Chamblee54

The US Census is starting to release numbers for the 2010 count. Statistics junkies are going to be reported missing soon. HT to Jim Galloway. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
There is an interactive chart at the New York times that can easily take up your afternoon. Here are a few random observations.
The population of Georgia is 9,687,643. This is an increase of 18.3% over 2000. ( From here on, when you see increase of, you can assume that it is from 2000). In Georgia, we have whites 56%, blacks 30%, hispanics 9% ( an increase of 96%) asians 3% ( an increase of 82%), and multiracial 2%.
There is a dark blue ring, of population growth, in OTP Atlanta. Paulding County grew 74% and Henry County grew 70%. Gwinnett County grew 36%, to 805k people. At any given time, 100k are on I85.
The census tract on the east side of Clairmont Road, including PDK, is 92% hispanic.
The only state to lose population is Michigan, with Puerto Rico also reporting fewer residents. Most of the counties in Mississippi, along the big river, lost population.
There is another dandy map, showing dots for the different population groups. This can be enlarged to a ridiculous size. According to this map, there are 25 hispanics living on the Golf course at the Peachtree Country Club.

If Ben Franklin were alive today, he would say that three things are certain…death, taxes, and spam.
There is a picture on an Israeli website of Sarah and Todd Palin, along with Sara and Benjamin Netanyahu. The wife of the Prime Minister seems to be enjoying herself. PG found a copy of the picture in a folder, and decided that a good title would be “Que Sara Sarah”.
The next stop was the email folder. In the spam folder was a message, YOU WON. The sender was Sara Mohammed.

A facebook friend displayed an application for a Trivia Question of the Day. When you type TQOTD into google, the nifty algorythym produces 1.6 million results. There are a few suggestions for the next word of your search. You can find the TQOTD for kids, get an email, or get results with funny and sports. Google does not care if you have too much free time.
The top result is Trivia Company. Apparently the need for trivia is such that a proprietary company can warehouse useless knowledge. The top of the web page boasts “Trivia Company: The Correct Choice for Content…The World’s #1 Supply of Original Trivia Content…Supplying Engaging Content Since 1995…Trivia Company now does Iphone Apps.”
Trivia Cafe has a colorful page, with an ad for AT&T. Their QOTD is “Q: In the same way that humans are identified by their fingerprints, dogs are identified by what kind of prints? A: NOSE PRINTS ” The result is sponsored by a cartoon banana, telling you about foods you should not eat.
If your salary is trivial, you might enjoy the Workers’ Compensation Discussion Forums / Trivia question of the day. The question today is “If a baby chicken is a chick, A baby goose is a gosling, What is a baby turkey called ? I believe it’s called a poult! ” The people in this forum all have inspirational messages at the bottom of the answer window. An example is “PRAY FOR PEACE – PRAY FOR AMERICA – PRAY OUT OBAMA.” It is tough to tell the difference between trivia and motivation.
An Irish venue called The New Republic has a “Demographic Trivia Question Of The Day” Today the query is “How much, in percentage terms, has the white population of Detroit declined from its high in the mid-1950s? Answer is in the comment section.” If you really care, you can use the link. This page advertises the xfinity triple play, from comcast.
Cool Quiz is a pastel colored return to serious trivia. It informs us that “Today is: Pecan Day in the USA. ” It explains the meaning of mufti, which is non uniform civilian clothes. And, in a trivia tour de force. it reminds us that this is the birthday of Elton John.
It turns out that March 25 is quite a day for singers. In addition to Reg Dwight (1947), today is the bd of Aretha Franklin (1942) and Anita Bryant (1940). Other arrivals include Jack Ruby (1911), Howard Cosell (1918), and Flannery O’ Connor (1925). The sad news is the loss of Buck Owens in 2006.
To get the Public CEO daily trivia question, you have to sign up for their daily email. ( BTW , that is now the correct spelling of email. The dash is no longer appropriate.)
A radio station has the Country Music Trivia Question Of The Day. Q: What artist was recently made a lifetime honorary firefighter in Tennessee? A: Craig Morgan.
