Slate's designated blogboy Bill Saletan is hoist by his own keyboard tonight. He begins to tell his tale according to the voices in his head by slamming Senator Bill Frist for a slip of the tongue:
Frist opens with a Dole-esque gaffe of his own. His prepared text accuses some Democrats of not wanting "seniors" to participate in the drug program. Frist accidentally calls them "senators." This slip takes place just as Frist is about to accuse Democrats of caring more about politics than patients. Evidently it's Frist who has politics on his mind.But Frist is not the only one having trouble with his mode of expression tonight. Just a bit down the page Saletan writes:
"Elizabeth Dole delivers the fist significant speech of the night."Frist, First, Fist... it's all the same when we rely on our spell checkers rather than our brains, isn't it Bill?
But then, maybe he meant it. I missed Dole's speech. Maybe it had a lot of punch.
With all the hoopla and the crowds swarming over the sidewalks of New York like the world's largest unleashed antfarm, it surprises me that no enterprising soul has tried to gin up some meaningful souvenirs to palm off on delegates and demonstrators alike.
Here's two quickies that would probably sell out the sidewalk book tables in no time. And, because they're books, you don't need a license to hawk them:
Something for the Delegates to Take Home
Something for the Demonstrators to Take Home
My father-in-law, Bob, forwards this hint with the message, "We've got to try this sometime." Okay, but he goes first.
This only applies to cars that can be unlocked by that remote button on your key ring. Should you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are home, and you don't have "OnStar," here's your answer to the problem!UPDATE: Department of "If it seems too good to be true it was forwarded email." An alert reader in the comments points out that Snopes has already debunked this with an entry that gives you all you need to know about automobile unlocking systems. Excerpt:If someone has access to the spare remote at your home, call them on your cell phone (or borrow one from someone if the cell phone is locked in the car too!)
Hold your (or anyone's) cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the other person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the phone.
Your car will unlock. and it works. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other "remote" for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk, or have the "horn" signal go off, or whatever!)
"Relaying remote entry system signals via telephone might work if the signals were sound-based, but they're not. An RKE system transmits an encrypted data stream to a receiver inside the automobile via an RF (radio frequency) signal, a signal that can't be effectively relayed via cell phone.... We don't know whether whoever created this message was deliberately joking or earnestly mistaken, but the vision of stranded motorists vainly holding cell phones up to their cars in the hopes of unlocking them is an amusing one.I certainly hope my father-in-law didn't talk my mother-in-law into trying this.
What is this? Bash the Bush kids night? Almost every blogger on the right that I bring up is dumping all over the Bush Twins this evening.
People need to get a firm grip on the mouse before they select "Save." This pusillanimous dogpiling is lame, halt and betrays a lack of anything substantive to say. The main thing there is to say is short and sweet: "We're not voting on the kids this year so it really doesn't matter."
That's it, but can we stop? No. The Corner's kvetching -- with Goldberg and Lopez in a cross-posting liplock. The cable pundits are ranking on them from wild rank to medium to mild as you tune from CNN to MSNBC to Fox. You can hear the New York Times sending out The Gang of Four to sober up Maureen Dowd. Even the usually well-balanced Reynolds and Roger Simon are throwing brickbats at these feckless 22-year-olds. (Although Reynolds has been bringing in some other reactions that even this out -- that's why he's valuable.)
I shudder to think what's going on at IndyMedia and other moonbat breeding and roosting farms. We can expect their heads grafted onto various obscene poses and bodies within the hour.
Little wonder their parents keep them out of it.
Everybody just needs to hit the brakes and stop this frantic blogeration over every little nit that pops up for picking at the convention. There is bigger game to be bagged and bigger issues to illuminate than the question of how good, bad, sharp, lame, or indifferent a couple of cloistered 22-year-old girls are when trotted out onto a stage in front of the nation.
I seriously doubt that 1.5% of the ladies and gentlemen blasting their bits across the Net tonight could come off one tenth as well.
