Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Poem: A raindrop's life

A raindrop is born
In a cloud
And returns like a salmon

How it got there is another story
A droplet latches onto a nuclei
Of smoke salt or dust

And bumps into other droplets
Over and over and over
Coalescing a million times

Gravity pulls the raindrop down
To strike water or earth
And one day it evaporates

A raindrop is born
In a cloud
And returns like a salmon.
---o0o---

Word Verification Sucks



I keep running hot and cold with word verification. I turned it on in the fall, when blogs were just beginning to be hammered by the splogs, or spamming blogs. As soon as I posted an article, the spammers arrived. Then things start to quiet down. I turn verification off. And the spammers sneak in, and not just to new posts, but reaching back into comments a year old, they add their new ones.

Shoes. Increased semen production. Cars cheap! Boner enhancers. "you have a great blog. You're really making things happen. Check out my blog at...." People selling acreage on the moon. Jewelry. Books. Oxycontin and Vicoden over the internet! (hmmm!). Teddy bears. Steaks Fed-exed! Sex pictures of M.I.L.F.s in action! Real estate! Nekkid girls! Nekkid boys! Horse sex!

I turn it off and get complacent again. Until the post I just created about something (reasonably) serious is spammed with another Exciting Offer! And I turn it on again. It's a war of attrition. I want people to comment, and they, like me, find word verification irritating. . .especially if you're a marginal typist and it takes at least two (or more!) tries to pass the word verification challenge. . .
---o0o---

Monday, January 30, 2006

State of the Union Satire worth a look

Check out this excellent impression of President Bush and his upcoming State of the Union speech performed by James Adomian. It goes over the top, but there are a lot of gems in there.
---o0o---

President Bush: "Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton"

[click images to enlarge]


According to Reuters, President George W. Bush says Bill Clinton has become so close to his father he's almost one of the family. Between their disaster relief work, fund raising, attending funerals, and the like, the two former POTUSes are thick as thieves. In fact President George W. Bush joked that Bill Clinton was "my new brother."


"Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton," President George W. Bush joked, referring to how Bill Clinton had followed his father, and Hillary Clinton could follow him.




"That's a good relationship. It's a fun relationship to watch," Bush said in an interview with CBS News broadcast yesterday. "It was fun to see the interplay between dad and Clinton. One of these days, I'll be a member of the ex-president's club. ... I'll be looking for something to do."



The President said he checked in with Clinton occasionally. "And you know, he says things that makes it obvious -- that makes it obvious to me that we're kind of, you know, on the same wavelength about the job of the presidency. "
---o0o---

The Onion on The West Wing's cancellation


http://www.theonion.com/content/node/44832



---o0o---

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Alien Lore 62 - two encounters between President Ronald Reagan and UFOs

[click all images to enlarge for viewing and readability]

1. Steve Allen took one of Ronald Reagan's UFO sightings public on his WNEW-AM radio show in New York. Allen related a story that "a well-known personality in the entertainment industry" had confided to him years ago.

For years, the story had made the rounds in the press-politico rumor mill and everyone knew Allen was talking about Governor Ronald and Nancy Reagan. The Reagans were expected at a dinner party with Hollywood friends. The guests had arrived except for the Reagans. Ron and Nancy showed up thirty minutes late and were very upset because, they said, they had seen a UFO coming down the coast.

2. Another sighting happened in 1974 while Reagan was still Governor. The future President related the story to Norman C. Millar, who was Washington Bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal: "I was in a plane last week when I looked out the window and saw this white light. It was zigzagging around."

"I went up to the pilot and said, Have you seen anything like that before? He was shocked and said, Nope. And I said to him: Let's follow it! We followed it for several minutes. It was a bright white light."

"We followed it to Bakersfield, and all of a sudden to our utter amazement, it went straight up into the heavens."

"When we got off the plane, I told Nancy all about it." Reagan, in his discussion with Millar added that he had told Nancy about the UFO he had seen, and that they had done personal research on UFOs. This research had uncovered the facts that there were references to UFOs in Egyptian hieroglyphics.

