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April 2, 2006
Stay-at-home Baghdad
For your entertainment, a puppet show in three acts.
Act I:
Howard Kaloogian, the Republican candidate to replace convicted San Diego congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham's puts a post on his website. He has recently (read: July 2005) visited Iraq and presents this photo to show that, contrary to liberal media reports, Baghdad is really quite tranquil and safe.
Act II:
Bloggers smell something a little fishy (no Arabic writing, a woman in a tank top, no apparent military presence) and get to work, blowing up the photo for clues, Googling "2. NOTER", and theorizing on the seemingly mixed-race couple on the left. Within 24 hours, they come up with this photo of the same intersection in Istanbul.
Act III:
The good candidate corrects his website, says the earlier picture was a webmaster's mistake, and posts this one instead, saying that all is indeed calm in Baghdad.
And who can argue with that? Baghdad looks quite placid from way up here...
- Fin -
RetroGen: February 19, 2005
Seems like forever since I've posted a RetroGen.
April 12, 2006
I'm a Dinner Jacket, Revisited
Was catching up on Le Show today and discovered that Harry Shearer stole my Ahmadinejad joke!
I didn't even know he read my blog...
April 13, 2006
Interesting reading
Check out this survey of political attitudes across the generations
I wish they'd gone back just a little further to evaluate the "Greatest Generation". Coming out of WWII and the FDR years, seeing radical gender, racial, and sexual issues change society, and benefitting from the GI Bill and Social Security, I'd love to know where they stand.
April 20, 2006
Redesign-ey
Working on minor changes to make this site more readable at lower resolutions. If it becomes temporarily unreadable at any resolution, my effusive apologies.
April 21, 2006
Things I Didn't Know #1: Midland
Now and then I come across a factoid both trivial and jarring. The kind of thing I want to tell people but don't really have an excuse without the proper context. The kind of comment you might casually bring up at a dinner party if you want to create a conversational dead end at a moment's notice.
Well, now I have a place to put these discoveries: Under the heading "Things I Didn't Know". I'll even number them so I can claim to have an ongoing series under my belt.
The inaugural Thing I Didn't Know™ is a doozy:
Which currently famous figure caused the death of a friend in a driving accident back in the sixties? Wrong! Well... actually right, but I'm thinking of someone else.
In 1963, in Midland Texas, 17-year old Laura Welch ran a stop sign and rammed into another car driven by a classmate, Michael Douglas. He was thrown from his car and died of a broken neck. Ms. Welch was brought to the hospital with bumps and bruises, and released without charges. You'd think, I dunno, manslaughter or something, but hey, privilege will out.
Laura Welch would eventually move beyond this tragedy to become Laura Bush, our current First Lady.
So what's the point? There is none! That's the whole idea behind TIDK™! However... next time you hear some idiot chant "Chappaquiddick! Chappaquiddick!", you can respond in kind.
IF you really want to sink to their level.
(Courtesy Snopes.com)
April 22, 2006
Net Neutrality
Go take two minutes to learn a little something.
April 28, 2006
Boy, Interrupted
Looking back a couple years, when I could devote hours a day to playing games, I can see why some would consider this to be time spent poorly.
April 30, 2006
Site Notes
I was getting into the habit of posting lightly (or only into Now Playing) toward the end of each month, knowing anything I put there would get archived behind a link within a few days.
This was rather dumb, really. I checked the Blogger's Rulebook and it does not say that I have to remove old posts when I change months. I'll be archiving, but also keeping posts on the main page up to a month old.
And just to prove it, here on the last day of April:
