Classic Quotes From Hypocrites

Another fine lesson in vintage hypocracy, well aged without irony deep in the Republican cellars where the Neocons keep their souls marinating in little jars filled with oil.

From Daily Kos via Progressive Blog Digest and Alterdestiny comes these classic Republican quotes about Clinton's Balkan policy.

"You can support the troops but not the president." --Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years." --Joe Scarborough (R-FL)

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?" --Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99

"[The] President . . . is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy." --Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)

"American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy." --Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy." --Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of George W Bush"I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning . . I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area." --Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)

"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our over-extended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today" --Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." --Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)

John McCain--"We didn’t have to get into Kosovo. Once we stumbled into it, we had to win it. This administration has conducted a feckless photo-op foreign policy for which we will pay a very heavy price in American blood and treasure."

A Favorite Place

The Bridge of Lettermore with Ben Loyal in the background
Home of my centre and soul

Happy Birthday

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880 –1918)
Poet, Writer, and Art Critic.

from Wikipedia:

Born Wilhelm Albert Vladimir Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky/Kostrowicki in Rome, Italy, he was one of the many artists who worked in the Montmartre district of Paris during an era of great creativity. His mother was Angelica Kostrowicki, a Polish countess, his father possibly Francesco Flugi d'Aspermont, a Swiss-Italian aristocrat who disappeared early from Apollinaire's life.

One of the most popular members of the artistic community in Montparnasse, his friends and collaborators during that period were Pablo Picasso, Max Jacob, André Salmon, Marie Laurencin, André Derain, Blaise Cendrars, Pierre Reverdy, Jean Cocteau, Erik Satie, Ossip Zadkine, Marc Chagall and Marcel Duchamp.

In 1911, he joined the Puteaux Group, an offshoot branch of the cubist movement. On September 7 of the same year, police arrested and jailed him on suspicion stealing the Mona Lisa, but later released him.

Apollinaire's first collection of poetry was L'enchanteur pourrissant (1909), but Alcools (1913) established his reputation. The poems, influenced in part by the Symbolists, juxtapose the old and the new, using traditional forms and modern imagery.

Also in 1913, Apollinaire published the essay Les Peintres cubistes on the cubist painters, a movement which he helped to define. He also coined the term orphism to describe a tendency towards absolute abstraction in the paintings of Robert Delaunay and others.

He fought in World War I and in 1916 was seriously wounded in the temple (see photo). While recovering from his wound, he wrote the play Les Mamelles de Tirésias (1917) (the subject of an opera by Francis Poulenc premiered in 1947), which he described as surrealist, making it one of the first works to be so described. Earlier he coined the word surrealism in the program notes for Jean Cocteau and Erik Satie's ballet Parade, first performed on 18 May 1917. He also published an artistic manifesto, L'Esprit nouveau et les poètes.

Poem of the Day

Le Pont Mirabeau by Guillaume Apollinaire

Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Et nos amours
Faut-il qu'il m'en souvienne
La joie venait toujours après la peine.

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
Tandis que sous
Le pont de nos bras passe
Des éternels regards l'onde si lasse

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

L'amour s'en va comme cette eau courante
L'amour s'en va
Comme la vie est lente
Et comme l'Espérance est violente

Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure

Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine

Mirabeau Bridge

Under Mirabeau Bridge the river slips away
And lovers
Must I be reminded
Joy came always after pain

The night is a clock chiming
The days go by not I

We're face to face and hand in hand
While under the bridges
Of embrace expire
Eternal tired tidal eyes

The night is a clock chiming
The days go by not I

Love elapses like the river
Love goes by
Poor life is indolent
And expectation always violent

The night is a clock chiming
The days go by not I

The days and equally the weeks elapse
The past remains the past
Love remains lost
Under Mirabeau Bridge the river slips away

The night is a clock chiming
The days go by not I

(translated by K Sorrow)

Glaswegian Gardens

The magpie stalks his victim.
These relatives of our crow and raven are just as smart and subtle. They are not as vocal as our birds, however, seeming to partake in the general British reserve.
This one was at work in Kelvingrove Park in the west of Glasgow.

