Twelve Pounds

Another Mystery Solved

2009-12-29T20:54:00.000-08:00

He's got bodyguards, cutting-edge healthcare, the best PR machine in the world, people are just raining money on him and he doesn't have to fly commercial...

You know, I think Obama ran for President just so he could be sure nothing would happen to him.

Such Symmetry in Nature

2009-12-15T07:25:00.000-08:00

I am a hobby sociologist. People crack me up. I was listening to a chatter show the other day, talking about social media. The conversation turned to how it's decided to change a facebook status from "single" to "dating." After the first date? After the first couple weeks? After a series of tense negotiations, mediated on both sides by retired Federal judges? A young lady of college age called in. Perfect. Someone of the appropriate age to care about this crap. She said women used to care if their men friends changed their status to "dating," but not so much anymore. It's a sign of being needy and manipulative to insist the fellow acknowledge the relationship. Besides, most guys didn't even know how to change that bit on their pages.

No, really, she said that out loud like it made sense or something. I cried laughing. Also, I cheered a little. A guy can figure out how to get on line, set up a page, download pictures, embed video and music, but can't noodle through how to do that personal status thingy.

Years of building the self-esteem of little girls has lead to this point. All that empowerment garbage has filtered through the feminine psyche and expressed itself as: Men are stupid. They are barely able to stand upright. They are no damn good at everything. We can't expect them to function like people, certainly not without supervision. This is the exact reverse of the attitude of about fifty years ago or so. The women back then whined and protested and set fire to their underwear (what was that about?) and generally made a nuisance of themselves until we've gotten to the point where we are now, where men expect us to change our own oil, put out forest fires and sweep for mines. When confronted with the same exact attitude, the men say, Yeah, whatever. We're idiots. Don't bother us with anything difficult.

This is why men are smarter.

This Guy

2009-12-12T10:05:00.000-08:00

My new Short-Duration Personal Hero.

Who knew Canadians were so brave?

2009-12-11T13:48:00.000-08:00

Diane Francis espouses a world one-child policy in the Canadian Financial Post, from the home in America she shares with her spouse and their two children. Her own parents didn't feel that way; Diane has a sister. What do you want to bet Diane's the older sister?

Oh, Really?

2009-11-10T07:08:00.000-08:00

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11/09/taking_liberties/entry5595506.shtml?tag=mncol;txt

Justice Dept. Asked For News Site's Visitor Lists

..."the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day..."

Here are some of the headlines for that day, just to refresh the memory: Link1 Link2 Link3

This administration's Justice Department issued a grand jury subpoena to Indymedia.us. The DOJ also said not to tell anyone about the subpoena without their permission. Not how it works. The DOJ can't subpoena a journalist without express permission of the Attorney General. At the time the subpoena was issued -- 1/23/09 -- there wasn't any Attorney General. They asked for every piece if information Indymedia had about every computer user who logged on to the site on 6/25/2008, from ISP number to SSN to shoe size. The DOJ is only allowed to ask for information that directly pertains to an investigation. The person who had the records was informed of the subpoena by Indymedia. She should have gotten served personally. That means a knock on her door like in the movies (or maybe your personal life, sorry) and a guy leaving a copy of the papers with her. This is something you learn the first minute of the first day of law school, and when Indymedia promptly squawked, the subpoena was withdrawn.

This isn't a case of bad lawyering. This isn't amateur transition-team behavior. This is how an oppressive government operates. We're going to stomp all over your civil rights and don't you tell anybody about it unless you want something worse to happen to you. We won't tell you what that is, but trust us, it will be worse.

Impotent bullies.

Somewhere in an underwater grotto...

2009-10-09T18:49:00.000-07:00

...a fig-eating ape is rolling on the ground, laughing.

Classy, Classy CBS

2009-10-06T07:40:00.000-07:00

Imagine spending heaps and piles of your parents' money to get a degree in communications from some ivy-swathed institution Back East. Through family connections or dumb luck, or even through working at it really hard you land what you're told is a coveted intern position at CBS. The future looks bright. Then Dave happens.

If you are a female person, your phone, computer, facebook, etc. are clogged with strangers asking you if you're doing Dave. I'm sure it doesn't even matter whether or not you intern for his show; it's enough to work in the same building as his staff. If you're a male person speculation trends more toward the sinister. If the Tiffany Network is cool both with David Letterman and a news producer diddling the help, every male employee of the network must be considered a potential episode of "Mad Men."

I don't think the ladies involved will sue for sexual harassment. Dave's main main squeeze got her law school paid for. Picture phones are handy. What I want to know is, what's the redress for everyone whose resume is now a dirty joke because they work for CBS?

Thanks, Al! Kisses, Sonia.

2009-10-05T07:51:00.000-07:00

I was reading this article on American Thinker about how Obama only wants to do the fun parts of his job. That got me thinking about Al Franken, who only wanted to be a Senator for the stationery. Franken reminds me of the cute puny girl from "Survivor," the one they keep on until the final four because she's no physical threat and she'll go along to get along. Al's a jerk, though, but instructional. Remember during Justice Sotomayor's hearings when he asked her a question about Perry Mason. Oh, Al, you big silly. Here's why he did that. It wasn't to mock the proceedings, or to highlight the folly of Minnesota voters. It was more infuriating than that, even. It was just so Al Franken would have remarks recorded in the Congressional Record.

Franken is a cruder, low-rent version of Obama. Which must mean Obama's also the puny girl. Al dances with them that brung him. Franken's committee assignments are the Judiciary, Health, and Aging, which are a big deal, as well as Indian Affairs, which is not so much. Sorry, Indians. Y'all might make youtube, though, when Miss Franken asks during a hearing if you'd mind troubleshooting his email. Bet me. He's a seatwarmer. He could be replaced by a paperweight and he knows it. What's more, he doesn't care. He'll be their reliable swing vote as long as he gets perceived benefit, which for him consists mainly of the job title. The ladies at 14th and O have more self-respect.

But we know who's running Al.

Rape rape

2009-09-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

My first ex-husband was a connoisseur of barbecue, and he had a theory. The best BBQ joints were the ones that had a cartoon pig on the signage. Little race-traitor cartoon pigs waving, smiling, welcoming you in; "Come on and eat me! I'm tasty!" He was right more often than not. I find myself thinking of that when I hear that Debra Winger thinks Roman Polanski shouldn't have to serve his sentence for raping a 13-year-old little girl because he's such a genius and the crime would be to rob humanity of his work. Debra Winger is still alive. Who knew? I thought Whoopi Goldberg had a regular gig on one of those daytime chat shows that are the reason why men think women are stupid. Her daughter had a kid at 15, so I can see why Mama's cool with statutory rape. Oh, and Woody Allen? You are so not helping.

Duane Chapman made his career when he snagged Andrew Luster in Mexico. Luster's from a movie family, like Polanski, and both are very wealthy. He was convicted of the same thing Polanski was, too: drugging and raping young females. Luster even filmed these encounters, just like Polanski did. Luster fled the country rather than serve his sentence, like Polanski. The difference is that it was proven that Luster did this multiple times while Polanski only incriminated himself once. Unless you count Nastassja Kinski, and why wouldn't you, she was 15. And Luster went after grown women while Polanski savaged a little girl. So why is it that Luster gets all the bad press and Polanski gets all the fawning? Luster can't hand out work for dried-up old husks like Debra and Whoopi.

If this wasn't Roman Polanski, artiste, with champagne and Quaaludes, but instead Roman Polanski, diesel mechanic, with hard lemonade and GHB would there be any question about wanting the guy buried under the jail? Even though the poor woman whose life he altered thirty years ago 'forgives' him? Forgives him. Right. Five hundred paparazzi in your front yard and the phone ringing off the hook with everyone you've ever seen on TV wanting to know why you want to torment poor Roman. For God's sake, the man won an Oscar! What have you done? Nope, no coercion there. Again.

Someone I work with said it would be funny if Polanski ended up in Corcoran State with Charlie Manson. I think it would be funnier if Phil Garrido was his celly.

Life's Enduring Mysteries

2009-09-25T15:49:00.000-07:00

I'm a woman, have been for years. Thank you. I care about clothes. Not what I'm wearing, mind you; I'll wear stuff I found in the street. Other people's clothes. The second most poorly-dressed woman in public life is the hostess of The Biggest Loser. That blue number she wore for the season opener? Just because the poor thing is blond is no reason to dress her like CBGB's-era Debbie Harry, OK? That's just wrong and she should renegotiate her contract. And speaking of people who are clearly dressed by angry, colorblind drag queens, I may have figured out what the deal is with Michelle Obama.

The First Lady dresses terribly. Everything fits poorly, is inappropriate for the occasion, or just plain bizarre. I don't think at this point she picks out her own clothes, because she has to have seen pictures of herself. I think people around her are afraid to tell her anything negative. I also think Mrs. Obama's a pretty smart cookie. Every time she goes out the door the media go wild praising her fashion sense and the internet goes wild coming up with new, even more unflattering adjectives with which to describe her... attributes.

So when Ahmadinejad lets slip that Iran is building another nuclear reactor and that "it would definitively be a mistake" for Obama to say anything about it, it's time for Ms. Michelle to slip into something ridiculous and close the streets during rush hour to pick up some produce. Everyone will spend the next news cycle yapping. OMG! Her shoes, her weave, her expression, her butt. Can you believe she went outside like that? How much was that bag? Oh, yeah. We were talking about something else, weren't we? Right? Who can remember?

Michelle is a helpmate, a team player, a nice, old-fashioned girl and a good little wifey. She's the magician's assistant.

Showtime at the Apollo

2009-03-13T14:04:00.000-07:00

Before he arose from the waves on a clam shell to do us all a big ol' favor by becoming our leader, Obama told us rubes he'd put all non-emergency legislation on the White House website so we could take a gander at it and have someone explain the gist of it to us if necessary. I can think of a great reason he should revisit that specific lie. He doesn't read what he's signing. That's right. His approach to legislation that affects millions of Americans yet unborn is the same one I've personally applied to leases, tax returns and divorce settlements.

The press and other unreconstructed partisans ( the wage slaves who don't have anything saved up to lose) have a keen interest in helping Obama look less like an ass. They'd soil themselves at the opportunity to read Big Man's paperwork. If there was anything hinky -- like language that cancels out any recently lifted Executive Orders, say -- they'd let him know. During business hours, of course, not on weekends, holidays, or Wednesday nights. They can leave a voicemail at Treasury or something.

Or maybe someone could sneak Obama's resignation into a farm bill or a bill designating the week of June 21st as Mildew Awareness Week. Think of it. We could have him out by Labor Day.

Miss Clifton Wades In

2009-02-27T13:46:00.000-08:00

Today there is much rejoicing. Our Federal Government, the one that dictates how fast we can drive, what light bulbs we use and how much water we need to flush the damn toilet, is ceding to the states the right to legalize weed. And of course, the Bay Aryans are all a-dither in their adulation of the extremely clever and humane administration of our only president. I swiped that last bit from Molly Ivins. She won't care. She's dead from cancer or drinking or an ugly disposition. Something. Anyway, back to the potheads.

I have a series of questions for you, ahem, smokers out there. If you read the comments you get the same old blather about Prohibition and lost tax revenue, yada yada. OK. If marijuana is harmless, why were we subjected to The Grateful Dead for freaking decades? They only made two good albums! Only TWO!!! Why hasn't anybody come up with a more evolved, compelling comparison than Prohibition? Why is this the only time stoners care about something dull like tax revenue? Why is this the singular instance of their noodling out the math? That and mentally doing metric weight conversions. And you know what, Ben and Jerry's isn't exactly good for you.

Oh, not you, of course. You're a productive citizen. Never broke any other laws, always held a job, paid your own way, the whole nine yards. That may be. But you have to know, in your more lucid moments (like the day before payday when you've been smoking resin since Tuesday) how much more productive you could be if you didn't have to spend all that time finding your keys. But today's payday and you have your mind on other things, like working groceries and rent and dope. So I'll tell you why this is a crappy-ass idea from a government that doesn't give a damn about you, that uses you like a punk every two years when it's time to vote for them to continue living off you. Think of it as my public service. I'm a giver.

Legal dope means more people can get it cheaper. Woo Hoo!! I hear you. But think on this: You know how you'd rather not be bothered with certain details when you're high? Or you hear stuff and then forget about it? Or you hear stuff, period? Or you get these big ambitious ideas you never follow through on? Yeah. That's what they're counting on. You like conspiracy theories? Almost as much as you like Sunchips? Mmmm, French Onion... where was I? Oh, yeah. Our government is kind of saying that they'd really dig it if they could keep you... well, suggestible. That it'd be the path of least resistance to just do as you're told, and since you won't remember what you're told that could be a new thing every week. "Giving" your state this "right" is a means by which to buy loyalty through the indenture of your addiction. Because this isn't about sick people. Sick people take Marinol or eat weed; addicts smoke, and you know it as well as I do.

Every worker works because they have a lifestyle to maintain. Nobody has any incentive to earn more than they absolutely need when they know any surplus will be confiscated. Children provide a pretty good incentive. So does a drug habit.

This isn't giving you "the right" to anything. This is cynically preying on people's weaknesses. It's what the British did to the Chinese with opium, to make them malleable and less able to resist The Crown's predation. Read up on the Boxer Rebellion. And you'd celebrate the guy you voted for doing the same to you? You must be on drugs.

Curiouser and Curiouser

2009-02-17T07:53:00.000-08:00

Perhaps you've heard of the recent natural gas shortages in Europe caused by Russia's decision to cut the supply. Gazprom is the leading gas utility and through various bailouts and sweetheart deals is a defacto entity of the Russian government. Like General Motors over here. Gazprom's reasoning behind turning off the taps was that the Ukraine owed them money so they weren't going to send their gas through Ukraine's pipelines until they were paid. Gas to most of the rest of Europe also flows through those pipelines, so reducing the pressure in the lines reduces the amount of heat everyone down the line gets. People are freezing. If this ever gets resolved and Gazprom turns the gas back on, my money's on them doing it all at once so it blows out the lines. It would be exquisitely Russian. Of course the real purpose behind all this is to show Europe the extent of Russia's reach. We have the power to freeze you and starve you. Do things our way, 'kay?

Ok, that's worrying, but it's Europe's problem. We have troubles enough over here, right? Not yet, apparently. The model Russia perfected with natural gas is now being applied to the steel industry. As in, our steel industry. Roman Abramovich is one of those Russian 'oligarchs' -- really rich young dudes with no past who seem to have risen from the waves on a clamshell. Amongst other holdings, he is one of two primary shareholders in the Evraz Group. They own steel mills. American steel mills. They've already renegotiated the existing sales contracts through the established business practice of tearing up the old ones and dictating new terms. So now every construction project that requires steel (that would be all of them) faces the prospect of paying the Russian government, since they've provided Abramovich with unsecured bailout funds to keep Evraz afloat. He's in a bit of a pinch right now, since Evraz is also trying to buy Delong Holdings Ltd., a Chinese steel maker.

A couple of other guys, Vladimir Potanin and Oleg Deripaska, plan to merge their mining company with Evraz, as well as with another couple mining companies and a producer of coal and steel. Russia's government would receive a quarter of the new company in exchange for paying off their debts.

They're going to take us without firing a shot. You could almost admire the efficiency of it.

CSPAN Junkie

2009-01-13T07:15:00.000-08:00

One huge upside of our peaceful transfer of power is the Democrats have way more televised hearings than the Republicans. Sometimes it's in spite of themselves, like the impeachment. Every time it's a festival of body language, a confluence of personalities so borderline, egos so unbounded they cannnot be contained within a single human body. A good congressional hearing emits tsunomic waves of perfumed self-importance that can be sensed right through the TV screen three timezones away. It is an art form as subtle as Noh, a sport as brutal as Muy Thai. And they are playing for all the marbles.

I'm watching Mrs. Clinton's confirmation hearing. Chelsea's there, sitting in the row behind her mom. John Kerry made a point of acknowledging her. Miss Clinton got a polite and loyal round of applause, which Sen. Schumer immediately tried to claim as his own. Now, Mom is wearing a sensible brown suit. Miss Chelsea's got on a purple sleeveless number, in DC in January. Her hair is worn loose and she upstages the hell out of her mother. Delish.

