Brittany & Kevin or Law & Order.
Brittany & Kevin or Law & Order.
Brittany & Kevin or Law & Order.
Brittany & Kevin or Law & Order.
Brittany & Kevin or Law & Order.
Brittany & Kevin or Law & Order.
Brittany & Kevin or Law & Order.
Brittany & Kevin or Law & Order.

sorry Brittany.

Posted by: annika at 10:05 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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i don't live in L.A. anymore (though i hope to return after i graduate), but i'm apparently still on the voter list down there. Which is why i've received an email from none other than the next mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa.

i've never received an email from a major politician before, it's kind of exciting. Here is what Tony (if i may call him that) wrote to me.

Dear Annika,

I love Los Angeles. It has already given me so much -- a strong education, a loving family, a lifelong career in public service.

That's why I have set out an ambitious new vision for LA, because I believe the Mayor must have a plan for the future. I want to build more schools for our children and reduce classroom sizes. I want to make Los Angeles safer and greener. I want to create better jobs for our workers, provide better health care and more affordable housing for our families, and develop a 21st Century transportation system for all of us.

I know this has been a tough and negative campaign, but I pledge on my first day in office to begin to bring our city together for real, positive change.

Los Angeles deserves a better Mayor. Someone with big dreams, bold ideas, and an ambitious vision for the future -- a strong leader with a proven record of accomplishment who will roll up his sleeves and work hard to fix our city's problems, large and small.

As Mayor, I pledge to work with you and all of our neighbors to build a better Los Angeles. But I need your help to do it.

I ask your vote on Tuesday, May 17th!

To make our city a better place, we must restore the people's trust in Los Angeles city government. After four long years of waste, fraud, and scandal, I am committed to cleaning house at City Hall and putting an end to the 'pay-to-play' system under Jim Hahn. Because let's be clear: Honesty and ethics at City Hall start at the top, with the Mayor.

I am proud to have received the endorsements of [blah blah blah...].

But today, I am asking you for the most important endorsement of all: your vote.

If you agree that we can and must do better in Los Angeles, I ask for your vote on Tuesday.

It's time to get Los Angeles back on the right track. And I am committed to doing just that. I pledge to you that I will work to bring all residents of our city together and solve the tough problems we face.

But I can't do it alone. I'm going to need your help, along with hundreds of thousands of our friends and neighbors, to get the job done. And it all starts on Election Day.

I look forward to working with you to build a better Los Angeles!

Sincerely,

Antonio Villaraigosa

i hope he'll be a good mayor. L.A. has big big problems challenges, but it is a great town. i notice that transportation is at the end of the list in paragraph three, almost like it was an afterthought. To my mind, light rail should be the priority for the next mayor. Incredibly, nowhere in the email was there any mention of illegal immigration, a subject that seems to be on everybody's lips these days. Progress on that issue would take care of half the other problems he mentioned in that second paragraph.

Anyways, i hope the coronation goes well.

Posted by: annika at 06:39 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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1 Nice to hear support for public transportation from the right side of the aisle... It's clear that LA will grind to a halt one day if they don't get on the bandwagon. (I'm not advocating bandwagons as public transportation though...)

Posted by: Preston at May 16, 2005 07:04 PM (+jnzE)

2 Unfortunately, it's often the left that's holding up a sensible light rail solution in L.A. The "bus-rider's union??!" environmentalists, slow growth people, plaintiff's lawyers, and NIMBYs.

Posted by: annika at May 16, 2005 07:12 PM (Sq19q)

3 Hell if you got rid of the illegals, the trans problem would solve itself. I think this is priceless, in a couple months California's three biggest cities will all have fucktards as Mayors. V in LA, that simpering asshole in SF, and the old burnout hippy union whore Donnay Frye in SD. I'm comforted by the knowledge that the electorate of these cities did NOT vote for dubyah.

Posted by: Casca at May 16, 2005 09:51 PM (qBTBH)

4 I disagree - L.A.'s problems won't be solved by light rail or any oter mass transit program. The problem with L.A. (& to varying degrees the rest of the state & country) are ideaological not material. Look at any of those "problems" the mayoral candidate seeks to address & then think of a non govcernmental solution for them. Now not all are best served by the private sector, but that's the problem - everyone thinks government is a problem solver. In general government is a problem creator. We could debate the merits of any public transportation system or this specific one but that'd just be adressing a symptom, not the problem. Ditto with everythign else except the governmental corruption thing. & let's be honest - in the closest thing to a welfare state we have in this country there's not going to be an end to corruption. BTW, if he wants to make L.A. safer then I assume he's going to be rolling back some of the assinine gun control laws they have there & then push for cutting back the state level gun control? Anyway, the problem is th emindset of the people. Till that cna be adressed then anything else will only be a temporary fix. & no place has that problem completely under control, but L.A. & Cali seem to be worse off than the rest of the nation (well with certain exceptions, such as D.C., Chicago, NY, Mass. etc...)

