Double Flee A
Sunday
Here in the PACU, not a creature is stirring, not even an enterococcus. There aren't any surgeries today, but they keep a skeleton staff around just in case an organ shows up that they can put in some patient that needs it. The lounge is nicer, but the PACU is quieter. I can't stand the television that they have in lounge. (I'm very sensitive, it turns out, to commercials. Once I started living without them, they really started to irritate me. My fiancee doesn't share my distaste for commercials. She'll listen to corporate radio, even, with all the (industry term here, mind you) "barfing" that the deejays do for a commercial spot. "Hey, come on down for HUGE savings on an INCREDIBLE selection of usedcarstrucksconversionvansandmoreat Willie McPee's MazdaDodgeFordChrysler with NOMONEYDOWN!! You're gonna FIND the deal you're LOOKing for toDAY!!!msrpnotincludedtaxtitlelicenseregistrationextraotheroffersdonotapply")
In this room, sometimes when a baby gets out of surgery, you'll hear a sound that you never hear anywhere else. It is the sound of a baby screaming in mortal fear and maybe terrible pain. Surgery is scary and it hurts. They cut you open and do stuff to your guts, and that's how they make people well, including babies. If the baby had his or her way, this surgery would never happen, and they would die, but babies aren't in charge of what happens to them. You never get used to the sound of a baby coming out of anesthesia. You have to physically restrain yourself the first time you hear it, from instinctively going over there and stopping whoever's causing the baby to make that awful sound.
They do these things to babies to save their lives. Sometimes babies aren't made the way they're supposed to be, and doctors and nurses have to use all the things they learned in medical and nursing school to make their tiny little bodies work better. They usually do a pretty good job, because of their commitment to the diligent, impartial study of what works, a method we refer to as science.
But there's a problem. These doctors don't have religious training. Just think of how many more lives could be saved if, in addition to performing the surgery, the doctors prayed and talked in tongues and stuff! But if they prayed to the wrong god, not the one TRUE god, they might sabotage the whole thing, so they ought to have a government prayer expert on hand to approve of the prayers, and if anything irregular occurs, those doctors should be reported and held as enemy combatants, traitors against god's america who love Osama bin Laden and satan.
In this room, sometimes when a baby gets out of surgery, you'll hear a sound that you never hear anywhere else. It is the sound of a baby screaming in mortal fear and maybe terrible pain. Surgery is scary and it hurts. They cut you open and do stuff to your guts, and that's how they make people well, including babies. If the baby had his or her way, this surgery would never happen, and they would die, but babies aren't in charge of what happens to them. You never get used to the sound of a baby coming out of anesthesia. You have to physically restrain yourself the first time you hear it, from instinctively going over there and stopping whoever's causing the baby to make that awful sound.
They do these things to babies to save their lives. Sometimes babies aren't made the way they're supposed to be, and doctors and nurses have to use all the things they learned in medical and nursing school to make their tiny little bodies work better. They usually do a pretty good job, because of their commitment to the diligent, impartial study of what works, a method we refer to as science.
But there's a problem. These doctors don't have religious training. Just think of how many more lives could be saved if, in addition to performing the surgery, the doctors prayed and talked in tongues and stuff! But if they prayed to the wrong god, not the one TRUE god, they might sabotage the whole thing, so they ought to have a government prayer expert on hand to approve of the prayers, and if anything irregular occurs, those doctors should be reported and held as enemy combatants, traitors against god's america who love Osama bin Laden and satan.
Saturday
Let him who is minded to meet with a Glug
Pluck three hardy hairs from a rabbit-skin rug;
Blow one to the South, and one to the West,
Then burn another and swallow the rest.
And who shall explain 'tis the talk of a fool,
He's a Glug! He's a Glug of the old Gosh school!
And he'll climb a tree, if the East wind blows,
In a casual way, just to show he knows . . .
Now, tickle his toes!
Oh, tickle his toes!
And don't blame me if you come to blows.
THE GLUGS OF GOSH
Pluck three hardy hairs from a rabbit-skin rug;
Blow one to the South, and one to the West,
Then burn another and swallow the rest.
And who shall explain 'tis the talk of a fool,
He's a Glug! He's a Glug of the old Gosh school!
And he'll climb a tree, if the East wind blows,
In a casual way, just to show he knows . . .
Now, tickle his toes!
Oh, tickle his toes!
And don't blame me if you come to blows.
THE GLUGS OF GOSH
class act
Bush gives reporters the finger/quicktime
Oh, it's ok if he has no class, because he's a cowboy. Yep. A true cowboy.
Friday
bullshit
I lost, by which I mean did not win, this contest a couple of years ago. Here's where I recount that bit of unfairness.Carburetor breast fantasy wins bad writing contest - Yahoo! News
right wing awesomeness
Last night I saw a billboard for a radio station that said "intelligent radio", 1280 AM. I looked it up, and it's a right-wing station called
.Want to actively love America right now at your computer? You can listen live on the internet at this page.
I turned it on and so far it's just some lady doing a show about men hugging other men, doing a tongue-in-cheek show about how lame it is. People keep calling in about how they do it at AA or with their church group, and it's expanding her mind, she sarcastically annnounces. She had apparently expected people to call up and agree with her that "the man-hug", as they are referring to it, is gay and lame. (Talk about homosexualizing an otherwise normal experience; this is a great example of the fear of gayness that, I expect, typifies the average right wing imagination. Hear enough of this "this is what it is to be a man, this and nothing else, my friends", and you might start to believe it.) The whole show is getting old so I'm turning it off. Not the intelligence I was promised, but I hold out hope.
You see, I'm considering a temporary immersion in the right-wing mediascape. All day I would listen to Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage on the radio, and then I could watch fox news at night before bed. My coming week is the perfect opportunity, before the wedding and before the honeymoon.
Has anybody ever wondered what it'd be like to do that? The right-wingosphere is clearly a rewarding virtual space; my own father is the perfect example of someone for whom right-wing radio is a (indispensable?) part of daily life, and in a way, if I don't do this, I'm missing the party. I want to know what they talk about there, what it is that diverts their attention from the outrageous foolish war with no end in sight. I fully expect the right wing to be like another dimension, a parallel universe where it's the liberals who are a bunch of idiots, and where those sissy, pussy, faggot-ass liberals are the ones who are changing the subject away from the real issue --the destruction of the moral fiber of America-- by whining about the war all the time. I expect that the liberals will be cast as people who don't deserve the freedoms that they are endowed with, the right to free speech being hard-fought and won by true patriots, not by loser-ass college boy jew liberals (and so on).
What's going to be impossible is to keep track of it all. There's going to be such bandwidth coming in that I won't be able to keep up with it. Typing these words, both as a result of my ability to articulate a thought, and the speed with which I can type, are far more limited than what will be coming in. Also, radio is fleeting. You hear it, and it's gone. There's no replay feature, no citations, just a melange of feelings that culminates somewhere in righteousness valley, population no damn liberals. This advantage can't be overstated. I am confident that I can keep up with and understand the rhetoric that I am going to be hearing, but I won't be able to chronicle it as fast as it shoots out the faucet of talking heads. I will probably have to point to a lot of right wing websites like Rush, Savage, Hannity, and LGF, to name a few, for citations, if I can find them. I plan to embark on this journey in the next day or two, to see how loving America goes down on the receiving end of the right wing noise machine. Who knows, maybe me and my dad can even man-hug after it's all over.
Knock-knock.
Who's there?
Under the Patriot Act, we don't have to tell you that.
Did you hear that Bill Clinton hired a new intern? It turns out that his old intern had to go home and spend time with her family after her brother was killed in Iraq.
More hilarious jokes here:
McSweeney's Internet Tendency
Q: Unrelated, what do you tell a woman with two black eyes?
A: Would you like an icepack for that?
Who's there?
Under the Patriot Act, we don't have to tell you that.
Did you hear that Bill Clinton hired a new intern? It turns out that his old intern had to go home and spend time with her family after her brother was killed in Iraq.
More hilarious jokes here:
McSweeney's Internet Tendency
Q: Unrelated, what do you tell a woman with two black eyes?
A: Would you like an icepack for that?
Thursday
Oil and Blood
The Bush administration has no plans to bring the troops home from this misguided war.
faith
"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."-Richard Dawkins
random non-politcal bits
What's the worst thing about a bus full of black guys going over a cliff?They were my friends.
A guy goes to his eye doctor for an examination. They start talking as the doctor is examing his eyes. In the middle of their conversation, the doctor casually says, "You need to stop masturbating."
The guy replies, "Why Doc? Am I going blind?"
The doctor says, "No, but you're upsetting the other patients in the waiting room."
On Karl Rove's exposing of a CIA operative:
"What is so despicable about all of this is that conservative movement, which was born in part from the efforts of Whittaker Chambers to expose communist treachery, is now serving as apologists for political operatives who have destroyed an intelligence network and at least one case officer's distinguished career. The new standard for the Republican National Committee--Karl Rove didn't commit a crime. Boy, there's a slogan to run on, "At Least I Wasn't Indicted":
Larry Johnson,
who discusses Plame here.
Unrelated:
James Wolcott on Podhoretz
"What is so despicable about all of this is that conservative movement, which was born in part from the efforts of Whittaker Chambers to expose communist treachery, is now serving as apologists for political operatives who have destroyed an intelligence network and at least one case officer's distinguished career. The new standard for the Republican National Committee--Karl Rove didn't commit a crime. Boy, there's a slogan to run on, "At Least I Wasn't Indicted":
Larry Johnson,
who discusses Plame here.
Unrelated:
James Wolcott on Podhoretz
Bill Frist is an asshole
via crooks and liars,Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Senate Moves to Shield Gun Industry
Making War on the American Public:
"In another triumph for "homeland security," 62-year-old retired schoolteacher Phyllis Dintenfass faces imprisonment and financial ruin. Her "crime"? Reciprocating the "helpful" behavior of a federal airport security screener."
"In another triumph for "homeland security," 62-year-old retired schoolteacher Phyllis Dintenfass faces imprisonment and financial ruin. Her "crime"? Reciprocating the "helpful" behavior of a federal airport security screener."
Wednesday
quotes by Gene Ray, the man behind time cube
Gene Ray - WikiquoteGene's at the top of this list of weirdoes, along with some familiar people!
I have been trying to figure out, for YEARS, why it is that I am attracted to bad media. Especially video. My two brothers share the fascination. I never get tired of seeing things that are really honestly bad, that is, not trying to be bad on purpose. I like things that make you shake your head and wonder after them, and how they came to be.
Brief aside: when songs are written to be sweet, that is, when they aren't but they were obviously supposed to be, they come off cloying. In fact, when any action is performed with the goal of producing a certain feeling in another individual, you get other results than what you intended.
