Not an Empoblog Aurothots
I can't write an Aurothots on a song until I've actually heard the entire song. Lyrics here . A tantalizing 30 second snippet here (listen to track 21).
I've heard little snippets of the Beach Boy's Brian Wilson-authored song "Til I Die" several times over the past few years. Now if only it were on a decent album...
Posts
A Serious Canadian
Brian Mulroney's eulogy for Ronald Reagan can be found here . Excerpt:
When their car drove in a moment later, out stepped Nancy [Reagan] and Mila [Mulroney] looking like a million bucks. And as they headed towards us, President Reagan beamed. He threw his arm around my shoulder. And he said with a grin, "You know, Brian, for two Irishmen, we sure married up."
Mike Bullard Was Not Universally Adored
Good old Mike Bullard was not lamented by everyone when his most recent show was cancelled due to low ratings. Dementedpanda was rather cutting:
There is no unfunny way of putting this great news. Mike Bullard's Canadian Talk Show has now officially been Cancelled. Honestly, it's the funniest thing that has come from his show. The fact that his show being cancelled is funnier than actual show doesn't say much about the quality of the program. This is glorious! Switching through channels and finding nothing on but Mike Bullard was horrific to say the least. Despite the fact that he made fun of Mandy Moore, he himself did not come off as any kind of entertaining feature on his show. From making fun of his audience members, to cracking jokes about Newfoundland, Mike Bullard's show was simply not funny at all....
Well Mike, now when you go to the Olive garden and you are 2 minutes before they close and want a full meal, you
Heck, Heck, the Gang's All Here
Seven blog subjects, all in a bad work of fiction.
When Annie Jacobsen isn't jet-setting around the country, she's reporting on businesses of interest to women.
When Scott Sassa didn't allow Annie to open up a Friendster account, Annie searched for a business representative that actually WANTED to make friends with the press. Ludo Cremers was happy to answer all of Annie's questions. However, he had to leave early to try to sign Misty May up as a celebrity endorser.
Meanwhile, Tom Tancredo was trying to find out how Rick James died. Kerri Dunn had an alibi, but it sounded suspicious....
A Saga, Chronologically
Exhibit 1 , from Forbes' website, posted June 3, 2004 :
Scott Sassa, the former television wunderkind, has thrown in his lot with Internet phenom Friendster, agreeing to serve as the rising "social networking" Web site's chief executive officer.
Friendster, sometimes described as a dating network, sometimes described as something else, is premised on the idea that it connects people not through random searches but through "through networks of friends."...
Sassa has been associated recently with Efficient Frontier, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based company engaged in "search engine marketing" that purports to "link your business needs with your search spend." He was on the board of NBCi, NBC's disastrous Internet venture. But it's not clear how he wound up at Friendster. Perhaps he has a friend, or a friend of a friend.
Exhibit 2 , from a personal blog, posted June 29, 2004 :
Friendster goes PHP
End of the Line, Affecting My Creativity
Regarding Enumclaw :
I like to get out in the wild, as long as it's not too wild. For example, last week I got on St Louis' Metrolink train service and took it all the way from downtown St Louis to the Shiloh-Scott station in Illinois, having no idea at the time what Shiloh was, or what Scott was.
Enumclaw was another destination. I drove there once with one of my college friends and walked through the huge downtown, snapped some pictures, and left.
Another destination was Gresham. Years ago (before light rail existed in Portland) I took a Tri Met bus all the way out to exotic Gresham, Oregon. I even wrote a bad song about it (lyrics excerpted here):
I went to Gresham town
I took a Tri-Met down
I bought "Free to Choose"
But not a drop of booze
Bandana on my belt
I'm never gonna sell't
I thought it was a lark
Then I saw a great white shark
For the record, the chorus after each of these
This and That
Typos reveal your innermost thoughts. At work this morning I was typing something about Oracle's support of BLOBS , except that instead of typing "blob," my fingers automatically typed "blog."
Recommended reading: How Shivery Timbers Foiled a Robbery . (And she sings , also.)
For the record, I am not the person who is impersonating the late Rick James in comments areas .
For the record, I am the person who is trading comments with Eddykins in response to the following post by genuinegenius :
Today I feel like I am being squeezed through a funnel.
Kewl. :)
(In her other life, she provides us with
helpful reminders that I only follow half of the time. Shame on me.)
Some people are more learned than me. Only Jimmy Akin would request a copy of "Passion" without the subtitles .
