Drive-By
The image below just generated itself from my RSS Feed a few minutes ago. It's a random but telling juxtaposition. Above you have the bombing of soldiers who are still fighting and dying while hamstrung by the "rules" of engagement in Afghanistan. Below you have the incompetent and corrupt collection of current "rulers" taking a moment out of their terrible, high-risk, gutsy calls at Camp David. In a just world these situations would be, somehow, reversed.
"Mankind has been broadcasting radio waves into deep space for about a hundred years now — since the days of Marconi.
"That, of course, means there is an ever-expanding bubble announcing Humanity’s presence to anyone listening in the Milky Way. This bubble is astronomically large (literally), and currently spans approximately 200 light years across.
"But how big is this, really, compared to the size of the Galaxy in which we live (which is, itself, just one of countless billions of galaxies in the observable universe)?" -- | jackadamblog
For hi-res:
Continued...A very smart man who is also wise.
A forensic technician sweeps blood off a street at a crime scene in Monterrey
A photo-essay at - In Focus - The Atlantic is pretty much death and corpses all the way down. In a way it's good we're getting the military out of Iraq and Afghanistan. We're going to need them at home.
I'm aware of all the self-hating Americans' arguments that the drug cartels of Mexico are only there because of this country's insatiable hunger for illicit drugs. All fine and good, but.... but... you have to admit that Mexico brings a whole new level of game and brutality to this "business." It's almost as if there is something endemic to the Mexican character that compels this kind of slaughter that is beneath even the carnal, uncaring slaughter instincts of insects.
All this and the Tom Bodett story too:
Tired of roofing houses in the rain anyway, Bodett next wrote a twisted and insensitive piece of commentary about having his dog castrated. As broadcast history will prove to embarrass him for the rest of his days, this was to become the first radio appearance of his career.
Within three months, due no doubt to these high literary standards, Bodett was a regular commentator on National Public Radio’s popular news program, All Things Considered, and had been given a book contract with Addison-Wesley Publishing Company of Boston. That agreement led to the publication of a collection of his radio commentaries As Far As You Can Go Without A Passport, the View from the End of the Road in 1985. Being that it was still raining outside, or worse, Bodett immediately began work on his second collection, Small Comforts, which was published in 1987.
In the meantime, the phone started ringing. Several were just the neighbors complaining about the dog but others were from fans, old friends, interviewers, some weirdoes, and an advertising agency in Dallas, Texas who had a new client called Motel 6.
The Richards Group ad agency asked Bodett if he’d be willing to devote his considerable talents as a deadpan radio bullfrog to the marketing of a national chain of economy motels. Checking the weather outside the front door and seeing that it was still raining or worse, Bodett returned to the phone and said "Yes. When would you like me to start?"
Ad libbing the tagline, "We’ll Leave the Light on for You", in the very first session gained Bodett the reputation for being unbelievably lucky. Bodett remains lucky and very honored to still be the spokesperson for Motel 6 after twenty two years. The campaign is one of the longest running advertising campaigns in history and continues to win awards for its creativity and its effectiveness in the lodging industry.
Having been literally killed by my diet, I am trying to adjust. But this country doesn't make it easy. Fair Warning: Generally unsafe and far too vulgar for any human environment.
DREAMS OF MY TWO FATHERS: World's Most Important Autobiography Revised and Uncloseted
GLIDE PATHS AND PORK CHOPS: Principles of Porcine Aviation
REVOLUTIONARY RELAXATION: How to Unwind with Small Shooting Sprees
COMPROMISE ECOLOGY: The Handbook of "The Friends of the Sierra Club and Halliburton's Earth."
STIFFED: Around the World in 80 Lapdances
LOOK MOO, 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
THE 7 COMPULSIONS OF HIGHLY DEFECTIVE PEOPLE
WE'RE TWELVE STEPPING: 12 Foolproof Square Dances for AA Shindigs in Rural America
THE SPEED OF DARK: Measuring the Slowest Thing in the Universe
GENDERLENDING: Same Sex Marriage for Heterosexuals
DUCT-TAPE DROMEDARIES: Beyond Balloon Animals
MY GIRL: The Life of Jenna Bush, 46th President of the United States As Told by Her Father
PRONE YOGA: Asanas for People Too Pooped to Sit Up
THE PEOPLE, MAYBE: The Progressive Professor's Guide to Making Sure Only Smart People Vote
THE I-CHANGE: Fortune Telling with the New Commemorative Quarters
YO, GOD: The Revised Standard Hip-Hop Version of the Gospels
"My great great great grandfather married a Cherokee
The Harvard people sought diversity
I faked it to teach at Harvard Law
Now Teabaggers call me Indian Faux
Half of half of half of half of a half breed!
