So THAT'S who McCain reminds me of!

During the campaign, I've seen any number of pictures of John McCain smiling with that kinda plump-cheeked look.

It always bugged me: I knew I'd seen it before, but I couldn't figure out where. I was fairly sure that I knew that smile, but I just couldn't place it. Humph.

Yesterday afternoon, it all finally locked into place: I knew where I'd seen the smile before. It was alarming, but true.

So THAT'S who McCain reminds me of!

Guess which party supports veterans better?

According to data compiled by the million-member organization, Disabled American Veterans, Democrats are beating the cookies out of Republicans when it comes to voting to support veterans issues such as:

• Budget
• Appropriations
• Amendments to increase funding
• Emergency supplemental funding for VA

I'm a bit surprised, honestly. Take a look at the chart for the statistics. It's very impressive what the differences are.

Guess which party supports veterans better?

News from the Babe

The Babe is having fun right now, drinking, dining, and shopping with a bunch of the other hearing office chief administrative law judge types in the Carolinas. She sent me the following picture from one of her recent forays into the stores around there.

She found a gadget for holding bananas in the kitchen while they ripen, she said on the phone.

"I've seen those," I said. "They're a little wooden thingie on a stand with a hook to hold a bunch of bananas."

"Not exactly," she said. She sent me the following cell phone picture.

News from the Babe

Chasidic Unix

I was in California for work week before last and I mentioned chasidic Unix to someone I work with. He'd never seen it and was very excited. If you think about it, this is a joke with a very narrow intersection on a Venn diagram, but if you're one of those people who fall into that group, it's boffo stuff. Check it out here.

Chasidic Unix

Follow-up on Ugly Sofas

Okay, I posted the picture a few days ago of the ugly sofa kind of as a one-off, figuring that it was just one of those things that shows up on the net sorta like the picture I found years ago on the (now-defunct)
EvilIrishBastard.com of the explosion of the Hindenburg.

All that being said, I got a lot of email from people who were appropriately repulsed by the sofa. Good, good, good.

But the Internet is an amazing thing. Whenever you think there's just one of something, the Internet proves you wrong. You get turned on by, oh, popping pink balloon elephants, let's say, and you go on the net and lo! there are 5000 other people who get off on the same thing and there are websites and newsgroups and webrings and dating sites aimed at whatever this incredibly niche interest is.

All of this is vamping, really. It appears that there's a website ("No!" gasped the crowd), www.uglycouchcontest.com, that is aimed at just this sort of thing. The website leaves a little to be desired for navigation and layout, but the real focus is the pix of ugly couches.

For sheer horror, I think that the 2008 finalists are a good selection. I'm quite repulsed by the current 4th runner-up, also shown as pic #100, but #77, 67, 63, and 45 are horrible, too. FWIW, I disagree with the idea of a sofa or couch that's been beaten up, stained, or generally abused: some of these could've been good or passable to begin with. No, the ghastly ones are those that are repellent from the instant they roll off the assembly floor, such as #44, 30, 26, and 23.

Dear God Almighty....

Follow-up on Ugly Sofas