Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Friday, March 16, 2007
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Tastes Great, Less Filling
The Night of the Generals
The six retired generals who stepped forward last spring to publicly attack Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's handling of the Iraq war had to overcome a culture of reticence based on civilian control of the military. But while each man acted separately, all shared one experience: a growing outrage over the administration's incompetence, leading some of the nation's finest soldiers to risk their reputations and cross a time-honored line.
by David Margolick April 2007
By late 2001, briefing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was familiar
territory for Lieutenant General Greg Newbold. As director of operations on the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, Newbold, a three-star in the Marines, had done it many
times since Rumsfeld had arrived at the Pentagon earlier in the year, and had
come to know the routine: the constant interruptions, the theatrics, the
condescension. But, according to Newbold, there was something different, and
alarming, about one particular briefing around that time: the topic. It was
about going to war with Iraq... Click Me (Vanity Fair)
Monday, March 12, 2007
Phrase of the Day
Riding The Rail
Wikipedia sez: a punishment of Colonial America in which a man was made to straddle a fence rail held on the shoulders of two men, with other men on either side to keep him upright on the rail. The victim was then paraded around town. Alternately it can refer to tying a person's hands and feet around a rail so the person dangles under the rail. Other references mention it being used as punishment for Confederate prisoners in Union POW camps during the American Civil War.
TARRED AND FEATHERED AND RIDDEN OUT OF TOWN ON A RAIL - "At Salem, on September 7, 1768, an informer named Robert Wood 'was stripped, tarred and feathered and placed on a hogshead under the Tree of Liberty on the Common.' This is the first record of the term 'tarred and feathered' in America. Tarring and feathering was a cruel punishment where hot pine tar was applied from head to toe on a person and goose feathers were stuck into the tar. The person was then ignited and ridden out of town on a rail (tied to a splintery rail), beaten with sticks and stoned all the while. A man's skin often came off when he removed the tar. It was a common practice to tar and feather Tories who refused to join the revolutionary cause, one much associated with the Liberty Boys, but the practice was known here long before the Revolution. In fact, it dates back even before the first English record of tarring and feathering, an 1189 statute made under Richard the Lionhearted directing that any thief voyaging with the Crusaders 'shal have his head shorne and boyling pitch powred upon his head, and feathers or downe strewn upon the same, whereby he may be known, and so at the first landing place they shal come to, there to be cast up.' Though few have been tarred and feathered or ridden out of town on a rail in recent years, the expression remains to describe anyone subjected to indignity and infamy." From "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).
Run Out Of Town On A Rail
Urband Dictionary sez: Olde-timey phrase, most commonly referring to the act of literally carrying someone perched uncomfortably on a rail to a point outside of the city limits. This was often a form of punishment for committing any act others thought was extremely bad. It is still sometimes used in the Southern states.
Use This Phrase In A Sentence:
If the Gamecocks don't make the Big Dance next season, Coach O will be ridden out of town on a rail.
Wikipedia sez: a punishment of Colonial America in which a man was made to straddle a fence rail held on the shoulders of two men, with other men on either side to keep him upright on the rail. The victim was then paraded around town. Alternately it can refer to tying a person's hands and feet around a rail so the person dangles under the rail. Other references mention it being used as punishment for Confederate prisoners in Union POW camps during the American Civil War.
TARRED AND FEATHERED AND RIDDEN OUT OF TOWN ON A RAIL - "At Salem, on September 7, 1768, an informer named Robert Wood 'was stripped, tarred and feathered and placed on a hogshead under the Tree of Liberty on the Common.' This is the first record of the term 'tarred and feathered' in America. Tarring and feathering was a cruel punishment where hot pine tar was applied from head to toe on a person and goose feathers were stuck into the tar. The person was then ignited and ridden out of town on a rail (tied to a splintery rail), beaten with sticks and stoned all the while. A man's skin often came off when he removed the tar. It was a common practice to tar and feather Tories who refused to join the revolutionary cause, one much associated with the Liberty Boys, but the practice was known here long before the Revolution. In fact, it dates back even before the first English record of tarring and feathering, an 1189 statute made under Richard the Lionhearted directing that any thief voyaging with the Crusaders 'shal have his head shorne and boyling pitch powred upon his head, and feathers or downe strewn upon the same, whereby he may be known, and so at the first landing place they shal come to, there to be cast up.' Though few have been tarred and feathered or ridden out of town on a rail in recent years, the expression remains to describe anyone subjected to indignity and infamy." From "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).
Run Out Of Town On A Rail
Urband Dictionary sez: Olde-timey phrase, most commonly referring to the act of literally carrying someone perched uncomfortably on a rail to a point outside of the city limits. This was often a form of punishment for committing any act others thought was extremely bad. It is still sometimes used in the Southern states.
Use This Phrase In A Sentence:
If the Gamecocks don't make the Big Dance next season, Coach O will be ridden out of town on a rail.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
It's funny because it's true...
So, I'm watching Geraldo. Geraldo had a special on: 'Live from Death Row'. Two hours of psychos, not one black guy in the whole special. You know why? Because black people aren't crazy.
Black people do stupid things. Black people snatch rope chains and rob liquor stores but black people generally aren't crazy. When you watch the news and hear somebody got their head chopped off and somebody drank the blood and they used the toes to play pool with, chances are that was a white guy.
Now the old lady kicked down a flight of stairs for a welfare check? Black guy. 'Gimme that $4 check.'
-Chris Rock
Born A Suspect
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Friday, March 2, 2007
Another One Bites The Dust
Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey abruptly stepped down Friday as the Bush administration struggled to cope with the fallout from a scandal over substandard conditions for war-wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.Army secretary resigns in scandal's wake (AP)
The Buck Stops... somewhere else for G-Dub!
I'm not the one!
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