Kirsten Loves Logic

• Nathalie Dupree used to have a cooking show. One evening, she made this enormous mess, and looking straight into her camera, told the audience "Don't do as I say, do as I tell you."

• There is, in the south suburbs of Louisville, a large billboard, advertising a tattoo parlor. With no indication of irony (or jest), its slogan? "Done while you wait."

• In the McDonald's on High Street, a couple of miles north of campus, there used to be a sign in the parking lot. "Parking for Drive Through Only." It's no longer there; my guess is that the McDonald's folks got tired of it being stolen by philosophy professors.

• A friend of mine told me the other day of a movie he recommended, saying, in part, that "it was like no other movie." I asked him, given that there might be another movie that was "like no other movie," if these two movies would, then, be like each other.

• A house in Miamisburg had a sign in front, saying "House and/or lot for sale." How annoyed would the people be if someone just bought the lot?

• A tip o' the hat to "Bow Legged Lou" (I'm not sure who he is, but my guess is that he watches too much tv) for reminding me of this one. My friend Bob and I went to a local bar (Tanks, in this case), and he just stood at the door, refusing to go in. He stood there about five minutes; I came out and asked him what his deal was. He said "the sign says 'You must be 21 to enter.' I'm 34."

I couldn't find a picture of that famous sign reading "In case of flood, this sign will be underwater."

I may have a few more; I'll add them when I think of them. I would ask my many readers for examples of their own, but that seems a request that would fall on deaf ears.

Surgin' General

November 29, 2005, I wrote this (you could look it up), as a proposed speech (short and sweet) for our President to make, given what we were confronting at the time in Iraq.

I don't think our troops ought to be used for carrying out an ill-conceived plan, based not just on faulty intelligence but contrary to that intelligence in many cases, and from sources the US intelligence community (and others) regarded as fundamentally flawed, with no particularly clear idea of what will constitute success, and generating more problems than are solved. As my Daddy might say, the first thing you do when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.

But now our President has drafted a new plan, and defended it in what is now, yet again, the most important speech of his Presidency.

So I watched his speech, listened carefully to his arguments, watched FOX, MSNBC, and CNN for punditry, and read various reactions today in the newspapers, blogs, etc..

It took a lot of time for me to consider and evaluate all this new information, in order to compose my own response, based upon the new strategy, leadership, and direction so articulately defended by our President last night. Here it is.

I don't think our troops ought to be used for carrying out an ill-conceived plan, based not just on faulty intelligence but contrary to that intelligence in many cases, and from sources the US intelligence community (and others) regarded as fundamentally flawed, with no particularly clear idea of what will constitute success, and generating more problems than are solved. As my Daddy might say, the first thing you do when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.