This is not to say we saw the reincarnation of Winston Churchill as the Doublemint Twins tonight. It's only to say that , for crying out loud, they are twenty-two years old and have the general mental furniture of most twenty-two year olds.
They came out, they said their lines, they said "Hi" to Grandma, they introduced their Dad and they exited. No big thrill? Well, so what?
Not every moment can be a perfect gem, folks.
France Offers Terrorists Historic Compromise
Cox & Forkum: C'est l'appeasement
Speaking from the Elysee Palace in Paris today, President Jacques Chirac announced that, in accordance with its finest military traditions, France was prepared to meet the abductors of its citizens halfway over the Muslim Headscarf issue.
"After extensive consultations with everyone who has worked with France in expanding the horizons of graft in the Middle East over the last fifty year," M. Chirac said, "We have come up with a solution to this unfortunate misunderstanding among friends and equals. We trust that this solution not only underscores our committment to dialogue but also our willingness to seek non-agressive solutions to seemingly insoluble problems.
"France, a proud nation, cannot negotiate with Terrorists. It can, however, move its government to the South of France and re-examine the options. There is ample precedent for this.
"After examining the regulations restricting the wearing of religous symbolism in France's schools, we have decided to compromise by rescinding the ban on headscarfs, but keeping the ban on the Crucifix, the Star of David, and the Yamulke in place.
"Okay? Thanks. Let's eat."
Whenever I am about to join my fellow citizens in the Totalitarian Theme Park called "Commercial Aviation," I like to feel I have everything under control. This is because when we submit ourselves to commercial aviation we surrender all control and pay for the privilege as well.
Whenever I'm going out for a day of fun and frivolity in the air transport system, I like to be packed, ready and at the airport early. Early arrival for late departure is necessary to savor the experience of shuffling along in the black and white reel of the Apple Macintosh Superbowl commercial, knowing that every female athlete that can throw a hammer into my reality screen is busy rolling around in the sand with her partner at the Beach volleyball finals in Athens. Still, it is important to get to the airport early wearing loafers or flip-flops. The airport is our new national ritual in which we celebrate our "freedom from fear." Naturally, I got to the airport late.
At her pre-dawn gym session, my wife had the first of a number of minor mishaps which would plague our "summer vacation." As she pulled hard on the supersized rubber bands she uses for stretching exercises, one band slipped off her foot and, obeying the laws of extension physics, snapped across her torso and directly into her eye. The sound of the impact was enough to bring the slaves of the stairmaster to a halt in mid-step.
Pain, icepacks, swelling and an emergency call to the optometrist were next. At the time where we would normally be wondering if we were going to win the body-cavity search Lotto or settle for just a light wanding of our toes, we were waiting for the optometrist to determine if a retina had detached and surgery would be our major vacation activity.
After long minutes manipulating her bizarre machines in her darkened room, the optometrist determined that it was "probable" that the eye was not severely damaged and, while my wife would see a host of gnats, dots, and translucent islands floating about in her vision for some time, no surgery would be required. We were grateful for her skill, care and her mojo vibrating out of her four inch gold broach spelling out "Jesus" in rubies. You take the edge you can get. I asked my wife if we should stop off and get her a pirate's eye patch because it would make her look hot and we could say "Arrgh!" to each other. She told me to put the hammer down and get to the airport.
"Pulling into "John Wayne..." (I love to say that I fly out of "John Wayne International." It seems so masculine even though a friend of mine is in the fifth year of trying to convince me that John Wayne was gay -- "The walk. The real name... Marion. The butch cowboy gear and that little bandana. The
Continued...It would seem that, while I was out, the Republicans have cunningly decided to convene in New York City and thereby suck everything loose in the United States onto that island. Over the past day, visiting a number of moonbat habitats, I've been amused to see that many are getting themselves thrown into the hoosegow in record numbers, and whining about it when they are forced to sleep on a floor that lacks a futon.
