The mere fact that the projected job growth resulting from increased defense and other government spending exceeds the actual number of jobs projected to be added to the economy through 2006 clearly indicates that the tax cuts hardly seem plausible as the engine of the modest job growth in the economy since 2001.
By advocating compromise first, the Democratic Party has lost the confidence of its base and the sympathy of the people. That's why arguing for just winning elections is not pragmatic, even though the advocates think they are being intensely pragmatic. Moreover, the "elections first" crowd always ends up debating tactics, not strategy; concessions, not convictions; practicality, not principle. That group is never bold or open in its thinking. It is hopeful primarily that the other side stumble, not that it actually win. Perhaps most dangerous, the "elections first" crowd inspires no passion, and has no hope of changing the culture -- which in the end is the goal of all politics.
| Reed Hundt at TPMCafe |
I can't think of a single reform movement in history that started with the mantra of "just win, baby," to use Al Davis' phrasing. Every reformer in the history of ideas and politics has sought to define a point of view in debate first, and compromised in order to win elections second. This is, for instance, how the Republican Party got started; same thing with Populism and Progressivism; same thing with the Reagan-Bush version of the Republican neo-con party.
The analysis found that substantial majorities of Americans, liberals and conservatives, found it more difficult to associate black faces with positive concepts than white faces — evidence of implicit bias. But districts that registered higher levels of bias systematically produced more votes for Bush.
“Obviously, such research does not speak at all to the question of the prejudice level of the president,” said Banaji, “but it does show that George W. Bush is appealing as a leader to those Americans who harbor greater anti-black prejudice.”
The FDA ruled out banning the use of the colorings since it found no evidence of a "significant hazard" to the general population. It also declined to require that labels disclose the colorings are made from insects, as the Center for Science in the Public Interest had asked.
"Why not use a word that people can understand?" said center executive director Michael F. Jacobson. "Sending people scurrying to the dictionary or to Google to figure out what 'carmine' or 'cochineal' means is just plain sneaky. Call these colorings what they are: insect-based."
|CNN -- FDA:You're eating crushed bug juice|
A LifeGem is a certified, high quality diamond created from the carbon of your loved one as a memorial to their unique and wonderful life.
The LifeGem diamond is more than a memorial to visit on the weekends… it is a way to embrace your loved one's memory day by day. The LifeGem is the most unique and timeless memorial available for creating a testimony to their unique life.
We hope and believe that your LifeGem memorial will offer comfort and support when and where you need it, and provide a lasting memory that endures just as a diamond does. Forever. |LifeGem|
Given the one-two punch of announcements from Sens. Kerry and Reid, one of two things is going on here. One, the Democratic caucus is so poorly managed that they still can’t bother to coordinate with each other and send a unified message on something as important as the confirmation of a man who will completely shake up the Supreme Court. Two, the Democrats have a “good cop / bad cop” strategy going on by having their highest profile member (with the safest seat) rile up the base and have all the bloggers shouting “Give ‘em hell, Kerry”, while their leader does the only thing Democrats seem especially good at : kissing moderate ass. |Greg Saunders|
"Nahal" is the Hebrew acronym for "Noar Halutzi Lohem" - Fighting Pioneer Youth - a military cadre unique to Israel. It is a framework which combines military service in a combat unit with civilian service in a newly founded kibbutz or moshav (collective and semi-collective agricultural settlements).
History
The Nahal was established during the 1948 War of Independence by David Ben-Gurion. It was the natural continuation of the pioneering values and customs of the nascent state and the legacy of the elite underground Palmach unit. The aim of the Nahal was to ensure security and settlement, combining the sword and the ploughshare (the Nahal official emblem). The Nahal was created as a subdivision of the Gadna (pre-military age youth battalions). The unit's function was to maintain Gar'inim ('nuclei'), or groups of youths who had united for the purpose of founding new settlements or joining existing ones, in the framework of youth movements. At the time, 17 year-olds were drafted along with these groups of youths in times of national emergency. From its inception, the Nahal included women in its ranks. The aim of the Nahal Gar'in was to provide its soldiers with extensive military capability as well as the basic tools for life on a new kibbutz or moshav. Since its establishment, The Nahal has helped found at least 108 new settlements and has assisted in the development of many more.
