Kwanzaa was invented in 1966 – by convicted felon Ron Karenga.
Five years after he invented Kwanzaa, Karenga was sentenced to prison "for torturing two black women by whipping them with electrical cords and beating them with a karate baton after stripping them naked. He placed in the mouth of one of the victims a hot soldering iron, also scarring her face with the device. He put one of her big toes in a vise, and detergent and running water in both their mouths."
At the time he was inventing Kwanzaa, Karenga had also organized a terrorist group at UCLA called "US" (for "United Slaves"). In 1969, Karenga's followers killed two Black Panthers. While he was in prison, Karenga converted to Marxism. This was regarded by California State University at Long Beach as evidence of his being rehabilitated. So they made him director of their black-studies program.
Ah liberalism...don't you love it? Torture and entice to kill...and academia merits you with a department leadership and honors your made up "holiday".
"The Christian is our worse enemy. Quiet as it's kept, it was a Christian who enslaved us. Quiet as it's kept it's a Christian who burns us. Quiet as it's kept it's a Christian who beats us down on the street; and quiet as it's kept when the thing goes down it'll be a Christian that's shooting us down. You have to face the fact that if the Christian is doing all this there must be something wrong with Christianity."
I've missed someone. I know I have. Probably a few of you. Apologies. I'm lousy at sending out Christmas cards...I always receive WAY more than I send. Hopefully the future Mrs. Nigel will help me with that.
Here's another terrific Christmas carol...courtesy of Jeff Dunham and Achmed the Dead Terrorist:
And of course, my favorite Christmas clip ever...let's not forget the real meaning of Christmas. May God's love be with you always:
Media mogul Ted Turner Loch Ness Monster hunter Robert Rines New Zealand Scientist Jim Salinger Zoologist Gordon Rodda University of Texas at Dallas Professor Tom Brikowski Japanese whaling researchers University of Florida's George Burgess Congressman Edward Markey (D-Mass) Explorer Jon Bowermaster Sea life curator Alex Gerrard
All season long, Cleveland Browns fans have been wondering why star receiverlegendary God's-gift-to-football Braylon Edwards has dropped so many passes.
I've given my all to this city for four years, and I realize it will never be enough. I went to the Pro Bowl last year and resurrected this team from the darkness, and nobody cared... My biggest problem is that I actually give a damn. I'm always rushing back from surgeries and injuries, never missing games or practices. But through this, I've learned how to overcome adversity. I'm also proud of how much my foundation has taken off. I've been doing all this community service in Cleveland. My charity efforts will only be in Detroit from now on.
The GREAT Braylon Edwards lets another pass slip through his hands
You know, Braylon...Cleveland fans are an especially forgiving bunch. I predict they will probably just let your little temper tantrum slide...
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) wanted to share with me some critical news regarding the impacts of the recession. Get a load of this crap. I think i'll just chime into this brilliant call to action.
I have released a report detailing the impact of the nation's recession on California's counties and cities. The report, which was based on interviews conducted with officials in 20 cities and all 58 counties, paints a stark picture of the economic strains felt across California. The analysis includes unemployment figures, home foreclosure rates, budget deficits, and first-hand accounts of the impact of the recession.
This report is a reality check on the economy -- things are not good, but change is coming.
Please! Share with us this misery you deal in, Babs.
I am going to focus like a laser beam on saving and creating jobs, which is the backbone of any economy.
Like a "laser beam"? Yeah right! Anyway... You were saying? Government is the backbone of the economy, right?! Of course it is. Just look at what it's done for a fellow Blue State like say, New Jersey! Go on, i'm listening.
The report shows that budget deficits and revenue reductions have forced local government to make cuts in many programs, including public safety programs, Medi-Cal services, mental heath services, meals on wheels, and youth and senior centers.
You speak as if these programs are critical to the survival of our once-thriving state economy.Our esteemed Governator says we need to go on a diet. We have been too flabby for too long.It could kill us all if we don't.
