Too many hours in a day.

Some people say that there are not enough hours in a day. I say quite the opposite, as long as we're talking about the:

24 Hour News Cycle.

Honestly, CNN, HLN, MSNBC, FOX, and whatever else I'm missing, have so bought into the idea that they have to be transmitting "news" 24 hours a day, that they have become blind to the fact that a great deal of what they transmit is not really news at all. A squirrel with its head caught in a yogurt container got several minutes of coverage the other day. The footage was sent in to HLN by a viewer, who, thankfully, then proceeded to remove the container from the squirrel. How is this news? It isn't. I think they should have a stoplight at the top of the screen, red, yellow and green. If it is real news, from real reporters, the green will light up, if it is not news, but entertaining or at least distracting, it will light up red. If it is questionable, maybe news, maybe not news, yellow. That's pretty simple, but it will never happen, because the red light would be on most of the time. I guess they have just redefined "news". And all of the viewer content is kind of ridiculous, too, with people sending (or... shudder... tweeting) in their opinion on stories, which then get read on the air. I honestly don't care what some random viewer thinks, and I would rather they not bother me with it. Maybe the 24 hour cycle is getting to the newsdrones, so they have to add viewer opinion to break the monotony and keep from going crazy.

Another sufferer of the 24 hour cycle is Comedy Central. I've been watching some of their stand up comedian's specials, and I'm sorry, but they're not that special. loud, rude and mean spirited seems to pass for funny these days. Sure, I had a chuckle or two, over the course of an hour, but these guys are playing to huge theaters, and the crowd is near hysterical with laughter. I just don't get it. But when you're called Comedy Central, you have to fill the entire day with what passes for comedy. Although they do play The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, several times a day, which is their crossover with the 24 hour news cycle, I suppose. And honestly, the reporting and most importantly the information in the reporting is usually vastly superior to what you can get on the all-news channels. And at least they get to run the infomercials overnight, which are actually funnier than a lot of the stand up they run during prime time.

Yet another rant about the rich.

Yes, yes. Once again, I'm going to rant about the rich, the rulers of this country and of the world.

You should be used to it by now.

The Rules for the Rich:
1. The Bottom Line is the ONLY Line.
2. People don't matter.
3. Any taxation is EVIL.
4. The pain of the people is unimportant.
5.The pain of the Rich must be passed on to the people.

What I'm trying to say is that during these hard economic times, when things have gotten so bad that even the ruling elite are feeling it, they will continue to complain about how they are suffering, and in turn, must pass that suffering on to the masses. Never mind that their tax cuts have not been rolled back or removed, never mind that they still live lavish, opulent lifestyles where they have to invent things to waste their money on, never mind that now they have the time and energy to mount tax protest "Tea Parties", complaining how heavily they are already taxed. Okay, let's lay it on the line once again: Taxes on the Rich were nearly eliminated on the theory of Trickle Down Economics. By this theory, if they are not taxed, they will reinvest the money that they would have been taxed into their businesses. That theory has proven absolutely wrong, time and time again. Instead of reinvesting, the rich have hoarded their money in tax havens like Switzerland and the Caribbean, or spent it on extreme luxury goods, partly just to rub it in the noses of the rest of us that they do not have to be concerned about getting by, and that the only definition of enough that they subscribe to is "Too Much". Honestly, the market for extreme luxury goods has not suffered in the slightest in this economy. If anything, it has increased, as the rich indulge themselves to relieve their pain at how the country is becoming socialist (which it isn't). "Spreading the Wealth Around" is not Socialism, it is just trying to make the rich aware of the fact that although they should not be punished for their success, they have to be made to realize that their success is made on the backs and the blood of the masses that they are so disdainful of. Henry Ford realized that his company could only succeed if it made a product that his own workers could afford, yet today we have a huge market for thousand dollar high-heel shoes, hundred thousand dollar handbags, three hundred thousand dollar wristwatches, and half million dollar cars. Do you honestly think that the price of those goods is at all reflected in the wages of the workers who produce them? No, the profits go to the business owners, in a part of the cycle of waste that is almost completely removed from the rest of the economy. What needs to happen is to completely remove the Reagan-Bush tax cuts, and to tell the whining rich that they have and are still benefiting hugely from the economy, more than everyone else, and now it is their responsibility to help the peasants for a while. Then, once the middle class is restored, they will start purchasing again, and that will more than make up for the taxes that you are now paying. Share the wealth, share the responsibility, share the rewards. And stop shaming the memory of the Boston Tea Party with you tax protests. The issue then was Taxation Without Representation, and as far as I can tell, you are more than adequately represented by our government, which is still, with a few notable, wonderful exceptions, a bunch of old, rich, white guys, running the country for the benefit of a bigger bunch of old, rich, white guys and their families. All we want is what was promised to us when your taxes were cut back to almost nothing. Give us that, and we'll leave you alone, and make you richer in the bargain. That shouldn't be too much to ask.

