discoveries from the internets and some stuff I wrote too
search all posts on this site
recent quotes i like
"Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words." - ? | | | | | | |
"If there is anything I have learned from liberals and conservatives, it's that you can have great answers and still be mean... and that just as important as being right is being nice. " - shane claiborne | | | | | | |
"If Liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." --George Orwell ||||||
"On Facebook, no one can hear you scream." - I dont know ||||||
"The reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favor; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it." - Machiavelli ||||||
Chest of Drawers
-
This chest of drawers is to replace the cheap stand (with no storage) that
was previously holding up our parrot's travel cage. She only lives with us
a few...
An important message from Consumer Reports
-
This is our last post on Consumerist.com. We’re deeply proud of all the
work we’ve done on behalf of consumers, from exposing shady practices by
secretive ...
My Milk Toof Travel Update
-
*Dear International readers from Southeast France!*
ickle, Lardee & myself will be traveling around the southeast of France
area from 06/02-06/20. If anyo...
The Years Of Writing Dangerously
-
Thirteen years ago, as I was starting to experiment with this blogging
thing, I wrote the following: [T]he speed with which an idea in your head
reaches th...
Saint Francis of Assisi
-
… everyone who follows Christ receives true peace, the peace that Christ
alone can give, a peace which the world cannot give. Many people, when they
think ...
X-Factor Auditions, Part Two: The registration...
-
Kind of creepy to be walking around White Plains at 4:30 in the morning. No
lights on, no cars, no people. I felt like I was in a zombie movie. And,
really...
The first marriages in America were civil, not religious in nature:
When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620, among the first things they did for the well-ordering of their new commonwealth was to institute the Dutch custom of civil marriage with which they had become familiar during their long sojourn in the Netherlands.
The Dutch made civil marriage the law of the land in 1590, and the first marriage in New England, that of Edward Winslow to the widow Susannah White, was performed on May 12, 1621, in Plymouth by Governor William Bradford, in exercise of his office as magistrate.
Now it is true that the churches have conflated civil and religious marriage ever since and this has become part of the messy civil-religious aspect of marriage in contemporary America. And Camille, as usual, has a point: a cleaner solution would be civil unions for everyone, gay and straight, with everyone also free to marry subsequently in a church or synagogue or mosque or temple of their choosing.
it's longish (5 minutes) but people actually had attention spans back then....
marital bickering as high art. i think this was WAY ahead of it's time and perfectly youtube-ish. and to be able to pull this off on live 50s tv took some real talent. kudos!
the very end i dont understand - does she pick a koodie out her little kids hair?
... the all powerful importance of inflection! I think is one of the simplest most redundant videos ever and also one of my favs of all time, but i think it would only be funny if you really do know this woman, i know several of them:
Let’s take a moment for nostalgia. I’m talking bout a little show called “The Price is Right.” There we go, let’s bring it back. Go grab a Sunny D and let’s talk about it. What an amazing show, right? First off, I like how they keep it real. And by that I mean all products used, circa 1983. Remember those days when you were home sick from school? It was in your genetic code to watch at least one episode of “The Price is Right.” It really meant you were home when you should be in school. There stood Bob Barker, 135 years old. I think he just stopped aging back in 92’. With that teeny tiny mic that just makes ya giggle. The gag’s over Barker, it’s not cool anymore. You know what always annoys the crap out of me, when people can’t spin the wheel with enough umph. Doesn’t it just make you angry? Man if that were me, I would whip that thing around so hard it would be spinnin for days, just spinnninnnnn. Everyone knows you have to start up high to spin the wheel. You gotta go up to go down. It’s always like 65 year old Nancy from Boca, spinnin the wheel with the energy of a snurtle (that’s the offspring of a female snail and a male turtle, look it up!) Nancy never gets the wheel to do a full spin. It barely makes it half way around, and Bob has that look on his face like “You have GOT to be fucking kidding me.” And what about those cracked out T-shirts made by the Superfans. Chuck from Minnesota rockin a silkscreened tee that reads “Bob, I spent my children’s college education to fly out here today. Put me in the showdown!!!!” Way to go man, you’ve officially lost your mind. I’m sure when your kids are old enough and attending classes at ITT Tech to become an airconditioner repairman, they’ll be thrilled to know where all the money went. But here’s my point. Most of these prizes, it’s like hey, figure out your demographic. You’ve been on the air for like 140 years. Don’t you get it by now? Have you ever noticed during the Showcase Showdown it’s always like fat toothless people with perms, winning ridiculous prizes you know they can’t possibly keep. The announcer’s all “Tina-Ray, in your showcase today you’ve won a Kawasaki Motorcycle, a grand piano, a 5 day trip to Russia, and a Jukebox!” Meanwhile Tina-Ray has this crazy ass look on her face. Maybe that’s because she lives in a trailer park in the middle of Arkansas. She wants to be like “Hey Bob, what the FUCK am I supposed to do with this?! Yeah, great, lemme just pay crazy ass taxes on this motorcycle, and then I’ll just get lessons how to ride it, oh and don’t forget my motorcycle license. And perfect, I’ll put the piano in the foyer, and stick that huge jukebox in my game room! Oh wait, that’s right….I live in a one bedroom trailer, you bag of douche.” Don’t the producers know better? Like how about just stick with cash, cars, and vacations. Stop giving away boats and motor homes. Who the FUCK is gonna keep a boat? I’m takin a wild guess, but I’m assuming if you’re a contestant on the “The Price is Right”, you’re not really the “owning a boat” type.