Non-governmental charitable organizations also have been stretched to the brink.
Maybe they would be in better shape if you Democrats gave more to charity. I thought that you were the party that cared more than that other despicable party of fat, wealthy Corporate Raiders.
In addition, critical infrastructure projects are stalled due to financing problems, which limits job growth at a time when unemployment rates are at their highest level in decades.
Right. Building parking lots and sidewalks will make a big dent in those unemployment numbers.
This report shows clearly that action is needed. I am working with Congressional leaders and President-elect Obama on federal economic recovery legislation, including:
Investment to repair and improve existing infrastructure, including roads, bridges, transit and rail;
Increased support for federal programs that support energy efficiency in new buildings and upgrades to existing buildings, which would create jobs;
Changing lightbulbs and HVAC units everywhere will get this economy rolling again.
Investment in water infrastructure projects, including reclamation, reuse, and groundwater cleanup programs that could not only provide new water supplies but also create jobs;
I thought we've already mandated that?Your cohorts in complicity here in our State Legislature rammed it down our throats. Where are those jobs you speak of, Babs? Just 5 years ago the State of Kalifornya doled out $36M for this stuff, 20% greater than the fiscal year before. Are you telling me that it hasn't been enough since? C'mon! You are the Government! You're the most amazingly amazing Congress ever elected in our nation's history.
Increased investment in the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, which awards grants to state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies so they can hire and train law enforcement officers, purchase new crime-fighting technologies, and develop innovative policing strategies;
We all know that hiring more cops has drastically reduced crime, everywhere! How about building more incarceration facilities to keep the scum-bags off of our streets, and enforcing the mandatory sentences be served, in-full!
Providing additional Community Development Block Grants, which help states and local governments to implement plans to address local housing needs and neighborhood stabilization as a result of the foreclosure crisis; and
Bailing out those that had no business getting bank money in the first place. Great idea. Let's just throw some Tax Payer money at the problem and say f@#* accountability.
Increasing the percentage of funding the federal government provides to states for the Medicaid program, which provides health care services for low-income individuals.
Just say it, Babs, UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE. That's what you really mean.
Uhhh.... Just before you sign off here, Babs. Maybe you should stop blowing smoke up everyone's ass here. You want to fix the economy here in California? You want to help create some jobs? Let me throw an obvious suggestion at you:
* Cut the ties with the Special Interest Groups, once and for all. You don't owe them a damn thing. You owe this State your best effort. Tell the Sierra Club, World Wildlife Foundation, and The Surfrider Foundation to stick it up their ass. It's time to acquire our state's greatest resource; OIL! We have plenty of it off the coast, and the technology to get it has never been better and safer than it is now. It's been 40 years since the California State Legislature and the U.S. Federal Government wet the bed over an old oil wound off of our coast. Shut up and drill! Getting us off our continued dependence of foreign oil will allow for the evil Oil Companies to explore for and drill for oil... FOR US! Imagine the number of jobs that would create. The Oil Companies would have to sub-contract a substantial amount of help via the private sector. What's that spell? Joe Biden's favorite 3 letter word, JOBS.
To hear the city's spin, Seattle's road crews are making "great progress" in clearing the ice-caked streets.
But it turns out "plowed streets" in Seattle actually means "snow-packed," as in there's snow and ice left on major arterials by design.
Photo stolen from the Seattle Times
"We're trying to create a hard-packed surface," said Alex Wiggins, chief of staff for the Seattle Department of Transportation. "It doesn't look like anything you'd find in Chicago or New York."
The city's approach means crews clear the roads enough for all-wheel and four-wheel-drive vehicles, or those with front-wheel drive cars as long as they are using chains, Wiggins said.
The icy streets are the result of Seattle's refusal to use salt, an effective ice-buster used by the state Department of Transportation and cities accustomed to dealing with heavy winter snows.
That leaves many drivers, including Seattle police, pretty much on their own until nature does to the snow what the sand can't: melt it.