The reporter suddenly realized that Reagan actually believed in UFOs. "Are you telling me that you saw a UFO?"

Suddenly, according to Millar, Reagan realized that he was talking to the press. "This look crossed his face," recalled Millar, "and he said let's just say that I'm an agnostic."

The speech draft reprinted above shows that UFOs were never far from the President's mind. He mentioned UFOs and aliens publicly numerous times during his Presidency, most famously in a speech at the United Nations.

No wonder that, toward the end of his administration, the British tabloid, The Sun, published a huge headline

"Reagan will end his presidency by adding several planets as states."

Links to selected earlier posts on President Ronald Reagan in All This Is That:

http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2005/11/president-ronald-reagan-glances-out.html
http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2005/11/alien-lore-no-39-presidents-and-near.html
http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2005/07/president-ronald-reagan-on-war-and.html
http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2005/03/potus-40-pres-ronald-dutch-reagan-b.html
http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2004/12/three-by-ronald-reagan.html
--------o0o--------

Saturday, January 28, 2006

It was twenty years ago today that the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded

Twenty years ago (1-28-1986), the space shuttle Challenger lifted off from from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The launch was watched by almost every schoolkid in the country, because one of the crew was a teacher--37 year old Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian to travel into space. She didn't make it.

Seventy-three seconds after the launch, the shuttle exploded in a forking plume of smoke and fire as family and friends watched, along with millions watching live television. No one on board survived.

President Ronald Reagan appointed a commission to find out what went wrong. The investigation found the explosion was caused by the failure of an "O-ring" seal in one of the two solid-fuel rockets. This rapidly triggered a chain of events that resulted in a massive explosion.

It's not nearly so well remembered as the Challenger, but just three years ago, on February 1, 2003, another space-shuttle tragedy occurred when the Columbia shuttle disintegrated entering Earth's atmosphere.

----------o0o----------

Ann Coulter: Justice John Paul Stevens Should Be Poisoned

Ann Coulter "joked" during a Thursday speech that liberal Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens should be poisoned. "We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' creme brulee," Coulter said at Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark. "That's just a joke, for you in the media."



















She made other tasteless jokes about liberal Supreme Court justices that made the audience "squeal," according to an article today in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Coulter was booed, however, after she stopped two black men during questions, telling them, "I'm not gonna be lectured to," according to the newspaper account. She also was booed when she said that the crack cocaine epidemic "has pretty much gone away."

Blacks "are the most loyal group for Democrats and you ought to be getting a little more out of them by giving them competition through the Republicans," Coulter said.

Afterward, black students stood around "lashing" back at Coulter's "rhetoric," the newspaper said. One sophomore girl said: "We need someone on the Democratic side who is just as outspoken as she is."

The college president, Walter Kimbrough, told the audience that inviting Coulter to speak at the black school made sense because like hip hoppers she is "raw, outspoken, uncensored." He also called her the "conservative answer to rapper Lil' Kim -- [both] attractive and sexy, long-haired blondes. ..." Coulter said it was "the best introduction" she'd ever had. It's hard to believe Walter Kimbrough was able to compare Ann to Lil Kim with a straight face, but he somehow did.
---o0o---

ChatFu: cartoonify your chats and other texts


click cartoon/poem to enlarge


click cartoon/poem to enlarge

This site cartoonifies any text you upload to it. I tried it with a couple of short poems of mine. ChatFu is located at: http://chatfu.com/
---o0o---

Friday, January 27, 2006

The Brannock Device

Ever since I was four years old, I've wanted to own a Brannock Device. They are are an design masterpiece: elegant, rugged, graphically interesting, and absolutely functional. They have barely changed in 75 years. If you've ever been to a shoe store, you know they're cool.

