Bildwasser

Kraftwerk mit The Hall of Mirrors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAzq7FUrdXY

207 The Huxley College production of The Doctor In Spite of Himself was a complete artistic failure, but enough produce was throw to keep the college cafeteria supplied with fruit for three days.

206 "I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that you will get your heart. The bad news is you're not going to have a behind left."

P J Harvey singing This Is Love.

There are probably many different reasons that people don't accept man-made climate change, some of which might overlap. For some it is a matter of politics, with the extreme right-wing position being that it's nothing more than a hoax used by those who hope to destroy the capitalist system in the U.S. Yes that sounds loony, but I've run across that view. For others it may be that there is often conflicting infor- mation out there and they don't know what to believe. And there are likely many people who are indifferent to it. It will be interesting to see what happens in the decades ahead, since this will be a long range proposition. I had forgotten that Mander was bumped off by the murderer dressed up as his housekeeper. It seems that The Scarlet Claw is just about every- one's favorite Universal Sherlock Homes movie. I'd agree.

The Pretenders, 2000 Miles. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSRUj31mTF4

Leave my regular Savile Row tailor and find someone else a bit less expensive. What a bloody awful fool I've been.

I don't know if there's an actual percentage, but at this time, the scientific consensus leans heavily toward AGW/ACC. There are scientists who disagree, but currently they are in the minority. Of course the consensus might change in the future. I don't see any reason to think there is some dark conspiracy or a go along to get along ethic among AGW/ACC proponents. It will likely be many decades before we will see whether the predictions of AGW/ACC come to fruition. Time will tell, and it will likely be a relatively long time. If I remember The Scarlet Claw correctly, Miles Mander had good reason to fear for his life.

Chips with gravy? My gag reflex is working overtime. I don't remember that being a school meal, thank goodness. I do remember those little undercooked rectangular pizzas with the cheese floating in little circles on top of the sauce. It's really hard to ruin pizza. I might make up a big mess of spaghetti with lots of sauce and Parmesan cheese for Christmas. Yummy. C'mon now, everybody knows the name of the song is Happy Xmas (War Is Over). Here's a tune from John's better half, Listen,The Snow Is Falling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO36ZW2eJcY Stocking stuffer: After the Cowboys came back after being down by two touchdowns, they lost in OT. Sweet.

203 Dr. Hasenpfeffer's experiment in retro medicine, trying to substitute snakes for leeches, came to an ignominious end. "Wow Enid, this is just so Freudian."

To each their own, but when it comes to some sloppy gravy on french fries I'm with Sam Goldwyn--Count me out.

True that. We have to pay attention to what's going on around us. The details of climate change are way above my pay grade, so I can only go by the current scientific consensus. I suppose the paradox is that if we have to wait a long time to see if the theories about ACC/AGW are correct, it may be too late to do much about it.

I think there's a happy medium between trying to account for every factor that goes into causing something and just giving up and coming up with some simplistic explanation. We likely won't know everything that went into Lanza's decision to do what he did, yet realize it likely had very little to do with watching Dancing With the Stars or being overly enthusiastic about the latest smartphone app. At the end of the day, things can't always be explained fully. The hoods from The Blackboard Jungle somehow passed through American culture rather harmlessly and are probably lounging around the pool somewhere, listening to soft jazz, and collecting their Social Security checks. Cool, daddy-o.

Yes, nobody could deliver a short, swift verbal gut kick like Friday, especially in the last line. Of course he had the advantage of being able to slap the cuffs on you too. I haven't seen the 1960s Dragnet in years. I seem to remember that it used to be on the USA channel every evening, but that was a long time ago. There was the infamous Blue Boy episode. I also remember one where Friday attended a night school course and one of the students bragged about smoking grass, and, sure enough, I think Friday arrested him for having some. If only he had kept his big mouth closed. Dumb da dumb dumb.

No sting at all. This is the superficial, over-simplified, sky is falling mantra that's been in play for...well a very long time. It used to be zip guns, comic books, rock music, etc. that were going to bring young people and perhaps the whole U.S. down. Now it's video games, reality TV, and smartphones that will do the trick. But the world just keeps on spinning around, just as it always has, despite what the doom mongers say.

Well, the inevitabilities of old age are one kind, based on the experience of how natural physical processes work. But that is different from a political inevitability. So while it may be inevitable that eyesight will degrade, it is not inevitable that a separate sales tax on soda will inevitably lead to its eventual banning.

Overbooking--it's been around longer than you think.

But if Georgie was there it might have taken the Indians so long to cut off his huge heinie, that perhaps Custer would have gained time and the whole course of history would have been changed, or maybe not.

We were alerted by narcotics that a man was seen smoking marijuana outside a home in Cucamonga. When we arrived, all seven inhabitants were dead including a baby drowned in a bathtub. Pot--it's a killer. Dum da dum dum. Dum da dum dum dum. I love the 1960s version of Dragnet. Hilarious.

I suppose that theoretically anything is possible, but the idea that the U.S. will turn into the Soviet Union, gradually or not, is highly, highly improbable.

I thought your original point was that freedoms are lost through a gradual, step by step process, and before you know it you can't buy a soda of any size, and that this process was similar to what took place in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s, though the freedoms lost were much more significant. And if something is inevitable that makes it sound like a sure thing. I don't think that cigs or sodas being banned are anywhere near inevitable. The problem with ancient Greece, or at least ancient Athens, was that while it was a more direct form of democracy, the number of people who were allowed to participate was restricted. Only free males of a certain age could participate, which left a lot of people out of the process. As for there being less freedom now in the U.S. then when it was founded, remember that slavery existed when our country was founded and it lasted for another 75 years, and after that there was another hundred years of segregation. It's hard to see how we could be less free than when there was slavery and segregation. Back in the good old days when people didn't live in such close proximity and less was known about pollution, one could get away with doing things that didn't impinge on one's neighbors, so if you wanted to dump garbage and all manner of things in a river, who cared. Today things are different and what we do is more likely to infringe on somebody else, thus more regulations. Some rules will go overboard, as they usually do, but in the main they're likely a good thing. I'd guess that people who grew up under a totalitarian system like the Soviet Union are a lot more wary about government regulation, even rather minor government regulation, than those who grew up in a democratic system, who realize that some regulation is necessary, and know that it's not likely that these regulations are the first step toward an oppressive regime.

Hank Willaims sez My Bucket's Got A Hole In It.

201 Huxley College soon regretted the day they gave the Baxter twins a dodge ball scholarship.

The problem with the slippery slope argument is that it takes things for granted that are not sure to happen. Cigs were, after a long time, found to be hazardous to a person's health, and warnings were put on cig packs and ads. I doubt there are many places, if any at all, where it is illegal to smoke cigs in a free standing home, though there are a few places where it is not allowed in apartment buildings or condos. Soft drinks are similar to cigs, though less hazardous to one's health. Drinking too many sugary drinks isn't good for you, that's why some folks are against them, but there is little regulation of soft drinks presently, and it's doubtful they will be outlawed in the future. Cigs are much more harmful than soft drinks, but they haven't been out- lawed and there are no signs that they will be. The idea that the U.S. in 2012 is somehow akin to the Soviet Union is rather far- fetched and just doesn't pass the common sense test.

Lee "Scratch" Perry is Having a Party.