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Friday, December 31, 2004
A Connecticut Friday Five in King Aethelread's Court This week, I ask: Because we never get tired of Time Travel questions, I'm wondering - assuming you know you're going back in time for an indefinite period (possibly life), and can haul with you a couple hundred pounds of supplies, what period (pre-19th Century, just to make it interesting) would you go to if you hoped to build the local technology and set yourself up as a Connecticut Yankee, so to speak? I was primarily inspired by Mark Twain's satire A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, but the brilliant L. Sprague De Camp novella Lest Darkness Fall also had an influence. For the purposes of this Friday 5, we will assume training in the common language and customs of the day and region, as well as basic immunizations thanks to the same superscience widget that transports us through time. (1) Colonial America - The period from the late 1600s to the early 1700s. I'd bring a diesel generator, some basic engineering and metallurgy texts, machine tools and as many chemistry and medical books as possible. (2) The Vinland Colony - Brokering some kind of peaceful trading arrangement between the skraelings and Lief Ericson's colonists would be the first order of business, followed by working to minimize the spread of disease. Medical and civil engineering books, vaccines, high-quality geological survey maps and some gunsmithing tools and smooth-bore muskets. (3) England, post-Rome - With the same supplies as above, it should be easy to build some kind of bulwark against the Saxons. Arthur, shmarthur - I'll actually hold 'em back. (4) Spain, during the reconquista - lending my advanced metallurgy and military strategy to assist the forces of the Caliph, I could broker my way to setting up a more tolerant, inquisitive society. El Cid would, of course, be hung as the bandit he was. (5) Ptolemaic Egypt - Cleopatra, baby! Forget Caesar, forget Mark Antony. With a trunk of Estee Lauder cosmetics, you'll be all mine. Egypt has the grain, and with our steam-powered war galleys, we'll sweep the seas clean of those Roman dogs. My maps will tell us where to mine the sulfur for our gunpowder and the iron for our cannon. The other Friday Fivers, while scurrying through the time-space continuum, are leaving detailed records of their activity listed to the left. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:22:00 AM   | Thursday, December 30, 2004
Let's Talk Priorities While the Simp Chimp plays cowboy on his Dude Ranch, mountain biking and pretending to clear brush between rounds of golf, the death toll from the tsunami has grown to over 116,000. Florida, an important swing state in the last election, has raked in more than $3.17 billion to date in federal aid. The US has pledged as aid for the nations devastated by the tsunami a whopping $35 million, the last $20 million only after the US was very publicly chastised for stinginess. The cost of the invasion of Iraq, a violation of international and US law, continues to climb - as of this writing, $147,511,595,193 and climbing by the second. Meanwhile, a select group of fat-cats and corporations have ponied up $250,000 each to raise over $40 million for the Simp Chimp's Disgusting. Disgusting, but not surprising. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:44:00 AM | The Purge Of Wreckers Continues Our Dear Leader, fresh from an overwhelming 51% victory in the polls, is working to clear the Criminal Anti-State Wreckers from his administration. The Running-Dog Powell is gone, as is his lackey, the criminally disloyal Armitage. Now we hear that Brent Scowcroft, a trusted advisor of Our Dear Leader's Revered Father, is on the way out. His crime? Insufficient enthusiasm for the Honored Vice-Leader Cheney, meanwhile, is ensuring that potentially disloyal Wreckers in the State Department are forced out and is also getting a firm grip on the reins, leaving Condoleeza Rice in what amounts to a figurehead position (and, to be honest, Our Dear Leader can't really trust her, as she was mentored by the Wrecker Scowcroft). James Baker, who assisted in the I am sure that you all join me in wishing Our Dear Leader all the fruits of his Wisdom in the coming year, and that his purge of Criminal Wreckers continues until every single Running-Dog Enemy or Potential Enemy Of The State is removed from his Most AUgust Presence. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:08:00 AM | An Interesting Insight Into The Insurgency If you're not reading Arran's Alley every goddamn day, you better start. Mick deals out some damn good commentary, and he's Good Folks to boot. Today, he takes a look at the Iraqi Resistance and posits an interesting theory. Along the way, he throws out some juicy nuggets, like this one: I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a country run by a cross between Ebeneezer Scrooge, Draco Malfoy, and Don Knotts. It's beyond embarrassing. It's humiliating. Mick points the finger at Ahmad Chalabi as a possible high-level supporter of the insurgency: The bureaucracy that does the vetting is controlled by friends and allies of our old friend Ahmad, who spent the first year of the Occupation using the files of the Iraqi secret police that we gave him to blackmail, extort, intimidate, and otherwise force his people into positions of bureaucratic control. His son Saleem is all but in charge of the nascent Iraqi judicial system, for example. But Ahmad's strings are embedded a lot deeper than that--the financial ministry, civil administration, and the police and military training centers are all run by Chalabi's minions. I, for one, would be interested in seeing this investigated. Since it seems, though, that Ahmad's earlier leaks of classified info to Iran and ham-fisted shakedown schemes aren't going to be looked into, I'm not holding my breath. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:44:00 AM | Wednesday, December 29, 2004
These Still Don't Convey The Scope Of This Maggie pointed the way to a series of satellite images of Sri Lanka's coast, with before and after shots for comparison. These are large enough, and taken from far enough away, that it's a little easier to set aside the horror of the situation and look at the images. Additionally, here's a list of agencies taking donations for quake/tsunami relief: Action Against Hunger posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:20:00 AM | Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Obsessive? Me? I made an order from Amazon, and it got split into 3 shipments. Now I get 3 times the fun of tracking each package on its journey to my front door! Package #1:
Dec 28, 2004 02:49:00 AM Package #2:
Dec 28, 2004 01:29:00 AM Package #3:
Dec 28, 2004 06:48:00 AMFurther updates on a daily basis. Y'know, what UPS ought to do is give you an online map with little red lines showing the progress of your package. That would be cool. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:35:00 PM | Fuck You, Red America Because you were stupid enough to buy the lies the Bushistas fed you. "The terrorists want John Kerry to win!" - I heard that so often my teeth hurt from clamping my mouth shut to keep from spewing forth a stream of profanity at whoever was stupid enough to repeat that meme. Bush has been a huge recruiting tool for the Jihadis. From the "Axis of Evil" to his comments about the "crusade" against terror, to invading Iraq on false pretenses, since he took office, the terrorists have been enlisting new members and becoming more acceptable in the public eye of the Islamic world. Osama bin Laden is still at lage, and Bush "doesn't think about him much" at all anymore. Anyone stupid enough to believe that the terrorists wanted Bush out of office needs to be sterilized so their obviously damaged genes can't be spread any further. The French hostages released from captivity in Iraq confirm the truth - Iraqi militants supported Bush for president. One of the captors from the group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq said Bush's re-election would boost their cause, Malbrunot wrote in Friday's edition of Le Figaro, the French daily he works for. So fuck you, Red America. You asswipes don't deserve my respect. Your smug, inarticulate president is doing his level best to destroy America from the inside out, and you aided and abetted him. You're a bunch of uneducated boobs that deliberately seek out the least trustworthy source of news because it reinforces your provincial, bigoted worldview. Do the rest of the world a favor and go choke on your own vomit. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:14:00 AM | Monday, December 27, 2004
