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Any law which violates the inalienable rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all. - Maximilien Robespierre A Violently Executed Feed BUY SOME STUFF, MAKE ME HAPPY Contact me. Links and stuff Handshake Bloggers Damn Good Music
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Friday, March 31, 2006
Times NOT To Laugh So I'm in the 7-11 this morning and a cop comes walking in. As I fill up my coffee cup, I muse over the stereotype of cops as donut lovers. "It's funny - the fondness we all have for donuts becomes humorous when it's someone in a uniform liking them." The cop fills up a cup of coffee and turns to face the pastry cabinet in the 7-11, and I sweartagawd, he makes this Homer-Simpson-like "Oooooh!" and pulls out a big donut with chocolate and sprinkles on top. Suddenly, the Giggle Loop starts to kick in. I wound up having a "coughing fit" over by the magazine rack, but it was touch-and-go for a minute. After I paid for my gas and got back in the car, then I started laughing. I'd have been fine, if he hadn't made that little "Oooooh!" sound over the donut. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:58:00 AM   | Thursday, March 30, 2006
Fifteen Years This time 15 years ago, I was shaking the last of my Bachelor-Party hangover out of my head. My stomach felt like it was twisting itself into shapes reminiscent of Klein bottles and other fourth-dimensional constructs. My rental tux was hanging on the door of my closet in my tiny one-bedroom apartment - an apartment that was about to make the shift from "mine" to "ours". There were a lot of things making conceptual leaps like that for me, and I had the biggest case of pre-show jitters ever. The actual wedding ceremony is something of a blur for me, which is a shame, because everyone says it was really, really nice. We'd rented a church right next to our college campus, friends of ours sang and read poetry during the service and my father performed the ceremony. All I remember, though, is seeing Melissa walk down the aisle. At that moment, everything in my world became about her. I couldn't take my eyes off her, not even when my younger brother fell over from standing with his knees locked for too long. Nothing mattered except drinking in all of her. I loved Melissa from the moment we met, I think. Looking back I recognize the emotional jolt I felt when I first saw her. At our wedding, just a couple of years later, I got the same jolt, but stronger. Since then, we've fought, made up, held each other's heads above the water, pulled each other down, had miscarriages, surgeries, tragedies, births, been to counseling, worked stuff out ourselves, made love - we've had a whole range of experiences together that have sometimes pushed us apart but ultimately pulled us together. Fifteen years. We're lucky. I know it's bad form to brag, but I think that you're allowed to do that on your anniversary. We were both lucky to find each other, and I know I don't for a minute ever forget that, not even when it's 6AM and I'm supposed to be at work and she forgot to set the alarm again - and I don't think Melissa does, not even when she's trying to get some writing done and I keep popping my head into our bedroom to ask her where's the cookbook with the recipe for the pancakes and could she when she gets a chance run to the grocery and buy some more syrup. We've made it this far, and it's been a great ride. I'm looking forward to the next fifteen years, and to the fifteen after that, and I just want the ride to last as long as it can. I love you, Melissa. Thank you. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 6:22:00 AM | Wednesday, March 29, 2006
This Is Silly OK, I can dig that people see strange things in Loch Ness. It's been established that waves and shadows can look like a living creature undulating through the water, and that subsurface currents can make floating logs look like something raising its neck out of the water for a look around. So while I appreciate the creativity that went in to devising the theory that swimming elephants are behind some sightings, I just don't buy it. First off, there's the need for there to be a traveling circus in the area for some or all of these sightings. Second, the owners of the circus would have to have let their elephants (large, expensive creatures) out into the cold waters of the Loch for a bit of a swim. Third, the elephants would have had to have been out of sight of the circus trailers. There's just too many variables for a phenomenon that's been more than adequately explained by tricks of light and motion. And we won't even go into all the well-documented hoaxes. No, Occam's Razor suggests that we refrain from introducing aquatic circus beasts. I'm inclined to agree in this case. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:11:00 AM | Tuesday, March 28, 2006
The Pre-9/11 Mentality I hear that phrase a lot, but it doesn't make any sense. I mean, it's not like the laws of physics changed on 9/11. The heavens didn't open up and reveal the power and glory of the Heavenly City to the people of the world. September 11, 2001 was a day like many, many others in our history and the history of the world. Before I'm accused of minimizing the pain felt by the thousands that died that day, and by the thousands more than knew and loved them, let me make myself clear: the attacks were a tragedy. It was a horrible, deliberate act designed to cause maximum suffering and panic. It was, in short, terrorism. But, really. Let's get some perspective, shall we? It's more than 5 years since, enough time for those that did not lose a friend or loved one to step back a little and get a different view. What is a pre-9/11 mentality? What makes that day so important that we have to wage war over it? What makes that day so earth-shaking in its disruption of our lives that we need to surrender the civil liberties that are the very bedrock of our nation? 