Od' und leer das Meer.

Od' und leer das Meer.
Define Irony？

Soothsayer
Beware the ides of March.
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.


Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
D A
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
D A
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
D A
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands

I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?

London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down

Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam ceu chelidon—O swallow swallow
Le Prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruin
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.
Datta.
Dayadhvam.
Damyata.

Kwan-Yin by `Kaotika

My Cat has REALLY BAD Breath!

Why are dogs generally associated with such stinkiness?
I'd kiss my dogs over my stinky, old cat any day.





If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats

Underwater

Underwater by ~gemmylostx3


Funfair by *Sugarock99

Uplifted by *alberich

Slime-Green Pools Spread to Kansas City!

It is not just in California anymore!
The Casey Virus™ continues to spread...

Hat tip (again) to Wagga for this find:

Some nights Terry and Carrie Madden won’t even step onto their patio in Waldo — the stench and mosquitoes from the abandoned swimming pool next door are
overpowering.

The Maddens’ cash-strapped neighbors moved out in August, and the lender on the now-vacant house let it fall into disrepair. The pool is slime-green.

Their foreclosures delayed, vacant homes fall into disrepair

Don't miss the slime-green video!

And the Moon over Marin Slouch in hiFi:

À la recherche du temps perdu

memorial day by ~herekittykittay



memorial day by ~annalavigne

While you're enjoying your BBQ and day off, please take a moment to think about the more than 4000 troops in Iraq who died for...For what exactly?
Think of how many others are seriously crippled, brain-dead, committing suicide and ask yourself FOR WHAT EXACTLY?
FOR WHAT EXACTLY?????!!!!!!!!
For fucking what exactly?!!!!!!!
FOR FUCKING WHAT EXACTLY?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When you find an answer that makes any ethical sense, please feel free to let me know what it might be.

This is an Excellent Time to be a Repo Man!

I'm a Repo Man. by ~Otto-parts

Just in time for National Dog Bite Prevention Week, I'm heading out to a dog behavior class this evening, but I thought this article was worth posting rather than leaving as a comment link:

So many people have so many things they can no longer afford. This is an excellent time to be a repo man.

When a boat owner defaults on his loan, the bank hires Jeff Henderson to seize its property. The former Army detective tracks the boat down in a backyard or a marina or a garage and hauls it to his storage area and later auctions it off. After nearly 20 years in the repossession business, Mr. Henderson has never been busier.

“I used to take the weak ones,” he said. “Now I’m taking the whole herd.”

More from the NYT's Economic Tide Is Rising for Repo Man

My Hero!

I do my best thinking on the bus...

The more you drive the less intelligent you are.

Read books and throw Scientology, Tom Cruise and his subprime spawn out the window!


I think I saw a little Pomeranian on the hood of the car...

Negentropy and NegAm

Ursula I by ~ObscenityE

Ursula II by ~ObscenityE

10h10 by ~ObscenityE

Channeling M. SINGH

Olbermann To Bush: "This War Is Not About You...Shut The Hell Up!"
Flawed.

You, Mr. Bush, and your tragically know-it-all minions, threw out every piece of intelligence that suggested there were no such weapons.

You, Mr. Bush, threw out every person who suggested that the sober, contradictory, reality-based intelligence needed to be listened to, fast.

You, Mr. Bush, are responsible for how "intelligence communities all across the world shared the same assessment."

You and the sycophants you dredged up and put behind the most important steering wheel in the world propagated palpable nonsense and shoved it down the throat of every intelligence community across the world and punished anybody who didn't agree it was really chicken salad.

And you, Mr. Bush, threw under the bus, all of the subsequent critics who bravely stepped forward later to point out just how much of a self-fulfilling prophecy you had embraced, and adopted as this country's policy in lieu of, say, common sense.

The fiasco of pre-war intelligence, sir, is your fiasco.

