Having passed on the excellent opportunity to send my banking information to Sth Africa, I am in receipt of yet another splendid email offer:
I am only dealing with SERIOUS people."
Well, that's very biased...do not SILLY people have the same right as their SERIOUS brethern to earn a $1000 per hour? This sounds like a brief for the ACLU and maybe some seriously silly CNN face time.
:::Let's see::::what was that 800 number, Bob?:::
Anne Lamont easily takes the Crazy Bint award from Mo Dowd with an incredibly stupid article. No link... I refuse to send my readers to Slag-on.com. Russell Wardlow sets her straight and then some:
The last strong gasp of color tonight. It was very warm and still in the Bay Area today.
Some calls it Summer, we calls it earthquake weather.
Okay! My chance to get into the uber-rich two percent bracket just arrived in email.
I have the mandate of two of my senior colleagues to search
discreetly and diligently for a partner that could assist us
concerning a business matter which will be of mutual benefit to all.
We do require your assistance in the transfer of US$15,5M(Fifteen
Million, Five Hundred Thousand USD) abroad.The amount US$15,5M represents an over-invoiced contract amount that
was executed for my Ministry by a mining company, which has since
gone into liquidation. Although the actual contract amount was paid
to the company, the over-invoiced amount of US$15,5M has since been
lying in the Ministry’s escrow account at the Reserve Bank of South
Africa pending proper proof of claim. We are privy to this classified
information by virtue of our position in the ministry. We have
successfully secured payment approval for it.More so, we are handicapped in the very circumstances, as the South
African Civil Service "Code of Conduct" does not allow us to operate
offshore accounts hence your importance in this whole transaction.
No shit Sherlock.
Can Mo Dowd get anymore tiresome? Dredging up hackneyed 60's references to taunt the Bushies is so over. Will Mo channel Valley girls next? How clever. not.
The orange warning may not mean much to the cosseted elites on the upper west side, but it resonates with the rest of us who work in high rises, public buildings, fly and cross bridges daily...plenty.
Guess I better write something...soon.
Ever notice how Tuesday-after-a-holiday funk is different than regular Monday ennui? Is it funkier? or am I just rambling on? Could be.
:::stalling:::
Oh hell, go here and I'll be back later.
[hat tip to Fragmented Fred]
An American failure in Iraq or another bogus anti-American story by our self-loathing press? I read this story late last night and decided to go to bed without comment.
Steve Rittenhouse, of Horsefeathers, has it covered:
John Little does it again:
Click on image for link and another unphotoshopped image
Terror threat by al-Qaeda stuns Norway
How sad...Norway long, long ago strode the earth, fierce and proud...now they quake and point to their neighbors crying "Oh you must mean Denmark".
Marduk adds: "Keep dreaming, bucko. An infidel is an infidel. Just like a Jew is a Jew. Welcome to the club."
Indeed.
Seems Gov. Dean's got hisself a blog and what the media call a blog/Internet savvy campaign manager, Joe Trippi . Oh yeah? Then how come Trippi doesn't understand that the web in general is more politically Libertarian than main stream and bloggers in particular are not an exploitable demographic. Hell, we're not even as organized as a herd 'o cats.
Of course, the big difference between a public forum, paid political space and this blog is that I fund it. I decide who and what will appear in this space. Barging into comments with long screeds will not win blogger hearts and minds. I can hardly wait to see what a few of my fav saber-tooth blogcats: Andrea , Misha, Frank J and Laurence have to say.
Anyone who writes critically about Dean can expect his copy to be chewed up by this army of zealous Dean Internet scribes. When I wrote a piece recently that contained a few paragraphs about Dean, a member of the Dean2004 blog team filed an almost 2,000-word entry slicing my article up into sections with labels such as "true," "false," "inadvertently true," and "foolish." Not content with this, the Dean blogosphere recently established a rapid-reaction team called the Dean Defense Forces (DDF)—an e-mail list of hard-core Dean supporters who swiftly push back with e-mails, letters to the editor, blog entries, and phone calls against anyone spreading anti-Dean sentiments. "When he gets attacked, we'll respond," pledges the DDF's organizer, Matthew Singer, a 20-year-old college student in Montana who once blogged about Dean on his own site, Left in the West.
Oh yeah, these guys are good...screeds, spam and blogspot...now that's blog savyy awright. Uh-huh. Yawn. I've already lost interest.
[Via Instapundit]
Psychiatrists at S.F. convention get dose of reality on streets
Members of the nation's largest psychiatric association discovered San Francisco's mentally ill homeless problem up close this week, as they stepped out of their annual convention and were surprised -- some say shocked -- by the legions of people living on the street.
