Saturday, January 15, 2005

Framed

I spent part of the day mushing about the frozen steppes of Wisconsin, looting the West Bend antique show of a nice old mahogany picture frame, and checking out a thrift shop and two antique malls in Milwaukee. Nothing I can't do without at the latter, but the frame will be handy for an 1880ish double page newspaper woodblock print of a couple of chick-type persons in a dory, all duded up in bustles and big hats, shooting seagulls.

(Do chick-type persons get duded up? They don't get chicked up, at least so far as I know. Perhaps the linguisticly inclined would like to contribute in the Comments?)

Anyway, Hef wasn't the first publisher to put a picture of curvy females in his mag. He did forget the double-barreled shotguns tho. Well, and the bustles, too, of course.

Cool Space Pic of the Day

Nope, not Titan from Huygens: You've likely been living under a rock if you haven't seen those elsewhere. If you have been spelunking, tho, the APOD site will get you there. Clik on the title or cut and paste: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050112.html

And here are the archives: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html

Friday, January 14, 2005

Doing our bit...

...in the battle against malaria: It is now 4 degrees outside, a surge of 4 since 7 AM. This should help keep all disease-carrying mosquitos at bay a bit longer. All you poor people stuck in the pestholes of Florida and Hawaii and the like will just have to cower under your mosquito nets whilst wistfully contemplating our healthful clime.

"I'm with the government and I'm here to...

...help you."

Yep. They were only trying to help their constituents. They really were. No kidding. Good intentions all the way. http://www.bartleby.com/65/ha/HawleySm.html

Poor, poor, Michael Moore...

...has been rejected for inclusion on his old high school's Hall of Fame. Four times.
"Would you want him as a role model? Would you want your son or daughter to be like him?" asked Don Hammond, a member of the Davison Hall of Fame selection committee, who has voted not to elect Moore. "I haven't talked to anybody yet who's for him. The word to describe Michael Moore is embarrassing. He embarrasses everybody."
His supporters are still trying tho. Clik on the title or copy and paste: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050114.wmmorr14/BNStory/Entertainment/

Walking wounded

I'm hobbling about on a wounded foot at the moment: Was dashing around barefoot Tuesday trying to get to the Museum on time and kicked the durn couch laig. Taped toe and impressively extensive black 'n blue area on my decrepitized pod.

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Putting them in his socks was pure absent-mindedness

The New York Post has an update on a very strange political story:
WASHINGTON — The criminal probe into why former Bill Clinton aide Sandy Berger illegally sneaked top-secret documents out of the National Archives — possibly in his socks — has heated up and is now before a federal grand jury....

Berger admits removing 40 to 50 top-secret documents from the archives, but claims it was an "honest mistake" made while he vetted documents for the 9/11 commission's probe into the Twin Towers attacks....Berger has also acknowledged that he destroyed some documents — he says by accident....The probe was touched off last spring when stunned archives staffers reported seeing Berger sneak classified documents out of a top-secret reading room in his pants and socks while vetting Clinton-era items for the commission.
This probably amounts to nothing more than political CYA, but Holy Cow, folks, this is scummy behavior. Scummy. People who do this kind of stuff are not respectable people who respectable people should allow into their homes. Stealing documents from the National Archives and destroying them because they are EMBARRASSING? Who did Berger never have sex with?

Monday, January 10, 2005

Newsweek: The Pentagon may try to kill the enemy.

Shocking news from Iraq: The Pentagon is debating sending out Special Forces teams to kill insurgents and "the fact that it is being discussed at all is a measure of just how worried Donald Rumsfeld really is":
one Pentagon proposal would send Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers
Do these fiends in American uniforms have no compassion? The article is accompanied by a photograph of dead victims (American nuns) of the El Salvadoran death squads in 1980. Newsweek claims that even Saddam Hussein's half brother may be at risk.
Pentagon sources emphasize there has been no decision yet to launch the Salvador option. Last week, Rumsfeld decided to send a retired four-star general, Gary Luck, to Iraq on an open-ended mission to review the entire military strategy there. But with the U.S. Army strained to the breaking point, military strategists note that a dramatic new approach might be needed—perhaps one as potentially explosive as the Salvador option.
The Iraqi Quagmire has no bottom if it has gotten this desperate. Killing the enemy. The shame. Click here: MSNBC - ‘The Salvador Option’

Sunday, January 09, 2005

This feller's hand was a might trembly on the wheel...

eBay Litachur, Mk II

"WW1 .BYE PLANE MADE FROM BRASS AND A LARGE BULLIT MAYBE FRENCH"

"when old lefties cry out for law and order..."

"...you know something has shifted in the political climate; it is now a common perception that the integration of Muslims in Holland has failed."
...

"Geert Wilders...(has an) extraordinary hairdo, a kind of lacquered blond bouffant, draped around a pink baby face... A former deputy and speechwriter...he left the Liberal Party in September, 2004...(His) efforts to organize a new party are somewhat hampered by the fact that he needs twenty-four-hour protection and has to stay in safe houses.

I saw him in his well-guarded office at Parliament, in The Hague. Wilders is a man obsessed with one idea: Holland’s failure to confront the Islamist threat."

"Then (Scheerder) mentioned a news segment about Theo van Gogh on Moroccan TV, and an interview it had featured with a Moroccan immigrant in Amsterdam. I asked Scheerder what the man had said. He thought for a moment and spoke softly: “He said that his death was just, and that he was punished by God.”"


The New Yorker sent a writer to Holland to report on the aftermath of the Islamist murder of film maker Theo van Gogh. Click here: The New Yorker: Fact or http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050103fa_fact1

Bombing Berlin w/ 15 tons of candy

Here is an interview with Gail Halvorson, one of the pilots of the Berlin Airlift. "The Americans and British flew in 2.3 million tons of supplies to Berlin"after Great Stalin blockaded the city. I'm not sure if that includes the 15 tons of candy the pilots dropped with handkerchief parachutes. Click here: CNN - Cold War: Chat with Gail Halvorsen or http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/guides/debate/chats/halvorsen/

Tsunami- Before & After satellite photos

Some of these have been around for awhile, but if you haven't seen them, they are pretty sobering.
Click here: Tsunami - Banda Aceh Shore, Indonesia or http://homepage.mac.com/demark/tsunami/2.html