Sabrina is getting into absolutely everything, and can lean far out of your grasp to grab anything that's not nailed down. When she starts crawling I'm going to freak out, man. Here she gives us a nice view of her slobbery chin. What a cutie.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Monday, May 29, 2006
The Look of Guilt
And by guilt I mean he's projecting it, not expressing it. You should feel guilty about not giving him treats, or rubbing his belly. Because his life is hard.
Actually, Ollie was very ill recently. On Mother's Day he started acting a little weird and unhappy, walking slowly and sort of hunched, and later he started shaking and straining. Later he threw up some and started dripping pee when he strained, and I took him to the emergency vet, where it was determined he had a urinary tract blockage of some sort, and that his bladder was many times its natural size. They catheterized him and gave him some painkiller and antibiotics, after which I suspect he passed whatever was blocking his peepee. The next day he still couldn't pee, but now it was because his urethra spasmed every time he tried, irritation from the two catheter sessions and passing some crystals I believe.
Finally he got put on a steroid that helped the irritation but made him a little incontinent, but frankly I was so happy he was peeing at all that I didn't mind that the stairs were soaked in some of the worst smelling dog pee I've ever imagined at 3 a.m., and luckily when he peed on the bed the next night, it was on top of a folded blanket and an old feather pillow, and never reached the bed itself. Thank God for small things.
All in all I think Ollie's earned the right to use his Guilt ray. Get all the goodness you can, Ollie, it's your best weapon.
Actually, Ollie was very ill recently. On Mother's Day he started acting a little weird and unhappy, walking slowly and sort of hunched, and later he started shaking and straining. Later he threw up some and started dripping pee when he strained, and I took him to the emergency vet, where it was determined he had a urinary tract blockage of some sort, and that his bladder was many times its natural size. They catheterized him and gave him some painkiller and antibiotics, after which I suspect he passed whatever was blocking his peepee. The next day he still couldn't pee, but now it was because his urethra spasmed every time he tried, irritation from the two catheter sessions and passing some crystals I believe.
Finally he got put on a steroid that helped the irritation but made him a little incontinent, but frankly I was so happy he was peeing at all that I didn't mind that the stairs were soaked in some of the worst smelling dog pee I've ever imagined at 3 a.m., and luckily when he peed on the bed the next night, it was on top of a folded blanket and an old feather pillow, and never reached the bed itself. Thank God for small things.
All in all I think Ollie's earned the right to use his Guilt ray. Get all the goodness you can, Ollie, it's your best weapon.
What's Going On Over There
Flemming Rose, the editor of Denmark's Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that first printed the Mohammed cartoons, writes an interesting column here in which he discusses Europe's Islamic immigration:
I've written that very thing here before: the terrorists who have killed so many innocents in New York, Washington D.C., Madrid and London weren't poor Middle Easterners who learned to hate the West when their families were killed by imperialist American warmongers, they were relatively well-to-do immigrants to Europe who learned to hate the West from self-loathing Westerners. Link from Atlas.
The role of victim is very convenient because it frees the self-declared victim from any responsibility, while providing a posture of moral superiority. It also obscures certain inconvenient facts that might suggest a different explanation for the lagging integration of some immigrant groups -- such as the relatively high crime rates, the oppression of women, and a tradition of forced marriage.
Dictatorships in the Middle East and radical imams have adopted the jargon of the European left, calling the cartoons racist and Islamophobic. When Westerners criticize their lack of civil liberties and the oppression of women, they say we behave like imperialists. They have adopted the rhetoric and turned it against us.
These events are occurring against the disturbing backdrop of increasingly radicalized Muslims in Europe. Mohammed Atta, the 9/11 ringleader, became a born-again Muslim after he moved to Europe. So did the perpetrators behind the bombings in Madrid and London. The same goes for Mohammed Bouyeri, the young Muslim who slaughtered filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam. Europe, not the Middle East, may now be the main breeding ground for Islamic terrorism. [emphasis mine]
I've written that very thing here before: the terrorists who have killed so many innocents in New York, Washington D.C., Madrid and London weren't poor Middle Easterners who learned to hate the West when their families were killed by imperialist American warmongers, they were relatively well-to-do immigrants to Europe who learned to hate the West from self-loathing Westerners. Link from Atlas.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Too Cool
It took me forever to stop hating the feeling of sunglasses on my nose, and I didn't wear them with any frequency until college, but I'd really like Sabrina to wear them if Mommy and I can manage it. The sun really does seem stronger to me now, and even though I know that's an illusion brought on by old age and decrepitude, I'd rather err on the side of caution with my daughter's peepers if at all possible.