Posted by: publicola at May 17, 2005 01:15 AM (DQj8i)

5 publicola: "We could debate the merits of any public transportation system or this specific one but that'd just be adressing a symptom, not the problem." What's the problem? annika: That's interesting. But I wouldn't classify NIMBY's as liberal. I don't know any thing about the Bus Rider's Union- why would they slow down mass transit?

Posted by: Preston at May 17, 2005 07:33 AM (wkfsI)

6 "fucktards"????? merriam-webster comes up empty.............. don't sugar coat it Casca....tell us what you really think.

Posted by: louielouie at May 17, 2005 09:59 AM (i7mWl)

7 Hell if you think he'll do anything that will in any way shape or form discourage illegal immigration you are nuts. If anything he will do everything he can to make LA the most illegal immigrant friendly town in the US!

Posted by: Skippy at May 17, 2005 11:04 AM (v3xUb)

8 that's what i'm afraid of

Posted by: annika at May 17, 2005 09:27 PM (oCGrt)

9 I haven't really followed the election in Los Angeles - heck, I've barely followed the mayoral election in Ontario. In fact, I'm writing this at 10:33 in the evening; polls presumably closed 2 1/2 hours ago, and I haven't made an effort to see who actually won. I'll do my homework in a moment. I would think that both candidates would try to avoid mentioning illegal immigration at all costs. Candidates try to be all things to all people, and any mention of illegal immigration, pro or con, is bound to anger somebody.

Posted by: Ontario Emperor at May 17, 2005 10:34 PM (ukBYg)

10 OK, I did my homework. From the Daily Breeze: Updated, 10:28 p.m. Bruising runoff between two Democrats is a rematch of the 2001 election, in which Hahn rallied to win.... Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn and Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa were locked in a close race tonight as the incumbent struggled to hold onto his job and his opponent sought to become the city's first Hispanic mayor since the 19th century. With 228 of 1,599 precincts reporting, along with about 120,000 absentee ballots, Villaraigosa had a lead of 56 to 44 percent. Villaraigosa had 90,660 votes, compared to Hahn's 72,024. Here's a live link to city election results.

Posted by: Ontario Emperor at May 17, 2005 10:38 PM (ukBYg)

11 Close race? Did that fool at the Breeze say "close race"? A "close race" is when it is 50.2 to 49.8%. The numbers I am seeing are like 58.6 to 41.4%. Where I come from, that's an "old fashioned whupping". So much for Jimmy Hahn and his sleazy, anti-hispanic buzzword campaign. Live by the sword, die by the sword. And so much for Bill Carrick and Kam Kuwata and Bill Wardlaw and their sleazy, down and dirty mudlinging campaigns. In this one, the best man won... As my grandson says "Antonio rules; Jummy drools".

Posted by: shelly at May 18, 2005 01:44 AM (pO1tP)

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Like many people, i've been expecting to hear that Wilbanks, the runaway bride, was on a cross country booty call when she disappeared. The fact that i was right, merely confirms that human nature is soo predictable. It's a great example of Occam's Razor at work.

The New York Post reports:

Jennifer Wilbanks wasn't just running away from her wedding, she was running toward something — an old paramour with whom she had a steamy sexual relationship.

The bolting bride set her sights on New Mexico sometime during her three-day cross-country sprint from the altar because it's the home of a short-lived fling, several sources told The Post.

But if Wilbanks harbored hope of reigniting an old passion, she would have been sorely disappointed.

'I would have turned her ass in, no question,' former flame Todd Kendrick told The Post.

'And then,' he joked, 'I'd have asked for the $100,000 reward.'

. . .

Kendrick said that though 'worried' for Wilbanks, he 'had a feeling' foul play wasn't involved when she vanished in Georgia four days before her planned lavish wedding to fiancé John Mason.

'She's a crazy girl,' said Kendrick, who said he had a brief — and sexually charged — relationship with Wilbanks.

. . .

Said Kendrick, 'When I heard she was here, I thought, "Oh, God, why not Idaho?" — anywhere else, really.'

