最初の紹介ビデオに、コカコーラと一緒の幸せの生活を見せられて、コカコーラ歌を教われます。それから、店員さんとガイドさんがコカコーラに関して話しながら、ちょっと嬉しいそう過ぎ、微笑みもちょっと大き過ぎました。

美味しいものの、宗教ではありません。ただ茶色の泡立てた水しかありませんでしょう。

ボバマが散歩チームに散歩してもらっていました。散歩チームと言うのは、トレーナー一人と、革紐持ち一人と、シークレットサービスの人三人のことです。

ボバマを守るためなのは分かりますが、五人が一匹犬を散歩してるのは、ちょっと無駄なんではありませんか。

1927年はコリゲンはリンドバーグの飛行機の整備士の一人でした。リンドバーグの成功の後に、大勢の飛行士（コリゲン含み）が同じような大西洋横断を挑戦しようとしました。

飛行の人気が普及するに従って、アメリカ政府の飛行の安全の規則が厳しくなり、普通の人が大西洋横断するのは難しくなりました。

10年間、コリゲンが許可を申し込み続けました。申し込みのたびに政府が要求するように飛行機のエンジンと燃料タンクを取り替えたのに、何度飛行機を変更してもそのたび却下されました。

結局、政府がその飛行機が危険と決めました。もう海上で飛ぶことはもちろん、陸地の上さえ飛ぶことが禁止になりました。その時コリゲンがいたニューヨークからロサンゼルス帰省の最後の飛行の特別許可だけ受けました。

早朝離陸したのに、ロス行きの西へ行く代わりに、大西洋上の東へ飛び出しました。28時間後、アイルランドに着陸しました。やはり、政府は大変怒りましたが、コリゲンが「ロスへ飛ぶつもりしたけだ、道に迷ってアイルランドまで行ってしまいました。』と説明しました。そして、迷惑をかけらことを謝りました。

コリゲンは航空の英雄になり、「迷う道コリゲン」と呼ばれることになりました。1995年の死去までも、コリゲンが、かれの大西洋横断はただの間違いと話し続けました。

The legal fiction of corporate personhood keeps getting stretched farther and farther. Yesterday the Supreme Court overturned several precedents and ruled part of the 2002 campaign finance reform law to be unconstitutional saying that corporations have the same free speech rights as actual people, and as such the government can not place any restrictions on corporations and labor unions spending money from of their general funds to support of specific candidates.

Companies are not people. They can’t be found guilty of a crime, have no emotions or social connections and don’t fear punishment or ostracism. That’s not criticism of companies. It’s just a fact. They are not people and should not be treated as such.

Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned; they therefore do as they like.
— Edward Thurlow

I’m all for protest; regardless of your point of view. It’s a good thing. A duty really. Public involvement is needed for a heathy democracy to exist. I even enjoy the loony fringe that turns out at these events. Many people calling Obama a fascist and communist or a Nazi and a Marxist on the same sign without a hint of irony. People wearing an American flag tee-shit carrying a placard saying “Not MY President.” The overwhelming number of Hitler references is troubling, but in general, it’s all good.

The only thing I find annoying about the hippies and tea-baggers is the false sense of self-importance and paranoid sense of persecution. Walking around, I hear a lot of older white folks speaking in thick southern accents saying things like “They tried everything they could, but they could not stop us.” “I think we really have them scared now.”

No one ever seems to know who “them” is, but they are sure that “them” is working very hard in secret ways to prevent “us” from telling “them” what “us” really feel.

At least the hippies had good music.

For the next several minutes Ami expressed her amazement that Americans could eat such things, at which point she realized that she had finished her dog and reluctantly admitted that it was pretty good.

Another Pink’s fan is born!

I really don’t care what her position is on gay marriage, and I can’t understand why some people are upset that she holds them. It’s a free country after all, and she was asked her views and stated them rather congenially. In the end, she didn’t lose her crown because of her opinions, but because she failed to show up when and where she was supposed to. I don’t even begrudge her the fifteen minutes of fame that was rightfully hers.

Nope. The only thing that annoys me about this whole affair is that is being framed and reported as a violation of little Miss. California’s free speech rights. Only in America can people with so little so say go on so many TV talk shows to promote a book about how their free speech is being restricted.

Last week, however, Kindle users felt the long, strong arm of Amazon’s DRM system. It seems that Amazon mistakenly sold a version of Orwell’s 1984 that it should not have. The morning after they discovered this, purchasers of the book awoke to find that The Ministry of Trust (aka Amazon Customer Service) had remotely deleted the books from their Kindle.

Since Amazon never mentioned that they had the ability to reach into our library and take our books, Kindle users were shocked. Amazon spokesheads said it was all a misunderstanding, the matter was handled poorly, and that all affected parties would have their money refunded.

They also reluctantly admitted that they did see some irony in the fact that this happened with 1984 of all books.

There was no accident here, of course. The fact that Amazon had the confidence to pull such a move means that this “feature” was designed into the kindle, tested and documented.

It would have been simply unthinkable for Cronkite to call a guest a “pinhead”, yell at or insult an interviewee, or to cut a guest’s mic when they say something with which he disagreed.

There was a ten minute segment where the commentators discussed what was “really going through Hillary’s Clinton’s mind.” Not what she was saying now, or what she had said in the past, or how she had acted in the past or anything that was remotely grounded in reality. In fact there was not a word about anything she had said or done. Just four people using their psychic mind-reading skills with extraordinary confidence to tell the network audience what she really thinks.

They then turned their discussion and their mind-reading skills on Obama.

Really, who the hell cares what these pundits might fantasize about what goes on inside other people’s heads?

P.S. I’m thinking of a number between one and ten …