Another scene from the dense foliage covering parts of Kelvingrove.
Here deep inside the city one can find peace, quiet and nature.
Every bit as fine a parkland as Central Park in New York, though not as large.

A view of River Kelvin from deep in the Kelvingrove.
The tower of Glasgow University can be seen in the distance.

Another view of the River Kelvin.
It's difficult to believe that a busy, bustling city lies just beyond those trees in the distance.
This is one of my favorite spots in the world.

Kelvingrove Park.
I feared at first that the plant pictured was Giant Hogweed, a notorious invasive and physically dangerous species in the USA. But subsequent net-searching assured me that it was not.
I did encounter the deadly triffid-like monster Hogweed at another location along the Kelvin north of the of the park, however.

The Botanic Gardens
Kelvingrove Park, west Glasgow
Based on the evidence gathered on both my trips to Glasgow, twelve years apart, the Gardens are always under construction.
Someday, I may actually be able to go inside and tour them.

Commenting On Changes

Some of you, that is those few who comment with regularity on this modest blog, will notice that the commenting procedure has changed. I am now requiring that you do the 'what letters are these, can you read this you bozo' test before being permitted to comment.

I apologize for this. It is my personal philosophy to make commenting and contributing to TheDaily Blatt as open as possible. But we were hit with a fair amount of comment spam over the past few days. And I don't have the time nor the inclination to fish the smelly stuff out of the transom and toss it overboard. So, rather than make all of you register as Blogger members or do away entirely with anonomous comments, I chose this route as the lesser evil. If you disagree, tell me so. I would consider the other option if asked.

As for you spammer asshats,
my personal message to you is in the graphic above.

(Many thanks to the divine and splendiferous Agitprop for the lovely graphic.)

Peak Oil Hits the NYT

Well, the 'imaginary fear' that one commentor recently chided me over for has reached the pages of the New York Time's Magazine. This is something akin to a #1 college football team appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The end must be very near indeed.

If the great defender of the staus quo is fearful of the story, the story must be old news indeed. I point to the time it took the Grey Lady to notice that Bush had lied to us as an example of this effect. And to their great reluctance to treat climate change with any seriousness until the evidence for it became overwhelming in the late 90's.

To anyone who has taken the time to honestly look at the numbers, this story will come as no great shock. Oil is a limited resource. We need oil in every increasing amounts for our energy profligate uber-culture to function. A collision between these two lines on the graph is inevitable.

The only real question remaining is whether we have the political, scientific, and indeed, social will to survive the transistion. Can we engineer enough technological and cultural changes in the time remaining to allow for a 'soft landing' or will there be a crash to end all crashes? Given the caliber and blindness of the oil cartel politicians curently in control in the USA, I have strong doubts that a soft landing is even possible. So I prepare for the crash.

Over the next few weeks I'll share with my blog's few readers some of the resources I've come across in my years of study and ask them to do the same for me. Maybe we at least can find a safe haven from the chaos looming.

from The New York Times Magazine (registration required)

The Breaking Point

By PETER MAASS
Published: August 21, 2005

The largest oil terminal in the world, Ras Tanura, is located on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia, along the Persian Gulf. From Ras Tanura's control tower, you can see the classic totems of oil's dominion -- supertankers coming and going, row upon row of storage tanks and miles and miles of pipes. Ras Tanura, which I visited in June, is the funnel through which nearly 10 percent of the world's daily supply of petroleum flows. Standing in the control tower, you are surrounded by more than 50 million barrels of oil, yet not a drop can be seen.

Oil Runs Through It...for Now: Shaybah, one of Saudi Arabia's oil fields, which all told can produce 10.5 million barrels of oil a day. The Saudis say they can boost production to 12.5 million barrels a day, or 15 million, or more. But there is a limit to how much you can ask of the earth, and it is fast approaching, some experts say.

