Richard Branson's secret fuel alternative

Richard Branson:

We’ve put quite a lot of money to invest in alternate fuels, one billion over the next four years…The money is going into a whole series of different things like building ethanol plants, solar, wind power and we are also working on developing a new kind of fuel which I can’t say much about, but which is quite exciting.

I'm sure it's terribly exciting for those who can no longer afford to eat because a ton of smug yuppies put a huge demand on the corn and soybean market and drove up prices.

From the NYT:

Soaring food prices, driven in part by demand for ethanol made from corn, have helped slash the amount of food aid the government buys to its lowest level in a decade, possibly resulting in more hungry people around the world this year.

The United States, the world’s dominant donor, has purchased less than half the amount of food aid this year that it did in 2000, according to new data from the Department of Agriculture.

And we're just getting started with this biofuels thing. We won't have food riots in Central and South America for awhile yet, but get past that, and the people will be too weak to protest.

And look at that Branson smile! Don't you want to jump on the band wagon? Wouldn't it be cool to put an ethanol sticker on your bumper and take back some of the smug your Prius driving neighbor stole from you? Then, all you have to do is refuse to believe that your biofuel puts just as much CO2 into the air as the fossil variety. And ignore the cries of people struggling to survive because you wanted to make an almost trivial difference in a gas that doesn't contribute more than 10% to mix of "greenhouse gases". Maybe along with the ethanol bumper-sticker they should give you one that says, "Let them eat cake".

Sunday

So it's Sunday, I'll put up the photoshops that weren't good enough for the weekdays.



And another river themed one:

Rush Limbaugh

Did you hear that John Kerry accused Rush Limbaugh of calling soldiers who speak out against the war "phony soldiers"? Well, it's just another Mandela-moment for the liberal smear machine. They got it wrong, Rush Limbaugh called Jesse MacBeth a phony soldier, along with others of his ilk who were, well, phony soldiers. Course, John Kerry may be defending Jesse because he was a soldier for one month and 13 days before being washed-out. Kerry was in Vietnam for four months and 12 days, so maybe he considers Jesse a seasoned veteran. (surprise, huh? bet you didn't know John Kerry was a Vietnam vet)

Anyway, here's Rush setting it straight:

Brian Maloney has got more.

Historic Meeting

Bench Warrant Issued

Reached for comment after an extensive search to track her down (she has been very hard to get a hold of since her "exit from public life") Cindy Sheehan said, "I don't know why they'd want that old bench, we've got these canvas fold-up chairs now."

In The Bargain Bin

What kind of music does he play? Well, nothing original -- mainly he just lip-syncs Judy Garland songs. And, wait a minute, how do you make an album of yourself lipsyncing other people's music? That would pretty much be just putting the Judy Garland album inside the new sleeve and selling it as new music. Well there goes the whole premise. Pffft! Fizzled in my face, it did. Never mind me, go back to what you were doing.

Jihadi Confusion

Imagine, a religion asserting itself and nobody's making bomb vests for their children.

Folsom Street

These are not real policemen. One of them is the
president of a small, very troublesome, country.

Michelle Malkin has coverage of the latest Miller Beer sponsorship. They're backing the Folsom Street Fair. And even though you can usually count on there being a few guys dressed as lumberjacks, it's nothing like the Timber Ridge Fair we're all familiar with. Don't bring the kids.

Noise

It's not really noise, it's art:

It's Science Fiction from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, in Norwegian.

Listening to the Norwegian language, you have to wonder how the culture has sustained itself. I mean, procreation usually involves some level of communication; even if it's just (definition of redneck foreplay), "Get in the back of the pick-up, Lil." Seems like, if three words of Norwegian get spoken, the whole deal could be off.

Better might be this:

Hair, um, from Hair, in Japanese.

