The Drunkablog

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2012-01-25T16:23:00.000-08:00

"John, discover the comfort of the Genie Bra!" Oh, I have, I have.

Readers if any know that's a lie.

Friday Night at the Radio!

2012-01-20T16:37:00.000-08:00

Early war: 11 January 1942. Sound not great, but: Jack Benny!

One more: "Jack Benny is one of the finest violinists of this earache" (17 January 1943). The wordplay is horrble(ly) funny. And: Oscar Levant!

Oh, and Joe Besser, being all gay. He kind of turns everyone else gay too.

Broncos win!

2012-01-14T21:46:00.000-08:00

Is what I wish I could tell you.

Tim Tebow still has oddly flared nostrils.

Football update III!

2012-01-14T18:45:00.001-08:00

End of first half, Broncos-Patriots. My mother hated me too.

No, really.

Football update II!

2012-01-14T17:06:00.000-08:00

Saints go marching out. Goodness gracious. (The D-blog never swears.)

Football update!

2012-01-14T14:35:00.000-08:00

Fucking Huey Lewis sang the Nat. An. for the Saints-49ers game. He's fuckin' oooollllddd. Not too bad a barbershop treatment of the venerable fucking classic, tho Huey was a little fuckin' flat here and there and couldn't quite reach the fucking high notes.

Tebow!

2012-01-14T13:05:00.000-08:00

Every single word in the English language, and many in languages unEnglish (including, one supposes, Dogalog (scroll to update)), has been used over and over in the frenzied reams of writing about the guy. So I won't add any.

Update: Okay, maybe I can add one that might not have been used: Tim Tebow has oddly distended nostrils.

Update II: Go Broncos (they haven't got a chance)! Go Broncos (no chance at all)! Go Broncos (go Broncos!)!

Telegraph salutes industry of lower orders

2012-01-14T06:26:00.000-08:00

"Thieves dig 100ft tunnel." Wait, what?

Science: Still on the march!

2012-01-13T06:47:00.000-08:00

Seth Borenstein, for years the Associated Press's most egregious and ridiculous AGW alarmist, must have blanched at least a little when confronted with writing this story (as it showed up in the Post this morning), mustn't he?

An international team of scientists says it has figured out how to slow global warming in the short run and prevent millions of deaths from dirty air: Stop focusing so much on carbon dioxide.

Stop ffffffffff . . .

They say the key is to reduce emissions of methane and soot — two powerful and fast-acting causes of global warming.

Carbon dioxide is the chief greenhouse gas and the one world leaders [sorry, guess I already used that one] have spent the most time talking about controlling. Scientists say carbon dioxide from fossil fuels such as coal and oil is a bigger overall cause of global warming, but reducing methane and soot offers quicker fixes.

Soot also is a big health problem, so dramatically cutting it with existing technology would save between 700,000 and 4.7 million [there's scientific precision] lives each year, according to the team's research published online Thursday in the journal
Science. . . .

Science, eh? But how do they know all this, Seth, huh? Huh? (Seizing Seth by his no-doubt manly shoulders and shaking.) Tell me! Tell me!

Two dozen scientists from around the world ran computer models of 400 existing pollution control measures and came up with 14 methods that attack methane and soot. The idea has been around for more than a decade, and the same authors worked on a United Nations report last year, but this new study is far more comprehensive. . . .

If adopted more widely, the scientists calculate the methods would reduce projected global warming by 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2050. Without the measures, global average temperature is projected to rise nearly 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit in the next four decades. But by controlling methane and soot, the increase is projected to be only 1.3 degrees. It also would increase the annual yield of key crops worldwide by almost 150 million tons. . . .

The study even [!] does a cost-benefit analysis to see whether these pollution-control methods are too expensive to be anything but fantasy. They actually pay off with benefits that are as much as 10 times the value of the costs, Shindell said. The paper calculates that as of 2030, the pollution-reduction methods would bring about $6.5 trillion in annual benefits from fewer people dying from air pollution, less global warming and increased crop production. . . .

And so on. Now that I think about it, Seth probably wasn't taken aback at all. See, this new push will be taken up alongside the ongoing push to force taxpayers to pay trillions in carbon dioxide mitigation costs. Great. And all based on the exact same kind of "science."

Take these broken wings . . .

2012-01-01T16:35:00.000-08:00

AP story on the front page of the Post right now: "Not as many dead blackbirds in Ark. town this year." Not going to read the story, as it might disturb the euphoria.

Update: Okay, read the story. There was mass blackbird bonkage last year. caused, allegedly, by fireworks. Yes, fireworks. Not Climate Instability. AP has become a radical right-wing organization.

Scary giant potato/pod update

2011-12-30T09:21:00.000-08:00

I see that Dave in Texas over at AoS has posted on the photoshopped Nork funeral procession mentioned in the post below. Lots of back-and-forth in comments about whether it is actually a photoshop before everybody starts arguing about Iowa.

Whatever. What struck--and, frankly, frightened--me about this post and its comments is that not a single person mentions the giant potatoes.

Something is radically wrong at AoS.

We're not in Idaho anymore

2011-12-29T05:52:00.000-08:00

The Telegraph notes the apparent photoshopping of a pic of the funeral procession for Kim Jong-Il yesterday.

See the guys with the camera to the left in the left-hand pic? Gone in the right-hand one.

Yeah, big deal. Commies manipulate photographs. Tell me something I didn't know.

But take a closer look:

What are those ovoid things lining the street?

I think the answer can be found in this 2009 snippet from official Nork news agency KCNA (second bullet point):

A music and dance performance was given by artistes of the Ryanggang Provincial Art Troupe at the Taehongdan County Cultural Hall on Tuesday to mark the 10th anniversary of the publication of leader Kim Jong Il's famous work "On Bringing about a Signal Turn in Potato Farming". . . .

Trofim Lysenko was right!

Update: Could be I'm overthinking this, of course. Maybe they're just the pods the N. Korean government has been hatching mourners out of.

Workworkworkworkworkworkwork

2011-12-28T12:53:00.000-08:00

As everybody knows, the D-blog is no stranger to hard physical labor. He's worked in factories, on the farm, and even, during one of his earlier periods of gender confusion, as a milliner.

But refinishing floors kicks my ass every time. It's not so much the big drum sander you use for the wide-open spaces (though try carrying one up a flight of stairs); those are self-propelled, and while extremely awkward to maneuver, don't necessarily reduce one to a quivering hulk of hacking exhaustion.

No, it's the little disk sander, the one you use to sand around the edges of a room, that kills me. It weighs maybe 40 pounds, which doesn't sound like a lot, but to use it you have to stand bent nearly double, holding on for dear life while the disk rotates at 10,000 rpm (est.) and the thing threatens to rip itself out of your hands and run amuck like, like, I don't know, a mangler that's tasted human blood or something.

And you can't just hold on to the thing while it does the work. You have to use finesse to get the old finish off smoothly while not gouging big holes in your floor or foot or face, all while inhaling clouds of sawdust. I think I inhaled a couple 2x4's worth this go-round.

Oh well, bitching done. Now I'm on the easy part, puttin' down the Varathane. Good thing years of glue-sniffing has inured me to the fumes.

Update: A reader (yeah, sure) asks via e-mail: "Mr. D-blog, darling, why don't you just wear a mask over your fawn-like features to avoid inhaling that nasty sawdust?"

Dear reader: I do, but it doesn't seem to help much.

You running dog capitalist pig war-mong--hey, nice wheels

2011-12-28T10:10:00.000-08:00

Wondered this morning what kind of car it was Kim Jong the Second was planking on on the way to his non-dirt nap in this video. Couldn't imagine it was an American car, though it looked like one, but somebody over at AoS says it's a 1960 Lincoln. Mmmm, not so sure of that. Nice flocking, though.

Death becomes Kim

2011-12-27T06:03:00.000-08:00

Probably a little too convoluted a pun for youse guys. Never mind. The Telegraph:

Hundreds of thousands of North Korean citizens are expected to turn out on Wednesday for the funeral of Kim Jong-il, the man they have revered as The Dear Leader since he assumed power in 1994.

State media have so far given no indications of how the event will proceed, although it is likely to be similar to the funeral for Kim's father, Kim Il-sung, and underline the achievements of his rule and his commitment to the North Korea people.

The what of his rule? His commitment to what? Not even a hint of irony.

The media is simultaneously playing up the attributes and wisdom of Kim Jong-un, who has inherited his father's role as the leader of the nation, despite his youth. Kim Jong-un, who is believed to be 28 years old, was on Monday appointed to the top post in North Korea's Workers' Party.

First I heard, he was in his early 30s. Then he was 30. Then 29. If this keeps up . . .

Meanwhile (as some no doubt long-daid journalism teacher told us never to use as a transition):

Authorities in South Korea have meanwhile [guess this guy didn't have the same journalism teacher] threatened to resort to force to prevent students and supporters of the regime in North Korea setting up altars to mourn Kim Jong-il's death.

Private security guards and officials of the elite Seoul National University have already torn down an altar set up in the grounds of the university and rejected requests from three students to burn incense on an altar in the student union building in honour of the later North Korean leader, Yonhap news agency reported.

"I thought it was the least we could do to show respect to a partner in forging peace on the Korean Peninsula," one of the three students told Yonhap, referring to Kim as one of the participants in summit meetings with former South Korean presidents Kim Dae-Jung and Roh Moo-Hyun.

"It is a controversial issue that we do not even have one space to mourn the death in this country," the student said.

The police have issued clear warnings that anyone who attempts to pay tribute to Kim Jong-il is breaking the law.

"Setting up altars to mourn Chairman Kim constitutes crimes against the National Security Law, which bans applauding and sympathising (with the communist North)," an official of the National Police Agency said. "We may even resort to force in order to prevent incense altars."

Applauding. National police finger truncheons. Applauding and sympathizing. Whompwhompwhomp!

Koreans are weird.

'Santa says thank you to his liver transplant team'

2011-12-23T06:48:00.000-08:00

That's the title of the video accompanying this Post story on a Denver-area (fake) Santa who (checking notes) got a liver transplant a while ago. No indication that he was a bad Santa, if you know what I mean (makes universally recognized drinky-drinky sign); just thought I'd try to cheer you moribund *ucks up a little.

This is not him:

Occupy Denver winning friends and influencing people

2011-12-21T06:39:00.000-08:00

The Post:

A traditionally solemn annual memorial for people who died on Denver's streets was disrupted by a loud Occupy Denver group Tuesday night. . . .

[P]rotesters shouted "fascist," "criminal" and other slurs as Mayor Michael Hancock stepped forward to address the 22nd annual Homeless Persons' Memorial Vigil on the steps of the City and County Building.

Original, as usual.

For about three minutes, the mayor pleaded with them to show civility to the families present and respect for the 136 men and women whose names were to be called, homeless people who died in the past year. The vigil's organizers say the memorial is often the only public recognition those men and women's deaths ever receive.

The first graf, by the way, says the vigil is "for people who died on Denver's streets." One hundred and thirty-six of them? Hard to believe. Note how the paragraph above just says "died in the past year." This piece a couple of years ago from Fox31 breaks that year's number down a little. In short, 136 people did not "die in the streets" this year. Anyway:

Others in the audience shouted back at the protesters with such replies as "show some respect" and "grow up.

Fat chance.

After a few minutes, Hancock surrendered the podium to allow the vigil to go on.

"This mayor evicted homeless people to die last night," said a woman who refused to give her name but was prominent in shouting at police during Monday night's clash with protesters. "He does not deserve to be heard or respected."

Occupods, homeless? Their moms and dads wish.

"It's disgraceful," said Cynthia Ingram, who had traveled from Buffalo, N.Y., for the event to honor a cousin on the list.

"This isn't about their political agenda; it's about our family, some sympathy and showing just a little bit of respect for the dead. I am so angry right now."

Ingram said she had previously agreed with the Occupy mission on corporate greed but did not respect the outbursts at the memorial.

"Totally classless," she said.

Pretty much.

Tantrum Time

2011-12-20T11:45:00.000-08:00

The Post on the final eviction (mebbe, and after three or four previous tries) of the Occupy Denver protesters from Civic Center Park:

At midnight today, they Tebowed.

Take me now, Jeebus.

Occupy Denver protesters took a knee at Broadway and West 13th Avenue as Denver police officers lined up at the Denver Public Library, corralling them after pressing them from their weeks-old encampment.

But protesters managed to pull one more I'm-gonna-hold-my-breath-till-I-turn-blue tantrum:

When the Tebowing was over, "God Bless America" rang out before the crowd of about 40protestors retreated south on Broadway, shouting pledges that the occupation was not over.

The clash had been intense and swift, with police shoving protestors and journalists alike with their batons, but it appeared only one protestor was taken into custody.

Afterwards, White said officers had hoped to ask the protestors a final time to remove their belongings, but when two prostestors began setting the shelters aflame, officers and firefighters had to move it.

A firetruck moved in to douse the flames as a battery of police closed ranks shouting, "Move back!" to allow firefighters access. Police said two protestors were arrested on arson charges and two were arrested on charges of failing to obey a lawful order.

According to a later story, nine ended up arrested. No journalists among them.

White had issued an ultimatum Monday afternoon to Occupy Denver protesters, saying that time was up and the city would forcibly dismantle their encampment near Civic Center at any moment.

The notice given at a meeting behind closed doors at police headquarters was the latest development in the battle between the Occupy Denver protesters and the city over the permanent demonstration on sidewalks that border Broadway between Colfax and 14th avenues. . . .

Protesters have built shelters, arranged tarps, set down sleeping bags and even tied a kayak to a tree, against [sic] violating a city ordinance that forbids "encumbrances" on public rights of way. They've tried to state their case in federal court, to no avail.

"A decision was made that that needs to occur. They were asked to do it. And they decided they weren't going to do it," White said earlier Monday. "Now it is on us to make that happen."

Mooches to the end:

The protesters left the meeting disgusted, calling the meeting "incredibly unproductive" and asking if they could take the crackers, fruits and veggie trays that were provided back to their protest.

From the later story:

During a joint news conference, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and Police Chief Robert White said they remain committed to protecting the First Amendment rights of Occupy Denver protesters — but they will no longer tolerate structures on the sidewalks.

"If it goes up today, it goes down today," White said.

We'll see.

Update: Ace, of course, had it before I did, and a commenter on that post asks a plaintive question that should have occurred to me: "Is the Mayor Shelby, the Dog okay?" My guess: He was burned alive, screaming in a voice almost human, in one of those melting tents. Good doggie.

