Do you think they're just repackaging all that leftover Hi-Karate cologne from the 70's? Alls I can say is at least Dick Trickle isn't the spokesman for it.
Three senior members of the House Judiciary Committee have called for the immediate opening of impeachment hearings for Vice President Richard Cheney.
Democrats Robert Wexler of Florida, Luis Gutierrez of Illinois and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin on Friday distributed a statement, "A Case for Hearings," that declares, "The issues at hand are too serious to ignore, including credible allegations of abuse of power that if proven may well constitute high crimes and misdemeanors under our constitution. The charges against Vice President Cheney relate to his deceptive actions leading up to the Iraq war, the revelation of the identity of a covert agent for political retaliation, and the illegal wiretapping of American citizens."
Black ice is the kind that you cannot see when you approach it. It's dangerous and can send your car spinning out of control with no warning. It is a menace here in Wisconsin and it usually forms when the weather has been fairly mild with a sudden drop in temps.
I've hit a patch.
Yesterday I took my daughter to preschool, the first day back after a snow day. Due to the snow day she didn't get the reminder sticker sent home to remind me she was "snack girl". Having forgotten her snack, I wound up crying uncontrollably in the director's office. I only cried a little standing in front of the yogurt section at the grocery store.
Yesterday I went to the OB/Gyn to have my IUD removed. Then I went shopping at the mall across the street. The IUD removal ruptured a blood vessel and I ended up bleeding uncontrollably and crying uncontrollably in the JCPenney's. I went back to the doctor who sent me home and told me to stay off my feet for the rest of the day. At Christmas time.
I have a tenant who is a very sweet young man. His girlfriend left him. He has stopped paying his rent. He won't answer his phone. This doesn't make me cry, but starting eviction at Christmas time makes me not sleep.
Two weeks ago our sweet cousin died in an accident. He was thirty. I sneak little cries in the car. During his eulogy of a handful of stories, two of them recounted were stories about me and him. One involved him throwing up all over me in a bar once and one involved an incident with a Jamaican lady of questionable repute when he came to my 40th birthday bash in Negril. We were going to Arizona next week to see him for Christmas. Instead we saw him last week in his casket. We will still go out there for Christmas but there will be a space at our table that will not be filled. Not ever again.
Then there's all the busyness and stress that a regular Christmas entails. Then there's the very short days that bring on the blues. And the cold that brings on cabin fever. Then there's - then there's-.
The most comforting thing I have read lately is mattyboy's post dissing Nietzsche's 'that which does not kill us' trope. I am not killed. I am not defeated. But I am diminished.
I hope the spinning stops soon and that this car wreck lands softly in a snowbank.
Hey, guys and gals. This weekend I will be flying through not one but two recently newsworthy notorious airports.
The Wundruns will be at the Minneapolis airport. Apparently there is a famous restroom there. Does anyone have a request for photos or possibly a square to spare from the famous stall? Leave requests in comments.
Minneapolis is our connecting airport, our destination is Phoenix. I will gather no snark there, but will observe a moment for the tragic death of Carol Gotbaum. I also promise not piss off anyone at that place, but will get out as quickly and quietly as I can. Afterall, there was an erstwhile troll here who claims her death to be perfectly justified. I bet he'd think the torture and false imprisonment of me would be justified too. I shall become one with the sheeple.
BTW, the last time I was at that airport I accidently started a fight between two psycho security screeners by asking one of them "How's your day?" She started to cry and claimed the lady handling the queue next to her was being mean. Then the other lady started screaming at her. The fight got really noisy and all the passengers in line behind me were really nervous. They would probably have called security except those two ladies were security. I am not making this up. There is something in the water there.
UPDATE: Ben says there is no way in hell he is going in the men's room and taking photos. Have I mentioned before that Ben is a republican? [gasp]. I don't think this is a sympathic republican homophobery move on his part. He just says if I want the pics I have to go in myself. However-his sister will be with us and she can call him chickenshit and make him do things I can't. So nee ner nee ner nee.
Splotchy's viral story is making the rounds. I'm tagged on the spoke of the wheel that is Splotchy, FranIam, Dr. Monkey von Monkerstein and Enriched Geranium.