2,965 innocents died on 9/11 (we'll set the 19 hijackers aside for the purposes of this, as they intended to die). That's a lot - your favorite bar can probably hold somewhere from 200-500 people at the most, just to give you an idea of what we're talking about. Let's assume you like to go to a largish bar. Close your eyes, picture it at its most crowded - so full of people that they're stacked 3 deep around the bar trying to get the overworked bartender's attention and buy a beer. Now make the crowd six times larger. Really, too much for the bar - we'll move down to the park down the block. Almost 3,000 people in a park, that's not so bad. We'll roll some porta-johns in there, get a band playing, it'll be a nice little outdoor concert. Way back in 1984, on December 3rd of that year, over 3,400 people died in Bhopal, India because a tank full of methyl isocyanate gas sprang a leak. The Park Of The Dead can handle that many people easy. A couple more porta-johns, maybe another beer vendor, and you're good. 3,400 people, though - killed in their sleep, not by terrorists, but by corporate negligence. Still, Indians don't speak of a "pre-Bhopal mentality" when they talk about chemical plant safety. Way back in 1631, the city of Magdeburg was destroyed by the forces of the Holy Roman Empire. Over 20,000 people died in the sack of Magdeburg. More than our little park can hold - we'll head down to the college football stadium. It's designed for a big crowd. 20,000 men, women and children. There's no documents scorning Lutherans for having a "Pre-Magdeburg mentality" in any archives from that period. Every day in this world, somewhere around 43,000 people die from hunger. Every day. Men, women and children - mostly children, of course, because they're weaker to start with, and can't stand up for themselves. That's enough to fill our Stadium Of The Dead to capacity. Every day, that's how many die from hunger and malnutrition and easily treatable diseases made deadly by starvation. Every. Day. So that's why I don't subscribe to the nonsense of a pre/post 9/11 worldview. I skimmed over a lot of history - we could throw in Dresden, Tokyo, Nanking, Hiroshima, Warsaw, Prague, Pearl Harbor - we could add any number of horrible tragedies from our history, some natural disasters (remember the tsunami? There's millions of folks in southeast Asia that do - we're talking almost a quarter-million dead from that), some acts of war, some industrial accidents. Death happens every day, and some days, there's more than other days. The world didn't change on 9/11, or on 9/12, or on any day before or since. Not in a way that makes a difference in how we live our lives. We changed, though. We became scared, we realized that maybe, just maybe, there were people out there that didn't care about democracy, or capitalism, or CD players or the internet or any of that. Guess what? They were there before then. And there's more of them now than there were in 2001. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:13:00 AM | Monday, March 27, 2006
Good Times, Monday Edition Somewhat recovered from the weekend, though I could've used more sleep. Solved the mystery of some missing books yesterday - I finally remembered who I loaned them to. This means I don't have to rush out and buy new copies, which is good. Not that I need them back immediately, as long as I know where they are. No writing over the weekend, but I'm still riding high on the minor blockbreakage on 13 Moons. Anniversary's coming up. 15 years with Melissa, and I'm pretty goddamn chuffed with things. I mean, it'd be nice if we'd won the lottery and never had any bad times, but we didn't and we did and we worked through it and came through more or less intact. So I'm diggin' the whole marriage thing still. How's things in your world, dear readers? posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:13:00 AM | Sunday, March 26, 2006
Sic faciunt omnes! Handy Latin phrases. Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 5:06:00 PM | Saturday, March 25, 2006
Wow. Tired. A friend of Melissa's and mine from college was in the area this week, and today we met her, her parents and her nieces at Six Flags in San Antonio. Sticker shock for the ticket price was pretty rough, but the kids had a blast, and they were very well-behaved. We walked a lot today, but the kids are all sacked out now. And, in the depressing news department, I was too fat to ride 2 roller coasters. They couldn't fasten the safety straps, so I had to take the "Walk Of Shame" down the exit ramp alone. Guess who's thinking of starting a massive situp regimen? posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:48:00 PM | Friday, March 24, 2006
13 Moons: #6 I've been blocked for almost 2 months on this story, and today, finally, I squeezed a little more out. It's not perfect, and I might eventually go back and replace it with something that works better, but for now, it's better than nothing. 13 Moons: #6 posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:01:00 AM | OK, You Got Me While it was tempting to smugly write a "Boy, did I sucker you guys! Couldn't you tell it was a joke?" post, I opted for honesty - the Britney-In-Labor! Previously, he's created "Ted Williams Death Masks" and sold them as sports memoribilia. Like I mentioned in yesterday's edit, with the right wing so completely whacked out, it's hard to tell what's satire and what's for real these days. Still, I bet it's gonna be fun watching the wingnuts' heads explode over this. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:06:00 AM | Thursday, March 23, 2006
Uhhhh.... WTF? I really don't know what to say about this. I mean... Seriously. What can you say? A nude Britney Spears on a bearskin rug while giving birth to her firstborn marks a ‘first’ for Pro-Life. Pop-star Britney Spears is the “ideal” model for Pro-Life and the subject of a dedication at Capla Kesting Fine Art in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg gallery district, in what is proclaimed the first Pro-Life monument to birth, in April.WTF? “Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston,” believed Pro-Life’s first monument to the ‘act of giving birth,’ is purportedly an idealized depiction of Britney in delivery. Natural aspects of Spears’ pregnancy, like lactiferous breasts and protruding naval, compliment a posterior view that depicts widened hips for birthing and reveals the crowning of baby Sean’s head.Ah, so they make it clear now! It's about making some Britney pr0n that pro-Life whackjobs can whack off to without feeling all dirty an' shit. Now, I know not all of you pro-life folks can afford a statue like this to put in your living room, so I'm gonna help you out. Just print out the picture and enjoy it in the privacy of your own bathroom. Let's not have another incident like you caused in the library that time, OK?  Know what's funny as shit about this? Britney had a c-section. [edit] Some friends of mine think this might be a piece of very well-calculated satire. It could be, but what with the right wing so chock-full of hardcore nutjobs, it's hard to tell what's real and what's satire these days. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 3:34:00 PM | Stickin' It To The White Man Cecilia Fire Thunder rocks my world. When Governor Mike Rounds signed HB 1215 into law it effectively banned all abortions in the state with the exception that it did allow saving the mother’s life. There were, however, no exceptions for victims of rape or incest. His actions, and the comments of State Senators like Bill Napoli of Rapid City, SD, set of a maelstrom of protests within the state.Work it, sister! See, folks? There's hope for South Dakota yet. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:14:00 AM | Wednesday, March 22, 2006
