Where has the day gone? Lost in a swirl of homework I suppose and in arranging a dumpster delivery for this weekend's massive fall cleanup and general throwing away of junk. I'd pondered a post about my opinon of Kerry's medals and what I think really happened, but then I thought no one really cares too much about that....not even me.
So I tackled installing the school's FTP program so I could upload some of my completed homework.....then couldn't figure out how to work the damn thing so I think I'll install CuteFTP instead because at least I know how to work it.
But that'll have to wait until tomorrow because it's time to sit & relax for a few minutes before heading out for my night class in C++. I hope it's more substantive than last week's 2 3/4 hr. discussion of the software designing process or I'm liable to doze off.
Theory don't impress me much.
One of my favorite morning luxuries during the work week is being awakened by the alarm clock....like this morning. Sound crazy? Not so much when you think of how I'm usually awakened.
The dogs, my organic all-natural alarm clocks.
Sometime, in the wee hours of the morning between 4 and 5:30 a.m., the dogs decide that I must wake up or we will all die a horrible death. Or that since they're awake, I need to spring out of bed and enjoy the sunrise with them as they sniff around the yard. At any rate, at some point before sunrise, they begin their two-pronged attack.
Sassy starts by seeing if I'm close enough to the edge of the bed to poke with her nose. If not, she begins huffing like some pervert making an obscene phone call. While lamb & rice dog food is wonderful for dogs with 'sensitive' digestions, it also reeks and produces the dreaded.....BAD BREATH IN DOGS. With each huff, clouds of noxious odor waft over me as I try to remain asleep without barfing.
Sollie, who is too short to reach anything but the bed railing, starts desperately clawing & digging on said railing. By desperately I mean as if I were entombed alive in concrete and he is the only one who can save me by digging me out. And he whines in short bursts....a pitiful cry that sounds as if he is dying, alone and unloved in a cold rain.
But hey, the fun doesn't end there!
Once I start to wake up, it's time to celebrate! Mommy's alive! She's moving! They party around my feet like Lazarus' dogs. Sassy repeatedly bounces into me like a 75 lb. Tigger on crack. Sollie contents himself with alternating between running across & between my feet. Sometimes, using a warp in the time/space continuum, he does both at once. I, on the other hand, am getting jostled around between the bed and the closet door like I'm inside the world's largest pinball machine. All this while I'm groggily trying to put on my robe and slippers.
The fun continues as I shuffle sleepily down the hallway to the front door to take them out. Sassy dashes to the door and back to tackle me; Sollie sees how many times he can trip me....both frantically trying to convince me that OMGWEAREGOINGTODIEIFWEDON'TGETOUTSIDEANDPEERIGHTNOW! I am half-awake by this time, and attempting to leash the two whirling dervishes and get them out the door before they drive me insane.
So as you see, the rare morning that starts with just the alarm clock is a good morning. It means I get to wake them up.
Heh.
Payback time.
Our Gov is leading the Arkansas delegation at this week's convention. Y'all take it easy on him.....he's a skinny little feller after losing 100+ lbs and quitting smoking.
He's always preaching that everyone else should do the same.
Nothing more sanctimonious than a reformed prostitute, is there?
Looks like France might be getting a clue at last.
Monday's French press reflects national feelings of shock and defiance as the country rallies behind the two French journalists facing a death threat from the Islamist group holding them captive in Iraq.....One of the two journalists, Georges Malbrunot, writes for Le Figaro, which points out that the war in Iraq was "sought by the president of the United States, but condemned by the president of the French Republic".
The paper expresses "outrage" at what it calls the act of "fanatics who claim to speak for an oppressed Islam, but who use the very methods of the oppressors".
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, to find out that there's oppression practiced by Islamic terrorists.
Round up the usual suspects.
What I just yelled at our cat:
"NO NO kitty! That's MY Command Line Prompt."
I think she was trying to load a trojan into my scripting homework.
She just had that look.
So we took WildChild to the county fair Saturday. He rode just about every kids' ride there, including two rollercoasters....one he could ride by himself, the other required riding with an adult. Which of course, I volunteered to do. He even insisted on riding the 'spook house' ride, which my daughter rode with him. It apparently wasn't as much fun as he imagined. My daughter said halfway through he started saying 'I scared' and as soon as their ride cart stopped, he was 'all done' and 'WildChild get out now!"
But the animal exhibits were the biggest hit, except for the chickens. The hundred or so roosters crowing incessantly were a bit overwhelming for him. He did, however, fall in love with a baby goat. It was about the same size as a blue-heeler dog, and was in a pen by itself, crying "Maaaaa! Maaaaaaa!" He wondered what that was all about, so I told him that it was crying because it wanted its mommy. He started fussing over it, trying to console it and kept telling it 'Your mommy will be back soon."
We finally got him away from it by distracting him with a different goat, but as soon as he left it, it started bleating again. Back he went, saying "Baby goat wants his WildChild." We practically had to drag him away....we finally had to bribe him with going to ride some of the carnival rides to get him to leave the goat pen.
Sunday morning, as I was packing his suitcase, I told him he was going to visit my parents. "No, " he said. "WildChild going to stay with mel-mi-nos."
??????
Off he went, dragging his suitcase down the hallway, insisting that he wasn't staying at my parents, he was staying with 'mel-mi-nos'.
Mike & I started trying to guess what the hell he was talking about.
'Elmo'?
No.
'Mee-mo's' ? (one of his other grandma's)
No. By this time he's giving us that 'are you retarded' look....then he mumbles something about goats.
Aha! "Animals? You want to go stay with the animals?"
Yep. That was it. Sorry GoatBoy, but you can't go stay with the animals at the fair. Then I forestalled the impending hissy fit by telling him he could ask my mom to get him a goat.
Heh.
Some of the first words out of his mouth when he saw my mom were "You get me a goat? For me?" I'm sure he's still bugging them about it.
My dad's gonna kill me. He hates goats.
*snicker*
I wonder what color their new goat will be.
It wasn't just my imagination. There are more spiders this year. (Link via Fark)
Midwestern spiders always get big as they prepare to lay eggs, but this year they're even fatter thanks to a cool, wet summer that sustained their favorite snack — insects.
They're everywhere here. Big fat spiders with huge webs all over the yard. I don't mind so much because they're keeping down the grasshoppers that eat my flowers....but I sure don't like walking into their webs. Creepy.
And WildChild is totally freaked out by them. He and I found a huge black & yellow one, about the size of a golf ball, which stopped him dead in his tracks.
"Spider stay on his webhouse?" he asked dubiously.
"Yes, as long as we leave him alone, he'll stay right there," I replied.
I think he doubted the veracity of my statement because he then urged "Let's go. Go back inside Ma's house."
That suited me just fine.
Dude, you fell on your ass and only won because the judges screwed over one of your competitors.
A new study estimates that meth use costs Benton Co. employers about $21 Million per year.
•Workers’ compensation claims for methamphetamine users are estimated at $269,184;
• Employee turnover because of methamphetamine use costs are estimated at $312,276;
• Health-care costs paid by companies for workers who use methamphetamine are estimated at $674,788;
• Employee theft among methamphetamine users is estimated at $1,973,864;
• Loss of productivity because of methamphetamine use is estimated at $6,698,312; and,
• Employee absenteeism because of methamphetamine use is estimated at $11,241,922.