That's what I'm starting now to hear
Half of half of half of half of a half breed!
Could put a dent in my career
Half of half of half of half of a half breed!
She's a fake they warned
Wingnuts have been mocking since this story was born
We settled nicely into Cambridge town
When you play a race card, you can hang around
Right wing bloggers are now mocking me
Give her life tenure, she's thirtieth Cherokee
REFRAIN
I have my billet and I feel no shame
That's just how libs roll, tell me who's to blame
This Senate run exposed my ethnic scam
Now people can see me for what I AM!!
REFRAIN"
-- [Callmelennie made this]
I don't usually pay any attention to "Dancing with the Stars." Last night, a close friend directed my attention to this and I had to change my mind. (For this one, at least.) I'm not sure but I think the face plant move at 3:33, the slinging around in circles, and the hauling of the lifeless form off the stage at the end had something to do with the compelling nature of this paso.
Continued...You may recall the story from last week where the "tolerant" lesbian in Washington tried to force a Catholic Priest to go against his vows by giving her communion while she was still in her normal state of sin. Well, it seems that the Washington Post is having trouble determining exactly which local lesbian it was.
Washington Post correction, March 17 (left); March 16 (right) JIMROMENESKO.COM
At Romanesko's Jim Hopkins predicts:
Here's how tomorrow's correction will read: Roseanne Barr, the American actress, comedian, writer, television producer and director, was misidentified as Sarah E. Reece, director of the Academy for Leadership and Action of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, in a correction on March 17 of a correction the day before of an earlier photo caption, on March 15, where she was misidentified as Barbara Johnson, a a lesbian denied Communion on Feb. 25 at her mother's funeral.
If this is how it is there is going to be a tsunami of corrections coming in when lesbian weddings really get going.
You Want Gun Porn? We Got Gun Porn.
Let's face it, if you're the kind of odd person who is deeply disturbed by the Second Amendment and gun rights you're probably thinking, "They're making this just to irritate me." And you'd be right. But that wouldn't be the only reason.
From the Arsenal Arms page describing this behemoth:
"The AF2011-A1 Double Barrel Pistol comes actually as the very first industrial double barrel semiautomatic pistol of all times. The original idea came about ten years back to Swiss armourer Vivian Mueller, who at the time experienced cutting and welding together multiple parts of the famous Sig P210: the result was a long slide, double barrel 9mm, highly decorated collector piece, which indeed shot very well.
"Our idea took the challenge further: to commemorate the legendary Colt 1911-A1 in the Centenary by making a true industrial market-ready double barrel .45 caliber pistol. [And because at Arsenal anything worth doing is worth overdoing. ] We achieved success in the brief span of 6 months, after intense and round-the-clock 3D designing, stereolithographic modeling and parts machining. The gun can be handled by any shooter able to shoot with a .45 Acp and it is not only very pleasing, but very accurate and great fun. [Such great fun that it will soon be the gun of choice among Mexican and ghetto drug lords.]
"The AF2011-A1 holds amazing and surprising target performance for the shooter: in fact, it will group all the 8 double .45 caliber rounds (16 bullets) held in the duplex, single columns magazines, in a target of the size of an orange at 15 yards and of a water melon at 25. [Comes with a t-shirt that says "Death from Downrange to Fruit!"]
"The stopping power of the AF2011-A1 is tremendous: 2 bullets for a total of 460 Grains weight impacting at 1 to 2 inches apart (depending on the distance of the target) will knock down a bull [I don't want to think about how they know this.], while the whole 18 bullets, for a payload exceeding 4000 Grains, can be delivered to the target in about 3 seconds. [Do not, repeat, do not be that target.]