Charles F. Brannock (1903-1992) began fiddling with foot-measuring devices in college. After a trial by fire in his father’s shoe store, Brannock's device soon gained favor over other systems because it measured foot length and width at the same time. His early drawing to the right shows most of the details of the final device—just like the Brannock devices used in shoe stores today. Brannock obtained a patent in 1928, and it's been The Shoe Size Thing ever since.

You can buy them new for $75 or so. . .but I found one on Ebay for $5 (see photo below), and it now sits in my office, in the traditional spot, right in front of a chair.


---o0o---

Thursday, January 26, 2006

My Grandma's tavern in Carnation, Wash.

Click photograph to enlarge. . .


Not long ago, I wrote here about my Great Uncle Guy Huber, his visits to Kent, Washington, and, of course, his wooden leg. I also wrote about my Grandpa Dell, last year, and how I teethed on his hook arm when I was a baby...

Grandma Vera Galvin was Uncle Guy's sister, and Grandpa Dell was my Grandma's third, and final, husband. Alas, I don't have many tales to tell of my Grandma. She died in either 1961 or 1962. My mother is not all that forthcoming about her exploits, and wouldn't answer several questions I posed (or said "please don't write about that"), sticking mainly to the bare biographical facts. This was much different than when I pumped her for information on Uncle Guy. In fact, I don't have a lot of memories of her either.

Grandma Galvin is pictured in this photograph at a bar she owned in Carnation, Washington. Carnation was a small village in 1949, when she bought the bar on the town's main street. She owned it for about ten years. Also in the picture, with his one hand on the register, is Grandpa Dell Galvin. They must have been about my age in the photo.

All my life, I've been fascinated by her owing a bar. When I was a kid, women seemed to rarely even go to bars, let alone own one. But then again, most grandmothers didn't get married three times either, or drink beer. There must have been some vein of iconoclasm in the family, since my mom ended up being a Rosie The Riveter during WW II, and eventually a U.S. Marine.

The bar is a little spooky. . .but that's mainly the taxidermy I think. . .there is definitely a stuffed owl, and I'm not sure if the other birds are pheasants or wild turkeys. . .or what? They look too small for grouse. Aanother critter at the left end of the bar could be a porcupine, a marmot, a wild baby boar?

When I knew her, Grandma drove a grey 1948 Plymouth. I remember several occasions sitting next to her driving somewhere. I also remember there was a "church key" for opening beer cans on her dashboard. I don't remember ever seeing her without a can of beer wrapped in a paper bag. She lived in a cottage (my mom calls it a shack) in Carnation.

She started the coal stove every morning--fat lumps of greasy coal kindled with tissues. The house had plumbing; I well remember the houses that didn't--and the cold treks to a fantastically rank outhouse. One of my only other memories of visiting her in Carnation was having breakfast with one of Del's daughters, who also lived in Carnation. She gave me half a grapefruit. I don't think I'd ever seen one before. I know I hadn't eaten one. They squirted. I liked it.

Dell died of a brain tumor in the late '50s, and Grandma sold her bar. Or maybe she went broke. Grandma Galvin was now retired, and was just about to move in with my family in Kent, when she went into a diabetic coma and died in about 1961. I remember my dad telling me one morning that she had passed away.

It was years before I could really tell the difference between passing away and passing out. Passing out from drink was not unheard of in my circles and yet even then, at say, the age of nine, I could smell a whiff of it--you sense the people passing out are treading an tenuous chasm between being numb and being gone.
--------o0o--------




Portrait of President Bush five years and six days into his presidency


Click image to enlarge
---o0o---

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Poem: The mystery of the first amendment to the Ten Commandments


They didn't know
Whether it should be
The eleventh commandment

The first amendment
To the Ten Commandments
Or the Commandment Codicil

One bloc argued
There were loopholes
To be closed

Another group liked
The round number ten
Why spoil it with twelve or thirteen

One prophet who looked like Jerry Garcia
Said we forgot to tell them enjoy life
Follow the rules but have fun in between

And another camp voted for
Forty more commandments
Just to be sure

A quasi-Buddhist splinter faction
Pushed to add Jesus's words
Love one another

They never settled a thing
With the stone tablets
Missing

The Framer's intentions
Were impossible
To divine

They weren't even sure
Moses had turned the tablets over
To see the other side
---o0o---

How do you like those apples Canada? Right wing fever breaks out north of the border.

