AdamSmith

To a Senate witness offering contradictory testimony, Sen. Sam Ervin told of a Carolina justice of the peace confronted with a difficult civil suit: "After hearing the plaintiff, the justice of the peace turned to the defendant and said, 'I would appreciate it very much if you would not present your case because when I hear both sides it gets me confused, and I have trouble making up my mind who's right.'"

...and cleaning my opera glasses!

On the Other Message Forum, the (apparently now banned) poster RockHard described doing some forensics on the purported Radcliffe pic you referenced: namely, pulling it into Photoshop, enlarging it, and thus detecting several rows of blurred pixels just where the join would be between Radcliffe's lower abdomen and another model's privates. I have not troubled to check his work, but FWIW I believe RockHard about this. In any event, next year we dwellers on this side of the Great Water can see for ourselves. http://www.ticketnews.com/Radcliffe-Coming...Broadway0090507

Call me Hester Prynne.

Thanks. If we have to choose, then staying with integrated messaging, as currently implemented, would be my vote. But, now that we no longer have the ability to access/manage our avatars, if the 3rd-party site hosting my avatar makes a change, I cannot respond and will just have a red X next to my posts, I think. (Or will the site sw just ignore the dead link?) Signature line is even less important, to me. I was just going to play with it.

OK, back around July 4 I found one way to link to your avatar using the new forum software. It involved clicking the "Members" button in the light-brown bar above. (That action also exposed a link to the board's messaging function, which was the main thing I was hunting for at the time.) However, once the site technicians switched access to the site's messaging function over to the "My Membership" button (in the dark pink menu bar nearer the top of the page), several useful functions formerly accessible through the aforesaid "Members" button became inaccessible... Specifically, the ability to link to an avatar went back into hiding, far as I can tell. That now-inaccessible panel also contained, if I recall right (my memory may be faulty here), the ability to auto-insert a signature into each post. Is there currently any way to access the avatar function, and (if it exists) the auto-signature function?

Not exactly Southern Decadence or B&B but something to take our minds off it who aren't there... The 50 Worst Cars of All Time http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/art...1657662,00.html

Here's a dangerously addictive resource: www.thesaurus.com

Maybe the following is a distinction without a difference. But in addition to orientation, there was also the difference that, once the evidence came out, Vitter at least owned up to it. To be sure, Vitter committed the lie of omission, at least to the voting public if not to his wife (assuming one believes his claim that he had earlier confessed to her). Huckabee's observation on Craig seemed apt -- "voters will forgive us for being sinners, but not for being hypocrites."

Good lord. ("Lords," I guess, given the Roman pantheon.) I am having to suppress all manner of tasteless jokes about Vesuvian eruptions.

After Janet Reno sent the stormtroopers for Elian Gonzales I thought Clinton might actually find a way to inch toward some opening to Cuba. Has always seemed to me that one way to deal with Castro would be to moot him by opening the floodgates -- remove each and every U.S.-imposed sanction against Cuba. But too many find Castro a useful enemy, it seems.

Just read the funniest thing about this so far. In an article "Conservative Blogs Not Defending Craig," one reader responded: "just do a group outing---get it over with---no more drip-drip-drip" http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/200.../28/335909.aspx

For no good reason I recall reading that organists are disciplined to keep their knees together no matter how far apart the feet must travel in playing the pedals. And we know about organists...the prodigiously procreative J.S. Bach being the notable exception.

You are giving me an image of Gene's twinkletoes keeping it up even while their owner was on the porcelain throne.

Seconding TY's reply... Not cheap -- high-value!

Well, as Sam Ervin said to Maurice Stans, "You know, there has been murder and larceny in every generation, but that hasn't made murder meritorious or larceny legal."

Google turns up a couple that aren't exactly on point, but close. “If forced to choose between the penitentiary and the White House for four years, I would say the penitentiary, thank you.†“Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.â€

OK, another blatantly political thread. Sorry in advance. But should be interesting to watch unfold: Lane Hudson, the lefty blogger who outed Foley, has filed a complaint with the FCC alleging that Fred Thompson has violated the "testing the waters" provisions of federal election law. http://newsfortheleft.blogspot.com/2007/08...ainst-fred.html

Hear, hear. I hope he finds the same kindness in jail that his dogs found in the fight pens.

One more from the Sage of Hartford. By way of thanks to an esteemed poster here, for squiring a certain escort to Boston last winter! Earthy Anecdote Stevens Every time the bucks went clattering Over Oklahoma A firecat bristled in the way. Wherever they went, They went clattering, Until they swerved In a swift, circular line To the right, because of the firecat. Or until they swerved In a swift, circular line To the left, Because of the firecat. The bucks clattered. The firecat went leaping, To the right, to the left, And Bristled in the way. Later, the firecat closed his bright eyes And slept. ...although I can't imagine our firecat69 doing anything to discourage the bucks from approaching!

I admit I've never picked up a habit with quite the same verve as Grandier. My view of him is based not on Wikipedia's brutally clear-eyed report but rather the humanizing portrait by Aldous Huxley in The Devils of Loudon and Ken Russell's lionizing portrayal in "The Devils." If you only know Russell from "Faster, Pussycat, Kill, Kill" and the like, rent "The Devils" sometime. This over-the-top writeup nails it: http://members.aol.com/streettb/krussell/devils.htm

In contrast to escorts and clients who gush and then get clammy.

Stu, please don't feel bad. I was glad you and others even read such a thread, much less contributed. I like all the interaction here. Maybe I just have no standards! Anyway -- with marcanthony as my guide! -- more is more. "One impulse from a vernal wood / Is not enough to do much good!" One of my secret heroes is urbanity's very namesake -- Fr. Urbain Grandier. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbain_Grandier

lookin, you're too kind. And too attentive -- I just quoted; you wrote. Humbling. True story about staid, straightlaced Wallace Stevens: He came into a meeting at The Hartford one day and ebulliently repeated a joke he had just heard. "You know why they're called nuns? 'Cause they ain't never had none, and they ain't never going to get none!"

Just possibly, providing we call for the spittoon and not the cuspidor. And if we bear in mind that remarking a woman has a nice pair of bristols a la Kingsley Amis comes across in America as very very gay. Come to think of it, many things elegant in Britain sound gay in America. P.S. To those of us who grew up south of the Manson-Nixon line: (1) Did your grandma dip snuff? (2) For a spittoon, did she carry around the house a tall Dole pineapple can stuffed with Kleenex? http://www.tspb.state.tx.us/SPB/Gallery/HisArt/06.htm