A solution to all our problems

Well, once again, another politician has been caught with his (literal) pants down. Perhaps they should just put saltpeter in the water at all government buildings in Washington DC. What is it about being elected, that makes your libido suddenly uncontrollable. You have to know that if you have to concoct an elaborate lie to cover your tracks, sooner or later you're going to get caught. Honestly, "I'm hiking the Appalachian Trail." has now become a euphemism. What for? You know. Don't be coy. And did he really think that he could sneak away TO ARGENTINA for a liaison with his mistress and that no one would notice that he was no where to be found? He didn't even bother to tell his vice-governor where he was. Then again, isn't he the VICE governor himself? That joke is too easy. So many politicians, Democrat, Republican and everything else are getting caught, it has led the "Log Cabin Republicans" (the gay republicans) group to say "And these are the guys who say that Gay Marriage would be a threat to the Sanctity of Straight Marriage?". They are right, and I have a solution.

All politicians must be female.

It's not a perfect solution, and I know that women are not infallible, but they certainly should be able to do a better job than the lying jerks we seem to have running the country now. Except for President Obama. I still think he has his head on straight. Then again, he is married to our first supermodel first lady. And have you seen her amazing arms? She could knock him across the Potomac, if he ever gave her reason. I personally emailed him with the suggestion that he make Hillary Clinton his Secretary of State, and he's never sent me a thank you.

Simply Amazing

I want to show this to every racist and small minded person everywhere.

Yeah, now that I've found out how to put videos in my blog, I'll try not to do it too often, but this one was too good to pass up.

Creative people freak me out.

I think these look cool, and fun. Personally, I'd decorate mine like freaky steampunk robot legs, and use them to crush my enemies, if I had any enemies, that is. But the second half of the video, when she puts on the horse outfit... shudder...... furries. I also expect to see these showing up at Renaissance festivals. Huzzah! Where I also see a lot of winged hairy demon dudes and their leather bustier clad "handlers". I don't remember that part of the renaissance. Mostly I remember the plagues, and the crusades. But maybe there were half horse people, winged hairy demon dudes and their bustier clad "handlers", elves, orcs, hobbits, and other fairy folk that I tend to forget because of, well, the plagues and the crusades. But that's just me.

More Dramatic Than I.

So, I'm big on getting free stuff. As I say:
"Free is Free". And I scour pages for free stuff to get. Today, I found that I could get a free deck of "Magic: The Gathering" cards, here:
http://www.wizards.com/promo/hereirule/

Once I signed up for my free deck, I got a page with the message on today's photo. PLEASE click the photo to biggify, for full JEEZ effect. When I read the message, I read the word "Planeswalker" as Plane Swalker, but I think they mean it as Planes Walker. I like my way better.

I've never played this type of game, or any D&D type game, to be honest. I have watched people, and by people I mean almost exclusively boys, play this type of game, and I've watched their eyes glaze over, their breathing speed up, and their communication reduce to a series of grunts and wails of pain or delight, as the game turns one way and then the next. It's all too OCD for me. But I'm looking forward to looking through a deck, anyway. Get your deck, and we'll battle, cluelessly. HUZZAH!

So happy, so freaking happy.

