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Somewhere In The Aether


...is a little piece about wages and inflation. I emailed it in to blogger today around 8AM, and it's been MIA ever since. If it hasn't shown up by tomorrow morning, I'll have to see if I can reconstruct it.

posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:29:00 PM

 
Deja Vu, Anyone?


I'm pleased that, for the Shiite and Kurd populations at least, the recent election in Iraq went well. The Sunni, of course, stayed home - partially as a protest, but also due to, in many cases, outright intimidation by resistance groups. Estimates for voter turnout in the election range from 60-72%, and I certainly hope that a unified, peaceful nation can be built on this foundation. Time will tell.


President Bush seems pleased with the election, as well.

President Bush called Sunday’s elections in Iraq a success after higher-than-expected turnout, and promised the United States would continue trying to prepare Iraqis to secure their own country. The president's critics cautioned that it was too early say whether the elections would bring peace and stability to the country.

Touching on one of his broader policy goals of introducing greater democracy throughout the region, the president said the world had heard "the voice of freedom from the center of the Middle East."

To even the casual student of history, it's a little early to make sweeping statements like that. And here's something very interesting:
Over at Daily Kos, some reader went on a fishing expedition and found this little gem:(note: it costs $2.95 to purchase the full text of the article. You can, however, read the first paragraph for free.)

U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote :
Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror

by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times (9/4/1967: p. 2)

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3-- United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.

According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.

The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete returns reaching here.

Pending more detailed reports, neither the State Department nor the White House would comment on the balloting or the victory of the military candidates, Lieut. Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu, who was running for president, and Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, the candidate for vice president.

A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam. The election was the culmination of a constitutional development that began in January, 1966, to which President Johnson gave his personal commitment when he met Premier Ky and General Thieu, the chief of state, in Honolulu in February.

The purpose of the voting was to give legitimacy to the Saigon Government, which has been founded only on coups and power plays since November, 1963, when President Ngo Dinh Deim was overthrown by a military junta.

Few members of that junta are still around, most having been ousted or exiled in subsequent shifts of power.

Significance Not Diminished

The fact that the backing of the electorate has gone to the generals who have been ruling South Vietnam for the last two years does not, in the Administration's view, diminish the significance of the constitutional step that has been taken.

The hope here is that the new government will be able to maneuver with a confidence and legitimacy long lacking in South Vietnamese politics. That hope could have been dashed either by a small turnout, indicating widespread scorn or a lack of interest in constitutional development, or by the Vietcong's disruption of the balloting.

American officials had hoped for an 80 per cent turnout. That was the figure in the election in September for the Constituent Assembly. Seventy-eight per cent of the registered voters went to the polls in elections for local officials last spring.

Before the results of the presidential election started to come in, the American officials warned that the turnout might be less than 80 per cent because the polling place would be open for two or three hours less than in the election a year ago. The turnout of 83 per cent was a welcome surprise. The turnout in the 1964 United States Presidential election was 62 per cent.

Captured documents and interrogations indicated in the last week a serious concern among Vietcong leaders that a major effort would be required to render the election meaningless. This effort has not succeeded, judging from the reports from Saigon.

NYT. 9/4/1967: p. 2.

(Plus ça change, plus c'est pareil)


A little over 4 months after this, the Vietcong and North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive (1/31/1968).


I leave you, dear readers, with the following words of wisdom: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:52:00 AM

 
Another Cold, Cruddy Day


I hate this time of year. If it were warmer, I could shove the big kids out the back door and lock them outside until they calmed down. We could go for a walk to the park. There would be enough light outside that it wouldn't feel like the day was stuck int he wee hours of the morning.


Feh.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:13:00 AM

 
Well, THIS Certainly Isn't Stalinist. Nope. Not At All.


Don't Mind Me. I'm Just Doing My Job (Washington Post, registration required or use bugmenot.com)

... Several reporters covering the balls were surprised to find themselves being monitored Soviet-style by young “escorts” who followed them from hors d’oeuvres table to dance floor and even to the bathroom.

... As I was dictating from my notes, something flashed across my face and neatly snatched my cell phone from of my hand. I looked up to confront a middle-aged woman, her faced afire with rage. “You ignored the rules, and I’m throwing you out!” she barked, snapping my phone shut. “You told that girl you didn’t need an escort. That’s a lie! You’re out of here!”

... No, the minders weren’t there to monitor me. They were there to let the guests, my sources on inaugural night, know that any complaint, any unguarded statement, any off-the-reservation political observation, would be noted. But maybe someday they'll be monitoring something more important than an inaugural ball, and the source could be you.

I was wondering when the Press would start getting Minders. The gang of crooks running the government have been so adept at implementing other Soviet-era pleasantries, such as selective rewriting of history, use of "journalists" to spread propoganda, lysenkoism, and loyalty oaths to Our Dear Leader and his party. Oh, and we can't forget the gulags.


What I want to know is, when do we get a Five Year Plan? What about bread lines? If we're going to do this Soviet-style, I want to go all the way, baby!
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:31:00 AM

 
I Beg Your Pardon? Could You Repeat That?


I'm getting this second hand (since I'm too cheap to pay for a WSJ subscription), but it seems that David Chu, the Pentagon's Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, stated in a recent WSJ interview that funding for programs like health care and housing assistance for veterans was "hurtful" to national security.


Whaaaaa?


It's possible Dr. Chu was misquoted, or that his comments were "taken out of context" (one of my favorite excuses for public stupidity). Looking at the evidence, however, it's just further evidence of this misAdministration's apparent belief that the men and women in our armed forces are, to quote Rummy The Dummy, "fungible". This administration is willing to give the richest 1% in America huge tax cuts, but won't pay for proper equipment for the men and women fighting the wars they started. When those men and women are useless militarily, they do their level best to cut them off and leave them high and dry.


It's not often I agree with the American Legion, but on this, I do. Caring for our veterans is "a moral contract that must never be broken."


There is no depth too low, no lie too brazen, for these sacks of shit. If you think they've sunk as low as they can, they'll dig down into the muck and find a new low.



posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:52:00 PM

 
Friday Five

Hey, folks. It's Darryl Simpson again, no relation to Jessica or Ashley. Ha ha.

I'm on my smoke break again, and while Adam's getting his oil changed, I figured I could help him out again with his blog. Because otherwise it would be all liberal stuff, and you guys need to hear the TRUTH some times.

Some friend of Adam's named Dan wants to know:

Who are your five favorite visual artists? This includes painters, photographers, etc., even video stuff.

That's a hard one. I took some art in high school, and we had to look at a lot of pictures. I'll try to remember how to spell the artists I like.

1. Thomas Kinkade - I like his stuff, it's classy. My ex-wife used to have some posters of his stuff in our house, and she was saving up from the stuff she sold on ebay to buy one. She even bought those air freshener candles with his art on 'em, and they came in handy when the skunk got in the crawlspace and died.


