Regies

MEAT AND POTATOES: our weaponry of choice this weekend in Orlando. Handcrafted and cooked to demolish the competition. Running, catching, throwing, and marking. 40 yards of hell.

New Chancellor of the Smithsonian Institute!

I hate to say I told you so. No, I hate to be able to say I told you so. Wilkommen et bienvenue to our newest Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts...may you exceed my expectations. Yet, I'm not really sure what to think of you actually considering you refused to answer many questions during your hearings.

The post title is to illuminate one of the lesser known roles of the Chief Justice. Other duties include presiding presidential impeachment hearings in the Senate. Conspiracy Theorist Bonus Round: Will President Bush do something really really really bad (worse than what he's already done) and have an impeachment trial?

I'm Gonna Git You (wit mah) Sucka!

Architeuthis! That name has been the lifelong foe of many a pirate, given nightmares to Jacques Cousteau and sushi chefs alike, and vindicated Robert Kingsley (who believed in it all along). Yeah I'm talking giant squid! How giant? 25 feet long. Recently one was photographed in the wild for the first time ever--near the Bonin Islands of Japan at a depth of 900 meters--not 20,000 leagues.
Here's a picture of it attacking some bait. Some squid bait! Oh yeah, these touchy feely mothers are cannabalistic too. What more could you ask of from an elusive and murky killer of the ocean depths? Attachable arms...its Stretch Armstrong AND Mr. Potato Head in one. While it rassled with its bait an arm got stuck. So it just jetisoned the 18' thang. Much to the scientists delight, the arm was still functioning and attached when they reeled in the rope. Creepy!

Anyways, Architeuthis, we are glad you are alive! Hip hip hooooooray! (another two post day!)

"Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation"

Ah, the state motto. How wondrous it resounds in my ears. While the Orpheus rufus flies its way through the branches of the Quercus virginiana to land near a few gorgeous specimens of Rosa laevigata, it might whistle out a grand ol' tune by Stuart Gorrell. While I meander down the great causeways of Atlanta, listening to my radio, I might whistle out the following to two very interesting people in our state government:
..-. / ..- / -.-. / -.- / .. / -. / --. / .. / -.. / .. / --- / - / ... / !
Sure it might not be as catchy as a Kanye West beat, but its got soul.

I speak of course firstly of Zell Miller(video link). He's crazy. I'll leave it at that.

Equally crazy, it seems, is Sonny Purdue. Recently he declared two snow days for all schools to help protect against possible fuel shortages caused by Hurricane Rita. Think of the fuel it saves! Oh...they are going to make up the school days? Maybe by then everyone will have traded in their hummers and all school buses will be running on natural gas.

Reasons why this is dumb mcdummyums.

• the aforementioned fuel will be used later anyways
• the fuel supply is running fine into Georgia anyways, as Rita didn't have the worst-feared impact
• thousands of families had to scramble for childcare for their kids over the weekend and spend unecessary money on it
• fuel prices come before education? The Daily Show is right - its a perfect example of the new ECLB initiative. Every Child Left Behind
• it gives us further incentive to remember other dumb school closings, like 1-2 inches of snow that have melted by the time the actual declared "snow day" rolls around
• kids not in school are using a whole heck of a lot more gas than the buses would driving places or having their parents drive them places
• teenagers do things, or other things, or even other things (I hope not this) while not in school or under the supervision of adults who can't get off work

So next time you look at this image...

think about your Georgia state motto - well, the last word of it I 'spose. Yes, its debatable whether these school buses could have been used to evacuate people in New Orleans (logistics of drivers, clear roadways, getting people to the buses, how many actually work, and possibility of commandeering them from the private company that owns them). However, its not debatable whether the Georgia school buses could be used. And they should have.

Links provided in this post were for humor's sake. I'm serious about the topic...but as you know, I always maintain a small kernel of rascaltude.

Up Close and Fur-sonal.

Well here they are. Part of my double post for today. Closeups make them look cute, but not as cute as they are in person. I present to you my dogs.Sesto - New Guinea Singing Dog (NGSD). The elder stateswoman of the house. 4ish years old.


Janus - dalmation mix. The new recruit - a crazy loose cannon on the police force. 1yr +

Eddie Cocker?

Pass this on to yer family and friends....even enemies if you are into fighting hate with love.

