Right Wing Watch: Soy Makes You Gay:

Soy Makes You GaySometimes you just have to marvel at the things published by WorldNetDaily – things such as this column by James Rutz of Megashift Ministries:

tinky-soy-med.jpg

There’s a slow poison out there that’s severely damaging our children and threatening to tear apart our culture ….

The dangerous food I’m speaking of is soy. Soybean products are feminizing, and they’re all over the place. You can hardly escape them anymore.

…

Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That’s why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today’s rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!) Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t homosexual.” No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can’t remember a time when excess estrogen wasn’t influencing them.

It is difficult to imagine just what WorldNetDaily’s standard is for rejecting a column or article – but whatever it is, it is apparently set so low that “soy makes you gay” manages to exceed the criteria.

Posted by Kyle at 11:08 AM

Boing Boing: Thermometer pill for football players:

Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Thermometer pill for football players
In the 1980s, NASA developed a wireless thermometer-in-a-pill to keep tabs on the body temperature of astronauts. Now, some American football players are swallowing the pills to protect themselves from potentially-deadly heatstroke. The thermometer pill is part of HQ Inc.’s “Coretemp” line of “miniaturized data recorder(s).” From IEEE Spectrum:

Images Prodpage Pillhand Once swallowed, the multivitamin-size pill acts as an internal thermometer, providing continuous readings of a player’s body temperature, which can be picked up by a sensor placed against the small of the player’s back. Players take the pills a couple of hours before the start of practice, allowing the capsules time to reach an athlete’s small intestine, where core body temperature readings accurate to within 0.1 °C can be taken.

A year after the (Minnesota Vikings player Korey Stringer died of heatstroke, in 2003), Philadelphia Eagles player Tra Thomas was saved from a similar fate during summer training camp when a radio pill reported that he had a core body temperature of 40.9 °C and trainers pulled him off the field. “He hadn’t shown any signs of heat stress,” said Derek Boyko, the Eagles’ director of football media services. “Who knows if, without the device, the training staff would have known he was in danger before it was too late.”

SNL Transcripts: Laura Leighton: 11/18/95:

Home For The Holidays

Time-Life Operator…..Nancy Walls
Steve…..Mark McKinney
Daughter…..Laura Leighton
James…..Jim Breuer
Bobby…..Fred Wolf
Mom…..Molly Shannon
Dad…..Will Ferrell

Time-Life Operator: Hi, I’m Cindy, Time-Life operator! Steve is going to tell you all about our new holiday offer, and then I’ll be back to take your order! See you soon!

Steve: Thanks, Cindy. Yes, the holiday season is here, and many of us head home to be our families. But to those of us who just can’t make it home this year, Time-Life is offering a video collection of all the incredible family fights you’ll miss out on. Yes, these tapes contain all the strained conversations, dysfunctional couplings, and plain old meltdowns that we come to expect during holiday get-togethers. The first video collection contains ten family fights, like these:

[ supers of each one scroll up the screen as Steve reads them ]

“So, tell me, how is sitting in a tent in Peru going to make me feel good about the seventy grand I spent putting you through college?”

“Dad, quit talking to her so much, she’s my girlfriend.”

What made you think you could bring that black man into my house. I don’t give a god G*d damn if he does hear me.”

And this holiday favorite: “Feeling Tipsy.”

[ cut to a Dramatization of this holiday classic, set around the dinner table ]

Daughter: What are you grinning at, James?

James: [ tipsy ] What?! I’m just happy!

Bobby: Yeah, try stoned..

Daughter: Look at you, you look like an idiot, grinning like a jackass. You’re drunk again, aren’t you?

Mom: Alright, who took my cooking sherry?

Dad: [ quiet until now ] That’s it! [ flips his dinner plate and jumps out of his chair ] F**k this! I’m leaving!

Steve Voiceover: And others, like:

[ supers scroll up the screen ]

“We don’t care about the sixties, Mom, the sixties are over! Now you’re all just sad.”

“I’m sorry I, I didn’t mean, I’m sorry I didn’t mean, I’m sorry I didn’t I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it just slipped out.”

“You’ll eat every bite of that dinner your mother cooked, and if you vomit it up, you’ll eat that, too.”

And, “Not Good Enough.”

[ cut to another Dramatization ]

Dad: [ yelling at James ] You screw up everything you put your hands on! You scratched my car..!