'Borg Me Up, Baby! It seems that researchers at UT-Dallas have developed artificial muscles. Scientists have developed artificial, super-strength muscles which are powered by alcohol and hydrogen.Or, perhaps, to turn me into a cybernetic JUSTICE MACHINE. I'm just sayin'. Yeah, a nice little battlesuit would do me nicely, I think - slap a stun gun on one arm and a 9mm gatling on the other, some kevlar and steel mesh for armor and I'm good to go. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:15:00 AM | Tuesday, March 21, 2006
New Orleans Public Library: What They Need Many of you, dear readers, have no doubt seen the following announcement: DONATE NEW AND USED BOOKS TO NEW ORLEANS LIBRARYI was about to jump on the bandwagon for this and decided to do a little additional checking, to see if there were any more specific needs in terms of titles, genres or anything like that. I found the website for the NOPL and on their FAQ page, I found this: This FAQ was drafted as a result of the overwhelming support we have received in the form of book donations. The library literally receives hundreds of books each day from thoughtful individuals and organizations around the world. We are extremely grateful for this assistance. However, due to storage and staff limitations, we ask that you consider the suggestions regarding further donations which we outline below.In short, then, you folks out there have already given so many books that the staff of the NOPL are overwhelmed. There's not enough money or storage or staff to take care of everything in a timely manner. Money is what they need the most right now, so if you're still inclined to help them, send 'em a check. Every dollar will help. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:58:00 AM | Monday, March 20, 2006
38 Years Later. What Have We Learned? 38 years ago last week, American soldiers massacred most of the population of My Lai. Only one man served even a token sentence for that crime, and most Americans, if you asked them about My Lai today, would stare at you like a dog that's been shown a card trick. 38 years after, and what's different? Well, most of us have computers now. We've got DVD players and VCRs and iPods and most of us are living longer. Our society is a little more tolerant, a little more accepting. On the other hand, we've got a Republican president that's heading a secretive, corrupt administration. We're mired in yet another unwinnable war that was based upon lies. In that war, it looks like our soldiers are working without a clear mission, without a strategy, and without the leadership they need to prevent more My Lais. Two separate incidents, neither of which fills me with either hope or goodwill towards my countrymen. (1) Isahaqi, Iraq - March 15th, 2006 - In a raid on suspected insurgents, US forces blow up a house full of civilians. Oddly enough, the "official" body count is much lower than that reported by locals. And many of the bodies found in the house show signs of having been bound and shot in the head - this includes the bodies of several children, ranging in age from seven months to five years. It's possible that it wasn't American soldiers that did this. It could have been the insurgents (although none were found in this raid), or it could have been Iraqi government forces (it's well-known that the current government has had something of a problem with death squads of late). I suspect that it was either American soldiers or Iraqi forces under American command. American citizens either murdered those children, or they stood by while someone else did it. We know from the photographs that one child, the youngest, the baby, has a gaping wound in his forehead. We can see that one other child, a girl with a pink ribbon in her hair, is lying on her side and has blood oozing from the back of her head. The faces of the other children are turned upwards toward the sun; if they were shot, they were shot in the back of the head and their wounds are not evident. But we can see that their bodies, though covered with dust from the rubble, are otherwise unmarked; they were evidently not crushed in the collapse of the house during, say, a fierce firefight between U.S. forces and an "al Qaeda facilitator." They died in some other fashion.I'm sure that the wingnutty will assume from this that I hate America, or that I think our soldiers are all "baby-killers" (we're recycling every other right-wing talking point from Vietnam, so why not bring up that canard again, eh?). I can't cop to either accusation, though I believe that America's current foreign and military policies are wrong and that our domestic policies, specifically those trumpeted by the GOP-led Congress and the nest of criminals in the White House, are only slightly less wrong than the proposition that 2+2=3. I suspect that some percentage of American soldiers are capable of committing atrocities, and that that fraction is the same as, or similar to, the number of atrocity-prone soldiers exists in the British, Russian, Iraqi, Iranian, North Korean, German and Chinese armies - and, in fact, in every army in every country today and stretching back generations into the past. (2) Haditha, Iraq - November 19, 2005 - Marines retaliate for a roadside bomb that killed one of their number, killing 15 civilians, including 7 women and children. According to the Marines, they acted in self-defense. According to local witnesses and survivors of the attack, including two small children, the attack was unprovoked. Naval investigators are looking into the matter. A day after the incident, a Haditha journalism student videotaped the scene at the