Some random girl mocking a Sinead O Connor song. This is actually the only song of hers that I even remotely like, and the fact that the music and lyrics were written by Prince (who I also detest) makes it all the more ironic and faintly amusing.
By the way - do something ‘random’, nice, and out of the ordinary for your mother on Mother’s Day.
“Adore God. Reverence and cherish your parents. Love your neighbor as yourself, and your country more than yourself. Be just. Be true. Murmur not at the ways of Providence.” —Thomas Jefferson
“Fear creates this veil of impossibility and it is hanging over all of our heads…Only Barack Obama can fix America’s soul. Only Barack Obama can fix America’s broken soul.” - Michelle Obama
“Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans is weakening again…Whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me… I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on.” —Hillary Clinton
Horror on the Beach.
And in our “It’s Been a Bloody Spring” Department, we present the seventh (or is it eighth?) shark attack since the beginning of March…
From The Sydney Morning Herald:
Mum rescues man savaged by white pointer
Winsor Dobbin
May 11, 2008A MOTHER of three was hailed a hero after risking her life to rescue a stranger from a shark.
A white pointer up to five metres long (sixteen feet in real measurement) attacked schoolteacher Jason Cull, 37, while he was swimming with dolphins at Middleton Beach, in front of the Albany Surf Life Saving Club nte at 7.20am yesterday.
Joanne Lucas, 50, who was on the beach after arriving early for surfboat rowing practice, dived into the water after hearing Mr Cull’s screams for help. “I just saw someone thrashing in the water and saying ‘Help me, help me,’ th” she said.
“I thought it was just a dolphin [in the water] but someone else was screaming, `He has been attacked,’ so I raced down there.”
Mrs Lucas swam 80 metres offshore to retrieve Mr Cull as the shark, one of several sighted off the beach, circled. “Just before I got to him he said, ‘It’s got my leg.’ I grabbed him and swam back to shore.”
She found “great big chunks” missing from one of his legs.
Great Southern Region Surf Life Saving support services co-ordinator Tom Marron praised Mrs Lucas’s “act of incredible bravery”.
“She heard him shout out for help and dived in with no regard for her own safety,” he said.
“He suffered a fair bite. If she hadn’t followed her instinct, or had been a bit later, then the bloke could have bled to death or been dragged out by the shark. What she did was brilliant.”
Mrs Lucas told Mr Marron: “I’d always wondered what I’d do in that situation, and now I know.”
Earlier today, I heard a song on the radio that I had never heard before, and immediately loved it. So much so that when I got home, I just had to Google it. How embarrassed I felt to learn that it was in fact a Hannah Montana bubble-gum pop hit.
Oh well, I still love it.
Chemical Warfare by Dead Kenneys
Jello is a trip. No vid but this was the best sounding studio version I could find.
Even nature shows us that the improbable is possible…
Barack Obama: The hardest left major party presidential candidate in American history.
If elected, Obama will make Jimmy Carter seem like Truman. - Hugh Hewitt
I know Andre would dispute this edition of FNP as too mainstream but since I learned of Fall Out Boy from him, he has to accept this. Besides, the song is a classic from 25 years ago. Enjoy!
This astonishing picture shows the Chaiten volcano erupting during storms in the middle of the night
Of course, Bush did nothing to prevent this so it’s his fault.
“America elected Jimmy Carter 32 years ago and is still paying the price. Suppose history repeats: Obama wins and has a failed one-term presidency. Will he be jetting around the world meeting with terrorists and despots and denouncing America in 2040? Maybe not, but the thought gives us a shudder.”
DFV is without question the greatest authority on theater that this site has. Whether the production is a local show put on by a community theater company or a huge Broadway musical, DFV has an acute sense of what is great about a production. And that is why it is surprising that he has always been so wrong about Rent.
Rent is an overhyped story of homosexuality, bisexuality, heterosexuality, drug use, homelessness and urban bohemianism. The rock opera has some great musical licks and touching themes that shed light on the humanity of those afflicted with AIDS. Yet it is certainly not the “single most powerful and artistic affirmation of the innate humanity.”
Without question, Les Miserable deals with humanity so much better. Miss Saigon and Phantom also blow Rent out of the water on that subject (I can hardly fathom a fan of theater believing that Rent deals with humanity better than Phantom). Furthermore, other artistic renderings that are not stage productions make the themes of Rent look rather self indulgent and overacted. Schindlers List as a work of art is better than Rent for its affirmation of the innate humanity, for example.
I expect better analysis from the man whose only two posts this past month have been about theater.
From PopSci.com via Instapundit:
Before:
After
Looks like God scoured it with a Brillo pad. Of course this was all caused by Global Warming…
Last night, I and another teacher took a couple of our students to Colorado Springs to see Rent. It had been years since I’d seen it, and I had forgotten how special it is. During the opening number, there was a palpable electricity in the hall, and by the end the girls were in tears and on their feet cheering at the same time. One of them described the evening as a magical experience.
It’s difficult to explain the power of Rent to someone who’s never seen it – harder, still, to those who have seen it and feel nothing. But it’s not an exaggeration to say that for me, Rent stands as the single most powerful and beautiful artistic affirmation of the innate humanity in every human being.
Sometimes derided as merely the pop production of a degraded 90’s culture, Rent will instead become established as a classic American musical, and will surely be touching audiences a generation from now.