This link to the Alexandra Kerry at Cannes story does NOT include pictures.
We still have almost an entire month of summer left,
One Potential Fight This Week
Lonewacko mentioned it. TheHill.com provided the details. John and Ken identified the players.
First, John and Ken:
On one side of the GOP fault is the Wall Street Journal wing of the party so named for that newspaper's repeated editorial call, citing the cheap labor benefit to business interests, for a Constitutional amendment stating "There shall be open borders." The Wall Street Journal wing is typified by the lead Republican supporter in congress of amnesty for illegal aliens, Chris Cannon of Utah.
On the other side is the, well, democratic wing of the party, which stands with the 82 percent of self-identified Republican voters who, according to a recent Pew survey, support tighter immigration policies (Democrats and Independents both polled at 76 percent). The democratic wing is typified in congress by Republican Tom Tancredo of Colorado.
The two sides may end up colliding at Madison Square Garden on August 30.
Sourc
Politics Angered The Video Stars
Excerpts from the Drudge Report on Alexandra Kerry and Vanessa Kerry's appearance at the MTV VMAs:
[O]n Sunday night when John Kerry's daughters were announced to speak at the annual MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS, the MTV youth were expected to welcome his daughter's as pop culture princesses....
From the moment Alexandra and Vanessa started speaking, the boos outweighed anything close to cheers, and the reaction turned worse when the daughters asked the VIACOM youth to vote for their father.
The Kerrys get their own page on a website entitled The First Twins , which features spellbinding articles on Jenna's tongue. There's a link to a page on Chelsea Clinton , but only a brief (one word) mention of Susan Ford (although Amy Carter's wedding picture is there). And the part on Tricia and David Eisenhower doesn't even mention that they met when Richard Nixon was VICE president (gotta find that picture...it's a cl
More information on Haley Waldman
Not an update per se, but more information that I didn't have previously, courtesy the Citizen-Times :
For the first time since she was diagnosed with gluten intolerance, Marjorie Bogart is able to take communion alongside everyone else....
...[N]ow Bogart can walk up to the rail, kneel and take communion because a group of Benedictine nuns in Missouri figured out a way to put wheat in a wafer that has so little gluten she would have to eat more than 200 of them in a single sitting to have an adverse effect on her....
Audra Miller, spokeswoman for the Diocese of Trenton in New Jersey...said [Haley]Waldman was offered the low-gluten wafer....
Miller said [the mother of Haley] Waldman refused the options of the low-gluten wafer...and looked for a church that would allow her daughter to use a rice wafer.
This is an interesting turn of events. Apparently there was bread that was legally considered "wheat" by the Catholic Chu
Second Man Strolls, Psychology Today Reports
Permit me to amuse myself...
It was a hate crime!
It was a fake!
It truly was a hate crime!
It was a fake, I tell you!
So, the rallies taking place during my stroll to the Claremont Colleges campus have landed in Psychology Today , which briefly reports on the Kerri Dunn incident while discussing several people who DID admit to faking stories. (For the record, Dunn continues to deny wrongdoing.)
Psychologists have dubbed the phenomenon The Boy Who Cried Wolf Effect, named after Aesop’s fable about a shepherd who fakes wolf attacks. In real life, experts say, these “shepherds,” mostly women, aren’t acting out of boredom. These damsels in distress are very often motivated by an intense desire for attention and may feel unfairly neglected by those close to them, often romantic partners. Others are simply crying out to a world they feel ignores them....
[A] “hoaxer” wins attention by playing the passive victim, similar to a p
Mindy McCready Pleads Innocent
Sorry, folks, but with no Internet access in St Louis for a week, I've got a lot of catching up to do. Here's the latest on Mindy McCready:
Country singer Mindy McCready has pleaded innocent to drug charges.
Lawyers for McCready...entered the plea Monday in Williamson County Court.
Don't Know If This Is True...
Reading a recent Monterey County Herald entry was a little surprising...
In L.A., at an after-hours club...[c]lub regulars paid their respects by approaching [Rick James'] portrait on the wall and blowing either marijuana smoke or cocaine at his smiling face. While an autopsy has failed to determine what caused the singer's Aug. 6 death, some are wagering that the pending toxicology test will turn up drugs.
But wait, there's more:
One source recalls walking into an upstairs room at the same L.A. club last Valentine's Day and finding ''Rick with a mound of coke in front of him.''
''He was wearing a bright red suit,'' the source tells us. ''He pointed to his mound of drugs and said to me, 'Dig in partner.'''
