I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
aeon frist.
The Bush error is over!
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Second?
Thers will be sooooo excited.
So which congressman's favorite football team (or team from that state) did not make it into a BCS bowl?
Jayzus H. Crisco. Well, hell, guess we'd better sign up on Monday for the universal health care and job training programs they must've implemented before they got down to that last night.
Oh.
waaah! it's too early for me to bang my forehead on my desk.
stop.
Incinerating Iraqis; the Napalm Cover-Up
The UK Independent ran an article which confirmed that the US had "lied to Britain over the use of napalm in Iraq". (06-17-05) Since then, not one American newspaper or TV station has picked up the story even though the Pentagon has verified the claims. This is the extent to which the American "free press" is yoked to the center of power in Washington. As we've seen with the Downing Street memo, (which was reluctantly reported 5 weeks after it appeared in the British press) the air-tight American media ignores any story that doesn't embrace their collective support for the war. The prospect that the US military is using "universally reviled" weapons runs counter to the media-generated narrative that the war was motivated by humanitarian concerns (to topple a brutal dictator) as well as to eliminate the elusive WMDs. We can now say with certainty that the only WMDs in Iraq were those that were introduced by foreign invaders from the US who have used them to subjugate the indigenous people.
http://
www.informationclearingho...article9307.htm
Feel the love. The neocon love!
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So which congressman's favorite football team (or team from that state) did not make it into a BCS bowl?
formerrepub
Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner.
If a neo-con is discussing football, they ARE getting involved in the most important thing in their (warped) world.
watertiger!
I need help, sister. Do you have any advice for kolachki-making? My dough is sticky and I can't roll it out thin enough.
watertiger sez:
waaah! it's too early for me to bang my forehead on my desk.
I'd've thought the scar tissue that has built up would leave you impervious to forehead-meets-desk pain by now.
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gotta protect football from the christmas destroying liberals 
Moonbotica -- I am not looking forward to His Dark Materials. They've long said that, to avoid offending people, they're going to excise the religious element -- which is, y'know, the plot, the subtext, the setting, and most of the characters.
With the sudden rush to Americablog, it won't load.
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Here's an important issue, new tatoo restrictions by the Coast Guard, police, and Army via NYT:
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"It is uncomfortable sometimes," Chief Ward said of having to lecture subordinates about tattoos that can be deemed offensive, which are barred for everyone. "But now we've gotten to the point where people have flames and skulls with snakes coming out of their eyes. That just gives a negative view of the service and that person wearing the uniform."
Recruiters said gang-related tattoos were also becoming more common among applicants. "You've got to watch out for gang-related tattoos and swastikas," said Chief Petty Officer Bill Charest, a Coast Guard recruiter in Chula Vista, Calif.
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The thought is, no one with a tatoo showing can join up. uh oh
Iraqi soldiers killed in ambush
Fighters have attacked an Iraqi army patrol with a roadside bomb north of Baghdad ambushing the unit, killing 11 soldiers and wounding several other people.
Saturday's attack occurred in Udaim, a volatile town just north of Baquba, about 60km north of Baghdad.
The soldiers were travelling in a five-vehicle patrol when a bomb went off nearby and then the vehicle came under fire from nearby.
Eleven soldiers were killed and two were wounded in the assault, which also destroyed four military vehicles. Two other people, possibly fighters, were also killed, the police said, and five civilians were wounded.
Actually, if Smoky Joe obsesses over college football maybe he'll be too busy to do actual damage.
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And I'm gonna see Narnia, but knowing when I go in that I'm gonna be bludgeoned with Xian allegory.
I need help, sister. Do you have any advice for kolachki-making? My dough is sticky and I can't roll it out thin enough.
refrigerate the dough - let it rest. also, stick the roller in the freezer for a bit.
if it's still too sticky when you try to roll it, a light dusting of flour on the rolling pin and on the dough.
also, you have mail!
filk,
nuh-uh. Xian groups were complaining that it's not Xian ENOUGH.
filkertom sez:
And I'm gonna see Narnia, but knowing when I go in that I'm gonna be bludgeoned with Xian allegory.
I've always loved the books. Somehow the xtianity has always flown right over my head.
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I'd've thought the scar tissue that has built up would leave you impervious to forehead-meets-desk pain by now
It's not the forehead, it's the rattling of what brain matter I have left.
But I do love the internets so! Even as they bring us remarkable account that, forty years ago we would never have heard of until it was concluded, they also let me buy all of my Xmas pressies in a matter of thirty minutes!
Wowza!
filkertom,
If it helps, think the following: "NYMary's colleague's son programmed the shadows between the hairs on Aslan's mane!"
That';s how I plan to get through it.
But if we're looking for Xtian allegory, note the trailer for the new Superman, which looks pretty explicitly Jesus-based.
Football could disappear and I would not miss it myself. I appreciate people who enjoy it moderately, but after all these years in Texas, the living vicariously effect makes me nuts. They are doing the same thing to Basketball as well. When I watch people who have little extra in income paying reams for team merchandise, tickets and then spending most of their life wrapped in someone's jersey, well....
From looking at his picture at that site, it looks like Joe Barton (R-TX) has seen the inside of a few "bowls", and I'm not talking football.....
spork_incident same here i loved reading the Narnia books when i was younger but the whole christan allegory thing bypassed me.
That's a mighty big fiddle, while Iraqis are napalmed.
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I've always loved the books. Somehow the xtianity has always flown right over my head.
Thank you. When I first read the books as a kid, I had no idea about Lewis' evangelical ideas. I read a fantasy adventure series.
there's some christian imagery in narnia but that's true of practically every book in western literature. I never saw it as overtly christian and neither did c.s. lewis
Civil partnership law to hurt some same-sex couples
The new rights the Act brings are to be celebrated, but people claiming benefits will be poorer. Rupert Jones reports
Monday will be a day of celebration for thousands of same-sex couples, as that's when the Civil Partnership Act comes into effect. Just over two weeks after that, on December 21, we will see the first "gay weddings".
We don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but the Act isn't 100% good news when it comes to finances. It's important to be aware that, amid all the new rights and privileges that the laws will confer on lesbians and gay men, there are some financial drawbacks.
Harry Potter in the owlery
..and, to be clear, nor do I care. If people want to see it as the passion of the aslan they're free.
"So which congressman's favorite football team (or team from that state) did not make it into a BCS bowl?
formerrepub
Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner.
NYMary"
It's Barton from Texas. U. Texas is even lined up to be in the stupid BCS game, but they are being pissy because they have not been ranked #1 all season. Texans think they are being cheated because people would dare rank a team that has won 33 games in a row (USC) ahead of their Longhorns.
"So which congressman's favorite football team (or team from that state) did not make it into a BCS bowl?
formerrepub
Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner.
NYMary"
It's Barton from Texas. U. Texas is even lined up to be in the stupid BCS game, but they are being pissy because they have not been ranked #1 all season. Texans think they are being cheated because people would dare rank a team that has won 33 games in a row (USC) ahead of their Longhorns.
Thanks, wt! I'll try that. (The tollhouse dough is cooling its heels at this precise moment.)
I'll get back to you on the other thing when Thers wakes. We might be able to do a party in NYC itself: we have an apartment to ourselves on the subway.
if i get a chance to see the movie to me it will be pure fantasy in my mind.
Who wants to bet the *lack* of xtianity in the movie gets tied into the War on Christmas™?
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Who wants to bet the *lack* of xtianity in the movie gets tied into the War on Christmas™?
As watertiger noted, they're already whining. But I never considered the tie-in.
A house divided: experts differ over property market
· Halifax reports prices rising 1.2% last month
· Rival indices suggest little change or unsure recovery
The Halifax reported yesterday a healthy jump in house prices last month, which took the annual pace of increase to its strongest since May, but many experts thought the lender might be overstating any strength in the housing market.
Most data on the housing market in recent months have pointed to a solid recovery in mortgage demand but a more tentative recovery in prices, which by most measures remain very high.
there's some christian imagery in narnia but that's true of practically every book in western literature. I never saw it as overtly christian and neither did c.s. lewis
i've always been amused by writing class critiques. I'd submit a piece of writing, and all the adults in the class would read deep and meaningful intent into the most basic of scene descriptions.
It's called "projection."
NYMary -- eeugh. I'm a big Superman fan, and that trailer should be selling the hell out of it to me, and it just doesn't.
watertiger -- I think we might be talking about two different series, which is why I put the second post about seeing Narnia. My fault for not being clear, and the Guardian's fault for using the one series as the headline for the other.
Ahem:
Quite apart from the Narnia books, there are people working on movies of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass). That is the series I was referring to when I said that the filmmakers are planning to excise religion. The overarching plot is, basically, the overthrow of Heaven by a presumptuous mad scientist.
sometimes a spade is just a spade.
Arabella sez:
Harry Potter in the owlery
Col. Mustard in the library with the rope.
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Oh, fer....
ooh i loved Cluedo.
and Monopoly.
my family used to play boardgames before sky came along and computers lol.
NYMary -
Did Thers tell yoy I'll get the zombie show from last and send it?
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NYMary -
Did Thers tell yoy I'll get the zombie show from last and send it?
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Dartanyon
Merka isn't using napalm in Iraq, period. We use MK-77. Yeah, it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and engages in duck related program activities, but we refer to it as MK-77, so it isn't a duck, okay? Got to get your newspeak on!
In the middle of one of history's greatest clusterfucks, Congress is taking on the pressing problems of the BCS. Is this a great country of what?
Cult followings
If only more religious groups would get into the movies. John Patterson finds a new meaning for the term "cult" cinema
Every time some religious zealot braves the marketplace of secular-humanist film criticism, I find myself applauding. We'd be better off if more religions got into the act, made complete asshats of themselves by talking deity-driven nonsense out of their rear portals, and thus did untold damage to their reputations, their sects, and the very notion of organised religion.
Case in point: the reaction of the Christian evangelicals of the US to the documentary hit, March Of The Penguins. Fundies persuaded themselves that the movie was, variously, proof of "intelligent design", a defence of family values, and the best evangelical moviegoing experience since Mel Gibson's bloodsoaked version of the crucifixion.
Narnia has a christian subtext, that's not even very sub. It's disgusting how disney is trying to market this movie to xtian groups. The worst part of Narnia is that all the children are "saved" in the end, except for the oldest girl who gets interested in lipstick. If a child becomes a overt sexual being, that child will be cast out. Don't get me started on this topic. I'll be like fy without the white space.
Sassoon, I got a grand copy of Sassoon.
Thanks for asking.
fy | 12.03.05 - 9:38 am | #
wasting a thread like that would persuade me to vote chartreuse or purple over anything you say.
spork,
He didn't, but thanks!
Leave it to the supposed "free speech" advocate to abuse free expression by spamming every progressive HaloScan blog with line feeds.
"It's Barton from Texas. U. Texas is even lined up to be in the stupid BCS game, but they are being pissy because they have not been ranked #1 all season. Texans think they are being cheated because people would dare rank a team that has won 33 games in a row (USC) ahead of their Longhorns.
Bad Santa "
it worked with redistricting.
...if we're looking for Xtian allegory, note the trailer for the new Superman, which looks pretty explicitly Jesus-based.
Most likely you're referring to that Jor-El speech of Brando's... are they actually going to use his computer-generated presence?
From what I hear, this thing is a fucking mess from the git-go...
Most likely you're referring to that Jor-El speech of Brando's... are they actually going to use his computer-generated presence?
He says something like,l "They have good in them, but they must be helped to see it. I send you, my son, to help them." Or something.
Serf in USA,
Word!
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"it worked with redistricting."
EkCenTriK
The sad thing is we all know there are significant numbers of Texans that would spend millions and cheat their asses off to win some college football games. It's been a whole decade since a Texas college football program got a death penalty from the NCAA. Looks like they are about due.
dave™, NYMary -- I'm just ticked at 'em because they can't come up with anything new. I love the Reeve/Brando Superman. If you're gonna reinvent the franchise, reinvent the damn franchise. Don't use Williams' original score. Don't use Brando's voice. If you can't come up with something new, why the hell are you doing it?
I can't remember where I saw it, either yesterday or the day before, but it was an analysis of what was going wrong with the whole Superman Returns thang. And one of the points was that they were trying to get Michael Bay, and he ultimately wouldn't sign on because he thought the people in charge had no idea of what they were doing and no respect for the property. And the point of the article was, if Michael Bay thinks you're lacking respect, you are in deep kim-chee.
Gosh, what thoughtful comments on the subject at hand.
Did someone call 'Open Thread' and I missed it?
Well the Bush Administration will get their fingers on this and fuck it all up too. Can't wait.
>It's Barton from Texas. U. Texas is even lined up to be in the stupid BCS game, but they are being pissy because they have not been ranked #1 all season. Texans think they are being cheated because people would dare rank a team that has won 33 games in a row (USC) ahead of their Longhorns.
-Bad Santa
Whoa. Most Texas fans I know (including me) have no problem with being #2 if that means they get to play in the Rose Bowl against a defending national championship. Besides, Barton went to A&M, so he could probably give a rat's ass where UT is ranked. This is entirely trivial, I know, and hardly worth discussion, but I thought I'd defend the tiny speck of blue in the ridiculously red state of Texas.
If Bush is able to admit the BCS has problems, maybe it's just practice to admitting the Iraq war has problems?
Another "AlQaeda's #3" - WooHooo!! Do straight guys use cockrings ?
That's GOP congressional 'oversight' for you.
Why am I not surprised that this came from a Texas Republican?
Hearings on the BCS is the height of insanity. THERE IS NO NCAA DIVISION 1 CHAMPION IN FOOTBALL. Every team that is above .500 is elegible to play 1 post-season game, that's it. Private organizations invite teams to play games in "bowls". There is no championship. There is no official number one.
Before the BCS and outside the 4 BCS bowls, many big conferences had arrangements with bowls. The Peach Bowl, for example, matches up teams from the SEC and the ACC. Bowls typically get to pick whichever eligible team from that conference is available . . . the Gator Bowl once picked NCSU over Maryland even though Maryland had a "better" record than NCSU.
Why would a bowl choose a team with a worse record over a team with a better record? Because they put on bowls for money, not determining a champion or final rankings. And while one might think that TV ratings are the only thing that count, bowl organizers care about selling tickets and getting visitors into their towns.
Prior to the BCS, conferences had contracts with Bowls to send their conference champions to play other conference champions for bragging rights. It was in many cases *impossible* for the top 2 teams to match up. So the 4 Bowls with the contracts with the biggest conferences got together and figured out a way to 1.) preserve their traditional alliances with conferences 2.) match up two of the top teams in the USA and 3.) rotate the top game around. The result is the BCS.
Is that "fair" to the lesser football conferences? Before the BCS they had no shot at the mythical national championship, after the BCS they still have no shot at the mytical "national championship". Does the BCS "champion" get a big pay-out of money? Yes, but that's because the BCS has created a system to make money for the payout . . . inviting teams that don't sell-out their home stadiums or who have small stadiums would ruin that system.
Why not just have a Division 1 college championship? Its a thought, but the bottom line is that the NCAA folks don't want to. For one thing, would the lesser conferences agree to an official championship that didn't guarantee them a place at the table? No. Would a Division 1 championship that only took the top team each from each conference and excluded the very best conferences number 2 teams be worth watching?
Nope. At a minimum it would have to be a 16 team tournement, to include the 11 division 1 conference champions, the best independent team, and the 4 best runners-up. The first round match-ups would be atrocious. It would just be a chance for players to get injured. The second round would not be much better. Only the semifinals and finals would likely provide quality football matchups . . . and god forbid there was an upset.
Sure, you could just take the 4 top BCS teams and have a semi-finals but the lesser conferences won't agree to that and that just shifts the the complaining from the 3d place team to the 5 and 6 teams.
Of course it's a Republican who's behind this brilliant idea -- smaller, less intrusive government and all that. What's next -- Senate hearings on the designated hitter rule?
Shouldn't they be working on the poll to determine the next Al-Qaeda #3?
Just sayin'. Joe Barton is a FUCKING ASSHOLE. We're choking to death on his post-hurricane loosening up of the emission requirements hereabouts and he's concerned about bowl games? WTF? I hope he swallows a football and gets piles therefrom.
fy | 12.03.05 - 9:38 am | #
wasting a thread like that would persuade me to vote chartreuse or purple over anything you say.
el
I love how he thinks being a pain in the ass is going to sway any of us over to his "side."
Eh, I think fy doesn't want to sway anybody. He only does it to annoy. Odd sort of ambition, that.
Our newspaper group includes part of Smokey Joe's district; I've got a column in the pipeline for next week already worked up.