The worst, however, came when an official of the American Psychiatric Association, a Baltimore doctor known for being an advocate for the indigent mentally ill, was assaulted by an apparently homeless man with a history of psychiatric problems.
"It's kind of shocking," said James McNulty, head of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. "I've been walking around the hotels and up the hill to Fisherman's Wharf. It was very disheartening."
My company bailed five years ago when we had to roll street people away from the door and step over human waste in the morning. A casual broken-car- window pool became a running joke in the building cafe. SF is awash in <i>homeless</i>...not all are mentally ill. Many are part of a street-wise homeless counterculture who use the monthly cash stipend to supplement their drug and alcohol habit.
Of course the good doctors and our uber-liberal pols see it as a funding issue, not a failed policy which created waves of homeless during Mayor Art Agnos's term. Agnos suspended the rousting of homeless and began to fund cash assistance and flea bag hotels.
Proposition N created a means to to defund the cash payments and provide real solutions. However as you might expect the courts intervened and the Board of Supes dithered.
Meanwhile, Supervisor Gavin Newsom, who wrote the "Care Not Cash" proposition, asked the Board of Supervisors to adopt his original plan. The measure would reduce the city's welfare payments to roughly 3,000 of San Francisco's homeless residents from the $320 to $395 a month they receive now to $59 a month plus housing -- including at shelters -- and food.
Just as Liberals clung to the welfare state long past it's obvious failure point, so they cling to treating homelessness by enabling the entrenched homeless to live on our streets. Summer will bring a new influx of young run-away hustlers to prey on tourists...some will stay and adapt to life on the streets of San Francisco. Why not?
Weeeell, before you pull attitude, make demands and leave a minscule tip for the server or bartender...you might want to take a look at The Bitter Waitress to see if you're in the Shitty Tipper Database.
"Yes, revenge is a dish best served in a black pleather Amex folder. "
Excellent site that tracks the bad manners and celebrity assclown's poor tipping habits ....there's a little gossip about Da Mayor Willie Brown being a lousy tipper...it figures; all hat and no cattle.
via Side Salad
Susanna Cornett of Cut on the Bias hosts this week's Carnival. Susanna establishes a new niche on the Carnival Side Show for blogs about "place". Check it out...no pole dancing clowns... but plenty to make even the most discriminating blogfan happy.
Finally! A bit of summer weather...no fog ...yet. Hear tell, the fog bank will blow in tomorrow about 4:00PM as usual. Had to take some accrued vacation time this week. I've deserted the helm for an afternoon or reading, napping and sipping ice tea on the garden lounge...so sue me.
"Eee-eee-eeeh, ee-ee-eeah, ee-eee-eeh".
Hundreds of multi-colored goats munch down the dense shoulder-high vegetation on our hill... not far from where the "91 Firestorm eruped. Prolonged spring rains carpeted the hills with an unusally lush growth of wildflowers and grass. Six-foot high stands of wild fennel and Queen Anne's Lace, acres of oat and rye grass, thickets of lupin and blackberry enterwined with young oak and pine trees are very pretty at the moment but in just a few short weeks it will dry, turn pale and become an inferno-in-the-waiting.
The Goat Guy has arrived with his gaggle of goats, Bernese herding dogs and an old but well maintained Airstream trailer. Happily the goats are a perfect solution...no more roaring weed wackers, chain saws and wood chippers at dawn. For the next week, we will have the pleasure of arising to gentle bleating and the sight of goats scrampering about on the hill...joyful in their work.
Looks like the Dems may be on to something here...now if we could only persuade Gov. Gray Davis to take a hike to Oregon.
Davis Budget Calls For Tax Hikes, Service Cuts
--Plan Would Borrow More Than $10 Billion Toward Deficit
By the end of the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, the state will have spent about $10.7 billion more than it has collected. If unchecked, that total will reach $38.2 billion by July 2004.
Davis proposes paying off the $10.7 billion deficit by selling bonds to be paid for by a temporary half-cent increase in the state sales tax, which is part of an $8.3 billion package of new taxes in the upcoming 2003-04 fiscal year that starts July 1. That package also includes a hike in the car tax.
Even if his entire plan was adopted, Davis said, California will still have a deficit that would begin growing again next year if more cuts or tax hikes are not undertaken. Analysts say a new deficit could reach $7.9 billion by July 2005.
Teachers Across State Get Pink Slips
Some of the school districts that reported layoffs included:
-- Oakland, 400 of its 3,300 teachers
-- Sacramento, 270 of its 3,000 teachers.
-- San Francisco, 272 of its 4,000 teachers.
-- Pasadena, 78 of its 1,200 teachers.
