Irish Drinking Toasts

May you be in heaven
half an hour before the devil knows you're dead.

~ Old Irish toast

Twenty-Five Hundred

2500 posts ... man that's a lot!

Innocence and Despair

Back in 1976-1977 a group of middle school kids recorded themselves singing some of the hits of the day and their favorite songs. Over the years they had their copies and lost their copies and threw away their copies ... and one made its way into the hands of a producer who turned it into the recording below ... a recording true to the original as it is the original - no dubbing or polishing, just the music raw and unvarnished as the kids played the music and sang them those many years ago.

It is a must have for any record collection!

"The backing arrangement is astounding. Coupled with the earnest if lugubrious vocal performance you have a piece of art that I couldn't have conceived of, even with half of Colombia's finest export products in.me." --David.Bowie (on the Langley students' rendition of "Space.Oddity")

TRACK LISTING
(& original recording artists):

01) Venus and Mars/Rock Show
---- (Paul McCartney &.Wings)
---- >>listen to clip
02) Good Vibrations (The Beach Boys)
---- >>listen to clip
03) God Only Knows (The Beach Boys)
04) Space Oddity (David Bowie)
---- >>listen to clip
05) The Long and Winding Road
---- (The Beatles)
06) Band On The Run
---- (Paul McCartney & Wings)
07) I'm Into Something Good
---- (Earl-Jean/Herman's Hermits)
08) In My Room (The Beach Boys)
---- >>listen to clip
09) Saturday Night (Bay City Rollers)
10) I Get Around (The Beach Boys)
11) Mandy (Barry Manilow)
12) Help Me, Rhonda
---- (The Beach Boys)
13) Desperado (The Eagles)
---- >>listen to clip
14) You're So Good To Me
---- (The Beach Boys)
---- >>listen to clip
15) Sweet Caroline (Neil Diamond)
16) To Know Him Is To Love Him
---- (Teddy Bears)
17) Rhiannon (Fleetwood Mac)
18) You're Sixteen *
---- (Johnny Burnette/Ringo Starr)
19) Little Deuce Coupe *
---- (The Beach Boys)
20) Wildfire (Michael Martin Murphy)
21) Calling Occupants of
---- Interplanetary Craft
---- (The Recognized Anthem
---- of World Contact.Day)
---- (Klaatu/The Carpenters)

Read more about this work here.

There's a kind of a hush all over the world ...

For the next few weeks, fans of Ann Coulter - Hello, is there anyone out there? -will have to rely on skippy-the-wonder-dog to provide their mind-boggling sound bites.

Because of a nasty fall last month, the 46-year-old slut will have her jaw wired shut.

Didn't think it was possible to silence Miz Coulter, but we are overjoyed that the screeching reactionary broke her jaw and the 'mouth that roared' has been wired shut.

(Is there anyway to make that wiring permanent .... I wonder?)

And I Quote

"The Capitol Hill Christmas tree arrived. And they've got to decorate it so a $10 billion contract went to Halliburton."

~ David Letterman

At Least 80 Dead in India Terror Attacks

Coordinated terrorist attacks struck the heart of Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, on Wednesday night, killing dozens in machine-gun and grenade assaults on at least two five-star hotels, the city’s largest train station, a movie theater and a hospital.

Even by the standards of terrorism in India, which has suffered a rising number of attacks this year, the assaults were particularly brazen and drastically different in scale and execution. The attackers used boats to reach the urban peninsula where they hit, and their targets were sites popular with tourists.

"Mumbai" is the right way to pronounce "Bombay," which is considered the financial center of India.

New York Times

Addendum: After a night of fighting the police said 104 people were killed and 314 injured. Officials said eight militants were also killed.

The Obamas visit a Chicago food bank

The Obamas visit a Chicago food bank and help hand out food.

President Barack Obama and his family spent an hour handing out chickens, potatoes, bread and other Thanksgiving food to poor families on Chicago's south side this (Wednesday, November 26, 2008) morning after Obama introduced his latest economic advisers.
Then he shook hands with catholic grade school students ecstatic to see him.

..."at Thanksgiving, it's important for us to remember people in need," Obama said. "They told me the number of people coming here is up 33 percent from last year."

About 600 families got food, said Kate Maehr, executive director of the greater Chicago Food Depository.
That's up from 270 families last year, said the Reverend Matt Eyerman.

This is the fourth year in a row that Obama has handed out food before Thanksgiving.
Last year, he did it in New Hampshire.

Chicago Sun Times

Rogue Cops in Newark

This rogue cop even says "I can do what I want". News Flash for you buddy ... no you can't.

Even though news cameramen and reporters are not the most welcome at times if they are on public property they can do their jobs ... how else do you think FauxNews gets their stuff from - they have to get a real picture and pull a misleading story out of their ass or have a real story and pull misleading pictures out of their ass every day.

Man steals three-year-old's identity

Authorities say a North Carolina man used a Social Security number belonging to a 3-year-old girl to sign up for telephone and natural gas service. The News and Record of Greensboro reported Tuesday that 44-year-old Michael John Maris of Mebane was charged with one count of identity theft and two counts of obtaining property by false pretense.

Alamance County sheriff's officials said the child's grandmother, Linda Raker, contacted authorities after a collection agency began looking for unpaid utility bills in her granddaughter's name.

The sheriff's office said the suspect is related to Raker, but did not disclose the relationship.

Maris was being held Tuesday on $5,000 bond at the Alamance County jail. Court records didn't show that he had an attorney.

Accused drunk driver ends up running over himself

From the "Now this is fine how do you do!" Department:

A 21-year-old man was accused of driving drunk and leading police on a chase that finally ended with him running over himself. The man was treated for minor injuries at a Santa Fe hospital and booked in to the Sandoval County detention center on charges of aggravated driving while intoxicated, fleeing a police officer, careless driving and two other outstanding traffic warrants.

A tip to the state's DrunkBuster hot line Sunday afternoon alerted authorities to a possibly drunken driver.

State Police Officer Grace Romero spotted the man's pickup truck swerving across both lanes of a highway, driving slowly and then fast. He refused to stop.

After narrowly missing other vehicles, police said the suspect drove through a ditch and a barbed-wire fence before stopping. He tried to put the truck into park, but it ended up in reverse.

Police said the man fell from his open door and both of his legs were run over by the front driver's side tire.