Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Helo, John and Kevin
Will the three of you please drop me an e-mail at drmwstr - at - gmail - dot - com, as soon as you can, please?
Sorry to revert to this method, but if I had any other method of contacting you, I would use it.
UPDATE: Helo, I got your mail and I’ve replied, but if you haven’t gotten it by the time you read this, you need another e-mail address, because the domain isn’t working for some reason.
Final UPDATE: Haven’t heard from Kevin, but I have a definite address for him anyway. You other two, check your e-mail.
That is all! 
Clear Liquids
Ugh, if you haven’t had the stomach flu, I would recommend doing everything you can to avoid it. It’s had me knocked-out since early this morning, and I can finally handle a nice cup of chicken broth twelve hours later.
This happened to me back in ‘02, and it was just as miserable of an ordeal. It took me about a week to get over the nausea that comes when you see, smell, or even think about food. Anyone have any suggestions as to how to get back to normal? Apparently clear liquids - as much of them as you can handle - prevent the dehydration that causes the headaches, body aches, and general disarray that accompanies this darned bug.
Update: I just found out that you should definitely avoid green tea. Well, unless you like vomiting.
Update: It’s about twelve hours later, and I feel a little bit better. Since I was laying down in bed for the vast majority of the time, I now have a neck-ache. Drum suggested stale 7-Up, which did a great job, and ginger ale was also suggested. My parents used to give me ginger ale when I had a stomach ache when I was a kid, and it worked wonders. Unfortunately, there’s none in the house, and I don’t feel like making a voyage to the nearest store to grab some.
Watching ‘The Aristocrats’
I don’t know if any of you ever bothered to watch this movie when it was in the theaters - and judging by the numbers, you probably haven’t - but it is a bunch of comedians being interviewed about what is possibly the most hilariously offensive (offensively hilarious?) joke imaginable.
It is an old Vaudeville joke, usually told only among comedians as a means of keeping their minds sharp and their wit caustic.
The joke reflects a lot of the comedian, too, since the only thing the various versions have in common are the basic set-up and the punchline. The taboos that the comedian is trying to violate are all his own. As Penn Jillette puts it, “It’s the singer, not the song”.
The mimed version was hilarious.
If you’ve never heard the joke before, you can find some versions (submitted by the public, so I do not vouch for their humor levels) here. Be warned, I don’t think there is anything that is visually hazardous to work, but the written descriptions will almost certainly be NSFW. As the tagline for the movie says, “No Nudity No Violence Unspeakable Obscenity”.
Also, if you are easily offended, you should avoid the link. (But if you are easily offended, what the hell are you doing here?!?)
Monday, November 28, 2005
How come nobody reminded me?
It’s Monday, and I forgot all about yesterday being Sunday.
Which meant that it was time for Sunday Share #2.
This time, it’s Boston’s “It’s Easy”, from their “Don’t Look Back” album, way back when in ‘78.
Hey, Mom!
I’m gonna be sitting next to the Queen!
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Casey’s Mom signed some books
Doo-dah, doo-dah.
You should go and take a look
Oh, de doo-dah day.
Bwahahahaha!
{h/t Tim of 4RWWs}
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Freegans: We’re Disease-Ridden Dirtbags
Something that always amazed me about liberals around the world is that they totally disregard the fact that many of their actions can lead to disease. Promoting habits such as unprotected sex (heterosexual and homosexual) via the “free love” model, pushing for sexual relationships amongst all age groups, as well as their war against the pesticides that kill the bugs that spread all sorts of horrible infections and bacteria are just a few that come to mind. However, I’m going to add another one to my list of nastiness, as a group who call themselves Freegans have now made a home in the liberal whackosphere.
THE Thanksgiving holiday is over and the frenzied Christmas shopping season has begun. This is bonanza time for the tribe of rummaging Americans known as “freegans”.
The anti-capitalist freegans — the name combines “free” and “vegan” — are so appalled by the waste of the consumer society that they try to live on the leftovers, scavenging for food in supermarket dustbins.
“It’s fun. It’s a thrill. It’s more fun and more satisfying than just going to the store and saying, ‘I wanted some bread and I got it’. It’s the surprise — and the prize,” said Janet Kalish, a New York high school teacher who describes herself as “60 per cent freegan”.
A 1997 study by the US Department of Agriculture estimated that the US wastes about 43 billion kilograms of food a year. That is about 27 per cent of US production, but the true figure is as much as 50 per cent, according to ten years of research by Timothy Jones at the University of Arizona.
“The No 1 problem is that Americans have lost touch with what food is for,” Professor Jones said. “We have lost touch with the processes that bring it to the table and we don’t notice the inefficiency.”
