• Connections - Hot Off The Presses

    Very Threatening Cat Cows Canada Post

    Canada Post cowed by very threatening cat | Oddly Enough | Reuters WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) – Canada's postal system has stopped delivering mail to a home in Winnipeg, Manitoba, after a mail carrier was scared away by a "very threatening cat," the Winnipeg Free Press said on Friday. My Seattle-based friend Kevin sent me this, owing to our mutual interest in all things Pythonesque. He imagines Eric Idle in the role of a perky, winsome newsreader describing the ferocious feline as ""8-year-old declawed Shadow loves to cuddle, and wouldn't bat an eye if a bomb went off." 

  • Politics, Schmolitics

    Rahm Emanuel Explains It All To You

    I'm not a big fan of Illinois' Congressional wunderkind Rahm Emanuel, because he operates too much like a "political machine" guy – he kind of held on to the purse-strings during the last election and a lot of deserving grassroots candidates had to scramble for campaign funds because they weren't "insiders" or sexy enough to pique Emanuel's interest. Be that as it may, he recently did a rundown of all the highlights in the scandals, schenanigans, and criminal acts that have come to light that have plagued the Bush Administration. The full text is at www.TomPaine.com.  It's a quite a…

  • Photos and Shutterblogs - Random Access Memories

    Random Thumbnail Stories

    I'll try something from time to time here – when one of the random thumbnails catches my eye, I'll tell the story behind it. This was taken on a May trip to Washington State a few years back. David and I flew out for Folk Life and then took off on a big loop around the Olympic Peninsula, the National Park, and down and around the long way, ending up at Mt. Rainier National Park. It was a lot of fun, but the next time we do that, we'll retrace steps rather than circumnavigating the peninsula, it was a very…

  • Hot Off The Presses - Politics, Schmolitics

    Iraq: If You Rebuild It, It Will Be A Big Fat Waste of Money

    Rebuilt Iraq Projects Found Crumbling – New York Times In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle. Good GOD, when will the horrific, politically embarassing scandals cease coming down the pike? January, 2008 can't come too fast for this country (or this Administration).  

  • Politics, Schmolitics

    Durbin Drops The Big One

    Crooks and Liars » Sen. Durbin Drops Bombshells on the Senate Floor Sworn to secrecy as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL knew the American public was being fed lies in the run-up to the Iraq war, because he was hearing the true secret evidence in a room not far from the Senate chamber, and had to sit and listen to debates in the Senate that he knew were shored up by lies, damn lies, and statistics. And he couldn't say a word about what he knew, and was mighty angry about that. He's coming…