How does it feel, my good friends 100 miles to the north? Hours after winning a minority government, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper promised to get to work implementing his top campaign priorities, many quite similar to Republican "reforms" and others even further to the right.

The Tories sweeping this election is that it might finally force the Liberals to clean house and come out as a revamped and appealing option in the future. Of course, we in the middle of North America said the same thing in 2000 and 2004. Same as it ever was same as it ever was same as it ever was. . .

I'm not happy about this, but I do remember the laughter, disgust, and derision that emanated from Canada as we elected, and then incredibly re-elected President Bush. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, how do you like your Man On Horseback?
----------o0o----------

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Alien Lore No. 61 - Ronald Reagan, Steven Spielberg, UFOs and aliens



On June 27, 1982, Ronald Reagan brought Steven Spielberg to the White House
to screen ET: The Extraterrestrial.

After the screening, The President put his hand on Spielberg's shoulder and said "You know, there aren't six people in this room who know how true this really is."

At the time, the conspiracy nuts/UFOlogists discussed how the original E.T. had changed into a cartoon-like creature, unlike the Greys most contactees and abductees reported. In the end, the model for E.T. alien was based on a snapping turtle embryo with Albert Einstein's eyes. A government insider allegedly told Spielberg that the alien model was too close to the truth, and had to be changed. Obviously, this was never proved and Spielberg refuses to comment on the matter.

Spielberg told the story of Reagan's "how true this is" comment to Hollywood television producer Jamie Shandera while Shandera was helping a Japanese film crew shoot a documentary on Spielberg.

Since then Spielberg has refused to talk to reporters or researchers about his conversation with Reagan, according to several sources. Either he's been muzzled (the popular theory, of course), or he's sick of talking to nutjob UFO researchers. . .

James A. Baker III, Chief of Staff, Edwin Meese III, Counselor, and Michael K. Deaver, Deputy Chief of Staff, met in the White House Situation Room where the President participated in a briefing of the U.S. Space Program. Participants included six members of the National Security Council or National Security Affairs and no one from NASA. The absence of NASA from a Space Program briefing is highly unusual, especially since President Reagan would attend a U.S. Space Shuttle landing at Edwards Air Force Base just a few days later.

A couple months later, President Reagan showed up in Roswell, New Mexico to give a speech for the re-election of Harrison (Jack) Schmitt. Schmitt, the Republican Senator (and Apollo 17 astronaut) from New Mexico was the last man to walk on the moon.

Schmitt said, "If the government has any information on UFO's, it should be released to the public -- barring anything that might affect national security. We ought to be involved in a search to find out if there's any good evidence that UFOs really are spacecraft that are being piloted by extraterrestrial beings."

He went on to qualify that somewhat: "The existence of intelligent life elsewhere in our universe is highly probable. . .that such life would visit our star and planet, however, is unlikely, but not impossible given the large number of choices it would have for such a visit. Further, the so-called UFOs have not done a very good job of communicating for life (that's) intelligent enough to travel between stars."

President Reagan in his speech at Roswell said "It feels good to be here in the land of enchantment and far away from a place of disenchantment on the banks of the Potomac. Jack (Schmitt), are you sure you want to go back there? [Laughter] Of course, having once been an astronaut, Jack Schmitt is probably the only one who feels at home there; because Washington is in orbit most of the time about one thing or another."

President Reagan's speech at The Roswell Industrial Air Center was made just outside Hanger 84, the rumored repository for the UFO wreckage and bodies found near Roswell in July 1947.
---o0o---

another photgraph of President George Bush and Jack Abramoff

Following up yesterday's photo, another shot of Jack Abramoff and The President has turned up:

As Time Magazine said, "[these photographs] are likely to see the light of day eventually because celebrity tabloids are on the prowl for them. And that has been a fear of the Bush team's for the past several months..."