The oil is there, of course. In a technological sleight of hand, oil can be extracted from the deserts of Arabia, processed to get rid of water and gas, sent through pipelines to a terminal on the gulf, loaded onto a supertanker and shipped to a port thousands of miles away, then run through a refinery and poured into a tanker truck that delivers it to a suburban gas station, where it is pumped into an S.U.V. -- all without anyone's actually glimpsing the stuff. So long as there is enough oil to fuel the global economy, it is not only out of sight but also out of mind, at least for consumers.

I visited Ras Tanura because oil is no longer out of mind, thanks to record prices caused by refinery shortages and surging demand -- most notably in the United States and China -- which has strained the capacity of oil producers and especially Saudi Arabia, the largest exporter of all. Unlike the 1973 crisis, when the embargo by the Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries created an artificial shortfall, today's shortage, or near-shortage, is real. If demand surges even more, or if a producer goes offline because of unrest or terrorism, there may suddenly not be enough oil to go around.

As Aref al-Ali, my escort from Saudi Aramco, the giant state-owned oil company, pointed out, ''One mistake at Ras Tanura today, and the price of oil will go up.'' This has turned the port into a fortress; its entrances have an array of gates and bomb barriers to prevent terrorists from cutting off the black oxygen that the modern world depends on. Yet the problem is far greater than the brief havoc that could be wrought by a speeding zealot with 50 pounds of TNT in the trunk of his car. Concerns are being voiced by some oil experts that Saudi Arabia and other producers may, in the near future, be unable to meet rising world demand. The producers are not running out of oil, not yet, but their decades-old reservoirs are not as full and geologically spry as they used to be, and they may be incapable of producing, on a daily basis, the increasing volumes of oil that the world requires. ''One thing is clear,'' warns Chevron, the second-largest American oil company, in a series of new advertisements, ''the era of easy oil is over.' (more)

update

John Tierney of the NYT chides Peter Maas in what Forbes Magazine calls a "devastating retort". Funny, I can't seem to find anything in the column other than some ad-hominem by-play about gambling on energy futures that even mentions oil. You decide.

And guys, using Julian Simon as a reference in resource discussions is akin to citing George W Bush in a discussion of the rights of non-traditional combatants on a battlefield. Simon wrote that over-population was not a problem but an asset, the human misery of hunger, war, and disease more than being compensated for by the increase in the potential market place. A truly evil man.

The $10,000 Question

By JOHN TIERNEY
Published: August 23, 2005

I don't share Matthew Simmons's angst, but I admire his style. He is that rare doomsayer who puts his money where his doom is.

After reading his prediction, quoted Sunday in the cover story of The New York Times Magazine, that oil prices will soar into the triple digits, I called to ask if he'd back his prophecy with cash. Without a second's hesitation, he agreed to bet me $5,000.

His only concern seemed to be that he was fleecing me. Mr. Simmons, the head of a Houston investment bank specializing in the energy industry, patiently explained to me why Saudi Arabia's oil production would falter much sooner than expected. That's the thesis of his new book, "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy."

I didn't try to argue with him about Saudi Arabia, because I know next to nothing about oil production there or anywhere else. I'm just following the advice of a mentor and friend, the economist Julian Simon: if you find anyone willing to bet that natural resource prices are going up, take him for all you can.

Julian took up gambling during the last end-of-oil crisis, in 1980, when experts were predicting a new age of scarcity as the planet's resources were depleted by the growing population. Julian had debunked these fears in "The Ultimate Resource," the bible of Cornucopian economics, which showed how human ingenuity had kept driving down the price of energy and other natural resources for centuries. (more)

update the second

A nice bit of counter fluffle at the Maas' article's biggest failing. Kunstler, an irredeemable pessimist like myself, is often dead on in his analysis. He certainly is in this case.

from Jim Kunstler at Clusterfuck Nation:

The New York Times chimed in with a cover piece in its Sunday Magazine titled The Beginning of the End of Oil? by veteran journalist Peter Maas. It presented a story that has been around the Internet for more than a year, based on investment banker Matthew Simmons' frequent public speeches about the apparent weakness in the Saudi Arabian oil industry (which Simmons published in book form last month as Twilight in the Desert). Apparently the Times editors have been mulling over the oil story for months and months, wondering if there is anything to it, and perhaps the movement of oil prices into the $60-plus range finally prompted them to run with it.