The story thus far:
I woke up hungry. I pulled my bedroom curtain to the side and looked out on a hazy morning. I dragged myself into the kitchen, in search of something to eat. I reached for a jar of applesauce sitting next to the sink, and found it very cold to the touch. I opened the jar and realized it was frozen. (Splotchy)
"That's strange," I said out loud to no one in particular. My fingers slowly reached towards the jar again. My body experienced a wave of apprehension as weighted blanket covering me as I did so. The jar was completely frozen. I picked it up and stared at it, my fingers stung with little knives of chill. "What the..." again I spoke aloud. Then I realized what had happened with a shock. Suddenly the jar flew from my hand. It shattered creating a collage-like mixture of frozen applesauce and glass shards on my kitchen floor, the lid lazily rolling to a stop across the room.(FranIam)
She flicked the lid with her massive big toe. "So, I guess I'll be having another Camel for breakfast and you'll be having a breakfast date with the Electrolux." She lit her Camel cigarette as she turned to open the closet door where we kept the vacuum. "In case you're wondering how the applesauce got frozen, I seem to recall you insisting that I stick it in the freezer before we went to bed last night." She pushed the Electrolux at me and it squooshed through the rapidly unfreezing applesauce and the glass shards. "This kind of crap happens all the time when we go drinking with the Brazilians." (Dr. Monkey)
Suddenly, the front door erupted in an explosion of wood splinters. “Jesus in a bucket! They’ve found me!” I thought as I dove out the kitchen window. My experiments with frozen applesauce, Camel cigarettes and Electrolux vacuum cleaners were supposed to be a secret, but, apparently, they weren’t as secret as I had thought. What would happen if the formula fell into the wrong hands? All my work, for naught! Who had leaked the information? Was it her? Or possibly one of the Brazilians? “Now the damned Department of Homeland Security will ruin everything I’ve worked so hard to achieve!” was the last thing that went through my mind before I was surrounded. (Enriched Geranium)
Totally surrounded, I might add, by secret service agents. A childish gray-haired man stepped between them. He walked as if he were hiding an eight ball in his trousers. Stepping nearer I saw an actual eight ball, (pool table, not drugs) fall out his pant leg. Bruised, a little bloody and a lot confused, I still thought "some guys just can't deal with their shortcomings".
"Where's Pickles?" short and arrogant demanded of me.
"Pickles?" First Brazilians, now pickles, Camel cigarettes and an electrolux? Sweet jesus on a popsicle stick help me make sense of this.
"I know yer shaggin' Laura. She said you're into the brazillians . I'd have ta be preznit for another eight years before I had brazillians and brazillians of dollars". He looked sad. "I bet she tried her erotic applesauce trick on you." Eeugh. She did try the erotic applesauce trick on me. But I didn't know I was whispering sweet nothings into the ear of the First Lady. In the snowdrift outside the kitchen window he saw the Camel butts. "Camels! Ha! I knew she switched from Pall Malls for a reason. It's you. Buddy, I have half a mind to punish you in ways you will never forget. (Jess Wundrun)
If you woke to find candy and nuts in your shoes then you already know, today's saint is Saint Nicholas. Like, totally Yay!
When we lived in Milwaukee we found that St. Nicholas day is well remembered there. If it has to do with a predominance of Germans living in Milwaukee then they are not the same bunch of Germans that I am related to around here, because only one of my aunts ever bears in mind when St. Nicholas day is. Then, she also remembers many, many of the saints' days and uses them to predict the weather. Maybe more on that later.
Many people are aware that the three gold balls that hang outside your favorite pawn brokers' shop are there in honor of Saint Nicholas who paid a dowry of gold for each of the three daughters of a man too poor to afford their dowries himself. If not for St. Nicholas' anonymous generosity the girls would have become prostitutes.
A lesser known Nicholas legend is that during a famine he visited a butcher who, unlike anyone else in town, had meat. Nicholas searched the butcher's cellar where he found three barrels containing murdered boys pickling in brine. He promptly brought them back to life, and according to my Saint-A-Day guide has been the patron of children in a pickle ever since. Har de har. Seriously, it is possible that Sweeney Todd is based in part on this legend.
So there you have it. A saint whose emblem is three balls, nuts in your shoes and corned beef kiddies. All of which has become a jolly elf who lives among the shorties at the top of the world with the prescience to know if you been naughty or you been nice. How can you not be in love with teh catholics?
I don't know who Saint Nicholas would be if he were alive today. But if those children were around they'd be Laura Bush.
I have wanted to sit down and pound my keyboard over the outrage of Bush knowing that Iran halted its nuclear program four years ago, while still beating the drums of war with the oogey boogey mushroom cloud, but I haven't had the time. Dr. Zaius raises an excellent point about the whole sad sorry sordid deal. Please go read.