Sen. Kerry said since Chel's dad served as an intern on the FRC, they would be happy to make Chelsea an 'intern for a day' and he personally invited her up on the dias after the hearing so she could sit in the chairs and take in the view. Because our government is their toy.

Thanks Ever So

2008-12-09T22:29:00.000-08:00

Remember the picture of Ann Coulter Time mag put on their cover, the one that made her look like she was about eight, sitting in Daddy's chair and playing dress-up in Mommy's shoes? The same photographer, it seems, has worked his magic upon Obama. This is not the magazine I saw this morning in the grocery store, but the photograph is very similar. The one in the store was even more pronounced. Shooting him from below, at a child's perspective, is intended to evoke the Lincoln Memorial, I suppose. I'm getting the Stalin vibe, too. that may be unintentional. And since it's in Time it will become part of the secular iconography of the left. We'll be seeing this shot angle over and over again, which suits me fine. I didn't see 'monumental' or 'heroic' in that photo. The angle is so pronounced it makes his body look disproportionately large. They tried so hard to make him look like Our Hero they ended up with Zippy the President. There's your metaphor.

Yar

2008-11-20T07:56:00.000-08:00

Muslim thugs, primarily from Somalia, have captured and are holding 17 ships for ransom, including a shipment of munitions and an oil tanker. Ninety ships have been attacked just this year. The reaction by the world community has been to bravely run away, sending cargo around the Cape of Good Hope so as to avoid the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aden. Me, I would have scuttled every captured ship, taken the write-off and sent the families a ham. That's probably why I'm not in charge of anything important. You'd really only have to do it once or twice, though. Just saying. Oh, and can we stop minimizing the threat by calling them "pirates?" Brings to mind little boys playing pretend. Some of them may well be little boys, but they aren't playing. It's only a matter of time before they figure out a cruise ship warrants a much larger, more expedient payday.

The Russians have taken a different approach. They are sending warships down to the Horn to protect their interests. Interests that will undoubtedly include monitoring ship traffic. It's the only way to find those nasty pirates, doncha know. So when they find a ship with something really bad on it -- or something really good -- they have a responsibility to detain that vessel until they neutralize the threat. Or get paid. After all, who's to stop them? We're swapping one set of thugs for a more organized, better-armed set, one prone to, um, accidents. Even if they get paid. And nobody's going to do anything about it.

A Sudden Rush of Brains to the Head

2008-11-19T07:38:00.000-08:00

When the Russians start in on us about the lack of trust between our two nations, that means they have a blackmail file. Allow me to formulate a theory:

OK. Brace yourself.
Medvedev/Putin is 'optimistic' about having favorable (to them) relations with the Obama administration because...drumroll...
They have a certified copy, or the original, of Obama's birth certificate.
And it doesn't say 'Hawaii' on it.
It might not say 'Obama' on it, either. Awkward. But that's a stretch. I figure it's something very disqualifying (But Mrs. Clinton would have ripped his throat out, so to speak, and she didn't) or it's something intensely personally embarrassing, which would be not actually being an African prince but the son of some anonymous Leroy.

Hawaii has sealed the records so no one stateside can go look, but the campaign's been going on since the Battle of Hastings. Two years is plenty of time for a determined intelligence-gathering operation to work up a dossier on anyone, and I don't think even Mr. Obama saw himself as the nominee back then, much less The Office of the President Elect. So the true document is loosed into the wild and it's only a matter of time before it is produced. The only suspense is under which circumstances.

Six Degrees of Barack Obama

2008-11-17T06:40:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama is friends with Bill Ayres. Bill says so.

Bill is friendly with Hugo Chavez. He went to Venezuela in 2006 to speak at an education conference, where he expressed his admiration for Chavez.

Hugo Chavez is friendly (like the snake is friendly with the mongoose) with Dimitry Medvedev and by extension Vladimir Putin, the hand up Medvedev's back. He probably likes Putin better, actually. How could a kung-fu fighting pet tiger owner not appeal to the Napoleon Dynamite of world politics?

Medvedev is planning a sit-down with Mr. Obama to discuss Russian-American relations. He says he's optimistic. I bet. Even if The Office of the President Elect saw fit to ask for advice, who'd he consult? Ayres, his bomb-throwing surrogate daddy, would welcome taking it all down, man, so long as he gets a dacha on Lake Michigan. His cabinet will be resuscitated Clinton staffers so we (and people we negotiate with) can mostly predict what they'll say. Biden can only be counted upon to say something stupid and unhelpful. Probably a recipe for glazed ham he swiped out of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. If McCain's age was a liability, why'd we elect Grandpa Simpson as VP?

Russia sees Obama as an insecure lightweight, a grasping, overcompensating punk. They'd have to. Chavez thinks the guy is no big deal. I can't decide whether that's hilarious or insulting. And the people who elected him will be too busy trying to keep ahead of the bills to care if Obama sells out the home world.

I must say it makes me uneasy when life imitates punk.

An interesting footnote: I was looking for the NYT article I saw where Ayres came out after the election and said he was in fact all buddy-buddy with Obama. Can't find it, on two different search engines. It must never have existed...

Want Change, Do You?

2008-10-25T12:18:00.000-07:00

I didn't talk about Joe, the plumber from Ohio because I thought he'd been done to death, poor thing. That was before I found out about this. It seems some bureaucrat at the State of Ohio has been looking Joe up on the Government databases and leaking that information to the press.

This man is not a criminal. He is not a terrorist. He poses no threat to the candidate Obama. Obama does just fine threatening himself, thank you. All he did was take advantage of a moment where he and Obama were in the same vicinity to ask the guy a question. Joe wants to buy the company he works for from his boss. The company makes more than Obama's caste demarcation line of $250k a year, so Joe as the owner would have to pay so much in taxes -- being rich and selfish now -- that it wouldn't make economic sense to buy the business. Joe the private citizen asked Obama the famous presidential candidate why this should be. Idiot Boy responds with some tired socialist exhalation about spreading the wealth, at which point every small business owner in America actually felt their intestines knot up.

So, how to salvage this situation. I know, let's investigate the crap out of this Joe guy. There's bound to be something embarrassing about him we can use to take attention off that lightweight doofus we're running for president. Look, he's not a licensed plumber. Maybe when his livelihood is wrecked he'll have less time to think of questions. And he owes back taxes. Hmm. Maybe a good foreclosure is what's needed to bring ol' Joe current with the great State of Ohio. You know he's divorced, right? The ex-wife is usually a font of salacious detail, especially if we camp out by the kids' school at pick-up time. They hate that. Let's see if he's behind on child support. They can yank your drivers license for that, you know. And while we're in there we can check to see if he owes for tickets or has any points against him. Please, please let him have a DUI so we can ask him if he was drunk when he asked that question.

It almost goes without saying that if a Republican presidential candidate had pulled these kinds of dirty tricks against a private citizen who had committed no crime the opposing party would be demanding he quit the campaign. But for some reason everybody's cool with the idea of investigating Average Dude as punishment for making a candidate embarrass himself by stating what he truly believes. Obama didn't think there was anything wrong with what he said until it was picked up by the news. This is all spite, all ego, and it's calculated to destroy a man's life. What if he had had an outstanding warrant? That's what they were hoping for, a chance to imprison a citizen who disagreed with their candidate. Why else check the Motor Vehicle records? What if it was a candidate you disagreed with trying that crap? What if it was you they were investigating? To quote a young lady in a conversation I recently overheard, "And he's not even President yet."

Oh, yeah. Silly me. Nixon resigned. In retrospect, he showed a lot of class that way.

I'm Baffled

2008-10-23T20:53:00.000-07:00

The democrat party is supposed to be the one with the new ideas and all. Progressive. Whatever. So why is it that ever since I've been paying attention (I was for Ford against Carter when I was six) the democrat candidate is always portrayed as the smartest guy ever and their women are such noble creatures while the Republican is always dumb as a stump and their women are spendthrift kook control freaks?

Girlfriend, look out.

2008-10-22T07:36:00.000-07:00

I don't know an awful lot, but I know we're being set up.

When the person you are dating drops their company manners it can be seen as a sign the relationship is developing. As you become more secure in the affections of your sweetheart, more of your real personalities come through. You begin to notice things about each other, things that cross the line between 'quirky' and 'obnoxious;' his secret love of Air Supply, her shopping issues, etc. You must decide which foible is a dealbreaker, and if you go on with the relationship you may hear, during the course of an argument, "You knew I was like that before...." See, it's your fault. They were honest about who they were. They don't have to change. You have to accept them. Be supportive. Or else you're a heartless jerk.

We have reached that point in our relationship with Misters Obama and Biden. Perhaps it is a good thing that the campaign has been going on since the Bronze Age; it's taken this long for the new to wear off. Obama's tacit approval of the hounding and investigation of a private citizen tells us what will happen to those who help Obama look bad. Remember, it wasn't that guy's question that was the problem. And now Biden has said in so many words we will face some kind of crisis in the first six months of Obama's administration, one that won't be handled appropriately, and we should all just suck it up and support the guy anyway.

Pass.

As a woman and a cynic, I respectfully decline. This relationship will turn out like so many others have. He won't improve; in fact, as he discovers our tolerance for bad behavior, he will only get worse, more unreasonable, more erratic. And it will always be our fault. We never beleived in him. We always stood in the way of his dreams. We were just so damn negative all the time.

I can totally see why Oprah digs him. Personally, I'd feel better with grown people in charge.

More Projection Than Sundance

2008-10-10T20:08:00.000-07:00

James Carville is an ass. There, I said it. I feel cleansed. There have been simperings in the media before this, but leave it to Mr. Matalin to reinforce the stereotype of the unreconstucted ignorant bigot cracker. But first, allow me to address the dolts at the L.A. Times, since their story came first.

This started a few days ago, the murmurings that Gov. Palin might not be following the literal word of the Bible by being submissive to her husband, as if this made her somehow less than Christian. First of all, I should like to congratulate the author of the article, Teresa Watanabe, for reading a biblical passage without vaporizing or whatever. Second of all, if she were possessed of shame, she should feel it for blithely assuming that telling those backward fundies that Miss Sarah wasn't toeing Watanabe's interpretation of some obscure New Testament sentence fragment would be all it took to send them for the tar and feathers. Or perhaps she had a good old- fashioned stoning in mind. At least it's plausible to the layman that Gov. Palin practices some sort of faith. Unlike some people. Anyway, it's not like Christians-- other than my ex-inlaws-- keep score about who's the most observant. Sort of not what it's about. The whole brouhaha was concocted in the fevered imaginations of the godless, who arrogantly assume they are the clever ones. I thought ignorance was supposed to be bliss. These people seem awfully chapped.

Speaking of suppurating pustules, James Carville achieved the dubious distinction of making a statement of incredible racism against both blacks and whites simultaneously. I didn't think I'd live to see it.

Now let me be clear here, if Obama goes in this race with a 5- point lead and losing this election, the consequences are -- bull, man. I mean I don't think that's going to happen, but I think David it's a point to bring up. But you stop and contemplate this country if Obama goes in and he has a consistent five point lead and loses the election, it would be very, very, very dramatic out there."

Al Gore was 11 points ahead at this time in 2000, by the way.

The consensus has been that Carville meant riots. So he must think of black folks as unreasoning beasts that can be called out like dogs to ravage the countryside if whitey wills it. At the same time, he seems to think that the specter of angry blacks breaking windows resonates on a visceral level with the white and uptight. In short, blacks are animalistic and whites are supposed to fear them. Now, I like antiques, but honestly. Step out of the wayback machine, will ya?

These are the people who want to lead us into the future? These unevolved cro-magnons who think everybody is as heart-rendingly, teeth-grindingly, head-poundingly stupid as them? You know what? Get out of the damn way, and be grateful that some people think all life has value, even as a bad example to to others.

The Days of Swine and Poses

2008-09-10T07:57:00.001-07:00

Isn't it interesting that Obama seems to have forgotten his opponent is McCain? Maybe it's because he understands Palin could get the big job. Not because McCain might keel over in office; they said that about Reagan, too. Stay Classy, people. On the slim chance Obama wins the election he could be running against Palin four years from now.

For some reason it's particularly galling for a man to be bested by a woman. I don't get it -- I can't even make myself think like that -- but I understand the opinion exists here on this planet and I'll play along. There is, though, something unbecoming about descending into grade-school epithets in place of actual reasoned debate. While Palin can discuss McCain's platform at length in terms that resonate with the other average people, I don't think she will respond to Obama they way they must do it at Harvard, by thumbing her nose and saying, "I know you are, but what am I?"

The Democrat line is that, among other reasons, Mrs. Palin is a poor choice for VP because she has no foreign policy experience. We hardly ever trot the VP out to do the heavy lifting on foreign policy. In fact, sending the Veep is our way of telling you, foreign leader, we don't think you rate. It must be part of the whole 'rooting-for-McCain-to-die' thing. Lovely. Mr. Obama has said his foreign policy would mainly consist of sitting down with other leaders and talking things out. Now I really wonder how that's going to go. Boy, I sure hope they all agree with him.

Nobody Asked Me...

2008-09-05T07:49:00.000-07:00

OK, so I'm a little late to the Palin party. I wanted to see how things were shaking out. So far I've got: She's unqualified, inexperienced, too religious, frumpy, and a bad mother. Also, she's evil. She purposefully afflicted an innocent baby -- her own baby --with a genetic disease. Your baby could be next.

Of course none of this is true. Alaska's pretty big and it borders on two foreign countries, one of whom hates us while the other merely tolerates us. You pick which one's which. People in the lower 48 ( No, really, Mr. Obama. 48. ) tend to forget about Alaska, all tucked away up there like that. It's got military installations, some that are en clair and some that aren't. I suspect she already has a working relationship with the top brass. They produce and export energy, although I don't think they have refining facilities up there, so they pay the most for the petroleum and propane they consume. More than Hawaii, even. Sucks. Because Alaska's so big it's a logistical challenge to get anything civic done statewide, like law enforcement. Mrs. Palin has to coordinate the activities of state and local authorities with the Feds, who are run from DC, the opposite of Alaska. She's had as much experience running a government as Harry Truman did when he became President. He managed.

So she's got to be on the ball to do all this and coordinate the activities of all those kids. And don't start on the pregnant daughter. The same thing happened to my son, his cousin on dad's side, my oldest uncle on mom's side, Mr. Obama, and several members of your own family whether you know about it or not. The dinosaurs of feminism, Quinn and Steinem, for whom Sarah Palin represents everything they claim to admire, say she has too many children and she can't look after them properly and work outside the home. Nobody said that to Al Gore, who has four kids, or Grammaw Pelosi, who rounded up every child in a five-mile radius and a couple of short adults for her swearing-in photo, or JFK, who had his kids in his office with him while he was President. Maybe men are better at thinking about more than one thing at a time.

I think I know what the problem actually is. I ran into this attitude a lot when I was working construction. The idea of me appealed to the "hear me roar" crowd. You know, single mommy gets herself off welfare, works in a nontraditional field, competing with the menfolk on their level, yada yada yada. The most patronizing and obnoxious people, the ones who took the most care to remind me that I was there because of affirmative action and not because I worked damn hard, the ones who expected me to be grateful to them specifically, were my union reps, every man Jack a good liberal. When I made it clear that I not only did not feel beholden, but that I thought they should thank me for making it so they could work indoors swinging a pencil was when they started in with the "stupid girl" crap. Like in that movie -- "Full Metal Jacket," I think it was-- where the soldier slaps the Vietnamese guy upside the head and says "We're doing you gooks a favor, here!"

Sarah Palin's problem is that she's uppity and she doesn't know her place.

This has me wondrering.

2008-08-07T08:24:00.000-07:00

Three Million Bees Found in Miami Home

Who counts them? Is it the new guy? The allergic guy? He'd do a thorough job.The guy who didn't find air traffic control enough of a challenge? How do they count them? Do they take a picture? Do they mark them some way? I'm getting a visual of the guy who paints the "m" on the candy. Do they have a one-bee-at-a-time vacuum cleaner attachment and count them as they go through?

