And now I’ve only got two years left.

Like his stroke, it was entirely unexpected.

In paradisum deducant te Angeli; in tuo adventu suscipiant te martyres, et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Ierusalem. Chorus angelorum te suscipiat, et cum Lazaro quondam paupere aeternam habeas requiem.

I recently had an epiphany. In the midst of the rigors of AP us history, I realized that the one repeating feature of the great men in history is that they are all gloriously bewhiskered. The Civil War being the prime example, men rose through the ranks based on the relative magnificence of their cookie dusters, Stonewall Jackson, Lee, and Longstreet all had preeminent soup strainers, and the Union tried unsuccessfully to imitate their tactics with McClellan, Meade, and Burnside, eventually leading to their finding a suitable leader in Ulysses S. Grant and his beard, Doctor Fuzzenstein. The magnificent facial hair of the time led to the bloody war of attrition, neither side had the ferrat-tude to win through to full victory.

The great victors of the twentieth century also had their nose neighbors. Hitler and Stalin subverted massive populations and conquered vast tracts of land thanks to their mustaches of authority. Fidel Castro, Mr. Tickles, and his small guerilla army of 300 men managed to defeat clean shaven Batista’s 10,000 troops and seize control of Cuba. How? The answer lies in the beard.

This leads to an obvious conclusion about the lack of success in Iraq. How can we hope to succeed when tens of thousands of our clean-shaven men at arms are being hurled into the midst of the most bewhiskered population on Earth? How can General Abazaid Compete with Osama Bin-Laden

We need to send the United States government a message, this war cannot be won through strength of arms alone, we need to draft ZZ Top, and put them in command of our fighting men and women, or else we’re surely doomed.

Some final evidence.

Genghis Khan? Beard

Satan? Beard

Gandalf? Beard

Think about it.

— dantesparadigm

Go here to read the rest of the thread and reply with the funny.

Brilliance, I tell you. Brilliance!

I, personally, would rather be hated for what I am than loved for what I am not.

—KarlEd

CNN Headline: Truckers asked to look for a suspicious man.

Besides being shockingly obvious that truckers should be looking for suspicious looking sorts in the first place, isn’t that rather vague?

Person in Charge to trucker. “I want you to look for a suspicious man.”

Trucker. “You mean, like, a one-armed man? Or we talking dude has a radioactive glow kind of suspicious?”

CNN Headline: Nikon Will Stop Making Most Film Cameras

That’s a disturbing article. Not that moving into the digital age is bad (it isn’t) or that I’m a Nikon camera buff (I’m not, I use Canons and sometimes, cannons), but that they’re discontinuing so many film SLRs. They’re only keeping the top-of-the-line and the very bottom-of-the-line, which really limits choice. Of course, folks are supposed to start buying the DSLRs, but while they’re coming down in price, they’re still not down enough for most hobbyists. Especially when you compare features and price from film to digital SLR. For thousands of dollars in a DSLR, you can get the same features in a film SLR for much, much less.

Hell, or enough starting-out pros. Not that I’m bitter about having a DIGIC I processor in my DRebel and not a DIGIC II, or the look-down-upon-you view that so many pros have on people who use DRebels. Grr. I’d have a 20D or a 5D (*drool*) if I could afford it.

CNN Headline: Watch: Cameras record brutal attack on homeless man

…why the fuck would anyone want to watch that?

CNN Headline: Is your city mean to the homeless?

Yes. Next question.

Honestly, what city isn’t mean to the homeless?

CNN Headline: Merkel: We will not be intimidated by Iran (subheadline: Bush, Merkel united on Iran’s nuclear threat)

Bush+Iran+nuclear missles+”We won’t be fucked with, dammit, we’re America!”=nuclear war?

Does that scare the shit out of anyone else, or am I the only one?

I’m going to go crawl under a rock.

some people can’t even be called animals, they have just become destructive forces, bridled only by that shit called skin.

—porcelain girl

The article itself is fairly useless except to drum up fear of drug users and dealers. That’s crap, because if you’re going to fear them, you already do. Criminal activity is up? No shit! I think more folks should work and talk directly with addicts and see them as they are: human beings. Many of them will acknowledge that they’ve made a mistake or they continue to make mistakes, but that the drug controls their lives. The article talks about addicts resorting to crime to pay for their drug habit, but doesn’t go into how if it’s heroin, the crime generally comes when a person is dopesick–they’ve got the nasty withdrawal symptoms and just want to make them better. That’s also the time when an addict will most likely use a dirty needle, because the desperation is so high in that moment. Sick is the key word. Dopesick isn’t just psychological symptoms, it’s very, very physical.

Drugs are bad, Mr. Hat, mmmkay.

On another pride note…Levesque’s sister Stacy is one of the candidates (you must be 18 to view the pics) for radio station WAAF’s Miss Mantown Calendar 2007. And for some reason, I am proud of my best friend’s younger sister.

I don’t know why.

And now I waken you from sweet repose,
Your deep blue eyes are framed with morning sand.
You say, “A sleeping bag instead of clothes.”
Alas, my dear, my ring is no decoder band.

“Then please, my love, some lemonade,”
You say, and up you sit, mouth open wide,
And out you breathe, your breath a wicked blade.
“Alas, of lemon drink I have but none, by this I do abide.”

He scratches at his chest and then I say in jest,
“You have a worm inside your nose.”
The expectation is a glare; instead you checked.
And as I laugh, you strike a stricken pose.

I tilt your brow, fall silent, and bestow a kiss.
You are my love, and teasing more would be amiss.