Freudian Slip

“We strongly believe that, given its size, its history, the region that it’s in and the threats that are leveled against us — against it, that Israel has unique security requirements,” Mr. Obama said, briefly correcting himself in midsentence. “It’s got to be able to respond to threats or any combination of threats in the region.”

The Comatose Blagojevich

This is probably the worst defense I've ever heard:

'''You have to be comatose not to figure out how to get a dollar out of $52 billion,' Adam said, referring to the Illinois state budget. 'But who didn't? Him!' he said indicating his client."

Sorry, Robert Gibbs.

“Sometimes it feels like we walk and chew gum and juggle on a unicycle all at the same time. I get that.”

Either President Obama is sometimes doing the impossible, or using mixed metaphors does not preclude you from being the press secretary for the White House. (I'm thinking it's the latter.)

Sorry, Mr. Gibbs, but I fail to see how the president can (metaphorically) walk while being on a unicycle.

I don't get that.

Paranoia

Michael Oren ends his Op-Ed piece in the New York Times as follows:

"The real peace activists are those who support our vision of a two-state solution, not those supporting the terrorists bent on destroying it."

This is an obvious either/or fallacy: either you are for peace on Israel's terms (my interpretation of the use of "our vision...etc"), or you are supporting terrorism (if not a terrorist yourself). Mr. Oren goes even further because he also defines what it means to be a "peace activist" with the inclusion of the adjective "real"--anyone claiming to be a peace activist who does not agree with Israel's terms for peace is a pretender or a fake. Mr. Oren's statement does not include--in fact it eliminates--a multitude of other possible ways for peace in the region.

Ending the article in this way belies a paranoia on the part of Israel (if I can assume that the Israeli Embassador to the United States can speak on behalf of a nation). Whether or not this paranoia can be justified is an entirely different matter, and I cannot possibly argue that here. But Mr. Oren's statement does separate the entire world into two groups: those that support Israel, and those that are bent on its destruction.

The world is not as simple as that, Mr. Oren.

Insanity.

"But it [addiction to the internet] seems to be an affliction of modern life. In one extreme example in South Korea reported by the media, a couple allegedly neglected their three-month-old daughter, who died of malnutrition, because they were on the computer for up to 12 hours a day raising a virtual child."

Worst Rejection Letter Ever.

Re: FT Inst - English Composition
Division: Humanities
ID# 13129

Thank you for your interest in applying for the above referenced position. There were many fine candidates; however, after a careful review of application materials submitted, the screening committee selected other candidates for further consideration.

We encourage you to apply for future openings for which you may qualify and wish you the best of success in fulfilling your career objectives.

It doesn't say I am a fine candidate, nor does it say the school in question chose better qualified candidates "for further consideration." The letter merely states facts, and then suggests I try again. Considering how I applied for this position in January, and that I will be going to school in the fall, I don't think I will.

