what? i'm just here for the cheese tray, don't mind me
It was between war and a graver threat. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Not our critics abroad. Not our political opponents.
And certainly not a lying, smelly, fat, obnoxious, irritating, uncouth, dirty, fat, theiving, slanderous, really, really fat, unkempt, so-full-of-shit-his-eyes-are-brown, ignorant, treasonous, lying, and fat disingenuous film maker who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace when in fact it was a place of indescribable cruelty, torture chambers, mass graves and prisons that destroyed the lives of the small children held inside their walls.
-sen. john mccain, draft for rnc speech
seriously, was anybody else's first thought when they saw him on camera at the rnc: "what the fuck is
he doing there?!?"
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good morning, ladies
allah correctly points out that ma bush looked
a bit spaced during her speech this morning. hittin the vallies a bit to hard, perhaps.
here's a pic where she has a bit more fire too her; she's using "the finger", one of the most feared weapons in the female arsenal, right next to "the look."
and as a bonus, check out the look on barbra's face. i think she's checkin me out.
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new photo
glenn beck exclusive:
a
previously unreleased photo of michael moore and ted kennedy on the floor of the democratic national convention.
update: heh, see, when they put a thing up that says "photo of the day", that probably means it changes pretty much every day. duh. it's fixed now
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local charity, and my brother is a celebrity
my brother, who was just home on leave, made
the local fishwrapper because he stopped to visit some folks that sent him some stuff to say thanks.
the article is interesting to me because, well, it's my brother, but it's also important to note that when people do stuff like this it is appreciated. alot of times, all you see on the news is jerkoff protestors and such, it is great to get a box from some people that have never met you, and care about you anyway.
while i was there, i got a box from my girlfriend's church's youth group. i had never met any of those folks, but they sent me some junk food and one of the best things i ever got in a package: a duncan butterfly yo-yo. they also included some notes from some of the kids.
so as a general thanks, anybody that is in a group like soar, or a church group that sends stuff, or whatever, it is important, and it is very much appreciated.
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a different kind of donation
want a chance to help a good cause, irritate andrew sullivan, and be a link whore all at the same time?
tim worstall needs links to rise in google standings,
so he can try to keep a charity he helps from getting screwed out of a good bit of money (i think...it's something called "pounds." that's like money, right?)
he's trying to beat out andy on donations and running an "anybody but sully" campaign, but since i got no money and never would've given any to andy anyway, i'll give a link to tim instead of sullivan. and you should too, even if you are an evil republican that is adverse to charity.
almost forgot, that link was found at
the llamabutchers, who also pointed us to
beatiful atrocities, another excellent site that's going on my prestigous geekroll. visit 'em all!
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the best olympic volleyball photo yet?
as i jump on the sports-as-softcore-porn bandwagon
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some stuff on swift vets
i have alot of stuff in my head about the swift vets and john kerry, but can't seem to get it down. it's too nebulous, maybe too much fact tied up with personal feeling. let's try one of 'em.
let's say, for a moment, that the swift vets are a bought and paid for branch of the gop. they're not, and nobody's really saying that exactly, but let's just assume that bush has personally paid for their tv ad, their book advertising fees, even bought them suits for on the teevee.
get all this campaign finance reform nonsense out of the way. now, does that mean that these men did not serve in vietnam? that they never saw what they say they saw? does where they get their money from automatically make them liars?
no, no more than george soros funding a group makes them automatic liars. biased, perhaps, but that is still no reason to automatically discount the facts they are presenting. we all know that moveon.org is biased, and if they ever get around to presenting some legitimate facts, i will be one of the first to recognize them. accept them, argue against them with other facts. but so far, all we've seen is baseless technical or personal accusations, without really attacking the actual allegations involved. i think that's telling. calling someone a liar does not automatically make them one.