Maybe they just guess. I'd just guess, through binoculars. Sealed up in a car a half mile away. With the engine running.

The Meanest Nice People in the World.

2008-08-04T08:31:00.000-07:00

I get a lot of heat from my family and friends over my political views, especially from friends I've reconnected with after a period of being out of touch. It varies from indulgent disapproval (hi, mom) to vitriolic name-calling. That would be my older brother. He's bald and bitter. My friends and I share a mutual befuddlement; them over "how conservative I've become," and me over how they managed to get lead poisoning. Kidding. It's more likely mercury from the fluorescent lights. I feel like the guy in the Joe Walsh song: "Everybody's so different/ I haven't changed."

And I really think I haven't changed. I've always thought that we were each in charge of our individual destiny, that women and men are complimentary equals -- as in, not the exact same, thank God, that race doesn't matter; like love, stupid sees no color. I also think the strong should show consideration for the weak, and that the weak have an obligation to become stronger so they can shoulder their responsibility for themselves. My favorite freedom, though, the one I really miss, is -- as W.S. Burroughs put it -- the freedom to mind my own damn business. I never really thought of these as conservative views. I always kind of saw them as the way things were supposed to work.

And once upon a time my friends felt the same way. Some still think they do. But they see the world in childish, comic book terms, where the "Neo-Cons" are the Forces of E-vil and the "Progressives" are the superhero class, like the X-men. All war is bad, unless neither side is white, and then we're not touching that one. That doesn't happen. No person is illegal, unless they are more wealthy than you. Everyone has a right to earn a living, unless it's in oil production or whaling, in which case those damn Eskimos can starve. Women are always better than men. No religion and all religions are better, more virtuous than Christianity, the dominant religion of Western Civilization. Because we're too big, too wealthy, our citizens deserve to be attacked and we don't deserve to defend ourselves. We had it coming.

I'm telling you that to tell you this: If we lay back and allow things to progress the way they are there will come a group of people who aim to take us over for real, people whose lines of reasoning and life philosophies are foreign to ours in every sense of the term:

Is it obligatory for the husband to provide medical treatment for
his wife?
Q: If the wife becomes temporarily or chronically ill, does the husband have to pay for her treatment? If she for example, wants to have children but suffers from problems preventing her from having children,
does her husband have to seek treatment for her and pay for it? If it is not compulsory on the husband to do so, then what shall the wife do if she becomes ill while she does not have money and her husband doesn’t give her money to save?

A: Praise be to Allaah.
According to the majority of fuqaha’ from the four madhhabs, the husband is not obliged to pay for medical treatment for his wife. Some of them gave the reason for that as being that it is not one of the essential needs, rather it is something extraneous. Imam al-Shaafa’i (may Allaah have mercy on him) said in al-Umm (8/337): The man is not obliged to offer a sacrifice on behalf of his wife or to pay the fee of a doctor or cupper for her. End quote.
It says in Sharh Muntaha al-Iraadaat (3/227): He is not obliged to provide medicine or pay the fee of a doctor if she falls sick, because these are not essential needs, rather they are incident and are not obligatory. End quote

See: Haashiyat Ibn ‘Aabideen (3/575); Sharh al-Kharashi ‘ala Mukhtasar Khaleel (4/178).

This is the website that quote came from. To be fair, it ultimately says that it would be a nice thing to do to pay for your wife's medical bills. Do check out the home page, and notice it's in English, among several other European languages.

I don't know how it is that my close circle seems to think that just because the guy down at the corner store is nice that I'm a sheet-wearing racist for implying that maybe Islam is not as benign as they think. I can't understand other women I know who rail and cry over how unfair our society is to them, and I don't understand how anyone who claims to believe in personal liberty could be sanguine with a society that demands you pray to their god five times a day, that bans pet dogs, literature and music, that punishes homosexuality with death, the same way it punishes teaching little girls to read.

I wish there was a way to make them see, before we all have to learn by example.

Nice Work if You Can Get it.

2008-07-23T06:54:00.000-07:00

Remember how John McCain was roundly mocked for suggesting a couple months' gas tax holiday, where we could all buy gas at the price for which it was being sold? It was actually an idea with bipartisan support; the host committee for the DNC convention has been using Denver's municipal pumps to avoid paying gas tax. This would be the gas that goes in the vehicles donated by GM for use by the committee. They've also been getting free car washes, presumably from city employees. It's not salt season, hi. Write "Hope! Change!" in the dust on your back window and go already.

Mayor Hickenlooper, whose surname makes him sound like a musical-theatre villain, uses the classic 9th-grade excuse: B-b-but, the RNC is doing it, too! "My understanding is in Washington or wherever where this happens on a regular basis, that it's standard operating procedure. I do know for a fact that they're doing the same exact thing in Minneapolis," he said yesterday. Cool, if by 'fact' you mean "Something I pulled directly out of my arse." According to Theresa McFarlane, spokeswoman for the RNC host committee in Minneapolis. "We're not getting a tax break on fuel. That's not the set-up at this end."

Time for a little math. You poor saps in Colorado pay 40.4 cents per gallon in state and federal fuel taxes. Mayor Hickenfooler has based his "Please. It's pocket change." defense upon the vehicles in question having a 14-gallon tank, so it's only a $5.60 ripoff of the rest of you per tank. Even at the Conoco in Lakewood that's the equivalent of 1.33 gallons of free gas per fillup; at the Western Convenience in Aurora it's almost one and a half. Now, about the average size of the gas tank. My Subaru four-banger has a 14-gallon tank, which I need to fill this morning at $4.26 a gallon. Lucky me. GM does make cars, but somehow I don't see the DNC tooling around in Saturns. I think maybe they tend more towards the Yukon, since that's what I see them riding around in in DC. That is more like a 25-gallon capacity, or a cool ten-spot per tank. I don't know for sure; I got that number off my ex's 1999 F-150 truck.

The point is, you're buying rich people gas for their free cars. And they're only stopping because they got caught at it. And instead of apologizing and paying their taxes like they expect you to they're making excuses you wouldn't accept from your children. Jerks.

Oh, Please

2008-07-21T09:41:00.000-07:00

In the most pointless civic action I've seen in a while, ordinary citizens are petitioning a major corporation in an attempt to convince said corporation not to shut down manufacturing facilities in their local communities. The communities fear loss of this facility will cause other businesses to close or not to expand into their localities, thereby causing an economic hit to the towns. I'd root for the little guy, except in this case; the corporation in question is Starbucks.

I'm not going to claim to be one of those Luddites who like their boiled Maxwell House, thank you. Nor am I a coffee snob; I couldn't tell you if the beans were grown on the leeward side of the mountain or in a roadside ditch, and my idea of "Fair Trade" is my cash for your coffee. I just know what I like. I will say that not only do I prefer Peets to Starbucks, I prefer the house coffee at the Flying J truck stop in Grapevine, CA to Starbucks. It's not that it's swill, it's the whole Starbucks lifestyle, the prepackaged ersatz intellectual thing. Along with your coffee, you can purchase an appropriate book to be seen with and the right sort of jazz -- just edgy enough to seem hipster but without alienating anyone. This is profoundly irritating to me, even as it saves me time in my daily interactions with people. I know if you are carrying a Starbucks book or raving about the new CD they're flogging that there is exactly nothing interesting or original about you and I can ignore you with a clear conscience.

There are independent bookstores and record shops full of people who love music and books, with staff who have actually read or listened to most of the stock. They can speak engagingly and instructively about their fields of passion and a lot are genuinely interesting people to be around. (hi, Cute from Baltimore at Idle Time!) There are small diners, coffeeshops, and restaurants where the food's pretty good, the staff are happy to be there and the conversation flows between people who enter and leave as strangers but for the duration of their coffee or their meal are bonded by their mutual affection for a place where everything isn't always the same, where there are up days and down days. These businesses would be happy to step right in to the empty spot Starbucks will leave behind. Some might even make a go of it, if you'd stop whining about how it's not a guaranteed hit right out of the box like Starbucks. Hint: if that were so they wouldn't be closing 600 stores. McDonalds isn't popular because the food is good; it's popular because children like consistency. Starbucks is McDonalds for the natural fibers set. They can't leave soon enough for me.

Ol Bidness

2008-07-18T06:42:00.000-07:00

There's a gas station up the road from me that's cut the price dramatically enough for lines to form around the block. It's a promotion of some kind. You've seen the same thing where you live. Here in California, of course, there's a punchline: the bargain price is $4 a gallon.

The price for a barrel of crude has been sneaking up on $140. It may have gone over; I really haven't been keeping track. I've been off having a growth experience. It did dimly register that the Speaker of the House of Representatives said we couldn't "drill our way out" of this problem. Ann Coulter had a good line about that. She said it was like saying you couldn't sleep your way out of tiredness. Well, it seems Ms. Pelosi and us in the Great Unwashed can both have our way. We don't have to drill to bring down the price of crude; all we have to do is say we'll drill and the price drops by 20 percent. How efficient.

President Bush has lifted an executive ban on drilling for oil on non-park public lands. There have been several thousand of acres in Alaska released for drilling. They'd already found oil, they were just waiting for permission to go get it. The corresponding congressional ban expires September 30. This settles the question once and for all in my mind over whether Mr. Bush is stupid or crooked. That move was pure evil political genius. On the strength of this news the price of oil dropped $5 a barrel. When it was reported that the oil could be in refineries by 2010 is when things really took a dive.

I have a running debate with a friend of mine. He's of the "Chimpy McHitlerburton" school of thought on our president. Both of us think the oil market's fixed, but we're at odds over who's doing it. I think I got this one. Now, if we could just settle that whole 9/11 thing...

Clods

2008-06-24T14:22:00.000-07:00

I will say up front that I have only been on the receiving end of law enforcement. But I do watch those "dead people and how they got that way" shows on cable so I kind of know a little about how a search should be conducted. In short, not like this.

Professor Steven Kurtz of the University of Buffalo had a truly crappy week in May 2004. His wife died in her sleep of congenital heart failure. Somehow during the 911 response to this event emergency personnel became aware of a home laboratory and the biological equipment therein. Mr. Kurtz is an artist with an interest in science. It was decided to charge Mr. Kurtz with mail and wire fraud for illegally obtaining two bacteria cultures and transferring them to a colleague. The FBI became involved, detained Mr. Kurtz for 22 hours, searched his house for three days, trashing the joint in the process, took some of his stuff -- which he is only now just getting back-- and removed his late wife from the funeral home for 'analysis.' Forgive me for thinking they dissected the late Mrs. Kurtz. A judge dismissed the indictment and the Justice Department will not appeal or seek new charges. So they expend all the time and expense chasing this poor guy and they can't even prove their case.

Maybe this is why: Mr. Kurtz documented the devastation left behind by law enforcement and intends to put his pictures on public display. Even on "Murder, She Wrote" the pretend cops make a big show out of not disturbing the crime scene. Here in real life, when the alleged crime scene involved potential biohazards, Mr. Kurtz' house was left adrift in pizza boxes and Gatorade bottles. Yep. They felt strongly enough to bodysnatch the Mrs. so they could have a peek at her innards, and then these goofs ate and drank in the possible hazmat site. Not only was no effort made to preserve the integrity of the scene, but the G-men left behind lists of the things they were looking for and maps of Mr. Kurtz' home along with the garbage, so if he was up to something nefarious he'd know where not to hide the stuff on their list. Was it 'Take the kids to work day' that week or something? Did somebody lose a bet?

There is a very good reason most people have a low opinion of the FBI. They may have some very sharp people working for them, but the folks they put out front are a flat embarrassment. It is in the nature of intelligence (pardon me) that the successes are never spoken about, but must the failures be so spectacularly oafish?

My Short Duration Personal Hero

2008-06-23T12:12:00.000-07:00

I love this guy. Not because of the amount of money potentially involved -- nobody's really going to pay him $2.2. The idea captures my imagination. He's selling everything he owns, including his job and introductions to his friends, and walking away with his passport and the clothes on his back. And the money. His only plan so far is to climb the Eiffel Tower, which even though it is in France is still a pretty cool idea. He decided to pack it all in and split because his wife left him. Nothing says "The feeling is mutual, honey" like dropping off the face of the earth. Go, daddy.

Things to Look Out For

2008-06-20T08:04:00.000-07:00

We have two seasons where I live: mud slide and grass fire. Grass fire season has been upon us since early May. For other parts of the country, the advent of summer is heralded by the issuance of a partial list of things allegedly caused by global warming.

I say 'partial' because it misses a few major quality-of-life issues. 'Excessive sweating' failed to make the list, as did thirst, funky smells, steering-wheel burns, popsicle cravings and leather upholstery adhesion. Also missing: Air Conditioning envy, Dog Wilting Syndrome and information overload from hearing all your neighbors' business due to open windows. I know; I was surprised they missed those, too, especially the sticking to your seat thing. I suppose that's what comes from allowing journalists to play with science. Important, life-altering details are overlooked. For instance, it was 104 degrees in my apartment yesterday and I couldn't get up to get another popsicle until after sundown.

The Earth Has a Cold Sore

2008-06-18T10:56:00.000-07:00

Al Gore, Oscar winner, Nobel Laureate, and Darwin Award nominee, has long been pestering all of us about the noxious effects of global warming, the primary one being it seems to make him sweat like a pack mule. Last year the Tennessee Center for Policy Research discovered what he actually meant was for us to cut down on electricity so there'd be more for him. The same way the father of four was about overpopulation back in the 1980's. Remember that, back when he was just some ineffectual nerd senator with a pushy wife?

Mr. Gore has taken my personal approach to financial management and applied it to his home's energy consumption. After the news broke in Feb. 2007 that he was a hypocritical slob, he fell all over himself to make his home more energy-efficient. Now, after the improvements, the house actually burns more energy than before. In fact, every single month Maison Gore consumes an amount of energy equal to what one and two thirds average houses consume in a year. That's a carbon footprint the size of a horse's ass. Poetic.

Greetings From Bizarro World

2008-06-17T09:56:00.000-07:00

If the democrats are the Party of Peace, why is the city of Denver investing in riot gear in advance of their convention? It's certainly not because Denver is a nest of right-wing fascists; I've been there. I was born in Boulder, in fact, a dubious honor at best and a tradition I've carried on to the next generation by forcing my child to admit to having been born in Berkeley. Nope, they're all peace, love and cheap incense in Denver. The place that you'd think ought to be battening down the hatches is St. Paul, MN, host to the republican convention. Yet after a diligent five-minute search on Dogpile the most I was able to find was this protest site. They plan to 'Demand peace, justice, and equality.' They don't say for whom. Ron Paul intends to hold a parallel convention outside the venue if they won't let him speak inside. He could carpool with the peace guys.

Meanwhile, back in Denver, The police are investing in everything from the "brown gun," a sonic device that allegedly makes you -- ahem -- let yourself go, to pepper spray grenades. There is a group called Recreate '68 that plans to -- I forget. Do something, I suppose. Get high on Oaxacan ditch weed and run people down with their Lark Scooters, maybe. I'm thinking that the brown gun might have been money poorly spent. Certainly this is not the crowd to test it on.

What a freaking headache all the way around for poor Denver. Imagine the police brutality lawsuit after some fragile firebrand shatters a hip. Or the property damage done by their more vigorous great-grandchildren. Remember Seattle? Also, I'm sure the local criminals would never take advantage of the chaos downtown and the slower response times to carry on with their business in other parts of the the Metro Area. No wonder DPD is considering the logistics of carpet bombing and napalm. I'm kidding. They would never use napalm. The carbon footprint is huge.

Somebody really ought to explain to Denver how this is supposed to be an honor for them. I bet they forgot. In the meantime, St. Paul seems pretty sedate, considering they're hosting a group of folks quite a few of them disagree vehemently with. I wonder how that's going to go. Hopefully it will be dull. Republicans are very good at dull. I'll bet they clean the hall up on their way out, too. That would be cute, and it's happened before. With the passing of my dear grandmother last year I no longer have family in Denver. If you do, seriously, you should offer them refuge come August. The Peace Lovers are coming.

