So, you listen to me. Listen to me: Television is not the truth! Television is a God-damned amusement park! Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We’re in the boredom-killing business! So if you want the truth… Go to God! Go to your gurus! Go to yourselves! Because that’s the only place you’re ever going to find any real truth.
But, man, you’re never going to get any truth from us. We’ll tell you anything you want to hear; we lie like hell. We’ll tell you that, uh, Kojak always gets the killer, or that nobody ever gets cancer at Archie Bunker’s house, and no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don’t worry, just look at your watch; at the end of the hour he’s going to win. We’ll tell you any shit you want to hear. We deal in illusions, man! None of it is true! But you people sit there, day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds… We’re all you know. You’re beginning to believe the illusions we’re spinning here. You’re beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you! You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube! This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God’s name, you people are the real thing! WE are the illusion! So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off! Turn them off right in the middle of the sentence I’m speaking to you now! TURN THEM OFF…
You’re beginning to believe the illusions we’re spinning here, you’re beginning to believe that the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do. Why, whatever the tube tells you: you dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs. In God’s name, you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion.
I had to repost this from Reddit (user: Pilebsa)
One of the responses answered the next question: “And he has hero status why?”
A Reagan supporter once told me:
“Reagan didn’t take shit from anybody”.
Another supporter once said to me:
“You gotta admit, Reagan dealt a death blow to Communism”.
My simple interpretation: A lot of people (including smart people) liked Reagan’s style. Unfortunately, they were terribly ignorant of his actual policies.
In fact, even people who hate Reagan are often ignorant of the full scale of his damage. They just remember something that hit them personally, for example: (quote) “he cut my student loan”
Bottom line is presidential charisma + ignorant populace = reason #1
Reason #2 is a vast right-wing conspiracy that knows the truth but is trying to rewrite history. They’re the ones reponsible for plastering Reagan’s name on buildings everywhere, etc.
МенЯ На ПеревôдбІ ≈ “put me on the line”
Perhaps I was a little hasty with my post here. Zipcar solved my issue by going way above and beyond what they needed to. They refunded all the fees and only billed me for the time used. Given that a significant portion of this issue was my fault, that’s really quite amazing.
While we’ve all been fuming lately about the explicit tyranny of multinational oil and financial companies, the media’s role in our looming depression is just as criminal. Unbelievably, the gap between media coverage and reality seems to grow as their market share falls. You would think they would get it. You would think that they would begin to understand that they are being punished by their readers for telling obvious lies and having obvious bias. The coverage surrounding the Israeli/Palestine massacre is just the latest example of the corporate media’s commitment fascism. With this in mind, I felt it important to quote a list that offers some counter-arguments to the media’s axiomatic talking points about the nature of this conflict.
Top 5 Lies About Israel’s Assault on Gaza by Jeremy R. Hammond
Lie #1) Israel is only targeting legitimate military sites and is seeking to protect innocent lives. Israel never targets civilians.
The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated pieces of property in the world. The presence of militants within a civilian population does not, under international law, deprive that population of their protected status, and hence any assault upon that population under the guise of targeting militants is, in fact, a war crime.
Moreover, the people Israel claims are legitimate targets are members of Hamas, which Israel says is a terrorist organization. Hamas has been responsible for firing rockets into Israel. These rockets are extremely inaccurate and thus, even if Hamas intended to hit military targets within Israel, are indiscriminate by nature. When rockets from Gaza kill Israeli civilians, it is a war crime.
Hamas has a military wing. However, it is not entirely a military organization, but a political one. Members of Hamas are the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people. Dozens of these elected leaders have been kidnapped and held in Israeli prisons without charge. Others have been targeted for assassination, such as Nizar Rayan, a top Hamas official. To kill Rayan, Israel targeted a residential apartment building. The strike not only killed Rayan but two of his wives and four of his children, along with six others. There is no justification for such an attack under international law. This was a war crime.
Other of Israel’s bombardment with protected status under international law have included a mosque, a prison, police stations, and a university, in addition to residential buildings.
Moreover, Israel has long held Gaza under siege, allowing only the most minimal amounts of humanitarian supplies to enter. Israel is bombing and killing Palestinian civilians. Countless more have been wounded, and cannot receive medical attention. Hospitals running on generators have little or no fuel. Doctors have no proper equipment or medical supplies to treat the injured. These people, too, are the victims of Israeli policies targeted not at Hamas or legitimate military targets, but directly designed to punish the civilian population.
