Rush to Justice

The wheels of justice a can move slowly like a millstone. Just think of Ken Lay. Although if it grinds thoroughly few can complain. Well, maybe, sometimes.

Yet in the case of Rush Limbaugh's plea bargaining 30 thousand dollars and a$30-a-month pre-trial diversion fee, I want to salute him for the best lawerying since OJ. And, in hommage, I dedicate this song with its groovy special effects to his stalwart stand of proving drug use is not a social anathema...




I was thinking of including freeper quotes but they were so idiotic and devoid of understanding the law that they thought he was innocent of the charges. I did not want to subject anyone to that line of thinking. I feel soiled even going there.

Good News: web-surfing at work is OK

You won't be fired, at least not in New York Web-surfing worker can't be fired:

Saying surfing the web is equivalent to reading a newspaper or talking on the phone, an administrative law judge has suggested that only a reprimand is appropriate as punishment for a city worker accused of failing to heed warnings to stay off the Internet.

Administrative Law Judge John Spooner reached his decision in the case of Toquir Choudhri, a 14-year veteran of the Department of Education who had been accused of ignoring supervisors who told him to stop browsing the Internet at work.

There is nothing in the descion that allows for blogging from work.

If you can get away with it, go for it....

Techie Tuesday: The Hula Chair

Via The Red Ferret Journal I found the Hula Chair for only $199.95. which has the following benefits:

The chair has used the brand-new health-keeping ideas,perfectly integrated the classical tradition Chinese medicine and incorporated sports,body-building and body xxxxx can strengthen the function of your intestines.stomach and waist so as to remotivate your vigor and xxxxx motor-drive hula chair.which has been designed with the advanced principles of medicine,physics,physilolgy and human system engineering makes sports easy and simple and can keep you strong and healthy without your stepping out of the house,it has swiffly friggered a mass fervor in the Republic of korea,Japan,USA,Europe with its brand-new ways of sports and remarkable effect.

The Quintiple 'X" made think it was NSFW. So this must be the answer to the question of the day: Do you need a $500 vibrator.

Decider-in-Chief meets spud

What happens when a D-i-C is crossed with a potato?

"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier - just so long I'm the dictator." December 18, 2000

Sign of the apocalyspe

Maybe it's like Lambert points out:

The high price of oil is sparking inflaction [sic] fears.

Yet it's when I hear of things like DEVO 2.0 that I know the world is really ending.

Or as Demonbaby says:

For a healthy span of my teenage years, Devo was the greatest band in the world. Sure, by the time I discovered them their heyday had already come and gone, but to me it was new and exciting. At a time when the airwaves were dominated by the post-Nirvana onslaught of generic "alternative" bands, the quirky synth-pop treasures of the late seventies and early eighties became a haven for me and my friends. While our peers were choking on the latest musical turds from Bush and Stone Temple Pilots, we were listening to Gary Numan, Brian Eno, The Talking Heads, and of course, Devo. With Devo it wasn't just the music but also the image, and the message, and the presentation. There was no modern equivalent of a band that dressed up in radiation suits and played keyboard guitars and made bizarre promotional movies about the themes of their music. Their message of social de-evolution and their satyrical take on pop consumerism became the perfect soundtrack to my disaffected anti-everything teen angst phase - and since I never really got out of that phase, they remain one of my favorite bands to this day.

Juvenile, disneyfied-blasemphy is the end of the world.

It can't be age....

Bad, bad blogger...

I originally set this up to post almost a week ago. Left it rotting in the draft section.

Spring brake...
I didn't mean to slow down on the posting here but priorities have been skewed. Work and getting outside have taken precedence lately. That and reading books.

Currently my latest commute read is, The GoodLife, by Jay MacInerny.

I saw him at a book signing affair awhile back (boss made me go) where MacInerny shared this latest story/insight about 9-11. It's from a New Yorker's perspective.