And the Benton Co. prosecutor pointed out some other costs of meth use.
Balfe, who spoke at the press conference, noted that methamphetamine use effects everyone, not just law enforcement and the judicial system. Schools are made unsafe by drug use, hospitals are taxed by health problems as a result of drug use, and citizens have to deal with higher crime rates related to drug use, Balfe said. "Every single person in this county has a stake," Balfe said.
Violent crimes are also related to drug use, according to the prosecutor. Most of the homicides Balfe’s office has prosecuted in the last couple of years have been drug-related. He pointed to the example of Davis Don Carpenter and Joshua Brown, who, under influence of methamphetamine, killed and raped an 11-year old boy; and to the case of Jerome Malitan DeAsis, who, while on the drug, cut the throat of his 5-month-old son.
Not to mention the increase in child abuse that meth use causes.
Meth's some costly, bad stuff.
Typhoon Chaba is tracking entirely too close to where my son's stationed for my comfort. But when I talked to him online this morning, he sounded like he was looking forward to trying to hold his door open in 100+ mph winds...again.
Did I mention that sometimes my son is a complete idiot?
A new limited study shows that implants may affect your brain.
Researchers have found high concentrations of platinum in women who got silicone breast implants and in the children they bore and breast-fed afterward....Distinct from platinum released by catalytic converters in cars, platinum in implants is treated with nitric and hydrochloric acids and becomes very reactive, Lykissa said. The heavy metal readily binds in the human body, especially to nerve endings, short-circuiting communication with the brain.
"You see green, but you perceive a full moon," he said. "All of a sudden, your brain system is not working right."
I submit that a woman who has implants for any reason other than reconstructive surgery already has a brain system that isn't working right. And any man that would tell me he'd like me better if my boobs were bigger is unworthy of my attention.
I yam what I yam.
Deal with it.
I haven't substantively practiced law in over a year due to my attending school, but I think the time for me to go back to work is rapidly approaching.
I just told the cat that, as her attorney, I would advise her to stop eating the dog food.
Or maybe the time for the onset of my familial senility is rapidly approaching.
One or the other.
WTH is this?
The U.S. Olympic Committee has asked the campaign to re-elect President Bush to pull an ad that refers to the Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee said on Thursday.
The ad has angered Olympic officials because they feel it hijacks the Olympic brand -- a registered trademark -- even though it does not display the Games logo.
So now you can't even say 'Olympics'? How exactly do you trademark a word that has been in common useage for a thousand or so years?
The IOC said no official request had been made for the use of the reference to the Games.
"We own the rights to the Olympic name and nobody asked us," Gerhard Heiberg, head of the International Olympic Committee's Marketing Commission had said on Wednesday.
How absurd.
As promised, here's a photo of me when I was a senior in high school.
Heh.
Now let's see yours.
My mom said one morning when WildChild was there he started fidgeting around about 4 a.m. like he was waking up. She lay there quietly until he settled down, and she thought he had pretty much gone back to sleep when their rooster crowed.
WildChild started moving around again, but my mom kept quiet and he'd soon pretty much settled back down when the rooster crowed again. I'm sure she was entertaining thoughts of having the rooster for dinner when WildChild rolled over and solemnly whispered in her ear
"Ginnky**, that wooster is talking to you."
I don't know how funny that was at 4 a.m., but it cracked me up today.
**All the grandkids call my mom Ginnky. When my niece was little, she couldn't say 'Grandma' so she always called my mom 'Ginnky'. Soon they were all doing it, and the rest, as they say, was history.
Y'all thought I was being silly when I proposed 'Hillbilly Help Desk'.
Ha.
White, an alumni of Arkansas State University, recently created a new company in Jonesboro called Rural Sourcing Inc., which is working to attract companies seeking IT consulting work to rural communities.
A nonprofit arm of the company is working with ASU and Southern Arkansas University at Magnolia to train students at those colleges for technology-related careers.
A billion dollar idea I tell you.
Paul has responded to a triple dog dare, and so will I when I have time tomorrow. (Class tonight yuck)
But don't let that stop you from meeting the challenge.
I quadruple dog dare all of y'all.
Heh.
There's a difference between spanking a child's bottom and beating them....and then there's this. (Link via Drudge)
The practice of "hot saucing" a child's tongue as a method of discipline may seem cruel to some parents, but those who regularly use the punishment say it teaches their charges valuable and long-lasting lessons.
You know, we used to fill up eggs with pepper sauce to break an egg-sucking dog, but I've never heard of doing that to a child. What is wrong with you people?
Lisa Whelchel, who played Blair on the popular 1980s TV series Facts of Life, is an advocate and practitioner of "hot saucing." Whelchel, the author of Creative Correction: Extraordinary Ideas for Everyday Discipline, says the practice worked for her children when other disciplinary actions did not....Whelchel says she's been aware for some time that many people are strongly opposed to hot saucing, (which was covered in The Washington Post earlier this month) a form of discipline that's been around for decades, but she says she believes in many different creative ways to discipline, including this one.
"It's totally against popular opinion in culture these days," Whelchel said. "I prefer my child receive a small amount of pain from my hand of love than to encounter a lot more pain in life," she said.
Yeah well lady, I've heard parents say that a lot.....while in court trying to explain to the judge why what they did wasn't child abuse. When anyone with half a brain knew it was.
Whelchel said hot saucing works better than traditional spanking when it comes to offenses related to the child's mouth.
"It's a logical consequence. If you cause somebody pain, either by the words you say by lying and not being a trustworthy person or by biting, this is a logical consequence. It's your mouth that's the offender," she said.
If that's how her mind works, I'd hate to think of how her children were potty trained.
Fayettenam's got a new street policy.
After reviewing a major traffic study that predicts traffic patterns over the next 20 years, city leaders proposed a "Traffic Calming Policy" that involves the addition of stop signs and speed bumps on resdiential [sic] streets. The policy also calls for road narrowing that would discourage heavy traffic.
Because heaven knows it wouldn't be sensible to widen the high traffic streets to safely carry the increased traffic. Let's narrow the already-too-narrow side streets....though I'm curious how they're planning to do this. Most of them are already so narrow you have to drive down them on two wheels.
Officials said they will look at each street individually to determine what should be done to make local roads safer for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Because after all, we want to encourage pedestrians to use the streets...not that they need any encouragement. One of our shortcuts is through a nearby subdivision we like to call "The Maze". For some reason, it is a popular destination for walkers/joggers....who refuse to use the perfectly good sidewalk and regularly walk/run in the street. Add to that all the residents who prefer to park on both sides of the street instead of in their driveways, a few 90 degrees corners, not to mention the trashbins in the street on pick-up day and well....that's why we call it "The Maze".
I imagine the typical conversation of these walkers/joggers goes something like this: "Hey honey it's almost dark. Let's dress in dark clothing, put the baby in the dark navy stroller and take the black dog for a walk in the unlit street." Yeah, I almost hit those fools the other evening and I was only creeping along at about 20 mph.