James: It was Bobby!

Bobby: [ mimicking ] It was Bobby!

Dad: You’re both pathetic! What’s the point? What’s the damn point?

Daughter: Dad, you wouldn’t know the point if it bit you in the ass.

Dad: That’s it! [ flips his dinner plate and jumps out of his chair ] F**k this! I’m leaving!

Steve Voiceover: Each month, you’ll receive a collection from “Home For the Holidays.” You can cancel at anytime. But don’t miss out, because you’ll also get:

[ supers scroll up the screen ]

“I pierced my ear because I like it. I pierced my nose because I hate you.”

“I thought you said that you’d take care of this dog? I’ll take him out in the backyard right now and shoot him in the f**kin’ head.”

“It’s homosexual, Dad, not faggot. And no, I don’t have to live here.”

And the classic, “Abrupt Eruption.”

[ cut to final Dramatization ]

James: Mom, this turkey is incredible!

Bobby: Yeah, it’s great!

Mom: Thanks, boys! Well, it’s smoked, that’s why it’s so tender.

Daughter: Dad, will you pass the cranberry sauce?

Dad: That’s it! [ flips his dinner plate and jumps out of his chair ] F**k this! I’m leaving!

Steve Voiceover: Here’s Cindy, to tell you more.

[ cut back to Cindy ]

Time-Life Operator: Call the number at the bottom of your screen, and I’ll be standing by to take your order!

SNL Transcripts

A Free Man’s Life: Who Assassinated Gemayel?:

The Unites States, under Bush & Cheney have refused to
1) sign the Kyoto Treaty;
2) strengthen the convention on biological weapons;
3) join the hundred-plus nations that have agreed to ban land mines;
4) ban the use of napalm and cluster bombs;
5) not be subject, as are other countries, to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court
6) start and prolong the perpetual war in afghanistan
7) start and prolong the Iraq Perpetual War.
8) start and prolong Israel’s invasion in Lebanon.
9) and want to bomb Iran.

Accusations Fly After the Pierre Gemayel Assassination:

Accusations Fly After the Pierre Gemayel Assassination

By Andrew McGregor
In the aftermath of the war with Israel, Hezbollah and its allies (the Shiite Amal Party and Christian leader General Michel Aoun) are struggling to depose the Lebanese government of Sunni Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and his March 14 coalition of anti-Syrian Sunni, Druze and Maronite politicians. On November 21, a team of assassins murdered Lebanese Minister of Industry Pierre Gemayel in the streets of a northern Beirut suburb. The latest in a series of assassinations in Lebanon, the murder of the Maronite Christian leader seemed designed to inflame tensions as Lebanon’s political crisis threatens to plunge the country into civil war. It was the attempted assassination of Gemayel’s grandfather and namesake, Sheikh Pierre Gemayel, which sparked Lebanon’s long civil war in 1975.

Gemayel’s death by gunfire was highly unusual in Lebanon, where the preferred method of assassination is the car bomb. A Range Rover or similar vehicle rammed the car Gemayel was driving before a number of gunmen jumped out and began firing handguns equipped with silencers through the driver’s side window, killing Gemayel and a bodyguard. A second bodyguard was seriously wounded. Suspicion for the attack fell on Syria, whose alleged intention was to disrupt the Lebanese government to prevent an investigation by a UN international tribunal into the assassination of Lebanese politician Rafiq al-Hariri in 2005. Rafiq’s son, Sa’ad al-Hariri (leader of the al-Mustaqbal Party), quickly identified Syria as the culprit in the Gemayel killing (al-Mustaqbal, November 22). Later al-Hariri denounced Syria and Israel for wanting civil war in Lebanon and predicted that he and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt were the next targets for assassination (al-Ahram, November 28). Hezbollah’s military wing also claimed the killing was designed to instigate civil war in Lebanon (Moqawama.org, November 19).

Radical factions in Lebanon’s minority Sunni population saw the murder as part of an attempt by the Shiite Hezbollah organization to destroy Sunni political influence in Lebanon. A Sunni group known as the “Mujahideen in Lebanon” claimed that the murder was the work of five Hezbollah members. In a novel view of Lebanon’s political situation, the group accused the Shiites of engineering the insertion of UNIFIL to act as “a buffer” between Lebanese Sunnis and their Palestinian brethren, as well as acting in alliance with “the Crusaders” and Iranian-organized death squads to eliminate the Sunnis in Lebanon (al-Muhajirun, November 16). The group also threatened attacks on the predominantly Shiite southern suburb of Beirut, which it describes as a “pit of unbelief.” A leading Sunni sheikh, Sa’id Harmush, accused Hezbollah of abusing the Sunnis with “acts of robbery, slaughter, humiliation, and expulsion, much more than the Jews have done anywhere” (al-Mustaqbal, November 20). Other radical Sunni websites have urged the “liquidation” of Shiite leaders.