I'm a big fan of Japanese. I mean the culture, language, everything. What really won me over about the Japanese, apart from the fact that they don't consider Jerry Lewis to be a genius, is their game shows. You see eight businessmen jamming chili peppers up their noses just to claim the title of Chili Nose Champion of All the Businessmen, and you have to wonder how they ever lost the war. Plus, I'm also a fan of the mawashi. That's the thongish thing sumo wrestlers wear. That's probably what we'll all be wearing in the future; driving around in our George Jetson cars, wearing our mawashi. It'll be awesome, possibly.

More Norwegian and Japanese show tunes at the links.

Who Knew Bush Was Japanese?

Michael Rubin reports on a FARS news story:

The Iranians are claiming—and are providing scans (left side of screen in Arabic; down below in Persian)—of documents they recovered from Iraq's Baath Party Archives which show European provision of chemical weapons components and precursors to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War.

Wait a minute. Isn't the Soros intelligence on this that George Bush sold Iran CW precursors out of a shack in Crawford, Texas?

1, 2, 3, All Gone

Problem Solved.

Step Away From the Knife

I don't know if a human was involved in picking the graphic to use with the story of a Malayan woman who went all Lorena Bobbitt on her ex-husband. I'd like to think that a computer saw the word 'knife' in the headline and pulled up the image to match.

It's not like you could ever get used to these stories about women who make their husbands and boyfriends more aerodynamic. They just don't need the extra punch that the graphic gives them.

Visiting Evil

"In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at Columbia University last night in response to a question about the recent execution of two gay men there.

"In Iran we do not have this phenomenon," he continued. "I do not know who has told you we have it."

These kids are from 2005:

"Prior to their execution, the gay teenagers were held in prison for 14 months and severely beaten with 228 lashes. The length of their detention suggests that they committed the so-called offenses more than a year earlier, when they were possibly around the age of 16."

You have to wonder if Ahmadinejad really believes that human sexuality is different in Iran. The culture is different. What sickness causes the citizens to come to these public executions, where they strangle the victims rather than break their necks in order to, what? entertain the crowd?

Jack Bauer Goes Rogue

LOS ANGELES - Kiefer Sutherland was arrested early Tuesday on misdemeanor drunk driving charges after failing a field sobriety test, a police spokeswoman said.

Ahmadinejad

Wasn't it refreshing to see some of the usual suspects of the Left admitting that execution of homosexuals might be a bad thing? And the president of Columbia actually opened a can of scold-ass on Ahmadinejad:

NEW YORK (AP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad questioned the official version of the Sept. 11 attacks and defended the right to cast doubt on the Holocaust in a tense appearance Monday at Columbia University, whose president accused the hard-line leader of behaving like "a petty and cruel dictator."

I was out working so I followed the news on NPR, and of course, being NPR they had to play at least one clip of a kid protesting that Bush is worse than Ahmadinejad. Sure kid, Bush just hides the executions better.

All in all though, it seems like most Americans get Ahmadinejad. That's got to be a good thing.

One very bad thing though:

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iran is smuggling advanced weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, into Iraq to be used by extremists against American troops, the US military charged on Sunday.

US military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox told reporters in Baghdad that Iran was shifting sophisticated arms such as "RPG-29s, explosively-formed penetrators (EFPs), 240 mm rockets and Misagh-1 surface-to-air missiles" across its borders into Iraq.

This is bad news, and added to the other reports of Iranian aid to terrorists in Iraq, it looks like something that could be used to justify a military reaction. Scary stuff.

Sunday Test

Via, NRO, Pirates Cove, and the Anchoress:
The Civics Test
9) The War of 1812:

• A. was a decisive victory for the United States over Spain.
• B. was a stalemate.
• C. established America as the leading power in the world.
• D. enhanced Robert E. Lee's reputation as America's most talented general.
• E. was confined only to sea battles.

That's one I got wrong, yeah, me. Go figure.

I took the test when NRO first linked to it and all those Big Brain Conservatives were saying things like, "Darn, I actually missed one." So I missed slightly more than one. I did do better than the mean of any of the college seniors last year, but that's not saying a lot. Take the test, I'll send a blue ox to anyone who does better than 80%. And no googanswers, though it's not cheating to use the there-hasn't-been-a-B-in-awhile system.

Mandela

A day later, and at least some liberals have done an oops! on the Mandela metaphor thing. A 404-not-found is better than:

Just when you think you’ve figured out how stupid Bush is he goes one step lower and proves he has the IQ of a Guinea pig. Nelson Mandela is NOT dead - and - he doesn’t even LIVE in Iraq.

Hats off to Arianna though. At least the HuffPo had the sense to disable comments on the Reuters story so that their wing-nuts couldn't express themselves. And today, there's even an article about the metaphor on the HP. True, it strains to find something to say about the search for Mandelas in Iraq:

How does he know that Hussein killed them? It seems just as likely that we have prevented one from arising post-Hussein because Bush has tried to force his template on that nation.

You know, a fully representative democratic election template, like the one that got Nelson Mandela elected President of South Africa. How dare Bush try to change the brutal dictator template.

But what the heck. They did work in the metaphor. It was as if they were never fooled, even for a moment.

I Can Feel It

'God' apparently responds to lawsuit

The headline is AP's, the photo isn't. This is why I always end my prayers with ....world peace, and comfort for those in pain, and, of course if we could postpone my lightning, that would be good -amen

Reuters

President GWB:

"I heard somebody say, Where's Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas,"

So Reuters is calling it a gaffe. They think the President was literally referring to Nelson Mandela. Hard to know if they're deliberately playing dumb, but words are their business; they should be able to understand the quote. I wonder, though, why they're only playing half-dumb. Why not go all the way and insist that GWB was saying that Saddam had risen from the dead and killed the whole Mandela family? Ha-ha, Bush thinks Saddam went to South Africa and killed the Mandelas.

***Update: And also, I should point out, the metaphor originated in the other person's comment, "I heard somebody say, Where's Mandela?" ie where's the Iraqi Mandela, where's the Iraqi George Washington. And GWB picked up on the metaphor, and answered it. So really, GWB got the metaphor, I got the metaphor, most 5th graders would get the metaphor. But Reuters didn't. So who's stupid?

Looking for Justice

It's sobering to think that just 44 years after MLK's 'I have a dream' speech we still have these unprovoked attacks on young black athletes. Not all the facts are clear, but we do know that 6 black students were minding their own business when a white student jumped them and tried to break their hands and feet with his face. One of the victims tells his story: "I don't know what happened, all of the sudden I feel this sharp pain and realize that this guy is trying to break my knuckles with the back of his head. I was taken aback by the sudden injustice of it all but I had no time to feel sorry for myself because the kid was continuing his attack. On and on he came, attacking with his face and ribs. I tell you, I've never been so scared in my life.

"Luckily, my friend Mychal had survived two of these attacks in the last two years and he knew how to protect against the most serious knuckle scrapes. He said it could have been much worse if our attacker hadn't knocked himself out in the beginning of the fight. How he continued his assault on us, I'll never know.

"And now, as I try to make sense of my life in the wake of this vicious attack, I find that the white power structure is trying to say we did something wrong. It's the same old story in the South: blame the victim. So here we sit in jail with only minor celebrities supporting us. I mean, I cry out to God, "Who the hell is David Bowie? Where is Tim Robbins, dear God, where is Tim Robbins?"

Malaria

Ignore political correctness and great things can happen:

September 18, 2007, 16:30

Health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, says cooperation between South Africa, Swaziland and Mozambique has led to a 90% reduction in new malaria infections in the three countries.

Tshabala-Msimang says this has been achieved through the use of Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), an agent that kills the malaria-carrying mosquitoes. She was speaking at one of the commissions of the People's Assembly in Bizana, which was discussing the health situation in the country.

She says the reduction was achieved because of the countries' refusal to listen to those who preached against the use of DDT.

“… They wanted to tell us that we mustn't use DDT for indoor residual spraying because it destroys vegetables and… fauna and we just said, ‘Look in Europe they conquered malaria because they used DDT’… The Italians told us that, ‘Don't listen to what they are saying, we conquered malaria because we just killed the mosquitoes’ (sic),” said Tshabalala-Msimang.

