Wednesday, April 30, 2008

I thought something up! Clinton X and Clinton Y !!!

When the current President Bush took office, some people used 41 and 43 to distinguish him from his father.

If Sen. Clinton is elected, I suggest "Clinton Y" "Clinton X" as the designations!

(Men have a Y chromosome)

Something not political tomorrow.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

New Obama Campaign Noise Suggestion...

Was there not one person at the news conference to make the sound of a cock crowing? Not a single one?

I'll bet there will be some at his speeches in future...

As usual, the CNN story has the truth in the last line about the deadbeat bank bailout bill...

For a classic article telling us what to think, with the actual truth in the last line...

God's Response to Campaign Promises...

Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, and said unto him,

"Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations."

But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD.

And the LORD said unto Samuel,

"Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them...

Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them
."

And Samuel told all the words of the LORD unto the people that asked of him a king.

And he said,

"This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you:

He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.

And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.

And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.

And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.

And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.

And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.


He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.

And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day.
"

Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said,

"Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles."

I Samuel 8.

Be careful what you wish for. Because if you want a Government that can do everything, it will put your asses to work.

Monday, April 28, 2008

French Castle or Chateau in Tennessee...

Love them there Google satellite pictures- here's a French chateau in Tennessee!

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Brilliant Publishing Idea!



“What does it tell you when a book with a jacket price of $7.00 goes out of print and then begins to sell for five times the jacket price on Amazon Used & New Books?”

If you are the author (and my girl crush Lynne Scanlon, WWOP and bearder of the mighty Mamet in his very den), you fire your publisher and launch a new business!

We all know of out of print books that bring more on Amazon used than new books do. This is a really brilliant idea!

I've seen this phenomenon repeatedly in history and technical books. "The Anatomy of Nelson's Ships" and "A Rifleman Went To War" were pulling three figures used when finally reprinted, and "The War The Infantry Knew" was topping a thousand pounds.

Once again, an obvious opportunity once someone clever points it out!

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Good news for Zimbabwe!

That Red Chinese ship full of ammunition for President Mugabe's enforcers has turned back!

Not much press on this in the U. S., what with Brittany Hilton and all. But the Chinese blame The United States, not the dock workers in Durban who refused to unload, or the South African and Mozambican governments who refused entry. Credit where it is due, there, Jiang Yu.

Surely someone has just ONE Tomahawk or SEAL team equivalent with his name on it.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Nazi Internment Camps and Writer's Block...

I've always liked P. G. Wodehouse, and this is a fun review of a poor book about him. There are worse things that could be said about one than

"Talent + a work ethic that would kill an ox + a sunny temperament free of the tendency to fuck up your own life with a lot of bogus self-dramatizing crap = a fair shot at the kind of success that gets you the whole world."

"Wodehouse found himself, at 59, an internee at a series of Nazi camps, along with all the other ensnared male residents under the age of sixty. His reaction was typical of him: he kept writing. He finished Money in the Bank and outlined his new Blandings Castle novel, Full Moon. He entertained his fellow internees with short stories about camp life that he planned to publish one day in a volume to be entitled Wodehouse in Wonderland. For nine months, with no idea what his own fate would be-trucked from camp to camp-wasting away on a diet of watery cabbage soup and the occasional potato-worrying about what had become of his wife and parrot and Pekingese dog Wonder after their forced separation-cut off from any news of the rest of the world-Wodehouse kept writing. Fellow internees cracked up and attempted suicide but, after helping haul them away from the window ledge, Wodehouse kept writing. Perhaps you're not a writer, or don't know any writers, so you might not quite understand the significance of this fact. Writing, for most writers, is hard. Even at the best of times you'll make any excuse to stop writing. A sore throat, a mildly annoying e-mail, a broken dishwasher, almost anything can provide the rationale for why you can't write anymore that day. Internment in a Nazi camp would be sufficient excuse for most writers to take a break for, say, the rest of their lives. But not Wodehouse. He was a writing Titan."

That's Nazis twice in a row, something non political tomorrow.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

A creepy product that will sell millions...

Um, gross.



Look! Another version, aimed at the married demographic!



They should put one out for people about to rent an apartment, too.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Lyrics to Everybody is Bitter in a Small Town...

But first, from a small town Pennsylvania church,

"Jesus guards a Rio Grande border crossing".

