Unashamed
(my brother, Scott)
Crazy Aunt Purl
(my friend Laurie)
There's Pie In the Lunchroom
(my friend Chuck)
Too Fat For Ponies
(my friend Sam)
Post Secret
(a place to share secrets)
Recent posts:
2006
May 22-26, 2006
May 9-16, 2006
May 2-5, 2006
April 17-28, 2006
April 10-14, 2006
March 27-April 7, 2006
March 6-10, 2006
Feb. 27 - March 3, 2006
Feb. 20-24, 2006
Feb. 13-17, 2006
Feb. 6-9, 2006
Jan 30-Feb 2, 2006
Jan 23-27, 2006
Jan 16-20, 2006
Jan 3-11, 2006
2005
Dec 27-30, 2005
Dec 19-22, 2005
Dec 8-16, 2005
Dec 1-7, 2005
June 8, 2006
It looks like a U.S. air strike took out Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Queda in Iraq. That's a good thing. Bravo. But while we're waving our flags and high-fiving each other, let's not forget a few salient facts.
In March 2004, NBC filed a story about how the Bush Administration backed off from several operations designed to take out al-Zarqawi.
In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.
The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council.
“Here we had targets, we had opportunities, we had a country willing to support casualties, or risk casualties after 9/11 and we still didn’t do it,” said Michael O’Hanlon, military analyst with the Brookings Institution.
Four months later, intelligence showed Zarqawi was planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe.
The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it. By then the administration had set its course for war with Iraq.
“People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president’s policy of preemption against terrorists,” according to terrorism expert and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.
At the time, he was suspected in the deaths of 700 people. We knew where he was and we had the opportunity to take him out and didn't, because doing so would have weakened the case for going to war in Iraq.
We did a good thing and if Bush is right, this will stem some of the violence in Iraq. But I don't believe that most of the insurgency we're fighting there are al Queda. So, I have my doubts that al-Zarqawi's death is going to change all that much on the ground.
I'm taking tomorrow off work to help Dollie with her yard sale. This will be her first of the season and the proceeds are earmarked to buy new patio furniture. I like a good yard sale. It give me the chance to pull out a bunch of stuff and send it packing. Old comic books, t-shirts, books, software, toys -- it all goes and goes cheap. We usually have a pile of free stuff for someone to haul away.
Years ago, I gave away copies of the Constitution with any purchase. The great part about that is that whether you're liberal or conservative, you see a free copy of the Constitution as supporting your side.
I like going to other people's yard sales because of the bargains. It's where we get a lot of the stuff we'll be selling. Heh.
Murfreesboro is yard sale crazy, though. People get out early and try to get the good stuff before anyone else. I've written before about the crazy lady who showed up at our house two days early wanting a "preview" of what's on sale. She tried to buy some of the stuff on our walls.
I imagine we'll hook up the Sirius radio and kick back tomorrow and Saturday and rake in the do-re-mi.
The Senate failed to pass legislation eliminating the inheritance tax. Conservatives like to call it a "death tax," which is a little dishonest. A more accurate way to put it would be to call any repeal of the inheritance tax a "birth tax" because our children will have to pay back the lost revenue ($1 trillion by 2021) that the inheritance tax would have generated.
Bush has been slowly reducing the inheritance tax and it is slated to disappear altogether in 2010. However, to disguise the cost of such a maneuver, the original legislation had a sunset clause in 2011, meaning that the inheritance tax comes back a year later. So, watch out rich, old people. If December 2010 rolls around, I would be careful around junior and the staircase.
For those keeping score at home: gay marriage ban, failed; elimination of the inheritance tax, failed. Next up: flag burning.
I have been hammering the Senate pretty well about the gay marriage ammendment that failed. I said it was a waste of time to debate an ammendment that had no chance of passing. I have discovered an even worse waste of time -- debating the same ammendment in the House. House Majority Leader John Boehner plans on bringing up the measure in the House next month.
It cannot be an ammendment because the Senate already rejected it, but Boehner and the House Republicans haven't had their chance to grandstand, so Boehner is going to bring it up.
