A Barnaby Ruhe painting marathon in Seattle

We went to a really fun painting marathon/party tonight at Margaret and Walter Suman's.  NYC artist/professor Barnaby Ruhe was painting--here is a not so good Blackberry shot of the painting he did of me and Keelin.  Barnaby is a former world boomerang champion, a practising shaman, painter, and professor of art at NYC.  You can read his artist biography here.  This is a fuzzy BlackBerry snapshot of the painting he did of me and Keelin.  I'll upload a better one once the painting is dry and we can bring it home.

It was fascinating to watch (and listen to) him paint.  He paints like McCoy Tyner or Jimmy Smith play--lots of vocal whooshes, blips, pops, and oohs.

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All This Is That turns five years old this week

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Video/Slideo: Hurricane by Bob Dylan (with the fantastic lyrics). The story of the frame-up of Rubin Hurricane Carter and John Artis

Bob Dylan's song Hurricane helped break down the jail doors for Rubin Hurricane Carter, who was eventually released from prison 20 years later. People still debate whether he was innocent or not. Whether he was guilty or not, he was framed by cops and prosecutors. He was not retried.

Video: An experiement with fireworks

I am not quite sure where this video comes from, but you have to admire the pyrotechnician, if not for his talent, certainly for his tenacity. You kind of get the feeling he was going to jump right back in the saddle.


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Retraction: Pablo Fanque makes the rare mistake: Palin pregnancy story goes nowhere--Limbaugh, Hannity, and possibly Lieberman off the hook

On rare occasions, even Pablo Fanque is wrong . On July 4th, 2009, he reported that Sarah Palin resigned the governorship because she was pregant. Best line in his article: "Complicating things even further, another reporter saw Democrat convert Senator Arlen Specter leaving her hotel suite, with shoes in hand, at three in the morning."

Palin resignation bombshell: "Not really sure" if the father is Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh

July 4, 2009

By Pablo Fanque,
All This Is That National Affairs Editor

Shortly after Governor Sarah Palin's hastily called, and sparsely attended, press conference at her home in Wasilla, Alaska yesterday, I was contacted by a friend in her administration. Take that with however many grains of salt you wish. . .I actually do have friends in her administration. None of those friends has ever leaked a word, or fed me anything of substance since the day her name began circulating on short lists of Sen. John McCain's VP choices. Until this afternoon.

Following Governor Sarah Palin's resignation announcement earlier today, a CNN anchor wondered: "Is Sarah Palin pregnant?" The talking head inadvertently stumbled onto the story, but failed to dig deep enough to uncover the underlying bombshell.

If you believe my source (I do), Governor Palin joins the ranks of Republicans involved in sex scandals in recent weeks. If troubles, like celebrity deaths, come in threes, Sarah Palin is about to join Governor Mark Sanford, and Senator John Ensign in the doghouse.

At the April Republican Leadership Conference in Oklahoma City, the Governor was at loose ends. She had just been savaged by the press, and McCain campaign staffers were leaking nasty tidbits about her to friends in the press. She was there to network, to forget, and to party.

On at least two nights, she was drinking heavily with supporters and other prominent Republican officials. As it turns out, she became pregnant at the conference. The problem is, she's not sure whether the father is Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. Complicating things even further, another reporter saw Democrat convert Senator Arlen Specter leaving her hotel suite, with shoes in hand, at three in the morning."

To quote the Governor from her press conference yesterday, there is little doubt that she is "advancing in another direction."
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Sarah Palin tidbits from Going Rogue and her Equire interview

By Pablo Fanque
All This Is That National Affairs Editor

Obviously, we enjoy covering the Ex-Governor. Having her very book in our hands, make it even more interesting. I am including some nuggets from her recent Esquire interview, along with passages from her new book: Going Rogue, An American Life (take advantage of the price wars, and buy the hardcover at Amazon and elsewhere for $9).


On bloggers, and pesky journalists:

"Bored, anonymous, pathetic bloggers who lie annoy me....I'll tell you, yesterday the Anchorage Daily News, they called again to ask — double-, triple-, quadruple-check — who is Trig's real mom. And I said, Come on, are you kidding me? We're gonna answer this? Do you not believe me or my doctor? And they said, No, it's been quite cryptic the way that my son's birth has been discussed. And I thought, Okay, more indication of continued problems in the world of journalism." [Esquire]

On seeing Russia from Alaska:

"You have to let it go. Even hard news sources, credible news sources — the comment about, you can see Russia from Alaska. You can! You can see Russia from Alaska. Something like that — a factual statement that was taken out of context and mocked — what you have to do is let that go." [Esquire]

How Alaska and NYC are the same:



"I would think we all tear up during the national anthem at the beginning of a baseball game, don't we? That's an alikeness between Alaskans and New Yorkers." [Esquire]

How she'd have run the campaign:

"If I were giving advice to myself back on the day my candidacy was announced, I'd say, Tell the campaign that you'll be callin' some of the shots. Don't just assume that they know you well enough to make all your decisions for ya. Let them know that you're the CEO of a state, you're forty-four years old, you've got a lot of great life experience that can be put to good use as a candidate." [Esquire]

On Saturday Night Live:

"I'd been a fan of SNL for decades, and I have a lot of respect for the present talent. I knew it would be a good thing to be a part of. And also, of course, to let Americans know that I can laugh at myself, too." [Esquire]



On McCain strategist Steve Schmidt:

“Schmidt issued a threat that was veiled enough for deniability but clear as day if you were on the receiving end: if there were are any more leaks critical of anybody in the handling of Sarah Palin, then a lot more negative stuff would be said about Sarah Palin.” [Going Rogue]

On the prank call from "the President of France":

“One of the first calls was Schmidt, and the force of his screaming blew my hair back. ‘How can anyone be so stupid?! Why would the president of France call a vice presidential candidate a few days out?"

“Good question, I thought. Weren’t you the ones who set this up?

“As Schmidt’s rant blazed on, I pictured cell towers between D.C. and Florida bursting into flame. I held the phone slightly away from my head.” [Going Rogue]

On Karl Marx and big business:



"In national politics, some feel that big Business is always opposed to the Little Guy," she writes. "Some people seem to think a profit motive is inherently greedy and evil, and that what's good for business is bad for people. (That's what Karl Marx thought too.)" [Going Rogue]

Quoting her father on her decision to resign as Governor:

"Sarah's not retreating, she's reloading." [Going Rogue]

Sarah waxes poetic:

"It was the Alaska State Fair, August 2008. With the gray Talkeetna Mountains in the distance and the first light covering of snow about to descend on Pioneer Peak, I breathed in an autumn bouquet that combined everything small-town America with rugged splashes of the Last Frontier. Cotton candy and footlong hot dogs. Halibut tacos and reindeer sausage. Banjo music playing at the Blue Bonnet Stage, baleen etchings, grass-woven Eskimo baskets, and record-breaking giant vegetables grown under the midnight sun." [Going Rogue]

On the "Free Sarah" movement, and the devastating Couric interview:

"By the third week in September, a “Free Sarah” campaign was under way and the press at large was growing increasingly critical of the McCain camp’s decision to keep me, my family and friends back home, and my governor’s staff all bottled up. Meanwhile, the question of which news outlet would land the first interview was a big deal, as it always is with a major party candidate.

"From the beginning, Nicolle [Wallace] pushed for Katie Couric and the CBS Evening News. The campaign’s general strategy involved coming out with a network anchor, someone they felt had treated John well on the trail thus far. My suggestion was that we be consistent with that strategy and start talking to outlets like FOX and the Wall Street Journal. I really didn’t have a say in which press I was going to talk to, but for some reason Nicolle seemed compelled to get me on the Katie bandwagon.

“Katie really likes you,” she said to me one day. “she’s a working mom and admires you as a working mom. She has teenage daughter like you. She just relates to you,” Nicolle said. “believe me, I know her very well. I’ve worked with her.” Nicolle had left her gig at CBS just a few months earlier to hook up with the McCain campaign. I had to trust her experience, as she had dealt with national politics more than I had. But something always struck me as peculiar about the way she recalled her days in the White House, when she was speaking on behalf of President George W. Bush. She didn't have much to say that was positive about her former boss or the job in general. Whenever I wanted to give a shout-out to the White House’s homeland security efforts after 9/11, we were told we couldn’t do it. I didn’t know if that was Nicolle’s call.

"Nicolle went on to explain that Katie really needed a career boost. “She just has such low self-esteem,” Nicolle said. She added that Katie was going through a tough time. “She just feels she can’t trust anybody.”

"I was thinking, And this has to do with John McCain’s campaign how?

"Nicolle said. “She wants you to like her.”

"Hearing all that, I almost started to feel sorry for her. Katie had tried to make a bold move from lively morning gal to serious anchor, but the new assignment wasn’t going very well.

