Posted 6/14/2003 11:42:00 PM by Sid link
An Ass Kicking Everyone Can Get Behind

Indymedia has picked up on the Culture Jam.

The more the merrier, folks. When it comes to combating the despicable oppression of the Saudi Religious Police, there are no Republicans or Democrats, no Greens or Libertarians.

There is no Europe, no America, no East or West.

There is only the congregation of the free, and our voices must rise up for those who are not allowed to have one, for those who would join us but cannot.

So sing, damn you, SING!

Posted 6/14/2003 12:52:00 PM by Sid link
Notes From Mr. Rasczak's Lecture

What Do You Call A Missile Attack That Kills A Senior Hamas Leader, His Pregnant Wife, And His Three Year Old Daughter?

A Good Start.

The Feces Flinging Monkey on why the death of innocents is not the ultimate horror.

Essentially I agree, but the problem is that if the death of innocents is only preferable to the alternative if the time period in which they occur is a short one, and the way the West presently wages war seems to preclude that. What's the point of a war if the enemy doesn't realize it has lost?

''The United States sent the Iraqi army home without compensation. They set up checkpoints and prevented farmers from going to work,'' said Taleb, a farmer, as he watched a truck full of U.S. soldiers pass in front of his home. (emphasis added)

This must be the first war in history where the forces on the losing side demand to be paid by the winning side. Even given the media penchant for seeking out the Iraqi disaster angles in a story, it doesn't really feel like the Iraqi army has been "pacified," does it?

What's the best way to take off a bandage? Quickly. The pain is intense but soon over. Now imagine a doctor who, instead of removing the bandage immediately, talks about it incessantly while removing it very, very slowly, so that each hair is slowly ripped out of the pore. He doesn't want to rip it off, because he's afraid of how the patient will react, even though in his heart of hearts he knows it would be best.

To the patient, it's nothing but torture, and the longer it takes the more he hates the doctor.

As you are no doubt one of the keenly perceptive and highly literate regulars that frequent the Hraka, you've already realized the metaphor:

Israel is the doctor, and the Palestinians are the patient. Pinprick assassinations is how Israel has chosen to deal with the Hamas bandage up till now. Even though Israel claims that the entirety of Hamas is now a target, I'm not going to believe Israel is serious until the political leadership of Hamas is gone, until Sheik Ahmed Yassin and all around him are dead.

If one is engaged in the active pursuit of evil, then the death of innocents, horrible though they are, serves some purpose. But the pursuit must be continued until all of the targets of it are accounted for. Stopping halfway, as Sharon now appears to be intent on doing, not only ensures that your enemy will return, it ensure that more innocents will die in the future, innocents that would not have died otherwise, innocents on both sides.

Hamas will be responsible for these deaths, for that group cannot win this war, yet will not lay down its arms, so the death of innocents will continue.

Israel will be responsible for these deaths, for that country can win this war, yet will have chosen not to, so the death of innocents will continue.

Ripping off a bandage is a violent act, but it is an act with an end, unlike the "cycle of violence" meme that permeates the media, a cycle that continues because Israel is unwilling to use the force necessary to end it.

Violence applied properly can solve problems. Hamas can be wiped out, or reduced to ineffectiveness. History is full of examples of just such an occurrence. There are no more Carthaginians, Nazism is nothing but a sad joke, and there is no Confederacy, thanks to violence.

Either Hamas dies now, or more toddlers and pregnant women die in the years to come.

I know which outcome I prefer.

Posted 6/13/2003 04:29:00 PM by Sid link
Message Of The Day 6/13/2003

Today, via their handy web form for cowards and informers, I sent the Saudi Religious Police the following message:

From: Mohammed Ali Ali Ocksen Phrie

City: Jeddah

Email: disapprove@hesbah.com

Sin: Flirting

To whom it may concern.

Peace be upon you, and upon the loins of your Filipino servants, may they spring forth anew each morning! My name is Mohammed Ali Ali Ocksen Phrie, and I am writing to complain about Dr Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Ibrahim Al Al-Sheikh, who habitually passes gas of the most noisy and foul type in front of myself at daily prayers. Every day, five times a day it's

God is great. Braaaaap!
I bear witness that there none worthy of worship except God. Braaaaap
I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God. Braaaaap
Come to prayer. Braaaaap
Come to felicity. Braaaaap
Prayer is better than sleep. Braaaaap
Our prayers are now ready. Our prayers are now ready. Braaaaap
God is great. Braaaaap
There is none worthy of worship except God. Braaaaap

There are times when I cannot hear the blessed imam for the noise and cannot see him for the tears in my eyes. The expectorations of the minister's rectum torment me horribly, and is it not written that noisy gas is an affront to the prophet, pee be upon him?

I could stand the pain were it not for the distinctive odor of the sperm of a goat, both fresh and digested, that emanate from the minister at all times. Please remonstrate with him, else I will be forced to become a Baptist to assuage my lust.

--------------------------------

If you'd like to send a message of your own, a handy list of names to use can be found here, and directions for the form are here. Remember to leave us a copy!

Thanks to the folks at Fartgreetings.com for the use of their wavs.

Posted 6/13/2003 01:20:00 PM by Sid link
UNC's Official Fright Song

I'm a Tarheel born,
I'm a Tarheel bred,
Now I've got SARS
By a Tarheel spread!

The SARS outbreak on the UNC campus grows more worrisome. Instead of one case with an unknown and mysterious transmission vector, there are now three, as two co-workers of the initial case are now showing symptoms of the disease.

Neither has been categorized as a suspected SARS patient with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since they are not believed to have had the kind of exposure necessary to contract the disease. Health officials are awaiting laboratory test results, which they expect by Monday, to determine whether the men can be diagnosed with SARS.

This is exactly the same sequence of events taken with regards to the UNC campuses zero case. SARS was not initially considered as a diagnosis in his case, since although he had been to Toronto, he had not come into direct contact with anyone showing symptoms of the disease, nor had he visited a location where a SARS case had been reported previously.

The issue of when and where exposure occurs is important. In their investigations of more than 8,445 cases worldwide, scientists have surmised that the virus only spreads when the carrier is in the throes of illness, suffering a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, a cough or other respiratory trouble, and body aches.

Based on those criteria, public health officials remain skeptical that the Orange County man was contagious during his week back at work. The man told health investigators that once he became sick on that Saturday, he stayed home and left his house the next week only to visit his doctor, said Dr. Jeffrey Engel, state epidemiologist.

In other words, "We know next to nothing about the disease, not that this prevents us from assuming exactly the opposite when it comes to how the germ spreads."

First public health officials were skeptical that the patient had SARS, now they are skeptical that he spread the virus, despite the fact that how he came to be infected with the disease in the first place is a complete mystery, and despite the fact that two of his co-workers are showing initial signs of the disease. Chapel Hill has always been thought of as just a hop, skip and a jump from outright Communism by the rest of the state; now its public health authorities have adopted China's initial attitude towards SARS wholesale.

