Today’s Pic: An architectural detail on the Hotel Adolphus in
A baroque masterpiece opened in 1912, The Adolphus Dallas hotel ushered in a grand new era of sophisticated
One of the better hotels I’ve stayed in…it really is “a baroque masterpiece,” inside and out.
February, 2004.Open to all…with certain limitations:
Although Google posted in Gmail's help that "anyone in the world is now welcome to create a Gmail account at mail.google.com/mail/signup", Google's definition of the world was pretty limited.
Gmail is now a public beta in
I’ve used GMail for well over two years now, or is it three? One forgets. But…I really like it, and that’s an understatement. As I’ve said before: Google’s gonna own the world. It’s just a matter of time.
Speaking of Google…this is fun. And photos! I never had any reason to go to the Googleplex while I lived in SFO, but now I wish I had.
A breath of fresh air… “Global Warming and Hot Air.” In yesterday’s WaPo. Excerpts:
You could be excused for thinking that we'll soon do something serious about global warming. Last Friday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- an international group of scientists -- concluded that, to a 90 percent probability, human activity is warming the Earth. Earlier, Democratic congressional leaders made global warming legislation a top priority; and 10 big
Don't be fooled. The dirty secret about global warming is this: We have no solution. About 80 percent of the world's energy comes from fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas), the main sources of man-made greenhouse gases. Energy use sustains economic growth, which -- in all modern societies -- buttresses political and social stability. Until we can replace fossil fuels or find practical ways to capture their emissions, governments will not sanction the deep energy cuts that would truly affect global warming.
[…]
Anyone who honestly examines global energy trends must reach these harsh conclusions. In 2004, world emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2, the main greenhouse gas) totaled 26 billion metric tons. Under plausible economic and population assumptions, CO2emissions will grow to 40 billion tons by 2030, projects the International Energy Agency. About three-quarters of the increase is forecast to come from developing countries, two-fifths from
Which, in part, is why the infamous Kyoto Protocol does not make any sense, and why the Senate, during the
As you know, I oppose the Kyoto Protocol because it exempts 80 percent of the world, including major population centers such as
The President is correct. The Kyoto Protocol is just so much window dressing, a sort of “feel good” initiative that doesn’t accomplish a dang thing…even if the nations that signed on (I’m looking at you, EU) actually complied with the protocol. And yet we have idjits like Chirac threatening the US with sanctions additional taxes on our exports if we don’t sign on to
Here’s another right-on-target essay on the subject at Café Hayek.
This short-run basic human pleasure most Americans get from warmer weather helps people feel good about being skeptical about the data and the science. How seriously can you take the scientific consensus when there's a debate about whether to use 90% or 99% as the likelihood that we're changing the earth's climate? That's not science. That's politics. How seriously can you take the scientific consensus when there are serious scientists suggesting the whole thing is a hoax. Jeff Jacoby lists a few here. And there are others. These folks aren't saying the estimates are off by 10%. They're saying the whole thing is a hoax. How seriously can you take the scientific consensus when you know that a lot of the experts are on the government and foundation funding gravy train and their livelihood depends on remaining on the right side?
That WaPo editorial and the Café Hayek essay pretty much have the goods. There are a few bits I don’t agree with in the WaPo op-ed, but…on the whole: Recommended. As is the Café Hayek piece.
Interesting… Hackers attack heart of the net. You didn’t notice, did ya?
Hackers have attempted to topple key parts of the internet's backbone, in one of the most significant attacks of recent years.
The target was servers that help to direct global internet traffic.
In the early hours of Tuesday three key servers were hit by a barrage of data in what is known as a distributed denial-of-service attack.
There is no evidence so far of damage, which experts are saying is testament to the robust nature of the internet.
[…]
The servers involved were each operated by a separate body – the US Defense Department, the net’s oversight body ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and UltraDNS, which manages traffic for websites ending in “org” and some other suffixes.
On the other hand, you just might be part of the problem:
Do you know what your computer was doing the other night?
That's the question a lot of security professionals and analysts would like to put to users. On Tuesday, the 13 servers that help manage worldwide Internet traffic were hit by a denial-of-service attack that nearly took down three of them. Analysts say the hackers' used possibly millions of zombie computers to wage the attack -- and they expect that army is populated with the desktops and laptops of unknowing users around the world.
"Individuals have contributed to this problem without knowing it," says Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant with Sophos. "People heard about hackers doing these things, but guess what? It may have been your computer doing part of the hacking. ... People need to take more responsibility over the cleanliness of their PCs."
One cannot over-emphasize the importance of good virus protection software. I’ve been in the biz for a long time, yet somehow I became “part of the problem” a few years back. Even though I’ve always run anti-virus and anti-spyware software someone managed to hack my AOL password and use my computer to send literally hundreds of spam messages. I was shocked. And how did I know? AOL “locked” my account and I had to call them to get back on-line. That wasn’t pleasant. Thank God the spam was just ordinary, run of the mill stuff…and not porn, or worse... What could be worse, you ask? Democrat propaganda comes to mind. Just sayin’.
Iowahawk. Iowahawk!! Yes!!
The Pandagon Papers
[Strong content warning - ed.]
To: Senator John Edwards
From: Amanda Marcotte
Re: Job Offer
Dear Senator Edwards:
I am f***ing delighted to accept your offer of the position of Official Blogger for the Edwards 2008 presidential campaign. Please find attached my f***ing W-2 form.
I would like to express my heartfelt thanks for this totally f***ing awesome opportunity to help you take
In closing, I am so f***ing proud to be a part of this campaign, and f***ing gratified to know that I'll be working for someone who f***ing understands the importance of reaching out to progressive bloggers like myself. I look forward to contributing in any way I f***ing can. You won't be f***ing sorry!
F***ing Sincerely,
Amanda Marcotte, "Pandagon"
Merely the first of seven notes from Ms. Amanda to Candidate Johnny. Read the rest. Or not, if you’re offended by the f-bomb, of which there are many. But, Hey! That’s Ms. Marcotte’s style, ain’t it? And be sure to chase Iowahawk’s links, coz he’s distilled the essence of the issue…wonderfully.
It just looks like OS2. And…each window has its own virtual 8086 machine, with 640K of memory! Wow!!
If you’re (a) older and (b) been in the tech biz for a while, this is guaranteed to give you nightmares. On the other hand, it’s just plain funny! An official Microsoft ad, this is. One wonders where it ran, because it's seven minutes long. Certainly not on TV... perhaps a promo for corporate IT managers? At any rate, I don't remember it. But then again, I wasn't originally in the "desktop" world. I do remember the old blue-screen, white font MS-Word (for DOS) you see briefly in the ad.
Dang, but it took me a looong time to “make the rounds” today. The blog rounds, that is. Three hours of doing nothing but…and I’ve yet to begin with “Current Events,” which, apropos of nothing, was one of my favorite subjects in grade school. Perhaps I’ll be able to make something of that last thought, but probably not.
Lex must have had a slow day at work yesterday, because he certainly was prolific where the blog is concerned. As were his commenters. I probably spent at least an hour and a half of the aforementioned three hours at his place. That said, Lileks has added a new item to his “
A tempest in a teapot… “Edwards’s Bloggers Cross the Line, Critic Says.” It is definitely a slow news day when this is the lead item at memeorandum (the 1500 hrs
WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 — Two bloggers hired by John Edwards to reach out to liberals in the online world have landed his presidential campaign in hot water for doing what bloggers do — expressing their opinions in provocative and often crude language.
[…]
The two women brought to the Edwards campaign long cyber trails in the incendiary language of the blogosphere. Other campaigns are likely to face similar controversies as they try to court voters using the latest techniques of online communication.
[…]
She (ed: Marcotte) has also written sarcastically about the news media coverage of the three Duke lacrosse players accused of sexual assault, saying: “Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair.”
“Often crude language” is being kind. Very kind. Amanda Marcotte, and many more than a few of her sisters on the Left, is a veritable potty mouth. I don’t find that trait attractive at all, in either women or men, but especially in women. Perhaps I’m living in the 19th century, I dunno. But it is what it is…
Oh, and as for Edwards and his campaign? This is just one more incident of bad judgment and half-baked ideas. Caveat emptor.
Other than that, I couldn’t frickin’ care less.
On the other hand, Confederate Yankee has some pretty danged good observations on this brouhaha. Excerpts:
The Edwards campaign should have been cognizant of the liabilities of hiring these two particular bloggers, as they are indeed perfect examples of a very popular subset of liberal bloggers that have produced a body of work that will offend many of those potential voters who have not made up their minds, have an open mind, or can be persuaded to change their minds to vote for Edwards in the Democratic primaries. That the "wingnut Christofascist base"—liberal code for Republican conservatives—are not going to be voting in the Democratic primaries is completely irrelevant.