Sigh. Kids today just don't have the courage of their convictions. Indeed, it would seem that they believe that if you make yourself obnoxious enough to be arrested in a high-security, high risk, high-terror zone, you should be let off with a warning instead of spending the night in unpleasant circumstances. It must be all that self-esteem boosting they get in school. How cruel when life hands out jail time instead of a chiding word from the teacher.
I actually read one complaint where the person ranting seemed to think, to seriously think, these whack-jobs were being subjected to Gulagesque police state tactics. Others were whining that they may have been exposed to toxic chemicals during the hours spent pent in a bus station.
Weak little whippersnappers all. When I was helping invent and perfect the street demonstations back in Berkeley in the Sixties, those snapped up by the cops met the concrete with great regularity. Some, during the memorable People's Park riots were actually shot by Oakland's finest. One, as I recall, was shot dead. None whined about exposure to toxic chemicals. We just wrapped our shirts over out mouths, doused them with water, ran out and threw the tear-gas back at the cops. Ah, those were the days!
Today, however, the stakes are larger. Much larger. Here's an item from my archives that proposes a little scenario for killing off a lot of people in New York City with just four determined men. None of these men seems to be the sort to waltz around naked or take their $2,000 mountain bike for a spin.
How likely is this scenario from earlier this year? Well, this week the authorities did bust a couple of middle-eastern gentlemen for planning to blow up the 34th Street Subway Station. I know that station well. I went into it twice a day for several years.
In the wake of the Spanish outrage, an email asks what it would take for the global terrorists to take the next step in the United States.
It turns out that, as in Spain, it wouldnt take much at all. Heres what youd need and how it could be done. But it is just one way. There are many.
Continued...Back in the Jar!
STONE SOUP MEETS GOLDILOCKS as told by Paul Shlichta at
The American Thinker
[T]he concept of the spontaneous origin of the first cell is on very shaky ground. You must start by making a quasi-primordial soup, rich in amino acids and other building blocks of life, as Stanley Miller and Harold Urey did in the 1950's. Then you must somehow stir it and shake it until the components spontaneously assemble to form long chains of DNA, RNA, proteins, and numerous other macromolecules—with all of the multi-thousand amino acid sequences exactly right and mutually compatible. Then you must continue stirring until the macromolecules sort themselves out into the proper groups and somehow surround themselves with membranes, with just the right sort of ion transport properties, to form organelles such as a nucleus, lysosomes, ribosomes, mitochondria, and all the other cellular components. Then you must keep stirring until all these organelles pack themselves into a cell membrane, with just the right composition of fluid in it. You have only a few billion years to shake up all these dice and have them all come up right at the same place and time.. Ready, set, go, and good luck -- but I don't think you're going to succeed. However, if you think this scenario is scientifically plausible, then sit down and start calculating probabilities.
"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings."
(Sung a la Neil Young:)
"There you stood
on the edge of forever,
expecting to fly...."
These days
Every day
Is a Great Day
Not to fly.
These days
Every day
You have to fly
Is one day
Filed under "Well, what fresh Hell is this?"
These days
Every day
You choose to fly
Is one day dedicated
To getting terminal in the terminal where you can check in but never leave.
These days
You get confused
Stuck in the terminal
Wandering and wondering
When it was that Yoko Ono began to look like every other old Japanese woman you see waiting in that terminal.