With clowns you get... well, not exactly happiness.
When a black guy makes a joke about his being black in a movie, I don't laugh.
When a rap guy makes some song about some whores bouncing their big round asses on the dance flo', I don't bob my head and think "Yeah!"
When some country singer makes yet another song about the U.S. of A., I don't feel a surge of patriotism.*
When the guy gets the girl in the movie, a tear fails to come to my eye.
When people talk about the feeling they get when god shows up in their heart, I want to puke. I don't think that was the intended effect, either.
Here are some examples of what I mean by bad media which I am attracted to:
The dancing outlaw
The Bubb Rubb whistle-tip video
Eegah!
Yor, hunter from the future
Viva and Jerry's country videos
And that's not even scratching the surface. There is more and more bad, bad, terrible stuff being made every day.
There is terrible music out there, too, which fascinates me, like Buck Truck, the rapping trucker.
It isn't just me, in fact, most people, to varying degrees, enjoy "the bad". That's because understanding the bad stuff from the outside means you're in on the joke, and everybody likes to feel that way. What good would it be to be "us" if "them" didn't suck? (This is, incidentally, why evil will never be defeated, and why the entire concept of good and evil is, essentially, a crock. When all the bad guys are dead, what's left to do?) Paranoia for the sake of argument: how, for that matter, do I know you aren't reading this because you feel sorry for me, or take me as some animated curio? I don't, and on some level, that probably makes me (at least potentially) "the bad" as well.
Tangent: I once saw a dog that was ready to kill me. It was a doberman on a leash. I could see a certain look in his big, glassy black eyes that made me very uneasy. In those eyes it was the doberman's version of the future, and in that future I was a lifeless, bloody mass. The dog wasn't agitated but the leash was completely taut. It was waiting.
Back to the thing: It's just that I think I've identified something about all this bad shit. Something that holds it all together, finally, something that makes it an actual category. It is this: all this bad stuff can't be mocked. It can't be made fun or belittled any more than simply by letting it play. These things are their own best parodies all by themselves in their naked honesty. Anybody can make fun of mediocre things, like I do here, but the real craziness, of which the internet is full, has to be set aside. The characters in these bad media are the extremes; when we partake in the viewing of these things we are having a vicarious experience from a different (social?) dimension, where the exhibitor has no grasp on self-awareness.
Here are two of those:
Ted Jesus Christ God for president of USA
and still my all time favorite,
TIME CUBE!!
With things that are genuinely bad, what we're seeing is someone who doesn't get what we and everyone else gets; it's a freak show. I'm sure there's more I could think of to say about this, but that covers my revelation.
*With Chely Wright and the bumper of my SUV country song, you get a dust-up over the sham that it was. And man oh man did I get a kick out of that. High five, me.
Brief aside: when songs are written to be sweet, that is, when they aren't but they were obviously supposed to be, they come off cloying. In fact, when any action is performed with the goal of producing a certain feeling in another individual, you get other results than what you intended.
With clowns you get... well, not exactly happiness.
When a black guy makes a joke about his being black in a movie, I don't laugh.
When a rap guy makes some song about some whores bouncing their big round asses on the dance flo', I don't bob my head and think "Yeah!"
When some country singer makes yet another song about the U.S. of A., I don't feel a surge of patriotism.*
When the guy gets the girl in the movie, a tear fails to come to my eye.
When people talk about the feeling they get when god shows up in their heart, I want to puke. I don't think that was the intended effect, either.
Here are some examples of what I mean by bad media which I am attracted to:
The dancing outlaw
The Bubb Rubb whistle-tip video
Eegah!
Yor, hunter from the future
Viva and Jerry's country videos
And that's not even scratching the surface. There is more and more bad, bad, terrible stuff being made every day.
There is terrible music out there, too, which fascinates me, like Buck Truck, the rapping trucker.
It isn't just me, in fact, most people, to varying degrees, enjoy "the bad". That's because understanding the bad stuff from the outside means you're in on the joke, and everybody likes to feel that way. What good would it be to be "us" if "them" didn't suck? (This is, incidentally, why evil will never be defeated, and why the entire concept of good and evil is, essentially, a crock. When all the bad guys are dead, what's left to do?) Paranoia for the sake of argument: how, for that matter, do I know you aren't reading this because you feel sorry for me, or take me as some animated curio? I don't, and on some level, that probably makes me (at least potentially) "the bad" as well.
Tangent: I once saw a dog that was ready to kill me. It was a doberman on a leash. I could see a certain look in his big, glassy black eyes that made me very uneasy. In those eyes it was the doberman's version of the future, and in that future I was a lifeless, bloody mass. The dog wasn't agitated but the leash was completely taut. It was waiting.
Back to the thing: It's just that I think I've identified something about all this bad shit. Something that holds it all together, finally, something that makes it an actual category. It is this: all this bad stuff can't be mocked. It can't be made fun or belittled any more than simply by letting it play. These things are their own best parodies all by themselves in their naked honesty. Anybody can make fun of mediocre things, like I do here, but the real craziness, of which the internet is full, has to be set aside. The characters in these bad media are the extremes; when we partake in the viewing of these things we are having a vicarious experience from a different (social?) dimension, where the exhibitor has no grasp on self-awareness.
Here are two of those:
Ted Jesus Christ God for president of USA
and still my all time favorite,
TIME CUBE!!
With things that are genuinely bad, what we're seeing is someone who doesn't get what we and everyone else gets; it's a freak show. I'm sure there's more I could think of to say about this, but that covers my revelation.
*With Chely Wright and the bumper of my SUV country song, you get a dust-up over the sham that it was. And man oh man did I get a kick out of that. High five, me.
My brother got rear-ended by somebody while he was working but he says he's fine. It's hard to wink over the phone, but I tried, and told him don't sue anybody, because the free money you would get wouldn't have your sweat all over it. And what a disappointment is that? Free money: the big lie. I'm sure my conscience would just annihilate me with sorrow if I sued somebody for driving like a jackass. In a world with waning (legal) options as far as revenge is concerned, suing schmucks is more attractive than ever.
Today I picked up the illustrious Mr. Newman and we went to hidden beach, where the only naked babes were actual babes. It's a reproductive bunch that hides at hidden beach these days. All the naked frolicking about four years ago paid its dividends.
Watch school coming up on the end of the term is a monster. We've got to at least get to a good stopping-place by the end of tomorrow. No watches will be finished, but given that we had so little preparation and have all done so well, it's better than your average, everyday achievement. Or maybe it's just another version of your average everyday achievement. Dang ye, interminably insidious solipsism! We just learned how to mill yesterday, and by the end of the day today I had an idea of what not to do. Lot of good that does you when you've already taken metal off. That was sarcasm. I enjoy it in small measures, especially in reference to itself, i.e.: "Yeah, I'm really sure you're more sarcastic than me." That just doesn't seem to get old. I think it's because not enough people do it so it doesn't have a chance to spoil.
The wedding is around the corner. If you click above celebrity oven mitt (where it says time remaining until my wedding) a pop-up should happen with a countdown to the end of my life as I know it, and the beginning of my life as I don't know it. Marital life should be good, unless it isn't, and either way there's no sense in worrying about it.
Today I picked up the illustrious Mr. Newman and we went to hidden beach, where the only naked babes were actual babes. It's a reproductive bunch that hides at hidden beach these days. All the naked frolicking about four years ago paid its dividends.
Watch school coming up on the end of the term is a monster. We've got to at least get to a good stopping-place by the end of tomorrow. No watches will be finished, but given that we had so little preparation and have all done so well, it's better than your average, everyday achievement. Or maybe it's just another version of your average everyday achievement. Dang ye, interminably insidious solipsism! We just learned how to mill yesterday, and by the end of the day today I had an idea of what not to do. Lot of good that does you when you've already taken metal off. That was sarcasm. I enjoy it in small measures, especially in reference to itself, i.e.: "Yeah, I'm really sure you're more sarcastic than me." That just doesn't seem to get old. I think it's because not enough people do it so it doesn't have a chance to spoil.
The wedding is around the corner. If you click above celebrity oven mitt (where it says time remaining until my wedding) a pop-up should happen with a countdown to the end of my life as I know it, and the beginning of my life as I don't know it. Marital life should be good, unless it isn't, and either way there's no sense in worrying about it.
Tuesday
how to make something cool out of office supplies
Офисные войны. Дальше объяснение | Фишкина Картинкаmaddox
I just wanted a video game, not eternal damnation in hell.:"Thank God. I'll be the first person to download and patch my PC version of "Grand Theft Auto." I want to shoot people in the face, bang prostitutes, traffic drugs, steal cars, and terrorize police officers without this filthy smut in my game."
As long as they're going to blow stuff up and pollute everything with uranium and you're just going to sit there and do nothing about it, you might as well watch a video of it.
Bunker Buster Video Clip
Bunker Buster Video Clip
cool
Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Randy Cohen WeekI have selected "diary of a flying man" as a good jumping off point.
New York Starts to Inspect Bags on the Subways - New York Times
Does anybody think this sucks as much as I do? Which is a lot?
Does anybody think this sucks as much as I do? Which is a lot?
My first thought on this was 'bumwyth will love it."
Is this a philosopher's nightmare?
TruthMapping.com: Home:
Here's truthmapping's handy guide to why god exists.
silly
Is this a philosopher's nightmare?
TruthMapping.com: Home:
TruthMapping is a tool that addresses the most common problems in argumentation:
- It prevents digression by making the argument the context which can not be escaped; the information flow is always toward the argument unlike standard methods such as conversation, message boards and e-mail.
- It saves you time because others can not bury your contribution through repetitive posting.
- It is a content-rich view of a topic because only the true disagreements are visible by default.
Here's truthmapping's handy guide to why god exists.
silly
Sunday
cool
"I really didn't enjoy having to say a million prayers a day at other camps":ABC News: Non-Religious Kids Find Refuge in 'Godless' Camp
floating negative space
I was talking to a friend the other night about stencils, and about floating negative space, which I had some difficulty describing without a visual aid. He reads this occasionally, so I'll use this space to explain.Imagine what this stencil looks like. It takes some skill and effort to leave the unpainted area solid and in the right shapes. In this case, it makes the woman, which is cool because she is made of the actual building. It's a good use of space. I also like this example because it isn't "indecent" but gives the impression of being that way, i.e. "Hey! That looks like a naked woman and it made me think of sex! Is she a witch?! The sexual thoughts burn my mind like the fires of a thousand hells!" (Of course I think there's nothing indecent about a nude woman, but that's just the kind of guy I am. One of these days I'm sure I'll see the error of my ways and freak out at the sight of a naked lady, but for now I'll just have to suffer. These are the dark times.)
Here's another one, pretty small, very time-consuming looking, with a good graphic.
