Sine Qua Non

Every Day Is Steely Dan Day

When it comes to captioning blog posts.

I Love the Smell of Pine Pollen In the Morning

Blogging will be light to non-existent for the next eight days. Unless, of course, American Airlines should cancel my flight . Hopefully, they won't wait until the last moment to do so.

Do It Again

He's still at it, and so, therefore, am I.

Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Andrea gets some love.

Speaking of punishment... more from me later.

Hillary Resigns from Race!

Not really, at least not that I know of. Just checking to see if anyone is actually reading this.

A Baker's Dozen

Too much whine, too much wine... goodnight.

Props to Andrea

A side note and hat tip to my webmistress Andrea. I was in Orlando recently and had a chance to have dinner with her and then got sick. Highest fever since my appendix burst 35 years years ago, but that's a whole 'nother story. Given the three abdominal surgeries that generated, I think I can almost hang with Mr. Blair.

Red, Red Whine

When I've finished a bottle of wine before 9:00 PM on a Friday night, odds are good you get a dose of blogging.

DOWNDATE: I just noticed it is a month and a day since my last post. Bu then again, it is a leap year, so don't read too much into it.

Holy Crap

I'm posting again. The effect of a bottle of Zinfandel in the middle of the week can be truly amazing.

I'm thinking of temporarily turning this blog into a review of the NFL and my fantasy teams and leagues, including a wholly imaginary betting pool on the NFL. My fantasy credentials are decent and my opinions marginally unorthodox, but I've won at least one championship for each of the last six years, and three last year. Any thoughts?

To whet your appetite, in my longest running legaue (14 years and counting) one of the owners celebrated the Appalachian State win over Michigan by naming his team the Michigan Sucks. Being from Cleveland I think he has some long running Michigan issues, but I digress. I suggested his new team motto be "Go Blow!" and he liked it.

Less than 24 hous until football begin again. It's good to be an American in the 21st century.

Orthorectified Caramel

Remember the old Google contest where you had to select two words for a Google search that would only return one hit? Well, I saw this story today about Google buying ImageAmerica (from Clayton, MO, no less) and for no good reason at all I was inspired to try and come up an example using a word from that story that I know well from a previous life, but almost never see used today.

I suppose the real surprise is that it registered even a single hit.

Here's Something Worth a Look

I found this looking for some information on Kirkwood Sergeant William McEntee who was slain while on duty on July 5, 2007.

The Officer Down Memorial Page.

Open Thread

Slow news day. I've been busy. Ack. Look elsewhere today for your flippant snark grotequely swollen with free association and reeking of osbcure, antiquated pop culture references.

One question though, if we succeed in stopping climate change,would that mean that natural evolution as we understand it is over?

Soul Baring

For some time now I've been absent, only leaving comments and caption contest entries at a few of my favorite places. I've been busy - working, thinking, reading, contemplating, perambulating, dealing with a teenage daughter, and losing weight (25 pounds so far this year).

Quick summary to get caught up on the world's turns since November... business is good. Perhaps too good, since my vocation distracts me from my avocation. But it has become clear that Nietzsche was right, while staring into the abyss, it had been staring back into me. A dark, dark view of the blogosphere and its inhabitants was having entirely the wrong affect on me. I lacked the ability to keep a firm perspective like Professor Glenn Reynolds, James Lileks, Dr. James Joyner, Jeff Goldstein, Scott Chaffin, and Tim Blair. I don't think I have such a perspective yet, but at least I recognize that I have a problem. On the other hand, I have won a fair number of caption contests, and I bought three of Mr. Lilek's books.

In other news, Vickie is doing better, I think Steve is doing better, old friends have returned, as have some web friends, though I'm not sure where, I've lost touch with some 'cause I didn't maintain my links, and I'm waiting for football to start again...

And in still other news, George Bush continues to disappoint, though he looks golden compared to the incompetent political hackery of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. The next general election sure looks like it needs a "None of the Above" on the ballot for president. By any historical measure the liberation of Iraq is going very well, though even many people in favor it don't seem to understand this remarkably simple fact. Can't wait for 300 to come out on DVD or Blu-Ray. The BBC's DVDs on WWII are worth the expense. Tony Soprano wasn't whacked and David Chase is brilliant. David Milch and John From Cincinnati sucks. Pollution is on the decline in the US but on the rise in China. At long last, Al Gore is beginning to be ridiculed by more than just the fringe right. As is Michael Moore.

And in yet still other news, the Cubs still suck, the Bears are going to be good again, the Fighting Illini are improving on the gridiron, Bruce Weber is doing great even if he is struggling with recruiting, the NCAA sucks big ****** *****, while the Chief will live on in our hearts, grilled flesh still tastes great and is more filling, rap is dying, short the Euro now (trust me), and as the Chink always said in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, "the world situation is desperate, as usual."

Does this mean I'm back?

Hmm...

P.S. A laugh...

Get Well Soon...

Mr. Green.

Something I Can Do That Instapundit Can't

Have a post/reader ratio > 1.

In fact, my post/reader ratio will always be greater than Instapundit. So, I got that going for me.

Microsoft IE Sucks

I usually defend Microsoft from most of the attacks they find themselves under, but noW I've got a burr in my saddle about them. Without thinking, I downloaded IE 7.0 yesterday. Now, every time I try and insert a hyperlink I first have to go through three clicks to allow a scripted window to run. From reading the help file, the only solution to this is to allow Active X controls to run on all websites, which am loathe to do with the other less computer literate members of my household surfing the web.

Anyone have any ideas? And, no, buy a Mac isn't what I consider a legitimate suggestion.

Your Turn

Ok, this makes fifteen posts today. Weird, how my hits decrease once I start blogging again.

Google Growth

On July 7, 2002, I launched a Googlebomb that returned zero hits: Hyperspectral Eggplants. Just out of curiosity I googled it again today and it now generates 140 hits.

The world keeps getting ever more strange.

In Case It Was You Who Were Wondering Via MSN Search ...

This isn't me.

Neither is this.

Nor this. Though if I ever did need to reach a, ahem, psychic, why would I need his phone number or e-mail address?

Hmm..., maybe Bill Gates minions respond rather quickly to any negative post about him.

For What It's Worth

I am guest posting here at the moment.

Back Later

Two paragraphs of snark, and that's all this blog has become, are no substitute for thoughtful, informed, reasoned discourse. I've forgotten why I started blogging but I'm sure it wasn't to end up where I am now. Call it a mid-blog crisis if you will, but it is time to step back, assess where I am and where I want to be, and retool.

Now, if you'll excuse me...

Protean Wisdom

Jeff needs help. I mean, he really needs help.

Decisions, Decisions

Do you think Jeff would get mad if I renamed my blog Protean Wisdom?

Catching Up

Back from vacation where I got cheated out of a massage, but I did manage to get in seven rounds of golf, including shooting an 89 on Pinehurst #2. I literally missed an 85 by that much. I'm pleased as punch about that.

In other news:

 I tried to go see Flight 93 tonight, but it was sold out. Some friends think it is too soon. Not me, I want to keep it seared, seared in my memory.

 I did see Ice Age 2 with daughter #2 yesterday. Ugh. Clearly there is a great unsatisfied need for family-oriented movies with folks lining up to see dreck like this.

 I got to go see the Nationals play the Cardinals in the new Busch stadium last Friday. It's nice, but I still do not understand why the owners reduced the seating from the old Busch stadium. They eliminated the top balcony from along the left field line for no apparent reason I can discern. I hope Albert Pujols can stay healthy. He has a chance to become one of the all time greats.

 I guess I missed the memo where beggars became choosers, or, should I say, demanders. I don't mean to imply that immigrants who are here illegally are necessarily beggars, but it does seem that asking for something from the country you have no right to be in would be more polite and potentially more palatable to those legally here than demanding something when you have no legal standing, the marginally insane left-wing reconquista notwithstanding.

 I don't give a damn if someone sings the National Anthem in Spanish. Or Hungarian, for that matter. But let's keep it real for a minute, this tip top hip hop faux pop has nothing to do with any inclusive mindset and everything to do with an in your face attempt to divide and conquer. I swear, some of these folks better be careful what they wish for. If George Wallace was alive and well, I think he'd be a viable third party candidate right about now. That giant sucking sound you hear is the vacuum created by the abandonment of principle by Democrats and Republicans.

 Don't these freakin' people know there's a war on?

 I'm reading Killing Pablo by Mark Bowden. The comparisons to what's going on in Iraq right now are eerie, though the book itself was written before any of this came to pass. I knew a little bit about what was happening in Columbia back in the 80's and 90's, but damn! More another time...

 Sean Wilentz and his carefully self-selected group of friends think George W. Bush is the worst president ever. For historians, these guys are pretty stupid, or is it petty and stupid. Ever heard of Buchanan? Or Carter?

 Woo Hoo! I won again.

 I didn't log on to the Internet for six days and didn't miss it a bit. Sure I'm a binge blogger, but I can stop any time I want. And I've never lost time or passed out at the machine. I'm a social blogger, though, admittedly, I do frequently blog alone. And I've only missed work for blogging a few times. Oh, who am I kidding? My name is Charles and I'm a blogoholic.

 Too much use of the word I. Hmm..., you might think I was running for office or something.

Dear Blogging Software Writers...

In your next software release, can you rewrite your code so that all comments post the name of the comment author at the top of the thread rather than the bottom? It would save a lot of time for thoughtful readers if we could quickly and easily skip right over the moonbats and trolls who have elevated non sequiturial feces flinging to an art form.

FWIW, this request was not inspired by anything apearing on this site.

Thank you.

I Am the Singularity

Apparently, I am the one person in the world who thinks the IPod might actually suck. I only think this because I bought one yesterday and still can't get it to work. Now, before you think I'm a total dweeb when it comes to these things, my daughter whose had a NanoPod for months now can't make it work either.

I'm so lucky.

DOWNDATE: Details of the singularity in the comments. Meanwhile, Professor Reynolds thinks this is cool. Yeah, I bought an iPod so I can listen to commercials. Freaking brilliant. I'm chill to that tip Mack Daddy.

DOUBLE DOWNDATE: Thanks to Scott and Kerry, my iPod problems seem to be behind me. As for Lawrence's suggestion regarding Neil Young's latest, I'll pass. I'll stick with Decade, Harvest, Tonight's the Night, Stars 'N' Bars, Everybody's Rockin', and Zuma. And while I'm loading these onto my iPod, I'll keep these lyrics from Zuma's Pardon My Heart in mind:

You brought it all on
Oh, but it feels so wrong
You brought it all on
No, no, no, I don't believe this song

MWBB XII

Midwest Blog Bash XII, tonight, 6:30, The Elephant Bar, Des Peres, MO. It's Matt's 40th birthday! And the lovely Miss Vicky will be there too!

Be there or be square.

Or show up and watch me do both.

DOWNDATE: A good time was had by all.

MWBB - Special New Orleans Edition

Matt and Vicky Drachenberg are coming to town this weekend to celebrate Matt's 40th Birthday. We're going to start at 6:30 PM on April 8th at The Elephant Bar (next to the West County Mall). I expect we will be sitting in the bar for a while waiting for a table, though I don't think that should be a problem. The usual suspects from many of the previous Midwest Blog Bashes will be there. Will you?

Leave me a note in the comments if you are coming so I can get a rough number of attendees.

The Elephant Bar
1085 West County Center Dr.
Des Peres, MO 63131
(314) 835-0545

I'm Just Asking

When's tha last time you saw an AMC car on the road? Not just a Pacer, but a Javelin, an Eagle, a Gremlin, a Gladiator, a Matador, a Concord, a Spirit, a Hornet, or even a Rambler? The bastard step-products of the ill-fated AMC-Renault fiasco don't count.

Through the Omphaloscope

You know, I can't, or won't, state a definition of sine qua non in the header, because I'm afraid I'd lose more than two-thirds of my mealy share of hits if the search engines that girdle the earth stopped sending people touring machine generated images this way.

DOWNDATE: It's a damn good thing I amuse the hell out of myself with this stuff, since apparently no one else knows what I'm talking about.

Charles Needs...

I got this from a blog I've never been to before while searching for something else. You type "(My name) needs" into Google and see what results:

Charles needs to be comfortable with his Olympic roster.
Charles needs hernia operation after stretching awkwardly.
Charles needs expert help.
Charles needs an eartuck.
Charles needs lots of money.
Charles needs an army to put down Irish rebellion.
Charles needs assessment.
Charles needs a change of pants.
Charles needs a new home.

Go ahead and give it a Googlewhack.

Big Time Bloggers Make Me Proud

Especially when they are for free spech, except, of course, when they aren't. Or when they are for free markets, except, of course, when they aren't. Or when they want to fight the GWOT, except, of course, when they don't.

Nitpicking

In commenting upon Hamas' shenanigans, Glenn Reynolds writes:

It really is like dealing with teenagers. Except, you know, for the murder part.

But, um, doesn't Dr. Helen specialize in teenage murderers?

99,989

Only eleven more hits to 100,00. Will you be my valentine?

DOWNDATE: I passed 100,000 just before midnight. Unfortunately, I cannot tell who the great soul was that put me over the mark, but thanks to everyone who drops by to read, laugh, bitch, compliment, agree, contradict, supplement, correct, or just gaze in shock and awe.

Good Night, Sweet Prints

I don't spend as much time reading blogs as I used to, but I still marvel at the restraint that has kept anyone from using the phrase "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" in any blog post I have read on the reaction of those whose worldview is threatened by twelve cartoons. Is it coincidence that the number of cartoons is twelve? Are Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his merry band of Twelver's facilitating this choas in an attempt to usher in the twelfth Mahdi? Hey, I'm just asking. After all, no less an authority than Condi Rice has indicated that Iran and Syria are violently exploiting the situation.

Happy Anniversary

Monday marks four years of blogging and I'm 401 hits shy of 100,000. Will I make it? If I do, would this mean I am 1/2,165th the blogger Glenn Reynolds is? Shouldn't I be happy about that?

Isn't That Special?

In response to a Brad Delong post calling Jonah Goldberg the stupidest man alive for saying something silly about buffalos (buffaloes, Mr. Quayle?) and Indians, I posted a comment there that went something like this:

So saying something that may be silly makes you the stupidest man in the world? Jeez, imagine how much damage you've just done to Howard Dean's self-esteem.

I cannot be certain of the exact wording because the comment disappeared. I thought, hey, maybe I screwed up and only previewed it, so I went back and posted a reasonable facsimile again, making sure I previewed and saved it this time. But once again, my post is no longer there.

Weird? Or is it?

The Ugly Underbelly of the Information Age

Someone got here today looking for:

sound bite of ted kennedy singing

Don't worry, you'll not find that here.

Two More Days

To exercise your pith and wit.

Today's Random Lyric Snippet

Is from Tom Waits:

Will you sell me one of those if I shave my head?
"Get me out of town," is what Fireball said.
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat,
Never drive a car when you're dead.

Obscure

I'm not sure what to think of this:

BISBEE - Two immigrants are now the owners of a Douglas-area ranch seized from an anti-immigrant activist. Documents granting the 70-acre ranch once owned by Casey Nethercott to Fatima del Socorro Leiva Medina and Edwin Alfredo Mancia Gonzales were signed Monday by a Cochise County judge.

The Southern Poverty Law Center brought suit against Nethercott on behalf of the two immigrants. Nethercott did not respond and a Texas judge ordered him to pay $500,000. Leiva and Mancia were illegal immigrants from El Salvador. They received temporary legal status in the United States as crime victims and are seeking visas to stay longer.

But how often do you see a story reported from Lynn Bracken's hometown?

Tag, I'm It

Kevin Murphy made me do it, though I've slightly modified it.

(The Last) Four Places You’ve Lived:
1. Kirkwood, MO
2. Reston, VA
3. Huntsville, AL
4. Oatlands, Weybridge, Surrey, UK

(Last) Four Jobs You’ve Had In Your Life:
1. President.
2. Chief Operating Officer.
3. Department Manager.
4. Project Manager.

Four Movies You Could Watch Over And Over (and Over and Over):
1. The Godfather, Part II. Best. Sequel. Ever. Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro at their best.
2. The Exorcist. Scariest. Movie. Ever. Put yourself in the role of any of the characters of this film and try and imagine what you would do.
3. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. Funniest. Movie. Ever. So funny and so few opportunities to use the best lines in public.
4. The Name of the Rose. Average. Movie. But the memories it stirs of a tour de force book keep my mind swirling for hours.

(Note to Kevin -- Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman each deserved the Best Actor Oscar that year for Midnight Cowboy over John Wayne who apparently got it because the Academy wasn't yet giving lifetime achievement awards. Also, by definition, you have to watch Groundhog Day over and over and over...)

Four TV Shows You Love To Watch:
1. Blackadder. Best. Sitcom. Ever.
2. ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown. Best. Studio. Sports. Show. Ever.
3. Have I Got News For You. They actually featured a tub of lard as a contestant once.
4. Live sports.

Four Places You’ve Been on Vacation:
1. Munich. For Oktoberfest.
2. The Lake District. My, ahem, friends took me out for a little walk one weekend. Nice pub at the end of the day though.
3. Alaska. Cruising the Inner Passage, does anyone know what that theme music is?
4. Yellowstone National Park. Still underappreciated.

Four Websites You Visit Daily:
1. Instapundit.
2. Drudge Report.
3. The Bleat.
4. Protein Wisdom.

Four Of Your Favorite Foods:
1. Cajun/Creole.
2. Japanese.
3. Thai.
4. Indian.

Four Places You’d Rather Be:
1. Glacier National Park. Thar be bears there -- I know from experience.
2. The Prince of Wales -- My home pub when I lived in England.
3. Pinehurst #2. Preferably accepting a U.S. Open trophy.
4. Augusta National. Being fitted for a green jacket.

Four Albums You Can’t Live Without:
1. Aja, Steely Dan.
2. Frank's Wild Years, Tom Waits.
3. Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd.
4. Armed Forces, Elvis Costello.

Four People To Tag With This Meme (Alas, I do not know how to reach any of them):
1. Ryne Sandberg.
2. John Prine.
3. George Carlin.
4. Christo.

Sit!

Alright, fine. I couldn't pass up this opportunity to run my first caption contest.

Have at it. Winner announced on Monday.

Contest complete.

Crap, and Not Crap

Been on the road.

My laptop died on the plane ride out.

Back now.

Laptop not yet fixed.

Anybody want to buy some Girl Scout cookies?

DOWNDATE: If you should ever seriously corrupt your Windows XP laptop by correctly and properly deleting a Cingular broadband application and you are then eventually able to get it it restored after several days effort using the Windows XP Sytem Restore function, do not then immediately test your theory that it was the entirely correct and proper removal of the Cingular broadband application that corrupted your Windows XP laptop under the assumption that you can just use the Windows XP System Restore function to fix it right back again.

Trust me on this.

Woo Hoo!

I won again. I even got my own category this time.

Shameless Plug

One of the privileges of posting is that I can plug my wife's book. You can find it on Amazon, but it's better to order it directly from her website.

Maybe I'll Be the Anti-Lileks

And just post on the weekends.

Captions R Us

I haven't been blogging much lately, primarily because time is scarce. But I have been entering some caption contests. Here are my timely, topical, obscure, and laden with pop culture leitmotif entries from Rodney Dill's latest contest over at James Joyner's Outside the Beltway using this image from Reuters/Jim Young:

Speak evil, see evil, hear evil.

While Joey Walnuts laments his loss of stature in the DNC family, Crazy Uncle Junior Kennedy takes notes on who hasn’t been showing the proper level of respect and Patty frets that America is watching and knows that, as Tony always says, there has to be consequences.

But here's my favorite, especially for those of us who spent our formative years participating in high school and other amateur productions of Broadway musicals:

Fugue for Dems Scorned (with apologies to Damon Runyan)

Epitaph! I got the smear right here!

Add your own captions of at OTB. Personally, I think too clever by half rewrites of old show tunes that maintain as much of the original as possible remain woefully underappreciated. But that's just me.

Feast or Famine

Alright, this makes fifteen posts tonight. That ought to keep y'all busy for a while.

But do not pass up Mark Steyn's, It's the Demography, Stupid. It is probably the best thing I've read on the Internet for several years.

YAPP (Yet Another Posting Post)

Thanks to all the kind comments to the last post. Here's a few random thoughts, and while full time blogging has not resumed quite yet, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

The Good Samaritans: It's a shame to see Bono come between Bill and Melinda Gates. But like Jesus said, "Heaven keeps a special place for those who contribute huge sums of money while maintaining just enough for themselves to feed and clothe your average third-world country." Gosh, I love serious journalism.

Sheehan Leads War Protest in Spain: The running of the bullshit.

Let freedom ring: President Bush asserted Sunday night the United States is winning the war in Iraq but acknowledged setbacks and the doubts of some "that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day." He pleaded with Americans to ignore "defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right." In related news, Senator Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) demanded that Bush stop questioning his patriotism with his anti-defeatist talk.

Meanwhile, Sufis and Sunnis continue to lose sleep: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday termed Iran as the global front-runner of 'real Islam', the news agency ISNA reported. 'Islam is the only mean for salvation of mankind with the Iranian nation as global front-runner and flag-holder of the real Islam,' Ahmadinjead said in his first-ever meeting as president with students in Teheran.

What the Hell is wrong with people? Donovan McNabb is criticized by the Philadelphia head of the NAACP for "trying to be white": "In essence Donny, you are mediocre at best," Mondesire wrote. "And trying to disguise that fact behind some concocted reasoning that African American quarterbacks who can scramble and who can run the ball are somehow lesser field generals ... is more insulting off the field than on." Amazing. Alas, then Donovan lets us know that perhaps such cultural relativism is as out of line as we might have thought: Obviously, if it's someone else who is not African American, it's racism," McNabb told reporters attending his annual holiday party last Saturday. "But when someone of the same race talks about you because you're selling out because you're not running the ball, it goes back to, 'What are we really talking about here?' "If you talk about my play, that's one thing. When you talk about my race, now we've got problems. If you're trying to make a name off my name, again, I hope your closet is clean because something is going to come out about you ... I always thought the NAACP supported African Americans and didn't talk bad about them. Now you learn a little bit more." No doubt, Rush Limbaugh might agree.

In sad NFL news, Former NFL defensive tackle Darrell Russell and an unidentified person were killed Thursday morning after their speeding car crashed, hospital authorities said. Russell was 29. Speeding you say? According to a report on KCBS, the accident occurred on southbound La Cienega Boulevard just after 6 a.m. local time. Russell was a passenger in the car and pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, a hospital spokesperson told SportsTicker. The report said the driver of the Pontiac Grand Prix involved in the accident was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at UCLA Medical Center. According to the report, the car hit a curb, ran over a fire hydrant and knocked over several news racks before striking a bus, which was out of service with its flashers on. Thankfully, no one outside the vehicle was hurt.

Another year and another undefeated Fighting Illini basketball team has trouble getting any respect, apparently because they don't play on the East Coast. As soon as the buzzer sounded to end Illinois' victory at North Carolina last month the first thing Dick Vitale said was, "What a great game these kids from North Carolina played." Sigh.

In other sporting news, with the apparent return of Rex Grossman tonight the Bears are starting to look like NFC favorites to me, especially outdoors with home field advantage. Tonight is the first time I've got to see the Bears all season, and boy do they look good on 60" of HDTV. I realize that I may be a bit biased but I think the officials got the call with 12:09 of the fourth quarter correct. The Falcon WR only had one foot down before he was leveled, and he did not maintain control when he hit the ground. It would have been an incomplete pass had Nathan Vasher not then caught it.

Robert Novak continues to dazzle with his brilliance: Senior Defense Department officials say Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has told them nobody should stay for just another year, but that he wants them for the rest of President Bush's second term. That is read as a signal that Rumsfeld intends to serve out the next three years. Rumsfeld finishing his term would contradict wide speculation that he will quit soon after this week's Iraqi parliamentary elections. For "wide speculation," read "silly Democratic Christmas non-religious holiday wish."

Just remember, everything you know (if acquired from Big Media) is wrong: The bodies of New Orleans residents killed by Hurricane Katrina were almost as likely to be recovered from middle-class neighborhoods as from the city's poorer districts, such as the Lower 9th Ward, according to a Times analysis of data released by the state of Louisiana. The analysis contradicts what swiftly became conventional wisdom in the days after the storm hit — that it was the city's poorest African American residents who bore the brunt of the hurricane. Slightly more than half of the bodies were found in the city's poorer neighborhoods, with the remainder scattered throughout middle-class and even some richer districts.

Ahem: Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist. Jeez, it must really be a slow news day for this to make the papers.

And to close with one scary thought, I figure Iran's got about five more weeks before Israel does the world's dirty work one more time.

Is There Anybody Out There

At long last my labours have borne fruit.

Today my partner Dave and I bought the company I've been working for since last year. I've never been so much in debt. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Blogging shall resume shortly.

Still Deciding

I haven't setled completely on what to do yet, but I'm thinking about folding this blog up and starting a new one called "My Life Among the Savages", because that is what reading papers and blogs feels like these days. The savages are the people who believe in magic to fix problems, evil spirits who bedevil their existence, tribalism, authority without commensurate responsibility for themselves, responsibility without commensurate authority for those with whom they disagree, and rewriting history whenever it becomes inconvenient -- amongst other egregious sins against humanity.

The battle against the darkness is becoming fierce.

DOWNDATE: Yep, savages. Starting with Tim Russert this morning. What a disgraceful performance, and make no mistake, it was a performance. Just notice how hostile and animated "non-partisan" Tim is when he asking a question about the "failures" of the federal government, and how softlly he lobs the questions about the "failures" of the state and local officials. And I would have thought that someone who worked at such a high level for the former governor of New York would have understood why the federal government doesn't sweep in and take over cities days before a disaster occurs. And as for Timmy's virtual demand that, "heads have to roll", well, I guess I hadn't realized until now that the Left really did long for the days of the French Revolution. Vive la terror!

Hindsight is such a wonderful thing, almost as good as a magic wand.

Open Topic

Since so few people are interested in reading what I have to say, here's your chance to leave your mark, even if it hurts. Of course, this blog may only be around for two more days, so make it good.

Pottermania

I finished the last of the extant Harry Potter books over the weekend while we had periods of no power and the lightning prevented me from working outside. I have thoroughly enjoyed all six books and have a few thoughts, commments, questions, and projections below the fold.

Note: Serious spoilers ahead!

After five years of Snape wanting the Defense of the Dark Arts job, he finally got it. And what happens? Nothing, so far as I can tell. Either something will be revealed in the next and final installment or I missed it while reading early into the morning.

The "Half-Blood Prince" almost seemed like a throwaway line. Was it as irrelevant to the rest of the story as it seemed to be?

I'm very impressed with how everything continues to hold together so well. Ms. Rowling seems to have understood the outline of how the story would unfold long before she finished the first book. Incidentally, this is one of the reasons Star Wars 1, 2, and 3 seemed to suck so much -- George Lucas really hadn't given it much thought until his hands were tied by what had already been shown to transpire. Books 4, 5, and 6 are much more complex than books 1, 2, and 3. I hope the liberties taken in the movies for 1, 2, and 3 don't hamstring them too much later.

I'm somewhat surprised Harry isn't going to end up with the greatest witch of his age -- Hermione. It has been clear since book 3 that Hermione was going to end up with Ron, but it wasn't obvious to me that Harry was destined to start snogging with Ginny until book 5. Too many Cho Chang hints, I guess.

Hogwarts will open next year and Harry will be back. Why?
1. The title will be Harry Potter and the Something Something Something: Year 7 at Hogwarts.
2. Harry will still be able to talk with Dumbledore, but only through his portrait in the Headmistress' office at Hogwarts.
3. All the coupling still has to be resolved, and since everyone else will be at Hogwarts...
4. Harry's attempt to do a Peter Parker with Ginny isn't going to stand up. Love has been put forward as an ancient powerful magic that Voldemort cannot seem to grasp. Somehow, I don't think Ms. Rowling has finished with this theme.
5. Neville Longbottom still has a significant role to play, IMHO, and where else besides there and St. Mungo's will Harry run into him? Haven't you ever wondered why Neville ended up in Gryffindor rather than Hufflepuff? Oh, and I hope Neville's happy with Luna.
6. Hagrid and Gwarp still have a role to play, and they'll both be at, or at least near, Hogwarts.
7. In a recurring lietmotif, there has to be a new Defense of the Dark Arts Professor, one for each year. Hmm..., will the new professor's initials be R.A.B.?
8. How is Harry going to become an Auror without his N.E.W.T.s?

I have no idea what J.K. Rowlings' politics are, and I know she remains attached to Amnesty International, but her values seem to be somewhat conservative. Evil exists and must be fought constantly -- frequently at great cost, bad things happen to good people, you have to take care of yourself, and don't trust the government. The last one really surprises me. While the people leading the Ministry of Magic want to do the right thing, they just cannot put aside the political battles long enough to do so. Gee, any parallels with real life here you can think of?

We never did find out what happened to Dumbledore's hand, though he promised Harry to tell him later when there was time to do the tale justice, so that's got to be in book 7.

I thought the centaurs should have taken Firenze back as a gift to Dumbledore when they came to show their respects. Perhaps they have and Ms. Rowling forgot to mention it, or they still may.

I sure hope Aragog's children don't make another appearance.

I also hope that Kingsley Shacklebolt isn't played by Samuel L. Jackson. And why is it that the wizarding community struggles to understand muggles so much, and yet K.S. can be the Prime Minister's secretary and outperform everyone else who has had the job?

Harry Potter has been a virtual who's who of British actors and actresses. There are only a few left to pick from: Dame Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Hugh Grant, Ian McKellen, Ewan McGregor, Emily Watson, Pierce Brosnan (yes, I know he's Irish), Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Billy Connally, Patrick Stewart, John Rhys-Davies, Jason Stratham, and Vinny Jones.

The other schools seem to have fallen off the face of the earth once again, although we did get to see Fleur take a more visible role. Will we see Viktor Krum again in book 7, if for no other reason than to tweak Ron with Hermione and Viktor once again? While Harry and Voldemort are both tied to Hogwarts, the Death Eaters are not, as we saw with Karkaroff.

I expect that Percy Weasley is going to get a chance to redeem himself but he'll probably die doing so.

Obviously, Malfoy will be back in a key role as well, though it is difficult to divine what it might be.

There's still one Weasley we don't know much about yet -- Charlie. Any bets he makes a notable appearance in the next book?

Professor Trelawny, despite being a fraud when it comes to teaching divination, does appear to actually be a seer, although she cannot control it and in fact seems to be completely unaware of the fact that she really is a seer.

The big questions is where does Professor Snape actually stand -- and is it proper to still call him professor? Has Snape always been Voldemort's man, is he still Dumbledore's man, or has he been truly vacillating back and forth. This one's tough. If Snape has remianed Dumbledore's man then he deserves almost as much credit as Harry for what he has had to go through thus far. I have some other thoughts here that push me towards believing that Snape is still Dumbledore's man, but they are tied up in a private discussion whose details I shan't reveal here. But here's a hint... why did Dumbledore call ask for Professor Snape as soon as he returned instead of Madame Pomfrey or Professor Slughorn?

My last and potentially most important conjectiure is that the last Horcrux is going to be a person. Ah, but who? Since that person has to die before Voldemart can be killed, opening the doors of paradox here, what if it Harry himself? Yes, of course Voldemort wants to kill Harry, but if he fails, he knows he cannot fully die while Harry remains alive. And if it is Harry, will there be some way that Harry can break the horcrux without dying, though he will be forever adversely affected by it?

Then again, if it isn't Harry, what if the last Horcrux is somehow bound up with the fate of Hogwarts itself? What if the last Horcrux is something of Gryffindor and Ravenclaw instead of Gryffindor or Ravenclaw? Maybe it's just the sorting hat. Either way, can Harry bring himself to destroy it? And one last, desperate grasp -- what if the final Horcrux is Cho Chang? Again, will Harry be able to destroy it?

DOWNDATE: A friend sent me a link to a site which argues that Dumbledore isn't dead. I'm not going to go into a point by point refutation, but after rereading the end of book 6, I am quite certain Dumbledore is dead. I am just as certain now that Snape is still Dumbledore's man. If anyone cares I can expound farther.

DOUBLE DOWNDATE: Was Lily Evans in Ravenclaw? If she was, then Harry is something of Gryffindor (James) and Ravenclaw (Lily). I can't seem to remember a definitive reference that places Lily in Gryffindor. Jeez, I hope someone proves me wrong on this one.

Color Me Surprised

Did I say surprised? I meant appalled. Skipping gleefully by the false dichotomies and the apples to oranges comparisons of her linked article -- pre-historic savannah vice 20th century totalitarianism, please -- I gather that Megan McArdle is one of those folks who would willingly trade her freedom for security, or at least give it some serious consideration. She concludes with:

That's the magic of the market, actually; we don't have to choose.

Uh, well, actually we have to choose all the time, unless she means that we don't have to choose between the false dichotomies presented. Or did I miss the unanimity of agreement regarding the GWOT, presenting us with what might be characterized as a rather stark choice between living the free life of, ahem, Bush-men, or accepting the 21st century totalitarianism of Islamofascism.

Iran, Iran So Far Away

I wonder if Europe's greatest fear now is that Israel will act or that they won't.

Convicted? Um...

I have been accused of having a lead foot and a big heart. The folks from the Muscular Dystrophy Association are coming to arrest me on August 31 and lock me up. My bail has been set at $2005, which will fund 30 minutes of MDA research.

Please help bail me out by making a donation here. You can also donate via the MDA-PayPal button on the far left. All funds donated will be presented to MDA in conjunction with the 2005 Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon.

I've never asked anyone for a dime on this blog before. I only ask now on behalf of others who need your help. And to help motivate you further, help me get to $2005 by August 31 or I will kill this blog.

Thanks. Oh, and you do know what that is a picture of, don't you? I mean, don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

DOWNDATE: Hey cool, I've got a graphic now to let you know how we're doing.

DOUBLE DOWNDATE: Alright, blogospherians. I'm posting up a storm and yet the donations seem to have shrivelled up faster than a slug carrying a 30 pound salt lick trying to cross Bonneville Flats at high noon. Will you donate more if I stop posting?

Busy Workday

Back tomorrow. Let's see if absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

People Are Cats Too

Laurence Simon raised $2,875 for cats in one day last week. Congratulations!

Any chance we can raise something approaching that in one month for people?

We've Got the Bleat

Or rather, we would have if it was readable in IE. Can someone please notify Mr. Lileks about the problems with his new and, ahem, improved format?

MEGO

So, K-Lo, have John Podheretz, Rammesh Ponnuru and Robert P. George come to a conclusion as to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin yet?

Note to James Lileks

Dude, fix the formatting on today's Bleat. Please.

Note to K-Lo

Speaking only for myself, my eyes glaze over whenever I see a post where Ramesh Ponnuru and John Podheretz are "debating" each other. If it really seems that interesting to you, may I suggest you get out a bit more often.

Woo Hoo!

It has been quite some time since I've won a caption contest after Dodd retired his weekly caption contests, before retiring altogether. Anyway, I won this one over at Outside the Beltway.

Hey, how about leaving a few dollars for Jerry's kids while you're here?

In the Immortal Word of Dr. Rene Belloq...

Adieu.

Ten Things

This meme is a little worse for wear, but here are ten things I've done that you probably haven't:

1. Encountered a bear up close and personal in Glacier National Park. Did I mention we were a two-day hike from the nearest gravel road?

2. Climbed Scafell Pike in the Lake District and finished the evening with a few pints at the Wasdale Head Inn afterwards.

3. Broke my big toe playing ping pong.

4. Hiked through the base of Little River Canyon in July (aka Bruce Martin's Death March).

5. Climbed Diamond Head on Oahu.

6. Attended Bear Bryant's last football game, the 1982 Liberty Bowl.

7. Hit a golf ball 360 yards, legitimately.

8. Won the College Bowl at my University.

9. Shook hands with Jack Nicklaus.

10. Listened to a customer admit that the biggest mistake he ever made was not accepting my proposal for a solution we offered him for $250,000 that I estimate instead cost perhaps $50,000,000 over the next 10 years. And that's all I have to say about that.

And I Thought It Was the Borg That Assimilated Everyone

Does this mean I should remove this from the blogroll?

I was going to title this post: It's Easier to Take the Boeing When You Are Already In Seattle, but Boeing up and moved to Chicago in 2001. Stefan can now be found here.

Metameme

My hits have doubled today, though most of them are hits from various search engines looking for one variant or another of "sine qua non". Has some great man or woman used "sine qua non" in a piece of purple prose today? Or is there been something published about the vote in France on the EU Constitution that has prompted this? Why all the unique search engine hits all of a sudden?

Hmmm..., I wonder if actionable intelligence could be gathered via an heuristic technique for monitoring hit on URLS built around relatively obscure words and phrases, e.g., "sine qua non."

Quick Hits

Or, in other words, random thoughts, pet peeves, obscure trivia, and thesis worthy conclusions offered without background or justification:

George Lucas' biggest mistake was making 1, 2, and 3, instead of 7, 8 and 9. Or, in other words, instead of The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith, he should have made Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation. Say, those titles seem strangely familiar.

Yalta was a deal with the devil. We know that now, though I think they knew it then too. Perhaps it was just the triumph of hope over experience. Regardless, the blanket amnesia or outright ignoraqnce by so many pundits of the zeitgeist and contemporary logistics of a war that, as Patton said, "we could still lose," is astounding. Yalta was a bad deal but it is far from obvious that all the better deals were skipped over or ignored for one reason or another. If putsch had came to shove, I don't think Stalin would have had a problem sacrificing another 10,000,000 men, but it is highly doubtful that anybody but the US would have been in a position to fight back, and, frankly, I don't think the US would have done so. Had we taken the Soviets on at that time, maybe the Soviet Union's Iron Curtain wouldn't have been "from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic," but from The Hague on the North Sea to Gibraltar on the Mediterranean. Gee, would it have been better if the Cold War were still raging? From the other side of the spectrum, FDR may have been a little feckless at Yalta without necessarily having to be in Uncle Joe's pocket. I can't detemine if the sheer lunacy of much of the commentary about Bush's comments on Yalta from the left and the right is due to a poor knowledge of WWII history or a wilingness to deceive themselves and others about WWII history to conform to ideologically motivated positioning. The latter is truly scary.

Which is weirder, the mythology of the ancient Greeks or the mythology of the (Post) Modern Left?

I no longer believe the Democrat Party is acting in good faith or with goodwill on much of anything at the national level. Please note that this is not necessarily true at the various state and local levels. Here's hoping that President George W. Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Speaker of the House Denny Hastert have the balls to grind the current leaders of the Democrat Party into mincemeat in the hope that it will force the Democrat Party membership to select new leaders who don't believe they are playing a sub-zero sum game when it comes to politics.

Can anybody explain to me briefly what is suposed to be scientific about Marxism?

Dismissing the self-promoting and the hopelessly delusional for a moment, given the lack of an "heir apparent" from the incumbent Republican Party and the complete disarray of damaged goods available from the Democrat Party, when is the last time it was so completely unclear who the candidates in the next US presidential election would be?

How can anyone even imagine trying to reform this bastard? Kill him. As soon as possible after a fair trial. Justice delayed is justice denied for these two little girls.

If there was an NFL God, he'd arrange for Andy Reid trade Terrell Owens to Baltimore, or better yet, San Francisco.

Rumor has it the NBA playoffs have started. I wouldn't know.

The best argument I've seen against revolvers in favor of semi-automatic pistols with large magazines. (Link courtesy of the Paratrooper of Love.)

Ever wondered how a light saber worked? (Link courtesy of Michele.)

Enjoy your weekend.

Seven Days Without Blogging Makes One Weak

Alright people, this makes nineteen posts for the day. My penance for stepping away for a week is complete. I look forward to reading your voluminous praise and the acknowledgment of a few good puns and some clever wordsmithing here and there tomorrow. At least I hope your comments outnumber the Chinese spam.

Personally, I Thought It Sucked

Arianna's Blog Blows

At least she's still got Bill Maher.

Priorities

The weather's nice, it being spring and all, the grass is growing, weeds are sprouting, herbs and annuals are waiting to be planted, daughter #1 has to learn to drive, numerous household repairs await, there are rumors circulating that I may get to go golfing and shooting again sometime soon, and if I run out of other useful or necessary things to do there's always plenty to do on the paying job. Reading and writing blog posts has slipped way down the priority list.

Time permitting, I have a letter to the editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to write though.

DOWNDATE: Obviously time did not permit, but the stench of the rank partisanship of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board was becoming overwhelming when it came to Governor Blunt's signing of Medicare reform. I'm sorry, but I really don't have the time to respond properly to these amateur Marxists who feel that incitement against the persons and property of those they disagree with is just peachy.

Oh, and some guy with a small penis who just can't seem to stop masturbating long enough to learn some of the basic rules of human decency has been polluting my comments with Chinese spam. Sorry Jake, you are the weakest link, and your posts are gone.

And in a similar vein, Trackbacks are gone due to serial abuse by men unable to consummate a relationship with anything less than four legs.

Potpourri

Quick hits...

I got my imported CD of Swagger by Gun today. I think I'll be driving to work tomorrow very fast.

In case any of you missed it, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the world ended in Missouri today because Governor Matt Blount (gratuitious guilt by association link - the son of US Congressman Roy Blount (R-MO), who is deputy majority leader under Tom DeLay) signed into law a bill to reduce Missouri's Medicare expenditures to the lower limit of the federally mandated law. Maybe the editorial page editors will put the phrase "Missouri's Shame" to rest for a couple of weeks now.

Or maybe not, as Missouri executed Donald Jones last night in their shiny, new, never before used execution chamber at Bonne Terre for his 1993 conviction for murdering his grandmother because she refused to give him money for drugs.

In other news, Randi Rhodes was dragged from her studio today, beaten, stripped and stabbed to death in the street by George Bush's jack-booted thugs after running a wildly hilarious audio clip of someone shooting the president. Gosh, this stuff is just so funny.

Gore blasts GOP bid to... oh, who cares?

And in two weeks, when the Senate resumes deliberations on John Bolton's nomination to be UN Ambassador, several people whom Mr. Bolton defeated in a staring contest will be brought forward to testify to his unfitness to represent the interests of the United States before that august body.

Meanwhile in Turtle Bay, Zimbabwe was re-elected to the U.N. Human Rights Commission! Good thing that Mugabe fellow is nothing like mean old Mr. Bolton.

Bill Moyer wannabe David Brancaccio claims he has found the Iraqi made famous for doing his Danial-san impossible to defend against crane move; albeit with a soapbox, a hood and a couple of wires attached for effect. Meanwhile, the Frontline episode celebrating the liberation of Iraq cannot even be found on the drawing board.

When the theocratic takeover of America happens, oh, sometime next month, how much fighting do you think there will be over which Puritan gets to go through Andrew Sullivan's closet?

You want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.

I read somewhere once that the fights in academia are so vicious because there is so little at stake.

Live From RDU, It's Wednesday Afternoon!

Quick hits while I wile away four hours at Raleigh Durham Airport's not so fabulous C concourse. At least they have WIFI, for a small fee, of course. At least in this concourse.

The most obvious irony that has been missed, as far as I can tell, about John Kerry's charming solicitation of weepy war stories to inflict political harm on the administration (and, necessarily, America) is that he has to go looking for them. Gee, you'd think there was one on every street corner given the press coverage, wouldn't you?

This week's rental car had Sirius Radio. Last month's had XM Radio. Thus far, I much prefer XM to Sirius. Today's highlights: Long May You Run - Neil Young, Pigs - Pink Floyd, Magic - Pilot, West End Girls - Pet Shop Boys, Deacon Blues - Steely Dan, Aja - Steely Dan, and the Theme from Shaft - Isaac Hayes.

Austin Bay notes that Al Qaeda's Iraqi Tet is failing. He attributes the failure mostly to the differeing nature of the War on Terror compared to the defensive war in Vietnam. While this is undoubtedly true, another very important factor is that the determination of what is news is no longer controlled by a handful of men in New York. There is no longer a credible Uncle Walter capable of declaring the war lost, although there are many wannabes who continue to try.

It is too soon to have to spend so much time so close to the University of North Carolina.

Geopolitical Pessimism Haiku:
It's true, as Tears for
Fears sang, "Everybody
Wants to rule the world"

I just got my VHS tapes of Lord Clarke's Civilisation back from a relative after a rather prolonged absence. Expect many casual allusions shamelessly plagiarized from his brilliance to show up in this space in the coming months. And it's finally available on DVD, even if the Philistines at PBS don't know how to spell his name properly. Hey cool, Jacob Bronowski's Ascent of Man is also available on DVD. When I get home and order them, they can assume a place of prominence on my DVD shelf next to Ken Burns' The Civil War, Sister Wendy's The Complete Collection, and Simon Schama's The History of Britain. Alas, the same shelf also contains Carl Sagan's rather unworthy Cosmos -- it couldn't even withstand the passing of twenty years without looking rather silly. And, FWIW, you'll not find any other Ken Burn's DVDs on my shelf either.

Blogroll

As some of you may have noticed I finally succumbed to blogtation, or bowed to blog etiquette and added a blogroll.

As Timothy B. Schmit once sang, I can't tell you why.

Total Qualitiless Management

One of the sharper minds in the blogosphere has returned with a seemingly contrarian view on Summersgate.

Any Mention of Umberto Eco ...

Is probably sufficient to get you a Sine Qua Non link:

Rulers who promote such harsh restrictions remind me of the twisted monk Jorge in Umberto Eco's book The Name of the Rose. Jorge banned a book by Aristotle on the value of laughter, on the rationale that laughter undermines respect for authority: "Laughter, for a few moments, distracts the villain from fear. But law is imposed by fear, whose true name is fear of God. ...if laughter is the delight of the plebians, the license of the plebians must be restrained and humiliated, and intimidated by sternness."

Some Blogosphere

So, are those NCAA Final Four tickets forthcoming or not?

This Is a Test of the Emergency Blogosphere System

Ok, I've heard a lot about how powerful the blogosphere is. Here's a simple test to see if there is any real power out there in the greater blogosphere or if it is just all hot air.

I need two tickets to the NCAA Final Four in St. Louis. I am more than willing to pay for them, but I only want to pay face value rather than the ridiculous prices offered by the on-line ticket brokers. Like Patton demanding to be allowed to fulfill his destiny in WW II, I cannot believe the Almighty will deny me the opportunity to watch Illinois play in the Final Four here in the town in which I now live.

So.

What's it going to be?

Spam

Just for the record, if you are looking for a prom dress or wedding attire, I'm certain there are better places to look for links than in my comments.

And some people are opposed to the death penalty. I can't understand it.

I Cheated Myself Out of an Instalanche

*

Just Do It

Name five famous Franks:

1. Zappa

2. -N-Furter

3. Lloyd Wright

4. Pippin

5. Anne

I Feel Like...

Everyman. Or Antonius Block. I forget which.

Even When It Isn't Business...

It's still business.

Ginger?

Or ...

wasabi?

Too Whiny?

Or just right?

Great Minds and All That

I'd compliment and highlight this article by John Hinderaker in the Weekly Standard, but then it might be taken as a bit of unseemly self-promotion since I reached the same conclusion about the Supreme Court reinstituting the rule of men for the rule of law six days earlier.

The Blog of Lists

Anybody else ever read The Book of Lists by David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace, or The People's Almanac by David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace some twenty-five years ago? Well, the meme survives:

1. What’s your favorite kind of cookie?
Very soft, warm chocolate chip cookies. All other cookies are poor imitations of this little slice of heaven.

2. Who is America’s most overrated actor?
Bill Clinton. No freakin' contest.

3. Name a guilty pleasure.
Driving very assertively. If you see a blue RX-8 passing you doing 75 in the outside lane of a two-lane off ramp, it's probably me. Especially, if you just passed me on the main road while I stayed within 9 mph of the posted speed limit.

4. “Scrubs” or “Everybody Loves Raymond”?
I haven't watched any conventional big three network programming other than sports for at least 15 years. I decline to accept the fundamental premise of this false dichotomy.

5. Name two things you can’t live without.
The obvious, and only appropriate, answer to this question must be Thing 1 and Thing 2. But instead I'll say food and water. Though I think this was meant somewhat more metaphorically, in which case I'll say books and music, hope and dreams, Country and Western, rythym and blues, rock and roll, retro and neo, theory and practice, integrals and derivatives, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, punch and pie, freedom and liberty, cowboys and Indians, arts and sciences, adverbs and adjectives, yin and yang, Harry Nilsson and you, us and them, irresistible forces and immovable objects, sugar and saccharine, those twins (Hmm..., is that one thing or two things? And in a similar vein, would Eric the bee be one thing or two things since he traditionally comes in halves? And would sweet and sour pork be one thing or two things? The mind boggles at the implications.), or friends and family.

6. Your first pet’s name + your mother’s maiden name = your porn star name.
Buddy Burress. Gee, is that how Paul Thomas Anderson came up with Dirk Diggler?

7. What song are you listening to right now?
Hell -- Squirrel Nut Zippers.

8. Name your celebrity crush.
Valerie Bertinelli. This one could get me into so much trouble, if you only knew...

9. Favorite punchline from a joke.
Oh, its a scythe. The best line by the best character from the best episode of the best sitcom ever.

10. Who do you want to pass this meme off to?
Kevin Bacon. Six degrees and all that.

Via Rodya via Andrea via Emily.

Slow News Day

I worked in an office once where we had two conferences rooms, labeled 2A and 2B respectively, or as I liked to refer to them, conference rooms 2B and not 2B.

How's that for a segue for the announcement of two new Sine Qua Non subheadings (alert the media!):

Green Eggs and Hamlet

Nemesis of Year 0 Utopians

The former will be a book translating Shakespeare's Hamlet into mono- and disyllabic rhymes suitable for youngsters. I am looking for an illustrator. The latter is nothing more than an acknolwedgment of my keeping up the good fight against the perfect -- "What is good, Phaedrus?" and all that.

A Request

Will the, ahem, gentlemen who keeps visiting this site from search results that invariably include the word "nipple" please stop it. Here's what you are looking for.

Estorica, Inc.

A small sampling of the more obvious allusions and indirect pop culture references all but maybe 35 people have missed here just in the last 2 days:

Instapundit
Elmer Fudd
Marshall McLuhan
A Flock of Seagulls
Monty Python
Supertramp
Tucker Max

So far...

I Rule!

In case you, like, didn't know.

DOWNDATE: Since I judge my success by the number of comments I get, I've decided to take my happiness in my own hands (heh!) and start commenting on my own posts. Who am I to deny myself the feelings of superiority that come with popularity?

DOUBLE DOWNDATE: Say Andrea, how come the comments require me to enter my ATM pin?

Just an Observation, Not a Value Judgment

Others achieve glory while I toil in relative obscurity. Being first is overrated.

Pity Poor Tucker

Matt Drudge also says:

OPEC TO PUMP MAX...

And here I though it was always Max who did the pumping.

FWIW

I can't stand the Emmy's, the Grammy's or the Oscars (or the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards if you prefer). While there is virtue in recognizing and rewarding excellence, especially through the development and definition of standards for excellence, I cannot stomach what each of these attempts to reward excellence in the entertainment industry have become with the incessant preening, rapidly multiplying bogus categories, the special brand of entertainment industry politics, and, worst of all, making the cult of celebrity ever more accessible to a large number of morally challenged intellectual lightweights.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to get to is that I have no interest whatsoever in any blogging awards. I do not participate in the polls and I have no interest whatsoever in trying to win any of them. Of course, I never will win any blogging awards anyway, but that's besides the point. Reading the commentary surounding some of the blogging awards out there leads me to believe that there is little difference between where the entertainment industry is today and where the blogosphere is heading, at least with respect to any awards.

That is all.

DOWNDATE: (Ed. -- I guess that wasn't all after all.) Did I mention how much I despise the Grammys?

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton won the second Grammy Award of his career on Sunday, when he was honored in the spoken word category for his best-selling memoir "My Life."

Clinton, who was not present to accept his award at the Los Angeles Convention Center, also won a Grammy last year in the spoken word for children category. His wife, U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, won a spoken word Grammy in 1997 for her memoir "It Takes A Village."

Shameless Linkwhoring

Happy Birthday Poopyhead! Like, Martha Stewart would share her private prison diary with you, you racist/facist/homophobe/sexist/misogynist stinky poopyhead! Not! As if Judd Nelson would hang with someone whose vocabulary is exceeded only by the neoconservative cretin sycophants who lap it up in your comments. Maybe you should keep scrounging for red pills from the sofa cushions instead of attempting to humiliate your neighbor with middlebrow humor, stream of consciousness ramblings and pop culture word association football. And Richard Brautigan sucks trout roe. Poopyhead!

-- spazmataz

The Year Thus Far

Happy New Year!

I got sick. I got better for about two days, which happily coincided with a business trip to Denver where I met up with Jeff and family, Andy, Sean, Scott, Steve Green, Matt and Robin two weeks ago. Fine folks, one and all. Thanks for the great time!

Then the blog went down due to the evil machinations of spambots. Blog got better, but I got sick again. Slowly improving now, but I will be glad to see this month in the proverbial rear-view mirror. Soon, I can get back to the rhetorical horse-whipping of the likes of noted military commentator Sid Blumenthal, the perennially self-loathing John Kerry, and our favorite whipping boy -- Richard Cohen.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

-- William Shakespeare

Light Posting

I've been down with a sinus infection this week so posting has been light. I am a wimp when I get sick, crawling into bed and drinking lots of fluids until I get better. I've also got an important conference coming up in ten days that will consume me in the days leading up to it, so posting will probably be light for the next two weeks.

From the Department of Redundancy Department (Or Is It the Bureau of the Bleeding Obvious?)

Matt Drudge breathlessly gives us this:

VANISH: Marine Charged With Desertion Goes Missing... Developing...

But Matt, what's with the use of lower case?

Happy New Year!

And here are my best wishes for my little corner of the blogosphere:

Matt “Blackfive” - The Paratrooper of Love: A steak and Johnny Walker Black followed by a fine cigar.

Tim Blair: All the readers Margo Kingston has but doesn’t deserve.

Jim Bowen: Approval from the NRC for the construction of a bunch of nuclear reactors.

Mark Byron: A correct hyperlink at Instapundit.

Michele Catalano: Larger victories.

Scott Chaffin: A seat at the final table with four of a kind when someone else is holding a full boat on the flop.

Richard Cohen: A freaking clue.

John Cole: More readers.

Will Collier: Something better than the BCS.

Conrad: Another Girl Friday, or a working hyperlink.

Susanna Cornett: The opportunities to use her education in a professionally and financially rewarding manner.

Steven Den Beste: Life, health and happiness.

Martin Devon: More opportunities to enjoy the sunset from his patio.

Maureen Dowd: A return to inventive invective in place of her rapidly deteriorating prose which has declined to the level of a 7th grade playground.

Dean Esmay: The strength to persevere through difficult challenges and prosper.

fad (name hidden to protect the innocent): Resolution to his issues with the state bureaucracy.

Frank Fleming: Enough wall space to hang his monkey pelts.

Rich Galen: Frank Rich’s spot on the NY Times’ Op-Ed page.

Jeff Goldstein: The hardest nipples in the universe, or the correct medication to control his intermittent multiple personality disorder -- not the pills behind the sofa cushions.

Stephen Green: A working DSL connection.

Jim Hake: More donations.

Andrea Harris: A better job, better apartment, and all the filthy lucre my webmistress deserves.

Dodd Harris: A complete Republican takeover of the Bluegrass state.

Heather Havrilesky: Cialis.

John Hawkins: A lasting GOP hegemony.

Lawrence Haws: A return of the NHL.

Greg Hlatky: Best in Show.

Bill Hobbs: Mad props from the pajama-haters.

Joanne Jacobs: “School Work: How Two Grumpy Optimist