Friday, April 09, 2004
The Days Of Our Lives
This day, Tresy has returned from Paris. We may love Paris in the Springtime, (and we do) but we love Tresy all the days of our lives.
And now to two of our Friday not-regular features:
TODAYS QUESTION: Who said or implied that there was a "silver bullet" that could have prevented 9/11, by which, to be completely clear, we mean what happened on that day in 2001, and do not mean could have prevented the date or the day themselves from happening?
ANSWER TO TODAY'S QUESTION: No one. Absolutely no one. Mention of a "silver bullet" in relation to 9/11 occurred only in Condi Rice's rhetorical answer yesterday, during her public testimony in front of the 9/11 Commission, to a non-existent accusation.
TODAYS RIDDLE:
If 233 is the answer, what are the questions?
Okay, it's a trick question. Here's a hint. Yes, there are two correct answers.
Another hint: If 78 is the question, what is the answer? Or, if 5 is the answer, what is the question? Last hint: If 500 is the answer, what are the questions? Yes, there are two correct answers to that one, too.
If we were as classy as the NYTimes Sunday Crossword Puzzle, we'd withhold the answer until tomorrow.
But we ain't, so here are the answers:*
233 is the number of days the Bush administration had been in office on the morning of 9/11, 2001; to be absolutely clear, that number does not refer only to that morning; the entire day was their 233rd day in office. For the reference see Condi Rice and at least one of the Commissioners.
233 is also the number of days since taking office that President George W. Bush has spent at his Crawford Texas ranch.
78 is the number of visits since taking office that he has made to Camp David.
5 is the number of visits since taking office that he has made to the family manse in Kennebunkport.
500 is the number of total days, thus far, that President Bush has spent in visits to these three "retreats."
500 days is also 40% of the number of days, thus far, that President Bush has been in office.
Please note: farmtoons accompanying illustration can be found here
We apologize if we may have seemed excessively tendentious in our phrasing of this post, but we are blogging under oath today. Exactly what oath we are, unfortunately, unable to specify in a PG-13 world, and on this, a family blog.**
*Answers courtesy of Josh Marshall and the WaPo.
**This is a family blog in the sense that all who post here are members of their own families, we like to think of Corrente and its readers as one kind of family and blogtopia, (thank-you skippy) itself as a proudly post-modern extended family that includes all manner of humankind, elfkind, hobbits, all animals, all non-vertebrates, all manner of flora and fauna, the oceans and all other waters, rising and not rising, the very planet itself, and all the rest of the universe. ***
***Andrew Sullivan liberal idiocy or liberal self-parody prophylactic: This statement is a willful exaggeration (see also irony, parody, and satire) of liberal inclusivity, though it is true that I loved the three Lord of the Ring movies, am inordinately fond of animals, wild and domesticated, plants as well as foodcrops, cultivated and uncultivated, as well as the planet itself and its human inhabitants, in the sense that Gary Snyder means in his brilliant little book, "The Practice Of The Wild," and I love a fair number of those humans; I'm not that fond of the universe - fascinating yes, but also awfully scary.
Updated for numerical accuracy: the correct number should have been 233, not 322. I win the booby prize.
UPDATE See farmer's portrait of President Vacation.
And now to two of our Friday not-regular features:
TODAYS QUESTION: Who said or implied that there was a "silver bullet" that could have prevented 9/11, by which, to be completely clear, we mean what happened on that day in 2001, and do not mean could have prevented the date or the day themselves from happening?
ANSWER TO TODAY'S QUESTION: No one. Absolutely no one. Mention of a "silver bullet" in relation to 9/11 occurred only in Condi Rice's rhetorical answer yesterday, during her public testimony in front of the 9/11 Commission, to a non-existent accusation.
TODAYS RIDDLE:
If 233 is the answer, what are the questions?
Okay, it's a trick question. Here's a hint. Yes, there are two correct answers.
Another hint: If 78 is the question, what is the answer? Or, if 5 is the answer, what is the question? Last hint: If 500 is the answer, what are the questions? Yes, there are two correct answers to that one, too.
If we were as classy as the NYTimes Sunday Crossword Puzzle, we'd withhold the answer until tomorrow.
But we ain't, so here are the answers:*
233 is the number of days the Bush administration had been in office on the morning of 9/11, 2001; to be absolutely clear, that number does not refer only to that morning; the entire day was their 233rd day in office. For the reference see Condi Rice and at least one of the Commissioners.
233 is also the number of days since taking office that President George W. Bush has spent at his Crawford Texas ranch.
78 is the number of visits since taking office that he has made to Camp David.
5 is the number of visits since taking office that he has made to the family manse in Kennebunkport.
500 is the number of total days, thus far, that President Bush has spent in visits to these three "retreats."
500 days is also 40% of the number of days, thus far, that President Bush has been in office.
Please note: farmtoons accompanying illustration can be found here
We apologize if we may have seemed excessively tendentious in our phrasing of this post, but we are blogging under oath today. Exactly what oath we are, unfortunately, unable to specify in a PG-13 world, and on this, a family blog.**
*Answers courtesy of Josh Marshall and the WaPo.
**This is a family blog in the sense that all who post here are members of their own families, we like to think of Corrente and its readers as one kind of family and blogtopia, (thank-you skippy) itself as a proudly post-modern extended family that includes all manner of humankind, elfkind, hobbits, all animals, all non-vertebrates, all manner of flora and fauna, the oceans and all other waters, rising and not rising, the very planet itself, and all the rest of the universe. ***
***Andrew Sullivan liberal idiocy or liberal self-parody prophylactic: This statement is a willful exaggeration (see also irony, parody, and satire) of liberal inclusivity, though it is true that I loved the three Lord of the Ring movies, am inordinately fond of animals, wild and domesticated, plants as well as foodcrops, cultivated and uncultivated, as well as the planet itself and its human inhabitants, in the sense that Gary Snyder means in his brilliant little book, "The Practice Of The Wild," and I love a fair number of those humans; I'm not that fond of the universe - fascinating yes, but also awfully scary.
Updated for numerical accuracy: the correct number should have been 233, not 322. I win the booby prize.
UPDATE See farmer's portrait of President Vacation.