These days
It's a good thing
Everyone terminalized
Is unarmed....
except, of course, "Security" which, these days, is securing everybody obviously not Islamic and patting down that fat Hoosier over there, yeah, the threatening one with Down's syndrome drooling in his tinfoil wheelchair, or paging Two-Ton Tessie, the bull dyke who last found work with William Burrough's Naked Lunch Freight Lines humping ten tons of toilets over the Great Divide and down into Joplin, M. O., with her patented dual-control dildo, Steely Dan, as her only companion until she washed up here in this Federally-funded program for lifetime pervert employment that gives her a whole new career here at the Terminal, even though she's older now with prolapsed kidneys giving her an itch and a drip and a bad attitude which she employs when she steps in from her meth break to secure Grandma Moses with a polite, "Stand up, spread 'em, up against the clear plastic wall, y'all, and feel my big steel wand slide beeping up one thigh and down the other, over and under your withered jugs , you don't mind, do you, Grandma, well do you punk?," while Abdul, Achmad and the Mugwump sail on by to the Sky Club to take over the sauna until plane time chatting about how fortunate it was they kept that Polaroid of Tom Ridge and Achmad in the back of a Buick 6 up on Lover's Leap in 1996 angled just so you can see Achmad giving Tom his special wink as he performs his special trick called "Swallow My Sword and say 'Allah Akbar,' my beloved Infidel."
These days
I suppose
It was only a matter
Of time until
They started stripping off everything but your shoes, yanking out your gold fillings that were beeping the machine, sanitizing their blue steel wands, and whispering to the eagerly shuffling line,
"Your flight is boarding now
We've upgraded you all to first class.
Step right up for your cavity search.
This way, citizens, this way to the gas."
These days
If you're expecting to fly,
Just make dead sure
Old Yoko Ono boards first.
"I can't play in the senior tournaments anymore, because there is no one in my age category."
"YOU LIVE LONG ENOUGH and you get noted just for showing up," said my mother when commenting on her recent appearance in her home town paper, The Chico Enterprise.
I've written about this remarkable woman before ( "My Mother at Ninety " ) but I'm putting this story in here so people can see I don't admire her just because she's my mom.
=====
A little tennis, volunteering, travel ...
BY MARY NUGENT -- Staff Writer
Lois Van der Leun plays tennis, volunteers at an elementary school, plays bridge and wears a stylish haircut. At Chico Racquet Club, everyone greets her and kids around with her. She is one of the club's founding members.
Van der Leun is 90 years old. People say she is unusual for her age, but to Van der Leun, she's just living her life.
One hot Thursday morning after a couple of hours of tennis, she sips iced tea and talks with the E-R about her life.
"I have good genes. My mother lived to be 99 and her niece was 107. I have relatives
Continued...WANT TO GET YOUR KID TO MOW THE LAWN? Just buy one of these.
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"If this information is correct, then, by inference, John McCain emerges as the most likely suspect as agent provocateur." -John McCain as Agent Provocateur in the Georgia/Russia Crisis? Allen LichtmanI just love it when they punch in that little question mark right at the end, don't you? That way when the lunacy is revealed the claim is, "Who me? I was just asking a question." Lichtman's "questions" are of course followed at the end by a host of demands: "McCain must explain... must explain...." McCain must reveal...." "The American people deserve no less...." We're sure Senator McCain will be getting right back to you on that, Professor. Stay by your phone. Sadly, this heap of Pecksniffian innuendo is brought to you via "The Britannica Blog - Where Ideas Matter." Another example of runaway brand deflation. Lichtman is more at home on the odious Counterpunch.org where conspiracies go to die. There he also brings you When General Petraeus Speaks, Don't Listen ... and explains why he's just like Martin Luther King except that he's white, Allan Lichtman: Letter from the Baltimore County Jail. Lichtman, for whom it will always be 1968, has also committed a book to showcase his deeper obsession, “White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement,” which is ably eviscerated by David Frum HERE. All of which proves once again that the groves of academe now contain vast forests of petrified wood.
Guess the missing choice ... perhaps somewhere under "Other." Vote at the link.
Update: Perhaps the small mistake caused "The Speculist" to vanish the poll. Up this AM, gone now. Still visible at the link... for now.
