The Arkanssouri Blog.: 08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006

Thursday, August 31, 2006

SE Missourian Reporter: Slow News Day? Make some!

On June 19, the Southeast Missourian first reported, in a story by reporter Mark Bliss, that a question had been asked in an anonymous letter from a Morley, Mo., resident about whether board member Eric Kesler resided in the Scott County Central School District.

...

After the Aug. 17 story was published, managing editor Sam Blackwell received information from a Scott County Central administrator that action by the attorney general's office and the Scott County prosecutor's office had been initiated by a complaint sent to the attorney general's office by reporter Bliss.

This is a job for Vomit Attack Man!

A man has admitted assaulting a woman by pouring a basin of vomit over her head in Aberdeen.

Father-of-three James Russell, 40, carried out the attack following an alcohol-fuelled argument at a house.

The victim was holding the basin when Russell took it from her and tipped its contents over her head, Aberdeen Sheriff Court was told.

I wonder if I can get him to move next door to Alexandria Carasia.

Get Ticketmaster on speed dial!

Book your tickets now for the viewing of Suri Cruise's poop!

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have yet to show their baby daughter off in
public, but eager fans were given an unusual preview with the chance to see a
bronze cast depicting her first solid stool.

The scatological sculpture -- more doodoo than Dada -- is purportedly cast
from 19-week old Suri's first bowel movement and will be shown at the Capla
Kesting gallery in Brooklyn, New York, before being auctioned off for
charity.


Even being the ardent (some would say pathological) Libertarian that I am; I'm having trouble being nonjudgemental on this one.

Who's a more sick, twisted freak, people who bronze and sell their children's poop, or people who want to look at it and buy it at auction?

Global Warming Culprits Identified.

Nope, it wasn't Ronald Reagan. It wasn't the internal combustion engine. It wasn't capitalism.

It was Montreal Protocol and the environmental lobby.

The chemicals that replaced CFCs are better for the ozone layer, but do
little to help global warming. These chemicals, too, act as a reflective layer
in the atmosphere that traps heat like a greenhouse.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Is this how liberty and participatory democracy end?

The McCain-Feingold Incumbent Protection Act gets through the FEC intact.

As long as it remains in place, I will not be voting for a single incumbent.

And I intend to disobey this law. I am willing to go to jail for it. The First Amendment is too important to be discarded just because I'm not willing to do a little jail time. The Bill of Rights is not the Bill of Suggestions. Nor is it the Bill of Quaint Concepts or the Bill of Optional Guidelines. They are called Rights for a reason.

"... one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." - Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail.

[Update: More at CQ, Instapundit, and Tapscott's Copy Desk.]

Monday, August 28, 2006

Because it's such a necessary skill in the job market. . .

. . . kids learn how to make fake poop.

I can go one better. I can make real poop. And I bet I can do it for less money and in less time. All I need is a burrito, a newspaper, and a match for afterward.

I wonder how many, if any, of our tax dollars went to pay for this.

How do I get measles in a well-nourished country?

Quote of the day:

Better nutrition indeed leads to a stronger immune system; and only about 1 percent of children with measles in well-nourished countries will die, as opposed to 10 percent in sub-Sahara Africa.


Only 1% will die? Are the other 99% immortal? As it reads, it seems the other 99% will not die. Ever.

Sounds like pretty good odds to me.

Aussie Porn Kicks Santa's Ass.

More on Pluto.

So Pluto is a "dwarf planet," which means it is not a planet at all. Does this mean dwarf humans are not humans?

I'm wondering where the "Plutestors" are. Where are the people holding picket signs that say "Up With Pluto!"? Where are the chants of "No Planet, No Peace"? Where are the celebrity advocates spouting soundbites like "You'll take Pluto's planethood when you pry it from my cold, dead hands"? Where are the Planethood Marches, which may or may not turn into Planethood Riots?

Sadly, they are nowhere to be found.

Instead, we have opportunists who want to use the sad episode to further the viewpoint that science is subjective:

"It's exciting. It's a chance to teach kids that this is the nature of science. Things are always changing," said Rich Hogen, who taught fourth grade for 32 years in the Arizona school system.


No, Rich. Science exists independently of public opinion. Gravity is unaffected by people who vote to change it. The earth is not flat and never was, even though majority opinion said it was.

One question. Why couldn't they have "grandfathered in" Pluto?

Update: Neptune may be downgraded as well.

Yeah, REAL funny, asshole.

In Stephen Laffey's world, this is funny:

[about Boy George, emphasis mine.]