“You know what? We’ll schedule a segment with her,” Nicolle said. “If it doesn’t go well, if there’s no chemistry, we won’t do any others.” [Going Rogue]

On the media "blackout" (from Chapter 4):

"Meanwhile, the media blackout continued. It got so bad that a couple of times I had a friend in Anchorage track down phone numbers for me, and then I snuck in calls to folks like Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and someone I thought was Larry Kudlow but turned out to be Neil Cavuto’s producer. I had a friend call Bill O’Reilly after I was inundated with supporters in Alaska asking why the campaign was “ignoring” his on-air requests for a McCain campaign interview. I had another friend scrambling to find Mark Levin’s number. Aboard the campaign plane I was within twenty-five feet of reporters for hours on end. Headquarters’ strategy was that I should not go to the back of the aircraft and talk to the press. At first this was subtle, but as the campaign wore on, Tracey or Tucker would call headquarters to request permission, and someone in DC would respond, “No! Absolutely not- block her if she tries to go back.” [Going Rogue]

Selected articles on Sarah Palin appearing in All This Is That:

http://bit.ly/17SLDv
http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2009/07/palin-resignation-bombshell-not-really.html
http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2009/01/sarah-palin-explains-how-obama-won-with.html
http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2009/11/sarah-palins-fuming-again-this-time.html
http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2009/04/two-bobs-from-office-space-interview.html
http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2009/05/sarah-palins-new-heater-nra-gives.html
http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2009/09/auto-tune-news.html
http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2009/07/governor-sarah-palin-unelected-herself.html
http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2009/07/my-new-dick.html
http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2009/07/sarah-palin-for-president.html
http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2009/07/transcript-of-sarah-palins-resignation.html
http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2009/06/clown-wars-pablo-fanque-reports-on.html
http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2009/01/and-race-is-on-2012-presidential.html
http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2008/12/chicago-artist-brude-elliott-is-at-it.html
http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2008/11/palin-phone-cll-prank.html
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Characters in Beatles songs (a list)

click the boys to enlarge

I spent some time (probably way too much) tonight writing down the names of every character I remember appearing in a song by The Beatles. I have to have hit somewhere around 90% or so. Remember who you're dealing with here [a codger]. I've been listening to these tunes since around 1963, and more lately since the remastered versions appeared in September, 2009. This was a lot of fun, actually. . .

So, who did I miss?

A barber
A boy
A fireman
A girl
A girl like you
A pretty nurse
A rich man
Another girl
Another lover
Another man
Baby
Bad boy
Beautiful people
Billy Shears
Blackbird
Boys
Boys
Bulldog
Bungalow Bill
Chuck
Crabalocker fishwife
Dan
Dave
Desmond
Doctor Robert
Doris
Edgar Allen Poe
Eggman
Eggmen
Eleanor Rigby
Expert textpert choking smokers
Father Mackenzie
Georgia
Gideon
Hari Krishna
He
Her
Henry the horse
Her Majesty
Him
His Wife
Honey Pie
I
Joan
John
Johnny
Jojo
Jojo
Jude
Julia
Lady Madonna
Lil
Loretta Martin
Loretta Martin’s mother
Lovely Rita
Lucy
Lucy in the sky
Maggie Mae
Magill
Martha
Martha my dear
Mary
Mary Jane
Maxwell
Maxwell Edison
Me
Messrs K and H
Michelle
Miss Lizzy
Mister city policeman
Molly
Mom
Mother Mary
Mother Nature's Son
Mother Superior
Mr. H
Mr. Heath
Mr. K
Mr. Kite
Mr. Postman
Mr. Wilson
Mrs. Robinson
My monkey
Nancy
Nowhere man
Old Flattop
Other Lover
Pablo Fanque
Paul
Peter
Piggies
Pigs
Pigs in a sty
Polythene Pam
Pornographic priestess
Prudence
Rita
Rocky Raccoon
Rose
Rosie
Sergeant Pepper
Semolina Pilchard
Sexy Sadie
She
Sir Walter Raleigh
Taxman
Teddy Boy
The banker
The Blue Meanies
The Eggman
The fool on the hill
The Hendersons
The joker
The Queen
The taxman
The Walrus
Two of us
Valerie
Vera
Wilson
Yoko
You
Your bird
Your boy
Your mother
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Elizabeth Suman's Nerdabout: top ten animal videos

Elizabeth Suman, a friend and former Seattleite writes the Nerdabout blog for Discovery Channel’s webpage. This is her top ten animal video compilation--some you know, and some you won't. Give her a click!
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Sarah Palin's fuming again -- this time over her Newsweek cover story

Sarah Palin’s Newsweek cover uses a photo taken of her for the magazine “Runners World.” Newsweek asks: “How Do You Solve a Problem like Sarah?”

In a Facebook (www.facebook.com/sarahpalin) rant to her almost 1 million fans (well, not all fans--I'm one), Palin said that Newsweek's choice of photo — which she shot for Runner's World magazine — was "unfortunate." Her full comments:

"The choice of photo for the cover of this week's Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this "news" magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant. The Runner's World magazine one-page profile for which this photo was taken was all about health and fitness - a subject to which I am devoted and which is critically important to this nation. The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin. The media will do anything to draw attention - even if out of context."

