Silflay Hraka

12/14/2002




Blog Smell

It's late, and this will make little to no sense, but it's a request, so what the hell.

Sperari smells like - Rich Corinthian Leather


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.

12/13/2002




Wormtongue, Grima Wormtongue

Henry Kissinger, faced with a conflict between his duty to the American people and his allegiance to the foreign powers that make up his client list, today chose the foreign powers.

May you burn in hell, you treasonous sonofabitch.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




The Bush economic policy starts to trickle down.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




Mutilated Carol of the Day - I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In

I Sat and Read the Blogs All Day

I sat and read the blogs all day
On Christmas day, on Christmas day;
And what did those blogs have to say
On Christmas day in the morning?

Michelle of a small victory
On Christmas day, on Christmas day;
Wrote on her kids and entropy
On Christmas day in the morning.

And what about the Blogatelle
On Christmas day, on Christmas day?
She gave out condoms by the bale
On Christmas day in the morning!

And who was sued in libel court
On Christmas day, on Christmas day?
File 13's Amish Tech Support,
On Christmas day in the morning!

And all who cut on the bias
On Christmas day, on Christmas day.
became a little more pious
On Christmas day in the morning!

Sperari's playing D & D,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day.
Forgot the gifts under the tree
On Christmas day in the morning!

Fred First is feeling mighty smug.
On Christmas day, on Christmas day.
He found a photogenic bug
On Christmas day in the morning.

Lileks has a warm and cheery Gnat
On Christmas day, on Christmas day.
I wish to God I could write like that
On Christmas day in the morning.

What should one get for old Bill Quick
On Christmas day, on Christmas day?
Jacques Chirac and a hickory stick,
On Christmas day in the morning!

What do I see at Eros Blog
On Christmas day, on Christmas day?
Naked chick on a big Yule log
On Christmas day in the morning!

There's no stockings for Fusilier
On Christmas day, on Christmas day.
From his mantle hang bandoliers
On Christmas day in the morning!

Meryl's got a spare holiday
On Christmas day, on Christmas day.
Cause she made dreidels out of clay
On Hanukkah day in the morning

He woke up in a Cold Fury
On Christmas day, on Christmas day.
Driving his rig to Missouri
On Christmas day in the morning.

And Andrea is feeling mean
On Christmas day, on Christmas day.
Someone gave her an extra spleen.
On Christmas day in the morning!

They're Running Silent, running deep
On Christmas day, on Christmas day.
'Cause Down Under talk isn't cheap.
On Christmas day in the morning!

Oh, A.M.C.G.L.T.D.
On Christmas day, on Christmas day.
Passed some gas on to you and me
On Christmas day in the morning!

Where Worlds Collide has been plotting
On Christmas day, on Christmas day,
To start out with some trainspotting,
On Christmas day in the morning!

Zod: This is undoubtedly the most shameless job of sucking up to your betters that I have ever seen.
I can't help it, I was in marketing once.
Zod: Marketing shmarketing. You're the Uriah Heep of blogging. This makes Blog Smells* look like dispassionate science.
What can I say, I've got skills. I gotta use them.
Zod: If you're skills are so damn good, where's the obligatory Instapundit verse?
Oh you mean;

Oh Instapundit, link to me
On Christmas day, on Christmas day!
On Instapundit, pretty please
On Christmas day in the morning?


Zod: No, I meant some other Instapundit. Not going to put that one up there?
I've got some pride, you know.
Zod: Where d'ya keep it?
That box in the medicine cabinet.
Zod: That's a pill box!.....It must rattle around in there something fierce.
Yep. BB in a boxcar, basically.
Zod: Anybody else?
Well, there's Andy;

Now Sullivan won't link to me
On Christmas day, on Christmas day!
I'm far too small a fish you see
On Christmas day in the morning.


Zod: Bitter much?
Some call me.......myrrh.

*Like Blog smells, if you would like a verse of your very own, drop me a e-mail or leave a comment. I would have done more now, but I could feel the muse getting tired.