And judging from this picture, it's possible.
And judging from this picture, it's possible.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
DIY
Sabrina even fed herself a little at her first formal dinner. God she's such an amazing little girl.
Someone's a Big Girl Now
Sabrina just had her first little bowl of rice cereal and absolutely loved it. She also loves her fancy high chair, a gift from Mike S. and his lovely wife Annie. It's been a half hour and no spitup yet. None after the banana we gave her yesterday. Hey, this feeding thing ain't so hard . . .
Road Trip
Sabrina got to meet her non-blood cousin Sadie Rose today, the lovely daughter of David and Anita G. of Austin. Daddy forgot the camera was in the car, so you'll have to settle for a picture of Sabrina instead.
Now That's What I Call Jackass
Finish skydiver straps jet turbines to his legs while wearing a bat suit. Nutty.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
WTF?
Google, which I won't link because I hate it and everyone has it bookmarked anyway, has been misbehaving. I use Gigablast just to spite Google. I'm sure they've noticed and are begging me for forgiveness somewhere. Read:
Link via Riehl World View, whose proprietor has felt the sting of Google's discrimination.
Something frighteningly ominous has been happening on the Internet lately: Google, without any prior explanation or notice, has been terminating its News relationship with conservative e-zines and web journals.
At first blush, one can easily ignore such business decisions by the most powerful company on the Internet as being routine. However, on closer examination, such behavior could give one relatively small (when measured by the size of its workforce) technology corporation a degree of political might that frankly dwarfs even its current financial prowess.
Link via Riehl World View, whose proprietor has felt the sting of Google's discrimination.
Word
Varifrank finds something beautiful - a recent poem by Ray Bradbury. Yes, that Ray Bradbury, who I'm ashamed to admit I thought was dead.
Anyway, it's really quite good, and I love the theme. Here's a bit:
Anyway, it's really quite good, and I love the theme. Here's a bit:
We are the dream that other people dream.
The land where other people land
When late at night
They think on flight
And, flying, here arrive
Where we fools dumbly thrive ourselves.
Refuse to see
We be what all the world would like to be.
Because we hive within this scheme
The obvious dream is blind to us.
We do not mind the miracle we are,
So stop our mouths with curses.
While all the world rehearses
Coming here to stay.
We busily make plans to go away.
So Damn Sweet
Another unaccountable pleasure the internet has revealed: the collection of freaks and undesirables that is the pile of old promo shots found in a Venice alley by a friend of the proprietor of Sippican Cottage. Ol' Sippi is one of my favorite bloggers and has produced one of my favorite blog posts ever here, in which his friend has provided a slide show that may well entertain you as much as it did me.
Why I get such a kick out of '70s misfits in matching jumpsuits I'm not sure, but I think it's something about the era's unsinkable optimism that would lead such a large group of geeks, fatties and oddballs to believe they could make it in even the local LA music scene.
As Sippican writes, "Someone's got to play in the lounge at the Chinese restaurant." Ditch those other gimps, Jakki, quick!
Why I get such a kick out of '70s misfits in matching jumpsuits I'm not sure, but I think it's something about the era's unsinkable optimism that would lead such a large group of geeks, fatties and oddballs to believe they could make it in even the local LA music scene.
As Sippican writes, "Someone's got to play in the lounge at the Chinese restaurant." Ditch those other gimps, Jakki, quick!
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Best Blog Ever
I run into some interesting sites from time to time, like Bibliodyssey, a place where the proprietor scans pages from rare and ancient books, producing some of the most interesting things I've ever seen on the internet, Music Thing, a blog about odd and interesting musical instruments are displayed and discussed, Optical Illusions, which is fairly self-explanatory but sometimes surprising, Patently Silly, which is run by a patent clerk who keeps an eye out for the more ridiculous inventions of our time, and of course TV in Japan, which as you might imagine presents the more bizarre Japanese TV fare in handy YouTube video segments. All of these are worth a weekly check, at least.
But all of them together can't equal the glorious goodness of the Athanasius Kircher Society, where fans of the late Kircher, sometimes called "the last Renaissance man," post about things they believe the great man himself would find interesting.
And interesting they are. Check the first ten or so posts and tell me you aren't fascinated.
But all of them together can't equal the glorious goodness of the Athanasius Kircher Society, where fans of the late Kircher, sometimes called "the last Renaissance man," post about things they believe the great man himself would find interesting.