She also found a little time to rip into critics of her new book "Going Rogue."

"Amazingly, but not surprisingly, the AP somehow nabbed a copy of the book before it was released. They're now erroneously reporting on the book's contents and are repeating many of the same things they spewed during the campaign and afterwards. We've heard 11 writers are engaged in this opposition research, er, "fact checking" research! Imagine that – 11 AP reporters dedicating time and resources to tearing up the book, instead of using the time and resources to "fact check" what's going on with Sheik Mohammed's trial, Pelosi's health care takeover costs, Hasan's associations, etc. Amazing."
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Poem: The Broken Chord

The rain falls
As you practice arpeggios

Running out shimmering notes
In an ever-shifting

Pattern of music sifting
Through the caesuras between the notes

Forming a counterpoint
With the drumming of the rain

Thousand of patterns and polyrhythms
Weave around and through other patterns

The rain chicanes in the wind
Breaking up and merging again

Billions of drops in midair
Bump together in a choreographed ballet

We can never reproduce
But that's nature for you

We sing paint and write the same story
Over and over and over again

And nature trumps us
With her singular snowflake.
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[revised, tuned-up, and reheated November, 2009]

Alien Lore No. 162 - UFO sighting in California, September, 2009

As is often the case, Jeff Clinton sent along this excellent and meticulously enhanced video of a recent alleged UFO sighting in California.

They didn't make the YouTube video "embeddable," so you'll have to jump here to view it.

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Doc Ellis's LSD-fueled no-hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates

Doc, back then

Thanks to bro-in-law Dean Ericksen for pointing out this fantastic animation of Doc Ellis's amazing LSD-fueled no-hitter. Doc was interviewed not long before he died, and the creators used his hilarious shaggy-dog narrative to create their cool flash piece.

"Sadly, the great Dock Ellis died last December at 63. A year before, radio producers Donnell Alexander and Neille Ilel, had recorded an interview with Ellis in which the former Pirate right hander gave a moment by moment account of June 12, 1970, the day he no-hit the San Diego Padres. Alexander and Ilels original four minute piece appeared March 29, 2008 on NPRs Weekend America. When we stumbled across that piece this past June, Blagden and Isenberg were inspired to create a short animated film around the original audio."


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Digital art: Drackeela

click to enlarge

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Digital art: The Drunken Birds

click to enlarge the birds

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Big Star's first show with The Posies in the band

In 1993, the legendary Big Star reconvened to play a show in Columbia, Missouri. They brought in The Posies Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer to sing and play guitars. They've been together, off and on, ever since, with the Posies still pursuing their own efforts and the occasional Posies tour and record. Big Star, with Jon and Ken, released their first record in decades a few years ago. This video is from Jay Leno's show the day before that first show in Columbia. I've seen them three times since they tarted up, but not recently.


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The Ghost of Crawford: Ex-President Bush battles depression, confusion, enuresis, and empty nest syndrome

By Pablo Fanque
All This Is That National Affairs editor
Illustrations by Jack Brummet


click to enlarge this VidCap

He welcomed retirement as an opportunity to "replenish the coffers," but ex-President George W. Bush has largely spent the last 296 days waiting for the phone to ring and trying to fill the long hours between dawn and sunset.

Two staffers wrote in email exchanges with me that in his early days of retirement on the ranch, President Bush became so "agitated" over negative references in the press that staff took to hiding newspapers or magazines with articles that might upset him.


Naturally, The New York Times and Washington Post have virtually disappeared from the media packet he receives each morning. In fact, his staff, on numerous occasions, has hidden the White House Daily Intelligence Briefing because of references to his administration's mistakes, errors, and misdemeanors.



Ex-Veep Cheney no longer bothers with appearances. He quit telephoning The Ex-President not long after leaving office. Although Dick Cheney spent much of 2009 defending the Bush Administration's actions and policies, he no longer speaks with his former boss. When President Bush refused to give Cheney's hatchet-man Scooter Libby a full and unconditional pardon, the cord was severed. Any drum beating Cheney does on the talk show circuit and elsewhere is strictly self-aggrandizing. When The President showed a little backbone, the Vice President lost interest. With George Bush no longer his compliant Jerry Mahoney, the Vice-President was no longer pitching, but catching.

Not only are GWB's old friends not around, but Laura Bush is frequently absent as well. After she sloughed the shackles of the White House, she began to enjoy life again, traveling, going to the opera, and out to dinner with old friends (where she can drink). She often flies off for extended weekends at spas with a close group of friends. While she is away, the former President often sits and stares out the window.

There have also been moments of confusion that worry friends and staffers. One ranch-hand told me about the time George Bush climbed on a horse backward and asked him "why does this saddle have no horn?" Another staffer reported The President asking him to fuel up his cigarette boat so he could go fishing. The ranch is land-locked.

As perhaps the final indignity, President Bush's enuresis has returned. As you may recall, we earlier reported on The former President's problem with bed-wetting.



Other All This Is That postings on the former President:

George Bush sees ghosts
President Bush finally beats Nixon & becomes the most unpopular ...
Former Press Secretary McClellan says Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby Lied
Laura Bush puts the mark on George Bush/President Bush rumored to ...
Retired General George Washington Lashes Out At President Bush
Jimmy Carter Reams Bush: Bush Responds Like A Wounded Swamp Sow
President Bush drunk at Camp David
Alien Lore No. 65 - George Bush, Dick Cheney & The Greys
President Bush: "Stop doing this shit!"
President Bush lights up the "c***suckers" in the press
President Bush, remembering images of her tush, makes a move on ...
President Bush, reacting to yesterday's article on All This Is ...
President George Bush 'channels' Adolph Hitler during Iowa speech (includes audio clip)Presidents Bush and Chirac, and Queen Elizabeth II F*** For Peace!Priests to Purify Archeological Site After President Bush VisitFormer President George HW Bush excoriates his son's war
Bush and Abramoff captured together in explicit photographs
President Hugo Chávez: Hang President Bush First
Revelation: President Now Suffers Enuresis--More Trouble Every Day
George Bush sees ghosts
Priests to Purify Archeological Site After President Bush
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"You can take that to the bank": BHO in 2007: I will end the war

BHO on the campaign trail in 2007 explains how the first thing he will do in office is end the war. Two years later, he ponders just how much to expand the war in Afghanistan, and no doubt, any other 'Stans that need a tune-up.


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Six and a half Seasons of The Sopranos in nine minutes

It's a little bit snarky, but good. One guy's rundown of the entire story arc of The Sopranos. In nine minutes.



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A severed pig's head in Redmond, Wash.

Thanks to Jason Larsen for pointing out this strange story, although I have to admit it's not completely strange. We've written about paranormal activity in Redmond before (the aliens at the Nike Base on Education Hill). But this one is clearly terrestrial.

When I was in 9th grade, we performed a similar prank. We appropriated two sheep heads from the Kent Junior High biology labs and deposited one on the porch of our vile shop teacher, Mr. Ed Becker, and one in the mailbox of our vice-principal. Our shop teacher mentioned it in class, and I couldn't help but smile. I was not only smiling, but I had a s**t-eating grin. Mr. Becker called me out "Blummet! [which is what he always called me], you don't know anything about this?" I could only respond that while I wasn't involved, I admired the actions of whatever other juvenile delinquents did pull it off. "No, I'm sorry Mr. Becker. I regret I can't claim responsibility..." But I digress.

According to the Seattle Post Intelligencer website [our former morning newspaper now website], a Redmond homeowner just found a severed pig's head on his front doorstep.

As reported by the P.I., "A Lionsgate Townhomes resident woke up Monday morning to find a 'severed large pig's head' on his front doorstep, according to Redmond Police.

Police spokesman Lt. Charlie Gorman, said the pig's head was placed on a ground-floor unit front doorstep in the middle of the night.

As is always the case, the victim "said he had no idea why someone would do this and did not know of anyone who would do this."

Lieutenant Gorman said that the case is "inactive" because there are no leads or suspects., and they know of no other similar cases in recent history according to Gorman. In the meantime, Redmond resident, please note there is a lot of good eating in a pig's head. You could make scrapple for breakfast. Don't think of this as some weird or sinister event. . .look at it as a gift. And start cooking!
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Happy Veteran's Day to the two veterans who begat me

Thank you to all the veterans today for all you endured for us, and especially the three who happened to be my parents and uncle. (click photographs to enlarge)


Corporal John Brummet

My father, John Newton Brummet, Jr., joined the army a couple of years after dropping out of school in the eighth grade. He was discharged from the army not long before Pearl Harbor and then enlisted in the Navy, where he served for the duration of the war.

My Uncle, Bill Jones, enlisted in the Navy with a friend the day after Pearl Harbor. He was a senior at Ballard High School. The picture below with my mom was probably taken when he returned in June, 1942, to graduate with his class before getting back on a ship.