Summertime Rules

2008-06-16T17:59:00.000-07:00

During the summers my giant child goes to live in Oakland with his Dad. They're both on summer vacation. I get to stay here and live like my first ex-husband.

Life calms down considerably. I don't have to share the computer. I can walk around naked in my living room. I can make what I want for meals and eat -- or not -- when I please. There's no arguments about what music to listen to, no cereal box with three Cheerios in the bottom put back in the cupboard, no hovering presence absorbing my phone calls, no waiting for the bathroom. And it's quiet. Luxuriantly, blissfully quiet. Hear yourself think quiet. The rest of the year is taken up in the racket and bustle of hamster-wheel existence, of forgotten homework assignments, permission slips produced at the last possible second, the Russian circus of getting him the places he needs to be the time he needs to be there, the endless round of the Next Size Up. And where does all the food go?

Summer is when I get to play by my own rules. This summer especially, my life is my own. Last year I was hiding out from the Second Mr. Right. I can go out at night. Every night, if the mood struck me. Such an odd concept. Probably seems perfectly mundane to you. There's a full moon tonight, or almost. I could go up into the hills and see them awash in moonlight bright enough to read by. See them how those first guys who walked out here from Virginia saw them, thinking their treasure was here. Feel the wind and smell the grass. This place -- the beauty of it can break your heart.

Thursday there's a Dixieland band playing at Armando's. I've never been. It's time I went. Music and people and beer and fun. Live drums tickling my feet through the floor and my shoes. Live trumpet ringing in my head, vibrating every one of my parts. I could go down to the water and watch the ships. Or I could stay in and work on my reading pile, or watch wierd old movies, or just go to bed when I felt like instead of waiting for homework to be finished. I sleep in the living room. I could take a soak in my big old fashioned tub, marvelling at the elbow room therein. People who don't even like each other could shower together in there. Thinking about it gives me a naughty thrill of environmental responsibility.

I'll miss him, my awkward funny darling boy. My pet giraffe, all elbows and knees and ears and feet, booming, authoritative voice issuing from a coltish, uncertain, treacherous body. Always taking up more space than he thought he needed. Usually on the wrong end of the joke. Not really caring about it. His loopy demeanor hides a fierce intelligence. It's easy to think he doesn't pay any attention to the world outside his peculiar passions, until he shocks me to my core with with an observation about me that goes right to the bone, tossed off as an afterthought or non sequitor, and I remember we once shared the same heart. I will miss him terribly, as I always do every summer.

Just not yet.

They Blow up in the Most Delightful Way.

2008-06-01T07:21:00.000-07:00

For years I have been wondering what it will take for western Feminists to finally get get all in a wad over how the Muslims seem to treat their women. Not allowing women to drive or go out unescorted by a male relative gets a yawn. Making them walk around in black tarps in 875-degree heat because the sight of the female hairline would incite the menfolk? Whatever. Beatings, rapes, arranged marriages between little girls and old men? Nope, nope, and nope. For some reason the whole 'honor killing' thing, where women exist at the whim and the pleasure of their male relatives, has failed to motivate the gang at NOW to voice a single cackle. Psst, wimmin -- I bet they're against abortion. Just saying.

I think I may have hit on it, the issue that will make them rev up the email blasts, hire the screen printers, and rouse them into a fury of righteous indignation in cute tops and shoes. Ready? Al-Qaida has a glass ceiling. You know, like at CBS. No girls allowed. Your place is in the kitchen, mama, barefoot and pregnant, making boy babies and shawarma for the cause. How could the poignant words of Rabeebat Al-Silah fail to stir the heart:

''How many times have I wished I were a man ... When Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahri said there are no women in al-Qaida, he saddened and hurt me,'' wrote ''Companion of Weapons,'' who said she listened to the speech 10 times. ''I felt that my heart was about to explode in my chest...I am powerless.''

Wow. Elizabeth Cady Stanton expressed the same sentiments at Seneca Falls in 1848. Only I think she was talking about being denied the vote, not slaughtering infidels. I hope the little ladies don't worry their pretty heads about it too much; after all, we all have our place in this world. Theirs is to be brood mares and collateral casualties. Oh, and occasionally a really special girl comes along who has what it takes to blow herself up. Affirmative action, doncha know.

I realize "Sex and the City" opened this week so we can't expect to hear from the feminists any time soon, but I'm sure they'll be right on this just as soon as their hangovers clear and they figure out he's not actually going to call.

Brett Somers to Leave Country If Obama Loses

2008-05-30T06:46:00.000-07:00

Brett Somers, celebrity panelist from the extremely old "Match Game" show, is threatening to leave the country if we don't smarten up and vote right. She says, "I've had it up to here with the American people, and now every time I (blank) I blow bubbles." Unless her candidate wins, she's going to pack up her oversized sunglasses and her flamboyant sweaters and find a new motherland.

What? Susan who? Oh. Janet from "Rocky Horror," right? If McCain wins she's moving to Italy? Good plan. The Italians appreciate an old piece of leather.

I'm Just Saying, Is All

2008-05-27T18:13:00.000-07:00

Nancy Reagan, who was never the president and never ran for the office, caught all kinds of crap for consulting with an astrologer. Candidate Hillary Clinton, who claims to have been "co-president" (although she may have meant to say "-dependent") copped to channeling Eleanor Roosevelt. No word on if she was hoping for fashion tips or dating advice. Her critics had a field day with that. And now we have the boy genius Obama, who's campaigned in 57 of our 58 states and yesterday demonstrated that either he doesn't know what Memorial Day is or that he possesses a sixth sense. And unless you listen to AM radio you've heard nothing about any of it. Weird.

Now I can die...

2008-05-27T07:30:00.000-07:00

....because I have officially seen everything now:

George Carlin's Solution to Save Gasoline:

Bush wants us to cut the amount of gas we use.....

The best way to stop using so much gas is to deport 11 million illegal
immigrants!

That would be 11 million less people illegally using our gas. The
price of gas would come down...

Bring our troops home from Iraq to guard the Borders...

When they catch an illegal immigrant crossing the border, hand him a
canteen, rifle and some ammo and ship him to Iraq!

Tell him if he wants to come to America then he must serve a tour in
the U.S. military...

Give him a soldier's pay while he's there and tax him on it...

After his tour, he will be allowed to become a citizen since he
defended this country...

He will also be registered to be taxed and be a legal patriot...

This option will probably deter illegal immigration and provide a
solution for the troops in Iraq and the illegal aliens trying to make
a better life for themselves...

If they refuse to serve, ship them to Iraq anyway, without the
canteen, rifle or ammo...

Problem solved!

If you think this is a good solution to both the problems, forward it
to your friends.

That's right. George Freaking Carlin, hero of my teenage years. From "AM and FM." The Class Clown, for crying out loud. Wow. The older you get the more likely you are to embrace a more conservative worldview. In his case, it took , like, 78 years. I may actually be able to listen to him again without feeling like a shmuck. Thanks for snapping out of it, George. Although 11 million is a lowball figure. There may be 11 mil in California alone. Still, his heart's in the right place.

I fail to understand.

2008-05-26T12:10:00.000-07:00

Foreign Policy magazine has compiled a list of the top five worst places to be a terrorist. The U.S. is not on the list. France, charmingly, is at the top. So why are we catching hell for being all xenophobic and awful and whatnot? Why doesn't everybody pester the two muslim countries on the list, Egypt and Jordan? Because we're "racist" and they're not?

Maybe they know something we don't, living in the same region with radical Islamists as they do. Maybe the "You horrible people are racist" thing works so well in England it gives the bad guys the impression we'll fold faster than Superman on laundry day. I doubt it. For one thing, a lot of us pride ourselves on being contrary. Oh, and a lot of us are armed.

Stupid %*#^ Nature.

2008-05-25T08:32:00.000-07:00

I'm moving to a new apartment, but I've still got a couple of months on my old lease, which means I can take my time moving. The second weekend in June -- the day after school ends -- me and my giant child are moving the furniture and we'll be completely out of there. Right now I'm taking stuff bit by bit in the car. So I'm on my balcony yesterday taking down my hanging plants and I find a bird's nest in my Wandering Jew. The cutest little round nest made of grass with five perfect little eggs inside. Aw, crap.

I let loose with a volley of foul invective about my rotten luck and the stupid damn birds. I'm standing on a stool on my balcony loudly cursing at my plants. The neighbors are gonna miss me. I want nothing more than to scoop them out and stick them in a tree and make them not be my problem. But their little bird mom and dad won't find them and the raccoons will. And when you think about it, they were pretty slick, those birds. A hanging plant is like an island, and four feet away on the other side of the glass door is human activity and my idiot dog to scare away any predators with ideas. I can't mess that up for them, not now that they've gained my respect.

I hang the plant back up the exact way I found it, making a mental note not to water that side, and I wait for the birds to turn up. They're finches, I think; brown with an orange neck. They will probably hatch around the beginning of June, which means by mid-July they'll be out of there. Which is good, because my lease expires the last day of July. Wait, what? I say to myself, You'll be out end of June. July's rent here is therefore optional. Are you actually going to pay rent on a second apartment you don't live in... for Mr. and Mrs. Finch? Are you nuts?

Looks that way. I gave them a place to settle in and make more finches. The least I can do is make it so they can raise them. It'll be neat to watch and a good example for the kid. Besides, it might balance out something crappy I did back when. But we all have to be out before my lease expires. I'm not sure how to tell them. Maybe I'll post a little tiny notice.

Update

2008-05-23T19:06:00.000-07:00

I wrote last month about the situation at the Yearning for Zion Ranch. Here's a link. I thought the state was heavy-handed -- to put it charitably -- in its approach. Turns out the appeals court agreed:

"The Department (CPS) did not present any evidence of danger to the physical health or safety of any male children or any female children who had not reached puberty," the panel wrote in its order. About half of the more than 460 children placed in protective custody are babies or toddlers.

Again I have to say, the objective of the State was not so much to protect the children so much as to modify the behavior of the scary Christians, so as to look like CPS protected children from religion-based violence and abuse. Like the late Amina and Sarah Said of Dallas, who were murdered by their father in January of this year. Yaser Abdel Said had a problem with his daughters, aged 17 and 18 respectively, going out on dates.

That's some fine police work there, Lou.

This Should be ...Different

2008-05-21T10:28:00.000-07:00

Remember the Ninth Circuit Court's recent decision to tell the voters of California to drop dead, the court will decide what laws shall be enacted? They overturned the law against same-sex marriage, the one that passed with two thirds of the popular vote? That would be about 12 million people? Governor Conan found an upside to that.

Arnold displays quite a gift for nonlinear thinking. At first he was thinking he'd balance the state's budget by borrowing against future state lottery revenues (quit laughing) but now this fell into his lap, so to speak. California is going to dig itself out of its hole through... drumroll, please... Gay weddings. Think of it. It's genius. The demographic renowned for its lavish Oscar parties, the people who plan most of the weddings in SF and LA anyway. Imagine a 500+-guest "Last Days of Pompeii"-themed wedding where both men are brides. Sure, most weddings will be low key, you-me-and-a-JP affairs, but even then the receptions will still be pretty happening. Before you get all snippy about stereotyping and so forth I'll have you know I've been to the Folsom Street Fair and to Halloween in the Castro and all the gay people there said they were just your average folks. I do my research and I listen to the experts.

So anyway, the Gov. is certain the fierce and fabulous will come out here (pardon me) to get all married up. The license fees will be a windfall for the state government, as will sales taxes for all the various palm greasing (sorry) that goes into putting on a lavish do. I for one am relieved that we have a plan.

Yipes

2008-05-21T07:06:00.000-07:00

I heard Senator Byrd's reaction to the tragic news that his colleague Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with brain cancer and it made me want to run up a tree. ( the action begins at 1:00 and really picks up at 2:30) It actually made me cover my ears and scream. I was driving.

It could just be me, but Byrd seems to be referring to his "dear, dear, dear, dear friend Ted" in the past tense. I realize he's 327 years old and he's from a different era where men were more expressive of their feelings. I understand at his time of life he feels his mortality keenly. I'm sure the Senator from Massachusetts is one his best friends ever. That old man is on hard drugs. Seriously.

Pimp My Rally

2008-05-21T06:22:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture from the Obama rally in Portland, OR last Saturday. That's him climbing up to the dias, I suppose. Pretty impressive crowd. You'd think they were there to see a band or something...

They were. The Decemberists, a local favorite and nationally known indy folk/pop/rock/alternative group opened for Obama. Free admission, natch. The band's named in part after the Decembrist uprising in Russia and they usually open their shows with the Soviet national anthem, but they're pretty mainstream. They've been profiled on NPR and everything.

All the media outlets covered the rally, but no one thought to mention the reason why so many people were there. 75,000 people would not have assembled just to hear Obama exhale hope and change all over the place. You know, if I was the Decemberists I'd be steamed. Here they are trying as best they can to make a go out of the one job they're suited for (I've dated a lot of musicians. It's the only employment they're suited for) and they land a career-making gig, attracting a crowd of more than 75,000 -- two football stadiums' worth -- and no one even mentions they were there. Bummer.

Meanwhile, Back in the Jungle...

2008-05-12T09:52:00.000-07:00

Chavez to Order $2 Billion of Russian Arms, Kommersant Reports

By Lyubov Pronina
May 12 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will order $2 billion of Russian weapons, including submarines, during a visit to Moscow this month, Kommersant reported, without saying where it got the information.
Venezuela, which has bought $4 billion of Russian arms in the last three years, will order four Project 636 diesel subs, Mi-28 combat helicopters and airplanes made by Ilyushin Co., Kommersant said.

Chunk-style has also been purchasing a variety of small arms and equipment, including night-vision goggles and other geegaws useful in guerrilla warfare. The boats are likely Varshavyanka-class submarines, also known as Kilo 636. The subs are powered with diesel fuel and equipped with six torpedo tubes, 18 torpedoes, 24 mines and eight surface-to-air missiles. They're also supposed to be extra quiet and the missiles they carry have a range of 7,500 nautical miles. Last June Chavez bought five of these subs.

Miami is 1360 miles away from the Venezuelan coast. DC is 2053 miles. NYC is 2127 miles, as the crow flies.

The Ilyushins -- troop transport planes, combat helicopters and small arms will come in handy, too, for intimidating the neighbors. Columbia and Brazil must be very...interested right about now. And see if Crazy doesn't involve himself in the tempest brewing between England and Argentina over the Falkands oilfields.

The argument can be made that Putin is unloading a lot of old junk on Chavez, but having learned from back when he used to buy his arms from us only to find we wouldn't supply him with spare parts, now he knows to buy the extended warranty. The boats are coming with parts suppliers, maintenance crews and trainers for the operations crews. In future the Kalashnikovs and their ammo will be manufactured in country. So he is bright enough to become self-sufficient. Sorry if you just lost the bet.

I wonder if this is what would have happened if Tony Montana were given a nation to run.

Whaling Moan

2008-05-11T13:49:00.000-07:00

This is another one of those news stories where the comments section is more illuminating than the story itself. The Makah Indians would like the opportunity to exercise their rights under an 1855 treaty and take up whaling again.

The readers of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer who chose to comment on the topic display an effortless, reflexive paternalism that would not seem out of place at the East India Company. A "DennyP" quotes Article 4 of the treaty, which reads in part: "The right of taking fish and of whaling or sealing at usual and accustomed grounds and stations is further secured to said Indians in common with all citizens of the United States..." DennyP goes on to say, "As far as I know the rest of us aren't hunting whales anymore. In fact, it's against the law, and should be, IMHO." It's not against the law, DennyP, and we do take whales. In Alaska, the Inuits take about 50 bowhead whales a year.

"Pahart" takes a more compassionate tack: "While my sympathy lies with the Makah and I can have some feeling for why whaling is an important cultural tradition, we must ask: do they need whale flesh as food? The answer is: NO. Not only do they not need to eat it, but to do so would subject the eaters to the toxic waste soup that is contained in whale flesh and blubber. This could lead to a significant rise in cancer and endocrine-disruptive problems in the Makah population." See? Those people are too ignorant to make their own decisions. Why, they'd eat poison if we weren't here to stop them.