on the "did not serve together" issue. a modern mp fire squad typically consists of three humvees, with three or four people in each one. while i had the most personal interaction and personal experience with the other folks in my team, and therefore in my truck, i certainly know what's going on around me and what's going on in the other two trucks. if, forty years from now, someone that was in one of those two trucks is running for office, and says that they hit an ambush when i know for a fact that that never happened, and everybody else in those three humvees says it never happened, maybe we have a point.
serving in seperate vehicles does not mean we did not "serve together." there were five boats in the river that day, and anybody that says that someone did not serve with kerry because they were not on the same boat is the same as saying that i did not serve with the driver of the vehicle behind me. which, in my opinion, is asinine. in alot of ways, i served with hundreds of individuals that were never necissarily in a humvee with me. there's much more to the service than being shot at and, while that is certainly a telling experience, there are many other things you can learn about a person without ever being in that situation with him.
finally, i don't really think any of it matters, politically speaking. alot of the people that i talk to that were alive back then don't care what he did in vietnam, and almost no one that wasn't born yet cares. with the exception of vets, republicans, and hardcore anti-war types, vietnam is ancient history. all of those people knew who they were voting for six months ago, or perhaps thirty five years ago. i think it's a shame, because i do find things like this to be very revealing and important, but none of it matters terribly much to the electorate at large. the sbvt allegations are damning, his own record after vietnam is much moreso. they are saying he is a coward and a liar. he has already proven himself to be a traitor and a liar. this much we know. if you are in the minority that cares, you've already made up your mind.
the other problem is that there is simply too much inherent ambiguity. unless john kerry or john o'neil is one of the two people that read my blog, none of us will ever know what went on that day. we can have testimony and he-said they-said arguments, but there's no dna-stained purple dress for this one. you either believe kerry, or you believe the swift vets. and only if, as i said, you're one of the few that cares either way.
personally, i want to get back to records. but there isn't much to talk about there, either. john kerry dragged us into the swamp of vietnam, and the swift vets decided they were willing to go back there.
the only reason this whole issue is so primary is because this is the campaign of bush versus the not-bush. there isn't much to talk about except the fact that kerry has served more or less honorably in vietnam, and he's not bush. the dnc strategists know they can't talk about the latter forever without actually having to say something, so we're talking about vietnam.
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the beauty of technology
or,
things i wish i had said:
No magazine really reflects the world as I see it. They either magnify an interesting portion beyond its importance, or float off into irrelevance. Which is why I prefer the internet. Every day, a thousand pages. We make it. It’s our magazine. It’s the true pop culture, and the only question is how long it will take before the democratization of information makes the old celebrity paradigm irrelevant.
In the future, everyone will be hyperlinked for fifteen minutes. And that’s a good thing.
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diet food is what you eat while the steak is cooking
-paraphrased from julia child
i just got my copy of "eat what you want and die like a man", by
steve h, and man, it's awesome. the food looks excellent even though (or perhaps because) it's guaranteed to kill you, and the writing is even better than on his blog. not for the easily offended, of course. or people with known heart conditions. i'm going to be writing out my progress here, when i get a chance to use it.
i want to set up a page on cooking for the stupid male. when i moved out, i had three recipies from my dad and a box of easy mac. there's alot of really dry how-to's out there, but i think one done with a sense of humor would be entertaining.
anywho, this one's for hog on ice:
the southside slopes, curtosey of fatheads in pittsburgh's south side,
named number five in maxim's top ten meat hog sandwiches. i've never had the sandwich, but that place has more beer taps than you can shake a stick at.
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a test...
so i'm trying to figure out how to put images up on my page here. any ideas? i understand if i pay for blogger, they'll let me, but that's not happening. paying for blogger is like buying an obese prostitute...yeah, i enjoy the overall activity, but not worth it in the long run.
so far, i've mostly been trying linking to free webhosting joints, like angelfire (which is probably what you see above). but i keep winding up with shit like that, error messages, instead of the pic i want. i've tried several, but bupkis on returns.
so, any other blogspot (the pinto of bloghosts) suckers that have found a way around this, let me know. i don't want to move to another addy just for pic hosting, although it looks like i may have to. and it seems silly to move to a pay site for a blog with zero visitors on which i post once a week, but if that once a week post can include pictures, i may just have to.
eh, deal with it you say. but i'm learning photoshop, dammit! i have a pic of john kerry collecting elephant dung! how can i not want to share my visual genius with the world?
anywho, anybody that knows how i can get pics on my walmart addy, suggestions are welcome.
totally self-serving update: well, i think i got it. just needed to shop around for hosting joints. we'll see if it stays up for a day or two. and how 'bout that piece of art, anyway?
