A Combo Deal
Your Wednesday Riddle, from WebRiddles: I am the tool, for inspiring many. Buy me in the store, for not much more than a penny. Don’t overuse me, or my usefulness will go, what am I? Do you know? Highlight for the answer: An inkpen.
In between, let me toss a few quick links out, here. First, a great article from DailyKos, by a fellow called “downunder newt”: Don’t Mention the Elephant in the Hand Luggage. It’s about airport security, and why, even with all the new measures and such that have been instituted, airport security is a fucking joke.
And by the way — you think Chuck Norris or Vin Deisel is bad? You are wrong, my friends. Stephen Colbert is badder still.
And finally, a bit about how “dangerous” Iran really is: The Iran Debate from Talking Points Memo.
Remember, folks: The Bene Gesserit Littainy against Fear, (Pg 19 of Dune, by Frank Herbert): I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
This administration tries to rule and control us with fear. Fear of the airports, fear of the nebulous terrorists, fear of the “evil” countries in the Mid-East, fear of each other. Don’t believe them.
From American Folklore, a tall tale about one of my favorite characters, Pecos Bill:
Pecos Bill Finds A Hard Outfit
As Retold by S. E. Schlosser
Well now, Texas jest became too tame for Pecos Bill once he killed off all the bad men, so he struck out for New Mexico, looking for a hard outfit. He asked an old trapper he met on the way where he could find a hard outfit, and the trapper directed Bill to a place where the fellers bit nails in half for fun. It sounded like a promisin’ place to Bill, so he set off. But his durned fool hoss got its neck broke on the way, and Bill found himself afoot.
Bill went a walkin’ with his saddle on his back. Suddenly, he come face to face with a rattlesnake ’round about fifteen feet long and lookin’ fer trouble. Now Bill wanted to be fair to the rattler, so he let it get in a few jabs before he beat the stuffin’ out of it. Being a kind man, when the snake was beat, he picked it up, wrapped it around his neck and carried it along with him.
They was a headin’ through a narrow canyon when a cougar thought he’d have a bit of fun and jumped them. Bill never turned a hair. He jest put down his saddle and then whipped the tarnation out of the cougar. Hair flew everywhere, blocking the light sose the jackrabbits thought it was night and went to bed. Finally that cat were so beat he cried like a lost kitten and jest licked Bill’s hand.
So Bill saddles him up and they tear off across them hills like forked lightening. Whenever Bill wanted to calm that cougar down, he’d just give him a tap with the rattlesnake. They set such a pace that they soon rolled into the hard outfit the trapper’d told Bill about. Quick as a wink, Bill jumps off the cougar, helps himself to some beans and coffee, wipes his mouth with a prickly pear and turns to look at the toughs sittin’ around the fire.
”Who’s the boss around here, anyhow?” he asks.
”I was,” said a big mountain of a feller about seven foot tall and wide, “but you are now, stranger!”
