Making Lemonade from Lemons

We got no-necked oilmen from Texas

And good ol' boys from Tennessee

And colleges men from LSU

Went in dumb - come out dumb too

Hustlin' 'round Atlanta in their alligator shoes

Gettin' drunk every weekend at the barbecues

Randy Newman, singer/song writer "Rednecks"

It's the second house on the right... the one with the blue Datsun in front.

The Worse is Yet to Come

History … is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
Edward Gibbon (1737–94), English historian. "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"

I haven’t been moved to write much of anything lately, primarily I’ve been very busy with work. And, what leisure time I have is divided up with minimal chores, firing off missives to Realtors, DMVs, city hall and reading (newspapers, magazines, books), but this morning’s New York Times editorial section really points out that the country is truly being mismanaged and the citizenry are too busy eking out a living to care.

There is something terribly wrong with the country. What is worse is that the people continue to let the president run roughshod over clear thinking and common sense. It is amazing to me that the New York Times has four strong editorials/opinion pieces against the current White House Administration: the lead editorial “The Bait-and-Switch White House,” “Mr. Bush’s Oil Security Blanket,” “At Ease, Mr. President” by Garry Wills, and Maureen Dowd’s column attacks the craziness of Dick Cheney, and still there is not a movement afoot to strongly curtail this administration from inflicting even more long-term damage. I'm not even taking into consideration the number of books documenting the mismanagement of the Iraq war.

Extremists on any subject fail to see that the world is gray, not black or white. We know from thousands of years how humans will react when egos and insecurities are not addressed and yet world leaders continue to make the same mistakes over and over. And, the people let them, following into goose-stepping hell thinking they are being patriotic.

Our country is not only on the wrong track, but is seriously derailed and it has a ripple effect around the world.

State of the Union Rejected Drafts

For one tyrant, there a thousand ready slaves. Man is naturally a worshipper of idols and a lover of kings.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830), writer

Toner Mishap found a few of the crumbled rejected pages President George W. Bush had rewritten before tonight’s State of the Union speech.

My fellow Americans I have admitted that mistakes were made in Iraq. It’s a loser of a situation, I have sent over 20,000 troops and I will start to bring them home around summer time when there are only 15,000 to return – stuff happens, they’re not my kids.

In my last two years, I plan to focus on the domestic issues; you know the things that happen here in the good ol’ US of A. Our health care system is unfair, so I am going to tax the middle class, so they too cannot afford health care. I am in the process of replacing federal prosecutors with those that are loyal to me. I will try again to kill off Social Security…

The first crumbled page ended, but apparently the other page we found looks to have been another false start:

Ladies and Gentlemen, Republicans and Democrats remember I am a uniter, not a divider. I welcome the Democrats as a majority in Congress, and we’ll be united as long as you realize I am the Decider and you’re not...

Miscellaneous Political Thoughts

Judges – It was reported that Judge Judy makes more than all the Supreme Court Justices combined. Considering this most unimpressive group, all is right in the world.

Hillary – I am just not crazy about her. Right now, I like John Edwards and Barack Obama.

Gerald Ford – I am not sure whether it was hindsight that made Ford look better or that fact that Bush is so bad. I. F. Stone had a great line shortly after John F. Kennedy was killed, which is just as appropriate today: “funerals are always occasions for pious lying.”

Why We Read TMZ and Perez Hilton

Ayn Rand wrote in The Fountainhead about a newspaper's appeal to the public through featuring society (AKA celebrity, nowadays) news:

"It overstressed the glamour of society -- and presented society news with a subtle sneer. This gave the man on the street two satisfactions: that of entering illustrious drawing rooms and that of not wiping his feet on the threshold."

Seven Deadly Sins:Dodger Stadium

Announcing a new Toner Mishap recurring feature: I'll be analyzing news stories with the help of the classic seven deadly sins, making a determination of how good or bad something is. One point for exhibiting each sin, with additional or partial credit when appropriate.

Our first example of this is the news that Dodger Stadium will be raising ticket prices and providing all-you-can eat Dodger Dogs; let's get started!

Lust: 0
N/A

Gluttony: 1 pt
A new, expensive seating area in the right-field pavilion will include all-you-can-eat Dodger Dogs, peanuts and soda.

Greed: 1 pt
The old $6 cheap seats will now cost $10, and the number of seats with a game-day price no higher than $10 fell from about 9,500 to about 6,200.

Sloth: 1 pt
You don't have to get up to buy your food -- they bring it right to you.

