COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Time to Buy a Real Hat


From the Telegraph ...more men should wear proper hats with pride, including trilbies, pork pie hats, bowlers, flat caps and fedoras. British men might once have had famously stiff upper lips, but they spoke using their hats: they doffed them, tipped them, and threw them high in the air to indicate happiness. When respectable hats fell from fashion, our men were cruelly deprived of a dignified public language, and condemned to the folly of the American baseball cap, which can make middle-aged men look silly Ironically, it is the popularity of Don Draper, the trilby-wearing character from the American series Mad Men, that may help to re-establish the quality hat in the UK. Modern men are often naturally drawn to hats, but fearful of ridicule. Take the plunge, and you won’t look back.

123 comments:

  1. Oh, please, allow me:

    My paternal grandfather wore a fedora every time he went into town. Very snappy dresser. He smelled good, too.

    He was a pedophile.

    S'okay. He's dead now.



    By all means, bring back The Hat. We'll all still be a bunch of fucked-up, goofy idjits. In hats.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was laying in bed thinking of Bob's insistence that death is a freeing of the mind.

    It occurred to me that if Bob's mind gets any freer, it'll simply be gone.

    (Which is maybe what Bob wants.)




    Yeah, I was laughing out loud to myself.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Guess the question boils down to the meaning of "real", when it comes to hats.

    There's the ever present ball cap hat. My current favorite is a Margaritaville cap I got for my birthday, a couple years ago.

    As for hats, felt Stetsons are nice, got one of those, while my current straw is a Mexican made hat, with a Montana crease.

    Just $15 at the Park and Swap down at the dog track, which has turned into kind of a open air Mexican market. That Jerry Jacobs, always follows the money.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love hats.

    It's a shame I'm the only family member that doesn't look good wearing them.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Remind me not to buy a fedora or a trsih would have it, a pedora.

    ReplyDelete
  6. It’s a measure of how rapidly our economic order has shifted that nearly a quarter of the 400 wealthiest people in America on this year’s Forbes list make their fortunes from financial services, more than three times as many as in the first Forbes 400 in 1982. Many of America’s best young minds now invent derivatives, not Disneylands, because that’s where the action has been, and still is, two years after the crash. In 2010, our system incentivizes high-stakes gambling — “this business of securitizing things that didn’t even exist in the first place,” as Calvin Trillin memorably wrote last year — rather than the rebooting and rebuilding of America.

    Who Killed the Disneyland Dream?

    Is Jerry Jacobs even on the Forbes 400, these days?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Washington Post -

    AP KARACHI, Pakistan -- A key party in Pakistan's ruling coalition said it would quit the cabinet on Tuesday, threatening the stability of the country's already shaky US-allied government.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Seems like Mr Jacobs has dropped a tad, in the Forbes Billionaire Club.

    #746 - Jeremy Jacobs Sr
    Age: 66
    Fortune: inherited and growing
    Source: Sports concessions

    ReplyDelete
  9. I had a dream about a hat.

    Which country's military has tan hats with red trim and black brim?

    It was scary.




    Well, Melody, that's one thing we have in common.

    Except I'm not the only one in my family who doesn't look good in a hat.





    Get a fedora if you want. Don't let one deceased sociopath stand in your way.

    Colleague of my husband's in Belgium wore one. Fedora and trench coat.

    On the one hand: G-Man straight out of central casting.

    On the other, the nice, odd touch.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Financial Times -

    Iran has hanged a man accused of spying for Israel and another for his membership of an armed opposition group amid mounting measures to suppress links between the regime's opponents and foreign governments.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Muslim Group Claims Attacks on Two Nigerian Cities - Bloomberg

    No mention of suicide in any of the pieces I've read, concerning Nigeria and the violence, there.

    A lot of tit for tat, though.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Mel, you are a bad girl.

    I'v got bad news for you secular history revisionists. Baseball hats are a direct result of this country's Judaeo-Christian heritage. That's right. They're yarmulkes with a eye shade sewn on the front.

    It's a well known historical fact. (Google for yourselves)

    So, put that in your turban and smoke it.

    Hope one and all had a Merry Christmas with friends and family.
    ----------------------------------

    BTW - I heard a nice BBC report from a Correspondent who was being repatriated after three years duty here in the good 'ol USA. His final reflections on our fair country; "An extraordinary country and an extraordinary people."

    That's nice.

    I like to think we're exceptional.

    ReplyDelete
  13. It's 19 degrees this frosty morn. Everything is adorned in frost and ice.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hat creepiness: Thirty or forty middle-aged men in ponchos and bowlers lined up like birds on a wire around the town square in Trunja.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I see that avatar.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Those two aren't playing football, are they? ;)

    ReplyDelete
  17. Let me throw a bone to the rat:
    Obama leads the admired-man ranks

    President tops list for 3rd consecutive year

    By Susan Page USA TODAY WASHINGTON — His party may have suffered a shellacking in November’s elections, but President Obama remains the unchal­lenged champion on another front: For the third year in a row, he is by far the most admired man.

    ReplyDelete
  18. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  19. Yesterday, we learned that is so cold because of the Siberian snowfall. Today we learn something else:

    By Doyle Rice, USA TODAY
    Teeth-chattering, bitterly cold winds have swept across the eastern half of the USA this month, sending December temperatures to near-record cold levels all the way from Minneapolis to Miami.
    Blame it mainly on the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and its close cousin, the Arctic oscillation (AO). These large-scale climate patterns in the atmosphere over the Arctic and north Atlantic Ocean strongly affect winter weather


    The whole earth is called an eco system. A series of intricately connected systems which together foster life as we know it.

    Don't tell me it's random and happenstance.

    ReplyDelete
  20. A little too contrived, Melody.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Got to be going, but as for as Obama goes ...

    So goes the Nation.

    You've been full of pessimism, lately, whit. With little cause for it.

    The US still enjoys its' 25% share of global GDP. We've lost no share to the Chinese, let alone those Europeons.

    The US Dollar is still the Reserve Currency of the Whirled, with no challengers in sight.

    The Boners are staying the course.

    Celebration is encouraged.

    ReplyDelete
  22. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  23. hmmm, interesting reading here at the bar. Here I sit in Hilton Head after a couple of days of Winter driving surfing the web to book some rounds of golf for me and my family and I get sucked into some threads at the bar.

    a few comments:

    allen- re. Palestinians and ethnic cleansing - ummmm, 2 wrongs don't make a right so why keep harping on others wrongs to justify your teams actions?

    deuce - no I've suffered more wrongs and hardships than you, than everyone...

    ...on second thought there is a lot of shit that can happen to a person - can you imagine if you were born in Gaza for example? On second thought though I've got the short end of the stick more than once I'm ok.

    trish,

    my, my, what to say, especially here in a thread on a blog...

    ...often we are architects of our own destruction especially in the realm of romance. Long distance relationships are prime candidates for sad endings given the propensity to project what one wants on the absent. Also, folk often don't change much.

    Death of a loved one is tough nut to handle. Makes romantic pain seems trivial in comparison though it isn't. All is relative.

    The world is your oyster - whadday wanna do!??

    The sun is shining here and the temperature is trending up. Time to roust the kids and go out and play.






    oh, ya, dreams - no tie in to mystical truths from the outside but simply a layer, one of many, of consciousness reflecting what you are thinking.

    ReplyDelete
  24. please excuse the typos but I'm sure you all can project what you think I thought I meant.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Sorry to disappoint you Trish but it's the truth. I don't fabricate anything.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Ash, what the fuck are you going on about?

    ReplyDelete
  27. Well not much of anything.

    I woke up dreaming of skinny dipping with my sis at Lake Coeur d'Alene, on a warm night, as God is my witness.

    It's obviously the result of the Big Mac attack yesterday.

    I liked my Glacier Park hat, but left it in Boise, alas.

    ReplyDelete
  28. I guess I'm just projecting on what I imagine you are going on about. What the heck are you going on about?

    ReplyDelete
  29. ...as in, what has you so melancholy these days?

    ReplyDelete
  30. "I woke up dreaming of..."

    As God is my witness, that's some disturbing shit.

    So was your suggestion that I go skinny dipping with my family at Deep Creek.

    So was some revolting mention by you of your "daughter" awhile back.

    So was (I recalled it last night for some reason) your assertion years ago here that "getting smacked around a little makes you feel alive."

    I mean. Bob. How much more disturbed can it get?

    ReplyDelete
  31. "...as in, what has you so melancholy these days?"

    I was born that way.

    Or it's that time of the month.

    Take yer pick.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Ash is on crack this morning and is wearing a baseball cap on backwards.



    You're right but I was taught that the root is life's energy, passion, strength for living

    I had this deep thought fore going to sleep.

    My chakra one is your chakra one. You are describing it in its potential, I'm describing it as unrealized, asleep.

    Lady kundalini lies there at the root, asleep, waiting a little tickling, but what you describe is what she is when she arises.

    If that makes any sense.

    ReplyDelete
  33. you've certainly left the impression that your relatively recent mood is a function of more than being born that way or that time of the month. I assumed you weren't too happy that your husband has chosen to be shipped overseas again.

    ReplyDelete
  34. "I assumed you weren't too happy that your husband has chosen to be shipped overseas again."

    How do you know he's chosen to be shipped overseas again?

    ReplyDelete
  35. So was (I recalled it last night for some reason) your assertion years ago here that "getting smacked around a little makes you feel alive."

    I testify it doesn't.

    I don't recall that one, but
    skinny dipping with your older sorority sis on a warm summer's night with beautiful stars, even the northern lights, well, you'd have to be nuts not to enjoy that. She was a kick to be with. All quite innocent.

    In fact, not skinny dipping with your sis under such circumstances is what should be thought odd.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Boycott the bowls. Stand up for a playoff system.

    Eat mor chikin.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Busch Lied…
    Model/Girlfriend Died


    HUNTLEIGH, Mo (AP) — Authorities were investigating the death of a 27-year-old woman whose body was found earlier this week at the suburban St. Louis home of former Anheuser-Busch CEO August Busch IV.

    Police and the St. Louis County medical examiner’s office on Thursday identified the victim as Adrienne N. Martin of St. Charles. An autopsy has been conducted but results could take four to six weeks.

    Police were called Sunday afternoon to the home in the St. Louis suburb of Huntleigh and found Martin’s body. St. Louis County forensic administrator Suzanne McCune said there were no signs of trauma or illness.

    ---
    The Post-Dispatch reported that Busch and his wife of 2 ½ years divorced in 2009.

    In 1983, Busch, then a 20-year-old University of Arizona student, left a bar with a 22-year-old woman.

    His black Corvette crashed and the woman, Michele Frederick, was killed.

    Busch was found hours later at his home. He suffered a fractured skull and claimed he had amnesia.

    After a seven-month investigation, authorities declined to press criminal charges, citing a lack of evidence.

    ReplyDelete
  38. I can't stand people who wear baseball caps on backwards.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Luckily, Busch has the always union friendly
    "justice department"
    on his side.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Wife and I were talking about that one last night, Doug.

    He's probably an asshole, but on this one the former husband said she had heart arhythmia - she may have just died.

    ReplyDelete
  41. It was hang 'em high Doug who wanted to crucify poor old Paris Hilton for walking out of jail when the sheriff opened the door for her.

    Don't have Doug on your jury.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Right, Bob:

    I wear mine with the bill pointing @ 270 degrees.

    ReplyDelete
  43. "He's probably an asshole, but on this one the former husband said she had heart arhythmia - she may have just died."

    The woman in the Corvette suffered a heart attack?

    ReplyDelete
  44. You know, I don't think I ever got the chance to run a We Know All/Dossier approach in the booth. Or I just never chose it.

    I was mostly about your basic Incentive approach.



    I resigned myself years ago (and it took many years, and one illuminating comment by my mother, to reach that benign resignation) to the fact that my husband loves deploying.

    Makes him a happy camper. Also perhaps something of a stereotype, I dunno.

    It's where he wants to be.

    People oughta be, generally, where they wanna be.

    ReplyDelete
  45. I really do not recall the Hilton incident:

    Could you flesh that out?

    ReplyDelete
  46. Nine to face trial over Christmas bomb plot
    Names: Gurukanth Desai, Omar Sharif Latif, Abdul Malik Miah, Mohammed Moksudur Rahman Chowdhury, Shah Mohammed Lutfar Rahman, Nazam Hussain, Usman Khan, Mohibur Rahman, and Abul Bosher Mohammed Shahjahan,
    Not a Kelly or a Sam…Hmm…profiling…

    ReplyDelete
  47. "People oughta be, generally, where they wanna be."

    Maybe combat is a safe zone,
    ...comparatively speaking?

    ReplyDelete
  48. I suppose you do not know about Timothy McVeigh, Allen?

    ReplyDelete
  49. Contrived may not be the right word but maybe inappropriate is. I should take it away.

    ReplyDelete
  50. "Maybe combat is a safe zone,
    ...comparatively speaking?"

    I think it's a happy zone, comparatively speaking.

    ReplyDelete
  51. "I woke up dreaming of skinny dipping with my sis at Lake Coeur d'Alene, on a warm night, as God is my witness."

    trish said...

    "I woke up dreaming of..."

    As God is my witness, that's some disturbing shit.

    So was your suggestion that I go skinny dipping with my family at Deep Creek.

    So was some revolting mention by you of your "daughter" awhile back.

    So was (I recalled it last night for some reason) your assertion years ago here that "getting smacked around a little makes you feel alive."

    I mean. Bob. How much more disturbed can it get?


    WTF?

    ReplyDelete
  52. OOOOO
    The mooooon is high
    And soooooo am I
    The stars are oooouuuttt
    And sooooo will I beeeeee
    P R E T T Y SOOOOOOOON!!!!!



    Old sorority drinking song sis used to sing while we were in the skinny....


    Trish, we need an irony emoticon here. A good half of what I say is ass backwards to what I really mean.

    If you took me at my literal word, you might get the idea I really can't stand Quirk, for instance.

    We are off to the Casino and the breakfast special, and the free Wampum money.

    Later

    ReplyDelete
  53. ...should have lurked with Trish so I'd know the dirty details and background.

    damn

    ReplyDelete
  54. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  55. Paris was in the hooscow for something or other, serving 10 days or something, and the sheriff let her out on his own say so.

    I recall you thought it was terrible she took advantage of the sheriff's offer and walked.

    It was long ago.

    And I gotta go.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Literalville
    vs
    Bob's vile ville

    ReplyDelete
  57. "Trish, we need an irony emoticon here."

    No, we need something far more than an irony emoticon.

    A priest, maybe.

    Or a South Hills Presbyterian minister.

    ReplyDelete
  58. People oughta be, generally, where they wanna be.

    No matter where you are, there you are.

    I feel more like I do now, than I did a while ago.

    Gems one and all!

    ReplyDelete
  59. Ash, what the fuck are you going on about?

    That one made me blow coffee thru my nose.

    ReplyDelete
  60. "Gems one and all!"

    Grumpy, Gag?

    The man has wanted for some time to go back to Asscrackistan. The man's going to Asscrackistan. I said, "That's good news."

    And I meant it.

    ReplyDelete
  61. No ma'am, I ain't grumpy. After all, tis the Holiday Season!

    ReplyDelete
  62. People oughta mean what they say.

    ReplyDelete
  63. "No ma'am, I ain't grumpy."

    Well, then. You'll pardon my projection.

    ReplyDelete
  64. One of the worst questions to ask a woman:
    "What's wrong?"

    ReplyDelete
  65. Doug said...
    I suppose you do not know about Timothy McVeigh, Allen?

    Tue Dec 28, 10:47:00 AM EST



    Doug,

    I will be satisfied with imperfection. If we only can catch 99.5% of the bad guys through profiling, I will lose no sleep.

    ReplyDelete
  66. No shit Sherlock, We have been posting that for 5 years, always the same, it will take them decades...

    financial times

    A new Chinese anti-ship missile that will significantly alter the balance of military power in the Pacific is now operational, according to a senior US commander.

    Admiral Robert Willard, the top US commander in the Pacific, said the Chinese ballistic missile, which is designed to threaten US aircraft carriers in the region, had reached “initial operational capability”.

    His remarks signal that China is challenging the US ability to project military power in Asia much sooner than many had expected.

    The US and other countries in the Pacific region are increasingly concerned at the speed with which China is developing its naval power.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Re: carrier killing missile

    Just two weeks ago, we were assured by one of the walking, talking Christmas trees at DoD that the Chinese were probably a decade away from significant deployment of the system...Right...Doubtless, "Dave" Petraeus can find a link between this and the Israeli conflicts.

    ReplyDelete
  68. Marine Corps Rules:

    1. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.
    2. Decide to be aggressive enough, quickly enough.
    3. Have a plan.
    4. Have a back-up plan, because the first one probably won't work.
    5. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
    6. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun whose caliber does not start with a '4.'
    7. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive.
    8. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend.

    (Lateral & diagonal preferred.)
    9. Use cover or concealment as much as possible.
    10... Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.
    11... Always cheat; always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.
    12... In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.
    13... If you are not shooting, you should be communicating your intention to shoot.

    ReplyDelete
  69. Navy SEAL's Rules:

    1. Look very cool in sunglasses.
    2. Kill every living thing within view.
    3. Adjust Speedo.
    4. Check hair in mirror.

    ReplyDelete
  70. US Army Rangers Rules:

    1. Walk in 50 miles wearing 75 pound rucksack while starving.
    2. Locate individuals requiring killing.
    3. Request permission via radio from 'Higher' to perform killing.
    4. Curse bitterly when mission is aborted.
    5. Walk out 50 miles wearing a 75 pound rucksack while starving.

    ReplyDelete
  71. Thinking of the EB on the Holidays:

    http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/adaccess.T3077/pg.1/


    Very, very funny, Anon.

    ReplyDelete
  72. US Air Force Rules:

    1. Have a cocktail.
    2. Adjust temperature on air-conditioner.
    3. See what's on HBO.
    4. Ask 'What is a gunfight?'
    5. Request more funding from Congress with a 'killer' Power Point presentation.
    6. Wine & dine ''key' Congressmen, invite DOD & defense industry executives.
    7. Receive funding, set up new command and assemble assets.
    8. Declare the assets 'strategic' and never deploy them operationally.
    9. Hurry to make 13:45 tee-time.
    10. Make sure the base is as far as possible from the conflict but close enough to have tax exemption.

    US Navy Rules:

    1. Go to Sea.
    2. Drink Coffee.
    3. Deploy Marines
    And the next... (You've got to love the military, and God bless them all.)

    ReplyDelete
  73. U.S. Navy Directive 16134 ( Inappropriate T-Shirts )

    The following directive was issued by the commanding officer of all naval installations in the Middle East .

    (It was obviously directed at the Marines.)

    To: All Commands

    Subject: Inappropriate T-Shirts

    Ref: ComMidEast For Inst 16134//24 K

    All commanders promulgate upon receipt. The following T-shirts are no longer to be worn on or off base by any military or civilian personnel serving in the Middle East :

    1. 'Eat Pork or Die'

    [both English and Arabic versions]

    2. 'Shrine Busters'

    [Various. Show burning minarets or bomb/artillery shells impacting Islamic shrines. Some with unit logos.]

    3. 'Goat - it isn't just for breakfast any more.'

    [Both English and Arabic versions]

    4. 'The road to Paradise begins with me.'

    [Mostly Arabic versions, but some in English. Some show sniper scope cross-hairs.]
    5. 'Guns don't kill people.

    I kill people.'
    [Both Arabic and English versions]
    6. 'Pork. The other white meat.'
    [Arabic version]

    7. 'Infidel'

    [English, Arabic and other coalition force languages.]

    The above T-shirts are to be removed from Post Exchanges upon receipt of this directive.

    In addition, the following signs are to be removed upon receipt of this message:

    1.. 'Islamic Religious Services Will Be Held at the Firing Range at 0800 Daily.'
    2.. 'Do we really need 'smart bombs' to drop on these dumb bastards?'
    All commands are instructed to implement sensitivity training upon receipt.

    ReplyDelete
  74. A carload of arsenic?

    For the rest of us or yourself?

    ReplyDelete
  75. Yeah, I've debated that.

    But arsenic is, I think I've heard, a bad way to go.

    Arsenic for thee but not for me.

    ReplyDelete
  76. Ladies first, my dear.

    ReplyDelete
  77. No thanks.

    I'm sticking around to prove a point.

    Which I will conveniently discover after I've actually done it.

    ReplyDelete
  78. Anon,

    4. 'The road to Paradise begins with me.'

    [Mostly Arabic versions, but some in English. Some show sniper scope cross-hairs.]
    5. 'Guns don't kill people.

    I kill people.'
    [Both Arabic and English versions]


    Bless you! :-D)))))

    ReplyDelete
  79. Kinda trite wrt the Air Force.

    Or so I've heard.

    Guess you had to be there.

    ReplyDelete
  80. What’s the matter with experts today?

    "Prices have already adjusted, and are probably undervalued in most cities," said Newport. "This will make them even more undervalued."


    WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    The value (price) of anything is that amount which a buyer is ready, willing and able to pay.

    ReplyDelete
  81. Name a USAF base without a golf club and course................

    A USAF base may not have a shooting range or rangemaster, but a golf-pro can always be found near the bar.

    ReplyDelete
  82. Air support. Air support. Air support.

    And they will stay on station for fucking ever to deliver that.

    Years ago. On the border.


    There is a flip side.

    "Hi. My name is Bill. Glad to meet you."

    Colonel Bill.


    Also ironically there is the lack of trust in you, wretched peon, being able to carry out anything by dint of your own common sense and experience.

    Arriving late one night at an AF mess hall:

    "I'm sorry, sir. I haven't been checked out on the ham and cheese."

    ReplyDelete
  83. We fought the gambling machines to dead even, then went to the library, where I picked up "UFO's: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On The Record" by Leslie Kean, for Stella B. Starlight.

    The pregnant fact that gives this book some credibility is that it does not reference Art Bell even once. Art Bell does not know.

    A great entertainer, both my wife and I voted for him on the on line poll for Radio Hall of Fame.


    But since this tread is about hats, I mention that one of the pictures of a UFO looks exactly like my good aunt's gardening hat, which was perfectly round, very broad, and rose to a really neat point on top, and had a kinda Chinese look to it. I often remember her with fondness wearing that gardening hat.

    ReplyDelete
  84. Which led later to an Army/Air Force confrontation regarding "being checked out on a stapler."

    Cathartic.

    But I digress.

    The AF serves its purpose.

    ReplyDelete
  85. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  86. Also got; "The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time" - by Judith Shulevitz, which had a good look to it, and from what I've read so far, is very good.

    ReplyDelete
  87. Re: Colonel Bill

    "Just call me 'Boots'".

    "Just call me 'Cory'".


    Meanwhile 38,000 feet below is Senior Airman Kathy, guarding Taliban prisoners after passing the crueling 72 hour USAF "Ranger" course. She is pretty sure the gasmask is "crap" and the "gun" can fire fast.

    ReplyDelete
  88. The Obama Supreme Court

    Even After Shellacking, Obama Looks OK in 2012


    A Wise Latina for Chief Justice?
    ...with an all-time low IQ

    ReplyDelete
  89. Allen:
    Perhaps we could discourage Islamoterrorists by treating them like McVeigh.
    Couldn't hurt.

    ReplyDelete
  90. Ash: ...on second thought there is a lot of shit that can happen to a person - can you imagine if you were born in Gaza for example?


    Have you thought what if you were born in" Nambia? Nigeria? Libya? Jordan? North Korea? Yemen? Sudan? Rhodesia? Tunisia? Russia? China? Vietnam? Somolia? and about 50 other examples come to mind...

    Gaza is a shit hole because GAZANs CHOOSE to make it a shit hole...

    ReplyDelete
  91. This Is So ME


    My Glacier National Park hat looked a lot like that, without the pheasant feather banding.

    "That's so you" the lady said, and talked me into it at twice what it was worth.


    I'm obviously a sucker for shameless flattery.

    ReplyDelete
  92. .

    This Is So ME

    It is so you, Bobbo.

    Also, so 'Sound of Music" ish.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  93. Put a few Royal Coachmen on the brim, you got a fly fisherman's hat, Quirk, and that is so me.


    You could also shoot pheasants and grouse in that hat, and wear it to church too.

    It's not a hat for people that fool around with horoscopes, that much is certain.

    And yes, you could go dancing in it.

    It's called multiple-use.

    ReplyDelete
  94. Hold on to your hats, but this UFO book is really good. You ever hear of the Belgium wave? The incident at O'Hare? Giant UFOs over the English Channel? The disappearance of poor Valentich, never ever heard from again? And many many others, from South America to ... all over the world.

    The incident from the suburbs of Detroit?

    We are facing an extreme challenge, and we need to confront the U.S. Government, and now.


    Vote Republican, we might blow this whole thing wide open.

    Sarah would get to the bottom of it.

    And tell us the truth, finally!!

    ReplyDelete
  95. According to my author Kean, if there are any alien civilization out there within 100 light years, the Square Kilometer Array, due to be completed in 2024, ought to be able to pick 'em up.

    That's it for the UFO book.

    ReplyDelete
  96. Retired school teacher Sally Davies said the sphere shot across the sky at "phenomenal speed", trailing fire, on January 3, 2009.

    ...

    Her neighbour, Maria Morris, who lives directly across the road and has a full view of the eucalyptus tree, corrobortaed the sighting.

    ...

    Ms Morris said she had not discussed the incident with Ms Davies before being interviewed by the Times-Age about the event.


    Lit Dannevirke

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  97. Most of the fellers in my book, Sam, were triangular craft, very manuverable like yours, but also having huge spotlights, and the ability to send out some kind of red ball, and zip it back in.

    Seem to have been of the peaceful sort mostly, except for poor Valentich, who was never ever heard from again.

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  98. Sooundless, they seem related to the craft Art Bell swears floated over his home in Pahrumps, Nevada, so low he could almost jump up and touch it.

    Nye County, famous for its whorehouse. (not the reason I was there)


    Good ol' Pahrumps, I liked it there. West of Vegas, up over the ridge.

    I wasn't blessed with a sighting however.

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  99. My wife's book is telling us how the Cheyenne made a serious proposal to a drunk President Grant to trade 500 trained ponies and 500 wild ponies for 1,000 breeding white women so they could genetically ingratiate themselves into our tribe, their children to become full members of our tribe.

    These days, everyone want to be Native America so as to get in on the casino money.




    I bet there's lots of UFOs go unreported in Australia, being so large, and unpopulated.

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  100. How was your get away, Sam?

    I hope it was fabulous.

    Gotta go….

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  101. Yeah, had a great time, Mel. Thanks.

    Caught the biggest squid I've ever caught.

    Had a couple of real good kayak days.

    Weather was real good the first day then the wind picked up the rest of the time.

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  102. Don't get abducted Sam but if you do take the laptop and report back periodically.

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  103. Will do, Bob.

    I'll let you know if I see Uranus.

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  104. "Gaza is a shit hole because GAZANs CHOOSE to make it a shit hole..."

    How many times do I have to tell you? It's "GAZILLIONS."

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  105. The Talmud asks, What if a person is traveling in the desert and forgets which day is Shabbat and there's no one around to tell him? The answer takes the form of a dispute, as do all answers in the Talmud. One rabbi says the man should count six days from the day he first realizes he doesn't know what day it is, then keep the seventh as the Shabbat. Another rabbi says no, he should keep the Shabbat on the very next day, then count six more before he keeps it again. Missing from this bizarrely numerical discussion is any acknowledgement of the desperation of anyone in this situation. How lost do you have to be to forget what day it is?

    When I first read this passage I immediately thought of the aviator in Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince, a beloved book of my childhood. Can the ancient travelor be as isolated as a man who has crashed in the middle of the Sahara, "a thousand miles from any inhabited territory", not to mention from food and water, a man who may or may not be hallucinating when he encounters a little boy in a swallow-tailed coat who has himself fallen from the too-bright sky?

    con't

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  106. The rabbis, I like to believe, were sufficiently acquainted with exile that they could imagine feeling as cut off as the aviator, and in their wisdom they understood that all you have left in those circumstances is fantasy. For what they ask you to do, when you have lost the world, is make one up. Another rabbi asks, How are we to understand the rabbi who says count six then keep one? He wants us to count as God counted when creating the world. And how are we to understand the second rabbi, the one who says to keep the Sabbath then count six more days? We are to count the way Adam counted. He was created on the sixth day, and God rested on the seventh, so the first thing Adam did was rest.

    The question underlying the dispute is, I think, this: When time has disappeared, and space is a comfortless ripple of white sand, should you imagine yourself inside the skin of the first man or inside the mind of God? The Talmud gives an answer to this question. It is, the mind of God. To save yourself, you recreate the world.


    from The Sabbath World Judith Shulevitz

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  107. Vick fumbles it away. Philly 7 Minn 7


    Chronobiology may be on the verge of proving the week exists in nature, but for the moment the seven day cycle remains a social unit of time--in a way the very first. The week was the first temporal division not tetherred to the sun and moon. It was the first calendrical algorithm, rolling forward into the future according to its own logic and with no regard for the rotations of the astral bodies. "So long as man marked his life only by the cycles of nature," the historian Daniel Boorstin wrote, "he remained a prisoner of nature. If he was to go his own way and fill his world with human novelties, he would have to make his own measure of time."

    Those who love horoscopes, take note.

    But those who love sex, don't give up hope - Ferenczi had another theory - "It is known for religious Jews on Friday night, it is not just eating fish that is obligatory; so is marital love."


    I am learning a lot, this is a good book - "The Sabbath World"

    Ferenczi was a Hungarian back in the time of Freud.

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  108. Sometimes, biblical stories are complex or densely and intricately woven; other times, the storyline seems straightforward, morally unequivocal, simple stuff: right and wrong, good and bad. One such seemingly open and shut case is the killing of Zimri at the hands of Pinchas.

    While pacifists might decry the taking of a life, in this case a moral outrage was spreading in the camp - wanton, orgiastic debauches and idolatry. Zimri, a leader of the tribe of Shimon, publicly takes Kozbi, a willing participant from the daughters of Midian.

    The transgression is flagrant and unmistakable, brazen and unabashed. Pinchas steps in to end the disgrace, to halt the epidemic by means of the sword.


    Anatomy of an Argument

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  109. Is it a sin for Jews to have sex on the Sabbath since sex is work?

    Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
    In Jewish law, sex is not considered shameful, sinful or obscene. Like hunger, thirst or other basic instincts, sexual desire must be controlled and channeled, satisfied at the proper time, place and manner. But when sexual desire is satisfied between a husband and wife at the proper time, out of mutual love and desire, sex is a mitzvah.

    The Talmud explains that it is especially auspicious to make love on Friday nights to join the holiness of sexual relationship to the holiness of Shabbat.



    I call that a good healthy attitude.

    Mat always did say I was kinda Jewish.

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  110. The little lady can't say no, Sam, on Friday night, motel or no motel.

    It's a religious obligation.


    :)



    Vick fumbles it away again.

    Shoulda stuck with the dog fighting.

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  111. wife backing philly lost our bet

    she's one of the few people around that likes Vick

    he's done his time, she says

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    That doesn't mean Machiavelli didn't believe in ethics, morals and scruples.
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    ReplyDelete