Posts by hamishm
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Well, it's Mayday innit so a workplace story.
It happened in a winery before I started work there. They had large underground tanks that had concrete walls lined with candle type wax. Every so often they had to scrape off the wax using a blowtorch and one year the job went to the newest worker who was the nephew of the cellar supervisor thus fueling "he only got the job...etc" tales.
So this guy was in the underground tank with a gas cylinder and blowtorch when smoko time came around and off he went. Of course he didn't turn off the cylinder properly and the tank filled with gas whilst he was away.
He came back with a cigarette and climbed down into the tank. Apparently his flight out of the top of the tank was spectacular and scary, but doomed to obey gravity leaving him in a crumpled, singed heap.
He recovered quickly and was very little the worse for wear apparently but the bit of the story that always appeals to me is that as he was being loaded into the ambulance he looked at his fellow workers and said "I know which one of you bastards set me up and you'll pay for this". -
I thought that Garth would be like G.K.Chesterton and throw his articles out of his window so that adoring locals would find them and take them to the train station where the train would be waiting specially to whisk the evening wisdom off to the big town.
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Lost her mojo!!!
Still gettin jiggy with it, DJKey
He is the man for the countree
Got no time for yesterday,
Get on his boat and sail away. -
There are some ugly attitudes out there.
Yeah, the undercurrents here can be very nasty. The involvement of Lordgod Tamaki is a bad sign IMO. I just don't get the acceptance of a casual swat at the child as it spills its' drink or something. It makes no sense.
Mind you banning a centuries old handicraft makes no sense either, one does it in the privacy of ones own home for ones own personal use. Yes I could understand criminalising it if there were black market smocking rings, but I just don't see them. I'm glad that this thread came up though.
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Most amusing for others was getting bitten by a Hamster (hairy, non-purple). Who knew that the little buggers can turn around inside their skin and bit one. Anyway I went to the local Doctors centre for a tetanus jab and of course had to tell the them how it happened. Smiles all round. And merry quips of "Vicious little brutes, aren't they". The Doctor was, of course, very empathic and wanted to know "How a cute and cuddly little thing etc.etc. I felt that I might be taken round to the old folks beds to cheer them up.
Then as I was walking out, there was a Mexican wave of whispers behind me, of which I could hear "Hamster...bitten...he he he, Hamster...bitten...he he he, Hamster...bitten he he he".
I guess I gave them something to talk about. -
Lindsay Beyerstein also talks about this in her blog, with a few examples. Majikthise is a great blog, BTW.
She makes good points and underlines the unifying theme that we can, at least, see in this thread despite the disagreements. No one likes this stuff and when it happens, people should be able to count on fellow posters for support. I think they could at PA. -
I think that this sums up the current administration pretty well It's about foreign aid for Katrina victims
Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil that was to be sold for cash. But only $40 million has been used so far for disaster victims or reconstruction, according to U.S. officials and contractors. Most of the aid went uncollected, including $400 million worth of oil. Some offers were withdrawn or redirected to private groups such as the Red Cross. The rest has been delayed by red tape and bureaucratic limits on how it can be spent.
At the time there was a lot of internet bleating about being let down by "so-called" allies. It turns out that that wasn't true but that the fault lay with U.S. Government.
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Re Kerry in Ohio. I just, 10 minutes ago found out this via Crooks and Liars and TPM James Carville may have tipped off Bushco.
Apparently, Kerry had decided not to concede. There were 250,000 outstanding ballots in Ohio.
So Kerry decides to fight. In fact, he considers going to Ohio to camp out with his voters until there is a recount. This is the last thing the White House needs, especially after Florida 2000.
So what happened?
James Carville gets on the phone with his wife, Mary Matalin, who is at the White House with Bush
More at TPM.
Then the result:Alleging widespread "irregularities" on Election Day, a group of Democrats in Congress objected earlier Thursday to the counting of Ohio's 20 electoral votes.
The challenge was defeated 267-31 by the House and 74-1 by the Senate, clearing the way for the joint session to count the votes from the remaining states.
The move was not designed to overturn Bush's re-election, said Ohio Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones and California Sen. Barbara Boxer, who filed the objection.
The objecting Democrats, all of whom are House members except Boxer, said they wanted to draw attention to the need for aggressive election reform in the wake of what they said were widespread voter problems.
CNN
I think they saw the damage that was done to Gore and couldn't face it again. The Bushies would be pushing that line as well. -
Just made it wotse?
OMG this used to be an adequate brain.
Made it worse. -
The sad thing about the Ohio story is that it shouldn't have mattered. Anyone should have been able to see that,while Kerry was not the most exciting guy, he would have been an infinitely better Preznit than Mr. Who'd have thunk it?
But he got swiftboated and his own good military record was made to look worse than Bushs' manufactured record.
Anyone else see McCain on The Daily Show? To me he seemed that he beleived what he was saying but that just made it wotse.