Speechwright II

All right it’s 9:40 a.m. on September 15, 2009. I just recorded this dream and I realize that the stupid thing was on hold, so I didn’t get any of it. So I’m going to try again and record it. I think this would be a good story idea. So it’s three friends on the train: one is in military get-up, like 16^th—17^th Century British military get-up, like long overcoat, white like pantaloons and black boots, brown hair, really long nose, this guy is holding a newspaper and reading an article about two brothers that killed themselves over this fortune at this one station that I guess we’re heading to. And it’s me and another guy, the other guy that’s not holding the paper that’s not me, I have no visual on him, I guess I can fill him up later when I write—he’s just not there, really, I can’t get a visual. But we’re sitting like in the cabin of this train, and it’s kind of like an old train, maybe it’s set like in Victorian times, or maybe just for the surrealistic effect I can just put it—um I probably won’t supply a year. But anyway, um… So we get to this station after the trip, and the station is like a bizarre like circus kind of station. There’s lots of Victorian dressed people, women in large hoop-skirts and dresses and lots of feathers and lots of horses, grey, blue, different colored horses, white, um and there’s like rails, like train lines, like those kind of rails, but there’re horses on it like pulling people, and it’s just like practically standing room only. Me and my two friends are walking around, and it’s kind of—the vision’s on me, like I can hardly see my two friends in this part of the dream. So we’re just walking around in a circle in this station. It’s like a covered—it’s indoors, like dark, like artificially lit, and we’ve been going around like the perimeter of this station and just like seeing all of this bizarre Victorian circus-like stuff. Just lots of horses, so many horses, and just people, and my friend holding the newspaper comments—I think it was him—I can’t remember who—but somebody mentions that like all the food has been eaten. And there was like large like plates and bowls that are around the edges or something that just have been completely devoured of food—like meats and stuff like that were once there and it’s just gone. Everything has been eaten. And there are all these people just like on horseback that are just parading around, and we make like a circle around—we make three circles, I think I may have mentioned this already—we make three circles, and suddenly like the train station kind of like opens up---it’s almost like a garage door how it opens up, like this large portion just suddenly just lifts, and there’s green, like lush green land, and blue skies, and like all these people make this exodus out from this train station out into these fields. And so that’s the, it looks like we’re going to follow them, and I’m kind of following them, but my two friends they make a sharp left before they actually leave the train station. So I’m following, I kind of step outside and then I turn and realize that they’re kind of over there so I kind of follow them. So I follow them out through another doorway that’s open off to the left of this large opening, it’s not too far. But like it’s just kind of a door way, and it opens off onto this landing. The landing’s like probably twice the size of my room or something like that—it’s kind of big, but it’s not too big. And it looks like, at first it looks like the landing is like completely solid wood and me and my friend the friend that doesn’t have the newspaper he’s we kind of step of towards the edge of the landing and look off to where the people are going, like these large kind of like a carnival or festival or picnic—some party going off beyond in the distance, like white tents and stuff are there. And um so, so we’re kind of busy doing that, and I guess the dream switches to third person now because even though I can see it it’s like I’m not there. It’s a really weird experience. But so I’m kind of doing that with my companion while this guy gets—Oh wait before I do that—I definitely have to clear this up in writing. But before I do that, like before I follow my companion who immediately does what I just described, I kind of like look over the edge of the landing that’s part of the cover of the train station, like this abandoned part of the train station, and I see two guys in the shape of a 69: one’s like holding a gun to other guy’s foot, and the other guy’s holding another gun to the other guy’s foot, so it’s like, kind of like this weird circle with holding guns um or they’re kind of rotting. The guns are like blunderbusses, they’re like really old like pistols, um and the guys are just they’re rotting. They’re not complete skeletons yet, but they are in the process of decomposing. And the pistols—the blunderbusses—are like rusted, and it’s just that weird circle. And they’re kind of indented into the soft, brown earth of the train station. I turn around and I say well this has got to be the spot because the image that I saw is in the photo of the newspaper in the newspaper article, I remember that from the train station, I have to remember to put that in writing. So I see that and the guy gets really excited, and he’s like searching—the guy with the newspaper was searching for the spot based on what the newspaper was saying, he’s kind of like flipping back and forth so he finds the spot. He starts cutting with some kind of knife or something like that, he starts cutting. It was like wood before but it’s kind of like he’s cutting through cardboard. It kind of weird it switches to like cardboard and there’s this green design like um the part that he’s cutting, it’s kind, it’s hard to describe, it’s circular like a like in comics those um the voice bubbles, it’s kind of shaped like that. And there’s like some woman or something, it could be an ad for fruit, but it’s green and it covers the spot liberally. So what happens is he cuts through that part and so he’s cutting through that part, and he cuts like a shoebox size piece through this cardboard woodish type surface on the landing, and me and the other guy is looking out to the fair during this time. And he’s cutting out, and he’s screaming he’s found it, and it’s difficult for him but he like kind of pulls out the box which is like kind of the same size—I don’t know he can’t peel back the top of it for some reason. The top is like stuck on it. But he kind of like somehow pulls out the box from underneath like he’s pulling out from a slit, but he actually cut a hole. It’s kind of weird. I might have to fix that. But he pulls out the gold. It’s a box. It’s like a shoebox size box. This whole time he’s like screaming like ridiculously, he’s found it nobody else has found it and he like opens up the box like kind of tears it open, which the box seems to also be made out of this weak kind of wood or cardboard, and he pulls it out and there’s like gold bars, but it’s not like the Fort Knox bars that you get, but like they look like chocolate bars, basically. They wrapped around in white like See’s candy, but the edges are gold like, it’s like a chocolate bar with gold filling or something. I don’t know that’s kind of what it looks like. And he’s like pulling out—what’s he doing? He’s like lifting them up, and the gold is like staining his hands, and it’s kind of like a reddish brown like chocolate would stain. Maybe it’s chocolate, I don’t know. But um he’s pulling it out, and it’s staining his hands but it’s not losing shape, it’s kind of weird, like they’re marked—like marked bills would do. And he’s holding them and he’s screaming to us that he’s found the treasure nobody else has found it, this was largely been ignored, it was y’know, it’s y’know, there’s nothing, nobody wanted this, or I don’t know. He’s just excited, he’s ecstatic, his face is completely in the throes of like ecstasy, he’s found something, he’s become rich. Whatever it is, he’s just completely lost in this, and he’s just screaming to us. We don’t seem to hear him and we’re still on the landing, so and it’s just me and that other guy—the nondescript guy—just looking out onto this field, and um then he, then what happens is, like for some reason I turn around for and I turn and there’s nobody there on the landing where like, he was kind of at our backs obviously, and when I turn around he’s not there, and I say, I turn to my friend and I’m like where did ______ go? He had a name, and I said a name in my dream, I just can’t remember what that name was. I said where ______ go? And the guy kind of like shrugs and looks completely disinterested—still don’t get a visual on his face even though I’m talking to him, and he kind of like turns and looks off into the fair and stuff, and I sort of do the same. And the dream kind of ends, with that guy and he’s inside the part, he’s inside the landing, and he’s holding that gold, and his eyes are kind of closed, and his face is kind of in bliss, but it’s kind of dark with some kind of weird inner light for the omniscient third that I can see. But he’s trapped inside and the part that he has cut in—the shoebox size part—has been sealed up, but with a like blank, clean cardboard so you could still see the edges of the um fruit around it, like the fruit design or whatever that was like the green edges are still around it and the design isn’t complete. It’s like if you had a cloth with a design, cut it out, cut out a portion of it, and then sown something white—it’s like the design isn’t complete but it’s still around it. That’s kind of how it is. So it’s something noticeable but me and my friend don’t notice or don’t care or whatever, and that’s kind of like how the dream is, he’s trapped inside with the gold and the thing has been sealed up fresh, and that was the dream. So obviously I have to fix some things when I listen to this again later, hopefully I caught everything. I think I might have said it a little faster than I did the first time, um, but, um I hope I can remember the kind of like the feel of especially like the circus at the station, and I’ll just supply I kind of missed like the names, and that’s it. I hope you can turn this into a story, Omer. That’s… end of tape.