He vould have an enormous schwanzstucker.

Ladybug pointed me towards this post and dared me (dared me!) to disclose any man crushes I might secretly harbor.

Well, I'm man enough to admit when I find another somebody attractive, even if they happen to have a Schwanzstucker.



Gene Wilder

In his prime there was nobody better in Hollywood that could play a tightly coiled maniac like Gene. He has a unique ability to be able to portray menace, likability and lunacy all at the same time. What's not to like?


Bruce Campbell

The Chin has a self-depreciating sense of humor. I'm a sucker for that sort of thing. Plus- he wouldn't kick you out of bed for eating crackers. He may cut you in two with his chainsaw, but he won't kick you out of bed.


Charlie Chaplin

Something about the Little Tramp just makes me want to give him a hug and tell him it'll be alright.


Zachary Levi

Chuck is a bit like me- geeky with a dangerous side.


Adam West

It was a toss-up between West and Shatner but I though Shatner would be too obvious. They have virtually the same acting style which is to say they can't act a lick, but what redeems them is they get that fact and run with it. They're in on the joke.

Clint Eastwood

In real life Clint's not such a great guy just ask Sandra Locke, but The Man With No Name was about as studly as you could get. I'd love to share a poncho with that guy.

I'm TRYING to use the phone!

Microsoft, geniuses that they are, released an update on the 8th that killed internet connections if you were using ZoneAlarm as your firewall. The update zapped my net at home and the DSL line I have at my office at work since I rely on ZoneAlarm. It took a call to the phone company to figure that out.

I realize that asking that Microsoft actually test updates before they're released to make sure they won't clash with some of the most popular security software is asking a little too much. I wasted several hours getting my PCs up and running again. Jerks.

If I hadn't been having so damned much fun at everything else in life right now I might have the temerity to write them a sternly worded email. As it stand I can't be bothered. Life's too darned good.

On Thursday we went to the local parade in the small town we live in in celebration of our local mountain festival and because our boy was on the youth football float. We couldn't have asked for nicer weather as it was an absolutely pitch perfect day for a parade.

A few pics we took--

Then on Friday night we drove up to Vancouver (Washington) to meet don snabalus for The Police concert. Holy shit that was fun!

The band was in top form, especially Sting's voice which really would make or break the deal. Sting sounded almost exactly the same. I guess that's a product of never really stopping performing but it's still pretty amazing that the years don't seem to have taken their toll. Having said that; hey made a couple of slight adjustments to the tempo/key of songs, most notably "Don't Stand So Close To Me."

Andy Summers was still great on the guitar although he was the one guy out of the band that didn't look like he was having fun.

The band's not-so-secret weapon in drummer Stewart Copeland tore it up through the entire show. There was a bit on "King Of Pain" in which he got up from the drum kit and just started playing stuff that was hanging behind him. By "stuff" I mean things that looked like used car parts. He as much as Sting make that band.

I pretty much lost my voice from singing along and at one point I leaned over to don when Sting was having the crowd sing "kay-yo-ee-oo-oo-oo" back to him and told don I was having a deja vu experience. That bastard Sting made us do that last time we saw them.

The great thing about all of this is I really got the sense that this concert was for the fans. The guys pretty much don't need the money and they hate each other. The biggest indicator was the music set which included every hit and fan favorite I could think of. There were no songs from any of their solo stuff and they played "Every Breath You Take" which is a song that Sting despises. Thanks guys.

Don's wonderful wife Ladybug wasn't able to make the show so my oldest got to go to her first big concert. Her joy stood in direct juxtaposition to my own chagrin that a boy spent much of the concert "gasp" talking to her. I'm really going to have to steel myself for the next few years.

As don mentioned there was something screwy afterwards as the exit to the parking lots to a 16,000 seat venue were blocked by an accident. At least everybody had time to sober up before they got on the road. OTOH they (ourselves included) were probably too tired to be driving.

Then on Saturday Mrs. Wormer and I were running errands and ran into a couple who we hadn't seen in a while. Long story short we wound up spending the day in the beer garden, ending our evening in a biker bar. At midnight one of the guys rode his Harley into the middle of the bar and the band played "Born to be Wild." It was the coolest fucking thing EVER!