I don't know how much to trust an unnamed source...guess we'll just have to wait for the final report.
JibJab Settlement
According to the San Bernardino Sun , JibJab and Ludlow have settled their dueling lawsuits.
Ludlow Music, ["This Land is Your Land"'s] publisher, agreed in a settlement Tuesday to allow the [JibJab] cartoon -- one of the biggest Internet draws of the summer -- to keep using the song.
In return, JibJab dropped a lawsuit against Ludlow that had sought an order saying its use of the song was protected because it was a parody and "This Land" was in the public domain.
The creators also agreed to provide a link on their Web site to the song's original lyrics and to donate 20 percent of any profits to the Woody Guthrie Foundation.
Sounds like a win-win for everyone.
Conservative
While surfing and surfing and surfing, I ended up at "The Conservative Case Against George W. Bush" by William Bryk. While Bryk attacks the Bushes in particular and the neo-cons in general, one can surmise that there is nothing in today's conservatism that is truly conservative.
Makes you think that the last true conservative was not Ronald Reagan (heck, they named a danged AIRPORT after him), but Barry Goldwater (the man who didn't care what two military men did off-hours).
Now if someone can tell me whether Kerry's a conservative or a liberal, we can figure out this election. (I'm sure about Mr. Clinton - he's a conservative in the same way that FDR was a conservative.)
Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and...wait, there are no American cars any more...
I was reading Inland Empress' comment to my comment , in which a discussion of writer's rejection morphed into a comment on women's baseball, when I realized two things:
First, it's finally come. Remember when you were young and you thought that someday you could grow up and be a professional sports player? Then you hit 20 and figured there was still the outside chance. Well, I'm over 40 now, and there aren't that many major leaguers entering their fifth decade. This especially hit me at last night's Quakes game, where all of the players were about half my age.
Second, I figure I should comment on my visit to the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes game on Saturday night. Although the Quakes lost, a splendid time was had by all. My biggest challenge was explaining baseball to a German girl who had only the slightest understanding of cricket. Excerpts:
Each team tries to keep th
Even Roger Daltrey will retire someday
It's great when your former statements come back to haunt you. Case in point (again reaffirming my non-trendiness) - I *finally* saw the Alice Cooper Staples commercial a few minutes ago, having only heard about it in the last week. Apparently it's been out for a month already. If you haven't seen it, here's a recap from Staples' investor relations site :
The commercial...humorously utilizes Cooper's legendary anthem "School's Out" to support the company's 2004 back-to-school brand position as a one-stop, in-stock shopping destination for everything on school lists....
"Staples' back-to-school commercial takes the Alice persona and places him in an amusing situation that you wouldn't normally picture him in - shopping for school supplies with his daughter," said Shira Goodman, executive vice president of marketing for Staples...
The commercial depicts Cooper in the role of a fa
No, Misty May is not a Super Freak
So I return to the blogworld after a week (my St. Louis hotel did not have high speed Internet for computers), and I discover that this blog is being visited because of two search terms:
"Misty May photos"
"Rick James photos"
Somehow I doubt that Misty May is a freak, but perhaps I'm wrong...
Dave Barry on Spiro Agnew As previously promised , here's what Dave Barry has to say about Spiro Agnew in his history book Dave Barry Slept Here : Nixon's running mate was an individual named Spiro Agnew, whose principal qualification was that when you rearranged the letters of his name, you got "grow a penis."... The next day, October 8, the Senate Watergate Committee voted 17-9 in favor of a resolution proposed by Senator Ervin calling on the president to "Rang onsum latmun sookles." Clearly the dice had been cast down onto the gauntlet. Nixon appeared to have only two options left: OPTION ONE: He could boldly remain as president and defend himself in the now-inevitable impeachment proceedings. OPTION TWO: He could spare the country further trauma by resigning in a dignified manner. Those of you who are well-schooled students of "Dick" Nixon will not be surprised to learn that, after carefully weighing the alternatives, he decided to go with Opti
Eh, He Took Off, Si...
From the fair and balanced baby seal clubbers :
The Canadian province of New Brunswick is on full alert for a missing truckload of Moosehead beer....
Police found the truck, still running, along with its empty trailer in the parking lot of a McDonald's in Grand Falls, New Brunswick, a few miles from the Maine border.
There was no trace of the beer, worth nearly $60,000 in U.S. currency — or of the truck's driver....
"Because [the load] was destined for Mexico," he explained, "the labeling on one side was English and Spanish on the reverse side."