Lie #2) Hamas violated the cease-fire. The Israeli bombardment is a response to Palestinian rocket fire and is designed to end such rocket attacks.
Israel never observed the cease-fire to begin with. From the beginning, it announced a “special security zone” within the Gaza Strip and announced that Palestinians who enter this zone will be fired upon. In other words, Israel announced its intention that Israeli soldiers would shoot at farmers and other individuals attempting to reach their own land in direct violation of not only the cease-fire but international law.
Despite shooting incidents, including ones resulting in Palestinians getting injured, Hamas still held to the cease-fire from the time it went into effect on June 19 until Israel effectively ended the truce on November 4 by launching an airstrike into Gaza that killed five and injured several others.
Israel’s violation of the cease-fire predictably resulted in retaliation from militants in Gaza who fired rockets into Israel in response. The increased barrage of rocket fire at the end of December is being used as justification for the continued Israeli bombardment, but is a direct response by militants to the Israeli attacks.
Israel’s actions, including its violation of the cease-fire, predictably resulted in an escalation of rocket attacks against its own population.
Lie #3) Hamas is using human shields, a war crime.
There has been no evidence that Hamas has used human shields. The fact is, as previously noted, Gaza is a small piece of property that is densely populated. Israel engages in indiscriminate warfare such as the assassination of Nizar Rayan, in which members of his family were also murdered. It is victims like his dead children that Israel defines as “human shields” in its propaganda. There is no legitimacy for this interpretation under international law. In circumstances such as these, Hamas is not using human shields, Israel is committing war crimes in violation of the Geneva Conventions and other applicable international law.
Lie #4) Arab nations have not condemned Israel’s actions because they understand Israel’s justification for its assault.
The populations of those Arab countries are outraged at Israel’s actions and at their own governments for not condemning Israel’s assault and acting to end the violence. Simply stated, the Arab governments do not represent their respective Arab populations. The populations of the Arab nations have staged mass protests in opposition to not only Israel’s actions but also the inaction of their own governments and what they view as either complacency or complicity in Israel’s crimes.
Moreover, the refusal of Arab nations to take action to come to the aid of the Palestinians is not because they agree with Israel’s actions, but because they are submissive to the will of the US, which fully supports Israel. Egypt, for instance, which refused to open the border to allow Palestinians wounded in the attacks to get medical treatment in Egyptian hospitals, is heavily dependent upon US aid, and is being widely criticized within the population of the Arab countries for what is viewed as an absolute betrayal of the Gaza Palestinians.
Even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been regarded as a traitor to his own people for blaming Hamas for the suffering of the people of Gaza. Palestinians are also well aware of Abbas’ past perceived betrayals in conniving with Israel and the US to sideline the democratically elected Hamas government, culminating in a counter-coup by Hamas in which it expelled Fatah (the military wing of Abbas’ Palestine Authority) from the Gaza Strip. While his apparent goal was to weaken Hamas and strengthen his own position, the Palestinians and other Arabs in the Middle East are so outraged at Abbas that it is unlikely he will be able to govern effectively.
Lie #5) Israel is not responsible for civilian deaths because it warned the Palestinians of Gaza to flee areas that might be targeted.
Israel claims it sent radio and telephone text messages to residents of Gaza warning them to flee from the coming bombardment. But the people of Gaza have nowhere to flee to. They are trapped within the Gaza Strip. It is by Israeli design that they cannot escape across the border. It is by Israeli design that they have no food, water, or fuel by which to survive. It is by Israeli design that hospitals in Gaza have no electricity and few medical supplies with which to treat the injured and save lives. And Israel has bombed vast areas of Gaza, targeting civilian infrastructure and other sites with protected status under international law. No place is safe within the Gaza Strip.
http://www.amirsahib.com/top-5-lies-about-israels-assault-on-gaza-by-jeremy-r-hammond
Why would a website about politics and philosophy be talking about Lotus Nightclub in Vancouver? No serious reason really. Just that I had an unfortunate incident with the staff at this establishment as I walked home from dinner tonight. The kind of incident that reminds you just how stupid and violent the club industry can be. Here is the letter I wrote to the police and to the owners. If you agree with it, link to this article. Soon it will be #1 for “Lotus Nightclub Vancouver” 
Payback’s a bitch aint it.
