May 08, 2004
Fox News Channel has had an ad on a billboard facing CNN Center & Centennial Park in downtown Atlanta for more than five years now (I remember it from when I worked at CNN). The billboard, at the corner of Marietta St. and Centennial Olympic Park Dr., has continuously had messages mocking CNN and encouraging CNN employees, and Atlanta locals alike to watch Fox News.Most recently, the billboard has said "Come Home Connie. CNN Needs You." -- a reference to Connie Chung, whom CNN fired abruptly in March 2003, after her show, Connie Chung Tonight simply tanked. Even Ted Turner called her "awful."
FNC wants to put a new billboard in place of the current one: "Now That CNN's Ratings are Gone With the Wind, Our Work on This Board Is Done. We Love You Atlanta. Brought to you by your friends at FOX News Channel."
By itself, that doesn't sound any worse than any of the other billboards out there -- certainly not one to really get anyone's goat.
But the zinger comes below that text: "Sign Up with America's Newsroom! Forward resumes to resumes(at)foxnews.com."
Current notion is that CNN doesn't like that. Fox has accused CNN of putting pressure on the billboard company to prevent the new sign from going up.
In a letter obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, Fox lawyer Dianne Brandi suggests Atlanta company Camfaux LLC may have buckled to pressure from CNN not to put up the message.Camfaux says that, yes, they owned the billboard in '99 when the Fox News Channel messages began going up, but that they've since sold the sign to Atlanta-based Boardworks Outdoor Advertising."Should you choose not to put up the billboard immediately, we will consider all options available to us, including, of course, legal options," Brandi wrote.
Boardworks is silent on the matter -- at least to the press.
Stay tuned -- the billboard is around the corner from my new client's office, as well as from my wife's office in downtown Atlanta. I'll see the message if and when it goes up.
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03:26 AM
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German-based Hapag-Lloyd Express has new service in the UK that -- believe it or not -- allows you to pay "what you want" for the fare.It's a promotional gimmick, of course, but on the three-day Newcastle-Hanover sightseeing run last Sunday, cabin crew came down the aisle, and passengers literally got to pay what they wanted for the flight.
60 passengers took up Hapag-Lloyd on the offer.
The average fare paid by the passengers was £13 (US$ 23) on the run. The highest amount paid was £45 (US$ 80), while another paid only £1 (US$1.80) for the 1600 km (864 miles) roundtrip journey.
I wonder whether consumer guru (and notorious spend-thrift) Clark Howard was the one who paid £1 for his flight.
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02:52 AM
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May 07, 2004
Major League Baseball & Sony Pictures have backed off of the previously announce plans to place logos for Spider-Man 2 on bases, pitchers' rubbers and on-deck circles for all games played the weekend of June 11.Sounds like saner heads prevailed.
The plan started to fall apart when the Yankees (Yeah, I hate 'em, but they are the paragon of traditionality) announced that the special bases would only be used during batting practice.
Add to that, the uproar from baseball purists, including former MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent, and the plan was kaput.
I understand marketing, having studied it enough in my years, but some things are better left alone.
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02:20 AM
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In yet another sign of trouble for Air America Radio, the liberal talk network entering its fifth chaotic week on the air, co-founder and chairman Evan Cohen resigned Thursday, as did vice-chairman and investor Rex Sorensen.Damn. I figured they'd at least make the summer.The CHICAGO TRIBUNE is planning to report in fresh editions: The company also failed to make its scheduled payroll, leaving its staff roughly 100 radio personalities, writers, and producers unpaid until Thursday.
I guess I won't win in the pool...
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01:54 AM
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May 06, 2004
US Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA), part of the radical moonbat sector of society, and one of the chief moonbats of the Congressional Black (Democratic & Liberal) Caucus, appeared on Pacifica's (a whole den of moonbats if there ever were any) Democracy Now radio program yesterday and had the audacity to infer that Saddam not only wasn't a bad person, but that he didn't even exist."Everywhere we go we seem to be creating a mess. We've created a mess in Iraq, and our soldiers are dying every day. Now we find that we are violating the prisoners. We're treating them worse than so-called Saddam had treated them.""So-called?"
"So-called?" Did I miss something somewhere?
Congresscritter Waters actually seems to be implying that not only is the US military as a whole complicit in the Iraqi prisoner mess, but then goes as far as to imply that Saddam didn't exist, by way of her veiled statement.