Mr. [Bernard-Henri Lévy] describes Mr. Huntington's last book, [Who Are We : The Challenges to America's National Identity] as "racist," and rejects the notion that there is in the world, or has been, a clash of civilizations:
"We are engaged in a war against terrorism, but the war is a political one, not a religious one, not a civilizational one. It is, I stress, a political war."
...I make the distinction because I believe that you have some Muslims who do not hate the West. Being an enemy of the West is not a necessary condition of being Muslim, of adoring the God of Islam."..."It is suicide to say that this is a civilizational war, because if it is such, it is an endless war, bloc against bloc. If you say 'political' you make a bet on the outcome."....
"I think [the Iraq war] was morally justified and politically a disaster." ...he added, referring to the Iraqis, "you cannot liberate un peuple somnambule" -- a people sleepwalking.
|WSJ|[Sub'n Req'd](emphasis and links added)
Just out of curiosity, what does it take to mount an effective counter-insurgency? And is it something that our government is politically willing to do? Are there collateral issues that we're afraid of? Given that they were more than willing to go to war against an enemy who had yet to actually threaten us I don't see what would hold us back other than really awful leadership. Something tells me that with all the money and expertise available to our military that an effective counter-insurgency is entirely within our capability. Wasn't insurgency our game in the 80's?|Bellman Comment|I think the first lesson of fighting a guerrilla war is to avoid them whenever possible. As Commander in Chief, if you can avoid a long, protracted, costly war against an irregular foe... avoid it.
Like Jordan, Vince Young will go third in this year's NFL draft. Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart will be the Sam Bowie and Akeem Olajuwan of their time. I'm not saying which is which.
| guest blogger at Altercation |
After we've decided that we made a mistake, we don't want to blame the soldiers who were ordered to fight. Or even our representatives, who were deceived by false intelligence. And certainly not ourselves, who failed to object to a war we barely understood.
But blaming the president is a little too easy. The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying. An army of people ignoring their morality, by the way, is also Jack Abramoff's pet name for the House of Representatives.
I do sympathize with people who joined up to protect our country, especially after 9/11, and were tricked into fighting in Iraq. I get mad when I'm tricked into clicking on a pop-up ad, so I can only imagine how they feel.
But when you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you're not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you're willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism, for better or worse. Sometimes you get lucky and get to fight ethnic genocide in Kosovo, but other times it's Vietnam.
And sometimes, for reasons I don't understand, you get to just hang out in Germany. |LA Times: Joel Stein|
1 can sweetened condensed milk
3/4 C. Tang® powder drink mix
1/2 C. sour cream
1 (9 oz.) tub Cool Whip®
1 graham cracker pie crust
Mix condensed milk and Tang. Add in sour cream until well blended. Then fold in tub of Cool Whip. Pour into pie crust and refrigerate for 4 hours or until set and cold.
|pieofthemonth.org|
Just what our troops in Iraq need. Republican water. Full of shit.
The world's first face transplant recipient is using her new lips to take up smoking again, which doctors fear could interfere with her healing and raise the risk of tissue rejection.
|Detroit Free Press, Thursday, January 19, 10A|
It is important to understand the consequences of pulling out of Iraq before our work is done and victory is won....This is an issue worthy of a public debate.
Another is the Patriot Act....Republicans want to renew the Patriot Act - and Democrat leaders take special delight in trying to kill it. This is an issue worthy of a public debate.
Because of a New York Times story, our enemies now know that in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to intercept communications where one of the parties is outside the United States and there is a reasonable basis to conclude the conversation involves a member of, or someone affiliated with, al Qaeda....
Let me be as clear as I can: President Bush believes if al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they're calling and why. Some important Democrats clearly disagree. This is an issue worthy of a public debate.
|Transcript|(emphasis added)
Section One: Karl Rove's "Battle Plan"
1) Terror, terror, terror.