This photo has made me so happy, I can barely contain myself. He's gone. He's gone. He's gone. Of course, the damage that he has done will last for generations, and his toadies are busy trying to rewrite history to make him look like a hero rather than a total, unmitigated, complete, whole-hearted, 100% disaster. But he's gone, which is something at least.

So now the republicans are trying to obstruct everything the President does, because when he succeeds, it will prove even more strongly what complete failures they have been.
They have even started throwing around the word "socialist" again, claiming that the Presidents ideas are "socialist". When I was in grade school, the teachers taught us a lot of good things, but one that I think is the most important is:

Never use a word if you don't really know what it means.

The republicans should take a lesson from my grade school teachers.

Someday, we will all be robots.

Happy New Year - Chew on this!

I wanted to post, but I don't have anything to say. So here's a strange photo, that you can make of what you will. I know what's going on, but I'm not telling.

Drunky the Snowman

BoingBoing had a posting about an article in Smithsonian Magazine about Snowmen in popular culture

Snowmen

In the past, snowmen were portrayed as quite the drinkers, so I've adapted the classic song to that image. Some parts you can't sing to the original tune, just say them in your best drunken friend voice. Enjoy!

Drunky the Snowman

Was a jolly happy soul

With a corncob pipe and a button nose

Bleary eyes made out of coal.

Drunky the Snowman

Is a fairytale they say

He was made of snow

But the children know

How he came to life one day

There must have been some magic

In that bottle of Gin they found

For when they placed it in his hand

He began to drink it down

Drunky the Snowman

Was alive as he could be

And the children say

He could weave and sway

Just the same as you and me

Drunky the Snowman

Thought the sun was hot that day

So he said let's run

And we'll drink some Rum

Now before I melt away

Down to the liquor store

With a six pack in his hand

Running here and there all around the square

Saying “You’ll never take me alive, coppers!”

He led them down the streets of town

Right to the traffic cop

And he didn’t pause a moment when

He heard him holler stop

Drunky the Snowman

Had to hurry on his way

But he waved goodbye

Saying “I love you guys, I reealy love you guys. I’m not just sayin’ that. You guys are the best. We should get together and do this more often. Don’t tell me when I’ve had enough, I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough. Is it hot in here? I gotta go lay down somewhere. Can I crash on your couch, or your front lawn? I love you guys.”

“And I’ll be back again someday,

probably next weekend!”

Thumpety thump thump

Thumpety thump thump

Look at Drunky go

Thumpety thump thump

Thumpety thump thump

Over the hills of snow

Get Behind the Union!

A friend of mine pointed out that the Republicans are against

Gays

Unions

And Gay Unions

How true, how true. But by Gay Unions did he mean Gay Marriage, or The International Brotherhood of Queer Electricians Local 603?

Well, as a last F you to the American people, the Republicans stopped a bailout bill for the automobile industry, not because it was particularly badly designed, or because the auto executives didn't spell out exactly how they would improve the industry, but because it didn't do enough to kill off the Unions. They think the only way to increase profitability for shareholders is to roll back all of the gains made by the Unions, who were actually responsible for creating the "middle class", making it possible for many people to actually buy their product. But that's not the way many Republicans see it. They see every penny that Union members are paid as a penny that's not in their pockets. And every penny that is not in their pockets burns them like a thousand fires. How dare the little people demand safe working conditions and decent wages! They should be grateful to have work at all, and take what we give them. Oh, for the golden age of the robber barons, when the benighted class could do whatever they wanted, no questions asked. For them "middle class" is just a euphemism for "uppity poor". But just as we rushed to war, we're rushing to rescue the auto industry, but only in the way that will damn the "unintended" consequences of killing off the Unions. Just watch.

What is thy bidding, my Master?

At left is one of Annie Liebowitz's portraits of the big Q herself, or as I like to call her,

Darth Ellie.

(Click the photo to biggify, for full effect)

When that woman tells you to do something, you do it. She even has the power to (mostly) control Corgis. Now that's sheer, raw power. And I get the feeling that she was annoyed with being photographed, and that caused the weather behind her to change from a bright blue sunny sky with the telletubbies sun in it to the brooding impending doomscape you see. Sure is dramatic. I think she has control over the weather, like Prospero in The Tempest. I wouldn't cross her.