I love Mrs. Wormer. She was the only one who got my Pee Wee Herman jokes (Pee Wee voice: "Nobody hipped me to that, dude.") We really are muy simpatico.

Life is pretty damned good.

Will she deserve my special attentions?

Twenty-four years ago don snabulus and I pulled on our Vans, slipped into our bell bottoms, ran the giant comb we kept in our back pocket through our feathered hair and waited in the pouring rain outside the Memorial Coliseum to see The Police in the Ghost in the Machine tour.

Tomorrow night we're putting on our garter socks, squeezing into our Bermuda shorts, running a #2 razor through what's left of our thinning hair and heading on down to stand in the sun and see The Police on their reunion tour.

Hopefully I won't drive Don completely nuts with repeated jokes about him "standing too close to me."

What do they call it when everything intersects?

If you prefer a little deeper take on our current situation and the philisophical underpinnings of same, you might want to take a look at don snabulus' series "The Invisible Civil War Within" in which he takes on Hegelian dialectic, the Trilateral Commission, Straussians and the Tick.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Yesterday I wrote a complicated, intricately sourced counter-argument to don's posts but it was on my Blackberry so ce'st la vie.

Hey, we're a smash let's take a bow!

Don's game looked like fun. So my band is ALPG Tour. We're female, we're Aussie, we golf and we ROCK!

Our current album is Stemmadenia tomentosa. In common lingo that would be a rare species of Mexican plant but it also means we ROCK!

Tracks off of Stemmandenia tomentosa-

1. Robbins, North Carolina -- our own "Sweet Home Alabama."
2. Santa Fe 1010 -- a steam locomotive of ROCK!
3. USCGC Mellon (WHEC-717) -- we love the Coast Guard and this is our favorite cutter.
4. Bicentennial Minutes -- a patriotic metal tune.
5. Bongaigaon district -- in all of India there isn't a sweeter district. Goalpara and Kokrajhar districts SUCK.
6. Nuts & Bolts -- the primal scream of Australian profession lady golfer rockers.
7. Chatterbox -- a critical take on the commercialization of the news that ROCKS.

8. List of University of Essex people -- these people decidely do not ROCK.

9. Mike Erwin-- the voice of Speedy on Teen Titans and a dreamboat.

10. Grenada at the 2004 Summer Olympics -- we realize there are tons of songs out there about this already but thought we'd do our own version.

11. Edison Welding Institute -- our band spent our formative years there.

12. Armenian Opera Theater -- the site of our biggest concert. 36 fans showed up for that barn burner.

13. Bandiagara Escarpment -- "I gotta catch my love - strap ACME rockets to my heels - chase him through the desert - right off the Bandiagara Escarpment. Don't look down, don't look down, don't look down... or I'll fall."

14. He's Alive -- because we ROCK.

15. Fredric Hasselquist -- the dean of Palestinian Natatural History and a righteous dude.

Bonus Track: Motu River -- "When you chipped a shot into the Moto River you hit the hazard of my heart."

Golf - Australia - ROCK!

Well, this kidnapping stuff makes me real nervous.

I think I've written at least two posts on the Iranians capture of the 15 British sailors which in the comments section of those posts Snabalus has reminded me that the U.S. had captured Iranian nationals in Kurdistan last year. It's a frustrating thing that the American media refuse to make the connection between the two events.

The Brits get it-

The raid on Arbil took place within hours of President George Bush making an address to the nation on 10 January in which he claimed: "Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops." He identified Iran and Syria as America's main enemies in Iraq though the four-year-old guerrilla war against US-led forces is being conducted by the strongly anti-Iranian Sunni-Arab community. Mr Jafari himself later complained about US allegations. "So far has there been a single Iranian among suicide bombers in the war-battered country?" he asked. "Almost all who involved in the suicide attacks are from Arab countries."

It seemed strange at the time that the US would so openly flout the authority of the Iraqi President and the head of the KRG simply to raid an Iranian liaison office that was being upgraded to a consulate, though this had not yet happened on 11 January. US officials, who must have been privy to the White House's new anti-Iranian stance, may have thought that bruised Kurdish pride was a small price to pay if the US could grab such senior Iranian officials.