To the extent the University of Texas's team is getting screwed by the poll rankings, and I don't think it is, that's just an example of turnabout being fair play. I graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, a.k.a. Cal. Cal's football team had a great regular season last season last year, losing only one game, and that by less than a touchdown to U.$.C. Notwithstanding that, Texas moved ahead of Cal in the poll at the end of the season, so that Texas and not Cal played in the Rose Bowl. Evidently, a bunch of Southern teams' coaches gave Texas a higher ranking in the polls than it merited in order to make their own teams -- Texas's rivals -- look more impressive. The excuse was that in the final week, Cal beat Mississippi State by "only" ten points, though had it wanted to Cal could've run up the score by scoring another touchdown in the closing seconds and the game was at the end of the season only because it'd been delayed from earlier in the season (otherwise, Cal's 41-6 drubbing of Stanford would've been its last regular-season game). Why didn't Barton call for an investigation after this snubbing?
At any rate, I usually root for blue-state teams over red-state teams, regardless of the sport. If Texans want a national championship, they should start electing some Democrats to statewide office. And what is the deal with calling Houston's NFL team the Texans? Yes, I know, the Cowboys used to be called the Texans. But it represents a complete lack of imagination to name one's team after one's state. Does that mean the 49ers, Raiders or Chargers should change their name to the Californians, or the Giants and Jets should call themselves the New Yorkers? How about the Houston DeLays or the Houston Enrons? 
I have a confession to make. My guilty pleasure is Veggie Tales movies. They're funny enough for you to ignore the obvious Xtian allegories.
Football - nice to see how the Repugs have their priorities in order!
Comic Book Guy:
Weren't the Kansas City Chiefs once called the Dallas Texans?
>Why didn't Barton call for an investigation after this snubbing?
Mainly because Texas had been screwed out of a BSC game in the two years before last year, and Mack Brown lobbied the crap out of the voters. Worked out, anyway--the Rose Bowl was a true classic.
So it doesn't count that UT is in a true-blue county (Travis) in the middle of a ocean of red? No sympathy at all?
The unpaid gladiators in the football arena should be forced to play three additional playoff games every year in which they stand an excellent chance of being maimed, thereby preventing them from having a short but lucrative career in which they do get paid and incidently keeping them away from their studies on the off chance that some of these guys actually want to graduate, so we can settle water cooler ranting about who the best team is because it's just so fucking wrong to not have all matters settled.
What a huge pile of crap!
Follow up:
No wonder so many athletes want to bypass the unpaid ranks of collegiate athletics and go pro directly after high school.
You are correct, Terry C. I just assumed that the Texans became the Cowboys, but in fact the AFL version of the Texans (there had also been an earlier NFL version, which apparently went out of existence) moved and became the Chiefs instead.
I hadn't known of UT's misfortunes in BSC assignments in prior years. While UT is in blue territory, my suspicion is that, being that it's the "University of Texas," all Texans, even those in the red portions of the state, take pride in its team's accomplishments. I'm willing to disappoint a few blue-territory people if it means dashing the hopes of a far greater number of red-territory red staters.
I know no one cares about this anymore and probably won't even check the thread since there are so many more important things to discuss, but as the sole UT defender here, I just have one more response...
>While UT is in blue territory, my suspicion is that, being that it's the "University of Texas," all Texans, even those in the red portions of the state, take pride in its team's accomplishments.
This could not be further from the truth. Because of the proliferation of Division I schools with football teams in this state, many people have other allegiances and pretty much hate the Longhorns. And, as the flagship university with a long-standing reputation for liberalism in a city with a long-standing reputation for liberalism, many Texas legislators and residents have a similarly long-standing animosity against UT in general, as evidenced by the bi-yearly beating the university and city take in the
Texas Lege.
Just my two nearly worthless cents....
If these hearings have a broad scope, they could migrate into who has control of the vast revenues of college football. That might be a good thing. It is a multi-billion dollar business dependent on a labor source with very limited rights.
On the other hand, this statement, "Too often college football ends in sniping and controversy, rather than winners and losers," is ridiculous. There is no fundamental reason for college football not to have controversy about who is the best. We do not have a right to a national champion. If controversy is better for college football, they have every right to pursue it.
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