If SARS is spreading in Chapel Hill, it won't be confined to the Giles Horney Building. Public transportation in Chapel Hill is free, and used by large numbers of UNC workers who ride in to work on buses from satellite parking lots on the edge of town. One SARS sneeze or post nasal drip on any of five different bus routes that run near the building, and the virus will be spread all over town. If the two cases under observation turn out to be SARS, then it will be proof positive that a person who exhibits no sign of the disease can still spread it.

So it's wash hands, Car'lina-lina
Stay home, Car'lina-lina
Wear masks, Car'lina-lina
Go to hell......... cough, < choke>........gasp.

The UNC SARS update page can be seen here.

Update: Sighs of relief all round. Both SARS tests came out negative, though one UNC worker has died.

Posted 6/12/2003 11:57:00 PM by Sid link
Tomorrow's Memes Today!

I too, stand with Israel.

----------------

Turns out Jayson Blair ghost wrote Hillary's new book. That's why he didn't have time to go to the places he was reporting on, obviously.

HILLARY: Jayson, I know I hired you because you’re completely full of it and have no respect for the truth, but you need to tone it down.
JAYSON: In what way?
HILLARY: Page 329? Me and Rick Lazio, debating?
JAYSON: What part bothers you?
HILLARY: The light saber duel.

-----------------------------------------------

When Bloggers go bad: Poisoning The Well

We've had our own adventures with the person in question. My guess is that her blogs are performance art written by a conservative, or that she's a traffic troll whose strategy is reaping its inevitable reward. Either way, it's nice to know our's wasn't the only blog she left a ring around.

Heck, put it together with Rockem Sockem Moxies and you have a nice overview of the two main storm systems in the current blogosphere. (link via michelle)

--------------------------------

We know couples like this. Dear Stupid Parent. No, it's none of you. It's someone else entirely.

Posted 6/12/2003 02:04:00 PM by Sid link
Who is Greg Packer?

I liked this too much. Mickey Kaus pointed me towards this Ann Coulter article on a NYT story about the queue outside the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble in New York Sunday night, where people were waiting to buy Hilary Clinton's new book.

That convoluted enough for you? Here's what Coulter discovered about one of the line attendees featured in the article, Greg Packer.

Another average individual eager to get Hillary's book was Greg Packer, who was the centerpiece of the New York Times' "man on the street" interview about Hillary-mania. After being first in line for an autographed book at the Fifth Avenue Barnes & Noble, Packer gushed to the Times: "I'm a big fan of Hillary and Bill's. I want to change her mind about running for president. I want to be part of her campaign."

It was easy for the Times to spell Packer's name right because he is apparently the entire media's designated "man on the street" for all articles ever written. He has appeared in news stories more than 100 times as a random member of the public. Packer was quoted on his reaction to military strikes against Iraq; he was quoted at the St. Patrick's Day Parade, the Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Veterans' Day Parade. He was quoted at not one – but two – New Year's Eve celebrations at Times Square. He was quoted at the opening of a new "Star Wars" movie, at the opening of an H&M clothing store on Fifth Avenue and at the opening of the viewing stand at Ground Zero. He has been quoted at Yankees games, Mets games, Jets games – even getting tickets for the Brooklyn Cyclones. He was quoted at a Clinton fund-raiser at Alec Baldwin's house in the Hamptons and the pope's visit to Giants stadium.

Coulter spins this as another blow to the rep of the NYT, but Greg Packer is actually a publicity seeker with well-honed skills.

By 8 o'clock on the coldest morning of the year, Greg Packer was already in his second hour waiting in line to go on a double-decker bus tour of Manhattan with Brandy, the R&B singer.

Spending a day waiting in line to meet celebrities is not unusual for the 38-year-old Huntington, N.Y., native, but his position so far back in the queue was. Packer has made obsessions out of being first in line and of being in the company of celebrities.

But on this day, he was 15th in line. That was good enough, for his goal was just to be among the first 50 who would make it on the Brandy bus.

If there's a global or celebrity-laden event in or near New York, odds are Packer is there, or is trying to be there. He was first in the line to see ground zero when the viewing platform opened at the World Trade Center site Dec. 30. He was the first in line in 1997 to sign the condolence book at the British consulate when Princess Diana died. He slept outside in the snow in Washington last January to be the first in line to greet President George W. Bush after his inauguration.

Here's another picture of him, waiting for the Times Square ball to drop in 2002. This is a man who enjoys the spotlight and seeks it out, not another giant screw-up by the Times. I suspect he can ID reporters from a half mile away.

Update: Kausfiles noticed! I am as giddy as a girl. 2 down, 2 to go.

Mickey wonders why the NYT hasn't caught on to Greg Packer yet.

But that begs the question of why the NYT would write about this semi-professional line-stander and quote machine as if he were a typical man on the street. You'd think he'd be notorious by now and "No More Greg Packer" signs would be posted next to the Metro desk.... Michael Cooper of the NYT did bust Packer when quoting him on New Year's Eve, 2001, but this week the NYT''s James Barron accepted him as an ordinary "fan of Hillary and Bill's" who wants Hillary "to change her mind about running for president."

I would think it's due to some inherent (though perfectly understandable) journalistic snobbery. Think about the stories Greg appears in. I don’t think there's a journalist in the world that looks forward to being sent out to interview the line freaks for a lightweight entertainment feature. It's beneath them.

They go in, they get a quote or two from people who come up to them and say "Hey, are you a reporter?" come back to the office and file a piece that reminds them exactly how far they are from their J-school dreams of being the next Woodward or Bernstein, then try to forget it.

Same thing with the editors. Even a crusty, knowledgeable old newsroom vet isn't going to give a crap about who gets interviewed for a "people queue up to meet Brandy" story.

On top of that, a lot of the reporters on the freak beat are probably low on the status ladder. As they move their way up, they escape from the "go interview the geeks" stories, and the new wet behind the ears guy or gal is the next guy to meet Mr. Packer. He seems them coming, gets his name in the paper, and gets nice little clipping for the scrapbook back home.

Too bad the jig's probably up.

Posted 6/12/2003 12:10:00 PM by Sid link
The Scabrous Search

A Silflay Hraka Exclusive, for some odd reason.

By Joe McCain

So now the political hounds are after the 'Great Mass Weapons Scam', eh? Going to hold hearings. Going to find out if the poor old American people have been tricked, fooled, misled.

What is the matter with them?

Here's what SHOULD matter to them: A man has been removed from power who murdered millions and made many more millions terrified.

A man has been removed that had, and used, weapons of mass murder on many occasions, on the Kurds, on the Iranians, on the Shiites -- in short, on the weak.

What happened to those weapons is not clear. We know he had them. We know, because we saw the piles of bodies over the years. And we should be very worried about what happened to them, where they are now, not whether we have been tricked by the President of the United States.

A man has been removed whose friends and kin raped women, tortured athletes, grabbed property and possessions at whim, destroyed whatever and whomever they wished.

Have these political defects not seen the photos of the mass graves, seen the trophy photos of torture, not heard the stories from the victims, not heard even our own troops and rescued Prisoners-of-War?!