The city's patrol cars are rear-wheel drive. And even with tire chains, officers are avoiding hills and responding on foot, according to a West Precinct officer.
So Seattle's drivers (and police) must skid around town...or just stay home...because salt it just too expensive?
Not exactly. Seattle's Department of Transportation moron chief Alex Wiggins:
"It's tough going. I won't argue with you on that," he said. But here in Seattle, "we're sensitive about everything we do that impacts the environment."
Chief Wiggins brilliant solution? Use sand. That's gotta be better for placating ecoweenies than salt, right?
"We never use sand," said Ann Williams, spokeswoman for Denver's Department of Public Works. "Sand causes dust, and there's also water-quality issues where it goes into streets and into our rivers."
Time to come clean. The real reason I haven't been blogging lately is my fingers are too freakin' cold to use my laptop's keyboard.
I don't have heat. I live four blocks from the beach...I've never needed it. If it gets a little chilly every now and then, I throw on a sweatshirt or put some socks on.
But this is getting stupid. It is FOURTY FOUR degrees outside in Pacific Beach.
And the deep freeze appears to have frozen some brains in this state. Judge Shellyanne Chang has decided that our kids in California aren't quite dumb enough:
SACRAMENTO — A Sacramento County judge Friday issued a ruling blocking a state plan requiring that all California eighth-graders be tested in algebra.
The ruling sidelines an ambitious mandate approved by the state Board of Education in July after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recommended it over the concerns of California's school superintendent and education groups.
The mandate would make California the first state in the nation to require algebra instruction at such an early level. The Schwarzenegger-appointed board took the step in an effort to meet federal testing requirements or face losing up to $4.1 million in funding.
But the California School Boards Association and the Association of California School Administrators sued in September to try to overturn the requirement. They questioned whether the state had the money, staff and training.
In her ruling Friday, Judge Shelleyanne Chang said she issued a preliminary injunction because the board acted outside its jurisdiction and without public input. She added that plaintiffs would likely win if a trial of the lawsuit goes forward.
David Sanchez, president of the California Teachers Association, said the algebra mandate would require 3,000 more teachers, as well as training another 1,000 teachers who are unprepared or teach other subjects.
Here's a simple concept. Stop teaching crap like global warming and Islam and gay marriage in our public schools and focus on basic skills like...maybe...Algebra. To ask 8th graders to grasp Algebra is not asking too much of them.
Perhaps it IS asking too much of public school systems here in California to drop their liberal agendas and start teaching math.
No...I'm not turning this into a global warming-watch blog. In fact...I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be able to do from now on. But to my four readers...thanks for checking in.
I'll try to update this weekend and let y'all know whazzup...
Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it's thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.
So when it’s hot outside it’s a sign of global warming and when it’s cold outside that actually means that it’s warming even faster than when it’s hot outside.
How do we know when global warming has been halted? When it’s hot outside all the time? That’s the only logic there.
From the people bitching about color-coded terror alerts for 7 years, the environmental fearmongering scale only has one setting - Fire Engine shit your pants, we’re all going to die Red.
Thanks Associated Press “science writer” Seth Borenstein. I’m pretty sure that column counts as the co-pay for a rhetorical hysterectomy administered by an amateur veternarian.
"Who will convince the citizen in Kansas that the U.S. needs to get mixed up in a nuclear war because Haifa was bombed? And what is the point of an American response, after Israel's cities are destroyed in an Iranian nuclear strike?," he said.
I used to live in Kansas so I guess he's asking me. Well, my first thought was, if Haifa is bombed and Israel somehow destroyed in a nuclear assault, it would give us a pretty good excuse to turn that whole dreadful place into a sheet of glass. A very oily sheet of glass.
