A Clockwork Bluejay meets Doro Parker

My Personal Hell

2005-12-19T12:15:00.000-05:00

People who drive with their blinker on
Circle I Limbo

Virginia Lacrosse fans
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind

Parents who bring squalling brats to R-rated movies
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow

People who push strollers side-by-side
Circle IV Rolling Weights

People scream into cell phones while they wait in line
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled

River Styx

People who send spam
Circle VI Buried for Eternity

River Phlegyas

The New York Yankees
Circle VII Burning Sands

The IRS
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement

Osama bin Laden
Circle IX Frozen in Ice

Design your own hell

Tragedy

2005-11-28T23:49:00.000-05:00

This blog's good friend, Jaquandor, at Byzantium's Shores: Meditations on Nearly Anything lost his little boy, Quinn, today.
As Jaq put it:

"Very suddenly, and very peacefully, Little Quinn passed away this morning.
It is sunny and warm in Buffalo today -- but not for us."

Our hearts go out to Jaquandor, his wife, and daughter at this time of terrible grief.

Now that summer is officially over...

2005-09-25T08:57:00.000-05:00

It was a good season. Maybe even a very good season for the Nats.

Just received the plans for my yacht!

2005-09-25T08:55:00.000-05:00

Do you think this is suitable for cruising the Chesapeake?

AT LAST, A PAINLESS WAY TO END THE OIL CRISIS!

2005-09-13T22:23:00.000-05:00

Ananova - Inventor turns dead cats into diesel:
A German inventor says he's found a way to make cheap diesel fuel out of dead cats.
Dr Christian Koch, 55, from Kleinhartmannsdorf, said his method uses old tyres, weeds and animal cadavers.
They are heated up to 300 Celsius to filter out hydrocarbon which is then turned into diesel by a catalytic converter.
He said the resulting 'high quality bio-diesel' costs just 15 pence per litre.
Koch said the cadaver of a fully grown cat can produce 2.5 litres of fuel - meaning around 20 cats are needed for a full tank.
He said: 'I tank my car with my own diesel mixture and have driven it for 105,000 miles without any problems.'
Annelise Krauss of the Dresden Animal Protection Association blasted Koch's new diesel though, saying: 'This is as bad as experimenting on animals.'"

Furious Administration

2005-07-26T22:40:00.000-05:00

In the so much for free speech category, United Airlines has decided to end its annual Faux Faulkner contest. In addition, this year's winning entry by New York author Sam Apple, entitled The Administration and The Fury, if William Faulkner were writing on the Bush White House, is only published online. http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/fiction In the satire, the President is cast as Benjy,the so called "idiot" in the famous 1929 novel about a Southern family. The text has also appeared in Slate but now it appears here, too:

The Administration and the Fury If William Faulkner were writing on the Bush White House By Sam Apple

Down the hall, under the chandelier, I could see them talking. They were walking toward me and Dick's face was white, and he stopped and gave a piece of paper to Rummy, and Rummy looked at the piece of paper and shook his head. He gave the paper back to Dick and Dick shook his head. They disappeared and then they were standing right next to me.
"Georgie is going to walk down to the Oval Office with me," Dick said.
"I just hope you got him all good and ready this time," Rummy said.
"Hush now,"Dick said. "This aint no laughing matter. He know lot more than folks think." Dick patted me on the back good and hard. "Come on now, Georgie," Dick said. "Never mind you, Rummy."
We walked down steps to the office. There were paintings of old people on the walls and the room was round like a circle and Condi was sitting on my desk. Her legs were crossed.
"Did you get him ready for the press conference?" Dick said.
"Dont you worry about him. He ll be ready," Condi said. Condi stood up from the desk. Her legs were long and she smelled like the Xeroxed copies of the information packets they give me each day.
"Hello Georgie,"Condi said. "Did you come to see Condi?" Condi rubbed my hair and it tickled.
"Don't go messing up his hair," Dick said. "He's got a press conference in a few minutes."
Condi wiped some spit on her hand and patted down my hair. Her hand was soft and she smelled like Xerox copies coming right out of the machine. "He looks just fine,"Condi said.
"Fine day, isn t it, Georgie," Daddy said. Daddy was pitching horseshoes. Horseshoes flew through the air and it was hot. Jeb looked at me. "Stand back or one of his horseshoes is going to hit you and knock you down real good," Jeb said. Jeb threw the horseshoe and it went right over the stick and Daddy clapped. "Run and get me that horseshoe, Georgie," Daddy said. I ran and picked up the horseshoe. The metal was hot in my hands, and I held it for a little bit and then I dropped it. I picked it up. It was hot in my hands and I started running away from Daddy and Jeb. "Come back with that horseshoe," Daddy said. I was running as fast as I could. "Jeb run after him and get me my horseshoe before he throws another one in the river," Daddy hollered. Jeb was chasing after me fast. "Come back with that horseshoe, Georgie," Jeb hollered. But I was fast and I kept running until I got to the river. "Don't you dare throw that horseshoe in the river," Jeb said. I threw the horseshoe in the river. Jeb fell on the ground. Jeb kicked and cried and then I cried.
"He needs his makeup," Dick said.
"I ll do it," Condi said. She put a little brush on my check and it tickled and I laughed.
Rummy walked into the room. "Jesus, what's he laughing about?" Rummy said.
"Don't you pay attention to him, Georgie," Dick said. "They' re going to be asking you all about Social Security. You just remember what we talked about."
"He cant remember anything," Rummy said.
I started to holler. Dick's face was red and he looked at Rummy. "I told you to hush up already," Dick said. "Now look what you ve gone and done."
Go and get him Saddam' s gun, Condi said. You know how he likes to hold it.
Dick went to my desk drawer and took out Saddam's gun. He gave it to me, and it was hot in my hands. Rummy pulled the gun away.
"Do you want him carrying a gun into the press conference?" Rummy said. "Can't you think any better than he can?"
I was hollering and Dick was turning red and then white and the room was tilted.
"You give him that gun back, right this minute," Condi said. Rummy gave me Saddam's gun back and I held it my hands. It was hot like a horseshoe.
"You got the gun, now you stop that hollering," Rummy said.
Condi patted me on the back. "It sure is hot in here," she said. She fanned herself and took off her jacket. She smelled like perfume.

Red vs. Blue (Jays)

2005-07-24T22:41:00.000-05:00

Time flies; suddenly it's the middle of summer and the 2005 Men's Lacrosse Champion Johns Hopkins Blue Jays are gathering at the White House, amidst a crowd of other venerable NCAA athletes and their congressmen, bearing gifts of clothing and helmets for the first family. But in looking at the President's remarks, I couldn't help but notice that the Jays, despite having a perfect record and a thrilling championship game, were mentioned 9th out of 11 schools, rating an earlier mention than only the world famous Pepperdine men's volleyball team and the Oklahoma men's gymnastics team. I guess having a perfect record doesn't count when your team is from a blue state and called the Blue Jays...
http://hopkinssports.collegesports.com/sports/m-lacros/spec-rel/0713105aaa.html

More Cat Poop!

2005-06-16T07:03:00.000-05:00

According to this study reported by Majikthise: "Cats may improve your social life
The cat parasite toxoplasmosis gondii may affect human personality:
THEY may look like lovable pets but Britain's estimated 9m domestic cats are being blamed by scientists for infecting up to half the population with a parasite that can alter people�s personalities.The startling figures emerge from studies into toxoplasma gondii, a parasite carried by almost all the country's feline population.

They show that half of Britain's human population carry the parasite in their brains, and that infected people may undergo slow but crucial changes in their behaviour.

The study into more subtle changes in human personality is being carried out by Professor Jaroslav Flegr of Charles University in Prague. In one study he subjected more than 300 volunteers to personality profiling while also testing them for toxoplasma.

He found the women infected with toxoplasma spent more money on clothes and were consistently rated as more attractive. "We found they were more easy-going, more warm-hearted, had more friends and cared more about how they looked," he said. "However, they were also less trustworthy and had more relationships with men." [Sunday Times]"

THE STUDY WAS PROBABLY FUNDED BY TARGET!

I can't get enough of Ugly Dress.com

2005-06-10T13:44:00.000-05:00

What possesses a bride to dress her bridesmaids like 3 dollar hookers? The ways of the female mind are mysterious, indeed.

Why there'll always be an England..

2005-06-10T13:31:00.000-05:00

I heard this on The World on the radio yesterday and it cracked me up for some reason:

Poison Garden: "Northumberland's biggest tourist attraction is Alnwick Castle. And it's in one of castle's gardens where you'll find the poisonous plants. This sinister green space was the idea of the Duchess of Northumberland. The Duchess -- who used be called Jane Percy before she married the Duke of Northumberland -- says she finds traditional English gardens a bit boring.

Duchess of Northumberland: 'Well I just felt that in England and actually around the world, we concentrate very much on apothecary gardens and I think that most children are interested in how many berries you can eat before you keel over, and how long and painful the death is, and they're not really interested in how that plant can cure you, but in reality the line between kill and cure is very, very close.'

Killing can be compelling. Alison Harmer is the garden of Alnwick Castle's poison garden. She guides visitors on tours of the garden and points out plants that long ago acquired bad, very bad reputations:

Alison Harmer: 'We've got Strychnine, and Opium which becomes heroin, followed by Aconite, and let me tell you this beautiful garden flower is known as weapon of mass destruction, it was used in ancient Greece to rid people of unwanted elderly relatives, on the island of Saros, and it doesn't specify how old were expected to drink the poison Aconite to rid the families of the burden of old age. But it was also used to poison wells by invading armies, it's really one of the swiftest acting poisons known to man, a really poisonous little beast.'

The gardeners have taken precautions to make sure none of these plants go missing. Leaf plucking is strictly forbidden. And the security doesn't end there, says the Duchess.

Duchess of Northumberland: "Many of the plants were real killers and they have to be under lock and key. We have to have people watching the plants and watching children to make sure they're not touching plants or pocketing a berry here and berry there to get rid of their schoolmates."

Killing isn't all these plants can do. Garden keeper Alison Harmer says that many of these plants, when used properly, can actually help cure some afflictions. Case in point, wormwood.

Alison Harmer: "People used to make a tea to expel worms from the gut, also it was put into a drink, very popular in France in 1800's in absynth called the Green Fairy. And at the moment its in clinical trials to see if this plant may help malaria."

Thanks to The Duchess of Northumberland's green -- if somewhat eccentric -- thumb, the plants used to make these and other notorious poisons are growing tall for all to see.

Can you imagine how deadly USED kitty litter might be?

2005-06-09T22:05:00.000-05:00

Is Cat Litter Really Radioactive? - And how do we detect nuclear materials at the border? :
Last Friday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that the nation's busiest seaports will have enough radiation detectors to screen every cargo container that comes through. But congressional critics say expensive 'Radiation Portal Monitors' can't tell the difference between highly enriched uranium and cat litter. Is cat litter really radioactive?
Yes, the clay in cat litter does give off radiation in very small quantities. There is naturally occurring radiation all around us; the radiation in cat litter comes from trace amounts of uranium, thorium, and potassium-40. Many other consumer products are also radioactive. Among these are some ceramic tiles (which can contain uranium), glossy magazines (which are sometimes coated with material that's high in uranium and thorium), and Brazil nuts (which have a fair amount of radium).

Essay Question

2005-06-09T21:46:00.000-05:00

Jesse Helms has written a book, entitled "Here's Where I Stand" scheduled to be published in September. Helm's book takes an interesting look at segregation. He was one of North Carolina's leading voices of segregation as a TV commentator in Raleigh in the 1960s. He opposed nearly every civil rights bill while in the Senate and often made black political leaders the focus of his campaigns.
Unlike other prominent segregationists of the era, such as Alabama Gov. George Wallace, Helms has never said his views on race were wrong. And he has never said that segregation was wrong.
Instead, he suggests in the book that he favored voluntary racial integration that would have come about without pressure from the federal government, or from civil rights protests -- which he said only sharpened racial antagonisms.

'I did not advocate segregation, and I did not advocate aggravation,' Helms writes. 'By that I mean that I thought it was wrong for people who did not know, and who did not care, about the relationships between neighbors and friends to force their ideas about how communities should work on the people who had built those communities in the first place. I believed right would prevail as people followed their own consciences.'

He added: 'We will never know how integration might have been achieved in neighborhoods across our land, because the opportunity was snatched away by outside agitators who had their own agendas to advance. We certainly do know the price paid by the stirring of hatred, the encouragement of violence, the suspicion and distrust. We do know that too many lives were lost, businesses were destroyed, millions of dollars were diverted from books and teachers to support the cost of buses and gasoline. We do know that turning our public schools into social laboratories almost destroyed them.'