The other day I was reminiscing again and something popped in my head. At first I got all warm and fuzzy inside for it made me think of childhood. But then came a tidal wave of disgust and confusion. Do you remember rabbit foot keychains? Who’s bright ass idea was this? Who the fuck would give a child an animal’s sawed off foot coated with colored fur as a good luck charm? I remember when it was cool and the fur would be dyed funky colors. Now, not only is poor bunny-foo violently murdered, but we’ve made a mockery of her by attaching her florescent pink knub to a key ring. And it’s like “Hey, got my good luck charm.” Call me kooky, but I can’t imagine hauling around a dead animal’s foot is an A+ in the karma department. I wonder if this is just an American thing. If I happened to be chillaxin in Italy, eating some spaghetti at a café, would my waiter Antonio Dominick Frappachino give me the stink eye if he saw me lugging an animal’s hoof along with my car keys? And I was all “But itsa my-a gooda lucka charma.” I plan on developing that accent if I ever go to Italy. I don’t really see them as much anymore, but I know they’re still around. This is because I was walking to my car the other day, and a limping rabbit crossed my path. He stopped for a moment and we caught eyes. He motioned his eyes down to his paw and I noticed his foot was missing. Then he shrugged his shoulders, and just kind of shook his head back and forth. I could see his eyes get all glassy like he was about to cry. I just mouthed “I’m sorry.” I think he understood. Probably because he looked up at me and said, “Hey, what are your gonna do?” I’m kidding, that never happened… I never said I was sorry. Sucka.
Here’s the problem with finally getting Tivo or DVR. You now find it virtually impossible and unfathomable to live without it. I was fine before I had it. I lived a decent life. I had friends, and a social life, I worked my around it. You miss a show, so what, you get over it. But now, it’s amazing. My life is just so great I just wanna roll down a grassy hill giggling like a small Asian child. That’s how happy I am about DVR. If someone makes some awkward drunken move on the Real World, rewind that shit! Or how bout, I gotta pee, pause it like it’s hawt! But there’s a downside. The judgment you feel for others that don’t have it. When I was home over Christmas, I literally got angry with my parents for not having DVR. I went to go into the kitchen for a minute while we were watching some program I was apparently “really into.” I’m gonna say it was “The Dog Whisperer,” because man, that Ceaser Milan walks amongst the Gods. Anyway I was all, “Hey, pause it real quick.” To which my Mom replied, “We can’t.” Ah, I didn’t understand. I seemed to be missing something. “No, pause it, I’m going to the kitchen.” “Lauryn, this is a TV show.” “Ok, good, it’s a TV show, now that we have that established, pause it.” She had no clue what I was talking about. I was angry that she could live without DVR. I just wanted to get right in her face, breath all heavy for a minute and say “How do you even get up in the morning.” All week their lack of DVR didn’t register in my head. “Rewind that.” “We can’t.” “Pause this.” “It’s impossible.” “Record this, I’m not gonna be home.” “Well then, you miss it.” I think from here on in, all TV’s should come with a digital recorder. Do you hear me technology? I’m talking to you…
Is anyone else seriously disturbed by this new trend in car commercials? You know what I’m talking about, for VW and Allstate. I don’t know about you, but there are a few things I like in my commercials. I like those that can make me laugh. If advertising can make me chuckle, you’ve won. Congratulations random companies, you’ve done it. Geico Cave-men, you can come over for coffee anytime. I don’t ever remember thinking,” Man when are they gonna start showing graphic car crashes in advertising?” So what made you think I would love to see what an actual car crash looks like, as it’s happening, with no fair warning. I hate to get all Sally Struthers on ya ass, but WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN? I don’t think it’s fair for 8 year old Timmy to be watching a happy couple driving to a fun little concert, when BAM they are careened by another vehicle, and SURPRISE, we get a first hand look at what’s going on inside and out of the car. Spinning, screaming, screeching, hair flying, whiplash. Just a scary mess. No bueno. Me no likey. It seems like they finally got on the ball and have a disclaimer before the commercial, but still. VW is even worse. Their slogan is “Safe Happens.” Because after showing the shocking accident, no one is really hurt. Quick cut from crazy accident to them all standing out of the car, chillin like villans and all “whoa, that was crazy.” Guess what? I smell bullshit. Because I have a vivid memory of my VW Jetta ending up on someone’s front lawn after being side swiped by another car. My lip busted up, airbag out, crying like a bitch, and surprise, my car, completely totaled. Safe happening? Not so much. It’s a fucking car, not a titanium rocket ship. I can’t imagine it’s going to keep you that much more secure than any other car. Maybe a Jeep Wrangler…..without the doors…and no top. Way to go graphic fucked up car crash commercials. Maybe VW’s slogan should be. “Safe…possibly happening.. if you get in a fender bender, going 8 mph, on a side street.”