So sure, let's make it more difficult to avoid those fools and push even more traffic onto the overcrowded streets.
Idiots.
My daughter was taking the WildChild back to his mom's recently, and had a most horrifying experience. See, she'd given him some chewing gum....and you know what kids that age do with gum. He'd chewed it happily for a while then took it out of his mouth and started playing with it.
She asked him a couple of times to stop playing with his gum, but he of course ignored her. Irritated, she opened her mouth to ask him to stop again. Instead, this phrase came out:
"IN YOUR MOUTH OR IN THE TRASH!"
She said she slapped her hand over her mouth and thought 'OMG, I can't believe I just said that. I'M BECOMING MY MOTHER!"
Heh.
I laughed (cackled with evil glee actually) and told her there were worse things she could become.
Besides, it worked. He stopped playing with his gum.
The most annoying thing about Mom phrases is how effective they are, right?
Purple is apparently the PC choice for marking student's papers to avoid damaging their fragile self-esteem. (Link via The Corner)
A mix of red and blue, the color purple embodies red's sense of authority but also blue's association with serenity, making it a less negative and more constructive color for correcting student papers, color psychologists said. Purple calls attention to itself without being too aggressive. And because the color is linked to creativity and royalty, it is also more encouraging to students.
Isn't that just....precious?
I personally prefer using the Red Pen of Death, the color which grabs students by the scuff of their necks and screams "Look what you did you stupid little bastard. Fix it before I rip off your arm and beat you to death with the bloody stump."
That always seemed to encourage them just fine.
Oklahoma's child welfare law has a provision that permits the state or a child's attorney to petition the court for an immediate termination of parental rights based on abuse by parents that is 'heinous and shocking'. The term isn't defined in the statute, primarily I believe because humans continually come up with new ways to meet the standard. Oklahoma case law provides some examples of what the court considers 'heinous and shocking', but it's pretty sparse. It's not really much of a problem however. Much like obscenity, you may not be able to precisely define it, but you know it when you see it. Like this. (link via NewsFeedOnline)
A couple face at least three years in prison for disciplining their young children by letting their part-pit bull dog attack them.
The abuse was discovered when a neighbor called police after hearing one of the dog attacks on the 8 yr. old girl.
We need more nosy neighbors like that.
This can't be good news for NYC.
A number of extremists with ties to the 1970s radical Weather Underground have recently been released from prison and are in New York preparing to wreak havoc during the Republican National Convention, The Post has learned.
I'm old enough to remember when these fools frequently made the nightly news with their bombing, kidnapping & killing. They are not your average moonbat. These are very bad people.
To prepare for any possible violent incident, the NYPD is employing aggressive airborne surveillance and elaborate undercover operations.
"There will be a constant eye in the sky," the source said, declining to give specifics, but adding that it "won't just be helicopters."
Like the old days, this is just another instance of The Man trying to keep a brother down.
Let's hope The Man is more successful this time around.
--We finally have a use for some of those 'extra' computers in various stages of disarray that have been cluttering up the house carefully stored in the spare laboratory. Mike is setting up....duh duhduh dum....Rita's Server Laboratory! BWAHAHAHAHA! Pretty scary eh kids? No, I'm not going to try to take over the world. Yet. I'm taking a Windows 2003 Server Command Line Administration class, and have to have a network to break do my homework on.
--We were gonna try & meet Adam for dinner, but unfortunately due to my orientation class tonight & his Elk River float trip, the timing just didn't work out. We did have a great visit via telephone....at least until he hit the infamous cell phone dead zone on I-540. We're still tossing about the idea of having a NWA Bloggers' Float Trip next spring or summer, so if any of y'all are interested drop one of us a line.
So WildChild and I watched a cartoon version of the original Tarzan movie yesterday (some PC bullshit about how Tarzan meets Jane & they both save a group of gorillas from being raped and pillaged) and at the end, the Tarzan character does a reasonable facsimile of the famous Tarzan yell. I tell WildChild to try & do the yell, thinking it would be funny. He just looks at me blankly, so I demonstrate.
Now I'll be the first to admit that my Tarzan yell rilly rilly sux, but I sure didn't expect the response I got. WildChild puckered up his face, started crying and ran towards me wailing "Stop it Ma! You're making me cry!"
Apparently Ma isn't supposed to yell & beat her chest because it's like rilly rilly scary.
Who knew?
Munch's "The Scream" has been stolen again.
Armed robbers have stolen the iconic Edvard Munch painting, The Scream, from the Munch Museum in Norway.
The masked thieves pulled the work and another painting, Madonna, off the wall as stunned visitors watched.
I love that painting. It so perfectly captures the horror of a meaningless existence in an existential world....and the colors are right purty too.
Hope they find it soon.
Finally there's a believable account of at least one of Kerry's missions, by the only other surviving Swift Boat captain. (Registration req'd. I recommend using Bugmenot for an id & password)
I say believable because reading it doesn't set off my bullshit detector. See if it does yours.
Kerry's response to the latest Swift Boat vets ads is as absurd as it is evasive.
Chad Clanton, a spokesman for the Kerry campaign, said the new TV commercial "takes Kerry's testimony out of context, editing what he said to distort the facts. He testified as a 27-year-old Vietnam veteran. He opposed a war that, at that point, cost over 44,000 lives of the 58,245 names that are on the Vietnam Memorial wall. It says a lot that the president refuses to condemn this smear."
Here's the transcript of Kerry's testimony. Here's the commercial. And more importantly, here's the transcript of the 1971 O'Neill/Kerry debate on the Dick Cavett show, in which Kerry says
Well, I have often talked about this subject. I personally didn't see personal atrocities in the sense that I saw somebody cut a head off or something like that. However, I did take part in free fire zones and I did take part in harassment interdiction fire. I did take part in search-and-destroy missions in which the houses of noncombatants were burned to the ground. And all of these, I find out later on, these acts are contrary to the Hague and Geneva Conventions and to the laws of warfare. So in that sense, anybody who took part in those, if you carry out the applications of the Nuremberg principles, is in fact guilty.
Taken out of context? I think not.
I'm not sure whether Kerry just doesn't understand or if he's deliberately trying to misdirect, but for the Swift Boats vets this isn't about politics at all. It's personal. As O'Neill said in the 1971 debate
Mr. Kerry is the type of person who lives and survives only on the war weariness and fears of the American people. This is the same little man who on nationwide television in April spoke of, quote, "crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command," who was quoted in a prominent news magazine in May as saying, quote, "war crimes in Vietnam are the rule and not the exception," unquote. Who brought 50 veterans down to Washington to testify about alleged atrocities in April, the same 50 who after they had appeared on every major news network refused to provide any depositions or provide any details of any kind.
Never in the course of human events have so many been libeled by so few.
That, my dear readers, is what this is all about.
It isn't politics at all.
Every year around this time, the peaceful stillness of the countryside is shattered by.....the sounds of helicopters.
State police uncovered hundreds of marijuana plants Thursday that were growing unattended in Madison County.
Authorities said they used police helicopters to find about 700 plants. However, no arrests were made during the drug bust.
