oh yeah, oh right

Archbishop Desmond Tutu railed against the use of detention centers by the United States. "Whoever imagined that you would hear from America," asked Tutu,"the same arguments for detention without trial that were used by the apartheid government?" John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer who participated in the interrogation of an Al Qaeda terrorist suspect who was waterboarded, conceded that waterboarding was torture but asserted that its use "probably saved lives." President Nicolas Sarkozy welcomed Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi to France on Human Rights Day. Ike Turner died.

from the harpers

beast of bolivia

yes, step right up.

pretty sure this is a photo - right before the surface attack.

Anakin Skywalker: Tell your sister you were right.

What I Heard: Carry your sister for a ride.

stay eager

the following are not my words -

It's amazing that so many people accept the rather dubious notion that the lull in violence in Iraq over the past few months is a result of Bush's troop "surge." The reasons for skepticism are not ideological, as supporters of the occupation charge, but numerical and chronological.
The surge began in February, and there was something approaching a consensus at the time that the addition of about 10-15,000 combat troops -- the rest were support personnel -- would be a drop in the bucket in a country of 25 million people. Retired four-star General Barry McCaffrey said at the time: "I personally think the surge of five U.S. Army brigades and a few Marine battalions dribbled out over five months is a fool's errand." The troop build up continued in March, April and May. What followed was a bloodbath -- June and July were the most violent summer months of any year of the occupation. August was one of the bloodiest months, period.
Then, that month, Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mehdi Army to stand down. The reported number of Iraqi civilian deaths fell by about 50% the next month and decreased again in October and yet again last month. The militia is estimated to be 100,000+ strong and is arguably the most powerful ground force in Iraq after the U.S. military. While the change can't be wholly ascribed to any single factor, it's clear from the chronology that al-Sadr's order, not Bush's "surge," is likely responsible for the lion's share of the drop in violence.
It's frustrating and difficult to oppose a war when the mass media is so credulous of the administration's spin.

-Joshua Holland Editor, War on Iraq special coverage [Alternet]

confidential to the dub

didn't we fall for this last time?

Sources:
1. "U.S. Finds Iran Halted Its Nuclear Arms Effort in 2003," New York Times, December 3, 2007.
2. "A Blow to Bush's Tehran Policy," Washington Post, December 4, 2007.
3. "Bush: US Must Remain Vigilant on Iran," Washington Post, December 4, 2007.

full of nothing and yet

Astronomers discovered a one-billion-light-year-wide pocket full of nothing in the sky.

of course

the cat, and the end

Citing Schrodinger's cat, cosmologists speculated that humans' observation of dark matter, beginning in 1998, might bring about the premature destruction of the universe.

~ c/o harpers

sometimes, when i am sick at home, i get curious about these things

see what happens?

i decided to write most of the politicians ruinning (mis-spelling?) for Presidency to following message:

i think the following, pulled from Harpers Weekly, suggests some real issues that voters will respond to.

good luck.

At the third OPEC summit in 47 years, held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said that the price of crude oil could reach $200 a barrel. "The basis of all aggression," said Chavez, "is oil." During a private meeting that was accidentally televised, the oil minister of Venezuela suggested to the oil minister of Iran that OPEC stop using the crippled dollar for pricing;the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia countered that public discussion of the weak dollar would cause U.S. currency to lose value. "Kill the cable!" shouted a security guard as he ran into the meeting room, "Kill the cable!" An economist with financial services firm UBS AG put the odds of a U.S. recession at 45 percent.

my name [redacted]
my email [redacted]

updates, if/when received.

oil vs water

more on this

At the third OPEC summit in 47 years, held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said that the price of crude oil could reach $200 a barrel. "The basis of all aggression," said Chavez, "is oil." During a private meeting that was accidentally televised, the oil minister of Venezuela suggested to the oil minister of Iran that OPEC stop using the crippled dollar for pricing;the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia countered that public discussion of the weak dollar would cause U.S. currency to lose value. "Kill the cable!" shouted a security guard as he ran into the meeting room, "Kill the cable!" An economist with financial services firm UBS AG put the odds of a U.S. recession at 45 percent.

you love harpers, too.

slow on the [re]uptake [inhibitor]

the nets fooled me again.
so maybe i been working at my job, and dealing with the stuff of life, but damn internets, you shouldn't have held me back from:

Ronald Jenkees - just a guy who is marketing himself, perhaps, but still good music. funny. entertaining. might buy me one. and, fwiw, i kinda like the savantish act, controversy aside.

the sound of one gunshot (bed hunting)

the dr. and i decided to get a new bed recently.
we started shopping, only to realize that this adventure is much like buying a car. Fook.

so we head out, visiting the circuit of bed shops on Van Ness Avenue. it seems silly to tell you that there are three bed shops within two blocks of each other, and they are very, very similar.

Sleeptrain - the scent of musk.
Mancini's - some guy who only acknowledged us as we walked out the door.
Mattress Discounters - wait, what's different here? oh, no scent of musk.

IMHO - turns out that mancini's is just worthless. a $15k bed? what? what? i can't hear you over the sound of that one gunshot.

Sleeptrain and Mattress Discounters are the same deal - the only discernible difference is that one lets you try a bed for 60 days, the other one 90 days.

we're getting one from a discount outlet on 9th street. seriously, we almost bought a tempur pedic. but then we read this article - and realized that maybe we should buy a bed for $2k sometime. just not now. thank you Restonic.

Confidential to Restonic - your website blows in a serious fashion. work it out, doobs.

not sure about the open shirt

but it's amusing anyway -


found here - via blogrush

it's called vajayjay; euros need not apply

Rapper Jay-Z was flashing euros in a recent video, and supermodel Gisele Bundchen was refusing to accept payment in dollars. are these items unrelated?

and!

The New York Times Style section published a feature on the rise of the term "vajayjay" to describe female genitalia. "The reason that vajayjay has caught on, I think, is because there is a black--Southern especially--naming tradition, which is to have names like Ray Ray and Boo Boo and things like that," said John H. McWhorter, a linguist at the Manhattan Institute. "It sounds warm and familiar and it almost makes the vagina feel like a little cartoon character with eyes that walks around."

yes of course it is from them!

doppelganger

the dr and I know this couple (our associates cornelius and davinci*) who were travelling home recently on their motorcycle. they saw someone who fit the physical description of the dr., and when they called out to her by first name, the person turned and said hello. then cornelius and davinci proceeded to have a small (2 or so minutes) conversation with this person who answered to the dr's name, and looked enough like her to confuse our associates.

it wasn't until after they bade each other good night that they realized that it was not, in fact, the doctor. "sure, it sorta looked like her, but not really...and what the fook was she talking about?" they mused to each other. our associates then contacted us, and relayed said story.

so i googled the contents of the conversation to figure out who this person might be. and wrote her an email. i hope she doesn't freak out.

updates as they happen.


update 1 - the woman i emailed is NOT the person cornelius and davinci bumped into. but we're inviting this person out to a beer, as she is as intrigued as we all are about this.






* - i wish these were their names

scottish

some strange news from Scotland -
a Scottish man was placed on a sex offenders registry for raping a bicycle. Another Scottish man was sentenced to five years in jail for smothering his 76-year-old mother with a pillow not long after she told him he was a failure who could not even kill himself properly. "I woke up," the man told police, "and just decided to do it." [ed. - got something right]
you know where

writing

an open letter to Beer, from me, in the style of Dubble-u (previously referred here as Dub; rub a dub dub);

Dear Beer,
I am gonna git ya.

collective duh resonation

Companies Seeking Immunity Donate to Senator
DUH
Eric Lichtblau and Scott Shane of The New York Times report: "Executives at the two biggest phone companies contributed more than $42,000 in political donations to Senator John D. Rockefeller IV this year while seeking his support for legal immunity for businesses participating in National Security Agency eavesdropping."

john mclaughlin?

HeARt popPERS

Bo Ward, the proprietor of a barbershop near the Army's Fort Campbell, committed suicide at a town meeting in Clarksville, Tennessee. Ward had requested that his home be rezoned as a commercial property to increase its value and to offset the losses he suffered when most of his regular patrons, among them General David Petraeus, were deployed to Iraq; the City Council refused. "Y'all have put me under," said the barber before inserting a pistol into his mouth. "I'm out of here."

Two thirds of American CEOs, a study found, think that American CEOs are overpaid.

BB KING

thor

i like this.

i like the response - "We recognize that there is room for improvement and that even one bad customer experience is one too many. It is our goal to continue bringing customers in Northern Virginia the most advanced products and services we offer ... and to ensure that they have a great experience at every touchpoint."

UPDATE - woman now titled hero.

"For now, in other words, being an active liberal means being a progressive. And being a progressive means being partisan. But the end goal isn't one-party rule. It's the re-establishment of a truly vital, competitive democracy. For in the end, democracy is what being liberal is all about."

- Paul Krugman

Ignoranus Neologisms

Frisbeetarianism (n.), (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

Ignoranus (n): A person who's both stupid and an asshole.