According to a reliable source on the Vice-President's staff, "The Veep, POTUS, and Abramoff were having dinner and drinking bourbon at Abramoff's restaurant. They played various drinking games, blah blah blah, things seriously degenerated and finally, on a dare, The President stripped to his briefs and danced for a small crowd of officials and Secret Service agents."

Photo by Jonathan Schwarz.
---------o0o---------

Monday, January 23, 2006

Bush and Abramoff captured together in explicit photographs


click photograph to enlarge

As the Abramoff scandal continues to unfold, envelop, and roil the G.O.P., the President's flacks have continually denied that he ever really met with Jack Abramoff, other than casually in large groups.

The online edition of TIME magazine is reporting they have "seen five photographs of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of contact between them that Bush's aides have downplayed. While TIME's source refused to provide the pictures for publication, they are likely to see the light of day eventually because celebrity tabloids are on the prowl for them. And that has been a fear of the Bush team's for the past several months..."

All This Is That managed to find a copy of one of the alleged photographs, depicting the President and the lobbyist-felon in a hot tub with a young woman. According to our source, this is the most innocent of the pictures. Other photographs contain explicit three-way conjugations and pairings, and one humorous snapshot depicts The President and Mr. Abramoff "sword fighting," posed in a battle for the 'hand' of an especially pneumatic blond escort."
---o0o---

Saturday, January 21, 2006

Painting: President Bush and Karl Rove hold a press conference to reassure the Republican faithful that all is well, and all will continue to be well


Click painting to enlarge
----------o0o----------

A new Secretary Donald Rumsfeld poem - Not A One


A new Secretary Donald Rumsfeld poem from his 12/24/2005 briefing to Task Force Freedom in Mosul, Iraq. Created by the Secretary, arranged and versified by Jack Brummet

Not A One

Now we've got a choice here
We could just eat
And I could walk around
And meet some of you folks

And take a picture
And shake your hands
I can go back and serve
You some more lobster or steak

Or I could answer some questions
If some of you have questions
Correction.
I'll respond to questions

I'll answer the ones
I know the answers to
And I'll ask General Rodriguez
To answer the tough ones

Does anyone have a question
That's burning a hole
In their pocket?
Not a one.
--------o0o--------
Selected previous Rumsfeld poems on All This Is That:

Poem: Clarity By Donald Rumsfeld
Poem: Those Glass Boxes By Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
The Poetry Of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Part 3::::::That's Life
The Poetry of Secretary Donald Rumsfeld VI:::::Predicting The Future
The Poetry Of Secretary Donald Rumsfeld VIII::::::Litany: What I Don't Do
The Poetry Of Secretary Donald Rumsfeld IX::::::Accuracy
The Poetry Of Secretary Donald Rumsfeld X:::::::::Where Is Osama bin Laden?
The Poetry Of Secretary Donald Rumsfeld XI:::::::::Existence, Evidence, Absence
The Poetry of Secretary Donald Rumsfeld XIV::::::::The Unknown
New Rumsfeld Poems From The Dec. 6, 2005 Defense Dept. Briefing

Friday, January 20, 2006

Audioblogger: Poem - The Variations

this is an audio post - click to play

I wanted to read a poem tonight. I read a few William Carlos Williams and Marianne Moore poems to warm up. And for you, I read a poem I wrote around Christmas, The Variations. Click on the audio post button to hear my reading. You can also save the file to your PC or iPod. As if! /jack


