“…Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

–Hermann Goering, (1946, Nuremberg)

Discuss.

* Standing on my back porch this morning, I noticed a spot of bird crap on the side of my neighbour’s house. “Well, that’s nothing out of the ordinary,” you might say… and I’d be inclined to agree… except that it was on a part of the house that resides below a portion of downspout, your typical kind, three inches wide or so, that goes angled across and down the side of the house.

How did it get there? I can’t imagine a bird would be too inclined to perch on this slick, downward-angled section of downspout — it doesn’t seem to be too convenient a perch — and any bird that would be able to perch up there… well simply put, I don’t imagine the anatanomical features would make it possible for the bird to do its business over the edge of the metal spout.

So taking that into account — and even if, by some stretch of the imagination, all these things were possible… then how did did it land on the side of the house? Why didn’t it land in the grass? I guess a mighty strong wind gust came just at that time and blew it into the house, otherwise I am stymied as to how it occurred.

Yes, these are the kinds of things I think about.

* I have finally been able to begin watching Rosencrantz and Guidenstern are Dead. Just to think, for all those years, the “Verbal Tennis Courts” forum that I frequented on Sampan Cafe was inspired by that book/movie. It was kind of enlightening… and really, suddenly knowing where it came from made that scene of the movie itself all the more funny.

It’s a great movie; I never knew it was a play, first, until recently. I really enjoy it. Truly funny, one big logic/philosophy/comedy milkshake. I’m not even done with the film yet, but it’s already becoming one of my faves. I have four more chapters to watch, but as I was falling asleep last night, it was all coming together in my head — I wonder how close the scenes and dialogue idiosyncracies will match what I imagined as I dozed off into dreamland.

NY Post: CHIP-WITCH: OMAROSA STALKS OFF ‘KIMMEL’

Omarosa, whose apparent sense of entitlement and bad attitude seems to increase daily, left the show’s studio about 22 minutes into the live telecast because a lie-detector had been set-up on stage for a comedy sketch, Kimmel said.

Man, there’s not much I can say to this one, except “Payback is Hell”. During the live finale, Ereka busted her chops while sitting right next to her, she was the target of a few jabs when on Larry King with other Apprentice cast members, then she get the axe from a Clairol commercial spot… and now this. She’s opened her mouth enough times in the past, trying to catch a few flies, it’s good to see that she’s getting more than her share of bitter indigestion.

It’s all very deliciously amusing really… almost as amusing as the WHOIS results for “omarosa.com”.

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people’s blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud
–Bob Dylan, “Masters of War”

MSNBC: Woman fired for photo of flag-draped coffins

I can’t say I expected this, but it doesn’t surprise me, either, anymore. Information has been stifled for the past four years regarding Iraqi intentions and outcomes, why stop now?

From the article:

John Molino, the deputy undersecretary of defense for military community and family policy, denied that the no-photos policy was intended to prevent the public from seeing the human toll of combat, saying it instead “reflects what we believe the families desire.”

What’s this? From all I’ve heard, families of those soldiers killed have found the pictures to be both respectful and honourable. I guess they just don’t help re-election efforts.

It’s okay, I’m sure this woman will find plenty of good work, elsewhere. Karma has its place in life.

…well, maybe compared to Jess, seeing as he’s down in the Peach State, and things have been coming up roses since February. Things have only started to bloom here in the past month or so.

Luckily, I finally got to take some pictures this morning, before heading to work. Hopefully there will be a few more before the summertime sizzle makes everything wilt away.

As always, click the images below to see full version.

It wasn’t quite so sunny this morning, so the colours didn’t really shine through, but I suppose these are okay images.

Catfish came into town; some kinda family thing, he came in a day early to chill.

Thus, mid-day through midnight Friday consisted of much relaxation, several beers, and some smoked beef brisket that would knock you off your feet. Ever since I got my Char-Griller, I’ve been trying to cook out whenever the weather is nice.

Now, as it stands, I’ve been learning and perfecting my grill techniques for probably a little over ten years now, but I’d never done much of anything resembling barbecuing until I got this grill. Certainly it’s not bbq if it’s not pork, mind you, but nonetheless, barbecued brisket can be pretty damned tasty. I can’t give away my sauce recipe — not that it’s secret, I just can’t ever remember it, and it’s never the same — but I can state the basics.

For a nice brisket around three lbs…

• 1c ketchup
• 1/2c vinegar, though I usually end up adding more, to about 1c.
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 small to medium onion.

After that, you’re on your own. I generally add some or all of the following, in seemingly random amounts:

• pepper
• hot pepper (either chili powder or pepper flakes)
• mustard
• paprika
• cumin
• cinnamon
• various green herbs

I haven’t yet tackled real, honest-to-god pork bbq, mainly because my housemate doesn’t dig on swine. Regardless, I’m itchin’…now I just need to figure out a good dry rub for some pork bbq. Wet rubs are easy enough for me, but I have to learn both.

“Be fair, alright? Everyone wants ‘Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride’…”
–Brody, Mallrats

If there is one thing consistent I have noticed about the web since everyone started getting his, her or its own presence, it’s the fact that radio stations, specifically those of the “Rock” format, consistently have grating web design. For years, it seems, back at least as far as when I was using Netscape 3, radio stations have always seemed to have garish, high-contrast colours, poor content layout, as well as ill-used elements, plugins, and various other bits of less-than-ideal detritus.

To tell the truth, pretty much even thinking about going to a radio station’s webpage kinda gives me a headache and want to grit my teeth. The ever-so-slight rise in stress levels I can detect. I’ve been conditioned, over time, to avoid them!

Local stations DC101 and WHFS are no exceptions, but nor am I singling them out, either. I even doublechecked my theory before posting this, using made-up but likely radio station names (google for “97 Rock”, or “96 Rock” for example) and you’ll see the same thing. It’s just painful. Now, maybe some exist out there, but I have yet to see a radio station’s webpage that doesn’t make me shudder.

For example, the excessive flash — well, a lot of companies have excessive flash, but radio stations consistently overuse it, and do so in a really bad way, with the “strobelight” effect thing going on, or blinking text, or something equally distracting.

Now, I can understand why they at least try to do all this… it’s just the same old radio “lightning bolts, neon and fantasy van” thing that they’ve been doing for years now. Orange, yellow, and red on blue or black, these haven’t changed… and really, I can see how these things kinda elicit the visual equivalent of those “radio sounds”. Back in the day, if you saw the fantasy van, or you had a bumper sticker, or t-shirt… fine, you see it and it catches your eye.

What works on a radio tee, however, just doesn’t work on the web, and when you’re trying to read something, that stuff drives you crazy. Really, it seems that while radio promo stuff hasn’t changed since the 70s, their web-design layouts, short of the aforementioned Macromedia garbage, never made it out of the mid-nineties.

At first I wanted to blame it all on ClearChannel, but really, if you look, these stations generally have some various, usually local web outfit come in and do the design. But unless CC has some sort of homogenised “look and feel” quasi-standard going on — which is feasible, but unlikely — they, for once, can’t be blamed.

I don’t quite know where I’m going with this. All I know is that it seems that radio is falling behind the times on understanding the consumers… and while I can’t quite put my finger on it, and I am gonna stop far short of saying people will boycott radio simply because their webpages suck, I can’t help but think there’s something stale going on behind the scenes at stations everywhere.

Today, on my work email address, I got a bit of spam touting some two-bit OTC stock symbol. The email opened up with something akin to:

****NALG****NALG****NALG****NALG****NALG****NALG****
(ad nauseum)

In my cloudy, pre-caffeine stupor, I briefly misread that as “NAG”. The first thought that came to my mind was, “Man, I’m not even married yet, and the Honey-Do lists are already starting.”

tennesseean.com: Not so fast: Ice cream bill may be more than meets the eye

Weatherford contacted the legislature early this year after Dairy Queen announced that it was celebrating the 100th anniversary of the ice cream cone last fall with a free scoop day. She said she was disappointed to learn that Tennessee Dairy Queen outlets couldn’t participate because such giveaways are illegal here.

So wait… in Tennessee, it’s legal to scoop up and consume roadkill, but it’s illegal to give away ice cream?

Okay…

Best product tag, ever..

So the buzz over on Livejournal’s Bob Dylan community concerns the recent appearance of Dylan himself in a recent Victoria’s Secret commercial. His music was in one before, apparently, but this time, he actually makes an appearance.

Meanwhile, I found it cool/funny/whatever, but I knew that, somewhere in the back of my head, I remember reading about someone asking Dylan, years ago, if he would ever sell his music for commercials, and if so, what kind of venue would it be… to which Dylan said, “Women’s underwear”. Maybe it’s in the Shelton bio or something. Anyway, I never knew definitively that it occurred… until now.

Glad to see that someone found archived video footage of it.

Q: If you were going to sell out to a commercial interest, which one would you choose?
A: Ladies� garments.

Actually… there’s a lot more to this story than meets the eye.

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