Rowhouse Logic - Breathtaking Inanity

At the time of his appointment, I really couldn’t think of a less inspired choice to be the first head of homeland security than Tom Ridge. At the time he was my governor, and suffered the awful malady of so many Pennsylvania politicians, in that he was more than content to preside over the slow death of his commonwealth. He brought little or nothing in the way of creative thought to his job as Pennsylvania’s Governor, and took great pride in his small solutions for a commonwealth that is in very desperate need of broad, daring, politically dangerous strokes. Such is the nature of Ridge. Such is the nature of my commonwealth. I’m quite sure he brought that same lack of vision and that same unwillingness to make tough choices to the Department of Homeland Security.

Goodbye and good riddance.

However, my advice to you is to scream out as loud as you can whatever word you choose to use, if you wish to have any reasonable expectation that the right people are going to listen and do something about your grave concerns.

Since it has come to my attention that not everybody who visits this site regularly reads Eschaton or trowels the DKos Diaries, I feel duty bound to ask all of you to take a few minutes and read this.

Get a little bit louder now.

The flash animation, regarding the use of depleted uranium shells, that has been making the rounds today is more than a little disturbing. Being a bit of a skeptic about nearly everything, I would like to see more documentation with regards to where those figures and percentages come from. Nevertheless, the use of depleted uranium, or any other radioactive material, without a very thorough understanding of its effect on human life, is disgusting. We are littering Iraq’s cities, towns and countryside, for the second time, with tons upon tons of depleted uranium with little regard for its long or short-term consequences. Those consequences will, more than likely, be felt, in the most brutal of ways, by all sides, innocent or otherwise.

I hope the whoever decided it was okay to use Coltrane to advertise Kmart, lives a very long, awful and brutal life. Defiling one our country’s greatest artist’s work, for comercial or any other purpose, is utterly beneath contempt.

Ah, where begin? This story has it all; A young reporter leaving ‘ill advised’ voicemail messages, psychic friends, an assortment of nuts, and even everybody’s favorite dog lover and home schooler, Rick Santorum, in his new role as ‘baby killer’. Bless the lot of them. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll lock your doors.

It’s for these special occasions that I feel I must reprise my favorite simile, and why not, it’s won me such high praise in the past. Yes indeed, that shit is so out, I feel as though a koala crapped a rainbow in my brain.

(Simile Courtesy of Sealab 2021)

[update] Pretty sloppy on my part. Santorum isn’t involved at all - silly me. Oops. It’s my other Senator, Alren “whip me” Specter, who is the ‘baby killer’. I should really cut back on the daytime drinking.

Didn’t our incoming Attorney General have something to do with this, or its justification?

The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion “tantamount to torture” on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

“The construction of such a system, whose stated purpose is the production of intelligence, cannot be considered other than an intentional system of cruel, unusual and degrading treatment and a form of torture,” the report said. It said that in addition to the exposure to loud and persistent noise and music and to prolonged cold, detainees were subjected to “some beatings.” The report did not say how many of the detainees were subjected to such treatment.

There are no words. These acts are being committed in our name and on our behalf. Not a one of these people has been convicted of anything as yet. Very few, if any, ever will. Where is this getting us exactly? Is this the new face of American morality?

Well I must be even further out of the loop than I thought. I had no idea that superstores were selling this sort of thing. I guess that as a concerned liberal, I should be worried that this will put local business in jeopardy.

For some reason, when reading this article about the Administration’s plan to replace its economic team with outsiders in the hopes of booting its ability to communicate ‘economic policy’, I couldn’t help but imagine Bush saying something like this;

“Go forth and bring me the used car salesmen, bring me the telemarketers, bring me the infomercial hosts, bring them all here to me, for I have crap to sell and it requires a high and holy load of bullshit.”

Maybe I should have some coffee and a sedative, and these terrible thoughts will go away.

[Update] I forgot the faith healers. How could I have done that? Oh well, bring on the faith healers and let them multiply!

No shit? Really? It’s too bad that destroying a vital social program isn’t as cheap as it used to be. A real pity.

If only we could find some strange alchemy that would turn ignorance of the Separation of Powers, on the part of Congressional Republicans, into cold hard currency, we could pay for everything and then some.

If you knew how much of my life I’ve lost staring at Excel spreadsheets, you would understand my glee at learning that Micrsoft doesn’t own the name.

I hope the imposter, who’s taken Friedman’s place, sticks around for a while. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, have a look at this:

In my next life, I want to be Tom DeLay, the House majority leader.

But most of all, I want to have the gall to sully American democracy at a time when young American soldiers are fighting in Iraq so we can enjoy a law-based society here and, maybe, extend it to others. Yes, I want to be Tom DeLay. I want to wear a little American flag on my lapel in solidarity with the troops, while I besmirch every value they are dying for.

This bit about hummers is priceless:

Yes, I want to drive the mother of all gas-guzzlers that gets so little mileage you have to drive from gas station to gas station. Yes, I want to drive my Hummer and never have to think that by consuming so much oil, I am making transfer payments to the worst Arab regimes that transfer money to Islamic charities that transfer money to madrassas that teach children intolerance, antipluralism and how to hate the infidels.

And when one day one of those madrassa graduates goes off and joins the jihad in Falluja and kills my neighbor’s son, who is in the U.S. Army Rangers, I want to drive to his funeral in my Hummer. Yes, I want to curse his killers in front of his mother and wail aloud, “If there was only something I could do …” And then I want to drive home in my Hummer, stopping at two gas stations along the way.

(via First-Draft)

N’ice Chouffe, 2003 Limited Edition. Brewed by Brasserie D’Achouffe, Achouffe, Belgium.

Now this is a holiday ale worth having around. Brasserie D’Achouffe makes a new edition each winter and this is the 2003 edition. If you can find it, be sure to grab a bottle. The price, at about $14 a bottle, will seem a bit steep until you crack it open and drink it. At 10% alcohol by volume, you probably won’t be regretting your choice by the time you’re done.

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Set the metronome to a hair under 60 - four beats a measure, the quarter note gets the beat. Clap along.

Quarter note, quarter note, quarter note triplet.

-The rhythm of gunshots in the distance, as heard from my roof a few minutes ago.

I wonder if whatever happened will get as much attention as that fight at the Piston’s game last weekend?

Actualy, no I don’t. I know the answer.

I hope that everyone involved, in whatever I just heard, is still alive and, if alive, not brutally maimed. I hope the bloodbath matters one day. I don’t want to lose anyone else. Not like that.

If you are anything like me, it may well have been something like this.

We need to get a little bit louder. Now!

…Chasing the noses away.

I’m not sure whether I’m still recovering from the server eating my homework, or if I’m just well fed, but I don’t have a thing to say. Enjoy whatever it is you’re supposed to enjoy about Black Friday.

I have slightly mixed feelings on this, as I could see the law being used improperly, but overall, the legislation described in this article, seems like a very positive step. The law is basically an attempt to make it easier to crack down on delis that operate in a less than reputable manner and serve as magnets for neighborhood crime.

To understand why this is an issue, you need to have a basic familiarity with Pennsylvania’s liquor laws, which are surely the most bizarre in the nation. In Pennsylvania, all hard liquor and wine are sold by the state, in what we usually refer to as “State Stores”. State Stores cannot sell beer. Either beer distributors or establishments that sell some type of prepared food and offer seating sell all the beer. Odd description, I know.

The reason for the ambiguity is this; while an establishment that serves prepared food and offers seating sounds like a restaurant, in reality, it need not be. That’s because an establishment can qualify if it offers one variety of inedible sandwich and a dusty table and chair in the storage room. The beer store around the corner from me, for example, offers only liverwurst sandwiches and has a table in the basement. Obviously they are not interested in selling too many sandwiches. They are not a nuisance either, and hopefully won’t be targeted as such.

The problem comes when a tiny store opens up on a residential street, selling only 40’s of malt liquor and crack pipes, stays open all night, and allows drug dealers to operate out of the store. These establishments are often the scenes of murders and other violent crime, and eat at the fabric of communities that need all the fabric they can get.

I’ll wait to see how effective this new law is, and whether or not it is used to shut down legitimate businesses before I offer my wholehearted praise. At the moment, however, it looks as though the Pennsylvania legislature may have gotten something right. Once a decade is better than never I suppose.

Autumn continues in the city.

This is just a little continuation of my previous post about autumn in the Wissahickon Valley. I feel a bit guilty that I haven’t posted any pictures of rowhouses, since this is, after all, a site named Rowhouse Logic.This sad picture represents my first, feeble attempt in that endeavor.

I actually get a pretty decent number of hits from people searching for the word ‘rowhouse’. I can’t help but imagine a kid living in a ranch house somewhere, who has been assigned some brutal school project involving rowhouses, or urban America or whatever. The poor kid diligently Googles away, stumbles on this site, and winds up reading my verbal sludge. Poor kid.

Such is life kido. Better get used to it now, or it will bite you in the ass when you’re about 22 or 23.

Anyway, I took this picture from my roof on Monday because I thought that tree was pretty. While I myself am more used to the flat roof variety of rowhouse, those slanted roofs you see are indeed the roofs of rowhouses — The old school variety. If you want to see a bigger clearer picture, click here.

I wrote all kinds of great stuff last night. Really terrific, earth shattering stuff. The kind of stuff that would leave you breathless and inspired. Really! Way better than any of the other crap I’ve got on this site. You’ll have to take my word for it though, because my server ate my homework, or whatever. Anyway, after such a loss, I fear I won’t be doing much writing today. Recovery and all.

To compensate I’ve placed a short play by Mark Leyner named Jenny Jones Takes on Postmodernism, in the extended entry. It’s well worth a read.
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I have to admit that it looks mighty photoshoped to me but, what the hell? Good clean fun, right? Apparently this sign is gracing Interstate 4 in Orlando. For whatever it’s worth, the picture itself is from the Democratic Underground Forums, and Raw Story says it’s legit.

Anyway, it made me think of that Hunter S. Thompson quote, from Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72, that was floating around a few weeks ago:

“This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it — that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.”

Again, I don’t buy the picture’s legitimacy, but we live in a world and a country where it’s not unfathomable. If you ask me, that’s the part that’s downright fucked.

I discussed, the other day, the need to document every vile, hate filled word that spills from Tom Delay’s filthy mouth and present it for public consumption. I’ve just learned, from reading TPM, that David Donnelly, of a group called Public Campaign Action Fund, has a blog dedicated to exposing Delay’s corruption. It’s called the Daily Delay. Go have a look.

I think it would be a good idea to take this a step further though, and make an extensive, searchable database of every one of Delay’s vile utterances. Is there such a thing already and if so, where is it?

I think I feel a project coming on.