The Variations

1.
I don't know which is better
The thing itself
Or the chicanes

Lacunae
Variations
Selections

Emendations
Redactions
Prevarications

Blurring and
Sharpening
That transmogrify the tale with time

2.
I don't know which is better
To see the baby emerge
Or to see who the baby becomes

3.
I don't know which is better
To ponder the variations
Or to not

4.
These rogue and rococo thoughts
Skitter sideways
Like a sideshuffling crab

Using evasive tactics
In case anyone locks on
And attempts to impose

A framework
Of coherence and congruence
On these fitfully nuanced palabra

5.
If you actually begin to understand
What I am writing
We have all missed the point

Sometimes I don't know
What it means
Until someone else tells me

6.
Sometimes I don't know
If it's better to pull your leg
Or my own

7.
I don't know which is better
The fog and the detours
Or the thing itself.
---o0o---

bin Laden's offer of a truce smells worse than his camel's a**



After another year of hiding in caves (and never croaking as many believed, or hoped), Osama bin Laden crawled out his rathole and warned in a tape released today that Al Qaeda was cooking up other attacks on America. He offered a "long truce" on undefined terms.

In the tape, bin Laden addressed the American people directly, saying of his supporters, "Our situation is getting better while yours is getting worse."

You imbecilic piece of dogs***, bin Laden. Why wouldn't we have a truce with someone as honorable as you? Don't confuse our disgust with the Iraq war with thinking we're a bunch of malleable sob sisters. I may be wrong about this, but I think the majority of us who don't believe in the war would welcome the opportunity to blow your brains out at point blank range and then calmly walk across the street for a brewski.
---o0o---

My Dog Slugger


click to enlarge

Slugger had recently returned to our house after being banished for snapping at me when I was a baby. The snapshot is very likely winter 1955.
---o0o---

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Uncle Guy, more hillbilly cred, and living a good life


Click photograph to enlarge
Loa Servis (my sister), Guy Huber (my great uncle), and Johnnie Brummet (aka Jack)

Of all my relatives, one of the few held in high regard was my Great Uncle Guy. He lived in a ramshackle cabin on the Cowlitz River in the rural village of Castle Rock, Washington (just downstream from Mount Saint Helens). He owned a ferry to transport people across the river (and save them the hour of driving up to the next bridge). My mom, Betty Brummet, thinks the boat was tethered to a cable anchored across the river. The boat carried one car and passengers on deck. I don't know what he charged. A quarter, four bits, a buck? Actually, a buck seems steep. . .

Uncle Guy lost a leg in his twenties. He was run over by a logging train; somehow one of his legs survived. My mom remembers hearing that he was drug away, on a mattress that soaked through with his blood, and that he barely survived. He had a wooden leg (none of these modern articulated, titanium wonders), which I just realized is perhaps the reason I have references to wooden legs in at least three of my poems. Come to think of it, I remember him having the kids give it a good kick. If you've been a reader here a while, you may also remember he is not the only person in my family missing a limb...in fact if you click here, you'll see my Grandpa Del sitting in the very same chair two years earlier, while I teethed on his hook arm!

Studying Huber family photographs, it's clear that most of their genetic flaws--girth, stubby legs (my inseam is the same as Keelin's, and she's eight inches shorter) were passed right along to the next generation. . .not to mention their heads. The Hubers had long heads, and they had big heads, a trait they passed along. My head's not in the John Kerry or Lurch category, but it's right up there. I'm a 7 7/8 hat size.

Betty Brummet remembers his cabin, rain on the tin roof, and the sound of the Cowlitz River rushing by. He was a lifelong bachelor, but had a longtime girlfriend "Sis," who promised her father on his deathbed she would never marry, and take care of her mother. I don't know if I remember eating smelt Uncle Guy brought or not, but I can't eat or hear about smelt without thinking of him. He was one of Grandma Galvin's three brothers and four sisters.

Sidebar: I ended up with three grandmas, and four grandpas.

I can't remember a lot about Guy, but I know everyone was happy when he came to town. He was one of those guys who lit up a room just being there. In the grand scale of things, it really doesn't get much better than that. (Author raises a glass to Uncle Guy).
--------o0o--------

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

House Republicans take the high road after the low road becomes too treacherous to navigate

House Republicans have moved to seize the initiative for ethics reform yesterday with a sweeping package of proposed changes, including banning privately sponsored travel like that arranged by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The proposed bill also eliminates Congressional pensions for anyone convicted of a felony related to official duties. That could come in handy in the next few months!


Fark.com hilariously said "House Republicans unveil new ethics plan. Said to be modeled after the 'throwing deck chairs off the Titanic to prevent it from sinking' plan."

--------o0o--------

Del Brummet's second trailer for Taracotra



Thirteen year old director Del Brummet has posted a second trailer for his film Taracotra, a mocumentary of the UFO invasion and conquest, on archive.org: http://www.archive.org/details/DelBrummetTaracotraPreview2

And in case you missed the first: http://www.archive.org/details/TaracotraPreview
---o0o---

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Alien Lore 60 - The George Adamski Story

There are few tales in the world of UFOlogy that don't have a lot of supporters. The flimsiest stories have dozens of web sites and blogs beating the drum for their veracity. The paranoid nature of a certain segment of that community insures that any story is too implausible or unsupported by facts is the target of a misinformation campaign (or worse). In the case of George Adamski, even some of the hard-core conpiracy-theorists admit that he was a charlatan or long overdue for a trip to the rubber room. Adamski (1891 – 1965) was a Polish-born American who said he saw and photographed ships from other planets. He also claims to have met and chatted with people from other planets, and even gone on space flights with them.

He wrote several books about his adventures with the aliens, including the 1953 best seller Flying Saucers Have Landed.

He was the most prominent contactee yet known. However his fame was as fleeting as the veracity of his story, and his followers fell away as his claims became more and more questionable amnd improbable. By the time he died, he was pretty much universally considered a hopeless nutjob. And yet, he still has plenty of supporters out there. The web site http://www.gafintl-adamski.com/html/AboutGA.htm says the following:

"In the last years of the 1940's, George Adamski was one of the very first people to publicly reveal his encounters and experiences relating to the UFO phenomena. Through his devotion and courage to speak, he personally became responsible for pioneering the movement towards establishing greater public awareness and education regarding the existence of extraterrestrial life. "

Both George, and his parents, claimed they were contacted by extra terrestrials when Adamski was very young. Eventually he would lecture on the "cosmic philosophy" of the aliens. Adamski's science fiction book was titled Pioneers of Space: A Trip to the Moon, Mars and Venus. A His idea in this book was to kind of soften up the public on the idea of aliens and space travel. He then prsented a lot of that material as fact in a later (cough cough) nonfiction book, Flying Saucers Have Landed.

In the late 1940s, Adamski and his disciples began showing photos of what they claimed were ships from other planes. According to some folks, they looked very similar to the lids from the water coolers he sold for a living.

His best known and most widespread claim (in UFOlogy circles) was that on November 20, 1952 he and friends were in the Mojave Desert where they saw a large submarine-shaped object hovering in the sky. Adamski said he believed that the ship was looking for him so he went away from the main road. A shuttle or transporter from the main UFO landed. Adamski claimed he and aan alien communicated telepathically and through hand signals. The alien, named Orthon, was Venutian, and expressed concern over nuclear weapons on earth. Later in life, Adamski claimed he met other people from Venus, Mars, and Saturn) and said he was taken on flights by them, including one around the moon where he observed valleys and bases.

He had considerable support from UFO proponents around the world. But just about every assertion and "fact" about aliens and UFOs has legions of believers and skeptics. If you believe the stories, you are a few bricks shy of a full load, and if you doubt them, you've been brainwashed by government disinformation agents

TIME magazine predictably called him "a crackpot from California". The scientific discovery that Venus and other planets in the solar system were unable to sustain any form of life (at least that's the current story), severely damaged his claims of talking to friendly aliens from those planets. If you talk about aliens, they need to be from Draco or Zeta Reticulon, or somewhere else we know little about.

