And so, another year ends, and Your Obedient Serpent will be more than happy to be shed of this one. I bid 2010 adieu with two upraised middle fingers and a shout of defiance ( Read more... )

Okay, one reason, and one alone ( Read more... )

This was originally tacked on as a footnote to my last post, but I think it needs to stand on its own.

For the record, the "Divided States of America" is only a "worst-case scenario" if the Balkanization is violent. That's not unlikely, because we're all pretty pissed at each other right now, and we do like our guns ( Read more... )

Mostly for my own reference: some thoughtful and measured words about emigration.

I'll tell ya: ever since reading Toffler's predictions for the future of the two "Second Wave" superpowers in 1990's Powershift, and watching it come true in the Soviet Union less than a year later, there's a part of me that's been waiting for the other shoe to drop ( Read more... )

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A statement like that might seem to need qualifiers, but really, it doesn't.

I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

About very nearly anything.

Here's the full damage tally, as far as we can reconstruct it:

1. Lexus comes tearing down our residential street at high speed, around half past midnight.
   
2. Lexus impacts 1977 full-sized van, two doors down.
   
3. Van is hit with sufficient force to hit the next-door neighbor's Toyota, in her driveway, and then rebounds off to TURN COMPLETELY AROUND and ( Read more... )

To my great surprise, I have realized that I do indeed have a concept of the afterlife:

Just when you've settled down into a nice, well-deserved stretch of eternal oblivion, when you think all of life's nasty little jokes are, at last, overRod Serling steps up and submits you for the viewer's approval, as you commence an eternity of thirty-to- ( Read more... )

About 20 minutes ago, as I was drifting off to sleep, I heard what sounded like a distant accident ( Read more... )