"It wears girl's clothes and puts on makeup," he wrote. "When I hear it sing, 'Do you really want to hurt me, do you really want to make me cry,' I say to myself, YES, I want to punch your lights out, pal, and break your ribs."


Laffey must have found the murder of Matthew Shepard, and the thousands of attacks that happen on gay people in America every year, absolutely hilarious.

Laffey will henceforth be known in this blog as "the pro-hate-crime candidate."

UPDATE: Context is everything here. Laffey was writing this vomit while attending Bowdoin College in Maine in 1983 and 1984. In Maine in 1984, Charles Howard was thrown from a bridge to his death for being gay. I find it interesting that at the same time Howard was murdered, Laffey "thought it was funny" to write about breaking a gay man's ribs.

Friday, August 25, 2006

Left Roundup.

Every once in awhile, I like to check in on the left side of the blogosphere and see if they are still spending all their time bitching about the Republicans, or if they've actually come up with any ideas of their own.

Over at Studio Macaca, they discuss Forbes magazine. They breathlessly speculate about Tom Cruise's legal options. Bruce Reed engages in mentally masturbatory navel-gazing, with Rahm Emanuel as his subject. Then, of course, there's the bizarre and sublime Blogging The Bible.

"Damn that Jonathan is a hottie! Kisses like a pro, too! Oops, I exceeded all over my loincloth! Toodles, David."*

And so we move on to the Bonfire of the Inanities. They bitch about Katrina. They bitch about Plan B. They bitch about Bill Maher. They use Pluto's demotion to bitch about Bush. (I'm not kidding; here's an excerpt: "It might be worth exploring the idea of an international leadership union applying the cognate concept that world leaders, too, must meet certain universally accepted, and acceptable, standards, or face excommunication.") They use the murder of a child to make a snarky bitch about Karl Rove. They blame Plamegate for Iran. They bitch that the Republicans don't spend enough of our money. They bitch about the competitiveness of football coaches, even calling it "pathological," and people who make stupid slips-of-the-tongue.

When I began that paragraph, I intended to keep going until I found an idea. A proposal. An alternative. Something the left is FOR. But I give up. I haven't found one yet, and maybe I never will.

So I move on to The Socialized Condom Utopia, Missouri Branch. They bitch about Sandra Thomas. They bitch about Don Hinkle. They bitch some more about Sandra Thomas and seem to think they can speak for Republicans. They bitch about the adult beverage industry making political donations to Jim Talent. They bitch about the governor touching pumpkins, which they for some reason call "melons." (I'm not kidding.) They bitch some more about Republican donors. They bitch about beans. (Again, I'm not kidding.) They bitch about military readiness. They bitch about a Jane Cunningham email. They bitch once again about Thomas. They bitch about Jim Talent's ability to discuss more than one problem. They bitch about school choice. They bitch about donors going bankrupt. They point out that YouTube exists. And finally on their front page today, applaud the anti-intellectual "Snakes on a Senate."

Not a single idea, position, or proposal anywhere. Not one.

So finally we move on to Shriekers Against Americanism. I have to give them credit. They DO have an idea. On the first post I come across, even. Their idea? Have a garage sale. Then they go back to bitching. About how Bush greets Rep. Pombo. About Joe Lieberman. About Joe Lieberman again. About "America's increasingly belligerent foreign policy." About Bush. About people with delinquent children. About electronic voting. About people who turn on the lights. About the religious right. Then they ended with a little slurpfest about Surrender Ned.

I guess "surrender" is an idea. A wrong one, but an idea nonetheless.

So, there you have it. The left side of the blogosphere has a total of two ideas.

1. Surrender.
2. Have a garage sale.

*: not actually IN Blogging The Bible, but it should be.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Proposed Hardy AR ordinance: "No Political Discussion" allowed at city hall.

Just where should political discussion take place?

That is what Hardy is asking itself after the Aug. 15 council meeting when aldermen narrowly voted down an ordinance proposed by Alderman Bobby Higginbottom prohibiting political campaigning, political strategy planning and political discussion in City Hall during business hours.

[snip]

The ordinance will be read again at the Sept. 5 meeting, said Recorder/treasurer Carolyn Groves.



Question: Where are Hardy's city council meetings held? In city hall? How are citizens supposed to voice their opinions at city council meetings if this passes?

Survivor To Contestants: Stay With Your Own Kind.

At the start of the reality show's 13th edition, ''Survivor: Cook
Islands,'' 20 contestants will be organized into four tribes divided along
ethnic lines -- black, white, Hispanic and Asian, CBS announced Wednesday.


Separate-But-Equal Survivor?