Request:
The fevered dreams of Solonor
On Christmas day, on Christmas day.
Gives visions of minions galore
On Christmas day in the morning.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.

12/12/2002




Bringing Democracy to the Senate

Let's consider a hypothetical situation. In 2004 a third national political party comes out of nowhere and captures not only the White House but a couple of Senate seats, with the rest of the Senate evenly divided between the Republicans and Democrats. The hypothesis is nuts already, so let's call the new party the Green Libertarians. Their symbol is the Jackalope, and they were elected on a platform of arming animals so that they can protect themselves from wetlands developers.

So the balance of the Senate when the 2004 congress is sworn is 49 Republicans, 49 Democrats and 2 Glib senators. At that point, how are the Majority and Minority leaders of the Senate chosen? The Senate website isn't much help, giving only the following account of how the leadership positions are filled;

The floor leaders of each party today are elected by a majority vote of all the Senators of the said party assembled in a conference or, as it sometimes is called, a caucus. The practice has been to choose the leader for a two-year term at the beginning of each Congress. After the parties have held their elections, the selection is made known through the press or by announcement to the Senate. The majority and minority leaders are the elected spokesmen on the Senate floor for their respective political parties, having been elected by their fellow Senators of the same party to whom they are responsible.

Normally in cases of an evenly divided Senate, the Vice President will break the tie by announcing that he will vote with his party on procedural matters. That's how Trent Lott became Majority Leader in the 107th Congress, until James Jeffords jumped ship. In the case above, the Vice Presidency is held by a Glibertarian, so the tie holds. The Glibs hold the balance of power, and can negotiate the best deal for themselves with either party before announcing which party they intend to vote with on procedural matters. Once they've made their decision, the actual process of filling the Senate Majority is a formality, as it has been since 1925. A formality, because there's no point in actually voting on who fills the post. The outcome is foreordained once the Glib senators state who they are voting with.

But what if the Glibs refuse to say how they will vote prior to any particular procedural vote? What if Jeffords had? In order to actually elect a Senate majority leader at this point, must the Senators actually vote for one person or another, rather than than presenting one man or another as a fait accompli? The question has never come up, but I'm going to go with the common sense position (dangerous, I know) that at this point either the Senate majority leader position will be vacant for that particular congress, or that the Senators must actually vote on who fills the position.

Simply put, if the question of who holds the Majority Leader post is answered by an announcement about how a particular member intends to vote on procedural matters, then that imples that a procedural vote is needed to elect a Majority Leader. There's never been a vote, because the outcome of such a vote has always been known beforehand. But does that mean that it always will be?

I ask, because at this point in time it seems that Trent Lott, despite the almost universal condemnation of his remarks on Strom Thurmond, will remain as Senate Majority Leader for the 108th Congress. Lott doesn't need the support of a majority of Senators in order to hold on to the post of Senate Majority Leader. Rather, all he needs is the support of 26 Republicans. Once he's elected as floor leader in that caucus, he's in, because that is the way it has always worked. In this case, the name "Senate Majority Leader" is a misnomer, as it is almost certain that a majority of Senators would not vote for Lott if an actual floor vote was held. Most especially they would not if it was a secret vote.

But suppose for a second that a Republican or two declared that, although they were not changing their party membership, their party should no longer count on their support in all procedural matters?

I'm thinking John McCain and Lincoln Chafee, though it could be anyone, given the wide-spread dismay within the Republican ranks at Lott's implicit support for segregation. It would be nice to think that my new Republican Senator would have that kind of balls, but I don't really expect that out of Libby. Jesse might have done it once upon a time, but not over this issue, certainly.

At the instant of that announcement, Lott could no longer claim to be Majority Leader. Daschle could not lay claim to the title either, though it is possible that the Minority Leader would at this point take over some of the tasks normally carried out by the Majority Leader. Or the Senate could revert to the format it had before 1925, when geographic blocs and Committee Chairs wielded more power. Certainly the two (or more?) maverick Senators would command immense power as holder of the swing votes on procedural matters. Lott would be out on his ass in either case, arguably what the majority of Americans, as well as a majority of Senators, would prefer now anyway. Remember majority rule?

