Because I didn't die
-Simply because I can-
And because I didn't die in a big earthquake this morning. Hell, I didn't even know about it until I turned on CNN. They say it could be felt as far away as Michigan, but that seems like BS to me -- I didn't feel a thing.
On the other hand, I've been having allergy problems and I was all whacked out on NyQuil. I don't suppose an earthquake could've woken me up. Other people around here claim to have felt it.
Anyhoo, apropos of nothing, here's the New Pornographers and "Letter from an Occupant" -- mostly because I think more people should listen to New Pornographers and no one should ever die in an earthquake without having heard them. So, for all my fellow earthquake survivors, awesomeness:
I think I might have an unhealthy obsession with Neko Case. What a fantastic voice -- talk about your stratospheric vocals. All power-pop should be this good. (YouTube, The Capital Times)
-Speaking of unlikely ways to die-
How's falling into a volcano sound? John Slemp of Damascus, Oregon earned himself the dubious honor of being the first person to fall into the crater created by Mt. St. Helens' 1980 eruption. A less dubious honor is that he lived to tell about it. The report describes him as "almost unscathed."
Apparently, Slemp was snowmobiling up there and stepped to the crater's edge to get a better view. The snow beneath him gave way and that's when he found himself in the volcano. Luckily, Slemp's son Jared was with him and he was rescued by helicopter.
Jared -- a Marine reservist -- had just come back from Iraq, so it's kind of lucky he was there. Slemp suffered a "hyper-extended left leg" and "some cuts and bruises." His fall is estimated to have been 1,500-2,000 feet.
John Slemp 1, death 0. Make good use of the bonus time, bud. (CBS News)
-[Sorta-kinda] headline of the day-
On their website, Raw Story titles the piece "Mukasey's 'non responsive' explanation of pre-9/11 intercept criticized," but if you get your headlines like I do, from the rss feed, it's listed as "Dems call BS on Mukasey 9/11 'exploitation'." I so want to see that as a big banner headline in a newspaper vending machine.
The bullshit Mukasey is being called on is "that intelligence agencies couldn't trace a pre-9/11 phone call from Afghanistan to the United States." See, FISA kept them from listening in on terrorists and then the planes and the towers and the running and the screaming and the fire. Bad FISA!
Except FISA doesn't work that way. You don't actually need a warrant to begin wiretapping, the FISA court issues them retroactively. There's absolutely no way FISA could've kept feds from tapping 9/11 conspirators. It is bullshit.
The report tells us that "Whether he was deliberately lying or simply misinformed is still an open question, but the administration is sticking to the general arguments Mukasey outline, provoking intense furor from House Democrats."
He's the freaking Attorney General of the United States of America -- he knows the law. He wasn't mistaken, he was lying. Why does everything these guys say boil down to a choice between lying or stupid?
I join the Democrats in calling bullshit on him. (Raw Story)
