10 seconds on "high"
From the Kleptones' "All We Have is Soul:"
...Who took the sunshine and turned it into microwaveable popcorn?...
One or the other
From the prepared text of March 26, 2004 statements by Senator Bill Frist in response to allegations by Richard A. Clarke:
Every one of us who served in government before and at the time of the 9-11 attacks also has the responsibility to do our best to avoid any such tragedy in the future. If we are to learn lasting lessons from the examination of the 9-11 attacks, it must be toward this end, not an exercise in finger pointing, blame shifting or political score settling.
From "9/11 Panel Provokes a Discussion the White House Hoped to Avoid", by David Johnston and Adam Nagourney, The New York Times, March 28, 2004:
...Mr. Bush's aides hope to shift any blame about security shortcomings to the Clinton administration, arguing that the Bush administration was hardly alone in underestimating the potential threat of a domestic terrorist attack and that Mr. Clinton had no success in eliminating Al Qaeda.
The White House strategy also involves what officials said would be a continued effort to discredit Mr. Clarke and to confuse the dispute with a battery of accusations and counteraccusations intended to increasingly make this dispute appear to be a partisan fight between Republicans and Democrats.
The pants of spring
Halley writes of a spring walk on a local bike path, most likely one I frequent on my bicycle:
Torpedo cyclists in black rubber butt shorts, rollerbladers with duck-splayed legs roaring by, babycarriage-pushing mom joggers, walkers chatting with slight Hungarian accents, runners sweating in expensive nylon garb, everyone going by, going by, going by, "to your left" they shout, whiz of wheels, I was often pushed into the muddy shoulders of the path but didn't care much, with my big boots on, no problem, had counted on an extended mud encounter.
I suppose it's my own bike-riding bovine that's getting gored here, but is that black pants on rubber butts, or black rubber pants on plain ol' butts?
Full disclosure: it wasn't me, as I wasn't out on the bike path yesterday. There's no excuse for pushing anyone off the path, though.
Keep the day job, George. Or not.
From the 3/27/04 L.A. Times story (registration required):
At the annual black-tie radio and television correspondents dinner on Wednesday night, Bush tried to poke fun at himself � the leitmotif of these events. Displaying a big-screen photo album of his administration, he showed himself futilely looking under cabinets and desks in the Oval Office."Those weapons of mass destruction have to be here somewhere," Bush joked in his verbal caption. "Nope, no weapons over there. Maybe under here."
The response from one professional:
"As a comedian, I can do satire on weapons of mass destruction," said comedian Al Franken, who recently entertained troops on a USO tour to Iraq. "As the president of the United States who sent men and women in harm's way based on weapons of mass destruction, you're in an iffy position."