AdamSmith

Intriguing (encouraging!) Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SouthernBaptistSissies

Has everyone already gone stark raving mad? Moreover, have they never even heard of the Condon report? Ai yi yi... Ex-lawmakers search for signs of intelligent life in WashingtonBy Chris Moody, Yahoo! News | The Ticket – 15 hrs ago (ABC Photo Archives/Getty Images) All the pieces of a formal congressional hearing were in place. A row of lawmakers with furled brows were seated in wide, leather chairs behind an elevated table with microphones. Water pitchers and engraved nameplates were in front of them. A second, smaller table was set up below for witnesses to deliver their expert testimonies. Chairs lined the back for spectators and reporters. The topic of Tuesday's discussion: government suppression of alien visitors from outer space. Despite the setup, this was not an actual hearing. It was day two of a weeklong event called the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure. Held at the National Press Club in Washington, the hearing will include testimony from some 40 panelists. Parts will be included in a documentary called "Truth Embargo." To conduct the proceedings, six former members of Congress are being paid $20,000 each to act like they're in Congress again, and ask questions about the government's alleged role in shielding the existence of alien visits to Earth. (Their pay comes to about $666 an hour. But that's a different conspiracy theory all together.) The former lawmakers—retired Republican Reps. Roscoe G. Bartlett of Maryland and Merrill Cook of Utah; former Democratic Reps. Darlene Hooley of Oregon, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick of Michigan and Lynn Woolsey of California; and former Democratic Sen. Mike Gravel—are tackling a variety of topics. They range from what "really" happened in Roswell, N.M., in 1947 and why Air Force service members aren't being treated by the Veterans Affairs hospital for injuries allegedly sustained while working with UFOs to why the U.S. government won't release more information about supposed visitors from other planets. The purpose of the hearing, said organizer Stephen Bassett, is less to prove the existence of extraterrestrials than to pressure the federal government to end its silence about the thousands of UFOs allegedly spotted over the years. "It's no longer about lights in the sky, it's about lies on the ground," Bassett said. The last official congressional hearing on alien lifeforms was in 1968, but the White House denied just two years ago that there was any coverup. "The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race," said Phil Larson, a spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. "In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public's eye." But these members of Congress aren't entirely convinced that the statement was truthful. Like a bunch of nostalgic, former high-school football players tossing around the pigskin at a 20-year reunion, they peppered witnesses as though they were back in the game on Capitol Hill. When Yahoo arrived at the "hearing" Tuesday morning—Congress is on recess this week, so why not?—retired Air Force Tech Sgts. John Burroughs and James Penniston were at the witness table where they described the night in 1980 they believe they had stumbled on a UFO in the Rendlesham Forest on their base in England. Penniston said he touched it, and that he suffers from injuries to this day that he believes stemmed from that moment. "It's probably the worst decision I made, touching that," Penniston said. The former congressional members listened for hours as the two described the night the alleged craft was found, how the government was covering it up, and Penniston's difficulties finding affordable medical care. He said that Veterans Affairs had declined to treat his injuries. "I want to apologize from the United States government," Cook told him, as the others offered their own condolences when they heard his story. After the morning session the group broke for lunch, and I met a man wearing a copper forehead headband with a crystal piece atop a silver coin. He told me in no uncertain terms that he was born more than 1,800 years ago beneath the surface of the Earth in a subterranean city where several million people live near Mount Shasta in California. All humans, he said, are aliens from other constellations. "You're from Pleiades," the man, who called himself Zaraya, told me. "How do you know that? Do I look like someone from Pleiades?" I asked. "No, I just know your essence," he said. I also caught up with some of the retired lawmakers, who said they were divided on whether they believed in the existence of aliens. Gravel, an outspoken 9/11 truther who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination five years ago, is an enthusiastic believer. "There's no question in my mind when you hear this kind of testimony," Gravel said. "This is reasonable testimony. It's a little bit like 9/11. When you begin to look at this and listen very carefully, you look at this and say, 'Hey, there's something wrong. There's something fundamentally wrong. And why won't the government, why won't our society respond to that?'" Gravel added, however, that Earthlings probably could not handle a permanent visit from aliens. "We're not ready to receive extraterrestrials. We're not mature enough," he said. "The way we approach it is, 'Shoot 'em down.' This is a little bit like Columbus and Cook when they made their discoveries. They killed a few natives and ... made slaves out of them. We don't have a good record of handling first discoverers." Roscoe, on the other hand, said he was open to the idea that aliens could be among us, but wasn't completely sold. He just wants to know the truth. "Is it some secret thing that we're doing, that Russia's doing? Is it extraterrestrial? I have an open mind. I came here with an open mind, I still have an open mind," he said. "Clearly it's not something that's common knowledge. My problem is that whatever is out there, the people have a right to know about it. I think it's inconceivable that the truth about this can have any effect on national security." "I've had a curiosity about it for 50 years," Roscoe added. "I knew there were a number of sightings that could not be explained away." If they only knew that, the whole time, they were talking to a Pleiadian. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/ex-lawmakers-search-signs-intelligent-life-washington-d-225559027.html;_ylt=ApuyhOzC_DTzfXfok.BYFzCZCMZ_;_ylu=X3oDMTRrZTJwNzdvBG1pdANCbG9nIFNwZWFybWludCBPcmlnaW5hbCBMaXN0BHBrZwNjMGM3NjI3NC02ODMyLTNiZDEtOGJmNS0wZmEwNDBmY2I5ZGYEcG9zAzYEc2VjA01lZGlhQkxpc3RNaXhlZExQQ0FUZW1wBHZlcgNlOTZhZDhhMS1iMjY5LTExZTItOWZlZi04ZjY1MmFjM2U0MTg-;_ylg=X3oDMTMzcTJmYnQ3BGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDZTU5MzQ0NTMtYWQwOC0zOWU3LTllZGEtYTk3ODM5Y2RhYjE5BHBzdGNhdANibG9nc3x0aGVsb29rb3V0BHB0A3N0b3J5cGFnZQ--;_ylv=3

