Manic Indolence

Pat Bukkkhanan

2008-08-30T23:55:00.005-04:00

I was talking politics with a stranger today...and he stopped me to ask me who I supported in the Presidential race.

I said "Barack Obama."

He said..."end of discussion," and laughed and started to walk away.

I laughed, too, assuming he was for McSurge. "McCain?" I asked.

Nope..."Pat Buchanan," he said.

I said...."Ummm...you know Pat is not running this year."

He said, "yeah...I know...I'm writing him in." I couldn't think of anything cute to say. End of discussion.

I should have asked him to spell Pat's last name correctly...with three Ks.

Obama/Biden vs. McCain/Palin

2008-08-29T22:51:00.004-04:00

Yes...I haven't blogged in some time.

So the Democratic and Republican slates are all set. What have we learned?

Obama picked Joe Biden, a serious and experienced foreign policy expert who has run for President several times himself.

And who did McSurge pick? An anti-choice, pro-fur, pro-drilling, pro-gun, pro-hunting, creationist "hockey mom" with 20 -months of executive experience in one of the smallest states in the country, and who is coincidentally embroiled in an abuse-of-power scandal.

My prediction: This might seem like a race today. But it won't after people realize how clueless Palin is, and how careless McSurge was to choose her. She's Dan Quayle in drag. The thought that she can attract Hillary-voters should be interpreted as an insult to the intelligence of women everywhere.

She's even on record as saying she couldn't back Hillary because of "her whining."

Is she also related to Phil Gramm?

Feingold for VP?!?

2008-08-07T22:30:00.003-04:00

I read a rumor that Russ Feingold is the stealth VP candidate for Obama. Be still my heart!

I'd love to see Senator Russ as VP...he's very bright and articulate, as is Obama. He'd be way better than Kaine or Bayh...

The ironic thing is that the GOPers have been painting Obama as "the most liberal member of the Senate" by a wide margin. They have inadvertantly pulled Russ towards the center!

Feingold is one of the folks who McSurge has cowritten legislation with too, and McCain-Feingold still sticks in the craw of the cons and neocons...what better way to remind them that St. John aint "one of them"?

McSurge Is Struggling With His 78 mph Fastball

2008-08-07T22:25:00.003-04:00

Forget about losing your fastball, metaphorically speaking. McLame can't even get his 78 mph heater over for strikes any more (scroll to TPMTV "Dazed and Confused" if it is not at the top of the page...)

Senator Grumpy Snaps at a Reporter!

2008-07-25T23:16:00.002-04:00

St. John got testy with a Wall Street Journal reporter?!?! What went wrong? Had she given Obama some love? Did she forget McSurge's favorite donut? Did she spill his favorite coffee? Did she tease him about his failing hair?!?!

The look on Lindsay Graham's face is funny, too. Lindsay Graham...a toadier sycophant is harder to imagine.

Shaking Up Dobbs and Novak in a Jar

2008-07-24T23:27:00.005-04:00

When I was very, very young...1st grade? kindergarten? a cruel thing my friends and I sometimes engaged in was trapping various ants and other insects in a jar, and then shaking said jar to see if hideous arthropod warfare could be induced.

Now that I am older and more enlightened, I haven't thought about that particular childish stunt for a long, long time. It occurred to me today, though, listening to Lou Dobbs' show, which is pressing on in his summertime absence, that Dobbs has the kind of bottled up anti-immigrant anger that might be unleashed if he was properly agitated in a over-sized jar with Bob Novak, the Dark Lord of the Beltway.

Novak, for those of you who haven't been watching the news, smashed a pedestrian the other day with his black Corvette and fled the scene, only to be caught by a vigilante bicyclist who witnessed the sordid event. BN is a long time racing enthusiast with an anger problem directed at jaywalkers....the poor fellow he hit this time, though, apparently had the walk signal.

Shaking the two of them up in a jar seems like a suitable punishment for both men.

McSame: The Early Years

2008-07-18T23:45:00.003-04:00

CNN is running an hour-long puff piece on both candidates...first half hour was Obama, second is devoted to McSame.

For some reason, CNN totally glossed over McSame's first marriage...watching this schmaltz, you'd think Johnny Mac went straight from the Hanoi Hilton to the Keating Five hearings.

Bizarre.

There was one nice clip of him arguing with W, though...must be from the 2000 debates. W is so pissy; McSame so angry.

McSurge Throws Stuff At Walls

2008-07-17T07:19:00.003-04:00

Here is the latest argument from Team McSame: Obama is just like...Bush.

Yeah...that'll stick.

McSame's campaign is hopeless; and the candidate is hopeless. Maybe these arguments worked in 1992 Czechoslovakia.

Lebowski Fest Pics

2008-07-16T08:56:00.003-04:00

Lebowski Fest has posted their photos. Lee and I can be found here, among the Prom Picture Gallery photos. We posed in front of the staircase backdrop from the Dude's Busby Berkley dream.

I'll be posting the photos Lee and I took, later in the week.

Lebowski Fest Video Update

2008-07-16T08:08:00.004-04:00

Here is the first Youtube Lee has located from the 7th Annual Lebowski Fest, and it actually has footage of me and Lee at about the 5'30" mark, immediately after a brief interview with an intoxicated Jackie Treehorn. I have a pic of me posing with this Treehorn, soon to be posted here...he was bowling in the lane next to us, and came all the way from California.

The videographer was very tall...I'd say 6'8". That's why the angle on many of the shots is downward.

He walked by, complimented my outfit and Lee's prop, chatted with us briefly and then whipped out the camera with hardly any notice. I think he did a good job capturing the ambience of the Fest.

Is There A Ralph's Around Here?...Post Lebowski Fest: Sunday

2008-07-15T15:15:00.007-04:00

We slept late, but still got down to the Sunday brunch by 10 or so.

The hotel brunch was the same as their regular breakfast buffet, only $5 more per head for the opportunity to enjoy some less than fresh fruit salad and roast beef...

There were a few Lebowski stragglers in the crowd, but no one we recognized.

After checkout we didn't really have time for anything else, so we went bowling one last time. The bowling alley was deserted, save for one family of four a few lanes to our left. I actually bowled a couple of decent games, 169 and 160, before fading in my last game. Lee spent most of his time experimenting with throwing a spinner, and his scores reflected it.

Our United flight out of Louisville was delayed, but we still got into Chicago in time to make our connection. I read the Louisville newspaper on the way over...I wasn't impressed with it.

At O'Hare I grabbed a Tribune, and I think it was almost as thin as the Louisville paper. The sports section really sucked, and other than an interesting article about a new device for treating cardiac heart failure (some kind of netting like those used to hold a dozen oranges) there wasn't much there.

Listening Machine Syndrome: On the ride to Providence Lee had the window; I was in the middle, I had an elderly woman to my right. We did not converse until we were 15 minutes out of TF Green Airport. She accidently slammed her Dooney & Bourke (sp?) handbag into me, then quickly apologized. Before you could say "tell me your life story" she had told me her life story. Born and raised in Connecticut. Undergrad at Central CT. Master's at U. of Arizona - a free ride. Loved Tuscon. Loves the West. Has friends scattered all over: Portland, Oregon. California, Utah, Arizona. Lives in eastern CT. Retired 1st grade teacher; but still helps out a few hours per week while she still has her wits about her. Just returned from 2 weeks in Tahoe. Flew in and out of Sacramento. Met a female friend; they drove to Tahoe rental; friend's family rented same house for 30 years. Kayaked; loved it. Now wants an inflatable kayak. Has traveled all over the planet: Galapagos (flew to Guayaquil, Ecuador, first, then onto the islands), Amazon River, China, India, Europe; every year a big long trip with a friend. Thinking about New Zealand, or an Antarctic cruise. Taught overseas, in Spain, Asia. One grandchild, a boy named Alex. Daughter lives in Shelton, CT, and is a midwife; son-in-law is a pediatrician or ob-gyn, I forget. At a hospital in New Haven. St. Raphael's. Brother's a retired doctor. She owns Pfizer stock; bought it at 15, sorry to see it hovering around 17 now.

As you can tell, this was pretty much a monologue.

Then we landed, taxied to the gate. As soon as the lights in the cabin came on, she turned her back on me, and leaped out of her seat...and never looked back in my direction again. I've experienced this syndrome before...people who treat you as if you are a listening machine that turns off automatically as soon as the plane connects to the jetway. I think it is kind of rude. My wife's theory is that people like her are nervous about the landing, and just talk through it rather than face it alone. Still rude behavior, though...

Picked up the Rodeo and was back at home by 11 pm. Lee continued onto CT, but not before demonstrating the rotating marmot for everyone.

And that pretty much wraps 'er up. So to speak.

The Bums Lost...Lebowski Fest: Saturday

2008-07-14T09:09:00.008-04:00

As soon as we got up Saturday, Lee raced to finish his marmot. The cordless drill needed 16 hours to charge. By now it was ready. All we had to do was finish sewing the legs of the collie together to make it more linear, and trim the excess dowel.

Both operations went smoothly. A test spin of the marmot was a success!

I finished assembling my moustache, spray painted my hat white, and we left for breakfast.

The spray paint took nearly all day to dry.