I'm enjoying it, although it has many of the traits are so East Coast - prep schools, vacations in the Hamptons and references to NYC glitterati. Strangely enough that make it enjoyable in the sense of a removed socialologist listening to tribal tales of one who has an inkling understanding.

Vaguely it reminds me of Bonfire of the Vanites but without the pompous code, "I'm a New Yorker Bulshit." To explain, I once knew this model guy back when I was in Tokyo whose pitchto every girl was, "New York is the coolest place to be. It's so cool. Oh, did I mentioned I'm from New York?"

There, I've stated my West Coast prejuduce. Yet this story comes alive and is believable in how theyd shaped their lives around the disaster. How they deal with it and somehow find new love and dissatisfaction in turbelent times. Is cheating or finding your true self, maybe it is just age old cheating...

Haven't finished the story so I don't know what to think ....This is not a book reprot!

Well,I finished the story. I'm not completely satisfied with the turn of events at the end. It could be that the writer has his charcters find that nothing has really changed since 9/11; they resort (after soul-searching)to be true to character yet with new-found altrustic overtones.

But what the hell do I know about being a New Yorker?

Techie Tuesday: Lazy Drinker

Actually it should be call the lazy bartender or, "Hey look, I've got my laptop hooked up to the cooler."

This swank device should be the hit at any tailgate party. Hopefully you have a wi-fi connection as well - just in case there is call for a drink you've never heard of before and you need a programmable cocktail maker:

The dispenser can hold 16 bottles as well as ice, but you need your own CO2 bottle and PC with serial interface.

The dispenser comes with software that allows you to select the cocktail of your choice, and you can even fine tune the ingredients to make your own variation of your favourite cocktail. The controlling software has a database of over 5000 drinks, and I’m sure it could be a lifetime’s work to sample them all.

You can buy it ready made or get the do-it-yourself kit from fine folks at Lazy Drinker.com.

Not for Everyone

Good Friday quote of the day:

This is very special to these people. It is something they do to get closer to God, not something that should be cheapened,” he said “I tell you, it really hurts having nails driven through your hands. Your arms are strapped up and they put alcohol on them and then bang in the nail.

Still my favorite story is this guy with 3 nails and two hands...

Techie Tuesday: The Walrus

Courtesy of DARPA
The US Army contemplates building an aircraft the size of a football field:

The military offers society many innovations –unlimited budgets buy cubic brainpower to dissolve massive problems – this is the good that comes from such intensive endeavours as war. This is the positive to the negative known as collateral damage. Call it collateral betterment … spontaneous transformation of the way we do things. Before September 11, the US military budget was in the vicinity of US$500 billion, and it’s now a LOT more.

And with a few years of very high budget requirements under the American public’s belt, and no end in sight, everybody is looking for a better, more efficient, way of running its own “virtual nation” of soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Lots more money is required and the US Military is seeking the most effective and judicious uses of its budget. One of the biggest, most complex and most costly aspects of the wars in far off countries is logistics. America has 140,000 soldiers on the ground in Iraq and 10,000 in Afghanistan and needs to police around 171,599 square miles, (444,439 square kilometers) of Iraq and 251,825 square miles (652,225 square kilometers) of Afghanistan. Not only did it move that number of troops from American soil to the respective countries, it also needed to take its entire military-strength infrastructure with it.

The American Military is a travelling nation – it needs not just to transport the nation’s citizens (the soldiers), but hundreds of small towns and a few cities – almost exactly the same number as there are towns or cities in Iraq. Including the fabled Baghdad.

It must also supply its own air, water and ground transportation infrastructure, its own Mercedes class of customer service and spare parts network for the transportation, and its own town amenities (water, power, sewerage, food), and housing, security, administration … to a military, mess-it-up-and-people-will-die standard in the most hostile environment possible.

There is much more to this article which should be read in full.