What Does Mr. Bush Want Our Guardsmen To Fight With, Spitballs? Remember when Zell Miller announced that he'd divined John Kerry's secret agenda at the Rethuglican Convention? The echo chamber picked up the "spitballs" thread rather quickly, and we were treated to yet another round of the "Democrats don't respect the military" bullshit. Granted, the Bush Administration sent the troops off to war without proper equipment, but, as Donald Rumsfeld says, "You go to war with the army you have." Guardsmen are scrounging pieces of armor in junkyards to protect themselves against roadside bombs, families are holding bake sales to buy bulletproof vests for their hometown guard units, and companies that make armor for Humvees are working at reduced capacity because Rumsfailed's DoD doesn't want to order more armor. According to members of Company F, 425th Infantry Battalion, a unit of the Michigan Army National Guard, the unit left training at Fort Bliss with chronic illness, trucks with blown transmissions and malfunctioning M60 machine guns. The unit's M-60 machine guns reportedly were in such bad condition when the soldiers deployed in February that one sergeant -- in a section of a post-training summary sent to his commanders that was titled "gun maintenance" -- wrote: "Perhaps we should throw stones?" Additionally, the soldiers complained that hey had been given inadequate training, in some cases not even getting to fire the weapons they were supposed to use while in Iraq. So, who's sending our troops off to fight without weapons? Are you happy, Red America? Are you fucking happy now? posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:00:00 AM | Sunday, December 26, 2004
It's Boxing Day! Today, my voice sounds kind of like a cross between Brenda Vaccaro and Soupy Sales. Still not smoking, though. I've been on a news-free diet since Thursday, and I think that's temporarily helped my upset stomach. Too bad that can't continue... posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:31:00 AM | Saturday, December 25, 2004
Merry Christmas The kids were up by 6, but we made them wait until 7, as Melissa and I were up until after 1 getting stuff set up downstairs. The kids have moved from giddy delight to showing some signs of the lack of sleep the last couple of days. I'm breathing a little easier, but still sound like a TB ward refugee. A good Christmas, overall - we didn't go overboard like in previous years, and the kids seemed pleased with all their gifts. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:40:00 AM | Friday, December 24, 2004
Over The River And Through The Woods You know the rest. Off with three overstimulated children and one other underslept adult to the grandparents' for Christmas Eve festivities. Lord, I hope these children sleep tonight. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 5:12:00 PM | W00t! Last month, Julie and Dutcher went to England. Last night, I found out that they got me some Yorkie Bars, which I developed a fondness for during our trip there last spring. Julie and Dutcher are the best! posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:23:00 AM | Thursday, December 23, 2004
For Shame USATODAY.com - Pantries provide backup for some military families Theresa Parrish tries to avoid the emergency food pantry. But with her husband serving in the National Guard in Iraq and two children at home, that isn't easy.American men and women are fulfilling their obligations to the National Guard and regular military, and this administration treats them and their families like shit. From cutting benefits for Guardsmen to failing to provide proper equipment to Rumsfeld lacking the common decency to sign condolence letters himself, the men and women in our armed services are being told, in no uncertain terms, that they don't matter. You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires an' all:"Support Our Troops" appears to mean something radically different to the Bushistas than it does to the rest of America. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 2:25:00 PM | I'm Looking Forward To This Frank Miller, when he's on, is Right Fucking On With A Bullet. The Dark Knight Returns, Ronin, his run in Daredevil - these were spot-on, rock-solid comics. Sin City belongs on this list, too. It's a sweet little piece of noir, done in black and white with occasional splashes of primary colors. Miller and Robert Rodriguez collaborated on a film version of Sin City, and what I've seen says this will be one of those movies that gets talked about for a long time. The trailer is here. It's got a good cast, including some actors that, like Miller and Rodriguez, can be really tight or all over the place. Bruce Willis, Micky Rourke, Elijah Wood, Benecio Del Toro, Michael Clarke Duncan - it's an impressive cast, yet it doesn't give the vibe of "vanity project" films like Ocean's Twelve do. I'm hoping that the film lives up to the promise of the source material and the trailer. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:00:00 AM | How Cool Is This? Drew has been reading a book he checked out from the library called How To Build Your Own Time Machine, and he's started sprinkling his conversation with comments about alternate universes, the Schrödinger's Cat thought experiment and time travel. This morning, he told me that the craziest thing he'd thought of was that there might be an alternate universe where kids got presents for being bad. Then he said he wished he could go there. Franny, meanwhile, declared this morning as Drew and I were talking about AUs, "You need to stop talking about that. It's too crazy for me." Drew looked at me and said, "There's an alternate universe where Franny didn't say that." So far, he hasn't expressed an interest in sealing either of the cats in a box with a geiger counter, a hammer and some prussic acid. I'll keep you posted if that changes. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:11:00 AM | Wednesday, December 22, 2004
It Sounds Like Christmas In The TB Ward I've got a damn nasty throat cold, which is making life less than enjoyable. I am, by default, down to 2 cigarettes per day, and I doubt I'll smoke that many tomorrow. So I dunno. I might try and quit again, I might not. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:56:00 PM | Earwig Update It's gone, now. For a while, I had "Jingle Bell Rock", then "Chapel of Love", and now all the phlegm in my skull is muffling the music. Sometimes, a cold can be a good thing. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:59:00 AM | Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Enough Is Enough I'm not like normal people. The average person's tolerance for the music of ABBA is very, very low. I, on the other hand, due to some mutant gene, can stand amounts of ABBA that would drive lesser mortals screaming headfirst towards a brick wall. If you change your mind, I’m the first in line At about 5:37 PM CST today, I reached my limit. We can go dancing, we can go walking, as long as we’re togetherSince 1:13 PM CST today, I've had "Take A Chance On Me" stuck in my goddamn head. Nothing has worked - even the theme from "The Dukes Of Hazzard", my Old Reliable Earwig-Slayer, was powerless. Take a chance on meI can't sing well enough to give the tune to anyone else. I'm drowning in Scandanavian Pop, and it's not even Aqua or The Cardigans, dammit! (take a chance, take a chance, take a chance on me)I'm going to take some heavy-duty cold medicine before I go to sleep and see if I can leave the song in Morpheus' kingdom, but I'm afraid he'll make me take it back. (take a chance, take a chance, take a chance on me)Help? Ba ba ba ba baa, ba ba ba ba baa ba-ba posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:31:00 PM | Torture – It’s What’s For Dinner Despite the assurances by the Dipshit-In-Chief and His Majesty’s toadies, Camp X-Ray at Guatanamo Bay is, in fact, a torture facility. On November 6, Navy Cmdr. Robert Mulac said, “We do not treat the detainees inhumanely or with disdain or humiliation.” The ACLU has just released documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act that say differently. FBI emails dated July 30 document the following abuses, all seen by FBI agents:
In August, an FBI agent wrote: I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position on the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times, they had urinated or defecated on themselves and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more.This treatment of prisoners, for details of which you can go to The Detroit Free Press and the New York Times, among others, is not the work of a few "bad apples", as Our Dear Leader has assured us. The treatment of prisoners at Camp X-Ray, Abu Ghraib and dozens of other known and unknown detention centers around the world was part of a conspiracy to violate the Geneva Conventions and international human rights treaties. Our next Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, is the legal mind responsible for this shameful state of affairs. Harry Reid, the new Minority Leader for the Democrats, says he'd rather "dance than fight" with Bush, so I'm expecting somewhat underwhelming confirmation hearings for Mr. Gonzales come next year. Mr. Gonzales, for those that don't recall, is the White House Legal Counsel. He was hand-picked for his current job by the President. All indications are that the orders to find ways to justify torture came straight from the top, and that we're seeing now a scramble to insulate His Majesty Chicken George from the consequences of his actions, a pattern very familiar to even the most casual observer of his life history. Buried in an article yesterday detailing the release of a wrongly-held prisoner at Guatanamo Bay was this nugget: Another 200 Guantanamo prisoners have been released through other arrangements; some are freed outright and others are turned over to the custody of their home countries.Now, despite my years of therapy, I'm not an expert in the field of psychology, but I'm willing to bet that the 12 former detainees that "returned to the battlefield" just might have had some kind of grudge against the United States after spending a couple of years being illegally detained and tortured. That's what Bush's illegal and immoral orders have done - what tiny shreds of credibility the US had as a "liberator" are gone. No matter what positive accomplishments we trumpet, the first thing Arabs will likely see in their minds is the image of an Iraqi man shrouded and hooded, arms outstretched with electrical wires attached. The Simp Chimp isn't likely to suffer for this - he's well-protected, and if things look too scary, he can go hang out with Dick Cheney in his "undisclosed location" while LA, Atlanta, Houston or some other major American city is treated to the sight of building burning and collapsing from the next terror attack. So Fuck You Very Much, Mr. Preznit. Fuck you very, very, very much. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:31:00 PM | Counting My Blessings In this Christmas season, it's important to acknowledge the gifts we receive. Perhaps no gift will last longer than the deficits this administration has given us and our children - as of this morning, the total US debt stands at $7,589,195,891.94. That's $25,716.15 for every man, woman and child in this nation. That doesn't count the projected shortfall in years to come, nor does it take into account the interest on the national debt or the projected cost to the nation of "saving" Social Security (an action akin to destroying a village in order to save it). To be sure, the entire national debt can't be laid at the feet of Bush - decades of pork-barrel spending and tax cuts combined to get us in this fix - but in just one short year, Bush's tax cuts and the Republican-led congress' spending orgy have taken us from a budget surplus to a ever-deepening budget shortfall. It's disturbing to think of, the size of the hole we're being left to climb out of. Taxes on middle-class Americans are still going up - 27 million middle-class Americans are going to be hit with the Alternative Minimum Tax this year (a tax originally designed to make sure wealthy Americans paid their fair share which has instead caught an ever-growing number of middle-class families in its web as the wealthy buy new loopholes in the tax code), and Grover Norquist, among others, wants to leave it in place because "It is a tax of people living in 'blue' states". The gift that's really going to keep giving, though - the one that our friends in Britain, Pakistan, Germany, France, Bosnia, Albania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Japan, India and so many other nations around the world will thank us for in the next several decades - the one that is going to be such a boon for the funeral industry worldwide - is Bush's gift of well-trained and battle-hardened Jihadis to the world. Saudi Arabia is already seeing the first veterans of the Iraqi resistance back home, and they are, to say the least, delighted over this gift. Former insurgents are coming home more skilled in guerrilla tactics, surveillance, evasion and, of course, bomb making. These vets have been seen as far away as Europe, and it's naïve to think that some of them won't be popping over to the U-S-of-A for a little visit. Disney World, LA, Chicago - there's so much to see and do here, could you blame them for coming? I certainly can't. For the Jihadi on the go with a pocket full of cash and a vest full of semtex, the Great Satan is the place to go! And we have our President, that paragon of virtue, Our Dear Leader, to thank for this. My cup runneth over, yea and verily. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:48:00 AM | Monday, December 20, 2004
Those Who Cannot Learn From The Past Are condemned to repeat it. Dec. 18, 2004 | ITHACA, N.Y. -- Nearly half of all Americans believe the U.S. government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim Americans, according to a nationwide poll. One of the black marks on FDR's presidency is his willingness to succumb to panic and approve the internment of thousands of Japanese-American citizens on the basis of nothing more than their ethnicity. It seems that some people are learning the wrong lessons from Roosevelt's legacy. Millions of Americans are willing to strip from other citizens their civil rights simply because they're of a different faith. Charming. Not surprising, sadly. As one who's heard more than his share of whining that equal rights for blacks, gays and women is granting them "special rights", I'm not surprised at all that such a large percentage of my fellow citizens (and I'll admit that this isn't the first time I've cringed at the thought of being tainted by association with such ignorant thinking) don't understand what they're really saying. Researchers also found that respondents who paid more attention to television news were more likely to fear terrorist attacks and support limiting the rights of Muslim Americans. It is heartening that the plurality of respondents have a grasp of the importance of protecting the rights of all citizens. Let's see what else the Doofus Contingent supported:
The strong correlation between approval of restrictions on civil liberties and reliance on Television for news is not surprising - numerous surveys in the last year or so have shown a strong correlation between 24-hour news channel viewing and flat-out ignorance of the truth. Watchers of Faux News, of course, are the most ignorant, but CNN viewers aren't that far behind. Those that depend upon a variety of news sources - newspapers, radio news (NPR, especially) and the BBC (online and radio) tend to have a more reality-based worldview. Critical thought is frowned upon in TV news, where the mantra "If it bleeds, it leads" is the primary programming rationale. Controversy, be it real or manufactured, is the order of the day - something is needed to pull viewers in hour after hour, after all. The asinine assumption that it is the job of the media to report all the news, rather than engage in some kind of winnowing of the wheat from the chaff, is partly at fault for the dumbing-down of the news as well. "Balanced" does not necessarily equal "fair". It does no one a service if a reporter parrots the Official Word from the White House without analysis, then quotes someone that disagrees. That presupposes that both claims are equal, when in fact they may not be. Claims that Iraq had, or was on the process of developing, WMDs went unchallenged in the mainstream media. On the basis of reports by Judith Miller in the New York Times, as well as others, that quoted "unnamed administration officials" as making assertions regarding Iraq's (now, we know, nonexistent) continuing WMD programs, the American public was misled into thinking Iraq posed a threat. Repeated insinuations by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others that Iraq was somehow involved in 9/11 went unchallenged, and a significant percentage of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was a supporter of Al Quaeda and the 9/11 attacks. If, in a news story, someone claims something as the centerpiece of their argument, it is the responsibility of the reporter to check that. To do otherwise is to serve as nothing more or less than the mouthpiece of those in power. While that seemed to work fine for the Soviet government with Pravda and Tass, Benjamin Franklin had a much higher standard when he started "Poor Richard's Almanac". posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:26:00 AM | Sunday, December 19, 2004
Joy! Baby Alec has taught himself how to climb over gates. How we're going to keep him out of trouble now, I have no idea. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:40:00 AM | Cool I'm blogging from my pager. Have to keep the entries short, but I think it's nifty. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:11:00 AM | Saturday, December 18, 2004
Now I Feel Old Drew was watching TV this afternoon and saw an ad for Fat Albert. "Daddy, was that a cartoon when you were a kid?" "Yes. I used to like it a lot." "And that was waaaaaaaay back in the 20th Century, wasn't it?" "It wasn't that long ago, son." "Yes it was. This is the 21st Century, Dad." Sasser-fassin' little punk. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 3:33:00 PM | | Friday, December 17, 2004
BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!! Smartiest. Presidentiary. Evah. Not. 'Challenges' Prove Too Much for White House WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House went all out to showcase the advantages of President Bush's ambitious financial agenda this week, but in the end the "challenges" proved too much. 
