Haven’t posted for a while…work’s been crazy, so I haven’t had the time to post entertianing bits…and the political stuff that normally gets me fired up, frankly, has been depressing me too much to bother commenting on it.

Case in point is this parenthetical from a recent Gleen Greenwald article:

[The most amazing quote was from chief Mukasey supporter Chuck Schumer, who, before voting for him, said that Mukasey is “wrong on torture — dead wrong.” Marvel at that phrase: “wrong on torture.” Six years ago, there wasn’t even any such thing as being “wrong on torture,” because “torture” wasn’t something we debated. It would have been incoherent to have heard: “Well, he’s dead wrong on torture, but . . . ”

Now, “torture” is not only something we openly debate, but it’s something we do. And the fact that someone is on the wrong side of the “torture debate” doesn’t prevent them from becoming the Attorney General of the United States. It’s just one issue, like any other issue — the capital gains tax, employer mandates for health care, the water bill — and just because someone is “dead wrong” on one little issue (torture) hardly disqualifies them from High Beltway Office.]

The post in general is about how our latest Attorney General was swiftly confirmed in the Senate, and how, somehow, the “60 vote requirement” to get anything done in Congress is only when the Democrats roll over and let the freakin’ Republicans get their way god so sleepy need to lay down a minute

Companies renting “smell time” in their office buildings. Say, 11:25-11:40, the sandwich company accross the street can rent the time to push baked bread smells through the ventilation system. 4:45-5:00, supermarket chains can push the smell of roasted chicken.

“Syntactic sugar.”

“Sensawunda”.

In which O’Reilly is delightfully surprised at the civility of lower people:

Discussing his recent dinner with Rev. Al Sharpton at the Harlem restaurant Sylvia’s, Bill O’Reilly reported that he “couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks, primarily black patronship.” O’Reilly added: “There wasn’t one person in Sylvia’s who was screaming, ‘M-Fer, I want more iced tea.’ “

David Kurtz has a great point on Sen. Craig’s defense: the Senator says he was under such stress from the Idaho Statesman trying to prove he was gay, that he (wrongly) thought it was in his best interest to plead guilty to gay activity.

Talking Points Memo | The Power of the Press

Yeah, great. People laying flour and marking arrows with chalk for a goof running event—something they’ve done plenty of times, coast-to-coast—gets them felony charges in Connecticut.

Beer runners’ trail a recipe for trouble

Because, as we all know, the preferred delivery method for anthrax is by dumping a “white, powdery substance” in an Ikea parking lot.

Here’s the quote from the Mayor’s office:

“You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know,” she said. “It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious. We’re thankful it wasn’t, but there were a lot of resources that went into figuring that out.”

Oh crap, we gotta worry about something more serious than terrorists, now? Zombie aliens? Bioagents that turn oil into mad cow disease? Sharks with freakin’ laser beams on their heads?

Last week, I was biking home from work, and I caught up to a couple lanes of traffic stopped at a red light. I did a dumb thing—I tried going through a space between two cars where there really wasn’t space for me. As I tried to get through, I hit the car mirror on my right, which fortunately was hinged to move back easily when encountering an idiot like myself.

I stop, look up, and the woman in the car—can’t hear her, her windows are up—gets a pained expression on her face, and she’s mouthing, “Are you okay? Are you okay?” And I’m saying , yes, I’m fine, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and I readjust her mirror as I continue apologizing profusely.

I ride off, thinking what a dumb idea that was, but I got past that and thought about what she did. Her first reaction was to be concerned for my safety. That was kinda nice to run into randomly.

I mean what the fucking fuck. Here’s a new scandal I didn’t even know about and good God how many more of these are we gonna find already?!

Crooks and Liars » Iraq Embassy Oversight Hearing: I believe these men were kidnapped by First Kuwaiti to work at the US Embassy…

I’m watching the vid, so if you don’t want to, here’s the guy’s story: he was contracted by First Kuwait as a medical tech and told to go to Baghdad. A manager asked him to escort 51 Philipino nationals, make sure they got on the same plane…but when he got to the airport he noticed that their tickets said they were going to Dubai. He asks a manager why this is, and he’s told 1) their passports don’t allow them to go to Iraq, so they have to say that, and 2) he shouldn’t tell them they’re going to Baghdad. He learned later that they were expecting to go to work at Dubai hotels.

Rory Mayberry: “Mr. Chairman, when the airplane took off and the captain announced that we were heading to Baghdad, all you-know-what broke out on the airplane. The men started shouting, it wasn’t until the security guy working for First Kuwaiti waved an MP5 in the air that the men settled down. They realized that they had no other choice but to go to Baghdad. Let me spell it out clearly: I believe these men were kidnapped by First Kuwaiti to work at the US Embassy… I’ve read the State Department Inspector General’s report on the construction of the embassy. Mr. Chairman, it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. This is a cover-up and I’m glad that I’ve had the opportunity to set the record straight.”

Your cousin’s driving, gets in an accident, he’s killed next to you, you’re trapped and burning in a fire that will soon kill you, and you’re saved by being covered in poop.

Augusta, GA - News - Man’s Life Saved By Sewage

Great setup on this story.

i’m sure you guys can deal

I turned to my Indian co-worker today and said, I don’t know how your food doesn’t kill you.

I got Indian food for lunch today, and I have no idea why. No, wait, I do—it was cheap. But I know I don’t like it and it just hurts me, but I got it anyway. Ugh. I just don’t even like the palette—it’s all brown and yellow. And blazing, firey red, two hours later. My experience with Indian food is like holding a hammer over my fingers and saying, hm, I wonder if this’ll hurt this time.

I was listening to talk radio the other day, and heard just a piece of a story from a woman who was attending an anti-war protest. She got talked over by the host before she could finish, which is a real shame, because the scene she was describing was quite powerful.

I wish I had a transcript, but…it went something like this: she was at a protest, and an ex-soldier came at one of the protesters and punched him. There was a scuffle, but shortly after that, the soldier broke down in tears, saying, “don’t tell me I killed little girls for no reason.”

I’m…okay I am highly insulated and privileged and I have absolutely no grasp of what it’s like to actually offer my life for the sake of my country. And yet I am literally getting choked up picturing all that. I suppose I don’t really have to understand what it’s like to be a soldier, I can just understand despair. But I’m just typing about it, what’s it like to live it?

Couple that despair with the sort of post-combat treatment we’ve heard that the soldiers are getting—inadequate services, VA runarounds, etc.—and I am sure we’re creating another round of disillusioned, disabled veterans in the mold of the Vietnam vet stereotype.

Read Maus’s blog. It makes me long for the days when I had interesting things to say. (Or, at least, interesting ways to describe uninteresting things.)

Our electric bills have suddenly gone sharply down in the last three months. Like, 30% or so. Debb and I have been trying to figure out why this could be–we haven’t really changed much, and in fact, rates have increased in our area. And rates wouldn’t matter, anyway, our bill have a little bar chart of electric usage, and we can see the amount of energy we’ve been using has significantly dropped.

The best we can figure is that we changed nearly all our lightbulbs to fluorescents. That’s the only difference we can pinpoint. And if that’s true, buying them on sale at Home Depot–8 bucks for four of em–is really paying off. Screw the “will give savings over two years” bit, they’re already saving us money.