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ISSN: 1525-898X
Observations by and for the vaguely disenchanted by Kevin G. Barkes

 

Conceived above a saloon, delivered into this world by a masked man identified by his heavily sedated mother as Captain Video, raised by a kindly West Virginian woman, a mild-mannered former reporter with modest delusions of grandeur and no tolerance of idiots and the intellectually dishonest.

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network solutions made me a child pornographer!
The sordid details...

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Anniversary

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Requiem for a fictional Scotsman

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Oh my God! They killed Library!! Those bastards!!!

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Elegy to a Mostly Maine Coon

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It's a Hap-Hap-Happy Day

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A Pittsburgher in the Really Big City

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Da Burg Annat

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I Have Issues

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Yeah, yeah, I'm inspired

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At least the rivers freeze in Pittsburgh

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He knows if yinz is a jagoff

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Please support KGB Report by making your amazon.com purchases through our affiliate link:
 

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dcl dialogue online!

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no. we're not that kgb.

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KGB, CIA linked

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The Carbolic Smoke Ball
Superb satire, and based in Pittsburgh!

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Americans United for Separation of Church and State

"No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
Article VI, U.S. Constitution

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Geek of the Week, 7/16/2000

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Cruel Site of the Day, 7/15/2000

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miscellany

Hard to describe.

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"a breezy writing style and a cool mix of tidbits"

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Our riveting and morally compelling...

Privacy statement

One of  51,847 random quotes. Please CTRL-F5 to refresh the page.

	kgbreport.com Web

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(July 2000 and earlier)

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Saturday, November 04, 2006
posted by KGB at 3:26 PM (permalink)

Quote of the day

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Friday, November 03, 2006
posted by KGB at 8:45 AM (permalink)

Quote of the day

President Bush warned Democrats not to celebrate too early. This is from the guy who put up the "Mission Accomplished" sign three years ago.
-Jay Leno

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Thursday, November 02, 2006
posted by KGB at 7:18 AM (permalink)

No good deed goes unpunished

So, I reinstall and run CMS Bounceback Pro backup software, and now my system will only boot in safe mode, the System Restore utility won't run, and I'm compiling a list of FCC-banned obscenities to hurl at CMS' support department when they straggle in this morning.

God, I hate Windows.

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posted by KGB at 7:15 AM (permalink)

Quote of the day

Most people assume the fights are going to be the left versus the right, but it always is the reasonable versus the jerks.
-Jimmy Wales, Keynote Speech, SXSW 2006

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Wednesday, November 01, 2006
posted by KGB at 5:37 PM (permalink)

Quote of the day

The Senator, in essence, called Mr. Bush stupid. The context was unmistakable: Texas, the state of denial, stuck in Iraq. No interpretation required. And Mr. Bush and his minions responded, by appearing to be too stupid to realize that they had been called stupid. They demanded Kerry apologize to the troops in Iraq.

That phrase "appearing to be too stupid" is used deliberately, Mr. Bush. Because there are only three possibilities here. One, sir, is that you are far more stupid than the worst of your critics have suggested; that you cannot follow the construction of a simple sentence; that you cannot recognize your own life story when it is deftly summarized; nor know it is the sad ledger of your presidency that is being recounted by a political opponent.

This, of course, compliments you, Mr. Bush, because even those who do not "make the most of it," who do not "study hard," who do not "do their homework," and who do not "make an effort to be smart" might still be just stupid, but honest.

-Keith Olbermann

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posted by KGB at 5:23 PM (permalink)

Beware the twitchy Crack Squirrel, my son...

He wrote: "I don't think they would be any match for the fearsome Brixton Crack Squirrel, which feeds entirely on discarded rocks of crack cocaine and is generally rather bolshy for such a small creature. They used to hang out in the little park in front of the Ritzy Cinema, twitching spastically, dancing to music only they could hear and generally creating a malevolent ambience." After featuring in the Guardian last Saturday, Rik wrote on Monday: "Imagine my surprise and delight on Saturday morning to see my Brixton Crack Squirrels post quoted in The Guardian! Apparently it is a burgeoning urban legend, which is funny, because I just made it up." Bah.

Bloody bloggers. (Full story here.)

(Sorry, Leslie. You know how I get.)

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posted by KGB at 11:50 AM (permalink)

If I had known, I would have bought a card....

According to "The Quote For Today" service by EZInstall, on this date, "Sex [was] invented by microorganisms," although no year is given.

While I can find no official sources claiming credit for "Invention of Sex Day," may I suggest that it be observed, say, on Fridays or Saturdays? If we can shift the observance of Memorial Day for convenience, we can do it for this one, too.

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posted by KGB at 3:27 AM (permalink)

WWBJES

Or, "What Would Be Jesus' Exit Strategy?"

I'm in the middle of Gary Wills' recent book, What Jesus Meant, a must-read by those who object to the hijacking of government by the Christian Right and the irritating "What Would Jesus Do?" phenomenon. The book is also essential ammunition for those wanting a scholarly refutation of the distorted and deliberately misinterpreted teachings of Jesus which this administration has been using to justify many of its decidedly unchristian aims.

