Friday, September 30, 2005

Jane says ...

Will anyone be able to generate any public sympathy for a grown man who calls himself "Scooter?" I'm thinking not.

A happy thought for the day.

Yes, indeed.

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 11:25 AM |

Saturday, September 24, 2005

What I Was Testing

Sean has been having some fun with Google's new blogsearch tool. And some fun at my expense; surely my blog should come up on a search of Renaissance camel, but no -- his does, mine doesn't.

In fact, my blog simply isn't in there. Grr.

Since their index requirements are essentially (a) have your blog ping weblogs.com on publication, and (b) publish a sitefeed, and I do both of these, there's no good explanation for this. So I was testing to see if, in fact, weblogs.com lists my blog when it publishes. And it does.

I always miss out on the fun. Sigh.

UPDATE: okay, I am indexed. I'm crazy; ignore me.

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 6:27 AM |

Friday, September 23, 2005

Just testing something

Made you look!

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 12:08 PM |

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Oh, Much Better

Having completely screwed up the last hurricane, the government is getting this one right. For one thing, they're pre-positioning lots of ice right where can be rushed into Texas or Louisiana.

In Maine. (thanks for the link, skippy.)

Perhaps they're planning to ship frozen lobster to all of the evacuating oil executives?

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 6:36 PM |

Monday, September 19, 2005

Renaissance Redux

We took Emma back to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival this year. We brought her pal Meghan too.

Nothing says "renaissance" like bungee jumping!



Unless it's elephants and camels:



Or a tortoise in drag:



This year, Emma took on her old man at swordfighting. I figured this'd be easy.



Here you see I've got her down to one balloon. And I'm doing it with one hand behind my back!



Damn it, she caught up. It could've had something to do with the dude who kept grabbing my sword arm and shouting to Emma to go for my head; I don't know.



Oh, well. I'll try again next year.



Emma and Meghan really enjoyed a Scottish dance troupe.



No trip to the Faire would be complete without a dove on your head.



And finally, last year I told you about the magical faerie we met. We met her this year too. She's lost none of her charm. She's so enchanting, in fact, that every time we see her I forget I have a camera -- so I had to steal an image of her off the web. Her name is Twig, and she's everything a faerie should be (and then some).

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 8:47 PM |

Friday, September 16, 2005

Get Your Flood On

Here.

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 12:49 PM |

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Bush At The UN: A Day In Pictures


"I need to go bad, Condi!"


"You need to ask permission, sir."


"May I be excused, Mr. Secretariat?"


"Bolton, does this look like the right color to you?"

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 9:01 PM |

I'm Sure This Is All Over The Web By Now ...

But if you haven't seen it, enjoy.

Just in case Reuters takes down their copy, here's a copy of it. Swear on all that's holy, this is exactly as it appears on the Reuters photo server, with the caption:


U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York September 14, 2005. World leaders are exploring ways to revitalize the United Nations at a summit on Wednesday but their blueprint falls short of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's vision of freedom from want, persecution and war.

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 5:51 PM |

Sunday, September 11, 2005

As Seen on Dependable Renegade ...

(Link to her blog is over there on the right ...)

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 1:11 PM |

Happy Birthday

My brother David is 50. This scares me no end. Happy birthday, Dave.

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 7:25 AM |

A Break With Tradition

For the first time in 4 years, the Saint Paul Classic takes off this morning without me. I wrenched my knee last week, and then compounded the problem a couple of times by doing stupid things.

I might have tried it, but Kristi's working today -- which means I'd have had to pull Emma behind me on her tagalong thing. Three problems with that. First, she's getting too big for it. Second, she's developed a lazy streak, meaning I can't rely on her to stoke up hills. And third, the last time we used it (after hurting my knee initially; one of the previously-mentioned "stupid things"), she was actually dragging her feet on the pavement instead of pedaling. So risking my knee while pulling an additional 80 or 90 pounds of dead weight? Nope. Scooter will have the ride-blogging all to himself this year.

Everyone still gathered outside our house to ride down to St. Thomas; I went out there with my coffee cup to chat with them and see them off. Sad. But Emma and I will walk down to meet them for breakfast/brunch at St. Clair Broiler. Happy.

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 7:13 AM |

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Un Friggin' Believable

On August 27, before Katrina hit, Louisiana Governor requested that the Bush Administration declare an emergency for the State of Louisiana. "The affected areas are all the southeastern parishes including the New Orleans Metropolitan area and the mid state Interstate I-49 corridor and northern parishes along the I-20 corridor that are accepting the thousands of citizens evacuating from the areas expecting to be flooded as a result of Hurricane Katrina."

Later that day, the President issued the disaster declaration. He included a specific list of parishes to be covered: "the parishes of Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, Caldwell, Claiborne, Catahoula, Concordia, De Soto, East Baton Rouge, East Carroll, East Feliciana, Evangeline, Franklin, Grant, Jackson, LaSalle, Lincoln, Livingston, Madison, Morehouse, Natchitoches, Pointe Coupee, Ouachita, Rapides, Red River, Richland, Sabine, St. Helena, St. Landry, Tensas, Union, Vernon, Webster, West Carroll, West Feliciana, and Winn".

Notice anything missing there? Here's a clue for y'all.

Could this administration be any more incompetent? Stay tuned.

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 10:02 PM |

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Once Again: Just Read

Katrina timeline, with supporting links.

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 2:53 PM |

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Just Read It

Olbermann.

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 6:16 AM |

Monday, September 05, 2005

It's In The Genes

Courtesy of Atrios, an explanation of where Mr. Sensitivity gets it from.

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 6:51 PM |

Sunday, September 04, 2005

From "Tom Tomorrow"

If you live in a major American city, you better pray there's never a terrorist attack of this magnitude. Because this is the best these fuckers can do with several day's notice before the disaster hits and 90% of the city having had time to evacuate beforehand. So unless the terrorists are kind enough to give advance notice, you are well and truly fucked.

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 11:07 AM |

Saturday, September 03, 2005

And Don't Even Get Me Started ...

... on this.

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 9:56 AM |

Anger Overload

Bill Wattenburg, a consultant for the University of California Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and one of the designers of the earlier food drop programs, said that he has lobbied the administration and the military to immediately begin something similar. He said he was told that the military was prepared to begin, but that it was awaiting a request from FEMA.

"We know very well how to do this, and it's just incomprehensible that we're not," Wattenburg said.

A US Navy hospital ship didn't leave Baltimore for the region until Friday.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help from his state's National Guard on Sunday, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route didn't come from Washington until late Thursday.

The Red Cross says it's not being allowed into New Orleans to offer food, comfort and medical assistance because, in essence, we need to starve everyone out.

The evacuation is apparently prioritizing evacuees by either race or wealth; you make the call:

At one point Friday, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses pulled up so some 700 guests and employees from the Hyatt Hotel could move to the head of the evacuation line — much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the Superdome since last Sunday.

"How does this work? They (are) clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?" exclaimed Howard Blue, 22, who tried to get in their line. The National Guard blocked him as other guardsmen helped the well-dressed guests with their luggage.

The 700 had been trapped in the hotel, near the Superdome, but conditions were considerably cleaner, even without running water, than the unsanitary crush inside the dome. The Hyatt was severely damaged by the storm. Every pane of glass on the riverside wall was blown out.
There are so many more of these stories that I don't have the heart to list them all. And this was a disaster we knew for years was coming, and we knew for days in advance was probably imminent. Imagine how well this administration would handle another unexpected catastrophe.

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 8:44 AM |

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Apparently they're casting "The Buddy Hackett Story"


Somebody's doing some serious facial calisthenics.

posted by MeanMrMustard @ 7:50 PM |