My cousin and his company Smart Genetics was profiled on CBS News this evening. You can watch the entire story segment here. It also includes some nice pictures of my grandfather who died of Alzheimers. For what was basically designed as a hit piece (notice the title) on the industry I think he did a pretty good job. I am going to have to call him up and tell him that certain favorite cousins deserve testing at no charge. (:
Taken from Think Progress:
Today, John McCain said this:
While the past few years have seen increased efforts on the part of the State and Justice Departments and the FBI to combat the human slave trade, we must do more. As President, I’ll increase cooperation and communication between all agencies of the federal government by establishing an Inter-Agency Task Force on Human Trafficking, whose purpose will be to focus exclusively on the prosecution of human traffickers and the rescue of their victims.
Apparently, he has no idea that in 2000, his work was already done for him.
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 authorized the President to establish the President’s Interagency Task Force (PITF), a cabinet-level task force to coordinate federal efforts to combat human trafficking. The PITF is chaired by the Secretary of State and meets at least once a year. […]
The PITF approved the following resolution reaffirming the victim-centered approach [and a] commitment to bringing human traffickers to justice, and a sensitivity that victims are just that – victims.
Furthermore, it seems he completely forgot that his hatred of earmarks trumps his desire to see this act stopped. While railing against those terrible earmarks in 2001, he complained (quoted from the Congressional Record by David Brody at CBN:
There is also a $200,000 earmark for a conference in human trafficking at the University of Hawaii in this bill.
Who saw this kind of forgetfulness and/or casual lack of forethought coming? If Democrats lose to this guy, we deserve to. I think all his years of “straight talk” might have given him one of the most two-faced, doubletalk-laden records in Washington.
Considering that he is the oldest first-time Presidential candidate in history, this is a big deal. Right now, only 16% of Republicans and 27% of Independents think his age is a problem. But if he keeps up this kind of thing, that number will assuredly rise. Thanks not only to the incessant needling by late night comedy hosts (SNL will have a field day when they come back in August/September), but also to people simply seeing their unwarranted concerns warranted. People might worry that Obama would be a serious radical, but there’s no real evidence for that yet. McCain is directly providing all the soundbites we need to make the case that he would be too absent-minded to serve one term, let alone two.
Chinese need to work on sex life
The average Chinese are among the least likely in the world to have an orgasm, according to the Durex Sexual Wellbeing Global Survey… And while 30 percent of Chinese males almost always climax during sex, only 13 percent of women almost always achieve orgasm.
That’s abysmal. No wonder they insist on selling us shoddy, lead covered goods, oppress and kill monks, pollute with reckless abandon, have an extreme sensitivity to criticism and still live under a totalitarian style of government.
So after an exhausting primary season that saw the rapid rise and fall of Guiliani and then Thompson on the GOP side, and now the crash and burn of the once presumptive nominee and former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, we are now just entering the beginning of the actual campaign. Drowning Creek and the Defiant One would have us believe that we are just now entering ‘the silly season’. That was actually the democratic primary season and mere spring training for the Right wing blogs of war. If the Obamanites believe that the Right will just wave up the white flag of surrender in ‘08 they are sadly mistaken. They may be prepared to surrender to socialism, the nanny state, Islamists, and open borders but we are not. Personally I’ve just been warming up for the main attraction which by most accounts finally seems to be upon us. Conclub has done an outstanding job covering the various primary contests on both sides of the aisle and I hope we will continue our excellent reporting and analysis all the way through the conventions to November.
We do hate to see the fun end. The Democratic primary was probably the most entertaining one this political junkie has ever seen and will be fondly remembered for many elections to come.
“…there is nothing especially laudable in romanticizing lost worlds, or pretending that societies without running water or modern medicine are more ‘authentic’ than our own, or believing that disarming ourselves will make the perils of technological power disappear.” - The New Atlantis
You knew this was coming. Global Warming is to blame for everything these days, including Global Cooling. From The Guardian:
Two deaths in the waters off California and Mexico last week and a spate of shark-inflicted injuries to surfers off Florida’s Atlantic coast have left beachgoers seeking an explanation for a sudden surge in the number of strikes.
In the first four months of this year, there were four fatal shark attacks worldwide, compared with one in the whole of 2007, according to the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.
Of course, these deaths began with an unprecedented number of Great White sightings in southerly west coast waters beginning on March first. West Coast whites are migratory - they work a circuit across the Pacific that appears to be determined by fish runs, seal populations, time of year and breeding/birthing instincts. The fact that they all showed up at once in these waters suggests something along those lines - think Salmon in the fall.
‘The one thing that’s affecting shark attacks more than anything else is human activity,’ said Dr George Burgess of Florida University, a shark expert who maintains the database. ‘As the population continues to rise, so does the number of people in the water for recreation. And as long as we have an increase in human hours in the water, we will have an increase in shark bites.’
Some experts suggest that an abundance of seals has attracted high numbers of sharks, while others believe that overfishing has hit their food chain. ‘I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but it’s a convenient excuse,’ Burgess said.
So sharks don’t eat people but with more people in the water sharks are starting to eat people? And changes in their food chain (more seals off beaches and overfishing) are just an excuse? The question that should be asked (and isn’t) is how does Mr. Burgess know that? The belief that rising shark attacks is caused by more people in the water has become dogma with the Shark Commentariat, but where are the real numbers?
