miriam's ideas

• Literally!

  James Taranto takes John Kerry to task for misusing the word "literally."
  
  First of all, remember when they kept telling us how smart Kerry was? The guy doesn't even know how to use the word "literally."
  
  
  This is mean and completely unfair.
  
  In' [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 11:49pm EST
  

• Selling your house

  The new mantra about how to sell your house concerns "staging." This is the art of turning your home into something impersonal. It's supposed to look like nobody lives there. Think motel room, or better yet, motel lobby.
  
  Down come the pictures on the refrigerator. Off comes the wallpaper. [...]
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  Posted: November 20, 2009, 1:19pm EST
  

• Remembering the Gettysburg address

  
  
  
  
  at Gettysburg, PA.
  
  
  The Union Army's victory in the Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point in the Civil War. Lincoln delivered his brief but powerful speech while dedicating the cemetery on Nov. 19, 1863.
  
  146 years ago on [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 11:18pm EST
  

• Commenting

  Why don't I ever get any comments? Is commenting disabled? Or what? Or has this blog become boring?
  
  Nobody even says "boo!"' [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 3:50pm EST
  

• For those who want to get a head start on Thnaksgiving preparations:

  
  
  It's not too early to post the picture of Bush with the "plastic" turkey, a perennial favorite bit of moonbattery. It's been proved over and over that the turkey is real, but that's not the point. The point is:
  
  Bush lied, and people died![...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 3:07pm EST
  

• Outrage

  
  
  I am just heartsick at the thought of the five terrorists being brought to New York for trial. Quite aside from the problems of providing security and the inconvenience to its citizens, New York will be polluted by their presence there.
  
  This is a [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 3:10pm EST
  

• Roses 11/15/09

    [...]
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  Posted: November 15, 2009, 3:03pm EST
  

• He deserves a sgn pasted on his posterior...

  
  
  that says, "Kick me." [...]
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  Posted: November 14, 2009, 10:47pm EST
  

• Some interesting local color

  from Saudi Arabia, of all places. [...]
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  Posted: November 14, 2009, 10:37pm EST
  

• Warty Bliggins

  By Don Marquis.
  
  I should explain that the following was written by archy, a cockroach, who composed by hopping from key to key on a typewriter. He could not operate the shift key, thus no caps. No punctuation, either.
  
  i met a toad
  the other day by [...]
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  Posted: November 14, 2009, 3:34pm EST
  

• Oxymoron

  Fat-free half and half. [...]
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  Posted: November 14, 2009, 3:19pm EST
  

• Very true.

  and well put.
  
  For those that have not been paying attention, Islamofacist terrorists declared War on America in the 1970s. In 2001, we finally declared war on them. As for Israel, these terrorists began their Jihad 1400 years ago. Israel has fought back brilliantly from a military standpoint. [...]
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  Posted: November 12, 2009, 10:42pm EST
  

• Non-news

  At the gym, being a captive audience while riding the recumbent bicycle, I was treated to an interview with Gorbachev. Yes, that one. The fellow who stood by as the Soviet Union finally self-destructed. I suppose one should be grateful that he didn't turn his thugs loose on the rebellious' [...]
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  Posted: November 08, 2009, 3:47pm EST
  

• Painting of some roses

    [...]
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  Posted: November 04, 2009, 5:27pm EST
  

• Why Jews are lefties

  I keep getting e-mails from Townhall.com, full of articles by right-wing fanatics like myself, asking me to subscribe to their magazine.
  
  I'm never gonna do it.
  
  Why? Because this site continually features articles by Pat Buchanan, a barely-disguised anti-Semite whose views are anathema to me.
  
  The left' [...]
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  Posted: November 04, 2009, 9:46am EST
  

• Tenure means never having to say you're sorry

  and "gender studies" are just plain idiotic.
  
  So over at Depaul University - allegedly a college - students and faculty are up in hairy arms over the denial of tenure to Melissa Bradshaw, a professor of "women's and gender studies." In case you don't know what tenure is, [...]
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  Posted: November 03, 2009, 11:02am EST
  

• Things on my to-do list I'm pretty sure I'm never going to do

  1. Dig out the instruction booklet for my clothes steamer and figure out how to use it.
  2. Weigh myself every day.
  3. Stop eating chocolate.
  4. Get liposuction. (Unless I stop eating chocolate, drinking chocolate, thinking about chocolate.)
  5. Clean out the closet in the spare room.
  6. Weed [...]
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  Posted: November 01, 2009, 9:58pm EST
  

• Art made of Scotch tape

  
  
  
  Who knew? [...]
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  Posted: October 31, 2009, 11:28pm EDT
  

• More about "higher" education

  From stuff white people like:
  
  When white people go away to college, they tend to study what are known as the Arts. This includes actual Art, English, History, Classics, and Philosophy. These can of course be broken down further into Film, Womyn’s Studies (yes the spelling is correct), [...]
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  Posted: October 31, 2009, 11:07pm EDT
  

• A painting I don't feel like finishing

    [...]
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  Posted: October 26, 2009, 11:05pm EDT
  

• Tasteful understated Halloween decorations

   
  
  
  This is part of the display at my neighbor's house. There is more, but I don't want to stand in front of their house taking photos, so this was all I captured.
  
  George--the neighbor--decorates his house for every occasion. He says he [...]
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  Posted: October 26, 2009, 10:39pm EDT
  

• Sentences I never finished reading...

  From an article about style:
  
  Sally Singer, Vogue’s director of fashion news and features, who has the most sociologically and historically sophisticated antennae in fashion (honed by her fanatical childhood home sewing, her Berkeley-dropout stint as a beautician in Oakland, her graduate work in American studies at Yale, [...]
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  Posted: October 26, 2009, 11:00am EDT
  

• Last roses, October 2009

   
  
  
  My rosebushes continue to bloom. It's a nice bonus, brought to you courtesy of global warmening.' [...]
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  Posted: October 25, 2009, 4:20pm EDT
  

• Halloween costumes

    [...]
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  Posted: October 24, 2009, 11:18am EDT
  

• Driving in New Jersey

  I just spent a somewhat harrowing hour plus driving home from New Jersey with the sun in my eyes. I could see some, part of the time, but at one memorable moment I got off a ramp onto a highway totally blinded. I guess my number was not up.
  
  [...]
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  Posted: October 22, 2009, 10:25pm EDT
  

• Safest driver ever

  and they drive on the wrong side of the road. [...]
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  Posted: October 20, 2009, 12:42pm EDT
  

• They are making too much of this

  Never thought you'd hear me say that, did you?
  
  In a 2004 book describing his deployment to Iraq the year before, Mr Cash calls Islam violent, a faith that “from its very birth has used the edge of the sword as a means to convert or conquer those' [...]
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  Posted: October 19, 2009, 4:28pm EDT
  

• Lots of stuff about Acorn

  Will Acorn make a comeback?
  
  Probably.
  
  What interested me most about the whole child-prostitution-brothel-tax-evasion thing was how quickly and decisively Acorn acted. They fired the malfeasors. Bang, bang! and don't let the door hit you on the way out!
  
  Clearly Acorn is not a union shop.' [...]
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  Posted: October 18, 2009, 10:19pm EDT
  

• Loving Mao

  what a fuss!
  
  When Glenn Beck aired a video of White House Communications Director Anita Dunn praising Chairman Mao — one of her “two favorite political philosophers” — in front of an audience of high school students, the conservative blogosphere lit up like a non-denominational sustainably harvested Kwanza [...]
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  Posted: October 18, 2009, 1:10pm EDT
  

• Most useless Christmas (or Chanukah) gift of 2009

   
  
  It's time to celebrate the birthday of the Savior. No, not that one!
  
  
  I can't imagine anything will come along to match it. (From the Dick Blick catalog.) [...]
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  Posted: October 15, 2009, 12:07pm EDT
  

• Sketch

   
  
  Eugene Freyssinet, French engineer [...]
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  Posted: October 12, 2009, 11:41pm EDT
  

• Books

  I like to read. In fact, I prefer reading books to other, newfangled methods of killing time. But I am cranky and hard to please. I like very little of the popular fiction that is currently cranked out. Here are some stars of my hit parade of rottenness:
  
  Mysteries [...]
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  Posted: October 12, 2009, 9:53pm EDT
  

• I love a good library story

  How a library helped one young man.
  
  Thanks, Norm Geras. [...]
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  Posted: October 11, 2009, 10:47pm EDT
  

• Music in Delaware

   
  
  
  I've been very lucky in finding good music here in Wilmington. Two weeks ago I heard a really good concert by the Delaware Symphony. The program featured Gershwin's American in Paris, which I've heard about as often as I've heard Barack Obama--that is,' [...]
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  Posted: October 06, 2009, 10:35pm EDT
  

• Enter today for a chance to win!

  
  
  
  
  
  
  For a limited time, everyone who comments on my blog will receive a chance to win a box of 48 AA batteries dated 2005--some of them might work!
  