At least this one man and his pals will never murder and terrify and torture and maim and waste and destroy again.

And perhaps the other strange and dangerous thugs of the word, especially this terribly dangerous Kim Jung-Il will hesitate before starting up their killing machines.

This is a terribly malevolent world, where battalions of misled fanatics are simply and violently anti-Western, Anti-Christian, Anti-Jewish. And they will kill, just as the Kamikaze-driven troops of the Japanese Empire and the Nazi-infected Wehrmacht killed -- until enough of them died, and the killing finally stopped.

It is a horrible, cancerous world in which only radical surgery applies.

As long as we stay subtle and rational and philosophical, millions more will die. Jews, Americans, Westerners, reasonable Arabs, peaceful Muslims. They will die just as others kept dying while Neville Chamberlain temporized, and Americans cried "America, First!". If the Japanese hadn't made the incredible decision to raid Pear Harbor, when would we have joined that war? And does anybody remember, it was German who declared war on the United States? Else, when we have gone to Europe to help beat down these monsters of holocaust and pillage?

Have we gone that insane, again? Despite so many terrible, bloody lessons from history? Recent history? Ancient History? ANY history!!!

This is not new. The Crusades against the Moors? The American White Man against his former slaves? Virtually any country against the Jew for 1500 years?

It is a bad time. But for the sake of history, there is one land strong enough to deal with it. And deal with we must!

No amount of petulance against George Bush, and complaints about misinformation, and elite sniffing distaste is going to change the fact that there is a band of unthinking radicals that murder only to murder -- and the more horrific the murder is, the more devastating it is, the more innocent the victims are, the better. It brings them closer to Allah. Well, just as we had to help millions of Japanese Imperial Troops get to their gods faster, so must we enhance the celestial trip of these assassins of humanity.

That's what matters.....REALITY matters!

Please, no matter what you think of George Bush -- and we McCain Republicans have much vinegar to remember from South Carolina -- don't go down this trashy, sleazy road!!

If you do, you will wreck a very problematic victory with which we must be patient -- we were in Germany and Japan four and five years, remember -- but more, you will absolutely cripple any chance of dealing with so many other mastes of death and murder and mayhem.

No, you will absolutely take away the fear our terribly brave men and women have put into them, and perhaps unleash them!


Editor's Note: Joe McCain is the brother of Arizona Senator John McCain, and resides in Washington. I got the essay above from an e-mail he sent to the parents of his godson yesterday, whom the Sainted Wife and I have been friends with for years. An earlier essay of his can be seen here. Why we happen to be the only place on the web these are found is a complete mystery to me.

Posted 6/12/2003 11:56:00 AM by Sid link
MemeWatch

Birth Blogging claims another couple. Congrats to the proud parents at the Picture Shoebox.

Together with ZonaGeek, that makes three births blogged that I know of.

Posted 6/12/2003 10:34:00 AM by Sid link
Message of the Day, 6/12/2003

Today, via their handy web form for cowards and informers, someone sent the Saudi Religious Police 588,604 lowercase "n"s, getting this handy error in return;

Request object error 'ASP 0107 : 80004005'
Stack Overflow
/disapproveSubmit.asp, line 22
The data being processed is over the allowed limit.

As for me, I sent this message today.

Some badly coded webforms can crash a server if they choke on a long enough string. The website is still there, so presumably the form is coded to cut off submissions after a certain number of characters. If you would like to ask someone to make sure, try the technical contact fot the site, Hatem El Shafie.

Domain name: HESBAH.COM
Registrant:
MidEast Net
37 Kasr El Nil Street
App #55
Downtown
Cairo, Cairo 11111
EG
Administrative Contact:
El Shafie, Hatem reg2@mideastnet.com
37 Kasr El Nil Street
App #55
Downtown
Cairo, Cairo 11111
EG
202 3924354 Fax: 202 3957177
Technical Contact:
El Shafie, Hatem reg@mideastnet.com
37 Kasr El Nil Street
Suite #55
Downtown
Cairo, Cairo 11111
EG
202 3924354 Fax: 202 3957177

Presumably there are a few other questions he could be asked about why he decided to host this particular site.

I've spent some time going over the source code for the website, looking for an email address, but no luck yet. I've sent a test email to disapprove@hesbah.com, if that doesn't bounce, we can enlist the power of Spam in the fight against the Mutaween.

If you'd like to send a message of your own, a handy list of names to use can be found here, and directions for the form are here. Remember to leave us a copy!

Update: disapprove@hesbah.com has not bounced after 4 hours, so I'm going to rule it a valid email. Now go forth and sign it up for....everything.

Posted 6/12/2003 12:43:00 AM by Sid link
Matter, Anti Mattter, and Blogmatcher

According to Blogmatcher, friend of Hraka On the Third Hand, is the most like-minded blog to us out of the 1558 listed.

Compendium Hermetica, which to all appearances is a perfectly decent blog by a lucid and well-read author, is the least like minded.

Zod: Decent, lucid and well read. No wonder Blogmatcher awarded him the coveted Anti-Hraka position. You should never touch, lest the world be shattered by the resultant cataclysmic explosion.

I read all the damn time.

Zod: Comic books and Science Fiction. You're a regular Robert Burton, you are.

Quiet, damned voice.

Left of us on the war, or at least left of one and perhaps two-thirds of the Hraka staff, but so is Skippy, and he's in the top 10 of the like minded. I'm going to guess that the calculation is performed via some sort of six degrees analysis of links in common.

Update: And I would be right.

Link via Silent Running

Posted 6/11/2003 11:41:00 PM by Sid link
Widening The Scope

This caught my ear the other day while listening to NPR on the commute to work the other day. Families in northern Uganda are sending their children away at night to sleep alone on the city streets of Kitgum and Gulu. It's the only way they can ensure that they aren't kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army, who force the boys to fight for them and turn the girls into sex slaves.

According to Reuters, more than 9000 people are traveling from their homes each night to sleep wherever they find a spot to lay down in the cities. Children as young as 4 make the trip each night, traveling on foot up to 5 miles each way in order to sleep in safety.

The Lord's Resistance Army is supported an encouraged by the Islamist government in Sudan, a country listed by the State department as a supporter of international terrorism, and a country that rivals Saudi Arabia in its all talk/no action approach to the war on terrorism.

Uganda on the other hand is cited as a model for African development in democracy and the fight against HIV/AIDS. The president of that country met today with George Bush, who praised him for his support in the war on terrorism, yet apparently did not offer any U.S. aid or support for Uganda in its struggle with an Islamist supported movement.

Yet why not? The American experience in Afghanistan proved that a combination of a small number of special forces and air support in conjunction with native ground forces is a lethal combination. The Lord's Resistance Army is demonstrably as vicious as the Taliban, supported by a regime with strong ties to Islamic terrorism, and would likely put up even less of a struggle than did the Taliban once they were faced with a US supported force. Since there is already a functioning civil government in Uganda, we would not even face the vacuum of authority problems that have cropped up in areas of Afghanistan and Iraq, while simultaneously demonstrating that the American war on terrorism is not limited to those of Arab descent, or even to Islam. The LRA, though supported by Islamists, is an ostensibly Christian movement.