local morgue and at the homes where the killings had occurred. The video was obtained by the Hammurabi Human Rights Group, which cooperates with the internationally respected Human Rights Watch, and has been shared with Time. The tape makes for grisly viewing. It shows that many of the victims, especially the women and children, were still in their nightclothes when they died. The scenes from inside the houses show that the walls and ceilings are pockmarked with shrapnel and bullet holes as well as the telltale spray of blood. But the video does not reveal the presence of any bullet holes on the outside of the houses, which may cast doubt on the Marines' contention that after the ied exploded, the Marines and the insurgents engaged in a fierce gunfight.My suspicions could be wrong - I'm not afraid to post a correction if I am proven wrong - but my gut tells me we've created the exact same kind of unwinnable nightmare that we had 38 years ago. Abu Ghraib and the other, more secret, torture facilities and the high-level unofficial endorsement of them have done enough damage already - these incidents and many, many more like them will just make things worse. They don't stop the insurgency - they make it stronger. Anyone with common sense can tell you that much. We're the bad guys in Iraq now. It doesn't matter what our intentions were, or what our goals are. Our self-proclaimed end does not justify these means. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:20:00 AM | Sunday, March 19, 2006
V for Vendetta Saw it last night. It's good. Holy crap, it's good. Not perfect - there are some flaws - but it's good. Some righties have pissed their panties about the movie, upset about the "extreme leftism" of the movie, or the "celebration of terrorism and destruction". Yes, the hero of the movie, V, is a terrorist. Yes, the villains of the piece are right-wing, fascistic theocrats. That's a good thing. It's art holding a mirror to life. The elements that gave the movie special impact were the elements drawn from our current situation. The use of fear as a route to power, the black hoods, scapegoating of Muslims - both Moore's graphic novel and the movie are cautionary pieces, warnings that if the people let things get too bad, radical action must be taken to set them right. The heart of the graphic novel and the movie remains Valerie's Letter, perhaps Moore's finest piece of writing. I don't know who you are. Please believe. There is no way I can convince you that this is not one of their tricks. But I don't care. I am me, and I don't know who you are, but I love you.If nothing else in the movie had worked, the perfection of that part would have made the movie worth seeing. Go, see V for Vendetta. It's worth it. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:14:00 AM | Saturday, March 18, 2006
Home Again Back home. It was a funeral. Off to see V for Vendetta tonight. Review tomorrow. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 2:54:00 PM | Friday, March 17, 2006
Nacogdoches We're here. The funeral is today. La Quinta has free internet! Who knew? [edit] Corrected the spelling - the coffee maker in the room was busted, so I was typing sans go-juice. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:19:00 AM | Thursday, March 16, 2006
On The Road - Again Heading off to East Texas for the funeral. We'll be back on Saturday. I'll try to get a post in from the road tomorrow. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:30:00 AM | Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Take A Good, Long Look At What We've Done Look at the pictures. Look at the men and women in the pictures and imagine yourself in the role of a prisoner at Abu Ghraib. Imagine you're innocent, imagine you were swept up in a raid in the middle of the night and hauled away from your family. Picture the guards mocking you, beating you, setting dogs upon you. You're in a small cell in the same building some of your relatives probably disappeared into during Saddam's reign, imprisoned by people that don't speak your language. We did this to them. All of us, every voter, every taxpayer. It doesn't matter if you opposed the war, if you sent a nasty letter to your congressman. It doesn't matter to the men and women in those pictures, it doesn't matter to their families and it doesn't matter to the world at large. We are represented by the men and women that did this, and they did it under orders - overt and implied - from their superiors, in a chain going all the way to the White House. If we don't bring those responsible to justice (and I'm not talking about the little fish, here), we will be as guilty as they are - we will have become complicit in their crimes. Right now, one senator is trying to do something about it. Support him. Talk it up. Be loud. In weeks to come, it will be necessary to put feet to the pavement and fists in the air. When that time comes, be louder. We've got one chance to clean the blood off your hands. Let's make the most of it. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 5:27:00 PM | I'd Give It Ten Stars If You Could Google Helium Check it out: Google MARS Pretty damn nifty, even if they leave out all the important bits like Helium and the River Iss and the Valley of Dor. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:05:00 AM | Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa Melissa's grandmother died last night. Grandma Jean had for some time been living in what I call "The Eternal Now", but I will always remember her as I first met her, a strong-willed, caring woman, a mother that kept her family together through some desperate times. She had a good heart, and always made me feel like one of the family. The call came late last night, when I was already drifting off into sleep thanks to the kind assistance of some Tylenol PM. I'm assuming the call didn't register on me - I remember the phone ringing, I remember Melissa talking on the phone, but that's it. So when the alarm didn't go off this morning and I overslept, all I had on my mind was rushing to get dressed and get out the door, griping a little because I was late for work. It wasn't until I'd been in the office for a couple of hours that everything clicked into place. Of course, Melissa's in a meeting now and I can't call her and grovel. I'm stuck at work for at least a couple more hours and I just feel like the biggest shit EVAR. So good thoughts to Melissa and her family, please. I'm off to find the best way to atone for my lapse. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:56:00 AM | Domestic Disturbance: In Their Own Good Time Yes, I'm a little biased, but I think Melissa has hit another one out of the park: In Their Own Good Time. It's hard to play by the rules when they keep changing the rules. When I was a teenage babysitter, I was taught to put babies to sleep on their tummies, so that if they threw up, they wouldn't gag. When Drew was born, we were told side or back was best; we even bought a little foam wedge to keep him on his side. Three years later, when Franny was born, the rules changed again: "back to sleep" was the only way to go. With every child, it seemed that the experts have reversed themselves on some point that they'd previously insisted on. It's enough to make you question that nebulous "they" -- the pediatricians, psychologists, and experts who confidently dispense advice to all of us down here in the parenting trenches. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:46:00 AM | Monday, March 13, 2006
Remember The Good Ol' Days? Back when we could get 24/7 updates on everything from Bill Clinton's sperm count to Hillary's lesbian affairs? When it was vital to impeach a president because he didn't want to admit to getting a blowjob from an intern? Censure wasn't an option - Bill Frist was opposed to censuring Clinton, as it would send the wrong message to the children or some such nonsense. No, impeachment - trying to force through a kangaroo court that that majority of Americans thought was a stupid idea - that was the best thing to do. Now, of course, as our president admits that he wipes his ass with the 4th Amendment, we do find that Bill Frist has stayed sort of consistent. Sort of. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) called the proposal "a crazy political move" that would weaken the United States during wartime.Yes, now censure is "crazy" because Our Maximum Leader is too holy to be contradicted. Impeachment, apparently, is only for blowjobs, not constitutional violations. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 3:29:00 PM | Are We Having Fun Yet? For some reason, I slept in two hour stretches last night. The throat's never become enough of a problem to necessitate a trip to the doctor. I'm tired and cranky. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 5:15:00 AM | Sunday, March 12, 2006
Molly Ivins Gets It I swear, she's the only reason I read the Austin newspaper. Enough of the DC Dems Mah fellow progressives, now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party. I don’t know about you, but I have had it with the D.C. Democrats, had it with the DLC Democrats, had it with every calculating, equivocating, triangulating, straddling, hair-splitting son of a bitch up there, and that includes Hillary Rodham Clinton.Preach it, sister! It's not about sewing the money up early, as Hillary appears to be doing. It's not about triangulating a la Dick "Toesucker" Morris. It sure as shit ain't about letting the Beltway Pundits (those same guys that get their knickers all soggy when Georgie Porgie struts around in a codpiece) tell us who our nominee is going to be. It's about the people in the party telling the hacks to pack their bags and get the fuck out of Dodge. It's about finding candidates that are willing to stand for real issues and tell the right wing to go to hell. I am tired of having the party nomination decided before the first primary vote is cast, tired of having the party beholden to the same old Establishment money.What she said. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 2:10:00 PM | Saturday, March 11, 2006
GOP Ethics! In! ACTION!!!! Ex-White House Aide Arrested In Refund Scam A former adviser to President Bush was arrested this week in Maryland and charged with swindling two department stores out of more than $5,000 in a refund scam.I suppose I should be glad it wasn't another male prostitute hanging out and throwing Scotty and Karl's masculinity into question - lord knows they don't need that extra hassle on top of being such big, fat liars. No, Allen was a garden variety petty thief. Just dig the scam, baby! Authorities accuse Allen of going to stores on more than 25 occasions and buying items, taking them to his car and then returning to the store with his receipt where he would carry out the alleged scam.I'm surprised he'd got away with it for so long, actually - when I did retail, Management spent quite a bit of time teaching us to look out for this very scam. Allen made $161,000 in his role as Bush's top domestic policy adviser, according to government records.Damn. That's quite a bit more than I make, yet I somehow manage to avoid having to engage in acts of petty fraud to make ends meet. Of course, I'm not an employee of the most corrupt White House in history, either, so it's a little easier for me to hang on to my sens of right and wrong. Just let that be a lesson to you, Claude: Steal little and they'll nail you to the wall. Steal big and you get a parade. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 4:18:00 PM | For The Record... The date went well. My throat was a wee bit sore, but not bad enough to prevent my enjoying everything. The fondue was good, but next time, we'll have the cheese course and then skip to the chocolate - the main course was OK, but nothing spectacular and we could've filled up very nicely on the cheese. It's nice to have a real, grownup dress-up-nice date every once in a while. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 2:27:00 PM | Not Shedding Any Tears Over This Slobodan Milosevic found dead in his cell. Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader, who was branded "the butcher of the Balkans" and was on trial for war crimes after orchestrating a decade of bloodshed during the breakup of his country, was found dead Saturday in his prison cell. He was 64.This is something, IMO, that could have happened 20 years ago and saved the Balkans years of misery. So rot in hell, motherfucker. Rot in hell. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:51:00 AM | Friday, March 10, 2006
No. Nononononononono. So finally, after everyone else in the family is recovering from strep, after everything slowly gets back to normal at home, it happens. On the night that Melissa and I have scheduled our first date in I don't know how long, when we're finally able to afford a babysitter, I wake up this morning and my throat is sore. There. Ain't. No. FUCKING. JUSTICE. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:30:00 AM | Thursday, March 09, 2006
