Fallout Shelter

My friend Bill at the NC State Fair

If you go to the N.C. State Fair this year, swing by the Village of Yesteryear near gate 8 and go by Bill Wallace's booth.  He's next to the exit on the side opposite from the bathrooms in the Holshouser building. 

I took different woodworking classes from Bill for maybe 8 years, and would probably still be doing it had Duke not shut down their craft center.  Take some money with you and buy a bowl, or something smaller or larger.  Tell them Joe said hi.  :)  Bill's stuff is all one-offs, individually made, and real wood.  It's not cheap, but it's really nice. Bill raises natural beef cattle too, and Janet (IIRC) runs a small Montessori school and works at a restaurant.  I think they've got at least 5 jobs between them.  :)

Need help getting there?

• my map
• official 2008 NC State Fair map
• fairgrounds directions

Wouldn't your mama be proud of you

I once heard a story about Dolly Parton:  Someone commented publicly to her on her breast size, to which she answered "Wouldn't your mama be proud of you!"   

I wonder what the mothers of the folks who did this would say:

Are they voting?  Are their moms?  How many of them have the means to carry out an assassination? I'm glad McCain changed his mind, because you never know what kind of nutjobs are out there, or where they're going to come from. Even the, um, most famous governor of Minnesota ever agrees with me. 

What will it take to raise the level of discourse in this country, and get the kind of "higher quality outrage" we need?

Edit: I forgot to credit the Blog$hares main IRC channel as the source of the link for the main post above.

Life imitates art #4783

Warning!  Spoliers!  :)

They were all eaten by rats

They're packed in like rats over near the corner of Corporation and Washington/Morris/Liggett.  It's great to have so many people voting, but this early voting thing bugs me a bit.  What if something catastrophic or wonderful happens between the beginning and end of, er, the voting period? 

Economists Warn Anti-Bush Merchandise Market Close To Collapse

Economists Warn Anti-Bush Merchandise Market Close To Collapse

Sometimes the quiet shifts are the best ones

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw....

...Not with a bang but a whimper.

---

From the NYT:

Quiet Political Shifts as More Blacks Are Elected

The kind of shifts mentioned in the NYT article probably comes as little surprise to Durham folks.  We've had Black city managers, Black and Hispanic chiefs of police, Black city attorneys, and a multi-term Black mayor.  But the thing in the article that stood out to me was a shift in language.  We've gone from talking about Blacks being elected at all to talking about Blacks being elected in majority-White districts.  That's a nice shift to see. 

My friends will remind me there's still plenty of racism out there.  They're right, unfortunately.  My biggest fear about Obama as a presidential candidate is an assassination attempt -- which might plunge race relations all the way back to the 60s.  And Obama's election, along with successfully completing a term or two in office, won't magically make racism disappear.  But the whimpers of varying volume accompanying its, er, illness -- the assistant city managers, the Presidential cabinet-level posts, the black coaches and owners of NFL teams -- are at least as important as the bangs.  We need both bangs and whimpers for the hollow world of racism to come to its end. 

Fake car commercial II

Even more offensive, and probably less safe for work because of the giant spinning expletives:

Not sure what's wrong with me lately....

Need a new used car?

This is definitely NSFW, mostly from cursing.  I've been laughing my ass off all day thinking about it:

[via vee_eckx.]