  Enter today! The first 100 smart, savvy people to enter the contest [...]
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  Posted: October 06, 2009, 1:07pm EDT
  

• Last survivor of Warsaw ghetto uprising dies

  No witness remains.
  
  "We knew perfectly well that we had no chance of winning," he recalled. "We fought simply not to allow the Germans alone to pick the time and place of our deaths. We knew we were going to die. Just like all the others who were" [...]
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  Posted: October 05, 2009, 5:04pm EDT
  

• Anonymous commenter solves a problem

  Regarding first date panties:
  
  I asked, "What are first date panties"?
  
  Click on the link and be the first in your group to know.
  
  Also available from the same source: knicker tickets:
  
  Knicker Tickets™; are fun, easy to use additions for your favorite "date" [...]
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  Posted: October 04, 2009, 10:10pm EDT
  

• Why the silence about child abuse?

  Where are the advocates for young girls?
  
  It’s weird that child advocacy groups (secular and religious) haven’t raised more hell regarding ACORN who, on tape, in multiple locations, and on our dime, were perfectly peachy with the potential sex trafficking of little 13-year-old El Salvadoran girls. That’s what’s [...]
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  Posted: October 04, 2009, 10:16am EDT
  

• A delicate instrument

  I laughed when my daughter told me that you couldn't put a leaf of lettuce down the disposal. But when the plumber came to fix the thing, he showed me how the thing had met its match dealing with a piece of lemon. The plumber told me more stuff you' [...]
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  Posted: October 03, 2009, 11:13pm EDT
  

• Lubavitch want a synagogue in a historic district

  Here is their side of the story. [...]
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  Posted: September 29, 2009, 5:16pm EDT
  

• In my day, we would have called Roman Polanski a dirty old man

  No matter how great an artist--which I do not for a moment concede--the guy is a first class criminal.
  
  And . . . how would Whoopi Goldberg feel if Polanski had been a priest? Would she still see it more as a seduction than as a “rape-rape”
  
  [...]
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  Posted: September 29, 2009, 4:44pm EDT
  

• New developments in vexation

  I know everyone is waiting with bated breath for news of the latest thing in my house to break down. Actually, it's the garbage disposal. The plumber has been duly informed.
  
  In other new developments (aside from dropping the printer on my toe and breaking it--the printer, not the [...]
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  Posted: September 28, 2009, 10:09pm EDT
  

• Briitish soldiers dismayed by politicians' expenditures

  Soldiers have to spend their own money on protective gear, while politicians are having their moats cleaned.
  
  Gary was among a number of troops who were moonlighting during their annual leave to earn money for military equipment.
  
  It was his fury at discovering how much taxpayers’ money [...]
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  Posted: September 25, 2009, 11:33pm EDT
  

• A toast to the immortal Dave Burge

   
  
  
  I'll drink to that!
  
  Dave Burge is going to award a prize to the piece of art which idolizes him, so here is mine. Looking forward to winning the $33 and change Dave stole from' [...]
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  Posted: September 25, 2009, 11:03pm EDT
  

• Most interesting news item of the day

  
  
  A Saxon gold hoard has been discovered in the West of England. [...]
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  Posted: September 25, 2009, 2:37pm EDT
  

• Most uninteresting news item of the day

  From delawareonline.com
  
  Summer swine flu levels in state [that would be Delaware] go unreported. [...]
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  Posted: September 25, 2009, 2:33pm EDT
  

• Health problems health care can't fix

  What do you expect from a President who smokes cigarettes?
  
  If only for the sake of his daughters, he should have the guts to quit. [...]
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  Posted: September 25, 2009, 2:10pm EDT
  

• This post interested me:

  It's from the website of Susan Daniel, soprano and rose expert:
  
  He was a 24 year old [British soldier] returned from Iraq and preparing to train for Afghanistan.
  
  I asked about armour. "Why" he said, "do they spend the money training us from scratch for 6 months," [...]
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  Posted: September 25, 2009, 10:32am EDT
  

• Vexed

  It's been a week of annoyances, which resemble tiny insects buzzing around your head. Actually, that was one of the annoyances: very small creatures were suddenly coming from everywhere. The place was like a zoo of the insect world. It took a visit from an exterminator to pinpoint the cause: [...]
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  Posted: September 24, 2009, 4:24pm EDT
  

• Cute kids and Vaclav Klaus

  Yes, yes, yes! A resounding amen to this observation from Greg:
  
  So, at the opening of the U.N. climate change summit on Tuesday, a hundred or so world leaders (including our own President) were greeted by a thirteen year old girl from India, named Yugratna. Her name might [...]
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  Posted: September 24, 2009, 4:16pm EDT