Everything's Cool

Don't know what is worse, having a situation where the weather can be blamed on Republicans, or one where the climate can be. Both cases show the power of the media, and to some extent, the inability of the general population to do critical thinking.

It took one Guard unit a day to travel just 50 miles through the debris of Katrina. All nearby rescue equipment had just been through a hurricane. People had failed to evacuate New Orleans. All this would have happened if John Kerry had been president, or even the Climate Stopper Al Gore.

Hurricanes aren't subject to politics. All we can do is avoid them, and try to clean up from them. Anyone who tries to gain from them is sick. And those that are amused by their possible impact are despicable.

Look, Up in the Sky

It's a bird, it's a plane....

(background: iskandarsalim)

Trooper Trouble?

Nah, I see no trooper trouble for Sarah Palin. And after reading the timeline over at Flopping Aces, even less so.

That's not to say that the Democrats won't give her trouble on this. They're protecting all American citizens' rights to use tasers on their 11 year-old sons. I mean, if Democrats won't stand up for him, who will?

And They Think They're So Smart

The Obama campaign puts this out:

Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Well, duuuuhh. Barack Obama is a former second-grader. And his VP pick was a former preschooler! Think of it, formerly 12 years away from college, and they want him to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

And if Governor Palin's foreign policy experience is zero, then it exactly matches Obama's.

Good Choice for VP

John McCain tapped Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a conservative
who shares his maverick streak, to be the Republican
vice presidential running mate on Friday.

That Feud

Olbermann fights with everyone, sure. But there's something familiar about the bickering between Olbermann and Mathews. Think about it; doesn't it sound like two teenage friends, fighting over a girl?

Mathews, well, as the Viagra box cautions: he should seek medical attention when the condition lasts for over four hours. But now Olbermann too. This could get dangerously entertaining.

Delete Cookies

You Could Have Said Something Sooner

"What do you mean, 'that's not what I asked' ?"

Is it Over Yet?

"Wasn't there supposed to be a Unicorn? And
could you ask the control room for more cowbell?"

Pageantry, Live It, or Live with It

"And I want to thank the US Americans, and the
Germany,... and all my fans!! BFF forever everyone!!!"

Wait for It, Wait for It....

Finally found a use for that awful picture of McCain that the leftish blogs like to post... Watch for John in the background tonight. If he shows up in a gladiator outfit, watch out.

(BTW, Joey, do you like movies about Gladiators?)

Miscellany

Via Newsbusters:

In case traditional news outlets "forget" to tell you, Uncle Sam announced this morning that second-quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth was revised sharply upward to 3.3% from the late July's advance estimate of 1.9%.

Dude, where's my recession?

Y'know, the recession that Barack Obama claimed we "almost certainly in" back in mid-July?

Also... been listening to this in the background today. The wife and I might have to have another child, just so I can name him, or her, Stanley Kurtz.

Microscopy

"Darn it, Bob. Not again."

Hey DoJ

My attention was grabbed when I saw Michelle Malkin's post titled "Document drop: Turning the tables again on Obama’s speech-squelching thugs" It's about American Issues Project turning the tables on the Obama campaign and questioning contributions to liberal groups.

Quite right. What's good for the goose, and all that. But what I thought the post was going to be about, what I wanted it to be about, was American Issues Project writing the Dept. of Justice asking them to investigate William Ayers. Is there nothing in his bomb-making past that warrants prosecution? I know the statute of limitations never runs out on murder. Was there not enough evidence to tie him to his friends' deaths? Come on DoJ - let's look into it.

Where's My Fiddle?

I fear for the Republic, I do.

The Wonders of Google

Not that I'm complaining or anything, but I just found out that Are We Lumberjacks? comes up #3 if you search Google for "Islamic porn". Woo-hoo! We're number three, we're number three, we're number three!

Real People?

Please ignore the man behind the curtain.

CHICAGO (AP) - An Indiana railroader, an Iowa mother and a Michigan truck driver are getting a moment at the Democratic convention to help portray Barack Obama as the people's champion and counter GOP characterizations of him as an out-of-touch celebrity.

The idea is for these "real people," as the campaign calls them, to share personal stories about why they are supporting the Democratic presidential candidate and how they think he will help folks like them and the more than 20 million expected to be watching the convention at home.

An article by Nedra Pickler sheds light on how real these real people are:

During the weekend, the campaign formally invited these people to the convention, providing airfare, lodging and great seats to watch Obama accept the nomination from a circular stage on the 50-yard line at Invesco Field. The real people and delegates attending their first convention will be among the roughly 300 people sitting directly around the stage.

Professional speechwriters are helping prepare their remarks, timed to about three minutes each. And just like any senator or other VIP speaker, an assigned staff member will oversee their schedules and logistical movements, including media interviews, speech coaching and on-stage rehearsals.

Real people also will be featured at an event Tuesday alongside Michelle Obama and the nation's female Democratic governors to talk about the economic problems facing women.

Remember the fainters? I've always suspected that they, and their "catchers", were trained. Now Obama Mania is peaking and the fainters are gone. Could it be the campaign realized they were over-fainting? Maybe so, now the the campaign has gotten more subtle.

DNC

Darn, just when I was gearing up for angry wife ridicule, Michelle Obama puts on a dress and takes the clinch out of her jaw. So, that was a day ago - that means the American public has forgotten all about this being a mean country, and "for the first time in my adult life I'm proud of my country." Darn.

But it's not a new phenomenon, this reinvention thing. Remember how Hillary said, "I'm not some Tammy Wynette standing by my man." ? Then, when it was needed, she became Mrs. Cleaver. Ah well, I guess you can do these things when the MSM is on your side.

One story that the MSM isn't burying too well is Obama's connection to Bill Ayers; partly due to the campaign's efforts to shut down ads mentioning Ayers. Good.

Now Fox has news on an Ayers interview from 2004. In it, Ayers tries to minimize the threat that the Weathermen posed. He claims that the Weather Underground was only interested in damaging property, not killing people. Andy McCarthy sets the record straight, noting that Ayers claimed:

That bomb had been intended for detonation at a dance that was to be attended by army soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Hundreds of lives could have been lost had the plan been successfully executed. Ayers attested that the bomb would have done serious damage, "tearing through windows and walls and, yes, people too."

Sort of makes you wonder how it is Ayers became a mover and shaker in Chicago politics, and remains a force in the field of education. An even better question is: will all this attention affect how Ayers is perceived in the future? I certainly hope so.

Thank You So Much

"Thanks so much; my arms were getting tired."

I've Seen Bigger Riots in My HS Lunchroom

At least at 11:30 Monday night - it looks like more police than protesters at the Pepsi Center in Denver. Sixty-eight was way wilder. Still, I caution the DPD to keep fresh batteries in the tasers.

Here's a live feed... it starts with the sound on:


h/t: MM

Free Hugs

Wacky Democrats

Joe Biden performs his famous "thong face-lift" routine, which
has kept Democrat staffers in stitches for the last twenty years.

Iranian Olympic Swim Team

Sadly, no gold. "We're just happy none of them drowned"

Eating Well is the Best Revenge

Here's some interesting news:

EATING reheated spaghetti bolognese could reduce your risk of cancer.
Scientists have discovered that multiple rounds of heating - plus a little extra oil - enhance the health benefits of processed tomatoes.
The technique alters the structure of the tomato molecule lycopene so that it is more easily transported into the bloodstream.
Lycopene, a powerful antioxidant, has been shown to prevent cancers and may also combat heart disease and diabetes. Previous studies indicated that processing raw tomatoes into purees or sauces increased the benefits...

... Corn oil was added to both sauces, but the key to producing ‘bent’ lycopene was a 40-minute second round of heating at 127c. The resulting sauce contained nine times more ‘bent’ lycopene.

I'd use olive oil, but simmering it for an extra hour is something I'll do anyway, if there's time.

This sounds like something you could do with bottled sauce but you can do much better on your own. What I do is a variation on a Rachael Ray Puttanesca Sauce:

4 tablespoons (4 turns around the pan) extra-virgin olive oil
4 to 6 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tin flat anchovy fillets, drained
1 /2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
20 oil-cured calmata cracked away from pit and coarsely chopped
3 tablespoons capers
1 (32-ounce) can chunky style crushed tomatoes
1 (32-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
1 small can tomato paste
A few grinds black pepper
1/4 cup (a couple of handfuls) flat leaf parsley, chopped
oregano to taste
balsamic vinegar to taste 2 tbs or so
You can pretty much follow Yummo's instructions on the link

Trying it on the squeamish for the first time, you may want to halve the anchovies, and don't tell anyone they're in there. Some people won't like olives, either, but really, such people aren't worthy of being your friends. Add hamburger, ground pork, or meatballs if you like. Simmer for a long time, and live forever, eating spaghetti. Mmmm.

Frustrated Radicals

Michelle Malkin reports on the anarchy of Recreate 68 (not).

It seems winning the war and coming to an agreement on when, and under what conditions, troops will leave kinda takes the wind out of the anarchists' sails. "We demand.... crap Billy, what do we demand?"

I'm sure there will be a few jack asses but the anarchy boat has already sailed, boys and girls.

The Opposition

Somewhere, someone is doing a caption contest on this one.

Fear the "Fairness" Doctrine, because it would make it much harder to get information like this out there:

It's impossible to know Obama's motives. But several of his official acts benefited Rezko, who in turn raised some $250,000 for Obama's campaigns.

In October 1998, Obama wrote city and state officials, urging them to give Rezko $14 million to build an apartment complex outside of Obama's state Senate district. The Chicago Sun-Times noted last year that Obama's request included $855,000 in "development fees" for Rezko and for another developer, Allison Davis, who happened to be Obama's old law-firm boss. Obama's spokesman said it was just a coincidence that the state senator wrote letters to obtain millions of dollars for his two longtime friends.

In fact, Obama was a dependable ally of subsidized developers in the Legislature, giving Rezko and others broader help as well. In "The Case Against Barack Obama" I identify and parse six housing bills with which Obama was closely involved. A few examples:

• * In 2001, Obama cosponsored a bill allowing developers to sell state tax credits to others and pocket half of theproceeds.
  
• * In 2002 and 2004, he was chief cosponsor of a bill to authorize a rent-subsidy fund giving "grants . . . directly to developers" of low-income housing. Seventy percent of the money was earmarked for the Chicago area.
• * Obama cosponsored the Illinois Housing Initiative Act of 2003, which required the governor to develop a plan for more low-income housing and "provide[d] for funding for housing construction and rehabilitation and supportive services."
• * In 2003, Obama voted for the Affordable Housing Planning and Appeal Act, which required Illinois municipalities to make 10 percent of their housing units "affordable" (by definition, this included subsidized housing). This forced 46 communities just outside of Chicago to create more than 7,000 new "affordable" units - a huge boost in demand for area developers. The bill also provided loopholes for developers to circumvent local ordinances and regulations.

After voting for this measure (it passed narrowly), Obama then cosponsored a new bill that moved up its implementation by more than a year.

These and the other Obama-backed bills helped make millionaires of Rezko and other slum developers at taxpayers' expense. The developers - including his former law boss and an adviser to his current campaign - reciprocated, together giving and raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for Obama's campaigns.

To sum up: Obama got them subsidies to build. He secured them a steady income of government rent subsidies. He arranged special tax credits and abatements for them. He backed measures that increased demand for their services, and helped them legally circumvent local laws.

The modern, new day, post racial, above it all candidate got into politics with the help of criminal landlords and the old-fashioned Chicago "machine". I'm glad Biden is on board, ready to pummel McCain with accusations of being rich. I say personal attacks will be good for our side, because most Americans aspire to being rich. Also, because John McCain didn't get there by writing letters like this:

(clickbiggenate)

With Friends Like These

h/t: formerly Sailorette

Obama-Who? Biden?

Why the blowhard Biden?

Only thing I can guess is that they need someone to get between Senator Obama and the microphone. Obama didn't shine at Saddleback. Stand him up against Senator McCain and his empty-suitedness shows. That's why they've sought minimal debates. Maybe they plan on throwing the Biden bluster switch any time a distraction is needed in the campaign.

Two guys: one who talks pretty, one who talks a lot, both of whom want to get through this thing without saying too much. So I expect lots of McCain attacks. eg - McCain is rich.... Well duuuuh, You're all rich. They'll have to do better than that.

Strange Story

From the BBC comes a hard-to-believe-it:

An eight-year-old dog has touched the hearts of Argentines by saving the life of an abandoned baby, placing him safely alongside her own new puppies.

The country's media are calling him "the miracle baby".

He was born prematurely to a 14-year-old girl in a shanty town outside the capital, Buenos Aires.

She is said to have panicked and abandoned the boy in a field, surrounded by wooden boxes and rubbish.

Then along came La China, the dog which somehow picked up the baby and carried him 50m to place him alongside her own puppies.

The dog's owner heard the child crying and found him covered with a rag.

The baby, weighing 4kg (8lb 13oz), had some slight injuries, but no bite marks. The owner called the police and the child is now being looked after by the authorities, while a decision is taken about his future.

Hard to believe, yes, that an Argentinian dog would render more aid to a premature baby than state senator Obama would have required from licensed physicians.

(*though 8 lb. 13 oz.???? sounds darned big for a premature baby)

Just Some Suggestions

And it goes on...



And one that will keep me up tonight:


Sorry, but the G-rating rules out the suggested Obama-Vagina.

Some of My Best Friends Are Accountants

A patient was at her doctor's office after undergoing a complete physical exam. The doctor said, "I have some very grave news for you. You only have six months to live."

The patient asked, "Oh doctor, what should I do?"

The doctor replied, "Marry an accountant."

"Will that make me live longer?" asked the patient.

"No," said the doctor, "but it will SEEM longer."

***More Accountancy:

The Revolution

This one is spookily on the mark. I'm imagining some Obama supporters could see this and completely miss the mock.

h/t ¡No Pasaran!

The Cover of Time

Just a thought about Time's upcoming dilemma; brought about by Drudge's observation:

TIME MAG PUTS OBAMA ON COVER -- FOR 7TH TIME IN A YEAR!

[MCCAIN HAS BEEN ON COVER TWICE]

as usual - clicksmakemonstrous

Housing Crisis

I don't understand why the Obama campaign wants to make an issue of McCain's houses. In case you hadn't noticed, Obama is wealthy too. The real housing question is one McCain has no trouble answering: How many houses were bought at a discount thanks to the efforts of criminal slum-lords whose favors you returned, using your position as an elected representative?

***Update: From Byron York-

A few minutes ago, I talked to someone in the McCain camp about this. "John McCain never said he didn't know how many houses he and Mrs. McCain have," the person told me. "That is clear. He referred the questioners to his staff because this is a question that has been debated at the staff level with some reporters who, based on an inaccurate reading of Senate disclosure forms, have reported more homes than the McCains actually own, and some press reports that have indicated fewer homes than they actually own. So, by trying to avoid a debate about the holdings of the Hensley Family Trust, he simply attempted to move on to the next question."

Criminal Minds

Like the bank robbers who write their notes on the backs of their own utility bills, this guy needs to go back to criminal school:

ELKO, Nev. (AP) _ A man accused of trying to extort $500 from a Pizza Hut in Elko was foiled by his own cell phone camera. Police said a former employee of the restaurant allegedly called the manager on Friday and told him he had five Pizza Hut signs that are used on the roofs of vehicles and wouldn't return them unless he was paid $500.

Police said the manager wanted proof that Long had the signs. So the 23-year-old man sent him a cell phone picture that proved to be his undoing.

Officers were able to zoom in on license plate numbers of two vehicles in the background that are registered to the man.

h/t: Plime

Bloomberg's Folly

(clickabiggen)

NEW YORK (AFP) - Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed a renewable energy program for New York city that would include placing windmills on city bridges, solar panels on skyscrapers, and the use of tidal, geothermal and nuclear energy.

Bloomberg unveiled the outlines of his plan late Tuesday at a major clean energy summit in Las Vegas organized by the University of Nevada.

Maybe we'd get used to it. It means a complete retooling for the statuette industry though. Hey, maybe desk-fans!

Civility

According to the increasingly irrelevant AP, John McCain said Obama was getting "a little testy".

Whoops. Or, maybe it's a half-whoops. Does anyone else suspect that moonbat-wing of the Democratic party is going to claim that "testy" is R-code for "uppity"? I don't have the stamina I used to or I'd go over to the HuffPo to find out.

Best avoid all -ty words where the Glowing One is concerned. No hippity, hoppity, crotchety, falsity, paucity, density, gravity, or varsity. In fact, if Hannity is going to cover the campaign, perhaps he should change his name.

***other news: Amazing Ann says:

This week, Barack Obama's challenge is to select a running mate who's young, hip, and whose accomplishments in life don't overshadow Obama's. Allow me to suggest Kevin Federline.

Hahahahahahahaha

Warmening

A good explanation of CO2-climate-solar cycle stuff, if you have ten minutes to spare. The narrator gives it a Junior-High newsreel feel, but I think that's a plus:



Is the word that historical CO2 rise follows climate warming getting out there finally?

Here's an experiment: open two sodas (diet coke, of course), put one in the refrigerator and leave one out to get warm. Now check them after two or three hours. You'll see that the warmer soda has lost most if it's fizz. (CO2) The cold one, like colder oceans, kept more CO2 in solution. Now drink the cold one and give the warm one to your wife. (accusing her of having left it out is optional)

Reminds Me of My Youth

Two arrests over turbo chair

Police in Germany have confiscated what's thought to be the world's fastest office chair.

Two 17-year-olds had pimped up the offending seat by adding a lawnmower engine, bicycle brakes and a metal frame.

The teenagers claimed they had only tested their contraption by riding it a few meters, but witnesses had reported seeing it whizzing about all over the streets of Gross-Zimmern.

The pair were arrested. Officers are considering charging them with a variety of offenses - including riding a vehicle without insurance, licenses or registration.

J'Accuse!

"Let me be clear: I will let no one question my love of this country,"
-Barack Obama

It's probably true, it's a beautiful country. It's the people of this country he looks down upon.

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not.

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

And anyway, he's wrong. I question his love of country. I question his wife's "for the first time in my adult life" love of country. And I question his associations.

Stop What You're Doing and Dance

Fail

Good news:

TEHRAN — A day after Iran declared that it had test fired a new rocket capable of launching a satellite, the country said Monday that it was prepared to help other Muslim countries send up satellites. But by then, Pentagon and military officials in Washington were concluding that the Iranian missile launching had been a failure.

The string of unimpressive Iranian military accomplishments continues.

The Media

The WaPo's ombudsman, which comes from the Latin for 'person of ombuds', notices that political coverage has been unbalanced:

Democrat Barack Obama has had about a 3 to 1 advantage over Republican John McCain in Post Page 1 stories since Obama became his party's presumptive nominee June 4. Obama has generated a lot of news by being the first African American nominee, and he is less well known than McCain -- and therefore there's more to report on. But the disparity is so wide that it doesn't look good.

In overall political stories from June 4 to Friday, Obama dominated by 142 to 96. Obama has been featured in 35 stories on Page 1; McCain has been featured in 13, with three Page 1 references with photos to stories on inside pages....

Course, it's not just the WaPo, there is an Obama-gap all through the MSM. And maybe this has something to do with the MSM's plummeting credibility:

Based on past Pew polls, CNN touts itself as “the most trusted name in news,” but the percent who “believe all or most” of what CNN reports has fallen 12 points, to 30 percent, since Pew first posed the question in 1998. Yet, in a sign of how far the news media have fallen in the eyes of the public, that puts CNN at the top of the 12 television news outlets analyzed, as well as above all the newspapers and online sources. Believability for ABC News, CBS News and NBC News is down six points over the past ten years, to 24 percent for ABC and NBC, 22 percent for CBS, but that's still better than the mere 18 percent who “believe all or most” of what they read in the New York Times.

Personally, I'm not shaking in my boots. I think that, regarding Obama, the average news consumer is aware that he is being sold something. And how long can the MSM hide the fact that we're dealing with an empty suit here? How many stories about his pretty teeth and lean body can the public take? Oh, did we mention his smile?

The debates should help. And now it's clear why the empty O wants as few of them as possible. He's more of a Sunday Magazine guy - when it comes to substance, eh, not so much. His few convictions are unpalatable to the American public. And we've had our quota of winning smiles already.

What Did He Vote Against?

On March 12-13, 2003, the Illinois state senate committee chaired by Senator Barack Obama amended the proposed state Born-Alive Infants Protection bill (SB 1082) to exactly track the language of the already-enacted federal BAIPA, by adopting Senate Amendment No. 1, 10-0. The committee then voted to kill the amended bill, 6-4, with Obama and the other Democrats on the committee voting against it. The bill that Obama and his colleges voted to kill, as amended, was virtually identical to the federal law. The entirely non-substantive points at which the state bill language still differed from the federal law are shown in brackets below (except we have ignored differences in capitalizing).

---------------------------------------------------------

Public Law 107–207 [Illinois SB 1082]
107th Congress

An Act
To protect [Illinois: concerning] infants who are born alive.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled, [Illinois: Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly: Section 5. The Statute on Statutes is amended by adding Section 1.36 as follows:]

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Born-Alive Infants Protection
Act of 2002’’. [Illinois: no formal title]
SEC. 2. DEFINITION OF BORN-ALIVE INFANT. [Illinois: Section 1.36. Born-alive infant.]
(a) IN GENERAL.—Chapter 1 of title 1, United States Code,
is amended by adding at the end the following:
‘‘§ 8. ‘Person’, ‘human being’, ‘child’, and ‘individual’ as
including born-alive infant [Illinois: lacks this section heading]
‘‘(a) In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, [Illinois: statute] or
of any ruling [Illinois: rule], regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States [Illinois: this State], the words ‘person’, ‘human being’, ‘child’, and ‘individual’, shall include [Illinois: include] every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.
‘‘(b) As used in this section, the term ‘born alive’, with respect to a member of the species homo sapiens, means the complete expulsion or extraction from his or her [Illinois: its] mother of that member, at any stage of development, who after such [Illinois: that] expulsion or extraction breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut,, Illinois: no comma] and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion.
‘‘(c) Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny,
expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being ‘born alive’ [Illinois: no quotes] as defined in this section.’’.

(b) CLERICAL AMENDMENT.—The table of sections at the beginning
of chapter 1 of title 1, United States Code, is amended by
adding at the end the following new item:
‘‘8. ‘Person’, ‘human being’, ‘child’, and ‘individual’ as including born-alive infant.’’. [Illinois: Section 99. Effective date. This Act takes effect upon becoming law.]

more here

Historic Olympics

Pretty amazing, huh? The 29th Olympics will be remembered as unique. I'm referring, of course, to the Most Obvious and Distracting Toupée Ever at the Olympic Games. And I'm giving the games this title as one who has seen, and remembers, Howard Cosell. Howard's toupée made you want to call your dog, just to check that he wasn't somehow involved. But Bob Costas has got Howard beat. Hands down, a walk-off toupée.

Why She Fights

Why is Nancy Pelosi being a jerk about drilling even when she knows she's thwarting the wishes of the American people, as well as hurting her party? I think it's images like this one. Victory in Iraq is bad news for Nancy. She's suffered one setback after another and she's desperately clinging to the remnants of a failed Democrat world view.

(clickabiggen) photo via US Army Images

DNA Disproves Foot Dimensions

What a surprise, the Bigfoot was a hoax:

Results from tests on genetic material from alleged remains of one of the mythical half-ape and half-human creatures, made public at a news conference on Friday held after the claimed discovery swept the Internet, failed to prove its existence.

Its spread was fueled by a photograph of a hairy heap, bearing a close resemblance to a shaggy full-body gorilla costume, stuffed into a container resembling a refrigerator.

And I was so sure this was the one.

Tink in Chains

".....if all of you clap your hands real hard to show that
you do believe in fairies, maybe she won’t die.”

Protesters dressed as Tinker Bell and Minnie Mouse wait to be taken away after being arrested by police officers during a demonstration against Disney's treatment of hotel workers..

The joke, of course, is on Mickey. These are just a bunch of guys in Anaheim Police costumes.

Highlight of the show? Arraignment.

Woo-Hoo

So US gymnast Nastia Liukin got the gold. Pretty impressive. And with minimal crying too; which is good because I understand that whenever tears hit the floor in these Olympics, Michael Phelps would dive in and win another gold medal. (Also it was rumored that the court dryer-offers in the men's volleyball competition had to keep chasing him away from the sweat with their mops)

By the Way

This award just lost some of its prestige:


Put that on the shelf next to Al Gore's Carbon Neutral Certificate.

The Eyes Have It

So that's 15 players and, what, 3 or 4 coaches, and not one of them thought this might not be a great idea? Course, they are European, so maybe there's some nuance here my clumsy American brain just can't see.

h/t: ¡No Pasaran!

Euphonious

Stop what you're doing, and dance:

AP is Disgusting

The despicable AP writes:

WASHINGTON - John McCain's chief foreign policy adviser and his business partner lobbied the senator or his staff on 49 occasions in a 3 1/2-year span while being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the government of the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

The payments raise ethical questions about the intersection of Randy Scheunemann's personal financial interests and his advice to the Republican presidential candidate who is seizing on Russian aggression in Georgia as a campaign issue.

Yeah, this would be fine with John McCain if it weren't for money. Morons.

photo: Boston.com

Sure Glad That's Over

It looks like I may have underestimated Barack Obama. He reportedly has forced Putin to back down by gripping his hand and threatening to hold the staring-off-into-space-dreamily pose until the prime minister agreed to withdraw from Georgia.

"Dammit Vladimir, I'm prepared to do this all day. Your troops will not make it to Atlanta!"

Is Edwards the Daddy?

Say what you will about them, the Enquirer has been right about this affair so far:

In denying he fathered Rielle's baby, Edwards told ABC that he would "be happy" to take a paternity test to prove he's telling the truth. (He has refused numerous previous requests by The ENQUIRER to take a paternity test.)

Edwards claimed he ended the affair in 2006, but sources say he restarted the illicit romance after confessing to his wife.

Rielle soon became pregnant after the affair was rekindled, say sources.

The ongoing ENQUIRER investigation has also confirmed that he has been with Rielle and the baby three times this year in California.

We will have to wait for Edward's blue dress evidence, but what interests me isn't the actual paternity. I wonder how Edwards could put himself in the position to father a child with this woman when it's well documented that children born in single parent households face a much greater risk of poverty. Remember the two Americas, John? Most often the division is between single parent and two parent families. Yet you weren't concerned with a child being born into an at-risk situation?

And you were the guy who was going to fix the two Americas?

Why Photoshop a Golf Course?

The above screen grab was sent to me by Pat (Riotic).... it's supposedly an aerial view of a golf course in Holland. What's odd is the repeating pattern in the trees. Being a practitioner of clumsy photoshop myself, I spotted it right away.

So the question is: Why the heck clone trees on a golf course? Fortunately, a little digging revealed the answer: The Dutch are ashamed of their crop circles. Obviously their drunken teenagers don't do as polished a job of it as ours do:

as always, d'oh! clickabiggen

Before and After

Pretty good idea: same picture, years later.

Clickabiggen

Bummer

It was an exciting headline: Nepal looks for girl to serve as new "living goddess", But then I read the article and find out that both the wife and Michelle Malkin are too old for the job. Darn, I had letters of recommendation ready to go out.

Oh well.

Baby Kissing

Poor Al Franken. It's hard to be a politician when you can't kiss babies.


Course, many grown-ups have a problem with him too.


"He works better from a stage, behind a microphone. Maybe it'd be best if he stayed home and sent out campaign pamphlets."

Top Level Adviser

Remember the stories of Barack Obama having an e-mail relationship with Scarlett Johansson? (OK, full disclosure, if she would only answer me, and drop the restraining orders, I would have an e-mail relationship with her too) Now we read:

Democratic Party insiders have revealed that Clooney and Obama regularly send texts and emails to each other and speak by phone at least twice a week.

One said last night: ‘They are extremely close. A number of members of the Hollywood community, including Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, offered to help raise funds for Barack but it was with George that he struck up this amazing affinity.

‘George has been giving him advice on things such as presentation, public speaking and body language and he also emails him constantly about policy, especially the Middle East.

‘George is pushing him to be more “balanced” on issues such as US relations with Israel.

'George is pro-Palestinian. And he is also urging Barack to withdraw unconditionally from Iraq if he wins.

Is this a pattern? Are all the O's advisers movie stars? Maybe that's why he thinks that properly inflating tires can save as much oil as we would gain by the proposed new drilling. I think it's time that someone in the Obama campaign informed the candidate that making a movie on a subject does not make you an expert on that subject. Clooney is an expert on the movies he's made; he's not an expert on the Middle East.

Thanks a Lot, Hackers

The Defcon conference is the wild and woolly version of Black Hat for the unwashed masses of hackers. It always has its share of unusual hacks. The oddest so far is a collaborative academic effort where medical device security researchers have figured out how to turn off someone’s pacemaker via remote control.

I understand that it's cool to tinker, and fiddle, and figure things out. It's fun. But couldn't you guys have figured out how make diamonds with a Sears trash compactor instead?

I do, by the way, have a pacemaker. And I'm not really concerned that some kid, inspired by these guys, is going to write a kill program for my pacemaker. What I am concerned about is that some kid will write a program to make the pacer stutter, or to steal information from the device, but, whoops, writes a bad line of code and instead sends the pacer into defib mode and all of the sudden, some guy who was just strolling down the boardwalk ends up jolted to the top of the popcorn machine.

The researchers are thinking they're doing everyone a favor by forcing the device makers to use encryption, except for: wrong. You can't use encryption when every emergency room and heart Dr's office needs to be able to access the device, quickly, at a moments notice. You think the emergency room has time to hunt down the key? And not everyone uses their dog's name as a password or encryption key generator. "Give him another amp of epinephrine and find out his dog's name. Stat!"

You just can't make the programming secure and still have it accessible to those who need to access it. And anyone trying to figure it out is putting old farts at risk. I mean, this isn't the kind of thing you could test on little sis's computer. You want to see if it's working, you have to go out and find a device.... and most of them are attached to old guys in Bermuda shorts.

But, really, why I posted..... Look at the graphic on that pacemaker. Why do you think it's there? The thing spends just a little time under the surgical teams eyes and then it's gone, under skin for a few years - next stop: trash can. But they put a fair amount of effort into making it look impressive. OK, so it's cool looking. But you need a pocket knife to show it to anybody. And who's going to be impressed by that anyway?

Something is Broken

The "Something is Broken" blogger help group is where you go when the blogspot drunkobot labels you as spam, so I've been frequenting it for the last several weeks, trying to get them to whitelist me. (the general idea is to plead with them until they get tired of seeing your messages) Anyway, the above is what you get now if you try to access "Something is Broken" -- It's broken.

Next week? It will be: "We encountered an error when trying to access the page that tells you that the "Something is Broken" group is broken."

Georgia on My Mind

Anyone who doesn't think Putin is still running Russia has some serious gullibility problems. Invading Georgia is no little thing. Let's hope it isn't just the first (second really) step in the reassembly of the USSR.

In the meantime there's good-news/bad-news: Good news: Georgia news is getting out via Blogspot. Bad news: It's Blogspot so they'll probably be labeled a spam-blog by one of Blogspot's drunken spambot robots, then spend a month trying to get the classification corrected.

Flash the O Sign

Maybe I should wait for the "O hands" to catch on before putting this thought in your head. I don't know about you, but I can visualize Michael Moore and Barbra Streisand flashing each other the Sign of the Strangled Baby as they cross paths in Hollywood. "Infanticide be with you, Barbra," then, "And also with you, Michael."

That Handsign

I've been fiddling with Obama's new gimmick. It's a tough one; as most anything you do to it ends up looking obscene.




Senor Wences, by the way, ended up looking like a Muppet prostitute.

Oh, Oh, Oh

Can this possibly be a graphic from a supporter of Obama? Hard to imagine.

Call it the proud zero, or the bold zero. Drop the G-rating restrictions and the possibilities multiply.

The Woods Part of the Trip

Oh the things you see when you don't have your gun with you.

For some reason they just ended this river in mid air.
The water had to drop 80 feet and start being a river
all over again. Don't ask me why. I suspect our state
highway department was involved.

And here's the exciting bit. That's right, your eyes aren't
playing tricks on you. I stood within twenty feet of this
ferocious bear. I'm pretty sure he was a grizzly, though
the park ranger called him a cotton-tail. A cotton-tail bear?
Yeah, right.

Fishing Continues

The drought is broken. We have fish. And my timing was great: garden shears out, I just happened to start trimming the hedges around Desolation Cabin when it came time to clean the fish. "Fillet? Sure I could do it.... but I just started on these evergreens...."

Talking Boats

This, of course, is Bio Solar One, also known as The Smug Boat, Al Gore's latest toy. It's supposedly "Toyota Prius of boats". Sure, because it doesn't take energy to push a massive boat through the water if you put a Prius logo on it.

Contrast this with Lunch Box One, the boat I've rented for the week. Sorry Al, I couldn't afford the extra smug. It's got a cinder-block anchor that shows signs of having smashed many toes before mine. There are old strips of duct tape on most of the rails, which, I suppose I could be used to hold on solar panels, but more probably are the only thing holding the rails on the boat.



It's not that I'm complaining. These same rental folks gave me a fine boat last year. I'm just happy to be on the water drowning worms. Give me an inner-tube and binoculars, ok, and maybe some garden shears, and I'm happy.

Fishing Continues

Mrs. Paul's isn't shaking in her boots.

Minimal Debates

Looks like the Obama campaign has decided not to go through with the town-hall debates they had agreed to. "But you promised," said the McCain camp. "But we're all about change," they replied.

"We are the poultry we've been waiting for."

Large Hadron Collider

Here are some great pictures of the Large Hadron Collider. May be a touch of dyslexia but I can never read "Large Hadron Collider" without doing a double-take. What a cool machine.

Also- I'll be going to the lake for a week starting today. (Sunday) Don't know about internet access so blogging could be light. I will have a computer with Photoshop and a Wacom tablet though, so if I can't blog, I'll spend time Photoshopping an extra 30 or 40 pounds onto any fish I catch.



from xkcd (embiggen with a click)

Pick Your Superhero

Who'd win?


Course, neither of them are superheroes. McCain knows that. Obama, well, who knows? Though I could be all wrong. It could be that Obama is a superhero; it depends on if you count being a Marxist as a superpower.

Who is Barack Obama?

Of course the appeal is charismatic. Nobody knows what he really believes. The latest flip is on oil drilling... well maybe it's not so bad, we can compromise. He still can't bring himself to credit the surge, but he was forced into admitting that Iraq has turned the corner. The sure-I'll-meet-with-anyone talks with Ahmadinejad evolved into a completely different stance....

Personally, I think these guys have him pegged:

NAFTA:
For the Canadians, a key point of concern was Obama's sharp criticism of the North American Free Trade Agreement. DeMora wrote Wilson that in the Chicago meeting, Goolsbee "candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign" but reassured Rioux that Obama's NAFTA-bashing "should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans." Three weeks later, Canada's CTV News reported that a "senior member" of Obama's campaign had phoned Wilson personally to advise him to "not be worried about what Obama says about NAFTA."

Wright:
"If Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected," Wright said. "Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls."

Reparations:
"Let's not be naive. Sen. Obama is running for president of the United States, and so he is in a constant battle to save his political life," said Kibibi Tyehimba, co-chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America. "In light of the demographics of this country, I don't think it's realistic to expect him to do anything other than what he's done."

Who We've Really Been Waiting For

"I don't mean to sound partisan, but if Bush was
any kind of president, he would have told us about
checking our tire pressure long ago. What has it been,
eight years? And we're just now finding this out?"

Let's Clear Up the Confusion

"We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. And by "we", I mean me, except for the second one, that "we" is you. But what I mean by the third "we" is me, again, and so on. You get the picture."

Nancy's New Book

This is a snip from Nancy Pelosi's Amazon page for her new book. Drudge is running out of pixels trying to keep up with its sales rank. (it was around 1300 when I checked) Look at the tags though: "waste of a tree", "horse manure", "boring". It looks like people have been busy making their feelings known. I'm proud of you, Amazonians.

Not that I get a lot of joy from the Speaker's failure. I probably wouldn't have even commented, but for her stunt this afternoon of pulling the plugs and turning off the lights on Republican members of the House who were speaking out on the failure to allow use of domestic oil resources. Since when is silencing your opponents part of the democratic process?

I tell you what, if these people get control of the congress and the presidency, we're in for a huge assault on our freedom of speech. The "Fairness" Doctrine will just be the start.

***Update: Hillary won't like it, but I've photoshopped Nancy in her place on the he-ain't-heavy-he's-my-brother picture. Then I submitted it to the "other images" on Nancy's book page.



And ***UpdateII: Ah, now it's clear why Nancy was in such a hurry to turn out the lights and lock-up "her" House of Representatives: She wanted to get on the horn to Amazon and get someone to delete comments and remove alternate images. The comments went from over 200 down to 13. Ah well, good try guys. Out of curiosity I think I'll check to see if liberal comment-bombs ever get taken down from books they don't like.

Happy Friday

Time for taser practice-


And... this time I'll let you off with a warning -