One must give praise where it's due. Let's pay respect and acknowledge awe at the sheer power and strength of the man (GWB). He wreaked all that havoc in New Orleans and now, so soon thereafter, turns around and demonstrates anew his command over air and fire in California. It *is* all his doing, right? I wonder if he takes requests?

Labels: gwb, headlines, huh?, silliness

Not that it matters, but I'm curious. In the "ecosystem" that tallies visitors to blogs, I have pretty securely moved up the ladder two notches from where I used to be. I've assumed it had at least partly to do with quantity of visitors. What puzzles me is that the quantity has dropped about a third since the heyday of 3500-4000 a month and yet my category of visitorship has risen.

Labels: blogs (mine), huh?

I thought this was an April Fool's joke, somehow out of place in August's humid mid-summer heat. But no. Apparently "bad" cops in Bangkok, defined as those who break rules, will have to don armbands that display Hello Kitty. Although some might think this sounds silly or even funny or charming, it is suggested that Thai policemen will feel great shame at wearing the little cutie. (Hey, I'll be glad to wear one.) Incidentally, in case you're wondering, apparently the horrendously offensive behaviors include littering, parking in a prohibited area and arriving late. (Lousy miserable miscreants.) And there is some relief, by the way, in that punished armband-wearing officers won't have to wear the armbands in public. (Thank goodness.) What would the New York equivalent be, do you suppose?

Labels: headlines, huh?, silliness

I'm a big big fan of Daily Candy which, if you don't know it, is a perky and entertaining information service that tells readers about fashion, food, events, hotels, travel, services of many kinds, and just plain fun. Devotees check the website or, more likely, receive daily announcements about the city/cities of their choosing. There are separate dailies on New York City, DC, Boston, Paris, London, L.A., San Francisco, Seattle, Miami, Chicago, Dallas, and Atlanta. Anyway, it's often stuff you'd never ever scope out on your own and is often really fantastic. I totally recommend signing up.

My quibble, however, is that when they show designers or shops that sell handbags, more than anything else, the prices are absolutely insane. The other day they had a place that was having a supposed "blow out" sale. All excited, I went to look and nearly fell off my keyboard. The lowest price was $385. For a handbag. And today, there's a designer handbag site. One-of-a-kind (which made me leery). The lowest price I saw before I fainted dead away was $650. And that wasn't a tote, by the way, just a fairly normal size bag. Come on, Daily Candy, get real.

Labels: huh?, shopping

Oh goody. I got three spam comments over night. What the heck do people do it for, do you suppose?

Labels: blogs (mine), huh?

Some people have done it - blamed the Bridge of San Luis Minneapolis's collapse on George. But of course. Put the blame on Mame George, boys, put the blame on Mame George.

Labels: gwb, headlines, huh?, ridiculousness

On my way to a beading class this morning, I heard an amusing (well, maybe not) story about John Edwards. I definitely think he's on the convince-everyone-I'm-a-complete-idiot campaign plan, so it seems a shame to waste his time and ours, but I guess that's the nature of the beast. Apparently he came forward sometime in the last day or two to demand that Hillary return some donations to her campaign that from Rupert Murdoch. Edwards obviously loathes Murdoch (remember how he refused to take part in a televised debate because Murdoch's Fox was the broadcaster?). Aside from that fairly pointless waste of his energy, however, it's also hypocritical to a degree that's impossible to quantify.

The same guy who demands so self-righteously that Hillary keep her campaign free from this loathsome lucre last year published a book called Home that was published by guess who. HarperCollins. Okay, now guess who owns HarperCollins. You got it! The very same Rupert Murdoch who owns Fox and who donated to Hillary's campaign (which oddity is another subject altogether). So the North Carolinian master of gigantic jury awards, which raise their own serious ethical dilemma, published a book and was paid by and accepted an enormous advance from HarperCollins (three-quarters of a million dollars). Yes, he said he would donate profits of the book to charity but note the word "profits". But, first, keep in mind that his daughter and his assistant were paid, presumably from the "income" from HarperCollins and not from his own (ever so pure) pocket. But, also, be real: there would be many expenses (you know, mundane little things like distribution, publicity, electricity, postage, haircuts, etc.)? And has anyone actually bought the book? Have there actually been any profits? And, most important of all, how come he thinks he can get away with such a blatant display of how little he thinks of American voters that he thinks we'll neither notice nor care about bald-faced hypocrisy and outright lying?

Labels: headlines, huh?, politics

So apparently Mrs. Edwards is going to "sacrifice" herself by not eating (nor, presumably, buying) tangerines in order to avoid not-local fruit and therefore save carbon emissions excess that would result from transporting fruit (presumably from far, far away). Are there no locally grown tangerines? And what if zillions of us harkened onto the same idea? What would happen to the income for the people in the country/ies that export tangerines? Does the well-being of second, third and fourth world people matter less than wooing global warming voters? And does she (or even we as a whole entire nation) consume so many tangerines that it would make a carbon emission difference?