Essay Question:
When do you think "right" would have prevailed: 2010, 2015, 2100, never? Explain your answer.

I feel pretty...

2005-06-09T08:07:00.000-05:00

If you don't marry me, it's curtains. (from Ugly Dress.com)

Do you think I'm sexy?

2005-06-09T08:06:00.000-05:00

A tasteful selection from Ugly Dress.com

It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face...(Apocalypse Now)

2005-06-09T06:47:00.000-05:00

You all know how surfing the net goes. You find something interesting, that leads to something else, and finally you come face-to-face with the ultimate horror that lies at the center of the Cosmos. Thanks to Jaquandor at byzantiumshores, I recently made such a journey. The result is:
Ugly Dress.com - Bridesmaid Dresses From Hell: "Welcome to UglyDress.com, the archive of the world's worst Bridesmaids dresses. Contained within are photographic proof of some of the dresses that our friends, the brides, have made us wear so that they could look good."

If horror doesn't have a face, it certainly has more than one dress!

It's Not My Technique--It's Your Parent's Fault!

2005-06-08T20:32:00.000-05:00

New Scientist Genes blamed for fickle female orgasm - News: " THIS the ultimate excuse for poor performance in bed? 'Sorry, darling,' the man says, just before falling asleep. 'It's your genes.'

According to a study published this week, up to 45 per cent of the differences between women in their ability to reach orgasm can be explained by their genes. Despite decades of surveys and conjecture about the role of culture, upbringing and biology in female sexual function, from Freud in 1905 to the Hite report in 1976, this is the first study of the role of a woman's genes.
Its findings suggest there is an underlying biological basis to a woman's ability to achieve orgasm. Whether that basis is anatomical, physiological or psychological remains uncertain, says Tim Spector of the twin research unit at St Thomas' Hospital in London, who carried out the study. 'But it is saying that it is not purely cultural, or due to peer pressure, or to differences in upbringing or religion,' he says. 'There are wide differences between women and a lot of these differences are due to genes.'

Spector's team asked more than 6000 female twins to fill out a confidential questionnaire about how often they achieved orgasm during intercourse and masturbation. They received 4037 complete replies, which included answers from 683 pairs of non-identical twins and 714 pairs of identical twins. The women's ages ranged from 19 to 83, and about 3 per cent were lesbian or bisexual.

Only 14 per cent of the women reported always experiencing orgasm during intercourse. Another 32 per cent of the women reported that they were unable to achieve orgasm more than a quarter of the time, while 16 per cent never achieved it at all. Comparing the results from identical and non-identical twins suggests that 34 of this variation in ability to orgasm during intercourse is genetic.

The idea behind twin studies is that pairs of twins grow up in similar environments. So if identical twins are more similar in some way than non-identical twins, then that similarity must be down to their identical genes rather than the environment.
Unsurprisingly, more women were able to achieve orgasm through masturbation, with 34 per cent saying they could always do so. However, the figure for those who could never achieve it was only slightly lower, at 14 per cent. The analysis suggests that 45 per cent of this variation is genetic (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2005.0308).

Spector says he was surprised by the similarity in the numbers of women unable to experience orgasm either through intercourse or masturbation. "With masturbation there are fewer external factors - i.e. men," he says. "So the higher heritability value for masturbation gives us a clearer picture of what's going on."

The discovery of a genetic basis for the ability of women to orgasm raises questions about its evolution. One theory is that it is a tool for mate selection, the idea being that males best able to bring females to orgasm are also the best males to help raise children. Another is that the female orgasm produces movements that increase sperm uptake, and therefore fertility.
But studies of other primates suggest otherwise. Female stump-tailed macaques have orgasms too - but mainly during female-female mountings, which hardly supports the fertility or mate-selection idea.

Bonobos engage in highly promiscuous sex and mutual masturbation, complete with orgasms, a practice that is thought to promote group cohesion. This supports yet another theory: that orgasm is important in bonding.

But even if orgasm does play this role, it cannot be crucial in humans. The finding that many women cannot achieve orgasm because they do not have the genes for it shows that the ability to orgasm is not a trait for which there has been strong evolutionary selection, says Elisabeth Lloyd of Indiana University in Bloomington, author of The Case of the Female Orgasm. This supports her theory that as far as orgasms are concerned, women have been riding on the genetic coat-tails of male evolution, and that the female orgasm is merely an accidental echo of the male one, the equivalent of male nipples.

Lloyd says the findings also challenge the notion that the failure to achieve orgasm represents "female sexual dysfunction", an idea popular with companies keen to sell to remedies for this so-called disorder. "What definition of 'normal' could possibly justify labelling a third of women as 'abnormal'?" she asks.

Even if struggling to achieve orgasm is nothing unusual, Spector says it might be possible to find ways to make it easier. Though hundreds of genes could be involved, "that doesn't mean we couldn't find the genes and pathways, if this was taken more seriously as a problem", he says.
From issue 2503 of New Scientist magazine, 11 June 2005, page 6

Now we know why that snowman is abominable

2005-06-08T20:22:00.000-05:00

New Scientist Breaking News - Mountaineers laid low by lack of toilet training: "They may be strong, skilled and brave, but mountaineers scaling North America's highest peak have yet to learn the basic rules for relieving themselves at alpine heights, a US study reveals. It warns that the lack of proper hygiene leads to severe cases of diarrhoea in almost a third of climbers - a dangerous affliction for high-altitude adventurers.
In 2005, about 1500 people will attempt to climb the 6200-metre Mount McKinley, or Denali, in Alaska. Rules for climbers state that all excrement must either be disposed of down a crevasse, or carried off the mountain in personal poop pails. But after five people descended the mountain with gastroenteritis an infection of the gut caused by ingesting faeces - in May 2002, Alaskan health officials began to question how well mountaineers were abiding by sanitation regulations.
A team stationed in Anchorage, Alaska, and led by Joseph McLauglin from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, surveyed 132 climbers in June 2002. They found that 29% had diarrhoea at least once on their average 18-day trek on the mountain. And 39% reported seeing snow contaminated with faeces in or near their camps. But that did not stop nearly a quarter of climbers from collecting snow for drinking water directly from camps. Only 16% of climbers said they always boiled their drinking water.
Furthermore, fewer than half said they always washed their hands after defecating, with 16% admitting using rocks and snow instead of toilet paper. A shameful 11% confessed to pooping directly into the snow.
McLaughlin was surprised at the amount of human excrement on the mountain, but he says the mountaineers apparent laziness is understandable.

Deadly errors

Being a mountaineer myself, I know how important it can be to minimise weight by conserving the amount of fuel one brings on a trip. It was not surprising to me to see such a low proportion of climbers that boiled their water,” he says. “Similarly, when it is freezing cold outside, washing hands with soap and water is not always a top priority.”
But such carelessness could be deadly, warns McLaughlin. “When climbers are exhausted at high altitude, errors, some of which can be very costly, become more common. Compound that situation with gastrointestinal illness and it is not difficult to extrapolate.”
Buddha Basnyat, medical director at the Nepal International Clinic in Kathmandu and an expert in alpine health, says that gastroenteritis is more common than altitude sickness for climbers in the Himalayas, mostly due to the prevalence of infections in the local population. “In the US, I think people aren’t used to boiling their water. But over here, if you don’t boil water there is almost a 100% risk of getting gastroenteritis,” he told New Scientist.
Basnyat says that by using an alcohol-based disinfectant, boiling water and carrying antibiotics, climbers can safely avoid the dangers and discomfort of diarrhoea at the top of the world."

2005-05-31T09:19:00.000-05:00

"Jaybirdwocky" or "An Ode to Jay"

`Twas ought-five, and the Laxpower fans
Did cheer and grumble on the Net.
All gloomy was the Swami,
And the NC-two-A wouldn't allow a bet.

"Beware the Cavaliers, my son!
The Wards that bite, the Kips that catch!
Beware the Blue Devil team, and shun
The frumious Matt Zash!"

They took their off-set heads in hand:
Long time the ACC foes they sought --
So rested in the PJ's Pub,
And drank a beer in thought.

And, as in uffish thought they stood,
The Blue Devil team, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the Lincoln Field,
And burbled as they came!

One, two! (We want more!) And through and through
The off-set heads went snicker-snack!
They left them dead, and with their heads
They went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Blue Devil team?
Come to my arms, my beamish boys!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Kyle-lay!'
He chortled in his joy.

Twas ought-five, and the Laxpower fans
Did cheer and grumble on the Net.
All gloomy was the Swami
and the NC-two-A wouldn't allow a bet.

(with apologies to Lewis Carroll (il miglior fabbro))

_________________

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

2005-05-31T06:16:00.000-05:00

There is joy in Mudville. the Johns Hopkins Bluejays win their first NCAA Lacrosse Tournament in 18 years of trying!

2005-05-30T22:03:00.000-05:00

JHU WINS FIRST NCAA LAX TITLE SINCE 1987

2005-05-30T20:03:00.000-05:00

BLUEJAYS WIN!!!!

"PHILADELPHIA, PA - On a team full of seniors who carried the top-seeded Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse team to a 15-0 record entering Monday's NCAA Division I Championship game against second-ranked Duke, it was a pair of sophomores who helped provide the difference as the Blue Jays capped a 16-0 season with a dramatic, 9-8 come-from-behind victory over the Blue Devils to secure the program's first national championship since 1987. The Blue Jays are just the third team since 1971 (when the NCAA began sponsoring the men's lacrosse national championship) to post a perfect 16-0 record.

Sophomore goalie Jesse Schwarztman helped shut down the nation's top scoring team in the second half as he posted seven of his 12 saves and allowed just one goal in the final 30 minutes and classmate Jake Byrne scored the unassisted game-winner with 13:35 remaining as Hopkins won its eighth NCAA title in front of a NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship-game record 44,920.

'I am so proud of these guys right now,' head coach Dave Pietramala noted in the post-game press conference. 'When we lost a year ago, people told us that we quit. They just kept working. When we got back to campus they made a commitment that we were just going to take it one day at a time and we were going to play to the best of our ability. I'm just so proud of these kids, our fans and our administration.'

Byrne's goal capped a stunning second half that could not have been more different than the first. The Devils carried a 7-6 lead into the second half and pushed the lead to 8-6 with a transition goal just 2:17 into the third quarter. Duke's Nick O'Hara stripped Kyle Harrison of the ball in his defensive zone, came up with the loose ball and jump-started a fast break that was finished by Matt Danowski off a feed from Zack Greer. Amazingly, that would be the last goal the Blue Devils would score on the day.

Freshman Paul Rabil started the Blue Jays' rally with his second unassisted goal of the game with 5:56 remaining in the third quarter. Rabil drove down the left side and beat Duke goalie Aaron Fenton with a left-handed shot between the legs.

The Blue Jays, who had led 1-0 early only to fall behind by two on three different occasions, then forced the fourth and final tie of the game with just under one minute remaining in the third. Junior Greg Peyser dropped down with a right-handed laser from 15 yards out that sailed between Fenton and the far post. That set the stage for Byrne's game-winner.
Byrne, who netted the goal against Virginia with 1.4 seconds remaining in regulation that forced overtime in the semifinals, did himself one better this time as he took a pass seven yards in front of the goal to Fenton's left, ducked inside and bounced a shot into the far corner. For the thousands of Hopkins fans in the stands, the remaining 13:35 seemed to take an eternity.
Both teams had chances down the stretch, but both defenses were up to the task. Schwartzman came up with three big saves in the final 12 minutes, including one on Danowski with 3:49 remaining, while Fenton stuffed a Harrison shot and the Devils forced a pair of Blue Jay turnovers, including one with less than three minutes to play, but couldn't solve the Hopkins defense and could only chase as the Blue Jays ran out the final 2:32.

"Our defense, Chris Watson, Tom Garvey and Matt Pinto, just did a tremendous job of forcing their shooters away and buckling down in the second half," Schwartzman stated after the game. "To have two seniors and Matt playing in front of me like that helps make my job a little easier."
A back-and-forth first half saw the teams combine for 13 goals with the Blue Devils clinging to the 7-6 lead at halftime. A Rabil goal for the Blue Jays just 33 seconds into the game opened the scoring, but Duke answered with three straight goals to take a 3-1 lead at the end of the first quarter.