"Yesterday, Senator Obama got a little testy on this issue," McCain is set to say at a town hall in New Mexico. "He said that I am questioning his patriotism. Let me be clear: I am not questioning his patriotism; I am questioning his judgment."...you can't complain when your opponent hits you 350 yards down the middle of the fairway....
"Oprah can rest well now knowing that her dogs will not have to pay inheritance tax over the next four years if she dies. However, in 2012, when dean pelosi and the rest of the traitors are out of jobs, and Hillary again runs for president, wins, and changes inheritance taxes to cover health care costs, we will have a nice drink to the end of the Oprah Winfrey "pray to angels instead of protest injustice" method of female stinkthink. My great hope is that the green party will have overrun the democratic party by that time, and made its entire platform green instead of corporate controlled. I am voting for cynthia mckinney for president." - Rosanne Barr AKA "Chunky"Would the last person out of Roseanne's room please remember to empty her drool cup?
“I think that the ‘Free Tibet’ banner was my favorite part,” said the anonymous Politburo leader. “If anyone did suspect our lies, that really would have thrown them off.” - The Naked Loon
"Africa should make more use of the skills of its nomadic peoples to help combat the challenges of climate change, the aid agency Oxfam says." -- BBC NEWS | Africa | Maasai 'can fight climate change'
In 2003 I left earth aboard the Mars Rover, Spirit. Seven months later I arrived on Mars. Prior to departing earth, I deposited the amount of US$ 11,600,000 (Eleven million, six hundred thousand United States dollars) in four safety galvanized boxes in a European financial institution which will be disclosed to you upon your acceptance of my proposal.... Last year, during the course of my research on Mars, I was ambushed by a group of analdwelling rebel Martians who inflicted great torturous pain upon my body with anal probes." -- Blame it on the voices
"The Democrats wanted a cigar-chomping populist who could portray the Republicans as elitists who stomped on the Joe little-guy. Once again they got a flashier version of a John Edwards-John Kerry-Al Gore preachy liberal, who whines about the price of arugula and thinks stepping off a jet in shades and polo shirts is an Esquire photo-op." -- Victor Hanson, Victory Laps for the Hare, as the Tortoise Crawls On
Russian General Vyachislav Borisov in Gori, Georgia: "We summoned the Israeli Foreign Minister to Moscow. And he was told that if he continues to supply arms to the Georgians we would continue to supply Hezbollah and Hamas." -Bernard-Henri Levyy: Georgia at War: What I Saw
Denver's homeless get free haircuts to look good for Obama and his Democrats"This way to the showers, ladies and gentlemen...."
"You have to wonder about the collective intelligence of the journalistic classes don't you? You can tell them till you're blue in the face that small farms are more inefficient than big ones; that this means that they use more resources than small ones, and that this is bad for the environment; and that all of this goes doubly for organic farms. And no matter how hard you try to ram this simple fact into their dull heads, they just don't get it. - Bishop Hill
"Capitalism is evil and America is a horrible fascist place, the argument goes, except for my lucrative studio contract, except for my fat bank account, except for my mansion, my swimming pool, my ranch, and my luxury cars." -On Trumbo
"The students of Chicago streets are now the old men of the Democrat Party. They blame America, somehow, for Russian tanks in Georgia, just as they blamed America, if they blamed anyone, for Soviet tanks in Czechoslovakia. Frozen in time, immune to reality, they tear and claw at the nation which gave them everything. They lived as they lived in 1968 -- reveling in the bloodying of America, chanting praises of Marxist monsters, pummeling anyone within their party who did not toe the party line." -American Thinker: Forty Years after the Death of a Party
DO NOT PISS OFF THE CAT PEOPLE.Rachel Lucas Most volatile flame war ignitor ever:Cats are assholes.
Rachel Maddow to Replace Dan Abrams on MSNBC Mr. Griffin said of the selection of Ms. Maddow, "This just completes our prime-time lineup. Our lineup makes sense now."It does if draining money into your communal drool cup makes sense.
