July 03, 2010
— Maetenloch Hello, hello all M&Ms. Be sure and give to Ace - for just $3 you can be an official Ace of Spades Ranger or Ace of Spades Spear-Carrier of Athena for you moronette types. Who needs a tote bag with a title like that?
Fireworks!
It's the time of year when a young man's fancy turns to well, explosives and pyrotechnics. So here's a little article on the hows and whys of fireworks going boom and how they're made. Mostly it's done by family-based professionals but you amateur types can order a kit here and make your own or if you're old school, look for "Fireworks & Explosives Like Granddad Used to Make" somewhere on bittorrent. And if you're really into fireworks, they also make a perfect way to distribute your ashes.
Of course the first thing you have to do is get your hands on some decent pyrotechnics. So here's a state-by-state chart of the relevant fireworks laws. Of course even within a state county laws can differ and be much more strict. I remember having to beg and cajole my parents into driving the eight miles to nearest county line in Tennessee so I could convert my carefully saved allowance and lawn mowing money into Asian-made paper and gunpowder products. Which were soon completely destroyed. And yes Mom it WAS worth it.
Disclaimer: Okay seriously don't blow yourself or any loved ones up. And the usual AoSHQ release of liability applies - we don't know nothing about nothing nohow nowhen noway and we've never seen that person before in our lives. And yes officer, I would like to have an attorney now please. more...
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— Dave in Texas Drug charges against Paris Hilton are Dropped, we may all breathe a sigh of "goddammit can't you incarcerate that idiot for a couple months?"
Ah well.
Don't let your boredom with Paris keep you from contributing to this place. Give 50 bucks just to shut me up.
It's worth it my friends, you can't find a place like this anywhere in the blogosomethin. Every day you get something wonderful. Give back, if you have the means and the motivation.
In the spirit thereof, I give you a classic post.
Magic happens here. And you are all a part of it.
BRASS: Mmmphhnmmbb.
that's called a teaser I think. I don't know the technical stuff. Here, look at a puppy. It makes you happy, and want to hit the tip jar. more...
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05:29 PM
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— Gabriel Malor Mark your calendars, Los Angeles-area readers. We had a fine get-together back in February and it's time to catch up again. Unless we squeeze one in come September, this will probably be the last meetup I do in Los Angeles and I want to see all your fucked-up faces before I go.
To that end, there will be a Moron Meetup the evening of Saturday, July 24 in either Hollywood or the Westside. Location TBD at this point.
As per our usual practice, you can get the details via email. Long-time reader h2u has offered to handle that part of the organizing again. You can reach him at "HebrewToYou" at google-mail. (Email addy not spelled out in a probably-vain attempt to cut down on spam. Put the name in quotes with "@gmail.com".)
Hope to see you there.
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— Dave in Texas Shut up about it, that's how.
Not sure how this edict is any different from business as usual, but it's funny anyhow.
Among the new rules for good leftish commenty behavior:
Out:
"Telling someone to 'shut up,' 'screw you,' 'go away,' 'f--k off,' or the like;" "belittling someone for being new or having a low post count; "negatively 'calling out' someone who is not participating in the discussion."Insensitivity, which includes "weight or other physical characteristics" and "use of insensitive terminology."
"Over-the-top assertions of bad faith" in Obama, or "advocating voting against Democrats, or in favor of third-party or GOP candidates; broad-brush smears against Democrats generally; broad expressions of contempt toward Democrats generally."
"A sustained or organized effort to demean, belittle, bully, or ostracize another person; digging up or posting personal information about any private individual, on DU or elsewhere; stalking someone across discussion threads or forums."
Frankly I don't know what they'll talk about without those things.
via xbradtc
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12:30 PM
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— Monty Given that today is the anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg and tomorrow is Independence Day, how about "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" for some background music? more...
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11:00 AM
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— Monty Since we're going into the long July 4 weekend, and I don't want to unduly depress anyone, I'm going to put the post below the fold. If you don't want your daily dose of doom-n-gloom, I don't blame you. Go out, have fun with your family, enjoy the lovely summer weather, and enjoy yourselves. The economy will still suck when you get back. But for those gluttons for punishment -- doom awaits! more...
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06:16 AM
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— Monty On this date in 1863, the biggest battle in the American Civil War ended, having raged over the two previous days. It would be the most sanguinary battle of the most sanguinary war in America's history: there were approximately 51,000 casualties on both sides. Nearly 8 thousand of those soldiers in blue and gray were killed. It would prove the turning of the tide; though the war would grind on its bloody way for two more years, the fate of the Confederacy was sealed by their defeat over those three hot July days in southern Pennsylvania.
Robert E. Lee, the great Confederate general, lost 1/3 of his army on that terrible day. When the South began their retreat through Maryland, the train of hospital wagons stretched for 17 miles along the miserable, rutted roads. During the famous "Pickett's charge" up Cemetery Ridge, 6,555 southern soldiers were killed or wounded. Pickett lost three of his brigade commanders, and all thirteen of his regimental commanders in that single engagement.
On the Union side, entire formations were wiped out nearly to a man: the legendary 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry regiment took an astounding 83% casualty rate -- still the highest casualty rate during a single engagement of any military unit in American history.
The time and place were driven by the fact that footsore Southern soldiers needed shoes. The Southern army approached the Gettysburg crossroads from the north; the Northern army approached from the south.
The lone Gettysburg civilian casualty was a Miss Jennie Wade, who was killed by a stray bullet while she was baking bread.
In Michael Shaara's superb novel The Killer Angels, he writes of the Union General Buford, who on July 1 is the only Union general available to fix the Confederate army in place before they take position in the hills surrounding Gettysburg:
The moods were getting out of hand. He was no man for war councils, or teaching either, and no sense in brooding to junior officers -- but he saw it all with such metal brilliance: Meade will come in slowly, cautiously, new to command, wary of reputation. But they'll be on his back from Washington, wires hot with messages: attack, attack. So he will set up a ring around the hills and when Lee's all nicely dug in behind fat rocks Meade will finally attack, if he can coordinate the army, straight up the hillside, out in the open in that gorgeous field of fire, and we will attack valiantly and be butchered valiantly, and afterward men will thump their chests and say what a brave charge it was.
Later that fall, after the dead had been buried and the fields around Gettysburg lay rubbled and bare, waiting for snow to cover the scars of war, our greatest President would deliver his most famous speech. It was a speech few liked at the time; indeed, President Abraham Lincoln himself felt it was a failure.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Remember.
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03:39 AM
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July 02, 2010
— Maetenloch I think the current world situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part. And we're just the guys to do it!
ONT Toga Party!!
Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga!
Posted by: Maetenloch at
05:07 PM
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— DrewM They're getting ready to put the old Klansman in the ground and once they do, looks like there will be a fight over how to replace him in the Senate.
The W. Virginia Secretary of State says the Governor can appoint someone to hold the seat until a Special Election is held in 2012. For his own reasons, namely he wants the seat, he's on board with that plan.
Not everyone is going along with the idea. The state Attorney General says he may have a different take on the law than the Secretary of State, the legislature may change the law in an upcoming special session and failing all of that, lawsuits are being prepared.
The state attorney general’s office announced Wednesday that it was looking into it, too, because, Chief Deputy Attorney General Fran Hughes said, “people don’t want for such an important position a caretaker replacement.”Gubernatorial politics are factoring into the calculus. Manchin, the popular two-term governor whom Democrats say has been eyeing the Senate for years, told reporters Monday that he would not appoint himself to the seat. But if the election were held in 2010, and Manchin were to run and win, the ripple effect from his early departure would have a significant impact on the 2012 governor’s race.
“Right now, there are many people in West Virginia talking about many different options,” said Larry Puccio, the West Virginia Democratic Party chairman and a Manchin ally. “One of the options is that many individuals believe that we should have a special election, and they would ask the governor and the Legislature to put that on the special session. One of the options is asking the courts to interpret the law.”
West Virginia is still a pretty Democratic state but if a Republican can replace Ted Kennedy, one can certainly replace Exalted Cyclops Byrd.
Speaking of Bobby Byrds KKK past, via Allah, it turns out that it's no big deal. You see, he was running for office. So says....America's first black President, Bill Clinton.
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— Monty The WSJ reports on a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly common as the economic downturn refuses to go away: college graduates are finding the job market more hostile upon graduation. But instead of staying in the job market, many are opting to simply go back to school and get their Masters or PhD's.
The problem, as many have noted, is that the job market for MBAs and PhD's is actually much smaller and more highly-competitive than that for holders of Bachelor's degrees. So in return for a much more massive load of debt and a loss of prime earning-years, these students are getting...not much, really. The value of a college education has been so diluted compared to what it costs that it's no longer worthwhile for most of the students.
Many students get stuck in a "failure to launch" cycle that is familiar to the situation in Europe: students endlessly chase meaningless degrees that have no practical application in the real world mainly because academia is an alternative to holding a job rather than training for a job.
I think that we as a country have to re-think this whole "chase your dreams!" idea that we've been feeding kids, because let's face it, their "dreams" are often unrealistic and unlikely to lead to a decent career. The notion that "every child must go to college" is slowly being recognized as a complete fallacy.
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09:42 AM
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