Kyle Dowd got the Devils on the board with an unassisted goal 80 seconds after Rabil's tally and Danowski gave Duke its first lead four minutes later when he backed his defender in from the side and spun to the middle before beating Schwartzman with a low shot inside the far post. The first of Dan Flannery's two first-half goals just over a minute later capped the three-goal run for Duke and neither team scored again in the opening quarter.
After over five scoreless minutes to open the second quarter pushed the scoring drought to over 18 minutes, the Blue Jays got back-to-back goals in a span of just 48 seconds to draw even. Peyser dodged in from the top and got inside his defender before bouncing a shot past Fenton. Schwarztman then came up with a big save and quickly found senior Benson Erwin streaking up the field. Erwin carried into the offensive zone and found freshman Kevin Huntley, who side-stepped a defender and fired a shot past Fenton.

The Devils scored three of the next four goals to extend the lead to 6-4. Flannery's second goal of the game off an assist from Danowski with 8:14 remaining was quickly answered by a goal from Harrison. Flannery came from behind the goal and Danowski hit him in stride and Flannery beat Schwarztman from the doorstep, while Harrison grabbed the ground ball on the ensuing faceoff and beat Fenton with a left-handed shot just over his stick.

An extra-man goal by Zash and an even-strength goal by Bret Thompson push the lead to 6-4 for Duke, but the Blue Jays again answered quickly. Harrison beat Fenton with the same running jump shot - this time from the right side - with 3:48 remaining in the second quarter and Huntley added his second goal seven seconds later off an assist from Jake Byrne to make it 6-6. Another extra-man goal by Zash with 1:33 remaining in the second quarter closed the first half scoring and set the stage for the defensive effort and rally that landed the Blue Jays the championship they had been so close to grabbing in each of the last three years.

"We were criticized for quitting last year and I don't think we quit," Harrison stated in the post-game press conference. "I don't think we played our best, but I don't think we quit. I think this team, this year showed a never quit attitude and came out on top.""

NCAA CHAMPS 2019?

2005-05-29T10:28:00.000-05:00

Presenting your 2005 Linganore Lancers U-9 Lacrosse Team! (CLICK ON PICTURE TO ENLARGE)

After all who cares about Western Civilization?

2005-05-13T08:35:00.000-05:00

Perhaps apocryphally, Gandhi was asked his opinion of Western Civilization. He allegedly replied, "It would be a good idea".

Evidently Our Beloved Leader and Patrick J. Buchanan have a similar dim view of the value of Western Civilization. World War II and the Allied agreements during the war helped to insure the death of Nazism and Fascism, probably the greatest threats to Western Civilization since Atilla the Hun. These guys think it was a bad idea.

First, Our Beloved Leader opined that, due to the "sell-out" at Yalta, World War II (The Big One) was evidently fought in vain:

"As we mark a victory of six days ago -- six decades ago, we are mindful of a paradox. For much of Germany, defeat led to freedom. For much of Eastern and Central Europe, victory brought the iron rule of another empire. V-E Day marked the end of fascism, but it did not end oppression. The agreement at Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable. Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent divided and unstable. The captivity of millions in Central and Eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs of history."

Second, Republican/Isolationist/Notable Loon, Patrick J. Buchanan in has in two recent columns questioned the value of even taking on Herr Hitler:

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44177: Bush, Putin and the Hitler-Stalin pact:

"As a result of this war, Hitler's 1,000-Year Reich lasted 12 years and Germany was destroyed as no other nation save Japan. Hamburg, Cologne, Dresden and Berlin were reduced to rubble. Between 13 million and 15 million Germans were ethnically cleansed from the Baltic region, Poland and Czechoslovakia. Two million, mostly women and children, perished in an orgy of murder, rape and massacre that attended that greatest forced exodus in European history.
As a result of the Great Patriotic War, Finland had its Karelian Peninsula torn away by Stalin and 10 Christian countries – Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Yugoslavia – endured Stalinist persecution and tyranny for half a century.
Again, what, exactly, is Bush celebrating in Moscow?"

WorldNetDaily: Was World War II worth it?:
"When one considers the losses suffered by Britain and France--hundreds of thousands dead, destitution, bankruptcy, the end of the empires-- was World War II worth it, considering that Poland and all the other nations east of the Elbe were lost anyway?
If the objective of the West was the destruction of Nazi Germany, it was a 'smashing' success. But why destroy Hitler? If to liberate Germans, it was not worth it. After all, the Germans voted Hitler in.
If it was to keep Hitler out of Western Europe, why declare war on him and draw him into Western Europe? If it was to keep Hitler out of Central and Eastern Europe, then, inevitably, Stalin would inherit Central and Eastern Europe.
Was that worth fighting a world war--with 50 million dead?
The war Britain and France declared to defend Polish freedom ended up making Poland and all of Eastern and Central Europe safe for Stalinism. And at the festivities in Moscow, Americans and Russians were front and center, smiling-- not British and French. Understandably."

I think both these notable intellectuals have forgotten just a couple of points:

First, Pat, Hitler declared war on the U. S. of A. After his buddies, (our traditional friends and lovers of baseball), the Japanese managed to pull off a little stunt called the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. FDR with the almost unanimous consent of Congress (damn that Jeanette Rankin http://www.rankinfoundation.org/story.htm) declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941. On December 11, 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on the U. S. of A. We responded that same day. http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/germwar.html
We didn't go to war to liberate Western Europe. We went to war out of self-defense. And guess what? The evil Stalin was also attacked by the Hitler who was according to Pat "voted in".

Second, Pat, Hitler was not "voted in" by the Germans (or the French or the Poles, for that matter). In the March 1932 election for president of Germany, Hitler got 30.1% of the vote, Hindenburg got 49.6%, Thaelamann 13.2%, and Duesterberg 6.8%. Since Hindenburg didn't get an absolute majority a run-off election was held in April 1932. Hindenburg got 53%, Hitler got 36.8%, and Thaelmann got 10.2% of the vote. At no time did Hitler ever get a majority of the German vote (kind of like Our Beloved Leader). Though the Nazi party was the largest party in the Reichstag in the July 1932 election, it was never elected as the majority party. Hitler never was "voted in" by anyone. He was appointed Chancellor through a backroom deal (No, he wasn't appointed by the Supreme Court). He eventually seized power through a series of "emergency decrees". If you want to learn more check out: http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0403a.asp

Third, Beloved Leader, the Yalta Agreement didn't decide that the freedom of small nations was expendable.

In fact, it specifically stated that:

"The establishment of order in Europe and the rebuilding of national economic life must be achieved by processes which will enable the liberated peoples to destroy the last vestiges of Nazism and fascism and to create democratic institutions of their own choice. This is a principle of the Atlantic Charter - the right of all people to choose the form of government under which they will live - the restoration of sovereign rights and self-government to those peoples who have been forcibly deprived to them by the aggressor nations.
To foster the conditions in which the liberated people may exercise these rights, the three governments will jointly assist the people in any European liberated state or former Axis state in Europe where, in their judgment conditions require,
(a) to establish conditions of internal peace;
(b) to carry out emergency relief measures for the relief of distressed peoples;
(c) to form interim governmental authorities broadly representative of all democratic elements in the population and pledged to the earliest possible establishment through free elections of Governments responsive to the will of the people; and
(d) to facilitate where necessary the holding of such elections."
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/wwii/yalta.htm

This was part of the agreement entitled "The Declaration of Liberated Europe". Our Beloved Leader is correct in that the agreement didn't specifically mention Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. It also didn't mention India, Ghana, Puerto Rico, Alaska, or Hawaii, all areas containing peoples governed, at that time, without the consent of the governed. There were bigger fish to fry at Yalta: the creation of the United Nations, the re-creation of Poland, the declaration of war by the Soviet Union against Japan, and the trial of the German war criminals. This was not "one of greatest wrongs in history", but an attempt to deal with the endgame of one of the most successful crusades in history.

Ever since Joe McCarthy and the red scare of the '50's there has been a persistent strain of thought among Republicans that a tired, sick FDR was bamboozled at Yalta by a conniving Joseph Stalin. There is an even older strain of isolationist thought currently embodied by Pat Buchanan that World War II was a tragic mistake, and that a wily FDR influenced by the wilier Winston Churchill tricked (or allowed) Japan into attacking us (somehow knowing that Germany would then stupidly declare war on us) in order to either (pick one) fight a war to save the Christ-killing Jews or shield the evil communists of Russia from that staunch anti-communist and closet Republican Herr Hitler. This is garbage. Both of these arguments are ridiculous and should not be allowed to be uttered without challenge. World War II was the "last (and maybe the only) good war".

I can't wait to hear these two revisionist historians, Bush and Buchanan, give their views on the Civil War. Perhaps, that Idiot/Machiavellian (choose one) Lincoln tricked the South into seceding in order to push "Negro" equality and "affirmative action" down our throats.

Shouldn't the parents of the children be charged with child abuse?

2005-05-05T13:42:00.000-05:00

Another Counter-Coulter Bust - May 4, 2005: "Lewd heckler arrested at conservative's Texas college lecture
MAY 5--Months after members of 'Al Pieda' marred a campus speech by Ann Coulter, another appearance by the controversial conservative commentator has been disrupted by a protester. During a speech last night at the University of Texas in Austin, a 19-year-old UT student was busted after asking Coulter a lewd question, which he followed up with equally inappropriate hand gestures, according to the below police affidavit. The student, Ajai Raj, was arrested by campus police and hit with a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge. The police affidavit notes that Coulter's lecture was attended by 'several children under the age of ten,' which probably made them particularly sensitive when Raj queried Coulter about the sexual proclivities of certain right-leaning men.

Imagine taking young children to see Ann Coulter... Next Texans will be taking kids to University of Texas Football games and watching the cheerleaders.

If you don't know the facts, shovel a LOT of BS!

2005-05-05T12:22:00.000-05:00

In so many words: "In so many words
Samuel G. Freedman, New York Times
May 4, 2005 SAT0504
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. -- In March, Les Perelman attended a national college writing conference and sat in on a panel on the new SAT writing test. Perelman is one of the directors of undergraduate writing at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He did doctoral work on testing and develops writing assessments for entering MIT freshmen. He fears that the 25-minute SAT essay test that started in March -- and will be given for the second time on Saturday -- is teaching terrible writing habits.

"It appeared to me that regardless of what a student wrote, the longer the essay, the higher the score," Perelman said. A man on the panel from the College Board disagreed. "He told me I was jumping to conclusions," Perelman said. "Because MIT is a place where everything is backed by data, I went to my hotel room, counted the words in those essays and put them in an Excel spreadsheet on my laptop."

Perelman studied every graded sample SAT essay that the College Board made public. He looked at the 15 samples in the ScoreWrite book that the College Board distributed to schools nationwide to prepare students for the essay. He reviewed the 23 graded essays on the College Board website meant as a guide for students and the 16 writing "anchor" samples the College Board used to train graders to properly mark essays.

He was stunned by how complete the correlation was between length and score. "I have never found a quantifiable predictor in 25 years of grading that was anywhere near as strong as this one," he said. The shortest essays, typically 100 words, got the lowest grade of one. The longest, about 400 words, got the top grade of six. In between, there was virtually a direct match between length and grade.

He was also struck by all the factual errors in even the top essays. An essay on the Civil War, given a perfect six, describes the nation being changed forever by the "firing of two shots at Fort Sumter in late 1862." (Actually, it was in early 1861, and, according to "Battle Cry of Freedom" by James M. McPherson, it was "33 hours of bombardment by 4,000 shot and shells.")

Perelman contacted the College Board and was surprised to learn that on the new SAT essay, students are not penalized for incorrect facts. The official guide for scorers explains: "Writers may make errors in facts or information that do not affect the quality of their essays. For example, a writer may state "The American Revolution began in 1842" or " 'Anna Karenina,' a play by the French author Joseph Conrad, was a very upbeat literary work." (Actually, that's 1775; a novel by the Russian Leo Tolstoy, and poor Anna hurls herself under a train.) No matter. "You are scoring the writing, and not the correctness of facts."

How to prepare for such an essay? "I would advise writing as long as possible," Perelman said, "and include lots of facts, even if they're made up." This, of course, is not what he teaches his MIT students.

SAT graders are told to read an essay just once and spend two to three minutes per essay, and Perelman is now adept at rapid-fire SAT grading. This reporter held up a sample essay far enough away so it could not be read, and he guessed the correct grade by its bulk and shape. "That's a 4," he said. "It looks like a 4."

A report released this week by the National Council of Teachers of English mirrors Perelman's criticism. It said a single, 25-minute writing test ignores the most basic lesson of writing -- that good writing is rewriting. It warns that the SAT is pushing schools toward "formulaic" writing instruction

How the mighty have fallen! Once they filled stadia, now they play minor league ballparks!

