Women’s Underwear for Men

I am afraid that I am going to have to report that Western Civilization has entered its terminal phase. We had a good run but there is no way that a civilization that produces this product can have any hope of lasting. I am referring to a new product made by the lingerie firm HommeMystere, women’s underwear designed to fit men. Here is the story from Metro. There are pictures that go with the article, but I would rather not copy them.

If you’re a man and have ever wanted to dress in women’s lingerie a firm has come up with the perfect product for you.

HommeMystere are hoping their new range of lingerie for males, which includes thongs and padded bras, will change the landscape of men’s underwear.

The Australian firm said their under garments include ‘comfortable men’s panties that really do fit, bra straps that don’t fall off the shoulder, teddies that don’t ride up halfway through the night and quality soft fabrics that feel great for all day wear’.

The label already has a UK seller so men this side of the world can look forward to more ‘enjoyable’ pants.

And the company are keen to stress the garments are not just for gay men.

They added: ‘We provide our lingerie for guys.

‘We are not concerned if you are gay, straight, vegetarian, republican, anglican, martian or any other persuasion.

‘We just design and manufacture attractive luxury underwear for men.’

I guess that is a problem for cross-dressers. Women’s bodies are shaped differently from men’s so the clothes that a cross-dresser wears must not ever fit just right. I can see where there would be a market for this sort of thing. It is too bad Ed Wood never lived to see this.

 

I think he preferred Angora. Maybe HommeMystere could introduce a line of Angora underwear for men.

But, as I said, the fact that there must be something of a demand for these products is disturbing and a sure sign that our civilization is doomed.

 

Related articles

• Lingerie firm launches women’s underwear for men (metro.co.uk)
• Lingerie firm launches a line of women’s lingerie… for dudes (rare.us)
• Lingerie firm launches women’s underwear for men (worldduh.com)
• Oz Firm Launches Women’s Underwear For Men (sweetness-light.com)

Saudi Arabia Deports Irresistible Men

And on a lighter note, I may have to postpone my trip to Saudi Arabia. Evidently they do not want handsome men who Saudi women could fall for in their kingdom. At least that is what this story in the Telegraph says.

The delegates from the United Arab Emirates were in attendance at the Jenadrivah Heritage & Culture Festival in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, when religious police officers stormed the stand and evicted the men because “they are too handsome,” according to the Arabic language newspaper, Elaph.

“A festival official said the three Emiratis were taken out on the grounds they are too handsome and that the Commission [for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vices] members feared female visitors could fall for them,” Elaph reported.

The UAE released an official statement indicating that the religious police were anxious over the unexpected presence of an unnamed female artist in the pavilion.

“Her visit to the UAE stand was a coincidence as it was not included in the programme which we had already provided to the festival’s management,” Saeed Al Kaabi, head of the UAE delegation to the festival, said in a statement.

It was not clear if the woman’s presence was related to the decision to evict the “handsome” Emirati men.

Following the incident, Elaph said the festival’s management took swift action to deport the trio back to Abu Dhabi, capital of the Emirates.

With a majority Sunni Muslim population, Saudi Arabia is a deeply religious and ultraconservative society which forbids women from interacting with unrelated males and refuses to accord them with the same rights as men.

With my irresistible good looks, they probably wouldn’t even let me into the country.

Obviously I am kidding, both about traveling to Saudi Arabia and about my looks.

Related articles

• Saudi Arabia deports ‘irresistible’ men deemed ‘too handsome’ to women (telegraph.co.uk)
• Saudis deport three men for being too handsome (theprovince.com)
• ‘Female visitors could fall for them’: Saudis deport three men for being ‘too handsome’ (news.nationalpost.com)
• Men Deemed ‘Too Handsome’ Deported from Saudi Arabia for Fear They Would Be Irresistible to Women (gawker.com)
• PV companies must understand Saudi Arabia in order to beat competitors (prweb.com) It would be very hard for anyone rational to understand that country.

Time Enough at Last

Time Enough at Last was the title of one of the more memorable Twilight Zone episodes. Perhaps you remember it. Harry Bemis was a bank teller whose one passion in life was reading. Unfortunately, he never had enough time to read. The bank president reprimanded him for reading while waiting on customers. His wife did not let him read at home, preferring a more social lifestyle. The only chance that Harry Bemis really had to read was in the bank vault during his lunch hour.

Time enough at last!