Boehner denied that his decision to bring the issue up for a vote was related to politics. "We have a significant number of our members who want to vote on this, and so we are going to have a vote," he said.
Oy.
NBC has decided that Ann Coulter's comments regarding the 9/11 victims crossed the line. As the kids say, shuh?!
I have a Sidekick II, a very popular cellphone/internet device. I use it daily and find it an invaluable tool. It is popular with celebrities and teenagers because it is easy to use and the thumboard is simple to work for all those text messages the kids are so fond of.
What some people don't realize is that each individual Sidekick is linked up to the servers at the cell phone comany (t-mobile in my case) and everything you do is recorded at a web site accessible by the user. For example, any photo taken from my phone is immediately viewable at the t-mobile web site. I don't need to upload it, because the phone maintains a constant radio link.
This leads to some interesting situations, should the phone get stolen.
June 7, 2006
Alabama made a good decision yesterday when it rejected Roy Moore's bid for the Republican nomination for governor. Moore, you may recall, was the Alabama Supreme Court judge who got into trouble for violating a court order to remove a giant stone monument to the 10 Commandments from the courthouse.
He lost his seat on the bench and decided to run for governor against Repulican encumbent Bob Riley. The voters of Alabama rejected him yesterday and I'm proud of them.
Run. Do not walk. To Crooks and Liars and watch the video of Jon Stewart handing Bill "better than you" Bennett his ass on the subject of gay marriage. Best line:
"Fifty percent of marriages do not end in divorce because of gayness."
Stewart makes a great point early in the interview. If the American family is the stable relationship that creates a strong society, then why not encourage gays to be a part of that structure? Why bar them from taking part?
On the Senate floor yesterday, while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took the opportuntiy to let the Republicans know they were wasting time on this three-day gay marriage debate that could be better used to deal with some actual problems facing the country, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) put up a giant photo of his own family as a prop for his speech inwhich he said some really bizarre things.
Among the more . . . let's just say it . . . crazy things he said during his rant was that gay marriage would somehow lead to more children being born out of wedlock. Huh.
"Now, stop and think. What's going to be the results of this? The results are going to be that it's going to be a very expensive thing, all these kids, many of them are going to be ending up on welfare. So it goes far beyond just the current emotionals [sic]. I think that my colleague, Senator Sessions, said I believe yesterday, 'If there are not families to raise children, who will raise them? Who will do the responsibility? It will fall on the state.' Clearly it will be a state."
We need to stop the gays from marrying and having a bunch of kids and driving up the welfare rolls. Thanks for the insight, senator.
It doesn't stop there. At a recent press conference held by Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.), he linked gay marriage to deadbeat dads:
Allard held a news conference Monday at which the speakers said they wanted to reduce the "epidemic level of fatherlessness in America."
"How would outlawing gay marriage encourage heterosexual fathers to stick around?" was the first question. Allard skirted the question by saying that "laws send a message to our children."
The moderator, Matt Daniels of the Alliance for Marriage, tried to find a question on another subject. But when reporters continued to press Allard on the link between same-sex marriage and deadbeat dads, Daniels blurted out: "All right, you know what? We're going to call this press conference to a close."
Here's another interesting excerpt from the article:
What the marriage amendment indisputably does, though, is delight social conservatives, whose turnout in November will be crucial if Republicans are to retain their majorities in the House and Senate. And conservative activists have burst back on the scene to show their gratitude -- even if they know it's a losing cause.
"If we didn't believe in miracles, we wouldn't have spent our vacation money to come here," said Sandra Rodrigues of Utah, who with her family has been standing outside the Russell Senate Office Building all week, shouting at senators and displaying signs urging "Stop Same Sex Marriage: It Endorses Masturbation." "If same-sex marriage is endorsed," she explained, "then you're going to have children think it's just another option to have pleasure."
Focus on the Family ran a series of ads targeting senators who don't support the ammendment which claim that allowing gay marriage would create children without parents.
"It is a painful but very real truth. Homosexual marriages intentionally create motherless families or fatherless families. But a compassionate society would not deliberately deny a child a mother or father."