Hezbollah refutes claims that their opposition to the government is religiously inspired. According to Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Na’im Qasim, “we do not demand the prime minister to resign because he is Sunni, but because he represents a political line which we believe makes the country adopt the U.S. position, something which the Sunnis themselves reject” (Asharq al-Awsat, November 22). Amal’s representative in Tehran also asserts that the dispute with the Sunnis over the government is “political and not religious” (Fars News Agency, November 22).

There are signs that al-Qaeda may attempt to exploit the political turmoil to create a violent rift between Lebanon’s Sunni and Shiite populations. A statement originating in the Nahr al-Barid Palestinian refugee camp declared that a group calling itself “Al-Qaeda in Lebanon” was prepared to “destroy this corrupt [Lebanese] government that takes its orders from the U.S. administration” (al-Nahar, November 13). The Mujahideen in Lebanon later claimed that the “al-Qaeda” statement was a fake. The leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, denounced Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah as a “charlatan agent of the anti-Christ” in a statement released by the Ministry of Information of the Islamic State of Iraq. Abu Hamza accuses Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of conspiring with Iran and Hezbollah to recreate “the old Persian Empire.”

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt accuses Syria of sending hundreds of al-Qaeda members to Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps, raising the possibility of Iraq-style sectarian violence and a continuing campaign of political assassinations (Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, November 22). Reports from anti-Syrian factions claim that Syrian President al-Assad sent 200 terrorists to Lebanon from Fatah-Intifada, a Syrian-backed Palestinian group led by Abu Musa, a long-time dissident Palestinian leader. Working out of the camps, the Palestinians are alleged to be preparing the assassination of 36 Lebanese leaders (al-Mustaqbal, November 29; Naharnet/AFP, November 29).

The “Fighters for the Unity and Freedom of al-Sham” claimed responsibility for the assassination in a statement that described Gemayel as an agent working for foreign interests. The statement added that other “agents” would soon “be paid their due” (al-Nahar, November 22). The group (which many Lebanese see as a front for Syrian intelligence) claimed responsibility for the assassinations of anti-Syrian journalists Samir Kassir and Jibran al-Tueni in 2005 (al-Nahar, November 22). Both men were killed by car bombs rather than by gunmen.

Hezbollah and Amal leaders have hinted at a U.S. role in the Gemayel murder, making reference to a parcel addressed to the U.S. embassy in Lebanon that was intercepted by Lebanese Customs at Beirut Airport on February 3. The parcel contained silencers and other high-tech military equipment suitable for a sniper (al-Akhbar, February 3). Prior to Gemayel’s murder, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah asked in a Lebanese TV interview, “Why does the U.S. Embassy need silencers? Is this meant to protect the U.S. Embassy or the Americans who are traveling or residing in Lebanon? Or is this meant to carry out assassinations, which the Americans are speaking about and expecting and which the Israelis are speaking about and expecting?” (al-Manar TV, October 31). U.S. officials denied any knowledge of the shipment, which was sent through the normal post rather than sealed diplomatic bags. The incident suggests premeditation on the part of some group that desired to implicate the United States in coming assassinations.

Unfortunately, Lebanon has become a showcase for covert activities, false-flag operations, provocations and disinformation campaigns. Attempting to pin responsibility for a specific operation is to wade deeply into the dark waters of international intrigue and manipulation. It is perhaps instructive to note that both sides in the struggle for dominance in Lebanon claim that the assassination of Pierre Gemayel benefited the opposing party.