Update: Speaking in Omaha earlier today, Bush called on Iran to better explain its nuclear intentions or face further sanctions. How bizarre can you get? Iran claims to not pursue nukes, turns out that's the truth, Bush is caught lying about it so the only obvious resolution is to continue the call for sanctions? On them?
Bullshit. This is about oil, pure and simple. Iran can easily form a strategic alliance with Russia and then China for the 200 billion barrels of oil in the Caspian region.
I love to read people's Friday Random ten posts to see inside the minds of fellow bloggers through their music choices. Now there's a meme going around that sheds further light on peoples music tastes by asking 22 questions to be answered by whatever "shuffle" on an iPod says.
Franiam tagged me with this meme.
I must say though, that I don't have much music on my iPod because it is mostly filled up with books. A cupla books will eat a gig fairly quickly. This is the reason I never post the random tens. But I tried this just for fun, and here is what I came up with:
The rules:
1. Put your music player on Shuffle 2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer. 3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER WHAT(this is in capital letters, so it is very serious.
1. IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY? Now I know how Morrissey felt - Mika
2. WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY? - Gone Today, Ollabelle
3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL? - All American Courage, Alan Jackson*
4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY? - Grace Kelly, Mika
5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE? You are my sunshine, Carly Simon
6. WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO? Catch the wind - Donovan
7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU? Color me America, Dolly Parton*
8. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS? The Ballad of the Green Berets, SSgt Barry Sadler*
9. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN? Flathead, the Fratellis
10. WHAT IS 2+2? Quiet Evening, Carly Simon
11. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND? Holloway Road, Ollabelle
12. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Sight of my Homeland, Tim Janis*
13. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY? I will go sailing no more, Randy Newman
14. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP? The Rain, K-OS
15. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Save Room, Jon Legend
16. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU? The Ragged Old Flag, Johnny Cash*
17. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING? Beautiful Disaster, Jon McLaughlin
18. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL? Little Wonders, Rob Thomas
19. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST? Jerk it out, Caesars
20. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET? I think it's going to rain, Bette Midler
21. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS? Born Losers, Matthew Good
22. WHAT SHOULD YOU POST THIS AS? Have a little faith in me, John Hiatt
*All the entries marked with an asterisk are there because I made a playlist for a fourth of July picnic with patriotic songs. But doesn't everybody have "The Ballad of the Green Berets" on their iPod?
This ponzey scheme ends with me. Surely four angels and six snowflake babies will die if I don't continue the chain, but there it is.
WASHINGTON—Faced with ongoing budget crises, underfunded schools nationwide are increasingly left with no option but to cut the past tense—a grammatical construction traditionally used to relate all actions, and states that have transpired at an earlier point in time—from their standard English and language arts program.
A part of American school curricula for more than 200 years, the past tense was deemed by school administrators to be too expensive to keep in primary and secondary education.
"This was by no means an easy decision, but teaching our students how to conjugate verbs in a way that would allow them to describe events that have already occurred is a luxury that we can no longer afford," Phoenix-area high-school principal Sam Pennock said. "With our current budget, the past tense must unfortunately become a thing of the past
Also, while I am making fun o' the fundies (you're not a fundie, Franiam I did not mean to imply...), I thought I might pass along my score on the "How Good of a Christian Are You", written by someone who writes like a LOLZ christian:
When I was 18 the State of Wisconsin allowed me to drink in bars and restaurants. (We also drank in cars and in farm fields.) In practice this meant my friends and I would go to Rusty's on Thursday nights and drink 25 cent taps of beer. Half of the senior class of MHS had hangovers on Friday morning. They had a dance floor upstairs and pool tables in the basement. We probably danced to the Kinks, but I don't remember that for sure.
Well, they're tearing down the Palais. The owner of an Illinois-based chain of Mobil gas stations and convenience stores made an offer the owners of the bar could not refuse.
If Rusty's has to go, I just wish it was to something besides a fucking Mobil station.
Enjoy the Kinks. Not their best work, but boy did I love that song back in the day.
I am going to try to be positive like our new President-Elect Obama. But I have this whole box full o' snark and I'm afraid I'm going to have to use it. Sorry, President O. In your second administration I'll play nice, 'kay?
go our sweet cousin died in an accident. He was thirty. I sneak little cries in the car. During his eulogy of a handful of stories, two of them recounted were stories about me and him. One involved him throwing up all over me in a bar once and one involved an incident with a Jamaican lady of questionable repute when he came to my 40th birthday bash in Negril. We were going to Arizona next week to see him for Christmas. Instead we saw him last week in his casket. We will still go out there for Christmas but there will be a space at our table that will not be filled. Not ever again.
