I'm going to try my very best not to break into a spate of cussing as if I were standing on the bricklayer's scaffolding 80 feet in the air and just dropped my only pack of cigarettes into the wind and watched as they landed in the construction site mud puddle below.  I'm going to try.  Then again, this is why I have a rant folder in the first place.  This weekend is the traditonal start of Summer and Memorial Day weekend.  Because many people have a federally mandated Monday off of work, they usually take Friday off and get that holy grail of cubicle dwelling: the four day weekend.

Before you fire up the BBQ grill and slap down that half a cow onto it, in order to feed your fat friends or relatives, just take a minute and remember why Americans commemorate Memorial Day in the first place.  It's a commemorative holiday honoring the war dead.

First of all, how John Lennon wonderful would it be if we didn't even have this so-called holiday at all?  Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of people have died over the last 150 years wearing the U.S. military uniform.  Tens of millions of people have been slaughtered by the armies of the world.  The biblical turn of phrase, "Wars and rumors of wars," hasn't lessened a bit for the last two thousand years.

Secondly, and the reason I need to rant, is that I'm sick of everyone concerned with this war in Iraq. Regular readers of Thunderstorms know how much I opposed the invasion of Iraq.  To me, it was just a dumb idea, strategically.  From the beginning, the initial reasons for invasion given to us from the Bush Administration didn't wash, or sound like truth.

If Iraq had nuclear weapons, the Israeli government would have bombed them.  They did that once before, remember?  If the Israelis fed the western governments bad intelligence because they weren't sure any longer, and felt they could just play on the Bush adminstration's base paranoia, historical emnity, and own lack of intelligence, then the U.S. government is culpable for being duped.

Thursday, the U.S. Senate had a procedural vote to end debate over the Bush nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton.  The debate being whether or not the U.S. Senate advises, but more importantly consents, to the Bush nominee for the job.  Apparently, they did not want to end the discussion.

Why not?  Well, simply because there are some allegations that in his last job Bolton may have 'cooked the books,' to use a financial term, about intelligence concerning the policy and decision making of the Bush administration on the planning for the Iraq War.

To the cynical, this nomination seems like a promotion based upon loyalty and silence.  Hush money.  Shut up, say nothing, omerta.  The reason the some outspoken Senators spurred the minority into a cohesive force was because every person on the planet knows that the intelligence was wrong going into Iraq -- now.

If that is the case, then whose head should roll for it?  Bush?  He got re-elected.  Cheney?  Ditto. Rumsfeld?  No.  Rice?  Promoted.  So.  Right. Okay, then.  Nobody is to blame -- because The Bush administration's defacto position on the facts is to give no information to anyone, even U.S. Senators, like Biden or Dodd, or apparently even Frist.

That's just the first reason to invade Iraq that ended up being false, and I won't bother writing forty more paragraphs for the other reasons in this entry.  My true reason to rant is when I look at 1600 photographs of dead men and women, look into the their eyes, read their stories and think about them.

And it makes me angry and it makes me sad.  Very sad at what might have been for these people, if not for so many things that has happened.  I apologize. I had an entry in mind with links and just don't have will to bother with it.  Thinking about this takes an emotional toll on me.

The 'Fox Mulder' in me loves to research, be knowledgeable and find the truth.  When I started this entry, I was just going to highlight the eight service members who have died in Iraq on May 26th.  But when I look at these people, it truly makes me want to cry.  I'll stick it on Thunderstorms later, so I can show you their faces.  Then, you can look into their eyes.

I started this entry because I was pissed off that the TV news about Iraq is like some sport score reporting everyday.  2 dead in Tikrit, (insert sport name here: car bomb, suicide bomber, or IED) 20 Iraqis killed.  It's not baseball.  Don't report it like it is.

[Headphones] :: Dick is a Killer (lo-fi stream) - RX

The president of Mexico apparently swallowed the worm at the bottom of the tequila bottle when he made a comment concerning the immigration and border control issue.


Basically, he said, "What's the big deal that 10 million Mexicans are crossing the border? They are doing the jobs in the U.S. that even the Blacks don't want to do."

