I think Halloween is nailed down, costume-wise: Riding breeches and tall boots, men’s formal shirt (the kind with pleats and studs and thank you, Salvation Army, for providing one already cleaned and pressed), some sort of ascot/tie, my black tail coat and the rabbit mask, which arrived yesterday. Alan’s plague-doctor getup is also ready to go, so if you’re going to The Initiation, wave to the man all in black, escorting the sexually threatening rabbit.
Just checked my old tack trunk. Why yes, my spurs and riding crop are right where I left them. Oh, this should be a blast. I’m told there will be burlesque and sideshow-style geekery on every stage, another one of those odd hipster subcultures that seemingly came from nowhere. Roxi Dlite has been a Theatre Bizarre regular, and was one of the first practitioners of neo-burlesque I saw outside of late-night HBO. I totally get the idea — reclaim striptease from the evil pole-dancers who ruined it. (Striptease : pole dancing :: boxing : mixed martial arts.) I’m just wondering who decided it needed to be done, and how it caught on. New-style burley-Q girls are more likely to live in the body God gave them, and while toned and fit, don’t diet away that last layer of subcutaneous fat that separates men from women.
The geekery I trace back to the Jim Rose Circus, which I first spotted in the ’90s, when they proudly restored the circus sideshow to its former, transgressive, step-right-up glory. I remember attending an actual freak show at the Ohio State Fair as a teenager, watching people with copious facial tumors tell their stories of shame and ostracism, among other things. It seemed wrong then, it seems wrong now, but hey — watch a guy hang a 25-pound weight from his scrotum? That’s entertainment!
Here’s an interview with John Dunivant, the creative force behind Theatre Bizarre, from our local public-radio station. His dream is to someday make a living from his art, and he came close for a while, working on film sets, but the loss of tax incentives put the kibosh on that. Well, at least it’s cheap to live here.
As the hour is drawing late, a quick skip to bloggage:
Today’s OID story is a humdinger, although today the D stands for Downriver, a particular subsection of the Detroit Metro, and once you hear the story you’ll know just what I’m talking about:
Brownstown Township— A Downriver man who knew he was too drunk to drive bragged to gas station attendants that he had a designated driver — his 9-year-old daughter — who ferried him to the station and would drive him home.
Soon after, 39-year-old Shawn Weimer was arrested with his young daughter, booster seat beneath her, at the wheel of a red and white full-size panel van he uses for work.
The little girl is said to have asked the police why she was being pulled over, because she was a good driver.
I guess this story will play as comedy, but I guess the world’s children of alcoholics aren’t laughing. Although I’m snickering at the Starsky and Hutch paint job on the van. I mean, you HAVE to.
I haven’t read Michael Lewis’ exegesis of California finances, but I’m hearing good things about it, if “good” is quite the word for this:
A compelling book called California Crackup describes this problem more generally. It was written by a pair of journalists and nonpartisan think-tank scholars, Joe Mathews and Mark Paul, and they explain, among other things, why Arnold Schwarzenegger’s experience as governor was going to be unlike any other experience in his career: he was never going to win. California had organized itself, not accidentally, into highly partisan legislative districts. It elected highly partisan people to office and then required these people to reach a two-thirds majority to enact any new tax or meddle with big spending decisions. On the off chance that they found some common ground, it could be pulled out from under them by voters through the initiative process. Throw in term limits—no elected official now serves in California government long enough to fully understand it—and you have a recipe for generating maximum contempt for elected officials. Politicians are elected to get things done and are prevented by the system from doing it, leading the people to grow even more disgusted with them. “The vicious cycle of contempt,” as Mark Paul calls it. California state government was designed mainly to maximize the likelihood that voters will continue to despise the people they elect.
But when you look below the surface, he adds, the system is actually very good at giving Californians what they want. “What all the polls show,” says Paul, “is that people want services and not to pay for them. And that’s exactly what they have now got.”
Wow, there’s a cheery passage. Think I’ll try to find time to read it later. For now, have a swell Tuesday.
Joe Kobiela said on October 18, 2011 at 10:44 am
You do know you are required to post pictures.
Pilot Joe
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nancy said on October 18, 2011 at 10:46 am
Goes without sayin’.
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Dexter said on October 18, 2011 at 10:54 am
A former co-worker was a little more responsible than the parent of the nine year old daughter / driver.
This guy employed his fourteen year old son to drive him home from a drunkfest. I remember I was appalled that this happened, and I remember the paper printed a few choice quotes that the judge told the dad.
As I recall, the reason the kid was pulled over was a broken brake light. That guy never did keep his cars up to snuff.
Yep, that’s the dilemma drunks face daily. To drive drunk or not to drive drunk…like Sam Kinison said, “OF COURSE WE’RE GONNA DRIVE DRUNK! WE HAVE TO GET HOME! OHHHHHHH! WE DRIVE THERE, WE GET DRUNK AND WE HAVE TO GET HOME! OHHHHHHHHH!
I kinda miss Sam Kinison, one of a kind, son of a preacher man, an apple fallen far from the tree.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px4OYPxhQGk
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Bitter Scribe said on October 18, 2011 at 11:15 am
California has been going in the toilet since they started requiring voter approval for any property tax hike back in the 1970s. Duh, voters are always going to turn down higher taxes.
As for Kinison, I really got turned off by him when he did that routine about how stupid Ethiopian war refugees were to live in the desert where there was no food. Hey a$$hole, they lived there because they were refugees. If the desert is the only place people won’t shoot you, that’s where you live, food or no.
I feel kind of funny hectoring a dead man, but that still rankles, especially when I read that he was a closet conservative or libertarian or whatever the hell he was. So typical. Never let the facts get in the way of a good rant.
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alex said on October 18, 2011 at 11:37 am
Wow, so Theatre Bizarre no longer has its own digs by the state fairgrounds? This is the same entity, right?
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nancy said on October 18, 2011 at 11:47 am
It is still by the fairgrounds, but last year, just a couple of days before the Halloween party, the city inspectors finally paid a call and shut them down. There was a threat that it would not only have to close for parties but actually be dismantled, but they managed to stay that order.
In the meantime, the party was hastily relocated to the Fillmore and went off just fine. Since then, they’ve concentrated on making their presence felt at various community events, like Maker Faire and the DIY Fest.
This year the plan was to hold it at the Masonic from the start. They’ll have access to seven floors of space and lots of individual rooms, and it’s all being built around this theme of “initiation,” just like the Masons.
There’s a pretty professional-looking documentary film in the works, and the trailer is pretty good, but if you’re at work, be aware there’s a profanity outburst toward the end that will turn the air blue. Headphones or home viewing highly recommended.
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LAMary said on October 18, 2011 at 11:51 am
That paragraph about CA? It’s dead on. This state has deeply stupid government.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 18, 2011 at 12:09 pm
Heinlein’s “Friday” has a scene in a future, neo-dystopian California Republic when the protagonist arrives in Sacramento and walks into a photo-op put on by the Chief Executive aka First Citizen (I think; it’s been a while). Back in 1980 RAH had a sense of what state government was heading towards, and summed it up in a raucous couple of pages — and it would track perfectly with what Lewis outlines.
Just got back from our family’s first visit to the orthodontist, after the 13 year old was noticed by the dentist to have a molar heading sidewise and a big of squidging by other bicuspids. The final conversation, after scenes in the exam room and prep rooms accompanied by scrolling images on large screen TVs on each wall, showing the annual pool & pizza party open to all the “family” at BLANK Orthodontics, had a certain inevitability to it.
On the brighter side, we may vacation in Detroit again this summer. And next. If we can afford to even make it past Toledo. Cedar Point may be beyond our ken . . . but I’m sure it’s just sticker-shock talking.
He sells cleverly logo-ed t-shirts that apparently are quite the rage in the area, and has banners up at all the area Little League and high school football stadia. Why did no one tell me in college about this racket? A bright smile, and a cheery mien, a bit of irritation from frequent handwashing, and you, too, can have a Porsche in the drive.
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Joe Kobiela said on October 18, 2011 at 12:17 pm
Just caught a blurb on fox news. Seems there is a investigation into to some voter fraud in Indiana on the democratic side. I don’t have time to check it out between flights, but from what I caught, fake names and signatures in order to get Obama on the ballot. Discovered by a white house intern.
Hmm,
Pilot Joe
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Julie Robinson said on October 18, 2011 at 12:22 pm
My condolences on entering the world of orthodontia, Jeff.
A friend who put in six years finally got her braces off in time for high school graduation. Some years later she moved and went to a new dentist, who asked if she had ever considered getting braces. Yup, her teeth had moved back. That’s why nowadays you get a retainer for life. Which neither of my kids wears anymore, but they get to pay the bills now.
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Sue said on October 18, 2011 at 12:23 pm
Here it is, Joe:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/18/chairman-local-indiana-democratic-party-resigns-in-midst-fake-signature-scandal/
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Suzanne said on October 18, 2011 at 12:25 pm
Of course, Morgan had the decency to resign, unlike our Indiana Sec. of State.
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MichaelG said on October 18, 2011 at 12:49 pm
That article hit the California nail on the head. The view from close up here in Sacramento is pretty ugly.
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Bob (not Greene) said on October 18, 2011 at 12:52 pm
Don’t people in Indiana challenge petitions prior to someone getting placed on the ballot? In the Chicago area it’s a regional pastime for everyone running for mayor of Chicago to East Podunk library board. And I’d say this is not “voter” fraud per se — although it is election fraud.
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Jolene said on October 18, 2011 at 1:05 pm
A sweet piece of music for you all: Last night, Harry Belafonte appeared on The Colbert Report. He’s flacking a new memoir, and there’s also a film about him right now, called Sing Your Song, on HBO. Very interesting to learn about his role in the civil rights movement; he was part organizer, part propagandist (in that he pulled in lots of entertainers and artists to give it luster), and part financier. Lots of interesting clips of all sorts of interesting people from that era and later.
At the end of the Colbert interview, they sing together briefly in a way that I found very touching.
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Jolene said on October 18, 2011 at 1:48 pm
Michael Lewis is an amazingly prolific guy. In addition to several earlier books, since the financial crisis of 2008, he has written two new books, The Big Short and Boomerang, both about the crisis and now this long article re California. He’s a good promoter too, as he does a good job of explaining these complex financial enterprises in the numerous interviews he does to sell his books. Both w/ this latest book and the previous one, he was everywhere on TV.
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Jolene said on October 18, 2011 at 1:52 pm
Is everyone planning to watch the GOP debate tonight? It’s supposed to focus on national security. I can’t wait to hear Herman Cain’s plans for dealing w/ the Eurozone financial crisis, the Haqqani network, and the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 18, 2011 at 2:16 pm
The Hermanator:
If you all will just quiet down and listen to me, the plan will be very simple. Are you all listening? Okay. My foreign relations plan is simply this: 7-7-7. We just get all wrapped around the axle, day after day, just going on and on about this place and that place and another place nobody has ever heard of. This has got to stop.
My 7-7-7 plan is direct, and effective. It works like this: for the first seven days of the month, we will focus on the Middle East. I can already hear all those pointy headed in-tell-ek-chewals over in Foggy Bottom saying “But Herman, we have crisises in the Middle East all month!” Right, and how have you been doing with those crisises? They’re still a problem, aren’t they? They can just stew until it comes around again, because I’m not going to be distracted. First seven days of the month, we focus — like a laser beam! — on the Middle East. They’ll have our full attention, and they. will. know it. If we’re not done by day seven, it will just have to wait.
7-7-7 plan, part 2: the next seven days of the month, we turn to Afghanistan and Pakistan and all the little Stans that keep causing trouble for this country, and India, too. We will talk to them, negotiate with them, and tell them what can be done and what they’re going to have to just get over.
Then we spend the third seven of my 7-7-7 foreign policy plan on China. Gotta get over there, boots on the ground, but not that way, and walk around, call if it’s close to Thanksgiving or Christmas or my wife’s birthday, get to know these Chinese fellows, and let them get to know us. They’ll complain they want to have our ear all the time, but they will know that those seven days, they will have President Cain’s ear, and his hand, and his boot if need be. We can drop in on Japan on the way there or coming back, but they aren’t much trouble these days.
That leaves the rest of the month to work on the domestic economy, and how many days does the 7-7-7 plan leave? Yes, you’ve got it: 9! Nine days to implement, step by step, the 9-9-9 plan. This has all been checked out by the best people at Cleveland State, and I’m certain it will work . . . it can’t work any worse than what we’re doing now, that’s for sure.
(Exeunt, the Hermanator.)
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Dexter said on October 18, 2011 at 2:17 pm
They ought to pull all the cameras out of that hall and send them to the streets of New York City. Have you seen or heard of what happened in Times Square last Saturday night?
http://theinterrobang.com/2011/10/video-amazing-footage-from-inside-the-penns-when-occupy-wall-street-took-over-times-square-saturday-10-15/
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caliban said on October 18, 2011 at 2:20 pm
Favorite Sam Kinison.
And Sam Kinison acting like a gentleman.
Profane? Indubitably. Misogynistic? Vilely. Funny ? As hell.
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LAMary said on October 18, 2011 at 2:31 pm
Sorry, I thought Sam Kinison was an asshole.
Harry Belafonte and Stephen Colbert singing that duet together was very sweet and touching. I’ve always loved that song, and I’ve always respected Harry Belafonte so much. We had his first album in our house, and I used to sing Jamaica Farewell, badly I’m sure, when I was very young. Like three. I thought the line about “leave a little girl in Kingston Town” was really about a little girl like myself.
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Sherri said on October 18, 2011 at 2:53 pm
Yep, the California paragraph meets with my experience living in California for 13 years. I’d just add that there is no way Schwarzenegger could get elected under normal circumstances; he’d never win a Republican primary for anything. He won because of an open race, no primary, where he had by far the best name recognition. That was due to the recall of Gray Davis, which was brought about because of the electricity blackouts thanks to Enron’s manipulations of the power market. As we discovered later in discovery in lawsuits, Enron was deliberately taking power stations off line to drive up energy prices, forcing rolling blackouts in California and pushing Davis to sign contracts for power at inflated prices to keep the lights on.
Of course, with or without Schwarzenegger, California government is screwed. I miss California, but I don’t miss the disaster of a state government.
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coozledad said on October 18, 2011 at 3:00 pm
Goy, interrupted:
http://gawker.com/5850984/uncouth-barbarians-harass-john-boehner-at-a-golf-course
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Jeff Borden said on October 18, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Jeff TMMO, it is clear that you enjoy the humorous stylings of Mr. Herman Cain, too. While I honestly believe he is nuttier than a fruitcake, I cannot help but like him because he does not seem manufactured. And he is truly a comic genius.
His recent riff that Jesus Christ was the perfect conservative actually caused me to laugh out loud. Yes, Herman dear, the man who spoke incessantly about taking care of the weakest among us, who ministered to the dregs of society, who threw the money changers out of the temple, who famously said it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a wealthy man to attain heaven, who said all of us would be judged by how we treated the least among us is the “perfect conservative.”
I’m a long, long way from religious these days, but man, how could Christ ever be seen as a conservative? God the Father, maybe, but not the Son.
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Jolene said on October 18, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Jeff, did you get your 7-7-7 idea from SNL. They did a similar thing this past weekend. The Herman Cain character had a 5-5-5 plan for fighting terrorism and a 3-3-3 plan for healthcare. Can’t remember the details of the 5-5-5 plan, but the 3-3-3 plan was three pills, three days off, and three chicken soups.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 18, 2011 at 4:07 pm
I missed SNL, but it’s an obvious candidate for a riff, even if Herman isn’t an obvious candidate. And from the Lovely Wife: people are trying to mock Cain for having an over-simplistic unworkable plan, but I think this is resonating with folks like the mailroom crew (she went on, quoting them as she’s heard them talk) because they say “we know none of the other candidates think their plan is going to be implemented as is, so we don’t hear Cain as a liar or a fool, but he’s catching our interest because he’s sticking up for needing a simpler, more transparent tax system.”
Misplaced confidence it might be, but don’t laugh too much at why he’s picking up some buzz. “It’s a ten million word mess” is Cain’s real tagline, about the current tax code, and that’s what’s resonating. 9-9-9 is a placeholder, and many of his supporters are doing so without any expectation that it’s an absolute commitment.
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Jeff Borden said on October 18, 2011 at 4:18 pm
I’ll be first in line to celebrate someone who can bring sanity and fairness to our tax laws, so I can understand Mr. Cain’s appeal. Count me in with the mailroom folks. But, as usual, bumper sticker-style responses to real issues don’t advance an argument very far and the 9-9-9 plan would be especially cruel (surprise, surprise) to the poor and the middle class.
Another reason why Cain is attracting attention is his genuineness. He truly believes the crap he says, I think, and Lord knows no slick media guru has gotten his hands on him yet. Looking at the collection of hairdos and posers on the GOP stage –Perry and Romney look like they spend more time on their hair than Michele Bachmann– makes me nauseous.
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Jeff Borden said on October 18, 2011 at 4:21 pm
And more wonderful news about the Catholic Church. . .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15335899
I’m pretty sure Christ would be very unhappy about this, too.
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coozledad said on October 18, 2011 at 4:33 pm
Brilliant takedown of Bobo. If someone were making a movie about this amoral fart huffing trilobite, they’d be mourning the absence of John Mcgiver, who’d have probably played Brooks as a closet piss freak:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/david-brooks-great-restoration-6518155
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caliban said on October 18, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Herman Cain’s puppetmasters are a crime syndicate.
Hard facts somebody should ask the clown car tools about at the GOPer debate. No wonder the economy is off. Consumers have no cash. Anybody that’s got a problem with the Occupy signs about the 99% should take a look at these charts. Ask Moses what his accountant buddy thinks about these data? And about Herman’s plan to put accountants out of business. God, that bastard loves to destroy jobs.
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Dexter said on October 18, 2011 at 5:19 pm
any engineers in the crowd?
http://solarcontrols.engin.umich.edu/
In my time I have been a regular church goer as well as a long-time stayer-awayer. When I quit drinking in the early nineties I thought it would be a good idea to kill another bird with this stone and I began to attend church with my family, every Sunday, suit and tie, shined shoes, prayer warrior.
I admit now I was trying as best I could, but I was a phony. The childish Bible stories I relished as young child seemed irrelevant. The Bible studies I could barely muster any desire to attend.
The effort it took to get to the heart of the message was too much, too time-consuming. One of the last arguments I got into with the others in Sunday School class was just what the hell was this “…eye of the needle.” What was it? And everybody knew, but everybody’s story and idea was different!
I left the church and I never went back. It’s been about thirteen years this time.
http://www.eyeoftheneedle.net/Church%20Traditions/eye_of_a_needle.htm
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Jolene said on October 18, 2011 at 5:35 pm
PBS has two good shows tonight, possibly only one of them depressing. Frontline is doing a piece on detention and deportation in our immigration system, which isn’t likely to be cheery. Later, however, as part of its Women, War, and Peace series, it is showing Pray the Devil Back to Hell, a documentary about how women organized to end civil war in Liberia. The woman who led this effort just won a Nobel Peace Prize, and the film, which has been out for several years, has also won several prizes.
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Jolene said on October 18, 2011 at 5:43 pm
Jeff, here’s a nice simple chart showing the distributional effects of Cain’s 9-9-9 plan. I hate to quote Mitt Romney, but sometimes simple answers don’t serve.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 18, 2011 at 6:26 pm
Jolene, no one disputes it doesn’t work. That’s my point. Most of his supporters consciously assert: it won’t work, but the general idea I support.
Dex, the “eye of the needle” was a topic for our Kerygma Bible study at the nearby Presbyterian church where they trust me with a Wednesday night group. I heard everyone’s favorite story of what they’ve heard it “actually” means, and then threw in mine — it’s hyperbole, because Jesus was just fine with irony and sarcasm. When we forget that, we misread most of the Four Kahunas. The point is that it’s impossible, and no one gets heavenly grace of any sort through heavily laden camels, bony donkeys, earnings, trust funds, dividends, or earned income tax credits. The problem for the rich is that they’re the most likely to slowly get sucked into the self-justification of “I earned this that I’ve got,” and I swiped from Ann Richards (or Molly Ivins, or both) the line about being born on third base and thinking I hit a triple. “That’s not George Bush alone, that’s any of us born in this country.” And that’s what we discussed from that parable: how we convince ourselves we’ve earned what we have, and then the dark side problem, which is how we think we deserve the bad that happens to us.
That’s where I go with that dang camel, anyhow.
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beb said on October 18, 2011 at 6:36 pm
Never cared for Sam Kinnison; never cared for Andy Kaufman. They were the pole dancers among comedians.
It’s one thing to analyze the problem with California (and the problem is pretty obvious to all to see), the question is how to you get bad to practicality?
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caliban said on October 18, 2011 at 6:52 pm
Jeff (mmo) if Cain feels the same way, his schtick amounts to demagoguery on the order of Kingfish Huey Long. If he believes it he’s either exceptionally bad at math or he’s full goose looney. Demint has been on this national sales tax (he’s been as high as 24% rate, which would drown government in Norquist’s bathtub, and simultaneously tank the American economy so badly it would never recover). kick for years, and had not a single reputable economist to back him up. Most studies of the Deminted plan put federal revenues at no more than 60% of 2008 revenues. It’s not astrophysics. Will the Pentagon take a significant hit? Not in a million years. Social programs like SCHIP, WIC, food stamps and Medicaid will get whittled into splinters, and the US economy will go down for the third time.
The Sim City tax Plan formulated by Cain’s economics advisor, who is actually a CPA, not an economist, will shitcan payroll taxes and allow businesses to deduct everything but direct labor costs (employee pay) before paying their 9%, so guess what will happen to Social Security and Medicare coverage. Analogous situation to rental property owners complaining about property taxes when they pass them through to tenants. The business community won’t pay the 9, their productive employees will. Anybody that believes otherwise, believes these CofC and CEO types do not have flinty shriveled hearts. The 300:1 disparity will get more ridiculous and so will the 99:1. Meanwhile Social Security and Medicaid will be defunded, quite obviously.
For the historically challenged, the credit card bill Shrub left Obama, or why cutting taxes while waging invasions by choice based on (utter prevarication) and the interminable occupations they necessitate is so monumentally stupid only a cynical bunch of creeps like the GOP would do it.
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caliban said on October 18, 2011 at 7:02 pm
And Jeff (mmo), there are apologists for uɐld xɐʇ lɐıɔǝds ɐzzıd 9-9-9 ǝɥʇ fulminating all over the internet that are true believers. Unfortunately many Americans are stupid enough to buy the boondoggle. It’s easy, on the other hand, to demonstrate how an essential feature of the plan is to kill SS and Medicare, forcing more money into the hands of crooked and incompetent money managers and HMOs. AARP people vote their best interestss and this bullshit should doom his demagogue ass in the end.
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caliban said on October 18, 2011 at 7:04 pm
Cost of Iraq and Afghanistan in real terms:
http://costofwar.com/en/
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 18, 2011 at 7:45 pm
Wow, it took four or five vists back for the opening to sink in. “sexually threatening rabbit . . .spurs and riding crop . . .pole dancing.”
This is why some of my colleagues have weekly accountability group meetings, I guess. Two hours of GOP debate should scrub my mind & soul free of any wanton images, so it’s all good.
(Sexually threatening rabbit . . . that’s gotta be in the DSM-IV somewhere. Mine’s at the office. Nevermind.)
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caliban said on October 18, 2011 at 7:50 pm
Aside from being totally math-challenged, Herman Cainster says that after becoming president, he’d pass a measure to require a two-thirds vote to amend his 9-9-9 tax code. He also says that the 9-9-9 code was designed to be an intermediate step toward a Fair Tax. Wouldn’t the two-thirds requirement make it almost impossible to move toward a Fair Tax, just as it would make it nearly impossible to raise rates above 9 percent? And really, how is 9-9-9 not just a 27% payroll tax. Bishit.
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Deborah said on October 18, 2011 at 8:34 pm
Caliban, how did you do that? How did you get the text to go upside down?
uɐld xɐʇ lɐıɔǝds ɐzzıd 9-9-9 ǝɥʇ
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alex said on October 18, 2011 at 8:43 pm
uɐld xɐʇ lɐıɔǝds ɐzzıd 9-9-9 ǝɥʇ
Wowee, you just copy & paste. No coding. Trippy.
On edit:
ɐʇɹǝnɯ ǝɹpɐɯ ɐl ouoɔ
Get yours here!
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Deborah said on October 18, 2011 at 8:44 pm
My office is having the annual Halloween party they have for employees’ kids. But since we have so many millenials now working there they all want to dress up too. We have a cruise director for an operations manager for my group, she loves to organize games and such (spare me). So she and some others have decided that our group’s costumes should all have something to do with cats (?). So Littlebird helped me think up my costume. I’m going to find a big box and put some eye holes in it and have one word on the outside: Schroedinger.
That’s Schrodinger with an umlaut over the o but I don’t know how to make an umlaut on my keyboard?
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Julie Robinson said on October 18, 2011 at 10:11 pm
˙xǝlɐ `sʞuɐɥʇ ˙looɔ ʎɐʍ
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Sue said on October 18, 2011 at 10:23 pm
Here’s the thing about Jesus the true conservative, who according to Mr. Cain deserves that designation because He did not rely on the government:
If I could feed thousands of people by sending a dozen or so of my pals out with almost-empty baskets, or provide health care by putting my hands on someone, I wouldn’t need the government to help pick up the slack either.
And you might consider what happened to the guy when He did start providing food and health care and, oh yeah I almost forgot, showing a marked disrespect for authority (as opposed to Authority, I guess you could say). That’s right, He pissed off the people in power and it ended badly for Him.
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alex said on October 18, 2011 at 10:30 pm
¿ɯoʇʇoq ǝɥʇ oʇ ǝɔɐɹ ǝɥʇ uıʍ uɐɔ oɥʍ ǝǝs oʇ pǝǝu ʎllɐǝɹ ı ǝʞıl ˙ʇɥƃıuoʇ sǝʇɐqǝp ǝɥʇ ɥɔʇɐʍ ʇ,upıp
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brian stouder said on October 18, 2011 at 10:53 pm
(,,¡¡ɟɟo ¡¡ɟɟo ¡¡ǝɯ ɟɟo spuɐɥ ɹnoʎ ʇǝƃ ¡ǝɯ ɥɔnoʇ ʇ,uop ¡oɹq `ǝɯ ɥɔnoʇ ʇ,uop,, ʇno ƃuıɯɐǝɹɔs uıɐɹq s,ʎɹɹǝdsıp-pɐǝɹdsǝpıʍ ɹouɹǝʌoƃ ɹɐǝɥ ʎllɐɔıʇɔɐɹd plnoɔ ı) ˙sʍoɥs ǝʌıl ʇɥƃıu ʎɐpɹnʇɐs lɐɹǝʌǝs ʇxǝu ǝɥʇ ɹoɟ ɹǝpooɟ ǝq ʎlqɐqoɹd llıʍ ʍoɥs ʇʇıɯ puɐ ʞɔıɹ ǝɥʇ
¡uʍop-ǝpısdn ǝuoƃ sɐɥ plɹoʍ ǝɥʇ ʍou puɐ `ǝʇɐqǝp uɐɔılqndǝɹ ǝɥʇ pǝɥɔʇɐʍ ı
¡¡¡¡ɥɥɥɥɐɐɐɐɐooooooʍ ¡dlllllǝǝǝǝɥ ¡¡ǝɯ dlǝɥ ¡¡¡¡ɥɥɥɥɥɥɐ
edit: (Alex – thanks for the cool link! And Prospero, very cool, indeed!)
edit 2: Joe at comment one: Abba-solutely!!
edit 3: I think Jeff Tmmo’s Herman Cain riff is the thread winner!
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Dexter said on October 18, 2011 at 11:35 pm
My post at Craig Crawford dot com
DexterJohnson says:
I watched the entire thing. ❓ ❗ Bachmann surely put Perry in his place, cuz by gawd, she will BUILD that damn wall, double spaced, and so what if Perry says it will take ten years and 300 billion dollars or whatever he said…she’ll DO IT!
Ron Paul lost any Jewish bloc vote he may have had (he didn’t have any, just kidding) when he said he would cut aid to Israel! He’s said this sort of thing before but to put so much emphasis to it…man, that took some real breaking-from-the-pack to actually state it so clearly. Aid to foreign countries, that’s a tough one. The horrible earthquakes, the tsunamis…we have to do some thing, for gawd’s sake, but still…millions here in the USA are suffering horribly.
Can anyone here stand to listen to Rick Santorum? Man, he just was such a BITCH to Perry…he was like a smartass kid who was explaining away a bad report card or squealing on his sister about something.
Herman Cain, cleaner-upper of small businesses’ problems (and janitor of the parking lot, too, as he revealed tonight), with his plan that nobody gives a real damn about…he’s a lot of meat and potatoes, but he’s also all hat and no cattle a lot, too.
Newt, the Don Corleone of the bunch, relying on experience to stand out that way, but nobody is interested.
I wish Pat Buchanan was running, ya know it? Then Newt could relate to someone.
All that was missing was a stage hook to snag that smug hag Bachmann off the stage. What a moron.
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Julie Robinson said on October 19, 2011 at 8:27 am
All hat and no cattle describes most of our politicians these days. They are much more concerned about a new supply of hats than dealing with the steerage.
Was it here that I read a campaign finance reform proposal where only constituents could contribute to candidates? Corporations may be people, but last I checked they can’t vote, and would be excluded.
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Basset said on October 19, 2011 at 8:53 am
Dammit, y’all, cut that inverted stuff out… trying to read this on my phone and when I flip it over it flips right back… (g)
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brian stouder said on October 19, 2011 at 9:26 am
http://www.indianasnewscenter.com/news/local/Lions-Tigers-Bears-Wolves-On-The-Loose-In-Ohio-Police-Shoot-Dozens-132127033.html
Today would be a bad day to be in the vicinity of Columbus, Ohio…because you just know that at the “end”, there will still be one animal unaccounted for (a good tree-climbing leopard, for example)
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