Maas's article is full of howling omissions and delusions. For one thing, Maas omits any serious reflection of the consequences of a global energy crisis, any specters of geopolitical blowback, or potential problems for America's non-negotiable easy-motoring way of life. That omission grows out of the delusional assumption that some magical market mechanism will conjure up a menu of just-in-time replacements for the vanishing oil. These are referred to as "alternative technologies," a term that points to a more fundamental delusion now rampant among the public, namely the mistaken belief that technology and energy are the same thing, that they are interchangeable, that you can substitute one for the other. Out of oil? Get new technology.

Note to public: technology and energy are not the same things, and continuing to think that they are may place our civilization in jeopardy.

The bottom line of the Times Sunday Magazine article is that they are still not convinced that global peak oil is for real, or that we necessarily ought to be worried about it, with all that "alternative technology" banging around out there in the innovational ethers of the magical market. They bring a magisterial cluelessness to the issue -- while the back pages of the Magazine are devoted to hawking the glitziest high-end products of the suburban housing bubble. (more)

Intelligent Donation?

This is a disturbing story about a difficult ethical issue. Can you fund research at one part of an organization without seeming to support the work of the entire organization? Or to protect youself must you be as Caesar's Wife, remaining even free of the implication of bias? A perplexing conundrum.

from Salon:

Why the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave more than $10 million to the Discovery Institute, champions of "intelligent design."

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Farhad Manjoo

Aug. 26, 2005 | No one could deny that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation cares deeply about science. The foundation, by far the nation's largest philanthropic organization, donates hundreds of millions of dollars every year to promising medical research, including vaccines and treatments for malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis. The foundation also cares about education. In 2004, it donated $720 million to improve American schools. Both Bill and Melinda Gates themselves frequently argue for schools to ramp up their science and math programs to create a competitive American workforce for the future.

It comes as no small surprise, then, to learn that during the past five years the Gates Foundation has pledged more than $10 million to the Discovery Institute, the Seattle think tank that is leading the charge to bring "intelligent design" to the masses. Advocates of I.D. say Darwin's theory of evolution is flawed and that certain complex biological features -- such as, for instance, the human eye -- point to the presence of a "designer" at the source of creation. The scientific establishment roundly rejects I.D. They say it represents a back door through which religious views are being snuck into public education. Due to the Discovery Institute, I.D. is popping up in school districts all over the country, fueling a renewed controversy over evolution that has even made its way into national politics. George W. Bush recently espoused Discovery's views by urging teachers to make sure "both sides" -- that is, I.D. as well as evolution -- are "properly taught."

The Gates Foundation responds that it hasn't abandoned science to back intelligent design. Greg Shaw, Pacific Northwest director, explains that the grant to Discovery underwrites the institute's "Cascadia Project," which strictly focuses on transportation in the Northwest. The Discovery Web site lists several program goals, including financing of high-speed passenger rail systems and reduction of automobile congestion in the Cascadia region, which encompasses Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. (The Gates Foundation, which is based in Seattle, gives a small slice of its money -- about $40 million in 2004 -- to groups that aim to improve life in the Pacific Northwest.) Poor transportation is a key problem for low-income families, Shaw says, and "when Cascadia came to the Foundation, there was a sense that there had not been a regional approach to studying transportation. Cascadia's plan to solve the transportation problem "was very much a bipartisan state, local and regional approach with a variety of states and counties and mayors." He didn't know if people at the foundation were aware of Discovery's I.D. work at the time they decided to fund Cascadia. " It is absolutely true that we care about sound science as it pertains to saving lives," he says. "The question of intelligent design is not something that we have ever considered. It's not something that we fund." (more)

Dr Who Come Home, All Is Forgiven

Seen on a street in Edinburgh.

Sadly, none appeared to be the Tardis, but then I'm not The Doctor, am I?

Exposing The "Moral Hazard" of Health Insurance

As one of the great uninsured, this article makes me very angry. The whole concept of "moral hazard" speaks of the worst of the caste system. As a control on the poor, it is almost eugenics like in its application and results. Frankly, I think the rich folks mutilating themselves with expensive elective cosmetic surgery could do with a dose of "moral hazard" themselves.

from The New Yorker via Arthur Hlavaty:

One of the great mysteries of political life in the United States is why Americans are so devoted to their health-care system. Six times in the past century—during the First World War, during the Depression, during the Truman and Johnson Administrations, in the Senate in the nineteen-seventies, and during the Clinton years—efforts have been made to introduce some kind of universal health insurance, and each time the efforts have been rejected. Instead, the United States has opted for a makeshift system of increasing complexity and dysfunction. Americans spend $5,267 per capita on health care every year, almost two and half times the industrialized world’s median of $2,193; the extra spending comes to hundreds of billions of dollars a year. What does that extra spending buy us? Americans have fewer doctors per capita than most Western countries. We go to the doctor less than people in other Western countries. We get admitted to the hospital less frequently than people in other Western countries. We are less satisfied with our health care than our counterparts in other countries. American life expectancy is lower than the Western average. Childhood-immunization rates in the United States are lower than average. Infant-mortality rates are in the nineteenth percentile of industrialized nations. Doctors here perform more high-end medical procedures, such as coronary angioplasties, than in other countries, but most of the wealthier Western countries have more CT scanners than the United States does, and Switzerland, Japan, Austria, and Finland all have more MRI machines per capita. Nor is our system more efficient. The United States spends more than a thousand dollars per capita per year—or close to four hundred billion dollars—on health-care-related paperwork and administration, whereas Canada, for example, spends only about three hundred dollars per capita. And, of course, every other country in the industrialized world insures all its citizens; despite those extra hundreds of billions of dollars we spend each year, we leave forty-five million people without any insurance. A country that displays an almost ruthless commitment to efficiency and performance in every aspect of its economy—a country that switched to Japanese cars the moment they were more reliable, and to Chinese T-shirts the moment they were five cents cheaper—has loyally stuck with a health-care system that leaves its citizenry pulling out their teeth with pliers.

America’s health-care mess is, in part, simply an accident of history. The fact that there have been six attempts at universal health coverage in the last century suggests that there has long been support for the idea. But politics has always got in the way. In both Europe and the United States, for example, the push for health insurance was led, in large part, by organized labor. But in Europe the unions worked through the political system, fighting for coverage for all citizens. From the start, health insurance in Europe was public and universal, and that created powerful political support for any attempt to expand benefits. In the United States, by contrast, the unions worked through the collective-bargaining system and, as a result, could win health benefits only for their own members. Health insurance here has always been private and selective, and every attempt to expand benefits has resulted in a paralyzing political battle over who would be added to insurance rolls and who ought to pay for those additions.

Policy is driven by more than politics, however. It is equally driven by ideas, and in the past few decades a particular idea has taken hold among prominent American economists which has also been a powerful impediment to the expansion of health insurance. The idea is known as “moral hazard.” Health economists in other Western nations do not share this obsession. Nor do most Americans. But moral hazard has profoundly shaped the way think tanks formulate policy and the way experts argue and the way health insurers structure their plans and the way legislation and regulations have been written. The health-care mess isn’t merely the unintentional result of political dysfunction, in other words. It is also the deliberate consequence of the way in which American policymakers have come to think about insurance.

“Moral hazard” is the term economists use to describe the fact that insurance can change the behavior of the person being insured. If your office gives you and your co-workers all the free Pepsi you want—if your employer, in effect, offers universal Pepsi insurance—you’ll drink more Pepsi than you would have otherwise. If you have a no-deductible fire-insurance policy, you may be a little less diligent in clearing the brush away from your house more

Silliness on a Summer Afternoon

from McSweeny's Internet Tendancy via Arthur Hlavaty:

Klingon Fairy Tales.
(contents)

BY MIKE RICHARDSON-BRYAN

- - - -

"Goldilocks Dies With Honor at the Hands of the Three Bears"

