"Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by."
-- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Roger Simon Launching OSM: "Okay, break's over. Everybody back in their Pajamas."
They came from the hills and mountains, the valleys and the plains.
Some were kind and gentle, and some too wild to tame.
A string of fearless hearts, on an endless ball of twine.
It's the same old train, it's just a different time
-- Marty Stuart, Same Old Train
ROGER SIMON is looking hatted, happy and haggard as we stand on the edge of a crowd that is, in its variations, the most unlikely looking group of people that the revoltingly trendy W Hotel in midtown Manhattan has ever hosted. Downstairs in the lobby with the pile-driving rap soundtrack and $12 drinks, the Pradas and Manolos are piling up on the ever-so-modern and ever-so-uncomfortable sofas, as the Roofies are being fondled in the pockets of sharp-dressed men with black town cars on call. Up here, in our alternate universe, the blogging crowd comes in all sizes and shapes with wardrobes that run the gamut from t-shirts and baggy denims to bespoke suits with pocket squares with custom folds.
"Just look at them," Simon says with the weary tone of man who has accomplished something very difficult and ever so slightly insane. "Just imagine how smart they all are. Just imagine the overwhelming intelligence of this group."
IF, FOR ANY REASON, YOU'VE COME HERE FOR THE FIRST TIME I've made a little list of essays and items in various categories that may be of interest to the idle browser.
Spirit
And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!
Failed homicide bomber Iraqi Sajida Mubarek Atrous al-Rishawi: "My husband wore an (explosives-packed) belt and put one on me. He taught me how to use it," al-Rishawi said, wearing a white head scarf, a black gown and a disabled bomb belt tied around her waist.Backwards and in high heels I presume."My husband detonated (his bomb) and I tried to explode my belt but it wouldn't," she said. "People fled running and I left running with them."
JEANNE DEVOTO OF bitter sanity doesn't post daily, but when she does....
A few predictions
I've been thinking that it's only a matter of time before mainstream thought in this country begins the process of lionizing Saddam Hussein. With his trial beginning, the tone of media coverage is starting to bear out my worst fears. (You wouldn't think it would be possible to admire someone who has done what Saddam has uncontestably done, but in a country where people wear Guevera t-shirts without hiding their faces, I suppose just about anything is possible.)I predict:...
Continued...
GLIDE PATHS AND PORK CHOPS: Principles of Porcine Aviation
COMPROMISE ECOLOGY: The Handbook of "The Friends of the Sierra Club and Halliburton's Earth."
STIFFED: Around the World in 80 Lapdances
NO THUMBS: A Cow's Guide to Instant Messaging
BOYFOOT BEAR WITH TEAKS OF CHAN: Zen Puns for Every Occasion
FUELISH: The Future of Electrosolarlunamethanecorn-powered Vehicles
SEX MIT SCHLAG: The Tangled Histories of Love and Dairy Products
Continued...HEADLINE above the fold in Queen Anne's neighborhood newspaper: Grass Roots Local Group Seeks to Save the World.
LEAD SENTENCE of a review we never finished reading of a book we will never read: "This lumbering coming-of-age tale of a boy and his dragon...."
UPON READING a comment by someone who didn't get the joke: "Satire is invisible to those with no moral compass. If good and evil are believed to be relative, if all morality is seen as mere relativity, then that person has no tuning peg upon which his soul can be pitched to perceive either sense or satire."
ONE of the greatest disappointments of the failing feminist mind is the knowledge than it can never be, nor even hope to emulate, Antigone. Even Sappho at her most mundane remains forever out of reach.
Continued...The Bond of the Band
In the morning in the room where I write I always open all the blinds to my left, liking the cascade of natural light that flows in as the sun rises over the slope of the tree outside and the hill above it. At this time of the year the sun in its arc shines for about twenty minutes directly into the room making everything in front of the window very bright while the rest of the room is held in shadow. This only goes on for such a short time since the space between the tree across the drive and the edge of the roof is quite narrow. And, since the sun moves daily in relationship to this space, the daily effects are different daily too.
This morning over coffee as I was reading this or that page of hope or despair spun out by the Net, I noticed that a gleaming gold light was flitting about the shadowed part of the room in front of my desk. It was a bright lively spirit, almost a Tinkerbell, moving and jumping around the walls or
Continued...SO MY OLD FRIEND STEPHEN JONES AND I ARE DOING SOME URBAN SPELUNKING deep within the "University District" of Seattle on a rainy Friday night. A couple of movie art houses are presenting bills that offer an ancient Malle flick alongside the stirring achievement of "Saw 2." The corner curry houses are doing a desultory business in over-spiced stews, and in the various coffee houses with free WiFi young couples who used to sit and have "intellectual" conversations over cappuccinos are sitting together staring at their laptop screens. Perhaps they're having "intellectual" instant messaging with each other.