Interesting isn't it? When Bush calls for in increase in borrowing the Dems scream the GOP is ransoming our grandchildren's future. When Bush calls for a decrease in spending the Dems claim the GOP is pushing Grannie down the stairs. However when one of their own, the governor of the most populous state and the world's sixth ranked economy does the same we hear?
Silence.
From Occam's Toothbrush:
THE REAL SCANDAL OF IRAQI RELIEFTHEY come from all over the world. Their supposed mission is to help the people of Iraq. Their concerned frowns and even their clothes all proclaim the message: "We're the good, caring people . . . and you're not."
But if actions speak louder than words, then many of the international charitable organizations called NGOs (non-governmental organizations) here are less interested in doing good works than in moral posturing and haranguing the army that won a war most of them opposed.
Ask any soldier who patrols this city, and you'll hear the same thing: The NGOs have been here for weeks, but they're not out in the streets. They cite "security concerns" - though journalists and soldiers alike move around the city, using common sense and taking precautions"
Now that is aggravating in of itself...but this unidentified speaker has to take the Fuckwit of the Year award:
Read the rest...it gets worse. Why are we allowing these asshats in-country to stir up dissent? If the US is portrayed as the bad guy, then I say let's live up to the rep...nothing to lose and the Iraqi's have much to gain. Run these losers out of Iraq. Now.
This Today Show video clip is flat-out funny. Watch for the group wearing Statue of Liberty hats.
Not work safe: boobage involved
(Hat tip to Krempasky)
This is mean...not.
Deck of Weasels Exposes America's Worst
It is distressing to note that the SF Bay Area has the makings of a flush with the Queen, Nine and Four of Diamonds...on the other hand a flush is exactly what we need.
Sidney Blumenthal -- much-hated former Clinton aide, ethically challenged former journalist -- $850,000 advance in hand, has a new book out on May 20, attacking everyone who ever attacked him or the Clintons, rehearsing once again the old right-wing conspiracy, every attack on them, answered. The right wing conspiracy revived, answered, again.
Hillary's book is next.
Could someone please tell these people to shut up?
Even Uber Dem strategist Susan Estrich is weary of the Clinton's sucking the oxygen from the political arena. However the more the Clintonistas speak, the deeper the hole they dig for the Nine Dwarves and themselves.
Speaking of Grumpy, Sleepy and Happy, et al...did you notice that Sleazy has been dropped by Disney four days after his announcement?
Heh. Maybe Wimmer has a spare seat on the Berlin flight.
A few noteworthy items from Jeff at Side Salad...a smorgasbord of tidbits and tasty morsels:
"Here's something you don't see every day: a very, very cool Flash treatment of The Beatles' song "Get Back" that takes you to various perspectives on the street where they performed their final concert in 1969 on the rooftop of their Apple Records offices.
Take your time and drag your mouse around the displays. There are lots of hidden gems. Click on the red boxes to be taken to a new perspective."
(Have a look at the whole site...best on broadband)
A deeply disturbing link. I don't know what to say...it's just wrong.
Circus clown hurt in pie gag“It’s the circus, and anything can happen,” said spokeswoman Andrea Suponcic. “It’s an occupational hazard.”
A quick clown car Googling found this curiousity:
Subject: AIRBORNE CLOWN CAR INCURSION AVOIDANCE PRACTICES
Date: 02/10/03
Initiated by: AFS-306
AC No.: 20-97B
Change:
1. PURPOSE. This advisory circular (AC) provides recommended
operating procedures for avoiding airborne clown car (ACC)
incursions in congested airspace. Specifically, this AC provides
guidance on maneuvers and communications practices recommended for
clown car incidents. This AC is not mandatory and does not
constitute a regulation. It is issued for guidance purposes and
to outline acceptable clown car avoidance practices. In lieu of
following these guidelines without deviation, operators may elect
to follow alternative methods that have also been found acceptable
by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
2. CANCELLATION. AC 20-97A, Recursive Federal Guideline Decoding,
dated May 13, 1987, is cancelled.
3. RELATED REGULATIONS AND DOCUMENTS.
a. Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR):
(1) Part 91, General Operating and Flight Rules.
(2) Part 23, Airworthiness Standards: Normal, Utility, Acrobatic, and
Commuter Category Airplanes.
4. BACKGROUND.
a. The Federal Aviation Administration has received an alarming
number of reports of airborne clown cars in restricted airspace.
