A Little Knowledge...
...is a dangerous thing, and knowing how to do something thanks to a computer can be hilarious.
Seriously, take a look.
Teh gay homosexuals are too fast!!
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June 30, 2008
Understatement of the Day
It's somewhere in this quote:
A group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies to develop some of the largest fields in Iraq, American officials say.
The disclosure, coming on the eve of the contracts’ announcement, is the first confirmation of direct involvement by the Bush administration in deals to open Iraq’s oil to commercial development and is likely to stoke criticism.
I know, I know...the whole article is a shocker, but there is a sentence fragment in there that should make you do the full-forehead slap...
Nostalgia
I remember when I first heard this song, actually. It was an episode of Miami Vice, a show that, while the cheese is still apparent, is still enjoyable to me.
Our "enemies" seem to rotate but they're always willing to reintroduce us, right?
The Goal IS Confusion
Jim Peterman IS a very good and proud American:
FINDLAY, Ohio -- On his corner of College Street, Jim Peterman stares at the four American flags planted in his front lawn and rubs his forehead. Peterman, 74, is a retired worker at Cooper Tire, a father of two, an Air Force veteran and a self-described patriot. He took one trip to Washington in 1989 -- best vacation of his life -- and bought a statue of the Washington Monument that he still displays in a glass case in his living room.
He believes a smart vote is an American's greatest responsibility.
So far, so good, right?
Then we get to the second sentence of the short paragraph and start to sense trouble:
Which is why his confusion about Barack Obama continues to eat at him.
On the television in his living room, Peterman has watched enough news and campaign advertisements to hear the truth: Sen. Barack Obama, born in Hawaii, is a Christian family man with a track record of public service. But on the Internet, in his grocery store, at his neighbor's house, at his son's auto shop, Peterman has also absorbed another version of the Democratic candidate's background, one that is entirely false: Barack Obama, born in Africa, is a possibly gay Muslim racist who refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
"It's like you're hearing about two different men with nothing in common," Peterman said. "It makes it impossible to figure out what's true, or what you can believe."
Our president once referred to this method:
"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."—Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005
Unfortunately, repetition works for the truth and non-truth, as well as complete and utter bullshit.
Unfortunately.
June 29, 2008
Swipe, Swipe, Swipe...
Apparently the metaphorical hand grenades were being tossed this morning:
Gen. Wesley Clark, acting as a surrogate for Barack Obama’s campaign, invoked John McCain’s military service against him in one of the more personal attacks on the Republican presidential nominee this election cycle.
*
“He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn't held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded — that wasn't a wartime squadron,” Clark said.
“I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.”
It's a valid point, I think.
As valid a point as just what kind of person comes out of five-plus years in the Hanoi Hilton:
On June 20, 1996, Senator John McCain allegedly assaulted a family member of a Vietnam War prisoner of war (POW) who was missing in action (MIA), as a group of about 15 family members of POW/MIAs watched in astonishment. Within about one month, five ethics complaints had been filed with the Senate Ethics Committee by five eyewitnesses. But the Senate Ethics Committee refused to investigate the matter.
So if half of the McCain hothead stories are true, do you really want a maniac like that in office?
I don't.
I Wish It Were More Surprising
Scanning MoDo today, I found a couple of interesting things.
The insanity is still there:
This amenity did not stop the disunity. Carmella and her friends continued to cry, “Nobama!” “We love you, Hillary!” and “We need Hillary!” as Barack Obama sat onstage on a stool behind his former rival, his finger studiously at his lips.
Carmella was not impressed with all the kissing, laughing and whispering that Hill and Bam were diligently doing for the cameras, so that the moment could produce, as Obama press aide Robert Gibbs put it on “Larry King Live,” “a great picture.”
When it was Obama’s turn to speak, Carmella announced loudly, “I wish I had ear plugs.”
