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Sunday, July 31, 2005
It's Hard Work! Preznit Bush, having worked day and night all summer, is headed off on his 50th vacation in 5 years. Dunno 'bout you guys, but someone taking that much vacation - it's positively French! Meanwhile, of course, the workers in America are seeing their pay stagnate, their pensions evaporate and their tax burdens increase. Must be nice, to be able to average 10 vacations per year. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:39:00 AM   | Saturday, July 30, 2005
Out And About In Austin Got up early and took the kids down to the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum today. We prefer to go to the Texas Memorial Museum on the UT Campus, as it's (a) free and (b) has fossils. Unfortunately, the TMM is closed for renovations at the moment. The State History Museum is interesting, but it gives very short shrift to Native Americans, apparently so that lots of stuff can be shown regarding the Alamo and the oil industry. I'd say it's worth a visit if you've got friends in from out of town and they're not inclined and/or allowed to go catch some live music. For kids, 6 and up will get more out of it, although the lack of hands-on exhibits is a point against it. Now, trying to get Alec down for a nap so I can take a nap. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 12:10:00 PM | Friday, July 29, 2005
My Days Of Not Taking Bigfoot Sightings Seriously Are Fast Coming To A Middle Remember the "sasquatch hair" that was getting analyzed last week? It was all over the news, it being so important and all. "Finally," the Wingnuts squealed, "Finally we've got something better than plaster casts of footprints and grainy photos of guys in monkey suits!" The University of Alberta went to work, temporarily setting aside whatever real research projects they had going to help out the Wingnut Brigade. Is anyone surprised that the hair was actually bison hair? I'm not. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 12:59:00 PM | Thursday, July 28, 2005
Molly Ivins on John Roberts She recommends we look at who's brung him to the dance. My first reaction to Roberts was: "Sounds like that's about as good as we can get. Quick, affirm him before they nominate Bork, Bolton or Pinochet." A conservative with good manners and no known nutball decisions or statements on his record? Hey, take him. At least he's not (whew!) a member of the Federalist Society.I say this is a fight worth making, even if we lose. Granted, the spineless tools in the Senate will, no doubt, roll over so BushCo can fuck 'em hard without lube again, all the while cheerfully nodding their heads enthusiatically to anything Bush says. I mean, come on - they knew - they FUCKING KNEW Karen Hughes had been questioned by Fitzgerald in the Plame investigation, and they didn't even bother to fucking show up at her confirmation hearing to ask her a single question. With friends like the Senate Democrats, who needs enemies? posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:34:00 AM | Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Got this from my good friend Abby. Google Earth - it's a downloadable program that searches google.maps satellite images to make a mappable planet earth. OMFG, it is so COOL! Peter, I can see your house from up here! posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:58:00 AM | Tuesday, July 26, 2005
You Know That Feeling? The one where it feels like someone's twisting the muscles in your lower back with a corkscrew? I got it. Shit, that hurts. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 5:34:00 PM | Calling Bullshit Will Marshall of the DLC thinks folks like me ain't patriotic enuff. I'll weave commentary through his Valuing PatriotismI can't agree more. Progressive patriotism - kind of redundant, but it's a little catchy. It's important to remind our fellow Americans that the values that made America great are inclusiveness, speaking truth to power and a struggle to make life better for all Americans. Right on, I say! Right on. Since 9/11, patriotism has become the most potent "values issue" in U.S. politics. To compete in America's heartland, Democrats must challenge Republicans' claim to be the authentic voice of American patriotism.Exactly! That's what I've been saying - dissent is a much more authentic expression of American values than any appeal to baseball, Mom and apple pie. Fighting back against the far right, that's almost as important. We can't afford to knuckle under to their carping, you know? Fight 'em in Congress, in the press, in bars, on buses - make it clear that the leadership of the GOP at this time is a bunch of greedy, grasping, unAmerican thugs. The problem for Democrats is that an important part of their base -- upscale white liberals -- seems torn about the meaning of patriotism. Republicans are ruthlessly effective in exploiting this ambivalence. Questioning Democrats' patriotism has been an ugly, but undeniably effective, GOP tactic from last year's "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" campaign against John Kerry to Karl Rove's recent canard that liberals counseled "therapy and understanding" rather than retaliation in response to al Qaeda's attacks on America.Ummm, you lost me there, Willie m'boy. Upscale white liberals? Exactly how many of those are there, that they're such an important part of "the base"? I'm lookin' at my friends, and while many of us are white, and most of us are liberal, ain't none of us "upscale". We're all middle class - some of us a little lower. We can't afford to send our kids to private schools, we don't drive fancy cars and many's the time we have to juggle bills so we can make our house payments. A lot of my friends have had their jobs "downsized" and "outsourced". My parents raised me to understand that patriotism included speaking up when you see the government doing wrong. The GOP leadership's smear tactics work because brave folks like Joe Lieberman and Joe Biden, not to mention assholes like you, act like a buncha chickenshits every time the right starts in with the carping. Trying to be the "GOP Lite" is not the way to show anything resembling a spine. Courage does not come from cowardice. Even so, many Americans are beginning to wonder just how much more Republican-style patriotism they can afford. In Washington today, conservative hotheads abound who think diplomacy is for sissies and who delight in throwing America's military weight around. They belittle longtime allies who have the temerity to disagree with Bush administration policy. They complain, illogically, that the United Nations is both hopelessly weak and an intolerable check on U.S. sovereignty. This belligerent, overbearing chauvinism has stirred anti-American passions around the world, made U.S. efforts in Iraq more costly and difficult, and tarnished America's moral reputation.You're damn right we're questioning the bullshit the Right is slinging. The progressives are the ones that opposed the Iraqi quagmire from the beginning. Others, like me, came around later. We mourn the loss of respect for America, and we worry that the mistake that is the war in Iraq will damage our national credibility for generations to come. Joe Lieberman, I seem to recall, has done everything but suck George Bush's dick to show he's on board with the "War On Terror". That's not terribly brave or patriotic, the way I see it. You might think that Congress would have its hands full with escalating violence in Iraq, exploding public debts, a growing competitive challenge from Asia, and plunging public confidence in President Bush's Social Security plan. But GOP super-patriots ignored such distractions and found time recently