This May Be the Most Accurate News Story Ever

Maybe the most accurate news story ever
Originally uploaded by mmahaffie

I found this via twitter on the NPR web site. I don't expect it to survive there long, so I did a screen-grab and posted it to flickr.

I can't help myself. I love things like this.

I did not see this coming: Insane Clown Posse have been secretly evangelical Christians all along

If you don't know who or what the Insane Clown Posse might be, good for you. But they have been, for 20 years, a violet, apparently misogynist rap group that worrked the outre side of the music business and inspired legions of young fans to self-identify as "Juggalos" and act as a loosely organized, fairly violent street gang.

Apparently, it has all been an act, designed to draw young people closer to God, based on what I read in The Guardian this morning (Insane Clown Posse: And God created controversy).

Violent J explained himself unapologetically to a New Jersey newspaper: 'You have to speak their language. You have to interest them, gain their trust, talk to them and show you're one of them. You're a person from the street and you speak of your experiences. Then at the end you can tell them: God has helped me.'

Of course, one might argue that 20 years was, under the circumstances, an incredibly long time for them to have pretended to be unholy, and that, from a Christian perspective, the harm they did while feigning unholiness may even have outweighed the greater good.

I think they may have gone too far.

In Which Pat and Mike Play Golf With Jay and Silent Bob

I got a chance to play golf at the Sussex Pines Country Club today. It was a fund-raiser for the Possum Point Players, a community theater group in Georgetown, Delaware.

Karen and I used to take part in Possum Point shows on a regular basis. We dialed back a bit when the kids came, but I have been back a bit since.

My friend Pat came down from New Castle County to join in and we were paired with two gents named Jay and Bob.

We played a scramble format, in which we each hit our ball but used whichever shot out of the four that we judged to be the best. Often, that was Bob's drive; he was playing very well. Pat was also playing well. And though he started slowly, Jay proved to be a long-driver as well. I was the weakest, of course, but among us we managed to play fairly well.

We finished at 3-under par - a 69 -- and finished fourth in the tournament. I believe there were 18 teams. The winners, by the way, scored a 61!

The weather was a challenge. Rain was forecast for the afternoon, but it started in the late morning and by the time we finished it was a steady, cold rain. At one point, we took refuge in a gazebo to wait out a particularly heavy squall. I found myself considering just how wet my feet were getting.

But we persevered and finished our 18 holes. And my play wasn't all terrible, I made a wise choice and used one of my mulligans to sink a long putt for a birdie that may have made the difference between fourth place and fifth.

Craig Ferguson on Christine O'Donnell

Craig Ferguson's Late Late Show Wednesday night started with an audience member who had moved to California from Delaware (Are you a witch?") in the cold open. And he spent most of his monologue talking about our laughable republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell. Bless her heart.

Farewell Ted Kaufman, We Knew You Too Little

elaware's newest Senator made his farewell speech on the floor of the US Senate today. Ted Kaufman was selected to take over for Joe Biden when he was elected Vice-President and has turned out to be what a Senator maybe should be, smart, experienced, and not worried about reelection. That last may be because he is a special case, but the results should tell us something.

It seemed a good excuse for a word cloud.

That, and I've been looking for a way to get that creepy looking guy's picture off the top of the page.

How Nice That This Man Could Own Guns

Delaware state police had to use explosives and a robot to arrest this man, David Stanley, after he was found to be shooting from his house in upstate Delaware on Thursday.

They had to close down the main north-south highway (State Route 1) in both directions where it ran past his neighborhood. He was shooting at cars on the highway from his apartment.

Yup, shooting at cars from his apartment. He'd not have been able to do that without the ability to buy as many guns as he needed.

Thank You, Mike Castle

I am a little bit shocked tonight to see that Christine O'Donnell has defeated Mike Castle in the republican primary. Pundits will talk about what this means. I don't really care.

I do know that Mike Castle has been a leader in Delaware since I arrived in the First State. He was governor when I was a reporter and when I started working for the state. He's been our Congressman for a good long while. And, while I am a Democrat and might (might) have voted against him for Senate, I like Mike Castle and I am proud to have worked for him and to have known him in a minor way.

Mike Castle is a statesman. In a time of partisan divide, Mike Castle governed. In a time of anger and nastiness, Mike Castle led.

Christine O'Donnell is a joke and there is no way in hell I would ever vote for her for anything.

Now she faces Chris Coons in the general election.  Chris Coons has my vote. He has my support. He will have my energy and he will have large shoes to fill when he takes office after the general election.

More importantly, I want to thank Mike Castle for his outstanding service to the people of Delaware.

Mr. Castle, you have been an inspiration. Thank you.

"The Sound of Sunshine" in American Sign Language

This is charming: a music video of Michael Franti's new tune, The Sound of Sunshine, by the American Sign Language Community. (via Michael Franti's web site and twitter account)

Another Representative Paragraph

I've recently started reading Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simonson. I chose it based solely on its cover, of course. so far, it's been a fine book, worthy of one of my periodic representative paragraph posts.

The following is a part of a paragraph near the start of the story, as Major Pettigrew, a 60-ish widower is riding in the car of Mrs. Ali, a widow from the village with whom he seems to be falling in love. It's a rainy, gray day.

She laughed, and the Major turned his head to look out of the window at the fog-soaked hedges of the lanes. He was aware that he no longer felt chilled. The hedges, far from being grim and soggy were edged to the last leaf in drops like diamonds. The earth steamed and a horse under a tree shook its mane like a dog and bent to nibble freshly moistened dandelions. The car broke from the hedged land and crested the last rise of the hill, where the road widened. The town spread down the folded valley, opening out along the coastal plain. The sea lay gray and infinite beyond the sharp edge of the beach. In the sky, a rent in the fog let down pale shafts of sunlight to gleam on the water. It was as beautiful and absurd as an illustrated Victorian hymnal, lacking only a descending angel trailing putti and rose garlands. The little car picked up speed as it headed down and the Major felt that the afternoon was somehow already a success.

Who is Using #NetDE on Twitter?

The #NetDE hashtag has become all-O'Donnell all the time lately, or so it feels. And I find I recognize few of the people using it.

The hashtag #netDE was originally declared as a way to flag tweets of interest to Delawareans among the Delaware twitter-users. But now it seems to be spammed-up without-of-state partisans interested in the Delaware Senate primary; especially since the national (?) tea party people decided to get involved in Delaware politics.

So I decided to do a brief, unscientific study and see just who is it that is using the #NetDE hashtag of late.

My survey covers the 12 hours between 8:53 a.m. and 8:53 p.m., Sunday, September 5. That's only because I had cleared my #NetDE column on TweetDeck a bit before heading out into the sunshine around 9 this morning.

Over 40 percent of the people using the #NetDE tag during that period were from out of state.  They were tweeting from Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and "The U.S.A." A few others had no location listed, but didn't appear to be Delawareans.

The non-Delaware folks accounted for more than a third of the #NetDE tweets.

And all of the non-Delaware people were tweeting about politics, from the right-hand side. In fact, two-thirds of all #NetDE tweets during the period were political; only a few of them from the left.

And what can we conclude from this not-very rigorous, not particularly scientific survey?

Politics can be annoying.