'Kim Jong the Second'

2011-12-20T06:23:00.000-08:00

According to the Telegraph, that's what Rick Perry called the malevolent dwarf in a press release. Gad.

The MD, by the way, is lookin' stylish in his commie-preferred airtight (?) glass box:

His funeral isn't until the 28th, almost two weeks after he croaked. Mmmmm, rotty.

The Telegraph, by the way, is breathlessly live- (sic) blogging the shitstain's death, including a link to news.com.au's roundup of allegedly funny internet reactions ("As we speak, George Lucas is digitally adding Kim Jong-Il to the celebration scene in Return of the Jedi," one wag tweeted. Meh.).

Merry Christmas, stoners

2011-12-19T13:13:00.000-08:00

Found stuck in the front door last week:

Sinister Santa sez: Toke up, dude!

There are at least half a dozen medical weed dispensaries within a half mile of here. The handy-dandy Weedmaps.com shows that the Denver metro area has tons of them; the Denver Channel said a couple of years ago that they outnumbered Starbucks by almost two to one--390 to 208. (This doesn't seem to be borne out by the weedmap, which shows many fewer than that. Stoners.)

If the d-blog were that type of person, he would point out that the medical marijuana biz is a total scam, a (fig?) leaf to cover pot sales to anyone at all, and thus an encouragement to disrespect of the law in general and etc. But since he's not that type of person, the d-blog also won't urge Colorado to just legalize the shit, already, collect the tax windfall, pay off the deficit, and STFU.

Update: Funny how Santa looks just like a biker I used to see hanging out at the Love to Drink Inn.

North Koreans 'chocking with grief' at death of Kim Jong-Il

2011-12-19T06:31:00.000-08:00

So what killed the murderous little bastard? According to the (North) Korean Central News Agency, it was

an advanced acute myocardial infarction, complicated with a serious heart shock, on train on December 17, Juche 100 (2011) for a great mental and physical strain caused by his uninterrupted field guidance tour for the building of a thriving nation.

Every possible first-aid measure was taken immediately but he passed away at 08:30 on December 17.

Rats. Here's video of the North Korean people "choking with grief," as KCNA put it. One must (to coin a phrase) have a heart of stone to watch this without laughing.

Update: I want a multiplexer appreciation room! With modern stereo sound facilities!

Update II: "National Funeral Committee Formed"

Pyongyang, December 19 (KCNA) -- National funeral committee will be made up of following persons:

Kim Jong Un, Kim Yong Nam, Choe Yong Rim, Ri Yong Ho, Kim Yong Chun, Jon Pyong Ho, Kim Kuk Thae, Kim Ki Nam, Choe Thae Bok, Yang Hyong Sop, Kang Sok Ju, Pyon Yong Rip, Ri Yong Mu, Kim Kyong Hui, Kim Yang Gon, Kim Yong Il, Pak To Chun, Choe Ryong Hae, Jang Song Thaek, Ju Kyu Chang, Kim Rak Hui, Thae Jong Su, Kim Phyong Hae, Kim Jong Gak, U Tong Chuk, Kim Chang Sop, Mun Kyong Dok, Ri Thae Nam, O Kuk Ryol, Kim Chol Man, Ri Ul Sol, Jon Ha Chol, Kang Nung Su, Ro Tu Chol, Jo Pyong Ju, Han Kwang Bok, Paek Se Bong, Ri Yong Su, Choe Hui Jong, O Il Jong, Kim Jong Im, Chae Hui Jong, Kim Ki Ryong, Jang Pyong Gyu, Kim Pyong Ryul, Hong In Bom, Ri Man Gon, Ju Yong Sik, Kwak Pom Gi, O Su Yong, Ro Pae Gwon, Pak Thae Dok, Kim Hi Thaek, Kang Yang Mo, Rim Kyong Man, Kim Kyong Ok, Kim Myong Guk, Kim Won Hong, Hyon Chol Hae, Han Tong Gun, Jo Kyong Chol, Pak Jae Gyong, Pyon In Son, Yun Jong Rin, Jong Myong Do, Ri Pyong Chol, Choe Sang Ryo, Kim Yong Chol, Kang Phyo Yong, Kim Hyong Ryong, Ri Yong Hwan, Kim Chun Sam, Choe Kyong Song, Ri Myong Su, Jon Hui Jong, Ri Yong Gil, Hyon Yong Chol, Choe Pu Il, Yang Tong Hun, Ri Pong Juk, Kim Song Chol, Pak Kwang Chol, Ri Pyong Sam, Jon Chang Bok, O Kum Chol, Kim In Sik, Kim Song Dok, Ryo Chun Sok, Pak Sung Won, Ri Yong Chol, Pak Ui Chun, Kim Hyong Sik, Kim Thae Bong, Jon Kil Su, Ri Mu Yong, An Jong Su, Ri Ryong Nam, Ryu Yong Sop, Pak Myong Chol, Kim Yong Jin, Jang Chol, Song Ja Rip, Kim Jong Suk, Kang Tong

End communique.

Update III: Kim Jong-Il's successor Kim ("Sonny Boy") Jong-Un:

Unlike Daddy, he has kissable lips.

How to coil an extension cord

2011-12-16T15:57:00.000-08:00

One of the D-blog's aims when he started this dismal bog was to post helpful little how-tos for you DIYers out there. After nearly seven years (I forgot), here's my first. Well, it's not actually mine, but you know what I mean:

Amazingly, this worked for the D-blog the very first time he tried it.

Okay, that was pretty simple. Let's try something a little more advanced:

Comment from a grateful Youtube watcher: "why do I have the urge to punch this guy in the face??"

A technique for rolling cable:

Yes, none of these videos has any relevance to the lives of D-blog readers if any. Here's one that does:

Remember, this might take a little practice.

Update: Jeez, how could I forget?

As we have learned: they're doing it wrong.

Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-16T06:37:00.000-08:00

Well, it wasn't like we didn't know it was coming. The Telegraph's Toby Young: "The Cicero of the saloon bar"; the Guardian; the Mail (which also has a piece by Hitchens' brother Peter on becoming a Christian and coming to terms with his brother's atheism); Vanity Fair (which also has a surprisingly unamusing video compilation of some of Hitchens' "immortal rejoinders"); the Huffpo (just because it notes the NYT stopped its presses to run Hitch's obit on A1); and, for completeness, the NYT.

I've read only a couple of his books (Why Orwell Matters and Hitch-22), and his strident atheism got old in a hurry, but I've read many of his essays, and the one I'll always love him for is his appreciation of one of my longtime favorite comic novels. Here it is, as it appeared in The Atlantic in 2002: "The Man of Feeling: Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis's comic masterpiece, may be the funniest book of the past half century."

It is. And much more than Hitchens' nearly traitorous (to the left) warnings of the danger posed by Islamofascism, or his support of the Iraq war, his love for that book made me feel like I really knew, and liked, the man.

Glottal fry

2011-12-13T06:15:00.000-08:00

Everybody's talking about it, but the D-blog noticed it post-election three years ago during an interview by the rancid Amy Goodman of Democracy Now with Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn (see update III).

(Henry Kissinger voice: Yes, I'm wonderful. Now you, tell me how wonderful I am.)

On the bright side

2011-12-11T08:14:00.001-08:00

Can't believe I haven't seen this over at AoS, especially since it's a couple of days old: "NJ woman charged in penis silicone injection death."

"10 minutes to save the world"

2011-12-11T07:23:00.000-08:00

Hang on while I throw up in your mouth. A lot. Accounts from the Telegraph, The Guardian, and the Independent on the last-minute deal at Durban.

It's Sunday morning, and I don't feel much like hurling (or even slow-tossing) invective. If you do, go over to Watts Up With That and have a ball. But God how I hate these fools, these liars, these smug unelected bureaucrats, these professional suckers on the taxpayers' teat, these science-killers, these whimpering victims and arrogant purveyors of the greatest mass delusion in history.

Whoops. Think I'll go out and kick Billy Bob around like a half-deflated (or, alternatively, inflated) football.

Denver judge: Funding for Colorado schools must increase, big-time

2011-12-10T07:50:00.000-08:00

This stuff is above my brain grade, but it doesn't sound good. The Post:

In a ruling that could have profound consequences for Colorado's budget, a Denver judge Friday said the state's school-funding system is not "thorough and uniform" as mandated by the state constitution.

The state's school-funding system "is not rationally related to the mandate to establish and maintain a thorough and uniform system of free public schools," District Judge Sheila Rappaport said in a 183-page ruling in which she called the system "unconscionable."

"It is also apparent that increased funding will be required," Rappaport wrote. . . .

But, but, I thought Amendment 23 was going to take care of things for eber and eber . . .

The case, Lobato vs. State of Colorado, was filed in 2005. It originated with a group of parents in the San Luis Valley but expanded to include districts from across the state.

Lawyers for the state, represented by Attorney General John Suthers' office, argued that the question of how much should be spent on education should be left to the legislature and voters. They also said more money alone is not necessarily the solution to better schools.

Demncrats argued this. Wow.

But Rappaport clearly disagreed.

"There is not enough money in the system to permit school districts across the state to properly implement standards-based education and to meet the requirements of state law and regulation," she wrote in her ruling. "This is true for districts of every description. . . . There is not one school district that is sufficiently funded. This is an obvious hallmark of an irrational system." . . .

"There is not one school district that is sufficiently funded . . ."? Not even Cherry Creek, the rich kid district that is freqently compared to districts that have to school their kids in old nuclear-bomb shelters? Wow.

Eric Brown, spokesman for [Democratic] Gov. John Hickenlooper, said the state will almost certainly appeal the decision to the Colorado Supreme Court.

"The court clearly invited an appeal, and we believe an appeal is likely," Suthers spokesman Mike Saccone said. "It was clearly very tempting for the District Court judge to wade into what is a public policy debate." . . .

The lawsuit doesn't seek money. However, one consultant hired by Halpern and Gebhardt estimated the state's current funding system falls short by as much as $4 billion a year.

The state now spends more than 40 percent, or $3.2 billion in the 2010-11 fiscal year that ended in June, of its almost $7 billion general fund on K-12 schools.

Wow.

Coloradans in November, by a 2-to-1 margin, shot down a $3 billion tax-increase measure for schools.

When times are good, Coloradoweenians will vote "yes" on almost any spending measure; when times are bad . . .

Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Westminster, a former schoolteacher and State Board of Education member, hailed the decision. "It makes a statement about the necessity of adequate school funding."

Sen. Keith King, R-Colorado Springs, a witness in the case, also was shocked, but not so ecstatic.

"Wow," he said. "Wow. Wow. This ruling is extremely disappointing."

Bastard took my "wows." Like I say, this is too wonky for me. Maybe Ms Linda Seebach, who used to write about (among much other stuffs) education stuffs for the Rocky Mountain News, will try to make sense of it. The policy ginks at the People's Press Collective (of which, believe it or not, the D-blog is a founding member) will surely have multiple somethings. I'll keep my face peeled.

Update: The overly modest Ms Seebach responds in comments:

Thanks for the memories, but I've been away too long to wade into this. Sounds as if the judge is way over her head, too; whatever is wrong with schools, it isn't lack of money. School spending has doubled or tripled (yes, adjusted for inflation!) over the last several decades with virtually nothing to show for it.

Hell, even I knew that.

Update II: Randall Smith at the People's Press Collective is suitably restrained: "Denver judge blows up Colorado education spending."

Fracking hysterics

2011-12-09T16:25:00.000-08:00

Josh Fox, maker of the eco-freako doco Gasland, in the Guardian today on the EPA's finding that fracking polluted groundwater in Wyoming:

Anyone who lives in a gas drilling area can tell you: fracking contaminates groundwater. Citizens have been shouting this at the top of their lungs in fracking areas since shortly after the process of hydraulic fracturing was exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act in 2005, paving the way for the largest gas drilling boom in domestic history. The exemption, known as the "Halliburton Loophole", allows fracking companies to inject toxic chemicals under the ground in huge quantities and not report it to the EPA. But with this much fracking going on, with thousands of wells being drilled and fracked in 34 states, and with thousands of reported cases of contamination, the gas industry just can't keep their secrets buried; they keep bubbling up through
the ground. . . .

So, when the EPA now says, "When considered together with other lines of evidence, the data indicates likely impact to groundwater that can be explained by hydraulic fracturing," that is something quite new. What is also clear is that the aquifer in Pavillion will never be cleaned. The contamination there, for the foreseeable future, is permanent. And considering that the permanent contamination of huge areas of groundwater in the US is now a scientifically proven risk, the Pavillion investigation, as extensive as it was, must become the new standard for investigating fracking complaints worldwide.

Having investigated fracking myself for three years, I have heard the same story hundreds of times, from residents in gas-drilling areas from Wyoming to Arkansas, from Pennsylvania to Texas. It goes like this: the frackers move in – and all of a sudden your water turns color, or can be lit on fire, or smells like turpentine or leaves burn marks on you after you take a shower. It doesn't take a genius to connect the dots. . . .

No, not a genius . . .

For the first time, EPA links fracking to groundwater pollution

2011-12-09T04:47:00.000-08:00

The totally objective and trustworthy EPA, that is. The Post:

Hydraulic fracturing, a controversial oil-and-gas production technique used in Colorado and across the country, has been linked for the first time to groundwater pollution in a case near Pavillion, Wyo.

The finding by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday set off calls for tighter rules on the so-called fracking process, which pumps fluid into wells under pressure to fracture rock and release oil and gas.

"This could be a game changer," said Frank Smith, an organizer with the Western Colorado Congress, an environmental group.

As he masturbated furiously into an organic Fleshlight. But read the story. Lots of disputation about what might or might not be going on in Pavillion. The evil oil company spokesman even has the nerve to point out that the origin of the various chemicals found in the local wells is still not certain. Even the EPA is cautious, noting that,

"EPA's draft findings are specific to the production conditions at Pavillion in which fracturing occurred in and below the drinking water aquifer and in close proximity to drinking water wells," Richard Mylott, an EPA spokesman, said in a statement.

This is not usual, as the story points out:

In Colorado, wells are drilled to oil-and-gas zones 6,000 to 12,000 feet deep, except for shallower coal-bed methane wells.

State rules require that surface casing extend below the aquifers, which are usually no more than 1,000 feet deep, and the casing must be surrounded by a cement jacket.

Thought that was called a "cement overcoat." Anyway, in the Wyoming case,

The Wyoming wells were drilled to a depth of about 1,200 feet, and surface casing — pipe to protect groundwater — went to about 360 feet, leaving part of the aquifer exposed, according to the EPA report.

These facts, of course, will be ignored by the envirotards. Oh well. Time to get out the whale-oil lamps.

