Tim Blair

I like blue. It's the best colour.

I wavered between personal trivia and domestic irrelevance. Must you force choices?

Roll with the punches Tim, those flashy pubs you have to stay at in M'sia, sometimes we have to take the bad with the good.... *sigh*

Rebecca,'

Here's some "domestic irrelevance" for you: young ladies should be advised NOT to leave their cameras unattended in Boulder, Colorado hotel rooms...

Man Used Girls' Cameras To Take Photos Of His Genitals On Items In Rooms

On a more relevant note, this Iraqi "insurgent" apparently never saw Monty Python's "How not to be seen" sketch. BTW, as a warning, it is a rather graphic depiction of schoopidity.

Yikes!

spiny,
i'm having quite a giggle thinking about the police going around the town with the photos, saying "have you seen this man?"

Mr. Bingley, imagine the police showing the pictures to some gal and she says, "He's not even from this town."

What about lunch?

Now that I've recovered from the visual of a man's genitals resting on food (and I won't tell you what the visual consisted of), I'm going to comment on the yahoo with the RPG. I presume he's an enemy combatant who was aiming his weapon at coalition forces, so I can't waste much sympathy on him. In fact, kneeling in the middle of the street and aiming a weapon without cover or concealment is exactly what I would urge all his brethren to do, because I'm sure we'd all like to resolve the Middle Eastern mess sooner rather than later.

*sigh* So much for domestic trivia and personal irrelevance... or, wait, was it the other way around?

I'm a bigger pervert than Ken Summers.

I just tried Pop Rocks for the very first time. I'm 30 years old. I can die happy now.

Gives a whole new twist to the old golf phrase 'bucket of balls'.

Genitals aside, the thing that has me alomost more pissed off than slaughter in the Sudan is:

ATKINS INDUCED MISERY !! I'm SICK of it !!

There! I said it! A while back it was the Prince Spaghetti/Ronzoni folks filing for bankruptcy protection, then bakeries that have been around for a century going under, then today, this:

Mueller's In Atkins Trouble

Enough already. Do your little 'diet' thing, but kindly leave the rest of us alone, going along our happy foccacia eating way.

Yeah, I saw a mate pull this trick at a mixed 21st birthday party. While everyones attention was distracted singing Happy Birthday, said mate quietly standing back in the kitchen, picked up an unattended camera off the bench.

With everyone else facing away, he unzipped, flopped out his member and shot from the hip, before replacing camera on bench. Just the two of us knew, and had a good laugh, until Granny had the film developed a few days later. Doh !

Regarding the insurgent, what did he expect - he had no boots. Dope...

This certainly qualifies under Tim's criteria....

Anybody blogging here in VK land (i.e., Australia, but New Zealand and other neighbors are included) with an Amateur Radio operator's license? This weekend (26-27 June) is the annual "Field Day" for Amateur Radio in the USA and Canada. I'll be running the digital station (PSK31) with the local club (with some voice), but we are also doing voice and CW. We will be operating on 10, 15, 20, 40, and 75 meters. The club call is W7DP; if you contact us, let the operator know that Jeff referred you. ;-)

A translation for non-radio technogeeks, Amateur Radio operators ("hams") play with radios and computers for fun, learning, and public service. Field Day is when we practice really basic emergency communications by setting up radios, antennas, and generators in different locations, and compete for the maximum number of contacts.

If you see some park or empty lot spring up with an assortment of tents, trailers, campers, antennas, generators, with red eyed people dashing to and fro, it's probably your local ham club. Feel free to stop by, many clubs set up in public spots to encourage visitors.

Sixteenth!

THIS WILL SHOCK YOU!

Click on the following link. Look at the "cartoon", and then read the paragraph of text underneath it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,7371,519655,00.html

Then would someone PLEASE tell me that this is all a joke?!?! Someone actually winning an award for THAT?!

And if you're up for even more, the rest of this guy's "art" is located here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/archive/stevebell/0,7371,337764,00.html

I just made a post that I believe falls within the purview of these type of comments. Having trouble making trackback links, must be trickier than it looks?

Do a google image search on the name "Berlusconi". Look at the first image that comes up.

GROSS OUT ALERT on the Google search suggested by Ross! Seriously. I almost lost my lunch.

yes, jeffs, but we may have found our camera boffer!

Honestly, what did the guy think was going to happen if he sat in the middle of the street with a rocket launcher in front of soldiers? Maybe I'm reading too much into it but he seemed suprised...poor stupid bugger. Probably told by some slightly less stupid local leader to go out and show them invaders the might or Iraq or some such crap. Now there is noone to mind the goats.

I'm already sick of Melbourne's winter and it has hardly started.

I'm going to move house in the next few weeks. I really hate moving.

The Age's Leunig sees terrorists as small and insignificant in comparison to the 'evil, dangerous, menacing' military currently trying to protect innocent people from terror.

Leunig should move to Afghanistan and draw anti-government cartoons.

On the grounds of irrelevance I want to continue the " what you hate the most " thread . I hate celebrities of any description . It was heartening to note that Paris Hilton got voted most useless human being on the planet . This must be distinguished from person(s) most determinedly trying to drag the planet back into the dark ages, for which the vote would have to go to El QueerD'Oh.

Dave Munger: trackback only works if you have a trackback-using script attached to your blog. Movable Type has one; so does Wordpress, some others -- but Blogspot (which you are on) does not. However, there is a program you can attach to your Blogspot blog that Haloscan (which also offers a free, popular outside comment script) offers.

Mr. Bingley, I'm not sure that compensates for spots on my shirt, but I have to admit that justice does have its price.

I'm just glad that I'm not the forensics specialist who has to review the evidence.

I once made a hundred in a grand final, but should have been run out for a duck.

Quit your jibba-jabba! I pity the fool who likes to play his own fiddle!

I just wanted to say, that I have nothing to say about anything.

Here's a good report on Operation TIGER CLAW by an up and coming young citizen who faced leftoid behavior in his high school (from teachers and students) and survived. An excellent read, provided by the good folks at Protest Warrior.

I was the only person in my sixth-grade to score 100 percent on my maths test. I cheated.

I will go with the International approach. I have come to the conclusion that the only way to deal with the barbarians we face is to match their intimadation and barbarism with equal intimidation and overwhelming force.
What if we publically beheaded five enemy combatants for every innocent person they beheaded--and then dumped the bodies in a swine pit, to impede their passage to the 70 virgins?
What if we aimed nuclear missles at Mecca and Medina, and planted high-powered explosives around the Dome of the Rock, and announced to the world that the next terrorist attack would result in their vaunted "holy" sites being instantly vaporized? Might that have the effect of stopping the mad men? And, while we are pointing nuclear missles, let's point a few at Northern Pakistan and advise them they have one week to bring in Osama and the mad Egyptian doctor or face annihilation of their tribes. Crazy? Madness? I wonder. Seems to me that the future of Western civilization is at stake, and it calls for drastic measures. What's the point of our great techniclogical advantage if we do not have the intestinal fortitude to use it against those who have proved their intent and ability to attack and destroy us?
For links to news, views, politics, and government, bookmark All Things Political.

Any comments that address subjects outside of these strict guidelines will be instantly deleted.

I'd be interested to see if anybody could actually write outside of those guidelines. Anybody who manages this will win my respect and adulation. (Worthless, I know, but there you go...)

I got no comments. Asides, observations, quips, bon mots, double entendres... but no comments. Sorry.

Have you checked out Green Party soccer nut M. Organ's natty little press release.

He's got no World Cup soccer available on free-to-air TV (note to M. Organ research is useful) yet the 2002 Big Cup was on SBS and Nine. Also good to see that in the original release there was no mention of the 2006 Final, only the 2010.

Late conversion to the sport perchance? And as the biggest and best event, perhaps M. Organ has a tip or two for those who can't afford the $40 per month.

Oh, I can do insinuations and innuendoes, too... if you know what I mean....

Outrageous censorship in Tony Blair's England!

I listened to Margo Kingston being interviewed by Ross Warnicke on 3AW this morning. All it was a 10 minute free plug for her book. Let me predict -- this book will be on the remainder table in 2 months. Don't spend $24.95 now. Wait and get it for $4.95.

She invited people to attend the launch tonight at Readings in Lygon Street (6:30pm) and throw tomatoes at her.

Miss Kingston sounds nice but, as the old saw goes, the lights are on but nobody's home. Actually, she'd sound better if she didn't drop her Gs – the goin' gets a bit annoyin' after a while.

Miss Kingston had nothing to say of weight or substance. She tells us she voted for John Howard but now thinks both major parties equally dishonest and reprehensible, along with the whole of the Canberra press gallery, who are co-conspirators in fooling we dim voters.

Her suggestion is we should send a message by voting for an independent - no preferably not an independent, because he or she may ally him- or herself with a major. We should vote DEMOCRAT! That'll learn 'em.

No wonder the impostor no longer has a by-line.

the real jeffs
it seems that Ben Shapiro has ommitted left wing bias in ordinary schools in His book "Brainwashed" about the American uni system.
At least the renewal of the Australian flag in our schools will counter the leftoid propaganda machine.
We sorely need an academic bill of rights.
In the UK , "Surveys" by University academics have concluded that the BBC is actually BIASED towards Israel.
Indoctrination no starts at the Uni level but possibly at the secondary level od "education".
It seems the only subject which cannit be corrupted by the left is Science, perhaps explainig its low take up.

"What if we aimed nuclear missles at Mecca and Medina, and planted high-powered explosives around the Dome of the Rock, and announced to the world that the next terrorist attack would result in their vaunted "holy" sites being instantly vaporized? Might that have the effect of stopping the mad men?"

There is one aspect to the war on terror that few people see, and possibly the most notable exception is Tony Blair - that is, if what will Westeners do if Western governments are seen to do nothing.

The emergence of a new terrorist group, which is to Al Quaeda what the Ulster Freedom Fighters are to the IRA, is an all too real possibility. And they are likely to do something very similar to what All Things Political has suggested.

When that happens, the war on terror becomes the religious war that the coalition has been hoping to avoid. It's a war the West can still win, but at a far greater cost to human lives and suffering.

Good point 2dogs.

LILEKS IS GAY

walter:

Peace activist Margo wants us to vote for this bloke and his party?

Hilarious, no?

Latest international shame of the day: The US asking for one more year of exemption for its soldiers from the ICC.

Is the Bush Admin so naive that the whole world has forgotten Abu Ghraib? But after all, we should be surprise. America under Bush has been perversely twisted from a federal republic to a militaristic empire. And it is the likes of an empire to ask for extra-territorial rights.

sp:

Every nation on Earth has rights of extra-territoriality. All of their embassies and consulates exist on that basis in law.

By the way, here's a breaking story to give heart to peaceniks everywhere.

CurrencyLad:

You know very well that is not the kind of extra-territorail rights we re talking about. If you have any idea of what you are uttering, it is not extra-territorial rights, but diplomatic immunity enshrined in the Vienna Conevention.Extra-teritorial rights were an ugly relic of the West's imperial past. It was obtained by gunboat diplomacy, a stunt in which Cheney and Rumsfeld are gurus and grandmasters.

The most shameful thing is the Bush Admin still wanted to be out of the long arms of international law and justice. If the US continue to show the rest of the world that international norms can be flounted and violated at will, where were the Bushies so shock when North Korea pulled out of the NPT and Iran refused to cooperate with the IAEA. After they are just doing what the Bush Admin is doing, and are indeed faithful disciples of Bush in being a frequent law breaker who does not even have a grain of respect for world opinion and sentiments. It was more surprising that Bush expect others to abide by the same laws and rules which he himself try to evade.

Australia didn't retify Kyoto - but...
(via Dave Barry)

SP broke the rules!

Sorry Andrea, I'm going to break the rules, too.

THIS IS APPALLING.

SP,
If elements in Europe were not so eager to leverage the ICC for their own agendas I'm sure there would not be a problem. Past events seem to indicate that they are eagerly waiting to invoke war crimes charges over anything they disagree with. Funny how they never seem to use this system for real tyrants.

Davo, I wouldn't be so sure about science being immune to leftoid corruption -- I've read several left wing documents that claim science is not a valid approach.

CurrencyLad -- LOL! That award for Jimmah Cartah is long overdue!

can bush still win after Fahrenheit 9/11?

no ways, surely....

Datsun, even some in the mainstream are shredding that pack of lies. There is an even more interesting irony about the film.

Oh dear, I just noticed that Emily has once again claimed to be a bigger pervert than I am. This is absolutely untrue. Yes, she got more votes in the Great Perv-Off than I did but that's only because she has boobs and makes out with chicks (or claims to, I haven't actually seen it).

Hmmm... Can I talk about the Sudan genocide in Darfur? 30000 killed, 1+ million displaced. I blogged about it extensively. Heck, Instapundit even linked me :-). Well, at least this is better than stating my favourite colour...

This morning I was in a hurry, so I just had an apple for breakfast.
It was not as good as a big ol' greasy chicken biscuit or something, but it was alright.

PANTS!

Real JeffS:

As a Presidency buff and Americaphile of long standing, I have to say - by way of disclaimer (or humanitarian impulse or whatever) - that I do think President Carter is a fine man.