(Watch out, Site Meter, it's a Tamalanche!)

In the post earlier, today, I nominated Miranda Lambert's

Famous in a Small Town

for The One(tm)'s new theme song.

I like it anyway. And if you look at this version, you'll see proof that all small town people are, as we know, Raaaaaaacist!!!!

And here are the fresh new lyrics I wrote- editing help welcome.

Barack O says life is so much sweeter
through the telephoto lens of fame.
Around here we're mad, we don’t get no attention
from administrations as they change.

I dreamed of going to the steel mill.
Get myself some good old union work.
But it closed down way back in 1980
So I blamed myself and acted like a jerk.

Every broke one, put upon, loser here has a story to tell,
Every trailer livin’, Idol watchin deadbeat bum
maybe knows it just a little too well
If you shoot a deer or you're drunk on beer,
go to church or hatin' on Mexicans,
Everybody is bitter in a small town.

All of the factories closed down
Back when Jimmy Carter ruled the land.
We know them there Union wages had no equal,
So since then we’ve been sitting on our hands.

Every beat down, wears a frown xenophobe's got a story to tell.
Every gun nut, bigot, idiot
Maybe knows it just a little too well
If you’re a Jesus freak, turn the other cheek
Don't you blame it on the Democrats,
Everybody is bitter in a small town.

Baby who
Gets their faces in a magazine
Me and you
We've been stuck in this town since we were 17

Let's go on down to the rally,
In our worn out trucks and our
ragged old blue jeans.
And we'll cheer like fools
For Saint Barack Obama,
‘Cause he’s the one who really understands. (who'll save us with his schemes, maybe?)

Every helpless, clueless country hick’s got a story to tell.
And THE ONE will listen, nod and smile
We won’t hate black folks or be scared of hell.
We’re all white red necks, but with special checks,
We’ll know how to vote from this time on
We’ll no longer be bitter in a small town.

Then I found that someone had parodied a different small town song.

I like mine better.

Senator Obama Plays Politics with Gun Owners Too...

As we all listen to The One (tm) mock Sen. Clinton's pandering to "sportsmen" (NOT gun owners, you'll notice. Nor do any ladies shoot.) with her first reference to holding a gun in thirty five years of public life, this might be interesting:

It’s to persuade as many people as I can, across the ideological spectrum, that my vision of the future is compatible with their values, and can make their lives a little bit better. Thus, while I may favor common-sense gun control laws, that doesn’t keep me from reaching out to NRA members...

Speaking of ladies shooting and small towns, I nominate this for his new theme song.

My neighbours are tired of hearing it, it's best loud.Plus, it was filmed near the hunt. And the Miss Lambert looks kind of like Hotgirl, which is funny given that whole story. AND, she's from a small town, and SHOOTS!!!!!

UPDATE! Here are the fresh new lyrics I wrote-

Barack says life is so much sweeter
through the telephoto lens of fame.
Around here we don’t get any attention
from administrations as they change.

I dreamed of going to the steel mill.
Get myself some good old union work.
But it closed down way back in 1980
And I blamed myself and felt just like a jerk.

Every broke one, put upon, loser here has a story to tell,
Every trailer livin’, Idol watchin deadbeat here
maybe knows it just a little too well
If you're shootin’ a deer or you're drunk on beer,
gone to church or hatin'on Mexicans,
Everybody is bitter in a small town.

All of the factories closed up
Back when Jimmy Carter ruled the land
We know that those Union wages had no equal,
So since then we’ve been sitting on our hands.

Every beat down, wears a frown xenophobe's got a story to tell
Every gun nut, bigot, idiot
Maybe knows it just a little too well
If you’re a Jesus freak, turn the other cheek
Don't you blame it on the Democrats,
Everybody is bitter in a small town.

Baby who
Gets their faces in a magazine
Me and you
We've been stuck in this town since we were 17

Let's go on down to the rally,
In our worn out trucks and our
ragged old blue jeans.
And we'll Cheer like hell
For Saint Barack Obama,
‘Cause he’s the one who really understands.

Every helpless, clueless country hick’s got a story to tell.
And THE ONE will listen, nod and smile
We won’t hate black folks or be scared of hell.
We’re just red necks, but with special checks,
We’ll know how to vote from this time on
We’ll no longer be bitter in a small town

Sunday, April 13, 2008

How to Create a Rape Victim...

