Beyond Eastern Avenue

Otis Redding singing Sam Cooke's classic.

I like the presentation format of this YouTube but disagree with many of the quotes. Hemingway's "All thinking men are atheists" is demonstrably false and arrogant. My favorite is probably Amanda Bloom's "An idea does not gain truth as it gains followers."

I am pleased to announce that Crab Media now operates responsivedocuments.com, which will serve at the home for all Crab Media document review content, links, information and jobs listings. I must admit my continued surprise that the domain name has remained open to this date; the term "responsive documents" is central to most litigation or transactional document reviews and it is a pretty decent tradename in itself for a document review placement agency or software vendor. Now Crab Media owns it, and new content will appear there once the server in Hong Kong or Boston, whichever, processes the new domain (about 24 hours or so.)

The "More Like This" tag above applies to the Maryland Conservatarian who has administered a well-timed, well-aimed scolding to those who, with lameness overflowing, have challenged the natural-born citizenship of Senator John McCain, who was born in the Canal Zone in a military hospital back when the Canal Zone was unambiguously U.S. territory.

On hearing from Media Matters that Arianna Huffington would be at Politics and Prose talking about her new book "Right is Wrong," I decided to make the trek to Chevy Chase.

Unfortunately, the northbound L series of buses up Connecticut Avenue from Van Ness Metro to Chevy Chase Circle were shockingly absent, gone, not there, failed to post, whatever. The buses run for that stretch about 7 times an hour in late rush hour, but I (and 15 other angry passengers) waited at Van Ness close to half an hour. Arianna was scheduled to start her talk at 7 PM, which is when I punch out. I was just hoping to hear the last 20-25 minutes or so. Of course, when the bus finally did arrive, it brought me to Connecticut and Nebraska just in time for me to hear, in her lovely, unmistakable Greek accent, "Thank you all for coming." Out marched the hordes of applauding liberals both old and ancient, nearly mowing me down. On my child-support oriented budget, there would be no chance I would buy this book new in hardcover, so I did not bother to stand in line. Instead, I caught one picture of the lovely author from in between several liberal hordelings, and rushed out the door just in time to catch a timely arriving M4 bus quickly crosstown a few blocks to Tenleytown, to check out computer printers and storage doodads.

Cooking blogger Kumama has just started her new blog Kumama's Kitchen. Kumama advises that her name comes from her grandson.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Kumama, and if you are indeed a Maryland blogger, I hope that you will consider joining the Maryland Bloggers Alliance. Alliance members, please drop by to give Kumama some good will and encouragement.

Zuzu, recently of Feministe and now of Kindly Póg Mo Thóin (Gaelic for "Kiss My A**"), claims that Senator Barack Obama is a politician, and cites evidence to prove her thesis. The "you" of "Obama's just not that into you" is, more or less, the more enthusiastic sector of the liberal blogosphere, particularly at Daily Kos, where Hillary Clinton can barely find a public supporter at this point.

I have now moved into the District of Columbia, having survived a slew of medical nastiness, one blown tire in a thunderstorm on Northern Parkway in Baltimore, the adventure of finding an open pharmacist to fill prescriptions for steroids and antibiotics at 3 AM in Langley Park, driving a cargo van in miserable weather, etc. I am out sick from the job today; my chest hurts when I breathe but at least now I can take full breaths. Getting one full night's sleep helped a lot.

Comcast will be installing internet service to my apartment tomorrow and thereafter I will be in a much better position to blog routinely.

A brief update. My internet access is limited so this will have to be short. I will be signing a lease at Fort Totten Station in northeast DC on Friday for a Saturday move-in. After internet access starts at that apartment, I will resume more regular posting.

HAT TIP to Oliver Willis for this nature video, below the fold....

A little snark for your snark needs.

I sit now in Chevy Chase, DC, the tony urban side of the suburban-urban trans-Western Avenue liberal sprawl that gives Brian Griffiths intermittent explosive diarrhea. I sit in the basement Politics and Prose, a minor cathedral to tony, tasteful liberal wealth and somewhat well-deserved intellectual smugness. Howard Zinn was to speak today here, but cancelled due to some family issue. But alas, good Brian, I am drinking a carbohydrate-laden plain Italian soda - a shot of flavored corn syrup, a snowball without the snow or the ball, not a latte (which are overrated and taste the way that Ari Fleischer speaks: no matter how hard you steel yourself for the disappointment, you still manage to be disappointed.)

Been in deep, deep divorce and separation mode. Wife and kids moving out in 10 days, I will follow into DC thereafter. Plus big day job duties. Sale of home 21 days away. Yeah.

Next stop: Cleveland Park (or Malcolm X Park, or Glover Park?)

I am putting these two YouTubes up simply because I find them funny. They are not new.

The first - safe for work - is "I Am Canadian," a Molson commercial from a couple of years back.

The second - NOT safe for work with some R-rated indecent and suggestive imagery - is "I Am Not Canadian," a radio station's rude satire of the famous Molson ad from, well, the perspective of a different identity. Some of the cracks may be too Canada/Quebec specific to translate easily.

My diary "Secular Content: An Atheist's Iconostasis" is up over at Street Prophets.

Gizmodo/BBC, April 5, 2008:

A 43-year-old man from Maryland has sold the domain name pizza.com for almost 10,000 times the price he paid for it. Chris Clark registered the name pizza.com in 1994 for just $20, and continued to pay the annual registration fee until January of this year, when he heard the domain name vodka.com had gone for a massive $3 million, and decided he wanted a slice of the pie.

I won't attempt to calculate the effective ROI on this one, but at any interest rate if you are spending less than $500 total and getting back over 2 million dollars, you are doing well.