Later that afternoon, we ran into Jim Hoosier, aka Liam, and he posed for a photo with Lee and I. A very nice guy - he couldn't have been nicer.

It was about 97 degrees and very humid, so Lee and I did the garden party in shorts. The afternoon garden party was an excuse to sell more beer and merchandise, but we enjoyed hanging out and listening to various bands play live music and chatting with other fans.

We ran into Dave and Matt from Calgary again. We had first met them Thursday night at the hotel bar. They had been drinking white Russians that night, natch. When I ordered a White Russian, as well, our cover was blown (Lee eventually tried the White Russian, and to my great surprise, he liked it. Lee is not generally very open to trying new tastes...it was a big enough surprise that he actually tried it. ). They are both toy store employees at Discovery Hut. They were happy to be in Louisville, as the Calgary Stampede is going on right now and no one shops in their store during Stampede, apparently. Now they were just hanging out at the garden party, as hot and sweaty as we were.

Back to White Russians: I'm not a huge vodka fan...so I stick to Sombreros.

There were various games to play, with proceeds going to Louisville charities. I played Toss the Marmot and won a pack of Nihilist Gum (slogan: It doesn't taste like anything). One game had been set up the night before...the Ringer Toss, which involved launching a bowling bag ringer at a mannekin Nihilist while sitting in the front seat of the rusty green Ford Torino Lebowski-mobile. I missed the Nihilist, my ringer going left of the target.

Around 7 we headed back to the hotel to change for the costume party at 8. The humidity was delaying the drying of my hat, so it was still a little tacky to the touch. The moustache went on easy enough with double sticky tape, but I could tell that the heat and humidity were going to be an issue all night, and I was right. I battled that moustache throughout the evening.

While standing in line for the costume party, I completed Round One of the trivia contest. The line got long, and you could see various Dudes, Maudes, Jesuses and Walters milling around. I never got called for Round Two, so I didn't make the cut.

The bowling itself was pretty awful...although the lanes are good as lanes go: modern, good wood, computerized scoring. Most Lebowski Fest folks don't know how to bowl, or understand bowling etiquette, so each game was painful to watch and participate in. But we had fun posing with other characters...many folks would walk by and tell me "I like yer style," and Lee and I both got requests to pose from other fans.

The bowling party attendance was probably closer to 1000 folks. There were about 300 or so people bowling at any one time, and lots of people in costume milling around. The alley had White Russian stations and also offered "Oat Sodas," aka Miller and Bud Lights.

I tried to pose with at least one of each type of character I could find...I posed with various Dudes, 2 Jesuses, one Walter, one Maude, one Saddam, 2 Jackie Treehorns, and a Brandt. Lee had a few folks yell "Nice marmot!" at him, so he was happy. And I ran into Jim Hoosier again, and he posed with me and a drunken girl from Indianapolis.

The Brandt (Adam from Chicago) bowled with us, and his friend Barry was a Jackie Treehorn. They disappeared halfway though our bowling match, and when they reappeared, they told us they had been interviewed by USA Today, so that was cool.

The costumes most in play for the trophy of Best Costume were based on wordplay...there were 2 women dressed like beavers carrying a cardboard picture frame. They would open the frame, ask you to pose with them, and voila, you were in a "Beaver Picture."

One girl walked around with a lamp shade on her head, feeding what appeared to be a large turd in a diaper using a baby bottle. She called herself "New Shit Has Come to Light."

One of the Dudes brought along his wife, who dressed as the never-seen-in-the-movie character, Larry's teacher, Mrs. Jamtoss.

Two lanes down from us a short swarthy guy was bowling and having his every move videotaped. It was apparently the host of the Food Network show Ace of Cakes, who had created a Giant Toe cake with White Russian frosting. I had a small slice after the crowd assaulted the cake; it was good. The episode will be aired in September, I was told.

All in all, a fun evening, with plenty of bad bowling, watery drinks, oat sodas, rotating marmots, and flash photography.

There was an "after party" from 1- 3 am at our hotel...Lee and stopped by briefly to check it out, but we didn't stay. We would have needed a lot more alcohol to enjoy that shindig, and we're not really party animals.

Nice Marmot...Lebowski Fest: Friday

2008-07-14T08:15:00.009-04:00

We spent the morning plotting our plans for the Saturday costume bowling party...after some deliberation, Lee decides not to dress up, but rather build a mechanical marmot.

The "marmot" scene in the movie is hilarious, of course. And according to the Lebowski Fest book "I'm a Lebowski, You're a Lebowski," the "marmot" in the tub was a stuffed animal mounted on a stick, rotated at high speed with a power drill. So Lee figured he might find a cheap cordless drill, a stuffed animal, and recreate the device.

I opted to dress as the Sam Elliott character and narrator of the movie, "The Stranger." So I needed to locate a white cowboy hat, a blue shirt, and a brown vest.

We found most of what we needed in the local WalMart, which I am normally averse to shopping in, due to the anti-union, anti-healthcare attitudes of management. But we also couldn't spend a lot on the costumes, in reality, so WalMart it was.

Lee got a cheap Black and Decker cordless for $20, a wooden dowel, a small brown and white stuffed collie or Sheltie, rubber cement and sewing stuff. I bought a cheap brown Panama hat for $10, a can of white spray paint, some brown ribbon for a hat band, and a long sleeve blue shirt.

The marmot needed some surgery. First, a hole in the nether regions to accomodate the dowel. Cement on the dowel, then insert through the newly minted canal . Then the limbs sewn together for streamlining. Lee darkened the white limbs with a black Sharpie. He placed his computer in its bag on top of the marmot to help the cement set.

Lee was pretty much done; I had two remaining issues: The Stranger has a large gray handlebar moustache and wears a brown leather vest. Cheap leather vests were nowhere to be found, but Lee found a ladies' sleeveless brown shirt in a clearance rack for $7 that I was able to strip down with scissors into something that looked like a vest from a distance. I then fashioned the moustache out of strands of gray yarn on top of a piece of gray cardboard, using the cement to hold it together.

Having successfully obtained our costume accoutrements and achieving the minimal task that was our charge, we went bowling.

Walking around the hotel following bowling, we could see that other fans were beginning to check in. Mostly young and geeky. And mostly men, though we saw several couples. I guess the demographic could have been predicted.

The Fest itself began later that afternoon at 6, kicking off with a hotel conference room screening of a new documentary called "The Achievers," a tribute to Lebowski Fest and its fans. It was nicely done, and Lee and I had arrived early enough to get decent seats.

The gates for the outdoor party opened at 8 pm, and Lee and I arrived around 8:30, in time to check out the merch table and buy some t-shirts and buper stickers. The party was held on the grassy area across from the bowling alley, and probably held 600 or 700 people. The musical act Pleesee-a-saur opened at 9. It consisted of an entertaining costumed guy dancing and singing in front of two small white screens that displayed changing images related to the songs. Think of a cross between Devo, Talking Heads, and performance art. I liked it. We both thought the music was too repetitive, though...every song sounded the same...techno-style disco.

Brian Posehn was the following comedy act. He was pretty good; crude, self-deprecating. I had no idea he was so big...6'6", and heavy. I may get his new CD.

The final event for Friday was an outdoor screening of The Big Lebowski. This Lee and I did not plan ahead for, so we were chairless, and blanketless. The yard was not that big, so we were forced to watch from the increasingly buggy edges of the property, and at a tough angle. By the time Posehn was wrapping up, we decided to hightail it back to the hotel. We ended up watching some the movie from my laptop and turning in around midnight. A fun day, though, and we are excited about tomorrow.

Lebowski Fest Eve: Thursday

2008-07-13T12:03:00.004-04:00

The Indolence in Manic Indolence means that we rarely post in real time, due to the amount of recovery required if substance abuse was involved, whether or not lawyers or accountants were consulted, and/or good ole procrastination.

Regarding Lebowski Fest, all three may apply.

Lebowski Fest Eve: Thursday, July 10

Our flight here to Louisville, via Cleveland, was smooth. The only TSA-related issue was that my bowling bag was confiscated for special examination. While the TSA lady was wiping my dark green ball for traces of C-4, I was frantically ransacking my memory banks for whether or not I had forgotten any potentially incriminating or weird items in that bag. My amateur bowling career ended around 1995, when the toll on my back became too much. I probably haven't opened that cheesy fake red leather bag more than 2 or three times since.

After it passed inspection, I asked the agent if my shoes were in there...she said yes. Which was a relief, as I generally avoid renting shoes whenever I can.

Lee and I checked in the Executive Inn, diagonally across a huge intersection from the bowling alley venue for Lebowski Fest. The hotel is going south, accomodations-wise. Old carpets. Funky odors wafting from the dark hallway corners. 70s decor. But our room is okay, and the event price was right: 85 per night.

Leaving the hotel to go to the Louisville Slugger Museum at 3, we actually ran into Jim Hoosier "Liam" as he entered the hotel for the first time, so our LF experience is getting off to a good start.

The museum was cool, too...watching how baseball bats were/are made.