Clown cars are not necessarily forbidden from entering the National
Airspace System, provided that they meet applicable FAA airworthiness
guidelines and maintain appropriate VFR or IFR clearances. In many
cases, however, these bozos fail to establish two-way communications
before entering tower-controlled airspace, and there are reports of
clown cars operating within Class B airspace without appropriate
clearances. The FAA refuses to clown around with such serious
violations of airspace policy.
b. Although air-to-air ordnance is generally restricted to military
aircraft, the FAA has experimented with allowing limited air-to-air
armaments to be carried aboard civil aircraft for the purposes of
curtailing the waxing clown threat and handling other uncourteous VFR
pilots.
5. CLOWN INCURSION AVOIDANCE.
a. Identifying Clown Cars. Although, from a distance, clown cars
look much like other aircraft, they are easily recognizable by their
tasteless color schemes and distinct lack of wings. Many clown cars
carry public address horns and distribute a harmless chemical compound
sold under the trade name "Silly String" in flight. NOTE: authorized
clown cars are equipped with Mode-S transponders and must always
squawk 7776.
b. Tracking Clown Activity. Upon positively identifying a clown car,
airmen are asked to provide a report to the nearest Flight Service
Station, upon which an appropriate SIGMET will be issued for the area.
Local radar facilities shall attempt to identify and track the
reported clown activity, and provide Clown Traffic Advisories to local
VFR traffic.
c. ATC Clearances. When airborne clown activity has been reported
within 10 statute miles of a controlled airfield within the past six
hours, controllers shall advise all departing aircraft that clowns
are in the area. This advisory shall be given either on clearance
delivery or ground control contact (pre-taxi), or on tower contact
before takeoff, at the ATC facility's discretion.
6. CLOWN AVOIDANCE MANEUVERS. Clowns are a shifty and unpredictable
bunch, and as such, pilots are advised to apply sudden and random
maneuvers when in proximity to unlicensed airborne clowns. Pilots are
authorized to exceed pitch and bank limitations in clown car incursion
situations.
7. AIR-TO-AIR MISSILES. Authorization to carry and fire AIM-9
Sidewinder missiles at clown cars and rude VFR pilots, but not
obnoxious air traffic control facilities, is hereby granted.
8. ELEVATED CAUTION LEVEL. Having received credible reports of clown
activity, the Administration has raised the nationwide Clown
Caution Level to RED (Utter Panic). Better hide in your basement.
A great sunset tonight...the photos were taken about 10 minutes apart looking over Berkeley, Pt. Richmond and the San Rafael Bridge towards Marin.
Seems I'm on a roll today...so on to the next asshat.
You've prolly seen or heard of the SUV tickets that Earth on Empty is encouraging tree huggers to print out and leave on SUVs.
My question to the Brains on Empty over at EOE is what of the wasted paper and the toxic printer consumables that their little stunt produces? They claim
"Over a million tickets served in 500 cities and 48 states."
How many of a MILLION tickets end up in storm drains increasing water pollution or littering 500 city streets?
Does it not seem counter productive for a conservation organization to encourage the waste of paper products, and to increase the number of printer cartridges going to the landfill? I guess it's the old ends-serves-the-means justification that the Liberal left is so fond of when it serves their purposes.
Of course it would be a waste of time to point out that the SUV craze began and peaked during the Clinton Administration since this group will only hold Republicans to account.
"Figure 3: Consumers’ average expenditures for each light truck [SUV] were greater than for cars in every year between 1991 and 2001. This chart shows, however, that the total amount spent by consumers for light trucks did not exceed the total spent for cars until 1999." --The Road Ahead for the US Auto Industry (Acrobat Reader Required)
The Clintonistas could have tightened DOT regulations and required SUVs to adhere to passenger car, not truck specifications anytime during the their eight year tenure in office. Why didn't they consider the environmental impact when the SUV caught on during the mid-90's market boom? Could be that they are too beholding to the unions? Or that a percentage of the GNP is based on auto sales, and SUV in particluar?
Not entirely humorless, EOE posted this reader response on their website, unfortunately without a credit. Print them out folks, slap them on every hybrid and auto with a Liberal/Tree Hugger/Dem bumpersticker/decal.
Click on thumbnail for full size image
UPDATE: Tree huggers might want to think twice before ticketing one of These.
...has begun in Cannes. A steady parade of self-righteous, sycophantic entertainment types will seek to curry favor and publicity in the French press by claiming they are being unfairly censored or oppressed in the US by the Bush administration. Film maker Wim Wenders seems to think that consumers refusing to buy products produced by people with whom they disagree is "McCathyism". Funny, all this time, I thought it was freedom of association and a free market place.
The 50's blacklisting was a cowardly, shameful response by the movie/entertainment industry. The studios didn't have the balls to stand up to the govt...even though they controlled the PR machine. Blacklists are only effective when the people who hold the means of production/distribution enforce them. The blacklisting was done to protect profits. Who do these people think they are fooling, Hollywood has zero integrity. They'll fold like a cheap suitcase if the product doesn't produce the expected grosses.
