Dave Mancuso dot Com

This is what happens when people take the pagan elements of a holiday too seriously and try to “apply” Christian values to them.

Isn’t there another way?

Although Brad is the true paragon of grammar virtue.

Check it out. [Link remove for our own safety–see subsequent post. –The Author]

Check out the Salon article on Clarke’s reaction to Rice’s testimony. Or listen to it on All Things Considered.

Pitiful.

The White House is scrambling to deny everything and make everyone else look bad. Clarke is trying to take responsibility and cast it off at the same time. Congress is trying to find a “smoking gun.” Everyone is running around trying to find the blame and pin it on someone. It’s pathetic.

In the end, it’s all Monday morning quarterbacking. NOTHING could have stopped 9/11. The very freedom we enjoyed (note past tense in recognition of the Patriot Act) enabled 9/11 to happen. The White House cheapens itself by discrediting Clarke, but given the environment surrounding the inquiry, they’re just playing the game as best they can.

Clarke is a mixed bag. He blames everyone and himself for 9/11, yet states that nothing he recommended would have stopped it. His testimony is a wash, and at this point it would probably have been better if he’d just kept his mouth shut.

The panel of inquiry is an exercise in futility. If a terrible, terrible accident happened to your loved ones, you would certainly spend agonizing time thinking about the ways in which you could have prevented your tragedy, but such thoughts are ultimately useless. Hindsight is meant to learn, not to assign blame to the guiderails of life for not being strong enough. I’m not sure what crystal ball we were supposed to have, but it probably would have shown a public relations witch hunt in the making.

Maybe this time would be better spent looking at the real perpetrators of 9/11 and understanding the tragic culture that made it their aim to kill Americans. Then perhaps we could address the cause of this horror instead of the symptom.

What a waste.

Or thereabouts, anyway.

This store is on Boot Road just a few blocks south of Route 202. I have to visit it sometime–it looks like it has some great cheeses and other items.

Bye-bye, Vickie Phillips.

But you can find a lightbulb that’s been burning for 103 years right here on the Internet (the webcam is a recent addition to the phenomenon).

The Screensavers spent this week on robots, and tonight had a segment on “robots in history.” They each named their top three favorites, but here are mine:

1) Maria from Metropolis:

I’ve never watched all of Metropolis, but the robot (Maria) is etched into my mind (along with the guy who rotated the big clock hands for a living–it looked like a really critical job, right?).

2) Robbie the Robot from Forbidden Planet:

Billed by my Florida college campus theater as the movie with “the girl with the legs,” Forbidden Planet was awesome, with a young Leslie Nielsen as the straight-roled hero. Robbie rocked, and if you see a small resemblance to this guy, you’re right–“Robot” from Lost in Space was patterned after Robbie (yes, his name in Lost In Space was “Robot”–no joke).

3) Gort, from The Day the Earth Stood Still:

“Michael Rennie was ill the Day the Earth Stood Still”–three points if you know that lyric reference. A classic scifi movie from the fifties with a simple moral. Few people know that this movie was made from a science fiction story where the human Klaatu is the servant and robot Gort is the kindly master. Worth a viewing if you can see it, although Forbidden Planet is the most easily watchable of my three pics listed here.

So, what are your three top robots from history? I have a feeling that the guys from work will all pick Twicki from Buck Rogers (heh-heh).

Yep–that’s its offical name, apparently (not Daylight Savings Time–who knew?). Daylight-saving time begins this weekend.

Maybe.

Depending on where you live.

See this story for more details that you ever wanted to know.

I remember in 1973 we turned to daylight-saving time on Christmas Day by order of President Nixon because of the Energy Crisis. No lie.

See? Google is an an amazing thing. I’m not kidding–look halfway down the page.