A blogspot facility called Oodles of Fun contributes a toughie. ” On this day in 1888, what troubled artist chopped off part of his own ear? Vincent Van Gogh ” This is sponsored by the DogBreedStore.
Office Tally is “the top fansite for NBC’s hit comedy, ‘The Office’!” The trivia question here regards where one of the characters went to college. A commenter named Bill Buttlicker says “I could picture Jim going to PSU. He seems like a state university guy. Nittany Lions FTW”.
The first page of google results has only one more listing. If you can’t stand it anymore, you can skip ahead to the pictures. ( ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library” ) An establishment called My Football Facts has a daily trivia question. ” Q: Which club has been relegated the most times from the Top Flight of English Football? A: Birmingham City have been relegated 11 times (1896, 1902, 1908, 1939, 1950, 1965, 1979, 1984, 1986, 2006 and 2008).

This is the PG notes edition of Satori in Paris by Jack Kerouac. Part one has been published.
11- When you get directions to the library from a bartender, there is a chance you will smell like liquor when you get there. Mr. K is older, rough looking, and happy smelling, and the stuffy staff at the library is not going to give him much help. This reminds PG of a couple of days he worked in 1975, as the box toter on a sampling project. The idea was to have ladies on downtown street corners giving away samples of some new product. The merchandise was either cigarettes, dog food, or tampons. In fact, when the product was tampons, that was what the company man called it…the product. On these two days in 1975, PG was working with an antique dealer, who was driving his van. Between runs, the man would go into stores and look at merchandise. This is what antique dealers do. His specialty that day was silver christmas tree ornaments. He would go in, and look at the back of the instrument to see who made it. The hosting antique dealers were not happy to see a man wearing a sweatshirt looking at their merchandise, just like the French librarians were not happy to see Mr. K, happy with cognac, looking at their books.
12- Mr. K asks a lot of people where Pascal and Balzac are buried, even though it is not really them, it is just what remains of their bodies. This is why they call it remains, especially when they used to play in the Ramones. But then, Joey Ramone’s real name was Jeffry Ross Hyman. Paul Simon used to use the name Paul Ramon as an alias at hotels, and Jeffry and his buddies borrowed that for a stage name. Channel five used to have a General manager named Paul Raymond, who read the editorials when they really meant it. Getting back to Balzac, he is buried in Cemetery of Pere-Lachaise. CPL has a really cool website…you type in a name, and they show you where the bones are buried. All sorts of famous people are resting there.
13- Mr. K has dinner, paying roughly five dollars for a glorified hot dog. He sees some americans behaving badly. In the previous chapter, we have a link to Cemetery Pere Lachaise. PG went looking for this link, and found it in a folder called shortcuts. The link above it was People who deserve it. This site, once wildly popular, details people that do offensive things. An example would be “the guy who takes eight hours to tell the story of his cat’s leaky hemorrhoids which could have been distilled down to 27 equally excruciating seconds, after you’ve just dropped all the brown acid.” According the PWDI, this justifies punching the person in the face. The link below Pere Lachise is Perez Hilton. Just when you thought it was safe to venture out on the information superhighway, Mario Laundromat reminds you that watching TV really isn’t that bad of an idea.
14- The plan for the trip had been simple. Go to the library in Paris, learn about his ancestors, go to the village where they lived, sit down beside the Atlantic Ocean and write about it all. The clothes he brought did not fit the weather he found. The idea when traveling is to travel light, but you always seem to forget something you need, and drag along something you never wear. PG expects to forget something everytime he travels.
15- Mr. K meets a Jewish couple, they drink together, or rather they ate and Mr. K consumed cognac. The three of them see a movie, and then Mr. K goes to dinner at a highly recommended restaurant. He is still high, and talks loudly to anyone who will listen. To hear Mr. K talk, it is the Quebecois who speak French properly, and the Parisian version that is the corruption. The people are amused, and he lives  and drink another day.
Lets hear it for multi tasking. At the moment, as PG writes this commentary on Kerouac, he is listening to Joni Mitchell, drinking coffee, washing clothes, and editing pictures of a trip to north avenue. The picture of the moment was taken from the bridge over i75-85. They have this thick wire fence to keep you from jumping off, regardless of whether it is a tech student with bad grades or someone who ate at the varsity and is recovering slowly. PG worked across the street from the vargreasy for seven years, and only ate at that wretched greasepit a couple of times.
