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Posted in Pop Culture, Sex by Chris at 22:49
Nelson writes: Willie: note to self; don’t get high with Burt. Burt’s getting all kinds of scary old skinny and demented. Good times, though.
Posted in Misc by Chris at 22:45
You want a downer? How about global climactic change is now almost surely inevitable, even if we changed our behaviors today. That means mass suicide, extinction, displacement, and disruption. That means we should already be apologizing to our children - born and unborn.
A few days ago Roger Pielke Jr. pointed to a paper (PDF) by Tim Dyson of the London School of Economics called “On development, demography and climate change: The end of the world as we know it?” Pielke called it “refreshingly clear thinking on climate change.” That’s true, if by “refreshingly clear” he means “weep-silently-aplogize-to-your-children-and-throw- yourself-out-a-window depressing.” Abandon hope, all ye who download PDF here.
Dyson’s argument unfolds in several stages, but the brutal conclusion is simple: “In all likelihood, events are now set to run their course.”
Total buzzkill, man.
Posted in News by Chris at 22:33
First, four scout leaders from Alaska were electrocuted when a tent pole hit an overhead power line on the opening day.Then, 300 scouts fell ill with symptoms of dehydration and fatigue as they waited for hours in the blistering heat for a visit by President Bush.
I’m sure we’ll hear on and on about this in the media. After all, it’s far more important than an apocryphal story of how planes were held in the air while the previous preznit got a haircut, right? Right?
Oh, and by the way? The Preznit didn’t show:
The day ended with the announcement that Mr Bush was calling off his trip because of bad weather — just as he had done four years ago.
Posted in News, Politics by Chris at 13:47
Crazy android Schmidt covered up her ties to Tom “coingate” Noe… and lied about it.
Remember: it’s not the crime it’s the coverup. Give ‘em hell, Hackett!
Posted in News, Politics, War by Chris at 15:42
I’ve been not commenting on the Hackett special election because, well, I don’t think he has much of a shot. The district he’s in is about as GOP as GOP can get. He’s a great new democrat candidate (see also: Schweitzer, Brian); straight-talking, charismatic, veteran, pro-gun rights, populist. He’s Howard Dean without the Vermont “liberal” baggage and with veteran cred.
That said, his odds of winning are somewhere between slim and scintilla.
The best thing about this election is that it has scared the shit out of the GOoPers. Hackett is within the margin of error of the batshit crazy empty vessel/walking talking point memo of a candidate the GOP put out there named Jean Schmidt. This frightened the GOP so much - the GOP who obviously think they have a permanent hold on power given the scope and brazenness of their corruption and contempt for the People - that the NRCC just dropped $500,000 for last mnute media buys in the campaign. The Dems have people on the ground and enough money to be sorta competitive, which is different than the usual outmanned and outgunned… but I don’t think it’s going to be enough.
So I’ve got nothing new to add to the debate here and consequently haven’t said anything. This video of the talking point android Schmidt was worth posting was enough to push me over the top. It’s worth watching, if for nothing else than to see objective evidence that there are robots living among us.
If Hackett wins it will be both the best day of the year for me and a bellwether that the GOoPers are going down in droves in ‘06. If it’s close, it’ll be a bellwether that the GOoPers are in trouble. We’ll know on Monday how it turns out. Fingers crossed. Give ‘em hell, Hackett!
Posted in HFS!, News by Chris at 15:09
with the arctic ice cap melting at an alarming rate, the time to act was 10 years ago, but better now than never. Let’s go, people, let’s go!
Oh, did I mention it looks like 2005 is going to be the hottest year on record?
Posted in Baseball by Chris at 14:31
pre-waiver deadline, that is.
So I’m pretty much going to be glued to my newswire when I’m not out in the murderously hot hot sun.
Predictions: by Monday Guardado is elsewhere, Winn is in NY, Soriano and Manny stay put. I’m really curious to see if Schmidt moves, but I haven’t heard anything yet so probably not. I was hoping he would, because that would be the definitive 2005 white towel for the Giants and I could thus drop Bonds. Man, trading for him was a bad bet.
Posted in Evil, Eye Rollers, Grrr... by Chris at 14:23
Announced on a Friday, of course.
