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Archive for November 2003
The Good Old Days
Posted by on 11/24/03 at 11:53 pm
Category: PoliticsI never cease to be amazed by the crap that gets circulated on the Internet, particularly stuff about the Good Old Days. Here’s an email I received today from a friend.
How old is Grandma?
Stay with this-the answer is at the end-it will blow you away.
One evening a grandson was talking to his grandmother about current events. The grandson asked his grandmother what she thought about the shootings at schools, the computer age, and just things in general.
The Grandma replied, “Well, let me think a minute, I was born, before television, penicillin, polio shots, frozen foods, Xerox, contact lenses, Frisbees and the pill.
There were no credit cards, laser beams or ball-point pens. Man had not invented pantyhose, air Conditioners, dishwashers, clothes dryers, and the clothes were hung out to dry in the fresh air and man had yet to walk on the moon.
Your Grandfather and I got married first and then lived together. Every family had a father and a other. Until I was 25, I called every man older than I, “Sir”- - and after I turned 25, I still called policemen and every man with a title, “Sir.”
We were before gay-rights, computer-dating, dual careers, daycare centers, and group therapy. Our lives were governed by the Ten Commandments, good judgment, and common sense. We were taught to know the difference between right and wrong and to stand up and take responsibility for our actions.
Serving your country was a privilege; living in this country was a bigger privilege.. We thought fast food was what people ate during Lent. Having a meaningful relationship meant getting along with your cousins. Draft dodgers were people who closed their front doors when the evening breeze started. Time-sharing meant time the family spent together in the evenings and weekends- not purchasing condominiums.
We never heard of FM radios, tape decks, CDs, electric typewriters, yogurt, or guys wearing earrings. We listened to the Big Bands, Jack Benny, and the President’s speeches on our radios. And I don’t ever
Remember any kid blowing his brains out listening to Tommy Dorsey. If you saw anything with ‘Made in Japan’ on it, it was junk. The term ‘making out’ referred to how you did on your school exam.
Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, and instant coffee were unheard of. We had 5 &10-cent store where you could actually buy things for 5 and 10 cents.
Ice-cream cones, phone calls, rides on a streetcar, and a Pepsi were all a nickel. And if you didn’t want to splurge, you could spend yourcnickel on enough stamps to mail one letter and two postcards.
You could buy a new Chevy Coupe for $600 but who could afford one? Too bad, because gas was 11 cents a gallon. In my day, “grass” was mowed, “coke” was a cold drink, “pot” was something your mother cooked in, and “rock music” was your grandmother’s lullaby.
“Aids” were helpers in the Principal’s office, “chip” meant a piece of wood, “hardware” was found in a hardware store, and “software” wasn’t even a word.
And we were the last generation to actually believe that a lady needed a husband to have a baby. No wonder people call us “old and confused” and say there is a generation gap….. and how old do you think I am ???…..
Read on to see-pretty scary if you think about it and pretty sad at the same time.
Grandma is 58
How could so much go wrong in such a short time?
Interesting, but like so many things of this sort, bogus.
Grandma was born in 1945.
Television broadcasting began in 1939.
The first home air conditioner went on the market in 1928.
Clarence Birdseye (yes, that’s his real name) introduced frozen foods for sale to the general public in 1930.
The first clothes dryer appeared in 1915.
The ball point pen was invented in 1938 and commercialized in the United States in 1945 before Grandma could say ball point, much less write with one.
Instant coffee was first marketed in 1909. Nescafe, freeze-dried instant coffee, debuted in 1938.
Penicillin was used on soldiers injured on D-Day in 1945. If Grandma got an ear infection, she probably got a shot of penicillin for it.
“Make out” became mainstream in the 50s, while Grandma was still a teenager and presumably had her first opportunity to make out.
All this proves is that Grandma is senile. Which, for someone 58 years old, is what is really fucking scary.
Fox Follies
Posted by on 11/18/03 at 12:06 pm Category: PoliticsA new low for Fox, as hard as that may be to believe. They are now complaining that the New York Times Book Review hasn’t reviewed books by Bill “Shut Up” O’Reilly or Anne “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity” Coulter. These people are more stupid than I ever imagined. They are complaining because their critics are not trashing them. Do you think Al Franken would complain because he didn’t get a review on the O’Reilly Factor? Not so much.
