pretty lame. The gist of the entire response is… “its all the government’s fault”. Yes, the over-all problem is the government’s however any pilot that keeps anyone on the plane for over 2 hours serious needs to get a grip. The fact some some of have held their passengers on for 5 hours plus beggars belief.

Dear Mr. Dodge,

As a Captain for a major airline and a frequent reader of PJM, I am writing in response to your “Hostage Release” article. I have been surprised and saddened by the response of supposedly conservative/libertarian bloggers given the history of how the air travel system has arrived at this juncture.

As a great place to start, I would like to direct you to a piece by Nick Gillespie for Reason.tv. It is an outstanding primer on the problem (and the solution).

http://reason.com/blog/2009/12/20/stuck-inside-of-reagan-nationa

Some quick history is also required. The Air Traffic Control system became overloaded years ago. In the not so distant past, airliners departed on time and then proceeded to hold inflight until running low on fuel and diverting to an alternate location. To solve the “inflight delay” program, the FAA developed today’s “ground delay” system (as a temporary fix until ATC computers could be upgraded) and began to assign takeoff times as required to prevent overloading the ATC system. But as air travel became cheaper and the number of flights needed to satisfy demand exploded, this fix began to break down. To further complicate the problem, the promised ATC computer upgrades never came. Just say the words “NextGen” to an FAA executive and watch the babbling begin.

According to natca.org, there are about 10,416,000 commercial flights per year. In your article, you state that 1500 of these flight were delayed for three hours or more. Although this government fix may make passengers feel better, it will only affect .000144% of flights. Meanwhile, the FAA will make no effort to solve the day to day delays (such as the one you experienced). Why bother? They got their USA Today headline.

Starting next spring, if the dilapidated and creaky ATC system is unable to accomodate an aircraft’s departure in three hours, then the government will simply direct that the plane return to the gate. Problem solved: No long delays, no passengers “held hostage” by the unfeeling and uncaring airlines, and the ATC system hums along with only those customers lucky enough to make it into the air. The businessman may miss out on that multi-million dollar deal, the couple may miss their anniversary cruise, the recent college grad may miss that job interview………but at least the hostages are now free through the grace of the FAA.

As a professional pilot with 30 years of flying experience, the most worrisome incident you relate is when passengers voted about returning to the gate. In your situation, everyone (or apparently everyone who voted) chose to remain in line for takeoff. But what if the vote had been different? What if half wanted to return and half wanted to wait? Did the votes of the First Class passengers or frequent fliers count more than those who had bought their tickets on Priceline? Does the passenger who is traveling to attend a funeral have his or her vote count more than someone merely going on vacation?

Although the end result was pleasing to you, your Captain placed the crew and all the passengers in a dangerous situation by attempting to play “Democracy”. It is not difficult to imagine the newspaper headline about the near riot on USAir XXX resulting from a split decision.

Please rest assured that the threat of a government fine will never play any role in how I treat my customers or decisions I make concerning the conduct of a flight that I command. My first responsibility is for the safety of my crew and customers. All my decisions concerning customer service, schedule, convenience, or economics will first go through the safety filter. There will be no voting.

Finally, I must comment regarding your view that “some airlines seem to think they can treat their passengers like cattle and do with them what they wish once on the airplane.” At its heart, air travel today is mass transit. Before deregulation, prices were fixed by the government and airlines competed on service. Today, the market shows that consumers do not travel based on an airline’s customer service (although every customer swears on a Bible that’s not true) and instead base their travel plans on 1) PRICE, and 2) schedule. This is not an excuse; this a fact of the marketplace.

Warren Buffett owns an outstanding businesscalled “NetJets” that is very service oriented. I’m not sure about the price though.

Even though pay has been cut, pensions have been dumped, and layoffs have been widespread, airline employees continue to provide outstanding service in an industry chained to outdated government rules and technology. Millions of customers travel every year and arrive at their destinations safely and without incident.

But things can only get better….the “tarmac delay” problem has now been solved by the government.

Sincerely,

JB Behnken

Good news is that I truly out did myself this year with my Christmas decorations. The bad news is that I had to take him down after two days. I had more people come screaming up to my house than ever. Great stories. But two things made me take it down.

First, the cops advised me that it would cause traffic accidents as they almost wrecked when they drove by.

Second, a 55 year old lady grabbed the 75 pound ladder almost killed herself putting it against my house and didn’t realize that it was fake until she climbed to the top (she was not happy). By the way, she was one of the many people who attempted to do that. My yard couldn’t take it either. I have more than a few tire tracks where people literally drove up my yard.

Its very simple actually.

Doesn’t make it right. Wishing someone dead, of whatever party, is not cricket. Now privately wishing that is fine however publishing that idea on a blog is just daft. The author has an update that he is not the only who has said that. So what? We are not sheep on the right and we should try to keep our discourse decent at all times.

And there is nothing like giving the left a cudgel to hit the right with, not that they read need one granted. It was a stupid post that goes over the line and does no one any good.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Warning: Music (and language within song).

Well nobody’s perfect are they?

They have dragged a bunch of high school students to Augusta to call for higher taxes on cigarettes. Its a disgrace to use young adults in such an abusive manner. I am willing to bet they were not given the opposing point of view that its not the duty of the state to meddle in personal behavior. I wonder if anyone informed them that raising taxes in a bad thing and that they should be looking for ways to lower it on the people of Maine.

Then again some nannying fool in the Maine legislature, Rep Andrea Boland who is not a scientist, wants to label all phones. This nobody is getting lots of press calling to label phones in case the unproven claims of danger of their use are right. She has been inspired by idiotic pronouncements by the EU. She recommends that people should not have the phone near their heads or bodies.

Here is an idea. How about you spend your time in Augusta trying to figure out ways of reducing taxation, bureaucracy and other bits of government meddling.

TG: Well, I don’t live there. I got tired of my taxes paying for exciting little wars around the world. Then I discovered that when I died, my wife would probably have to sell our house to pay for the taxes in America.

Lol, he became a British citizens to lower his taxes? He obviously did very little research about the level of tax in the UK. And there is a death tax in the UK. What a bonehead. Lets hope his latest movie is better than his citizenship decisions.

Gamepolitics reports that the Christian Civics League wants a band on Modern Warfare 2. Now its not because the game is rubbish, but for other, less sane, reasons. They wheel out a blatant lie, where the evidence to the contrary.

There is a well-established cause and effect relationship between video games and school shootings, and parents of some of the victims have sued video game makers.

This is a group that has, in the past, accused people of being witches. They seem to be keen on getting themselves attention, no matter how nuts it makes them look.

This was written in the spring of 1978 and recorded on my way back to Canada; more specifically, at the Queen Elizabeth hotel in Montreal, where I spent a few days. I don’t remember much of my room, but it had hardwood floors, and very good acoustics. (I didn’t even think to request the John Lennon Suite, where he and Yoko held their “bed-in” and recorded “Give Peace A Chance” some years before.)

As for the song — typical atrocious, overwrought lyrics, but my guitar playing was improving. (Not that I had previously set the bar very high in that regard.)

Make sure to check out Haveil Havalim as well.

And, of course, there is a new SNN.

And Fausta has her carnival of all things Latin American.

The Britblog carnival has a snowy theme.

I wanted to draw your attention to this important petition that I recently signed:

“Petition Against Socialized Healthcare!”
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stopsocializedhealthcare/

I really think this is an important cause, and I’d like to encourage you to add your signature, too. It’s free and takes just a few seconds of your time.

Thanks!

Music/DVD Reviews: Blues at Montreux, Marilyn Manson, Jorn, Silent Rage, Praying Mantis, Menegarm