Democrats, many of whom are conservatives, and a majority of which are Christians and "breeders", are going to be choosing the Democratic Presidential candidates. Most of them don't read blogs, but many do read the newspapers, and they are likely to be offended that Edwards hired a pair of bloggers that mock their core values with the strongest possible language.
The kind of derisive language Marcotte, McEwan and her fellow travelers is widely accepted in their reality-based online community, but it is shocking enough to the supermajority of Americans that have never read a liberal blog, that even an ABC News blog questioned whether or not Marcotte's comments qualify as hate speech, and whether or not hiring Marcotte and McEwan means Edwards condones such speech.
What he said. Malkin has more, including a rumor that the Edwards campaign has fired Marcotte and McEwan. Too late, Johnny. The cat’s out of the bag. Firing them just makes you look as stupid (or dumber, actually) as you really are. Just sayin’.
Just how stupid can politicians get? This stupid. QED.
Further on Pelosi’s Air Force…from the Washington Times:
Mrs. Pelosi wants a larger aircraft that can fly to her home district of San Francisco nonstop. She also wants to be able to ferry other members of the congressional delegation, family members and her staff.
The speaker's request is being handled by her chief counsel, Bernard Raimo, a veteran Democratic lawyer on Capitol Hill.
"Who she can take is being worked out, outside the Air Force," said Ed Gulick, an Air Force spokesman at the Pentagon.
He said the Air Force is studying what types of planes are available for long, cross-country flights. Currently, three planes assigned to the 89th Airlift Wing at Andrews Air Force Base can make such nonstop flights year-round -- the C-32, C-40B and C-37.
Such VIP planes are in high demand.
"She's effectively taking a bird out of the fleet," said a defense source. "It will most directly impact the House, because they're the heavy users of the large aircraft. Congress looks at that Andrews fleet as their Hertz rent-a-car."
Larger than what?, you may ask… Well, larger than “an Air Force commuter-type jet” Denny Hastert used to fly back and forth to
Further, further… Oh, those wild and crazy Lefties!! This is funny.
There’s a lot more in the current events space, but it’s waaay past time for me to get off the frickin’ computer and get out and enjoy another really nice day…
February’s first placeholder post. Last month we used exclamation points to designate placeholders, this month we’ll use ampersands. Back in a few, but in the meantime…
Today’s Pic: This is the pic I should have posted yesterday when I was in motorhead mode. A twofer, if you will. Baby pictures. And My Baby.
(Full disclosure: The Vette was TSMP’s car, her daily driver (except in winter) until she became “large with child” and we switched cars…I got the Vette, she got the Impala. Which she hated (the Impala), but that’s another story altogether. Strangely enough, I kept both the Impala and the Vette when the divorce went down. By that time TSMP had a Dodge
… to tell all y'all about the weather. Yesterday was beautiful, and today will be more of the same, only warmer. I had to run some errands over in the Big(ger) CityTM yesterday and I was able to run around with the top down... for the first time this year.
Yes. This is the way life should be. And it ain't gonna freeze tonight, either.
Contrary to the implication of these "news" reports, the Democrats are attempting to end debate on a single resolution (and need 60 votes to do it) and force a vote on that single resolution without allowing others to be considered. By opposing cloture (which would stop debate), the Republicans are actually keeping debate open.
Or, said another way, Democrats want to prevent other resolutions from being considered. Republicans are attempting to keep debate open to force Democrats to consider and debate other resolutions and amendments.
Agenda? Does the MSM have an agenda? Quelle horreur! Who’d a thunk it… But, back to the issue… As I read somewhere: “Welcome to the majority, Senator Reid.” We can slow-roll you, too.
Further on
The stars of the weekend, judging from reactions in the ballroom and the lobby, were not Obama and Clinton but former Sen. John Edwards of
Both of them played to the antiwar sentiments of this liberal-leaning audience by demanding that those now in Congress do more than pass resolutions decrying President Bush's decision to send more troops to
[…]
Unlike Edwards,
The full text of Billy’s speech is at the “
You would think that when the Congress realized they were lied to, they would have done something about it. Well, they still can.
Once our troops are gone, we still have a role to play. We have a moral responsibility to bring the Sunni and Shia together in a national reconciliation conference. And we have a strategic interest in organizing a regional conference with all of
But more than anything else, we have a moral obligation to those Americans who have laid down their lives.
Some say we cannot let their sacrifice be in vain. But you will never convince me that those slain patriots would have wanted a single additional life to be lost just to validate their own sacrifice.
Instead, the moral obligation is to honor their service by bringing their mission to a close. By ending the bloodshed … and finally letting the Iraqi people set their own course.
Those would be the principles of my presidency. And those would be the ideals I would seek.
Oh, Bill. You are SO wrong.
So, a mere three days after posting a link to the “War and Peace” of food healthy eating articles, I’m gonna let you in on a secret: I love this stuff. And this stuff, too. If you chase the links, you’ll note the nutrition info says a serving is a “half-cup.” What they really mean is half of a four-ounce container, a mere two ounces, at 150 calories per serving. Eat the whole four ounce “cup” and you get 300 calories. I think this is why I like this stuff so much…it’s rich—rich like Mom used to make. Real eggs, real sugar, real milk, no sweeteners, no artificial or substitute anything. Damn, it’s good!
Today’s Pic: Lotsa motorhead talk going on over at Lex’s new collaborative blog adjunct, including posts from Kris and SJS. And, in that vein, I’ll offer up a pic of one of my favorite cars. I’m tempted to say this one is the best car I’ve ever owned…but I’d be excluding that ’96 Impala SS (mine was black), the ’82 Beemer 320i, the ’67 Chevelle SS396, and, of course, The Green Hornet. Decisions…
Update: For the googlers who come around looking for Impala pics, there's a 1996 Impala SS brocure here.
Mike finally got me off the dime when he posted the video above. The Web 2.0 video, by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at
A couple of asides…you may wonder why (or you may not) I hadn’t embedded video in the past. Answer: bandwidth, or lack of same. It takes me a lot of time to view any given video due to the slow speed of my connection, so I tend to pass most of ‘em by. If I do choose to watch a vid, my M.O. is to let a vid “play through” in a minimized window with the sound on mute, and then replay it once it’s been written to a temp file…and will play all the way through without buffering. That’s a right-royal pain in the nether regions and a powerful disincentive when it comes to videos. I went and refilled my coffee cup (and did a couple of other things, too) while the Web 2.0 vid was playing.
But…no more. If I find a video that I do like, and I take the time to actually watch it, I’ll share it directly.
That second aside (I said “a couple”)? After watching the Web 2.0 video I had a twinge of regret that I’m not still “in the biz.” Yeah, the hours were long. Yeah, those hours were affecting my health. But, Dang! It sure was exciting to be in the right place at the right time.
| Your Taste in Music: |
 80's Alternative: Highest Influence 90's Alternative: High Influence Classic Rock: High Influence Progressive Rock: High Influence 80's Pop: Medium Influence |
Last place?
Last week I put up a post about Bill Richardson shortly after he declared his presidential candidacy. We had some discussion in the comments to that post, and, in so doing I said I could and would vote for the governor if someone put a gun put to my head and forced me to vote for a Democrat, any Democrat. Well, no more.
"As someone who served in Congress for 14 years, I know the power they hold, should they choose to wield it," New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson told the DNC yesterday at the Hilton Washington hotel. "The Congress passed a resolution authorizing war. They need to pass another one that overturns that authorization and brings our troops home by the end of the calendar year."
That’s from today’s WaPo. I watched the speech in real-time on C-SPAN yesterday and that wasn’t all he said. Unfortunately I didn’t take any notes, but The Guv completely destroyed what little credibility he had with me. Just sayin’.
Gov. Richardson was followed by a complete and total moonbat who made
Former senator Mike Gravel (
“Harsh” isn’t the word I’d use to describe Gravel; other words —such as “demented,” “crazed,” and the previously-used “moonbat”— are much more appropriate. That boy really turned me off when he claimed Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial complex had come to pass and that the MIC was in complete and total control of the country. It got worse from there… What I couldn’t believe is all the applause he received from the audience. Perhaps they were just being polite, I don’t really know. But a Democratic party that entertains people like Gravel, even for a moment, is not a serious party.
And speaking of serious/not serious, here’s a tiny little article about the songs the various candidates selected as intro/outro music for their DNC speeches. Remember how I went on about not liking the fact Chevy uses Mellencamp’s “This Is Our Country” as the theme song for their new truck ads? Well, now I have another reason not to like that frickin’ song. John Edwards is using it as his “theme song.” The article I linked isn’t all-inclusive, as it omitted the fact that the moonbat Gravel used Lennon’s “Power to the People” as his music. Is that frickin’ predictable, or what?
