Alan K. Henderson's Weblog

I'm not going to hoard 100-watt bulbs. Instead, I'm buying two-socket lamp adapters. Take that, greenies!

“What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. [The] atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neo-cons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons....The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.”
— New York Times columnist Paul Krugman in a September 11 posting to his NYTimes.com blog

“So when does SEAL Unit 6, or whatever it’s called, drop in on George Bush? Bush was responsible for a lot more death, innocent death, than bin Laden. Wasn’t he, or am I wrong here?”
— Left-wing radio host and former CNN producer Mike Malloy on The Mike Malloy Show, May 2.

Clip from RNC ad: “Stop Obama and his union bosses today. The Republican National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising.”
Host Lawrence O’Donnell: “The Republican Party is saying that the President of the United States has bosses, that the union bosses this President around, the unions boss him around. Does that sound to you like they are trying to consciously or subconsciously deliver the racist message that, of course, of course a black man can’t be the real boss?”
Ex-Governor Jennifer Granholm (D-MI): “Wow, I hadn’t thought about the racial overtones....”
— MSNBC’s The Last Word, February 25.

“Tea Party budget-slashers....were like cannibals, eating their own party and leaders alive. They were like vampires, draining the country’s reputation, credit rating and compassion. They were like zombies, relentlessly and mindlessly coming back again and again to assault their unnerved victims, Boehner and President Obama. They were like the metallic beasts in Alien flashing mouths of teeth inside other mouths of teeth, bursting out of Boehner’s stomach every time he came to a bouquet of microphones.”
— New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, August 3 column.

"[T]here is an ominous mutual threat to all science fiction. It is called Twilight and it's really, really bad. Gone is any sense of heroism, camaraderie or epic battle. In its place we have vampires that sparkle and moan and go to high school...there are no great stories, characters or profound life lessons to be had in Twilight. In Twilight, the only message that rings out loud and clear is, 'Does my boyfriend like me?' Let's band together to defeat this mutual threat."

At the 31st meeting of the International Committee of the Red Cross, held this week to discuss many issues in modern combat throughout the world, a smaller panel was convened to discuss videogames and the effect they have on the public. Specifically, the Red Cross investigated several games that depict modern warfare and examined whether the rules of the Geneva Conventions governing protections for wounded soldiers, civilian non-combatants, and prisoners of war should be applied to videogames.

[Dean] Harville said he plans to ask the conference of churches to which Gulnare Freewill Baptist belongs to overturn the vote.

Even if that happens, however, "I don't think I'll be able to go back there," his daughter said.