"Snow White and the Six Dwarves She Killed With Her Bare Hands and the Seventh Dwarf She Let Get Away as a Warning to Others"

"The Three Little Pigs Build an Improvised Explosive Device and Deal With That Damned Wolf Once and for All"

"Old Mother Hubbard, Lacking the Means to Support Herself With Honor, Sets Her Disruptor on Self-Destruct and Waits for the Inevitable"

"Mary Had a Little Lamb. It Was Delicious"

"Little Red Riding Hood Strays Into the Neutral Zone and Is Never Heard From Again, Although There Are Rumors ... Awful, Awful Rumors"

"The Hare Foolishly Lowers His Guard and Is Devastated by the Tortoise, Whose Prowess in Battle Attracts Many Desirable Mates"

Kids, Don't Try This at Home

via Agitprop:

Evolution in action on the Shop At Home Network as an idiot presenter enthusiastically demonstrates a Japanese katana. Ouch, that's gotta hurt.

Clone of handdrummer 2

Now this is just getting ridiculous.

A Favorite Place

End of the Road
Ettrick, Borders

Quite near the end of the road from Edinburgh thru Ettrick to the Ettrick Forest.
Within a half mile of my family home.

I like to pretend that, just there in the distance, nestled among the trees on the hillside, is my family's original smallholding. It gives a person a fine sense of rooted-ness to find where you spring from, don't you think?.

Poem of the Day

Will He No Come Back Again? by Anonymous

Royal Charlie's now awa,
Safely owre the friendly main;
Mony a heart will break in twa,
Should he ne'er come back again.
Will you no come back again?
Will you no come back again?
Better lo'ed you'll never be,
And will you no come back again?

Mony a traitor 'mang the isles
Brak the band o' nature's law;
Mony a traitor, wi' his wiles,
Sought to wear his life awa.
Will he no come back again?
Will he no come back again?
Better lo'ed he'll never be,
And will he no come back again?

The hills he trode were a' his ain,
And bed beneath the birken tree;
The bush that hid him on the plain,
There's none on earth can claim but he.
Will he no come back again?
Will he no come back again?
Better lo'ed he'll never be,
And will he no come back again?

Whene'er I hear the blackbird sing,
Unto the e'ening sinking down,
Or merl that makes the woods to ring,
To me they hae nae ither soun',
Than, Will he no come back again?
Will he no come back again?
Better lo'ed he'll never be,
And will he no come back again?

Mony a gallant sodger fought,
Mony a gallant chief did fa';
Death itself were dearly bought,
A' for Scotland's king and law.
Will he no come back again?
Will he no come back again?
Better lo'ed he'll never be,
And will he no come back again?

Sweet the lav'rock's note and lang,
Lilting wildly up the glen;
And aye the o'erword o' the sang
Is "Will he no come back again?"
Will he no come back again?
Will he no come back again?
Better lo'ed he'll never be,
And will he no come back again?

On the Streets of Glasgow

The Glasgow Underground
Called the Clockwork Orange by the locals after its characteristic orange cars.

A small and simple system that basically circles the center of the city with trains going travelling both clockwise and counterclockwise. Combined with an extensive light rail network and frequent buses, The Orange greatly reduces the need for cars in the city. Many Glaswegians never use anything else.

St. Vincent Street (I think, though I'm probably wrong) going east.

Glasgow has many buildings made of the warm toned stone pictured here. Whole districts, like the area around the University, Hillhead, Kelvingrove and other parts of west Glasgow, were built almost exclusively from this stone. The city feels all of a piece as a result.

The Duke of Wellington as well willingly participates in the Scottish obsession with rearranging traffic cones for artistic purposes.

The residential areas are full of little nicks and crannies like this one in the Hillhead district of west Glasgow. The cats tend toward the large and many are black with white markings. Very friendly as well, in that open Scottish way

Busker on the street near Glasgow University

A working, living city encourages street performance as a way of humanizing urban space. Most American cities try to 'regulate' or even forbid street performers.

'Nuff said

Buchanan (pr. buckkannon) Street The main shopping district of Glasgow
Every fancy shopping experience you would want.

Happy Birthday

A busy day in the birthday icono-pantheon

Tim Burton (1958- )

Filmmaker

AAACK! AAACK!

Elvis Costello (1954 - )
Musician, Poet, Raconteur

A serious man in a frivilous business

Sir Sean Connery (1930- )
Actor
Advocate for Scottish Independence

Star of my two favorite romance pictures for guys,
Robin and Marian and The Wind And the Lion
Made me cry. What a guy. And I did.

"The name's Bond, James Bond."

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

Composer, Conductor, Educator

His Young People's Concerts Sunday mornings on CBS introduced this small town Indian boy to the joys of classical music for which he has my undying gratitude.

A Foolish Consistency.....

via Billmon at Whiskey Bar:

"The American Legion will stand against anyone and any group that would demoralize our troops, or worse, endanger their lives by encouraging terrorists to continue their cowardly attacks against freedom-loving peoples," Thomas Cadmus, national commander, told delegates at the group's national convention in Honolulu" . . . "We had hoped that the lessons learned from the Vietnam War would be clear to our fellow citizens. Public protests against the war here at home while our young men and women are in harm's way on the other side of the globe only provide aid and comfort to our enemies."

Editor & Publisher
American Legion Declares War on Protestors
August 24, 2005

(via Atrios)

______________________

Dear Mr. President:

The American Legion, a wartime veterans organization of nearly three-million members, urges the immediate withdrawal of American troops participating in "Operation Allied Force.''

The National Executive Committee of The American Legion, meeting in Indianapolis today, adopted Resolution 44, titled "The American Legion's Statement on Yugoslavia.'' This resolution was debated and adopted unanimously.

Mr. President, the United States Armed Forces should never be committed to wartime operations unless the following conditions are fulfilled:

• That there be a clear statement by the President of why it is in our vital national interests to be engaged in hostilities;

• Guidelines be established for the mission, including a clear exit strategy;

• That there be support of the mission by the U.S. Congress and the American people; and

• That it be made clear that U.S. Forces will be commanded only by U.S. officers whom we acknowledge are superior military leaders.

It is the opinion of The American Legion, which I am sure is shared by the majority of Americans, that three of the above listed conditions have not been met in the current joint operation with NATO ("Operation Allied Force'').

In no case should America commit its Armed Forces in the absence of clearly defined objectives agreed upon by the U.S. Congress in accordance with Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution of the United States.

Sincerely,
Harold L. "Butch'' Miller,
National Commander

American Legion
Letter to President Clinton
May 5, 1999

Our Dear Leader is a manly man and thanks to his tragically abbreviated time in the Alabama Air National Guard, understands what veterans of foreign wars have gone through during their heroic service to their country. But, since Clinton had never been in combat and therefore had never experienced just what it means to be under fire, all military decisions he made were by their very nature suspect.

Happy Birthday

Durward Kirby (1912-2000)
Professional Second Banana

Versatile TV funnyman Durward Kirby for years played second banana on "The Garry Moore Show" Kirby could be sketch actor, singer, dancer and, with ease, switch from slapstick to suave sales pitches for a sponsor's product.

He became so well-known to TV viewers that the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons had a plotline about the search for "Kirward Derby," which could make its wearer the smartest man in the world.

A Favorite Place

Well, Lass, I got to Loch Lomond afore Ye.....



By yon bonnie banks and by yon bonnie braes,
Where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond
Where me and my true love were ever wont to gae,
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond.

Chorus

O ye’ll tak’ the high road and I’ll tak’ the low road,
And I’ll be in Scotland afore ye.
But me and my true love will never meet again,
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond.

‘Twas there that we parted in yon shady glen,
On the steep, steep side o’ Ben Lomond.
Where in deep purple hue, the hieland hills we view,
And the moon comin’ out in the gloamin’.

The wee birdies sing and the wild flowers spring,
And in sunshine the waters are sleeping:
But the broken heart, it kens nae second spring again,
Tho’ the waefu’ may cease from their greeting.