Federal prosecutors have declined to press charges of impersonating a Secret Service agent against a White House volunteer who forcibly ousted three people from a speech by President George W. Bush in Denver on March 21.
The announcement was made without explanation today in a letter from the Secret Service to Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar and Reps. Mark Udall and Diana DeGette, all Democrats who had asked for the agency to investigate the incident.
The three people who were ousted - Alex Young, 26, Karen Bauer, 38, and Leslie Weise, 39 - say the event staffer was dressed like a Secret Service agent, in a suit, radio earpiece and lapel pin that identifies people with security clearance. Bauer and Weise say that when they were pulled aside at the gate, they were told by another event staffer that they were waiting for a Secret Service agent, and then this man showed up. Though he did not tell them he was an agent, they said he did threaten to arrest them if they misbehaved.
Evil allies with stupid. News at 11.
Posted in Misc, Money by Chris at 14:17
I’ll make an exception to my non-NYT linking, but only for Krugman.
The point is that to the extent that the French have less income than we do, it’s mainly a matter of choice. And to see the consequences of that choice, let’s ask how the situation of a typical middle-class family in France compares with that of its American counterpart.
The French family, without question, has lower disposable income. This translates into lower personal consumption: a smaller car, a smaller house, less eating out.
But there are compensations for this lower level of consumption. Because French schools are good across the country, the French family doesn’t have to worry as much about getting its children into a good school district. Nor does the French family, with guaranteed access to excellent health care, have to worry about losing health insurance or being driven into bankruptcy by medical bills.
Perhaps even more important, however, the members of that French family are compensated for their lower income with much more time together. Fully employed French workers average about seven weeks of paid vacation a year. In America, that figure is less than four.
So which society has made the better choice?
Posted in Misc by Chris at 12:19
Posted in Evil, Politics, War by Chris at 10:03
… how else can you explain his behavior and the busheviks’ acquiescence (aside from the they-have-nukes part)? They assist bin Laden’s escape from Tora Bora, harbor him, and refuse to track him down. They are the world’s greatest exporter of weapons of mass destruction - and not just any WMDs, either. No, exporter of nukes, baby.
Oh, and now? The Pakistani military is training the new Taliban as it crosses back into Afghanistan and retakes that blasted country.
Afghan officials immediately focused on nearby Pakistan and its military, whose Inter-Services Intelligence agency helped create the Taliban in the early 1990s and provided training and equipment to help the Muslim extremists win control over most of the country.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf joined the Bush administration’s war on terrorism and publicly turned against the Taliban immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks. But Afghan officials allege that Taliban and allied fighters who fled to Pakistan after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 are learning new, more lethal tactics from the Pakistani military at numerous training bases.
I’m really tired of these neocon “vulcans” being every huckster’s bitch. Chalabi/Iran, Musharraf/Pakistan, Kim/North Korea… it’s just embarassing. Embarassing that the world’s sole remaining superpower can be run by a tiny cabal of evil naive trolls in the thrall of evil malicious goblins. Embarassing.
Posted in Eye Rollers, Politics, War by Chris at 09:13
Selling the war by Sid Blumenthal.
Since Bush’s speech at Fort Bragg, N.C., on June 28, for which the White House asked for and received national television coverage, and in which Bush reaffirmed “fighting the global war on terrorism,” mentioned “terror” or “terrorism” 23 more times, and compared this “global war on terrorism” with the Civil War and World War II, his administration has simply dropped the words that more than any others Bush has identified as the reason for his presidency.
Throughout July, administration officials have substituted new words for the old. Instead of trumpeting the “global war on terrorism,” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have sounded the call to “a global struggle against violent extremism.” Medals have been awarded to brave U.S. soldiers stamped “Global War on Terror.” Will new medals now be minted?
Am I the only one who notices irony of a war against violent extremism? Am I the only one who thinks ‘oroboros‘? Am I the only one who thinks that “extremism” is a perfect setup with which to apply amorphous political standards against our own population?
Posted in Pop Culture by Chris at 08:13
objective proof that your future self and present self can meet and interract without sundering the space-time continuum.
(for the non-clickees, it’s Pam Anderson and Lindsey Lohan talking at some function or another. Damn, LL looks sick. As in literally ill, not some sort of euphemism for “good” or “hot”.)