I think cutting something transparent would greatly simplify the problem of where to cut, since you could trace on it. In time, this would be pretty easy.
wired is cool
Wired News: Game Over for Modders?On GTA SA's rating change:
"The industry group revoked the game's M rating, which labeled it appropriate for players 17 or older, and re-filed it under AO for "adults only" -- raising the minimum age to 18, the year at which a delicate teen becomes less susceptible to the harmful influence of computer-generated cartoon sex."
Saturday
babies: almost perfect
The longer I live, the more I notice how much denial (almost) everyone around me is in. And if there's one thing I like to do, it's to put an end to that denial.For example, people assume that god exists a lot, and sometimes insist that they're right about this, without actually realizing that they can't 1) have an irrational faith in something and 2) justify it in reality. That these two things are incompatible is as simple, straightforward, and sensible an idea as it can possibly be. I proudly hang up my Christian-venom-spattered coat in reality gardens each night, having done my part to make it clear that you can't have it both ways. A denizen of the real world, Dale takes no vacations to sugar candy mountain, heaven, where everybody's pious great-grandmother's "glorified body" wanders the streets made of gold, some other heaven, where some dumb-ass brainwashed ex-suicide bomber kid fucks seventy virgins for ever and ever, or any other fantasy land. I enjoy pushing people around on this point, because it's really easy and fun. I expect this pastime will bring me pleasure indefinitely. While it's unclear to me (as would be expected in the vast nonlinear causality field that is culture) what purpose it serves others to show that their denial exists, I think it's contributing to a more aware world. And that's all I can really hope for. The more people know, the better off we'll all be.
Another great denial is that people are animals. There are various shades of this, and cataloging them all would take more time than I have, but tonight I'm going to focus on one Anne Geddes, darling of persons-in-denial that babies have genitals.
A human baby is born very immature. One of the great evolutionary advantages of post-gestative development is the luxury of time, which anyone who's ever babysat a toddler knows they deperately need. A baby horse has to get up and walk right away or else it's deselected for reproduction when something else in nature with sharp teeth eats it. A human baby, on the other hand, has almost endless time to crap all over the place, cry and scream for stuff it wants, and so on. The baby-ism goes on for many years. People get accustomed to children being baby-like, with their naivete and so on, and are quite reluctant to give them over their own identities where sexuality is concerned. That's reserved for later on, and that's fine. I'm not about to tackle when a person should be brought into the mostly un-spectacular un-secret that --guess what-- sex makes more people. Everybody gets a crack at it, even them, one of these days.
In her photography, the genitals of Anne Geddes' subjects, babies, are very conspicuously absent. It's not that she's a bad photographer, she just chooses to lie with her pictures, and she, like many other liars who make dippy people's brains feel all snuggly and familiar (Hannity, ete cetera), has been rewarded by the marketplace, with millions and millions of dollars. People don't want to think about babies having sex organs. It makes them all squirmy-urmy. And when you want a picture taken that will make you feel good about your choice to --alter, maim, augment, rearrange, omit, whitewash-- a child's natural image, she's your girl. Anne Geddes, with the approval of people all over America, has made it safe to smile at photographs of naked children, at an eventual expense none among us can reasonably estimate, except that it's probably not very good.
I exaggerate to make a point; which of these two pictures is more dishonest?
Baby, the Anne Geddes way:
Or, baby with a great big ol' johnson:
Why is it that we are stuck with a baby-like image instead of a real one?
Easy. Office ladies just wouldn't feel like tickling that second one. Penises are yucky on babies too.
A CIA Vet's Message for the Save-Rove Spinners: "A True Patriot Would Shut Up"
(Unfortunately, the neocon co-opting of the term "patriot" has made it necessary to use language as stupid as this.)
(Unfortunately, the neocon co-opting of the term "patriot" has made it necessary to use language as stupid as this.)
"President Bush is jeopardizing national security by not disciplining Karl Rove for his role in leaking the name of a CIA officer, and has hampered efforts to recruit informants in the war on terror, former U.S. intelligence officers say."
Ex-CIA Officers Rip Bush Over Rove Leak - Yahoo! News
Ex-CIA Officers Rip Bush Over Rove Leak - Yahoo! News
intellectual property czar
Let's just take the lobbyists and turn them directly into government.Bush Creates Post for Anti-Piracy Chief
How many of these do you recognize?
Top 10 Web fads - CNET.com
I think there ought to be far more than ten on this list.
Top 10 Web fads - CNET.com
I think there ought to be far more than ten on this list.
Friday
American Civil Liberties Union : Defense Department Refuses to Turn Over Abuse Photographs; Asks to File Secret Brief Justifying Refusal
"news"
Michelle Wie of the USA lines up a putt during the Evian Masters women's golf tournament in Evian, eastern France, Wednesday July 20, 2005. (AP Photo/Keystone, Olivier Maire)
one less amendment
"New York City will begin making random checks of bags and backpacks at subway stations, commuter railways and on buses, officials announced today in the wake of a second wave of bombings on the London transit system. The checks will begin on Friday morning."In New Security Move, New York Police to Search Commuters' Bags - New York Times
If you're riding a lawn mower on the interstate, go a hundred miles an hour. That way, no one can come up behind you and cause an accident.
Thursday
krazy christians: threatened by everything
Focus Resource Center - A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality by Joseph Nicolosi & Linda Ames Nicolosi
Jury Finds Father Guilty In Death Of Little Boy - from TBO.com
killing good, sex bad
A popular video game, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, is being pulled from the shelves of Wal-Mart and Target, and is going to be sold from now on as an adults-only game. Fans of the game developed their own software to unlock previous versions of it and found an embedded sex scene in it, which can not be said truthfully to have intentionally existed. We got trouble my friends! That's right we got trouble right here in river city!Video Game Known for Violence Lands in Trouble Over Sex - New York Times
Wednesday
We're going to Somerset, Wisconsin today to float down the river and drink beer in celebration of J's success, and in small part, in celebration of my love of beer.
(My instructor had meetings all day today so school was going to be too abbreviated for my purposes.)
(My instructor had meetings all day today so school was going to be too abbreviated for my purposes.)
worst website ever?
zakas illegitimus non carborundum alien surgeon las vegaswith maybe a hundred subdomains like prehistoric porn, this is horrible.
get well soon
My nephew-in-law-to-be is under the weather with this malady:hand, foot, and mouth disease
As bad as (I thought) the new Wonka was comapred to the told one,
"The Oompah Loompahs were even scarier in the original book."
Roald Dahl got ripped off in the original as well. I should read this book. It sounds great.
"The Oompah Loompahs were even scarier in the original book."
Roald Dahl got ripped off in the original as well. I should read this book. It sounds great.
Check out that thing I posted earlier today if you need a good read, the thing about lord spatula, complete tool. It's a richly rewarding read about a full-on internet beatdown. It made me smile at least three times.
Tuesday
boards
As I write these words, my fiancee is taking her nursing boards. She's been sweating over this for some time now, and I wished her the best of luck, which is about all I can do. Later I'll make her some dinner and take her for a walk. And maybe drink a bottle of wine down by the lake. Et cetera. It really depends on how it went, I'd imagine. I can almost tell you now that it will be what happens after all big tests, a complete loss of perspective and a weary sort of panic. She's smart and has been working hard and I have complete faith in her.I'm leaving school a little early today. This is because what I have to do next requires more time than is left to do it in, and getting started now won't save me any time when it comes time to finish it. Things flex. Centers change. And when you're cutting a click recess, which is what is next, you don't want centers changed. You want them right where you think they are. Right where they're supposed to be. In the middle.
I did one click recess today, on plate B, my backup. It came out fine and it works. I was about six hundredths of a millimeter narrow on the click-pivot post, but it will work. As a result, over time the click will have the tendency to wear on one side of the post, but that will take maybe years to establish, and it may never be anything but a pain in my conscience. What if I'd got it perfect... not a biggie. Like I said, when I put the pieces on there, they all function, and that's what we need.
So I spent the day doing that, which was after the ratchet wheel recess, which went just fine. The click recess is the hardest bit yet for its comparatively wide range of width and depth variations, but the crown wheel situation is going to be much worse still, and that's next. The crown wheel connects to the regular (not breguet) toothing on the winding pinion (I think) and is for winding the watch, and since it turns counter clockwise, it requires a left-handed screw. No taps exist to tap left-handed in this size, so we have to come up with a way to modify the wheel itself and put a post in the middle of it, that will make it possible to use a right-handed screw. This takes some doing, and we have to use steel for it, which is hell on the gravers. It should be difficult. One of my classmates has been chipping away at it for a couple of days now. It's something that if we had a print for it wouldn't be that hard, I don't think, but it's up to us to make it so that it fits and works, which makes it more interesting and more difficult. Sort of an engineer-it-as-you-go thing. I was thinking about this at lunch but forgot to look into it, why don't we modify the end of the screw, stick some pins through it, and right-handed screw it in from the opposite side. There's probably a very simple reason for this, but not having the piece in front of me I can't visualize it. Oh well. That's what tomorrow's for.
"bible-study friend"
"He didn't want him to be a sissy," Shelton Bostic, the defendant's Bible-study friend, testified."Father "killed toddler over gay fears", court hears | Headlines | News | Gay.com UK
Better off dead? And when did we start capitalizing bible?
cool auction
eBay: Thousands and thousands and thousands of old 45s (item 4741601339 end time Jul-02-05 19:30:00 PDT)Monday
too much
Charlie and the chocolate factory was just too much. Too much colors and too much action and just too much too much too much. Go ahead and watch it, and be sure to watch it in the theater, because then you will know what I am talking about. It was like being stuck inside a kaleidoscope for two hours that was being shaken by the most aggravated prisoner in an insane asylum, who instead of his trazodone was given about a gram and a half of methamphetamine by mistake. I just realized that sentence doesn't help anyone understand anything, so I'll add that it was all spinny and colorful and meaningless. The music was better in the original. The oompa loompas have been conveniently (PC-wise) replaced by one guy who is digitally reproduced maybe a thousand times, and the words to the songs are sometimes rendered inaudible by the surrounding din, which is both effects and psychotically swelling music. It may be that this movie was done too well, which sounds dumb, but there is absolutely nothing left to the imagination... no that's the wrong expression.In this version of Charlie and the chocolate factory, there is no organic flow. The old version had Verucha picking her nose; something you might see a child doing. Although Tim Burton does at times have victorious moments of highlighting people's weak points (two of the kids and one of their parents are about to go for your throat, all teeth, with chalky, frightening smiles reminiscent of Rudolph, the son of a guy I know) the characters come off corporeally disconnected. Depp's character is too flaming, in much the same way his pirates of the Carribean character is. I wish he and Tim Burton would just hook up and have gay sex and get it over with. Gene Wilder gave me the creeps, Johnny Depp gives me the annoyeds.