Yes, it would be a messier system, but it would also be more democratic. And that's the point. Is it likely to happen? God, no. It would require a politician with a a spine, and those are vanishingly rare.

But damn, would it be fun to watch.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




Coming Out to Fight Crime

Larry McShane of The Associated Press reports:

Rawhide Kid Is Coming Out

NEW YORK - The Rawhide Kid, a longtime Marvel Comics character, is coming out of the closet next year.

A new story line will reveal the Kid's keen fashion sense - including a stylish leather outfit - in what one Marvel editor boasted would be ``the first gay Western.''

The Kid's orientation, along with his white gloves and a white cowboy hat fashioned from Canadian beaver pelts, will be unveiled this February in a Marvel Comics adult imprint series called ``Rawhide Kid: Slap Leather.''


Finally, maybe Casper, Robin and Snagglepuss will all feel more comfortable doing the same.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




All Bow Before Him!!!

I have found my new hero.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.

12/11/2002




Deck the Halls with Boston Charlie

Hokiepundit catches the spirit of the season and mutilates Good King Wenceslas. He also does the make up your own facts thing, though not in order to get lines to rhyme, oddly enough.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




Slamming My Democrat-ness

I'm sure many of you will see this passing through your email system within hours, but a former co-worker of mine sent me this note I thought I would share with you. His note read:

As a Democrat you need to see this.

Subject: Important Internet Poll

The Democratic National Committee is currently polling Americans through the Internet to determine the electability of Hillary Clinton for the presidency of the United States in 2004. If you would like to show your support for Hillary and encourage her to run for President of the United States in 2004 please click the link below.

Click HERE!!!!!


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




If ponies rode men and if grass ate cows,
And cats should be chased into holes by the mouse...
If summer were spring and the other way around,
Then all the world would be upside down.


Silflay Hraka is #135 on the Popdex Most Popular Links of All Time list.

Screw Jesus, we're more popular than Lileks.

Zod: Appears to be a bug in the ranking system.
Maybe just a little one.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




Unfortunate Names Redux

Newly nominated Treasury Secretary, John Snow.

Prediction: It'll be less than six months before someone refers to the Treasury Secretary with a headline containing the words "Snow Job"

Update: Way less than six months


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




More Fun with Blogger

These posts always bring out the Movable Type evangelicals in droves, but I can't resist them. While I was casting around in the archives for my music recommendations for the Fusilier Pundit, I noticed something odd.

Here's the original post, and here's the same post again, with a different url. Look at the url, and you'll see that the second link appears to be the archives of another blog entirely, Hippie Music.

Zod: Fascinating! Please, do go on.
Oh, eat me.
Zod: You're a regular Shakespeare this morning, aren't you?


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




Taps

A moment of silence please, an icon has died..........damn you to hell Metallica!!!!


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




Small World

Thanks to the Instapundit, it turns out that Ballon Juice and I know each other, though this will undoubtedly come as news to him, as it was to me. In fact, I bummed cigarettes off him at a wedding, years ago. His wife and the Sainted wife have a friend in common, so we see each other at parties once or twice a year. He's always good for a good politics/music discussion, and is indirectly responsible for the Fusilier Pundit buying a Fountains of Wayne cd. What's funny is that I think we've seen each other at least twice since we started blogging, and neither of us has ever mentioned that we blog.

Zod: It's your secret shame.

Update: Instapundit was wrong! John Cole the blogger and John Cole the cartoonist are not one and the same, so I don't know Balloon Juice after all. Sadness.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




A Trent Lott Christmas

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas,
Just like the ones I used to know.
With the rope noose tieing,
And darkies crying.
Strange Fruit swinging to and fro.

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas,
With every birthday speech I write,
"May your days be merry and bright,
And may all your Christmases be white".

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas,
Just like the ones I used to know.
With the rope noose tieing,
And darkies crying.
Strange Fruit swinging to and fro.

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas,
With every birthday speech I write,
"May your days be merry and bright,
And may all your Christmases be white".

