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A Thread for Random Musings


Old Man

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Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

"But where are the Reagan Republicans, I wonder? [Reagan was quoted as saying:]

 

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: "I’m from the government and I’m here to help."

 

 

 

I wasn’t a fan of Reagan when he was president—and that’s putting it mildly. I loathed Ronald Reagan. I voted for the very first time in 1984 for Walter Mondale, and I was stunned when Reagan not only won, but won by a freakin' landslide. (Full disclosure: Mondale; Dukakis, Clinton, Clinton, Gore, Kerry.) But Reagan managed to outlive my hostility, and when he died I felt same sense of sadness as most other Americans.

 

These days I’m positively nostalgic for Ronald Reagan. Yeah, yeah: He shrugged off apartheid, he ignored the AIDS epidemic, he saddled us with voodoo economics and Star Wars and all that horrible red White House china and he attempted to trade arms for hostages (and broke the law doing it), but at least he wouldn’t have sent government workers into our bedrooms to announce that they were there to “help†us."

 

-Dan Savage

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Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

This country was founded on the principle we should be free to screw each other individually. And that big guys can screw little guys, but not too much.

 

Now people are eager to do away with that, eager to hand over power to the government, either to prevent literal screwing or corporate screwing or what-not...out of a dangerously misguided belief that the government is there to help us "be happy", to "live better", to use "our" resources to help "each other". Regardless of conservative or liberal, the point is the same, that power corrupts and the more power we delegate to a central authority, the more it will selfishly and zealously guard that power, almost always regardless of the men or women who take on that power and their going-in intent. It astounds me how idealogues of either established end of the mainstream American political spectrum, with their mistrust of either big business or foreign enemies or moral ills, believe that the solution is to delegate yet more power to the central national authority. It further astounds me that most people see some stark contrast between the mainstream left and right when both have become nothing more than figureheads to demogagouery.

 

This is not a direct response to Mr. Gillen's post above but was inspired by the Reagan quote "I’m from the government and I’m here to help." and how so many of my liberal friends are so eager to naysay that and somehow believe that national government is the solution (yet they so quaintly and ineffectually take to the streets, seeing no irony...), and how many conservative friends are blind to the betrayal of a massive part of their core ideology in the hands of the fraud that is the primary power brokers among the conservative republicans.

 

This nation will surely rot in the hell it is building for itself.

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Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

I ran across an editorial about the "racism" of Lost in Translation, how the Japanese are portrayed as clowns...they tried to say that they weren't being critical as every film with major protagonists treats all those around as clowns, so wasn't necessarily racist but they believed it probably had that effect.

 

I think when people think that way, they're betraying their own inability to see those as different as just that and NOT as being negative. Because, mostly, anyway, I didn't see a negative portrayal of Japan or the Japanese, not at all. And when they showed some of the people that were known to the woman lead, they seemed like regular people on a night on the town.

 

Naturally, nobody, including the caucasians, was portrayed in depth besides Murray and the female lead...that part is just story-telling, as the column on one hand admits but on the other hand tries to not-so-subtly paint as being insensitive to the Japanese.

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Guest George Kirby

Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

NPR played excerpts from the NYFD and EMS comms during the collapse of the World Trade Center this afternoon.

 

I never thought hearing a radio dispatcher begging anyone... anyone at all... to respond would bring me to tears, but damned if it didn't.

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Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

Busted out my Dyson DC-14 vacuum today. Impressive, but it ought to be for the price. Probably the best part is that you can tell the vacuum isn't fighting itself to work--the air follows an unobstructed (if convoluted) path through the machine. Even when you accidentally get a swiffer or something blocking the tube, the machine doesn't immediately kick into that high-pitched self-destruct shriek that other vacuums do.

 

Pros:

Very light and well balanced. Easy to maneuver.

Seems surprisingly sturdy in spite of the light weight.

Attachments are pretty good.

Very quiet for a vacuum cleaner. You still wouldn't want your wife running one of these during Galactica, but the motor whine is quite soft, and there is very little of that sharp hiss that you get at the business end of the hose.

Pretty simple to operate, once you figure out where all the buttons are--they are not immediately apparent, but it's not rocket science.

Emptying is actually kind of fun--you wind up pulling off pretty much the whole upright cylinder part; it's light, and it releases the crap directly into the trash can.

 

Cons:

Doesn't get under things very well. Floor/beater section is too tall for that. I assume the low-reach hose attachment, which comes with the red or purple versions of the DC-14, would solve that. But I bought the yellow one.

Quick-release wand extension would totally rock if I had a big house with high ceilngs and staircases. But I don't. I have a cramped apartment, and while the wand isn't totally crippling, it does make attachment use a bit unwieldy.

Costs over four hundred bucks... damn thing better last three decades at least.

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Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

Just read it todays newspaper that Muslim leaders are criticizing season 4 of 24 that is presently being shown.

 

What the? Everybody knows that not everybody of Middle Eastern appearance is a terrorist, just as not every Chrisitan is a terrorist. Only a small faction is and wheather we should label them after the religion they profess to follow is questionable as well. That is a "Chrisitan Terrorist" is not a Chrisitan, just a terrorist. I thought both sides knew all this?

 

In season 1 of 24 the villians were Serbs? Did they protest? Dennis Hopper played the main villian and did it superbly, did anyone potest this? I can see the Australian Muslims veiwpoint, I just don't share it. After all James Bond is well known for doing this style of "enertainment sterotyping".

 

Of course if we wanted to give them something to protest about, why not show an accurate big budget telemovie of the Seige of Acre, where the Chrsitan Millitary Orders defended the last stronghold of Christiandom in the Holy Land against the Infidels. Would this be propaganda? No. I consider it a presentation of history from the side of the Chrisitian West, and something we can take pride in. And as I assess what the West has accomplished in terms of civilization, I wonder if losing Acre was a backward step for thr Holy Land.

 

So why a critical reation to a piece of entertainment? It is just the West telling a entertaining story from our viewpoint.

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Guest George Kirby

Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

I have discovered, to my sudden shock, that the implied threat of divorce has mass and gravity and it disturbs the air as it flies past you. It is also very cold, causing you to suddenly get a bad case of the shivers.

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Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

I'm in a Funk!

 

But I don't know why...

 

'Scuse me while I snark this guy.

 

Why aren't we ever totally, completely happy and content? There always seems to be something aggravating going on that tries to bring a fell down. Computer going haywire and sitting on the phone for 2+ hours while trying to connect to a heavily accented Indian. By that time, I'd finally figured out what I needed to do!

 

Darn ATL.dll files. Sheesh! Now, I feel stupid it took that long.

 

I ramble! Stick a fork in it!

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Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

I'm at a wierd stage in my nonmarriage. I just want it done. I've nothing to move on to but I want the awkwardness gone. I spent the evening with Jenny and Duncan and the goodbyes are ten to fifteen minutes of awkward silences alternating with me telling her that everything is going to be okay, even though I'm not the one who wanted to separate.

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