2) DIPSO (Damned Illegal Presidential Spying Operation) is vital, and only mimsy Democrats with a 9/10 mindset don't understand that.
3) War in Iraq is a success.
4) Tax cuts are good for everyone.
5) Bush's judicial appointments are strong and mainstream.
6) Corruption is not a Republican problem, it's a Washington problem
The difficulty is that if some of your products are cheap, you may lose money from customers who would willingly have paid more. So, businesses try to discourage their more lavish customers from trading down by making their cheap products look or sound unattractive, or, in the case of Starbucks, making the cheap product invisible. The British supermarket Tesco has a "value" line of products with infamously ugly packaging, not because good designers are unavailable but because the supermarket wants to scare away customers who would willingly spend more. "The bottom end of any market tends to get distorted," says McManus. "The more market power firms have, the less attractive they make the cheaper products."
That observation is important. A firm in a perfectly competitive market would suffer if it sabotaged its cheapest products because rivals would jump at the opportunity to steal alienated customers. Starbucks, with its coffee supremacy, can afford this kind of price discrimination, thanks to loyal, or just plain lazy, customers.
The practice is hundreds of years old. The French economist Emile Dupuit wrote about the early days of the railways, when third-class carriages were built without roofs, even though roofs were cheap: "What the company is trying to do is prevent the passengers who can pay the second-class fare from traveling third class; it hits the poor, not because it wants to hurt them, but to frighten the rich."
The modern equivalent is the airport departure lounge. Airports could create nicer spaces, but that would frustrate the ability of airlines to charge substantial premiums for club-class departure lounges. |Starbucks Economics|
Article XXIV, Section C.
Where coffee making facilities exist such that Employees have access to and utilize such facilities, Employees shall continue to have access to these facilities.
As I noted in detail last summer, virtually every left organization that relies on volunteer labor succeeds because of the labor of female volunteers, who comprise the vast bulk of such low-level workers, and when Democrats have won at the national level in the past 40 years, it has been because of their appeal to female voters.
It's true that the progressive movement, such as it is, has not made great use of its human resources. But to the extent that the progressive base is about 60 percent female, according to research by The Breakthrough Institute, progressive conferences in 2006 that are 92 percent male would seem to suggest that something even more problematic than a lack of resources is undermining the left's ability to strategically invest in human capital. |Garance Franke-Ruta|
For some of these folks, the War on Terror isn't about protecting Americans or eradicating al-Qaeda, but about the vicarious thrill of participating, even in a passive, peripheral way, in a global, epochal conflict. And only those who sense the moment's historicity can be considered equal to the task. So Bush may be playing Mr. Magoo on the world stage, but at least he "gets it," and that's far preferable to some small-minded man who won't validate the neocon's clash-of-civilations-style fantasies. |Ezra Klein|
Capitalism succeeds? Under what fantasy is that true? Without massive government subsidy, very few corporations would have any purchase; they are overweight, overextended, bloated bureaucracies that manage only by means of favorable legislation to minimize costs (of labor, of access to raw materials, of environmental protection) and maximize profits. Without major corporations, capitalism would collapse.
Are you referring to our current, consumeristic and marketing-based form of "capitalism?" I'm not a fan of hands-off capitalism, but even Adam Smith would be somewhat taken aback at the sheer number of people employed to make fashionable clothing for our dogs and cats.
Every January, the media go into a kind of almost spastic frenzy of adulation for the so-called "Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr." King has even had a national holiday declared in his honor, an honor accorded to no other American, not Washington, not Jefferson, not Lincoln. (Washington and Lincoln no longer have holidays -- they share the generic-sounding "President's Day.") A liberal judge has sealed the FBI files on King until the year 2027. What are they hiding? Let's take a look at this modern-day plastic god.
| some crazy website |
"Martin Luther King" is not his real name. The jews insisted he change his name to discredit the real Martin Luther.
