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20041227
 
jesus would never do that
Allah stole my template!
 
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20041226
 
a hypothetical conversation
[sounds of telephone ringing]

Intrepid Young Reporter: Hello?

Bob the Axe Murderer: Hi, it's Bob. I just wanted to let you know that I'm sitting outside of 5215 Maple Street. In about fifteen minutes, I'm going to break in, chop up the family there, maybe spread parts of the pet dog around the house, write "Helter Skealter" on the wall in Mom's blood, and maybe fry up some tasty toddler kidneys. Want to come over and take pictures?

IYR: Sure! Give me some time to get my apron on, and I'll be right there!

BtAM: Be sure to bring the wide angle lens.
 
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20041225
 
merry christmas, for real this time
nothing says Happy Holidays like time and a half, baby. Working Christmas has other perks as well, the largest being that there is nobody around to bug me or keep an eye on me. I can do pretty much whatever I please, and I have a whole office building to do it in. Have you ever gone full-contact bicycle riding through an office building? Cubicle walls are sturdier than they look, and there's some wicked turns, but it beats some silly mountain any day.

Last night, I walked the building singing Christmas carols at the top of my lungs. The problem is that I don't actually know the words to any of those songs, so it usually went "Siiiiilent night...siiiiilent night....something something...Hark! Harold the Angel sings!...something something....King!"

I'm still debating the idea of keying into the CEO's office and masturbating on his chair.

The down side of not having anybody around or anything going on is that I am fucking BORED. Even the blogs aren't quite doing it tonight, as most normal people are with their families or sliding around the interstate instead of where they should be, at their computers entertaining me. There's still some stuff out there, though:

Ace might have the record, with five posts up so far today, including a holiday greeting to absolutely everyone.

Steve has the run down of his festivities from yesterday, but I think the holiday has finally gotten to his shrunken heart. At the end of the post he gets all touchy-feely hope and love on us, but he has a very nice sentiment behind it.

Sadie and the gang formerly known as the Mirthful Ones are now on moo-noo, because eventually seemingly every blogger I like winds up there. New design, some technical difficulties, and some holiday Tarantino. Smart, observant, and I have it on good authority that Sadie is a world-class piece of ass, so go say hello allready.

Val has a touching story up for your Christmas cheer, as well.

If you're really bored, as I am, go read through the top quotes of 2004 according to Tim Blair. Some funny, some thought provoking, and guaranteed to waste some serious time.

If you finish that and are still looking for something to do, go decorate a tree. Sure, it's mind-numbingly stupid, but still. (via C&S NSFW) (and yes, I actually sat and played with this thing for probably a good half hour).

Tim Worstall links to a great story by Tony Woodleif on the difficulties of getting ahold of decent toy firearms these days, and from there I read through his arguments on Libertarianism. Maybe someday I'll respond to them, when I feel smart enough.

As my Christmas present to my faithful reader(s), I'm actually going to link to a picture of me on the web. This was taken at the Hardware Bar in Harrisburg by people that take pictures of people there and keep a gallery online, presumably to show what a fun place it is. I'm not sure if this photo is going to help that goal, but I'm the guy in black in the middle. I'm not sure why I get the urge to do that "Rock and Roll" thing every time somebody wants to take my picture when I'm drunk, but at least my brother, in the red, is at least as much of a dork as I am. The blonde second in from the right is my girlfriend, and the other folks are cousins and friends that will probably be angry with me for posting this if they ever find out about it.

Hope your Christmas went well, and everyone gets a nice break over the next week. Me, I'm going to go home and hit up the leftover booze.

 
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20041223
 
scrooge!
I thought about putting my number in here, but see...I'm really quite a dick. And while he wouldn't be able to verify that I actually did something nice for somebody, I figure the chances of that actually happening are pretty slim. Against my nature, you know?

I thought it'd be fun trying a "It's a Harsh Life" counter-contest, whereby contestants would promise to do something mean to somebody during the holidays, with the no-prize being a thorough telling-off on my blog. But that's a bit much even for me, and it occured to me that alot of people probably wouldn't see the humor in such a fake contest, so screw it. Go over to wizbang and do something nice for somebody instead, Cratchit
 
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20041222
 
merry xmas to the easily offended
first, check out the cartoon at Rodge's.

