Intellectual Poison

So we've been going on this sort of safari theme for the baby, a surprisingly easy choice to go with as there are plenty of like minded baby stuff designers out there.

The latest cool thing we've done is to take some animal stencils I got on eBay, safari animals like giraffes, monkeys, a rhinoceros, lions, a tiger, an african style tree and sun and some panda bears. I don't know why the panda's got in there but the rest of them are pretty cool.

And my lovely and ever more pregnany wife came up with the idea of using one of the overhead projectors from her office to project enlarged images on the wall that she could trace and then go back and paint. Right now we have the outlines of a whole bunch of cool animals on the walls and it will look really pretty fantastic.

I will post the final product unless we screw it up.

The Blo-Pens were more for experimentation than anything else. And the Mega Fun Kit we got had more pens, more markers, a triple device for instant rainbows, 8 whole sheets of paper and some big stencils.

If you've never played around with Blo-Pens then you should get some sometime and mess around with them, they're pretty fun.

The panda stencil came out bitchin' and I also did one of a planet with the hip debris/asteroid belt. P did a lovely butterfly.

Yesterday was a good fun day as well. I got two big goodies at OSH. A table miter saw and a versasaw, in addition to a smallish 30 inch pry bar. I can now whip up a box in about five minutes with the instant and easy saw. Its super cool and it even came with its own legs to build it up on so I didn't have to bolt it to my workbench.

We had a dryer fire last night, grilled shrimp, salmon, sausages and turkey burgers. It took a little bit to get going and I think I'd like to eventually cut a door into the side. But it did catch and burn so nicely.

Having the local airport's annual air show in the background only made it better overall.

Today was good too. After being able to sleep in until after 9 because Nande had gotten super pooped by having Modoc over to play with the night before. I sealed the planter box in the yard before the sun got too strong. Went up into Santa Cruz to go hang out on the beach with the old neighborhood. Played a decent but losing game of volleyball, played in the surf with Nande until she tried to take a crap in the water (and slipped one out before I could run her away, sorry to anyone who was traumatized). I dried off for a little bit and then we started to the trek home.

I learned the hard way that there were an awful lot of cars coming into town then and maybe all day. Highway 17 southbound into Santa Cruz was an utter parking lot at 3:30 pm today. I got to the pet store and then headed south. If I hadn't had to pull off and get gas I wouldn't have been caught in the real jam.

But no, I had to get gas and in getting gas, my trip home was slowed enough to happen to get caught behind some dumbass who got pulled over by a cop, proceeded to club that cop and then proceeded to get himself shot a few times.

The cops then proceeded to shut down the highway, only about three hundred yards in front of me. Very, very quickly people realized that none of us were going anywhere. Four cop cars had passed me just before we stopped. After we'd stopped, another twenty to twenty five cop cars, trucks, a fire truck on the 1 (~250 QT movie) and ambulances came roaring by. Motorycle cops included. Eventually, a helicopter came in and landed on the highway. It was kind of a pain in the ass and also just kind of surreal to be sitting, parked on the highway with nowhere to go and nothing to do. And to have a few hundred other random people all around you too. And to have dozens of cops and fire and medical people up ahead of us.

Luckily, I'd just gotten another new toy in the shape of a tiny little Sony Ericsson cell phone so I could call home and let the little big wife know what was happening. I also let the guy behind me use the phone to do the same. And I had Nande to think about. I made sure to take her off the road, out of the sun and let her rest in the shade along the side of the highway. It wasn't bad, just kind of boring.

After about forty five minutes, the cops started getting all the cars to turn around and backtrack to a rough slash across the wide median (~550k QT movie). Kind of fun in a pain in the ass sort of way.

So we all backtracked up to Freedom and I got to stop over at the Bamboo Giant for the final capper piece for the fence and then a forever freaking long time in the traffic back into town.

But it was a good time in any case.

Taken from today's iWon Instant Poll.

Cardinal Bernard Law, who was forced to resign in December as archbishop of Boston for his failure to protect children from sexually abusive priests, was appointed by the Pope yesterday to be the archpriest of the Rome Basilica of St. Mary Major. (Reuters)
Do you think the Vatican made the right or wrong decision with this appointment?
7% - Right decision
65% - Wrong decision
18% - I'm not sure
10% - I don't care
Do you think that this appointment will further damage the Catholic Church's image in America?
66% - Yes
11% - No
16% - I'm not sure
8% - I don't care
If your local religious leader was known to have failed to protect the sexual abuse of young people, would you be willing to accept him back into your place of worship
9% - Yes
65% - No
11% - I don't have a place of worship
13% - I'm not sure
2% - I don't care
Overall, what grade would you give the Catholic Church for how it has handled the problem of sexual abuse committed by some of its priests?
1% - A
3% - B
12% - C
26% - D
50% - F
5% - I'm not sure
3% - I don't care

Are you listening Pope? Are some of your filthy kid touching minions taking a time out from molesting children to read up on the reaction of your disgusting protection and reassignment of a man who looked the other way while his priests were molesting children? What's next? You're going to recommended sainthood for the priest that buggers the most children?