And there’s this silliness:
Another contributory factor to the location of shark attacks could be global warming and rising sea temperatures. ‘You’ll find that some species will begin to appear in places they didn’t in the past with some regularity,’ he said.
This is just wrong. The Argo system - a series of 3,000 underwater buoys placed all around the world’s oceans to measure temperatures have shown ZERO increase in water temps - and actually a slight cooling. So how can warming sea temps be a factor when they are cooling?
it sounds like spin to this Beast - Mr. Burgess and his ilk appear to be casting the wide net for excuses. We can’t be certain what caused this recent spate of attacks, but one thing we can definitely be sure of is that it wasn’t global warming.
Specially selected for the final important primary:
Sorry I posted it late, I saw Radiohead last night. Just fantastic.
A close friend of mine, Greg Davis, is actually heading into Burma right now. He’s a world class photo journalist and all around swell guy. He arrived in Thailand right as the Hurricane hit, and still against the best advice from all of us, is proceeding with his trip into the the heart of Burma. This trip has been planned for over 6 months and Greg, being the McGyver type guy he is, will not shy away from an adventure.
He wrote me this yesterday:
Off tomorrow to Mandalay, in the north. I will slowly make my way south, the last thing I want to do is get in the way down there. With limited resources at hand, my bowlful of rice could be someone else’s in greater need. I hope to capture the beauty of this country in hopes of showing others the beauty of such a place. Maybe that will speak to someone to help and could eventually make a difference somewhere. I’ll touch base in a few weeks.
Check out his website at Greg Davis Photography. He does amazing work. The funny part is he is not a formally trained photographer, and all of his earlier work was done with a simple point and shoot camera. The story goes that he was showing a friend his “vacation” photos, which this friend immediately recognized them as something much, much more than simple tourist pics. This friend showed them to a gallery owner and in a whirlwind Greg was swept into his new life as a globe trotting photo journalist showing his work around the gallery world. It could not have happened to a nicer, more well deserving guy. Hopefully he will be with me at Burning Man this year to photograph all the weirdness.
Say a little prayer for Greg as he makes this trip. I’m sure the pics he brings back will be as amazing as anything he has photographed up to this point in his blossoming career.
“I would rather lose a campaign than lose a war” - Sen. John McCain
She hasn’t conceded yet, but now it is just a matter of time.
Here’s to November. Let silly season really commence.
Update: Happy happy, joy joy! No HRC events tomorrow. It’s really over.
I would like to take a minute or two to salute the newest trend in public discourse… the nonpology. For those of you unfamiliar with the term a nonpology occurs when one who is in a position of public prominence and has been accused of a misdeed which perhaps cannot yet be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. One consequently holds a press conference where he or she issues a statment intended to illicit the sympathy and forgiveness of the masses while not actually admitting to said misdeed. It is a form of discourse brilliant in its insincerity. The finest example of recent note is from Roger Clemens who you may have heard has been accused of having an affair with country music singer Mindy McCready when she was 15. The following courtesy of the Houston Chronicle.
Clemens issues apology for personal ‘mistakes’
“Even though these articles contain many false accusations and mistakes, I need to say that I have made mistakes in my personal life for which I am sorry,” Clemens said.
“I have apologized to my family and apologize to my fans. Like everyone, I have flaws. I have sometimes made choices which have not been right.”
“I have been accused of having an improper relationship with a 15-year-old girl. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Clemens said
“This relationship has been twisted and distorted far beyond reality. It is just one of many, many accusations that are utterly false.”
In this following part he is ostensibly denying his steroid use “I realize that many people want me to simply confess and apologize for the conduct that I have been accused of, but I cannot confess to, nor apologize for, things I did not do,”
I didn’t do it so I want apologize for it and the following is regarding the alleged underage affair
“I have apologized to my family for my mistakes. And having offered this apology to the public, I would ask that you let me and my family deal with these matters in private.”
I didn’t have sex with a 15 year old either but I am apologizing about that, sort of.
But Clemens is not alone. How about this gem from Robert Packwood
“I’m apologizing for the conduct that it was alleged that I did.”
Trent Lott on his statement semmingly supporting the segregationist campaign of Strom Thurmond “A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded policies of the past.”
Lott and Packwood’s statement taken from www.CNN.com
I’m sure everyone has thought of a few examples of their own. No to dump on Republicans only I wanted to include the Hillary statement after the whole Bosnia sniper fire fiasco but in what was perhaps an even more brilliant move she never even faked an apology.
So let me offer my own nonpology for events that may or may not have occured on or about a New Years eve of many years past:
Accusations have been made of me that are patently false, however I will admit that mistakes were made that night. Perhaps eating that tray of sushi before consuming massive quantities of tequila was not the wisest of decisions, however I did not vomit in Joe Vernazza’s sink on that evening. I would like to apologize to Joe and his family for the negative attention that this incident has thrust upon them as well as to the fine citizens of East Rutherford and my own family. Their unflinching support has been the only thing that has allowed me to get through this difficult time. I am confident that the truth will soon come to light and I will be vindicated of these slanderous and hurtful accusations. Thank you and God bless you all.
It’s primary night again! Predictions, anyone? Mine: Hill +7 in Indiana, Obama +3 in N.C.
Ack. Is it August yet?
