Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Last four ms chapters of GWTW found at childhood library

I hated the book, too. It sat on the radiator by the toilet throughout my childhood so each of my thousands of sisters could read it in turn, over and over.

Now the last four chapters have turned up at the Pequot Library in Southport, where they'll be on display for a while. It's a small world . . .

(h/t: Sabra)

Friday, November 25, 2011

Guess the missing term

AP story in the Denver Post this ayem: "Gun rights are tough politics for Obama."

Fffffffffff. Ffffffffff.

Update: Oops, the Post didn't print the whole AP story, which a commenter at the Top Headine Comments at AoS notes did in fact mention Fast & Furious, though not by name, and with no menton of, er, deaths.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Tell! Tell! The scene in Gone with the Wind with my father's first wife and Vivien Leigh

I looked for it before I posted on Marcella Martin's role in GwtW a few years ago, but no luck. Now, magically, here it is:


She has a few more lines than I thought. But: meh.

Update: Actually the end of the scene is kind of funny: "No, but she was ruined just the same."

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

I have stuff twirling around in my head too!

And I vote!

Cain/Bachmann/Stelazine 2012!

Be sure to watch the schizophrenia slide show! Presented with limited hallucinatory interruptions by Stelazine!

Are you schizophrenic? Take the quiz and find out!

I can't stop using exclamation points! Luckily there's a drug for that! Stelazine!

Update! Actually Cain lost me long ago when the halfwit showed he had no idea what the term "right of return" meant. Good God.

Update II: Stelllaaaaaa!

Saturday, November 12, 2011

More OccupyDenver tomfoolery

Had to go to the bank (sorry, credit union) this morning, so I left the car parked there and Billy Bob and I walked down to the OccupyDenver protest at Civic Center.

Billy Bob is kind of a pain on these jaunts, because a) he doesn't understand that his leash becomes a deadly weapon in a crowd; and b) there's lots of food lying around on the ground and he is bound and, yes, determined to eat all of it.

So I thought about leaving him in the car, but didn't on the off chance he might get to meet his newest heroine, Shelby, the border collie/cattle dog mix who last week was elected leader of the OccupyDenver movement (one dog, one vote, one time).

So who do we run into as soon as we set foot in the park? Shelby!


She's already adopted the trappings of an imperial presidency.

Naturally Billy Bob, being a pup of the people, promptly violated protocol in a move so embarrassing I'll probably never be able to show my face at these protests again:


I, I say! It was almost as bad as that time Moochelle sniffed the Queen's butt or whatever she did. Security rushed in to pull BB away, but the damage was done.

Anyway, protesters were already yacking away, complete with mic checks and the small crowd repeating everything the speakers said (no up- or down-twinkles that I noticed, though).


The blonde in green, oddly enough, was going on about how brilliant it was that OD elected Shelby leader of the movement. Sadly, it just reminds me of Ward Churchill and Benjie Whitmer's utterly lame attempt to emulate the also-lame (as well as dead) Abbie Hoffman and run a pig for president (scroll down a yittle).


What the well-dressed anarchist is wearing this season.

The guy in the trench coat and go-to-hell porkpie hat in the pic below was, of course, a truther. Even the Occupods were having none of it.



But check this out. See the big kid on the right with greenish hair? That's the same kid who was arrested with three others a few weeks ago for squatting in the abandoned house right across the street from the D-blog manse. I took him aside and asked how that had worked out. He said they were charged with trespassing and burglary (a class 2 felony, he said), but that he thought that charge would be pled down to a misdemeanor. "As soon as that's over with," he said, "I'm going to be squatting again." And damn me, I forgot to ask who was representing them.

A little signage 'n' stuff:


Hard to read: it says, "Kick Uncle $am Off Indian Land."



"(Neither is Ron Paul)." Then we're left with no one.


Yes, the utterly unnecessary but de rigueur bandana face.




"Yes we kill."



One of the sexiest features of communism is food lines. Coincidentally, I guess, one of those was recreated across the park:




The line of food tables stretched the whole block in front of the City and County building. Biggest potluck I've ever seen, and it smelled fantastic. Maybe communism isn't that bad . . .



On the other hand, the line of people stretched for three blocks. Good. Times.

BB and I were tempted to get in line, but the credit union was closing, so we had to get out of there.

By the way, the D-blog is aware what weak marinara this post is compared to the gripping fillums the Lonesome Dictator of North Denver got of the brouhaha at BlogCon (which the D-blog was unable to attend) yesterday, when Occupods attempted to infiltrate the conservative blogger get-together. You've probably seen them, but if not here they are at their rightful home, the People's Press Collective.

Update (7:47 MST): The Post: "Denver police forcing Occupy Denver to move their property in Civic Center." Again.

Update II: The Washington Examiner has more. The protesters have been acting out. ("This is not Tehran!" Sheeeeit.)

(via commenter kbdabear at the AoS ONT)

Update III (2 December 2011): Believe it or not, I saw Black Flag at the Ogden, way, way back. They sucked, tho Henry looked pretty damn good in his panties.

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Listening for the EAS test

Yep, the first nationwide Emergency Alert Squeal test. Wait, here it comes!

That was weird. All I heard was this.

Update: That, of course, was from a list of Star Trek sounds. My fave (not that I listened to them all) is this one, undoubtedly from one of the movies after they figured out that Bones' "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a _______" had comic possibilities.

A pic from the student protest over tuition fees in London

Which police fear anarchists may use as an excuse for violence. From the Telegraph's liveblog:


I did not know Mila Kunis was an anarchist.

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Colorado AAUP report: CU treatment of Wart should make it "last resort" for prospective faculty

The American Association of University Professors has been a Wart-defending joke for years, of course. But this time, no doubt in an attempt to maintain their fake evenhandedness, they also mention the completely unrelated case of Phil Mitchell. The Gamera (which calls the AAUP a "professors-rights group"):
In the report issued this month, the Colorado Conference of the American Association of University Professors criticizes CU-Boulder for not renewing the 2007 contract of Phil Mitchell, an instructor in the Sewall Residence Program, and for firing Ward Churchill, a tenured professor in the ethnic studies department. CU officials fired Churchill in 2007 after an academic misconduct investigation.

CU-Boulder spokesman Bronson Hilliard said that Churchill was given full due process during the academic misconduct case and Mitchell's contract was not renewed because he was not adhering to the academic rigor standards that were clearly communited in the program.
Communited? That's not a bad word. Anyway, sometimes I wish Colorado could have its own little Cultural Revolution so we could just send academics up to work the beet farms around Greeley.

Update: The pirate with the parrot who knows all about Cleveland Steamers goes much more entertainingly in-depth on the story.

Sunday, November 06, 2011

Sieg Heil!

A piece in the (Trinity University, San Antonio) Trinitonian on Wart's appearance at the school last week, during which he yelled "sieg heil" and gave a Nazi salute to the university president's wife, has some new quotes from said wife, Penelope Harley:
“I just felt that what he said was totally uncalled for and was actually very hypocritical, and this is what I led my comments with [during the after-speech Q & A with Churchill],” Harley said during a phone interview Thursday morning. “The most important message I wanted to get across was that in the first half of his presentation, which seemingly was all about the need for truth and evidence in legal cases having to do with academic freedom, it seemed extremely hypocritical that he launched into this unsubstantiated personal malice against Dennis that I knew was unfounded, with absolutely no evidence and with no regard for the truth.”
Never stopped Wart before. The piece also has some new stuff from hubby Dennis Ahlburg, former head of the CU Leeds School of Business and now prez of Trinity University:
“I would never have invited him myself, I think he’s despicable,” Ahlburg said. “A faculty member invited him and I chose not to rescind the offer because I believe in free speech. I don’t believe you should give a free stage to people like Churchill…I don’t believe Ward Churchill is about free speech. I think he’s about his own public persona.”

Ahlburg’s connection with Churchill seemingly stems from their time spent at the University of Colorado Boulder. However, Ahlburg claims their interaction was virtually non-existent.

“The thing that’s most peculiar is that I’ve never met the man and all of the things that happened to him at Colorado preceded me, so the fact that he would think I would waste a nano-second of my time on him just shows how delusional he is,” Ahlburg said. “I mean he has enough real enemies, he doesn’t have to make one up. I am not his enemy.” . . .
Time to join the club, Dennis!

“His modus operandi is if he can’t argue with you on the merits of the case, he will attack you personally,” Ahlburg said, before also addressing Churchill’s reference to Nazism. “What role does screaming ‘Sieg Heil,’ ‘Sieg Heil’ and giving a Nazi salute to anybody, what role does that play in the academic discourse? That is somebody who has lost their grip on reality and seems to have a mania for anything that has to do with Nazis, and at that point he should have been shown off campus.”
And into the nearest sewage pond.
Churchill claims that controversy surrounding [the 9/11] essay led to an unfounded investigation of academic misconduct, insisting that he would not have been under such scrutiny if not for his political views. He also claims that Ahlburg used this controversy as a means to persuade donors to withhold money from the College of Arts and Sciences and alternatively give to the Leeds School of Business, of which Ahlburg was the dean at the time.

“He told every one of those wealthy donors, corporate contributors, basically ‘Ward Churchill is in the College of Arts and Science [sic], you are committing money to that, withdraw it and give it to Leeds,’” Churchill said during the lecture.
Prove it. Oh, wait, for once he has evidence:
Churchill also stated that he had alleged email documentation of Ahlburg using his name to raise money, but refused to provide these emails when contacted.
Sekrit evidence.
Churchill was also contacted by the Trinitonian for a phone interview about the series of events that took place Tuesday. His response, via email, was as follows: “I’m not much interested in something focusing exclusively on 2 sentences lifted out of a 35 minute talk. If you’re inclined to do something with the real story with regard to Dennis Ahlberg [sic] — that Trinity’s board of trustees hired a guy rated 26th out of 27 deans at the University of Colorado in terms of administrative effectiveness to be your president — let me know. I’ll send you a copy of his UCB administrative evaluation and we can go from there.”
There are no depths to which this scumbag won't go. But we knew that. The paper has an accompanying editorial: "Churchill's attacks distract campus discourse." Sample graf:
In all of this commotion over who said what about whom, the glaring question is: why was Churchill invited to Trinity? Out of all the possible speakers available, why choose someone so aggressively divisive? As students and journalists, we at the Trinitonian are the first people to stand up for freedom of speech, and we believe it is important to practice and even test the limits of freedom of speech. However, it is also in the best interest of society to employ reason in our campaigns. Although Churchill’s choice to give Harley a Nazi salute was constitutionally protected, it certainly undermined his argument.
Now there's a ringing declaration.

Update: The pirate with the parrot who donates to Ron Paul notes that the CU Board of Regents is finally going to consider ending the ridiculous policy by which professors fired for anything but "moral turpitude" receive a year's salary as a parting gift. Unfortunately, Wart's already got his.

Friday, November 04, 2011

Possible Fort Collins Occupod* arrested for arson

The Post:

A Fort Collins man has been arrested as a suspect in a $10 million fire along Mason Street in downtown Fort Collins.

Benjamin David Gilmore, 29, was taken into custody Thursday night.

Gilmore appears to be the same person who recently appeared before the Fort Collins City Council to ask that Occupy Fort Collins protesters be left alone. He was arrested for suspicion of first-degree arson, burglary and criminal mischief in the blaze that destroyed a condominium complex under construction and damaged a complex next door.
The alleged arsonist allegedly spoke before the Fort Collins city council Tuesday. He spouted the usual gibberish.

*The Post is careful to note that "Arrest papers available to the public do not connect Occupy Fort Collins to the arson fires, and police made no connection between the group's protest and Gilmore's arrest. Organizers could not immediately be reached for comment on Gilmore." Maybe he was just cold.

Update: 9News has more, with a story from the (Fort Collins) Coloradoan. Gilmore, "a registered Republican" according to the piece, was definitely heavily involved with the Tea Party OccupyFortCollins.

Update II: In comments JWP links to a three-week-old piece from radio station Tri- 102.5 ("The Best Variety of Lite Rock Favorites") which sent a reporter to the Fort Collins protest. The reporter interviewed Gilmore, describing him as "a Fort Collins business owner, war veteran and a member of Occupy Fort Collins." Okay.

It's Arts Week in Denver!

So a bunch of mercifully evitable krep going on. Among the krep is the Starz (blech) Denver Film Festival, which will be featuring movies by "area" filmmakers (whatever that means) in its "Spotlight on Colorado." One of the movies is "Patriocracy." The Post says the doco asks the musical question, "How did the U.S become the politically riven nation it is today?" One look at the lineup of talking deads (sorry, the site won't let me link) tells you where the film's creator, Brian Malone, will be coming from: Bob Schieffer, Eleanor Clift, Roy--sorry--Pat Buchanan, Sheila Jackson Lee, Jared Polis . . .

Area theaters are puttin' on the blitz as well, including Curious Theater's offering, "Collapse," of which the Post's fine arts critic John Moore says, "Though it's inspired by the 2007 Minneapolis bridge disaster, artistic director Chip Walton swears, "It's one of the funniest plays we've ever produced."

There's also Chinese art and Klezmer abusers and Day of the Dead stuff and all like that. The Post's story on this, by the way, was published yesterday and has gotten only one comment thus far, from a "yip cabbage": "Zzzzzzzz."

Not a cowtown.

Thursday, November 03, 2011

OccupyDenver tittle and bosh

First, Michael Moo!re is supposed to show up at the Denver encampment around 4:00 p.m. today, according to the Post. He's in town to appear at the Tattered Cover and UC-Denver. Who cares? (The Post and various news crews, that's who.) Saw the round mound of suet a few years ago; don't need to again.

Second, KOA says the Occupods are going to move camp soon from the sidewalk on Broadway to Skyline Park so they won't be in the way of the Veterans Day parade. Mighty thoughty of them. Skyline Park is a block-long concrete hole beloved of skateboarders and nodding addicts. The wind absolutely howls through it.

Update: Apparently the move isn't voluntary. KOA now says some veterans organization has dibs on Civic Center Park, and that the protesters have to move by tomorrow night. The D-blog was a leetle premature in pronouncing the end of the non-Boy Scout jamboree a while back, but again, how is it that this bunch gets to camp in city parks when no one else does?

Update II: Post: "Michael Moore fires up OccupyDenver, says rest of country watching"

Couldn't be happening to a nicer bunch

Copyright scum-sucker Righthaven finds no haven.

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Wart "sieg heils" uni prez's wife at speech

The charm, it just never quits. The San Antonio Express-News:
Ward Churchill, a controversial activist for academic freedom, at a speech at Trinity University on Tuesday accused the university's president, Dennis Ahlburg, of a smear campaign against him some years ago in Colorado.

He also invoked the Hitler salute of “Sieg Heil” to Ahlburg's wife, Penelope Harley, as she stormed out of the auditorium after defending her husband in front of the audience of students and faculty.

“This personal vindictiveness in an institution that has welcomed you ... I find very, very hard to listen to. And quite frankly, pretty darn insulting,” said Harley, before leaving for her son's soccer match.

Ahlburg was in New York, but was reached by phone later.

“He comes in and insults me in my absence... and screams ‘Sieg Heil' at my wife?” Ahlburg said. “This is a champion for free speech that America does not need. The only speech he wants to hear is his own voice.”
True, true.
Ahlburg became dean of the UC Leeds School of Business in 2005. Though the two never met, Churchill said some faculty and alumni told him Ahlburg was “bad rapping” him to potential donors, using Churchill's notoriety to convince them to give to the business school instead of the arts and sciences.

“He quietly, back-channel, through personal communications conducted about as vicious a smear campaign against me personally as it was possible to engage in,” Churchill told the audience.

Ahlburg called the accusations “absolutely false.”

“The last thing I would do to try and raise money is mention his name, goodness gracious.”
Goodness gracious. Civility is dead in this country.

To be honest, btw, I don't remember this little incident a'tall. Wonder if it even made the papers back then. I'll look when I has the chancet, or maybe JWP knows.

Update: And by the way, Express-News, it's "CU," not "UC."