the kids

cassandra took these of our ferocious children... you'd better think twice before breaking into our estate here in formosa canyon... these cats will EAT you while you watch...



sure i haven't been blogging much... and you might think I don't have much to say if i'm blogging the cats...

maybe i have too much to say...

um, work is stressful, sometimes in a fun way, a lot in the "night sweats" kind of way.

I should learn to be more of a screw up...

but i can't


i'm too good... and humble, to boot...

i saw X-Men 3 this weekend with a few folks who hated it- from a fanboy's pov- i had nothing invested in it and thought it was adequate. I liked it better than the new king kong (so many lush cg fx... none of them believable! I thought the ship-in-the-fog sequence was the most suspenseful and succesful! the 1977 version had a better big-monkey-on-a-tear through manhattan sequence- the elevated train sequence rocked hard! )


but back to X-3- the dismissal of mystique stank of a) Ms. Romijn costs more per day these days, especially when she's painted blue and b) pepper dennis must have been shooting or something... she was so cool in the first two- what gives?

anyhoo- i don't care! never read an x-men funny book in my life. thought wolverine was a bad guy in the fantastic four


and finally , you can paint him blue and cover him in fake fur from ISW, but kelsey grammer is always going to be frasier friggin' crane...and why not?

and he can cry himself a river on the hawaii estate that talking like a wasp for 20 years bought him...

Memorial Day

Wikipedia?

Yes, my son...

How did Memorial Day start?

Freed slaves thanking Union troops for their sacrifice... at the racetrack in Charleston, South Carolina in 1865.

When did it become about a sale at Sit & Sleep?

Where have you been?

I've been doin' stuff...

What are you drinking?

Gin and tonic... want one?

Oy... you have a nice summer, ok?


(More on the origins of Memorial Day here & here)

Plans for Iran...

So if this is about to happpen:

Concern is building among the military and the intelligence community that the US may be preparing for a military strike on Iran, as military assets in key positions are approaching readiness, RAW STORY has learned.


You'll want to go here:


New Application for a U.S. Passport


Seriously, it might be time to man the fuckin' barricades or something.

Polish Star Wars!

In honor of two of my favorite things, Star Wars and KRUKWORLD, here' a Polish Star Wars Fanfilm that's fun and subtitled! Not for kids, though! Lots of foul-mouthed Poles in it!

Enjoy, Jimmy! You'll get the ambulance joke and maybe explain it to the rest of us?

Plame was working on WMD in Iran... the commie traitor!

Not that this will register with the hopeless wingnuts in your life- those that spin the spin until their encephalitic head just pops off... but Valerie Plame was no pencil-pusher at the CIA when NovakRove leaked her identity- turns out she was tracking down the nuclear goods on one of the Axis of Evil! Remember Evil? Remember when Bush wouldn't shut up about EVIL?

From crooks and liars and raw story

But the Greatest American , Mr. Goodwrench ads notwithstanding, is Stephen Colbert, for rubbing W's nose into the messy diaper that is his Adminstration's record...

So, Thank You Stephen Colbert

R2-Q5

Man this is a cool toy. I suggest you get one. But who was R2-Q5? Wookiepedia, fill us in...

We're all living with war

Go ahead and listen to Neil Young's new album, right here:

Neil Young - Living With War

Camp Casey Easter

Easter Service with Rev. Joseph Lowery at Camp Casey, Crawford, TX.
You can catch some of him onstage at Camp Casey with IVAW member Geoff Mallard and Charlie Anderson, here courtesy of truthout.org:

Dr. Joseph Lowery: The Soul of America
A Film by Scott Galindez

Dr. Joseph Lowery co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. Lowery is concerned about the "Soul of America." He told those gathered at Camp Casey that they were the "Salt of the Earth" and they would be the ones to redeem America.

QuickTime
DSL | 56K
Windows Media
DSL | 56K
RealMedia
DSL | 56K

The number changed by ten on Saturday

This is is the sign Geoff and Charlie showed to the war supporters that rode by on horseback- the same group that said to Gold Star father Juan Torres: "F*ck your son, f*ck you!"

Supporting the Troops indeed.

The Stations of the Cross started in Crawford and processed past the Bush ranch and on to Camp II, led by Johnny Wolff of the Crawford Peace House.

tweety and twitty

(object in image fatter than it appears)


Chris Matthews and Delay... I've heard the griping that Matthews was a wingnut, but wasn't sure...

