Ok, so the comments appear

Ok, so the comments appear to be down. As with everything else in
life---it appears you really do get what you pay for. Pfft. Moveable
type is looking better and better all the damn time. Which is sad
because a move to that sort of software will, undoubtedly, make me look
like an idiot and I would much rather avoid that if at all possible,
thank you ever so much.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:55 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 80 words, total size 1 kb.

--- Made yet another blogroll

--- Made yet another blogroll today. Woohoo. Right Wing News has added me onto their list of Daily News sites.

I don't know why you added me, but thanks! I appreciate it.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:48 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 42 words, total size 1 kb.

--- I might actually have

--- I might actually have to read this book.

Particularly after the husband read the first page to me. And the quote doth read:

Five hours' New York jet lag and Cayce Pollard wakes in Camden Town
to the dire and ever-circling wolves of distrupted circadian rhythm.
It is that flat and spectral non-hour, awash in limbic tides, brainstem
stirring fretfully, flashing inappropriate reptilian demands for sex,
food, sedation, all of the above, and none really an option right now.
Not even food, as Damien's new kitchen is devoid of edible content as
its designers' display windows in Camden High Street. Very handsome,
the upper cabinets faced in canary-yellow laminate, the lower with
some, unstained apple-ply. Very clean and almost entirely empty, save
for a carton containing two dry pucks of Wheatabix and some loose
packets of herbal tea. Nothing at all in the German fridge, so new that
its interior smells only of cold and long chain monomers.
She knows, now, absolutely, hearing the white noise that is London,
that Damien's theory of jet lag is correct: that her mortal soul is
leagues behind her, being reeled in on some ghostly umbilical down the
vanished wake of the plane that brought her here, hundreds of thousands
of feet above the Atlantic. Souls can't move that quickly, and are left
behind, and must be awaited, upon arrival, like lost luggage.
She wonders if this gets gradually worse with age: the nameless hour
deeper, more null, its affect at once stranger and less interesting?

Pattern Regcognition by William Gibson. Chapter 1, The Website of Dreadful Night. Copyright 2003. All Rights Reserved.

That is---hands down---the best description of jet lag ever written.

Maybe I'll just have to give it a go, even though I never in my life thought I would read a book by William Gibson.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 315 words, total size 2 kb.

--- Shuddap already. LONDON, England

--- Shuddap already.

LONDON, England -- Princess Diana's family, British media and the
prime minister have expressed outrage at a U.S. television network's
decision to broadcast pictures of the princess as she lay dying.
Diana's brother, Earl Spencer, said Thursday he was "shocked and
sickened" by the broadcast, which showed two grainy black-and-white
photocopies of photographs taken at the scene of the 1997 Paris car
crash in which Diana died.
So, everyone reportedly are getting their knickers in a twist over "two
grainy black and white photocopies of photographs" that were aired on
CBS. Well, here's what I have to say to that: grow the fuck up.
Princess Di chose to live in the public eye. Is it sad that she also
died in the public eye? Yes. There is no denying that and I'm saddened
that her boys had to see graphic proof of it. However, that seems to
come with the territory when you're a publicity whore like she
was---like the entire royal family is. I can hear the complaints now. Oh, but Kathy, the poor princess never did anything but good. Look
at all the attention she brought to children with HIV/AIDS; look at the
work she did on having landmines repealed? Why should she be exploited
so?
Why shouldn't she? She asked for it, after all. Why is everyone so damn
shocked that pictures of her while she lay dying made it onto TV? I
just don't get it. She exploited the media just as much as she was
exploited by it. Why is there a double standard? Oh, it's all right to
take photos of her taking her boys to an amusement park to promote the
greater good and worthiness of the monarchy, but it's not all right to
show two grainy photocopies of photos of her dying because that's
exploitative? Where's the damn line? It keeps changing.
I feel sorry for her sons. They shouldn't have to see things like that.
No child---small or grown---should ever have to see photos of their
mother dying---let alone have them eagerly consumed by the masses. That
is the sad part about this. But really if there's anyone to blame in
this scenario, it's Queen Elizabeth for forcing her family out there.
They have to prove their worthiness somehow, don't they? There's not a
whole lot the royal family does in terms of Divine Right rulership
anymore, except when the Queen opens parliament---and even then she's
reading a speech the party in power has written for her. They're
glorfied ribbon cutters. They use the media to justify their worth. Why
are they so surprised and shocked and outraged! when the coverage
doesn't go their way?

Posted by: Kathy at 11:41 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 457 words, total size 3 kb.

--- GODDAMNIT! Inhale. Exhale. Inhale.

--- GODDAMNIT!
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale...
This deep cleansing breath shit isn't working to calm me down. I. Am.
So. Pissed. Off.
I am not particularly fond of the phrase "busting my hump," but it's
appropriate in this circumstance. I've been busting my hump to come up
with a good novel. And this isn't my first one. Nope. I've got two in
the bag already. But I'm trying something new; something different.
Something that will sell. I am a novelist. I'm no Hemingway and I don't
want to be one. I am spat upon by the establishment for my lack of
ambition in this regard. Novelists of the highest order, whose books
have no plot, sneer down upon those of us who write popular fiction
because our work doesn't "mean" as much as theirs. Well, fine. Never
mind that popular fiction affords those literary fiction writers their
lofty perch in the first place. It makes no nevermind to me. I can deal
with snottery. I've been dealing with it all of my life. I don't want
the National Book Award. I just want to be published. And I don't think
it's too much to ask that I have a fair shot of being just that, but
when I have to compete with the likes of a nitwit Gore daughter, who
has apparently written Bridget Jones Goes to Washington,
it makes me wonder why I work so goddamn hard in the first place. What
the hell am I doing this for if I haven't even got a shot? If some
ex-VP's daughter can weasel her way into a contract simply by
traversing the veritable freeway full of people whom she knows because
of her family? But I am a writer. I don't know how I could be otherwise
now that I've started, so let me clue you in on what that means.
This means struggling for originality. This means struggling with
prose. This means coming up with characters whose molds I am the first
to break. This also means being at a complete loss at times. This means
not being able to see the forest for the trees and having to whack away
at passages where I've gotten completely off track. This means work, in
other words. But the work doesn't stop there. Nosirreee. There's more
to writing than just sitting down with the laptop and whizzing off a
hundred thousand words. There's the business aspect of publishing and
it will suck at your soul like an Oreck. There's the searches. Agent
searches. Publisher searches. Then
there's the query letters that need to be sent out: a one page letter
that must seduce an agent into your bed with phrases like I believe this market has been underappreciated for quite some time....
Then maybe they'll ask for a synopsis. Maybe they'll ask for the first
three chapters. And if you're really lucky, well, they'll ask for the
whole enchilada---the entire manuscript. And you'll send it out---and
you'll also send a self-addressed stamped envelope for them to send the
thing back if they don't like it.
And chances are, they won't like it. They'll say you have potential,
but the new thing that you're trying to do won't sell well. For people
who deal with stories and storytelling, publishers and agents are a
pretty unimaginative lot. They want what sells. Period. New things
don't have a history of working well. What's worse, though, is when
they don't tell you what turned them off your work and so you're left
to wonder. You have no idea. It just wasn't for them. All the while
during this process, your heart and dreams and hopes are in the air,
just waiting for someone to field them. You try not to get your hopes
up. You know the odds aren't in your favor, but you hope anyway. You
can't seem to help yourself. And when you go down to mailbox and you
find one of your SASE's in the box, you know you weren't good enough,
but you don't know why.
This is why unpublished writers stick to people who have been published
like fleas to a dog. They've
made it. Maybe they'll take pity on you and they'll help you break into
the Skull and Bones fraternity that is publishing. So, some people
start stalking their favorite authors. I've never gone that far---thank
God---but I've been tempted. Oh, so tempted. You want to know where the
line between the unpublished and the published resides; you think that
they'll be able to give you a clue. But they don't. Because they don't
know either. Why? Because it's pure chance. Why do I do this? Because I
have a story to tell. I have a novel I want you
to read. I like my novel. I am completely sure that once it gets
published, it will sell. I'm sure of it. I don't want much from a
publisher. A lousy hundred thousand copies---paperback--- and I'm
pretty damn sure I'll make them their money back---and then some and
all the praise I would like in return is to be told that I kept someone
up until three in the morning because they just couldn't put the book I
wrote down. That's all I want. I'm not greedy. Did Gore Girl#2 have to
do any of this? Nope. She "just happened to run into Harvey Weinstein
one day" and she gets a goddamn book contract out of it. Not to mention
that the movie rights have been sold off and the book hasn't even been
published. The whole scenario just reeks of nepotism.
Let's just run the scenario through our minds, and take the fact that
she's Al Gore's daughter out of the equation. Would she be working for
"Futurama?" Maybe, maybe not. I don't know how talented the woman is.
"Futurama" is a good show, but let's be clear here---TV writers rarely
get contracts to write novels, because once you write for a genre,
you're pretty much stuck in that genre. It doesn't matter if you're the
next Steinbeck. If you write for "Futurama" your work will probably
wind up in a slush pile in some assistant editors office for the simple
reason that you're not published. And you'll still be writing for
"Futurama."
Now, let's look at Gore Girl#2's experience: she's twenty-six; she's
the daughter of the former Vice President of the United States; she
works in Hollywood writing for a television show; she's offered a fat
contract because Harvey thinks Miramax publishing is lacking in the
"chicklit" department and he hires her to come up with something---then
he snags the movie rights. Never mind the fact that Harvey owned "Talk"
Magazine and not only enployeed its editor, but is also buddy-buddy
with that Clinton/Gore whore, Tina Brown. You remember Tina, don't you?
She's the one who inaugurated that magazine with Hillary's first
post-First Lady interview---the one that convinced a lot of people it
was a good idea for Hillary to run for Senate. There's absolutely no
political bias going on here.
Goddamnit! It's. Just. Not. Fair.
This whole escapade proves once again, it's not what you know, but who
you know. And apparently if you're a Gore Girl, you know a whole hell
of a lot of people who can make your life so much easier. And you don't
even have to be original in the meantime.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:40 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1243 words, total size 7 kb.

--- Update on the whole

--- Update on the whole "The DaVinci Code Is Full O' Fallacies" thing.
In case you're new here (and a goodly number of you seem to
be---welcome), the husband's sister lives on the other side of town.
They're pretty conservative and are very into their church---Missouri
Synod Lutherans. We visited them for Easter, and whenever we have a
family gathering and their parents can't join us, the siblings call the
folks to say howdy. During the course of the sister-in-law's
conversation, she asked her father if "he'd watched those DaVinci Code
CD-Rom's?" There were little kids flying around the room, all hopped up
on chocolate bunny ears, so I wasn't really following the conversation,
but it sounded to me as if she was trying to convince her dad to watch
them, but he wasn't having it. When she handed the phone over to the
husband, I asked her what was the deal with "The DaVinci Code?" She
reported that her pastor---a history buff---had
been concerned with all of the "historical fallacies" in the book, and
had sponsored a series of lectures about how inaccurate the book was,
to, you know, make sure all of his church members didn't take the book
for the truth. Long story short---the father in law had read the book,
had raved about it and the sister in law wanted to make sure he knew
what the "real" truth was regarding that book.
Despite the fact the book is a work of fiction.
Despite the fact she's never actually read "The DaVinci Code." And I
mean that. She's never read it and when the husband dumps it on her
this week and demands that she does read it, she'll probably give it
back a few months down the road, saying she never found the time.
Anyway, fast forward to last Friday, the husband and I are eating
supper, watching Anderson Cooper as usual and suddenly there are two
authors on, plugging their book, "Cracking DaVinci's Code."
We were a little surprised to see it was an actual movement, but I
suppose we shouldn't have been. I'll lay you good odds that these
"lectures" came from the same group of people behind this book---and
the pastor was only following a carefully prepared and plotted lesson
plan, sold by these people. How did I get to this conclusion? It's the
word "fallacy." It should have tipped me off. After all, who uses the
word "fallacies" these days in common conversation. But the authors do.
As did the sister in law---and she was very careful to use that
particular word. Most people use "errors" or "mistakes." The sister in
law went to secretarial college, and she reads self-help books, not
fiction or the collected works of Noam Chomsky---it's definitely not a
part of her regular vocabulary. The picture becomes clearer the more I
think about it. Hmmm.
Read for yourself.

COOPER (voice-over): It begins with a murder in the Louvre. The
first clue comes in the form of Leonardo's best known drawing "The
Vitruvian Man." But as the mystery unravels, the reader is led to other
mysteries in other masterpieces, wheels within wheels, the secrets
revealed in "The Last Supper" and the "Mona Lisa" opened the doors to
the Catholic Church's secret societies, some real, some maybe not so
real.
It's no secret that the book is incredibly popular. It spent 56 weeks
on the best-seller list much of that time at No. 1, and it's no
surprise that some of the questions raised by "The Da Vinci Code" are
causing controversy among Christians.
What was Jesus' real relationship with Mary Magdalene? Was there such a
thing as the Holy Grail? The author says the book is a work of fiction,
so why then are some biblical scholars working so hard to crack the
code?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, joining us now are two of those scholars, James Garlow
and Peter Jones, two Christian researchers who say "The Da Vinci Code"
undermines the integrity of the Christian faith. They have just come
out with their own book in response called "Cracking Da Vinci's Code,"
appreciate you being on the program.
JAMES GARLOW, CO-AUTHOR, "CRACKING DA VINCI'S CODE": I like to be with
you.
COOPER: They say this is a novel. This is a work of fiction yet you say
the Da Vinci code book has a hidden agenda. What in your opinion is the
hidden agenda?
GARLOW: For one thing people are taking it seriously. It is a novel
admittedly and if people were only treating it as a novel we wouldn't
be writing books about it either but the fact is people are taking it
seriously and it is redefining the understanding of who God is.
COOPER: But you think the author, Dan Brown, has this hidden
anti-Christian agenda basically.
PETER JONES, CO-AUTHOR, "CRACKING DA VINCI'S CODE": He does say
apparently in public that he was convinced by a new spirituality and
that he felt called to make it known throughout the culture.
COOPER: Dan Brown though says that he is a Christian and that he, you
know, it may not be your view of Christianity but he considers himself
a Christian and that this book is really prompting theological
discussions and therefore is a good thing.
JONES: You know we are in the presence of sort of a watershed in the
culture as to what life means and essentially the question is who is
God? And you have two definitions of God going and I think people are
wondering which one is the right one and I think Dan Brown...
COOPER: When you say there are two definitions, explains.
JONES: Two definitions of God, one is that God is the transcendent
creator and redeemer, has his own existence.
COOPER: Is separate from the rest?
JONES: But separate from creation. The other is a more pantheistic view
of God where you find God within. And, though this is fiction, the
novel has this agenda within it and communicates that view of God and
there are Christians buying that view of God and so we felt like we
needed to, you know, right the ship.
COOPER: But I mean some will say you're being intolerant. I mean can no
novel be written which deviates from your interpretation of
Christianity?
GARLOW: He can write anything he wants. He has the right to do that.
The issue is one of historical accuracy or historical fallacies.
He makes such claims that Jesus was not considered divine until the
year 325 in (unintelligible).
The evidence is quite to the contrary. The original followers all saw
him as divine and all the early writers of the first and second century
saw him as divine.
COOPER: And it's things like, I mean one of I guess the characters in
"Da Vinci Code," which I have not read, talks about Jesus marrying Mary
Magdalene having children. That sort of thing is one of the things
that...
JONES: That's not so bothersome actually. Marriage is a good thing.
It's just that it's doubtful and all scholars will say that, that Jesus
was ever married.
COOPER: So what do you hope to do with your book? I mean what is the
objective?
GARLOW: Well, one of the things I hope to do is get people to reexamine
the issues that Dan Brown raises, which is a good thing, and that is,
is their New Testament reliable, yes or no?
COOPER: So, in that sense you agree almost with Dan Brown that bringing
up these theological issues is a good thing?
GARLOW: Well, I'm glad they brought up, unfortunately I think he has
written a document that's historically unreliable because he raises the
question is the New Testament reliable and was Jesus considered divine,
for example prior to the year 325 or did Constantine manipulate this
into existence as he contends?
Now the fact is he's in error historically on both those issues but the
good thing is a lot of people are going to look at that issue and try
to get answers for it and that's encouraging. COOPER: Well, I know the
book is doing really well. I look forward to reading it this weekend.
Jim Garlow thanks very much and Peter Jones as well. Thank you very
much.
JONES: You're very welcome.
GARLOW: It's an honor to be with you.
COOPER: All right.
So, these guys take issue with the areas Brown played with and
apparently that he had the temerity to bring up a different version of
God outside of creator/redeemer---one where God resides in all of us
and they felt the need to "right the ship." Apparently, you can't have
people believing that God resides within themselves because then they
might actually think they're God and henceforth aren't accountable to
anyone---let alone a church. It's straight-up, hard core,
fundamentalist Christianity. Skip to Saturday afternoon, the husband is
chatting with his father and they're talking about how whacko this
business is. A few years ago, if you looked up the word "agnostic" in
the dictionary, the husband's picture would have been part of the
definition. He was one of those "I need proof" guys. Fine with me. He
thinks all of this is completely ridiculous. But he wants to see those
CD-Roms, so the mother in law brought them with her and is going to
pass them off to us sometime this week. Apparently, the father in law
never got round to watching them...until Saturday afternoon, after he'd
hung up. When he popped a disc into the Cd-Rom---Norton Anti Virus came
up onto the screen, helpfully informing him that something was trying
to access his system. He shut the CD down and called the husband back.
The husband was positively livid when he heard this---he was working
out all the possible implications in his head as he ranted: "IF...IF...
that's just wrong!
If they're trying to insert spyware onto people's hard drives with this
crap, man is {insert sister in law's name here} gonna get it! If that's
what they're trying to do...oh, man! So on and so forth.
So, later on in the week, providing the handover goes smoothly and the
sister in law doesn't think we're trying to persecute her religious
beliefs, we should have some interesting commentary on what's actually
in those Cd-Rom's and if they're putting spyware onto people's
computers.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1739 words, total size 10 kb.

--- You probably didn't notice,

--- You probably didn't notice, but I performed a little spring
cleaning around here. Good thing, too. I got the urge to clean out of
my system without actually having to clean. HA! Take that Hazel!
Anyway, some links have been added, some have been deleted. And yes, I
did it all myself. The husband did not help me and, amazingly enough, I
didn't goof up any of the links or the formatting on the page. I'm
good. So, for the changes... - I'm not telling you what the new tag
line means. Learn Latin and you'll get a chuckle. - Mil's been delinked
because the bugger isn't updating his site anymore. If you haven't read
Mil, you can find him here,
courtesy of me, just this one last time. He's one of those people who
has translated their talent into something worthwhile---several book
contracts and a column for The Guardian. Talent, I might add, that if
it weren't for the internet, would have never made it into the
mainstream.
Sign up for his mailing list and you can still get an occasional update
from him. - There are a couple of new links to the right that you
should check out if you get the chance. I doubt Instapundit needs one
more link to his site, but what the hell. I read him every day---you
should too. He's got a really big brain. - Oh, and I delinked the
husband. Cry out for mercy, you children of the Lord. For behold, she
cometh and she will delinketh you for not writing on a regular basis.

I'm not going to get any for quite some time because of this, methinks.

Enjoy. An "About Me" page will be appearing sometime in the near future.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:31 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 303 words, total size 2 kb.

--- Well, guess who's coming

--- Well, guess who's coming to Cake Eater Land tomorrow?

Amazingly enough---there was not a single story about the fact the Prez is coming to town in the paper today.
Of course there's an article about it the day the visit is supposed to
occur. Not a single frigging one. And yes, I double checked. Nada in
the A Section. Nada in OpEx. Nada in Metro/State. WTF? Granted, I only
rarely watch the local TV news (like when I want to see what weather is
amassing off to the West) so they could have reported it there and I
just missed it. It could've been in the local paper, but hell, the only
time I ever read that is to see who's been burgled. But you'd think the
largest newspaper in the state would have published at least something
about the impending Presidential visit before the day it was set to
occur. I'm not going to bother lambasting that worthless organization
for completely dropping the ball and not informing the public of an
event it would much rather slip by unnoticed. My time is much more
valuable than that. Let's just say that it's called "The Enemy Paper"
for a reason. There are a few ways he could come into west Cake Eater
Land. He's coming from the Convention Center in downtown. He's speaking from 10:15-11:15 and from there on in, he should be on the road.

I do believe some stalking is in order. I just got new batteries for the digital camera.

Hmmm. Much thought is required.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:26 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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--- Well, if there's something

--- Well, if there's something good in all this,
it's that Kerry never gets to skip Mass again.
Someone's always going to be watching to see if they're dishing him
communion. They're going to follow him to church every Sunday from here
on in. They're going to call the campaign office to see when he's
scheduled to go to Mass and where and at what time. In other words, the
media has just turned into my mother. {Insert Nelson Mundt HA-ha here}

Posted by: Kathy at 11:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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--- "I don't think certain

--- "I don't think certain threats, that undoubtedly contribute to intensifying the climate of tension...are the right way,"
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told a news conference during a visit to Morocco.

He was responding to a question about threats by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon against the Palestinian president.

Honestly, is Zapatero the best and most qualified person to be telling anyone which threats are helpful and which ones aren't?

Pussy.

If I were Arafat, I would be trying to shove my fat ass into the biggest, widest, deepest hole I could find.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 103 words, total size 1 kb.

Got this postcard in the

Got this postcard in the mail today. A friend sent it to me and I
thought you might like to end your night on a happy, Gothic
Cathedral-ish note. (Ha ha! A happy GOTHIC cathedral. Yeah. Right.
Whatever.) I thought it was pretty, though, so I'm sharing.
This
is the Durham Cathedral, which is conveniently located in Durham,
England. Which is way up north---hell and gone from London---and
is---for all intents and purposes---practically Scotland. According to
the friend, they started work on the Cathedral in 1087---which for you
history buffs, would be a full year before that pesky Norman, William
the Conquerer, took a boat across the Channel and invaded in 1088. And
they say it took a Frenchman to tame the backwards English. HA. I think
not.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:58 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 138 words, total size 1 kb.

--- There's a blog for

--- There's a blog for the UNSCAM (heheheh) scandal. It's called Friends of Saddam: The UN Oil for Food Scandal, Saddam and His 270 Global Friends.

Heh.

It's a nice roundup of articles related to the scandale. Peruse at your leisure.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:56 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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--- Bleh. That's just disturbing.

--- Bleh.

That's just disturbing.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:55 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So, you see, I'm not

So, you see, I'm not only the Queen of the Woodland Elves...

...I also happen to be a grammar god(dess).


You are a GRAMMAR GOD!


If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!


How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

So, I'm a grammar goddess and
the Queen of the Woodland Elves. I have pointy ears, an English accent
and I'm a Queen. Of other pointy-eared people. They're immortal and
they gave me the job in perpetuity. This means I'm good.
Never mind the blantant overuse of the concept of manifest destiny in
the whole deal. My people trust me with the job. This also means I live
in Middle Earth. This means that nasty ass Smeagol/Gollum will cross my
path. This means that when he does and he starts talking about "nasty
hobbitses" I can give him the back of my hand and then rail about his
misuse of the plural for the word "hobbit." But that's just for
starters. This means I can also rail on about the fact he always forgets to use a goddamn pronoun when he is the subject of his sentence. Use
'I', Gollum. Do not say your bloody name when you refer to yourself,
you misguided little twit. It's not cute. It's ignorant. Do it one more
time and I'll send you off into grammar hell where a Balrog will teach
you to speak properly---with a whip of flame." (Oh, and don't tell
me Gollum's use of the English language didn't drive you nuts, either.
If people can rail on Jar-Jar Binks, I can certainly rail on Gollum.)

Posted by: Kathy at 10:51 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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--- Go and read Sgt.

--- Go and read Sgt. Stryker.

It's mandatory and there will be a test.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:50 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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--- Atkins gone wild. Isabelle

--- Atkins gone wild.

Isabelle Leota, 29, and her husband Sui Amaama, 26, both on the
no-carb diet, were dining Tuesday at a Chuck-A-Rama in the Salt Lake
City suburb of Taylorsville when the manager cut them off because
they'd eaten too much roast beef...
Not so, said Jack Johanson, the restaurant chain's district manager.
``We've never claimed to be an all-you-can-eat establishment,'' said
Johanson. ``Our understanding is a buffet is just a style of eating.''
The general manager was carving the meat, and became concerned about
having enough for other patrons, Johanson said. So when Amaama went up
for his 12th slice, the manager asked Amaama to stop.

You know, maybe---just maybe---if you're on the way up to the buffet for your twelfth helping of roast beef, diet or no diet, it's time to, you know, take control of your appetite?

Just saying.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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--- Shocker. WASHINGTON (AP) -

--- Shocker.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The State Department on Wednesday denounced Sudan
for barring American aid experts from inspecting the humanitarian needs
in western Sudan, where a conflict has displaced more than 800,000
people.
``This we view as unacceptable,'' spokesman Adam Ereli said. The Bush
administration has been ready to send a 28-member assistance team to
Sudan to evaluate the situation in the Darfur region. Government-backed
militias have fought insurgents there for more than a year.
Gotbi el-Mahadi, an adviser to Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir, said
a high-level U.N. delegation that arrived in Sudan
on Tuesday to visit Darfur was all that was needed now. ``We do not
need such a (U.S.) visit at this time ... (while) a
United Nations delegation is to tour Darfur,'' el-Mahadi said,
according to a statement released by the official Sudanese Media Center.
How much do you wanna bet that the UN team never makes it out of
Khartoum, and if they actually do, their level of inspection will rival
that of the Red Cross when they visited Theresienstadt?

Posted by: Kathy at 10:47 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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--- So what. Jesus Christ

--- So what.

Jesus Christ on a piece of toast! I have SO had it with this
muckraking about 9/11. These pseudo-Watergate investigations the
networks are currently running to see who knew what and when they knew
it and if they conspired to keep it a secret and
the Mossad was in on it to provoke the Palestinan suicide bombers so
that Saddam would rear his ugly head and we'd have a justification for
going to WAR, GODDAMNIT! are pissing me off beyond belief.

Let's just get one thing clear, shall we?

Anyone who read Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor knew that an airliner could be used as a weapon. In Debt of Honor
a grieving and vindictive Japanese commercial pilot decides to avenge
the loss of a family member who died in a short lived war between the
US and Japan. He steals a commercial airliner. Flies it across the
country. Loads up with fuel somewhere on the east coast and then slams
the plane into the Capitol Building during a joint session of Congress
where Jack Ryan is supposed to be sworn in as VP. Clancy made pains to
make sure the gas tanks on this jet were full, so as to have a big ass
fireball when the plane crashed. How many millions of people read
Clancy? It was a horrific scenario, but it was fiction---something we never thought would happen in real life.

But that's not the only example of this in modern media. Remember the X-Files spinoff, The Lone Gunmen? In one of their episodes, they actually had Byers, Frohicke and Langly on a shuttle that was on course to crash directly into the Twin Towers.
This episode aired in the spring of 2001. We'll never see that episode
again. Chris Carter took a page from Clancy, yet---of course---made it
into a government conspiracy that the uber-conspiracy geeks had to
prevent. But no one thought that this would ever happen in real life.
Let me repeat that just to make sure you got it down correctly: NO ONE EVER THOUGHT THIS SORT OF THING COULD HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE
Before 9/11, the jetliner-full tank o'gas-slam into building scenario
was straight out of an action movie or a suspense novel. Does it
surprise me that NORAD ran the scenario through the computers? Nope.
But it doesn't prove anything about what anyone knew and when they knew
it, either It is not the effing smoking gun the media has been looking
for to feed off the 9/11 Commission's hearings in an election year. It
is not the piece of evidence that is going to bring Kristin
Breitweiser's husband back from the dead, no matter how much she beats
her breast, wails and moans about the government's failures on CNN.
It's not any of those things.
Admit it, please, even though it means admitting something rather
unflattering about America's capabilities: we got caught with our pants
down on 9/11. It happens. It's a horrible thing to say, I know, but the
fault for 9/11 lies squarely at the feet of the nineteen terrorists who
planned, hijacked and maimed and murdered for the greater glory of
Allah. Despite our creative community's best efforts to tell us that
yeah, this is a plausible scenario, we didn't think this could happen.
The people didn't think this could happen. The government didn't think
this could happen. No one thought this could happen. We were caught
with our pants down. But right now it's important to pull our pants up.
We have to do this so we don't take one in the ass again. Make no
mistake about it, kids, this is where the zipper is getting stuck and
is leaving us even more vulnerable to another attack. If there's a
commission every time we have an attack, to learn what we did wrong,
well, it doesn't bode well for keeping the terrorists out of our
business, does it? Figure it out so another three thousand people don't
have to die.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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--- The guy who was

--- The guy who was selling his ex-wife's wedding dress on Ebay now has his own site.

You can find it here, although his forwarding link doesn't seem to be working all that well.

Sheesh.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:35 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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--- Where'd the money go?

--- Where'd the money go?

At least $1.1 billion was paid directly into UN coffers, supposedly
to cover the cost of administering the $67 billion scheme, while Saddam
Hussein diverted funds intended for the poor and sick of Iraq to bribe
foreign governments and prominent overseas supporters of his regime.
Claude Hankes-Drielsma, a management consultant and adviser to the
Iraqi Governing Council, who testified to the House Committee on
Government Reform in Washington last week, said that tracking what
happened to the estimated total of $1.1 billion in fees levied by the
United Nations was a "key" to untangling the corruption scandal.
The Telegraph has learned that UN officials are being asked to provide
detailed accounts of how the organisation's slice of Saddam's oil money
was used and how much went to companies which were supposed to monitor
the food and medicines imported by Iraq.
Although the UN Security Council approved the plan to levy a 2.2 per
cent commission on each oil-for-food transaction, the huge sums this
reaped for the UN have never been fully accounted for.
A senior UN official who is closely involved in uncovering evidence of
the scandal admitted: "The UN was not doing this work just for the good
of Iraq. Cash from Saddam's government was keeping the UN going for a
few years.
"No one knows exactly what sums were involved because an audit has
never been done. That is why they are wriggling and squirming now in
New York."

{Empahsis added by moi}

Of course, it gets better.

The new line of inquiry comes after Paul Volcker, the former
chairman of the US Federal Reserve, agreed to head the United Nations
investigation. He announced last week that he was hiring a team of
accountants, money-laundering specialists and lawyers to check
thousands of contracts authorised by the UN...
Mr Volcker's inquiry has the Security Council's backing, but has no
powers to compel witnesses to testify and will depend on co-operation
from foreign governments, UN staff and former members of the Saddam
regime.
I have a feeling the line "Your mother was a hamster and your father
smelt of elderberries!" will be shouted from the rooftops at the
investigators. After all, what organization is bigger and more powerful
than the UN and can compel them
to cooperate? There isn't one. International law is grand, isn't it,
when you're the one in charge of writing it and enforcing it?

Posted by: Kathy at 10:34 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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