A disgusting vat of filth that no self-respecting intelligent person would wade into.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Speaking of which, which historical lunatic are you?

Me, I'm:

You are Charles VI of France, also known as Charles the Mad or Charles the Well-Beloved!

A fine, amiable and dreamy young man, skilled in horsemanship and archery, you were also from a long line of dribbling madmen. King at 12 and quickly married to your sweetheart, Bavarian Princess Isabeau, you enjoyed many happy months together before either of you could speak anything of the other's language. However, after illness you became a tad unstable. When a raving lunatic ran up to your entourage spouting an incoherent prophecy of doom, you were unsettled enough to slaughter four of your best men when a page dropped a lance. Your hair and nails fell out. At a royal masquerade, you and your courtiers dressed as wild men, ending in tragedy when four of them accidentally caught fire and burned to death. You were saved by the timely intervention of the Duchess of Berry's underskirts.

This brought on another bout of sickness, which surgeons countered by drilling holes in your skull. The following months saw you suffer an exorcism, beg your friends to kill you, go into hyperactive fits of gaiety, run through your rooms to the point of exhaustion, hide from imaginary assassins, claim your name was Georges, deny that you were King and fail to recognise your family. You smashed furniture and wet yourself at regular intervals. Passing briefly into erratic genius, you believed yourself to be made of glass and demanded iron rods in your attire to prevent you breaking.

In 1405 you stopped bathing, shaving or changing your clothes. This went on until several men were hired to blacken their faces, hide, jump out and shout "boo!", upon which you resumed basic hygiene. Despite this, your wife continued sleeping with you until 1407, when she hired a young beauty, Odette de Champdivers, to take her place. Isabeau then consoled herself, as it were, with your brother. Her lovers followed thick and fast while you became a pawn of your court, until you had her latest beau strangled and drowned.

A severe fever was fended off with oranges and pomegranates in vast quantities, but you succumbed again in 1422 and died. Your disease was most likely hereditary. Unfortunately, you had anywhere up to eleven children, who variously went on to develop capriciousness, great cruelty, insecurity, paranoia, revulsion towards food and, in one case, a phobia of bridges.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Speaking of which, which historical lunatic are you?

Me, I'm:

[notcasesensitive]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Speaking of which, which historical lunatic are you?

Me, I'm:

You are Ludwig II, the Swan King of Bavaria!

Born with the name of Otto, you became Ludwig at the request of your grandfather, King Ludwig I, because you were born on his birthday. You became Crown Prince at the tender age of 3, and soon after stole a purse from a shop on the basis that everything in Bavaria belonged to you. Tragedy struck when your pet tortoise was taken away; relatives thought the six-year-old prince was too attached to it. Your childhood was lonely and formal. Once, you were prevented from beheading your younger brother by the timeous arrival of a court official. From the age of 14 you suffered from hallucinations.

Despite striking an imposing figure with your great height and good looks, your speeches were pompous to the point of incomprehensibility. You became even more of a recluse, often spending hours reading poetry in a seashell-shaped boat in your electrically-illuminated underground grotto.

You are most famous for building three fairytale castles - Linderhof, Neuschwanstein and Herrenchiemsee - at tremendous public expense. Declared insane and confined to your bedroom by concerned (and embarrassed) subjects, you escaped on 13 June 1886, but were later found drowned with your physician in Lake Stamberg in mysterious circumstances.



It's no Wheel of Fortune, but it will have to do.

[Tables R Us]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
I'm sure they're the ones who don't pay attention to details. When in the course of litigation I've learned how the business works, which is usually necessary to defend a case, I've been quite impressed with the detail and resources devoted to determining the best business approach.

I wish businesses worked this way.

[Penske_Account]

I just want to make a correction, an apology, for what I did in an earlier post. In a post titled "Where's Osama" I had a bad typographical and jpg error in one of my graphics. I was thinking about doing a post on the hunt for Osama bin Laden in this new year 2007 and at the same time posting breaking news on Senator Barack Hussien Obama's just announced Presidential bid.

Unfortunately I confused the one with the other and there was a typographical and graphic, whereby instead of saying "where is Obama", it said "where is Osama" and also I posted an Osama graphic instead of an Obama one. I want to apologize for that bad typo and graphical error. I want to also apologize personally to Senator Barack Hussien Obama. I'm going to be making a call to his office later this evening to offer my personal apology.

Best Regards,

Penske

eta: In fairness, I don't think my error was that egregious or shameful (hi ty!), afterall, consider what liberal reporter Jeane Moos said on CNN

"Osama's on the run, Obama's considering one......Maybe that explains how someone could confuse Obama with Osama. Only one little consonant differentiates the two names. And as if that similarity weren't enough. How about sharing the name of a former dictator? You know his middle name, Hussein."

[Tyrone Slothrop]

• You are Joshua Abraham Norton, first and only Emperor of the United States of America!
  
  Born in England sometime in the second decade of the nineteenth century, you carved a notable business career, in South Africa and later San Francisco, until an entry into the rice market wiped out your fortune in 1854. After this, you became quite different. The first sign of this came on September 17, 1859, when you expressed your dissatisfaction with the political situation in America by declaring yourself Norton I, Emperor of the USA. You remained as such, unchallenged, for twenty-one years.
  
  Within a month you had decreed the dissolution of Congress. When this was largely ignored, you summoned all interested parties to discuss the matter in a music hall, and then summoned the army to quell the rebellious leaders in Washington. This did not work. Magnanimously, you decreed (eventually) that Congress could remain for the time being. However, you disbanded both major political parties in 1869, as well as instituting a fine of $25 for using the abominable nickname "Frisco" for your home city.
  
  Your days consisted of parading around your domain - the San Francisco streets - in a uniform of royal blue with gold epaulettes. This was set off by a beaver hat and umbrella. You dispensed philosophy and inspected the state of sidewalks and the police with equal aplomb. You were a great ally of the maligned Chinese of the city, and once dispersed a riot by standing between the Chinese and their would-be assailants and reciting the Lord's Prayer quietly, head bowed.
  
  Once arrested, you were swiftly pardoned by the Police Chief with all apologies, after which all policemen were ordered to salute you on the street. Your renown grew. Proprietors of respectable establishments fixed brass plaques to their walls proclaiming your patronage; musical and theatrical performances invariably reserved seats for you and your two dogs. (As an aside, you were a good friend of Mark Twain, who wrote an epitaph for one of your faithful hounds, Bummer.) The Census of 1870 listed your occupation as "Emperor".
  
  The Board of Supervisors of San Francisco, upon noticing the slightly delapidated state of your attire, replaced it at their own expense. You responded graciously by granting a patent of nobility to each member. Your death, collapsing on the street on January 8, 1880, made front page news under the headline "Le Roi est Mort". Aside from what you had on your person, your possessions amounted to a single sovereign, a collection of walking sticks, an old sabre, your correspondence with Queen Victoria and 1,098,235 shares of stock in a worthless gold mine. Your funeral cortege was of 30,000 people and over two miles long.
  
  The burial was marked by a total eclipse of the sun.

I rock.

[Tables R Us]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
The justifications (whether you like them or not) for affirmative action are two-fold. First, to make up for past racial discrimination. Second, to increase diversity.

No, the justification for affirmative action is to coopt talented people in disadvantaged groups so they don't foment rebellion against the status quo. Mainstreaming the best of the disadvantaged is far, far cheaper than helping all of them.

[Spanky]

Moratorium sought on new pot clinics Bratton cites opening of 94 medical marijuana dispensaries in L.A. in a year and calls for rules to regulate the facilities.

By Patrick McGreevy LA Times 1/16/07

Concerned by a 2,350% increase in the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles in a one-year period, Police Chief William J. Bratton is calling for a moratorium on new facilities until strict rules can be adopted governing them.

In a report to the Police Commission, Bratton said he wants to ban existing dispensaries within 1,000 feet of schools, churches, parks and places designated exclusively for the care of children. He also advocates limiting their hours to 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The establishments are allowed under a 1996 state ballot measure and a more recent state law making marijuana available to patients by prescription to relieve pain or nausea.

Bratton said the number of dispensaries increased from four in November 2005 to 98 a year later.

"This has fostered an increase in … crime problems and caused quality-of-life issues for families and communities, as evidenced by the 110 complaints received from neighbors, business owners and concerned citizens concerning these dispensaries," Bratton’s report states.

The Police Commission will consider his recommendations today.

Los Angeles Police Department officers have been called to clinics because of problems including robberies, burglaries and drug use in front of the clinics, Lt. Paul Vernon said. Without regulations, he said, officers are hamstrung.

In the absence of specific zoning rules, 12 of the medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles have opened within 1,000 feet of schools, Bratton said.

"One clinic blatantly resorted to placing fliers on the windshields of vehicles parked in and around Grant High School in an obvious effort to entice children," Bratton said.

The chief did not identify the clinic, but said its flier stated that it is legal to own, grow and smoke medical marijuana and that "qualification is simple and our experienced physicians are more than happy to help you," adding that the visit is free if the applicant does not qualify.

"This was not the intent of the voters when they passed Proposition 215," the chief said.

The clinics have proliferated elsewhere as well, although Los Angeles, as the state’s largest city, has the most, said Joseph Elford of Americans for Safe Access, a group in support of the clinics. But San Francisco, with about 30 clinics, has more per capita, or about one per 25,400 residents, while Los Angeles has one dispensary for every 39,200 people.

On Monday, advocates for medical marijuana disputed that the dispensaries are magnets for crime, and expressed concerns that Los Angeles officials may reduce patients’ access to the drug.

"A blanket ruling saying you can’t be within a number of feet within a school or park is entirely unnecessary and overbroad," said Bruce Mirken, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, another advocacy group.

He said a lengthy moratorium on new dispensaries would have an adverse effect on medical patients who rely on marijuana in their battles with disease.

The proliferation of dispensaries followed passage of Proposition 215, called the Compassionate Use Act, and Senate Bill 420, which took effect in 2004; together, they legalized possession and cultivation of marijuana for qualified medical patients.

Marijuana is used for medical purposes by thousands of people suffering from painful and appetite-killing diseases, including cancer, AIDS, anorexia and arthritis.

"However, the spirit and intent of this act has been exploited and abused for both profit and recreational drug use by many of the medical marijuana dispensaries in the city of Los Angeles," Bratton said. "Absent stringent regulations and enforcement actions, these dispensaries have flourished throughout the city."

The chief’s recommendations were welcomed Monday by Councilman Dennis Zine, who already has asked the Planning Department to draft a moratorium ordinance, banning any new outlets for six months, with an option to extend it for another six months while new rules are being formulated. "There is no regulation as far as zoning and hours of operation," Zine said. "What I want to do is bring a semblance of order and not go against the public’s will in favor of these clinics."

Steve Leon, owner of the medical marijuana outlet Highland Park Patient Collective, disagreed with the allegation that the clinics spur criminal activity.

"I think it’s quite the opposite," he said. "I’m in an area that is gang-infested, but there is no graffiti on my building. It is very clean. And other businesses have moved in. We have created quite a nice little artistic community."

Leon said his building is more than 1,000 feet from schools and parks, and that the LAPD has been "very gracious."

The proposed moratorium found favor with at least some owners of current dispensaries.

"The moratorium is kind of a good idea. It’s getting out of control, with a new one opening every week," said Billy Astorga, manager of the Eagle Rock Herbal Collective, adding that his business already has strict operating rules.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Maybe he meant "unparaleled"?

non-pareils?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
non-pareils?

I didn't get the Harvard education you like to talk about, and I didn't get to hang around the other swells in Pennypacker, but around here we call them Sno-Caps.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I didn't get the Harvard education you like to talk about, and I didn't get to hang around the other swells in Pennypacker, but around here we call them Sno-Caps.

In an effourt to showcase my bi-partisanship I will say, I agree with Ty on this one. It would be nice in the future to see some examples of the liberals here, Ty and Wonk included, being as bi-partisan in their posting, but, I won't hold my breathe for that.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Speaking of which, which historical lunatic are you?

Me, I'm:

You are Nicola Tesla, inventor of the Tesla Coil!

A minister's son from Simljan in Austria-Hungary, you were precocious from an early age. At three you could multiply three-digit numbers in your head and calculate how many seconds visitors to your home had lived. In awe of your older brother Dane, you shot a pea-shooter at his horse, causing it to throw him and inflict injuries from which he later died. This tragedy haunted you ever after. You frequently suffered bouts of illness with hallucinations throughout your life. During one affliction of cholera, you encountered the writing of Mark Twain, with whom you were later to be close friends. Later, another, this time mystery, illness inexplicably heightened your senses to a painful extent, only relenting when you hit upon the idea of the alternating current motor.