Cuteness alert. Call the snuggly wuggly police. Ok, I’ve figured it out. The cutest thing to have graced this planet. My obsession started from this special on Discovery a few years back. I think it was called, “Animal Friends.” Aw. Basically it was random home videos of strange animal friends. Cross-species companions. Inter-species lovas if you will. The one that sticks out in my head..mainly because I have it on tape…was a bunny and a deer. Best Friends Forever. I swear, these guys became buddies and just hung out in this woman’s backyard, and she would always tape them. They were inseparable. They would eat together, play together, and even relax in the Sun’s warm rays, just cuddling. What do you when something is so adorable to look at, you almost can’t take it? Now, the new one is this Hippo and a Tortoise. Pictures are flying all over the Internet. It was on the news, and even Oprah. This baby Hippo was saved from the Tsunami, put in this zoo, and now thinks the Tortoise is it’s Mom. The Tortoise quickly adopted it and now they love each other. Have...you... ever? HAVE YOU EVER? (I’m screaming at you right now.) The cuteness is so far off the Richter scale, it’s fallen beyond all that is adorable and into violence. I would most likely have to brutally murder all of these animal friends, just, blow their heads right off…puppies with kitties, deers with bunnies, and of course…let us not forget…hippos and turtles….Sorry guys, this cuddly wuddly snuggly adorable friendship love fest will have to continue…from the grave. Exhibit A. Makes you wanna rip through the computer screen and bite their heads off.
So a couple years back I talked about the mysterious one glove phenomenon on NYC sidewalks in the winter. I tried to understand and explain where I thought they came from. After that a year or so later, I discussed the lone black sneaker I would often see on the side of LA streets and highways. Again, tried to find some explanation. Well folks, I guess for the new year I have a new mystery item. The other week I was driving and I saw something I’ve seen a few times before, that just puzzles the shit outta me. I saw a huge mattress on the shoulder of a highway. Listen, when it’s in front of a house of an apartment complex, I totally get it. But what sort of situation would cause a massive fucking mattress to end up on the side of a highway? Is it like some gag? Is there evidence on it from some crime scene? I mean, first off, it would have to take man power to even get it there. And why the shoulder of a highway? Well actually, here’s the backstory to one of the mattresses. So there’s this dude and one day he’s all “Fuck this mattress, we gotta get it outta here! I’m so sick of this stupid bed, just look at it.” And then his bright ass friend is like, “Dude, just load it in my truck, I got a great idea.” But he never says what the idea is. And so they get all their dumb ass friends together and toss it in the back of his pick-up. But meanwhile Doogie (that’s what I named the guy with the idea) is giggling the whole time. He’s the one driving the pick-up. And everyone is like, “Doogie man, what is it, where are we going?” And he’s like “Just wait”….And they finally get to this little forest, and end up at the edge of this lake. They all jump out to go get the mattress. But it’s gone. Why? Because they’re all fucking high, and they tossed the mattress at the edge of the truck, with nothing tieing it down. It was just chillin on the edge. Those guys are such stoners. So the mattress flew of the truck, landing on the shoulder of some highway. Oh…You prolly wanna know what Doogie’s idea was, don’t you? He wanted to toss the mattress in this little lake and him and his friends would jump on and pretend they were white water rafting. It’s probably better off. But ya know what, that is SO Doogie.