"At some point, though, we need to hear where candidates stand on policy. This is where Obama struggles. Politics is about divisions." - RealClearPolitics An Election Just Like Any Other
Making kids morbidly obese one plate at a time:
The Most Disgusting School Lunches
"At the very heart of a philosophy of deterministic, self-engendered moral standards stands the individual. The rejection of moral absolutes is nothing more than radical individualism broadcast across society -- the notion that we are the sole arbiters of our behavior and morality, that we alone determine what is right and what is wrong. As a corollary, there is another assumption underlying this one: that others should bear the consequences, especially adverse consequences of our actions. Those who reject moral absolutes gravitate to a nihilistic narcissism, where there are rights but no responsibilities, demanding freedom to act as they please without thought for anyone else, all the while demanding that others rescue them from wreckage their behavior has wrought."
Chew your way to a bigger, firmer, fuller chest with Zoft Breast Enhancement Gum
""Hello, my name is Erika and I live in Magnolia, Texas. I'm originally born in Hamburg, Germany so that's why I'm talking a little funny. I'm 42 years old and I had usually the problem to fill out my cup A bra. I'm chewing the gum for 5 weeks now and I want to encourage all woman who want firmer and fuller breasts to give it a try. My breasts started to feel firmer after 3 weeks and about now I feel like they starting to get fuller."
Mr Caballero's clothes can withstand shots from 9mm pistols to AK-47s and clients fearing knives can pay extra for stab-proofing." - BBC NEWS | Africa | Bullet-proof fashion for S Africa
"Yes, the United States is a great country, not in some liberal politician’s Utopian vision, but as you see it right now, in the moment in which you’re reading this sentence; and yes, it is very cool to think so." - House of Eratosthenes
Olympic Synchronized Diving Summarized:
Theirs is a sport not without beauty, but it always seems to have a homoerotic whiff about it as well. It all looks like a wonderfully elegant gay suicide pact. - The joy of Michael Phelps' epic demented journey - Times Online
"What went wrong is that someone forgot to tell Osama Bin Laden that religion had been abolished; and someone similarly forgot to tell the Russians, South Ossetians and Georgians that there are no more countries. If 9/11 was a visit from the 8th century, Russia's incursion into the near abroad was blast for the 19th century past. " - Belmont Club ｻ The last nation
"Can anyone imagine Clinton or Obama doing anything... alone? Government is, to them, a toy, an object of amusement, a super-sized television set." - American Thinker: How the East Was Lost
"Light rail will not be the death of America. But the attitude behind light rail â that we can and should spend billions on every feel-good project that comes along without evaluating its cost effectiveness -- may very well be the death of the democracy and freedom we cherish. - The Future of Democracy » The Antiplanner
Barack Obama says tire inflation would replace all the new oil to be found offshore. How does he know, when he sponsors a bill forbidding us from even finding out how much is there?
5 billion years at double current world electricity usage. - from Next Big Future
still in print from Amazon and available online in full text since 1995, is now available as a FREE download PDF with a twist. "In many ways, this version is better than the book. It is searchable, it has color illustrations, it has better navigation, it is free, and it has surprising contextual ads, which I find interesting."
"Once again, the Europeans, and their friends in the pusillanimous wing of the US Left, have demonstrated that, when it come to those postmodern Olympian sports of synchronized self-loathing, team hand-wringing and lightweight posturing, they know how to sweep gold, silver and bronze. - Georgia: Europe wins a gold medal for defeatism | Gerard Baker - Times Online
"It's a solitary thing, to write. I hole myself up in a place that's illegal to put a murderer in --too small. But you have to get away from the wrong kind of noise. Cicadas are OK. The wheezing of the refrigerator cycling on and off is not. A lawnmower four blocks away is delightful. Next door makes you dream of slitting throats." - Sippican Cottage: Holding It Back
The Goods:Buy evidence of my husband's adultery on eBay
"They are so huge I thought they may make someone a nice shawl or, even better, something for Halloween perhaps." The eBay listing, entitled "Empty condom packet & a photo of 'The Tart's' knickers," also includes a detailed account of the events leading up to the discovery."