'Scuse Me While I Swish This Concept
This entry has nothing to do with Jimi Hendrix. Pardon me for a moment while I try to get the concepts of liceity (not licety) and validity straight in my head . I figure if I hear the words in usage a few million times, my reformatted head will figure it out:
From The Society of Saint Pius X - In schism? Without jurisdiction? Invalid and illicit sacraments?
No honest Novus Ordo churchmen - bishops, priests - will go so far as to question the validity of the sacraments and jurisdiction of the Society of Saint Pius X. Even Cardinal Ratzinger does not question the validity. Most will "only" question the liceity.
A clear understanding of the difference between liceity and validity is of fundamental importance here. A licit action means one carried out in accordance with law. The law in question may be natural law, a law revealed by God (such as the obligation to receive baptism), or it may be human legislation, either civil o
He Wasn't a One Day Wonder
It's no secret that I've posted a number of items about Rick James over the last couple of weeks, and that hundreds of people have visited this blog as a result.
I figured that after the cremation, the hoopla would die down and the readership would die down also. However, even today I'm still getting a lot of blog hits because of Rick. As of a few minutes ago, here are the last 10 search terms that search engine customers were using to get to this blog:
volleyball%2C misty may photos (Yahoo)
rick james funeral casket (Yahoo)
Photos%20of%20rick%20james%20in%20coffin (MSN)
picture of eddie murphy and rick james (Yahoo)
rick james in casket (Yahoo)
rick%20james%20in%20casket (MSN)
PHOTOS OF RICK JAMES IN CASKET (Yahoo)
Rick James public viewing photos casket (MSN)
seeclearlymethod (Yahoo)
JAMES CASKET RICK PICTURE (Yahoo)
Well, in response to those who want to see photos...go here for the sports management firm hand
Viral Marketing is, well, viral...
Courtesy Security Focus :
A marketing campaign to promote the latest version of the Resident Evil video game has provoked a panic about the spread of a non-existent mobile phone virus.
Users have received unsolicited SMS text messages on their mobile phones telling them they are infected by the so-called T-Virus, prompting calls to AV company Sophos about the supposed outbreak. The messages are sent from a website designed to promote the game Resident Evil: Outbreak....A typical message reads: "Outbreak: I'm infecting you with t-virus, my code is ******. Forward this to 60022 to get your own code and chance to win prizes. More at t-virus.co.uk."
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos [states] "This marketing campaign seems particularly ill-conceived, as there is so much genuine interest in the mobile virus threat at present."
No Surfing Inland
From the Daily Bulletin :
A proposal to build the first Internet cafe in the city was rejected by the (Chino Hills) planning commission on Tuesday, after owners near the proposed "Click and Connect" complained that the business would attract criminal activity and scare off clients.
News bulletin to Chino Hills...there's a PRISON less than a mile east of your town. Don't tell anyone, though, or they may not shop in your fair city.
Second news bulletin to Chino Hills...does that mean that if K Mart wanted to re-open their store in your fair city, you'd refuse to let them do so?
It WAS a Professor
Back in the spring when I was frequently in Claremont preparing for my triumphant stage performance in Fiddler on the Roof (I was "Second Man"), I took a walk to Bridges one afternoon and stumbled into a campus-wide rally. It seems that a professor's car had been vandalized with racist material, and the Claremont Colleges as a whole were holding meetings about racism, bla bla bla.
Update: the professor in question, Kerri Dunn, has been convicted of vandalizing her own car .
A former visiting Claremont McKenna College psychology professor, who reported her car was vandalized with racist and anti-semitic slurs while she was on campus, was convicted Wednesday of insurance fraud charges.
The Pomona Superior Court jury deliberated just under a day before finding Kerri Dunn guilty of two felony counts of attempted insurance fraud, along with a misdemeanor charge of a false police report....She could face up to 3 1/2 years in state prison....
D
E on X and Y
E on X and Y - the best alphabetic fiction that I've read all day, courtesy of the highly esteemed Inland Empress .
I thought Y was a straight-up kinda guy; the sort who could hold up his end of an adverb. That was before X turned around and got a hold of him. Though how can anyone tell if she turned around? She looks the same coming and going, if you ask me, but Y sure was impressed....
READ THE REST. NOW. YES, NOW.
Happiness Do (I can't spell French)
I've been implicitly (and implicitly ) and explicitly discussing the book Dave Barry Slept Here for some time now. I have used my powers of persuasion to force other people (well, one person ) to read the book and amuse her housemate .
