Gore in 2008?

Waitaminit... Global Warming Friday??? Who changed the calendar on us???

I would just like to point out that I wrote this kit MYSELF.

Speaking of PowerPoint envy, just yesterday I got a mailer for an Edward Tufte course being given in Crystal City. I have no idea how I got on this mailing list, but I suspect it's a direct offensive against military staff officers--who, if forced to choose between their laser pointer and their first-born, might be given pause.

I myself abhor PP and never use it, but I'm tempted to shell out the $350 for the course just because Tufte seems like an interesting and cooky guy.

I just can't seem to get past the fact that Gore is a bore, at least in most public personas. Yeah, sure, he probably would have been a decent President. Given the current state of affairs, I could probably qualify. The Dems right now just don't seem to have a real stand-out. Hillary seems to have the edge, but she carries a lot of baggage (granted, not all of it her fault). Biden just doesn't know when to shut up. Feingold? Who? Dean? Old news, and more baggage. If McCain doesn't actually get in bed with the wing nuts, he probably has a good shot.

My son has already designed and created his Warner 2008 bumper sticker.

==

But to move off topic, I want to ask my fellow boodlers something...

How do you share items or ideas that you hear and learn from the boodle? Do you say, "a friend told me..." or "I just read..."? Or do you admit, "I spend all my time on a blog talking with imaginary friends and one of them had a good point yesterday..."

And Mudge... how did you share your glory yesterday? To show the Mudge Kit all around would only be admitting where your talent has been hiding lately. You certainly can't show it off at work, can you?

Just wondering...

Nobody is disputing your authorship, joel (if the real 9:21 boodler is really joel). The mock-kerfuffle of the day is how many other people you are. We want a full list of your aliases that serve as lackeys, fellow-travelers, marionettes, and strawmen. Just how many voices are in your head and how many of them boodle?

Oh yeah.. and I'm really Joel. Those of you at the BPHs can back me up.

Weirdly enough, it never occurs to me to pretend to be anyone else, or to post comments on other blogs that say, "Hey, check out that brilliant Achenbach guy!", or do anything in the category that I believe is known, perhaps coarsely, as blogwhoring. I only post comments under Achenbach, though I think when I posted a couple of comments recently on another blog that was mocking me, I used the handle "Joel Achenbach." I hope that's not too fast and loose.

I think I will ask the Schemer for an explanation for the frenzy of legalese in the new Comments Policy. I am pretty sure that people own their own words even if they post them to someone else's blog.

You know Thomas Pynchon is actually J.D. Salinger. Right? Everyone knows that?

But we should drift on-topic. This would be a good day for that.

TBG, I'm going to look at Warner closely when the time comes.

I remember almost hitting a guy out for a jog one early fall morning in 1992, in my rush from daycare to the office. It was only later that I realized it was Bill Clinton...

TBG, you have questions about colleges in NC?

Since I AP tested out of American History and I don't know the election results like some people know batting averages of left-handed outfielders, I would ask that one of our more historically oriented boodlers research the track record of failed candidates for the Presidency winning in a later election. The last one I know of Nixon.

Delving into Saber-politics a little deeper, what is the election ratio (wins divided by runs) of candidates that have been nominated more than once? My guess is that it is not good.

As far as I know, there is only one case of a sitting president being defeated and then winning again. (I think it was Kraft.)

Lately we seem to be enforcing the one-strike and you're out rule. Nobody has been clammoring for renominating Mondale, Dukakis, or Dole.

*trying to drift on-topic*

*failing*

I really do tell people I read things on the Boodle...

And then they ask me why I'm trying to read a dog.

I need work on my diction, obviously.

slyness... yes... colleges. My son is looking for a small liberal arts college that a smart kid with good SAT scores but a not-so-good HS GPA can get into and succeed. We like to think he's a late bloomer.

I was looking at Queens College in Charlotte? Others nearby you know about? If we come down there can we have a NC BPH?

Sorry Joel.. didn't mean to go off topic. I'll do better.

TBG

Ahhh, what fun. To dream of what migh-have-been and see the world as so much better, if-only. Of course, if Gore had been made president by Supreme Court action, than it's just as likely we would have had a repeat of the Carter years (great person, bad president) or something equally awful.

(Parenthetical aside - Clinton was a bad person, great president. On balance I'd rather have Bill in the office than Bush, Carter OR Gore).

The issue with the democrats (and frankly, why they don't yet deserve to govern) is that they can't get over a loss 6 years old. Every idiot move by the current administration is met with "this wouldn't have happened if Gore had been elected." This kit is just one more example in a long line of such foolishness. Until you people (you know who you are) stop wallowing in self pity and actually come up with a few ideas, maybe a vision or two, you deserve to wander in the wilderness.

In the meantime, run McCain, run.

Well, TR ran again after a one-term break as a third-party candidate on the "Bull Moose" ticket. Can't imagine why he didn't win with a kick-a** party name like that. He didn't win, though.

I always liked Al Gore. (Plus, I am secretly infatuated with Tipper.) I know of many people who would vote for Gore, but would rather have their spleen cut out than vote for Hillary. Besides, people always like a good comeback. (Think Rocky.) Gore is also smart, and I am one of those snobby types who think that the country should be run by really smart people instead of jus' plain folk. Finally, I think Gore can lead. To me leadership isn't about defending an ideology against reality, it is about adapting ideology to reality. Gore can do this. Of course, my nightmare is a vote-splitting third-party run. (Actually my nightmare is a vote-splitting third-party run where I end up unexpectedly naked.) Have we learned nothing from that whole Ralph Nader thing? If anybody should be encouraged to run as a third party, it should be Cheney/Robertson. There's a dream ticket.

TBG, to answer your question, nobody in my "other" life knows I am Curmudgeon, or that I even post on a blog, much less that I was a guest kitter--not my wife, nor kids, nor colleagues. Nobody in my family even goes online very much, and if I said, "By the way, the other day I posted something...blah, blah," they'd just look at me and realize that whatever I was babbling about, it was just another one of my perky peccadilloes. I do have three colleagues (actually former co-workers, not present ones) who I thought about telling, but haven't. No one at all in my present job has any clue.

So it's just you folks.

Somebody asked last night how the kit came about; no big deal. I was working on it for two nights at home, and just e-mailed Joel and said, "Hey, I've got this massive thing, and do you want to use it as a guest kit on a rainy day, or something." And he said, sure, e-mail it in, which I did yesterday morning. So kudos to Joel.

I understood at the time it was somewhat precedent-setting for this blog, but not elsewhere. It was/is my hope that other boodlers--bc, SonofCarl, omni, Tim, Loomis, etc.--might also supply guest kits from time to time. (I originally thought of it during the long "Dark Night of the Boodle Soul," when Joel left us all alone and un-kitted for a week or so. Would have been cool to have a couple of kits in the can. I mean, even Joel's allowed to take a break now and then, right? No? Whaddaya mean, no?

Sorry, Joel. I tried to get you some "me time."

The thing about Al, which the kitsch in me loves, is he's so wooden you almost think there's a drawstring in his back...
Ken ain't got nothing on this guy. Same wardrobe, too.

But he was (& is) the better candidate, the smarter guy, and he should have been Prez. I'll never forgive the Supremes for that. Yes, he's a total nerd, but a mere geek on the subject of the environment. He's living out his own fantasy 'Revenge of the Nerds.'

Bush has 9/11, Global Warming (see, I fit it in...it is Friday, after all), the War in Iraq, tons of scandals and corruption in his administration. By contrast, Al Gore has a pretty cool documentary, a decent amount of respect from the right people and lots of 'I told you so's' in his pocket.

Sounds like he came out on top.

P S Tell me there's hope that the documentary softened Al' wooden edges?

It really angers me that the decision on whom to vote for in a presidential election is predicated on "personality" rather than intelligence and competence. Who would you rather have a beer with seeming to be the deciding factor for some (many?) voters. I would like to have a president who cared more for our country than for money/politics/special interest groups, in other words - a statesman, a patriot. Bush and his lackeys squandered our opportunity after 9/11 to unite the sane world against "terrorists", ignored/discounted the causes of global warming and give lip-service to our oil dependency problem. People, including Ted Kennedy last night on the Daily Show, say that Bush is personable and likeable, I can't see it. To me he is phony, condescending and arrogant (as well as incurious and lazy-minded). I couldn't spend 5 minutes with someone like him without having my head explode. Kennedy did say that we, as a country, step up to a challenge and it's true that we used to. I'm not sure that we still have the discipline to do it. We seem to be too concerned about TomKat's baby, Julia Robert's bad reviews and a bunch of other inane fluff. Al Gore may not have a sparkling personality, but he cares about the country and the world and if he decided to run, I'd vote for him.

We had a president named Kraft? Was that William Howard Kraft? Who ran on the Cheesehead Party ticket?

Mudge and SonofCarl, I must thank you again for making yesterday, which was already a pretty good day, even better. I reread both of your posts last night and found them even more enjoyable the second time. You are very talented people. Mudge, I can't believe not even your wife knows about your 'other life' here. If I had written something as good as that (in my non-naked dreams!), I'd be handing out copies to strangers. Well, not really, but I'd probably be insufferably pleased with myself.

There's something wrong with the current president?

Kraft only managed to win Wisconsin and Vermont, yanno...

Welcome back, BS!

I think I really wanna take a (verbal) poke at Steve-2, who claims to be "tired" of hearing people "wallow in self-pity" over the 2000 election, and who might do better "if only" the Dems offered some proposals or visions of there own.

What I'M tired of, Steve-2, is people like you harping on four-year-old Rovian talking points. Turn the page, dude. Think of something a little fresher yourself. In your world, you seem to expect an entire presidential election fiasco to be "forgotten" by the loosing side, like it was just a mid-season baseball game that hinged on a questionable call. Well, it wasn't, dude. It was a Super Bowl game, and the bad calls got caught in instant replay, and it had BIG FREAKIN' CONSEQUENCES, so excuuuuuuuuuuuussssssseeeee meeeeee if I haven't quite gotten over it. It just isn't every day I have an entire PRESIDENTIAL FREAKIN' ELECTION stolen out from under me, so yeah, I'm still a little testy, if that's OK by you, which apparently it isn't.

Next, Stevorino, I'm a little tired of your other four-year-old talking point, this crap about "if only the Dems had proposals and visions of their own." What a load of crap, Steve. I'm just going to ignore the fact that the Dems have various proposals and visions, and that you're just too locked into your world view to find 'em. Rather, I'm going to concentrate on the naïve and disingenuous notion that it would do any freakin' good whatsoever if the Dems did offer some proposal or other, say on health care, or Social Security reform, or Medicare prescription benefits, or, oh, I dunno, getting the hell out of Iraq. The Dems are not only the minority party, the present political environment is so polarized that any "vision" the Dems happened to propose would simply become GOP target practice. Tell, me, Steve, just try and tell me, that Bush, Cheney and Rove just might say, "You know, the Democrats just came up with an interesting idea on such-and-so, and maybe we ought to try it."

Tell me that'll happen, Steve.

In the meantime, the Dems are exactly right in keeping a low profile, since the GOP has NO intention whatsoever of letting them into the process. And you damn well know it. So try to think of something a little more intelligent to offer.

Bayou, your 10:12 made me snort.

Couple of quick comments between meetings:

1. That thing that Al rode up into the rafters was actually Tipper's drum kit.

2. It is not true that Al Gore wants to be a Real Boy, or that Al used to refer to Bill Clinton as "Gepetto" before That Woman messed everything up. That Blue Dress should in no way be inferred as The Fairy making an appearance. So far, there is no sign of a Blue Fairy for Mr. Gore.

bc

TBG, Queens University was a small Presbyterian girls college that, on the verge of dying, remade itself into a vibrant, excellent liberal arts college - and more. My brother earned his MBA there. Your son should give it a look. Let me know, and we'll definitely do a BPH! Maybe we can corral jack and cassandra to come!

Re Al Gore, I was at a conference a couple of weeks ago, and one of the folks there said Al gave the best speech he ever heard at a Congressional Fire Caucus dinner. That's the fire service's one chance a year to mingle with the national politians, who get to act like they really care. I thought it was interesting that Gore would have scored so high with this person, who is an experienced and savvy guy.

I caught only the last bit of Ted Kennedy on the Daily Show, but what I caught was significant, and is a huge problem in your country and mine. Stewart asked him what the greatest change in his 30 years was, and he answered without hesitation. "Money" He followed that by saying they work from Tuesday to Thursday and the rest of their time seems to be devoted to being re-reclected, and gathering the money to do so.

That is without a doubt the single saddest thing about our political systems. That only 3 days (part time legislating holds true here too) are given to do the job they were sent to do.

Its really quite indefensible you know. Of course who am I talk talk. I am boodling after all. I might forgive them if they spent the rest of the time boodling rather than political fundraising. At least here on the boodle part of our time is spent in pursuit of... well stuff.

TBG, have you looked at St. Mary's College of Maryland, down in Southern Maryland (St. Mary's City)? It always ranks very high in the US News/Business Reports poll, is "far enough away" yet "close enough for Mom," and isn't mind-crushingly exorbitant yet.

(Plus it's got a terrific sailing team.)

tbg - i always say "someone said on this blog that i frequent"... then they look at me funny... but since i'm a professional techie it's more accepted and pretty much everyone i know has a blog so... trying to explain the bph, on the other hand, is quit tricky! i always say that i'm going to a small gathering with some of my friends...

btw - i graduated from highschool with a 2.3 gpa and great sat scores and got into NYU (after a year at marymount manhattan college and great gpa there) so... there's hope! he could turn out like me! oh, wait... hey! stop crying! i take it back already!

Elmo Cincinattus Kraft was the only President to serve three non-consecutive terms and the only successful third-party candidate in US history. He was first elected in 1890 as a Dinocrat and lost the following election to Plutocrat candidate Henry Harrison Higgins who had run on a platform of universal elocution for women.

