More and more I get the impression that one of these days President Bush is going to announce the withdrawal of US forces, and everyone who was a critic will claim that the success of the liberation of Iraq was their idea.

Mark, I can assure you that on the off chance the “liberation of Iraq” suddenly turns into a success, you can have every bit of the credit.

Of course, there’s about as much chance of that happening as there is of Bush writing the Great American Novel after he leaves office.

Are you SURE this clown isn’t related to Peggers?

Just think, if Reagan didn’t close all of those mental institutions in the 80’s, maybe Mr. Noonan would be getting the help he needs.

More and more I get the impression that one of these days President Bush is going to announce the withdrawal of US forces, and everyone who was a critic will claim that the success of the liberation of Iraq was their idea.

Old Yeller’s comin’ back, ain’t he, paw?

Were citizens of the Soviet Union fooled this easily by state-controlled media? I know that people were poorer and less educated back then, so it was easier to manipulate the public with propaganda, but what’s our excuse now? The brains of American right-wingers are simply not operating properly.

I think there is something uniquely American about this kind of stupidity. It’s a combination of racism, xenophobia, narcissism, exceptionalism, jingoism, drooling optimism, and the desire to please our superiors (rich people). Some of those isms overlap, but this crap is everywhere in American society.

If I drank, I’d need a drink. I’m going to lunch now.

Steve-e: I wonder if it’s the opposite; that our school suck so badly these days that kids can’t add, subtract, or think their way out of a paper bag.

I was reading some Poe the other day and was struck by how one needs some knowledge of French and Latin, as well as of Greek and Roman religion and philosophy, to catch everything. You read other older authors and they’ll briefly discuss the birches or aspens or hemlocks that they’re passing, and mention the liverwort and lichen, and point out the finches, &c. Whereas public-schooled Me doesn’t even know what half the freakin plants in my yard are.

they’ll briefly discuss the birches or aspens or hemlocks that they’re passing, and mention the liverwort and lichen, and point out the finches, &c. Whereas public-schooled Me doesn’t even know what half the freakin plants in my yard are.

That’s actually a hobby of mine that I’ll talk about in excruciating detail if no one hits me on the head with a brick….

So…what does one of the plants in your yard look like?

I think there is something uniquely American about this kind of stupidity. It’s a combination of racism, xenophobia, narcissism, exceptionalism, jingoism, drooling optimism, and the desire to please our superiors (rich people). Some of those isms overlap, but this crap is everywhere in American society.

Plus as Americans we have it way too easy. Dumbshits like Noonan never have to suffer the consequences for America’s sins. It’s not like HIS kids are getting shot at, after all. Most of the Iraq war cheerleaders are motivated by plain, simple selfishness. Noonan couldn’t give a shit about the body bags coming back and the colossal waste of lives and resources– being “right” about Iraq is far more important.

I like to call it the “Conspiracy of the 3 Billion”. You see, we are winning in Iraq. We’re within months, months I tell you, from bringing our troops home victoriously. But see, there’s this conspiracy. It includes the american military, the american government, the iraqi government, the iraqi people, the press of 137 nations, the UN, oh, the british government, the people, press, military and governments of all the surrounding nations. This conspiracy exists to discredit the american actions in the middle east that have actually brought peace, prosperity and a higher standard of living to people throughout iraq and the region. Anybody that enters iraq is forced to join the conspiracy, promising on pain of severe punishment not to reveal the garden of eden that iraq has become. The total membership of this conspiracy is over 3 billion now, complete with vast funding for the doctoring of photographs, the creation of false media pieces in newspapers, magazines and televisions all over the world, and the 1600 acre lot in southern egypt where the video of the warfare and bloodletting are staged for the conspiracy’s media outlets.

And it’s wonderful that one man, the brave and honest Mark Noonan has stood up to this conspiracy and spoken honestly about the real conditions in iraq. We are freer people for Mark’s integrity…

mikey

Actually I think it’s much funnier the way it is.

What is?

Iraqi Security Forces are on track to take care of their own security and combat operations virtually free of Coalition support within the next year, Multi-National Force – Iraq’s spokesman told reporters Tuesday.

Haven’t they been repeating that line every three months for the past four years?

SMokey and P-man just pee on the plants. Sigh. They look like dead plants.

Damn..my penis is huge. Funny how the MSM “avoids” covering that.