Update: AP story in the Wapo goes into somewhat more, uh, depth, including the first use of the term (that I've seen, anyway) "fracking community."

Do they still use the pic of the fat twins on minibikes?

2011-12-08T08:10:00.000-08:00

Telegraph: "World's oldest dog dies in Japan"

The world's oldest dog according to Guinness World Records has died in Japan at the age of 26 years and eight months.

Pusuke, the fluffy tan Shiba-mix dog, was recognized as the world's oldest living dog dog in December 2010.

This pic, likewise, was taken in December, 2010. Hard to believe.

Owner Yumiko Shinohara said at her home in Sakura, a city outside Tokyo, that Pusuke, a fluffy tan Shiba mix, died on Monday after suddenly falling ill and refusing to eat.

Shinohara told TV network FNN that she "would just like to thank him for staying alive so long." The report said Pusuke's life span would have been the equivalent of about 125 years for a human.

The report (I guess they mean the GWR thing) appears to use the formula that the first two years of a dog's life count as 10.5 human years apiece, with each year thereafter counting as four human years. Using that metric, this calculator comes close.

According to the Guinness Book of Records, the dog was born April 1, 1985. Pusuke was recognized as the world's oldest living dog last December. The Guinness record for canine longevity is 29 years, set by Bluey, an Australian cattle dog who died in 1939.

Australian cattle dog, eh? So is Billy Bob! In fact, using the calculator, I see that Billy is only about 65 years old. That sounds about right, poor lumpy thing. Oh, here's the PLT (the D-a-W calls him "GGB"--"Grotesque Growth Boy") at the Pa-in-Law's at Thanksgiving:

Yes, another frisbee shot. Note: GGH (Grotesque Growth House) is not the pa-in-law's. His is much less, uh, magnificent. By the way, you can see one of BB's (harmless) fatty lumps just over his right shoulder. It's about three-quarters the size of a tennis ball. Ewwwww!

Update: The T's sidebar "News Most Viewed" column looks rather inter--well, you decide:

Father's finger bitten off at school nativity (no, it wasn't little Baby Jesus wot dunnit);

Police force invites tenders for £70,000 of sandwiches (your, or rather their, government in action); and

Jane Fonda defies her age with 1980s leotard (One-word D-blog opinion: No, she doesn't).

Update II: Fat twins on minibikes (actually small motorcycles) as they appeared in the Guinness Book of Whatever way back when. Now available on t-shirts suitable for any occasion!

Death penalty off table for Abu-Jamal

2011-12-07T12:56:00.000-08:00

One of Ward Churchill's favorite murderers will die in prison. The LAT:

Former Black Panther and convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal will be spared the death penalty, the Philadelphia district attorney announced Wednesday, bringing a quiet end to a racially charged case that spanned 30 years.

Seth Williams, the city’s top prosecutor, said Abu-Jamal will spend the rest of his life in prison. He said the “decision to end this fight [over a death sentence] was not an easy one to make” and that he remained convinced that Abu-Jamal was guilty as charged and deserved to die for his crimes.

Of course he did. And of course this will be hailed as a great victory by all his fellow scumbag rads like Wart. The widow of the cop Mumia murdered sounds pretty philosophical about it:

Maureen Faulkner said she accepted the decision reluctantly.

“My family and I have endured a three-decade ordeal at the hands of Mumia Abu-Jamal, his attorneys and his supporters,” she said. “After 30 years of waiting, the time remaining before Abu-Jamal stands before his ultimate judge doesn’t quite seem so far off as it once did when I was younger. I look forward to that day.”

Ditto. Mumia, of course, more than once defended Wart, and the fat fake Injun has returned the favor, frequently mentioning his support for the "still-caged" Abu-Jamal at the start of his speeches. Can't wait to see his reaction to this news (j/k).

She sures looks better than she did during her Churchill deposition

2011-12-07T09:58:00.000-08:00

That's former CU prexy Betsy "Terms of Endearment" Hoffman, who's a finalist for president of the University of New Mexico. She also once said attacks on Ward Churchill betokened a (wait for it) "new McCarthyism."

Wart to appear at Tucson "collective" of some sort

2011-12-06T14:17:00.000-08:00

The Dry River Collective, that is, which calls Wart "world-renowned" (and be sure to check out the pdf at the second link):

De-Occupy O'odham Lands!
When: Sat., Dec. 10

Ward Churchill, John Zerzan and Julian Kunnie speak at 7 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 10; $10to $20 requested donation, but no one will be turned away. A vegetarian meal is included. The event benefits O'odham VOICE Against the WALL, an organization working to reunite O'odham lands and families split by the imposition of the U.S.-Mexico border.

As usual, a laff riot will ensue. The world-renowned participants can't be getting much, though, since this appears a little down the page:

Dry River Lookin for Birthday $$$(6 years on Nov. 5)

So, we’ve fallen a bit behind in the rent department as of late. If you can drop a donation below to the WEPAY account please ...

Update: D'oh! Completely forgot that JWP had this roughly six years ago.

Last four ms chapters of GWTW found at childhood library

2011-11-30T13:37:00.000-08:00

I hated the book, too. It sat on the radiator by the toilet throughout my childhood so each of my thousands of sisters could read it in turn, over and over.

Now the last four chapters have turned up at the Pequot Library in Southport, where they'll be on display for a while. It's a small world . . .

(h/t: Sabra)

Guess the missing term

2011-11-25T07:50:00.000-08:00

AP story in the Denver Post this ayem: "Gun rights are tough politics for Obama."

Fffffffffff. Ffffffffff.

Update: Oops, the Post didn't print the whole AP story, which a commenter at the Top Headine Comments at AoS notes did in fact mention Fast & Furious, though not by name, and with no menton of, er, deaths.

Tell! Tell! The scene in Gone with the Wind with my father's first wife and Vivien Leigh

2011-11-20T18:54:00.001-08:00

I looked for it before I posted on Marcella Martin's role in GwtW a few years ago, but no luck. Now, magically, here it is:

She has a few more lines than I thought. But: meh.

Update: Actually the end of the scene is kind of funny: "No, but she was ruined just the same."

I have stuff twirling around in my head too!

2011-11-15T15:02:00.003-08:00

And I vote!

Cain/Bachmann/Stelazine 2012!

Be sure to watch the schizophrenia slide show! Presented with limited hallucinatory interruptions by Stelazine!

Are you schizophrenic? Take the quiz and find out!

I can't stop using exclamation points! Luckily there's a drug for that! Stelazine!

Update! Actually Cain lost me long ago when the halfwit showed he had no idea what the term "right of return" meant. Good God.

Update II: Stelllaaaaaa!

More OccupyDenver tomfoolery

2011-11-12T17:10:00.000-08:00

Had to go to the bank (sorry, credit union) this morning, so I left the car parked there and Billy Bob and I walked down to the OccupyDenver protest at Civic Center.

Billy Bob is kind of a pain on these jaunts, because a) he doesn't understand that his leash becomes a deadly weapon in a crowd; and b) there's lots of food lying around on the ground and he is bound and, yes, determined to eat all of it.

So I thought about leaving him in the car, but didn't on the off chance he might get to meet his newest heroine, Shelby, the border collie/cattle dog mix who last week was elected leader of the OccupyDenver movement (one dog, one vote, one time).

So who do we run into as soon as we set foot in the park? Shelby!

She's already adopted the trappings of an imperial presidency.

Naturally Billy Bob, being a pup of the people, promptly violated protocol in a move so embarrassing I'll probably never be able to show my face at these protests again:

I, I say! It was almost as bad as that time Moochelle sniffed the Queen's butt or whatever she did. Security rushed in to pull BB away, but the damage was done.

Anyway, protesters were already yacking away, complete with mic checks and the small crowd repeating everything the speakers said (no up- or down-twinkles that I noticed, though).

The blonde in green, oddly enough, was going on about how brilliant it was that OD elected Shelby leader of the movement. Sadly, it just reminds me of Ward Churchill and Benjie Whitmer's utterly lame attempt to emulate the also-lame (as well as dead) Abbie Hoffman and run a pig for president (scroll down a yittle).

What the well-dressed anarchist is wearing this season.
The guy in the trench coat and go-to-hell porkpie hat in the pic below was, of course, a truther. Even the Occupods were having none of it.

But check this out. See the big kid on the right with greenish hair? That's the same kid who was arrested with three others a few weeks ago for squatting in the abandoned house right across the street from the D-blog manse. I took him aside and asked how that had worked out. He said they were charged with trespassing and burglary (a class 2 felony, he said), but that he thought that charge would be pled down to a misdemeanor. "As soon as that's over with," he said, "I'm going to be squatting again." And damn me, I forgot to ask who was representing them.

A little signage 'n' stuff:

Hard to read: it says, "Kick Uncle $am Off Indian Land."

"(Neither is Ron Paul)." Then we're left with no one.

Yes, the utterly unnecessary but de rigueur bandana face.

"Yes we kill."

One of the sexiest features of communism is food lines. Coincidentally, I guess, one of those was recreated across the park:

The line of food tables stretched the whole block in front of the City and County building. Biggest potluck I've ever seen, and it smelled fantastic. Maybe communism isn't that bad . . .

On the other hand, the line of people stretched for three blocks. Good. Times.

BB and I were tempted to get in line, but the credit union was closing, so we had to get out of there.

By the way, the D-blog is aware what weak marinara this post is compared to the gripping fillums the Lonesome Dictator of North Denver got of the brouhaha at BlogCon (which the D-blog was unable to attend) yesterday, when Occupods attempted to infiltrate the conservative blogger get-together. You've probably seen them, but if not here they are at their rightful home, the People's Press Collective.

Update (7:47 MST): The Post: "Denver police forcing Occupy Denver to move their property in Civic Center." Again.

Update II: The Washington Examiner has more. The protesters have been acting out. ("This is not Tehran!" Sheeeeit.)

(via commenter kbdabear at the AoS ONT)

Update III (2 December 2011): Believe it or not, I saw Black Flag at the Ogden, way, way back. They sucked, tho Henry looked pretty damn good in his panties.

Listening for the EAS test

2011-11-09T12:01:00.000-08:00

Yep, the first nationwide Emergency Alert Squeal test. Wait, here it comes!

That was weird. All I heard was this.

Update: That, of course, was from a list of Star Trek sounds. My fave (not that I listened to them all) is this one, undoubtedly from one of the movies after they figured out that Bones' "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a _______" had comic possibilities.

A pic from the student protest over tuition fees in London

2011-11-09T06:07:00.000-08:00

Which police fear anarchists may use as an excuse for violence. From the Telegraph's liveblog:

I did not know Mila Kunis was an anarchist.

Colorado AAUP report: CU treatment of Wart should make it "last resort" for prospective faculty

2011-11-08T14:31:00.000-08:00

The American Association of University Professors has been a Wart-defending joke for years, of course. But this time, no doubt in an attempt to maintain their fake evenhandedness, they also mention the completely unrelated case of Phil Mitchell. The Gamera (which calls the AAUP a "professors-rights group"):

In the report issued this month, the Colorado Conference of the American Association of University Professors criticizes CU-Boulder for not renewing the 2007 contract of Phil Mitchell, an instructor in the Sewall Residence Program, and for firing Ward Churchill, a tenured professor in the ethnic studies department. CU officials fired Churchill in 2007 after an academic misconduct investigation.

CU-Boulder spokesman Bronson Hilliard said that Churchill was given full due process during the academic misconduct case and Mitchell's contract was not renewed because he was not adhering to the academic rigor standards that were clearly communited in the program.

Communited? That's not a bad word. Anyway, sometimes I wish Colorado could have its own little Cultural Revolution so we could just send academics up to work the beet farms around Greeley.

Update: The pirate with the parrot who knows all about Cleveland Steamers goes much more entertainingly in-depth on the story.

Sieg Heil!

2011-11-06T12:42:00.000-08:00

A piece in the (Trinity University, San Antonio) Trinitonian on Wart's appearance at the school last week, during which he yelled "sieg heil" and gave a Nazi salute to the university president's wife, has some new quotes from said wife, Penelope Harley:

“I just felt that what he said was totally uncalled for and was actually very hypocritical, and this is what I led my comments with [during the after-speech Q & A with Churchill],” Harley said during a phone interview Thursday morning. “The most important message I wanted to get across was that in the first half of his presentation, which seemingly was all about the need for truth and evidence in legal cases having to do with academic freedom, it seemed extremely hypocritical that he launched into this unsubstantiated personal malice against Dennis that I knew was unfounded, with absolutely no evidence and with no regard for the truth.”

Never stopped Wart before. The piece also has some new stuff from hubby Dennis Ahlburg, former head of the CU Leeds School of Business and now prez of Trinity University:

“I would never have invited him myself, I think he’s despicable,” Ahlburg said. “A faculty member invited him and I chose not to rescind the offer because I believe in free speech. I don’t believe you should give a free stage to people like Churchill…I don’t believe Ward Churchill is about free speech. I think he’s about his own public persona.”

Ahlburg’s connection with Churchill seemingly stems from their time spent at the University of Colorado Boulder. However, Ahlburg claims their interaction was virtually non-existent.

“The thing that’s most peculiar is that I’ve never met the man and all of the things that happened to him at Colorado preceded me, so the fact that he would think I would waste a nano-second of my time on him just shows how delusional he is,” Ahlburg said. “I mean he has enough real enemies, he doesn’t have to make one up. I am not his enemy.” . . .

Time to join the club, Dennis!

“His modus operandi is if he can’t argue with you on the merits of the case, he will attack you personally,” Ahlburg said, before also addressing Churchill’s reference to Nazism. “What role does screaming ‘Sieg Heil,’ ‘Sieg Heil’ and giving a Nazi salute to anybody, what role does that play in the academic discourse? That is somebody who has lost their grip on reality and seems to have a mania for anything that has to do with Nazis, and at that point he should have been shown off campus.”

And into the nearest sewage pond.

Churchill claims that controversy surrounding [the 9/11] essay led to an unfounded investigation of academic misconduct, insisting that he would not have been under such scrutiny if not for his political views. He also claims that Ahlburg used this controversy as a means to persuade donors to withhold money from the College of Arts and Sciences and alternatively give to the Leeds School of Business, of which Ahlburg was the dean at the time.

“He told every one of those wealthy donors, corporate contributors, basically ‘Ward Churchill is in the College of Arts and Science [sic], you are committing money to that, withdraw it and give it to Leeds,’” Churchill said during the lecture.

Prove it. Oh, wait, for once he has evidence:

Churchill also stated that he had alleged email documentation of Ahlburg using his name to raise money, but refused to provide these emails when contacted.