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ode to bloggers
playing with
this cool toy here, i just started plugging in whatever blog windows i had open:
protien wisdom:
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via the dynamic duo at
knowledge is power.
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woah
is "hardball" considered a politically neutral show? i never watch it (as i've said, i don't have tv), but holy crap, i just watched the swift boats interview available at
instapundit, and man, matthews was rough on that guy.
one of the several problems i have with hannity (at least on his radio show) is that he dosen't really let people (liberal people) speak their point of view, and gets them off on ridiculious tangents to obscure the real point.
what what i just watched with matthews is that a hundred times over. i mean, twisting words, cutting him off, asking stupid questions not even tangentally releveant to the point. i want to know what this guy has to say, but apparently i'll have to actually buy the book if i want to hear it, because it sure as shit ain't on msnbc.
as to the substance of the interview (what i could get, around matthew's inquisition) and the larger issue at hand...i have several thoughts, i'll put them up eventually. maybe. it's a very personal issue to me, i guess. but i feel like i know this guy that's running for president. he really reminds me so much of a certain kind of soldier, a certain kind of person.
i didn't like the people he reminds me of, either.
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advertising your political ignorance
two bumper stickers on the back of a car: a "pray for our troops" yellow ribbon, and a kerry-edwards campaign sticker.
what, exactly, is the message here? do you have any idea who you're voting for, and what he has done to the military? or is the military actually secondary to other concerns for you? that's fine, but if so, why the yellow ribbon instead of a rainbow sticker, or a pro-choice sticker, or whatever other pet issue?
the saying goes, never assume dishonesty with what can be attributed to stupidity. but if you have such a combination on your car, and you're driving fifty five in the fast lane in a sixty five zone with me running late for work stuck behind you, don't be surprised if you catch a one fingered salute when i finally get the chance to blow past you.
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a geek in the life
an extended journal-style entry which no one is expected to read
i woke up early today, about nine thirty. (when you're a student on break, noon is early. nine thirty is unheard of) i wasted the first hour or so of this unexpected free time sitting on the couch, staring off into space, trying to figure out what i wanted to do with it.
eventually i found the motivation to move around, checked the blogosphere, got a shower, played with the bird, read some comics, did the dishes, remembered i had to be at work early for a meeting, and rushed off.
the meeting was entertaining. we talked about the usual office politics, who is stabbing who in the back. i volunteered to join the ert team, which is pretty cool. ert (emergency response team) is exactly what it says it is, but most of the members are higher ranking corporate folks, not us minor players. if i make it to ert, i will certainly be the youngest one, it is not only a great resume builder but an even better networking opportunity.
i also volunteered for "neighbors in the strip", although i don't think i'll be able to do that one. which is a shame, this meeting is security centered (since we've had a rash of murders and such in the area) and would also be an educational and personal experience.
other than that, the meeting was hum-drum. i mentioned the usual stuff that i find important that everybody else ignores, and they continued to make notes and ignore it. i think a large part of my function at these meetings is comic relief, a role i fulfill rather well and is almost certain to get me fired when i make the wrong joke to the wrong person.
work work work...the amag went bugshit. (amag is the computer that controlls all the doors in the building, allowing people access). it wouldn't let people in to places they were suppossed to be, denied me access to my own office, even denied a v.p. access to the front door. i keep waiting for the "i'm sorry, dave, but i can't do that", but we don't even get that much. just a red light staring at us where there should be a green.
i checked my grades at work (after further fights with ccac's computer): 4.0. so, i'm 1/20th of my way to a bachelor's, but off to a pretty good start. and amazed, as well, as i have mentioned my public speaking teacher is a very hard grader, i didn't think it was even mathematically possible for me to get above a b, based on earlier projects. but hey, who am i to argue?
then, it's time to call the mother. my brother is coming home on leave tommorow, but i don't know when. she says that he'll be at the airport at five, which is cool that he'll be home, but i'll be at work when he gets here. i have saturday off, i tell her. she's pushing for a ren fair, but i'm up for whatever he wants to do. i think i'll call her cell tommorow afternoon to try to get in touch with him.
then she mentions, oh, by the way, the wedding is off. for some reason, her beau, donny, got cold feet (i can guess why, but i'll keep it to myself for the moment). so, mom's marriage v4.0 is scrapped. i get a half hour of what an asshole he is before we finally move on to organic produce, and her telling me about how paying twice as much for organic pine nuts is worth it. obviously, we have different priorites here.
finally, it's home to the empress. some sort of frozen chinese food that was actually pretty good, and dememtia 13 on the dvd player. the movie sucked as a horror flick (which it purported to be), but worked well as a mystery and as a movie alltogether. and it's always interesting watching old pulp movies through a 2004 eye.
i'm not planning on turning this into a web diary, but the rambling format seems to work for me...
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start of summer timewaster
today was the last day of classes for my summer semester. i definatly scored a high A for english (despite what you see here, i apparently have mad writin skizils.) but i haven't the foggiest idea what my speech grade will be, somewhere between an A and an F. i thought i did rather well, but the teacher apparently grades based a combination of student's cup size and his schitzophrenic will of the moment. and on top of that, the way he has the points system set up is ridiculous...i don't mean to bitch, and i won't go into it because i know you don't care, but it is truly silly.
even though summer was a bit late, it came at a good time. the next week would have been rough, i work the next twelve days straight and doing school during that would've been a killer. and even better, my brother is coming home on leave this week, so i actually have some free time to spend with him. family takes precedence over school every time. i'm glad i don't have to deal with that conflict.
anywho, now that i have all this spare time to kick around, i figured it was meme time. i had actually originally heard this on the radio, as the media quiz by
michelle malkin, but actually found it as a blogosphere meme at the meme-crazy
llamabutchers. i liked the questions both times, so here goes...
1. I have never voted for a Democrat in my life. . never voted democrat, and only voted republican once (turned eighteen in 99, voted straight republican in 00, was away for 02 and too stupid to get an absentee ballot.)
2. I think my taxes are too high. . i think taxes are too high over all. my taxes are actually remarkably low. i don't make much money. but some day i plan to be one of the evil rich, and i don't want to be taxed out of existance when i get there.
3. I supported Bill Clinton's impeachment. yes. if i had done what he did, i'd be typing from jail right now. that's enough to convince me.
4. I voted for President Bush in 2000. see #1
5. I am a gun owner. not yet, but i'm working on it. i allready have my first couple of guns picked out, now i just need the motivation and, more importantly, the cash to go get them.
6. I support school voucher programs. yes. and i am amazed by politicians that constantly stump for higher welfare levels so that poor people can keep getting by, but fight any effort to send the poor people's kids to the schools that the politician's own kids go to. what's the word...elietist, hypocritical, arrogant, duplicitave...take your pick.
7. I oppose condom distribution in public schools. i have kindof a tough time with this one. i think it should be a parent's responsibility, and the "you shouldn't do this but if you do then use this" attitude about the whole thing drives me crazy. i also think that a LOT of kids will do it bareback before they go buy one off the local eckerd, but will use a condom if one is easily available. i do think that it will lower teen pregnancy/disease rates, which takes precedence over everything else. so as much distaste as i have for it, i think the larger goal is more important. if parents don't want their kids to get the tacit approval message from the school, then they should make it clear at home: sex can have dire consequences, rubber or no. see, if the parenting were up to speed on this, it wouldn't be an issue. until it is, helping rescue a teenager from life altering mistakes with so little actual interferance is, i think, the best we can do. i don't like it, but that's the reality of it.