...I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. |Letter from a Birmingham City Jail|
Yet only a handful of law schools would have any interest in providing legal assistance to Shawna Spencer, an inner-city Chicagoan who hopes to turn her passion for shoes into a booming business. Already overextended on every possible credit line, Spencer couldn’t afford an attorney to negotiate a lease for the shoe store she wanted to open. Fortunately, the University of Chicago Law School offers one of the few clinics to take struggling for-profit entrepreneurs as clients. "I couldn’t have opened without my 'attorneys,'" Spencer says of the Chicago law students.
Perhaps the best-known case of anti-sprawl legislation has been the "urban growth boundary," adopted in the late '70s to restrict development to areas closer to established urban areas. To slow the spread of suburban, single-family-home growth, the Portland region adopted a "grow up, not out" planning regime, which stressed dense, multistory development. Mass transit was given priority over road construction, which was deemed to be sprawl-inducing.
Experts differ on the impact of these regulations, but it certainly has not created the new urbanist nirvana widely promoted by Portland's boosters. Strict growth limits have driven population and job growth further out, in part by raising the price of land within the growth boundary, to communities across the Columbia River in Washington state and to distant places in Oregon. Suburbia has not been crushed, but simply pushed farther away. Portland's dispersing trend appears to have intensified since 2000: The city's population growth has slowed considerably, and 95% of regional population increase has taken place outside the city limits.
This experience may soon be repeated elsewhere as planners and self-proclaimed visionaries run up against people's aspirations for a single-family home and low-to-moderate-density environment. Such desires may constitute, as late Robert Moses once noted, "details too intimate" to merit the attention of the university-trained. Even around cities like Paris, London, Toronto and Tokyo -- all places with a strong tradition of central planning -- growth continues to follow the preference of citizens to look for lower-density communities. High energy prices and convenient transit have not stopped most of these cities from continuing to lose population to their ever-expanding suburban rings.
But nowhere is this commitment to low-density living greater than in the U.S. Roughly 51% of Americans, according to recent polls, prefer to live in the suburbs, while only 13% opt for life in a dense urban place. A third would go for an even more low-density existence in the countryside. The preference for suburban-style living continues to be particularly strong among younger families. Market trends parallel these opinions. Despite widespread media exposure about a massive "return to the city," demographic data suggest that the tide continues to go out toward suburbia, which now accounts for two-thirds of the population in our large metropolitan areas. Since 2000, suburbs have accounted for 85% of all growth in these areas. And much of the growth credited to "cities" has actually taken place in the totally suburb-like fringes of places like Phoenix, Orlando and Las Vegas.|WSJ|[Sub'n Req'd]
A senior British officer has criticised the US army for its conduct in Iraq, accusing it of institutional racism, moral righteousness, misplaced optimism, and of being ill-suited to engage in counter-insurgency operations.
The blistering critique, by Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, who was the second most senior officer responsible for training Iraqi security forces, reflects criticism and frustration voiced by British commanders of American military tactics.
What is startling is the severity of his comments - and the decision by Military Review, a US army magazine, to publish them.
American soldiers, says Brig Aylwin-Foster, were "almost unfailingly courteous and considerate". But he says "at times their cultural insensitivity, almost certainly inadvertent, arguably amounted to institutional racism".
The US army, he says, is imbued with an unparalleled sense of patriotism, duty, passion and talent. "Yet it seemed weighed down by bureaucracy, a stiflingly hierarchical outlook, a predisposition to offensive operations and a sense that duty required all issues to be confronted head-on."
Brig Aylwin-Foster says the American army's laudable "can-do" approach paradoxically led to another trait, namely "damaging optimism". Such an ethos, he says, "is unhelpful if it discourages junior commanders from reporting unwelcome news up the chain of command".
But his central theme is that US military commanders have failed to train and educate their soldiers in the art of counter-insurgency operations and the need to cultivate the "hearts and minds" of the local population.
While US officers in Iraq criticised their allies for being too reluctant to use force, their strategy was "to kill or capture all terrorists and insurgents: they saw military destruction of the enemy as a strategic goal in its own right". In short, the brigadier says, "the US army has developed over time a singular focus on conventional warfare, of a particularly swift and violent kind".