Bacon and Water Chestnuts vs. Pteradactyl Toes

2008-07-09T09:11:00.005-04:00

Speaking of meat, my oldest daughter made appetizers for a little political pow-wow we had at our house last night. She marinated water chestnuts in soy sauce, wrapped them in bacon, skewered them with toothpicks and cooked them for 30 minutes. They were quite tasty. A nice, crunchy, low-cost alternative to bacon and scallops. I like bacon and scallops, but not enough to have more than a couple.

I remember an unusual appetizer from a Christmas dinner party at my boss' house back when I was a young writer. My boss, the hostess, served skinned chicken drumsticks that had been marinated in soy sauce. The hallmark was that she had used a knife to scrape all of the meat into a ball, with the naked bone sticking up as a handle. To me, they looked like blackened dinosaur toes. I tried one, and it didn't taste too bad. But then I made the mistake of going into the kitchen while her hubby was removing batch two. The tray slipped onto the dog-hair coated floor, and he just scooped up the fallen toes, briskly brushed the dog hair off them and then offered them to the crowd of us standing around.

All in all, a classy event at a classy party. The husband, a salesman, later showed off a huge glossy promotional poster of the items he sold: breast pumps.

He used it to blanket the door to their family room.

Man Hits Mom With Polish Sausage

2008-07-09T08:57:00.004-04:00

Well, there's a reason Fark.com has a Florida tag...but I found this at The Smoking Gun, not Fark.

The guy had an excuse...he had been drinking, according to Mom.

A 46-year-old man drunk-shopping with Mom at a Florida supermarket. What did she expect? Flowers?

btw: every time I'm in Florida I seem to run into this couple, arguing in the aisles about cigarette money.

Dirtnap Artist Jesse Helms, Again

2008-07-05T23:36:00.002-04:00

From Wikipedia, via the blog Bitch, Ph.D.:

"Helms once deeply offended a black colleague, Democratic Senator Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois, by singing part of "Dixie" on a Capitol elevator.

Soon after the Senate vote on the Confederate flag insignia, Sen. Jesse Helms (R.-N.C.) ran into Mosely-Braun in a Capitol elevator. Helms turned to his friend, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah), and said, "Watch me make her cry. I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing 'Dixie' until she cries." He then proceeded to sing the song about "the good life" during slavery to Mosely-Braun (Gannett News Service, 1993-09-02; Time, 1993-08-16).[17]"

Jesse Helms, RIP

2008-07-05T23:27:00.004-04:00

They say de mortuis nil nisi bonum, in some circles. Ahhh...sometimes you have to make exceptions.

from The Guardian's obituary, via AmericaBlog:

"In domestic politics he denounced the 1964 Civil Rights Act as "the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever introduced in the Congress," voted against a Supreme Court justice because she was "likely to uphold the homosexual agenda," acted for years as spokesman for the large tobacco companies, was reprimanded by the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission for electoral malpractice, and compiled a dismal personal record as a slum landlord."

Lawn Chair Balloon Fantasies

2008-07-05T23:20:00.005-04:00

I had read about the guy in 1982 who attached helium-filled weather balloons to his lawn chair, and flew out of San Diego, I think, into the desert, occasionally shooting them out as needed with a shotgun he was carrying. He ended up getting fined for breaking air-traffic control laws.

Well, some guy in Oregon has repeated this stunt for the 3rd time, and was apparently rather successful. Not taking any chances, he equipped himself with all kinds of high tech goodies, including an altimeter, a GPS device and a parachute.

And I thought the Kool-Aid ballast was a good idea.

And Her Visit to The Hague Will Be Memorable

2008-07-04T23:08:00.004-04:00

Condi says she's "proud" of our invasion of Iraq.

Something tells me her post-Bush life is not going to include points of interest in Europe that aren't US Embassies (or other sanctuaries).

Never Saw That Before

2008-07-04T22:52:00.003-04:00

In the top of the third inning of today's Red Sox-Yankees game, on the 25th anniversary of Dave Righetti's no-hitter, btw, I witnessed something new in a baseball game, something I'd never seen before in 44+ years of watching and playing baseball.

With 2 runners on base, Kevin Youkilis hit a ball to deep left off Yankee pitcher Rasner that Johnny Damon got his glove on temporarily. Unfortunately for Johnny and Yankee fans, the ball popped out, spun several rotations and sat for a couple of seconds on the top of the left field wall, as if it was deciding whether or not to fall backwards and grant Youkilis a three-run home run, or fall forwards and continue the mayhem. Damon's flailing legs appear to rock the fence just enough to make the ball drop softly back into play. Youkilis must not have been running hard all the way: any runner with a lick of speed would have turned this scenario into an inside-the-park homer, I think.

Update: spoke today (Saturday) to my brother-in-law Richard, an ardent Sox fan, and he claims upon replay that Youkilis was running hard the whole way. He's just slower than a tranqed-up tortoise.

The Germs on a Pen

2008-07-03T23:11:00.003-04:00

I asked a young woman to sign a petition for me today. She agreed to sign, but spurned my offer of a pen.

"Too many germs," she said. She then brandished her own writing utensil.

I'm thinking she's a little OCD about cleanliness. I have never worried about the disease-spreading potential of a pen or pencil or crayon.

I'm sure I've accidently consumed all manner of bacteria, viruses, and protozoa over the years, sticking dirty pens in my mouth, temporarily storing them there to free my hands.

McSurge Fails to Pay His House Taxes

2008-06-28T22:51:00.006-04:00

...course, he has an excuse: he and Cindy have 7 or 8 houses (he can't remember how many, exactly).

This is a common problem for American families these days, and I can sympathize, even though I have only 1 house. I'll bet the vast majority of foreclosures in this latest housing crisis are due to folks forgetting to pay the taxes on their seventh or eighth, or even ninth, houses.

side comment - Obama, however, is the elitist in this race: do not forget!

In their case, the condo in question was occupied by an elderly aunt of Cindy's. And who hasn't wanted to sequester/disappear an aunt or two indefinitely...as long as it doesn't come out that this disappeared aunt was also waterboarded, McSurge will be able to explain this away at his next media barbecue, I'm sure.

Dream Job #5: Astronomer Royal

2008-06-28T22:39:00.004-04:00

This was a repetitive fantasy of mine in my teenage years. Did I mention that my teenage years were also bereft of dates?

Lounging around all day in a stone tower, wearing a fancy robe and crunching logarithms and predicting eclipses for an erudite, worthy ruler. Watching with glee as the rabble scurry around during said eclipse with fear-stricken faces; then hanging out at court and bantering with the likes of Gauss and Bach; flirting with the Princesses.

The current rep has lost the fancy garb, and with it, some of the appeal.

I think AR circa 1750 would have done the trick for me.

The Tenacity of Life, Take Two

2008-06-28T22:36:00.001-04:00

Drove by a crushed stone pile 15 feet high...and there was a chunk of grass growing out of the top of it.

Still no life in the denuded moss spot in my yard.

34th Floor Hailstorm

2008-06-24T18:58:00.003-04:00

If you ever get the chance to witness bad weather from a panoramic window on the 34th floor of a hotel, don't turn it down. I am a fan of bad weather, especially when I can do the viewing from a safe location.

I'm in Boston for a seminar (my better half is a speaker), and happened to be in our room when this storm hit. The room is on the corner, with windows facing west towards the Charles and Fenway Park, and south towards the Hancock building. If the windows could be opened I would be able to run and leap onto the Boston Public Library, like Spiderman.

Coming out the west, the storm cell reduced visibility from 2-3 miles to about 300 feet in a matter of 60 seconds or so. The hail appeared to be about a half-inch wide, and lasted a minute or so. There were a few lightning strikes mixed in for good measure.

Fifteen minutes later, the Sun popped out. The lights came on at Fenway, and it looks like the Red Sox game is on for tonight, not that I'm going.

We have dinner plans with friends instead...and the weather looks cooperative.

Good N' Pawlenty

2008-06-24T18:49:00.003-04:00

I just watched a few video clips of this dude on talkingpointsmemo.com (scroll down to "Tim Pawlenty V.P. Madness!")

Wow....he is really Mr.Enthusiasm. He makes McSurge sound like Richard Simmons on crystal meth.

So if Bobby Jindal (the Exorcist) doesn't pan out, well, McSurge has found the blandest white man on the planet, this side of Orrin Hatch, to replace him.

FISA Capitulation

2008-06-21T23:44:00.003-04:00

So Steny Hoyer and Pelosi have capitulated on FISA and retroactive immunity. That was not a huge surprise, just extremely disappointing.

And now that Sen. Obama has signalled only token resistance in the Senate, the deed is nearly complete.

If only our Democrats in Congress had real spines.

The Florida Gambit

2008-06-20T23:00:00.003-04:00

Sounds like a shuffleboard move, don't it?

McSame is now FOR off-shore oil drilling near Florida, when only 3 weeks ago he was "agin it." And it is more ammo in the "Let's destroy Alaska to get a few years worth of oil from ANWR" argument.

Does St. John really think we're all so stupid that we will not notice this?

McSurge, McSame, McLame, McInane...

2008-06-20T22:47:00.002-04:00

There are so many ways to pay tribute to this pasty robotic Bush Clone, aren't there?

I was partial to "McSurge"...but the use of "Surge" is buying into the Orwellian NewSpeak that the Bush Administration has reinvented.