It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
In the end, as predicted, the gay marriage ban failed, but not before Louisiana Sen. David Vitter said "I don't believe there's any issue that's more important than this one." Really, senator? You want to tell that to your constituents that still have no homes? What a pantload.
Next up? A anti flag burning ammendment and a permanent repeal of the estate tax. Are either of these "issues" worth taking up what little time the Senate has left in this session?
While at Crooks and Liars, check out Kathy Griffin's response to Ann Coulter on the "Today Show."
"I'd like to go after Ann Coulter, I saw that nut-bag on the show earlier. What's she doing wearing a cocktail dress at seven in the morning. She got home from the party last night. Doesn't she just make stuff up, Al? Who fact checks?"
I really enjoy Kathy's show on Bravo, "My Life On The D-List." For one thing, it shows in stark tones just how hard some celebrities work to keep the cash flowing and the Q-rating up. Sure, Paris Hilton can get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars just to show up at a party at Cannes, but for the hundreds of "celebrities" who struggle from one job to the next, life is a constant hustle for the next gig.
Last season, I watched Kathy as she hawked her DVD. She went to a radio convention and hopped from table to table doing dozens of interviews with cookie cutter morning DJs. She booked DVD signings at stores and had virtually no people show up. She put her husband to work sitting at a table hawking DVDs during her shows.
She gets in more and more difficult and humiliating situations: doggie fashion shows, celebrity feuds, Ryan Seacrest tears open her top at an awards show, Jay Leno calls her ugly on "the Tonight Show." But she's a "celebrity" so she has to feed the need for publicity. It's fascinating.
She's coming to Nashville later this month, by the way.
Arlen Specter is a weak-willed little wimp. He talks so big about holding hearings on the NSA illegal wiretapping, about dragging executives from the telecoms in and having them testify about illegally turning over records on everyone to the NSA. Then he just wusses out.
This is what passes for a "moderate" in the Republican party.
The 9/11 widows respond to the queen of the harpies. One more note. I have an aquaintence who recently saw Ann Coulter speak and was offended that she called liberals "godless."
"She called me a godless liberal!"
"But you're an atheist."
"Oh . . . yeah."
Heh.
In her new book, the queen of the harpies says that Jews are really Christians, but Episcopalians aren't.
At Human Events, the right-wing echo machine was at work. They interviewed Coulter on her new book with this probing question:
Q: How did your own faith contribute to your book’s premise?
Coulter: Although my Christianity is somewhat more explicit in this book, Christianity fuels everything I write. Being a Christian means that I am called upon to do battle against lies, injustice, cruelty, hypocrisy - you know, all the virtues in the church of liberalism.
What a joyless, souless harpy. If her faith calls on her to do battle against lies, injustice etc... then why doesn't she speak out on the countless Republican adulterers? Or the Republican pedophiles?The largest railway station in Europe has recently been completed in Berlin. It serves 30,000 passengers a day and cost about $72 million. They only put in one bathroom.
Okay this is pretty crazy. There is an Australian chess champion named Arianne Caoili who is, as the kids say "teh hawt." She has been corresponding and canoodling with British chess grandmaster Danny Gormally.
At the recent World Chess Olympiad, Gormally saw Caolli dancing at a nightclub with the No. 3 ranked Levon Aronian from Armenia. Evidently, it was on, because Gormally punched Aronian, inciting what must have been the nerdiest bar fight in history.
Heh. I just read a legal order from Judge Gregory A. Presnell in the U.S. District Court of Miami. It seems that the two sides in a lawsuit couldn't come up with a neutral location to take a deposition and had filed numerous motions that were delaying the case. The judge ordered the two to appear on the steps of the courthouse and play rock, paper, scissors to decided who gets to pick.
Maybe we could learn something from our neighbors to the north. Canadian House accidently passed their budget on first reading.
NPR ran this story about shops in England using a high-pitched tone to keep teenagers away from their stores. It seems that if you pitch the tone at the right freqency, no one over 25 or so can hear it, but the kids can.
I played the tone last night and didn't hear a thing. I didn't notice Rozzy behind me. She immediately piped up.
"What's that noise?"
"I don't hear anything." I brought Max in.
"Do you hear it?"
