(no subject)

And just to provide a spot of sanity, a news story from the fall of 2002:

Lack of hard evidence of Iraqi weapons worries top US officials

(no subject)

A couple of days ago I ordered lunch from this Chinese restaurant. I decided to try one of their soups, minced chicken with creamed corn. It was enough for two people, so I saved a good amount. I just warmed it up and I'm still impressed at how good it tastes! Who would have thought that chicken and creamed corn would taste so good?

But did they really have to 86 him?

not surprising

Okay, I admit: I think this is totally cool

Porn Switched With School's Announcement

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Here's what we need to do: kill nearly four dozen Iraqis at a wedding celebration. That'll really improve our standing around the world, and take some of the heat off that pesky abuse scandal.

alerted by sophiaserpentia

This post quotes an article at length about how the state comptroller of Texas has revoked the tax-exempt status of a UU church in the city (town?) of Denison.

I suspect this will be challenged legally and make it to the state Supreme Court.

(no subject)

My doctor prescribed me eye drops to deal with my eye problem (bump on the cornea). I went to the drugstore to get the prescription filled. As the pharmacists were finishing up my order, one of the ladies called out to me and asked, "Did he [another pharmacist] tell you what the price of this is?" They knew I'd be paying out-of-pocket.

I shook my head.

"It's $62.99."

I shrugged and said that'd be okay.

Now I get to put two drops in my left eye for five days. I suppose I could calculate how expensive each drop is, if I wanted to go through such a useless exercise.

The Welder, Visited by the Angel of Mercy, by B.H. Fairchild

Something strange is the soul on the earth.
George Trakl

Spilled melons rotting on the highway's shoulder sweeten
the air, their bruised rinds silvering under the half-moon.
A blown tire makes the pickup list into the shoulder
like a swamped boat, and the trailer that was torn loose

has a twisted tongue and hitch that he has cut away,
trimmed, and wants to weld back on. Beyond lie fields
of short grass where cattle moan and drift like clouds, hunks
of dark looming behind barbed wire. The welder, crooning

along with a Patsy Cline tune from the truck's radio,
smokes his third joint, and a cracked bottle of Haig and Haig
glitters among the weeds, the rank and swollen melons.
Back at St. Benedict's they're studying Augustine now,

the great rake in his moment sobbing beneath the fig trees,
the child somewhere singing, take and read, take and read.
What they are not doing is fucking around in a ditch
on the road to El Paso ass-deep in mush melons

and a lame pickup packed with books that are scattered now
from hell to breakfast. Jesus. Flipping the black mask up,
he reaches into the can for a fresh rod, clamps it,
then stares into the evening sky. Stars. The blackened moon.

The red dust of the city at night. Roy Garcia,
a man in a landscape, tries to weld his truck and his life
back together, but forgetting to drop the mask back down,
he touches rod to iron, and the arc's flash hammers

his eyes as he stumbles, blind, among the fruit of the earth.
The flame raging through his brain spreads its scorched wings
in a dazzle of embers, lowering the welder, the good student,
into his grass bed, where the world lies down to sleep

until it wakes once more into the dream of Being:
Roy and Maria at breakfast, white cups of black coffee,
fresh melons in blue bowls, the books in leather bindings
standing like silent children along the western wall.

(no subject)

Ruling Says White House's Medicare Videos Were Illegal

The General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said on Wednesday that the Bush administration had violated federal law by producing and disseminating television news segments that portray the new Medicare law as a boon to the elderly.

The agency said the videos were a form of "covert propaganda" because the government was not identified as the source of the materials, broadcast by at least 40 television stations in 33 markets. The agency also expressed some concern about the content of the videos, but based its ruling on the lack of disclosure.

( Read more... )