The olde mother, as she is wont to do, has forwarded me another e-mail for my perusal. This one caught my eye however...The National Do Not Call List. Apparently cell phone numbers are going to be released to telemarketers in about a month, and we'll be charged with costs just like any other cell call. While I don't have any problem with individual telemarketers--the companies that hire them are evil entities fit to be exterminated. So please login here to register your phones. For your enjoyment here's a typical conversation. I'm in blue.

*ring ring*

Hello?

Hello?

Hello?

Uh yes, is Mr.....Cocker there?

Yes, this is him.

Hello Ed Cocker, this is Thomas from Pigeon Forge Travel. Have you ever been to Pigeon Forge before?

Yes, I've driven through there a couple of times, but I'm probably never going to go back there.

Great! So you've seen our town. Well we have several packages for weekend getaways we'd love to offer you.

I just said I'd never go....well anyways I'm busy for the forseeable future playing ultimate frisbee all weekend long.

...... ....... How about the last weekend in October? The leaves are beautiful here. Have you ever been to Dollywood?

That weekend is nationals, sorry. I've never been to Dollywood and I don't want to go. Have a nice day!

Did you know that Pidgeon Forge has hiking, several great restaur....

Hey, I've told you several reasons I am not coming to Pidgeon Forge OR Dollywood. If you don't listen to me, I'm not listening to you. G'day.

*click*

Dactyls, Lebensraum, and Apocalyptica

I'm going to make a wager. You who are reading this don't read that many poems. Eh? I'm right? Well that sucks. Make it at least part of a weekly routine. Most of 'em don't even take up a whole page!

Anyways, two of my favorite poems (the first is my favorite). You will notice a similar theme to the rest of my blog. Cheat-link if you need to. The images should be enough. More poems to come in the future.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1939 - W.H. Auden
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
'I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,
'And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the dead,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

The Second Coming - W. B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

"Shock" and Awwww....darn!

You know when you think you've got a good idea... And it goes horribly wrong for you after a while? Well, maybe it wasn't the best idea to begin with. Some interesting news compiled about the War in Iraq:

21% of the US believes we can win the War in Iraq. The most advanced military in the world (I have several friends over there now) meets a rebel force without centralized leadership without a true industrial backing, and constantly on the run. Americans don't believe they can win the war with the odds stacked so heavily in their favor. 22% said the US would probably win. Yes that leads the majority (51% Bush 48% Kerry in the last election) to think we've F(You See Kay)ed it up. As you can tell by my parenthetical observance, more than several people have lost faith in their candidate who ran on strong leadership vs terrorism.

32% approved of his handling of the War. Not sure how that jives with the top italicized statistic. 63% favored full or partial withdrawal. 54% favored cutting spending on the conflict to pay for rebuilding the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. Those are the smartest 54% in the land. Wish the government had been in that majority before Katrina (and soon Rita) hit.

More than 1,900 American Troops have been killed since the war started. The VAST majority of which were after Saddam's regime was toppled. 2,819 people died in the attacks of 9/11. The total number of Americans killed in this unjustified war (no WMD, no Al Qaeda link ever proven) is greater than the following:
Number of people killed in Tower One - 1,402
Number of people who lost a spouse or a partner in the attacks - 1,609
and very close to the total number of people killed in Towers One and Two - 2,016

Some of those statistics are kinda shocking, but here's something not-so-shocking.

27 % think the new Iraqi government could handle its business. While 68% say a US withdrawal would lead to chaos and civil war. I've got to agree with the 68% here. I'm therefore not sure where to fall on whether or not withdrawal is a good idea. Americans are getting killed. Innocent Iraqis are getting killed. Its not quite clear whether leaving would mean more terrorism here or there or everywhere...however....

A report issued this month by a United Nations panel established to monitor al Qaeda and its associates said the terrorist group is exploiting the situation in Iraq, bringing in recruits from around the world and training them in urban warfare, bomb-making and other terrorist skills. Awwww...darn! But not shocking at all. This is the biggest spitting into the wind one could ever do. Apparently Al Qaeda has recovered from the loss of Afghanistan as a training camp and is now using Iraq with more recruits better tactics and a stronger more defiant and multi-cultural base. Al Qaeda, the masterminds of 9/11, have not been caught and are now strengthening - pulling off several attacks including the bombings in London. I think if we had sent 130,000 troops to Afghanistan or the Pakistani border, I guarantee we would have found Osama Bin Laden by now.

OK OK....my fingers are itching to go ballistic on the stupidity of our leadership. I don't have any answers, but I think our government should.