Are you offended by the words "Merry Christmas", or nativity scenes, or fat guys with red hats? Then perhaps you need to get a grip, get off your soapbox and join us here in "Reality".

If you go to your local department store, and the clerk says "Season's Greetings", and you feel the need to call the local talk radio show afterwards to bitch about it, the same goes to you. If you are blistering mad because the President wished the press mob "Happy Holidays", let me know when it occurs to you that you sound like just as much of a nutter as the folks that scream bloody murder every time the "C" word pops up.

If I own a business, and I decide to send out generic cards to my clients, guess what it'll have on it? Snowflakes and a big shiny Happy Holidays. Snowmen saying Seasons Greetings. Because a large, and growing, and vocal minority in this country couldn't care one whit about Christmas. I'm not just talking about the 'tards that are actively offended by Christmas and whose ears turn red with anger at the mention of anything Holy, but also people that may get into the holidays but don't have much of a reaction either way to Christmas, either because they celebrate a different holiday or don't cite a specific one at all.

It would be entirely too difficult to include everyone, and indeed would be silly to even attempt, with a single short statement. Not to avoid offending the nuts, but to include all the sane people out there.

Wait, no, it's not hard at all: Happy Holidays. Generic statements like that aren't a sign of the pagan hordes waiting to overrun America. It's a wish of well-being to everyone. It's "Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Cheery Kwanza, Skippy Soltice, blah blah blah" all rolled into two simple words. For some reason, some people react to those two words as if they are meant to be exclusive toward, or diminishing to, Christmas. It's not. It's Christmas plus everything else.

Having said that, I also want to say that James Wolcott is still a nutjob. There are people that react violently to the word "Christmas", ass-head. It's not some sort of imaginary conspiracy we dreamed up in the middle of the night so righties could have something to bitch about. Besides that, anybody that can read past a fourth grade level can see that Lileks wasn't exactly screaming about the de-Christification of Christmas, he was making an observation about something he found amusing. Good job, James: distorting somebody's words to make an asinine, incorrect point. At least you made it with style, if whiny and petty can be called "style".
 
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so, I have a Christmas Tree.

We bought it late one night, then went to Target to get stuff to put on the tree. Had to get the right kind of lights: the big bulbs like my dad had, not those silly tiny little ones. The girlfriend wanted "Bubble Lights", something I had never heard of, but the store didn't have them. Didn't have icicles, either, which my girlfriend refers to as "Tinsel". We called the stringy sparkly stuff "Tinsel", but apparently the proper term for that is "Garland".

There's been additions to the tree in the past few weeks: ornaments from her mom's place, the tinsel and bubble lights that were found in another store. A cheesy plastic star from K-Mart. I meant to get stuff from my parents, but didn't get around to it.

A few years ago, while living in an apartment whose regulars reffered to as "The Crackhouse" for obvious reasons, we didn't put up a tree. Instead, somebody found a Christmas cactus, upon which we set a few big chincy plastic bulbs that we scrounged up somewhere. That went on one of those big popcorn tins and under it went the presents for various residents and friends. The ones I had bought stood out because they were wrapped (poorly) in newspaper with duct tape.

Before that, I hadn't put up a tree for years. Somewhere in my middle teens, the Christmas tree became more of a burden than a pleasure. My mom hadn't cared either way for years, so for a few years my brother and I put it up, then for one final year my brother bore that cross alone, then we didn't bother with it any more. The tree was an aluminum one way past its expiration date anyway, the dog had peed on the thing's box at least once, nobody took the least bit of pleasure from doing it or having it up and anything like that was liable to start a fight at any given moment, so we quit doing it. And good riddance.

I hadn't figured on putting up with it again until if I had kids, which is still a long ways off. But this year, we have a tree. And it's pretty. It's like Christmas the way that Christmas is suppossed to be, but never is. We had fun putting it up, have like having it around, a few days from now we'll put presents for each other under it and open them in the morning. Maybe put on Christmas music. Roast chestnuts, or whatever the fuck else it is people do in Norman Rockwell paintings.

Of course, it's not perfect. Life is not a Rockwell painting. But it's nice. I'm not pretending the holidays don't exist this year, actually getting into it a bit instead. Ignore the bad stuff for a day or two, focus on the good stuff.

Good stuff. That's what the Christmas tree means to me this year: Life isn't perfect, but there's elements of that stupid sappy perfect life around us. It's my own chunk of Norman Rockwell, of "Miracle on 34th Street", of Scrooge after the Spirits are through with him. My piece of that perfect Christmas, and a token to remind me of the other good things around.
 
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20041212
 
die young, stay pretty
Anybody know who the hell DeDee Pfeiffer is? Me either.

"Falling Down" came in the mail from netflix today. Neither of us remember adding it to the queue, but we got it in the mail so someone must have at some point. I probably did it drunk, although I have no idea why. Anywho, there's a scene where the crazy-man shoots up a burger joint, and I'm sitting staring at the burger girl thinking to myself..."why don't the girls at MY Mcdonald's look like that?" And secondarily, "I've seen that girl somewhere before." Turns out, she played the old daughter on Cybil Shepard's show, cleverly titled "Cybil", which I have an embarrasing affection for. Yes, I thought Cybil was funny, dosen't mean anything.

So, as I usual, when I can't remember where I've seen an actor or actress, I google up their name after the credits roll. As I'm paging through various fanboy sites and "official" sites...she had a kid a while ago...blah blah blah...I'm really starting to like this somewhat inconsequential actress, looking for a real bio, she even did a meatloaf video a few years ago.

Then, in the imdb bio, it says she's Michele Pfeiffer's sister. Huh? Michele Pfeiffer has been around forever. She's like my grandma. I check out Dedee's age (and god what a friggin name), she was born in '64. That makes her old enough to be my parent in some communities.

Which means she was rapidly approaching thirty in the movie I just watched, and was farther along in the Cybil show. In the movie, she dosen't look more than 17, and I always figured her to be mid to late twenties on the teevee. Granted, thirties isn't that old, but in the realm of stardom (especially, if I may sound like a pig for a moment, female stardom) 35 is practically ancient. But that's one actress that is doing well. She dosen't look like one of those "I'm desperate to stay young" hags with too much plastic surgery, she just looks pretty. She could be a sister to Tara Reid, without the nasty boob job.

I don't understand why she hasn't gotten better parts. She has at least (I'm far from a student of her films, so I don't know how well she acts, but she isn't totally ridiculous at least) the minimal amount of talent required, and is certainly better looking than many mainstream actresses.

Eh, maybe someday I'll start a petition. At least until she pisses me off, which is bound to happen eventually.

Oh, and someday I'll add links to this nonsense.
 
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20041211
 
left or center?
Ace has a post up that has gotten me thinking. (never turns out well, I know) There's alot of talk about what the Democratic party should do after several resounding defeats. Ace makes the point that, eventually, there is only one serious, permanent decision: split the party. You have your "Bush caused 9/11, Republicans are fascists, I love Democratic Underground" wing, and then the more moderate wing that realizes that there are problems out there and simply honestly disagrees with us righties how to get it fixed.

There is nothing I want more than a strong left. I love talking and arguing with realistic lefties. Sure, I disagree with 'em, but I think maintaining a realistic balance is important. I would love to see righties win elections for the rest of my life, honestly, but they need to be tempered by a serious threat from the left.

I don't see the fracture of center-left and far-left coming any time soon. The primary reason for this is political viability: how many people reading this weren't biting their nails at 10 pm november second? Would even a signifigant minority be willing to give that up for winning a statement, but losing an election? I think not.

As a throw-away, I also think that many of the far-left, that seriously despise the Republican party and the president, are also so cynical that they almost never vote, and no candidate can make them. They figger that the whole process is rigged by halliburton or the illuminati or space aliens or whoever that voting dosen't matter; so fuck it, I'm going to sit in my apartment and get high and just hope that the right person wins. These people do not win you elections. Witness Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader.

I also think that there is a candiate out there that the far-left and center-left can somewhat easily come to agreement on. It's not John Kerry, who appealed to almost nobody; Kerry was too anti-everything and to pro-everything at the same time. A candidate with a "D" after his name that isn't the ideal candidate for far or center but takes his position and sticks with it poses a real problem. It dosen't even particularly matter if he is far or center; simply stick to it, say what you believe, and don't sound like a lunatic (that one's for you, Howard) while doing it and you stand a damned good chance.

Alot of people would've voted for Dean. I think alot more people would've voted for...well, not for Leibermann specifically, but for Libermann's politics. Be consistently left of Bush without sounding like a crazy-person, and you're good to go.

Witness: Bill Clinton. Clinton, among scandal, disagreements and an organized threat from the right, remained and remains a popular two-term ex-president. He was what he was, and nobody liked him all of the time, but he got the moonbats to vote for him and the center-left to vote for him, as well as many independents. He gave a majority of Democrats a candidate with which they could, if not fall in love, they could at least fall in line.

The point being, the democratic party isn't going anywhere. There is zero potential for a fracturing of the left-wing, any more than I'm going to stop voting for Republicans because they use the G-word a bit more than I would like. Eventually they'll reconcile their differances into a candidate that few of them particularly like, but most of them believe are better than the other guy. That candidate will pose a serious threat to the right. I haven't the foggiest idea who specifically it will be, but I guarantee he will have a (D), with the full support of moveon.org, the unions, and the regular democrats we see every day.

Not much of an essay, but it's a thought. A thought alot of Republicans need to get through their heads: alot of people are willing to vote for a candidate that isn't God, but is better than the other guy.

Want to stay the party in power? Get ready for whatever comes next. Quit fantasizing about a disintigrated left, a theory I hear alot of on talk radio and rightie blogs, and get ready for the upcoming opposition. At the present, it's hard to see what that oppostion will be; this is not a sign of failure on their part but rather them figuring out what it takes to be stronger. Eventually, they'll figure it out, get a candidate that can pull not only the moonbat votes but the votes of sane people, and if we're still caught up in this politcal navel-gazing about a shattered left...well, say hello to eight more years of Bill Clinton.

I know nobody wants that.
 
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20041210
 
yet another link dump
Once again, I'm way behind. Lotsa stuff I wanted to talk about over the past week, not enough time to punch it into the keyboard. Let's see how much I can remember:

Somewhat local news but important none the less, ex-Steeler football hall of famer Lynn Swann is considering a run at the PA governorship. As a Republican. As the party of "diversity" screamed bloody murder, Swann endorsed Bush for re-election this past cycle. I hope like hell he runs...I can't speak for the eastern end of the state, but here in Pittsburgh football is not a hobby, it's the mandated religion. People would vote for a Steeler legend just on general principle, the fact that he's a GOPer in this currently blue state is just that much better.

Somewhere on this blog I have a lengthy diatrabe on gay marriage, but in short form I'm with Joe R. the Unabrewer:
Let's just get the government out of the damned marriage business for both gay and straight couples. You wanna split your property or designate someone to terminate your life support, draw up a contract.
See, as far as I'm concerned, the religious/moral aspect of marriage ended as soon as the state started issuing "Marriage Licenses". You want to get married in a church? Great. There better be both a penis and a vagina involved. You want to get married by a judge? All genitalia are equal before the all-powerful GOVERNMENT. I don't care what cultural/religious/traditional argument you have, the government plays no part in any of that and never should. And as long as the government is issuing marriage licenses, any two people that want to enter into that primarily legal contract have the right to do so.

Random thought: Blogging is a funny thing...some people you just assume are superstars with way too much else going on in blogging superstar land to be bothered with us blatherers, but those superstars so often turn out to be rather nice, normal people. Go figure.

Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities has an offer for Maureen Dowd. I'm sure there's a joke in the fact that the only guy willing to take one for the team for MoDo prefers the "stronger" sex, but I'm not going there. If you aren't reading Beautiful Atrocities regularly, then you're obviously wasting too much time on crap blogs like mine. Go, allready.

Lesse, what else. Oh yeah, the weekly shut the fuck up allready award. Look, I went North and was damned glad to have ammunition. Uparmor hmmwvee's? Are you fuckin kidding me? We didn't have plates in our vests. What we really wanted was our Sincgars, so we could at least talk to each other. We got issued a few broke-down uparmors when we went to Dogwood, because it was part of the Fallujah madness. And hey, they mostly sucked. Another team bought some diamond plate off the locals and welded it onto their truck, which was great except their truck could hardly fuckin move afterward. You want uparmored trucks? How 'bout this. Kiss my finely chisled ass. Vote Republican, because these things don't grow on fucking trees and no dem will vote to spend for them. Then kiss my ass again, shut up and do the fucking job you signed on for. You're part of the most well-equipped army on the planet, and you're bitching because your trucks don't have enough armor? I am willing to lay odds that this is some paperwork company that won't be outside the gate again after they get to where they're going, and if they are going on missions outside then god bless their commanders. Things aren't perfect. Soldiers bitch. Get over it and do what you get payed to do, allready, and quit fucking whining about it. Don't like it? Never should've raised that right hand. The tough shit rule is in effect.