You developed an aversion to human contact, particularly involving hair, and a fear of pearls; when one would-be lover kissed you, you ran away in agony. Later, you insisted that any repeated actions in your day-to-day life had to be divisible by three, or, better yet, twenty-seven. You would, for example, continue walking until you had executed the required number of footsteps. You refused to eat anything until you had calculated its exact volume. Saltine crackers were a favourite for their uniformity in this respect. In the midst of important work, you forgot trivial details such as eating, sleeping or, on one memorable occasion, who you were.

Your inventions, always eccentric, began on a suitably bizarre note. The first was a frog-catching device that was so successful, and hence so emulated by your fellow children, that local frogs were almost eradicated. You also created a turbine powered by gluing sixteen May bugs to a tiny windmill. The insects panicked and flapped their wings furiously, powering the contraption for hours on end. This worked admirably until a small child came along and ate all the creatures alive, after which you never again touched another insect.

Prompted by dreams of attaining the then-ridiculed goal of achieving an alternating-current motor, you went to America in the hope of teaming up with Thomas Edison. Edison snubbed you, but promised fifty thousand dollars if you could improve his own direct-current motor by 20% efficiency. You succeeded. Edison did not pay up. It was not long until you created an AC motor by yourself.

Now successful, you set up a small laboratory, with a few assistants and almost no written records whatsoever. Despite it being destroyed by fire, you invented the Tesla Coil, impressing even the least astute observer with man-made lightning and lights lit seemingly by magic. Moving to Colorado Springs, you created a machine capable of sending ten million volts into the Earth's surface, which even while being started up caused lightning to shoot from fire hydrants and sparks to singe feet through shoes all over the town. When calibrated to be in tune with the planet's resonance, it created what is still the largest man-made electrical surge ever, an arc over 130 feet long. Unfortunately, it set the local power plant aflame.

You returned to New York, incidentally toying with the nascent idea of something eerily like today's internet. Although the wealthiest man in America withdrew funding for a larger, more powerful resonator in short order, it did not stop you announcing the ability to split the world in two. You grew ever more diverse in your inventions: remote-controlled boats and submarines, bladeless turbines, and, finally, a death ray.

While whether the ray ever existed is still doubtful, it is said that you notified the Peary polar expedition to report anything strange in the tundra, and turned on the ray. First, nothing happened; then it disintegrated an owl; finally, reports reached you of the mysterious Tunguska explosion, upon which news you dismantled the apparatus immediately. An offer during WWII to recreate it was, thankfully, never acted upon by then-President Wilson. Turning to other matters, you investigated the forerunner of radar, to widespread derision.

Your inventions grew stranger. One oscillator caused earthquakes in Manhattan. You adapted this for medical purposes, claiming various health benefits for your devices. You found they let you work for days without sleep; Mark Twain enjoyed the experience until the sudden onset of diarrhoea. You claimed to receive signals in quasi-Morse Code from Mars, explored the initial stages of quantum physics; proposed a "wall of light", using carefully-calibrated electromagnetic radiation, that would allegedly enable teleportation, anti-gravity airships and time travel; and proposed a basic design for a machine for photographing thoughts. You died aged 87 in New York, sharing an apartment with the flock of pigeons who were by then your only friends.

Ridiculed throughout your life (Superman fought the evil Dr. Tesla in 1940s comics), you were posthumously declared the father of the fluorescent bulb, the vacuum tube amplifier and the X-ray machine, and the Supreme Court named you as the legal inventor of the radio in place of Marconi. Wardenclyffe, the tower once housing your death ray, was dynamited several times to stop it falling into the hands of spies. It was strangely hard to topple, and even then could not be broken up.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
You are Nicola Tesla, inventor of the Tesla Coil!

A minister's son from Simljan in Austria-Hungary, you were precocious from an early age. At three you could multiply three-digit numbers in your head and calculate how many seconds visitors to your home had lived. In awe of your older brother Dane, you shot a pea-shooter at his horse, causing it to throw him and inflict injuries from which he later died. This tragedy haunted you ever after. You frequently suffered bouts of illness with hallucinations throughout your life. During one affliction of cholera, you encountered the writing of Mark Twain, with whom you were later to be close friends. Later, another, this time mystery, illness inexplicably heightened your senses to a painful extent, only relenting when you hit upon the idea of the alternating current motor.

You developed an aversion to human contact, particularly involving hair, and a fear of pearls; when one would-be lover kissed you, you ran away in agony. Later, you insisted that any repeated actions in your day-to-day life had to be divisible by three, or, better yet, twenty-seven. You would, for example, continue walking until you had executed the required number of footsteps. You refused to eat anything until you had calculated its exact volume. Saltine crackers were a favourite for their uniformity in this respect. In the midst of important work, you forgot trivial details such as eating, sleeping or, on one memorable occasion, who you were.

Your inventions, always eccentric, began on a suitably bizarre note. The first was a frog-catching device that was so successful, and hence so emulated by your fellow children, that local frogs were almost eradicated. You also created a turbine powered by gluing sixteen May bugs to a tiny windmill. The insects panicked and flapped their wings furiously, powering the contraption for hours on end. This worked admirably until a small child came along and ate all the creatures alive, after which you never again touched another insect.

Prompted by dreams of attaining the then-ridiculed goal of achieving an alternating-current motor, you went to America in the hope of teaming up with Thomas Edison. Edison snubbed you, but promised fifty thousand dollars if you could improve his own direct-current motor by 20% efficiency. You succeeded. Edison did not pay up. It was not long until you created an AC motor by yourself.

Now successful, you set up a small laboratory, with a few assistants and almost no written records whatsoever. Despite it being destroyed by fire, you invented the Tesla Coil, impressing even the least astute observer with man-made lightning and lights lit seemingly by magic. Moving to Colorado Springs, you created a machine capable of sending ten million volts into the Earth's surface, which even while being started up caused lightning to shoot from fire hydrants and sparks to singe feet through shoes all over the town. When calibrated to be in tune with the planet's resonance, it created what is still the largest man-made electrical surge ever, an arc over 130 feet long. Unfortunately, it set the local power plant aflame.

You returned to New York, incidentally toying with the nascent idea of something eerily like today's internet. Although the wealthiest man in America withdrew funding for a larger, more powerful resonator in short order, it did not stop you announcing the ability to split the world in two. You grew ever more diverse in your inventions: remote-controlled boats and submarines, bladeless turbines, and, finally, a death ray.

While whether the ray ever existed is still doubtful, it is said that you notified the Peary polar expedition to report anything strange in the tundra, and turned on the ray. First, nothing happened; then it disintegrated an owl; finally, reports reached you of the mysterious Tunguska explosion, upon which news you dismantled the apparatus immediately. An offer during WWII to recreate it was, thankfully, never acted upon by then-President Wilson. Turning to other matters, you investigated the forerunner of radar, to widespread derision.

Your inventions grew stranger. One oscillator caused earthquakes in Manhattan. You adapted this for medical purposes, claiming various health benefits for your devices. You found they let you work for days without sleep; Mark Twain enjoyed the experience until the sudden onset of diarrhoea. You claimed to receive signals in quasi-Morse Code from Mars, explored the initial stages of quantum physics; proposed a "wall of light", using carefully-calibrated electromagnetic radiation, that would allegedly enable teleportation, anti-gravity airships and time travel; and proposed a basic design for a machine for photographing thoughts. You died aged 87 in New York, sharing an apartment with the flock of pigeons who were by then your only friends.

Ridiculed throughout your life (Superman fought the evil Dr. Tesla in 1940s comics), you were posthumously declared the father of the fluorescent bulb, the vacuum tube amplifier and the X-ray machine, and the Supreme Court named you as the legal inventor of the radio in place of Marconi. Wardenclyffe, the tower once housing your death ray, was dynamited several times to stop it falling into the hands of spies. It was strangely hard to topple, and even then could not be broken up.

Why no pic?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
In an effourt to showcase my bi-partisanship I will say, I agree with Ty on this one. It would be nice in the future to see some examples of the liberals here, Ty and Wonk included, being as bi-partisan in their posting, but, I won't hold my breathe for that.

In an effourt to showcase my bi-partisanship, I agree with Penske on this one.

[Penske_Account]