Adamski denounced the photos from the first Russian lunar probe in 1959 as fakes. He later announced he would attend a conference on the planet Saturn. Following this revelation, most of his followers abandoned ship. George Adamski died on the east coast in 1965, but I could steer you to at least a dozen or so web sites and blogs that worship him as a prophet
----------o0o----------

Monday, January 16, 2006

Martin Luther King Day

Click to enlarge

First Prize Co-winner, 2004 Princeton University
Martin Luther King Poster Contest
Rachel Waychunas, grade 5, Sayen Elementary School
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Rewind, replay, redux - Senators say military strike on Iran must be option - Same as it ever was same as it ever was same as it ever was

Republican and Democratic senators said on Sunday the United States may ultimately have to undertake a military strike to deter Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but that should be the last resort. "That is the last option. Everything else has to be exhausted. But to say under no circumstances would we exercise a military option, that would be crazy," Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

Click on the first sentence or the title of this post to read the Reuters story. This is depressing. Iraq's always been the hot spot. And we let the Bush clan's vendetta against Iraq obscure the real deal.

I'm not saying that we must go to war with Iran. . .but if we do. . .it's not like we'll be charging in fresh as a daisy. We won't have to travel far, but I'm not sure we'll be bringing a lot of our friends along for the ride. However, in light of the Irani President's statements about Israel and their apparent determination to escalate their nuclear program. . .it just doesn't look good for isolationism a/k/a emulating the ostrich.
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Sunday, January 15, 2006

300 million strong?


The Census Bureau officially pegged the resident population of the United States at about 297,900,000. The bureau estimates that with a baby being born every 8 seconds, someone dying every 12 seconds and the nation gaining an immigrant every 31 seconds on average, the population is growing by one person every 14 seconds. The United States will hit 300,000,000 sometime next fall.

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Seattle's 28th straight rain day


click image to enlarge

The rain continued unabated for the 28th straight day today, as Seattle geared up to break the record for the most consecutive days of rainfall. The good news is the mudslides have slowed down, and the Green, White, Cedar, and most other rivers are receding...


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Scientists creating a human-rabbit hybrid


Scientists are about to create a human rabbit hybrid. Stem cell experts want to create a rabbit-human embryo. They say this hybrid will hasten research.

British scientists are seeking permission to create hybrid embryos in the lab by fusing human cells with rabbit eggs. If granted consent, the team will use the embryos to produce stem cells that carry genetic defects, in the hope that studying them will help understand the complex mechanisms behind incurable human diseases.

The proposal drew strong criticism from opponents to embryo research who yesterday challenged the ethics of the research and branded the work repugnant.
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Oops! 18 civilians killed in Pakistan.

As American military and intelligence sources giddily leaked information Friday about the death of bin Laden lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri, the rapidly emerging evidence showed that while the technology guiding the missiles to their targets was faultless, the intelligence on those targets was not. You think?

Pakistani officials said there was no evidence any 'foreigners' (shorthand for al-Qaeda fighters), were among the 18 victims. Just hapless civilians in the right place at the wrong time.

Tensions between Washington and Islamabad have grown in recent weeks as American troops have stepped up operations against militants.

Pakistan has already lodged a protest with the US military six days ago after a reported US airstrike killed eight people in the North Waziristan tribal region, a barren, deserted area of mountains south of Damadola.

The President and military officials seem to believe--and it is solid reasoning--that if we bomb enough houses, eventually we will kill a member of al-Qaeda.


Ayman al-Zawahiri: Still alive and well
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Saturday, January 14, 2006

Seattle rain: 27th straight day

Seattle had our 26th straight day of rain yesterday and we're now less than a week short of the 1953 record of 33 rainy days. Daily rainfall records have already fallen in Seattle.

The biggest problem is that the saturated landscape can't hold much more water. "What we need is a reprieve," Tony Fantello, maintenance and operations manager for Pierce County Water Programs in Tacoma, told The News Tribune.


I wrote a piece in praise of the rain a few days ago. However, I wouldn't mind a "sunbreak" or two (our term for no rain and few clouds). On the other hand, we've gone this far. Let's break the record and really have something to remember and kvetch about.
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