However, for the last few weeks, I've been hiding my dirty dark secret -
I couldn't find my OWN copy of Dave Barry Slept Here .
I wanted to quote from the book and put the accurate quotes (rather than the half-remembered ones) into my blog, but I couldn't find it. It wasn't in the office (where most of my books are kept). It wasn't next to my bed. I even checked the "religious" bookcase in the living room - not there.
It has just been found - it was under some OTHER books in the living room.
However, I still don't know if I'll get a chance to quote from it, since I'm at work right now, busy over the next few days, and heading off to St. Louis on Su
Never Knew It Would Be Like This
If you like a song, I believe that you shouldn't be shy about listening to it. Over and over. (In CD player terms, this is "repeat 1.")
During my morning drive today, I listened to Duran Duran's "Wild Boys" over and over. (Note to self: time for another Empoblog Aurothots.) (Second note to self: done .)
This normally doesn't cause a problem, since I execute "repeat 1" while I'm in the car alone where it can't bug anyone else.
However, I did goof a couple of decades ago. I was in The Burbs (our off-campus house) one day and got in the mood to hear Devo's "Going Under." Devo is an acquired taste, but if you like their music and can put up with their lyrical philosophy, the journey can be rewarding. So I went to the stereo, got the song (I believe it was in cassette form), and played it. And played it again. And played it a few more times. It was at that point that I discovered tha
Where Are They Now Part 3
Over the years, I have known three people who could learn new languages in their sleep. When I first met Darrell Jenks in 1979, he had just returned from a summer job fighting fires in eastern Oregon. He went on to a successful career in the U.S. State Department. And no, I can't read Chinese.
Classic Hollywood Squares Zingers
From chris-lambert.com :
Peter: "You are a 20-year-old girl and you live at your folks' house. According to Dear Abby, is it proper for you to entertain your boyfriend there when they are not home?"
Buddy Hackett: "If she wants to make a few dollars!"
Peter: "True or false? A state law in California specifies that store Santa Clauses have to wear underwear under their costumes."
Jonathan Winters: "Well, when I played Santa Claus, it was entirely different. As long as you had the belt on and a red cap, you were home free."
Signs of Age
I found a homemade laminated card while I was cleaning. Here's the front:
Official Membership Card
This card certifies that
Wasp The Houseboy
is a Charter Member of
The Grotto BBS
(Bloose & Starfish, if you're surfing, I adopted a new handle six years ago.)
Here's the back:
Terms and Conditions
(The really really small print!)
Bearer agrees to all foregoing terms and conditions and hereby releases all
other life forms from any and all forms of liability arising from the use of
this card. Do not fold, bend or mutilate. Observe proper laundering instructions
found on back of garment. Do not remove this tag under penalty
of law. Do not inhale contents. Void where taxed, licensed or prohibited.
No stopping at any time. Curb your dog. Animals must be kept on leash
at all times. Do not induce vomiting. No lifeguard on duty, use at your
own risk. Avoid breathing fumes. Keep away from open flame. Contents
under pressure. Do not puncture
Uh...buzz...yeh...
Unlike Metaspy (but similar to Google Zeitgeist), buzz.yahoo.com lists top Yahoo! searches. As of Tuesday August 17, "Olympics" was at the top but declining, "Britney Spears" was in 2nd, and "Avril Lavigne" (5) and "Lindsay Lohan" (10) were beating "Hilary Duff" (19). Rick James was nowhere on the list; apparently my hits are coming from a cult audience. (He's not even on the Music Searches list.)
And, of course, beach volleyball is the number 10 mover in the Sports category.
Some People Have a Way With Words
An article notes that some people believe that they have found a cave used by John the Baptist.
So how does Jimmy Akin refer to this cave? As the Baptistcave !
Now, if only John the Baptist had a sidekick. Wait a minute, he did .
ANDREW THE BOY WONDER: Holy Moses, Baptistman! Who's that coming to the river?
BAPTISTMAN (in overly serious Adam West voice): He will increase...and I will decrease.
This blog entry is sad, you see...
Empoblog Aurothots Neil Young "My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue)"
Neil Young plays Neil Young. (And he does the same on "Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)").
One of my favorite dimly-remembered SNL moments - Dana Carvey playing Neil Young preparing to perform for a Super Bowl in either Orlando or Anaheim. As you know, Super Bowl halftime shows have become spectacular displays ; in SNL's version, Neil was going to go out on the field with just an acoustic guitar and sing "The Mickey Mouse Song" to the tune of "My My, Hey Hey." Priceless.