Buy a clue, asshat, a free market decides what they will endorse/buy...not whiny liberals.
CANNES, France (AFP) - German film director Wim Wenders said he was wondering whether to pack his bags and leave the United States because of the poisonous "almost McCarthyist" atmosphere there.
Wenders, who lives in the United States and was at the Cannes film festival to present his new film "The Soul of Man", said "right now I really feel like it" when asked whether he wanted to leave the country.
There was an "almost McCarthyist" response to critics of President George W. Bush's administration, he said. "Perhaps I should stay," Wenders said. "I don't know, I'm split about it."
Wenders previously quit New York in the early 1980s and gave back his "green card" working and residence permit because of anger over the administration of former US president Ronald Reagan.
"I have the same feelings at the moment, it's very disagreeable," he said.
Wenders will head a jury that will award the festival's Camera d'Or prize for best first feature-length film during his stay at the May 14-25 festival.
His film about Blues music is being screened out of competition at the festival.
Boo-fucking-hoo.
An thought provoking column by Keith H. Lockitch in The Intellectual Activist.
"This explains the left's hysterical outrage against the loss of a few dozen artifacts in Iraq, from some of the same people who abet the destruction of artifacts at home. It was just another excuse to denounce the West."
Ancient artifacts—whether Mesopotamian or North American—are not valuable as the crude leftovers of the past. They are valuable as objects of rational study, to help us understand mankind's origins and provide guidance for his future. The Code of Hammurabi, for example, is not valuable merely as cuneiform scratchings on ancient clay tablets. Its value derives from its role in the formation of the concept of law, which reached its culmination in the U.S. Constitution. But the multiculturalists want to tear down this living legacy of Western Civilization, for the sake of the dead superstitions left over from man's primitive beginnings.
This is an assault on Western ideas and values that makes the Iraqi museum looting seem innocent by comparison."
While you're there don't miss The Dead-Enders: The Self-Selected Casualties of the War in Iraq, by Robert W. Tracinski
(via Cox & Forkum)
Did you catch the eclipse last night? It was hazy in the Bay Area so my photos aren't worth publishing. However Frederic Larson, of the Chronicle took this neat shot over the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge from the Marin headlands looking back towards SF. We'll get another bite at the lunar eclipse apple in November.
UPDATE: Moon disappears! Zionist Neo-Conservative Cabal Prime Suspects!
THIS JUST IN: The Moon does not exist!&
"WASHINGTON POST STYLE has a contest in which readers submit instructions for doing various things, their choice, as written by famous authors. Jeff Brechlin of Potomac Falls recently won for the following, for wonderfully obvious reasons":
The Hokey Pokey (as written by W. Shakespeare)
O proud left foot, that ventures quick within
Then soon upon a backward journey lithe.
Anon, once more the gesture, then begin:
Command sinistral pedestal to writhe.
Commence thou then the fervid Hokey-Poke,
A mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl.
To spin! A wilde release from Heavens yoke.
Blessed dervish! Surely canst go, girl.
The Hoke, the poke -- banish now thy doubt
Verily, I say, 'tis what it's all about.
(Caged from Fred of Fragments from Floyd)
Caught in a wave of ennui... procrastinating...surfing whilst my delicates spin in the ole Maytag...then I stumbled onto posting on Blogcritics via Carnival of the Vanities #34.(sorry the link is no longer available)
World to End on May 15... You MAY Die!
Chino, in what she called her final statement issued on May 5, cryptically said, "It will be caused when electromagnetic waves strike the Japanese archipelago and the delicate gravitational balance between the Andromeda nebula and other nebulas is altered."
Well.
Guess I better hustle up a post or two for posterity and increase the bleach next load.
Iraqi Soldiers March to Demand Back Pay
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Just a month after their defeat at the Americans' hands, 300 Iraqi soldiers marched on the U.S. Army's main Baghdad base on Monday to demand back pay and a future in the new Iraq.
"We don't want American money or anyone else's money," said one air force sergeant, Ali Kadhim Mohammed, 32. "We have the oil wealth of Iraq. That's what we were paid with before, and that's what we want now."
Perhaps we should sort out exactly who was involved in this story before we hand out money:
15,000 bodies found in Babylon mass graves:
BAGHDAD (AFP) - The remains of 15,000 people killed by the regime of Saddam Hussein have been found in mass graves discovered last week in the central city of Hilla, site of ancient Babylon, the Iraqi National Congress said.
"In the last week, four sites have been discovered in Al-Hilla city alone, with approximately 15,000 bodies," said Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman of the group led by US-backed Ahmed Chalabi.