Sekrit evidence.

Churchill was also contacted by the Trinitonian for a phone interview about the series of events that took place Tuesday. His response, via email, was as follows: “I’m not much interested in something focusing exclusively on 2 sentences lifted out of a 35 minute talk. If you’re inclined to do something with the real story with regard to Dennis Ahlberg [sic] — that Trinity’s board of trustees hired a guy rated 26th out of 27 deans at the University of Colorado in terms of administrative effectiveness to be your president — let me know. I’ll send you a copy of his UCB administrative evaluation and we can go from there.”

There are no depths to which this scumbag won't go. But we knew that. The paper has an accompanying editorial: "Churchill's attacks distract campus discourse." Sample graf:

In all of this commotion over who said what about whom, the glaring question is: why was Churchill invited to Trinity? Out of all the possible speakers available, why choose someone so aggressively divisive? As students and journalists, we at the Trinitonian are the first people to stand up for freedom of speech, and we believe it is important to practice and even test the limits of freedom of speech. However, it is also in the best interest of society to employ reason in our campaigns. Although Churchill’s choice to give Harley a Nazi salute was constitutionally protected, it certainly undermined his argument.

Now there's a ringing declaration.

Update: The pirate with the parrot who donates to Ron Paul notes that the CU Board of Regents is finally going to consider ending the ridiculous policy by which professors fired for anything but "moral turpitude" receive a year's salary as a parting gift. Unfortunately, Wart's already got his.

Possible Fort Collins Occupod* arrested for arson

2011-11-04T13:12:00.000-07:00

The Post:

A Fort Collins man has been arrested as a suspect in a $10 million fire along Mason Street in downtown Fort Collins.

Benjamin David Gilmore, 29, was taken into custody Thursday night.

Gilmore appears to be the same person who recently appeared before the Fort Collins City Council to ask that Occupy Fort Collins protesters be left alone. He was arrested for suspicion of first-degree arson, burglary and criminal mischief in the blaze that destroyed a condominium complex under construction and damaged a complex next door.

The alleged arsonist allegedly spoke before the Fort Collins city council Tuesday. He spouted the usual gibberish.

*The Post is careful to note that "Arrest papers available to the public do not connect Occupy Fort Collins to the arson fires, and police made no connection between the group's protest and Gilmore's arrest. Organizers could not immediately be reached for comment on Gilmore." Maybe he was just cold.

Update: 9News has more, with a story from the (Fort Collins) Coloradoan. Gilmore, "a registered Republican" according to the piece, was definitely heavily involved with ~~the Tea Party~~ OccupyFortCollins.

Update II: In comments JWP links to a three-week-old piece from radio station Tri- 102.5 ("The Best Variety of Lite Rock Favorites") which sent a reporter to the Fort Collins protest. The reporter interviewed Gilmore, describing him as "a Fort Collins business owner, war veteran and a member of Occupy Fort Collins." Okay.

It's Arts Week in Denver!

2011-11-04T12:20:00.000-07:00

So a bunch of mercifully evitable krep going on. Among the krep is the Starz (blech) Denver Film Festival, which will be featuring movies by "area" filmmakers (whatever that means) in its "Spotlight on Colorado." One of the movies is "Patriocracy." The Post says the doco asks the musical question, "How did the U.S become the politically riven nation it is today?" One look at the lineup of talking deads (sorry, the site won't let me link) tells you where the film's creator, Brian Malone, will be coming from: Bob Schieffer, Eleanor Clift, Roy--sorry--Pat Buchanan, Sheila Jackson Lee, Jared Polis . . .

Area theaters are puttin' on the blitz as well, including Curious Theater's offering, "Collapse," of which the Post's fine arts critic John Moore says, "Though it's inspired by the 2007 Minneapolis bridge disaster, artistic director Chip Walton swears, "It's one of the funniest plays we've ever produced."

There's also Chinese art and Klezmer abusers and Day of the Dead stuff and all like that. The Post's story on this, by the way, was published yesterday and has gotten only one comment thus far, from a "yip cabbage": "Zzzzzzzz."

Not a cowtown.

OccupyDenver tittle and bosh

2011-11-03T13:28:00.000-07:00

First, Michael Moo!re is supposed to show up at the Denver encampment around 4:00 p.m. today, according to the Post. He's in town to appear at the Tattered Cover and UC-Denver. Who cares? (The Post and various news crews, that's who.) Saw the round mound of suet a few years ago; don't need to again.

Second, KOA says the Occupods are going to move camp soon from the sidewalk on Broadway to Skyline Park so they won't be in the way of the Veterans Day parade. Mighty thoughty of them. Skyline Park is a block-long concrete hole beloved of skateboarders and nodding addicts. The wind absolutely howls through it.

Update: Apparently the move isn't voluntary. KOA now says some veterans organization has dibs on Civic Center Park, and that the protesters have to move by tomorrow night. The D-blog was a leetle premature in pronouncing the end of the non-Boy Scout jamboree a while back, but again, how is it that this bunch gets to camp in city parks when no one else does?

Update II: Post: "Michael Moore fires up OccupyDenver, says rest of country watching"

Couldn't be happening to a nicer bunch

2011-11-03T09:59:00.000-07:00

Wart "sieg heils" uni prez's wife at speech

2011-11-02T10:23:00.000-07:00

The charm, it just never quits. The San Antonio Express-News:

Ward Churchill, a controversial activist for academic freedom, at a speech at Trinity University on Tuesday accused the university's president, Dennis Ahlburg, of a smear campaign against him some years ago in Colorado.

He also invoked the Hitler salute of “Sieg Heil” to Ahlburg's wife, Penelope Harley, as she stormed out of the auditorium after defending her husband in front of the audience of students and faculty.

“This personal vindictiveness in an institution that has welcomed you ... I find very, very hard to listen to. And quite frankly, pretty darn insulting,” said Harley, before leaving for her son's soccer match.

Ahlburg was in New York, but was reached by phone later.

“He comes in and insults me in my absence... and screams ‘Sieg Heil' at my wife?” Ahlburg said. “This is a champion for free speech that America does not need. The only speech he wants to hear is his own voice.”

True, true.

Ahlburg became dean of the UC Leeds School of Business in 2005. Though the two never met, Churchill said some faculty and alumni told him Ahlburg was “bad rapping” him to potential donors, using Churchill's notoriety to convince them to give to the business school instead of the arts and sciences.

“He quietly, back-channel, through personal communications conducted about as vicious a smear campaign against me personally as it was possible to engage in,” Churchill told the audience.

Ahlburg called the accusations “absolutely false.”

“The last thing I would do to try and raise money is mention his name, goodness gracious.”

Goodness gracious. Civility is dead in this country.

To be honest, btw, I don't remember this little incident a'tall. Wonder if it even made the papers back then. I'll look when I has the chancet, or maybe JWP knows.

Update: And by the way, Express-News, it's "CU," not "UC."

#OccupyMyStreet

2011-10-26T10:10:00.000-07:00

Sitting in my office going "doy" over the Broncos' win Sunday when I hear screaming outside. Look out the window and this:

Apparently some kids were squatting in the abandoned house across the street (a place I've had occasion to write about before, when Crazy John lived there).

The woman with the bad case of knee-head was one of the squatters, and she would not settle down. Even with a face full of asphalt she kept trying to kick or otherwise bowdlerize the cops. She also had a very foul, if unoriginal, mouth--"fascists," "pigs," "nazis" (place "fuckin''" before each noun, of course). They had to hold her like that for at least 15 minutes while they waited for an ambulance. No, I don't know why they needed an ambulance. She was definitely fully conscious and appeared unharmed. Probably a mental health hold.

Naturally a crowd gathered. But it was very odd. So many white people:

Several of whom were shouting abuse at the cops.

Center guy was apparently one of the squatters. A cop yelled, "Hey, get over here!" but he melted around the corner of my house and down 27th. The cops didn't even bother to chase him (though they may have caught up with him later).

The big green-haired kid being escorted by the mini-cop (h/t Joseph Wambaugh) offered no resistance.

There were a lot of cops.

The guy on the left viddying the whole thing told me he was from West Denver Copwatch.

Guess they have a police scanner, because he was there filming before I heard a thing. Here's WDCW's account of the incident:

Please Post and Forward Widely

Background

Sunday afternoon a squat in the Jefferson Park Neighborhood of Northwest Denver was raided by over a dozen officers from District 1 of the Denver Police Department.
Witnesses report that the raid was very violent, with at least 8 officers repeatedly beating one of the arrestees, and eventually using paramedics to sedate them while they laid face down, bleeding, in the street.

Four people were arrested, one being sent to a hospital in an ambulance to receive medical care. As of Sunday night, three of the arrestees are facing 2nd degree Burglary (a class 3 felony) and $10,000 bonds. The fourth arrestee’s charges remain unknown because she is still hospitalized. All four have been active participants of Occupy Denver.

Of course. What's funny about this posting is that even though the copwatch guy filmed the incident, no video accompanies the post. Easy to figure out why: because then they couldn't lie about what happened. There was no beating, there was no blood, there was only one person lying in the street (the kicky chick), and if she was sedated, she was the only one who was.

In principle I have no problem with groups like Denver Copwatch. Cops can get out of hand, and Denver cops in particular have had more "incidents" than they should over the years. The problem is that Denver Copwatch is made up of rad-left liars and grievance-mongers who at the very least exaggerate any incident. Think Larry Hales.

Anyway, the place is boarded up now.

But wait! There's more! The next day I was doing chores out back when I noticed there was a cop car blocking the alley and police tape across both ends of the block. Bomb scare. Somebody found a suitcase lying in the street outside Crazy John's house and called it in. And after what went on the previous day the cops were taking no chances:

No kaboom.

Update: AP says two Occupy Denveroids were taken to Denver Health last night from Civic Center Park suffering from "symptoms of hypothermia." No kidding. The story also says "about 30" people stayed overnight without tents (the cops made them take them down) in heavy, wet snow. Sounds like fun.

Seen today

2011-10-25T00:37:00.000-07:00

On a car in traffic: A black ribbon like the pink ribbons you see all the time. This one bore the legend, "Support Zombies."

I think the zombie thing is about over.

I do not need glasses

2011-10-23T14:46:00.000-07:00

Goddamnit. The D-A-W is always going, "You want to use my [reading] glasses?" when I'm reading something just fine, if at arm's length. A couple of years ago I was in the doctor's office reclining on the table or whatever with my book and the nurse comes in and says, "You know, we could probably rig something up to suspend your book from the ceiling so you can read more comfortably."

Bitch.

See, back in the day I could have been a fighter pilot, if they went only by eyesight and not eyesight, intelligence, reflexes, intelligence, mathematical-type skills, good looks, engineering skills, intelligence, and George Bush.

Actually I could still be a fighter pilot, except for the above, and the fact that I've shrunk to 4'9" and couldn't see over the plane's dashboard (that's what it's called, right?).

There's only one thing I have trouble reading: the two-point type on the various bottles of yard poison a householder naturally accumulates. This has led to many comical episodes involving dead dogs and Peter Coyote in a hazmat suit.

But I do not need glasses.

Update: Yeah, I stooped to an easy "Bush is dumb" joke, though I know perfectly well that the smartest man in the universe, the SCoaMF, is, at best, exactly as smart, IQ-wise, as Chimpleron-X7, and that John Kerry was dumber. No links, look for yourself.

Fatso, Fatso Rizzo!

2011-10-14T16:09:00.000-07:00

King of the Lard Countreeeeeee!

So what's been up with the gigantic mouldering mound of corruption? Who cares! The LAT, that's who.

Hot, hot, hot.

Update: Remember, the camera adds ten pounds.

"The whole world is--zzzzzzzz"

2011-10-14T06:13:00.000-07:00

The Occupy Denver camp is no more.

Talk about goldbricking, maaaaaan

2011-10-13T17:34:00.000-07:00

The Post: "Medical Marijuana workers unionizing":

The state's largest labor union today announced that it has hundreds of new members from the medical-marijuana industry.

Local 7 of the United Food and Commercial Workers union said in a statement that the new members come from a "comprehensive cross section" of the industry. The union, which has 25,000 members statewide, said it would announce more details at a news conference Monday.

The union put the total number of jobs in the medical-marijuana industry in Colorado at 8,000, though it is unclear how it came to that number. . . .

Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, everything . . .

Oh, and just for completness' sake, JWP's favorite vid, that "modern spiritual by Gale and Dale":

Lane sounds off on Occupy Denver

2011-10-13T16:13:00.000-07:00

On KHOW. Ward Churchill's attorney David Lane weighed in on whether the state (city, whatever) can lawfully clear out the occupods. He doesn't think so, of course, unless typhoid or cholera is "sweeping" the camp. Craigie reads him the law. Lane questions what the meaning of "camping" is. Christ.

Lane also mentioned (as PB did today) that Patrick O'Rourke, the lead CU defense attorney in Wart's 2009 suit against the school, is one of the finalists for a state Supreme Court post. No chance (as PB also notes), but Lane added that if O'Rourke did indeed secure the spot, he would have to recuse himself (as two SC justices, according to Lane, already have) from the Churchill case, leaving only four justices to decide it. Bad for Lane: tie goes to the appellate court, which voted unanimously against Chutch.

"Police action imminent"

2011-10-13T14:41:00.000-07:00

To get the occupods out of Lincoln Park across from the Capitol. "No details." Well, except that navy reservists are scheduled to have the park Saturday, some campers say they'll "fight" any attempt to get them out, and: "This morning was the first time the governor visited the growing tent camp from which the stench of urine has begun to waft onto adjacent Broadway."

That's odd. Not the urine stench, but the claim that today was the first time the Gov. visited the place. He at least strongly implied (see post immediately below) that he visited on Tuesday, saying he "went down there this morning," and saw only "eight or ten" tents.

In any case, what a (government-created) mess. If Hick had sent the cops in when there were just three tents, no prob. Now, no matter how things shake out, it's going to be nasty.

Update: KHOW's Dan Caplis, a law and order guy if there ever was one, thinks (and, obviously, hopes) the cops will move in tonight.

Burgeoning

2011-10-12T08:33:00.000-07:00

The Post today: "Hickenlooper unsure about what to do about Occupy Denver protesters at Capitol":

Should they stay, or should they go now?

Gov. John Hickenlooper didn't give a clear answer to that question Tuesday when asked about the growing Occupy Denver tent camp on a grassy lawn along Broadway that is part of the state Capitol complex.