“Say wha?” Moment of the Week
Today it drizzled out. It was slightly chilly, a little overcast. I myself wore long sleeves. This evening as they had the coming attraction for the News, I couldn’t believe my ears. I swear on my mother’s leotard, the weatherman stood in front of that green screen map, with the most concerned stone cold face and said “Tune in at 11 to find out when this COLD Winter Storm is going to end.” Really? Seriously? Los Angelans, do you really consider the weather going on, a cold winter storm? If so, sit down, because we need to talk. This is not a cold winter storm. This is a chilly overcast day. If you wanna know a cold winter storm, why don’t we stop by Ithaca, NY, my alma mater. We can go anywhere between the months of September and April. Then we can stand outside and understand what cold feels like…together… That’s when the snow is up to your knees and even your teeth are freezing. That’s a cold winter storm. When just the trip from your house to the car is torture, because although you have 14 layers of clothing on, and even your socks are wearing socks, and nothing is showing but your beady little eyes, you can still somehow feel the crispy cold air sneaking into to the creases of your clothes, whipping against your body like you’re swimming in a fucking Glacier. That’s cold. After you’ve lived through THAT for 4 years, you see things a little differently. So why don’t you just grab a fucking zip up, buy an extra hot Half-Caf Non-Fat Latte, and get the FUCK over it.
Quote of the Week- (Scrubby old actor dude shows up in the office I work at to audition for a role, he’s talking to some guy looking at his headshot.)
Scrubby Dude- “Well, I’m really cast a lot as a homeless man….I’m not homeless though, I just play one on TV.”
Way to go dirty old guy, you’ve really made it…I guess.
Song That Makes Me Wanna Strangle a Hamster. Carrie Underwood- “Jesus, take the Wheel.”
Ok, I really haven’t intensely listened to the lyrics, so maybe I’m not quite qualified to judge this song, but fuck it. I’m sorry Carrie Underwood, but I’m going to have to politely disagree with you on this one. First off, what a stupid song, Jesus take the wheel? No. I’m thinking Jesus should not take the wheel. Carrie, I don’t think your song is good advice for your young listeners either, cause they don’t understand metaphors. Listen, if you wanna believe in him, and pray for him, and pray TO him, well I think that’s just swell. I don’t, on the other hand, believe you should let him take the wheel, or drive your car at all for that matter. This is because…Jesus doesn’t know how to drive…At all….He’s really shitty and he always speeds. He’s had like 4 speeding tickets just this year, and has 6 unpaid parking tickets. Last time Jesus and I went on a Roadtrip, he made me play Chinese fire drill at every light, AND raced some Mexicans when the light turned green. If he got pulled over..Jesus would most likely get your license suspended. Carrie, you country bumpkin, why don’t you do your research next time. If anyone should take the wheel, it should be Moses. That dude knows can drive stick!
This reminds me of a story either my older brother J or D told me - basically he said "When you were in middle and high school every single friend you had was a girl and they were always swarming to your room, we decided you were either the most amazing stud ever or completely gay, we couldn't decide."
this video doesn't EXACTCTLY correlate wit that story but... well, it's close enough.
(I'm on an all video roll today, and there's at least two more coming up soon):
I think the genius of these characters is that you either think you're watching a spot-on excoriation of new feminism's indulgences, or you think that you're watching a mirror.
it's totally a love it or hate it sort of thing.
meetings at the fictional feminist book co-op "Women and Women First"
episode 1, consensus approval of what flyers get posted: Feminist Bookstore
episode 2, consensus approval of what cds get shelf space:
not an episode but the same two actors do - writing the perfect song (via voicemail): The Perfect Song
Bettie Page, the brunet pinup queen with a shoulder-length pageboy hairdo and kitschy bangs whose saucy photos helped usher in the sexual revolution of the 1960s, has died. She was 85.
Page, whose later life was marked by depression, violent mood swings and several years in a state mental institution, died Thursday night at Kindred Hospital in Los Angeles, where she had been on life support since suffering a heart attack Dec. 2, according to her agent, Mark Roesler.
A cult figure, Page was most famous for the estimated 20,000 4-by-5-inch black-and-white glossy photographs taken by amateur shutterbugs from 1949 to 1957. The photos showed her in high heels and bikinis or negligees, bondage apparel -- or nothing at all.
Decades later, those images inspired biographies, comic books, fan clubs, websites, commercial products -- Bettie Page playing cards, dress-up magnet sets, action figures, Zippo lighters, shot glasses -- and, in 2005, a film about her life and times, "The Notorious Bettie Page."
Then there are the idealized portraits of her naughty personas -- Nurse Bettie, Jungle Bettie, Voodoo Bettie, Banned in Boston Bettie, Maid Bettie, Crackers in Bed Bettie -- memorialized by such artists as Olivia de Berardinis.
"I'll always paint Bettie Page," De Berardinis said Thursday night . "But truth be told, it took me years to understand what I was looking at in the old photographs of her. Now I get it. There was a passion play unfolding in her mind. What some see as a bad-girl image was in fact a certain sensual freedom and play-acting - it was part of the fun of being a woman."
"The origins of what captures the imagination and creates a particular celebrity are sometimes difficult to define," Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner said Thursday night. "Bettie Page was one of Playboy magazine's early Playmates, and she became an iconic figure, influencing notions of beauty and fashion. Then she disappeared. . . . Many years later, Bettie resurfaced and we became friends. Her passing is very sad."