"Ahkamiokole" says, "No outboard motors, no tow boats, no rifles!" and "Kwisn" agrees: "Paddle out there, stick a stick in it with something tied on to float and slow it down, and then tow it back to the beach. We don't hunt with M-16's or FA-18 Hornets (I don't hunt at all, personal choice)." Because Native Americans have an obligation to remain in the Stone Age, so visiting them seems more like a theme park and we can feel all warm and squishy and superior for keeping them in their place -- er, maintaining their cultural integrity.

The Japanese, Russians, Norwegians, Canadians, Icelanders, and Greenlanders are all whaling nations, plus a few more that are really hard to pluralize. While I doubt they hunt with fighter jets (although that's a cool visual) nor do I think they paddle out there in a Nantucket Sleigh to heave harpoons at ol' Moby. They use modern technology to kill the whale with the least amount of suffering to the animal. Versus throwing a pointy stick -- think it over, treehugger. They take the parts of the whale that are commercially viable and toss the rest overboard, where other animals cheerfully eat it, or am I the only one who watches "Blue Planet." And it's not like we're talking about thousands of whales a year, like back when we used the blubber for fuel oil and the bones for corset stays. There's only so much whale people feel like eating in a year. The notorious over-fishers of Japan say they only kill about 50 a year, so even if they're lying by a lot, that would still be fewer than 300.

"JonS" has the last word: "...The Makah Tribe have certain traditions (songs and dances) that can only be performed when a whale is killed. Each family has their own set of traditions around a hunt. Furthermore each family has training traditions to prepare for a whale hunt. So without whaling a whole part of the Makah culture is lost." He said he got that information from the Environmental Impact Statement, which has since been taken down.

My advice to the Makah? Move to Canada. I'm sure by now you know better than to think the Great White Father will honor any stinking treaty.

"So, Jimmy, you like Gladiator movies?"

2008-05-06T10:12:00.000-07:00

An Air France Passenger jet had to make 10,000ft climb to dodge another plane because the pilot was 'showing off' to a 13-year-old boy who'd been allowed in the cockpit, contrary to EU aviation rules and common sense.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=564300&in_page_id=1770

Scary, and Cute.

2008-05-06T09:49:00.000-07:00

Everyone who has a cell phone has done this at least once. You accidentally hit redial while the phone is in your pocket or wherever and the party on the other end is treated to a little slice of your life. It happened to Army MP Stephen Phillips while he was engaged in a firefight in Afghanistan. The last number he'd dialed was his parents. They returned home to find three minutes of terror on the family voicemail.

"They were pinned down and apparently his barrel was overheating," said Jeff Petee. "It's something a parent really doesn't want to hear. It's a heck of a message to get from your son in Afghanistan."

Indeed.

"You could hear him saying stuff like, he needs more ammo, or he needs another barrel," said John Petee, Phillips' brother. "At the end, you could hear a guy saying 'Incoming! RPG!' And then it cut off."

Of course, his folks were frantic. Of course, it took ages to get in touch with Phillips (The news story doesn't disclose his rank, probably because it's Oregon.) but eventually they were sucessful. Phillips was embarrassed; he asked his parents not to play the voicemail for his grandmother, maybe because of the swearing. Awww.

What a man.

Dear Ms. Tillman,

2008-05-02T19:41:00.000-07:00

Shut up.

Your son was a popular young man, an NFL draft pick, a natural showboater, and a patriot who gave up that fame and fortune for useful work in an outfit that shies away from publicity. He died. He was shot while in the field. He died of his wounds, in the arms of his brothers, behind enemy lines, doing what he was trained to do - something he volunteered for at least twice.

Apparently his earlier years of grandstanding came from you - HE gave up FAME when he joined the Army Special Forces. He will always be your little boy, you have pictures, memories and artifacts from his life, and a nice crisp flag from his funeral. Your job is to be his cheerleader now as when he was alive. Stop talking about how he died and just cherish your memories of his life. You disgrace the memory of your child and degrade the morale of the U.S. people, the military, the government, and his brothers-in-arms when you give interviews, speak at hearings, sell books or made-for-TV movies questioning the minute details.

Part of Special Forces Operations includes psychological warfare. The enemy needs to be scared of American forces. American forces need to be confident and proud. American citizens need to be supportive of the volunteer professional warriors of which our entire military is made. The story of your son's life and death was important to our psy-ops. The exact circumstances of his demise should not be public - or even, in my opinion, shared with you. He's dead - that's the important point to your family.

He was a man, of legal age, and a trained warrior. He followed his orders with vigor. He doesn't need you to defend him now, or to attack that which he stood for. He was a positive role model and he now needs you to carry on with his living wishes.

Just Plain Sad

2008-05-01T11:38:00.000-07:00

Judging by this list of 2007's top 10 most controversial ad campaigns in England, we won't have to worry about them resurrecting the Empire anytime soon. They're much too busy complaining about TV commercials that "might discourage mothers from breastfeeding" or contain "a depiction of a threat of violence and was therefore irresponsible and condoning bullying." That's not the same ad, by the way.

Also, there's an ad for the Sun newspaper that drew complaints for being too racy. No, really? A British tabloid with a picture of a mostly naked woman? Whatever group that offended must have moved to England recently...

Comedy

2008-05-01T07:13:00.000-07:00

Part of a conversation I and my son had over breakfast. He was describing an article he read by Dave Barry about a ride he took in a fighter jet:

Me: Yeah, I heard that the ride makes you pretty sick if you haven't trained for it. That's why the pilots like to take journalists along, to make them scream and puke. Fighter pilots think that's funny.

Then follows details from the article outlining bodily-fluid related fighter pilot humor. There's a lot of bodily-fluid related humor in any conversation with a 15-year-old boy.

Me: In fact, they actually prefer to take the ladies along because there's more screaming.

He: Really?

Me: Of course. I bet money changes hands over screaming vs. puking, how much, when...

He: Nuh uh!!

Me: I bet. That's got to be part of it. Ladies are much more likely to scream than men, so that has to be part of why so many ladies get invited to go. But a soft guy will do just as well. So if you're ever a journalist and you get invited to fly along it might be because they think you're a sissy. Go anyway, of course...

He: Have you ever gone on a fighter jet?

Me: Umm, no.

He: (delivered in perfect deadpan) Too manly?

Me: (Pause) No one in a position to invite me knows who I am.

He: If you went, would you scream?

Me: I would scream, puke, and wet myself. The inside of that plane would look like a rented limo on prom night.

He: You're just saying that to get a ride in a jet.

The child is a smart aleck. I don't know where he gets it.

A Portal Into Another Dimension

2008-04-30T13:25:00.000-07:00

Join me now as we travel to the Huffington Post. Scroll down past the teaser for Absinthe and the one with the headline about having a three-way with God (not making it up). See this week's "little kid steals grandma's truck and wrecks it" story? Watch the video if you like; I didn't. Check out the comments. They're like flipping over a rock. Every aspect of the child's life is dissected, from his given name to his weight to his home situation to wild speculation about the ages of his parents and grandparents.
Great. No conscience, no sense of right and wrong, ignoramus grammar, and
fat as a pig. They ought to just preregister him at the county jail because
that's where he'll end up. Grandmother has custody. That means mama is mostly
likely a druggie. Where's dad? And grandmama drives a big ole gaz-guzzling SUV.
I don't feel sorry for the family; they raised him that way. Videogames, lack of
supervision, bad diet. So many things wrong with this picture I can't even stand
it. They ought to start saving up for attorney's fees.

Oh, and they're real worked up about that SUV.

Part of the reason I didn't look at the vid was I wanted to see if I could figure out what demographic the kid was part of just based upon the comments. We are a post-racial society, after all. Mr. Obama says so, and then Mrs. Obama smacks him in the head. How's she been, anyway? Haven't seen her in a while. At any rate, sixteen comments down the page and TA DA!!
This kid's got some of the qualities and tendencies of Your Typical
ReThugLieCon. Now if only he was white (or Clarence Thomas), he'd be afforded
the opportunities to hone his craft.

OOooo. Twofer. But he's not bigoted. At all. And that's not even the first post to blame 'society.' My favorite, and not just because he accidentally points out what might be a root cause of the little boy's resentment by misspelling his name:

So Latarina was out for a joy ride .... even though he is not of age
for a Driver's License, nor of age to get Car Insurance, nor is he of age to own
a car. But I bet anyone his driving abilities performed alot more better than of
those who are adults that goes out drinking and then drives. Sure, it shows he's
not growing up in a great environment that teaches him to be more disciplined
within his natural surroundings, a kid with no father figure perhaps, nor a
mother who teaches him right from wrong. This just clearly shows that, this is
the direction to where a country is going because the politicians are more
worried about corporate interests and their bank accounts, even at a time of
war. They could of done better things with their war money, such as give a kid
like Latarian a better living environment, not nooooooooooo .... that didn't
happen.Remember now, oppression is a dysfunctional disease brought to you, by
the country's political infrastructure.

I'm sorry; your what hurts? Shouldn't you be lecturing at a community college somewhere right now? Sociology, perhaps, or maybe pre-law? These are the people we share the roads with, the people blocking the aisle at the grocery store who give you that look when you try to go around them. The people who won't take their clothes out at the laundrymat when the machine is done running, like they're renting real estate. These people vote. They think they're right. About everything, all the time. Good thing that's funny.

Fine. We'll Just Sit Here in the Dark, Then.

2008-04-27T13:40:00.000-07:00

Syria's ambassador to the U.S. -- who sounds like a real fun guy, by the way -- says the CIA's full of crap. Well, not really. He was... diplomatic about it. Imad Moustapha said the photographs the CIA had that were allegedly taken inside a Syrian nuclear facility were fabricated. "The photos presented to me yesterday were ludicrous, laughable." Okey Dokey. What was the building for, then? Hello? Israel bombed it last year, the Syrians promptly bulldozed the ruins and built a larger building on top of it. They won't say what it's for.

Other annoying countries like N. Korea and Iran like to pretend that they need reactors to generate nuclear power, but it's argued that the reactors are really for generating weapons-grade plutonium. Here's the quick-and-dirty on how inspectors might figure that out. I'm not a scientist. Real, actual scientists are invited to correct me. Preferably over cocktails.

From what I just read, the difference is in how short a time a fuel rod is used in a reactor. The objective in power generation is to turn the turbines. Nuclear power plants use steam, and the heat to boil the water to make the steam is generated through nuclear reaction. The fuel rods are made of Uranium 238. During the course of the reaction the uranium isotope picks up an extra neutron and decays into Plutonium 239. You have the option of removing the fuel rods at any point in the reaction process. If you were generating heat for steam you would allow the rods to remain in place until all reactivity tapered off. You would no longer have much uranium 238 and you would have the higher isotopes of plutonium (240,241, and so on). P239 is the one you want for weapons, and if you remove the fuel rods earlier in the process that's what you'll have. So I guess if you have more uranium being expended in a given period of time at a given reactor than 'should be' you have a reason to ask what they're using it for.

Meanwhile, back in Syria, Mr. Moustapha isn't saying what the reactor is for. I guess it doesn't have wires hooked up to it. Bit of an oversight, that. He says there's no military checkpoints, air defenses or even a fence, so it can't be a sensitive facility. It's in the middle of the desert where it's flat and there's a whole lot of nothing. Good luck sneaking up on it, and who needs a fence? Anti-aircraft defenses would be like asking to get bombed again. So what's it for, Moose?

I Suppose "Murdering Crapweasels" is Out.

2008-04-27T11:56:00.000-07:00

Style tips from our enlightened betters at the Associated Press. It would be funny if I didn't think it might actually kill us to be nice.

Some do's and don't's from the National Counterterrorism Center:

_ Don't use the term "jihadist," which has broader religious meanings beyond war, or "mujahedeen," which refers to holy warriors.

_ Do say "violent extremist" or "terrorist."

_ Don't use the term "al-Qaida movement," because this makes al-Qaida seem like a legitimate political movement.

_ Don't use "Islamo-fascism" and other terms that could cause religious offense.

_ Do use the term "totalitarian."

_ Don't label groups simply as "Muslim."

_ Do use descriptive terms to define how a group fits into society. For example: South Asian youth and Arab opinion leaders.

_ Don't use "caliphate" when explaining al-Qaida's goals, as this has positive implications.

_ Don't use "salafi," "Wahhabist," "sufi," "ummah" and other words from Islamic theology unless you are able to discuss their varied meanings. Particularly avoid using "ummah" to mean the Muslim world, as it is a theological term.

Politics Made Simple

2008-04-25T06:25:00.000-07:00

One one side we have a Harvard-educated lawyer married to a harpy that's also a lawyer, running against a Yale-educated harpy lawyer married to a lawyer. Whoever wins will be running against a guy married to a good-looking blonde who owns a beer distributorship. I can't believe we even have to have an election.

Elian Times 437

2008-04-23T09:32:00.000-07:00

Starting in 1983 the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, CA became the center of the largest, most expensive criminal trial in U.S. history. Three hundred and sixty children were deemed by the State's social workers to have been victims of abuse at the hands of the McMartin family. Lurid tales of satanic rituals and sexual abuse made international headlines. After seven years and $15 million dollars not a single conviction was obtained. The entire thing was a hoax, claiming the livelihoods of the McMartins and the innocence of the children involved.

On April 19, 1993, a Federal raid on the Branch Davidian home in Waco, Texas resulted in the deaths of 87 people when the building was burned to the ground. The rationale behind the raid was alleged to be the illegal stockpiling of weapons, but what brought in the tanks and the Bradleys was an allegation of child abuse. The Davidians midwived and homeschooled. Their children had little to no contact with those representatives of State authority euphemistically referred to as "the outside world." There was no way to prove the children had been or were being mistreated. It was impossible to make that determination from their charred remains.

Fifteen years later we have Waco without the flames. On the basis of a now-discredited allegation of abuse the State of Texas has raided the home and ranch of Yearning for Zion, a fundamentalist Mormon group in Eldorado, Texas. A phone call to a family violence shelter (not the police) purportedly from "Sarah Jessop Barlow" alleged sexual abuse was occurring at the ranch. After removing 437 children from the custody of their parents -- in some cases lying to mothers and children about where they'd go and if they'd stay together -- "Sarah Jessop Barlow" has yet to make her presence known. This is in spite of several identifying characteristics, such as her pregnancy, she gave to authorities. A 33-year-old woman in Colorado Springs is currently being investigated for placing the call. I thought I'd get that into print as it has already dropped down the memory hole.

Of course the State's argument for its thuggery is "It's for the children. We must protect the children." Towards that end Social Services has removed them from the only life they've ever known, interrogated them without benefit of counsel, separated them from their support network, and plans have been made to scatter them in a diaspora that encompasses the great State of Texas. They've promised to "try" to keep siblings in foster care together. That seems unlikely, as in many cases there are five or more siblings. An argument can be made that since the children were raised communally -- by the village, as it were, that all 437 of them perceive themselves as siblings.

The life of a foster child is very stressful. You know that at any time you can be returned like a pair of shoes by people you've grown to trust who are much too nice to tell you why. You're like a leased car; you receive the bare minimum of required maintenance and no improvements. If your table manners are abysmal, if you're lacking in the social graces, if you can't make heads or tails of Algebra, it's no matter. Your grades or behavior won't reflect upon your foster family since everybody knows you're not 'theirs.' In a few months you'll be someone else's problem. And if you're not lucky enough to get placed with a family you get to live in a group home, an experience I need not describe to anyone who's read "Lord of the Flies." It is a soul-eroding grind of a life for which you are perpetually expected to be grateful. There has never been designed a more mentally abusive system than that orchestrated by the State under the guise of protecting children.

This farce will continue into the indefinite future. The children will never be returned to the only home they've known. How long do you suppose it will take to perform 437 DNA tests? Most of them will be grown by the time the State can even figure out if it's been the recipient of a prank phone call. But the State's objective has already been accomplished: to remove those children from the weird scary Christians. That's why there's been nary a peep from the thousands of communes, group marriages, same-sex unions and polyamorists. They believe being raised in a fundamentalist Christian manner is more damaging to kids than being raised in foster care, and the State seems to agree.