Laura's post on this mentions a couple of other points worth mentioning, ideas that lurk behind the whole eat-locally-grown-food topic, such as ever-encroaching nannyism and increasing taxes on various food items to cover carbon emissions costs. Who determines where those tax revenues go, however? I bet the go-ahead-and-increase-taxes-on-carbon-intensive-foods people wouldn't like their added monies to pay for things like the war in Iraq, now would they?!

Labels: headlines, huh?

The whole idea of carbon offsets strikes me as hokus-pokus. There may possibly be some logic to the "one earth" conviction behind it, in that all emissions of carbon dioxide into the air will effect everyone, everywhere on the planet. But the idea that an emitter can pay money to 'offset' emissions just seems to me like the tooth fairy in energy industry disguise.

The theory is that if you send out thousands of tons of the stuff but pay some specifically designated per-ton amount of money to a company whose mission is to do wonderful things to the earth's atmosphere, then the evilness of your emissions will be, if not exactly neutralized, then at least somewhat compensated for. Almost sounds plausible, right? But at the very beginning there seem to me to be two fundamental probelms: (a) how can you realistically and accurately measure carbon dioxide tonnage, (b) how can you realistically and accurately assess exchange rates for carbon dioxide and efforts to reduce CO2 emissions or produce wind power or whatever? Not to mention (c) how do you assure accountability of companies engaging in so-called offsetting and (d) how do you measure the efficacy of the so-called offsetting? None of this happened overnight and the atmosphere isn't just three or four cubic feet big, so it's not as if you can look in a can of air and see that it's ever so much cleaner once it's been wind-powered clean or whatever. Academy Awards presenters this year were given carbon offset credits, by the way, so they could fly gas-guzzling-and-CO2-emitting jets or produce movies and yet sending conscience-assuaging-CO2-offsetting funds to small towns in Africa. It's appallingly first-vs-fourth world, isn't it?

You could, of course, simply hook-line-and-sinker believe a company called NativeEnergy, one of the Gore-approved (and invested in, hmmm....) companies. They sell offsets at $12 per ton and claim they'll use offset income to generate wind-powered electricity in Alaska for 52 Alaskan villages (not 53 or 51 villages, you understand; 52; too darn bad about any others). If, like me, the whole idea of carbon offsets sounds really sketchy to you, read Steven Milloy's article, Carbon Offsets : Buyer Beware. Among other things he mentions is that Congress has begun investigating the carbon offset industry. Which seems astonishes me since I assume this Congress is jam-packed with offset believers. And even if the investigation is merely pro forma, some inconvenient (heh) facts are bound to come out. You don't suppose the carbon offset industry is so utterly ridiculous that even Congress realized it had to be publicly and officially examined before it got completely out of hand?

Labels: economics, huh?, politics, reflections

Laura who muses reports on an Australian news service article that says Winston Churchill is being dropped from basic history courses about World War II for ages 11-14 in the U.K. The news item says that "traditionalists" will be "aghast" but, to me, it's appalling to read that "Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi, Joseph Stalin and Martin Luther King have also been dropped from the detailed guidance accompanying the curriculum." Please tell me how one learns about the twentieth century without these figures??

A few years ago I read an article in my local (fairly small town) newspaper about D-Day that included the phrase "Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of Germany during World War II." I remember thinking that was absolutely absurd. I went around for several days saying things like "Adolf Hitler? Would that be the dry cleaner or the ice cream truck driver or the programmer or the Chancellor of Germany" and cracking myself up because of course one needn't explain who HE is. Shows what I know, apparently. I guess the world should expect a whole generation, soon, who don't know fundamental facts. So what IS taught about the twentieth century if it doesn't include major figures? It happened. That's that. Quick and easy.

Labels: history, huh?, schooling

Haven't parents travelling with babies, especially on a 90-minute commuter train, ever heard of bringing toys and food? What's wrong with people???! I know the effect of such negligence is cruel to the rest of us, but isn't it neglect and cruelty to the baby, too?

Labels: huh?, whining

Did anyone else notice that Paris Hilton looked relaxed and unphony when she walked out of jail last night? That may be the first genuine smile I've ever seen on her and she actually looked pretty.

I do have to say that I enjoyed one newsman's comments (Jonathan Hunt) in the wee hours (yes, I was awake and heard it my very own self):

This is a very different liberation of Paris than the one we all celebrated August 25, 1944. It may show how the culture has changed that we're now celebrating this liberation of a very different sort of Paris...

and his wry observations that Paris's mother left the windows open so the photographers could get unencumbered photos and that neither Paris nor her mother seemed to be wearing seatbelts but that it was unlikely the police would stop her because they wouldn't want to start this all over again.

Labels: celebrities, headlines, huh?

Barbara Walters turned down the post-jail Paris Hilton interview because it wasn't important enough - as opposed to the interview with the Menendez brothers?!?!?! Please somebody rescind Walters' press pass. Can you say disingenuous and b*&^%#t and oh for heaven's sake? I wonder what the real reason is.