And these are the people we hope will “fix” Social Security? Fixing elections seems to be more their speed. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:45:00 AM | Friday V – The Revenge This week, Dan asks: Some folks don't know to quit when they're ahead. As such, there have been some really bad sequels, trilogies, and series installments foisted upon a soon-to-be-disillusioned fan-base. So, which are the worst five cases of N+1 when they should have stopped at N? I'm mostly thinking of books and movies, though some other form would be acceptable. Also, is there anything you would have done to fix the sequel short of erasing it from existence? I have a love/hate relationship with the concept of sequels. Without sequels, we’d never have learned if John Carter was able to return to Barsoom to be with the incomparable Dejah Thoris, we’d never know if John Clayton, Lord Greystoke was able to become more than a mangani and be united with Jane. We’d also have been spared Sylvester Stallone’s masturbatory visits to Vietnam and Afghanistan, and we’d never have seen Ewoks and Jar Jar Binks. It’s a mixed bag. I know for a fact that Will is going to dispute almost every one of my choices in some form or another, but I’m going ahead. So the list of sequels I hate begins thus: (1) Star Wars - Not a bad little movie – the dialogue’s a little clunky, and there’s some interesting plot holes, but it was fun. The Empire Strikes Back steps up to the plate and blows it away, capturing much more of the feel of the classic serials while at the same time giving us much more insight into the characters and events of Lucas’ universe. Then Lucas took everyone on a detour to Sucksville. Revenge of the Jedi became Return of the Jedi, the trip to Chewbacca’s homeworld was, instead, a visit to the Planet Of Midgets Wearing Cast-Off Bits Of Shag Carpeting, and we were presented with what is, at best, an unsatisfying ending. The later sequels (or, more accurately, prequels) are even less satisfying, with less-interesting characters, at-best stilted dialogue and, of course, the most annoying sidekick since Steven Spielberg thought Indiana Jones needed a Chinese Kid and Kate Capshaw to tag along with him. How to make the series better? Hire real writers and directors. Don’t let Lucas get his hackneyed mitts on the script, and get someone to direct that can coax believable performances out of the actors. (2) Indiana Jones - Raiders was perfect – it was a well-crafted homage to the Republic Serials, and it had everything you needed: Wisecraking Hero, check. Smart, Sassy Tough Chick, check. Evil Nazis That Meet Horrific Ends, check. Then we got Temple Of Doom. The archaeologist becomes a jewel thief, there are no Nazis, his sidekicks are an annoying kid and Kate Capshaw, and there’s no real fun in the movie. Spielberg redeemed himself – barely – with Last Crusade, which went back to the archaelology and the Nazis and threw in a Teutonic femme fatale just for good measure. So to fix Temple of Doom… move it to Tibet. The Nazis are after some mystical artifact that Marion Ravenwood’s father had been researching. This provides a tie-in with Marion’s presence in Tibet in the first movie, as well as a link to the well-documented Nazi obsession with Tibet. There can be some interesting chases through unknown tunnels beneath the lamaserys, a Boy Lama In Peril, martial arts and all kinds of fun stuff. Kate Capshaw and Short Round will not appear in my movie. (3) Batman - Tim Burton gave us a pretty good Gotham City. Michael Keaton gave Bruce Wayne as much character as The Batman. The look and feel of the movie was almost right. Jack Nicholson was, in retrospect, the wrong choice to play the Joker, and the origin of the Joker was Right Out. Still, not a bad superhero movie. Batman Returns wasn’t too bad, as sequels go. The portrayals of Catwoman and The Penguin were spot-on, although like most purists, I balked at the origins. From there, however, the series tanked quickly. To do the series right, I’m of the opinion that a wholesale restart is necessary. I’d do it like this (and I think this might be the tack being taken by the producers of Batman Begins): 1st Movie: Batman’s origins, from his parents’ murder by Joe Chill through his training and his return to Gotham to take on the corrupt mayor and police. No supervillains, but he does meet then-Lieutenant James Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent. (4) Smokey And The Bandit - Who doesn’t love a good Burt Reynolds movie? The original was classic, in large part thanks to Jackie Gleason and the inimitable Jerry Reed. Sally Field, eh. She didn’t add much besides the Plot Complication that got everything rolling. She could’ve very well been ditched for the second and, by that point, there was more than enough reason for Buford T. Justice to continue after Bandit out of sheer cussedness. East Bound And Down, y’all. (5) Larry Niven’s Ringworld - Two books was more than enough. We had in the first an introduction to a fascinating concept, one in which more questions were created than answered. In the second, many more questions were answered and we were left with the prospect of Louis Wu and Speaker-to-Animals stranded on the Ringworld forever. The third book in the series, The Ringworld Throne was an attempt to carry the story a step further, taking unanswered questions from the last book and spinning them into the framework of a new novel. I would have been more interested in the story of a combined Kzin/Human expedition to the Ringworld. Honorable Mention goes to Robert A. Heinlein, whose attempt to link all of his fiction together in one big incest-loving and sex-positive timeline resulted in some of the least interesting fiction ever produced. The other Friday Fivers are listed to the left, and they’re much more complex than the movies of their lives made them out to be. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:48:00 AM | Thursday, December 16, 2004
Don't Criticize The Government Or you'll get a visit from the police. That's the lesson an 11 year old boy in Virginia learned recently. When the two plainclothes Loudoun County sheriff's investigators showed up on her Leesburg doorstep, Pamela Albaugh got nervous. But when they told her why they were there, she got angry: A complaint had been filed alleging that her 11-year old son had made "anti-American and violent" statements in school. DAMN, I love my government. Don't you? posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:44:00 PM | Bill Clinton Is Teh Best EVAH This little item from the New York Daily News made me smile: Clinton repels park snark Bill Clinton fought back when he ran into a verbal mugging in Central Park. Wit, style and grace. I'll allow you readers to compare and contrast with our current Maximum Leader. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:15:00 AM | Wednesday, December 15, 2004
So That's how it is in the White House! 
Posted, by now, to numerous fora across the internet. Rising Hegemon has the best commentary on it that I've seen so far. Any suggestions for captions? posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:55:00 AM | Catch-22 Is Still SOP In Joseph Heller's brilliant novel, Allied pilots in Italy are given the following criteria for getting out of flying further dangerous bombing missions into Axis territory: * One may only be excused from flying bombing missions on the grounds of insanity; * One must request to be excused; * One who requests to be excused is presumably in fear for his life. This is taken to be proof of his sanity, and he is therefore obliged to continue flying missions; * One who is truly insane presumably would not make the request. He therefore would continue flying missions, even though as an insane person he could be excused from them by asking. Heller's satire took the bureaucracy of the military and turned it up a notch, but "Catch-22" has become a piece of American slang. In Iraq, it's a way of life. Clemency Sought for Scrounging Soldiers On the heels of Rummy the Dummy's assertion that it's the army's fault there's not enough armor for the Hummvees they are given to drive through insurgent territory, we find that a National Guard supply unit was put in the following situation: (1) Orders to deliver fuel from Kuwait to Army bases in Iraq. (2) The trucks needed to deliver the fuel are in bad repair. (3) Requests prior to deployment for spare parts were ignored. (4) Requests in Kuwait for spare parts were ignored. (5) Abandoned vehicles are found by the soldiers, and they scavenge needed parts from them so they can complete their mission, as failure to complete the mission would result in court martials. (6) Soldiers are court martialed for doing what was necessary to complete their mission. I have not served in the military, but I'm pretty damn sure that there's a better way to handle this situation. For starters, sending our troops to war with the equipment they need to do their jobs. To my mind, those soldiers deserved medals for finding a way to complete their mission despite the best efforts of the REMFs in the Pentagon - aren't we supposed to reward initiative and a can-do spirit? Granted, I can understand that this misAdministration is much more interested in spreading the lie that everything in Iraq is hunky-dory, the natives adore us and Democracy Is On The March. Oh, and we've always been at war with EastAsia. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:00:00 AM | Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Another Domestic Disturbance I know I'm biased, but my wife has a damn good'un this month: Of politics, morals and barn building Read it, and if you like it, why not drop Melissa an email? posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:46:00 AM | Thank You, Secret Admirer! Someone sent me books! I got Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda and Alexandre Dumas' The Man in the Iron Mask in the mail yesterday. Mmmmmmmm, swashbuckling goodness! Life am good today. For now. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:23:00 AM | Monday, December 13, 2004
OMG! I Am, Like, So POPULAR! Ganked from my good friend Abby: There are only 59062 blogs more popular than mine today! posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:56:00 AM | I'm Sorry, I Thought We'd Already Sorted This Crap Out Decades Ago Not to say that I don't realize that the right is trying desperately to turn back the clock on the progress that's been made over the last couple hundred years, but come on! Do you freaks have to be so blatant about it? Some nutjob named Sam Francis is offended over the Oh-So-Ribald Monday Night Football Hoopla. Seems the hinted-at canoodling between Terrell Owens and Nicolette Sheridan hit one of Sam Francis' nerves - not just because it's all sexy an' stuff and got Mr. Francis' wee little pecker all excited, but because "It was an intentional act of moral subversion." The point was not just to hurl a pie in the face of morals and good taste but also of white racial and cultural identity. The message of the ad was that white women are eager to have sex with black men, that they should be eager, and that black men should take them up on it. Whaaaaaa? But the ad's message also was that interracial sex is normal and legitimate, a fairly radical concept for both the dominant media as well as its audience. Jumpin' Jehoshaphat! The darkies is at the door, with their race-mixin' an' rock'n'roll! Next thing you know, they'll want to vote free of intimidation! Please, Mr. Francis - I know you're still heartbroken over that whole 13th Amendment thing, and the Voting Rights Act, Loving vs. Virginia and the collapse of South Africa's apartheid were pretty crippling blows to your worldview, but we really have bigger issues than some TV actress (that, quite frankly, you'd never get close enough to to breathe on) and a pro football player (who could snap your pudgy neck like a twig) pretending to be interested in having sex with each other. Granted, race-baiting fuckwits like you are part of that bigger issue, but it would be a great help to the rest of us if you'd keep your ignorant, bigoted, puerile opinions to yourself. You don't dig race mixing? Don't mix. Hide out in your little inbred compound with like-minded peckerwoods and shut your fuckin' pie hole. The grownups have work to do, and if we get much more lip from you, you're going to get a long Time Out. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:19:00 AM | Sunday, December 12, 2004
Survivor I haven't been watching it this season, but my parents have. Tonight, I tuned in for the final episode. What the hell is it with the people on this show that get upset over the other contestants breaking alliances? Have these idiots not been watching the show at all? One of the primary themes of this show is people screwing each other over with the eventual goal of $1,000,000 as the payoff. Jesus Jumped-Up Christ In A Chariot-Driven Sidecar! That's like watching Star Trek and being shocked, SHOCKED! that the dude in the Red Shirt gets eaten by the monster. If you're surprised that people will betray trusts for $1,000,000, I can explain it to you for the low, low cost of $398.95. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:37:00 PM | Saturday, December 11, 2004
Alec Snuggles With Grandy My parents have arrived. Alec thinks his Grandy is the Bee's Knees. 
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 6:39:00 PM | It's Saturday Which means I probably won't be stopping much. More Christmas shopping, plus getting the house clean for the impending arrival of my parents. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:59:00 AM | Friday, December 10, 2004
Bush As Lucy, American Voters As Charlie Brown The inimitable Paul Krugman lays the facts bare regarding the Bushista's plans to privatize Social Security in a piece entitled Borrow, Speculate and Hope. Privatization would begin by diverting payroll taxes, which pay for current Social Security benefits, into personal investment accounts. The government, already deep in deficit, would have to borrow to make up the shortfall. But we're talking pie-in-the-sky, we're talking abstract figures - there's no way we could really know that would happen. Right? Wrong. There is, by the way, a precedent for Bush-style privatization. One major reason for Argentina's rapid debt buildup in the 1990's was a pension reform involving a switch to individual accounts - a switch that President Carlos Menem, like President Bush, decided to finance with borrowing rather than taxes. So Mr. Bush intends to emulate a plan that helped set the stage for Argentina's economic crisis. Cheery, no? The blind stupidity of the Bushistas is simply staggering in its scope. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:59:00 AM | Friday Five - Five Times The Lives, Five Times The Fun Gord wants to know: If you could choose five nationalities to be born into in your next five lives, which ones would you choose? A softball question, on first examination. Still, you're going to want to think about the answer. So here goes: (1) Life #2, 2051-2165: Born in Ottowa, Canada. Dave Skiffing helped build the Moosejaw Arcology after Canadian scientists developed room-temperature superconductors, making practical application of discrete antimatter power generation possible. Mr. Skiffing retired to the Arcology, and died in his sleep at the age of 103. (2) Life #3, 2166-2600 (2240, subj): Mubutu Nakashima was the first human born on the Pan-African Union's LaGrange Habitat Mandela, the child of a Zimbabweian life-systems specialist and a Japanese pilot. Nakashima's cool competence and lifelong familiarity with zero-gee construction made him a shoe-in for the position of Chief Engineer on the Barnard's Star Expedition. A malfunction in the OverCee Drive, however, led to the expedition accelerating out of control towards the Lesser Magellanic Clouds. Last contact with the Pellinore was in 2600, it is assumed that all hands were lost in an attempt to turn off the OverCee Drive. Speculation that Nakashima sabotaged the OverCee Drive as revenge for a personal slight from the captain of the expedition remains, although it cannot be proved. (3) Life #4, 2675-3290: Sh'ssskk !Ghrrrk lived its entire physical existence on a planet orbiting a red giant. Having no eyes, it never looked at the stars. Having no heart, it never felt lonely. It died when the star went nova, its last thought a question - "Why?" (4) Life #5, 3302-1209: Research Clone ZZ-R32-GRG ("Greg"), decanted for testing of new OverCee Drive components, was, through a mislabeled Chronal Compression Unit, sent plummeting back through time to the year 1180. Grigori Zhirnoskin lived the rest of his days in an Orthodox monastery in the center of the Russian steppe, until the Mongols came and burned the monastery to the ground, slew the men and raped the women. (5) Life #6, 1209-1264: Mongke Khoong was a good Mongol, able to ride days without stopping, live on dried horseflesh and fermented milk, shoot a bow at a full gallop and cluster his arrows in a circle no bigger than his palm, and afraid of nothing. His very lack of fear led to his death in what is now Poland as he charged a peasant cowering behind a spear. Mongke did not consider the peasant a threat, and was utterly shocked when the spear stabbed up through his pony's belly, through his saddle and into his abdomen. All three of them, warrior, pony and peasant, died. Mongke never knew how funny his name would sound in 800 years, which is just as well. The other Friday Fivers are plumbing their future lives through various esoteric means. Their documentation of their researches is listed to the left. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:53:00 AM | Thursday, December 09, 2004
I Don't Have Anything To Say About This It's just too depressing. Homeless Iraq vets showing up at shelters. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:16:00 PM | What The Fuck? School defends slavery booklet Students at one of the [Raleigh] area's largest Christian schools are reading a controversial booklet that critics say whitewashes Southern slavery with its view that slaves lived "a life of plenty, of simple pleasures." Whaaaaaaa? A few of the nuggets of information the students at this school have learned from the booklet: * "To say the least, it is strange that the thing the Bible condemns (slave-trading) brings very little opprobrium upon the North, yet that which the Bible allows (slave-ownership) has brought down all manner of condemnation upon the South." (page 22) I wish I could say I was amazed that, in this day and age, lies like this can still be passed off as objective truth. I'm not, though. What the fuck are these people thinking? What the hell is their problem? Is there any way to keep them from reproducing? [EDIT] Maggie rightfully took me to task for the above question. I'll rephrase it. How can we keep these poison merchants from succeeding in their apparent mission, making slavery once again morally acceptable? posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 2:01:00 PM | Some Funny For You HULK'S DIARY THAT IS ON THE INTERNET Let me tell you, True Believers - if the Jade Juggernaut had a blog, it would read like this! The Ever-Lovin' Hulk gives us the scoop on life as a cognitive-impaired hunk of rage-powered muscle, and it is good. Take, for example, Hulk's writeup of Thanksgiving dinner at Avenger's Mansion: OH NO IT WENT VERY BADLY AT AVENGERS MANSION AT THANKSGIVING Until later, True Believers! Excelsior! posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:06:00 AM | Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Received Via Email I have a spamfilter email address I use to sign up for mailing lists that on occasion give me some interesting insight into the whacknoodlery views of a wide variety of people. It's also my 419 email address, so it's useful for all kinds of Nefarious Dealings. Today, I got the following gem: Could the EU be the new Roman Empire? I'll take "This Guy's Obviously Talking Out Of His Ass" for $1000, Alec. When the world once again fails to end on schedule, we'll hear that some coalition of Arab states is the Great Beast, or that Russia is the key, or some grouping of 10 or so of the so-called "Blue States", and that the Antichrist is an Iranian, or Indonesian, or is Gavin Newsome of San Francisco, and no one will ever bother to call dipshits like this guy on his idiotic crap. That said, I'm looking forward to the Rapture. When all the True Believers get called up to heaven, we can take all their stuff. Except the Thomas Kinkade paintings. Those we'll burn. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:46:00 PM | More Coverups Of Torture There's a disturbing article in Salon today watch an ad, read the article about the efforts of the Army to silence a National Guardsman who reported torture and abuse of prisoners at Samarra. In 2002, Sgt. Frank "Greg" Ford reported at least five incidents of torture or abuse by his fellow soldiers to his commanding officer. Thirty-six hours later, he was strapped to a gurney and flown out of Iraq at the orders of his officers. Although no "medevac" order appears to have been written, in violation of Army policy, Ford was clearly shipped out because of a diagnosis that he was suffering from combat stress. After Ford raised the torture allegations, Artiga immediately said Ford was "delusional" and ordered a psychiatric examination, according to Ford. But that examination, carried out by an Army psychiatrist, diagnosed him as "completely normal." Ford's not the only one, either: Col. C. Tsai, a military doctor who examined Ford in Germany and found nothing wrong with him, told a film crew for Spiegel Television that he was "not surprised" at Ford's diagnosis. Tsai told Spiegel that he had treated "three or four" other U.S. soldiers from Iraq that were also sent to Landstuhl for psychological evaluations or "combat stress counseling" after they reported incidents of detainee abuse or other wrongdoing by American soldiers. We've already seen in the Abu Ghraib proceedings that the Party Line is that any incidents of If members of the military expect the left to be respectful of them, they must work to show they're worthy of that respect, not take it for granted. That means that they have to take risks like Sgt. Ford and others - stand up, refuse illegal orders and report violations of the UMCJ and the Geneva Conventions. Officers must not cover up evidence of wrongdoing. The civilian leadership must prove it is worthy of the awesome responsibility of ordering brave men and women to put their lives on the line. And we, the American people, need to keep fighting to hold our leadership accountable for everything they say and do. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:34:00 AM | Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Hmmmmm. Interesting. Comments from Left Field had a link today to the details of a sworn affadavit by a Florida programmer that his employer was hired in 2000 by then-State Rep. Tom Feeney to design and build vote rigging software with the intent of controlling the vote in South Florida. Clint Curtis, 46, claims that he built the software for Feeney in 2000 while working at a sofware design and engineering company in Oviedo, Florida (Feeney's home district). I'm looking for some other information on this, and remain cautiously skeptical, but it is very interesting, to say the least. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:31:00 AM | Adventures In Parenting, Late-Night Style Actually got to bed before 10PM yesterday. It was nice. Until Alec woke up a little before 1AM. For the next 3 hours, Melissa and I took turns trying to get him to go back to sleep and stay asleep, with no luck, until I finally put Alec in the minivan and drove around the neighborhood for about an hour. About halfway through this automotive lullaby, I realized that, were I to be pulled over by the police, I'd have a lot of uncomfortable questions to answer, such as: (1) What are you doing cruising the streets at 20 MPH at this time of night? (2) Is that your kid? (3) Why are you wearing pajamas? (4) What do you mean you left your wallet at home? Fortunately, no cops stopped me. I got home around 4AM and got Alec to bed, then hit the sack myself just in time to wake up when Melissa got up around fivish to get some writing done. Another long day coming up. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:59:00 AM | Monday, December 06, 2004
Know The Enemy H. L. Mencken once said that fundamentalism is "a terrible, pervasive fear that someone, somewhere, is having fun." True words. I was over on Hullabaloo today and found a link to an article about the Fundamentalist Agenda. The article by Rev. Dr. Davidson Loehr is fascinating, as it starts with a look at Muslim fundamentalists, and found the following: * They hate liberated women and all that symbolizes them. They hate it when women compete with men in the workplace, when they decide when or whether they will bear children, when they show the independence of getting abortions. They hate changes in laws that previously gave men more power over women. No surprises there. Then, Rev. Loehr wrote this: The surprise second installment came just a few days after 9 / 11 in that remarkably unguarded interview on The 700 Club when the Rev. Jerry Falwell told Pat Robertson, “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way—all of them who have tried to secularize America—I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'” These men are so media-savvy it's amazing they would say such things on the air. But it's also remarkable because in their list of “causes” of the 9 / 11 attacks, we heard almost exactly the same hate list: So, who's our real enemy, then? Rev. Loehr makes a strong case for the importance of the Left using the language of the fundamentalists agaist them, subverting their calls for obedience with calls for plurality, using the same terms. JFK, with his phrase "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country", did a bang-up job of that. Were Bush to say the same thing today, it would smack of more of his brand of Christo-Stalinist neofascism. Kennedy, as Rev. Loehr points out, used that statement as a rallying cry for the Peace Corps and as a vehicle for communicating the American ideals of community and a diverse but unified people. Martin Luther King, Jr did the same thing, using the term "God's Children" to rhetorically unite everyone in the South, white and black. This is what's going to be the important battle - we don't need to adopt the mindset of the enemy, we need to adopt and adapt their tactics. Use their strengths against them, and remember that the Constitution is the document of real importance in this fight. The Bible is incidental, and fighting with the Fundamentalists over it is playing into their hands. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:43:00 AM | Well, Fuck I had a nice, pithy little post this morning, and Alec managed to unplug the computer before I could post it. It's shaping up to be a wonderful day. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:38:00 AM | Sunday, December 05, 2004
Worried Yet? I am. U.S. OKs Evidence Gained Through Torture WASHINGTON (AP) -- Evidence gained by torture can be used by the U.S. military in deciding whether to imprison a foreigner indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as an enemy combatant, the government says. For over 70 years, US courts have disallowed evidence gained through torture, but thanks to our new Attorney General and his views of those "quaint" Geneva Conventions, torture is A-OK. We all know, although many won't admit, that Abu Ghraib was not a few low-ranking soldiers running amok. The tortures used in Abu Ghraib were tested at Camp X-Ray, and once the military starts getting "confessions" from detainees, you can bet your ass some loon on the Right will start pitching for a repeal of domestic prohibitions on torture. Sure, they won't call it torture - it'll be "Stress-based Interrogation" or something equally mild-sounding, but it'll be torture nonetheless. With less and less control being brought to bear on law enforcement, and with more and more efforts to strip Federal courts of the power to contradict Congress and the Executard Branch, the slope will get a wee bit steeper and a wee bit greasier as time goes on. The gulags won't get built for a while yet, but mark my words - if we can't get this gang of thieves out of power soon, we'll see what happens when Stalinist governing techniques and a blindly theocratic mindset meet over the body of a democratic republic. It won't be pretty. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:48:00 PM | Saturday, December 04, 2004
Looks To Be A Crazy Day Got to go do some Christmas shopping, plus take Fran to a birthday party. At least I got a big bowl of cheese grits this morning. Mmmmmm, grits. Time allowing, more Ranty Goodness later today. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:36:00 AM | Friday, December 03, 2004
