Your answers for the inquisitor
In his wine-stained satin lace,
Are as irrelevant as answers
Deduced from deepest space.
Your presence in his universe
Confirms him of your crime.
He seeks to seal all passages
Divined from space and time.
Behind the science of his spectacles
Lives a mind reduced by power.
A gesture from his languid wrists --
All's over in an hour.
"We seek to keep our faithful
Baptized, confirmed and saved
From those dark, unknown questions
That live beyond the grave.
"Hunched within my velvet throne,
My pen controls the door
That opens to the vaults of night
Above the killing floor."
"I got it!" "No, I got it!" "No, we got it!"
"The New York Yankees’ Nick Swisher climbed a wall to try and catch a ball in Game 1 of the World Series..." (via Photo Journal - WSJ )
As long as we have the World Series every Autumn, I will continue to believe to the adamantine rock bottom of my soul that God blesses America and has an exceptional plan for this nation.
Look at the moment above captured in Game 1. It could be hung in the Norman Rockwell Museum and not be a tittle of a jot out of place. In every face (except Swisher's) is an expression of pure joy as they all realize that on its way to them, at that very moment, is every baseball fan's most cherished dream from childhood: The chance to catch a fly ball in a World Series game in the stands.
In another few instants only one will come up with it, but in this moment all have a chance at it and all are transported at the opportunity to transcend themselves and enter into something bigger, brighter, and finer than their lives would otherwise be.
And that's the way it is in America. That's why we see many footprints leading in and few coming out. For with all our quarrels, our disagreements, our struggles, and our incessant bickering, this remains a land where you can always get another turn at bat, where you can always, right up until six months after death, get another chance to swing for the bleachers. And where, even if you aren't a player in "The Show," you can buy a seat out on the right field line and wait there for the crack of the bat, the rise of the ball against the sky, and... it's coming, it's coming.... and whap, you got it. You're in "The Show."
And in that moment life, the universe, and everything else comes down to one great roar of joy from yourself and the rest of the crowd.
Baseball, the World Series, a high fly ball in an Autumn sky, and America. Nothing else like them ever was. "I got it!" "No, I got it!" "No, we got it!".
Via KA-CHING!
Illustration via the indefatigable iOwnTheWorld.com
"TALK-SHOW host David Letterman has been recorded on tape having sex with a female staff member - and he is worried that the footage will eventually be leaked, it's reported today." -- News.com.au
It was interesting when Pamela Anderson's "leaked" to the Internet because she still looked like, well, "Pamela Anderson" at the time. It was less interesting when Paris Hilton did it because skank is skank no matter how blond or how rich. Nowadays the concept of celebrity sex tapes is banal and boring and fills me with equal measures of revulsion and inertia. Whose sex tapes would you LEAST like to see?
Snark And Boobs has some suggestions.
- Susan Sarandon & Tim Robbins
- Rosie O'Donnell and her wife
- Bill Clinton & any of his chicks
- Mitt Romney and his wife
- Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie
- Al and Tipper Gore
- Harry Reid and his wife
- Keith Olbermann
- Janeane Garofalo
Aside from "all of the above" whose sex tapes would you least like to see? Top of my list would be "Nancy Pelosi with Nancy Pelosi."
Yesterday the German news magazine Der Spiegel published in SPIEGEL ONLINE an interview with Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post, one of the most influential conservative commentators in the United States. The result is an interview of over 4,000 words giving us in-depth look at Krauthammer's thinking and observations that we'd never see in the American news media. Since a wide-ranging interview of this length is a rarity in any medium, I'd urge you to read the entire piece. It will give you a sense of the Krauthammer's wide-ranging intellect that you can't get from newspaper columns and brief television appearances. That said, here are a few choice excerpts:
On the Nobel "Prize"
SPIEGEL: Mr. Krauthammer, did the Nobel Commitee in Oslo honor or doom the Obama presidency by awarding him the Peace Prize?Charles Krauthammer: It is so comical. Absurd. Any prize that goes to Kellogg and Briand, Le Duc Tho and Arafat, and Rigoberta Menchú, and ends up with Obama, tells you all you need to know. For Obama it's not very good because it reaffirms the stereotypes about him as the empty celebrity.
SPIEGEL: Why does it?
