Happy Leap Day, everybody. Even more special than Leap Day is that this is the fifth Friday in February, which only happens in leap years when February 1st is on a Friday. And that’s only something like once every 28 years, so this is only the second one in my lifetime (so far; it’s about 50-50 odds that I’ll be around for another one).
I thought maybe there would be some interesting things that would happen on such an auspicious day, but couldn’t really find much. On the last one – in 1980 – Gordie Howe became the first NHL player to score 800 goals. Before that, in 1952, Dick Button won his 5th consecutive World Figure Skating championship. That’s about it, I guess. Not too exciting.
Maybe Bill O’Reilly could give away free falalaloofahs on fifth Friday in February day? Or at least the first five hundred fifty-five Fox fascists who buy four falalafaloofahs get the fifth fucker for free.
Yeah, the weekend came about a day late this week.
Good morning, sheeple! My Jets are making some noise in free agency, so I have something to be happy about.
BETA A!I!V! (Beta Danu is thrilled :pup: ) :pirate: :tap: A!I!V! :dancers: A!I!V! :fist:
And Beemer, I saw your post yesterday. I :love: Grave, Mwah HaHa … but Most HATE working nights :rofl2:
MERRIE LEAP DAY ALL — :pirate: :yippee: :pup: :cat:
Do Something Radical/Environmental Today, to put that “energy” out to the World — Tea :joe: Cheers 😉
Saw these last night. Pretty nifty. The picture doesn’t do them justice.
Jets are making some noise
I thought that sound was worn out bearings…
Once upon a frivilous time when in my fortys I found myself fascinated by the fortuitous flow of the frothy river foam into the Firth Of Forth from the fabled Forth Bridge near Edinburgh but unfortunately my memory is not forthcoming whether twas on the fifth friday of February.
To quote Eric Cartman:
“Fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck.”
I’m out.
Read in the Post Thursday the FDIC is preparing to handle up to 100 bank failures. That is scary.
This society is spending lots of time these days moaning and groaning about its problems. I haven’t heard one person – especially the candidates – try to identify what the problems are. Instead they are whipping out the band-aids and trying a patch job.
For example, let’s look at what went wrong with the banks and the mortgage industry. One word: de-regulation. 100 banks may fail, but I contend it isn’t their fault. They are playing by the rules set up in the 80s after the second worst President in American history – never thought I would say that in my lifetime – caused the collapse of the Savings & Loan industry so his banking buddies could seize S&L assets.
Does anyone have any idea just how much money has evaporated from the American economy? I’m not talking about all that cash supposedly sent to Iraq/Afghanistan that ended up in the Cheney-hoods pockets. I’m not even talking about the dollar being worth only half what it was when the worst President in American history took office.
Before a problem can be fixed we must first identify what caused the problem. If I have a water leak I don’t start changing all the washers – remember those? – in my faucets if the problem isn’t in the sink. First I have to figure out where the leak is, if there is a leak at all.
It’s called the “scientific process,” something most conservatives are intellectually incapable of understanding.
I’ve always wanted to see the northern lights. I’ve seen pictures, of course, but I think the real thing must be a beautiful sight. Did you take pictures, PJ?
No, I didn’t take pictures. Probably should have. I don’t know that it was the aurora, though. According to the weather dork this morning, it was because it was so cold last night that ice crystals formed in the air, and acted like prisms refracting the light from all the street lights, creating these colorful pillars of light stretching way up into the sky.
Saw the aurora here when I was a kid, though. They’re not normally visible this far south, but once in a while they are. Pretty cool.
Those beautiful snowflakes drifting out of the sky may have a surprise inside – bacteria.
Most snow and rain form in chilly conditions high in the sky, and atmospheric scientists have long known that, under most conditions, the moisture needs something to cling to in order to condense.
Now, a new study shows a surprisingly large share of those socalled nucleators are bacteria that can affect plants.
snip
In some samples, as much as 85 percent of the nuclei were bacteria, Christner said in a telephone interview. The bacteria were most common in France, followed by Montana and the Yukon, and were present to a lesser degree in Antarctica.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/02/29/bacteria_snow_mix_in_forecast/
pjsauter, beautiful. I JUST HAPPENED to be in Washington (coastal and surrounding area) when ‘The Lights” appeared rather rarely due to Intense Solar Flares. At Coast I saw. It was ALIVE – it was like several blending into several intense Spirit snakes filing most of the dark, clear sky: pulsing, wiggling, above me. An Awesome experience like nothing I have or will encounter. The First Time. How is the Solar activity in your area? …… :pirate: :growl:
Here’s the Boston Globe’s report of Preznit’s press conference. It’s quite amazing.
I was talking to an art gallery owner yesterday and he is very worried about the next couple of years here. He was considering taking out a loan but talked to his congressman about things. That guy said he shouldn’t take out a loan if he isn’t positive he can pay it back. He told the gallery owner that since he still has a space he should approach the landlord for a little help and consider selling something else. The congressman said 4 states are in recession, Ca, Az, Fla and Mi. I wouldn’t be surprised if Co wasn’t there either. I didn’t recognize his name so I can’t remember it now. He also said this is gonna be worse than after 9/11. 😯
Goddamn Democrats. We wouldn’t be in this difficulty if they’d pass a new FISA bill with retroactive telecom immunity.
Yay! Mama just read my email! :pup:
Good morning Steph and Mooks,
Everytime you guys say “Sheboygan” I get flashbacks of my puberty which was spent in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Sheboygan was where my menstrual life started, yum! Sheboygan was where that mean girl, Mary Dietrich threatened me on my first day as a new student at Horace Mann Middle School. This was the school in Sheboygan, where I felt so alone and friendless, that I ran away after first hour, 3 days in a row and took the Sheboygan City bus home and when my parents found out, had a talk with the princiPAL who solved the problem by assigning me some friends. Yeah, that works for teenagers. It was the summer after that, in Sheboygan, where I tried desperately to get my mom to pay for me to go to a private Lutheran school because I was so afraid to go back to Horace Mann. It was in Sheboygan, where that kid Joe Schmoe(I think that was his real name) would sit behind me in math AND gym and draw on my back or pull my hair causing me to dread going to class every day. It was in Sheboygan, again, where a bunch of kids from the neighborhood came to my door and ganged up on me because I let David next door kiss me in his garage and he was going out with Stacey across the street. You guys may enjoy saying “Sheboygan” gratuitously, but some of us out here still have scars from living in Sheboygan. So, I would appreciate it if you would find a different town to verbalize indiscriminately. How about Oconomowok? Or Pewaukee? There are a slew of other towns in Wisconsin that sound funny.
Thankyou, for your cooperation
Krista in Phoenix
kp – apologies for publishing a joke after your # 16…. don’t mean to trivialize your god-awful Sheboygan experiences. :billcat:
Why do they have to burn the toast when it’s 1 degree out? Not that I mind taking a little break, but geez….
Funny, but when I hear Sheboygan, I think of Archie Bunker, because when Archie was a kid, they were poor, so he had to wear one shoe and one boot, and the kids called him Shoebooty, which doesn’t really sound like Sheboygan, but that’s what I think of anyway.
Hey, FK, you should come visit your brother in Ithaca at the end of March, and then you can attend the Rod Serling Conference at Ithaca College.
Don’t worry FK, nothing can dampen getting attention on the radio! :yippee:
Let’s play a new game. Ala Jeff Foxworthy, let’s play “You might be a conservative…” I’ll start with an easy one.
You might be a conservative if you have already picked out an oil rich nation to bomb into submission.
“If you’re a guy who feels physically threatened by a black male in a men’s room and your first thought is to offer to blow him…you may be a conservative.”
…days and years are not neatly synchronized. This problem has confounded calendar makers for centuries, and prompted corrections far more clumsy than an occasional extra day in February.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/opinion/29turney.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin
If you think that subsidizing Exxon is just ducky but S-CHIP is an unconscionably use of YOUR tax money, you may be a conservative but you are certainly an SOB.
Listening to this ‘Dr. Paul’ guy who called into Jeff yesterday about there being no question McCain is a ‘natural-born’ citizen because both his parents were US citizens.
He said Benjamin Franklin wasn’t born in the US (he wasn’t president, either, but never mind). He was born in Boston (which, admittedly, wasn’t in the United States in 1709, for obvious reasons). He said George Washington was born in Mexico. But Washington was born in Virginia. I think he said Barry Goldwater (not President either, of course) was born in the West Indies, but he was born in Arizona (which wasn’t a state yet in 1909, but it was a US territory).
Now, I’m not saying that St. McCain isn’t a natural born US citizen because he was born in Panama, but according to this State Department document:[pdf]
On Wednesday, John McCain received the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee, the evangelical Texas mega-church leader.
snip
But what Hagee believes could turn out to be a problem for McCain, if the reaction over the past few days is any indication. As CBS News’ Dante Higgins points out, Catholic leaders asked McCain to distance himself from Hagee over anti-Catholic comments such as calling the Catholic Church “The Great Whore.”
McCain responded to a question on the issue today by saying that while he is “very proud of the Pastor John Hagee’s spiritual leadership to thousands of people and I am proud of his commitment to the independence and the freedom of the state of Israel,” it “does not mean that I support or endorse or agree with some of the things that Pastor John Hagee might have said or positions that he may have taken on other issues.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/02/29/politics/horserace/entry3892932.shtml
SBR Titanic seen floundering in high seas.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/stock_quote?Symbol=$INDU
Now one has to ask if we get 12% inflation and the
marketcrap shoot just manages to stay afloat will it really be the “good deal” it is made out to be. :reaper: :reaper:Sam says that we can write to pcollins@airamerica.com to ask that Sam be on the air 5 days a week. It sounded as if Sam has some hope that this may be in the offering.
I wonder how many “Military brats” are out there that were born on military installations in Western Europe some place who just think they are citizens :reaper: :reaper:
I think if your parents are citizens, then you are too. Natural born, I don’t know. But if your mother isn’t a citizen and mamages to give birth in a US Embassy or military base, that doesn’t make you a citizen (as opposed to your mother swimming across the river and giving birth on US soil, which would make you a US citizen.
Fred, having grown up a military brat I can tell you it doesn’t matter for two reasons. First, born in a military hospital you are on sovereign U.S. soil. Second, as PJ says born to one parent who is a citizen makes the child a citizen.
That citizenship argument going around is simply a smoke screen. Let’s throw some green leaves on the fire – or greenbacks if you can’t afford leaves these days – and see who coughs.
It’s just interesting, because it’s never been tested before (relative to an elected president). I think common sense and the spirit of the Constitution would say that Johnny would qualify, but it’s an interesting thing to think about. And since common sense and the spirit of the Constitution have all but been flushed down the toilet the last 7 years or so, who’s to say what could happen (ponder, for a moment, if it was Obama born on foreign soil instead of McCain, and imagine what we’d be hearing from the wingnuts).
Great Firesign Theater line…
Ben Franklin, the only President of the United States who was never President of the United States.
they need to add Gore to that line, Vern.
I’ll have to miss the Rod Serling conference PJ, but will pass er on to the bro.
***
You know you’re a conservative if George Bush is the head of your local mensa chapter.
You know you’re a conservative if you love the fetus but hate children (fetuses don’t cost as much I suppose).
You’re a conservative when “green” means it’s something you only wear one day in March.
for my Giants pals:
:bow:
Funny, ‘kat, that the way I heard that story today was that it was a setback for Bonds. I haven’t had a chance to dig in yet. I really don’t think the prosecution can win this case and don’t know why they are even trying.