Awwww

Don't let them fool you--they can be quite evil....

Just about right

Andrew Sullivan lets a reader opine about the D's and Hillarah here. It is very well done, so I won't add/sully much, but first, one criticism: he forgot about Kerry.

Secondly, The D's are still in the periphery. They have not had a compelling ideology since the Great Society--and that proved to have quite a few flaws.

Third, Clinton was a pretty good D President, overall, but his major domestic achievements (welfare reform, balancing a budget, limiting government, free trade) were done despite Democratic opposition. It took GOP support to push that through--a lot of it, in fact. So........it begs the question. "D's, when will you give up on the old time religion of the Great Society and, much more importantly, when will you give Americans a reason to vote for you other than 'Well, at least I'm not that dude?'"

Strange Fruit

If you listen to the lyrics, yes, she's talking about human beings and lynchings in the South. It's a chilling title and an even more chilling performance. May I present none other than Lady Day, Ms. Billie Holiday:

Thanks Hitch

I never knew about this poem or this poet until I started reading and listening to him. I'm the gladder for it even more now.

I don't normally like poetry much, in truth--but kissing Christopher Hitchens' ass a bit more--he put it about right when he said (paraphrasing), 'I turn to poetry when philosophy fails.' (Hitch's books can be found here).

I detest it when people say, words to the effect, that poetry somehow reveals a deeper truth than other literature. That's complete BS. I will compare Dostoevsky's or Conrad's "truth revealing" to any poet out there--even Shakespeare. Truth isn't revealed in writing, it's stated and explained. And poets don't know more than us, they just sometimes know how to state it better, I suppose. Mrs. Nelson's poem seems to exemplify that.

New Word

cerebrate: From the words cerebral and masturbate. def. To engage in self-absorbed conversation, normally rhetorical and rarely clever, that is strictly for the pleasure of the speaker.

Update on Homoerotica

Had a couple people comment that there aren't exactly written rules for displaying affection for another man if one is gay either. Fine, I know what you are saying, as there are no written rules period and people can be complicated (believe me, got a big dose of that--and saw it in myself--very recently).

My point--if I even had one--was that it's just strange to me. The whole locker room/homoerotica/insult thing. Just don't know where it comes from (though it can be fun to engage in from time to time, I suppose--the banter that is).

Homoerotica

That ought to grab a bit of attention. 

There is so much pseudo male fellatio going on in this ditship company I work for.  What is it?  I think some men (perhaps many) can only display affection if it involves, at least in part, sex.  Sorry to sound like a woman, but affection is quite possible without sex.  Though I suppose I should give the guys I'm talking about a bit of a break.  There are no written rules about how to display affection for another man when one is a heterosexual man.  So, many resort to misogynistic or homoerotic references  to break things up a bit--get past it almost. (And yes, I've done it too).

It makes some sense, but sometimes I want to say "Enough!  Why don't you just go down on him and get it over with!"  Anyway, back to my Brad Pitt photo album...DELISH!

New Arrival

Meet Joey. Isn't he handsome?

The Curse of Phoenix

This is still killing me. The story of Tim Donaghy, the corrupt NBA ref, is old news by now of course, but I still can't get it out of my head. A ref very possibly--even likely--robbed the Phoenix Suns of a Championship. Literally, literally cheated out of one. You want to think the refs are stupid, biased, emotional, whatever, but bought off just seems like a line you can't cross--at least in the NBA. But not anymore, Baby.

If there is a bright spot to all of this it is that David Stern looks like a gargantuan asshole in all this. Fans, owners, players, writers, everybody wanted major overhauls with NBA refereeing and Stern kept saying 'no, my refs are beyond reproach.' Couldn't say a nasty word about them in public, couldn't even question them if you were an owner or a coach.

Stern, of course, took that line because he is a poor leader and wanted an easy way to deal with things. The easiest thing in the world to do is take the tact he did: "refs are always right, I won't discuss it." Reviewing tapes, evaluating performance, listening to owners, all those things that he should do, weren't done. Now a championship is even more tarnished than it was before and, quite frankly, we don't know how many more have been--though probably more than just this one.

So congrats, Stern. Because of your laziness, because of your poor leadership, because of your simple-minded drivel, because you either cannot or will not think, cannot or will not make hard decisions about hard problems, cannot or will not listen to an outraged public (your very phucking fans!), the NBA is set back in ways we can only speculate on now. You need to see this one through. Then, you need to resign.

W has an anal probe

Let the jokes begin. 1, 2, 3, go!

We love USA!

Some African kids learning the wonders of modern technology. AAAAAAAhahahhahahaha!

Here we go again....

So Arizona (my home state) is gonna 'get tough with them damn illegals' by cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants. Now some Arizona businessmen in the area are a trifle bit concerned about it. They should be.

