Thursday

I know those doing it don't mean anything by it, but I've been touched three times since I got here at seven. Twice on the shoulder and once on the back. Just greeting touches, but I've become fond of the no touching rules that are in place these days in general. You don't see me going around rubbing up against people and I wish they wouldn't do it to me. Irritating, especially when you're used to getting up at nine.

I turn 28 today.

Wednesday

print at work:
Shirky: Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality

Moorthy juggling.
/silly

MSNBC - Federal judge rejects part of Patriot Act
Bush to call him an activist in 3..2..1..

print at work:
Why We Cannot Win by Al Lorentz

In the old days when I was young, when excitement was behind every corner and I thought my libido was going to shake me to pieces, if you had told me that one day the pursuit of excellent blue cheeses was going to be a source of great pleasure, I'd have ignored you, gotten drunk, and found an attractive young woman with whom to flirt vigorously.

Today I had a "big woods" blue from Minnesota. At anywhere from 18.50 to 20$ a pound, it's a treat cheese. As far as blues go, this one is dry (but not dry and squeaky like St. Pete's select) and astonishingly creamy. Its acidity is a sophisticated counterpoint to the rush of creaminess, so the finish is clean and memorable. I rank it above St. Pete's mainly because of the texture (I'd have to place them side by side for a flavor comparison), which was somehow reminiscent of a certain swiss cave-aged gruyere's (all hail the king of the gruyere) crystallized lactose. There was a lot going on with this cheese, and every bit of what was going on was excellent.

I recommend not eating it as I did in the form of a wedge (although it's a pleasure to walk past the McMurderburger and look in at people who paid more for total shit as you munch awesome cheese), but cutting it up and mixing up the little pieces. You don't want to wind up at the rind, which was moderate in size. It's heartbreaking. When I have this cheese again next pay period, I want to be unsure when the greatest bite will arrive. Eating a hunk of cheese in wedge form is hedonism; the first bite is the best bite, it's a specialized form of living like there's no five minutes from now, and I'd prefer a really great piece of cheese at this point to what I once would have in the event of imminent apocalypse, which of course involved many, many naked women, frantically seeking my boner.

Sorry, but I just had to use the word boner. I haven't grown out of certain peurile mannerisms yet. In time, and with enough great cheese, maybe I can whip that adolescent tendency.

The Internet's Most Accurate English-to-English Dictionary

NPR : Connie Rice: Top 10 Secrets They Don't Want You to Know About the Debates

CPD: National Debate Sponsors

Interesting trivium:

Gotterdammerung means

A) a turbulent ending of a regime or an institution
B) myth about the ultimate destruction of the gods in a battle with evil
C) the final destruction of the world in B

Joel, read this.
Places that viruses and trojans hide on start up

Some code to die for
On the Birth of the Free Software Movement in 1887

I work with a disneyphile who will love these vector-based repreoductions of old disney logos.
Graphically Speaking: Retro Disney Resort Logos

Thanks Muddy for the link:
You Call This a Democracy? -- In These Times

more

I, for one, don't like the way the security of the electoral process has been working, and it doesn't look like it's going to get better before it gets worse.

Tonight a funny-looking woman bartender {butch lesbian with a rockabilly haircut of Presleyan proportions} poured a friend and I a couple of bourbon sodas. My friend looked into his glass and said it looks like you've got a couple of fruit flies in there. The bartender poured it out and said that yes, they tend to gravitate toward the whiskey for some reason. I loked in mine and there were some in that one as well. When I brought this to her attention, she just looked at the glass and asked if I wanted a new one. There were flies floating in it and she was just back there wondering about it. I don't expect the servers and bartenders, at places I can afford, to know the significance of the Magna Carta or even which way is fucking North, but for god's sake, I do expect them not to expect me to drink flies.

What does this kind of hilariously oversensitive puritanism have to do with christianity? If I believed in god and was a christian I'd be furious that these crazies had co-opted my religion for their insanity.
"Mean Girls" / a review and/or comments from Christian Spotlight on the Movies

Ethereal: A Network Protocol Analyzer

This is a repost, but it's better now than it was at first.
Goatse at Defcon -- brought to you by airpwn

Before and after labia reduction surgery.
stupidly not safe for work, and did I mention I hate the idea that the human body is somehow dirty?
Liberty Women's Health Care

Tuesday

Growing up sexually, all about coming of age rites in different cultures.

GUS

Outbreak of MRSA. That sucks.
Charleston Daily Mail
"For the first time, this methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus — or MRSA — has struck athletic teams in the state, said Dr. Danae Bixler, director of infectious disease epidemiology for the Bureau of Public Health."

CNN.com - Stewart's 'stoned slackers'? Not quite - Sep 28, 2004
Turns out O'Reilly's audience is less educated, here in what I like to call "reality". Shocker.

Yet another free email service. Looks familiar.
Welcome to XasaMail

Dan's New Gallery of Scary Clowns

TaxProf Blog: Red States Feed at Federal Trough, Blue States Supply the Feed
"The report shows that of the 32 states (and the District of Columbia) that are "winners" -- receiving more in federal spending than they pay in federal taxes -- 76% are Red States that voted for George Bush in 2000."

Martha Stewart assigned inmate number - Sep. 27, 2004

Monday

Hi, neighbors!
This Week's Prostitution Photos -- Saint Paul Police

The price of deception
May our soldiers rest in peace, after being treated by George Bush the way a rich kid treats toys he got for christmas.
A thousand dead men and women and all you've got is Bush in a flight suit.

All Bush-lovers should pay their respects here.

NPR : Remembering Sgt. Ben Isenberg
Listen to these people talking about the death of their son in Iraq. They don't even give a shit. They just let the president take care of that kind of thing, because their kid is going to heaven. You should hear what the father says. The clip is about four minutes long, and the father is at the end. Stupid ass. Joel via IM: "there are people who would subvert their faith for the will of the republican party"
True.


Hal Lindsey Oracle Cartoons - John Rule, artist. Political Cartoons as prints, shirts & mugs; graphic design, illustrations, caricatures, & custom art are all available!
This is too funny.
Thanks Joel

They're insane.
CBS News | GOP: 'Liberals' Will Ban Bible | September 24, 2004�20:49:43

wallstreetscandals.gif

Nerdy.
how the states connect.

WVLT VOLUNTEER TV Knoxville, TN: Retired Colonel: Bush Volunteered for Vietnam
Also, Bush volunteered to fight a bear with his bare hands and take on sixty ninjas and a gang of drunken hell's angels. Heil.

RAND Review | Summer 2004
"What Have We Learned About Compensating Victims of Terrorism?"

Sunday

repost
October Surprise!

Guerrilla News Network
The Lynching of Dan Rather

GI Fightback

Celebrity Atheist List

Urinalpoop dot org!

Somebody's idea of the Top 10 Male and Female Sexual Fantasies

crazy, NSFW
Funfunsex

Joyce loves Car Talk

Saturday

Wives-in-Need

AtomFilms - Stripper's Pole

LA Weekly: News: The Outing
"The latest target of a Capitol Hill outing campaign — designed to expose closeted homosexual Republicans who oppose civil rights for gay people — is San Gabriel Valley Congressman David Dreier."

CQ.com
"Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge had investments last year in a number of companies with contracts with his department and others who want to profit from homeland security, a new list of his assets shows."

cuddle party

The Observer | Magazine | The brothel creeper: "a man who's slept with more than 1,000 prostitutes gives a controversial and candid account of his experience of paying for sex"

truly disturbed anime, NSFW

The Godfather horse head prop pillow

Loony.
Eric Staller's Conference Bike!

The maintenance programmer strikes back at
Star Wars Galaxies

Friday

modern republicanism

MIT | VISUAL ARTS PROGRAM | work and research | clementine cummer
I don't get it.

This guy set up his wife with a radio station prank. What happened next was bad for their marriage. Audio.
Husband Cheated

News: "first onboard neural network in an engine control module"

Awesome clocks
Current Inventory

The text adventure has been updated
BBC - Radio 4 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - The Adventure Game

Cool!
Streamor.com: Streaming Surgical Education - Procedure Index

Fat Fingers - Find typos and misspellings on eBay

Reflectoporn
NSFW

whatsbetter?com

Thursday

EPA Wording Found to Mirror Industry's (washingtonpost.com)
"For the third time, environmental advocates have discovered passages in the Bush administration's proposal for regulating mercury pollution from power plants that mirror almost word for word portions of memos written by a law firm representing coal-fired power plants.'
Fucking shocker.

