discoveries from the internets and some stuff I wrote too
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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
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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
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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
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*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
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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
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… 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...
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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 U.S. marines training the Afghan army come across as consistently frustrated by how unfocused, and often high, many of the Afghans are. They complain repeatedly of soldiers coming to training without a lot of their gear, including their helmets.
One U.S. Marine summed up the situation succinctly by saying: "Ultimately, it effects their ability to protect their nation and get Afghanistan on its feet."
Good Lord! It seems like trying to herd cats. If they do not take their own security seriously why are we? :(
The 1796 treaty with Tripoli states that the United States was "in no sense founded on the Christian religion" (see below) This treaty was written under the presidency of George Washington and signed under the presidency of John Adams.
I cannot support a movement that claims to believe in limited government but backed an unlimited domestic and foreign policy presidency that assumed illegal, extra-constitutional dictatorial powers until forced by the system to return to the rule of law.
I cannot support a movement that exploded spending and borrowing and blames its successor for the debt.
Oakeshott I cannot support a movement that so abandoned government's minimal and vital role to police markets and address natural disasters that it gave us Katrina and the financial meltdown of 2008.
I cannot support a movement that holds torture as a core value.
I cannot support a movement that holds that purely religious doctrine should govern civil political decisions and that uses the sacredness of religious faith for the pursuit of worldly power.
I cannot support a movement that is deeply homophobic, cynically deploys fear of homosexuals to win votes, and gives off such a racist vibe that its share of the minority vote remains pitiful.
I cannot support a movement which has no real respect for the institutions of government and is prepared to use any tactic and any means to fight political warfare rather than conduct a political conversation.
I cannot support a movement that sees permanent war as compatible with liberal democratic norms and limited government.
I cannot support a movement that criminalizes private behavior in the war on drugs.
I cannot support a movement that would back a vice-presidential candidate manifestly unqualified and duplicitous because of identity politics and electoral cynicism.
I cannot support a movement that regards gay people as threats to their own families.
I cannot support a movement that does not accept evolution as a fact.
I cannot support a movement that sees climate change as a hoax and offers domestic oil exploration as the core plank of an energy policy.
I cannot support a movement that refuses ever to raise taxes, while proposing no meaningful reductions in government spending.
I cannot support a movement that refuses to distance itself from a demagogue like Rush Limbaugh or a nutjob like Glenn Beck.
I cannot support a movement that believes that the United States should be the sole global power, should sustain a permanent war machine to police the entire planet, and sees violence as the core tool for international relations.
Does this make me a "radical leftist" as Michelle Malkin would say? Emphatically not. But it sure disqualifies me from the current American right.
To paraphrase Reagan, I didn't leave the conservative movement. It left me.
Who could have known that Barack Obama would double-down in Afghanistan? Only people who listened to Barack Obama:
Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven. Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been. As Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently pointed out, we won't have sufficient resources to finish the job in Afghanistan until we reduce our commitment to Iraq.
As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there. I would not hold our military, our resources and our foreign policy hostage to a misguided desire to maintain permanent bases in Iraq.
Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, a conservative-leaning political blog, officially announced his break with the right in a post on Monday evening. Johnson is co-founder of Pajamas Media, and Little Green Footballs has been named one of the top 100 most popular blogs.
Succinctly titled "Why I Parted Ways With The Right," Johnson's post argues against the fanaticism of politicians like Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Pat Buchanan as well as the conservative blogosphere
National Geographic Channel visits a rural Brazilian town where "the 80 households in a one-square-mile area have reportedly some 38 pairs of twins. Blond, blue-eyed twins." Nat Geo then attempts to trace rumors connecting that creepy phenomenon to Nazi medical monster Joseph Mengele, who was on the lam in Brazil in the 1950s
Written by famous magician John Mulholland, it was believed that the Agency destroyed all copies in 1973. Thankfully for potential magicians and spies alike, one copy survived.
In the late 1970s I was taken by my parents to go see that "Rapture Movie" that seems to have exerted a great deal of trauma on many other children of my generation who's parents were in one way or another linked to the evangelical/charismatic protestant tradition. Our elders may have been able to watch the hoekie special effects and not be scarred for years by the sight of a stick of butter dropped on the ground by a suddenly raptured "holier than thou" - or holier than me at least, B grade actor. But kids are very literal. So there i waited through he mid and late 70s for mom andf dad and granny and all to suddenly disappear one day and leave me and my sinful (or what a child imagines to be seriously sinful at least) ways behind to face the UN and it's Antichrist president's demon forces all alone.
But alas, that "late great planet earth" awaited by the Jesus Freaks and friends never occurred.
Pat Robertson resurrected the theme with new scenarios and dates to fill my still immature mind with throughout the 80s that then involved either Russian or Chinese or Arab (it depended on the latest news cycle) boogie men that were identified as either Gog or Magog etc etc.
then a brief break that was the post cold war. no nightmare images of nuclear fires raining down from the sky or robot/demon soldiers in blue UN helmets.
Ah, but then came Y2k. And for all the buildup and all the millennial hype nothing - nothing - nothing - occurred. Again...
On the heals of that "alert" the left stepped in to fill the end times void that the right temporarily abandoned and global climate catastrophe became the apocalypse d'jour.
That seems to be taking place surely, and slowly enough based upon my own observations of the winters here on the east coast during my short enough lifetime. But none the less, the global warming terror peaked with Gore and has begun the downward slump that the Malthusian prophecies calling for world wide famine in the 1960s took along with all the other end of it all alarms before and after have taken.