And interesting they are. Check the first ten or so posts and tell me you aren't fascinated.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Conservation Schmonservation
Sure, pandas are endangered, but Sabrina's head was cold and it makes a nice hat. I can't wait until she's old enough to wear her ivory clogs.
Friday, May 19, 2006
So THAT's What Fascism Looks Like
Atlas links to something awful:
Hey, we practically drove them to it. Oh the dirty West and its imperialism!
UPDATE: There seems to be some doubt as to the veracity of the above story, but I agree with Atlas that it ain't exactly solid either way. I'll leave it up until better info arrives. In the meantime, check out this newer post on her blog about the increasing incidence of muslim immigrants raping local girls all over Europe, and the universally flaccid, cowardly and dishonest governmental response. Hey Europe: you're going the wrong way.
Human rights groups are raising alarms over a new law passed by the Iranian parliament that would require the country's Jews and Christians to wear coloured badges to identify them and other religious minorities as non-Muslims.
Hey, we practically drove them to it. Oh the dirty West and its imperialism!
UPDATE: There seems to be some doubt as to the veracity of the above story, but I agree with Atlas that it ain't exactly solid either way. I'll leave it up until better info arrives. In the meantime, check out this newer post on her blog about the increasing incidence of muslim immigrants raping local girls all over Europe, and the universally flaccid, cowardly and dishonest governmental response. Hey Europe: you're going the wrong way.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Inspiration
Boingboing posted something fun today, the Motivator, which is a way to generate your own motivational posters. Something tells me billions of man-hours of work are going to be undone because of it . . .
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
It's Official
This is by far the most horrifying survived accident I've ever seen. A cop car grazes a mobile home on the road and a 2x4, insulation, nails and other junk hit the guy, blasting a hole through him that takes his bulletproof vest and radio cord with it. Wow that must have hurt.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Mona Sabrina
I can't stop looking at this picture. She's just so mesmerizingly beautiful and has such a serene air about her that it's my favorite one we've ever taken.
Plus you can see how she got both Daddy's and Mommy's ears, Mommy's perfect little soft shell of cuteness on her right and Daddy's grotesque, inflexible, overcartilaginous freak ear on her left. I'm very happy about that - she's got a perfect movie star right side and a weird but perfectly-adapted-for-listening-for-prey-in-the-woods left. Best of both worlds, I say.
Plus you can see how she got both Daddy's and Mommy's ears, Mommy's perfect little soft shell of cuteness on her right and Daddy's grotesque, inflexible, overcartilaginous freak ear on her left. I'm very happy about that - she's got a perfect movie star right side and a weird but perfectly-adapted-for-listening-for-prey-in-the-woods left. Best of both worlds, I say.
I Should Be Embarrassed
About how excited I am to see tonight's American Idol, but I'm not. I love Elliott, I like Katharine a lot, and I'm starting to dig Captian Tightpants (SarahK's name for Taylor) since hearing his version of "In the Ghetto." They're doing three songs each tonight, one picked by them, one by Clive Davis, and one by the judges. Elliott's picked Bobby Caldwell's "What You Won't Do" for himself, one of my favorite songs of all time. I will undoubtedly wet myself then and have already put an old comforter on the couch for protection.
Just 26 minutes until it begins . . .
Just 26 minutes until it begins . . .
Monday, May 15, 2006
Smoochy
Sabrina seems to be introducing me like a Price is Right showcase here. I love her little hands, which have learned to grab, twist, rip and otherwise destroy things, but are surprisingly gentle when she touches your face. Mommy is forever trying to protect the dogs from her grasp, but I say that's why God gave them two eyes, so a baby can snatch one out but they won't lose their vision entirely.
Happy Girls
Mommy's been taking pictures of Sabrina in the bathroom mirror, which for some reason she loves to look at. I wonder what she thinks when she sees two mommies, one in front and one behind. It does not upset her, clearly.
What a great Mother's day it was, at least until our dog Oliver got sick and I had to take him to the emergency pet clinic at 10:30 p.m. Apparently he had some kind of urinary tract blockage (nothing on the Xray or in his catheterized pee output) and is now with our regular vet getting further tests. Poor little guy, it broke my heart to see him so miserable last night and this morning. Get well Ollie!
What a great Mother's day it was, at least until our dog Oliver got sick and I had to take him to the emergency pet clinic at 10:30 p.m. Apparently he had some kind of urinary tract blockage (nothing on the Xray or in his catheterized pee output) and is now with our regular vet getting further tests. Poor little guy, it broke my heart to see him so miserable last night and this morning. Get well Ollie!