–WKW

Gavin, dear chap: I fear I cannot be exact because I am off at my toils at present, far from the halcyon yard and its mysterious flora (and its equally mysterious, large population of two different kinds of slugs, some of which are cannibals[!]); this is a regret. But I dare not deny my curiosity over certain specimens that lurk underfoot upon my lands; in particular there is a peculiar low weed of broad leaves and moderately bright pigmentation, which presents an aspect of transparent furriness, as if it were surmounted by a vellum of that finest Neapolitan crystal of the likes of which the Italians hardly strive to create anymore since French-born Garibaldi and the Third Independence War.

Headline on Yahoo news:

Bush: We will prevail in Iraq

He might as well have said “Zorp floofle zurp praap zorp.” His words are utterly meaningless.

You guys.

Look. This is simple. We will eventually win in Iraq, because we are Americans and America is a Christian country and in Iraq, they are all dumb ass raghead mo-fos who worship a monkey or a dog or something. All we have to do is stay the course and eventually we must inevitably win, because God is on our side and OUR God is an ass kicking white dude with a big beard, like Charlton Heston.

And if we don’t win, just remember it’s because the fucking liberals were too goddam pansified to drop nukes.

Don’t you guys understand? The last war we won, we won with nukes! This conventional weapons shit is so 19th Century. Nukes work! You want to bring the troops home? USE THE NUKES!!!! Jesus, I honestly don’t know why you people are so stupid.

Goddam defeatocrats. Want to send over another 30,000 troops when all we need to do is drop a few H-bombs and we’re golden, baby! Why do you people want to make this so hard? I mean, what did we invent the fucking things for, if we’re never gonna USE them? And it’s not like we’d be blowing up Christians or white people or anything.

I mean, GOD uses nukes. It’s in the Bible. If GOD can use nukes on two cities full of queers, I certainly think a Christian nation can use them on a bunch a’ fuckin’ dune coons.

Honest to Christ, I do not understand you people sometimes.

in particular there is a peculiar low weed of broad leaves and moderately bright pigmentation, which presents an aspect of transparent furriness, as if it were surmounted by a vellum of that finest Neapolitan crystal of the likes of which the Italians hardly strive to create anymore since French-born Garibaldi and the Third Independence War.

Hm. If you mow your lawn a lot, that might be Mullein (Verbascum thapsus). But Mullein grows really tall if you leave it alone.

Are the leaves round or serrated?

Verbascum thapsus. AKA, bingo: http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/veth1.htm

Somehow I never made the connection between the low fuzzies and the big things that practically erupt if one doesn’t mow for a while. You just solved two at once!

And I’ll pretend that I never claimed to be all that observant…

Are you absolutely certain that

Lucianne:Jonah::Peggy:Mark

is not true?

Honest to Christ, I do not understand you people sometimes.

Dude, they’re really starting to think that way. Check out this comment at a milblog that Hewitt linked to. These kill-spasms are getting commoner and commoner:

The liberals’ (and this includes Baker et al) problem is that they want the US to be crushed.

We could be done with this enemy in 6 months.

So much for ‘spreading democracy,’ huh?

MSM, ISG… if the statement comes from anything with a three-letter acronym, Noonan knows better than to believe it.
— HDB

Verbascum thapsus. AKA, bingo: http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/veth1.htm

Woot!

The ‘hairy’ aspect narrowed it down tremendously. Mullein is by far the hairiest thing that’ll colonize a yard. Women used to use the leaves to rub a blush onto their cheeks.

Can’t eat it, as far as I know. Although you’ve probably got a ton of wild greens growing too.

“….Iraq’s spokesman told reporters Tuesday.”

Well, that settles it. After all, everyone knows there’s no more reliable source of information than an official Iraqi government spokesman. Remember these pearls of wisdom?

“There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!”

“We have destroyed 2 tanks, fighter planes, 2 helicopters and their shovels – We have driven them back.”

“They are not in Baghdad. They are not in control of any airport. I tell you this. It is all a lie. They lie. It is a hollywood movie. You do not believe them.”

“We went into the airport and crushed them, we cleaned the WHOOOLE place out, they were slaughtered”

But then there’s this:

“I speak better English than this villain Bush”

Baghdad Bob may have us there.

Gavin,

I know. I’ve been pretty much dead-on parodying the far right for years now. The problem is, my parodies are often mistaken for the real thing, because they are, for the most part, indistinguishable from it.

