Hello from sunny Oakland. It’s only like 8:15 in the morning here, and nicodemia and I are about to start packing for our camping trip. There will be pictures, oh yes.

Actually, the old boy is sleeping right now. ‘Twas a busy day yesterday, though. Topped off with some good beer and deep dish pizza.

We also got to see the infamous Bloom and his bride-to-be, Monique, as they hosted a Jack Daniels and Oreo party. Oh, I’m sorry, there were chips and salsa there also. This was back on Saturday, mind you.

Then there was my flight into San Fran. It was bad enough that the in-flight movie was Herbie: Fully Loaded, but I figured at least I could ogle Lindsay Lohan’s boobs, right? Wrong. After 20 minutes of providing a crappy picture, the projection system (a remnant of the early 80’s) cut out for our section of the plane, leaving only the red bulb on. Amazingly enough, some people watched the whole thing like that. To me it made an already unwatchable movie even less appealing. So Lindsay, because I know you read this blog daily, I’m sorry. I’ll have to stare at your tits another time.

One last thing. Never get drunk the night before you have to fly, no matter how hard your already-drunk posse insists. It is not worth it.

As I browsed news stories this morning, I came across one that was alarmingly relevant to my own situation: Continental To Stop Flights Out Of Houston. I have a flight with Continental that’s scheduled to arrive in Houston tomorrow morning at 8:22am, right in the middle of a hurricane. Great.

So I’ve been on hold now for 1 hour, 17 minutes. The estimated hold time (only given to you once, naturally) was 48 minutes. Ah ha! What a helpful lady I just got on the line. I need to call you, nicodemia. Plans have changed slightly. A hurricane will do that to ya!

My what a hurricane she is. I don’t know what these hurricane-tracking people are talking about, though. After looking at this picture, Louisiana isn’t going to be spared by much. Sure, Texas will get it too, but even New Orleans looks like they’ll be getting a considerable amount of rain and wind.

55 percent of folks want to see withdrawl plans sped up, yet 67 percent say that Iraq will likely slip into chaos or civil war without our presence. I guess the discrepancy is just a result of people calling for a partial withdrawl, rather than just pulling out completely. The way I see it, the civil war and chaos are likely no matter when we leave, or how complete our withdrawl is. There was order before, when they were a soverign nation. We did away with that order, and began installing a government that no one believes in, and one that few believe represents them.

A Christian school expelled a girl because her parents are gay. I’m not surprised by this, nor am I surprised by their decision not to appeal the decision. Still, way to show some tolerance. Love thy neighbor, eh?

Oh, I almost forgot… here’s a video of a guy skipping a rock forty times! (How did they count it?) Once you see it, you’ll believe it.

In Texas, everything is big… including the hurricanes. Folks are bracing for hurricane Rita, which has now reached category 5. It sure looks like it’s going to make its way through the Gulf dangerously close to New Orleans. There’s actually news stories about how the hurricane naming center is running out of names this season. Are we really supposed to give a shit about this? Christ, just call me up and I’ll come up with them off the top of my head. Screw your naming conventions! Someday people will be saying “Man, remember hurricane Beavis? That was a motherfucker.”

Rita’s path could pass over oil refineries, too - causing gas prices to soar to *gasp* nearly the same prices as Europeans have been used to for years!! Honestly, I’m tired of hearing Europeans remind us that we get a great deal on gas. We are used to our prices, and you are used to yours. Our public transit systems suck a big one compared to yours… especially in a city like Cleveland. It’s either I ride for an hour on a bus to work, or drive there in 12 minutes. Given the short distance I drive each day to and from work, riding the bus would end up being more expensive, even with a pass. I’m not saying we should continue to get cheap gas forever… I wish we all ran on McDonald’s leftover grease… but until that happens, I think we as po’ Americans have every right to complain about skyrocketing gas prices.

Here’s an interview with an ex-solider that served in Iraq.

Man, North Korea sure is paranoid! It seems like this “agreement” isn’t exactly holding up too well. Even though a temporary accord was reached, North Korea believes the US is plotting a nuclear attack against them. I think they’re just making this stuff up to show a need for having nuclear weapons of their own. As destructive as Bush has been in his term so far, I can’t forsee him using nuclear weapons. Shit, if he were at the controls, he’d probably detonate it right over his own head on accident.

Ever heard of OpenOffice? It’s a free office suite, including all the usual crap. I had it installed with Ubuntu Linux on an old computer, but it’s available for Windows and Mac as well. This is really a great product. I haven’t had a chance to explore every bit of it, but I liked what I’ve seen. It’s also compatible with Word and all those big name programs. Their newest stable release, version 1.1.5, is available now.