I have yet more ranting on this subject, but in the interim check out Citizen Smash's letter to an unfortunatly misguided Marine. He'll learn, l.t., one way or another. And remind me at some point to put Smash on my blogroll, that guy's good.

Ditto to Iowahawk. So many people I keep reading but forget to add to the regular list.

there was alot more, but this post has been sitting in my draft box for days now. If I think of whatever else was supposed to be here, it'll get put in.

The voting is closed on the weblog awards, and by my calculation I go around 52 votes. That's way more than I had ever figured on, so thanks a ton to the people that actually read this blog and had the energy to vote for yours truly. It simply amazes me that anyone reads this nonsense, and I really appreciate anyone who took the time to click the button for me.

Okay, next up is some personal notes, because I haven't yet decided if this is a personal or political blog: My mom is doing well. She's still in the hoss-spittle, but is doing PT and coming along remarkably well. I have probably said this before, but she is presently at where we expected her to be several weeks from now. Can't ask for more than that. The funny part is, she dosen't really seem to understand how bad off she was at one point. A few weeks ago, she was dead. Period. Now, she's working on walking again. Helluva progress.

My boss is still pissed at me. I am presently serving time in the gulag known as Wal-mart...more on this to come, hopefully.

I may have mentioned that my computer exploded a while ago...I am presently typing on a Toshiba Portege witha fucked up screen. But all that is soon to change. Further gloating is also soon to come.

College...well, it's finals week. Pretty much depends on whether my prof's decide to take mercy on my shitty semester or not. But I've spent every waking moment that I wasn't at the hellhole known as Wal-Mart working on passing my classes, so hopefully that means something to someone.

Also, I have a Christmas tree. Who knows where the hell that came from, but it's sitting in my living room, with lights and tinsel and ornaments. Almost like a normal Christmas tree. Go figure.
 
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20041209
 
hell, by that standard i'm non-partisan
Atrios of Eschaton, certainly not someone whose politics are normally in line with mine, I would say is right about his handling by David Kuhn for CBS.

But I just have one question, regarding this phrase:
Media Matters for America is a non-partisan "501(c)(3) not-for-profit progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."

Eh? How is something a "non-partisan" group dedicated to "correcting conservative misinformation"? Wouldn't that make you necessarily partisan? If I started a group dedicated to weeding socalists out of the media, wouldn't that make me necessarily biased against socalists? I don't even have a problem with MMfA overall, I disagree with them but they certainly can do what they want. But insisting that they are a non-partisan group when their mission statement is to combat conservativism seems sortof silly to me.

Perhaps there's some "nuance" I'm missing in there. Eschaton link via Rather Biased. Oh, and can someone explain to me what the hell an "Eschaton" is? I've been wondering about that forever, but I'm too lazy to do any research and figger it out for myself.
 
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20041208
 
that figures
Damn you, Kevin of Wizbang! for putting the blog awards in the runup to finals week, I have all this crazy traffic and haven't been able to post for days. (What? I don't care if it is an end-of-the-year competition! The world needs to work on my schedule, dammit!)

Anywho, I'm getting stomped in the running anyway, as I had suspected would happen once people came to their senses. But it appears that there are actually some people other than me that voted for me, because I have considerably more than just my 1/day votes. So alot of thanks to my fan(s), I'm surprised and pleased. Also thanks to the 'Butchers and The Mudville Gazette for their endorsements, I don't know how that Llama-lanche didn't automatically deliver me the number one spot, but it's certainly apprecaited.

Also, I've gotten to know Army of Mom, Mixolydian Mode and some silly Pajama People in the course of the contest, so check them out while you're at it.