In an interview 2 1/2 years ago, Hefner described Page's appeal as "a combination of wholesome innocence and fetish-oriented poses that is at once retro and very modern."
According to her agents at CMG Worldwide, Page's official website, www.BettiePage.com, has received about 600 million hits over the last five years.
A religious woman in her later life, Page was mystified by her influence on modern popular culture. "I have no idea why I'm the only model who has had so much fame so long after quitting work," she said in an interview with The Times in 2006.
She had one request for that interview: that her face not be photographed.
"I want to be remembered," she said, "as I was when I was young and in my golden times. . . . I want to be remembered as the woman who changed people's perspectives concerning nudity in its natural form."
Bettie Mae Page was born April 22, 1923, in Nashville. She was the oldest girl among Roy and Edna Page's six children. Her father, an auto mechanic, "molested all three of his daughters," Page said in the interview.
Her parents divorced in 1933, but life didn't get any easier for Bettie.
"All I ever wanted was a mother who paid attention to me," Page recalled. "She didn't want girls. She thought we were trouble. When I started menstruating at 13, I thought I was dying because she never taught me anything about that."
After high school, Page earned a teaching credential. But her career in the classroom was short-lived. "I couldn't control my students, especially the boys," she said.
She tried secretarial work and marriage. But by 1948 she had divorced a violent husband and fled to New York City, where she enrolled in acting classes. She was noticed on the beach at Coney Island by New York police officer and amateur photographer Jerry Tibbs, who introduced her to camera clubs.
Page quickly became a sought-after model, attracting the attention of Irving Klaw and his sister, Paula, who operated a mail-order business specializing in cheesecake and bondage poses.
In an interview published in Playboy magazine in 2007, Page expressed mixed feelings about her achievements. "When I turned my life over to the lord Jesus I was ashamed of having posed in the nude," she said. "But now, most of the money I've got is because I posed in the nude. So I'm not ashamed of it now. But I still don't understand it."
She spent most of her final years in a one-bedroom apartment, reading the Bible, listening to Christian and country tunes, watching westerns on television, catching up on diet and exercise regimens or sometimes perusing secondhand clothing stores.
Occasionally, however, Page was persuaded to visit the Sunset Boulevard penthouse offices of her agents at CMG Worldwide to autograph pinups of herself in the post-World War II years of her prime. The agency controls her image and those of Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana, among others.
During one such event in early 2006, Page needed about 10 minutes to get through the 10 letters of her name. As she pushed her pen over a portrait of her in a negligee with an ecstatic smile, she laughed and said, "My land! Is that supposed to be me? I was never that pretty."
As Ford and Staff Sgt. John Wayne Walding returned fire, Walding was hit below his right knee. Ford turned and saw that the bullet "basically amputated his right leg right there on the battlefield."
Walding, of Groesbeck, Tex., recalled: "I literally grabbed my boot and put it in my crotch, then got the boot laces and tied it to my thigh, so it would not flop around. There was about two inches of meat holding my leg on." He put on a tourniquet, watching the blood flow out the stump to see when it was tight enough.
Once in a Blue Moon: A neat description of "not very often," it refers to the second full moon within a month - a rare thing indeed. Full moons happen about every 29.5 days, and since a typical month runs between 30 to 31 days, the likelihood of two in a month is slim. But over the course of a century there'll be 41 months with two full moons, so once in a blue moon really means - if you want to get literal - once every 2.4 years.
Mad as a Hatter: Today we know enough to keep clear of mercury, but hat makers once used it to make the brims of hats. When absorbed through the skin, it could wreak havoc on the nervous system: tremors, fatigue, not to mention behavioral dysfunction - that is, crazy behavior. Just think of Lewis Carroll's Mad Hatter from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Raining Cats and Dogs: In 1600s England it was common practice to discard any waste into the streets - even dead household pets. Once it rained so much that the now-deceased Tabbies and Fidos became buoyant and floated along the streets, thus inspiring writer Richard Brome in 1651 to record, "it shall rain dogs and polecats."
Saved by the Bell: Before modern medicine, it was hard to determine if a person was really dead or simply in a really, really deep sleep. As a precaution, the presumed dead were buried with a string that ran from the corpse's finger to a bell. If there was a mistake, the person could twitch the finger and thus be saved from being buried alive. {matt: i thought it was cause the bell at school rangand you didn't have to answer something u didn't know when called on}
The Acid Test: Gold Rush miners tested possible gold nuggets in acid. Unlike other metals, gold won't corrode in acid, so if the nugget didn't dissolve it passed the acid test and therefore must be pure gold. If a person passes a figurative acid test, they're telling the truth, as opposed to the literal acid test, which would be quite painful, not to mention corrosive. In the Limelight: Theater stages used to be illuminated by heating lime (calcium oxide) until it glowed brightly. Lime has a high melting point, and when heated, gives off a brilliant white light. The light was then focused into a spotlight, so if an actor was in the limelight, he was certainly the center of attention (and probably very hot as well.)