The morbid insanity is still there, as well:
Afterward, Carmella got her idol to autograph her sign, telling the smiling Hillary, “You’re going to be the next president.”
She told The Times that she and her friends were all voting for John McCain and that Hillary was just doing what she had to do.
“But I have a gut feeling,” she said with macabre faith, “that something’s going to happen so that she becomes the nominee.”
That is pathetic, annoying, and stupid.
Frankly, should "something" happen to Barack, I'm going whole-hog on the Draft Gore movement. Not that I like the guy all that much, but I think he would have a better chance of winning the election...
Sunday QT
As long as QT is there, I will be pointing the way to QT:
Write onTo all those on the Internet who are endlessly forwarding the e-mail -- "Below are a few lines from Obama's books; in his words!" -- that includes such lines as:
• • "I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race."
• • "I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."
Barack Obama never wrote these sentences.
Put it another way: These sentences are made up.
Today's definition of the Internet: Countless people breathlessly waving copies of books they haven't read.
I Will Admit to Similar Thoughts
Frank Rich starts off with what was said:
DON’T fault Charles Black, the John McCain adviser, for publicly stating his honest belief that a domestic terrorist attack would be “a big advantage” for their campaign and that Benazir Bhutto’s assassination had “helped” Mr. McCain win the New Hampshire primary. His real sin is that he didn’t come completely clean on his strategic thinking.
In private, he is surely gaming this out further, George Carlin-style. What would be the optimum timing, from the campaign’s perspective, for this terrorist attack — before or after the convention? Would the attack be most useful if it took place in a red state, blue state or swing state? How much would it “help” if the next assassinated foreign leader had a higher name recognition in American households than Benazir Bhutto?
In my mind, that's only natural in fearmongering. The guy that was really good at it, right up to the midterm elections of 2006, was Karl Rove:
That equation was the creation of Karl Rove. Among the only durable legacies of the Bush presidency are the twin fears that Mr. Rove relentlessly pushed on his client’s behalf: fear of terrorism and fear of gays.
...and now we're finding out just how long a population can live in fear before it says "ENOUGH!"
Hopefully, we can get past this BS...
June 28, 2008
Television Eulogies
Tonight's broadcast of Saturday Night Live is a repeat.
A very special rebroadcast of the premiere episode from 1975.
Hosted by a George Carlin, younger than I am now.
By the Way...
I can't let June 28 go by without a shoutout to my younger sister!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
Brother Earl
June 27, 2008
Who's Up for Sailing?
For the first time ever, possibly this year, it may be possible to sail to the North Pole:
It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.
The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.
New (if temporary) shipping lanes. New conflict over seafloor borders. New fun all around.
What a wonderful world...
NSFW Friday
Dammit, I'm going to continue missing George for a while.
Thank Bast for YouTube...
June 26, 2008
There Is Evil In America
Today's example is named Varsha Mahender Sabhnani of Muttontown, N.Y.:
She was convicted:
Varsha Sabhnani, 46, was convicted with her husband in December on a 12-count federal indictmentinvoluntary servitude and harboring aliens. that included forced labor, conspiracy,
The trial provided a glimpse into a growing U.S. problem of domestic workers exploited in slave-like conditions.
The victims testified that they were beaten with brooms and umbrellas, slashed with knives, and forced to climb stairs and take freezing showers as punishment. One victim was forced to eat dozens of chili peppers against her will, and then was forced to eat her own vomit when she couldn't keep the peppers down, prosecutors said.
And, should you wonder if the "victims" are making this stuff up, let's take a look at their compensation package for their labor in these United States:
The women, whose relatives in Indonesia were paid about $100 a month — the women themselves received no cash — said they were tortured and beaten for misdeeds that included sleeping late or stealing food from trash bins because they were poorly fed. Both women also said they were forced to sleep on mats in the kitchen.
Of course, Varsha was innocent until proven guilty, of modern slavery. I'd say she deserves some prison time.