Now my Spanish is a bit rusty, but political guys like Al Sharpton were doing their best not to reply to Fox's comment on every cable news talk show by doing a Jerry Springer guest imitation -- shaking his head back and yelling, "Oh, no you didn't just say that!"

Talk to the hand.  While I don't think it is all appropriate for a head of state like the president of Mexico to make obviously ignorant racial comments like that, I'm more surprised that Fox would be so politically insensitive to make it in the first place.  A big-time politician like that?  He gets paid to be politically correct, right?  Doesn't he have a staff of people keeping him out of trouble?

Then again, the Democrusader, or the Dubya, or the Bushinator also has paid staff to keep his foot out of his mouth too, but it doesn't always goes as planned when the head of state is unleashed and adlibbing with the press.  We all witnessed Dubya's performance at last year's election debates.  He tried desperately to use his own brain.  So, if the Bush administration can unbelievably earn a Monopoly 'get out of jail free' card for Iraq, I think Fox can pass Go and collect his Go money, too.

On a simliar but much lighter note: I saw this write-up on Plastic today.  Apparently, a mom when ballistic when she saw the photo of her son in his high school yearbook.  A tradition of school yearbooks is having a little section of remembrance for graduationg students.  People are labelled by themselves or classmates as "The one most likely to succeed", or "Class Clown", or whatever.

It seems a black student and his white girlfriend posed for a photo with her holding a leashed collar with the caption "most whipped."  Rather than getting the humor of the caption and photo --that both students asked to put in the year book -- the boy's mom thought it was so racially repugnant along the lines of Kunta Kinte Roots slavery that she freaked out and the school is trying to recall all the yearbooks and place stupid little stickers over the images, probably in an effort to keep the likes of Al Sharpton off of the local TV news.  Tawanna (cough) Brawley.

Here's the Palm Beach Beach (Florida) Post newspaper story with the photos. And the follow-up story.  I'm just glad I created the DUMB folder here or I was going to have to put this one in another installation of Swamp Gas in the Imajica.  RTFAs before you think I'm just being an insensitve white guy, because the student himself thinks everyone is over-reacting, too.

[Headphones] :: The World is Melting (so let's be friends) - Soylent Gringo

I'll admit it.  I've become a C-Span Geek.  This happened years ago when I realized that most main stream media TV news organizations only like to play about seven seconds of any given video clip, usually only quote the legislator to find the spin, and their airhead, multi-millionaire anchors generally talk over any live broadcasting, as if I needed some foreign language translation of english.  Thanks, but no thanks.  This practice has only become worse with the micro celebrity egos on cable news, especially on FOX.

If I have a choice, I flip the channel to C-Span to hear the political bullshit coming from the actual horse's ass, not his or her teleprompted pundit.  This upcoming week in the U.S. Senate is likely to be a verbal WWF Smackdown over some of George Bush's federal judicial nominations.  I'm not hyping the situation because I'm some political wonk.  The showdown in the U.S. Senate has been brewing for some time and it will be another touchstone event for bigger issues in the so-called culture wars in the United States.

Two months ago, I blogged about these culture wars and Terri Schiavo in "Life, Choice, or Tyranny." In it, I made an introductory comment that:

If you don't think this is an opening salvo of logic to allow the cultural conservative wing of the GOP political monopoly in Washington, D.C. to begin eroding individual liberties, state's rights, and constitutional protections in order to jumpstart their previously stymied religious social agenda upon America, you're simply not paying attention.

Not since the 2004 election itself has the general public been inundated with partisan television advertisements.  Lobby groups on both sides of this issue are spending millions of dollars for ad time, with conservative groups apparently outspending progressive advertising three to one.  And, like their Senators, both are spinning the truth.

I'm a Libertarian.  Normally, I'd be all for the GOP Reaganites for small government, and less government, and limited government.  Unfortunately, Dubya never had to work a day in his life, be truly responsible for anything -- not even his big lies -- and he's spiralling the fiscal and economic sanity of past administrations into the toilet with the happy approval of christian religious leaders who are just happy to get some socially conservative mojo in the government.