Bemis’s  habit of spending his lunches in the bank vault saves him when a nuclear war breaks out and he finds that he is the only survivor. He becomes lonely and despondent and contemplates suicide until he discovers the ruins of a public library. For the first time in his life, Harry Bemis has all the books he can read and time enough to read them. He eagerly stacks up the books and plans out in what order he will read them, but just as he picks up the first book, he drops his glasses, smashing them and making it impossible to read anything.

Here are the last few minutes of the episode.

You can watch the whole episode here.

It does sometimes seem as if the whole world is conspiring against us readers. Employers frown at us for reading on the job and actually expect us to work. Friends and family keep telling us to go outside in the fresh air and do various recreational activities that do not involve reading. Spouses expect us to take them places and do things with them, even talk. When they are in a romantic or amorous mood, they expect us to waste valuable reading time with sex.

Modern technology has made things a little better. Audiobooks allow us to “read” while driving or engaging in some activity. If you wear earphones, non-readers assume you’re listening to music. The invention of e-books has helped considerably. A Kindle is portable and easily concealed. We can carry whole libraries around with us to read at odd moments. I find that carrying a Kindle is a lot more convenient that the old method of carrying stacks of books. Even better, Amazon has apps for the iPhone and Android which allow you to read your Kindle books. We can read and non-readers think we are working and texting.

Still, there is never enough time for us readers to read as much as we would like. How nice it would be if there were some apocalyptic event which would destroy civilization. Sure, there would be a death toll in the millions and things would be really awful, but think of all the time we would have for reading.

There is one problem though. If there were a nuclear war or something, I doubt that electricity would be available. Without electricity to charge them, our Kindles, Nooks, and smart phones would quickly turn into expensive paperweights. Then we would end up staring at blank screens muttering, “It’s not fair”, just like poor Harry Bemis.

 

Related articles

• Kindle Obsession (ellelainey.wordpress.com)
• K: 3 Reasons I Love the KINDLE Especially When my Shoulder Was Broken (plus 5 more reasons) (fruitfulwords.wordpress.com)
• What Rod Serling, The Dude and Russell Baker Taught Me About Making Time To Read (anempoweredspirit.com)

Could He Be…Satan?

Since I don’t have cable I haven’t been able to watch the History Channel mini-series The Bible. I’ve read the book, so I already know how it ends. They’ve introduced Satan in a recent episode and viewers were struck by the actor’s uncanny resemblance to President Obama.

I am sure there is a perfectly good explanation for the resemblance.

If Barack Obama is, in fact, the Devil, that would explain a lot.

Related articles

• Does ‘Bible’s’ Satan look like President Obama? (todayentertainment.today.com)
• Outrage As ‘The Bible’s’ Satan Resembles President Barack Obama (contactmusic.com)Who’s outraged? It makes perfect sense to me.
• Why does the devil in ‘The Bible’ look exactly like President Obama? (calvinistview.com)

Lack of Swordsmen

They are progressing in Saudi Arabia. Soon they’ll join the eleventh century. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sometimes it is hard to find good people to do a difficult and demanding job. For example, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia may have to resort to firing squads to execute murderers and sorcerers since there is starting to be a shortage of swordsmen to behead criminals.

Is this what progress looks like in Saudi Arabia? The kingdom is considering ending execution by beheading in favor of firing squads, reports the Egyptian English-language news website Ahram Online. A committee consisting of representatives from the Ministries of Interior, Justice and Health says there are shortages in government swordsmen and argue that a change to execution by firing squad would not violate Islamic law, the Saudi daily newspaper al-Youm writes. According to an official statement from the committee, “This solution seems practical, especially in light of shortages in official swordsmen or their belated arrival to execution yards in some incidents.”

I have to wonder, how hard can the job be? It’s not like brain surgery where precision is needed, just a stroke at the neck. It can’t be a highly skilled job or one that demands much education. I imagine that it would be desirable to behead the victim with one stroke and that might take practice. You don’t want the person executed to be just lying there screaming as the executioner whacks away over and over.

I wonder if the Saudi government provides the sword, or would you have to use your own? Do they have regular inspections to make sure the swordsmen keep their sword properly sharpened? What about laundry bills from blood spatters? Maybe they get a special uniform. It might be interesting to be able to tell people at a gathering that you are a beheader, or is this the sort of job that makes people not want to have anything to do with you?

Kidding aside, I suppose this is progress, of a sort. Personally, I am less concerned about the death penalty than Saudi standards of jurisprudence.