Winning streak
Hey! The Twins came from behind again this afternoon to win their ninth straight ballgame and are currently a mere half a game behind the White Sox for the division lead. The hockey player contributed a two-run homer and a run-scoring single and currently has 62 RBI with still a couple of games to go before the season's halfway point. The Twins are certainly enjoying interleague play, it seems.
And by the way, the Strib's online comments section on the game includes this intriguing reader remark:
The last two times the NY Giants won the superbowl, the win twins have won the world series.posted by ghadlich on Jun. 26, 08 at 6:37 PM.
--Thanks, ghadlich, wherever you are, for pointing that out. Could history repeat itself? (See, of course, 1987, 1991.)
Thursday QT
Some big oil info, courtesy of QT:
Oil's wellNews Item: Supreme Court accepts argument from Exxon that $2.5 billion in damages awarded in the Exxon Valdez oil spill was "excessive."
"Excessive" hardly begins begin to describe it. It takes Exxon more than 19 days to register $2.5 billion in net profit.
I would imagine it's all a matter of perspective...
Funny!
Every once in a while I actually have to work while here at work...
June 25, 2008
Iraq Update
It continues:
A roadside bomb killed three American soldiers and an interpreter north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Wednesday, and Iraqi police reported 14 Shiite gunmen were arrested after fighting south of the capital.
In Baghdad, meanwhile, American soldiers using specially trained dogs sifted through the wreckage Wednesday of an office in Sadr City where a bomb killed 10 people, including four Americans working to restore local government in the former Shiite militia stronghold.
Also Wednesday, U.S. soldiers in Baghdad killed three gunmen who fired on an American convoy that had stopped along the side of the road just west of the city's airport, the U.S. said. No further details were released.
My question of the day is, if the MSM continues to differentiate between religious sects killing each other in Iraq, why don't more people recognize the fact that it's basically a civil war?
I'm just curious.
I already know I'm an idiot, so don't bother commenting on that...
We Can Only Hope
MoDo actually makes a couple of points that I agree with wholeheartedly:
This was Rove’s take on Obama to Republicans at the Capitol Hill Club Monday, according to Christianne Klein of ABC News:
“Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.”
Actually, that sounds more like W.
Actually, W would be swinging a gin bottle around by the neck and snorting cocaine, since this is all supposition...
Conservatives love playing this little game, acting as if the “elite” Democratic candidates are not in touch with people like themselves, even though the guys doing the attacking — like Rove, Limbaugh, O’Reilly and Hannity — are wealthy and cosseted.
Haven’t we had enough of this hypocritical comedy of people in the elite disowning their social status for political purposes? The Bushes had to move all the way to Texas from Greenwich to make their blue blood appear more red.
Everyone who ever became president was in the elite one way or another, including Andrew Jackson.
It's actually a prerequisite, like it or not...
Charlie Black crassly argued in Fortune that a terrorist attack would “be a big advantage” for John McCain. And what’s scary is, Black is the smartest adviser McCain’s got.
It’s hard to believe that if Americans get attacked after all these years of getting strip-searched at the airport, they’re going to be filled with confidence at the performance of the Republicans on national security. And at least Obama wants to catch Osama and doesn’t think he’s getting his directions on war from “a higher Father.”
Do you recall who was president on 9/11? Hmmm...If only they had been warned of some airplane plot afoot, perhaps they could have taken some preventative measures...If they had been paying attention.
Rove’s mythmaking about Obama won’t fly. If he means that Obama has brains, what’s wrong with that? If he means that Obama is successful, what’s wrong with that? If he means that Obama has education and intellectual sophistication, what’s wrong with that?
Many of Obama’s traits are the traits that people in the population aspire to.
We can only hope for real progress as we work toward it, of course.
It looks as if Rove is on the verge of realizing his dream of creating a permanent position for the Republicans.
Unfortunately for him, it’s in the minority.