2005-05-05T12:15:00.000-05:00

ONE NIGHT, ONE STAGE - BOB DYLAN & WILLIE NELSON IN BOWIE!
Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Bob Dylan and Country Legend Willie Nelson will share the concert stage in a memorable night of classics on Tuesday, June 14th at 6:30 pm, when the two musical legends perform live at Prince George’s Stadium! Tickets will go on sale on Saturday, April 30th at 10 a.m. at the box office at Prince George’s Stadium or charge-by- phone at 1-877-639-3728. Tickets can also be ordered online by visiting www.ticketmaster.com. For more information on this historic concert, please click here.

Maybe he left his hair at home...

2005-04-29T08:55:00.000-05:00

Gary Handleman, JHU '72, is featured in a Kid's Post Article http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/28/AR2005042801500.html today in the Washington Post. Gary is the senior vice-president of facilities for the MCI Center (home of the Wizards & once and future home of the Capitols). For old geezers like me he's remembered as a stand-out middie and has the distinction of being, as far as I know, the only JHU player drafted by a pro basketball team. He was drafted by the Baltimore Bullets (in round 15). Note: to our younger readers, there used to be a lot more rounds to the draft, and the Washington Wizards used to be the Baltimore Bullets). Somehow Julius Erving and Bob McAdoo managed to get drafted before him. The only disturbing thing about the article in the print version is Gary's picture. He appears to be bald. He can't be that old. It must have been some kind of radiation accident. I can remember his full head of hair, just yesterday. Or maybe it was 1972...

STACKED II

2005-04-28T09:52:00.000-05:00

Last night, I finally got a chance to view STACKED, Pam Anderson's new show set in a small independent bookstore (On TV the coffee bar is always bigger than the bookstore). We all knew from the infamous Pam-Tommy Lee video that she sucked. Guess what? Her show sucks, too.

KEEPING HIS EYE ON THE BALL

2005-04-28T09:51:00.000-05:00

Midfielder, Jonathan G. (#44), gets ready to catch a pass in yesterday's hard-fought Linganore vs. Damascus lacrosse game. Last week versus Middletown, Jonathan had a goal and an assist.

Jenna & Barbara Bush Celebrate Doubles Win!

2005-04-26T22:23:00.000-05:00

Jenna & Barbara Celebrate Victory

Jenna & Barbara Dump Bar Hopping for Tennis

2005-04-26T22:18:00.000-05:00

My Way News: "PIKESVILLE, Md. (AP) - First daughters, Jenna and Barbara Bush, somehow got loose and wandered around an upscale neighborhood Tuesday, disrupting traffic and alarming homeowners before officers managed to corral them in a tennis court.
More than a dozen police cars and a police helicopter were used to herd the beasts, authorities said.
'Somehow they figured it out; I've got to give a lot of credit to the creativity of our officers,' police spokesman Shawn Vinson said.
The officers used lounge chairs beside the tennis court as shields and formed a human chain to corral the wayward buffalo. One buffalo was seen leaping over one of the tennis nets in an effort to evade capture.
Police shut down several major traffic arteries, including a section of the Baltimore Beltway, while they tried to anticipate which way the buffalo would roam.
Officers eventually managed to maneuver the buffalo onto the tennis court about a mile from where they first were spotted. "

She not only sucks, she stacks!

2005-04-25T10:36:00.000-05:00

Pam Anderson as a typical female book clerk

STACKED

2005-04-25T10:06:00.000-05:00

I (and some of my readers) have actually worked in a bookstore(s).

Unfortunately I missed the premiere of "Stacked" last Wednesday. It was TV Turn-off Week at my son's school and out of solidarity with his vow to refrain from TV(successful I might add), Frau Bluejay & I didn't watch any (much) television.

The premise of "Stacked" (as I understand it) is that Pamela Anderson is employed as a book clerk at a family run bookstore. I believe this to be a gritty docudrama uncovering a typical bookstore employee and her typical workday. Fox provides the following synopsis of episode two: "Skyler arrives on time for her first day of work hung-over and scantily clad..." FOX Broadcasting Company: STACKED

God! How it all comes back to me now! Scantily clad bimboes arriving at work hung-over, nymphs bending over shelving books, bacchanalia in the returns & receiving area...its like it was yesterday. I just can't wait to watch.

On a more serious note, the Fox website proudly boasts that all books on the shelve are actual books published by Harper Collins (and proud we are of them) that are currently listed "high on the New York Times bestseller's list". Of course, in real life, we know that bookstores carry books by more than one publishing house. The realism of "Stacked" has been compromised in the interest of product placement!
How can an artist like Pam sell out?

Just in time for Passover! JibJab's Matzah Rap

2005-04-25T09:58:00.000-05:00

AtomFilms - JibJab's Matzah!

This Would Make a Good Hitchcockesque Thriller

2005-04-25T09:51:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of Majikthise: "A truly bizarre saga, permalinked for your delectation. Woman steals across Atlantic for a clandestine facelift, only to meet a tragic end in the office of a socialite surgeon with 33 previous malpractice suits and no hospital privileges..

The Irish Patient and Dr. Lawsuit [NYT permalink]

WHEN Liam Cregan got a call from the Irish Consulate in New York on March 15, telling him that his wife, Kathleen Kelly Cregan, was in critical condition at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, he thought it had to be a mistake, that someone had stolen her passport.

Mrs. Cregan had left her home in rural Ireland two days before, telling her husband, a farmer and part-time plumber, that she would be attending a business course in Dublin.

In fact she had flown to the United States to have a face-lift performed by Dr. Michael E. Sachs in his offices on Central Park South. Hours after surgery she went into cardiac arrest and was rushed to the hospital.

There, on March 17, with her husband and two sisters at her side, Mrs. Cregan, 42 and the mother of two young sons, was taken off life support and died. Her death is under investigation by the New York State Health Department. An autopsy was inconclusive, and the New York City medical examiner is awaiting toxicology reports that might explain what went wrong.

But from the time of her death her family had a simpler question: How did a farmer's wife from outside Limerick meet her end in such an improbable place? [...]"

In the interests of non-discrimination TSA makes no exceptions!

2005-04-25T08:30:00.000-05:00

"I really had a hard time taking off my shoes"

Calamari Again! Hopkins Fries the Squids for the 31st Time

2005-04-24T15:23:00.000-05:00

Johns Hopkins senior midfielder Kyle Harrison (Baltimore, MD/Friends) scored a career-high five goals, including the game-winner 1:37 into overtime, to lift the top-ranked Blue Jays to a 9-8 come-from-behind victory over fifth-ranked Navy Saturday afternoon. The Blue Jays improve to 10-0 on the year, run their home winning streak to 33 games and their winning streak over Navy to 31 games with the victory. Navy had its two-game winning streak snapped and falls to 9-3.

The Real Reason We Haven't Caught Osama

2005-04-24T12:30:00.000-05:00

In case you didn't know, the reason that we haven't caught Osama is that we have women in the army. If we had become more like the Taliban and kept women in their rightful place, we would have got him at Tora Bora. The Conservative Voice - News

TED NUGENT SUCKS!

2005-04-24T11:16:00.000-05:00

I don't expect consistency from rock & roll musicians. I do expect a modicum of honesty. Ted Nugent the darling of the right wing, is a a draft dodger. Despite his "Remember the Alamo! rhetoric:

"Remember the Alamo! Shoot 'em! To show you how radical I am, I want carjackers dead. I want rapists dead. I want burglars dead. I want child molesters dead. I want the bad guys dead. No court case. No parole. No early release. I want 'em dead. Get a gun and when they attack you, shoot 'em." ABC News: Ted Nugent to Fellow NRAers: Get Hardcore

Ted is another chickenhawk. He claims that 30 days before his draft board physical for the Viet Nam war, he stopped all forms of personal hygiene. The last 10 days, he ingested nothing but Vienna sausages and Pepsi; and a week before his physical, he stopped using bathrooms altogether, virtually living inside pants caked with his own excrement, stained by his urine. That spectacle won Nugent a deferment, he says. "... but if I would have gone over there, I'd have been killed, or I'd have killed, or I'd killed all the hippies in the foxholes...I would have killed everybody." - Detroit Free Press Magazine , July 15, 1990 http://www.answers.com/topic/ted-nugent

"Cat Scratch Fever" sucks, too.

HOPKINS BEATS DUKE 11-1O DOUBLE OVER-TIME

2005-04-08T21:49:00.000-05:00

In an incredible game, the Johns Hopkins Bluejays beat the Duke Blue Devils 11-10 in the second over-time period. Hopkins is now 8-0. It was also Hopkins 32nd consecutive win at home. The Hopkins seniors have never lost a home lacrosse game!

HOPKINS VS. DUKE (LAX #1 vs. #2)

2005-04-06T10:39:00.000-05:00

Friday, April 8 at 8:00, The #1 Hopkins Bluejays play the #2 Duke Blue Devils. It should be quite a game. Duke has an incredible offense, featuring one of my former students, Peter Lamade. Hopkins has an incredible defense and experienced team. It's on Baltimore ABC 2 for those readers in Maryland.

This is the Best of all Possible Worlds

2005-04-06T10:16:00.000-05:00

The optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist knows that it is.--Ambrose Bierce

Isn't it fascinating...

From reading today's news: the war in Iraq is over, the war in Afghanistan is over, Terri Schiavo has no problems, the social security crisis seems to be solved. I guess Osama Bin Laden (whoever he was) must have been captured. At least, there's nothing in the news about any of that crap...

The only problems seem to be electing a new pope and burying Saul Bellow and Prince Rainier.

I'm glad all that other stuff is over...

Stupid Quiz Time

2005-04-06T06:46:00.000-05:00

The following short quiz consists of 4 questions and will tell you whether you are qualified to be a professional. Scroll down for each answer. The questions are NOT that difficult.

1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?

The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door.

2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?

Did you say, Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator?
Wrong Answer.
Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door.

3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals attend... except one. Which animal does not attend?

Correct Answer: The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. You just put him in there. This tests your memory.
Okay, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities.

4. There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage it?

Correct Answer: You jump into the river and swim across.
Have you not been listening?
All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting.

According to Anderson Consulting Worldwide, around 90% of the professionals they tested got all questions wrong, but many preschoolers got several correct answers. Anderson Consulting says this conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four-year-old.

Espresso Sarcasm: Stupid Quiz Time

Despite Budget Cut-backs NASA Makes Amazing Discovery!

2005-04-05T11:38:00.000-05:00

Water on Mars!

How would you like to own Iraq?

2005-04-05T08:53:00.000-05:00

Shades of Dr. No. A Dubai development firm is creating a chain of 300 artificial islands in the Persian Gulf that form, in rough outline shape, all the continents of the world. See, Welcome to The World Each island is designated by the name of a country or region. For example, you can purchase an 2.4 hectacre island named Iraq. (If you visit their site, you gotta check out the "Master Plan") You can buy Virginia, Texas, or Illinois, but there is no Maryland. (It must have sunk because the legislature didn't approve slot machines.)

I also love the registration form. One has to designate the continent and island one is interested in as well as the "intended purpose" for your island (No, Doro, world domination is not one of the choices).

F**K VONAGE

2005-04-04T10:57:00.000-05:00

I was intrigued by Vonage, the internet phone company. The thought of not being chained to any of the companies that annoyed me for years via telemarketing or TV commercials (MCI, Verizon, Sprint, etc.) was appealing. However, I can hardly go to a web-site (even with my pop-up blocker on) without being assaulted by Vonage. Screw them. It'll be a cold day in Hell before I use them.