Obviously, this one pretty much wrote itself. The second verse is practically perfect without a change, and I love songwriters so lazy they just repeat verses.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




12 Angry Carnivals

The Carnival of the Vanities has arrived at the second stop on its tour of the Blogosphere, Amish Tech Support. Thanks and kudos to Laurence for a job well done.

Zod: Of course it's well done, you didn't do it.

Upcoming stops include;

12/18 Heretical Ideas
12/24 Ravenwood's Universe
1/1 Solonor's Ink Well
1/8 The Eleven Day Empire
1/15 Greeblie Blog
1/22 Yourish.com
1/29 Ipse Dixit
2/5 Plum Crazy

February is wide open. If you'd like to host the Carnival, drop us a line. Information on how to join the Carnival can be found here.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.

12/10/2002




Why go to Eros Blog when you can see all of its content here?

Crack of the Morning to Ya!

and

A stocking stuffer for Woundwort


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




It Made Zod Laugh

Sgt Stryker on the War Protestors

When the war looks cooler than you do, you might have an image problem.

Zod: Technically, it was more of a chortle.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




They don't care for dogs, either

Laurence discovers that Weatherpixie is doing its bit in the War on Islamofascism.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




The First Noelle

Unfortunate name, Noelle, and I'm not even talking about the Billy Carter of the Bush family. Noelle was an underclassman in my senior year, and as Christmas approached her life got worse and worse, from the dirty carols point of view.

The first Noelle, the angels did lay
Was with certain poor shepherds on rough bales of hay;
She was poor and she was cheap, and she had great big teats,
On a cold winter's night she was better than sheep.
Noelle, Noelle, Noelle, Noelle,
At sexual congress she did excel!

Zod: Sexual congress? What the hell was wrong with you?
I can't help it, it was a geek school.
Zod: That is the lamest use of a 5 syllable sex term, ever.
We had dirtier versions, we just didn't sing them at Noelle.
Zod: How kind and gentlemanly of you, to spare the poor girl's feelings so.

Zod's right, I don't really recall her expressing her appreciation at our creativity very effusively. Still, it could have been worse. She could have known me later in life, when I was even more cruel, and her name could have been Dixie.

I rewrote The First Noel once later on as well, for a N&O "make your own carol" contest back in the early nineties.

The Boomer Father's Lament

The First Lionel
Train that Santa brought me,
Was the Stainless-steel model number Eight Sixty-Three,
Pulling seventeen cars, filled with miniature folk.
And best was the engine which blew clouds of real smoke

Lionel, Lionel, your memory lives in my heart,
While my son is playing Super Mario Kart

Since Halloween
I have searched high and low
For a train like the one that I had long ago.
Now it sits, untouched, beneath the Christmas tree,
A Stainless-steel model number Eight Sixty-Three.

Lionel, Lionel, your memory lives in my heart,
While my son is playing Super Mario Kart

My son's Lionel
Is abandoned no more.
It merrily chugs round my living room floor.
Pulling seventeen cars, a show just for me;
'Cause my son sits playing his game on TV.

Lionel, Lionel, your memory lives in my heart
While my son is playing Super Mario Kart

I would've won too, if I hadn't stuck the paper in the fax machine the wrong way.

I couldn't write that song today. For one thing, Super Mario Kart is not exactly on everyone's Christmas list. For another, as far as I know there never was a Lionel Model Train #863, much less one that blew clouds of real smoke. These were the days before the Internet, when you could could just make up stuff because there was no way for most people to check it. It's much easier to make things rhyme when they don't also have to be correct.

Zod: It's all Al Gore's fault!
What isn't?

It still doesn't age as badly as the last one, written at the same time, just barely more than 10 years ago. The world spins faster that we realize, though a Bush was President then, too.

S&L's (to the tune of Jingle Bells)

Well the Japanese
Are really doing great,
Producing our movies
And buying real estate!
Hai! Hai! Hai!

Yes, we won the war,
But they won the peace.
We gave until it made us sore
And they gave us receipts!