The purpose of all those DNA tests is to determine which if any of the children were the result of a union with an underage girl and an adult man. In this setting a pregnant teenage girl is evidence of a crime. Let the exact same pregnant teenage girl turn up at Planned Parenthood for an abortion and she is embraced. No one would dream of asking her who drove the car she rode there in, much less who knocked her up. And polygamy is horrible and oppressive, unless the women are in charge. Cloaking the practice in religion is despicable, unless they're Muslim.

In fifteen years all the further we've come is nobody gets set on fire this time. The kids at Waco may have had it better, though. They got to stay with their family until the end.

The LAT Picks on the Cripple

2008-04-22T14:37:00.000-07:00

Ralph Vartabedian (ralph.vartabedian@latimes.com) is an extremely tough man. He laughs at danger with a boisterous, hearty guffaw. He thinks those guys on "Deadliest Catch" are pansies, that oil rig workers are mincing pantywaists, that the ice road truckers need to suck it up. He must; he also thinks John McCain, a fighter pilot who was shot down and spent five years as a POW in Viet Nam (thank you, sir), isn't disabled enough to rate a tax-free disability pension. After all, McCain has said he felt well enough to hike in the Grand Canyon. One wonders how ill one of Ralph's children would have to be in order to miss a day of school. I don't think chicken pox would cut it. Just out of curiosity, does John Kerry get a pension for his heiney-full of rice?

In the same story, Vartabedian worries that McCain might be too disabled to be President, given his history of skin cancer. One of the Left's secular saints, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was wheelchair-bound from polio. He seemed to work out OK enough. John Kennedy, a fellow veteran, had back trouble. Some days the pain was so bad he could barely cheat on his wife. So which is it? Is McCain too old and broke down, or not old and broke down enough?

Wierd science

2008-04-22T14:11:00.000-07:00

From the BBC:

Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth.
Mecca is the direction all Muslims face when they perform their daily prayers. The call was issued at a conference held in the Gulf state of Qatar under the title: Mecca, the Centre of the Earth, Theory and Practice.
One geologist argued that unlike other longitudes, Mecca's was in perfect alignment to magnetic north. He said the English had imposed GMT on the rest of the world by force when Britain was a big colonial power, and it was about time that changed.

It figures that the shot across the bow is a thrown rock.

Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

2008-04-19T10:11:00.000-07:00

Vladimir Putin, Former President of Russia (You, there. Quit smirking) may or may not be dumping his wife for a girl half his age. He says no, but yeah, right. Anyhow, the lady in question is a former rhythmic gymnast (you're smirking again), lovely to look at and possibly double-jointed. She is also a member of the Duma, the lower house of Russia's Parliament. And now you have my attention.

Here's why Putin's a freaking genius. While he was officially in charge he arranged for a bevy of fabulous babes to be elected to the Duma. They were even called "Putin's Babes," greeted enthusiastically by the media and, one presumes, their fellow legislators. Attention is paid to their every move, especially if the move involves exiting a car or dropping a pencil, and nobody notices what's actually going on. A classic piece of misdirection done on a grand scale. Very Russian. But back to him and the girl.

Women everywhere are all balled up over the whole trade-in-your-wife thing. Again, look at what's actually happening without getting caught up in an emotional reaction. Putin set up his buddy Medvedev as president. Friendship engenders a certain amount of loyalty, but Putin shouldn't rely that his friend will always follow his advice. A very young lady with little world experience and a taste for the glamorous life is... malleable. She is easily manipulated into being an instrument of Putin's will. And nobody will think to question her because she's so pretty, and pretty people can never be evil.

Putin's not quitting and he's not going anywhere. He is installing a shadow regime made up of people he can blackmail or threaten or dominate. And he's being very up-front about it. It's like he thinks no one will challenge him.

Oh, Jeez.

2008-04-18T06:29:00.000-07:00

Today's "confidential blueprints found in the garbage" story is from NYC. The Port Authority is all in a knot because if these were to fall into the wrong hands it could be devastating, somebody's getting fired over this, yada yada yada. You know what? These have already been in the wrong hands and they threw it in the trash when they were done. You could fire everyone who ever laid a finger on those plans and it wouldn't bring back the dead. What's most galling is it would have been such a simple thing to encrypt the name of the structure, the architects, etc. on the plans.

Who Lets Him Out?

2008-04-16T14:57:00.000-07:00

For everybody who voted Carter for President: Were you sniffing glue that day? Did your hand slip? Demonic possession, perhaps? Or were you momentarily distracted by something shiny? Seriously. I want answers.

The detestable old gasbag with the pinned-pupil thousand-yard Thorazine stare actually said this out loud:

"When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that's
the dictator, because he speaks for all the people. But in a democracy like
Israel, there is a wide range of opinions and that counterbalances the
disappointment that I have in not meeting with the people shaping Israeli power
now in the government."

He prefers dictatorships because they're more convenient. He only has to talk to the one guy. None of this futzing around pretending to care what the people think; a dictator will tell you what they think. It's right there in the job title.

I can see that. An old guy like him needs his naps, and unpredictable travel schedules can be colonically binding.

Going to a democracy is such a darn chore. All those people and their opinions. No wonder they never get anything done. Plus, nobody seems to be in charge of validating Jimmy's personhood. He won the Nobel, for crying out loud. Little-d democrats care not a fig for the guy who used to hold the job. Not like in a nice, old-fashioned dictatorship. They know how to show respect. All their former leaders have beautiful memorials.

Jimmy Carter is the Norma Desmond of American politics. Why are we paying for this man to have Secret Service protection when we ought to have protection from him?

The Bravest Frenchman

2008-04-16T07:14:00.000-07:00

For the fifth time, former actress and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot is on trial in France for "inciting racial hatred." Against Islam, which is not a race, it's a form of psychosis. This time Ms. Bardot received a two-month suspended prison sentence. I suppose France doesn't have the stomach to incarcerate a 73-year-old cultural treasure. They also robbed the old dear of 15,000 Euros, or $23,760, essentially for saying the sort of thing I say all the time: "I am fed up with being under the thumb of this population which is destroying us, destroying our country and imposing its acts," The take-home message: in France truth is no defense for libel.

Here's a picture of Ms. Bardot from her acting days. She was a leading cause of the Great French Cinema Scare of the late 1950's. Millions of people who could only speak food sat through the interminable films of Roger Vadim, convincing the man he was God. Now, of course, she is a dear old lady with a fondness for dogs. She walks with the aid of two canes, so she's the ideal target for her bully government. Socialists prey on the weak; it's much easier than trying to impose the indigenous culture and rule of law upon the ungrateful squatters who've sworn to kill them.

Too bad he's got all those cats

2008-04-14T11:05:00.000-07:00

I am just crazy about this guy.

Sauce for the Gander

2008-04-14T06:40:00.000-07:00

The following is from a work of popular fiction. I've played with the wording a tiny bit to illustrate my point. It's a popular enough work that you might recognize it in spite of that.

This little vignette plays itself out in offices everywhere, I expect:

She: I'm hoping we can work together on this project in the spirit of cooperation. I'll have some ideas, and you'll have some ideas, and together we can pick the best ones.

He: Sure, that's one approach. But I prefer to exhale deeply and roll my eyes while you prattle. Then I will verbally demolish your ludicrous ideas, and dismantle your mistaken self-image as a competent woman.The carnage will create a striking contrast for the warm, clear glow of my brilliant ideas. Later, I will round out the package by spreading amusing stories about how ignorant you are.

She: Is there any chance of doing it my way?

He: Now watch my eyes.

I've been talked to like that, and I'm sure I could round up a few other women across a -- pardon me -- broad spectrum of ages who could say the same thing. It's infuriating. It makes you want to cry. If this were to happen in a real life company what would happen to 'he'? Summary dismissal? Nasty lawsuit? A trip to Glorious People's Sensitivity Camp? I bet it does happen in real life. I bet it'll happen today and nobody will even notice. Because it'll be a woman saying that to a man. The above is from a Dilbert cartoon and I switched the speakers' genders. So it's funny now.

I'm sure some hairy, wizened old "feminist" will set me straight but I never saw the point in being equal to men. Not equally awful, anyhow. I appreciate men. I admire their dynamism, their ambition, even their occasional lapses in judgment. Most major advancements in civilization just had to be the result of a bet or a dare. Space travel, for instance. Women would never think to say, "Go big or go home"; we're more like, "What's everybody there going to be wearing? And did you look at a map?" Worthy questions, but hardly inspiring. I like how helpful men are, how the nicest ones make it possible for me to dress pretty and smell good, secure in the knowledge that gas will be pumped and jars will be opened; I have but to ask. Hard to square with being a welder? I only did it to make a good life for my kid. My male kid. My feminist relatives hate when I say that. I've always been their little mascot.

So how do you deal with the dismissive attitude? You remember that it's not unique to either gender and you quietly thank them for being such a dunce they'll never expect it when you outflank them. Take the lead in broadcasting that they were the brains behind the operation. If it was a good idea you seem supportive. If it was a crappy idea, well... Also remember they carry a grudge and they have lots of time to obsess over things because they're usually single. Plausible deniability. That's all I'm gonna say.

There. Now that I've alienated most of the women and they've stomped off in disgust we can swap dirty jokes. I used to work construction; I know some funny ones.

Thanks? For the Help?

2008-04-11T14:41:00.000-07:00

Popular Mechanics helpfully lists the ten most likely terrorism targets.
As a bonus, the comments section has a full list of secondary targets volunteered by the citizens who live near them. What further proof is needed that the GWOT is making progress than the big brains who read PopMech totally spacing on the fact that NYC and DC sustained damage to their infrastructures not so long ago.

Industrial Poetry

2008-04-11T12:40:00.000-07:00

Fred Schoeneman posts on Blackfive about the surprisingly male former editor at Wine Spectator and current L.A. Times editorial writer. Matthew DeBord clutches his tasteful strand of pearls in distress at the mere sight of General Patreus:

"There he sits in elaborate Army regalia, four stars glistening on each shoulder, nine rows of colorful ribbons on his left breast, and various other medallions, brooches and patches scattered across the rest of the available real estate on his uniform. He even wears his name tag, a lone and incongruous hunk of cheap plastic in a region of pristine gilt, just in case the politicians aren't sure who he is."
I think that's called a uniform, Mattsy. I hear all the soldiers wear them. Or as Schoeneman puts it:
"Your attempt to portray Gen. Petraeus as a chickenhawk is the weakest of all arguments especially coming from someone who could only charitably be called even a girly man. Go back to your fern-filled loft and compare notes on the latest swill turned out by the grape-stompers. You need to leave the important business of who shall lead our country in war to those whose concept of it has progressed farther than fashion commentary about a man whose glass you are not
fit to fill."

What he said.

And What a Mother

2008-04-10T05:19:00.000-07:00

In most elections, the deceased mother of a candidate in the primaries is not the subject of a magazine profile. But Ann Soetoro was not like most mothers.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1729524,00.html

You have to read this article. Every page has at least one gem. The "natural-born mother" who scraped her kid off on mom and dad used to cry "when she felt like she wasn't being understood in conversation." Spoiled much? Manipulative often? She met Barack Obama, Sr. in college in the early 1960s. In Russian class.

"He had this magnetic personality," remembers Neil Abercrombie, a member of Congress from Hawaii who was friends with Obama Sr. in college. "Everything was oratory from him, even the most commonplace observation."..."We would drink beer, eat pizza and play records," Abercrombie says. They talked about Vietnam and politics. "Everyone had an opinion about everything, and everyone was of the opinion that everyone wanted to hear their opinion—no one more so than Barack."

Yay. A chatty, know-it-all drunk. Mom hooked up with the commie Cliff Clayburn. He was married back home as well as to Ann and he dropped her like a hot rock when he got a scholarship to Harvard. Isn't that where his kid went to school? His American kid, I mean. So he's a legacy, then.

In1967 Ann Dunham Obama married an Indonesian named Lolo Soetoro and moved to Indonesia.

"Walking off the plane, the tarmac rippling with heat, the sun bright as a furnace," Obama later wrote, "I clutched her hand, determined to protect her."

He was five. When your kindergartener feels the need to protect you, perhaps you have not been diligent in providing him a sense of security. She did keenly feel the white man's burden, though, dispensing alms to every beggar that came by. Word travels fast in Jakarta, and soon she was forced to pass judgment on who was the most needy of the flood of people who came looking for a handout. Who saw that happening? Fortunately, Lolo worked for an American oil company, so they were pretty well set up.

Around the time that marriage ended, Barack was sent to live with his grandparents, the typical white people. Mom kept his sister. When Ann decided to return to Indonesia her 14-year-old son said, pass. He stayed in Hawaii. Ann didn't seem to mind. While he embarked on a dynamic career in Chicago politics his mom puttered about on the literal other side of the planet, spending over two decades to almost complete her doctoral dissertation on peasant blacksmithing in Indonesia.

On the one hand I don't want to be thought of as badmouthing the dead; on the other hand, she's dead, she won't care. Her son is running for President; looking at how he was raised is prudent. If my own personal son became a hatchet murderer you can bet people would be taking issue with the way I toilet trained him at knifepoint. Mr. Obama has a problem with "white people" like his mother and the people who raised him. He married a woman who is stridently dissatisfied with the racist, sexist, backwards country that gave her everything. How he came to be that way has everything to do with how he'd run the show.

Hairstyles and Attitudes

2008-04-09T20:20:00.000-07:00

This post is not about freedom of religion or the nature of dissent or Tibet's right to exist or how all-round evil China is. It is also not about the Olympics or world unity or any of that hippie twaddle. San Francisco's pretty, pretty mayor did something that should outrage everyone who lives in the world's largest open-air looney bin: When confronted with potentially volatile political protesters bent on impeding the flow of traffic on city streets and the implicit threat of violence against the citizenry Mr. Newsom found a way to thwart their purpose and defuse the situation. There ya go, San Franciscans. He does have it in him, but only when he's worried about looking like a schmuck to the rest of the world. For you, every month, not so much.

The last Friday of every month with nice weather (I love their commitment) an enormous bunch of jackasses toss their bicycles in the back of the Odyssey or on top of the Forester and drive in from all over to block traffic in downtown San Francisco during the evening commute in a pointless little ritual called Critical Mass. They ride on both sides of the street and both sidewalks. Why should drivers be the only ones to fear for their safety? They vandalize cars and knock pedestrians down, and the police don't do a damn thing to stop them. I'm sure they'd love to, but they're not allowed. Mayor Haircut doesn't want the bad PR from hurting the feelings of some weekend white rasta from Danville with facial tattoos and plates in his earlobes. So everybody who needs to get on the bridge out of town because daycare in Oakland closes at 6pm -- for instance-- must sit and wait for the cyclists to work through their daddy issues. Its only redeeming feature is that it may cause some Bay Aryans to rethink their position on gun control.

Such a pity the only thing the citizens of San Francisco have to offer the mayor is their vote. He seems to think that's worth so much less than face time on CNN.

Zelly Zelly Bo-belly

2008-04-09T13:16:00.000-07:00

It is a ridiculously beautiful day, even by local standards, and I have the afternoon off work. There's about eight thousand more interesting things I could be writing about, but lucky you, you get to hear about my dog, Miss Zelda Clifton. She gets mail. From Hillary and Obama. She thinks it's delicious.

I've never had a dog before and I didn't know anything about them. Yes, I've seen dogs before; I've just never lived with one. I thought I'd get something tiny. Smaller puddles. Zelda was listed for free on Craigslist. There was nothing going on with her family, they just really wanted to get rid of her. I did manage to get this bit of information out of their five-year-old daughter: Lexy (her name then) had killed two of the neighbor's cats. Oh. Good to know. I suppose if I'd had a cat mom and dad wouldn't have told me that. Come along, doggie; these aren't your kind of people anyway.

I took Zel (named after Ms. Fitzgerald and not the video game, thanks) to the vet and discovered she'd been chipped. I had it read and discovered Zel was thirteen months old, a purebred show-quality rat terrier and had had four different addresses. I made home number five. I wondered why so many people had given her up until I took her home.