"Yeah." He imitated it for me.
"Does it make you want to leave the room?"
"No, it makes me want to come in." He's very contrary.
I passed the story along to my coworkers and one (who is about 35) claimed to be able to hear it. The story talks about how teens have turned the technology around by using the sound as a ringtone on their cellphones so they can hear them ring, but teacher can't.
Vanity Fair has an article posted on how the whole Niger/Yellowcake story was part of a U.S. propaganda operation to start a war of regime change in Iraq. They found 14 instances prior to Bush's SOTU where he uttered the infamous 16 words where the CIA had attempted to quash the Niger story and were rebuffed by the Bush White House.
Also other governments had discredited the Niger story going as far back as 2001 (two years before the 2003 SOTU address).
Tangled web, indeed.
June 6, 2006
After some consideration, I've decided that I fell into a Republican trap yesterday. I took the bait on the gay marriage issue. That wasn't smart of me because the entire issue is a distraction from what's going on around us. The Republicans want us to talk about gay marriage because they don't want us to talk about gas prices, the stock market drop (200 points yesterday), Iraq, Iran, North Korea, immigration, health care, social security, global warming or really anything of substance.
And while national polls show that a slim majority of Americans believe we shouldn't allow gay marriages, an overwhelming majority think we shouldn't have a Constitutional ammendment on the subject. Also, when asked what crises are facing the American people, gay marriage doesn't even register.
So, when Republicans talk about gay marriage, my response from now on is going to be "Really? Is that what you want to concentrate on? With all the problems facing this country, that's your priority? Where is your head?"
"These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted like as if the terrorist attack only happened to them. They believe the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. . . . These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-parrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husbands' death so much."
That's a quote about the 9/11 widows from Ann Coulter. queen of the harpies. I like Stephanie Miller's description better. She refers to her as "noted female impersonator Ann Coulter."
Ann believes that liberals hide behind the 9/11 widows or Cindy Sheehan to give their politcal policies a shield of infallibilty. She says she's not allowed to respond to them without seeming to question the authenticity of their grief. She may have a point, but liberals are hardly the main culprits here.
It wasn't a liberal who landed on an aircraft carrier and declared major combat operations over in Iraq. It wasn't a liberal who said if you don't support the president, you don't support the troops. It wasn't a liberal who invited the 9/11 families to the White House to watch "Flight 93." It wasn't a liberal who engaged in a staged satellite chat with soldiers in the field.
Coulter believes that liberals should make their political points by putting someone out there that conservatives can respond to without having their motives questioned. I can make the same request of the conservatives. Make your case for the war without accusing me of giving aid and comfort to the enemy if I disagree.
Congratulations to my friend Laurie who's knitting blog, Crazy Aunt Purl, was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal. That's way cool.
I've been watching "Monkey Dust" on the Sundance Channel. It's a British cartoon series geared toward adults that is . . . bizarre. Yet, it's fascinating in a train wreck sort of way. I'm a big fan of cartoons and comic books, so I'll give most series an initial viewing. "Monkey Dust" almost didn't make the cut, but there's just something about that tickles me. It could be the repetition, many of the same characters appear each episode and some of the gags are telegraphed from space, but I still laugh.
Actually, the Sundance Channel shows some really great programs you can't see elsewhere. I mean where else would I get a chance to see "Kath and Kim" -- an Australian sit-com about a mother and daughter in suburbia?
There is little I enjoy more in this world than blathering on and on to my friends about some obscure series that they've never heard of.
I had lunch with my Aunt Dot today. She's got big news. She's going to get married and move to Florida. She filled me in on all the details, none of which I'll share here other than to say she is incredibly happy and thrilled to be starting over in a new place. She has the support of her family and I couldn't be happier for her.
I try to make it to Post Secret once a week to see what new postcards have shown up. They're fascinating. It's a place where people send homemade postcards with some anonymous secret on them. The person who runs the site doesn't archive them, so they're only up for a week or so. He's put out a book of some of the postcards that I'm not sure I could take.