to ram through the House a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning -- of which there was a grand total of one incident in the entire United States last year.Yeah, and? It's not like the "centrists" did a whole hell of a lot to stop that nonsense. The "centrists", if I recall correctly, voted for the "Defense of Marriage Act", one of the most bigoted pieces of legislation to come out of the 1990s. Such antics give Democrats an opportunity to expose what lies beneath the fulsome facade of GOP patriotism -- an atavistic nationalism in which the ruling passion is the will to power, not love of country. The right answer to GOP jingoism, however, cannot be left-wing anti-Americanism. Of course, progressives can criticize their country and still be patriotic. Indeed, one of the highest forms of patriotism is being honest about your country's flaws and taking responsibility for fixing them. But it is what's in your heart that counts. Are your objections rooted in a warm and generous affection for your country, or in a curdled contempt for it? Too many Americans aren't sure if the left is emotionally on America's side. And that's a big problem for Democrats.Way to state the fuckin' obvious, shithead. The progressives are fighting like hell to keep America on the straight and narrow and shitbags like you are appeasing the right wing thugs and the neo-brownshirts every chance you get. You're setting up the same fucking straw man the right uses - criticizing America = hating America. "Curdled contempt" indeed! The only contempt for America I see is when you and the right equate honest dissent with treason. The left's unease with patriotism is rooted in a 1960s narrative of American arrogance and abuse of power. For many liberals who came of age during the protests against the Vietnam War, writes leftish commentator Todd Gitlin, "the most powerful public emotion of our lives was rejecting patriotism." As he and other honest liberals have acknowledged, the excesses of protest politics still haunt liberalism today and complicate Democratic efforts to develop a coherent stance toward American power and the use of force.It's always about the goddamn 1960s for the shitbags, ain't it? My parents are a little older than the Baby Boom, and their distrust of flagrant, shallow patriotism is based upon their experiences during the Civil Rights Movement. My personal distrust of the Phony Patriots is from the 1980s. Vietnam is, to me, just an example of how easy it is to fuck shit up real good when you let the flag-fuckers and jingoists make the decisions. All the more reason, then, to fight to prevent the flag-fuckers and jingoists from being able to make the decisions. When Americans ponder such questions today, their frame of reference is not the Vietnam War, but Sept. 11, 2001. The terrorist attacks evoked the most powerful upsurge in patriotic feeling since Pearl Harbor, and thrust national security back into the center of American politics. Democrats have yet to come to grips with this new reality. More than anything else, they need to show the country a party unified behind a new patriotism -- a progressive patriotism determined to succeed in Iraq and win the war on terror, to close a yawning cultural gap between Democrats and the military, and to summon a new spirit of national service and shared sacrifice to counter the politics of polarization.WHAT THE FUCK???? Tell me what the hell Iraq has to do with the "War on Terror"? I mean, sure, it's managed to inflame the entire Muslim world against us, and the people of Iraq now get to experience the thrill of daily suicide bombs plus American bombs and snipers, but I'm talking about before we invaded. What? That's right. Not a goddamn thing. To my mind, urging a focus on identifying root causes of terrorism and ending our dependence on foreign oil - that's thinking ahead. Charging into Iraq and bombing the shit out of people that had nothing to do with 9/11 and had never heard of Al Quaeda? That's just plain stupid. Democrats' most important task is to articulate a tough but smart strategy for winning the ideological struggle against Jihadist extremism. Yet many liberals remain fixated instead on Iraq. It's true that Team Bush has badly fumbled the occupation, but an anti-Iraq message alone won't reassure voters that Democrats can take charge of the nation's security. On the contrary, the conflation of partisan animus toward Bush with anti-war sentiment has shoved Democrats in a decidedly dovish direction.Fixated on Iraq? Hell, most of us are wondering why we're wasting our time there instead of catching Osama Bin Laden, and we're wondering why resources needed to strengthen rebuilding in Afghanistan were diverted to Bush's ego-booster in Iraq. Progressives want us safe, we just happen to think that getting most of the population of the world pissed off at us isn't the best way to be safer. Intellectually, of course, it's possible to separate Iraq and the war on terror. But as University of Maryland professor William Galston observed after the 2004 election, "President Bush succeeded in transforming the war in Iraq and the fight against terrorism into questions of basic values and American national identity." And that, Galston wrote, exposed old fissures among Democrats:More straw men. We have to separate Iraq from the "War on Terror" - Iraq is a waste of time, money and most importantly, people. Human lives are being pissed away in Iraq for no real reason save that Bush wanted to show how he was a strong, resolute leader. Michael Moore rejects the idea of a fight against terror? Not from what I know. Just because Michael Moore thinks we're not making the proper choices in fighting terrorism doesn't mean he's against democracy. This is the kind of crap that pisses me off - the DLC is falling for the GOP's bullshit hook, line and sinker. They're allowing the goddamn far-right nutjobs to frame the fucking fight. I don't agree with Bush's principles - his "principles" of preemptive war based upon lies, of using 9/11 as a fucking campaign tool, of kowtowing to the likes of Randall Terry, James Dobson and Pat Robertson - I can't support those "principles" any more than I can support his policies of tax cuts for the rich, "No Child Left Behind", illegal detention or licking clean the asshole of the oil industry. You think I reject fighting for democracy, fuckface? Come say that to my goddamn face and see how many teeth you're shitting a day or so later. A recent Century Foundation study found that just one-half of Democrats say dismantling al Qaeda should be among America's two top foreign policy goals; more actually ranked outsourcing as a bigger worry. Only 51 percent of Democrats trust their party more than Republicans on "maintaining a strong military." And 71 percent say the Iraq war has made them more reluctant to back the use of force in the future.And a recent poll of all Americans found that cancer was a bigger worry for everyone than terrorism. Al Qaeda can't be dismantled - it's a loosely allied group of terrorist cells, not an army occupying territory we can invade and control. To defeat al Qaeda, we have to attack the root causes of terrorism - the failure of Western societies to more fully integrate their muslim populations, the dictatorships propped up by the US and other Western nations, the grinding poverty many Muslims face on a daily basis. Brokering a fair and honest peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Leveling Fallujah doesn't count, and it sure as shit didn't help. Fuck, yes we're reluctant to use force - in large part because our military is stretched far too thin to do anything. It'll take at least a generation before our military is restored to its pre-Iraq levels of strength. Such attitudes aren't likely to allay voters' doubts about Democrats' resolve to make them safer from terrorist attacks. Neither are demands by left-wing Democrats and the anti-war group, MoveOn.org, that the United States withdraw its troops from Iraq. Rather than offering fresh fodder to Karl Rove, the party would do better to heed Sens. Joe Biden, John Kerry, Evan Bayh, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who have set an example for responsible, progressive patriotism. They have balanced blunt criticism of the Bush administration's blunders with concrete suggestions for relieving the strain on U.S. forces in Iraq, broadening international support for the Iraqi government, and speeding up the pace of reconstruction.Don't you fucking blame us for the inability of the dumbasses in the Senate to stand up against the GOP. Joe Biden? That goddamn whore to the credit industry? Hillary's sucking up to the Family Research Council over badly-animated softcore sex scenes in GTA: San Andreas. Kerry couldn't get his fucking message straight during the whole fucking campaign, and couldn't even mount a coherent response to the Swift Boaters. These are the same folks that think an agreement that lets Janice Rogers Brown, William Pryor and Patricia Owen get approved for Federal judgeships while preventing anything so nasty as an actual fight is a good thing. You want to speed up reconstruction in Iraq? Speak out against the fucking war profiteers at Halliburton. Ask about the $8,000,000,000 that went missing under Paul Bremer's stint as Imperial Proconsul in Iraq. Find out why we're handing out millions to US companies to do jobs that could be done by Iraqis faster and cheaper. Don't knock around the folks that are trying to keep you honest. Of course, as the opposition party, Democrats have a responsibility to hold the White House accountable for the painfully high price we've paid in Iraq, the thousands killed and wounded, and the billions of dollars spent. But they must do so in a way that makes it clear they are rooting for America to succeed in Iraq.What, lie? We can't succeed in Iraq - not now. Bush's idiotic mistakes have ensured that Iraq will remain a quagmire and festering cesspool of war for years, if not decades. Until we've got Bush and his cronies out of power, we can't force any changes in policy there. The motherfuckers at the DLC oughtta be working to achieve that instead of dropping trousers and bending over like pledges at the GOP frat house. You seem to think our cause is just because we're Americans, and it's just not like that. Progressives are fighting to make sure America lives up to its ideals. America's ideals have nothing to do with the war in Iraq. As they catalogue the administration's many mistakes, Democrats should also attend to the other side of the balance sheet. That side shows that our forces and their allies have toppled one of the world's most odious tyrants; upheld the principle of collective security; liberated a nation of 24 million; made possible Iraq's hopeful experiment in representative self-government; and changed the strategic equation in the Arab-Israeli conflict.At what cost? How many American lives has it cost? More importantly, how many Iraqi lives? Is there a way we could have avoided this cost and achieved the same ends? I guess we'll never know. Bush rushed us into war, spreading lie after lie after lie to get us there. That's what we're fighting about - a war based upon lies isn't a good way to spread freedom, and democracy cannot and will not come at gunpoint. These are considerable, and noble, accomplishments, but they could all be squandered if we give up and come home too soon. Just as the Bush administration has made itself look foolish by its relentlessly upbeat assessments of a supposedly waning insurgency, progressives shouldn't leap to the premature conclusion that we are doomed to failure in Iraq.And that's what we're after. Progressives have fought from day one against secret detention facilities, fought against Bush's pissing on the Geneva Conventions, fought to bring to light the abuses fostered by those policies. What have you lot done? Yet the revelation that some U.S. troops aren't saints should not come as too great a shock, at least to grownups. By dwelling obsessively on U.S. misdeeds while ignoring the far more heinous crimes of what is quite possibly the most barbaric insurgency in modern times, anti-war critics betray an anti-American bias that undercuts their credibility.There you go again - blaming the troops for something that was planned and approved at the highest level of government. Hell, Joe Biden enthusiastically voted for Alberto Gonzales to become Attorney General - after the memos in which he justified torture were made public. We have to focus attention on the mistakes of American soldiers and their leaders. We must, or the world won't bother to listen to anything we say about those attacking us. Dick Durbin didn't make a mistake until he apologized - he was quoting a FUCKING FBI REPORT ON CONDITIONS AT GUANTANAMO BAY. Tell me, Marhsall, is it American to chain prisoners to the floor in an unheated cell for 24 hours, so they're left to shiver naked in their own shit? Is it American to piss in the ventilation shafts of cells so that prisoners are spattered in urine? Is it American to keep innocent men locked up in those conditions for a couple of years without access to lawyers, without charging them with any crimes? Is it American to make prisoners form naked dogpiles? To abuse men, women and children? To allow situations like this: "I saw a camp for children there," he said. "Boys, under the age of puberty. There were certainly hundreds of children in this camp." Al-Baz said he heard a 12-year-old girl crying. Her brother was also held in the jail. One night guards came into her cell. "She was beaten," said al-Baz. "I heard her call out, 'They have undressed me. They have poured water over me.'" 'Cause to me, that ain't the American way. That ain't the truth and justice we're supposed to be about. Hell, yes I'm gonna speak out against that. Hell, everyone agrees the terrorists are bad folks. No one reads about a car bomb going off in a crowd of children and says, "WOO-HOO!" Why is it wrong, then, to point out that our government is embarking upon a course that could, if left unchecked, lead to the horrors we rightly fought against in WWII? Americans are justly proud of their Armed Forces. Along with the flag and the English language, the U.S. military is an honored emblem of national identity and unity. This is especially true in the heartland battleground states, where Democrats must do better if they hope to recapture the White House and Congress. Unfortunately, the Armed Forces have long been estranged from Democrats in general and liberal elites in particular. So another key task for progressive patriotism is to close the cultural gap between Democrats and the military.Those are all false emblems, though. The flag is just a patterned piece of cloth. The English language is one language among many. Our military forces are nothing more than that. What makes a difference is our Constitution. That's what's different. It's not perfect, but it points us that way. Jacking off to pictures of the US flag, insisting that speaking English is the mark of a true American or slavishly worshipping the military is not the way to honor our ideals. All of the above depend upon the framework of our Constitution. Progressives want to keep the frame safe and strong above all else. Traditionally nonpartisan, today's military is even more polarized than the rest of society. According to a 2004 Annenberg survey, 47 percent of officers identify