16- This is the last day for Mr. K in Paris, He meets a man who promises to help him at the library, but the man has a crisis and sends his secretary. The woman is beautiful, and useless. Mr. K is told, again, that the Nazis burned the family records. After this, he goes by the office of his French publisher, only to be insulted by the secretary and made fun of by the authors in the waiting room. Meanwhile, in 2011 Chamblee, PG is interrupted in writing the last paragraph by a phone call. It is his brother GP, calling to say that he has a ride home from the train station. GP always starts his calls by saying ” PG, this is *pause* GP” This is despite the fact that the screen on the phone tells you who is calling, and the fact that nobody PG knows has a voice like his brother. When their mother was working, when GP got home he would call her and say ” Hello mom, this is GP. I am at home.” This was before cell phones.
17- Mr. K buys a plane ticket to Brest, and listens to the squawk box announcing flights to Johannesburg and Karachi before they announce the flight to Brest. When he gets to the check in spot, there is a delay, and Mr. K walks the length of the airport to use the toilet, which means giving a tip to the lady who cleans the joint. He goes to the take off lounge, and discovers the flight to Brest has left, with his luggage but without him.
Neal Boortz tells a story about a neighbor of his. The man used to travel with his wife a lot, and they always took separate planes. So, they were leaving France, and the man had some business to conduct there, so he sent his wife ahead without him. The flight was the infamous crash that wiped out blue blood Atlanta in 1962. The man watched as the plane crashed in flames, killing his wife.
18- With the plane in the air, Mr. K is not going to board it. He gets a train ticket, and finds a seat in a crowded compartment. There is a priest, a soldier, a drunk, and two pleasant looking women. If that last adjective had dropped the l, it would have been two peasant looking women. This might have been a significant difference in the meaning.
PG violated a rule today, and it may have had disastrous results. The rule is to never speak of Sarah Palin on his blog. The woman gets way too much publicity, and her admirers just admire her more when it is negative. The problem is, there was a story about the P lady that was too funny not to write about. It seems that *this person* was on a publicity trip to Israel, which is a requirement for those who covet the office of POTUS. A picture was posted, of Mr. and Mrs. P along with Sara and Benjamin Netanyahu. Mrs. N looks a bit tipsy, with an embarrassed husband holding her back. One wonders whether it was the P lady or the first dude that she lusted for, or maybe both. Some pictures are worth more than a thousand words.
19- It is going to be a long ride, and Mr. K is going to need alcohol. The drunk in the cabin is named Jean-Marie Noblet, and he becomes the instant drinking buddy of Mr. K. They walk through seven coaches, weaving between crowds of people, before finally getting to the man who sells spirits. They buy two bottles of wine, drink them on the spot, and then buy two more bottles.
Joni Mitchell music has run out, and Nico is on the media player now. This was taped at a live concert, and is nothing but the chanteuse singing by herself, with someone playing a harmonium. It is creepy and kooky, as though Lurch was sitting in on harpsichord. The show was played in a historic French cathedral, with Tangerine Dream as the headliners. The house was horribly oversold, people were packed in like sardines, and many pissed in the spots where they stood. The church was horrified at what happened to their precious cathedral, and swore that no more concerts would take place there.

Andrew Sullivan has two posts today about Israel. He is a lame duck at the Atlantic,  before moving on to greener pastures. The two posts today have a yin yang dimension.
The more thoughtful post is a link to a podcast featuring Gideon Levy. Mr. Levy is an Israeli journalist who regards the Palestinians as human beings, and is not well regarded by many as a result. The discussion regards the tiger that Israel is riding. It will be very, very difficult to continue the status quo situation with the Palestinians. On the other hand, if they climb down from the tiger, and give some freedom to the occupied people, they will be the recipient of revenge. This  happened when the settlements in Gaza were taken down.
Mr. Levy says he is a friend of Israel, who is telling the unpopular truth. He compares it to the keepers of a drug addict, who can either continue to finance the addiction, or force the druggie into treatment. There are no easy answers, and the podcast is thought provoking, and might cause brain damage.
