The last time I saw these guys we were banging around in a 1948 Hudson, chipping in a quarter each for a gallon of gas, cruising for burgers, looking for foolish girls, conning drunks into buying us beer, and -- every so often -- running from the police down along the Sacramento River Delta. It was the summer of 1962.
45 years later it's golf, cocktail parties, and racing very large go-karts somewhere along the Sacramento River Delta. We'd be still running from the police, but one of us is the police so what's the point?
Don't BlinkI turned on the evening news
Saw a old man being interviewed,
Turning a hundred and two today.
Asked him what's the secret to life.
He looked up from his old pipe,
Laughed and said "All I can say is...."Don't blink...
Just like that you're six years old
and you take a nap and you
Wake up and you're twenty-five
and your high school sweetheart becomes your wife...Don't blink
You just might miss your babies
growing like mine did
Turning into moms and dads
next thing you know your "better half"
Of fifty years is there in bed
And you're praying God takes you instead.Trust me friend a hundred years
goes faster than you think
So don't blink."
-- Kenny Chesney, Don't Blink
That's this weekend. More details to follow.
"I'm not so sure I'd offer the same invitation, but nevertheless, it speaks volumes about the greatness, really, of America. We're confident enough to let a person express his views. I just really hope he tells everybody the truth." -- President George Bush
For days the tom-tom's of the right side of the blogosphere beat out the dulling message, over and over, as is its wont. Columbia University's President Lee Bollinger was a craven boot-licker of tyrants for inviting the death-dwarf of Iran to speak. Dire, dire consequences were predicted for Columbia. It was evil. It was hypocritical. Etc. and so forth. And because many of the people I respect were saying this I became convinced that Bollinger was in serious error, just another liberal tool and fool. And I was compelled to watch the event on television when it came to pass.
Now I am compelled to admit that I was wrong; that I seriously pre-judged the event; that what I assumed would be the truth of the matter, turned out to be false in reality. My mind had been taken over by the sounds (how often we hear them now) of dull old axes being ground on hollow stones.
The reality of the appearance of the dwarf Hitler at Columbia was:
Not Bolllinger's first rodeo, but it certainly was his best.
"Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator."
"Frankly and in all candor, Mr. President, I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions. But your avoiding them will have meaning for us." Bollinger Explains It All for You.
Columbias President Confronts Iranian Leader - City Room - Metro - New York Times Blog
Mr. Bollinger asked Mr. Ahmadinejad: "Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator, and so I ask you, and so I ask you, why have women members of the Bahai faith, homosexuals and so many of our academic colleagues become targets of persecution in your country?"Masterful.He asked whether Mr. Ahmadinejad was using a nuclear confrontation with the West to distract from his incompetent leadership at home. He also asked to be allowed to lead a delegation of scholars to Iran to speak freely, as Mr. Ahmadinejad can do today.
He confronted Mr. Ahmadinejad over his description of the Holocaust as "a fabricated legend," calling him either "brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated." He called Columbia a world center of Jewish studies that since the 1930s has provided a home for Jewish refugees. He called the Holocaust "the most documented event in human history."
"Today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for," Mr. Bollinger told Mr. Ahmadinejad. "I only wish I could do better."
I'll be looking for the wave of apologies to President Bollinger. Starting with mine for thinking ill of his motives.
House of Eratosthenes, you should be.
The issue that faces us next year, right behind that whole dead-terrorist-bodies thing, is whether the donks benefit from a frayed, fragile, threadbare tethering to reality or whether that tethering has snapped altogether. The donks are pretty emphatic that the real issue is whether or not the current President is a dumbass, which seems to me a peripheral article of history at best. We disagree; should we debate the question, it would be a pretty quick debate but it might get a little messy, gentle as I would try to be. It's the facts, you see; they are not on their side. Next year, they are running — the "moron" is not. That's just the way things are. We don't get to vote on George Bush's intellect or lack thereof — we are obliged to vote on the sanity of the donks, or lack thereof.
Things I Know
222. People who tolerate evil, because of their hidden agendas, fear of consequences or retribution, knowledge of their limitations, laziness, whatever, want everyone else to tolerate it as well. Being allowed to make up their own minds, to opt out of any movement to oppose the evil, to be left alone while braver men confront what they will not, never seems to be enough for them. Always, or nearly always, there is this passion to stop others from doing what they lack the courage to do. They talk about this passion and the resulting frustration a great deal. But they won't explain it. I wish they would.
Continued...
An item from my way-back pages.