No arrests? Yep, there's rarely arrests. Here's how it works. Growers usually plant their crops either on someone else's property or in the national forest. There's not enough manpower to find 'em all, surveill 'em all and arrest 'em all so every year it's the same game. Helicopters outfitted with heat detecting equipment fly around and find some of the patches, which are then destroyed....cost of doing business you might say. Then the better hidden ones will be harvested next month.
Some war on drugs, eh?
Kerry's bunch just went into hissy fit overdrive.
The Kerry campaign has told Salon that the publisher of "Unfit for Command," the book that is at the center of the attack on Kerry's military record by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, is retailing a hoax and should consider withdrawing it from bookstores. "No publisher should want to be selling books with proven falsehoods in them, especially falsehoods that are meant to smear the military service of an American veteran," said Kerry campaign spokesman Chad Clanton. "If I were them, I'd be ducking under my desk wondering what to do. This is a serious problem."
Disclaimer: It's a Salon article, and I don't have a subscription so I haven't read the entire article.
But geez Louise, what the hell are they thinking?
Ad hominem attacks, threatening tv stations and now this is not the way to respond to these charges.....unless you want to appear guilty as sin.
Truth is always the best defense when you're innocent.
So c'mon Kerry. Bring it on.
Kerry is blasting the Swift Boat vets as being a "front for the Bush campaign". That's pretty funny coming from Kerry.
Almost as funny as Mike commenting the other day that it was strange the MoveOn ads stopped running here in Arkansas at the same time the Kerry ads stopped....not that they're coordinating their efforts or anything.
Right?
According to The Corner, the RNC keynote speaker is....
That'll be one speech I don't want to miss.
Pardon me while I ROTFLMAO.
South Korea's joined Germany in complaining 'when we told you to get the hell out we really didn't mean right now'.
"We want the United States to delay the plan a little bit more, and we plan to make such request at today's talks," a Defense Ministry official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Local media have reported that Seoul wants the plan to be postponed by more than a year.
Yeah yeah, everybody hates us, but they sure seem to like our money and protection don't they? If I didn't know what isolationism caused, I'd say we should just pick up our toys & go home. Worldwide. Screw 'em all and sleep til noon and all that.
But isolationism is a bad thing (see e.g., WWI), and we can't afford to risk letting Muslim militantism spread any more than it already has. Maybe threatening to withdraw our troops will help make the point that we expect a little more assistance in the anti-terrorism battle from certain countries.
Think it'll work?
Not only are the Swift Boat vets having a substantial effect on swing voters, they've also triggered a huge response from the Kerry camp....a response that included another alleged misrepresentation, this time about a quote from the Washington Times that supposedly said the Swift Boat book was a 'pack of lies'.
The quote from the column reads, in relevant part: "Either this book is a pack of lies or John Kerry is in fact a reckless, lying man who misrepresented the facts in order to receive medals he didn't deserve, and is indeed unfit to command even a tug boat, let alone the United States military as president."
That column went on to note that "the book has the ring of sincerity to it, and the mark of careful research and writing." While the column didn't reach a final judgment, it suggested that major non-conservative media organizations should investigate and assess the book and its critics.
The Washington Times is understandably not too happy about the misleading quote, as you can see.
While we are honored that the Kerry campaign is such an attentive reader of the articles and editorials that appear in our newspaper, they may wish to guard against such manipulative misrepresentations in the future. They run the risk of impeaching such reputation as they may still have for veracity of their public utterances.
It is a measure of the state of their defenses regarding John Kerry's Vietnam and Cambodia assertions that not only are they using ad hominum attacks against their critics, but they feel compelled to resort to such flagrant misrepresentation of other media comments to bolster their position.
Now I believe that most politicians have a tendency to play fast & loose with the truth, but Kerry's blatant mendacity has lately been astounding. It in fact leaves the impression that his entire life has been a carefully constructed pack of lies, half-truths and opportunistic actions aimed at his attaining the presidency....the likes of which I have never seen.
And the most insulting part is that he's arrogant enough to think he can get away with it.
I was reading this article this afternoon when inspiration struck.
Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards promised Monday to deliver high-speed Internet access and more money for people to start businesses in rural areas.
At first I scoffed, thinking what would a bunch of hillbillies do with high-speed access....hmmm. Wait a minute. Huge unemployed labor pool. No unions. Tons of vo-tech schools for training. Add a T3 line and you've got:
Hillbilly Help Desk, Outsourcing by Inbreds.
I can see it now.
"Thankee fer a'callin tha Hillbilly Help Desk. This here's Cletus, kin I hep ye? What's that ya say? Cain't get ta yer server? Best tell Ma ta put on tha cawfee. This'uns gonna tek a while."
You laugh, but I'm gonna make about a billion dollars out of it.
Just you wait and see.
I always miss the good stuff. I watched the men's synchronized diving for a while yesterday, but got bored and switched channels before this happened. (Link via Fark)
Olympics organizers have increased security at all sports venues after an unidentified Canadian spectator plunged into a swimming pool during a diving competition.
The man, bare-chested and sporting a blue tutu, scampered onto the pool deck and climbed to an adjoining diving board during the men's synchronized three-metre springboard event on Monday.
He jumped into the pool after about a minute atop his perch and was immediately apprehended by security officials at the Olympic Aquatic Centre.
From the photo, I'd say his form was better than the American divers.
I give him extra points just for the blue tutu.
So the President has finally decided it's time to re-shuffle our troop deployment, and predictably Germany is having a hissy fit.
German officials voiced concern Monday that their country has the most to lose with President Bush's announcement that tens of thousands of troops will return to the United States over the next decade.
'Most to lose' as in all those American dollars.
Did they really think that after the fall of the Soviet Union and all Germany's anti-American actions over the last few years we would keep pumping our dollars into their economy?
Not bloody likely.
Mike & I are sick today with a nasty bug that he caught at work from a co-worker who didn't have the common courtesy to stay the hell home when he came down with it. Mike's much sicker than I, but then he started getting sick first....which makes me rilly look forward to tomorrow. Not.
Thanks for sharing the fever, fatigue, body aches, upper respiratory congestion and general feeling like death warmed over, Mr. Indispensible. Next time, I would appreciate it if you would stay home until you're not contagious.
Doncha hate it when people do that?
If this is correct, it is outrageous.
Federal air marshals protect less than 5 percent of daily U.S. flights, and the numbers are declining, despite assurances by the federal government that most planes would be protected, according to estimates provided by marshals, pilots and a retired airline executive.
So is this.
Mr. Adams told Gannett News Service in late May the Federal Air Marshal Service is under a self-imposed hiring freeze, and an unnamed administration official told CNN that about 100 air-marshal positions would be eliminated this year.
So. Passengers are forbidden to carry anything that remotely resembles a weapon, screeners aren't allowed to profile, pilots aren't being armed and now air marshals are being cut back.
For whom are we making it easier to fly the friendly skies?
Kerry said today that he would not tour the hurricane damage in Florida because " he's concerned his campaign entourage could distract from recovery efforts".... a laudable decision.
Then he blew it by complaining that there wasn't enough wind there in Washington for him to wind surf.
Rather tactless, don't you think?