"Citizens are excavating with great sadness and no assistance, collecting bones. Mothers and fathers are trying to identify their children with ID cards and scraps of clothes that they were last seen in," he told reporters.
Amish was delinked by Tiger:
"Amish Tech Support was deleted from the blogroll today. Although Laurence's posts are often filled with his own unique humor, I sometimes find that he shows very little compassion for others. I forgive some of the animosity displayed for those of Islamic faith, as it is evident that Laurence is Jewish, but I could not conceive of any reason for the last comment in this post."
[editor-I don't know what being Jewish has to do with the "offending" post]
Lair replies:"Oh, fine. I retract my scorn and now commend the girl who killed herself while sliding down a balcony for volunteering herself as a demonstration of Natural Selection and gravity in a science museum. Now let's all hug.
If the intent of this post is to let me know your reasons for delinking/delogrolling, well, I'm not interested. If I were quaking-in-my-boots worried about my posts causing people to stop reading, I wouldn't post them in the first place.
On the other hand, if you're trying to explain your reasons as part of some awareness campaign to suggest to others that they ought to remove me from their blogrolls, then I'm more than happy to join that campaign Charles Foster Kane-style."
Judging by the comments on both sites, opinion differs.
So...in the interest of providing something other than opportunistic link-whoring and rabble rousing...ta da!
|
MUSEUMS for Dummies |
code compliments of Mandarin Design
...there are honest journalists. Finely finessed, moral equivocation, but a startling admission by Joanna Murray-Smith in the Melbourne Age:
"And yet, the World's Policeman did something no one else could or would do. It could have all gone horribly wrong, but it didn't. Civilians died, young men and women paid all kinds of prices and both Western and Iraqi children who lost fathers or homes have had their personal maps drastically redrawn by the hand of fate. But the fear and the torture is over. America, in all its infuriating arrogance, acted. Not so long ago, I dreaded this. And now, I have to admit, I was wrong."
Pity our newsaper of record hasn't decency to admit they were wrong...but then they're busy covering their behinds.
[This is what happens if you stuff the cat bed with catnip and leave home with MT logged on. --Feste]
JuSt cheCKkign 2 seE HOw tHis w0Rks. My huMAns went 2 sEe soMe m00n pITchErS an thot Eye'd Shay hellwo.
MoLLy
Not so fast: Jeez, This is ZoZo, the smarter one, Molly is a trash can wading moonbat that can't type for shit. We are hanging out in Feste's office looking for more stories about why Amish paints cats . BTW- Molly sez to tell you that she thinks Edloe is probably that Puce person.
ZoZo
hEh.
Zo tiNks sHe's s0oo SMarT, bUt eYe Kn0ws tags and heR buTT sHtinks.
bTw-EyE dident sAy thAt...FeStE tinKS AmIsh iS pUCe 0r weArs PucE..eye GeT ConFUseD...buT nARdo r00Ls.
m0llY
Update: cool, we found the add author menu...Feste will never figure this one out. ;-}
As grey skies begin to give way to sunshine, nature extends the wildflower show as a reward for enduring unseasonal rains.
"Sauntering in any direction, my feet would brush about a
hundred flowers with every step... as if I were wading in liquid gold"
-- John Muir describing the Central Valley of California in the spring of 1869
Ah, I am not alone...how obsessed is Lileks, really? Does he arrange his closet (and Gnats) by color and season?
I drive my fists into my temples. No! They have to be ordered by genre, author, and date!
But that looks so ugly. So rough. So . . . random and unplanned. Order them by height. Do it. Do it now.
Not being of hearty Lileks stuff, I caved...my books are not only arranged by height but color...tonal qualities carefully matched to the room decor. Really butt-ugly spines banished to the office where MishMash--the low lord of tech tomes-- reigns.
It looks so nissssssse.
"I am loath to think of an aircraft carrier being used as an advertising backdrop for a presidential political slogan, and yet that is what I saw," Byrd said on the Senate floor.
Let's see...as we approach the 2004 elections, the Democrats have going for them:
1) No agenda/policy
2) Sniping, whining candidates
3) Sour grapes
4) Florid speeches by Senator Pork
5) Investigations by Henry Waxman
Oh yeah that'll work.
Canival of the Vanities is up at Common Sense and Wonder with a fantastic imagemap index. Kudos!
Finding new blogs is exactly why I love the Carnival...even though I don't always participate I make a point of reading the entries. I added Common Sense of wonder to the daily reads.
While there, do read John Hudock's Why My 5-year Old is a Leftist.
I found this at Jeffrey Zeldman's whilst looking for a fix to my CSS dilemma.
Well THAT was fun. not.
