This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Zero Ponsdorf

  • Dunno If This Is Weird, But….

    Some of my friends and acquaintances are planning events for 11/11/11.

    Yet we have: VH1 Classic Amps Up For “National Metal Day” On 11-11-11

    VH1 is gearing up for our inaugural National Metal Day that will see VH1 Classic host an entire day of metal-only programing.

    Can anyone tell me why?  I DO love metal…it’s likely I’ve been  a metal head since before many here were born, but Veteran’s Day???

    I can’t join with my friends in DC, but I CAN eschew VH1.

    Why the hell did they choose Veteran’s DAY???

  • A Pitiful Few Here Will GET This?

    Seems some Jarheads are in the Philippines… doing what Jarheads do.

    SAN ANTONIO, Philippines — More than 200 U.S. Marines and their Filipino counterparts staged an amphibious assault on a beach in a combat drill Sunday near a South China Sea shoal disputed by China and the Philippines.

    China is our friend and financial benefactor. Checked the source of your latest Walmart purchase?

    On the world stage this is important. We’ll see how it develops.

    Meanwhile, me in Subic Bay:

  • Heh…

    Via Don Surber:

    I think I hurt myself…

  • Nobel Peace Prize Huh?

    It is quite apparent our current CINC is developing a curious track record?

    James Taranto notes with a certain irony:

    We are not the first to make this observation. “For a president who promised to end the gunslinger ways of his predecessor, Barack Obama has proven himself comfortable with the use of lethal force,” the Los Angeles Times reports. The paper counts Gadhafi as another “notch” on Obama’s “lethal-force belt,” along with Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki and others. “All told this year,” the report adds, the president “has sent U.S. troops into action on land or in the skies of seven countries on two continents.”

    A New York Times “news analysis” describes Gadhafi’s death as “vindication, however harrowing,” of Obama’s “carefully calibrated response” in which “a reluctant commander in chief put strict limits on American military engagement and let NATO allies take the lead in backing the rebels”–a far less catchy way of saying “leading from behind.”

    Toss in the de facto (tacit?)  support for The Arab Spring and we have a foreign policy that is hardly Peace oriented.

    I’ll file Taranto’s closing paragraphs under “wish I’d said that”.

    One difference between Obama’s foreign and domestic policies is that the former are conducted in a relatively economical fashion. National Journal reports that “according to the Pentagon, [this] was the cost to U.S. taxpayers for Muammar el-Qaddafi’s head: $1.1 billion through September, the latest figure just out of the Defense Department.”

    At that rate, you could knock off 400 dictators for $440 billion–still less than Obama wants to waste on Stimulus Jr. That’s the best illustration yet of just how skewed this administration’s priorities are.

    Hey OWS… I think ya missed this!

  • Just A Blustery Day On My Ridge

    Courtesy of Ezra Pound:

    Winter is icummen in,
    Lhude sing Goddamm,
    Raineth drop and staineth slop,
    and how the wind doth ramm,
    Sing: Goddamm.
    Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
    An ague hath my ham.
    Freezeth river, turneth liver,
    Damn you, sing: Goddamm.
    Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm,
    So ‘gainst the winter’s balm.
    Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm,

    Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.

    Dunno, doesn’t really fit here at TAH, but until Jonn cuts the umbilical you get The Geezer’s ramblings.

  • I Miss Mayberry

    Yeah, I know it was a mostly fictitious place and a mostly fictitious time.

    Like some sort of junkie I’ve been watching all the Northern Exposures kinda back to back. I’m up to season 6 just now.  And no, Cicely ain’t Mayberry. They do have much in common in many ways but there’s little of import that supports direct comparisons.

    Why this post, you ask?

    After working on a rather lengthy post comparing the two places, and real time today, I dumped it.

    To many Mayberry exemplifies a moment. Cicely yet another.

    Thing is… I can’t find anything on TV that does what those two shows did.

    Kinda sad, but the question has been occupying my mind.

    Any thoughts?  Sports and News don’t count.

  • Kinda hate being singled out, but…

    Scientists Baffled By Man’s Incredible Ability To Fuck Up Every Time

    BALTIMORE—Neurologists at Johns Hopkins University confirmed Monday they remain completely baffled by Rockville, MD resident Erik Collins, a man who possesses an extraordinary and previously undocumented ability to fuck everything up.

    According to Dr. William Moore, head of a research team studying exactly how Collins manages to drop the goddamn ball every single time, the 32-year-old sales associate represents a major conundrum for modern science.

    I’m NOT Mr. Collins… still it reads like my life story.

  • NOT Funny… Or Silly.

    From WAPO:

    Prosecutors Monday decided not to press charges against Princeton University professor and activist Cornel West and 18 others who were arrested Sunday for protesting at the Supreme Court.

    The protesters were accused of breaking laws forbidding parades and displays on Court grounds, but the U.S. Attorney’s office decided not to charge them.

    Why?

    Oops: H/T Don Surber.