Speaking of moonbats… Here’s Captain Ed on the (in)famous and moneyed George Soros:
It's hard to get surprised by Leftist characterizations of conservatives as fascists The epithet flows so freely that even members of the Senate have used it, the last time by an ex-Klansman. The latest version of the insult comes from George Soros, speaking at the Davos Economic Forum last week about the situation in
He went on to say that
This is highly inflammatory and, quite frankly, anti-American. (Emphasis mine)
No kidding! I’ll bet Barack cringed when he read the comments Soros made at Davos. Coz Soros has given Barack a lot of money… That aside, I’m beginning to think there must be something in the water at Davos…
No comment: “Science Panel Calls Global Warming ‘Unequivocal’.” Well, no comment beyond this.
Resist.
(h/t: Donald Sensing)
Today’s Pic: I know. I said no more baby pics. But…just one more. This one was my wallpaper for the longest time.
August, 1998.
Today’s Pic: The view from my office in
I think I need to take a road trip. I’m scraping the bottom of the photo barrel, eh?
Here are the first three paragraphs of the most useful and informative thing I’ve read in (quite literally) years:
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy. I hate to give away the game right here at the beginning of a long essay, and I confess that I’m tempted to complicate matters in the interest of keeping things going for a few thousand more words. I’ll try to resist but will go ahead and add a couple more details to flesh out the advice. Like: A little meat won’t kill you, though it’s better approached as a side dish than as a main. And you’re much better off eating whole fresh foods than processed food products. That’s what I mean by the recommendation to eat “food.” Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims, which brings me to a related rule of thumb: if you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat.
Uh-oh. Things are suddenly sounding a little more complicated, aren’t they? Sorry. But that’s how it goes as soon as you try to get to the bottom of the whole vexing question of food and health. Before long, a dense cloud bank of confusion moves in. Sooner or later, everything solid you thought you knew about the links between diet and health gets blown away in the gust of the latest study.
The article, “Unhappy Meals,” appeared in last weekend’s NYT Magazine, and by God, the NYT does get some things right once in a while. When Michael Pollan (the author) says he wants to keep things going for “a few thousand more words” he isn’t exaggerating. Not at all. But those “few thousand” words are well worth the time you’ll invest to read them, if you choose to do so. I hope you do.
The article is long, and as such, isn’t suitable for reading at work on your coffee break. I’m not a terribly fast reader and I tend to pause often to consider something, anything, that’s been said, or to chase a link, if I’m reading on-line. That said, I think I read the whole thing in about 45 minutes. And then I saved the web page for future reference. As I opened with: this is the best, most useful article I’ve read in years. I really mean that.
And another thing, apropos of this article: I owe The Second Mrs. Pennington an apology. She’s been going on for years about the virtues of healthy eating, and I tended to smile gratuitously and nod my head up and down, all the while thinking she’d gone over the edge. (That was back in Former Happy Days; we don't talk at all now.) And, in a small way, it was true…the bit about going over the edge. But that’s TSMP, in her very own, inimitable way. She’ll grab hold of something and ride it for all it’s worth, sometimes often to excess. But she was right about this one.
I apologize, Paula.
(Not that she’ll ever know, but hey...I’m on the record. Publicly, even.)
This is interesting…in an academic sort of way. I’m somewhat surprised to find my beloved USAF could be unconstitutional. Really.
Who claims that Textualism and Originalism lead to the Conclusion that the Air Force is Unconstitutional?
Commenters on my recent post about the constitutionality of the Air Force wonder whether there really are any serious constitutional law scholars who use the supposed unconstitutionality of the Air Force as an argument against originalism. A quick (and by no means comprehensive) Westlaw search reveals several examples. The use of the Air Force as an argument against originalism and textualism is not just a straw man. It's actually quite common.
Here's a sampling:
And serious arguments follow. Take that, Scalia! (Full disclosure: the preceding Scalia comment was tongue-in-cheek. I generally agree with the man. As a matter of fact, he just might be my favorite Supreme. Sorry, Diana, Mary, and Flo.)