Execution by beheading in Saudi Arabia has continually been condemned by human-rights groups. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), at least 69 people were executed by beheading in 2012, while Amnesty International says 79 were killed under the death penalty in the same period. In 2012 HRW wrote, “Saudi Arabia has no penal code, so prosecutors and judges largely define criminal offenses at their discretion.” Rape, murder, armed robbery, drug trafficking and even suspected “sorcery” are punishable by death under Saudi Arabia’s Islamic law.

The Saudi death penalty recently made headlines following the execution of Rizana Nafeek, a young Sri Lankan woman who was beheaded for the murder of her employers’ 4-month-old son. Nafeek arrived in Saudi Arabia in 2005 at age 17 but spent the next seven years in Saudi jails after the baby died under her care, writes CNN. The family of the boy believed he had been strangled by Nafeek, while she claimed he had choked on his milk. The young Sri Lankan immigrant had no access to a lawyer during her pretrial interrogation during which she said she was forced to sign a confession, notes CNN. The execution of this young woman revealed how “woefully out of step they [the Saudi justice system] are with their international obligations regarding the use of the death penalty,” said Philip Luther from Amnesty International. It highlighted how Saudi law tends to treat children as adults in criminal cases even though international law prohibits the death penalty for crimes committed before the age of 18, writes HRW.

I don’t mind the idea of chopping people’s heads off so much, but I would like proof beyond a reasonable doubt that they actually are guilty of a crime.

Related articles

• A Lack of Swordsmen May Lead Saudis to Abolish Beheadings (world.time.com)
• Lack of Swordsmen May Lead Saudis to Abolish Beheadings (world.time.com)
• Saudis rethink beheadings amid swordsmen shortage (foxnews.com)
• Saudi Arabia Considers Halt On Beheadings . . . Due To Shortage of Swordsmen (jonathanturley.org)

Moby Dick

I have been reading Herman Melville‘s classic whale tale lately. Actually I have been listening to the audio book created by Librivox. If you are not familiar with Librivox, it is a library of digital recordings of books read by volunteers. All of the books read are in the public domain and are provided for free. I have thought about volunteering myself, but I imagine that all of the good books are taken by now, and anyway, I don’t have the time.

But, getting back to Moby Dick. I am only about half way through it and I find the story to be exciting. Unfortunately, Melville interrupts the action with long discourses on various aspects of whaling. The information he provides in interesting but it is a little tedious and distracting. I noticed that Victor Hugo did the same sort of thing with Les Miserables. I wonder if that is a regular feature of nineteenth century literature.

I actually don’t think that Captain Ahab is that crazy to want to hunt down and take revenge on the white whale that chewed his leg off. I have sometimes wished that I could hunt and kill every deer in North America for the damage they have done to various cars over the years. It might seem irrational to want revenge against animals acting on instinct, but I am convinced the deer are acting with a malicious purpose. What other explanation could there be for the way they jump out in front of my car.

English: Illustration from an early edition of Moby-Dick (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

All the same, I think I am going to have to side with the whale. Considering that Captain Ahab was trying to kill the whale, and had already killed many other whales, perhaps even Moby Dick’s companions, I would say that the whale was acting in self defense. Besides, while I do not usually get overly sentimental about animals or nature, I do not think that I would be willing to kill an animal as majestic and powerful as a whale.

By the way, Kahn in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, quotes from Moby Dick as he hunts down Kirk. They changed the locations that Khan names to sound more “science fictionish” but the last words are the same. I imagine that the intent was to present Khan as man obsessed with vengeance, just as Ahab was.

 

Related articles

• “I turn my body from the sun” (Moby-Dick) (biblioklept.org)
• There Are Whales Living Now That Were Born Before Moby Dick Was Written (tor.com)
• “Ahab never thinks; he only feels, feels, feels” (Moby-Dick) (biblioklept.org)

We’re All Doomed

As if the recent near miss by an asteroid and the actual impact in Russia were not enough, we have even more to worry about. Asteroids may be deflected. We could conceivably colonize other planets if something were to happen to the Earth, but what could we possibly do if the whole universe is destroyed? Yet that is a terrifying possibility, if the latest theories on the higgs boson turn out to be true. The higgs boson is believed to be the reason why matter has mass in the universe, and it would seem that the higgs boson is just the right mass to make the entire universe unstable, causing it all to destroy itself. I read the story at yahoo news.

A subatomic particle discovered last year that may be the long-sought Higgs boson might doom our universe to an unfortunate end, researchers say.

The mass of the particle, which was uncovered at the world’s largest particle accelerator — the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva — is a key ingredient in a calculation that portends the future of space and time.

