nobody asked…

I love to grill and will tackle almost anything that doesn’t move too much. Plus I am a gadget-freak by birth, choice and the grace of the gods. And for indulging my gadgetness, there’s no better way to kill a few minutes than browsing Sporty’s catalog. They have so many really gonzo neat things that you’re just not likely to find at your local WalMart or Home Depot. Request their dead-tree catalog - good quick read for your morning constitutional library, although the paper is a bit too glossy and slick for more practical use in that shrine.

But when I stumbled across this one, even I balked. Part of the real manly thrill of grilling is standing over it sweating, cursing and having another swig of cold brew while watching your subjects burn to a crisp. Don’t think I’ll order one today… although … it does say “batteries included.”

Didn’t intend to watch Bush’s babblings last evening, but the remote was across the room and I was too intent on my burger to walk over and get it. The only redeeming feature of this Bush appearance was its brevity - it beat my burger to the finish line. Can’t believe he’s still allowed to use the words “weapons of mass destruction.” My first reaction was “why did he bother making this appearance if he had nothing to say?” Guess it had been too long since the last photo-op, so he just decided to do it because he could?

He seemed totally confused, or maybe he just forgot which scare tactic he had used to justify invading and plundering Iraq in the first place. Read more

The Chief Blogging Officer always has something interesting to waste your next few minutes. His current triviata post probably contains nothing we haven’t seen before, but most will still bring a smile or a hmmmm. This one always gets my attention, and I marvel not so much at the fact that it is true, but more over the question “who had the time to figure this crap out?”

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

OK, I just signed up for a “Technorati Profile“. I’m not terribly sure of the implications of that, but there was something about untold riches…

I’ve always been a strong believer in the free enterprise, free market system. Capitalism (why has that become almost a 4-letter word?) works and works quite well. The laws of supply and demand have not been repealed. Adam Smith’s market theories still apply. They work and they apply… IF … we leave them the hell alone! Greed, political posturing, and egoistic-driven micro-management too often corrupt otherwise balanced and desirable results. Laissez-faire must be our guiding beacon if we are truly dedicated to prosperity through our own initiative and enterprise.

During the “off-shore” expansion of the 70s and 80s I watched from within, and with a great deal of disbelief and horror, as the highly touted business ethics of my Fortunate 50 employer quickly morphed into something hardly recognizeable. Kickbacks, bribes, getting indebted to outsiders even in the smallest way, engagement in political issues - these were all highly forbidden. We all knew the rules. Breech of the rules of conduct were rare and were met with a fast and harsh boot. Then came the opportunities to expand into new markets, both for selling our products and for grabbing and developing the raw material base before a competitor got there.
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“Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It’s already tomorrow in Australia.” — Charles M. Schulz (1922-2000)

Which of these is the most accurate? Are you sure?

“Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.” — Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” — Voltaire (1694-1778)

ESPN reports that in one of the most brazen displays of male chauvinism in the last hundred years, Formula One Racing president and CEO Bernie Ecclestone (reportedly an ecentric and very wealthy old Brit) proved how much of a stupid ass he really is. In Indianapolis for the US Grand Prix, he responded to a question about women in racing by stating that “… women should be dressed in white like all the other domestic appliances.”

As if that was not enough, he went on to add that if a woman did make it, “she would have to be a woman who was blowing away the boys. … What I would really like to see happen is to find the right girl, perhaps a black girl with super looks, preferably Jewish or Muslim, who speaks Spanish.”

What an obsolete relic of another century! What an absolutely stupid jerk! Let’s hope he went on back home and stays there! I’m so glad I’m a football fan!

So, I’m just browsing around in some new areas, not looking for anything in particular, when I stumble into something I had never heard, read or seen before. Not unusual, that. We all do a lot of “accidental learning” out here in the wasteland of the net. Sorry, I was wrong on that. TV is the wasteland…the internet has become a vast wealthland.

Anyway, if you are not up-to-speed on Level 3 Consciousness, you may want to study up. Quiz tomorrow at 10 AM.

There is more at Richard Brodie’s Meme Central, most of it quite interesting and thought provoking. Brodie states that “…memes are the basic building blocks of our minds and culture, in the same way that genes are the basic building blocks of biological life….The breakthrough in memetics is in extending Darwinian evolution to culture.”

Wonder if Republicans also have memes, or is it just sapient humans.

This could get really interesting in a hurry! South Knox Bubba has returned from his tour of the country in fine form. He has the essence of the wind that’s about to blow through the Bushs. I find no way to improve on or add to what he said. So get on over there and read it now!

“…the idea that an American business would help a government censor its people, to however small a degree, should leave us a little uneasy…

Now that I have your attention, the ‘must’ reading assignment for today is the rest of this article from Patricia Keefe.

If Microsoft or any other US based business would help the oppressive communist Chinese government censor its own people in the name of markets and profits, what is to keep them from doing the same thing here in the good ol’ US of A? How do we know they have not already done so?

Feeling kinda blah this morning. Had already decided not to write anything till later — let the blahs move on thru, like storm clouds passing. Probably has something to do with entering my third day without smoking. I’m depressed. Feel like I’ve lost one of my best friends, one that has been with me far longer than anyone except parents. But no, I have been “down in the dumps” as we say around these parts, for sometime now. Not all the time — it comes and goes, but never disappears completely. To perk me up I browsed some of my regular reads and ran into this over at CBO’s shack:

It’s more than nostalgia. It’s wanting to believe again, but not being able to. It’s the feeling that what we don’t know could hurt us. Bad. Would be more than we could take. Where Ground Zero equals Childhood’s End.

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“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” — George Bernard Shaw

This Jim Croce classic from 1975 comes back to haunt me occasionally, sometimes staying for a few minutes, sometimes for days on end. Even after all these years it still ranks high on my best lyrics/best sentiment list.

Time In A Bottle

Words and Music by Jim Croce
Copyright © 1975 Jim Croce, Atlantic Records.

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to save every day
Till Eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I’d save every day like a treasure and then,
Again, I would spend them with you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I’ve looked around enough to know
That you’re the one I want to go
Through time with

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