Monday, April 30, 2007

Dude, That's Like So Random Flickr Blogging

Steve, feeling proud and honored at first, didn't realize just exactly what it meant to be picked as the first sacrificial victim of the cult until it was too late.
"See this? This came outta me."

"Really? Outta you?"

"I had something like that come outta me once."

"Mom! I've been missing that for like three days now! Give it back!"
"See, I'm the Decider! In other words, I'm the guy that does all the decidin', and it's hard work, decidin' everything! Heh heh heh. But like I said before, mission accomplished. In other words, the mission that we set out to accomplish has been accomplicated. Heh heh heh. And it was hard work! No one suffers more than me and Laura!"
It took a dedicated team of engineers and some specially designed equipment, but Madonna's diaphragm was finally installed correctly this past week.
Once Artie got the promotion and the raise, he let the money go to his head. For instance, instead of just shaving, he would hire escort service women at exorbitant prices to bite the individual whiskers off his face.
"This whole" *glub* "global warming thing, with the seas rising, and" *glub* "all that, it's just a lot of hooey, a hoax." *glub* "There's really nothing to it at all." *glub* "Oh, hello," *glub* "may I help you?"
Tired of having to compete for Jim's attentions with the younger, more vivacious Ellen, Kate finally takes out her rival with a swift, well-timed karate chop to the throat.
You know, I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing this close-up of Marlon Brando wearing a thong. The rest of my life. And been happy about it. *sigh*

(Original images, #3847, posted here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Random Flickr Blogging explained by Tom Hilton here.)

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Where Do I Sign?

My first attempt at freeway blogging took me an hour or two and about $20 in materials this morning, with this result (mine is the one in the middle):

I posted it on the overpass near the Vermont Street exit on 101 coming into San Francisco. Yes, there was already another Impeach sign there (one facing each way, in fact), but I don't think it hurts to repeat the message. And I heard about a half-dozen cars honking in the few minutes it took me to put it up, which I took as signs of support from people driving by. After posting it, I drove down to the Cesar Chavez on-ramp and got my camera ready. For having taken this shot as I was driving, I think it came out pretty well.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Sign Up! Get Your Sign Up!

An Important Reminder from Freewayblogger


Attention Freewaybloggers! Tomorrow's the Big Day! Impeachment actions will be taking place in more than 125 locations around the country--from Miami, Florida to North Pole, Alaska! Let's make sure the word IMPEACH is everywhere tomorrow. See http://www.a28.org for more info.
Here's how to make a sign in seven minutes:
Here's how to post it in 20 seconds:
Send pictures!
-Scarlet

freeway1


freeway2



It's All The Democrats' Fault!

Amazing, the power of liberals in Congress to be able to change the number of hours the sun shines on the Earth. No wonder we're suffering from the effects of global warming! Someone should tell Al Gore to remind his friends in Washington to be more responsible.

(h/t to my pal Tom I. for this link.)

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

McGovern Vs. Cheney: No Contest

Former South Dakota Senator George McGovern gives Dick Cheney a serious -- and well-deserved -- smackdown in today's LA Times. (Full disclosure: In 1968, I worked at the local McGovern for President headquarters in Southern California all summer long at the tender age of 12. It was an experience that kept me interested in politics for the rest of my life.) Big Generik hat-tip to my friend Scott for providing me with the link.

Oh, snap!

*****

George McGovern: Cheney is wrong about me, wrong about war

The 1972 presidential nominee strikes back at the vice president for comparing today's Democrats to the McGovern platform.
By George S. McGovern, GEORGE S. MCGOVERN, a former U.S. senator from South Dakota, was the Democratic nominee for president in 1972.
April 24, 2007

VICE PRESIDENT Dick Cheney recently attacked my 1972 presidential platform and contended that today's Democratic Party has reverted to the views I advocated in 1972. In a sense, this is a compliment, both to me and the Democratic Party. Cheney intended no such compliment. Instead, he twisted my views and those of my party beyond recognition. The city where the vice president spoke, Chicago, is sometimes dubbed "the Windy City." Cheney converted the chilly wind of Chicago into hot air.

Cheney said that today's Democrats have adopted my platform from the 1972 presidential race and that, in doing so, they will raise taxes. But my platform offered a balanced budget. I proposed nothing new without a carefully defined way of paying for it. By contrast, Cheney and his team have run the national debt to an all-time high.

He also said that the McGovern way is to surrender in Iraq and leave the U.S. exposed to new dangers. The truth is that I oppose the Iraq war, just as I opposed the Vietnam War, because these two conflicts have weakened the U.S. and diminished our standing in the world and our national security.

In the war of my youth, World War II, I volunteered for military service at the age of 19 and flew 35 combat missions, winning the Distinguished Flying Cross as the pilot of a B-24 bomber. By contrast, in the war of his youth, the Vietnam War, Cheney got five deferments and has never seen a day of combat — a record matched by President Bush.

Cheney charged that today's Democrats don't appreciate the terrorist danger when they move to end U.S. involvement in the Iraq war. The fact is that Bush and Cheney misled the public when they implied that Iraq was involved in the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks. That was the work of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda team. Cheney and Bush blew the effort to trap Bin Laden in Afghanistan by their sluggish and inept response after the 9/11 attacks.

They then foolishly sent U.S. forces into Iraq against the advice and experience of such knowledgeable men as former President George H.W. Bush, his secretary of State, James A. Baker III, and his national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft.

Just as the Bush administration mistakenly asserted Iraq's involvement in the 9/11 attacks, it also falsely contended that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. When former Ambassador Joseph Wilson exploded the myth that Iraq attempted to obtain nuclear materials from Niger, Cheney's top aide and other Bush officials leaked to the media that Wilson's wife was a CIA agent (knowingly revealing the identity of a covert agent is illegal).

In attacking my positions in 1972 as representative of "that old party of the early 1970s," Cheney seems oblivious to the realities of that time. Does he remember that the Democratic Party, with me in the lead, reformed the presidential nomination process to ensure that women, young people and minorities would be represented fairly? The so-called McGovern reform rules are still in effect and, indeed, have been largely copied by the Republicans.

The Democrats' 1972 platform was also in the forefront in pushing for affordable healthcare, full employment with better wages, a stronger environmental and energy effort, support for education at every level and a foreign policy with less confrontation and belligerence and more cooperation and conciliation.

Cheney also still has his eyes closed to the folly of the Vietnam War, in which 58,000 young Americans and more than 2 million Vietnamese died. Vietnam was no threat to the United States.

On one point I do agree with Cheney: Today's Democrats are taking positions on the Iraq war similar to the views I held toward the Vietnam War. But that is all to the good.

The war in Iraq has greatly increased the terrorist danger. There was little or no terrorism, insurgency or civil war in Iraq before Bush and Cheney took us into war there five years ago. Now Iraq has become a breeding ground of terrorism, a bloody insurgency against our troops and a civil war.

Beyond the deaths of more than 3,100 young Americans and an estimated 600,000 Iraqis, we have spent nearly $500 billion on the war, which has dragged on longer than World War II.

The Democrats are right. Let's bring our troops home from this hopeless war.

There is one more point about 1972 for Cheney's consideration. After winning 11 state primaries in a field of 16 contenders, I won the Democratic presidential nomination. I then lost the general election to President Nixon. Indeed, the entrenched incumbent president, with a campaign budget 10 times the size of mine, the power of the White House behind him and a highly negative and unethical campaign, defeated me overwhelmingly. But lest Cheney has forgotten, a few months after the election, investigations by the Senate and an impeachment proceeding in the House forced Nixon to become the only president in American history to resign the presidency in disgrace.

Who was the real loser of '72?



THE VICE PRESIDENT spoke with contempt of my '72 campaign, but he might do well to recall that I began that effort with these words: "I make one pledge above all others — to seek and speak the truth." We made some costly tactical errors after winning the nomination, but I never broke my pledge to speak the truth. That is why I have never felt like a loser since 1972. In contrast, Cheney and Bush have repeatedly lied to the American people.

It is my firm belief that the Cheney-Bush team has committed offenses that are worse than those that drove Nixon, Vice President Spiro Agnew and Atty. Gen. John Mitchell from office after 1972. Indeed, as their repeated violations of the Constitution and federal statutes, as well as their repudiation of international law, come under increased consideration, I expect to see Cheney and Bush forced to resign their offices before 2008 is over.

Aside from a growing list of impeachable offenses, the vice president has demonstrated his ignorance of foreign policy by attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for visiting Syria. Apparently he thinks it is wrong to visit important Middle East states that sometimes disagree with us. Isn't it generally agreed that Nixon's greatest achievement was talking to the Chinese Communist leaders, which opened the door to that nation? And wasn't President Reagan's greatest achievement talking with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev until the two men worked out an end to the Cold War? Does Cheney believe that it's better to go to war rather than talk with countries with which we have differences?

We, of course, already know that when Cheney endorses a war, he exempts himself from participation. On second thought, maybe it's wise to keep Cheney off the battlefield — he might end up shooting his comrades rather than the enemy.

On a more serious note, instead of listening to the foolishness of the neoconservative ideologues, the Cheney-Bush team might better heed the words of a real conservative, Edmund Burke: "A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood."

Monday, April 23, 2007

File Under R, For Random Flickr Blogging

Armed with only sticks, farm implements and torches, the angry shrimp villagers stormed the castle in search of the Frankenstein lobster.
The staff of Catherine the Great checks her latest boyfriend to see if he measures up.
After visiting the Berlin Wall and the Great Wall of China, the Halfway Decent Wall of Mendocino was rather a disappointment to Cheryl.
Every time he tells that story, the whale's penis manta ray gets bigger.
In an updated version of the Washington Irving tale, a Headless Commuter haunts the train line between Tarry Town and Sleepy Hollow.
A triumph of genetic engineering, this hybrid palm-man contains nearly all the human chromosomes needed to sustain life and reproduce, plus the ability to grow dates and coconuts.

(Original images, #3318, posted here, here, here, here, here and here. Random Flickr Blogging explained by Put Another Candle On My Birthday Cake, I'm Another Year Old Yesterday Tom Hilton here.)

Friday, April 20, 2007

Out Of The Mouths Of Knaves

Put together by Tim Grieve at Salon.com's War Room, here are a series of direct quotes from Preznit Clueless As Fuck during his recital Town Hall Meeting in Ohio yesterday. I caught some of it live, and, as I always am when watching the man on television, was appalled at how simple-minded and obtuse he appears to be. Reading these transcripts only intensifies those feelings. I mean, really, what a maroon!

"Make sure the rug says 'optimistic person comes to work'"

war roomWhile the rest of us were watching Albert Gonzales flame out before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, George W. Bush was talking about just about everything else imaginable at a high school in Tipp City, Ohio. Maybe he should have stayed home and watched TV instead. If he had, he might not have had his spokeswoman proclaiming him "pleased" with the attorney general's performance, and he wouldn't have found himself saying things like this:

On his marriage: "And I will tell you, one reason -- this may sound counterintuitive, but a good marriage is really good after serving together in Washington, D.C. It's been an amazing experience to be a husband and then a dad as president of the United States. I emphasize, that is the priority for me as the president. It's my faith, my family, and my country. And I am pleased to report that our family is doing great, particularly since my wife is such a fantastic person. And she sends her very best."

On his job and his rug: "My job is a job to make decisions. I'm a decision -- if the job description were, 'What do you do?' -- it's decision-maker. And I make a lot of big ones, and I make a lot of little ones. Interestingly enough, the first decision I made happened right before I got sworn in as president. I was at the Blair House, which is across the street from the White House, getting ready to give my inaugural address. And the phone rang, and the head usher at the White House said, 'President-elect Bush.' I said, 'Yes.' He said, 'What color rug do you want in the Oval Office?' I said, 'This is going to be a decision-making experience.'

"The first lesson about decision-making is, if you're short on a subject, ask for help. So if you're a student listening and you're not very good at math, ask for help. Don't be afraid to admit that you need help when it comes to life. I wasn't afraid to admit I wasn't sure how to design a rug, so I called Laura. I said, 'They've asked me to design a rug in the Oval Office; I don't know anything about rug designing; will you help me?' She said, 'Of course.' But I said, 'I want it to say something' -- the president has got to be a strategic thinker -- and I said to her, 'Make sure the rug says 'optimistic person comes to work.' Because you can't make decisions unless you're optimistic that the decisions you make will lead to a better tomorrow."

On his decision to go to war in Iraq: "The hardest decision a president makes is to ask those men and women to go into harm's way. My decision making was deeply affected by the attack of September the 11th, 2001. It was a -- it was a moment that defined a dangerous world to me with absolute clarity. I realized then that this country was no longer invulnerable to attack from what may be happening overseas.

"I realized that there is an enemy of the United States that is active and is lethal. At further study of that enemy, I realized that they share an ideology, that these weren't -- that the -- and when you really think about it, the September the 11th attack was not the first attack ... This enemy is smart, capable, and unpredictable. They have defined a war on the United States, and I believe we're at war. I believe the attack on America made it clear that we're at war. I wish that wasn't the case. Nobody ought to ever hope to be a war president, or a presidency -- a president during war. But that's how I see the world."

On the threats facing America: "A lesson learned was that, at least in my opinion, that in order to protect us, we must aggressively pursue the enemy and defeat them elsewhere so we don't have to face them here. In other words, if what happens overseas matters to the United States, therefore, the best way to protect us is to deal with threats overseas. In other words, we just can't let a threat idle; we can't hope that a threat doesn't come home to hurt us."

On the global war on terrorism: "Now we're involved in -- I call it a global war against terror. You can't call it a global war against extremists, a global war against radicals, a global war against people who want to hurt America; you can call it whatever you want, but it is a global effort ... The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was a difficult decision, I think a necessary decision. If you want to talk about that later on, we can."

On the rug, again: "The goal [for Iraq] is a country that is stable enough for the government to work, that can defend itself and serve as an ally in this war on terror, that won't be a safe haven, that will deny the extremists and the radicals. I happen to think there will be an additional dividend when we succeed -- remember the rug? I'm optimistic we can succeed."

On success in Iraq: "If the definition of success in Iraq or anywhere is no suicide bombers, we'll never be successful. We will have handed al-Qaida 'that's what it takes' in order to determine whether or not these young democracies, for example, can survive. Think about that: If our definition is no more suiciders, you've just basically said to the suiciders, 'Go ahead.'"

On immigration: "It's in the interest of the country that people who are here be assimilated in a way that -- with our traditions and history. In other words, those who eventually become citizens be assimilated. In other words, one of the great things about America is we've been able to assimilate people from different backgrounds and different countries. I suspect some of your relatives might be the kind of people I'm talking about ...

"By the way, the reason why [illegal immigrants come to the United States] is because they want to put food on the table, and there are jobs Americans aren't doing. You know what I'm talking about. Some of you -- if you're running a nursery, you know what I'm talking about. If you've got a chicken factory, a chicken-plucking factory, or whatever you call them, you know what I'm talking about. People have got starving families and they want to come and work."

On the problems at Walter Reed: "I'm watching our military very carefully. I love our military, for starters. And I want to make sure that during these difficult times, that we help them on their needs. One of my concerns is that the health care not be as good as it can possibly be."

On the polls: "You know, I'm -- I've been in politics long enough to know that polls just go poof at times. I mean, they're a moment; that they are -- let me put it to you this way: When it's all said and done, when Laura and I head back home -- which at this moment will be Crawford, Tex. -- I will get there and look in the mirror, and I will say, 'I came with a set of principles and I didn't try to change my principles to make me popular.' You can't make good decisions -- (applause).

"As I mentioned to you, this is a decision-making experience, and you cannot make good decisions if you're not making decisions on a consistent set of principles. It's impossible. Oh, you can make decisions, all right, but they're inconsistent. What I think is important is consistency during difficult and troubled times, so that people -- they may not agree, but they know where I'm coming from."

On the rug, one last time: "People get pretty tired of war, and I understand that. It's really important as we -- that we have a sober discussion and understand what will be the consequences of failure. As I've told you, on the rug -- the reason I brought up the rug was to not only kind of break the ice, but also to talk about strategic thought. The president's job is to think not only about today, but tomorrow."

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Shorter Alberto Gonzales

Wait a minute -- is that possible? If little Alberto Gonzales were any shorter, he'd occupy negative space. Which, come to think of it, is exactly where his and his boss' ethics reside. Anyway, moving on...

"I take full responsibility for the decisions that I can't recall making, but for which I should not be held responsible. That's what I apparently think, but I don't remember the specifics."

On just a slightly different note, that must be one voracious damn dog that keeps eating the Bush administration's homework...

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

No News To Speak Of

Is here any reason for a sane person to watch the Fox Noise channel any more? Other than for morbid laughs or to keep up with the latest Republican talking points, I mean. What a waste of airtime. Check out this essay on the job the fucking morons bright lights at Fox did reporting on Kurt Vonnegut's death. (h/t to my good friend nashtbrutusandshort.) Disgusting. Disgusting and entirely predictable. But mostly disgusting.

Sign In, Please!

This morning, driving south on 101 in San Francisco on my way to work, I saw a sign on the overpass just past Vermont Street that read "Mussolini, Ceausescu, Cheney." That reminded me that I needed to post this for those of you who haven't already seen it. Get those signs going now, so you'll be ready for the 28th! ITMFA!

An Important Message from Freewayblogger
Dear Freewaybloggers,
On Saturday, April 28th, tens of thousands of Americans will be making their voices heard by putting the word IMPEACH! in front of the public eye (see www.A28.org). Along with demonstrations and media events around the country, it's going to be up to us freewaybloggers to really get the message out. Freewayblogging, as you know, is the simple art of placing text in front of traffic in such a way as to maximize the number of people who see it. Although large banners on overpasses are popular, the best method by far is to place smaller signs, four or five feet long, on peripheral fencing or trees alongside the freeway. These signs will stay up for days, sometimes weeks, rather than hours, and require nothing more than cardboard, paint and a little bit of cleverness to post.
Remember that when all those flags went up on overpasses after 9/11 they established a legal precedent to use freeways for the expression of free political speech, and it's time we started using it. A single sign placed next to a major freeway can be seen by 200,000 people a day and remain up for days before it comes down: ten signs placed next to a couple different freeways can be seen by over a million people. easily, before they come down.
When the Founders of this Nation gave its citizens the right to full and unfettered free political speech, they didn't mean it as window dressing or a nicety, they meant for us to use it, and I think you'll agree it's time. So please help make a statement, and make history, on April 28!

For complete info on the A28 nationwide impeachment actions, click here.
For more details on signmaking and posting go here:
http://www.freewayblogger.com/howto.htm
and here:
http://freewayblogger.blogspot.com (type "arsenal" into the search box for tips)

***PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE WIDELY***

freeway1
















freeway2


Monday, April 16, 2007

Blandom Blickr Blogging Blonday

In the Pantheon of Superheroes, Bicycle Underwear Man and his Magic Dousing Arrow occupy a decidedly lower tier.
When in Paris, be sure to visit the Memoriale du Marvin le Martian.
"By this time, my lungs were no longer about to burst. In fact, they felt pretty good, all things considered. The pool definitely needed more chlorine, though, especially after I was finished swimming."
Weird how the eye of the Iron Giant follows you all around the room.
Say, is that a Patriot Missile in your picture, or are you just glad to see me?

(Original images, #4374, posted here, here, here, here and here. Random Flickr Blogging, as always, explained by the Godfather of Captioning, Tom Hilton, here.)

Thursday, April 12, 2007

So It Goes

My very favorite author, Kurt Vonnegut, has died at the age of 84.

I know he was getting old and fragile, and no one lives forever, but I somehow never thought that he would exit this world. The creator of Bokonon and Billy Pilgrim, Eliot Rosewater and Ice-Nine, Kilgore Trout and Wanda June and Tralfamadore is gone forever. Unless he simply became unstuck in time, and is now reliving random moments of his life in a surreal jumble of experiences that- but no, probably not.

There will be no more wampeters, foma or granfalloons. Goodbye, Kurt, the world will miss you. In memoriam, here are the words his character Eliot Rosewater spoke in the novel God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater that seem to pretty well sum up the philosophy he subscribed to:

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies -- 'God damn it, you've got to be kind.' "

Monday, April 09, 2007

Every Monday I Get The Random Flickr Blogging Blues

After Mystery Science Theater 3000 was canceled, TomServo hit the drugs and alcohol pretty hard. Following a couple of aborted stints in rehab, he found himself living on the street, nearly unrecognizable to his fans and even some of his closest friends.
In an effort to quell the swirling rumors that he does not now have one and never did have one, the White House took the unusual step this week of releasing a snapshot that is purported to be a detailed imaging of Vice President Dick Cheney's soul.
It took more than a week of practice, but Faye Marie and Carla finally got the choreography of the Lucy/Harpo mirror sketch down reasonably well.
Rebelling against that whole Vulcan "live long and prosper" ideal, these young people flash the sign that is sweeping nihilist and anarchist groups everywhere: "Die young and poor!" they advise.

(Original images, #5900, posted here, here, here and here. Random Flickr Blogging, the love child of Tom Hilton and a whole slew of appreciative bloggers and other fine folk, explained here.)

Sunday, April 08, 2007

McCain Sounds Campaign Death Knell

In an effort to revive his flagging presidential prospects, Senator John McCain (R-Fantasyland) has announced that he is going to make the war in Iraq the main focus of his campaign from now on. Specifically, he is going to be making speeches saying that the war is "still winnable," and that we should all shut the hell up and support the president's current "surge" strategy. With fully two-thirds of Americans having turned decidedly against the continuaton of the slaughter in Iraq, how does anyone think that this move on McCain's part is anything but a lose-lose strategy? After his recent debacle in the marketplace in Baghdad, you'd think someone in McCain's inner circle would realize what a blunder he has made -- what a hole he's dug himself into -- and try to minimize the damage and move away from what is very obviously an extremely unpopular position. Instead, like George Armstrong Custer, McCain seems determined to charge into the breach in the face of certain doom.

Time to retire the Straight Talk Express BS, Mr. McCain. Your credibility is shot so full of holes there's virtually nothing left to it.

Friday, April 06, 2007

Another Letter That Won't Get Published

Another in my irregular series of letters to the editor that I send to the SF Chronicle and that they duly ignore:

Editor --

The recent outpouring of shrill Republican cries denouncing Speaker Nancy Pelosi's recent trip to Syria perfectly illustrates two things: The rampant hypocrisy of Bush supporters, and the complete bankruptcy of the failed Bush administration foreign policy vision, pushed by the neocons in the president's inner circle. There was nothing treasonous or even out of line with Ms. Pelosi meeting with Syrian president Bashar Assad. American members of Congress meet with foreign heads of state all the time. Those same people screaming that it was a betrayal of America were strangely silent when similar meetings, both before and after Pelosi's trip, were undertaken by Republican Congressmen Frank Wolf (R-VA), Robert Aderholt (R-AK), Joseph Pitts (R-PA) and Darrell Issa (R-CA). California's Issa, in fact, was frankly critical of the Bush administration in his meeting with President Assad, and yet we heard not a peep about that from the White House or its sycophants in the mainstream (and supposedly "liberal") media. When then-Speaker Denny Hastert traveled to Colombia during the Clinton administration and told the Colombian government to "ignore the White House, and deal directly with us (Congressional Republicans)," no one in the government or in the media accused him of treason at the time. I daresay that many, if not most, of the people who are now screaming for Pelosi's head probably cheered Mr. Hastert on when he made that comment.

The Bush administration and its policy of anti-diplomacy has proven to be disastrous over the past six years. The neocon vision, with its "might makes right" and "no dialogue with people with whom we disagree" policy, has been thoroughly discredited. That Bush supporters continue to think that this can be an effective foreign policy is simply mind-boggling. It's time to return to an era when we talked to both our friends and our enemies in an effort to resolve our conflicts. Speaker Pelosi -- and, to their credit, the Republican Congressmen who preceded and followed her -- are attempting to do just that. The White House, the current crop of pundits and their easily-led followers decrying this effort is simply evidence that their vision has failed, and they are upset that this fact is now being so pointedly demonstrated.

And regarding the flap about Pelosi's having put on a head scarf to visit a mosque and a marketplace, once again Republican hypocrisy rules the day. No mention is made of the fact that both Laura Bush and Condoleezza Rice have also worn scarves as a sign of respect when visiting certain sites in Islamic countries. In this country and others, men are asked to put on yarmulkes when entering a synagogue, whether they are Jewish or not. When a woman enters a mosque here in America or anywhere else in the world, it is the custom that she cover her head. When my wife and I toured St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, on one of the hottest days of the summer, she was required to cover her arms to enter. Does that somehow make her a traitor to the US, because she bowed to local custom? Ridiculous.

Just like the current Republican noise machine.

-- Love, Generik

Monday, April 02, 2007

Ronday Mandom Blickr Flogging

Cousin Itt, the early years.
The Buddhist Monk Ballet was an impressive dance piece, sure, but for obvious reasons, it wasn't performed very often.
Cuttin', scratchin' and blurrin' are aspects of my game.
For some reason Laura could always network better than anyone else at the office.

(Original images, #5633, posted here, here, here and here. Random Flickr Blogging explained here.)

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Come Suck The Light

It's April Fool's Day, and in San Francisco, that means only one thing: It's time for the St. Stupid's Day parade! Since 1979, various members of the San Francisco Mime Troupe and their friends and supporters have been gathering to celebrate the single holy day of the First Church of the Last Laugh. St. Stupid is known for saying, "If it's true, it's funny," and "I know, I know, but you know, you never know." I've participated in about four or five of these gatherings over the years, and this year's parade was blessed with good weather and lots of color, fun and music. We gathered at the base of the Transamerica Pyramid at noon, then marched up Columbus Street to Washington Square, where a stage was set up and musicians and other Stupid devotees performed. Here are just some of the approximately 200 pictures I took.

Getting an unofficial blessing before the parade starts.
If you're going to participate, you should try to get into the spirit of the event. Unfortunately, I didn't have anything appropriate to wear.
Then again, neither did this fellow, who obviously stole his hat from the Transamerica lobby.
Bishop Joey, head of the First Church of the Last Laugh.
Signs like this one and regular chants like "No more chanting! No more chanting!" are de rigeur for the event.
"I'm with Stupid." We could all make that claim today.
Somehow a George W. Bush supporter got mixed up with the crowd.
It takes balls to go out in public looking like this.
Marching up Columbus, after we'd stopped at the Church of Scientology for the traditional cheer: "Gimme an L!" "L!" "Gimme a Ron!" "Ron!" "What's that spell?" "Bullshit!" "What's that spell?" "Bullshit!" "What's that spell?" "Bullshit!"
Some people dress up for the parade, others dress down.
Just one of many colorful couples.
Just one of many colorful... Don Knotts believers.
This woman asked me to take her picture and send it to her via email. I hope she doesn't mind me posting it for my readers to enjoy as well.
Making plans for Easter, obviously.
Appropriate transportation for the day.
A mask made of kitchen utensils? Man, that's stupid!
Dude, what's that dog doing with his head in your dress? Are you stupid, or what?
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