Searching for another item from the past I stumbled over this gem of mine from Wired 1.01: This Is A Naked Lady in 1993. That was when Wired was brand spanking new, unlike Wired now which is old and fusty. The article references a woman who once wrote a book for me in a life previous to my life writing articles for Wired #1. That book was published in 1985 which means it must have been contracted and edited in 1984. And that is a long, long, long stone-age time ago on the Internet. Still, it seems to me that this article from 1993 still has something to say today. If not, look at it as a kind of place holder from the time before the Web when everything seemed
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new...
Behind every new technology is...sex?
By Gerard Van Der Leun
Wired Issue 1.01 | Mar/Apr 1993
Back in the dawn of online when a service called The Source was still in flower, a woman I once knew used to log on as "This is a naked lady." She wasn't naked of course, except in the minds of hundreds of young and not-so-young males who also logged on to The Source. Night after night, they sent her unremitting text streams of detailed wet dreams, hoping to engage her in online exchanges known as "hot chat" - a way of engaging in a mutual fantasy typically found only through 1-900 telephone services. In return, "The Naked Lady" egged on her digital admirers with leading questions larded with copious amounts of double entendre.
When I first asked her about this, she initially put it down to "just fooling around on the wires."
"It's just a hobby," she said. "Maybe I'll get some dates out of it. Some of these guys have very creative and interesting fantasy lives."
At the start, The Naked Lady was a rather mousy person - the type who favored gray clothing of a conservative cut - and was the paragon of shy and retiring womanhood. Seeing her on the street, you'd never think that her online persona was one that excited the libidos of dozens of men every night.
But as her months of online flirtations progressed, a strange transformation came over her: She became (through the dint of her blazing typing speed) the kind of person that could keep a dozen or more online sessions of hot chat going at a time. She got a trendy haircut. Her clothing tastes went from Peck and Peck to tight skirts slit up the thigh. She began regaling me with descriptions of her expanding lingerie collection. Her speech became bawdier, her jokes naughtier. In short, she was becoming her online personality - lewd, bawdy, sexy, a man- eater.
Our Bizarro Brides -- Craigslist Personals' Ad of the Moment
In a "measured" response to this ad relentlessly seeking perfection in "Women Seeking Men" -- Your best behavior is in the beginning - 32 -- we read this takeoff on it: Your absolute perfection is only the beginning. I'll take it from there - 32.....
You might want me but you can't have me because I am unobtainable and cannot be satisfied with anything less that a perfection I can shape in my own image. Yes, I am a mirror addict, but tarry bit while I blow you away with my ineffable essence.I'm totally busy with a socialist circle of friends, training my dog to lick my feet, working long hours to accomplish little, going to shows (art, music, poetry slams/theater, and other second rate narcissist crapola that passes for the performing arts in this second level city) and recuperating with my weekly reading/cooking shows/football games on my large screen HDTV which cost me a lot on the Mastercard but I'm paying off as I can.
So, you aren't going to just meet me accidentally because God is merciful. You might glimpse me around town and we might even chat, should you remind me of myself, but then I'll be off again before you ever get my number much less the ineffable whiff of my perfection.
And I want to meet you. I really do. Because I know that you are just what the doctor ordered. Because I haven't had it in a way that makes my eyes explode in so long that the Sahara Desert is damp compared to me. I don't need you for your money or your connections, only for your slavish adoration and your throbbing unit. You don't need me to dress you in my clothes (size 10) or mommy you with my mommyness. (but I'm more than happy to help)
On a deeper level I know you are a person who appreciates his existence and what is good and beautiful especially since you don't have me making your life a living hell. You understand I'm trying to do as much as I can with a limited amount of time on the planet and a much more limited amount of good sense, but an unlimited ego that comes only to those who are now among "the formerly cute." You don't hold it against me, but I certainly wish you would if it is wood.
Once you meet me and get to know me, you know I'm the one. You know I am the one with whom your first and last thought should be, "FLEE!" Even when my best friend who is a model is nearby, it's about us and you are into me while she just has to lie beside us, paint her toenails, and wait her turn. (Besides, she tattles and then you're toast anyway; unless I can get seconds.)
You truly like bonfires on the beach with wine and cheese or beer and small puppy dogs turning on a spit. You don't complain about the cold because, well, I'm right there and you know an ice maiden when you see one, so it could be worse. With me you should dress in layers and bring extra blankets even if we're going to Phoenix in July.
You've probably been married or engaged and know egomaniac women like me first hand. You know how much it sucks to lose people you once loved and trusted. So let me be the second, third, or even fourth. But you are an optimist and have learned some valuable lessons. Your glass is half-full and you'd better drink it down down since mine is empty and I'm still thirsty.
You want a relationship with a sane woman. I don't have to talk you into it nor, really, do I have to be it. You pick up the phone after our 8th bankrupting date to say "Hi, I know you have a busy week ahead but I'm thinking of you and can't wait to see you pick up a check for a change."
You hate excuses as much as I do so you'll get none from me if I just blow you off without blowing you off.
The reason you are quite educated is due to the insatiable foolishness of hanging out with intellectually insane women like me. This translates into great sex (you can wait a *little* while... five years or $50,000 in date expenses, whichever comes first.) as we both plumb the depths of our sexual imaginations and I plug in and introduce you to my little friend, "The Cast Iron Intruder." This will make eventual procreation much more interesting, assuming the state will reinstate my breeding license and give my back my previous kids from their foster homes. You think twins are cute and scary simultaneously. You are right and I should know because I am the evil one.
Now that the hormones have done their work, I'm an attractive woman, 5'6.5", green eyes, Nordic features-the girl-troll next door. I like imported Italian brands of shoes and bondage equipment and fleece. I ride my bicycle like an obese Lance Armstrong and drive a European automobile much like Adolph Hitler did. I love views of the dungeon and cherish mine. I'm loyal and wickedly humorous and edgy. So is my collection of Ginzu knives. I speak a few languages poorly, am well-traveled in those places in the world where you can rent small men and children, and know my way around a whine list, as you can see here. I dance like Elaine Benes in that Seinfeld episode, so beware of up tempo music. I am proficient on the tuba.
Not looking for casual-please don't reply if you are. I'm looking for a committed man. Or, if you aren't, you will be soon. Please be HWP, taller rather than shorter, 28-42, ethical, STD-free, smoke-free (controlled drinking ok -- because, hey, as you can see I'm not controlling in the slightest). Please be something that compliments the wonder that is me.
It's kind of hard to find a boyfriend when you're me. Mostly because I am formerly cute but now certifiable. But I know you are out there and moving through life just as fast as I am and twice as insane. Now that you've got my number, I'd like your number. Let's just stop the world for a moment and really see what's in front of us. Someday, you'll look back on this and run into a tree. So, send a photo (No penis shots. I've several of my own here on the shelf already.) and spend a few moments telling me about why you are the ultimate in male perfection that only needs me to make you finally, firmly, and completely perfect at last.
Peace. (I'm liberal, btw, so don't use the word "Republican" or the words "George Bush" in your reply lest I fall into a frothing fit of dementia and be unable to answer for six months when my brain returns from orbiting the moon).
[Semi-Full Disclosure: Earlier today I posted the above item under the original title, Our Bizarro Brides -- Craigslist Personals' Ad of the Moment. The original copy below makes it seem that I "discovered" the ad mocking the ad. Untrue. I wrote the ad mocking the ad.
Why?
Partly because I've been rained in on a weekend (again) and was too bored by Hillary, Obama, Rudy, George, MoveOn, and the rest of the runners in front of the dog sled to write about them. But partly because the peeved tone of the original ad (Your best behavior is in the beginning - 32) seemed to me so vain and preening it was begging to be mocked. Hence, I mocked it with Your absolute perfection is only the beginning. I'll take it from there - 32 . Indeed, I thought I mocked it pretty well. It seemed to me to be so over the top that it was obvious as satire.
Was it? Not at all. It would seem that the men who troll Craigslist's "Women Seeking Men" (I only read it for the pictures of pear-shaped and pierced people.) simply cannot read, or , reading, cannot comprehend. So far, I've received 27 emails from men (and one "young fun couple in search of adventure!!" ) offering to date me or have me visit them at a nearby hotel or park (Cheapskates!).
Some are hostile:
No wonder you have jumped on the liberal bandwagon. Brain damage is a common symptom of liberalism or should I say socialism. Maybe u could find a guy in Russia to worship the ground you walk on.
Some are self-promoting if a bit undecisive:
As far as activities go I believe that I like doing pretty much everything, which means outdoor, indoor, travel, stay at home, relaxing/slow and also fast paced high energy type workouts or activities. Thinking of food, I would have to say my favorite type of food is either Chinese or Japanese food, and then coming in a close second would be Thai or Italian food.
Some give you way too much information:
So, why pick me? Well, your post made me think you want someone smart and adaptable, and that's me. If there's no connection on an intellectual level then what's the point? The brain really is the sexiest thing a man can bring to the table, I believe. And I know I can keep up. *grin*
Some give you way, way, way too much information before lapsing into despair:
6'-1" 185lbs, 33 waist, 7.5c hz eyes, s/p hair, 45 yr old, bi male, multi cummer….. Above is the most common questions asked here as far as I can tell, I have been searching here for some time and usually get the girls or couples sending me to their web site or cam site to chat after paying for it.
Some are, ah, 'romantic:'
Oh am I getting too mushy for you? Well chew on this. I really don't care what you believe, what you're into, or what you want to do. As long as we're doing and believing in it together. And we respect that of each other. But the word not spoken? See the other Craigslist category 'Misc Encounters'. See: 'Married. looking for more'. Bite me.
But none seem to have gotten the fact that the whole thing was a put-on. If love is blind, then longing for love would seem to deaden about every sense and warning flare you can send up.
The French have a saying -- Les chiens n'obtiennent pas des plaisanteries.-- which translates to "Dogs don't get jokes." Neither, it would seem, do lonely hearts. I think I'll just print my "ad" out and file it in the back pages of my copy of "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again." ]
9/11/2007
This September, as in most Septembers, the days have been hot and parched here in the upper reaches of California's Imperial Valley. This year, as in most years, wildfires have been stalking the region sealing the old folks, the ecosensitives, and the ever-proliferating hypo-allergenic inside behind their oxygen canisters, filters, and mounds of medications. The local TV weathermen make much of little, delivering the particulate count as if every second carbon atom spelled doom for untold numbers of weakened and afflicted Americans. It's all part of the shameful litany of vulnerability chanted so often that many previously tough Americans come to believe they are as insubstantial as moonlight at noon.
Simon Dedvukaj, 26, Mohegan Lake, N.Y. janitorial, foreman, ABM Industries / Confirmed dead, World Trade Center, at/in building 2
The huge wound in my head began to heal
About the beginning of the seventh week.
Its valleys darkened, its villages became still:
For joy I did not move and dared not speak,
Not doctors would cure it, but time, its patient still.
-- Thom Gunn, The Wound
EVERYONE WHO WAS IN NEW YORK ON on "The Day" will tell you their stories about "The Day." I could stun you with an eight figure number by running a Google on 9/11, but you can do that as well.
"The Day," even at this close remove, has ascended into that shared museum of the mind to be placed in the diorama captioned, "Where Were You When." The site has long since been cleared and scrubbed clean. There is even an agreement on the memorial which will, I see, use a lot of water and trees. "The Day" has become both memorial and myth.
Less is heard about the aftermath. Less is said about the weeks and months that spun out from that stunningly clear and bright September morning whose sky was slashed by a towering fist of flame and smoke. You forget the smoke that hung over the city like a widow's shawl as the fires burned on for months. You don't know about the daily commutes by subway wondering if some new horror was being swept towards you as the train came to a stop deep beneath the East River. You supress hearing over the loudspeaker, always unclearly, that the train was being "held for police activity at Penn Station." Was that a bomb, poison gas, a mass shooting, a strike on the Empire State building? You were never sure. You carried a flashlight in case you had to walk out of the tunnels that ran deep beneath the river. Terror was your quiet companion. After the first six weeks you barely knew it was there.
Continued...
If peace needs to be purchased with the sword,
we should be ready to do this. We must become
what we were during the Second World War
--ruthless and unrelenting.
[What follows is a slightly edited transcript of what I saw and how I felt on the 11th of September, 2001 from Brooklyn Heights in New York City. On that day I was posting to a West Coast Computer Conferencing system known as The Well. As a result, even though I was writing from Brooklyn Heights, directly across from the Towers the time stamp reflects PST]
Tue 11 Sep 01 08:07
Saw the first tower collapse from the Promeade across the river in Brooklyn. Fine white and pale yellow ash everywhere. Lower Manhattan covered in smoke with ash still drifting down.
Military jets overhead every five minutes or so.
Lower span of Brooklyn Bridge jammed with people walking out of the city, many covered with white ash. Ghosts. The Living Dead. BQE empty except for convoys of emergency vehicles.
Sirens in all directions. Ferry ships emerging from the smoke heading to the Brooklyn shore riding low in the water fully loaded.
This is monstrous.
Deaths in the thousands in New York.
Continued...
The wind at Ground Zero during the first memorial service, September 11, 2002
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.
