arse poetica

Rainy Day Blues

As much as I love the Dingo, when she's wet, I just die. That face!

Oh noes! Where did she go?

There's my sweets. Let me in, Mom! Dad's a terror w/ the towel!

Happy Xmas!

Have a beautiful day, all. If yr into that sort of thing, hope Santa brings you lots of loot. If yr not, enjoy being nestled in the bosom of friends and family. And for others still, I wish I were eating Chinese food and going to the movies w/ you. xoxo

What's Xmas w/o a disco angel, I ask you.

Friday Finny Blogging

Finny, when not bugging the Dingo and hogging the dog bed, can be found chilling under the couch.

No, it is not possible for her to be cuter.

Meet Your Al-Qaeda Operative!

Ladies and germs, your Bush administration brings you a world gone completely absurd.

Al-Qaeda wants your questions.

AL-QAEDA sympathisers have been asked to send in their questions for the terror network's second in command, which he will then answer in an online interview next month.

The bizarre stunt was announced in a new video posted on the internet in which al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahri, mocked today's British handover of security in southern Iraq to local forces as a sign that insurgents are gaining the upper hand.

The video, carried by Islamic websites, was issued as Britain handed over security to Iraqi forces in the last of four provinces it once patrolled, effectively marking the end of nearly five years of British control of southern Iraq.

The websites invited readers to send in questions during the next month for Zawahri to answer in an "open interview".  How the interview would work was not immediately clear.

What questions would you ask al-Qaeda's number two?  Let us know using the form below.

Zawahri has been in hiding since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and - along with Osama bin Laden - is the target of a global manhunt from US forces.

Maybe they should look for him on Twitter. How's the bandwidth in those caves in Pakistan? &c. &c. Faugh.

Robber Barrons Unite

Dear lord!

Report Says That the Rich Are Getting Richer Faster, Much Faster.

The increase in incomes of the top 1 percent of Americans from 2003 to 2005 exceeded the total income of the poorest 20 percent of Americans, data in a new report by the Congressional Budget Office shows.

The poorest fifth of households had total income of $383.4 billion in 2005, while just the increase in income for the top 1 percent came to $524.8 billion, a figure 37 percent higher. (emphasis mine)

The total income of the top 1.1 million households was $1.8 trillion, or 18.1 percent of the total income of all Americans, up from 14.3 percent of all income in 2003. The total 2005 income of the three million individual Americans at the top was roughly equal to that of the bottom 166 million Americans, analysis of the report showed.

The report is the latest to document the growing concentration of income at the top, a trend that President Bush said last January had been under way for more than 25 years.

Shut yer lying piehole, you vile huckster.

Earlier reports, based on tax returns, showed that in 2005 the top 10 percent, top 1 percent and fractions of the top 1 percent enjoyed their greatest share of income since 1928 and 1929.

Can't have another Gilded Age. What should we call this one? Maybe the Gelded Age? Don't see the (neutered) Dems doing f*ck-all about B*shCo's rampant looting.

Friday Dingo Blogging--Late Edition

Yes, I am in love (in love!!) with my dog. So what.

Can't Get Enough of That "Sanctity of Life" Crowd

Horrible tragedy. What is it w/ right-wingers and murder?

Evolution vs creation row ends in stabbing.

"One day we're going to live in Paris..."

I promise, I'm on it.

The Interwebs Are Making Me ADD

Just tooling around the interwebs finding way too much to read.

American Exceptionalism in a New Light: A Comparison of Intergenerational Earnings Mobility in the Nordic Countries, the United Kingdom and the United States.

A hunger for books: Doris Lessing's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech.

Tom Watson: Clearing the Smoke Around Obama.

Postdoc Survey Finds Gender Split on Family Issues.

Yale U. Puts Complete Courses Online.

From Oil Wars to Water Wars.

IKEA Naming Conventions.

Hillary's Cookies.

[photo: ae | wall at Kuba Kuba | Richmond, VA | 11.03.07]

I Canna Help It

The man, I love him.

_________________

UPDATE: 12.12.07: Morrissey the most English person in the world?

The FA should look to Morrissey, not Mourinho.

England's new manager must be to England what Captain America is to America. He must be the very distillation of Englishness. And in all seriousness, there can be only one candidate. Cometh the crisis, cometh the man. Step forward Stephen Patrick Morrissey*.

[snip]

Morrissey should be the new England manager because, despite being Irish, he is the most English person alive apart from Mrs Thatcher, who is a woman. And like Mrs Thatcher he is of the opinion that real Englishness is under threat.

Morrissey is not only the most English Englishman alive, he's also the most northern (as revealed by an online poll carried out by Salford art gallery, The Lowry). And northerness is to Englishness what unicorns are to horses, what with being further away from France.

They should give awards for sentences like that last one.

 

[*ahem, that's Steven Patrick Morrissey, thank you.]