Krauthammer: He is a man of perpetual promise. There used to be a cruel joke that said Brazil is the country of the future, and always will be; Obama is the Brazil of today's politicians. He has obviously achieved nothing. And in the American context, to be the hero of five Norwegian leftists, is not exactly politically positive.
Emerging Powers?
Krauthammer: The Chinese are rising, the Indians have a very long way to go. But I'm old enough to remember the late 1980s, "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" by Paul Kennedy and the prevailing view that America was in decline and Japan was the rising power. The fashion now is that the Chinese will overtake the United States. As with the great Japan panic, there are all kinds of reasons why that will not happen.
Wars of Necessity, Wars of Choice
Krauthammer: The phrase "war of necessity and war of choice" is a phrase that came out of a different context. Milan Kundera once wrote, "a small country is a country that can disappear and knows it." He was thinking of prewar Czechoslovakia. Israel is a country that can disappear and knows it. America, Germany, France, Britain, are not countries that can disappear. They can be defeated but they cannot disappear. For the great powers, and especially for the world superpower, very few wars are wars of necessity. In theory, America could adopt a foreign policy of isolationism and survive. We could fight nowhere, withdraw from everywhere -- South Korea, Germany, Japan, NATO, the United Nations -- if we so chose. From that perspective, every war since World War II has been a war of choice.
The Obama "Doctrine"
Krauthammer: I would say his vision of the world appears to me to be so naïve that I am not even sure he's able to develop a doctrine. He has a view of the world as regulated by self-enforcing international norms, where the peace is kept by some kind of vague international consensus, something called the international community, which to me is a fiction, acting through obviously inadequate and worthless international agencies. I wouldn't elevate that kind of thinking to a doctrine because I have too much respect for the word doctrine.The full interview is HERE.
[HT: Wheat & Weeds: But He Could Be Re-Elected Anyway?]
You just have to love John Nese and spend 12 great minutes with a great American businessman. As Chow.comtells it:
John Nese is the proprietor of Galcos Soda Pop Stop in LA. His father ran it as a grocery store, and when the time came for John to take charge, he decided to convert it into the ultimate soda-lovers destination. About 500 pops line the shelves, sourced lovingly by John from around the world. John has made it his mission to keep small soda-makers afloat and help them find their consumers. Galcos also acts as a distributor for restaurants and bars along the West Coast, spreading the gospel of soda made with cane sugar (no high-fructose corn syrup if John can avoid it).No high-fructose corn syrup? Yes, yes, and yes! High-fructose corn syrup is perhaps the single most invidious ingredient in super-market foods. When I scan ingredients and see it on the list that item goes back on the shelf. It's not only calories consumed to no purpose, it's calories that taste crummy.
I've been dining out lately on the incredible difference between Mexican Coke (sane cane sugar) and the swill passed off as American coke (high-fructose corn crapola). It's true and you can taste and feel the difference with one sip. As a result I am very pleased to listen to this high-priest of boutique sodas, a man who knows what he's talking about.
Here's a few choice quotes pulled from the video:
Corn syrup is totally unnecessary. Why would you use corn as the sweetener? Once a year Coca Cola makes a kosher Coke. It's got a yellow cap. Try it side by side with the regular Coke. The one with the cane sugar just goes pop! And it explodes and it's delicious., The one with the corn just goes fzzzzt.....
"Energy drinks? UGH! Energy drinks just taste bad."
"Big business loves big government. It just uses it to take over the market and then jack up prices."
"What I always wanted to do was to do business with other businesses my size."
"People still come in looking for RC Draft which was a soft cola. Very smooth."
"Coke and Pepsi love recycling. It gets them out of ever have to wash a bottle. If we really cared about the environment you'd have 're-use' and not 'recycling.'"
Re-use rather than recycling. I guess he's hip to the ever expanding glass mountains accruing at municipal garbage dumps around the nation since, surprise, it's cheaper to make glass from sand that to recycle it. Men like Nese should be in government rather than the substandard toads, right and left, that currently infest it. But then again, no. If he did we'd be out one really great soda store and that is just not worth it.
[UPDATE: Yes, Nese's Galcos Soda Pop Shop lets you buy on line for shipping to your parched home address. Check out Galco's Soda Pop Stop for details. ]
I'm not at all sure which pagan religion my 10-year-old stepson belongs to. Perhaps it is the arcane cult of "Nintendoism" with its secret rites of "The High Priests of the Thumb". Perhaps he is an acolyte of "Transformerology," which evidently commands him to amass enough Legos to build a Romanesque Chapel in his room that is large enough for himself and two friends.