We took WildChild to the little carnival at the Tontitown Grapefest last night. We were smarter than last year, we enlisted my daughter & FSIL to go & help us keep up with the boy......a wise decision.
He didn't remember going last year, so he wasn't quite sure what we meant when we said we were going to ride rides. As soon as he saw it though, he was wound up tighter than a $2 watch, all squealing and prancing around.
"Look Ma! I walking on my toes!"
Indeed he was.
He had a blast. He's finally big enough to ride the kiddie rides by himself....sorry, the 'big boy' rides. He even, and I'll know you'll be proud of him Keith, rode his very first roller coaster by himself. It was just a small one for little kids, but he loved it. Every time they would go down the one little dip it had, the little girl sitting next to him would start crying. Not him. He was laughing his head off, then when the dip ended he would look at the crying little girl like "WTH is wrong with you?"
He was one tired little boy by the time we left. My daughter & I were putting him in the car seat when we were leaving, and I remarked that I needed to hurry up & get home so I could use the bathroom. (No way I was using the Porta-potties there) My daughter teasingly asked me if I needed a diaper. WildChild looked at me and utterly serious asked "Ma? Want my Pull-Up?"
Now that's love, innit?
F911 will be released on video soon.
Sony plans to announce as soon as Friday an early home-video release of the controversial film "Fahrenheit 9/11" before November's U.S. presidential election, a move that's likely to boost sales while advancing creator Michael Moore's political agenda.
Yeah, cuz it's not like there'll be much market for that crap after the election.
I realize that I don't know everything that's happening in Iraq, but why are we doing this again?
Iraq's interim government said Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr was negotiating to leave a shrine in Najaf on Friday as thousands of protesters across southern Iraq condemned a U.S. offensive in the holy city.
Frankly I think the best way for al-Sadr to leave Najaf would be in a body bag.
Matt has a handy link to a Florida hurricane blog. And you can go here to watch live webcams from the Naples area.....looks like they're already getting high surf and some wind.
Much more interesting than those annoying WeatherChannel 'livecasts'.
Here's some sobering figures.
Islamist extremists in the world as estimated by moderate Muslim leaders: about 12 million. Fundamentalist sympathizers: 120 million. Those numbers represent 1 percent and 10 percent of the world's Muslim population of 1.2 billion. The CIA puts the extremists much higher — 40 million.
True, these are just educated guesses, but still they should make you stop and think. At the lowest estimate, that's about 12 million people who want me & you graveyard dead.
The gun turret that we're always kidding about building on our house in the hills is starting to not sound so silly.
And a grand one it is too, isn't it? [/sarcasm]
Bleh.
Looks like Florida is in for a Category 3 hurricane, Charley. Y'all duck & cover down there, or whatever it is you do in a hurricane.
And this passed over Okinawa the other day.
Pan Jinsong, from the Zhejiang Meteorological Observatory, told AFP news agency Typhoon Rananim was thought to be the worst storm since 1997, when 236 people were killed.
Yeah, my son casually mentioned he kept getting knocked offline while we were chatting because they were getting hit by a typhoon. I asked him what the conditions were like, and he said "Oh, it's a little windy."
I think that might've been a slight understatement.
Ok class. Listen up. This is not a newsworthy story. (Link via Fark)
Gail Ozkan's husband admitted he'd had an extramarital affair but a State Supreme Court justice in Suffolk recently ruled that was not enough to end the couple's 17-year marriage and refused to grant her a divorce.
The judge was correct. Here's why.
First, Gail had had sex with her husband after learning about his affair. That brings in the legal theory of condonation. Black's Law Dictionary defines condonation as "pardon of offense, voluntary overlooking implied forgiveness by treating offender as if offense had not been committed." In other words, if you forgave them enough to have sex with them, you forgave them enough to stay married to them. Logical enough, yes?
Of course, some try to take advantage of that theory by conning the innocent spouse into bed, then using that to leverage a more 'favorable' settlement. (Which is why I always told my clients at our first meeting "Do Not. Under Any Circumstances. Have Sex. With Your Spouse. Again." And I would repeat that advice at every opportunity.)
But even then there's an out. If the offending spouse continues whatever it was that was grounds for divorce, then condonation doesn't apply....which apparently happened here.
In a phone interview, Gail Ozkan said that after she confronted her husband about the affair, he promised to break it off and work to keep their marriage together. But several months later she said she learned through friends that her husband was still involved in the affair.
Ok, condonation doesn't really apply, so why no divorce?
For the second reason the judge ruled correctly. She had no corroberating evidence of the adultery. Her husband quite correctly invoked his 5th Amd. right against self-incrimination....correctly because adultery is a crime under New York law. And she apparently didn't have any other proof that the adultery happened, besides her testimony. Since her husband was contesting the grounds for divorce, that wasn't enough. Which isn't as dumb as it first sounds, because you sure don't want judges making decisions based solely on the testimony of one person. Right? Because, and this may shock you, people lie in court. I know, you may find that hard to believe, but they do....especially if money's involved.
So under New York law, at least as stated in the article, the judge's decision wasn't outrageous or particularly newsworthy....except to illustrate the fact that New York doesn't have no-fault divorce. And judges can't do anything about that until the legislature changes the law. The reporter missed a good opportunity to skewer the legislature and advocate for a change in the law, IMO....should've focused on that and not the judge.
What do they teach in journalism school nowdays anyway?
Class dismissed.
National Lampoon used to be funny? Check this out:
Thanks Dean!
I can't decide which I like best, the trailer for the Michael Moore story (I Am Not An Asshole) or the Air America live feed. (Air America. The fun is in trying to find us.)
Go read.
Here's the spin from the Kerry camp:
I believe he has corrected the record to say it was some place near Cambodia he is not certain whether it was in Cambodia but he is certain there was some point subsequent to that that he was in Cambodia.
Did that just say he lied? I think it did.
BTW, I retract my earlier statement that he thinks he's Rambo. That was incorrect.
Apparently he thinks he's Captain Willard.
I recently told Mike that it wasn't going to be the end of the world if Kerry got elected....with a Republican-controlled Congress, it wasn't like he was going to be able to do much of anything.
I'm starting to reconsider that opinion.
I've been pondering some questions of burning importance this morning as I was tackling some unpleasant jobs that I've put off too long like cleaning the fish tanks.
1) How could you tell if a Granny Smith apple wasn't ripe?
2) How could you tell if buttermilk had soured?
You thought I was gonna talk about whether or not John Kerry was in Cambodia or sumpin, didn't you? Everyone is all over that like white on rice. I don't particularly care whether he was or wasn't, but it seems to me that's a relatively easy question for him to answer. And the correct answer isn't an ad hominem attack on the SwiftBoat Vets.
Dude, no one's questioning your patriotism, they're questioning whether you're a lying sack of shit. Those are not mutually exclusive you know.
And what's with the hat in the secret compartment thing? That's just too weird for words. I'm beginning to seriously wonder if Kerry doesn't have all these Walter Mitty Rambo fantasies rolling around in his head.
Super freaky.