That Lying, Disorderly Rabble According to Careerbuilder.com, 1 in 5 workers lie. Clutch mah pearls, Scarlett! I'm gettin' the vapohs! Ever get that sneaking suspicion one of your co-workers isn't being straight with you?What these figures don't address is what lies will get you fired. No, they say, it's better to be honest with your boss about everything. The Boss Sees All, Knows All! DO NOT LIE TO THE BOSS! It's made clear in this article that you should always tell Management everything, never fib, never stretch the truth, never, ever, ever lie even just a little bit. We
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:33:00 AM | Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Um, Exqueeze Me? Seems some folks must've been out getting stoned the day they covered checks and balances in Civics class: GOP Senators Say Accord Is Set On Wiretapping Yes, you read that right. Basically, Dick Cheney "negotiated" a deal that won over supposedly "moderate" GOP suckups Olympia Snowe and Chuck Hagel. I'm thinking it went something like this: Cheney: ::holds up picture of Harry Whittington:: See this guy? I shot him. In the fucking face. Why? He looked at me funny. ::brandishes gun:: You want some of this?OK, maybe I exaggerated a little. Cheney probably would've threatened to shoot a family member or a beloved pet, and I doubt he'd have been that polite about it. But still. The Senate Intelligence Committee has knuckled under to the Executive Branch and agreed to refrain from looking too closely into Bush's Illegal Domestic Spy Program. Remember when the Senate and House spent years trying to figure out if Bill Clinton had got some Intern Nookie? Remember Dan Burton's interminable investigations attempting to figure out if Hillary Clinton had killed Vince Foster in a fit of lesbian cocaine-filled rage? Remember that? I sure do. I also remember that the Senate and House are supposed to provide limits on presidential power. I remember that the president is supposed to obey the law. I remember that Richard Nixon resigned rather than be impeached for, among other things, using federal agencies to spy on domestic political opponents. I don't like the direction my country is heading. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:35:00 AM | Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Conservatism: Stupid In Any Language Silvio Berlusconi's advice to poor people in Italy: Earn more money, dudes! Uhhhh, yeah. Because telling people that don't have enough money they should just get out there and earn some is much like telling a starving man that what he really needs is a good ham sammich, and why doesn't he get up off his ass and go buy one? That's pretty goddamn stupid and callous, but it's the level of stupidity and cruelty we expect from the ultra-rich. As a French noblewoman (not, as rumor has it, Marie Antionette) said, "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche!" Sadly, the best our modern aristos can come up with is "Make the pie higher." One wonders: Is our presidents educated? I vote "Non!" Here in the States, we hear George Will - a man that's never been poor - continuing to spread the Big Lie that government anti-poverty programs don't work. Really, George? Is it really true that the Fair Deal and the Great Society were failures? I hear what you're really saying there - the the real problem began with the Roosevelt fellow, that closet communist, that class-traitor that stabbed his fellow rich fatcats in the back so he could pander to the Appparently, it was pretty goddamn great. ...from 1963 when Lyndon Johnson took office until 1970 as the impact of his Great Society programs were felt, the portion of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent, the most dramatic decline over such a brief period in this century. Since then, the poverty rate has hovered at about the 13 percent level and sits at 13.3 percent today, still a disgraceful level in the context of the greatest economic boom in our history. But if the Great Society had not achieved that dramatic reduction in poverty, and the nation had not maintained it, 24 million more Americans would today be living below the poverty level.Well what do you know? Isn't that something? From Head Start to college loans and grants, all the way through Medicare and Medicaid, food stamps and WIC - the poorest Americans have been given the leg up they need. Granted, that's under attack by the same folks that brought you Enron, and the Dubai port security deal (very good for Carlysle Group investors, I hear...), and Halliburton's record-breaking profits, and let's not forget the hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks for the richest 3% of Americans. But really, it's true - poor people just need to get up off their asses and earn more money, then they won't be poor any more! See how much easier it is to dismiss them as lazy rather than look at them as neighbors that need a boost? posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:05:00 AM | Monday, March 06, 2006
Thwarting God's Will Kristin Knight, bringing to bear her vast personal experience as the proud owner of a functioning uterus, is kind enough to inform us that Birth Control Prevents God's Work. By using contraception, you prevent God’s creative power in bringing forth new life. Sex is a complete self-giving love you pledge to your spouse within marriage, and contraception destroys the unitive and procreative qualities of sex. Pleasure is not the purpose of sex — it’s the motive or consequence.Yes, folks, just a millimeter or so of latex can thwart an omnipotent diety! A squirt of Nonoxydol-9 renders the creator of the Heavens and the Earth powerless! Who knew? Kristin doesn't list any other qualifications besides having squirted four children out of her vagina, so I don't know if she's studied up on science or philosophy or even this whole "Constitution" thing we've had for the past couple hundred years in the United States. I'm betting she hasn't, though - the point of her article is that bans on abortion aren't enough. We, as humans, are too selfish to be trusted to control our own reproduction. When you put on that ultra-ribbed sensitive tip condom, you're making Jesus cry! Taking those birth control pills makes God get that little twitchy thing right next to his eye! Why, the Holy Spirit has been locked