Hilarious. Cheney’s Got a Gun. And props to Spike O’Neil — whoever he is — for sounding just like Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler.
Just in case I need to explain this to anyone — this is based on Aerosmith’s Janie’s Got a Gun from back in the 90’s.
Scientists searching for hard data on how a pandemic might spread are looking to Where’s George, an internet site that tracks the movement of currency. EurekAlert! has the story:
Using a popular internet game that traces the travels of dollar bills, scientists have unveiled statistical laws of human travel in the United States, and developed a mathematical description that can be used to model the spread of infectious disease in this country. This model is considered a breakthrough in the field.
“We were confident that we could learn a lot from the data collected at the www.wheresgeorge.com bill-tracking website, but the results turned out far beyond our expectations,” said Lars Hufnagel, a post-doctoral fellow at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and co-author of an article describing the research in the January 26 issue of the journal Nature.
This story has overwhelmed the servers at Where’s George, so it’s been a bit hard to test out. I loaded the one dollar I had in my wallet (pitiful) into the system, but so far I’m unable to see whether it took. Go try it for yourself.
For more fun with flu, see last year’s post The Perfect Circle of Spotlessness.
Check out Instapundit’s excellent post on lessons learned from Katrina. All of this on September 7, 2005, a little more than a week after the disaster.
A Katrina Commission will be appointed and will take 18 months or longer to come up with roughly the same list.
Instapundit quotes a Salon story reporting that Geraldo Rivera played to the cameras by doing two takes of his rescue assistance of a New Orleans flood victim.
Nice.
UPDATE: Apparently, Fox News says this story is not true. Sorry, Geraldo.
Cold Fury has posted a screed on how lefty bloggers contributed to the post-Katrina havoc by ridiculing Tom Ridge when he suggested we all gather together a disaster preparedness kit. The post catalogs the proof by linking to various blogs doing just that.
Kobayashi Maru suggests that Hillary Clinton is already moving to mitigate any potential political benefit that might accrue to Rudy Giuliani as a result of Hurricane Katrina.
Riding Sun, aptly noting a certain hypocrisy, dresses down Hillary Clinton for remarks suggesting that a sinister plot by oil magnates is driving up oil prices.
Glenn Reynolds today compiled an extensive list of Katrina-aid charities from the suggestions of various bloggers and Instapundit readers.
I encourage Christians everywhere to dedicate a month’s worth (or more) of Gross Tithes to Samaritan’s Purse.
I’m defining the term “Gross Tithe” not as a tenth of your gross income, but as the difference between a tenth of your net income and a tenth of your gross income.
You would think that a Katrina donation should just be a gift, something over and above what you give to your church. Probably so. But let’s be honest, studies like this and these show that less than 10% of Christians even bother to tithe. Those that do, whether they tithe on gross or net, are making regular charitable donations to an organization that then (hopefully) infuses funds into worthy causes in the community and abroad. For many of these consistent supporters, there’s simply not a lot of discretionary charitable donations left to give.
So what to do when disaster strikes? If you simply re-direct your regular tithe when a tsumani or hurricane hits, you are simply taking from one worthy cause and giving to another.
Enter the Gross Tithe. Give your Net Tithe — 10% of your take-home pay — to your church. Treat your Gross Tithe — the difference between 10% of your net income and 10% of your gross income — as a discretionary tithe, and send it where the Spirit leads. That way, you’re able to respond to disaster with compassion and without unintended adverse impact on your church’s regular activities.
My challenge to Christians is to dedicate a month’s worth (or more) of Gross Tithes to Samaritan’s Purse for aid to victims of Katrina. I’m sure that the major charities get a ton of money right after a disaster, but that the donations trickle off much earlier than does the need. So set aside a discretionary, flexible tithe that can be sent to where it is needed for a certain period of time and that can then be re-directed when a greater need arises.