There was never any "surge"in Iraq...it is just that the Bushies had not the cojones to call it what it was: an escalation.

Blaming Teen Prenancies on Juno

2008-06-20T22:40:00.004-04:00

So there was a group of 17 or so Gloucester Mass teens who decided it might be fun to all get pregnant at the same time. Time is apparently all over the story, and the Globe and the Herald are playing catch-up.

Why this happened is open to speculation, I guess...I can't say with any great authority that girls in that age group are prone to particularly savvy life decisions...

But to blame this on the movie Juno, or Knocked-up, seems kind of ridiculous.

Though I should be happy that they didn't automatically blame it on Massachusetts' gay marriages.

Russert, RIP

2008-06-13T22:04:00.005-04:00

Tim Russert died today, Friday the 13th. He was only 58; sad to die so young. He and his wife had just returned from Italy, after going there their son to celebrate Luke's recent graduation from BC .

Who would have thought he'd be outlived by:

1. Dick Cheney?!?!?!?
2. Big Russ (his 80+ yo dad)?
3. John McCain?

Although I thought the "gotcha" questions were at times grossly unfair, and that the casting was extremely anti-women and anti-minority, I still watched Meet the Press semi-regularly. So I'll miss watching him. I do hope the next host of Press the Meat can get fewer old white men.

Target and Feed Your Prostate

2008-06-13T21:56:00.004-04:00

I don't have any issues with my prostate, knock on wood.

But there is an irritating radio spot I keep hearing on sports radio WEEI (Boston)...the voiceover guy's voice drones on until he starts describing some supplement designed to "target and feed your prostate."

Ummmm...I think the goal with prostate problems is to reduce the size of your prostate. Any supplement or treatment would probably work better if it "target(ed) and STARVE(D) your prostate," I think.

And the guy's voice is so drony that I haven't heard the ad in full yet. By the time I recognize it, they are in "repeat the 800 number so many times you'll never forget it" mode, and they already stopped mentioning the name of the product. I can't bring myself to call the 800 number, but when I get the product name I'll be sure to follow up with more info.

A Good Whine Needs Aging

2008-06-10T21:57:00.003-04:00

LIEberman gives good whine...ya gotta give him that.

Obama takes him to task for his sleazy Muslim rhetoric and weak-on-foreign -olicy crapola that Joe is trying to sell...and poor Joe is complaining about the treatment he's getting.

I cannot wait for Holy Joe to get stripped of his Homeland Security chairmanship...should be no longer than November 5th, by my reckoning.

Bush and Abramoff Together Again

2008-06-09T23:03:00.004-04:00

Abramoff and Bush...

Like Rogers and Astaire, like Gilbert and Sullivan, like Currier & Ives, like Ben & Jerry's...

4 new pics of Black Jack Abramoff with his buddy Bush have suddenly appeared, after the White House staff had assured us that they only had met twice (based on 2 previously release photos). Of course the Giant Corrupt Abramoff Lobbying Machine had nothing to do whatsoever with Junior Bush and his Giant Corrupt Administration.

And there's word now that Rove would secretly meet Abramoff on Washington street corners to avoid a paper trail of their meetings.

The plots thicken. And tomorrow is the day that Henry Waxman has indicated he wants all the Plame-related FBI interviews with Bush and Cheney. Interesting-er by the minute.

Gang Green Dream Team

2008-06-04T23:26:00.004-04:00

McSurge's dream team came up with a hideous green background for yesterday's robotic speech that made him look older and more sickly and pale than Montgomery Burns on a four day absinthe and Geritol bender.

I'm thinking Bobby Jindal's advance guys had suggested it, and the McCainiacs just went along with it. Bad move. Not even the suckups at FOX News liked it.

O'Reilly Doesn't Know Nukes Are WMDs

2008-06-04T23:16:00.000-04:00

BillO needed Scott McClellan to point this out to him.

And of course Keith Olbermann got a few laughs out of the exchange.

Here's the thing, though: we're talking about someone who thinks he scrubs his torso in the shower with a falafel.

Meats of Yore

2008-05-31T22:50:00.004-04:00

A couple of days ago I tried canned deviled ham again for the first time in decades.

I have survived the experiment, with no ill effects so far. It was a lot greasier than I remember it being.

And we now have a farmer's market in town. There's a local cattle farm that sells their own meats. I tried a spicy Italian sausage which wasn't bad last week; today I bought a London broil, though it might be a while before I try that.

The New Yorker had a recent article on the many evils of processed food, especially factory meats, but I can't bring myself to eat vegetarian. No amount of liberal East Coast elitist nagging will do it.

Larry Craig Bobblefoot Night

2008-05-31T22:44:00.003-04:00

Yes, folks, you can't make this stuff up.

The St. Paul Saints of the Independent League in Minnesota had a Larry Craig Bobblefoot Night (scroll down some for the image).

Too bad Minnesota is so far from Rhode Island. I would have gladly driven 300 miles or more for one of those babies, even if gas was $10 a gallon.

It Don't Mean a Thing...

2008-05-31T22:12:00.003-04:00

...if you aint got that King.

So Nepal joins the long list of countries that have deep-sixed their monarchies. At least the Nepalese had a tragic Shakespearean reason or three to do it.

King Gyanendra ascended after his nephew Dipendra died, who in turn was King for only 3 days (and in a coma!).

Dipendra had been blamed for the 2001 brutal massacre of the previous king, Birendra (Gyanendra's brother) and the rest of the royal family. The public viewed Gyanendra as responsible for the massacre even though Dipendra was the official culprit. Gyanendra had spent much of 2005 dissolving the Nepalese parliament.

From April 2006 Gyannedra's status has been that of a ceremonial monarch. He was then deposed peacefully 3 days ago (May 28, 2008) and Nepal became a federal republic. So much for ceremony...

Welcome Nepal! Long live your tiny republic!

Now how long before this tale becomes a hit on Broadway?

Bob Barr: This Year's Nader

2008-05-27T12:07:00.002-04:00

So Bob Barr has finagled the Libertarian Party nod. Good for him!

"I'm sure we will emerge here with the strongest ticket in the history of the Libertarian Party," Barr stated in his victory speech shortly after being selected as the Party's nominee. "I want everybody to remember that we only have 163 days to win this election. We cannot waste one single day."

Yes...waste not, want not. I don't really foresee this as having much impact in the general. Obama will crush McSurge like hot grape. But it could be fun watching the returns from places where third party candidates historically do well, such as Alaska.

On a trivia note...when was the last time a Presidential canddiate had facial hair?

And Schicklgruber notwithstanding, moustaches are usually pretty good indicators of electoral failure (see the early John Rowland, former CT governor and felon, who had a moustache and lost the CT governor's race, then shaved and won, if I remember correctly...).

Snuggle Time

2008-05-27T12:02:00.002-04:00

McSurge is running low on fundage for his doomed campaign.

Call in the Grand Pioneer hisself: George W. Bush!

``Any sitting president, even one whose approval rating is in the low 30s, can raise money,'' said Jim Pinkerton, a Republican strategist. ``McCain has to distance himself from Bush, but he also has to reassure the Republican base -- and that means snuggling up.''

Mmmmm. Snuggling up to W. Doesn't get any cozier than that!

100 Years Ago in June

2008-05-22T22:11:00.003-04:00

June 30, 1908 specifically.

That's the date the Tunguska event occurred - a large meteor or comet asploded above the forest in the Tunguska region of Siberia. The resulting explosion knocked down millions of acres of trees, and lit up places like London, thousands of miles away - Londoners were reportedly able to read at night by the resulting light of the event.

According to a report in this month's Scientific American, a group of Italian scientists believe they've located a meter-wide remnant that continued down to Earth and created a small lake with its impact crater.

The Italians are going to try to recover the meteorite and prove once and for all that the event was caused by something natural, and not by the midair collision of alien spacecraft or something quasi-bizarre like the passing of a mini-black hole through the Earth.

Frog March, Not So Interrupted

2008-05-22T22:05:00.002-04:00

So the House Judiciary Committee has finally subpoenaed Karl Rove, Bush's Brain.

I'd like to be a fly on the wall at their closed door meetings. Are they prepared to go the Inherent Contempt route?

I'd love to see that. Rove arrested in Texas by the House Sergeant-at-Arms, flown back to Congress in handcuffs, tried in the well of the House and imprisoned for the balance of the Congressional term.

Oh, and let's hope they grab Miers and Bolten while they're at it.

The Tenacity of Life, or Lack Thereof

2008-05-19T22:52:00.005-04:00

I'm building a stone wall. Living on an old New England plot that used to be farmland generations ago, there are remnants of the former clearings in the shape of boulder piles. These rocks are perfect for constructing a stone wall, and I've had a hankering to build one ever since I moved here to Rhode Island ten years ago.

So up it goes. The piles have been there so long that the outer stones are covered in lichen...so I've saved the best of these for the wall topstones. They give my new wall the street cred of something ancient.

Now lichen are weird. Dry crispy blue green flakes of life that take decades to grow, subsisting on air, ambient moisture and rock. When we find alien plant life, I think much of it will resemble lichen.