One problem with the Warmist Whale-huggers is that once they make up their mind on something, the thinking process shuts down. DDT was declared bad so case closed. Never mind that the bad effects were seen in a time when DDT was often misused. Never mind that some of the reports from that time are suspect.

Every year now we have over one million deaths due to malaria. Malaria is the leading cause of death for children under five in Africa. Every 30 seconds a person dies from malaria.

But isn't DDT bad? No. No, it's not nearly as bad as malaria. A million deaths is bad. A 90% reduction of a million deaths would be wonderful. And eradication of malaria would be Christmas. Find out more here.

h/t: Junk Science

Und Now We Tanz

From Breitbart:

A new homespun urban dance phenomenon has taken hold in Paris and is quickly spreading to the rest of France through Internet videos and word-of-mouth.

Tecktonik, a mix of hip hop and techno dance, was the talk of this year’s Paris Techno Parade..... The starting point for the scene is a complex of nightclubs on the southeastern outskirts of Paris called the Metropolis....

I don't doubt that they've added their own euroweenie flair, but this style of dance originated years ago in the lumber camps. Except we danced in our underwear and there were often axes and alcohol involved. Let me tell you, it wasn't for the squeamish, or even for those with good taste. In fact, if you weren't involved in the dance, it was usually a good idea to get as far away as possible.

An Ounce of Prevention

Ground Zero Visit?

Yeah, as if he'd be able to see anything anyway.

More Protest

Here we see a foreign protester getting ready to burn effigies of Kelsey Grammer and Charlie Chaplin. And just when I thought that we had the whole World vs. Screen Actors Guild thing straightened out.

Protest!

It was predictable that kids would be protesting Taserboy's enshockment. Even though the crowd cheered when he was first pulled from the microphone, these are mostly sweet kids who are the classic example of, "if you're not a liberal in college, you have no heart". The ones above are filling out complaint forms. Note the bandannas concealing the identity of two of them - protection, no doubt, from the right-wing campus police death squads. Course, they're giving their names on the complaint forms.

That Wouldn't Be Cool, Bro

Just had to get my don't-tase-me in there. Reader RB suggests it's dementia's grip that is driving Dan Rather to file this lawsuit, and I tend to agree. Why in hell does he want the spotlight again? He can't need the money.

Maybe, could be, that in this wacky world where even truthers can get on TV, maybe he thinks he can make his silly story fly again. Yeah, I think dementia is a good bet.

Math

There is one reason, and one reason only, to learn math in school. It is so that one day you'll be able to double this recipe: panna cotta

Hillarycare

Just bend over the table, and we won't have to find out "what happens if you don't."

Silly Sally

Michelle Malkin's headline: "Silly Sally Field doesn’t speak for me"
Hey, I saw the "speech" and Sally Field has her hands full just speaking for Sally Field.

It's happened again...

Another headbutt tragedy thing:

SNELLVILLE, Ga. — Police are investigating the death of a man who collapsed after being headbutted by an armless man in a fight over a woman....

After bystanders separated them, Redfren "came back and headbutted [Teer] one time," Whitehead said.

Teer complained of feeling dizzy, collapsed, and died, Whitehead said.

Police are awaiting autopsy results before deciding whether Redfren should be charged.

All those witnesses.... sounds to me like he doesn't, um, have a leg to stand on.

Electric Students

OK, I know John Kerry didn't give the orders to hit the kid with a taser. He probably just remarked that it would be a good idea.... "Is this your homework, Larry, Is this your homework?"

As a public service, I'll say it again: very few times in life, will you look back and say, "I wish I'd given the police more of a hard time."

Eurabia

The FT has it: Head count belies vision of ‘Eurabia’
What do I know about demographics? But I'll note that with European cartoon rages ongoing, it would be prudent to make sure the heads are attached to their respective bodies before counting.