The streets, though damp, boast roving clumps and clusters of drunken or stoned students, and the drunker and more stoned human detritus that takes shelter under the ever forgiving wing of what passes for institutions of "higher learning" in our cities. One young woman with a white marble complexion and wearing a hooded Eskimo coat is mistaken, in the mist, for a storefront mannequin. Hilarity and apologies ensue after a young fellow carelessly shakes his umbrella in her direction.
Continued...
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
- October 2005
- September 2005
- August 2005
- July 2005
- June 2005
- May 2005
- April 2005
- March 2005
- February 2005
- January 2005
- December 2004
- November 2004
- October 2004
- September 2004
- August 2004
- July 2004
- June 2004
- May 2004
- April 2004
- March 2004
- February 2004
- January 2004
- December 2003
- November 2003
- October 2003
- September 2003
- August 2003
- July 2003
- June 2003
"Propaganda, only propaganda is necessary. There is no end of stupid people." - Adolf Hitler
If the Arctic should doff its polar cap
in deference to excessive heat,
Mother Earth will be up to her crack
in more H2o than tantalised
the Ancient Mariner. Yet some forecast
drought, Saharas, parched disaster.
Which fate awaits this spinning Ark:
death by drowning or dehydration?
There can only be one apocalypse.
For those who live by final warnings,
beware of hot air -
the true cause of global warming.
Only fools and fanatics claim
to know the Creator's mind;
without the cloudiest doubt
occluding theirs, they proclaim
the end of the world is nigh. Doom
even makes athiests believers of a kind.
"It is deceit that makes hypocrisy what it is. The true hypocrite wants others to think better of him/her than is actually justified. Absent this deceit, there is no hypocrisy, just error or human frailty. That's what the hypocrisy-excuse people don't understand - or pretend not to understand - about church people. What may appear to be church people's hypocrisy is almost always just simple failure to meet the standards of our faith rather than deceit. Why? Because the standard is so high...."
Mocking Obama - that's the last taboo.
"The price of abandoning myth in order to travel where No Man Has Gone Before, via our home entertainment centers or Internet terminals , is that we have lost our place in our own story." - Belmont Club - Who wants to know?
"Our democratic institutions today, though far more distributed and open than the systems of Goebbels or Vyshinsky, are basically designed to run on an information system that funnels truth down from the top of the mountain. This is a brittle design. If it breaks - if it starts distributing sewage along with the rosewater - it loses its credibility. If it loses its credibility, the government loses its legitimacy. When a government loses its legitimacy, you don't want to be standing under it." - Unqualified Reservations: OLXIV: rules for reactionaries
"To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into life,- and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many non-believing hearts… an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away. Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live fully, richly, exuberantly - no matter how their days may be numbered." - A Meditation on Life, from a Dying Man | The Doctor Is In
where the obvious is not an option. I heard more interviews with learned politicians informing me that "drilling for oil" will not affect anything, least of all the quantity of oil. We must apparently wait until 2015, when a magic engine that runs on unicorn flatulence is invented. I have to ask: why is anyone investing in unicorn flatulence today, when it won't make any difference for several years? The answer's simple: the engine will Appear at the chosen moment, borne from the clouds by starlings, but only if we have repented of our foul ways, and the last of the sinners has left the cul-de-sac to reside in a home located a sustainable distance from his or her place of employment. When the last suburban outlying development is empty, when the homes of whose size we disapprove has been abandoned, when the last citizen has been gathered unto the bosom of the urban center, where his profligate ways are sneered upon and the measure of his yard shall be no greater than the standard lot size decreed in 1902, then shall the magic engine appear. Until then, the wind and the sun will bear us onward." -LILEKS (James) the Bleat
NYT Co. stock took another nosedive today, dropping 2.73 percent to $12.85. That means in the last week, Times Company stock has fallen $2.21, or 15 percent. - The New York Observer
Every Obama's nut is unique with various properties and characteristics and has the ability to induce hope, as well as store, receive, and transmit energy. Other legendary properties include the ability to attract compassion and understanding of the media, reveal the location of other people's money, ward off unwanted inquiries, and prevent drug overdose.