Another slow growing plant we have a lot of is moss. Last year I accidently stripped a large section of moss from the south side of our yard, very close to the house. The soil beneath was dark brown and very rich looking. I thought about reseeding it with grass, but never got around to it. Then when I walked by it one day last fall I resolved to leave it alone, just to see what Nature, abhorer of vacuums, would insert in its place. I've been checking this tabula rasa regularly ever since.

So what has Nature provided me with? Absolutely NOTHING. I have boulders and piles of boulders covered with rock-sucking lichen that might thrive on the Moon, but here's a 10 square foot patch of rich soil, that used to support moss, for peat's sake (pun intended) with no signs of life whatsoever.

What gives?

Bush Calls Dems 'Appeasers'; McSurge & Joe Agree

2008-05-15T22:03:00.005-04:00

Who are the only 2 people racing to Bush's defense, after he used his speech to the Knesset to deride Obama and Dems as akin to Nazi appeasers?

1) St. John McSurge, natch.

2) LIEberman, channeling Zell Miller. When will Joe get his comeuppance?

Kudos to Hillary for coming to Obama's defense. And Biden, who can drone endlessly at times, simply called it "bullshit." Kerry, Pelosi and Reed all made statements attacking Mr. 19%.

The GOP's Mississippi loss the other day has finally emboldened the Dems.

Weeding Out The Halfodils

2008-05-11T22:07:00.008-04:00

We used to have daffodils in bunches in the front yard, on either side of our garage.

Two years ago we relandscaped to create a front yard garden - the goal was to have mulch beds with blue hydrangeas spaced about 6 feet apart. A simple look, that was simple to keep. The landscaper we hired to cut out the beds and rototill must have tilled the existing daffodils randomly. So now we have the scallion-like shoots of the daffodils all over, but no flowers. The resulting appearance is very weedy looking. So we spent part of Mother's Day weeding out these halfodils.

My wife was quite happy doing this on Mother's Day; in fact, it was her choice lest you think I'm some kind of awful slave-driving gardening tyrant. I could live with halfodils and weeds alone, believe me. In fact, if it wasn't so environmentally unsound I'd probably pave the yard rather than maintain it, if it was just up to me.

Happy Mother's Day!

The Illustrated Man

2008-05-10T22:32:00.002-04:00

...was a great short story collection from Ray Bradbury. I spent many childhood evenings reading of Martian antics attributed to that tattooed individual.

And then there's Delonte West, of the Cleveland Cavaliers. His tattoos don't tell stories, at least not coherent ones. Apparently among his many body drawings, he has a tattoo of a Chinese character on his neck. He told a reporter he hopes it means "Strength." When asked why he qualified the statement, West said that when he goes into Chinese grocery stores people point and stare and start laughing at him.

I have no tattoos. But you better believe if I ever do, it will be of lettering and symbolism that I am thoroughly acquainted with.

Abort! Abort! Abort!

2008-05-10T22:24:00.005-04:00

"Danger, Will Robinson!"

Now Google ads is trying to draw me into controversy by running a link to a New York Times article about The Abortion Debate.

There's no debate in my mind. I am a man; I never have to have one, and it really isn't any of my business imposing my will on other women. I'd like to see less of them, of course...I don't know of anyone who wants more.

The Newport Cliff Walk in May

2008-05-10T22:14:00.004-04:00

Today started out overcast. My little one's softball practice went smoothly.

And then it was off to Newport for the afternoon. We drove directly to Ocean Drive. Parked and attacked the Cliff Walk from the far end, and headed back east. Usually we start on the town beach side and head south and west along the Mansions and Salve Regina University before quitting at the pagoda and its tunnel.

So this time we reached the pagoda from the other direction, and I may expire a happy man, knowing the I've completed the entire Cliff Walk, albeit in pieces. We probably walked about 6 miles, my wife and I.

The fragrant beach roses are not blooming yet, but the views were still spectacular against the blueblue sky and the occasional cotton puff ball clouds.

Stopped in town for a celebratory burger and beer. Ran into an old friend from a previous job, shot the proverbial breeze.

A very relaxing way to start the weekend. I wish I could do this more often...

Sucks Getting Old

2008-05-09T23:07:00.003-04:00

I played softball with my cousins last night.

Nothing special happened...unfortunately we lost 9-7. I pitched well, fielded poorly, and went 3 for 3 with a double. But the mere act of running from home to 2nd on the double left me winded.

And today, I could barely walk. My left heel is killing me, and I have no idea why. This is the weird and unexpected thing for me as I age...acquiring random injuries of unknown origin.

I have to run around tomorrow, too, as I coach my little one's softball team. Something tells me that an afternoon nap and beer may be in order.

La Dolce Vito

2008-05-09T22:51:00.003-04:00

You hear about Congresscritters misbehaving from time to time...and you hear about regular folks who lead double lives (separate families in different states, for example).

Thanks to Vito Fossella, (R-NY) you get to hear about both.

Iron Man

2008-05-04T22:33:00.005-04:00

Saw Iron Man last night.

Now I like Robert Downey, Jr., and he was solid as the modern-day Oscar Wilde-ish billionaire playboy Tony Stark, but it was the presence of Jeff Bridges as the heavy that convinced me to go see this movie. Bridges did not disappoint. His portrayal of Obadiah Stane, Stark's nemesis, was excellent...full of smarm, fake camaraderie, and bluster.

I was surprised to see Gwyneth Paltrow cast as Stark's assistant and potential love interest, though. But she did a credible job as well.

Overall, I liked it. I give it 3.5 out of 4 Vitamin-Enriched Xanax, on the Manic Indolence Scale. Perfect escape-from-reality movie.

60 Minutes v. Wade

2008-05-04T22:03:00.006-04:00

60 Minutes had another interesting piece on tonight...this time a look at the prosecutorial misconduct of the infamous Henry Wade.

Henry Wade was the Dallas County, Texas District Attorney for over 30 years...In fact, Roe v. Wade was the first case he ever lost. He was also the prosecutor in the Jack Ruby trial.

Apparently Wade's modus operandi was to ignore evidence that might exonerate his defendants, thereby ensuring that anyone he charged went away to prison for decades, if not the rest of their lives.

The 60 Minutes piece examined the 15 cases of Wade's that Project Innocence Texas has overturned so far, primarily through exculpatory DNA evidence. The freed men gave moving interviews. And kudos to the current DA, who is cooperating with the Project Innocence Texas folks to expedite the claims.

No Explaining the Ads on this Site

2008-05-02T15:51:00.002-04:00

When I write about my Volvo, I get Volvo ads.
When I write about Spam, I get meat ads.
When I write about Hillary or Obama, I get political ads.

So when I write about ticks on our puppy Toffee, I get "Meet Sexy Singles" ads.

Huh? Is there some new fetish out there that I am not aware of?

Uptick in Tick Updates

2008-05-02T15:47:00.001-04:00

Toffee's tick has vacated his eyelid.

We managed to get an appointment for Thursday morning to remove said tick, but by then he had left the building. Jacqueline and I scoured his bedding and his sleeping area, to no avail.

But the Tick finally re-emerged later that day, scuttling around on Toffee's neck.

J wrapped him in paper and flushed him to the Great Tick Beyond. Yay!

A Tick in the Eye Saves Nine...

2008-04-30T13:43:00.005-04:00

...or something like that.

Toffee (Cutius puppicus) has a tick. Right on one of his eyelids. One, perhaps two, millimeters from his slightly bulging left eye.

This is a dog with the hypermanic energy of a freshly angered wasp, so my removing the tick is totally out of the question. Even with my older daughter pinning him down and my hand gripping his skull tightly. We did try.

So...it's time for a trip to the Wood River Animal Hospital where our friendly neighborhood vet can take a whack at it.

Toffee is an indoor dog, primarily. I can't imagine what he'd looked like if left outside alone for any length of time. Probably like an emaciated, anemic monkey with a million little black handbags hanging off him.

Ad Hominem Attack

2008-04-27T22:01:00.006-04:00

Saw Justice Scalia on 60 Minutes tonight, briefly. When confronted with the Bush v. Gore controversy, he spat out his disdain.

His beady squint, and the way he licks his lips, were evocative of a lizard, say a Gila monster.

Gila monster saliva has been analyzed, though, and a new diabetes drug, exenatide, is derived from it.

Something tells me there is nothing useful or therapeutic in Scalia's spittle.

Car Accidents, and the Right Side of My Volvo

2008-04-26T23:06:00.005-04:00

Some clown took an abrupt u-turn into my car at a rest area on 95 S near the Mass Pike Thursday afternoon.

I'm fine. The contact was in super slow motion, and the collision was more of a soft crumple than a severe impact.

But the damage was enough. Cracked headlight lens. Dented the right front quarter panel. Snapped the bolts on the bumper.

Two years ago I got side-swiped by a hit-and-run Boston SWAT vehicle and lost my right side mirror cover, but I'll save that tale of woe for another day.

And soon after that, I backed into my son's car ever so slightly, denting the right rear quarter panel.

So the right side of my Volvo is wounded and beaten up.

But on the bright side: 31 mpg, and 201,000+ miles.

Lebowski Fest Update

2008-04-26T22:55:00.004-04:00

Lebowski Fest, Numero Seven, is this July 11 and 12 in Louisville, KY.

And we'll be there, my son Lee and I.