Betty Echo Jones on leave in her dress uniform


Betty Echo Jones and her twin brother Bill, June, 1942

Betty Echo Jones Brummet stayed in school and graduated. After high school, she worked as a riveter (yes, the iconic Rosie) and later joined the Marine Corps, for the duration. When she joined the Marines, she followed in her father's footsteps. William Jennings Bryan Jones was a marine veteran of World War I. He signed up again in World War II, when he had to be at least forty.


John Newton Brummet, Jr. clowning in the army


John Newton Brummet, Jr. clowning in the navy
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Republican Family Values, part 26: Idaho GOP national committeeman Blake Hall loses job over stalking and lobbing used condoms on ex-girlfriend's lawn

By Pablo Fanque,
All This Is That Crime and Punishment editor

Blake Hall, a leader in Idaho GOP and national politics for almost 25 years, was fired Monday as deputy prosecuting attorney in eastern Idaho. He just resigned from the Republican National Committee. The former Idaho Board of Education member pleaded guilty last week to stalking his former girlfriend and is serving a two-week jail sentence. He also sentenced to a year of supervised probation. but for some reason, a six-month jail sentence was suspended.

On ten different days—Hall tossed semen-filled condoms onto his ex-girlfriend’s lawn. He had stalked her for half a year. His victim said, “I was so tired of being victimized. It is unimaginable that a 56-year-old would be so deviant.”

Between March and August this year, Hall often followed his victim to restaurants, movies and home. He ignored her repeated requests to be left alone, according to police records and court testimony.

The victim said Hall once followed her to a Walmart, and took her car keys until she agreed to “hear him out” concerning her marriage, according to the Idaho Falls Post Register.

Hall and his lawyer denied none of this. When he gets out of the hoosegow a couple weeks from now, he joins Ex-Senator Larry Craig in the unemployment line. And the Idaho Hall of Shame.
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Coach Sally Mangina? Dr. Dick Chopp, urologist? A website of unfortunately named professionals

Check it out here.

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Jack Brummet Self Portrait No. 47

click to enlarge

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An excellent instructional video: "Toward emotional maturity"

A wonderful instructional video in which a teenage girl reflects on episodes in which her love, fear, anger were not always under control. She decides not to go "park" with her boyfriend.


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Music video: The Band/Rick Danko's awesome lead vocals on It Makes No Difference

In a band with an amazing three lead singers, Rick Danko always held his own. Next to Stage Fright, this is probably my favorite Rick Danko tune, especially when you bring in Garth's horn solo...



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Poem: The Moon's In Tune

A parchment full moon
In a pale fog aurora
Struggles to clear the mountaintops tonight

The Sea of Tranquility
Flowers in the center
The moon's in tune

She leads the wolves in song
And turns the tide
Of earth's one great ocean

Down here we cured
Polio smallpox and Hitler
But we couldn't save the Dodo.
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A boy and his dog: Jack Brummet and Slugger

circa about 1955 - click to enlarge

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The Knickerbockers, one hit wonders and shameless Beatles imitators

The Knickerbockers were Jersey Boys, and one hit wonders (and, as such appeared on the Nuggets compilations). They sounded like a British invasion band in their top 20 hit in early 1966 with "Lies."

We mostly remember the tune today because it is so shamelessly derivative of early Beatles, down to the spot-on imitation of John Lennon... on the lead vocal and the Paul McCartney-style whoops ahead of the guitar solo and later in the song. I think we all liked the tune, because back then two Beatles albums a year just weren't enough.


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A Fiddling Robot

Stephen Clarke-Willson pointed this one out. It's not new, but pretty fascinating. The Toyota robot plays violin (Mendelssohn?).


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Nuggets from the British Invasion: Herman's Hermits, The Zombies, and The Kinks

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Eleven foot Bill Clinton

Ooops! Wrong statue!

Last weekend, hordes of Albanians collected in Pristina’s main square to welcome Bill Clinton, the guest of honor at a statue-unveiling ceremony. The Albanians put up the statue to commemorate President Clinton's role in the Yugoslavian war of 1999.

“I never expected that anywhere, someone would make such a big statue of me,” Clinton told the cheering crowd as he removed the cover, revealing a eleven foot bronze likeness of himself.

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All Kramer's entrances on Seinfeld captured in a six minute, seventeen second video

It must have taken forever to capture and then edit this video. In six-some minutes, the video shows every single entrance Kramer made over the course of The Seinfeld Show. This is a fascinating labor of love.



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Jack Brummet - Point: "Why I miss the polling place" Pablo Fanque - Counterpoint: "You're stuck in the 20th century"

Point
By Jack Brummet
All This Is That creative director

It may be a sign of impending or fully-arrived codgerhood, but I already miss the polling place. Washington State has largely replaced the voting booth with mail-in ballots. On "Election Day," you no longer walk around the block to your neighborhood church or elementary school. You lick a stamp and then drop your secure ballot envelope into a mailbox or in the slot at the library. Yesterday didn't even seem like election day, at least until they "closed the polls" and began announcing vote totals after 8 PM.