You should build a great statue of yourself turning a deaf ear to the warnings of realists, while you are shown embracing the three-card monte dealers like Richard Perle and Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

That would be a far more fitting tribute to your legacy, Mr. Bush, than this presidential library you are constructing as a giant fable about your presidency, an edifice you might as claim was built from "Iraqi weapons of mass destruction" because there will be just as many of those inside your presidential library as there were inside Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Outrage and dead-ends

I have not said anything about the disaster in Burma, because I haven't had anything to say beyond "It's a disaster." And, that people should call the country Burma -- as the Bush Administration, Senators Clinton, McCain*, and Obama, and the Washington Post do -- rather than Myanmar, the term chosen by its junta and now accepted by CNN, NPR, and the New York Times.
...
Unfortunately, saying that the regime is evil doesn't automatically indicate how to help its unfortunate people. Invasions -- even for humanitarian purposes -- should be a very last resort. And without spelling out the whole reasoning, the U.S. is not in a great position now to be organizing an international invasion force, no matter how noble the cause. As the international frustrations of the last week have suggested, the main option is the unsatisfying one of putting together as much pressure from as many sources as possible, including China**, to force the regime away from its outrageous refusal to allow aid workers in.

(*About McCain: if it really is true that he has given a major convention role to a lobbyist who represented the Burmese junta, McCain needs to dump that person forthwith -- or be pilloried for not doing so every day between now and the election. Update: I see that the lobbyist, Doug Goodyear, has just quit the convention job. Next, maybe giving back the $300,000+ the generals paid him, to a human rights group? **About China: the latest outrage by the Burmese generals should not become the latest reason to threaten China with an Olympic boycott or disruption. The Chinese government has some influence over the Burmese regime -- but just some. It is better to make China part of the solution to this problem, by pointing out that a regime's refusal to save its own people is the strongest possible reason for an exception in China's "non-interference with other sovereign states" doctrine.)

A year ago, during the time of riots and crackdowns, I posted several pictures of what Rangoon looked like just before the fighting began. Here and after the jump, a few other pictures from that time.
More at Evil in Burma

Facing Foreclosure? Breed Fish!

Or bread them...?

Hat tip to Mitchell for this find...

There's mucho dinero to be made in this mortgage meltdown situation, but instead of jumping in your time machine, traveling back to last summer and shorting subprime, why not get creative about it? According to the Journal, anyone interested in getting rich should dive into the fish fucking business, stat. Michael Corkery reports that the Gambusia affinis, i.e. the "mosquito fish," is making a name for itself in California, Arizona, Florida and anywhere else you might find a ton of foreclosed homes con swimming pools. Apparently the abandoned estate's water-based recreational facilities are becoming infested by mosquitoes, and causing worry about the spread of diseases like West Nile. Instead of using humans to spray pesticides, the fish are increasingly being deployed to the areas of concern, where they eat up to 500 larvae a day. "They are the real heroes," said Josefa Cabadad, a technician with the Contra Costa Mosquito & Vector Control District. "I've never seen a mosquito in a pool with mosquito fish." Start breeding.

Your Big Money Idea Of The Day

WSJ...
The problem: swimming pools of abandoned homes have turned into mosquito breeding grounds.
Related video: Foreclosed? Go Fish!

Then spoke the thunder
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands

Garbage Island

Garbage by *IElioI

Further details here:
Garbage Island 5:12
Eric Lanford talks with Thomas Morton about island-sized piles of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean.

The Clinton News Network

Any questions?

Originally I thought it may have been a technical issue, but why is it that whenever one goes to CNN's election 2008 section, my only clicky options are either Hillary Clinton or John McCain?
That's democracy and lobbyists for you!

This message has been paid for by one royally pissed off American.

The Pathetic Kafkaesque Billary BS

It's Electrifying by ~WhiskeyBlade

Screw you! I would never, ever vote for a SLAVE TO FUCKING MONEY.

Bauer's conference call ambush [updated with audio]

Dear Clinton Campaign,
Take your evil tactics and shove it up your fucking ass!
Screw you!!!
Is Karl Rove your latest spin machine?

I sure hope Texas pulls through.
Also, I no longer plan to move to Ireland or France or Wyoming, I intend to stay right fucking here to do whatever I can to make your pathetic, evil campaign's life miserable.
A vote between Billary and McCain is a softer, gentler vote for the same old shit and WAR.
This is so evil, irrational and fucked up.