To whom it may concern,
I am a resident of XXXXXXXX near the Lotus nightclub located at Pender and Abbott. On the way home from dinner tonight I was stopped by the bouncers of said nightclub and informed I could not pass without their permission. Apparently I broke the “rules” by ignoring the velvet rope in the middle of the sidewalk. I asked them under what authority they controlled the sidewalk, to which they responded that they have a civil duty to make sure nobody crosses the rope without them moving it first. Apparently this is for my own safety - as I could trip over the rope.
Now I do not object to the idea that the police and the city may transfer some of their power to the nightclub in order to ensure an orderly nightlife for the city. What I object to is being humiliated in front of people when, as I walk away, I am referred to as “jackass”, and “fucking idiot”, for daring to politely ask questions about their power. I did not raise my voice or cause them any untoward disturbance. I would ask that the police and city look in to their agreement with Lotus Nightclub and whether or not the management and staff are sufficiently trained to handle interactions with the general public. Copies of this letter will be sent to the Vancouver Sun and Georgia Straight. Follow-up is expected.
Thank you,
Quebec,
I got no beef with you. I’m sorry the Conservatives act like everyone in the West wants you to leave.
From,
Vancouver
1. Bill C-61: Conservative commitment to the unenforceable and distinctly unfair, bill C-61. Why is this an important issue? Here are just a few reasons (source: http://www.brendonwilson.com/blog/2008/06/16/talking-points-to-defeat-bill-c-61/): “It forces you to buy media you’ve already purchased”, “it makes your devices less useful”, “consumers will be unable to influence the market by finding new uses for their existing media and copyrighted materials”, and “it makes the public domain works inaccessible”, to name but a few aspects. Read the article for more.
2. Climate Change and the environment: The recently announced environmental policies in the conservative party platform are yet again, a sad excuse at pretending to care about the environment. Not one environmental organization I could find gave it a thumbs up. “The Conservative party platform missed the opportunity to strengthen the party’s inadequate approach to global warming, and instead added more uncertainty to it. The party also failed to announce support for a key renewable energy program that’s about to expire, and did not offer a strategy to deal with the environmental impacts of runaway oil sands development.” (source: http://www.pembina.org/election2008/blog/Cons-Platform) More: “The Conservatives’ national emissions target for 2020, which is equivalent to just 3% below the 1990 level, falls far short of both the targets adopted by leading countries and of what the science tells us we need. Mr. Harper has called global warming “perhaps the biggest threat to confront the future of humanity today ” That urgency is nowhere to be found in the party’s platform.” And perhaps the most impressive evidence that “doing something” will not actually destroy our economy: “Between 1990 and 2006 Sweden cut its carbon emissions by 9%, largely exceeding the target set by the Kyoto Protocol, while enjoying economic growth of 44% in fixed prices.” (source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/29/climatechange.carbonemissions)
3. Anti-Green Energy: We are missing important alternative energy opportunities because of Harper’s bias towards the oil industry. A really tangible example is this: “the founder of a Canadian-made, 100 per cent electric car says the federal government is blocking him from selling his cars in Canada. Warehoused Zenn cars in St. Jerome, Que. (CBC) The ZENN (zero emissions, no noise) electric car is already being sold in the United States, Mexico, and Europe, where it has won awards” (source: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/10/26/electriccar-zenn.html). A more abstract statement from the Toronto Sun: “Canada fails to recognize that there’s money to be made in developing a green economy, some of Canada’s brightest scientists heard yesterday at a 20-year conference reunion. ‘There is profit to be made in developing technology to fight pollution’, said Howard Ferguson, the original chairman of the historic climate Our Changing Atmosphere: Implications for Global Security conference in 1988. About a dozen of some of Canada’s eminent scientific minds — Nobel Prize winners among them — shared ideas and reunited yesterday to mark the 20th anniversary of the conference in Canada and lambast the world’s inaction”. Another opinion; “the Conservatives remain the only party not to signal a renewal of support for green electricity. The ecoENERGY for Renewable Power program will run out of money this coming year, stranding billions of dollars of investment. A lack of leadership on renewable power in Canada means that investors will likely seek opportunities in the United States, which recently announced a decision to continue its support for renewable power. Canada’s green power industry will continue to fall behind the Americans without a renewal of federal support - and this platform failed to make that commitment”. (source: http://www.pembina.org/election2008/blog/Cons-Platform)
4. Reduced Transparency: Elected on the promise of making government more open to the public, Harper has done the exact opposite. “Too often, responses to access requests are late, incomplete, or overly censored,” Information Commissioner Robert Marleau said in an introduction to his first annual report. “Too often, access is denied to hide wrongdoing, or to protect officials or governments from embarrassment, rather than to serve a legitimate confidentiality requirement”. (source: http://www.canada.com/topics/news/politics/story.html?id=cf2b9830-7185-4036-bf8e-f164fca973ca&k=7741) This, combined with Harper’s reduction in press conferences (refusing to meet with the Parliamentary Press Gallery) and strangle-hold on party opinions, is not only breaking an election promise but damages Canadian democracy.