Kraft regained the Dinocrat nomination in 1902 and defeated Higgins when a scandal involving a young Cockney flower girl serving as an intern erupted.

The end of the Era of Mild Bemusement quickly turned the political mood sour and Kraft was defeated once again by the Plutocrats. They had nominated Spanish-American War hero Bildius Roosebilt. The BildiBear is named after this popular president that served two terms.

Kraft's final presidential term (1911-1915) was for the Cheesewump Party, a single issue coalition determined to get dairy farming off the Muenster standard. A split between the Dinocrats and Plutocrats over tchotchke tarrifs allowed for Kraft to sweep the NearWest and New Wales states.

In order to fight the Really Mild But Still Annoying Crash of '13, Kraft had tried to institute a public works program for unemployed synth-rockers (the Moog having not yet been invented). This policy universally mocked as Kraft-work plummeted his poll ratings into the low-30's and he failed to regain the nomination of the Cheesewumps which had splintered into the Cheddarheads and Feta-natics, leading ultimately to the election of condiment mogul Heinz Gould.

Steve-2, thanks for jumping in. Don't let that Curmudgeon fellow scare you off.

TBG, I take it Wake Forest and Davidson aren't in the stars? Here are some I could think of, right off hand, that would be worth a look/see at the website: Lenior-Rhyne (Hickory), Elon University (Elon), High Point University (High Point), Campbell (Buies Creek), Gardner-Webb (Boiling Springs). If a public college is on the radar, let me suggest Appalachian State (Boone). My elder daughter graduated from there in 2004 and loved it. Their student population is about 10,000, though, if I remember correctly.

And I failed to sign my post of 10:48, thus subjecting it to potential deletion. My bad.

Pssst, Mudge, you forgot to mention that they've *NEVER* *NEVER* *EVER* gotten over Clinton.

Bush is to the Democrats as Clinton is to the Republicans.

Easy on, Curmudge. Those Bushies know not what they do.
(And yes, THAT's the problem).

Let's go back to more pleasant election memories.

I remember the 1992 election party and Gore dancing rather poorly (rather unforgettable).

Somebody quipped "He came from an era where white couldn't dance."

Now this is me, but I'd elect an android for president if it meant things would get done well and we wouldn't be headed towards WWIII with the whole Mideast (and Midwest).

Now, given the opportunity to elect an android with a sense of humor, generally compatible politics, and an apparent heartbeat... sold.

I look forward to hearing "If only I had a Heart" playing at the next election ball.

yellojkt, thanks for the Kraftwerk reference.

Steve-2, Mudge's Bund is wurst than his byte.

bc

When the political mood turned sour, did Kraft curdle?

Oh, arpie, that's so cheezy.

jw - I will be at the May 22 Tufte course. The guy's a genius. Plus, you get a way cool free poster.

My wife is an alumna of Gardner-Webb. It was very small at the time and still had many of the vestiges of Baptist affiliation: Strict co-ed room visitation rules, mandatory convocation, required 6 hours of religion history classes. She got a good education, but never quite fit in culturally.

East Carolina seems to have a good and growing reputation. The great thing about college is that there is someplace for everybody.

TBG,
Give St. Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg, NC a look. Don't pay any attention to the Presbyterian part. My son tried to get into UNCCH, was rejected, went to St. Andrews, graduated, got a masters in history at UNCG and a PhD from Univ of Ill and is now head of the two man history dept at St Andrews. He got a truly wonderful undergraduate education at St. Andrews.

yellojkt, East Carolina is a party school. Nothing wrong with that, mind you...just disclosure here. Of course, it's closer to DC than it is to Charlotte, which may be a decided advantage to TBG. When my kids were deciding on college, their dad and I told them, any state campus in the system would be okay, except East Carolina. It's just sooo far away...so older child went to Appalachian and younger to Chapel Hill.

*punch card*

First, funny points, yello. (Note: immediately going off topic- sorry Joel). I do disagree with the lawyer blog opinion on Walmart, however. Should it come to it, Walmart and any other store would likely convince a court that a door checker is a reasonable safeguard against the millions of dollars lost through theft. For the benefit of the boodle, walking out of private premises and denying the right of employees to confirm that you have only purchases in your bag falls under the ancient latin maxim "carusin fora barusin"

Second, in answer to TBG, I'm all alone out here. After Mudge's kit yesterday I sent an email to a navy reserve friend telling him to check it out and disclosed my nom de blog.

TBG: I'm here...just won't be able to get back to the blog until this evening...this stuff cracks me up. Why is the post-a-commment disclaimer sooooooooo long???:????

A masterpiece of writing...drop what you're doing and get over to the Achenblog to read SonofCarl!!!!!

I've heard Gore speak in person a number of times, along with Kerrey and many others, and my gut feel says he has more ground support for a candidacy than Hillary Clinton does, although she could easily run on a Gore/Clinton ticket as the VP.

I returned from the dead to read this exquisite example of legal writing. I couldn't have put it better myself.

WTF?!?! Who let this furrener use up American 0's and 1's? We'll see about this.

oh, and most of the people who used to support McCain have soured on him in the last few years - acting as Bush's lap dog in destroying America didn't help his candidacy, no matter how many Daily Show appearances he makes.

I forgot to get back to jw and Tufte:

Go to the course if you can, man.

I found it interesting and quite thought-provoking. And, as RD mentions, there's the way cool poster of Minard's famous chart of Napoleon's Russian campaign...

bc

slyness,

That would explain the wedding I went to where the groom's side were all staunch Baptists and the bridesmaids (the bride had gone to ECU) all had great tattoos.

About PPPE...

Having worked a number of years in the presentation graphics biz in Silicon Valley, I can say with some authority that I've seen many a weak and poorly thought-out set of ideas snazzed up by the spiff-polish of bulleted lists and an authoritative-looking sets of fonts. But the sheen of the Hollywood veneer for ideas badly strung together lasts only so long when projected on the big screen.

It's the force of the ideas, coupled with the passion of the presenter, that really dazzles. PowerPoint is like rouge or mascara--it can enhance the overall image, but ultimately does little to hide the beauty--or lack of it--underneath.

I do remember slick multi-media presentations and their exorbitant costs. When I was working for Tymnet McDonnell Douglas, the company did an inservice for our sales folks and bigwigs at Palm Springs. Little did I know that all us in marketing communications would be required to don tuxes and do a dance number up on stage. Little did I know realize when I signed as a writer I would be asked to be a member of "Chorus Line." Did our little truly ridiculous vaudeville shtick really help the sales force sign up more customers for our data packet switching network? I doubt it.

The manager of our group, a tall, stunningly attractive woman, came into her position from the secretarial ranks and didn't know the first thing about data packet switching or nets or tech. She was, like Barbra Streisand always is, impeccably groomed. I wonder how long the ruse lasted--how long did J.S. eventually remain in her post? Like Bush, she put on a great appearance, but was an empty shell as far as generating ideas or being able to speak competently about our company's network business.

Using Hollywood to help to promote an idea, such as global warming, is one thing. Using Hollywood to sell a candidate is another. One need only think of the Republican National Convention in '04 as an example--Arnold Schwarzenegger and his Swiftboating phrase "girly men," used to falsely peddle Bush's machismo and the inherent message that Bush would protect Americans from Saddam Hussein and Iraqi insurgents--from faux, fabricated terrorists. That night, Arnold and his swagger was PowerPoint, more so than Bush can or could ever hope to be. Bush's jet-jockey performance aboard the Abraham Lincoln just didn't close the sale that the muddled mission statement had been accomplished.

The upcoming John McCain and Jerry Falwell Show will smash the Arizona senator's credibility--most likely among all voters except the zealots of faith. What was McCain thinking when he proposed this liaison?

Let the Democratic contest in the next two years be a battle of wits and ideas. Let the person or candidate best able to honestly articulate the country's and globe's serious problems and offer workable solutions emerge as the the '08 contender. Will Gore spring to the fore?

Will in Seattle; That is a brilliant idea. Gore/Clinton. Plus, with a pair of scissors people could recycle their old bumper stickers. Seriously, I think you may be on to something there.

TBG, there's also the University of Mary Washington in Frederiscksburg...

4,000 undergrads AND an '06 Pulitzer winner!

http://www.umw.edu/universityrelations/news/archives/umws_claudia_emerson_wins_.php

No, never attended, just lived in F-burg for awhile.

:-)

'MuJ, Steve-2 appeared to be in provoke mode. Didn't they teach you to take the higher ground in Shop Steward school?

Wilbrod, I think you hit the nail on the head, the Bushies know not what they do. I believe someone spoke recently of Bush's Presidency as a culmintation of Kennedy's vision of the office. Surround yourself with the best and the brightest and trust their counsel. They really do believe they are doing the right thing for the country, and they will protect us from ourselves if need be. The biggest problem the Bush regime has is forgetting "the other side" has some of the best and brightest as well. Any view other than that of the inner circle though is treated as an attack. The middle ground where many a compromise was previously struck no longer exists. Us vs. Them is no way to unite a country.

Amen, LindaLoo! If the Democrats could do that, I'd look forward to the election.

The boodle is sailing along too fast today. WTRG, Cardozo and Scalia all wish to point out their BOO.

*psssttt* SoC - that's BOOO... oops, i'm not supposed to correct anyone but joel, am i?

It's also sad to see that people think McCain is losing ground in his bid for '08. I thought he was rather refreshing in actually speaking his mind as opposed to other candidates just telling people what they want to hear. He really is a good legislator, always looking for the best deal for his constituents while trying to cut the pork out of politics. It's sad to see what the system is doing to the man.

This belongs in the previous boodle, but alas the place has been evacuated.

Um, I hate to quibble but SOS was adopted by German government on April 1, 1905, and became the worldwide standard when it was included in the second International Radiotelegraphic Convention, which was signed on November 3, 1906, and became effective on July 1, 1908.

The Titanic sank in 1912.

Maybe you were thinking of Mayday:

The Mayday callsign was originated in 1923 by Frederick Stanley Mockford (1897-1962) [2]. Whilst senior radio officer at Croydon Airport in London, Mockford was asked to think of a word that would indicate distress and would easily be understood by all pilots and ground staff in an emergency. Since much of the traffic at the time was between Croydon and Le Bourget Airport in Paris, he proposed the word "Mayday" from the French m'aidez.

OK you all can hate me, I know I do.

I need to take a walk:omniqubbler => omniquibbler. Sheesh, seems I can't post at all anymore without SCCs.

Gore was my graduation speaker. I was not impressed. He started off with some warmed-over jokes about losing the presidential election: nothing too dire, but not exactly knee-slapping. Then he started talking about his family's experience with the university hospital. Just when I was starting to get interested (in between batting the beach ball that kept landing on my head away), he tossed out some flimsy segue into...a simplified version of a stump speech on the environment. Not that I have anything against the environment (I'd better not, in case my bosses are reading this), but way to blow the audience rapport. For better or worse, presentation matters.

funny thing is, that was the first time I tried the preview option (I wanted to see what it looked like).

For me, McCain ceased to be a seriously considered candidate when he got in bed with W. I am a lifelong Democrat, but would have voted Republican for McCain had he actually kept the earlier promise of staying true to himself.

grimmace:
couldn't agree with you more. petty partisan polarization (sorry) is no way to run a country. unfortunately, with the primary/caucaus (spelling?) system the way it is, the candidates have to be able to please their own party hardliners in order to get the nomination, and so the probability of a moderate who could truly unite the country getting nominated, much less elected, is quite slim.
i hate to say this, but the thing that i remember the most about Gore's campaign is him making out with Tipper at the convention. i guess he was trying to show the, um, exciting part of his personality.
as much as I am horrified at many, ok, most, of Bush's decisions in the Oval office, I can't really buy the argument that he somehow stole the election. The Supreme Court ruled, and that's the way it happened. Am i glad? heck no. Both sides were playing behind the scenes, and if the S.C. had ruled in favor of Gore, many who are so adament that injustice was done would reconsider. Also, in regards to the popular vote, again, that is not the way that this country has decided to elect its president. As problematic as the electoral college is, it is the system that is in place. So, yes, Gore won the popular vote, but Bush won the Electoral college. unless you are calling for an entire overhaul, that argument doesn't hold water. Not that an overhaul wouldn't be beneficial, i personally think it would. that way, the people really could decide who they want in office. in other words, blame the system, not Bush, for "robbing" Gore of the election.

Actually, I fail to think of one viable Democratic candidate who could appeal to the masses.

I kind of like Barack Obama, John Edwards and interestingly enough Joe Biden announced his bid on Bill Maher's show.

Anyone else? And no, I don't consider Hilary a viable Democratic candidate.

I get frustrated with people who say Gore is dull or stiff. Who cares. I reject the idea that a President, or any politician, is supposed to represent a given individual's concept of the American Ideal. I don't care if the President is the same race, gender, or religion as am I. Heck, I don't care if the President is a nose-picking cross-dressing hermaphrodite with an unhealthy fascination with Star Trek. I just want somebody who is willing to bend ideology to deal with reality and not the other way around.

Interestingly (or maybe not), I voted for Bush the first time, was disillusioned by him and voted for Kerry. Who lost without any help from the Supremes.

One thing I give Bush credit for is that he's identified and articulated real issues, and has taken a position on how to fix them. Now I don't agree with his approach, but at least there is one. Whether or not Bush, Cheney, Rove or the others act on them is irrelevant. Indeed, I would expect them to make fun of anything advanced by the democrats and belittle the heck out of them. The purpose of the democrats articulating a position is to GIVE US A CHOICE. Right now, there is none. Nothing but the aforementioned wallowing.

Here are the issues that I think are important and on which the current Administration has offered a solution. I don't agree with many of their positions. But where's the choice? Lest I be accused of being a position-less democrat ;-), I've offered my solution in parentheses:

1. Nuclear proliferation. (India should not have been rewarded with the treaty that was offered. Their impending shortage of fuel would have been strong motivation to agree to the non-proliferation treaty. Shoulda waited. North Korea has the bomb and has to be negotiated with. Let China, S. Korea and Japan take the lead on this - our interests are aligned with theirs, and they have more credibility. Iran doesn't yet have the bomb and cannot be allowed to create one. Cruise missles are a perfectly acceptable solution.)

2. Social Security. (Increase the age at which full benefits can be obtained. Benefits beyond a refund of previous contribution (i,e, withholding) should be taxable as normal income.)

3. Iraq. (Pull the troops out. Tomorrow. Nothing there worth another american soldier's life.)

4. The Israel/Palestine conflict and the radical islam that it fuels. (OK, I'm stumped on this one. Maybe we can give it to the British, and make them clean up the mess they made.)

Joel, pleased to see your 9:35. I have to say, I'm very hesitant about what I post now.

Because I do a lot of PPT presentations, I'm often asked by people "Can you teach me to do a good powerpoint presentation?" I tell them OK, first lesson--learn how to speak in public, don't read your slides, and make sure you have something worth saying (or if not, make sure you can say it well).

Most scientific meetings have gone entirely to ppt, and the quality of the presentations has dropped noticably, I think. The community college where I teach has tons of courses on powerpoint, but almost none on public speaking.

I missed a sentance in the above. My apologies. Corrected version below

Interestingly (or maybe not), I voted for Bush the first time, was disillusioned by him and voted for Kerry. Who lost without any help from the Supremes.

One thing I give Bush credit for is that he's identified and articulated real issues, and has taken a position on how to fix them. Now I don't agree with his approach, but at least there is one. The opposition (Democrats, Libertarians, Rastafarians, whatever) have a duty to offer alternatives. Whether or not Bush, Cheney, Rove or the others act on them is irrelevant. Indeed, I would expect them to make fun of anything advanced by the democrats and belittle the heck out of them. The purpose of the democrats articulating a position is to GIVE US A CHOICE. Right now, there is none. Nothing but the aforementioned wallowing.

Here are the issues that I think are important and on which the current Administration has offered a solution. I don't agree with many of their positions. But where's the choice? Lest I be accused of being a position-less democrat ;-), I've offered my solution in parentheses:

1. Nuclear proliferation. (India should not have been rewarded with the treaty that was offered. Their impending shortage of fuel would have been strong motivation to agree to the non-proliferation treaty. Shoulda waited. North Korea has the bomb and has to be negotiated with. Let China, S. Korea and Japan take the lead on this - our interests are aligned with theirs, and they have more credibility. Iran doesn't yet have the bomb and cannot be allowed to create one. Cruise missles are a perfectly acceptable solution.)

2. Social Security. (Increase the age at which full benefits can be obtained. Benefits beyond a refund of previous contribution (i,e, withholding) should be taxable as normal income.)

3. Iraq. (Pull the troops out. Tomorrow. Nothing there worth another american soldier's life.)

4. The Israel/Palestine conflict and the radical islam that it fuels. (OK, I'm stumped on this one. Maybe we can give it to the British, and make them clean up the mess they made.)

I always hated "Gravity's Rainbow," and the last chapter of "The World According to Garp," for a different reason...

Mostly because I felt that Irving was trying to finish the book and getting melodramatic...

I'm probably the only one in the world that's ever read "Giles Goatboy," or "Henderson the Rain King."

.

We riffed of Cohen's "valentine" at http://highwayscribery . blogspot . com
April 19. It's called "The Gore Zeitgeist."

omni, you are about 98% correct about SOS.

The other 2 percent is my own quibble, which is that although SOS was adopted in 1905, it was used intermittently alongside "CDQ" and a few other signals until about 1912. So I should have said it wasn't univerally adopted until after the Titanic went down. Per:

"Although the use of "SOS" was officially ratified in 1908, the use of "CQD" lingered for several more years, especially in British service where it originated. It is well documented in personal accounts of Harold Bride, second Radio Officer, and in the logs of the SS Carpathia, that the Titanic first used "CQD" to call for help. When Captain Smith gave the order to radio for help, first radio officer Jack Phillips sent "CQD" six times (first time 10.35 New York time) followed by the Titanic call letters, "MGY." 20 minutes later, at Brides suggestion, Phillips interspersed his calls with "SOS." In 'SOS to the Rescue', 1935, author Baarslag notes, "Although adopted intentionally in 1908, it [SOS] had not completely displaced the older 'CQD' in the British operators' affections." (It is interesting to note that Marconi was waiting in New York to return home to England on the Titanic.)

(from http://www.reach.net/~stormy/perc/sos.html) which adds:

"The U.S. did not officially adopt "SOS" until 1912, being slow to adopt international wireless standards."

Personal footnote: My great-grandfather drowned in the collision of the Mohawk off Norfolk, in 1901. Being Scandanavian, his distress called was probably "Oofta!"

I've been waiting for someone to point out that the likelihood of any of those bystanders on the beach being able to read *anything* was just about zero, much less read SOS or No More Aerosmith, Please.

RD sez: "I don't care if the President is a nose-picking cross-dressing hermaphrodite with an unhealthy fascination with Star Trek."

Thanks for the endorsement. I'm putting you number one on the campaign workers list when I make my putsch, I mean, run.

some level it has lost it's soul.

I've said this before, but maybe it bears saying again.

We, the average citizen, don't have time to think.

Multiple reasons for that, but the important thing is that working harder isn't going to give us that.

But having authentic people in control, might.

If people are themselves when they run, instead of trying to please other people, we might see more interesting candidates..

You have a bunch of candidates that are trying to please and electorate dreamed up by their campaign managers.

They ought to just talk as themselves and see if anyone likes them. Candor is a refreshing thing.

Gore isn't Carter for multiple reasons. The most important is that he is known in Washington...

And as you can see, you don't have to be president to run things, Cheyney is actually your president right now...and Poppy is running things behind the scences...or at least his cadre of spooks is...

Why not Hillary, Gore, and Edwards....why not a team president? With Bill as the tie breaker?

Arrange it how you want to right now, it's puppet monkey-boy in front of the machine with darth cheyney the real president and rummy as his confidante....with Rove as the shoesalesman.

.

I stand corrected (said while sitting).

boy - I have read Henderson - interesting book - and Gravity's Rainbow is very easy to hate - but compelling

apropos of nothing

"boy, speaking of Thomas Pynchon":

You're freakin' me out. I just recommended Giles Goat Boy on my blog; I did read it, so you're not the only one. On this blog, generally you're not the only one who has read any book you can name.

TBG, is that you, messin' with me again?

yello: LOL. Someone had to say it. I also described me, but I was wondering if I was disqualified as only having an unhealthy fascination with Star Trek TNG.

I've also learned that SOS is sometimes used as a visual distress signal while Mayday is strictly a vocal distress call (I think).

'Mudge, I always thought it was "Uffda!"

And you were expecting our reviews to have rational criticism???

I actually did some reviews for sci-fi (or straicht sci) movies a few times. "Minority Report" scored very well for the "technology" it suggested, while I gave "K-19: Widowmaker" very low marks for playing the "reactor go boom and take the warheads with it" card.

SCC: It also, not I also

Good afternoon, folks. Running a little behind today. Hope your day, and your weekend turn out great. There are a lot of small colleges in North Carolina, and many of them quite good. Check them out. And Saint Andrews is a student's dream. Very good school, not a lot of students, good teacher/student relationship. And don't let the Presbyterian name throw you off.

Like your comment, Mudge, in regard to Steve's post. And welcome aboard Steve. Don't agree with your politics, but you have every right to love them, they're yours. I'm a registered Democrat and have not seen anything to change my mind. I used to like John McCain until he fell under the present administration's spell. The way they treated him in South Carolina, I don't know how McCain can even look at those folks. They were some kind of awful to him. They talked about him, and African-Americans so bad, I could not believe some of that stuff. And now he's in bed with these folks? Politics is so greasy and just plain nasty. What folks won't do to win these offices. Promising everybody what they want, and knowing full well they can't deliver, even if a gun was placed upside their head. I believe they call that "lying". It's hard life, and I suppose someone has to do it.

SCC: straight sci

Feh.

omni:thanks for the info on "mayday" I'd rather read that than Steve's post *twice*

Steve, next time just give us the missing sentence. It is simple boodle courtesy.

Good point about the Brits, though

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20060421.html

John Dean of Watergate fame sees an "October Surprise" 2006 on the horizon:

As the 2006 midterm elections approach, this active/negative president can be expected to take further risks. If anyone doubts that Bush, Cheney, Rove and their confidants are planning an "October Surprise" to prevent the Republicans from losing control of Congress, then he or she has not been observing this presidency very closely.

What will that surprise be? It's the most closely held secret of the Administration.

How risky will it be? Bush is a whatever-it-takes risk-taker, the consequences be damned.

*summarizing Dean*
Dick Cheney's resignation for health reasons, to be replaced with Rudy Giuliani?

A great diplomatic coup in forming a Great Powers Coalition to present a united "no-nukes" stance to Iran?

A unilateral strike against Iran's nuclear facilites?

As Dean concludes:

If there is no "October Surprise," I would be shocked. And if it is not a high-risk undertaking, it would be a first. Without such a gambit, and the public always falls for them, Bush is going to lose control of Congress. Should that happen, his presidency will have effectively ended, and he will spend the last two years of it defending all the mistakes he has made during the first six, and covering up the errors of his ways.

There is, however, the possibility of another terrorist attack, and if one occurred, Americans would again rally around the president - wrongly so, since this is a presidency that lives on fear-mongering about terror, but does little to truly address it. The possibility that we might both suffer an attack, and see a boost to Bush come from it, is truly a terrifying thought.

Damn! I'm going to be out of town for the Tufte course. And I think I could have totally talked work into paying for it. Oh well...

It's a hard life, but I suppose someone has to do it.

My tongue is twisted this morning, as well as my thoughts, it would seem.

Here's wishing each and all, a blessed life, and more than you can imagine through Him that loves you, God, through Christ.

Although I enthusiastically back efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, I wonder if Al Gore might have been indulging in just a bit of chart manipulation in his presentation. You know, the kind of stuff that Edward Tufte guy frowns upon.

jw - maybe I can snag an extra poster for you.

I might suggest that anyone who parrots the "they don't have a plan" line just chooses not to find one. You do have to look since there isn't much interest in the press to let you know. Thanks to the internet, they are out there, if you indeed give two shakes.

As for people finding Gore a boring speaker, try listening to him again. There are a number of recent speeches out there. THen, I would suggest that you go back to a Bush speech. Flip back and forth. Tell me again?

I know that you would have to get over the issues thing, but it should be quite clear. I, of course, listen to Bush when I have to clean. I just put him on the screen and put on an old sweater and spray it with endust and proceed to roll around on the floor laughing.

Loomis, do you suppose Bush & Co. woul *let* a tearist attack happen for the sake of the election?

Dolphin, you should pause your rolling just enough to see a couple of his facial expressions. Then resume laughing, even harder.

My unhealthy obsession is with ST:DS9. I would love to referee a mud wrestling match between Kira and Jadzia.

scotty, I had a lot of trouble with "oofta" and "uffda," spellings, since there were several alternatives, and I picked "oofta" first. But I've seen "uffda" bumper stickers, and probably should have gone with that.

Everybody realizes that "Giles Goat Boy" is by John Barth, not Salinger or Pynchon, right? I heard Barth lecture at my college my senior year, right after "Chimera" came out. Great speaker, by the way. I was assistant editor of our college paper, which ran the headline, "Noted author to speak." I went a little bats--- crazy (hard to believe, I know) and went off on how that was the dumbest, worst headline ever written, and we journalism majors should be ashamed, yadda yadda. (I didn't see it before publication--wasn't my turf.) But after that "Noted author to speak" became a sort of generic joke, and it appeared about 12 times in our April Fools issue. My favorite, of course, was about William Shakespeare returning from the dead to give a lecture on poetry and the identity of the "Dark Lady," which of course had the headline, "Noted author to speak."

Down yello, down.

dolphin micheal, I'm laughing so hard. Do you take medications? And I'm not asking that to offend you, but you certainly have a way with words. I can hardly write this post for laughing at that last comment of yours. Are you serious? I suppose that is one way of looking at it, but I never thought of it that way. My face is hurting. Help me please, I can't stop laughing.

While we are in full confessional mode, I do not ever mention this blog by name in public. I will occassionally preface comments with "I read somewhere on the internet...".

If my wife knows that I blog, she is very discrete in not ever mentioning it to me. When my Achenblog t-shirt arrived in the mail, she viewed it with the same curiousity she would if she had found dainty undergarments not in her size in the glove compartment, a mixture of suspicion and willful ignorance.

Mudge, in reference to your "I've been waiting for someone to point out that the likelihood of any of those bystanders on the beach being able to read *anything* was just about zero, much less read SOS or No More Aerosmith, Please."

I submit that we were to enchanted to care, suspension of disbelief is sometimes a good thing.

"The Sot Weed Factor,"

I know, I'm the only one that has read that...

I liked Barth because he was complex, and could surprise me. I felt that Pynchon was complex, but out of touch with the world.

I like Bellow _in general_ but I read most of his stuff by the time I was 13...and reread it.

Catch-22 is my all time favorite, as well as that book about someone commiting suicide by jumping off a water tower...that might have been Salinger, Cannery Row was very good, a surprise.

Mudge, yes, John Barth, who also wrote the Sot-Weed Factor. Your historical (and hysterical) posts have been reminding me of the Sot-Weed Factor from the beginning.

boy, stick around--these are your folks at the A-blog!

dolphin: Bush stinks as a speaker, but he gets by because he can make his Texas "ah-shucks" gig sound like he's sincere and just folks. Unfortunately, politics is as much a fashion show as it is an ideas debate. In order to get people's attention, first, and their vote you need to be able to connect with them. I haven't seen Gore speak in recent years, so maybe he has taken some speaking lessons. Dean had the mojo for a while last time, but the "scream" took him out. Kerry just seemed to be distant, and then sometimes pandering (the pheasant shoot). Roberts was pretty good, though sometimes he let his rich lawyer side peek out. And what was that lump in the back of W's coat at the debate??

yello refers to t-shirts (and such shirts were visible in the BPH photos). My relative newbieness is showing (still, no excuse for staring at my décolletage). Where can one find such items?

TBG, I used to try to "explain" the blog everytime I referred to it, but you know that got old fast. Now I just say, "one of my internet friends was sayiing..."

I again have but two minutes to give to my Boodle.

It's clear to me that Al Gore would have been a better president than the current White House Occupant. But, that's not a ringing endorsement of the former, rather it's an indictment of the latter.

I quote the Boodle to family and friends, but I don't tell them I'm part of a secret kabal that trades thoughts, humor, and DIY literary pieces.

Warner for '08? Could happen. Anyone hear Morning Edition today? He's out there.

Curmudgeon said "I've been waiting for someone to point out that the likelihood of any of those bystanders on the beach being able to read *anything* was just about zero, much less read SOS or No More Aerosmith, Please."

I was willing to overlook the anachronism of universal literacy in the 1400's, if you were.

Just an odds-and-ends post before I head outside. An inch of long-overdue, much-needed rain yesterday. Our near-empty rain barrels are now brimming again. Many of the city's parched lawns may regain color. It's muddy as heck outdoors around the patio-in-progress, so we put on hold working in the yard for the morning. However, area-wide deluges have not come without tornado warnings--the last two nights to our southwest and northwest. Last night our county was included.

Dooley and Science Tim, like you both I am concerned about the ownership-rights-on-this-blog issue. Last November, I posted the first part of a poem to the Achenblog that I had submitted about a year earlier to a women's poetry competition in Liverpool, and another, a parody of Chaucer. This ownership of intellectual property on its blogs should be spelled out by WaPo in much greater detail. Dooley, I would hate to think the WaPo "owns" your ideas about Romer, or any of Science Tim's stellar explanations, for that matter.

Mudge, I was so tired and it was so late that I ended up just Boodleskimming your Kit very late last night. You, amazingly, even worked Britain's Guy Fawkes Day into your effort (but sadly, not the Throckmorton Plot of 1583...*w*)!

And..
Moi bei dich
"I'm close by you."
Awww, how sweet, how incredibly sweet. No wonder that you have so many women's hearts aflutter. And not a soul, even your family, knows of your Blog life? I understand being mum about your Achenblogging with your coworkers. My hubby knows about The Boodle and Boodling, but shows not a wit of interest, which lets me carve out my own private space.

How nice that Joel would share the Kit spotlight with a Boodler. That says a lot about Joel and both his "serious journalism" deadlines and magnanimity (a volcanic term, for those not in the know)!

jw & RD et al -- re Tufte and Powerpoint:

Tufte is actually fighting against the overuse and abuse of Powerpoint. If you haven't already, you must read his little essay "Powerpoint is Evil" at

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html

was a possiblity of a terrorist attack by the administration...

however, I feel my boys over a the agency, checking out some of the things that noname poster has been puttin gout...

let's all pray that it will happen, and the bush extended family will be dressed in orange come October....Halloweenie important..

.

I gave my boss the Tufte flyer and pitched it as a "great opportunity for the office" because he's one of those 'bullet-points zooming across the screen with a tire-screeching .wav file' types of people. *shudder*

SonofCarl,
We know you're a lawyer up there in southern Alberta, but you have decolletage? Now, as a person who dabbled in art, I've seen plenty of montages and decoupages...

Maybe, SonofCarl, you should be investigating the Seinfeld manbra, rather than the Achen T's? You may be able to make it almost as famous as the Mudge Bund!

Maybe this is the day to tell us a little bit more about yourself, Sonof Carl?

Oh, I'm gonna get myself in trouble, I can just feel it...

ebtnut,

I don't think Bush can see getting by from the speakers podium, it is way too far away.

Gore is an absolute firebrand next to that guy. First Gore can write his speech and does. Second, he can speak for over 10 minutes and, in the spirit of Lincoln, provide a long thoughtful discussion of the issues. Third, Gore can be very gracious and also pretty damn angry when it is warranted. (That may be the new Gore).

It's a shame what passes for public speaking these days. Maybe my friend Cassanadra will agree that we are just hearing a series of encoded words that signal (maybe with flags) that we must feel a certain political emotional response.

Rather, we should have people who are thoughtful and deep enough to ponder and then present points that we don't currently hold. We should be challenged much like the Washington Post Blog.

Mr. Lonely Reader aka (boy talking about Thomas Pynchon...)

I'll give you "Giles the Goatboy",
but I've read "Henderson the Rain King."

Nice book, not a classic but fun read. Anybody read "The Crying of Lot 51?"

jw,

I just had a strange vision thanks to your PP bullet point...

I saw a bullet point whiz by in my minds eye, and heard the screach with the message get a cup of coffe at 2 pm.

This is soooo far out of order, it's pathetic. I've been slaveing away so hard that I haven't had time to boodle, much less breathe. On any other such occasion, I'd just let it go, but I cannot let 'Mudge's kit go by unobserved.

BRAVO ZULU, 'Mudge. You are THE MAN.

(I now return you to the regularly scheduled boodle.)

Wilbrod, nice posts this morning!

Loomis, hee hee. Wasn't is the 'manzier' or the 'bro'?. The decolletage was a reference to the end of yesterday. RD, and our mutual owner, WaPo, gets the credit for that one.

dolphin: No quarrel with your last at all. I find it damnable that politicans think they can only pander, and appeal to the lowest common denominator. I voted for Gore, and would again if he ran. I just hope the Democrats can assemble some kind of substantive platform of ideas that we can rally around, and not just hope that Rove has run out of new ways to tar and feather the competition in '06.

Loomis, it was the manzeirre or bro, depending on your choice of pseudo-contraction. I would be interested in an A-Blog tee as well. I think Hal's eyes are spinning wildly just about ready to stop on the dollar signs...

Dadgummit! Late again...

We do a lot of PowerPoint here, and some of it comes across my desk for editing. I'm always proselytizing for Tufte (he has a great Web site at http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/index )but have long since given up ever getting anybody here to pay attention to him. Almost as good is Peter Norvig's masterful PowerPoint of the Gettysburg Address, at http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/index.htm which is pants-wettingly funny.

Joseph Heller lectured a month or so after Barth, and read the death of Snowden section of Catch-22, which made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Heller had a slight speech impediment, but when he read from the book, you never noticed it. Catch-22 came out three years before Vietnam got going, but if ever there was a book that "defined" the mess in Vietnam it was that book. IIRC, Heller said he wrote the book about an hour or two every night sitting at the kitchen table, for TEN years.

I only wish Gore had been a more comfortable speaker in 2000, I think it would have at least swung whom the Republican party chose.

In a way, I always regretted that Clinton wasn't running in 2000-- if only because it was very likely McCain would have been nominated for the republican candidacy instead of Bush.

2 minutes' debating with Clinton and Bush would have looked like a twerp. Mccain, on the other hand, would have summed up the republican party vs Clinton beautifully and held his own in sound bites.

Kerry... and Bush. Sigh. I really think Edwards had the better chance of winning on a national platform.

I got about 8 pages into "Crying of Lot 51," wilbrod, and then said, OK, back to the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Couldn't hack Gravity's Rainbow, either. But I'm a big Salinger fan, and praise "The Laughing Man" as his best short story at every opportunity (like this one).

jw - The Tufte class I am going to stresses his excellent work on the statistical presentation of data. I find his rants against PowerPoint less compelling. Although, having sat through endless meetings where the presenter does nothing but read bullets, I can understand his wrath. Nevertheless, I have seen many vibrant and exciting presentations using PowerPoint. Further, I am old enough to remember being stultified by speakers using nothing but good old-fashioned overhead projectors.

nut and Wilbrod, isn't it funny how all the negative framing about Edwards has stuck to him?

We, as a nation, are so easily fooled into believing anything and then holding that belief FOR EVER. That is the gift of Rove. Someone said earlier that there are a lot of talented representatives on the Democratic side, but many aren't able to contribute much because we have been conditioned to tune them off by the political masterminds.

I noted some of the comments made about Biden, for instance, but most inside political people know that he has amazing skills. He never speaks TOO LONG, even guys like Don Imus love him. He is a pretty straight forward and frank public servant and a true asset to our country.

Sure he has his "warts" but who doesn't?

We just nee bright leadership for about 12 years now to sort everything out. We can't keep ignoring the major issues facing the country.

I just wanted to point out that I haven't really had warts since I was a youth.

I am compelled, for a variety of reasons, to use PowerPoint. I was going to switch to KeyNote, but I found too many things that I wanted to do that were not convenient to apply to my presentation, although it correctly recognized them in an imported PowerPoint. I am addicted to the dissolve as a slide transition, and I have a genuine need to put the occasional animation into a talk. My big aesthetic choice in PowerPoint is that I try to avoid words almost entirely. I prefer to fill up the screen with big pictures and let my spoken words fill in the details.

I do a better job with my education PowerPoint than with my strictly science talks. I tend to make bad choicesof coolor in trying to transfer graphics into my science talks -- so much so, that I often find that I am describing the details that you WOULD see, if the picture were clearer. It's just awful.

I am compelled, for a variety of reasons, to use PowerPoint. I was going to switch to KeyNote, but I found too many things that I wanted to do that were not convenient to apply to my presentation, although it correctly recognized them in an imported PowerPoint. I am addicted to the dissolve as a slide transition, and I have a genuine need to put the occasional animation into a talk. My big aesthetic choice in PowerPoint is that I try to avoid words almost entirely. I prefer to fill up the screen with big pictures and let my spoken words fill in the details.

I do a better job with my education PowerPoint than with my strictly science talks. I tend to make bad choicesof coolor in trying to transfer graphics into my science talks -- so much so, that I often find that I am describing the details that you WOULD see, if the picture were clearer. It's just awful.

What I posted yesterday is that Curmudgeon's writing should not be picked apart as some were doing, but viewed with restraint like the décolleté of a buxom lass. SonofCarl has kindly and subtly pointed out that I really should have said décolletage, which is a noun. Décolleté is an adjective. So to say "the décolleté writing of Curmudgeon" would be correct, but weird. To say "the décolletage of Curmudgeon" would just be weird.

Hmmmmm. The first time that I tried to post, it said that I had failed, because I had not entered a name and comment. So I backed up by one screen, copied my text (just in case) and tried again. Now I see that I have the same post, posted twice. What's up wit dat?

It's cool SciTim. Like most things you post, it was worth a second read.

"bad choicesof coolor"?

That's it, folks, that there is quality. You don't get that kind of stuff for free, yet that's what WaPo wants. You won't have MY spoonerisms and malapropisms to kick around any more, to reproduce by technologies known or unknown, antique or yet-to-be-developed! Nosirree, I'm going to use the Preview function next time. I mean, this time.

This doesn't really relate to anything, but SciTim's post reminded me of it. When I was in high school, Harvard used to have this series of lectures that were open to the public, where someone talked about the research they were doing--behavioral studies of fish, random stuff like that. The neat thing about them was that they weren't really dumbed down at all, and they were always pretty interesting. Anyway, I wonder if they still do that. Beacuse they should. It was cool.

Tim, no preview... you have to find some time to work. BTW, I either go with something unwieldy or just way too small. It is certainly hard to get the right cooler.

ScienceTim, a couple PowerPoint suggestions for you:

1) Chose a dark, dark background, such as Navy blue or shocking purple. People love a little color. Heaven forbid you should use white as a background. Bright, garish colors are also helpful--they keep people awake and alert.

2. On that dark, dark background, use a reverse type, as small as possible, preferably with teeny-tiny extenders and serifs that are obliterated by the overwhelming background. Remember, if possible, you want to hurt people's eyes and make them wince and turn away from the screen.

3. Number everything. If you have three points to make on a slide, make sure they are numbered 1, 2, and 3. Otherwise people might think there are four or twelve or ninety-one points, and they get all confused.

4. Outline your presentation with roman numerals. People love roman numerals. Start with I, II, and III, and then just for chuckles, make the fourth slide MDXCLI, or something. No one will notice. Mix them up with slide outlines that use letters, both capital and lowercase. No one cares if the sequence is correct. And you can move slides around if you want, and not be bothered keeping all those numbers and letters in "strict" (read: anal retentive) order.

5. People love sound effects. Use lots of them. Crank the volume way up, too.

6. Use lots of creative clip art. Don't bother your graphics people with requests for tailored stuff; they are way too busy. Instead, just pull some crap off the wizard or the Microsoft clip art. People just can't get enough of seeing those same six or eight doofusy characters in that clip art! They'll thank you for it!

7. Whenever possible, have text fly in from all different angles, and fly away off the slide in interesting, creative ways. This helps distract people from the actual lousy content of any particular slide, and besides, many people have never seen animation before, so they'll just love seeing things move.

8. Cram as much data into your slides as possible. Use of "white space" is just so boring, and people lead busy lives, and don't want their time wasted looking at air.

9. Remember the Inverse Rule. The larger the audience, the smaller the typeface. If you've only got six people in the room, use nice, big letters. If there's 300 people, use tiny letters, so not even people in the front row can read the slide. That way, it is fair to everyone, and no one at the back can complain that only the people up front can read the slides. This is only fair, as I'm sure you realize.

10. The proper length of any PowerPoint presentation is directly proportional to how much coffee or other beverages are available before getting started. Ideally, you want everyone tanked up on liquids before you start. The go for at least an hour and a half, which will make sure 80% of the bladders in the room are distended. This makes people pay attention to your presentation. When you see people get up and start leaving the room and running to the facility, that's the time to hit 'em with your best slides and most important data and/or conclusions.

Hope this has been helpful.

Dolphin Michael,

I have tried, numerous times, to compare & contrast Bush & Gore's speaking styles but always come up short; probably because I can only watch W speak for about 1 min 45 sec before I start hurling objects at the television and stalk off in a hissy fit.

I tried to last a full 2 min for the last SOTU, but didn't make it. I'm considering the possibility of hiring a coach to help me increase my stamina. The training program I envision will consist of watching Bush smirk, smarm and aw shucks his way through certain pre-allotted periods of time (1 min 45 sec, 1 min 50 sec, 1 min 55 sec) until I build enough strength and endurance to reach my goal.

On the topic (a new experience for me) why are folks who try to protect our environment so easily lampooned as "wingnuts?"

... same with providing health care to everyone.

The "Acehnblog: we click" t-shirts -- available in white, gray, and most popularly, lime green -- were only commercially available for a few hours before the intellectual property lawyers at WaPo decided they could be the final straw on the tipping point of print media profitability.

They are so very highly sought after that none have ever appeared on e-Bay. Thus, their true collectible value can never be known. I find such a rare and valuable keepsake perfect for wear while lawn-mowing, car-washing, and dog-walking.

Hey, what's the matter with my décolletage? You don't like my décolletage? Well then, you can just avert your eyes, buster.

I only wear mine to the library.

my t-shirt!

amo,

I go with the viewing at a bar concept. Easy access to beverages of my preference and often with the company of a distracting individual who can assure me that the world is not all bad.

(also, you tend not to throw things at another person's tv)

I have to admit to the occasional Ralph Cramden moments, "one day Alice, ...."

Now I understand the true purpose of the preview function: it's to increase the chaos that results from boodling out of order.

Crying of Lot 51, but I'm not remembering what it was about,

but I do remember reading Canterbury Tales in middle english when I was 9, and thinking....man, these are some sick fairy tales...even worse than those germanic guys, the grimm brothers...eyes getting poked out and cooking people over fires...

the olde style books were, very much _more_ graphic, in what giants and ogres did to people...

And I always try so hard to look nice your you. *tears welling*

SCC: for you.

PowerPoint...here where I work they not only read the slides and say very little else, they also print out several copies, one for each attendee. I usually end up with drivel all over mine as it takes me a few minutes to read the damn thing, while the presenter drivels in another manner putting me to sleep. At least its good for an afternoon nap.

lampooned as an administration and corporate decision...

think in terms of Carl Rove, who gave you an election won by homophobia...

demagoguery, was made fashionable by him _again_

these are very olde techniques, since midwives were called "witches"...

.

it's called "appeal to emotion," and in the simple, defeats "appeal to reason."

I have read both "The Crying of Lot 51" and "V", but my memory of them is pretty distant. "Gravity's Rainbow" is a distant second to "Ulysses" as the book I have gotten the farthest into but am least likely to ever finish.

I recently bought a used copy of "The Floating Opera" to re-read it since I now live in the same geographic vicinity as the setting of the story. Please do not read too much erudition into this statement. I bought Michener's "Chesapeake" for the same reason.

as well as Trinity by Uris.

Curmudgeon, you've just described almost every PowerPoint presentation I've seen. It's truely the Devil's instrument. You forgot to mention that one has the option of slowly reading the slide verbatim, or just remaining silent and advancing to the next slide before anyone has a chance to read more than half of it.

as it was a continuation of the Sot Weed Factor, I sort of saw it as a "Connecticut Yankee," in it's involvement.

infinite jest - never sure if the title was an inside joke or not

I don't think you should have to apologize for buying a Michener, yello. I have no problem with middle-brow (or even low-brow) reading. "The Source" is my favorite Michener, and I liked "Hawaii" a lot.

(I once sat next to Michener in 1968 when I was covering a political event in lower Bucks County, Pa. I didn't know who he was, and just sat down at an open spot at the table. The guy sitting next to me was wearing a gray checked suit, but when I looked down I saw he was wearing fire-engine-red socks. Only when the MC introduced him did I learn who the guy was. Some day I'll tell the story of the reporter who was one of Michener's best friends, but I don't have time now--gotta leave soon.)

Just stop trying to look down my décolletage.

kberto,

Reading your post & 'Mudge's in such close proximity startled me & caused a re-read.

I wondered how a decolletage could help someone at a Library...Maybe it helps them get their books checked out faster? Flash the girls and they don't fine you?

Dolphin Michael, if I went to a bar to watch W, I'd probably be drunk before it started because I'd know what was coming...But I could try the buddy system and rapid breathing. Sorta like Lamaze class, but without the great result.

Ha, ha, y'all.

Guess what I've been working on today?

A one-hour presentation with a total of 6 slides, four of which are high-contrast graphics for illustration. No noises, no fancy transitions. "Just the meat." as I like to say.

Just finished delivering it, hooray.

yellojkt, I'm a bit surprised that you didn't propose a wrestling match between Jadzia and 7 of 9.

bc

I'm so sorry kbertocci, but the notion that you only wear your décolletage to the library will forever haunt me.

ebtnut, apparently channeling CNN: John EDWARDS, not John ROBERTS!!!! Dolphin: "wingnuts" is usually a shorthand term for "right-wing nuts", who generally don't give a damn about either environmental issues or universal health care. Maybe it's a good Friday to take off early.

We'll stop, 'Mudge, as soon as you stop putting your "I'm perky, dammit!!" button there.

:-)

Curmudgeon, you forgot the first rule of PowerPoint presentations: "The Admiral Rule." The more important the audience, the less complex the slides can be. Which means, naturally, that presentations to the most important person available must, by necessity, be totally devoid of any meaning whatsoever. Which, now that I think about it, helps explain a lot.

ammo, between you and dolphin micheal, I'm on my way to the shower. I cannot stop laughing, and I know I shouldn't do that, but it just so funny. I cannot look either. It's just too hard. And that has never happened to me before. I'm ancient, and have looked at many Presidents in the past, but not this one. Just cannot do it. And don't know why. It's just something about his speaking style and stance that will not allow me to look. And I don't believe him to be a bad person, just can't look when he's talking.

'mudge - i heart your décolletage!

Mudge, I think I saw that presentation.

Jadzia would so kick 7's butt. This is a woman (at least in this life) that picks barfights with Klingons.

Cassandra, have you tried polarized lenses? They only allow light in from the RIGHT frequency.

I guess that would be the political lite. (chinese)

How about "Tipper in '08"

Works for me.

I liked "V" and "The Crying of Lot 49" (mentioned Strip Botticelli here once) and "Floating Opera" a lot. Saw Barth reading from "Letters" while I was in college. Was standing next to him in the bathroom before the reading and had my copy of "Floating Opera" in my pocket. Said to myself, "this is not the right time to ask for an autograph," so I don't have his autograph. Haven't made it through "Gravity's Rainbow" yet. Tried twice, though.

Ahhh a powerpoint bible at last! I knew I was a heretic somehow, but I never knew from what sacred text others were reading from on the powerpoint screens.

I have been corrupted by public speaking and mime courses.

I stand now as a heretic for my belief in large, simple pictures and words at least 72 point or more, even in the captions.

And of course, keeping it simple because I want all eyes on my decolletage, begrudging the audience only 5 seconds looking at the screen per slide.

Language is too precious to disjoint and butcher in speech or on screen.

Therefore I serve up few words in complete phrases, and I speak not what I can mime.

I, being already condemned, also venture to say that Science Tim should reject powerpoint graphics altogether.

He could better convey complex biochemical and spatial concepts through interpretive dance. Some ASL training would help.

I'd like to see the Ballet of the Odysessy to Mars performed by a bearded, middleaged scientist in work clothes.

I would pay gold to see Curmudge lecture via interpretive dance, complete with decolletage, of course.

I have seen ScienceTim do the hydrocarbon pavane.

How about Karenna in '08? Much hotter than Tipper. She turns 35 that August, which squeaks her in under the wire.

In 1997, we were coming out of Georgeown on the day she married Andrew Schiff at the National Cathedral. I tried to talk my wife into crashing the reception, but she wouldn't go for it.

Oh, and a bit of trivia about Catch-22. Heller's initial title was Catch-18, but there was a Leon Uris novel out at the time with 18 in the title. So Heller's publisher wanted him to change the title. Heller really, really didn't want to (I don't know why he chose 18) but eventually conceded the point and now we have Catch-22.

Toodles, boodle. Gotta run--we're having company for dinner. Even though I'm bloating, I think I'll wear the strapless.

(Just had to leave you with that image--heh heh.)

Just wanted to point out that I wasn't dissing on the Trekies in the crowd yellojkt, but somehow saying "Obsessed with Babylon 5" didn't seem to have the same panache.
I too, am a Trekie, although only of the Classic Series. Which is why this seems kinda cool:

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=filmNews&storyid=2006-04-21T071334Z_01_N20133512_RTRIDST_0_FILM-LEISURE-STARTREK-DC.XML

kurosawaguy stopped by Liz Kelly's blog a couple of times today.

My goodness...

I go out for half a day and end up having to spend the other half just catching up with the boodle. (It's a Mom day and not an Employee day, so no boodling while volunteering at school.)

I'd like to thank all the folks here for the great college advice. This hunt has been fun and will continue to be up until the thin envelope/thick envelope drama unfolds next spring. I believe a road trip through NC is in the cards and the family looks forward to an all-state BPH.

I also look forward to what Jack can add this evening. I think he's a teacher, no? Just don't know at what level or where.

I, too, heard Mark Warner this morning on NPR and my husband says he did well on Al Franken's show earlier this week. We have to remember: governors win presidential elections. Southern governors. We must repeat that over and over until the Democratic powers that be hear it and remember it.

The thing that strikes me about Warner is that he seems to have a moral stance in his performance. He walks the walk.

He improved education in Virginia, got a Republican legislature (in a decidedly RED state) to raise taxes to balance the budget (leading to surpluses) and helped get a second Democratic governor elected here. Warner reached out to the rural areas not by talkin' like a country boy and pretending to be one of them, but by actually showing them how he and his party could improve their lives.

Let's all say it: governors, governors, governors.....

Yelllojkt, Would either Kira or Jadzia stand up against River Tam? I doubt it.
It also might be too fast a fight.

Pollen is falling like rain in the DC area. On my way to the bus stop I drew the "Wash Me!" sign with my finger on all the car windows that were parked in my way along the curb. I don't know why I think silly things like this are so funny, but I suspect it has to do with you people on the Boodle.
Still giggling...

And kb... I'm not messing with you. I was amazed when I saw mention of "Giles Goatboy" too!

What a boodle!

Use of the term "wingnut" for rightwingers is harmful to Wingnut, A.K.A. Robert Weaver, the longboard surfer who appeared in the movie "Endless Summer II" and made several useful learning videos.

Barth. I recall his use of big flip-cards to track the nested-quotation level of the story he read. Perhaps a precursor to Power-Point? Could he write the first Power-Point Short Story? The White House released a sort of Power Point Policy Statement a few months ago, with bullets everywhere. Maybe even nested bullets.

For a laugh, track down the DHS guidance on PowerPoint presentations. Maybe it's on The Smoking Gun or something.

"The DHS logo will be placed 1/2 inch...the background will be royal blue and primary bullets will be slate gray...zzzzzzzzz"

TBG - you are right. Warner could be a winner. I just hope he gets the chance and doesn't get steamrolled by more high-profile candidates.

Also, totally-off topic reference to an earlier post, has your daughter ever read "The Frog Princess" trilogy? These books might be too simple for her, but I thought they were very witty when I read them with my daughter.

I've been out-geeked. I've seen "Serenity" (but not "Firefly") and still had to Google® River Tam. Point conceded to Wilbrod.

Apropos of the Rueter's ST link, there were whacky DJ's that used to do sketches called "Young Spock". The point was to fit in as many uses of the word "Vulcan" (in it's Joe Pesci definition) into as many double entendres as possible. I don't think the FCC would fall for that ruse in this day and age.

Wilbrod, a fight with River Tam is over before it starts.

yellojkt - are you out of your Vulcan mind?

Yello and RD, you've brought up a point-- Star Trek needs more kick-ass female characters.

That was a major problem with Enterprise. Too much chocolate-eating chicks, not enough chicks making guys eat dust.

A new Star Trek: Starfleet Academy circa Kirk and Spock's time unhappily does not promise to reverse this trend towards wussy female characters (Janeway notwithstanding...notwithstanding.).

On the other hand, maybe chronologically, Alfre Woodward (reprising First Contact role) could be teaching at the academy as an old lady? That'd be nice.

"Wilbrod, a fight with River Tam is over before it starts."

Unless it is with Chuck Norris of course.

SCC-- too much Neelix's cooking-eating characters, not chocolate-eating...

I was thinking of ST:NG. But then, didn't Enterprise turn out to be a holodeck stimulation on ST:NG anyway?

Holy cow, Padouk! I'm imagining "The Young James Kirk Chronicles", in which an older, wiser, Starfleet captain -- perhaps Christopher Pike -- tells young Jim that the secret to truly understanding an alien culture is to sleep with their women. Or maybe, "The Adventures of James Kirk", recounting how a naive Iowa farmboy of the far-future manages to talk his buddy Spockleberry Finn into white-washing the hull of Aunt Polly's shuttlecraft, while James goes off to get a little nookie with Becky.

Since Kirk is supposed to be the youngest Starfleet captain up to his time, whereas Spock is, like 70, it doesn't seem to make sense for them to meet at the Academy.

RD,

Exactly. Many of the stories were elaborate shaggy dog story style set-ups. Spock's dad used his mouth to clean timepieces which made him a Vulcan clock sucker. His mother was a bridge player that carried each rank of card in a separate bag. One of young Spock's chores was to wash out her Vulcan deuce bag.

I guess you had to be there.

/delurk

Isn't it lot 49?

/lurk

The key to geek-dom is finding a line you can't cross. In the ST universe that line included reading the thousands of spin-off novels and watching "Enterprise" except by accident.

Besides, I've moved on to the new "Battlestar Galactica" series. Incidently, reated by a DS9 alumnus.

Ixnay... You forget one thing:

Lot 49 was crying "Car 54, where are you?"

My statistically insane subconscious (TM) added them up and just rounded down from the mean between the two numbers.

On average, I need more sleep.

And appropo of nothing...

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/profile/story/9961300/the_worst_president_in_history?rnd=1145647961706&has-player=false

Rolling Stone has an article alleging W is the worst POTUS in history...

This is off topic, but it bothering me something awful. I think I mentioned that four of the people that live here in this complex had their cars vandalized during the Easter holiday. We called and asked the manager to clean up the glass in the parking lot, and she said she was not responsible, and that it was our cars, so we should get up the glass. I reminded her that the parking lot belongs to the complex and as such, we're not responsible even though the cars belonged to us. She then told me to get a group together and go out and sweep up the glass. Now we're talking disable and senior citizens here, that don't need to fool around with glass or anything that can cut. I called the city, and talked to someone there, and she said the city was not responsible, that the parking lot was the property of the complex. She then asked me if I wanted her to call the manager and talk to her, but she noted that the manager would know that I called her, and would that be okay with me. I told her the fact that she felt that she needed to ask me that question spoke volumes about this person and the kind of fear that we live under in residing here in this complex. I feel like I'm still living on the plantation and might be taken out and whipped or hung on a tree. Not a good feeling. And the glass just sits there. The four of us are African-Americans, and our cars were the only ones vandalized. I believe that glass poses a safety issue for the residents and for people coming in, but I don't know what else to do. I haven't been here that long, and I don't have anywhere to go if evicted. I told the clerk not to bother, because I didn't want to appear harassing the manager. And I didn't want the other ladies to suffer because of my mouth. I don't believe it's fair though, and I don't like the way I'm feeling about it.

ixnay,

Everyone's read "The Crying of Lot 49". Very few Pynchon fans can make it through the two sequels to get to "Lot 51: God-Emperor of San Narciso".

jw, you do know that River Tam is psychic and would know Chuckie's going to kick before he does.

Really-- I actually started getting interested in Star Trek by reading the novels. The movies weren't a selling point for me before that.

I watched ST:NG only because of DATA (...this was before I became a Gore worshipper).

I also found it interesting to analyze what comprises good writing and bad writing from the varied characterizations and plots covering the same characters and universe. Some authors are excellent, many so-so, and some bad... you read them and you go, "I think I learned a little TOO much about the author." (AKA "Mary Sue" novels. ;).

However, this was a child. I read sporadically later and quit reading the day I saw a X-men/ Star Trek crossover novel. That was too much for me.

Cassandra, I feel badly for you. If you feel it was a hate crime you must certainly communicate that to the police. Since you are decribing a situation that threatens public safety, I think you have a moral obligation to push back on the manager. Getting someone to do his job is not harassment. In any case, I hope you feel better soon.

Cassandra,
Now I feel bummed about the "Wash Me" prank. It's not funny anymore. One suggestion though, when I was a boyscout, we often performed acts of charity such as mowing lawns, raking leaves, or cleaning up trash for someone that was down and out. And you know what? We liked it.

Cassandra,

You might consider calling (or emailing) the local high school and asking to be put in touch with the sponsor of the service club. This sounds like something that a group of nice kids could take care of for you. [And believe me, most of the kids out there ARE nice kids.]

I think they'd jump at the opportunity to help you and your neighbors by cleaning up the class and doing anything else you might need. (Even if it's not out of the kindness of their hearts, many high school kids need service hours to graduate.)

I understand your fears. It's not right, but it happens. Just take care of yourself and don't get hurt. We all care about you.

I love Trek, but gadzooks, they're tryin' too hard.

Let it go, Paramount.
The time isn't right.

I liked Firefly and Serenity, too. Didn't have to look up River Tam, either.

bc

Regarding Star Trek. I must admit I lost interest after Wrath of Khan. Too many other stuff going on in my life, and I have never had the time to really get back into it. But to really get geeky, how many people feel that the Spock-Kirk relationship is a recapitulation of the inter-officer relationships first established in "Forbidden Planet."

Please discuss.

Have a great evening all. I've done enough damage here.

Warner/Clinton in '08? Maybe with Gore as Science Officer?

The mind reels with the possibilities.

Ugh.. not cleaning up the class, but the GLASS. They'll clean up the broken GLASS.

Cassandra I feel like driving down there right now and reading them the riot act and telling them to sweep up the got-dang glass now before the wrath of an entire boodle descends upon their sorry bee-hinds. If the residents targeted for vandalism were targeted for racial reasons it is also a clear-cut civil rights violation, which is a federal matter. If you don't get satisfaction with local authorities you should seriously consider taking it to another level.

Cassandra, I don't understand that manager at all. She isn't doing her job and her response is horrible.

I wouldn't deal with her anymore; I'd ask & find out who her boss is and write that person a letter or call.

yellojkt: a friend lent me the DVD of the new Battlestar Galactica and highly recommended it. I hope to check it out this weekend.

On Powerpoint, somewhat defensively I have to say that my most recent PPT presentation included ridiculously long quotations that are intended for review in the copies distributed to attendees. So it goes in a profession where plagiarism is not only encouraged, it's a job requirement.

By the way (and I apologize for drifting on topic), I spoke to someone who is well informed about political matters who said he is absolutely convinced that Gore is going to run in 2008.

Second-hand unsourced suspicion posted to a blog: That's almost like breaking news!

I'm with RD on that Cassandra. If it does seem to be a non-random occurance, consider the NAACP. That sort of attitude just encourages the behavior in the eyes of the public.

Remember, that rash of church burnings started off as a "prank."

And can't you Star Trek guys start talking about something less boring?

Like maybe The Flash?

I'm just saying.

Jw, the problem here with the idea of Chuck winning is that River will strike first.

She will never strike second, because she's psychic, not blind, and extremely fast.

I watched the fights scenes carefully because I wasn't sure if it was speeded up, and the background convinced me it wasn't. Summer Glau must have been some dancer.

And Cassandra....

Once you get those high school kids scheduled to come help, you call the local paper and have them do a story on the Apartments Who Ignored the Hate Crime and the Kids Who Helped.

Hold your horses, everyone. Cassandra, whatever you do has to be in tune with your assessment of all the facts and circumstances.

It is the obligation of your manager to keep the parking lot clear. Your manager sounds just lazy, but I don't know from here what he/she is going to do something if an uppity tenant gets him/her in trouble. You're going to be the one living there next week, not me.

The most neutral thing I can think of that might help is a letter from someone other than you warning management or owners of a slip and fall hazard in the parking lot.

Personally, I thought there wasn't much harm in the city clerk calling, but again you're there, and I'm not.

I'm with Joel. Broken glass in a parking lot sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. I don't know why management wouldn't want it cleaned up.

"The Flash" made my list of shows I killed by just watching them.

http://livebythefoma.blogspot.com/2005/12/show-killer-strikes.html

I hear they are thinking of making a movie. It better be based on the Barry Allen Flash and not the lame Wally West version.

and getting a service club to clean up the glass also sounds like the quickest point of getting from a to b.

I feel like TBG is on the right track. What happened to Cassandra does have the smell of a hate crime to it, one that is small potatoes from the point of view of the police (relatively minor property damage, no bodily injury), and which probably could never be solved unless one of the perpetrators rats on the others. You can't leave it unaddressed, however, or they may ramp up to something more serious. Meanwhile, earning the dislike of the apartment manager, when only Cassandra and the manager know about the nature of the conversation, doesn't appear to be a good idea.

Arranging for other people (high school students and the local press) to overtly and publicly heap shame upon the manager and the perpetrators, however, seems like a good idea.

Also phone the local tenants rights commission... you can check your county government website.
They usually spell out landlord obligations and one is a safe environment. While the occasional broken bottle might not be a top priority, 4 cars can cause a lot of broken glass and I agree with you it is a hazard.

Here's hoping it's not a hate crime. How do those people know specifically what cars belong to whom, then?

My dad had his car window broken once in an apartment garage. It seemed to be random but I was worried it was not, either. His tires were slashed once, as well. A car nearby had the same thing as well. He thought it was kids, but I wonder (not very many in that complex).

My guess was maybe a tenant who was ticked over not getting the parking space he wanted or was ready to wreak revenge at random at the nearest cars for a scratch on his car. (All spaces were assigned, so...).

Cassandra:

Everyone has given you good ideas about how to deal with the foolish manager.

I know how you feel. I'm a tenant myself for many years and some landlords are good, but a lot are just awful. Right now, I have a peach of a landlord, and I don't take advantage of his good heartedness.

Curm: Great Kit the other day. It's been so darn busy here that I haven't had a chance to post anything.

Joel: I am fairly certain that there is going to be a grass roots effort to convince Al Gore to run in 2008. I'm one of the ordinary citizens, who happens to be a Democrat, that is trying to make him realize that he can succeed this time. But he can't wait until the eleventh hour. He'll have to get going pretty soon.

Hope you all have a good weekend. It's after the 4:00 p.m. whistle and I'm going home. New Haven CT was the place to be today if you are not a fan of W or his policies--foreign and domestic. Hu of China probably wasn't able to hear himself think at the talk he gave at Yale University in the middle of the day.

Gore better name Hillary running mate so that he has a Clinton to blame this time around too.

And I was accidentally on-topic when I nominated Karenna. Spy magazine once had a comic book where the "Gore Girls" were superheroes fighting political injustice. If I knew what issue that was, I would try to buy on on eBay.

Just thinking: "Tipper" is a great name for a first lady. And talk about influential, anyone who can get the recording industry to put parental alert stickers on CD cases is wielding true power.

All this talk of Gore and off topic, literature, has brought me to confess that as a youth I read several of the "Gor" series of books, which make the lowest of the low brow look like Moliere. I enjoyed them at the time, and have since learned the error of my ways.

Please excuse this interruption, you may now return to the boodle in progress.

Wow, walked away right after commenting and I see I have a huge BOO.

Cassandra, have you considered talking to (or emailing) the Metro or City editor of your local newspaper about this situation?

I think that-
a: there's a story here, and
b: the managment company might be more responsive with some very public pressure.
c: some of the folks on this here Boodle may be able to help with that angle.

Please email me at bc@10thcircle.com and we can discuss further. I'd like to help further.

bc

Cassandra,

I like TBG's suggestions a lot. Good ideas here.

Anybody know what City and State Cassandra is in?

cass - i googled the nc rights of tenants - came up with precious little, but an idea - hopefully you still have a copy of your lease - examine it carefully to see if it includes anything about the land and/or streets that the property is on - it should have something stating that the parking area is private property and the responsibility of the owner... something to that effect... i'll keep looking tho...

Cassandra: Just read your post. Is the building supervisor on medication? His/her position is morally, ethically, and legally untenable.

Miss Cassandra-

I don't have much to offer but I hope you will let me pray for your safety and well-being. I, like many others, have grown quite fond of you.

Cassandra, this is from the North Carolina General Statutes. Chapter 42 relates to Landlords and Tenants and this is from the section on Residential Tenancy Agreements.

Chapter 42: Landlord and Tenant

42‑42. Landlord to provide fit premises.

(a) The landlord shall:

(1) Comply with the current applicable building and housing codes, whether enacted before or after October 1, 1977, to the extent required by the operation of such codes; no new requirement is imposed by this subdivision (a)(1) if a structure is exempt from a current building code.

(2) Make all repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the premises in a fit and habitable condition.

(3) Keep all common areas of the premises in safe condition.

(the remainder are not relevant to your circumstances)

(I really could have used italics here)

The link to the this statute is below.

http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_42/GS_42-42.html

ok cass - according to
www.ncbar.org/public/publications/ pamphlets/landlord.pdf

"as a landlord you have a duty:...(3) Keep all common areas in safe condition;"

and you as a tenant "However, you are not responsible for ordinary wear and tear or damage caused by nature or people you do not permit to come into your home."

and in more detail:

"PART SEVEN: DUTY TO KEEP ALL COMMON AREAS AND FACILITIES IN
A SAFE CONDITION. Common areas and facilities, such as hallways serving several
apartment units, PARKING LOTS (my caps), play areas, laundry rooms, swimming pools open to tenants,
sewage or plumbing systems serving more than one rental unit, and similar areas and facilities on
the grounds of multi-family rental properties, must be maintained in a safe condition by the
landlord. Injuries caused by landlords' failure to safely maintain such areas and facilities have
entitled tenants to recover money from their landlords in lawsuits. In situations where landlords'
failures to maintain these facilities have not caused injury, courts have allowed tenants to reduce
the amount of monthly rent due under their leases."

The statute is the legal authority that binds the landlord in this case. The publication that mo has is an explanation for the public, but has no legal effect on its own. For further detail, that section I quoted above defines 'premises':

42‑40. Definitions.

For the purpose of this Article, the following definitions shall apply:

...

(2) "Premises" means a dwelling unit, including mobile homes or mobile home spaces, and the structure of which it is a part and facilities and appurtenances therein and grounds, areas, and facilities normally held out for the use of residential tenants.

Your parking lot is likely within this description.

FYI: "appurtenance" is a legal anachonism referring to items related to something, like a barn or outhouse is related to the house. Just trivia in this case; your parking lot is likely an "ground" or "area".

Anyone else ready for the weekend?

that last quote was according to a booklet put out by the north carolina attorney general...

Okay, guys, let's not succumb to the allure of the Fixer Disease, for which guys are famous -- trying to fix someone's problem for them, instead of giving the space for the person to do it him/herself, his/her own way. Time for us to back off, I suspect.

Cassandra,

Too bad no one likes you around here.

:)

TBG

hey tim - last time i checked i wasn't a guy! 'tho i suspect i do have the fix-it disease...

and i should add that i know nothing about law (ok, ok - a little about criminal law as was required for the pre-req for my forensic science masters, but that's it) but nothing about housing laws...

Tim, I completely agree (see my 4:02). However, there was so much information flowing that I felt compelled to add the governing statute (I assumed she is in NC after mo's 4:53). That will be the basis of any "direct" action. It very well may be that Cassandra will prefer indirect or a just plain practical solution (how to get the danged glass cleaned up).

I am not at all certain that Gore would not have made the same mistakes about Iraq as Bush. He would have overall been a slight improvement but hardly a real change. It is just as well that he did not win in 2000. I don't particularly want him to run again, nor Kerry. William Jennings Bryan ran three times unsuccessfully -- the model for what the Democrats should not do.

cassandra:
i am so sorry for you. racial bigotry in any and all forms is evil. there is no other word i can think of to describe it.

"If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

I'll be praying for wisdom and strength for you, Cassandra, that you may rise above others' bigotry and be safe. God Bless.

The Gore documentary was one of the items in my Censored and Deleted post on Global Warming Tuesday, along with some stuff on Global Dimming (not to be confused with Global Stupidity), Joel's column in May's National Geo (Natty G, in Rap parlance,) and the feature article in May's edition on the selling of Alaska to oil interests. But I'm not putting those links in here again because all those subversive key words will cause this post to be thrust into the Sock Void.

Mudge, loved the allegory yesterday. Once again, as the volume of the Boodle goes up, so does my crisis load.

Cassandra needs 7 on her side!

Lazy landlords/service people are the worst. They know that most people aren't going to go through the hassle of filing a complaint and jumping through a bunch of hoops, so they usually get away with not doing their jobs.

Boodleskimming backwards...

Cassandra is in West Virginia.

The Rules say...

6. For any content that you post, you hereby grant to washingtonpost.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, exclusive and fully sublicensable license to use...

Just gives The Man the right to USE your intransitive verbs, not own them. They're still yours.

I'm just saying.

Hey, TBG. There's still that pesky "exclusive ... license" in there. I suspect that means that *I* can use my words, because I am the licensor, but that nobody else can just lift them from the Post.com. That would be fine by me. However, I'd feel more comfortable if that were clarified. Is this "work for hire" (at zero pay), meaning that I have sacrificed my rights of ownership? If so, the Post's rights really would be exclusive -- of my rights.

Great job, ladies and gents. You gave Cassandra the very best thing you could have given her. You have given her good ideas for practical solutions to getting the job done and legal knowledge in case a sensible quick solution is not on the horizon. The knowledge part falls into you can give a man a fish, or you can teach him how to fish.

At the same time Cassandra, if you don't find a good solution, shout here. I've always wanted to see South Carolina, and North Carolina and Georgia, and well, darn it, pretty much everything east of the Mississippi (where I have ventured but once,not counting Florida, and then was never more than a mile from the mighty Misisip). Seems to me giving hand with a shovel and broom would be a better than average reason for a trip.

Cassandra can probably speak for herself, but in October she told us she lives in a rural county in North Carolina.

and West Virginai, and Virginia, and...

What do I mean "probably" speak for herself?

Cassandra I'm sorry if that sounded patronizing, but you know what I mean. Let me try this again:

Cassandra can speak for herself, but in the meantime I would like to point out that she told us back in October that she lives in "a rural county in North Carolina."

I'm a goofball.

OK, subject change:

Tomorrow I will be making the traditional Greek Easter soup to take to my sister's house for our big Greek Easter on Sunday. The following is from a recipe I found online:

First line of ingredient list:
Intestines, liver, and heart of 1 lamb (or 3 pounds of lamb shoulder + 2 pounds lamb bones)

Note: If using the lamb's head, wash it, then soak it in cold water for 3 hours. Drain. Cut the head in half, using a sharp knife, and tie with a clean string.

If using the lamb's feet and tripe, prepare as follows: If tripe is not partially cooked, cut open with a sharp knife and clean the inside thoroughly under running water. Put in a pan with cold salted water to cover and soak for 30 minutes, then drain and wash with cold water.

Cut into small pieces and put in a large soup pot with the lamb's feet. cover with cold water, and simmer until tender, adding salt to taste during the last minutes of cooking.

Cube the tripe, remove the meat of the feet from the bones, and add to the mageritsa at the same time as the cut-up intestines, adjusting the liquid by adding more water.

Clean the intestines thoroughly by turning them inside out, using a long skewer or stick (this turning will be quicker if the intestines are first cut into 2-foot lengths), then wash under cold running water until clean. Rub the intestines with salt and the juice of 1/2 lemon, rinse again in cold water and drain.

Braid the intestines or tie the ends together with clean string. Put in a large soup pot with the lamb's head, if using, and cove with cold water. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat, skim, and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove the intestines, drain them, and cut into 1/4 inch pieces with the scissors and set aside to add to the soup later.

***This is the best part***: (Use the remaining portion of the head for another dish.)

I think I just figured out why my people came to America.

One of the colleges in NC pays my salary, so I have a passing familiarity with the offerings in the Old North State. If I were looking for a terrific small-ish college, I would take a hard look at Guilford College in Greensboro. It was founded by Quakers, and has a diverse, incredibly smart, and socially active student body. (No, I don't work there.) Plus, Greensboro is a decent place to live, even (maybe especially) for a college student.

I would also look at Elon University in Elon, NC. This is a larger university, but I like the feel of the campus. It's in a very small town, but suburban sprawl is heading in that direction. The University of North Carolina at Asheville is a small liberal arts school in one of the best small cities around. Getting in is a little harder for out of state students, though. (Disclaimer -- nope, don't work for any of these, either.)

Good luck. My own personal offspring will be starting the same process in a year or so.

cranky et al...

What do you know about UNC Pembroke? Looks easy to get into, but what about once he's there? You know what I mean.

UNC Pembroke was founded as a school for Native Americans, and historically a large percentage of the student body is from the local Indian population. The school is in a very rural area, if that makes any difference. There is a UNC-system-wide plan for improving the smaller and historically-underfunded schools, which includes adding graduate and professional programs.

If it were me, I would hesitate to choose a school just because it's easy to get in. If your son really has high SAT scores, take a look at the median or the middle 50% SATs, and compare. If his score is, say, 1400, and the median at the school is, say, 800 (and I am pulling these numbers out randomly), then his classes may not be as challenging as he needs.

You don't say just how poor is high school GPA is, but assuming that he has taken a challenging course load, and has very solid SAT scores, then a cogent explanation of why his GPA is so low could help him gain admission to more competitive schools. He could also spend a year at a junior college or a community college, and prove that he can do well at the college level. All of this presumes that he has the motivation to do well (sorry if that's too blunt). On a personal note, I am the poster child for people who should have taken time off before college. I went because it was expected that I would go, not because I really wanted to. I wasted several years at a good college as a result (but now I get to tell people that college was 'the best seven years of my life,' and really mean it ).

cranky

Let me add that I am not faculty, nor any sort of administrator, nor do I work in the admissions process at all. My opinions are mine alone, coming from a flunky. A professional flunky, with a decade in higher ed, but a flunky none the less. So let that guide you when you read my posts.

Drifting somewhat back on topic, one of the columnists in yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle told tale of a "Cheney/Voldemort '08" bumper sticker seen in New York:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/04/20/DDGNSGUFKS1.DTL

Has anyone else seen the sticker, or is it just a one-off?

Curmudgeon: Avast, me hearty! Me timbers were shivered by yesterday's kit.

I'm confused.

Reporting by Robert Windrem and Andrea Mitchell on the 5:30 p.m. CDT NBC News gives the name of the CIA officer in the Inspector General's office, Mary McCarthy, who "allegedly" leaked the information to Dana Priest of the Washington Post about the CIA's clandestine prisons in eastern Europe--and who was fired on Thursday, but the Post is not revealing the name...(yet)?

The administration's witch hunt is in full swing. McCarthy gets the polygraph, and perhaps prosecution, and Priest gets the Pulitzer?

Google is our friend:

http://tinyurl.com/esyda

TBG - The "start in a lesser college and work up" method works well. My daughter had decent grades and average SATs. She went to Jacksonville U. (FL) for two years, then transferred into Wm and Mary, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa. Got a Master's at Wake Forest and a PhD at LSU. The moving from college to college after Wm and Mary was following the grants and other aid packages.

Whew, I go away for a little while and the Boodle goes crazy! Cass, let me know where you are and I'LL CONTACT the local media!

TBG, cranky's right, I wouldn't really consider UNC Pembroke. As was mentioned earlier, St. Andrews is a good school, but it's in a pretty rural area. Cranky also mentioned Elon. And I would look at Brevard College (which is in Brevard). If you are interested in the UNC system, I'd check Appalachian, as I said this morning, UNC-Asheville, UNC-Charlotte, and UNC-Wilmington.

Nellie, I have to smile at the small world, because W&M is the school at which I wasted several years of my misspent youth. Glad your daughter did so well with her academic career.

Thanks, Cranky! I'm racing to place my order right now.

Hey, I never said not to consider UNC-Pembroke. I actually have kind of a soft spot for that particular school. I was speaking in general terms about the college search. (And I have no connection with the UNC system.) I thought I worded my response carefully enough so that it didn't come across as overtly negative, but I was wrong.

integrity.

I even have an Idea?

to give us back the title of:

"the greatest nation"

all that would be required would be an influx of integrity.

you want that?

you start doing what I said about Guilliani...

he had a problem in NYC, a few years back with major crime...unmitigated/unquenchable..

what his response was was to arrest, on all charges....

not paying for lunch,

riding the subway for free,

not paying parking tickets,

shoplifting less than $50,

anything....what they found was that scofflaws, are also murders, rapists, burglars, and assaultists...

sociopaths/sociopaths_that_look_like politicians..

you arrest people that are in congress, the judicial system, and governing bureaucracies, for all infractions of _all_ the rules...

unrepentant scofflaws, will be in jail, or out of office...publish names.

the ones that don't obey the laws, shouldn't be allowed to set, create, or influence them........

two years later,

it's a different world.

.

actually all that it would require for us to reinstall integrity is to require it in our elected officials...

Thanks so much everyone for the good advice, and the many helpful tips. I'm in rural North Carolina, a small town in the Sandhills, and I live in public housing. I think I'm going to go out there and sweep the glass up myself because I don't want anyone to get hurt. The police are still investigating the vandalism, but I doubt seriously if they call it a hate crime because that would probably involve more work, and I'm not saying that to say that they're lazy, but it will probably go down as a prank. I really do appreciate your advice and your kind words. Thanks so much, I just love you guys so much, and I really do pray for you every day. I'm probably a little bit more able to get the glass up than some of my neighbors, and I don't really mind if it helps somebody else. Just get tired sometimes of being talked mean to, that's all. Have a good weekend and kiss your wives and kids, Give God some of your time, and know that you are loved very much by God through Christ, and me too.

Step carefully, talk softly, the blog police are on the prowl --

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100587.html

Dear Fils de Carl,
you induced the whole boodledom into thinking "décolletage" is French. It is not, unless you are talking about deburring some metal parts after forging them. Decolleté is the right term for the sweet darkening gulley you must quickly look at in a desinvolt fashion. Don't stare, you may bo blind.

Joel is kitting about Gore Jr., how about Al's capability to raise money ? Every commentator/pundit is weighing the candidates abilitity to raise $dollars against electability. So, theoritically, a guy/gal publicly involved in a close relationship with a goat/billygoat could get elected if they have enough money, is it right ?

Dear gendarme de la grammaire

I am very confused. I thought décolleté was an adjective, as in the phrase
"The décolleté dress of Gina DeLaurentis seems inappropriate for cooking" and that décolletage was a noun, as in "The décolletage of Gina DeLaurentis is bound to help the Nielson ratings of the Food Network."

Cher gendarme, LOL

Alors, si le gendarme trouve le faut, j'espere qu'il va se souvenir que les caporals Quebecois sont eu mes professeurs, tabernacle.

Besides, je ne regrette rien (I regret nothing - the very cool motto of the French Foreign Legion).

Finally, the whole decollete/age thing wasn't started by me (although I did use -age). That what was in my Concise Oxford, so if it's good enough for Her Majesty, it's good enough for me. Wuf wuf! HooRAH!

I do try to make it clear I'm more into gravitatas than gravitas, but if I do fall from grace, I can only hope that I serve my time in some sweet darkening gulley.

RDP
Décolleté has past into the language as a noun, like a "nude" by Toulouse Lautrec if you wish. Nude is an adjective but can also be a noun. A décolleté is a thing of beauty, a decolletage is an industrial process. Unfortunately, my life has more to do with décolletage than décolletés,
bien à vous,

Wow...thanks so much for the college advice. My son said to make sure we print out this page ("Save the Boodle").

I'm having so much luck with the North Carolinians... any Pennsylvanians out there?

Pixel? Mostlylurking? Aren't you originally from Western Pa? We had a great sweep through that area last week during spring break. (One of his favorite things about that area is Reymer's Blennd. Good stuff.) But there are SO MANY colleges in Pennsylvania; it's amazing.

I feel like the old man in Moonstruck: I'm so confused.

Joël,
I wish to submit to you a kit/NatGeo/WaPo subject. I know, I know, it is the 100th this week but I don't care. Critters are taking over, it's a serious situation. The Eastern Cottontail rabbit, a quaint resident of the east coast, is taking up the world. Beavers are running amok. The things are everywhere. I saw many corpses this winter with tire tracks on them, (BRDs: bad rabbit decisions) . I was hoping for a definitive extermination but they are back. They just love the suburbs. They started up around the East Coast but now they are everywhere. The cat is doing it's part, it killed a couple as small bunnies every year but we are getting overrun by the bigger ones. We are getting rid of predators, knowingly or not, so we are getting invaded by prey animals. Mallards ducks and Canada Geese (these stupid things are giving a bad name to this country) are invading my pool and my Labrador Retriever does nothing about it. I'm supposed to kill the ducks but I do not have a gun or killing instinct. The dog is an expert at retrieving things and would do well if I kill the duck, but I just don't. Being a woos isn't easy. Pool pollution by geese turds is a minor matter though. Superior predator such as Wolves and Canada Lynx aren't hanging around town anymore, so the rodents have a field day. Beavers have be known to build dams in pools in my home town, dropping large trees in the process to secure their water supply. The stupid things are flooding every cottage or dirt road around the place and yet their pelt isn't worth enough to motivate a trapper into action. The local landowner must adds some premium money to get the local "coureur des bois" to catch and terminate the beasts. Again. cars take out a few but that ain't enough. Wolves and Canada Lynx would be efficient but they can't stand the suburbs, they just won't get into the action. We have modify the land to heavily favour some type of animal over an other , what should we do about it ?

cranky! thanks for that tinyurl.com thing! wow...