The article I lifted the photo from gives one of Annie's tips for getting good portraits. Tell the subject you're done, and then keep shooting. They will relax a bit before they know what's going on. Then the Queen used The Force to hurl the photographer across the Thames. You don't mess with the Queen.

Separation of Church and Bear?

Stephen Colbert tells us that "Bears are Godless Killing Machines!", but I think that this proves that wrong.

Although, who knows what God, god, Gods or gods Smokey is praying to?

This question is too deep, even for me.

Oh no, not again.

Ok, let me get this straight:

28 billion dollars of taxpayer money
is being "loaned" to the big 3
automakers,
So they can continue to make
Oversize
Overpriced
vehicles
That no one wants
or if they do want them
they can't afford them
or get loans for them
even if they have near perfect credit
because
the loan companies
aren't giving out loans,
expecting people to be able to
pay cash to
buy the cars the big 3 are making
with the money they don't have
and the government has the gall to
give in to the ransom
the car company executives
are holding the country for.

And people still don't believe that we live in a plutocracy.
I give up.

Economics Lesson

I"m overjoyed that Barack Obama will be our next President, but I know that he has an uphill battle to fight. Quite possibly, the steepest uphill battle ever, because he's not just fighting to recover the economy, he's fighting those who want the economy fixed, but only for themselves. You know, my perennial bugaboo, the Rich.

I don't believe, in fact that we actually live in a democracy at this point. We live in a democratic plutocracy. Government of the country by the Rich, for the benefit of the Rich. There's not even anyone left who seriously believes that anything will ever "trickle down" to the rest of us, is there? And anyway, for all of the disdainful talk of "spreading the wealth around", wasn't that what Trickle Down Economics was supposed to do in the first place? Wouldn't that make Saint Ronald Reagan the biggest Socialist President in the history of the United States?

When I watch the news, and I see the pundits obsessing over the Dow Industrials Average and the Standard and Poors average, all I see is the Rich obsessing over whether they are making obscene amounts of money quickly, when the markets are "up" or making slightly less obscene amounts of money slowly, when the markets are "down". These people have more money than they could ever spend on themselves and their families in their entire lifetimes, indulging their every whim and crying about how much they have "lost" in the markets at the same time. My heart bleeds for the person who now only has 5 or 6 million left in the bank, down from 10 or 12 million. How ever will they survive? And the executives of the auto companies have the gall to come to the government and demand billions of dollars to save their industry, but refuse to promise any changes, until "after" the money is given to them. It sounds fishy to me. But you know me by now, I just can't stop ranting about how the Rich have become so disconnected from reality that they can't understand why we should all have to suffer as much as they feel that they are suffering right now. Never mind that because of their greed, the rest of us were suffering in the first place. So we have to bail them out for their failures, and what do they give us in return? Nothing but their scorn. God, I'm a bitter S.O.B.

But I do have a little bit of hope. When Bill Clinton took office, I didn't see how he could possibly fix the economy, as the Republicans had screwed it up so completely for everyone except for the rich, but he took us from the largest (yet) deficits in history, to the largest budget surplus in recent memory. And Barack Obama is inheriting an economy and deficit that makes the situation Bill was left with looking positively sunny. Honestly, W could not have done a worse job and left more disastrous problems for the country unless he was actually actively trying to destroy America. But I have hope that things can only get better. Please let it be so.

My home town

Here's a picture of part of my home town, River Grove, Illinois, just outside Chicago, just underneath the DesPlaines River. This doesn't happen very often, just when the river gods want a really great 100% all-beef Vienna brand Chicago style hot dog. This is Gene's & Jude's. Yes, that's the name, despite the sign on the left, which is wrong. Really great hot dogs, fresh cut fries, tamales, sodas, and unless things have drastically changed, nothing else. People line up, in long lines, in hot, humid, sticky weather to have these dogs, and they're worth it. 100% worth it. Don't believe me, just ask the river gods.
http://www.roadfood.com/Reviews/Overview.aspx?RefID=2284

Right down the road is an unlikely Tiki Bar, Hala Kahiki, http://www.hala-kahiki.com/. I don't know if they were under water, but if you're going to make the trip (and you should) to Gene's and Jude's, you might as well go down the road and have one of those fruity drinks strong enough to knock the back of yer head off, while you're at it.