"The AF2011-A1 obviously features a number of very special parts, such as the single slide, the single frame, the single spur double hammer, the single grip safety, the single body double mainspring housing and the single double cavity magazine floor plate [I.E. This is one bad single mother.], the long and double magazine latch, the special barrel bushings and the hold open lever and side lever safety with long shafts: but the most interesting feature of the new pistol which we strived to keep during the development of the project, is the interchangeability of most internal parts, which come as standard 1911 replacement parts. These include the firing pins, the firing pins plates, the sears groups, the triple springs, the inner parts of the mainspring housings, the recoil springs and recoil springs rods, the magazine bodies and inner parts, the sights (including after market adjustable sights) the grips and grips screws and bushings. [Translation: It's like a parts car for you 1911, only more expensive.]
"The AF2011-A1 (“Twenty Eleven” for aficionados [Or badass gangstas.] ) can be ordered either with 2 independent triggers and one sear group (left or right, with user-interchangeability for right or left operations) or with 2 triggers permanently joined and the choice of 1 or 2 sear groups.
"The AF2011-A1 is available in mirror finish Deep Blue or with a 3400 Vickers surface hardness White Ash Nitrite coating. [Gold plating for gangstas will be extra and custom and you just know THAT is going to happen.]
"He crossed the Atlantic because it was there, and the Pacific because it was also there. He made both crossings in a rowboat because it, too, was there:" John Fairfax, Who Rowed Across Oceans, Dies at 74
The obit at the link gives you a bit of a resume most men, if they are men, would die for.
Pistol packing kid who shot up his Boy Scout campground? Check.
Off to commit suicide by feeding himself to a jaguar and then shooting the jaguar instead? Check.
Self-employed as a trapper in a South American jungle with a specialty in jaguar and ocelot skins? Check.
Literature and philosophy student? Check.
Apprentice pirate? Check.
Row alone across the Atlantic in a rowboat from the Canary Islands to Florida in 180 days? Check.
Row with a girlfriend for company and recreation across the Pacific from San Francisco to Australia in 361 days? Check.
Finish out your days as a professional baccarat player and die of a heart attack at 74 in Nevada?
Check and double-check.
I was taught it until I knew it well enough to parrot it, but I never knew why. Until now.
Continued...
From "drive-by" to "drive-through." The phrase "located in Compton" is, shall we say, a dead giveaway: Inside LA's drive-thru (and bulletproof) funeral home
"The mortuary, located in Compton, claims to offer an efficient way for prominent members of the community to be viewed en masse. Elderly who have a hard time walking don't have to leave their cars. One possible reason for the drive-thru's success could stem back to the 1980s, when Compton was a hotbed for gang violence. The LA Times reported that cemetery shootouts made gang members reluctant to gather for graveside services. And since the glass partition of the Robert L. Adam's funeral parlor is bulletproof, it became a popular location for gang funerals."
"Here's the pitch. He swings. It's a long one..... a long one..... it's..... OUTAHERE!"
Continued...Severe cold continues in Europe
"A man walks past an ice covered car on the frozen waterside promenade at Lake Geneva in Versoix, near Geneva, Switzerland, early Feb. 5. The death toll from the vicious cold snap across Europe has risen to more than 260, with the winter misery set to hit thousands of those seeking to escape it as air traffic was hit."
How cold is the Winter of 2010-2011 in Great Britain and Ireland? Well, it has been "referred to as The Big Freeze by national media. In the UK it was the coldest December ever, since Met Office records began in 1910, with a mean temperature of -1°C. It broke the previous record of 0.1°C in December 1981."
And it obviously broke records for cold set before the "Met Office records began in 1910" as indicated in this souvenir:
Or this bookplate made in 1740,
Continued...
File Under: "Be careful what you wish for."
And, as the sun sets slowly on western civilization....
This is a translated transcript of a conversation in Italian between the commander of the cruise lines (Port Authority) and the "Captain" of the wrecked cruise liner who has, it seems, been one of the first off the ship. Port Authority is none too pleased with this and is having none of Shittino's ... er... Schettino's excuses:
The chairman doubled down with: "Some colleagues still think that car-sharing borders on communism," said Dieter Zetsche, chairman of Mercedes-Benz during his first keynote at CES in Las Vegas while discussing the company's CarTogether initiative in front of a giant image of Argentinian revolutionary Che Guevara. "But if that's the case, viva la revolucion!" -- Media - Variety
OOPS! There's just something so German about idolizing a mass murderer:
Continued...Sippican says this is: "Like holding a bus station microphone up to a Hiroshima bomb. It's a Rocket 88 running from the law of averages with the lights off. A hive of angry bees sliced thin with a meat-packer's blade. Mount Vesuvius with the knob set to simmer. A club of off-duty arsonists lighting a Lucky Strike with a flare. A Big House rent party supreme. A Buddha made from a bucket of mud, a gallon of process, and a half-ton of lightning."