The other post is about the P lady. This blog has tried to be a Palin free zone. The lady is getting way too much publicity, and chamblee54 is protesting. However, this story is  just too funny to ignore.
It seems that the P lady is on a visit to Israel, with photographers at every turn. ( There is a picture at the ynet site that delights body english readers. It shows Sarah and Todd Palin, posing with Sara and Benjamin Netanyahu.) The story is that the Palins went to visit Bethlehem. The problem is, they did not get permission first, and were turned away at a checkpoint.
The ynet site is commercial, and has numerous ads. If you click on the page, there is a real estate ad in Hebrew. Other ads include Jewish dating services,  Alaska cruises, and the Jesus trail walking tour.
The real fun to the story about Sarah and Todd ( is he afraid to let her go out by herself?) is in the comment section. Yes, Israel does have a free press. Try not to read these while drinking beverages.
2. She missed nothing …Bethlehem is a shithole, crowded, dirty, full of heckling, aggressive merchants – and I say this, despite being a Christian. The PA is welcome to it. There are far better places in Israel to tour. Linichka Gdynia, Poland … 3. What is it with xtians and their plunging necklines … can someone give this woman a lesson in “decent” dressing. This is the HOLY Land not Las Vegas. Sarah Esther, Israel …7. Sarah Esther….what are you doing looking at YNET pictures? Shame on you, Sarah Esther! If you think her neckline is too low, then you shouldn’t even be on Ynet in the first place! The two pictures in this article show her decently dressed, unless you’re a closet lesbian with the hots for ornery shicksas from Alaska? Does your rebbe know you are surfing the web? Brian Cohen , Judean Peoples Front … 8. Sarah Esther – you been to Tel Aviv beach recently? SD , Londonistan … 12. This reinforces the impression…that Sarah Palin is a simple woman. If she truly neglected to make special arrangements to acquire permission to enter Bethlehem because of her ignorance of the status of Bethlehem, it’s just another example of her simplicity. Unless there’s something else that we’re unaware of, and assuming the article is accurate, then this story shouldn’t really surprise any of us who’ve paid at least some attention to Palin over the past few years. In other words, she’s not the brightest candle on the Hannukiah. Gabriel , Jerusalem … 17. I just hope the Republicans don’t put her up as their candid … If they do they will be handing the election to Obama. American voters don’t care if she has visited Israel or not they care about her domestic track record which other than being the champion of the Tea Party and governor that didn’t even complete a full term isn’t much. zionist forever

There was a post at neo prodigy yesterday that got me thinking. It starts …, “Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people. Micro minds discuss the color of people. “ I added the last part of that.”
Now for the fallout of this. I may get motivated later to see if I can determine the author of that gem, but for now I do not know. For all we know, it is the same bartender who came up with the gem ” We are born naked, and everything after that is drag”.
I don’t know if what is going to follow is wisdom fatigue, thinking too much, or wallowing in a cynic’s swamp. As Oscar Wilde observed, ” A cynic is someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing”. Maybe his credibility card was maxed out.
The point of all this ( besides providing text to go between some pictures) is that many well worded sayings turn out to be nonsense upon close examination. Take today’s headline quote, about great, average, and small minds. The discourse that followed that platitude was a commentary on the folly of gossip. Now, I agree that in a perfect world people would not gossip. Adding the phrase “bless his heart” does not make it any better. ( Any Yankee who reads this can ask a Southerner.)
May those who never gossip throw the first pebble. Yea, I thought so, lots of folks are hiding. The truth is, gossip is about as human as lying and pretending. I imagine there is a study of chimpanzees, where they talk about how mangy their neighbor’s fur is getting.
Not all ideas are good ideas. Adolph Hitler talked about ideas all the time. And a few million folks died as a result.  Jeremiah Wright talks about ideas. At the top of his lungs, and available on dvd.
I dare say the philosophers and thinkers of our time took an interest in the affairs of their neighbors. To think otherwise is to deny their humanity. “Great minds”…or the owners… have other shortcomings. I have heard too many stories about people who get a famous person to come to their party, only to get drunk and make a fool of himself.
There are other platitudes that sound good, but don’t hold up. “ I work to live, I don’t live to work” “ A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything” “youth is wasted on the young”.Maybe the test of a mind is the ability to tell the difference between wisdom and a clever phrase.

The first text section of this affair is a repost . In it, the threat was made to look up the perpetrator of a certain quote. A few more “jewels of wisdom” will get the same treatment. The pictures today are from The Library of Congress .
One issue with the origin of quotes is the question ” Who said it first?” Did Mark Twain have a kooky Uncle who he stole sayings from? What about Oscar Wilde’s barber? Maybe someone else said all these famous sayings, and the person who got credit just had a good memory, and no shame. As for politicians, they generally employ speechwriters ( and have no shame).
Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people This gem is generally attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt . No one seems to know when she said it. ( If it was for her newspaper column, My Day, then it is possible that an assistant thought it up.) It is sometimes credited to Admiral Hyman G. Rickover. He wrote an article for Saturday Evening Post ( November 28,1959), titled “The world of the uneducated”. He prefaces the quote by saying ” as the unknown sage puts it”. As for Mrs. Roosevelt, when she found out her husband was still seeing his mistress, her mind got a lot smaller.
It is better to have people think you are a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.This nugget is credited to Confucius, Proverbs (17:28), Abe Lincoln, Socrates, Mark Twain, and Silvan Engel. The Owner and maintainer of The Quotations Page, Michael Moncur, says “This is probably just one of those aphorisms that make their way through the collective consciousness without one definitive source.”
I work to live, I don’t live to work This saying is a doozy. Does your heart stop pumping when you hit the time clock? Of course not, you are alive when you are working. Life is more than having a good time, or doing what you want to do. Part of life is going to be spent doing ugly things.
Mr. Google disagrees, with 48 million results for that phrase. The top one is Divine Caroline, featuring a header ad for Smucker’s Peach Apricot Chicken Stir Fry. The rest of the results viewed for this study were equally uplifting.
A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything Many give credit for this to Malcolm X, and he may have said it in his speeches. Wikiquote says this is a mistake, and says a preacher named Peter Marshall first said this. Another source, Answers.com , credits a British Journalist named Alex Hamilton. He is frequently confused for the Aaron Burr’s pal, Alexander Hamilton. The British Hamilton was speaking in a radio broadcast in 1978, 13 years after Malcolm X was killed.
Youth is wasted on the young This begs the question, is maturity wasted on the mature? Or, is youth wasted on the wasted? The concensus is that George Bernard Shaw first said this. The first page of Google results does not show where he said it.

Today is Shock And Awe Day . On this day in 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom began, with an invasion of Iraq by a US led coalition. The first impulse here is, if you don’t have anything good to say, at least give photo credits. ( ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library” )
There are events in the world, for which commentary is appropriate. The UN Security Council is celebrating the anniversary of OIF by…starting another war. The Dictator in Libya is trying to stay in power, and is wasting a few of his citizens. With the best of intentions, a “No Fly Zone” has been established. The United States is already involved in the action.
BHO is following a Presidential tradition of starting a military action, often without even a fig leaf resolution from Congress. This is another case of a candidate saying one thing to get elected, and doing something else when he is in office.
“In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress? (Specifically, what about the strategic bombing of suspected nuclear sites — a situation that does not involve an IMMINENT threat?)
The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.
As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action.”

March 20 is “shock and awe day”. This is the day that “Operation Iraqi Freedom” began, with the “Coalition” invasion of Iraq. That conflict continues, although without the fury of a few years ago. Some say we won in Iraq. Very, very few are saying we won in Pakistan.
Afghanistan was invaded as a knee jerk response to 911. Revenge was the order of the day, and an effort to kill terrorists there before they kill us here. When people began to cross the ill defined border with Pakistan, the war machine followed.
Much of the killing has been from the air . Thousands of missions have been flown. The people on the ground are essentially helpless to stop the killing. The last American shot down by an enemy was Michael Scott Speicher on January 17, 1991.
Many of the planes are drones, or unmanned aircraft. Often, they are flown, by remote control, from Creech AFB in Nevada. There is a sign as you leave the base… Drive Carefully This is the most dangerous part of your day.
The governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan are caught between Iraq and a hard place. They need the support of the USA to stay in power, but have to listen to the cries of grieving families. After a drone attack that killed women and children, Gen. David H. Petraeus had a meeting with top Afghan officials. “BetrayUs” is reported to have said ” in the midst of the [operation] some pro-Taliban parents in contact with a government official decided to create a civilian casualty claim to pressure international forces to cease the [operation]. They burned hands and legs of some of their children.”
Meanwhile, in *neutral* Pakistan, a “covert war” is being fought. In a recent incident, an American named Raymond A. Davis was accused of killing two Pakistanis. He was released after a “blood money” payment to the families. (Some say that this method of settling a dispute is a feature of Shariah Law.) The incident caused some tense moments for US-Pakistani relations, with the US government promising to tone down the covert war. Soonafter this promise, a drone stike in Miranshah, North Waziristan, killed forty people.
Bloggingheadstv had an episode about the Davis affair this week. A commenter said “Like Jeremy and Saba, I am shocked, shocked that the American government is engaged in trying to kill terrorists in Pakistan, and moreover, shocked that an American could get away with defending himself against two armed assailants in Pakistan.”
Pictures today are from the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, National Child Labor Committee Collection.

The Georgia Department of Corrections has been busted for illicit drugs . “At the Georgia state prison in Jackson, Drug Enforcement Administration agents confiscated for the first time nationally a state’s supply of sodium thiopental, a sedative that is part of a three-drug cocktail used to put inmates to death.” No DCOR employees were arrested.
When a person is executed, using the quaint phrase “lethal injection”, three drugs are used. The first, sodium thiopental, is a sedative, used for obvious reasons. As reported earlier at this blog, the drugs Italian manufacturer objects to this use of their product. The state copped it’s stash from a London company, of dubious integrity. As could be predicted, defense attorneys for condemned prisoners make an issue of this. That is what they do.
A case about lethal injection made it to the Supreme Court a few years ago. All executions were postponed until the verdict was rendered. The Supremes ruled that governments have the right to execute the condemned, using the Kentucky protocol. This protocol specifies the use of sodium thiopental. If this specific substance is not available, can states substitute another downer? Some attorney will make an issue of this. Capital punishment is a jobs program for the legal profession.
Rookie Governor Nathan Deal discussed the drug bust with WABE on Thursday. The money quote ” ”In our republic, states have opportunities and responsibilities. But we do need, of course to work with our federal authorities, whose primary mission in this case is to make sure that controlled substances are not distributed and put into the wrong hands. I do not consider the reception of these drugs by a state agency that is properly licensed by state law, and authorized by state law, to fall into that category…But we want to abide by the rules, and that’s what we intend to do….We’ll find out how this oversight happened and we’ll correct it.”
Georgia does not have any executions scheduled at this time. Three cases have almost exhausted their appeals, however. Any termination of these three men (who are all white) would require a new supply of a legally approved sedative. The three men at risk are: Roy Blankenship , whose scheduled execution was stayed last month to allow for DNA testing of the evidence in the case. Blankenship sits on death row for a 1978 burglary, rape and murder of a Savannah woman in her apartment. Andrew Grant DeYoung , convicted in Cobb County for the stabbing deaths of his parents and 14-year-old sister in 1993. Marques Ray Johnson , who was sentenced to death for raping, murdering and mutilating a woman after meeting her at a bar in Albany in 1994.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.

This is a two part post. (In 2011, it is a repost. ) The first is a story, borrowed from Gartalker. The second is a commentary on this story. The comment appears at the original post, in the digital version of saying something to someones face. ( Which is one of those things that many people like to boast about doing, only to resort to backside chatter when it is convenient.) The comment is going to be expanded a bit here. While we try to keep profanity to a minimum, sometimes you just have to say it.
A precious little girl walks into a petsmart shop and asks, in the sweetest little lisp, between two missing teeth, “Excuthe me, mithter, do you keep widdle wabbits?”