I don't get to see the poll workers anymore, with their sometimes Parkinson's-trembling hands and shakily applied make-up, or the retired AFL-CIO workers, older party foot-soldiers, and stay at home moms who staffed the voting place on election day. I no longer get to watch as they try four times to find me on the voter list, or have me spell my last name three times.

There are no flags hung on the wall at the mailbox. Our children won't get to see democracy in action as we roll up to the drive-in mailbox. The strange grey steel analog voting machines where you actually pulled down a lever are long gone. Now, the "Austrian ballot" voting booth with the stiff curtain is gone too. Exit polls and political signage lining the street to within 200 feet of the polling place have disappeared. I no longer get to see my neighbors, or meet new ones at our neighborhood polling place at Our Redeemer's Lutheran Church.

The polling place has disappeared like phone booths, writing letters, mail order catalogs, and soon, newspapers and magazines, record stores and bookstores. You rarely find politicians at the retail level anymore, eating sfogliatelle, knishes, and hot dogs, kissing babies, and asking about your wife, as they press the flesh for your vote.

Progress doesn't always feel like progress. I think I liked it a little more when you had to actually do something, like walk to your poll and sign in. Sitting at your kitchen table filling out a ballot will never seem like voting to me. Roll back the stone!



Counterpoint
By Pablo Fanque
All This Is That National Affairs Editor

Really, Jack? You may not be that wrong when you point to your fully arrived codgerhood. America outgrew the polling place years ago. You don't seem to have a problem embracing other areas of technology that have changed our lives.

Mail in ballots dramatically raise the number of people participating in elections, and eliminate the costs of maintaining thousands of polling places staffed with workers. Jack, you're stuck in the 20th century, and after nearly a decade, it's time to leap into Century 21. Get out your stamps and pen.

And. . .if you want to meet your neighbors, well, they have doorbells, don't they?
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A charmingly sweet video: I love xkcd

What a lovely and sweet video. We don't see enough of things like this on the interwebs. Boom de ah dah...

I Love xkcd from NoamR on Vimeo.

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Two new profile picture candidates

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Seattle's Ravenna sinkhole, circa 1957

It was such a gnarly event, that even the New York Times covered the story - click to enlarge


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In Seattle's tree-lined (at least it seems tree-lined to me, a boy from the logged-off Ballard forest) Ravenna neighborhood, a massive sinkhole opened up in November, 1957, and threatened to suck the whole neighborhood down to the 145 foot deep sewer tunnel buried below.

These photographs are courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives. At the time, this was the biggest sinkhole, ever in the United States. You can read more about it here.

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America at work

This sweet flowchart is from Projectsidewalk.com




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Windows Memory Leak At SeaTac Airport

An arrival/departure board at SeaTac International Airport (Microsoft's home airport), today shows a Windows error message that it is running out of virtual memory.

It makes you hope that the air traffic control system does not also run on the Windows operating system. . .

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Twelve Mormon moms whip off their clothes for charity

Twelve Mormon moms have whipped off their clothes (sorta, kinda) to become pinups, and raise money for breast cancer research.

In the "Hot Mormon Muffins" calendar, a "Devout Dozen" moms share recipes and revealing glimpses of themselves in suggestive (sorta, kinda)poses. The calendars go for sixteen bucks, or roughly $1.33 a muffin.

"Miss May" sees no reason for her church to be upset. But it has clearly stirred up a little dust in the LDS community. "We're not all in a stereotype, we're not all the same. And I'm not a stereotypical Mormon for sure," Tami Roberts said (that's her holding the pan of muffins below).

She went on to say that this is not a breach of her faith, but a way to challenge the "misconceptions" of the Mormon Church. Her husband and two daughters approve. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints may not.

One reason Ms. Roberts posed in the calendar is that Chad Hardy, the calendar's creator, was denied his diploma from BYU, and excommunicated by the church when he published a 2008 calendar called "Men on a Mission," featuring partially-nude Mormon men.