Don't put too much stock in this. I've got a feeling it's Contrived-Controversy-For-Buzz. Lately, Survivor has been splitting contestants up into contrived categories for the first couple of days, only to merge them together a couple of days later.

Maybe he should shout the plotlines of Long Dong Silver movies at her.

Woman insists being meowed at is harassment.

Jeannette police charged a 14-year-old boy for "meowing" whenever he sees his neighbor, 78-year-old Alexandria Carasia.
But wait; it gets better [emphasis mine]:

The boy's mother said the family got rid of their cat after Carasia complained to police that it used her flower garden as a litter box.
A bird pooped all over the hood of my car a few days ago; should I call the police?

Put up a fence around your flower garden, bitch. Quit wasting taxpayer dollars.

And oh, yeah. Meow, bitch.

[H/T 2 Drudge.]

Pluto Stripped!

After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930.


Science is not a democracy, people. Pluto's planethood remains intact, independent of your little committee's opinion of it.

[Update: More here.]

Now that's just overreaching.

No stripping at Chinese funerals!

Next thing you know, they'll ban mourning at strip clubs!

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Robert K. Hoffman, co-founder of National Lampoon, dead at 59.

You gotta love a Congressional candidate who . . .

. . . reminds us about Ruby Ridge instead of pretending it didn't happen.


Quote of the day.

This one comes from Richard Keller on the Opinion page of DNR Online.

"...I'd rather be called a Loser-tarian than a Retardican or a Dumbocrat."

I thought it was the 12th that was full of insane communists.

Turns out the 8th is populated by socialist moonbats as well.

Federal Appeals Court: Driving With Money is a
Crime.

Eighth Circuit Appeals Court ruling says police may seize cash from
motorists even in the absence of any evidence that a crime has been
committed.



[H/T 2 brainhop.]

Monday, August 21, 2006

Like Ayn Rand said of Nathaniel Branden . . .


. . . the driver of the whinety-whine car is no longer associated with me or my philosophy, and will no longer be mentioned on this blog.

Even shirtless.

In other NASCAR developments, you too can smell like Tony Stewart. Let me make this clear; I like Tony Stewart. He's probably in my top five. I have no idea how he smells, but he doesn't look like he smells very good.

Who's the best-smelling NASCAR driver? Judging by looks alone, I'd guess Terry Labonte or Mike Skinner.

Welcome, potential minions . . .

. . . who got here searching for "porn suppositories" and "maggots in reese peanut butter cups."

Notable passing.

Sometimes an ordinary man being there at the right place at the right time can change the world.

Iwo Jima photog has died.

"Boof." That's some sort of euphemism, isn't it?

Boof: Osama lusts for Whitney Houston.

So THAT's the problem! Osama needs to get laid!

Hey, if sacrificing one crack ho will draw the bastard out of hiding, I say send her over!

[H/T 2 memeorandum.]

Rhymes with "Buck Fuddy."

I don't know that 90% of America will be enthused about drinking something called "Amigo Juice."

Saturday, August 19, 2006

A $12.61 pack of cigarettes.

So my mom runs out of ciggies yesterday and I head out for a quick trip to the convenience store to get her a pack.

On the way, I spot a yard sale. I stop by for a quick search for bargains.

I come across this walker with a built-in collapsible seat.

It would be perfect for my cousin, who has symptoms consistent with early MS but that the doctors insist doesn't have MS.

It costs five bucks. I buy it and load it in the back of my little titty pink station wagon.

I get the cigs ($2.61) and return home, where I discover the walker has the bottoms of the two rear legs missing. These parts, in conjunction with the front ones, make the walker height-adjustable.

No problem. I know a sort of swap-meet-flea-market-perpetual-yard-sale that ALWAYS has old walkers bought at estate auctions for sale cheap.

I go there and buy one for another five bucks.

I return home and find that, while the bottom parts fit on the chair walker, the little buttons you push to adjust the heights don't fit through the little holes. Why the hell isn't there an industry standard on these things?

So, now I am out ten bucks and have two piles of useless metal sitting in the middle of my living room.

I should have KNOWN that for me, altruistic impulses never end well.

Ayn Rand would gleefully inform me that she TOLD me so!


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Jazz by Europa.

These are my new glasses, only I think mine may be "Chrome" instead of "Gunmetal."

And mine sure as hell didn't cost $123.90. I got everything, including the eye exam and scratch-resistant lenses, for 88 bucks.

A personal aside here; I very much dislike the eyeball-blowing machine thing.

Contradictions cannot exist.

Sicko knows unreleased details about the murder of JonBenet. Sicko's wife says sicko was with the family hundreds of miles away when JonBenet was murdered.