. . .

Kendrick, 41, said he knows Wilbanks, 32, through his younger sister — who was to be a bridesmaid in Wilbanks' jettisoned wedding and had thrown her a bridal shower.

'About three years ago, she and my sister came out to New Mexico together to visit me; I dated [Jennifer] a couple of times,' he said.

Like other men who've gone a few rounds with Wilbanks — several firemen, a dentist and gym buffs among them — Kendrick said Wilbanks had a healthy sexual appetite.

'She liked sex,' he said.

Nevertheless, Wilbanks' fiancé, Mason, has famously boasted he and his intended had abstained during the 18-month courtship leading up to their planned wedding.

Kendrick found it 'very disturbing' that Wilbanks tried to feed police a phony kidnap-and-rape story after she landed in New Mexico after a side trip to Las Vegas.

Posted by: annika at 06:51 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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The Texas anti-cheerleader bill is dead.

The measure was approved in the Texas House on May 3, with supportive lawmakers waving pompoms as the bill moved to the Senate's Education Committee, where the cheering abruptly stopped.

'We will not be hearing it,' committee chairwoman Sen. Florence Shapiro said Friday.

'We have some very important work to do in the next two weeks, and that's not one of them,' said Shapiro, R-Plano.

Rather than being a 'mandate from the state,' she said, the problem of students performing suggestive acts should be addressed by parents and school districts.

Hat tip to gcotharn, who is now atop the leader board in my fantasy league. Guess who's at the bottom?

Posted by: annika at 07:33 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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1 Well he won't be in first for long! And i had no idea about this cheerleader bill...it seems this bill combined with the recent one to take foster kids out of the homes of gay parents shows that the Texas legislature is full of nincompoops, pretty much like the rest of the country. Of course they're never as bad as California...and I'm a california boy so I know!

Posted by: Scof at May 15, 2005 10:14 PM (OHbSQ)

2 It's what we've come to expect from the Texas Republican Party. At least if they're wasting their time with cheerleaders they are unable to push their Platform: http://www.texasgop.org/library/RPTPlatform2004.pdf p.4 #10: "We oppose conservation easements on our natural resources administered by organizations unaccountable to tax payers and voters." (That means land trusts and conservation groups would be declared unconstitutional.) p. 4 #18: "We oppose the Endangered Species Act." pp. 7 and 8: "We reject the establishment of any mechanism to process, license, record, register or monitor the ownership of guns." p. 9 The party opposes highway speed limits based on environmental standards of any kind. p. 10 The party believes that the practice of sodomy tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseaseas. p.13 " ... gradually phase out Social Security tax for a system of "private pensions.." p.15: Supports abstinence only sex education p.15:"The Party urges Congress to repeal government-sponsored programs that deal with early childhood development p.18: supports teaching of intelligent design p.17: prohibits reproductive health care services in high schools. p.23: The party opposes one-world government... p.24: The Party urges Congress to evict the United Nations from U.S. soil.

Posted by: Preston at May 16, 2005 08:00 AM (wkfsI)

3 Preston, I don't see where any of that is objectionable. For example, we've been paying excessively high Social Security taxes for years. Congress took that money and spent it. Tell me where we wouldn't be better off with the money invested in a private account? Move to New York. Your kind will be happy here.

Posted by: Mark at May 16, 2005 08:29 AM (oQofX)

4 So much for the 'big tent', Mark. Well, the easy ones: 'intelligent design' isn't true and 'abstinence education' doesn't work. Is it so radical to ask for a government that bases its decisions on reality?

Posted by: preston at May 16, 2005 08:34 AM (wkfsI)

5 Some of that shit is okay, some is well, shit. But saying that prohibiting a private organization from claiming an easement on public lands would make such organizations unconstitutional betrays a lack of understanding of easements, constitutional law and just plain sense.

Posted by: annika at May 16, 2005 08:39 AM (zAOEU)

6 It would sort of defeat the purpose of founding a conservation land trust if your work was illegal. You could do it but what's the point?

Posted by: Preston at May 16, 2005 08:49 AM (wkfsI)

7 Buy the land. Then it's yours and you can do what you want with it. Including not building strip malls. Is it radical to ask that the federal government stick to its enumerated powers and leave the rest up to the states to decide? It's not going to happen, but I can dream...