Of course, I asked my son if he knew about it and he said, "yeah." And proceeded to tell me other sites that do it too.

I remember when I used to be the one who knew stuff first.

Whew! Quite a boodle today. Glad to see everyone ready to read Cassandra's landlord the riot act. I'm the one in my neighborhood who picks up the litter, sweeps up broken glass (only had to do that once), etc. I was going to suggest you ask a nice neighbor to help you clean it up.

TBG, I'll try to think of colleges in PA, but I wanted to get out of the state (I remember considering Marymount in NYC, which mo attended!). Indiana University of Pennsylvania (Indiana, PA - my hometown) is ok. Seems like the town has not been prospering as of late, but it might be worth a look (truthfully, I feel like it's 10 years behind when I visit). There are Penn State extensions that might be good. Grove City in northwestern PA was where some friends of my sister went. Oh, Slippery Rock - what a great name, no? That's in NW PA.

I'll keep thinking - there are the great ones in Pittsburgh, of course - Pitt and Carnegie-Mellon, but they are probably tough to get into. My son had the same MO as yours - good SAT's, mediocre GPA - which I read was the college admissions "least liked" characteristics. He wound up going to community college, even though I encouraged him to check out various colleges - he was happy working and taking some classes.

Oh, and I refer to my "internet friends", or say I read something "somewhere". My husband doesn't know what a blog is, even though I've explained it to him. I did tell my sister I frequent a blog on the Washington Post.

Now, I must figure out what's happening to Dana Priest...

TBG,
Grove City College seems a bit weird - odd anti-tax, anti-government thing going on so they don't allow students to accept Pell grants or other student loans.

Slippery Rock University (of Pennsylvania) is 50 minutes north of Pittsburgh. Shippensburg University (of Pennsylvania) is in south central PA - about 2 hours from DC - looks like an interesting place from their homepage.

All these colleges were state colleges when I was a kid, or teachers colleges. I think Indiana started that annoying "of Pennsylvania" thing, because Indiana University was probably already taken by a college in the state of Indiana...Why the others have followed, I'm not sure...I usually refuse to write the entire word, or even say it - I'm from P-A.

How did NBC News--Robert Windrem and Andrea Mitchell--become the news organization/reporters to first break the story about Mary McCarthy being the person at the CIA who leaked the information to Dana Priest at the Washington Post about the U.S.'s secret detention centers in Eastern Europe?

Dana Priest is the national security correspondent for the "Washington Post," but she's also an MSNBC military and intelligence analyst. Interesting when media jobs cut across two mediums--print and television, as is the case with Priest and MSNBC, a well as Kurtz and CNN.

Will Justice lawyers just simply let McCarthy off with termination from her CIA post, as the NYT is reporting tonight?

"Lawyers at the Justice Department were notified of Ms. McCarthy's dismissal, but no new referral was issued, law enforcement officials said. They said that they would review the case, but that her termination could mean she would be spared criminal prosecution."

I assumed Googling "powerpoint bible" would lead me to a PP parody, like the Gettysburg Address on Tufte's site. But no, nothing like that. Nothing at all like that. Mostly commercial sites that sell PP slides for the use of religious meetings. At least in the first few pages.

Good morning, everyone. I'm off today to a missionary conference about twenty miles from where I live. I'm looking forward to it, and hope we accomplish much. I did get the glass up, as much as I could, and hope that does help some. Again, thank you for your kind words and good advice. I'll probably be out all day, maybe get to talk some time tonight. Have a great day, and a great weekend. Get some rest, and enjoy yourselves and your families. May God bless you and yours more than you can imagine through the One that loves us more than we can know, Jesus, the Christ. You guys are really special.

Can they really take charges against Dana Priest for her reporting or is that just a bluff? It does sound serious in the Post article this morning. I hope that doesn't happen to her.

Can anyone comment on these NC schools? Western Carolina, Wingate, Highpoint University? Or these other schools: Belmont University (Nashville), Morehead State (KY) or UCF (central Florida)? Comments welcomed! Please! thanks.

alsolookinglurker,

Our kids can be the first to attend a college based on recommendations by imaginary friends!

TBG
Why not! The Boodlers are more real than many people I actually know.
And yours is a son, right? and mine is a beautiful daughter. hmmm...imagination ensues. Perhaps the next generation of the BPH is at a student union on an NC campus. Still--in your search, did you develop an opinion about any of those I listed?

Shrieking Denizen,
Your concerns are very valid. At work the population of Canada Geese has become overwhelming. Their legal status is, of course, unclear. I suspect they may be claiming diplomatic immunity. Nevertheless, the sidewalks have become biological minefields. An expert has been hired recently to capture some of these geese. He uses trained Border Collies to round them up. (I don't know where they are taken then.) We also have an amazing number of deer who have invaded the surrounding woods despite a protective fence. Clearly immigration control is more difficult than some may suspect. And then there are the many small furry animals who litter the highway with their corpses. This upsets me since I am the kind of person who requires grief counseling when I hit a squirrel. Plus, the small furry animals probably aren't too fond of the situation either. I have heard about people getting into serious accidents by hitting deer, which, despite a certain karmic appeal, is certainly not acceptable. Not sure what the solution is, although I was reading about the increasing number of Suburban Coyotes in the area. Perhaps nature will manage to find a way. I hope so. It isn't pretty when worlds collide.

The Canada Geese do indeed appear to be claiming diplomatic immunity. Permanent resident geese are under the gun, while the migrant population is protected. I'm sure your geese claim migrant status.
http://www.dnr.state.md.us/wildlife/laterscan.html

Happy Earth Day!

I dreamed about two deer in my yard last night.

I like Al Gore and Tipper (she's a great drummer) - I even like the kids. I'm afraid if Al had been president and the terrorist attacks had occurred, he would have been impeached. Am I too cynical to think that the Republicans would have put politics above country?

alsolookinglurker,

I haven't done much research on the NC schools yet; that's why I started asking here first. Always do your homework, I say. Of course, if my son ever listened to that advice he would be heading down to Charlottesville and that would be that!

We'll probably take a road trip down to NC in late June or early August. He really still likes the University of Virginia's College at Wise. Ever heard of it? The only branch college of UVa, and it seems to fit the bill; it also seems to be more of Jefferson's vision of the "academical village" than UVa at this point. It's down in the waaaaay southwest corner of Virginia, almost in Ky or Tenn and west of Cleveland. But the 6-hour drive from Northern Virginia is pretty painless (if you consider I-81 painless).

We just want to have other options and other places.

And more excuses for road trips and moveable BPHs.

(And I use "we" because he asked me to do the research for him. I'm not usually this "in his life" but he gladly put this in my hands and I'm happy to do it)

TBG,
I think it's so great that your son is looking at colleges and involving you! That's what I had hoped my son would do, but didn't. He was computer literate (actually he was my SA at home) and a great reader, so I knew he'd do ok, and he has (everyone, shop at IKEA. Achenfan, thank you!).

Hope my shameless plug for IKEA doesn't run afoul of the rules. A thousand apologies.

I prefer Kimo's Maui rules, a couple of which are:
Never judge a day by the weather.
No rain, no rainbows.

mostly... no one has to work too hard to get me to shop IKEA. Just look around my house for the evidence. We're probably the only people on our street who have names for all of our furniture ("Look in the Kubist" or "Let's sit on the Ektorp").

Sometimes we just go for the meatballs!

Ha, TBG! Sara told me about the Cloudberry Jam, which I love just for the name. Asked my kid to get me some, which he eventually did, and it is really delicious. Now that he's moved away to the land of big earthquakes, I'll have to venture to IKEA myself more often (it's always so busy - but that's good!).

Now, I must go outside and tend to my garden.

alsolookinglurker, I have no opinion on UCF in general, unless they choose to hire me someday. Then, they will be God's own gift to higher education. In the meantime, there are planetary scientists that I like and respect in their astronomy department, so they're doing okay in that respect.

Western Carolina -- in the mountains, small town, great location (but I LOVE mountains).

High Point -- new president, very aggressive plans for growth, trying to make it one of the best/biggest in central NC, come a long way in past few years

Don't know much about Wingate.

Thank you TBG and ScienceTim, for commenting to this lurker's post. Now I understand why so many lurkers who take the plunge decide to stay. I have not heard of Univ. of Va College at Wise, sorry. And ScienceTim, your comment intrigues me. I continue to get surprisingly good feedback about UCF from a variety of different angles. There are so many good options out there. I guess it all comes down to who closes the classroom door...
thanks again, guys.

thanks to you too, cranky. I agree with you about the mountains! I'm going to look into High Point now.

I strongly believe Al Gore can and should win in 2008. I can picture a tongue-in-cheek, fun campaign borrowing photos from Back to the Future, maybe the "Rocky" theme playing as he strolls onstage at the Democratic National Convention. Just light-hearted, upbeat and happy to be giving it a good shot. I also believe the 2000 election was totally rigged as to Florida. I stayed up late to see the election results that night. When told he was losing in 3 states, I think Pennsylvania, New York and Florida, Bush replied, "Oh, I will NOT concede Florida." No mention of the other states, he just knew he had FLORIDA in the bag. I'll never forget it. Also, how many voting boxes went missing for several hours? Then sheriff's deputies showed back up with them at midnight or so. RIGGED! I want my lockbox back!!

Off-topic, but relating back to Curmudgeon's kit, tangentially.

I'm reading an interesting book called "Last Train to Paradise" about how Henry Flagler built the Overseas Railroad from Miami to Key West. The chapter about the Seven Mile Bridge is called "Seven Miles of Hell."

Some excerpts:

...The "work" most immediately at hand involved the building of a bridge more than 35,000 feet long, or nearly four times the length of the daunting Long Key Viaduct [a project they had recently completed]. With the necessary approach work figured in the span was almost nine miles long from tip to tip. Nothing remotely like it had ever been attempted before...

...the first step in the actual construction was for surveyors to complete the painstaking task of determining the locations of the piers and arch supports, another job complicated by the fact that all this work was taking place at sea. Since surveyors' transits could not be used to sight levels on bobbing boats, platform after platform had to be built at five-hundred-foot intervals across the seven miles of ocean, each of them firmly anchored in bedrock. The platforms themselves had to be located out of the way, about two hundred feet south and east of the line the actual construction would take.

When the surveyors had completed their calculations and triangulated the necessary positions, they used flag and hand signals to direct workers in the precise placement of the initial piling for each of the 746 bridge supports...

All of the heavy construction equipment used at the time was powered by steam engines, which, in comparison to still-to-be-developed diesel, electrical, and hydraulic tools, were massive, noisy, and notoriously undependable. ... imagine having to work on a yawing, heaving, piledriving barge from dawn till dusk, never more than a few feet away from one of those roaring, foul-smelling behemoths.

from LAST TRAIN TO PARADISE, by Les Standiford copyright 2002

(Does this violate "The Rules?" Have your attorney call my attorney. They'll have lunch. They'll talk.)

Please nominate Al or Hillary. Things have not been going well lately, according to my master plan. So, yet again, I am counting on all loyal Democrats to nominate either a hapless stiff or, even better, a powderkeg flip-flopping schemer like Hillary. Please. Please. I'm begging you.

In the meantime, realize that, although Al is truly a higher-order geek, it is guys like me who are the Uber-dork, assembled from parts of lesser dorks.

Thank you God for the inbred Washington "intelligentsia". You are doing a heckuva job.

alsolookinglurker, Western Carolina is another college in the UNC system. It's outside of Cullowhee (sp?) and literally seven miles from the nearest known sin. But a good school. Wingate is a Baptist College located in Wingate, about forty miles southeast of Charlotte. A decent small school.

Justice Scalia wrote-

WTF?!?! Who let this furrener use up American 0's and 1's? We'll see about this.

Posted by: Justice Scalia | April 21, 2006
11:17 AM

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WTF?!?!!!!! Justice Scalia are you making disparaging remarkes about foreigners? That is no way to instill confidence in your rational and unbiased legal thinking and our ability to trust your judgements in deciding the laws of the land!!!

You speak the truth, Karl Rove.

I would suggest a hybrid platform, with Al and Hiliary together, one as president one as Vice president, you'd get Bill thrown in too....

maybe this time with out being hamstrung by Starr something would get done....or maybe they could just blow up Dallas, blame it on the Arabs en masse get presidential War Powers and blow up Texas or donate it to the Mexicans....to be home for th 12,000,000 illegals that they want to invite to stay permanently without having had to go through the hassle that your forefathers went through...

because they're good servants, unlike you all.

.

especially the part where he licks my tender areas...

but I do have to wash afterwards...his clean is my dirty

Her name isn't Gina de Laurentiis, its Giada. And I worship the ground she walks on, and her decolletage. (And her cooking.)

Mudge, I don't know much about her decolletage, but Giada has the biggest head on TV.

I apologize to Ms. de Laurentiis for getting her first name wrong. When you validate spelling on Google you get into trouble. I fixated on her last name and not her first.
I enjoy Giada's show, although sometimes I do think the "cooking with cleavage" angle gets a little old. Nevertheless, her upbeat attitude is infectious. The show where she cooked with children (the interpretation of which should not to be confused with the show where she cooked with chicken) was delightful.

Although my heart belongs to Ina Garten.