If relieving the suffering of the Iraqi people is in hindsight a valid reason for the American invasion of that country, and I believe that it is (And did before the war. WMDs were always a side issue for me.) then those reasons are just as valid for the people of northern Uganda. No, we can't solve all of the world's problems at once, but it's not like clearing terrorists out of Uganda would take even as much effort as we put into Afghanistan, and it would demonstrate that America cares as much about stability in Africa as it does anywhere else.

Terrorists thrive in failed states, and Africa is full of states on the edge of failure. It will be simpler and cheaper now to support the African civilian and democratic nations than it will be to make war on them ten or twenty years in the future. Chasing the Islamists out of the Middle East, only to find them popping up in sub-Saharan Africa will come as rude shock, one we can prevent from occurring in the future with only a little effort in the present.

A little effort, yet one that to all appearances is not being made.

Posted 6/11/2003 10:31:00 PM by Sid link
Living In The Hot Zone

Remember the North Carolina SARS case of a week or so ago? It's troubling the health authorities, in that there is no on is able to determine how patient was infected in the first place.

Canadian health officials said Tuesday that they are unsure how or where the man contracted the disease, because his case defies the accepted understanding of the disease and its method of spreading.

"I can't pick one logical explanation here. All are unlikely, and we're dealing with various degrees of unlikely," said Dr. Allison McGeer, director of infection control at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.

Since the virus almost certainly was passed to the patient while he was visiting a relative in a rehabilitation clinic, he probably picked it up from a surface contact, something like a elevator button or a doorknob. What's troubling for the Toronto authorities is that if this is true, then there is at least one person transmitting the virus who is unknown to the Toronto public health system.

Meanwhile the UNC campus is on pins and needles waiting for another case to occur. Odds are it won't, but if it does a lot of the tech staff will start working from home.

Posted 6/11/2003 02:11:00 PM by Sid link
Bishop Ussher Reaches a Higher Spin Rate

New fossils from Ethiopia push the known date for the first appearance of Homo Sapiens back to 158,000 BCE.

The skulls include evidence of ritual cutting and polishing, evidence for the argument that human culture has always been characterized by a surprising level of complexity. There's also grounds for argument that we were already masters of our domain at that time

The skulls, from two men and a child, are also very large by human standards suggesting the adults cut an imposing figure.

Large skull and imposing figures are a direct function of food supply. Lots of food, especially in the childhood developmental years, is critical in the determination of final adult size. If we were growing them large 160,000 years ago, there weren't a lot of things standing in the way of our control of the immediate environment.

Posted 6/11/2003 12:01:00 PM by Sid link
Message of the Day

Here's the message I sent to the Saudi Religious Police today, using the convenient web form they provide for the purpose of turning in heretics, free speech adherents and little girls with Barbie dolls. Feel free to adapt it as you wish, or submit your own.

Directions for submission of the web site form can be found here, and a handy list of names to use can be found below the message.

Sin reported by: Dr Fahd bin Abdulrahman bin Sulaiman Balghunaim

Location: Mecca

Balghunaim@saudi.gov.sa

Type of Sin: Other

To whom it may concern.

Whilst examining the loins of my Filipino servants for evidence of apostasy, I happened to glance out of the second story window of my compound and espy Sheikh Saleh bin Abdul Aziz bin Muhammad bin Ibrahim Al Al-Sheikh in the street below, mightily struggling to pull a glossy red women's corset, one of the real quality ones, with a lace-up front, adjustable straps and optional garter attachments, from the hindquarters of a large pig.

The blessed imam was hampered in his attempt in that he was attempting to do so one-handed, his left hand being in possession of a half empty bottle of Grey Goose Vodka, which he alternately drank from or poured from above onto the swine's genitalia. The revered imam was also in a state of dishabille, his robe having fallen down around his ankles. This enabled me to observe his tumescent state once I had set my telescope to its largest magnification.

Please remonstrate with the imam for me, as the stock animals are nervous for days after his one of his visits.

Peace be upon you,

Dr Fahd bin Abdulrahman bin Sulaiman Balghunaim - Minister of Agriculture

The handy list of names. Use them unstintingly!

Dr Fahd bin Abdulrahman bin Sulaiman Balghunaim - Minister of Agriculture
King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz - The Prime Minister, The King
Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud - The First Deputy Prime Minister, Crown Prince and Commander of the National Guard
Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz - Second Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defense and Aviation and Inspector General
Dr Fahd bin Abdulrahman bin Sulaiman Balghunaim - Minister of Agriculture
Dr Muhammad bin Ali Al-Fayez - Minister of Civil Service
Dr Hashim bin Abdullah bin Hashim Al-Yamani - Minister of Commerce and Industry
Engineer Muhammad Jameel bin Ahmed Mulla - Minister of Communications and Information Technology
Dr Fouad bin Abdul Salaam bin Muhammad Al Farsy - Minister of Culture and Information
Dr Khalid bin Muhammad Al-Qusaibi - Ministry of Economy and Planning
Dr Muhammad bin Ahmed Al-Rasheed - Minister of Education
Dr Ibrahim bin Abdulaziz bin Abdullah Al-Assaf- Minister of Finance
Prince Saud Al Faisal bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud - Minister of Foreign Affairs
Dr Iyad bin Ameen Madani - Minister of Hajj
Dr Hamad bin Abdullah Al-Mane' - Minister of Health
Dr Khalid bin Muhammad Al-Anqari - Minister of Higher Education
Prince Naif bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud - Minister of Interior
Sheikh Saleh bin Abdul Aziz bin Muhammad bin Ibrahim Al Al-Sheikh- Minister for Islamic Affairs, Endowment, Dawa and Guidance
Dr Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Ibrahim Al Al-Sheikh- Minister of Justice
Dr Ali bin Ibrahim Al-Namlah- Minister of Labor and Social Affairs
Prince Mite'b bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud - Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs
Engineer Ali bin Ibrahim Al-Naimi - Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources
Dr Jubarah bin Eid Al-Suraiseri- Minister of Transport
Dr Ghazi bin Abdulrahman Al Gosaibi - Minister of Water and Electricity
Prince Abdulaziz bin Fahd bin Abdulaziz - Minister of State, Cabinet Member, and Chief of the Court of Cabinet's Presidency
Dr. Abdulaziz bin Abdullah Al-Khuwaiter - Minister of State
Dr. Mutlab bin Abdullah Al-Nafeesah - Minister of State and Cabinet's Member
Dr. Musa'ed bin Mohammed Al-E'ban - Minister of State and Cabinet's Member
Abdullah bin Ahmed bin Yosef Zainal - Minister of State and Cabinet's Member

Make sure to send us an email of the messages, or leave a copy in the comments below. The really good ones will appear as Messages Of The Day at some future time. If I'm feeling lazy, so will the not so good ones.

And remember, every fake message sent to these.....evil bastards is one that might cause them to overlook a real one, and make a innocent Saudi a little more free.