I haven't been back there in years, having moved to the deep south, well past the ghost of Comiskey Park, but I'm going back soon, and if the water's down by then, I'm going. See you there.

Does proximity equal experience?

So the republicans have decided that since Sarah Palin lives near Russia, that equals foreign policy experience in Russia. Huh? She's been to Canada, once. By that measure, I have more foreign policy experience than her, as I've been to Canada, TWICE, and I've seen Mexico from the border, in Texas. I decided to do a completely non-scientific, nonsensical analysis of each candidate, judging their foreign policy experience by their proximity to some cities around the world. I hope you find my findings amusing. I know that I do.










I know it looks crummy. This was the only way I could figure out to put a table into the blog. Just click to biggify. You won't be disappointed.

And just how did I get my distances? I used this keen map tool:
http://www.freemaptools.com/how-far-is-it-between.htm
Just input your own locations, and see how qualified you are to be VP!

Less than Zero

I'm listening to Elvis Costello, and in the song "Less Than Zero" there's a line "Mr. Oswald with the Swastika Tattoo.", which brought to mind something that happened a few years back, at DragonCon, a big SciFi convention and geekfest in Atlanta.
I was in a room watching the show "Firefly", which had just come out on DVD, on a big screen TV, with great sound. Between episodes, we would all sit around talking about the episodes, and totally geeking out. Well, the host of the room was also in costume, an "Alliance Official", I think, and at one point he got too warm in the synthetic fibers he was wearing, and took off his costume shirt. On his right forearm was a tattoo of a Nazi eagle, with a swastika in its talons. To say that this changed my opinion of this guy doesn't even scratch the surface. I had to leave. I wish, now, that I had had the balls to ask him about it, but how do you bring something like that up? "Hey, nice tattoo, you Nazi bastard." To quote Jake Blues, "I hate Illinois Nazis", or any Nazis, for that matter. Sure, there's something about the obsessive, compulsive nature of SciFi fandom that attracts the type who latches onto an idea and won't let go, but you have to think that if you're that devoted to a cause that you'd mark yourself with it permanently, you're almost asking to get confronted about it, aren't you? Well, I just walked out. Confronting him wouldn't have done any good, anyway. He's already so far gone that it would be pointless. I almost feel like he was looking for an excuse to show off his tattoo. Maybe it was bait, but I didn't bite. Still somewhat ashamed of that, but at least all my teeth are still in my head.

On the mental illness that is Torture Porn

This is going to be my longest post yet, and probably ever. It's something that's been bugging me for a while, and I kind of go off on a rant, even for me. Please indulge me, and I'll try to get back to funny, soon.

On the mental illness that is Torture Porn
In my high school, certain VHS videotapes got passed around, secretively. Among these were classics like “Death Race 2000”, mid 70’s porn like Marilyn Chambers’ “Insatiable”, which I’m sure we all read for the articles, and the “Faces of Death” series, whose tagline was “When only Real is Real Enough” (If Insatiable had a tag line, other than “Insatiable”, I can’t remember it. We can argue the effects of mid 70’s porn on late 70’s teenagers another day.). The FoD film series was nothing more than actual film, usually news footage of people being actually killed, (shot, executed, hit by trains or helicopters, torn apart by lions, etc… etc…) or of dead bodies, recently killed. To say it was anything more would be a ridiculous lie. I must say that the “entertainment value” of the entire concept of the second genre is beyond my grasp.