And if anybody knows of any good job openings in the Pgh. area for a computer science student, drop me a line, 'cause Monster is pissin' me off.
 
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20041202
 
more on the "intellectual" end of the debate
this time from overseas: Memento Moron points out that while the Globe may think that us 'mericans are dumb, over half their own population dosen't know what the hell "Auschwitz" was.

"Eh? Auschwitz? Nope, sorry love, dosen't ring a bell. Is that that funny-sounding chap what lives in the flat below me? Oh, it's a place, is it? In Poland? Why should I recognize the name of a town in Poland? Are they even in the EU yet?"

Not to beat a dead horse, but sixty years ago all of Europe was on the verge of being sent to the camps. How the war would have gone otherwise is debatable, but I think it's safe to say that American intervention saved alot of Britons from falling into the caring hands of Dr. Mengele.

And now they can't even place the name of one of the most infamous of these camps? Hello? We aren't talking about things that happened a thousand years ago, there's still people walking around that were victims of those camps. No wonder Old Europe insists on repeating the same asinine mistakes; I have often lamented the lack of appreciation for history in this country but this has got to take the cake for cosmic frigging disconnect. Sheesh.
 
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fill in the blank: france is ___________
"a buncha cheese-eating surrender monkeys" is acceptable, as is "irrlevant", but the most-correct answer is, of course "Not Our Ally."

The frogs are apparently excited today because this is the 200th anniversary of the last time France meant anything to anyone outside of France: the day they crowned a vertically-challenged foreigner their Emperor. The Llamas have a fitting tribute up. Heh.
 
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my pajamas have a pocket protector
I wasn't even going to mention this contest, but it turns out I'm in a four-way tie for 2nd place in "Best of the top 3500-5000" Weblog Award. I nominated myself as a lark, and didn't really expect to get put in the final nominations. But since I'm not only there but apparently somebody other than me actually voted for me, what the hell.

The problem is, all the rest of us in that category are being crushed by the so-called "Pajama Pundits". Which is all well and good, of course; Pajama Pundits seems to be an excellent blog, but really...what do a couple of people sitting around in their pajamas know, right?

So it's your choice: Plaid pants and Sex Pistols t-shirts, or flannel with footsies. I know you'll all make the right decision.
 
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20041201
 
wrong answer
So, my mom is still in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit, although she's doing much better. She's off the vent entirely, eating some, talking some, although still in alot of pain.

Some pencil-pusher in the insurance company, however, has decided it's time to come home for her. God only knows where they got that idea at. Hey, asshole, people don't go straight from intensive care to their house. She still can't walk, can't even sit up on her own, still has IV's and meds out the wazoo; she lives alone, and the only relative that lives within an hour is my grandmother, who has a hard enough time getting around herself. I can't just suddenly move home for a month, and my brother is going back to Iraq in a few days.

Here's a clue, dingbats: If you have to pay for transportation to get somebody home because they'd have to go home in an AMBULANCE, maybe they aren't quite ready.

Diffrent wing of the hospital? Okay. Rehab facility? Perfect. Setting up a hospital bed in her living room? NOT AN OPTION, ASSHAT.

And it pisses me off because I'm suppossed to be the person that makes calls like this, fight with these people if need be, and I'm stuck four hours away with school and work. Fortunatly, if anybody can straighten these people out, it's my yuppie queen of an aunt, backed up by my mom's loud, short-tempered ex-steelworker friend.

UPDATE: Well, I just talked to my brother, and it looks like they're going to move her to a rehab facility. I think another couple of days in the hospital wouldn't hurt, but at least they aren't pushing her out the door altogether.

Really, after the initial few days, this has gone remarkably well. She was hurt really bad, literally dead when the medics got to the car. Even after they got her stable the list of potential and likely complications and procedures went on, and on, and on. But we hit very few of them. For the most part, the hospital simply had to keep her alive and stay out of the way, she has done most of the healing herself. Now the most critical things are out of the way: she is no longer bleeding internally and can breathe mostly-good by herself, now we just have to wait for the fractures to heal. Which is certainly no fun, but amazingly farther along than we thought she would be a week and a half ago, lying unconsious with machines keeping her alive and running down the seemingly never-ending list of injuries and possibilities. Thank God for small favors.
 