Posted 6/11/2003 12:00:00 PM by Sid link
38 Special

The 38th edition of the Carnival of the Vanities is at Overtaken by Events this week, who has excellent taste in comedy.

The Carnival offspring Bharateeya Blog Mela is also new today, at Sampada's Thought Spot.

Upcoming Carnival stops include;

June 18th Real Women Online
June 25th Single Southern Guy
July 2nd Amish Tech Support
July 9th Winds Of Change -- The 42nd spot, coveted by hitchhikers across the galaxy.
July 16th Caerdroia
July 23rd DaGoddess
July 30th Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
August 6th Across The Atlantic
August 13th Outside The Beltway
August 20th Right We Are
August 27th Creative Slips
September 3rd The Brazos De Dios Cantina
September 10th Solport
September 17th Silflay Hraka - The One Year Anniversary
September 24th Pathetic Earthlings
October 1st Sasha & Andrew's Roundtable
October 8th Dancing With Dogs
October 15th Priorities & Frivolities
October 22nd Eric Berlin

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

Posted 6/11/2003 10:55:00 AM by Sid link
Super Sounds Of The Seventies, Volume II

Al of Somewhere in the Digital Forest rose to the challenge and listed a number of Queen songs that could serve as themes for various politicos and world leaders.

"Liar" - (name any politician here)
"We are the Champions" - Dubya
"Fat Bottomed Girls" - Bill Clinton
"Don't Stop Me Now" - John Ashcroft
"Jealousy" - Rush Limbaugh
"Under Pressure" - Saddam Hussein
"I'm Going Slightly Mad" - Ronald Reagan
"Scandal" - Nixon
"Friends Will Be Friends" - Tony Blair
"Stone Cold Crazy" - Sharon
"The Invisible Man" - Putin
"You Don't Fool Me" - Yassir Arafat

Next up, The Clash. I'll take out the obvious target by reserving Train in Vain for Al Gore, because it's easy and I like to make things more difficult.

Posted 6/11/2003 10:44:00 AM by Katie Bug link
Chewing the Fat (Tax)

British doctors are apparently pushing a "Fat Tax" in an effort to curb that country's obesity problem. To me this falls into the category of "Ridiculous." People should have the right to be fat, and eat whatever the hell they want to. If I wanted to be obese, that should be my decision, and I should not be penalized (nor should the fast food joints of the world) for wanting a big ass burger and a side of fries. Even though I don't smoke, I feel the same way about over-taxing cigarettes and the like. Maybe those opposed to this tax could stage an "Eat In", or something to protest this movement. Being overweight is a health problem, but if people are okay with who they are and the size they are, then leave them alone and tax something else.

Posted 6/10/2003 01:50:00 PM by Sid link
Culture Jamming

When they aren't letting little girls burn to death, the Saudi religious police busy themselves by confiscating their toys.

The following are among the items seized by the mutaween, aka the Authority for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.



Reuters has a story on the mutaween today, noting their roles as enforcers of the Wahabist version of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia.

Answerable only to King Fahd and separate from ordinary police, members of the "Authority for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" patrol with police escorts, ensuring that their strict interpretation of Islamic social customs remain the norm among a youthful, Westernised population with wide access to the internet and satellite TV.

They check that women wear the abaya, the all-enveloping black cloak, that men and women together in public are related, that drugs and alcohol are not being traded and that Muslims do not observe "frivolous" customs such as Valentine's Day.

Their website invites citizens to inform on those suspected of any manner of immoral behaviour.

In typical Reuters fashion, there's not a link anywhere on the site to the mutaween home page, or to the form where a cowardly Saudi could inform on his neighbors.

And that's why we're here. The mutaween home page is here. More pictures of dangerous plastic, glass and cotton threats to Mohammed are here, and the form is here.

The first text box is for your name.

The drop down list underneath it is for the name of city where the incident took place. The first four on the list are:
Mecca
The City of Lights (No, not Paris. Give them time. For now, it's a Saudi City. )
Riyadh
Jeddah

The second text box is your email address.

The drop down list underneath it is for the particular sin you are reporting.
Note: These are general translations. More specific ones are welcome
1. Someone not attending daily prayers
2. Flirting
3. Loitering
4. Selling Stolen Goods
5. Immoral Observations
6. Engaging in Western Habits (Holding your wife's hand in public, kissing or hugging her would all be examples of this. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are others.)
7. Other

The big box is for a specific description of the activity being reported; say something along the lines of "Fraulein Gunter is hiding a family of Jews in her attic at 31 Hemmelstrasse."

Well, perhaps not that message exactly. The sentiment is the same.

So are the results. If it's possible for a website to be evil, this one is.

The button on the right is "Submit." The button on the left is "Reset."

Purely in a spirit of scientific enquiry, I wonder what would happen if everyone reading this post decided submit a false report, or multiple ones? Is it possible to file so many false reports that the ones turned in by the craven Islamists this site is aimed at get lost in the shuffle? Is it possible to crash the server entirely, or to drive it off the Net forever? How many people would be willing to file two or three false reports a day until that happens, possibly something along the lines of " I saw Prince Bandar Bin Sultan eating a dog sandwich."

How many people would send the Wahabists a little note letting them know that we remember the origin of 15 of the 19 despite the coddling Saudi Arabia has been given in the days since?

Purely in a spirit of scientific enquiry, of course.

Update: While I was looking for the site, I wrote the author of the story, John Bradley, asking for the url. He just got back to me with the url listed above. I'd already found it, thanks in large part from following links from Doctor Weevil and Memri, but it's nice to have confirmation.

Some of the translation was done at ajeeb.com, who realy wanted me to pay for the service. If someone would like to do the blogosphere a service, come up with free online Arabic to English translation service.

More Update: A handy list of names to submit, as well as an example message, can be found here. Email addresses and other website info is here.

Posted 6/10/2003 01:38:00 PM by Katie Bug link
Bad Boys, Bad Boys

Martha's friend is going to prison for his role in the insider trading scandal.

For this holiday season, the appropriate gift from (and to) Martha Stewart is soap-on-a-rope.

Posted 6/10/2003 11:42:00 AM by Sid link
The Sixth Day

For the last day on the 36th anniversary of the Six-Day War, an anecdote.

During the Six-Day War between Israel and the Arab nations, a friend called me excitedly and said, "Did you hear the news from Paris?"

"No," I said, :'What?"

"The French government heard there was a war going on somewhere, so just to be on the safe side, it surrendered."

Posted 6/10/2003 11:26:00 AM by Sid link
Super Sounds of the Seventies

Bill and Hillary adopted Fleetwood Mac. Will Dennis Kucinich adopt ABBA?

So, for those of you scoring at home, that's
The Clinton's - "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" and Dennis Kucinich - "Take a Chance on Me".

ABBA swould seem to be uniquely suited as the producer of theme songs for American politicos.