Good line
OK, any post that references JibJab, Badger Badger Badger, and All Your Base is a post that will resonate in THIS head. However, the opening line is the classic:
Suing JibJab over using the tune and some lyrics of “This Land is Your Land” is like filing a class-action suit against grade-schoolers for using “The Birthday Song” to sing “You look like a monkey/And you smell like one too.”
Is My Favorite Artist on Tour?
Ticketmaster has a service which tells you whether your favorite artist is on tour at the moment.
As of today, Mindy McCready is not on tour, Brian Wilson is, and three Rick James tour dates have unfortunately been cancelled. George Jones is performing some casino dates, and Ticketmaster doesn't know who Nour Mehana is. Eddykin's favorite band Marillion will be touring the U.S. Bill Cosby is very busy, but Ringo Starr's taking it easy.
The Oxycontin Appreciation Society
From Fuseblog :
Well at least she's not the first to jump on the hillbilly heroin bandwagon...fellow stars Rush Limbaugh, Matthew Perry, Winona Ryder, Courtney Love and Jack and Kelly Osbourne have all received treatment for using the drug.
This suggests a really bizarre genetic experiment. Create an overweight shoplifting actor/musician who likes Oxycontin, Newt Gingrich, Warren Littlefield, Kurt Cobain, and Black Sabbath.
You Have to Know Your Counties
Although I have no way to verify its accuracy, Stacy's Music Row Report seems to indicate a knowledge of the territory:
Though MINDY McCREADY lives in Green Hills, if she forged an OxyContin prescription (receiving 90 pills), February 11 or 12th (depending upon your news source)...Mindy (don’t call her MALINDA) is fortunate that she chose to victimize a Brentwood drug store, rather than one closer to her two-bedroom Hillsborough Condominiums unit....This means the singer’s August 23rd hearing will be in Williamson County, rather than Davidson County, and that she will appear before Judge RUSS HELDMAN rather than some Nashville hangin’ judge....
If convicted of the Class D felony by the testimony of District 21 Judicial Task Force agents BAILEY GREENEWALT and CHRISTOPHER MOBLEY, as a first offender, Mindy will receive only probation. (A pharmacist tells me that the alleged crime would have gone unreported had the doctor whose name appears on t
Neil Young and Rick James
From the Toronto Star :
Self-styled funkmeister Rick James...once led a band in Yorkville with Neil Young on lead guitar....
The story begins in early 1965.
James arrived in Toronto from his native Buffalo at the age of 17 and formed a band called the Sailor Boys. The name was a nervy reference to his enlistment in the U.S. Naval Reserve, from which he went absent without leave....
In January, 1966...Young joined the Mynah Birds. He and James took an apartment together on Charles St. E. near Jarvis St., at about the time Young says James introduced him to speed....
With new gear and a higher profile, the Mynah Birds attracted interest from Motown Records. In March, 1966, the band went to Detroit for "five or six nights," Young recalled. They recorded 16 songs and signed a seven-year contract, a Motown first for a mostly white act.
Then James was busted for being AWOL and not answering the Vietnam draft. He served time, which at l
Borowitz Does It Again
A recent entry :
A new Republican-financed negative ad is accusing Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry of fleeing to Vietnam to avoid serving in the Alabama National Guard.
The ad, airing in most of the so-called battleground states, attempts to contrast Sen. Kerry’s alleged guard-dodging with the storied Alabama National Guard heroism of the Republican nominee, President George W. Bush.
In the ad, a narrator asks, “When the Alabama National Guard called young Americans to serve, where was John Kerry? Thousands of miles away, in Vietnam.”
I thought he was in Cambodia...
Information on the Rick James Burial
For the benefit of the hundreds of people that Yahoo! is directing to my site, I'm posting some information (originally cited by Jen ) on the Rick James funeral . No word on whether any of the family of Millard Fillmore attended.
Fans wanting to pay their respects to the funk legend and Buffalo native showed up for his funeral and waited hours in a line that stretched more than two city blocks.
(No, not that ).
Some 6,000 people filed past James' open casket in St. John Baptist Church. James, who went from the Perry projects to stardom, was as flamboyantly dressed in death as he was known to be in life....
By evening, the mourning subsided, and a celebration James would have been proud of took over at Martin Luther King Park. That's where many of the local musicians he helped paid tribute to James during a free concert.