I honestly don’t know whether I should be afraid of myself or not. Is there such a thing as too much understanding?

My fiancee and I predicted over a year ago that Dubya’s Big Iraq Adventure ends up with ‘the man of smoke nodding his wide brimmed hat’ over Baghdad. I still have no real idea what the consequences of that will be, and what’s even scarier, nobody else does either… but I also remain grimly certain we’re all going to find out.

Bush and his crew are all pretty clearly “Right Men”, as defined by A.E. Van Vogt back in the 60s. The essential part of their pathology is that they CANNOT ADMIT THEY ARE WRONG. To be proven wrong about anything will simply destroy their psyches, as their entire worldview is built on the delusion of their own infallibility. So they CANNOT lose in Iraq. And we cannot win with conventional forces. So….

Of course, the other possibility is that winning in Iraq has never really been on the table; that what The Powers That Be want is exactly what they’ve gotten… a rubble strewn, blood soaked chaos where one of the very few technologically advanced, secular Middle Eastern nations used to be. If this is true, then, well, there’s no end in sight to it, as the status quo is exactly what Bush and his handlers want… for whatever reasons they may have. I mean, it’s not like THEY have to go over there and drive the Humvees…

Somedays I think one thing, somedays I think the other… but I will tell you this much… the people who are making the decisions are not anything we would recognize as sane, nor are their ‘morals’ or ‘ethics’ remotely humanitarian. I think our political system tends to bias towards the election of the amoral, but the current group of guys goes well beyond that (in my opinion) into actual, abject evil.

Gee, this is depressing. Let’s make more jokes, please.

Are you absolutely certain that

is not true?

He denies it, but then again, when has he ever been right about anything?

Handsome — Zelazny reference? A. E. van Vogt? We know your sort.

back in the days before i resigned myself to a life of nicotine addiction, i would sometimes try wacky things to quit. this included replacing tobacco with a strange fluffy weed that was sold in bulk at my local crusty establishment. the name of that weed: mullein. it tasted like burnt felt with just a mild hint of the ganj. it made my head feel weird for about ten minutes and consequently made me want a cigarette even more.

“‘the man of smoke nodding his wide brimmed hat”

Zelazny, yes?

Of course, the other possibility is that winning in Iraq has never really been on the table; that what The Powers That Be want is exactly what they’ve gotten… a rubble strewn, blood soaked chaos where one of the very few technologically advanced, secular Middle Eastern nations used to be.

What they wanted, and were certain they could have, is a friendly puppet regime under ahmed chalabi running iraq, which would invite the american oil companies to drill, pump and refine their oil and the american military to build permanant bases from which they could defend israel and threaten iran, while keeping the entire persian gulf region in their pocket. It didn’t work out.

Now, it was pretty obvious by 2004 when Sistani outplayed and outbluffed bush and forced a real election that the Shi’a were going to take power and that was going to cause the whole project to come off the rails, but they sat in washington like deer paralyzed by the onrushing headlights. They just could not grasp that the plan had failed, so they kept on as if it had succeeded. This allowed the shiites to consolidate power and the sunni, mostly from the disbanded army, to build a professional insurgency. Even today, bush doesn’t really want to embrace the goal of leaving iraq. His plan was to have an american client state, and while life for iraqis is an unmitigated hell, there is still a possibility that american forces will be based in iraq for the forseeable future. This simply cannot happen, and the breaking point is upon us. The only iraqi support for a continued american military presence in iraq is the political leadership, who need the american army to maintain their grip on power. But as soon as we force them to start dismantling the militias, it’s all going to implode. al Hakim isn’t going to take on the Badr brigades, he’s going to go after the Mehdi army. al Sadr isn’t going to go after the Mehdi army, he’ll go after the Badr brigades. That’s 150,000 armed fighters being set free to fight each other, and the americans, who will continue to get hit by the sunni insurgency. Iran wins, and the devil take the hindmost…

mikey

Herr Doktor,

That’s ‘ilk’, not ‘sort’. 😉

les,

Roger that. (Heh. Sometimes, life is good to me.) From not only my favorite RZ, but my favorite science fantasy novel of all time, LORD OF LIGHT.

Gavin and MCH: couldn’t it be Lamb’s Ear? That’s a low fuzzy that stays low. But then they don’t colonize, and well, people want them in their yard.

Grr. Let’s try that again.

Mikey,

What you said, but, with added frosting here.

