Runyan Landslide.

66.67% of Arkanssouri poll respondents agree Jon Runyan is a StudMuffin.

Next up: Andrew Sullivan. Vote now.

I HOPE I misheard this.

On ABC radio news this morning was this "headline" (or whatever the radio equivalent of a headline is):

Iraqis vote; many have been heavier than expected.

Was there a weigh-in prior to voting? Maybe we should send Arkansas Head Health Nazi Mike Huckabee after them.

Phillip Johnson

Phillip Johnson died over the weekend.

The guy had hideous personal views, especially concerning appropriating the ideas of others. And much of his work was just garbage.

But once in awhile he'd come up with architecture so brilliant it was almost Roarkian. I have to assume it was ghost designed.

CNN Breaking News: Bin Laden is alive or dead.

Oh, well that certainly clears THAT up!

Experts agree Bin Laden is alive or dead.

I know how to find out. See if he's attacking. If he's attacking, he may be alive.

SEE, Jerry Falwell?

comictubby
Originally uploaded by Alabamah of Leith.

SEE what you have done to him by forcing him to stay in the closet?

Spotted on a wall in Selfridges

Spotted on a wall in Selfridges
Originally uploaded by Tom Coates.

And I thought I'd pretty much mined this empty.

flies

flies
Originally uploaded by Arkanssouri.

Yet another of my brilliant comic strips.

I'm still waiting by the phone, comics syndicators!

(Bigger shot of it here.)

19 years ago today . . .

Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But, we've never lost an astronaut in flight; we've never had a tragedy like this. And perhaps we've forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle; but they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers, but overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly. We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their loss as a nation together.

For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we're thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, 'Give me a challenge and I'll meet it with joy.' They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve, and they did. They served all of us.

We've grown used to wonders in this century. It's hard to dazzle us. But for twenty-five years the United States space program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space, and perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers.

And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them...

There's a coincidence today. On this day 390 years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, 'He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it.' Well, today we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake's, complete.

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'

- Ronald Reagan.

chupacabra

chupacabra
Originally uploaded by Arkanssouri.

Just playing around a little with the fellow who is a little TOO interested in the old post regarding Chupie here and the Milk Bones parody thereof.

This is probably not going to interest anyone but me.

But here are some links I find helpful in charting an exercise routine.

Calories burned estimator.

Better Calories Burned Estimator.

How many calories are in a pound?

Nutrition info. for several fast food chains.

Sonic Drive-In Nutrition info.

Ah, the blogosphere!

It is a very diverse place, you see. You'll notice in my left column I've joined the silly diversion Blog: Hot or Not. It gives me random blogs to rate on a scale of one to ten.

It is through Hot or Not that I stumbled across this entry today (emphasis mine):

If you were forced to attend church as a child, you'll know where I'm coming from. I remember when I was a lad way back when, being made to be in a small room filled with the other stink children of similar age. Stand up. Sit down. Stand up. Sit down. On your knees. Suck. Swallow, and you were fucked if you didn't swallow. Sometimes quite literally. Despite these unpleasantries, I turned out quite normal. Well, after the lawsuit, and after pissing my settlement away on booze and scratchers lottery tickets. And of course the sex change operation. And that unfortunate incident with the border collie. Other than that, perfectly normal.

I HOPE it's not where my perverted little mind is taking me.

Repeat this mantra after me:

"Diversity and tolerance are good things."

"Diversity and tolerance are good things."

"Diversity and tolerance are good things."

So I'm gay a little bit.

For a long time I didn't like paisley. Then I realized that my dislike was based in the fact that most paisley comes in pastels. That, and when my fashion sense was in it's formative stage, Prince was doing purple and lavendar froo-froo paisley all over the place and looked like a feminine clown because of it.

But once in awhile, you come across paisley in masculine colors. And it looks pretty cool.

I ordered one of these yesterday.


Now all I need is a smart vest to go with it.

No, there's no reason to fear Big Government, is there?

An apple. She was eating an apple.

For that, the Jackbooted Thugs chased her with a helicopter, a plane, and a patrol car.

And don't laugh just because it happened across the pond, 'Mericans. It will happen here. All too soon.

OKsign
Originally uploaded by Arkanssouri.

.

Oh, the horror!