This movie was just go, go , go, in such a way that makes me afraid for anyone who is not alarmed and exhausted by watching it. No offense to anyone who enjoyed it.
dumbasses
"At first glance, Clea Koff, a beautiful young African-American woman with the height and grace of a fashion model, does not look like someone whose passion involves digging up bodies from mass graves.But as a forensic anthropologist, that is where her work takes her"
Excuse me, black women, ABC would prefer you either shake your asses on BET, or chase picaninnies around the everything's-a-dollar store. Please, don't become forensic pathologists, black girls. Do what ABC thinks you should do instead, and get your fat aunt Jemima asses back in the kitchen!
ABC: Know your place.
But seriously, at best, ABC obviously thinks attractive women can't accomplish anything not involving mounds of smoothing cream.
(This is another example of the deeper problem of projecting the way you feel onto other people being "the accepted norm". Mature people take responsibility for the way they feel, which means not blaming women for making you feel horny, not killing that guy that cut you off in traffic, and not giving a perceived god credit for the way you feel.)
ABC News: 'Bone Woman' Digs Up Remains to Foil Killers
that is one biiig church
A Church That Packs Them In, 16,000 at a Time - New York TimesYou have to be kidding. Here's the pastor, Joel Osteen, who I like to call "Blinky":
Who frames the issue wins the debate. That's been people like "republican thinktank" (Isn't it strange how we just accepted that term without understanding what it is? Of course they frame debates. What do you think "republican thinktanks" do all day?) the heritage foundation for a long time now.
The Framing Wars - New York Times
The Framing Wars - New York Times
duh
"it takes 29 percent more fossil energy to turn corn into ethanol than the amount of fuel the process produces":ABC News: Study Says Ethanol Not Worth the Energy
Muddy recommends wonka, which J and I are going to see tonight.
rediff.com Movies: Hollywood box-office report
rediff.com Movies: Hollywood box-office report
Sunday
Big Boobs Alert, the big breasts blog
NSFW
This is a picture from the above website I doctored to make a point:
It's only a matter of time until I stop saying "Not safe for work". I defeat my own point about censoring nudity and not violence by conforming to the very convention I hate.
NSFW
This is a picture from the above website I doctored to make a point:
It's only a matter of time until I stop saying "Not safe for work". I defeat my own point about censoring nudity and not violence by conforming to the very convention I hate.
being gay must be pretty bad
"Ronnie Paris Jr., 21, of Tampa, Florida is accused of abusing his 3-year-old son in an effort to prevent him from being gay, until the boy slipped into a coma and died."Man accused of killing his 'gay' baby son - Yahoo! News
What's better than a blonde? A redhead. But also better than a blonde is TWO blondes, and here they are. Naked, of course.
do I even have to say it?
do I even have to say it?
If you've been looking for a place to get some bikinis, here it is.
Malibu Strings Bikinis | Gallery 2
Malibu Strings Bikinis | Gallery 2
Saturday
print at work:
The New Atlantis - Science Education and Liberal Education - Matthew B. CrawfordBarbarians and Wimps: America's Boy Problem
The Henry Institute: Commentary: Why I'm Raising Violent 4 Year-Olds
Borf was arrested.
visualresistance.org - Blog Archive - Artist Profile: BORF
Borf's street art:
Flickr: Photos tagged with borf
visualresistance.org - Blog Archive - Artist Profile: BORF
Borf's street art:
Flickr: Photos tagged with borf
Friday
I'm going to Eau Claire to get a wedding license today. Since the others have been taking care of dinners, tonight is my turn so I'm making peking chicken. Spicy.
I found out good news last night: Justin and Theresa (or is it Teresa?), instead of tying the knot, have neatly separated their respective bits of string, which is for the best, and that he was promoted to chef de cuisine at a great restaurant, Tryg's. Sorry to hear about that, man, but hey, good for you.
I found out good news last night: Justin and Theresa (or is it Teresa?), instead of tying the knot, have neatly separated their respective bits of string, which is for the best, and that he was promoted to chef de cuisine at a great restaurant, Tryg's. Sorry to hear about that, man, but hey, good for you.
The wombs of America are not what they could be. Ten were tested out via cord blood and found to contain an average of 287 contaminants. I'm uncomfortable referring to amniotic fluid as a burning tide of wretch and filth, especially to an expectant woman's face, so something has to be done. Dale tells it like it is, which is frequently very unappreciated.
Is it time for some churches to harangue dow chemicals and dupont and so on? I'd appreciate it if the cult of the unborn would like to actually try to protect fetuses from the sea of bioaccumulative toxins of petrochemical origin certain to warp and distort their bodies, instead of meddling in the lives of brain dead feeding tubes. That was an instant classic.
Unborn babies carry pollutants, study finds - Yahoo! News
Is it time for some churches to harangue dow chemicals and dupont and so on? I'd appreciate it if the cult of the unborn would like to actually try to protect fetuses from the sea of bioaccumulative toxins of petrochemical origin certain to warp and distort their bodies, instead of meddling in the lives of brain dead feeding tubes. That was an instant classic.
Unborn babies carry pollutants, study finds - Yahoo! News
Thursday
pretty brunette in black and white. mostly naked.
Careful! It might not be good for children to look at like this is:
Careful! It might not be good for children to look at like this is:
hilarious
Only WSJ has the cajones to tell it like the republicans want to hear:OpinionJournal - Featured Article
"Karl Rove, Whistleblower
He told the truth about Joe Wilson. "
"As the Wall Street Journal points out today, the true tragedy in the Plame affair has been the burning of Karl Rove. Indeed, if there is any integrity left in Time Magazine, it must fire Matt Cooper. By outing Karl Rove as the man who outed an undercover CIA agent, Matt Cooper has selfishly, recklessly, and amorally endangered a top administration official, exposing Rove and those he works with to threat from political opponents, news organizations and the Justice Department, to say nothing of the damage done to Rove's career as one of America's hard-working partisan hacks. With his identity revealed, how will Rove effectively leak the leaks and spread the rumors necessary to serve his party? Such shameless and reckless abuse of partisan security cannot be tolerated. Matt Cooper must go."
Fafblog! the whole worlds only source for Fafblog.
Fafblog! the whole worlds only source for Fafblog.
Three main conservative talking points on Rove, and why they are untrue and/or misleading.
David Corn: Karl Rove's Reality-Free Defense - Yahoo! News
David Corn: Karl Rove's Reality-Free Defense - Yahoo! News
don't worry, George
You can still fool some of the people all of the time.Poll suggests drop in Bush's personal credibility - Yahoo! News
:"Barbara Braswell (R) of Whitesville, Georgia takes a breather during the 'mudpit belly flop' contest at the 10th annual Summer Redneck Games in Dublin, Georgia July 9, 2005. The games which feature events such as 'bobbin for pigs feet' and the 'mudpit belly flop' began as a joke in response to the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics."
Meanwhile, in Brazil, beach volleyball "news":
:"Larissa Franka (R) of Brazil calls the play to team mate Juliana Felisberta Silva (not pictured) while compatriot Renata Ribeiro (L) stands in attention during women's beach volleyball final match at the FIVB World Tour 2005 in St.Petersburg, July 9, 2005. Silva and team mate Franka gained a 2-0 victory over compatriots Ribeiro and Rocha."
Wednesday
social report
Checking in with friends:Neal's mom died and was buried today. The shiva was pretty good, I guess. It was my first one, so I have nothing to compare it to, other than funerals, which are much different and, I think, usually much worse. The food was excellent, though. They had these little toffee bars that were incredible, but in exchange for them they made me wear a yarmulka. No big deal.
Drew reports that the Winnipeg folk festival was a marvelous, out of control fun time. Bonfires, drum circles, chasing people dressed as ninjas through the city and the night, and the aurora borealis an emerald green stretching dramatically through the stars. Totally recharged, he is back at work editing some DIY shows, doing what he does best.
Emily and Chris are fine, growing all kinds of tomatoes, peppers, etc. in a little garden. So far, the catnip is keeping the rabbits at bay.
Newman is in Vegas; he'll be back in a couple of days.
Randy is in Taipei, most likely just fine, but I don't know. No news is good news with him.
Noel is doing well. Life as a wine representative is good, I guess. We talked the other night but I was too sleepy to remember much of what we talked about.
Carrie loaned me another book. This one is "good omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. A major improvement over the last one she gave me, "Zodiac" by Neal Stephenson, which was mediocre, but had its moments. I gave her "confederacy of dunces", which she is the first person I have ever known to return. Big ups.
John K. got a job (his first in about a year) with D'amico catering. Congratulations!
Scott is finished with a bathroom in his house, which looks excellent. If you need some construction done, he's a good man for it. The tiling looks first-rate, and everything else is how it needs to be. His kid is at a summer camp, which makes it a little quieter at his house. Maybe a lot quieter.
My brother and fiancee continue to study diligently for their upcoming tests.
As for me, Friday I'm going to Wisconsin to get a marriage license. So that's terrifying. Last night I watched million dollar baby, which thankfully was good. I was worried about it. Morgan Freeman was his usual avuncular character, which I found parodied very well here.
The watch continues to come along. Instructor Joe wasn't feelin' too good today so school let out early.
Tomorrow, back to pharmacy world after school.
And now you know as much as I do.
pining for a pinker pucker?
"Investigating the latest craze in bodily beautification: anal bleaching":village voice - Pucker Up by Tristan Taormino
"Starvin’ With Louis is the show that focuses on easy to cook recipes, money saving tips, and ways to live “on the cheap”. It is specifically designed for those college kids, filmmakers, web designers, band members and welfare recipients with absolutely no money":
I'm Starvin with Louis - Episodes
I'm Starvin with Louis - Episodes
I heard this song on the AM show yesterday on 89.3 and liked it a lot. I almost forgot about it and wanted to post it.
Greg Brown -- Lyrics for boomtown.
Greg Brown -- Lyrics for boomtown.
Looks like they're going to photograph all the old abandoned moon equipment.
NASA - Abandoned Spaceships and Moon Buggies
NASA - Abandoned Spaceships and Moon Buggies
a little help
There is a word which means "unintentionally hilarious", and I can't think of it. If anybody knows it, please hook me up.
Country music. Once the gritty refuge of honky-tonk outlaws, it's now another marketing superhighway leading from the radio to the Wal-Mart music section. Safe to say, its glory days are gone and nearly forgotten.
Today we examine the strange case of Clint Black, country musician. For it was he who made me laugh harder than any other single person has in a long time, when I heard a song of his playing over the loudspeaker at Elko about a month back. You're going to need a little background.