"I saw someone characterize our profits the other day in terms of $1,400 in profit per second. Well, they also need to understand we paid $4,000 a second in taxes, and we spent $15,000 a second in cost," [ExxonMobil CEO and chairman Rex Tillerson] told ABC News' Charles Gibson. "We spend $1 billion a day just running our business. So this is a business where large numbers are just characteristic of it." -ABC News: Oil Exec: Energy Independence Unrealistic
"I've also directed Secretary of Defense Bob Gates to begin a humanitarian mission to the people of Georgia, headed by the United States military. This mission will be vigorous and ongoing. A U.S. C-17 aircraft with humanitarian supplies is on its way. And in the days ahead we will use U.S. aircraft, as well as naval forces, to deliver humanitarian and medical supplies.
We expect Russia to honor its commitment to let in all forms of humanitarian assistance. We expect Russia to ensure that all lines of communication and transport, including seaports, airports, roads, and airspace, remain open for the delivery of humanitarian assistance and for civilian transit. We expect Russia to meet its commitment to cease all military activities in Georgia. And we expect all Russian forces that entered Georgia in recent days to withdraw from that country. " - President Bush Discusses Situation in Georgia, Urges Russia to Cease Military Operations
"Russia will have its way, whatever its way actually is, and the US and the West will do exactly nothing. The US will not go to war to turn Russia back (nor would the US be able to do so even if it wanted), and Europe can't go to war without the US. Absent a credible threat of force, the protestations of diplomats mean precisely zilch because there are no sanctions that are remotely possible that Vladimir Putin et. al. will think more painful than the benefits of enforcing their will against Georgia. The balance of power just tipped, folks, and there is not one darn thing we can do about it." -Donald Sensing - Sense of Events: Russia's the hare, the UN's the tortoise
Our position is that crack troops should be allowed to wear what they like as long as they leave the President alone.
Russia is being victimized by the nasty evil Western imperialists in the shape of Georgia becoming pro-Western, more or less democratic and, possibly, economically far more successful than Russia itself. Therefore, Russia has every right to assert her influence in the region and protect her interests. The West, on the other hand, has no right whatsoever to support its ally or to ensure that Russia does not control the entire flow of oil from the Caspian region. - EU Referendum: No news is not good news
Four Mexican army soldiers entered southern Arizona and pointed their rifles at a U.S. Border Patrol agent early this week, the Border Patrol said. The incident Sunday was the Mexican military's 43rd incursion across the U.S. border since October, the agency said. However, it was unusual because firearms were involved.
SO NOW THAT WE KNOW THAT THE PRESS COVERED FOR EDWARDS -- just as, pre-invasion, they covered for Saddam -- that raises a question: What else are they not telling us for fear it will hurt the Democrats' prospects?
LICK found that the average American travels twenty-nine miles each day in their car at an average speed of thirty-one miles per hour, spending a total of fifty-five minutes on the road. If not for speeding, the amount of time spent daily behind the wheel could likely be fifty-seven or even fifty-eight minutes.
You remember Bush, right? The guy who goes to Asia and tells China to free her people, while the press jeers, the guy who, while in Asia also meets with Democracy Activists in Burma and gets ignored for it, the guy who drew enormous and supportive crowds in Korea, while the American press yawned?
Sure, you remember Bush! He’s the guy whose life was threatened along with Barack Obama’s but only the threat to Obama was newsworthy for a very long time at CNN. Bush? You mean the creepy moron who will be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity as soon as congress can figure out how to do that without exposing itself or having to put some of its own members under oath?