5. Telecommunications, Banking and Media Monopolies: Who likes paying higher cellular data rates than Rwanda? (source: http://blogs.itworldcanada.com/idol/2008/05/26/why-is-canada-more-expensive-than-rwanda-for-mobile-data-access/) Who likes the fact that Japan has Internet that is 8x faster than ours at a fraction of the cost? (source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/28/AR2007082801990.html?nav=rss_technology) The difference? “In 2000, the Japanese government seized its advantage in wire…. regulators [in Japan] compelled big phone companies to open up wires to upstart Internet providers”. I’m sure Harper loves that idea.
Then there’s the 10% - 20% fees to access your money at ATM’s in addition to a host of other unpopular banking service fees. This industry accounts for the highest volume of consumer complaints to the Better Business Bureau. The public opinion polls on this are enough to make the case: “In response to the question, ‘Do you agree or disagree with the suggestion that the federal government should ban fees charged when people use ATMs of financial institutions other than their own?’, 70% of Canadians agreed, while only 26% disagreed”. (source: NRG: Research Group)
And finally, the pathetic media situation in Canada. One really has to look no further than the Vancouver Sun and Province to get a sense for what’s wrong here. “In addition to the National Post, CanWest now owns 14 large city dailies, 120 smaller dailies and weeklies, and the Global TV network, Canada’s second-largest private broadcaster. The company also has private TV networks in Australia, New Zealand and Ireland, among other holdings”….”CanWest chair Israel (”Izzy”) Asper [this is a 2002 article] told the CanWest Global annual shareholders meeting on January 30 that “on national and international key issues we should have one, not 14, editorial positions.” But this reverses the guarantee of local autonomy the newspaper chains promised regulators when they were allowed to amass their empires, gobbling up independent dailies from the 1970s through the 1990s.” (source: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1106) As a result of this media concentration, Canadians get inundated with inaccurate information that suits the economic interests of one company.
6. Shameful Foreign Policy: This is very simple. We as Canadians are complicit in torture thanks to our involvement in Afghanistan. TORTURE! TORTURE! TORTURE! TORTURE! “The government had initially denied the existence of [evidence of torture], stating in writing that ‘no such report on human-rights performance in other countries exists’. The Globe and Mail subsequently used the access of information law to force the government to turn over a copy of the report, which is titled ‘Afghanistan 2006: Good Governance, Democratic Development and Human Rights’. But the report given the Globe had been heavily censored in the name of ‘national security’; numerous passages depicting the deplorable human rights situation in Afghanistan and the violation of basic civil liberties by Afghan authorities were blacked out” (source: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/apr2007/afgh-a27.shtml). The Liberals have a shared shame here, as they got us in to that wonderful hornets nest.
What else can be said?
Continuing to fail on our foreign aid obligations: “The Harper government has been silent as to Canada’s obligations to alleviate poverty around the world and to increase aid to reach the target of 0.7% of GDP” (source: http://www.greenparty.ca/en/policy/visiongreen/partfive).
Uncritical support of Israeli and American war-crimes in Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq; Including the forced retraction of a government report critical of Guantanamo Bay.
7. Drug Policy: Against a growing body of medical evidence and against the wishes of the majority of the population (55% in favour of complete legalization, source: http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/16300), the conservatives continue to insist on criminalizing drugs like marijuana. From the Canadian Medical Association Journal: “Mr. Justice Minister, let’s decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use.”
(source: http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/186/canadianmedical.shtml) Thousands of Canadians are unfairly imprisoned for marjiuana related offences, many thousands more have criminal records as a result, and finally, organized crime is being fueled by this incompetent and ignorant policy.