Assuming she is not lying or mistaken, how can this be?

Here's one explanation.

Sicko's body language reminds me a lot of the stalker/murderer of Rebecca Schaeffer. Sicko may have been posthumously "stalking" JonBenet. One thing we know about stalkers is that they certainly are meticulous, chasing down every single detail about the victim they can find.

We also know that sicko operates in some pretty disgusting circles.

Did sicko, chasing down one of these details, stumble across and develop a relationship with JonBenet's ACTUAL killer, who would be more than happy to share the gory details to an eager audience?

So why would sicko confess to the crime, instead of turning in the actual criminal? The short answer is that he's a sicko. The long answer is that he may be protecting the actual murderer out of some desire to either be him or to fuck him. Or he may see himself as the guardian of JonBenet's memory and want to rob the murderer of any infamy gained through the murder.

Or, if he's as Bardo-ish as his body language suggests, he may take pieces of information he's heard about the murder and truly believe he can assimilate them into his OWN past experiences.

[H/T 2 Drudge.]

Conspiracy!

Okay, so I like to eat cheap lunches at Dairy Queen. On Mondays and Thursdays it's the $3.19 special (Double cheeseburger and bacon cheeseburger meals, respectively). The other days it's a tossup between a $1.59 cheeseburger with water, a $1.29 medium soda, or a $1.39 order of battered fried mushrooms with water, or rarely a $2.79 chicken strip kids meal.

Thing is, I need to get back to carb counting so I can start to get my weight under control again.

So I wondered how many carbs are in an order of mushrooms. It seemed like a reasonable enough question, and one that would be easily answered by looking on the nutrition facts poster in the DQ.

I did. I could not find any mention of fried mushrooms anywhere.

No problem, I thought. I'll just check on the DQ website. I did this Thursday.

When I clicked on the Menus & Nutrition link, it took me here. I went down to the Nutrition Charts link, which took me here. I saw the Food & Treats Nutrition Facts link and thought I was getting somewhere.

But when I clicked on it, all that came up was a blank white page. I tried this several times with the same result.

Must be some problem with the site, I thought. I'll try it again Saturday.

Just tried it again. Same thing.

Why are they intent on hiding the makeup of their mushrooms from me? Why is there a conspiracy to keep me fat?

If you are a U.S. politician, do NOT read this.

I don't want our elected officials to get any ideas about "pondering the meaning of 'fish'?"

When is a fish not a fish? When it is a giant killer reptile with four legs and sharp teeth.

Politicians in Australia have been pondering the meaning of "fish" and have
passed new laws making it clear crocodiles should be fish too.


If a shark is not a fish, then there is NO WAY IN HELL that a crocodile is a fish!

Don't be surprised if the US government now funds a study to determine the actual fishiness of crocodiles.

No word yet on when they plan to take up the abolition of gravity.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Probably no blogging tomorrow.

Scheduled to go to the western plains to get some new visual perception enhancers.

Lunch at Diamond Head! Crab Rangoons! Awesome!

Quote of the Day . . .

. . . and an astute one at that, comes from Knappster:

Jim Talent makes Hillary Clinton look like Ayn friggin' Rand.


Go read the entire masterful piece of excoriation.

Like Fidel and Hugo, . . .

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp should get a room.

We're #1!

Maybe we should call it the "Don't Ask; Don't Tell; Don't Show Me" State.

Missouri's very own Fort Leonard Wood tops the list:

An Army base in Missouri used the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy to kick
out more soldiers than any other military installation last year, followed by an
Army base on the Kentucky-Tennessee border and a naval base in Virginia.

Sixty people were dismissed last year from Fort Leonard Wood, according to Defense Department documents shared with The Associated Press by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. That was up from 40 discharges under the policy from the training facility in 2004.


Clearly, "Don't Ask; Don't Tell" isn't going anywhere anytime soon. So I have a suggestion.

Make it apply to heterosexual soldiers as well. No talking about your wife or girlfriend. No mentioning the singles bar you went to on your last night off. No casual glances at titties passing by. No wearing your wedding ring. No pics of the family on your desk. No reading love letters from wifey to your buddies.

If there's no room for acknowledging one's own sexuality in the military, then there's no room for acknowledging one's own sexuality in the military. Make it an equal-opportunity policy of discrimination (if that's possible).

THEN we'll see how long it remains in place.

I am extremely tempted . . .

. . . to use this as the new subtitle of this blog.

Welsh-speaking cyclists have been left baffled - and possibly concerned for their health - after a bizarre translation mix-up.

