Thursday, March 30, 2006

Dogs and cats are in the classroom*

I never said I was orginal - here's some more demotivational posters because someone was kind enough to send me this. OK, back to work.

*explained
here.

Saturday, March 25, 2006

quickie

youtube.com 'america f*ck yeah' search result

Update: 3/28/2006 2:59 PM: Brooklyn Int'l Film Festival 2004 Winner: Best Animation

It is pretty swanky. Kinda V for Vendetta-y... Constructivism-y... El Lissitzky-y

Update 3/28/2006 3:29 PM: PNAC [see pp. 50-51* from http://newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf]
Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century - A Report of the Project for the New American Century - September 2000

Any serious effort at transformation must occur within the larger framework of U.S. national security strategy, military missions and defense budgets. The United States cannot simply declare a “strategic pause” while experimenting with new technologies and operational concepts. Nor can it choose to pursue a transformation strategy that would decouple American and allied interests. A transformation strategy that solely pursued capabilities for projecting force from the United States, for example, and sacrificed forward basing and presence, would be at odds with larger American policy goals and would trouble American allies. Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.
* See pp. 62-63 as per pdf doc.

Downing Street Memo [Edit: oops, that's the 'new DSM'. Here is the orginal DSM] - and now this.

Friday, March 24, 2006

mdhm interim report #2

So, it's all true. Blogging for most of us here among the great unwashed usually ends up being a half-hearted enterprise that one quits about two days/weeks/months in and/or an on-line journal written by and for losers chronicling either the supremely mundane (e.g. what I ate today.) or the supremely stupid (see stinky feet project, etc.) events in their sad lives. But before I hang this isht up* I have a question: Is there some German word or something, y'know, along the lines of Schadenfreude that might convey the feeling simultaneous repulsion and attraction that seems to be the main raison d'etre for this blog pile? I am sure I could find it myself but I'm lazy and I think it may be best it remains a mystery. It would probably be hard to spell anyway. Maybe even more daunting than s-c-h-a-d-e-n-something.

Whatever - Shorter My Blog: My Dog is cute. It loves my wife but hates me. Ouch! Poor me. My President (it hurts to say that) and his whole crew of f'ing GOP goose-stepping stormtroopers drive me crazy and makes me worry for the future of this country like I am living in some type of Fast Times at American-Taliban High nightmare or something. I live in Brooklyn near a subway but that is all I will tell you about me. I want to remain anonymous because this is my first ever blog and it blows. Plus some of you** might be weirdo internet stalker types. Don't take offense if you are. I'd be one too if there was any money in it. The hours are better anyway. Where was I? Oh yeah, blowing. Whales blow too, through little holes in their head. Whatch-ma-callits. Blow-Holes. Some classic book I never read was all bout this guy who was obsessed with killing a white whale. I went to Nantucket for a few nights which made a lot of money whaling back in the olden days. Anyway, whales 'n isht. I think that means something. Also, I like music. Not the music you like though. My music is cooler than yours because the singing is crappy and the guitars are noisy and they played to a small crowd for $5 a head and I saw them live and I shook the singer's hand and I had a band too once and we were so-so and blah blah blah - oh yeah, there was this one band that the whole whaling thing reminded me of - a band out of New Bedford singing about Whaling n isht. I like beer.

See. I can't even be bothered to do a proper 'shorter'
whatever that is.

pfft. who cares. time for drinks.

*a little secret: I already laid the foundation for a new blog under a new pseudonym. I predict it will last about half as long as this steaming pile did/does.

** You are there aren't you- readers? hello?

I know it when I see it...

Wait. Let me see that one more time. Yep. But I better watch than one more time - y'know just to make sure it's really smut. MMMmmm yeah. Wow. Smutty. I better put this on the website so everyone else can see it over and over again and become enraged over how smutty it is. It seems to get smuttier every time I watch it.

From parentstv.org:
TV's Worst Clips 2001-2004

WARNING: Graphic Content!!!
Do NOT push play if you don't want to see the explicit video!!!:

I can't watch this right now* but I will assume this is not a tease.

*I am not at my domicile. I am at 'work' catching up on rudepundit.blogspot.com

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

The Maginot Manitou* Line

Saw this on Daily Kos:

U.S. puts machine-guns on Great Lakes coast guard vessels
For the first time since 1817, U.S. Coast Guard vessels on the Great Lakes are being outfitted with weapons – machine-guns capable of firing 600 bullets a minute.

[...]

...they will be stored below decks on the coast guard's 11 Great Lakes cutters and will be mounted only when needed.
I understand sidearms and rifles, but a 7.62-mm light military machine-gun?

Meanwhile...
Newark airport security head bounced
March 10, 2006, 11:22 AM EST
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) _ Federal officials have ousted the head of security at Newark Liberty International Airport following four years of security breaches and staffing problems at one of the nation's busiest airports.

[...]

In October 2004, the newspaper reported that Newark screeners were missing one in four explosives and weapons in undercover tests of checkpoints. In December 2004, screeners lost a fake test bomb during a training exercise; it wound up on a plane to Amsterdam.



* Manitou Isle

Update 3/15/2006 7:51 PM:

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

lost, found and free

I am cheap. For example, I made this blog for $0.00 USD.

Also, I like dumpster diving. At least I used to. I once found a pristine bottle (can?) of Zima (by Coors*) in a dumpster. Since I was curious what the fuss was about this "truly unique alcohol beverage" I drank it. This was the early 90's of course. I am a bit wiser now, but no less cheap. I still don't purchase Coors products. Oh no, have I grossed you out? I hope not. I did say it was pristine. I just wiped it off a bit near the opening, cracked it open and had a swig. There was something very refreshing about standing in a dumpster, knee-deep in cast off dorm room furniture, drinking my very first (and last) Zima. But then, this was the height of the grunge era. A brief aside - I finally got around to buying 'Prison', a cd of Steven Jesse Bernstein reading his poems aloud and set to music. I bought it after owning and knowing just one track off it that I had for years on
a comp cd.

Anyway, I was talking about scoring freebies -

I listened to
the Ricky Gervais Show for free from episode 4 on, thanks to Guardian Unlimited, and I loved it.

But now Ricky, Steve and Karl have brought that gravy train to a screeching halt.

I have not yet brought myself to purchase one of the new episodes.
I have the means. I have iTunes. I have a credit card. But I am cheap.


* I seem to be stuck on all things Colorado. This too will pass.

Friday, March 10, 2006

fromage or frottage?


Fromage... I'm off to buy some fancy cheese n' crackers.

Chez-Greenthoughts is expecting guests tonight.

Rocky Mountain Low

Gale Norton: Dear John, I'm going back to Denver.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton Resigns:
WASHINGTON — Interior Secretary Gale Norton resigned Friday after five years in President Bush's Cabinet and at a time when her agency is part of a lobbying scandal over Indian gaming licenses.

In a letter to Bush, Norton said she the resignation would be effective at the end of March.

"Now I feel it is time for me to leave this mountain you gave me to climb, catch my breath, then set my sights on new goals to achieve in the private sector," she said in the two-page resignation letter.

[...]

In 1996 she sought the Republican Senate nomination in Colorado but was defeated by Wayne Allard, who now holds the seat. Later she co-founded the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, a group that has become embroiled in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.
It's nice to re-visit the villains of those innocent days-gone-by. That quaint time before 9-11 'changed everything', the invasion of Iraq, the Halliburton no-bid scandal, 2004 election irregularities, Katrina/FEMA debacle, America as surveillance state, President as above-the-law monarch, the outing of CIA NOC Valerie Plame, the Jack Abramhoff scandal, the DeLay scandal, the corporate malfeasance and somnambulistic SEC scandals a la Enron, direct attacks on Roe v. Wade, polls showing 6 out of 10 Americans say the Bush Administration is dead wrong on most everything, the UAE / DP World port security thing... (I'm sure I left something out*). Those were simpler times. Simple like country livin' and Country Time lemonade**. BTW, this is lemonade I've been drinking for the past 5+ years, isn't it?

Good luck Gale.

You were the very first, teeney-tiny, drop of piss in my lemonade.

Update 3/10/2006 3:08 PM: More on the (piss) reign of Gale here.

* Update 3/10/2006 3:29 PM: Leave something out? You bet your pulpified legs I did! Abu-Ghraib, Gitmo, extraordinary rendition, Alberto Gonzales, glow sticks, water boarding and more!.

** Update 3/13/2006 12:51 PM: Also, Environmental Working Group says look out for benzene in your Country Time Lemonade but this has nothing to do with Gail Norton. Just like Cadbury's 'Project Denver' from late 1990 has nothing to do with Gail's alma mater University of Denver. Mmmm... benzene.