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What is Wrong With Drowsy?

When shopping for children's cold remedies, I am bombarded with a variety of boxes of elixers, drops, chews, and swallows all telling me that the enclosed product is "non-drowsy". Why they hell wouldn't I want me kid to get drowsy after ingesting decongestant? When it is 1:30 in the am and my kid is hacking up a lung or drowning in snot, I want them to be able to sleep. I want maximum drowsy formula, damnit!

And what about airplane rides? If you have ever taken a plane trip with a sick kid you know just how miserable you and everyone around you becomes. More drugs to make them sleepy for the ride! It should be mandatory, in fact (sorry, Seventh day adventists, no travelling for you)!

That is all.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:44

Be Thankful This Wasn't You

Kevin over at Big Hominid has a wonderful Thanksgiving tale sure to warm the cockles of your heart (whatever they are). As you look back at your holiday merry making, give thanks that you didn't have (I hope) anything near as much fun as Kevin did.

But when you've got only a few minutes, and you know that you're not going to have time to shit while at your job, you make the effort to launch as many glistening ass-babies as possible. I did so, and was rather impressed with the results.

So I skipped over to EC, blissfully unaware of the danger I was in. I had badly, badly underestimated the size and malevolence of the Southwest Sampler which, coupled with the equally evil (and aptly named) Brownie Bottom Pie, was about to wreak some major havoc on my evening.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:55

Spongebob Squarepants For President!

What? Oh, a little too late, I guess.

Went out with Corsair Jr. and some of his friends to watch the Spongebob Squarepants movie. One word: cute. It was a lot better than some other movies I have seen of late and it reinforced a lot of useful values. Like putting flags in your butt, riding on Daivd Hasselhof's back, and eating ice cream until you lose control.

Are those values?

Anyway, run right out and support something good and funny and maybe they will make some more.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 11:18

Great Reading... As Long As You Are Not In North Korea

You would be killed for reading or writing this great article on OhMyNews about North Korean journalists.

RTWT
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:04

If He Does, Will His Pants Fall Down?

I am over on Yahoo news and see this headline:

Experts Say N.Korea's Kim Not Losing His Grip

The I look to the right and see this pic:

That's a relief. If there is something the world does not want to see it is an un-pantsed Dear Leader.

Ewww.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:30

Fire!

Corsair the Rational Pirate is also, as some may recall, Corsair the Volunteer Fire Fighter. The people of Corsair's community can sleep well at night knowing that the Pirate is on the job!

In order for the people to sleep the sleep of the innocent, sometimes training must be accomplished. Today was destroy a house and then burn it down day. We cut holes in the roof (to provide ventilation), ripped doors off hinges (to better gain access), did search and rescue in smokey rooms, checked the walls and floor for "extension" (fire that has moved from one part of the house to another via the spaces in the walls) by smashing big holes in them, and learned fire behavior by setting the house ablaze and watching it consume itself.

I have a bit of a time-lapse showing just that:

Before we began	Fire starts to catch	Left side almost fully involved
Fire showing through the roof	Right side begins to catch	House fully involved
Fire everywhere	Interior starts to collapse	Roof collapses
Front begins to burn away	No more roof or front left	Interior and back are gone
Almost nothing left	Pile of smokey rubble

It was nice day to burn things down. It wasn't so nice cleaning the hoses afterwards. The area we were in was incredibly muddy and really far off the road so we had to run 1,500 feet of 3-inch down this muddy lane to provide our emergency water. Afterwards we had to collect it all up and run it all through a hose wash mechanism. After the was completed it was finally time to go home.

But fun was had by all.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 21:22

Got the Grippe

Or consumption. Or some other wasting disease. (Doctor called it bronchitis, but how can you believe the science of dead white men?) So I took the day off. Now, of course I have to go to Princess Corsair I's first grade Autumn show. That will quickly be followed by a trip to Corsair Jr.'s English class to partake in Scrabble.

So much for resting at home.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:51

What The Hell?

Got a mysterious call tonight from 201-459-0000. Odd number, I thought. Answered it and said "Hello" (I'm polite like that). I heard a sort of robotic "H e l l o", some static and then the thing hung up.

I called it back to see what was going on and got a "This number is not in service" message. Well it bloody well is in service, you robotic beyotch! I just got a call from there!

So I do some sleuthing on the web and get this:

Posted by Shane-VA on August 17, 2004 at 19:53:12:

In Reply to: 201-459-000 posted by D Weber on June 07, 2004 at 22:17:47:

some jerk called me from this number. I traced it to a pay phone in Jersey. he had the nerve to get rude with me after explaining to him the need for a do not call:telemarketers filling my answering machine up with auto-robots. It is ridiculous. if anyone finds out this individuals info, let me know and i will strangle him. He was such an a$$ on the phone. Apparently he uses a fake tracer. His accent does seem to be northeastern though-jerseylike. i sent an email to the FCC, we will see what happens..

amongst many more like it.

Oh, and this odd site mentions it.

If you get a call from this number, answer it and make fools of them. They are trying to scam you but if you know about it ahead of time you can have some fun with them.

Please call back.

UPDATE: They called again but all I got was the same Robo-voice. Next time I will get my wife to answer it as my manly baritone appears to be scaring them off. Pussies.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 22:45

Did You Heed My Advice?

OK, all you non-The Office watching lusers! If you have not already run out and watched this show you are seriously missing out.


The above is a screen cap from the tenderest moment of the whole show in the Christmas Special episode. The office that this show depicts is a full of wierdos, losers, and complete wankers. Except for two people who you know feel something for each other but circumstances preclude them from getting together (she is engaged and he is a straight up guy who wouldn't poach on another man's woman).

By the end of the series you just ache for them to get together. When the Christmas episode happens and Dawn comes back from Florida for the party all I could do was concentrate on her and Tim's relationship.



Here is Tim's solliloquy toward the end of the show:

The people you work with are people you were just thrown together with.

You don't know them. It wasn't your choice.

And yet you spend more time with them than you do friends or your family.

But probably all you've got in common is the fact that you walk on the same bit of carpet for eight hours a day.

And so, obviously, when someone comes in who you... you have a connection with...

Yeah. And Dawn was a ray of sunshine in my life and it meant a lot.

But if I'm really being honest, I never really thought it would have a happy ending.

I don't know what a happy ending is. Life isn't about endings, is it? It's a series of moments.

And, um... It's like, if you turn the camera off, it's not an ending, is it?

I'm still here. My life's not over. Come back here in ten years. See how I'm doing then.

Cause I could be married with kids. You don't know.

Life just goes on.

Sometimes the good guy does win in the end.

The. Best. TV. Show. In. Years.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 21:56

Killing Me!

This shouldn't be hard. But maybe I am a moron. I am trying to connect Tomcat 4.1.31 to Apache 1.3.27 on Soalris 9.

I think it involves something called mod_jk or mod_jk2. I can't find an easy to read, Apache-Tomcat for Dummies site anywhere which will tell me how to do it with a minimum of fuss and bother.

Anyone out there know?

UPDATE: There appears to be something called webapp which will do what I want it to do. I will try that.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:47

Condi's New Suit

Does this still work:


Or will Condi need to become a new character?
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 07:58

Not to Be A Complete Nitpicker...

But can't the BBC at least look at their pictures before posting the wrong information?

A US marine near Mosul in Iraq cleans his weapons.

This is not a Marine. The label above his pocket says U.S. Army (plus the specialist collar thingies gives it away). And he is not wearing the goofy new camouflage outfits that the Marine's wear.

Really, is it so hard to get it right? And if they can't even get the small stuff right, how much should we trust them on the big stuff?
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 14:35

Whatever Happened to the Arab Street?

Remember all the gloom and doom and "woe is you" nonsense that usually accompanies any sort of US military action in the Middle East? Did we not hear lots of "You can't attack Muslims during the Holy Month of Ramadan" and "Keep those infidels out of the Holy Mosques"? And what the hell is it that Muslims do that makes everything they touch "holy"?

We were warned that disturbing any sort of Muslim sensibilities would result in death and destruction of the US from the "Arab Street". Of course, all these Holy-thises and Holy-thats never stopped the Islamonazis from blowing people up during their holy days using bombs assembled in their holy places. It was only the US who was supposed to follow the rules.

So what are we to make of this pic:

Members of Charlie Company of the First Marine Division, 6th Regiment, regroup inside the Al Kalfa Mosque in Fallujah, Iraq (news - web sites), only hours after taking it Thursday, Nov. 11, 2004. Routed insurgents soon regrouped and rained heavy fire on the mosque, prompting the Marines to leave.

A bunch of dirty, smelly US soldiers camping out in a Mosque in Fallujah during the holy month of Ramadan. Someone finally gets it. If the islamonazis aren't going to play by the rules, we shouldn't have to either.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:52

Just Let Me Add My Opinion

To these esteemed gentlemen: Lileks and Brian. I went ahead and downloaded a copy of Delicious Library to play around with and was hooked in seconds. I don't have an iSite to scan bar codes... But I do have a Digital Video Camera which does the same thing! I have been running around the house like a moron for the past several hours trying to find books to scan. I love it!

It seems to have a problem with paperbacks. It either can't find them or it gives some wierd answer. And the delete key does not delete things. But for a 1.0 release this is remakable polished and I was more than happy to give up some dough to these guys.

Here is a quick screen shot:



More books... Must find more books... and DVDs and games and and and.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 13:30

Whine Moan Complain

The US Marines are really really good at what they do. And what they are supposed to do is not distribute teddy bears to kids or rebuild hospitals (that is kind of a bonus). The whole reason to have Marines is to point them at bad guys and let them kill the bad guys. Not really hard to wrap your cranium around.

This guy, however seems to think the Marines should be doing the killing in a kindler, gentler way (maybe throw the teddy bears at the bad guys causing them to trip and fall):

And the technique is literally to insert the ordinary marines - the grunts as they call themselves - wait until they draw fire and then hit back with everything they have got.

So you see a fleeting glimpse of one of the militants in the back of a room or jumping across a rooftop and then literally in the two hours I was out last night, thousands of rounds of ammunition are expended, tanks fire and the place is left in ruins.

Seems like a perfectly reasonable way to go about business.

One can only imagine the plight of the civilians.

I have questioned many times senior officers here about the use of heavy weapons because they have been using 155mm artillery in Falluja, they have been dropping 2,000 pound bombs.

The bullets that they fire are high velocity. The buildings are of poor construction here - the bullets travel through the walls.

Oh the humanity! Bullets of high veliocity are used? Whatever possesses these Devil Dogs to use such cruel and inhuman tools of their trade!? Why don't they use the low velocity ones that will bounce off the walls and cause less destruction? Or maybe they can get he Nerf version of the M-16 so that the walls themselves are protected from our indiscriminate use of force!

I shall write my congressman immediatly!

But of course, these unthinking robots of destruction aren't all bad:

And when they see what they believe to be militants - and these marines are incredibly calm under fire, they are almost unflinching - they do wait until they see a guy with a gun but when they see that, they open up with everything they have got and the question is, how much collateral damage is there going to be?

They wait until they see a freaking gun! They stick their necks out waiting for to get shot at! What more can anyone ask of these guys?! They could level blocks of buildings with a command and damn those inside of them. But they don't. They wait. And they do everything they can to kill only the bad guys.

I just bet this reporter hates that. Where is he going to get street cred with the European left if he doesn't come up with a few atrocities?
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:12

iPod and the VP

I was flipping through the radio channels yesterday when I came upon an interview between Sean Hannity and Mrs. VP Cheney. She was talking about election day when her and her hubby were on Air Force 2 and she was following the returns and exit polls and such. Sean then asked whether the VP was following the exit polls as well? Mrs. VP answered something to the effect of: "No, Dick was listening to his iPod and ignoring all that nonsense."

Cool. The VP gets it. I only wish I could afford to "get it" as well.

Oh, she said it was country music, probably Johnny Cash. Nothing wrong with that.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 18:54

Enforced Idleness

Veterans Day. Hooray for me! Can't go to work so I today I am joining Princess Corsair I's first grade class for lunch and computer instruction.

Should prove fun. Maybe I will get some pics.

Meanwhile, go out and kiss a vet!

Update: Back from an exhasuting afternoon of school. I got there in time for a reasonably priced ($2.85... I don't qualify for assistance) lunch (chicken nuggets, grapes, cookie and chocolate milk) and learned that the girls have to sit on one side of the table and the boys on the other. I was going to bring up this blatant sexism and outright discrimination to my congressman but got bogged down with the chicken nuggets. The main course was surprisingly moist without being too wet. The flavors competed nicely with the low fat chocolate milk. The grapes cleansed the palate admirably despite the presence of a few too many sticks and stems. I was disappointed in the chocolate cookie which left just a little too sweet of an aftertaste. I think a little less butter could have been used. Altogether: 1 star.

After lunch it was off to Physical Education where a couple of trim young things taught the basics of jumping rope and hula hoop. Some of the kids can't coordinate their feet and their arms (like some folks we had to teach to march back in my Air Force days - try swinging your right arm while stepping with your right leg - not a pretty sight) so spent most of the time trying to strangle themselves.

This soon ended and it was off to music lessons! Where the kiddies did the funky chicken, a choo choo train song and a three little bears ditty. I think I worked on the triangle in first grade and not much more than that.

As soon as music was over it was another move to the computer room where they started a "What I am thankful for" project. Then it was finally back to their room to get ready to go.

It was amazingly regimented. The kids lined up there to go to one class and over here to go to another. No talking in the halls. Put your things down there and pick them up here. Put you name tags on for lunch and return them to you table captain after lunch. Everyone working together like a well-oiled machine. Reminded me of my Air Force basic training days (*sniff*)... Except without all the yelling.

During all this they also managed to get in a small talk about Veterans Day, the wars that led up to it, and what veterans were and why they were special. That felt kinda good since I was a real live vet sitting right there behind them. Although the odd way the teacher introduced the subject of "Mr. Hitler, Mr. Mussolini, and Mr. Tojo" was a bit disconcerting (I suppose you can't go around saying "That Jew Killing Bastard Hitler", the "Stupid Dago Mussolini" and that "Wily Jap Tojo" in front of a bunch of first graders). She also mentioned the War of Terror as our current war and none of her little charges thought anything about it. Kinda sad really that the fact that they weere in a war was no cause for concern for these little tykes.

I got a couple of minutes to talk to the teacher to compliment them on the sheer number of things that the children have to study each day. She said "This is the best public private school I have ever seen". And I tend to agree with her. You hear a lot about school systems cutting back on everything because of lack of funds or so that they can concentrate on "teaching to the test". Well, let me be the first to tell you that a rich and varied education can be had at my daughter's school. So all you public school bashers and home school advocates can go and take a flying leap. Not every school system in the country is like the miserable one in Washington DC. I am a proud product of the public school system as are most people I know in all walks of life so shut your pie holes about education in this country if you can't point to specifics. I can specifically say that Princess Corsair I's school is a wonderful, nurturing place where I am happy to send her to to get a first rate education.

Nyah!
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 11:23

Does It Come With a Dictionary?

Sure, he's some kinda chrome dome, big wig Prof and all, but does he have to use words that no one understands?

Tufts Associate Professor of Anthropology David Guss said that the iPod is so successful because it "empower[s] people to become more than simply passive consumers. iPod and other systems create new circuitries in which consumers are also producers."

Google isn't much help either.

posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:41

Ivory Coast?



Soap? No wonder the French are having such a problem with it...
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 10:35

Shouldn't It Be Something Else?

Is it really racist to dislike a religion?

Vandals threw red paint Saturday night on a center in Amsterdam that aids immigrants, many of them Muslim. The agency, called the Emcemo Center, is located several blocks from the spot where Van Gogh was killed, and its director, Abdou Menebhi, told local television station AT5 that he believed the vandals were racists.

Muslims come in all shapes and sizes. To say that you disklike them because of the silly religious thing they have going on isn't to say that you dislike them because they are all Arabs or Indonesians or something.

I have the same problem with calling people racists because they don't like Jews. Is Jewishness a separate race? If so, then no one but Jews can be Jewish. Something akin to me checking the box for Asian on the census. Can't happen! But I could put Muslim or Jew or Wiccan if I so chose.

So get off the racist talk and dislike them for a real reason, their adherence to a silly old book of lunatic ravings.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:49

Huh?

Target has some cool stuff. Some of it you don't really notice unless you look really hard. I was on the hunt for some dishwashing soap the other day when I stumbled upon Method dish soap. Ok, one dish soap is no different than another dish soap. Ivory, Palmolive, whatever. Right?

So I thought until I read the back of the Method stuff (I know, reading the back of dish is pretty pathetic). Here is what I found:

This dish soap has been designated a collector's item by us. In the future, your grandchildren will sell this bottle for lots of money at a dish soap collector convention. Always insist on authentic method products. See cashier for exact value.

Now if that isn't the coolest thing in dish soap I will drink this whole bottle! I imagine most dish soap products post a list of incomprehensible chemicals, warnings about drinking or washing your eyes with it, and plugs for other products. This one goes beyond that and inject a little whimsy. That is what the corporate world needs, a little more fantasy.

I will always buy this stuff from now on. They have a customer for life.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:40

One More Thing

In addition to reading in inordinate amount of dead-tree material these days, I still am able to get out and see the latest Pixar masterpiece, The Incredibles. And incredible it is!

First, read this from Brian. Done? OK, my verbally fantastical affirmation: what he said. Up to and including the dig about Finding Nemo. I remember coming out of that one thinking "ehhh, not as good as most of their others". The public seemed to like it, however.

The Incredibles, on the other hand has got it going on. The look, the feel, the music... everything is dead on. Edna is perhaps the best character that Pixar has ever come up with. I expect to see Edna movies soon.

So go out and see this one, you won't regret it.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 07:04

Book Report

Since I got the new job I now get to spend a lot of time sitting on a bus or a subway. This has finally given me the opportunity to read a few good books. Oddly enough, when I am at home at the COrsair Cave, the rest of the Pirate Bunch seem to think that I will interact with them in fun and interesting ways. This tends to limit the amount of time I can read a good novel. So I don't, at home.

The people on mass transit don't seem to have a problem with me not interacting with them (more's the pity for them...) and so I plop down in the seat with my reading material and the time flies by.

So what have I been reading recently? Let us start with Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Death Gate Cycle. This an oldy (early 90s) but a goody and I recommend it highly!










This is a great series of books that has the time to go into a lot of detail that helps to flesh out the overall story. And with almost every book occuring in a new world, things remain fresh almost throughout.

The only problem with the series (despite liking it reccomending it, it did have a couple of problems) was the seemingly rushed ending. You would think that with seven books to work with, the authors would have enough time to finish things up. We do not really get an ending, however and it appears that book number eight never saw the light of day.

Next up is Greg Bear's The Forge of God and Anvil of Stars (another early 90s set):






This series starts fast with alien invasion and the earth fighting for its life from robotic destruction (covered in the first volume) and moves to retribution and revenge by a picked crew in the second. While I enjoyed earth's final days and the efforts of those trying to salvage what it could before destruction, the second volume of soul searcing, in fighting, talk talk talking youngsters flying though space in search of the home world of the destroyers to be a big disappointment. In fact, with my bookcase selves groaning under the weight of a plethora of books, I finally gave up on this one and returned it to its place without finishing it. I almost never not finish a book, but the many chapters of whining 15-year old warriors starts to grate on ones nerves after awhile. Go ahead and read the first one but skip the second, there are plenty of other things to read out there.

Next I tried something slightly newer (1197), Kay Kenyon's Seeds of Time.



One word: didn't like it. Skip this one if you bore easily.

Currently I am reading J. Gregory Keyes late 90s series The Age of Unreason.




So far this one is panning out. I finished the first one and couldn't wait to get to the second. It is about a young Benjamin Franklin teaming up with Isaac Newton to fight evil, or something. I have yet to get the whole story of evil and betrayal and forces beyond our understanding, but I am enjoying the wait while I work my way though the chapters. Run right out on this one and read away!


posted by corsair the rational pirate at 21:13

Marmot Nails It

Check out this over at the Marmot's hole.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 09:29

1000 Day Party

Hey! Yesterday was my 1000th day blogging! Woo Hoo!

I also recently passed 1000 posts! Woo Hoo!

I really wish I had a real life...
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:52

Fear and Loathing in San Francisco

Two years ago I deconstructed the bleatings of the left in the SF Chron after the Rethuglicans took the House and Senate in the last big election.

Well, like poop stains to drawers, they're back! Let us remove ourselves to the letters page and see what paranoid, delusional rantings we will come across:

Living with the results

Editor -- Leaving my polling place Tuesday, I felt like the kid on Christmas Eve who truly believes she might find that shiny pink bike with the purple streamers beside the tree in the morning. By 10 p.m., that kid had scampered to the tree and found instead a G.I. Joe with his insane clown posse.

Americans voted their "moral values," choosing the guy who dodged the draft, sent 1,000 U.S. soldiers to die in a pre-emptive war, mortgaged the economy to service the super-rich and dismissed the environment as a diversion of the radical fringe. In what parallel universe does this constitute morality?

Is the Jesus factor really the litmus test now, so that candidates born only once are no longer electable? Do the evangelicals really believe that the person who claims to have Jesus in his heart is always a better than the person whose behavior is actually moral?

JENNIFER POYER ACKERMAN

Well, Jenny, maybe you might want to play a bit with ole GI Joe and learn the art of war so that when the Islamonazis try to kill you you might know what to do to them. Flinging your pink bike at them probably isn't going to work.

Editor -- I hope Californians remember the role Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger played in re-electing a president who has done the least for California. Remember it when: Congress votes to deny civil rights to gays; Roe vs. Wade is overturned and abortion criminalized; our forests are plundered to line the pockets of GOP contributors; Bush's "clean air" polices make air in the Central Valley even worse; and, your child is sent overseas to die for Bush' s private vendetta.
Without our governor campaigning in Ohio and at the Republican convention, Bush would be back in Texas. We should send a strong message to politicians who talk unity but practice divisive politics.

DAN TUTTLE

Tut tut, Tuttle. First off, Congress didn't vote to deny civil rights to gays, 11 states did (and I am still not sure that marriage is a civil right), stuffing the forests into GOP pickets might be harder than it appears, and the war in Iraq is hardly some private vendetta. It has been going on a long time and it was just Bush who had the balls to finish the damn job.

Editor -- We now have confirmed our worst fears about the soul of this nation. Imagine the disbelief around the world at this turn of events: Astonishing validation of the Christian right and the politics of fear.
History will record this election as the most significant U.S. event since the Civil War. Can you imagine what the federal and Supreme courts will look like in four years with a Bush/Cheney/Rove/Ashcroft administration, and Bill Frist and Tom DeLay in the Congress presiding over the appointments?

LARRY MURPHY

There you go, Larry, inciting fear among the sheep. I am not afraid. I see our government doing things that keep the bad guys at bay. When was the last major terrorist attack on US soil after 9/11? See! It's working. As for the courts, Bill Clinton had 8 years to make his mark on them, who are you to deny Bush's mandate to do so for his 8 years?

Oooh, here come the conspiracies:

Editor -- It is difficult to believe the election results. There were rumors of voter intimidation, illegal registrations and unreliable electronic voting.
Exit polls were very much favorable to Kerry. Long lines of people outside polling places in swing states excitedly talked about voting for Kerry. But Bush's team seemed quietly confident.

It reminds us that the president of Diebold, the company that manufactured touch-screen voting terminals, promised that he would do whatever it would take to re-elect President Bush, who has now won two close and questionable elections. I want to believe in the results, but I need more reasons to do so.

JOSH URETSKY

Rumors of bad stuff!?!? Oh no! Stop the presses! You got anything more than rumors? More than 115 million people voted for a president this year. Did you expect things to go perfectly everywhere? Are you insane? Does the post office deliver every letter on time? Do all your cell phone calls go through? Is every pump open at all times at your favorite gas station? Don't be an idiot. This race was not that close or questionable.

As for exit polls, they were wrong. Get over it. Count the ballots and not the stupid polls.

Editor -- Why has no one, including the media, pointed out that the machines created by Diebold could have been rigged? There have been many suggestions by many columnists that this was a possibility.

LEONARD J. DUHL

Look, Dull... er Duhl, you said no on pointed out this obvious fact... except for the numerous columnists numerous times... And who do the columnists work for? Might it be the media? What the hell are you trying to say here, Leo my boy? That you are a complete nincompoop? Got it.

Editor -- Congratulations to the National Rifle Association, assault- weapons makers, the Christian right, the anti-gay "moralists," anti-women's rights activists, death-penalty champions, Halliburton, the military- industrial complex, oil barons, SUV-makers, the super-rich, the go-it-alone war "patriots" and the coalition of the fearful. You won!

FRAN HULSE

Let me say "thank you" from them. Have a nice day.

Editor -- How pathetic that Bush and his henchmen can continue to lie to the American people -- sending their loved ones off to kill innocents and being executed themselves in a moronic war -- yet so few looked beyond their tunnel vision to make a responsible choice for president. All Bush did was play the God card and he wins! Shame on you who voted to endure this reign.

BARBARA ROGERS

So, Babs, is it the innocents that are executing our loved ones? Then, they wouldn't be innocent... would they? And I seem to remember Bush saying a couple more things than "God". Stuff about terrorism and taxes and economies and junk.

Sometimes I wish I lived in the world of the deranged. Like in SF. Life would be so much easier, I think. Kittens and flowers and rainbows and my government is evil incarnate. But it just doesn't seem to work for me.

Congrats to the winners but don't do anything stupid or I will have to taunt you a second time. You don't want that. The losers can regroup and try again in four years with Edwards or Hillary or whoever. Until then put away your Bushitler signs, throw out your Farenheit 9/11 DVDs, remove the visions of jack booted thugs crushing your windpipe from your minds and get on with your lives.
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 08:26

Mission Accomplished

Headed out to the local polling place this morning before coming in to work. At 5:50 am, I was about 65th in line with another 200 behind me when the doors opened.

Voting was quick and easy. I told them my name and address, showed my driver's license, picked up a ballot and headed over to a table with pens taped to it on little strings. There were only six questions, President, Congress, two things about the state constitution, and two local bond measures (schools and parks). I filled in the little bubbles with the provided black pen; took maybe a minute to complete, check it twice, and then slide it in the electronic counting box and I was off to work.

Take that, enemies of freedom and democracy! I voted for the leader of my country. A billion people in China can't do what I just did. Hundreds of millions of deluded Muslim idiots in countries throughout the Middle East and Africa can't do that. Ex-Soviets can do that but it probably wouldn't matter. Vietnamese, Burmese, Cubans, and a host of other countries are so scared of the prospect of the people having even the littlest bit of power that none of those citizens can do that. Europeans can do it but the Central Committee in Belgium (or Belfast or Belgrade or whatever) probably will find a way to outlaw it soon.

There really is only one thing that separates a citizen of a country from someone visiting or even residing there, the ability to vote in that country's elections. If you don't want to be any better than an illegal Salvadoran dishwasher, stay home and don't vote. If you want to take part in something denied a huge percentage of the population of this planet (maybe just to rub their faces in it) than get out and vote, stupid!
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 07:36

Infantile Obsession

Gotta love golf season... Do they actually have a golf season?

Anyway, I give you Grace Park's most redeeming feature:



Belly button!
posted by corsair the rational pirate at 11:27