“This calculation tells you that many tens of billions of years from now there’ll be a catastrophe,” Joseph Lykken, a theoretical physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., said Monday (Feb. 18) here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

“It may be the universe we live in is inherently unstable, and at some point billions of years from now it’s all going to get wiped out,” added Lykken, a collaborator on one of the LHC’s experiments. [Gallery: Search for the Higgs Boson]

The Higgs boson particle is a manifestation of an energy field pervading the universe called the Higgs field, which is thought to explain why particles have mass. After searching for decades for proof that this field and particle existed, physicists at the LHC announced in July 2012 that they’d discovered a new particle whose properties strongly suggest it is the Higgs boson.

For example, the mass of the new particle is about 126 billion electron volts, or about 126 times the mass of the proton. If that particle really is the Higgs, its mass turns out to be just about what’s needed to make the universe fundamentally unstable, in a way that would cause it to end catastrophically in the far future.

That’s because the Higgs field is thought to be everywhere, so it affects the vacuum of empty space-time in the universe.

“The mass of the Higgs is related to how stable the vacuum is,” explained Christopher Hill, a theoretical physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. “It’s right along the critical line. That could either be a cosmic coincidence, or it could be that there’s some physics that’s causing that. That’s something new, which we didn’t know before.”

Strikingly, if the Higgs mass were just a few percent different, the universe wouldn’t be doomed, the scientists said.

Oh, tens of billions of years from now. Well, maybe I won’t worry too much about it after all.

Related articles

• Higgs boson find may spell doom for universe (foxnews.com)
• Higgs Boson Particle May Spell Doom For the Universe (livescience.com)
• An ‘alternative universe’ will eventually destroy ours, says Higgs researcher (io9.com)
• Higgs boson particle may spell doom for the universe (mnn.com)
• Higgs Boson Points to End of Whole Universe (escapistmagazine.com)
• Higgs may spell doom, unless supersymmetry saves us (newscientist.com)
• The End Is Nigh Billions of Years Away: Higgs Discovery Might Suggest Universe is Finite (geekosystem.com) Repent for the end is near!!!
• Will Higgs boson doom the universe? (upi.com)

 

Church for Atheists

This sounds a bit like the old joke about an atheist at his funeral: all dressed up and no place to go, but it seems to be real enough. I read about the first church for atheists at wnd.com.

It’s believed to be the first “atheist church” and it is scheduled to hold its first “service” on Sunday in London, according to a report from The Christian Institute.

“Stand-up comedians Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans, who are behind the ‘church,’ say they like many aspects of religion but don’t believe in God,” the Institute reported yesterday.

So no problem. They’ve created plans for now for a once-a-month meeting for those who, well, don’t believe.

“We thought it would be a shame not to enjoy the good stuff about religion, like the sense of community, just because of a theological disagreement,” Jones said in a report by the Institute.

The result? “It’s part atheist church and part foot-stomping show. There will be a speaker on a theme each month but there will also be an awesome house band, which Pippa will lead. We’ll be helping people try and stick to their new year’s resolutions in the first service.

Actually, if they want the “good stuff” about religion without the trouble of believing in a deity, they need not go through all the effort of founding their own church. All they really have to do is join the nearest Unitarian Universalist congregation. There, they will find a church where belief in God is optional. Or, since this is in London England, they should just join the Anglicans. They really don’t believe in much of anything these days except, perhaps, the desirability of Britain adopting Sharia law.

Seriously, though, I am not sure if Pippa Evans and Sanderson Jones are going to find what they are looking for. There are many churches of various denominations that have become little more than social clubs and in which God is rarely mentioned, except as a sort of cosmic security blanket. These churches that make no demands on their members, whether of faith or standards seem not to flourish. If this Atheist Church is little more than a place for atheists to get together and talk about how wonderful it is not to believe in God, than I don’t expect much to come of it.

Related articles

• 1st church for atheists opens Sunday (wnd.com)
• UK’s First Atheist Church Set To Open Tomorrow (mediaite.com)
• 1st church for atheists opens Sunday (conservativebyte.com)
• English Atheists Go To Church (disinfo.com)

 

Hammer Control

Deadly weapon

 

According to the FBI more people are killed with hammers and clubs than rifles. I read this article about it at Breitbart.com.

 

According to the FBI annual crime statistics, the number of murders committed annually with hammers and clubs far outnumbers the number of murders committed with a rifle.

This is an interesting fact, particularly amid the Democrats’ feverish push to ban many different rifles, ostensibly to keep us safe of course.