We have our Lebowski Fest tickets.

We have our Lebowski Fest hotel reservations: 89 dollars a night at the super convenient Executive Inn across the street from the festivities.

We have our Lebowski Fest airplane tickets, via Continental Airlines, provided they don't merge with anyone before then.

We just have to decide who we are dressing up as.

Will it be as nihilists?
Will it be as bowlers?
Will it be as Achievers?

These, and other Lebowski Fest details are yet to be worked out.

I think I'll light some incense, take a warm bath with my marmot, and mull it over a couple three White Russians.

Cinnamon, Deer, Tulips, and Type II Diabetes

2008-04-26T22:35:00.005-04:00

We planted some tulips two years ago. Before they really starting blooming, deer came and ate them to nubs.

This year I tried a new deer repellent, and so far it is working. The magic ingredient appears to be cinnamon oil.

Now cinnamon is a wonderful spice. And the name cinnamon is associated with several species of plants, and has many exotic uses, according to the Wikipedia Gods. But I've never seen it used as a deer repellent before. Maybe I'll add this to the wiki page.

In the meantime, I happen to be writing about diabetes and cinnamon for my day job. Some Pakistani researchers published results in the journal Diabetes Care in 2003 that claimed that cinnamon could improve glycemic control (control of blood sugar, for you non-diabetics and non-medical folks out there). Since then, researchers have found little further data that supports that claim. But here is the Wikipedia article saying that the Pakistani researchers used cassia, not what we think of as cinnamon, so we may be comparing apples to, er, cinnamon. So I have some more digging to do.

Thanks to my previously munched tulips, I have researched cinnamon a little more than I would have normally, and found something useful to add to my work, along with a few more dark alleys to run down.

Assorted Thoughts

2008-04-23T20:37:00.006-04:00

Well, I just typed for 15 minutes, spilling my proverbial guts, and a Blogger system error ate my post. Bastards!

So I'll try again, but this time more telegraphically.

PA primary OVER. Good. Good for Hill. Peeps gave her $$$. She's gonna need every centavo.

Gorgeous taste of summer today. 80. Sunny. Ate lunch outside.

Gas rocketing. Oil surging. Shortage of rye flour HERE, in the US of A. End of Western Civ? Feels like it. Hopefully not. Don't want Chimpy and Darth to cancel elections.

War rages on. Petraeus to Centcom. Odierno to head Iraq. More kids die daily.

Can November get here fast enough??????

Base Assumption: Everyone in Iraq is Al-Qaeda

2008-04-20T22:06:00.005-04:00

Poor McSurge. He can't keep Iraq and Iran straight in his mind. He confuses Sunni with Shi'a. All he really knows is that these troublemaking folks live in a desert not much hotter than the one he represents in Arizona, except their desert is full of angry swarthy people, and lotsa oil.

So what better way to keep things straight on the Straight Talk Express than to label everyone "over there" as "Al-Qaeda?"

McSurge is lucky he has a brainiac like Ken Pollack to serve as his apologist.

Can Hillary Stop Attacking Democrats?

2008-04-19T22:11:00.003-04:00

I haven't really weighed in much on Obama v. Hillary lately, as I am happy to support whoever wins the nomination, and I'd rather focus my energies on defeating St. John McSurge (R- Budweiser).

But now there's a tape of Hill going nuclear on MoveOn.org, an organization that was founded to push back on Bill's impeachment woes, defended Bill during that stupid "Path to 9/11" movie controversy, and which happens to represent over 3 million Dems across America.

Hillary...take a break from insulting us, insulting Obama, and concentrate on attacking McSurge. That may be the only way to win the rest of us over, if you can make it out of Pennsylvania with a campaign.

How McSurge Got His Groove Back

2008-04-17T18:08:00.005-04:00

...by sucking up to his base: everyday Republicans and conservative right-wing maniacs. I predicted this several months ago, when he first clinched the Repub nomination and conservatives and Bush Lovers everywhere were wringing their pasty little hands.

Relax, folks...St. John is resting easy these days...he aint running against anyone right now, so he appears all Presidential-like.

That ole microscope will swivel around shortly, though, and focus will return to this Ancient PTSD Flipflopper.

*************************************************

I did not watch the Dem debate last night, and who could blame me?

Stephanopoulos and Gibson??? I'd rather pluck my eyes out with fiery foundry tongs and stuff my ears with live centipedes.

The World Is Going To Hell...

2008-04-15T23:33:00.005-04:00

...or maybe sometimes it just seems like that.

One of my tasks at work is to update drug information...a ginormous tsunami of information that floods my little cube (veal-fattening pen, for you Douglas Coupland fans out there) every day is beyond mind-boggling...it is spirit sapping.

Then I think about how few hours and days I have left to talk a walk on a sunny afternoon, or how many books I want to read or movies I want to watch that I haven't gotten to yet. Sheesh.

I'm definitely taking a walk tomorrow.

Unemployed War Criminal Update

2008-04-13T21:42:00.003-04:00

So Alberto can't seem to find a job. Boo freaking hoo.

Here's my vote and my wish that he remain unemployed until it is time to whisk him off to the Hague.

Fire Up Them Impeachment Engines

2008-04-13T21:28:00.004-04:00

...not that there hasn't been a surplus of impeachable acts these past 7 years...

Bush II, the Decider, decided to tell the American people the truth (for a change).

It behooves Congress to impeach. Now. Not later. Not never. Now.

And if we can get 60 votes in the Senate next year, we can join the World Court, and ship these miscreants directly to Brussels for their own war crimes tribunals.

Weird Ads

2008-04-12T23:53:00.004-04:00

I allow this site to post related ads...so when I blog about Obama or Hillary, I get Obama and Hillary related ads. I've seen related ads about meat, after my Spam post. Meat, I can live with.

Now they're running an Alzheimer's Association ad, because Charlton Heston was a sufferer before he took that final chariot lap in the sky. I object to capitalizing on someone fresh death, unless it is me doing the capitalizing.

What is next? NRA ads? Ads for Soylent Green?

$112 a Barrel Oil, Financial Markets in Turmoil

2008-04-12T23:50:00.002-04:00

Oh, and food prices are tripling all around the world, when the food items themselves are not running out.

Paging Dr. Malthus, paging Dr. Malthus, worldwide catastrophe calling on Line 1...

McSurge and the "C" Word

2008-04-12T23:48:00.002-04:00

Yes...I saw this story, about the Cliff Schecter quote in his new book, The Real McCain.

Nice mouth, McNasty.

McSurge and the New Hundred Year's War

2008-04-08T22:06:00.003-04:00

There was already a Hundred Years' War. It was in France, fought by the French and the English, and it was long and bloody and not particularly fruitful.

Now McSurge claims that there should be a new Hundred Years' War, only this time in Iraq and Iran, and wherever else this nutty little whackjob wants to send American troops.

Between now and November, we should hang this idiotic proposal about his puffy neck like the Ancient Mariner's albatross.

Demise of a Damned Dirty Ape

2008-04-06T23:21:00.004-04:00

Charlton Heston has left the building, as they say. He had a very long and interesting career, as actors go. And he was also famous for fighting for civil rights in the early 60's...so it is apropos this week when we're reminiscing about Dr. King to remember the contributions of others.

And I'm looking forward to week-long tribute of his movies, with such cheesy sci-fi wonders as:

Planet of the Apes 1968
Beneath the Planet of the Apes 1970
The Omega Man 1971
Soylent Green 1973

These 4 movies came out in my formative teen years, and thinking about them transports me back in time...curled up in bed reading Asimov and Clarke, staying up to enjoy late-night movies and sci-fi fantasies, right at the time of the ascension of color TV in the U.S. (and also in our household).

Late in life Heston became NRA President...and ultimately was suitably ridiculed by Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine. Um...I'm not crazy about guns. Don't own one, have never fired one, don't really look forward to ever firing one.

In any case, though, I'll look out for these movies again this week.

"Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape."

The Main Reason Not to Vote for McSurge

2008-04-05T21:54:00.005-04:00

Let's tackle the biggest one today. The War.

This is, without doubt, the number one reason why you should not vote for McSurge. Not now, not in 4 years. Not ever.

This illegal, immoral escapade has resulted in 4000+ of our soldiers getting killed, tens of thousands killed horribly maimed, hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, millions of refugees, and 500 billion + from our treasury.

And St. John W. McSurge wants to stay. Even though he doesn't understand the difference between a Shi'ite and a Sunni. Even though he thinks staying 60 years in Korea is comparable to 100 years in Iraq.

70% of the American public thinks this war was a mistake, and he thinks it is our finest moment.

We have to rally around whoever his opponent will be; the only alternative is a 3rd Bush term (with McSurge playing the role of neocon whackjob).

Martin Luther King & 1968

2008-04-04T22:19:00.004-04:00

I turn 50 this year. I was 9 when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, 40 years ago today. Bobby Kennedy was murdered later that summer, soon after my birthday, another American tragedy. And my father died in between, an American hero on a much smaller scale, but a hero of mine in any case.

So thoughts of 1968 bring back many sad and strange memories for me. It really seemed like the entire world was crumbling around us, between the war and the violence in the streets and all the protests and civil unrest. Nixon resurgent, and the beginning of his reign of error.