That's not even the half of it.... but it's a great start to introducing.... Muddy Waters!
Continued...
We had flames comin' from out of the side
Feel the tension, man, what a ride!
I said, "Look out, boys, I've got a license to fly"
And that Caddy pulled over and let us by
Now all of a sudden she started to knockin'
And down in the dips she started to rockin'
I looked in my mirror; a red light was blinkin'
The cops was after my Hot Rod Lincoln....
North Korea's new leader Kim Jong Un (4th from left) salutes as he and his uncle Jang Song-thaek (3rd from left) accompany the hearse carrying the coffin of late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il during his funeral procession in Pyongyang, on December 28, 2011. --North Korea Mourns Kim Jong Il - Alan Taylor - In Focus - The Atlantic
Someone, somewhere, please hire this sooper-genius!: Sharief Zakher, 26, of Los Angeles, "flies" a june bug that he had tied to the end of a string during the Occupy LA protest at City Hall in Los Angeles.
Is it just me or do the photos of the folks that show up at these rallies cause snow blindness due to their overwhelmingly white mounds of flesh? Oh, wait, that was the Tea Party, wasn't it?
To quote myself (excellent source): "I try to become more cynical everyday, but lately I just can't keep up."
Just when you think it's safe to go back in the bunker.
HT: Wretchard
This is, like, so totally worth you while, ya know? And it works well, sort of, with the things over on the, like, sidebar about the totally hip interrogative tone?
Thanks, like, Jewel?
NO BENJAMINS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS VIDEO!
[Click image to enlarge.]
White-tailed Sea Eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla) being attacked by a Common Gull (Larus canus) in flight, Norway (via Magic moments: beautiful photographs of birds by Markus Varesvuo - Telegraph) --Love Truth & Beauty
HT: Neoneocon
Police say the two men arrested on murder charges showed no remorse for their alleged crimes. Darren Price, 19, and Jerard "Jirao" Davis are accused of ambushing, robbing and shooting a young couple at Hicks Park in east Tulsa on Sunday night. The bodies of Ethan Nichols, 21, and Carissa Horton, 18, were found on the jogging trail the next day by a couple walking their dog.
Suspects in Hicks Park murders charged - FOX23 News Police say Price and Davis stole their car and cell phones and even texted Nichols family the next day.
A media station unknowingly interviewed Price at the park the day the couple was found and told the reporter how he was scared to take his children to the park.
Later that day Price lled police on a chase and crashed Ethan’s car into a brick wall at an apartment complex one mile away from the park.
Price was also convicted and given a 10-year-suspended sentence in 2010 for kidnapping case in Cherokee Count
"There's no way to delay
That trouble coming every day."
Must See TV:
"What is the most damning allegation against me? 'Sarah Palin doesn't deserve to be President because before she was married she has sex with a black man?' What's funnier is that liberals think they should be congratulated for crossing the color line."
HT: Morgan
Had Enough Therapy?: Enough with the Multiculturalism
Today in Research: Synthetic Weed Inventor Can't Believe You Smoke It
Rough Type: The remains of the book The sense of self-containment is what makes a good book so satisfying to its readers, and the requirement of self-containment is what spurs the writer to the highest levels of literary achievement. The book must feel complete between its edges.
Human Experimentation the Real Issue in Stopping "Transexual" Boy's Puberty
Shrews With the degradation of marriage came the devaluing of the husband. This is turn sent a very clear message that we, mighty roaring women, no longer needed men. Men responded by no longer treating us as ladies. After all we weren't behaving like ones. Now no one respects the other, trust has been shattered, and fewer and fewer people are getting married.