Dear Laura...
A powerpoint presentation


Remixed Anti-War Propaganda Posters | CafePress

Wired News: Morphine occurs naturally in the human brain.

The 8500 calorie sandwich

This is pretty wild.
Guardian Unlimited Film | News | In a secret Paris cavern, the real underground cinema

Cleaning The Fucking Kitchen

Wednesday

Some jackass drugged and raped a friend of mine on September eleventh, eleven days ago. In the time since I've gone from a state of shock to involuntary revenge fantasies. What I wound up with before I gave up on those was: drain his blood and make him drink it till he dies, hopefully vomiting all along the way, or make him pull his own dick off with his hands. That, to me, was the end of the line. Past this only bad can come; fantasizing is one thing, but putting together a shopping list for home depot (plastic sheeting, hacksaw, the biggest gas grill you have, please) is where I draw the line for myself. It's not healthy. But what is?

I read about how revenge has a chemical reward in the brain not six weeks ago someplace on the net, maybe being slighted really prepares you for that itch to be scratched. I wouldn't be surprised if the chemical signatures of the two events (getting fucked over, getting revenge) were mirror images of one another. There has got to be a reason people get mad when they're treated unfairly, etc., an evolutionarily favored reason, otherwise it wouldn't happen. Any ideas? I'm seriously soliciting your opinions, guys.

I wanted to go to a party tonight to get my mind off it, but it wasn't the right thing to do. Well, it was the right thing to do, but for some reason I feel too reverent, like my actions are still under the influence of this tragedy, as if it were the events of September eleventh or something, which, of course, it was. Silver lining? At least it was the same day ruined again, and not another day; now this one doesn't have to compete for most tragic day. Maybe all the bad shit in the world could wait till Sept. 11 to happen from now on. That day we all bite the bullet and hold on tight. By sundown there will have been some senseless violence, random accidents resluting in deaths of some of our favorite people, and everybody vomiting blood. Well, maybe just one guy with the blood vomiting. And then on March 11, things can be sunny and peachy and babies can be born and rainbows and ice cream.

It will be a long time before this is settled, and it might do me good to try to comprehend that it will never, by my current understanding, BE settled. For now, I'll just imagine that I somehow please Ganesha, and get a little sleep.

More evidence of a Google browser (kottke.org)

flash cartoons by Jesse Simpson

The Strange Case of the Hanover High Shocker

Spaceflight Now | Breaking News: "Sugar in space provides clue to origin of life"

News from The Associated Press: "Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart apologized Wednesday for saying in a televised worship service that he would kill any gay man who looked at him romantically"

Daily Show Bush Campaign Film

Funny video, I think from Kentucky fried movie:
Rex Kramer: Danger Seeker

This is so awesome. A house on traffic island. Click the pictures to advance.
here

Yahoo! News - Lightbulb Burns for 96 Years

LancasterOnline.com: Dry Town Tries to Overturn Alcohol Ban: "200 hatchet-wielding women"... ugh.
What's worse, booze, or 200 women with hatchets destroying whatever they want?

USATODAY.com - Flight canceled after passenger discovers Arabic-style handwriting in magazine

This reminds me, when I was a kid we had a book called "the stupids die" about a family, the "stupids" who thinks they've died when it's just that the lights are off.

WCCO: Motorcyclist Arrested For Driving 205 MPH
sweet!

Things You'd Like To Say At Work, But Can't

SAD.
'Skin flick' pioneer Russ Meyer dies at 82

Yahoo! News - Loophole Lets Pharmacies Bill Govt. Twice

Tuesday

sounds from star wars, from BlueHarvest.net

Stupid.
Novelty Do Not Disturb Signs

Oh my god. It's so.. ridiculous. and you have to see it.
C-3PO's Vegetable Vacation Photos

vintage porn
NSFW and the oldest porn I've ever seen.

How to Bypass Most Firewall Restrictions and Access the Internet Privately
* the surf at work page *

wacko jacko masks


another one

an attempt at generating a comprehensive timeline of when weblogs had a significant impact on politics
pretty cool

Monday

print at work:
Social Science at 190 MPH on NASCAR's Biggest Superspeedways

Kirby Vacuum Cleaners will suck the life out of you and your marriage

CNN.com - Hastert's al Qaeda comment draws fire - Sep 19, 2004

One million Wikipedia articles!
/milestone

The Official God FAQ

Celebrity Image Archive: The Archive Lobby
This is huge. If you have a celebrity fixation, you're in luck.

Voting Public Still Unsure Where the President Stands on Freedom
by Ward Sutton

The 50 latest uploads:
TinyPic Dedicated Hosting

Random, kind of boring. Sorry, it's a slow day.

Music bad, stunts good.
video - hopp hopp by david parkour (crazy kungfu, gymnastics, flipping or whatever it is)

Things are a little slow so here's a
video of a girl dancing
Safe for work

Miss Alabama

This guy couldn't be a homo, could he?


Thanks, Jesus, for the hypocrites to make fun of.

How To Mince A Hamburger:nasty, with pictures

Sunday

This is really interesting. It turns out we're really at the whims of powerful corporate interests.
Spend a little time at
THEY RULE

Shame comparison:

I had sex with a hooker, Swaggart style


I had sex with a hooker, Hugh Grant style


Let's say having sex with a hooker's going to happen at some point, metaphorically or not. Who do you want to be?

I love this face.

What are the evangelists up to now?

Hilarious Emotional Subway Attack involving showtunes

It is important that no one ever miss the opportunity to utter the words: SOUL TRAIN.

Saturday

More about cartoon network.
FilmForce: An Interview with Mike Lazzo

Sweet. All about my favorite cartoon, space ghost!
"Toon In" by Justin Peters

Thanks for the link Joel.

Wired News: Attack of the Radio Clones

Spread Firefox - Igniting the web

Go get it. You deserve better.

ths is scary, a simulation of what it's like when a schizophrenic goes to the pharmacy
/realvideo

Classic but still funny.
The US government has a new website...

somebody took smileys a little too far.
Not safe for work.

People caught in the act of car sex!
Not Safe for work

CNN.com - Is that a microchip in my meat? - Sep 18, 2004: "Pork pulled off shelves to check for metal devices"

I call bullshit/photoshop.
Five Women Showing Support for George Bush, NSFW

"Churches are so far behind in fighting pornography it is pathetic," said Paul Forsythe, a pastor at Red Mountain Community Church in Mesa. "We hide, ignore and deny, but then the battle is over and we've lost."

story

Anyone doing battle with nature will lose, and they should. Churches that disallow porn are stupid. If there's this magical dude in outer space who made us look like he does, why shouldn't we glorify the holy image or whatever? It just makes me sick, really. I'm going to consult my porn till I feel better about it.

THE 50 WEIRDEST GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS

Tomorrow is
Talk Like A Pirate Day - September 19

Thoughts from the IV room, my home away from home.

First of all, always make sure to use a syringe twice the size you need when drawing up ceftazidime, or you'll have to do it over. It creates gas and if you don't give it a lot of room to expand, blows up.

I find it really irritating to have something that's obviously ridiculous that's also widely accepted. Take patriotism. You can't just love or hate America, and if you think you can, you're an idiot. It's too broad a subject to have feelings about. You can like certain things about our political system and dislike others! You can like things about our culture and not others, and so on and so forth, but you can't take America, point at it, and say, "Now thar's what I love! Let's take all of 'em who don't love it lak I do and go git 'em!" To have people accusing people of not loving something enough obfuscates specific issues, and also serves to diminish the importance of critical thought. The implications of that cannot be overestimated.

Also, Saddam Hussein was not a dictator, he was an elected president. If you think he was a dictator, you are wrong. If you think it's ok to think he's a dictator even though he wasn't, you're scary, and if you think it's ok to think that he was a dictator because the election wasn't fair, check out our last election and notice that you might as well call George Bush a dictator, because I'm not familiar with the details of the Iraqi elections, but I am with ours, and that dude wasn't elected fairly, period. Bush has already been a dictator for years now.

Friday

Sweet!

Gmail checker for trillian, anyone who wants gmail just let me know.

