Archive for May 25th, 2013
25
May
13
Chat away – Happy Towel Day
Out of the depths of Maggie Thatcher’s Britain, a comic novel of genius arose to mock the insanity of the time. That novel was Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. If you haven’t read it, you must. And today, May 25, is “Towel Day”, held to commemorate Mr. Adams’ passing in 2001, taken from us too soon. From the novel on the importance of carrying a towel:
A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost.” What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
25
May
13
Rise and Shine
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Coming up:
On Sunday, the president will travel to Oklahama to survey the damage from recent tornadoes there, and to visit affected families and first responders. After having breakfast with the families of fallen soldiers on Monday, the president will visit Arlington National Cemetery to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns and give remarks.
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Estimating the impact of #Obamacare: “This is a home run for consumers in every region of California.” Read more: OFA.BO/LBnx6X
— OFA (@OFA) May 24, 2013
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Medicaid expansion may be the best thing to happen to the working poor since unions. nationalmemo.com/5-really-good-…
— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) May 25, 2013
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UT posted this Mediaite story the other day, ‘DOJ Document Reveals Fox News Reporter James Rosen Wanted To Impact U.S. Foreign Policy’ – some extracts again:
….. From the minute WaPo released its story, the press has been fluffing the details for maximum Scandalabra™ impact, comparing the Kim investigation with the DOJ’s seizure of the Associated Press’ phone records….
…. After outlining the kinds of secret information he hoped to get from “Leo,” Rosen summed up his intention to… report the news objectively? To serve the public?
“Let’s break some news, and expose muddle-headed policy when we see it – or force the administration’s hand to go in the right direction, if possible.”
Wait, what? Is that what a News reporter is supposed to do, force the administration’s hand to guide American foreign policy to the reporter’s whim? …. this email seems to indicate that James Rosen is not just a News reporter, but an activist intent on pushing his own agenda, with the stated goal of manipulating U.S. foreign policy.
…. The press should continue to shine a light on the Justice Department’s handling of reporters in leak investigations, but it should do so honestly, and stop claiming that James Rosen was just a reporter doing his job. Unless they see that job as steering America’s global foreign policy.
Full post here
But even after this revelation about what the Fox boy was up to, I see he’s still being portrayed as an innocent victim of the Big Brother Obama administration, even by usually smart writers. That’s the scandal here.
Read what SmartyPants had to say about this earlier in the week
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Yes, there’s a terrible scandal in govt. It lies in the broken oaths of a political party more devoted to destroying Obama than serving us.
— Dave (@YouGiveMeFever7) May 23, 2013
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Pic of the week?
President Obama congratulates Alexis Marisa Werner with open arms during the US Naval Academy commencement ceremony in Annapolis, May 24
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The Obama Diary 
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