...and we will continue hearing about how oppressed they are.
Funny.
Seems...Odd, Now.
I remember this commercial being clever for about 26 seconds after I saw it.
The life of the presumptive nominee, I guess
Michigan's Idea
There's a distinct possibility that Michigan will be right-sizing its state government soon:
A sweeping revision of the Michigan Constitution that would cut state politicians' pay and benefits where it doesn't eliminate their jobs altogether came out of nowhere in recent weeks and appears to have a realistic chance of making the ballot in November.
OAS_AD('ArticleFlex_1'); <a href="http://gannett.gcion.com/adlink/5111/214641/0/154/AdId=54162;BnId=6;itime=390012788;nodecode=yes;link=http://adfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/9497-58397-20476-0?mpt=390012788"> <img src="http://adfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/bn/9497-58397-20476-0?mpt=390012788" alt="Click Here" border="0"> </a>The lengthy and complicated proposed amendment would overhaul much of the state's political structure, including the hyper-partisan process of drawing legislative district boundaries.
Since it seems that we've got most of the bad illegal stuff outlawed by now, I don't see the problem with an effort like this.
It would be amusing to see GOPers screaming against downsizing and smaller government for a change...
Wednesday QT
Due to some rather grisly finds up in Canada, may I please present QT's two-step entry:
Step 1.
Alternate theory
News Item: "Mystery lingers as five feet wash ashore in Canada."
T.T., a Chicago reader, theorizes that others may have been caught in the undertoe.
Step 2.
Six-foot-jive
News Item: "Canadian officials say sixth floating foot was a hoax."
Daryl Collard, a Victoria, B.C., reader, wonders if the police were embarrassed by the faux paw.
Proving yet again that sometimes the only way to make sense of something is to laugh.
June 24, 2008
I Think the Headline Says Most of It
Energy-greedy Floridians say no to oil wells
Folks in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, who put up with 3,200 oil platforms in their coastal waters, might wonder why residents in a state that ranks third in oil consumption can claim a God-given right to pristine glob-free beaches.
It's not like Florida earned the moral high ground. Rather, this is a state that has encouraged unfettered suburban sprawl while regarding mass transportation with as much enthusiasm as gay marriage.
Floridians think nothing of generating electricity with coal extracted by ripping away Appalachian mountaintops. Or by burning natural gas shipped from Third World nations.
Something tells me that Fred Grimm isn't one of the most popular people in Miami today...
Tom Tomorrow Is Right
The question remains: If this
is where they're starting, what type of frenzy are they going to be in around October-November?
Tuesday QT
Regarding another one of those pesky amendments, thanks to QT:
Swiftboating, circa 2008News Item: Christian fundamentalists attack Barack Obama for saying the United States is ''no longer a Christian nation'' but ''also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, and a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.''
Exactly. Obama shows his secret radical roots once again
Or as earlier radicals put it:
''Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.''
Seems simple enough, doesn't it?
Iraq Update
Some quick snippets from the Washington Post:
Two U.S. soldiers were killed and three were wounded Monday when a council member opened fire on them after a meeting in a small town south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.
An Iraqi interpreter also was wounded in the shooting in Salman Pak Nahia, which is about 20 miles south of Baghdad, said Capt. Charles Calio, a U.S. military spokesman.
Two Salman Pak residents identified the assailant, who was killed, as council member Raed Hmood Ajil.
Residents Rafi Suleiman, 39, and Abu Dawood said in phone interviews that Ajil, a Sunni tribal leader, opened fire on the soldiers without provocation.
*
Also Monday, the U.S. military announced that a Canadian man working as an interpreter for the U.S. military in Iraq was sentenced to five months of confinement after pleading guilty in the stabbing of a colleague in February.
*
On Sunday, a suicide bomber killed 15 people in Baqubah, the capital of Diyala. In a town north of the provincial capital, 10 members of an Awakening Council, or armed neighborhood watch group, were killed when their office was attacked with mortars Sunday night, according to Lt. Gen. Abdul Kareem al-Rubaie, the commander of the province's security operations center.