Often it seems as though American higher education exists only to provide gag material for the outside world. The latest spectacle is an Ivy League professor threatening to sue her students because, she claims, their “anti-intellectualism” violated her civil rights.
Priya Venkatesan taught English at Dartmouth College. She maintains that some of her students were so unreceptive of “French narrative theory” that it amounted to a hostile working environment. She is also readying lawsuits against her superiors, who she says papered over the harassment, as well as a confessional exposé, which she promises will “name names.”
What were the student’s sins? They questioned some of her assertions in class!
Ms. Venkatesan lectured in freshman composition, intended to introduce undergraduates to the rigors of expository argument. “My students were very bully-ish, very aggressive, and very disrespectful,” she told Tyler Brace of the Dartmouth Review. “They’d argue with your ideas.” This caused “subversiveness,” a principle English professors usually favor.
Ms. Venkatesan’s scholarly specialty is “science studies,” which, as she wrote in a journal article last year, “teaches that scientific knowledge has suspect access to truth.” She continues: “Scientific facts do not correspond to a natural reality but conform to a social construct.”
Oh, the horrors!
After a winter of discontent, the snapping point came while Ms. Venkatesan was lecturing on “ecofeminism,” which holds, in part, that scientific advancements benefit the patriarchy but leave women out. One student took issue, and reasonably so – actually, empirically so. But “these weren’t thoughtful statements,” Ms. Venkatesan protests. “They were irrational.” The class thought otherwise. Following what she calls the student’s “diatribe,” several of his classmates applauded.
Ms. Venkatesan informed her pupils that their behavior was “fascist demagoguery.” Then, after consulting a physician about “intellectual distress,” she cancelled classes for a week. Thus the pending litigation.
Considering the fact that most teachers would be thrilled to have their students so engaged in a lecture that they ask questions, one must wonder what Ms. Venkatesan found so objectionable. Having taken a few literary theory classes himself, the Beast thinks he knows the problem.
Literary theory is crap. When one must teach crap, one gets a little defensive about challenges, because there is no good defense available. This is particularly galling for feminists.
But before we expand on that topic, let’s have a little look into recent history to see if we can find the root cause of Ms. Venkatesan’s case of the vapors.
Back in the 1980’s, feminists ran into a scientific wall. Their assertion that the genders were equal in all things (aside from certain surface physical abilities) began springing leaks when science departments on campus (who had originally been recruited to prove the truth of this) started collecting data that belied this article of feminist faith. Like a series of underground A-Bomb tests, the controversy rumbled below the surface for years. The controversy pitted geeky science profs against hairy-legged feminists (neither likely to get laid by the opposite sex) and became so toxic that womens studies departments even picketed their own science departments. But most of the battle was conducted in faculty meetings, with feminists flexing their political muscle to squelch research projects they now knew were likely to produce results inimical to their faith, or throw heretics out of the bunker (*Cough! Larry Summers!). But the truth eventually leaked out.
With some of their most fundamental assertions now proven irrational, academic feminists went for the only option available to them at the time: they rejected reason. Then they tried to reconcile it.
Witness the birth of “Feminist Science Studies“. Think of it as Gynocratic Creationism.
But there’s a problem. How to bring “Science Studies” out of the backwaters of the Women’s Studies swamp and movie it into the general campus. This is where French narrative theory (more widely known as “Crit Lit”) becomes useful.
Critical theory (literary criticism)
The second meaning of critical theory is that of theory used in literary criticism (”critical theory”) and in the analysis and understanding of literature. This is discussed in greater detail under literary theory. This form of critical theory is not necessarily oriented toward radical social change or even toward the analysis of society, but instead specializes on the analysis of texts and text-like phenomena. It originated among literary scholars and in the discipline of literature in the 1960s and 1970s, and has really only come into broad use since the 1980s, especially as theory used in literary studies became increasingly influenced by European philosophy and social theory and thereby became more “theoretical”.
This meaning of “critical theory” originated entirely within the humanities. There are works of literary critical theory that show no awareness of the sociological version of critical theory.
So what does this mean? It means that the unwitting student who signs up for this class (and it’s odd that they teach it at Dartmouth as freshman comp) will be given an anchor text and then made to interpret that text within the following guidelines:
DF
|
HLP |
P cont.QSV |
Essentially crit lit requires you to take a book, like, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and torture the text for insights into the Plight Of Women or The Plight of Africans, or The Plight of anybody else in the liberal pantheon. This is what Ms. Venkatesan apparently was attempting to do with her “Feminist Science Studies French Narrative” class - get it out of Women’s Studies and into the English Department. This is classic Academic Logrolling, and obviously the students didn’t buy it. Ms. Venkatesan - most likely unaccustomed to challenges and unequipped by the nature of her specialty for defending the indefensible - fell apart under scrutiny.
She has since fled Dartmouth in a snit for the presumably greener pastures of Northwestern. Good luck to them both!
“In a quest to lower my impact on the environment, I calculated our [family's] carbon footprint if we cut our use of electricity and natural gas in half, switched our two cars for a single Toyota Prius and reduced our annual mileage by half, tripled our train travel, and never took an airplane. Furthermore, what if we became vegetarians, ate only local organic food in season, bought only second-hand clothes, furniture and appliances, never went to movies, bars or restaurants, and recycled or composted all our waste? Even then our combined carbon footprint would be 7.3 tons per year, but that would get us just below the world average of 4 tons per capita annually… The creators of Carbon Footprint claim that everyone in the world must eventually emit no more than 2 tons of carbon dioxide per year. When did Americans last emit so little carbon dioxide? Around 1870.” —Ronald Bailey
To the brave operatives in Indiana and North Carolina, synchronise your watches and prepare to head to the polls. The DUmmies, KOmmies, and HUffies are nervous and threatening voter suppression and intimidation. Bravely melt into the crowds of the great unwashed masses and go cast your vote no matter what. The chaos must continue until the convention, and then we’ll turn the chaos over to Recreate-68 and the host of other tools and useful idiots (Troops Out Now Coalition!, United for Peace and Justice, Code Pink, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Fighting Imperialism Standing Together etc.) that will turn the fine streets of Denver into a potentially violent circus. And Conclub will be hear to analyze and comment on it all.
Rush’s last direction to the troops on the eve of Tuesday’s primaries
I’m not giving her a pep talk. Snerdley thinks I’m giving her a pep talk. Have you forgotten who we’re dealing with here? We are dealing with the Clintons. This is the thing that she has lived for, it’s the reason she put up with all of that excrement daily being married to that lug head that she’s married to. This is the payoff. She’s going to say “Congratulations, Obama, you’ve run a really great race and I’m heading back to the kitchen to bake cookies.” Do you think that’s going to happen? You know they don’t quit. And with the Drive-By Media lining up all against them, that’s gonna fuel ‘em up even more.
Now Operation Chaos, and that mentality of attempting to sow destruction and mayhem into the Democratic primary process, has been controversial but successful. It has kept the bloody and tawdry race going and prevented the second coming of the Messiah complete with the palm waving MSM singing “Hosannas” as he prepared to enter the New Jerusalem on the East Coast. Without the continued animation of the Clinton campaign corpse all the slimy and unattractive Obama associations would not have been uncovered and Jeremiah Wright (honorific title withheld) would not be a household name.
Barack has been shaken and injured by the continued hard questions and undoubtedly wishes he could have that last debate washed from the public memory. There is now blood in the water and the sharks of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy smell it and are circling. Obama may grab the nomination and even the white house, but he is not the man he once was and we’ll have to see how much damage has been done not just to his campaign and image, but to the Democratic party in general. There is now great animosity between large segments of Obama’s and Clinton’s core supporters.
And that really is the goal here which I heartily endorse; to turn the blood sucking piranhas of the Democratic party on themselves in a orgy of disorder and political destruction. A wise man once said that a house divided against itself cannot stand. The GOP hopes that is indeed true.
Plus it is all fun to watch, incredibly entertaining, I desperately want to see a brokered convention, and it stokes the fire of the blogging machine. What more could you want?
“We’re going to try our hardest not to be violent“–Recreate68! leader Glenn Spagnuolo on plans for the 2008 Democratic National Convention
Now yours truly is probably the most “take it to the streets” kind of activist of all the Conclub bloggers and I am considering making a trip up to Denver to be a part of the hysteria and mayhem of the Democratic National Convention. It may provide a great opportunity for some first hand accounts of the convention and perhaps a few good pics for the blog to boot. I have my trusty don’t tread on me flag protest flag that perhaps could be supplemented by a good “Socialists are Scum” or “The only choice is victory in the War on Terror” or “Death to Terrorists” sign if I can find my way in with a large enough group of right wingers to protest with (there is some safety in numbers).
I made the mistake of innocently wading into a large and angry crowd of Clinton/Gore supporters back in the early nineties as Gore made an appearance at a local airport following a bomb threat at a local high school where he had been scheduled to speak. I had several females with me. At the tail end as the crowd was beginning to break up I was surrounded by what was little more than an angry mob. The girls had their Bush (the first) for president signs ripped up and I was punched a couple times by one person in the crowd before he was restrained as well as being pushed around by several others. Luckily, there were several members of the local campus anarchist group on hand that formed up right behind me (I was friendly with one of their leaders) and “had my back” if things really got out of hand (I didn’t realize it at the time though, he described the scene and told me about it later). Rather scary but we made it out all right. I complained to a cop we finally found as we were finally leaving about the pathetic security and the Leftist lynch mob by the airstrip and he basically told me I asked for it by being there so that was that.
I also suffered an injured shoulder when I had an American flag and pole torn out of my hand at a support the troops rally at the state capitol a couple years ago by the occupant of a passing vehicle. So for me to go and get my butt kicked or tear gassed up in Denver would be about right and perfectly in character. My political “protest” kit does contain a Russian army surplus gas mask that I carry on my side to help reduce the chances of being incapacitated by mace or tear gas so I might be alright if Recreate68! turns into a Chicago police riot. I can’t say if I would really make it up there (can you imagine trying to find a parking space?) but you never know. It kind of sounds like fun and I would really hate to miss being a part of this historical event. It’s always fun to say “I was there”.
Today our neighbors to the south and a few, ahem, visitors in our country celebrate their victory over the French in the battle of Puebla. Everyone has a holiday celebrating a victory over the French. Even the French!
Traffic was curiously light driving into work this morning. However, I suspect that the percentage of unlicensed drivers dropped dramatically.
BTW, I tried to find the most sterotypical, politically incorrect image on the internet to attach to this decidedly politically incorrect post. I think I done good.
This just cracked me up. One of my few OMG moments I guess. I drove the two oldest daughters to a right wing fundamentalist indoctrination meeting this evening…er, I mean to a youth gathering at another Foursquare church for 8 to 12 year olds that featured a prominent speaker teaching on the ‘Jesus at the temple when he was twelve’ story. On the way home I was listening to the weekend edition of Rush and he was playing the following song. This is a shot at Al Sharpton and if you’ve been following their recent feud it makes it all the more funnier. I’m kinda surprised he can get away with this stuff, but it’s good theatrics. This is not an original Rush creation, but due to his large audience base his decision to broadcast it has stirred up a bit of controversy. Don’t miss this.
Barack the Magic Negro
This was apparently inspired by an article in the Los Angeles Times on March 19th titled “Obama the Magic Negro“.
This unfortunately describes me as I finally take the blogging seat after a full day of working outside. After three decades (and then some) on the face of this planet one would think I would make the connection between long hours of exposure to a hot sun and the resulting burning and redness of exposed skin that I am experiencing at the moment. You could cook an egg on the back of my neck.
I spent several hours putting up a somewhat amateurish, semi-permanent, but effective fence around my garden to keep the dogs and my four year old out of it. Pounding metal stakes into hard ground is probably a fun and pleasant pastime to some, but a rather time consuming and physically demanding task for a sedentary person who has spent all winter either sitting at home blogging or sitting at work doing whatever it is I do there. It’s easy to come up with elaborate plans in the middle of Feb. while in the comfort of an office chair in a heated abode. It is quite another actually implementing it for six hours on a Sunday afternoon exposed to the elements. I also planted 14 pansies today and transplanted a bunch of tomato plants I am trying to successfully raise from seed (just another side experiment) from one size pot to another.
I also started to prepare the garden for planting. I hired a gentleman to come out and rototill it on Sat. morning for $25.00 (interestingly enough was “Dave’s Rototilling”) and today I set up a number of wooden stakes, support fencing and tomato cages. I am also trying something called “depression gardening” which is actually the complete opposite of raised bed or hill gardening. It is designed to reduce the amount of water needed to raise a crop and relies on hand watering instead of more wasteful sprinkler watering. Everything is planted in shallow “bowls” about four to six inches deep and approximately three feet in diameter. Other crops can be planted in short rows (like carrots) but also noticeably lower than the surrounding ground level. This is not a wise plan in a wetter climate, but in a dry, semi-arid climate like it is here you don’t really run the risk of large amounts of standing water that the hill and raised bed school of thought is concerned about.
This is my first attempt at an all out 14×40 garden with a large variety of crops. I have done some limited gardening over the last couple of years but this is the big time, baby. Farmer Dave is wading in with a shovel in one hand and a hoe in the other suffering from sunburn and dehydration. It is a take no prisoners, spare no weeds, operation that hopefully will end in a harvest that will be able to feed a small Caribbean island nation.
My daughters were funny today. They are not used to seeing me working outside all day and about every hour or so one or more of them would wander out to ask “whatcha doin’ ” and apparently check on the progress of my project. The four year old was also frequently stopping by to ask ”can I help”. I put her to work watering the fruit trees and the strawberries so she felt useful. She also made sure that various edging stones, gravel beds and bare dirt got watered as well proving she is a multi-capable and multi-talented waterer.
Overall, the day was a good one. My eleven year old proclaimed my fence to be a success, I got what I wanted accomplished, and the only casualty was my wife who had a heavy decorative edging stone that was up on a railroad tie fall over onto her toes putting her out of commission (we don’t think any are broken but they are scraped, bloody and swollen).
Next weekend. Fertilization of the yard and the first early plantings of peas, lettuce and perhaps another item or two.
I had to read this three times before I realized he was being serious:
“The bridge in Minneaplois didn’t collapse because there wasn’t enough money. The bridge in Minneapolis collapsed because so much money was spent on wasteful, unnecessary pork-barrel projects.” -St. McCain
This is a man who supports a ridiculous “Gas Tax Holiday”, which would, you know, drain much needed money from the Highway Trust Fund. I’m still waiting to read the bill if he ever bothers to show up at work to introduce it. Earmarks account for about $18 billion dollars a year (or about two months in Iraq, for those keeping score at home). Even his probable VP choice had to back up and say that this is crazy talk.
If the Dems can’t beat this guy, then we deserve the next four years.
Someday, as a wise old men, I’ll be sitting in a rocking chair surrounded by my grandchildren whispering the story about the “three little pigs” and telling them about a silly cartoon character (undoubtedly banned by then) named Porky Pig. Aw yes, to spend my golden years reminiscing about the good old days when our actions were not dictated by outsiders, immigrants and foreign religions.
Anyone up for some pork tonight?
Though the notion may seem more appropriate for a comedy routine, an increasing number of pig-related incidents, accommodations and Muslim demands in recent years points to an uncertain future for our porcine friend and its place in our economy, culture and our culinary traditions.
In October of 2005, the United Kingdom, clearly further along on the road to dhimmitude due to its proportionally large and more radical Muslim population, banned piggybanks as promotional gifts from its banks. At about the same time, government social welfare offices called for the removal of all pig paraphernalia, including pig calendars, toys and accessories from employee desks. These new regulations were ostensibly implemented so as not to offend Muslim patrons.