So long as you don't use it!! Just pee out the window, like in college when the loo was too far to crawl? Think the color might be more like this...

Eek...

Welcome back. Do aim carefully. P.S. Wonder what used Norden sights go for?

Indeed. And I can never read one of these lists without thinking of the dead-on restaurant critic Anton Ego in 'Ratatouille.'

I heard someone who had just watched it crack, "Tragic Tike."

I remember you posted about those Tide pods before. All things considered, you were lucky!

One hopes this free tutorial has not unduly unsettled rimchair.

Well ... maybe I just have an iron constitution. (Uh-huh!) But I had the little bugs for several months before I finally went and got them diagnosed. I had thought it was just winter dry-skin itch.

Interesting to see how this plays out... NBA Reporter Calls Homosexuality A Sin On TV ESPN basketball analyst Chris Broussard called being gay an “open rebellion to God” during the network's special report on Jason Collins coming out today. posted on April 29, 2013 at 3:45pm EDT Mike Hayes BuzzFeed Staff Earlier today, ESPN announced it was extending its investigative reporting show Outside the Lines one hour to discuss the historic coming out of NBA player Jason Collins. It got weird when Chris Broussard started talking about his religious beliefs. [Video here that won't embed; see article link below] Via: Mike Hayes In 2009, Broussard wrote an article on a former NBA player who came out, John Amaechi, in which he actually said "I think the NBA is ready for a gay player." http://www.buzzfeed.com/mikehayes/nba-reporter-calls-homosexuality-a-sin-on-tv