As I say, sometimes I think one thing, sometimes another. The ‘fire Hussein/hire Chalabi’ scenario is plausible with what we think we know about global realities. The ‘they just want an endless killing field where an organized nation used to be’ theory is for when I’m in my darker, tin foil hat, Rigorous Intuition type moods.

Either way, it’s pretty much evil awful fuckery, all the way down.

it tasted like burnt felt with just a mild hint of the ganj.

Don’t tell anyone, but [mumble mumble] stoned [mumble mumble] Artemesia vulgaris [mumble] invasive lawn weed….

Some smart person is eventually going to try selling it as marijuana, and the only people who will know for sure that it isn’t will be the cops…

“Common mullein was first introduced into the U.S. in the mid-1700’s, where it was used as a piscicide, or fish poison, in Virginia”
Why the hell would you need a piscicide? What purpose would that serve? Rice paddy fish control?
Oh, and about this Noonan guy, is it fetal alcohol syndrome or a closed head injury?
I solicit your opinions.

Handsome, I was thinkin’ that, but then wondered about “Creatures of Light and Darkness,” and wimped out. You’re welcome for the set up; I’d love to claim intent. Nobody’s quite matched RZ since.

My fiancee and I predicted over a year ago that Dubya’s Big Iraq Adventure ends up with ‘the man of smoke nodding his wide brimmed hat’ over Baghdad. I still have no real idea what the consequences of that will be, and what’s even scarier, nobody else does either… but I also remain grimly certain we’re all going to find out.

Pardon the one more foray into seriousness, but the consequences are eminently predictable – a new Cold War with the United States against everyone else. The U.S. a true pariah nation, Libya of the 80’s writ large. China holding our pursestrings and demanding we dance to their tune or face the instant crippling of our economy. And a united Europe armed to the teeth and ready and willing to help the Chinese hamstring us.

In short, from Empire to Thrid World Nation in 0.00000004 seconds.

Sorry, let’s get back to the funny.

Gavin,
When my wife asks me “honey why are you smoking weeds out of the lawn?”
I will blame you.

Gavin and MCH: couldn’t it be Lamb’s Ear?

Huh. I’ve never seen one of those. Wikipedia says it’s order: Lamiales, which means it’s medium-distantly related to Mullein…

Does it ever grow wild?

Les,

Oh, by all means, claim intent. A foolish adherence to truth is the hobgoblin of small minds.

Wait… that doesn’t sound right.

No, never mind, I’m just going to start smoking some of this stuff I found in my yard.

*readies brick*

“Common mullein was first introduced into the U.S. in the mid-1700’s, where it was used as a piscicide, or fish poison, in Virginia�
Why the hell would you need a piscicide?

It’s an easy way to catch fish — you toss something noxious in the water and collect the ones that are stunned and float to the surface. Good survival tool if you’re in an emergency and need to find food quickly. Otherwise a really, really bad idea environmentally.

They probably used Mullein because it’s so much less toxic than the really horrific native stuff you find near streams and lakes. Water Hemlock will frickin’ kill you if you handle it wrong. Worst Plant Ever.

Does it ever grow wild?

Apparently, it can. But where I hail from in NJ it seems always to have been planted. It has a lovely grey/green color and stays very soft (like, huh, a lamb’s ear).

What general part of NJ? I’m sort of north-central.

After careful examination of Mike Reed’s typology, I have determined I am best represented by the Kung-Fu Master.

Carry on.

Snowwy,

My tin foil hat will bounce your brick like Captain America’s shield.

Wait. Is my hat like Cap’s shield, or is your brick…?

Heh. I got your participle. I got your participle dangling.

Some smart person is eventually going to try selling it as marijuana, and the only people who will know for sure that it isn’t will be the cops…

I wouldn’t be surprised if it already weren’t common practice somewhere. You’d be amazed what people will try to pass as ditchweed or shwag. Anyone who won’t pay more than thirty bucks for an eighth isn’t going to be too picky about what they get.

Not that, uhh, I would know from experience or…oh, who am I kidding. I’ve probably smoked some of this stuff and not known it.

J –

Goddam. I’m Filibuster.

I’ll be quiet now.

What general part of NJ? I’m sort of north-central.

I’m central coastal. (Monmouth Co. — near Asbury Park.)

It’s in the same genus as wormwood (=the active ingredient in absinthe).

