Sometimes with everything that’s going on in the world, it’s nice to be reminded of the simple miracles that God can do. My mother sent me this picture she took in New Mexico last week.
I watched the first two discs of Firefly again over the weekend. I forgot Tags: discombobulated, Firefly, vitaminwater
Over the weekend a friend of mine asked me what she should do with the piles of books she’s finished reading. Apparently selling them on eBay and Amazon hasn’t turned out to be all of that profitable or rewarding for her and I’ve apparently become the expert on what to do with your stuff when you want to get rid of it since I’m no longer the reigning packrat.
So, here’s my recommendations:
I just don’t know why they’re shooting at us. All we want to do is bring them democracy and white bread. Transplant the American dream. Freedom. Achievement. Hyperacidity. Affluence. Flatulence. Technology. Tension. The inalienable right to an early coronary sitting at your desk while plotting to stab your boss in the back.
– Hawkeye, M*A*S*H
Tags: Quote of the Day, Democracy, M*A*S*H
BJ sent me this link to a collection of made-up “motivational” roleplaying posters for roleplaying geeks. The website cracks me up. Here are a few of my favorites:
Tags: roleplaying, RPG, geek, motivational posters
When you’re hearing and reading about the dead Lebanonese civilians, remember than your tax dollars helped to pay for their deaths even though it’s not our soldiers pulling the trigger. Keep that in mind when you hear about the trapped and dead Americans caught in the conflict too.
Tags: Middle East, Israel, American taxpayer, Lebanon
Tags: FEMA, liberal media, TALON, Homeland Security, Fox News, Israel, Lebanon, Veto, World Peace, stem cell research, Middle East, Italy, Abu Omar
“If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can’t be done.”
– Peter Ustinov
Tags: Quote of the Day, Peter Ustinov
“Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn’t mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.”
Edward R. Murrow
Tags: Quote of the Day
I found this at Andy’s where he quoted Jim from Irregular Times and it was just too good to pass up requoting here:
Dear Editor:
I’m trying desperately to get a grip on recent events inside Washington. After the world found out that George W. Bush had been ordering surveillance on Americans without any warrants, the Office of Professional Responsibility in the Justice Department (part of the Bush administration) declared its intention to investigate the origin and legality of this program. We found out the OPR investigation would go nowhere after the Bush administration wouldn’t grant the necessary security clearances for the Bush administration’s investigation of itself. This week, it came out that George W. Bush denied the security clearances himself.
So what it boils down to is that George W. Bush has informed the Bush administration that it cannot investigate George W. Bush because even the Bush administration itself doesn’t have, thanks to George W. Bush, the necessary clearance to investigate George W. Bush. Have I got that straight?
Tags: NSA, George W. Bush, spying on Americans, illegal wiretapping
Lenin’s Tomb has a link to a video clip of a bomb going off in Beirut. With macabre humor, the post is titled “someone just killed the neighbors”. While somewhat jarring, this title is actually very insightful: war generally is not something that happens on some sterilized battlefield away from innocent children and bystanders; rather it’s something that happens on the way to the market and in people’s kitchens. [“Regarding Our Dead Neighbors” (Swerve Left)]
This is what I’ve been talking about for years. We Americans don’t seem to truly grasp that those are actual people dying. I guess because it’s over there. The Middle East is like some twisted evil NeverNeverLand where we send our little boys and they come back in boxes and never grow up, but there aren’t real live people over there. When the news reports bombings and attacks and more dead in the Middle East every day, I just don’t think Americans realize those are real people dying. To us, they’re just numbers, statistics, faceless unknown movie extras.
Tags: Israel, Pat Buchanan, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Middle East, Lebanon
“Early morning cheerfulness can be extremely obnoxious.”
– William Feather
Tags: Quote of the Day
My shrink challenged me last Tuesday to imagine waking up well one morning. Obviously, not completely well, but free of certain symptoms like my GI issues. For instance, I’ve had some sort of GI issue or another since I was 18 years old. I don’t really remember what life was like for my body prior to that.
What would it be like to wake up one morning and not have “issues”?
Coincidentally, the last two days, as if God were trying to tell me something, I’ve had horrible stomach issues despite any kind of medication or attempts at bland
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Tags: wellness, gallbladder surgery, acid reflux, GI
“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.
Tags: Quote of the Day
I’m not a big fan of Secretary of State Condi Rice. That’s no secret. However, I do give props when they are deserved and I must say that I was quite stunned when I read this morning that she had made the decision to waive the transportation fee to Americans evacuating from Lebanon. Kudos to her!
I will add a comment that a number of bloggers were blaming the Republicans solely for the transportation fee in the first place, but a little research does reveal that while “un-fucking-believable,” it is apparently a leftover U.S. policy from a
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Tags: Lebanon, U.S. Embassy, CNN, Condi Rice
Remember when Right-wingers used to make the argument that the war was justifiable because of all of those people Saddam had killed? Remember how the death toll under all of those years under Saddam was much worse than anything we could do?
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — More than 14,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq in the first half of this year, an ominous figure reflecting the fact that “killings, kidnappings and torture remain widespread” in the war-torn country, a United Nations report says.
Killings of civilians are on “an upward trend,” with more than 5,800 deaths and more than 5,700
Read the rest of this entry »Tags: Iraq, Saddam Hussein, death toll
1 comments See also in Soap Box, The World, Featured, Iraq & Afghanistan, The Middle East
Apparently our military is feeling a bit uncomfortable with the Wiccan Pentacle and has been a bit slow to approve it for placement on military grave markers (9 years and still counting). It’s o.k. to serve and die as a Wiccan but don’t expect the same respect as Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and atheists in death.
At the Veterans Memorial Cemetery in the small town of Fernley, Nev., there is a wall of brass plaques for local heroes. But one space is blank. There is no memorial for Sgt. Patrick D. Stewart.
That’s because Stewart was a Wiccan,
Read the rest of this entry »Tags: Faith, Wiccan, Freedom of Religion
5 comments See also in The World, Featured
It’s very, very difficult to be the kind of paranoid truth-seeker I am and actually know something really, really big and not tell anyone for almost a year. The most I did was say “I know something I’m not supposed to know and I can’t say what it is.”
The truth is that I promised a very good friend when he told me not to print it here on this website or any website, for that matter, until it was a matter of public record. In fact, I still know more facts than have been in the news so
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Tags: murder, euthanasia, Hurricane Katrina, Memorial Hospital, Times-Picayune
“The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”
– Dorothy Nevill
Tags: Quote of the Day
Bet you thought I forgot about this…
So, the morning after the family picnic, English, PW, and I got up incredibly early — like so early people in the States probably hadn’t gone to bed yet. Our plan was to catch an extremely early train out of Woking to London Victoria Station where were would meet up with our tour for the day: Bards & Battles!
As you can see, at 6:00am on a Sunday morning, Woking’s train station is pretty dead.
However, somewhere between Woking and Victoria
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Tags: UK, Woking, London, Victoria Station, World Cup, astral tours, Oxford, Harry Potter, Christopher Wren
The Naked Truth
& Other
Discombobulated Thoughts
of a displaced Southerner in New England -- from just daily annoyances to conspiracy theories to political views.
The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe
The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir
Marley and Me by John Grogan
The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby
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