But the girl from Kansas forgot that she is also a child of God. That "whole dreadful place" is where God planted all of his most precious seeds. I theorize that the devil has a good deal to gain by bubbling up through the sand in the middle east. Spreading lies through false religions and convincing humanity to destroy itself. He takes what we love, the sacred places where Christ walked, and poisons them with religions and governments who thrive and are spread by bloodshed and oppression, and in our desire to stop the insanity we end up strapping a bomb to the chest of our history and destroying the birthplace of our spirits.
Imagine making a pilgrimage to a giant oily sheet of glass, where the brutal unforgiving sun reflects off of the old foundations where the all of the most sacred temples once stood. Where only the roaches are left to worship?
I guess that's why this girl from Kansas cares about Haifa. But I do understand what he's saying. What's the point of an American response after Israel's cities are destroyed in an Iranian nuclear attack? What's the point of anything after that? It would just be suicidal vengeance.
Nigel: OK Mr. (or Ms.) Anonymous commenter. I fixed the spelling errors. Don't be such a dick about it next time.
...for our four readers out there! A shout out to all of you!
I have suffered from blogging burnout. It's temporary, and I should be back typing away when I get this stick out of my ass shortly.
Random thoughts and things I should go ahead and let y'all know...
There is now a future Mrs. Nigel. Yeah, hard to believe that there is a woman out there who can meet my impossibly high standards (she has to like me). And I have hit the future wife lottery. The future Mrs. Nigel is MUCH too pretty for a slob like me, and...believe me I am struggling with this reality...she totally digs on me. And most of all...she loves football!
How could I not marry that woman?
No...really. She exists. I promise it. In fact, I've shared her photo with a few of my blogging buddies...will y'all vouch for me? Someone? Anyone?
Because unlike this blogger, I don't make stuff up just to get attention.
I don't talk about this much...and Lord knows I should...but I am an evangelical Christian. Yeah...I know...my witness as it pertains to this blog pretty much sucks. Still, I have my strong beliefs in Jesus and the Bible. Which is why this doesn't scare me at all.Because this is what is supposed to happen. Israel and Iran going to slug it out soon? You bet your ass they will.
(A shout out to Yiddish...hey bro, ain't no separation of church and blog here, but when it comes to Armageddon I'm getting behind a Jew until Jesus hauls my butt out of here. Cuz' I know God has your back.)
If Sarah Palin doesn't pick Bobby Jindal as her running mate in 2012, she'd be foolish not to pick this guy:
On college football: This BCS thing sucks. I can't think of a single reason why Oklahoma is playing for a national championship while Texas is playing a crappy Fiesta Bowl against Ohio State. Obama is in favor of a playoff system for college football. I might actually vote for him in 2012 if he makes that happen.
OK, but let's say for argument's sake that Texas screwed themselves out of playing for that championship by losing to Texas Tech. Fine. Why the hell aren't they playing Alabama in the Sugar Bowl? If the entire purpose of this BCS bullshit was to create the best games, then why not actually do that?
So what fueled this little outburst? Insomnia. I'm not worried about an Obama Presidency, or the world's economy completely falling apart, or a fighter jet dropping on my house...
Nope. Primarily what is keeping me up is last night's dream where I was in Rupert Holmes' band. I am not making that up. Of course I could have had a dream I was in a cool band like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers or Men Without Hats...but no. Rupert Freakin' Holmes. You know...this one-hit wonder:
I think it's because I've studied our educational system in depth, and realized how much p c crap I've managed to skip by home and private schooling. This Onion video is just too close to reality.
Trying to watch the OJ Simpson sentencing hearing...and empty-headed anchors keep interjecting their inane recaps...as if we are too stupid to understand what is going on.
If I were producing any of these newscasts, I'd kick the anchors out of the newsroom and just let the cameras roll.
But then we all know that Cable News producers are dumbshits anyway, don't we:
Major hat tip to ESPN.com's Bill Simmons for finding this gem...a reminder of how Americans were able to survive four years of Jimmy Carter. By watching four years of bad epic television events like this:
The money quote comes from One Day at a Time's Pat Harrington: