4.20.2008

a John McCain moment...

take the quiz and get the answers... http://www.newyorker.com/humor/polls/slansky/080307sh_shouts_slansky


SHOUTS & MURMURS (The New Yorker)
Senator Hothead -- The McCain Quiz by Paul Slansky


1. What did Richard Kimball, John McCain’s opponent in his 1986 Senate race, do during a debate that got McCain so upset that, according to his aide Jay Smith, he “wanted to kill” Kimball?

(a) He pointed out that McCain had referred to the retirement community Leisure World as “Seizure World.”

(b) He revealed that McCain was standing on a riser behind his podium.

(c) He said, “I’m not the one who left his disabled first wife so he could marry a rich young beer heiress.”


2. Who is Harry Jaffe?

(a) The writer who first called McCain “Senator Hothead.”

(b) The journalist who helped break the 1994 story of Cindy McCain’s addiction to Percocet and Vicodin, which led her to steal pills from a relief organization she’d founded.

(c) The reporter whose question prompted McCain to respond that he was “fine” with a hundred-year U.S. military presence in Iraq.

(d) The politician who said of McCain, “His volatility borders in the area of being unstable. Before I let this guy put his finger on the button, I would have to give considerable pause.”


3. What prompted Jon Stewart, on “The Daily Show,” to ask, “Has John McCain’s Straight Talk Express been rerouted through Bullshit Town?”?

(a) McCain decided to speak at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University six years after calling Falwell and Pat Robertson “agents of intolerance.”

(b) McCain claimed that the Confederate flag flying over the South Carolina capitol symbolized “heritage,” although he was on record as having called it “a symbol of racism and slavery.”

(c) McCain said of George W. Bush, “I support him. I am grateful to him. And I am proud of him.”


4. Which of these statements about McCain is true?

(a) He used to be against Bush’s tax cuts and for overturning Roe v. Wade, but now he’s for extending the tax cuts and against overturning Roe v. Wade.

(b) He used to be against allowing illegal immigrants to earn citizenship, but now he’s for it.

(c) He used to be against Bush’s tax cuts and overturning Roe v. Wade and for allowing illegal immigrants to earn citizenship, but now he’s for extending the tax cuts and overturning Roe v. Wade and avoids talking about illegal immigrants earning citizenship.


5. McCain told workers at a gun factory, “I will follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell and I will shoot him with one of your products.” How did he later clarify this declaration?

(a) “Of course, I didn’t mean the literal gates of Hell. I don’t even know where they are.”

(b) “I shouldn’t limit myself to your products, because, when I find him, I may not be carrying a gun made by you.”

(c) “I certainly didn’t mean I would actually shoot him. I am certainly angry at him, but...I would not shoot him myself.”


6. Two of these statements refer to Bush. Which refers to McCain?

(a) At thirteen, he yelled “Fuck this” when he played golf poorly, prompting his mother to make him go sit in the car.

(b) As a toddler, if he didn’t get his way he’d hold his breath until he fainted.

(c) When he was a boy, he liked to blow up frogs with firecrackers.


7. True or false: When Chelsea Clinton was eighteen, McCain told this joke: “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father.”

True

False


8. What did McCain say to Edward Kennedy?

(a) “Shut up.”

(b) “Fucking jerk.”

(c) “Fuck you.”


9. What did McCain say to John Cornyn?

(a) “Shut up.”

(b) “Fucking jerk.”

(c) “Fuck you.”


10. What did McCain say to Charles Grassley?

(a) “Shut up.”

(b) “Fucking jerk.”

(c) “Fuck you.”


11. What was McCain referring to when he told reporters, “It’s up to you to find that out, kids”?

(a) The extent of the Bush campaign’s involvement in rumors that McCain had fathered a half-black child.

(b) The financial connections between Cindy McCain and Charles Keating, the man behind the nation’s biggest savings-and-loan collapse.

(c) Why he condemned the 2004 Swift Boat Veterans ads smearing John Kerry, then hired the agency behind them.


12. Who said, “I like McCain a lot...There’s something about matching the character with the script”?

(a) Pat Buchanan.

(b) Sylvester Stallone.

(c) Senator Thad Cochran.


13. Who said that McCain “will make Cheney look like Gandhi”?

(a) Pat Buchanan.

(b) Sylvester Stallone.

(c) Senator Thad Cochran.


14. Who said of McCain, “The thought of his being President sends a cold chill down my spine”?

(a) Pat Buchanan.

(b) Sylvester Stallone.

(c) Senator Thad Cochran.


15. Last year, McCain said, “When I voted to support this war, I knew it was probably going to be long and hard and tough, and those that voted for it and thought that somehow it was going to be some kind of an easy task, then I’m sorry they were mistaken.” What did McCain say before the war started?

(a) He told Larry King that “success will be fairly easy.”

(b) He told Wolf Blitzer, “I believe that we can win an overwhelming victory in a very short period of time.”

(c) “It’s a safe assumption that Iraqis will be grateful to whoever is responsible for securing their freedom.”

(d) All of the above.


who here is scared? really, really, really scared?

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4.15.2008

for the wee one...

in honor of the wee one's love of trams:




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4.12.2008

Son of a gun, we'll have big fun...

We decided to venture out on a swamp tour... very, very cool. Of course, would have been easier had I remembered to wear sunblock.





Did I mention the really, really, really bad sunburn. really bad. Poor R looks like a lobster with funny lines. Apparently, one should wear sunblock when one ventures out on the bayou. Who knew? (okay. maybe i'm an idiot.)

On the upside, we met an alligator. He really liked marshmellows. Big fan.

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the big easy



So, R and I headed down to New Orleans for a few days... (a bit of a celebration). We fell in love with New Orleans last year, and couldn't wait to go back. So much fun, so much good food, so little time.

Had a lovely meal at Bombay Club, famed for their list of 100 martinis. Best dirty martini ever. The food wasn't too bad, either. The waiter, however, had this British accent that was completley fake. For the record, I called upstate New York, although R didn't believe it until I tricked the waiter into forgetting his faux accent. (hah! i am good!)

The waiter also kept referring to me as "the lady". As in, "Does the lady like her martini?" "Would the lady like a piece of bread?" "How is the lady's meal?" Now, he knew that R was also a girl, but he didn't refer to her as "the lady". And, he didn't address the questions to R, but to me. I've never been spoken to in the third person. Very bizarre. Very. But, the lady did enjoy the martini and the meal. The bread pudding was not so impressive...

The next night, we wandered into the New Orleans Vineyard and had a fantastic meal. Out of this world good. In fact, the bread pudding was so good that we went back again Friday night for dessert.

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4.03.2008

tile painting

One of the historical arts of Portugal is tile painting. We stumbled across a fantastic tile painting store, Azulejos de Azeitao, in this tiny little village. Loved their van...













This woman was wonderful. She gave us a tour of the facility and we learned how they made the tile. Hasn't changed for a few hundred years from what I could tell. Except the kiln plugs in now...









We bought enough tiles that we had to ship them home... And, we ordered a few special order tiles. Fed Ex should be arriving any day now.







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Setubal

Pronounced "Shoo bal". City is not that winning by day, but a great view at night...





Until you zoom in...


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4.02.2008

Roman temple




There are ruins of a Roman temple in Evora - they turned the temple into a slaughterhouse and built walls around the columns. Interesting preservation technique, but the temple is in amazing condition.


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4.01.2008

little lambs eat...





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my neck itches!



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cork trees...




Every seven years, they strip the bark off of the trees. As you drive through the fields, you see numbers on each tree. I assume the numbers correspond to the year the bark was stripped...



Very cool.

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lost on a farm...




We went in search of some pre-historic ruins, and ended up lost on dirt roads on a huge farm... Let's just say that the Ford mini-van was not designed to share road space with the cows.





Mom would like the world to know that she was driving and I was navigating. I maintain that had we continued on the dirt road through the cow field, we would have found the highway. In about 20 km. Yeppers.

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