8. Ideologically motivated arts cuts [Possibly retracted due to popular opposition]: Despite a net increase to Canadian Heritage funding (less this year), selective funding cuts to some arts programs are a genuine concern. Some of the stated reasons for the cuts were that the programs included: a “general radical”, “a left-wing and anti-globalization think-tank” and a “rock band that uses an expletive as part of its name”. Harper seeks to fund artistic programs that are uncritical, unquestioning and uncontroversial to his power base. Independence be damned.
9. Secret Trade and Security Agreements: Have you heard of the SPP? ACTA? No? Maybe that’s because these agreements are being negotiated with no public input, just like NAFTA. These are perhaps the most important problems on this list. The criticisms of these agreements are deep enough that you really need to do background reading to understand what’s happening. Here are some brief criticisms:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_and_Prosperity_Partnership_of_North_America#Criticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement#Criticism
Beyond ACTA and the SPP, our existing international trade regimen under NAFTA and individually under the WTO, need to change. These agreements continue the trend of leveraging capital flight to drive down wages, exploiting countries with the laxest environmental and labour standards for manufacturing and ultimately continue the 30 year downward spiral of middle class real-wages. “the substantial economic gains of the past quarter-century have not been fairly shared. Thanks to Canadians working harder and smarter, the national economy grew by a stunning 50 per cent. Yet median earnings, the midpoint of the income continuum, remained virtually unchanged.” (source: http://www.thestar.com/Canada/Census/article/420651)
10. The Old Stuff: This is the stuff everyone worried about before the conservatives were first elected but has been kept under control by the fact that they had a minority government. Should the conservatives get a majority, these issues are back on the table and nobody really knows what they’ll do. Issues surrounding: the public health-care system, the poor judgment behind supporting the Iraq war, the CBC, abortion, and a host of issues regarding privatization of public assets. On all of these issues, the conservatives have extremely unpopular opinions but Harper has muzzled his MP’s to such a degree that the public simply has no idea what might happen. Not even myself. Either way, it wont be good.
11. This a bonus criticism. It is completely ideological so I did not include it in the top 10. The economic crisis we are currently seeing around the world will force us to make some very difficult decisions. Canada is not immune from the problems, however buffered we have been so far. If we do have a depression on our hands, it would be wise to remember how these kinds of problems were dealt with in the past. FDR, who is commonly attributed with lifting America out of the depression, invested massively in public works projects to spur the economy and get people working again. In contrast to this, FDR was strongly opposed by the business community. To the point that a fascist coup attempt devised by prominent business leaders, was only narrowly defeated. I’m not saying Harper is fascist; certainly not. I am saying that he has demonstrated, via Bill C-61 and his treatment of the press, that he does not adequately understand the importance of democracy and this could lead to policies that make a bad situation worse. Make what you will of this criticism, only time will tell.
And the other candidates?
Elizabeth May - She actually seems relatively articulate and vaguely on the same page with the criticisms outlined here. There are some nuts in the Green Party so be careful and candidate specific. Vote for her if it doesn’t matter in your riding.
Jack Layton - The best of the major candidates. Has very well articulated stances on all the issues mentioned here. Generally the best option in this election.
Stephan Dion - Only vote for your liberal candidate if the situation is desperate. Their policies are only marginally better than the conservatives, but it’s enough to matter. They do have a better environmental platform than the conservatives and don’t have quite the same contempt of the democratic process. ie: In my old riding Deborah Meredith didn’t even show up to debates, additionally, in the Vancouver Center debate I went to two weeks ago, Lorne Mayencourt also refused to go. From what I’ve seen this is typically the trend.
Stephen Harper - Fail.
And Finally:
Like many people, I have mixed feelings about Hezbollah. On the one hand they seem to be closely tied to the corrupt clerics in Iran and are no stranger to anti-semitic remarks; but on the other, they are all that stand between Israel and their predilection for massacres in Southern Lebanon like those at Sabra and Shatila. I read comments by Chomsky who met Hassan Nasrallah right before Israel’s brutal assault on Lebanon last year, that he was actually a fairly nice and well-meaning man but it wasn’t followed up by much more other than to talk about the war. It was interesting then to read the other day when a fellow Zmag forum poster asked Chomsky this question:
Professor Chomsky,
if you were nasrallah would you give up hezballah’s weapons? do you think they ought to? barsamian asked you in what we say goes what you think of him and you responded that he is a very pragmatic man. could you possibly elaborate? does he seem like an honest, compassionate man?
i have a sort of bias towards nasrallah because he’s the only arab whose speeches are translated into english and put on youtube, great way to learn arabic, so i’ve literally gone through and analyzed each word of 4 of his speeches.