in the bathroom for days, wailing over contraceptive sponges! Obviously, people having sex is part of the problem - how dare we engage with other consenting adults in a mutually pleasurable act without being willing to suffer EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCE of that act? SIN! SIN! I'm constantly amazed that such simple things can stop an all-powerful diety in his tracks. A condom or two men kissing, we're told, is a deliberate affront to God, much more so than state-sponsored executions (one of which, IIRC, killed his son - you'd think he'd be a little more concerned about those) or children starving or even rich men telling poor senior citizens that God wants them to donate their life's savings to Jerry Falwell. The central thesis of this blob of intellectual excrement, of course, is that men and women should trust the wisdom of a bunch of old men that swear not to have sex when it comes to matters sexual. Which makes about as much sense as asking a Vegan to tell you which cuts of meat to cook when company's coming, or taking your broken-down Ford to the bakery. The entire premise of Knight's insane ramblings is that the doctrines of her religion, selectively based upon the inventions of bronze-age nomads and filtered through almost 2000 years of interpretation by an assortment of insane, depraved, murderous, deluded, pious, charitable and/or monomaniacal misogynistic cross-dressers, are universal and appropriate for everyone. Hell, that hasn't been true for any religion, ever, and those that claim it is are either liars or fools - and sometimes, they're both. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:03:00 PM | Department of Kafka Anwar Kadhim Jawad and Vivian Salim Mati have been through hell multiple times. As citizens of Saddam hussein's Iraq, things were bad, but things got immeasurably worse for them after they were liberated. Anwar Kadhim Jawad lost her husband, her son and two of her daughters when they were shot in Baghdad by American soldiers. There was no checkpoint, there was no warning - just a family driving down their road as they'd done many times before, a normal trip that ended in a hail of gunfire. The US Army "compensated" Anwar with the princely sum of $11,000. "In my family, like many Iraqi families, the husband takes care of all the family business. My job is to care for the well being of the family inside the house while my husband's job is to care for every thing else. This is the way we do it in Iraq. Now, I have no husband. I have no income. I have no house anymore. I live with my parents and these two children. Everything else is gone. I will never recover." Vivian Salim Mati lost her family when, three days after the US military entered Baghdad, she and her husband jumped into their car with all three children and tried to drive away from the artillery shells raining down on their neighborhood. As they drove down a side street, an American tank spotted them and the soldier manning the machine gun began shooting at them. Vivian's husband and three children were killed instantly. Vivian, wounded, dragged herself from the car screaming for help, but the soldier kept shooting. Both women were invited to the United States by Code Pink as part of a movement called Women Say No To War. Both women were denied visas by the US State Department. Why, you ask? Here's where it gets sick. Both women do not have enough family members left in Iraq to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the US State Department that they'll actually return to Iraq. Well, yeah, they don't have much in the way of family back there, seeing as we killed them. More and more, I'm convinced that the manual of operations for our current government is cribbed from the works of Kafka. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:24:00 AM | Sunday, March 05, 2006
Bill Frist: Fascism's Enabler You see, according to Dr. Frist (famed for his diagnosis via an edited videotape of the brain-dead and blind Terri Schiavo as "likely to recover" as well as his miraculous ability to sell stock in his family's corporation just before the stock tanked), the Senate Intelligence Committee is doing something wrong by trying to investigate Bush's use of the NSA for warrantless domestic spying. I quote: I am increasingly concerned that the Senate Intelligence Committee is unable to its critically important oversight and threat assessment responsibilities due to stifling partisanship that is exhibited by repeated calls by Democrats on the Committee to conduct politically-motivated investigations. . . .No, we can't have demands for investigations of blatantly illegal spying programs that are just like the ones ordered by President Nixon, the same programs that led to the creation of the Senate Intelligence Committee as a uniquely-structured bipartisan committee. No, says Frist, I would propose that we meet with Senators Roberts and Rockefeller as soon as possible. The Committee was established and structured to reflect the Senate’s desire for bipartisanship, and to the maximum extent possible, nonpartisan oversight of our nation’s intelligence activities. If attempts to use the committee’s charter for political purposes exist, we may have to simply acknowledge that nonpartisan oversight, while a worthy aspiration, is simply not possible. If we are unable to reach agreement, I believe we must consider other options to improve the Committee’s oversight capabilities, to include restructuring the Committee so that it is organized and operated like most Senate Committees.And you can see the typical Republican projection at work: Chairman Roberts is working in a very partisan fashion to block investigation of Bush's crimes, therefore it is the Democrats that are the problem. If a Republican says the Democrats are corrupt, dollars to donuts he's raking in loads of cash on the side. If a Republican says Democrats are weak on national security, it's because she knows that the GOP hasn't done a goddamn thing in 5 1/2 years to improve security. Remember: President Bush has admitted to breaking the law, and has as much as dared anyone to do anything about it. Frist and Roberts, among others, are more interested in dogmatic party loyalty than upholding their oaths to protect the Constitution. Keeping the worst president ever in office, preserving the Potemkin Presidency, is more important than the very foundations of our government. Yet another small step towards the end of the American Experiment. It's still not too late to turn this chain of events around, but every time our representatives do nothing about it, it gets harder. If the men and women we elect won't stop this, it'll be up to us. If we don't stop it, we deserve what we get. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:25:00 AM | Saturday, March 04, 2006