Continued...The Liberty Papers -- Warren makes a persuasive argument to redistribute sex with hot women
Here's something I just learned at Sarah Et Cetera that's going to make one small corner of my life easier from here on out. Passing it on...
Continued...A bit more of this and some schools wouldn't be such shams and sinkholes.
“You boys are pissing me off! Hey! Hey! … Both of y’all, listen. Quit sellin’ out of my house, Anthony. [Turning to the other student he says] Shut up and sit down, before I make change out of you and you! If you don’t take that mess over there right now — right now! It‘s not like you’re going to push through me to get to him. You ain’t! So take it over there if you can’t squash it like gentlemen and get out of his face — and get out of mine, get over there. Take it, Anthony.
“Now, if you can’t squash it, do that off campus. Y‘all don’t do that in here. Whoever made you believe you could, we could squash this right now. … Anybody else? Trust me, we could take it to the grass. Trust me. It’s been that type of Tuesday. You’re too young, your life is too short for y‘all to be sellin’ out with that kind of nonsense. This ain’t no Crips, Bloods kind of nonsense. … You can’t talk it out, then get out. “
26 songs, over 49 years. Featuring Jane Lui. Michael T. on bass and Jonathan Batiste on piano. Directed by Joe Sabia.
Millennia to build the record. One day to destroy it: "Believe it or not—and I know most people do not—violence has been in decline over long stretches of time, and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species' existence." A History Of Violence by Steven Pinker
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." Greece Runs Out Of Ink, Can't Print Tax Forms | ZeroHedge
Windmills, Coal, and Peat: Things got out of hand when entire villages disappeared.... Low-tech Magazine: Medieval smokestacks: fossil fuels in pre-industrial times
Nice work if you can get it: Gibor Basri has 17 people working for him in his immediate office, including a “chief of staff,” two “project/policy analysts,” and a “director of special projects.” Berkeley’s vice chancellor for equity and diversity [is paid a ] $194,000 annual salary. Half Baked by Heather Mac Donald - City Journal
In the 1960s, Jerry Gretzinger began drawing a fantastical, growing map of unbelievable scope. It began with just a doodle, but now it takes up almost 2,000 8" x 10" frames. Drawing from a randomized deck of playing cards and a complex system of rules.... The Mysterious Life of Jerry's Map
Green Jobs? Not Happening. Brown Jobs? Now Your Talking. Gassing Up: Why America's Future Job Growth Lies In Traditional Energy Industries
[Starts to get uncanny at around 1:30]
Where I come from
What I'm made of
Where I wanna be
You can take me out of there
But you can't take it out of me
Northern girl, wild and free
I've got four strong winds to carry me
I've been East to West and all around the world
But I'll always be a Northern girl
I'm a Northern girl
True North, strong and free
Carry me
I'm a Northern girl
Libyan Rebels Attack Final Qaddafi Strongholds - Alan Taylor - In Focus - The Atlantic
Some seven months after the start of Libya's revolution and one month after the taking of Tripoli, anti-Qaddafi fighters continue to face resistance in two remaining Qaddafi strongholds, the towns of Sirte and Bani Walid. Just today, ant-Qaddafi forces reportedly seized control of the port in the eastern part of Sirte as another group of fighters pressed in from the west. Over the course of this evolving conflict, reporters have repeatedly changed the terminology they use to describe these fighters -- from "protesters" (in February) to "anti-government fighters" to "rebels" to "revolutionaries." Now that the leadership they support controls most of Libya's state affairs, they are being called "National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters", and even "government fighters." Meanwhile, progress has been made toward rebuilding and reopening businesses in Tripoli, as residents look forward to the next phase in Libyan history with a wary eye toward Qaddafi's still-dangerous supporters.
Barack Obama joins Open Government Partnership for group photo
"I don't know much about diplomatic protocols, but I would guess that waving during the group photo is something to avoid."
UPDATE: This just in from MOTUS:
The most important and fascinating article of the week. The American Scholar: Dubya and Me - Walt Harrington
As [Bush] talked, I even thought about an old Saturday Night Live skit in which an amiable, bumbling President Ronald Reagan, played by Phil Hartman, goes behind closed doors to suddenly become a masterful operator in total charge at the White House. The transformation in Bush was that stunning to me.