I think she's grand. She does all the doggie stuff you see in cartoons: chases cats, digs holes, turns around three times before she lays down, barks at imaginary crap, all of it. As a special treat sometimes we'll watch Animal Planet. She goes nuts barking at the TV. Whenever the GEICO ad with the squirrels comes on she just hurls herself at the set. It's a crackup. I hope she gets them someday.

So I was thinking about how people say dogs get to be like their owners, or maybe it's vice versa. Let's see. She's got terrible manners. OK. Likes beer, liverwurst and onion sandwiches and steak tartare. Sometimes at the same meal. Check. Hobbies include annoying people and risking her life teasing larger animals. Whoa. Freaky. She's incredibly butch, yet dainty. She was run over by a pickup truck -- complete with tread marks -- and only sustained a broken pelvis and dislocated hip. And she lost a tooth. In the back, though; you can't see it when she smiles. She's very good with nonverbal expression. For instance, she never has an "accident" on the rug. That's all on purpose, my friend. And she's punctual. Every morning at 0551 she stands on you, checking to see if you're awake yet, because someone needs to go for a walk or else the rug gets it, see.

My best guess is that Zel had too much personality to suit her other families. I can relate. All in all, she makes a good alter ego. Plus, the camera loves her. She's much more photogenic than me.

Let's play "Stump the Analyst"

2008-04-09T09:02:00.000-07:00

George Friedman, writing for STRATFOR, provides this week's puzzler: What the heck is going on in the Middle East? In a refreshing move for an Intel analyst, Friedman says.... he's not sure.

We would like to wrap this up with a crystal clear explanation and
forecast. But we can’t. The motives of the various actors are opaque; and taken
separately, the individual events all have quite innocent explanations....We are
not saying that the events are meaningless. We are saying that we do not know
their meaning. But we can’t help but regard them as ominous.

May I be the first to say, far out. Here are the basic elements, in case you'd like to take a whack at it yourself:

Feb. 2008: The US begins purchasing oil to top off the Strategic Oil Reserve, which is already at %96.2 capacity.
Feb. 2008: Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyah is assassinated in Syria. Who done it is unclear. It is assumed to be the Israelis, but Hezbollah doesn't attack Israel in retaliation. They go after Yeshiva kids in Jerusalem instead. Maybe the Syrians did it, but who knows why.
The U.S. sent a couple of ships over to the Lebanese coast to irk the Lebanese, Syria's neighbors. Israel is announcing the start of a round of military exercises, irking the Syrians. Thus irked, the Syrians have deployed troops to their border with Lebanon. Hezbollah has prepared for a fight in that region, and the Lebanese have evacuated civilians.
While all this irking has been going on the U.S., who would ordinarily tell everyone not to make us pull over and smack them, has said nothing.

To Friedman this all spells potential war in the Mideast. But that's like predicting a flood in Missouri this year; you don't need to be Karnak. Somehow I don't think the U.S. is going to do what I think ought to be done with the region: Give a 168-hour evacuation warning, arm whoever stays and wall them in. They'll sort it out and Israel might just learn to defend herself. So the floor's wide open. All you have to do is read up a little bit and your guess will be as good as anybody's. There's a link at the bottom of the STRATFOR article. You can even tell George your theory.

How old I am

2008-04-04T12:49:00.000-07:00

Ordinarily I don't give a rat's what those darned foreigners think of our politics, but this is funny. I live for the day when Hill makes reference to her wife....eh... Morgan Fairchild...

On being 'the first girl' whatever

2008-04-04T09:59:00.000-07:00

The LAPD is in the process of training its first female SWAT team member and I am hearing the predictable gnashing of teeth and rending of garments because the selection process has been changed. I agree. Ladies who want to pursue that line of work should be held to the same physical standards as the men. If my house were on fire I would much rather have burly 26-year-old men come put it out. For instance. But in spite of the fact that standards have been altered, (some say lowered, I wouldn't know) resulting in two women becoming part of the newest SWAT class, maybe we could give the ladies the benefit of the doubt until we see what they can do.

For ten years I was a welder and bridge carpenter for the Piledrivers union. That is some serious hard work. A large part of the job consisted of packing lumber. Sixteen-foot-long 2X4s. You were expected to carry at least two at a time, and trot with them. Or singlehandedly lift and carry 4X8 sheets of 3/8 inch plywood. All day. Or 50lb. sacks of grout, or 98lb sacks of cement. You get the picture. There were jackhammers and bottle racks and welding machinery to be operated and moved. Nothing was small and nothing was light. A lot of men couldn't hack it. To be female and do that work you have to be one motivated chimp. And I was. I'm also gigantic, but I still had to prove on every job that I was up to the work.

I preferred the men I worked with to the other women. The guys on my crews were pretty easy to please; they just didn't want to feel like they had to do all their job and half of mine. As soon as I demonstrated I was as strong as they were (or stronger -- heh, heh.) I was all right with them. There were only very few times I may have caused an existential crisis in some caveman. "If she's doing the same work as me, does that mean I'm not actually a man?" No, honey. That's not why. The male engineers were a hoot. We'd swap puns while the tradesmen would glower at us.

Female engineers were ... different. I got the distinct vibe off them that they thought I was low-wattage or I wouldn't be out here getting dirty and beat up. I have an engineer joke: What's the difference between Mechanical engineers and Civil engineers? Mechanical engineers design weapons and Civil engineers design targets. I didn't say it was a great joke. I do the setup with a male engineer and get to the punch OK. I do the same with a female engineer and she very patiently explains to me the difference. Oy. My 'sister' tradesmen were a problem, too. They were very happy with affirmative action and demanded they only be given the easiest work. I would usually get partnered up with them and spend a lyrical eight hours doing all the literal grunt work while getting a full dose of feminist rhetoric. The next time you drive by a construction site and there's a lady flagging traffic she's probably a journeyman carpenter making $35 an hour while a $15 apprentice is busting ass doing her job.

The most contentious relationships I had by far were with the wives and girlfriends of my coworkers, most of whom had never clapped eyes on me. And so it is that the ladies are being hardest on the female SWAT recruits. They haven't even made it out of training and the wives and girlfriends are squawking about how their men are at risk of being killed because of them. Very funny. I had one of those go-to-work-and-get-killed kind of jobs. I've participated in a few rescues and I've needed rescuing myself. The Coast Guard hires some really cute guys. Maybe a bigger fear is that they don't want their men spending all that time with women other than themselves. It was never a consideration for them before. The SWAT recruits can't help them there, any more than I could help my buddies, short of explaining to their women that however loathsome the men might be at home, I saw them at their filthiest, most disgusting, crudest, and least attractive. They didn't want me to do that.

So perhaps it would be better to wait and see if the ladies make it through training, and see what they can do. Fighting and lifting are more about physics than mass. Los Machos Tacos they're likely trying to apprehend won't take them seriously, and that works to their advantage in a big way. And maybe real life is less like The Shield and they aren't shopping for your Prince Charming. One of the side effects of proving yourself in a difficult field is men have to try a lot harder to impress you than they would the other women. I'm just saying.

Peguins, Revisited

2008-04-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

A little bit over a week ago I wrote about the big oil discovery in the Falkland Islands and how Argentina is developing a deep and abiding love for the place. Yesterday President Kirchner said her country's claim to the islands is 'inalienable.' You know South American politicians mean business when they start swiping our material. Here's an AFP story all about her claim without ever once mentioning why the sudden interest.

Here's why you should care. If Argentina and England get into it again over who controls the Falklands this would actually be a War For Oil. President Kirchner is a left-wing lawyer. She is a former First Lady who served as a senator before she became president. She's been compared to Eva Peron and she's cool with that. Sound at all familiar? If you wanted to know how Hillary Rodham Clinton would conduct a war there is a ready-made example in Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. I'm guessing things will get nasty in a hurry. Women fully comprehend the scorched-earth policy.

Now, where would they get that?

2008-03-30T07:49:00.000-07:00

OK. I am no scientist, a fact which shall become abundantly clear. According to this AFP story Columbian officials have obtained a sample of the uranium FARC had for sale. The depleted uranium. Of course the press misses the point slightly. They're all worked up over where it ended up when they should be asking from whence it came. I doubt it fell off the back of a truck.

The stuff that comes out of the ground is like diesel fuel. They pick the dinosaurs out and there you go. In order to get fissionable material the uranium must be refined, like gasoline. What's left over after that is your depleted uranium. There aren't very many places in the world that have the necessary equipment to refine uranium. Columbia ain't one of them. Russia is. China is. Iran could be. Us, too, by the way, and we might not even notice (or report) 110 pounds of the stuff missing. But Russia, China, and Iran have all been trying to establish themselves in the Western Hemisphere. Towards that end they've been loving up Hugo Chavez, who probably thinks he's people now. So did one of those three arrange for FARC to have depleted uranium or did FARC get it through Chavez? Or did it come from somewhere else entirely?

Uribe has FARC pretty well whupped. The attempt by the media to make them out to be super-scary terrorists with nukes, IMO, is designed to build their morale and make them out to be serious people engaged in a civil war instead of what they actually are: a cross between Jonestown and Deliverance. The question that needs answering is where the stuff came from. Those people are trying to start something.

Quick question

2008-03-27T07:37:00.000-07:00

If you were a terrorist -- foreign or domestic, I'm ecumenical -- which is the more tempting target, the Olympics or the Democratic National Convention? China would definitely kill your ass, but you may have meant to blow yourself up anyway, and you can target citizens of the country you dislike the most today. Denver will have looser security and a town full of people who'll seek to understand why you hate them, but will the world acknowledge your greatness if all you do is take out a bunch of damn Americans? Plus, no matter how hard you try to brand yourself or your organization George W. Bush is going to get all the publicity for allowing it to happen.

Extremely Creative Writing

2008-03-26T14:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0325081sabatino1.html

This is a story about some oaf incarcerated in Florida, I think, who for reasons known to God alone would like to insinuate himself into the murders of some rap 'musicians' some years ago. Big whoop. Even as a pudgy white boy, do you need street cred if you're off the streets? Just asking. He lied to the L.A. Times about it, and they ran with the story without checking the facts. Again? Yawn. Some of the purported evidence was in the form of FBI reports that turned out to be fabricated by the oaf himself. OK, neat. Shows initiative. TSG lays out in minute detail how these reports differ from real FBI reports, in case you wanted to know how to avoid making the mistakes this brain surgeon made. And now you have my attention.

Exactly how retarded are the people at TSG that they'd spell out effective methods for forging FBI reports? OK, the mug shots are cool, and I loved WMOB, but there is such a thing as being too hip. Saying that the reports were forged is one thing. Leaking exactly how on the Internet? When your stock in trade is dissemination of authentic (public) legal documents? Leaving aside the myriad nefarious uses to which people could put that knowledge, didn't you just make your fact checkers' jobs like a million times harder? How long till this bites you in the behind?

Who our friends are

2008-03-26T07:19:00.000-07:00

When you mention the name "Colombia" to the average American, he will form an immediate mental image, usually involving cocaine and Sean Penn. This is outdated and unfair. The guy who runs the place, Alvaro Uribe, has just about singlehandedly turned the place around. The tourists are coming back, even. This is despite having been engaged with FARC, a bunch of second-rate domestic terrorists primarily funded through the drug trade -- so you were right to think of Sean Penn. FARC's been at it for forty years and no one has declared their fight lost and insisted that they pull out of this quagmire and bring the troops home. Things in the jungle are not all skittles and beer, however; FARC's been having ... desertion issues. This comes from having a few of them being actually killed by the Columbian army. Playing soldier tends to lose its luster after that. Also, FARC relies on fear to hold its membership and the guys getting killed were the guys inspiring the fear. I expect a lot of the foot soldiers went skipping off back home singing "Ding, Dong, The Witch is Dead" in Spanish.

That Uribe has gotten as far as he has with Columbia is an amazing feat. If he had a little help he'd be able to wipe FARC out completely. He's not asking for military intervention, or even for cash. He'd like a trade deal with America. All of the cool countries have them. And seeing as he's trying to dismantle the single largest drug ring on the planet without asking for charity, you'd think we'd want to help Columbia out. This seems like just the sort of thing we as a nation would stand for. You'd think.

Recently Raul Reyes, the number two guy in FARC, was killed by Columbia's army. The hard drive from his computer reveals that he was corresponding -- through an intermediary, of course--with Massachusetts congressman James McGovern (do I even need to put the 'D' after his name?). McGovern was sympathetic to the plight of these freedom fighters and their enormous piles of cash and was apparently working on ways to assist them in undermining U.S. support for Uribe. And of course he denies everything. It was all a ploy to get FARC to trust them, they were opening a dialogue for negotiations (because the State Dept. is soo busy), yada yada yada.

McGovern's actions don't just benefit FARC at the expense of Columbia. FARC's BFF is Hugo Chavez, next door in Venezuela. He's been touting FARC as a real, live army involved in a "civil war" with Columbia. He told the UN he thinks FARC should be removed from the terrorist watch list. Not that Chavez cares for them overmuch; he's got his eye on overthrowing the conservative (for South America) Uribe and installing someone more sympathetic to his Bolivarian Socialism in that spot. It's not much of a stretch to say that Mr. McGovern and Mr. Chavez are on the same page in regards to Colombia's ultimate fate.

Why don't McGovern and the rest of the lefty (mostly) Dems just come clean and admit they've got Dictator Envy. They're drawn to every two-bit, tin-pot, overcompensating paranoid control freak that comes down the pike like simpering gay men to Liza Minelli. And, to continue the metaphor, they all uniformly deny the fascination with the personality cult and come after their perceived accusers with vitriol and venom worthy of the truly fabulous. But this isn't something trivial; in acting against the interests of the sovereign government of Columbia they are acting against our interests as well, and against the oath they swore to uphold when they took office. They're not on our side. And don't think the rest of the world doesn't notice.

Eat your heart out, Dersh.

2008-03-25T14:18:00.001-07:00

Michael R. Ray is the god-king of all jailhouse lawyers and I am in awe of his accomplishment.

Currently finishing out his third term in the Estill Federal Correctional Institution in South Carolina, where he's been doing time for fraud, the certified paralegal developed a hobby: filing petitions with the U.S. Supreme Court. And after about 75 tries over the last twenty years, he's accomplished something few actual attorneys ever do. He wrote a brief that persuaded the Court to consider an appeal for a fellow inmate at Estill, a guy named Keith Lavon Burgess. Burgess is a total lowlife and the appeal is probably going down in flames -- it's about clearly defining what constitutes a previous felony conviction for the purposes of applying a minimum mandatory sentence -- but that's not the point. The point is a regular Joe with no law degree managed to get the attention of the Big Boy Court. And for that he must be punished.

Mr. Ray is due to be released April 14, unless the South Carolina Attorney General's Office decides to prosecute him for Unlicensed Practice of Law. Ray is also king of the smooth reaction. To quote the press release he wrote himself: "It would be nice to see the Palmetto State dedicating the thousands of dollars being expended in this (investigation) for a prisoner re-entry services program ... and for ex-felon job creation." Prosecuting him for UPL would be a shame if it happens. He filed the brief in forma pauperis to duck the $300 filing fee. Out of the 7,186 such briefs filed in that Court term, his was one of only seven accepted for review. The guy's good, real good, although maybe he should consider horning in on Grisham's action instead.

Shoot, shovel, and shut up.

2008-03-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

One of the arguments made by the limp-wristed surrendering class for giving up on the Global War on Terror is that our actions only serve to create more jihadis. Kind of like Mongo from Blazing Saddles, the huge caveman-looking guy who terrorizes the town. Gene Wilders' character says,"Don't shoot him, you'll just make him mad." I'm not saying jihadis go around hitting horses in the face and knocking them down or anything. They have San Francisco "peace protesters" to do that for them. You never know which way a horse is going to fall.