However, it appears the zeal of Sens. like Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) is misdirected. For in looking at the FBI numbers from 2005 to 2011, the number of murders by hammers and clubs consistently exceeds the number of murders committed with a rifle.

Think about it: In 2005, the number of murders committed with a rifle was 445, while the number of murders committed with hammers and clubs was 605. In 2006, the number of murders committed with a rifle was 438, while the number of murders committed with hammers and clubs was 618.

And so the list goes, with the actual numbers changing somewhat from year to year, yet the fact that more people are killed with blunt objects each year remains constant.

For example, in 2011, there was 323 murders committed with a rifle but 496 murders committed with hammers and clubs.

While the FBI makes is clear that some of the “murder by rifle” numbers could be adjusted up slightly, when you take into account murders with non-categorized types of guns, it does not change the fact that their annual reports consistently show more lives are taken each year with these blunt objects than are taken with Feinstein’s dreaded rifle.

Another interesting fact: According to the FBI, nearly twice as many people are killed by hands and fists each year than are killed by murderers who use rifles.

 

We have to adopt reasonable restrictions on the possession and use of hammers and clubs. I suggest that only registered contractors be permitted to own hammers. It may be a bit inconvenient if you need to hammer a nail or something, but we must do something to end this horror.

 

By the way, I am almost afraid to post this. It is just possible that Mayor Bloomberg or Diane Feinstein will happen upon this post and take it seriously.

 

And since I am talking about gun control, I might as well mention this article by Dylan Byers at Politico. He observes that the conversation over gun control sparked by the Sandy Hook shooting entirely ceased after two weeks.

 

On the day of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn., we published a chart showing the Sisyphean nature of the national gun control discussion. In the immediate aftermath of a shooting, such as the one that took place in Aurora, Colo., mentions of the term “gun control” spike in the news media. In a matter of days, that discussion all but disappears.

This time was supposed to be different. “It is hard to believe this will not be a watershed moment when we start to talk about, deal with and even perhaps legislate on guns,” ABC News’s Z. Byron Wolf wrote. He was one among many in the media who believed the momentum for gun control legislation was strong enough to turn the tide on a familiar pattern.

Blame it on the fiscal cliff, blame it on Christmas, blame it on our ability to forget, but the national discussion about gun control has once again ebbed. Mentions of the term “gun control” on television, in newspapers, and in online media are down to pre-Sandy Hook levels, according to the Nexis database.

 

Here is the graph.

 

 

The reason the discussion was dropped was because the conversation wasn’t going the way the media wanted it to go.

 

Related articles

 

• FBI: More People Killed with Hammers & Clubs Than Rifles (ammoland.com)
• FBI: More People Killed with Hammers, Clubs Each Year than Rifles (breitbart.com)
• FBI: More People Murdered Annually With Hammers And Clubs Than Rifles (patdollard.com)
• Our Lesson Again Boys And Girls ? It’s Not About Guns , It’s About Control (youviewed.com)
• Our Lesson Again Boys And Girls ? It’s Not About Guns , It’s About Control (genomega1.wordpress.com)

 

Pay Raise for Biden and Congress

He got a raise.

It’s nice to know that Vice-President Joe Biden and Congress will be receiving well deserved pay raises for all the hard work they have been doing for us. I read about this in the Weekly Standard.

President Barack Obama issued an executive order to end the pay freeze on federal employees, in effect giving some federal workers a raise. One federal worker now to receive a pay increase is Vice President Joe Biden.

According to disclosure forms, Biden made a cool $225,521 last year. After the pay increase, he’ll now make $231,900 per year.

Members of Congress, from the House and Senate, also will receive a little bump, as their annual salary will go from $174,000 to 174,900. Leadership in Congress, including the speaker of the House, will likewise get an increase.

Here’s the list of new wages, as attached to President Obama’s executive order:

I don’t now. Personally, I think that at some point you have made enough money and when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody. Maybe the president will spread some of his wealth around to me.

By the way, have you ever noticed that the people who rail about the wealthy the most seem to be among the wealthiest themselves?

Related articles

• Obama Orders Pay Raise for Biden, Members of Congress, Federal Workers (weeklystandard.com)
• Obama Orders Pay Raise for Biden, Members of Congress, Federal Workers (redalertpolitics.com)
• While the Rest of the Country Suffers… Obama Gives Joe Biden and Congress a Raise (thegatewaypundit.com)
• Obama orders end to FED pay freeze (jbsanctuary.wordpress.com) Because they are all so underpaid.