To which Chomsky’s response was as follows:
Reply from NC,
My impression is about the same as others who have met him: for example, Edward Peck, White House official responsible for terrorism in the Reagan administration, who described Nasrallah, after an interview, as having given “a logical, reasonable presentation…just an educated intelligent man talking about serious issues that he perceived.” On Hizbollah’s weapons, his position, as I understand it, is pretty simple. The first question is whether Lebanon has a right to have a deterrent against US-backed Israeli aggression. If the answer is “No,” then Hezbollah has no right to weapons. But it’s a strange answer after five such invasions, each murderous and destructive, one of which killed some 15-20,000 people and destroyed much of the country, all of them without credible pretext. Suppose, then, that the answer is “Yes.” Then what would the deterrent be? One answer would be a credible US guarantee, but that’s not in the cards (to our shame). Could it be the Lebanese army? No one believes that. We’re left with one deterrent: Hezbollah. When I was in Lebanon in 2006, before the latest Israeli invasion, I spent a fair amount of time with some of the strongest opponents of Hezbollah, and continually raised this question. No one had an answer.
I’d like to see a credible international guarantee against further US-backed Israeli aggression. Short of that, it’s hard to see what the argument would be for Hezbollah to give up its weapons, though no doubt it is highly undesirable for a state to harbor an internal non-state military force.
The outstanding Lebanese journalist Rami Khouri, writing in the major English language Lebanese newspaper, captured the basic point rather well: “Hamas and Hizbullah are among the most effective and legitimate political movements in the Arab world: They have forced unilateral Israeli retreats that no Arab army could induce; won elections democratically without resorting to the gerrymandering or ballot box stuffing that most American-supported Arab regimes live by; provided efficient service delivery and local governance to their constituents; and sustained resistance to Israeli occupation that appeals to the desire of ordinary Arabs to restore dignity to their battered lives and to their shattered, hollow political systems.”
That’s exactly why they are hated and feared by the US and Israel.
NC
Kind of puts the organization in an interesting light.
Quite a few of these made me lol
Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center. He was as tall as a 6′3″ tree. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM. The lamp just sat there, like an inanimate object. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at asolar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River. Even in his last years, Grand pappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it hadrusted shut. He felt like he was being hunted down like a dog, in a place that hunts dogs, I suppose. She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while. “Oh, Jason, take me!” she panted, her breasts heaving like a college freshman on $1-a-beer night. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up. The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can. Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser. Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like “Second Tall Man.” The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play. The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon. She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again. Her pants fit her like a glove, well, maybe more like a mitten, actually. Fishing is like waiting for something that does not happen very often. They were as good friends as the people on “Friends.” Oooo, he smells bad, she thought, as bad as Calvin Klein’s Obsession would smell if it were called Enema and was made from spoiled Spamburgers instead of natural floral fragrances. The knife was as sharp as the tone used by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) in her first several points of parliamentary procedure made to Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) in the House Judiciary Committee hearings on the impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton. He was as bald as one of the Three Stooges, either Curly or Larry, you know, the one who goes woo woo woo. The sardines were packed as tight as the coach section of a 747. Her eyes were shining like two marbles that someone dropped in mucus and then held up to catch the light. The baseball player stepped out of the box and spit like a fountain statue of a Greek god that scratches itself a lot and spits brown, rusty tobacco water and refuses to sign autographs for all the little Greek kids unless they pay him lots of drachmas. I felt a nameless dread. Well, there probably is a long German name for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or something, but I don’t speak German. Anyway, it’s a dread that nobody knows the name for, like those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread bags. I don’t know the name for those either. She was as unhappy as when someone puts your cake out in the rain, and all the sweet green icing flows down and then you lose the recipe, and on top of that you can’t sing worth a damn. Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before. Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake. You know how in “Rocky” he prepares for the fight by punching sides of raw beef? Well, yesterday it was as cold as that meat locker he was in. The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric fan set on medium. Her lips were red and full, like tubes of blood drawn by an inattentive phlebotomist. The sunset displayed rich, spectacular hues like a .jpeg file at 10 percent cyan, 10 percent magenta, 60 percent yellow and 10 percent black.
I found them here: http://www.losteyeball.com/index.php/2007/06/19/56-worstbest-analogies-of-high-school-students/
Reagan in a nutshell
Criminal:
Fiscal:
Social:
Foreign:
Concepts:
Appointments:
Personal: