The US presidential candidates are running all over the place, scratching and pawing at every possible kernel that could potentially burst open to reveal an opportunity to be heard or a chance to make some cash. Besides the fact that this time around each candidate has a Facebook page, a MySpace page and (yikes) a YouTube account, it pretty much is like it always is: career politicians at their finest, doing what they do best - campaigning. "I won't raise taxes, I won't go to war, I won't have sex with anyone but my spouse, I won't yadda yadda yadda." And they go about their gathering of resources and funding to build their voter bases and gain their party's nomination.
First of all, Rudy Giuliani and Judith Nathan(1). Hmm. Tiara thingy? Yes, tiara thingy. That should be quite enough, but I'll add this: hers? or his? Let's move on.
Bill and Hill (5). First of all, when looking at any pictures of the Clintons in the early days, you can't help but wonder how much Bill didn't actually inhale and whether or not he didn't actually inhale because Hillary was bogarting the joint. That being said, the pic to the left is pretty darned sweet, but the one above is a little too slick for me. Bill's already having trouble keeping his hands to himself, and Hillary is already getting sick of him.
Now on to Mitt Romney and Ann Davies (6). This one is quite nice, actually. I like the eager look on his face, as they both gaze off into their future together. While certainly quite stunning, she does seem a bit concerned, however. It's either the "is the part in his hair always going to be perfect" look or the "ahh shit, here comes like 5 years of being pregnant" look. I can't tell which.
Moving right along, let's have a peek at Fred Thompson and his daughter (7). Hee hee. Ha ha. Ho ho. Seriously, the shot is too tabloid or something, too Hollywood somehow. And to think that just twenty years earlier, she was sitting on his knee telling him what she wanted for Christmas. Again, hee hee. Ha ha. Ho ho.
Oh, yeah, baby: Mike and Janet Huckabee (8). This is without a doubt one of the best in the bunch. It's like a Pink Floyd album cover, which should be enough in itself, but I read that he was very hungry during this photo shoot and so Janet's mom made him a burger, which he ate in between shots. That's simply adorable. And, hey - powder blue suit? You rock, Huckabee.
Dennis Kucinich and Elizabeth Jane Harper (9). This one could take hours. We not only have a bit of an age difference here (31 years), but there's the height thing as well. He's four feet three, she's twenty-seven feet, eleven inches. So you understand why she's sitting down AND he's standing on a 
horse to make this picture work. And here we go again with a tiara thingy. I think that women who wear tiara-thingies at their weddings should be forced to carry a magic wand as well. They look happy enough, I guess, but it's going to last through the campaign and that's about it, unfortunately for the (knew each other for two weeks before they decided to get hitched) lovebirds.
This one is just too good to be true. Here are Ron Paul and Carol Wells (10), making their way through showers of rice as they head out of the church. This one could not have been planned any better and has all the makings of a Hollywood love story. Me like.
And here's Tommy Thompson and Sue Ann Mashak (11). I love the Elk's Lodge fireplace, love the bizarre wall decoration, and love her outfit. But that's it. He's managed to not quite tuck the speech that he'll be giving in about 5 minutes all the way down into his pocket and certainly couldn't be bothered to rent a suit or tux, opting instead to simply pin a carnation to the one he wore at the office all day. No, he's not the guy, which is no big deal since nobody really knows that he's running.
And last, but not least, Mike Gravel and Whitney Stewart (12). I like this one, but I don't really know why. It's not even a good picture. They both look genuinely happy, I guess is why. No foof, no goof, just a happy couple, that's all.
Last night I came across the following amazing facts about the number 35. Did I say amazing? Good, because I meant it.
In 1972, 35 years ago, HP introduced the world’s first scientific pocket calculator – the HP-35 – and delivered portable “computing power” into the hands of users.
One of the founding members of the Wu-Tang Clan (oh, right ... them), rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard, ODB to his peeps, was 35 when he collapsed and died in his New York studio in 2004. He was two days away from his 36th birthday.