I am disturbed this unknown cult requires him to keep a graven image in his room that resembles a large square sponge with legs and a Satanic expression. From time to time, he is known to take trays of burnt offerings, in the form of charred circles of dough covered in melted cheese and a sauce as red as blood, into his room. The offering trays are later recovered, but there is no trace of the sacrifice, only vague stains of red on the sponge and rug beneath it.
I am not sure how or when he came by this religion. Perhaps he was converted during one of those dead of night gatherings known among his coven as "sleep-overs." Sure, they sound innocent enough, but I am positive that these are covens at which much arcane and secret knowledge is transferred.
No matter what the source or nature of his unknowable religion, one thing is clear about the dangers of it. He has become convinced that there is such a thing as magic. My fear is that he may be right.
I suspect this because I have witnessed this dark magic at work in my own home.
One often seen magical incident is what I have come to know as "The Ritual of the Spirit Shoes." In this ritual, he discards his shoes at any place in the house in the sincere belief that they will reappear lined up in pairs in his closet. This, you will be astonished to learn, is exactly what happens. They actually do appear in the closet within the next 24 hours. At times they even reappear, as if they sense they will be his choice of footwear for the day, next to the front door ready for his feet in a kind of reverse Cinderella moment.
I have come to understand that "The Ritual of the Spirit Shoes" is only one of the strange effects that comes about through the intervention of "The Magic Floor." This "force" seems to be able to cause any and all items of his clothing discarded at any point in the house to vanish only to reappear, clean and folded, in his drawers and closets.
I have tried to reproduce this effect for myself by discarding items of clothing here and there about the house, but the only magical effect this seems to have is to cause "the look" to appear on the face of my wife. After which, I collect my spurned offerings from "The Magic Floor."
By far the most stunning proof that my stepson's religion is dark magic with large mojo is what I have come to understand as "The Miracle of Toys and Games."
As a 10-year-old boy, my stepson has no job, no prospects of a job, and is currently doomed to be a member of the hard-core unemployed for an unknown number of years. Because of this, he does not enjoy positive cash-flow. In fact, if he has any cash-flow at all, it is decidedly negative.
Still, he seems to have an ever expanding level of possessions. No sooner does he obtain, through prayer, an X-Box than he calls out to his strange gods for a Playstation II and, poof!, it appears. It comes complete with several strange circles of shiny metal that he places in the slot on the Playstation altar for an extended periods of worship.
Objects of this level of expense must, it would seem, be chanted for intensely, and the chants repeated frequently, over a period of time. The more mundane items such as school supplies seem to be the fruits of silent prayer. Still, the miracle manifests itself on a daily basis when, without any tapping of his own horde of cash kept in a large brown cigar box, his possessions multiply around him.
All this happens behind his back and without any intervention from him while in a trance state. At this level of contemplation and meditation he receives visions from strange beings that appear to him hour upon hour. Observing him in this state I can only conclude he is channeling his arcane gods through some mystical conduit that he calls "The Cartoon Network."
I am not sure what messages he is receiving since those few visions I have been allowed to witness involves bizarre figures of a slightly oriental cast flying about on alien worlds. Other than flying and exploding, they are unmoving except for a vibrating crimson squiggle where their lips would be. I am not sure what gospel they are preaching. I am sure, however, that I there is a monthly tithe for this somewhere in my cable bill.
No matter. Although it is a bit unnerving to witness the magical power of my stepson's unknown religion, I am at least comforted to know that he, unlike so many of our materialistic children, has a rich and full spiritual life. That's so important in these days when the secular seems to be dominating so much of our culture. Since many of his friends seem to share the same religion, I am also gratified that he has chosen peers whose family's values also accentuate the spiritual.
Yesterday I thought that I would help my stepson take one of his first steps towards adulthood by getting him his own wallet. In this way I believed I could begin to show him how to be responsible for his own finances. On reflection I thought better of it. His religion is so powerful that he would simply take it into his room, mutter some words over it, expose it to the mystic rays beamed in via "The Cartoon Channel," and it would be transformed into "The Boys' Wallet of Wonder -- Money checks in, but it doesn't check out." He would always leave home without it.