I am from the hills of Tennessee, the dirty south, where despite the invasion of motel chains and restaurants (cracker barrel being the most notably ridiculous; a corporation that has met no resistance from the people whose cuisine they analyzed, sent to a lab, reinvented, reconstituted with hot water, and sold back to southerners in a brown paper wrapper as down-home-a-licious (no offense to anyone who's ever bought me breakfast there the morning I got out of jail, mom, but you know what I mean)), it's uncommon to trust outsiders. A fake accent can be heard a mile away, and folk wisdoms abound. Not ones like "a likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility", but more like "a clean conscience makes a soft pillow", or, "still waters run deep".
It's these sometimes understated aphorisms that Clint Black grabbed like a fingerhold on the rock face to country stardom, and that fingerhold turned out to be more of a glass elevator. I noticed this while living there when I was about nineteen. It was part of my deconstruction of country music, which was necessary so that I could bitch about it precisely enough to justify the changing of the car radio with whomever I was riding with. You can't just say "this sucks" and get people to consent to change the channel. They need a reason. Here's mine.
Clint Black is an excessively didactic songwriter. There are always lessons to learn when listening to his music. A Clint Black song is more likely than any other to make you go "hmm", and if going "hmm" is your thing, great. However, going "hmm" is not my thing.
I eventually convinced everyone who drove me around that I had learned every lyric of Clint's that I needed to know to enjoy a long, wise, cowboylike life and they, somewhat stunned by my energy on the subject, agreed to change it to classic rock station (there were still a few good ones in the south at the time).
Then, many city-dwelling years since I had heard anything by Clint Black, I was at Elko speedway, walking to my seat, getting ready for the races to start, and vaguely hearing the speakers wheedling a modest euphoria out of the spectators, when I noticed what I was listening to. (The first person who can tell me where I got the following simile gets to choose the next celebrity for the oven mitt.) What happened in my brain was like the aural equivalent of seeing a picture of two silhoutted faces turn into a white candlestick. It was Clint Black, but not a Clint Black song I had ever heard before. I heard the end of a chorus, and then stopped in my tracks. No way my brain could process it at first, it was too perfect. Clint was milking it as hard as he could:
Wherever you go there you are
You can run from yourself but you won't get far
You can dive to the bottom of your medicine jar
But wherever you go there you are
As you can imagine, I laughed, all alone, and was a little embarassed, because though my reason for doing so was good, it would have been nearly impossible to explain.
Have a good day.
Today we examine the strange case of Clint Black, country musician. For it was he who made me laugh harder than any other single person has in a long time, when I heard a song of his playing over the loudspeaker at Elko about a month back. You're going to need a little background.
I am from the hills of Tennessee, the dirty south, where despite the invasion of motel chains and restaurants (cracker barrel being the most notably ridiculous; a corporation that has met no resistance from the people whose cuisine they analyzed, sent to a lab, reinvented, reconstituted with hot water, and sold back to southerners in a brown paper wrapper as down-home-a-licious (no offense to anyone who's ever bought me breakfast there the morning I got out of jail, mom, but you know what I mean)), it's uncommon to trust outsiders. A fake accent can be heard a mile away, and folk wisdoms abound. Not ones like "a likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility", but more like "a clean conscience makes a soft pillow", or, "still waters run deep".
It's these sometimes understated aphorisms that Clint Black grabbed like a fingerhold on the rock face to country stardom, and that fingerhold turned out to be more of a glass elevator. I noticed this while living there when I was about nineteen. It was part of my deconstruction of country music, which was necessary so that I could bitch about it precisely enough to justify the changing of the car radio with whomever I was riding with. You can't just say "this sucks" and get people to consent to change the channel. They need a reason. Here's mine.
Clint Black is an excessively didactic songwriter. There are always lessons to learn when listening to his music. A Clint Black song is more likely than any other to make you go "hmm", and if going "hmm" is your thing, great. However, going "hmm" is not my thing.
I eventually convinced everyone who drove me around that I had learned every lyric of Clint's that I needed to know to enjoy a long, wise, cowboylike life and they, somewhat stunned by my energy on the subject, agreed to change it to classic rock station (there were still a few good ones in the south at the time).
Then, many city-dwelling years since I had heard anything by Clint Black, I was at Elko speedway, walking to my seat, getting ready for the races to start, and vaguely hearing the speakers wheedling a modest euphoria out of the spectators, when I noticed what I was listening to. (The first person who can tell me where I got the following simile gets to choose the next celebrity for the oven mitt.) What happened in my brain was like the aural equivalent of seeing a picture of two silhoutted faces turn into a white candlestick. It was Clint Black, but not a Clint Black song I had ever heard before. I heard the end of a chorus, and then stopped in my tracks. No way my brain could process it at first, it was too perfect. Clint was milking it as hard as he could:
Wherever you go there you are
You can run from yourself but you won't get far
You can dive to the bottom of your medicine jar
But wherever you go there you are
As you can imagine, I laughed, all alone, and was a little embarassed, because though my reason for doing so was good, it would have been nearly impossible to explain.
Have a good day.
hang up and drive
When I saw that there is a fourfold increase in the chances you're going to crash your car when talking on your cell phone, I told the lovely J, who replied:"I'm a risk taker."
The study:
Role of mobile phones in motor vehicle crashes resulting in hospital attendance: a case-crossover study -- McEvoy et al., 10.1136/bmj.38537.397512.55 -- BMJ
Tuesday
oh boy
Thanks, Rania."When they look around to see who's been pelting them with spitballs, you'll just be casually checking the time.":
The Catapult Watch!
still waiting
White House Silence on Rove's Role in Leak Enters 2nd Day - New York TimesCheck out the informational graphic!
Miss Lohan is around here somewhere.
If anyone sees her, give her a spankin' and try not to break your hand on her bony ass. She drinks too much coffee and it's makin' her too skinny.Lindsay Lohan On The Loose in Minnesota : Defamer
why
Why do I keep seeing the same thing week after week, month after month?The president's speech yesterday: "we will fight until this enemy is defeated."
I have a question. It's one I've heard and read before, and one I deeply look to in these times of bullshit from the president. At the risk of boring you, I ask again: How do you know when this enemy is defeated?
It isn't cartoon land, where at a little hut out in the desert a white flag goes up and we all throw a barbecue, play some loud American rock and roll, chant USA a bunch of times, and compare ourselves to the people who fought and died so we could be in a free country. (Sadly, we aren't that brave. They would never have tolerated the term "terror".) Solving the problem of "terror" is going to take some means that we are currently not employing. It's going to take a more complex approach, and it involves throwing the oil barons out of power, ours and theirs.
Terrorism isn't going to stop. The only way to end the war on terror is to stop fighting it. Terror exists between your ears. Peace can be achieved by the acceptance of the world as it is, and there are some very pissed off people in the world. We can deal with them just like we always have, on a case by case basis, as need be. Deploy a military force whose mission is clear. Find the bad guys. I love it. But shit, man, Iraq? They didn't even do anything to us. That was the Saudis. And not even Saudis representative of their government. Fringe idealists. Utopians. People whose only identifying characteristic is inside their head where it can't be seen. Lots of people have that weakness, and it's one of my proudest accomplishments that I'm not one of them. One more reason I espouse forming your own belief system from the ground up. (Which is really evil and gets you sent to hell, I know, Christians. Piss off.)
I feel like I have to keep repeating this to keep from going crazy. America's foreign and domestic policies are two more planes that have been hijacked by the Bush administration, and a religious fundamentalist in the cockpit does not a pleasant landing make.
You think we can have peace when this is over? It's never going to be over.
But the war on terror isn't about peace ever getting here. It's about the people in charge getting to do whatever they want, indefinitely. And Americans don't give a shit as long as Wal-Mart has low prices. Meanwhile soldiers continue to wage war on civilians in Iraq, guaranteeing there will be terrorists for generations to come. It's pathetic and I want no part of it.
Bush Vows to Fight Until Terrorists' Defeat - New York Times
the waiting game
What's the strategy this time, Mr. Rove?The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Spotlight on Rove grows more harsh over CIA leak
HoustonChronicle.com - White House mum on Rove's role in CIA leak
Monday
Supporting the troops!
featuring 18 to 22 year old republican think tank interns
village voice > news > This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow
featuring 18 to 22 year old republican think tank interns
village voice > news > This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow
Yesterday, or was it the day before, celebrity oven mitt debuted here at Double Flee A. I was going to start off with Angelina Jolie, but Tom Cruise is so hot in the news right now, I thought he probably deserved it more. Hats off to you, Tom Cruise! You're the first celebrity on my virtual oven mitt!
safe for work
Where would we be without standards?
I don't want anyone bitching at me about pornography any more.
waste of time
"This is the story of what women's sports are all about, and the hardcore driving lesbian rage that resides within every successful female athlete.":flatsoda.com / projects / female athletes
thanks
What a day yesterday was.Someone bought me this watch. You know who you are. It works great. I shut off all the TVs at Mackenzie's last night. Excellent.
Also, thanks to Vallie, who got me front row center at the Bob Plant show. It was a good time. He says hi.
Congratulations to my brothers, one of which smoked the GMAT and the other, whose practice MCAT went promisingly.
If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you.
- Don Marquis
- Don Marquis
Sunday
Tonight I'm going to see Robert Plant at the Orpheum from the front row. I love Zeppelin so I checked his website and this is a setlist very close to what we will hear, if not the exact one:
No Quarter/Shine It All Around/Black Dog/Freedom Fries/Morning Dew/That's The Way/Tin Pan Valley/Heartbreaker/Mighty Rearranger/Gallows Pole/When The Levee Breaks/Babe I'm Gonna Leave You/The Enchanter/Whole Lotta Love.
Not exactly deep tracks, but I'll take what I can get. It's the best thing going and the tickets were free.
And now a word from the Now It Can Be Told department. The internet is a scary place. What follows is an email exchange that recently took place between some guy and me. Names have been changed as a courtesy.
It started because he searched the net for seville cabaret and came up with this blog. I think that's all the background you need.
Normal enough. So I replied.
Then I heard from them again.
If that gave you the creeps, you aren't the only one. So I decided to try to force the guy's hand:
Then he dropped the bomb.
AAAAHH! You know what that looks like to me? If you said a normal couple that isn't going to try to slip you and your fiancee rufies on a double date, then do weird things to you in their basement, I'd disagree. I replied.
Then I heard back from him, and our relationship concluded. I had lost a little self-respect but got a story out of it.
If it isn't like that, I recommend you get a picture of you with clothing on. That might send a different message. Thanks for the memories.
No Quarter/Shine It All Around/Black Dog/Freedom Fries/Morning Dew/That's The Way/Tin Pan Valley/Heartbreaker/Mighty Rearranger/Gallows Pole/When The Levee Breaks/Babe I'm Gonna Leave You/The Enchanter/Whole Lotta Love.