Too Much Information

First it's just-one-square Sheryl Crow, and Cate Blanchett vowing to give up washing her hair. Now we have Cate Blanchett (and husband) again:

...the couple are trying to make the ecological footprint of the home as small as possible, installing solar panels and even a filtration system that will allow them to drink their own wastewater...

Which, you know, is more news than we really need. And really, OK, I guess I wouldn't wash my hair at her house either. But really, this is sorta good news, in that a good portion of the save-the-earth leadership looks poised to take themselves out of the game with typhus, typhoid fever, etc. That will leave the field clear for us irresponsible wash-our-hair-just-because-it-needs-it types.

Optical Illusion

Is it just me, or do the bars make OJ look taller? Whatever it is, I like the look. And an orange jumpsuit could only make it better.

Ossified Professors

UC Davis news:

After a group of UC Davis women faculty began circulating a petition, UC regents rescinded an invitation to Larry Summers, the controversial former president of Harvard University, to speak at a board dinner Wednesday night in Sacramento. The dinner comes during the regents' meeting at UCD next week.

Summers gained notoriety for saying that innate differences between men and women could be a reason for under-representation of women in science, math and engineering.

Gasp! What? He articulated a view that there could be innate differences between men and women?

UCD professor Maureen Stanton, one of the petition organizers, was delighted by news of the change this morning, saying it's “a move in the right direction.”

So studies indicate there might be differences between men and women... Maureen's answer is to cover her ears and go,"La-la-la-la-la-la-la.." So what if there are innate differences between the sexes regarding math aptitude? You think noticing it will make derivatives harder for girls? You silly, silly, stuck hippie. I hope you're gone before my (excellent at math and physics, btw) daughter gets to college.

We're Here For the Party

Two guys with Shatner-like willingness to try something new... put here mainly to bump that awful OJ picture from the top. Here, let's push it down further. Here's a duck photoshop that didn't make the cut last week:

OJ

I'll watch and see what happens in this newest O.J. Simpson clash with Civilization. I'll be rooting for Civilization, the underdog most likely.

Know what I don't understand though? How it is OJ moves around in civilized society in the first place. You see him in Vegas, on the red carpet at movie premiers, with girlfriends on the street. What's the problem here? Have people forgotten how to boo?

Iran's Nuclear Program

Scientists at Iran's Bushehr Nuclear "Power Plant" say they are already seeing the fruits of nuclear research. "We have just developed a camel with two butts, and our intelligence services tell us the Zionists are years away from any such accomplishment."

"With our Revolutionary Guard Corps riding beasts such as these their enemies will not know what to do. 'Oh, which way do we shoot? We don't know! We can't tell which way their camels are going!' Ha! We will back them into the sea with our camels of no direction!"

cut some slack, it's been a long day of office work for me

Culture of Corruption

The Truth About Truthers

Check your volume first, and cover your keyboard if you're drinking milk. From Red State Update.

h/t: van helsing

The Very Odd Mrs. Clinton

The Capn's got the skinny on what strikes me as a very odd move on Ms Clinton's part:

Clinton has a big problem with her associates, and it's self-inflicted. Lost in the Norman Hsu shuffle, the news that Hillary has asked former Clinton national-security adviser Sandy Berger to join her campaign should cause even more questions about her judgment and her ethics.

Sorry, but that's just nuts. Can she really want to associate with a man convicted of stealing, then destroying, highly classified documents? I would have thought she'd want to distance herself from the scandals of her husband.

This is a head scratcher. Only, very odd, explanation I can think of is that Berger didn't destroy all the documents, and now holds them over the head of the candidate. Course, that's just an unknowable speculation, a conspiracy theory...

An Odd Friendship

Me Too

Hillary Prepares

Hillary checks her notes on the Petraeus prosecution.

In Memoriam - Thomas H. McGinnis

Bumped to top until Sept 11, 2007

In Memoriam - Thomas H. McGinnis

"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."
(Revelation 21:4)

Thomas McGinnis, 41, was a commodities broker for Carr Futures and he usually worked on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange. However, on September 11 he had a business meeting at Carr's offices on the 92nd floor of One World Trade Center. It was there he lost his life in the tragedy we now call 9-11.