I realize that war doesn't always go according to plan. Unfortunately, the people that brought our troops in to this endless meatgrinder didn't really bother with such things as plans in the first place.
And now, thanks to the GAO, the pentagon is learning the cold truth of W's plan - to foist this mess onto his successor:
More broadly, the GAO said the Bush administration has not planned adequately for the end of the U.S. troop build-up that began in early 2007 and is now winding down.
Although administration officials have spoken about goals for Iraq, they have not specified a new strategy to follow the troop buildup, the GAO said.
Who needs a plan when you can skip town?
Holy Cow!
Chuck normally handles baseball news, but I do like this one, fake or not:
June 23, 2008
No Worries, Right?
Should the world suddenly end in the next few days, you won't even notice it:
Our planet is not at risk from the world's most powerful particle physics experiment, a report has concluded.
The document addresses fears that the Large Hadron Collider is so energetic, it could have unforeseen consequences.
Critics are worried that mini-black holes made at the soon-to-open facility on the French-Swiss border might threaten the Earth's very existence.
But the report, issued the European Organization for Nuclear Research, says there is "no conceivable danger".
Seriously, if something were to happen and one of those mini-black holes became large and/or energetic enough to do damage, there wouldn't be much time to worry about anything.
Oh, boy...
It was only a few days ago that a certain meme infected the internet. A certain level of comedy was achieved.
Now we have Mark Soohoo, John McCain's "Internet Guru" trying to adapt to the comedy that is his candidate (via Politico):
"You don’t actually have to use a computer to understand how it shapes the country," [Soohoo] says.
*
"John McCain is aware of the Internet," says Soohoo. "This is a man who has a very long history of understanding on a range of issues."
Well, at least the word traditions wasn't used...
Monday QT
QT brings us a campaign finance story today:
McCain could give Obama a tip
John McCain criticizing Barack Obama's flip-flop against public campaign financing:
"I'm especially disturbed by this decision of Sen. Obama's because he signed his name on a piece of paper, signed his name."
With both candidates busy reversing early positions for the general election, Obama's inexperience is starting to tell.
McCain could have told him:
Never sign anything when you're in mid-pander.
Of course, I could point you to This Modern World right about now if you wanted to learn a bit more about Obama, McCain, and public financing. I could do that.
Dammit!
I'm actually linking to ET:
ET breaks the news that comedian George Carlin has died from heart failure. The man who made famous the "seven words you can never say on television" passed away at 5:55 p.m. Sunday at Saint John's Hospital in Santa Monica, his longtime publicist said. He was 71.One of my favorites following...
June 22, 2008
Sunday QT
QT tells us that things could be getting interesting in Kentucky:
Getting creative in Kentucky• • The Creation Museum at www .creationmuseum.org invites you to visit its new facility on Bullittsburg Church Road in Petersburg, Ky.
• • The Evolution Museum at www .evolutionmuseum.org invites you to donate toward the building of a new facility on Bullittsburg Church Road in Petersburg, Ky.
We might want to keep a closer eye on Bullittsburg Church Road in Petersburg, Ky.
Wheee!
Rich is Right...Again...
Starting with the utterly obvious:
THE Iraq war’s defenders like to bash the press for pushing the bad news and ignoring the good. Maybe they’ll be happy to hear that the bad news doesn’t rate anymore. When a bomb killed at least 51 Iraqis at a Baghdad market on Tuesday, ending an extended run of relative calm, only one of the three network newscasts (NBC’s) even bothered to mention it.
The only problem is that no news from Iraq isn’t good news — it’s no news. The night of the Baghdad bombing the CBS war correspondent Lara Logan appeared as Jon Stewart’s guest on “The Daily Show” to lament the vanishing television coverage and the even steeper falloff in viewer interest. “Tell me the last time you saw the body of a dead American soldier,” she said. After pointing out that more soldiers died in Afghanistan than Iraq last month, she asked, “Who’s paying attention to that?”