themselves as Republicans, 31 percent as independents, and a scant 15 percent as Democrats. A 2003 Military Times poll showed a similar ideological skew, with 50 percent of officers identifying themselves as conservatives, 40 percent as moderates,and just 7 percent as liberals. (Among voters in the 2004 presidential election, 34 percent were conservatives, 21 percent liberals, and 45 percent moderates.)Hmmm. Officers. Last I checked, we had more than officers in the military. I don't have any data at hand, but I would think based upon the information so enthusiastically reported there that Marshall might be, Idunno, cherry-picking to bolster his case. And again with the "liberal elites"! I don't know any liberal elites - not a one. I can see some, though, and they're all, oddly enough, on the DLC.... I'm sure, of course, the GOP efforts to force Armed Forces Radio to carry Rush Limbaugh and other far-right blowhards had nothing to do with any rightward tilt, real or perceived. Conversely, the military is not always held in high esteem in what might be called the European wing of the Democratic party -- secular liberal elites in the deep-blue Northeast and West Coast. Frank Schaeffer, a Boston writer, tells the story of how shocked his upper-middle-class neighbors were when, in 1999, his high-achieving son joined the U.S. Marine Corps rather than follow his peers to elite universities:It's hardly confined solely to the "liberal elites". Mary Cheney isn't out there protecting her privacy in Afghanistan. Jenna and Barbara Bush haven't shaved their heads, joined the Marines and headed off to Iraq. In fact, if you pulled a list, you'd find more Democrats in congress that have honorably served in the military than Republicans. Low recruitment numbers aren't something that can be laid at the feet of the Progressive movement, not by any stretch of the imagination. Congressional Democrats sometimes make the mistake of believing they can spend their way back into the military's affections. So they call for big increases in veterans' benefits, health care, housing, and other programs to enhance military families' quality of life. These are important, but military families don't want to be treated as just another special interest group. What matters most are intangibles -- being recognized and honored for the sacrifices they make to preserve our way of life.Funny, I know folks in the military who say just the opposite - that "honoring and recognizing" don't mean SHIT without a decent life. How DARE progressives suggest that our government take better care of the men and women who were maimed in war? How DARE they suggest that food stamps and charity pantries aren't the best way for the families of the guards-men and -women serving in Iraq to get fed? How dare they? Easy. Progressives want fair play. They see cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans in a time of crisis as wrong. They see slashing funding for the Veterans' Administration when tens of thousands of Americans are coming home from Iraq wounded and stressed as a crime. Besides, the best way for Democrats to show support for our Armed Forces now is to rescue them from the Bush administration's attempts to win the war on terror on the cheap. Almost the entire burden of this fight has fallen on just two groups of Americans: members of the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps. Many defense analysts warn that the deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan have stretched the Army to the breaking point. The Army has failed repeatedly to meet its recruiting targets, as have the Guard and Reserves, whose members have been forced under "stop loss" rules repeatedly to extend their overseas deployments.Progressives have been saying that all along. They've been saying that Iraq is a quagmire, bogging down the Army and Marines. An increase in pay and benefits might make more Americans willing to join the Army and Marines, but a clear exit strategy for Iraq would no doubt help more. Right now, folks see that even joining the National Guard can mean you'll be stuck away from your family for a year, maybe two, while the folks that started this war sit in air-conditioned comfort in Washington, DC sipping martinis. Democrats ought to insist on a major expansion of the military, by as many as 100,000 troops. Some of these troops should be channeled into the post-conflict and nation-building specialties that we have been chronically short of in Iraq: linguists, special forces, psychological operations, civil affairs, and economic reconstruction. Rather than add to Bush's budget deficits, however, Democrats should insist on paying for a larger force by rolling back the administration's unconscionable wartime tax cuts. This would neatly frame the real choice facing patriotic Americans: a stronger military versus tax cuts for the privileged.Once again, that's what we've been saying all along. Nice of you to pretend this is your idea, but we're not buying it. I don't recall any progressives, not even the so-called "liberal elite", suggesting that Bush's tax cuts were a good idea. We fought like hell against them, before and after they were passed. It was "centrists" like the DLC that suggested tax cuts might help stimulate the economy, that listened to Alan Greenspan lie like a cheap rug when he claimed that the real threat to America's economy was paying off the national debt too early. Way to jump on the bandwagon, fuckmunch. Marshall winds it up with this, which might as well have been written for him by a GOP hack: Patriotism is the ultimate values issue. Democrats need not be embarrassed by it. And they ought not to let Republicans monopolize the emblems of national pride and honor. Democrats need to be choosier about the political company they keep, distancing themselves from the pacifist and anti-American fringe. And they need to have faith in their fellow citizens: Americans will accept constructive criticism of their country if they know the critic's heart is in the right place.I'd say that patriotism is used to cover up the ultimate values issue - the principle of freedom based upon a rule of law, the principle of respect for human rights. Marshall tars progressives with the exact same brush used by the right, and claims to be "helping". Pacifists are not anti-American and a desire for justice, fair play and a better world does not equal treason. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:20:00 AM | Monday, July 25, 2005
Note To Self: NEVER SPAM RUSSIANS Russia’s Biggest Spammer Brutally Murdered in Apartment. Vardan Kushnir, notorious for sending spam to each and every citizen of Russia who appeared to have an e-mail, was found dead in his Moscow apartment on Sunday, Interfax reported Monday. He died after suffering repeated blows to the head. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 2:34:00 PM | Good Government Is Good For Business Krugman points out why government programs make a difference in the economy: There has been fierce competition among states hoping to attract a new Toyota assembly plant. Several Southern states reportedly offered financial incentives worth hundreds of millions of dollars.So Alabama is hoist by its own petard - low taxes mean bad schools, which gets you an uneducated workforce, which in turn loses you jobs - desperately needed jobs, in this economy. A friend calls this "The New Feudalism", others call it the Wal-Martization of America's economy. Whatever you call it, the result is the same: less affluent workers and a crappy economy for everyone except, of course, the fatcats at the top. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:52:00 AM | Sunday, July 24, 2005