"When we championed trash culture we had no idea it would become the only culture." -Pauline Kael & trash cinema
"There are no turbines on my ranch, because I think they are ugly." - T. Boone Pickens to Newsweek
"Bush Says Drill, Drill, Drill -- and Oil Drops $9! -Kudlow
A nonscientific survey by the dating site Match.com found that 77 percent of respondents believe Obama would be a better kisser than the Arizona Republican. - Obama beats McCain in kissing contest
"Environmentalism is instinctively and relentlessly illiberal, and it is doing more to inculcate people with fear, self-loathing and a religious-style sense of meekness than any piece of anti-terror legislation ever could. If you believe in freedom, you must reject it." -Brendan O'Neill: Greens are the enemies of liberty
In order for "alternate energy" to become feasible, it has to satisfy all of the following criteria:1. It has to be huge (in terms of both energy and power)
2. It has to be reliable (not intermittent or unschedulable)
3. It has to be concentrated (not diffuse)
4. It has to be possible to utilize it efficiently
5. The capital investment and operating cost to utilize it has to be comparable to existing energy sources (per gigawatt, and per terajoule).
- Stephen Den Beste
"Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it'll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset." -- Obama: Man of the World - New York Times
Global warming may raise kidney stone riskGlobal warming could do more than hurt polar bears: It could force a rise in kidney stones, scientists warned Monday. "We see a relationship between kidney stones and temperatures everywhere," says study co-author Margaret Pearle of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. "Even in places with air conditioning, warmer temperatures mean more stones."
"But by my estimation, the Iraq War is over. We won. Which means the Iraqi people won. I wish I could say the same for Afghanistan." -Michael Yon: Dispatches
"The so-called strengths of Islamic terrorism: fanatical intent; lack of a centralized leadership; absence of a final authority and cellular structure guarantee uncontrollable escalation once the nuclear threshold is crossed. Therefore the 'rational' American response to the initiation of terrorist WMD attack would be all out retaliation from the outset.... It is supremely ironic that the survival of the Islamic world should hinge on an American victory in the War on Terror, the last chance to prevent that terrible day in which all the decisions will have already been made for us." - The 3 Conjectures @ Belmont Club
At the beginning of his remarks, Obama said, "I'm still looking for my mimosa," as many of the several hundred people in this ballroom were holding drinks. -Lynn Sweet: Obama, at fund-raiser in Newport Beach, Calif. takes one sip of a Mimosa.
"Our Unbreakable Umbrella has no unusual parts, no more metal than an average umbrella, it does not arouse suspicion, can be carried legally everywhere where any weapons are prohibited, unlike a walking stick it does not cause strange looks if carried by an able-bodied person, and it does protect from rain. Anyone who can use a stick for defense can use this umbrella." -The Unbreakable Walking-Stick Umbrella
"As well as the roads, Beijing has promised to repair 2,000 miles of largely defunct railways, build 32 hospitals and 145 health centres, install two electricity distribution networks, construct two hydropower dams and two new airports. In return, China has won the rights to five copper and cobalt mines in Congo's southern minerals belt which boasts some of the world's richest ore deposits. Victor Kasongo, Congo's deputy minister of mines, said: "To be honest, China was Plan B. We first approached the Europeans but they said they did not have the muscle to do what we needed. China has stepped into that opening, very quickly."" -China's 8 Billion drive to buy Africa's mineral wealth - Telegraph
"Climate change is a big scam, probably the biggest one ever successfully perpetrated. But California’s 'salary' is about to depend on the folks in charge never, ever figuring that out. Even though, in the hearts-of-hearts, they know it already." - House of Eratosthenes
Doing the Job American Journalism Won't Do By Counting the Jobs They Will:
Obama Media BJs To Date - "Not that there's anything wrong with that."
"The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course, that they are not Republicans." - Big Shot Bob in Texas
China Takes Dog off the Menu for Olympics
"Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that Israel and the Palestinians have never been as close to a peace deal than now." - CBS News
"I looked down at the loaf of bread and realized it is about two thirds the size it was last month. Then it clicked: All kinds of edible goods are shrinking in China these days. The rice crackers I like to nibble on at the office are in the same sized package as always, but the crackers themselves have shrunk dramatically." - McClatchy blog: China Rises
"The signature performance of the modern revolution is the irregular military parade. Ie: cars or pickup trucks full of well-armed youths in their colorful native attire, driving up and down your street while (a) honking, (b) waving hand-lettered banners, (c) chanting catchy slogans, and (d) discharging their firearms in a vaguely vertical direction. Occasionally one of the vehicles will pull up in front of a house and discharge its occupants, who enter the building and emerge with an infidel, racist, Jew, spy, polluter, Nazi or other criminal. The offender is either restrained for transportation to an educational facility, or enlightened on the spot as an act of radical social justice. Yes, we can!" - Unqualified Reservations: OLXIII: tactics and structures of any prospective restoration
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
-- Auden
"... our most successful politicians--human beings who can recognize or create popular appetites, recreating themselves as necessary."