40 years have gone by...and where are the protests? We have a war as heinous, if not more heinous, than Vietnam, if only because we should be so much wiser. We have lost many of our civil rights in the meantime, because we've allowed fearmerchants like Bush and Cheney and Rove to steal them in the night like so many petty thieves. We have more people in prison per capita than mainland China, and we torture people routinely in the name of national security.

And Bush is trying for his 3rd term, via the zombie corpse of McSurge.

We could use a Rev. King right about now. In fact, there probably hasn't been an American moment in the past 230 years where we couldn't have used a Martin Luther King.

1001 Reasons Not to Vote For McSurge

2008-04-03T22:04:00.003-04:00

I think this will be my next writing project...perhaps another blog, just devoted to McSurge.

There have to be at least 1001 reasons not to vote for this war mongering nutjob with all the anger issues.

So let's start at the beginning:

1. McSurge'll be the Oldest Man Elected President. 'Nuff said.

2. He's generally angrier than an Angry Beaver. Even his Republican colleagues think he's really crazy and hot-headed and ill-suited to be fingering the nuclear suitcase.

3. He ditched his wife and kids to marry a bleached blonde Budweiser beer distributor heiress. He clearly went after Cindy McCain because she was rich, and he was a relatively destitute Congressman. He certainly didn't pursue her for her conversation skills.

4. He's SHORT. He's joining a very long list of short, angry men who make problematic leaders...think Napoleon, Mussolini, Hitler, Kim Jong Il, Rudi 9iu11iai.

5. Enough with the self-proclaimed "maverick" title bullshit. He's never been a maverick in the true sense of the word. His overall conservative scores are ~80%, so he sides with them 4 times out of 5. When he does abandon a Republican viewpoint it is ALWAYS because it is highly unpopular. He's a frontrunning phony.

6. I read his crappy book, Faith of My Fathers. McSurge obviously suffered as a POW...but his recollection of his own pre-war young man behavior is repellent. He comes across as the smart ass bully with the multigenerational family ties and a chip on his shoulder.

7. He was accused of having an illegimate black daughter by Bush's campaign (Rove, primarily) but allowed his overweening lust for the Presidency to overtake any sense of decency. Instead of fighting Bush like a true maverick, he embraced him, both literally and figuratively.

8. He's friends with Joe Lieberman.

9. He sprinkles the trite phrase "my friends" throughout his speeches. Ugh.

10. Although he may be the phoniest man on the planet, and has flip-flopped on dozens of views and policies, he has the temerity to call his campaign "The Straight Talk Express."

I think I am off to a good start.

The Humor in Confidence Intervals

2008-04-02T00:04:00.003-04:00

My writing job involves some statistical analysis. I get to make a group presentation about confidence intervals on Thursday. Confidence intervals can be narrow. They can be wide. The ability of confidence intervals to be wide allows me to tell a Steven Wright joke:

"Some people are afraid of heights....I'm afraid of widths."

First McSurge Bumper Sticker Sighting

2008-04-01T23:36:00.003-04:00

Saw my first robin 2 weeks ago.
Saw my first cardinal (female) Saturday.
Saw my first McSurge bumper sticker today...blue serif name on a white background...very unpresidential, very uncampaigny.

And there was no year listed...so maybe it was just an artifact from 2000...but on second thought it would have faded.

This being Massachusetts, it was lost in a sea of Clinton '08 and Obama '08 stickers, and the occasional Visualize Whirled Peas.

40 Years Ago Today...

2008-03-31T22:52:00.003-04:00

...LBJ told the world he was hangin' up his spurs, the lascivious old bastard.

I was tuned into POTUS08, XM radio 130, this morning when I heard his gravelly Texas drawl oozing out of my speakers mid-speech.

I remembered that in '68 Johnson had surprisingly announced that he was no longer in the running for re-election. It oocurred to me that this was probably the anniversary...why else would they be rebroadcasting one of his speeches? He would have had to have done it this time of year...

The speech was apparently 35 minutes long, so I guess I caught the last 20 minutes or so.

The announcement, at the very end, was jarring different from the tone of the rest of his speech. Much of what I heard was devoted to recapping history and progress in Vietnam. I enjoyed getting to hear most of it today, even though the whole time I kept thinking about the awful parallels with Iraq.

If only Bush had had such qualms in 2004, maybe we'd be out there by now. But no...he is not only ignorant, he's stubborn.

All Hail The Idiots In Our NCAA Pools

2008-03-30T20:20:00.003-04:00

You know who the idiots are that you work with. The idiots in your NCAA pool.

They're the pack of Neanderthals who pick all their winners based on whether or not the mascot of one team could eat/kill the mascot of the other team, if they were animals engaged in mortal combat on Animal Planet.

They're the gang of jerks who give you score updates of tourney games in progress "after the first period."

They're the sort of dummies who couldn't tell Digger Phelps from Dig 'Em Frog.

They're the kind of morons who pick all four number 1 seeds to go to the Final Four.

And more than likely, these geniuses are winning your pool. Nice job, Brainaic.

Metaphor Countdown

2008-03-29T11:48:00.001-04:00

How long before this is used as a metaphor for the Democratic nomination battle?

1-888-995-DOPE

2008-03-28T21:46:00.003-04:00

How hard is it to read a phone number aloud?

Apparently, this was fairly challenging for 43, who screwed it up the last time he tried it, too.

Can't remember the number?...turn around, W - it was on a big freaking banner behind you.

McSurge, With a Side of Rice?

2008-03-26T22:41:00.004-04:00

Rice-A-Phony, the San Francisco Treat, er, Ex-Stanford Provost Freak...

Condoleezza Rice, of Chevron shipping fame, is apparently looking to pad her resume before she interviews for the NFL Commish job she' s been cravin'. She attended a Grover Norquist-run conservative function earlier today, which triggered speculation that Condi wants to be considered for McSurge's VP slot. Go for it, girl.

What better way to tie McSurge permanently and fatally to Bush & Cheney and their failed Administration?

Ceasefire, Please!

2008-03-25T21:12:00.005-04:00

It has been awhile since the last primary. We're still 4 weeks away from the Pennsylvania primary. I wish the Democratic candidates and their moronic surrogates would kindly shut up 'til then.

In the last couple of weeks we have learned many things. We learned that Obama has a pastor who's a little bit crazy and a whole lotta hateful for a Christian. And we learned that something about a cute 8-year-old girl bearing gifts on a Bosnian tarmac convinced Hillary Clinton that snipers were emptying their rifles on her and Chelsea and Sinbad and Cheryl Crow.

We learned that Obama's advisor, Samantha Power, thinks Hill is a monster. We learned that Bill Clinton fantasizes about a race where both candidates love their country. We learned that James Carville thinks that Bill Richardson is like Judas.

Here's a thought, people. The Republicans are going to dip into the sewers to develop phony ideas to base their fall campaign on. There's really no doubt. No lie is scurrilous enough not to repeat; no rumor too disgusting or seedy not to mention. So let's let them wallow it this stuff. Let's stick to attacking our real, common enemy, the person we will rally against in the fall, regardless of who wins the Democratic nomination. St. John McSurge.

Here's what we've learned lately about McSurge. The country is in recession, and he's admitted he doesn't know much about economics. To reassure us on that front, his top economic advisor is former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Deregulation), who spent his entire career stripping oversight from our financial markets.

On the religious front, we learned that McSurge actually solicited the endorsement of Minister John Hagee, who says the Catholic Church is the "Whore of Babylon."

We learned that Johnny Mac is so clueless, he needs Rape Gurney Joe Lieberman (R-Arizona) to prompt him for the correct foreign policy answers. We learned that McSurge thinks Purim is the Israeli version of Halloween.

We learned that McSurge has broken the spending caps according to federal election laws, and that media is continuing to give him a free pass.

Hillary, Barack,...and all of your surrogates...there is plenty to shoot at here. There's really no need to keep shooting at each other.

Salamanders, Crocodiles, and the War

2008-03-24T21:25:00.004-04:00

DARPA is good for something besides weapons of mass destruction, after all.

Funded by a million dollar DARPA grant, some scientists think they are well on their way to solve the problem of mammalian limb regeneration, perhaps within 10 years or so.

Salamanders can regrow limbs quite easily. And like mammals, these amphibians have limbs with complex joints, bones, cartilage, nerves and blood vessels similar to mammalian limbs. And before you pooh-pooh the idea because of the size differential, the authors point out that crocodiles can even regenerate whole tails, which are comparable to human limbs in girth.

According to the article in this month's Scientific American, one of the key differences that prevents us from regrowing limbs is that mammals have fibroblasts that promote fibrotic scarring instead of making a layer of regenerative cells.

So if we can trick our cells into bypassing this fibrotic scarring, and supply the severed area with enough nutrients, we should be able to someday restore all these poor soldiers who are coming back from Iraq with missing limbs.

Your Future Robot Boss is a Fashion Challenged Perv

2008-03-23T21:30:00.006-04:00

With a See-Through Head

Weird commercial today, shown during the NCAA tourney.

Product: Degree® deodorant/antiperspirant.

Plot: Hip young man of the future, getting ready for his busy work day, has Degree automatically applied to his pits via long robotic arms.