Yeah, that guy! The guy who does more than just talk about freedom and progress. The guy who has brought real hope and change to people all over the world, and yes, here in America. But you don’t want to hear it. It’s the wrong and inconvenient narrative, the embargoed one. -- Linking around @ The Anchoress
"Although I was honest in every painful detail with my family, I did not tell the public. When a supermarket tabloid told a version of the story, I used the fact that the story contained many falsities to deny it. But being 99% honest is no longer enough." -- John Edwards' statement Politico.comOne shoe dropped. One Imelda Marcos closetful yet to come...
Washington State: "Now agents are using extreme tactics to clean out the pot-squatters. Agents recently loaded up with ammo and camo to raid a major marijuana grow operation in Grant County wilderness. Assault teams, hoping to capture the growers, arrived dangling from helicopters. The plan was to be hanging so far down they could easily unclip and run in, using the element of surprise. It's become the preferred tactic. Agents arrive fresh, and with a perimeter of agents on the ground, the growers have nowhere to run. Hiding won't work either. Canine agents also fly in. The dogs are trained to be comfortable in harnesses." -- Agents use extreme tactics to evict pot-squatters KING5.comOkay, this is just getting to be far, far too silly.
Off with a Bang
is ... a fantasy mindset about the power of technology to solve problems. A Gore follower, to be sincere, must put absolute faith in the ability to conjure a technological solution to any "problem," however stated and however constrained. Power the largest, most advanced, and most complex industrial economy in the world without the use of the world's most copiously available fuel? And without incurring an undesired side effect that's even worse than the ones from using petroleum? No problem! American engineers can do anything...given enough motivation, anyway. To be gentle about it, this is not the case." -Francis W. Porretto - Eternity Road
Apple Pie in the face on the news stand. Smells like tween spirit:
Ladies' Home Journal's Sept. issue sports an interview with Michelle and Barack Obama with the picture of both sharing the cover of the magazine. Single copy buyers get an extra inset picture, with not so subliminal message, of an apple pie that readers can "rub and sniff" and the smell of the apple pie sends a wow through the senses of the customers. What can be more American than an apple pie? Well, you do not have to be a genius to add one plus one and the entire cover package is smelling like an apple pie. The subscribers of Ladies' Home Journal have to be satisfied with the smell of ink on paper (and as much as I love the smell of ink on paper, I can't write that the smell of ink on paper is as American as an apple pie!)
In my previous blog, I have asked the question about the coverage both Obama and McCain are receiving from the American magazines, well you can add this one to the Obama camp and you can keep on counting... My guesstimate is the score is at least 4 to 1 in favor of Obama. Have a different theory, please do not hesitate to comment.
"I've been preparing for this moment during my silence of the last six months," notes Carter. "There should be no Constitutional issue since I am no longer the man I once was.""
"Obama is the comet that swings around our solar system every sixteen years without fail. Youngest out of everyone running, in fact, out of all who have been running; destined to win; talks about change a lot, with no details, or very few. Obama, Clinton, Carter, JFK." - House of Eratosthenes
"The next time I come across an Iraqi War veteran, I'll not only thank him or her for their sacrifice in defending my freedom, I'll also offer congratulations for winning a war." News & Observer - Raleigh, NC -- You heard it here first: We won the warWell, first if you mean reading it in an actual tree-based newspaper. Mas vale tarde que nunca.
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- The Redneck's OnStar: Locked Out of Your Car? Try This
- Okay, Everybody Just Back Away from the Twins!
- Allah Is Just All Right With Us
- The Fun of Flying: Vacation Report 1
- The Killing of New York City
- Okay, Break's Over...
- Evolution Porridge: Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold, but Just Right
- A Poet Goes On The Wagon
- Expecting to Fly
- Tone Deaf
- How to Make Sure Your Business Shrinks
- A Quiet Prayer
- Cindy Calls for Volunteers
- Grand Rounds
- GRAND ROUNDS
- Grand Rounds
- Sign of the Times
- The Pause That Refreshes: I will be on vacation until August 15th