William F. Buckley Jr. Is Dead at 82

I have only a couple things to say.

Why did someone over 80 still use the appellation Jr?

Most of the time almost always I disagreed with WFB, but regularly found him to be erudite, logical and interesting. Without opposition, there is no progress.

He will truly be missed, at least by me.

I did particularly like the first paragraph of the Time's obit:

William F. Buckley Jr., who marshaled polysyllabic exuberance, famously arched eyebrows and a refined, perspicacious mind to elevate conservatism to the center of American political discourse, died Wednesday at his home in Stamford, Conn. He was 82.

Its much like something WFB would write his own self.

Via NYT.

You talkin' to me?

Via My Confined Space.

Twilight zone

This is just so fucking spooking.

I watched the 80th Academy Awards.

There wasn't one fucking category I didn't predict. I worked from clips and audience reaction. I hadn't seen most of the movies. I wait for TV showings.

Now, if I could just do this with the fucking lotto.

Silly rabbit

This is long overdue. It explains why I use the phrase "silly rabbit." Its a reference to old American Trix cereal commercials.

I don't usually do videos because I assume many of you have slow computers or slow connections as do I, but this is different.

Trix cereal commercial.

Food shortages loom as wheat crop shrinks and prices rise

I told you so! I told you so! I told you so!

Go here, here, here and here.

OK, that last one is a stretch, but I'm too lazy ass to find other links.

This next link is definitely NSFW! Link. However it makes sense of the picture above.

Sorry (not really), I lied and did find another link. You thought I wouldn't lie to you?

Silly rabbit.

2.9 Magnitude Earthquake Rocks Colorado Town

July 1980 - Mount Saint Helens*
This just in.

An earthquake briefly rattled the small town of Lake George Tuesday afternoon.

Californians as well as millions around the world must be laughing their asses off. Two fucking point nine? That's not an earthquake. That's a collective reaction to eating beans.

Must have been a damn slow news day.

I've experienced a 7.1 magnitude earthquake, several of lesser magnitude and 2.9 just doesn't cut it.

BTW, the 7.1 earthquake was incredible!!!1!! It is awe inspiring to watch ol' Mother Nature unleash her power.

* Hey. I could choose to show Mother Nature on display at Mount Saint Helens or a fucking seismograph depicting an earthquake. I chose the former.

Via The Signs.

I have panache

"Panache" being definable as a fondness for the word "fuck."

-- Thers

Via Whiskey Fire.

Is Thers just fucking with my mind? Inquiring minds want to know.

Religion of nothing in particular

I've read about this shift in religion several places, but chose to link to The Goddess.

The rise of the unaffiliated does not mean that Americans are becoming less religious, however. Contrary to assumptions that most of the unaffiliated are atheists or agnostics, most described their religion "as nothing in particular." [emphasis mine]

I know I'm warped, but that fucking cracks me up. How does one have faith in nothing in particular? Just asking.

BTW, I believe my faith is in anarchy.

Via Echidne.

And Then, The Fascist Octopus Sang Its Swan Song

Run the Table
14" x 11" Oil
Apalachicola
Private Collection
By Larry Moore
In an earlier post I nominated Making Light for an Excellence in Blogging award. Here's why. The site catches this sort of stuff.

"Obviously she is now someone who is the underdog. Everybody is still hoping that she might run the table, but it is a much tougher mountain to climb.”

Quote from Leon Panetta, chief of staff for Bill Clinton from 1994 through 1997.

Now that's a fucking mixed metaphor worthy of SPIIDERWEB™.

BTW, I spent a couple years at university studying to become an English teacher which would have proven interesting because I love to fracture the English language.

I specialize in mixed metaphors, split infinitives, dangling participles and using prepositions to end sentences with.

Yeah, I could write gooder, but its no more important to me than punctuation and spelling.

As I've said before, if you're coming here to improvasize your English, you're at the wrong site.

Via Making Light.

Jaws in the ball pit

Jesus H Christ with a laptop, but I'm amazed at some people's ability to manipulate images.


See? I told you I steal from Jonco often.

Via Jonco.

Power

"Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely"

-- John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
Historian and moralist
(1834–1902)

Via SOURCE.

Yes its a fucking cliché, but its also true.

Regardless who is elected President in November do you really believe they'll turn back the extra-Constitutional powers Dim Son has bestowed on the office?

Silly rabbit.

Congress has to restore this nation to Constitutional control. Only an idiot would assume the next President would voluntarily relinquish the powers Dim Son has appropriated.

Excellence

Not sure how this shit works. Does someone come around with a trophy? I have no trophies. I want trophies. Please?

Anyway, The Crone has nominated SPIIDERWEB™ (Spiidey) for an excellence award.

Now I must pass on the mantle to others.

Of course, The Crone is one.

Followed in no particular order because I'm too lazy ass to order anything.

Ranger Against War

Baghdad

My Confined Space

Making Light

Bad Attitudes

Blue Gal

Foreign Policy Watch

forty two

Librocrat

Jonco

To all my good friends who are not nominated, please forgive me. I tried to be disciplined and limit my nominations to ten only. You are no less worthy in my eyes.

OK, I went to 11 by including Jonco, but I steal so many damn things from him it would be rude not to connaturalize (kewl word, huh?) him.

This is why this sort of thing sort of pisses me off. I've many sites I would never miss visiting daily because they are funny, articulate, erudite, clever, insightful, thoughtful, witty, insane, have made death threats against me if I don't.

Via The Crone Speaks.

Rulers of Iraq

Sometimes reality is quite different from what you think it is.

We walked into the Iranian embassy today to interview the ambassador. It was built 70 years ago and reoccupied by the Iranian mission after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. My translator looked at me as we walked through the double wooden doors to interview the Iranian Ambassador.

"This is the second ruler of Iraq," she said.

I looked at her.

"After Crocker," she said, referring to the U.S. Ambassador. She never mentioned the Prime Minister of Iraq, Nouri al Maliki. She expressed what most Iraqis feel, Iraq is a tug of war for power between Iran and the United States.

Courtesy link (which means I stole the whole fucking post)

Baghdad.

A necessary product

Aren't there occasions when we all could use these?


Only one of many interesting products.

Via Sutra Photos.

Clean energy

There are many more. This is my favorite.

Via Bored.com.

Fast jogger

I'm impressed. I've never exceeded 150 mph. And that's with a tail wind.

Via My Confined Space.

The Secret Service writes off security for candidates

You're probably well aware of this story.

This is an extremely long albeit thorough accounting of this whole subject.

Sort of makes one wonder if the candidates are being hung out to dry.

Here's the initial story: the Dallas police, who are more conscious of these issues than most municipal police forces, told reporters that the Secret Service ordered them to suspend weapons screening while people were still arriving at an Obama rally this past Thursday. From the Dallas Star-Telegram:

...

That is to say: in a state with few gun laws and no shortage of racist crazies, and in a city with a high crime rate and a history of political assassination, they had less security for a major campaign appearance than many high schools apply every day to their students. They had less security than I've run into at concerts, baseball games, and second-string amusement parks.

Please take note of that last paragraph. This ain't coming from some elitist northeastern newspaper but from the Dallas Star-Telegram. Its an unusually frank observation of their own.

Of course its disturbing when it concerns Obama for what I see as obvious reasons, but its also disconcerting vis-à-vis Mrs Clinton. If even one crazy is allowed into a rally with a firearm it puts an extra onus on the candidates' secret service contingents.

Unfortunately this is the fucking "liberal media" so there's no mention of what's happening at McCain rallies.

No, I don't believe the media is liberal. That part was a goddamn joke, hence the quote marks.

Is this a process of elimination? Just asking.

Via Making Light.

Hypocrisy

Seattle WTO Protest, 1999*

China shot down its own weather satellite. The US condemned it.

US shoots down own spy satellite.

Uzbek puts on a "show trial". The US condemned it.

US to put on a "show trial" at Gitmo.

Azeri uses force to break up protest. The US condemned it.

Seattle police use force to break up protest.

US condemns Hezzbolah kidnapping.

US kidnaps Ricardo Palmera among others around the world.

Bush administration calls for respect for human rights.

US tortures detainees at Gitmo.

Need I continue or have I made my point and may now ask if you can say hypocrisy? Just asking.

* Not to single out Seattle. This happens all the time in America.

Nudity (CAW)

Two guesses as to whether...


