Cannibal Baby

Berryface 4
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

Is Sabrina eating blackberries . . . or human ears?

That's Good Eatin'

Berryface 2
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

Remember Euell Gibbons? He used to be in those old Grape Nuts ads, in which he'd ask, "Did you ever eat a pine cone?" or some such craziness about eating things you'd find in the wild. I'm pretty sure he used to say, "Now that's good eatin'!" at the end. I remember Saturday Night Live doing a parody of his ad in which John Belushi would turn to the camera and ask, "Ever eat a picnic table?" Jesus I'm old. Anyway.

So Sabrina loves blackberries, apparently.

Wishmaster Rules. Or is it Fishmaster?

Lurve this video so muchly:



No effing idea what's happening wherever this kind of thing is popular, but I'd like to visit. From Retired Geezer, who is guest blogging at Ace's.

Also from Ace's blogroll, a cool but not Van Halenish display of two-handed tapping by Eric Mongrain from Ten Fingers Six Strings. Very nice.

Dumbass, Inc.

Tiemann explains, in a pretty hilarious nutshell, why Microsoft is so dorky and loserish. That will never change.

Well Done Sir

Nutty
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

I'm just the kind of nincompoop that gets a kick out of the whole Snakes on a Plane phenomenon. You have to love the fact that Samuel L. Jackson agreed to do the film after hearing the title, and that he insisted they include a scene with him saying "That's it! I have had it with these mother#%$@ing snakes on this mother%@$#ing plane!"

So in a way, I respect this guy, despite his apelike hairiness. Or maybe because of it.

Street Level WTC

Street Level WTC
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

Dave at Garfield Ridge points to an amazing set of pictures from Ground Zero two days after 9/11.

Noodlebear de la Cutemonkey

Big Grin Monkey
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

Sabrina loves her borrowed exersaucer here (from our lovely and talented neighbors Joe and Tehra W.) as much as she loves the one we bought her, which is more of a mushroom around which she can walk in a chair/saddle similar to the one she's in here. The mushroom was a little too tall at first, and I didn't realize then that it locks in one position unless you release the catch. Now she loves both and is getting a lot of walking/balancing practice.

Yesterday she got her first booboo, a burn on her left hand you can kind of see here. My lovely wife was making pancakes while wearing Sabrina in the baby bjorn, and when she moved a little closer to the stove for half a second, Sabrina swung the back of her hand against the hot edge of the frying pan. It's a very minor burn and an hour after we returned from the doctor's office she was chewing on the injured hand and playing with her toys, mostly with her left (she just might be a southpaw), so we guess it doesn't hurt any more. Poor little thing.

D is heartbroken about it but I assured her this is the first of thousands of little incidents that will terrify us, and there's no point in feeling guilty about an honest mistake. Our little angel is fine and we're very proud of her for being such a tough guy.

So Great

Best TV show clip ever. Colbert asks an uncontested Florida congressman to say things that would lose him the election if someone ran against him, and does he ever. Fantastic.

Link from Viking Pundit.

Not the Least Bit Surprising

So hybrids aren't all we'd like them to be in terms of saving the planet. We all kind of knew that, didn't we? But not even I suspected they were this bad:

Spinella's finding that a Hummer on the whole consumes less energy than a hybrid than even some smaller hybrids and non-hybrids has infuriated environmentalists. And on its face it does seem implausible that a gas-guzzling monster like a Hummer that employs several times more raw material than a little Prius' could be so much less energy-intensive. But by and large the dust-to-dust energy costs in Spinella's study correlate with the fanciness of the car – not its size or fuel economy -- with the Rolls Royces and Bentleys consuming gobs of energy and Mazda 3s, Saturns and Taurus consuming relatively minuscule amounts.

As for Hummers, Spinella explains, the life of these cars averaged across various models is over 300,000 miles. By contrast, Prius' life – according to Toyota's own numbers – is 100,000 miles. Furthermore, Hummer is a far less sophisticated vehicle. Its engine obviously does not have an electric and gas component as a hybrid's does so it takes much less time and energy to manufacture. What's more, its main raw ingredient is low-cost steel, not the exotic light-weights that are exceedingly difficult to make – and dispose. But the biggest reason why a Hummer's energy use is so low is that it shares many components with other vehicles and therefore its design and development energy costs are spread across many cars.

It is not possible to do this with a specialty product like hybrid. All in all, Spinella insists, the energy costs of disposing a Hummer are 60 percent less than an average hybrid's and its design and development costs are 80 percent less.

One of the most perverse things about U.S. consumers buying hybrids is that while this might reduce air pollution in their own cities, they increase pollution – and energy consumption -- in Japan and other Asian countries where these cars are predominantly manufactured. "In effect, they are exporting pollution and energy consumption," Spinella says.

What a surprise, another triumph of feeling good about one's self over the realities at hand. Quote from Varifrank's source material at Reason.org.

UPDATE: I've been thinking about this one a bit. When my wife needed a new car almost three years ago, we wanted a hybrid but the waiting lists were all a year or more, so we bought a Toyota Rav 4. And whether or not hybrids are a great thing right now, one day they will more than fulfill their promise, and for now there will have to be a transition period during which we fall back a few steps before we can leap ahead. So no, I don't think hybrids are a bad thing. I just get a kick out of the reality of the situation being so different from the idea of it.

Tall Baby

High Chair
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

The first time I put Sabrina on my head she laughed for a long time, although I'm not sure if it was joy at being so high or just the silliness of being on top of daddy's head. She usually latches on to my wrists with a surprising strength but in this one she's just been put up there so she's still freeriding. Adventure baby . . .

Too Smart for Anyone's Good

Oh Hell No
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

Sabrina likes phones, and sometimes we let her play with one for a minute or two. Today I handed this one to her and she put it against her ear just like this. She did it again many more times, long enough for me to run downstairs, get the camera, turn its slow ass on, wait for it to boot up while I run upstairs, and take five pictures, which takes rather a long time using my camera.

Should I be worried about this?

Family Music Hour

Rocking Sabrina's Socks Off
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

Sabrina adores music of all kinds, rhythms of all kinds, and seems particularly fascinated when it's fast and complicated. She loves Miles Davis and Stevie Wonder, Coltrane and Dave Brubeck, Pat Metheny and Groove Collective, and when I sing to her I sometimes just vocalize some jazz tune, and she loves it when I make it really weird and intense. Here she's watching me play for a bit before chewing on the strap and discovering the whammy bar, which she greatly enjoyed helping me with. She's a musical genius!

Yep, the New York Times really screwed us:

Some observers have argued that the disclosure of the program did little damage because terrorist facilitators are smart and already knew to avoid the banking system. They correctly point out that there has been an overall trend among terrorists towards cash couriers and other informal mechanisms of money transfer - a trend that I have testified about. They also hold up as public warnings the repeated assertions by government officials that we are actively following the terrorists' money.

What we had not spoken about publicly, however, is this particular source. And, unfortunately, this revelation is very damaging. Since being asked to oversee this program by then-Secretary Snow and then-Deputy Secretary Bodman almost two years ago, I have received the written output from this program as part of my daily intelligence briefing. For two years, I have been reviewing that output every morning. I cannot remember a day when that briefing did not include at least one terrorism lead from this program. Despite attempts at secrecy, terrorist facilitators have continued to use the international banking system to send money to one another, even after September 11th. This disclosure compromised one of our most valuable programs and will only make our efforts to track terrorist financing - and to prevent terrorist attacks - harder. Tracking terrorist money trails is difficult enough without having our sources and methods reported on the front page of newspapers. (emphasis mine)

From Football Fans for Truth.

I'd Never Have Guessed

That replacing Darth Vader's lines with other James Earl Jones film audio would be so dang funny.

Best Song Ever Recorded

I recorded the fantastic original version of Bedazzled a few years ago, the good one with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and absolutely loved this song:



I'm pretty sure Moore wrote it. It's pretty bad video quality but decent audio. Check it out, and pay attention to the awesome '60s dancing.

Sassy Girl

Winding down
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

I posted a pic of Sabrina laughing last month, and I meant to post this one too but didn't. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see her like this, it may be something other people can appreciate about their own kids but I'm pretty sure I could survive a long prison sentence with this picture and some food.

But they'll have to catch me first . . .

Everything Old is New Again

Where have I heard this before? Aha! It's the basis for the summer's biggest song.

Link from the Thighmaster.

Which Way Did It Go?

This seems like big news, doesn't it? Like me, you may wonder why it's not the top story in every paper and the lead in every TV newscast. Could it be that not everyone wants to publish a story that seems to validate a Bush administration economic policy? Read:

On Tuesday, White House officials are expected to announce that the tax receipts will be about $250 billion above last year's levels and that the deficit will be about $100 billion less than what they projected six months ago. The rising tide in tax payments has been building for months, but the increased scale is surprising even seasoned budget analysts and making it easier for both the administration and Congress to finesse the big run-up in spending over the past year.

Tax revenues are climbing twice as fast as the administration predicted in February, so fast that the budget deficit could actually decline this year.

The main reason is a big spike in corporate tax receipts, which have nearly tripled since 2003, as well as what appears to be a big increase in individual taxes on stock market profits and executive bonuses.

(my emphasis)

Wha? But I thought tax cuts for corporations and the rich would "explode" the deficit to gigantic proportions.

Disgusting

Good Lord. How low does the left have to sink before everyone realizes they're not the good guys? I don't care how crazy, high or deranged by the existence of George W. Bush you are, there are some things you don't leave in a blogger's comments:

Ooh. Two year old boy. Sounds hot. You live in Colorado, I see. Hope no one Jon-Benets your baby.

It's even worse when you realize the commenter is a Psychology professor at the University of Arizona. Or was, rather. She resigned before she could be fired.

Unsurprisingly, she's being defended by some on the left, and ignored by most. True colors, baby.

Oh Great

I'm the second link when you search Alta Vista for "baby slave uncle daddy diaper." I can die now.

The Return of Chappelle

I saw the first of the "Lost Episodes" on Chappelle Show, which was OK other than the part where he kicks a (fake, of course) baby.

I liked the fake Tupac rap song at the end the best, it's well worth suffering through Ashy Larry at the beginning. Turn it up and listen close:



And it reminded me of Mos Def rocking "Close Edge" in Dave's SUV:



I especially like the part where Dave has to swerve to avoid oncoming traffic.

Family Resemblance

Daddy's Girl
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

Our little darling looks more like Mommy than Daddy most days, not counting one of her ears, which is a dead ringer for mine and my father's. In this picture she is unmistakably my daughter, a cross between me and my sister Patsy, I think. She'll need that look one day, I'm glad she's practicing now.

Happy Face Monkey Bear

Sweet Baby Playtime
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

Sweet Sabrina is so happy, you'll never see a mad face on her.

Creepy

Ever wonder what a giant mass of mayflies looks like on weather radar? Pretty much like a storm, apparently.

True Dat

Jill Scott's right: enough with the misogyny in popular music, and the rest of the culture while we're at it. Enough Girls Gone Wild, enough bitches, pimps and hos, enough internet porn shoved down your inbox, enough.

Link from LaShawn.

Wrinkler

Mid-Dinner 3
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

Sabrina started wrinkling her nose last week, did it for a couple of hours one night and then some the next day and oh how we laughed. Here she does it because she doesn't like what Mommy's feeding her.

Showstopper

Mid-Dinner
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

What a smile our darling Sabrina has. Breathtaking.

Nice

Pre-Super Bowl National Anthem performance by Faith Hill. Good stuff. Stadium singing is the hardest, but she's a pro.

UPDATE: I stole the link from Gerard.

Quite a Wordsmith, that Chris Onstad

Today's Achewood is perfect. Chris coins phrases like the Franklin Mint. Today's new lexicon: sass gut, pimp skitters and sinner's ass. Memorize and utilize.

Thank You

Someone puts the essence of my global warming argument in concise form:

The media rarely help, of course. When Newsweek featured global warming in a 1988 issue, it was claimed that all scientists agreed. Periodically thereafter it was revealed that although there had been lingering doubts beforehand, now all scientists did indeed agree. Even Mr. Gore qualified his statement on ABC only a few minutes after he made it, clarifying things in an important way. When Mr. Stephanopoulos confronted Mr. Gore with the fact that the best estimates of rising sea levels are far less dire than he suggests in his movie, Mr. Gore defended his claims by noting that scientists "don't have any models that give them a high level of confidence" one way or the other and went on to claim--in his defense--that scientists "don't know. . . . They just don't know."

So, presumably, those scientists do not belong to the "consensus." Yet their research is forced, whether the evidence supports it or not, into Mr. Gore's preferred global-warming template--namely, shrill alarmism. To believe it requires that one ignore the truly inconvenient facts. To take the issue of rising sea levels, these include: that the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940; that icebergs have been known since time immemorial; that the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average. A likely result of all this is increased pressure pushing ice off the coastal perimeter of that country, which is depicted so ominously in Mr. Gore's movie. In the absence of factual context, these images are perhaps dire or alarming.

They are less so otherwise. Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why.

We don't know. Taking action on the basis of a hunch, a frickin' suspicion for crack's sake, is insane. Until we can predict something easy, like the next day's weather, shut up about your fancy computer model of Earth's climate. It's a fantasy.

Cool Sports Ad

This is indeed the coolest sports ad I've ever seen.