Such an unsophisticated approach, ingrained in American military doctrine, is counter-productive, exacerbating the task the US faced by alienating significant sections of the population, argues Brig Aylwin-Foster.|Guardian|
Hearing specialists at centers such as the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles, Children's Hospital Boston and the American Academy of Audiology say the effect they are seeing now may be only the beginning, because accumulated noise damage can take years before it causes noticeable problems. "We're only seeing a few teenagers with hearing loss at this point," says Brian Fligor, director of diagnostic audiology at Children's Hospital Boston. But, he adds that many others may have subtle hearing loss that they have yet to recognize, "and by the time they do, they'll have done substantial damage."....
"We have really good information on how much noise exposure you can have over time," says Jennifer Derebery, an otolaryngologist at the House Ear Clinic. "But we have absolutely no idea if those levels are valid for a direct feed of sound into the ear."
The concerns are emerging as sales of MP3 players explode. Roughly 38 million MP3 players were shipped to U.S. retailers in 2005, according to forecasts by the research firm IDC, and an estimated 28% of the U.S. population owns a player. Apple controls about 70% of the MP3 player market, according to the research firm NPD Group. At peak levels iPods can hit volumes close to 115 decibels, research has found -- a level that falls somewhere between a chainsaw and jackhammer -- but all MP3 players pose an equal theoretical risk.|Wall Street Journal| (sub'n req'd)(emphasis added)
But I don't know these fantasy liberals who don't think that IQ tests don't measure anything. They measure something, certainly, and something we associate with "intelligence," no matter how imperfect a measure of a complicated thing they may be.
What liberals generally don't think is that IQ tests generally and the AFQT score specifically are a measure of "innate" intelligence, and certainly not a measure of genetically-drive-only-innate intelligence.
But with the aid of advanced brainscanning technology, researchers are beginning to show that meditation directly affects the function and structure of the brain, changing it in ways that appear to increase attention span, sharpen focus and improve memory.
One recent study found evidence that the daily practice of meditation thickened the parts of the brain's cerebral cortex responsible for decision making, attention and memory. Sara Lazar, a research scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital, presented preliminary results last November that showed that the gray matter of 20 men and women who meditated for just 40 minutes a day was thicker than that of people who did not. Unlike in previous studies focusing on Buddhist monks, the subjects were Boston-area workers practicing a Western-style of meditation called mindfulness or insight meditation. "We showed for the first time that you don't have to do it all day for similar results," says Lazar. What's more, her research suggests that meditation may slow the natural thinning of that section of the cortex that occurs with age.
Mayor Leers [of the Maastricth] has told the Dutch parliament that the licensing system that allows coffee shops to sell 5g of cannabis to each customer should be extended, to allow them to grow their own plants.
"They should have a permit to grow their own cannabis so that they can cut their ties with the criminals," the mayor says. "That way we can control things. At the moment our system is so hypocritical."
...[On the other side of the spectrum:]
Right-wing politicians in the Netherlands say that drugs tourism, and the contradictions this has revealed in the cannabis laws, show that liberalisation has had its day. They oppose the Maastricht mayor's call for coffee shops to be given growers' licences.
"That would only mean more drugs tourists and encourage the criminals," says Christian Democrat MP Cisca Joldersma.
She wants most of the coffee shops to be closed down and a different sort of licence to be issued - an identity card for Dutch cannabis users, so that foreigners would be kept out of the shops that remained.
"The drugs market is a global market," Mrs Joldersma says. "So we cannot have our liberal policy in isolation."|BBC|
The dangers of drugs should not be underestimated, but nor should they be exaggerated. With the exception of heroin, drugs contribute to far fewer deaths among their users than either nicotine or alcohol. In America, for instance, tobacco kills proportionately more smokers than heroin kills its users, and alcohol kills more drinkers than cocaine kills its devotees.|Link|
It may seem distasteful to think of drugs as a business, responding to normal economic signals. To do so, however, is not to deny the fact that the drugs trade rewards some of the world's nastiest people and most disagreeable countries. Nor is it to underestimate the harm that misuse of drugs can do to the health of individuals, or the moral fury that drug-taking can arouse. For many people, indeed, the debate is a moral one, akin to debates about allowing divorce, say, or abortion. But moral outrage has turned out to be a poor basis for policy.
Nowhere is that more evident than in the United States. Here is the world's most expensive drugs policy, absorbing $35 billion-40 billion a year of taxpayers' cash. It has eroded civil liberties, locked up unprecedented numbers of young blacks and Hispanics, and corroded foreign policy. It has proved a dismal rerun of America's attempt, in 1920-33, to prohibit the sale of alcohol. That experiment—not copied in any other big country—inflated alcohol prices, promoted bootleg suppliers, encouraged the spread of guns and crime, increased hard-liquor drinking and corrupted a quarter of the federal enforcement agents, all within a decade. Half a century from now, America's current drugs policy may seem just as perverse as Prohibition. |Link|
Will our current environmental crisis lead to the economic or social collapse of civilization? In the face of patently unsustainable consumption of natural resources, and the almost complete lack of political awareness of our leaders and most of the public, is this not inevitable? Global warming is now in progress, food production per capita has been declining for decades, oil production may peak in the next five years or so, soil erosion and deforestation are rampant, water tables are falling almost everywhere that it matters. |Link|
has made photo blogging incredibly easy. And so long as the poster's privacy settings allow, you can blog any photo on Flickr.
Actually, I think the recommendations are spot on. The original Planet of the Apes movies were chock full of anti-racist social commentary, though it's easy enough to miss it if you're distracted by the spectacle of talking apes (or, alternately, talking humans). By grouping Planet with those other films, Wal-Mart is pushing a reading of the film that progressives ought to embrace.
Bacon snack bars
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 pkg. (2.8 oz.) OSCAR MAYER Real Bacon Recipe Pieces
4 tsp. TANG Orange Flavor Drink Mix
3 cups POST HONEY BUNCHES OF OATS Cereal, any variety
MIX sugar and syrup in large saucepan. Bring just to boil on medium heat, stirring frequently. Remove from heat.
ADD peanut butter; stir until well blended. Stir in bacon pieces and drink mix. Add cereal; mix well.
PRESS evenly into greased 8-inch square pan. Cool completely before cutting into 12 bars to serve.
|kraftfoods.com|
That's a great G.O.P. talking point: some Democrats are so sleazy, they get involved with the likes of us.
| link |
"I put out a proposal that I thought would be most palatable to the union, and it turns out I was wrong," he said in an interview. Before the strike, Roger Toussaint, the president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, had repeatedly said he would not accept a pension plan that did not treat future workers the same as current ones.
Mr. Kalikow, who was appointed by Gov. George E. Pataki in 2001, defended the settlement reached last week as fair. He said the union's main concession - having workers for the first time pay part of their health-insurance premiums - was more valuable than the pension demands that were ultimately abandoned.
"It didn't matter to me where I got the savings," he said.
One Senate Republican aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Republicans soon will unveil ethics reform legislation in an effort to blunt criticism from Democrats that they have fostered a "culture of corruption" in Washington.
Out on the stage came four women, and one got so excited when she saw us she barely did her routine before jumping off the stage and landing in my lap, grabbing my boobs and pulling me into her chest. It was the beginning of what was to be our nonconsensual relationship. She grabbed my head and pushed my face between her tits -- of steel. My nose hit her breastbone -- bonk! She smashed her boobs together around my face -- bonk, bonk! Hard, everything was hard. My nose hurt. I didn’t know what to do -- there was no pleasant squishiness, like when you nuzzle a pair of soft, yummy boobies. Suddenly I was covered in perfume, ack. The woman and her blonde coworker summoned us into the other room, with another stage and several padded tables surrounded by chairs. We sat at a table near the stage, (which was on hydraulics and I thought was pretty neato) and after a song the same two women came over to our table, led mostly by the hard-boob lady, who was actually enthusiastic and cute. They threw a blanket over the table, got up on it, and performed cunnilingus for about one minute, with the blonde in my lap and the other with her legs spread in my face and her left high heel hooked around Hornboy's neck. I was beginning to appreciate subtlety in all its forms. This wasn't it.
