The Machinery of Night

Posted 8:46 AM by Angie Schultz

Man Pummeled by Moustache, Film at 11

News of the Future, 20 hours from now: Hay-on-Wye, Wales-and-not-at-all-Herefordshire

A man was thrashed today at the Hay Festival while attempting to "arrest" John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. The man, whom witnesses identified as noted intellectual lightweight George Monbiot, had barely confronted Bolton when Bolton's formidable moustache, Regis, acting of its own accord, executed a perfect body scissors on Monbiot. Soon Regis was delivering a two-lobed paddling on Monbiot's exposed and reddened gluteus maximus.

Monbiot, best known for being the inspiration for the epithet "moonbat", had earlier announced plans to perform a "citizen's arrest" of Bolton for the "crime" of advocating the Iraq War. Monbiot reasoned that Bolton's culpability stemmed from his being among the signatories to a 1998 letter to then-President Clinton urging regime change in Iraq.

Reporters' questions regarding Monbiot's own advocacy of Iraqi regime change were unanswered as of this writing. Many questioned whether Monbiot would be willing to accept responsibility for the massacres that no doubt would have resulted from that untried scheme. This reporter's guess is: Hell, no.

It is presently unknown whether Monbiot faces any charges over the incident, or whether he will simply be slapped on the wrist and sent to bed without his organic fair trade nonfat soy latte.

Neither Bolton nor Regis was injured in the encounter.

Via Rantburg.

NOTE: Sorry for the paucity of posts, imaginary readers.

UPDATE: Guess our crystal ball was on the fritz. The Telegraph has the story: Monbiot escapes righteous pounding by "Regis". (OK, so that's not the real headline, but it oughta be.)

Posted 7:12 AM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Bloch Fountain

To be technical, this is the fountain in the Richard and Annette Block Cancer Survivors Plaza in Houston:

Bloch Fountain
Houston, TX, Oct. 2007

I like this picture because it looks as if I'm trying to sneak up on the fountain, afraid to approach it. That was pretty much the case: there were other people crawling around the park that day, taking pictures inside the gazebo there, and I had to stand in one place to get a shot where they were hidden behind the columns. The large building in the background (Warwick Towers, according to Google Maps) kind of spoils the effect, but I could scarcely have it demolished. Not on such short notice, anyway.

If you're having trouble seeing the fountain, well, so was I. It's in there somewhere.

This is on the corner of Hermann Park, between the Mecom Fountain and the Natural History Museum.

It turns out that this is one of a chain, if you will, of parks dedicated to cancer survivors, set up by Richard Bloch. Read all about it here. Richard would be the R in H&R Bloch. There are 21 such parks (so far) scattered around the U.S., plus one in Canada. Start the virtual tour here. The descriptions each mention a computer -- noting where the computer is within the park -- but the purpose of the computer doesn't seem to be explained anywhere. I didn't see any computer; perhaps I didn't go into the gazebo, what with the plague of tourists. The Houston park surely must be the smallest of them (as suggested here, on what seems to be an earlier version of the park page -- some of the pictures are slightly different).

Check out the New Orleans park! Looks like the Rosicrucians have conquered Las Vegas. The Rancho Mirage park looks like an alien version of Disneyland ("PYRAMID POWER"). OK, now I want to collect the set, go to all those cities and photograph the parks. It would certainly give me something to do, should I ever be stuck in Indianapolis or Omaha.

Labels: Foto Friday, Texas