Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
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If you missed the story that I put up earlier this week of my friend Andy's return to her New Orleans home, please make sure you give it a read. I've updated the post (just my three sentence intro, not her tale) to include a link to some of her work, which in turn contains links to yet more. Her two chapbooks, mine and All Fires the Fire, are available through Faulkner House Books (504-524-2940 or faulkhouse@aol.com) and mine has been reprinted and is available online through Lavender Ink.
I've garnered a reputation at my current and former jobs (and less reputable haunts) as having unstoppable kung fu when it comes to finding information on the web. Pump up your searching mojo with some of these lesser-known Google tricks.
"It's still under most people's radar screen right now," said Carl Neill, an analyst at Risk Management Inc., a natural gas consultant and brokerage firm Chicago. "The public has absolutely no idea how high prices are going to be this year. It's going to be mind-boggling. Price are going to be 50 to 100 percent higher for residential consumers than in previous year." [...]
Americans will pay an average of $400 more for their natural gas this winter than last year, with average bills jumping to $1,130, according to estimates by the Department of Energy. These estimates, however, might prove too low and are likely to get updated when the government issues its winter outlook next month.
(via Atrios)
"A Boalsburg man was arrested early Monday after troopers said they found him naked and sucking on a nozzle of a kerosene pump at the Centre Hall Snappy's."
"A man and his pet wild pig facing eviction from their Boulder Creek home have eluded authorities - the man by running into the woods, and the pig by attacking deputies. [...] 'The pig, and I don't know her name, is aggressive,' sheriff's Sgt. Fred Plageman said. 'It seems to be a domesticated pig, and on past occasions it has chased deputies around and chewed up part of a patrol car.' "
"Two men were arrested for stealing a generator and an air compressor worth $1,400 from a truck parked at a home in the first block of Canterbury Drive. A neighbor told police he saw the men putting the items in a white truck and he wrote down the license plate as they drove away. Police used the license plate number to find the men, who said they had nothing to hide and allowed police to search their truck. When police found the stolen items, the men told them they took them because they were owed money for drugs."
"Mesa police arrested a man caught in the act of placing Polaroid photos of his genitals on vehicles."
"A man in the small Iron Range town of Gilbert, Minn., was being eaten alive in his home by rats, the caller [to 911] said. Skepticism turned to disbelief when they responded. More than 200 black rats — a colony originating from one pregnant pet-store type of rat that the mentally disabled man had taken in — had overrun the small house."
"On Sept. 25, numerous calls led police to the 3800 block of Prince. Reports stated that a woman was taking her shirt off and dancing in the street in front of a restaurant. The subject identified herself to officers but gave irrational details regarding where she was from, saying that she was 'praying' in the street and plugging her ears with her fingers when asked where she lived."
"The midnight shift manager at Summit View on Runyan Drive said a black male evacuee from Louisiana named Ira Lee has been staying in the home. She said he followed her around for an hour, and he advised he is a predator and he ran a white slave ring in Louisiana and preys on women. Police said Lee told them he is 'God' and would not give any further personal information. He said God was his lawyer and he would get the night shift manager fired. Police said they believe Lee needs a mental evaluation."
"The 'routine' traffic stop first took a turn when Miller learned that the Denison driver, 23, had outstanding warrants. He put him under arrest and into his patrol car, then made a pre-towing inventory search of his car. He found marijuana in the car, his report said. While searching the car, a Durant man, 41, walked up to Miller and said, 'I'm drunk in public and do what you need to do,' Hawley reported. Miller arrested that man on a charge of public intoxication and put him with the first man in the back of the patrol car. The two handcuffed men then got into an argument and both claimed they head-butted each other."
"Each time a deputy approached the minors, the man would interrupt, shouting profanities at the officers. The man was placed under arrest for obstructing the officers. After handcuffing the man, the deputies asked the minors where they got the beer. Both pointed to the 26-year-old man, who cried, 'Why are you ratting on me?' and then denied buying the beer. The officers explained that it did not matter who bought the beer, only that he had provided it, and cited him for furnishing alcohol to minors. The handcuffed subject was apparently not finished digging his own grave, and continued to yell: 'You cops are faggots and pussies…I tagged your fat wife…I’ll kick your ass.' The man then requested that the officers take off the handcuffs so he could challenge them to a duel."
And in legal news: no more wet T-shirt contests in Myrtle Beach, but live sex shows are A-okay in Oregon.
...or has the hot-young-teacher-boinks-high-school-boy phenomenon reached epidemic proportions over the past few years? I swear, it's like a weekly feature.
During the same evaluation, she told the doctor her marriage to Russell Jennings, her high school sweetheart, was "somewhat strained as of late".
Yeah, I'll bet.
Update: Thanks to Ogged, I know it isn't just me.
The HIV virus may be getting weaker.
Exploring Mars with remote-controlled balloons could overcome many of the limitations of the rovers.
WTF item of the day: "Colombian police have found the bodies of three human foetuses hidden in statues destined for the United States. The discovery was made by officers searching for contraband at Bogota Airport on Tuesday. The corpses were wrapped in plastic and concealed inside statues of Christian icons, which were smashed open."
Harvey Danger is offering their third album as a free download in hopes of gaining a larger audience.
Japanese marine biologists are reporting today the first ever pictures of the elusive giant squid, live in the wild.