"We come to praise the brother, not to bury him," the announcer told the crowd. "L
The other vacationers were a bit noisy...
To meet needs in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, a number of National Guard and Reserve troops have been called up and pressed into active duty. Despite a 1994 law designed to give Guard and Reserve troops their old jobs back, or provide them with equivalent positions, some troops have run into problems when returning home.
Larry Margasak of AP cites one example ( emphasis mine):
Reservists and guardsmen who returned to the Prince George's County government outside Washington, D.C., were among those who fell into a gray area.
The county required that they exhaust their leave before receiving a county salary supplement that bridged the gap between military and civilian pay. This meant some employees had to count some of their time in a war zone as vacation days or forfeit the extra pay.
A Little Humor in the OS Religious Wars
See the paper Microsoft Windows: A Lower Total Cost of 0wnership . This paper, prepared by Immunity Inc., asserts that "Microsoft Windows has one half of the Total Cost of 0wnership (TC0) of modern Fedora Core Linux based technologies." As the paper eventually states, "0wn" = "penetrate" (i.e. hack). In other words, it's easier to hack a Windows system.
They Make A Cute Couple
Charles Cameron constructs things called "DoubleQuotes." He recently linked Annie Jacobsen and Nour Mehana (see entry ). Ironically, I think I read that Nour Mehana was not on the flight.
I don't know that I'd go as far as Charles in saying that "I also find Ms. Jacobsen's image quite lovely, and can imagine the possibility that if she smiled at me, I might be a little shaken and not be able to meet her eyes." But to me she does look better than Wayne Newton.
Annie Jacobsen Does Write Other Stuff
Stop Sitting On Your Assets
If you own your home, ask yourself one question... Do I have a home equity line of credit? If the answer is no, it's time to run, not walk, to your favorite financial institution to discuss your options. If your home has appreciated in value since you bought it you're probably sitting on an untapped goldmine. By opening a line of credit using the equity in your home, you can consolidate debt, make home improvements, or just have a line of credit available in case you need it.
Mary Hunt has a different view:
...But first let`s get this home equity thing straight. That number whatever it is does NOT represent your money sitting in a bank somewhere just waiting for you to draw it out. It`s not money, it is a paper asset. And if you wish to have access to the equity there is a price to pay: You can either give up possession of the house or you find someone to lend you money using that equity as
Rick James Burial - He Will Be The Class Act In This Cemetery
From Capital News 9 :
Buffalo-born funk singer Rick James will be buried Saturday at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo following a funeral service.
James died in his sleep Friday at his home near Universal City, California. He was 56 years old.
There will be a public viewing from 11 a.m. to noon on Saturday at Saint John Baptist Church followed immediately by a funeral service. The burial will follow.
Rick James won't be the only famous person buried at Forest Lawn Buffalo:
On a gentle slope in Buffalo's Forest Lawn, overlooking Delaware Avenue and Park Lake, stand giant shade trees - silent sentinels surrounding and helping to keep ever sacred the burial place of MILLARD FILLMORE, outstanding Buffalonian, who became the thirteenth president of the United States of America.
The Millard Fillmore shrine is visited by thousands of people each year - folks from all the Americas as well as from distan
Look Now, Before This Disappears!
I was reading an entry in (it's the end of the world as we know it) andifeelfine.blogspot.com and was moved to search Google for the lifespan of a housefly. No, I didn't find the porn site, but I did find this entry at a UCSD website, which referenced the launch of the UK Web Archiving Consortium . The Consortium issued a statement which began as follows:
For many, the web has become the information source of first resort. From keeping abreast of latest news and accessing online journals and datasets, through to finding information about travel and sport, the web has become the information tool of choice.
However, despite our apparent dependence on this medium very little attention has been paid to the long-term preservation of websites. Indeed, with the life of an average website estimated to be around 44 days (about the same lifespan as a housefly) there is a danger that invaluable scholarly, cultural and scientific resources will
This One Can't Be Parodied
I could write another parody of an Annie Jacobsen article, but why bother when the originals are so rich?
It turns out that Women's Wear Daily Womens Wall Street has turned the Annie Jacobsen articles into a regular series. So far there are five installments. Here's an excerpt from installment 3, where our crusading reporter has a stimulating intellectual conversation with Dr. Imad Moustapha, the "United States Ambassador of Syria," who wrote a letter to the Washington Times .
I called Dr. Moustapha to ask him if he had some kind of specific information about the "harmless" men on my flight....