For instead of a road sign telling them to dismount, the Welsh translation informs them that 'bladder disease has returned'.


But new readers might not get the reference and think it is instead an important health update. That would fall under the TMI category and would probably prevent them from becoming my minions.

Maybe I could get by with doing it in Welsh.

[H/T 2 brainhop.]

But is it okay to call your pet "Woman"?

Ananova brings us this news of the goings-on of the language police:

Geordie council workers have been ordered not to call women "pet".

Officials say the greeting and other North East terms are disrespectful and could cause offence.

Among words banned are "hinny" - an affectionate term for a woman - "love", "darling" and "sweetheart".

Instead, females must be addressed by their full name.


Even if her name is "Anastasia Beaverhausen"? And what about Courtney Love and Jennifer Love Hewitt? And wouldn't "Pet" be much more efficient than reciting "Penelope Anne-Marie von Trachtenberg-Rasmussen-Schonenfeld The Second" every time you need to address her?

Better yet, don't talk to the hinnies at all.

Chupacabra beat.

Kevin thinks Chupie's been acting up in Brazoria County.

Western Maine reports a Chupie fatality.

"This is something I've never seen before," said Mike O'Donnell, who lives near the area where the creature was found. "It's an evil looking thing. It
looks like half-rodent, half-dog."

The animal was described as charcoal gray and weighing between 40 and 50
pounds. It had a bushy tail, an extremely short snout and short ears. There were
also curled fangs hanging over the lips.

One of those W.A.D.s*

My car radio is receiving WRVR FM out of Memphis more clearly than any local stations this morning. In fact, I think it may have bumped a more local station of the same frequency.

WRVR is 167.83 miles away.

The station, from what I've heard so far, sucks mightily.

* W.A.D.: noun, "Weird Atmosphere Day."

Monday, August 14, 2006

Gotta . . . [cough] . . . cut blogging . . . [ack!] . . . short today.

Woman sitting next to me here in the comp lab has drenched herself in the most stankonious perfume I've ever smelled!

Can't breathe; gotta jet!

Bridging the Gap. ["Brizzle tha Gizzle, my nizzles."]

Finally, a translation service makes The Arkanssouri Blog available to the ebonics-as-first-language crowd!

The inner cities need no longer suffer in ignunce.

Update: They've helpfully translated Joe2006, too! Here's a sample:


Welcome ta Joe2006.com! Wizne'll be ridin' our fizzle website soon ta bring you tha latest news n updates fizzle tha campaign.

In tha meantime, I want ta takes a moment ta thizzay mah supporta n explain ta you why I hizzy decided ta fight on until Baller . Subscribe nigga, get yo issue..

Update 2: I may make Drud-To-Tha-Gizzle my primary news source, with headlines like this:

PAPER: Terror po-po target mizzy than 70 'plots' in UK...

Among would-be brotha arrested - motha who were ta use they babies as cova...



[Hate mail from the Humorless Church of Jesse may be submitted using the comments link below.]

Saturday, August 12, 2006

But I'm content to keep my old one.

"Happy New Anus?"

Sounds like a metaphor that Surrender Monkey would use for "life."

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Does this fall under Godwin's Law or Quirk's Exception?

Lieberman compares terrorists to Nazis.

"I'm worried that too many people, both in politics and out, don't
appreciate the seriousness of the threat to American security and the evil of
the enemy that faces us -- more evil or as evil as Nazism and probably more
dangerous that the Soviet Communists we fought during the long Cold War,"
Lieberman said.

If it's under Godwin's Law, we see in this Wikipedia excerpt that Joe automatically loses.

There is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion
forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and
whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically "lost" whatever debate was in progress.

[H/T 2 memeorandum.]

AirportBusiness.com Suggestion from John

Hi Arkanssouri Blog,

John stopped by AirportBusiness.com and thought the following article might be of interest to you:

Baby-Bottle Bomb Plan Could Destroy Airplane, FBI Experts Testify

Arabic-language plans for a bomb hidden in a baby's milk bottle
could produce an explosion strong enough to destroy an airliner,
U.S. experts testified Wednesday in the trial of an Algerian man
accused of links to al-Qaida.

To view the entire article, copy and paste the following url in your browser:

http://www.airportbusiness.com/article/article.jsp?siteSection=&id=3528

Here is a message from John:
This 9/15/05 story has some remarkable similarities to today's developments.

I wonder if this is where they got their ideas? It even comes complete with an ingredient list for the terrorists to follow!

---
AirportBusiness.com
http://www.airportbusiness.com
Information supplied by AirportBusiness.com

Two Questions.