Border patrol granted new powers of deportation. (link via Drudge)
Immigration legislation passed in 1996 allows the immigration service to deport certain groups of illegal aliens without judicial oversight, but until now the agency only permitted officials at the nation's airports and seaports to do so. The new rule will apply to illegal aliens caught within 100 miles of the Mexican and Canadian borders who have spent 14 days or less within the United States. The border agents will focus on deporting third-country nationals, rather than Mexicans or Canadians, and they are expected to begin exercising their new powers on Aug. 24 in Tucson and Laredo, Tex.
The only thing that makes me nervous about this is why all of a sudden this complete about-face?
I'm not sure I want that question answered.
Followed a link from a post at the Volokh Conspiracy about a bogus privacy scandal as reported in the NYTimes, and found this interesting Census Bureau site. I've been playing around with the search & map function, and found all kinds of fun stuff about Arkansas.....like the largest Lithuanian population in the state is around Mtn. Home. Logical, since most of Mtn. Home's population are retirees from the Chicago area.
Curiously, the largest concentration of persons of Arab descent is in Jefferson County, county seat Pine Bluff. You know what's in the Pine Bluff area, doncha? Paper mills, a large state prison....and the Pine Bluff Arsenal. There's a whole bunch of biological weapons stored there, among other things.
Curious.
The 106th Tontitown Grape Festival opened today and runs through Saturday. It's loads of good clean family fun, not to mention a killer spaghetti dinner.
We took the WildChild last year and had a blast....though Mike's on pager this weekend so we may have to bribe my daughter & the FSIL to take him this year.
They have more energy to chase around after him than we do anyway.
On my way to the dentist's office, I saw a white van with a bumper sticker that just pissed me off. It wasn't the Kerry stickers or the 'Peace is Patriotic' ones plastered all over his bumper. To paraphrase an old saying, opinions are like assholes and everyone is entitled to his or her own.
No, the one that pissed me off proudly proclaimed:
"I'm a Terra-ist"
Cute, isn't it?
I especially liked the smug way it trivialized all the lives lost to those murdering bastards. That is, 'liked' in that way that makes you want to run the van off the road, pull the driver out and attempt to slap some sense into him.
The driver may believe that he's immune from attack because of his anti-war stance, but I've got a new flash for him. The real terrorists would be just as happy to kill him as me, and in the most un-environmentally friendly way imaginable.
All infidels look alike in the dark, you know.
I'll be off to a dental appointment shortly....more bridgework. They'll be working on both sides of my jaw, so they told me to eat a big breakfast since I prolly won't be able to eat for the rest of the day.
A perfect excuse to spend the afternoon drinking chocolate milkshakes, doncha think?
Mmmmmm......Braum's chocolate milkshakes.
It's what's for dinner.
The Esmays have some wonderful news.
Couldn't have happened to nicer people.
Congratulations!
Here's a real heartbreaker for all NW Arkansas residents:
Walton Arts Center officials received word last week that Linda Ronstadt was canceling her September tour dates, including concerts scheduled for Sept. 17 and 18 at the Walton Arts Center.
No reason was given for the cancellation.
Excuse me while I go cry in my morning cuppa.
[/sarcasm]
I know this pissed a lot of people off, but frankly I just found it amusing.
In July, 13 Democrats in the House of Representatives wrote to the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, asking him to send observers.
Now there's a case of the fox asking the wolf to watch the henhouse, isn't it? I'd give a quarter to read a copy of the letter those sanctimonious assholes sent.
But Kofi turned them down, so they went crying to the State Department.
For the first time, experts from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) will observe the presidential election, after a formal invitation from the State Department. "We will come to observe, not to oversee the elections," an OSCE spokeswoman, Urdur Gunnarsdottir, said.
If they are truly a disinterested third party, their observations could be interesting. After all, it ain't like one party has a lock on 'election irregularities'.
If nothing else, it should be entertaining.
Remember when DFW was shut down last week by something I speculated would be "some yo-yo with an electric bong"?
Close, but no cigar.
It was some yo-yo musician's custom-made microphone.
D'oh.
al-Sadr vows to fight until the last drop of his blood is spilled.
Saturday we attended a wedding shower for my daughter in Marshall....about a 220 mile round trip. This, after a stressful week trying to make travel arrangements so my son can attend her wedding, combined with a late-night cookout at my daughter's future in-laws and picking up WildChild from my parents has pretty much wiped us out.
This wedding thing is killing me.
The shower was pretty fun though, several friends, family and former in-laws whom I hadn't seen in ages were there. Even my daughter's stepmom was largely well-behaved, so I didn't get to bitchslap her.....once again postponing my achieving the title of "A-#1 Super Coolest Mom Ever", as my son put it.
I'll post some photos if I can ever get them transferred from Mike's laptop.
Sorry, not the "chicken killing machine" that someone came here looking for. But this:
My son's '95 TransAm.
Mechanically sound, as far as we know. High mileage, needs some minor body repairs.
Mike drove it to work every day for over a year with no problems....except when it snowed. Yes, I'm sure that sounds shocking, but this little hotrod won't go anywhere in the snow....except in the ditch. Otherwise it runs like a striped ass ape.
But it's taking up my parking space and no one drives it anymore so:
Make it go away.
The latest beheading video is a hoax.
The mother of a San Francisco man who appeared to have been beheaded in a video on an Islamic Web site said on Saturday the video was a hoax.
"It's a hoax," Theresa Vanderford, mother of Ben Vanderford 22, said from her San Francisco area home. "He's very computer savvy and stuff."
What a jackass.
UPDATE: Oh look. The jackass had a website. And he says he made the video "in hopes of drawing attention to his one-time campaign for city supervisor".
Be careful what you wish for, bucky.
Idiot.
Apparently one of our local news stations have hired an 8 yr. old proofreader.
A local man went for a horse back ride, but Thursday night his horse came home without him.
Rescue assistance from several local agencies through the late night and early morning.
Let's play "Find the Verb" in the second sentence. Wait. There isn't one.
It all started when 69 year old William Rhoades decided to go on a quick ride with his new horse and dog.
But after a long night alone in the woods Mr. Rhoades was found.
Something's missing here. Ah, here it is.
He is very familiar with horses, but his son says his father does not know the area they recently moved to, so when his horse returned without him they were concerned.
Several counties and rescue teams responded to the Strickler area around 8 Thursday night and searched the rough terrain throughout the night hoping to find Mr. Rhoades.
A command post was stationed up the hill with maps outlining the wooded area to assist volunteers and search crews, but it wasn`t until the morning hours that any sign of Mr. Rhoades was spotted.
Someone doesn't understand the concept of flow.
The horses bridal was found down from his home, and it wasn`t long after that when Mr. Rhoades found his own way home.
Who knew horses had weddings?
"We started looking last night. We rode around in the woods looking for him and I was up again this morning. We found horses bridal and was starting to lose dispair and that`s when my friend looked over his shoulder and saw him walking up out of the woods. I guess he finally made it out by himself," says Rhoades.
'Horses Bridal Leads to Lost Dispair' would make a great heading for this article, wouldn't it?
Paramedics say after a day of rest...Mr. Rhoades will be just fine.
As for the horse, Mr. Rhoades let him go after they came upon a hornets nest that started stining the horse...and that`s when he got turned around in the woods.