Star Wars vs Star Trek in Five Minutes

All you need to know.

DARPA freaks me out. Thanks Joel for the link.

:: Self-Healing Minefield ::

Jihaaaaaad!
funny video

What the hell?

www.hellokenney Anime Expo 2004

That picture of the little girl crying? Looks like it could have been staged.

The Times-Patriot

Double Flee A is now accepting your comments and whatnot on the main page just below the terror alert banana. I can still ban your ass, though.

Penis Unicorn Shirts

Crazy star trek fan site, with NSFW subpages.
Mr. Sbock's Parallel Universe

oh goody.
Not good from an image standpoint, but not as bad as that young republican kicking that girl while she was on the ground.

That guy is thought to have been found. Here's that: Hit and Run

The little girl's eyes seem to be saying: "Why don't they love America, daddy?" I'll conjecture it's pictures like this that move several thousands of voters.

Thursday

I blog too much. You know it and so do I, and we know that the other guy knows and so on. But there was one thing that had to make it here from my life today, and it was the smell in the kitchen. I never put that up here, because any fly honeys that would think about being my groupies might be put off at the mention of a mysterious odor; mysterious odors are good for very few things, running off hotties is one of them.

This smell was bad and actually had started going away. It was a bag of potatoes on a shelf that had been forgotten about long ago, we hadn't even looked there because it was hidden in plain sight and we thought a smell that big was coming from somewhere else. It was rotten, through and through. It had taken on all the attributes of shit. Bile-colored, stinky, but worse, infested with larvae. Nasty.

Another incredibly awesome idea!

Stupid-ass makeovers!
Give makeovers to death row inmates, really ugly people, people who are totally covered in tattoos, stuff like that. Pointless makeovers! "Makeovers are all pointless but we admit it!"

Related makeover show idea: make the white guy look cool the way black people automatically do! Celebrities dress up Nate from tech support to look like an awesome black gangster! Because white people are lame and black people RULE!

Last night I watched star wars on dvd. It's not officially out yet, but I know people. It looks just like the tape. By the time they went to restore it, that movie had been laying around in the can getting shitty for a long time, so the video quality in "a new hope" is kind of, well, bad.However, the audio is great if you have the nine speaker setup or whatever. I hope for better from empire and return. If the first one was as good as they got, they wouldn't sell very many.

My first gif.

Seeking the Polls: GWOT: The Score Card
A blog about the war on terror

Ths is Gordon Davis. As the principal of my elementary school, he dished out more than his fair share of whippins. As someone who did more than his share of, and I quote Gordon Davis, "doing what you're not supposed to be doin'", I got a hell of a lot of those whippins.

Well, Gordon, I'm still doin' what I'm not supposed to be doin', asshole. Gordon Davis, I hate you.

interesting sales concept:
eBay.com Seller List: bishop287911

Aks jeeves.

Man is that funny.

"In the High Court at Palmerston North yesterday, Jesse Moore, 24, who believed he was battling Satan, was found not guilty of murder and attempted murder on account of insanity."
STORY

Can you guess where I'm tempted to go here?

Thanks, fark for
Klingon Women Nude, NSFW

and for letting me know the sad news.
Johnny Ramone has gone on to the big blitzkrieg bop in the sky.

I guess it's funny video day.

NSFW Porn Blooper

Where some videos live.
Two Note Solo Presents Open Screen Night

another hilarious if unfortunate video, the famous grape festival footage.

be sure to listen to this: grape lady techno remix

VERY funny video of a guy falling down.

print at work:
Why Bush Left Texas

Bush and Kerry on science

news@nature.com - specials - us election

Irritating flash that will surely become a hit. Ugh.
Fahrenheit 2004

Wednesday

Lightning strike injures 40 at football game. In other news, bloggers everywhere struggle to come up with something mean to say.

ABCNEWS.com : Lightning Strike Injures 40 on Texas Field

Check out this dumbass. The war on terror is going to produce people like this, I suppose.
BBC NEWS | UK | England | Norfolk | Man keeps finger on 'bomb' button

Joel says, "this is a genuine army field manual for code breaking
that's right free lessons in codebreaking from the people who should know. Now if the pentagon just had a "drive one of our tanks to work" day once a year no one would have problem with their budget:
Basic Cryptanalysis

Also, introduction to cryptology, a .pdf

NSFW nekkid art photography by Nicole Tran Ba Vang

via ticklefight

cool.
The Virtual Window Project

We love this guy:
McSweeney's Internet Tendency: The Best Jokes Are Dangerous, An Interview with Kurt Vonnegut, Part Three

Amamnesis! The gods are upon me!

As usual, I've missed an anniversary. NOT as usual, this time I'm not in trouble. This blog turned a year old a couple of days ago.

Party on, chicks and dudes. At your journey's end, Tom Bodett will leave the light on for you. That flickering, cold light just outside town in whose shadows cheating spouses in uncomfortable office clothes meet to commit acts of mediocre passion, mostly out of boredom. Yay-rah, one baby-step beyond stained nylon seat covers, it all ends in ennui, Tom Bodett's light will be on all night, and when they get home, they'll wonder if anyone ever felt so lonely as they did looking out into the motel six parking lot and Tom's shafts of chalky zap, with whoever that was in bed next to them pretending not to be thinking the same thing: how can anyone who really understands Tom Bodett's all-night light possibly take comfort in it?

Tuesday

how to steal a bike with a bic pen.

quicktime video

Now that there's time, more about Sunday.

First was the renaissance festival, where my increasingly drunken friend made me fight a guy. The idea was "king of the log". Those pillow cases are filled with iron spikes. I lost the match, but won one of the three rounds. You can't tell, but the guy on the left is nine feet tall. At this point I'd had three beers and the best bratwurst of my life.



This woman thought her shirt was funny. I thought she was being realistic and admitting that beer was helping her make the most of what god gave her to work with.



On the way to the bike ride I stopped in downtown to hang out with drunk bums Mike Minton and Leonard Fairbanks. The value of this is, I'm pretty sure this is the extent of the celebration of either one of these guys. This blurb, on this pathetically undertravelled blog. I left as soon as I remembered that a lot of these bums are gay.



We went from behind bars bike shop to

Sully's,
NE Palace,
Stasiu's,
Sampler room,
Dusty's,
Laura's 1029,
NE Yacht club,
Elsie's,
Mayslack's,
Knight cap,
and Jimmy's before I dropped out.
Next was the double deuce and Grumpy's.
Maybe next year I'll make it the whole way, but you saw what kind of day I had.
Not sure which bar this is, but they all look the same after a while, anyway.



Lots of people had cameras. There were taking pictuers from interesting angles and everything.



That's the strongest gin-tonic since stand-up frank's. They didn't even bother to put a lime in it.



It was an awesome time, and the fact that I'm surrounded by pasty lame-ass zombies all day where I work just makes it seem even better.

Why would anyone want to look at a bunch of naked women?
KindGirls NSFW

Some dork wants to tell you why blade runner is important.

Betterhumans > Blade Runner Brilliance

Print at work:
"What If Bush Wins" by a panel of 16 experts

So it CAN actually happen!
The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Putin calls for elimination of elections for key posts

BBC NEWS Spa pools linked to Legionnaires, skanky sex

MSNBC - Tales of the $100 steak

Worm speaks to Windows users
It actually says:
"How are you. I am back. My name is Mr. Hamsi. I am seeing you. Haaaaaaaa. You must come to Turkey. I am cleaning your computer. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. 0. Gule gule."

What a bunch of assholes.

You can't keep a good scorched earth policy down.

The Observer | International | Torture and rape stalk the streets of Chechnya

Monday

Just the tip of the iceberg, it's TVs from outer space at Planet Krulik 2000.

You can easily kill an entire afternoon here.

The Liberal Limericker
political limericks

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Serbia reverses Darwin suspension

If Serbians have got it figured out the US shouldn't be too far behind.

If there's just one thing making the rounds today that has to be seen to be believed, it's this...
International
7300 CXT

A good blues song would be the "too much booze blues". Not difficult to rhyme scheme that one. Writing that song is a task that requires precisely the brainpower that a hangover leaves one in possession of.

Now, if only I could play a musical instrument less irritating than a kazoo.