In today's coverage of the foiled terror plot, I've heard several talking heads say that parents will have to verify that their kid's formula is actually formula, perhaps by tasting it themselves.

If the parent is a suicide bomber, why wouldn't they taste it?

And when did the colors in the color-coded terror alert warning level stop having real definitions? Red, until this morning, meant an attack is in progress or imminent. Now, apparently it means what orange used to mean.

[Make that THREE Questions. The third is, when was the attack scheduled to happen? I'm working on the theory that it may have been scheduled for August 22, a date significant in Islam because it supposedly begins the end of the world. AND Iran has said we will receive their response to our demands they give up their nuclear program by or on that date.

I'm hoping Israel uses the opportunity that yesterday's discovery of Iranian soldier's bodies among Hezbollah's gives them and takes out Iran's nuclear facility with an airstrike. Or fifty.]

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

"Jesus Loves You" Played Backward . . .

. . . is "We Smell Sausage!"


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Thank Gawd the octopus wasn't hurt!

This is what passes for news on MSNBC:

4 penguins perish in freak Texas truck accident

Octopus unhurt, exotic fish not as lucky en route to temporary home

At the Lucky Village in Houston, I used to get octopus on the buffet.



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Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com

No Twice-Undead State Auditor For You!

No BIG surprises yesterday.

But sadly, Missouri will have no doubly-undead state auditor.

Among the Democrats, Buchanan County Auditor Susan Montee appeared headed toward victory for her party's nomination, leading Darrell Wattenbarger of Columbia, Mo.

I am disappointed that so many Missourians love being taxed for frivolous programs, though.

Unofficial results for the statewide 1/10th cent parks and soil and water conservation sales tax with 1,854 of 3,509 precincts reporting were 243,076 yes; 111,738 no.

Damned tree-hugging anticapitalists.


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Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com

Gaming Lieberman.

Lieberman lost.

I see a few ways in which Joe's independent candidacy can screw over the party that not only abandoned him, but tried to throw him under the bus.

First, and least exciting, is that Joe draws enough independents and Republicans, added to his already present base, to win outright.

Second, Joe saps enough of the Democrat votes to get Alan Schlesinger elected.

Third (and this one requires a lot of dominoes to fall into place at the right time), Joe wins outright, takes office. There have been whisperings that Dick Cheney has wanted to resign from the vice-presidency for awhile now but is waiting until after the November '06 elections. Let's say that he does. Bush appoints Lieberman to the V.P. office. That leaves a vacancy. Republican CT governor M. Jodi Rell appoints a Republican, perhaps Schlesinger, to fill the vacancy. Lieberman becomes a Republican and, after naming as his running mate in 2008 Condy or Rudy, the President.

Any of the three scenarios is guaranteed to make the P.O.D. People (those with President Oppositional Disorder) fume.




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Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Sorry, minions.

No time for blogging today. Crowded schedule (election, city council meeting, etc.), combined with this being one of those days where I'm not feeling particularly organized.

But I will leave you with one Thought To Ponder.

If Connecticut wants a far-left wackadoo, and Georgia wants a more-centrist candidate, can't they just trade?




No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding.
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Monday, August 07, 2006

With baited breath, we have been waiting . . .

. . . for Patrick Swayze's thoughts on the Mel Gibson affair.

"When you are a pit bull, and you love what you do and you are going to continue to grow, that talent will find its way out," Swayze said.


He did not elaborate on his earlier assertions that pain don't hurt and that people who really want to have a good time won't come to a slaughterhouse.

Nor did he respond to Jimmy's claim that he (Jimmy) used to fuck guys like Swayze in prison.

[H/T 2 Drudge.]

Approaching Code White Again.

Brent oil price surges on BP Alaska shutdown.





[H/T 2 Drudge.]

Fakitude.


Reuters: Reuters finally withdraws all the freelancer's photos; presents no plans for preventing such fakeries in the future; insists Reuters doesn't suck.

[H/T 2 memeorandum and, of course, Little Green Footballs.]

Friday, August 04, 2006

This is the aforementioned criminally-deranged Muppet Jo Ann Emerson.


Criminally-deranged Muppet?
Originally uploaded by Arkanssouri.

Snakes In The Yard.

I don't think this is what Steve Earle had in mind.

Each night, dozens of slithering copperhead snakes make their way to Chuck Miller's yard.

It's a phenomena that, as of yet, has no explanation.


Nor is there an explanation for using "phenomena" as a singular, but that's beside the point.

Last year, there were "about 100" of the nightly venomous visitors.

But don't worry; the government's doing something about it.