Dog Days: The ancient Romans noticed that the Dog Star, Sirius, rose at the same time as the sun on the hottest days of the year, so they made the natural assumption that Sirius in the sky added to the heat of the day. Today it's generally accepted that the "dog days" of summer are July 3 through August 11. But they have nothing to do with Sirius. Chew the Cud: If you figuratively chew the cud, you're chatting with an acquaintance. If you literally chew the cud, you're regurgitating food from your stomach to be chewed a second time (don't even try it). Cows are ruminants - this means that to properly digest grass to pass through their four-chambered stomachs, they need to rechew it. Consequently, a cow's mouth seems to go nonstop, just like a person who is "chewing the cud."
Don't Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth: In other words, don't be ungrateful when someone gives you something. You can tell a horse's age by looking at its teeth, particularly the incisors, but if someone gave you a horse as a gift, it would be considered rude to examine its teeth. (This would be like looking for the price tag on the present.) The Bee's Knees: It's 1920s slang for something wonderful - but why would the knees of the Apis mellifera, the common honeybee, be something to be excited bout? Well, when bees find pollen they carry it back to the hive on pollen baskets located on their hind legs near their knees (yes, bees have knees.) The pollen is then used to make honey.
Cold Turkey: To completely abandon an addictive habit is to go cold turkey. As a result, the habit-kicker may experience cold sweats and goose bumps as blood rushes from the surface of the skin to internal organs. That bristling gooseflesh looks like the skin of a plucked goose (which looks quite similar to a plucked turkey). And doesn't it sound better to go cold turkey than to go cold goose?
Fromn Barry Ritholtz, a funny and surprisingly plausible way to pay for national health coverage in the US:
1. Set up a large, well capitalized hedge fund. About $5B should do it.
2. The prospectus of the fund should note its purpose is to “Seek out profit opportunities via arbitraging inefficiencies in the markets and health care system of the United States.” Include standard “Socially Conscious” fund language in clauses such as Do well by doing good.
3. Launch the fund — and promptly max out your leverage. Today’s environment makes it difficult to go 50 to 1, but getting 10 or 20 to 1 should not be much problem.
4. Use the money to write Credit Default Swaps with a notational value of $3 trillion dollars. The premia on these CDS should be about 10-15% or so.
5. Rollover the cash premiums — about $350 billion dollars worth — into a national fund. Use it to buy health care insurance for all US citizens.
6. Declare that due to current credit conditions, your unfortunately must announce to your counter-parties that you will be defaulting on these CDS. Note that significant amounts of this paper are held by JP Morgan and Citi. Another trillion is held by China and Japan, with Sovereign Wealth Funds owning the rest.
7. Send out a press release announcing “systemic risk.” Tell the Treasury Secretary and the Federal Reserve Chief that your imminent collapse will wreak global havoc. Apply for bailout.
Police officers thought they were raiding a weed growing house in Odessa, Texas, but instead found two tiny Christmas trees surrounded by grow lights and a poster saying they were caught on camera by Kop Busters. The show, created by an ex-drug officer, aims to expose crooked police officers by setting them up in ridiculous situations like this one.
the main thing being that within 24 hours after setting up the grow lights police entered the house with a warrant - how did they know the grow lights were there and what specific reasonable cause could they have come up with in just 24 hours to secure this warrant? the most likely scenario is that they used drive by FLIR cameras to detect the grow lights. this technique has been previously declared illegal by the Supreme Court. They would then manufacture some testimony that would be admissible as sufficient to have a judge issue a warrant. your tax dollars at work! http://kopbusters.com/ site might be down due to traffic surge. it was last time i checked. there is a full story with further details below:
'KopBusters' is a reality TV program that aims to sink crooked officers.
"KopBusters rented a house in Odessa, Texas and began growing two small Christmas trees under a grow light similar to those used for growing marijuana," claims a release from NeverGetBusted.com "When faced with a suspected marijuana grow, the police usually use illegal FLIR cameras and/or lie on the search warrant affidavit claiming they have probable cause to raid the house. Instead of conducting a proper investigation which usually leads to no probable cause, the Kops lie on the affidavit claiming a confidential informant saw the plants and/or the police could smell marijuana coming from the suspected house."
"The trap was set and less than 24 hours later, the Odessa narcotics unit raided the house only to find KopBuster's attorney waiting under a system of complex gadgetry and spy cameras that streamed online to the KopBuster's secret mobile office nearby.