As it turns out, a lot of people are paying attention. Not enough, frankly, but the pictures are out there.
Jurassicpork summed it up as frustratingly as possible:
Why didn’t this picture of Sgt. Ryan John Baum lying in his coffin make the front page of the NY Times or the Washington Post instead of the back pages of the Rocky Mountain News? Baum’s widow Dana tells us that her husband desperately wanted to get out of Iraq so he could hold his daughter Leia, born 11 days after his death last May in Iraq, on his chest. The next best thing was to put her picture on him as he lie in state. So, again, why is this prize-winning photograph restricted to a few dying blogs instead of on the august pages of the NY Times or the WaPo? Well, that still wouldn’t have been humanistic as much as subversive or controversial.
We’re not supposed to be reminded that war has consequences, that it involves dead, shattered bodies and living, shattered families. This is why the coffins are not allowed to be photographed as they stream off the transports at Dover Air Force Base, why Senator Joe Biden is not even allowed to meet with and comfort the families, why Bush and Cheney never go to a funeral for a single one of them.
Why Barbara Bush’s beautiful mind can’t be allowed to contemplate ugly images such as a body bags, why the 1000th, 2000th, 3000th and 4000th deaths were just numbers and why makeshift memorials for the troops get mowed down less than a mile from the presidential retreat in Crawford, Texas.
This is what is being done in our name.
Laughs for today...
The St. Paul Pioneer Press' Bob Sansevere is normally a sports columnist, but he snagged a chance to interview John McCain when McC was in town the other day and ask him a bunch of non-political questions of the type he would usually ask an athlete. My goodness! It's entertaining....
Is the McCain Campaign Plane going to be rocking out to Usher now? Really?
June 21, 2008
What Atrios Said
Because it's true:
As I've written before, Democrats will regret embracing the expansion of executive power because a President Obama will find his administration undone by an "abuse of power" scandal. All of those powers which were necessary to prevent the instant destruction of the country will instantly become impeachable offenses. If you can't imagine how such a pivot can take place then you haven't been paying attention.
Seriously.
June 20, 2008
Baseball and important stuff
Twins win! 7-2 over the Diamondbacks. I watched the game for a while. Twins pitcher Scott Baker is looking good. D'backs legend Randy Johnson, not so much.
Wasn't much excitement on the postgame show...watched SportsCenter for a few minutes...Twins reject Kyle Lohse won his sixth straight game tonight for the Cardinals. Whatever...
Here in St. P. tonight it's the Relay for Life, the annual team event to fight cancer. Folks have spent months passing out paper bags, taking donations, decorating each bag to honor a cancer victim or survivor, and organizing this event. On the afternoon of the event, volunteers pass around the bags, pour a little sand into each bag, stand up a candle in the sand, and arrange the bags in a row one every foot or so all around the perimeter of the Minnesota Square Park. At dusk they go around and light all of the candles.
So I went down to the park after the ballgame. Paper bags with lit candles inside, hundreds of them. I walked around the park and looked at the names and drawings on the bags. The view from the corner, where I looked across the whole park at the hundreds of little candles all lined up, each little light commemorating some unique individual, was...well....on the 4th of July I like to watch fireworks. This was as impressive as any grand finale I've seen.
People were walking the sidewalk--fast, slow, stopping to talk, hurrying to find their friends. A folk band played in the grandstand. Food was frying under a concessions tent.
One corner of the park is a little ballfield. It was lit up and they had some kind of a game going. I got closer and saw it was a fun thing for littler kids. The batters were standing at second base; the pitcher was lobbing them wiffle balls from the pitcher's spot; and the object was to hit the ball over the screen behind home plate.