I received Thomas’s name at random as part of the 2996 project. And while researching his life, it struck me that if Thomas H. McGinnis represents an average victim of this tragedy, then we have lost much more than many of us can ever comprehend. He was by all accounts an exceptional man.

Thomas touched many people’s lives, and I was able to find many comments on his passing from those who knew him best. The following is just a sample of what was said:

When Iliana invited Thomas to our house, Thomas was a teenager,very tall and skinny. Through the years, he worked part time, studied and visited frequently. So they finished college ,got a job and finally any mother's dream came true, they get married. Since the beginning, my younger daughter Eva, and myself, loved Thomas and his family.

Thomas was a very hard worker, extremely intelligent and charitable. In reunions people gathered around him laughing at his jokes. Though the years, I not only saw him as a son , I learned to talk to him like a friend. The happiness was culminated when my beautiful granddaughter Caitlin was born. I am so happy I had the opportunity to tell him how proud I was of him and my daughter Ililana, he was surprised but he knew it was true. Thomas we miss and love you very much. God bless you, we will always remember you.
Love, Mom Ofe
************
I only knew Tommy for too short of a period of time and only saw him at family gatherings and at his outstanding holiday parties. But I got to know him to be a terrific and genuine all around person. He was kind and considerate, very intelligent with super high-energy. I will most remember his wonderfully funny and impeccably timed sense of humor. My heart goes out to Iliana, Caitlin and all family and friends who loved him for their loss. We will always remember Tommy.
************
Thomas was my cousin. We spent our childhoods together in NYC as our mothers were best friends. I remember calling his mom, Patsy, on 9/11. we we're still very much in shock but shared a prayer. It was so tragic as Thomas was moving on & up with his own seat on the board. So his meeting at WTC was to be one of his last with Carr. Tragic. His murder his loss... I am proud to call Thomas my cousin and will always remember those day at Washington HS grounds playing with Thomas and his younger brother James.
************
Tommy worked with my father, Tommy Reynolds, in the commodities business when I was a teen-ager. He came to visit us in Tyler one year and made an amazing impression on me. We took him to the State Fair of Texas and had a blast. He had such charisma and energy that you just wanted be near him and hear more of his crazy stories. He talked about his girlfriend Illianna, who became his wife, with such awe and tenderness. When my family reaches heaven, we will look for his spirit because it was one that brought peace, happiness and joy to all!
************
My name is James R. McGinnis and Thomas is my Brother. He was incredibly proud of his Irish heritage and one of the proudest days of his life was the day he met and had dinner with Gerry Adams. The greatest memories of my brother will be of the trip the two of us took to Ireland 2 years ago. It was the best trip I ever had.
The Murder of my brother has crushed my heart and it is so hard to rebuild. I have wonderful memories of my brother and he will live on forever in my heart.
************
''He read everything,'' said his wife. ''If he wanted to know more about Ben Franklin, he'd pick up four books and read them all.''
************

I was grateful to find so many testimonials to the life of Tom McGinnis. But even if I hadn’t been able to find these people’s good words, I still would have known what a great man he was. It is reflected in his last actions that morning, as shown in this account:

At 10:18, Tom McGinnis, one of the traders summoned to the special meeting, reached his wife, Iliana McGinnis. The words are stitched into her memory.

"This looks really, really bad," he said.

"I know," said Mrs. McGinnis, who had been hoping that his meeting had broken up before the airplane hit. "This is bad for the country; it looks like World War III."

Something in the tone of her husband's answer alarmed McGinnis.

"Are you OK, yes or no?" she demanded.

"We're on the 92nd floor in a room we can't get out of," he said.

"Who's with you?" she asked. McGinnis mentioned three old friends - Joey Holland, Brendan Dolan and Elkin Yuen.

"I love you," McGinnis said. "Take care of Caitlin." Mrs. McGinnis was not ready for that.