Some of these cards are heart-wrenching. Some are silly. At least one made me very angry. It was from a teacher. It showed a lineup of young students at a chalkboard. It said "I failed a boy so I could continue flirting with his dad next year."
Aside from the obvious reasons for my anger, it made me recall an incident in college. The advisor to the student newspaper also taught a class or two in the journalism department. She told me one day that she passed a guy who didn't deserve it because he was so cute. I lost a lot of respect for her that day and, evidently, I haven't gotten over it.
I doubt I'll ever send a postcard to Post Secret, but I look at them every week to see if I recognize anyone in them.
Jessica Alba let slip that the sequel to "Fantastic Four" will include Silver Surfer. She hinted it might also include Galactus, which would be quite a cinematic feat, considering Galactus is millions of miles tall and eats planets to survive.
Just saw the video of the Columbia goalkeeper's goal against Poland in World Cup action. Sweet.
June 5, 2006
Went to the hospital to see my grandfather today. He was driving home from visiting his wife in the nursing home when he ran off the road and hit a tree. He busted up his ankle pretty badly, hit his head and injured his arm and shoulder.
The local hospital made the call to have him lifeflighted to Vanderbild Medical Center where he stayed in the trauma unit. They put a metal plate and nine screws in his ankle. When I got there and asked him how he was doing he said "I'm fine, I guess. If they'd let me put weight on this foot I'd be walking around."
He's going to have to be off that foot for three months. He said aunt Dottie had talked to him about possibly going into a nursing home.
"I never figured on that kind of life," he said. None of us do. He said he doesn't remember the accident at all. He left the nursing home, filled up with gas, stopped by the grocery store and bought two cans of pinto beans and a chicken breast, then he woke up in the hospital.
He said the insurance will cover the car, but he's not sure if he needs to be driving any more.
"If I'm at home by myself, I reckon I'll drive short distances," he said.
When I got there, he was sitting up in a chair. He looked pretty banged up. His arm is swollen, there is a big knot on his head and his ankle is wrapped up. He says that he can't reckon they're doing much for him except giving him plenty of medicine.
"Are you in pain?" I asked.
"No, there's not much pain," he said.
"Then I think they're doing plenty," I replied. There was a whiteboard on his bathroom door that listed the medical staff working with him and his goals: "Increase activity, pain management."
I was on my lunch break, so I couldn't stay very long. He said that he'd been getting plenty of visitors.
"I've been here a week," he said. "Is this Wednesday or Thursday?"
"It's Monday," I said.
"Well, it'll be a week on Wednesday," he said. "The days are blending together. I can't tell one from another. No one is talking about when I'm getting out of here."
I told him to hang in there and I'd be back to see him when I could.
I saw "War of the Worlds" this weekend. What a great, steaming pantload of a movie. It just plodded along with nothing to show for it. Terrible. Really just terrible.
The American Bar Association has decided to investigate whether Bush broke the law when he decided to ignore 750 different pieces of legislation that he signed, making all of us legally bound by them, but then wrote a statement explaining why he felt like they didn't apply to him.
Tomorrow is June 6, 2006. The date has a significance for some who are supersticious because it's the sixth day of the sixth month in a year that ends in 06. The remake of "The Omen" will open tomorrow. I understand that many women are scheduling C-Sections today in order to ensure that their children aren't born on 6/6/06.
That's all just really silly. For one thing, 2006 is hardly the first time a year ending in 06 has come around and somehow the Earth has survived. I'll try to make it through the day without messing my pants.
I'm not sure what tomorrow holds, but evidently today is Sodomy Day at the White House. Bush is hosting a cadre of anti-gay bigots for a Rose Garden ceremony to throw his weight behind an anti-gay marriage ammendment to the Constitution.
This has zero chance of passing because it won't get the 2/3 vote in the Senate required to send it to the states for ratification. Frist said this ammendment was his top priority and he's not even going to get all the Republicans to vote for it. And why? Why is it necessary to enshrine bigotry in the Consitution? It never works.
And no one has ever explained to me how it will actually affect my heterosexual marriage one way or another. I hear a lot of slippery slope arguments about how if you allow two men or two women to marry, the next thing you know people will be marrying goats and frogs and whatnot, but that a bunch of hooey.
The fact of the matter is that marriage is contract enacted by the state, not the church. For the 220 years or so this nation has existed, we have traditionally left the administration of marriage licensure to the individual states. Republicans (the one's pushing the gay marriage ammendment) have traditionally been in favor of a smaller federal government and the sanctity of state's rights.
On a more practical level, since this ammendment has no chance of passing and this congress has already spent the least amount of time in session of any in recent history, why waste floor time on this exercise?
I'll tell you why.
I've got a brother who is a proud member of the 29 percent who back Bush. He would rather bleed in a cup than vote for a Democrat. He backs Bush because of three issues: abortion, gay marriage and support for Israel.
Since being appointed to the presidency by the Supreme Court in 2000, Bush has had more than five years to do something on any of these fronts and has not. Here we are, just a few months away from what is shaping up to be a very significant mid-term election and Bush has to start making nice with the values voters like my brother.
Not that he would vote for a Democrat, but he might stay home and not vote at all. So, suddenly Bush and Frist remember which side their bread is buttered on.
Here's where they lose me on the debate. The reasons for enacting the ammendment:
1. Opposition to sodomy. The word "sodomy" encompasses a host of acts, many of which are enjoyed by heterosexual couples.
2. Sanctioning only marriages that are capable of procreation. There are numerous straight heterosexual married couples out there who have no plans to have children. Shall we declare their marriage unconstitutional?
3. Legislating morality. It never works. The right sees this as the first step toward outlawing sex out of wedlock, adultery, birth control and masterbation. How long before they want to do away with divorce?
I called Sen. Frist's office and asked some tough questions.
"Hello, Sen. Frist's Office"
"Yes, could you tell me if Sen. Frist masterbates?"
"Excuse me?"
"I asked if Sen. Frist masterbates."
"Sir, that is an offensive question."
"Is it? The senator feels it's okay to legislate the sex lives of his constitutents, so why shouldn't he be prepared to answer questions about his?"
"I won't respond to this."
"Okay, well can you tell me if he's ever given or received oral sex?"
[click]
Oh well, on to the next . . .
"Hello, Sen Lamar Alexander's office..."
"Yes, can you tell me if the senator supports enshrining bigotry againt homosexuals in the Constitution?"
"If you are referring to the gay marriage ammendment . . ."
"I am."
"The senator believes that marriage should be between a man and woman."
"What is the senator's stance on sodomy?"
"That's not relevant."
"Has the senator ever given or received oral sex?"
"That's not relevant, I won't answer."
"Does the senator masturbate?"
"What is your zip code?"
"37130. Was Sen. Alexander abstinent before he was married?"
[click]
One wonders what my senators have to hide?
Researchers in North Carolina have discovered one effect of global warming that may hit very close to home. They have discovered that the increased levels of C02 in the atmosphere causes poison ivy to run amok. Not only does it grow faster and more virulent, but it secretes a more irritating and potent version of the rash-causing chemical we Boy Scouts have been taught to avoid at camp.
Leaflets three, let it be.
Berries white, poisonous sight.
Until last year, Dollie had never contracted poison ivy rash. When she finally got it, though, it made up for lost time. Currently, she's got a small case from mowing the yard. She had badger come over and spray the tree behind our house and kill it off. We're good liberals, but we both understand that without chemical herbicides and fertilizers American agriculture would not be the global powerhouse it is.
Plus, poison ivy rash itches like the devil.
A sad note: my brother Dan has decided to shutter his blog, Conservative Corner. In fact, he deleated the blog and someone else has already taken up his old address. As always, I'll extend to him space here to rant on about whatever he feels the need to rant about.
June 1, 2006
It seems like Hugh Jackman isn't the only one taking his X-Men uniform home. Halle Berry told the Sun that she likes to wear her costume in the bedroom as well.
Here in Tennessee we know how to deal with deadbeat dads. We take away their hunting and fishing licenses. That'll show 'em. See, cause anyone who won't take care of their kids would never fish or hunt without a license.