Ken Starr Still Thinks We're Stupid In a recent article, Ken Starr admitted he shouldn't have been involved in the Monica Lewinsky case. That was painfully obvious to anyone with half a brain, so I'm glad the producer of America's most expensive piece of badly-written soft-core pornography has finally realized that. Granted, he realized it after he Starr went on to say, regarding the Whitewater case, in which the Clintons were proven to have been innocent of wrongdoing, "It reinforced the proposition that all of us are subject to the law, no matter how high our station," he said. "The facts are the facts." Huh. See, I got a completely different message out of it. What I learned was that if you give Rethuglicans the tiniest opportunity, they'll manufacture any case they can to hound you out of office. Rewriting the rules, ruining lives, spreading the most outrageous lies imaginable - it's all OK, as long as you're a Republican intent upon removing a Democratic president. Just think of how many Americans could have been fed and sheltered on that $40,000,000 that was wasted by Starr and the Rethuglicans in Congress. Thanks, guys. Here's hoping you all die agonizing and lonely deaths. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:38:00 AM | Friday Five - Now With More Fury, In Easy-To-Swallow Caplets! This week, Dan wants to know: Dr. Feelgood has unlocked the primal secrets of mood altering drugs and can now induce any emotion or mental state with no undesired side effects, so he's trolling the internet to find which drugs to make first. Which five moods/emotions/mental-states would you most want to have available in pill form, and when would you tend to use them? Note that these aren't necessarily the moods/etc. that you most enjoy, just the ones that you most want to have available on-demand. I'm a big fan of Better Living Through Chemistry. Antidepressants, muscle relaxers, painkillers, nicotine, caffeine, ethanol - I use 'em all at various times (almost never simultaneously [except for caffeine and nicotine, which go with all the others just fine, TYVM]). Emotions in a capsule - sign me up! In no particular order, then, the emotions I want on tap: (1) Calm - I have three children, ranging from 16 months to 7 years. I need to be able to roll with it a little more often, you dig? I want to be able to calm myself down and relax so I can engage in more positive interactions with them sometimes. Being able to switch off the "YOU KIDS CUT THAT OUT OR YOU'RE GOING IN TIME-OUT!!!" and turn on the ability to calmly work to redirect them, that would be sweet. (2) Bugfuck - I used to be able to tap this one at will, when I was younger. If a bully came after me at school, I was all over him like ugly on an ape. I didn't feel the pain until later, and I didn't worry about anything other than putting him down no matter what the cost. These days, I think a little more about consequences. Not that I'm bothered by bullies, but if I were, say, dealing with one of the Fred Phelps of the world, I'd like to be able to put the fear of me into him. (3) Manic - Different from bugfuck, I'd like to be able to tap the energy and creativity I have in my upswings. Boundless enthusiasm can be lots of fun for everyone, and I seem to write and rant better in those swings. (4) Ennui - Just for shits and grins, I'd like to give it to other people, like the annoyingly perky guy at the office that's always so rah-fucking-rah about the company. (5) Remorse - I'd dump this by the truckload into the water in Washington, DC. Democrats, Republicans, bureaucrats and judges - I think they could all use a near-crippling dose of that to keep 'em on their toes and remind 'em who pays their salaries. Hell, I'd be willing to load 'em up with Despair just to see what happens. The other members of the Friday Five Chemical Focus Group are distilling their own emotions in basement laboratories, and their journals detailing their researches are listed to the left. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:04:00 AM | Thursday, December 02, 2004
The Pentagon Sees Through Bush's Bullshit, Too The Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication was completed in September, and unsurprisingly, the authors of the report have heard nothing back from the White House. With the inhabitants of Cloud-Cuckoo-Land running things at DoD, I, for one, am not surprised, as it pretty much puts paid to every single one of the Neo-Clowns' fetishistic beliefs. "Finally, Muslims see Americans as strangely narcissistic -- namely, that the war is all about us. As the Muslims see it, everything about the war is -- for Americans -- really no more than an extension of American domestic politics and its great game. This perception is of course necessarily heightened by election-year atmospherics, but nonetheless sustains their impression that when Americans talk to Muslims they are really just talking to themselves." In a piece in Salon.com, Sidney Blumenthal goes over the report, and the following are perhaps the most interesting of his quotes from it: In this conflict, "wholly unlike the Cold War," the Bush administration's impulse has been to "imitate the routines and bureaucratic responses and mindset that so characterized that era." So the U.S. projects Iraqis and other Arabs as people to be liberated like those "oppressed by Soviet rule." And the U.S. accepts authoritarian Arab regimes as allies against the "radical fighters." All of this is nothing less than a gigantic "strategic mistake." Douglas Feith, described by Retired General Tommy Franks as "the dumbest motherfucker in the world", Richard Perle (good friend of suspected Iranian spy Achmed Chalabi), Paul Wolfowitz (known for his combover technique, highlighted in Fahrenheit 9/11) and Donald "troops are fungible" Rumsfeld have worked with George Bush and Dick Cheney to destroy the tattered shreds of our credibility with the Arab Street and have actively worked to strengthen the position of the Jihadists through their advocation of a criminal quagmire in Iraq. The world doesn't respect America's strength - as in Vietnam, they see a giant nation tied down by lilliputian enemies, weakened but still dangerous, all the more so because of our religiously self-aggrandizing leadership that admits no wrongs, brooks no dissent and rewrites the rules to suit themselves as needed. The Neo-Clowns have made the bed, but we've all got to lie in it now. Bush voters, if you lie down with the dogs, you wake up with fleas. Way to go! posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:15:00 AM | Wednesday, December 01, 2004
WTF? Today, someone googled me looking for chocolate reptilian "bodily fluids". Whaaaaaa? posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:20:00 PM | Thank You In Advance, Mr. Preznit, For More American Deaths Terror expert: Qaida WMD attack on US likely soon An al-Qaida attack on the US with non-conventional weapons is virtually "inevitable," and the organization is likely "tying up the knots" for such an attack, Yossef Bodansky, former director of the US Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday. Later in the article: While bin Laden and his associates argued that by virtue of their participation in US democracy, US citizens were enabling their rulers to fight, other Islamic luminaries contended that this does not permit such massive attacks, Bodansky said. The reelection of Bush in November, he said, was viewed by bin Laden and his cohorts as a decisive answer to this deliberation, with Americans now "choosing" to be the enemies of Islam. In bin Laden's mind-set, he said, the stage was set for a non-conventional attack. It won't be Dipshit, AL or Bumfuck, Idaho that gets hit - it's going to be LA, or New York, or Washington, or Atlanta, or Miami. While Porter Goss purges "disloyal" elements in the CIA (who happen to be the most experienced employees in the agency), while Bush realigns his cabinet, filling it overflowing with toadies and yes-men, while our military is bogged down in a futile war in Iraq, and while our media dither over the propriety of Nicolette Sheridan's asscrack before an NFL game, somewhere, a small group of terrorists are probably working to put together a nuclear device. Maybe they'll put it in a shipping container and detonate it in Houston. Maybe it'll be a semi that goes up in the middle of an LA rush hour. What's Bush going to do about it? If past efforts are any indication, he'll go on vacation, his staff will ignore clear warnings like this and then, when thousands of Americans are dead or dying, they'll bewail the fact that no one warned them that terrorists would attack in the specific method used and declare war on Iran. Thanks, Red State dipshits. Thanks, Preznit Bush. Thanks a whole fucking lot. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:26:00 AM | The Answers In order: Nashville, TN Atlanta, GA Manchester, GA Black. Doesn't show stains. 1980 Sometimes, but he feels guilty about it. Harlan Ellison Stevie Ray Vaughn Ian McKellan Belgian chocolate 37 Greek Right boxer-briefs BA Batman No, but not for lack of trying Abby Yes. the 17th Century The highest score was 14/20 (apart from my perfect score, of course), thus showing (as if you needed any proof) that I love myself the most. I must say that I am disappointed in your performance as a group, and hope that you will do better on the final exam at the end of the school year. This test will count as 20% of your final grade. Next up: Essays! posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:16:00 AM | |