Not exactly deep tracks, but I'll take what I can get. It's the best thing going and the tickets were free.
And now a word from the Now It Can Be Told department. The internet is a scary place. What follows is an email exchange that recently took place between some guy and me. Names have been changed as a courtesy.
It started because he searched the net for seville cabaret and came up with this blog. I think that's all the background you need.
subj: Seville Cabaret
Did you ever make it over there? Is it worth it?
thanks
Laura and Bryce
Normal enough. So I replied.
I didn't go. When I called the place (which I think is where blues alley used to be) they said "blah blah blah premier gentlman's club blah blah", which makes me think it's a bit seedy. If you go, though, please let me know how it was. I'd like it to be good. Maybe I'll go if I get the time.
D
Then I heard from them again.
We will have to check it out. We like Ricks havent been in a while.
Great blog by the way.
We are Laura and Bryce... its nice to meet you. What are you into?
If that gave you the creeps, you aren't the only one. So I decided to try to force the guy's hand:
I am into watchmaking, my fiancee, beer, and many other things. To elaborate, some of my favorite beers include summit pale ale, stella artois, corona with lots of lime, pilsner urquell, fat tire, and almost anything made by Bell's in Kalamazoo. My fiancee is a redhead, and my favorite watch brand is Patek Philippe.
Thanks for asking! How about you two?
Then he dropped the bomb.
Well I have a Tag that my wife Laura gave to me for our anniversary a year ago. LIke very much. Would love to have the Carrera. We both love beer... have you tried Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat? My personal favorite.
I am 35 and Laura will 37 in the fall. We have 3 kids, but love to get out and have fun. We just back from Vegas celebrating my birthday. I think once is enough for me regarding that. Love the beach for vacations, but want to get to NYC maybe in the fall. Love midcentury modern. Eames, etc.
What do you and your finance like to do?
Here is a photo
[PHOTO REMOVED AT THE REASONABLE REQUEST OF THOSE PICTURED. THERE SURE IS A LOT OF REMOVAL GOING ON THIS WEEK.]
AAAAHH! You know what that looks like to me? If you said a normal couple that isn't going to try to slip you and your fiancee rufies on a double date, then do weird things to you in their basement, I'd disagree. I replied.
Well, I'm glad you read my blog but I think I see where this is going, and I speak for both my fiancee and myself when I say no thank you, we are not interested. Good luck and enjoy your fine timepiece.
Then I heard back from him, and our relationship concluded. I had lost a little self-respect but got a story out of it.
Oh, sorry its not like that. sorry if we offended
If it isn't like that, I recommend you get a picture of you with clothing on. That might send a different message. Thanks for the memories.
Saturday
I checked in with young Nathan the other day at his blog, on which I recently caught him pondering the same things I was pondering at the age of thirteen, about why god acts like he does, what kind of guy he must be. I decided to do to him what I wish had been done to me at the time I was drooling about all this and smack him around a little. He's been a good sport, if a little passive, about the whole thing, but a reader of his hasn't been too happy about my heavy-handed antics. His name is Matthew Coker, and according to his blogger profile, he's "a Christian, a church-goer, a friend, a counselor, a church secretary, a nice guy, a husband, a church media director, a son, an uncle, and a dying breed." Kind of makes you want to puke, no, I mean cry, doesn't it? I guess the good ones really ARE gone!
What a STUD! (I don't know about the dying breed thing, but have some more high fructose corn syrup and you will die, or at the very least wind up with some wicked diabetes. Kick the habit, man. Despite the goatee, everybody knows there's another chin back there.)
Here's his blog:
It's A Hard Blog Life 2
The abundant (in knowledge, of course) Clovis, self-proclaimed fan of everybody's favorite bestselling primitive revenge fantasy, the left behind book series, decided he'd tell me, on this comment page:
"But somethings that can be proved are how young the earth actually is. If you ever open up your mind a bit, you can check into the real facts about how old the earth is, because without billions of years, the evolution theory would be impossible. Fact is, the evidence we have proves the earth is only about 10,000 years old. The only theory taht would work in the time frame is Creationism."
Then he calls me a sheep.
Then he gives this beautiful little paragraph:
"Sure, we can't prove the existence of God, because no one has ever seen him. But I've never seen the wind either, yet I know it's there because I see it's effects. If you can bend your mind around that and open your eyes, you'd see God plain as day."
How could I be such a fool!? I've wasted all that time not taking into account this simple yet completely irrefutable analogy! The wind! God! Right there the whole time, just waiting to be discovered!
I think I'll keep my mind the way it is, unbent around things. Different people go about worldviews in different ways but I think if you say there's a god you ought to have to prove it, not infer it. Those are the basic rules of science, which was invented by Isaac Newton. Science establishes facts, which are called facts for a reason. If you can't use facts, you sort of, well, have no argument. For help winning anyway, here's a big page of logical fallacies.
Thanks for making my night, abundant M. Clovis. It will be my pleasure to mock gaily any future correspondence you decide to bless me with. And do let me know about that proof the earth is only ten thousand years old.
What a STUD! (I don't know about the dying breed thing, but have some more high fructose corn syrup and you will die, or at the very least wind up with some wicked diabetes. Kick the habit, man. Despite the goatee, everybody knows there's another chin back there.)
Here's his blog:
It's A Hard Blog Life 2
The abundant (in knowledge, of course) Clovis, self-proclaimed fan of everybody's favorite bestselling primitive revenge fantasy, the left behind book series, decided he'd tell me, on this comment page:
"But somethings that can be proved are how young the earth actually is. If you ever open up your mind a bit, you can check into the real facts about how old the earth is, because without billions of years, the evolution theory would be impossible. Fact is, the evidence we have proves the earth is only about 10,000 years old. The only theory taht would work in the time frame is Creationism."
Then he calls me a sheep.
Then he gives this beautiful little paragraph:
"Sure, we can't prove the existence of God, because no one has ever seen him. But I've never seen the wind either, yet I know it's there because I see it's effects. If you can bend your mind around that and open your eyes, you'd see God plain as day."
How could I be such a fool!? I've wasted all that time not taking into account this simple yet completely irrefutable analogy! The wind! God! Right there the whole time, just waiting to be discovered!
I think I'll keep my mind the way it is, unbent around things. Different people go about worldviews in different ways but I think if you say there's a god you ought to have to prove it, not infer it. Those are the basic rules of science, which was invented by Isaac Newton. Science establishes facts, which are called facts for a reason. If you can't use facts, you sort of, well, have no argument. For help winning anyway, here's a big page of logical fallacies.
Thanks for making my night, abundant M. Clovis. It will be my pleasure to mock gaily any future correspondence you decide to bless me with. And do let me know about that proof the earth is only ten thousand years old.
Tom Cruise Is Nuts dot com
today in history
1856 - 500 Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa and head west for Salt Lake City, Utah carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled handcarts.1909 – Alice Huyler Ramsey, a 22-year-old housewife and mother from Hackensack, New Jersey, became the first woman to drive across the United States. With three female companions, none of whom could drive a car, for fifty-nine days she drove a Maxwell automobile the 3,800 miles from Manhattan, New York to San Francisco, California.
1980 - Comedian Richard Pryor attempts to commit suicide by dousing himself with rum and setting it ablaze during a cocaine binge.
If you're going to kill yourself, don't. If you can't be persuaded not to, however, consider that as long as you've made up your mind, there's so much you can do with a suicide.
1) Kill some people who need to die. You know they're out there and this is your free pass. Your free pass of killing!
2) Try to make someone smile. Dress up as Santa Claus and hang yourself upside down in a chimney on Christmas. To avoid undue trauma, pick a house without small children.
3) See how far you can swim before you sink. Haven't you always wondered?
4) Determine how many ways to kill yourself can be done at the same time. Hanging, pistol, poison, etc.
I could go on, but my imagination's probably no better than yours.
Changing gears, George Jones is a country music singer of the old school, meaning the good school. New country music is an embarassment, and to embarass country music with your awfulness is truly no average accomplishment. New country is Hollywood-rock-and-roll country. They make country music now about things that are country, just so you'll know it's country music.
Loretta Lynn was so country she was making music in the seventies about how great the birth control pill is. Now that's music by someone who is so goddamn country you could cryogenically freeze her, take her to another planet, and reconstruct from her memory the entire agricultural infrastructure of the United States. Now, on the other hand, country music has become "country music". Exhibit A in this short trial that I wish would get the country music industry the chair, we've got this picture from the web page of the American country countdown, and I can't put it any better than this:
At one point, before there was an internet, that would have been Willie Nelson gaping off into space, George Jones hamming it up, and Waylon Jennings not really giving a shit if you took his picture. Dolly might be there, too, representing the womenfolk. And by the way, Dolly is like Aretha to the new country music girls' Lindsey Lohan. Upon sharing a stage with Dolly, the new school female country music singers would melt into the plastic they are made of.
George Jones was also country when country wasn't cool, which is to say, before it sucked. I had a dream of George Jones last night, and I looked him up. He's one old feller but he still goes on tour. I woke up thinking if George Jones just loves singing country music and he gets senile, he ought to just be trotted out there anyway, and just sing whatever's on his mind, in that trademark way of his, that inimitable Jonesness. Even George Jones mumbling incoherently about deodorant would be more country than the people you'll find on this list put together.
1) Kill some people who need to die. You know they're out there and this is your free pass. Your free pass of killing!
2) Try to make someone smile. Dress up as Santa Claus and hang yourself upside down in a chimney on Christmas. To avoid undue trauma, pick a house without small children.
3) See how far you can swim before you sink. Haven't you always wondered?
4) Determine how many ways to kill yourself can be done at the same time. Hanging, pistol, poison, etc.
I could go on, but my imagination's probably no better than yours.
Changing gears, George Jones is a country music singer of the old school, meaning the good school. New country music is an embarassment, and to embarass country music with your awfulness is truly no average accomplishment. New country is Hollywood-rock-and-roll country. They make country music now about things that are country, just so you'll know it's country music.
Loretta Lynn was so country she was making music in the seventies about how great the birth control pill is. Now that's music by someone who is so goddamn country you could cryogenically freeze her, take her to another planet, and reconstruct from her memory the entire agricultural infrastructure of the United States. Now, on the other hand, country music has become "country music". Exhibit A in this short trial that I wish would get the country music industry the chair, we've got this picture from the web page of the American country countdown, and I can't put it any better than this:
At one point, before there was an internet, that would have been Willie Nelson gaping off into space, George Jones hamming it up, and Waylon Jennings not really giving a shit if you took his picture. Dolly might be there, too, representing the womenfolk. And by the way, Dolly is like Aretha to the new country music girls' Lindsey Lohan. Upon sharing a stage with Dolly, the new school female country music singers would melt into the plastic they are made of.