I joke below about my referrals, but one of them led me to The Unapologetic Mexican and his post, How to Create a Rape Victim.

It's a post about the long term effects of requiring children to express "love" on demand. Obvious once it's pointed out, but until now I hadn't thought of it. My brilliant friend K. said it's not obvious to those who haven't gone through it, and certainly not to those going through it now.

"You know all the lines he'll drop on her, and I bet they won't sound too different than her parent's. She'll be inculcated from years of forced affection ("Give your grandpa a kiss...don't be rude," "Tell me you love me, now" "You're hurting my feelings by not saying you love me") and the idea that her own body and feelings are inconsequential in the face of someone else's desires and wants. And then god forbid, should a day ever come when a man forces himself on her, or even coerces her when she'd rather say NO but doesn't feel empowered to—and she comes home absolutely wrecked over it...will the parent ever put 2 and 2 together?

No.

And who will be made to own those feelings of guilt and shame, despite any consequences to the male? The girl who was never taught that her love and her display and expression of that love is HERS to give out at her OWN discretion. And why? So the parent didn't have their poor feelings hurt."

"Love is not a gun. Don't stick up your kids for a feelgood."


And it's pretty well written, too.

"So I bit my tongue and listened to another child being slowly murdered with the toxic sweetness of a parent's insecurities.

My sandwich was delicious. But I did not enjoy it."

Mining My Referrals...

I recently discovered that it's possible to use the site visit counter to find what searches have led my many reader to these pages. I can only look at the last hundred, so I figure six months is a pretty good picture.

Anyway, what is of interest? Let's see.


my-hirsi means something in Finnish.

I'm not just #1 in Google for crotchless Bibles, but for my light in my head.

Only fourth for naked lifeguards, though.

And I forget where I stand in searches for amish in iowa pay english to have sex with girls.

There are several for English language law, gay police, and such.

I expect that whoever put in "common sense gun law CHICAGO OR ILLINOIS" had a bit of a surprise with my mass killing rewrite on the NIU shooting.

And of course Jenna Jameson is a popular young lady. I had no idea of the depth of interest. But three people came to me from a Google search for her name. I'm on page NINE HUNDRED AND SOMETHING. So they had to page past over more than nine thousand other hits to get to mine! And still they clicked. I feel honoured.

Friday, April 11, 2008

$%^&*() Defense Lawyers...

They mystify me. Last week I tried a preliminary hearing, a brutal home invasion robbery. Victim was about 60 or so, soft spoken man. (As so often happens in my work, every participant was Black.)

V came home after taking his rent money to the landlady, and was surprised by two masked men emerging from his bathroom! One had a pistol and demanded money, but V resisted- he grabbed the unarmed man, the defendant in the trial. Deft immediately told his partner, "Shoot him!"

Disobeying, partner forced V to the floor, beat him in the head, and caused injuries which resulted in brain surgery.

V was able to recognise Deft because a week before, V had been late paying for drugs, and the dealer had brought Deft over to help get the $45 from V with threats of violence. (He paid up the next day.)

So, after it was over, Defense Lawyer said,

"You're going to have trouble at the trial, your V was buying drugs".

Staghounds- "I expect in every jury there are at least four people who have, or do, buy a little weed. They won't think it's no big deal to rob and brain damage Grandfather there because he gets high now and again."

DL- "Yes, but still, he was buying drugs!"

S- "Did you miss the part with the last week encounter? Old man buying reefer versus THUMBBREAKER FOR THE MAN WHO SOLD IT TO HIM. One wins that sympathy battle."

DL- "And he didn't have the gun! And V attacked him!"

S- "After he broke in and was robbing him! And he told the man who DID have the gun to shoot him! Old man hitting home invader versus home invader who tells partner to shoot old man. Again, advantage State."

DL- "Well, your guy is Gay..."

Really. Here's someone who day in and day out defends drug users and dealers- victimless crime, tragedy of lives ruined by drug prohibition...

But as soon as drug use by a victim is a weapon to help a violent predator get away with an unprovoked attack on an inoffensive old man, it's "dope fiend!"

One despairs.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Snarque de la Louvre...


So on my visit to the Atlanta travelling Louvre exhibit, I stopped for a few minutes in front of the yew, silver, and silver gilt wash stand that Bienne made for Bonaparte, and a lovely example of the Corsican's taste it is.



Pretty cool to think that the first modern mass market tyrant washed his face in this thing for years, and it stood beside him while he died on St. Helena. Here's a man who killed millions, and flattered himself that he owned it- yet he is dust and the wash stand still lives.

Aaaaanyway, I noticed that there's a presentation inscription around the bulge of the ewer. I could just read it, and my French is barely equal to puzzling out, "Given to the Emperor by his Sister Caroline..."

At which point I said,

"MY sister Caroline never gave ME a yew wood, silver, and silver gilt washstand..."

At which point my Museum visit sharer T said,

"Well, did YOU ever give HER the Grand Duchy of Berg and Cleves?"

I had my revenge later. There was an exhibition on Georgia O'Keeffe and the Women of the Stieglitz Circle, art which leaves me unmoved. So strolling through, there was a section of pictures that were very crude, including one of a house and yard.

T: "That looks like an eight year old did it."

(I looked at the card, which said "Georgia Englehard, 1906-1990, Watercolor, 1916." Quick mental math...)

S: "Give her a break, she was only ten."

T: "It looks like it should be on a refrigerator."

S: "It was 1916, they didn't have refrigerators in houses. And magnets won't stick to a wood icebox. Don't you know anything about art?"

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Crazy Mexican car dealer uses strippers in the advert...

So, I'm sending a link to a youtube from Used Cars, which is a very funny movie.



And YouTube pops this up. The people filming it are as good as the advert!



Very well, then...

And more from Used Cars, if you haven't seen it.





Even Jimmy Carter is in it!

Monday, April 07, 2008

Michael Steele being Black...

There's a Lt. Governor Michael Steele for Vice President boomlet. Here's a little movie of him talking with a crowd of Black folks, at least they hear him out.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Competing with REAL JOURNALISTS(tm) is DANGEROUS!!! Stop now!!!!

I haven't seen so many warnings and negative terms per sentence since the NYT last wrote about trans fat laced cigarettes and Bibles being included with assault weapons sold to children by Karl Rove.
Blogging is: vicious, exhausting, a sweatshop, stressful, toil, fattening, fattening again, unsustainable, has a downside, traps you in your house, 24 hours, vicious again, doesn't pay well, has no breaks, like being a salesman, keeps you awake (third time for that one, or fourth), keeps you from eating, makes you pass out, exhausting some more, orture, like being punched in the face, pressured, not journalism (Whew! The suspense was killing me, I was afraid they had left that out!),unhealthy, kills your vital friends, and it will kill you! Stop competing with us right now!

That's a lot of warning in a two page story, and I've left some of it out.

Priceless sentence- "It is unclear how many people blog for pay, but there are surely several thousand and maybe even tens of thousands."

Shame I'm not a Real Journalist (tm)- it took me 58 seconds to find out that Google Adsense, all by itself, had over a quarter of a million blogs in 2005!

Dinocrat has a different take on the article. He's probably in Silver Hill by now, with his one or two posts a day.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Last Saturday's pretty day's hunt...

So on our penultimate Saturday, the weather was gorgeous. So as all hunting folk know, it was about to be a dull day, just a trail ride. Of course our field is full of riding people, so they were thrilled. And it is better to be out on a pretty day than not out at all, next paws?

So off we went. 60 or so in the field. As we moved off, I saw our senior Master's groom (my successor, after all, with many others intervening) sitting by the truck. She looked a bit bored with polishing brass, I asked her to ride along.

So, off we went. Nothing for an hour or so, then BANG- they hit and off we went!

Two giant loops, all the way to the freeway on the second one, before we lost him. And only six subscribers left at the end!

Interesting modern thing- one of our visitors had a GPS thing. He set it to measure the distance, eleven miles on the first smaller loop, at which point he was thrown out! I would never have estimated it as so far.


















Stunning display of obsessive cleverness...

I swear, a hunting report tonight. Meanwhile, this man moves an EIGHT STALL WITH CENTER AISLE BARN and a NINETEEN THOUSAND POUND STONE- ALL BY HIMSELF. Using only his own brain and muscle power, rope, wood, and rocks. No power equipment, no pulleys, no wheels.



UPDATE!!

Mr. Wallington's web site- plenty more pictures, movies, and explanations.