Posted by: Mark at May 16, 2005 09:58 AM (oQofX)

8 Mark, conservation land trusts are not a 'public taking' of property: http://www.lta.org/aboutlt/faq.shtml

Posted by: Preston at May 16, 2005 10:13 AM (wkfsI)

9 But on the larger point: Do you feel like a community has no right to shape its future? Is it ok if a slaughterhouse or a Wal-Mart opens next door to your house?

Posted by: Preston at May 16, 2005 10:16 AM (wkfsI)

10 for Preston - a smaller point: The bill was introduced, and tirelessly promoted, by a Democrat: State Rep Al Edwards, D-Houston.

Posted by: gcotharn at May 16, 2005 01:13 PM (OxYc+)

11 That's too bad, but like I said: at least if they're wasting their time with cheerleaders they aren't threatening Texans with the GOP platform.

Posted by: Preston at May 16, 2005 01:27 PM (wkfsI)

12 p.13 " ... gradually phase out Social Security tax for a system of "private pensions.." you've obviously not read the 1932 speech by FDR proposing SS. that/this was his plan.

Posted by: louielouie at May 16, 2005 03:00 PM (i7mWl)

13 p.24: The Party urges Congress to evict the United Nations from U.S. soil. I'm moving to texas!!!!!

Posted by: louielouie at May 16, 2005 03:02 PM (i7mWl)

14 "you've obviously not read the 1932 speech by FDR proposing SS. that/this was his plan." I'm afraid you've read too many right-wing talking points... FDR was talking about a transition _to_ Social Security _from_ the temporary payments to the elderly who hadn't contributed to SS as workers. http://mediamatters.org/items/200502160003

Posted by: Preston at May 16, 2005 03:13 PM (wkfsI)

15 using KO as a source????? moonbat publishing.

Posted by: louielouie at May 17, 2005 10:43 AM (i7mWl)

16 Eh? it was the first thing to come up when you Google 'FDR phase out' The point is that Britt Hume took FDR out of context and rearranged his quotes to make it seem that FDR supported 'privatization'. Would you prefer the Nation? http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/07/opinion/main678638.shtml

Posted by: Preston at May 17, 2005 10:55 AM (wkfsI)

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CNN has a new partner in the ranks of journalistic infamy. Both news organizations have blood on their hands.

When i heard about this story, the first thing i thought was "even if it's true, why on earth would they publish that story?"

i admit that's an untenable position to take. Freedom of the press and all that rot. But true or not, the story was going to cost lives. Newsweek had to know that. Did that fact present even a minor speed bump to their rush to embarrass the hated United States?

Apparently not, since Newsweek has now apologized for publishing a lie.

Newsweek magazine on Sunday said it may have erred in a May 9 report that said U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, and apologized to victims of deadly violence sparked by the article.

The weekly news magazine said in its May 23 edition that the original source of the allegation was not sure where he saw the assertion that at least one copy of the Koran was flushed down a toilet in an attempt to get detainees to talk.

'We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst,' Editor Mark Whitaker wrote in the magazine's latest issue, due to appear on U.S. newsstands on Monday.

The report has sparked angry and violent protests across the Muslim world from Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, to Pakistan to Indonesia to Gaza.

On Sunday, Afghan Muslim clerics threatened to call for a holy war against the United States in three days unless it handed over the interrogators in question.

Biased journalism is not just annoying, not just wrong, not just unethical, sometimes it gets people killed.

Update: i shouldn't have complimented Fox News. Even they're sloppy. Reporting on the story this afternoon, Chris Wallace said that Newsweek's source had said he saw the alleged flushing incident, but then backed away from his story. Not true. The source actually told Newsweek's Michael Isakoff that the incident would be mentioned in an upcoming written report by military investigators. The source never saw any incident. He only saw a reference to an allegation of an incident in a report investigating a bunch of alleged incidents. As it turned out, the incident didn't make it into the final report. No matter, Newsweek went ahead with the story. Somewhere, Mary Mapes is probably smiling.

[cross-posted at A Western Heart]

Posted by: annika at 12:28 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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So Nancy Pelosi lost her shoe running out of the Capitol. It always sucks to lose a shoe, but luckily for the San Francisco congresswoman, hers was found!

Posted by: annika at 06:20 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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If he can't blow a note unless the bass and guitars are with him, i ask you, what good is he?

Posted by: annika at 06:13 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Hellooo Mummy!*

Seriously i wish them luck.
_______________

* If you haven't seen Bridget Jones' Diary, move along.

Posted by: annika at 04:14 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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i'm perplexed.

How can Voinovich justify his opposition to Bolton by saying Bolton lacks "common decency" on the one hand -- then say he's met Bolton, likes Bolton, and that he believes Bolton is a "decent" man?

Just curious.

Posted by: annika at 12:00 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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[Dreadfully sorry about the tardiness thing. Finals you know.]

A Ginsberg poem has been overdue for quite some time. Here's one that references Ken Kesey: beat author, champion wrestler, CIA guinea pig, author of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, and a man who arguably inspired today's rave scene with his Electric Kool Aid Acid Tests of the mid-sixties, which in turn launched the careers of Tom Wolfe and The Grateful Dead.

Here's how his friend, Allen Ginsberg, described one of Kesey's infamous get-togethers in 1965:

First Party at Ken Kesey's with Hell's Angels

Cool black night thru redwoods
cars parked outside in shade
behind the gate, stars dim above
the ravine, a fire burning by the side
porch and a few tired souls hunched over
in black leather jackets. In the huge
wooden house, a yellow chandelier
at 3 A.M. the blast of loudspeakers
hi-fi Rolling Stones Ray Charles Beatles
Jumping Joe Jackson and twenty youths
dancing to the vibration thru the floor,
a little weed in the bathroom, girls in scarlet
tights, one muscular smooth skinned man
sweating dancing for hours, beer cans
bent littering the yard, a hanged man
sculpture dangling from a high creek branch,
children sleeping softly in their bedroom bunks.
And 4 police cars parked outside the painted
gate, red lights revolving in the leaves.

More poetry: Steve celebrates his new OS with a little Blake.

Posted by: annika at 08:16 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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i have two more finals to go. My best and worst subjects, torts and property, respectively. i can't believe the first year is almost over. This year has flown by.

Posted by: annika at 07:33 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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My previous attempts at homemade pizza dough didn't turn out good at all. The bottom was never crispy enough, and the toppings made the top soggy. Boboli was a reasonable alternative, but it's not real pizza. So i was on the lookout for a better way.

Here's what came out of the oven tonight.

The secret is the pizza stone. i can't emphasize enough how essential this kitchen item is. Stick it in the oven first and preheat that bastard up to 500°, then sprinkle some cornmeal on it and slide the pizza on top. Then turn the heat down to 425° and cook for 18 minutes.

That's mozarella, sun-dried tomato, pepperoni, mushroom, pineapple and crushed red pepper.

Perfecto. Bellisimo. Molto buono. Grazie T.S.!

Posted by: annika at 10:27 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
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1 I haven't eaten anything (or anyone) all day. Now I'm hungry. Great pizza, A. Kevin

Posted by: Kevin Kim at May 08, 2005 01:34 AM (1PcL3)

2 A moment on the lips; forever on the hips.

Posted by: shelly at May 08, 2005 04:03 AM (pO1tP)

3 I made calzones last night. My first attempt a couple of weeks ago were too thick with the dough, but last night they were very very good.

Posted by: Ted at May 08, 2005 06:09 AM (+OVgL)

4 Mmmmmm...fantastico. With one exception: you Californians and your taste for pineapple on pizza, which CPK spread to the rest of the country, is one thing I will NEVER understand.

Posted by: Dave J at May 08, 2005 06:43 AM (CYpG7)

5 looks sooo good, I'am a cajun and i was wondering if anyone of you ever taseted a crawfish, shrimp, and andouille sausage pizza? Its great.

Posted by: Kyle at May 08, 2005 07:25 AM (7Re84)

6 Ahhhh, beautiful! Subtract the crushed red pepper and add jalapeños and that's my standard pie and a vision of pizza perfection. Pizza stones are indeed the way to go -- I own two so I don't have to split my dough recipe. I also do a whole wheat crust and a cornmeal crust, which adds a really nice crunch when you want it. Do you go sauceless, or have you found a good sauce? That's the one thing I still haven't found a satisfactory recipe for that doesn't take all day to make. What's your solution?

Posted by: Todd at May 08, 2005 07:34 AM (rywVr)

7 God knows, there is the satisfaction of creation, but isn't there someone within delivery distance who can do this at a reasonable economy of scale? Kyle, if we could get andouille in California, we'd be eating gumbo. Finally, a suggestion, Annie, why don't you get together with Todd? You both seem to be channeling your sexual frustrations into food. Me? I've been cleaning house all weekend.

Posted by: Casca at May 08, 2005 08:11 AM (qBTBH)

8 Try making the dough in a bread machine, it comes out great. ;-)

Posted by: JD at May 08, 2005 08:25 AM (J+Gcr)

9 I'm glad I ate before I saw those pictures. I'd have to make a pizza right away otherwise, and it looks like I'm better off waitng until I get my own pizza stone. Thanks for posting the results, you've convinced me that I need one.

Posted by: Trevor at May 08, 2005 09:16 AM (COhUH)

10 I'm still trying to figure out how I got through law school without even one pizza stone. Clearly it is about to become a standard utensil for entering first year law students.

Posted by: shelly at May 09, 2005 05:56 AM (pO1tP)

11 "Perfetto" Pineapple on pizza?

Posted by: Mark at May 09, 2005 01:35 PM (Vg0tt)

12 Yeah, what Kyle said. You can keep your pineapple. Load that thing up with crawfish and shrimp. Now THAT's a pizza. Dang. Now I'm hungry for Pizza Shak... Opelousas, Louisiana. Where it's at. Of course, now that I live in New York, it's my duty to make some sort of assinine comment about Chicago pizza not being the real thing and California pizza being ... well, kind of like a kindergarten kid's drawing. But I won't do that. Pie is pie. We can like them all, right?

Posted by: ken at May 09, 2005 01:57 PM (xD5ND)

13 mmmmm. I have yet to get a stone, myself, and I've been meaning to for years! The best I've come up with is baking the pizza on a flat metal sheet for about 5 minutes until it's firm enough to be slid directly on the rack for the next 5-10 minutes at 475-500 degrees. It's not bad, but it's not great either. And my usual toppings are pepperoni (the 1 1/2 inch diameter ones, not the big flat pre-sliced jobbers) and sliced cherry peppers. Yowsah!

Posted by: Tuning Spork at May 09, 2005 06:42 PM (GLq2P)

14 Todd, how's about sharing your crust recipe? I make mine in the bread machine, and I'm interested in the cornmeal version.

Posted by: Ted at May 10, 2005 03:40 AM (blNMI)

15 I've got one of those stones too, and I love it dearly, but holy cow is that ever a good looking pie. Better than anything I've made I think. I've had a version of the above-described Cajun pie. There's a chain out here (in NC) that makes it. "The Original Italian Pie" is the name of the place. It was pretty good, but I think there is more potential in those toppings than was captured by the one I've had.

Posted by: Christiana Ellis at May 10, 2005 05:36 AM (vHnJp)

16 Wow. That pizza looks awesome. And now I think I need a pizza stone immediately. (For the record, pineapple has been one of my favorite pizza toppings ever since I was a kid growing up in Colorado. Yum. I actually had some last night.)

Posted by: lorie at May 10, 2005 06:17 AM (PPPwU)

17 Three years in New Orleans (just sooooooo conducive to serious law school study, of course), so definitely add my endorsement to cajun pizza. And to the hilarious genius of Louisiana English: e.g., everywhere else in the world it's marinara sauce, but there it's "red gravy."

Posted by: Dave J at May 10, 2005 08:09 AM (kLLbt)

18 I remember when my friend Sid came back from college in Ohio. He couldn't stop ranting about the weird toppings out there. Ham, tuna, candy corn, you name it.

Posted by: Tuning Spork at May 10, 2005 09:04 PM (5Q/QD)

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This is pretty funny.

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This may be apocryphal, but it's funny.

The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one's gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a Pan Am 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call sign Speedbird 206.

Speedbird 206: " Frankfurt , Speedbird 206 clear of active runway."

Ground: "Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven."

The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.

Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"

Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."

Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?"

Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark, -- and didn't land."

Posted by: annika at 08:10 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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This time she's on a mission.

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Back in March i alerted you to the silly Texas bill that seeks to outlaw suggestive cheerleading routines. As a former high school cheerleader this is an issue close to my own heart, although i will admit the routines have gotten racier in the ten years since i used to shake it on the track. But i'm still a libertarian on this issue.

i'm sure there's a heck of a lot more urgent problems that they could be worrying about in Texas than sexed-up cheerleaders or even this lowlife? Both are symptoms of bad parenting - a failure to teach kids the meaning of "respect" - but not a reason for the state to crack down on freedom of expression.

The committee's revised bill was weakened somewhat, removing the former draconian punishment of suspending the team for the rest of the school year and the punitive reduction in the offending school district's funding.

Instead, the revised bill gives the school district the authority to "take appropriate action against the performance group and the group's sponsor, as determined by the district." Pretty vague, but of course the whole law is hopelessly vague, in my opinion.

Speaking against the bill at the March 29th hearing were two ACLU representatives (see trolls? i can agree with the ACLU sometimes), including eighteen year old high school senior Margeaux Goodfleisch (that's got to be a stage name, right?), who made this quite reasonable point:

I agree that sexually suggestive performances are inappropriate for school events and school-sponsored competitions, but exactly what is a sexually suggestive performance? It could be someoneÂ’s opinion that any time a group of young, attractive girls dance, itÂ’s sexually suggestive. If you put on paper those moves we specifically cannot do, we would be more than happy to comply.

Texas House Bill 1476 was voted out of committee by a vote of six to nothing, with three committee members absent. Today the Texas House of Representatives approved the bill by a vote of 85-55 with three present but not voting. Next, it goes to the Texas Senate for consideration.

See also: Grits For Breakfast with props for Margeaux.

Yet more: Blogger Jason Plotkin was apparently in the chamber for the debate and recorded these fun snippets:

What was funny is how they also had the song 'shake, shake, shake, shake, shake your booty' in the background at one point, I'm assuming, someone in the gallery played it.

. . .

'This is a ridiculous bill. I don't know how it got to the floor,' said Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston in a Chronicle article. 'We don't have any business mandating anything. We are spending time on "2-3-4, we can't shake it anymore." It's an embarrassment.'

. . .

Rep. Carter Casteel, R-New Braunfels, who agree legislators should not be legislating morality or telling people what to do, but she voted for the bill.

. . .

'When I was 15, anything a cheerleader did was interesting to me. When I was 17, I knew better' said [Rep. Rene Oliveria (D-Brownsville)]. Oliveria brought up how President George W. Bush, Governor Rick Perry and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson were cheerleaders and we should recognize them to vote no.

Finally, In The Pink Texas gives us a timely warning about what happens to cheerleaders gone bad. And Frank J makes the connection between terrorism and slutty cheerleaders... sort of.

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Some sick entrepeneur dug Brittany's pregnancy test out of a dumpster and sold it for 5 grr!

'It's hard to put a price on Britney Spears' urine,' Golden Palace spokesman Drew Black told The Associated Press Wednesday.

Golden Palace says it purchased the test from Ottawa radio station Hot 89.9, which insists the test was retrieved from the trash outside Spears' Los Angeles hotel room months ago. The station didn't leak news of the test until Spears and husband Kevin Federline revealed her pregnancy to the public last month.

i am now in the pee business. Any sickos wanna buy a tube of annie-urine, the bidding starts at five hundred a jar!

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So Cameran Diaz and Ashton Kutcher Timberlake are finally getting married?! Well, i sure hope they don't breed.

And i'd like to get in on the divorce pool, too. i'll pick sixteen months.

While their eventual breakup is a metaphysical certainty, i'm still waiting for Cameren to recant her ridiculously ugly prediction, made on the Ofrah show last year, that if women didn't vote (i.e. if Bush won) rape would become legal in the United States.

Well, as far as i am aware, the Rape Legalization Act has yet to be introduced into either house of Congress, despite the Republican majorities and the religious theocracy i keep hearing about. Oh, and i'm still waiting for Cher's prediction to come true. You know the one where we Republicans are supposed to round up all her gay friends and exile them to some remote state somewhere.

Still waiting. Idiots.

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1 Rape legalization? Gay exile? That's outrageous! That's like Charlton Heston saying the government's going to take our guns away! Actors...

Posted by: Preston at May 04, 2005 02:47 PM (wkfsI)

2 i would go for the part about rounding up cher and exiling her someplace like......kishnev.

Posted by: louielouie at May 04, 2005 03:00 PM (i7mWl)

3 Can we exile all of Hollywood to, say, Antartica?

Posted by: Mark at May 04, 2005 03:05 PM (Hk4wN)

4 Um, the Rape Legalization Act was passed a long time ago. It was codified as the 16th Amendment. Seriously though, implausible rationalizations abound on both sides. if Bush is elected rape will be legal. That contrasts nicely with "if drugs are legalized we'll have 12 year olds hooked on crack" (newsflash - 12 year olds can get most drugs easier than I can). Occassionally both sides will adopt the same idiotic argument (like "let's declare schools gun free zones to make our kids safe" which results in making murderers more safe, not kids). It does seem the celebreties that lean left of Stalin are more prone to make such statements, but I'm wondering if that's due to the frequency of leftleaning celebreties making such statements, or the press using anything they can to further their goals. (note: an abreviation of celebreties tripped your comment blocker. It seems mine does the same thing with sociali (ahem) st. lol)

Posted by: Publicola at May 04, 2005 03:11 PM (DQj8i)

5 Maybe I missed it, but I've never heard a Republican celebrity threaten to leave the country if a liberal were elected. "If Michael Dukakis is elected President, I'm moving to Austria."???