George Jones was also country when country wasn't cool, which is to say, before it sucked. I had a dream of George Jones last night, and I looked him up. He's one old feller but he still goes on tour. I woke up thinking if George Jones just loves singing country music and he gets senile, he ought to just be trotted out there anyway, and just sing whatever's on his mind, in that trademark way of his, that inimitable Jonesness. Even George Jones mumbling incoherently about deodorant would be more country than the people you'll find on this list put together.
Friday
damn thieves
And me with no renters insurance.Last night, as you will no doubt recall after obsessively checking my blog, I slept long and deep, like some great big submarine. In air conditioned comfort I snoozed, as did the lovely J, and in another bedroom (what kind of place do you think this is?), and with his own air conditioner, so did my brother. So deeply did we sleep we didn't hear someone walk into the house downstairs, move the rest of the bicycles out of the way, and steal the lovely J's bicycle.
Bicycle thieves in Minneapolis are relentless. I have never heard of a place with as many bicycles stolen as here. I myself have had four stolen, one of them twice. Long story. One was stolen from the spot where J's was stolen from. That was the one that was stolen twice. It was stolen by a man of the latin persuasion. I know this because of my very unlikely and almost unbelievable recovery of it that took place, which obviously preceded its second theft. Anyway, that was maybe five years ago. So Mexican people know there are bikes here. There are, in fact, nine and a half bicycles that I know of at this residence. I guess you can never have too many when they're getting stolen all the time.
Outside the back door this morning was a piece of shit red bike, rusted at parts, bearing the title on the top bar: "l.a. cruisin'". It was left there by whatever diminutive individual rode off on my fiancee's bike. We know he left that way, too, because there is a little hallway that goes out the second floor which is normally blocked off by (what else?) a bicycle. That bicycle, which is nicer than hers, though less shiny, and my bicycle, were moved, so that he could take her bicycle. Not only that, but when I was listening to my brother tell the parts of the story so far that I didn't know yet, but over his shoulder I noticed something wrong with the window. It was open.
I live on the third floor of a house. There's a stairwell which was used by the little* Mexican** thief, which goes all the way from the third floor, past the second, to the first floor and out. Obviously if you can get to the second there's nothing stopping you from the third, so he came up here, looked in my living room window, opened it, and left. Because of how ungodly drafty this place is, the lovely J and I put that hardcore 3M plastic wrap over the windows. When summer came, we left it on the windows in the back of the house and in the bathroom, because we never open those anyway. I guess he saw the plastic wrap but thought it might wake somebody up so he left. But why not come back? There's free stuff in my house, and not a lot of resistance. A precedent has been set, and I fully expect his enthusiastic and timely return.
So far we're just down a hundred bucks or so, but if I don't want to start writing this blog from a cafe, something will need to change. Now come the questions of how long till renters insurance can be got and how to booby trap the apartment in the meantime.
*The bike he rode was adjusted for a really short person.
**Mexicans have stolen bikes from here before, and are comparatively short. In no way is the revelation that he is a Mexican intended to disparage our respectable, hardworking neighbors to the south.
As usual, a lot going on. Something follows that deserves its own paragraph.
Slept eleven hours last night. Ahhhh.
In the news, it turns out cops knew about the kidnapper's blog the whole time. They couldn't find him, though, even though what it said got very worrisome, because the technology didn't exist. Wired News: Cops Watched Sex Offender's Blog
IMO, the advantages of anonymity on blogs outweigh the dangerous freakshows like this guy, but in the united states of paranoia, I'd expect the courts to consider imposing some kind of tracking software like site meter automatically to blogs because of this. Hysteria along the lines of "We could have found Shasta faster! What about the children!?!"
In other news, I found something on the ground so I picked it up and took it to school where I cleaned it enough to see what it was. It looks very much to a woman I go to school with to be a bronze coin from about 300 A.D., featuring a picture of Heracles. How this got under my shoe is a mystery. I wish I could find that damn Heracles and smack him around a little. That'd teach him, all right.
Today I have a boneless pork butt in the crock-pot. It will be ready at about 6 p.m. Tomorrow it's Elko speedway, and Sunday first row of Robert Plant at the Orpheum. So that's the lot going on.
I didn't mention it, but I spent the fourth out on the river with Muddy and a bunch of people who collectively had anchoring problems. The problems were largely because they anchored collectively, but that's how you make a barge out of a lot of boats. As a result of my considerable upper body strength I wound up on Phil's boat after being emergently needed to pull up his anchor, the line for which almost got tangled around a couple of people's propellers. I spent the ride back to Farmer Dock (which I can't find the URL for but has a web presence) listening to his kid Rudolph tell me about a book he got. Conversations with Rudolph are Always one-sided. Which is too bad. One of these days he's in for a rude awakening when he isn't cute any more and no one wants to hear his selfish tirades. ME ME ME ME ME! But enough of that, I don't want anyone getting their feelings hurt. You'd be amazed what people look for and find my site. You can find that here. If you say aomething about somebody, sooner or later they're going to find out about it, or at least be able to. Hence I'm changing that kid's name, or for purposes of the narrative, already have. All in all, it was a good time. The weather was perfect and I have been so busy since that I think Muddy thought he had been rude to me or that something negative happened, because I really haven't had a lot of time to sit around and recount anything. We shot a potato gun at stuff, which was excellent. Meting out the fuel for that gun is hard to do correctly. Too much or too little becomes pretty common. I've been thinking, if we shoot it off and then burn off the extra fuel seperately before repacking it, we might be able to negate the too much fuel scenario, and reduce misfires by thirty-forty per cent. (Based on what I saw I'm speculating that slightly more often than not it's a "too little" fuel problem.)
Today and tomorrow and the next day, dayside, it's life in the pharmacy. Which is usually the same. Sometimes I'm Batman who is needed to save everybody's ass, and sometimes I'm like the useless Gotham city police department, sidelined and paid for god knows what. This always depends on what the pharmacists want their day at work to be like. They can frantically hop-to and do everything themselves, or scream for me to do it. Normally it's the latter, and that bat-spotlight chases me all day and night. That's the only mystery in my workday.
Friday is the only day I get to sleep in. Eleven Hours. Ahh. I have to do laundry later, so I'd better get to work.
Have a good day! Today in the year 1099 the First Crusade was happening: 15,000 starving Christian soldiers marched in religious procession around Jerusalem as its Muslim defenders mocked them. Today in 1889, during the last championship bare-knuckle boxing match, John L. Sullivan defeated Jake Kilrain after 75 rounds. 75 rounds of bare-knuckle boxing. Holy shit. And in 1997, Mayo Clinic researchers warned that the dieting-drug "fen-phen" can cause severe heart and lung damage.
Slept eleven hours last night. Ahhhh.
In the news, it turns out cops knew about the kidnapper's blog the whole time. They couldn't find him, though, even though what it said got very worrisome, because the technology didn't exist. Wired News: Cops Watched Sex Offender's Blog
IMO, the advantages of anonymity on blogs outweigh the dangerous freakshows like this guy, but in the united states of paranoia, I'd expect the courts to consider imposing some kind of tracking software like site meter automatically to blogs because of this. Hysteria along the lines of "We could have found Shasta faster! What about the children!?!"
In other news, I found something on the ground so I picked it up and took it to school where I cleaned it enough to see what it was. It looks very much to a woman I go to school with to be a bronze coin from about 300 A.D., featuring a picture of Heracles. How this got under my shoe is a mystery. I wish I could find that damn Heracles and smack him around a little. That'd teach him, all right.
Today I have a boneless pork butt in the crock-pot. It will be ready at about 6 p.m. Tomorrow it's Elko speedway, and Sunday first row of Robert Plant at the Orpheum. So that's the lot going on.
I didn't mention it, but I spent the fourth out on the river with Muddy and a bunch of people who collectively had anchoring problems. The problems were largely because they anchored collectively, but that's how you make a barge out of a lot of boats. As a result of my considerable upper body strength I wound up on Phil's boat after being emergently needed to pull up his anchor, the line for which almost got tangled around a couple of people's propellers. I spent the ride back to Farmer Dock (which I can't find the URL for but has a web presence) listening to his kid Rudolph tell me about a book he got. Conversations with Rudolph are Always one-sided. Which is too bad. One of these days he's in for a rude awakening when he isn't cute any more and no one wants to hear his selfish tirades. ME ME ME ME ME! But enough of that, I don't want anyone getting their feelings hurt. You'd be amazed what people look for and find my site. You can find that here. If you say aomething about somebody, sooner or later they're going to find out about it, or at least be able to. Hence I'm changing that kid's name, or for purposes of the narrative, already have. All in all, it was a good time. The weather was perfect and I have been so busy since that I think Muddy thought he had been rude to me or that something negative happened, because I really haven't had a lot of time to sit around and recount anything. We shot a potato gun at stuff, which was excellent. Meting out the fuel for that gun is hard to do correctly. Too much or too little becomes pretty common. I've been thinking, if we shoot it off and then burn off the extra fuel seperately before repacking it, we might be able to negate the too much fuel scenario, and reduce misfires by thirty-forty per cent. (Based on what I saw I'm speculating that slightly more often than not it's a "too little" fuel problem.)
Today and tomorrow and the next day, dayside, it's life in the pharmacy. Which is usually the same. Sometimes I'm Batman who is needed to save everybody's ass, and sometimes I'm like the useless Gotham city police department, sidelined and paid for god knows what. This always depends on what the pharmacists want their day at work to be like. They can frantically hop-to and do everything themselves, or scream for me to do it. Normally it's the latter, and that bat-spotlight chases me all day and night. That's the only mystery in my workday.
Friday is the only day I get to sleep in. Eleven Hours. Ahh. I have to do laundry later, so I'd better get to work.
Have a good day! Today in the year 1099 the First Crusade was happening: 15,000 starving Christian soldiers marched in religious procession around Jerusalem as its Muslim defenders mocked them. Today in 1889, during the last championship bare-knuckle boxing match, John L. Sullivan defeated Jake Kilrain after 75 rounds. 75 rounds of bare-knuckle boxing. Holy shit. And in 1997, Mayo Clinic researchers warned that the dieting-drug "fen-phen" can cause severe heart and lung damage.
Thursday
Everything I know is wrong:
Ancient footprints in Mexico shatter human migration theories: scientists - Yahoo! News
Ancient footprints in Mexico shatter human migration theories: scientists - Yahoo! News
google map hack
Iraq War Casualties MapEach soldier is shown at their home town. To which, of course, they returned in a pine box. Thanks for the bullshit war. You'll have to click the plus sign fifty-eight times to see them all. Of course, by that time, there might be more.
excellent
Least Wanted's photosets on Flickra bunch of vintage mugshots. don't worry, it's not the typical celebrity collection you've seen a grillion times.
wow
Circumcision may offer Africa AIDS hope / Procedure linked to much lower rate of new HIV infectionsLondon underground bombed
This just a day after they got the Olympics in 2012. European markets sank.Blair Says Attacks Were Timed for G-8 Talks; At Least 2 Dead - New York Times
Don't worry, Cory Doctorow is ok. (Eyes roll.):
Boing Boing: Cory: I'm OK
I'm ok, too, guys. How about you?