One of the main reasons that I am still in Sweden has to do with health insurance. I did not really plan to move here permanently when I began working at the Icehotel in November of 2000. But shortly after meeting Sanna, she was diagnosed with Lupus and began treatment here in Sweden. Sweden's medical care is not only pretty damn good, but it is affordable. Every citizen and resident has the right to be seen and treated, and costs for prescriptions and care are minimal, if anything. (The taxes we pay make this possible, of course.)
So I find it incredibly disturbing to see that once again George W and (who's left of) his homeys, can't seem to find the decency to pass a bill that would provide an additional 4 million American children with health insurance. Not dogs, not terrorists, not Iraqis ... no. American children. This man is such an idiot that this decision doesn't shock me, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt.
First the idea just sort of hovers in the background: present, but still vague and fuzzy.
By the time the boat is no longer filled with water, the idea has gone for a swim.
But the idea makes its way back, and finally lets itself be heard.
Once the boat has reached the other side of the lake, the idea heads back home.
Once home, the idea is converted into on-screen text and binary codes and bleeps and dots and ... stuff.
Once properly formatted, the idea starts its journey to the server that will be its host and home.
'Tis a long and perilous journey, with many obstacles and hindrances.
The idea is forced into many awkward situations along the way. Flight is one of them.
Another is extreme shrinkage.
When tired, the idea finds a rest stop and rests... for 1/1,000,000 of a second.
And then moves on.
Making its way out into the world again, the idea goes underground for a bit. The specifics of what happens at this point are not clear and have never been documented. All we know is that just an hour or so after inception, and after a journey of eleventy billion light years, the end result is this:
Now that's a freakin' trip.
Last night I watched a very well-done documentary on Swedish television called Trouble in Paradise, by Gilliane Le Gallic and Christopher Horner. In this colorful piece, the filmmakers discuss the notion that the island nation of Tuvalu may simply disappear within the next 50 years.
Tuvalu? What's a Tuvalu? Formerly known as the Ellice Islands, Tuvalu is a group of islands east of Australia, about 1000 km north of Fiji. It is the second-least populated country in the world, with just under 12,000 people. The group of nine islands has almost no natural resources, most of its income coming from foreign aid. Any sustainable farming that they were once able to practice has been pretty much wiped out by the various effects of global warming.
What struck me most about this documentary was not so much that it is happening and the world is not doing a whole hell of a lot about it. There's nothing new there. No, what struck me most was the attitude, charm and charisma of the people. They are a beautiful, intelligent, well-meaning bunch of people, who love their simple lives and just want to keep them.
"You've got to understand, this ain't somebody going to steal somebody's drugs or something like that. This is somebody going to get his private (belongings) back. That's not robbery," Simpson told the Los Angeles Times.
Look at those guys. Inner dialogue here? How about: You gonna say it? I'm not gonna say it. You promise you're not gonna say it? Pinky promise? Pinky promise.
Thankfully, Petraeus brought charts and graphs with him. Because the American people LOVE charts and graphs. In fact, if I remember correctly, Colin Powell presented some lovely charts and PowerPoint images, oh, way back when, which sort of got us in to this whole mess in the first place. Those charts and graphs turned out to be less than... what's the word... oh yeah: reliable.
If you haven't already, read the Powell interview and pass it on. He is a good man, a smart man, a reasonable man. (And a hottie at 70. I mean, look at that shot by Martin Schoeller above.) While Petraeus might be all of those things as well, okay minus the hottie bit, we won't know for sure until he gives the same interview in five or ten years. His leash is a little too tight right now for him to be able to actually speak his mind.Isaacson: Your hero General George Marshall, when he was secretary of state, oversaw the creation of amazing new institutions and doctrines—NATO, the Marshall Plan—to deal with the global threat posed by Soviet Communism. Now that we’re faced with new global threats, what type of creative responses would he and his wise men be devising?
Isaacson: Isn’t the new global threat we face even more dangerous?
Powell: What is the greatest threat facing us now? People will say it’s terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing?
I would approach this differently, in almost Marshall-like terms. What are the great opportunities out there—ones that we can take advantage of? It should not be just about creating alliances to deal with a guy in a cave in Pakistan. It should be about how do we create institutions that keep the world moving down a path of wealth creation, of increasing respect for human rights, creating democratic institutions, and increasing the efficiency and power of market economies? This is perhaps the most effective way to go after terrorists.
Isaacson: How can we restore America’s image?
Powell: We should remember what that image was, back after World War II. It was the image of a generous country that sought not to impose its will on other countries or even to impose its values. But it showed the way, and it helped other countries, and it opened its doors to people—visitors and refugees and immigrants.
America could not survive without immigration. Even the undocumented immigrants are contributing to our economy. That’s the country my parents came to. That’s the image we have to portray to the rest of the world: kind, generous, a nation of nations, touched by every nation, and we touch every nation in return. That’s what people still want to believe about us. They still want to come here. We’ve lost a bit of the image, but we haven’t lost the reality yet. And we can fix the image by reflecting a welcoming attitude—and by not taking counsel of our fears and scaring ourselves to death that everybody coming in is going to blow up something. It ain’t the case.
So the child prodigy-turned-standard-Hollywood-idiot apparently gave a rather lackluster performance at last night's Video Music Awards awards in Las Vegas. So what? I mean, whatever. Like, fer shure, or something. I have not seen the performance as of right this very second, nor will I have seen it when you ask me tomorrow. I do not believe that I would be quite able to tell the difference between a bad Britney Spears performance and a good one.
So when I saw that very important headline pop up on my Google home page, I thought to myself, hmmm, does she have hair? The last bit of Britney Spears news that I followed closely (for about 40 minutes I think) was the little head shaving incident (because it was unbelievably fascinating) and that was in February.
Anyhow, I clicked right along until I came to this image of Britney buying some purses, because that is what she does, and it does indeed appear that she has hair. BUT, she's got one of those headband thingies up there, so any extensions might just be attached under that. I stared at this image for about a minute and all I came up with is, "Mmmm. Leather upholstery."
And then I found this image of Britney hanging out in Vegas with her homey Puffy D Diddy-o, or whatever his name is. AHA! Headband thingy!I think that there is some sort of cover up going on and think that we should impeach Ms. Spears immediately before she shaves or grows anything else. What kind of mother does she think she is? Having hair and then not having hair and then... having hair again.
Hagel also states that he will not be making a run for the presidency in 2008, which is appropriate. You can see in the image above that he is wearing a Band-Aid on his left thumb, which means that he bleeds, and is therefore human. An actual human being in the White House would be a major setback.The kids just want to know if grandpa can hold out or not... He would be the oldest president ever elected, IF elected.
The White House has released a statement in which Bush and his speech writers admit to pouring through old Nixon speeches in order to borrow material and, as the President put it, "verbalismation...isms" to be used in upcoming Bush speeches.
This Nixon speech here, for example, is one that the Bush team has already crafted and readied for use. When Bush delivers the speech, in oh, say, about 6 months, only a few changes will have been made, including replacing the word "jews" with "muslims", the word "blacks" with "liberals" the word "Vietnam" with "Iraq", and the word "Cambodia" with "Afghanistan".
This morning I ran across an article on CNN.com about the new buffalo wing-eating champion in the US, Sonya Thomas, aka "The Black Widow", and I almost lost my lunch. Breakfast. Whatever. This very flattering AP photo accompanies the article. Nice.
This guy, who boasts the very witty name of Cookie Jarvis, is one of the, and I am quoting his website here, "most recognized eaters in the world." Cookie can eat 21 cannoli in just six minutes and a large 17 inch pizza in just three minutes. 'Atta boy, Cookie Monster. If I do the math correctly, that means that five starving humans in Sudan could live off of Cookie for about a year.
can co-exist in a world where images like this also live:
is utterly amazing.