As President, he was naive and acted as though the better impulses he himself felt could influence and transform the beliefs and behaviours of others. He was massively wrong. Or, rather, he was a more innocent person than those he sought to change.

But he was a better person than Clinton and not a few others on the international scene of his day. If he did not bring gravitas or strength to the Oval Office, he did bring a probably necessary sense of rectitude back to the Presidency after Nixon's ignoble exit.

Reagan had the same old-world genuineness as Carter, but in him it was conjoined to that principled aggression his predecessor could never exude.

Still, history is a tough judge: Carter's immobility and appeasement wrought enormous damage.

Rajan R:

We Aussies generally hate Malaysians too (!) but you're now listed as one of my favourites. Really great work, Sir, on the Sudan crisis. You must be one of few to concentrate on it.

Wish I could comment intelligently but I'm more ignorant than I should be about the situation on the ground in that country. Any suggestions, links?

CurrencyLad:

You summarize Carter's presidency quite well!

He's a fine man, but was a disaster as President. He was elected in response to the Nixon administration and Ford's follow on; that was my first vote in a presidential campaign (nyah! You know how old I am!), and I remember it well.

The problem is, he really never learned that lesson. His post-presidential attempts (although rare of late) to insert himself into international situations demonstrated this. And I suspect that a number of people have used him as a role model for the good things that he did, while ignoring the massive damages that he indeed wrought.

Frankly, I'd rather see Carter running Habitat for Humanities -- that's where his talents truly lie.

Real JeffS: That was my first election also. But I took the high road and wrote in Frank Church.

I've told you plenty of times, Ken, if you want to see pictures, you have to pay. Like everybody else.

And I bet they're more expensive than a house in Bakersfield

I disagree with the assessment of Carter as a "fine man". He is a self righteous prigg and anti-isreal. He has done more to damage American foreign policy than any other president of the 20th century. Do you remember the disaster that was Andrew Young?

i'm sure they don't need new siding though, ken.

ken summers
pls explain 'pack of lies'

you aint even seen that film.
also, there aint no mainstream
stop watching mtv sucker.

Yeah, Ken. Stop watching MTV.

Very much, Stacy. Carter also gutted the military, micromanaged the Federal government (he wouldn't delegate), negotiated the sham peace deal with Arrafat, stroked the ego of the Soviet Union, had a hand in cranking up inflation, demoralized the country....need I go on? I was damned glad to see him leave the White House.

There's a saying in the military and government (it probably applies to other realms as well): "You are promoted to your first level of incompetence". Carter simply shouldn't have been President. I don't know about his term as the governor of Georgia, but I suspect his level of competence is at the city council level.

But I wouldn't mind having him as a neighbor. He has morals and ethics, and sticks to them. He did not abuse his office for personal gain or pleasure. He certainly is courteous and patient, and displays a quiet dignity. His one personal problem (in my opinion) is that he feels he can influence others to change their ways simply by hugging them. That's a crock, and it demonstrates his naivity, and why he was incompetent as President.

It's not that I respect or admire Carter. Far from it! But I can appreciate that he was at least not a self-gratifying clown like Clinton was. Or a zombie like Gorezilla. Or a self-proclaimed war hero like Kerry.

here's one, the-name-is-nissan

Ken Parish at Troppo Armidillo has awarded his Blog Bile Award.

Quoting Ken: "Paul from Paul and Carl's Daily Diatribe has come up with this little beauty about a German-made doco on "the horrors of America’s brutal treatment of prisoners and heartless war crimes". It's a quality entry. Here's a sample":

It’s funny how the sausage eaters seem to have to outdo everyone else in hysterical politcal extremism; in the thirties, there were no shortage of rabid propagandists, happy to portray the swinish Bolsheviks and their fellow travellers the evil Jews as the enemies of all that is wholesome, and create a right-wing state that made the others look like rank amateurs.

Now the tofu-wurst munching vegan near-beer quaffing square-heads seem determined to out-polemicise the likes of Michael Moore in portraying the USA as the source of all evil in the world, and to show up those effete Swedes and the dillatente French as mere hairy-arsed boys when it comes to being a nation of deranged far-left dingbats.

Not sure whether Ken is actually a serious admirer of such impressive RWDB clarity but... mmm, a Blog Bile Award. I'd like one of those.

PS: Check out the cartoon at Paul and Carl's. Says it all.

blog bile on the rabbit!
blog bile on the rabbit!

datsun, "Pack of Lies" explained:

See here
And here
And here
And here
And here

Also, Mr. Bingley's link above.

And I have never watched MTV.

Now please explain "ain't no mainstream" in proper English.

words fail me

hahahahahahahahaha

now we know why justice is blind...and has hairy palms

Mr. Bingley, you of all people should know those myths aren't true.

I did it only until I needed glasses, roughly second grade.

And I am so blogging that

hmmm, i don't know. my vision started failing in my early teen years.

coincidence, i guess.

For sp, way above:

Excerpted from today's New York Times:

U.S. Drops Plan to Exempt G.I.'s From U.N. Court

By WARREN HOGE

Published: June 24, 2004

UNITED NATIONS, June 23 — The United States bowed Wednesday to broad opposition on the Security Council and announced it was dropping its effort to gain immunity for its troops from prosecution by the International Criminal Court.

"The United States has decided not to proceed further with consideration and action on the draft at this time in order to avoid a prolonged and divisive debate," James B. Cunningham, the deputy American ambassador, said on emerging from the Council chamber.

The outcome, while a political defeat for Washington, will have no effect on the vulnerability to prosecution of American soldiers in Iraq. Neither the United States nor Iraq is a member of the tribunal, and its jurisdiction is limited to countries that do not themselves prosecute crimes by their military.

They were also caught off guard by the intervention of Mr. Annan, who told the ambassadors on Friday that a vote in favor of the United States would undermine the new solidarity of the Council.

Shortly after Mr. Cunningham's announcement, Mr. Annan issued a statement saying, "The decision by the United States not to pursue a resolution on this matter will help maintain the unity of the Security Council at a time when it faces difficult challenges."

[That's code for: 'we gave you the Iraq resolution you wanted. The quid pro quo is this'].

The most shameless comment of the week, if not the year so far, came from Ambassador Wang Guangya of China. Withdrawing support for the United States exemption policy, he argued that "this year China has been under pressure because of the scandals and the news coverage of the prisoner abuse, and it made it very difficult for my government to support it."

That's right. The prisoner abuse scandal upset those paragons of penal justice - the Chinese Communist Party.

An equally shameless contribution was made by Kofi 'Swifty' Annan:

In calling for the Council to turn back the American request, Mr. Annan said it was "of dubious judicial value," and especially objectionable in the aftermath of the prisoner abuse. Passing the measure, he said, would discredit the Council, the United Nations and the "primacy of the rule of law," [startled emphasis added] and he appealed to the members to maintain the common purpose they had shown on June 8 in their unanimous vote on Iraq.

Coming at the tail-end of the NYT story and, obviously, being given similar ranking by Annan & Co was Ambassador Cunningham's argument for the exemption. To wit, the United States feared trumped up charges being routinely brought for political purposes.

In this context, he pointed out that the US was the "largest contributor to global security."

We await Mr Annan's application of the 'rule of law' to the investigation of the Oil for Food swindle.

i asked for facts to be disputed
i understand that there are two sides to a story

what i meant by 'no mainstream'
can be summarised as follows:
your concept of mainstream will be very varied depending on the products of your enviroment-
economic/social/religious circumstances.

for e.g.
its cool to suicide bomb (palestine kids)
vs
its cool to join the army (jewish kids)

the guy with the most guns wins (or just kill more)

Oh Bingster ~ GACK!!! I'da hoped you would've handled yourself better...

Whoops! Sorry! Scratch that...

I was talking about the mainstream media. I thought that was clear.

And yes, the side with the most guns wins. That pretty much sums up human history. What else is new?

And facts to be disputed? Start actually reading the links.

Ooh, interesting observation I missed before, datsun. Do you really consider "cool to suicide bomb" to be mainstream for Palestinian kids? That would pretty much eliminate any reason to respect Palestinians or their culture.

Lunch was better. Grilled muenster and smoked ham on buttermilk bread. Pepsi and chips. I think I'll make some Thai for dinner- curry shrimp, spring rolls, maybe that cold cucumber peanut noodle salad.

Ken, datsun's statement of "cool to suicide bomb" is a good reason not to take datsun seriously.

Rob, you are making me drool! My lunch is a frozen hamburger patty with mixed vegatables, nuked for 3 minutes, some Ritz crackers, and a bottle of Dr. Pepper.

Guys, best laugh of the day can be had here:

http://hq.protestwarrior.com/?page=/featured/PHS/PHS.php

Jeff, I know that, I just couldn't resist the idea of a lefty referring to suicide bombings as "mainstream" among Palestinians.

LOL, Ken! I caught the irony as well. Sometimes these characters wear their hearts on their sleeves....and don't realize it. Methinks sun-of-dat made a Freudian slip there!

I am listening to Wierd all's : "Amish Paradise" right now.

Methinks sun-of-dat made a Freudian slip there!

Or a Ford-ian slip, perhaps............

Though I myself would love to see a blow by blow breakdown of all of MMs mis-representations in the film. I'm sure it would be a long one, though.....

or maybe one from fredericks...

Guys, you GOTTA check THIS site out (especially the VIDEOS section.

http://www.protestwarrior.com

I'm lovin' it! A site for the Right!

Richard and Wild Justice: the guy that started ProtestWarrior, Kfir (I forget his last name), is from my area and is often interviewed on local VRWC/RWDB radio. I tell ya, the kids are alright.

Rob:
Right on bro'. Smoked pepper turkey and swiss on a hoagie roll, chips and pepsi. I throw in a yogurt and a banana for good measure. The banana, God's version of crack.

Regarding the kid from the Protest Warrior-PHS story. He is frighteningly informed and intelligent for an 18 year old. I thought they were dumb, drunk, and stoned at that age? That kid's got a pocket constitution! No offense, the baby boomers fucked up our country, but with kids like this, we're definitely back on the right track.

Scherz, I read the same article. It's good to see smart kids out there, although he is a kid only in age.

Oh, and I'm a baby boomer, and no offense is taken. My generation did indeed fuck up this country. I don't walk amongst the ranks of them, but we certainly did grow up together.

And that's frightening. What if I had gone down that path.......?

I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea
We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee
And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky
Has awakened in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die

A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew dappled the lily and rose
Ah, dream of them not my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes
And the flame of the blue star that lingers, hung low on the fall of the dew
For I would we were changed to white birds, on the wandering foam, I and you

I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore
Where time would surely forget us, and sorrow come near us no more
Soon far from the rose and the lily, and fret of the flames would we be
Were we only white birds my beloved, bouyed out on the foam of the sea

The White Birds, WB Yates, I just like it.

or american culture, ken?

For God's sake! What is Rob having for dinner? We're dying here...

datsun, WTF are you talking about?

Matt, Rob said he would be having Thai for dinner. But he hasn't told us how it was.

Sydney to beat Collingwood by 25 points...

During a previous absence, one of Tim's suggested topics was 'Weird Celebrity Crushes'. Mine are women with long noses:

Australia: Sibylla Budd and Johanna Griggs.
UK: Helen Baxendale and Diana Spencer (RIP).
US: Marlee Matlin and Meryl Streep.

Scherz and the Real Jeff
Well I am offended. As an older boomer, I'm sick of the hate-fest for an entire generation. Incidentally, during the late '60's and early '70's, those organising and leading the political changes of the time were much older than any of my contemporaries, people born in the '30's and '40's in fact. And interestingly, the most radical of the left today are those in their '30's, people not born to boomers.

Coming into this blog late....

Jimmy Carter was a disaster as president, because he didn't understand that in foreign policy it's national interests not ethics which count. What was moral or ethical about undermining and displacing the Shah of Iran who was a benevolent dictator and a faithful US client and replacing him with a malignant one, in the form of the Ayatollah?

Personally I loved what the interior designers did at the Annangrove mosque. Maybe all mosques should consider that art work.

Good Feng Shui.

LOL @ them!!

http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9945988%255E421,00.html

CurrencyLad:

As to the article, the Bush Admin found out that it cannot impose its imperialism on a united UN Secuirty Council and chooses therefore in stead to resort to damage control.

As for your smearing campaign of Carter, whether he was a good or lousy President, it is subjective and open to debate where everyone is entitled to their own opinions. However, one thing that is clear that at least he is one person with conscience and morality. In this area, he is a better person and Christian than your old icon Reagan who make friends with mass murderers like Chun Doo Hwan and General Zia and indeed a disgusting, pretentious person who practiced double standards, making him morally bankrupt and treacherous.

As a citizen, Carter did many charitable things than when he was president. His foundation is concerned with poverty in the Third World and the people's struggle to survive. How many former presidentd actually involve themselves in humanitarian missions after they stepped down? As a individual he should be honoured and not vehemently smeared by the fascist propaganda of the rich and powerful Right.

CurrencyLad: Well, Malaysia can be summarized into this: We have a stupid monarchy no one knows the name of, because it changes every 5 years, yet a prime minister that changes once in a lifetime. We love nationalism and like to point out how developed we are, but at the end of it all, most of us could be found fighting it out at the Australian embasssy trying to get a PR.

Gaaah, run! Margoyle hits the bribane airwaves on 612ABC. Introducing her as an old Brizzy (Courier-Mail) girl done well, Steve Price prefaces her anti-Howard tirade with the unintentionally ironic "this is no left wing rant".

The old harridan "swinging voter" then forensically builds a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy theory around the Bush visit and the Lodge barbeque invitation list. Apparently Steve Irwin is part of the Big Media cabal that is taking over our country. Truly chilling.

Rehame... I hope you caught that!

Woo hooo! George W Bush wins again!

Just voted "biggest liar" of the previous 4 prezzes.

GO TEAM

Well, sp, I agree, Carter has a conscience and morality. It's just too bad that he will go down in history as one of the worst presidents. Please note that while Carter didn't support known dictators, he did little to help governments in trouble. His foreign policy was, at best, goofy. One can argue that he helped the Iranian theocracy blossom.

If you want an historical comparison, Captain Bligh of the HMS Bounty was a superb sailor and navigator. But he was a terrible leader -- that's why he had the mutiny. Carter didn't have a revolution, he just got voted out of office.

As to former presidents engaging in charities after they step down, many do. It's just that very few dedicate their lives to it.

First, I didn't smear Carter as an individual, I said he was a lousy president. Second, I did honor him as an individual, I just don't respect him. The two are not mutually exclusive, if you mix in a little pity.

Third, your own blatherings show that you are more than a little biased yourself. "...fascist propaganda of the rich and powerful Right" indeed! I don't have to respect or like someone to accept them. It's not either hate or love. Those are extremes, and that's not what I said; people disagreed with me, others agreed. CurrencyLad, by the way, also said Carter is a fine man. Look at his post.

And even though you didn't address me, I don't like people being labeled as a fascist by someone who has monochrome vision, which is a symptom of fanaticism. That describes you, by the way.

As to the "icon Reagan".....as you say, every one is entitled to their opinion. You will understand, then, if I laugh at yours.

From the Daily Telegraph (UK) --

Messiah hoax fools hundreds of German Muslims

Hundreds of Muslims flocked to a German hospital where an internet site said the Messiah was being breast-fed by his resurrected mother who died while giving birth, medical authorities said yesterday.

Essen university clinic said large groups of women with children were among those who had arrived in the past fortnight hoping to visit the "Messiah". German media reported that the story was a hoax, "but some people just wanted to believe it", said the hospital.

##

'Gullible' is the word that springs to mind. And not only German Muslims.

Grabbest thou the Holy Handgrenade, and counteth to THREE...That shalt useth not Jewish bullets, forsooth, or thou art flocked, forsooth and ergo.

Fire These Not in Self Defense or Against Thy Foes

FUCK 'EM, THS! KILL 'EM WITH J-E-W BULLETS!

Carter has a messiah complex. I could make the case easily, but it's getting too late here in Georgia for coherent psychobabble.

sp

Carter seems pretty cosy with Castro and Arafat to name just two.

"propaganda of the rich and powerful Right "

So you think Carter and Kerry are poor misunderstood innocence then?

I dunno, tree hugging sister, I think I'd prefer using Israeli ammo in Iraq. Might be the "silver bullet" for Islamofascists.

I can't say about the messiah complex for Carter, but I would agree to him having an ego problem. Goes hand in hand with his being naive.

Besides, I still resent his brother Billy foisting that "Billy Beer" on the American public. YUCK! Concentrated horse piss in a cheap can -- it's amazing the cases didn't spring leaks between the factory and the stores from the corrosive contents.

jimmy carter ran racist campains when he ran for the state senate in Georgia. When he was elected governor of Georgia he pressured companies doing business with the state to hire his family members, when they didn't comply he would cancel their contracts with the state. I have a friend who started working at the state department when jimmy was president and said jimmy had no problem in having third parties assasinate foreign leaders as long as jimmy's hands were to appear clean. jimmy is one big effing anti-semitic southern baptist.

I knocked back Indira Naidoo at an end of matriculation party. I guess this was in the days when she still liked guys, back when she was not a well known personality. My chance of fame - gone!

You knocked back Indira Naidoo : are you mad ? No wonder she bats for the other team.

Ah, Jimmy Carter! The paragon of virtue! A man of a principle! And the one and only American president who never met a totalitarian dictator that he did not like.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/LatinAmerica/WM110.cfm
http://www.nationalreview.com/flashback/flashback-nordlinger101102.asp
http://www.jfednepa.org/mark%20silverberg/jimmycarter.html

Rob & Bill, hate to burst your bubbles but I think this article on Indira puts her sexuality in context. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/07/29/1027818506098.html?oneclick=true

But talking about journos batting for the 'other team', what about Tracy Grimshaw or Ellen Fanning? On the bloke side, what about Ian Ross? And no one mention Maggot ok. I don't think anyone would want to bat with her.. LOL

There is 2 things I really hate.
Indian Mynar birds and mosques. So I thought that if we could somehow get the indian mynars to fly into the mosques on suicide missions and explode .
We could kill 2 birds with one stone so to speak.
I think there was a episode of Get Smart similar to this idea.

Carter, presided over the biggest drain of Staff Non
Commissioned Officers in post WWII era. Worked with
congress to give the military a 25% pay raise with
most of the money going to Staff NCOs. Cut the
military so badly that the E1 through E5 personnel
were living in condemned housing and on food stamps.
He might be a good guy, but he definitely finished
last in my book.

Sorry, 25% pay raise two monthes before the
elections in 1980.

You sum it nicely, Mike. Carter is a nice guy that finished last. I just wish he knew it.

Where are all the posts about lunch?

Lunch today: Nutritious meat pie, washed down with flavoured milk.

No, I'm not a brickie. :)

Latest Surprise of the century for the GOP:
James Kelly offer aid and security pledge to Pyongyang if she abandons her nuke program.

So after all, Bush is a closet "leftist" and "appeaser" who has no resolve and credibility. He is willing to reward a rogue state for breaking promises and develop nukes. It is strange that the militaristic warmonger suddenly become the sort of Neville Chamberlain-Incarnate that the Conservatives had detested! Joke of the century.

OK - let the debate continue, but...

All post-war Presidents were happy for foreign bad guys to be assassinated - the Diems come to mind (and they weren't that bad on the badness scale); none wanted to be associated in any way with such measures. Not a few Presidents have done business with morally repugnant foreign dictators - South American ones particularly. FDR did business with Stalin - he had to. 'So what', I hear you say. I agree.

Kennedy's removal of missiles based in Turkey after the Cuban Crisis has been considered by some to have been a greater act of appeasement than anything Carter did.

For sheer crookedness, LBJ would be hard to beat in the twentieth century - far surpassing Nixon for sheer venality.

No I haven't gone over to the left and I think Carter was a disaster - as my original post on him makes clear. He was a goody-two-shoes who wandered into a bar-fight. He should have realised, but didn't, that such a state of affairs is pretty much normal in politics and life. He either should have started cracking heads with chairs and whiskey bottles or not gone through those swing-doors in the first place.

BUT, worse men have held the office he held - from the standpoint of basic decency. I'd trust him with my wife before Clinton; with a loaded gun before Nixon; with my money before Johnson; with my daughter before Kennedy.

Fact is, though, this just isn't enough for a President. The office requires worldly wiles and a big streak of ballsy bastard. That's why I rank LBJ highly for political effectiveness. The question ultimately is 'would you trust Carter with defending and protecting the interests and the Constitution of the United States'. Answer: no. History's answer: no. My answer: no.

But folks, differentiate the personal from the political. If Carter's essential goodness is a sham for some series of verifiable reasons, I'm prepared to learn from those more knowledgeable and think again.

sp, US has a lot of troops tied up in Iraq at the moment.

Also, a war on the Korean peninsula would be far more devastating for the region than any skirmish in the Middle East.

Anyway, had my best laugh for ages with the Bunyip's continued coverage of Phillip Adams and his Mao Hat.

The letters to the editor of the Australian were priceless.

:)

Two good Andrew Bolt columns just posted. One on the ABC and the other on why we (Melbourne) can't have a dam on the Mitchell even though we're desperate.

Thanks for the plug, CL. Gotta love those hairy-armpitted, ugly Indian mirror-encrusted backpack wearing, Birkenstock-shod progenies of untermensch gassers. If it's irrelevent you want, you can't go past Roger.
Wibble Wibble!

Rajan R Does the fact that Australia does not have an embassy in Malaysia prompt you to alter your anecdote about Malaysians "...fighting it out at the Australian embassy trying to get a PR?"

My favorite color is blue.

No wait ... red

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Papertiger:

Like, we nearly achieved a thread arc man. Before you sold out for red. Communist.

I say Habib should receive an award for that description.

could we use pork lard to lubricate our jewish bullets before we shoot them...

Oops- how completely hatstand of me- here's the correct link.

Shall we play the Panzer commander and the milkmaid, Sir Michael?

Oops- how completely hatstand of me- here's the correct link.

Shall we play the Panzer commander and the milkmaid, Sir Michael?

Oops- how completely hatstand of me- here's the correct link.

Shall we play the Panzer commander and the milkmaid, Sir Michael?

WTF?? First it won't post, then does so three times- looks like that spam killer is a bottler, Andrea.

post whore

speaking of, During the Carter years, the military was so strapped for a decent cost of living, that a number of wives and girlfriends of GI's stationed in Germany resorted to prostitution. My husband had to send home a number of family members of his men to stop this degradation. German charities helped buy food and clothing for our guys and their families over there.

oh, and I believe Federal workers in the States were given a decent cost of living increase at the same time.

Oh man, you guys missed it. The end result was a green curry shrimp peanut snow pea stirfry thingy with rice noodles and spring rolls. A splash of fish sauce, some fresh mint and basil from the garden, a squeeze of key lime, holy moly. And just two or three squirts of the impossibly hot red chili paste stuff with the rooster on it- you know what I'm talkin' boot. Too hot for the wifey, but daddy like.

Next week I'm at the beach so I'll report on the fresh snapper, shrimp, crab, etc. Cheers to all.

damn, you rat bastard. i had some cold, leftover pasta.

Hey, you little bottler.

For all you Australian viewers, Michael Moore has words for you on the ABC's Lateline. Nice of our national broadcaster to give Fraud&Hype 9/11 a free plug, no?

I've only seen the teaser, but Phat Mick is warning that our drift to the Right will see us suffering violence like in the States.

Must see TV. Or at least, must be paid for, because none of the commercial channels appears to be smoking Michigan Fat's flagpole quite like our publicly funded broadcasters.

Just in case you guys don't know what I was talkin' boot, the Red Rooster Fiery Chili Paste is called Tuong ot Sriracha, made in the USA. It'll make your hair curly, your teeth pearly, and childbirth a pleasure.

Bingley, that's just sad.

You guys talking about lunch? I had a nooner.

I looooovvvvve lunch.

Ken, you are sooooo right, as the kids say. Nothing will make the afternoon rocket by like a lunch at the Y.

NoItatall - believe me mate - it was way before this.

"In 1990, after finishing her journalism degree, Naidoo joined the ABC in Adelaide as a TV news cadet, and progressed quickly."

I met her in Adelaide in late November 1987, she was still doing journalism - perfectly placed - the rest could of been history *sigh* - I was too young and innocent - enough of history.

really is. i'll grill some lamb tonight, and wash it down with a pitcher of caipirinhas to make up, though.

the Red Rooster Fiery Chili Paste is called Tuong ot Sriracha

A Vietnamese staple, known in our house as 'chicken sauce'. Lovely, lovely stuff. Try a healthy splash in a reduction of apricot preserves, dijon, chicken broth and lime juice, then pour over coconut fried trigger fish, known in our house as 'humuhumunukunukuapuaa'.

As for Jewish bullets, I am sooo pissed I blew a chance to use the word 'smote', known in our house as 'smote'...

Bingster ~ peeTOOO!!

Another bottle arriving via NJ the 13th, to feed my ugly caipirinha addiction. You have destroyed my life.....

we could use the jewish bullets to schmear our enemies!

i can hear the marines now: "Lox and load, boys!"

there is no finer summer beverage

TIM BLAIR ON LATELINE!!!
Never thought I'd see that!
While they didn't give ya much, I'm surprised they let you on at all. Sure was good to see though!
My blood pressure went through the roof when I saw Michael Moore's big, fat, ugly face pop up. Nice (and surprising given the ABC's outrageous bias) that they gave Tim a shot at him, albeit a very brief one.

Steven Den Beste points out an article where French wine sales are falling in the USA. The article notes where a panel concluded the problem is due to packaging and marketing problems.

Oh, that's why. Silly me, after all, it's only French wine.

and as they took the judge away, he was singing:

"I'm proud to be an' Okie
Who does strokie..."

deVillain and his sophisticated Gallic logic at the UN was part of the French "packaging and marketing problem" for a lot of us. Thank goodness Aussie wine labels are in English for us dumb Yanks---

i'm boycotting froggie wine; hell, i'm even boycotting californian wine...although since they voted in ahnold i'm willing to try it again.

nope, only official Coalition of the Swilling wine for me: australian!

What's all this jibberish?

The kabobs I had for lunch today aren't treating me that well.

Had the city building inspector in this morning, to check my home remodeling project. And I passed. Ah, bureaucracy! At least the inspector is knowledgeable and quite professional; I had made all of his corrections, and he was satisfied.

Next phase: finish the drywall, and then tape/mud everything. A great time to be working indoors with the AC on, by the way; summer is hitting us with a vengence in eastern Washington, 90 F (32 C) highs all week, and this weekend has a severe thunderstorm alert.

Oh, well, I'll be outside all weekend. Should be interesting.....

hold up a 1 iron...

The Real JeffS:

How is the weather in Oregon? The co I work for is going to be opening a call center in Salem, and I almost would consider it if I could convince the lovely Mrs. Crusader that the winters aren't that bad. Looks like it is cheaper than here in Charlotte.

some nice elk to shoot for dinner, too

some nice elk to shoot for dinner, too

Plus property is cheap enough I could afford to shoot on my own property, but the Mrs. isn't buying it.......

c'mon, be a man! what would grizzly adams do? say "woman, we are moving. pack up the youngins."

c'mon, be a man! what would grizzly adams do? say "woman, we are moving. pack up the youngins."

I could see THAT going over real well.....
She also has a key to the gun safe, sooooooooooo..........
As JT said, "In my mind, I'm stayin' in Carolina..." or something to that effect........

Can't wait to here Zells speech at the GOP convention.....

*cough*
wuss
*cough*

*cough*
wuss
*cough*

Yup! Worked so far, why change?
Discretion is the better part of valor, I always say.

Looks like the French have surrendered again, this time to Greece!

The SMH has ANOTHER banner piece on the Wilkie affair. Haven't they done enough already?

Announcement: I've banned thick-headed, thin-skinned troll Jeremy for the nonce. Hey, I was in the mood.

So there, JEFFS THE REAL, just exactly how close to
the panhandle are you?

Hey, peeps....anybody remember the guy that used to hang around this site...name was Tim (or Jim) Blair, I think. What ever happened to him, I wonder. Not that he's missed, or really needed, ya know.

He's in Malaysia, being fed EXPENSIVE WINE and food by golden-skinned slave girls or something. He doesn't need us anymore.

Oh! I always wondered why he has that Paypal link. Now, I know.

I'm gonna have to get me one of these blogs, maybe I can end up down in Cobden....being fed Ripple by pasty-skinned trailertrash!

In the Sydney Morning Herald today, Julia Baird decries the government's requirement that state schools fly the Australian flag.

Referring to a couple of years she spent in the U.S. as a child, she remembers the morning ritual of pledging allegiance to the Star Spangled Banner. "For years I resisted", she says. Morally, a dead-ringer for Nelson Mandela even then apparently.

On to an inadvertent, Margo-esque non sequitur: "And now, John Howard wants us to do the same." Huh? Well, no matter. We presume she means 'John Howard now wants us to pledge allegiance to our flag'. Except that he doesn't. Flying the thing will do nicely. Well, no matter (again), the SMH readership get the point: Australia is now imitating evil, ludicrously patriotic America, comprende?

Fast forward a few pars and the argument has moved frighteningly from the flag to nationalism and an undergraduate thesis on history. Then Orwell is wheeled out and - as Christopher Hitchens has pointed out in relation to Michael Moore - Orwell should never be wheeled out by amateurs.

Orwell wrote that "The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."

Flying the Aussie flag seems somehow to be linked to, if not likely to cause, atrocities. What should we be concerned about, if not silly old flags or an even sillier patriotism?

1). To know we will hold accountable those who led us to war, against our will and our reason.

That's SMH code for 'HowardBlairBush=WarCriminals, Vote 1 for Mark Latham.

2). To stop punishing asylum seekers and psychologically torturing their children by imprisoning them behind barbed wire.

We should be punishing 'asylum seekers' and psychologically torturing their children by removing them from their parents and their air-conditioned, cable TV-connected hellhole and billeting them with hairy-legged social workers.

3). To stop paying lip-service to truth. To listen to the canaries in the mine like the poets, the dreamers, instead of polarising people in the archaic left-right divide.

Government-funded ranters are somehow innocent little birds being gassed by evil Herr Howard. But there's more than puke-inducement inherent in this observation. What about the actual caged innocents freed from beheadings, public floggings, torture (including surgical removal of body parts) and summary execution? What of the chemical weapons attacks carried out by Saddam on people more aptly compared to canaries? Hey, they weren't 'poets' and 'dreamers' people! (Pol Pot was, though). They were, sniff... yucky old Kurds. Most of them probably didn't even do any student exchange years O.S. like all the strugglers Julia knows.

4). To honour people like the Salvation Army court chaplains, who retired this week and were recognised for a lifetime of selfless and compassionate work - instead of continually thrusting microphones in the faces of the vapid and self-promoting, or the politically banal.

A hearty 'hear hear' to the lionisation of the Salvos. None of those fine men and women would waste their time or diminish their dignity by appearing on, say, a certain government-funded comedy show that regularly ridicules Christianity and all things John Howard. No sir! But Julia Baird did last night. Microphone in the face anyone?

By the way, the other purpose of the ABC's 'The Glass House', from the standpoint of the 'talent' who appear on it, is...er, self-promotion. Last night, host Will Anderson ridiculed Iraqi sovereignty, the Coalition's military and civil campaigns and said he'd be proud to have "real Aussie" bloke, Mark Latham, become Prime Minister - manboobs and all. Nothing banal there.

'People in Glass Houses...', Julia. They shouldn't throw stones. They shouldn't be seduced by television's celebrity-making power.

And, for the love of Pete, they should NEVER EVER abandon the canaries!

'Greatest of Them All'.

And they say Americans are ignorant...

Steve: High Commission, embassy, big difference. http://www.australia.org.my/

Clocked up about 184 posts so far in this comments thread. Can we make it past the big 200, I wonder?

Crusader

Grizzly Adams lived alone with a bear. (pass it on)

test

sorry guys just testing the blog for script weirdness.

Hey, it's a game of Chinese whispers!

Grizzly Adams lived in a home with a bear purple monkey dishwasher. (pass it on!)

More Iraqi artillery shells have tested positive for Sarin...

Grizzly Adams lived in a home with a bear purple monkey dishwasher, but I had one and the wheels fell off.

Huh! We'll get him...especially for that purple monkey dishwasher remark!

"Charles Duelfer, who is now in charge of the Iraq Survey Group… yesterday, made announcement that they'd found additional shells which have tested positive for sarin."

I had a dream that my foot was stuck under the cushion of the sofa and there was a deadly spider suspended on a web about a foot from my face. It was in the process of spinning up an insect in its webbing. This filled me with such anxiety that I woke up and found out that it wasn't a dream. there was a real spider a foot from my face spinning up a fly.

Slapping it away would have been futile because the spider woould have just swung back after the flight being as it was hanging on its web. I struggled to get my foot free, but couldn't.

Then I watched as the spider dissolved. Imagine my relief. It was just an acid flashback LOL.

Papertiger, you need help!

:)

Forecast for Melbourne Issued at 1625 on Saturday the 26th of June 2004

Tonight and Sunday
A few showers, mainly over southeastern suburbs, clearing early in the morning.
A partly cloudy day to follow with a freshening north to northwesterly wind.

Min 8 Max 16

Suburban Temperatures

Laverton Min 6 Max 16 Yarra Glen Min 5 Max 15
Tullamarine Min 5 Max 15 Mt Dandenong Min 4 Max 9
Watsonia Min 7 Max 15 Scoresby Min 7 Max 15
Frankston Min 8 Max 14 Geelong Min 6 Max 16

Monday
Windy. Showers later. Min 10 Max 14

Tuesday
Few showers. Windy. Min 9 Max 14

Wednesday
Cold. Windy. Showery. Min 9 Max 15

Trend for Thursday, Friday and Saturday
Showers mostly clearing. Cool to cold.

I ride a motorcycle as my main transport and on days like these I wish I lived somewhere warm.

Although about as fashionable as a mini-skirt in a mosque, long underwear is without a doubt among the most important item of clothiing for any cold climate dweller. Disregard my wisdom at your own peril.

I had to go and look up how to spell "peril", I feel stupid today (sigh).

Andrea, as always, love your work. Banning Jeremy is funny, I appreciate the pure petty malice behind the gesture. Hope the tooth feels better.

Currently Australia is belting England 16-8 in the Rugby. This is a good thing. Winning the World Cup by kicking a penalty is an injustice. Damn stinking English Rugby players!

I bought a dog from the Lost Dogs Home in Melbourne and besides the fact I came home with a pure-breed German Shepard for $180 ( mega bargin!), he's turned out to be one of the most intelligent and rewarding animals I've ever owned. I've only had him for a few months but his willingness to learn and the overall quality of his nature makes me wonder how his last owners didn't bother to reclaim him. Their loss, my gain. They suck, I'm a lucky bastard.

For the record my bike is red, the proper colour for all horny motorcycles.

Michael Moore is a fat lying bastard who should be dipped in pig fat and catapulted at the headquaters of Hamas.

Will 200 be the first post of the 200s or the last post of the 100s?

PS:

I nominate JakeD for the 'Post of the Old Century Award'.

Does anyone recall what Blair said on Lateline.
I seem to remember he accused Moore of hiding behind the label of satirist while at the same time claiming he was describing the truth. Blair claimed Moore was trying to have it both ways...

My question to you fanboys and girls would be isn't Tim Blair somewhat similar to Moore? Isn't Blair a coloumnist who also claims to be a journalist? Isn't Blair a person who uses satire and also claims to be telling the truth? Fair enough if Blair wants to attack Moore on his work but isn't this a case of the pot calling the kettle black? In other words isn't Tim Blair the Michael Moore of the conservatives!

200 - last comment of the 100s. That's me!

Weird things happening down here at this end of the comments thread (ie, JakeD, love your work!)

Just got back from my mate's house. He cracked a bottle of Xanadu (Margaret River) 1994 Cab Sav -- liquid gold. Sadly, our wives wanted some of it too.

It was an horrific century, the 200s: violence, calumny, metaphysical drift, man's hatred of his fellow man, invasions, nationalism, totalitarian apologism, triumphant libertarianism, moral crises, religous disputes, a sexual revolution, epicurean luxuriation and an assassination or five.

Notwithstanding all of these sad and bitter moments my friends, we can all join Papertiger in saying:

"I still believe in a place called Dope."

So Indira Naidoo doesn't have a liquor licence after all?

;-)

It was an horrific century, the 100s...

D'Oh!

Empty vessels make the most noise.

Australia beat England in the Rugby. I'm drunk. I like this situation.

Crusader:

Western Oregon tends to be mild in climate, but pretty wet, especially the closer you get to Washington. Temps seldom fall below freezing, but if you love sunshine, be prepared to suffer in the winter and early spring. Lovely country, though.

OTOH, check out the income tax situation. Oregon has an revenue system that is at best, chaotic.

Mike H:

I'm far away from the Pan Handle -- I live in Walla Walla!

Some more good news! Finally!

Pure petty malice makes the world go 'round, JakeD!

Dobaman: aw, cute email address! If only you were brave enough to show your real one! But you're just a silly little troll coward, aren't you, doobieman.

By the way, when Tim Blair makes a movie that cost millions of dollars to make and gets awards from the... I dunno, Malaysian Film Award-Giving Committee showing leftists and liberals (not the Australian party variety but the loony variety) in situations that have been carefully edited to make them look like idiots, criminals, or cackling insane freaks, and passes it off as a "documentary," then you can talk. Oh -- wait a minute, that would be a documentary. Never mind.

Bill of INDC Journal is taking up a collection for the family of Green Beret Dan Eggers, killed in Afghanistan. Go read about a wonderful man who wanted nothing more than to protect us.

Suck on that you pack of pommy braggarts. Hopefully a 51-15 kicking will put an end to the orgy of self-congratulation.

BruceT - Coincidence of Coincidences!
We noted that "Xanadu (Margaret River)" was on the wine list at our end-of-finanancial-year work dinner the other night. None of us knew of it & we were debating whether we should order it. Can't remember if we did - I stayed with the trusty Cooper's pale ale.

Andrea, when is Tim coming home? I'm lonely.

Boodles gin martinis for me. Wine is for lightweights.

JakeD, traslate those temps into F, please. I didn't never learn no stinkin' Celcius, an' I ain't about to now, neither.

Did I spell Celcius funny?

Oberserver, fear not, your end of year work party is unlikely to have had the 1994 Xanadu on the wine list, you would have been offered a much more recent vintage.

Bruce T, if I had a chance at some, & a wife, (anybody's) wanted to share it with me, she would have to do something to "make it worth my while"

Come to think of it, nothing any wife could do would make it worth forgoing some '94 Xanadu !!

Andrea, the authorities tell me it's not a good idea to reveal personal details online as there may be wackos out there in internetland. And frankly I would not sleep safer at night if I knew the nutjobs who read (or even administer) Tim's blog had any means of contacting me. Privacy is a choice (of sorts) and I choose to remain anonymous. I don't think that makes me a coward as such... but anyway...just because Blair doesn't make film documentaries mean't Tim Blair and Michael Moore aren't flip sides of the punditry coin.

In other news I see Bradbury is accusing Moore of 'stealing' his title again....what a joke...I perceive a strong right-wing bias in the fact that any news organisation would repeat that story as anything but an odd spot.

Handsome Family - Weightless Again. They're predictably leftwing but it's a great song. Long live Doug Sahm.

I don't think I could go to a protest even if I believed in the cause. There's something about marching crowds and signs that would make me feel like a moron on a stick.

Re protest warrior: If those kids put those videos together you've got to hand it to them because they look very professional. When I was in high school it was, like, "Hey, dude, check out how tight I rolled this joint." But of course the real test was in ease of draw and an even burn.

Andrea, the authorities tell me it's not a good idea to reveal personal details online as there may be wackos out there in internetland.

I know, we have to put up with them on a daily basis, the ones who come in and whine or burp up absolutely inane "arguments" under cover of secrecy because they can't say anything mature or sensible enough to attach their own names to. . .

And frankly I would not sleep safer at night if I knew the nutjobs who read (or even administer) Tim's blog had any means of contacting me.

. . .Because people who use their real names in good faith on the internet are dangerous nutjobs?

Privacy is a choice (of sorts) and I choose to remain anonymous. I don't think that makes me a coward as such...

No, using an anonymous e-mail address as a way to make a backhanded insult and then setting yourself up as a false martyr to bolster your flimsy ideas, THAT makes you a coward. Get a backbone, ass.

but anyway...just because Blair doesn't make film documentaries mean't Tim Blair and Michael Moore aren't flip sides of the punditry coin.

Given that Tim takes accurately representing his material seriously and makes corrections when necessary while Michael Moore threatens libel suits to squelch criticism, well, you're an idiot.

In other news I see Bradbury is accusing Moore of 'stealing' his title again....what a joke...

Except that Moore did, in fact, actually steal Bradbury's title. The fact that Moore wants to invoke Bradbury's work with his film and Bradbury himself doesn't like it, doesn't that chip away at your Shield of Denial just a little bit? Not even a little? And why does it all come down to complaining that "everyone is picking on Moore"? Doesn't Moore's work stand on its own without its apologists having to play moral equivilency whenever it is criticized? (ie, "Moore's just like [insert conservative pundit]", "Sure, Moore is a liar but so is [insert conservative politician/pundit]", "Sure, Moore is deceptive but he tells the truth and everyone is unfair to him because of [insert vast right wing conspiracy]") I GUESS NOT.

I perceive a strong right-wing bias in the fact that any news organisation would repeat that story as anything but an odd spot.

Hey, what did I say? There's the vast right wing conspiracy. I perceive that your head is up your ass. Hard.

dobaman, get your finger out of your fat troll arse.

You are the anonymous coward, not us. Nowhere here wants to email you. Why? Its annoying enough to read your crap on this blog, let along engage in a private correspondence with you.

Look, my email is here! Oh no, someone might email me!

Oh no!

I'm out at the Walmart the other day, picking up sundries and stretchy pants like I do, when it dawns on me I need batteries. So I head over to the battery center and, as you might expect, the Energizers and Duracells are hogging all the prominent display space. But just then I happen to look down and there they were: the Rayovacs, the forgotten batteries, consigned to battle it out with Eveready for an embarrassingly distant third in the battery war.

Truly the RC Cola of batteries.

Now normally I wouldn't give the Rayovacs a second thought because, as a rule of thumb, it's nothing but top shelf for this kid - but fuck me if I wasn't sucked in by the price. I'm standing there trying to decide between the Duracells and the Energizers (which, believe me, was difficult enough because both packages boldly claimed to be the superior brand), but I just couldn't get my mind off the fact that the Rayovacs were a full dollar cheaper than either of the other two. Finally I can't stand it any longer and pick up the Rayovacs just to ease my mind more than anything else. And to my surprise they seemed really heavy, and you know why? Turns out there are 12 batteries in the pack rather than 8. That's right, 50% more batteries, and all for considerably less. Now that's value! Well the die was cast.

I grabbed the Rayovacs and went to checkout, pretty pleased with myself. And as I'm putting my shit on the conveyor belt my neighbor Sheila gets into line behind me. I notice her, she notices me and, more importantly, I notice her noticing my Rayovacs. She was quite literally looking down her nose at them with this snotty little expression. She may has well just screamed "Nice Rayovacs, loser!"

We exchange superficial pleasantries and I slink off as fast as I can so I can rush home and start doing damage control around the neighborhood before Sheila can fuck with my good name, because she's like that. But as I'm driving home my panic slowly turns to anger. I mean what's so wrong with bargain batteries? And what the fuck have the R&D guys over at Rayovac been doing for the last 60 years if not improving 1.5 v storage technology? Plus it's a free country and I should be able to power my cordless appliances anyway I see fit.

So by the time I get home I'm really steamed and I hit the internet to bone up on my battery facts just in case any of my other neighbors brings it up. And lo and behold I find this little gem: http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/projects/battery.html. That's right, Tracy and Emily confirmed that not only are Rayovacs less expensive and you get more of them, but they're better batteries! Suck my ass, Sheila. If you're so caught up in your petty little status symbol world that you can't understand why I see value in a discount battery, well then screw you, you can move. Go ahead you shallow bitch, feed the bunny. And tell Norm to put a fucking shirt on when he's doing yard work.

Quentin, I am sending you a very important e-mail about natural, herbal male enhancement. TAKE THAT!

Bill-LOL

Fuck, now I'm going to buy Rayovacs next time because of you, I hope your wit can be trusted.

Thanks, Sortelli. I always wanted to enlarge my gonads through the use of herbs.

Now I can!

Best drink on the planet is a Mojito:

5 parts light rum
2 parts crushed lime & fresh mint leaves
1 part sugar water
splash of club soda

Knock you on your ass, and delicious, too.

I just slipped the sheath of plastic off of Journey's "Frontiers" album . I let the needle fill its crevice and then begin to understand.It sweeps through me . Deeper now. I realize that I am no longer on the edge of the blade.. faithfully I wonder who's cryin now.

Two hearts born to run who will be the lonely one?

I've had 7 fajitas in the last 21 hours. Three for dinner last night and I've been snacking on them all day because the fajita fixins are just sitting there summoning me like succulent sirens.

I'm stuffed, yet I want another fajita.

How do monkeys manage to throw their own poo? Aren't their poops too soft to be thrown? I'm not a monkey, but I know when I eat a lot of bananas...well, let's just say that stuff wouldn't hold together enough to travel two feet if I threw it. Do monkeys have special enpoopinating chemicals in their digestive systems that poopify their poop into hard, throwable projectiles?

You know, this is my house and I never read anything in the Constitution about curtains being mandatory, so if certain people have a problem with autofellatio then they can just move the school bus stop.

Sorry for the rant. I just hate tattle tails.

I just finished watching Silence of the Lambs for the 800th time. That is one big-ass basement in the end. That thing is bigger than the White House basement. Seriously, there are about 7 or 8 rooms down there including the center room with the well in it. And I think that Buffalo Bill is the creepiest bad guy in movie history.

My usual deli guy seems to have found a new job. He made the best damn sandwiches and his rueben was the best $5 spent each week. The rest of the crew can't make a sandwich without messing it up or forgetting something. Does anyone know which deli my guy moved to? He's the stocky Mexican with the pony-tail wearing his hat backwards and a mustache and a big smile and badass rueben-making abilities.

This just plain sucks, lunch hasn't been the same for 3 weeks now and a suitable alternative has yet to reveal itself.

Does anyone else like those Haribo candies you get at certain drug stores and supermarkets? I am talking about Gummy Colas, Gummy Cherries and that sort of thing. They are damn good.

Of course, they are probably made from the rendering of broken down horses, BSE-infected cows, Autobahn roadkill and elderly German wards of the state. But they are sooooo chewy and irresistable...

So I mowed my lawn today and as I was taking my victory lap, admiring my handiwork it dawned on me that I'm extraordinarily gifted with a lawn tractor. I wonder if there's anything akin to the Blue Angels in the world of lawn tractoring? Because I think they'd want me.

I gave up on rayovac batteries years ago. After a few months use, they started to leak like a bad tampon.

How I Started the Day With Marigolds Up My Butt:

Those who know me well know me as a raconteur of incredible wit and grace while those who don't know me well often mistake me for Cary Grant when I first enter a room. Those who know me better often mistake me for Herrman Goering but that's another story, one that I will be reading to the Union of Unidentified Elderly European Men in Buenos Aires next month. Those who know me best of all know that I am something of an amateur astronomer and by that, of course, I mean that I stayed up late thirty-five years ago to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. I clearly remember this because Mommy reminds me regularly that this is what started my poor sleeping habits, laziness, unemployment, drug addiction, death, humiliation - in that order - and collapse of American society as we know it.

This morning's transit of Venus, wherein, the lovely, full-bodied Venus - complete with lush red hair, green eyes and black lace push-em-up brassiere - traveled across the disc of the sun, was therefore a source of great interest to me and I vowed to risk all - life, liberty, pursuit of happiness but most importantly, an hour of sleep - to view it. But there was one fly in the ointment, so to speak: three pounds of fresh peas.

What's that, you ask? How on Earth could three pounds of peas impact such an event. Well, little buckaroo, hold on to your jodhpurs, I'm about to tell you. Last Saturday, laboring under the burden of the fifteen pounds I've gained since last summer, I vowed to begin eating in a more healthy manner, hied myself off to the farmer's market and among the many fruits and vegetables purchased, picked up three pounds of fresh peas. In truth, it was more like four pounds. An intelligent shopper, I've found that heading to the farmer's market late on a Saturday afternoon means encountering vendors desperate to off-load there wares. Ask for ten oranges and you're likely to receive fifteen. Ask for two bunches of broccoli and you'll find three in your bag. Now I would never knowingly take advantage of the plight of the American farmer especially those at the market who are already selling their goods at rock bottom prices. The fact that I lingered beneath a shady awning just within sight of the marketplace all afternoon until I saw the stalls begin to shutdown should not be seen as an indication that I was waiting to receive the best price.

At any rate, by the end of business on Saturday, I was weighed down three to four pounds of peas and the realization that I had no idea what to do with them. If this was the 1920's and I was eight I could have easily loaded them into a straw and spitballed them at Miss Crabtree while Buckwheat and Weezer dipped Mary's pigtails in the inkwell. But this is not that time and I am not a little rascal. I have been called a little bastard but mostly by my parents and selected former girlfriends but again, I digress.

During the course of my Monday workday, in between the strenuous tasks that my job call for - downloading photographs of Cameron Diaz, trolling the personals on Yahoo, mooching food off of co-workers - I websearched for a decent recipe that called for fresh peas. I found something that sounded delicious ... pasta carbonara with pancetta and peas. Perfect!

The problem with that, of course, is that it's hardly the meal to fit in with my newly discovered desire to shed a few pounds. Cream? Butter? Italian bacon? (Which, of course, is the suburban Long Island, post-war, tract housing name for pancetta.) No, no, this would never do. Not only was it disgustingly rich but it would prove to be disgustingly expensive. And I've already managed to shed most of my cash. So I modified the recipe with low fat milk, low fat butter, no pancetta and three times the number of peas demanded in the original. The result? The most disgusting tureen of goop you can imagine made all the worse as my propensity for overcooking was exacerbated by a particularly interesting story about octogenarian paratroopers on World News Tonight.

Well, never one to throw out food no matter how terribly prepared or deep into putrefaction, I ate it anyway, washed down with liberal amounts of Sauvignon Blanc. For those of you who wonder if my taste in wine is abysmal as my taste in food, I hope that the following sentence will assuage for fears. It was a four dollar bottle of Estonian wine. But it was alcohol, it masked the flavor of my tureen of goop and it sent me deep into unconsciousness by 9 PM, a sleep that that lasted until five o'clock this morning when I awoke well before my alarm. I lay there for several minutes contemplating what I could do with all the extra time I had gained. Would I clean the house? Would I iron shirts for the remainder of the work week? Would I download even more photos of Cameron Diaz? Suddenly, I recalled the Transit of Venus. The inner astronomer awoke. He tends to sleep later as he has no steady job, the lazy sot. Of course, I thought, I would stand on my fire escape and view this glorious peep show of the heavens!

I threw on some clothes and climbed barefoot out my window. As luck would have it, the sky was clear and the sun was out. With one eye shut, I gazed at the beautiful golden orb and, sure enough, a small black dot was plainly visible. How exciting that I had recalled the event! How wonderful that I had woken up in time to see it! How unfortunate that I had neglected to use eye protection!

After about 45 seconds I had naturally grown terribly bored by the whole damned thing. Hey, I said I was an amateur astronomer. You couldn't pay me enough to look at this shit every day. As I turned away to climb back into my apartment, I caught a whiff of smoke the kind redolent of charred body parts. Could it be? Was it possible? Yes! My right eye had been burned to a cinder and even now had taken on all the characteristics of that overcooked chicken gonad one occasionally finds in the bottom of a KFC bucket. I gasped. I screamed. I clutched my face and wheeled about, intent on running to the bathroom to douse the flames spouting from my cranium. But I twisted my ankle, thrust my hand through the window glass and fell flush on to my window box, crushing all of the marigolds. Hey, I don't grow the damned things - the window box was there when I moved in and these flowers just sprout up every year.

So here I sit - one hand and one eye bandaged, marigold juice all over my ass. What's a guy to do? Wait! I've got one good eye and one good hand! Hell-oooooooooooo, Cameron!

The GOONIES R Good Enough for me

Did somebody eat too many Ray-o-vacs? B in B unplugged is quite amazing!

OK, Bill in Boston wins! I don't know what he wins, exactly. All I know is that he won it. Whatever it is.

An article by Sean Gonsalves at alternet.org outlines a chilling scenario by an ex-intelligence operative called 'Garrow'. The gist of the scenario:

'The main trans-shipment and compression terminals are in Algeria. The biggest facility is Hassi R'mel. From there, LNG is transferred by pipeline to oil ports in Algeria. From there, it's loaded onto tankers and taken across the Atlantic into Winthrop, Mass., which happens to be only several miles away from the Fleet Center in downtown Boston..."It would be an ideal theater for terrorists to attack the country," Garrow says.

"LNG is more flammable than gasoline. So these ships are basically floating bombs," he said.

How would terrorists gain access to one of these containers? It's easy, says Garrow. "The on-loading facility in Algeria. There is no real security there. The crewman could easily put a small plastic detonation device on the tanker. If I were a terrorist, I would focus on a one kilogram depleted uranium projectile, which is a fancy name for a 2.2-pound bullet. Due to the mass and weight of uranium, it would easily penetrate the steel."

Depleted uranium is relatively easy to get. "You could probably buy it off the Internet.......

"At airports you have 90-year-old ladies having to take off their shoes. In a seaport, someone can get on a (container) ship with a simple access badge to the port. I think it's our weakest link right now."

What would happen if one of these container ships were detonated? "The energy released would totally destroy the storage facility. Everything within one mile -- completely leveled. Logan Airport -- gone. Within a two- or three-mile radius, there'd be horrendous fires."

It's a good thing the 9-11 Commission didn't get drawn into the Bush administration fog that led most Americans to think Iraq was involved in the planning and execution of the terrorist attacks. Let's hope they also heed Garrow's concerns about the real threats to our ports'.

Scary stuff and apparently simple and feasible to accomplish. I have a son and daughter in law in Arlington, Boston, hence my real concern for US homeland security.

On another note it is heartening to see that the Valerie Plame matter is proceeding. Outing a CIA operative is a felony and should have people of all political persuasions howling for blood. Her network has been compromised; years of work have gone down the tube.

Someone must know. And in situations such as this one a journo should be compelled to divulge sources. National security and the national interest far outweigh the rights of the Fourth Estate.

The normally unflappable and seemingly bloodless Karl Rove may have goofed, big time, when he declared that Plame was open slather. It couldn't happen to a nicer man, not that he is the prime suspect for the physical fact of the leak.

The US intelligence community will go apeshit if the Plame matter is whitewashed.

JB

I'd take everything on Alternet.org with a grain of salt if I were you. Sometimes those guys copy articles from reputable sources -- more often, I noticed, they offer up dispatches from the Ass of the Moonbat.

Check out the Bunyip's lazy-weekend musing.

Boy am I glad I voted for you on the board of the NRMA, recommended by Tony Abbott.
Great fun. keep it up.................

Andrea tells me to 'take everything on alternet.org with a grain of salt'.

Well, the article seems dispassionate and the scenario is worrying enough to make one seek out reassurance that it were not feasible. It seems fact that the ships load in Algeria; it is worrying that security there is allegedly non-existent; it seems fact that the ships unload near central Boston; it seems fact that the ships are potentially floating bombs; and the man concerned seems to know his ship design as he cites exact locations on board where a charge could be left. I'm afraid I can't let ideology blind me to the possibility of such an attack on the US homeland.

Ports, railways, buses, big rigs are all weaknesses in the system. If Bush had opted to finish the business in Afghanistan; to leave Iraq to the international community to deal with; and to pour a FRACTION of the Iraq money into US homeland security, US citizens would be safer. The capacity of first responders would be immeasurably greater instead of being stretched to the limit.

Boarding a plane late last year at Logan International I was heartened to see the security operation (it is still not up to that of Narita Airport in Japan where my passport was checked 3 times before boarding, including outside the airport entrance, and where I had to stand and watch every item of my luggage opened and inspected despite being an innocuous 60 year old) but cold comfort when the docks almost adjacent to Logan are apparently highly vulnerable.

JB

With just a few more jackboots and dollars on the streets, we'd all be safer! Security! SECURITY! SECURITY!!!

Any comments on the Valerie Plame matter?

No one wants to talk about this, it seems. Thems of all political persuasions know that something terribly wrong has been done, almost certainly at the behest and/or approval from the upper echelon(s) of the US administration. What has been done is reprehensible. Those responsible, directly and indirectly, must be brought to justice.

Imagine if this had happened under Clinton's administration, for god's sake! If a stain on a blue dress can attract impeachment, what can one say about outing a serving, deep-cover CIA agent?

Let's hear it, folks.

JB

I was just giving you fair warning, John B. And you don't provide a direct link to the articla anyway -- so how do I know it really existed? I don't feel like going to alternet.org and sifting through the freaks shrieking about how BushISSOHITLAARLOLOMGWTFBBQ just for this article. And the subject is not exactly a stunning breakthrough in intelligence anyway, from your recounting of it anyway. Gosh, terrorists could sneak bombs in via ship? No kidding.

Whose talking about 'jackboots', Sortelli? I'm talking about common sense and real threats. If I were to assemble a bunch of people in a pub and get them to speculate on security risks, they would quickly come up with port security.

Of course it takes money. Do you think it comes free? What point are you trying to make?

jb

Bill in Boston- have you ever wondered how Buffalo Bill's night vision goggles worked in total darkness? (They are light amplification, not infa red). I'm a real pain in the arse to watch movies with. I got horribly pissed on Bundaberg rum at the rugby test last night, and was rude and insulting to many englishmen- a perfect evening all round, really, but now feel like projectile vomiting, and during the night someone must have stabbed me repeatedly in the medulla with an icepick. I think I'll have a bit of a lie-down.

John B: the Plame matter was talked to death when it came out. Where have you been for the past year, in a biodome? Do you have any ongoing developments (and links, please!) to talk about, or is it the same old OMG they outed her! babble?

Actually, john b, I wonder what point you are trying to make. Do you think there is insufficient security at ports, and if so, why? What would you do? Are you just trying to pick a fight here? That's called "trolling" (you don't seem to know these things so I'll tell you). Don't do that here -- you won't like the results.

Hereunder the link, Andrea. The difference here is that someone is able to identify a simple, feasible, site-specific way to do the job instead of simply ranting about it. 'Gosh', you say, as well you might.

I read stuff daily from all parts of the political spectrum and have learned to be cynical about those whose ideology is inflexible. In 40 years of watching politics here and there I have learned to be cautious about both ends of the spectrum and everything in the middle as well.

These are cold-blooded killers, not to be dismissed with 'Gosh'.

http://www.alternet.org/story/18999

JB

Last Post, Andrea (militarily and literally)

The Plame matter is being 'talked to death' as I write. Bush has been interviewed in the past couple of days, his lawyer present.

Yes, I am suggesting that port security is not good enough. I heard an interview with the immediate past boss of US port security in which he said that the whole scene could be rendered much safer for around $100 million. His words, not mine and I am happy to leave that kind of thing to the experts. It was a tv interview and I don't have a reference, living in Australia as I do and being unfamiliar with US network alliances.

'... the same old OMG they outed her' comments on itself. It is US law, not JB, that declares outing a CIA agent to be a felony. Talk to your Congressman. I imagine s/he voted for the resolution.

Regards

JB

News Flash! Tim Blair is the right's Michael Moore. Come to think of it, I've never seen them together.

Oops, Tim Dulop has so many moronic posts up, I accidentally linked to the wrong one. Go here.

MORE SECURITY NOW! IF WE DON'T DEMAND TIGHTER SECURITY WE WON'T BE SAFE AND WE WON'T BE ABLE TO ATTACK BUSH FOR CRUSHING OUR FREEDOMS. umm... wait... I mean... MORE SECURITY.

Sorry, JB, when you turn a point about vulnerable ports into a screed about how Bush "didn't finish in Afghanistan" (funny, I didn't know the troops had come home already) with a side dish of "Iraq is a distraction", I cannot feel that I am mistaken to peg you for a asshat that must be mocked. Port security and a Saddam-free Iraq are not mutally exclusive goals, and for you to use one to complain about the other betrays your dishonesty.

But just in case, I'll join your side and demand that we divert all money and military material currently invested in Iraq into our securing nation's ports. Just to be safe. SECURITY!!!! That will free your Alternet pals to start crying to the ACLU about oppression. De Plame boss, de Plame!

2^8 + 1

John B — More money for hiring and training first responders would indeed give us more brave, trained, dedicated... targets.

The security against terrorism is to eliminate terrorists. The best place to do that is outside your own borders.

"OK, Bill in Boston wins! I don't know what he wins, exactly. All I know is that he won it. Whatever it is."

Hopefully, it's a pony.

A pretty pony at that.

"Did somebody eat too many Ray-o-vacs? B in B unplugged is quite amazing!"

I'd like to apologize to everyone here for wasting bandwith ... I get going sometimes and have no idea where it leads.

I promise not to post anymore.

I'd get my own blog, but that would require I apply myself, and that just won't do.

Bye kids!

No! More Bill! Save us -- save us from more boring posts about imaginary US abandonment of Afghanistan and the boring Plame affair! The pony is in the mail. Honest.

What do you mean, I can't mail ponies? I only needed 452 envelopes to fit all the parts in! I had to use extra tape, though -- some of them got a little, er, damp.

John B - There's at least two reasons why the Plame deal isn't as big a deal as you seem to imply. One is that Valerie Plame wasn't a "deep cover" CIA operative. The second is the one person who can name the leaker hasn't been subpoenaed and probably won't be. I'm referring to Robert Novak.

There's a third reason, too, and that is Valerie Plame's husband is not exactly the most convincing witness for the prosecution.

A case-study concerning on-line privacy - "queentin george".

I choose to remain anonymous on-line because there are potentially a number of "nutjobs" out there in internetland. Some people might consider this means I'm a "fat troll" but I think I'm just playing it safe. For example queentin george made the choice today to reveal his email address. This was not in his best interest as it kind of proved my point about the 'nutjobs' which read Tim's blog (not to imply Tim himself is not also a "nj") and the benefits of anonymity. I know the following is cruel but keep in mind Queentin has brainlessly abused almost every post I has ever made on this forum.

It only took his email address and google to find http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Castle/2042/home2.html

Now either Queetin was lying about his email address being quentin_george@yahoo.com.au (in which case he should not be calling me an anonymous coward) or he is Mr Aidan K. C. Hennessy born 12/1/1982 and lives in Canberra, ACT, Australia. He works as an IT Officer for Centrelink! So it is possible the Queentin we know and love (who would die in a ditch to save Tim Blair's conservative opinions about small government) is actually a lazy public servant who helps to give your tax dollars to welfare mothers :) It's too rich.

Queentin's site "Satanic Lullabies" includes extensive sections on role-playing games (remember born 82!) and excruciatingly bad fiction with such classic lines as "Mooncheese motioned to the large dark stain on the neck of his robes". It also includes links to photos of Queentin thru highschool/college and as a gender-bender (photoshop anyone?). There are also helpful personal details concerning the location and employment of family members. I could probably find his phone number and address pretty easily using a Canberra phone book...

Queentin you stated on your website - 'I pride myself on being able to see both sides of every coin'. I urge to consider that statement the next time you flame posts for merely taking a different view to yours and Tim's.

Here endth the lesson concerning on-line privacy.

American readers think the Bush=Hitler stuff is blatant. Surely comparable is this: The Australian newspaper - the country's only national daily - has succumbed to Godwin's Law.

Yes folks, Howard=Hitler.

Hey, Bill, that was amusing and all, but why the need to dis' Royal Crown Cola? One would hope that since you learned not to prejudge a battery by shelf positioning and the ignorant misperceptions of others, you might revisit your ideas concerning cola.

Can Bill from Boston please come back. Okay I admit that I just stumble on this discussion - and very intersting it all is. But without the surrealist interludes by Bill, well sorry, but it would have been kind of dull. But I read the dull important bits and then Bill from Boston kept me entertained so I read everything everybody else wrote as well. Every discussion list needs someone like Bill from Boston.

cheers

Andrew

Wow, dobaman! You can use google!

Amazing stuff.

Hint: If I was trying to hide anything, why would I keep updating that page?

By the way, I've mentioned I worked at Centrelink at this blog before. Earn money -> Pay taxes -> Pay own salary. Its fun!

I'm not sure we're you get the idea of me being a small government man. I'm probably more of a straight social-conservative.

Anyway, I suppose now you are going to track me down?

I live in Mawson, ACT by the way. Work in Tuggeranong. Come around sometime!

And by the way: One 'E' in Quentin, dobaman.

doba-man, you seem interested in my family members, Hey look, my brother has a blog! Wow

The internet. Amazing.

For example queentin george made the choice today to reveal his email address. This was not in his best interest as it kind of proved my point about the 'nutjobs' which read Tim's blog

Oh the crushing logic that says that anyone who dares to reveal his email address on the net must be a nutjob. Unless you mean it proved the point that you're a nutjob since you so pathetically googled for that email address to one-up Quentin with public information. Wow, you're a real asset to humanity.

Why exactly do our leftist trolls always have a wildly exaggerated sense of their own worth? Especially including the assumption that anyone would bother to track them down?

Don't keep the light on at night waiting for us, dobermann. You'd only be wasting energy. (Much like your rudimentary thinking processes do.)

Yes, I am suggesting that port security is not good enough. I heard an interview with the immediate past boss of US port security in which he said that the whole scene could be rendered much safer for around $100 million.

I guess that would be Algerian port security that these $100 million need to be applied to? Not much use upping security at US ports after all if all the terrorists would need to do was detonate the bomb right before the ship docks instead of waiting for it to arrive completely.

Well, nevermind the cries of BUSHCHENEYHALLIBURTONMILITARYINDUSTRIALCOMPLEX that would no doubt follow (especially on such insightful places like Alternet) if the administration spent money on such security measures in a foreign country with the sole intention of making the US safer.

BTW, I'd say most people are avoiding Alternet and similar places not because they're rigid ideologues, but simply because the signal-to-noise ratio on those sites is so low as to make the entire visit to them a waste of time.

Case in point: I'd heard the "LNG tankers as big bombs" story before, a couple of months ago (albeit in relation to the chance of terrorist attacks on Europe, not the US), and I didn't even need to read Alternet for that. Perhaps you'd be well-served by a little more discriminating use of your reading time, too.

And don't be surprised if statements like "If Bush had opted to (...) leave Iraq to the international community to deal with, (...) US citizens would be safer" will continue to get you ridiculed around here.

It has taken some serious consideration and a bout with a bottle of red, but it is my opinion that Muttiah Muralitheran is a chucker.

Bill in Boston,
Whether it's the batteries or the fajitas, your streaming output is terrific. Who said anything about your wasting bandwidth? If Tim had Amazon in addition to I-can't-remove-an-old-account-and-forgotten-password PayPal, I'd send some dollars for the screen real estate. (Andrea, there must be another way, yes?)

Quentin George

I hope you great people at work with "Help make my job redundant".

Garlic-Studded Pork Tacos with Roasted Peppers

1 1-lb (500g) pork tenderloin, silverskin removed
Tequila
Lime
3 cloves of garlic
2 Medium-hot peppers (anaheim, poblano, etc.)
Tortillas
Taco fixins (onion, beans, cheese, guacamole, etc.)

Cut garlic into narrow slivers, cut small slices into the tenderloin and fill with garlic -- the more garlic the better, but to your taste. Soak in a mixture of tequila and lime (plus a small amount of oil, salt and pepper) for about one hour.

Take the peppers and roast them over a gas burner until they are black all over -- put them right on the flame -- if you don't have gas, broil them in your stove. When done, put them in a plastic or paper bag and stick them in the fridge. Let them set for an hour. You want to take off the bulk of the blackened part -- you can scrape it off, but the best way to do this is to work the peppers with your fingers through the plastic paper -- the black will come right off. DO NOT RINSE THEM. Cut them open and strip out seeds with the flat of a knife. The peppers are pretty soft and easy to work with -- dice into 1/2" chunks.

When the oven is ready at 375F, put the tenderloin in for about 25 minutes or so -- but you are going for an internal temp. of about 145F in the middle of the cut of meat, so keep an eye on it. When it is at 145F, pull it out of the oven and tent it under foil -- let it set for about another 10 minutes. Make thin slices.

(Obviously, there's no reason not to do this on a grill, but keep an eye on that internal temp! Overdone pork is a crime -- it should be a medium pink when done)

For the tacos themselves, just get tortillas, cheese, onions, guacamole, salsa, whatever you like. I keep it to the meat, some cheese, the roasted peppers and a squeeze of lime.

Serve with a margarita or a low-test lager -- Rolling Rock, Negra Modelo, Dos XX, if you are up here -- VB would be ideal for you folks down under.

Why is doba-man such a twat?

Bill from Boston, come back! I want to hear more stories about your fascinating obsession with Cameron Diaz!

jb, Valerie Plame is so deep undercover she posed for "Vanity Fair."

Andrea, can I have a pony, too?

-Ahh queentin...

My whole point was the internet makes it easy to find out personal details about people - I see you agree as you say 'Wow, dobaman! You can use google! Amazing stuff' ... Yes that is exactly the point I'm making...anyone can use google...very perceptive queentin. Maybe you should go back to Griffith Uni (or a similar second-tier tertiary institution) and get another degree in not missing the point.

You implied that there are no consequences to revealing personal details on-line - 'Nowhere [sic] here wants to email you...Look, my email is here! Oh no, someone might email me!'. I'm saying you are wrong. You revealed your real name, age, occupation, location, lame hobbies, embarrassing fiction plus as an added bonus the names and employment of your family. Plus odd photos and bad website design. You're practically asking people to discredit your opinions and make fun of you.
I know you are not trying to hide the stuff you're posting on your site...its the fact you don't care that makes you a nutjob.

PS. queentin don't worry. I wouldn't come to the most boring area of australia (the ACT) for all the sheep in nz.

-PW

PeeWee your confused rant is slightly undermined by the fact you're also using a fake email address.

PeeWee your confused rant is slightly undermined by the fact you're also using a fake email address.

Umm, no, you idjit, it's real. (Care to try it out by sending me some mail?) I'm sure Andrea will slap you silly for using my email address on your post though. How smart of you! Oh, and it's PeeDoubleYuu, not PeeWee.

I guess you just couldn't find anything via Google this time. Yes, this means that p-w@gmx.com ain't my primary email address. That one's reserved for people I actually like, and beyond that, I prefer to keep that mailbox mostly spam-free.

Nobody says you have to use one single email address for all your internet usage, just that you provide something that actually allows people to hold you accountable for your words. (And no, this doesn't mean they actually want to send you email.) As your oh-so-creative use of various fake addresses shows, that's not possible with fake ones as anyone can use them.

But yeah, we all know that, if you actually provided something that allowed your words to be linked to your real-life existence, the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy would send the black helicopters to your shack in the woods and have you taken out in no time. You brave citizen, you.

PS

At least we've established that doobiedoobiedoo doesn't dare to post with a real address because he's afraid that other people will stoop down to his own level. Who's the nutjob again, here?

Don't worry, like John Kerry says, I'm sure this is just a matter for police action:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/06/27/wiran27.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/06/27/ixportal.html
 

PPS

So Quentin's a nutjob for having a real life and publicly admitting to it. Gasp! The Idiocy! Everyone should walk through life with a black mask on his head so nobody could be identified for anything! Especially on the Internet!

I'm sure you feel real brave and smart behind your keyboard, talking back to us grown-ups with such stellar eloquence and logic. Try again, kiddo. On second thought, please don't.

Bill in Boston, your ode to Ray-o-vacs was just poetry! They suck and I still will never buy them (need something you can count on in hurricane country), but it was poetry, none the less. But as far as this appallling statement...

Best drink on the planet is a Mojito

...you have no idea just how wrong you are.

Caipirinhas are the nectar of the GODS, and pity the fool who ain't had one. Or two or three...

Bingley, you bastard....!!!

Bill in Boston, you is simply brilliant, brilliant. Please post more often.

And to whatshisname whining about the LNG tankers. Old news, guy. Not months like some folks noted, but years. I recall this being a concern in the 1990's (professional interest).

But the others snickering at your whinging are dead on. If you want this country 100% secure, it's time to build a wall around our borders, mine the approaches, install seismic sensors, ground survelliance radar, bred thousands of attack dogs, and man the machine gun in the guard posts. Let no one in unless they are fingerprinted, DNA sampled, photographed, tagged with a GPS tracking unit, and are issued with an internal passport with a different color than what the legal residents have to carry. Sort of like the former Soviet Union, now that I think of it. That's the direction this sort of thinking generally goes.

And about 20 minutes later, every leftoid who whined how Bush made America vulnerable to terrorists by attacking Iraq and forgetting Afghanistan would rise up about "Fortress Amerika".

There's an old military saying (Frederick the Great), "He who defends all defends nothing". How true that is.

And on the bright side, the weather cooled off here. Since I spent the weekend in a tent, hunkered over radios and computers, with naught to cool me but the shade of a tree, a fan, and some drinks in a cooler, that was really nice!

And, oddly enough, I bought some Ray-O-Vacs myself recently, for the same reasons Bill did. They cost less. I'll see how they work....

So Quentin's a nutjob for having a real life and publicly admitting to it. Gasp! The Idiocy! Everyone should walk through life with a black mask on his head so nobody could be identified for anything! Especially on the Internet!

Thanks PW, at least some people here can understand that connecting an email address quentin_george at yahoo.com to a geocities webspace at geocities.com/quentin_george wasn't exactly the biggest piece of sleuthing.

I know you are not trying to hide the stuff you're posting on your site...its the fact you don't care that makes you a nutjob.

Eh? I've had biographical information on that page since 1998. I used the site to keep in touch with friends and family while I was an exchange student in Germany. Now I use it to keep in touch with friends from school, university and previous jobs.

Why does this make me a nutjob? In anonymous troll land, anything goes.

I hope you great people at work with "Help make my job redundant".

Heh. Unfortunately I work away from the "customers".

:)

geesh, i take a day or two to slip into a drunken stupor, and i miss over a hundred posts...hey, bill in bostonsux, i can get to rc cola in one move: i went to hs with the child of one of the owners. and, as treehugging said, caipirinhas are indeed the finest beverage on the planet, but, unlike her, i can stop drinking them at any time..really, but i just choose not too.

Hey PW, whereabouts in Germany do you live? This is just a question of interest, from a fellow "nutjob". I'm wondering if it was anywhere I've been.

Thanks to a connection in the dairy industry (I can't say any more than that--hush, hush), I suddenly find myself in possession of 15 lbs. of mozarella. Anyone got any good mozarella recipes?

alt.binaries.x = Fahrenheit 911. In case anyone is interested.

West Point 1986- It was after too many rounds to recall of pinga, lime and sugar with my visiting sister and her Brazilian boyfriend, that my daughter was conceived (with my husband, we presume to this day).

Quentin, I'm in Potsdam (watch dobaman attempt to stalk me now!) - curious if you got out here to the East while you were in Germany.

I'm actually within walking distance of where the Wall used to be (it came down when I was 9...whoops, more stalkable information), which is why I can't give too much credence to leftoid troll rantings. Been there, literally, so thankyouverymuch, but no I don't care for moronic ideas of socialist utopia.

JeffS:
And to whatshisname whining about the LNG tankers. Old news, guy. Not months like some folks noted, but years. I recall this being a concern in the 1990's (professional interest).

Can't say I'm surprised to hear it's been an issue for that long. When I read about it a few months ago, it was in a big German news weekly. (No, not Der Spiegel, I wouldn't be caught dead with that rag.) And we all know that the mainstream press usually isn't the fastest to pick up on a story. I'm surprised the Alternet crowd took even longer. :)

my favorite color is blue again.

LOOK! Here comes Godzilla! run screaming through the streets! hurry!

LOOK! GODZILLA IS DRINKING ALL THE LIGHT BEER

Why are you not running?

Ok go ahead and sit there, but if you end up as monster toejam don't come bawling to me.

Yeah, well, as long as Godzilla stays away from the microbrew, everything's fine.

that probably is the origin of 90% of the brazilian population, btkcd...

and the other 10% come from super caffeinated Brazilian coffee mornings, Mr. Bingley?

*trying to contain laughter over the Godzilla/Light Beer thing*

Quentin, doobie is probably scared that someone might find out how retarded his own life is, which is why he's dragging your personal life into the conversation to make a lame ad homenim attack. All he's proven to me is that you're my kind of guy, but I already knew that.

It's hilarious the lengths people will go through to justify anonimity. I really don't care if he uses a handle, as long as he doesn't try to pretend that he's doing it for his own protection.

What's a troll show without Niall?

Funnier.

I feel it is my duty to bring the number of posts to 300

PW, is Das Bild still around in Germany? When I was stationed there (in 1981-1983, in Bamberg), I thought that was the lowest paper in the land. My German was (and still is) of low quality, and Das Bild was a good primer, mostly because it had so few words.

I google my email address - nothing. (Its a real address too I have spam to prove it).
I google my name - nothing.
I am wearing my tinfoil beanie, maybe that has something to do with it.

P.S. That Ray-O-Vac story was disturbingly close to home. I has a really nasty experience with a pack of GrandCells once.

I find an inverted colander festooned with Christmas tree lights is much more effectine than a tinfoil beanie. Since donning mine, the voices in my head only tell me to kill Ted Kennedy. (So I stole the life preserver from beneath his car seat).

Been at work since 8, still havent done any work.
Probably wont do anything till after lunch now, god I love my job!

the brazilians force caffeine upon you all day, talented kid; it's truly glorious. then you have caipirinhas with lunch and dinner. life is good.

I now have proof that the bizzaro/mirror universe exists.
Following some examples listed above, I googled my name, Jason Wood (for the record), and found that I have a namesake who is a senator in the Australian Democrats.
I myself would be considered right of centre right, this bizzaro-self that I am cursed to share this rock with must be considered left of far left wing.
I am yet to find a photo of this man and have not been game enough to read his bio, but I fear he is pro-arab,anti-war,anti globalist,anti-american,anti-military,anti-capitalist,anti-free trade,anti-logging. But worst of all he is pro-Bartlett.
I dont know what tear in space time he slipped through but he must go back!

Does he have a pointy beard?

It's all over folks! Fahrenheit911 has over $22 million in ticket sales since it's opening, thus proving the superiority of the leftoid viewpoint, and effectively neutering all of us right thinking folks who refuse to see what is so obvious to our left thinking brethren. Well, it was a good fight, but I guess the time has come to lay down our weapons, and surrender to....but wait....now that he is filthy rich, won't Moore automatically lose his credibility with the leftoids?

Hmmmm. Maybe the war's not over after all!

Pray for a lard overdose.

Habib, do those lights run off 240V ? What happens when it rains ?

May I ask a chicken or egg question, Mr. Bingley, since you would know: does Brazilian 'jeito' come from drinking expresso and cachaca all day, or do Brazilians enjoy strong drinks all day because of their jeito?

Also, does anyone know whether Bob in Boston found his deli guy, because some of us have been worried about BOTH of them---

After some research (and some dry retching)I find he's not a senator but the national secretary of the Democrats.
www.democrats.org.au/?request=executive+team
Oh god, they call themselves the lie detectors! It's hilarious. This from a party that has a voilent drunken assh#%e as its leader, hey kind of like the Labour party, except smaller.

If you will allow me to do a little extrapolating; if Fahrenheit 9/11 opened in as many cinemas as "The Day After Tomorrow" it theoretically should have taken about 85 million (USD)in it's opening weekend. By comparison, LOTR: Return Of The King took 72 million in it's opening weekend.

We are looking at a mega hit here.

c- yes.

Dan: well, it is a fantasy. People seem to be in the mood for that sort of thing.

Also, I keep in mind that the number two and three movies this week were White Chicks and Dodgeball. It's summer -- people will line up in summer to watch a two-hour film of dogs pissing on a fence.

Seriously, let's all trumpet the F911-#1- movie-in-America line, onto high heaven. It will be a fun few days for the lefties.

Right up to Spiderman 2 opening on June 30th. KAPOW!!!

You know what was being advertised as the #1 movie in America right before the first Spiderman movie? The Scorpion King.

Dan — As someone who used to manage theatres, I think you're assuming F9/11 would have the same draw in every venue that it has in its current cherry-picked locations. I doubt that's the case.

Of course, the big tell is how well it does next week.

I read in the Herald Sun (local Melbourne rag) today that the Israeli army killed a "top resistance leader" yesterday. WTF is the issue with calling a terrorist a terrorist? What the hell is a "resistance" leader anyway? What is he resisting? The improvement of his people by non-violent means would have to be near the top.

In other news Kylie's little sister is trying to flog a new albumn on the unsuspecting public but is yet to find a label. That is worthy of a resistance movement if I'm any judge.

I made a chilli con carne last night. Having never done one I followed the recipe closely. I should have halved the chille content. I am in some pain today.

I really resent the fact that MotoGP races are only shown live on cable tv and the re-runs on free to air run around midnight. It gets worse when you've taped the race to watch later and each and every news/sports show mentions Rossi's big win. Bastards.

Bill in Boston, don't be a stranger. With a bit of practice you too will be able to produce such quality nuanced reports as my earlier weather report.

Yeah...I know...he won. But where is the nuance?

I wonder who many times Kerry will be asking himself that?

Doba-guy, you give whack jobs way to much credit. But like you allude, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean people aren't out to get you. Lock the door, no...the other one.

It's summer -- people will line up in summer to watch a two-hour film of dogs pissing on a fence.

Of course it's hooked up to the mains- it wouldn't work without the shielding effect of elctro-magnetic radiation. When it rains, I can see through time, but not for anything useful like lottery numbers. My latest prognostication- with his $82 mill, Michael Moore Will buy and eat donuts. Lots of donuts. Made out of platinum.

JakeD:

The real test will start tomorrow when Iraq - a sovereign nation according to the UN - begins its post-Saddam era. As of tomorrow, any news agency in the world that does not call murderers and terrorists by their proper names is deliberately giving the latter credence and sympathy.

Re Farenheit 911: Who's to know whether this film might discust people right into Bush's corner. It's possible to be entertained by something and be discusted by it simultaneously. That's the whole underpinning pychology of horror movies, in fact.

Ha, if Bush wins later this year, will the Left construct a conspiracy theory based on how Moore was doing Bush's bidding all along?

I always mispell 'disgust' for some reason. Well, you get my point.

Hey Spiny- how's Dinsdale these days?

Extrapolation is a 10 dollar word for reasoned guess. Or, from www.dictionary.com:

To estimate (a value of a variable outside a known range) from values within a known range by assuming that the estimated value follows logically from the known values.

The key phrase here is "...follows logically from the known values."

You can't logically compare LOTR and F9/11; the movies are vastly different. Unless one counts it as a fantasy, as Andrea suggests.

Or unless you are Michael The Moor, whereupon logic and reason go out the door.

Fahrenheit 911 is more than just a movie, it's a multi-media reality street-politcs experience!

It sounds like MoveOn.Org needs to move on. Perhaps to a life, but the funny farm would work as well.

Thank you, Mr. Bingley, an elegant answer!

9/11 is the key part of the title dragging them in by the thousands, they're not all lefties or even potential lefties. In the same way more people read The Age or SMH for the Green Guide or the real estate classifieds than for Leunig cartoons or its left editorials.

Surely?

Habib,

Couldn't say. After innumerable escape attempts, Dinsdale (and his scarier brother Doug) aren't allowed visitors, by orders of Superintedent (Ret.) Harry 'Snapper' Organs. But I thought everyone knew that.

;^)

Quentin, I'm in Potsdam (watch dobaman attempt to stalk me now!) - curious if you got out here to the East while you were in Germany.

I'm actually within walking distance of where the Wall used to be (it came down when I was 9...whoops, more stalkable information), which is why I can't give too much credence to leftoid troll rantings. Been there, literally, so thankyouverymuch, but no I don't care for moronic ideas of socialist utopia.

I actually spent quite a bit of time in the east. I saw the former East Berlin, and its absolutely huuuuge construction areas (it was 1998 by the way). Got to Potsdam as well...I seem to recall some famous castle/palace around there.

Also went to Leipzig. God that place looked depressed. (No offense to all Leipzigers) :)

I was in E Germany/Poland/Czechoslovakia/Yugoslavia for a while in 1985, riding around on a 900SS Ducati. What a dump. (Parts of coastal Yugoslavia around Dalmatia were pretty nice, but I believe they got heavily shelled later on). Strip mining, brown coal power plants, facial warts and steel teeth- locals were nice though and kept buying me arge amounts of local toxic liquids and admiring the Beast from Bologna. That's when i started to realise socialism isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Only place I have had to throw away money- you couldn't spend the local dingbats, everyone wanted US$ or Deutchemarks.

Fahrenheit911 has over $22 million in ticket sales since it's opening

Thus proving Micheal Moore is correct. Americans are the stupidest people on Earth (at least the ones on the left side).

I appreciate the caveat, Papertiger. I might steal F9/11 when it comes out on DVD so I can piss on it, but there's no way Moore's going to get my money.

Went fishing yesterday. We left the docks bright and early, which is an adventure in and of itself after a long night of drinking heavily, but that's not the point of this. The point is actually about my friend Craig, who went fishing with us.

Women love Craig. Can't explain why, they just do. Indeed, he is quite handsome, and some would say he's a good conversationalist and can be witty and all that ... but I swear, women love him for the way he moves. In fact, he doesn't move so much as he glides smoothly through life. His reflexes are incredibly quick as well. As an example, while fishing yesterday he was lifting a cod over the rail. It came unhooked, flopped about and fell towards the deck. Suddenly, with barely a flick of his wrist, he reached out and grabbed it squarely behind the gills before it could do any damage to itself, or our boat. All of this may sound pedestrian, but in person it was like watching an athlete. Were we Spanish-speaking, I'm quite sure we'd call him "El Gato" which I believe translates as "The Cat". However, as we are not fluent in that language I can't confirm this so we don't call him that. We call him Craig.

And "El Gato" is what this post is actually all about. Not a non-Spanish-speaking, fish-grabbing friend of mine, but a cat. My cat in fact. Well, my former cat. Not that he's no longer a cat, he's just no longer mine. I won't go into the reasons behind that, but I did want to talk about his drinking habits and my efforts to improve them.

You see, one day I was watching him drink out of his dish. He had a habit of drinking with his paw where he would scoop water out of his dish and bring it to his furry little mouth. Unfortunately, he'd have to repeat this hundreds of times to get a proper drink. And I think we can all agree that fresh water intake is incredibly important to our feline wards as the health of their kidneys depends on it.

It was with concern for Steve's kidneys (had I mentioned his name was Steve?) that I thought there had to be a more efficient way for him to drink. That's when I decided to teach him to drink with a straw. Crazy, you say? Perhaps, but my love for Steve knew no bounds.

Well, as you can imagine, although I had his best interests in mind, Steve really had no interest in learning how to drink through a straw. You see, he was not a patient cat. Most aren't, but he was more impatient than most. And I could tell right from the get go that the problem inherent in his failure to use a straw was his inability to form a seal with his lips around the straw due to his fur. Now, most men would have given up on him, but I couldn't bear to. Not when I had Nair. For those of you outside the U.S., or simply unfamiliar with chemical hair-removal products, Nair is the creme de la creme of depilatorial compounds.

I'm sure you can see where this is going. Within an hour, and with a ring of hair encircling his wrinkled little face, Steve was looking up at me like some kind of a bizarre, Amish Mick Jagger. I felt bad for the way he looked, but at the same time I felt happy. I felt the happiness of a job well-done, or at least well-attempted-to-be-done. Or something like that.

Anyway, long after this incident, Steve continued to eschew the straw I would lay by his water dish. Was it anger? Confusion? Or are cats just too stupid to use straws? I honestly can't answer that. But I can guarantee one thing: Steve would have loved some of the fish we caught yesterday.

Papertiger

Thus proving Micheal Moore is correct. Americans are the stupidest people on Earth (at least the ones on the left side).

I think I'll go see Spiderman and stay for 9/11. I'll watch a train wreck, but I won't pay to see it.

PW, is Das Bild still around in Germany?

Sure is, and it's still as populist and yellow press-y as ever (which right now means they're on a self-declared crusade against Chancellor Schröder, hehe). I guess it's like a daily version of the National Enquirer or something, with some news thrown in...everybody reads it, but few people admit to it. (No article in the name btw, just "Bild".)

"(No article in the name btw, just "Bild".)"

That tells you how long it's been since I was in Germany, and how bad my colloquial German has become! ;-)

Yeah, Bild takes after the National Enquirer, or the other low level supermarket tabloids. After Schröder, eh?

Thanks for the update!

Crusader:

Western Oregon tends to be mild in climate, but pretty wet, especially the closer you get to Washington. Temps seldom fall below freezing, but if you love sunshine, be prepared to suffer in the winter and early spring. Lovely country, though.

OTOH, check out the income tax situation. Oregon has an revenue system that is at best, chaotic

It would be to Salem, or somewhere in Marion county. Big Q would be will the co pay Relo, if not, it isn't gonna happen on my salery.

Tax-wise, only my income, as we homeschool, so the Mrs. does not work, and 2 Junior Crusaders, on not much north of $30k, so I fit the Rich Right Wing profile to a T. I am also a social conservative, so that would also have to figure in the mix. The South (Charlotte, NC) would be a great place, but taxes are creeping up, and not sure the lemmings will do anything about the junta in Raleigh, so it all depends on what the co. is willing to pay towards the move. Would love to have a few acres to shoot my own guns on, but hafta play it by ear til then.

that's the last time I drink vodka out of a watermelon

I woke up in the tub. My bed was covered with guacamole (I hope). There was a pair of panties in the microwave and my dog won't look me in the face. If someone can jog my memory I may find some peace.

Sincerely,
Mr. "probably going staight to hell"

I woke up in the tub. My bed was covered with guacamole (I hope). There was a pair of panties in the microwave and my dog won't look me in the face. If someone can jog my memory I may find some peace.

Look at the bright side...at least you didn't find your dog in the microwave(!) and a pair of panties that won't look you in the face.

Bill in Boston: We will not allow you to go to hell yet, because you're our kind of guy. Welcome, sir!

Hi ALL My major bitch is the use by government authorities especially the Adult Literacy add's of the use of the Letter "O" pronouned Oh in the place the numerical 0 pronounced Zero . I am worried about newcomers to our country who have a poor understanding of english to be confused as I am who was born here.