Author: AirBeagle

As always, it’s smell-a-rat time; « what are the Mayberry Machiavellis trying to hide THIS time? »; ‘Citing privacy and precedent, the Bush administration indicated Sunday it does not intend to release all memos and other documents written by Supreme Court nominee John Roberts when he worked for two Republican presidents. … Fred D. Thompson, the former…

Asquared AirBeagle is back … now powered by WordPress, which does some truly awesome things, such as the weather report you see in the sidebar and the new ‘Subscribe to Comments’ feature, which allows you, the commentor, to receive notification if someone replies to your comment. Cool beans. I also added PhotoStack to handle the…

I fixed a few things and added some nifty features (WordPress is wonderful), so if you’ve had troubles reading or commenting on anything the last week or so, try again. You can now subscribe to comment threads; you’ll get an e-mail if someone replies to a comment you leave here. Thanks for reading!

Awwwww.

Excuse me, but I’m angry. God damn the Emperor. Damn him to hell:     « More »

While we’re all tied up in knots over suicidal nuts with explosives who kill 50 people at a time, « somebody else is talking about nuking millions of Americans »: ‘China is willing to use nuclear weapons against the United States if it is attacked in a conflict over Taiwan, a senior Chinese military official said last…

It simply doesn’t get any more clichéd than « this »: ‘Victor Edward Willis, the original policeman and lead singer from the Village People, had a chance to find out firsthand this week after he was arrested when police discovered a gun and drugs in his car during a traffic stop in Daly City, California. Willis was…

I imported the old entries successfully from TextPattern, but I’ve lost a few trackbacks and comments. If yours was one of them, I do apologize. And I’m working on the link thing. Like the new look?

Textpattern is … causing me some frustrations lately. So I’m switching to « WordPress ». Things will be very higgledy-piggledy for a little while. Thanks for bearing with me. Links will be back as soon as possible.

Awwwww.

There’s « wickedness afoot in God’s country ». Go. Sign the petition.

Yep, there was hail, albeit briefly. That thunderstorm we had this evening around 5.00 lasted about 45 minutes or so and was quite a fierce one. I stood in the entryway of Hatcher for about ten minutes and the rain disspiated for about ten minutes … then the real storm let loose, with major lightning,…

Me? I’m good. Survived the first two weeks of grad school, albeit with plenty of pain. Looks like I’ll survive the rest too, so it’s not been a bad week. Today: Hail.

The past couple of weeks I’ve been trying out a different bus route home — the 14, which runs from Blake Transit Center to Pioneer High by what is probably the most circuitous and esoteric route imaginable. Unlike most AATA buses, the 14 doesn’t run directly through the center of town (State, Packard, Main, etc.)….

The Fourth was relatively quiet until about an hour or so ago, when some neighbors started off a round of fireworks (I’ll never understand what makes people with half a brain think that it’s okay to light off explosives around foliage, but I guess that’s just me). The town was almost eerily deserted the whole…

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which…

I had a better afternoon yesterday with anxiety, probably because I took a nap at lunch in an empty classroom. It helped a great deal. But the bigger issue that is emerging is the one that has been my prime concern: my physical capacity to deal with the pain, nausea and fatigue and keep up…

Today’s posts are simply going to be whining sessions. Forgive me, but this is all the therapy I can get while I’m sitting in class and keep my cool. My fatigue level is high suddenly. Nauseated. Fatigued. Anxiety-ridden. I’m a mess and I need to whine about it. Nothing wrong with that. Everybody needs to…

I’m trying to relax. I’m trying to breathe. I’m trying not to lose it. But it’s hard. Nausea is increasing this morning. The silly little games we do increase my problem. I understand the purpose, but here at the beginning, they are trying to break through my castle walls that have been erected in my…

Not as unpleasant, though, as that afternoon a week or so after I’d first moved here and got lost walking down Madison trying to find the main branch of the Ann Arbor District Library. Which tells me that either (a) that afternoon was unusually humid or (b) I’ve finally acclimated to the muggy summers. We’ll…

« Truly hilarious ». ‘Did you guys catch Tom Cruise on the Today Show this morning? I did. It was va-gynius. Watching Tom Cruise blabber on and on about the ills of medicine was mesmerizing. I’m a Matt Lauer fan, and I thought he handled himself smartly and gentlemanly. As far as Tom’s movie goes, it’s clearly…

The temps are supposed to be 14 degrees above normal here later today … yikes. The only possible relief may be a few scattered thunderstorms during the afternoon. It won’t get below 80, apparently, until next Friday.

I was eating breakfast in Frank’s Diner this morning and overheard one of the customers complaining about the weather to the waitress. She said, “It’s days like these when I ask myself, ‘When’s winter coming?’” I guess I’m not the only person in southern Michigan who misses milder temperatures.

Summer is here in a big way this week, despite the storm interlude on Tuesday. The past few days have been hot and almost cloudless, and the humidity is starting to creep upward. The weather has not been all that oppressive (although a friend of mine points out that that perception may be due to…

On my way home Tuesday night, a brief but intense deluge came down from the sky—a ripping thunderstorm on the first day of summer. I was unprepared, having forgotten to check the National Weather Service on the way out the door in the morning and consequently having also forgotten my umbrella. I was soaked through…

« This » is how the Empire supports the troops these days apparently: ‘John Tod of Mesa had been prepared to face Father’s Day worrying about his son’s pending date with the war in Iraq. Then Uncle Sam stepped in with more disappointing developments. Marine Pfc. Jeremy Tod called home with news that his superiors were urging…

Well, my words about the hammer of summer weren’t quite on target. The past week has seen a few days of temps in the high 70s, but mostly it’s been overcast, even drizzly and thunderstormy some days, with highs in the upper 60s and low 70s. Some of it has been remnants of Tropical Storm…

Gosh, it’s been hot. So how’s everybody been? We’re still here, just a bit overwhelmed. I start grad school in two weeks and the allergy assault on Frank continues unabated. The beagle is on a new diet and we have a houseguest for an extended stay. The last day of school for Ann Arbor PS…

Oh, that « Gore Vidal », rehashing old, long-forgotten battles: ‘Asked to predict who would win in ‘04, I said that, again, Bush would lose, but I was confident that in the four years between 2000 and 2004 creative propaganda and the fixing of election officials might very well be so perfected as to insure an official…

Today, somehow, seemed appropriately the start of summer (though summer doesn’t officially start for another week and a half). Yesterday, the heat was hot, but it didn’t feel oppressive and exhausting. Today, it felt that way — I left the house at 9.30 and the heat and humidity were already stifling, and there wasn’t the…

It’s great how «this list» equates John Dewey, Betty Friedan, Friedrich Nietzsche, John Maynard Keynes, Mao Zedong, and Adolf Hitler. Such heartwarming catholicity is a rare find these days. Why isn’t Catcher in the Rye on the list? Are the book burners asleep on the job? [Link courtesy «Bifurcated Rivets».]

I love Molly Ivins always and I especially love her today for turning over her column completely to the blazing and brave words spoken in the Texas lege by « Houston Rep. Senfronia Thompson » … a speech which should be printed on placards and given to every American citizen: ‘I have been a member of this…

It doesn’t fit with the cherished fascist myth of the ‘liberal’ media so it’s being ignored in favor of Newsweek bashing, but documents the ACLU obtained show that the FBI knew about « desecrations of the Koran at Guantanamo Gulag as early as 2002 »: ‘New documents released by the FBI include previously undisclosed interviews in which…

May 24 and the weather today alternated between overcast, drizzly, and chilly, with a few moments of interspersed sunlight. It’s been this way all month, except for a few days earlier in the month when summery weather was threatening to bust out. Even I am somewhat surprised by this spate of what the cliché calls…

In the What the ? Department … Who won? Who lost? « Who knows »? ‘The Senate is to vote Tuesday to end debate on Owen, a Texas Supreme Court justice, clearing the way for her to gain a seat on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans. With the threat of a…

Here’s something fun: free expression and religion « collide on the Delta Shuttle »: ‘Dear Ignorant Wench … ‘When you walked toward me smiling and stopped in front of my seat (I had just collapsed in a heap), I thought you were going to offer me a word of encouragement, you had a very kind face and…

Back in February, there was an article about millionaire « John Gilmore, who was making a point about privacy » in a world where the Constitution doesn’t apply on airport property: ‘In post 9/11 America, asking “Why?” when someone from an airline asks for identification can start some interesting arguments. Gilmore, who learned to argue on the…

Lordy, I’m tired. I just finished a week of full days of subbing, including two days with my favorite autistic kids. I’m also dealing with the increasingly … awful effect of the chemotherapy drug the docs in their infinite wisdom have decided will help my arthritis (the story is just too long and exhausting and…

Oh, it’s ugly, « ever so ugly out there »: ‘Discount airline carrier Jetsgo, which stopped flying in March, announced Friday that it is bankrupt. Jetsgo founder Michel Leblanc had hoped to have the carrier operating again by late June but he was unable to persuade some of the airline’s creditors to agree to his restructuring plan….

Apparently (judging from a photo caption in today’s Ann Arbor News) the trees I’ve been confusing with cherry trees are actually crab apple trees. I stand corrected.

First real humidity of the year today … though it wasn’t blazing wiith sunlight today, it got up into the high 70s, and the weather was definitely balmy. The trees are in full bloom — magnolias, cherry, etc. Haven’t seen all that many squirrels around the house lately, for whatever reason, though they seem to…

For various reasons I won’t bore you with, I haven’t posted here much. And so I missed marking the occasion as it happened. But the big behemoth got off the ground at last and had, « by all accounts », a very successful first four hours of flight: ‘The long-awaited test lasted almost four hours, with the…

Here on the 60th anniversary of VE Day, I’m watching two films, Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph des Willens and the Criterion version of the French film Nacht und Nebel. The first is the face that the Germans wanted to present to the world, the second is of the reality. Both are quite shattering, especially Nacht und…