People, as shown by the numbers above, are as disgusted as I am. Half of the people who took the poll give the Catholic Church an F for its handling of the sex abuse. Sixty five percent disagreed with the reassignment of Law. Two thirds also believe this will continue to harm the church's image and two thirds wouldn't accept a scumbag like Law back into the community. These predators are worse than the highly publicized recent releases of sexual predators in the Bay Area of late (Patrick with the damned near impossible to spell last name and the other one, the one that got the Oakland shelter shut down, Cary Verse). They've been in jail, they've theoretically paid their debt to society and see how they're welcomed back into society? They are threatened, shunned and hated. Neighbors to them have armed themselves and wouldn't hesitate to shoot either of these men for stepping through their front doors. But somehow, priests are still accepted, somehow they get a pass when they're far, far worse for the damage they cause.

Can't you in-bred morons get it through your faith-wracked skulls that this whole sex scandal with children isn't going to go away, people aren't going to just forget about it and bow down to your "Word of God" bullshit. Priests and officers of the church should be protecting their "flocks" but instead they're fleecing them and defrocking the children.

People wonder why I speak so strongly against organized religion and this is a huge part of it. This bizarre belief that they are privy to some higher authority all the while their agents are fucking children. If there is a God, and I don't think there is, you are most definitely roasting for eternity you pedophilic asswipes of humanity. Why is there no God? Because if there were then he or she would be raining lightning bolts of righteous justice down upon these craven scumbags acting in his or her name and then proceeding to bugger children.

Its sickening.

Have you ever felt cursed with intelligence or conscience? Wouldn't it be nice to just not have to worry about thinking your way through your day and just react to situations as they arise, more like a non-sentient animal and less like a man or woman?

I think a pretty fair number of people actually do go through their days in reactionary mode. Somebody cuts them off on the highway? They cut someone else off.

Action, reaction, action, reaction. No thought to the future, no concern for the past. Just the here and now. Act, react.

I've been having daydreams lately about going crazy. The kind of crazy where they put you in a nice padded room with a strait jacket on so you can't claw your eyes out or assault the help or the invisible demons feasting on your brain. What's that? Too busy? Crazy people don't have busy schedules. In fact, I don't think crazy people have any schedules at all save pill time, bed time, shower time, electro-shock therapy time, lobotomy time, delousing time, visiting hours and the odd appointment with some overworked shrink who wants to clear you from the system as soon as possible.

Maybe its just the need for a vacation or the need to be able to sleep past 6 in the morning once in a while. Maybe I'm just tired of the upstream battle that is existing in today's world. Maybe its all these things and more. Or maybe those voices I hear aren't really there, maybe they're just fragments of my own thoughts recycled for another run by the control center in my mind.

I don't know but I know that the thing I'm looking forward to most over this three day weekend (followed by a three day work week for me, yeeeha!) is trying to catch up on some rest. Tearing apart the bathroom is important, as is the ride in the Soquel Demo Forest tomorrow and the demo on the V-Strom I'm trying to get organized. But really, the image of laying on my couch and watching/listening with eyes closed to the A's or Giants sounds like just the ticket I need.

Besides, I know I'd really go truly nuts if I were put in a population of real crazies.

By the way, I'm considering ending my posts with what I think should be the tagline for 2004 from The Chapelle Show.

"I'm Rick James, bitch!"

They were just interviewing a Sky Cap at Oakland airport on the news and the guy had a beard on the left side of his jaw but not on the right. Is this normal? Is this a trend these days? One sided beards?

WTF?

In fact, the anchorman just asked the reporter what was up with the beard. Hahaha!

Memorial Day weekend! Oh boy, three days off. A ride in the Soquel Demo Forest tomorrow (unless the rain really starts coming down) and then nothing planned for the rest of the weekend save demolition of the bathroom and maybe a trip or two to Home Depot.

I'm a big fan of satire when its done right, like this post on
One Girl's Life: 12 Reasons Homosexual Marriage is Wrong. The only problem with satire is that there are always going to be some half brain dead hater trolls coming around and spreading their hate.