After introductory pleasantries, I asked Dr. Moustapha why his letter suggested that these 14 Syrians played at the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and the Julliard School, when according to my research, that's not at all the case.
Dr. Moustapha said Nour Mehana and his back-up band had not played there, but that
Wait a minute...you're saying that illegal immigration is ILLEGAL?
Interesting editorial - I'm only quoting a tiny piece of it:
Illegal immigration is like a plague to us; it infects and destroys everything it touches. Contrary to what the immigration race baiters would have people believe, almost all of us (save a few nuts) in these areas harbor no ill whatsoever toward those kind folks who come to America legally to live, work, and maybe become naturalized citizens. We admire what they went through to get here and make it. Many of us desire to and actively help them along in their pursuits. These folks exemplify the best about America....
I say in Texas we should try this alternative. Let’s take the Federal Government off the Texas/Mexico border for a while--just follow me here. Replace them with a heavily armed Texas National Guard. Something most non-Texans don’t know is that in Texas it is legal here to shoot trespassers. You don’t have to ask them off your prop
Erin Is My Heroine
(That rhymes...I like it.)
She's quoted from Dave Barry:
Newspapers are in trouble because the public perceives journalists as being more liberal than the average American. This view is based on a survey showign that in the 2000 presidential election between Al Gore and George W. Bush, 86 percent of newspaper journalists--a much higher percentage than the general population--voted for Stalin.
I'm just wondering who the other 41 percent voted for?
I chose the number 41 carefully. Add it up, and subtract 100.
This is sad...
It's sad that Known Knowns, Unknown Unknowns is apparently going on permanent hiatus (primarily because she's worried that too much personal information will come back to haunt her).
It's even sadder that my initial reaction was to dump most of my shares in the blog in my Blogshares portfolio.
It's even sadder that my one remaining share appreciated in value after I dumped the other 99.
They Come To Your House!
Will Campbell at blogging.la has written a story in which he rents "Birth of a Nation" from Netflix, and then discovers that his home is surrounded by pickets. Here's an excerpt:
Duly thwarted in my attempt to see D.W. Griffith's landmark "Birth of a Nation" Monday night at the Silent Movie Theatre by civil rights protesters...I decided I'd just order up the DVD from Netflix and satisfy my armchair cinema historian jones by watching it in the quiet picket-line-free comfort of my living room.
Or not. Somehow word got out, for when I arrived post-work yesterday afternoon there they were, the same people who were in front of the Fairfax Avenue theater Monday night and quoted in today's L.A. Times article about the show's cancellation. Carrying signs that read "Rationalize Censorship Now! Ask Us How!" and "We Violate Your Rights So You Don't Have To!" they marched back and forth along the side
Google Zeitgeist
Google has a page popularity of various search patterns, including the top 10 gaining queries and the top 10 declining queries.
For the week ending August 9, 1994, the top 10 gaining queries were:
1. mega millions
2. doom 3
3. rick james
4. mary kay letourneau
5. anastasia myskina
6. olympics
7. ralph fiennes
8. quincy carter
9. hurricane alex
10. lindsay lohan
For that same week, the top 10 declining queries were:
1. the village
2. jibjab
3. robert sorrells
4. democratic national convention
5. barack obama
6. jennifer love hewitt
7. alexandra kerry
8. lori hacking
9. big brother
10. amish in the city
Metaspy offers both filtered and unfiltered peeks at the search terms people are using. Here's a sample from the filtered version:
big plus
function and theory of 12v battery charger not shopping online
function and theory of 12v battery charger not shopping online
processed 100% plantago hydrocolloid
dallas 'deep elam
What did Shakespeare say about lawyers?
The latest William Nesler news:
Lawyer says no body, no case
Published: August 11, 2004
By AMY LINDBLOM
An attorney for William "Willie" Nesler wants the murder case against his client dismissed because the victim's body was cremated before defense investigators could examine it.
Brian Chavez-Ochoa, the Valley Springs attorney defending the 23-year-old Sonora man said that, without a body, the defense team has no chance to look for evidence that might exonerate Nesler....
Nesler, the prime suspect in the case, was on the lam for 11 days before turning himself in to a Sacramento bail bondsman the same day the Tuolumne County Sheriff's Department released the body to Davis' mother.
Rita Brown of Arnold had Davis body cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean last weekend.
Chavez-Ochoa said in most murder cases, the body is preserved by the coroner long enough for tests and an autop