My Sure-Fire Way to Get Lee…

What’s that?  There’s no one to one correlation between what a person listens to and what kinds of deeds they’ll do?
Dang.

My Sure-Fire Way to Get Lee to Worship Satan–A Playlist

“Devil Went Down to Georgia”–Charlie Daniels (come on, we all know who really won that)
“Sympathy for the Devil”–The Rolling Stones
“Stairway to Heaven”–Led Zeppelin
The “Holy Diver” Album by Dio
And everything by Slayer

My Sure-Fire Way to Get Lee to Give Me All His Money–A Play List

“Money”–Pink Floyd
“Money”–The Beatles

My Sure-Fire Way to Get Lee in Bed–A Playlist

“I Just Want to Make Love to You”–Muddy Waters
“Fat Bottom Girls”–Queen
“These Arms of Mine”-Otis Redding
“Sunday Kind of Love”–Etta James
“Whole Lotta Love”–Led Zeppelin

Things that Come to Me While I’m Working on Mack’s Afghan

–My embarrassing lack of math skills causes me to be overcome with fear that, even though I have approximately eleventy billion squares, somehow Mack’s afghan will only be three feet tall.  Here is the issue.  Because we’ve decided that the afghan will be 11 squares across by 14 squares down AND I decided that they [...]

Why The Devil Will Need Mittens Long Before I Vote for Edwards

Note: I am so angry about this that I deliberately did not cuss in the whole post so that even conservatives could read the whole thing.
I was highly displeased with the way the Edwards campaign handled the Marcotte incident (though I was tickled to think that a woman could almost derail a whole presidential campaign [...]

To the Manchild in the Tight White T-Shirt

If you shower every day, you probably have a smell that most potential partners would describe as “neutral” or “good.”  If you wanted to smell irresistible, you might consider dousing yourself in water that’s been steeped in rosemary, but that’s neither here nor there.
If you insist on wearing whatever stinky crap you’re wearing, the kind [...]

Archaeological Fun For the Whole Family!

I’ll be honest with you.  I know a lot of folks who are just one more Chinese toy scare away from living off the grid and handmaking everything they need to survive, coming into town only to buy ammunition.
And I laugh at them (though not too hard, because I want a place to stay if [...]

Can Exercise Piss You Off?

Okay, this may be a little too “woo-woo” for my scientifically inclined readers, but I’m going to ask it anyway.
So, I used to walk Mrs. Wigglebottom every week day and take her to the park for a big long walk on one day on the weekend.  Basically, for the last four or five weeks, forget [...]

America, I am a Wimp

I hurt my back moving laundry around yesterday.  It hurts to walk.  It hurts to sit unless I sit with my knees as high off the ground as I can get them.
I have drawn a picture to illustrate:

Can you justifiably leave work early because your back hurts?
We’ll see.  I wish we had some Bengay at [...]

Is There a Word for a Person who Disproves His Own Work through His Work?

William Saletan, who has spent the larger part of two months “bravely” pondering what it might mean if white people were inherently smarter than black people admits he neglected to do the very basic work it would have taken to discover that one of the scientists he relies most heavily on is a racist.

Y’all Already Knew This, Didn’t You?

I just realized that the “Dee.  Dee.  Dit dit de de.” from Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” is from the Everly Brothers’ “Walk Right Back.”
Ha, and those are two songs that will stick in your head all day.  Sorry about that.

The Third and Most Deadly Plank

I know that merely suggesting that we restore, revitalize, or reinvigorate any part of the federal government is enough to cause my libertarian readers to have to take long naps with cold washcloths on their foreheads lest they have an aneurysm.
But I keep thinking about FEMA and how, of all of the federal agencies a [...]

On the Way into Work, I Saw My Cousin

He was just standing on the street corner, waiting for the light so that he could cross West End.  He looked fantastic.  Bright and healthy and just like he felt great.
I mean, I know it couldn’t be him.  In a month, he’ll have been dead a year.
I know it was just some guy who looked [...]

Martin Brady, A Blogger Beyond Snark

There’s so much in this post that is wrong, bordering on ridiculous, that I almost don’t know what to say in response to it.
Does a girl start with the struggle to find a way to blame the victim?  Or perhaps we should be considering how a grown man reaches the point where he comes to [...]

Sharing the Polka with the Younger Generation

SuperMousey is describing the fright I gave her when “Aunt B. grabbed my arms and we ‘danced’. She jumped, I went flying.”
Yep, that tends to be how it goes.  Just wait until it’s some cute old European man who smells vaguely of stale tobacco tossing you around the room.  That’s when it gets really fun.

Random Randomness

–I love Jay-Z’s 99 Problems.  I do not love that the version available on iTunes is just the vocal track.  Thank goodness for Amazon.
–When I listen to Edith Piaf on my iPod, I do miss the sound of the needle in the groove.  Ann Peebles doing “I Can’t Stand the Rain” is the only other [...]

Plank Two–Restoring the Environment

View Larger Map
There’s just one question I’d like you to ask yourself today.  It’s “What the hell are they doing in Spurlockville, West Virginia and why is it turning everything downstream of it brown?”
I’m not really interested in talking about global warming in terms of the environment.  It’s become a distraction–arguing about whether it exists [...]

The Restoration of Individual Rights–My Platform Continued

When I talk about the restoration of individual rights, I’m not talking just about a return to habeas corpus, a rededication to the Constitutional principles upon which this country was founded, and an end to torture and show trials, but I also mean that we need to be rededicated to privileging the individual over the [...]

The Charts

Here’s what I’ve been thinking about and I’m going to tell you up front that I’m not quite sure what to make of it.  But it’s this chart.
If you look at the top crudely drawn line, you’ll see what’s been kind of my understanding of income distribution in this country.  I assumed that there was [...]

Why I Hate My Phone

So, all yesterday I was laughing about how Mack’s friend was all “Mack’s not just lactose intolerant; he’s lactose bigoted,” because I swear, people, you have never met a man less happy with milk products than our friend Mack.
I’m almost certain his personal hell will be having to spend eternity in a hot tub full [...]

Brief Aside

Can I tell you how much it cracks me up to see conservatives tell themselves this little fairy tale where liberals used to be so reasonable before the radicals ruined it?
Listen to good ole Ned:
But one interesting angle on this thesis is that the much-touted “southern strategy” was less a factor in Democrats losing their [...]

My Platform

Last night, after the polka-ing, we had a long raucous discussion about politics, complete with drawings on a dry erase board.  Ha, I guess that’s how you know that you’re among your own people, when someone can pull out the dry erase board and no one laughs.
Anyway, we had put before us as a thought [...]

But I Suck at Memes!

David has gone the “not technically tagging you” route to tag me for this.  Here’s the rules.
1) Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
2) Share 7 facts about yourself.
3) Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
4) Let each person [...]

The Afghan Update

I’ve been perusing the granny square afghans at flickr and going through the afghans at Ravelry (which is this awesome site that Sarcastro’s mom tipped me off about*) and I see no other afghan like this.
I’m really excited. 
I love the idea of the traditional–these simple granny squares–juxtaposed against the unexpected–these colors that seem to refuse [...]