That's a rough story. Back in April a tractor trailer slammed into a van full of university students killing five and putting one in the hospital in a coma. For five weeks the family of Laura VanRyn have been watching over their young daughter in the hospital while the family of Whitney Cerak held a closed casket funeral service which drew 1,400 people.
Recently, hospital officials discovered that it was Cerak who survived and VanRyn who is buried in Cerak's grave. It seems both girls had similar builds and blonde hair. The extent of the injuries made it difficult to tell who was who, so officials relied on fellow students to identify the bodies.
When Cerak came out of her coma, the family sitting vigil said she wasn't making any sense, so the hospital compared dental records and discovered the mixup.
A guy in Kentucky rented a car and noticed a giant rubber snake on the dash. He thought it was a funny joke and gave it a pat before pulling out of the space. Boy was he surprised when the head popped up.
My TiVo has downloaded the GE One Second Theatre clips. They're pretty amusing. It works like this. During a GE commerical (toward the end) for just a second, a few frames will flash. If you watch them frame-by-frame you can see a small theatre presentation. They're cute.
The commerical about GE's new environmentally friendly locomotive featured footage from an early locomotive premier. The one-second theatre spot asked "Where Are They Now?" It showed photos from the commerical with little signs above everyone's head that read "dead." "What do you expect? It was 1869." Heh.
Hmm, after 41 years, "Days of Our Lives" may be going off the air.
Bush demonstrates his commitment to the war on terror by cutting terror funding for NYC and Washington, D.C.
I heard the Batwoman story on the AP radio news update this morning. It started out with the opening to the old Adam West Batman series and the announcer said "Holy closet busters, Batman."
[sigh]
May 31, 2006
Murfreesboro made it to fark.com today. It seems that there's a trend among Murfreesboroanites who are victims of armed robbery to fight back. Good. That's the sort of reputation a town can use. up until now, we've been known as the home of the world's largest cedar bucket.
Of course that burned up last year.
One thing I forgot to mention that happened this weekend. Dollie and I were in Kroger and for some reason were standing next to the vending machine that distributes scratch off lottery tickets. I had a dollar and some time to kill, so I bought my very first scratch-and-win. I chose one at random (a Lucky 7 ticket) and won $27.
In that one stroke, I made back all the money I've ever spent on lottery tickets.
DC Comics announced that there is going to be a new member of the Batman Family. Batwoman is to make an appearance in the series called "52." I bring it up here for a number of reasons. One, I've heard the news story a lot lately and without exception every reporter has gotten the context of the series wrong. They've also gotten the history of the character wrong, but that's understandable, since the original Batwoman was . . . well . . . a joke.
She first appeared in 1956 as a sort of feminine counterpart to Batman. She wore a yellow costume and carried a purse. Her name was Kathy Kane (comicbook writers love alliterative names for some reason) and she was a wealthy socialite who took up crime fighting for kicks. Batman was always trying to get her to retire because crime fighting was too dangerous for a woman. Not too dangerous for a little boy, I guess, but it wasn't woman's work.
She, as well as most of the sillier members of the Batman Family (Bat-girl, Bat-Mite, Ace the Bat-hound) were dropped in the '60s, but kept cropping up.
The latest version owned a circus and was killed off in 1979. All of this happened pre-crisis (which in the DC Comics universe is like saying BC, it's a temporal boundary in which all the DC titles sort of started over in the mid '80s). Since then there have been a couple of Batgirls (Barbara Gordon, Helen Bertinelli, Cassandra Cain), but no Batwoman.
Well, there was a cartoon that starred Kelly Rippa as Batwoman, but that was a one-shot that doesn't really count. Now Alex Ross is going to bring back Karol Kane in "52."
Recently, the DC titles went through a second crisis and then all the titled jumped forward "One Year Later." This allowed new writers to come aboard and make some changes without having to worry too much about continuity.
52 is a weekly story that details what happened during that year. At the end of the recent crisis, Superman lost his powers, Batman decided to go on a sojourn and retrace the steps he took to become Batman and Wonder Woman went off to find the rest of the Amazons that jumped to another dimension to protect the island. So, in a year without Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, other heroes had to step up and take over. "52" tells their story. We're about three issues in and it's a very good read.
