Sherry Chandler

You have no doubt already heard the DHS has cut the anti-terrorism funds for New York City by 40%. The Blotter at ABC News is reporting why:

New York has no national monuments or icons, according to the Department of Homeland Security form obtained by ABC News. (Click here for the actual document.) That was a key factor used to determine that New York City should have its anti-terror funds slashed by 40 percent–from $207.5 million in 2005 to $124.4 million in 2006.

The formula did not consider as landmarks or icons: The Empire State Building, The United Nations, The Statue of Liberty and others found on several terror target hit lists. It also left off notable landmarks, such as the New York Public Library, Times Square, City Hall and at least three of the nation’s most renowned museums: The Guggenheim, The Metropolitan and The Museum of Natural History.

Link found on Eschaton.

Y’all remember a while back I shared some thoughts on irises, including a comment from an anonymous friend who prefers hard-working annuals.

Said friend has now revealed herself to be Georgia Green Stamper, who has expanded her thoughts into an entire Georgia: On My Mind column in the Owenton News-Herald.

I have a love affair with annual flowers — geraniums, impatiens, begonias, petunias and their kin. They only last one season, but they work hard while they’re here, sort of like that old country song — they live fast, love hard, die young, and leave a happy memory.

With just a little planting effort on my part in the spring and a splash of Miracle Grow every week or so, my annuals prance and make sweet music for me until the Ice Man cometh. I’m especially fond of geraniums (although my daughter and son-in-law dismiss them as too 1970s. Who knew geraniums hit their peak of popularity in the 70s, I respond, without giving them a lecture on the history of horticulture.) Out of style or not, I think geraniums strut — especially the red ones. They’re the drum majors of my parade. I put them in large pots, and they do all the rest.

Wave petunias are my rank and file flirting from window boxes and planters

Read the rest. And remember, you saw it first here.

Here’s where I prove that I’m an old poop.

I woke up this morning asking myself this burning question (oh no, another one!):

Did Lenny Bruce get busted for obscenity three times, fight it all the way to the Supreme Court, and die bankrupt on the crapper of a heroin overdose where the cops put the needle back in his arm and took photos, did Lenny Bruce do all this so Jim Carrey could get rich pretending to talk out of his ass?

Is this an example of irony?

Or just the law of unintended consequences?