Interviewed on radio station KOA-AM's Mike Rosen Show, the Democratic governor and former Denver mayor said he was concerned about the illegal encampment on state property but didn't indicate that he was prepared to order the State Patrol to clear out the park. Patrol officials said Sunday that they had no plans to remove the tents. . . .

The governor seemed conflicted on the question of what to do about the tents, saying that he has "always supported the First Amendment" but had concerns about the camp.

"I will confess I worry about the precedent," Hickenlooper said. "If suddenly we have a park where people can camp out whenever they want, why not the next park and why not the park after that? And then suddenly, you don't have any rules."

In any case, the governor said, there weren't many tents on the lawn, saying: "I went down there this morning, and there were like eight tents, 10 tents. This is not a burgeoning metropolis of tents."

I was down there a couple of hours after the Gov. There are a few more than eight tents:

I counted about 50, and a guy calling in to Rosen right now says he counted 80 tents today.

Burgeoning. Not that I give a rat's ass, except for one thing: The occupods are getting special treatment. During the DNC when Chickenpooper was mayor of Denver, he vacillated on whether to allow those protesters to camp in city parks, but ultimately made the right decision, followed the law and banned them. Wonder what the diff is here (he asked rhetorically)?

Anyhow, pics:

Unusually coherent

Didn't finish the thought.

Left over from the Columbus Day protest Saturday.

Zen around the fake Liberty Bell.

Construction workers eating lunch and getting ready to kick some hippie ass, but mostly eating lunch.

Update: Rosen keeps referring to the gathering as a "shantytown," which, since there are no shanties, is inaccurate but appropriately scornful.

Occupy somewhere or other

2011-10-07T16:04:00.000-07:00

Had to be doontoon today, so brought my camera to check out the Occupy Wall Street spinoff protest at Denver's Civic Center Park. It was, um, sparsely attended. One thing must be said: However misguided their various beefs, these people were nice. Friendly. Sincere-seeming. And if Soros is funding this particular protest--what a cheapskate. Pics, por favor!

Three tents. That was it. Still, how come they get to camp overnight in a city park when even R!ecreate !68 wasn't allowed to?

"This is recycled!" he said. I think it was an old feedbag or something.

Occupy my face.

Where's the peroration?

Radical doing the Frug.

This duffer told me he'd been there for three days. "When the snow comes. That's when we'll know how strong we are."

No Tina.

They had some stuff, and handed it out to bum and protester alike. (There were far more of the former than the latter.)

Bum.

The medic station seemed to consist mostly of those toothbrush-'n-paste combo packets, which, again, they cheerfully handed out to all--even the toothless.

The word "divided" seems to have caused some problems, while what we get when we mess with them was apparently left to the imagination.

Focus!

Don't think so. More like Day Five.

Protester reading material.

Dale Carnegie was there in spirit.

This guy was proud he'd snagged the Boy Scout Handbook.

Of course, I had to force Billy Bob to wow the rubes:

Hardly anybody noticed.

Update: The Post has lots of pics of the various protests around the country.

BTW, see how I'm linking to the Post? That's because they've ended their contract with evil copyright suit-filer Righthaven.

Update II: There's supposed to be a march tomorrow. The D-blog may or may not attend, he said wanly.

Update III: Forgot about this card a guy gave me:

What do you want to be when you grow up, Johnny?

Update IV (8 October): No way I'm going downtown. First, there's the "Rock and Roll Marathon" wending its way around town and which the Post claims will draw more than 17,000 masochists (doubt it; it's 40 degrees and cold-drizzling right now); then, to my shock (well, ennui) there's the Columbus Day Parade and Protest, which, who knew? Anyhow, forget it. What a clusterfuck.

How do they know me so well?

2011-10-07T13:16:00.002-07:00

Three spam e-mail headings, the first from one "Solitair Hutchins": "My willie in your jaw, jgm!" The second, from Kwaku Anokye, makes nearly the same statement: "My penis in your jaw, John." The third, from "Lucja Piejko," probably explains the first two: "John in fancy girl stockings?" (Why the question mark?)

Random memory trace(s)

2011-09-04T14:30:00.000-07:00

Is this possible? I have the distinct memory of my father, Michael-Jackson-like, hanging me out over the parapet or whatever it's called on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. I was seven or eight, so it must have been 1965 or 1966. I'm not googling or binging to find out what security measures, if any, were in place back then. But I remember it. Despite my dad being a very determined drunk, I wasn't afraid at all.

The reason I ask is, just the other day I was forced to watch Sleepless in Seattle (actually I rather like the movie--yes, mancard revoked) and I noticed that all the security fencing on the ESB (curved spikes included) was bolted on the original masonry. When did that happen?

One more trace, which I may have mentioned before. Daddio took the fambly to a circus that gave a tour of the animals if you showed up early. We were looking at the elephants when one of them wrapped his trunk around my neck, picked me up, gave me a look, and set me back down. This, according to witnesses, happened.

Memory traces?

Papers, please

2011-08-20T15:53:00.000-07:00

Some halfwit at OpEdNews uses Ward Churchill as a lead for a column remarkable only for its flight of ideas, clumsy writing and rabid anti-Obamaism:

Professor Ward Churchill was fired from his teaching position at the University of Colorado for his comments surrounding September 11 attacks. Professor Churchill described the financial and technocratic corps of government as well as the commercial financial interests of America as "Little Eichmann's."

Yes, I know, "Eichmann's." Even Wart didn't screw up that one. But at least the guy's going after the SCoaMF:

I no longer see this government as an entity which represents me or my interests nor do I see it as representing anyone that I know personally. What has taken place is a melding of state and corporate interests to where one can no longer tell where one ends and the other begins. Tens of millions of Americans have faced the terror of losing their homes in this land and this President, this corporate pitchman, pushes for a continuation of the investment tax credit so that corporations can take yet another tax deduction on research before off shoring the manufacturing process.

From the left, of course.

Officially nearly one quarter of America's children live in poverty and the political class proposes only budget cuts. At a time of catastrophic national unemployment the political class calls for cut backs on unemployment compensation and healthcare programs. Are they mad? Do they not know the lessons of history? Do they believe that Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck can override the reaction to an eviction or foreclosure? Do they honestly believe that guns or laws will protect them from a hungry, struggling population?

Guns or laws? Lemme think on that. And I'd love to hear what "lessons of history" he's talking about.

I feel as if I've have been immersed in a bad dream from which I cannot awake. I've witnessed the changes in myself which unemployment and homelessness have wrought while I have witnessed the playback on our society as a whole. I no longer feel at home anywhere, I no longer have home town; I am from wherever I am at the time. I've lost my connection to a national identity and found a connection to these people like myself instead.

But I thought losing your connection to a national identity was a good thing. The guy (David Glenn Cox) goes on like this for awhile (he's particularly pissed that he had trouble getting an ID, though it sounds like he's lying about it--I mean, c'mon, a birth certificate won't do it? Maybe he didn't have the long form), but it's his bio you should read.

Bet she understands THIS hand signal

2011-07-29T06:59:00.000-07:00

Angelyne the Amazing DEAF Cattle Dog (and her companion-person Eric Melvin) recently visited Boulder!

Yeah, more dogs. Angelyne allegedly knows 40-plus hand signals and "non-verbal commands" she will do tricks to, and Melvin hauls her around for such functions and activities as (according to Melvin's web page, feyly titled "A Unique Character and Compassion Development Presentation"):

Schools and education

Youth programs

Churches

Senior care centers

Developmentally disabled

Chronic and terminal illness

Deaf/hard of hearing

Morale-raisers

Fund-raisers

Children’s parties

and MUCH MORE!

From the Gamera's acknowledgement of Angelyne's recent visit, it appears most of her tricks involve Hula-Hoops. Almost makes me wish I were still an elementary school student, or even chronically or terminally ill (oh, I am, I just don't know it yet).

Actually the only reason I bring it up is that back when Billy Bob (another cattle dog) was a young'un, I taught him tricks (about eight of them, IIRC, the standard stuff--no Hula-Hoops) that he also would do from hand signals alone. And at the time, he wasn't even DEAF! The D-a-W and I used to gig (for free, natch) at coffee shops and housewarmings and the like (me on classassical git, her on that noted instrument of revolution, the Irish harp), and whenever possible I'd weasel BB in to do his stuff. Wowed 'em. At least, more than we did.

Update: Did you know that the Telegraph has a "Pets" page? It's a subcategory under "Families" which is a subcategory under "Lifestyles," and it's chock-full of cute-animal videos and stories ("Can my rabbit have a brace for its teeth?"; "Chihuahua foils armed robbery"), including this one: "Hitler cat 'overlooked for adoption because of markings.'" "Kitler" is cuuuuute (and I am emphatically not a cat person). Heil, Fancy Feast!

Billy Bob at 13

2011-07-27T09:39:00.000-07:00

Actually his birthday was a couple of days ago. He's deaf as a post (if you happen to have a post that can hear a little), he's got fatty lumps all oooooover his body, and he sleeps even more than I do. Here he is sneering at the paparazzi (me) after waking up with a severe kibble hangover this morning:

But he'll still go get that frisbee:

And catch it:

(Note grass blade, center-tongue.)

Update: Aftermath:

Update II: Teenagers. Just caught BB with two of the neighborhood ne'er-do-wells smoking cornsilk cigs behind the garage.

Wart to speak at "Black August" memorial dinner

2011-07-20T08:41:00.000-07:00

Wart Churchill is scheduled to speak at something called the Denver Anarchist Black Cross's "Black August Dinner" next month, along with Robert King Wilkerson. According to the press release:

Black August began in the 1970′s as a way to honor fallen Black freedom fighters George and Jonathon Jackson, William Christmas, James McClain and Khatari Gaulden. The practice of Black August has since grown into an important moment to reflect on the history and current landscape of struggles against imperialism, colonialism, and white supremacy.

Never heard of the Anarchist Black Cross before, though they claim to have been around since "the beginning of the 20th century," which, if this wiki can be believed, is true, sort of, beginning in Czarist Russia. The Denver ABC "About" page says the "most previous incarnation of an Anarchist Black Cross chapter in Denver was snuffed out of existence quite quickly in 2004, after a full scale FBI investigation into the organization was launched to coincide with the security efforts protecting the Democratic National Convention that summer."

Wonder if they mean "2008," since the DNC wasn't here in 2004.

Anyway, nothing special, besides their longevity (not counting the usual infighting and resulting splits). More from their "About" page:

Historically, the Anarchist Black Cross has played a crucial role in mass movement defense; organizing support and defense of political prisoners and prisoners of war, maintaining physical solidarity against the police during factory and school occupations, organizing self defense and armed defense of social movements, and fulfilling a broad range of roles within the defense of social movements.

Yeah, yeah. Free this guy, free that guy. With guns and stuff. Right up Wart's alley.

Gere's sum funy st5f

2011-07-18T07:17:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the garbled heading: cut myself trying to slit my throat this morning. Anyhow, Tim Blair has been on fire recently, and his latest column is truly funny. He makes me sick.

Update: My lead-in reminds me of a story Jim Bouton tells in his immortal Ball Four. A young pitcher trying to stay in the bigs gets hit in the face with a comebacker. Somehow he gets the third out even though he's gushing blood. He comes off the field and tells the manager, "I'm going back in. I'm going back in." The manager replies: "Not with two mouths you ain't, Meat."

Update II: Ball Four, 40 years on.

Update III: Why am I getting into this? The wiki on Ball Four says that after it was published Pete Rose "took to yelling 'Fuck you, Shakespeare!' from the dugout whenever Bouton was pitching."

TMI

2011-07-05T11:16:00.000-07:00

A still from John Woo's Hard-Boiled:

Fourth of July skiing at A-Basin; first time in 14 years

2011-07-05T08:25:00.000-07:00

That's all. No link to the Post story, of course. And, oh yeah: AGWMA.

Fourth of July at the Radio!

2011-07-04T15:36:00.000-07:00

Pathetic attempt to get the taste of those abstracts out of my mouth.

Pat Novak: For hire. "Agnes Bolton" (4 June 1949). I keep saying this, but nobody listens: Jack Webb was a hell of a writer. For a while. In PN:FH he plays a private dick on the Frisco (as natives call it) waterfront who makes ends meet, some shows imply, by selling bait. Opening lines to this show:

Around here a set of morals won't cause any more stir than Mother's Day in an orphanage. Maybe that's not good, but that's the way it is. And it wouldn't do any good to build a church down here, because some guy would muscle in and start cutting the wine with wood alcohol . . .

Pat's not a happy guy, 'cause 1) he gets the shit kicked out of him roughly twice an episode; and 2) nobody appreciates his hard-boiled similes.

Okay, one more quotidian: "She was at least fifty, because you can't get that ugly without years of practice. She was wearing a green woolen dress and her figure wasn't any worse than a bale of cotton somebody's cut the wire on. Her fat hung down from her arms and there was so much of it you knew even her bones were plump . . ."

Not exactly PC, huh? Hard to figure how Webb, so talented, became a humorless law-and-order robot on Dragnet (the TV series).

Abstract(s) of the week!

2011-07-04T14:44:00.000-07:00

For this Independence Day, a leftist patriotism edition.

Remember Michael Yellow Bird? He's the brainiac who said, at the trial of Wart Churchill's suit against CU in 2009, that it was common for historians to lie, and that that was okay, because such fabrications promote the truth.

Here he is around the same time, "defying the lies" of others.

Canadian Review of American Studies

Michael Yellow Bird

What Is the Highest Form of Patriotism?: I Say Acknowledging Our Addiction to Patriotism

Abstract:

Since the United States’s illegal invasion and occupation of the sovereign nation of Iraq on 20 March 2003, I have published papers that critically interrogate the participation of the “sovereign” US Indigenous nations in this unjust, illegal, imperialistic war. Due to my writings, on 24 June 2007, I was invited to make a presentation at a peace vigil and rally focusing on “What Is the Highest Form of Patriotism?” The speech that I gave is provided in full text in this article, where I probe the United States of America’s addiction to patriotism by interrogating and “defying the lies” of some of US patriotism’s most cherished ideas, documents, leaders, and slogans. I end with a slight twist of the words of the third Buddhist noble truth, freedom from the addiction to patriotism is possible in this lifetime.

God, he loves himself.

Social Text

(Good ol' Social Text.)