Lazy Afternoon Melissa's taking a nap, the kids are quietly playing. Drew's near the end of Harry Potter. I'll be hauling the kids to the park later on, but now it's just a nice, lazy day. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:39:00 PM | Holy Crap! It's 1:25 in the goddam morning! Shit, I gotta get to sleep. You guys are on your own - just clean up when you're done, OK? posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:25:00 AM | Saturday, July 23, 2005
It Is With Great Trepidation... ... that I note the release of the trailer for V for Vendetta. It's a damn fine comic - one of Alan Moore's best (and that's saying a lot, given how he's raised the bar so high) - and his comics have a very poor record of making it into movies. The trailer is here. Still not sure about it - from the flashes shown in the trailer, they hit all the high points of the comic, V's costume looks about right, and the trailer ends with Hugo Weaving intoning, "Remember, remember, the fifth of November...". I just don't know, though - having been bitten before, I'm leery of this project. I'm remaining guardedly neutral about V for the time being, hoping that it won't suck. And that's the real crime, being put in a position where the best I can reasonably hope for is that a film doesn't completely suck. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:50:00 AM | Friday, July 22, 2005
Friday Five - A Few of My Favorite Words This week, Gord wants to know: What are your five favorite words (in any language), and why do you like them so much?I like words. Words are fun. Puns are more fun. Etymology is one of the topics I could happily geek out on until the cows come home. Without further ado, then, here they are:
Honorable mention goes to: Schadenfreude, fuck, goat-raper and tamale. The other Friday Fivers express their logophiliae here. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:19:00 AM | Thursday, July 21, 2005
No, Actually, I Think You're Wrong Not Harry Reid, at least not in this case. See, the Democrats in the Senate have set up a web site to illustrate ways in which Democrats work with people of faith to help the poor. Never mind that most Democrats are "people of faith" - the intent is to make it clear that, rather than being the enemy of religion, the Democrats are inclusive and welcoming, concerned more with the betterment of society than creating artifical divides based on hate and foolish cherry-picking of scripture. The Rethugs, of course, got their knickers all a-twist over this: "Folks will support the candidates and the parties that reflect their beliefs," Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz said. "There is one party is that is creating jobs, that is achieving accountability in the classroom, that is making sure that Americans enjoy retirement security in the future. And that's that Republican Party."Let's check the record, shall we? Who's "creating jobs"? Bush and the majority-Republican Congress have presided over more lost jobs than any president since Herbert Hoover (another Republican, one notes). Just this week, Hewlett-Packard has announced it's slashing 14,500 jobs. Wages are just barely keeping ahead of inflation, and that doesn't factor in the outsourcing of thousands of jobs to India and China. Thanks to the clowns running the show these days, Wal-Mart, known for its refusal to pay either a living wage or health insurance, is the model to which businesses aspire. Job creation doesn't count if you're creating jobs that can't support people. Achieving accountability in the classroom? I don't think so. NCLB is designed to force schools into rigid, narrow molds that strip the funding from schools and students that need it the most. It's like taking a chainsaw to the public school system in America. Now, about that "retirement security"... Wasn't it Bush that wanted to gut Social Security so we'd be just like Chile? Under Bush's watch, United Airlines was allowed to ditch its responsibility to properly fund its pensions, which Hewlett-Packard is about to do as well. Enron was thanks to Republican "deregulation" of the energy market. How many Americans lost their retirement security as a result of that? How many Americans have given up on even looking for work under the watch of the Republicans? How many have cashed in their retirement savings to keep afloat just a little bit longer? Fuck you very much, you lying ratbastard theiving traitors. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:50:00 AM | Wednesday, July 20, 2005
[Insert transporter joke here] James Doohan is dead. Doohan died at 5:30 a.m. (1330 GMT) at his Redmond, Washington, home with his wife of 28 years, Wende, at his side, Los Angeles agent and longtime friend Steve Stevens said. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, he said.James Doohan was a good guy, from all accounts. While he was initially uncomfortable with being typecast in the iconic role of a cantankerous Scots engineer, he grew to accept it, and revel in it. When I got hooked on Star Trek, Scotty was my second favorite character (Bones was first - DeForest Kelly played a terrific misanthropic skeptic, a mindset I could groove to even at the tender age of 7) and the first dialect I taught myself to imitate was the porridge-thick burr of "Scotty". It's a natural part of aging that the people and icons of your youth die and fade away - I'm not surprised to hear of Doohan's death, just sadly resigned. Shocked was when I learned at age 9 that Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh, who I saw every year in "Gone With the Wind", were long-dead. Shocked was figuring out that Clayton Moore was not really a masked lawman, riding the Texas plains with his trusty Native American sidekick and passing out silver bullets to all and sundry. These days, I just sigh and write off another part of my youth. Godspeed, Mr. Doohan. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 12:42:00 PM | Tuesday, July 19, 2005
The Fucking Stupidest Guy On The Face Of The Earth Remember Douglas Feith? He's one of Dumbsfeld's cronies in the Pentagon, the guy that ran the Office of Special Plans, created with the express purpose of "stovepiping" intelligence related to Iraq and the (nonexistent) WMD program of Saddam Hussein. It seems Dougie has an admission to make: I don't think there is any question that we as an administration, instead of giving proper emphasis to all major elements of the rationale for war, overemphasized the WMD aspect.So you're admitting there are no WMD - that's progress, of a sort - until recently, you fuckwits were still insisting that the weapons had all been magically transported to Syria. Preznit Bush has stated publicly that there was no relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, although Dick Cheney has apparently failed to read that memo. What rationales, exactly, are left? Oh, yes! Spreading Freedom at Gunpoint and Pissing In Someone Else's Soup. The Freedom has been spread to include thousands of Iraqi civilians, who are now free to be blown up by suicide bombers, shot by American snipers and, if they're really, really lucky, die of easily-prevented diseases. In fact, their So thanks, you fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth. If your mother had been a little less on the ball, maybe you'd have chugged a bottle of Dran-o and saved us all some hassle. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:37:00 PM | Monday, July 18, 2005
Republicans: Bad For National Security Seriously, they're just bad fuckin' news. Just during this administration (and we'll conveniently skip the whole Iran-Contra thing, as well as Prescott Bush's dealings with the Nazis, mmm-K?), they've managed to trash our national security apparatus in so many different ways.