Are they coming in and killing the deadly reptiles? No, no. That would make too much sense.

After Miller catches the snakes with a long-handled device, a graduate student takes them back to ASU, where a tracking device about the size of a grain of rice is inserted under the snakes' skin. The animals are then released back on Miller's property.


Because, God knows, tracking out the social habits of dozens of fangy killers is MUCH more important than protecting human lives, right?

Especially when such tracking can be easily thwarted by a relatively harmless king snake:

This year, something even more unusual happened.

A speckled king snake ate a copperhead that was tagged with a tracking device, Miller said. He found out the snake ate the copperhead when the graduate student used a transmitter and found the device inside the king snake, he said.


Your tax dollars at work doing something useless.

As usual.

If I was voting in the Republican primary . . .

. . . these would be my choices.

In the Senate race, I narrowed it down to two choices -- Roxie L. Fausnaught and Scott Babbitt.

Fausnaught doesn't want the job. She's only running because her boyfriend "made her." I can think of no-one more suited to the job of Senator than someone who doesn't want the job. But then we read on and find that her boyfriend is charged with statutory sodomy on someone younger than 14.

Here in Arkanssouri, we don't vote for people who love child molesters.

So that leaves Babbitt. I agree with virtually none of his positions and find him distasteful. However, if I voted in the Republican primary, I would vote for him for ONE reason -- the Secretary of State considers his campaign site to be thoughtcrime.

From the Columbia Missourian article:

Babbitt is particularly concerned about the fact that a link to his campaign Web site — http://www.scottbabbitt4senate06.info/ — is not listed in the “Filed Candidates” section of the Missouri Secretary of State’s Web site. [Here.] Babbitt, who also ran for Senate in 2002, believes the reason is personal.

[snip]

He accused the Secretary of State’s office of tampering with the election by failing to post the link to his Web site.

Mike Seitz, a spokeman for Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, said Babbitt’s site was omitted because it’s offensive.

Not obscene, mind you. Offensive. There are no dirty words or pictures on the site. Just political opinions. Wrong political opinions, I'll grant you. But it is not the job of the Secretary of State's office to filter out from public discourse those political opinions that it finds distasteful. It reeks of something straight out of Orwell.

Moving on to the race for state auditor, I'm thinking Jack Jackson.

That leaves Circuit Judge, which has two seekers -- Richard Moore and David Paul Evans. This is a tossup. I'd probably leave this one blank.

Now that I've decided to vote like a Jackass . . .

. . . the question then becomes, which jackasses do I vote for?

I may leave the Senate race blank. Claire McCaskill is just awful, but Bill Clinton Young seems awfully wishy-washy about answering questions. He seems to like "Yes and No." Pick a side, Bill. Even if I disagree with the side you choose, I would respect you more for picking one. Like Rush says, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

On the other hand, it is a virtual certainty that McCaskill will get the nomination of the party, so nothing would be lost by voting for Young. So why NOT vote for Young, using my vote to inch the party farther toward the far left? After all, the more fringy the two major parties appear, the more appealing the Libertarians become to the undecideds.

For US Rep, the Dems give me three choices -- Veronica Hambacker, Gene Curtis, and E. Earl Durnell.

I thought about Hambacker, but then I found her socialist rant page, where she wishes wistfully for a Marxist redistribution of wealth.


True, true we assure them, but what of the redistribution of wealth for the betterment of the whole society.


So that brings us to Gene Curtis, who on his website seems to have a position on only one topic. And it's not a good position. He wants to turn the government into a socialized health insurance company.


The premiums for the plan will be 20 cents per hour on a payroll deduction plan. The federal government will act as the collector of premiums and will re-route the funds back to each congressional district to be disbursed as needed by an administrator. The funds will not go through President George Bush's lock box. The administrator will be hired by an elected board of directors and will provide oversight and be responsible for the local administration of the Gene Curtis National Health Care Plan.


Which leaves E. Earl Durnell. He doesn't have a campaign site, but as Dennis points out, in his campaign ads, he seems as moonbatty as the other two.

So I guess I'll vote for Gene Curtis. At least he confines his collectivism to only one topic. And it is a virtual certainty that JoAnn Emerson will smite her opponent in the general election, even if she does look like a criminally deranged Muppet.

We move on to the State Auditor primary race, which includes Susan Montee and Darrell Wattenbarger, who also doesn't have a campaign site and doesn't like to be bothered with questionairres. But on the other hand, he has returned from the dead, twice. This one's a tossup, but how often do you get a chance to vote for the twice-undead?

