Every day I sign on to JU, I look over to the column with the "Recent JoeUser Articles" and pretty much every day I am seeing something about Bush being a vet or Kerry being a vet, and who is the vettiest vet of them all. Any of you been in a war lately? No, then lemme 'splain something to you, Lucy. Being a surviving vet is equal to but not greater than being a human being. There is no heroism in having survived a war. That theory is a drama. If you're out on the battlefield, and...

Manopeace just published a forum post about CNN posting a list of the 9/11 victims, by name, location and residence. "Photos are included," he solemnly interred. "May their families find comfort in the fact that others share their sorrow and pledge never to allow anything like this to ever happen again." How anyone can try to find an excuse for this act of terror is beyond him. There is none. Link

It seems a group of cheerleaders are in the news for helping the police solve a hit and run. Link I just wanted to hip everyone to this amazing story of 16 girls collectively remembering 8 alphanumeric characters in sequence. Such a stunning accomplishment by today's standards, or rather "Today's" standards since it warranted the captain of the Cheerleader Squad getting airtime on the long running American morning show for it. Who says our kids are getting dumber? Not Katie Couric!...

I don't know about you, but when I am disturbed by something, I tend to react to it with humor.  Like the death of a pop star, for example.  Or the death of a sex symbol.   It's uncomfortable when someone we all know of dies, and people react to it different ways.  But if you react to it with humor, because maybe it hurts you, too, and that's how you deal with it, a certain sect of the population who believe they are morally superior shout "TOO SOON!"   Here'...

Over on the right in my "Go Here Now" section is a link to a place called "Instapunk." It's kind of a blog by some, what I consider great thinkers. I just read this article, and I'm going to copy and paste it here. LW, I'm pretty sure Laird wrote this. There's "foul" language in it. Don't like that? Don't read it I post it here because it's worth the read. OLD. I've been tracking the Mayans and the Easter Islanders for close on 40 years now. The theories about their downfalls...

So my friend Jason, and I, are enjoying a nice cafe this afternoon after a long day of me running him around. He's leaving soon, and so there are a lot of things he has to take care of. The heat was unbearable, and my "beater" has no air, so we were happy to be relaxing a bit. Now imagine this if you will. It's a cafe with all the little tables and cute little chairs that sit outside. And it's on a fairly major street that has two lanes in each direction. It didn't phase us much when ...

It's a good thing I petitioned my proprietario , a.k.a. landlord, last year to put air conditioners in the house where we live in Casal di Principe, Italy - an area that's what you might call a suburb of Naples, though suberbia generally evokes an image of something quite different from where I live. The first summer we spent here, we had no air, and it gets quite hot. So we'd open all the doors, and turn on some fans, wear light (or no) clothing, and try not to move too much. Attempting ...

il·lit·er·a·cy /ɪˈlɪtərəsi/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[i-lit-er-uh-see] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –noun, plural -cies for 3. 1. a lack of ability to read and write. 2. the state of being illiterate; lack of any or enough education. 3. a mistake in writing or speaking, felt to be characteristic of an illiterate or semiliterate person: a letter that was full of illiteracies. So semiliterate is a word according to dictiona...