I did not know that
It doesn’t quite line up with what one may hear from Amnesty International and its ilk, but in fact there is a long line of people waiting to get into Gitmo. The U.S. Coast Guard reportedly intercepts some 600 refugees, not all of them from Cuba, in the sea around the base every month. Gitmo itself houses around 30 migrants at any given time.
—Jacob Laksin The American Spectator
March 14, 2008 — 8:12 am
Comments: none
An idea…
I would be so cool if we could make the whole blogosphere emit a
high-pitched, keening wail.
— 7:11 am
Comments: 5
Peace at last
Alec Wildenstein died last month. He was the husband of famous side-show freak Jocelyn Wildenstein AKA the Bride of Wildenstein AKA the Tiger Lady.
The Wildenstein family is worth about $10 billion, give or take a billion, acquired through several generations of shady art trading. The bulk of their collection is hidden in a former nuclear bunker in upstate New York. A French art critic was once allowed in and reported that it contained “a Fra Angelico, two Botticellis, eight Rembrandts, as many Rubens, three rare Velázquezes, nine El Grecos, five Tintorettos . . . four Titians, 12 Poussins and 79 Fragonards”. Shoot, I didn’t know there were 79 Fragonards.
Alec and Jocelyn were married in 1978, within a year of their first meeting, at a lion hunt. (That thing I just did there? That’s called ‘foreshadowing’). They had a reasonably successful marriage for a reasonably long time…for insanely rich people. Most of their time was spent at their 66,000-acre estate in Kenya. After about twenty years, however, Alec got de restless leg syndrome.
Jocelyn had a few facial tuneups, which staved off the inevitable for a while. Until the day she came home unexpectedly to find him in bed with a 19-year-old Russian model. He pulled a gun and everyone got arrested. Alec closed Jocelyn’s bank accounts next day and instructed the staff not to feed her — which was a problem, she said later, as she did not know how to make toast. The judge awarded her millions, and recommended she use some of it to buy a microwave. I don’t think a microwave makes very good toast.
Back she goes to the cosmetic surgeon. If looking good won’t do it, how about if he transformed her into one of Alec’s beloved big cats?
Ow. No.
Shock, horror…bitter divorce…more surgery…blah blah blah. They did eventually get back together in 2000, at least for a while. Despite her face and everything. There must’ve been something to their marriage beyond joint custody of the monkey.
Anyhow, prostate cancer got him in February. Rest in peace.
I hope she’s learned to make toast. I hope she stops doing that to herself. You, get yourself over to AwfulPlasticSurgery.com and spend an afternoon contemplating the face your mama gave you.
March 13, 2008 — 2:12 pm
Comments: 22
Platinum by Christmas!
Exclusive! The Weasel Times has obtained this beautiful short audio sample from the Katzenhuffins’ upcoming album:
[audio:bluedanube.mp3]
Or click here to download. You’ll want to save this one and enjoy it with headphones!
March 12, 2008 — 8:12 am
Comments: 44
Blind Lemon Paterson
Whoa! I just found out (via Protein Wisdom) that the lieutenant governor of New York is a brother. And he’s blind. That is so excellent! Why, the blues lyrics practically write themselves!
Look! He even has a little blues beard and everything.
According to GaySocialites.com (what? I found it on a Google images search), Republican Joe Bruno of the Senate will then become Lt. Governor. And Paterson was originally tipped to replace Hillary! should she claw her way to the presidency (he’s an experienced NY pol), so New York politics should shake up nicely after this. Thank you, Eliot Spitzer, for being such a horndog scumbag.
I wonder if that means Paterson can pick Bruno’s successor? I believe the R’s have a one-seat majority at present, so that could be even interestinger.
This is as good a place as any to post the Rules for Blues. Uncle B sent me this recently (well, this particular version I snagged off the Web on account of I can’t access my email from work. Yeah. Got the blues about that). The original Rules for Blues started out modestly in 1947 and quickly took on a life of its own. Here’s a standard incarnation.
1. Most Blues begin, “Woke up this morning.”
2. “I got a good woman,” is a bad way to begin the Blues, ‘less you stick something nasty in the next line, like “I got a good woman with the meanest face in town.”
3. The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes … sort of: “Got a good woman – with the meanest face in town. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher – and she weigh 500 pound.”
4. The Blues are not about choice. You stuck in a ditch: You stuck in a ditch, ain’t no way out.
5. Blues cars: Chevys and Cadillacs and broken down trucks. Blues don’t travel in Volvos, BMWs, or Sport Utility Vehicles. Most Blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Jet aircraft and state-sponsored motor pools ain’t even in the running. Walkin’ plays a major part in the blues lifestyle. So does fixin’ to die.
6. Teenagers can’t sing the Blues. They ain’t fixin’ to die yet. Adults sing the Blues. In Blues, adulthood means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.
7. Blues can take place in New York City, but not in Hawaii or any place in Canada. Hard times in St. Paul or Tucson is just depression. Chicago, St.Louis, and Kansas City still the best places to have the Blues. You cannot have the blues in any place that don’t get rain.
8. A man with male pattern baldness ain’t the blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg cuz you skiing is not the blues.
9. Breaking your leg cuz a alligator be chomping on it is.
10. You can’t have no Blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting is wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.
11. Good places for the Blues: a) highway b) jailhouse c) empty bed
Bad places: a) Nordstrom’s b) gallery openings c) Ivy League institutions d) golf courses.
12. No one will believe it’s the Blues if you wear a suit, ‘less you happen to be a old black man, and you slept in it.
13. Do you have the right to sing the Blues? Yes, if: a) you’re older than dirt b) you’re blind c) you shot a man in Memphis d) you can’t be satisfied.
No, if: a) you have all your teeth b) you were once blind but now can see c) the man in Memphis lived d) you have a retirement plan or trust fund.
14. Blues is not a matter of color. It’s a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues. Gary Coleman could. Ugly white people also got a leg up on the blues.
15. If you ask for water and Baby give you gasoline, it’s the Blues. Other acceptable Blues beverages are: a) bad wine b) bad whiskey or bad bourbon c) muddy water d) black coffee. The following are NOT Blues beverages: a) mixed drinks b) kosher wine c) Snapple d) sparkling water.
16. If it occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it’s a Blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die. So is the electric chair, substance abuse, and dying lonely on a broken down cot. You can’t have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or getting liposuction.
17. Some Blues names for women: a) Sadie b) Big Mama c) Bessie d) Fat River Dumpling.
Some Blues names for men: a) Joe b) Willie c) Little Willie d) Big Willie.
Persons with names like Sierra, Sequoia, and Rainbow can’t sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.
18. Make yer own Blues name (starter kit): name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, etc.) first name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi, etc.) last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.) For example, Blind Lime Jefferson, or Cripple Kiwi Fillmore, etc.
19. I don’t care how tragic your life: you own a computer, you cannot sing the blues. You best destroy it – with fire, a spilled bottle of Mad Dog, or get out a shotgun. Maybe your big woman just done sat on it. I don’t care.
— 8:12 am
Comments: 26
Norwegian Burqa Fashion Show
Shitting you? Nay.
I think #3 is a little unclear on the concept.
March 11, 2008 — 4:46 pm
Comments: 32
So what’s halfway between a pickle and a hammer?
I don’t know, but it’s hard and it’s sour.
The language of politics is unhelpful. Left and right. Conservative and progressive. Red and blue. There are places halfway between these two things, aren’t there?
No. There are not.
Let’s stop and bold that sucker: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS HALFWAY BETWEEN CONSERVATIVE AND PROGRESSIVE.
Each side has a coherent philosophy, a whole set of ideas about how the world works and the proper role of government. The individual issues they address are, for the most part, different. Not on a continuum. You either understand and buy in, or you don’t. You can believe something totally different, but you cannot blend left and right and make a convincing picklehammer.
Zo! A centrist isn’t a mild variety of lefty or righty. A centrist is someone who, at some level, doesn’t get the central argument of either side. They are some combination of
Confused. Intellectually lazy. Not possessing an underlying philosophy at all, approaching every issue individually. Cafeteria style.
Opportunistic. Seeing R and D purely as a branding issue. When one or the other parties has an exceptionally strong election, these are the people who discover whole new worlds of conviction and cross the aisle to sit with the popular kids.
Idiosyncratic. I’m a bit in this camp, myself. Most of us are. There are some parts of the platform I don’t buy. It’s okay to differ from a political orthodoxy, if you can explain how it still works. Ideologies are whole structures; if you pull out that one plank, explain why the the building doesn’t fall down. If you pull out a bunch of planks, you’ll have to use the lumber to build something new.
I’d rather argue with a leftist than a centrist any day. The leftist at least has a structure to push against. Arguing with a ‘moderate’ is like snot wrestling.
— 10:54 am
Comments: 78
All the Really Dangerous Fallacies I Learned in Kindergarten
Have you ever wondered why your speedometer goes to 160, when you’re pretty sure your old hoopty couldn’t do more than 75, 80 tops? It’s because gauges are designed so that “normal” is somewhere toward the middle of the dial.
That porridge-nicking hussy Goldilocks probably started this, and the idea reinforces itself every time we burn our mouths: best is something in between. Not too hot, not too cold. Fair. Moderate. Reasonable. Normal.
This idea goes right down to the bedrock. It’s in our bones. We buy it instinctively. We want to be that thing. That normal, reasonable, moderate person.
Problem is, the best answer is usually not the one poised halfway between two extremes. Even simple concepts that lie along simple scales are more useful at the extremes. Hot is for pizza. Cold is for beer. Room temperature is for…bananas, I guess.
For more complex concepts, there often isn’t a middle ground, because the competing ideas are too different. There are too many parts, and the parts don’t lie along the same scale.
The pernicious belief in moderation even in the face of unreconcilable ideas is how we get extraordinarily bad Third Ways. Tony Blair. Bill Clinton. Edutainment. Christian rock. Culottes. Zombies. Intelligent design. Unitarians. Palestine.
Okay, there’s the spork. I’ll give you the spork.
March 10, 2008 — 10:54 am
Comments: 44
Oh, I do not! Much.
So, Uncle B and I are having coffee and a Skype this morning, and I mention to him what an inordinate number of hits I get on the phrase “what does a weasel look like.” See, if I wanted to know what a weasel looked like, I’d go to Google Images or Wikipedia and enter “weasel.” But there’s a whole subset of people who have entire conversations with Google. As Uncle B said, they treat it like an oracle.
He suggests a search for “what should I have for breakfast” — and, yes, there are tons of web pages with exactly that title. Then he suggests “why does my weasel smell” and…see for yourself. Screen capped for posterity.
Me number one I am for smelly weasel!
March 8, 2008 — 8:07 am
Comments: 90
Whistling up another one
March 7, 2008 — 8:04 am
Comments: 66