You can check out the calendars, or even buy one, here. They also have a fan page on Facebook.
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self portrait No. 48 - Jack Brummet digital art

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Drunken Ewoks throw food, moonwalk, drink, dry hump Al Roker on Today show

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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Joe Lieberman has finally made Richard Nixon seem warm and cuddly

Reporting and analysis By Pablo Fanque, All This Is That National Affairs Editor

Illustrations and digital art By Jack Brummet, All This that creative director

Sen. Joe Lieberman ("Independent," Conn.) said Tuesday that he’d back a GOP filibuster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health care reform bill. The most shocking thing about the fallout from the left is that they were surprised when one of the most despicable and treacherous turncoats in the history of the Democratic Party stuck it to them once again. I wrote about Lieberman's duplicity here, in December, 2005: With Friends Like Joe Lieberman, The Democrats Need No Enemies.

The sawed-off turncoat appears to have second
thoughts as he marches onto the Senate floor
to vote against his former comrades in arms

Lieberman, caucuses with Democrats (but officially broke away), and positions himself as a fiscal hawk on health care on any bill that includes a government-run insurance program — even if it includes a provision allowing states to opt out, as Reid's Senate bill will. Whatever the Dems propose will come out watered down, a husk of the dream. And yet the battle is not over. Who knows, we may see defections on both sides of the aisle. It's that kind of year.

"We're trying to do too much at once," Lieberman said. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now." Interestingly, he fails to mention reduced profits for his good friends in the insurance business, or that he enjoys his gold-plated government health insurance just fine.



When asked about Lieberman’s threat to filibuster a final vote on the Reid plan, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said: "I haven't seen the report from Sen. Lieberman or why he's saying what he's saying. I think Democrats and Republicans alike will be held accountable by their constituents who want to see health care reform enacted this year.”

Lieberman said that he’d vote against a public option plan “even with an opt-out because it still creates a whole new government entitlement program for which taxpayers will be on the line." His comments confirmed that Reid is probably still short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill out of the Senate

Lieberman said he “very much” wants to vote for health care reform but that he’s worried about stifling “the economic recovery we’re in” or adding to the federal debt. Really? It doesn't have anything to do with the dozens of insurance companies headquartered in Connecticut, or the "donations" from those companies that flow so often and richly into his campaign coffers

You know from previous articles on All This Is That that we consider him a Republicrat at best, and at worst, a rat, a Judas Goat, and a turncoat spoiler, leading Democrats astray in the guise of moderation. Is anyone even listening to him except the Republicans? No. And the GOP don't trust him anymore than they do their own turncoat, Senator Arlen Specter. Any sane Democrat wrote him off years ago; he reinforced our thinking with his bumbling and pathetic run for the Presidency in 2004. He was a disastrous pick as Gore's Vice President in 2000, and his 2007/2008 defense of, and cozying up to The Bush White House was a clear signal that he would switch parties the moment it was most politically expedient for him to do so.

The Democrats continue to caucus with him for no other reason than he votes with us once in a while. With friends like this sawed-off weasel, who needs enemies? It's difficult for even the most conservative of Democrats to forget his spirited defense of President Bush's handling of the Iraq war and his continual toadying up to President Bush and his hatchet-man, Dick Cheney.


And still, Joe Lieberman lives.

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The Sargeant and Gomer Pyle - a hi-fi clip from a show I watched in my youth

Oddly enough, Jim Nabors (Gomer), who was (is?) a good pal of Burt Reynolds, got his start on the Andy Griffith Show (or was it called Andy of Mayberry?). This show was his spinoff/star vehicle. It's right up there with some of the other shows we watched, like My Mother The Car, Car 54 Where Are You. Gomer Pyle was something else. Someone mentioned this show on the WFMU blog, because this is the Sargent's 85th birthday...


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Governor Schwarzenegger sends a hidden message (F*** You!) to Tom Ammiano

Governor Schwarzenegger sent a hidden, but very public message (F*** you) to Tom Ammiano, the San Francisco Democrat, in a letter vetoing a bill Ammiano sponsored. You may remember Tom Ammiano from the movie Milk, in which he played himself. You can find the details of their feud elsewhere, but the imbroglio started when Ammiano heckled the Governor during a speech...

Here is the letter (emphasis added by us).


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Alien Lore No. 161 - Alien Implant Rejection Techniques

Cerebral eviction was in times past
Always fatal.
You used an axe
To force open the skull
And remove the ganglion.
There was no question
Of the “patient’s” survival.
In our enlightened times
The Alien Rejection Technique is employed.
The ganglion is poisoned within the host
And half the patients survive.
As the alien ganglion is rejected
Or forcibly removed,
It emits a distress pulse
On the Hive mindband
And every hive member
Within five miles
Responds to the call to arms.
Within minutes the Hive swarms
To the location of the distress pulse
And instead of one alien,
You are now faced
With dozens from the Hive
With one purpose:
To end your tenure on earth.
With unfeeling insect eyes
They march dead ahead,
Converging upon you.
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Digital art: Link (a/k/a President Abraham Lincoln)

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