They discovered the giant by following packs of sperm whales, which are known to feed on the giant squid. They created a float system with a long line from which they suspended a robotic camera and strobe light. The camera looked downward at hooks baited with small squid and took pictures every 30 seconds. A bag of mashed shrimps acted as an odor lure. The researchers set up a number of such rigs near the Bonin Islands.
On Sept. 30 of last year, a squid attacked the lowest bait on a rig that was positioned about 1,000 feet above the seafloor. Giant squid have eight short arms and two long tentacles. During the attack, the squid wrapped its two long tentacles like a ball around the bait, the researchers report. One tentacle was caught, and the creature moved violently for four hours to break free. After 4 hours and 13 minutes of struggle, the animal tore away, leaving the tentacle behind.
Pictures at the link. Deep Sea News has more, plus news of the recovery of the first intact example of the even bigger colossal squid, which packs nasty jagged hooks on its tentacles. All that's left to find now is the queen mother, Squidzilla.
I received the following by email from Andy Young, an old friend and a fantastic poet who teaches at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts. She recently returned to her French Quarter home to see what was left. Her story is below the fold.
Along Interstate 10 going west to New Orleans, old billboards for Wayne Newton and Meat Loaf are stuck on late September, announcing shows at Biloxi's Beau Rivage that never came. Drive further into the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the billboards turn into big mysterious metal Ts, the wind having stripped everything else away. There is a disaster channel on the radio with a call-in talk show to help those who fled to the storm's edge, or got stuck and stayed, to navigate the often complex business of survival. Most of the callers are demoralized by their experiences of trying to get Red Cross money. They stand in line all day in the heat, only to reach the front and find they should call an always busy toll-free number. Khaled and I had gone to Florida to get our magic debit card after realizing that the further you get from the disaster, the more help you are going to get.
We are planning to go back into New Orleans, exactly three weeks to the day, the minute, really, that we left it, thinking we'd be back in a day or two. Today we got up before dawn, partly because sleeping is almost as scarce as Red Cross money these days, partly because we are trying to beat any traffic going into the city. The help and utility trucks – and any others who want to travel this road of destruction – must share the two-lane highway the Interstate becomes when it goes through Pascagoula, Mississippi, where the bridge washed out. While we don't drive directly through the ruins of these Gulf Coast towns, the view from the highway is sufficient to reveal its desolation: houses now skeletons, houses now splinters, houses now nothing but slabs. Then there are the odd, surrealistic details. Mattresses on the roadside. A jeep with its tail somehow frozen in the air, nosing down into the ground as if to burrow. We roll down the window and soon roll it back up. The smell is of wet rot, like leaves decaying, but less organic.
We think we will be allowed back into the city. Khaled is a business owner, and business owners are supposed to be allowed back this weekend. We saw some of them yesterday on the news. But like everything else about the storm and the attempts to recover from it, all the messages are mixed. First, French Quarter residents were to be allowed back in tomorrow, then next Monday. For a while major news networks were announcing both at the same time. But we hope to get in now, check on our things, then come back, if my place is livable, the following week or at least go back and forth to Mississippi as we try to revive our lives there.
I am wearing what I call my rat-kickin shoes, one of the two pairs of shoes given me by the Salvation Army. I left with sandals on my feet, and I am afraid of rats. My most recurrent fear has been entering my apartment to find that the place is swarming with them. They live in the sewers and storm drains, so had to have been coughed up somewhere.
We get to New Orleans from Mobile in a couple of hours, the same time it normally takes on a good day. I had been prepared for hours of driving, imagining we'd have to circumnavigate the city and back track in order to enter it. In fact, we take I-10 all the way in, hop on I-12 then shoot down the toll-less causeway, all the while listening to the radio announce how the causeway will open tomorrow. We get our IDs and Khaled's business card ready for the checkpoints, but the checkpoints never come. We drive as we always do, with no slow downs or stops, the Superdome looming into view, its roof now the color of cotton on an old Band-Aid. Along the highway, the refuse of those famous days when the people of our city struggled to survive, in front of the eyes of the world and without the help of our country, litters the margins: empty coolers, soiled clothes, a broken baby stroller, abandoned wheelchairs.
We take the exit we always take, drive a short way through the Treme on Governor Nicholls Street, marvel at the old crumbly house I've always loved tumbled like a moldy house of cards. One lone man saunters toward us, dragging bags of something. We nod and wave solemnly to each other as if at a funeral. Driving up to park in front of my house, another man appears and says something, so I stop. He offers us ice. We need it. He offers us another, his last, and we tell him to save it for someone else. He is helping clean the streets, a grim and necessary job. Piles of garbage and limbs cover the streets and sidewalks. He has lost everything, his house by the Circle Food store completely under water. I remember a picture I saw yesterday in Time magazine. A dead man floating face down in front of that store.
The first thing you notice about the Quarter is its nearly complete abandonment. The second thing you notice is the smell. I have gone uptown to escape the Quarter on Ash Wednesday, the stench of Mardi Gras trash too much to take. But I have never smelled anything like this. It is the smell of fear, of rotting plants, of three-week-old garbage, of death. Amplified by the 95 degree heat, it is almost more than we can bear. I pull out my key, stupidly check my mail, then enter. The smell is worse inside the hallway and going up the stairs. The dreaded mold – there is talk of a fearful "toxic mold" – lines the bottom of the stairs with its gray fur. I live on the third floor, and when we get to the final flight, we see that a large chunk of the ceiling (my kitchen floor) has fallen down and smashed, along with the shards of glass. Looking up through the hole, we see that the wood is still intact and should be safe to stand on.
Inside the apartment, there is a buzz in the house, the hum of decay and the living things that spring from it. The kitchen is a tumble, the window panes having blown out, and one whole window frame apparently lifted out and sailed on the wind. Some strange breed of flies swarm around bowls of now unidentifiable fruit, their backs iridescent blues and purples making them look like little oil spills. We had planned to stay for the hurricane, and stocked up accordingly. Then we left in a hurry. What we left in our haste, like so many other things, has mutated beyond recognition.
More windows are gone in the bedroom, and the plaster from the brick wall has crumbled and coated everything under it. I'd tossed most of the books and furniture near the windows into the middle of the room when we left, so the place is a disheartening mess. But it could be far worse. My apartment was built in 1856, and they knew how to build for the weather back then. Most of the windows have wooden shutters, and all but one survived and lessened the damage that would have been done. Still, the feeling of abandonment and decay, which usually adds to the crumbling splendor of our city, has overtaken the joy. The view from my favorite window shows the crooked steeple of Saint Augustine's Church where I have gone to join up with so many second-line parades and dance in the street. There is no music, no mirth, no life left, and there is nothing to do but cry. Cry and clean.
After a few hours of scrubbing, sweeping, scraping and rearranging, we learn that another friend is in town and is having a beer at Molly's Bar, one of the staples of our nightlife. We have been told that the water is so contaminated we should not even wash with it, so we leave in our dirty clothes, knowing we smell no worse than the city. Our bikes are still standing where we left them, so we dust them off and ride down the street, dodging the broken glass and tree limbs. We check on Khaled's store and find it completely untouched. The only oddness is the two chairs set up outside in front of the pay phone. It turns out it is the only public phone that works, and there are notes and messages written on a paper taped to it. "Joe, call your mother," and other messages that you might find on a refrigerator in normal times.
Most of the customers in the darkened Molly's bar are relief workers and fireman, but there are a handful of locals who have also come back to check on things or who have never left. This last group is easy to spot. There is something different in their eyes, a weariness and age that should have taken more than three weeks to grow there. It is great to meet our friend, to see her familiar face and help link today back to our pre-Katrina life. She tears up easily. Ten years ago, she was a refugee from Bosnia, and this whole experience has reminded her far too much of those days. "The only thing different is that we are not being shot at," she says. And of course that is not true of all New Orleanians.
We hear there are a few other friends who have stayed around. We've heard our friend Jorge formed a little army sometime during the chaos and that another has a radio station. But cell phones don't work here, and there are few signs of life outside of Molly's. We have decided to stay the night here. There is more cleaning to be done. And while there is no electricity, we've brought some water and food, and there is thankfully no sign of rats in the apartment. I guess they have plenty to eat outside. The sun will soon be down, and we hear there is a curfew, and those out after dark will be arrested. Everyone in New Orleans knows not to be arrested in the week before Mardi Gras because there is no chance of getting out until after Mardi Gras day. And what could be worse than being forgotten about and locked away on the most joyful day of the year? Being arrested now, when there is no sense of who holds the keys, would be. So we go in and light the candles and incense.
We find a bottle of bourbon and drink it over the ice that is left, sitting in the one clean room with the windows busted out and looking out over the city. It feels good to be here, to be home, to not impose on anyone else's life, to remember that we have our own. From the third floor, we look out over rooftops toward the Business District, lit up as it always is. For a while, it seems that nothing could be wrong, that there is no way the images we've seen on television these last weeks could have come from these streets.
The mosquitoes remind us. After an hour or so of sleep, the invasion begins. We are under attack: a high-pitched relentless humming and bites on any exposed flesh. We try to wrap ourselves like mummies in the sheets, but it so hot and still that it feels like we will bake. Stumbling to the bathroom with a flashlight, I remember that a friend had sent me a bottle of pure DEET. I doubt I should put this directly on my skin, so pour some out in my plastic whiskey cup and dilute it with witch hazel. So I am coated in whiskey, DEET and witch hazel, and the mosquitoes don't even slow down. We give up. At four AM, we get up to finish cleaning by flashlight. By dawn, we are ready for the final dreaded task: to clean the refrigerator. Three weeks of food had rotted in the tropical heat, and I knew it would not be pretty. In fact, many refrigerators were duct-taped and put out on the curb. Many did not even open them, simply threw them away. But not only did that seem very wasteful – when would I ever get another refrigerator when I can't even reach my landlord by phone – but how would we get a refrigerator down three flights of winding stairs?
We don our face masks and rubber gloves, hold our breath, and open the door. As expected, it is a nightmarish scene of fuzz and decay. Trying not to look, we dump everything into big garbage bags, then pick out the clinging maggots with our gloves. I remember being shocked and amazed by the slimy little creatures when I first encountered them as a child. They seemed borne from some terrible magic, moving creatures appearing in a vacuum, life in the mouth of death. I could not help but think of one of the last poems I had taught before the storm hit, "Ode to the Maggot" by Yusef Komunyakaa: "No one gets to heaven without going through you first." We knew we would have to hightail it out of the place as soon as the refrigerator's demonic smell was released. With the water too dirty to wash with, I had filled a bowl with distilled water and lavender oil to at least wash off with before we drove out of town.
The last thing I do before leaving my home is light some sage and smudge the house with it and kick a coconut through the house, visualizing it picking up all the death and decay that had been in the air. I kick it down the stairs, out the door, and like a miracle I see my saviors. The garbage men are coming down the street. After they pick up the bags of swill, I toss the coconut in on top.
Before we leave town, we take a drive through town. It is like one of those children's cartoons in the newspaper: see if you can spot what is wrong with this picture. Let's see, that tree is upside down, dangling from a wire. That tree is on the house. That house has no wall. That window is on the street. This city has no people.
Driving down a street, it is easy to swing from inspiration to despair within one block. The inspiration comes, for example, when we check on a friend's house, find the door strangely ajar, and walk in to find it just as she'd left it. The despair when we drive a few blocks over and see three dogs roaming the street, lost and hungry. We toss them one of our cheese sandwiches, then look over to notice the homemade "Chemical Spill" sign blocking the street next to them. A few blocks up and there is half a house, and we look right into the living room as if it were a doll's. We drive the wrong way on one-way streets when some are blocked off by work crews. No one notices.
The National Guard has set up its base at my school, and their green tents stretch across the spot where I have sat with my poetry students on cool days to listen to their new poems. Their encampment stretches blocks beyond the school, and there are signs and armed soldiers there to keep us out. It is not our city. The images of destruction start to seem normal. The total desertion and occupation by the Guard does not.
On a usual New Orleans day, the presence of the dead is not hard to feel. Our famous cemeteries stand like little cities within them. It is said that many coffins have floated up to the surface and moved around. The dead are taking over, and the restless spirits who have recently passed, most in anguish and many unnecessarily, add to their palpable presence. There are more of the dead than the living here.
Seeing the city like this is like finally seeing a beloved and very sick friend in the hospital. There is a sense of relief because you see she is still herself, and she is still here. But there is also despair because she is so frail, so wrecked.
When I was stranded in Vicksburg, Mississippi, just after the storm, in a darkened gas station that had opened its doors to sell what was left on its shelves, I did not know yet of the levee breaks and asked if anyone knew if the roads were open to return to New Orleans. "There is no New Orleans," said a man, looking me straight in the eye, and it hurt as if someone had insulted my mother. Driving through it now, I know there is a New Orleans. She is just alone, and very, very sick.
Michael Alan Nelson is self-publishing his first novel in serial form, one chapter a week. Three are up and I'm hooked.
(via Kung Fu Monkey)
The Chilean island of Robinson Crusoe has long been a target of amateur hunters looking for an 18th-century buried treasure that is reputed to be worth billions. A GPR-equipped robot named Arturito might have just found it. Excavation will begin in a few days.
I've lived in and around Durham, NC since I was nine years old and one of the many reasons I have always loved this city is the perserverance of the coalition of black and white Democrats. Unlike most other North Carolina cities, progressives and moderates have pretty much always ruled the roost here, with the few Republican mayors we've had being well to the left of the national and state parties. As has been much discussed, the GOP has been trying to peel off black votes from the Democrats, a quest that is mightily complicated by the Republican Party being the established home base for racists and racebaiting. Before you protest that statement, Jesse Helms was my senator for 30 years, so please, don't embarrass yourself by insisting it isn't so. You and I both know full well how, why, and for whom the neo-Confederates vote.
Anyhow, the quest has proven difficult, especially in the South, where racial issues are seldom far below the surface and the GOP's rise resulted directly from the Democrats pushing through civil rights legislation in the '60s. Even more difficult has been trying to find black Republican candidates who aren't obviously insane. For a stellar example of that vexing problem, see Vernon Robinson. Understandably, the GOP's strategy has focused on trying to appeal to the social conservativism offered up in many black churches. Well, heads up folks, because we currently have a black Republican minister running for mayor of Durham.
In his candidate interview, Brown said one of his priorities if elected mayor would be fighting crime. Citing himself as an example of how a strong Christian upbringing could help keep young people out of trouble with the law, he said police need to do a better job of reaching out to offenders such as gang members. He added that the criminal justice system didn't do nearly enough to help ex-cons rehabilitate themselves.
"That all goes back to sound discipline, good father, church family," Brown said. "We were taught right from wrong. Bottom line."
Hmm, that sounds fairly standard, but there seems to be some issues with his narrative.
Vincent Brown, a high-profile candidate for mayor of Durham, has a long criminal history that includes felony convictions for forgery and a stretch in state prison. Brown, a building contractor and lay minister at the Greater Joy Baptist Church, vehemently denied in an interview that he has ever been arrested on any charge. But court documents, police reports, prison files and other public records tell a different story.
A statewide criminal records search turned up more than 100 charges over the past 15 years that matched Brown's name, current and prior addresses, and the two birth dates he has used. Most of the charges he has faced are misdemeanors: writing worthless checks, simple assault, fraud, trespassing, providing fictitious information to a police officer, possessing a weapon on school grounds, violating probation, failing to pay income tax, and driving while impaired.
Court records indicate that Brown pleaded guilty to 46 misdemeanor charges, often as part of plea agreements after first being charged with felonies. The records suggest that he has made frequent appearances in county jails and courtrooms across the state.
The story of Brown's trail of arrests, lies, denials, and false identities is so tangled and extensive that it defies excerpting any part. Hell, even Brown can't keep it all straight. You should hit the story to get the full comic effect, because it is funny funny funny. Aside from the charge of promoting the prostitution of a minor, that is. That one, not so funny.
This was on the front page of Sunday's News and Observer, and I suspect his political aspirations just got deep-sixed. So, go ahead and get your entertainment value out of it now.
After years of trying, British scientists have finally created retarded mice.
Yo, kosher.com is droppin' mad rhymes.
A beautifully dark strip from a softer world.
"A defense attorney has asked a judge to bar any references to his client's nickname 'Scuz' in his upcoming murder trial, saying the moniker could negatively influence jurors."
99% of what you heard about crimes in the Superdome is bullshit.
The strange sex lives of giant squid.
Heh.
BetCRIS.com, the oldest established offshore sportsbook, has taken www.gambling911.com up on its dare to post "President Bush drinking odds." This after The National Enquire published its story of how President Bush reportedly has fallen off the wagon in wake of Hurricane Katrina. [...]
Bush exposed for drinking alcohol during his presidency is featured with odds of 5 to 1. Compare that with 15 to 1 odds that Bush actually admits to drinking alcohol. Bush checking into a rehab program is listed with 40 to 1 odds. Bush becoming a preacher is listed with 2 to 1 odds. Bush converting to Judaism is posted with 300 to 1 odds. Bush becoming a Muslim is posted with 500 to 1 odds.
"Political wagers are among the most popular at Gambling911.com," stated Payton O'Brien, Web Manager for Gambling911. "Anything Bush-related is going to draw hordes of gamblers. Interesting enough one of the few odds BetCRIS.com has chosen not to post is whether George W. gets impeached." Bush becomes a spokesman for Viagra/Cialis is listed with 35 to 1 odds, incidentally.
What? No odds for Zoroastrianism? Spontaneously combusting? Mitotic division? As for the drinking story, what he said.
People want to know how to do things. To their misfortune, Google sends them here instead. These are the search strings beginning with "how to" that my server logs say landed people at apostropher.com so far this month. I'll note that this strict definition excludes the poignant "how do I get something out of my eye," but our panel of judges felt it deserved an honorable mention nonetheless.
how to grow marijuana [8 hits!]
how to drive women wild [6 hits!]
how to ask who's calling
how to be a professional sprinter
how to belch on command
how to break glass without shattering
how to build a robospanker
how to burp on command swallow air
how to catch a monkey
how to compare camera
how to confront your fears
how to do dre drums
how to fix the deficit
how to fuck on sofa
how to make your own alcohol solar still dennis smith
how to say fluffy cat in german
how to teach a sparrow to sing
how to write in binary code
I do know how to ask who's calling, unless the protocol has changed and nobody told me. And the sofa thing, of course, which really doesn't seem like it should require much explanation. Not much help on any of the rest, I'm afraid.
Y'know, I'm gonna have to pass. The steering seems a little off. Plus, it has a funny damp smell.
Police say it all began when the woman was interested in buying a car from a friend and went to take a test drive. But when she started the car, she somehow mistook the gas for the brake. The car jumped a curb and bolted out of the parking lot. It drove over a phone utility box, glanced off a tree, then crashed through an 8-foot fence and into the pool.
The woman was unable to figure out how to open the car windows to escape and was trapped in the sinking car. A resident of the complex had attempted to rescue the woman by breaking a window with a baseball bat, but was unsuccessful. Redmond firefighters, who were the first on the scene, got on top of the car as it was sinking and broke out the sunroof and rear window with their fire axes and pulled the woman out through the sunroof. [...]
The woman only had a learner's permit, but no charges will be filed since she did not drive on a public roadway. The car was uninsured.
The Bellevue, WA resident now advances to the finals, where she will take on defending national champion Victoria Zell. A ceremony will be held immediately prior to the competition honoring last year's Senior Tour winner.
The Space Elevator takes a step forward.
Scientists at the Institute for Genomic Research have concluded we will never map the genomes of some of our most common bacterial and viral pals (including Strep B, influenza, chlamydia, and certain GI infections) because their genomes are effectively infinite.
The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders are goin' to Gitmo!
The Pentagon wants to buy large amounts of anthrax, but they won't say why.
Yes, but see after we broke their arms and legs, we gave them lemon chicken so it isn't torture and Dick Durbin is a big commie traitor.
Several galleries of pictures from inside Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's abandoned theme park, Heritage USA. I found myself even more captivated by some of the other older and lesser-known abandoned theme parks in Ohio, where nature is reclaiming the still standing remains of rollercoasters and rides, like here and here.
Sixth International has great photos of the most spiderrific non-spiders you're likely to encounter.
A teenager tells the story of getting badly bitten by a rattlesnake and the treatment of the wound. The story itself is interesting, but the star of the show is the link at the top of the page to pictures of the operations he had to go through as a result, including splitting open his arm from the wrist to the bicep. I'm just linking to the story, because if you're even a little squeamish, you'll really, really want to skip the pictures. The rest of you freaks, have at it but it will make your skin crawl.
I haven't the faintest idea who Tess Smith is, but apparently at last year's Emmy Awards, she attempted to set the land speed record for trashiest outfit. You might look at that and think,"Well, you certainly couldn't arrive any less dressed than that. The floor has been established."
But whoever Ms. Smith is (other than the naked middle-aged woman that keeps showing up at the Emmys), she wants you to know that you ain't seen nothin' yet. Well, I mean, you have, obviously. Pretty much everything you could, short of breaking out a speculum, but you know what I mean. Also here.
Would you like a balloon animal? Uh, no thanks.
Cai Guo-Qiang's Inopportune.
Joseph Siegenthaler's sculpture is amazing (and here and here). Lots more good stuff to be found at the Hammer Gallery's website.
Anybody surprised that it's Florida?
"What's up with your shirt?"
Those are the words a former senior at Fleming Island High School remembers hearing as he walked from his fifth-period algebra class toward the gym. The 18-year-old, who is not being identified due to his family's concerns of safety, had just taken off his Dixie Outfitter T-shirt, exposing a highly offensive shirt.
"What about it?" replied the 18-year-old, skinny and white.
"Well, you know it's racial," said a black student, now in a group confronting the 18-year-old.
"Yeah. So?"
The undershirt the white student wore had a confederate flag on the front with the words "Keep it flying." On the back, a cartoon depicted a group of hooded Klansmen standing outside a church, waving to two others who had just pulled away in a car reading "Just married."
Two black men in nooses were being dragged behind.
Upset by the shirt, a 17-year-old black student hit the white student in the head. A crowd of about 100 students gathered to watch the Aug. 29 fight before authorities intervened.
I hope he got the shit kicked out of him before the authorities got there, but here's where it gets funny.
He said he put the shirt on in the morning because he planned to wear it to a party that night with others who, like him, had enlisted in the Marines.
"I'm not racist or anything," he said. "It's just, some people I hate, some people I don't get along with. And black people just happen to be the ones because they think they're better than everyone else."
I'm not a racist, I just hate black people. I wonder what he considers racist? My money is on the little cracker getting his ass whooped on a regular basis in the Marines. If there's any justice in the universe, he'll get the biggest, meanest, blackest drill sergeant in the entire Corps.
Christian Coalition Lawyers Resign Due to Non-Payment
Christian Coalition Creditors May Force Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
Update: Hmm, both stories have mysteriously disappeared from the Mens News Daily blog. Interesting, since the site is a conservative Christian "news" outlet. For the time being, both still show up on Google News (here's a screenshot, since they'll probably disappear shortly). I wonder what the backstory is.
Shaquille O'Neal provided an assist to police over the weekend, trailing a man who allegedly assaulted a gay couple before alerting an arresting officer. The 7-foot-1 Miami Heat centre, who is in the process of becoming a Miami Beach reserve officer, was driving on South Beach around 3 a.m. Sunday. He saw a passenger in a car yell anti-gay slurs at the couple, who were walking. The man then got out of the car and threw a bottle, hitting one of the pedestrians, who was not seriously hurt. The man got back in the car, which sped off.
O'Neal followed, flagging down an officer who made an arrest. Michael Gonzalez, 18, was charged of aggravated assault and assault with a deadly weapon. O'Neal, who hopes to be a police chief or county sheriff one day, was already being fitted for his Miami Beach police uniform before he helped the police out.
"For this incident I don't want to be credited as an individual who does police work," O'Neal said in a statement. "I want to be credited as a Miami Beach police officer.''
Not that I'm wishing death or destruction on any of my fellow Tarheels (and it's a good ways inland and not on a river), but I have to think it wouldn't just be rictus making ol' Bill Shakespeare grin if Hurricane Ophelia caused flooding in Hamlet.
Dong Resin is doing important research.
Google Blogsearch is up and running but it has some issues.
"Brash, whose party is trying to oust the ruling Labour government in Saturday's election, defended Clarkson as a 'rough diamond' but said: 'I don't want any candidates talking about their testicles, to be quite frank.' "
Hmm, not much writing happening 'round here these days. This time of year usually finds me a bit melancholy, owing to a number of unpleasant personal anniversaries. This year, it's compounded by the tragedy along the Gulf Coast. Thankfully, I've managed to track down each of my friends from that area and they're all fine, aside from being newly homeless and unemployed. Add in a heavy pace in a new position at work and a seemingly endless circular passing of low-grade illness between the members of the household. Oh, and football season started, which is a much bigger distraction than you might expect (my fantasy squad rode Fast Willie to a squeaker of an opening day win though, so that's something). Long story short, I haven't much felt funny, I'm too tired to get angry, and I've not done much reading. Makes posting here a bit tricky.
Mostly, I'm just depressed about politics since Digby is spot-on correct (and here) — the GOP will whip out the race card with a vengeance as we head into the midterm elections, and it has already begun. Sure, they're much more subtle about it than they were even twenty years ago, but they know what works and they return to it like swallows to Capistrano. That's not surprising, but it is certainly disheartening, and being a born and bred Southerner makes the perennial potency of the Southern Strategy all the more embarrassing.
Anyhow, I'm taking a few more days off to gaze at my navel, recharge the batteries, and hopefully regain some optimism. Sorry if I brought you down with me. If it helps, this clip of Noah trying to decide whether he likes lemons makes me laugh. We'll try grapefruit next.
A South African became the world's fastest blind driver after driving across a remote airstrip at 269 kilometres per hour [167 mph]. Blind since birth, 33-year-old Hein Wagner of Cape Town had a sighted navigator for his record attempt. After crossing the airfield, he told reporters he wanted to do it again but was considering piloting an aircraft for his next record attempt.
"I'm very happy," Mr Wagner said, whose drive in a borrowed Maserati V8 GranSport was monitored by motoring organisation Motorsport SA and filmed for the Guinness Book of World Records. The drive, on an airstrip near South Africa's border with Botswana, was aimed at increasing public awareness of problems facing blind people and raising money for a national charity for the blind. The previous record, set by a blind British bank manager, was 233 kilometres per hour [145 mph].
"I drove it with no insurance. No one wanted to give any to us," Mr Wagner told national news agency SAPA.
Yeah, I'll bet.
As if Katrina's victims didn't have enough horrible things to deal with, here come the Scientologists.
[John Travolta and Kelly Preston] visited shelters and doled out 1,200 tetanus shots to relief workers while Travolta “showed a demonstration of the ‘assists’ that the Volunteer Ministers are giving and which are helping individuals overcome the trauma of loss of homes and loved ones,” the release said.
For those unfamiliar with the group’s recruiting methods, an “assist” is a type of massage that Scientology’s Volunteer Ministers use to lure people into learning about the religion, which, in case you’ve been living in a media blackout, preaches that an intergalactic warlord named Xenu came to Earth 75 million years ago and implanted a race of evil ghosts from which only Scientology can protect us. Church members similarly used assists during their relief work in Southeast Asia following the tsunami, drawing intense criticism from the largely Buddhist population.
I am so rooting for the gators now.
No sooner than it's announced on apostropher.com that photosynthetic microorganisms are cheating on the sun, he throws another hissy fit.
The Sun kicked up one of the largest flares on record Wednesday and more eruptions are likely in coming days, forecasters said[...] The flare was rated an X-17. All X-flares are major, and few have been recorded that were larger than X-10. It erupted from a sunspot that was on the limb (FG: ?) of the Sun, so while X-rays and other radiation reached Earth in minutes, the bulk of the matter blown out from the site was not directed our way.
"This flare, the fourth largest in the last 15 years, erupted just as the Region 808 sunspot cluster was rotating onto the visible disk of the Sun," said Larry Combs, solar forecaster at the NOAA Space Environment Center.
I never knew the sun had limbs.
Photosynthesis requires sunlight, right? Not necessarily.
A team of researchers [...] has found evidence of photosynthesis taking place deep within the Pacific Ocean. The team found a bacterium that is the first photosynthetic organism that doesn’t live off sunlight but from the dim light coming from hydrothermal vents nearly 2,400 meters (7,875 feet) deep in the ocean[...]
“These organisms are the champions of low-light photosynthesis,” (Researcher Robert) Blankenship says. “These guys have the most elaborate and sophisticated antenna system, which we have studied for a long time in organisms that are relatives of the one discovered near the vents.”
Blankenship says the antenna system of the bacteria uses a chlorosome complex, which basically acts like a microscopic satellite dish, to efficiently collect any light it can and transfer it to the organism’s reaction center. The reaction center is where the photosynthesis takes place.
Photosynthesizing Earth's energy output instead of Sol's. Anybody want to entertain odds that photosynthesis first developed this way and that the predominant (solar) form is the derivative one? Nothing to base that on other than nature's sublime sense of humor, but it's food for thought...
Via Norbizness, create your own Red Meat comic strips delivering movie dialogue. Strangely compelling.
I swear running OSX is like driving a tricycle in need of a tuneup. Badly in need. No right click? 'Scuse me? Yeah - a tricycle badly in need of a tuneup that has only one fucking handle bar.
And oh, I dunno: since operating a computer with any degree of sophistication requires running several programs at once, some perhaps running dual or triple duty, it might be slightly helpful if somewhere on the main screen there was - just a thought here - an indication of what programs you're running.
And lastly (most recently, really, from another foiled blogging attempt) how can you save a picture off a webpage as a jpg (or other type) without saving the whole god damned html file? On a PC, it's 3 clicks: middle finger, index finger, index finger. You never move the mouse more than 3 inches, 4 tops. *Oooooh* maybe I just don't know about the magical, mystery MacIntosh key for doing just that.
Is it on top of the god damned monitor? Oh. There it is. I think I'll hit it with my hammer.
You have got to be kidding me. I, I, I... I'm speechless.
"We're sorry your family and neighbors died in the floods, but half of our first responders, helicopters, and amphibious equipment were in Iraq. And now you're homeless and destitute and that sucks, so howzabout you sign up for the Guard so we can ship you to Iraq?"
And by the way, before the next maneuver of Operation CYA gets underway, please review the timeline.
Update: Not nearly as grotesque as it first seemed. Apparently a job fair is being held tomorrow and the Army is one of several employers in attendance. Sorry if I got anybody's dander up. Just goes to show that everything you read on the internet is God's own truth.
Not much humor to be found in Louisiana these days, until Sean Penn shows up.
A Thai art school student whose family owns a bakery is raising eyebrows.
Inside a dark room, realistic-looking "human body parts" are stacked on shelves and hanging on meat hooks. The place looks like a mortuary or the lair of a serial killer, but in fact, it's a bakery. What appears to be putrefying body parts are the bread sculptures of 28-year-old art student Kittiwat Unarrom.
"Of course, people were shocked and thought that I was mad when they saw the works. But once they knew the idea behind it, they understood and became interested in the work itself, instead of thinking that I am crazy," said the fine arts masters degree student.
He hopes his realistic artwork will make people ponder whether they are consuming food, or food is consuming them. [...] Along with edible human heads crafted from dough, chocolate, raisins and cashews, Kittiwat makes human arms, feet, and chicken and pig parts. He uses anatomy books and his vivid memories of visiting a forensics museum to create the human parts.
He now is receiving regular orders from the curious and from pranksters who want to surprise their friends or colleagues, but that's a minor sideline. By the end of the year, Kittiwat's confectionary slaughterhouse will go on display at Bangkok's Silpakorn University. It's his final dissertation, and he hopes it will secure him a master of arts degree.
"When people see the bread, they don't want to eat it. But when they taste it, it's just normal bread," he said. "The lesson is 'don't judge just by outer appearances.'"
