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Richelle Riley's Free Press column s has to be the stupidest thing I've read in weeks. Even if I were to grant everything she accuses Bush of (which I don't), how in the hell does she seriously expect it to be accomplished in six weeks? It can't. Then, she ties the importance of the issue to the economy. Does Riley have any idea of how the spectacle of an impeachment proceeding cobbled together in haste would do to consumer confidence? Oh, why do I even bother asking myself the question? The column is pure bullshit.For economy's sake, Pelosi needs to push for impeachment now
Rep. Nancy Pelosi's ineffectiveness became clear the day she became Speaker of the House and immediately announced that there would be no impeachment proceedings against President George W. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney.
...Pelosi wouldn't have to start from scratch: Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the bravest member of Congress, introduced legislation 11 months ago to impeach the president and vice president. Last January, the House gave a first reading of one of those articles of impeachment. Our own Rep. John Conyers, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, joined 38 other representatives to sponsor HR 635, which would form a committee to look into whether there are grounds for impeachment. Revive that effort!
...The only question I have for Nancy Pelosi is this: What are we waiting for?
A piece of equipment costing $154 million gets tripped up by rubber grommets and bolts worth a couple of dollars.Astronauts tinker with urine-to-water machine
HOUSTON (AP) - Astronauts tinkered Sunday with a troublesome piece of equipment designed to help convert urine and sweat into drinkable water, which is vital to allowing the international space station crew to double to six.
Station commander Michael Fincke and space shuttle Endeavour astronaut Donald Pettit changed how a centrifuge is mounted in a urine processor, which is part of the newly delivered $154 million water recovery system. The centrifuge is a spinning device that helps separate the water from urine.
It was on rubber grommets to reduce vibrations, and Mission Control asked Fincke to remove them and just bolt the piece down.
"We're very hopeful for this, and if not, we have a few other tricks up our sleeves," Fincke said from the space station after the task was finished.
WTF?The first turkey goes into the killing cone headfirst. Catch and handle your birds gently and calmly, and there will be less stress (for both you and the bird!). Restrain them by holding the shanks, and try to avoid rough handling.
The first cut to sever the jugular vein and carotid artery are made just behind the tendon attachment for the beak and tongue. You can feel the hard cartilaginous piece behind the jaw attachment and ear canal.
Make sure you have absolutely sharp knives for this process. The sharper the knife, the cleaner the cut and the bird will bleed out faster and more completely.
After the bird is in the cone, pull its head out by the lower beak and hold it firmly. Your thumb should be able to sit firmly in the "V" of the beak and your forefinger should hold the jaw firmly on the inside. Yes, the bird will try to close its beak; and no, it won't really hurt you...
...Be prepared to deal with the blood, which will flow over your hands and even squirt out the side of the neck, if you only nick the carotid artery instead of severing it.
...Cut deeply behind the jaw, pressing firmly with your knife while using a slicing motion. Cut down and toward the front of the neck, traveling under the jaw. Still holding the lower beak firmly with your thumb, cut the other side of the neck in the same location behind the jaw to sever the opposite blood vessel.
FIVE YEARS? Some real killers don't go to prison for that long.Online divorcee jailed after killing virtual hubby
A 43-year-old Japanese woman whose sudden divorce in a virtual game world made her so angry that she killed her online husband's digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking, police said Thursday.
The woman, who is jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his identification and password to log onto popular interactive game "Maple Story" to carry out the virtual murder in mid-May, a police official in northern Sapporo said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.
"I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.
The woman had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.
She has not yet been formally charged, but if convicted could face a prison term of up to five years or a fine up to $5,000.
Here's a ballot disputed by the Al Franken campaign as a recount for the Minnesota Senate race proceeds in Plymouth. I guess they think that this person accidentally voted for Norm Coleman and then tried to "x" it out.One challenge headed to the state so far in Plymouth
The bubble beside Norm Coleman’s name appeared to have both an X and a squiggle in it, but the Al Franken campaign wants the state Canvassing Board to rule on whether it should count. That’s the only challenge in the special envelope in Plymouth so far, according to Sandy Engdahl, the city clerk and the official running the city recount...
...Eight of the 24 precincts had been counted by 1:45 p.m., and the only challenged ballot, in Engdahl’s view, was clearly a vote for Coleman. Nevertheless, the Franken campaign was allowed to seek a second opinion.
Why do I find this story about a woman astronaut, a lubricant spurting grease gun, and a floating tool kit simultaneously hilarious and alluring?A shuttle astronaut performing repairs during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station yesterday faced a slippery dilemma when a grease gun spurte lubricant inside her tool bag. As Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper cleaned the lubricant from he gloves, her bag full of tools floated away, boldly going where no tools have gone before reports the Houston Chronicle.
"Oh great," muttered the astronaut as the bag floated just out of reach. The lost bag included grease guns, scrapers, and wire ties-none of which is expected to pose space hazard. The tasks were completed by sharing tools with a fellow astronaut. Th Shuttle Endeavour docked with the space station Sunday on a 16-day mission to expand the station and install additional equipment.
The world has never seen such freezing heat
A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.
This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.
So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.
If you think that's "fantastic," you should try one of Johnny Storm's crepe flambes.Here are the winners:
To be perfectly honest, I had turned off last week’s election broadcasts by 9:30pm. My prediction that it would be decided by nine o'clock was only premature by half an hour. Instead of watching John McCain, my choice for president, get defeated by Barack Obama, I decided that the movie 300 would be a more entertaining lost cause to see played out. Based on what little of the coverage I did catch, including that high-tech news anchor hologram on CNN and those inane electronic touch screens that are more suited for weather reports, I think I made the right decision.Full post at The House Next Door.
Some things speak for themselves.Forgetmenot Panties:
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This amazing device will answer all of your questions! These panties can give you her location, and even her temperature and heart rate, and she will never even know it's there! Unlike the cumbersome and uncomfortable chastity belts of the past, these panties are 100% cotton, and use cutting-edge technology to help you protect what matters most.
Joe Biden's prediction about an early test for President-elect Obama has come a little early.President Medvedev ordered missiles to be stationed up against Nato’s borders yesterday to counter American plans to build a missile defence shield.
Speaking within hours of Barack Obama’s election, Mr Medvedev announced that Russia would base Iskander missiles in its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad – the former German city – next to the border with Poland.
He did not say whether the short-range missiles would carry nuclear warheads.
Taking advantage of the world’s attention on the US elections, Mr Medvedev also cancelled plans to withdraw three intercontinental ballistic missile regiments from western Russia by 2010.
As I've mentioned in a previous post, Mad Men deliberately uses color to delineate the feelings and motivations of cast members at a given point in the story. Red seems to be particularly significant in denoting when someone is experiencing a strong yearning to fulfil some unrequited need. Black, on the other hand, would seem to indicate a pragmatic resignation by a character, consciously or not, that some aspirations just aren't attainable. This is consistent with the show’s logo in which the word "Mad" is in red, while "Men" is black. By implication, the "madness" that afflicts different characters at times, is an outgrowth of some deeply felt internal void and made manifest for the audience by the prominent display of the color red. Whereas black often indicates the other side of that continuum.
In the very first scene of Meditations in an Emergency, on a wall at the office of Betty’s doctor we see a painting depicting a fawn and it's mother (an analogy for Betty's situation). The exam room Betty sits in is dominated by black colors. She clearly doesn't want this baby. Betty and the doctor talk in code about other "options." However, the doctor, holding her hand, unconvincingly tries to dissuade Betty from pursuing these options just yet.
Don watches a televised speech by John F. Kennedy that introduces the Cuban Missile Crisis into the storyline. The next morning, Don returns to the office in a wet overcoat. While this is ostensibly due to having just come in from a thunderstorm outside, it also could refer on a symbolic level to the global storm they all face or Don's baptism in the ocean at the end of The Mountain King wear he is reborn as Don Draper. Now consigned to an existence he had contemplated abandoning, Don, in contrast with Duck, is wearing a black tie. Peggy, who confides to Pete later in the episode that she has realized the costs associated with success, is wearing a black and gray outfit that conspicuously matches Don's.
groping about for answers concerning their professional fate. They get Lois the switchboard operator to admit to hearing about "redundancies,” an English term for layoffs, in phone conversations among top brass.
Betty drops the kids off at Don’s hotel room for a visit with their father. As she drops them off, it’s notable that the daughter is wearing a black hat and a grey sweater. This seems to suggest Betty’s emotional downturn. The son, a stand in for Don who hopes to reunite with his family, is wearing a bright red sweater.
smocks worn at the beauty salon).
Peggy and Father Gill (wearing a black jacket) discuss nuclear war and god. Gill threatens Peggy with the possibility of damnation if she doesn't confess her sin. While he's severe and dogmatically correct, Gill isn’t portrayed as the stereotypical raving theist. Nonetheless, as she has all season in these matters, Peggy politely puts him off.