More Sickness And now Melissa's sick. Yay! I ask you - could life get any better? posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:46:00 AM | Friday, March 03, 2006
Sick Day The strep has made its merry way to Alec and Fran's throats, so from I'm home today with the two of them. Every twinge in my throat makes me nervous now. If I can get the kids down to nap at some point today, I might get some more blogging or some writing in. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:59:00 AM | Thursday, March 02, 2006
What About Your Fiction, Adam? The As my house is currently the Austin, TX staging ground for the latest mutation of the streptococcus bacteria, I'm not getting as much writing done as I'd like, but I'm squeezing in what I can when I can and I'll get back to "13 Moons" eventually. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:37:00 AM | Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Polling The Troops Many of my compatriots on the Progressive end of the spectrum are going to focus on one point from a recent Zogby poll of American soldiers in Iraq: An overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and nearly one in four say the troops should leave immediately, a new Le Moyne College/Zogby International survey shows.That's a far cry from Bush's repeated insistence that American soldiers want to "finish the mission" - especially when you consider that The wide-ranging poll also shows that 58% of those serving in country say the U.S. mission in Iraq is clear in their minds, while 42% said it is either somewhat or very unclear to them, that they have no understanding of it at all, or are unsure.42% of the soldiers serving in Iraq don't understand our mission. Here's the figures that really bug me, though: While 85% said the U.S. mission is mainly “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9-11 attacks,” 77% said they also believe the main or a major reason for the war was “to stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq.”An overwhelming majority think that Iraq was involved in 9/11 and that Saddam Hussein (head of a nominally secular government) was protecting and/or assisting al Qaeda (a militant group composed primarily of devout, wahaabi Sunnis). WTF? It's just not the case, and anyone with a lick of sense and the most rudimentary access to information knows it. Just 10 seconds' digging in the report of the 9/11 Commission gets you a pretty clear and unambiguous statement on Saddam's supposed involvement with 9/11 and al Qaeda: Responding to a presidential tasking, Clarke's office sent a memo to Rice on September 18, titled "Survey of Intelligence Information on Any Iraq Involvement in the September 11 Attacks." Rice's chief staffer on Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, concurred in its conclusion that only some anecdotal evidence linked Iraq to al Qaeda. The memo found no "compelling case" that Iraq had either planned or perpetrated the attacks. It passed along a few foreign intelligence reports, including the Czech report alleging an April 2001 Prague meeting between Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer (discussed in chapter 7) and a Polish report that personnel at the headquarters of Iraqi intelligence in Baghdad were told before September 11 to go on the streets to gauge crowd reaction to an unspecified event. Arguing that the case for links between Iraq and al Qaeda was weak, the memo pointed out that Bin Ladin resented the secularism of Saddam Hussein's regime. Finally, the memo said, there was no confirmed reporting on Saddam cooperating with Bin Ladin on unconventional weapons.None. In the years since 9/11, despite multiple assertions by numerous administration officials and by GOP sock-puppets in the Mighty Media Wurlitzer, not one real connection between Saddam Hussein's regime and Osama Bin Ladin has been discovered. Why is our military fighting under a false premise? A significant percentage of the men and women risking their lives, getting shot at and mortared and bombed, don't understand our military objectives. The vast majority of them think they're over there for reasons which are patently false. Comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq are, at this point, not just old hat, but so obvious that pointing them out is rather like mentioning that the sun rises in the east. Still, it bears mentioning that like Iraq, US involvement in Vietnam was orchestrated by a small coterie of expensively-educated individuals advocating a theory of global politics that is based more upon wishful thinking than anything resembling a practical understanding of sociology, psychology or reality. The Domino Theory is as dead as William Jennings Bryan's Bimetallism, and the geopolitical anthill-kicking of the PNAC is tapdancing on the rim of history's dustbin as we speak. The fact is, there are more connections between the governments of Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. with al Qaeda than there were between Saddam Hussein and that organization. Pakistan and the United States gave more support to Bin Ladin than Iraq. I don't see any way out of the quagmire we're in now, not now that the Neo-Clowns' did such a good job of uncorking the long-simmering ethnic resentments of Iraq. While it's true that those resentments were likely to explode sooner or later, the US invasion assured that those tensions would be brought to the forefront. And thanks to our post-invasion strategy (or lack thereof) and things like Abu Ghraib, the people of Iraq will blame us for the chaos for generations to come. So how, exactly, does this situation help us? How is the American strategic position improved by having the majority of our operational forces tied up in Iraq, pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into the coffers of Halliburton, inflaming the resentment of the Muslim world, by an official policy of torture and kidnapping? Are we, the people of America made safer by this? Is it helping our economy? Sure doesn't look that way to me, but what do I know? posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:27:00 AM | |