For more than a year the US and its allies have been trying to put pressure on Iran. Security sources in Iraqi Kurdistan have long said that the US is backing Iranian Kurdish guerrillas in Iran. The US is also reportedly backing Sunni Arab dissidents in Khuzestan in southern Iran who are opposed to the government in Tehran. On 4 February soldiers from the Iraqi army 36th Commando battalion in Baghdad, considered to be under American control, seized Jalal Sharafi, an Iranian diplomat.

The raid in Arbil was a far more serious and aggressive act. It was not carried out by proxies but by US forces directly. The abortive Arbil raid provoked a dangerous escalation in the confrontation between the US and Iran which ultimately led to the capture of the 15 British sailors and Marines - apparently considered a more vulnerable coalition target than their American comrades. (The Independent.)

I don't give a monkey's arsehole about Mods and Rockers. Underneath, we're all the same, 'n't we?

I've been meaning to write something for a couple of weeks but simply haven't had the time. Stupid work and family getting in the way of blogging!

In discussion on Snabby's site on Iraq I bounced in and made these comments:

Bush is a conservative, pa've. Sorry.

I know you'd like to believe conservatism can't fail but it has and does.

Evidence is the streets of Iraq. Throughout New Orleans. And a big gaping hole in the center of New York.

Snabby, ever wiser and level-headed than myself, gently took me to task:

Dean: I probably have some of the same differences with some of Pa've's factual interpretations as you. However, Conservatism is a many-headed dragon with pre-Goldwater conservatives, pure libertarian conservatives, post-Goldwater big government/low revenue Reagan era conservatives, and of course, the neoconservatives which I believe Pa've is rightly rejecting.

Thinking conservatives like Pa've are grappling with those distinctions just like Democrats are grappling with whether the DLC corporatists are the best voice for the Democratic Party or whether a more optimistic people-oriented view needs to prevail.

Over time, I hope the debate becomes more like Hatfield vs. Kitzhaber (former Oregon governors) than Hatfield vs. McCoy.

This actually got the wheels spinning and I spent quite a bit of time reflecting on don's insightful response. One of the great things about the intertubes is that you occasionally come across something that makes you think. Even better when it's someone you know.

It's been observed on more than a few occasions that the language of politics has devolved in a crass, polarizing muck over the last couple of decades. Our national political discourse has been almost completely absorbed by tribalism with cliches and talking points all but replacing thoughtful debate. It makes consensus impossible. I share the belief of many that this is a Very Bad Thing. It could even be the Worstest Thing. It's slowly killing our country.

Why then do I myself engage in political shorthand in my constant references to the failures of "conservatives?"

For a couple of reasons. The first is merely practical and is directly related to the war in Iraq. Is there any question that "conservatives," regardless of personal variety, were united four years ago in their support for George W. Bush and the war in Iraq? Now that the war is a demonstrable failure to pretty much everybody we hear self-described conservatives either distance themselves from Bush by trying to claim he's not a real conservative or distance themselves from the neocon variety of conservative and attempt to hide behind their own "Eisenhower conservatism," "social conservatism," "fiscal conservatism' or whatever. I don't want to give them any breathing room. This is their war and their intellectual and moral failure as much as Bush's.

For all the differences between the different strains and brands of self-described conservatives they do have one thing in common. It's the thing that unites them above all else and causes them to put aside their differences each November as they head into the voting booth. Their intense hatred of "liberals."

Liberals. Democrats. The Left. The Great Satan. Everything that is wrong with this country (and the world) can be attributed to those vile critters. If "conservative" means anything it means "not liberal." Not Liberalism is a powerful self identity.

Unfortunately the "liberalism" that Not Liberalism is fighting has grown over the years in definition from the few anti-war protesters and flower children in the sixties to extend to pretty much all of academia, the mass media and the scientific community. Not Liberals are pretty much at war with everybody that doesn't self-identify with their group.

For discourse to be meaningful all sides will have to reach a place where they identify more with the need for consensus than disagreement. In the United States our entire political structure is built on this premise. For our system to work all parties need to identify as Americans before they identify as Whigs, Republicans, No-Nothings, Democrats or whatever else. As long as a significant portion of Americans continue to define themselves by their Not Liberalism over their citizenship this country will remain dysfunctional and will continue to fall apart at the seams. This is paradigm we need to break and this is why "conservatives" need to be held to account.