2. Frank Frazetta - He did the covers for those Conan the Barbarian books which I read in high school. They were pretty cool, especially the way all the women were STACKED on the covers, but I liked the movies better. They ought to make more of those.


3. That guy that did the covers for all those Iron Maiden albums. Those rocked.


4. I kind of like those Jesus pictures Adam was talking about yesterday. Even though Jesus looks like Travis Tritt in the pictures.


5. I'm trying to remember the picture I saw, but it was that one in Ferris Bueller, with all the people next to that river, and when you look closer, it's all little dots of paint and there's no lines or anything in it. Adam says it's by some lady named Sue Rot. So I like Sue Rot.

That's my list, and my smoke break's over again. Ya'll have a good day, and remember that if you're not with us, you're against us - MESS WITH THE BEST, DIE LIKE THE REST. God Bless America.
posted by DarrylSimp at 8:24:00 AM

 
O Arturo, Prince of Irony!


Cheney speaking on the Holocaust.


I am not trying to say that Cheney is a Nazi, but considering the war in Iraq and the way the GOP and the Bush White House have taken a bold stand against transparency, honesty and rationality, these words seemed especially laughable coming from him:

"The death camps were created by men with a high opinion of themselves — some of them well-educated and possessed of refined manners — but without conscience," he said. "And where there is no conscience, there is no tolerance toward others ... no defense against evil ... and no limit to the crimes that follow."

Just the cynical use of the so-called "Marriage Amendment" during the campaign shows the utter lack of conscience and tolerance toward others there is in this administration.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 2:29:00 PM

 
Jiminey Christmas, Those Pictures Are Creepy!


I mean, I understand the artist's intent, and he's just trying to tell us that Jesus loves us and is with us always, but the pictures just creep me out in a major way.


Jesus - With You Always


This picture especially creeps me out, because it looks like Jesus somehow approves of clowns.





I hate clowns. What's with Jesus and the kid being in black and white, while the clown is in fucking technicolor? Yeah, I know it's a clown, and he's about to do something horrible to that poor little kid, so there's no need to hammer us in the head with the clown's presence.


I also found this link to a site with some amusing alterations of the original pictures. SFW, if you're wondering.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:34:00 PM

 
This Would Freak Me Out


Examiner finds man breathing in morgue


A man who was struck by a car had been declared dead two hours previously by EMTs at the site, and his body had been sent to the morgue. As the medical examiner began cataloguing the victim's injuries, he saw the man take a shallow breath.


Gaaaaah. On both sides.


The victim was moved to a hospital where he remains in critical condition.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:08:00 AM

 
Liberals Are Liars!


Note: Adam is feeling under the weather today, so he has found a special Guest Columnist to cover for him: Darryl Simpson.


It seems the enemies of Freedom and Liberty are everywhere these days! The Liberal Media continues to work to thwart the plans of President Bush, who got re elected with the biggest win ever, this time by putting a story in that socialist rag "Stars and Stripes" that is against Alberto Gonzales. A gang of so-called "experts" have weighed in against Judge Gonzales, claiming that he's dangerous to our troops or something.

Gonzales not right fit for GIs

And how would you know? I bet the GIs would love to have ol' Al drop by and visit them. He could get to ride in a Humvee and maybe shoot a machine gun. Kind of like how President Bush flew that plane onto the aircraft carrier, like the President in Independence Day fighting the alien mother ship.

As retired professional military leaders of the U.S. armed forces, we are deeply concerned about the nomination of Alberto R. Gonzales to be attorney general. We feel that his views concerning the role of the Geneva Conventions in U.S. detention and interrogation policy and practice have put soldiers in harm’s way.

Listen to the liberals whine! "We've got to listen to the French guys in Geneva! Every terrorist we catch needs to be put up in the Ritz-Carlton with room service and an X-box!" Listen to me - my cousin fought in Grenada and Panama, and he says the only thing foreigners respect is American force.

During his tenure as White House counsel, Gonzales appears to have played a significant role in shaping U.S. detention and interrogation operations in Afghanistan; Iraq; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere.

Today, it is clear that these operations have:

* Fostered greater animosity toward the United States;
* Undermined our intelligence-gathering efforts; and
* Added to the risks facing our troops serving around the world.

Before Gonzales assumes the position of attorney general, it is critical to understand whether he intends to adhere to the positions he adopted as White House counsel or chart a revised course more consistent with fulfilling our nation’s complex security interests — and maintaining a military that operates within the rule of law.

This sounds like John Kerry to me - all his talk about "nuance" and "international law", when what he really wanted was to make America weak by giving our soldiers spitballs. We're America! We don't need to worry about what other countries think about us, because we've got the biggest army in the world! And our army doesn't need intelligence - we've got smart bombs that have all the intelligence we need.

Among his past actions that concern us most, Gonzales wrote to the president on Jan. 25, 2002, advising him that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the conflict then under way in Afghanistan. The reasoning Gonzales advanced in this memo was rejected by many military leaders at the time, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, who argued that abandoning the Geneva Conventions would put our soldiers at greater risk and would “reverse over a century of U.S. policy and practice in supporting the Geneva Conventions.”

We couldn't wait to pass an international test at some convention - we had to go and get those Al Quaeda in Afghanistan in a hurry, before they got away. Except for Osama, but President Bush says he doesn't worry about him, so that's good enough for me. We killed the Al Quaeda and we've arrested some too, and the rest are hiding in Iran or something, and we'll get them next.

Perhaps most troubling of all, the White House decision to depart from the Geneva Conventions in Afghanistan went hand in hand with the decision to relax the definition of torture and to alter interrogation doctrine accordingly. These changes in doctrine have led to uncertainty and confusion in the field, contributing to the abuses of detainees at Abu Ghraib [prison in Iraq] and elsewhere, and undermining the mission and morale of our troops.

Those weren't abuses - a few soldiers were having fun and they made the prisoners play around with each other naked. Sometimes, they played little jokes on the prisoners, too, like making that guy think he was going to get electrocuted. That's the kind of thing me and the guys in Alpha Gamma Rho used to do at the community college, before I decided to take a few years off from college and get a job with that house builder. And, no, I didn't get a DUI and I didn't get flunked out! Those are just stories my ex-wife makes up. And besides, it was just a few bad apples doing that stuff, and they all got a few months in jail or something. And the prisoners were all guilty, or they wouldn't have been arrested, so we kept terrorists off the streets of Iraq and taught them a lesson about opposing the US, because we came to Iraq to get the WMD pay Saddam back for 9/11 give them freedom and liberty, so they should be more grateful.

The full extent of Gonzales’ role in endorsing or implementing the interrogation practices the world has now seen remains unclear. A series of memos prepared at his direction in 2002 recommended official authorization of harsh interrogation methods, including waterboarding, feigned suffocation and sleep deprivation.