YouTube - I'm Not Here to Make Friends! HT: Morgan (He whom nobody reads).
Today's warriors have a tremendous advantage over their antique brethren in the struggle for survival, however: the West's pathetic, if endearing, concern for human life, even when that life belongs to a murderer of epic achievement." - PARAMETERS, US Army War College Quarterly - Summer 1994
"In an age haunted by cataclysms real and imagined, in this era of disappointment and wracking international failure, men and women will prove increasingly vulnerable to anti-modern, anti-rational explanations for their misfortunes and their inextinguishable impulse to vanity. Even in the United States, many of those least able to keep material, intellectual, and spiritual pace with the demands of modernity turn to primitive or exotic religious forms, from revivalism to New Age God-candy. -- Vanity and the Bonfires of the "isms" by Ralph Peters PARAMETERS, US Army War College Quarterly - Autumn 1993
"A conservative estimate provided by Robertson Economic Information Services, a Southern African consultancy, says that prices are now three billion fold greater than seven years ago. That's right, billion. The exchange rate is currently an astronomical 90 billion Zimbabwe dollars to one U.S. dollar." -How Inflation May Topple Mugabe - WSJ.com
"After discussing famine in Africa, the peckish politicians and five spouses took on four bite-sized amuse-bouche to tickle their palates. The price of staple foods may be soaring, but thankfully caviar and sea urchin are within the purchasing power of leaders and their taxpayers - the amuse-bouche featured corn stuffed with caviar, smoked salmon and sea urchin, hot onion tart and winter lily bulb." - Just two of the 19 dishes on the dinner menu at the G8 food shortages summit (The Guardian)
"Children seem to be 'diagnosed' with lots of things lately. It has become customary for at least one of their parents to be somehow 'enthusiastic' about said diagnosis, sometimes even confessing to having requested or demanded the diagnosis. Said parent is invariably female. Said child is invariably male. The lopsided gender trend is curious, and so is the spectacle of parents ordering diagnoses for their children, like pizzas or textbooks." - House of Eratosthenes
Please study this evidence carefully. The saints of San Diego and surrounding areas in California NEED TO BE WARNED of the MAJOR JUDGMENT coming upon them that will be MUCH WORSE THAN 911. This evidence shows JULY 8, 2008 is hard coded in the Word of God as the next Major Judgment Date that will fulfill scripture just like the attack on the Twin Towers Sept 11, 2001 and Hurricane Katrina fulfilled scripture . It cannot be prayed away and It will not be delayed. -- !!! 2,492 DAYS !!!
"I'm surprised at how finely calibrated every single word was measured. I wasn't saying anything I hadn't said before, that I didn't say a year ago or when I was a United States senator," said Obama, who is still a senator from Illinois. -- Obama puzzled by Iraq comment frenzy
A woman fell into a tank of slurry as she tried to make "manure bombs" using her stockings, German police today said. The unfortunate woman stripped off her foul smelling clothes and fled the scene naked, along with a female accomplice wearing just her bra and pants, a police spokesman told Reuters. - Cow dung fate for 'manure bomber' | World news | guardian.co.uk
"As Marie-Antoinette is said to have remarked about her starving subjects who were demanding bread, "Let then eat cake," our elected Democratic members of Congress are in effect saying of Americans, "Let them ride bikes." -- It's Time for Rage - HUMAN EVENTS
"500 years ago, oil was not a resource. Neither was uranium. People around at the time didn't know how to use them. Things that weren't resources became resources. Our ability to use new resources made old resources obsolete. Now, no home in the UK needs to burn wood for heat, for example. Or, as Bjorn Lomborg has put it, the Stone Age didn't come to an end because we ran out of stones." - Climate Resistance: Infinite Regress
"Seattle Police opened fire on a suspect in Downtown Seattle this morning who they say robbed a West Seattle bank wearing black shoe polish on his face and a wig." - Police shoot bank robbery suspect Seattle, Washington
So there I was, in the lion's den, calling Joe Lieberman an asshole. And people applauded and cheered. - Kos: Into the tiger's den
- Children of Jihad
- Midtown Manhattan Madness: Launching the Yahoo of Blogs
- A Short Digest of American Digest
- Why Women Should Not Be In Charge of the Remote
- On the "Trial of the Century" So Far
- Books That Should Be: New Additions to the Invisible Library
- From the Seattle Notebooks
- From the Laguna Notebooks
- Ceci N'est Pas Une Bong