8. I oppose bilingual education. what, like english and american? hey, you don't want to learn the language the majority of people in the nation speak, good for you. just don't expect to get a good job, and don't bitch to me that your life sucks or that people are discriminating against you because they can't understand you. you want to be successful, learn the language.
9. I oppose gay marriage. no.
10. I want Social Security privatized. i figure, by the time i'm old enough to make use of it, social security will be long gone. nationalized or privatized, social security is uckfeyed. i figure that i will have to take care of myself when i'm old (what a novel concept) and am planning accordingly.
11. I believe racial profiling at airports is common sense. i've been planning a post on this one for a while, so i'm going to let it ride for now.
12. I shop at Wal-Mart. every once in a while. believe it or not, there is no walmarts near the city where i live. so every once in a while we make the treck out to stock up on groceries for half what i'd pay at the local chain. otherwise, i stick to target.
13. I enjoy talk radio. yes, i listen to talk radio alot. conservative, liberal, and non-partisan humor.
14. I am annoyed when news editors substitute the phrase "undocumented person" for "illegal alien." pc is the work of the devil.
15. I do not believe the phrase "a chink in the armor" is offensive. unless you're reffering to an asian dude wearing plate mail, no. nor am i offended by "niggardly", or handgun centered t-shirts centering on "diversity". get a life, people.
16. I eat meat. that's why i have them pointy teeth.
17. I believe O.J. Simpson was guilty. of what, murder or piss poor acting? eh, guilty on both points.
18. I cheered when I learned that Saddam Hussein had been captured. here's a story for ya: on the plane ride home from the desert, we had a layover in shannon, ireland. as we were taxiing and stopping, the pilot was talking over the intercom, saying good things about taking us home. as we pulled up to the gate, he mentioned that we'd be allowed into a (closed off) section of the terminal, and that we could drink while we were waiting (keep in mind, alcohol is banned from iraq or kuwait, and this is irish beer in IRELAND). allready jazzed up, the pilot mentions one last thing...before you get off, you should know we just caught saddam hussein.
did i cheer? you had better fuckin believe it. along with the rest of that plane, once the period of holy-shit-did-he-just-say-that passed. we then proceeded to get celebratory hammered on irish beer.
19. I cry when I hear "Proud to be an American" (God Bless the USA) by Lee Greenwood. no...i love the sentiment, but not my style, and overplayed. especially around military bases.
20. I don't believe the New York Times. sure, i believe the ny times. i belive the ny times is a lying commie pinko leftist rag that isn't worthy of lining my bird cage.
thank god for summer...this is the second time i've done this post; blogger had a hisy fit with me. i'm going to start hitting "copy" before "publish", because blogger seems to have a nasty habit of deleting my longer posts.
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it was "unintentional"
a bizarre local spinoff of the sandy berger story?
Suspect who hid pet store gators in pants pockets to face charges
i originally heard this as a radio blurb, wherein the newscaster didn't say he put them in his pants
pockets, just in his pants.
still, perhaps he can simply explain that it was an accident, they just jumped in there, he has no idea how. at least alligators move around and stuff, unlike highly classified documents, which tend to be rather sedentary.
i wonder, did they check his socks?
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all "all", or just some "all"
just a quickie before i gets back to the books; don't ask why i was there but this is from kidsforkerry.com, in a section titled "compassion for all children":
We believe that ALL children should be given a chance in this world
unless, of course, you want to avoid stretch marks, or don't feel like shopping at costco for mayonase, then you don't really need to give those kids a chance.
putting a statement like that on a pro choice candidate's webpage: ballsy or just stupid?
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blogging basic training
wondering what basic training is really like? been a while since you got out and have some questions? a soldier that is curious what a drill sergeant looks like when he takes off the round brown?
i present
drill sergeant rob, who is blogging through the nigh impossible job of training a group of recruits.
stop by and pay your respects. this blogger is shaping the future of the American military, no small task by any measure.
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