Is the price of this blog too high?
Snake Oil
Last week, senators kicked around the idea of giving certain taxpayers a hundred bucks, to compensate for high gas prices. My wife says she would prefer a puppy.
A hundred bucks would be nice, but it would be even more nice if our public servants would wake up to the fact that we are running out of oil, and start shaping policy around that.
Like the old proverb says: Drill in the Arctic, we’ll have oil for a week. Teach the Arctic how to drill, and we’ll run out of oil a little bit later.
Other wife news.
This is her group e-mail of last week, headed “I did it so you don’t have to.”
Today I bought and drank a can of new Tab Energy drink. I encourage all of you to avoid doing the same. This stuff tastes like slightly carbonated Robitussin filtered through potpourri.
Another goddam tempest in a teapot.
The National Anthem was translated into Spanish, and sung by somebody, causing an uproar among the usually uproarious.
President Bush was prompted to comment: : "I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English."
Okay, but what’s that got to do with anything?
Mark Krikorian, of the Washington-based Center for Immigration studies told a reporter: “Would the French accept people singing the 'La Marseillaise' in English as a sign of French patriotism? Of course not.”
A Spanish “Star Spangled Banner” is an insult how again? And when the hell did we start caring what the French think?
Cole in our stocking?
John Fund in the Wall Street Journal opined about leftie pundit/historian Juan Cole, under consideration for a job at Yale: “In justifying all the time he spends on his blog, Mr. Cole told the Yale Herald that ‘when you become a public intellectual, it has the effect of dragging you into a lot of mud.’ Mr. Cole has done his share of splattering. He calls Israel ‘the most dangerous regime in the Middle East.’”
This opinion piece was cited on LITTLE GREEN FOOTBALLS, the rightwing blog, and (without attribution) in the New York Sun, among other places.
But, as many have pointed out, Juan Cole apparently never called Israel “the most dangerous regime in the Middle East.”
Part of Juan Cole’s response:
John Fund of the Wall Street Journal editorial page has published a large number of falsehoods about me.
The most egregious is this: “He calls Israel ‘the most dangerous regime in the Middle East.”’
This a lie. I never said that. Try googling it. (All that comes up is the circular allegation I said it, never sourced. It never comes up on my site, because I did not say it, or say or imply anything like it.)
In other news…
This still sticks in my craw. Al Gore never claimed that he invented the Internet. What he actually said was, in an interview: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." Which I take to mean that he was an Internet booster. He was enthusiastically in favor of the Internet. He wanted that Internet to happen big time. He talked about the Internet frequently with his fellow members of Congress. At night he dreamed of the Internet, his hands twitching like a dog's paws when it dreams. But he did not ever claim that he invented the fucking Internet.
At any rate, can we dismantle the Internet now? I’m tired of it and want to brood over my empty gas tank in peace. Some aborigines are coming over later to teach me how to make simple tools out of sticks and old iPods. We will burn my television for fuel and roast grubs.
Last week, senators kicked around the idea of giving certain taxpayers a hundred bucks, to compensate for high gas prices. My wife says she would prefer a puppy.
A hundred bucks would be nice, but it would be even more nice if our public servants would wake up to the fact that we are running out of oil, and start shaping policy around that.
Like the old proverb says: Drill in the Arctic, we’ll have oil for a week. Teach the Arctic how to drill, and we’ll run out of oil a little bit later.
Other wife news.
This is her group e-mail of last week, headed “I did it so you don’t have to.”
Today I bought and drank a can of new Tab Energy drink. I encourage all of you to avoid doing the same. This stuff tastes like slightly carbonated Robitussin filtered through potpourri.
Another goddam tempest in a teapot.
The National Anthem was translated into Spanish, and sung by somebody, causing an uproar among the usually uproarious.
President Bush was prompted to comment: : "I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English."
Okay, but what’s that got to do with anything?
Mark Krikorian, of the Washington-based Center for Immigration studies told a reporter: “Would the French accept people singing the 'La Marseillaise' in English as a sign of French patriotism? Of course not.”
A Spanish “Star Spangled Banner” is an insult how again? And when the hell did we start caring what the French think?
Cole in our stocking?
John Fund in the Wall Street Journal opined about leftie pundit/historian Juan Cole, under consideration for a job at Yale: “In justifying all the time he spends on his blog, Mr. Cole told the Yale Herald that ‘when you become a public intellectual, it has the effect of dragging you into a lot of mud.’ Mr. Cole has done his share of splattering. He calls Israel ‘the most dangerous regime in the Middle East.’”
This opinion piece was cited on LITTLE GREEN FOOTBALLS, the rightwing blog, and (without attribution) in the New York Sun, among other places.
But, as many have pointed out, Juan Cole apparently never called Israel “the most dangerous regime in the Middle East.”
Part of Juan Cole’s response:
John Fund of the Wall Street Journal editorial page has published a large number of falsehoods about me.
The most egregious is this: “He calls Israel ‘the most dangerous regime in the Middle East.”’
This a lie. I never said that. Try googling it. (All that comes up is the circular allegation I said it, never sourced. It never comes up on my site, because I did not say it, or say or imply anything like it.)
In other news…
This still sticks in my craw. Al Gore never claimed that he invented the Internet. What he actually said was, in an interview: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." Which I take to mean that he was an Internet booster. He was enthusiastically in favor of the Internet. He wanted that Internet to happen big time. He talked about the Internet frequently with his fellow members of Congress. At night he dreamed of the Internet, his hands twitching like a dog's paws when it dreams. But he did not ever claim that he invented the fucking Internet.
At any rate, can we dismantle the Internet now? I’m tired of it and want to brood over my empty gas tank in peace. Some aborigines are coming over later to teach me how to make simple tools out of sticks and old iPods. We will burn my television for fuel and roast grubs.
posted by Merle Kessler at 3:27 PM
2 Comments:
Hmmm, a hundred dollars? I wonder if it will be distributed close to election day. And whether there's a focus group somewhere that was asked questions like: "Would you be more likely to vote for your congressman if he/she arranged for you to receive $50? $100? $200? A puppy?"
-D.E.
:-)
Re: windmills.
I found this in the California Bat Conservation Fund newsletter:
"...Many bird-lovers have come to the sad conclusion... that this form of renewable energy creates as many problems for our environment... as it solves. Now recent studies...have demonstrated that these turbines are killing many thousands of bats as well."
Something else for liberals to lose sleep over.
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