Wrath: 0
N/A

Envy: 0.5 pts
Is this driving further distinction between the "have"s and the "have not"s at the ballgame? Perhaps.

Pride: 0
N/A

FINAL SCORE: 3.5 pts
With exactly half of a possible high score of 7, I rank the new plans at Dodger Stadium rank as moderately sinful, or encouraging moderating sinning.

President Bush Answers Rhetorical Question

“All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes.”
Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British politician and writer

Tonight, President Bush, aka the Decider, will answer John Kerry’s rhetorical question posed to Congress 36 years ago:

"...How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

Bush’s answer: Fellow Americans, I am going to increase the number of troops sent to Iraq, so no one will know who the last to die for my mistake will be.

Las Vegas Wants Your Money and Yours, Yours and Yours

He was … a degenerate gambler. That is, a man who gambled simply to gamble and must lose. As a hero who goes to war must die. Show me a gambler and I’ll show you a loser, show me a hero and I’ll show you a corpse.
Mario Puzo (1920-1999), novelist

Saturday’s Bizarro comic strip by Dan Piraro fits so perfect with the news about Las Vegas profits that I have to share it, I am only sorry I can’t get my hands on the cartoon to show you.

Two Indians are standing next to Las Vegas-style slot machines and on the floor in front of them is a Caucasian male crawling away with his pockets turned inside out from losing his money at the casino. One Indian says to the other: I’m just sorry it took us 400 years to figure out how to beat them.

Now to the report that Nevada casinos post $2.1 billion in profit. Yes, that’s profit from all the people who go thinking they will beat the odds. Saturday’s Los Angeles Times’ article points out that the Las Vegas Strip had gross revenue of $14.9 billion.

It’s no wonder they keep tearing down the old gambling joints and building enormous gambling palaces.

The Sgt. Pepper of Videos

Is it not strange that sheep’s guts should hale souls out of men’s bodies?
William Shakespeare (1564–1616), writer

I'd ask how many artists you can identify, but I think a better question is who is not in here? It opens with a Frank and ends with a Frank.

Inventor of Instant Noodles Dies at 96

Interment instructions: pour boiling water into casket, bury for three minutes, peel the lid back and enjoy!

[Source]

Phones, Now Our Mail, Loyalty Oaths are Next

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
Edmund Burke (1729–97), philosopher

Now that the Decider has decided to read our mail, it has been discovered that the white house gang is considering a Loyalty Program similar to what President Harry S Truman signed into law on March 21, 1947 that allowed sweeping background investigation on U.S. citizens and anyone else in the country during the late 1940s’ through the mid-1950s’.

Here is your first peek at the Bush Loyalty Oath:

"I further swear (or affirm) that I do not mail, read or e-mail, and have not within the period beginning five (5) years prior to the effective date of the ordinance requiring the making of this oath or affirmation, nor have I voted Democrat, advocated freedom of speech or taught the Bill of Rights to any child or adult, attacked marriage, Christmas, parental rights, America’s religious heritage or helped a homosexual, while in the United States of America and that I am not now and have not, within said period, advised, advocated or taught equal rights or viewed pornography, I further swear (or affirm) that I will not, while George W. Bush is president, participate, talk or listen to such persons who even think about any of the above while in the United States of America."

Tony vs Paul

Awesome stop-motion animation makes this music video (?) a must-see! It's entrancing and captivating...

Thanks go out to BoingBoing for telling us about it!

Happy New Year From Toner Mishap to You

Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil.… They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), playwright

A hearty and happy New Year to all Toner Mishap readers and as a public service I will share with you Esquire’s The Rules: A Man’s Guide to Life in order to help with your New Year’s resolutions.

1. Do not trust a man who calls the bathroom the little boys’ room.
2. No talking at the urinal.
3. Sitcom characters watching porn always tilt their heads.
4. If you are under 80, you should never utter the phrase the whole kit and caboodle
5. The weirder the cell phone ring, the more annoying the person.
6. Any superhero worth his salt could fly without his cape.
7. There’s a special circle in hell reserved for those who adjust their rearview mirrors while you wait for their parking space. ( I will add also for people who hold up traffic while applying make-up).
8. The day that the New York Times referred to Snoop Doggy Dogg on second reference as Mr. Dogg was the day the whole formal news outlet edifice began to crumble.
9. Anybody who says they “work hard and play hard” probably does neither.
10. If someone begins an opinion by saying, “now, I’m not [fill in the blank],” then that person is “[fill in the blank].”

On the Shelf at the Synagogue:Happy New Year!

This is why I like hanging out at the synagogue when my wife has stuff to do -- so much interesting stuff to see!

Celebrating the Death of a Dictator

If there’s one thing you can say
About Mankind
There’s nothing kind about man
Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan, song writers, from the song "Misery is the River of the World"

I find all the delectation people are exhibiting and the news media’s breathless repetition of Saddam Hussein’s death as well as the eagerness to show the corpse leaves me with a sense of unease.

The Iraqis celebrating in Illinois and those brave enough to go outside in Iraq all seems rather barbaric. The hundreds killed by Hussein, his sons or his lynch men are not brought back, the suffering felt by the families is not lessened, there is not even closure because the pain will always be there.

The celebration of a death penalty executed shows humanity at its most abject.

Non-Decisional Meeting with Dire Results

Every decision is liberating, even if it leads to disaster. Otherwise, why do so many people walk upright and with open eyes into their misfortune?
Elias Canetti (1905–94), novelist

From the nightly Wall Street Journal e-mail I receive.

Bush: 'Making Progress'
In what was billed as a "non-decisional" meeting, President Bush today discussed ways to change the administration's Iraq strategy with the entire National Security Council at his home in Crawford, Texas. "We're making good progress," Mr. Bush told reporters, without fielding questions. The president isn't expected to announce his new course in Iraq until sometime next month…

Tell me, how can you make progress in a “non-decisional” meeting when the Decider in chief is there? Why are they spending taxpayer money to hold a meeting to solve nothing?

The newspaper reported that December was the second-deadliest month for U.S. troops. There have been 3,238 coalition deaths -- 2,989 Americans, two Australians, 126 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, six Danes, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Fijian, one Hungarian, 32 Italians, one Kazakh, three Latvian, 18 Poles, two Romanians, five Salvadoran, four Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and 18 Ukrainians -- in the war in Iraq as of December 28, 2006, according to a CNN count.

And the Bush gang is in a non-decisional meeting trying to come up with a strategy. Something is very, very wrong!

Death of a President

Waxy has a great links page that we check all the time -- and he's got a link to the famous Dana-Carvey-as-Tom-Brokaw sketch, in which he eulogizes Gerald Ford... ten years ago! If you haven't seen it, check it out now.

(I think you can just lick that "play" button above.)

Presidential Words Have No Integrity

The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right.
William Safire, columnist


George W. Bush, our president (unfortunately), said regarding Gerald Ford’s passing, “During his time in office, the American people came to know President Ford as a man of complete integrity who led our country with common sense and kind instincts.”

All traits our current leader has never exhibited. It may just be me, but these words coming from the Decider-in-Chief mean less than nothing, it’s akin to Tom DeLay saying that lobbyist Jack Abramoff was honest or Kenny-boy Lay was a great CEO, or that administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Michael Brownie is doing a heck of a job, or better yet, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would remain in his administration until the end of his presidency.

This country would be better served and national dignitaries better remembered if our embarrassment of a leader kept his mouth shut.

I accidently stumbled upon this and it's hysterical. Wait a second the sound will come up.

The Original Mash-up

I was going through the garage this week and came upon my box of 45s,* which collection includes some classics, including work by the duo known as Buchanan and Goodman. Growing up I listened to them constantly, having cadged them from my dad, who got them when he was a kid, I guess..

Buchanan and Goodman were the first mash-up artists, taking bits and pieces of various pop songs and splicing them together into larger pieces -- their most famous being "The Flyer Saucer," recorded in 1956. Their samples were, in many cases, my first exposure to some of these classic songs (and I was confused for years by the fake attributions given in the mash-up).

Click here for an mp3 of The Flying Saucer uploaded for your listening pleasure. It's interesting to note (especially to us Creative Commons folks) that Goodman wound up in court for infringement of copyright -- that is, he didn't get anyone's permission for his sampling. The lawsuits were later settled out of court when the judge ruled that the records were parodies, and were original creations in and among themselves (Gray Album, anyone?).

*A 45 is a type of record -- an analogue sound recording medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed modulated spiral groove starting near the periphery and ending near the center of the disc. "45" indicates it is spun at 45 revolutions per minute. They really exist.

Non-Ultra?

Can someone help me out here? My in-laws have a dishwashing soap called "Non-Ultra Joy"... what's up with that? Is there an "Ultra Joy"? Is there some reason I wouldn't want the ultra power?