"Don't lose your cool," she urged. "You guys are so tough, you're resourceful. You guys are going to get out of there."

"You don't understand," McGinnis said. "There are people jumping from the floors above us."

It was 10:25. The fire raged along the west side of the 92nd floor. People fell from windows. McGinnis again told her he loved her and their daughter, Caitlin.

"Don't hang up," Mrs. McGinnis pleaded.

"I got to get down on the floor," McGinnis said.

The phone connection faded out.

It was 10:26, two minutes before the tower crumbled. The World Trade Center had fallen silent.

When he knew the end was near, Thomas’s thoughts were for his wife and child. A selfless and loving father, husband, son, brother, and cousin until the end. I pray that time has lessened his family’s pain. I pray for the soul of Thomas McGinnis as well, but I suspect it is little needed.

***Update: Forgot to link to the United in Memory quilt project that supplied the above image.

***Update: A Nephew's Remembrance:
I'm moving the following up from the comments section of Thomas's remembrance. It's the memories of his nephew, Brian, on that dark day. I thought they deserved to be up top. Thank you, Brian.

I thought I would share my memories of the day:

I was in 12th grade. I was looking forward to school that day to discuss the Broncos latest triumph with my classmates. I awoke to my mother pounding on my bedroom door. Figuring I had overslept again, I simply made an annoyed grunt to indicate I was awake. She told me to turn on the TV. I watched in shock before going to school. On my way in from the parking lot a classmate told me that another plane hit the pentagon, I distinctly remembering saying the following, "shut the fuck up, that isn't funny." I limped through my first period music appreciation class, where my teacher who had been holed up in his classroom since 5 that morning had no clue what was going on and conducted class as usual. During the break the secretary pulled me aside as I walked past the office and told me my parents had called and asked for me to return home. Knowing that my uncle was a commodities trader I knew this was a possibility but tried not to think about it. I remember walking to my car, saying to myself, "someone is dead. no everything is fine." I got home to find my mother in tears saying everything was fine, it was a false alarm. Reliable information was so hard to come by that day. I hugged my parents and told them I loved them and returned to school. I made it through my free period and micro-economics like the weight of the world was lifted from my shoulders. During lunch, I passed on eating opting instead to watch the news coverage with about 50 other people in the green room of the theater. I'll never forget watching one girl burst into tears as they replayed the second plane hitting. We went to our afternoon classes, Calculus and English, where none of us knew what to do or what to say. Soccer practice that afternoon was cancelled, so I went home. When I got there my mom was in tears, she met me halfway up the driveway "We lost Thomas." 92nd floor Tower 1. It hit me like a ton of bricks, my uncle Thomas was a hero of mine, the smartest and funniest man I've ever known. I was confused, "What? How? I thought everything was fine?" As I said reliable information was so hard to come by. He usually worked across the street at NYMEX, but was at a meeting in his brokerage house's office. The funny thing was that he never even should've been there. He had a bought a seat on the exchange and was going to start his own firm. He was covering for one of his many friends that was on vacation. The meeting he was in had no bearing on him, it had to do with the benefits of the traders in his firm. But that was the kind of man that he was. He'd give you the shirt off his back and never ask for a thing in return and he was always there to back up his friends. So when something came up that would affect his friends he was there to show that he was behind them fully.

More From the Cave

Notice how those who call for martyrdom never feel called to the cause themselves?

Scientific Proof, Conservatives Live in Caves

You've no doubt seen the article, about a study by one David Amodio:

PARIS (AFP) - The brain neurons of liberals and conservatives fire differently when confronted with tough choices, suggesting that some political divides may be hard-wired, according a study released Sunday.

Of course, conservatives are rigid and inflexible, liberals are dynamic, good looking, and delicate butterflies often land on their shoulders. Now, who needed a scientist to tell us that? Anyway, the methodology:

"People often drive home from work on the same route, day after day, such that it becomes habitual and doesn't involve much thinking," Amodio explained by way of comparison in an e-mail.