Dancing Queen - Barney Franks, of course.
Amerika - Nancy Pelosi
Waterloo - Cynthia McKinney
Alley Cat - Bill Clinton
Daddy Don’t Get Drunk On Christmas Day - Ted Kennedy
Dance With The Devil - Tom Delay
Slipping Through My Fingers - Al Gore
The Winner Takes It All - George Bush
You Owe Me One - William Rehnquist

But I suspect something similar could be done with the songs of any group with a sufficiently long career. Who wants to try Queen?

Posted 6/10/2003 10:37:00 AM by Sid link
Killing Two Birds With One Post

A couple of the projects I am tangentially involved in right now is the offering of personalized cgi-bins for the students and faculty at UNC. Everyone has a public html folder that they can use for static html, but people are growing steadily more sophisticated with each passing year, and so there's been a growing demand for something like the above.

A personal cgi-bin allows the user to run php or Perl scripts that they have written, to submit forms to a database or host a Movable Type blog, among other things. There's something of a slight security risk in allowing any Tom, Dick or Sheila to run whatever jury-rigged code they manage to type up on the campus web servers, but we've gotten around that by running all the scripts within the context of a cgi wrapper that one of the more able department developers wrote.

So, problem solved, mostly. But, just because the faculty and students have gotten sophisticated enough to want to write scripts doesn't mean they actually know how to write scripts, nor are the willing to write such scripts in anything other than Microsoft Word, Wordpad, or Notepad.

This is a problem. The main campus servers run Solaris, or Linux, and when they run across a Perl or php script that's been composed on a PC and then transferred to a Unix filesystem this is what they see.

#!/afs/isis/pkg/php/bin/php^M
^M
< html>^M
< head>^M
< title> Untitled Document</title>^M
< meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" >^M
</head>^M

Those "^M"s are how Unix translates the ASCII character that Windows uses to indicate a carriage return. In a static html file this doesn't normally matter. In that case the web server just hands the file to the browser, and the browser parses it. But in the case of a script, the web server must run it, then return something to the browser.

For the snippet of php code above to work, the web server has to find the campus php binary (think "program" when you see "binary". You'll sleep better at night.) that we installed and submit the code to it. The first line in any cgi-bin script, in this case the "#!/afs/isis/pkg/php/bin/php" line, tells the server where to go to submit the code. To us technical types, this is known as the "path."

The web server sees the "^M" at the end of the path and assumes that is part of the directions it has to follow. There is no such path, so the server returns an error code, the bespectacled freshman at the other end curses, then opens up a ticket with the help desk to tell us our php is broken. In order to fix it, one of the sysadmins has to spend valuable coffee drinking time finding the code, opening it up to verify that yes, Johnny is trying to crack the furryteens.com password system with code he wrote in MS word, and then track him down and tell him how to fix it.

Oddly enough, this is duty considered less than enjoyable, so it is passed down to the most junior of the sysadmins.

Guess who that might be.

Now, there are a number of ways to avoid the ^M bug that we know of, or to ameliorate it afterwards. The first is to use one to the native Unix editors like vi or Emacs to compose one's code. Sadly, most do not choose this path, for Unix editors scare the pants off your average user. One could also compose the file in Windows, then open it up in vi and run a command like ":1,$s/^M//g" to rid one's code of the unwanted characters.

Told you it was scary. Most people don't like doing this either, even though they tend to force themselves to once we tell them that we won't do it for them.

The ^M problem, though still limited in scope at the moment, is growing, so we're in the process of developing a tutorial on how to deal with the problem for the help.unc.edu site. Once again, this is a job for the junior sysadmins. The alternatives listed above will be part of it; there's also a Perl script we've written that a user can call to strip out the ^M from the end of each line. I think some shareware code editors like Ultraedit can be set to prevent this as well, but don't know for sure.

The mantra around the office is "Surely someone has had to deal with this before." Before I submit the help doc, I thought I'd ask. Has anyone else run into this? How do you work around it?

This is you chance to earn everlasting fame as part of a rarely accessed document in the UNC help system, so don't be shy.

Update: If your solution is a particular program, it needs to be able to run under AIX, which is what the UNC login nodes are running.

Posted 6/10/2003 08:54:00 AM by Katie Bug link
Who's Next?

This was found on an AOL news site:

U.S.: Major al-Qaida Attack Probable

By Edith M. Lederer, .c The Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (June 10) - There is a ''high probability'' that al-Qaida will attempt an attack with a weapon of mass destruction in the next two years, the U.S. government said in a report Monday.

The report to a U.N. Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against the terrorist group did not say where the Bush administration believes such an attack might be launched.

But the United States said it believes that despite recent setbacks, ''al-Qaida maintains the ability to inflict significant casualties in the United States with little or no warning.''

This brings up an interesting question. Where will George W. believe we need to strike next, and perhaps more importantly, will he receive any support, especially from foreign leaders? If he states that we need to attack somewhere else to deal with al-Qaida's threat of using WMD, will anyone get on his bandwagon? While I am not upset in the least that we attacked Iraq, he did say that we were doing so because of the threat of WMD. I wonder, since none have been found thus far, if people, including some Americans will be hesitant to engage in any more military operations. While al-Qaida has already proven their willingness to kill by any means, the evidence will need to be solid and be shared with others we try to pull into the mix.

Posted 6/09/2003 11:40:00 PM by Sid link
A Lesson in Marketing

No, no, no, no, eggheads. If you really want people to purchase your little invention, it's not "New Drug Protects Against Fetal Alcohol Syndrome". It's "Drink As Much As You Like No Matter How Pregnant You Are!"

Then you release a drinks list in conjunction with the Alcohol Marketing Board of America. Something to liven up the baby showers with.

A Slow Comfortable Screw - It's the only one you'll have at nine months.
Backseat Boogie - A quick and painful shooter.
The Titty Twister-Rita - A La Leche League special. Chase it with a Mother's milk.
A Little Green Man From Mars - For when you've been impregnated by an Alien Secretion.
Maiden Head - Served by a drunk frat boy whose name you can't quite remember.
Virgin Mary - For when you've been impregnated by God.
Suffering Bastard - A drink for the unmarried Mother to be.
Adios Motherfucker - Three of these and you won't care who adopts your baby!
Afterglow - We bet this one lasts longer.
Vodka Salty Dog - Hilarity ensues as everyone tries to guess which husband made it salty!
Melon Pousse Cafe - Mix it yourself, because there's nothing a husband enjoys more than asking his friends if they've tasted his wife's Melon Pousse Cafe.
The Marv Alberts - You'll force it down!

Posted 6/09/2003 11:34:00 PM by Sid link
The Fifth Day

An Egyptian felt the need of a brain transplant and walking into a surgical supply store asked what they had in the ay of brains. He was shown the brain of an excellent mathematician who had died the year before at the age of sixty. In view of his age, he could have it for five hundred dollars.

The Egyptian felt the age was a disadvantage. "Do you have anything younger?"

A peasant's brain was shown him. He had died at the age of twenty-five.

The Egyptian shook his head. He was a little too high-class for a peasant's brain. "What is this one?" he said suddenly, for one brain was encased in a beautiful glass-walled refrigerator with a spotlight on it.

"That," said the dealer, "is our prize possession. It is the brain of an Egyptian general who died fighting gallantly against Israel in the Six-Day War, and it costs a hundred thousand dollars."

"A hundred thousand dollars!" said the would-be customer, shocked. "why so much?"

And the dealer said, "Because it's never been used."

Thanks once again to Isaac.

Posted 6/09/2003 05:04:00 PM by Sid link
Socket To Me

Spent most of the day struggling through the process of cramming a square Apache 1.3 configuration file from one of our aging Solaris servers into a round Apache 2 hole on one of the new Linux boxes. I learned a lot, which meant that my office mates spent most of the day listening to me curse before I finally got the web server to start.

I'm still not done. Just because something is running doesn't mean that it's running correctly. You could probably get a Trans-Am to run on french fry oil, but that doesn't mean it'll run very long. In fact, odds are that the new Apache is running badly, especially as the only way I managed to get the old config file parsed correctly was to cut and paste large chunks of Apache 2 configuration code that we don't really understand into it. I'll have to start pruning tomorrow, cutting out code and restarting the process to see which bits are critical and which are useless window dressing.

Yes, I could have read the documentation, but that would have taken just as long, and leave me knowing less than I do now. It's been my experience that after the first 15 minutes of looking at documentation my brain shuts down out of sheer boredom and stops learning anyway. Documentation is almost always written from the viewpoint that the reader knows as much as the writer, a assumption that is demonstrably wrong, else the reader wouldn't be there in the first place, so it's also confusing.

This is the error dogged me most of today.

"no listening sockets available, shutting down
Unable to open logs."

Think of a socket as one of the little holes an early telephone operator plugged a line into. Most programs connect to specific ones, identified for convenience's sake by numbers, usually called ports. One can tell Apache to connect to any port one wishes, but it defaults to port 80. What the error is saying is that for some reason port 80 is unavailable. But, since it can't open the log file, it iss unable to tell me why. Most of my job is spent looking at log files; so not having one is like making Batman fight crime without his utility belt.

Or in my case, arms or legs.

Normally the "no sockets available" message would mean one thing---that I'm a dumbass who already has Apache or some other web server running, thus closing the port off from new connections. Turn off the offending process, and my problems are solved. Google the error and that will be the solution to almost all of the links brought up.

In this case, that wasn't it. There's a command, "netstat -a," that will let me see which ports are in use at any particular time, and when I ran it "80" was nowhere to be found.

So instead of the error meaning that I was a dumbass, it meant that someone up there hated me. There's nothing more frustrating than a error with no explanation and no clues, except perhaps looking at the documentation in the mistaken belief that it might help.

The first thing I did was to start removing parts of the old configuration, reasoning that by cutting out code I could eventually isolate the problem. Our standard Apache config is over 2000 lines long, so it took a while. This only works if the bug is being caused by something in the code, not if the bug is due to something missing from the code, so Apache still refused to start even after I reduced the file down to about 10 lines.

That's when I started throwing extra code in. I think I've identified the code snippet responsible for ending my sisyphean task;

# Listen: Allows you to bind Apache to specific IP addresses and/or
# ports, instead of the default. See also the
# directive.
#
# Change this to Listen on specific IP addresses as shown below to
# prevent Apache from glomming onto all bound IP addresses (0.0.0.0)
#
#Listen 12.34.56.78:80

Listen 80

The above is part of the global configuration part of the Apache 2 configuration, something that isn't specified in the same manner our 1.3 files. Tomorrow I'll take it out and hope everything breaks. If not, then I'll curse and start again.

Posted 6/09/2003 12:44:00 PM by Sid link
Comments Are Down

It appears as if Haloscan is suffering from a billing dispute with it's new hosting provider.

Update: From Haloscan

Server Work in progress
Our host (not us) ran into problems and had to freeze the site temporarily while doing repairs. All your accounts and comments are safe and backed up and we are working with the host to bring the site back up as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience.

Posted 6/09/2003 10:18:00 AM by Katie Bug link
A Dose of Reality

Hillary Clinton has stated that she is not planning to run for the presidency in either of the next 2 elections. I'm sure that a number of advisors have spoken to her about this, and tried to give her some advice as to what her chances might be if she were to run for the highest office in the land. Personally, I think the advice could be reduced to one sentence: "People are not ready to elect a woman as President of the U.S."

I'm sure that will anger some people, but I have no doubt that it is the truth. I'm sure, with all of her experience and her smarts, that Hillary is qualified to be president. In reality, there are so many people who run the presidency that she could make it through a term without doing worse than some presidents we have had in the past, but America is still not ready to give this responsibility to a woman. I, unlike many people, would not rule her out because I am a Republican, or because I didn't like her husband when he was in office, because neither of those reasons are true for me. I am a registered Democrat and don't have any problems with Bill or his time in office. I am just being realistic and understand that many voters still would be hesitant to vote for a woman or any other person who falls into a major minority category. I think that even women are not ready to vote for a woman. Sure, some would jump on her bandwagon just because of women's rights, blah, blah, blah, but I think it is still an unspoken belief that a woman would not be as effective as a man in that role.

Maybe she will run in 2012, but a lot will have to change between now and then for her to have a chance, but who knows............maybe hell will freeze.

Posted 6/09/2003 12:47:00 AM by Sid link
Pitiful Stab At Humorous Title Goes Here

Bird on a Wire.

Shark on a Segway.

Posted 6/08/2003 11:31:00 PM by Sid link
Cantillon Kriek Lambic

Beer of the Night


Though this will likely come a surprise to many, there are times when I skip the whole rigamarole surrounding a beer post and just drink the damn stuff. The Cantillon Gueze made it through without me taking note one Saturday night, as did the Top of the Hill cask beer the day before.

I tell a lie. I did take notes on the cask beer, but it was more about the horror of being presented with three quarters of a pitcher of beer in the middle of a workday by a beaming brewmaster when I was expecting to partake of a pint before going back to work. Good beer though. Slightly less hoppy than an IPA, as citrusy as one would expect with a trace of butterscotch overtone towards the end. It went really well with the fries and a steak sandwich.

I pitched a beer blog to the editor of All About Beer magazine earlier that day. They're local, and I figured it might get me into the seasonal beer festivals for free, so why not? It was via email, so I don't expect to hear back, but I still think it's a good idea, especially for niche publications like All About Beer. It enables them to engage their readership on a daily basis rather than a monthly or bi-monthly one, with all that means as far as advertising and promotion, as well as giving them an outlet for material that dates easily or doesn't fit into an issue for one reason or another. There are other beer blogs, but they don't appear to update very often, which means that the genre is someone's for the taking.

Yes, I'd like to be the Instapundit of Beer blogs. Who wouldn't? The glamour, the groupies, the.......possibility that people might send me six packs of free review beer.

mmmmmm.......free beer.

The only question in my mind is whether or not there enough material around to justify a beer blog, say one updated three or four times a day. There's a daily review, yes, but what else is there? Is there enough daily new material to support a blog devoted entirely to beer?

I think there is. Taking just today as an example, there's the gripping story behind Police Car Damaged By Flying Beer Cans, where a group of underage drinkers in a red hatchback tossed full cans of Natural Ice at the pursuing cops during a high speed pursuit.