Wait a minute! You mean terrorists get to go waterboarding, and they complain about it? Sign me up for that kind of "torture"! Sounds to me like the army's being too nice to the terrorists. I bet the "sleep deprivation" they're complaining about is because they have to get up real early to drive to the beach to go waterboarding, and they want to sleep in until Oprah is on or something. I haven't been waterboarding since my brother had to sell his speed boat because his wife lost her job at Dell to some foreigner from India or somewhere who took her job over seas.

The United States’ commitment to the Geneva Conventions — the laws of war — flows not only from field experience, but also from the moral principles on which this country was founded, and by which we all continue to be guided.

We urge senators to take into account the effects of Gonzales’ advice on U.S. detention and interrogation policy and practice.

Like liberals know anything about morals or fighting wars! All the real presidents have been Republican, like Abraham Lincoln and Nixon and RONALD REAGAN, not Dumb-o-crats like John Kerry, who lied about getting medals or Bill Clinton who lied about killing Vince Foster. If it was up to them, there'd be women and homosexuals doing all the fighting while the real men had to stay at the bases and knit and stuff. And they'd only have spitballs, because John Kerry hates the military and wants to make everyone marry gays.

Marine Brig. Gen. David M. Brahms (retired)
Carlsbad, Calif.

The letter also was signed by: Army Brig. Gen. James Cullen (retired), Army Brig. Gen. Evelyn P. Foote (retired), Army Lt. Gen. Robert Gard (retired), Navy Vice Adm. Lee F. Gunn (retired), Navy Rear Adm. Don Guter (retired), Marine Gen. Joseph Hoar (retired), Navy Rear Adm. John D. Hutson (retired), Army Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy (retired), Air Force Gen. Merrill McPeak (retired), Army Maj. Gen. Melvyn Montano (retired), Army Gen. John Shalikashvili (retired).

I've never even heard of these clowns. I bet they're just making that up - that's what liberals do. I'd write more about how these guys are all liars and stuff, but my smoke break is over, and the manager'll bust my ass if I'm late coming back.


Darryl is employed at Wal-Mart, and says he likes to watch Bill O'Reilly and Survivor when his satellite is working. Ladies, Darryl would also like to add that he is recently single again, and has finally cleaned out the back seat of his Bronco, if you know what he means! He works in the stockroom, but you can find him in the smoking area between 10:00 and 10:15 Monday-Friday.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:37:00 AM

 
Sidebar Changes


The astute reader has, I am sure, noted the change in the sidebar - the Blogroll is gone, replaced by several different categories of links.

• Handshake Bloggers are folks I know personally, or have met face-to-face
• Online Acquaintances are people I know through various online fora - Tribesters, Peoples' Forum and various and sundry other mailing lists, bulletin boards and online communities.
  
• Other Blogs of Interest are just that - blogs that don't fit in either category above, but that I enjoy reading.
• Politics is self-explanatory, really. Some of the bloggers listed here fit in one or another of the above categories, but I decided to put all my political links in one place.
  

Why the change? Several reasons - Blogrolling doesn't allow me to subcategorize my links. I wanted to try something Completely Different. The Illuminati made me do it.


If you feel you're in the wrong category, I've probably made a mistake. Feel free to fire off an angry email demanding a change, and I'll correct it.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:06:00 PM

 
Get Over It!


Progressives hear that a lot these days. “The election's over. You lost. Get over it.” “It’s time for you to move on.” “You’re being irrational! We all need to unite behind our elected leaders!”

I’m sure that my dear readers could provide numerous additional examples along those lines.

This is why I won’t “Get over it”:

I voted for John Kerry because I thought George Bush’s policies were bad – bad for the US and bad for the world.

• Bush's energy policies continue to encourage US dependency on foreign oil. His only other major policy in this area has been to push for the opening of the Alaskan wilderness for oil exploration.
• His environmental policies cut slack to polluting industries and weaken long-standing protections on clean water and air.
• His foreign policy has been a disaster – long-standing alliances have been fractured by his “with us or against us” attitude.
• On defense, from day one, he weakened the US, dismissing legitimate concerns of terrorist attacks and ignoring clear warnings from experts that attacks were imminent.
• The Army and National Guard are stretched almost to the breaking point, with Guardsmen deployed for months on end at the same time his administration cuts their benefits and refuses to purchase necessary equipment for them.
• He has cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans several times, while tossing what amounts to pocket change at the poor and middle class.
• He has consistently shown that he cannot be trusted – from his pledge to be a “uniter” to WMD in Iraq to the current “crisis” in Social Security, he and his administration have engaged in a campaign of half-truths, distortions and outright lies.
• Those that disagree with him are shoved aside and ignored, if not driven out of the administration entirely. His toadies, no matter how egregious their failures, are honored and rewarded.
• Real science is discarded by his administration if it doesn’t fit their narrow worldview.
• He has embraced a small minority of religious extremists, pretending that his 3% victory in the last election is somehow a mandate for the bigoted, fundamentalist views of these fringe elements.
• His party, already effectively run by the same religious extremists, has worked in Congress and in state legislatures across the country to shut opposing parties out of discussion, to weaken their powers to block harmful legislation and, when all else fails, rewrite the rules to favor themselves.

For these and many, many other reasons, I opposed George Bush in the last election. Nothing I have seen since Election Day has convinced me that the next four years will be any different from the last four, save that the economy will continue to decline and, if rumors are true, our military will also be bogged down in Iran.

If I believed so strongly before November that Bush is wrong, and that he is leading this country towards collapse, why should I change my mind since then?

So, no. I won’t “get over it”, and I won’t stop fighting Bush and his agenda. He was wrong for the country in 2000 and he’s been consistently wrong since then.

posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:44:00 AM

 
What's Rummy Hiding?


2 year-old pentagon spy network operating off the books.

A previously unknown intelligence program set up two years ago by the Pentagon has been operating in states deemed to be "emerging target countries," the Washington Post reported Sunday. Providing further evidence of the centralization of power around Donald Rumsfeld, the Strategic Support Branch was created to give the defense secretary the "full spectrum of humint [human intelligence] operations," according to Pentagon documents quoted by the paper.

The Strategic Support Branch is funded by already-approved Pentagon funds that were diverted to support them, and the misAdministration has decided that, due to the War on Terra Terror, Rumsfeld's discretionary powers are considerably more broad than customarily defined.


This, of course, follows on the heels of Seymour Hersh's allegations that US Special Forces are already scouting locations inside Iran in conjunction with Administration plans for war against Iran.


A secret intelligence group, free of congressional oversight, operating in allied nations and in potential enemy nations, run by the same folks that assured us there were WMD in Iraq, that we'd be greeted by flower-throwing, grateful Iraqi citizens and that "you go to war with the army you have". This does not, to me, seem to be a recipe for success.


Add to the above that the National Guard is just about used up, and you're looking at what is known by a highly technical term: a Clusterfuck.


After all, over 100,000 dead Iraqis and tens of thousands of dead and wounded Americans just isn't enough.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:13:00 AM

 
Brother Jeb's Florida Heads Down That Primrose Path


New law forces FL schools to forego needs, buy bigger flags

Some educators are criticizing a new Florida state law mandating every public school classroom display a 3-foot-by-2-foot United States flag. Some districts complain that they are being forced to spend money or solicit donations to exhibit the nationalist symbol instead of funding real student and human needs. Instead of permitting exemption for low-income communities, the law suggests that districts "attempt to acquire the flag through donation or fund raising."

This is rather unsurprising, to tell the truth. The Rethugs would be much happier if all Americans replaced critical thinking and knowledge with blind obeisance to the Cult of the Flag.

We must respect the Flag. Obey those that wave the Flag. Resistance is futile.



posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:18:00 AM

 
While I Appreciate The Linkage...


I feel the need to clarify a little something.


Hats off to the wonderful folks at Democratic Underground for mentioning this little blog in their most recent "Blog Box":

If you've got an eye for the numbers, A Violently Executed Blog may be for you. Despite the occasional invocation to Cthulhu and Joseph Stalin, Adam is gifted at crunching and explaining your tax dollars at waste.

It's flattering, and makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. If you'll pardon a Sally Field moment, YOU LIKE ME! YOU REALLY, REALLY LIKE ME!


That's better. Now, for the clarification. If you're coming here looking for insightful analysis and detailed breakdowns of fiscal issues, I hate to disappoint you. I do that occasionally, but Brad DeLong is much better at all of that than I. If you're here for invocations of Joseph Stalin, well, those are a little more frequent, but they're generally in the terms of comparing him to the Bushistas. Cthulhu does get mentioned quite a bit, although I'm not really into that whole "raising the Great Old Ones" thing, so please, if you need help summoning a shoggoth, take it somewhere else.


I welcome new readers, though, and all I ask is that if you want to comment on a post, feel free to do so, but please try to be polite to the other commenters, and if you start posting Freeperoid crazy-talk, I will disemvowel your comments.


Again, hats off to the kind folks at DU, who fight the Good Fight every day.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:50:00 AM

 
Friday Five - It's Not Just Me, Then?


Laura, the Finnish Fury, wants to know:

Remind me, what are the five things that make it worthwhile to get up in the morning and go to work, no matter what the weather? (Aside from getting paid, of course.)

What makes it worthwhile to get up? *shrugs* Idunno.

1. Family - If I don't get in to work, I can't support Melissa and the kids. That right there is sufficient motivation.
2. Books - I've got 2 RPG manuals on order at Amazon, they're due in early February. From there, it's a wait until the summer so I can read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. George R. R. Martin has a new novel out soon, the conclusion of a massive fantasy series he's been writing. Gotta read that. All of these book purchases require money, money I earn at my job.
3. Movies - Fantastic Four, which will probably suck, is due out this summer. There's also another 4 Harry Potter movies, X-Men 3, a rumored John Carter of Mars, War of the Worlds (and I mean the recently-made British one, set period and supposed to be very good). To see those movies, I need money.
4. Inertia - I get up every damn Monday-Friday and go in to the damn office, I might as well keep it up. It's not like I've got anything else to do.
5. Hate - I hate most of the people I work with. Hate 'em a lot. I'm pretty sure I annoy them, so I want to continue to be a source of stomach acid for them. If I'm suffering, they should too. Which is why I eat so much cabbage.

The other Friday Fivers are listed to the left. They hate their jobs, too, but some of them won't admit that.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 6:35:00 AM

 
New Shirt Design


Still keeping some of the oldies around at the Cafepress store, but if you really want, say, a hoodie with the "Uncle Joe" image, drop me a line - I'll change it around just for you.


Check out the new shirt design here.


"Untrue in one thing, untrue in every thing."


And many thanks to the kind souls that have purchased shirts from my store, thus delivering unto me much-needed external validation. You like me! You really, really like me!
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:38:00 PM

 
Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fthagn!


Humboldt Squid wash up on southern California beaches.


The authorities, of course, are suggesting all kinds of mundane explanations, but we know this is obviously some sign of an impending return of the Great Old Ones.


So you better get ready.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:23:00 AM

 
Mission Accomplished


This is pretty graphic and heart-wrenching. Don't click if you're faint of heart.


I'm serious. Melissa, I mean it. Don't, because it'll give you nightmares.


Your Tax Dollars At Work


Add another thousand jihadis or so to the resistance.




posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:08:00 PM

 
Qui Bono?


That's the primary question you should ask about anything that comes out of Washington.


The good folks at Citizens for Tax Justice can tell you who's benefitting from the current misAdministration's tax plans.


F'rinstance, in the first 3 years of the Bush preznitcy, out of 275 corporations studied, 82 major corporations paid no federal income tax for one or more years. Some of them got money back from the government.


No federal income tax. Zero. Zilch. Nada.


These were years in which federal tax collections fell to their lowest sustained levels in six decades.

Over the 2001-03 period, the 275 companies in the survey earned almost $1.1 trillion in pretax profits in the United States. Had all of those profits been reported to the IRS and taxed at the statutory 35 percent corporate tax rate, the 275 companies would have paid $370 billion in income taxes over the three years. But instead, the companies reported only about half of their profits — $557 billion — to the IRS. Over the three years, the effective tax rate on the companies as a group was only about half the ostensibly required 35 percent rate.

So who loses in this equation?


The middle class, of course. Corporations are phasing out Cost Of Living Adjustments, cheaping out on health insurance, laying off workers and increasing the workload on those left and, of course, shipping jobs overseas. Tax rates for the fatcats are lower than they are for workers, because investment income is not taxed at the same rate, and is also exempt from Social Security and Medicare taxes.

Let's look at two individuals: Joe Lunchbox and Francis Fatcat:

• Joe Lunchbox has been working at his job for about 15 years, and makes pretty good money - about $50,000 a year. He pays $11,700 in federal taxes - $6350 go into the Social Security and Medicare funds, while $5350 pays his income tax. He should do alright, as long as his company doesn't default on its pension plan and he doesn't get laid off.
• Francis Fatcat, on the other hand, has a trust fund. It's invested in a variety of mutual funds and stocks. He pulls down about $100,000 a year from these sources. He doesn't work, just hangs out and plays a lot of golf at the Country Club. Francis pays only $9600 in taxes on twice the income of Joe. Unless, of course, his accountant finds some nice tax breaks for him.

That's vastly oversimplified, and doesn't take into account Joe's family status or mortgage payments (which would reduce his tax burden), nor does it take into account the fact that it's primarily the top 1% of the income bracket that get the majority of their income from investments (which means that Francis would make more money and be able to hire better accountants).


Bush's tax breaks are costing this country trillions of dollars, and will continue to do so. He's thrown a well-gnawed bone to the middle class by cutting their tax rates a pittance while throwing a huge pork-barrel party for his corporate and fatcat friends.


The Social Security "Crisis" (for good analysis of this lie, go to Brad DeLong's blog - in fact, you ought to go there every day) is going to be more of the same - the brokerage houses on Wall Street will suck all kinds of money out of the pockets of American workers and our economy will perform about as well as those of Argentine or Chile have in recent years.


So enjoy your table scraps, Red America. There's going to be precious little else coming your way in the next several years if you don't wake the fuck up pretty goddamn soon.

posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 5:58:00 AM

 
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!


Actual headline from CNN:
Bush: Better human intelligence needed


Well, it's certainly needed in the White House, goober.


And the picture is perfect, too:

posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 6:53:00 PM

 
W-S-G


Audience Participation Time!


When movies are being cast in Hollywood, directors make a list for each part. They name who they WANT, who they'll SETTLE for and then, in the end, they GET someone else.


For instance, "It's a Girl Buddy Movie - A vice cop and a hooker team up to take down the mob. I WANT Halle Berry and Julia Roberts. I'll SETTLE for Julianne Moore and Jada Pinkett." Ultimately, DANGEROUS CURVES is released, and we find that the director GOT Ellen DeGeneres and Wanda Sykes.


In my life, it goes like this:


I WANT: No more car trouble, sick kids, money worries or job stress.
I'll SETTLE for: A month of the same.
I GET: Pneumonia, a busted radiator and more work in the office.


I'd love to see your W-S-Gs, dear readers. The one that makes me laugh so hard herbal tea comes out my nose gets a dirty haiku on the subject of their choice and an exclusive blog post trumpeting their victory.

posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:55:00 PM

 
Having Trouble Keeping Track Of The High Crimes?


I've pretty much given up on all the misdemeanors - too many to follow.


For those that need a scorecard to keep track of ethical lapses and criminal acts by this administration and their cronies, Salon has helpfully provided a list of 34 of them.


The List Is Here - watch a short ad and you can read it.


A few excerpts:

1. Memogate: The Senate Computer Theft

The scandal: From 2001 to 2003, Republican staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee illicitly accessed nearly 5,000 computer files containing confidential Democratic strategy memos about President Bush's judicial nominees. The GOP used the memos to shape their own plans and leaked some to the media.

The problem: The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act states it is illegal to obtain confidential information from a government computer.

The outcome: Unresolved. The Justice Department has assigned a prosecutor to the case. The staff member at the heart of the matter, Manuel Miranda, has attempted to brazen it out, filing suit in September 2004 against the DOJ to end the investigation. "A grand jury will indict a ham sandwich," Miranda complained. Some jokes just write themselves.

And...

13. The Pentagon-Israel Spy Case

The scandal: A Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, may have passed classified United States documents about Iran to Israel, possibly via the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a Washington lobbying group.

The problem: To do so could be espionage or could constitute the mishandling of classified documents.

The outcome: A grand jury is investigating. In December 2004, the FBI searched AIPAC's offices. A Senate committee has also been investigating the apparently unauthorized activities of the Near East and South Asia Affairs group in the Pentagon, where Franklin works.

And let's not forget...

32. In Plame Sight

The scandal: In July 2003, administration officials disclosed the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative working on counterterrorism efforts, to multiple journalists, and columnist Robert Novak made Plame's identity public. Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had just written a New York Times opinion piece stating he had investigated the Niger uranium-production allegations, at the CIA's behest, and reported them to be untrue, before Bush's 2003 State of the Union address.

The problem: Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act it is illegal to disclose, knowingly, the name of an undercover agent.

The outcome: Unresolved. The Justice Department appointed special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to the case in December 2003. While this might seem a simple matter, Fitzgerald could be unable to prove the leakers knew Plame was a covert agent.

This way, you can check off items from this list when you see the So-Called "Liberal" Media report on them.


Just don't hold your breath for that to happen, though. These scandals don't come close to rising to the level of Bill Clinton getting a blowjob in the Oval Office. It's much more important that we worry about the sex lives of two consenting adults than we, I dunno, root out corruption and malfeasance in our government.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 12:00:00 PM

 
If You Didn't See This One Coming, You Need New Glasses


Journalist: U.S. planning for possible attack on Iran.

The Bush administration has been carrying out secret reconnaissance missions to learn about nuclear, chemical and missile sites in Iran in preparation for possible airstrikes there, journalist Seymour Hersh said Sunday.

The effort has been under way at least since last summer, Hersh said on CNN's "Late Edition."

Seymour Hersh was the first reported to have most of the details of the torture abuses at Abu Ghraib. Not the least reputable journalist out there, to be sure.


I kind of figured Iran was next - Syria had better odds early on, but Iran's been kind enough to vocally condemn the US on a couple of recent occasions, so I'm sure that moved them up the list.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:54:00 PM

 
Good On You, Atlanta


Weekend events to honor MLK’s gay adviser.

A key figure in the civil rights movement, Rustin touted Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence and helped mold King into a revered symbol of that philosophy.

But despite his achievements, Rustin was abused, imprisoned and fired from important leadership positions largely because he was openly gay in a “fiercely homophobic era,” Conway said.

Rustin met King in 1956 at the Montgomery bus boycott and joined King’s cause. Rustin was lambasted as an “immoral element” by U.S. Rep. Adam Clayton during the 1960 Democratic National Convention and was removed from King’s staff.

After a temporary sabbatical, Rustin was asked to organize the 1963 march on Washington, where King gave his historic “I Have A Dream” speech. Rustin continued his social justice activism until his death in 1987.

Atlanta's a good town. Not perfect, but it ain't bad at all. Lord knows it's better than the other southern capital cities.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:40:00 AM

 
America's Gulag Archipelago?


The network of secret prisons our government uses to deal with suspects in the War On Terra is an open secret - we may not know where they are, but their existence itself is well-documented. If the CIA isn't running a prison itself, it's having the Marines or the Army Reserves do the day-to-day scutwork and baseline torutre. Additionally, there's the practice of "rendering" suspects to third-party countries that the Powers That Be know will be even more brutal than we are, like Saudi Arabia.


This unaccountable, unsupervised network of torture and illegal detention is a natural offshoot from the asinine legal advice of Al Gonzales, our next Attorney General.


I'm not inclined to believe every single bad thing I hear about my government, just the ones that jibe with what I've seen so far.


Which is why I think that the story of Khaled el-Masri is likely true.

A man is walking alone along a mountain path in the darkness. He is carrying a suitcase. He seems frightened, tired and confused. He has long hair and a long beard, but they are untidy, as if he did not grow them voluntarily. He turns a bend and meets three men carrying Kalashnikovs.

The man shows them his passport. It indicates that he is a German citizen, born in Lebanon, called Khaled el-Masri. Using poor English, he tells them that he does not know where he is. They tell him that he is on the Albanian border, close to Serbia and Macedonia and that he is there illegally, since he doesn't have an Albanian stamp in his passport.

The story that el-Masri tells them by way of explanation, on this evening in late May 2004, is extraordinary: a story of how an unemployed German car salesman from the town of Ulm went on a New Year's holiday to Macedonia, was seized by Macedonian police at the border, held incommunicado for weeks without charge, then beaten, stripped, shackled and blindfolded and flown to a jail in Afghanistan, run by Afghans but controlled by Americans. Five months after first being seized, he says, still with no explanation or charge, he was flown back to Europe and dumped in an unknown country that turned out to be Albania.

The German authorities are investigating this, and I hope that they can get some proof. I have no hope, however, that this, or any other evidence, no matter how damning, will in any lasting way harm the criminal junta we've got in the White House right now.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:36:00 AM

 
w00t!


Dig this:



I'm proud of my boy.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 4:27:00 PM

 
Drew Is At The Science Fair


His first one, he seemed pretty excited.


He had a simple project this time: "How Do Parachutes Work?" We were supposed to work on it over the holiday break, but a combination of factors, including my pneumonia, prevented us from getting anything done until the absolute last minute (which is something of a Lipscomb tradition).


Still, he's thrilled to be participating. Hopefully, pictures will be posted soon.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:37:00 AM

 
Friday Five - Gold Medal Edition

Marvin poses this puzzler:

The Pan-Galactic Olympic Committee has drafted you to represent Earth. The rub is that we don't know anything about the games played in the galaxy-at-large, and they don't know anything about ours. Because you're a newbie you're allowed to pick the events -- five, as it happens -- in which you'll compete. You'll have to win at least three of the five in order to save Earth from being turned into a new MacSapients franchise. What do you pick and why?

Hurm. Not being good at sports, I'm going to have to get creative here.

1. SINK. For those of you Dear Readers that are not Discordians, a description follows:

   PURPOSE: To sink object or an object or a thing...
   

   in water or mud or anything you can sink something in.
   
   
   
   RULES: Sinking is allowd in any manner.  To date, ten pound chunks of mud
   
   were used to sink a tobacco can.  It is preferable to have a pit of water or
   
   a hole to drop things in.  But rivers - bays - gulfs - I dare say even
   
   oceans can be used.
   
   
   
   TURNS are taken thusly:  who somever gets the junk up and in the air first.
   
   
   
   DUTY:  It shall be the duty of all persons playing "SINK" to help find more
   
   objects to sink, once one object is sunk.
   
   
   
   UPON SINKING:  The sinked shall yell "I sank it!" or something equally as
   
   thoughtful.
   
   
   
   NAMING OF OBJECTS is some times desirable.  The object is named by the
   
   finder of such object and whoever sinks it can say for instance, "I sunk
   
   Columbus, Ohio!"

   I'm pretty sure I could kick the tentacled ass of any alien monster alive in a game of SINK.
2. Puns. Another thing at which I do not suck. I shall, of course, specify that English is the language of choice for this contest, due to Ancient And Holy rules laid out on Earth. Puns in another language are an Abomination in the eyes of Earth's many and powerful Gods.
3. Weight-Dropping. Similar to Sink, except that we'll just be dropping large, fragile things off of buildings. This will be scored by the quality of noise and mess made at the bottom of the building.
   
4. MST3K. A bad movie will be picked, each contestant will sit in a soundproof booth and watch the movie and make snarky comments about it. A panel of unbiased judges will rate the quality of the snark.
5. Blowing Shit Up Real Good. Something at which we Earthmen excel! Contestants would be given access to all weapons created to date and uninhabited planets would be the playing field. Points for the size of the explosion as well as especially creative detonation methods. Destroying the Universe is considered Bad Form, and is discouraged.

The other Friday Fivers are, no doubt, failing miserably in their efforts to save Earth. Their blogs are listed to the left.

posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 5:58:00 AM

 
It's Not Coming Together The Way I Thought


So the long, introspective personal piece I intended to post today will be shelved and worked on at a later date. Or never.


Something else will, no doubt, percolate to the top of my mind at some point today.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:58:00 AM

 
Yeah, I'm Here Today


Working on something I might or might not post. In the meantime, check out the other blogs on the blogroll.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:29:00 AM

 
Interesting Charts...


Found 'em here.








Now, if you're like me, you haven't seen a raise in some time. If you work for an employer that doles out stock options, those options are (more than likely) worthless, as the stock has slipped down past the strike price at which your options were set.


Isn't it comforting to know that the guys that "run" your company are protected from the consequences of their decisions?
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:08:00 AM

 
Boy George To Washington, DC: "Fuck You."


The most expensive coronationInauguration ever - $40,000,000 (raised by fatcats eager to buy fucky-time access to Karl Rove and C-Plus Augustus) - is going to hurt the people of Washington, DC. The White House has informed Washington, DC that the US government will not reimburse the city for the costs associated with the inauguration. Instead, the city will use Homeland Security funds earmarked for increasing capacity of local hospitals, buying new protective gear for firefighters and other urgent needs.


On top of the projected $66,000,000 cost of giving Federal employees in the area a day off with pay, on top of the cost to the cash-strapped city of Washington, DC, we'll be subjected to a day-long orgy of sanctimonious bullshit. I can hardly wait.


Tacky, selfish, mean-spirited and dishonest. What a mightily virtuous leader we have! Much better than the guy that got a blowjob.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:11:00 AM

 
I've Got A Campaign Stuck In My Head


Actually, it's several different ones.


Right now, I'm running a WWII/Supers RPG campaign, with lots of Nazi-killin' and weird stuff - lotsa fun. I'm not tired of this campaign, and it hasn't even got to the Battle Of Britain, so there's lots left to do - North Africa, British Fascists, Italy, Normandy, maybe a side trip to the Soviet Union. Like I said, lotsa fun, lots of history to muck about in.


Still.


I've got 3-4 different ideas for other campaigns bouncing around in my head.

1. Neolithic Fantasy - Set somewhere around 10-12000 years ago, at the end of the last glacial period. The party would be stone-age tribesmen dealing with the massive changes in the world around them. Cave bears, saber-toothed tigers, neanderthals, ravaging nomads on horseback, an advanced (bronze/iron) culture in the middle of what is now the Black sea, maybe some Other Weirdness too. Simple, shamanistic magic.
   
   


2. Traditional Fantasy - Something in the traditional Dungeons & Dragons mode. Fighters, thieves and wizards breaking into the homes of underground sentients, assaulting them and stealing their belongings.
   
   


3. Supers - Set at some point in the nearish future, after metahumans have established control of the Earth (riffing a little on the themes from the current run of The Authority, but darker). This would be a high-power campaign, with characters possessed of Earth-shaking powers as they fight against the ruling "metaristocracy" in the name of the freedom their forefathers supported.
   



4. Capes and Cowls - Also Supers, but set in the US in the 1920s. Geared more towards heroes in the mode of the Green Hornet/Shadow/Doc Savage. Lots of opera capes, fedoras and nickel-plated Colt .45 pistols. Two-fisted action against mobsters, gunsels, mad scientists and The Foreign Menace.
   
   

I'm not planning to wind up the campaign I've got right now, and I don't have the time to assemble another group to run one of the others.


Story of my life - too many ideas, not enough time.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:23:00 AM

 
It's The Second Week Of The Month


And that means Melissa's got a new column out! Read it, or I shall visit infinite varieties of pain and annoyance upon you!


Drop her a line, if you're so inclined.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:59:00 AM

 
Filthy, Murdering Bastards - I Thought Hussein Was The Bad Guy


Remember the Death Squads in Central America? The ones commanded by soldiers trained at the School of the Americas?


It seems Rumsfeld and Our Pet In Baghdad, Mr. Allawi, think that's a good idea.

Now, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success—despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal. (Among the current administration officials who dealt with Central America back then is John Negroponte, who is today the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Under Reagan, he was ambassador to Honduras.)

In Bush's America, there are no discredited, fascistic and evil ideas - just ones they haven't used recently.


9/11 ain't nothing on what these fuckwits are going to bring down upon us if they keep this up. But don't worry, Red America! They'll leave Dipshit, WY alone - LA or New York'll pay the butcher's bill - again.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 2:51:00 PM

 
Farking Internet


I still can't access Google.com or buzznet.com from home. Nor can I access sluggy.com.


Sitemeter.com, OTOH, seems to be working fine now.


This is really making me angry.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:08:00 PM

 
Dang!


Buzznet.com and Google.com appear to be down. I can't seem to reach sitemeter.com, either. Dunno what's up with that, but it's pissin' me off.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:45:00 PM

 
The Friday Five - Deny, Deny, Deny!


This week, Rob, Sweden's deadliest Ninja, wants us to:

name five things you're in denial about...go on, double dare you.

Denial is, as the old saying goes, more than just a river in Egypt. What, then, am I in denial about? Nothing. Not a thing. There do, however, appear to be some areas of the true reality that conflict with the realities of others.

1. George Lucas - George Lucas died in a tragic plane crash shortly after completing The Empire Strikes Back. Notes for his third movie, Revenge of the Jedi, were found among his effects. Fans still speculate as to whether the "ewoks" his notes mentioned were wookies or some other, allied species.
2. My Dashing Good Looks - I've got a certain je ne sais quois that gives me a swashbuckling air. While it's true I'm a wee, tiny bit out of shape, I am in all other ways the epitome of a hero in the classic Sabatini mode.
3. Winter - For some reason, there are people in this world that seem to think Winter is a Good Thing. It's plain that Winter is nothing more than a sign of the Gods' anger with us, expressed on an annual basis. If more people made the proper sacrifices, we'd have no more winter, and it would be shirtsleeve weather year-round.
4. Sleep - It's not really necessary. Once again, a need to sleep is a sign of a moral failing. If I made proper obeisance to the proper Gods, I wouldn't have to waste time sleeping.
5. Me - I'm doing Just Fine, thank you very much. Just. Fine.

The other Friday Fivers are, predictably, pretending they're Just Fine. Their litanies of denial are listed to the left.

posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:08:00 AM

 
What The Fuck??!!


This is not from the Onion, folks.


Porter Goss ends daily CIA terror briefings - says CIA has devoted too much time and resources to terrorism.


Of course, during the campaign, we were reminded on a daily basis of the threat we face from terror. Dick Cheney told us flat-out that, if John Kerry were elected, we'd all end up in a cloud of rapidly-expanding radioactive dust.


Are we to believe that with the ascension of Boy George to a second (and, if nothing changes, FINAL) term that the threat they described so forcefully has evaporated?


Or, perhaps, that since they won(?) reelection they don't even need to pretend they give a shit any more?
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:10:00 PM

 
2004 Darwin Winners and an Early 2005 Nominee!


Based on my personal evaluation, it looks like the runaway winner (pun intended) of the VEB 2004 Darwin Awards is Ameer Jinah. For them as don't recall the specifics of his case, they're here. There were many other nominees, but Mr. Jinah was the clear winner.


A gold-plated no-prize has been created in his (dubious) honor. Any friend or relative willing to admit he was a doorknob is welcome to swing by and pick it up.


Looks like 2005 will be another year in which an early contestant fends off all challengers, too.


I-80 crash claims UNL student's life

Derek Kieper was a smart, funny, intense young man who relished a good debate and would do anything for his friends.

Kieper, a 21-year-old senior at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, died early Tuesday morning when the Ford Explorer he was a passenger in travelled off an icy section of Interstate 80 and rolled several times in a ditch. Kieper, who was riding in the back seat of the Explorer, was ejected from the vehicle.

In and of itself, just a senseless tragedy involving a young man.


But read on, folks! Read on!

Derek, who was thrown from the vehicle, was not wearing a seat belt, Lefler said. He said Havermann and Uphoff were wearing seat belts at the time.

In a column written for the Daily Nebraskan in September, Derek attacked seat belt laws as intrusions on individual liberties and expensive to enforce.

"It is my choice what type of safety precautions I take," he wrote.

"There seems to be a die-hard group of non-wearers out there who simply do not wish to buckle up no matter what the government does. I belong to this group."

Erica Rogers, opinion page editor at the Daily Nebraskan, said Derek's brains and intensity would be missed. Kieper and Rogers had lively political debates, she said.

Oh Arturo, Prince of Irony!


Just going out on a limb here, but if some dumbass refuses to take basic safety precautions and dies because of it, that's not a tragedy. That's Evolution in Action. I'm sorry his family and friends are sad, but that's Kie[er's fault, and were he a friend of mine, I'd be rather pissed at his idiocy.


At least he hadn't spawned yet.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:00:00 AM

 
Pneumoniatic Lifestyle Change


In some ways, it's been incredibly frustrating to be on mandatory rest at home the last 4 days. I can't do much in the way of chores to help keep everything running smoothly, and the kids (and I) have all had really bad Cabin Fever, which has led to short tempers, chaos and assorted mayhem. In other ways, though, it's been good.


I've quit smoking, which has been much easier than any of the previous times due to the lack of cravings. I also haven't had a soft drink since Sunday - primarily because they make it harder to cough productively, but also because the caffeine is a diuretic, and I need to keep all my fluids where they're needed.


Had I gone straight back to work, I think it would have been much harder to break my established pattern. Show up to work, grab a Diet Coke, go smoke a cigarette or two, work for a few hours, smoke another couple of cigarettes, drink another Diet Coke, eat lunch, work, smoke, etc.


This forced break is helping me break those patterns. Once I'm feeling much better, I'll likely start drinking caffeine again, just not so much.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 4:39:00 PM

 
More Sleaze

First off is the news that Pat Robertson has had another little chat with God. What has God told him this time?

• "Again, 2005 is going to be a year of extraordinary prosperity for this nation and for CBN [Christian Broadcasting Network]. And I think the American stock market is going to surge upward, if I heard from the Lord. Again, ladies and gentlemen, don't go and buy stock on my recommendation, but that's what I feel in my heart. The Lord was saying it's going to be a super good year."
• "Well, the Lord has some very encouraging news for George Bush ... What I heard is that Bush is now positioned to have victory after victory and that his second term is going to be one of triumph, which is pretty strong stuff. ... He'll have Social Security reform passed. He'll have tax reform passed. He'll have conservative judges on the courts. And that basically he is positioned for a series of dramatic victories which I hope will hearten him and his advisers. They don't have to be timid in this matter because the wind is blowing at his back, and he can move forward boldly and get results."
• "In America, again if I'm hearing God right, we will see a tremendous incident of miracles in the year 2005. ... God's spirit is going to be moving in dramatic power around the world. And his spirit is going to be touching the hearts of many in the Muslim world and they will be turning to the gospel, to Jesus Christ. I think many of them already are, but this is going to be an acceleration that will really amaze the world. ... 'Revival will break out throughout the Muslim world, my [God's] truth will penetrate their hearts. The hold of that falsehood that has gripped them will be broken.'"
• "2005 will be another good year for the world. The terrorist threat will diminish. Nations will walk in peace, but it will be an illusion. The peril to Israel is greater now than it has ever been for she will be seduced into a false peace that will leave her vulnerable."
• "The vendetta against religion in America is about to end. ... 'I [God] will remove judges from the Supreme Court quickly and their successors will refuse to sanction the attacks on religious faith.'"

Cheering predictions. Fortunately, I'm pretty confident that if Pat Robertson says God told him something, the opposite is actually the case.


In other news, Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell has boasted in a fundraising letter of "delivering Ohio for Bush". Much like Katherine Harris', the partisan political activities of a supposedly-nonpartisan elected official will, no doubt, be ignored by the mainstream media. The last person that boasted of "delivering Ohio" for Bush was, of course, the CEO of voting machine manufacturer Diebold Walden O’Dell.


But I'm suuuuure there's no connection between the two. And there was no skullduggery in Ohio. Suuuuuuuuure.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:39:00 AM

 
$40,000,000


That's, by sheer coincidence, both the amount spent to determine that, yes, Bill Clinton did get a blowjob from Monica Lewinsky as well as the amount raised for Georgie-Boy's Inaugurmization Prom.


$40,000,000.


Thankfully, the Simp Chimp upped the amount pledged to assist victims of the worst natural disaster in the last 50-60 years from $35,000,000 to $350,000,000. It remains to be seen if he'll wait a while and cheap out on that aid like he did for New York City Firefighters and Police, world poverty programs and AIDS assistance for Africa.


Still, $40,000,000.


How much is $40,000,000?


$40,000,000 in one-dollar bills would weigh 88105.73 pounds. That's 44 tons.


A stack of $40,000,000 in one-dollar bills would be almost 3 miles tall.


$40,000,000 would buy the following things for our troops in Iraq:

• 160 armored humvees
• 47,114 different sets of Level IIIA Ballistic Steel, Ceramic or Polyethylene Body Armor
• 200,000 care packages for overseas troops containing DVDs, magazines, cigarettes, cigars, letters from home, and some taped ACC basketball games.

What else will $40,000,000 buy?

Guess we'll never know, 'cause King George has to have his little party.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:39:00 AM

 
Unbought, Unbossed and Unforgettable


Shirley Chisolm is dead.


One of my earliest memories is seeing a campaign poster from her 1972 run for president in my father's office. The simplicity of it thrilled me, even at the tender age of 5. My father explained who she was, and what the words "Unbought and unbossed" meant.

"Our representative democracy is not working because the Congress that is supposed to represent the voters does not respond to their needs. I believe the chief reason for this is that it is ruled by a small group of old men."

There aren't many brave voices for the little folks in Congress right now, and that's a damn shame. We need more Shirley Chisolms and Barbara Jordans, and fewer DeLays and Hasterts.


Rest in peace, Shirley Chisolm. You done good.


posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:44:00 AM

 
2005 Predictions

I've decided to use my Amazing Psychic Powers ™ to look ahead into 2005 and make some predictions. Obviously, if any of these come true, I'm possessed of True Precognitive Powers. Those that don't come true are, of course, still accurate, but for a different year/dimension or are meant to be taken metaphorically.

1. Cuba's oil deposits will lead to the "discovery" of an imminent threat to the US from old Soviet nuclear missiles left behind after the Cuban Missile Crisis. US troops will invade Cuba and "liberate" the Cuban people, who will, despite the assurances of the residents of Little Havana in Miami, refuse to greet American troops and Cuban exiles with flowers and parades.
2. George Bush will prove to be even more divisive in 2005, to the point that alien civilizations that had pledged noninterference in Human affairs will make themselves known so that they can point out what a wanker he is. 51% of Americans will, with prompting from major cable news outlets, deride the aliens as "kinda French-looking".
3. Jerry Falwell will finally explode from the internal pressure of smug self-righteousness combined with rank hypocrisy. Lynchburg, VA will be drowned in a torrent of bile and black, tarry evil-goo. Pat Robertson will blame gays, feminists, liberals and muslims.
   
4. Ann Coulter will reveal her true self on national TV when she unhinges her lower jaw and swallows Wolf Blitzer whole.
   
5. The British will prove that they're smarter than 51% of Americans when they kick Tony Blair's lying ass out to the curb.
   

posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:32:00 AM

 
Resolutions


In the past, I've made grandiose plans to revamp my life, which fall apart some time in mid-February. Nothing special, I know - almost everyone else does the same. This year, then, I'm going to just set a couple of goals. If I hit them, fine. If not, I won't feel too bad.

1. Sleep more. Once the kids are in bed and the house is picked up, I should try to get my ass in bed.
2. No smoking. This is the big one, but the health damage and the cost just aren't worth the temporary nicotine rush.
3. Find more "Me" time. Time to decompress, to hang out, to read, to take naps. It won't happen every week, but I do need it.
4. Find more "Us" time. Time to go on a date with Melissa , even just for coffee. Maybe a weekend or two at some point this year.

I think those are achievable goals, and ones that will make a difference in my stress levels overall. That's what's important.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:24:00 PM

 
I Have A Visitor


Fresh from the Mirror Universe, it's EVIL KIRK!





I'd've got the Evil Spock action figure, but Amazon was sold out.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:12:00 AM

 
Feeling Marginally Better Today


But not a whole lot.


The hard part is making myself relax.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:25:00 AM

 
"You're lucky you came in when you did"


...said the doctor today.


Seems my left lung is chock-full of little pneumonia germies, and if I'd waited much longer to go in, I'd've had a mandatory hospital stay in my immediate future.


So I'm home for a week, under order to do as little as possible.


Which means Melissa is stuck with almost all of the childcare/housecare burden.


Fuckin' bacteria.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 3:49:00 PM

 
Horky New Year


I've had, to some degree or another, a pretty nasty chest cold for the last week or so. The plus side of this is that I've stopped smoking, but the negative side has been the nagging cough. Last night, I think I crossed some kind of threshold, because I'm sweating like a pig this morning. Not a good threshold to cross, methinks. I'll be hauling myself to the doctor today. Hopefully, she can find out what's wrong before I hork up a lung.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:38:00 AM