"The attorney was handcuffed and later released when eleven KopBuster detectives arrived with the media in tow to question the illegal raid. The police refused to give KopBusters the search warrant affidavit which is suspected to contain the lies regarding the probable cause.
"It is not illegal to grow plants under a light in your home but it is illegal to lie on an affidavit and plant drugs on a citizen. This operation was the first of its kind in the history of America. Police sometimes have other police investigating their crimes but the American court system has never dealt with a group of citizens stinging the police. Will the police file charges on the team who took down the corrupt cops? We will keep you posted." http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Excop_Barry_Cooper_launches_Kop_Busters_1206.html
"I own it to be my opinion, that good will arise from the destruction of our credit. I see nothing else which can restrain our disposition to luxury, and to the change of those manners which alone can preserve republican government. As it is impossible to prevent credit, the best way would be to cure its ill effects by giving an instantaneous recovery to the creditor. This would be reducing purchases on credit to purchases for ready money. A man would then see a prison painted on everything he wished, but had not ready money to pay for." --Thomas Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, 1786. ME 5:259
"We should try whether the prodigal might not be restrained from taking on credit the gewgaw held out to him in one hand, by seeing the keys of a prison in the other." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Pleasants, 1786. ME 5:325, Papers 9:472
"That we are overdone with banking institutions which have banished the precious metals and substituted a more fluctuating and unsafe medium, that these have withdrawn capital from useful improvements and employments to nourish idleness, that the wars of the world have swollen our commerce beyond the wholesome limits of exchanging our own productions for our own wants, and that, for the emolument of a small proportion of our society who prefer these demoralizing pursuits to labors useful to the whole, the peace of the whole is endangered and all our present difficulties produced, are evils more easily to be deplored than remedied." --Thomas Jefferson to Abbe Salimankis, 1810. ME 12:379
"The system of banking [I] have... ever reprobated. I contemplate it as a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction, which is already hit by the gamblers in corruption, and is sweeping away in its progress the fortunes and morals of our citizens." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:18
"The banks... have the regulation of the safety-valves of our fortunes, and... condense and explode them at their will." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1819. ME 15:224
"I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:23
On Wednesday, Britain will lead opposition to proposed new European controls on pesticides, many of which have been found to have "gender-bending" effects. It also follows hard on the heels of new American research which shows that baby boys born to women exposed to widespread chemicals in pregnancy are born with smaller penises and feminised genitals.
"This research shows that the basic male tool kit is under threat," says Gwynne Lyons, a former government adviser on the health effects of chemicals, who wrote the report. Many have been identified as "endocrine disrupters" – or gender-benders – because they interfere with hormones. These include phthalates, used in food wrapping, cosmetics and baby powders among other applications; flame retardants in furniture and electrical goods; PCBs, a now banned group of substances still widespread in food and the environment; and many pesticides.
It concludes: "Males of species from each of the main classes of vertebrate animals (including bony fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) have been affected by chemicals in the environment.
"Feminisation of the males of numerous vertebrate species is now a widespread occurrence. All vertebrates have similar sex hormone receptors, which have been conserved in evolution. Therefore, observations in one species may serve to highlight pollution issues of concern for other vertebrates, including humans."
Fish, it says, are particularly affected by pollutants as they are immersed in them when they swim in contaminated water, taking them in not just in their food but through their gills and skin. They were among the first to show widespread gender-bending effects.
Half the male fish in British lowland rivers have been found to be developing eggs in their testes; in some stretches all male roaches have been found to be changing sex in this way. Female hormones – largely from the contraceptive pills which pass unaltered through sewage treatment – are partly responsible, while more than three-quarters of sewage works have been found also to be discharging demasculinising man-made chemicals.
Even more ominously for humanity, mammals have also been found to be widely affected.
Two-thirds of male Sitka black-tailed deer in Alaska have been found to have undescended testes and deformed antler growth, and roughly the same proportion of white-tailed deer in Montana were discovered to have genital abnormalities.
In South Africa, eland have been revealed to have damaged testicles while being contaminated by high levels of gender-bender chemicals, and striped mice from one polluted nature reserved were discovered to be producing no sperm at all.
At the other end of the world, hermaphrodite polar bears – with penises and vaginas – have been discovered and gender-benders have been found to reduce sperm counts and penis lengths in those that remained male. Many of the small, endangered populations of Florida panthers have been found to have abnormal sperm.
Other research has revealed otters from polluted areas with smaller testicles and mink exposed to PCBs with shorter penises.
"If we are seeing problems in wildlife, we can be concerned that something similar is happening to a proportion of human males"
Indeed, new research at the University of Rochester in New York state shows that boys born to mothers with raised levels of phthalates were more likely to have smaller penises and undescended testicles. They also had a shorter distance between their anus and genitalia, a classic sign of feminisation. And a study at Rotterdam's Erasmus University showed that boys whose mothers had been exposed to PCBs grew up wanting to play with dolls and tea sets rather than with traditionally male toys.
Communities heavily polluted with gender-benders in Canada, Russia and Italy have given birth to twice as many girls than boys, which may offer a clue to the reason for a mysterious shift in sex ratios worldwide. Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls, but the ratio is slipping. It is calculated that 250,000 babies who would have been boys have been born as girls instead in the US and Japan alone.
And sperm counts are dropping precipitously. Studies in more than 20 countries have shown that they have dropped from 150 million per millilitre of sperm fluid to 60 million over 50 years. (Hamsters produce nearly three times as much, at 160 million.) Professor Nil Basu of Michigan University says that this adds up to "pretty compelling evidence for effects in humans". http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/its-official-men-really-are-the-weaker-sex-1055688.html
Pentecostal Bishop Charles H. Ellis III, who shared the sanctuary’s wide altar with three gleaming sport utility vehicles, closed his sermon by leading the choir and congregants in a boisterous rendition of the gospel singer Myrna Summers’s “We’re Gonna Make It” as hundreds of worshipers who work in the automotive industry ... gathered six deep around the altar to have their foreheads anointed with consecrated oil.
Just months after riding an incredible high, the recycling market has tanked almost in lockstep with the global economic meltdown. As consumer demand for autos, appliances and new homes dropped, so did the steel and pulp mills' demand for scrap, paper and other recyclables.
Cardboard that sold for about $135 a ton in September is now going for $35 a ton. Plastic bottles have fallen from 25 cents to 2 cents a pound. Aluminum cans dropped nearly half to about 40 cents a pound, and scrap metal tumbled from $525 a gross ton to about $100. "It's never gone from so good to so bad so fast," said Marty Davis, president of Midland Davis Corp. in Pekin, Ill., who has been in the recycling business since 1975.
The turnaround caught everyone off guard, said Steven Kowalsky, president of Empire Recycling in Utica, N.Y.
"Nobody saw it coming. Absolutely nobody," Kowalsky said. "Even the biggest players didn't see it coming."
At the height of the market just months ago, customers lined the street outside Kowalsky's business, hoping to hawk scrap to pay rising food and fuel costs.
"That's not happening anymore," he said.
"I don't know if we are at the bottom yet, bouncing along the bottom or we have new lows to achieve," Garino said.
The market's not likely to bounce back until the economy improves. Kowalsky estimates it could be several years.
"It's just time to pull in your horns and maintain what you have and try to survive until 2010," he said. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/07/recycling-goes-from-boom_n_149134.html
concerning the neighborhood where george and laura just bought their new post peredential house, their neighbors will include Ross Perot! that could provide for some fun neighborhood ocktail parties since Ross ran against W's dad. and of course, nothing the bush's do can take place without some sort of public relations disaster (for example - see laura sending out hanakuh cards with christmas trees on the front) this situation to has a "doh!" moment:
Until 2000, the neighborhood association's covenant said only white people were allowed to live there, though an exception was made for servants. The document, enacted in 1956, reads:
"Said property shall be used and occupied by white persons only except these covenants shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of different race or nationality in the employ of a tenant."
George Bush may be the poorest one in the hood with a ranch home worth only $3 million. After reading around, we came up with a list of some of his famous neighbors.
* Ross Perot, house valued at $24 million * Mark Cuban, house valued at $18 million * Billionaire Tom Hicks, who co-founded the buyout firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc. He bought the Texas Rangers from W.
Even during what conservative hawks insist on calling "America’s holiday from history," the Clinton 90s, the country never stopped spending Cold-War levels of money on the military. Meanwhile, the US is now spending more than ever to prosecute relatively tiny wars whose merits are contestable at best. See that little ledge all the way to the left of the graph? There’s your reasonable level of defense spending for a country - this one - that faces no serious threats. See the difference between what we’re actually spending and what we were spending then? There’s your infrastructure budget or health care reform or, God Help Us, capital-gains tax cut package as suits your fancy. http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2008/12/06/8976
at what level did President Eisenhower give his farewell speech warning us against the "military-inustrial complex"?
One reason that tolerance for gay marriage and civil unions may be on the rise is that a growing number of Americans say they know someone who's gay. While in 1994, a NEWSWEEK Poll found that only 53 percent of those questioned knew a gay or lesbian person, that figure today is 78 percent. Drilling down a bit more, 38 percent of adults work with someone gay, 33 percent have a gay family member and 66 percent have a gay friend or acquaintance. http://www.newsweek.com/id/172399