Puar, Jasbir K., 1967-
Rai, Amit, 1968-

Monster, Terrorist, Fag: The War on Terrorism and the Production of Docile Patriots

How are gender and sexuality central to the current "war on terrorism"? This question opens on to others: How are the technologies that are being developed to combat "terrorism" departures from or transformations of older technologies of heteronormativity, white supremacy, and nationalism? In what way do contemporary counterterrorism practices deploy these technologies, and how do these practices and technologies become the quotidian framework through which we are obliged to struggle, survive, and resist? Sexuality is central to the creation of a certain knowledge of terrorism, specifically that branch of strategic analysis that has entered the academic mainstream as "terrorism studies." This knowledge has a history that ties the image of the modern terrorist to a much older figure, the racial and sexual monsters of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Further, the construction of the pathologized psyche of the terrorist-monster enables the practices of normalization, which in today's context often means an aggressive heterosexual patriotism. As opposed to initial post-September 11 reactions, which focused narrowly on "the disappearance of women," we consider the...

Rhetoric and Public Affairs

Roger Stahl

Why We "Support the Troops": Rhetorical Evolutions

Abstract:

This essay tracks the genealogy of the contemporary call to "support the troops," a rhetoric that includes but goes beyond the strategic and argumentative use of the phrase itself. Support-the-troops rhetoric has two major functions: deflection and dissociation. Deflection involves discursive trends in play since Vietnam that have redefined war as a fight to save our own soldiers—especially the captive soldier—rather than as a struggle for policy goals external to the military. As such, this discourse directs civic attention away from the question of whether the particular war policy is just. The essay explicates these trends through an examination of the POW/MIA, war film, and the symbol of the yellow ribbon. The second trope, dissociation, quarantines the citizen from questions of military action by manufacturing distance between citizen and soldier. Dissociation often goes further to define civic deliberation and dissent as an attack on the soldier body and thus an ultimate immoral act. This essay explores this trope through executive rhetoric, an analysis of the particular phrase "support the troops," metaphor for war, and John Kerry's run for the presidency in 2004. Both deflection and dissociation work to discipline and mute public deliberation in matters of war. The essay concludes by considering strategies for reopening spaces for democratic deliberation.

Stalked by Barack

2011-06-29T10:16:00.000-07:00

Another note from Toonces (no salutation):

I know we've been contacting you more than usual lately. It reflects the reality that the campaign season is already ramping up -- whether it feels early or not.

So we have a dilemma. While our opponents are campaigning full time, I'm busy doing the job I was elected to do. There will be a moment when I can be part of this campaign in a bigger way, but it won't come for a while.

But that doesn't mean you can slow down. I need you to help pick up the slack.

Midnight tomorrow is an important deadline. The Vice President and I would love to meet you. Please give $5 now to support this campaign -- you'll be automatically entered to join us for dinner when you do [link follows].

Barack

What happened to "No purchase necessary"?

Geez, I beat Ace or an Ace-like entity on the "dinner with Barack" contest by a ton. Eeeeeeee! But he also linked to a later video where Barack announces that Joltin' Joe will be there too. Eeee--aw, fuck it.

A few more Koskid taglines

2011-06-17T13:05:00.000-07:00

Went over there to see the reaction to Weiner's resignation. Eh. Lots of people saying he was an egregious dick who deserved to lose his job; at least as many defending him and excoriating Dem leadership for forcing him out. Whatever. Taglines!

Let the yoke fall from our shoulders; Don’t carry it all, don’t carry it all; We are all our hands and holders; Beneath this bold and brilliant sun; And this I swear to all - The Decemberists.

If it's
Not your body
Then it's
Not your choice
AND it's
None of your damn business!

Ayn Rand’s philosophy... reduces itself to: "I’m on board; pull up the lifeline."- Roger Ebert

Please Help Me Volunteer in Haiti

"We can have concentrated wealth in the hands of a few or we can have democracy, but we can't have both."-- Justice Louis Brandeis

I am living proof that a person living with AIDS can still enjoy the passion of lovemaking. AIDS is no longer a death sentence!

LBJ & Lady Bird, Sully Sullenberger, Molly Ivins, Barbara Jordan, Ann Richards, Drew Brees: Texas is No Bush League!

Full Disclosure: I am an unpaid shill for every paranoid delusion that lurks under your bed - but more than willing to cash any checks sent my way

Resident Palin - even if she did take up residency in the White House in 2012, it's too painful to use the "P" word combined with her name

"My father always told me that all businessmen were sons of bitches, but I never believed it until now." - JFK during the 1962 Steel Crisis

Every moment in life contains an off ramp. Never be afraid to use it.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

2011-06-16T06:53:00.000-07:00

Note from Barack. Subject:

Dinner?

Like I said, "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

John --

I've set aside time for four supporters like you to join me for dinner.

Most campaigns fill their dinner guest lists primarily with Washington lobbyists and special interests.

We didn't get here doing that, and we're not going to start now. We're running a different kind of campaign. We don't take money from Washington lobbyists or special-interest PACs -- we never have, and we never will.

Yeah, sure (caution: link goes to Firedoglake).

We rely on everyday Americans giving whatever they can afford -- and I want to spend time with a few of you.

Eeeeeee--wait a minute. Whaddaya mean, "a few of you"? But I want you all to myself, you yummy hunk of man-child, you.

So if you make a donation today, you'll be automatically entered for a chance to be one of the four supporters to sit down with me for dinner. Please donate $5 or more today:

https://donate.barackobama.com/Dinner-with-Barack

No.

We'll pay for your flight and the dinner -- all you need to bring is your story and your ideas about how we can continue to make this a better country for all Americans.

Who's this "we" who's paying for stuff again?

This won't be a formal affair. It's the kind of casual meal among friends that I don't get to have as often as I'd like anymore, so I hope you'll consider joining me.

But I'm not asking you to donate today just so you'll be entered for a chance to meet me. I'm asking you to say you believe in the kind of politics that gives people like you a seat at the table -- whether it's the dinner table with me or the table where decisions are made about what kind of country we want to be. . . .

I've said before that I want people like you to shape this campaign from the very beginning -- and this is a chance for four people to share their ideas directly with me.

Hope to see you soon,

Barack

Update: Just noticed that Katherine Archuleta, formerly Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's senior advisor in charge of dealing with Rec!reate!68 before and during the Democratic National Convention in 2008, has been named director of Obama's reelection campaign. Probably on Glenn Spagnuolo's recommendation.

Yes, I knew

2011-06-15T20:41:00.000-07:00

Tonight's lunar eclipse wasn't going to be visible in the U.S., but I took a pic of the moon over the parachute ride at Elitch's amusement park on the edge of downtown Denver anyway. There were some fireworks going on too, but none of those turned out.

He said as if this one did.

Brit curriculum overhauler: Get rid of climate change

2011-06-12T22:51:00.000-07:00

Guardian:

Climate change should not be included in the national curriculum, the government adviser in charge of overhauling the school syllabus in England has said.

Tim Oates, whose wide-ranging review of the curriculum for five- to 16-year-olds will be published later this year, said it should be up to schools to decide whether – and how – to teach climate change, and other topics about the effect scientific processes have on our lives.

In an interview with the Guardian, Oates called for the national curriculum "to get back to the science in science". "We have believed that we need to keep the national curriculum up to date with topical issues, but oxidation and gravity don't date," he said. "We are not taking it back 100 years; we are taking it back to the core stuff. The curriculum has become narrowly instrumentalist." . . .

"Oxidation and gravity don't date." Irresistible implication: climate change does, and has.

Climate change has featured in the national curriculum since 1995. In 2007, the topics "cultural understanding of science" and "applications and implications of science" were added to the curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds.

But Bob Ward, policy and communications director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, warned that Oates' ideas might not be in pupils' best interests and could make science less interesting for children.

"An emphasis on climate change in the curriculum connects the core scientific concepts to topical issues," he said. "Certain politicians feel that they don't like the concept of climate change. I hope this isn't a sign of a political agenda being exercised."

He hopes this isn't a sign of a political agenda being exercised. Hahahahahahahahahahah--I can't feel my feet.

Post: Wart case should be canned by Colorado Supreme Court

2011-06-04T12:23:00.000-07:00

Well, duh. Not gonna link, for reasons readers if any will know. Here's a quote the Post uses from one of the several thousand committees that found Wart to be a liar and cheat:

"To put it most simply, it was part of a pattern and consistent research stratagem to cloak extreme, unsupportable, propaganda-like claims of fact that support Professor Churchill's legal and political claims with the aura of authentic scholarly research . . . "

Well, duh. We'll see. I'd laugh about this, but once a panel of judges gets to decide things it's anybody's guess.

Dick

2011-06-03T06:06:00.000-07:00

Ace and various cob-loggers at AoSHQ (no link, you know where they are) have been posting about Wienergate almost nonstop. Hit and miss, but as usual the commenters rescue some not-all-that-funny posts and kick a couple of funny ones into hyperdrive.

What I can't figure out is, why would anyone, ever, post a picture of himself on the fucking interwebs, let alone of his penis? I've been doing this blogging shit for almost six-and-a-half years, and I've never posted a pic of myself, nor ever will.

I'm ungodly handsome, too (prove me wrong!). And my penis is gigantic (prove me wrong!). Point is, and as often noted basically everywhere, the internet is forever.

One-sentence opinion: Weiner is obviously guilty, guilty, guilty, and there's nothing better than seeing an arrogant asshole get shit for his arrogant assholiness. And tiny penis. But mostly his tiny penis. Okay, three-sentence opinion.

"60 or 70"

2011-05-31T11:13:00.001-07:00

That's the "crowd" that attended Wart's speech in GJ yesterday, according to 11News. Worth every penny of that $350 Confluence Media Collective paid him. He spoke for two fucking hours, "mostly," the TV station says, "about Memorial Day." "During the better part of his two hour long talk, he raised questions about why Americans don't honor soldiers on both sides of other conflicts, particularly those involving Native Americans."

Yeah, sure. And the Japanese and Germans in World War II? Why don't we honor them? Huh? Huh?

Other quote: "'I speak truth to people as best I can and try to stay consistent with that understanding and that obligation," said Churchill. "That's my concept of integrity.'"

Integrity. Bwahahah--by the way, I'm a child molester.

Update: JWP notes that the Colorado Supreme Court has agreed to hear Wart's case. Frankly, I was hoping they'd just blow it off. The pirate with the parrot who leans to the right has interesting facts and figures.

Seven p.m. to five a.m.

2011-05-30T12:10:00.001-07:00

That's apparently the timeframe, according to East Bay Indymedia, for Wart's appearance at the Eastside Arts Alliance and Cultural Center in Oakland June 3, along with Ericka "My current Heart Question is: How do we facilitate learning about the intersections of race and gender" Huggins, Liz Derias and Claude Marks, to panel-discuss "COINTELPRO 101." Good Christ, Wart, get off it.

Still no word on how Wart's speech in Grand Junction went today, if it's even happened yet, though a TV station there says Tea Partiers are going to protest.

Tis the season

2011-05-29T13:04:00.000-07:00

Local power provider Xcel Energy is set to restart its June-September two-tier energy pricing (scroll to last item) Wednesday. The idea is to discourage air-conditioner use by nearly doubling the price per KwH over 500 per month. Commenter Judy F. on a WUWT open thread notes:

Tonight on the 5 O’Clock news on KCNC Channel 4 in Denver, the newscasters reported that the snowpack in Colorado was 232% of normal and A Basin (a ski resort on I-70 east of the Continental Divide) received 53 inches of snow in May. Where I live on the Eastern Plains, today it was a cloudy 63 degrees F and normal is 76 degrees F. Then the newscasters reminded us that Xcel Energy’s two tier rate plan would go into effect on June 1, because of the increase in electrical demand in the summer. Shoot. Except for 3 days last week, my furnace has run everyday since last fall. I hope it warms up enough so I don’t have to pay summer rates to HEAT my house…

Yeah, me too. It's been a very, very cool spring here, with somewhere around four inches of rain in the last three weeks (Denver averages just under 17 inches annually). And yes, our furnace has been running every day too. When it's springtime in the Rockies . . .

Scary cover

2011-05-25T12:19:00.000-07:00

Of the Beatles' Run for Your Life by Cowboy Junkies:

Update: That's really a hell of an arrangement. Love the bass line. And it continues a decades-long tradition of other artistes doing Beatles tunes better than the Beatles did (see Cocker, Joe).

After you, Alphonse

2011-05-25T03:36:00.000-07:00

Ack-ronym

2011-05-22T12:34:00.000-07:00

'Bout halfway through Stanley Kurtz' Radical-in-Chief. Meh. Not that he doesn't demonstrate that Obama hung around and worked with a lot of socialists. It's just that the book has too many acronyms. This isn't Kurtz' fault. Socialists are famously acronym-happy. But it makes for a slog, particularly for bedtime reading.

But I did run across one acronym that was pretty good. Page 202:

Another indicator of ACORN's ideology in the leadership's strong sense of continuity with American socialist history. The first ACORN handbook for new organizers, published in 1976-77, features ACORN leader Wade Rathke's tribute to H.L. Mitchell, leader of the Southern Tenant Farmer's Union (STFU). . . .

My sentiments exactly.

Update: Yes, I know that's not a true acronym. STFU.

Where the elite meet to advocate the destruction of the world economy and the micromanagement of your life

2011-05-20T14:21:00.000-07:00

For years now, and particularly since Climategate broke, one blog or another will post on the latest lie, end-of-the-world fatuity, statistical manipulation or sinister government grab related to AGW, and without fail either the poster or a commenter will say something like, "They're getting desperate," or "It's all falling apart" (I'm repeatedly guilty of that one).

The Boulder Daily Gamera, though, makes me wonder. Their "editorial advisory board," which each week answers a reader's question, answered this one last Saturday:

An 11-year-old boy whose neighborhood burned in the Fourmile Fire has joined with a friend afraid of losing favorite hiking trails and an 18-year-old student with a growing asthmatic condition in a lawsuit filed in Boulder County District Court against the state for failing to protect the environment. The lawsuit is part of a youth effort in all 50 states. A nationwide team of legal experts has been assembled through the nonprofit organization Our Children's Trust to represent the young people in their lawsuits. What do you think?

Well, it's Boulder. What do you think they think? Board member Judy Amabile, while calling the lawsuit "frivolous," adds this:

I applaud these young people`s activism. They should be encouraged. Their passion for the environment can bring about real change. The Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, the formation of the EPA, all came about because passionate citizens pressured the government to act.

We need more environmental legislation. We need to make sure we continue to fund agencies like the EPA. We need to elect representatives to Congress who believe that environmental stewardship should be a top priority for our government. . . .

Board member Marc Raizman:

We unthinkingly do things on a daily basis that adversely affect the environment. Driving cars when we could be riding a bus or a bicycle. Using plastics that will last 1,000 years. Generating too much garbage that threatens to overwhelm our dumps. Using too many forest products, such as paper. Do we really need Kleenex when handkerchiefs are renewable?