In the comments on Rori's thread above, a troll by the name of Matt takes over the comment thread with a long and incredibly poorly constructed argument without any support whatsoever. So I wrote an even longer, "fisked" rebuttal to his argument. I don't think I'll make any dent in his "knowledge" but it felt good to deconstruct his argument and point out the failings in his logic.

By the way, One Girl's Life is a fairly new regular read for me and recommended reading for others as well. Even if its just to ogle that wicked nice pic of Milla!

Hey Matt, quit sowing hate, all you will reap is more fury, less tolerance and an uglier world.

Allowing same sex couples to marry and enjoy the benefits and recognition of marriage isn't just the right thing to do, its almost certainly a good thing to do for the institution.

There's a pending action this morning of truckers in the East Bay deliberately slowing down the morning commute to bring attention to their plight (i.e. higher gas prices mean they need more money to maintain the same standard of living as before the spike).

I just saw a short interview with Nanak Singh of Nanak Trucking and he said something to the effect that they don't want to upset the public and they need the public's support but then immediately followed that up with the deliberately slow driving on Highway 4 for this morning's commute. Apparently he's unaware that the public is in all those cars that are going to be pissed off by truckers fucking the commute.

Hello? Hey, Nanak, first step in the morning should be to remove your head from your ass and realize that those two statements cannot logically exist in the same universe and maintain any reasonable expectation of understanding or belief.

Do I sympathize with the truckers? Yeah, I sympathize with everyone who's seen their bills go up because of this nasty spike in the cost of gas. I paid $2.49 for gas to fill up my motorcycle the other day. Yeah, I know that Europeans and Aussies and everyone else around the world pays far more but this is new to us and it sucks. The only silver lining I can see is watching idiots with Excursions dumping $80 into their tanks every week or two. Still happy you bought a truck three times bigger than your needs?

Did anyone else watch Giuliani speak before the 9/11 commission the other day?

Compelling to say the least. Giuliani comes across as a heartfelt and honest man, I'm sure he's got his skeletons but still, he appears to have more integrity in his little finger than Bush has in his whole stupid body. And, if/when Bush loses, the GOP will be able to put him up as a nearly unbeatable next presidential candidate.

And there's an article on MSNBC suggesting Bush dump Dicky and get Rudy in there for the '04 election. I still don't think Bush gets my vote with Giuliani by his side. But Giuliani on his own? Yeah, maybe. A heck of a lot more maybe than the "No effing way" I'd vote for Bush/Cheney.

Aside from the fact that its hard to spell no matter how many times I write it, he'd be my first choice for a candidate and, if I were a GOP back room planner, I'd pull Shrub and get Rudy in the game!

But then, maybe Rudy doesn't want to play on the national stage? Has anyone heard him talk about the presidency or running?

Hi, my name's Johnny (not really) and I have a problem.

I'm addicted to Coffee-Mate flavored non-dairy creamers. I try not to think about what they're made of and what they're doing to my insides but I just can't seem to get my day going without a big honking cup of coffee with a big ol' shot of Irish Creme or Vanilla Cinnamon Creme or Hazelnut.

Part of the reason is that coffee, on its own, tastes like ass. I can't believe that people drink it straight. Its just plain and nasty.

But with it, coffee becomes pretty damned tasty.

And without coffee these mornings, I'd be out cold, face down on my keyboard and typing some random combination of letters with my cheer by about 2 in the afternoon. As it is, I'm able to hold on until almost 5 most days.

There is nothing like waking up from an accidental nap in your office and looking around hoping that no one caught you at it. Stupid window.

By the way, there is also nothing like the vindication of rain drops on my windshield this morning to tell me how incredibly smart I am for driving the truck today. Though if I were really smart, I'd have driven in yesterday too and not destroyed the ultrasound tape. The work on converting the videos takes more time than I remember so I'll likely get them up tonight or tomorrow or Saturday or next week or in the fall. The real question is whether I should leave the commentary in or replace with some George Winston soundtrack?

American Idol is over. Can they just be done with it and not spending 20 minutes of the morning news sucking up to the new winner? Can they just, you know, maybe report some news because I know that there has been alot of news happening in the last couple of days.

American Idol sucks. The singing sucks, the hype sucks, the songs they sing suck, Simon sucks (but only for $50's), Ryan Seacrest needs to be loaded into a torpedo tube and launched into a brick wall, William Hung, well, he's gone anyway.

The show blows, the "singing" is just some awful warbling and a pathetic popularity contest. Its garbage.