Yep. Wingnut.

Harry Shearer sucked this feed from the ionosphere. Matthews sucked something else.




MATTHEWS: Hey thank you for calling me. It was a good thing for me, mostly.

DELAY: Oh really.

MATTHEWS: Oh of course it was. We got on the air as fast as we could....

[...]

MATTHEWS: Shannon [DeLay aide] told me, she called me, she said 'don't worry -- he's not calling in to complain'...

MATTHEWS: Have you seen this new focus group stuff on the candidates?

DELAY: No I haven't

MATTHEWS: It's great stuff. I'll send it to you -- it's great -- yeah it's great stuff. Hillary, John Kerry. All these guys, all these democrats, and how they do. And, uh, Frank Luntz did it...

DELAY: who I like

CM: ...and Hillary did not do well. Kerry did well.

DELAY: You're kidding.

MATTHEWS: I am NOT kidding. They didn't like Edwards -- they thought he was a rich lawyer, pretending to care about poor people...

DELAY: Too slick. Too slick.

MATTHEWS: ...and Hillary was a know-it-all.

DELAY: Nothing worse than a woman know-it-all

[...]

MATTHEWS: Thanks. I owe you one. I owe you two -- today and last night.

DELAY: No you don't.

MATTHEWS: No, I do.

DELAY: I appreciate it.

WATCH via Huffington Post, here

cocky little bandy rooster

Some things I love today:

1) the downfall of Tom Delay

2) the website Crooks and Liars

3) #2 for bringing me Jack Cafferty ( I don't have the cable, so when I'm in a hotel or flying JetBlue I'm like a moth to a flame, salivating at the heaping piles of televisual goodness...)- and I love the smack down Cafferty gives "the Hammer."


Cafferty on Delay: "cocky little bandy rooster"
Jack Cafferty had a few choice words for Tom Delay today on "The Situation Room."

Video-WMP Video-QT (h/t arnie)

Cafferty: "Wolf all the tough talk was reduced to, "I quit!" To borrow a phrase from Roberto Duran, " No Mas." Mr. Delay suddenly became another disgraced public servant who couldn't take the heat." He would strut around on capitol hill like a cocky little, bandy rooster, but today he slithered away from Congress...


Delay does have a strange, strutty, assholic walk, doesn't he? Like some kind of effete Southern dandy... a lady boy...

Hey man, you can't just cut and paste whole sections from another blog. That's not very bloggy.

Oh great. You're back. Who let you in here?

You have to write your own material- express yourself, give us your take on-

Excuse me, slacker, but I'm at WORK right now, ok?

You're blogging at work?

I'm trying to.

Oh, well that's cool. Carry on, my wayward son. There'll be a post when you are done...

Grow up.

2007 Chevy Tahoe!

Check out the commercial I made for the Earth-murdering Chevy Tahoe!


It's here.


Then go make your own!



Cassandra stayed up all night Friday making tons of these- read all about it and see others here.

creative website, grim reminder

Found this via The Map Room:


Iraq Coalition Fatality Map

A dramatic and effective animated Flash map that illustrates casualties suffered by coalition forces in Iraq over time: “The animation runs at ten frames per second — one frame for each day — and a single black dot indicates the geographic location that a coalition military fatality occurred. Each dot starts as a white flash and a larger red dot which fades to black over the span of 30 frames/days, and then slowly fades to grey over the span of the entire war.” Via Boing Boing.

gizmatron

got the gizmatron started

weekender

what, are you only going to blog on the weekends?

maybe- what's the big deal

you're not very bloggy

what's that supposed to mean?

you don't share your every thought, opinion, flight of fancy of everyday

you're right, i don't - is there some kind of rule

yes. the bloggy rule

rules. that's why I stopped aspiring to be some kind of punk rocker when I was a lad... when I moved to the big city it seemed like the punks and such had rules... yawn

but...

but nothin- don't tell me how to blog and I won't tell you how to breathe, ok? so what if I only get to it on the weekends. i take nice pictures, like this one of the garage i really need to clean- peer into my secret world, my lair, my workshop, my headquarters- if you dare:

but THIS past weekend, it was work work work

cassansdra marched with Paul Haggis in Hollywood- I had to work- saturday and sunday- but i really didn't mind it too much- got the OT, and the DT (not the delerium tremens, silly- the DOUBLE TIME) - left work @ 2:00am Monday- was back by 7! wee!

who's the lucky sumbitch who got to go to DELAWARE this weekend?

KRUKWORLD!

No matter how bad things get, I can always punch the coordinates into the old navicomputer, make the jump, and take a trip to KRUKWORLD.

Which is a lot like Poland.

Won't you join me?

Troops out of Iraq in 2007?

Kos has this:

UK, US to withdraw Iraq forces by early '07

by DarkSyde

Sat Mar 04, 2006 at 06:05:40 PM PDT

Via The Next Hurrah: UK, US to withdraw Iraq forces by early '07:

[Link] The United States and Britain are planning to pull all their troops out of Iraq by the spring of 2007, two British newspapers reported in their Sunday editions, quoting unnamed senior defense ministry sources.
The Sunday Telegraph said the planned pull-out followed an acceptance by the two governments that the presence of foreign troops in Iraq was now a large obstacle to securing peace.

(I particularly liked:)

Two observations if this does play out: 1) Murtha was right, 2) The Republicans Lost the War.


If this is true, why not pull them our now? I really do believe we are only staying in Iraq becuase of the ego of one spoiled man. Same reason we went in.

Gary Snyder quote

All of us are apprenticed to the same teacher that the religious institutions originally worked with: reality. Reality-insight says... master the twenty-four hours. Do it well, without self-pity. It is as hard to get the children herded into the car pool and down the road to the bus as it is to chant sutras in the Buddha-hall on a cold morning. One move is not better than the other, each can be quite boring, and they each have the virtuous quality of repetition.

Repetition and ritual and their good results come in many forms. Changing the filter, wiping noses, going to meetings, picking up around the house, washing dishes, checking the dipstick- don't let yourself think these are distracting you from your more serious pursuits. Such a round of chores is not a set of difficulties we hope to escape from so that we may do our "practice" which will put us on a "path" - it is our path.

-Gary Snyder The Practice of the Wild

apocalypto

no not mel gibson's upcoming New World drama about a boy and his amazing 200 ft. robot friend...


i mean the word i've just made up for myself to classify a certain type ephemera i find that is linked to my nervous fascination with the End Times...

so on boingboing there's this story about one apocalypsist's utopia, Thunder Mountain.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Outsider architect photo gallery of Thunder Mountain
Tinselman posted about a bizarre survivalist compound in Imlay, Nevada dubbed Thunder Mountain.

Frank Van Zant's vision was sparked when he heard the prophecy of a medicine woman: "In the final days there shall rise up a place called Thunder Mountain." She also told him that only those who lived at Thunder Mountain would survive the coming apocalypse. Van Zant wasted no time; he changed his name to Chief Rolling Thunder Mountain, moved his family to the desert in Imlay, Nevada, and began to build his monument.

At age 69 Van Zant committed suicide because he had finally completed his masterpiece.

Link



OH- and AM 1150 listeners in Los Angeles: Those anti-drug PSA's they are playing, where one kid asks another kid "wanna get high?" or "wanna light up?" or " wanna spark up a dube?" or "wanna blow a fatty?" or somesuch?

Totally makes me want to. Everytime.

3 day weekends are for branches with friends

Dave on Dick

Letterman chimes in on trigger-finger Dick...

funny atrios re: FuddGate

Atrios learned a few things.

Things I've Learned Recently

Every conservative on the internet is an avid hunter and they've all been shot multiple times.

Shotguns aren't really guns, just toys. You can't really hurt people with them, only animals.

It's standard hunter etiquette to yell and scream at your fellow hunters as they're stalking their prey.

The most dangerous place to be is behind the people with the guns.

And Dick Cheney was not drunk, so stop saying that.

Of course, all of this is about as funny as a heart attack.
















AP Photo: Vice President Dick Cheney walks on the third floor of the Senate side of Capitol...

lame duck hunting

crooks and liars informs us:

"(reader Ces) sent me the "Shooting safety Rules,"

KNOW YOUR SAFE ZONE OF FIRE AND STICK TO IT.
Your safe zone-of-fire is that area or direction in which you can safely fire a shot. It is "down range" at a shooting facility. In the field it is that mental image you draw in your mind with every step you take. BE SURE YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR COMPANIONS ARE AT ALL TIMES. Never swing your gun or bow out of your safe zone-of-fire. Know the safe carries when there are persons to your sides, in front of, or behind you. IF IN DOUBT, NEVER TAKE A SHOT. When hunting, wear daylight fluorescent orange so you can be seen from a distance or in heavy cover."

Unless you're Heart-Attack Dick, in which case you can go fuck yourself.

pics from www.overspun.com

crashed

Have you seen Crash ?

Do you live in LA?

Is the LA you live in anything like the LA depicted in Crash?

When you are feeling really really guilty for being a racist, does it make you feel better to hug your maid after you reamed her a new one for not unloading the dishwasher in a timely manner?


Then you'll enjoy :

CONVERSATIONS I'VE HAD DURING A NORMAL DAY IN LOS ANGELES, MODIFIED TO
INCLUDE THE SHOCKING DEPICTION OF RACISM FOUND IN PAUL HAGGIS'S 2004 FILM CRASH.

BY BRENDON LLOYD

I bet it wins a bunch of awards. I bet I don't care.

saturday blog surfing

Huh.

Found this on technovelgy.com, "where science meets fiction":

Toxoplasma Parasite Mind Control

Half of the world's human population is infected with Toxoplasma. Parasites in the body - and the brain. Remember that.

Toxoplasma gondii is a common parasite found in the guts of cats; it sheds eggs that are picked up by rats and other animals that are eaten by cats. Toxoplasma forms cysts in the bodies of the intermediate rat hosts, including the brain. Since cats don't want to eat dead, decaying prey, Toxoplasma takes the evolutionarily sound course of being a "good" parasite, leaving the rats perfectly healthy. Or are they?

(Toxoplasma gondii)

here's the rest, here

here's another find from a dwindling (wasted?) saturday afternoon, from raymi-the-canuck -you'd-like-to-fu...um... meet? :

i likes quakers

The Quaker Peace Testimony

We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fighting with outward weapons for any end or under any pretense whatsoever; this is our testimony to the whole world . . . .
. . . The Spirit of Christ by which we are guided is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing of evil and again to move us into it; and we certainly know and testify to the world that the Spirit of Christ which leads us into all truth will never move us to fight and war against any man with outward weapons, neither for the Kingdom of Christ nor for the kingdoms of this world...therefore we cannot learn war anymore.

Excerpts from a Statement by the Quakers to King Charles II (1660)

"I told them I knew from whence all wars arose...and that I lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars; and that I was come into the covenant of peace which was before all wars and strife."

George Fox, founder of Quakerism (1650)

(here)

Quaker Jedi

I think that's what I would aspire to be. A cross between this guy:














And this guy:











So I googled the phrase "Quaker Jedi"

and that's where I found this, here:

i do not believe in anything that is impossible and unlogical.

Now that means ALL religions. ALL!!!!!

All religious people are brain-washed and must be re-educated.

I am now starting a cult... i call it Grounding Of Dietys (GOD)

I will gather all the religion bashers in one place and then we shall all shout to the skys:-

"Oh great lord and ruthless creator.... smite us now or you shall have to go on knowing you didn't stop us"

well if we are still alive i will start a revolution. and trust me you dont wanna be there.

but i am only 13 and this is years off.

Well, whew!

I like the Quakers more and more, especially when I found out they were being spied on- oh, and after that last season of Six Feet Under. And of course, after meeting a Sufi Quaker at the Crawford Peace House

Check 'em out:

wikipedia page

belief.net page

CINDY SHEEHAN ARRESTED BY CAPITOL POLICE INSIDE CAPITOL CHAMBER

Anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan (C), whose son was killed serving as a U.S. serviceman in Iraq, is escorted by security personnel into the House of Representatives chamber for the State of the Union address by President Bush on Capitol Hill in Washington January 31, 2006. (Jason Reed/Reuters)


Anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan (L, blonde hair), whose son was killed serving as a U.S. serviceman in Iraq, is rushed out of the U.S. House of Representatives chamber by security personnel after arriving for the State of the Union address by U.S. President George W. Bush on Capitol Hill in Washington January 31, 2006. There were unconfirmed reports that Sheehan had been arrested. REUTERS/Jason Reed

here you can see the T-SHIRT george is afraid of, on the woman george hides from
it's not a banner
it's a t-shirt with something true on it
like garlic to a vampire

cassandra found this on brad blog here- follow his coverage of Cindy Sheehan's arrest tonight

Cindy Sheehan was arrested inside the Capitol before the speech- she was an invited guest of Rep. Woolsey.

accounts are trickling in (updated at the bradblog link above) - did she have a banner she attempted to unfurl? (why would she do that before the speech started? seems unlikely) one account says she had a political message on her t-shirt

the message? the number of dead soldiers killed in this war. she had to add a number to it to keep it current

Bush's America.




The dome of the United States Capitol building is illuminated at twilight as the U.S. Congress and the nation await President George W. Bush's State of the Union speech on Capitol Hill in Washington January 31, 2006. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

UPDATE: Arresting Cindy may backfire for the wingnuts. the arrest has become a big part of the State of Union coverage worldwide

Sen. Sheehan (D) CA?


UPDATE: It goes both ways.... kinda...

While Cindy was arrested, Beverly Young, the wife of 18-term Republican U.S. Rep. Bill Young of Florida, was escorted out of the House for wearing a Support The Troops shirt... CNN has it here

Why wasn't she handcuffed?

And lastly (for now?) Cindy herself tells you What Really Happened

Going to California to Get Out of Iraq

Going to California to Get Out of Iraq

Last night Cassandra and I went out to the Manahttan Beach Marriott to attend a meeting with the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party. One of the panelists, David Swanson, writes about it here.



There you will read the Progressive Caucus' Policy to Withdraw US Forces from Iraq and Start Reconstruction (at the end of the column.)

The Progressive Caucus of the CDP website is here.



Other panelist include Ann Wright, Scott Ritter, Harlan Hobgood, Dr. Michael Schwartz, Dr. Stephen Zunes and Moderator Steve Young.





Currently listening to the Young Turks filibuster broadcast. Cassandra is about to call in....

...and she just did- letting the hosts know about the WEEKLY protest outside of Sen. Feinstein's LA office at the corner of Sepulveda and Santa Monica. It's every Friday from 3pm until dark.

Rebel Alliance WWII

Talent... sheer talent

Jesse Dyen has updated his website. Go enjoy his musical talents- like his arrangement of the First Amendment (lyr. T. Jefferson et. al.). I also recommend Sons and Daughters, the Camp Casey theme song, Freedom Isn't Free Tonight, and the wonderful Love One Another, his song for George Harrison.

Jesse is a nice person. He is also an excellent musician. And a SCOFFLAW for peace, as evidenced here:

Performance.com for Blogger, and that guy with the cow.

I've been using Firefox since my IE went looopy, just installed the performance.com blog editor into it- I just hit F8 and I'm blogging... sharing with you miy insights and observatrions.


Like this:


The Carls Jr. milkshake commercial with the scruffy guy molesting the cow... it has to stop.


It's on PBS now.


It's too much. I bet that song was fun once.




TV is killing us all slowly.

Shameful

From the crazy left-wing bleeding-heart moonbat cut-and-runners at the ... Pentagon?

“Better body armor could have prevented or limited about 80 percent of fatal torso wounds suffered by Marines killed in Iraq, a report by U.S. military medical experts obtained on Friday said.”

Flickr toys r cool!

My magazine
Originally uploaded by Dutchman3000.

I liked this self-portrait- wasn't sure what to do with it!

How excellent was Christmas 2005?

Pretty friggin' excellent, thank you Baby J!

Let's see... first of all, I did a damn fine job of avoiding holiday depression.

Got some cool gifts, many of them Star Wars related, like the Puzz 3-D Star Destroyer, Volume 2 of the Clone Wars, my boss gave me her crew patches (9 of them!) from when she worked on Episode I and her crew shirt (unopened) from Episode II... lots of stuff from a galaxy far, far away...

Spent one whole day on the puzzle, went to Arlington West on Christmas Day, went to the Ecstasy exhibit at the MOCA, had dinner with visiting friends at Phillipe's , protested outside of Dianne Feinsten's LA office. (You can too, every Friday afternoon! 11111 Santa Monica Boulevard, Suite 915 LA, CA 90025 (310) 914-7300)

I made two batches of Wookiee cookies, too.













Call it whatever you want- Christmas, Saturnalia, Solstice. These end-of-year activities are a great way to check in and appreciate the year that's passed and look forward to the year to come.

As long as you don't get caught up in the horrible vicious cycle of expectations, anticipation and disappointment.

That Charlie Brown jazzy Christmas music will break your heart, if you let it.

Happy 2006! Here's to IMPEACHMENT!