Yeah you'll get turned around every time when a hornets nest start stining. Very painful it is...and they'll chase you too. They're aerodymically shaped, so they'll just fly right down from the tree and take right out after you. Pretty scary.
Especially when you've lost the horses bridal.
Babar Ahmad, the terrorist suspect whom we're trying to extradite from Britain, had a document of Navy battle group plans for Afghanistan.
The document detailed planned movements of a battle group that included the USS Benfold, a guided missile destroyer, and a drawing of the group's formation when it was to pass through the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East, the affidavit said. It also detailed the ships' vulnerabilities to attacks by small boats, the affidavit said.
Ahmad was purportedly communicating with a U.S. Navy enlistee on the USS Benfold who was sympathetic to the jihad cause, U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor said in New Haven, Conn. Authorities have not named the man, or accused the enlistee of providing the document to Ahmad.
"You can rest assured the Navy knows who he is and is taking appropriate precautions," Mr. O'Connor said.
Here's an idea. Let his shipmates know his identity and what he's done.
I'm sure they'd be happy to assist with a few 'appropriate precautions' of their own.
Remember all those things when you were a kid that made you say "When I grow up, I'm gonna...."? I was just reminded of that while making a PB&J sandwich for lunch. We didn't have much when I was a kid, so my mother always tried to make things stretch. To the extreme. When she made PB&J sandwiches, there would be ample jelly, because she made her own. But peanut butter was store bought, so she spread it so thin that it was only a couple of molecules thick.
I'm exaggerating slightly. But it was, in fact, a jelly sandwich with only the essence of peanut butter. It wasn't very good, but you'd be surprised at the things you'll eat when you're hungry enough. Especially when you're a growing kid.
Every time I ate one, I would swear when I grew up, I would have decent PB&J sandwiches any time I wanted, with a luxurious, thick layer of creamy peanut butter on every one. And I thoroughly enjoy every one of them.
So what about you? What's your "When I grow up" thing?
I have a confession to make. While Mike was at work today I cheated. Yes, I'm ashamed to admit it, but it's true.
I cheated on our dogs.
I didn't set out today to play with another dog. I was just picking my daughter up, and....there he was. Scamps, her 1 yr. old black lab/Golden retriever mix. He's a pound rescue, but quite the well-mannered sweetheart. He can sit and shake hands. And when he found out I knew how to play fetch and say "Good Dog!", well, he lurved me. A lot. I was his new best buddy.
So by the time I left, I was covered with Strange Dog Smell. Caught hell when I got home too. Sassy was running around trying to see if I'd brought another dog home with me.
Sollie was just pissed.
Hours later he still is.
Silly dog.
This may be an overreaction...but then again maybe not.
Part of an American Airlines terminal at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport was evacuated for several hours Thursday after security officials found a suspicious device during a routine baggage screening.... The device, which resembled a pipe, was discovered during a Transportation Security Administration baggage screening and set off an alarm, airport officials said.
"The pipe had wires and threaded caps," airport spokesman David MagaÉna said. "There are certain triggers that will stop down a screener and that was one of them."
The flight for which the bag was intended has landed in Birmingham without incident, and is being searched. So far there's been no comment about the passenger who checked the bag.
Prolly some yo-yo with an electric bong or something equally stupid.
But you never know.
Well this definitely helps.
Yassin Muhhiddin Aref, 34, the Imam of the mosque, and Mohammed Mosharref Hoosain, the 49-year-old founder of the mosque, were arrested early Thursday morning. They are accused of reaching out to someone they thought was a terrorist trying to get a shoulder-fired missile to down planes in the United States.
FOX News learned from a law enforcement official, however, that that person was not a terrorist, and actually it was all a sting operation. The two men are accused of agreeing to help launder money to pay for the missile.
Cue the inevitable lawyers who'll claim entrapment and racial profiling.
On a whim, we went out for dinner last night....ok, so I had a powerful craving for chicken supreme nachos....and who should we run into but our favorite neighbor from across the hill, Matt. Much geekiness ensued....in conversation, not behavior. Though I might note that if Matt didn't waste his precious free time hanging out in coffeehouses reading novels, he might manage to post more than once a week.
But we like him anyway.
It does look like he's found time to play with Photoshop, so y'all drop by and harass him leave a comment or three.
Remember the lady who drove hundreds of miles to see Clinton last weekend? The one who loved that man so much that she has a lifesize cardboard cutout of him?
Guess what's for sale on E-bay?
She even linked my post in the ad.
All publicity is good as long as they spell your name correctly, right?
A Hollywood tv writer was at the local B&N lately promoting his new book. The article mentions that he "has also started the Cloud Creek Institute for the Arts in North Central Arkansas". I was curious exactly where in north central Arkansas he was located so I did a little Googling.
Turns out the Cloud Creek Institute is located pretty close to where I grew up, by the little wide-spot-in-the-road town of St. Joe, Arkansas. Here's their mission statement:
To foster and advance creativity and interest in literary and media arts by helping new artists develop their talents and skills, and to create an environment of respect, appreciation, and support for the arts in the community at large.
And one of their 'beliefs':
For a community to truly be creative it must be without "gatekeepers;" no one must interfere with the interaction between those who create and those who appreciate the creation; meaning, relevance, beauty, and even truth cannot be second-guessed by intermediaries; all artists not only must have access to the process of creation but also to venues of presentation as well.
*snort*
Here's one of my 'beliefs' about St. Joe:
"If you're ever driving through St. Joe and start having a flat tire, just keep on driving on the rim until you reach the next town."
St. Joe is a pretty rough little town, though not as bad as it was in my dad's day. I've only been there when I absolutely had to....and I have relatives there. When we lived there, their school had to routinely forfeit basketball games to neighboring towns for years because they had been banned from playing due to all the fistfights that routinely happened after games.
Like I said. A pretty rough little town.
And now some screenwriter from Hollyweird has moved in there.
I wonder how that's going to work out for him.
The latest terror warnings have the usual subjects pontificating that it's all a political ploy.
"The administration is manipulating the release of information in order to affect the president's campaign," Dr. Dean said in an interview on Tuesday, adding that the alert was issued as Senator John Kerry began a cross-country trip celebrating his nomination. "This is a pattern that goes back to 2002 when Karl Rove wrote his well-known memo advising Republican candidates to run on terrorism."
But the Kerry team had a more subdued response.
"The answer is no," said James P. Rubin, senior foreign policy adviser to Mr. Kerry. "This matter is too important to our safety; we have no reason to believe that this information that was most recently released was released for political reasons."
Part of the reason for their reticence is concern "about being seen as trying to turn a national tragedy to his political gain, particularly if a warning turned out to be valid"....a/k/a 'talking out your ass because your mouth knows better'.
There's also the fact that Kerry now receives top-secret briefings on such things, just as the President does.
Dean presumably does not.
You might want to think about the implications of that before being too dismissive of the current terror warnings.
The President's campaign is predicting that he too won't get a bounce from the upcoming convention.
Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for the Bush campaign, said an incumbent president typically gets only two-thirds of his challenger's bounce. And according to a Gallup Poll, Mr. Kerry actually lost ground to Mr. Bush after last week's Democratic National Convention.
"Two-thirds of zero — and my math is pretty simple here — is zero," Mr. Dowd told reporters on a conference call. "So that's our expectation on our bounce."
I think he's likely correct, partly because there's only a relatively small number of undecided voters this time around. And partly because I believe the average voter pays little attention to conventions when there's no issue of whom will be nominated for what. For the non-political junkie, they're about as exciting as watching paint dry.
Which is why I don't put too much stock in Kerry's lack of bounce. When the most repeated phrase from a political convention is 'shove it', you know there was a deadly lack of flash and very little substance that came out of all those speeches and hooplah....which equals no votes.
I don't expect the Republican convention to do any better.
Thanks to Jim, I think I just found the perfect birthday cake for my son.
Just remember, this is the child who used to hang around while I was cleaning squirrels so he could get the guts to play with....and ask a million questions about. I used to tease him that he was only happy when he was covered in blood & guts.
Good thing I have a strong stomach.
Dick Cheney is visiting today, and he had a suggestion for us.
Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday that Arkansas should consider sending a Republican to the U.S. Senate.
Well, Dick, it ain't like we hadn't already thought of it you know. But for some reason, a good electable Republican Senate candidate has been scarcer than hen's teeth lately. I thought we might have one in Jim Holt this year, but when he says things like
"I also am concerned that [the death penalty] is sometimes used when there are not two eyewitnesses to the crime. In the Old Testament that was the standard before anyone could be put to death. This is one area where we are harsher than the Old Testament!"
and like
"Ideally, I would eliminate all unconstitutional programs. Eliminating the Department of Education (which this nation did not have until the Carter administration. Please read the ‘Education’ section answers above.), and the National Endowment for the Arts; reducing the Commerce Department; making a reduced FDA self-supporting; pulling our troops out of places like Bosnia and Haiti. Slashing foreign aid. Cutting our share of U.N. contributions, which are excessive, or withdrawing from the U.N. altogether. Repealing the Prescription Drug benefit. Selling excess federal lands."
it kinda makes me think he's not got a snowball's chance in hell of beating Blanche Lincoln....as bad as she is. NW Arkansas is conservative, but we're not _that_ conservative.
So you see Dick, there's a reason we prolly aren't going to elect a Republican Senator this year.
We ain't got a viable candidate.
I have a final tomorrow, so y'all are gonna have to play nicely without me for a bit.
Topic:
Revelations that the surveillence of financial institutions on which the current threat alert is based dates back to at least 2000 should be cause for alarm, not ridicule.
Cuss and discuss.
I don't know much about the proper protocol for hyphenated surnames, a practice I find inordinately silly, but why is Kerry's wife referred to as 'Heinz-Kerry'? Aren't hyphenated names usually a combination of a woman's maiden name and her husband's name?
That kinda creeps me out....like her reported statement that her late husband had the good taste to introduce her to Kerry before he died.
That's just....too weird.
Via the Cracker Barrel Philosopher, here's what's happened to reporter Colin McNickle since Tray-sa told him to shove it.
I'm beginning to think she can out-Hillary Hillary.
Pretty scary, heh kids?
This article, found via Prof. Reynolds, discussing the alleged 'split' in the Kerry campaign over guns. It also notes that Kerry's running commercials that show him 'hunting'.
Check out the accompanying photo on the upper right. I'd like to know what the hell he's supposedly hunting, cuz it looks to me like he's on a skeet range.
That ain't hunting, that's target practice.
It's also what rich people do when they want to play great white hunter.
Anyway, you can tell he's not hunting because he's not crawling on his belly after a deer.
That one still cracks me up.
We're working on some cool new weapons.
A few months from now, Peter Anthony Schlesinger hopes to zap a laser beam at a couple of chickens or other animals in a cage a few dozen yards away.
If all goes as planned, the chickens will be frozen in mid-cluck, their leg and wing muscles paralyzed by an electrical charge created by the beam, even as their heart and lungs function normally.
I want one....as well as one of these:
At the same Air Force Research Laboratory in New Mexico, researchers working with Raytheon Co. have developed a weapon called the Active Denial System, which repels adversaries by heating the water molecules in their skin with microwave energy. The pain is so great that people flee immediately.
"It just feels like your skin is on fire," said Rich Garcia, a spokesman for the laboratory who, as a test subject, has felt the Active Denial System's heat. "When you get out of the path of the beam, or shut off the beam, everything goes back to normal. There's no residual pain."
"Git offen my property afore I parbile ye alive!"
Heh.
Cool.
100 yrs. ago today:
Aug. 2, 1904 EUREKA SPRINGS — The crew of the St. Louis and North Arkansas mail train were assaulted by seven desperadoes, thought to be from Searcy County. The assault was a vicious, one and the brakeman was compelled to jump from the running train.
Searcy County is where I grew up. Heck, some of those 7 'desperadoes' were likely my mom's relatives.
Things haven't changed all that much either. We've had a whole passel of shootings and armed robberies lately....and Mike just called to tell me that the traffic jam he'd text messaged me about earlier was caused by a felony traffic stop, not highway construction. He said cops had two shirtless rednecks spread-eagled on the shoulder of the road, so the road should be cleared by the time I leave for class.
At least up here, they prolly aren't any of my relatives.
I hope.
Tom Ridge is giving a press conference right now. The threat level will be raised to "Orange" for the financial districts of NYC, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. Specific threats from multiple sources have been intercepted; no specific time has been determined except between now and the election.
Specific targets are:
World Bank & IMF in D.C.
Prudential Bldg. in New Jersey
Citigroup Buildings & the Wall Street Stock Exchange in NYC
Security zones may be established around these buildings; underground parking may be limited; security access badges may be necessary; and other added security measures will be taken 'air, land and sea'.
Sounds like they're expecting suicide bombing attacks, doesn't it?
About 1200-1800 Clinton fans lined up for 12 hours+ to get their books signed by Clinton yesterday here in Fayetteville. They weren't all locals; some came from as far away as California.
"I missed him in Denver, I missed him in Miami and I missed him in Atlanta," said Rita Fierro of San Diego, who flew from California to Arkansas with her friends, Anita Avila and Sara Cavillo, both of San Jose, and camped out at the Wal-Mart beginning at 6 p.m. Friday to get the first three spots in line. "Everybody I talked to said I was crazy for doing this, but I like him," Cavillo said. "And everybody has been so nice in line. You don’t have encounters like this in California."
Some people need to get a life....seriously. After it was announced Saturday morning that only the first 1000 in line would get their books signed, many lined up outside in the heat anyway.
That didn’t bother Jacquelyn Avergel, who drove from her home in New Orleans to pick up her sister, Rachel Knezevic, in Austin, Texas, then drove to Fayetteville but just missed getting an armband to get her book signed. "I actually have a life-size cardboard cutout of him at home," Avergel said. "I’ll go to any extreme to see him."
That's just scary.
The perseverance of the 300 or so paid off and they eventually got their books signed too. You gotta give Clinton credit. He sure knows how to work a crowd.
Mike kept trying to get me to go with him to take photos of the crowd, but I refused. I didn't care to be in the same county as Clinton, let alone the same parking lot.
The old city ordinance against spitting in public is still on the books.