In that same interview, Waters directly contravenes official US foreign policy by encouraging active rejection of the new government in Haiti. She suggests that she knows better what US foreign policy should be regarding Haiti, far better than the State Department, and far better than the White House.
As of this morning, I have 22 members who join with me in no recognition of this illegitimate Prime Minister. There have been no elections. He was supported essentially by the United States, with the support of France and Canada, to take over the post of Prime Minister after the coup d'etat, and I believe, as other members apparently believe, that he is illegitimate. He's but a puppet, and we should not recognize him.No recognition of former leader Jean Bertrand Aristide's crimes; no recognition that Aristide was responsible for the sorry state that Haiti had fallen into in the first place.
With constant and continued crud like this, Waters has firmly cemented her spot as one of the most brainless moonbats on the Hill.
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01:55 PM
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DON'T punch the other person through the chest, pull out his heart, and show it to him before he dies when you feel run into a corner. That's usually a non-sequitur to the debate... unless the debate is whether you can actually pull someone's heart out and show it to him before he dies.Aw, mannnnnnn.... Why not?DON'T pile drive the other person into a folding table when you find a topic you vehemently disagree on. Though it would be cool, it's just not civil.
DON'T silently lower the other person in a slow dipping device into a pit full of ravenous monkeys until he admits you're right.
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"Fair and impartial press" my ass...Fineman: Osama's winning!
Dickey: Run away!
Alter: Show us the bodies!
Photo gallery: "Anatomy of a quagmire!"
(Courtesy AllahPundit)
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06:52 AM
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Amy Ridenour over at the National Center (parent organization of Project 21) got some interesting "hate mail" the other day, ostensibly in the wake of my appearance last week on Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes.You call youselves "conservatives!" What do Black Americans have to conserve in America? You should be looking to be "progressives"? Black Americans need a lot more progress in order to gain as compared to the White Americans. We don't need to "conserve" things the way they are right now. GET A GRIP, YOU BUNCH OF "UNCLE TOMS."This morning, Amy notes that another lawyer from that same law firm showed up on FNC's The O'Reilly Factor last night.Paulette Clarke PPClarke@proskauer.com
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According to Google, Christopher Wolf [the lawyer in question --M] wrote an essay published on GigaLaw.com entitled “Racists, Bigots and the Law on the Internet.” The piece describes the legal limitations on prosecution for Internet hate speech and advises that the “best antidote” to hate speech is “more speech.”Rock on, Amy!So, in the spirit of taking his advice, here’s some more speech:
Dear Proskauer Rose LLP,It is rude to call black conservatives “Uncle Toms.”
Please inform your staff.
Thank you.
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04:41 AM
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It was a moment lost on most; the media, for the most part, missed it -- they're too wrapped up in trying to pin the Iraqi abuse photos on him.President Bush, at an appearance near Cincinnati yesterday, paused for a moment and morphed from the "leader of the free world," and became "simply" a father and a man.
As the President walked down a line of supporters and well wishers, he passed Lynn and Ashley Faulkner, and their neighbor, Ashley Prince.
Prince said to him, "This girl lost her mom in the World Trade Center on 9-11."
Bush stopped and turned back.It was obvious to Faulkner that this is a man who truly cares."He changed from being the leader of the free world to being a father, a husband and a man," Faulkner said. "He looked right at her and said, 'How are you doing?' He reached out with his hand and pulled her into his chest."
Faulkner snapped one frame with his camera.
"I could hear her say, 'I'm OK,' " he said. "That's more emotion than she has shown in 21/2 years. Then he said, 'I can see you have a father who loves you very much.' "
"And I said, 'I do, Mr. President, but I miss her mother every day.' It was a special moment."
"I'm a pretty cynical and jaded guy at this point in my life," Faulkner said of the moment with the president. "But this was the real deal. I was really impressed. It was genuine and from the heart."Now there are those who will continue to assail this guy -- and why? Because they want to blame him for all the ills in the world. Because they didn't get their way four years ago. Because he personifies something they don't like."The way he was holding me, with my head against his chest, it felt like he was trying to protect me," Ashley said. "I thought, 'Here is the most powerful guy in the world, and he wants to make sure I'm safe.' I definitely had a couple of tears in my eyes, which is pretty unusual for me."
Those folks will call this a "convenient photo op."
But it's obvious that it is something more. Otherwise, the networks wouldn't go out of their way not to show it. They don't show it, because it makes him more human, not less. And they want to make him as "inhuman" and "inhumane" as they possibly can.