Evidently, we're going to get a new Batwoman. This one will also be named Kathy Kane and will be a wealthy socialite. She's also a lesbian romantically linked to Rene Montoya, a detective who was featured in her own comic book series, "Gotham Central" for a while.
I have to assume that she'll no longer carry a utility purse, but you never know. Now, reading all this (and I pity you if you did) you can understand how some morning DJ who picks up the news story off the wire might get the facts wrong. No one except fanboys take this stuff seriously, but the fanboys take it REALLLLLY seriously. I like to think I strike a happy medium -- I understand the context, but don't let it bother me when others don't care to.
That being said, the fact that the new Batwoman will be a lesbian is a bit troubling because it will mean that many more morning DJs will pick up on the story and her sexual orientation (which will most likely be a very small part of any story line) will become the focus of the piece. It's good for DC because it will get people talking about their book, but I don't know that it will increase sales.
The fanboys are already reading "52" and there is little chance of Batwoman getting her own series.
I like the new costume, but the heels crack me up. How is she supposed to fight crime in those?
May 30, 2006
It was a great weekend -- really great. I love a good, long weekend.
Max and Rozzy spent Saturday with my mother. Mom has some new kittens and we fully expected to be bringing one home with us. Thus, Dollie layed out some criteria:
It must be: a) male, b) a short hair, c) not yellow or black (due to their propensity for skin conditions).
Fortunately, the kittens are still too young to bring home, so we dodged that bullet a little longer.
Dolls and I took advantage of our day without children to see "X-Men: The Last Stand." Dolllie and I really enjoyed it. I've read a few unflattering reviews and I can understand how some fanboys might not have liked it, but as Dollie said "Fanboys never like anything."
Minor spoilers ahead: They killed off more people than I expected they would. I was particularly impressed with Vinnie Jone's Jugernaught. He made the best of what is really a one-dimensional character in the film (and a complicated one in the comics).
Bottom line, it was probably the weakest of the three films so far, but still a great time.
After the film, Dolls and I visited with Tracey for a while before returning home for a late-night grill. I fired up the charcoal and grilled some burgers. We sat down to dinner after 11 p.m. It was divine.
Yesterday, we took the kids to the Tennessee Renaissance Festival. It was the final day and I promised Max some jousting action. I'd been to the festival many years ago and was unimpressed. But it has grown into a very entertaining way to spend an afternoon. 'tis a little pricey, lemonade was going for $6 a "goblet" but the shire was pleasant and there is no better place to get your gawk on.
We saw Paul Garbonzo's juggling act. He used to be with the Flying Karamozov Brothers and puts on a very funny show. We also saw the Washing Well Wenches. They might have been entertaining, it was hard to hear them over Rozzy's whining.
She was pretty much a wet blanket the entire time. If she wasn't too hot, she was hungry or thirsty or tired or didn't like the noise or wanted to go home or saw a bug and freaked out or had go to the bathroom or was afraid to go to the bathroom and on and on and on and on.
The thing was, she was into it at first because she got to wear her princess garb, including her crown that Granny Franny made for her. During a royal procession, the queen nodded and called her "princess." But as the afternoon wore on, she became less and less enchanted with notion.
Max was very into it. Dollie whipped up an impromptu knight's costume by using the silver suit from his alien costume and adding a taberd and a plastic sword. The lady at the entrance made Max peace knot his sword, which is kind of cute.
There were people-powered rides, lots of crafts and games. I had some of the best fish and chips ever. We got to see some jousting. Max was a little disappointed that no one was thrown from their horse, but this was an international tourney. "If you're good, you don't get thrown from your horse," I explained. As it was, we saw some broken lances and some very nice horsemanship.
We saw an astronmy based comedy show in which two actors debated the nature of the universe. Max got to play Mercury and demonstrate both the Earth-centric and solar-centric movements of the planets. Very cool.
Max also got to ride a camel and play a renfair version of skeeball called knacker ball. We saw lots of corsetted wenches and pointy eared fairies. There were plenty of costumed proles lurking about. It was a nice way to spend a holiday.
Wow, CBS has discovered that comic books sometimes get political.