Sunday, May 14, 2006
The Most Disgusting Thing You'll See this Month
Things like this make me regret the deaths from Operation Market-Garden all the more:
If you don't know about Aayan Hirsi Ali, you should. She's one of the bravest women ever to have lived, in my opinion. Emigrating to the Netherlands in 1992 to escape an arranged marriage, Ali has become a member of parliament and an outspoken critic of militant Islam and of the abuse of women throughout Islamic society. She and Theo Van Gogh collaborated to make Submission, a scathing indictment of Islamic misogyny, for which Van Gogh was murdered on a Dutch street in broad daylight. She's been living on borrowed time ever since under 24-hour police protection, has been evicted from her home due to neighbors' worries that reprisals against her may harm them, and now her fellow MPs are trying to get her deported for the same reason: appeasement. Didn't work the last time, did it? Pretty short memories around the Netherlands, I guess.
What has happened to the Dutch people we met in 1944? They're governed by cowards now, that's for sure. Aayan Hirsi Ali is a hero, and frankly the Dutch don't deserve her. Come to America, Aayan. We'd love to have you.
UPDATE: Ask and ye shall receive. Can't wait to see her on American TV talking some sense into senseless talking heads.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born Dutch legislator who has championed the rights of Muslim women, is returning from a book tour to a firestorm for lying on her asylum application when she fled to the Netherlands in 1992 to escape an arranged marriage.
Hirsi Ali, 36, said Saturday she was puzzled by the uproar since she publicly acknowledged the false refugee application when she stood for parliament in 2002.
"Have they all gone mad?" she said, accusing her rivals of a political vendetta.
"Yes, I did lie to get asylum in Holland. This is public knowledge since at least September 2002," she said in a telephone call from Hamburg, Germany.
If you don't know about Aayan Hirsi Ali, you should. She's one of the bravest women ever to have lived, in my opinion. Emigrating to the Netherlands in 1992 to escape an arranged marriage, Ali has become a member of parliament and an outspoken critic of militant Islam and of the abuse of women throughout Islamic society. She and Theo Van Gogh collaborated to make Submission, a scathing indictment of Islamic misogyny, for which Van Gogh was murdered on a Dutch street in broad daylight. She's been living on borrowed time ever since under 24-hour police protection, has been evicted from her home due to neighbors' worries that reprisals against her may harm them, and now her fellow MPs are trying to get her deported for the same reason: appeasement. Didn't work the last time, did it? Pretty short memories around the Netherlands, I guess.
What has happened to the Dutch people we met in 1944? They're governed by cowards now, that's for sure. Aayan Hirsi Ali is a hero, and frankly the Dutch don't deserve her. Come to America, Aayan. We'd love to have you.
UPDATE: Ask and ye shall receive. Can't wait to see her on American TV talking some sense into senseless talking heads.
Yup
Erik at No Pasaran links an interesting thingy from something called the Patriot Post (I am not a fan of calling yourself a patriot, but whatever) that caught my eye:
Word. And word to all the mothers out there on Mother's Day.
Americans who agree to answer public-opinion polls about political performance are not political analysts, national-security specialists, economists or policy experts. They are folks who hold common labor and professional jobs in order to support their families and make ends meet. They are the backbone of our nation. Unfortunately, a large measure of their perspective on politics, national security, the economy and public policy is not reality based, but shaped by the MSM.
What The Times and CBS, along with other MSM outlets, are really doing is polling on the media's effectiveness at indoctrinating readers and TV viewers with opinion-shaping propaganda -- or in The Patriot's parlance, "pollaganda."
Pollaganda is outcome-based opinion samples (polling instruments designed to generate a preferential outcome) based on prior-opinion indoctrination or cultivation by the media, the results of which are then used to manipulate public opinion further by advancing the perception that a particular opinion on an issue has majority support, and then presenting this "data" as if it were "news."
Word. And word to all the mothers out there on Mother's Day.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Love that Internet
I found this link I remember not where, but it's a page that shows you the last 40 images uploaded to Livejournal. The result of hitting the link is usually a collection of pictures that you'd never see otherwise, and some of them are downright interesting. Others are dirty, boring, and everything in between. But every once in a while you find something pretty good, like this pic of a guy walking on water at the Fiesta in Moraira, Costa Blanca, Spain. With those skills I imagine he was just fine.
Oh My God That's So Good
Friday, May 12, 2006
Babies Are Good for You
Look, this one made me smile just by being next to me. Although she's not smiling in this picture, I'm amazed at the power of my daughter's smile to make people happy. I'm sure there's a biological component, but on some level I'm always going to believe it's because she's so beautiful, and that seeing such beauty light up with a smile is overpowering.
My lovely wife Deirdre took Sabrina to the grocery store today and once again our daughter charmed countless strangers on her jaunt through the aisles. They say, "what a beautiful child" and then Sabrina sees them and smiles, and Deirdre says most of them (invariably women, more often than not older) look like they're about to burst into tears. Her smile certainly has that effect on me at times, so I can understand.
My lovely wife Deirdre took Sabrina to the grocery store today and once again our daughter charmed countless strangers on her jaunt through the aisles. They say, "what a beautiful child" and then Sabrina sees them and smiles, and Deirdre says most of them (invariably women, more often than not older) look like they're about to burst into tears. Her smile certainly has that effect on me at times, so I can understand.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
I Did Not Expect That
Last night Chris Daughtry, pictured at left and designated TCO* by just about the entire internet, got the boot from American Idol 5. Katharine McPhee, who frankly deserved to go home despite the fact that she showed us her panties a couple of weeks ago, looked as bewildered by the news as the rest of us felt.
Chris was an alt-rocker in the mid-90s style and didn't show much versatility for most of the show (until a couple of weeks ago when he performed Bryan Adams' "Have You Really Ever Loved a Woman" with perfect control and nuance) but frankly didn't need to. When Chris sang, it felt like a rock concert, and I can't think of another AI contestant who pulled that off.
Some big-name band is announcing tonight on Extra that they want to hire him as their new lead singer. It seems likely to be Fuel, whose "Hemorrhage" he nailed in the round of 10 guys, or maybe, if Dlisted has it right, Live, whose version of Johnny Cash's "Walk the Line" he performed on the show that Barry Manilow helped with.
It looks like Taylor Hicks is the likely winner now, but after last night I wouldn't rule anyone out. I'm rooting for Elliott to win. Sorry Katharine, you're going to have to get completely nekkid to get any more votes from me.
Also, just found Lisa Leuschner's Myspace page. Man did she get the scroogie during seasons 3 and 4. Simon decided fat white girls aren't marketable, and she got blocked out before the audience voting started two years in a row. Which totally sucked, because girlfriend can SANG! Go to her page linked above and hit "Sweet thing" in the music window at the top right. She absolutely crushed that in the tryouts and some crapsack named Camille Velasco got in instead of her, and then proceeded to suck. Yes, I'm still mad about it.
Did I mention I have an unhealthy obsession with American Idol? I study the shows like the Zapruder film. Trust me, you don't want to know the imaginary world I've created for the contestants. Well, here's a little to get you started: I believe Kevin Covais and Paris Bennett from this season will one day be married.
* The Chosen One
UPDATE: Couple of interesting Idol articles in the news today. First, one of those "what it all means about [society, America, the world - choose whichever grabs your fancy]" pieces, the kind that make me want to find the author, shake him or her by the neck and ask what the hell's wrong with them, and why they think their personal taste counts for anything on this planet:
What a tool. Elliott's the coolest cat who ever walked the Idol stage and, according to a column by political animal John Podhoretz, he's going to win. He also says American Idol provides a perfect model for American politics:
Can't argue with that.
Chris was an alt-rocker in the mid-90s style and didn't show much versatility for most of the show (until a couple of weeks ago when he performed Bryan Adams' "Have You Really Ever Loved a Woman" with perfect control and nuance) but frankly didn't need to. When Chris sang, it felt like a rock concert, and I can't think of another AI contestant who pulled that off.
Some big-name band is announcing tonight on Extra that they want to hire him as their new lead singer. It seems likely to be Fuel, whose "Hemorrhage" he nailed in the round of 10 guys, or maybe, if Dlisted has it right, Live, whose version of Johnny Cash's "Walk the Line" he performed on the show that Barry Manilow helped with.
It looks like Taylor Hicks is the likely winner now, but after last night I wouldn't rule anyone out. I'm rooting for Elliott to win. Sorry Katharine, you're going to have to get completely nekkid to get any more votes from me.
Also, just found Lisa Leuschner's Myspace page. Man did she get the scroogie during seasons 3 and 4. Simon decided fat white girls aren't marketable, and she got blocked out before the audience voting started two years in a row. Which totally sucked, because girlfriend can SANG! Go to her page linked above and hit "Sweet thing" in the music window at the top right. She absolutely crushed that in the tryouts and some crapsack named Camille Velasco got in instead of her, and then proceeded to suck. Yes, I'm still mad about it.
Did I mention I have an unhealthy obsession with American Idol? I study the shows like the Zapruder film. Trust me, you don't want to know the imaginary world I've created for the contestants. Well, here's a little to get you started: I believe Kevin Covais and Paris Bennett from this season will one day be married.
* The Chosen One
UPDATE: Couple of interesting Idol articles in the news today. First, one of those "what it all means about [society, America, the world - choose whichever grabs your fancy]" pieces, the kind that make me want to find the author, shake him or her by the neck and ask what the hell's wrong with them, and why they think their personal taste counts for anything on this planet:
In Daughtry, America had the opportunity to choose distinctiveness, confidence and cool. Instead, it chose bland and boring. Blech and blech.
What a tool. Elliott's the coolest cat who ever walked the Idol stage and, according to a column by political animal John Podhoretz, he's going to win. He also says American Idol provides a perfect model for American politics:
If you want to understand "Idol," you need to understand American politics. And if you want to understand the workings of American politics, "Idol" isn't a bad introduction to the way political coalitions are formed and elections are won.
After the "American Idol" field narrows to 12 finalists, the show kicks one contestant off every week - the one who gets the lowest number of votes.
The number of votes seems to remain remarkably constant (this year, somewhere north of 40 million) week to week. This indicates the same people continue to vote each week. It also means that the people who voted for the contestant who was kicked off go ahead and just choose somebody new to vote for.
This is a direct parallel to the presidential primary process. In the early primaries, candidates who do poorly usually drop out of the race, leaving those who would have supported them in other states high and dry. Those supporters then have to pick somebody else among the surviving candidates to vote for.
This winnowing process allows the most appealing candidates to pick up steam by adding new voters to their cadre of supporters. And as they do so, the field continues to be winnowed, until finally there are only one or two candidates left standing. The single-issue candidate, the flash-in-the-pan, the guy who has one fantastic debate - they may all have their moments, but in the end, the candidate with the most broad-based appeal will usually win.
And this is what explains Chris Daughtry's stunning loss this week on "American Idol." He has a distinctive voice and distinctive appeal. The problem is that he never broadened his base very much. If you liked him from the start, you stayed with him - which is why he remained solidly among the top contenders through most of the show's run.
But if you didn't much like his sound when there were still 9 contestants remaining, you weren't suddenly going to decide you liked his sound when there were only 4 remaining.
The key to winning "American Idol" isn't being overwhelmingly popular in the early stages. The key is having a sound that makes it possible for you to pick up votes from people whose favorites have gotten booted off the show. Because if you don't get those votes, somebody else is going to get them.
Can't argue with that.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Well, Duh
The obvious statement headline of the year award goes to "Flying Robot Attack Unstoppable: Experts" on Breitbart.com. No good can come from flying robots, I tell you:
What a great idea, killer robot helicopters. Thanks, Yamaha! I can't wait to run screaming from one as it lasers my limbs off, or whatever.
Japanese company Yamaha, meanwhile, has produced 95-kilogram (209-pound) robot helicopter that is 3.6 metres (11.8 feet) long and has a 256 cc engine.
It flies close to the ground at about 20 kilometres per hour (12 miles per hour), nothing but an incredible stroke of luck could stop it if it suddenly appeared in the sky above the White House -- and it is already on the market.
Bruce Simpson, an engineer from New Zealand, managed to produce an even more dangerous contraption in his own garage: a mini-cruise missile. He made it out of readily available materials at a cost of less than 5,000 dollars (4,000 euros).
What a great idea, killer robot helicopters. Thanks, Yamaha! I can't wait to run screaming from one as it lasers my limbs off, or whatever.
Back in the Day
Before my lovely wife Deirdre and I got married back in 2002, a wedding shower was thrown for us by her employer and our friend Shay J., who wore a really fantastic faux snakeskin suit and presided over the shower and our wedding the next month.
I was trying for John Lennon a la Sgt. Pepper's, while D demonstrated she's a beauty in any era. What a blast we had, and special thanks to David G., who wasn't really in the mood but came anyway. Love that guy, and now he's a daddy! I he doesn't mind I'll post a pic of Sadie Rose here soon.
I was trying for John Lennon a la Sgt. Pepper's, while D demonstrated she's a beauty in any era. What a blast we had, and special thanks to David G., who wasn't really in the mood but came anyway. Love that guy, and now he's a daddy! I he doesn't mind I'll post a pic of Sadie Rose here soon.
Monday, May 08, 2006
Yo Momma is So . . .
It's rude, it's crude, it's totally lewd, and it's funny as poop. The new movie from Perez Hilton and Crazybaby, that is. Takes a while but totally worth it.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
RC Heaven
My friend Mike S., who lives right down the street and drives this car, is the only reason I've ever had any fun driving my remote control car. When he, my friend Lew and I all got RC cars, Mike housed, maintained and repaired them just because he's a nice guy. Lew and I agree that without Mike we would have put them together, raced them until we broke them, and never used them again. Instead, ten years later we're still running them and having a blast.
Recently Mike discovered that you can buy great used RC stuff, probably from people like me and Lew who crashed them a couple of times and just gave up, for almost nothing. Now he's got sixteen or more working cars, all top quality and in perfect working order. These are the off-road cars, hanging with their radios from a rack Mike made out of wood and wire hangers.
Thank God for Mike. I almost hate to arrange an intervention about the Ebay addiction, but it must be done.
Recently Mike discovered that you can buy great used RC stuff, probably from people like me and Lew who crashed them a couple of times and just gave up, for almost nothing. Now he's got sixteen or more working cars, all top quality and in perfect working order. These are the off-road cars, hanging with their radios from a rack Mike made out of wood and wire hangers.
Thank God for Mike. I almost hate to arrange an intervention about the Ebay addiction, but it must be done.
Magical Walking Lessons
Mommy just waves her hand and Sabrina learns to walk in an instant! Actually she's just very straight legged and smiley. And Ollie wants to eat Mommy's elbow.
Horse Map of the World
This has been at my grandparents' place in Hunt, TX since it was built in 1938, I'd guess, or not long after. It's a map of the world, old enough to have funny names for places like Turkistan, Arabia and the "Japanese Empire," with all the native horses of the world and where they're from. Not being a horsey person I never noticed it as a child, but it's kind of cool.
Don't Be Self-Hatin'
I've been thinking a lot about why I hear and read so much the-world-is-ending doom and gloom nonsense lately. In almost every way life is better now than it ever has been. The technologies that have made it so develop faster and faster as time passes, and the ugliness of industrialization is increasingly manageable. The average person has never been safer, healthier or wealthier, and he or she has never has such personal power to learn, create, produce, and otherwise change the world.
But to hear some people talk(particularly liberals, frankly) we are bound for disaster, invariably because of the evil United States and its racist, greedy imperialism. Decades ago it was DDT, now it's Global Warming, and people who feel stongly about The Environment can rarely be reasoned with. Nor can those who think we provoked Islamic terrorism. And it's one thing to be worried about worst-case scenarios, but entirely another to think you can appease people who only respect strength.
I like the way Bob at One Cosmos puts it:
Ace found something similar by Ray Midge, which Ace calls "the exquisite decadence of self-loathing":
True dat.
But to hear some people talk(particularly liberals, frankly) we are bound for disaster, invariably because of the evil United States and its racist, greedy imperialism. Decades ago it was DDT, now it's Global Warming, and people who feel stongly about The Environment can rarely be reasoned with. Nor can those who think we provoked Islamic terrorism. And it's one thing to be worried about worst-case scenarios, but entirely another to think you can appease people who only respect strength.
I like the way Bob at One Cosmos puts it:
I suppose one of the frustrating things about the day and age in which we live is that all of the answers, for the first time in history, are present and available, but it doesn’t seem to matter. For example, we finally understand how wealth is created. Furthermore, we’ve pretty much tamed the boom-or-bust business cycle, so we don’t have the sorts of major economic upheavals we did 75 years ago. We know how to conquer most diseases. There’s more than enough food. We understand the vital importance of early attachment, and how bad parenting leads to adult psychopathology. Higher education is available to everyone, to such an extent that the majority of people in college probably don’t even belong there. We live longer than ever, and air and water have never been cleaner. All of the greatest art, literature, music, and thought that has ever been produced by mankind is literally at our fingertips.
And yet, none of this is enough for most people. How can something like 70% of the population think we’re on the wrong track, when they’ve never had it so good? Why, just because gasoline, adjusted for inflation, is almost as expensive as it was in 1981? True, part of the reason is that people are completely ahistorical, and seem to have no idea how hard it was for previous generations just to put food on the table. But apparently, this is the default position of mankind. Whatever we have, we feel we are entitled to it, and then we just want more. Not only that, but this default attitude of entitlement can be infinitely aggravated and made worse by envy. The envious imagination is truly infinite in its demonic capacity to devalue what we have and to want what someone else has.
On the one hand it is a conceit to suggest that history has labored for lo these thousands of years to produce our privileged generation. And yet, from a certain point of view, if you think teleologically, it is surely true. For just as your present life is the result of thousands and thousands of little choices you made in the past, the present state of humanity is the result of countless choices that were all aiming at our present state of affairs. In other words, we are the goal. This miraculous way of life that we enjoy was simply an unattainable dream for past generations. But for us, the dream has come true.
And yet, few people seem to appreciate that. Indeed, many people seem to think that we’re in some kind of nightmare, even more so than when human beings really were in a nightmare (which it has been for virtually all of history). For example, you would probably be hard-pressed to find rhetoric from the height of the Great Depression any more bitter and angry than what you can find everyday on dailykos. In considering the minds of such individuals, one suspects that politics is simply a means for them to externalize a hellish and unhappy internal world. The external world changes and evolves, but mankind’s internal world is comparatively fixed. Politics is simply a symbolic system for people to articulate their existential misery.
Ace found something similar by Ray Midge, which Ace calls "the exquisite decadence of self-loathing":
Actually, of course, this isn't a case of self-loathing so much as loathing of the civilization to which one belongs; liberals and lefties are quite fond of themselves. It's the America government, our national history, Western values, and their fellow countrymen they despise.
True dat.
Founding Anti-Jihadists
Interesting post at Atlas Shrugged about Thomas Jefferson and John Adams' thoughts on Militant Islam, in 1786:
One of the sillier notions on the left is that we have provoked a previously docile Islamic world into action. A brief review of the history of Islam usually obliterates that argument.
And I like ponies.
. . . that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.
One of the sillier notions on the left is that we have provoked a previously docile Islamic world into action. A brief review of the history of Islam usually obliterates that argument.
And I like ponies.
Friday, May 05, 2006
Giggleface
Sweet Sabrina loves her tie-dye gear from my sister Clare in Houston, and so do we. Ollie probably doesn't care but is too polite to say so. I've been having so much fun flying her around that I popped my rib out of place last night and had to see the physical therapy guy today to put it back. Babies are awesome!
Maybe Next Time, Stephen
Man are people ever worked up over Stephen Colbert's clunker of a comedy act at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Rogers thinks the backlash is ridiculous:
I had to reply and am being roasted in the comments for it, but will only reprint this paragraph from there:
I'll say it again: when you stop going for laughs and start going for applause, you're not funny.
Two years ago, President Bush appeared in a skit at the same event in which his administration's inability to find WMDs in Iraq was a bottomless source of comedy. The only journalist in attendance who objected was David Corn of The Nation . . . Washington journalists like [Richard] Cohen, who didn't raise as much as a peep when Bush laughed off the false cause that sparked a war, have now spent five days haranguing a cable TV comedian for making the president huffy.
I had to reply and am being roasted in the comments for it, but will only reprint this paragraph from there:
In the end, Stephen Colbert didn't do anything brave, new or even particularly interesting. He just did it with Bush in the room. Why that's perceived as heroic rather than jerky is more a question of personal taste than anything else, and while I do not personally subscribe to the idea that confrontational = interesting, I respect an artist's desire to make a ruckus in the name of his art. On the other hand, this particular event has traditionally been one at which, for just a couple of hours, respect for the office of President trumps pathetic J-school fantasies of bearding The Man in his corporate den. Going along with such a tradition isn't selling out, it's being gentlemanly.
I'll say it again: when you stop going for laughs and start going for applause, you're not funny.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Happy Time
Now that I can make Sabrina laugh her head off in two different ways, tickling and playing the airplane/flying baby game, I am the happiest daddy in the world. Life is never better than when I see her little eyes light up with joy. She even asks to be flown around now by giving a little jump forward when I'm holding her upright. What a fearless little adventurer. And no, I haven't hit her head on the ceiling fan.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Chilly Morning
April 30. 2006 was a cool one in the early bits, and Sabrina, Deirdre, my sister Patsy from LA and my sister-in-law Robin's new puppy Alice are trying to keep warm in the sun on the porch of the big house at my grandparents' place on the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas. It was beautiful there but the water was too cold for swimming. Next time, Sabrina's going in. A little, anyways.
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