I suspect that the current conflict will ultimately be recorded as one of the following:
World War III
The Seventh Crusade
The Iraqi Civil War
If they let me name it, I'd call it
The Chickenhawk Crusade
A couple more:
"The Shadow Out of Time", Lovecraft
_Time For the Stars_, Heinlein (are we counting relativity?)
_The Night Lands_, William Hope Hodgson (old, largely forgotten, and @$^!ing great)
_Books of Magic_, Neil Gaiman
Guys, I've got to argue against those who oppose this outing on the basis of simple human politeness. Certainly, in the case of normal social interaction, outing someone against their will is rude and uncivilized. Come to that, it's rude and uncivilized in this case as well.
However, I'd argue that the mitigating virtue of this little sin is that it harms the Republican cause. Anything that wounds the political position of those torturing fascist bastards is by definition a Great and Good Thing.
We are, no exaggeration, engaged in a struggle against monsters. Forget the irreparable harm they've done to the constitution, forget the fact that they've brought back torture. Right now, today, some actual human being is going to actually die--or worse, come back irreversibly mutilated in body or spirit--for the sole purpose of enriching Bush's political cronies.
With that in mind, I'd encourage everyone in a position to embarrass or otherwise harm the filth responsible to give etiquette the next couple of years off.
Sing it with me, kids!!!
Freude, schoner Gotterfunken
Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuertrunken,
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
Deine Zauber binden wieder
Was die Mode streng geteilt;
Alle Menschen werden Bruder
Wo dein sanfter Flugel weilt.
When God is not cruel, he is often funny.
Caroline
I was just cracking wise. In hindsight, that probably wasn't so cool--sincere apologies for my insensitivity & no offense to your family or any of the other folks caught up in what is undoubtedly a miserable situation.
I AM curious to see if the federal emergency management clowns have gotten their act together any better in the last year.
Zounds.
I just heard about that toxic cloud in NC. I'd like to go on record saying that this is clearly Bush's fault. Am I first?
Seriously, it'll be interesting to see if there is any difference between the response to this and the response to Katrina.
Madeline: I LOVE the phrase "it's jolly strong, isn't it?". Struck me way funny, don't know why.
I would add to the general skepticism about conspiracy theories the following:
1. Although some individual members of the administration may have high IQs, the overall organization isn't smart enough to implement such a plan. Look how well they did in Iraq, where they had the advantage of not needing to keep everything secret.
2. Just for the sake of argument let's pretend that somebody in the organization had the brains to conceive of such a plan. Perhaps, as was previously suggested, something along the lines of consciously overlooking evidence of an impending attack in hopes that such an attack, if executed, would ultimately generate more political capital for the party in power. Your "Reichstag fire" kind of thing. I don't think for a moment that they'd be dissuaded by the sheer evil of allowing thousands of people to be murdered to serve their political ends. However, I do think it would require some major cojones to follow through. What if they got caught at it?
I have grave doubts that this collection of ivy league draft dodgers and perfumed executives would have the personal courage required to follow through on such a risky endeavor.
IMHO, they just took advantage of an existing situation.
Hey, "Scott H" #36--I was "Scott H" first! (I think so, anyway -- first post ~Aug '05?)
For those of you to whom this may not immediately make sense, i.e. everyone not me or him, two guys have apparently accidentally chosen the same nom-de-ML.
That is indeed terrible news. I only knew him through his writing, but *man* what a writer. I'm a long time fan, and one of the best things about this board for me was his presence.
Please pass along condolences to his family. Is anyone taking up a collection to send flowers or some such?
Lizzy L in #36:
It would, perhaps, be emotionally satisfying to waterboard the Bushistas. But maybe not. I don't want to turn into the kind of person who takes emotional satisfaction from inflicting pain and terror.
That's good-hearted of you, but everyone knows that Republicans don't feel pain the way people do.
Thank you Mr. MacDonald--I know what I'll be having for dinner tonight. Those of you with a bit more time on your hands might want to give the following a shot. It's very popular at casa de H:
My Grandmother's Spaghetti Sauce Recipe that she Copped From Her Neighbor Juanita by Way of My Mom Plus a Few Tweaks of My Own.
- 4 pieces bacon.
- olive oil
- 4-5 cloves fresh garlic, smashed & chopped fine.
- 2 big fat onions, chopped into ~1/4 inch cubes.
- 1 green bell pepper, chopped ditto
- 4-6 cups mushrooms, sliced.
- 2-3 tablespoons parsley. Fresh if you've got it, dry OK if not.
- 2 tbsp. basil.
- 1-ish pounds ground beef. (very lean is OK if you're health-conscious, not quite so lean gives a better flavor)
- Around 1.5-2 liters of tomato juice.
- about ¼ cup red wine
- salt
- bay leaf
- 1.5 tbsp sugar
The idea with this sauce is to have it simmer all day, to the point where the meat liquifies. The scent fills the house; by dinnertime you're in an agony of anticipation. Think of it as foreplay.
Cook the ground beef in a frying pan. Chop it up very fine as it cooks. Drain.
Fry the bacon in a deep pot. Pluck out the bacon & chop it, but don't dump the drippings. Add some olive oil to the now-bacon-greasy pot, then dump in the garlic, onions and bell pepper. Sautee until slightly softened and liquid is released, about 3-4 minutes. Stir in mushrooms and cook for a minute or two. Add parsley & basil and cook for another minute, stirring.
Add the cooked ground beef, the tomato juice, the wine, the salt, the cooked bacon and the bay leaf. DONT add the sugar yet. Bring to a boil over, mmm, medium heat. When bubbling nicely, reduce the heat to the minimum point at which the mixture still bubbles gently.
Go do something else. Every half hour or so, check on the sauce & give it a stir. If you cover it, leave enough of a gap that steam can escape. The idea is to slowly boil the mixture down. When it gets boiled down by about 1/3 and / or gets thick, add 1 cup water. Repeat the boil-down-then-add-water process a couple of times—seriously. This should take around, I dunno, 3-4 hours.
About 10minutes before serving, add the sugar to the meat sauce. The sugar cuts the acid from the tomatoes and provides a general flavor boost, BUT you don't want to throw it in until the last minute as it will ruin your pot if cooked too long.
Serve over angel hair pasta with shredded parmesan. Serves 4.
I too am dubious about the Army suffering a significant slaughter at the hands of an Iraqi uprising. The link Keir posted a bit upthread makes a strong argument to that effect.
However the green zone isn't all that big geographically. What about a nuke?*
I'm thinking something along the lines of "small but well-financed faction leader manages to purchase, say, a 10 kiloton device on the black market. Knowing it's political suicide to nuke your own country, he tricks his dumb cousin Bob into actually doing the deed. The green zone is devastated with significant loss of life. American public opinion turns to a degree that it is no longer possible to effectively prosecute the war. U.S. pulls out.
Bob the dumb cousin is tried and executed for his horrific crime against his own people & lands. The smart, well-financed cousin who set the whole mess in motion steps into fill the power vacuum left by the US departure, (or tries to anyway.)
Here's why I think it's at least semi-plausible.
Just a thought.
OK, so the thing that bothers me about watering is that people do it during the day at all. It's more effective at night, or early morning, because of the way plants use the water, and what watering does to them.
My understanding is that watering in the late evening or at night is contraindicated because so doing increases the risk of fungal infestations.
Can anyone verify or refute the following rumors?
Rumor #1: The reason Lucas didn't start filming the prequels the late 1990s was that he was waiting for toy licensing deal he signed back in the late 1970s to expire.
Rumor #2: At some point during the production of episode IV, the studio imposed a rewrite on Lucas' original script. This rewrite accounts for the difference in the quality of dialogue* between Episode IV and all subsequent.
Rumor #3: Lucas's payment for his work on Episode IV was that he got the merchandise rights. Because they ended up being so lucrative, he was able to exercise creative control in all the other episodes without the risk of someone who didn't suck inflicting a rewrite.
*Is it just me, or is Episode IV is the only one in which the writing is noticeably superior to, say, an episode of The SuperFriends?
1. HP & other cinephiles:
As it happens, I saw a low-budget horror movie last night that I just about loved: Subject Two. Almost zero gore but quite creepy, good production values (considering the $8.50 USD budget), excellent performances, and a script that snuck up on me. It just hit DVD. Highly recommended.
2. ajay:
I'm too busy (day-job) to enter the contest at the moment, but I'd like to stake a claim to the title "At the Mountains of Steamboat Willy."
I wonder if it's something about NYC culture that makes this seem like a baseline expected thing... "there's so much to do in the city, so many great restaurants, etc that we're wasting it -- living here for nothing -- if we don't take advantage of it."
No slam on NYC, which is clearly the beating heart of the east coast if not the country, but based on the links to apartment photos upthread--high end apartments at that--I'd speculate that claustrophobia is probably a contributing factor as well.
There's something to be said for the southeast, where the job market is hot but the housing market is not. You can have--no exaggeration--a mansion on acreage for the price of those wee-bitty apartments.
Steve Taylor wrote:
Or are there barriers to having a bank account in the US if you're poor?
I think the attraction is that they're not picky about ID and such; handy if you're not a strictly legal resident.
Lila wrote:
*groan* Don't get me started on all the work my house needs. Hint: 4 dogs.
I'll see your 4 dogs & raise you an unusually fragrant cat.
True story: a couple years ago one of the dogs somehow locked herself in a dark bathroom. Wackiness ensued. Last night I finally got around to removing the few remaining scraps of bathtub. The wife and I are most curious as to whether my plumbing-fu is up to the task of replacing it.
In other news, a couple of good resources for finding out how the other half live:
Born Rich This is a documentary by a kid who is the heir to a substantial chunk of the Johnson & Johnson company. His personal holdings include (IIRC) Grand Central Station. It features interviews with other youngsters of his income bracket. It was interesting, but be sure to take your blood pressure meds before watching.
At the other end of the scale we have Nickel and Dimed, which is a nonfiction account of a professor/journalist who went undercover for a while and lived solely off of her income from unusually low-wage (for her) jobs. She came to the conclusion that it's tough to live off of 12,000ish /y.
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| 2006 | 56 |
| 2005 | 29 |
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