Labels: celebrities, headlines, huh?

Two things I need explained, please: (1) what facts are so astronomically different than what we the public knows, that made a judge award custody (not shared custody, mind you, plain old everyday every day custody) of two children to David Hasselhoff, and (2) why it matters or we should care or anyone would be the least bit surprised that Elizabeth Hasselbeck doesn't think she and Rosie are friends.

Labels: celebrities, huh?, reflections

There's lots of noise in the msm and in the blogsphere about two related things. One is the James Cameron exposé of the supposed tomb of Jesus and his assertion that Jesus had children with Mary Magdelene. There's no reason why Jesus couldn't have fathered children but there is something awfully unlikely and foolish about Cameron being the one to make this determination. As The Anchoress points out, Jesus was perceived as a trouble-making rabble-rouser by his enemies and they would have been eagerly trying to find a way to prove to his followers that they had succeeded in killing him. They'd have looked high and low to find his tomb, leaving no stone unturned if you'll pardon the phrase, so doesn't it seem awfully unlikely that it took two thousand years and the less-than-intellectual director of schlocky romance/adventure films to find this tomb and 'evidence'?

In addition to Cameron, there is Mr. A.Gore. I mean, whatever may or may not be true of global warming, why is it that he believes it is he who is the annointed one to sonorously admonish everyone to drive slower and walk when we can and use less electricity? And why do his admonitions not apply to his family and himself but only to the great unwashed rest of us? My general thought today is that some people take themselves a tad too seriously. And that the rest of us have to remember to listen and block out the noise, and watch behind and around the spotlights before deciding what we think is true and important.

Labels: headlines, huh?

A friend of mine pointed out today that astronauts are trained to go to the bathroom in their clothes, while doing other things, so maybe that particular aspect of Lisa Nowak's nutty behavior - far from being a further indication of her instabilty, is really a demonstration of how well trained (pun sort of intended) she is. Not a bad point. I mean, can you imagine how hard it would be to pee and drive??!

Labels: huh?, silliness

(Update: There are some interesting comments after this, including Texas Scribler's factual and logical explanation (much more so than my rant) of the SMU / Bush Library mess.)

Those who would follow he who is in the White House now had best remember that some people, once pissed off, become bees and carpenter ants and wasps only thinly disguised as adult human beings. They swarm and buzz ever louder once they feel their tiny piece of entitlement slipping away. Anyway, those noted today, are (some?) methodists who are proclaiming their disaffection for putting Bush-43's library at SMU. Gosh, why? you ask, isn't that where Laura Bush quite successfully got her undergraduate degree? Well yes it is. But these people say that they don't want the library there because GWB isn't living up to methodist principles, among which they mention that he isn't steadfastly avoiding war. Excuse me? Since when are methodists pacifists? Of course, what they mean is that they're jumping on the bds bandwagon because they're annoyed at him for not sticking hook-line-and-sinker to the agenda they wanted and expected him to follow. They'll show him, oboyoboy. Anyway, bottom line what's really being shown - as fanatical middle-easterners demonstrate and to which women can hold only a tiny proverbial candle - is that hell hath not one recognizable bit of fury like a scorned religious zealot.

Labels: gwb, huh?, hypocrisy

I've written here about conspiracy theories and how utterly wild they can be, and now Victory Soap has linked to a darn-near comprehensive list which is more than a little unsettling when you consider that more than one loon believes many if not all of them. It would be knee-slappingly, hilariously funny if it wasn't so scary. Furthermore, since there's a bunch of skepticism in all of us, understandably and correctly, once these ideas start wiggling into your head you have to start beating them down lest they start to have some gravitas.

Labels: huh?, politics

There was a report of a gas odor in Manhattan today. I am relieved to know that someone - anyone - is paying attention to this since I reported it on Friday and everyone told me I was imagining things. Evidentally I was not smelling my own perfume gone bad, eh? More to the point, the explanation is obviously not the goofy ones they're putting forth partly because if it's the smellable element added to natural gas then it's natural gas (duh). Whatever it is, it's probably not harmful since, as I know, it's been going on for three-four days, no matter what they say.

Labels: huh?

How the HECK does Kofi Annan have the gall to call American policy in Iraq hypocritical??! What kind of logic allows him to look at himself in the mirror and keep a straight face while sneering at anyone considering the highlights of his term as Secretary-General at the UN: horrors in Darfur (about which he has said and done nothing), massacres in the Balkans (about which he has said and done nothing), massacres in Rwanda (about which he has said and done almost nothing), the Oil-for-Food ridiculousness (with this son by his side) (about which he has said and done very little), etc., etc. And do not forget that the UN, also on Annan's watch, sanctioned Iraq quite thoroughly but then, under his 'leader'ship, turned on its collective heel when the US decided to put teeth into the sanctions. What a hypocritical, lying, smug man.

Labels: huh?, politics