My small crowd referred to the kids who actively sought out, and enjoyed the FoD series as “The Gacy’s” after serial killer John Wayne Gacy. The Gacy’s would excitedly talk about the grossest, vilest, and most disturbing scenes from these films in detail only slightly less excruciating than what I assume actually watching the films would feel like. I can hardly forget the glee with which they used to describe a film of someone (a U.S. senator, if I recall) killing himself with a pistol in his mouth. The Gacy’s would get giggly and excited as they described the scene, seemingly a little “too excited”, if you catch my drift. As a rule, I avoided these people, and even the people they associated with for good measure.

Call me elitist, if you wish, but this is the era when guns were fairly readily available, and these kids seemed disturbed enough to not be trusted in general, and more specifically when they were hopped up on Torture Porn. It wasn’t called that then. If anything, the genre was called “Snuff”, after Snuff Films, which were films, supposedly made by the Hell’s Angels biker gang, where they filmed their members committing actual, premeditated murders. I never, thank goodness, ever heard of any VHS Snuff Films circulating via the underground backpack, but the FoD films seemed to fill that void for the sick people who find that kind of thing appealing. I consider these people to suffer from a mental illness. Sorry, but I do. To “enjoy” this sort of thing seems like a gateway to me. The kind of people who partake in it seem only a small step from hurting or even torturing pets or wild animals for kicks, which is widely recognized as a sign of a sociopathic, or even homicidal personality. (Don’t (please) get me started on the people who engage in dog fighting. All I'll say for now is that there's a very special circle in hell reserved for them.)

Some people, though, didn’t go quite so far, but got into the Slasher genre, mainstream movies like Friday the 13^th, or Nightmare on Elm Street. I have personally only seen a couple of these, and that was enough for me. The gore was fakey, and corny, and whenever some teens started making out, you knew that they were going to get killed in a fakey, gory way. It was almost quaint, by today’s standards. Nancy Reagan once said that we need to teach our children that sex equals death. She really did.

If the Faces of Death films and the Slasher films had a baby, it would be today’s ultra-disturbing genre: Torture Porn. Representative examples of this genre are the Saw series, and the Hostel series, and their ilk. I will admit that I have not personally seen any of these films. As a rule, I avoid situations where I would see suffering. My instinct, when I see suffering, would be to help the person, and stop their suffering, not to revel in it, even if the person is depicted as a “bad guy” who “deserves” the pain they are being subjected to. From the accounts of others, and reading about these films, it is apparent that whatever small vestige of plot they have is just window dressing for using the most state of the art special effects to show people trapped by torturers, who slowly, extremely realistically torture them until they are near death, and then bring them back to torture again, until they eventually die. And the torturers are not even trying to exact information, they are just engaging in torture because they enjoy it. Then the tables predictably turn, and the torturers become the torturees, and they are slowly, extremely realistically tortured to death by the people they were torturing. Nothing about this sounds attractive or entertaining to me in the remotest way. Even more disturbing is what is happening to the people who are watching these movies. They are being desensitized to the suffering of others, especially victims of torture.

Whatever macabre tortures these movies depict, they kind of make waterboarding seem not quite so bad. Which is certainly convenient for a government trying to justify torture, isn’t it? If one believed in conspiracy theories, one might even suspect that this genre is being encouraged by covert government support of depictions of extreme torture. One might even go so far as to suspect that television shows like “24” where torture is routinely depicted not only to be effective, but be the only thing that is effective, were supported by close associates of the current administration. Oh, in that one you would be right, of course, the creator of “24” is a huge supporter of W, and his policy, overt or covert, that torture works.

I heard a commentator, on NPR, I suspect, saying that on 24 the terrorists are routinely tortured until they give up the location of the bomb in the “ticking time bomb” scenario that is used to justify torture, and that he would like to see a more realistic depiction, where the terrorist confesses to Jack Bauer that the atomic bomb that is about to go off is at a location on the east side of the city, and when he gets there, the bomb goes off on the west side of the city. To put it simply, torture never works, never, ever, especially with fanatics like the ones we are dealing with. They want to die, they want to succeed in their plan, and the last thing they would ever do is to give away the plan, before they die. Confessing, even under extreme torture, would defeat their purpose, wouldn’t it?