By the way, there are arguments on both sides of the question of whether Christians are to tithe on net or gross income. I’ve always heard that you can’t out-give God, but let’s be honest, how many of us have had the faith to try? Not me, but I do know that a fair amount of giving has resulted in a greater amount of blessing.
For such a time as this?
Instapundit posts an email from Bill Quigley, who is on the ground in a hospital in New Orleans
Michael Yon has excellent on-the-ground reporting directly from Mosul, Iraq.
It’s a two milestone day! First, I reached 1,000 visitors, and second, I received my first hate mail via comment to a post! Woo-hooo!
Okay, okay, the comment is pretty tame, but it’s still a waypost of some sort, is it not?
The comment was in response to this post expressing dismay over the selection of Oliver Stone as director for the first big budget 9-11 film. Here’s the comment, verbatim, except for the ****, of course:
Oliver Stone is more than inapt to direct this movie. I think your issue with him is that he isnt a neo-con like yourself. let them make the movie and b**** about something that matters in the world and not who is the director of a movie. Scott in miami out
Um, okay. Google “define:inapt”, and here’s what you get:
awkward: not elegant or graceful in expression; “an awkward prose style”; “a clumsy apology”; “his cumbersome writing style”; “if the rumor is true, can anything be more inept than to repeat it now?”
Forgive the snark, but the commenter’s use of the word “inapt” was too ironically apt to ignore.
B**** about something that matters in the world?
Few things matter more than terrorism these days, and any film about 9-11 must necessarily be about terrorism. You can’t divorce a film from its content. This movie, for better or worse, will go a long way toward defining the historical view of that day.
Already, memories have faded. Can you really recall, really dredge up the horror you felt as you watched slow motion footage of one of the planes simply disappear into the tower just before multiple floors of the building exploded into gigantic orange and black discs of fire? Can you really still feel the same bitter ache in your gut that you felt when you realized the small specks dropping along the silver facade of the tower were people — men, women, fathers, mothers — who had made the terrible choice of death by cement over death by flame? Can you really still recall the magnitude of your disbelief when the blankets of billowing smoke cleared to reveal that the towers were not simply ablaze but gone?
Can you really recall your heart stirring to righteous anger upon seeing footage of cheering muslims, dancing in the streets in celebration of our pain?
Perhaps a little. But pain and anger subside. Wounds heal. Memories fade. They continue to dissipate, scatter, grow faint each day as we get on with our lives. They transition into history.
Few will re-view the actual television coverage of that day. Instead, they will rely on historians’ summaries of the event captured in books, films, and other media. And history is defined as much by historians as by the histories they record.
The contest to define the character and import of 9-11 is already underway. On 9-12, we were in one accord, bound together by a simple, clear fact: a sinister band of evil people wanted to murder us and we needed to stop them at any cost. But as memories have faded, hearts have healed, and costs have come due, we have become more susceptible to outrageous claims and cloudy thinking. Our love affair with nuance has muddied the waters. Will historians capture the clarity of the 9-12 view of 9-11 or will time dilute and confuse its meaning?
The future depends on the history we create today. Not just the events of today, but the way we today memorialize the events of yesterday.
And few things in this world matter more.
The Anchoress, experiencing a Job-like descent into darkness, beautifully articulates the mature Christian’s response to debilitating burdens.
Anchoress, I do not know who you are, but I pray for you and I thank God for your example. May your sons continue to imbue music into the ear of your heart.
A must-read/listen. Small excerpt:
They did not bomb London because there is insufficient transparency in Congress about the Gitmo detainees; they bombed London because it is part of the Zionist-Crusader Conspiracy run by the sons of monkeys and pigs, who must submit or die.
Any questions?
There figures to be some serious pushback on the decision to have Oliver Stone direct the first big-budget 9-11 film.
Ugh. I like Nicholas Cage, who will star, but Oliver Stone? Come on.
Here’s the real story of the last two individuals to be rescued from the WTC, sans leftist conspiracy theory. The story will need to be told and re-told and re-told as a rampart to the inevitable revisionist history to follow.
Oliver Stone? Ugh.