2005-04-03T22:17:00.000-05:00

The Bluejay celebrates a win over the Tarheels

Kind of sums up my Feelings Exactly

2005-04-01T09:09:00.000-05:00

Robert Friedman in the St. Petersburg Times has hit the nail(s) on the head. Columns: Living will is the best revenge:

Like many of you, I have been compelled by recent events to prepare a more detailed advance directive dealing with end-of-life issues. Here's what mine says:
* In the event I lapse into a persistent vegetative state, I want medical authorities to resort to extraordinary means to prolong my hellish semiexistence. Fifteen years wouldn't be long enough for me.
* I want my wife and my parents to compound their misery by engaging in a bitter and protracted feud that depletes their emotions and their bank accounts.
* I want my wife to ruin the rest of her life by maintaining an interminable vigil at my bedside. I'd be really jealous if she waited less than a decade to start dating again or otherwise rebuilding a semblance of a normal life.
* I want my case to be turned into a circus by losers and crackpots from around the country who hope to bring meaning to their empty lives by investing the same transient emotion in me that they once reserved for Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy and that little girl who got stuck in a well.
* I want those crackpots to spread vicious lies about my wife.
* I want to be placed in a hospice where protesters can gather to bring further grief and disruption to the lives of dozens of dying patients and families whose stories are sadder than my own.
* I want the people who attach themselves to my case because of their deep devotion to the sanctity of life to make death threats against any judges, elected officials or health care professionals who disagree with them.
* I want the medical geniuses and philosopher kings who populate the Florida Legislature to ignore me for more than a decade and then turn my case into a forum for weeks of politically calculated bloviation.
* I want total strangers - oily politicians, maudlin news anchors, ersatz friars and all other hangers-on - to start calling me "Bobby," as if they had known me since childhood.
* I'm not insisting on this as part of my directive, but it would be nice if Congress passed a "Bobby's Law" that applied only to me and ignored the medical needs of tens of millions of other Americans without adequate health coverage.
* Even if the "Bobby's Law" idea doesn't work out, I want Congress - especially all those self-described conservatives who claim to believe in "less government and more freedom" - to trample on the decisions of doctors, judges and other experts who actually know something about my case. And I want members of Congress to launch into an extended debate that gives them another excuse to avoid pesky issues such as national security and the economy.
* In particular, I want House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to use my case as an opportunity to divert the country's attention from the mounting political and legal troubles stemming from his slimy misbehavior.
* And I want Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to make a mockery of his Harvard medical degree by misrepresenting the details of my case in ways that might give a boost to his 2008 presidential campaign.
* I want Frist and the rest of the world to judge my medical condition on the basis of a snippet of dated and demeaning videotape that should have remained private.
* Because I think I would retain my sense of humor even in a persistent vegetative state, I'd want President Bush - the same guy who publicly mocked Karla Faye Tucker when signing off on her death warrant as governor of Texas - to claim he was intervening in my case because it is always best "to err on the side of life."
* I want the state Department of Children and Families to step in at the last moment to take responsibility for my well-being, because nothing bad could ever happen to anyone under DCF's care.
* And because Gov. Jeb Bush is the smartest and most righteous human being on the face of the Earth, I want any and all of the aforementioned directives to be disregarded if the governor happens to disagree with them. If he says he knows what's best for me, I won't be in any position to argue.
Robert Friedman is editor of Perspective. He can be reached at friedman@sptimes.com

Perhaps Jose Canseco Could Give Him a Refresher Course

2005-03-30T10:50:00.000-05:00

MSNBC - Schwarzenegger prepares to do battle

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger came to office 16 months ago determined to shake the political system to the core, but few envisioned the boldness of his ambition. Today, he is girding for what could be the most contentious political confrontation the nation's most populous state has seen in years.

From the looks of the picture (posted earlier), Arnie better get back on "the Juice".

A Confederacy of Dunces

2005-03-30T09:06:00.000-05:00

The "other" Roger Ailes has some great background info on the fascinating folks who are standing vigil outside Terri Schiavo's hospice:

Amazing Stories: The Christian Right's Mainstream Violent Bigots

By skipping remedial reading class once again, my good friend Michelle Malkin finds plenty of time to wonder "why the mainstream media was ignoring some amazing stories of pro-life activists and evangelical disabled advocates who have been peacefully keeping vigil outside Terri Schiavo's hospice." I'm happy to highlight those overlooked stories for Michelle, but someone else will have to read them to her.

The Story of Pro-Life Activists Scott and Joshua Hildreth:
NEW YORK As protests outside the hospice housing Terri Schiavo in her final days mounted last week, numerous newspaper reports, many based on an Associated Press account, mentioned or quoted 10-year-old Joshua Heldreth and/or his father, Scott Heldreth. Josh was one of several youngsters arrested for crossing police lines in Pinellas Park, Fla., in an effort to take water to Schiavo. None of the stories revealed that Scott Heldreth, a religious activist and anti-abortion crusader, is a registered sex offender in Florida -- until The Charlotte Observer mentioned it on Sunday.A widely published AP story on Sunday by Allen G. Breen had painted a warmer picture of the Heldreths, noting that it was young Josh who insisted that his father take him to the protests from their home in North Carolina, not the other way around. "God's with me," Josh said. ...The Charlotte Observer story, however, revealed that Heldreth had pleaded guilty to sexual battery, was in jail for parts of 1992 and 1993, according to court records, and served time on probation. â€œThe former Naperville, Fla., resident remains listed on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's sex offender registry," the Observer reported, â€œbut he's not registered on North Carolina's; the N.C. equivalent applies to offenders convicted on or after Jan. 1, 1996."...Heldreth declined to discuss the specifics of the incident that led to his jail time. Online research shows that Heldreth was arrested after an incident at Ohio University and charged with two counts of rape and one count of kidnapping.
Amazing.

The Story of Disability Rights Activist and Pacifist Bill Tierney, apparently profiled here, who shares some of Malkin's passions:
Bill Tierney . . . had just returned from eight months working as an interrogator for US forces in Baghdad, and had come to talk, on the record, about torture."The Brits came up with an expression -- wog," Tierney said. "That stands for Wily Oriental Gentleman. There's a lot of wiliness in that part of the world.". . .After explaining his various psychological tactics to the audience, interrogator Bill Tierney (a private contractor working with the Army) said, "I tried to be nuanced and culturally aware. But the suspects didn't break."Suddenly Tierney's temper rose. "They did not break!" he shouted. "I'm here to win. I'm here so our civilization beats theirs! Now what are you willing to do to win?" he asked, pointing to a woman in the front row. "You are the interrogators, you are the ones who have to get the information from the Iraqis. What do you do? That word 'torture'. You immediately think, 'That's not me.' But are we litigating this war or fighting it?"...Asked about Abu Ghraib, Tierney said that for an interrogator, ''sadism is always right over the hill. You have to admit it. Don't fool yourself there is a part of you that will say, 'This is fun.' ''
Amazing.
More here.
Amazing.

The Story of Pro-Life Family Man Randall Terry
As CNN noted on March 4, 1998, Terry was named in a lawsuit -- seeking to "force anti-abortion leaders to pay for damages caused in clinic attacks" -- which was filed by the National Organization for Women (NOW) under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, and Terry settled with NOW out of court....According to a June 14, 2003, report by the conservative World Magazine (no longer available online, but reprinted on the right-wing bulletin board Free Republic), Terry solicited donations by declaring on his website that "The purveyors of abortion on demand have stripped Randall Terry of everything he owned," but failed to disclose that the money would be used to pay for his new $432,000 house. The report noted Terry's defense: "Terry told World that he wanted a home where his family will be safe and where 'we could entertain people of stature, people of importance. I have a lot of important people that come through my home. And I will have more important people come through my home.' " World noted that the same month he paid the deposit on his new home, a court ruled that Terry, who divorced his first wife and has remarried, "was not paying a fair share of child support." In an article on his website, Terry denounced the World report as "journalistic trash, a 'hit piece' of malice and misinformation."Terry's words and personal life have also stirred controversy. As the Fort Wayne (Indiana) News Sentinel reported on August 16, 1993, at an anti-abortion rally in Fort Wayne, Terry said "Our goal is a Christian nation. ... We have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism. ... Theocracy means God rules. I've got a hot flash. God rules."...According to the February 12, 2000, Washington Post report, Terry was censured by his church, the Landmark Church of Binghamton, New York, for a "pattern of repeated and sinful relationships and conversations with both single and married women." Terry denies the accusation.
Amazing.

And don't forget the heartwarming story of pro-life disability activist and situational pacifist Gary McCullough.
Amazing.
And the "mainstream media" gave these peace loving, Christ-like gents plenty of warm and fuzzy coverage, while missing these stories.
Amazing.
(Inspired by the work of Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon.net, S.Z. at World O'Crap and the others linked above.)

A Pro-Death Strategy that Everyone can agree on!

2005-03-30T09:02:00.000-05:00

If he has, then let's remove his feeding tube!

How the mighty have fallen!

2005-03-29T10:53:00.000-05:00

Those who live by the steroid shall die by the steroid.

A Matter of Opinion

2005-03-29T10:46:00.000-05:00

The Reverend Jerry Falwell preached on the topic of Terri Schiavo in his Easter Sunday sermon:

[T]erri, who is not on life support, has never been on life support, she had a feeding tube in. A month ago, I had a feeding tube and I was on a ventilator, but I was not in a persistent vegetative state --

Where was Michael Schiavo when we needed him?

Lacrosse Stars: Future & Past

2005-03-28T23:20:00.000-05:00

Jonathan G., (future) Johns Hopkins '17, currently defenseman & goalkeeper Linganore Lancers

2005-03-28T23:17:00.000-05:00

Jerry Schmidt, Johns Hopkins '62, Lacrosse Hall of Fame, the only lacrosse player featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated

Victory over the "Hoos" is always sweet!

2005-03-27T10:16:00.000-05:00

Freshman Paul Rabil scores 2 goals In Johns Hopkins' 9-7 win over UVA.

Irony of the Day

2005-03-24T10:02:00.000-05:00

According to the Washington Post, a sympathetic customer at a Potomac, MD seafood shop freed a 15 lb. lobster that had been destined to be sold and eaten:

...the oversized crustacean, estimated to be between 35 and 40 years old, yesterday began a 400-mile journey back to its home waters off the coast of Massachusetts. One of the lobster's admirers purchased it for $150 -- about $30 more than Grolig [the storeowner] paid the wholesaler -- and he agreed to coordinate the animal's liberation with help from his friends.

When last seen the lobster was wearing a button that said "Save Terri".

Rick (rhymes with "Dick") Santorum

2005-03-23T12:30:00.000-05:00

I've been reluctant to blog on the subject of Terri Schiavo.

In a coldly rational world, Mrs. Schiavo would be given a quick injection and have her brain dead existence ended. To kill her by dehydration is barbaric. To allow her to die by dehydration allows "us" to say that no individual is responsible for her death; she just died "naturally". We put up with this barbarism because (thankfully) we don't live in a coldly rational world. Killing by lethal injection is too close to the method used in the Nazi euthanasia scheme which eliminated the insane and "feeble-minded" because they were "unworthy of life". This was a slippery slope which ended in the horrors of Auschwitz. The American medical profession is rightfully reluctant to even approach this type of "rationality". Thus, we are stuck with "letting nature take its course".

Politicians and interest groups on the Right view this case as a "right-to-life case". Politicians and interest groups on the Left view it as a "right-to-die case". In my view it's neither. Mrs. Schiavo is brain dead. The C.T. scans (available on various web sites) show that the portions of her brain which control thought and "consciousness" have been largely filled with spinal fluid. For all intents and purposes Mrs. Schiavo is dead. It really doesn't matter if her body's functions stop today or twenty years from now--Terri Schiavo is gone and she ain't coming back.

This case fills me with sorrow. Having personally faced the decision (together with my sister) of attaching a "do not resuscitate" order to my father's chart and then explaining our reasoning to his lady friend, I am somewhat familiar with the pain involved.

However, we should never underestimate the ability of American politicians to use tragic events for their own personal political ends. My nomination for the most egregious offender in the Schiavo case is Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. His attempt to explain the Schiavo bill is ludicrous. His press release says:

The actions on the part of the Florida court are unconscionable. Yesterday in California, Scott Peterson, a convicted murderer, was sentenced to death, yet his constitutional rights were upheld to ensure the he received due process and fair consideration in court. The Florida court has been trying to ultimately end the life of Terri Schiavo, who committed no crime, but is being penalized for not filing a living will."

Gee, so that's what this is all about. Terri Schiavo didn't file a living will, so the Florida Court system has imposed the death penalty. Of course, if she had filed a living will and asked that no extraordinary measures be taken to keep her alive, Santorum would probably have wanted her jailed for attempted suicide.

This is the guy who has such a great devotion to the sanctity of human life that when his wife miscarried after 20 weeks:

The couple took Gabriel's [the fetus] body home to let their three other young children see and hold the baby before burying him, according to Karen Santorum's book of the ordeal, "Letters to Gabriel."

I'm surprised he didn't have it stuffed and use it in campaign ads.

Today, in reaction to U.S. District Judge James Whittemore's denial of a request for a temporary restraining order which would have required Terri Schiavo's feeding tube to be re-inserted pending a trial on the merits, Santorum had this reaction:

"You have judicial tyranny here," Santorum told WABC Radio in New York. "Congress passed a law that said that you had to look at this case. He simply thumbed his nose at Congress."

"What the statute that [Whittemore] was dealing with said was that he shall hold a trial de novo," the Pennsylvania Republican explained. "That means he has to hold a new trial. That's what the statute said."

No, Rick, what you have here is attempted Congressional tyranny. Congress passed a law that said that a federal judge had to hold a trial de novo. It didn't and couldn't dictate that the judge had to issue a t.r.o. and it didn't and couldn't dictate the outcome of the trial. That's why judges get to sit up in the Big Chair. They get to make the decisions. Congress gets to set the jurisdiction and even dictate the procedure for federal trials, but it doesn't get to say who wins.

Spring in Delaware!

2005-03-23T00:12:00.000-05:00

So much for global warming!

2005-03-20T19:37:00.000-05:00

Your own clockwork bird

Now, you, too, can get your own clockwork bluejay...

2005-03-20T19:17:00.000-05:00

robin, cardinal, yellow warbler, scarlet tanager, bluebird, or yellow throat. Well, maybe not clockwork, but electronic & mechanical. Through the wonders of Japanese technology, you can buy a plastic bird with a motion-activated photo-sensor which will chirp, sing and move its head and beak. I got my bluejay today and its perched on my computer. A metaphor become reality...for only $14.95! or less (mine must have been on sale) http://www.takara-usa.com/breezy/content.html

What is best in life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women! -- Conan the Barbarian

2005-03-18T22:56:00.000-05:00

Greg Peyser scores his third goal in over-time to lead the Johns Hopkins Bluejays to a 12-11 victory over the Syracuse Orange

There is no joy in Orangeville!

2005-03-18T21:53:00.000-05:00

Lacrosse: Hopkins 12-Syracuse 11 O.T.
NCAA Basketball First Round: Vermont 60-Syracuse 57 O.T.

The Department of Homeland Security has rushed psychiatric counselors to Syracuse, New York in the light of these terrorist attacks.

Steroid Hearings

2005-03-18T11:09:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I watched about 90% of the steroid hearings on Capitol Hill. Beyond Mark McGwire's shamefully evasive testimony ("I'm not here to talk about the past") and Sammy Sosa's admission by denial ("To be clear, I have never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs. I have never injected myself or had anyone inject me with anything. I've not broken the laws of the Unites States or the laws of the Dominican Republic", translation "I took oral steroids in the Dominican Republic where they're legal"), I was amazed by Rob Manfred, MLB's chief labor negotiator. This jerk epitomizes the arrogance and thick-headedness of Major League Baseball. His grimaces and yelling when caught in half-truths and misstatements were a sight to behold. He made Bud ("Buy a used-car or a porous drug enforcement regime from me") Selig look positively avuncular. I am a baseball fan. This performance on Capitol Hill makes me sad and ashamed.

Spring is on the way?

2005-03-18T10:57:00.000-05:00

Winter in historic New Market, MD. That's why I haven't been blogging

Hopkins vs. Syracuse tonight at 7:00 in the Carrier Dome. March Madness lacrosse style.

2005-03-18T10:56:00.000-05:00

Do you think these guys like each other?

Hunter S. Thompson's Eulogy for Richard Nixon

2005-02-23T08:54:00.000-05:00

Rolling Stone
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
'He was a crook'
Jun 16, 1994

MEMO FROM THE NATIONAL AFFAIRS DESK

DATE: MAY 1, 1994

FROM: DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON

SUBJECT: THE DEATH OF RICHARD NIXON:

NOTES ON THE PASSING OF AN AMERICAN MONSTER....HE WAS A LIAR ND A QUITTER, AND HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN BURIED AT SEA. ...BUT HE WAS, AFTER ALL, THE PRESIDENT.
SUBJECT: THE DEATH OF RICHARD NIXON:

"And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is becoming the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird."--REVELATION 18:2

Richard Nixon is gone now and I am poorer for it. He was the real thing--a political monster straight out of Grendel and a very dangerous enemy. He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time. He lied to his friends and betrayed the trust of his family. Not even Gerald Ford, the unhappy ex-president who pardoned Nixon and kept him out of prison, was immune to the evil fallout. Ford, who believes strongly in Heaven and Hell, has told more than one of his celebrity golf partners that I know I will go to hell, because I pardoned Richard Nixon."

I have had my own bloody relationship with Nixon for many years, but I am not worried about it landing me in hell with him. I have already been there with that bastard, and I am a better person for it. Nixon had the unique ability to make his enemies seem honorable, and we developed a keen sense of fraternity. Some of my best friends have hated Nixon all their lives. My mother hates Nixon, my son hates Nixon, I hate Nixon, and this hatred has brought us together.

Nixon laughed when I told him this. "Don't worry," he said. "I, too, am a family man, and we feel the same way about you."

It was Richard Nixon who got me into politics, and now that he's gone, I feel lonely. He was a giant in his way. As long as Nixon was politically alive--and he was, all theway to the end--we could always be sure of finding the enemy on the Low Road. There was no need to look anywhere else for the evil bastard. He had the fighting instincts of a badger trapped by hounds. The badger will roll over on its back and emit a smell of death, which confuses the dogs and lures them in for the traditional ripping and tearing action. But it is usually the badger who does the ripping and tearing. It is a beast that fights best on its back: rolling under the throat of the enemy and seizing it by the head with all four claws.

That was Nixon's style--and if you forgot, he would kill you as a lesson to the others. Badgers don't fight fair, bubba. That's why God made dachshunds.

............

If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.

These are harsh words for a man only recently canonized by President Clinton and my old friend George McGovern--but I have written worse things about Nixon, many times, and the record will show that I kicked him repeatedly long before he went down. I beat him like a mad dog with mange every time I got a chance, and I am proud of it. He was scum.

Let there be no mistake in the history books about that. Richard Nixon was an evil man--evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it. He was utterly without ethics or morals or any bedrock sense of decency. Nobody trusted him--except maybe the Stalinist Chinese, and honest historians will remember him mainly as a rat who kept scrambling to get back on the ship.

.............
Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective Journalism--which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place. He looked so good on paper that you could almost vote for him sight unseen. He seemed so all-American, so much like Horatio Alger, that he was able to slip through the cracks of Objective Journalism. You had to get Subjective to see Nixon clearly, and the shock of recognition was often painful.

Latest Republican Agit-Prop

2005-02-22T10:11:00.000-05:00

Who knew that AARP hated U.S. troops & loved gays?

From Thursday's Washington Post

2005-02-10T23:27:00.000-05:00

Montgomery Animal Watch
Thursday, February 10, 2005
The following were among cases received recently by the Montgomery County Animal Services Division:
Series of Unfortunate Cat Events GERMANTOWN, 21000 block, Jan. 27.
A cat's head became stuck inside a can of clam chowder. A woman in a nearby vehicle saw the cat in distress and got out to help. She was able to pull the can off the cat's head without harm, but the frightened cat scratched her on the arm, ran and leapt into her car. She tried unsuccessfully to coax the cat out and called Animal Services, which provided her with a humane trap. The woman put the trap in her car, but the cat opted to jump from an open car window and escaped. The woman was referred to the Montgomery County Health Department for rabies risk evaluation. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11316-2005Feb9.html

Tom Boswell is a big fat idiot!

2005-02-10T13:12:00.000-05:00

Good old Boz, the groundhog of the Washington Post, who after spending the last thirty-four years seeing his shadow and annually deciding that Major League Baseball was imminently returning to Washington, has now taken up the cudgels for MLB against Jose Canseco.

Canseco, one of the more despicable idiots to play our national past-time, has outed several ballplayers as users of illegal steroids. Boswell in his February 8 column http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6271-2005Feb7.html asks the pointed question:

[Canseco] The former slugger lied for years about his own steroid use, so why would we suddenly believe he's telling the truth when he smears Mark McGwire, Ivan Rodriguez, Rafael Palmeiro and Juan Gonzalez with accusations of being juiced?

Perhaps we should believe him because he was a steroid user.

It is rare when a person of high moral fiber and impeccable reputation rats out his friends and/or co-workers. Noted authority on rats, Joe Valachi, the Mafia informer, said:

In the circle in which I travel, a dumb man is more dangerous than a hundred rats.

Valachi was eminently qualified in this area because he was dumb as well as a rat. He also said:

You can imagine my embarrassment when I killed the wrong guy.

Sammy "the Bull" Gravano, another Mafia rat, admitted to playing a part in the murder of 19 people. The Bull's testimony helped send John Gotti, Vincent "the Chin" Gigante, Thomas Gambino, and numerous other "pillars of the community" to federal penitentiaries. John Dean, Richard Nixon's in-house shyster, testified before the Senate Watergate committee as to his boss' various criminal conspiracies (in which he, Dean, took an active role) and helped (thankfully) drive him from office. In short, squealers are not normally members of the Little Sisters of the Poor; they are slimy creatures who turn on their own kind in exchange for immunity from prosecution, money, fame, or all of the above.

But Boz doesn't see this obvious truth, he says:

Whether the claims are true or not, Canseco's motives are so tainted that his charges are doubly suspect. In a court of law, his testimony would be wildly inadmissible. But even in our current slipshod court of public opinion, he may find that his scattershot charges may be mocked.

No, Canseco's claims would admissible in a court of law, particularly his eyewitness testimony that he, personally, helped St. Mark McGwire shoot up with steroids in a bathroom stall.

Boz hastens to defend McGwire an admitted user of the now banned substance andro, a steroid precursor, because Canseco is a bad man (a convicted wife-beater) who used steroids himself. I am reminded of the furor that occurred in 1970 when Jim Bouton in his book Ball Four exposed St. Mickey Mantle as an amphetamine popping, alcoholic lout. Bouton was attacked viciously as a liar, a drunk, and a washed-up pitcher exposing his Yankee teammates for money (He wasn't invited back to Yankee Stadium until 1998). Perhaps Bouton who has been vindicated in his accusations over the years should have been consulted by Boz on steroid use. When asked if the number of players using steroids surprised him, he replied:

No, not at all. How could I be surprised? In the 1970s, half of the guys in the big leagues were taking greenies, and if we had steroids, we would have taken those, too. I said in "Ball Four," if there was a pill that could guarantee you would win 20 games but would take five years off of your life, players would take it. The only thing I didn't know at the time was the name.

Boz, wake up and smell the coffee. Baseball is back in Washington (at last) and baseball players have and will cheat if given the opportunity.

Tort Reform

2005-02-09T11:01:00.000-05:00

Many years ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was a practicing attorney. So, yesterday, I had more than a passing interest in the Senate committee hearing on tort reform broadcast on
C-Span radio. (Yeah, I know, I'm a news junky). Several witnesses testified about the effects of the California tort reform system. California adopted a $250,000 cap on non-economic loss i(that is "pain and suffering") in 1975 (it has never been adjusted for inflation). Prominently featured at the hearing was the Olsen family whose 12 year old son was left blind and brain damaged due to egregious medical malpractice. Though a California jury awarded the Olsens $7,000,000 (they were not allowed to be informed of the cap), the award was reduced by the trial judge to the statutory maximum of $250,000.

Our Beloved Leader has argued that malpractice litigation is one of the prime reasons for the high cost of medical care in the U.S. I don't understand this.

First, the number of doctors has increased in every state of the union 1996 in both absolute terms and per 100,000 of population.

Second, malpractice insurance rates have increased 190% in California since the adoption of the $250,000 cap. In fact, in every state where economic caps have been adopted malpractice insurance rates have increased not decreased.

Third, the Congressional Budget Office has found that so-called defensive medicine (i.e. unnecessary tests) is primarily motivated by the income it generates for doctors not fears of malpractice claims.

I know that plaintiff's attorneys are not all spotless knights in search of truth and justice for their clients. I also know that most physicians are not hurting for money. It's been awhile since I've seen a doctor moonlighting as a greeter at the local Wal-Mart. But I have never heard the White House criticize either doctors or insurance companies or insurance brokers.

You might remember that Marsh & McLennan, the nation's largest insurance broker, agreed to settle a lawsuit by refunding $850,000,000 to their customers and apologizing for bid rigging of its contingent fees last week. This law suit was brought by the New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, not the Justice Department. Aon Corp. the country's second largest insurance broker announced today that it has set aside $50,000,000 to settle any potential lawsuit concerning its contingent fees.

I don't understand why contingent fees by plaintiff's attorneys are inherently evil and contingent fees charged by insurance brokers which have a clear and direct impact on the price of liability insurance are ignored by the White House. If malpractice insurance is such a clear contributor to the cost of health care, shouldn't the federal government take action?

Psychic Mindreader

2005-02-09T10:25:00.000-05:00

I have to admit that it took me 3 times to figure this out. Try it and be amazed!
http://www.dslextreme.com/users/exstatica/psychic.swf

2005-02-02T11:39:00.000-05:00

Blue Jay: Smarter than Pond Scum?
(Click to enlarge)

"When Resarchers Wanted to Better Understand Men..They Decided to Look at Pond Scum..."

2005-01-31T15:30:00.000-05:00

University of Massachusetts scientists have teamed up with a Norwegian company, SpermaTech, to create a male birth control pill some 50 years after the development of the female pill (The Pill). The approach involves turning off the tails of sperm that allow the sperm to swim to a woman's egg for fertilization.

"When researchers at the foundation, its scientific operations merged with UMass in 1997, wanted to better understand how they might be able to prevent men from reproducing, they decided to look at pond scum. Algae are propelled through water by flagella, microscopic engines of locomotion. And, it turns out, sperm use similar structures for movement, said George B. Witman III, a UMass cell biologist. For many years, people probably wondered why we were interested in studying pond scum," Witman said. 'Pretty much anybody studying male sperm would acknowledge the debt we owe green algae. When you get down to the cellular level, the building blocks are essentially the same.' "

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2005/01/31/way_seen_to_male_birth_control_pill?pg=2

SPEECHLESS

2005-01-31T14:36:00.000-05:00

Today, MSNBC (and others) published an article telling us that free speech no longer matters:

The way many high school students see it, government censorship of newspapers may not be a bad thing, and flag burning is hardly protected free speech.

It turns out the First Amendment is a second-rate issue to many of those nearing their own adult independence, according to a study of high school attitudes released Monday.
The original amendment to the Constitution is the cornerstone of the way of life in the United States, promising citizens the freedoms of religion, speech, press and assembly.
Yet, when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes “too far” in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.

I am speechless over this, although it is not surprising given the current trend of the Bush Administration to control the media by paying commentators to promote its agenda. But to believe that the text of the First Amendment goes "too far" is scary. Schools no longer receive funding to teach journalism classes or political science; I guess this is somehow related to the No Child Left Behind plan.

I researched this survey and discovered that it is sponsored by the John S. and James Knight Foundation, http://www.knightfdn.org, established by the Knight newspaper brothers. I am sure that based on this origin, some paid commentator will suggest the liberal media somehow fixed these results to scare the public. But the survey seems legitimate--about 113,00 students, teachers, and administrators at 544 schools nationwide were questioned over the past two years.

Isn't it ironic that this attitude has become apparent at the same time the Administration has vowed to spread American freedoms and values across the globe.

Maybe they could name the baby Stuart Little...Nah, that's the other way.

2005-01-28T22:48:00.000-05:00

The National Geographic considers the ethical problems created by "chimera" (human/animal hybrids) :

"For example, an experiment that would raise concerns, he said, is genetically engineering mice to produce human sperm and eggs, then doing in vitro fertilization to produce a child whose parents are a pair of mice."
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01/0125_050125_chimeras.html

Is this the line for the chair lift?

2005-01-28T20:33:00.000-05:00

WHERE'S WALDO? V.P. CHENEY DRESSED FOR SNOWBLOWING AT AUSCHWITZ

God Hates Shrimp!

2005-01-27T10:46:00.000-05:00

Our brand new Secretary Of Education has declared jihad on PBS, in general, and Buster Bunny, in particular.

The nation's new education secretary denounced PBS on Tuesday for spending public money on a cartoon with lesbian characters, saying many parents would not want children exposed to such lifestyles.
The not-yet-aired episode of ``Postcards From Buster'' shows the title character, an animated bunny named Buster, on a trip to Vermont -- a state known for recognizing same-sex civil unions. The episode features two lesbian couples, although the focus is on farm life and maple sugaring. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Education-Secretary-PBS.html?oref=login&oref=login

If you want to check out this outrageous lesbian scene click here: http://pbskids.org/buster/blog/vt_hinesburg_bl.html
[NOTE: Due to the hot nature of this scene PBS has removed it from its website]

This pisses me off. I've been after PBS and the other networks to stop showing forbidden seafood on the public airwaves. Those Red Lobster commercials with their flogging of "Lobster Fest" offend me. The fact that the networks have shown the immoral Forrest Gump with its glorification of shrimp and shrimp fishing utterly disgusts me. We know God hates shrimp! http://www.godhatesshrimp.com/ As God has clearly said in Deuteronomy 14:9-10:

"Whatsoever hath not fins and scales ye may not eat; it is unclean unto you. "

I think that we need a new cabinet position: the Department of Biblical Interpretation. There is controversy between our fundamentalist Christian brethren and the orthodox Jewish heathens as to the morality of showing cheeseburgers on McDonald's commercials. There seems to be controversy between our Amish brethren and some other Christians as to the morality of depicting actual full-frontal automobile driving on network television. It will be the mission of the Department of Biblical Interpretation to determine which of the many prohibitions enunciated by God in Deuteronomy and Leviticus are in full force and effect and advise the F.C.C. as to what cannot be depicted on television. It is of paramount importance that we create this department quickly as something called the "Super Bowl" is scheduled for the Christian Sabbath on February 6. Some might find it offensive for such blatant Sabbath-breaking to be shown on the public airwaves.

THAT TIME OF THE MONTH

2005-01-24T17:04:00.000-05:00

Apparently scientists have determined that January 24 is "the most depressing day of the year." So, if anyone reading this has had a bad day, there is a mathematical explanation:

"Dr. Cliff Arnall's calculations show that misery peaks Monday. [January 24]
Arnall, who specializes in seasonal disorders at the University of Cardiff, Wales, created a formula that takes into account numerous feelings to devise peoples' lowest point.
The model is: [W + (D-d)] x TQ M x NA
The equation is broken down into seven variables: (W) weather, (D) debt, (d) monthly salary, (T) time since Christmas, (Q) time since failed quit attempt, (M) low motivational levels and (NA) the need to take action."

According to an article published on MSNBC, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6847012/, Jan. 24 is the date by which most people have received their holiday bills, broken their New Year's resolutions, and are experiencing the effects of winter weather. Of course, this study was funded by a travel group seeking to convince peole of the need to take trips to warm, sunny places after the holidays.

Not with a Bang but a Whimper

2005-01-23T20:24:00.000-05:00

If there was a towering figure on the American literary scene in the '60's and early '70's, it was Norman Mailer. The author of novels like The Naked and the Dead and An American Dream, as well as (and perhaps more importantly) non-fiction like Advertisements for Myself, The Armies of the Night, and The Executioner's Song dominated American arts and letters as well as the artistic Left like no one since Hemingway. What better person to address the question posed by Parade Magazine: "If you could do one thing to change America for the better, what would it be?" Mailer's answer: ban television commercials.

I guess he couldn't figure out how to work his TiVo.

Why is it okay to call someone a liar and wrongheaded, but not okay to say she's a puppet?

2005-01-22T21:40:00.000-05:00

Colbert King seems to have fallen for Condoleezza Rice. Either that or he's gone stark blooming bonkers. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27818-2005Jan21.html

In a column in the Washington Post entitled "Why the Crass Remarks about Rice?", King says that Rice:

"one of the principal architects of the administration's Iraq policy, was clearly vulnerable to charges of helping produce a misguided, if not misleading, rationale for the Iraqi invasion, as well as poor postwar planning". But Senator Barbara Boxer " rather than sticking to Rice's performance as national security adviser and her qualifications to direct U.S. foreign policy, [Boxer] chose instead to gratuitously characterize [Rice] as a Bush loyalist who was blindly parroting pro-Iraqi war lines without regard for whether they were true".

Then King attempts to come to the Secretary-Designate's rescue:

Boxer said to Rice: "I personally believe -- this is my personal view -- that your loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell the war, overwhelmed your respect for the truth." Loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell the war. Ponder the weight of that statement. It comes close, at least in spirit, to the picture of Rice sketched by political cartoonist Pat Oliphant a few weeks ago. In case you missed it, Oliphant drew a big-lipped, bucktooth Rice perched like a parrot on President Bush's arm. Bush was speaking to Rice in baby talk, with Rice replying: "Awwrk!! OK Chief. Anything you say, Chief. You Bet, Chief. You're my HERO, Chief.

The key is the magic words "It comes close at least in spirit..."
In other words, King has a little beef with Boxer but he's really pissed at Oliphant and also some talk-show knucklehead in Wisconsin named "Sly":

"But slurring her as a hollow-headed marionette controlled by Bush? What's that all about? It calls to mind John Sylvester, a white radio talk show host in Madison, Wis., who recently went Boxer and Oliphant one better -- or worse. "Sly," as he calls himself, went on the air and caricatured Rice as a servile black, laboring slavishly for the Bush White House. He called her, of all things, an "Aunt Jemima."
The Boxer-Oliphant-Sylvester take on Condoleezza Rice stands in sharp contrast to the assessment offered by Dorothy Height, chair and president emerita of the National Council of Negro Women, who wrote in a letter to The Post this week: "Despite the challenges she will face, Ms. Rice's appointment is a time for women of color to smile."
Of course, Height's grouping didn't include folks such as the senator, the cartoonist and "Sly."

"It comes close at least in spirit..." and "It calls to mind..." WTF? Somehow Boxer's questioning the Secretary of State Designate on her unbounded loyalty to the President links Boxer with a cartoon portraying Ms. Rice as "big lipped & bucktoothed" and some radio nut calling her an "Aunt Jemima". Only in Colbert King's mind...

Somehow King has divined that Rice is no puppet--she's been running the show!

" As I was leaving a Post dining room after participating in my first off-the-record session with Rice and other Post editors and reporters a couple of years ago, it struck me that Rice could be where Bush gets it from. Subsequent meetings only have reinforced that supposition. Rice's notions of preemption, unilateralism and America's responsibilities as the dominant power in the world are not hand-me-downs from Bush. They strike me as very much her own."

See, Boxer, Oliphant, and "Sly" (whoever the hell, he is) have got it all wrong. Rice isn't a "Aunt Jemima" parroting what her master, the President, wants her to say--she's a Machiavellian, lying bitch from hell who has twisted the moronic President around her little finger. And what's King's evidence for this (other than his"supposition")? Rice is "a former Stanford University provost who managed a $1.5 billion budget, 1,400 faculty members and 14,000 students".

Wow! She's no puppet--she's an academic bureaucrat! No wonder she can influence a stupid Texan to follow "her" foreign policy--she's a veteran of the trenches of Academe.

To cut out the malarkey (No, I wasn't going to say "to call a spade..."), Colbert King seems to see some kind of racism in Boxer's criticism of Ms. Rice. He doesn't use the word, but his point in using images like "big-lipped" and "bucktoothed" in describing the Oliphant cartoon and dredging up "Sly's" characterization of Rice as an "Aunt Jemima" from the lost air waves of Wisconsin make it clear where he's coming from.

But isn't the Machiavellian Black woman subtlely influencing the White boss, just as racist an image? You don't have to be a racist to question Ms. Rice qualifications as Secretary of State. You just have had to have read the 9/11 Report and watched her lying testimony in support of her President and his/her policies.

The Second Coming

2005-01-22T19:05:00.001-05:00

I read this for the first time when I was a senior in high school. I remember feeling that it could have been written that morning. Every time I've read it since then, I've had the same feeling. Maybe it's that sense of immediacy that makes this a great poem. Then again, maybe it's just a great poem.

The Second Coming

W. B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all around it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Brain Food

2005-01-21T22:19:00.000-05:00

VESTAL, N.Y. (The Home of the Fighting Bearcats of Binghamton University) -- A piece of sheep's brain from an anatomy class at a high school near Binghamton, New York, was taken out of the class and put in some salad dressing in the school cafeteria, according to officials. Police are investigating Wednesday's food-tampering incident at Vestal High School. School officials said a student found the piece of brain at the bottom of a container of dressing at the salad bar. Students used some of the dressing before the material was discovered, but officials say there's no evidence anyone ate any of the preserved brain matter, and no one has reported getting sick.

Parents were sent a letter informing them about the incident. Health department officials say there wasn't enough preservative in the brain matter to cause health problems.

But was there enough preservative to prevent health problems from decay? Ahh, there's the rub, getting just enough preservative to prevent decay but not enough to cause health problems.