Wills has an essay in the current The New York Review of Books in which he shows the damage caused by "faith-based" inititatives:

A Country Ruled by Faith
By Garry Wills

The right wing in America likes to think that the United States government was, at its inception, highly religious, specifically highly Christian, and even more specifically highly biblical. That was not true of that government or any later government- until 2000, when the fiction of the past became the reality of the present. George W. Bush was not only born-again, like Jimmy Carter. His religious conversion came late, and took place in the political setting of Billy Graham's ministry to the powerful. He was converted during a stroll with Graham on his father's Kennebunkport compound. It is true that Dwight Eisenhower was guided to baptism by Graham. But Eisenhower was a famous and formed man, the principal military figure of World War II, the leader of NATO, the president of Columbia University- his change in religious orientation was just an addition to many prior achievements. Bush's conversion at a comparatively young stage in his life was a wrenching away from mainly wasted years. He joined a Bible study culture in Texas that was unlike anything Eisenhower bought into.

Bush was a saved alcoholic- and here, too, he had no predecessor in the White House. Ulysses Grant conquered the bottle, but not with the help of Jesus. Other presidents were evangelicals. Three of them belonged to the Disciples of Christ- James Garfield, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan. But none of the three- nor any of the other forty-two presidents preceding Bush (including his father)- would have answered a campaign debate question as he did. Asked who was his favorite philosopher, he said "Jesus Christ." And why? "Because he changed my heart." Over and over, when he said anything good about someone else- including Vladimir Putin- he said it was because "he has a good heart," which is evangelical-speak (as in "condoms cannot change your heart"). Bush talks evangelical talk as no other president has, including Jimmy Carter, who also talked the language of the secular Enlightenment culture that evangelists despise. Bush told various evangelical groups that he felt God had called him to run for president in 2000: "I know it won't be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it."

Bush promised his evangelical followers faith-based social services, which he called "compassionate conservatism." He went beyond that to give them a faith-based war, faith-based law enforcement, faith-based education, faith-based medicine, and faith-based science. He could deliver on his promises because he stocked the agencies handling all these problems, in large degree, with born-again Christians of his own variety. The evangelicals had complained for years that they were not able to affect policy because liberals left over from previous administrations were in all the health and education and social service bureaus, at the operational level. They had specific people they objected to, and they had specific people with whom to replace them, and Karl Rove helped them do just that.

...

There is a particular danger with a war that God commands. What if God should lose? That is unthinkable to the evangelicals. They cannot accept the idea of second-guessing God, and he was the one who led them into war. Thus, in 2006, when two thirds of the American people told pollsters that the war in Iraq was a mistake, the third of those still standing behind it were mainly evangelicals (who make up about one third of the population). It was a faith-based certitude.

Read the entire article here

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Tuesday, October 31, 2006
posted by KGB at 12:41 AM (permalink)

Quote of the day

At Halloween, he really didn't care much for trick or treating. He would rather stay at home. I found he was upstairs and he'd have water balloons. Sometimes when the little children would leave, he would drop them down [on them].
-Millie Limbaugh
(the mother of Rush, to "Southeast Missourian," a newspaper, as reported by Evan Thomas, Newsweek, Oct. 20, 2003 https://www.msnbc.com/news/979357.asp)

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posted by KGB at 12:39 AM (permalink)

Why is it...

... that comedians are the only ones willing to ask the tough questions these days?

You're trying to put words in my mouth just the way you put artificial facts in your head.
-David Letterman

...and...

O'Reilly: Do you want the United States to win in Iraq?
Letterman: First of all, I...
O'Reilly: [interrupting] It's an easy question. If you don't want the United States to win in Iraq...
Letterman: [interrupting] It's not easy for me, because I'm thoughtful.

See Dave call O'Reilly a bonehead and more at Crooks and Liars.

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Monday, October 30, 2006
posted by KGB at 9:29 AM (permalink)

Quote of the day

One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in their struggle for independence.
-Charles Austin Beard

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Sunday, October 29, 2006
posted by KGB at 6:49 AM (permalink)

Jumping the shark

Television's longest running show, Guiding Light, is teaming up with Marvel Comics to produce a very special "Inside the Light" episode unveiling a new super powered character, to be broadcast Nov. 1. The episode, titled "She's a Marvel," written by head writer David Kreizman, focuses on mild mannered and harried cop, mother and wife Harley Davidson Cooper, played by Beth Ehlers. Zapped by an electrical current, Cooper finds herself infused with the energy, and is able to channel it, giving her the powers of a superhero- levitation and electricity conduction. How will her new powers affect her life?

(If it were me, I would use them to change the channel.)

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Copyright © 1987-2024 by Kevin G. Barkes
All rights reserved.
Violators will be prosecuted.
So there.  
The kgb@kgb.com e-mail address is now something other than kgb@kgb.com saga.
kgbreport.com used to be kgb.com until December, 2007 when the domain name broker Trout Zimmer made an offer I couldn't refuse. Giving up kgb.com and adopting kgbreport.com created a significant problem, however. I had acquired the kgb.com domain name in 1993, and had since that time used kgb@kgb.com as my sole e-mail address. How to let people know that kgb@kgb.com was no longer kgb@kgb.com but rather kgbarkes@gmail.com which is longer than kgb@kgb.com and more letters to type than kgb@kgb.com and somehow less aesthetically pleasing than kgb@kgb.com but actually just as functional as kgb@kgb.com? I sent e-mails from the kgb@kgb.com address to just about everybody I knew who had used kgb@kgb.com in the past decade and a half but noticed that some people just didn't seem to get the word about the kgb@kgb.com change. So it occurred to me that if I were generate some literate, valid text in which kgb@kgb.com was repeated numerous times and posted it on a bunch of different pages- say, a blog indexed by Google- that someone looking for kgb@kgb.com would notice this paragraph repeated in hundreds of locations, would read it, and figure out that kgb@kgb.com no longer is the kgb@kgb.com they thought it was. That's the theory, anyway. kgb@kgb.com. Ok, I'm done. Move along. Nothing to see here...