Posted by: Ontario Emperor at May 04, 2005 05:13 PM (bGyIu)

6 Ya know Pubes, you always lose me at the gratuitous generalization that really doesn't work if any thought is applied. I've never heard ANY conservative say such a thing about crack. In fact, WFB the Godfather of conservatism, has been advocating legalization for over thirty years. The left is unequivically the home of the overwhelming majority of nutballs in this culture. You are dismissed.

Posted by: Casca at May 04, 2005 05:16 PM (qBTBH)

7 Casca, I've heard many republicans & a few conservatives make similar arguments (12 year olds on crack), most recently Hugh Hewitt about two days ago. But thanks fo sharing your anecdotal misconceptions. What may be tripping you up though is that the left's criticisms of the right are usually assinine, whereas the right's criticisms of the left are usually fairly accurate. It's the right's criticisms of the right that seems (to me at least) give occassion to implausible arguments. & since the press has no interests in one right sided argument over another, perhaps this explains the lack of coverage. Hence the left get all the attention for saying idiotic things while the right goes unnoticed. I could be mistaken, but that seems plausible from what I've observed. Oh, another recent one: Bush calling the Minuteman Project a group of vigilantes. Course the left has made similar arguments but we're talking about the right being at times just as bad as the left.

Posted by: Publicola at May 05, 2005 01:47 AM (DQj8i)

8 As for rounding up the gays, well, it's a new department under Immigration and they're not well funded. I think the van is scheduled to get to Hollywood sometime in April of 2077.

Posted by: Ted at May 05, 2005 08:54 AM (blNMI)

9 "Maybe I missed it, but I've never heard a Republican celebrity threaten to leave the country if a liberal were elected." Where would they go for their low-tax, bill of rights-free paradise? Russia? Kazakhstan?

Posted by: Preston at May 05, 2005 12:28 PM (wkfsI)

10 Like I said... bored stiff by the second sentence.

Posted by: Casca at May 05, 2005 03:51 PM (qBTBH)

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This 1992 poem by Jo Shapcott makes me want to open my refrigerator and apologize.

Vegetable Love

I´d like to say the fridge
was clean, but look at the rusty
streaks down the back wall
and the dusty brown pools
underneath the salad crisper.

And this is where I´ve lived
the past two weeks, since I was pulled
from the vegetable garden.
I´m wild for him: I want to stay crunchy
enough to madden his hard palate and his tongue,
every sensitive part inside his mouth.
But almost hour by hour now, it seems,
I can feel my outer leaves losing resistance,
as oxygen leaks in, water leaks out
and the same tendency creeps further
and further towards my heart.

Down here there´s not much action,
just me and another, even limper, lettuce
and half an onion. The door opens so many,
so many times a day, but he never opens
the salad drawer where I´m curled in a corner.

There´s an awful lot of meat. Strange cuts:
whole limbs with their grubby hair,
wings and thighs of large birds,
claws and beaks. New juice
gathers pungency as it rolls down
through the smelly strata of the refrigerator,
and drips on to our fading heads.

The thermostat is kept as low as it will go,
and when the weather changes
for the worse, what´s nearest
to the bottom of the fridge starts to freeze.
Three times we´ve had cold snaps,
and I´ve felt the terrifying pain
as ice crystals formed at my fringes.

Insulation isn´t everything in here:
you´ve got to relax into the cold,
let it in at every pore. It´s proper
for food preservation. But I heat up
again at the thought of him,
at the thought of mixing into one juice
with his saliva, of passing down his throat
and being ingested with the rest
into his body cells where I´ll learn
by osmosis another lovely version
of curl, then shrivel, then open again to desire.

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There's a lot we don't know about that runaway bride from Atlanta. More will come out in the next few weeks, and i'll bet you, say $80,000, that her little trip involved a dude in a black Trans-Am. The clue is right there in the song:

The boys are thirsty in Atlanta and there's beer in Texarkana.
And we'll bring it back no matter what it takes.

She was westbound and down. Seriously, i'm tellin' you there was a dude involved that we haven't heard about yet.

More: "US, Italy Disagree On Runaway Bride"

Update: i was right.

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