Otherwise, just humm along:

Semolina pilchard, climbing up the eiffel tower.
Elementary penguin singing hari krishna.
Man, you should have seen them kicking edgar allan poe.
I am the eggman, they are the eggmen.
I am the walrus, goo goo g’joob g’goo goo g’joob.
Goo goo g’joob g’goo goo g’joob g’goo.

GOP California dreamin'...

As native born Californian I find this thought provoking, if not, a bit downright frigthtful commentary from Outrated Citizen:

California, with its 55 electoral votes, is a prize the GOP has lusted after for years. The Golden State has voted Republican before, sending two of its Republican governors to the White House, and rumors fly of efforts to change the Constitution in order to send another. But even without a presidential candidate from California, the state's electoral votes are worth spending time and money to pursue. And if they can't be won through the persuasion of Think Tanks and charismatic candidates, perhaps they can be won with the help of corrupt energy companies, recalls, rigged elections, and smear campaigns. It makes no difference to the radical Republicans currently in charge of the party. These men and women of very little conscience will lie, cheat and steal to win, because winning is all that matters. Governing wisely, protecting the common good, and preserving our democracy certainly don't seem to matter.

Winning California appears to be the top Republican priority for 2006 and 2008. They put Florida securely in their pocket with the 2000 presidential election, and they locked up Ohio in 2004. They know they'll never get New York, so they really aren't trying there. They don't even have a viable Republican Senatorial candidate running against Hillary Clinton. But California is a different story. California could possibly be flipped with a combination of propaganda and manipulation of elections, especially now that it has a Republican Governor and Secretary of State. (And I haven't even mentioned the influence of the growing number of mega-churches in California.)

California is the current battleground and the next battle is the 2006 election. With their lock on the Southern states, as well as Florida, and Ohio, all Republicans need is California to ensure control of the federal government indefinitely. And if California turned red, the next Republican presidential candidate could stop worrying about troublesome states like Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Iowa. In addition, the party could kiss off the entire Northeast, which they have probably wanted to do for a long time.

If the Democratic Party doesn't realize that and get as much money and as many volunteers as possible out here to defeat the Republican Governor and Secretary of State in 2006, by margins so large even rigged voting machines can't determine the outcome, they might as well forget about the presidency in 2008.

As goes California, so will go the nation.

Many of my friends think we are immune from the 'Red State' mania gripping the so-called heartland. We feel secure in the thought that shit can't happen here. We're for live and let live. Yet the home of FreeRepublic.com is based in California, Fresno to be exact. Our progressive voting patterns are clustered along the coast and major urban population centers. There is the rest of the state that listens to Talk Radio on those long drives along Hwy 5.

The Schwarzenegger crowd is bringing in DC heavyweights to fight this battle. They'll promise to be moderate but will eventually be just as reactionary as the DeLay crowd, actually they're all of the same ilk.


And if they win, if big business wins, they'll soon be saying serfs up....

(via Smirking Chimp)

Many Bibical Scholars Believe...

That Fitzmas should be correctly celebrated in the Spring, around the time of Fitzster.

(Hey, is this dog-whistle working? I don't hear anything...)

DeLayed Reaction

Tom is gone, gone, gone, I don't know if I'm happpy, I don'tknow if I'm sad...that he didn't get frog marched out.

Time shares this incedulous guote:

"I don't care what history writes, " he continued. "What I care about, what's important to me is who I am, what I've done and what I can accomplish in the future. What I care about it what I believe in and how I conduct myself in fighting for what I believe in."

C'mon Tom. It's what you've done is what has got you into all this trouble. History will villify you for what you've done. I doubt you you'll accomplish much in the future unless you mean 'stay out of jail.' As far as your conduct in fighting for what you believe in, you can now join the illustrious ranks of discredited leaders who bemoan the fact they got caught and have tried to validate their actions by claiming the ends justify the means.

In former days honorable men would fall on their swords, maybe that's why they took your gun permit away...