It is difficult to see the advantage for Syria of killing a Lebanese cabinet minister from a U.S.-friendly faction just as Washington and London are moving toward opening a dialogue with Syria over Iraq and other regional issues. At the moment, the U.S. State Department and Pentagon are engaged in an internal struggle over Middle East policy. Syria’s ambassador to the United States pointed to “enemies” of Syria as the responsible parties for the assassination, suggesting their intention was to derail the Syrian-American rapprochement (CNN, November 22). Killing Gemayel would be to risk an opportunity to sweep the al-Hariri tribunal under the carpet and leverage Syria’s support on Iraq into concessions from Israel in the Golan Heights. It is also hard to see how al-Qaeda can successfully insert itself into the complicated Lebanese political structure. The notion of creating an Islamic regime exclusively from Lebanon’s minority Sunni community would be immediately dismissed by most Lebanese Sunnis.

Despite incredible internal and external pressures, Lebanon has not yet burst into sectarian violence. This indicates a maturing of the political process in Lebanon and a general reluctance to rejoin the horrors of civil war, although the crisis could tip over into violence at any moment.

washingtonpost.com, CBSNews.com and Newsweek.com have all added comments to their news story pages in the past few months.

“We felt that it was the most honest and direct way to include our readers, add their perspectives and start conversations,” says CBSNews.com editorial director Dick Meyer. “These were all things we publicly committed to when we launched ‘Public Eye’ and we were dead serious. This is a logical extension of what we started with ‘Public Eye.’ Obviously, the internet is the only news media that can do this is a deep, consistent way. Having said all that, I have some conflicting views of our comments. I am not, and may never be, comfortable publishing hateful and insulting writing, but some comments are just that. Though we try hard to filter out obscenities, racism, personal viciousness and other blatant offense, the line blurs. Many comments have nothing to do with the story at hand. And i know the very existence of comments is off-putting to some readers; to some, they’re clutter and they just don’t care. So my ambivalence with the execution aside, it was the right thing to do.”

EVEN VENERABLE TITLES BELIEVE IN makeovers. That’s why there’s a new New Yorker Web site coming.

A relaunch of the famed weekly publication’s Internet address will appear before the end of February, confirmed a spokesperson for the Conde Nast publication. Web editor Blake Eskin and deputy editor Pamela McCarthy are teaming up to develop the site, and they have invited staffers throughout the publication to offer ideas.

The news originally appeared in yesterday’s WWD, a sister publication to The New Yorker.

A spokeswoman pointedly refused to confirm other details of the story, however–including speculation that the site would include blogs from several of the magazine’s writers, first vetted by its legendary fact-checking network.

She echoed David Remnick, the editor in chief, when he told the fashion title that “the site will reflect the values of the magazine” and “everything is up for grabs.”

Conde Nast acquired the social-news site Reddit in late October, similar to digg.com, with the strategy to integrate its structure into other online properties.

“We’re looking at various ways to leverage the Reddit technology across the various Conde Nast sites,” says Jennifer Miller, a CondeNet spokesperson.

PSoTD

It’s hard to imagine, all that weight they must carry. How often they’ve been wrong, on practically everything, as they supported Bush and the Republican Congress the past 4 years. And all the evidence that piles up, from almost everything related to the long-term disaster we’re in called Iraq, to Iran, to North Korea, to global warming, to national debt, to bad economic signs, to election results. The rest of the world says they’re wrong. Many of them still say the rest of the world is wrong. How very heavy that must be.

They really need a vacation, a long vacation, from blogging. For their own good. It has to be so much harder to blog when you know so much that you’ve said in the past has been disproved or is in the process of being disproven. It must be heavy. It must be sad. It must be tiring.

So… it’s time for America to recommend that many take a break. Instapundit, time to put away the blog for a few months. Althouse, time to write a book or something. Power Line… bon voyage. Take a break. Lift the weight.

by Eric Boehlert

Warbloggers endured a bleak November, watching their political heroes suffer the loss of both houses of Congress, while President Bush’s approval ratings fell toward Nixonian levels, the mainstream media finally conceded the battle for Iraq had broken down into a civil war, and even war architect Donald Rumsfeld was tossed overboard. Everything warbloggers had championed over the past five years — waging war with Islamists and creating a permanent Republican majority inside the Beltway — came undone, and the chronically incorrect warbloggers, angry ideologues who make Sean Hannity look like a man of reason, slipped into the realm of the laughingstock.

Spin Brian Springer:

Artist Brian Springer spent a year scouring the airwaves with a satellite dish grabbing back channel news feeds not intended for public consumption. The result of his research is SPIN, one of the most insightful films ever made about the mechanics of how television is used as a tool of social control to distort and limit the American public’s perception of reality.