Here is what happens in War of the Worlds, which opened yesterday.
I haven't seen it, but I have half a brain (and like Pina Coladas).
Aliens come to Earth. They blow shit up. People run. Red moss begins to grow. All aliens catch a cold and die.
The end.
David Souter, the liberal Supreme Court justice who penned the decision that allows governments to seize property for private use, is having his house targeted for redevelopment and seizure through eminent domain. That is, if a developer gets his way.
On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter's home.Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.
The proposed development, called "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature the "Just Desserts Café" and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."
I would be fitting afterall.
Water that is. First I had trouble with my washing machine leaking water all over my floor. I pulled the beast out, and in the hot Sun I inspected all hoses, took them off, reconnected them and secured them with silicone. To be on the safe side I also got a drip pan to lay under the entire washer to catch any stray water.
I can't even test it now because our well pump burned itself out. The last time it was replaced was 1990, so 15 years out of a deep well pump is pretty good. Bruce, our well guy, said that 15 years is good. So we are dry, and it is hot. Tomorrow he is coming over to pull it out of its underground lair and replace it, and my wallet will be $500 drier as well.
But at least we'll be able to bathe.
So in the meantime we decided to go over to the state park and take the dog swimming. We chose an isolated place, away from the regular swimming area at the boat launch area. We also met a nice guy who had a pretty sweet RC speed boat. He let me drive it, and it was good.
Until the DickNer came. We call them DickNers for a twofold purpose. 1.) their shirts say DCNR for Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources. 2.) They are all dicks. He told us that we were wading in a non-doggie area, and that the official area is somewhere else. I was confused because I saw not a single person, save boat guy, the whole time were were there that a 25 pound dog would bother.
DickNer then told boat guy that his boat was not allowed in the lake. He was confused because larger boats with only electric motors are allowed on the lake, and since his 2 foot boat was electric, it would be allowed. But I guess not.
It's really hard to enjoy yourself at any Pennsylvania state park because of the myriad of state regulations that would make even people at the Department of Transportation throw their arms up in disgust at the confusing regulations.
The state parks are losing money because of funding cuts, and dwindling attendance. I say it is because it's too much of a bother to even try to enjoy yourself at a state park because of DickNers. They all suck and make you not have a good time. I would much rather go to a private/public lake in the poconos.
At least there, DickNers don't exist.
So while not working today, and after my well pump burned up, I was sitting in my study contemplating life when I came across this interesting tidbit of knowledge.
The piece of knowledge is this. Your typing teacher was a moron. You do not need two spaces after a period. I'll let the short article I read speak for itself.
they [writers] should in fact regard it [a computer] as a phototypesetter or printing press. To illustrate, when we learn to type we are taught that a period must be followed by two spaces. But open any professionally typeset book and you will see that only one space follows a period. According to author Robin Williams, the two-spaces-after-a-period rule was devised in order to counteract a problem created by the typewriter, which was that each character, including the tiny period, used the same amount of space and therefore made it difficult to distinguish where one sentence ended and another began. Since computers allow you to choose kerned fonts, in which the spacing between characters is relative to the character's size, you need only type one space after a period. The use of two spaces creates ugly rivers of white space.
I found that pretty interesting, especially since I was taught to type on a computer. In my senior year I learned to type on an IBM 386 with Word Perfect, back when word perfect was a blue screen with white font.
Well, let's see if that is ineed true:
This sentance is typed. It is typed with two spaces after the period. There are two periods.
This sentance is also typed. It is typed with only one space after the period. There are two periods.
Which one looks better?
The Supreme Court of the United States, in another attempt to totally destroy our country, has ruled today that it is ok for governments to seize private property for other private needs.
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses — even against their will — for private economic development.ADVERTISEMENT
It was a decision fraught with huge implications for a country with many areas, particularly the rapidly growing urban and suburban areas, facing countervailing pressures of development and property ownership rights.
The 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.
It used to be that they'd only take your property if they were putting in a road or something. That was bad enough. Now if Donald Trump wants to put a casino on your property, and you don't want to sell, the government can seize your land, and then sell it to Trump.
Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority. He was joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
If someone tried to take my land, I would not go without a fight. If the government tried to take my land, you would see a standoff in a fashion reminiscent of Ruby Ridge.
Mark Levin was right, The Supreme court is destroying America.
Sandra Day O'Connor, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas voted against it.
Don, over at Anger Management, has a great breakdown on the decision, including some good points against ANY sort of government seizure of property.
So, I guess congress has to do something to warrent their esteemed position. Just doing nothing and NOT spending too much of our money is out of the question. What are they up to? Tinkering with the Constitution.
Led by Senator Orrin Hatch, the House of Representatives is pushing a proposal to make it Unconstitutional to burn Old Glory.
WASHINGTON - The U.S. House on Wednesday passed a constitutional amendment banning flag desecration, advancing the proposal pushed by Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, who puts the likelihood of Senate approval at "excellent." "This year shows we have the best chance we've ever had," Hatch said Wednesday. While the House has passed the measure five times since 1995 in the run-up to the Fourth of July, the resolution has never received Senate approval. Hatch, who has 53 co-sponsors for his Senate version, will urge a vote later this summer. If passed by two-thirds of the Senate, 38 states must then ratify the amendment. "The flag is our national symbol," Hatch said in an interview. "We have young men dying and young women dying over in Iraq and Afghanistan as we speak. We're fighting for the principles that flag represents. "Secondly, I do not believe that urinating on the flag, defecating on the flag, burning it with contempt constitute free speech. Those are acts of physical desecration." Utah Republican Reps. Chris Cannon and Rob Bishop, who both supported the House proposal that passed 286-130, echoed those comments. The American flag "is our ultimate icon, and when it is attacked, we are all attacked," Cannon said.
What a bad idea. The purpose of the First Amendment is to allow political discorse and free expression of ideas. Even though I really don't appreciate seeing it burned, as prople who want the flag protected admit the flag is a symbol, and symbols can be powerful, and even more powerful when used in a forum that allows protestors to show their disdain for what they believe that symbol represents.
If this Constitutional amendment passes, it may be the first unconstitutional Constitutional amendment. In Texas V. Johnson, Antonin Scalia said that flag burning is protected speech. At is core is that the First Amdendment is all about!!
What is it with pointy headed liberals like Richard Cohen and Paul Krugman and their beards. Most of these guys have never done anything remotely "hick" like chopping down a tree or shot Bambi's dad in the middle of December to warrant having a beard.
Anyways, Richard Cohen does not seem to understand why we don't understand the nuance of comparing GI's to Nazis. To the other Dick, comparing GIs, who put their lives on the line for Liberty and often give their rations to starving children, is a valid way to criticize the Bush administration for not giving these "suspected terrorists" air-conditioning.
And according to the other Dick, when Trent Lott was trying to be nice to a 100 year old man on his birthday, he is an evil racist. That was much worse, and since that was bad, Dick Durbin's comments don't even warrent an apology.
Still, Durbin is not being faulted for a lack of nuance. He has instead come under vitriolic attack by Republicans who would have you think that the Democrat from Illinois likened America to the Soviet Union or the American military to Nazi Germany or disparaged the military in its entirety. In the name of our armed forces, Virginia Sen. John W. Warner asked for an apology. Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House, called for Durbin to be censured by the Senate. That would be a more severe penalty than that accorded Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) for praising the late Strom Thurmond's racist 1948 presidential campaign.
Well, I guess being nice to a man who already was slipping the bonds of Earth was worse than giving aid and comfort to the enemy. His comments have been continually fueling the anti-American fire, and no doubt many suicide bombers are using his words to justify their murder.
Well, according to Emperor Misha, he did make an apology, but a really crappy one.
I believe, that Dick Durbin is un-American. There it is, I've said it. To compare GIs to Nazis and to Pol Pot is >treason. He should resign from his leadership position, and if the people of his home state had any sense, he should not be re-elected.
Is that nuanced enough?
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Every spring, without fail, some local television station runs a story on the first day of spring showing school children trying to stand eggs on end. Because, as the talking heads say, the gravity of the Sun lines up with the Earth's magnetic field.