The freegan philosophy of “ethical eating” argues that capitalism and mass production exploit workers, animals and the environment.
Adam Weissman, a freegan activist and sometime security guard in New Jersey, says freeganism grew out of the radical 1960s “yippie” movement but also has affinities with the hobos of the Great Depression who travelled around the country by stealing rides on the railways.
“I have pity for people who have not figured out this lifestyle,” he said. “I am able to take long vacations from work, I have all kinds of consumer goods, and I eat a really healthy diet of really wonderful food: white asparagus and cactus fruit, three different kinds of mushrooms and four different kinds of pre-cut salad. And I’m just thinking of what is in my refrigerator right now.
And I’m just thinking about what’s in my garbage right now. When I was pushing the can to the street the other day, I knocked it over and everything came spilling out. At the bottom was a pile of mush that I couldn’t even recognize, and crawling all over the mush was a bunch of maggots. I clean out my trash, yard waste, and recycling bins at least once every two weeks. I do that because they begin to smell, and as you can see by the fact that worms were growing on something that I didn’t even know I threw away, trash cans of all makes and models aren’t exactly the cleanest things in the world. I’m willing to bet that most people don’t clean their trash cans as much as I do, and you couldn’t pay me enough to eat something that was hanging around in a trash can for any period of time.
Where I come from, people who eat out of trash cans don’t have a trendy name. We simply call them bums.
Update: It seems that Lisa Koppenjan agrees with me:
Freegans pooh-pooh the notion of private property and see “the pressure to maintain employment in order to purchase commodities and pay for necessities like food and shelter as a form of oppression.” And this whole time I had thought the guy a couple years back who was using our Arcata property as his outhouse (disappearing into the backyard in the early hours of the morn, newspaper in hand, emerging after some time sans newspaper and a spring in his step) was inconsiderate. Silly me, he was just fighting oppression.
Exactly.
Friday, November 25, 2005
Quick question
Given that Iran has made its intentions regarding nuclear weapons quite clear - they have done everything but assemble one on international TV - would the US be justified in conducting Iraq-esque regime change?
Or do we have to wait until a nuke goes off in Tel Aviv?
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Some of you may have noticed…
I put a new box over in the left column, reading “Islamic Terrorists have carried out more than ‘X’ number of deadly terror attacks since 9/11”. It is kept up to date by the nice people over at The Religion Of Peace. I saw one of their ads a few weeks ago, and followed it, but the other day I got curious and sent them an e-mail:
I love your efforts to point out how “peaceful” Islam really is. I have a question, though. How many consecutive days has their been a death caused by Muslims? Phrased another way, how long ago was it when you had a day without a death to add to your list? (I’ll be generous and specify “death” not just “injury”, since I’m looking to make a point
They very kindly responded within just a few hours:
Thanks for the encouragement! I really can’t tell you what the streak of consecutive days is. We are averaging about two or three incidents a day, and there is a lot that we don’t catch, and some that we just choose not to include.
Quite honestly, you wouldn’t be wrong to say that Islamic violence happens everyday. We make that claim ourselves, even if we aren’t compelled to scrape the bottom of the barrel each day just to prove it.
Glen
Editor, TROP
I’m staggered.
I’d love to see any information on how many religious “disagreements” (to put it politely) currently happening on this sorry planet involve the so-called “Religion of Peace”, because the only Peace I’ve seen them bring is when the word gets chiseled into granite, preceded by the words “Rest In”.
You should go read the latest weekly column, about NBC and some of its “Let’s kiss Islam’s ass and make white males the agressors against the poor downtrodden and muchly put-upon Muslims, who only wanted to get along”, first on Law & Order, then on E-Ring.
Dramas typically advertise their plots as “ripped from today’s headlines,” but in this case the writers must have then engaged in some creative scissors and glue work to come up with a banner fit for the Bizzaro Gazette (the only place where Muslims live in fear of Christian terrorist groups).
In the real world, of course, Muslims are the ones staging deadly attacks not only on churches and synagogues, but also rival mosques. On the very day that the NBC episode aired - November 16th - Islamic terrorists managed to kill Buddhists, Shiites, Sunnis, Christians and Hindus in separate terror attacks - and it wasn’t even a particularly eventful day (other than the fact that they somehow overlooked the Jews).
As for the “Christian radicals"… (deep yawn)… we did a Web search for the whole year and couldn’t find even a single fatality linked to such an extremist group on the entire planet. An American mosque apparently has about the same chance of suffering a deadly invasion by “Christian radicals” as it does being swallowed by a giant lizard - which might make for a more credible E-ring scenario the next time around.
That’s why I put them in my left column, and they will be a regular stop from now on…
Happy Thanksgiving!!