Maybe we should just see if they'll knock it off if we give them Bush and Cheney.
Funny video.
Doobie brothers' Michael McDonald is swimming in a sea of sadness. Kenny Loggins is going to help. Which gives rise to "what a fool believes." Which makes me almost as insane as steely dan.
Yacht Rock
Doobie brothers' Michael McDonald is swimming in a sea of sadness. Kenny Loggins is going to help. Which gives rise to "what a fool believes." Which makes me almost as insane as steely dan.
Yacht Rock
Every time I want to see this band something comes up and I can't go. Which sucks. I'm hoping to go see them Saturday July 30 at the almost-tragically named Kitty Cat Klub. Their cover of SOS (now downloadable here!) is great.
DIVORCEE
DIVORCEE
This blonde seems to have mislaid her clothes. Sad when that happens. NSFW
Wednesday
Something not otherwise on the internet, or, Dale supplies you with new shit.
I like when I get the chance to do this. I read something a long time ago which I forgot about, then remembered, then forgot, then tried to remember and couldn't, but then I had a dream I was recommending books to people last night and it came back to me again. I wish I had more dreams of recommending books; people like myself forget a lot of what they read and wish they didn't. There are some people, though few, who forget very little of what they read. This involves one of the most famous of these, one Jorge Luis Borges, author of an essential fraction of the most beautiful stuff ever laid down.
Long ago I picked up a book of his called Atlas, which appears to be about his reflections on pretty much whatever comes up, which are always interesting because of their sheer depth. It was in this book that something was revealed to me, something that I needed spelled out, which looking back on it I could have assumed long before. I never dared question the man's mind. With his encyclopedic mastery of all literature, he's an intimidating guy and I thought he ought to be left alone, not drawn into my mind's whirlpool of celebrity personalities with their tacky problems and preferences and mood swings, and everything else like that. Borges was always my stoic bird. But sadly, we are all people, and people have to have feelings. This book was written when Borges was blind.
I like when I get the chance to do this. I read something a long time ago which I forgot about, then remembered, then forgot, then tried to remember and couldn't, but then I had a dream I was recommending books to people last night and it came back to me again. I wish I had more dreams of recommending books; people like myself forget a lot of what they read and wish they didn't. There are some people, though few, who forget very little of what they read. This involves one of the most famous of these, one Jorge Luis Borges, author of an essential fraction of the most beautiful stuff ever laid down.
Long ago I picked up a book of his called Atlas, which appears to be about his reflections on pretty much whatever comes up, which are always interesting because of their sheer depth. It was in this book that something was revealed to me, something that I needed spelled out, which looking back on it I could have assumed long before. I never dared question the man's mind. With his encyclopedic mastery of all literature, he's an intimidating guy and I thought he ought to be left alone, not drawn into my mind's whirlpool of celebrity personalities with their tacky problems and preferences and mood swings, and everything else like that. Borges was always my stoic bird. But sadly, we are all people, and people have to have feelings. This book was written when Borges was blind.
The Islands of Tigre
No other city I know borders on a secret archipelago of green islands which recede and disappear into the equivocal waters of a river so slow that literature has called it immobile. On one of these islands, one I've never seen, Leopoldo Lugones killed himself. He may have felt, perhaps for the first time in his life, that he was freeing himself, at last, of the mysterious duty of searching out metaphors, adjectives and verbs for everything in the world.
Many years ago, El Tigre supplied me images, probably all erroneous, to illustrate the Malay and African passages in Conrad's stories. These images will serve to erect a monument, doubtless less durable than the bronze of certain infinite Sundays. I recall Horace, who continues to be for me the most mysterious of poets, inasmuch as his stanzas cease but do not conclude, and thus are unconnected. It is not unlikely that his classical mind deliberately abstained from emphasis. I reread the above and confirm the fact --with a certain bittersweet melancholy-- that everything in the world brings me back to a quotation or a book.
Fuck Natalee Holloway || kuro5hin.org:
"Holland is sending three F-16 warplanes to assist in the search for Natalee"
"Holland is sending three F-16 warplanes to assist in the search for Natalee"
Tuesday
He was innocent
Not a charge was true
And they say he ran away
Branded!
- the dude, The Big Lebowski
product plug:
If you haven't had Kozy Shack chocolate pudding, wait no longer. It is delicious and I love it, and you will too. Unless you, like Hitler, are insane. In case you're wondering, ingredients: Milk, Sugar, Modified Food starch, Cocoa, Salt, Carrageenan, Vanilla. I've tried their tapioca and rice puddings, but they don't come close to chocolate.
Not a charge was true
And they say he ran away
Branded!
- the dude, The Big Lebowski
product plug:
If you haven't had Kozy Shack chocolate pudding, wait no longer. It is delicious and I love it, and you will too. Unless you, like Hitler, are insane. In case you're wondering, ingredients: Milk, Sugar, Modified Food starch, Cocoa, Salt, Carrageenan, Vanilla. I've tried their tapioca and rice puddings, but they don't come close to chocolate.
I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.
- John Cage
- John Cage
I love this thing where they want to take David Souter's house with the eminent domain law. Love it.
WorldNetDaily: Souter suitor wants real hotel company
WorldNetDaily: Souter suitor wants real hotel company
Monday
A celebration of backwardness!
Redneck Games Celebrate 10th Anniversary - Yahoo! News
I, for one, find it ironic that Toyota is saying US workers are so poorly educated that it's not worth the effort to train them.
Redneck Games Celebrate 10th Anniversary - Yahoo! News
I, for one, find it ironic that Toyota is saying US workers are so poorly educated that it's not worth the effort to train them.
italics mine
"A contingent of conservatives talk radio hosts is headed to Iraq this month on a mission to report "the truth" about the war: American troops are winning, despite headlines to the contrary."-- Who else but Fox news?
FOXNews.com - Politics - Critics Call Radio Hosts' Trip Propaganda Mission
It's called the "Truth tour".
Sunday
of COURSE it was Karl Rove
But I thought they'd have at least framed sombody like the gay prostitute Gannon.MSNBC Analyst Says Cooper Documents Reveal Karl Rove as Source in Plame Case
fascinating
Fear¶ 7:30 AM
Even though the chances of a child being abducted by a stranger are less than the same child being struck by lightening, or bitten by a shark, children today are preoccupied with that fear. Fear is the beginning of isolation, confusion and hate. All governments know that the biggest threat to their power over the people is unity amongst the people. Governments throughout history have sought ways to disrupt that unity. Our government is the master of this technique. It is routine and even expected for our children to turn in their parents if they even suspect they are not conforming. Our children are taught in schools, "Do not talk to strangers, they are dangerous and want to hurt you." "If any adult makes you feel uncomfortable, run away and report them immediately." "The police are your friends."
What a great way to keep our children from learning new things and thinking for themselves. The last thing the government wants you to do is think, the first is to feel...Fear!
Posted by: Joe
Turns out Joe is Joseph Edward Duncan, the sex offender who abducted those kids in Idaho. He had a weblog, viewable here. Ironic, huh?
Saturday
The big news story today is about a couple of kids in Idaho who went missing and now the girl's turned up. The story so far is that the brother might be dead, which is very sad. The girl was identified and found with the kidnapper in a Denny's restaurant in her hometown of Coeur D'Alene, a town I have actually spent some happy days in. It's beautiful up there. I'm sure the town is swarming with news crews who are sharpening ther knives, ready to turn this family's lives into another media cannibalization. Yay.
Anyway, the guy who kidnapped her and her brother is a sex offender from Fargo. He was facing charges of molesting a six-year-old boy here in Minnesota and, if I read between the lines correctly, skipped some quasi-complicated legal mandate which made him officially a wanted man. It looks very much as if he might be guilty of perpetrating this and possibly other sexual acts against these minors, which makes me scrunch up my face. I have a problem with people doing this sort of thing. Not only is child molestation obviously a pretty clear mark of criminal insanity, but it's really easy not to do! And have you ever considered how much there is that's going on in the world that WON'T get you thrown in jail to be sodomized by gangs of stinky people with aids and hepatitis c? There's pretty much everything in the world, other than one thing, that you can still do!
Here is a very short list of things for potential child molesters to do, instead of kidnapping and sexualizing children, which frankly, has to take a lot of imagination and is a poor time expenditure:
Learn to fold the perfect paper airplane.
Join a bridge club.
Master the ancient art of Tai Chi.
Invent something.
Build a house.
Get drunk and make obscene phone calls.
Read a book.
Stare off into space.
Teach yourself Latin.
Begin to see things that aren't there.
Work out.
Collect interesting-looking stones.
Compile a list of reluctant objects.
Join that obnoxious art movement that is all about Andre the giant having a posse.
Write four hundred songs about tater tots, then four hundred more about joining an army from outer space.
Shit, man, do anything, anything other than molesting children.
Idaho Girl Found; Brother Feared Dead - Yahoo! News
Anyway, the guy who kidnapped her and her brother is a sex offender from Fargo. He was facing charges of molesting a six-year-old boy here in Minnesota and, if I read between the lines correctly, skipped some quasi-complicated legal mandate which made him officially a wanted man. It looks very much as if he might be guilty of perpetrating this and possibly other sexual acts against these minors, which makes me scrunch up my face. I have a problem with people doing this sort of thing. Not only is child molestation obviously a pretty clear mark of criminal insanity, but it's really easy not to do! And have you ever considered how much there is that's going on in the world that WON'T get you thrown in jail to be sodomized by gangs of stinky people with aids and hepatitis c? There's pretty much everything in the world, other than one thing, that you can still do!
Here is a very short list of things for potential child molesters to do, instead of kidnapping and sexualizing children, which frankly, has to take a lot of imagination and is a poor time expenditure:
Learn to fold the perfect paper airplane.
Join a bridge club.
Master the ancient art of Tai Chi.
Invent something.
Build a house.
Get drunk and make obscene phone calls.
Read a book.
Stare off into space.
Teach yourself Latin.
Begin to see things that aren't there.
Work out.
Collect interesting-looking stones.
Compile a list of reluctant objects.
Join that obnoxious art movement that is all about Andre the giant having a posse.
Write four hundred songs about tater tots, then four hundred more about joining an army from outer space.
Shit, man, do anything, anything other than molesting children.
Idaho Girl Found; Brother Feared Dead - Yahoo! News
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