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04:26 AM
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I am personally devoted to getting Bush out of office, preferably on a political rail. I consider him a complete disaster in terms of political philosophy and in terms of execution of that philosophy.
But to take that view of his execution of the office he's so clearly unsuited to and assume that makes him completely worthless as a human being, a total fool, sociopath, etc is completely unfair.
And it shows the lack of "nuance" that the left accuses the right of (shrewdly enough, in general.)
No, I think he is in some ways the Republican version of Carter - shoved into office because he was electable, not because it was an intrinsically good idea. (Sigh)
Oh, by the way - I hated the idea of Gore about as much, and the reason I want to see his political scalp nailed to the Trueman balcony is that he did just about everything I was convinced Gore would have had we been so foolish as to elect him. And then went on to commit further errors of expansive big gumment Liberalism.
I was hoping against hope for at least a Nixon and what we got was LBJ, trying to impose a Great Society on the Middle East.
But personally speaking, LBJ was a nice man too.
Albeit a Texan. (Now running for cover....)May 05, 2004
Major League Baseball and Sony Pictures are teaming up on a new kind of promotion.Bases at 15 ballparks around the nation will be stamped with an ad promoting the upcoming motion picture Spider-Man 2 the weekend of June 11-13.
The image, as seen here, will adorn bases in all the MLB parks where games are taking place that weekend. Spider-Man logos and designs will also adorn pitchers' mounds and on deck circles at the ballparks.
"This is the perfect alliance between two quintessential national pastimes -- baseball and movie-going," said Geoffrey Ammer, president of worldwide marketing for the Colombia TriStar Motion Picture Group. "This partnership celebrates superheroes, whether they are on the field or on the big screen and we are extremely excited about the opportunity to create this unique promotion with Major League Baseball."Most people have become used to the advertising on the outfield walls and behind home plate, but this seems to be a step beyond where advertisers should go."Over the past year and a half, we've been doing substantive research to determine the best ways to market the game into the 21st century, and we have overwhelming evidence that we have a property that's . . . never been stronger," said Jacqueline Parkes, senior vice president of advertising and marketing for MLB. "One thing that came out of the research is that we have a huge opportunity with kids, to bring them into the game. We needed to engage them in relevant and meaningful ways.
What's next? Team logos on baseball uniforms, along the lines of what you get from NASCAR uniforms and cars?
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05:45 PM
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Bobby Brown was ordered to stand trial today by a Fulton County judge for physically assaulting his wife, singer Whitney Houston.Judge Barry Zimmerman made the ruling in a five minute long hearing this afternoon in Atlanta.
Brown was ordered to turn himself in to Fulton County authorities in July for fingerprinting when he would be released on a $2,000 bond. Zimmerman also warned Brown again having "violent contact" with Houston.
Houston called 911 from their Alpharetta home in early December to report that Brown threatened to beat her "and then struck the left side of her face with an open right hand," according to Fulton County police officials.
Brown addressed the report's specifics in an April interview with Dateline NBC.
"I got big hands, man. I would hurt her, you know? It would be more than just a little cut on the lip."Brown has been in jail twice this year. In February, he spent a month in jail for multiple probation violations before being released a month early for a March child-support hearing in Massachusetts. There, he spent another night in jail before paying a former lover more than $60,000 in back child-support payments.Brown further described the incident as a "little spat." He said the two were playfully "slap boxing" and Houston took one of his jabs a "little serious."
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03:45 PM
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Leave it to the leftists to try something after the fact.Since the ongoing ad-hoc "Google-bomb" campaign to get John Kerry's site to come up first when someone Googles the term "Waffles" is working so well, the left is trying it themselves.
The "Counter Convention" group devoted to disrupting the Republican National Convention in New York late this summer is suggesting that anyone using the term "Republican National Convention" should link it to their site (http://www.counterconvention.org/) as opposed to the real site at http://www.2004nycgop.org/.
So, in order to beat the moonbats at their own game, when you use the term Republican National Convention from here on out, please link it to http://www.2004nycgop.org/.
The moonbats need to be shown that they aren't the ones driving this boat.
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09:08 AM
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North of the Canadian border, some kids are getting creative about how they get their high. They're using morning glory seeds.You heard me. Morning glory seeds.
From what I understand, the seeds contain lysergamide, a less-potent version of LSD. The potency depends on the batch, but typically a dose equivalent to 75 micrograms of LSD requires 200 seeds or so.
A 14-year-old recently tried to buy the seeds from a Canadian Tire store near Halifax, NS.