Remove Ann Coulter’s Internet Connection
Posted by on 11/18/03 at 1:13 am Category: PoliticsAnne “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity” Coulter is at it again, weighing in on Terri Schiavo matter in a shameless fashion. Thoughtful people are necessarily troubled by the issues raised by the Schiavo case and see arguments both for ending life support and for continuing it. Anne, ever the partisan opportunist, turns it into a political squabble, accusing Terri’s husband of partisan motives while pursuing partisan motives of her own, and with considerably less dignity.
Anne’s diatribe is nestled below two banners. The top banner on her site reads “Too much credit card debt? . . . we can help.” Viagra adds will probably show up next week. Under that we have four tacky photos of Anne. They look like bad photos from a dating site.
So while she’s really concerned about Terri Sciavo, let’s look at what she says:
“She is breathing, her heart is pumping, her organs are functioning. All she needs is food and water. (Of course, all three are technically true of Kate Moss, too.”
Why does Anne think this cheap shot furthers her argument? We are talking about a life and death issue, not an opportunity to be cute.
Or this:
“Dennis Kucinich has been in a persistent vegetative state for 20 years – how about not feeding him.”
Would this be funny if I said the same thing about Anne? But Anne doesn’t give a shit about Terri Schiavo other than how she can use her to advance her own agenda. If Anne did, she’d offer to pay Terri’s life support costs.
New Internet Sport
Posted by on 11/17/03 at 4:18 pm Category: PoliticsWe’ve all received the Nigerian scam letters — letters promising untold riches for helping transfer an account. A new internet sport has developed in which the recepients of these letters try to turn the table on the scamster. This is described in an amusing article in Sunday’s Guardian.
The results are hilarious. The goal is to get the scamster to send humiliating pictures of themselves, or wait at the airport holding ridiculous signs, or the like. One scambaiter has actually been able to get the scamster to send him money, which is the holy grail of scambaiting.
There are apparently a number of sites devoted to documenting some of these scamster-scambaiter competitions, even providing tips and advice to fellow scambaiters. Of course scambaiter forums have started to crop up. My favorite of the sites is 419eater.com. Mike is truly masterful at manipulating the scamster. The site also links to other scambaiter sites and has tips on how to receive a scamster email and start playing.
The sport even has its own jargon. The scam letters are known as 419 letters, a reference to the fraud provision in the Nigerian penal code. The scamsters are known as “lads,” and the marks are known as “mugus,” both apparently terms originated by the scamsters themselves. Mike likes to get pictures from the lads and, when he closes the game, send them back their picture with the caption “I am a Mugu”!
Republican Slumber Party
Posted by on 11/14/03 at 1:33 pm Category: PoliticsRick the Sanctimonious Sanctorum just can’t help lying. In the midst of the Senate slumber party protesting the Democratic filibuster of four Bush judicial nominees , Ricky holds up a sign reading “2,782 - 0″ This represents, he says, the total number of judicial nominees approved by the Senate in U.S. history versus the number that had been filibustered before Dubya took office. Wrong. The Republicans filibustered Johnson’s nomination of Abe Fortas as Chief Justice. Ricky’s lie is that much more disingenuous because 55 Clinton nominees never even got a committee hearing, a Republican tactic even more effective than a filibuster.
Sanctorum has another good whopper on his awful website. In his bio, he says: “American families pay more in taxes than on food, clothing, housing, and transportation combined.” Where does he come up with this nonsense? The last consumer expenditure survey showed the average American’s expenditure on food was 13.7% of his total expenditures, 4.5% for clothing, 31.7% for housing, 19.1% for transportation, and 6.1% for taxes (federal, state and local). So let’s hold up a sign for Rick: “69.0% - 6.1%”
Chicken Hawk Down
Posted by on 11/12/03 at 11:23 pm Category: PoliticsMonday’s Tom Tomorrow cartoon about chicken hawk warbloggers has caused some warbloggers to get their knickers in a knot. Like this one. And this one.
This is such a childish argument . . . on both sides. It’s childish because both sides are right and yet sheer partisanship prevents either from seeing the merits of the other position.
Take an example from another, hopefully less incendiary, domain. Film directors often point out that film critics haven’t, indeed couldn’t, produce a feature length film. That’s true, and it’s a valid point. On the other hand, film critics have seen alot of films and may well know what’s good and what’s not. So, in some sense, both points are valid. When reading a film reviewer it is significant to understand that they can’t make films, but that doesn’t completely discredit their opinion.
This analogy doesn’t map perfectly. The film critic, unlike the war advocate, isn’t arguing that we should put lives in peril. So, the point that a particular warblogger won’t, or can’t, put his money where his mouth is makes the criticism a bit more compelling. But it still doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have the right to advocate a pro-war position.
So, everybody take a deep breath and settle down. It’s fair for Tom Tommorow to point out that some warbloggers are chicken hawks and it’s fair for Dale and Lt. Smash to say that this doesn’t totally discredit their opinions.
Fair disclosure about myself: I’m a liberal Democrat opposed to the decision to invade Iraq, but also realizing that now that we’ve done it, we cannot just walk away.
The Fib Circuit
Posted by on 11/11/03 at 1:57 pm Category: PoliticsDick Cheney is on the fib circuit again, trying to link Al-Qaeda and Iraq, since lacking the discovery of any WMD, some slender rationale needs to be eeked out to justify the death of American troops in Iraq. Just last Friday, at a fundraiser in Houston, he told an audience that Al Qaeda had an “established relationship” with Hussein. There’s not a shred of evidence that supports that, and every reason to doubt it. Why would Hussein, a secularist, get into bed with religious extremists? But it doesn’t matter to Cheney whether it’s true or not. His hope is that by frequent repetition of the lie, somebody will believe it, which, sadly enough, is true.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “If someone guaranteed it.” — George Soros’s reply to the question whether he would trade his $7 billion fortune to unseat Bush.
Never said that
Posted by on 11/10/03 at 1:35 pm Category: PoliticsAt a September 25 press conference held by Secretary Rumsfeld, a reporter stated:
“Before the war in Iraq, you stated the case very eloquently and you said . . . they would welcome us with open arms. . .”
To which Rumsfeld snapped back:
“Never said that. “Never did. You may remember it well, but you’re thinking of somebody else. You can’t find, anywhere, me saying anything like either of those two things you just said I said.”
Um, how about what you said to Jim Lehrer during the February 20 broadcast of “The News Hour”?
“There is no question but that they [our troops] would be welcomed. Go back to Afghanistan, the people were in the streets playing music, cheering, flying kites, and doing all the things that the Taliban and the al-Qaeda would not let them do.”
There’s more false denial by Rumsfeld reported here.
Shocked, shocked!
Posted by on 11/9/03 at 9:03 pm Category: PoliticsBill Frist, the Majority Leader of the Republican Party, who is shocked, shocked about the “partisan” Democratic staffer memo on investigation of the White House’s use of pre-war intelligence, has responded with an allegedly non-partisan response. He has stopped the work of the Select Committee on Intelligence until the staffer delivers a “personal apology” to Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan), chairman of the committee.
So we’re going to shut down a crucial intelligence investigation until some Senate staffer apologizes? And this is a non-partisan response? National policy hinges on a personal apology from a Senate LA? Does this mean that if one of Saddam’s aides personally apologizes to George W. for thinking about having WMDs, we can call off the war and restore Saddam to power?
The other thing here is that the Washington Post article refers to the article as “leaked.” That’s like saying the Linda Tripp tapes were leaked. What Democrat would “leak” that memo? The Democrats should demand an investigation of how it fell into Republican hands.
Outside the tent
Posted by Clif on 11/9/03 at 2:54 pm Category: Politics
Why is this blog named “Outside the tent”? Well, for one, I’m just not in the GOP’s “big tent.” Also, it’s a reference to LBJ’s famous reference to J. Edgar Hoover: “I’d rather have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.” So put these two meanings of “Outside the tent” together and you’ve got me outside the big tent and, well, you get the picture. It’s time that we liberal Democrats took off the gloves and give conservative Republicans what they justly deserve. And that’s what we’ll be doing here: skewering Faux News, roasting Bill O’Reilly, spraying former bug killer, former Congressman and soon-to-be convict Tom De Lay, and generally pissing in the tent of the GOP and conservatives. It should be fun.