A related problem is that we are caught in a cultural treadmill that the corporate world insists on feeding us primarily through advertising. For example, If we began avoiding products that carried too much packaging, the corporations would adopt [sic] and reduce their use.

Keep in mind: There is no infinite growth in a finite world.

Steve Fisher:

This lawsuit raises three points for me. First, what is the role of an individual state or local government in the solution of a global problem? In my nearly 40 years working in and for governments, I`ve developed great respect for the grave limitations of governmental entities to solve broad social problems or engage in grand social experiments. We have done it before, but I think the global environmental problem dwarfs all previous problems.

Yet what is the alternative? Can we wait for voluntary action? Do we need something like a global green benevolent despot? I, for one, come up without an answer other than to continue muddling through. Ultimately is the solution a zero population growth, low consumption global society? . . .

Anne B. Butterfield:

The youth could not have more daunting science to buttress their case. Geoscientists are now holding that we have entered into a new geological period called the Anthropocene marked by sustained human impact on the earth`s biological conditions through resource depletion and climate disruption. And the National Research Council this week issued a requested report warning Congress about the grave advance of human-caused climate disruption that will thrust "profound" threat on future generations. Like the youth, the NRC calls for action on a national level.

The kids` somewhat quixotic efforts perhaps could be aimed at Exxon Mobil for apparently funding a team of denier-skeptics who have co-authored a blizzard of supposedly independent papers opposing conclusions of climate science, with the result of misleading federal officials who in turn block climate action. Perhaps in time they will.

There were one or two others, but you get the idea. The unexamined assumptions, the ridiculous assertions, the sententious pronouncements, the judicious panic. And these are not dumb people (or rather, not uneducated people). Sometimes you just want to shake them till their teeth rattle and their eyes roll back in their heads. Don't, though. It's against the law.

Tenants, again

2011-05-20T12:50:00.000-07:00

So I have this tenant, a woman with three kids. She's nice enough, and so are the kids, but when she moved in she told me she had a husband she was separated from who is a diagnosed schizophrenic.

Fine, fine. He's gone, right? Yep.

Well, a few weeks ago, and unbeknownst to me, he moved in. Generally speaking when something like this happens I look the other way, at least for a while, and then, if the person stays, we redo the lease to add him or her and, of course, raise the rent. This is what I told the woman we'd do. The guy might be a schizo, but he didn't seem to be causing any problems, so big deal.

Not so sure that's going to happen after today. While I was staring blankly out my office window this morning (one of my many talents) I noticed the guy coming up the sidewalk. As I watched he turned and waved cheerily behind him and yelled, "Hi!" Then he walked a few more steps and waved cheerily ahead and again yelled "Hi!"

Now, I can see a couple of blocks both ways on this street, and naturally I looked to see who he was waving at.

There was nobody. Not behind him, not in front of him.

I don't want to make too much of this. For all I know he was just practicing his walk through the well of the House prior to giving his first State of the Union speech. Hell, I do that all the time, except in my case I'm waving to the reporters during my perp walk.

But it made me a little nervous.

Gravy train for Wart

2011-05-17T14:33:00.000-07:00

The Daily Reporter, taking from the Grand Junction Sentinel:

A former University of Colorado professor known for his comparison of Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi plans to speak in western Colorado.

The Daily Sentinel reported Tuesday that an alternative media group, Confluence Media Collective, invited Ward Churchill to speak in Grand Junction Memorial Day weekend.

Officials with the group say they're willing to let him cover any topic he chooses. They're paying him $350 and providing lodging.

What happened to that "up to" $11,000 he once supposedly got for a speech? And they didn't even throw in a carton of smokes? You're being ripped off, Wart.

Update: Good God, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel has a paywall. What's their motto, "The New York Times of far-western Colorado"?

Update II: The Confluence Media Collective puts out a variety of publications, among them The Red Pill, which describes itself as "independent, horizontalist, anti-racist, anti-sexist, and all-inclusive." . . . They also publish Cuntastic, a twice-yearly "Journal of Reproductive and Sexual Freedom," and Mammaphiles, "a compilation zines [sic] about radical parenting . . ."

Update III: In an update of his own, the pirate with the prognathous parrot (it's all about alliteration, baby!) notes the AP's spin on Churchill's firing.

Update IV (5/20/11): JWP says the church Wart was going to speak at has rescinded its permission for him to do so. He has their statement. Even Universalists know the Anti-Christ when they see him.

Update V (5/22/11): Wart gets new venue: a public park. He'll be speaking on Memorial Day.

Guard on the Right

2011-05-14T06:46:00.000-07:00

Telegraph:

Silvio Berlusconi, the president of Italy, has launched a bizarre personal attack on his opponents accusing them of not "washing themselves enough."

Mr Berlusconi, 74, who has been charged with having underage sex with a prostitute [one imagines they mean "sex with an underage prostitute," but no matter], accused the centre left of being smelly as tensions rose ahead of local elections this weekend.

There's your problem right there. Tension. Here in the U.S., which thank God maintains its decades-long lead over Europe in anti-stench technology, guys can do death-defying motorcycle jumps and come out not the least bit gamy, I have learned via televisionic device.

The billionaire media tycoon is currently involved in four separate trials with charges also including abuse of office and corruption. The the [sic] election was being seen as a test of his popularity.

During a final rally in the southern Italian city of Crotone, Berlusconi said: "The leaders of the Left don't wash themselves much. When they go into the bathroom, and they don't go often since they don't wash much, they look in the mirror when they shave and surprise themselves."

Not exactly the Gettysburg Address there, Silvio.

Mr Berlusconi has a reputation for disliking beards, seeing them as sign of left leaning political sympathies. His obsession with hygiene has also emerged from intercepts of his infamous "bunga bunga" parties.

The phrase is said to refer to a crude after-dinner sex game and from the wire taps girls invited to the parties reveal how Berlusconi asked them to wash before performing sexy stripteases and lap dances for him.

Berlusconi has often resorted to personal attacks on his opponents particularly on their looks - last year he slammed centre left female opposition MPs as "ugly."

No doubt.

His comments provoked an immediate reaction from opponents including Pierluigi Bersani, the leader of Italy's the centre-left Democratic Party who said: "If we don't wash much, it's because we are clean." . . .

Yeah, sure. There's more, but it has nothing to do with smelliness, so read it yourself if you want.

Glenn Beck notes Wart's appearance at Tucson school board meeting

2011-05-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

Where high school students were protesting changes in an ethnic (specifically Mexican-American) studies program.

"Whoa-oh. Who's that guy?"

(via Westword)

Update: In recapping the Churchill saga, Westword's Jonathan Shikes says that "A long legal battle [between CU and Wart] ensued, ending in November 2010 when an appeals court rejected Churchill's efforts to get his old job back."

Er, no. It ain't over yet, Shikesy, as the Westword piece you link to points out.

Hmmmm

2011-05-11T13:41:00.000-07:00

Comcast weather page for Denver: forecast high of 37 degrees, forecast low of . . . 42 degrees. Anyway, it's damn cold, snowing and sleeting this a.m. and raining constantly all day. The coolest spring of the last three very cool springs. Won't bring up AGW, won't bring up AGW, won't bring up . . .

Startling D-blog ignorance revealed

2011-04-22T15:57:00.000-07:00

Maybe "startling" isn't the right word. "More" is probably better. Been reading Matt Ridley's The Rational Optimist. Good stuff, generally speaking, though nothing earth-shattering to (Julian) Simonists. We're not all gonna die (at once, anyway).

But one thing Ridley mentions the D-blog had never heard of before. In a hunk where he's discussing the social progress capitalism has led to, he notes the abatement of cruelty to animals, and particularly, blood sports.

It's not in the index, goddamnit, but one blood sport that died out because of capitalism, he claims, is:

Fox tossing.

Fox tossing? Bear baiting, cock fighting, doggie death-duels, I know about. But fox tossing was a new one. At first I thought it was some weird editing mistake, but sure enough, mankind's savior, Wikipedia, put me some Knowledge:

Fox tossing would take place in an arena, usually either created by setting up a circle of canvas screens in the open or by using the courtyard of a castle or palace.[1] Two people would stand six to seven and a half metres (20 to 25 feet) apart, holding the ends of a webbed or cord sling which was laid flat on the ground. An animal such as a fox would then be released from a cage or trap and driven through the arena, across the sling. As it crossed the sling the tossers pulled hard on the ends, throwing the animal high into the air.[2] The highest throw would win the contest; expert tossers could achieve throws of as high as 7.5 m (24 ft). On occasion, several slings were laid in parallel, so that the animal would have to run the gauntlet of several teams of tossers.[1]

Nice. Here's an illustrative woodcut or whatever, also from Wiki:

Notice the little things mostly lying around all dead-like? Foxes.

Update: By the way, there are two footnote [1]s in Wikipedia's explanation. As far as I know, Wikipedia has never before made a mistake. Something wrong!

Update II: Just noticed another thing: the chicks pulling on the goddamn cords in the illustration. Hot, hot, hot.

Mangum murder and English language mayhem

2011-04-18T15:19:00.000-07:00

The charge against Duke LAX false-accuser Crystal Mangum for stabbing her boyfriend or whatever he was has been upgraded to murder, meaning, to make it clear for D-blog readers, that the guy died. KC Johnson's Durham-in-Wonderland links to the NewsObserver's barebones account. Is this a surprise to anyone who's followed the woman's career?

Update: Scroll down a few posts and take a look at KC's take on Gang of 88 stalwart Wahneema Lubiano's (I didn't even have to look to spell her name right) {Update, many moons later: but I got her name backwards. Jesus. Originally I had it as "Lubiano Wahneema"] doctoral dissertation:

Lubiano’s dissertation—“Messing with the Machine: Four Afro-American Novels and the Nexus of Vernacular, Historical Constraint, and Narrative Strategy”—features the combination of only-in-academia beliefs and impenetrable prose that would characterize the few publications she would pen over the next quarter century. Here’s an excerpt from the opening paragraph of the dissertation, with the run-on structure as in the original:
And it does seem easy to give into [my sic] the temptation to think that one “knows” or understands already books about people who live, as the narrator in Invisible Man puts it, a “public life,” and in many ways anyone part of the Afro-American culture does lead a public life, is part of a group “known” (to the public’s gaze) more in the mass than in the particular, the idiosyncratic. Consideration of the “literariness” of these texts might seem, to some readers, almost superfluous because knowledge of the oppression imposed on the culture which forms the (con)text seems to make closer scrutiny of form, of structure, frivolous.

Somebody in the comments (be sure to read) found Wahneema's dissertation abstract:

Four Afro-American novels have advanced new visions of reality, language, and structure. These visions give rise, during the Harlem Renaissance, to the fantastical, shadowy, and dark reality of Cane and the lyricism and folklore of Their Eyes Were Watching God, to the surrealism of the nightmare vision of Invisible Man in the modern era; and, in the post-modern era, to the magical realism of Song of Solomon.

The intersection of Afro-American vernacular, as language or as attitude toward language, the historical moment and its varied constraints, and the narrative structures, form an intersection within these texts: a nexus. That nexus is the unmediated space for the construction of meta-realistic visions that undermine a dominant Anglo-American realism predicated on rationalism and linear historical constructs.

My study, to a great extent, is a translation of that nexus via an examination of the vernacular and the currents of contemporary literary discourse. Within that nexus, the borders of difference are foregrounded, and exploration of that difference is more productive for readers than a too easy and thoughtless identification with the content and themes of the texts.

Anybody who's followed the D-blog's decades-long publication of hilarious (at least to the D-blog) abstracts can see that Wahneema is like frickin' Hemingway (I hate Hemingway) in her word economy and general sense-making compared to some of the divots he's mocked.

Academia is a disease.

Sunday Night Compare and Contrast!

2011-04-17T17:15:00.000-07:00

Beck, Bogert and Appice, circa 1973; and Stevie Wonder and Beck, 2009.

Catching up with: North Korea!

2011-04-15T06:20:00.000-07:00

It's Year Juch 100, folks. The North Korean news agency KCNA reports on worldwide events to celebrate the 100th birfday of Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea:

General Secretary Kim Jong Il received a letter on Wednesday from the participants in the consultative meeting of senior officials of the international preparatory committee for commemorating the centenary of birth of President Kim Il Sung.

As the world recognizes, the President is distinguished thinker-theoretician, great statesman, prominent strategist and great sage with noble virtues, the letter said. . . .

We are convinced that the gate to a thriving nation will be opened in 2012 marking the centenary of birth of the President under the leadership of Kim Jong Il, it said, adding:

The international preparatory committee will fully discharge its mission and duty by making sure that colorful events praising the greatness and undying feats of the President are held on a worldwide scale with larger attendance.

Awww, you shouldn't have:

Floral Basket from Chairman of Int'l Foundation

General Secretary Kim Jong Il received a basket of flowers from Johnny Hon, chairman of the International Kim Il Sung Foundation, on the occasion of the Day of the Sun.

The basket was handed over to an official concerned on Wednesday.

More festivities!

A consultative meeting of senior officials of the international preparatory committee for commemorating the centenary of birth of President Kim Il Sung was held at the Mansudae Assembly Hall in Pyongyang on Wednesday. . . .

According to the information, preparatory committees were organized in many countries and regions of the world after the Pakistan-Korea Friendship Association in January 2008 called upon the organizations for friendship and solidarity with the Korean people to form preparatory committees on the occasion of the centenary of birth of the President and significantly commemorate the Day of the Sun in 2012 through colorful activities including seminar, round-table talks, exhibition and book publication. . . .

A resolution of the consultative meeting of senior officials of the international preparatory committee which calls for commemorating in splendor the centenary of birth of the President as the great auspicious event of humankind was adopted. . . .

The resolution also noted that the birthday of Kim Jong Il, the outstanding leader of the human cause of independence in 2012, would be celebrated as a grand international festival. . . .

Even the flora are in awe:

Flower Named after President Kim Il Sung

The 13th Kimilsungia Festival is going on in Pyongyang to commemorate the birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung (April 15).

Kimilsungia is associated with the Indonesian people's deep reverence for him.

When visiting Indonesia, Kim Il Sung was guided to the Bogor Botanical Garden on April 13, Juche 54 (1965). Sukarno briefed him on a flower bred by an Indonesian botanist and suggested naming it after the DPRK President.

Kim Il Sung politely declined the suggestion, saying he had no particular reason for it.

But Sukarno told him that he deserved it for his great contribution to humankind.

Finding it difficult to decline any more, Kim Il Sung said he would accept the suggestion as a token of the Indonesian people's admiration for the Korean people.