You have to be living under a rock if you haven’t heard about that twit William Arkin and the several WaPo columns he’s written the past couple of days. You know, the ones in which he called members of the military “mercenaries,” and his subsequent rant against the folks who (rightly so) expressed outrage over his original column, and the third one where he apologized (sorta). Much, perhaps too much, has been written about this idiot, but Iowahawk, in his own special way, has the absolute best post on the subject. A few excerpts:
Equal Time: The Arkin Controversy
In compliance with the Fairness Doctrine and other proposed federal rules aimed at balancing online media opinions, I am introducing Iowahawk's new "Equal Time" feature. From time to time, I will be opening these pages to those with opposing viewpoints, where we will be debating the various top issues of the day. Please welcome today's guest dissenter, retired US Marine Corps LTC Mike Williams, as we debate today's Equal Time question: "Should Washington Post Military Analyst William Arkin Be Beaten Like the Repulsive Sack of Shit He Is?"
The Iowahawk View
Washington Post Military Affairs correspondent William Arkin recently stirred controversy with a blog post that termed active duty soldiers "mercenaries" who are "indulged" and given "obscene amenities" who should be "explained... why it isn't up to them to disapprove" of anti-war opinions. After the initial dustup, Arkin responded to critics by calling them "arrogant and intolerant," and after time for reflection, termed soldiers "worse" than mercenaries, and secretly harboring desires for a military coup.
Some policy analysts have proposed that in response, Arkin should be beaten for being the repulsive sack of shit he is. We at Iowahawk strongly disagree, and for a number of compelling reasons.
[…]
Rebuttal: LTC (Ret.) Mike Williams
Iowahawk's "case" is so weak and misguided, on so many levels, that I scarcely know where to begin. So let's take it point-by-point: First, vigorous public beatings of repulsive shit sacks are not necessarily at odds with the First Amendment, as long as no taxpayer dollars are involved. I agree that all due effort should be taken to insure that any beatings Mr. Arkin receives are only by private sector individuals, using privately-supplied tire irons. Further, any inconvenience Mr. Arkin experiences would be temporary, and he would be free to return to writing his column after recuperation and reconstructive dental surgery.
I hope this is the last word on Arkin… really, I do. We all have much better things to do than worry about an ill-informed, opinionated (I repeat myself) moonbat who just happens to have a column in a newspaper with a national readership. Nothing unusual about that, now, is there? And just for the record: no tire irons, please. Good ol’ fashioned fists would do nicely.
Signs of the Impending Apocalypse, Part XXVI:
"A prerequisite for winning the Nobel Peace Prize is making a difference, and Al Gore has made a difference," Conservative Member of Parliament Boerge Brende, a former minister of environment and then of trade, told The Associated Press.
Algore has made a difference? How, pray tell? C’mon…tell me! Enquiring minds wanna know!
Jeebus Crow…an Oscar nomination and now this. Further from the AP:
The winner is traditionally announced in mid-October, with the prize always presented on the Dec. 10 anniversary of the death of its creator, Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel.
About which Kos hissownself says:
The prize will be announced in mid-October. So say Gore scores an Oscar and Nobel in the same year, he can announce in November and still become THE story in the primaries. It's not as if he'll need the full year to get his name recognition up or make the case for his candidacy. He would instantly raise gobs of cash (I'd bet on tens of millions in the first 24 hours) and become the media sensation of the winter. He would instantly make hundreds of millions spent by his primary opponents obsolete. Talent would flock to him, decimating the staffs of his opponents.
Talk about worst-case scenarios. And here we were worrying about Hillary… I’ll bet she’s just beside herself over this development.
The office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is pressing the Bush administration for routine access to military aircraft for domestic flights, such as trips back to her
The sources, who include those in Congress and in the administration, said the Democrat is seeking regular military flights not only for herself and her staff, but also for relatives and for other members of the
"They are pressing the point of her succession and that the [Department of Defense] needs to play ball with the speaker's needs," one source said. The request originally went to the Pentagon, which then asked the White House to weigh in.
Why, Hell Yes! Give her a C-130 of her very own. A standard C-130, with the “troop configuration” aluminum scooped-out bucket seating, manned by aircrew from the California ANG, with PAX earplugs optional. Nothing else would be available, of course. All other airlifters would be otherwise engaged doing real work, like moving troops and supplies to the sandbox. Take it or leave it,
(Full disclosure, in case you didn’t chase the link: Hastert was provided military aircraft for trips to and from 
Today’s Pic: A rerun, of sorts. A sunrise pic from last August. I took 67 shots of the sunrise on August 16th and posted numbers 66 and 67 that same day. This is number 46.
In 1976, her writing, which she said was often fueled by “truly impressive amounts of beer,” landed her a job at The New York Times.
I like that.
Meanwhile, over at Firedoglake the natives are busy canonizing the late Ms. Ivins. A few choice bits from the comments:
bigspoiledbaby says:
Goddammit, how much more must
St. Molly of
enough says:
Oh Molly. We’ll miss you so very very much.
Go in peace. Your job was well done. We have our feet back on the ground now, we have the House and the Senate now. We have a decent chance to take our country back now. Thank you for fighting so hard to get us this far.
I’ll never forget you.
57 says:
Who says nothing good can come from
Molly has joined the firmament equal to or greater then Will Rogers.
More than a few folks provided their favorite Ivins quotes, or links to same. And up in the main body of the post, FDL celebrated Ivins by quoting some of her columns. I particularly liked this one:
The president of the
I don't know why Bush is just standing there like a frozen rabbit, but it's time we found out. The fact is WE have to do something about it. This country is being torn apart by an evil and unnecessary war, and it has to be stopped NOW.
This war is being prosecuted in our names, with our money, with our blood, against our will. Polls consistently show that less than 30 percent of the people want to maintain current troop levels. It is obscene and wrong for the president to go against the people in this fashion. And it's doubly wrong for him to send 20,0000 (sic) more soldiers into this hellhole, as he reportedly will announce next week.
What happened to the nation that never tortured? The nation that wasn't supposed to start wars of choice? The nation that respected human rights and life? A nation that from the beginning was against tyranny? Where have we gone? How did we let these people take us there? How did we let them fool us?
It's a monstrous idea to put people in prison and keep them there. Since 1215, civil authorities have been obligated to tell people with what they are charged if they're arrested. This administration has done away with rights first enshrined in the Magna Carta nearly 800 years ago, and we've let them do it.
This will be a regular feature of mine, like an old-fashioned newspaper campaign. Every column, I'll write about this war until we find some way to end it. STOP IT NOW. BAM! Every day, we will review some factor we should have gotten right. . . .
A perfect illustration of why the FDLers love her and I don’t.
RIP, Molly.
It’s been a week today and I’m still off the evil weed cigarettes, still haven’t cracked the Partagas stash. It’s still very early days, but at least I haven’t done that backsliding thing immediately. Thank you, Nicorette.
So. Just by sheer coincidence (and thanks to the inimitable Lileks, he of the cigarillos taken under the gazebo in the summer), I came across a couple of items on smoking yesterday, wouldn’t you know. And they’ll continue to pop up just like clockwork for the foreseeable future, too. Life’s like that.
The first: Barack Obama is a smoker. No sh!t.
But Obama's semisecret weapon amounts to a double-edged sword. After all, what sort of successful Democratic politician smokes nowadays? Smoking is GOP old-school. House Minority Leader John Boehner regularly smokes cigarettes—which helps explain why he didn't hesitate to hand out tobacco-industry campaign checks on the House floor some years back. But Democrats shun the demon weed, at least in public. One of the first acts of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was to ban smoking in the Speaker's Lobby, long the haunt of nicotine-crazed legislators. (The most famous Democratic tobacco addict doesn't even smoke. Former President Clinton likes to chomp on cigars—and, as the Starr report detailed, to occasionally use them for other purposes. Sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar.)
So, it's understandable that Obama, according to his aides, has been trying to kick the filthy habit as he gears up for a possible presidential campaign. The senator is refreshingly honest about his penchant for cigarettes: When asked about it by the Chicago Tribune in 2005, he replied, "The flesh is weak." When asked whether Obama still smokes, his spokesman, Tommy Vietor, hedged. "I haven't seen him for a month, so I don't know," Vietor said in late December. Vietor later declined to comment for this piece. (emphasis mine)
That Starr report link is pretty danged graphic, but I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t already know. Back to Barack… I really don’t give a damn if Barack, or anyone else, for that matter, smokes. I don’t think most Lefties are that tolerant, however. Because they know what’s good for you, even if you don’t…and they’re not shy about telling you, either. Still and even, I think this just has to be the most unique, if not bizarre, reason to quit I ever heard… “Well, I decided to run for President, so I guess I better quit.” Takes the cake, that does.
The second item is quite old, a Times Online (
Not very long ago, the whole world smoked, no room was truly furnished unless it contained an ashtray, and all of waking life was measured out in cigarettes. Doctors smoked in their consultation rooms. Chefs smoked in restaurant kitchens. Mothers smoked while dandling their babies. Mechanics smoked in oil-flecked garages. Athletes smoked on the sidelines. Teachers smoked in classrooms. Patients smoked in hospital solariums. Television presenters smoked on camera. Shoppers smoked in the produce aisle at the supermarket. We smoked in the rear halves of airliners, in the balconies at movie theatres, between courses at formal dinners, on crowded dance floors while gyrating, on elevators despite the signs, on the subway if the hour was late enough. We smoked in the office and at the beach, in the waiting room and at the hair salon, in the art gallery and at the stadium. We smoked in bed: just after waking and just before sleep, after making love and sometimes during it. We often smoked without being aware we were smoking.