First published five years ago this month.
And speaking Personally... and if a man speaks any other way we might as well start looking for his Protoplasm Daddy or Mother Cell...
I Don't Want To Hear Any More Tired Old Liberal Talk And Liberal Con .... The same things have been said a million times and more and there is no point in saying any of them again because NOTHING Ever Happens in the Liberal world.
(And while we're at it: I Don't Want To Hear Any More Tired Old Conservative Talk And Conservative Con about playing nice with these junkies. Once the Liberal needle goes in, it never comes out. Junkies don't kick if you're kind to them. Junkies only kick if you kick them.
Only excuse for this tired Liberal death route is THE KICK when the Liberal circuit is cut off for the non-payment and the Liberal-skin dies of Liberal-lack and overdose of time and the Old Skin has forgotten the skin game simplifying a way under the Liberal cover the way skins will.... A condition of total exposure is precipitated when the Kicking Addict to Liberalism cannot choose but see smell and listen.... Watch out for the cars....)
It is clear that Liberalism is Round-the-World-Push-an-Opium-Pellet -with- Your-Nose-Bullshit. Strictly for Scarabs – a stumble bum Liberal heap of pure bullshit. And, as such, Liberals strap on your drool cups and please report to disposal. We’re tired of smelling and hearing your looping loopy bullshit.
Liberals always beef about The Rush Limbaugh as they call it, turning up their black coat collars and clutching their withered necks at the mention of the man's name and hissing, like the green lizard dwarfs, "Raaaaacist!"... this is pure Liberal con.
I would not feel so all alone, / Everybody must get stoned.
"If religion is the opiate of the people, marijuana is the new religion."
Gentlemen, start your bongs! Today it was announced that the Obama administration "will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws, under new policy guidelines to be sent to federal prosecutors Monday".... and because it's cool!.... and because it takes us a step closer to legalizing (and taxing) a very profitable cash crop.... and because, in the America of the very near future you're going to have to be very, very stoned not to see how deeply you're being screwed.... and because stoned people, if they can get off the couch, tend to vote for their pushers.
And also because the Obama is a stoner and wants to get some fine ganja growing in Michelle's garden. That way he can take up smoking again and have everybody say, "It's okay. It's only some fine White House chronic, not tobacco." Wanna bet?
American Digest saw this coming in the middle of last December....
Say you get a dozen Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (make sure they're the "government approved" ENERGY STAR), and install them to feel better about your "carbon footprint." It's true that these 12 bulbs are going to cost you around $50, but that's a small price to pay for feeling good, isn't it?
Now, get to work. Let's say you're a fast light bulb screwer-inner and get it all done inside of five minutes.
Whew, that felt great, didn't it? Think of all the money you've saved and how much you've done to save the planet Earth from TEOTWAWKI!
Now if only China and India could be convinced to stop bringing 200 new souls into the world in the time it took you to change 12 light bulbs and we really might be getting somewhere.
Two hundred new human beings every five minutes in these two nations alone. And 200 more during the next five minutes. And 200.... Humm, 12 light bulb changes versus 200 human beings.... surely there's room for negotiation.
Continued...
I grew this once in another life. It was a frightening experience.
If it wasn't for Halloween, this grotesque and useless vegetable would be extinct. And good riddance.
Let's review.
Somewhere dotted about the fruited plains of America something like lebenty-leben gazillion acres of pumpkins are planted every damn year. Then care and water and chemicals are slathered on these fibrous tumors causing them grow big. Some very big. Some so big that they can be hoisted into the air and dropped onto a car and obliterate said automobile.
Many are midget pumpkins. This year I'm seeing teeny-weeny baby pumpkins ripe for pumpkin abuse. But most are middle to large hunks o' pumpkin by the time they are "ready for harvesting."
Sounds so pastoral, doesn't it? "Ready for the harvest." Except that when you actually "harvest" a plant the assumption is that, somewhere, somehow, some people are actually going to eat the thing.
Continued...
There is a world dimensional
For those untwisted
by the love of things irreconcilable.
--Hart Crane
I've written elsewhere that one of the "things you can't say about the First Terrorist War" is that it is, at bottom, a war of two religions. So it is with the culture wars in America today. It too is, and you are not supposed to say this either, a war of TWO religions.
Then again, that is not quite right. Try it this way.