Meanwhile, in the United States in 2007, several school districts removed pork products from their cafeteria offerings. Dearborn, Mich., schools banned pork completely to avoid the possibility that Muslims students might unknowingly eat it. The district later added special halal foods to its menu to cater to the demands of its Muslim population. An elementary school in San Diego that offers Arabic, single-gender classes and Muslim-only organized prayer, no longer offers pork to any of its students. And in Oak Lawn, Ill., where the administration is debating elimination of Christmas holiday celebrations, pork has already been banished from the school lunchroom.
Orthodox Jews, who follow kosher laws that prohibit the consumption of pork, have never demanded such special considerations for their chosen dietary habits nor have Jews feared accidental pork ingestion. They privately moderate their consumption according to their religious observances and often consume food prepared at home according to prescribed regulations.
If they can’t even run their primary system, how do they expect us to trust them to run the country? I just hope he is smart enough, and savvy enough in regards to history, to not try to count each one as three-fifths of a delegate. That would be bad.
Howard Dean: Florida and Michigan Delegations Will Be Seated (well maybe, maybe not, he’s not sure)
Representative quotes:
STEWART: If I were designing a plan to submarine your chances, and again, you don’t have to follow my advice here, I would take the state that was, let’s say crucial to the Republican election chances — lets, let’s call it Florida — and I would find a way to insult them. Maybe not seat them at the convention, that sort of thing. Then I would pick a Rust Belt state, maybe a Michigan, and say to them the same. Now you’ve got two states that are angry with you. Do you think that would be a good way?
DEAN: Well, we’re actually going to seat them at the convention.
STEWART: What?! This is news! Are you really going to do that?
DEAN: We’re going to find a way to seat them at the convention.
START: Are you really going to?
DEAN: Yeah.
STEWART: How — how can you do that when their results don’t count?
DEAN: Well, it’s a little hard, but we’re gonna do it.
. . . .
It’s gonna be quite a juggling act, but we’re gonna do it. You cannot have a Democratic convention without Florida and Michigan.
Stewart also asked Dean why Michigan and Florida don’t have to follow the rules. Dean replied: “They do. That’s why they lost their delegates.”
I don’t get it either.
Finally, Dean argued that the Democrats’ system is “still more democratic than the [system used by the] Republicans” — you know, the system where the voters choose all the delegates. Stewart let him get away with that one.
Watch it all, if you can stand it.
Jeremiah Wright Hates Amerika, and Barack HUSSEIN Obama listened to him for twenty years edition
“Methodist Coloring Book”
The insanity goes on and on and on.
Jose Canseco is doing something that he did not do much during his MLB career, walking….away from his Encino, California mansion. Is the jinglemail trend working it’s way up the economic ladder or is this just an individual financial crisis?
h/t Calculated Risk
Today is Holocaust Memorial Day and was commemorated in Israel by a complete standstill of the country and its people as they remembered those who died by the millions in the most systematic attempt at genocidal extermination the world has ever experienced.
Speech by the IDF Chief of the General Staff for the ‘March of the Living’
Here, on this cursed land, saturated with the blood of our brothers and sisters, descendants of the Jewish nation;
Here, in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp, the most evil place on the face of the planet, where our people, whose only crime was being Jewish, were tortured and murdered in gas chambers and crematoria;
Here, in the place where the Nazi oppressor reduced our humanity to serial numbers - no more names, no more faces, no identity - all that remained was a number branded on the forearm;
Here in this most dreadful place, I stand on Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Day, as the commander of the Israel Defense Forces.
With hundreds of Witnesses in Uniform by my side - joining the thousands of representatives of the IDF who come here every year, commanders of the ground forces, the Air Force and the Navy - the defending force of the Jewish people, reborn in its land - with tight lips, a coarse voice and tears in my eyes, yet still standing tall - I salute to the ashes of our people and vow: ‘Never Again.’
We, soldiers of the IDF, emissaries of a country and of a nation, stand here today wearing the IDF uniform and carrying the flag of the State of Israel with pride in the name of the tens of thousands of the IDF warriors and commanders. We consider ourselves the executor of the last will and testament, the dream and the silent prayer of our six million Jewish brothers and sisters whose existence was brutally expunged by the Nazi oppressor.
“When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [i.e. biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.” -Ben Stein, taking the last train to Crazy Town.
Every time I agree with The Derb, a little part of me dies, but he is quite the blind squirrel. What the hell is this happy horseshit? I used to think of Stein as an amusing little guy who had a few kooky views, but I still enjoyed his game show. Now he has come out with something that makes the moronic “Banana Theory” seem downright sane. Oy.
“Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom? Congress shall have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American … The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the People.”
— Tench Coxe, 1788.
Nobody thinks clearly, no matter what they pretend. Thinking’s a dizzy business, a matter of catching as many of those foggy glimpses as you can and fitting them together the best you can. That’s why people hang on so tight to their beliefs and opinions; because, compared to the haphazard way in which they’re arrived at, even the goofiest opinion seems wonderfully clear, sane, and self-evident. And if you let it get away from you, then you’ve got to dive back into that foggy muddle to wangle yourself another to take its place.
–the Dain Curse, Dashiell Hammett
I kinda feel like that too I think. Not that I wanna argue about it or anything.
For all of you who told us how wonderful this war was going to be, about stories of WMD and al-Qaeda ties, of cakewalks and how reconstuction was going to pay for itself, how Iraq would be a shining democracy that would be the envy of every Middle East nation, how it was worth the price in blood and treasure:
A toast to you.
Five frakkin’ years. I hope it was worth it.
There’s stupid, theres idiotic, and then there’s this
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7174760.stm
I was speechless after watching this. It’s amazing nobody was hurt or killed.
I think somebody needs more than a spanking, maybe military school is the answer. His actual punishment: One weekend without video games. My father would have killed me. The fear of him alone would have never allowed me to even contemplate the idea of something this stupid, especially at 7.
Serious question, what do we do with kids like this? It seems he is destined to a life of crime if at the ripe old age of 7 he believes “It’s fun to do bad things”, is already sneaking smokes with his 7 year old buddy, is stealing cars and ultimately getting away with it all.
Wow
It’s a sad, sad day in the studio.
PARIS — Albert Hofmann, the mystical Swiss chemist who gave the world LSD, the most powerful psychotropic substance known, died Tuesday at his hilltop home near Basel, Switzerland. He was 102.
“Alienation from nature and the loss of the experience of being part of the living creation is the greatest tragedy of our materialistic era. It is the causative reason for ecological devastation and climate change.
Therefore I attribute absolute highest importance to consciousness change. I regard psychedelics as catalyzers for this. They are tools which are guiding our perception toward other deeper areas of our human existence, so that we again become aware of our spiritual essence. Psychedelic experiences in a safe setting can help our consciousness open up to this sensation of connection and of being one with nature.
LSD and related substances are not drugs in the usual sense, but are part of the sacred substances, which have been used for thousand of years in ritual settings. The classic psychedelics like LSD, Psilocybin and Mescaline are characterized by the fact that they are neither toxic nor addictive. It is my great concern to separate psychedelics from the ongoing debates about drugs, and to highlight the tremendous potential inherent to these substances for self-awareness, as an adjunct in therapy, and for fundamental research into the human mind.
It is my wish that a modern Eleusis will emerge, in which seeking humans can learn to have transcendent experiences with sacred substances in a safe setting. I am convinced that these soul-opening, mind-revealing substances will find their appropriate place in our society and our culture.“
Dr. Albert Hofmann
Thursday, 19th April 2007
I hope someday that psychedelics/entheogens find their place in the medical world. Those who have experienced the dimensions of the mind that these compounds unlocked and revealed know that there is something very special, and very different about them. Their clinical uses for exploring the human mind has barely scratched the surface. New studies have recently begun with very positive results offering new hope in the treatment of various addictions, mental disorders and post traumatic stress conditions.
Seeing them scheduled the same as heroin and cocaine, drugs that devastate lives and are highly addictive, is such an injustice.
Experiences on psychedelics tend to make one realize how powerful the human consciousness really is. For many of us, those experiences changed our lives for the better.
I guess you just had to have been there and back to understand.
God speed, Dr. Albert.
St. Albert by Alex Grey–www.alexgrey.com–presented to Dr.Hofmann on his 100th Birthday
Greek islanders seek to reclaim term ‘Lesbian’
One of the plaintiffs said Wednesday that the name of the association, Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, “insults the identity” of the people of Lesbos, who are also known as Lesbians….
….Lambrou said the word lesbian has only been linked with gay women in the past few decades. “But we have been Lesbians for thousands of years,” said Lambrou, who publishes a small magazine on ancient Greek religion and technology that frequently criticizes the Christian Church.
And I thought being an “Okie” or a Las Vegan was bad. Hi, my name is Dave and I’m a Lesbian.
Is it fair to judge someone by the company they keep?
“Take [William] Ayers. Obama makes it sound as if the relationship consists of having run into each other at the DMV. In fact, Obama’s political career was launched in a 1995 meeting at Ayers’ home. Obama’s own campaign says that they maintain ‘friendly’ relations. Obama’s defense is that he was 8 when Ayers and his Weather Underground comrades were planting bombs at the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol and other buildings. True. But Obama was 40 when Ayers said publicly that he doesn’t regret setting bombs. Indeed, he said, ‘I feel we didn’t do enough.’ Would you maintain friendly relations with an unrepentant terrorist?… As people begin to learn about this just-arrived pretender, the magic dissipates. He spent six weeks in Pennsylvania. Outspent Hillary more than two to one. Ran close to 10,000 television ads—spending more than anyone in any race in the history of the state—and lost by 10 points. And not because he insufficiently demagogued NAFTA or the other ‘issues.’ It was because of those ‘distractions’ —i.e., the things that most reveal character and core beliefs.”
No, this isn’t the infidel babe of the day or even a tasteless attempt at humor or tantalization. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Disney good girl Miley Cirus aka Hannah Montana who decided that appearing seductively with a borderline “come hither” look at the age of fifteen for Vanity Fair was somehow “artsy”. I guess you get to make the call.
Artsy or Skanky?
“Annie took, like, a beautiful shot, and I thought it was really cool. That’s what she wanted me to do, and you can’t say no to Annie.” She also said of the photo, “I think it’s really artsy. It wasn’t in a skanky way.” - Miley Cirus
What’s kind of sad about this whole thing is that we, as a culture, almost insist that our young women must become Paris Hiltons and Lyndsay Lohans. Sad. I suppose I’ve b
I was wrong and I have been punished 