As the shopkeeper’s heart melts, he gets down on his knees so that he’s on her level and asks, “Do you want a widdle white wabbit, or a thoft and fuwwy, bwack wabbit, or maybe one like that cute widdle bwown wabbit over there?”
She, in turn, blushes, rocks on her heels, puts her hands on her knees, leans forward and says, in a tiny quiet voice, “I don’t think my python weally gives a thit.”
You could have told that story with the punch line “python weally cares”. It would have been just as funny, although it would have had one less lisp joke.
It is ironic that you use the “give a ____” line in this joke. I don’t know where that line came from, except that it usually has a cussword in the third part. It means that the person does not care about something. It is kind of an odd phrase for a number of reasons….when you give a damn ( to use the mildest expletive, and probably the original one for this saying), do you gift wrap it?
The F bomb is commonly used as the third word of this phrase. When you consider how much most adults prize intercourse, what would you give a f*** about? Considering the nature of the sacrifice, this does not say very much.
The third wirty dord frequently used in this saying is an onomatopoetic term for animal waste. Say it out loud…when the python is through with the wabbit, it will, indeed, give a thit.

Nuclear plants produce rhetoric, at a level equaling their production of electricity, debt, and radioactive waste. A nuclear power plant costs billions of dollars, which is real money. When you have that many zeros involved, the cost of hiring flacks to promote your glow machine is minimal. In the disaster unfolding in Japan, the pr guns are blazing, on both sides of no man’s land.
The loyalties can be confusing. When the Chernobyl incident went down, Communism was still a hot issue. However, there was little condemnation of Commies in the aftermath of Chernobyl. Apparently, being pro nuke was more important that being anti communist.
Bloggingheadstv posted a discussion of nuclear issues on May Day of last year. No reactors were burning at the time. (Chamblee54 got a few words in. ) Today, the same two talkers are back. One has a new job (Rod Adams, the pro nuke talker), and one has a new hairstyle (John Horgan, the Bloggingheadstv regular). The discussion could be used as a text of rhetorical fallacies.
After the introductions, Mr. Adams blames the media for their method of reporting. The second question was “what concerns do you have?” Mr. Adams discusses first what specifically happened at the Fukushima plants. He then talks about a scientific study that was made after the Three Mile Island incident. Mr. Adams claims that the infrastructure at a nuke plant is strong enough to prevent a disastrous release of radiation, no matter what the circumstances.
Apparently, one of the circumstances that was not considered was a seven meter tsunami. But then, the study was not really about nuclear plant disasters. It was a post 911 study about the hazards of shipping nuclear waste. Mr. Adams thinks that there are plenty of other things to worry about other than the release of radiation.
There is a human error moment in the next segment. Mr. Horgan asks about the explosions at the plants. Mr. Adams explains how these “small explosions” came to happen. Apparently, hydrogen is produced during nuclear reactions, and must be vented out of the facility. When your diesel fueled backup generators are washed out by a seven meter tsunami, then you don’t have electricity to operate the hydrogen scavengers. Things tend to blow up when this happens.
Mr. Horgan asks about the workers who have been evacuated from the Fukushima facility. Mr. Adams starts to ramble about radiation, and the rhetoric spins out of control. Before long, he is talking about the dangers of aspirin . This clip ( the folks at bloggingheadstv call this a dingalink) begins with the words “I personally believe”. These are the same three words Miss Teen Age South Carolina used to begin her famous monolog.
Mr. Horgan asks what this incident means for the future of the nuclear industry. Mr. Adams mentions that these are older plants, without many modern safety features. He compares this to driving a 67 corvette. Energy is not created in a vacuum.
It is a lovely day in Georgia. PG intends to finish writing and go for a walk. The rest of the diavlog has Mr. Adams comparing a Federal loan guarantee for Nuclear Plants to co signing a car loan for his daughter. He mentions the development of small scale reactors ( one of these developers is his current employer). One of these mini reactors is one third of the size of one Fukushima reactor. It is hardly comforting to know that a relatively small reactor has caused this much trouble.
If you want to hear the complete discussion, go here. You might hear it better if you disable your BS detector. Pictures (except for the two talkers) were taken on a Sunday afternoon in Little Five Points. They probably are not the results of nuclear radiation.