"But occasionally there is road work, or perhaps an animal crosses the road, and you need to break out of your habitual response in order to deal with this new information."

And David Amodio measured brain activity and decided that lots was going on in liberals brains when they had to "break out of their natural response". What he doesn't explain is why it is usually the liberals who decide to drive down the shoulder rather than wait their turn in line like everybody else.

I'm sure any brain activity observed in conservatives was chalked up to conservatives' tendency to daydream about oil profits while driving. Here's a question: What political persuasion is David Amodio? Think he's a liberal, or is the man a progressive?

Greeting Card Kerfuffle

Have you seen the Hallmark cards that Paris Hilton is suing over? Pretty lame stuff. In fact, the cards were destined for obscurity until Paris brought attention to them.

So here's me, "improving" the cards for Hallmark, and fishing for a lawsuit myself:

Osama Video

Anyone else get the feeling that this was just a look-alike who shuffled out of a methadone clinic and was stuck in front of a camera?

Jobs Rage

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc (AAPL.O) Chief Executive Steve Jobs on Thursday offered a $100 store credit to early buyers of the iPhone, seeking to calm customers angry over an unexpected and steep price cut.

You bastige! We could have put that extra money towards thumb drives, trackballs, and sticks to whack our women with! Behead those who disrespect the early adopters!

Ron Who?

Well, since this has become a cutsie duck blog, I suppose I have to put this image up. Only question is, who is this Ron Paul fellow? Isn't that an electric guitar?

The Thesaurus Let Me Down

I was looking for something suitable for Charles Schumer's latest. The thesaurus suggested: abject, awful, base, bastard, beastly, cheap, contemptible, degrading, detestable, dirtbag, dirty, disgraceful, disreputable, down, gross, grungy, ignominious, infamous, insignificant, loathsome, low, mean, no-good, pitiful, reprehensible, scurvy, shameful, sleazy, slimy, sordid, vile, worthless, wretched, and yucky, but really, despicable suits him best.



Chuck, you disgust me.

It seems the D's are in a contest to see who can be the most disgusting. Kucinich's entry:

US Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich, on a Mideast visit that included a stop in Syria, said the country lambasted by the Bush administration deserves credit for taking in more than a million Iraqi refugees.

Kucinich, a strong anti-war opponent who trails far in the US presidential polls, also said he won't visit Iraq on his trip to the region because he considers the US military deployment there illegal.

"I feel the United States is engaging in an illegal occupation ... I don't want to bless that occupation with my presence," he said in an interview in Lebanon, after visiting Syria. "I will not do it."

Well, way to go, guys. You make the Democrats who preemptively call Gen. Petraeus a liar seem down right patriotic by comparison:

Congressional Democrats are trying to undermine U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus' credibility before he delivers a report on the Iraq war next week, saying the general is a mouthpiece for President Bush and his findings can't be trusted.

"The Bush report?" Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin said when asked about the upcoming report from Gen. Petraeus, U.S. commander in Iraq.

How long before congressional Democrats start providing financial aid to the enemy? They already provide a morale boost for those who would do us harm.

Accuracy in Media

Yeah, I know, figure of speech, but "Ted Kennedy Jumps on Stage" is a bit much. What I want though is the video of him singing We Are the World. If you've seen the picture of Ted in a swimming suit, you know that he is close to half of the world, anyway.

Huffipo

Ohio Rep. Paul Gillmor was found dead in his apartment Wednesday, a Republican leadership aide said.

So I checked the Huffington Post and saw that Arianna slammed the comments shut quickly this time. Only 5 people were quick enough to comment. The count:

• 1 just insensitive
• 2 mocking the man's death
• 1 Bush bash
• 1 exhortation to not be insensitive ghouls

So OK then, proof then that there's one visitor for every four regulars at the Huffington Post.

Seriously, having some idiots who also support your ideology doesn't prove your ideology flawed. Having mostly idiot supporters should give Arianna pause though.

Power of Positive Thinking