Exxon still doesn't want to pay for Valdez oil spill

The spill soiled 1,200 miles of shoreline and killed hundreds of thousands of birds and other marine animals, inflicting environmental injuries that have not fully recovered, according to numerous scientific studies. Exxon contends it should not be liable for the actions of the Exxon Valdez skipper, Joseph Hazelwood, when the supertanker ran aground on March 24, 1989, with 53 millions gallons of oil in its hold.


THE TRUE TOTAL COST IS $1,776,000,000.

Edie Silk Screen

Edie Silk Screen by ~Candeola

Scary Corn

Scary Corn by ~bushijutsu

Hat tip to Wagga for this find:

Jon Markman at MSN Money doesn't hold back when he says "Corn-based ethanol production is sure to go down as one of the greatest mistakes ever in U.S. energy policy." It's even more provoking when he writes "replacing fossil fuels with corn-based ethanol would double greenhouse gas emissions over the next three decades. The studies show that switchgrass, an alternative to ethanol that's more weed than plant, would boost emissions by 50%."The problem isn't with the cars, the problem is with what it takes to grow the biofuel in the first place. Clearing the land, harvesting, and refining the crops, plus the loss of forest and wild lands and habitats, amounts to creating a carbon footprint worse than fossil fuels. According to the Science article which, admittedly, posits an extreme scenario, it would take 423 years to even out the carbon debt if Indonesia's peat lands were converted to palm oil fields.
More from Science magazine declares ethanol worse for the Earth than fossil fuels

Algae-based ethanol seems to be a far more sensible solution.

Food for Thought

Federal lawmakers and watchdog groups had harsh words Monday for the U.S. Department of Agriculture after the agency ordered a recall of 143 million pounds of beef from a Southern California slaughterhouse.
Beef products dating to Feb. 1, 2006 that came from the Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. are subject to the recall, which is the largest such action in U.S. history. The notice came after the Humane Society of the United States filmed undercover video showing crippled and sick animals being shoved with forklifts — treatment that has also triggered an animal-abuse investigation...

What an inhumane waste of resources and lives!

I am reminded of the following link Wagga posted under Yushin Maru Whale Butchery Captured on Film:
There is no doubt there is a similar denial here too. If many lamb eaters were obliged to consider and confront the awful reality of their culinary choices, they would spurn the dish. Yet here denial rears its ugly head again and roast lamb and vegies remains among the most popular meals in this country. Leave your conscience under the napkin.
Rack of lamb: delicious but very cruel

cow. by *rooze

UPDATE Edgar/AKA Buzz Saw's friend Weaseldog posted some more detailed and disturbing videos here: Downer Cows, It's What's For Dinner
Apparently the U.S. taxpayer is subsidizing ($40 million) this cruelty.
Also, the employees have now been charged with animal cruelty.

I not only hate the country I live in, but the stupid ass state as well

People in California not only suck but they are extraordinarily stupid to.

J a c q u e s . B a r i s

Fuck California!

I'm very, very f-ing angry and tired of feeling my voice is muted.

Ethanol from Garbage!

garbage by ~miss-vomit
What a great idea!

DETROIT — General Motors (GM) says it is investing in a fledgling company that claims its secret process could be able to make ethanol from waste in large quantity as soon as 2010 for $1 a gallon or less, half the cost of making gasoline.
Bill Roe, CEO of 18-month-old ethanol maker Coskata, says the company's process uses bacteria developed at the University of Oklahoma and existing gasification technology to generate 99.7% pure ethanol, plus water. He says the method should leapfrog cellulosic production, which has been seen as the next step from today's ethanol production using corn.

GM won't disclose its investment, but Roe says it's enough to make Coskata "a speed-to-market play. I don't think most people saw this coming," he says. "Most talk about cellulosic ethanol is futuristic."

Coskata's process can use garbage, old tires and other waste, but Roe says wood waste probably will be used at first because it's available, cheap and easy to handle.

More from General Motors finances ethanol maker Coskata

Hat tip to Wagga for this find.

In other news, January 13 through 19 is Slow Down Week.