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lefties are stoopid
More from the "Intellectual" side of the national debate:

First, Frank J gets email from some wicky-wacky crazy person, and sends back one of the meanest (and funniest) things I think I've ever seen him write.

Second, via INDeCent Bill, John Hawkins has the top ten DU quotes for the year.

Sure, sure, these nuts are the extremes. I believe that, but I believe it less every time I have a co-worker explain to me that "see, being a Republican isn't the same as being a Fascist, it's just really close", or have a professor go on and on about the imperialistic nature of the US, or have a major party candidate get on stage and say that maybe, just maybe Bush knew something about 9/11. Sometime, it'd be nice to get some evidence that these nutters actually are the extremes, rather than the converse.

Anywho, these sewer pickings are hilarious. Ranging from How the left supports the troops, to keyboard Machismo (which I thought was entirely too cowboy of a concept for libs), to crazy-people paranoia, to that famed lefty compassion (I HAVE NO SYMPATHY FOR YOU AND MY FIRST QUESTION WILL BE "WHO DID YOU VOTE FOR?"), to some seriously dirty politics, to...well, much, much more. Go read it, it's hilarious that there is people like this running around out there that remember to breathe.

BTW, if anybody can find (or compile) a list like this that has similarly crazy stuff from Free Republic or some such, I will post it and make fun of it personally. I've never been a Freeper, so I don't really know what goes on over there, but it has to be seriously bugshit crazy, as linked above, or it dosen't count. Just for laughs, I tried googling one up, but no such luck with various combinations. Funny that the one above is so easily located, eh? Good luck.
 
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weird
I just got a phone call from a staffer in the House Judiciary Committee. The committee has been using the statistic that the 9/11 terrorists had 63 validly-issued drivers licenses from various states. Apparently, someone that works my building is the person that came up with that number and gave it at some sort of presentation. I didn't want to ask too many questions (have the friggin Fibbies at my door tommorow morning), but it was a very strange phone call.

I gave them his cell number.

Do-Some-Damn-Research UPDATE: Okay, I figure if I can find it on the web, it can't be too classified. The guy's name is Robert Thibadeau, he's a Prof at CMU (there's alot of crossover between where I work and there) I'm not sure exactly when he first gave that figure, but it's quoted here in an article by FAIR...I still can't get the actual PG article from it though. Also came across this entertaining chat thread in the process, and a very interesting pdf by Dr. Thibadeau on the subject of security and privacy.

Try-The-PG's-Webpage-Stoopid UPDATE: Here's the original news article that actually quotes him. He's an interesting guy, there's alot of stuff with his name on it in vastly different fields. Check out this article on maintaining dead-tree books. Neat stuff.
 
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howdy, thanks for stopping by. what you're looking at is the intermittent ramblings of an iraqi vet, college student, goth-poseur, comic book reading, cheesy horror loving, punk listening, right-leaning, tech-obsessed, poorly typing, proudly self-proclaimed geek. occasionally, probably due to these odd combinations, i like to think i have some interesting things to say; this is where they wind up.



"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us...We need the books that affect us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside of us.
-Kafka



geeks-in-arms:
ace o spades hq
bargain-basement allahpundit
a small victory
army of mom
babalu blog
beautiful atrocities
being american in t o
belmont club
blame bush!
castle argghhh!
citizen smash
the command post
common sense runs wild
curmudgeonly & skeptical, r
curmudgeonly & skeptical, pg-13
dean's world
drill sergeant rob
edshots
exit zero
enjoy every sandwich
feisty repartee
fistful of fortnights
free will
four right wing wacos
ghost of a flea
half the sins of mankind
the hatemonger's quarterly
hog on ice
house of plum
hubris
id's cage
ilyka damen
imao
incoherant ramblings
in dc journal
instapunk
iowahawk
the jawa report
knowledge is power
lileks bleat
the llama butchers
memento moron
moxie
the mudville gazette
naked villainy
nerf-coated world
those damned pajama people
professor chaos
professor shade
the protocols of the yuppies of zion
protein wisdom
the queen of all evil
seven inches of sense
shinobi, who is a f'n numbers ninja, yo
tall dark and mathteriouth
talkleft
the nose on your face
the thearapist
this is class warfare
texas best grok
tim worstall
vodkapundit
way off bass
wizbang

other must reads: