okay--petition signed.
thanks for reminding me, and providing links.
man, if you guys keep on cheering me up about north korea this way, i'm going to get *really* despondent.
tripwire? that's ridiculous.
our tactics on the dmz are very straightforward:
we keep the communist hoard at bay by sending over politicians to frown at them, through binoculars.
(the binoculars actually enhance the effectiveness of the frown-rays, by dispersing them over a wider area).
okay, well then it's a good thing the north koreans don't subscribe to our newspapers and all.
damn. scary.
that quote, taken literally, says that our troops on the korean dmz are not combat-ready.
that doesn't sound right.
am i missing something?
kip w in 21 mentions an obliging salami--
in the UK in the early '90s there was a terrific ad in the theatres in which you are treated to a long montage of footage from slaughterhouses, butchers shops, deli counters, all sorts of meats and meat products being sliced up, ground, cut up, etc.
at the end, you pull back to see a small animated sausage, who says something like "I do love a good 'orror film!".
Then the tag-line was "pepperami. it's a bit of an animal."
who remembers an ad for a financial firm in which their client--a balding, middle-aged schlub--had to run a football the length of the field, eluding members of the opposite team who represented financial hazards?
the tag-line, as he crossed the end-zone, was "you've done it George! financial security!"
bekins moving did a terrific radio ad that for many years I thought was by stan freeberg--very much in his style. turned out to be somebody named chuck blore
"IN THE MOVIN’ BUSINESS BEKINS MEN ARE PROS
AND PROS(E) MEANS POETRY
IN MOVING."
very catchy tune.
89--
"you may want to take a gander at muslin cloth filters"
help! muslin cloth filters! muslin cloth filters!
islamofascist kitchenware! terror-loving cooking tools! help! help! hel--
oh. muslin. with an n.
never mind.
e.g., stray coffee-grounds on the one hand, shigella on the other.
lab-quality vs. safeway/brand-x coffee filter:
worth remembering there are likely to be two kinds of difference:
average pore size, and then variability in pore size (something like standard deviation).
It's not just that brand-x coffee filter is going to have bigger pores on average. It's also that their manufacturing process and q.c. standards are probably going to give rise to more glitches.
So you have to ask yourself not only "how big is the average particle I'm willing to allow to come through?" but also "how much do I really, really want to avoid anything larger than that coming through?"
Thanks for these links.
For some reason, "got to get you into the mood" didn't do it for me. Seemed too much like I got the joke in the first couple of bars, and then after that was left with only some residual admiration for the technical accomplishment.
But I'll listen to some others and see if I find them more delightful. In principle I'm all in favor of this stuff. (I always liked the mash-ups of Hayden that Brahams did).
One good thing: it made me realize that there is already a Beatles tune that has a brief bit of the "in the mood" riff in it, played by a sax. I wonder if the mash-up people realized that John Lennon (or whoever) was already weaving that into his songs.
(Though in fact it is not so much woven in as just sort of bunged in among a lot of other noise in the close-out).
(And yes I'm leaving the title of the original Beatles tune unmentioned here, as a quiz, though probably everyone else realized this years ago.)
let me echo the admiration for Bruce Baugh.
Every time I see a comment of his somewhere, I make sure to read it. (E.g. at Obsidian Wings, where unfortunately not all of the comments are worth reading).
I didn't know he had his own blog--I'll have to start reading it.
oh--
and parts of that last post were an homage to the comments by Ajay that TNH linked to, in which he referred to gratuitously erudite references to dead languages.
Can't never get enough of those, now, can we?
91--
wasn't that also part of the problem with "The Shiny Sheff", i.e. the HMS Sheffield, hit by an Exocet missile during the Falklands War? I.e. made of aluminum, and so very flammable once critical temperature is reached?
"Exocet", by the way, was the word Theophrastus coined for what we call "amphibians" (exokoitos, sleeps out of water). The missile was a land/water jobby, so an amphibian.
Sorry--I just remembered. An HMS couldn't have been made of aluminum. It must have been aluminium.
For decades, the leading lights of the mainstream press have been making two big mistakes:
1) thinking character-analysis is more important than policy-analysis, and
2) thinking that they are any good at character-analysis.
It's really a shame that running a large country is hard work. Policies that work well are really complex. They involve complicated things like, numbers. Sometimes the legislation involved has multiple clauses in it.
Our current crop of reporters and columnists are completely unable to cope with the job of understanding policy and legislation, much less conveying their understanding to an audience that has less time than they do.
So instead of actually looking at politicians' views on issues, looking at the legislation they have crafted and the policies they support, the reporters and columnists try to judge their characters.
It's a stupid methodology. But the really impressive thing about the media is how badly most of its members *implement* this really stupid methodology.
They couldn't judge politicians' character if it was written on their foreheads. They constantly fall for the same handful of stereotypes: guys with folksy accents are "authentic"; women in suits are "pushy"; anyone with an advanced degree is "out of touch"; and so on it goes. The last time that the mainstream media got anywhere near to correctly assessing someone's character was when they started thinking there might be something a little disingenuous about Dick Nixon. And they only noticed that after he'd been on the national stage for twenty years.
This combination of complete policy illiteracy and complete gullibility to the superficial indicators of character is matched outside of the media by only one figure I can think of: George Bush. You know, the one who could just tell that Putin is trustworthy.
No wonder the national press was the first to fall in love with him, and still treats him with kid gloves. He's one of their own.
But since he can't run for office again, the national press is off on its normal course of dim-witted distraction, ignoring McCain's actual policies and falling for the veneer of character.
They're never going to improve. The best we can hope for is that they'll continue to lose influence to the bloggers.
When I want to *know* something about government, I know where to turn: for health-care, see what Ezra Klein says; for constitutional issues, see Balkinspot; for foreign policy check Belgravia, Laura Rozen, etc.
The only question is whether the TV and newsprint lock on the nation's eyeballs will hold long enough to get their new hero elected in 2008. If it does, then, as PNH says, we're in a heap of trouble.
Jim--
Thanks for many good tips here and elsewhere.
On covering burns:
the first-aid advice I remember from years ago was "never put goo on a burn!" where this included butter, vaseline, and all the other substances people were inclined to think would help (or that their parents had always used etc.).
And that's consistent with your advice to put on sterile dressings, and leave them dry.
That's why I was a little surprised to see that the individual first aid kit for some of the services is including a large gel-based burn dressing, called "WaterJel", with instructions for application to burns.
Is this 'cause:
a) they are assuming you don't have an ER to go to?
b) they're behind the times on treatment?
c) this is better than butter?
d) something else?
sorry--didn't see it on preview.
Well, why didn't you *say* that?
Your Own Mileage Accords No Knowledge
You Only Miss A New Kangaroo
Yellow Opals Make Arguably Nasty Kerchiefs
Yang-tse Offers Many Attractive Nixonian Klezmers
okay, I give. Tell Serge, and tell me too, Xopher.
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