Who was wrong about Galileo? Rick Perry Versus the True Believers
Science does not advance by simple progression from ignorance to perfect knowledge, nor is it proven by consensus.... Fallows may think that he’s the one who really knows the first thing about Galileo, he may not know the second and the third thing....Continued...
The last time there was an Internet fad I favored it was that one a few years back where idiots lay down on the centerline of busy highways and improved the gene pool in short order. Since then there have been countless thousands of others. Recent efforts were things like planking, which was good fun until the "Born-To-Be-Culled" started planking themselves on high ledges and rolling the wrong way. The resultant "plotching" quickly took the joy out of that one, as well as its more extremely stupid participants.
Continued...Belmont Club ｻ Why Solyndra Failed
It failed due to competition from a superior product. Meet the solar panel of the future. No more utility bills. Low maintenance. However, a tarpaper shack or equivalent hovel is required.Continued...
I'm thinking it'll play out something like this:
And they lived happily ever after.
"If all of us women got together we could turn it into a fashion statement.... you CAN wear this and still be sexy! Just take one small step towards sharia law..."
Jewel says, "She's subtle as a velvet covered sledgehammer."
A world where the final digit to Pi had at last been computed, and they were folding up the mountains and the stars were going out, and the car had no reverse gear, and the brakes were holes in the floor where your shoes could be pressed against the asphalt, and the smell of singed leather.
Illo via rob
Presented solely to promote and enhance international peace and understanding in accordance with the mission of ACIGGPIL (Advanced Contemplation of Intense Gyno-Gymnastics Performed In Leotards) without regard to color, creed or national origin.
Continued...Because it, you know, explains so much.
I know what you're thinking. "Should I click it?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is an Asian music video, emblematic of the most powerful mind-distorting cultural force in the world, and might, just might, blow your little head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? [Pssst... If they do click tell them to at least wait for the "special effect" at 1:30.]
Posted here to solely to help promote public hygiene while conserving our precious water. Honest.
Here's the Tour America Sarah Palin bus:
First found in"Not for Hire:" Sarah Palin's Ride Photographed This Evening in Portsmouth, NH @ AMERICAN DIGEST
Here's the Tour America bus of the person who is currently passing himself off as the President of the United States of America:
Perhaps the Secret Service feels that anything identifying the bus as carrying the president might make it stick out too much. Hence, the only bus on the planet that looks like Darth Vedar is aboard. And, well, perhaps he is.
So simple. So pretty. So charming. Via Jewel @ Jaded Haven
Timelapse Sequence by Mike Olbinski
The really funny thing is that even though these guys are very young they sound just like a bunch of old geezers ranting on here in Seattle (Geezers who are, alas, dead serious).
By way of example:
Last week I'm out for a walk to the local library to return a book that has been overdue since one week before the invention of fire.
Upon arrival I notice, across the lawn and at the top of the steps in front of the entrance, there's a very bald and very white bearded geezer in shorts, faded Obama '08 t-shirt, and Birkenstocks (with dark socks, natch) standing at the top of the steps and shaking his head at the door. When I reach the door I see a sign announcing that the library until 1 PM because of recent budget cuts in the city.
The bald white Birkenstocks guy asks me, "Do you believe this? Closed until 1 now." I glance at my cell phone. It's 12:35.
"Hell, it'll be open in 25 minutes." I note and then somewhat absently I remark, "Besides, you gotta cut somewhere. Seattle's evidently chosen to cut library hours instead of the Bureau of Sustainability Studies or other nonsense."
He's taken a bit aback, but only for a moment. "Those cutbacks are because of all the tax-breaks we give to the rich!"
I'm taken aback, but only for a moment. "Oh please! Don't start that shit with me. Federal tax breaks have nothing to do with the local situation in which this moron-led and moron-inspired city of Bozos blows up its budget every damn year."
"It is so because of the tax breaks to the rich," he counters. I could have, at this point, been satisfied with an eye-roll and a shrug in response, but he's compelled to blather on. "And because of the damned defense spending. If we stopped spending on defense we could keep the libraries open."
"Oh spare me. Defense spending is the only thing keeping guys like you alive. I'd be glad to cut your share. But even if we zeroed out defense, dude, we'd still be deep in hock to everyone in the world for the long, long future. We. Have. No. Money."