VACATION PARADISE

2005-01-21T16:48:00.000-05:00

All the recent whirl of activity in D.C. has gotten the Parkers to thinking that it might be a good time to get out of town and take a vacation. And while the Bluejays are absorbed in planning for their summer escape Down Under, the Parkers are not quite so decisive. Today's USA Today offers some suggestions ranging from a volunteer mission to Thailand to help clean up Tsunami damage-- good for the soul, maybe not so good for the spirit-- to a spa retreat at the exclusive Elk Mountain Resort in Telluride, Colorado. Refreshing to the spirit, I think, and click on the website http://www.elkmountainresort.com/index.cfm.

Listening to a new age symphony, I view photos of mountain views, candlelit suites, and gourmet dinners. Then I notice the activities: climbing, spa treatments and courses in carrying concealed weapons, combat shooting, the use of an M16 , and my favorite, Executive Cane Fighting. ( " This four hour course is designed specifically for those on the move who do not have the opportunity to be more effectively armed, but could carry a cane in their everyday life. This short course is designed to convey a few efficient and effective techniques that anyone can easily learn and retain, which could mean the difference between life & death during a violent attack. Students learn how to use the cane to create distance, avoid an attack, control an attacker and launch their own counter-strikes. Cost: $250 plus cane purchase, if necessary").

And here's a fun event for a family reunion-- Live Fire Scenario Day-- for just $100 and the cost of ammunition, you and six guests can spend up to eight hours shooting at cardboard people and each other! "The centerpiece of the Valhalla Facility is the Scenario House. Here guests shoot for entertainment or education under the supervision of our staff. Inside the scenario house, guests engage 3-D, automated and reactive targets....Or even Each Other (with proper safety equipment and Soft-Air or AirMunition's training pistols)."http://www.valhallashootingclub.com/training.asp (If you view this web site, also check out the "staff," many of whom declined to be photographed).

So, there it is. Two soulful vacation options. I think we may just have to go to Disney World.

TASTES LIKE CHICKEN?

2005-01-21T14:04:00.000-05:00

A student in rural Ohio served up guinea pig and rabbit to his classmates in a high school living skills program.

"The student-whose name was not released-described what he did in terms of harvesting meat to fix a dish for classmates, Gage said.
The principal described the boy as an active hunter. The Ledgemont district covers the rural communities of Montville and Thompson townships, where killing - and then eating - wild game is fairly common.
The hunt, however, usually doesn't take place at Pet Supplies Plus."

Authorities are considering bringing charges of animal cruelty against the boy, whose teacher allowed him to display the furry carcasses to classmates, skin the animals , and pass around samples of the cooked meat. http://www.cleveland.com/education/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/geauga/1106303675248671.xml

A Thought for the Next Four Years

2005-01-21T01:38:00.000-05:00

Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its conditions are improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are a delusional spin from the liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effect. Why do you hate freedom?

GIVE ME LIBERTY

2005-01-21T01:31:00.000-05:00

Led by Inauguaral Chair Trent Lott, a man whose political demise was engineered by the first Bush Administration, and following stirring renditions of songs written by our most talented conservatives (John Ashcroft and Orrin Hatch), George W. Bush was sworn into office for a second term, liberally tossing out the words freedom and liberty some fifty times in his 1800 word speech:

"At this second gathering, our duties are defined not by the words I use but by the history we
have seen together. For a half a century, America defended our own freedom by standing watch on distant borders. After the shipwreck of communism came years of relative quiet, years of repose, years of sabbatical. And then there came a day of fire. "

So, the President and his advisors were clearing some brush during the first term and missed the pre-9-11 warnings, and I guess the Clinton Administration was merely reposing as it sent envoys to the actual distant borders of the Middle East to negotiate peace.

"We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world. "

So, examples of liberty in our land would include the rooftop snipers, the chain link fences, the banning of apples and fruit from the parade route.... See http://www.dc.indymedia.org

"This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary. Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own. "

I guess the freedom chosen by our allies in the war on terrorism (and defended by our soldiers) in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tibet, Chechneya,Egypt, and Morrocco just reflects different customs from ours.

"America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal, instead, is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom and make their own way. "

And this would be reflected in the 30,000 or so Iraqis who live here but who will go to the Ramada Inn in New Carrrollton, Md to vote for a government in a country in which they no longer live. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16474-2005Jan17.html . This would also be reflected in the tolerance the Administration is showing toward the 58 million people who did not vote for this Administration.

I won't belabor this, everyone can draw their own conclusions. I can't wait for the State of the Union...

Inauguration Day Special

2005-01-20T23:34:00.000-05:00

New Poster For The Office of Homeland Security

WE HAVE OUR WAYS OF MAKING YOU TOLERANT!

2005-01-20T22:10:00.000-05:00

Sponges are useful in brainwashing!

Wacko Dobson Whacks Spongebob

2005-01-20T21:24:00.000-05:00

Dr. James ("I like to whack children & dogs") Dobson has now taken on Spongebob Squarepants. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/20/politics/20sponge.html?oref=login&oref=login&oref=login
Spongebob hasn't been my particular cup of tea (I'm a Samurai Jack fan), but anything that provokes Dobson's ire must be better than I thought.
Do these wingnuts ever realize how absolutely looney they sound when they tilt at their windmills?

More about shockwave lithotripsy than you wanted to know

2005-01-20T21:10:00.000-05:00

Extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy (ESWL) is the most frequently used procedure for the treatment of kidney stones. In ESWL, shock waves that are created outside the body travel through the skin and body tissues until they hit the denser stones. The stones break down into sand-like particles and are easily (I hope!) passed through the urinary tract in the urine.

Extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy(Oh my God! They cut off his head!)

There are several types of ESWL devices. In one device, the patient reclines in a water bath while the shock waves are transmitted. Other devices have a soft cushion on which the patient lies. Most devices use either x rays or ultrasound to help the surgeon pinpoint the stone during treatment. For most types of ESWL procedures, anesthesia is needed. (No! Demanded)

In some cases, ESWL may be done on an outpatient basis. Recovery time is short, and most people can resume normal activities in a few days.

Complications may occur with ESWL. Most patients have blood in their urine for a few days after treatment. Bruising and minor discomfort in the back or abdomen from the shock waves are also common. To reduce the risk of complications, doctors usually tell patients to avoid taking aspirin and other drugs that affect blood clotting for several weeks before treatment.

Another complication may occur if the shattered stone particles cause discomfort(!) as they pass through the urinary tract. In some cases, the doctor will insert a small tube called a stent through the bladder into the ureter to help the fragments pass. Sometimes the stone is not completely shattered with one treatment, and additional treatments may be needed. ESWL is not ideal when stones are larger than 2 centimeters (mine is allegedly 8cm, uh oh!), about 0.8 inches. Is this what Alberto Gonzales calls waterboarding?

2005-01-20T09:12:00.000-05:00

What if you don't know anything?

Words of Wisdom from the late Dr. Zevon

2005-01-20T01:07:00.000-05:00

Readers of this blog, may recall that lately I've been having adventures with the medical establishment. (See, "C.B.'s Big Adventure", December 8, 2004 http://aclockworkbluejay.blogspot.com/2004_12_01_aclockworkbluejay_archive.html). Two weeks ago, a very good friend of my died, unexpectedly, in an absurd accident. This Friday, I get to experience the tender mercies of the disciples of Hippocrates again when I get a kidney stone "blasted".

For some reason, I've been listening to the songs of the late, great Warren Zevon. Two of them seem to "speak" to me in a very direct way.

The first is a cheerful little ditty entitled "My Shits Fucked Up":

Well, I went to the doctor I said,
"I'm feeling kind of rough"
He said, "I'll break it to you, son
Your shit's fucked up."
I said, "my shit's fucked up?"
Well, I don't see how--"
He said, "The shit that used to work--
It won't work now."

I had a dream
Ah, shucks, oh, well
Now it's all fucked up It's shot to hell
Yeah, yeah, my shit's fucked up
It has to happen to the best of us
The rich folks suffer like the rest of us
It'll happen to you
That amazing grace
Sort of passed you by

You wake up every day
And you start to cry
Yeah, you want to die
But you just can't quit
Let me break it on down:
It's the fucked up shit

The second seems oddly appropriate for people (like myself) who have entered their second semi-century and have intimations of mortality:

Don't let us get sick
Don't let us get old
Don't let us get stupid, all right?
Just make us be brave
And make us play nice
And let us be together tonight

The sky was on fire
When I walked to the mill
To take up the slack in the line
I thought of my friends
And the troubles they've had
To keep me from thinking of mine

Don't let us get sick
Don't let us get old
Don't let us get stupid, all right?
Just make us be brave
And make us play nice
And let us be together tonight

The moon has a face
And it smiles on the lake
And causes the ripples in Time
I'm lucky to be here
With someone I like
Who maketh my spirit to shine

Don't let us get sick
Don't let us get old
Don't let us get stupid, all right?
Just make us be brave
And make us play nice
And let us be together tonight.

I've begun to feel that once you let doctors start poking, prodding, and cutting you (much less blasting you with sonic waves), you've let them take control of your destiny. Maybe the best we can do is follow John Cheever's advice in the Wapshot Chronicle:

"Fear tastes like a rusty knife and do not let her into your house. Courage tastes of blood. Stand up straight. Admire the world. Relish the love of a gentle woman. Trust in the Lord."

This is not Titan, Mars, or Tolkien's Mt. Doom

2005-01-20T01:01:00.000-05:00

The cloud-cloaked peaks of Semeru, Java’s highest mountain, and its smaller neighbor Mount Bromo seem newly formed at first light. This is a photograph (not a painting) from National Geographic. (left click to enlarge).

Rosebud...

2005-01-19T21:40:00.000-05:00

Ruth Warrick, who played Charles Foster Kane's first wife, Emily, has died. She was the last survivor of the featured members of the cast of Citizen Kane (the Mercury Players). Only the two juveniles, Sonny Bupp, who played Kane's son, and Buddy Swann, who played the young Kane, remain.

JURY OF ONE'S PEERS

2005-01-19T14:29:00.000-05:00

What is this world coming to when a Tennessee trailer park resident accused of striking her brother's girlfriend in the face with a brick can't seat the following citizens on her jury? 1) a drug addict ("I'm high as a kite); 2) an alcoholic with a history of soliciting prostitutes ("should have known she was a police officer, she had teeth"); 3) an alleged attempted murderer ("shot my nephew because he wouldn't come out from under the bed") and 4) a man who said it was common knowledge that the defense attorney, Leslie Ballin, only represents guilty folks. Despite the challenges, a jury was seated and acquitted the defendant. http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/18/shallow.jury.pool

Part-time Job Vacancy in Texas?

2005-01-18T13:02:00.000-05:00

The SAT I is now requiring a mandatory essay as part of the test. The College Board and Educational Testing Service (the developer of the test) have gone to great lengths to assure parents and students that he grading of the essay will not be subjective. In an attempt to demystify the process, the College Board allowed a Washington Post reporter to sit in on a pilot scoring session last week that is like the ones that will be used to train thousands of part-time test scorers around the country. The reporter agreed not to divulge questions that could be used in future tests but was otherwise free to describe what took place at the meeting. In the resulting front page article in Sunday's Post, in a discussion about scoring:

An essay that does little more than restate the question gets a 1. An essay that compares humans to squirrels -- if a squirrel told other squirrels about its food store, it would die, therefore secrecy is necessary for survival -- merits a 5. Brian A. Bremen, an English professor at the University of Texas at Austin, notes that the writer provides only one real example. Nevertheless, he says, the writer displays "a clear chain of thought" and should be rewarded, "despite his Republican tendencies."

I'd like to think Professor Bremen was "joshing" in that good, old boy Texas way. I'd also like to think a professor at the University of Texas has enough brains not to josh about "Republican tendencies" (at least in front of a reporter for the Washington Post). Want to bet somebody in Texas is looking for a new part-time gig?

Everyone seems to be doing this: 10 Random Songs from mp-3 Player

2005-01-16T11:52:00.000-05:00

Sail Away--Randy Newman
Baba O'Reilly--The Who
Time Has Come Today--Chambers Brothers
Take This Job and Shove It--Johnny Paycheck
That Thing You Do--New Found Glory
I Fought the Law--Clash
Knock on Wood--Wilson Pickett
Mission Impossible--Moby
Bittersweet Symphony--Verve
6 Days on the Road--Gram Parsons & Fallen Angels

All I can say, is that I'm depressingly OLD.

Titan Ain't the Kind of Place to Raise Your Kids

2005-01-15T22:17:00.000-05:00

The Sirens of Titan

Get your bleeding heart t-shirt

2005-01-15T01:40:00.001-05:00

http://www.threadless.com/product/59/Bleeding_Heart courtesy of Majikthise http://majikthise.typepad.com/