College students actually having the nerve to THROW A PARTY!!!

Well, *I* certainly feel safer. . .

. . . now that the HPD can get nekkid.

Suggestion to potential johns: Take lots of pictures and post them all over the Internet before negotiating a price.

The Frankencycle.

I liked the seat and handlebars from the old exercise bike better, so I switched them out. The contraption now looks like the creature from the movie Leviathan.

I put on about 13 miles yesterday, bringing the odo. up to an even 50.0 miles. Now I plan to do ten miles a day, increasing the tension a quarter turn after every session.

What's my pirate name?

My pirate name is:

Iron John Vane

A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person. That's okay with you, though, since you a tough person. You tend to blend into the background occaisionally, but that's okay, because it's much easier to sneak up on people and disembowel them that way. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Flight 93 : The Truth Always Comes Out.

I believe most Americans, deep in their hearts, know that Flight 93 was probably shot down. The evening of 9/11/01 I commented to one friend on the phone that yes, it probably was shot down and it was probably a good thing that we don't KNOW it was shot down.

A columnist for a local paper reports a slip-of-the-tongue by Don Rumsfeld that offers some evidence.

How this has slipped under my radar for so long is beyond me. And given the mainstream media's obsession with chasing down irrelevant details, how is it that this was not all over the evening news?

There's other interesting stuff in the article, especially this excerpt that, if true, makes the official version impossible:

Debris from the wreckage was found scattered over an 8-mile area, and a 1,000-pound section of an engine fan was found more than a mile from the crash site [ my emphasis] . This is consistent with an external explosion that separated a half ton section of one of the engines and tore open a portion of the passenger cabin and cargo hold.

. Unfortunately, the author doesn't list his sources, so we don't know if it came from legitimate news organizations or from paranoid ranters or liars.

Matt Millen, Studmuffin.

It's unanimous.

He's a Studmuffin.

Even the commercials aren't enough . . .

. . . to make me interested in this year's Super Bowl. Had Pittsburgh won, it would have been the most interesting combination of the final four. But with the Patriots win, it's the least interesting.

I'm ready for NASCAR.

If this passes,

I will never spend another dollar in Arkansas again.

Exercise Bike Update.

The bike couldn't be repaired. I spent Saturday going through flea markets trying to find a new one. Finally got a bare-bones one for $7.50 at one of those "perpetual yard sales" that are really flea markets just outside of town. It had 14.8 miles on it. The speedometer and odometer actually work on this one, so I can now count miles instead of songs.

They probably worked on the old one too, but it was digital and too much of a pain in the ass to change the batteries.

I put 12.2 miles on it Saturday, to round out the number, and 12 miles on it yesterday.

This one's lighter and hence more portable than the other, so I can plop it in front of the TV if I want to watch something. TV used to be a very convenient distraction to me. Now I don't have that excuse.

The bad thing is, this one looks almost identical to one I threw in the trash before moving to Thayer because I never used it and didn't want to mess with moving it. And as I recall, it had about ten miles on it.

Now I can once again pedal my ass all I want to.

closeup

closeup
Originally uploaded by Arkanssouri.

It amazes me what some people are interested in.

This is one of my flickr photos. Of all my pictures and artwork, this has the second most page views.

Armpit on, Misty May!

What's next, the Chevy Lymph? The Dodge Spleen?

They seem totally unaware that if the reporters don't have superscript capability, this is going to show up in print as the Ford Synus.

P.S. Note to carmakers: Boxy died at the end of the eighties. Quit trying to bring it back.

This always happens to me.

I had found a way to get around my unwillingness to go walking when it's too damn cold (or too hot, for that matter.) I picked up a stationary bike at a yard sale and put it in my bedroom. I put on my headphones and blasted "Enter Sandman" or "Rock You Like A Hurricane."

I started with pedalling pretty fast for one song. The next day I did two. Three the next and so on.

I was up to nine "Enter Sandman"s (about 45 minutes) until yesterday. The threads on the pedal arm/pedal connection on the right pedal stripped and the pedal came off. It can't be repaired.

Damn. I was beginning to see some results, too.

The Story Of The Stool

The Story Of The Stool
Originally uploaded by Arkanssouri.

Instead of a picture, here's one of my comic strips.

He put his four inches in her and left it there . . .

"A woman is suing a doctor who operated on her, accusing him of leaving a 4-inch metal instrument inside her uterus. "

I know it's hard, baby. But trust me, it's flesh, not metal.

"Shrieking Frogs?"

Yes, that's right -- shrieking frogs.

Wait . . . what's that rustling I hear?

LOCUSTS! OH GOD IT'S LOCUSTS!

Hell-LO?!??!! Can you say DODGE NEON?

Here's a headline for you:

No Girlie Cars Please -- We're Dodge!

The straights are at it again.

Perverts.

In honor of today, my 35th.

Old Hippie by The Bellamy Brothers.

He turned thirty-five last Sunday
In his hair he found some gray
But he still ain't changed his lifestyle
He likes it better the old way
So he grows a little garden in the back yard by the fence
He's consuming what he's growing nowadays in self defense
He get's out there in the twilight zone
Sometimes when it just don't make no sense

He gets off on country music
Cause disco left him cold
He's got young friends into new wave
But he's just too friggin' old
And he dreams at night of Woodstock and the day John Lennon died
How the music made him happy and the silence made him cry
Yeah he thinks of John sometimes
And he has to wonder why

He's an old hippie and he don't know what to do
Should he hang on to the old
Should he grab on to the new
He's an old hippie...his new life is just a bust
He ain't trying to change nobody
He's just trying real hard to adjust

He was sure back in the sixties that everyone was hip
Then they sent him off to Vietnam on his senior trip
And they forced him to become a man while he was still a boy
And in each wave of tragedy he waited for the joy
Now this world may change around him
But he just can't change no more

He's an old hippie and he don't know what to do
Should he hang on to the old
Should he grab on to the new
He's an old hippie...his new life is just a bust
He ain't trying to change nobody
He's just trying real hard to adjust

Well he stays away a lot now from the parties and the clubs
And he's thinking while he's joggin' 'round
Sure is glad he quit the hard drugs
Cause him and his kind get more endangered everyday
And pretty soon the species will just up and fade away
Like the smoke from that torpedo...just up and fade away

He's an old hippie and he don't know what to do
Should he hang on to the old
Should he grab on to the new
He's an old hippie...his new life is just a bust
He ain't trying to change nobody
He's just trying real hard to adjust.

Problems w/ blogger today.

And I'm in a rush, so no posts today.

Other than this one, of course.

Some consolation for Mike Tice.

Dear Mike,

The bad news is, your Vikings aren't going to the Super Bowl.

The good news is, 100% of respondents in the last Arkanssouri poll said you are a studmuffin.

Congratulations!
John
-------------------------------------------

My next poll was going to be "How do you like your Dan Lebatard, buttoned or unbuttoned?" But I couldn't find any good pictures of him, with his top shirtbutton open OR closed. (My vote would have been "Unbuttoned.")

So I had to move on to the next one -- Matt Millen, Studmuffin or Not Studmuffin?

But don't we ALWAYS see Donald Duck's rear end?

And for that matter, his FRONT end?

Christ, aren't we going a little OVERBOARD?

And no, I don't primarily blame Fox. I blame the right and the FCC for creating an atmosphere of fear.

Look Ma -- No Pants!!!

Deja vu.

One of my old college friends used to refer to Martin Luther King Jr. as "Martin Lucifer Coon." Apparently, he's now a weatherman in Las Vegas. Or at least he used to be.

Just FYI: My own objections to the Martin Luther King holiday have nothing to do with his race. I object to holidays honoring Communists.

Happy Birthday Betty White.

Why am I wishing Betty White a happy birthday, you ask? Doesn't she seem to be SO not my style?

Betty White redeemed her entire career by delivering one of the greatest lines in movie history, in the film Lake Placid.

This may be a slight rephrasing, but it was something like "If I had a dick, this is where I would tell you to suck it!"

Minty!

Maybe she'd just given some fellow a French Twist and didn't want anyone to know.

Karma Chameleon.

Heh. Heh. Heh. Thanks, brainhop, for this one. It made my day.

Strangers In The Night . . .

Note to London:

Convenience stores in Houston have been doing this for ages. Why has it taken so long for you to catch up?

Could it be that Houston is a world-class city?

Guns don't kill people. Poodles kill people.

Or is it 'Guns don't kill poodles; poodles kill poodles'?

Giving Birth.

New blog here.

Committing Blogicide.

Killing off The 308 Voice today. It was a good idea, but I misunderestimated how difficult it would be to keep up with campus news from over a hundred miles away.

But I thought homosexuality was a CHOICE . . .

We learn here that the Pentagon recognizes that homosexuality is a largely chemical, not moral, issue:

Most bizarre among the plans was one for the development of an
"aphrodisiac" chemical weapon that would make enemy soldiers sexually
irresistible to each other. Provoking widespread homosexual behaviour among
troops would cause a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to morale, the
proposal says.

Maybe next year.

These were going to be my birthday present to myself.

But unfortunately, there are more important money priorities right now. Food. Heat. Gasoline.

Life sucks sometimes.

Two.

Two.
Originally uploaded by Arkanssouri.

I have blessed my loyal readers with yet another piece of my original artwork.

What the Kwanzaa Bunny does in the off-season.

Thanx to Brainhop for finding this for me.

Take note, Miss Callie.

Here is a handy excuse for the next time you set fire to a hotel.

The snake did it.

First Amendment?

We don't NEED no stinkin' First Amendment!

New Crime Acronym.

You've heard of DWB - Driving While Black. Now there's a new one, BDIB - Being Diabetic In Boston.

Blogger skips merrily into minefield.

This is a seperate issue from whether or not hate-crime and biased-crime laws are equivalent to criminalizing thought.

This story brings up an interesting point. Do the Jesus Cultists truly believe in religious freedom, or in Christian Supremacy?

Equal protection under the law is just that. So what's good for the Jesus Cultists is good for the Satanists.

If you can't expect privacy in a bathroom,

then such a thing as privacy no longer exists.

Isn't the term privacy a derivative of the term privy?

Oklahoma, where the wind goes sweeping down the plain,

and where the highway patrol equals phone sex.

Watch your speed -- we are!

And it turns us on.

I hate it when that happens.

Note: Glue is contraindicated for use as eye drops.

Wimmen.

Story here.

Now you know why I stay away from them. And why you should too.

They're not human.

So what are they? And why were they wrapped in tarps and thrown down a well? Is this the equivalent of an extraterrestrial Baby Jessica? Is the Roswell mystery solved?

And why is law enforcement conspicuously unconcerned with WHAT THEY ARE?

The truth is out there, at the bottom of a well.

Little Brother* Is Watching You.

Take a look at your house by entering your address here.

* - "Big Brother" refers to the government. "Little Brother" refers to nongovernment entities acting like Big Brother.

Exposed.

The Squirrel Revolution has not gone unnoticed by the dreadful News-Leader or by Dave Barry.

Kobayashi Maru.

It was a Kobayashi Maru situation.

There were no correct answers to the questions on the test. The questions gave us no relevant information to answering them. One question was rather long and filled with pointless details such as the color of the roofs of the houses of a man's children. Then the question was about the division of time.

"Time?" one of the other students asked. "You can't divide time! You can't seperate it out and put it into five different containers so that you can open one and use it up, then open another one later when you want to spend more time!"

There were thousands of such questions, and we only had the afternoon. I knew there was no way I was going to pass the test. I asked the teacher, who was administrating the test, "How much of our grade is based on this?"

She gave a nonanswer answer, something about how this was important for the school to track how the students were doing. I read between the lines and looked on the answer sheet. There were thousands of circles to fill in, but no place to put one's name. It could not be linked to our grades.

I had an epiphany. I could turn in an empty sheet and spend the afternoon doing what I wanted instead of poring over a pointless test that there was no way to pass. I distilled that in my mind.

The only way to win, is not to play.

I got up, turned in the sheet, and left the classroom.

I passed the test.

Then I woke up and tried to discern whatever message this dream was trying to give me. I couldn't and gave up.

But I DID figure out a successful solution to the Kobayashi Maru scenario.

Don't go in the Neutral Zone. The crew of the Kobayashi Maru had no business being there. So they die. A good captain wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

I am the Solomon of the 21st century.

It seems there is a problem in Boston.

My solution? Well, I have two. One, bill the city for doing their job and clearing out the parking space.

But the preferred solution is this:

Get a snowblower. After you leave the space, fill it back up with snow. That should keep the leeches from benefitting from your labor.

Falling Down II : All I Want Is Some Fucking FRENCH FRIES!

Imagine the gall of expecting that he could get some french fries at Burger King.

Spongemonkey-esque.

I don't even have words to describe them.

Rather gets a gimmee . . .

If I ran CBS, he'd be clearing out his office and be expected to be out of the building by noon.

Four heads rolled. Unfortunately, his was not one of them. CBS, in refusing to hold him accountable, now has ZERO credibility and never will have.

Sometimes you can make a more interesting story . . .

. . . by taking the headlines from other stories and putting them together.

Sinkhole swallows house in Florida. FBI hunts for cross-dressing bank robber. Councilwoman said to attack police chief. Amateur forecaster reinstated after outcry.

Red State, Blue State . . .

. . . One State, Two State.

I don't really have anything to say about this. I just like saying "Red State, Blue State, One State, Two State."

Mayhaps one's role models . . .

. . . should not be Cheech & Chong.

Was it Thomas Jefferson who said . . .

"A little pirate radio station, every now and then, is a good thing?"

Vito: Majority says NOT A STUDMUFFIN.

Sometimes the majority (75% to 25% in this case) is just wrong.

But the majority has spoken -- Vito's not a studmuffin.

For the new poll, I was planning on using the drummer from Los Lonely Boys, but I can't find a good picture of just him.

So the new poll is --

Mike Tice, Studmuffin or Not A Studmuffin?

Damn flickr.

It told me the first Melvin pic didn't go through and to do it again, so I did.

Now I have two.

And I can't delete one because I emailed a link to the picture to someone that will "get" what it's about, and I don't know which one it is.

Damn flickr.

This is how I feel about the employees of flickr right now.

melvin

melvin
Originally uploaded by Arkanssouri.

It's been awhile since I treated you to some of my original artwork, so here's one for you to enjoy.

I'm not George Lucas . . .

. . . so there won't be any of this "begin at Episode 4" nonsense. I shall begin where one SHOULD begin, at the beginning.

I am in an office, working late, alone. Only it shifts depending on the angle you look at it. Sometimes it's an office. Sometimes it's the library. Sometimes it's a public restroom with grafitti on the walls of the stalls that I can't read. I have turned off all the lights except for one.

They walk in, unaware that I am still there. They are some sort of secret cabal, all dressed in Middle Management Wear. They do not come out in the daytime. They exist in the shadows. They sneak into businesses when they are closed and have secret meetings. This meeting is only one of thousands that go on every night in businesses all across the country. They are the Illuminati. They are the Shadow Government.

They make their way into a conference room, still unaware I am there. I have a feeling that even if they looked at me, they would not see me. I am irrelevant to their plans. One of the last ones in looks familiar. From behind, I see that he is dressed in slacks and a blue oxford shirt. Though I cannot see it, I know that he is wearing a yellow tie. I despise ties.

I have never in my lifetime seen him dress like that, but I know who he is. He is my high-school friend Max. Only he still looks like he did then. He is Agent Max.

My dog is poking me with his toenails. I wake up and adjust so that he is no longer poking me with his toenails. I roll over and fall back asleep.

At least this time the adventure didn't combine my sex hangups, my food hangups, my money hangups, and my mother hangups all into one neat little package.

Perhaps it's impolitic to say so . . .

. . . but I can't help noticing Miss Beazley is kind of ugly.

drudge

drudge
Originally uploaded by Arkanssouri.

Wow. They're really making them lifelike these days.

Can a robot survive the confirmation process?

"I am the BORK 4000. Confirm me or be terminated!"

Today's "They Are Attacking, So They MAY Have Survived" Award goes to . . .

. . . those who warn us that a toilet brush is "not for personal hygiene."

Don't let Falwell or Robertson hear about this.

They'll say it's "unnatural."

Thanx, Brainhop.

Brainhop went on a little bit of a hiatus for awhile, but they're back now, complete with a hilarious link to this. The Conforming page is especially funny.

Boggs, Sandberg In.

Are we sure it was Baseball Hall of Fame balloting and not Unbearable Hotness of Baseball Players balloting?



I wouldn't mind getting to 3rd base with Wade, but I don't know that I'd be satisfied with only getting to 2nd with Ryne

I was on Blue Team . . .

. . . and our assignment was to herd a bunch of cattle through a series of pens and alleyways. They did not cooperate.

I was apparently Assistant Team Leader. Everyone on my team apparently had some dissociative mental disorder, though they looked like average people. One thought it would be helpful to clap his hands and sing, off-key and without rhythm, "Feel the silky touch of my gonads!" over and over.

It was a phrase I hadn't thought of in years. On a school field trip, about four of us guys were sharing a motel room and we were watching music videos. One was Madonna's Dress You Up.

As pubescent males are wont to do, we could turn anything into a single entendre. We could make a peanut butter sandwich sexual, if we wanted. The song was much too subtle for our tastes, so one of our troop rewrote the "Feel the silky touch of my caresses" lyric to "Feel the silky touch of my gonads."

I found this hilarious and repeated the sentence over and over all night long, but I changed the meter of it to "Feel the silky . . . touch of MY GONADS!" in a rising pitch.

But that's all background. The point is, herding Blue Team was more difficult than herding the cattle. I gave up and accepted that we would probably lose to the anonymous Red Team.

Then Team Leader had an idea.

"They'll follow you if we dangle you from a helicopter and give you kittens! You'll be able to lead them to the finish."

I knew it wouldn't work, but just wanted the experience over. We attached a line to a helicopter hovering over the cattleyard, gave me a fuzzy blue sweater, and put two clingy little white kittens on it. They clung to me, eventually climbing to my shoulders.

I swung over the cattleyard, and I'll be damned if the cattle didn't follow me.

There is then a timeshift, and I am watching the program on TV. I learn there was never a Red Team, and it wasn't a contest at all, just a reality show that puts control freaks (like me) in absurd situations where they have to deal with crazy people.

The prize was $50000 for the ten-member team. They hadn't expected us to be successful. They just wanted to humiliate me.

Then the closing credits for the show come up, and a promo for the next episode. It is then that I learn that the name of the show is (and I hesitate to write this because I NEVER use the word) "SHE BEHAVES LIKE A NIGGER." It is in Big Yellow Stylized Letters. and is arranged like this:

SHE BEHAVES

LIKE A

NIGGER.

It must be a UPN show. Or maybe the WB.

I have no idea why that is the name of the show.

It is then that I wake up, look at the clock, and hear Coast to Coast AM just beginning it's live program on the AM station in Louisville.

I listen awhile and fall back to sleep.

I don't remember much about the next adventure, just that I am sleeping in the front seat of a crew-cab pickup. Some other guy is sleeping in the back seat. We are on our way to a concert or athletic event of some kind and stopped to sleep. A shadow passes over me and I look out the driver's side window to see a giant blimp-shaped shadow. The shadow is in the sky, somehow, reflecting off of nothing.

I wake the other guy up and ask "Do they have a blimp here?"

He mumbles "I think the college does."

I sit up and look out the windshield, upward. I see the blimp.

Instead of propellers, it has jet engines.

I get out of the truck . . . only now it's more of an SUV, pop up the rear hatch to get something and notice that someone has spilled something to drink in the cupholder back there (WHY is there a cupholder back there?). It is now covered in hundreds of pissants. I brush them out on the ground.

That's all I remember about that adventure.

Gee, ya THINK?!?!!??

Here is an excerpt from this story (emphasis mine, not theirs):

An Indian helicopter dropping food and water over the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands has been attacked by tribesmen using bows and arrows.
There were fears that the endangered tribal groups had been wiped out when massive waves struck their islands.

But the authorities say the attack is a sign that they have survived.

Mad props to Drudge for showing me the story, but the inanity of that position I noticed on my own.

Perhaps it was Loch Lomond...

. . . or a gulf. Or maybe an ocean. Whatever it was, I was overlooking it, standing on a steep hill that went right to the water's edge (a fjord, maybe?). It was some sort of festival, and there were thousands of other people surrounding me.

In the distance, I saw the giant cone of a waterspout heading toward us. I pointed it out to those surrounding me, and people began to panic, running away. But there was nowhere to run to.

I decided to wait it out, lying on the ground, watching it approach. In the foreground (or perhaps that should be 'forewater', since it happened on the water) five, maybe six, giant whirlpools formed, spread out along my line of vision. Waterspouts rose from them until they reached the sky.

The colors shifted, not to the usual green of a tornadic sky, but to the burning orange of a sunny late autumn day, and it began raining a plentiful, but not pelting, warm rain. The giant waterspouts loomed gigantic in front of me. I craned my neck to look up at them, and I realized they stretched on forever.

There may have been more to this adventure, both before and after this part of it. In fact, I'm pretty sure there was, but I do not remember. I awoke.

Lawn Dart Alert!

Here is my current Webpage of the Moment.

May the Lawn Darts be with you.

Why doesn't NASA start an auto company?

Maybe then cars might last longer than seven years. But they might cost 400 million dollars.

The rovers keep going . . . and going . . . and going.

This causes great consternation to one who believes government programs are inherently worse than private ones.

Take it with a grain of salt.

Story here.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi reportedly arrested in Iraq
(itar-tass.com)
Updated: 2005-01-04 14:37


Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, whom the US occupation authorities declared to be the "target number one" in Iraq, has been arrested in the city of Baakuba, the Emirate newspaper al-Bayane reported on Tuesday referring to Kurdish sources.

Al-Zarqawi, leader of the terrorist group Al-Tawhid Wa'al-Jihad, was recently appointed the director of the Al-Qaeda organisation in Iraq.

The newspaper's correspondent in Baghdad points out that a report on the seizure of the terrorist, on whom the US put a bounty of US$10 million, was also reported by Iraqi Kurdistan radio, which at one time had been the first to announce the arrest of Saddam Hussein.


Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was captured in Iraq, said Tuesday's Al Bayan, a daily newspaper of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

There have been no official reports about the arrest of the terrorist. Al-Zarqawi, 38, a Jordanian, whose real name is Ahmad al-Khalayleh, aims to turn Iraq into a "new Afghanistan".

According to Arab press data, Al-Tawhid Wa'al-Jihad group has divided Iraq into several emirates. The group's independent subdivisions at a strength of 50 to 500 militants operate in the cities of Al-Falluja, Al-Qaim, Diala, and Samarra.

The personnel of the group is on the whole 1,500-strong and includes Iraqis and citizens of Arab and Islamic countries. There are demolition experts and missilemen among them.

The group has depots of weapons and explosives in various parts of the country. It intends to frustrate the upcoming parliamentary elections that are scheduled for the end of this month. Al-Tawhid Wa'al-Jihad threatens to do away with Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and members of the interim government.

I'm not holding my breath -- the source is about as credible as the old Soviet press, but we can hope.

If it IS true, I say put him in a room with the family members of the Americans he beheaded. And give them swords.

UPDATE (via Drudge):

UPDATE //
Tue Jan 04 2005 11:18:47 ET

U.S. military and intelligence sources are denying print and broadcast reports that terrorist Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi has been arrested in Iraq, MSNBC reported Tuesday.

MSNBC said senior U.S. military and intelligence sources told it the reports are not true. A newspaper in the United Arab Emirates, al-Bayane, reported in its Tuesday edition that the Jordanian-born terrorist had been arrested in Baqouba, Iraq. Iraqi Kurdistan radio also reported the arrest of al-Zarqawi.

The U.S. military in December said al-Zarqawi likely is in the Baghdad area.

Credibility of Michael Jackson's accusers shattered.

Story here.

Maybe he molested him; maybe he didn't. If he did, it's a shame that his mother's testimony, though maybe true, is absolutely unbelievable.

Possible lapse in judgement.

Hey, W. Is it really a good idea to put Slick Willie that close to Bangkok?

We Are The Blog Collective.

You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

They're free and they're lickable.

But then, aren't ALL tattoos lickable to some degree?

Movin' on up.

More people have noticed little ol' attention whore me.

Geeks make me hot.

The guy's cute; I'll give him that.

But unfortunately, his cuteness cannot overcome his reprehensible viewpoints on Americans and Objectivists.

I guess he thinks it's okay to steal, as long as you do something good with the booty.

Note that he is unaware of any inconsistency between his "America hates Canada" headline and his characterization "that horrible United States of America."

I have therefore unsubscribed from his little list and will no longer be visiting his blog. He is no longer associated with me or my philosophy.