The only other contested race in the Jackass primary is for county treasurer, in which Laurel Johnson and Kim Hollis square off. I know very little about either, but because Laurel Johnson is a member of SCOCOG, which has member that are intent on raising my taxes, I will be voting for Kim Hollis.

So that leaves this continuation of a current sales tax until 2016, which I will of course be voting against.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Got clothes?

Just a reminder that this weekend will be the weekend for Missouri's school-gear sales tax holiday.

So if you are planning on buying some clothes or a computer in the near future, this is the weekend to do it.

The holiday is on the state sales tax. Check with your city to see if they have opted-in or opted-out of having a city sales tax holiday.

A list of cities that have opted out is here. Counties here.


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Playing the role of jackass.

I go through this every primary election.

The Libertarians often say that America's two-party system gives voters only one more choice than Saddam Hussein gave Iraqi voters. Well, here in my district, choosing to vote in the Libertarian primary gives a voter the same number of choices that Saddam gave voters, or less.

I'll vote mostly Libertarian in the general election, but I've asked Libertarians far and wide what is to be gained by voting the Libertarian ballot in the primaries, when there are no contested races on it (other than a couple of initiatives, which will also be on the other parties' ballots). Nobody can give me a good answer.

Frank Gilmour takes a weak stab at it, saying it's a way to express our dissatisfaction. But that strikes me as more of an emotional argument than a rational one. The opportunity to vote for Gilmour will still be there in the general election. I can express my dissatisfaction then.

So I'll vote in one of the other primaries. The only question is which one? While there are more choices per contested race on the Republican ballot in my district, there are more contested races on the Democrat one.

I can only vote for one candidate per race, so I guess I'll vote in the Democrat primary. I do this even though I want desperately to vote against the anti-equal-protection (and not just in marriage matters, but also in adoption matters), anti-alternative-energy, pro-enslavement-to-foreign-oil-companies Jim Talent. It is virtually a foregone conclusion that he will win the primary, however, with or without my vote.

That can probably be said of the equally awful Claire McCaskill on the Jackass side, too. But there are other races there.

Get on the stick, Libertarians, so I don't have to do this again in '08. Put up more freakin' candidates. Give us a choice.

If Trent Lott or Mel Gibson had done this . . .

. . . doctored a photo so that someone appeared in blackface, that is, can you imagine the furor that would arise on the left?

Note the glaring spotlight on the total absence of principles on the left. It's not what you did, it's who you are. There is no right or wrong there, only gang warfare. And at the moment, Joe isn't in their gang.

[H/T 2 memeorandum.]

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Perception does not equal reality.

EU Referendum exposes that not everything in the coverage of the Qana incident is as it appears.

And did I hear Rush right today, that the same guy appears in coverage of the first Qana incident?

And what's this about the building collapsing seven hours after the last Israeli bomb was dropped? If that's the case, you'd think they'd have left when the building started creaking.

Unless they were herded into the building by the Hezbos and then blown up.

They have attendants in Compton?

NWA attendants threaten strike.

"Since I was a youth, I smoked weed out,
now I'm the attendant that you read about,
takin' a life or two, that's what the hell I do.
You don't like how I'm attendin', then f**k you!"

Can you say Rafael Palmeiro on Viagra?

Miami Herald: Experts doubt stress caused Castro's bleeding.

Now, I don't claim to be an expert, but I doubt it too.

Maybe Rafael made his squeal like a piggy.

Maybe his lightbulb shattered.

Or maybe, just maybe, it's a tumor. We can always hope.

The US is one step closer to ending the embargo so I can finally legally get a decent cigar!

Speaking of the holiday season . . .

... Wal-Mart has already had Christmas fabrics out for about a week!

Remember when the holiday season started the day after Halloween, not the last week of July? At this rate, by 2008, it will start February 15th and by 2010, it will start December 26th!

And people wonder WHY I am not thrilled with the Christmas season.

If only it came ONE size larger...



Order one for your favorite duopolist here. The holiday season's approaching!

Of course, if I got one, I'd have to get out my Sharpie and write "Libertarian" under the center dude.

Update. [This is the dupe I warned you about.]

[8/1 Note: This floated around out there in the ether for FIVE FREAKIN' DAYS before it finally posted. Where was it? Did Hezbollah kidnap it?]

Still under a boil water order. Managed to finish cleaning up the yard. In order to chop up some of the leftover small branches, I had to do the backyard with the Dead Dino mower, but I was able to do the front yard with the Osama Defiance Whirligig.

The combination of the dying fridge and power outage transformed over a case of Rolling Rock and Budweiser Select into snail bait.

Other than that, things are pretty much back to normal.


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