He's getting pumped up now since it is beginning to dawn on him that I am not, like 99.2% of the Queen Anne population a card-carrying, pre-certified progressive Moonbat. His pale Nordic face begins to turn red and his breathing is coming in snatches.
"We don't need... any of it. Any of the... defense spending!"
"Really? What about, say, the Navy. Lots of jobs here around Puget Sound. You want those to just go away? What about securing the sea lanes for world trade? You want to hand it over to China?"
"It's China's turn!"
"Maybe so, but they don't have the ships. And anyway, as I said, cutting defense to zero doesn't open one library in Seattle. You've gotta get a handle on Social Security and Medicare to even start."
"Medicare! Do you know we're 34th in the quality of health care in the world! 34th! It's shameful!"
"You know, you've really got to stop drinking that slop that Michael Moore pumps out in those cartoons he makes. It just keeps him aroused and it's a disgusting habit." (This last was, I admit, a bit intemperate.)
"What!? What!? Don't you care about all those who don't have any health insurance at all!?" A scarlet tinge is beginning to rise from his collar and spreading over his neck wattles. He is beginning to start to spit small flecks of saliva. I consider, for a moment, using facts, but only for a moment.
"To be honest, pal, at this moment I don't give a flying fuck. Seems to me they're the mooches who want to keep this library locked forever into hours that an inconvenient for your ass." (Yes, the discussion is becoming just a bit uncivil by now, but I'm enjoying it and beginning to search my mind for statements that can tip him into cardiac arrest.)
"You don't care!?"
"I believe I said, 'don't give a flying fuck.' But that's just me."
He slides by me and goes down the stairs and off on the lawn Birkenstocks flapping in a state of sustain hyperventilation. At a safe distance, he turns around and flings one last epithet, "Republican!" Then he stomps off up the sidewalk.
I glance at my cell phone. "Hey, don't go away. It's only twenty minutes until the library opens."
Speaks for itself. If this was the prize from a Lottery Ticket I might buy several thousand.
Australians: Not yet ready to geld themselves and hand their balls over to Michelle Obama for the pickle jar.
Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus from Patrick Clair on Vimeo.
Continued...
"Is that you, Amina, or just a brilliant disguise?"
In this new double-entendre world into which we have drifted, the Washington Post is to be forgiven for headlining the story,‘A Gay Girl in Damascus’ comes clean. Not so the fat fake lesbian named Tom MacMaster who hoodwinked untold thousands by giving himself an online sex change for (Isn't it always?) 'the greater good.' It ended (Doesn't it always?) in tears at bedtime:
In a posting on her blog, “A Gay Girl in Damascus,” a cousin said Amina had been hauled away by government security agents. News of her disappearance became an Internet and media sensation. The U.S. State Department started an investigation. But almost immediately skeptics began asking: Had anyone ever actually met Amina? On Wednesday, pictures of her on the blog were revealed to have been taken from a London woman’s Facebook page.Regardless of the "news" frisson surrounding this -- Howard Stern learned long ago that the word or even vague concept of "lesbian" brought in the rubes -- this is one of the oldest cons on the internet. So old and musty that I was already writing in 1993 about a 'naked lady' whose book I'd published in the late 80s.
Oldest con on the net, kids. And yet it survives because it works. And it works not because fat white male "Mideast activists" are so clever, but because many thousands want, really, really, really want there to be, deep in Damascus in the midst of the shooting and the repression and the tyranny and the killing, one still small voice for freedom who is not only nice but, better yet, gay and, best of all, female. It makes for the double-hero sandwich of online existence. And it is not even the revelation of the fat white male activist that is the big let-down here. The big bummer is that there is no heroic lesbian in Damascus after all. And there should be, by gum, there should be.
The fantasy for these supporters of "A Gay Girl in Damascus" is that somehow a 'gay' girl exists that is brave and forthright and willing to speak "truth to power" from within the belly of the beast. It's a leftoid fantasy and that's why so many bought it. The reality is something else again.
The reality is that, along with the rest of the population, those who are gay inside rabid dictatorial regimes such as Syria and Iran are not safe from repression, imprisonment, torture, and execution. And those who are gay inside these regimes know this to a fare thee well. They might be willing to speak out but typically only after they get out. To someplace safe in the ever more tolerant west. Someplace like, say, Edinburgh, Scotland. Someplace so free that even a fat, white, male "mideast activist" can change himself into a young, dusky, slender hot lesbian.... and get away with it because, well, people just "want to believe" in six impossible things before breakfast.