...alcoholic beverages were involved.
Via Jonco.

Personal

This will be a meandering post, but its my fucking site and I can do that. It may only appeal to men, but whatever...

I put myself through university by working summers in highway construction. The pay was unbelievable and I got plenty of overtime at time and a half.

For a while I drove an earth scraper similar to the one above. My training in this 75 ton machine consisted of: It will do 35 mph when loaded. If there is an emergency the brakes won't stop it quickly, push this lever and the "can" (scraper part) will dig into the dirt. Hold onto the steering wheel as tight as you can because it will go from 35 mph to 0 mph in fewer than 10 feet and throw you out.

Pretty fucking scary for a teenager to have to comprehend.


Anyway, got our dirt from a lake bottom with a CAT dozer pushing us. I'm not exactly proud of the fact I lowered the can so deeply once I stuck a D-9 CAT which is one huge, fucking powerful dozer. They had to send in a second D-9 to push the first one and my scraper.

This leads to an anecdote I want to share.

Another driver, thank God, was coming out of the lake bed to a frontage road. A woman was driving there. Each thought the other was gonna stop. Neither did. The scraper's tire went up onto the hood of the woman's car and punched the fucking engine out of the car and into the road. Also, thank God, the scraper missed the woman behind the wheel, but not by much.

Another anecdote.

To get the dirt from the lake bed meant building an earth damn to keep the water out of the lake. This was done with a smaller CAT dozer, D-6 as I remember, and the damn had to constantly be added to. They asked if I could do it. To keep working, I told them of course I could.

So now there's a teenager on a D-6 CAT dozer he'd never run pushing dirt along the top of this dam which was barely as wide as the dozer. There was a whole lake on the left and a 50 foot drop to the lake bed on the right.

Another anecdote.

The earth scraper had hydraulic steering. Which would move the whole cab. Once when I was climbing into it, I grabbed the steering wheel to pull myself up. The fucking thing swung toward me and threw me to the ground.

How I ever lived to adulthood is still a mystery to me. But I do have to admit I loved all of it.

Yeah, rereading this, it is a guy thing.

Spongebob Squarepants Musical Rectal Thermometer

OK. This is a perfect example of how I steal shit from others. I just couldn't let you go on living without seeing this.

I was shopping at the supermarket yesterday when I came upon a unique piece of Nickelodeon merchandising - a Spongebob Squarepants Musical Rectal Thermometer! Yes, it’s musical. And yes, it’s clearly marked for rectal use. It actually plays the Spongebob theme in your ass when your temperature is taken!

Tell me please, should this be tagged as "humor disgusting?"

Via Jonco.

Planning

This will be a strange/unusual post for SPIIDERWEB™ because it won't be short, won't just steal other's ideas and postings, may appear to negate some things I've written and might even add something to the discussion.

As I read the excerpt below from Balloon Juice, I got to thinking (rare) there are at least three types of planning.

1. Necessary.

2. Prudent.

3. Scary.

Necessary planning is the type almost never done by the Bush administration or is done in piss poor fashion.

Think Katrina.

Had adequate planning been done many lives could have been saved or at least the impact on those lives not lost been mitigated.

Had sufficient planning been done about what to do after the results of Katrina were known we wouldn't be years down the road with a mess in NOLA.

What should be done after Saddam Hussein is ousted? How do we rebuild Iraq? How do we win over the people?

Prudent planning also is the type almost never done by the Bush administration or is done in piss poor fashion.

What if someone attacks US? What if Iran does develop nuclear capabilities? What if Obama or Clinton becomes the GOP opponent? What should we do if we discover a "dirty bomb" is on its way to the US?

It would be foolish to wake up in the morning to see your party under attack on an issue (anti-black, anti-woman) and have no planned response.

Scary planning is the Bush administration's forté.

How do we go about attacking Iran? How do we deploy more troops to Afghanistan so we can kill more dark skinned people when we don't have enough people?

This planning is scary because it may well be assumed it will be acted upon. It isn't preventative, necessary, prudent planning. Its scary in its a blueprint for boneheaded action.

Top Republican strategists are working on plans to protect the GOP from charges of racism or sexism in the general election, as they prepare for a presidential campaign against the first ever African-American or female Democratic nominee.

Anyone in business knows necessary and prudent planning are absolutes for success. Blindly barging into a situation without preparation, unless you are excellent at reacting, improvising, readjusting, parrying, at which the Bush administration has proven woefully inadequate, is fucking stupid.

Via Balloon Juice.

Karbala pilgrimage

I guess religious masochism in the form of self-flagellation, hair shirts and suicide bombs just never goes out of style.

Hundreds of thousands of Shiites are walking to Karbala. Many of the roads in the capital are blocked as pious Shiite Muslims make the about 50 mile-trek to the holy city where Imam Hussein, the grandson of the prophet Mohammed, was killed.

On Thursday they commemorate Arbaeen, the anniversary of the 40th day after Hussein's death. Imam Hussein, his family and his followers who were killed were beheaded. On this day over 1300 years ago their heads were returned to their bodies.

The most pious go on foot in memory of the slain figure. Since the 2003 invasion nearly every year there has been blood. This year is no different.

In Iskandiriya, a town within what was known as the Sunni triangle of death, the place where Al Qaida ruled and blood shed was the norm, at least 27 pilgrims were killed today and 50 were injured when a suicide bomber walked into the crowd. Police expect the death toll to climb by tonight. In Baghdad three were killed by grenade attacks. Arbaeen falls on Thursday, thousands more pilgrims will take to the street this week.

In Karbala, already throngs of Shiites had reached the shrine, pounding their chests in mourning for Hussein.

Tomorrow three of our staff members plan to walk. I asked them to stay, worried that another bloody bombing might take place. But the bombings won't stop them, it is their religious duty.

Hey, I don't understand it, but I do believe in religious freedom. If they wanna handle snakes its their choice. Its just not for me.

However, I do draw the line if the pilgrims take along their children which I would guess many do. Children aren't ready to decide they want to risk being blown to shit just to make a pilgrimage. Let them decide such things when they've reached, by my standard, 18 years of age at least.

OK, I guess I believe in limited religious freedom.

Courtesy link Baghdad.

Quote of the day

Adalberto Roque/Pool via Reuters

"Fidel is Fidel, you know that well."

-- Raúl Castro
Cuban President, poet

Via IHT.

He was telling the National Assembly little would change.

In his first words as president, Castro made it clear that any changes would be limited, promising to continue to consult his brother on every important decision.

Via same source.

This Modern Life

I tagged this as "humor", but its not that funny when its your life.

Serbs Try to Attack US Embassy in Vienna; Munter Warns Serbia

Ah, the fucking fun and games we like to call the Balkans.

Frances Trix of Indiana University and a long-time researcher in Kosovo gives the historical and cultural context of the Balkan crisis at our collective Global Affairs blog.

Kosovo independence from Serbia continues to provoke Serbian protests, including a rally of 6,000 in Vienna on Sunday that turned violent when 600 hooligans tried to move toward the US embassy, found that Austrian police had sealed it off, and then vented their rage on local shops and restaurants.

Isn't that actually a form of terrorism?

Angry protesters had attacked the US embassy in Belgrade on Thursday, setting fires and forcing an evacuation. US ambassador to Serbia Cameron Munter demanded better security for embassies in Belgrade on Sunday, saying, "I'm very angry at what happened . . . It had better not happen again."

For anyone who can't quite get the nuance here, I think Munter is saying that the Serbian government will be held accountable for any further attacks on the United States embassy in Belgrade. And, indeed, Sunday's events raise the question of why Austria can protect its US embassy but Serbia can't protect its.

Kosovo's emergence as a country in its own right raises the question of why Palestine should not also just declare its own independence. [links in original].

Juan makes a couple very good points. Munter is warning Sebia in a not-too-subtle fashion. And why doesn't Palestine just declare independence?

Via Informed Comment (Juan Cole).

Camels

Actually those aren't camels at all. They are camels' shadows. Click to enlarge and you can just see the camels which are light colored at the shadows' feet.

Via weirdcoolpictures.

Oopsie!

(Unknown source)

Funny sign

Now what in the world do you think prompted the need for such a sign?

Oh yeah, not much interesting in the news right now, every blogger on earth seems to be covering the few that are out there and my horribly healed broken wrist is hurting like a bitch. Quick pix will have to suffice.

Via funnypicturescenter.