A bunch of kids were lined up and a bunch of big people watching. The pitcher encouraged the hitters on every swing--"Hey, nice swing," "Hit this one really hard," etc. They were having a lot of fun. I got closer to the action and stopped to watch--I'm a sucker for bats and balls, in whatever format.
The pitcher was having a great time--and after a couple of minutes I suddenly recognized him: Hey, that's Ron Coomer. He used to play for the Twins and is now one of their TV broadcasters.
No wonder he wasn't on the postgame show tonight. He had more important things to do. Good for him.
And good for all those people out there walking tonight. The Relay goes until 6:00 a.m.
It's only midnight. Maybe I'll head back up there and see what's going on....
In Local News...
A few things that, when you hear them, usually don't have good results:
“With a load that big they need a permit. They did not have a permit,” State Patrol Lt. Steve Pillsbury said Thursday afternoon. “A permit would not have allowed them to come down Highway 53.”
“The brakes were out of adjustment, we feel the driver probably wasn’t familiar with the area [and] didn’t know the road when he was coming down the hill, and the load wasn’t secured properly,” Pillsbury added.
You can view the results here.
This Is Dedicated to the CM-IC*
*Congressional Military-Industrial Complex, that is...
NSFW Friday
Trust me, this is the uncensored version.
It's a hard word to get past, but if you're able to it is possible to laugh at the end.
Don't say you weren't warned.
With thanks going to d r i f t g l a s s.
Meme Comedy
June 19, 2008
Doomsayers predict new world oil crunch
Ah, to be young again. Or at least as old as I was on August 31, 1998:
Oil, the black gold of the world economy, is almost insanely cheap - but it won't be for long, warns a small but growing band of doomsayers.
Based on a controversial theory, they fear world oil demand will begin to exceed supply as early as about 2010.
That might revive sights not seen since the oil crises of the 1970s: traffic jams at gas stations, Saudi Arabian princes buying U.S. skyscrapers, and news stories about inventors whose cars allegedly burn corn oil, wood chips or beets.
"Anybody who wants to drive their motor home up to Alaska better do it now while the supply of oil is cheap," says veteran oil geologist L.F. "Buzz" Ivanhoe. "It's not a joke. I hope I'm wrong as hell, but I fear that I'm not."
Well, you can't say we weren't warned. A couple of years ago, it became necessary to get a new vehicle. When I test drove a 4-cylinder, front-wheel drive without A/C, the salesperson kept bugging me to look at the 4-wheel drives with the V6 engine, bells, whistles and A/C. I would have none of that. I stuck with the manual transmission and everything. She thought I was crazy, of course. I would imagine that there are a few more crazy people wandering around car dealerships lately.
Dennis Kucinich, American Hero
He ran for president.
He married a beautiful woman.
He will defend the U.S. Constitution with his dying breath.
He deserves to be quoted today:
"There are hearings that take place, but of what consequence. There are letters being written, but where do they lead? If there's no accountability, hearings and letters are for naught. This impeachment resolution is a document, which should be the basis for hearings.
I am not going to relent in my determination to protect this Constitution and to show the American people that the government that they have had for the last two terms has been based on lies - lies that have separated us from the world..."
Damn right.
Nice Little Olbermann Report
I'd like to ask you to take 9 minutes to learn a little bit about the energy situation we're in:
As I've said, it's all going according to plan...
Thursday QT
As long as I mentioned oil earlier, QT points out another fact:
Hole in McCain's oil plan
News Item: "The oil industry generally approved Tuesday as Republican presidential candidate John McCain charted his policies on energy with a speech in Houston. . . ."
Well. As long as the oil companies are happy. . . .
The oil companies, by the way, are currently leasing 68 million acres of land in this country that they are not drilling on
That is how eager they are to increase supply.
What do you think the reason might be?
The mystery continues...
On A Lighter Note
Austrian town keeps the name that makes it a bit more popular than others.