It’s been a while since good ol’ NewsNet5 picked up an “I done seen Jesus!” story… but here’s the latest one: Man sees Jesus on tire. You have to see it from a distance, because the first picture is angled sideways, and it looks like absolutely nothing. This all begs the question: “what tire would Jesus buy?” or wtwjb, for short. I say Goodyear.. coz of the wings…

Some sort of temporary agreement was reached with North Korea regarding nuclear proliferation. While some people think it won’t last, others know it won’t last. I still don’t have an answer to the question that was on my mind back when I was 16 and just starting to learn about these things… if they can’t have nukes, why are we allowed to have them? I never imagined the answer would be so complicated, or so hypocritical.

$1 billion dollars has been taken from Iraq’s defense ministry.. but where did it go? Patrick Cockburn attempts to make some sense of the situation.

Cindy Sheehan isn’t just blaming Bush for this pointless war, she’s faulting the spineless Democrats as well. Glad to hear it. All these schmucks helped it along.

Where will hurricane Rita hit? It’s thought that it will drift over the Gulf and across Texas, hopefully wiping out a great deal of fundamentalist churches in its path. However, it’s likely to drop a great deal of rain on New Orleans, which - if you remember - was just recently hit by a hurricane. I know most of us have moved on to more important stories already, such as banning cell phones for teen drivers. They’ve ordered a second evacuation of New Orleans, and Rita is now a category 4 hurricane. Odds are this isn’t going to help.

Hopefully I’ll encounter some more interesting items as the day goes on.

Four men will be sent to the moon in 2018. What for? Man, I don’t know. You got a better idea? Look, I like the moon. I’m sure it could serve as some sort of base of operations for both telescope research and manned missions, BUT why should we go back there without the intention of setting up one of those two things? In a time when the president is only willing to give NASA twelve paperclips and a paper bag to work with, I’m not sure this is a prime use of $104 billion dollars. You could send me to pilot school, give me my own jet, and still have so much left over that no one would notice. So… do that.

The prophet of Pastafarianism, Bobby Henderson, was recently interviewed by Gelf Magazine. A magazine that, up until this morning, I had not heard of. A magazine that, even now, I don’t care about. Nevertheless, an amusing interview.

Ji Lee made blank speech bubble shaped stickers and hung them up around town. Here is what people wrote on them.

I’ve never played Warcraft, and I don’t plan on it. Still, when I read that there was a plague sweeping the online, multiplayer game, that caught my attention. The last bit of drama to make its way to my ears from this culture was that there were “bullies” that had extremely tough characters, and would go beat ass and set these poor, poor nerds back about half a lifetime. Boo hoo. Now there are people spreading a virus that, unless you are a supreme being, pretty much wipes you out. To see how it works in the game, you can watch this short video. Essentially you just explode, guts flying everywhere, and a pile of bones is left behind. Weird.

What a classic prank!

This pumpkin sprouted up in our back yard, and once we noticed it resembled a squash plant, we left it alone. It eventually became a tremendous plant, stretching out into the driveway and back into the yard, about 20 feet!

It did have two pumpkins growing on it, but John stepped on one accidentally and broke it off the vine. Still, this was taken several days ago, and it’s grown a lot even since then!

Yesterday after finishing our round of golf for the Smitty Tour, I snapped this fairly worthless shot of some plant. So here you are.

When asked where the cash for repairing areas damaged by hurricane Katrina would come from, Bush answered: “We’re going to have to make sure we cut unnecessary spending. We should not raise taxes.” Hey, I’ve got an unnecessary expense you could cut out! The Iraq war! Idiot. Even Clinton has finally begun to make some criticisms of the moron, which is very uncharacteristic of a former president.

(For no real reason, here’s a two part interview with Clinton that’s semi-interesting.)

Hurricanes are getting stronger. According to researchers, the amount of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has doubled in the past 35 years. They claim that increase is consistent with the increase in sea surface temperature over the same span of time, but that it’s difficult to explain how the two relate.

That’s one theory attempting to explain the tremendous strength of Katrina. Another, supported by the all-knowing Pat Robertson, is that God brought his wrath down upon New Orleans for a very explicit reason. The decision to let Ellen Degeneres, an overt lesbian, host the Emmys. For him, the evidence is clear: “Is it any surprise that the Almighty chose to strike at Miss Degeneres’ hometown?” In order to prevent further tragedies, we must prevent any homosexual from hosting the event in the future. Moreover, “America is waiting for her to apologize for the death and destruction that her sexual deviance has brought onto this great nation.” I couldn’t have possibly come up with something this ludicrous if I tried. The worst part is that SO many people are buying this shit.

I’m afraid John Cleese has revoked our independence from England. I agree with his assessment of our macrobreweries, at the very least.

Baghdad Burning has been updated with the first part of two covering the draft constitution in Iraq.

Here’s some manta rays leaping out of the water.

