Another failed shopping adventure. Looked around and could not find anything I liked. Ended up getting some boxers, some kitchen utensils, and some towels for the spare bathroom, then just said to hell with it and got a pedicure. And you can joke all you want about the pedicure, I don’t give a shit. Best thirty bucks I’ve spent in a helluva long time. Especially since I damned near ruined my feet wearing cleats and then army boots for all those years. Although I alway feel sorry for the poor bastard at the salon that draws the short straw and has to handle my Fred Flintstone feet.
Archives for July 2010
Open Thread
Farmer’s marketand a bunch of other stuff, then I have to go shopping for clothes, something I detest more than root canals. At any rate, TattooSydney sent this along- a little story he wrote:
The fat man, the fat cat and the barky dog.
There once was a fat man, who lived with a fat cat and a barky dog.
Well, the man said he was fat, and because many of the man’s friends had never seen him, they all had to take him at his word about that (and about the naked mopping).
They had seen photos of the cat. It was indeed fat – a big white ball with orange ears, an orange tail and an appetite. It had a special talent for contemptuous glances.
They had seen photos of the dog. It was indeed barky – a sweet and tiny orange thing, perched on the edge of the couch to repel any bird who came near. It had a special talent for barking.
The fat cat and the barky dog weren’t sure what the fat man’s special talent was. He spent a lot of time staring out the window. It was true they all – man, cat, dog – spent a lot of time staring out the window. There were all sorts of exciting things out the window to bark at, or to subject to a disdainful sneer.
However, the cat and the dog did feel that the man was wasting a lot of time, which he could use for, respectively, feeding and walking them, just staring out the window.
Humans were strange.
Although I guess now it is barky dogs.
Why The Post Intelligence Series Flopped
Richard Posner has some good insights:
The report is, in fact, a disappointment. It is descriptive rather than analytic, and the description is based entirely on two types of data, neither of which contributes to an understanding of the nature and problems of the nation’s intelligence system. The two types are statistics indicating the size and organizational complexity of national security intelligence, and expressions of exasperation at that size and complexity by former or current insiders.
The statistics are not broken down by each of the principal domains of national security intelligence, and so the reader is given no sense of the actual structure of the intelligence system. […]
Merely counting the number of people, parking spaces, square feet of building space, and other countables lovingly recited in the Post‘s report conveys no useful information and will impress only naïve readers who have somehow failed to realize that the U.S. government and its major components are huge. […]
I don’t agree with much of what Posner writes in general, but his basic point that numbers without context are meaningless is well taken here. It’s easy to charge “apathy” on the part of readers, but if they’re supposed to care, they need context to know why they should care.
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MoveOff
Perhaps my give-a-shitter is irreparably damaged, but I can’t manage much enthusiasm for a MoveOn.org petition drive to put NPR in Helen Thomas’ old seat in the White House briefing room. As far as I’m concerned, they can put a well-trained circus dog, a wax replica of the corpse of Chester A. Arthur, or a small bag of human feces in that chair, and it would make as much difference as putting NPR there. Why pick a battle that draws attention to one of the most self-important institutions in Washington?
Note: The “self-important institution” that I’m talking about is the White House Press Corpse, not NPR.
Open Thread
So, what we do we know about stoves? Seems my ancient electric stove is about to completely shut down, having two burners that do not work. Going to buy a gas one (I have an outlet). Any suggestions, as this is something I’ve never even thought about buying before? And I’m not made of money, so think quality but thrifty.
What is the difference between open and sealed burners on a gas stove? And when they say 30″ stove, they are referring to the width, correct? Not the depth…
So You Think You Had it Bad?
And he keeps on digging:
If Sherrod wanted to meet with you, what would you tell her?
I’d have a long discussion with her, and I’d tell her that I’m not one of these people in this country that thinks racism doesn’t exist. And that I’m not one of these people who says that she hasn’t suffered from racism. And that the scars of her racism aren’t warranted. But I’d also tell her that my passion in life and my political trajectory from left to right was born from watching the Clarence Thomas hearings. I didn’t understand how he NAACP sat on its hands while privileged white gentlemen hammered him mercilessly and humiliated him and the media and the NAACP allowed for it to happen.
Just so we’re clear, Sherrod was scarred by the murder of her father and subsequent failure to prosecute the murderers in the Jim Crow south, and Breitbart was scarred when Clarence Thomas was beaten to death on live television in the well of the Senate by Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden while the NAACP stood by and did nothing asked some questions before being promoted to a lifetime position in the highest court of the land. See- they’ve both been traumatized!
Two thoughts:
1.) Crazy people honestly have no idea how insane they sound, do they?
2.) After the Jeffrey Lord outburst this week, I’ve concluded the lunatic fringe of the right finds “high-tech lynchings” far more awful than, you know, actual lynchings.
We’re Never Leaving
Dan Froomkin on the mythical 2011 withdrawal from Afghanistan:
“All of these benchmarks are designed to pacify onlookers on the Hill, help to justify our presence in the country, and set unrealistic goals that everyone knows are not going to be met,” said retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, a respected military strategist and author. “You’re never going to achieve them. None of this is aimed at extricating American power and forces from anywhere.”
So, asked for an exit strategy, the administration instead offered up guidelines for an endless occupation.
And then last week, in a nearly unnoticed development at an international conference in Kabul, world leaders including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed their “support for the President of Afghanistan’s objective that the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) should lead and conduct military operations in all provinces by the end of 2014.”
That’s right: The end of 2014.
“I was kind of struck that the 2014 didn’t get more critical attention than it did,” said Paul R. Pillar, formerly the CIA’s top Middle East analysis and now a Georgetown University professor. “The war will have gone on 13 years at that point.”
Awesome. The added bonus is that not only will we not be withdrawing, but the Republicans can still pretend we are withdrawing in 2011 and call Democrats defeatocrats or troop-haters or whatever it is they like to say these days.
In fairness, we do need to figure out how to feed the military-industrial complex until we can gin up a war in China or Iran, so I guess at least we save on transportation if we just stick in Afghanistan forever.