From the Cross Family.....John (that’s me), Martha, Brenna (7), and Bridgid (6)....have a great Thanksgiving.
UPDATE from Drumwaster: Rather than just duplicate a new entry, I’m just going to ride on John’s coattails and wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving. Please keep all of those who have to work today - military, fire, police, doctors and nurses, and all the rest - in your prayers this day, because they are there so that you and I don’t have to be.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Regeneration
I consider myself to be a science buff, even though I barely made it through basic physical science in high school, and purposely chose a major in college that went light on both math and science. However, the industry itself amazes me, and I spend hours a week reading articles and journals related to the subject.
My question of the night involves whether my fellow fact checkers in the blogosphere can either confirm or deny this tidbit of information I came across:
A very interesting point is the following: In humans below 12 years of age, a torn-off finger will *invariably* fully regrow, if and only if it’s torn off beyond the outermost crease of the outermost joint.. If only a small part of the finger is torn off, it will not regrow: The signal for regeneration is not given.. This signal is also not given when the wound on the finger is neatly closed by a flap of skin: Regeneration doesn’t occur then. Several hospitals now follow the regeneration procedure: They sometimes even cut off an extra part and purposely “neglect” the wound.
I don’t know if it’s true or not, but either way, I find it absolutely fascinating. I have no problem admitting that I’ve been had and taken for a ride pending the comments this post will receive.
Promised Essay
We have been discussing the China question for a few days here….I touched on the subject before…both as it relates to Iraq and to our future as a world power.
Well…let’s look at the realities and the strategic implications. Nothing is off the table. The two heavyweights, facing off against each other.
Well….let’s get something out in the open right now….it would be madness for the United States to invade China, as it would be suicidal for the Chinese to invade the United States. Penetration of a homeland would probably be the least-likely scenario, because both nations have too much to lose. So, we are going to start this essay with the most probable scenario….that being Taiwan.
I think tonight….
...that I will address the whole China/USA war scenario that seems to have been brought up by my entry yesterday.
I’ll do that later. Hopefully, I’ll have it done by 10:00 EST or so. Stay tuned, though....I’d like to have a lot of readers and comments.
If you have anything that you’d like addressed specifically, hit up the Comments in this entry and I’ll address those items in my diatribe...er...entry this evening.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Oh….lookie here!
Look what our allies say:
“The governor said the U.S. military could not counter a wave of millions of Chinese soldiers prepared to die in any onslaught against U.S. forces. After 2,000 casualties, he said, the U.S. military would be forced to withdraw.”
Thank you, Leftists. Thank you, Democratic Party.
This is the reward for your political maneuvers. Our allies know that we will flee after a couple thousand casualties.
Thank you. What has happened to the Democratic Party that had the will to fight the First and Second World Wars?
It is long, friggin’ gone. Long gone.
Thanks.
Answering the troop question…..
....with some numbers that everyone should hearken to:
746,220--This was the manpower of the United States Army (not including inactive reserves) in 1990
471,663--This was the manpower of the United States Army (not including inactive reserves) in 2000
604,562--This was the manpower of the United States Navy in 1990
373,910--This was the manpower of the United States Navy in 2000
400,051--This was the manpower of the USAF in 1990
357,777--This was the manpower of the USAF in 2000
196,652--This was the manpower of the Marines in 1990
172,641--This was the manpower of the Marines in 2000
All the figures are from the World Almanac, 2004
Now, that represents a drop of 37% for the Army, 39% for the Navy, 11% for the Air Force, and 12% for the Marines...all at a time when the population of the United States as a whole grew by 13%. As a whole, the military ended up slimmed down over the preceeding 10 years by an astounding 30%. It is also important to keep in mind that troop strength increased in 1991 because of Desert Shield/Desert Storm, so the drop between 1992-2000 was more steep than these numbers actually show.
Um....who was the architect of this? Who? Well, yeppers! Bill Clinton!
Can someone tell me how we can put any more troops in Iraq while fighting a world-wide war on terror? Can someone explain how we can magically manufacture troops out of nothingness? We are actually growing the military right now, as it is larger than it was in 2000 (Army is up by 25,000, Navy by 7,000, USAF by 16,000, and Marines by 7,000), but we’re not in a position to put 300,000 troops in Iraq. Period. Why? Because of the troop drawdowns made by a near-sighted, leftist-leaning Administration.
Were not Murtha and McClain both in the Congress during the 10 years that American military power was drawn and quartered? Why didn’t they do something about it, if only because, as veterans, they should have known that there is always a need for a strong military. Oh, because maybe they were too busy ignoring the fact that we had been at war with the terrorists through the whole 90’s?
Just a thought.