You literally can’t walk 200 feet around here without seeing a patch of it.

bonnie ambrosia: Yeah, mullein sucks as an alternative smoking blend. If you’re resigned to nic addiction but want to not smoke, you could try smokeless. There’s stuff you don’t even need to spit nowadays (like the swedish snus). Myself, I just tried cutting down on butts with Olde Schoole Snuffe (as in the powdered dry stuff from the 17th century, Gletscher Prise, Navy Scotch, etc, not Copenhagen dip). It’s odd. It’s like you carry a personal aroma only you can smell around with you, and somehow find yourself not needing a cig at all the normal times you would have before… I’ve smoked butts for 16 years, and nic is mostly just a fix. But snuff has somehow turned it back into a drug… dunno if that’s any better, actually, but at least there’s no smoke (first- or second-hand). Just buy a lot of tissues.

Gavin: Artemisia, eh? I had some Artemisia absinthium from a bulk herb store once with which I made crappy undistilled “absinthe” (Jesus God that stuff will smack yo azz up … and it ain’t just the 170-proof-ness of it either…). Smoking the herb can make for a little bit of speediness with possible psychedelic inferences. Not tasty though. Calamus root, though, also not tasty, can definitely make you speedy. And I’m kind of frightened that 20x Salvia divinorum extracts are easily available at the local mall… But I digress.

Mark Noonan sucks! See, I’m topical.

Calamus root, though, also not tasty, can definitely make you speedy.

No lie? Calamus candy was big stuff in the Colonial days.

*squeak!* That H U R T S!

No lie? Calamus candy was big stuff in the Colonial days.

Like horehound?

Hint to Nooninoo: it’s never a good idea to equate a corporate/government/agency press release with investigative journalism.

And like spruce beer, yeah. Flavors that are almost banished, now, from the national palate.

What’s horehound like?

I have fond memories of Monmouth county.
And you do know that verbascum (mullien) is making a garden comeback with some lovely hybrids in sherbet-y shades. They look wonderful in front of the taxus in my hedge border.

Oh, and Noonan is an ass.

If you had 300 Herbalism skill, you’d know what it was.

(BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU CALL UP THAT YOU CANNOT PUT DOWN)

I love Lamb’s Ear. I wanted to put it in our front lawn, but my husband didn’t like it. I haven’t seen it around here (SF Bay area) in the wild, but the nursery had a lot of specimens. It sooooooo soft. Like a lamb’s ear.

*runs screaming*

I seem to vaguely remember eating horehound candy at an Authentic Western Mining Town when I was little. I am recalling root beer/sasperilla. Correct?

[your herbalism skill has increased by one point]

What’s horehound like?

Kathleen’s right — it’s like root beer/birch beer/sarsaparilla. And yep, I used to get it all the time at the northeast coast equivalent of an authentic western mining town — ye olde timey colonial towne. Made with barley sugar even, and poured into goofy molds like a boot, or somesuch.

How to you spell relief?
R.O.L.A.I.D.S.

How does the right spell success/victory/winning/mission accomplished? Though some put those words in quotations now.
D.O.N.O.T.P.U.L.L.O.U.T.

which brings to mind this:

And finally, New Rule, in two parts: A) You can’t call yourself a think tank if all your ideas are stupid. And B), if you’re someone from one of the think tanks that dreamed up the Iraq War, and who predicted that we’d be greeted as liberators, and that we wouldn’t need a lot of troops, and that Iraqi oil would pay for the war, that the WMD’s would be found, that the looting wasn’t problematic, and the mission was accomplished, that the insurgency was in its last throes, that things would get better after the people voted, after the government was formed, after we got Saddam, after we got his kids, after we got Zarqawi, and that the whole bloody mess wouldn’t turn into a civil war…you have to stop making predictions!

You know, there’s a name for people who are always wrong about everything all the time: husbands. You know, it’s a shame what happened to think tanks. They used to produce valuable, apolitical analysis. But partisanship crept into many of them. And the Bush Administration doesn’t just come up with something as stupid as “If we leave now, they’ll follow us home.” No, they have someone from a think tank say it first. It’s a way to lend respectability. The same reason a titty bar has food. I hear.

The think tanks that incubated the Iraq war have lofty names like the Heritage Foundation and the Project for a New American Century. Whatever. They’ve been wrong so often, I’m surprised they’re not my broker. Richard Perle thought we could win Iraq with 40,000 troops. Paul Wolfowitz predicted, in 2003, that within a year, the grateful people of Baghdad would name some grand square in their fine city after President Bush. And he was right when he said they’d be waving American flags. They were on fire.

William Kristol pooh-poohed the fears that Sunnis and Shiites would be at each others’ throats, as “the stuff of pop psychology.” Right. And having your head chopped off is just a quick way to drop 11 pounds. Kristol, of course, is revered by much of the right because he was Dan Quayle’s chief of staff, and was known as “Quayle’s Brain.” You know that. Which sounded impressive until I remembered Dan Quayle didn’t have a brain.

And now, Mr. Kristol proposes immediate military action against Iran, predicting the Iranians will thank us for it. Hey, you know what, Nostrodamus? Why don’t you sit this one out?

We’ll get by using the Magic Eight Ball for a while. Because you guys have been so wrong about so much for so long, people are actually turning to the Democrats. So, we can say Iraq was a noble experiment, if that helps you. Our intention was good: to penetrate Iraq and bring it to a glorious, euphoric climax. But it’s clear now that’s just not going to happen. And yet we’re still pounding away.

Causing the whole area to become painfully inflamed. And in that situation, the kindest thing you can do is…just pull out. [Bill Maher]

Calamus root, though, also not tasty, can definitely make you speedy.

No lie? Calamus candy was big stuff in the Colonial days.

Well, I can see it as being of possible tastiness, but straight-up in-your-face calamus flavor is a bit overpowering. Imagine a tangier, spicier, hotter clove oil. Might be nice in small quantities with appropriate admixtures. I don’t know what else may have been in that candy.

Also, as eugenol in clove oil is metabolized into something very like an amphetamine/phenethylamine, as is calamus oil’s active principle reportedly converted into something called TMA-2 (which Shulgin et al seem to like), hence the speediness it can impart.

“Mark Noonan

Mark Noonan, 40, is a senior writer for Blogs For Bush.

Born absurdly in New York State, he grew up in California, served four years in the United States Navy and has lived in Las Vegas, Nevada for the past ten years. He is a student of history with ambitions of writing both historical works and fiction novels.”

Got it? “Fiction novels.” Not those other kinds of novels.

And “born absurdly.” As absurdly as the wind blows. As absurdly as the grass grows. Born absurdly, to write fiction novels.

Some smart person is eventually going to try selling it as marijuana

Actually, that would be some dumb person, since you can be prosecuted for selling fake drugs just as easily as real ones. (no, I’m not kidding – it’s just like you can be prosecuted as a child predator when no real children are involved)

So you’d be risking both an ass-kicking from your dissatisfied customer base AND getting busted if you get caught by the cops. Doesn’t sound very attractive to me.

Ya know, the best thing about this site is the posters’ willingness to dive into wingnut crap and spare us the pain, and their tolerance of lengthy sidespines into varieties of geekdom. No, wait, the two best things…

Kathleen’s right — it’s like root beer/birch beer/sarsaparilla.

There’s Sassafras around here. Same basic deal — related to cinnamon?

as is calamus oil’s active principle reportedly converted into something called TMA-2 (which Shulgin et al seem to like), hence the speediness it can impart.

That might explain why people used to tolerate it. Must’ve been a lot easier to obtain than coffee or tea, back around 200 years ago.

related to cinnamon?

Yeah, they’re all laurels it seems.

Sassafras is here, too (my here being I guess half an hour from your here). As a kid I developed the habit of snagging a leaf whenever I saw it and crushing it under my nose.

Damn..my penis is huge. Funny how the MSM “avoids� covering that.

Ok. It’s not. Sorry.

–WKW

Noonan is 40 years old !?!?! WTF

I always thought that site was the lunatic ranting of some college kid, a young GOOPER so insulated from reality by his church and the College Republicans he couldn’t think straight. Either that, or some brown-nosing kid trying to get a spot with the national party.

A couple years in reality doesn’t turn those kids completely, but once they realize they actually have to live and work with non-whites, non-evangelicals, and people afflicted with teh gay, they tend to calm down the rhetoric a little bit.

The fact that Noonan is old enough to know better doesn’t make him funny, it makes him sad.

High Noonan, all right.

If only you could blame it on a foreign substance… nope, it’s actually the way he thinks.

[i]It’s an easy way to catch fish — you toss something noxious in the water and collect the ones that are stunned and float to the surface. Good survival tool if you’re in an emergency and need to find food quickly. Otherwise a really, really bad idea environmentally.[/i]

So, its sort of like organic cyanide fishing. Those crazy colonials.

Noonan is stoopid.

damnit – I can never remeber those tags.
Well, there are worst ways to look stupid I suppose.

If you have chemical initiators, (waterproof fuse is an oxymoron) a hunk o’ C4 in a pond or lake will float all kinds of fish to the top, and all you have to do is go around picking the ones you like…

mikey

Yeah, but mikey, what if your explosive of choice is ammonium nitrate?
Only a true master could fish with that stuff.

One can also catch fish using shock and trawl.

Well, not to go all gavin on you, but ANFO includes an oxidizer, so if you could get it to initiate it would go boom. You’d have to seal it up with an internal detonator, but it wouldn’t be that hard. But if you buy any serious quantities of AN and you don’t have, like a big farm, you’re gonna get a visit from the white shirts, bay bee…

mikey

Occasionally, mikey, I fear that you actually do know too much.

My life can pretty much be defined by the Michael Pare line from “Streets of Fire”:

“I didn’t get no medals, but I liked to shoot their guns”

mikey

Thanks Mikey, for not getting all Gavin on me.
I do have one question (well lots actually but on for now):
Do the white shirts come before or after the black helicopters?

The white shirts come in plain-jane fords and have ID that say “Federal Bureau of Investigation” or “BATF”. They have been at my door quite a few times. The black helicopters live only in the fevered imagination of sad, broken little men…

Hope that clears it up for you…

mikey

Jesus – how did you know I was short?!!

I swear-to-Jeebus once saw a black helicopter over Boston with the intials “UN” on it. Like, for real.

No, I didn’t run for cover or hang lanterns in the North End. No, I was not smoking yard clippings, mullein, artemisia, lamb’s ears or lamb’s breath (for shame…) at the time. I merely started laughing my ass off, and then wondered if someone’s egging people on or, conversely, putting people on. Massachusetts is home to the Massachusetts News, after all.

Aside: They just axed a longtime local radio show from the RI market (“Ahlene” Violet, our own homegrown nun-turned-Democrat-turned-pol-turned-talker for the past 16 years) and are replacing her with Sean Hannity. And something something something Noonan smokes mullein the dog pooped on, and probably wears combat boots like yo mama. No offense to Mikey. Or anyone else whose combat boots got dirty with actual dirt, not merely beoranged by Cheetodusts and bestickied with blood-red Code Red.

{Exeunt.}

They sell 20x salvia in freakin malls now? Jebus. That stuff is still the most intense psychedelic experience i’ve ever had. I can’t imagine the poor kids who before even smoking good hash get that at hot topic. It really shouldn’t be available for the unexperienced.
There should be a license to trip. They give you a small amount of shrooms and lock you in a padded room with your ipod and see if you can handle it. If not, no hallucinogens. If yes, go for it. Dammit. Does real acid even exist anymore?

Were citizens of the Soviet Union fooled this easily by state-controlled media?
—
If you read Vaclav Havel’s book “Disturbing the Peace” the answer would probly be no. Based upon Havel’s experience in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s, 60s and 1970s the state media was considered a joke, in the sense that everyone knew that it was completely controlled by the Communist Party, and therefore was fairly enriched with propaganda. The trick became reading between the lines or relying upon word of mouth and samizdat to have a basis of comparison. Sort of like this website right now.

Dammit, I go away for one day — ONE DAY — and this place turns into freakin’ Ground Force.

Fortunately, I came back with lots of bricks. I’m starting with Gavin, so the rest of you, please stand quietly in line and wait your turn.

Okay, I knew some guys in colllege it wasn’t me by any means, who lived in a house just offa campus on the main drag.

Little podunk farmer town with a state college, you know.

They were known to smoke some of that weed on the little front porch from time to time. Again, NOT ME. I was never there when they did.

They would throw the seeds – SO I’M TOLD- over the railing into the bushes.

Every summer, eventually tall bushes would grow out of the plants, standing as much as four feet exposed, fully visible from the street.

COMPLETELY unrecognized by the cops.

Not me, I’ll remind you.

Jon Stewart on Bolton resignation:

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=79113

[…] Bonus (non-Shorter) comment from old-school royalist Mark Noonan at Blogs For Bush: “All good stuff…I’d also add a bit about how Judeo-Christianity is central to western civilization.” ‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. […]