Despite watching and reading flood news obsessively, I haven't felt any desire to write about it, because the sheer horror of it all is just so overwhelming and I don't have any thought that every one of you hasn't had as well. What comes next will be even worse: removing thousands of dead bodies (and god knows how many animal carcasses) that have been in water for weeks from houses and streets, the nightmare of trying identify the remains. You can't really bury bodies in New Orleans even when it's dry and it's hard to see how we will avoid mass graves, unless part of the reconstruction money goes right away to buy a couple plots of land in Mississippi and Louisiana for government-maintained cemeteries and memorials. Which it should.
That's just the dead, though, and at the risk of sounding ghoulish, they're much easier to handle than the living. Several hundred thousand people are homeless, jobless, and destitute. A good chunk of the middle class from that area will join them in a couple of months when the savings run out. Abandoned stadiums aren't even a medium-term solution. We should call in the UN, which has the most experience handling big refugee situations, but I can't see the administration that sent them John Bolton ever asking.
The federal response was criminally negligent. No excuses exist for such an enormously inept and unbelievably slow response, especially when compared to the four hurricanes that happened in his brother's state of Florida during a presidential election year. Oh, they got moving then, but I suspect Jeb was the brains behind that one. That Bush ruined FEMA is undeniable and Mike Brown should have been fired already. However, it has long been obvious that Bush isn't serious about anything; he's just another prop at the photo-op. I can't even be mad at him, because of course he fucked this up. I never suspected he wouldn't. In Bush's words, "it is my style." In Frank Rich's, "Katrina is déjà vu with a vengeance."
However, the reality is that the people of New Orleans were failed by everybody. The system broke down on every single level — federal, state, and municipal. By design, the buck stops with the federal government, of course, but I suspect the folks sitting in the Astrodome right now don't feel any more charitable to their city or state governments. They were left to die. By everybody. Not just by the government, but by the society. Over the coming months and years, as we try to relocate all these traumatized, desperately poor people into communities around the country, I'm afraid they will find themselves left behind again, resented and feared.
For the first time in as long as I can remember, though, people are talking about poverty. I endorsed John Edwards during the last race, and did so primarily because he was the first major candidate in decades to talk in depth about poverty and our obligation to each other. I want to believe that the images we've all seen over the past week will shock our national conscience and awaken people to the fact that we don't all live in the same country, that we don't afford the same dignity, respect, and care to all of our citizens, that allowing grinding poverty helps produce the violence we've witnessed.
I want to believe that will happen. But I'm saddened and frightened that, deep down, I don't think it will.
As it struggles to combat Islamic terrorist networks, the Bush administration has quietly built an intelligence alliance with Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, a onetime bitter enemy the U.S. had tried for years to isolate, topple or kill. Kadafi has helped the U.S. pursue Al Qaeda's North African network by turning radicals over to neighboring pro-Western regimes. He also has provided information to the CIA on Libyan nationals with alleged ties to international terrorism.
In turn, the U.S. has handed over to Tripoli some anti-Kadafi Libyans captured in its campaign against terrorism. And Kadafi's agents have been allowed into the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba to interrogate Libyans held there. [...]
Critics charge that the partnership with Libya, like those with regimes such as Sudan, Uzbekistan and Egypt, illustrates how Washington is allowing its war on terrorism to trump its effort to promote democracy and human rights in the Muslim world. They say that in cooperating with Kadafi, the United States has strengthened his oil-rich regime and permitted him to crack down on political opponents, some with democratic credentials far stronger than his own.
Kadafi's point man for dealing with Washington is his head of foreign intelligence, who is banned from entering the U.S. because of his suspected involvement in terrorist acts, including the Lockerbie bombing. He also is suspected of taking part in a plot to kill Saudi Arabia's ruler.
Veeery interesting and the article is worth your time. Now, Qaddafi (it looks better with a Q) is exactly the sort of guy you want if you're serious about waging a campaign against Islamic extremist groups. We'd be nuts not to enlist his aid. He's been doing it for a long time and with ruthless efficiency. Kinda like, well, Saddam Hussein but perhaps the less said about that, the better. Qaddafi's a pretty unpleasant fellow all in all, but then you don't stay in power for four decades in that region through charm and good manners. He's wickedly smart and a much more complex figure than the caricature of him that most Americans still have. Cooperating with Libya isn't a bad policy. It's necessary and realistic and you could even hold out hope that the United States might be applying pressure on him over human rights. Or you could, if it didn't appear we were having torture tip-swapping sessions at Club Gitmo.
However, when the indignantly and oft stated official story is that you're trying to bring about a flowering of democracy in the Middle East and you're buddying up with Libya, Saudi Arabia (repressive Islamist monarchy), Pakistan (military dictatorship), Sudan (genocidal Islamist military dictatorship), and Uzbekistan (brutal police state), well, you really can't complain when people wonder whether your motives match or belie your rhetoric.
Just sayin'.
(via Taegan Goddard)
Fats Domino was rescued yesterday from the flooding in New Orleans, but Allen Toussaint and Alex Chilton are still missing.
Update: Alex Chilton was rescued from his house by helicopter on Sunday.
A scientist studying orca acoustics at Marineland in Ontario notices something nifty.
First, the young whale spit regurgitated fish onto the surface of the water, then sank below the water and waited. If a hungry gull landed on the water, the whale would surge up to the surface, sometimes catching a free meal of his own. Noonan watched as the same whale set the same trap again and again. Within a few months, the whale's younger half brother adopted the