Natural Ice, the beer with the taste that makes you want to hurl........it at the pigs.

There's also Anheuser-Busch, who has started to market an upscale beer, Anheuser World Select, in hopes of improving their share of the beer geek market.

The company is quick to point out that World Select comes in green bottles with embossed labeling. Heineken, a top import made by the Dutch brewer Heineken, also comes in green bottles.

Because what's on the outside of a beer bottle has always been more important to Anheuser-Busch than what's on the inside.

Finally, Dogfish Head WorldWide Stout, the strongest beer in the world.

AS the effects kick in I decide it is time to turn on the charm with the ladies. Dutch courage, you've got to love it.

First up is a pretty blonde called Eve. The unsuspecting banker is enjoying a quiet glass of wine when bottle in hand I stagger, I mean sidle, up. Surprisingly the 26-year-old from Richmond, South-West London, is unimpressed by my patter and soon gives me the brush-off. "Don't drink this stuff if you want to go out on the pull," she tells me.

NEXT I try my luck with Melanie, 27, another banker. "The beer makes you really sexy and attractive," she purrs.

There's a noise behind me and I turn round to see her friends laughing hysterically. When I turn back Melanie has gone.

Might have to find me some of that for the fishing trip come October. It sounds like it would improve my conversational skills.

There's more, a lot more. One could easily beer blog all day long.

No, that's not a threat.

Posted 6/08/2003 11:27:00 PM by Sid link
The Fourth Day

Another Six-Day war joke, stolen from my pal Isaac.

He refers to it during his section on the Six-Day war, not as a joke about that war per se, but as an example of one way in which the Jews viewed themselves before the war, and how refreshing the change was afterwards.

Two Jews were up against the wall, hands tied behind their backs, waiting to be shot.

The officer in charge of the firing squad came to them and asked curtly, "Do you want a final cigarette?"

The first Jew replied, "Keep your cigarette, you murdering bum!"

Whereupon the second Jew whispered anxiously, "Quiet, Jake. Don't make trouble."

Posted 6/08/2003 11:12:00 PM by Sid link
A Little Place Blogging, for Fred

It's rained here 12 of the last 15 weekends. Of the three clear weekends, we were gone for two and having a baby on the other one. The area as a whole is nearly 12 inches over normal for the year. (Thanks to Newmark's Door for the link.) This time last year we were in a drought.

I'm finding I preferred the drought, despite the whole "Oh my god there's going to be water riots and we're all going to die" vibe the Sainted Wife kept giving off. A lawn that crackles when you walk on it is annoying, but a lawn that wells up between the toes with every step is worse. Ngnat used to think "barefoot walking" on the lawn was a treat. Now she stays in the garage and draws what looks like an endless series of chalk jellyfish on the cement.

"I like your jellyfish." I told her last night. "Are they the ones from Spongebob?"

"They're men," she said to me indignantly.

All the rain has also been bad for the tomato plants, but good for mushrooms, the now brilliantly blue hydrangeas and the wildlife. The grass in the yard has been overrun with hundreds of little frogs, appropriately known as Pseudacris ocularis, the....Little Grass Frog. Small snakes seem to be the frog's main threat, so I'm hoping to run across a bumper crop of them soon. Meanwhile, there are an inordinate number of flat little silhouettes decorating the driveway.

There was also a 10 or 12 pound snapping turtle crawling through the remains of the garden the other day, one of the few I've ever seen close up. It was at least a mile from a body of water large enough to support it. Ngnat and I crouched in front of him, and I warned her to stay away from turtles with bumpy backs while I held a stick out as bait. The snapper's strike was so swift I involuntarily jerked. The stick snapped, Ngnat burst into tears, and the snapper went on its grouchy way.

I may have put her off turtles for good.

I took a couple of snapper pics, but with Mom's digital camera rather than my own, so until she mails them I can't post them. Don't think they were that good to begin with; given the height of the grass it was in, good camera range was uncomfortably close to being within striking range.

The rain seemingly has affected the normal food supply for the birds in the area as well. I would think that more rain equals more bugs to feed on, but there's a steady traffic at the feeders. I've seen mockingbirds at the suet feeder for the first time in...ever, as well as pair of bluebirds with two fledglings desperately demanding food. Flickers and Red Bellied Woodpeckers have joined them, then flown to the top of the chimney to announce their presence and mark their territory by drumming on the hollow metal cover at the top. It's very resonant, so they use it often. I keep hoping the Red headed and Pileated woodpeckers I've seen in the bottomland behind the house will join them, at least at the feeder, but no luck so far. A Pileated would probably sound a like a jackhammer if they ever did drop by, damn things were the size of crows.

The hummingbird feeder also ran dry in less than a week for the first time I can recall. There's a little male who perches on the deckrail underneath almost all day long, guarding it from interlopers. I've seen dogfights so acrobatic they'd put dolphins to shame in the four by four area around the feeder. Males will come in to be chased away by the resident male, and while the guard is off chasing them a female drops in, to be chased off in her turn by the resident female. I can't see how they find the time to breed and raise a brood, they seem to spend most of the day guarding the sugar water.

The old wives tail isn't true, though. Hummingbirds can't fly between rain drops. I was out on the covered part of the deck yesterday and saw a big fat one hit the male dead amidships. He bounced like God's tiniest basketball and kept on, seemingly none the worse for his drenching. He landed on the rail, shook his head like a dog and cursed.

"I know what you mean." I told him. "Bloody weather."

Posted 6/08/2003 12:58:00 AM by Sid link
Mr. Answer Man Denigrates Your Alcohol

Deb of MustBeNice asks

"Seriously, not to make an issue or nothin' but what are the chick beers?

*checks fridge.. finds budweiser cans and a rolling rock pony bottle from last summer*

Well, just because you're a chick doesn't mean you drink chick beers. Anyone who drinks a year-old Rolling Rock pony bottle is a man in my book.

A stupid man, but a man nonetheless.

Also, the definition changes with time. When Miller Lite first came out, it was seen as a chick beer. Real men didn't worry about calories in 1973, it seemed. Advertising changed all that, though it just made it more acceptable for men to drink light beer rather moving woman to another drink. That particular feat is harder than one might think. Remember shandy?

The latest chick beer is Michelob Ultra, though there is a growing class of what might be called chick alcohol. All are malt beverages, aka alcopops, scions of Zima sent forth to trouble the unhappy world. Many are marketed under the brand name of a liquor company or have descriptions like "hard lemonade." The once hot cider market has been infected by the practice, and sales have slumped in response.

It's only a matter of time before we see Bartles & James Hard Raspberry Lemonade. Other than that, chick beers can be regional in nature, or comparative. Amstel Light was a chick beer in Chapel Hill for a number of years, and most women in brewpubs will invariably order the lighter lagers over the IPAs, porters and stouts.

But the real definition of a chick beer, as any man will tell you is: "Whatever beer it is that a woman is drinking, as long as I am not also drinking it."

We're funny that way.