At Halifax Seed, manager Tim Tregunno says it has been 10 years since they've had a customer with a hidden agenda. The problem is easy to spot, he adds.
"He was pretty nervous and once he was questioned what he was using them for, he finally admitted he wanted to crush them and put them in a drink," says clerk Adam Peters.
Asking for five to ten pounds of seeds at one fell swoop is a dead giveaway.
Whatever happened to Mad Dog, Champale, Colt 45 & 151?
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05:36 AM
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I'm working on a new home for Ramblings' Journal, courtesy of the humble folks at mu.nu.
Moving over to Munuviana does pose some issues; not the least of which is learning the intricacies and nuances of Movable Type.
My only exposure to using MT up to now is my infrequent post over at Blogcritics. Which reminds me that I'm overdue for something new to post over there. I've had this part-finished review of SSX 3 (one of the best sports-based video games out there, save the Madden franchise) sitting on my drive for the past few months, which needs a jolt from me to get finished.
Then again, I'm also dealing with trying to get the first chapter of my book finished as well (if nothing else, than to keep She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed off of my back).
Add to that two job interviews so far this week, at least one more tomorrow, and a radio interview on Friday (I'm scheduled to be on Lee Rodgers' morning show on KSFO San Francisco in the 8A PT hour, take a listen if you get a chance!), plus the kids' various practices (Mitchell's choir; Jasmine's orchestra), and keeping up with an active 2 year-old between job-search activities, and you can see that my hands and plate are pretty full.
But enough of that.
The new home will still be called Ramblings' Journal (http://mhking.mu.nu/), and yes, I'll eventually paint and spruce up the place with something more than the basic MT template soon enough.
I'm actually pretty jazzed about it, and thrilled to be throwing off the yokes of BlogSpot and the headaches associated with it!
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04:42 AM
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Former Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) Congressional Chief of Staff Oliver Kellman can't hook up with his former boss these days.Not that anyone was expecting her to truly call him back.
Why the switch? To put it bluntly, Kellman got tired.
"After I left the Hill, I opened up a lobbying shop [Kellman & Associates]. As a lobbyist, you work with people on both sides of the aisle....Really, I just got fed up. WeÂ’ve raised some money for the party, and just the attitude of the DNC [Democratic National Committee] toward returning our phone calls" was surprising.LaShawn Barber finds it hard to believe that the notion of returning phone calls is enough to get you to switch horses, but I've seen decisions made over far less.
Does that make Kellman somewhat shallow? Perhaps; no more so than former Clinton staffer Dick Morris appears to be.
But the bottom line for Kellman: “I’m being ignored. There are a number of African-American lobbyists and we all say the same thing — we are being ignored.”There's the larger issue.
Black America is taken for granted by the left. And an increasing number of black folks are getting sick and tired of it.
I'm glad to have him on our side of the aisle. Let's hope that his voice can add to the rest of ours.
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03:57 AM
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May 04, 2004
The photos of a pile of naked bodies, with two beaming soldiers smiling as they stand over it.
Photos of a prisioner standing on a box, while wired to God knows what.
Photos of men, whose sole desire for Americans is that we all die.
Photos of men with more in common with the animals that flew planes into buildings two and a half years ago, killing thousands here.
People across this nation are reacting in shock and horror at those photos, and, while they continue to be fed by a willing and complicit press, those same people are starting to compare our military and the Bush Administration with the Saddam regime.
I have heard people -- some otherwise very intelligent people -- insist that the President and the Administration are no better than Saddam Hussain and his sons, because of this incident. This isolated incident.
These same self-righteous people are so wrapped up in their images, fed by the loathing of reporters from CBS and CNN, from ABC and the Washington Post, from NBC and the New York Times. Fed by Pacifica and Indymedia. Fed by Ted Rall and Michael Moore. They are so wrapped up with the constant barrage of hatred that they forget the reality: that this was an isolated incident which was soundly denounced by officials from the President on down.
The radicalists are trying their damnedest to not only try to paint this isolated incident as standard operating procedure for our military, but to insist that this is how we treat prisioners in this country, too. That police departments across the nation use these so-called procedures as the normal course of business for law enforcement.
Everyone trots out the Geneva Convention as a sort of blanket to throw over this situation.
The vast majority of people fail to recognize that the Geneva Convention does not apply to this situation. That's right. Does. Not. Apply.
The Geneva Convention was designed as a sort of "Marquis of Queensbury" rules for engagement for countries and entities in military conflict.
