Life On the Wicked Stage: Act 2

Man Dies Is Spitting Contest

The moral of this story is don't run at a balcony while participating in a spitting contest. That's what this fellow did and he lost his balance and fell to the street.

Tasteless Comment by Huckabee

UPI guess there's no mistaking who the Republicans think is going to be the Dem nominee, but making jokes about pointing a gun at Barack Obama at an NRA meeting? Tasteless.

Huckabee
by krs601

UPDATE: Interesting. The content was pulled on this. I'm sure it will be back up or from another source soon.

Obesity Contributes To Global Warming?

Ok, I'm trying not to pull my hair out here. Trying, mind you. According to this article, obesity is now seen by some as a contributing factor to global warming. The reason obese and overweight individuals require more fuel to transport them as well as more food to eat.

Some days, it is hard to imagine what will come next.

Appeasement Part Deux

So, the country we've been appeasing for several presidential administrations now, including the present one, just stuck its thumb in George's Bush's eye when he went begging for some more oil production. Giving lie, once again, to the silly oil speculator myth, that rising prices are about supply and demand, the King of Saudi Arabia says that he sees no increased calls for demand from his customers.

You have to love how all of these chickens are coming home to roost on George Bush's shoulders. Only problem is we're paying for the damn chicken feed.

Maybe George Bush knows what appeasement really is now.

Via the AP.

UPDATE: Turns out Saudi Arabia had a change of heart. They are increasing production in June by 300,000 barrels a day. Sounds like a lot of appeasing going on somewhere.

McCain and Appeasement

I caught this on the news this morning and am happy to link to it here. I'm not sure if this interview with John McCain proves that he is a hypocrite,  senile, or just a much shallower politician than I've given him credit for.

In any regard here he is saying, that of course we need to face the realities in the world and "deal" (there's that wiggle word) with our enemies, like Hamas. Anyone want to throw out the appeasement card on this one?

Technorati Tags: McCain,Appeasement,Barack Obama

Peggy Noonan and the Pity Party

Peggy Noonan has jumped on the Republican Party is a mess bandwagon after the recent defeat in the Mississippi special election. She does it with her usual style and some wit. There's nothing new here, any casual observer knows that Bush and the Republican leadership have killed whatever hopes this generation of Republicans had of continuing their reign.

But that, to a large degree, is the history of things. Mankind never met a victory it couldn't screw up. Call it cyclical, call it pendulum swinging, call it action/reaction. Things do shift back and forth, even, as is the current case there are very few real differences between the two parties.

The Democrats will score big this fall and they will jump up and down and trumpet what's to come. But just like when the Pelosi gang took over last year, we won't see much change. There is too much invested in playing the game, (and it is too lucrative) than there is advancing any real agenda.

Tom Davis's analogy of the Republican party as an "airplane flying right into a mountain" is as apt as it is creepy. But they've been this from the beginning with their underlying assumption that they could do whatever they want and most folks won't pay attention, as long as they keep preaching the same old same old.

I hate to say it, because I'm not one to be a big fan of the "American people" as in "The American people believe.... fill in the blank," but the American people took their measure of whom they thought was going to  be their  hero in George W, and found him sorely lacking. Those who tried to prop him up for so long and keep the myth going are now paying the price.

Twitter as a Performing Arts Tool

Raj Dash says he hasn't searched much and hasn't turned up many performing artists on Twitter. In his post he offers tips for why performers and entertainers should use Twitter to build brand and a following. Makes sense, just like it does in any other of life's many pursuits. By the way, Raj, I can be found on Twitter here and I tweet quite a bit about my professional theatre exploits, among many other things.

David Byrne Turns a Building Into a Musical Instrument

This just looks like it would be cool. The head Talking Head, David Byrne, who is always a bit on the edge, cutting or not, of experimenting around with music is up to some fun. He’s turned the Battery Maritime Building in NYC into a musical instrument that anyone can play. Called ‘Playing the Building’ this exhibition allows anyone to make a little building music with parts of the building’s structure connected to an organ. I may have to go see this.

Technorati Tags: Playing the Building,David Byrne

Terry McAuliffe Highlight Reel

Well,depending on your perspective this may be a lowlight reel, but hey, to each his own. Terry McAuliffe is nothing if not on message and enthusiastic about it. So much so that you won't really need to watch this entire video, unless you want to see a study in over the top. I'm not sure if McAuliffe, who some say has become the Baghdad Bob of the Presidential Follies, will ever want to revisit any of this, but I can see this video (put together by the TalkingPoints Memo gang) being used in political science classes for years. Heck, I can see it being used in classes on self parody for years.

Thanks to @Mickeleh on Twitter for the link.

Crazy, Crazy Day

On a day where everyone went crazy over John Edwards endorsing Barack Obama and the Chicago City Council rescinded the law that banned foie gras from restaurants and Twitter hiccupped again, and AT&T limited iPhone sales to one per customer, and Comcast bought Plaxo, and the US listed polar bears as endangered, I watched the first three episodes of Slings and Arrows and felt like I was looking in a cracked mirror.

How could I have not seen this until now?

Crazy Rasberry Ants Invade Houston

This article is right. It does almost sound like a bad horror film. Supposedly they came off a ship. They wander randomly and not in lines. They are shorting out electrical boxes and screwing up computers. Intriguingly they love to eat fire ants. They've been doing their thing in that area since 2002 and folks are working on finding a way to get rid of them, but it isn't easy. Here's hoping they don't get close to Mobile Tech Manor.

Technorati Tags: crazy rasberry ants

Inflation News Makes No Sense

I've certainly never been one to trust figures put out by the government on any number of topics, but this morning's news that Inflation pressures eased during the month of April made me think I was living in an alternative universe.

If you go read this article I'm sure you'll scratch your head the same way. While, as the article says, all sorts of accounting methodology goes into these kind of things, I don't think it serves any purpose to say inflation wasn't as bad last month when the same report says basic necessities like gasoline and food stuffs continued to rise. In fact as the subhead of the article screams this has been the biggest jump in food prices in 18 years.

Funny math. Not so funny over the dinner table.

Heart Breaking

In a world full of heart breaking stories these days this one is tough. A young girl, victim of the Chinese earthquake, is alive and conscious, knowing the only way she can be freed from under rubble is to have her legs amputated.

 

Via MSBNC

Ex-Candidate?

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post has a pretty devastating (to Clinton supporters) article in the Washington Post called This is an Ex-Candidate. Playing off an old Monty Python skit, he also glimpses inside the campaign a bit and offers what I would think has to be a pretty depressing look at things. Worth a read.

Boston Apple Store Not A Green Monster

Oh, well. When I saw earlier pictures of the Boston Apple Store, I thought they were going for a Green Monster look. Turns out that look was pre-opening construction covering. Too bad.

Pictures via Gizmodo

Technorati Tags: Apple Store