Never mind that neither the State or Federal government gives small business (or even bigger business) a solid way of checking for fake documentation. Never mind that we don't have an immigrant worker program even close to meeting our market realities. Never mind that we have extremely low unemployment right now. We're going to stop them illegals because....some of them are in gangs, I guess. (And don't give me that "because they are breaking the law" crap. I won't hear another bar from that phucking song anymore. If they were all Scandinavian swim suit models with penchants for cocaine and public nudity--with no interest in learning English or assimilating into "the culture"--there would be noooooooooo problem. Some crimes are well tolerated--just depends on the crime and the criminal).

I'm actually glad this law is going into effect--though I have my doubts it will be carried out. The way Prohibition was finally rid of in Oklahoma was by enforcing the law in full. I actually wish this would do the same in finally forcing some reasonable action on the part of our federal government. But I have my doubts. States and towns making immigration law should be humiliating enough (and I'm not sure it's fully Constitutional, actually). Immigration is clearly the responsibility of the federal government, but they have done nothing but slather the Border Patrol with money and talk about building a wall. Nice try, dipshits, but it's not enough.

Either this law will work as designed and the economy of Arizona will be severely hurt, or it will be on the books but not really enforced. Guess where I'm putting my money.

RIP

Casualty lists for Afghanistan and Iraq.

Joe and NHOP

If you play guitar or bass, particularly jazz, this is enough to make you want to give it up.



Much practice left...

EE Cummings

Don't care for most of his stuff, but this one always does it for me.

Go Ron Paul II

Some people are predicting he takes 2nd in Iowa! Hugh Hewitt is an ass, but he's not a dumb one. This year might be fun...

Go Ron Paul!

This should get the attention of a few. Who does the military support with their contributions? Rudy G? Sentimental favorite McCain? Slimey snakeoil salesman Romney? No, Ronny Paul, Ladies and Gents. Ron Paul is getting more than 1 out of every 2 dollars in military contributions to GOP candidates. Over half! I still have a hard time believing it, accept to think that if I were a GI, I would be thinking (1) I'm sick of this sh*thole and want to go home and (2) don't BS me anymore--had enough. Then it's not so hard to believe.

So Sad

McCain is all but finished (update). The no-money thing has been widely reported, and I've thought for months now that he didn't have a chance, but to fall so far so fast...it's shameful, really. And, as I'm sure has been written many times already (no, I'm not going to Google it), it didn't need to be this way.

The day he decided to speak at Falwell's University was the day he started to give up his chances. It went on from there, of course, but his pandering to "the base" is when he gave up on his strength and when he broke a lot of hearts--mine included. No, I'm not swooning, but I did (and do) think he is a very good man that could do a lot of good for this country.

But even without his Jerry Falwell pandering, his irretrievable grip on a sunny picture for Iraq--with no serious alternative to the Bush plan (?!?!?!)--makes him unelectable. He had to be the leading candidate for the GOP in early 2006. Now he will be lucky to panhandle his way to the next debate. Maybe Mo Udall was right when he said Arizona is the one state where mothers say to their sons, "You cannot grow up to be President."

Showering in the Dark

No, this isn't anything kinky or grotesque. Instead, it's a stupid Yank story.

I had a power converter and was using it fine with my computer in the hotel room, but I needed to charge up my phones as well. I brought a power strip/surge protector that I commonly take when traveling so I figured I would give it a go. Mind you, I didn't think it would work, just that I could try it just in case.

So...out comes the power strip, I put the prongs about halfway in--if that--and "POP!" went the sound, a blue spark shot out about a foot and a half (precariously close to my John Thomas, mind you) and *everything* went out. Every light, the TV, the climate control, everything.

So...time to fess up because I might have just taken out the entire floor--maybe more. I go downstairs to the lobby looking like a heroin addict and tell them what happened. They reset the breaker--nothing. Try it again--nothing. Go down to the ground floor and notice black marks around the fuse box and some lights off there as well. Not good, since I was two floors up from the ground floor.

Long story short, I had to shower and shave with the best light a cloudy morning in Edinburgh could offer through one window, which isn't much. And it turned out that I put out the power in four other rooms for 2-3 hours. Not enough to get the natives to kill me, but still embarrassing. So...no 110 volt power strips in 220 volt outlets, kids. They don't play nicey and it could end up getting your ass kicked.

Post incident Glasgow joke

As I mentioned earlier, I'm in Glasgow. I'm enjoying it for the most part--the people most of all. One of them let me in on a little joke (shown in cartoon form). Imagine a burn victim lying in a hospital bed, bandaged, with a nurse at his bedside. The captions go like this:

Nurse: So, why did ya do it?
Bomber: I wanted my 72 virgins
Nurse: Then why the f*ck did ya come to Glasgow?

I love the Scots.

Short bus terrorism

Bruce Shneier states it just about perfectly here.