On his/her blog page (Previously called A Gay Girl in Damascus but now titled A Hoax: Apology to readers the arguably masculine author drops the butch and goes deep fem with the winsome statement: "I never expected this level of attention."
As my gray haired mother would say, "Yeah. Right."
Hot, very hot, off the Kindle press , it's... Emily's Debt
"In the very near future, where failing to pay debts was a crime, Emily is in big trouble. She has a large student loan and no job. She's heard, of course, that debtors weren't sent to jail. Instead, they're rented to corporations and businesses so that their work can help pay off their debts. But renting becomes purchasing, and crafty lawyers and greedy companies turn debt bondage into slavery with hardly anyone paying attention. Now, sold to a former classmate, a sadistic lawyer eager to test the boundaries of the law, Emily is a non-person, purchased property. And if her owner wants her to be nude in public, wants to walk her on all fours on a leash, well, it's not like she's a person any more. Not according to the law. And if he wants to whip her in public, well that's all right, too."Well, you can't say it's not topical. Practical too.
HT: Volkh & Fourth Checkraise
"We ought to take the page out of the left's standard playbook and coin, analogously to the utterly meaningless terms "homophobe" and "islamophobe" (in fact, these terms are so vague and all-encompassing these days thatyou have to beone or the other by sheer logical necessity), the word "nuclophobe" to mean a person who is afraid of nuclear power and therefore opposes it emotionally, even though he (well, usually she) is completely ignorant of even the basics of radiation, or how a nuclear plant works. Actually, scratch that: we might as well define this word to mean anybody who opposes nuclear power for any reason, period." -- The Fourth Checkraise: Perhaps too late for DSM-5
Sippican Cottage: This Is How I Go When I Go Like This: Painting The House
Continued...
To be fair, on her it shows: Obama eats 2 chili dogs and fries day after wife Michelle unveils new dietary guide | Mail Online
When his wife unveiled the USDA's new nutritional plate yesterday, there definitely wasn't a space for chili dogs. But that didn't stop Barack Obama wolfing down two in Toledo today - with fries and an extra bowl of chili on the side. The president happily munched on the unhealthy meal before he visited the city's Chrysler factory, and even teased one of his hosts for ordering ketchup, a faux-pas in his home town of Chicago.
It's a fact that Nazi-creepy ecolunacy @ Counting Cats in Zanzibar is simply.... masterful. A small sample:
Continued...
Facepalm! Why, oh why, didn't anybody see this coming? New Yorkers Sotomayor and Kagan are Supreme Court's newest voting bloc, agreed in all cases so far
The newest members of the nation's highest court -- local Obama appointees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan -- have agreed with each other in all 23 cases they've voted on, which is a supreme rarity, observers said.'Observers' fail to observe that all colonized minds are the same. The Operators have their hooks driven deep into these two Things.
Nothing here for the tender and more sensitive sex. Just some Locker Room "issues." Move along.
Continued...
"Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!" 11 and one-half minutes of some of the finest abuse ever put on film in which a large selection of oddly shaped objects are forced into a place where they are sure to be highly uncomfortable.
An E coli outbreak that has killed 14 people ...
Continued...Lloyd Dobler: I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career....
Continued...Police baffled! Reporters flummoxed! Truth confounded! Citizens confused!
Near the Four Corners. Close to the border of the Navaho Nation near Cortez, Colorado, we came across this fine example of the focus of Federal Funding. That's right, nothing to be seen in any direction for many, many, many miles. Was the road the project being repaired and refurbished? Nope. Patched and potholed before and after. The only project that could be said to be new was the sign itself. Other than that I read on the back side of the sign this inscription by Zombie:
Continued...This probably won't be of any interest to my readers who are not Gyno-Americans. I am only passing it on here because of it's obvious educational value. I realize that it is, for a video, long at more than 15 minutes, so feel free to stop watching whenever it ceases to interest you.
"Fitting a bra. It's an art. It's taken me years to fit a bra. Not an easy task."
HT: Big Fur Hat who calls this The Most Important Video You Will Ever See
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