Report: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's repeated requests for a lawyer were ignoredThere is zero legal or ethical justification for denying a suspect in custody this fundamental right Glenn Greenwald guardian.co.uk, Monday 29 April 2013 14.43 EDT (updated below - Update II [Tues.]) The initial debate over the treatment of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev focused on whether he should be advised of his Miranda rights or whether the "public safety exception" justified delaying it. In the wake of news reports that he had been Mirandized and would be charged in a federal court, I credited the Obama DOJ for handling the case reasonably well thus far. As it turns out, though, Tsarnaev wasn't Mirandized because the DOJ decided he should be. Instead, that happened only because a federal magistrate, on her own, scheduled a hospital-room hearing, interrupted the FBI's interrogation which had been proceeding at that point for a full 16 hours, and advised him of his right to remain silent and appointed him a lawyer. Since then, Tsarnaev ceased answering the FBI's questions. But that controversy was merely about whether he would be advised of his Miranda rights. Now, the Los Angeles Times, almost in passing, reports something which, if true, would be a much more serious violation of core rights than delaying Miranda warnings - namely, that prior to the magistrate's visit to his hospital room, Tsarnaev had repeatedly asked for a lawyer, but the FBI simply ignored those requests, instead allowing the interagency High Value Detainee Interrogation Group to continue to interrogate him alone: "Tsarnaev has not answered any questions since he was given a lawyer and told he has the right to remain silent by Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler on Monday, officials said. "Until that point, Tsarnaev had been responding to the interagency High Value Detainee Interrogation Group, including admitting his role in the bombing, authorities said. A senior congressional aide said Tsarnaev had asked several times for a lawyer, but that request was ignored since he was being questioned under the public safety exemption to the Miranda rule." Delaying Miranda warnings under the "public safety exception" - including under the Obama DOJ's radically expanded version of it - is one thing. But denying him the right to a lawyer after he repeatedly requests one is another thing entirely: as fundamental a violation of crucial guaranteed rights as can be imagined. As the lawyer bmaz comprehensively details in this excellent post, it is virtually unheard of for the "public safety" exception to be used to deny someone their right to a lawyer as opposed to delaying a Miranda warning (the only cases where this has been accepted were when "the intrusion into the constitutional right to counsel ... was so fleeting – in both it was no more than a question or two about a weapon on the premises of a search while the search warrant was actively being executed"). To ignore the repeated requests of someone in police custody for a lawyer, for hours and hours, is just inexcusable and legally baseless. But that debate was merely about whether Tsarnaev would be advised of his rights. This is much more serious: if the LA Times report is true, then it means that the DOJ did not merely fail to advise him of his right to a lawyer but actively blocked him from exercising that right. This is a US citizen arrested for an alleged crime on US soil: there is no justification whatsoever for denying him his repeatedly exercised right to counsel. And there are ample and obvious dangers in letting the government do this. That's why Marcy Wheeler was arguing from the start that whether Tsarnaev would be promptly presented to a federal court - as both the Constitution and federal law requires - is more important than whether he is quickly Mirandized. Even worse, if the LA Times report is accurate, it means that the Miranda delay as well as the denial of his right to a lawyer would have continued even longer had the federal magistrate not basically barged into the interrogation to advise him of his rights. I'd like to see more sources for this than a single anonymous Congressional aide, though the LA Times apparently concluded that this source's report was sufficiently reliable. The problem is that we're unlikely to get much transparency on this issue because to the extent that national politicians in Washington are complaining about Tsarnaev's treatment, their concern is that his rights were not abused even further: "Lawmakers were told Tsarnaev had been questioned for 16 hours over two days. Injured in the throat, he was answering mostly in writing. "'For those of us who think the public safety exemption properly applies here, there are legitimate questions about why he was [brought before a judge] when he was,' said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), a former federal prosecutor who serves on the House Intelligence Committee. "Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the committee, wrote Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. asking for a full investigation of the matter, complaining that the court session 'cut off a lawful, ongoing FBI interview to collect public safety information.'" So now the Washington "debate" is going to be whether (a) the Obama DOJ should have defied the efforts of the federal court to ensure Tsarnaev's rights were protected and instead just violated his rights for even longer than it did, or ( the Obama DOJ violated his rights for a sufficient amount of time before "allowing" a judge into his hospital room. That it is wrong to take a severely injured 19-year-old US citizen and aggressively interrogate him in the hospital without Miranda rights, without a lawyer, and (if this report is true) actively denying him his repeatedly requested rights, won't even be part of that debate. As Dean Chemerinsky wrote: "Throughout American history, whenever there has been a serious threat, people have proposed abridging civil liberties. When that has happened, it has never been shown to have made the country safer. These mistakes should not be repeated. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be investigated, prosecuted and tried in accord with the US Constitution." There is no legal or ethical justification for refusing the request for someone in custody to have a lawyer present. If this report is true, what's most amazing is not that his core rights were so brazenly violated, but that so few people in Washington will care. They're too busy demanding that his rights should have been violated even further. UPDATEIn March of last year, the New York Times' Editorial Page Editor, Andrew Rosenthal - writing under the headline "Liberty and Justice for Non-Muslims" - explained: "it's rarely acknowledged that the [9/11] attacks have also led to what's essentially a separate justice system for Muslims." Even if you're someone who has decided that you don't really care about (or will actively support) rights abridgments as long as they are applied to groups or individuals who you think deserve it, these violations always expand beyond their original application. If you cheer when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's right to counsel is denied, then you're enabling the institutionalization of that violation, and thus ensuring that you have no basis or ability to object when that right is denied to others whom you find more sympathetic (including yourself). UPDATE II [Tues.]For those who are still having trouble comprehending the point that objections to rights violations are not grounded in "concern over a murderer" but rather concern over what powers the government can exercise - just as objections to the US torture regime were not grounded in concern for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - perhaps the great American revolutionary Thomas Paine can explain the point, from his 1795 A Dissertation on the First Principles of Government: "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." That's the same principle that led then-lawyer-and-revolutionary John Adams to vigorously defend five British soldiers (of the hated occupying army) accused of one of the most notorious crimes of the revolutionary period: the 1770 murder of five colonists in Boston as part of the so-called Boston Massacre. As the ACLU explained, no lawyers were willing to represent the soldiers because "of the virulent anti-British sentiment in Boston" and "Adams later wrote that he risked infamy and even death, and incurred much popular suspicion and prejudice." Ultimately, Adams called his defense of these soldiers "one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested actions of my whole life, and one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country." That's because Adams understood what Paine understood: if you permit the government to trample upon the basic rights of those whom you hate, then you're permitting the government to trample upon those rights in general, for everyone. This is not a platitude they were invoking but an undeniable historical truth. Governments know that their best opportunity to institutionalize rights violations is when they can most easily manipulate the public into acquiescing to them by stoking public emotions of contempt against the individual target. For the reasons Paine and Adams explained, it is exactly in such cases - when public rage finds its most intense expression - when it is necessary to be most vigilant in defense of those rights. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/29/tsarnaev-right-to-counsel-denied

The routine... He gets diagnosed, gets prescribed either Permethryn cream (basically topical insecticide) or 6 little pills, forget their name, then changes clothes and bed linens daily for 3 days running, after which both the bugs under his skin and the eggs left on his clothes and bedding are supposed to have died off. Then he should be in the clear. But the docs tell you to do it all over again after 10 days, just to make sure. IF he follows all that rigmarole religiously, i.e. avoids letting the eggs re-infect him, he should then be good. If you can trust him to have done all that. BTW, how do you know he hasn't had them for the past 6 weeks or longer, but only just noticed? P.S. Speaking from experience.

Hell in a Handbasket It looks like an average briefcase, except that it’s made of titanium, carried by a military officer with a license to kill, and holds the launch orders for Armageddon. It’s the nuclear football. Maxim, Jan 2001 By Colonel David H. Hackworth, U.S. Army (Ret.) Where the hell was the president? The military aide frowned. Cuffed to his wrist was the nuclear football, but the quarterback was nowhere in sight. The orders were burned in the aide’s brain. Don’t get out of the president’s protective envelope. Yeah, Roger that. But what do you do if the commander in chief changes the game plan? Just moments earlier on this morning of April 24, 1999, President Clinton had been closeted in the International Trade Center in downtown Washington, D.C., with the cream of NATO. The aide had stood nearby, all but unnoticed in the cavernous atrium. All was going well, until the president decided to make an unscheduled early departure. He piled into his limo, and the motorcade tore off for the White House. One man didn’t scramble fast enough. For just a second, the officer stood there on the sidewalk, dumbstruck. Then, in spite of the official plan-call for backup-the officer did what any normal man might do. He pushed the panic button and took off on foot through the streets of high-crime D.C., where muggers and guns are a dime a dozen and armed robbery is a blood sport. He hotfooted it across town, sweat soaking through his shirt, the paranoia oozing out of every pore. His mind raced. Who’s that son of a bitch crossing against the light? Is he scoping the football? If he gets any closer, do I grease him? It was just a paper pusher admiring the bag. The officer forced himself to calm down. It was his job to be suspicious, but now he had to concentrate on getting the football home. Hey, why not hail a cab? Jesus. What am I thinking? The guy behind the wheel looks like Osama bin Laden! Finally, at the White House main security gate 20 minutes later, the guard blanched and quickly waved him through. He knew that if anyone found out, the aide’s ass was grass. But the word was already out. White House press secretary Joe Lockhart quickly tried to do damage control, telling reporters, “These things happen. We’re safe.” They do-and we’re not. This story isn’t made up. After Bill Clinton ditched out of the NATO meeting, it took the ballcarrier nearly half an hour to catch up with the commander in chief. As it happens, the chances of a nuclear strike being launched against the U.S. during that time were virtually nonexistent. But in the game of nuclear football, there is a zero margin for error. As it also happens, it would take just ten minutes for a Russian sub in the Atlantic to launch a strike that would transform the nation’s capital into a radioactive crater. For the next 250,000 years. MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION “The Cold War isn’t over in the nuclear business,” says Gene Carroll, a retired admiral and nuclear analyst at the Center for Defense Information in D.C. Despite the death of the Evil Empire, despite the fact that the best strategic thinkers all say it’s nuts, the U.S. and the Russians still have thousands of nuclear warheads pointed at each other’s head and belly. The centerpiece of this nightmare is the nuclear football, a.k.a. the Presidential Emergency Satchel. Inside this innocuous-looking satchel are attack plans to destroy Russia, China, and other peripheral enemies of the U.S.-a playbook for doomsday and all the codes the president needs to order the kickoff. It all started back in the years after World War II, when the United States had only a handful of atomic bombs, all under the control of the Air Force. The boys in blue were more than a bit arrogant about their mission. To rein in intramural rivalry among the military services for control of our nukes, President Eisenhower created the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff and charged it with developing a centralized command system for all nuclear targeting. Out of this era of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) came the Single Integrated Operations Plan-a streamlined, etched-in-stone launch protocol. The code word for the first SIOP was Dropkick, and in this high-stakes game, where the toe met the leather you had to have a football. THE DEADLIEST PIGSKIN To look at it, you’d never think the football could work so much destruction. At first it seems to be just another lawyer’s briefcase-black leather, measuring about 18 by 15 by 10 inches and secured with a hefty combination lock. But beneath the outer skin is an impenetrable titanium case. And attached to its handle is a quick-release security wristlet worn by a soldier, sailor, flier, or Marine armed with an M9 Beretta 9 mm pistol and a license to kill anyone crazy enough to make a grab for it. Current ballcarriers handpick their successors from a pool of top officers, who are then approved by the White House. The recruits must sign a secrecy agreement, and they report to the White House Military Office. Five aides, one from each of the armed services and one from the Coast Guard, work in shifts and are responsible for the satchel at all times. Retired Marine colonel Pete Metzger carried the ball at the height of the Cold War. He was a major back then, and while on duty Metzger ate, went to the can, and slept with that thing right next to him. To protect it, he had a hidden holster pocket sewn inside his uniform. “It’s like this,” he says. “If you stand next to the president with a loaded weapon, you want to make sure you have your act together.” When Metzger was hauling the ball around Europe, China, and every state in the union, he worked out a standard response for the pests who couldn’t resist coming up and asking, “What’s in that thing?” His answer: “A Playboy and a tuna fish sandwich.” A NATIONAL SECRET What’s really in the briefcase? Metzger, a true Cold Warrior, refuses to discuss the contents or any other related national security aspects of the football. But from other sources we’ve determined that the football contains four nasty little puppies. The first is the SIOP Decision Handbook. It’s a series of flip charts laying out various ways to launch nuclear first strikes or retaliatory actions. The book runs to about 30 pages and is constantly revised and updated by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The directions, short and unmistakable, are printed in red ink by a classified press in the Pentagon and illustrated with simple cartoons for quick and easy understanding. Call it World War III for Dummies. The second item in the satchel is a list of classified secure bunkers where the president can go during a nuclear attack. The third is a communications booklet-instructions on how to contact military leaders and access civilian broadcasting networks during an emergency. The fourth item is a package sealed in foil. Inside it, doubly sealed within a plastic strip, is a device called an Authorizing Tablet. When the president cracks it open, he can see the authorizing codes written out in letters and numbers and give the orders to launch. Protruding from the top of the current briefcase is what appears to be a seven-inch-long black antenna. Experts speculate it may support a wireless laptop or be a part of an explosive fail-safe device that could be detonated remotely. If someone in Mother Russia loses his mind and pushes the button, the president has only moments to react. “His decision is whether to use ’em or lose ’em,” says a retired Marine colonel who pulled duty in the Pentagon’s War Room. If he decides to cut loose, he’ll issue an EAM (Emergency Action Message) through the War Room. That’s the dreaded fire-when-ready order sent to the launch sites. Then it’s just two twists of the keys and the bad guys are radiated toast. So, of course, are we. So is the planet. KEEPING AN EYE ON THE BALL Oddly enough, American presidents have shown little interest in the football. Upon taking office, each new commander in chief is supposed to receive a 15-minute chalk talk on how to use it. But Bill Gulley, director of the White House Military Office for every president from JFK to Reagan, has written that none of them ever asked for or received a follow-up briefing. This neglect places awesome responsibility on the officers who carry and protect the ball. They’re the ones with the combination to the lock, the ones who take out the Handbook, fold it to the right charts, and place it in the president’s hand when it’s time to go ballistic. “If the guy with the football had a heart attack or got shot on the way to the president, they’d have to blow the goddamn thing open,” observed Gulley. President Kennedy never paid much attention to the football. Even during the Cuban missile crisis he never considered reaching for the briefcase. After LBJ took office, Bill Gulley took a peek around and found that no one had updated the authenticator codes for six months. The missing stuff was found in the White House basement. Years later Gulley wrote, “If the balloon ever went up, it would be pure pandemonium.” For every president from JFK on, there seems to be at least one horror story involving the football. During the final days of Watergate, when Nixon was drinking hard and wandering the White House at night talking to the pictures on the walls, there were stories that the chief of staff and the secretary of defense had taken away his football. That wasn’t true. Al Haig and James Schlesinger were able to exercise nuclear control throughout the Watergate crisis not because they had recovered the football but because they could dominate the MAC-the conference call ordering a strike. When Gerald Ford took over, he flew off to Paris for a summit and left his ballcarrier aboard Air Force One. Two years later, Ford’s national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, turned up to give Jimmy Carter his briefing. When Scowcroft opened the football, he found a condom and an empty can of beer inside. Someone had planted them there as a practical joke. In 1980, Jimmy Carter issued controversial Presidential Directive 59, which stated that in the event of a nuclear war, the U.S. would aggressively target Soviet political leaders and mobile missile forces. However, during his down-home retreats, Carter refused to let the Pentagon house the football carrier on his peanut farm in Plains, Georgia. The aide had to bed down 10 miles away. Jimmy dodged a calamity when he once left his authenticator ID in the pocket of a suit. It went to the dry cleaner. Ronald Reagan lost his ID, too, but it wasn’t his fault. When he was shot, it disappeared into an FBI evidence bag along with his pants. Pete Metzger picked up the ball four months later. He says that in contrast to Carter, Reagan welcomed a DOD trailer on his Santa Barbara ranch. Metzger had custom-made saddlebags to carry the football and weapons so he could keep up when the Gipper went for a ride. In D.C., Pete and the doctor were always close to him, which rankled some of the bigger egos. But when they beefed to chief of staff James Baker, he’d say, “Unless you can do what those two guys can do, they get in the elevator first. You take the next one up.” Mike Deaver, Reagan’s deputy chief of staff, taught Metzger the kind of lesson that would have helped Clinton’s aide avoid the fumble last spring: “Always stand between the president and his transportation,” he said. “It’s waiting for him, not you. When his rear end hits the seat, it goes-limo, chopper, Air Force One-it goes, and you better be there.” Metzger followed the advice and never lost his man or the ball. The Navy commander who took his place during the Bush administration wasn’t so lucky. After a hot tennis match in Los Angeles one day, President Bush took off with his racket but not the football. It took the Navy pigskin carrier 15 minutes of hightailing it to hook up with him on Sunset Boulevard. TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT A while back I made a count of the times we came close to using the football. Between the end of World War II and the Reagan administration, we escalated toward the brink of nuclear use no fewer than 24 times. On one of those occasions, the brigadier general of the War Room came on duty, looked up on the screens and saw what he thought was a full Russian attack. He threw us into DEFCON 4, grabbed the red phone, and called the White House for the football and QB. Then an old sergeant walked in, said, “What the fuck’s going on?” and flicked off the video machines that were running the training tapes simulating an attack. That’s how close it can get. The more missiles we have and people we have running them, the greater the likelihood of a miscalculation, accident, or act of twin madmen. But if the new president and Congress would only sit down and review the instant replays of all we now know about the nuclear football, maybe we could work up a better game plan. http://www.hackworth.com/maxim012001.html

Cause for hope... ...and what's one U.S. federal government more or less, among all this progress?

Wow! Site is running on Adderall this morning. Thank you! Whee!

You could consider that whomever you are having sex with at the moment is your lover...

Now, we may want to talk about that...

And again, with feeling... The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. -- Blake

Three's company.