What bullshit. It is all a lie. Everything you see in regards to that is a parlor trick, and just an excuse for the teachers to stop teaching for a few hours and get outside on the first day of spring. You can learn all about it here. |
In short, there is nothing special about the first day of spring, and it's an old wive's tale.
My grandmother used to tell me all sorts of old wive's tales. My favorite was the one that if you can put salt on the tail of a bird, it won't be able to fly, and you can pick it up. I remember as a small boy running around the yard of my grandmother's with a salt shaker trying in vain to catch some poor Robin unsuspecting so I can shake some sodium chloride on his tail so I could pet him.
But that doesn't mean it's true.
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I got my new typewriter. My wife's aunt had it in her basement. After a quick wipedown with a damp rag, and a new typewriter ribbon, which you can buy at Staples believe it or not, my new Underwood was ready to pound out the next great American novel.
In case you are wondering it is an Underwood Standard #5 from about 1946 or so. |
The great thing about a typewriter as opposed to a computer is the lack of distraction. Computers used to be basically really expensive typewriters. But now, with games and internet, and multimedia, computers are less and less for simply writing, and more and more for other things.
Plus while I write, I am distracted by pretty icons, or someone trying it IM me. Chekhov's Mistress has a great workaround that. But you are still on a computer, and that is distracting.
There are many writers who still use typewriters, and one in particular uses an old Banger. David McCullough, author of the new history book 1776, uses a 1946 Royal Standard. It is similar to this one.
Simple, elegant, and stately. The typewriter. Not that I consider myself a collector. I don't intend to purchase or obtain any additional manual bangers, but I still find them interesting.
As usual, About.com, has an interesting article on collecting typewriters, including some neat trivia on typewriters.
Pennsylvania has some nasty extremes in temperature.
In winter it can be freakishly cold. This winter we had numerous days at -5 below zero Fahrenheit. Already this June we've had days in the mid 90s.
90s isn't hot you may say, but it isn't until you're in Pennsylvania. Combine a 90 degree day with a dew point of 85, and you know what I'm talking about. These are sorts of days where your wooden doors in your house swell up and won't close, or that your powder laundry soap becomes a bar of soap.
Other places when it is so humid you can see, they call that fog, here we call that Summer.
The newest thing to enter the blogging world is that of podcasting. Podcasting in case you don't know (and don't listen to me, cause I'm pretty ignoranty myself) is where someone burns their monologs into a MP3 that you then download to your iPod for listening enjoyment.
One of the bigger bloggers who is doing it is Frank J. over at imao.us. His site has a podcast and his quite funny. It features Frank, of course, but also SarahK, Right Wing Duck, and Harvey.
Maybe if I have something to say that I don't write down, or if I get a few more readers, I will offer a podcast of my own.
After all, I love to chase fads and be cutting edge.
I just realized that that title sounds kind of dirty, but I wanted to get tyour attention and tell you about a great new show ariing tonight on Fox called The Inside. It is the story of a 23 year old undercover FBI agent who uses her painful past to help profile criminals and catch them.
The Weekly Standard has a great write up about it.
I saw the pilot last week, and I was impressed, I think it can be the next CSI.
Give it a watch. Wednesdays 9pm, Fox.
Michael Jackson not guilty? In what universe?
What the fuck do you have to do to get a conviction in California?
I think they need to give jurors IQ tests in California. Because as it is now, the jury system in California is a total, utter, joke.
And to Mesereau. You are a scumbag schill for a child murderer. As all lawyers, you are sub-human piece of worm shit. With your smug smile, go to hell.
To Jackson supporters. Please take musical appreciation class. Jackson's music is pretty bad, and despite what he says, he has very little talent.
Please.
Where can you buy a decent wheelbarrow out there? They all suck.
As I am doing some excavating and some work around my house, we needed another wheelbarrow. The one we've been using is entering old age. It was bought by my father in 1965 and has been used nearly every day since then.
But it's getting old. So we decided to buy another wheelbarrow. I bought a True Temper 6 cu ft. piece of shit. The tire, made in Vietnam, can't hold air, and since it's tubeless, and made in vietnam, it seems to not fit on the rim, and it makes it impossible to inflate because it won't make a seal to hold air.
I looked on various web-sites, and all they carry are these piece of junk True Tempers.
What happened to the type of wheelbarrow my dad got in 1965? Why can't you make a quality product any more?
I got this call from USA Credit Fraud. Their number is 1-800-634-6729, and they call you and say that you applied for credit, but they needed some more information.
Since I'm on the Do Not Call list, I hung up, and went to my state's do not call list, and reported these jerks.
I will never buy anything over the phone. Only if I make the call. And they must make some money doing it, because they keep doing it.
So not only do I want to seriously hurt telemarketers, I want to hurt the folks who buy off them, to keep them calling people like me who have a life and don't need to talk to strangers to keep from feeling lonely.
It's pretty hot out there. I've been eating more cool crisp greens than my goats, and my poor dog is panting in the shade.
It's 90 degrees, and unlike all you from the desert area who will write and say "Hey, it gets 120 in the shade in Vegas, stop whining baby", I"ll say to them that in Vegas it isn't humid. Its so muggy here you can actually see steam around you, like a steam room scene in a mob movie.
Even I got better grades than John Kerry did my Frosh year in college. And so did George Bush.
WASHINGTON -- During last year's presidential campaign, John F. Kerry was the candidate often portrayed as intellectual and complex, while George W. Bush was the populist who mangled his sentences.But newly released records show that Bush and Kerry had a virtually identical grade average at Yale University four decades ago.
In 1999, The New Yorker published a transcript indicating that Bush had received a cumulative score of 77 for his first three years at Yale and a roughly similar average under a non-numerical rating system during his senior year.
Kerry, who graduated two years before Bush, got a cumulative 76 for his four years, according to a transcript that Kerry sent to the Navy when he was applying for officer training school. He received four D's in his freshman year out of 10 courses, but improved his average in later years.
The grade transcript, which Kerry has always declined to release, was included in his Navy record. During the campaign the Globe sought Kerry's naval records, but he refused to waive privacy restrictions for the full file. Late last month, Kerry gave the Navy permission to send the documents to the Globe.
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| Bush, better in college, and better looking too! |
Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise are in love. In a fashion remeniscent of Billy Bob Thorton and Angelina Jolie that is. As my pappy always says, a flame that burns hot, burn out faster.
"I've got to tell you, the most extraordinary thing happened to me one day in April when I met Tom," she told syndicated TV show "Access Hollywood" in an interview set to air Monday night. "I'm more and more in love every day. It's like, 'Wow.'"The 26-year-old actress also said that she enjoyed Cruise's profession of love on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" last month. "I sat there and saw that and said, 'I am the luckiest woman in the world.'"
This is definately getting creppy.
The Alliance asked me to ask my fellow members of the Pentaburate what news stories we are going to be seeing in 2005 and beyond into 2006.
From a future Drudge headline.
I found this moderately old typewriter in my spare bedroom. It is my father's. He never uses it. It is a 1970s vintage Kmart 100 portable typewriter. Nothing fancy about it, so I won't even post an image of it.
But while trying to find information on this typewriter (which still works, BTW), I found a site called Mr. Typewriter, I found out that a lot of people collect typewriters, and some are truely beautiiful.
My favorite, and perhaps the most common, cheapest, and easiest to fine, is the granddaddy of all typewriters. It is the Underwood #5
I just love the steel beauty of early and mid 20th century items like cash registers, radios, and typewriters. There is something quite beautiful about them.
Speaking of cash registers, here is my 1920 National model 313.
So I am busy ignoring my blogging at the expense of other things. Mainly hanging out, enjoying summer, and starting my garden.
Now my wife is the true green thumb. She has all sorts of things planted around the house. She tells me what they are, but the only thing I know about them is not to spray them with Roundup.
She also planted a hefty veggie garden. She has Roma, Cherry, and Beefsteak tomatoes, Green and hot peppers, Habeneros, Cucumbers, Zucchini, Red and Green Cabbage, Broccoli, Cauliflower, celery, and Potatoes. Oh, I forgot to mention carrots, red beets, lettuce, and spinach.
Me, I'm simple. I only grow Sweet Corn. And this year I've added watermelon and cantelope to my repetoire.
Pictures to come later.