This is by no means a complete list - just the highlights, as it were. Despite the efforts of the spin-meisters like the deeply closeted hypocrite Ken Mehlman, the crimes of this administration are coming clearly to light. Not since the days of the Confederacy have so many in the government of the United Stated worked so hard to hurt America. Thanks, Republicans. Thanks a lot for all the many, many ways in which you've hurt America. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 2:16:00 PM | Sunday, July 17, 2005
Harry Potter and the 3 Book Household One for me, one for Melissa and one for Drew. Not that we're book nuts or anything. I'm on page 469. What amazes me is that, while I'm pretending to be typing a horrible spoiler, Ron in no way dies and Hermione doesn't have sex with Percy. Add in Voldemort's failure to eat human flesh, kill Neville and his troubled relationship with Dumbledore and you've got what, properly edited and hidden, looks like a terrible spoiler, and shouldn't you just read the damn book for yourself instead of trying to find out spoilers? Hah! posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:48:00 AM | Saturday, July 16, 2005
Without A Net Melissa's on her way to visit a friend in Birmingham. She'll be back Tuesday, and in the meantime I'm wrangling the kids. We've got a full day planned today - a run to Costco and then we're all going to Inner Space Cavern. Tomorrow, swimming! 2:57 PM:Everyone had fun - Drew and Fran had question after question about the fossils in the cave, while Alec kept squealing in delight and making the sign for "more! more!" every time the lights went out. They also had a little placer mining activity - I bought the kids a bag of placer dirt and let them sift out two big fistfuls of rocks, minerals and gems. Then we went to a riverside park, ate lunch and picked up about 20 lbs. of fossil clam and oyster shells. Alec's asleep, the big kids are (!) quiet downstairs, and I'm trying desperately to stay awake. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:22:00 AM | Friday, July 15, 2005
Friday Five - I'm A Nice Guy! This week, Ritu asks: What are the five nicest things you have ever done for someone else?This is a tough one, as I'm not one to dwell on the nice things I do. I'm more prone to fret about ways in which I feel like I've screwed up. I'm not going to make a list of the absolute 5 nicest things I've ever done, just the top 5 I can remember today. (1) iPod - I got Melissa an iPod for her birthday last year. She's been really happy with it. (2) Books - I share my books liberally without condition. If you come to my house, I'm more than willing to let you borrow a book. Only rarely do I have to dress up like a ninja and sneak over to someone else's house and steal it back. (3) Vasectomy - It's a big deal to have someone cut open your nutsack, yank some tubes around and cauterize them with a piece of hot metal. It's a big deal, but I did it for Melissa. (4) Food - I keep bags of nonperishable food in my car to give to homeless people. (5) Me - I'm a regular fuckin' ray of sunshine, loyal to my friends and willing to admit fault when I am in the wrong. My dashing good looks, sparkling wit and ability to cook are just icing on the cake. The other Friday Fivers engage in self-promotion here. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:23:00 AM | Thursday, July 14, 2005
14 Juillet On this date, 216 years ago, the citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille. Since 1790, it's been celebrated in France as Bastille Day. I've always had a soft spot for the French - their love for wine, l'amour and smelly cheese, their art, their respect for unions and socially progressive employment and most importatly their support for the American Revolution. The French understand, more than everyone else except the Russians, the best way to deal with royalty. The principles of the French Revolution, Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité, are pretty damn good ones. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen to the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution (all to some degree informed by each other) and you've got the three single most important documents to come out of the elightenment. So Bastille Day is a good holiday, in my book. Some folks here in the US might disparage the French, but in my book they're alright. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:11:00 AM | Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Amusing And Weird Got hip to this via Steve Jackson Games' Daily Illuminator, a great source for game news and a pretty good assortment of interesting links: Vampire Domestication. It was, according to the notes, originally a powerpoint demo and speech given by the creator at Ad Astra some time ago. It's safe for work, but does run long - about 30 minutes. Sound is required. It's clever, witty and an excellent example of the kind of thing I'd love to do were I running the right RPG. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:45:00 AM | Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Meat From A Vat It's a common element in future societies in SF these days - meat grown in vats or tanks, cultured for a specific flavor. It ends the necessity for large herds of food animals and the attendant environmental degradation. Now, researchers have made a breakthrough that may allow large-scale growth of animal muscle tissue on an industrial scale. In a paper in the June 29 issue of Tissue Engineering, a team of scientists, including University of Maryland doctoral student Jason Matheny, propose two new techniques of tissue engineering that may one day lead to affordable production of in vitro - lab grown -- meat for human consumption. It is the first peer-reviewed discussion of the prospects for industrial production of cultured meat.This holds immense promise for both the environment and world hunger. Eventually, it might be possible to have a meatmaker on every countertop, producing meat of any variety on demand. It does raise some interesting questions, as well - would vat meat be kosher? If one's ethical code does not allow the consumption of animal flesh, would this count? How long before some gourmand sticks human cells in the meatmaker to allow the creation of Soylent Green a la orange? The researchers involved in this work have founded a nonprofit, New Harvest, to further advaqnce this and other technology. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:12:00 AM | Monday, July 11, 2005
