But enough about me…
HANK: Luanne, sometimes life throws you a curve ball. Now there’s two ways you can deal with it. You can cry — and that’s the path you’ve chosen — or you can not cry.
LUANNE: How do you not cry?
HANK: Well, instead of letting it out, try holding it in. Every time you have a feeling, just stick it into a little pit inside your stomach and never let it out.
LUANNE (trying it): Are you supposed to have a pain under your rib?
HANK: Yes. That’s natural. The body doesn’t want to swallow its emotions. But now you go ahead and put that pain inside your stomach too.
LUANNE: I think it’s workin’, Uncle Hank. I feel sick, but not sad.— King of the Hill “Luanne’s Saga”
I’ve hardly been back 48 hours and I’m already bored stiff with my own whinging. Whinging. That’s Britspeak for “being a pussy.” AKA “big girl’s blouse.”
Okay, I don’t really get that one. Is it, like, “big girl’s blouse” or “big girl’s blouse“?
I do not know! Anyway, this moving thing has got me downer than down, but I’ll try not to be so much of a one. Big girl’s whatever. Must keep eyes on prize: a life of indolence and drunkenness undreamt-of since the ancient Boneless Empress of Upper Boozistan. Shhhh…don’t tell Uncle B!
Hey, how ’bout that Hillary Clinton?
January 9, 2008 — 11:52 pm
Comments: 17
Separated at birth
Am I the only one to notice? People, people: MIKE HUCKABEE HAS A NAME THAT SOUNDS A REAL LOT LIKE “HUCKLEBERRY HOUND” WHO HE ALSO LOOKS LIKE AND RESEMBLES IN OTHER WAYS! Geez, why are these things always left up to me? Okay, it was a cinch I wouldn’t like the evangelical Christian candidate, but seriously — this man’s face has more doofus per square inch than the law allows, even in Arkansas. I can just *hear* him going, “hyuck, hyuck!” Can’t you?
Yes, I’m from rural Tennessee. Bite me.
OH! And speaking of Tennessee I DEMAND AL GORE SHOVEL MY DRIVEWAY! We’ve had more snow in the last four days than we had all Winter last year. Literally. Maybe not a sign the planet is getting colder, but last year’s warm weather was sure as shit interpreted the other way.
Rain fell on top of snow, then temps overnight dropped into the teens, with a whippy wind. That knee-high mountain of slush the plough left at the end of my drive froze into something resembling cement. And razor blades. I crushed it a bit in the middle and hoped I could get up a good head start and sort of…jump it, but the Weaselmobile did a bellyflop and stuck fast. May you never have to wangle icebergs the size of your head from under a running Miata.
I have used up every drop of my happy chemistry this morning. WHERE ARE MY ENDORPHINS?!?
December 17, 2007 — 12:09 pm
Comments: 72
Stinks to high heaven
· In September of 2000 TV station France 2 showed footage that it declared was the murder of Palestinian boy Muhammad al-Dura by the IDF. It became iconic. It was shown and reshown and resulted in a hefty body count.
· After further scrutiny, it was clear that the film didn’t show what they said it showed. In November of 2004, media watchdog Phillippe Karsenty called bullshit on France 2, claiming the incident was staged.
· Charles Enderlin and Arlette Chabot of France 2 sued Karsenty for libel and, with an assist from the shameless Jacques Chirac, France 2 won.
· Karsenty appealed and demanded the raw footage of the incident. The appeal judge concurred.
So today saw the release of 18 of the supposed 27 minutes of raw tape. Film. Disc. Whatever. Among the revelations: al Dura peeking out between his fingers some time after his ‘death.’
Richard Landes of the Augean Stables is, as usual, on top of this one, too. For metabackground (don’t you hate fake words with “meta” in them?), Landes also runs Second Draft, which includes an excellent collection of data on Pallywood.
I met Richard Landes at Acepalooza when, asked my name, I blurted out
my own real name. This so shocked basic weasel protocol that
I walked away before I realized I had been conversing with one of
my favorite bloggers.
November 16, 2007 — 11:51 am
Comments: 12
Give us your nerds, your geeks, your poindexters
The head of our Research division gave a talk the other day. He’s having a hard time getting our labs fully staffed because of a shortage of H-1B visas. That’s the one they call the “highly qualified” visa, though that isn’t exactly accurate; it’s technically a “specialty occupations” visa. Congress has recently throttled back on them, from a cap of 190K down to 65K.
To which I can only say — you have GOT to be fucking KIDDING me! They’re trying to jam twenty million sullen agripeasants down our throats but can’t be arsed to poach a hundred thousand of the world’s smartest people?
Our laboratories are like the U-freaking-N up in there; I assume it’s that way in research labs across the country. Lots of Indians and Chinese, but we’ve nicked a fair number of Europeans and other exotics, too. I’ve worked with dozens of them over the years. I don’t care where they come from, these people make fantastic Americans! They’re smart, enthused and grateful.
I know, I know…IT types scream bloody murder about H-1B visas. Screw ’em. Apologies if any of you are corporate IT types, but in my two-decades-and-a-bit driving a desk, I never met one that wasn’t grossly overpaid and underperforming. And arrogant about it. Bill Gates is not proof God wants half-assed incompetent computer geeks to rule the world, okay?
Brain drain on the rest of the world? Fucking A! That’s the beauty of it! Continued American hegemony by absorption. We build a country smart people want to live in and then invite them to come live in it.
So what say we propose no cap on H-1B visas. None. Send them all — we’ll take them! And make it a path to citizenship (the current visa is six years and you’re out). I think it’s a winning antidote to the racism charge that got hung ’round our necks after that stupid immigration bill fiasco. Shoot, send in the Mexican PhDs, too!
Slogans? How about, “we judge no man by the color of his skin, but of the quality of his resume”? Hm.
We’re elitists, not bigots. Hm.
Not racists — snobs!
September 27, 2007 — 9:44 am
Comments: 20
What the hell…is it Monday or something?
THE Conservatives will propose banning plasma screens and other energy-guzzling electrical goods in a report to be unveiled next week.
The proposals target white goods like fridges and freezers, as well as TVs, personal computers and DVD players that use too much energy or operate on stand-by.
The ideas come from a Conservative group set up by David Cameron to develop policies to protect the environment and although the measures to make household electrical appliances more energy efficient are not binding on Mr Cameron, they are thought likely to be warmly received by the Tory leader.
The group will also suggest scrapping Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a measure of the nation’s success in favour of a model that measures people’s happiness drawn up up by Friends of the Earth.
I think my spleen just exploded.
September 10, 2007 — 2:47 pm
Comments: 13
The latest Bin Laden Video
Hm. I don’t know. I think there’s something different about his beard.
From ABC News.
Intelligence sources tell ABC News they believe the expected video message from Osama bin Laden is authentic, recently produced and evidence the al Qaeda leader is still alive.
For all we know, the goddamn video doesn’t even exist and ‘sources’ are pronouncing it authentic, recent and proof of somethingorother. Stupid ‘sources’.
September 7, 2007 — 12:43 pm
Comments: 17
Exploit the earth or die
Exploit the Earth or die. It’s not a threat. It’s a fact. Either man takes the Earth’s raw materials—such as trees, petroleum, aluminum, and atoms—and transforms them into the requirements of his life, or he dies. To live, man must produce the goods on which his life depends; he must produce homes, automobiles, computers, electricity, and the like; he must seize nature and use it to his advantage. There is no escaping this fact. Even the allegedly “noble” savage must pick or perish. Indeed, even if a person produces nothing, insofar as he remains alive he indirectly exploits the Earth by parasitically surviving off the exploitative efforts of others.
The fact annoys some people. But it shouldn’t: Hence our “Exploit the Earth or Die” campaign.
Nice. I’ve often thought one of the oddest aspects of leftist philosophy was the idea that no-one should be made to feel guilty about the things he or she can perfectly well control (like drinking or teen pregnancy) but everyone should feel aweful about things no living organism can help doing, like consuming resources and producing waste. Lefties live in Oppositeland, where everything is 180° from reality.
I think that’s what they mean by “reality based community” — they ascertain reality, and then stake out the opposite position.
September 5, 2007 — 5:54 pm
Comments: 24
Dismissalooza…!
It’s D-Day for Ward Churchill. The CU Board of Regents is holding a hearing right now to decide his fate. Ward is going to plead his case, but sadly that part is behind closed doors. Some preliminary remarks were supposed to be streamed online at 8:15, but it’s 8:55 and nary a peep yet. Some time after 4pm, they’re also supposed to be streaming video of the press conference announcing the result (same URL).
Pirate Ballerina‘s jwpaine promises live-blogging, whenever there is something to liveblog. He might even have thugs and/or goons in the area of the actual hearing.
Me, I just have some fashion advice for the professor. First, lose a few pounds or lose the turtleneck. Dude. Seriously.
Second, the hair. Yes, I realize long, straight hair parted in the middle is supposed to evoke the whole Native American thing, but your forehead is too low to support this ‘do. That’s something we have in common, Sir — hairlines so proximate to our eyebrows, the effect borders on simian.
Now, when you combine a low forehead with long, straight hair parted in the middle, you are presented with two options. You can hook all that hair behind your ears, flapping them outwards, cartoonishly. The Dopey of Tribe Disney look, as it were. Or you can let the hair fall where it may, which is going to be basically in front of your face.
When I went through my obligatory long-straight-hair-parted-in-the-middle phase in the early ’70s, I generally pursued the latter hairdressing strategy. Hence, for several years, there was nothing to see of me but two lank curtains of brown hair barely parted by the tip of my proud aquiline nose.
“You look,” my mother remarked, squinting at me, “like a weasel peeping out of a tent.”
Update: Lokki points out, they’re in a different timezone in Colorado. Ummm…duh, Weasel. Update, update: okay, NOW they’re really, really late.
UPDATE: gone, but not forgotten. Let the litigation commence! Somehow, I keep replaying in my head that ridiculous dogfighting speech by the ridiculous Senator Byrd, “the dawg dahd! …the dawg dahd! …the dawg daaaaaaahd!”
July 24, 2007 — 8:54 am
Comments: 36
Into every week, a little Friday must fall…
Ward Churchill. I bet you thought he was long gone. Nope. D-Day is Tuesday. Keep an eye on jwpaine’s place, Pirate Ballerina, for the latest news on everybody’s favorite pretend injun.
July 20, 2007 — 6:37 pm
Comments: 22
Happy anniversary!
Thirty eight years since Ted Kennedy’s Midnight Car Wash. Howie Carr is all over it.
July 18, 2007 — 5:42 pm
Comments: 28