As the threat of imminent and immediate flooding begins to lose its currency it is now time for the next cycle - this time around it's the Mayans and their calendar and maybe some planets or earthquakes or stars aligning or alien coming down (again? harmonic convergence? hale bop? it becomes exhausting to try to keep track of all the theories over the years!) or something or other.
so, lets have a quick little look at what the hubbub is all about this time around:
"The apocalypse is "a very Western, Christian" concept projected onto the Maya, perhaps because Western myths are "exhausted."
If it were all mythology, perhaps it could be written off.
But some say the Maya knew another secret: the Earth's axis wobbles, slightly changing the alignment of the stars every year. Once every 25,800 years, the sun lines up with the center of our Milky Way galaxy on a winter solstice, the sun's lowest point in the horizon.
That will happen on Dec. 21, 2012, when the sun appears to rise in the same spot where the bright center of galaxy sets."
Here is an unofficial proposal I have been working on for a bicycle network utilizing existing paths, proposed new paths and bicycle lanes that would be relatively easy and inexpensive to construct covering areas of Woodbury and West Deptford, NJ. By adding approximately 1.6 miles of new bike path and between 2 and 3 miles of bike lanes the total uninterrupted bike network would equal approximately 7.5 miles, be in close proximity to a number of facilities and within 1 mile of the majority of residents of both municipalities.
You can zoom in for much more detail or zoom out if you are unfamiliar with the general area. To zoom in and out or to navigate around the map use the arrows and plus or minus signs at the top left of the map.
Details that become apparent as you zoom in include:type of path, services and institutions that would be served and recreational and educational opportunities denoted by assorted icons explained in greater detail below:
type of path
pre-existing bicycle paths = green
proposed simple paved paths = yellow
proposed path elements that may involve some cost or engineering attention = red
proposed bicycle lanes on existing road surfaces = blue
possible extensions that might make additional funding possible = pink (specifically linking the network to the Red Bank State Park {additional state funding} and a nearby complex of County and State Offices {additional state and county funding}.
services and institutions that would be served including
Riverwinds Sports, art and entertainment Complex and Golf Club
West Deptford Municipal Complex and Court
West Deptford Public Library
West Deptford High School
Woodbury High school
Underwood Memorial Hospital
Gloucester County Courthouse, County Seat and Family Court
recreational and educational opportunities denoted by assorted icons
Tree - natural area
Flower - indigenous flora
Ladybug - various wildlife
Football - sports facilities
Guitar - music arts and cultural facilities
Book - educational facilities
Footprints - hiking opportunities
By utilizing existing open public space and taking advantage of roads that would be relatively easy to incorporate bike lanes into the plan eliminates most of not all issues of eminent domain and most more complex engineering issues (the underpass along Woodbury Creek beneath I295 and Crown Point Roads would require some cost and moderate engineering issues but would allow a far greater area to be incorporated into the network while maximizing rider safety and enjoyment.) The exact path from the existing short trail in Woodbury in the vicinity of the High School, sports and health care facilities north to the Crown Point road area would best be determined by siting the route along those portions that would require the least among of environmental research and alteration and by choosing higher ground when needed to avoid bridges or boardwalks of any kind.
first is l-tran's awesome video she took from her car in philly just after the results were announced:
At 52nd and Pine Sts. in West Philly (about 8 blocks from my house) there has been an Obama field office busy with volunteers for nearly two years. At roughly 11:02 p.m. - following the official announcement that Barack Obama had won the presidential race - the place erupted into the streets. For a clear mile you could see/hear/feel relief, celebration, thank you Jesuses, YES WE CAN's, O-Bam-A's!, pots and pans, honking cars, fireworks and noisemakers of all kinds.
At 11:03, too excited to fall back to sleep, I left the house in my pajamas (Pajamas for Obama!) to experience it firsthand.
second, from another section of the US that probably fell into Palin's supposedly "anti-amercian parts of america", St. Marks & Ave. A, NYC: and then the east village:
There were people all over the streets of NYC, but Brooklyn was the place to be:
In the mid-1990s, few in Germany had ever heard of Halloween, and even fewer celebrated it. Now, it's a €150 million a year industry. The holiday's success can be traced to a single marketing genius.
The web has resurrected a rare alternate ending to a 1986 musical about a monstrous, blood-sucking plant.
The spectacular 24-minute sequence shows an army of giant plants rampaging past city skyscrapers, overturning cars, swallowing railroads, and demolishing New York City, Godzilla-style. The U.S. army discovers the plants are bulletproof, and as helicopters flee, the plants swarm over the statue of Liberty.
It cost $5 million, took 11 months to produce, and has never been released.
Well, almost never.
Ten years ago, "Little Shop of Horrors" was available on a DVD including the toothier alternate ending — for exactly five days. But Warner Brothers failed to secure the proper copyrights for the alternate ending — and the DVD was recalled. For the next decade, producer David Geffen and Warner Brothers wrangled and promised to restore the original ending, until Warner Brothers finally discovered in 2007 that it had already been burned in a studio fire.
But while Hollywood argued, the coveted footage quietly slipped onto YouTube.
The original everyone-dies ending from the play, changed after test audiences whined. Heartbreaking both for Audrey's reprise of "Somewhere That's Green" and the glimpse it offers of the classic that could have been had the filmmakers stayed true to the retelling of Faust that lent moral resonance to its otherwise campy source material.
Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows' Computer Video from 1984
it's longish but the little white dots on the playline at the bottom of the video shows the best parts by minute mark.
oh the days of floppy disks and black screens with green typeface.
btw - nice nancy reagan dress Jayne.
i found it was tolerable when i played it in the background while i did my other stuff online.
With an Apple II, a Kaypro 2, cheeseball computer animation and a grab-bag of corny jokes, this is classic computing from the VHS era. Keep an eye out for references to Wargames, hackers, Boy George, Ronald Reagan, and more.