Cry Me A River, Titty-Babies Republican whiners get their knickers all a-twist over an "insult" to the Pretzeldent: Republicans took aim at Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday for a speech comparing President Bush to Mad magazine's freckle-faced, "What, me worry?" kid, Alfred E. Neuman.WAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! That mean ol' Hillary! Since when, I wonder, has insulting the low-grade moron currently fingerpainting the Oval Office with his own feces a crime? I mean, if calling Preznit Bush a turd-gobbling bag of pustulent grease is a crime, lock me the hell up and throw away the motherfuckin' key! What next, I can't refer to Dick Cheney as a soulless bugfucking licker of asscracks? Seriously, this is an effort to get the Noise Machine going to pull attention away from Karl Rove's involvement in the criminal outing of Valerie Plame. It's about getting publicity - any publicity - for Ed Cox, Hillary's opponent in the 2006 Senate race who isn't, IIRC, polling too high right now. Iraq looks to the average American more and more like Vietnam Redux, with sand dunes instead of jungle. The London bombings have pretty much put paid to the "flypaper" theory that fighting "terrorists" in Iraq would somehow miraculously prevent them from multitasking. The ongoing investigation into the efforts by someone in the White House, probably Rove, to make Valerie Plame a target because her husband called out the Bushies on their bullshit. I don't hold out any hope that Karl Rove will get to take a nice little "perp walk" into Federal Custody, nor that he'll get for free in prison the services he formerly had to pay Jeff Gannon $1000 per weekend to get. As George Bush the Elder showed us, the Bushes are not above issuing pardons to any criminal that might be able to tell the truth about what they're up to if that's what it takes to keep 'em from talking - and if anyone knows where this misAdministration's skeletons are buried, it's that fat son of a diseased sow, Karl Rove. In the meantime, remember this: If calling George Bush a goat-raping sonofabitch is wrong, do you really want to be right? posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 2:01:00 PM | Melissa On Patriotism In her latest column, Melissa tells it like it is: I'm not going to mince words here. If you think that dirty politics is justifiable so long as your guy wins, you're not a patriot. If you believe that your faith should be established as a state religion, and your sacraments and traditions should be forced on all Americans, you're not a patriot.There's more, and it's fantastic. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:20:00 AM | Random Links Of Rage Once upon a time, we elbowed our way onto and into this continent by giving small pox infected blankets to native Americans.Isn't that charming? Thanks, Paul! The message is clear - if we want to remain strong, we've got some Untermenschen to clear out of the way. It began as a shouting match on a busy Capitol Hill street corner during the frenetic morning commute, a bike-vs.-car incident not uncommon in a big city.What a manly man he is! Why, he could have strained something pushing that 105-lb ballerina to the ground! The usual suspects on the right are already declaring victory over the deficit, and proclaiming vindication for the Laffer Curve - the claim that tax cuts pay for themselves, because they have such a miraculous effect on the economy that revenue actually goes up.Laffer Curve my hairy, white ass. "Trickle Down" economics. Feh - the only thing that trickles down on the folks at the bottom is the piss of the rich. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:10:00 AM | Sunday, July 10, 2005
Update on Cyrus Kar For 50 days, Cyrus Kar has enjoyed an all-expenses paid trip of the Now, it seems, the military has decided to let him go. Oddly enough, this decision came just as Mr. Kar's family filed a petition for habeas corpus. No explanation is forthcoming for Mr. Kar's extended detention. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:23:00 AM | Saturday, July 09, 2005
"And thirdly, it's simply cool" Scientists at the Max Planck Institute are working to reconstruct Neanderthal DNA. German and U.S. scientists have launched a project to reconstruct the Neanderthal genome, the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology said Wednesday.A co-worker asked me if I thought we'd have Neanderthals running around within a few years as a result of this, but I just don't see that happening for many resons, the immense difficulty (Jurassic Park notwithstanding)involved in, as I recall hearing a geneticist state somewhere, "creating a chicken without an egg". Still, a full (or mostly full) sequence of Neanderthal DNA would assist greatly in determining if the Neanderthal were a separate offshoot of the genus homo or a branch off of our line. As Edward Rubin, a geneticist from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, put it, "Firstly, we will learn a lot about the Neanderthals. Secondly, we will learn a lot about the uniqueness of human beings. And thirdly, it's simply cool." posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:19:00 AM | Friday, July 08, 2005
Friday Five - Bad Mornings This week, Laura wants to know: Here's a question you may interpret however you wish: name five most unpleasant awakenings you've experienced!Most mornings are unpleasant awakenings, considering that I'm waking up with the knowledge that I've got to get out of bed and go in to work/wrangle the kids/interact with lots of different people. I'll try to narrow it down some, though.