Anyway, it turns out even a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while. They were right. Some of our actions do, in fact, encourage more acts of terror. According to researchers at Harvard University, yet, when the media cover criticism in the United States of the war, or public opinion polls about the conflict -- which always seem to say that the public is against the war -- these media cycles are followed by an increase in the number of attacks on civilians and U.S. forces in Iraq. They've even come up with a snappy name for it -- an "emboldening effect."

So when your elected representatives blather on about how they support the troops but not the war, when some poisonous harpy from CodePink gets invited to a congressional hearing so she can get hauled out screaming on CSPAN, when every network wails and moans about this or that milestone casualty, the world is, in fact, watching. Watching and planning. When the media gives jihadis the impression that public sentiment is against the war, then more Americans and more Iraqi civilians die. Not that they care.

Those are gonna be some wealthy penguins

2008-03-24T11:29:00.000-07:00

This looks like it could be fun. They're going to start drilling for oil in the Falkland Islands: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/09/wfalk109.xml

I'm actually really psyched for the islanders. The reserves are estimated at about 60 billion barrels, about the same size as the North Sea reserves. This is the kind of thing that sets a country up for generations. Look what it did for the Gulf States. And, bonus, the Falklanders like us and share our culture. They're precious, too. The first thing they plan to do with the money is fix up the (two) schools and the hospital, of course. Then they think maybe they'll build a movie house and a bowling alley. Oh, stop it.

It's also fun for the rest of us. Not only do we get to taunt the dirt worshippers who want us to think we're running out of the stuff, but we're about to witness a fine piece of geopolitical slap fighting. See, the Argentinians see Las Islas Malvinas -- and the oil -- as theirs, and they're all in a bunch because they say England went back on a promise to include them in the oil exploration process. The word "intransigence" has been used, the diplomatic equivalent of the sudden stop of the jungle drums. This could escalate to war. Or a crappy bass solo. Can you picture another Falklands War, only with Gordon Brown and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner running it instead of Leopoldo Galtieri and Margaret Thatcher? Come to think of it, it might be a closer contest this go-round, if it happens.

I wonder what the lefties would do when faced with an actual War For Oil? Probably ignore it because it doesn't have an easily-cast Bad Guy. It's not America or Israel, after all. Plus it's on some frozen little rock at the bottom of the earth, and you know how protesters feel about bad weather.

Her Name is Kathleen Soliah

2008-03-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

The name she's known by, Sara Jane Olson, is an identity she had stolen from a baby who'd died. In February of 1974 she and her buddies in the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped W.R. Hearst's granddaughter Patty to hold for ransom. In the course of a bank robbery in 1975 Kathleen kicked a pregnant teller in the abdomen, causing her to miscarry. She also contributed to the death of Myrna Ospahl, depriving her four children of a mother. Kathleen wasn't sorry about it, either; far from it. She said Ospahl deserved to die for being a "bourgeois pig."

She went what the fashionable call 'underground' for twenty-three years, married a doctor, had three daughters, a five-bedroom house in the classy part of St. Paul, traveled the world, expressed herself through community activism and community theatre, and generally lead the life she stole off Myrna. And when she finally got picked up the neighbors had a fit. Why, she was one of them, and that was decades ago, and look at all the good works she's done since, and how can they take a mother away from her children who need her?

So they let her out a little early thinking that no one would notice. D'oh. After five days of her hanging around L.A. they pick her up again to serve out the rest of her time. Imagine how awful that must be for her. I hope they do Mrs. Doctor from St. Paul like that every month or two, myself. Bourgeois pig.

No, stupid. Dig UP!

2008-03-21T07:22:00.000-07:00

My, my, my, hasn't fate been unkind to Mr. Obama. His maternal grandparents, who raised and supported the offspring of their errant daughter, were straight up racists. Or his grandma was, anyhow. But it's not her fault she's a typical white person.

An interesting dynamic seems to recur in ol' Barry's life, one of evil, flawed women and the noble men who suffer them. What a catch he must be. I say we elect him. The second it all turns to crap he'll blame Michelle, she'll hack his huevos off with a rusty can lid on live TV, and we'll all feel so empowered. At any rate, I'm from DC by way of Virginia, and I don't recall having any kind of reaction "bred into" me about race. Perhaps it's different up North.

Comparative religion

2008-03-20T09:42:00.000-07:00

Muslims don’t believe Jesus was crucified:

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20080320-125807/M

It seems that the idea of having body doubles around to take your whuppin' for you is one of those grand old Islamic traditions. How very brave they are.

If you can't trust a bunch of coke-dealing terrorists, who can you trust?

2008-03-19T11:06:00.000-07:00

"Colombian police charged Monday that they had found evidence on rebel computers that Venezuela has been funding Colombian leftist rebels and that the rebels were trading in drugs and uranium." -- Earth Times dot org, March 3, 2008

Drugs....and uranium? Please. Did they carry it around in the car trunk like in Repo Man, where they pop the lid and there's this bright light and the dude melts? Do you know how much uranium you'd need to build a nuke? About 11,000 pounds. And it takes around a year to refine. How much did they have for sale? 110 pounds. But that's not the funny part.

They were probably going to sell the uranium to Hugo Chavez, an enthusiastic consumer of FARC's other cash crop. The man cops to chewing coca leaves on a daily basis. Call me a cynic, but I think he's trying to establish plausible deniability for being nuttier than squirrel droppings. He's been FARC's most vocal booster (wonder why), even going so far as to tell the UN they should be taken off the terrorist watch list. That way they can proclaim themselves to be a real army with negotiating rights and whatnot. If the UN goes for that I think we can pinpoint the origin of most of the pharmaceuticals in NYC's water supply. But I digress.

FARC was asking $2.5 million per kilo for the uranium -- or 1000 times the cost of a kilo of cocaine. Columbian uranium sells for about $250 per kilo and in its natural state is too inert for even a dirty bomb. If Chavez was the mark -- er, customer, how funny is that, getting gouged by your so-called friends for low-strength product? After all he's done for them! They must know something about him the rest of us don't.

Obligatory St. Patrick's Day Joke

2008-03-17T14:44:00.000-07:00

This alleged holiday is the Irish Cinco de Mayo.

That wasn't the joke. Nothing funny about 'drink 'till you're smart' day. Anyhow:

Q. What did St. Patrick say as he was driving the snakes out of Ireland?
A. "you guys comfortable back there? would you like me to roll down the window?"

That is a genuine Irish joke, told to me by an Irish ironworker named John. There was a whole pack of them on that one job, and they all thought my name was Colleen. I came this close to starting an international incident when John told me that's what they called all the girls. Oh. OK. So I can call you all "Paddy," then?

We came up with new names for each other. They called me "Kitten." I didn't mind.

Just some stuff I noticed

2008-03-17T11:13:00.000-07:00

Here in America we're squawking over how the Democrats gamed the open primary system to pick the Republican nominee and how the Republicans are trying to keep Hillary in the race through the same method, with the result being the only sure thing about November's election will be whoever wins they'll totally suck. They pull the same crap over in Russia. Big surprise.

The party Putin supports, United Russia, won 99.4% of the vote in December's 2007 Duma (think Senate) elections. Voter turnout was 99.5%. I got those numbers from an open letter written to Putin and Vladimir Churov, head of the election Comission, by Sergei Kovalev, a human rights advocate and candidate for an opposing party. http://hro1.org/node/1295 (check out his sign-off. Use it on someone.) United Russia is the media's favorite party. Wonder why. [Ahem? Mainstream Media, anyone? Why are they so mad about Hill, anyway?] Russia's main political parties like to give the impression they're in opposition but if you're Joe Voter you know what you're really going to get. [And so do we.] Public relations are also managed through the formation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are quietly funded by Putin and whose purpose is to draw attention and resources away from legitimate and troublesome organizations that speak out against Putin. [George Soros much? MoveOn? Daily Kos?] Yeah, Putin's not in charge anymore. But he arranged for his BFF Hill--er, Dmitry Medvedev to take his spot, so he'll still be running the show. Kind of a 'Two for One" deal. During the campaign Medvedev did most of his public appearances with Putin. [well? WELL?] They were really good; when Medvedev spoke you could hardly see Putin's lips move.

Would it be OK if we found a better model to follow than this?

Like they care

2008-03-17T07:38:00.000-07:00

The big, above-the-fold, one-inch headline on my local paper this morning is moaning about the fact that our military casualties are disproportionately from the rural areas of the country. Oakland has not lost a single soldier in the last year while Tracy has lost three. Three soldiers from San Francisco have died compared to 20 from Stockton. Berkeley hasn't lost any, but a couple of Marines have been threatened. On Shattuck Ave. The point of the article, I think, is that it's not fair that so many of those people out in flyover country are getting killed so we should just stop fighting and come home. Incidentally, 'flyover country' begins in Walnut Creek; they should just put a sign up at the end of Hwy. 24 that says "Here there be Tygers."

The cities of San Francisco and Berkeley and the county of Marin are mostly populated by the people who were run out of every decent community in the rest of the country. Many act as though their crowning achievement in life was to move here. The local news calls this place "the best place on Earth." No lie. When do you suppose was the last time the Bay Aryans cared about what happens to other, lesser people? They think forcing you to recycle accomplishes something and that observing Cinco de Mayo, the Mexican Arbor Day, means they embrace other cultures. Plus it shuts the help up.

Maybe the people in Tracy and Stockton and Modesto and Antioch care more about this country than people in Oakland or Kensington or Palo Alto. Maybe "rural" people (Stockton's a university town, btw) don't sit around and wait for stuff to happen to them. Maybe they know about good and evil and have no concept of "situational ethics," or they believe in The Truth rather than 'their truth.' Either way, they're protecting SF's butts (which is more than they'll ever do) and making it possible for the menopausal acidheads of Berkeley to stomp their tiny feet and cry for the camera. I only wish we could deport citizens.

Reasons to Wake

2008-03-15T19:38:00.000-07:00

OK, I do know it's not St. Patrick's Day yet, so I'll save my lame St. Paddy's joke for then. This is good, though. Every so often, maybe no more than once or twice in a person's entire life, perfect serendipity occurs, a moment of such flawless absurdity it remains recorded in the memory forever like Youtube. I had such a moment on St. Patrick's Day of 2000.

Once upon a time I belonged to the Piledrivers Union. Local 34, Oakland, Ca. I was a welder. No, not like the girl in Flashdance; she was an actress. It was hard damn work, and to paraphrase Steve Buscemi from "Armageddon," it paid well, the scenery changed and sometimes you got to blow stuff up. And I met some awesome men, as well as one or two of the biggest crapweasels ever to walk on their back legs.

The morning of 3/17/2000 I was working on a building foundation job in San Francisco's Financial District. My little corner of the world was right next to the fence separating the jobsite from Howard Street. So I'm all duded up in my protective gear, looking like the lesbian dream date, welding away. I finish the piece I'm working on, put up my mask, and there is a beautiful young man in a kilt, riding his bicycle up the street towards me. A healthy specimen, he was. We made eye contact and he registered surprise. I'm unmistakably female; I look like R. Crumb drew me. I don't often express these sentiments out loud to strangers, but I was moved to call out. I mean, the guy is riding a bicycle in a kilt. In America. That's one confident dude. And yes, his skirt was blowing up. Without thinking I said the first thing that popped into my head. "Baby." The rest of the sentence, "Let's get married for the weekend," was implied. And then he was gone from my life like the fading light of dusk, like the last sip of wine, like a loosely-held sucker from a baby's hand. Or something.

A male pedestrian gets hey-babied by a female construction worker. Welcome to California. Enjoy your stay in Bizarro World. And if you're that guy, I'm sure you remember me. The offer still stands.

Oops.

2008-03-14T09:47:00.000-07:00

The eponymous semiliterates over at Yahoo! posted this picture of NY Gov. Spitzer in their "News Photos" section Note the party affiliation.

Practical advice

2008-03-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

Do you have to ride the bus, as part of a commute or for travel? Uncomfortable with the level of intimacy bus travel affords? Here's how to get a seat by yourself, as in, here's how to get someone to move out of the seat next to you and discourage people from taking it:

1) Acquire target seat.
2)Take no more than sixty seconds to pretend like you're falling asleep.
3) Relax your upper body and allow yourself to slump forward until you are bent double. Your arms should hang loosely so that your hands brush the floor and your chin should rest on your knees. Allowing your head to occasionally strike the seat in front of you adds a touch of authenticity. Try not to bite your tongue; that really hurts.

Just for the entertainment value, try this in an aisle seat. People will climb over the back of the seat to get out without touching you.

Worried about maintaining your dignity? Get off the bus. No, actually, there is another method that is somewhat more interactive and requires a prop. Carry your jacket, backpack, attache or soiled rag in a bundle as if it were a baby. Speak to it occasionally. Not loudly, though; you want people to lean in slightly to hear what you're saying. Make a point of noticing them and twist your body away while glaring at them in a hostile manner. With a little effort you'll have your entire half of the bus to yourself, leaving you free to meditate or whatever. You're welcome.

Oooohhh, Shiny....

2008-03-13T05:36:00.000-07:00

The Gov. of NY got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, as it were. Maybe you've heard. We've all seen the various press conferences with his wife standing stoically by his side. Some people say she looks steamed. To me it looks like she's trying to remember if they had a prenup. We've all seen pictures of the allegedly sweet young thing he threw it all away for. You may even have heard her sing. Admit it. Like Patsy Stone from "Absolutely Fabulous," I too long for the days when scandal girls were gorgeous and silent. Here's my question, though. When will somebody notice that in 2004 as AG, Eliot Spitzer prosecuted one call-girl ring while procuring for himself the services of another? And that he engaged in money laundering to hide the activity, one he's put people in jail over? You'll pardon me if I don't hold my breath.

Why feminists hate women

2008-03-11T13:24:00.000-07:00

In the latest issue of The American magazine Christina Hoff Sommers writes about the gathering movement to apply Title IX of the Education Amendments act of 1972 to math and science education. http://www.american.com/archive/2008/march-april-magazine-contents/why-can2019t-a-woman-be-more-like-a-man Most people only see this as pointless and/or grindingly stupid; I'm here to tell you that it's an evil plot hatched by bags of a certain age to insure there will be no competition from younger women for the cushy lifestyles they've made for themselves. Not only do they not care about girls or young women, they are actively engaged in wrecking their lives.

In 1995 Shannon Faulkner applied for and was accepted into The Citadel, a male-only military academy in South Carolina. She never mentioned to them she was female until after she was accepted. Because The Citadel accepted federal funds they were obligated to take her. It was revealed that Faulkner had been put up to applying at the behest of her local chapter of NOW, who busily set about turning Miss Faulkner into the feminist heroine of the age. If Miss Faulkner may have had second thoughts about attending a school whose administration felt she had duped them and whose student body saw her as an interloper who wanted to ruin the school experience they were hoping to have, she would certainly felt pressure to keep those feelings to herself now that all womankind was counting on her to go through with this prank. She lasted four hours among the Corps of Cadets and resigned before the first week was out. NOW dropped her like a hot rock and another woman profited from her ordeal by writing a book about her. Miss Faulkner, who had wanted a career with the Navy and who could have gotten into Annapolis where they cheerfully accept women, now teaches high school back in SC.

Miss Faulkner needn't have suffered like that. The "Womyn" got ahold of an impressionable teenage girl and convinced her to walk into the rotors for sisterhood, with the predictable result. The course of Miss Faulkner's life was altered irrevocably because she was pushed into an environment that doomed her to failure in order to aggrandize old women who'd never dream of putting themselves on the line like that. In fact, when they were coming up they had the nurturing and care accorded hothouse flowers. Everyone was rooting for them to succeed. They have. They've accomplished all they set out to do and more and now they want to prevent competition by setting young girls up to fail in their first independent venture, robbing them of self-confidence as well as just plain robbing them. College is expensive. Most people literally cannot afford to fail. If you flunk out because you're ill-suited to your major or the institution you have no degree and a load of debt. So you go to work for whoever will hire you first. That's probably not going to be a law firm or a consulting gig. Or academia.

The fossilized Women's Libbers are not only sabotaging young womens' chances to better themselves through education, they seem to be actively involved in keeping women not of their class poor and uneducated. All to aggrandize themselves, and if their pockets get lined in the bargain so much the better.