Spent the last few hours converting some form pages from tables with nested div tags...works swimmingly in Mozilla...but the fuckingMicrosoftpieceofshit IE5.x ignores auto margin.
Can we just line the IE guys up and shoot them now?
Okay ...so you panicked and bought a shitload duct tape a while back. Now your kids won't have to sell it along with your bottle cap collection and the box of old spatulas.
The Duct Tape Guys got it covered.
A hat tip to Margi
While Dopey, Happy, Sleepy, Grumpy and Sneezy tilt at respective windmills and each other...Senator Hillary Clinton's stealth campaign chugs merrily along. Apart from a brief Tourette moment last week, Senator Clinton is making all the right moves since joining the Senate Armed Services Committee
Senator Clinton Announces Legislation to Establish "National Purple Heart Recognition Day"
"Senator Clinton also announced today that she would be attending the ceremony to launch the first issue of the Purple Heart Stamp in Newburgh, NY on May 30th."
Lieberman/Clinton in 04?
Two big lies are being spun by the Democrat presidential contenders and shamefully unchallenged by the media. 1) that the Dems balanced the budget--LIE--, and 2) that the successful military camapign in Iraq was a result of Clinton's military build-up --DAMNABLE LIE--.
Senator Kerry in particular seems to have forgotten Clinton's projected budget deficits running eleven years out. Prior to Republicans assuming control of Congress in 1995, President Clinton refused to embrace the idea of a balanced budget.
Lets address Lie #1, in which the Democrats seek to gain traction for the coming election:
Clinton's first three budgets -- released in 1993, 1994, and 1995 (for FYs 1994, 1995, and 1996 respectively), left deficits of $241.4 billion, $201.2 billion, and $194 billion by his own estimation (which CBO scored at $228.5 billion, $206.2 billion, and $276 billion respectively). In the meantime he vetoed the Republicans' budget in 1995 -- a budget that would have cut taxes and been the first to have balanced since 1969. Not until election year 1996 did he even aspire to balance, producing a budget that left an $81 billion deficit in its final year.
1998, the first year of a balanced budget was mostly a result of 1) an exceptionally strong economy based on the technology wave that created millions of new jobs and tax revenues [Just one percent change in unemployment would automatically change the deficit by nearly $60 billion in 1999 , $80 billion in 2000] and 2) a shrinking military budget. Social spending continued to soar and at a rate of $1 trillion in 1998.
The federal budget was not balanced by spending reductions. in 1998 Uncle Sam spent $150 billion more than in 1995. Over the past 10 years, the defense budget, adjusted for inflation, has been cut $100 billion, but domestic spending has risen by $300 billion.
The final Clinton budget for 2001:
Of the estimated $2.9 trillion in surpluses projected over the next 15 years, Clinton calls for $2.2 trillion, or more than 70 percent, to be used for debt reduction, although this is largely a bookkeeping operation, since this is money coming into the Social Security Trust Fund which would be used to buy back Treasury bonds, moving from one government account to another. Of the remaining $746 billion in surpluses, some $432 billion would be reserved to cover expected deficits in Medicare and Medicaid and to finance prescription coverage for the elderly. The balance would be split between a significant buildup of the American military and tax cuts.
More than half, or 54 percent, of the $1.84 trillion in spending for the next fiscal year went to entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and smaller retirement and disability programs, spending which is legally required. Another 11 percent, or $209 billion, will go to pay interest on previous borrowings. That leaves only 35 percent of the budget, some $634 billion, in discretionary spending, of which nearly half, or $279 billion, will go to the military. Combined with spending by the departments of Veterans Affairs and Energy (which handles the building of atomic weapons), military-related spending will account for more than half of all discretionary spending.
As for the claim that the White House had presented a plan to eliminate the national debt over the next 15 years, this has an unreal and even bizarre quality, since it is based on economic assumptions that would in the past have been considered absurd: that the current financial boom, already the longest in US history, will continue indefinitely, with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rates between 2.5 percent and 3.3 percent from now until 2010. Both the White House and the Congressional Budget Office made such projections, which implicitly assume that the capitalist business cycle has been abolished and that there will never again be an economic downturn, let alone a major recession.
Of course it is pretty easy to understand how Kerry and crew get away with this nonsense given the the mainstream media's complicity, a few quotes Googled up from 1994:
"The budget President Clinton submits to Congress Monday will be one of the tightest in memory, while his initiatives will mean cuts for some popular programs." -- Front-page "Inside" plug, February 6 Washington Post.
"The Clinton budget goes to Capitol Hill, and from the President on down, the administration goes all out to defend one of the tightest fiscal proposals in memory." -- CNN anchor Judy Woodruff beginning Inside Politics, February 7.