His commute into work is a Fifth Elemental amalgam of dangerous, high-speed near misses apparently inducing perspiration.

Conclusion: He enters his Robot Boss' office. Robot Boss scans Young Man's armpit areas, and satisfied that they are "under control" tilts his head and smiles approvingly.

Questions raised:

1) Why is the clearly male Robot Boss scanning his male employees?
2) I appreciated his yellow power tie, but why is the Robot Boss wearing suspenders? For that matter...why is he wearing clothes?
3) Why is Robot Boss' head see through? Wouldn't that be distracting to the employees of the future? Seeing crap flying by behind his big clear head while he's talking?

Happy Easter!

2008-03-23T21:19:00.003-04:00

I like Easter. My reasons are more attitudinal than religious.

I just get sick of winter. As I get older, I find that I dislike the cold & snow & ice more and more. I can handle it in small doses, but by the end of February I'm ready to purchase a flamethrower and just torch every organic object within 50 miles, if that will help me keep my core temp up.

And there is absolutely zero reason to tie Jesus' resurrection to chocolate bunnies and marshmallows and jelly beans, but I do share the joy kids get out of these rituals.

We held our annual family Easter egg hunt, and our new puppy joined in the festivities as well.

So spring has gotten off to an excellent start. Pass the Peeps.

Spring Has Sprung

2008-03-22T18:42:00.004-04:00

the grass is riz,
I wonder where
the flowers iz...

Finally... a sunny, relatively calm day here in Rhode Island...after many windy and overcast days in a row. So wonderful to be able to take a walk at lunchtime and not have a gust of wind dislocate your shoulder. And the flowers are nearing riz. Our tulips and daffodils are beginning to stick their heads out through the mulch.

Compared to the weather our friends in the Mississippi Valley are enduring, I have nothing to complain about. The flood coverage is heartbreaking, watching whole towns and villages getting drowned.

But all of the drowned places will recover, eventually. They will be reborn; very much an Easter theme. Hopefully people will not rebuild so close to the rivers, next time. The silver lining is the silt deposited in all of the nearby farmland.

1% Smith

2008-03-21T21:25:00.004-04:00

from USA Today:

"One in six were too young to buy a beer. About two dozen were old enough for an AARP card. Eleven died on Thanksgiving Day, 11 on Christmas, and at least five on their birthdays. One percent were named Smith."

The article goes on to provide more demographic breakdown on the war's impact. You might think that reaching a milestone like 4,000 dead U.S. soldiers could give Americans heartburn, if not remorse. But you're probably wrong.

"Whether anyone pays attention to the benchmark is something else. "People tend not to be numerologists," says John Mueller, an Ohio State expert on war and public opinion. "These milestones basically have little effect on public support for a war. It's not like the stock market; people are more affected by events in wars than numbers."

Five Years Ago for the Iraqis...

2008-03-20T19:24:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I wrote about the U.S. casualties.

Today is dedicated to the Iraqi victims of this illegal war. Click on "IRAQI SECURITY FORCE & CIVILIAN FATALITIES.

Regardless of whose numbers you choose...they are in the six figures.

from npr.org:

World Health Organization: 151,000 (May 2003 - Nov 2007)
Johns Hopkins School of Public Health: 650,000 (March 2003 - July 2006)

I'll take Johns Hopkins and WHO over any BushCo jive.

And I've heard estimates of 80,000 Iraqi refugee women forced into prostitution in Syria and elsewhere.

Let us pray that this is the beginning of the end.

Five Years Today...

2008-03-19T23:07:00.002-04:00

Approximately 4000 American lives lost.
Over 20,000 injured soldiers.
Over 500,000,000,000.00 spent.

But after all of this, we are only sure of three things.

Bush thinks he was right.
Cheney thinks Bush was right.
And the American people know they are both wrong.

2008: A Space Eulogy

2008-03-18T22:04:00.005-04:00

So my favorite Sri Lankan writer has died. Sad. He apparently loved diving, and Sri Lankan waters were the closest thing to space he figured he'd ever experience.

Towards the end he began to resemble another hero of mine, Buckminster Fuller, and Clarke was at least as bright and worldchanging as Fuller was. I'll have to reread my Fuller books to see if he commented on Clarke's idea of geosynchronous communication satellites.

I also see that Clarke's novel Rendezvous with Rama is being made into a movie...I'm curious to see how that turns out. I loved Kubrick's 2001, and I'd love to see that on the big screen one more time before I die.

Hyenas in Baghdad

2008-03-17T23:37:00.004-04:00

Joe Sudbay makes a great point...

If things were going so well -- five years later -- why would Cheney need a surprise visit?
Cheney was so confident about being greeted as a liberator, why does he sneak into Iraq?
Why not announce the visit in advance so the Iraqis can plan the parade?

St. John McSurge is also skulking around the Green Zone with Lieberman and Lindsay Graham.

Flowers and chocolates, right? Five years, 4,000 American lives and 700 billion dollars later, and they are all still sneaking around like the hyenas in The Lion King.

"Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones...

2008-03-17T23:29:00.005-04:00

we got a thang, goin' on.... "

Somehow with all the other news of the world, Spitzer, McGreevey, McCain in Iraq, Cheney in Iraq, Bear Stearns in the toilet....I somehow missed the news about another faux memoirist, Margaret B. Jones.

"Me...ah, me...ah, Me and Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones....
we got a thang, goin' on...."

Remember the U.S. Attorney Scandal???

2008-03-16T22:33:00.003-04:00

I used to think that the Democratic leadership was dragging their feet on the U.S. Attorney Scandal because they feared it would distract from the presidential campaign, ensuring another Republican term.

Now I am not so sure. After the arcane parliamentary tricks they unveiled to stymie a FISA do-over, I'm now thinking they were/are taking their time so that the actual prosecution of the rats involved does not begin until AFTER Bush leaves office, thereby guaranteeing that Rove and Company do some hard time for peeing on the Constitution, and preventing Bush from issuing a sweeping pardon, as his father did with Cap Weinberger, et al.

Is the End Really Near?

2008-03-15T21:20:00.004-04:00

We were good throughout this era, squirreling our money away and not refinancing every other week like the rest of the planet.

But it seems we'll get punished just the same when it all comes crashing down.

Denounce & Reject

2008-03-14T23:30:00.002-04:00

It is Obama's turn again to denounce and reject someone else's idiotic rhetoric.

I'm reminded of the scene in A Few Good Men:

Lt. Weinberg: "I strenuously object?" Is that how it works? Hm? "Objection." "Overruled." "Oh, no, no, no. No, I STRENUOUSLY object." "Oh. Well, if you strenuously object then I should take some time to reconsider."

This storm will pass. The Right Wing Noise Machine is cranked up to 11, as it were. Nothing short of Obama's crucifixion on HBO will satisfy them. Whether or not Obama gets the nomination, this is how the dead-enders are going to campaign for Bush's third term. Hillary will get the same treatment.

Meanwhile, McCain's buddy Rev. Hagee is getting a pass. I haven't read the Federalist Papers in their entirety, but I'm pretty sure there's no mention of America being founded to destroy Islam in there.

Whatever happened to a) separation of church and state and b) freedom of speech?

It is going to be a long campaign. Ugh.

Mittens is Back!!!!!! Woohoo!!!!!!

2008-03-13T17:50:00.002-04:00

It's like he never left.

Those Magic Undies cannot be beat.

Hated Moralizer Downfall Alert

2008-03-12T20:54:00.007-04:00

Newsflash: Eliot Spitzer (D-NY Luv Guv), perhaps the homeliest (former) Attorney General this side of Dick Blumenthal, a man best known for his moralizing and heavy-handed prosecuting, was caught financing the interstate transport of a multi-thousand dollar hooker.

Who says capitalism is boring?

Incidently, this officially caps the Tri-State Governors Corruption Trifecta: McGreevy in NJ, Rowland in CT, now Spitzer in NY... with Giuliani & His Hamptons Mistress the cherry on top of the sundae.

And Eliot resigned, albeit artlessly.

A final thought: Hey, all you conservative Republican low-lifes (Rick Renzi, Larry Craig, David Vitter, etc.) hanging on out there. That is what you are supposed to do when you're caught red-handed. Slink off into the sunset.

Delays, Emergencies, Lousy Travels Airline

2008-03-12T20:35:00.007-04:00

We had a great vacation. Lots of time relaxing. My son and my youngest daughter had fun. Mrs. MI and I even slept late a couple of times! I didn't think about work for about 9 days straight, so that was very cool. My job can be high pressure at times so it was wonderful to disengage from that energy for a while. I even finished reading the novel (Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy) that I brought.

But...

You have to get home, if you've traveled. And that means mass transportation, in a country that has little respect for the term.

I will not get into any details because they are tedious. And I won't tell you the name of the hideous organization I blame most for our travel-related fiascos, but their initials are DELTA.

As in: you suck, DELTA.
I'll never fly DELTA again.
DELTA, may your airline go into Chapter 7 so fast all of your stockholders end up in debtor's prison.

I won't compare my dark thoughts about DELTA with the infinite wanton violence in Blood Meridian. That is one gory, gory book. Supposedly Ridley Scott is directing the movie version.

I only wish them financial ruin.