email from mom.

on the Deerfield Fair:

Last year I noticed that the floral dept. gave out a lot of ribbons. I think every miniature arrangement got one. Being greedy, I plan to make a tiny bouquet and an arrangement in an unusual container. The flowers have to be real, either live or dried. I never expected to have difficulty obtaining flowers, but I I discovered that all the dried stems of flowers in the craft shops are fake. I haven't found any of those nice dried bunches of flowers and florists don't just sell one of these and one of those. The flowers for a diminutive pitcher will come from our gardens, if they don't all die too soon. Right now, the garden is scroungy looking. My odd container is a horrible styrofoam skull. I cut a hole in it for the flowers and hope to make it look like one of the grateful dead. I would have liked roses but I don't want to spend much on this foolish project. Instead, the head will hold the requisite 3 types of flowers: goldenrod, black-eyed susans and marigolds.

my thoughts on the debate.

1. Mccain's Kennedy love fest was a SHADY move.
2. "This isnt hte beginning of hte end, this crisis, this is the end of the beginning.
----> FEAR mongering. Hate it.
3. Great Society, Great Depression, multiple references here. FUCK McCain, really.
4. References citizens against government waste. Nice, John!
5. Obama is GREAT. Takes McCains misspeaks and responds with solid "I am ______" statements. You win debate school.
6. QUOTE OF THE NIGHT.. John McCain. "It was FESTOONED with Xmas tree ornaments."
7. Obama lied about the Energy Bill. NOTHING good actually comes from it. more here
8. Yay College affordability! Yay Obama!
9. Google for Goverment is a RAD idea.
10. "I'm not liberal, I'm anti wrong-headed Bush policies."
11. McCain: "Only take care of vets and defense" gives more $$ to shitty war and NOT educating youth. DUMB
12. McCain: Nuclear power is not definite answer - may cause OTHER unkown global warming crises.
13. Obama "We have to use our military wisely and we did not use our military wisely in Iraq."
14. McC: "Noble Re-enlisters." Bull. If you're gonna get dragged back anyways, of course youre gonna take the signing bonus. Doesn't mean they want to be there, just means they know they are gonna either way. Who throws away free money? and what Patriotism lies there?
15. I need to find a pic of GOP watch party. AMAZING. [only old codgettes]
16. McC: "We can't ignore those messages of history" good, but is it enough? Not just Taliban, we failed on MANY levels.
17. Wow McCain took FOREVER to drop the Reagan bomb.
18. "Let me just make a point. I've got a bracelet, too." Great point, if your bracelet weren't surrounded by a huge amount of controversy almost from the outset.
19. McCain made a fair statement on Iran, though (maybe?) second Holocaust is a stretch. Is Ahmadinejad a real threat? Is it right to treat him as such?
20. McC: "I'll sit down w/anybody" but only on YOUR terms. Which is stupid. And wrong.
21. Obama got the SHIT out of McCain on the preconditions/Kissinger thing. Riotous.
22. Ob: "No preconditions doesn't mean you just invite them over for tea one day..."
23. Spain quote owns face!
24. S v. N Korea? What does height have to do with anything, McCain?
25. Lehrer, you had a GREAT last question!!!

some thoughts on the crowd: what a bunch of TWITS. Of COURSE McCain is condescending. Maybe even....dare I say it...MEAN. Thats the game, folks. Politics has never been pretty.
Why I still take notes on these things is beyond me, but I leave you with this one final thought:



What McCain IS:
sherrif
maverick
What he is NOT:
Miss Congeniality.

my favorite commercial

It's margaret thatcher on SPEED

Imagine the scene:
You've been raped. You're scared, hurt, alone. Violated. You go to the hospital to embarassingly ask for a test. The only thing that can make this worse is admitting that it happened in such a stark and open environment, and here you are, doing it.
The best part?
It'll cost you.


Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's hometown required women to pay for their own rape examinations while she was mayor, a practice her police chief fought to keep as late as 2000.

Alaska's Legislature in 2000 banned the practice of charging women for rape exam kits -- which experts said could cost up to $1,000.

There are hundreds of ways in which to cut a city budget. Charging women to find out the name of their violator should never be one of them.

OMG! GHOST CATS!!

BLACKSTONE, Va. - Like some other residents of this small town, Mary Elizabeth Goodwyn doesn't go outside after dark much anymore.

Since 2003, the Courier-Record has run at least 15 stories on cougar sightings in town and in the neighboring 41,000-acre Army National Guard training base.

Wildlife officials say that except for a known population of 100 in Florida, the large cats _ also called mountain lions, pumas, panthers and the fitting "ghost cats" _ were wiped out in the eastern United States by 1900. They claim sightings most likely are cases of mistaken identity _ perhaps a bobcat, deer or even a Labrador retriever.

"The sense I get is there are a number of game commission people laughing, and that bothers me a bit because we've got good people here who aren't crazy," said Billy Coleburn, who as editor of the paper wrote most of the stories.

Officials estimate there are as many as 35,000 mountain lions in the West, including in major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. And some are inching eastward.

A cougar kitten was hit by a truck in Kentucky in 1997, one cougar was killed and another captured in West Virginia in 1976 and scientists verified droppings from Massachusetts in 1997.

Earlier this year, police killed a cougar in Chicago that was traced through Wisconsin from South Dakota. Sightings have been confirmed in Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri and down to Arkansas and Louisiana.

Moldy Mattress Nets Inmate $295k

SEPTEMBER 19--A Wisconsin man serving time for reckless homicide yesterday was awarded $295,000 by a federal jury that found the inmate's constitutional rights were violated when he was forced to spend two months sleeping on a moldy, waterlogged mattress. Reggie Townsend, 29, scored the six-figure windfall after a U.S. District Court panel decided that he was improperly treated while locked up in late-2004 at the New Lisbon Correctional Institution. The jury's special verdict can be found below. Following a jail riot, Townsend spent about 60 days in a 12' x 6' segregation unit he shared with another state inmate. During that period, the jury found that Townsend had to sleep on the cell floor atop a thin mattress adjacent to the shower. The mattress, Townsend claimed, soon became "wet, moldy and foul smelling" and was not replaced despite his complaints to jail guards. Though he did not suffer any physical harm from the unsanitary bedding, Townsend was deprived of the "minimal civilized measure of life's necessities," the jury decided after deliberating six hours. While the $295,000 punitive damage award was levied against Jerry Allen, a corrections officer, the State of Wisconsin may end up on the hook for the alleged actions (or inaction) of its employee. Townsend is serving 23 years for his role in a Milwaukee street shootout that left an 11-year-old girl dead. The child was hit by a stray bullet while inside her grandmother's home.

E-mail story to a friend.
Buzz up!

Woman Gets Life For Sex With 5-Year-Old

SANFORD, Fla. -- A Florida woman will spend the rest of her life in prison for having sex with a 5-year-old boy.

A jury in Sanford convicted Kelly Lumadue, 33, for videotaped sex acts with the boy. It was Lumadue's second trial for the crime.

A garbage collector found the sex tapes in the trash and turned them over to police.

When Lumadue took the stand, she said her husband -- who is a professional pornographer -- made her do it.

The victim did not testify during the case. He said he doesn't remember what happened.

Hadron goes Flacid. Paiste cries.

GENEVA, Sept. 20 (WashPost)-- The world's largest atom smasher -- which was launched with great fanfare earlier this month -- has been damaged twice and will be out of commission for at least two months, its operators said Saturday.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, said Saturday that a large amount of helium had leaked into the 17-mile circular tunnel deep under the Swiss-French border that houses the Large Hadron Collider.

The massive collider began operating Sept. 10 to the delight of physicists around the world, flinging protons around the circle at nearly the speed of light. But it had to be shut down only 36 hours later because an electrical transformer failed.

That was repaired, but a CERN statement said a second failure took place midday Friday in the last section of the tunnel to undergo testing at high current, causing the large helium leak.

Spokesman James Gillies said the latest incident was several miles from the earlier damage. It is considered much more time-consuming to repair than the first malfunction.

The $10 billion particle accelerator has been in the design and construction stages for more than two decades. When operating, it fires beams of protons from the nuclei of atoms through the tunnel at near light speed.

It then causes the protons to collide, revealing how the tiniest particles were first created after the Big Bang, which many theorize was the massive explosion that formed the stars, planets and everything else.

Quote of the day in THIS article!

WashPost - Scarless Surgery Uses Body's Own Openings

When Albert Pagliuca got gallstones, his surgeon offered to remove his gallbladder with a new operation designed to hurt less, get him back to work more quickly and leave no visible scars. But there was one catch: Doctors would pull the organ out through his mouth.

"I kept thinking, 'What if it gets stuck in my windpipe?' " said Pagliuca, 45, who lives outside Chicago. " 'What if I choke on it?' "
To read the whole article...
The approach, called NOTES -- for natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery -- seeks to move beyond arthroscopic and laparoscopic techniques, which for many procedures replaced large incisions with several small ones, shortening hospital stays and recovery time, reducing pain and risks, and leaving much smaller scars.

More recently, surgeons realized they could enter the body through natural openings with flexible endoscopes, which are routinely used for diagnostic purposes such as colon cancer screening. After experimenting for years on pigs and human cadavers, a team in India announced in 2005 the first successful procedure in humans.
And the quote....
The technique has been used mostly to remove gallbladders through the mouth or the vagina. But a few patients have had appendectomies, and doctors are experimenting with stomach surgery for obesity and other conditions.

Quota del dia.

Shakespeare's "Timon of Athens" tells another character that given the opportunity, "Thou would'st have . . . melted down thy youth/ In different beds of Lust."

Religious Goons cannot be Firemen.

Jpost- Washington DC Fire Department regulations dictate that you are not allowed to have a beard while on the force.
Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike are banding together to fight this standard.
The DCFD sites saftey reasons as a reason to continue the ban, but god-wingers are arguing that their freedoms are being infringed upon.
And by arguing, I mean six of them are bringing the city to court.
This is hte second time the case will come to court, on an appeal. DC has previously sided with the holy men.

Fire dept. argument is not "let their faces burn," but actually that the beards interfere with airtight oxygen masks.
I say hell, let their faces burn, if thats what they want.

One-Upping Eminem

Police: Son Beats Mom To Death With Crutch
56-Year-Old Man Arrested In Brutal Murder Of 80-Year-Old Mother
QUEENS (CBS) ― Police in Far Rockaway have arrested a 56-year-old man in the brutal murder of his own mother.

Investigators were called to the scene on Seagirt Avenue just after 3 a.m. Friday morning.

They found the victim, an 80-year-old woman, who had apparently been beaten to death with a crutch.

Infinite compulsion

Globe Editorial
The Boston Globe

BOTH in its form and in its content, David Foster Wallace's prose was dense with compulsions. His 1996 novel "Infinite Jest" was more than 1,000 pages long (after being edited down from 1,700). He reveled in endnotes - little snippets and asides and half-jokes that he couldn't bear to part with - and the 1996 novel comes with a thicket of them. The title refers to a film that is so entertaining it more or less burns out the brains of its viewers. The novel's plot unfolds in the shadow of an apparent suicide, and dwells on competition, depression, and, above all, addiction.

Because of his distinct literary mannerisms and knowing references to popular culture, Wallace had a reputation as an arch, often self-indulgent writer. But when Wallace took his own life Friday, the nation lost its most perceptive chronicler of conditions that grip the mind and refuse to let go.

He wasn't just playing around. As a master of irony, he also saw its limits better than anyone. The same writer who dreamed up the "Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment" also fretted, in an interview with Salon magazine, that "arch, meta, ironic, po-mo stuff" cannot be nourishing.

He found comfort in the platitudes of Alcoholics Anonymous. Addiction is "so awful that the only way to deal with it," he said, "is to build a wall at midnight and not look over it. Something as banal and reductive as 'One Day at a Time' enabled [addicts] to walk through hell."

In interviews, Wallace offered few specifics about his own history with drugs and mental illness. But he knew the inside of a psychiatric ward. And in one manner or another, he came to understand - and made his readers understand - the terrible intensity of compulsions mightier than one's own will.

Red Heads Day!

from cs monitor:

Debbie Rijvers from The Netherlands is seen in front of a painting of a young girl with red hair during Redhead Day, in Breda, Netherlands. Organizers said the day was intended to celebrate the relatively rare hair type, found in 1-2 percent of humans globally. The celebration was expected to draw 2,500 redheads from around the world and feature lectures, workshops, and a picnic.

5-year-old golfer makes a hole-in-one

Even though he's just 52 pounds and 49 inches tall, Drew Gray wasn't hard to spot at Yorktown Golf Club last Sunday: He was the golfer celebrating his first hole-in-one -- at age 5.
He did it on the 75-yard sloping No. 5 hole -- a long stretch of green for a Swansea kindergartner.

"I didn't know what it was going to do, then it went in," said Drew, a lefty.

Yorktown owner John Bethard verified the hole-in-one. Drew hit the ball off the red tee, the one closest to the hole, he said.

"It's 75 yards, with the tee slightly above the green. It slopes down to the hole. Then it's relatively flat," Bethard said.

It's a first by someone so young at the course. Plus, Bethard has a bit of bragging rights himself.

"Drew was in our golf camp this summer for 4- to 8-year-olds." His brother, Evan, also took lessons.

Russell Brand makes himself known to the US

The British comedian, who is a virtual unknown in America, left the crème of the music world stunned as he championed Barack Obama, ran down Bush ["retarded cowboy"] and made lewd jokes about the Christian pop band Jonas Brothers[awesome].

Ignoring the renowned patriotism of Americans, Brand told the Hollywood audience they must vote for Barrack Obama “on behalf of the world”, before insinuating that America had lower standards than Britain when it came to picking leaders.
"Some people, I think they're called racists, say America is not ready for a black president.

"But I know America to be a forward thinking country because otherwise why would you have let that retard and cowboy fella be president for eight years?

"We were very impressed. We thought it was nice of you to let him have a go, because, in England, he wouldn't be trusted with a pair of scissors."

Members of the studio audience, including Britney Spears, who was making a much-hyped comeback appearance, and Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus, looked horrified at Brand’s jokes.

The LA Times wrote: “The 2008 VMAs were poised to mark the return of Britney Spears. Instead, they will go down in history as the night when that English guy from Forgetting Sarah Marshall almost made the Jonas Brothers cry.”

Times like these, I am sad I don't still watch MTV.

NY loses landmark, Elaine rejoices.

NEW YORK -- After nearly half a century, Coney Island's beloved Astroland theme park is shutting its doors.
Only the Cyclone roller coaster and the Wonder Wheel, which are considered city landmarks, will remain of the renowned amusement park.

in come the condos!!!

HOLY DR. SUESS, GREEN BEARS!

TOKYO (AP) - Green-colored polar bears are drawing questions from puzzled visitors at a Japanese zoo.
Three normally white polar bears at Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens in central Japan changed their color in July after swimming in a pond with an overgrowth of algae.

The sight of green polar bears has prompted many questions from visitors concerned about whether the animals are sick or carrying mold, zoo official Masami Kurobe said Sunday.

"Visitors seem to be shocked by the color, and we are asked every day why they are so green," he said.

High temperatures in July and August and less-frequent water changes because of the zoo's conservation efforts caused an algae growth in the bear pond and safety moat, Kurobe said.

Algae that enters hollow spaces in the bears' fur is hard to rinse off, he said.

The bears are expected to return to their natural color when the algae growth subsides in November, Kurobe said.

MSNBC admits liberal twist on political reporting.

Jay Severin must be a little wet in his panties over this...
MSNBC is removing Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as the anchors of live political events, bowing to growing criticism that they are too opinionated to be seen as neutral in the heat of the presidential campaign.

David Gregory, the NBC newsman and White House correspondent who also hosts a program on MSNBC, will take over during such events as this fall's presidential and vice presidential debates and election night.

The move, confirmed by spokesmen for both networks, follows increasingly loud complaints about Olbermann's anchor role at the Democratic and Republican conventions. Olbermann and Matthews are both outspoken Obama supporters.

Tom Brokaw's saying that at times Olbermann and Matthews went too far only added fuel to the recent flames. The man is exceedingly upset because of a new addition to the MSNBC line-up, an afternoon news program for Air America host Rachel Maddow.

Republican neo-con and my favorite dentally capped white boy Tucker Carlson was released last year, and Dan Abrams, protege of of Olbermann and fabulous political analyst, was dropped last month to make room for Maddow.

why men cheat

A new study found a "cheating" allele present in both human and vole males. Those men with the cheating allele were more prone to marital dysfunction and more likely to get divorced. Men with two copies of the allele were twice as likely as a man without the allele.

The Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, studied the genetics of cheating. Researchers said the cheating allele regulates the activity of a hormone in the brain that can affect a man's attitudes toward fidelity and monogamy.

If a man lacks the gene variant they're more likely to be a devoted mate, researchers said.

The study of 1,000 hetero couples focused on men because the hormone produced by the gene is known to play a larger role in men's brains than in women's brains.

Kitty Goes on Long Ride.

GILBERT, Ariz. (AP) - A cat survived a 2 1/2-hour trip on a spare tire under her owner's truck. Gil Smith recently drove from his Gilbert home 70 miles away for a business meeting in Kearny. When he got out of the truck, he heard a cat in distress and realized it was his.

Smith said the cat, Bella, was hysterical, shaky and tired, but was smart enough to know not to jump off the tire as the truck was moving.

quote of the day

Joe Lieberman

"I'm here tonight because John McCain is the best choice to bring our country together and lead our country forward. I'm here because John McCain's whole life testifies to a great truth: being a Democrat or a Republican is important. But it is not more important than being an American."