Let's hear it for the ladies:

Women's Union Members Commemorate Day of Sun

An art performance of women's union members "We Will Always Sing the Song of Sun under the Guidance of the Great General" took place here on Wednesday to commemorate the birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung.

Its numbers included "We Will Always Live with the Leader," "The Father of People" and "The Victory of Revolution Is in Sight."

The audience expressed great admiration for a short play "My Wife" and duet "My Daughter-in-Law" that show the Korean women's honor and pride of leading a happy life as the flower of the country and the flower of family.

Quintet "Ninani Nanno of Happiness" and drum and chorus "A Thriving Nation Is in Sight" gave the audience confidence in tomorrow when all ideals of the people will come to reality.

The performance was enjoyed by Choe Ryong Hae, secretary of the C.C., the Workers' Party of Korea, Ro Song Sil, chairwoman of the C.C., the Democratic Women's Union of Korea, and officials and members of the union in Pyongyang.

Ninani Nanno! Guess who's gonna be taking part in the celebrations:

Former US President Jimmy Carter is scheduled to fly to Pyongyang later this month and has said he will try to revive the six-party talks and address humanitarian woes.

Carter: always with the wet blanket.

Update: Remember when Obama wished he were the president of China? Just putting on my Tom Friedman hat here, but I've got a better
idea . . .

Update II: Could somebody help me out with the subjunctive here? Should it be "Obama wished he were president of China," or "Obama wished he was" . . . etc.

More crushing necessary

2011-04-12T14:54:00.000-07:00

Get a load of this crap by Terry Eagleton in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. "In praise of Marx":

There is a sense in which the whole of Marx's writing boils down to several embarrassing questions: Why is it that the capitalist West has accumulated more resources than human history has ever witnessed, yet appears powerless to overcome poverty, starvation, exploitation, and inequality? What are the mechanisms by which affluence for a minority seems to breed hardship and indignity for the many? Why does private wealth seem to go hand in hand with public squalor? Is it, as the good-hearted liberal reformist suggests, that we have simply not got around to mopping up these pockets of human misery, but shall do so in the fullness of time? Or is it more plausible to maintain that there is something in the nature of capitalism itself which generates deprivation and inequality, as surely as Charlie Sheen generates gossip?

Gad. Read the comments. Commies abound.

(via Althouse)

Tending toward evil

2011-04-11T13:02:00.000-07:00

Talking to a friend of mine a little ago and he was bitching about being the primary (or nearly so) caregiver for his poor withered mither (he's a good son, despite his smell). After letting him vent for a while I suggested (in jest, I necessarily add) that he reenact that scene from Kiss of Death. You know the one:

Well, a few minutes later my phone rings. My friend. "Hey," I say, perspicantically. No response, except for this sound, familiar, yet unidentifiable: Bumpety-bumpety squeak, bumpety-bumpety squeak, bumpetybumpetybumpetysqueaksqueaksqueeeeeaaaaaak boink-boink-boink.

Crash. All this time I'm yelling "Xanthippe? Xanthippe! XANTHIPPE!!! (not his real name (except the exclamation marks)), and--nothing. I was worried. But as it turns out it was all a (to be continued, he lied.)

Abstract(s) of the Week!

2011-04-09T17:20:00.000-07:00

Ethics & the Environment

Greta Gaard

Reproductive Technology, or Reproductive Justice?: An Ecofeminist, Environmental Justice Perspective on the Rhetoric of Choice

Abstract:

This essay develops an ecofeminist, environmental justice perspective on the shortcomings of “choice” rhetoric in the politics of women’s reproductive self-determination, specifically around fertility-enhancing technologies. These new reproductive technologies (NRTs) medicalize and thus depoliticize the contemporary phenomenon of decreased fertility in first-world industrialized societies, personalizing and privatizing both the problem and the solution when the root of this phenomenon may be more usefully addressed as a problem of PCBs, POPs, and other toxic by-products of industrialized culture that are degrading our personal and environmental health. The NRTs’ rhetoric of choice is implicitly antifeminist: it blames the victim by attributing rising infertility rates to middle-class women who delay childbearing while struggling to launch careers; it conceals information about adverse health effects and solicits egg donation and gestation services from women disadvantaged by economic status, nation, and age; and it offers no choice at all for the millions of female animals—chicks, cows, turkeys, pigs, and others—whose fertility is regularly manipulated and whose offspring are commodified as products for industrialized animal food production. An intersectional analysis shifts the discourse away from reproductive choice to a framework of ecological, feminist, and reproductive justice.

Configurations ("The official publication of the Society for Literature and Science")

Robert Yarber

The Cloud of Unknowing

Abstract:

The author presents a case of self-organizing daimonic mythopoiesis. The spiritual tourist, entheogenic experimenter, and the painter enfold a matrix of inter-developed "sorties" into the allotropic differentials of the autopoietic process. Fieldwork in Mandi, Himashal Pradesh, India provides an introduction to the virtualities of the peripersonal as it manifests in a "darshan" or self-showing of the goddess where the velocity of the psychopomp's body approaches pure phase-space. The immersive space of the peripersonal is further revealed in the author's absorption within the wire-frame virtualities of currently available three-dimensional modeling programs. Parallel work is conducted through experimentation with Animita muscaria, a traditional entheogen revered in various cultures. Possibly the ancient Soma of the Vedic scriptures, the mushroom provides occasion for somatic dissociation within which phenomenological data is gathered. Use is made of the phenomenological method of introspection, which more literally becomes a driving inward of the homuncular eye along a trajectory of the cine-somatic gaze through an introjected, intra-corporeal immersive scene. In the conclusion, this ancient "gaze of the clinic" is deemed useful to current research, as corporeality and the politics of peripersonal space enter new technological and juridical frames of reference in relation to agency, identity, and the state.

Conference on World Affairs, CU's annual "intellectual Olympics," opens

2011-04-05T08:32:00.000-07:00

Note how mature I am in not calling it "CU's Intellectual 'Special' Olympics."

Actually it's not maturity, it's just been said over and over, and this year, as past years, shows why. The Gamera:

Flags representing countries from around the globe now line CU's Norlin Quadrangle, and the annual procession of panelists and dignitaries made its parade through the Boulder campus Monday morning.

Eager attendees have marked up their schedules, choosing panels on marriage equality, nuclear weapons, 2012 presidential candidates and ... Tinker Bell's cleavage and body enhancement.

The Gamera asks predictably ponderous and right-thinking keynote speaker Elizabeth Coleman, president of Bennington College, "What things matter in America today?"

EC: The challenges facing this country are enormous. They are unmet. We are watching. They are urgent. We are failing desperately to educate vast quantities of our young people. The challenges of health, this most civilized highly developed country is failing miserably to provide a minimum reasonable level of health to this society. Issues of the environment, particularly global warning, have the likely potential of undermining human civilization all together.

There are, of course, a number of panels on Global Warming among less-silly offerings like--well, here's the schedule; pick out your own less-silly offerings. The Camera has a story on NASA AGW scientist Peter Hildebrand, who spoke yesterday on "Climate change and wildfires in the west." Guess what he thinks:

"The whole Rocky Mountain area has been drying out," said Peter Hildebrand, director of the Earth Sciences Directorate at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "You put that information into a conceptual (fire) model, and it shows that fire incidents are going to increase as climate warms up. And that's what's been happening." . . .

Is there anything models can't predict? Other climate change panels include "Species extinction is no big deal" (probably sarcasm, huh? Hildebrand is on that panel, too); "Climate change: Past the point of no return" (ditto); "It's the economy: Whatever happened to global warming?" (yep); and "Can science feed the growing global population (Hildebrand, where are y--oh, there you are).

All right, since D-blog readers are by definition too lazy to click on links, I'll list a few other panels: "American optimism: Dead or alive?" (dead); "Peace by peaceful means"; "Why jazz matters" (boop-diddle-bop); "The wild, wild web: We are all outlaws online" (bang); "Socially responsible careers: Doing well by doing good"; "Near-sighted Americans: Misperceptions of the other"; "Death to the death penalty"; and "Life outside Facebook" (I'll take the death penalty). And that's only Monday and Tuesday!

Skimming the "participant prosopography" (yes, I had to look it up), there are actually two or three sorta conservatives among the scores of "progressive" participants, including WSJ columnist John Fund and NRO writer Michael G. Franc. Never forget: They're risking their lives for us.

The most paneled panelist is probably conference stalwart and former Dead Kennedy Jello Biafra. Let's see, he's on: "Sex: Good for you is good for me"; "What the left can learn from the right"; Katy, Gaga, Ke$ha: The new feminist role models"; "Dynamic Duo: A partisan rant"; "What's wrong with American sports"; and "Anarchy in the USA." I probably missed a couple. Always wondered what flavor Jello Biafra is. Probably dirt.

Anyway, sorry I have to miss it. Gotta wash my hair. Yes, all week. Scabies, don't you know.

Head tourism official: Ward Churchill

2011-04-04T06:26:00.000-07:00

The Telegraph:

Liverpool is famed for many things – including The Beatles and its football team. But few would associate the city with one of the most famous political speeches in history.

Yet tourism officials in the city have published the extraordinary claim that Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech was written at a city centre hotel.

The allegation has been made in a guide to a major art event entitled "Liverpool Discovers", commissioned by amongst others, the city council.

A map in the guide shows how more than 20 locations where famous people were born along with places associated with celebrities and events in their lives.

The guide proclaims: "Martin Luther King visited his supporters in Liverpool three times, and the first draft of his famous 'I have a dream' speech is alleged to be written on Adelphi Hotel headed notepaper."

Even less well-known, Four Bears made his "the whites gave us smallpox bankies" speech in Liverpool, according to the gaffers down at the pub. Back to MLK:

[The speech's] links, if any, to Liverpool, have for nearly half a century been kept under wraps, and experts were quick yesterday to suggest that is where they should remain.

Dr King's biographer, Godfrey Hodgson said that the suggestion does not fit the facts. . . .

Prof John Belcham, a Liverpool University history lecturer who wrote an 800-year history of Liverpool in 2008, confirmed that he was unaware of any connection between Dr King and the city.

That, however, has not stopped tourism officials in publishing the rumour, and yesterday they were unrepentant. They said that the claim came from a public consultation and there was nothing to suggest it was untrue.

A spokesman for Liverpool Discovers said: "All of the facts we have came from a public consultation where we asked people to submit what they knew about Liverpool. . . .

"As you will appreciate it is sometimes difficult to prove historical facts, and we have run the map by local historians to best verify what appeared.

And they said, "What are you on about, son?" The spokesman steals arguments from the global warmists, too:

"Although biographers such as those associated with Martin Luther King may not be aware of such a fact, with all due respect to them, that in itself does not prove it to be untrue.

The Beatles got their start in Denver.

"Many cities reference stories about their history that cannot be absolutely proven –and in this case the word 'alleged' informs the reader that the fact is not set in stone."

It has though left tourist guides in the city somewhat out on a limb. One said: “We are getting people asking us to tell them more about this remarkable event and why there is no plaque at the hotel to commemorate it.

"We have to say it is some kind of urban legend that has been printed in error. It's very embarrassing."

Send her to finishing school

2011-04-03T17:44:00.000-07:00

Fake team-rape victim Crystal Mangum has been arrested again, according to Durham-in-Wonderland and a local TV station, this time for "stabbing her boyfriend in the chest." Didn't kill him, just "seriously injured" him. First she tried to send a bunch of innocent lacrosse players to jail for 30 years. No go. Then she tried to burn down her house with her kids in it. Couldn't manage it. Now she goes a more direct route. Still no prize, but she's getting closer. Allegedly.

Colorado weather

2011-04-03T15:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, 80 degrees and sluggy:

Today:

False headline

2011-04-02T05:57:00.000-07:00

Telegraph front page tease: "King's teeth removed from auction." The story itself is more truthfully headlined: "Royal family requests x-rays be withdrawn from auction."

Rats. I'd have had one implanted right in front. Beat that, gold-toothed rappers! Of course, how would anybody know, unless George's tooth was conspicuously larger or more rotten than my other front tooth. I'd have to carry a certificate of authenticity around with me. Never mind.

There was this little nugget: "Experts who have viewed them said that the king's teeth were not the cause for his famous speech impediment that his [sic] subject of the hit film The King's Speech." . . .

Stephen Hancocks, the editor-in-chief of the British Dental Journal, examined the X-rays of King George VI's teeth.

He said: "The X-rays indicate that the King had good teeth for a man of his age.

"There is some evidence of bone loss which may be due to gum disease, possibly linked to smoking, as he was known to be a heavy smoker."

Update: Poetry Corner--of Death! Telegraph again:

Sergio Lapa, 36, was initially awarded second place in a poetry competition in the prisoner's magazine Inside Time.

The prisoner, who is awaiting trial at HMP Norwich on a charge of attempted murder, entered a poem called In Bed in his attempt to win the £25 prize in the March edition of the magazine.

But he was caught out when at least eight prisoners spotted the poem was an exact copy of Philip Larkin's poem Talking In Bed.

How many prisoners in the U.S. would have spotted it? That's right: none. I weep for our country.

Mr Lapa is now facing a barrage of abuse by prisoners at HMP Norwich.

A prison source said lags took poetry 'very seriously' and were furious when poems were ripped off. . . .

"There is a very moral code in prison when it comes to poetry and this guy is feeling the heat at the moment – there are a lot of angry people around."

A spokesman for Inside Time confirmed it had received 'many letters' about the poem. He added: "Do not plagiarise other people’s work, as you WILL be found out."

The poem by Larkin lost out in the competition to a contribution titled Relating from a prisoner called Brian Darby, of HMP Maidstone.

Thursday Night at the Radio!

2011-03-31T17:43:00.000-07:00

Never been a big fan, but here's a pretty funny Fred Allen. He rags on Jack Benny, tries to sell an act with Charlie McCarthy, and talks to the usual line-up of goofs, including Mrs. Nussbaum ("Emperor Shapirohito") about the end-of-the-war housing shortage. This one's called, shockingly, "Teaming up with Charlie McCarthy" (7 October 1945).

Dragnet! This one's called, entirely non-salaciously, "The Big Pair" (21 September 1950).

The Johnny Cash Show. An August, 1954 recording from a Memphis radio station, when Cash was 22. Apparently it was supposed to be a continuing show, but this is the only one I could find. The sound's a little hollow, but Cash sounds good--at least on the songs. He's cutely klutzy with the between-songs stuff (he repeatedly asks people to send in requests--"If we don't know 'em, we'll learn 'em") and a little tongue-tied reading the commercials for Home Equipment Company.