[…]
In
[…]
Bohemians and intellectuals predictably went for Camels or Luckies. Raymond Loewy’s Lucky Strike package was a triumph of design, even after the green background was excised in the Forties so that the dye could be saved for the war effort. In the Twenties it was stylish for cigarettes to allude to the
[…]
Anyway you can’t smoke any more. You can’t smoke anything - not low tar, not Sher Bidis, not all-natural additive-free tobacco in unbleached paper. It’s not yet illegal to possess the materials and implements for smoking, nor to consume them in the privacy of your own home, but it is increasingly difficult to smoke in public places, even outdoors, even in Europe. It’s true that a certain dark anti-glamour lingers outside the restaurant doorway, as you and people you will never meet again enjoy the rough comradeship of exile, puffing away in your thin jackets in February as if you were doing something heroic. It’s true that in a few Western settings - student life, for example, or among fashion models - smoking remains almost normative. It’s true that if you produce a pack of cigarettes in the right place and at the right time entire roomfuls of confirmed quitters will line up to bum one. And of course everyone knows at least one defiant and unapologetic smoker. In general, though, and especially in prosperous suburbs, you can expect passers by to glare at you with undisguised contempt, however discreetly you light up.
Barack, take note of that last paragraph. Or perhaps he’s already read the article. At any rate, every single thing in the above paragraphs is true, with the possible exception of smoking during sex. After sex? Most certainly. During? I don’t think so.
I’m old enough to remember the days when smoking was cool, the days when, as noted above, everyone did it. I learned “British Rules” on smoking when I lived in
Being the good Bohemian I aspired to be in my youth, I began with Luckies. I even did the James Dean thing by rolling them up in the sleeve of my tee shirt while on the job as a landscaping contractor’s assistant in high school. Yes, I began in high school. We all did the JD thing, and we all smoked Luckies, too. It was the thing to do. Over the years I moved from brand to brand, changing about every ten years or so. At the end (last week, ha!) I was smoking American Spirits, one of those “all-natural additive-free tobacco in unbleached paper” brands described above. Well, the paper is bleached, I think. And the damned things were still killing me, in spite of their “naturalness.” God willing, I’ll make it stick this time.
Even though I’ve excerpted from the article heavily, there’s much, much more. Here’s the closing graf:
Maybe there are ex-smokers out there who feel uncomplicated relief at having quit. I doubt there are many, however. Your cigarette was a friend - the sort of friend parents and teachers warned you against, who would lead you down dark alleys and leave you holding the evidence when things went wrong - but a friend nevertheless. It’s terribly sad that you can’t enjoy a smoke now and again without tumbling into the whirlpool of perdition, the way you can take a glass of spirits on the weekend with no danger that by Monday you will end up filtering the shoe polish after exhausting the cooking sherry. But just as an alcoholic remains an alcoholic even after decades of abstinence, so a smoker is a sinner forever after. You have breathed fire. You have experienced one of the deepest satisfactions of life: the first cigarette of the day in tandem with the first cup of coffee. (Ed: Or the two glowing cigs in the dark after wild, wild sex!) You have felt that knee-trembling rush upon taking the first drag after suffering an enforced separation from cigarettes - after a trip to the moon, for example. Your friend has come running to your side in the worst moments, and has been there to cheer you on in the best. You have tasted of the fruit of good and evil. Now that you have chosen the path of righteousness, can it be that the decision is fixed and irrevocable? Is it possible that smoking will be legislated or taxed out of existence? Is it possible that the Earth will be wiped so clean of tobacco that, like opium, it will be difficult to find without undertaking hazardous journeys in troubled regions? Is it possible that you will never again be able to enjoy the comfort of knowing that you have traded five minutes of life for five minutes of serenity? We may all have stopped smoking, but we continue to burn.
If you’re a smoker, or even an ex-smoker who doesn’t mind a trip back to Former Happy Days, go have a read. And smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em! Uh, no. Don’t.
Today’s Pic: “Support the Troops!” (as long as they… bring money.)
Port