We are fighting a war of two religions in which only one side is allowed to be designated as a religion -- the Right. "The Right" in these terms is always code for "The Religious Right", which is, in turn, code for "Christianity." This is sometimes, by the legion of scribblers ready to push out the party line at the drop of a hat, modified for form's sake into "Christian Fundamentalism." But realistic observers of this game are not fooled and know it to be the same sort of bearded shorthand by which "Islamic Fundamentalism" is made to stand in for Islam, pure and simple.
In whatever form the attack takes, we have seen -- and will continue to see -- an attack on Religious Americans by another group of Americans that previously identified themselves as "secular," but who lately are trying to wrap themselves in the raiment of religion to a greater or lesser extent. I am expecting a plethora of punditry soon that includes the phrase, "Some of my best friends are Christians, but...." at every opportunity.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
-- Eliot
Last Sunday in Seattle I was still sitting with my morning coffee when the phone rang. It was my old friend, the constant urban explorer, who lives a few blocks away. "I want to give you a gift," he said, "but I can't bring it to you. Instead, you've got to go to it." This man's gifts are not lightly chosen (Except for the inflatable Sarah Palin love doll -- but he's getting that one back when he least expects it.), so I listened.
"Write this down. Walk to the Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in your neighborhood."
"Oh..kay....."
"No. No. You'll be glad you did. Then go in the main entrance and stroll along the road on the west side."
"Right."
"Look to your left for a large white stone with two benches on either side of it. The name carved into the stone is 'PUDDY.' "
"Got it."
"Sit down on a bench and look around. That's your gift. Talk to you later. Oh, you'll want to take your camera."
I wondered for a moment if this could be some sort of geocaching joke. At the same time I knew it wasn't. He's a man with little use for the latest techno-ephemera. He values time, his and others. Sleeveless errands are not his style. It was a bright, somewhat cool, Indian Summer Sunday in Seattle and the cemetery was only a few blocks away. I suited up and out the door I went. In a few minutes I was walking into the cemetery and looking around.
Mt. Pleasant is fine cemetery as cemeteries go. Quiet and expansive without being overlarge. You can be buried with your own kind if you are Asian or Jewish, or you can just be planted helter-skelter in the great Seattle diversity plots that make up most of it's area. I've written about this place before in Small Flags, a meditation about loss and war, but the cemetery tells, as all cemeteries do, more than one kind of story if you settle your soul down and listen.
At first I was a bit disoriented inside the gates since the one-lane road winds hither and yon around the grounds and the office with the map to the grave sites is closed on Sundays. By and by, however, I spied off to my left and over near the wall of trees and bushes and chain link fencing that is the western border of the cemetery a large white stone with two white stone benches on either side. I went over and read:
PUDDY
Come sit with us awhile and share our sorrow. Though you weep share the joyful memories too. Look in your heart: In truth you mourn for that which has been your delight.
For Joy and sorrow are inseparable.
I sat and looked north to the outer edge of the large plot that, so far, had only one grave. And there they were. Continued...
Be kind to Aliens,
And treat them nice.
Be kind to Aliens,
Take my advice.
Be Kind to Aliens.....
And you will hear them say:
"Thank you for being kind to Aliens,
We love to be treated that way!"
--Proposed Planetary Anthem for Earth
Ok, you've read it all. Roswell. Crop Circles. Close Encounters. Slashdot. All of the hubs of Alien Conspiracy. You've parsed it out, you know it all, and you've made your call. Well, you're wrong.
The Aliens are here, and blending into your everyday life in ways so insidious you regard them as .... should I say it ... annoyances.
Here is a brief guide to three of the many Alien races you meet every day and don't even know it:
THE SURVEILLIONS
Surveillion: Natural State and Human Disguise
These folk live every libertarian and Slashdotter's nightmare: Constant and accurate surveillance of their thoughts. One might question, on an enlightened planet like our own, how they survive at all. Indeed, Surveillions live out their daily lives here on the cusp of mental mayhem.
Continued...
"I'd like to thank all the little people."
The Fix Was In: Worth noting, Obama took office less than 10 days before the Feb. 1 deadline for Nobel Prize nominations. -- @markknoller
2:09 AM You always knew those beauty contest declarations about "world peace" would pay off. And without even having to put on a bikini. US President Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize
U.S. President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for his calls to reduce the world's stockpile of nuclear weapons and working for world peace.Plus his signal accomplishments so far in office, "Jack" and "Shit." Now the whole world has an imaginary friend. And like all beauty queens he looks good in a thong. Continued...
The Escalator or the Stairs: Watch that first step, it's a B-flat.
[Yesterday, my uncle, Arthur Warner McNair, passed away peacefully in his sleep in his 100th year. My mother and I saw him last June to celebrate his birthday and say goodbye.This is a memoir of that visit made at the time. Go with God, Uncle Warner. Go with God. ]
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
-- Eliot
He's one hundred years old and his long hands, once strong, are growing translucent. He does not so much sit in his wheelchair as he is held upright and aslant by straps. Even awake his eyes are shut against the glare and the blur of the florescent lights in the roof of the home. His meals of pureed food are spoon fed to him by attendants who speak to him in the tones he once used, long ago, on his infant children. When the drapes in his room are partially opened they reveal a view of a gravel roof, exhaust fans, and the brick facade of the opposite wing of the home. It's not a view but he doesn't mind. His eyes are shut against the glare and the blur of the present, and he's gone off on a fishing trip in the summer of 1949 where "Jesus, the fish are thick on the ground." Don't make the mistake of thinking he's not in the here and now, because he'll surprise you now and then. He'll come out for a bit if it is worth it, but it seldom is. And then only for a moment.
He's my mother's brother, my uncle, and his life has now spanned a century. In the year of his birth, 1909, the NAACP was founded as was Tel Aviv while the keel of what was to become the Titanic was laid in Belfast. Taft took over the Presidency from Roosevelt (Theodore) and "Alice Huyler Ramsey, a 22-year-old housewife and mother from Hackensack, New Jersey, became the first woman to drive across the United States." Airplanes were only six years old but the Germans were already working on the anti-aircraft gun. Wisely so since the United States Army Signal Corp Division purchased the world's first military airplane from the Wright brothers in that same year. Not to be outdone, the US Navy decided it needed a central base in the Pacific and thought Pearl Harbor made strategic sense.
In the year of his birth Geronimo died, Barry Goldwater was born, and Guglielmo Marconi received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of radio. There's a radio in his room next to his bed but it's never turned on. Neither is the television that hangs from the ceiling and if the phone rings, it's a mistake. But in his mind, there are signals still coming in from elsewhere, from elsewhen, from out there, and if you sit with him quietly, without trying to engage him and without expectation; if you sit with him "where here and now cease to matter" you can sometimes sense where he lives in this his hundredth year.
The Hockneyesque "Green Sphere Upon the Sands of Solace." From the "What? On the Beach Again?" series. Here we see the questioning autodidact Johnson confronting the existential vacuity of American beachspace with a sardonic Worholian distancing of the self from the mundane spritziness that is the Malibu shell of angst, despair, and desolation. Note that even the small Macintosh-referenced trash icon in the middle distance is in an emptied state.
Mozart: [hesitantly] I never knew that music like that was possible!
Salieri: [uncertainly] You flatter me.
Mozart: No, no! One hears such sounds, and what can one say but... ”Salieri."
-- Amadeus (1984) - Memorable quotes
Of late many have opined on the mental state of Charles Foster Johnson erstwhile hotchat master of Little Green Footballs. Words such as "dementia," "quisling," "bull goose looney," "testicular chancre," "slobbering obamallationist," and "schmo" have hurtled about the blogosphere for months. I shall not endeavor to improve upon this brick-bat barrage of blandishments in which Mr. Johnson is repeatedly and heartedly encouraged "to perform self-intercourse with a low-yield thermonuclear warhead."
Nor shall I note that having a "big" "b-log" floating about like a cowchip on a vast sea of Internet sludge is akin to possessing a two-inch penis. Neither shall I underscore those slanderous assertions that Johnson's writing skills are limited to the "Paste" command. I note only that before "Paste" there is always his first tool, "Cut." I shall also say nothing to underscore the obvious assertion in so many quarters that a "Dan Rather Scoop" is now so far in the past that even Dan Rather's lawsuit has run out of Dan Rather gas.
No, too much has been done to malign Charles Foster Johnson, that Howard Hughes of Somewhere Lost Angeles. Instead I propose to consider the one area in which there can be no justifiable criticism of the "artiste" that dwells within the eternal sunshine of his mind, his photography....
Continued...He ran on "Do You Believe in Magic," and he finds that he has to govern to "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?"
Ah, well, that's his problem and I'm sure he's got it all figured out. After all, he's the "smartest politician ever." Right? Right.
Our problem is whether or not Mr. Wonderful and his rollicking sidekicks are taking us right into the:
Continued...
To be heard at the Wheel of Stars Made by the genius of Jim Bumgardner and derived from data beamed down to Earth from Hipparcos:
I used this information to plot the brightest stars, and cause them to revolve about Polaris (the North Star) very slowly, as the stars appear to do. Like the night sky, this is a sidereal time clock -- it takes nearly 24 hours for the stars to fully rotate. You'll notice some familiar constellations, such as the Big Dipper in there. As the stars cross zero and 180 degrees, indicated by the center line, the clock plays an individual note, or chime for each star. The pitch of the chime is based on the star's BV measurement (which roughly corresponds to color or temperature). The volume is based on the star's magnitude, or apparent brightness, and the stereo panning is based on the position on the screen (use headphones to hear it better).Hear it now. Five minutes in full screen mode should recenter you with God's great cosmos.
Today we all love saying "Massive ordinance penetrator" six times swiftly. US giant bunker-buster bomb project rushed since Iran's Qom site discovered 28 September @ All Things News Function?
15-ton super bunker-buster bomb (GBU-57A/B) Massive Ordinance Penetrator, which can reach a depth of 60.09 meters underground before exploding.Here's the team of "Can do" Americans that made it all possible. Applause please.
Please take a couple of minutes from your day to watch this touching message from the folks at the top of the power pyramid.
[Bootlicking] Stage Participants Four doctors will stand on stage behind the President during his remarks. [Lab coats will be supplied.]
Proctologist-in-Chief: Surrounded by doctors, Obama pitches overhaul Oh sweet Jesus and Mary mother of God! Is there nothing that cannot be reduced to an inane photo-op? Apparently not in this diversity-drenched photo. (I especially treasure the aging hippy doctor with the ratty grey pony-tail. He's both a doctor & a lawyer so, I guess, he can go sue himself. Big Obama donor? Of course.)
"[The doctors] consider this thing a done deal, and they're jockeying for position on one of those righteous death panels. We've seen death panels before in this country, and it was a very fucking bad idea that time, too." -- Velociworld: O Death
Hard to know whether to file this under " jack or squat.". Either way, it now appears that the motto for "Health Reform" will be "Bend Over Here It Comes Again."
Now I'm not saying George W. Bush doesn't love America. He clearly does. And I'm not saying he's the kind of man who takes pleasure in watching his successor slowly pinned and wriggling on the wall. He probably doesn't. ("Karl, what say we let that doofus with the Howdy Doody ears win the next one? It'll be good for at least another decade of those Pelosi losers eviscerating themselves. Put up... oh... I don't know... that McCain character. He's so dim he'll actually think it'll be an honor.")
And I'm not saying he likes watching prestige, power, wealth, and lives slowly being drained out of the body politic. He clearly loathes it. And I'm not saying that he's the sort of guy that say's "I told you so..." when he hasn't. He doesn't have to. Everyone except the most besotted core of Obamallationists knows the deep and sucking morass that is enveloping the Wunderkind with every passing day.
I'm just saying that sometimes, late at night on the ranch in Crawford, George W. Bush has to wander out onto the land and wonder....
Continued...
Wow! Just wow: After undocking, the space shuttle Discovery crew got a memorable view of the developing International Space Station (ISS). Pictured orbiting high above Earth last month, numerous solar panels, trusses, and science modules of the ISS were visible. -- Astronomy Picture of the Day, October 5 (This is much better if you click to enlarge and the link has a very high-def version. Recommended.)
Ssssh: Frank Warren of Post Secret reveals he receives about 1,000 post cards a week.
Continued...American Thinker: The Obamas Violated First Three Rules of Selling
Of course Barack and Michelle Obama failed in Copenhagen. Their strategy could not possibly succeed. In their academic arrogance, they thought they could sell a product they clearly do not believe in (the United States) and moreover, they could do so by stressing the benefits to the seller (Chicago) and not the buyer (the IOC). And to top it off, they committed the faux pas of talking too much about the sales force (themselves) and not about the product or the buyer. ... The bottom line is this: this was an Obama epic fail period. They were the sales force, they were the focus of the sales presentation and they were the product. The Obamas were there to sell the Obamas with the Obamas. All Obama all the time.
And the world said, "No thanks."
A recording of a video projection show perfectly mapped to the front of a mansion in England. You've just got to see it to believe it.
HT: Gerard
Pull up a chair and sit a spell. Death's in residence on my block
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die
To cease upon the midnight with no pain....
-- Keats, Ode to a Nightingale
Once upon a time, when Europe could be had at $5 a day, I found myself hitchhiking on the freezing plains of Spain just outside of Madrid. Car after car swept past me, the winds in their wakes chilling me further. This was very disconcerting since I had with me my fail-safe ride generator, a hot hippie girlfriend (Think a good-looking Janis Joplin.) My ride generator had never failed me before but on this day she was generating zero rides even though the traffic on the road was heavy. Then I noticed two things.
First there seemed to be no trucks on the road. Second, the cars that huffed past us were filled to the gills with whole Spanish families bearing vast bouquets of flowers. And all those Spaniards looked, to the last, very grim.
Continued...
Video created by BulletPeople
The Gorgon had surveyed the building again in the night, and had added the one stone face wanting; the stone face for which it had waited through about two hundred years. It lay back on the pillow of Monsieur the Marquis. It was like a fine mask, suddenly startled, made angry, and petrified. Driven home into the heart of the stone figure attached to it, was a knife. Round its hilt was a frill of paper, on which was scrawled: "Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques." --A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
The Obama talking while touring cure for world problems. How's that working out? ZZZzzzzzz.... And now, while we wait for Joe the Plumber to deploy the Roto-Rooter to remove that look from FLOTUS' face, some "traveling music:"
I'm hearing the light from the window,
I'm seeing the sound of the sea,
My feet have come loose from their moorings,
I'm feeling quite wonderfully free.
And I think I will travel to Rio
Using the music for flight,
There's nothing I know of in Rio,
But it's something to do with the night.
It's only a whimsical notion
To fly down to Rio tonight,
And I probably won't fly down to Rio,
But then again, I just might....
From your goto source for mainlining the soul of Michelle: Michelle Obama's Mirror's Blog: Blame It On Rio (and Racism)
The Storyboard. He carried, for most of the day, a large wooden cross and stood near an entrance to Penn Station. Mute, his message read:
Police name is Cartwright and 2 other police rape sodomize my wife in the mid town south precint tues january 21 1986 . My daughter was torture and murder at bith in the hosp 5 more children missing nurse l miller use sciorggies and gut the child no operation no surgery my-leg-broken-police...As far as I could tell, no one ever stopped to ask him about it. God knows I didn't.
Peace, Love, Sales. If John Lennon crawled out of the grave without a cent, this is the job he'd take. Maybe it was him. What did I know about instant karma? It was a profitable hustle for a bit because it was so, well, creative. On hot summer days, the rose colored granny glasses brought out the dollars for pot research because we were all glad someone was doing it while we were at work. When the basket filled up his "sidekick" would drift over and be flicked back. One day they were gone. I imagine they'd finally raised enough to continue the research elsewhere before the big bong hits of winter slapped them stiff on the heating grates.
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- El Greco's Inquisitor
- When Life Imitates Norman Rockwell
- No More Celebrity Sex Tapes Please. We've Just Eaten.
- 'Obama Is Average' Interview with Charles Krauthammer
-
SomethingSomeone Wonderful - The Magic of Childhood
- NAKED LIBERAL LUNCH
- Why Do You Think They Call It Dope?: Obama OKs Getting Stoned.
- Shoveling Lightbulbs Against the Tide
- Now Let's Talk About Your Big Fat Pumpkin
- The Religion of the Left
- PUDDY: The Gift
- The Aliens Among Us
- There He Is.... Miss-ter A-MER-I-CA!: Nobel Committee Now Officially Not Worth the Dynamite It Would Take to Blow Them Away
- Something Wonderful
- The Centenarian: Arthur Warner McNair
- The Eternal Banality of the Photography of Charles Foster Johnson
- Obama's problem is that he's bracketed himself with the Lovin' Spoonful
- Something Wonderful: The Music of the Spheres
- Team MOP: When Obama Says "No we can't" Other Americans say "Yes, we can."