Ohhhhhhhhh,
S&L's, S&L's
Failing every day
Oh what fun it is to see
Our money slip away!

S&L's, S&L's
They were pay for play!
Oh what fun it is to see
Our future go astray!


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




Does Kristoff Care?

Call me naive, but I get the feeling that Nicholas Kristoff and the NYT are far more interested in pointing out problems rather than doing anything about them. Case in point, today's editorial by Nicholas on the slow collapse of South America

Maria Amelia Miranda stood yesterday in the Iapi shantytown here in Monte Chingolo, south of Buenos Aires, and cried. Three of her seven children — girls ages 8, 7 and 3 — have intestinal worms, up to a foot long, that she must periodically pull from their bottoms. But the worming medicine costs about $1.40 per child, and she can't afford to buy both the medicine and food for the children.

When I was nature counselor at my old summer camp, we watched a Discovery channel documentary on the Lesser Flamingo that I had recorded one winter. The Lesser flamingo nests only in salt pans covered with an inch or two of water, and they don't nest every year, since most years are either too dry or too wet for their tastes. When they do nest, the adults have to leave the young before they have fully fledged for better feeding grounds. The new feeding grounds can be sixty to a hundred miles away, and to get to them the young have to walk. They form huge groups, with thousands of chicks in each, and start walking. Each day a few fledge and fly away to join their parents. The others keep walking.

The water they walk through is incredibly rich in minerals, and those minerals leech out onto the legs of the chicks, so that eventually the remaining chicks are stumbling towards their distant refuge with cakes of salt and minerals the size of softballs on each leg. The balls are called manacles, as the chicks with them hobble forward like a prisoner in leg chains. Most manacled chicks walk until they can no longer move, much less fly, then stand motionless in the African sun until they die, or are eaten by hyenas. The five minutes the documentary spends on the chick migration is pretty heart-rending, enough so that the narrator felt compelled to explain why the cameramen and crew weren't out there rescuing chicks. It boiled down to "Messing with natural selection can have unfortunate side-effects later on." It made sense, in a cold, evolutionary way, but it didn't fly worth a damn when presented to a roomful of nine-year-olds.

The kids I showed the documentary to knew without thinking what the right thing to do was, which was drop everything and help when you see a creature in distress. It takes an adult to look upon the face of misery and then turn his back to it. I know exactly what every normal American kid would do if they saw the suffering that Kristoff saw, what they would do if they were in his place. I just don't know what Kristoff did.

Worm medicine for three Argentinean girls would cost $4.20, according to Kristoff. I wrote him an e-mail, asking if he did the human thing and bought them medicine. I got what I expected in response, a form letter "Thanks for your message. This is an automatic response, because I can't respond individually to the emails--then there'd be no time to write the column. But I read them all and appreciate both the compliments and the complaints, as well as the information and ideas for future columns."

I'm not saying Kristoff didn't buy worm medicine for the little girls. But you would think that the writer of an editorial calling on Washington to help the Argentines would strengthen his position somewhat by listing what he did personally to help the Argentines. After all, shouldn't you be willing to do what you are telling others to do? The content of the editorial signals that Kristoff isn't going to accept any cold, logical, invisible hand arguments when it comes to spending my money and yours to alleviate the suffering of Argentinean children.

I'm not arguing against spending money on ridding Argentina of intestinal worms. I'm in favor of it, especially if the alternative is spending money on farm and steel subsidies. But if I'm not willing to spend my own money, if I'm not willing to lead by example, then my arguments are hollow.

At the very end of the flamingo documentary, as if to assuage the righteous indignation of the children watching, the documentary cuts back to one of the last remaining manacled chicks, one that they had filmed making a single agonized step every fifteen seconds or so earlier on, a chick prevented from moving any faster due to the literally pounds of mineral deposits on each leg. Every step that doomed chick made took a supreme effort, yet it would not stop. When they showed it again, they talked one more time about the necessity of letting natural selection take its course. Then they cut the manacles off and watched the chick fly off into the distance.

"Sometimes, you just have to help" said the narrator.

Sometimes you just have to help, but if you want others to help, then you have to be the example. Nicholas Kristoff may or may not have helped those little girls, but if he is not willing to say that he did, then he loses all moral authority when it comes to saying what others should do. If the New York Times wanted to help, then the least it could do would be to link to, or just list, the websites where its readers could help. Hundreds of thousands of people are going to read that editorial, people that could make a donation to an Argentinean charity right there and then. Here's one, Por los Chicos. All you have to do to help is click a button. Here's another. Here's a third. I found them in less than a minute, which means that the lowliest intern at the NYT could have do so as well.

Demonstrably, the lowliest intern at the NYT did not. No one at the NYT did, which means that as far as Argentine children with intestinal worms hanging out of their ass are concerned, the fine people at the New York Times prefer hectoring to helping. Say what you will about the Rainbow Grocery, but their policy, idiotic as it was, was at least consistent with what they saw as their moral principles. The NYT does no such thing, which I suppose means that they have none, or none worth acting on.

I at least clicked the button.

Zod: Well, aren't you the saint!


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




Got Spooge?

Apparently Bigwig was trying to build strong bones and muscles using his own exercise methods. It appears to have backfired.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




Oh, The Places We'll Avoid

Some things continue to amaze me in this world, and one of them is the stupidity of our elected officials. Trent Lott is the latest idiot to open his mouth. Lott is without a doubt one of the most powerful senators in our nation's capital, and he just happens to be from the state that ranks last on all positive lists, Mississippi. The state bitches about its reputation, says it is not the state of the past, and then inevitably does something stupid that lets the rest of us know that things have not changed so much.

A couple of years ago, when I was residing in Mississippi, the state voted on changing its flag in order to have the confederate symbol removed. As my wife went to the polls an elderly woman pointed to the picture of the old flag (positioned next to a picture of the proposed new flag) and said, "You know what to do, honey." Well, we both voted to change the flag, but it was defeated SOUNDLY! We may have been the only two votes for the change so we laid low for a couple of weeks so we would not be found out. Now comes Trent Lott saying the world would be a better place if Strom Thurmond had won the presidency in 1948, a person who was very much for segregation.

Way to go Mississippi, take no steps forward and another one back. You want to make a change? Say that your state is embarrassed by Lott's comments and demand that he resign. Of course, if this happens lock your family up tight because Armageddon is coming. Lott is too powerful and can get Mississippi some benefits it might otherwise miss if he were not to be in office. For now the state will remain a place to make fun of, a place the rest of the nation views as a bitter group of people who believe the Civil War is still not over.

The Two Most Popular Bumper Stickers in Mississippi:
1. "Lee surrendered, I didn't"
2. "WWBD? (What Would Bubba Do?)"

I couldn't make these up if I tried.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.

12/09/2002




I've switched to The Haloscan comments system. Let me know what you think.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




Mutilated Carol of the Day

Stephen the VodkaPundit

You know Pejman and Daily,
and Future and Insta,
Inde and Hokie,
and Tarheel and Isra,
But do you recall
The most drunken Pundit of all?

Stephen the VodkaPundit
Had a very crimson nose,
But if you never met him,
You wouldn't know it from his prose.
All of the other bloggers
Used to write and beg for links;
But now that he's gotten married
His blogging output really stinks.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve,
Santa came to say:
"Steven with your prose so bright,
    Won't you write my blog tonight?"    
Then how the Pundits cried out
Proclaiming it a mystery,
"Stephen the VodkaPundit?
Santa should have chosen me!"

I know, we missed Sunday. Blame the ice storm. I'll post a makeup carol at some point this week.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




Yaccity Yac, don't come back.

I've removed comments temporarily. Yaccs has just plain sucked lately, adding tens of seconds to the time it took the page to load. Feel free to e-mail us your thoughts


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.

Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




'Tis the Season

Andrew Sullivan needs money. I was one PayPal click away from sending him $20 when I realized that If I'm gonna start flinging money around like Vinnie Antolini, Andy is only one of a number of people who ought to get money from me. If I'm paying him, then in my mind I need to be paying Glenn and James, and I really ought to grease the palms of Daily Pundit and U.S.S Clueless as well. After all, Glenn and Bill and the Captain have sent traffic my way, and Lileks has dropped by and left comments, and I've gotten e-mail from all of them at one time or another. Hell, I'm sure Bill needs the money far more than Sullivan does.

Zod: Name dropper

Andy's never sent us e-mail or traffic. Frankly, I'd be surprised if he even knew we existed. I get the feeling that he doesn't spend a lot of time down among the denizens in the depths of the blogosphere. I'm not complaining, the whole point of blogging is to able to do your own thing, it's just that by my normal standards, Andy doesn't make the list of people I think I ought to send money to. Glenn, James, Bill and the Captain do.

Zod: And if we're not sending those guys any money, why should we send any to you?

Despite what Zod says, I have dropped change in the tip jars of some of those above, though to my shame it was never very often or for very much. I can also rationalize my way to thinking that when any blogger influences the media, it's a win for the blogosphere as a whole, and Andy does that on a fairly regular basis. Not that he's the only one. There's Kausfiles, and the already mentioned Instapundit. That list will only get longer as time goes by.

I find that the more I try to quantify which bloggers I ought to be leaving tips for, the more bloggers make the list. Technically, to my way of thinking, I ought to tip not only every blogger that I read regularly, but also every blogger that regularly sends traffic our way. It feels like the neighborly thing to do. It's also impossible, unless I send only pennies. I've joined the nickel exchange in an attempt to do just that, but I haven't seen a lot of their banners on other sites.

Off the top of my head, this is the list of bloggers who I think I ought to be giving money to as well, if I'm going to give money to Andy in the first place.
InstaPundit, Daily Pundit, cut on the bias, Meryl Yourish, File13's Amish Tech Support, Little Green Footballs, A Small Victory, Silent Running, USS Clueless, ColdFury, Spleenville World Domination Headquarters, The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, On the Third Hand, WeckUpToThees!, Fragments from Floyd and Lileks

There's no rhyme or reason to it, the choices are entirely objective, and I've trimmed it down from an initial list that was twice as long. I'm not even sure if all the bloggers above even have tip jars. More for the rest if they don't, I guess. Now all I have to do is come up with a total amount to spread around to them and Andy, one that seems reasonable to me but that won't make the Sainted Wife keel over in horror when she discovers what I've done with it.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.

12/08/2002




Despite the continuing lack of power in our neighborhood, the Sainted Wife and I are returning today. Work forces us to, as my boss is gone through Wednesday, and someone should really be within driving distance if the computers catch fire. The SW also has Work looming over her, forcing her like to live in a cold dark house so that the company can close its financial books for last month. Call us the Cratchit family. We're leaving Ngnat with the inlaws until we have power, so it's not as bad as it otherwise would be. I suspect we'll be spending long hours at work, more out of desire for the heat than any devotion to duty.

Update: Power came back on at 4:45 yesterday. We spent the rest of the day cleaning out the fridge, vacuuming up after cats who had been left alone for four days in a 40 degree house, and watching documentaries instead of Pinocchio for the 4th time in as many days. A big thanks to all the Duke Power linemen who spent 16 hour days out in the cold so that I could watch James Cameron's Expedition: Bismarck on the television. A curse on the pointy-headed morons actually running Duke Power, who could have had everyone connected back to the grid in a couple of days if they had just buried the damn lines like the state keeps begging them to.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.




You'll Put Your Eye Out, Kid

Bloviating Inanities has a yearning for a major award of their very own. Well, BI, here you go.


Postscript: First time visitor to House Hraka? Wondering if everything we produce could possibly be as brilliant/stupid/evil/pedantic/insipid/inspired as the post you just read? Check out the Hraka Essentials, the (mostly) reader-selected guide to Hraka's best posts, and decide for yourself. Also, you're currently at the old site. Fresh Hraka is posted every day at our current location.

Home