It's no wonder that George Bush gave the commencement address for some two-bit Christian college in Grand Rapids, Michigan today or that Liberty University gave FOX's Sean Hannity an honorary doctorate degree for his encouraging words.  Besides ego-stroking and staging a happy audience to shelter these ideologues from the real opinion of Americans, it's pathetic to see.

[Headphones] :: Dancing with the Dubya - JfZ

I think this was a bitter sweet week for science fiction fans.  Of course, you have the hullabaloo of the Star Wars movie coming out.  At the same time, it is the last one we'll see, isn't it?  Something else I barely noticed also happened this week, though.  Star Trek, the Sci-Fi icon franchise for the last 40 years also aired its last episode.  I'm not such a geek as to know whether or not Scott Bakula will be in one last Star Trek movie or not, but apprarently there will be no more new Star Trek episodes produced for television.  I watched the last one.

Personally, I think my love for science fiction lies in the positive vision of the future portrayed by these icons (Star Trek and Star Wars) more than in their wizbang gadgets.  Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas not only created their futures with interesting struggles and strifes, but also an underlying promise of tolerance for each other.  And of course, somehow good wins over evil.

And just to be fair to the Queendom, I am also a big fan of Dr. Who and Red Dwarf.

Which Star Trek are you?  That's sure to become a little blogger quiz.  The Original Recipe or the Next Generation?  Who's your daddy?  Captain James T. Kirk, or Jean Luc Picard, or Benjamin Sisko, or Catherine Janeway, or Jonathon Archer?  I imagine your answer will date you.

Star Wars is cool.  I like George Lucas, though.  He's a go-fuck-yourself entrepreneur in his industry and I like that.  I personally think THX 1138 is the film version of George Orwell's novel, 1984.  Like the novel, it's more of a weird warning than entertainment.  I sincerely wish I had the physical stamina to drop one last hit of blotter acid and watch that film again.  Sadly, that is not the case and I don't wish to be a stuttering and drooling idiot, like Ozzy Osborne.  He made the mistake of doing that extra, plus one (past sanity) hit.

I don't denegrate the phreeks standing in line at the theater in costume, either.  I've been to the Renaisance Fairs and the Comic Cons.  It's a great place to meet interesting women, except the ones dressed up like Klingons.  Avoid those women, trust me.


[Headphones] :: Birthday-partyparty mix (lo-fi stream) - RX

This last week, I wondered what the Bush nominee for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, might have said to calm the nerves of Afghani and Pakistani delegates over the Newsweek magazine story about Guantanamo Bay detainees charging that their interrogators intimidated them by flushing the Quran down a toilet.  Luckily for Bolton, he didn't have to face his first few days being new on the job with that diplomatic baptism-by-fire trying to defend something so outrageous because he's not the ambassador, yet.

After people were killed in protests-turned-riots in those countries, Newsweek decided that the story wasn't exactly verifiable, said "Uh oh" and issued a half-baked retraction.  Whether the story itself is totally false or half-truth, there are no winners in this affair other than right-wing conservative pundits, bloggers, and media outlets who bask in their own worldview anyway.

The other winners in this story are the usual crowd.  Ultra fundamentalist Islamic clerics in Afghanistan were able to spread a little more icing on the cake of anti-western suspicions and hatred.  Same thing happened in Pakistan.  Pervez Musharav, Bush's sub-contractor in Pakistan, even got to appease his own fundies by making statements of condemnation.

The story was such a good thing for the anti-U.S. political types in the Middle East, Muqtada al-Sadr even decided to come out into the public eye again, in Iraq.  Where has he been for the last few months?  Ever since he had agreed to the ceasefire plan with the interim Iraqi government and coalition forces, brokered by Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani to end the fiercest period of hostilities in Najaf, he had been keeping his black turban down and laying low.  Is it now vacation-over (again) for the Mahdi Army or can the calm, experienced wisdom of al-Sistani once again keep al-Sadr in waiting mode?

Being a political story, it is totally rife with hypocrisies, in my humble opinion.  While I can witness the outrage of fundamentalists over this, I don't quite care.  Religious zealots, whether Muslim or Christian, leave a bad taste in my mouth.  Especially so, when they use their religion as a justification for violence.


[Headphones] :: Bush and Brando Debate - JfZ

[Note from JfZ] I decided to repost this entry because there has been a serious uptick in activity by concerned parties in the Oklahoma City bombing incident, after the observance of the tenth anniversary of this tragedy.  While surgically stripped of its graphical elements and reformatted, it is still one of my infamous 42 link monster entries.  If you wish, you can read the graphilicious original and some comments here.  It's my hope that the time it took me to convert this might be rewarded by your interest, participation, and comments.

Conspiracy Theory in the Imajica Menu
[ Intro ]   [ Contents ]   [ Submit Your Theory ]   [ Resource List ]

"As this community came together, the nation shared in the sorrow and the outrage over the violence directed at innocent and unsuspecting men, women, and children. One hundred and sixty-eight had been killed, more than 800 injured. Two hundred and nineteen children lost at least one parent, and 30 were orphaned. And a few days after the attack, a minister of the Gospel officiated at the funeral of his own grandsons."

-- VP Dick Cheney remarks

A truck bomb went off, buildings were blasted, and people died.  Now, there is a memorial site with victims' names engraved in a park full of office chairs where the building once was.  Those are facts.  Ten years later, there still are as many unanswered questions as there were victims in the Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal office building.

The events leading up to April 19th, 1995 are cloaked in some mystery, even today.  The U.S. government appears to be satisfied with the simplistic fact that law enforcement investigated and courts have found Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols guilty for this terrorist act.  The Murrah federal building was demolished, the debris cleared away, and the Memorial site put in its place.  When McVeigh decided to waive all his rights to appeal his death sentence, he was executed on June 11th, 2001.  Let's all just move on with our lives -- case closed.

Immediately, the media broadcast stories asking, who and why?  But with ongoing rescue and recovery operations taking place at the blast site, that became the media focus.  Foreshadowing the nationwide volunteerism we all so poignantly witnessed in the aftermath of 911, rescue workers and people of everyday walks of life came pouring into Oklahoma City to help.  I remember chatting online with a friend in California who was organizing a truck convoy from his family business at the time.  Their business was wholesale ice.  They planned to drive ice to OKC for the rescue workers and if needed, donate the use of the refrigerator trucks as a temporary overflow morque facility.

Oddly, on the day of the blast, an armed McVeigh was taken into custody without incident after he was pulled over by a state trooper for driving his vehicle with no license plate.  Terry Nichols literally walked himself into custody after seeing his face on television and realized he was wanted for questioning.  Were these two men suddenly remorseful, wanting the publicity of martyrdom, or just dumb and unlucky perpetrators?

John Doe #2

Early on, eye witnesses talked about John Doe #2, but then the investigators moved on to dig deeper into the lives of the two people they had in custody, McVeigh and Nichols.  Friends, family and known associates were questioned.  Both men were army buddies and by the end of the Gulf War, it can be said that both were disappointed and disallusioned with the government.  McVeigh had earned honors in combat, but back in the states he was just another unemployed veteran with few skills applicable to the work world. 

Mcveigh and Nichols tried to make a buck selling things at flea markets and gun shows where paramilitary enthusiasts of all stripes can be found.  Some of these skinheads didn't play around -- and have now been linked to bank robberies in the Midwest.  Many people think there were more people involved in the Oklahoma City bombing that frequented a certain ranch in the middle of nowhere called Elohim City.

For the serious researcher, not only are volumes of conspiracy theory information about OKC online at the websites of organizations whose self-labelled indentities span a range from conservative, right-wing, and patriot to militia, christian identity and neo-nazi -- but also online at organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and others.  One need only remember the actions of the first Clinton administration, especially Attorney General Janet Reno's Department of Justice and federal law enforcement agency debacles in the cases of Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge and the Branch Davidians in Waco to understand the deep hatred these right-wing groups felt for the federal government at that time.  It's no wonder why much of the archival information is stored at these sites.  That nasty bit of U.S. history validates and reinforces their world view -- the origins of which go back in history far earlier than the Clinton presidency.

Hûsker Dû ??

I lived in Metro Detroit during this time.  People were well aware of groups like the Michigan militia before our local TV news interupted scheduled programming and broadcast live during the FBI raid on the Nichols' Farm.  Personally, I was preoccupied with silicon-roots activism over attempts of government censorship of the internet coming in the form of the Communications Decency Act.  Unlike McVeigh, whose primary military training was in weaponry and explosives, my own training was in communications and intelligence.  My disappointment with the government eroding personal liberties was focussed primarily with First Amendment issues in 1995. 

Although I had actually voted for the first time in 1992 -- for Clinton -- by 1995, I was a card-carrying member and supporter of both the Libertarian Party and the ACLU.  Previously politically apathetic, suddenly I found myself working with cyber rights groups like EFF, CPSR, EPIC, and CDT.  To my way of thinking, information itself is the greatest defense against any oppressive government or administration.  I busied myself with organizing people and educating techno-phobic and digitally-illiterate legislators in office at that time.  To me, losing the right of free expression or the right to information about a supposedly open goverment in a free society is the first domino to fall toward losing other civil liberties.  I continue to believe that.

Rather than advancing my own specific conspiracy theory concerning the Oklahoma City bombing, I will simply leave that up to those who may have an interest in researching the specifics of this case.  I have read so many online documents about OKC over the last four days that my fragile little brain has been spinning in my skull so fast that it has melted my tinfoil hat on my head.

Where there is smoke, there is fire.

There seems to be some sort of government cover-up concerning OKC.  Whether the nature of it concerns protecting sources and methods, or informants, or agents, or misdeeds, or mistakes.  Information surrounding the involvement of known people, like ATF informant, Carol Howe or possible CIA agent provocateur, Andreas Strassmeir -- both at Elohim City before the bombing -- definitely thickens the plot.

I chose the four books (shown above on Thunderstorms) because they have some inherent credibility due to their proximity to the truth.  The Third Terrorist is written by Jayna Davis, an award-winning OKC investigative reporter.  Others Unknown is written by Stephen Jones, Timothy McVeigh's defense attorney.  Freedom's End is James Nichols' (Terry's brother) account.  And, American Terrorist, written by Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, is Timothy McVeigh's authorized biography.

In addition, I would suggest reading the online version of The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror by David Hoffman.  Another great online resource is the many years of investigation by William F. Jasper, available at The New American.

I have one last question concerning OKC X.  Now what happens when our heroes in Iraq come home, can't find a job, can't readjust to life back in the states, and become dissapointed and disallusioned with George W. Bush?

[Fullscreen] :: Just Don't Give A Fuck - Eminem

Apparently, the United States government is fully prepared and ready to defend its capitol city in the District of Columbia from airborne attacks by terrorists, UFOs, or misadventurous civilian pilots.  You've probably already heard about the incident today in the news about evacuations of the White House and the Capitol Building.  Besides thousands of staffers wildly fleeing into the streets, Dick Cheney was already being scurried off by the Secret Service to an undisclosed Ponderosa steak house for lunch.

According to press interviews, the Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi from California stated that she was literally, "picked up out of my shoes by my security detail and rushed outside of the building."  This has caused many Evangelical churches in Red State America to begin prayer vigils begging the good Lord that someone -- anyone -- took an embarassing photograph of the outspoken Democratic leader to place in next year's televangelism commercials during the election season.

All this news, hoopla, and federal navel gazing was caused by two guys trying to fly to an airshow in North Carolina from their hometown in Pennsylvania.  The media hyping was funny.  "24 minutes of terror" being the one I liked the best.  Unfortunately, these pilots drew a straight-line flight path that took them straight over the White House.

I really hate to kick two good old boys while they're down -- laying on the tarmac in handcuffs surrounded by the FBI, Secret Service, and Men in Blackhawk pilots -- but damn!  How stupid are you two?  While I don't even play a pilot on TV, I quickly found and learned all about the Washington DC Air Defense Identification Zone in this instructional flash file that even a sixth-grader could comprehend.

And all of the major media outlets are being just as ridiculous, having their DC field reporters give us their musing on how this incident scared them and their almost sickeningly fond memories of 911.  Just shut up.  People have already pondered whether or not their inaugural balloons might set off radar and throw the capitol into a condition red alert.

Fear not.  Luckily and unlike 911, President Bush was not caught off-guard by this incursion of the capitol air space by being immersed in reading a children's book this time.  Nope.  He was safe.  He was miles away, riding his bicycle.

[Headphones] :: Dick is a Killer (lo-fi stream) - RX

Even though the calendar says that Spring has already arrived some weeks ago, I just got around to start doing my spring cleaning.  I may have procrastinated, but I think if I get some of it done before Summer arrives, I'll be doing pretty good.  Spring cleaning is really just doing stuff you normally put off for six months anyway.  Before you self-righteously call me a slob -- pick up your keyboard, turn it upside down, and shake it like an Etch-A-Sketch.  Bits of forensic stuff may just fall out of there like an episode of CSI.

If you don't see a gentle snowfall of cigarette ashes or perhaps a hell storm of orange cheese doodle crumbs, you still can't point your well manicured finger at me.  I bet if we crawled under your desk and pulled out your PC to look at the back, we might find something interesting there.  You might see unidentifiable bits of flotsom and jetsom tangled around a cord with a fair amount of pet hair.  And what's with that PC cooling fan grate?  It looks like a Wookie got stuck there humping it and died.

I'm not the only slobby blogdriver, apparently.  Clearly, some of us need more help than others, but I'm guilty of procrastinating and letting things pile up, too.  I thought I should research this problem, so I looked up spring cleaning on the net.

Besides actual cleaning, spring cleaning entails some organizing and getting rid of things you no longer need.  Nowadays, a number of people sell those items on eBay.  For some reason, there seems to be a lot of colorful yarn for sale.  That doesn't help me very much.

I looked on Amazon.  It appears that you can spring clean your computer's operating system.  You can even spring clean your soul now -- that might come in handy someday -- but I was really searching more along the lines of the domestic house cleaning information.  So, I continued my research.

Consumer Reports brags that they know "How to Clean and Care for Practically Anything."  Frankly, I find that hard to believe.  And a woman named Linda Cobb has crowned herself the Queen of Clean, has written a gaggle of books and even has a television show about it all.

I finally found that Good Housekeeping had a needs-based form driven web site to help me get an idea of the tasks I need to set for myself in order to do a proper spring cleaning.  Wow.  I hadn't realized just how complicated this was all quickly becoming.  Now, there were supplies to buy, and special attachments to use, and techniques to master.

All of this research was making me thirsty.  I headed for the fridge, tripped over some dirty laundry I had been sorting and knocked over the kitchen garbage can.  After I cleaned that mess up, I sat back down on the couch and decided that I really didn't have the time today for any more cleaning.  I'll get to it tomorrow.

[Headphones] :: Friday - Aesqe

What are you going to do when the price of gasoline doubles or triples from its currently rising price?  The people in the United States, while only making up 5% of the world's population, consume about 25% of the world's oil.  Since oil is a finite resource, it seems like common sense that once emerging consumer mega-markets like India and China ramp up their consumption of oil-based energy products, like gasoline, the price will continue to rise since supply is finite.


While I want to touch on some big picture items of interest, I would also like to hear what you might do personally given this future scenario.  How would your life change?  If commuting to work began costing you a significant portion of your actual income, would that become a consideration in your choice of employment, or perhaps your choice of residence?

One thing is certain.  Change is coming.  Whether it happens to each of us sooner or later given our diverse situations and locations is a variable.  For the sake of discussion, let's pretend gasoline costs triple the amount it currently costs.

That's crazy talk.  Not necessarily, my friend.  I did originally check the White House web site for a cool photo of George W. Bush recently walking into his Crawford ranch actually holding hands with the Saudi Arabian leader like some teenage love-sick couple, but I couldn't find it there.  I happened to be watching the news when this meeting took place.  It happened.