-- Christina Rossetti
10,000 FEARED DEAD
-- Headline, New York Post, September 12, 2001
AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY I lived in Brooklyn Heights in, of course, Brooklyn. The opening of the Brooklyn Bridge on May 24 of 1883 transformed the high bluff just to the south of the bridge into America's first suburb. It became possible for affluent businessmen from the tip of Manhattan which lay just over the East River to commute across the bridge easily and build their stately mansions and townhouses high above the slapdash docks below. Growth and change would wash around the Heights in the 117 years that followed, but secure on their bluff, on their high ground, the Heights would remain a repository old and new money, power, and some of the finest examples of 19th and early 20th century homes found in New York City.
When I moved to Brooklyn Heights from the suburbs of Westport, Connecticut in the late 90s, it was a revelation to me that such a neighborhood still existed. Small side streets and cul-de-sacs were shaded over by large oaks and maple that made it cool even in the summer doldrums. Street names such as Cranberry, Orange and Pineapple let you know you were off the grid of numbered streets and avenues. Families were everywhere and the streets on evenings and on weekends were full of the one thing you rarely see in Manhattan, children.
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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.
"With grim crocodile tears, grim the MSM grimly reported that the grim United states grimly passed the grim milestone of grimness in the grim war in grim [Afghanistan] as grim American grim casualties of grimiosity grimly reached the grim number of [500].
"When grimly asked why the grim MSM grimly gives grim front (grim) page grim-prominence to such an out-of-grim-context number while grimily ignoring non-grim grim-type other grim news about grim-positive grim developments since the grim surge grimly started working with grimness or, indeed, why the grim MSM never reports on grim grim milestones of any other grim conflicts or grim armed grim forces (especially those of the grim enemy), the grim MSM just looked grim." - Ephemeral Isle: Grim Reporting
"I'm not home a lot, so Michelle is usually willing to give it up." - Barack Obama in Entertainment Weekly
Michelle Obama ... on their upcoming vacation: "We're going to Hawaii to visit Barack's grandma" -Playbook 24/7 - Politico.com
"When Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats spent a week holding the people's chamber under house arrest, they made plain a political vulnerability beyond drilling. To achieve greenhouse gas goals in the out-years, they are willing to risk a slowdown now in the American economy. How else can you interpret what happened this week? These Democrats aren't environmentalists. They're enviromaniacs." -Wonder Land - WSJ.com
Academy award winning actor George Clooney is set to host a fundraiser for Barack Obama in Switzerland next month. - CNN
Giving you the skinny on race:
"White people spend a significant portion of their time preparing for the moment when they will be offended. They read magazines, books, and watch documentaries all in hopes that one day they will encounter a person who will say something offensive. When this happens, they can leap into action with quotes, statistics, and historical examples. Once they have finished lecturing another white person about how it's wrong to use the term "black" instead of "African-American," they can sit back and relax in the knowledge that they have made a difference." - Being Offended - Stuff White People Like #101
We Believe in Offshore Drilling and Fares from $9* Each Way
"The Chronicle's announcement pushed the number of layoffs and buyouts this year above 7,000. (There are more, of course, because some papers have not said how many people have been laid off or have accepted buyouts.) Adding in the cuts at the Chronicle and the Modesto Bee, about 17 percent of all layoffs/buyouts this year have been in California."File under "Who says there's no good news?"
"The shamans of contemporary linguistic taboos have adopted nigger, faggot, cunt, and the other forbidden words as passwords, emblems of group membership -- and membership, as American Express has been at pains to remind us, has its privileges. No one outside the shamans' circle is permitted to speak the password; it's an arrogation of a jealously guarded status. He who dares must be cut down, ground into the dust, and forbidden ever to speak at all, to any effect, in any context. For as in all systems of nymic magic, the word is deemed congruent with the thing: the taboo words are at the root of the shamans' power. Failure to enforce the taboo would risk the loss of the group's privileges and immunities, laboriously amassed over the decades of exploitation of others' guilt." -Francis W. Porretto - Eternity Road
- Forty Fifth High School Reunion
- The Truth. Can You Handle the Truth?
- Bollinger Rope-A-Dopes Ahmadinejad
- If you're not reading Morgan Freeberg's....
- "This Is A Naked Lady" (It was 22 years ago today....)
- I Was A Craigslist Woman Seeking Men
- How We Live Now
- The Wound
- Notes Made on 11 September 2001 -- Brooklyn Heights
- The Wind in the Heights