The problem is that the Islamists do not subscribe to the Convention -- that is, until their thugs get caught.
The Geneva Convention says that a captured individual is and must be treated as a military prisioner of war only if he is reporting to a commander, if he wears a distinctive insignia recognizable at a distance, if he carries arms openly, and if he, himself, conducts himself according to the rules of war. The Islamists do not do that. They dress as the remainder of the civilian population. They do not report to a commander. They do not have a recognizable insignia. They do not carry arms openly.
They do not conduct themselves according to the rules of war.
They throw the rulebook out the window. They hit below the belt. They headbutt. They try to bite off their opponent's ear, to coin an expression.
Are we, as a nation, obligated to use the rulebook, when our opponents have thrown out the same rulebook? Are we obligated to hamstring ourselves while dealing with an enemy who wants nothing more than to kill each and every last American soul?
I'm not condoning what happened in those isolated incidents in Iraq. On the contrary. Those activities are reprehensible.
But those activities are not indicative of our fighting men and women. They are not a part of the concept of truth, justice and the American way.
They are not a part of "normal."
And at the same time, for someone to try to not only equate that isolated incident with SOP, and to then say that we are worse than Saddam has no logical concept of what "normal" is. They have no concept of what Saddam was.
Saddam had rape rooms. Saddam had torture chambers. Saddam had children's prisons. Saddam had mass graves. Saddam used giant shredders to feed living, screaming people into, in order to prolong their pain and agony. Saddam was a tyrant. Saddam was an evil man.
Saddam today, is a sad, old man awaiting his fate; undoubtedly in front of a firing squad.
Contrary to Charles Barron's incessant screeching in my ear on Hannity & Colmes last week, the Coalition of the Willing has rebuilt the infrastructure of the Iraqi nation in less than one year. Schools are open. Hospitals are open. Newspapers are printing. Markets are opening. Telephone service has been restored. Mail service has been reestablished. Internet and e-mail service, believe it or not, is coming.
This does not sound like the activities of a tyrant. This does not sound like the activities of an Administration that is "worse than Saddam."
This is the picture that Katie Couric and others in the press do not want you to see. This is the reality that John Kerry and Hillary Clinton do not want you to know.
This is the truth of the victory of President Bush and the Coalition.
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03:44 PM
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From Wonkette:A Wonkette operative tells us that Al Gore plans to annouce atNo word on what'll happen (realistically) to some of the "better" NWI programming (DW's European Journal & CBC's The National among others).
noon CST today that he and partner Joel Hyatt have successfully
acquired the Newsworld International cable channel from Vivendi. Gore
will make news of the sale to his company, "IndTV" (clever!), public at
the annual convention of theNational Association of Broadcasters
[I'm an idiot. That was last week.] National Association of Cable &
Telecommunications. The content of channel will not change, says our
operative, "They bought a full-functioning network. . . they're
probably gradually going to change it." (Well, someone's learned something from Air America...)
NWI is available on digital cable systems nationally as well as on DirecTV (Channel 366).
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11:41 AM
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May 03, 2004
[thump!]
Oops...sorry.... didn't mean to trip over that...
I'll be moving furniture in and around over the next little bit, while I try to get the hang of MT and figure out where I want stuff (although with my luck, I'll probably move it around once I get it in and look at it a bit. (one of the hazards of having a wife who likes to move stuff around...)
No matter.
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01:21 PM
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How grand the human race would be
If every man would wear a kilt,
A flirt of Tartan finery,
Instead of trousers, custom built!
Nay, do not think I speak to joke:
(You know I'm not that kind of man),
I am convinced that all men folk.
Should wear the costume of a Clan.
Imagine how it's braw and clean
As in the wind it flutters free;
And so conducive to hygiene
In its sublime simplicity.
No fool fly-buttons to adjust,--
Wi' shanks and maybe buttocks bare;
Oh chiels, just take my word on trust,
A bonny kilt's the only wear.
'Twill save a lot of siller too,
(And here a canny Scotsman speaks),
For one good kilt will wear you through
A half-a-dozen pairs of breeks.
And how it's healthy in the breeze!
And how it swings with saucy tilt!
How lassies love athletic knees
Below the waggle of a kilt!
True, I just wear one in my mind,
Since sent to school by Celtic aunts,
When girls would flip it up behind,
Until I begged for lowland pants.
But now none dare do that to me,
And so I sing with lyric lilt,--
How happier the world would be
If every male would wear a kilt!
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06:38 AM
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