The third annual drunken bar bike tour in northeast Minneapolis was everything I dreamed and more. I borrowed a friend's wifecycle so it didn't have a crossbar, and that made me think: Why is it that women's bicycles are the ones that can't rack you when you climb on? It's for the skirts, I guess, but then what's the big advantage of having a crossbar anyway? Such were my thoughts as two hundred other cyclists and myself pedaled through the winding neighborhoods of nordeast, god's country. There were many, many beers. The party peaked, I think, at Laura's 1029 bar, which was very accomodating to our huge, unannounced group. Some chick sang "I like big butts" on karaoke. It brought the house down. There's something about a white punk chick shouting baby got back that approximates a spiritual plateau. When the entire audience is participating: "fellas, yeah, fellas, yeah, does you girlfriend got the butt, hell yeah!", in a smashing call and response, you know that this is the best things are going to get for a long time. The night got fuzzy and the weather was perfect. If you're going to get so drunk you have to pass out outside someplace, that was the weather you wanted to do it in. If my schedule allows it, I plan to attend the fourth annual next year.

Mothers against Maddox

you can search the Oxford English Dictionary (Second Edition) for free by using this dubious text box

The 25 Best Futurama Moments Ever

Lesbian Paperback Covers, some NSFW

Sunday

All your ruins are belong to wal-mart

I heard someone say that the Ramones started more garage bands than any other band. People at their shows would say "I could do that", and then go do it.

Reading Philip K. Dick gives me the same feeling.

His first short story ever published was about a dog that warns a family every day when the garbage can is getting full of food that's just getting really ripe, that the "roogs" are about to come take it away. "Roogs" are ostensibly garbagemen, and also onomatopoiea for the way the dog's bark sounds. The family eventually has to get rid of the dog because he raises total hell before the Roogs arrive. The last day, when they're getting rid of the dog, "Boris", the Roogs say to him, tomorrow we'll be back for the people. The dog was right all along.

Hellaciously good concept; the guy's an inspiration.

He was clearly a genius, but he also had to live on horsemeat at times due to poverty. Philip Dick had NO money for pretty much his whole life as a result of his chosen vocation, but he didn't see himself as an artist who had no choice but to crank out book after book and story after story. He saw himself as being hopelessly rebellious, and that's a profound degree of honesty. Here he is buying horsemeat at the pet store, and the guy behind the counter says, "You're eating this, aren't you?". Phil: "Yessir". He hated authority, which led him to write, hated it enough to eat horesmeat, which he said was too sweet. Kurt Vonnegut's character Kilgore Trout is Philip K. Dick.

Reading Vonnegut for the first time, people admire his style and his vocabulary, but Philip writes more plainly in both terms. Dick is accessible. Reading him, I realize I'm thinking: I think I could do this, but would I want to live on horsemeat? And the answer is, no.

Now, for all the artistic expression in the world, I'd live on horsemeat and make up songs about how great it was, but I want to do more than write SF. I want to create barriers that sonically separate spaces from the street, a conclusion I've drawn from city life is that the cars make it too fucking loud. I drew a picture of them. They look nice and work well and no one will ever build them. I also want to write a piece of music for a three piece jazz ensemble, invent better furniture, and make a reality TV show of a penal colony where it's justice in the hands of the people, so they'd be executing each other all the time. There are a lot of imaginative things that everyone is capable of, but Philip K. Dick went and did it. Brave man.

Nascar was fun. There were a lot of accidents. Today it's the renaissance festival.

Saturday

MeFi's original thread as it happened three years ago on Sept 11. Worth a read. You'll recognize the sentiments as they develop, and not just shocked horror:

Comments on 10034 | MetaFilter

Seniors Rule
Hilarious senior photography.

Joyce and I went out on the Mississippi last night with some people. The weather was perfect for it, and even if it hadn't been, I was buzzed up enough not to care about ten degrees one way or another. That might be a good way to determine drunkenness -- how much temperature variation can take place without a person's caring?

As our skipper was detailing how if you don't know what you're doing, you can run aground of the rocks that are all over the place just beneath the surface, we ran aground and the motor died. It's nice to see that other people get embarrassed and it's not just me.

The people at American singles are trying to get my business, and if I wasn't already dating a redhead, this might push me to join their network of desperation:

Is there anything better than a redhead? If so, please don't tell me. Not here, not... like this.

My nigga Randy-san writes from Taipei:

After a long ordeal (the details of which I'll spare
you), I have both earned a 1 year, multiple entry
student visa (it's like a god-given hooky pass) and
discovered how best to assimilate some of the cultural
aspects I detest here: practice a subtle form of
jujitsu cum aikido cum soccer (gentle proddings and
pushings from behind like directing cows, shifting and
lifting the feet of others with your own as they walk
and thus altering their directions, fronting people
with my muscle and a smile, stepping through with hip
and knee to make myself known and squaring and
lowering the shoulder to drive the point home) which I
then elevate into a from of tertiary teaching in mind
and thereby maintain, manifest and deliver my
superiority. It's the only thing the majority of these
arrogant, lazy fucks seems to understand. And it works
without getting me pissed off or feeling guilty or
responsible for them - including the old women and
children. Furthermore, my Chinse is good enough that
now I'm using Rhetorical sentences such as: Is it
really possible you don't understand Chinese? Hell,
I've spat down butters in line at 7-11 until their
brow shows sweat and their lips tremble with hurt as I
ramble about why? why do the Chinese always butt in
line? Children all, with piss poor parents.


Well, tonight I think it's off to Elko speedway for some Nascar. It's addictive, I tell you!

There is some really funny stuff at
Really Bad Fanfiction - WELCOME, FRIENDS.

100 Photographs that Changed the World by Life - The Digital Journalist

ROWBOAT VETERANS FOR TRUTH

Friends and fellow countrymen, it's time to set the record straight. "General" George Washington is no war-hero.

giant woman terrorizes stupid town, NSFW video

Informed Comment
September 11 and Its Aftermath

Attention Neal Karlen:
Techworthy - Rugged Notebooks

MercuryNews.com | 09/10/2004 | Cheney: Economic numbers ignore eBay trading
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE UNPOLITICAL ANIMAL
by LOUIS MENAND
How political science understands voters.

Friday

Lowcountry NOW: Local News - Cops stunned by their new guns 09/10/04

Who wants a job where you spray pepper spray in your eyes and then you get zapped with tasers and shit? But at least later you can use them on people that you don't like.

Cops suck.

I'm pretty proud of the limerick I made up today at work:

There once was a woman from saturn
Who was rumored to be quite a slattern
The list of her lays
On the least of her days
Was a vast geometrical pattern

From Jim Goad, America's greatest living writer:

"Explain again my innate fiduciary obligation to feed, clothe, and attempt to educate every squalling embryo shat out by every dysgenic, irresponsible slattern from coast to coast, will you? It wasn't MY decision for you to pop out that screaming sack of doom as if you were squeezing blood from a zit. If it were up to me, government agents would be tagging people like you and KILLING them, not SUBSIDIZING further generations of drooling, meth-addled primates.

I stand there in the supermarket checkout as the saggy-armpitted welfare whore whips out her Oregon Trail Card—paid for with MY sweat—to feed the dogpile of brainless Mongoloid pups squirming around her cart.

Why am I obligated to her? WHY? I never asked HER for anything! Why is it my American birthright to be financially chained to her bad genes and horrid decisions?

What has the government ever provided for ME besides a prison cell?"

:::::: � JIM GOAD � ::::::

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | North Pole 'was once subtropical'

Westport Now: Report: Martha Stewart Waits Out Cell Crunch

Not enough beds.

A 15-year-old boy labeled as brilliant is in custody, accused of scamming dozens of credit card and bank patrons out of tens of thousands of dollars

Jon's Jail Journal
a jailblog

pictures from the front lines of the war on Iraq

bounty paid for the first person to ask in a public forum: "'How many times have you been arrested, Mr. President?'"

MIT team explains yin-yang of ginseng - MIT News Office

Oh boy. This is where you can sign up to participate in VICTORIA GIVENS ANAL GANGBANG WORLD RECORD EVENT!

This reminds me of the words of William Faulkner as he accepted the Nobel prize for literature: "I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance."

Which, of course, is another way of saying that if he had been here, I think William Faulkner would have been proud of Victoria Givens, and her incredible pneumatic anus, with which she evidently expects to drain the prostates of a hundred and fifty men before sundown.

My brother the economist said that the way people make tons of money is to take two things that already exist and put them together, like the girls gone wild guy. He took free footage of drunk chicks stripping at spring break and late night infomercials, and a fortune was made. Bill Gates combined computer software and copyright, and we know what happened there. I have just been the first person to compare William Faulkner and an anal gangbang, and am ready for tides of cash to wash over me.

Thursday

My blind obedience to the clock got me out of the house early. I knocked it off the wall the other night and it's apparently now at least ten minutes fast, as I gathered when, at the coffeeshop, it was as if I had traveled back in time.

I had an idea for the movie "worker", which has been banging around the cranium for years now. It's an interrupted fantasy segment, where the character goes from being a tough guy in his fantasy to mopping up after a toddler who has intentionally made a mess or something, in reality. I am putting this here so I don't forget to write it down when I get home, and I'm not putting down the actual humor mechanism here because i have my own fantasies to worry about, namely, making a movie called "worker". I think this marks the first time I've had a great idea that I haven't put down here, or at least the first time I've had a great idea that I have intentionally NOT put down here.

Yesterday my sleep schedule was akilter and I wound up forcing myself to get about two extra hours to realign. When my body wants me to get my ass out of bed it feeds me the worst dreams. I wonder if that happens to other people. I assume that if it does happen to other people, their bad dreams are modified to their conception of what a bad dream is, mine usually involve brutalizing small children. At that point I say, okay brain, you got me. I'm getting up.

Vintage porn from "knave", "mayfair". etc.

anti-anti-piracy ad: Who watches movies?

Random LJ Images

some NSFW,

where I got this:

Aircraft Homes

Toogle Image Search

Lots more photos of naked females. Geez. NSFW
thanks, battlecenter.net

Wednesday

National Press Photographer's Association presents the best of photojournalism, 2004

Banned Commercials

What is druthers.com?

The Flapper: "paper airplane that flaps its wings"

Are ads placed where they will be seen by the audience?
Eyetrack

Print at work: The Chronicle: 9/10/2004: Who Cares About the Truth?

Log Cabin Republicans Vote to Withhold Endorsement from President Bush

What did Winnie the pooh and Alexander the great have in common?
Answer in comments.

[IP] The letter Jimmy Carter sent Zell Miller

Updated with citations, the once-funny onion article is now sad and true.
The Onion / CHAK | Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

God's War Bringer

The cost to taxpayers of the war on Iraq.

For those of you selecting a medical specialty: genital anomalies NSFW

This is a huge, slow-loading page of young women, dressed provocatively. Safe For Work, but I wouldn't recommend you look at it while there. If you can wait a couple years, these chicks will be coming out on the girls gone wild 2005 or 2006 editions.
why wait?

Flexbeta - A Guide To Firefox Extensions

a grillion not saf for work cameltoes from Kladblog web-extracter

Comparison of life in Piscataway, New Jersey, Kochi, Japan, and Zhuzhou, China

No Child Left Behind

MSN is always trying to get me to read articles to improve my life and whatnot, with catchy pictures and captions, which I of course ignore. This one made me think, with the caption, "Waaaaaah! How to tame a tantrum", why would anyone ever knowingly reproduce?

/"our duty to the party"

Tuesday

ccol time lapse video

It's another woman "giving birth" to a doll. NSFW
Samantha Luvcox births a babydoll

Climate: Media's Balance Tips To Bias

Just another verbal slip-up? The unelected murder monkey's suffering from presenile dimentia. Look it up if you don't believe me.
Reuters AlertNet - Bush: OB-GYNs kept from 'practicing their love'

Iraq Coalition Casualties: 1001

The thousandth American is dead in Iraq and the media doesn't even notice. That's life behind the iron curtain of american media for you.

Mathematical breakthrough could bring disaster for ecommerce

Job-growth reaction reveals lower expectations - Tuesday, 09/07/04

CNN.com - German film shows Hitler's tender side - Sep 7, 2004

Well, the two main presidential contenders are buzzing around swing states like flies, and every day people are dying in Iraq. The advangates of keeping up with current events are diminished when these two stories are saturating everything.

Funny
Real Ultimate Power, with Moe Style!!!

Scientists discover roach-eating wasp
IOL: Science & Tech

Monday

Indiana University study: having children significantly lowers parents’ IQs
story

A nascar event that even I can get excited about:

Gordon, Johnson to face F1's Schumacher - Sep 3, 2004

The hollywood video right by my house just got a bunch of movies. According to their manager, they now have more movies than anyone else in the midwest. I went in there tonight to see, and it's truly frightening.

First you're just walking along gawking at these monstrous shelf-plexes and getting quite disoriented, and then it dawns on you that you can hear this crazy operatic music. Next thing you know it's all scary, you start running, dodging this way and that, starting to hyperventilate. The voices on the speaker system are howling; a microphone somewhere is apparently witnessing an orgy of pain. Flushed, you sweat. At the end of the aisle the fear grips you tighter, you try to run but your body won't respond. Shaking on the floor, curled in a ball, you literally shit yourself and then you're trying to hop out of your soiled pants but your foot gets caught. You fall over and there you are, lying in the floor with shit all over you, your head bleeding from where it struck the corner of some wooden shelving. When you come to, you're not worried about your embarrassing stink-tacular meltdown, but that jesus christ, this is really a hell of a lot of movies.

Star Spangled Ice Cream - Mail Order Ice Cream with a Conservative Flavor
rah rah rah.
rah.

possible repost (but from a long time ago), North Korean propaganda

fun art/porn, NSFW

and a lot of interesting videos about oddsmaking. Never did I think applied statistics sounded like fun until now.

verbatim, from MeFi:
The Republican propaganda mill, a brief history It's bigger than Bush vs. Kerry. It's about billionaire funded thinktanks (AEI, Heritage) paying columnists to sit around and make stuff up or legitimize crackpot theories (blacks are genetically stupid, japanese internment was okay). Furthermore its about radio, internet, blogs, tv news and publishing houses working in concert to pummel memes onto the American public. When this stuff infects your culture and is no longer the domain of the loons but now as mainstream as apple pie and Wal-Mart, what do you do?

Sunday

Bush's missing service year and missing records? no worries. Bush wearing a medal he didn't earn? no problemos. Kerry's 5 Vietnam war medals?
Pentagon investigation.
Can you even believe this?

Saddam Hussein, Master of the Limerick.
A comely young lady from Nippur
Was always quite friendly and chipper.
It's a shame to relate,
But her fiancé's fate
Was to contribute to the labyrinth of bones beneath my torture stadium.

cool lighting.

Just in time for the election:
Yahoo! News - U.S. Near Seizing bin Laden, Official Says

I've got an idea. Let's have presidential elections every TWO years! That way more would actually happen. We'd have had this guy two years ago and taken out Kim Jong Il by now.

he's not the star wars kid, but still pretty good.

German Propaganda Archive (Guide Page)

Their Memorial: The Last Words of our Dead

GorillaMask.net: A Tribute to Vida Guerra's Ass
NSFW

Saturday

The Official Web Site of the Zipcode Man

Ultra-important Druthers restaurant update!

It's not "druthers", it's "Druther's", like the name of the guy who owns it is named Druther or something. What a tool I feel like for screwing that up. A google search for "druthers" now returns only my misspelling. The shame! I'm purchasing a mug from Druther's on ebay right now. If you try to outbid me I will take you down.

My roommate (accidentally, to be fair) broke my former two favorite glasses, one was a Reagan glass that had Reagan's face and said "Let's make america great again", and the other was a coffee mug that said on one side "I'm a st. mary's bad guy", and on the other "I had a bad idea". The Druther's mug's going to be hidden in a locked filing cabinet somewhere in the city where he can't get his shaky hands on it. Oh yes, it will be mine... my... precious...

In other news, when I find a place that sells dry ice I'm going to ship a package to my mother, who doesn't have the advantage of an organic meat department where she lives and therefore doesn't enjoy the attenuating deliciosity. The food is going to be deep frozen and shipped in something I know will hold the temp down, a styrofoam box which according to the label on the outside recently contained 2 kg of dry ice and the pancreas of a black man. Sometimes one has to create one's own advantages; mine is a lifetime supply of boxes once used to transport organs for transplant. Is it illegal to ship something else in that box? Would it raise some eyebrows over at UPS when they delivered an organ for transplant with haste to a residence on the outskirts of town? They'd burn her at the stake for witchcraft down there, the crazies.

