Skepchick has her top ten jackasses for 2008. I can’t really disagree, although I think Palin’s fundamentalism is more inferred from her church rather than explicitly drawn from her words.
Caveat: She slams Oprah and that always gets on my good side.
I’m exhausted from the move, but thought I’d highlight two stories close to my heart. Jim Webb is seeking prison reform while Craig Watkins delivers justice in Texas. Being a law and order type, as I am, means you want the right people punished.
Those are the highways I followed from home to Memphis, where we’re staying with friends before continuing on. It occurred to me today that I have seen much of the US — although not as much as I’d like. Here are the states I have been to, sorted by importance.
States I have lived in, not including denial (8): Illinois, Mississippi, Georgia, Minnesota, Virginia, Maryland, Texas, Pennsylvania (pending)
State I have visited, by which I mean spent a night and seen the sights (20): Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Washington
States I have changed planes in or driven through (8): West Virginia, Delaware, Connecticut, Ohio, Kentucky, Arkansas, Missouri, Nevada
That leaves 14 states I need to visit at some point.
Unfortunately, my record on countries isn’t as good. Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Canada is kind of pathetic for a supposed man of the world.
So we’re moving at the end of the week. I think I had blocked out how stressful a move can be. I’d forgotten, for example, how packing works. I always start packing weeks in advance, boxing up easy stuff like books. By the time the last week rolls around, I’m feeling pretty good, getting down to maybe that last 5-10%.
And then things get weird.
Because no matter how much effort I put in, that last 5-10% seems to never get done. I’ll pack 16 boxes and there will still be the same amount of crap left in the various nooks and crannies of the house. I have become convinced that the steady state expanding universe theory is correct. The closets of my house that are spontaneously creating new matter with which to fill the universe. All of which I have to pack.
Ugh. I can’t wait ’til this is over.
What the deuce?
Just in time for
your momSanta to toss this in your Christmas stocking, Burger King has released a limited-edition men’s body spray that evokes the smell of freshly broiled Whoppers. But isn’t this what they spray on the burgers already for authenticity? No! According to a press release, “The King is setting hearts ablaze for the holidays with his new scent of choice. FLAME™, a new men’s body spray by Burger King Corp., features the scent of seduction with the hint of flame-broiled meat. A favorite of the King, FLAME™ is available for purchase for a limited time at select Ricky’s retailers in-store or online.” Because nothing’s more romantic than the scent of mass-produced beef patties…except maybe the sultry FLAME™ website, which is really putting us in the mood (for salad).
I have the wrong number of X-chromosomes to answer this. But do women really get turned on by the smell old grease and broken dreams? No wonder I couldn’t get lucky in high school.
A prosecutor decides that DNA evidence isn’t important.
Bjorn Lomborg rocks. I love someone who can piss off “conservatives” my acknowledging the reality of global warming and infuriate “progressives” by promoting serious discussion on what to do about it.
. “At the end of the day,” says Lomborg, “this is about saying, Yes, global warming is real. It’s often massively exaggerated, which is why we need smarter solutions…. Let’s pick them smart, rather than stupidly. And also, let’s remember that they are many other problems in the world that we can fix so much cheaper and do so much more good….If this is really a question about doing good in the world, then let’s do real good-and not just make ourselves feel good about what we do.”
It’s not that I don’t care. It’s that I don’t know what we can do. The last time we tried to help, a bunch of our soldiers got massacred.
Just in case you were wondering, if you had any doubt — Sean Penn and Steven Soderbergh are fucking morons.
I have never understood the fascination some on the Left have for bloodthirsty tyrannical communists. When I was in high school, they loved critic-imprisoning, newspaper-closing, Indian-murdering Daniel Ortega. Now all they have left is Fidel Casto and Hugo Chavez (and the corpse of Che Guevara). What is it about some people that makes them embrace evil so willingly? Evil like this:
A former revolutionary comrade recalled that, in the days before and immediately following their 1959 ascension to power, Raul and Che Guevara “competed in killings and viciousness,” executing all suspected of being “agents” of Batista or “counterrevolutionaries.” Another former comrade and friend of the Castro brothers, the writer Norberto Fuentes, told Brian Latell, author of the book After Fidel: Raul Castro and the Future of Cuba’s Revolution, a “chilling” story of Raul’s “cold-bloodedness.” In 1966 Raul inexplicably exhumed the bodies of those he ordered executed in the city of Santiago, encased them in a collective concrete “coffin,” and deposited the corpses in the deep seas off the island.
Then there was Michael Moore’s lauding of the Cuban healthcare system, which we thoroughly ripped apart over at Moorewatch.
What the hell, man? I get criticism of our system. I may not agree with it but I understand it. I get criticism of our foreign policy. I may not agree with it but I understand it. This nonsense I don’t and never will understand. It’s, frankly, a child-like way of going through life — finding someone who seems “cool” and “revolutionary” and worshipping them.
A little crazy today as we’re closing on a house. The HUD document specifies — no shit — 18 different people/companies that are getting money out of this transaction. The city, the county, the schools, the state, 2 realtors, the lender, the appraiser, a flood certifier, a tax service, a mortgage broker, my home insurer, the settlement company, the wire transfer company, the home warranty company, a radon mitigation company, the holders of the previous owner’s mortgage. Oh, and I think the previous owners might be getting something too.
No wonder our politicians want to prop up the housing market.
Nick Gillespie goes non-linear:
This never was a “helluva good country,” at least when it came to politicians. We just pretended it was. Certainly, after a decade or more of NPSMs up the ying-yang (apologies, but we are talking about politics, which driveth all decent men and women mad), it’s impossible to have any illusions. We are a nation of Depends wearers, even those of us who are half the age of John McCain.
I’m feeling this a lot these days. Over at Right-Thinking, it seems that 90% of my posts are whining about something stupid and massively expensive that the government is doing — from wars to bailouts. I look to Washington and am reminded of the words of Johnathan Swift:
I desired that the senate of Rome might appear before me, in one large chamber, and an assembly of somewhat a later age in counterview, in another. The first seemed to be an assembly of heroes and demigods; the other, a knot of pedlars, pick-pockets, highwayman, and bullies.
But I think things have got to turn around soon. Bill James once observed that progress comes in the guise of failure. Watergate wasn’t about politicians being corrupt — they always had been. Watergate was about the American ceasing to put up with it. Racial tension wasn’t created in the 1960’s. It just exploded into the national consciousness when we decided we wouldn’t put up with it anymore.
Thanks to the internet, our politicians no longer have a lap-dog media to cover up their nonsense. It may take a while. But I think a lot of the cynicism and anger now is because the American people are refusing to tolerate this kind of garbage anymore. A revolution is going to come (not the violent type; the ballot box type).