Talk about the floods in the Dominican Republic, talk about aging pop skank Madonna's latest attempt to revive her career, hey maybe they could talk about Terry Nichols facing the death penalty for the Oklahoma city bombing?, talk about the petals scattered around a naked dead Juilliard student's body, talk about Chicago OK'ing a new Wal-Soul Sucking-Mart, talk about the journalist who escaped his abductors in Iraq.

Don't focus on a pathetic and ridiculous show like American Idol. Report news, not gossip.

This message brought to you by a whining dog, a cat that never stops meowing and 5:52 am.

In other blog news, Layne's ex-girlfriend/fiance is crashing on her couch for a night or so until she gets kicked to the curb with the other trash. Its a fascinating read and highly recommended. The saga of Layne and Lauren is the stuff of day time drama.

Ryan continues his house improvement projects.

Tiffany continues to slowly lose her mind after graduating from college and its never been funnier to read her. Her recent home from the dentist pics are hilarious.

And I'd add more but I've gotta go get cleaned up to get to work to defend my job and compile ever more coverage and media exposure. Oh boy, but I am going to drive in so I can trade my cruiser for my Ibis.

And, last thought of the morning post, I have been greenlighted to start demolition of the kid's bathroom upstairs in preparation for the remodel. Read that again, I get to destroy a bathroom! Now THAT'S news!

So long as the cheese is the !

This week's theme is politics. Oh boy! Another political rant!

1. If you had a choice of dinner with George W. Bush or John Kerry, which would it be, why and what would you serve?
John Kerry because I'd be far too tempted to jab a fork in Bush's smirk. Yeah, there's my new slogan: Fork Bush! Fork Bush right in the Smirk!
I'd serve John Kerry my favorite meal of all time, marinated grilled skirt steak with fresh sliced pineapple grilled on top, veggie kabobs, grilled corn, salad and pitcher after pitcher of fresh mojitos.
If I had to have Bush over for dinner I'd flip a coin between Humble Pie and Arsenic Quiche.

2. What are your three major criteria for choosing who to vote for?
Addressing my main issues, accountability and the ability to count.

3. Do you plan to vote "for" someone or "against" someone?
Actually, I used to be voting against someone and now I'm more splitting between the two, voting for Kerry AND against Bush.

4. What bothers you most about this presidential election?
The unending spewage of lies and deception from the GOP.

5. How much does a candidate's religious affiliation have to do with your decision to vote for him?
None at all.

6. When do you think the first female president will be elected?
Not for a long time. I think we'll have a black man as president before we have a female president. Maybe another thirty or forty years.

7. Who, among prominent politicians, would you most like to see in the White House?
Rudy Giuliani. Based largely on watching his testimony to the 9/11 Commission last week.

8. Who, among all people, would you like to see in the White House?
Me.

Yeeha! That was fun!
Want some Cheddar? Go get some!

Okay, we've officially moved on from my stupidity this morning of accidentally destroying our ultrasound tape.

We have a new one with lots of new crazy baby footage (and headage and heartage and spinal columnage and more).

I will be loading up pics and will try to get a video pulled together as well.

The good news is that the baby is doing great. Its big. Think 95th percentile big! Think 6 pounds and 8 ounces right now big!

Yeah. Its all good though, P's happy and feels good although more than slightly off kilter. She's just a couple of pounds lighter than me now but her blood pressure is perfect, the baby's heart rate is spot on at 140 bpm and everything looks and sounds perfect.

The multimedia fun will be coming later on tonight!

And I'm back to smiling again.

Damn, damn, damn. I rode the motorcycle in today even though I felt I should have driven the truck in. And I should know by now to go with my instincts. Especially since I was carrying a light that didn't fit completely inside my backpack.

And I was carrying the tape with the first two ultrasounds recorded on it. The first and only videos of our, as yet, unborn baby.

The light that didn't fit? Gone.

The tape? Gone.

Fucking fuck.

At least I took the still pictures out of the tape case before putting it in my pack this morning but I'm pretty upset by my stupidity. P has been very supportive and understands how upset this has made me. She's not happy about it but is trying to buoy my spirits.

In fact, I'm going to mount up and ride back along that stretch of the highway to see if I can find it.

Wish me luck.

[Update: Though I wonder if there should be a better term for it than "Update" because its not good news. Anyway, I went back down to try and find the tape. I saw the box on the shoulder and pulled off the highway, making sure to not get my clock cleaned by errant drivers. About three feet from where I stopped, I saw video tape, unraveled and all over the shoulder, not a good sign. A short walk back up the road and I got the case but it was empty. No tape but lots of actual video tape blowing all over the shoulder.

The tape is gone, I wanted to cry. But instead, I came back into work and am sad. I hate the sense of loss I feel, hate the idea that we'll never be able to show those ultrasounds to the little boy or girl. Hate that I should have just driven my damned truck in today.]

I knew there were some remaining issues with readability from the redesign but, with the application of that greyed strip behind the text, I think those issues have been addressed.

Let me know if there are any remaining problems and I'll attend to them as soon as I can.

Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with the redux. Maybe some minor tweaking with the colors but other than that, this redesign is done! With the exception of all the linked page that need to be updated or maybe just changed over to a more neutral template.

Oh well, its never really done.

Bush is a Jock or at least he's an athletic supporter.

The latest in a long series of stupid articles trying to show what a great guy Bush is, a thinking man, an athletic man, a man who can pretend to give a damn about almost anything, a man who can pretend to apologize to the King of Jordan for abuse of prisoners in Iraq and not actually even apologize, a man who can stage a contrived media event ona whim, a man who can try to convince the nation that the war in Iraq is going well, a man who makes Dan Quayle look good, a man who lies so often he has to have his teeth stained white three times a week to keep the brown off.

[Update: Bush may or may not be an adult jock but he was a boyhood cheerleader.

Though it actually looks like a huge drinking glass as well, could he have been a drunken boyhood cheerleader?]

Posted to MetaFilter just for the pure joy of watching it get shredded like the tripe crap it is.

[Second Update: In response to a long and unrelated comment on the MeFi thread linked to above, I wrote this and wanted to share it here because damned if I don't think its pretty well written:
My motto is and has been, Anybody But Bush. That means that I would even vote for Chinless Joe Lieberman. I don't think I'd ever make it to Sharpton but at least he'd be genuinely funny. Bush is funny because he's such an idiot.

People don't laugh with Bush, they laugh at him.

John Kerry? You want some waxed poetry about him?

Okay. Everytime I've actually heard him speak on tv, he answers questions clearly and completely and, seemingly, honestly.

Everytime Bush answers questions, he looks like a kid in the principal's office, squirmy and not happy to be there at all.

In a time of war, John Kerry went to war and served his country enough to be decorated.

In that same time of war, George Bush used his connections to land a cush National Guard gig that was too tough for him to finish.

Where Bush is a demonstrated failure, John Kerry is a demonstrable success.

Did I know much about Kerry before he became a candidate? No. Why should I? Presidential politics are awful enough, why would I bother giving a damn about Senators, Congressman, Mayors, Sheriffs and Prefects?

Did I know much about Bush before this re-election? Hell yes, I've been watching him repeatedly lie, swindle, back room deal, nod, nod, wink, wink and lots and lots of smirking and posturing in between falling off a Segway, reading books upside down and looking through binoculars with the caps still on.

Bush is an unmitigated buffoon.

I think, given the option, I'll take an unknown possibility of a real leader over a known fool.

PS Unless you're unsure, the National Review is a GOP publication dedicated to GOP agendas. It was trying (ohhhh so hard) to spin this into a pro-Bush piece. The fact that it came from an anti-Bush site is irrelevant, the source is the GOP's own propoganda machine.

And that is the delicious irony.]

Easily my favorite games on the PlayStation a few years ago, the new Syphon Filter for the PS2 is out and, though the storyline is a wee bit tired, the game play looks good and the marketing effort is well done.

I will try to review it after I've had a chance to kill me some bad guys.

Excite Instant Poll: Do you feel President Bush has a clear strategy to create a democratic nation in Iraq?
Yes 40% => 4727 votes
No 51% => 5978 votes
I'm not sure 6% => 815 votes
I don't care 1% => 200 votes
Current number of voters: 11720

And his approval numbers continue to sink. I heard his numbers here in California stand at a less than impressive 37%. Nationally, he's down to about 41%.

I'm sure he won't go quietly and there will be some GOP shenanigans no doubt. But its looking more and more like the end of the nightmare is nearly at hand.


[Update: Ryan makes a good point that its unsafe to trust any single poll and that Reuters leftward skew might have skewed the poll results. So here I offer another instant poll put on by IWon (of course, its easily arguable that iWon's audience is largely democratic in orientation because we all know that the GOP is rich, rich, rich. But I digress. Survey says!
Do you feel President Bush has a clear strategy to create a democratic nation in Iraq?
Yes = 32%
No = 46%
Not sure = 20%
Don't care = 2%.
Further, the poll asks three more questions, only one of which is interesting.
Generally speaking, do you feel more optimistic or pessimistic about the future of Iraq?
21% - Optimistic
46% - Pessimistic
22% - Neutral
8% - I'm not sure
3% - I don't care.
Okay, there's two polls saying the people don't think Bush has a clear strategy on getting us out of Iraq.]

Sex with a Fan and not the kind of fan who goes to a concert in some ripped up clothes that show off her hot body. No, this kind of fan pushem air around and wags from side to side. Hmm, that's not helping, is it? The fan in the pics on the other side of the link plugs into a wall and has an electric motor and blades.

And there's no way I'd get my tackle anywhere near anything like it. Even with the blades removed, you're still talking about a fast motor for stim. No thanks, I'll take matters into my own hands.
via the ever tasty Mint.
Tags: pleasure, fan, sex

A few new words to add to the lexicon. I came across some cool HTML code over on Mandarin Design that will let me index the New Words page as it has continued to grow.

Bitchicle - a nasty ice queen

Phlegmnomenon - a pop culture happening that's utterly retch worthy, like the finale of "Friends", a very special "Everybody Loves Raymond" or pretty much anything having to do with "American Idol".

Dislust - how you can be thoroughly disgusted with someone and yet you still want to jump their bones.

Somehow missed this the other day when I looked through my newest set of shots of the hound. I was compelled to share it.

Yeah, the new template's taking a little time to get ironed out but so far I'm pretty happy with the new look.

I think I've actually got some pics that might just be able to utilize the space a little better.

It'll be a little bit until its completely changed over. But that won't keep me from posting my random rants from the day.

And it will take my considerably longer to republish all of the other pages into the new format but I'll slowly get it going there as well.

Not much has changed aside from the cosmetics. I'm still a rant prone jerk.

But hey, now I'm a rant prone jerk with an updated look to the blog (I'm still working on a different background pic) and lots of accomplished stuff over the weekend.

Big stuff, we now have the king sized bed. Its not in our room yet because we're about to recarpet the upstairs and, as P explained like six times, we should try to keep as much stuff out of the upstairs as possible because we're just going to have to move it out anyway. So, okay, it was some kind of fun, me, pregnant P and Nande in the cab of the pick up, to San Ramon and back, about a three hour round trip with stiff shocks and the trailer dogging the truck's cajones.

But its here and that's the big stuff.

The other big news from the weekend is that we now have a sweet, custom look bamboo fence between our deck and the wankers next door. Not only did we gain some needed privacy but we also gained a really attractive focal point for the deck.

And we got the baby's room further into shape. Sorting out the things from P's work shower and figuring out what else we were going to need short term. We're now prepared just on the off chance that the baby comes quite alot sooner than anticipated.

P would welcome the early arrival and, truth be told, so would I with the annoying problem that my Paid Family Leave doesn't kick in until the first of July. But I'm sure we'll be able to work something out.

Anyway, let me know what you think of the new look, issues with your browser flavor, better color combinations, background image suggestions, whatever.

PS Don't mess with me now, I've a scary pierce-you-to-your-soul tattoo on my right shoulder now. At least it'll be there until I scrub it off. Whoever heard of an eye doc giving away temp tattoos?

Found this over on One Girl's Life, Medical Pot OK'd; Session Ending Today

Gotta love Vermont (or, like the bumper sticker, I LoVermont). A state where I can pack heat and, with a doc's 'scrip, smoke a big fat joint too.

If only it weren't so friggin' cold most of the year, I wouldn't have ever left.

There's a thread on A Small Victory where the GOP hate crew is ripping apart Mike Berg, Nick Berg's father for having the audacity to blame Bush for his son's incredibly public execution.

The comment thread is sickening to read, assholes saying he's exploiting his son's death for political gain. The hate being oozed over there is grotesque.

I could write volumes on this but I won't. Nick Berg shouldn't have been there. He had some ideology that allowed him to rationalize his being there. But he shouldn't have been there. He should have gone home when the FBI told him it was a good idea to go. He didn't. He was captured and executed in a brutal and public fashion.

And the shit spewers in the comments are calling him names, denigrating him in every manner possible and all seem to be overlooking the most obvious fact, the man is mourning the loss of his son, he needs to lay blame somewhere, he needs to find some way to closure in all of this. He should be looking at himself and laying quite a lot of blame there but he's not capable of that right now, he's grieving for his murdered son. He has every damned right to lash out at everyone and everything he thinks is responsible for it.

The media would do well to allow him some privacy and time to deal with his loss and not quote him when he rants on and on. But it makes for good juicy press so they'll slobber all over themselves to deliver his latest diatribes blaming Bush and his whole regime. I don't think Nick Berg's death is Bush's fault, not directly at least. Nick Berg was a freelance contractor in Iraq of his own free will. He wasn't a soldier, wasn't a licensed contractor. He was looking for some war loot most likely, trying to capitalize on all the rebuilding cash flowing all over the place.

But attacking his family for their grief is lower than low, its subterranean, not unlike Donald Rumsfeld, that reptilian crook who professed no knowledge of the crimes being committed under his orders (allegedly) in the Iraqi prisons. The depth of my abhorrence for these people and their defenders is beyond my ability to relate or otherwise describe.

Oh my gawd, is it another case of Bush Knew and Did Nothing, again? Yep, its appearing that Colin Powell, in an attempt to recapture some shred of his soul after selling it to BushCo, is telling the Baltimore Sun that Bush was 'informed' of Red Cross concerns

And wait, there's more Bush: Dumb Like A Bullet: Is Dubya both a bumbling simpleton *and* a shrewd manipulator who smirked at tortures in Iraq? via SFGate via MorfordFilter. Morford's article has several links in it to relevant articles that form this disgusting lying puzzle that Rumsfeld and Bush have been trying to get over on the world.

Yes, Lynndie England is guilty of an awful lot of misconduct, yes, Sabrina Harman and the others at the prison are guilty of war crimes. But if the orders came down from Capitol Hill then those giving the orders are far more guilty. How hard is it to order torture compared to how hard it is to administer torture (though the grins and thumbs up detract from my case on the difficulty of intentionally harming another person). It doesn't matter though, if Rumsfeld did order the torture then he needs to lose his job and go to prison. Same thing for Bush. Condoning war crimes and then having the gall to pull the "Aw Shucks, who me?" bullshit is sickening.

These men are supposed to be held up to the highest ideals of this nation and they are worse than common street criminals. They hide behind lies, deception, military force and scapegoats.

I was playing with Nande in the back yard last night (before the cat poo incident of later in the evening). She's been learning how to catch a few of her toys in her her mouth in the air and its a fun game to play with her.

A couple of weeks ago P bought Nande a couple of balls for the back yard. Neither lasted more than five minutes before they'd been popped by her razor sharp puppy teeth and even sharper new adult teeth.

Much of the time, one of the balls will be on the lawn, flattened on one side and, effectively, useless. But if that ball is picked up and allowed to reinflate itself through the very holes that Nande's teeth tore in it, the ball will regain its round shape and can roll across the yard again.

Sure, its damaged goods and sure, it'll never be used for kickball or by kids bouncing it back and forth in a driveway. But for a few moments again, that ball regains its glory and purpose. And rolls away across the lawn.

They are everywhere now, these loathsome pictures of US Soldiers abusing their charges, treating them like toys and humiliating and dehumanizing prisoners, people they were charged with caring for, watching over and keeping confined, to be sure, but caring for.

But the worst thing? The most sickening aspect of the whole debacle that continues to get worse and worse and bigger and bigger, the worst thing are the expressions on the American soldier's faces. They are almost all grinning like idiots while torturing people.

This one from Yahoo News (but I guess its originally CBS') is a prime example. Um hello, Sabrina, no matter how you might feel, you're GRINNING over the body of a dead man who was likely beaten to death by soldiers and agents near you.

Why are you grinning?

What's so damned funny?

No matter the origin of the decision to torture and hurt these prisoners of war, taking delight in it as seems so apparent from the pictures is vile, it comes off as quite alot more evil and pervasive if they were so comfortable with the power they held to mug and grin and play with the prisoners. By the way, it is entirely possible that these are the worst of the bunch, chosen for maximum shock value. But the commission looking into this has already said that the public won't see the most graphic of the bunch and that they are "much, much worse" (yeah, that's a quote).

Of course, having been exposed to the wilds of the internet, I'm sure most of us can imagine "worse", maybe "much worse" but I'm not so sure what to make of "much, much worse". What does that mean?

I mean, are they talking about physical abuse, sexual abuse, humiliation, full on whips and chains torture? What is "much, much worse"?

And why are they all so happy in every picture?

Another thing that's occurred to me. What's with the names in this? Jessica Lynch, Lynndie England, Sabrina Harman. Lynch, to hang vigilante style only she was saved. England, yeah that country over there that owes us one for dubya dubya two (which is actually a tremendous play on words as, of course, we are suffering under dubya number two). And Harman, harm man? Uh geez, this is too freaking easy.

If I were a conspirationist I'd say there's some kind of wacky stupid psyops campaign being attempted on us.

Okay, I will readily admit that I can overlook the most obvious of clues. Who would have thunk that those little triangles next to the lists on the Edit Posts page would actually rotate open and show the post connected to it?

A very clever way to keep everything looking neat and tidy.

Thanks Blogger!

By the way, I'm doing a little test today. I'm not emptying my Yahoo Spam Box at all. I emptied it before bed last night and am already back up to 46 spam mails. Anyone care to guess how many there will be by the end of the day?

[Update: As of midnight last night, I'd accumulated more than a hundred spams in my Yahoo bulk mail folder. Add to that, the spams I got at work and the spams that Yahoo thought weren't spams. I figure I came close to about 200 spams yesterday. Which isn't awful but is about 200 more than I should be getting. It could be worse though.]

Finally, after almost five full months of 2004, the Worst Case Scenario dishes up a story of survival worthy of the calendar.

On this day in 1985, British adventurers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates began their ascent of Siula Grande, a 21,000 foot tall mountain in Peru. They reached the summit in June but it was the events that occurred afterward that defied belief. While descending, Simpson fell, completely destroying his knee. Then, while Yates was attempting to lower the injured Simpson down a section of the mountain by rope, the slope gawa way, with only Yate's failing strength (can you hear the dramatic musical score?). Yates eventually had no choice but to cut the rope, sending Simpson falling. Yates returned to base camp heartbroken. Unbelievably, Simpson survived the fall, and over the course of the days that followed, managed to drag himself back to camp.

Now THAT is a survival story!

Its time for some cheese, the brand cheese, that is.

1. What's your favorite board game?
I'd have to say Monopoly ranks on top but I was also hugely partial to Risk and Stratego.

2. If you had to sing a song on national TV (ala the bleh-worthy American Idol), what song would you sing?
I Will Survive, the Cake version.

3. If you had to sing a duet, what song would you sing and with who?
Don't Give Up by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush. I'd sing it with Tori Amos because I dig her voice.

4. If your life was made into a movie, what would the title be?
Two Wheel Fury

5. If your life was made into a porn movie, what would the title be?
Thrust Monkey

6. Who would you want to play you in the movie of your life?
Brad Pitt but he'd had to be more buff than he is in Troy.

7. In the porn?
I think that, because no one would be able to capture my intensity, I'd have to nominate myself for the part.

From Easy,
8. What are some of the top bumper stickers you've seen or thought of (I do think this is a repeat but that's cool, we've got a lot of new members)?
My newest one I've come up with is a snark on the "Honk if you Love Jesus" style, its "Hork if you Loave Jesus". I came across a Jeep the other day that had several winners though, the best was "I Love my Penis".

Next week's Cheddar is likely going to be political so expect lots of crickets chirping.

That's my and I'm sticking to it!

Because some of them are damned clever and some of them are just a wee bit crude and some are just downright nasty, the Priceless Photo Album may not, and probably isn't, work safe. But it is good funny stuff!

via Hardy.

There are many sides and many stories to this shell that was recently found in Iraq that contains Sarin gas, a nasty nerve agent that could be used to kill an awful lot of people if deployed properly.

I've read two takes on the finding and lean towards the conclusions that Joshua makes in his post, Find the Penny. As a counter point, and a good way to see just how aggressive and attack prone the GOP is, check out A Small Victory's When is a Weapon Not a Weapon. Aside from unnecessary snarkiness on Michele's part in the main post, she makes a few good points. But reading her comment threads and how vicious her readers are, what's the point in even coming to the table to discuss any issues? They KNOW they're right and will use straw men fallacies and lame metaphors to prove it.

One Sarin filled shell does not a stockpile of Weapons of Mass Destruction make. Ten might, a hundred would. But one? One that didn't work properly, didn't explode, didn't kill anyone and could have been used in a much more lethal manner? One doesn't equal justification for Bush's oil war. One shell indicates that Saddam may have had alot of them before. They're gone now but there might be a few stray weapons left over.

The easiest way to look at this is to check the Bush camp's reaction? If they're not crowing from the tallest pulpit then its likely not a big deal. If this were really "proof" of WMD's in Iraq then Bush would be trumpeting his own horn everywhere. If this really were the tangible justification for the war against Iraq then they'd be using it. They're not therefore it's not even news. Its a blip that might lead to more blips, at best.

links via Intellectual Properties.