Kudos to Neal Karlen, whose latest book, Shanda, is great. I finished it yesterday. Even if it doesn't sell like crazy (which I hope it will so I don't feel guilty for getting a free copy), it's a major accomplishment. Neal's our kind of people.

Fraud Frond.com: "This website pays homage to the fake trees that disguise our cell phone towers."

I work with a guy who loves sex, which is just fine, but not necessarily something I need to hear about. A little while ago, though, he cracked me up, saying about someone's butt with whom we work: "If I got hold of that ass I would go into an anal frenzy." I'm sure that as a result of my laughing, I'll get to hear more of this kind of thing. It didn't help that he pantomimed a shark in a feeding frenzy precisely at the last moment I could have stifled my laughter. That's comic timing.

I'm cut-and-pasting something here that I already linked to, but I think it ought to be here, on this page.

Bush by numbers: Four years of double standards
By Graydon Carter
03 September 2004


1 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security issued between 20 January 2001 and 10 September 2001 that mentioned al-Qa'ida.

104 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security and defence in the same period that mentioned Iraq or Saddam Hussein.

101 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security and defence in the same period that mentioned missile defence.

65 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security and defence in the same period that mentioned weapons of mass destruction.

0 Number of times Bush mentioned Osama bin Laden in his three State of the Union addresses.

73 Number of times that Bush mentioned terrorism or terrorists in his three State of the Union addresses.

83 Number of times Bush mentioned Saddam, Iraq, or regime (as in change) in his three State of the Union addresses.

$1m Estimated value of a painting the Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, received from Prince Bandar, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States and Bush family friend.

0 Number of times Bush mentioned Saudi Arabia in his three State of the Union addresses.

1,700 Percentage increase between 2001 and 2002 of Saudi Arabian spending on public relations in the United States.

79 Percentage of the 11 September hijackers who came from Saudi Arabia.

3 Number of 11 September hijackers whose entry visas came through special US-Saudi "Visa Express" programme.

140 Number of Saudis, including members of the Bin Laden family, evacuated from United States almost immediately after 11 September.

14 Number of Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) agents assigned to track down 1,200 known illegal immigrants in the United States from countries where al-Qa'ida is active.

$3m Amount the White House was willing to grant the 9/11 Commission to investigate the 11 September attacks.

$0 Amount approved by George Bush to hire more INS special agents.

$10m Amount Bush cut from the INS's existing terrorism budget.

$50m Amount granted to the commission that looked into the Columbia space shuttle crash.

$5m Amount a 1996 federal commission was given to study legalised gambling.

7 Number of Arabic linguists fired by the US army between mid-August and mid-October 2002 for being gay.

George Bush: Military man

1972 Year that Bush walked away from his pilot duties in the Texas National Guard, Nearly two years before his six-year obligation was up.

$3,500 Reward a group of veterans offered in 2000 for anyone who could confirm Bush's Alabama guard service.

600-700 Number of guardsmen who were in Bush's unit during that period.

0 Number of guardsmen from that period who came forward with information about Bush's guard service.

0 Number of minutes that President Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, the assistant Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, the former chairman of the Defence Policy Board, Richard Perle, and the White House Chief of Staff, Karl Rove ­ the main proponents of the war in Iraq ­served in combat (combined).

0 Number of principal civilian or Pentagon staff members who planned the war who have immediate family members serving in uniform in Iraq.

8 Number of members of the US Senate and House of Representatives who have a child serving in the military.

10 Number of days that the Pentagon spent investigating a soldier who had called the President "a joke" in a letter to the editor of a Newspaper.

46 Percentage increase in sales between 2001 and 2002 of GI Joe figures (children's toys).

Ambitious warrior

2 Number of Nations that George Bush has attacked and taken over since coming into office.

130 Approximate Number of countries (out of a total of 191 recognised by the United Nations) with a US military presence.

43 Percentage of the entire world's military spending that the US spends on defence. (That was in 2002, the year before the invasion of Iraq.)

$401.3bn Proposed military budget for 2004.

Saviour of Iraq

1983 The year in which Donald Rumsfeld, Ronald Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East, gave Saddam Hussein a pair of golden spurs as a gift.

2.5 Number of hours after Rumsfeld learnt that Osama bin Laden was a suspect in the 11 September attacks that he brought up reasons to "hit" Iraq.

237 Minimum number of misleading statements on Iraq made by top Bush administration officials between 2002 and January 2004, according to the California Representative Henry Waxman.

10m Estimated number of people worldwide who took to the streets on 21 February 2003, in opposition to the invasion of Iraq, the largest simultaneous protest in world history.

$2bn Estimated monthly cost of US military presence in Iraq projected by the White House in April 2003.

$4bn Actual monthly cost of the US military presence in Iraq according to Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld in 2004.

$15m Amount of a contract awarded to an American firm to build a cement factory in Iraq.

$80,000 Amount an Iraqi firm spent (using Saddam's confiscated funds) to build the same factory, after delays prevented the American firm from starting it.

2000 Year that Cheney said his policy as CEO of Halliburton oil services company was "we wouldn't do anything in Iraq".

$4.7bn Total value of contracts awarded to Halliburton in Iraq and Afghanistan.

$680m Estimated value of Iraq reconstruction contracts awarded to Bechtel.

$2.8bnValue of Bechtel Corp contracts in Iraq.

$120bn Amount the war and its aftermath are projected to cost for the 2004 fiscal year.

35 Number of countries to which the United States suspended military assistance after they failed to sign agreements giving Americans immunity from prosecution before the International Criminal Court.

92 Percentage of Iraq's urban areas with access to potable water in late 2002.

60 Percentage of Iraq's urban areas with access to potable water in late 2003.

55 Percentage of the Iraqi workforce who were unemployed before the war.

80 Percentage of the Iraqi workforce who are unemployed a Year after the war.

0 Number of American combat deaths in Germany after the Nazi surrender in May 1945.

37 Death toll of US soldiers in Iraq in May 2003, the month combat operations "officially" ended.

0 Number of coffins of dead soldiers returning home that the Bush administration has permitted to be photographed.

0 Number of memorial services for the returned dead that Bush has attended since the beginning of the war.

A soldier's best friend

40,000 Number of soldiers in Iraq seven months after start of the war still without Interceptor vests, designed to stop a round from an AK-47.

$60m Estimated cost of outfitting those 40,000 soldiers with Interceptor vests.

62 Percentage of gas masks that army investigators discovered did Not work properly in autumn 2002.

90 Percentage of detectors which give early warning of a biological weapons attack found to be defective.

87 Percentage of Humvees in Iraq not equipped with armour capable of stopping AK-47 rounds and protecting against roadside bombs and landmines at the end of 2003.

Making the country safer

$3.29 Average amount allocated per person Nationwide in the first round of homeland security grants.

$94.40 Amount allocated per person for homeland security in American Samoa.

$36 Amount allocated per person for homeland security in Wyoming, Vice-President Cheney's home state.

$17 Amount allocated per person in New York state.

$5.87 Amount allocated per person in New York City.

$77.92 Amount allocated per person in New Haven, Connecticut, home of Yale University, Bush's alma mater.

76 Percentage of 215 cities surveyed by the US Conference of Mayors in early 2004 that had yet to receive a dime in federal homeland security assistance for their first-response units.

5 Number of major US airports at the beginning of 2004 that the Transportation Security Administration admitted were Not fully screening baggage electronically.

22,600 Number of planes carrying unscreened cargo that fly into New York each month.

5 Estimated Percentage of US air cargo that is screened, including cargo transported on passenger planes.

95 Percentage of foreign goods that arrive in the United States by sea.

2 Percentage of those goods subjected to thorough inspection.

$5.5bnEstimated cost to secure fully US ports over the Next decade.

$0 Amount Bush allocated for port security in 2003.

$46m Amount the Bush administration has budgeted for port security in 2005.

15,000 Number of major chemical facilities in the United States.

100 Number of US chemical plants where a terrorist act could endanger the lives of more than one million people.

0 Number of new drugs or vaccines against "priority pathogens" listed by the Centres for Disease Control that have been developed and introduced since 11 September 2001.

Giving a hand up to the advantaged

$10.9m Average wealth of the members of Bush's original 16-person cabinet.

75 Percentage of Americans unaffected by Bush's sweeping 2003 cuts in capital gains and dividends taxes.

$42,000 Average savings members of Bush's cabinet received in 2003 as a result of cuts in capital gains and dividends taxes.

10 Number of fellow members from the Yale secret society Skull and Bones that Bush has named to important positions (including the Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum Jr. and SEC chief Bill Donaldson).

79 Number of Bush's initial 189 appointees who also served in his father's administration.

A man with a lot of friends

$113m Amount of total hard money the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign received, a record.

$11.5m Amount of hard money raised through the Pioneer programme, the controversial fund-raising process created for the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign. (Participants pledged to raise at least $100,000 by bundling together cheques of up to $1,000 from friends and family. Pioneers were assigned numbers, which were included on all cheques, enabling the campaign to keep track of who raised how much.)

George Bush: Money manager

4.7m Number of bankruptcies that were declared during Bush's first three years in office.

2002 The worst year for major markets since the recession of the 1970s.

$489bn The US trade deficit in 2003, the worst in history for a single year.

$5.6tr Projected national surplus forecast by the end of the decade when Bush took office in 2001.

$7.22tr US national debt by mid-2004.

George Bush: Tax cutter

87 Percentage of American families in April 2004 who say they have felt no benefit from Bush's tax cuts.

39 Percentage of tax cuts that will go to the top 1 per cent of American families when fully phased in.

49 Percentage of Americans in April 2004 who found that their taxes had actually gone up since Bush took office.

88 Percentage of American families who will save less than $100 on their 2006 federal taxes as a result of 2003 cut in capital gains and dividends taxes.

$30,858 Amount Bush himself saved in taxes in 2003.

Employment tsar

9.3m Number of US unemployed in April 2004.

2.3m Number of Americans who lost their jobs during first three Years of the Bush administration.

22m Number of jobs gained during Clinton's eight years in office.

Friend of the poor

34.6m Number of Americans living below the poverty line (1 in 8 of the population).

6.8m Number of people in the workforce but still classified as poor.

35m Number of Americans that the government defines as "food insecure," in other words, hungry.

$300m Amount cut from the federal programme that provides subsidies to poor families so they can heat their homes.

40 Percentage of wealth in the United States held by the richest 1 per cent of the population.

18 Percentage of wealth in Britain held by the richest 1e per cent of the population.

George Bush And his special friend

$60bn Loss to Enron stockholders, following the largest bankruptcy in US history.

$205m Amount Enron CEO Kenneth Lay earned from stock option profits over a four-year period.

$101m Amount Lay made from selling his Enron shares just before the company went bankrupt.

$59,339 Amount the Bush campaign reimbursed Enron for 14 trips on its corporate jet during the 2000 campaign.

30 Length of time in months between Enron's collapse and Lay (whom the President called "Kenny Boy") still not being charged with a crime.

George Bush: Lawman

15 Average number of minutes Bush spent reviewing capital punishment cases while governor of Texas.

46 Percentage of Republican federal judges when Bush came to office.

57 Percentage of Republican federal judges after three years of the Bush administration.

33 Percentage of the $15bn Bush pledged to fight Aids in Africa that must go to abstinence-only programmes.

The Civil libertarian

680 Number of suspected al-Qa'ida members that the United States admits are detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

42 Number of nationalities of those detainees at Guantanamo.

22 Number of hours prisoners were handcuffed, shackled, and made to wear surgical masks, earmuffs, and blindfolds during their flight to Guantanamo.

32 Number of confirmed suicide attempts by Guantanamo Bay prisoners.

24 Number of prisoners in mid-2003 being monitored by psychiatrists in Guantanamo's new mental ward.

A health-conscious president

43.6m Number of Americans without health insurance by the end of 2002 (more than 15 per cent of the population).

2.4m Number of Americans who lost their health insurance during Bush's first year in office.

Environmentalist

$44m Amount the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign and the Republican National Committee received in contributions from the fossil fuel, chemical, timber, and mining industries.

200 Number of regulation rollbacks downgrading or weakening environmental laws in Bush's first three years in office.

31 Number of Bush administration appointees who are alumni of the energy industry (includes four cabinet secretaries, the six most powerful White House officials, and more than 20 other high-level appointees).

50 Approximate number of policy changes and regulation rollbacks injurious to the environment that have been announced by the Bush administration on Fridays after 5pm, a time that makes it all but impossible for news organisations to relay the information to the widest possible audience.

50 Percentage decline in Environmental Protection Agency enforcement actions against polluters under Bush's watch.

34 Percentage decline in criminal penalties for environmental crimes since Bush took office.

50 Percentage decline in civil penalties for environmental crimes since Bush took office.

$6.1m Amount the EPA historically valued each human life when conducting economic analyses of proposed regulations.

$3.7m Amount the EPA valued each human life when conducting analyses of proposed regulations during the Bush administration.

0 Number of times Bush mentioned global warming, clean air, clean water, pollution or environment in his 2004 State of the Union speech. His father was the last president to go through an entire State of the Union address without mentioning the environment.

1 Number of paragraphs devoted to global warming in the EPA's 600-page "Draft Report on the Environment" presented in 2003.

68 Number of days after taking office that Bush decided Not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty to reduce greenhouse gases by roughly 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. The United States was to cut its level by 7 per cent.

1 The rank of the United States worldwide in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

25 Percentage of overall worldwide carbon dioxide emissions the United States is responsible for.

53 Number of days after taking office that Bush reneged on his campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

14 Percentage carbon dioxide emissions will increase over the next 10 years under Bush's own global-warming plan (an increase of 30 per cent above their 1990 levels).

408 Number of species that could be extinct by 2050 if the global-warming trend continues.

5 Number of years the Bush administration said in 2003 that global warming must be further studied before substantive action could be taken.

62 Number of members of Cheney's 63-person Energy Task Force with ties to corporate energy interests.

0 Number of environmentalists asked to attend Cheney's Energy Task Force meetings.

6 Number of months before 11 September that Cheney's Energy Task Force investigated Iraq's oil reserves.

2 Percentage of the world's population that is British.

2 Percentage of the world's oil used by Britain.

5 Percentage of the world's population that is American.

25 Percentage of the world's oil used by America.

63 Percentage of oil the United States imported in 2003, a record high.

24,000 Estimated number of premature deaths that will occur under Bush's Clear Skies initiative.

300 Number of Clean Water Act violations by the mountaintop-mining industry in 2003.

750,000 Tons of toxic waste the US military, the world's biggest polluter, generates around the world each Year.

$3.8bn Amount in the Superfund trust fund for toxic site clean-ups in 1995, the Year "polluter pays" fees expired.

$0m Amount of uncommitted dollars in the Superfund trust fund for toxic site clean-ups in 2003.

270 Estimated number of court decisions citing federal Negligence in endangered-species protection that remained unheeded during the first year of the Bush administration.

100 Percentage of those decisions that Bush then decided to allow the government to ignore indefinitely.

68.4 Average Number of species added to the Endangered and Threatened Species list each year between 1991 and 2000.

0 Number of endangered species voluntarily added by the Bush administration since taking office.

50 Percentage of screened workers at Ground Zero who now suffer from long-term health problems, almost half of whom don't have health insurance.

78 Percentage of workers at Ground Zero who now suffer from lung ailments.

88 Percentage of workers at Ground Zero who Now suffer from ear, nose, or throat problems.

22 Asbestos levels at Ground Zero were 22 times higher than the levels in Libby, Montana, where the W R Grace mine produced one of the worst Superfund disasters in US history.

Image booster for the US

2,500 Number of public-diplomacy officers employed by the State Department to further the image of the US abroad in 1991.

1,200 Number of public-diplomacy officers employed by the State Department to further US image abroad in 2004.

4 Rank of the United States among countries considered to be the greatest threats to world peace according to a 2003 Pew Global Attitudes study (Israel, Iran, and North Korea were considered more dangerous; Iraq was considered less dangerous).

$66bn Amount the United States spent on international aid and diplomacy in 1949.

$23.8bn Amount the United States spent on international aid and diplomacy in 2002.

85 Percentage of Indonesians who had an unfavourable image of the United States in 2003.

Second-party endorsements

90 Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on 26 September 2001.

67 Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on 26 September 2002.

54 Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on 30 September, 2003.

50 Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on 15 October 2003.

49 Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president in May 2004.

More like the French than he would care to admit

28 Number of vacation days Bush took in August 2003, the second-longest vacation of any president in US history. (Record holder Richard Nixon.)

13 Number of vacation days the average American receives each Year.

28 Number of vacation days Bush took in August 2001, the month he received a 6 August Presidential Daily Briefing headed "Osama bin Laden Determined to Strike US Targets."

500 Number of days Bush has spent all or part of his time away from the White House at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, his parents' retreat in Kennebunkport, Maine, or Camp David as of 1 April 2004.

No fool when it comes to the press

11 Number of press conferences during his first three Years in office in which Bush referred to questions as being "trick" ones.

Factors in his favour

3 Number of companies that control the US voting technology market.

52 Percentage of votes cast during the 2002 midterm elections that were recorded by Election Systems & Software, the largest voting-technology firm, a big Republican donor.

29 Percentage of votes that will be cast via computer voting machines that don't produce a paper record.

17On 17 November 2001, The Economist printed a correction for having said George Bush was properly elected in 2000.

$113m Amount raised by the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign, the most in American electoral history.

$185m Amount raised by the Bush-Cheney 2004 re-election campaign, to the end of March 2004.

$200m Amount that the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign expects to raise by November 2004.

268 Number of Bush-Cheney fund-raisers who had earned Pioneer status (by raising $100,000 each) as of March 2004.

187 Number of Bush-Cheney fund-raisers who had earned Ranger status (by raising $200,000 each) as of March 2004.

$64.2mThe Amount Pioneers and Rangers had raised for Bush-Cheney as of March 2004.

85 Percentage of Americans who can't Name the Chief Justice of the United States.

69 Percentage of Americans who believed the White House's claims in September 2003 that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 11 September attacks.

34 Percentage of Americans who believed in June 2003 that Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction" had been found.

22 Percentage of Americans who believed in May 2003 that Saddam had used his WMDs on US forces.

85 Percentage of American young adults who cannot find Afghanistan, Iraq, or Israel on a map.

30 Percentage of American young adults who cannot find the Pacific Ocean on a map.

75 Percentage of American young adults who don't know the population of the United States.

53 Percentage of Canadian young adults who don't know the population of the United States.

11 Percentage of American young adults who cannot find the United States on a map.

30 Percentage of Americans who believe that "politics and government are too complicated to understand."

Another factor in his favour

70m Estimated number of Americans who describe themselves as Evangelicals who accept Jesus Christ as their personal saviour and who interpret the Bible as the direct word of God.

23m Number of Evangelicals who voted for Bush in 2000.

50m Number of voters in total who voted for Bush in 2000.

46 Percentage of voters who describe themselves as born-again Christians.

5 Number of states that do not use the word "evolution" in public school science courses.

This is an edited extract from "What We've Lost", by Graydon Carter, published by Little Brown on 9 September

Coke Nazi Advert Challenge

If you're a young republican kicking a protestor while she's down, make sure there's not a news camera right behind you. here
Boy would I love to meet this guy sometime, and ruin his weekend.

Disturbing Auctions
A site devited to crazy items being auctioned on ebay

A little note:

When I write "print at work" before a link, it's a suggestion for all the office people who peruse the internet and my blog ahile they're at work, and because it's a long article which I want to read but for which I don't want to supply the toner. It's more a reminder to myself than anything else. I'm not barking orders here. It doesn't mean "must read, is good". It actually means I'll be reading it in the future, but if you ever want to talk about it, I'll know because I will have read it, after printing it at work. Just to clear that up.

Friday

If anybody wants a gmail account just write me and ask. I've got six invitations sitting here that are going unused.

counting sheep
/stupid and only goes to forty.

print at work:
World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, and Why We Have to Win
Commentary Magazine

print at work:
What Use is Religion?
Richard Dawkins

Imperial President - Opposing Bush becomes unpatriotic. By William Saletan

Bush by numbers: Four years of double standards

5 Reasons Why Christians Should Not Obtain a State marriage license

Cool!
Boing Boing: Chess computer's thought process

Bring Back Kirk: The Official Site

MSNBC - In anything we trust
Stupid people.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Warning: nicotine seriously improves health

scary picture

This is how republicans dishonor our armed forces

Did a 757 really hit the pentagon?

Snopes: yes.

If you only watch one video this week, watch this one. Safe for work.

You're welcome.

Favorite word of the day: petrofascists.

Why would anyone want to click on this amazingly huge, not safe for work gallery of hot sex? I just don't get it.

Thursday

Retiring headline:

Do not trust to the cheering, for those persons would cheer just as much if you and I were going to be hanged. -- Oliver Cromwell

George Bush wrapping up the convention, sounding bored:

"This century is liberty's century."

You can tell this guy doesn't read. It's really stupid. His reading is so bad I can't believe that anyone would be able to mock it effectively better than replaying it. The man is plainly not intelligent in any conventional sense. Maybe that's why stupid people like him. He's one of them.

Cola Bomb

Washington post requires registration for this, so I post the whole thing.

Giuliani Charges Lack Context

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 31, 2004; 6:44 PM

Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani made a number of specific attacks based on statements allegedly made by Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry in his speech to the Republican National Convention Monday night. But Giuliani's description of those comments often lacked context.

For example, Giuliani said: "In October of 2003, he told an Arab American institute in Detroit that a security barrier separating Israel from the Palestinian territories was a barrier to peace. Okay. Then a few months later, he took exactly the opposite position."

The context: When Kerry made his statement about a "barrier to peace," he was referring to, as he put it, the "Israeli government's decision to build the barrier off of the Green Line [the de facto boundary between Israel and the West Bank] -- cutting deep into Palestinian areas."

Kerry's stance was similar to the position taken by President Bush a few months earlier, in July 2003, when he said in the Rose Garden: "I think the wall is a problem, and I discussed this with [Israeli Prime Minister] Ariel Sharon. It is very difficult to develop confidence between the Palestinians and Israel with a wall snaking through the West Bank."

The Bush administration has spent months negotiating with the Israelis the precise route of the fence. Both Kerry and Bush opposed involvement of the International Court of Justice in the matter.

Giuliani: "I quote John Kerry: 'I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.' "

The context: The administration's request for the funding was controversial, even among Republicans, and various attempts were made to split off $67 billion for the troops from the $20 billion for reconstruction, or to turn the $20 billion grant into a loan, or to fund some of the spending by raising taxes on incomes greater than $312,000. Kerry voted for a different version of the bill, just as Bush had vowed to veto a version that originally passed in the Senate that would have converted half of the Iraq rebuilding plan into a loan.

Giuliani: "Just a few months ago, John Kerry kind of leaked out that claim that certain foreign leaders who opposed our removal of Saddam Hussein prefer him."

The context: The reporter who provided a pool report on Kerry's comments at a fundraiser in March later said she had mistranscribed the comments, and Kerry actually did not use the word "foreign." He also did not refer to Saddam Hussein. Speaking to supporters who noted the opposition to Bush overseas, Kerry said: "I've been hearing it, I'll tell you. The news, the coverage in other countries, the news in other places. I've met more leaders who can't go out and say it all publicly, but boy they look at you and say, you gotta win this, you gotta beat this guy, we need a new policy, things like that."

From the full conversation, it appears clear Kerry is speaking about dislike of Bush and his policies by leaders overseas, but not necessarily the invasion of Iraq.

Giuliani: "He even, at one point, declared himself an antiwar candidate, and now he says he's a pro-war candidate."

The context: Giuliani's statement appears derived from an appearance by Kerry in January in which he was asked on MSNBC's "Hardball" if he was one of the candidates "unhappy with the war has been fought, the way it's been fought . . . are you one of the antiwar candidates?" He answered: "I am. Yes. In the sense that I don't believe the president took to us war as he should have, yes. Absolutely. Do I think this president violated his promises to America? Yes, I do, Chris. Was there a way to hold Saddam Hussein accountable? You bet there was and we should have done it right."

Chris Mathews, host of "Hardball," has protested to the Bush campaign the use of the statement that Kerry called himself an antiwar candidate, saying the remarks were taken out of context.