The other Friday Fivers and their litanies of unpleasantness are listed here. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:03:00 AM | Thursday, July 07, 2005
London With the news out of London this morning, I'm somewhat at a loss for words. I'm still waiting to hear from all of our friends in London - the odds are they're OK, but I just want to be sure. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:03:00 AM | Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Earwiggery Mahir and dancing hamsters are definitely a force for Evil in this world, but All Your Base are not belong to them, thanks to the Viking Kittens and their badger allies. It's a fact that Peter Pan has on more than one occasion complained, "Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me!", but we cannot let that stop us from our quest for the perfect meme. A meme that trumps all others. In the words of the ancients, one meme to rule them all, one meme to find them, one meme to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. To that end, then, I have found another one. You may prepare yourselves, attempt to steel your will, but you are doomed to succumb to the siren call of... posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:22:00 PM | The Wisdom Of Rick Santorum The folks at Capitol Buzz have taken a bullet for the rest of us. They've actually read the shitfest that is Rick Santorum's It Takes A Family and posted some of the turd-gems he excreted: "By asking the right question, we can see that when it comes to socialization, mass education is really the aberration, not homeschooling. Never before in human history have a majority of children spent at least half their waking hours in the presence of 25 to 35 unrelated children of exactly the same age (and usually the same socio-economic status), with only one adult to keep order and provide basic mentoring. Never before and never again after their years of mass education will any person live and work in such a radically narrow, age-segregated environment. It’s amazing that so many kids turn out to be fairly normal, considering the weird socialization they get in public schools." (It Takes a Family, 386)It's easy to insist that your wife stay home and take care of the kids when you're pulling down almost $200K. Let's think about it, though - do you really want to take parenting advice from a guy that thinks it's normal to haul a dead fetus home from the hospital for his kids to cuddle? The man that thinks homosexuality leads directly to bestiality (and what is it, exactly, with these right-wing nutjobs and their obsession with animal fucking?) also thinks that slavery wasn't as bad as abortion, that women like Hillary Clinton are the true threat to America. With any luck, the people of Pennsylvania will get their act together in 2006 and throw his lying, hypocritical, dog-sex-obsessed ass out on the street. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 3:55:00 PM | Living While Muslim, Part II Cyrus Kar has lived in the United States since he was 2 years old. He's lived an all-American life: High school football, college, graduate school, he's served in the US Navy and Naval Reserve. He's the son of an Iranian physician, and was a strong believer in the Neo-Clowns' theory of "exporting democracy". He's also in detention in Iraq, charged with nothing, guilty of nothing save being of Iranian descent. No charges, no trial, no judicial review. Since the middle of May, he's been on an all-expenses-paid tour of the fine, humane facilities US troops run in Iraq. Like a lot of aspiring filmmakers in Los Angeles, Cyrus Kar was obsessed with his project, a documentary about an ancient Persian king who championed tolerance and human rights even as he built an empire that stretched across the Near East.Members of Mr. Kar's family have spoken with him in a few hurried phone calls and have learned that he's being held by Americans, and while he's not being tortured now, he was earlier on in his detention. This is an American citizen, being held without charge or trial by American troops. An American citizen that has been tortured. Sure, the Defense Department claims, "We have absolutely no indications of any mistreatment." This is the same Defense Department that put Lyndie England and PFC Graynor in charge of abusing men, women and children in Abu Ghraib, the same Defense Department that has Marines pissing on detainees in Guantanamo Bay (more people held without charge or trial or access to a lawyer...). It's the same Defense Department that's insisting that we've got enough troops in Iraq despite the statements of generals and military experts to the contrary. I'm not buying it. Torture, illegal detention and abuse are bad no matter who gets it - a cab driver from Afghanistan, an Iraqi grandmother, a naturalized American citizen - it's always wrong. It's always a violation of what we should stand for as Americans. I'll say it again - if the best we can say is that we're not quite as awful as Pol Pot's Cambodia, or that we're really a bit better than Stalin's USSR, or that, you know, at least we don't kill them - if that's the best we can say, then we should be ashamed of ourselves. Thomas Paine, Henry Thoreau, Eugene Debs, Martin Luther King, Jr - they expected a little bit more from America and we should, too. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:43:00 AM | Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Picking Up The Pieces A pretty successful party yesterday - not a huge crowd, but lots of interesting conversation. Saw some new faces, missed some old ones and in general had a good time. Melissa's a little under the weather today - Alec had a difficult time sleeping last night, and Melissa's really tired as a result. I'm off work today to help haul kids to appointments and corral the chaos. More spleenage tomorrow, I promise. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:16:00 AM | Monday, July 04, 2005
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. I remember the first time I read this - I was 7, reading a book about the American Revolution. I pored over this, looking up a good many of the words and asking a lot of questions about what it meant. 30 years later, it still moves me to tears to read it. We've got some good ideals here, but we're still a long way from realizing most of them. Good enough reason to fight. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 6:21:00 AM | Sunday, July 03, 2005
Getting Ready Mom, Pop - you can start laughing your asses off. We're getting the house ready today for our annual 4th of July party. Frosty beer will be consumed, meat will be grilled and I will detonate explosive devices. As part of the prep, I told the kids to clean their rooms. In the past, I or Melissa have wound up doing most of the work, and I decided that this time it would be different. Thus began four hours of pleading, bribing, shouting, whining and weeping. As the kids stopped cleaning to play with a toy, I took the toy away. When they left their rooms, I carried them back in. I understand now why my parents got that little twitchy thing next to their eyes when they gazed upon the cluttered piles of books and laundry that filled my bedroom. In the middle of this, the doorbell rang. At the door was a woman about my age and her daughter, in the 8-10 range. It turns out she grew up in our house and was in the neighborhood and decided to knock on our door. It was interesting talking to her and hearing about the history of the house and the neighborhood (cue Eddie Izzard: "No, surely not, no. No one was alive then!"), if a bit surreal. Her daughter let it slip that her mother had been dreaming of the house, and asked if we were going to sell it to please give it to them so her mother would stop talking about it. That got me wondering, though, about the house in Atlanta I lived in. A family friend still lives on the block, and she's given us updates on the house over the last 24(!) years. I think the next time I go to Atlanta, I'll go knock on the door of the old house and ask if I can take a look around. Hopefully they won't sic the dogs on me or anything. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 5:18:00 PM | Saturday, July 02, 2005
Karl Rove Named In Plame Papers I can only hope this leads to something that sends the fat turd to prison. Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to a federal judge, revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source or sources in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant. Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, now claims that at least two authoritative sources have confirmed that one name is top White House mastermind Karl Rove.Wouldn't it be nice if turd-blossom Rove and Robert Novak each got a large cellmate intent upon sodomizing them for the next 10-15? Dare to dream, I sez. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:39:00 PM | Friday, July 01, 2005
Friday Five - Not If You Paid Me Gord asks us this week: What are five things you'll never eat or drink again, if you can help it?There's a lot more than 5, I can tell you that. Still, I'll limit it to the customary five.
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:09:00 AM | Canada Day! No, I'm not a Canadian, though I have been mistaken for one on occasion. Still, happy Canada Day, guys! Thanks for being there. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:25:00 AM | |