Hasta la vista.

Snabby's fallen into his own Vista Hell Hole waiting for upgrades to recently purchase equipment. Apparently Microsoft thinks Hackerz will steal their OS by faking receipts for purchases, or something.

I will not be threatened by a walking meat loaf!

Somewhere in a comment section in one of the numerous blogs I read I came across a comment in reaction to the blow-up over the Michael J. Fox commercial that went along the lines of "this reminds me of the dust-up over the Wellstone memorial." As I continue to see more and more about the ad and Limbaugh's comments I'm inclined to agree. The GOP and their agents in the media are able to create a false controversy by poo-pooing(*) perfectly legitimate behavior by Democrats that hasn't crossed any traditional lines of common sense.

Don snabalus highlights the value of these sorts of fake controversy- they keep us from talking about legitimate issues such as the value of stem cell research in finding a cure for Parkinsons as in the case of Fox. Let's not forget they provide the additional perks of firing up the GOP base and dehumanizing their opposition by making them, us, out to be heartless political automatons.

It's the sort of stuff that leaves most sane people who follow politics throwing up their hands and asking "why in the hell are we talking about this again?"

Along those lines: Tristero seems to be channelling don snabalus this morning. He links Jane Hamsher who does a great analysis of the greater context to Rush "moving the goalposts" on all sorts of issues.

(* as opposed to the act of "pooh-poohing" which involves plotting to steal honey from bees, asking Christopher Robin all sorts of silly questions, and being dragged down the stairs by your foot while hitting your head on each step.)

IN HELL! The dead world, infernal zone, damned house, tortures place, pandemonium, purgatory, avernus, fire, Satan, THE PIT!... and the pendulum.

Last week our friend Don Snabulus in an effort to pull me out of a small bout of reverie reminded me of the political pendulum. It's a kind of "Newton's Law of American Politics" that every reaction brings an opposite reaction. Nothing is permanent, everything swings back into place eventually.

I know that the forces of darkness arrayed against progressives also recognize the political pendulum and have expended great effort in an attempt to force the pendulum to hold it's current rightward position permanently. The rank and file that make up the typical viewers of the FOX network or listeners to Limbaugh, Savage or O'Reilly hold the pendulum in place through sheer force of will. To effort necessary to push back against that seems almost insurmountable. That's where I start to despair.

This week there was a small PBS episode of the "Secrets of the Dead" series entitled "Umbrella Assassin." It told the tale of Bulgarian dissident writer Georgi Malkov who was assassinated in London in 1978 by a KGB agent using an umbrella tipped with a microsopic ball of sarin. The assassination was an effort to send a message to all outspoken dissidents of the Soviet regime. The idea was to instill fear on a subconcious level. On the concious level the Soviets had an enormous military machine and enough nuclear missiles to obliterate the West several times over.

There was a time in our history that the USSR seemed powerful and immortal. The party controlled all elements of the state: the government, courts and media. They had the pendulum firmly wedged in place. So it seemed.

We know now with the benefit of hindsight that the appearance of strength and immortality that cloaked the Soviet regime were illusory. We know that the even the most repressive regime cannot permanently crush dissent, they can only sweep it under the rug or hide it in the attic. It will eventually get out and ruin Thanksgiving dinner.

We know that once that happens and pendulum finally breaks free it explodes against the forces that tried to keep it in place artificially.

Here's a reminder of what that looked like when it happened to the Soviets from the band Jesus Jones:




(I know the movie quote doesn't tie into the post well but it did have the word "pendulum." They can't all be gems.)

There are a lot of long words in there, Miss; we're naught but humble pirates. What is it that you want?

Avast! Don Snabulus reminds us that today is the day we all talk like Cap'n Jack. Most days I talk like Cap'n Crunch so this is a welcome change.

If ye haven't checked Don's blog lately then run up your mainsail and tack over there. If ye don't I'll kick ye in the grapeshot with me peg-leg.

(Be sure to take the superhero quiz. I'm Superman. Only with thinning hair.)