"Clinton had a role in keeping [interest rates] low by fighting and winning a battle for his budget bill last spring. That victory demonstrated to financial markets that Clinton was not going to be a big-spending Democrat." -- Los Angeles Times reporter James Flanigan, January 26.
Lie #2 is the most damning and deporable:
When Clinton exercised his line item veto, he used it most often to cut defense spending. Since the end of the Gulf War, our military has shrunk by more than 40 percent. The Navy can't adequately man its aircraft carriers, and the Army has been forced to reduce its ranks by more than 630,000 soldiers and civilians. Army divisions have dropped from 18 to 10, and over 700 installations at home and overseas have been closed. Nonetheless, under President Clinton, the U.S. Army has been called into action 26 times, racking up an incredible eleven-fold increase over just 10 such "operational events" that were conducted by the Army between 1960 and 1991.
Since 1990, the Air Force has declined from 36 active and reserve fighter wings to 20, downsizing 44 percent while experiencing a simultaneous four-fold increase in operational commitments.
In Clinton's final budget for 2001 military spending rose dramatically, no doubt resulting from the weaponery expenditure and shortcomings of Clinton and Cohen's feckless "Two-Campaign" theory exposed in the 1999 Yugoslavia campaign. However increased spending has not fully impacted the preparedness of the military in the field today. We have a record number of reserve units in Iraq and a shortage of civil affairs units, which is one reason contracts are being let to corporations. The military no longer has the manpower or capacity to rebuild civilian infrastructure.
Will such puffery work? Yes, and no. In the short term, primary voters will find the dog food tasty and want more. However, the national election will rise and fall on too many varibles to predict this far out, such nonsense as the above will not carry the day for the Dems. They need a policy outline with real solutions and they need it now.
The Arcata Eye* publishes the town's police log in doggerel and limerick...you must read it. all.
Saturday, March 1 11:38 p.m.
Across from the store
Drums resounded,
throbbingly
Then the fuzz homed in.
Monday, March 2 12:30 a.m. Those two women on the Plaza’s north side weren’t doing anything illegal.
12:58 a.m. The Deep Groove Society enlivened a rave “somewhere near the corner of Sixth and F streets.” Withal, the Net Gen wingding wound down.
Sunday, March 9 10:36 p.m. “Get away from me!” she screamed amid the sound of slamming doors and breaking glass. Police found a he, a she and a trailer park. The first two left with each other.
Sunday, March 23 1:52 a.m. Rumors of roiling turbulence at the donut shop proved unfounded.
Tuesday, March 25 8:57 a.m. A man in a green hooded jacket carried on the regurgitation tradition down at the Community Center, simultaneously gut-horking and digging through a trash can. Police asked him not to multitask in such a manner, in fact, not to be there at all.
9:14 a.m. A woman experienced the miracle of the digital age when she discovered someone, somewhere making charges on her credit card. And so the paperwork began.
Thursday, March 27 8:36 a.m. Someone spent the night in the cab of an old Dodge tow truck. Maybe we'll get a song out of it.
3:33 p.m. A merry quartet of subjects of the Magical (THC-induced) kingdom assembled "by the little castle" in Redwood Park, the better to suck the tool of their marijuana god. Enchantment subsided as hand-eye skills were severely tasked to scrawl sigs on cites.
4:22 a.m. Some kind of weird tangle that originated in Eureka culminated in a death threat in Valley West. Someone had a red car.
5:22 a.m. Another small red car in Valley West, and another report of someone going to "kill" a husband. It all dwindled off into yet another bout of Arcata's favorite pastime - parking lot yelling.
*Arcata is a small Northern California town known in the Bay Area for it's newspaper, Humbolt State and a mix of Liberal, Green, settler and logger/redneck culture.
What part of No Parking don't these asshats get? The fire hydrant, red curb or maybe the sign? Doncha just love how they parked between the hydrant and the sign...setting out their traffic cones. Wouldn't want a fire engine to damage a cable van now would we? Jeebus.
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Very grey and dreary today...big fat warm raindrops falling...Plop!...Pling!...Plop! Wednesday's warm afternoon and bright blue sky but a memory today...the 6" diameter blossoms of crimson "Altissimo" droop under their veil of crystal raindrops...the solar powered fountain silent under the glowering sky... misted orchids bobbing ever so slighty deep within their grotto of shade cloth and lattice. Waiting.
--Click on the pictures above for full size images (The images are large for readers on dialup).
Spring has come to Floyd County too...violets and raindrops...it doesn't get any better...unless you add dark chocolate. ::grin::
all the time...so much bet-ter.
We'll see what I can screw up next!