You can read about the official Energy Policy of the Democrusader, but sadly there is no mention or photos of the Bush-Saudi love-fest that would have given Michael Moore an 'I told you so' chubby.  Personally, I don't care which foreign head of state Dubya prefers to play a little weekend tonsil-hockey with on his big-boy ranch in Crawford, TX.  He's a grown man.  That's between him and Laura.

Obviously, when your country is so addicted to oil that it's sucking it down 500% more than the average global idiot, you may have to do a little whoring to keep your drug dealer happy.  It's not like Dubya has much of a choice as to whom in OPEC he can pleasure and service.  I think the soon to be Mullahs-with-nukes in Tehran took being labelled an Axis of Evil as a sign that the U.S. has been considering the lunch money bully option for their oil reserves.  We are in the neighborhood.

Charles H. Featherstone says, "If there were commercial quantities of oil in Hell, Exxon executives would not call God and demand regime change. They would buy an extremely nice lunch for the Devil, and they would talk contract and concession terms". However, to continue the metaphor, if the Devil refused to play ball, then the C.I.A. and the U.S. Marine Corps remain at the ready.

Hey!nbsp; Clean up your SUV.  It may be a museum quality artifact, sooner than you think.  Personally, I'm looking into Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs).  I would just ride a bike, but I can't now.

[Headphones] :: Birthday-partyparty mix (lo-fi stream) - RX

A stream of conscious.  What does that mean?  Free flowing thoughts pour forth.  Unknown ideas and related concepts become strung together in some fomat.  If one has a train of thought, a stream of conscious must fire through the neurological pathways in the brain like a speeding, twisting and turning roller coaster ride.  When the mind pouring forth these ideas is as large as every thought expressed on every web page on the planet, just casually browsing the web can turn into a flash flood of the digital planet.

Sounds romantic, anyway.  Sometimes, I find an interesting thing on the web, but not so big a thing about which I feel like writing an entirely informative blog entry.  When this happens, I usually copy the web address into a notepad file called blog_ideas.  Other times, I see something on the news and check it out.  Unfortunately, that usually leads me to forty-two other web sites.

Early yesterday morning, it seems blogdrive servers were messed up by some dark skies, thunderstorms, and some pesky lightning.  Helpee and CBG were on top of the problem quickly and soon everything was back to normal.  But later that same day on the opposite side of the country, my own weather was cooking some meteorologically nasty brew.

Some people comment that there are no seasons in Florida.  While we may not have clearly defined quarterly seasons like Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter -- Florida has its own seasons with different names.  We have Pollen Season, and Tourist Season, and Forest Fire Season.

One of the most well known seasons in Florida is Hurricane Season.  Hurricane Season last year was pretty rowdy and widely reported in the national news.  In my area, I only had to be concerned primarily with hurricanes Charlie, Frances and Jeanne.  Hurricane Charlie was my first ever, cherry-popping hurricane, so it was kind of fun in an adrenaline-filled, thrill-seeking way.  Unfortunately, Charlie wasn't so fun for everyone.

When it rains in here, it seems to be a hard down pour.  Sure, it may sprinkle for five minutes before and after a thunderstorm, but mostly storms come of out nowhere when the Sea Breeze and the Gulf Breeze collide directly over my house.  When that happens, I lose my satellite connection and I have to find something else to do.  So, yesterday, I watched some television.

My local television news is not something I regularly watch.  Yesterday, I watched my local weatherman explaining about the upcoming hurricane season.  Argh!!  Already?  About all I caught was that the National Weather Service is monitoring the seasonal high pressure system that has a steering effect on the path of hurricanes.

They call this high pressure system, "The Bermuda High."  I would have thought it would be called the Jamaican High, if anything.  Whatever its name, I hope it steers all this year's hurricanes off into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean where they can cool off and die a quiet death.

It would be nice.  There are still thousands of people living in temporary housing from Charlie in a trailer park from hell, visible from the I-75 highway down near Fort Myers, Florida.  To add insult to injury, FEMA just announced that it plans to send letters to about 7000 Floridians demanding that they pay FEMA back to the tune of $30 million dollars.  Yet, there are literally tens of thousands of homeowners who have not fully recovered from last year.

[Headphones] :: Hurricane Jeanne is Gone - JfZ