We’ve heard by now so much crappy liberal rhetoric & “funny jokes” about the bush regime’s fascist ideology & actions, so i can understand reluctance to read any more about it. Paul Craig Roberts, a regular contributer to counterpunch, apparently snapped yesterday and has rendered all such nambypambying obsolete. ‘Bush = Hitler’ nonsense has become the liberal equivalent of W’04 bumper stickers: empty gestures & cowardly ignorance. Can we drop the bullshit and just string these fuckers up?

Share an office with a Bushie? Spit in their coffee. See any precious ribbon magnets in the parking lot? Nab ‘em, and for good measure piss on their door handles. Hear some lib wiseass cracking fascist jokes? Lay it down for ‘em clean and cold: This shit ain’t funny. We’re letting them bend us over, tear open our pants and… WE’RE LAUGHING ABOUT IT?!

All this fluffy Daily Show bullshit about finger pointing in Katrina’s wake—but only one quick wisecrack about who got the no-bid contracts to clean up the Gulf Coast. Can i pre-empt you hardline crapitalists out there by pointing out that Bechtel, Halliburton & Co. certainly didn’t build civilization’s infrastructure in the first place; what exactly qualifies them to attempt it now? These are the men (possibly women, too) who have ruined it for the rest of us. So long as these onanistic powerlusters walk among us, we are in danger. Total eradication is the key.

Listen, it may seem pointless; we may feel powerless at times. But look: we can easily make a difference. Watch for that creepy, tight-lipped waxy corpse in his crisp suit and tie, roaming the surface of the earth like he goddamn owns it. Maybe he’s your manager or the lawyer your mom clerks for; maybe the regional director of your UPS office or the chancellor at your university. You’ve seen him, he creeps you out; he’s fucked you or someone you know. The monster’s wound so tightly (power politics at a price) that a few well-timed displays of resistance might just blow his pathetic, rotten heart for good. Maybe an aneurysm, or a stroke. Stop at nothing. Fight back everyday and make no apologies.

Once they’re all gone, we can get our lives back.

[End screed.]

The “news” on everyone’s lips today seems to be Bush’s bathroom break note. It’s said that he passed the note on to Condi, but what actually makes it funny is that he phrased it in the form of a question.

Let’s take a look at the actual content:
I think I MAY NEED A BATHroom break? Is this possible…
and it trails off from there.

A fascinating look into the mind of an incompetent dipshit.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is uniting Sunni Muslims against Shia, in an effort to bring about an Iraqi civil war. He’s actually making significant progress, too. It’s said that he’s in control of Ramadi and several other key places. There’s a $25 million dollar price on his head now. I’m almost anxious to see how Bush will try to present this as “progress”. You know he will.

A federal judge ruled the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional in public schools. Other than the fact that it’s highly reminiscent of the Hitler Youth, the only problem I’ve ever had with it is that it includes “under God”, which I later learned was added during the Red Scare by the religious group The Kinights of Columbus. The reason it was just ruled unconstitutional was because of this inclusion, despite our supposed freedom of religion. Or, as he so accurately put it: it violates school children’s right to be “free from a coercive requirement to affirm God.” Exactly.

Speaking of judges, Ralph Nader has some questions for John Roberts.

If you thought biodiesel was awesome before, wait until you hear this. A German inventor has reputably found a way to incorporate dead cats into his fuel mixture. Thank goodness, because Germany’s practice of slaughtering perfectly healthy cats without cause has left them with a tremendous surplus of the dead felines. If I have to keep Shiva for a couple more weeks, I’ll have one lump of fuel ready for him to use! (I’m kidding, Echanos.)

The Onion, once again, has sarcastically predicted the future. Their article “Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades” about plans to make an absurd razor, just recently came true when Gilette announced their new five-blade razor. Awesome.

If you’ve got an annoying neighbor, then this CD is for you. I especially like track 10. That’d get ‘em wondering.

Boy, I sure found jack shit to look at today!

Firstly, Bush got as close as he ever has to admitting a mistake. He actually uttered the phrase “I take responsibility”, with regard to mismanagement on the federal level in the response to hurricane Katrina. Astounding! Now, it really wasn’t solely Bush’s fault, but good lord… is he really taking “ownership” (as they say in the corporate world)? I suppose he’s accountable for keeping tabs on FEMA and the National Guard. Well, either way, it’s good to see that he is capable of recognizing that something went wrong. Up to now, I don’t think I’ve seen any other evidence of that.

Google Earth threatens democracy? That’s right - due to it’s ability to provide detailed satellite imagery of the whole earth, you can find military bases, and even take inventory! I didn’t have time to read the entire article, but I’m sure it’s fascinating.

Google has released a new page: the blog search. I bet it works great, but I don’t have anything I want to search for!