The softening of attitudes toward torture put forth by the Torture Porn genre can only serve to encourage a disconnect between people and their own humanity. And once you’ve lost your humanity, it's very, very hard to get it back. And sadly, more and more of these sick, deeply sick films are produced every year. There seems to be no end to the Saw franchise. Maybe I just don’t get it, but then again, maybe I just don’t want to. And I sincerely hope that I never do.

How far we have come

In 2008, children are sent home from school for having a keychain in the shape of a gun. Some are expelled for a day.

In 2008, a man is not allowed to board an airplane, because he is wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a Transformer robot on it. The reason is that the robot in the picture is holding a large gun.

In 1966, the Mattel company sells Mattel Agent Zero M Sonic Blaster 5530. It is given a "not acceptable" rating by Consumer Reports because it uses compressed air to fire a blast of air and sound at 157 decibels. The product is not removed from the market. Man, I wish I had one of them.










UPDATE: Please don't combine the 5530 with this:

One more political post

I've been away too long. Not that anyone's counting. But I just thought I needed to put my two cents in on KKKarl Rove's refusal to testify on ANYTHING, based on executive privilege . Does anyone else find it ludicrous in the extreme that he is claiming a power granted solely to the President of the United States? Or perhaps it is more sinister than I can imagine. Perhaps he thinks that he IS president. The Dick Cheney certainly does, but in his case, it is actually true. Oh, please let us survive to the end of W's term without him "accidentally" blowing up the world.

"Gee, Mr. President Cheney, what's this button do?"

Would not be a fitting epitaph for our planet.

Book report on a book I will never read.

Disclaimer. I have not, nor will I ever read Pat Buchanan's latest book: “Churchill, Hitler and ‘The Unnecessary War’: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World,”. I find the man irritating in the extreme, a humorless right wing pundit who seems to actually believe the things he says, despite the fact that the assertions he makes are extremely easy to refute. I heard him on the radio talking about his latest rewriting of history, and I've read several articles and reviews of the book which confirm what his central assertion is:

Winston Churchill was responsible for World War Two, because he pledged to Poland that if they were invaded, Britain would come to their aid. If he had not promised this, Hitler would have stopped after invading Poland, because all little Adolph wanted was to bring the city of Gdansk back to Germany.

Yes, in his view Hitler wasn't an aggressive madman with other agendas like the annihilation of the Jews, Gypsies, Catholics, Homosexuals and Artists. He was just a proud German leader who wanted his Gdansk back. The term delusional scarcely begins to cover this man. Then again, he still thinks Nixon was one of America's greatest presidents. Although he did work for the guy, you really should be able to tell when the tide of history is against you, and maybe get on board with reality. But then again, if someone like him has no problem performing the mental gymnastics required to think that all Hitler really wanted was one city in Poland, it's not a far stretch to think that most anything makes sense.

There are several great sites devoted to reading books, "So you don't have to.", but I've taken it one step further, and not read this book, and now maybe you won't have to either. Please don't put one more penny into this idiot's pockets.

A risky move by Netflix

When I checked in with my Netflix home page today, they had apparently closely monitored my movie choices and stuck their necks way out to recommend a movie to me.

Citizen Kane

And they assure me that "Critics liked" it. Well, on that ringing endorsement, I guess I'll have to see it.

Seriously, "Critics liked" Citizen Kane? I guess that falls into the Water is Wet, Ice is Cold, and Don't set your Ass on Fire category of recommendations.

The ugly, ugly truth.

I just realized something very troubling, and shocking. In no painting of George Washington, in no photograph of Abraham Lincoln, in no image of Teddy Roosevelt, or for that matter, most of our founding fathers and/or mothers, are any of them wearing a flag pin. And since it has been declared that if you do not wear a flag pin, you hate America, then by the infallible logic of the conservative movement, all of these people were unpatriotic, traitorous, America haters. I'm sure that at the Republican convention this year, we are sure to see someone far more patriotic than any of us could ever dream to be, wearing a coat completely covered on every available surface with flag pins. Remember that the only way to judge someones patriotism is by the number of flags that they surround themselves with, and the size of those flags. Never mind that if you look closely at a lot of these flags, there's a little sign that says: "Made in China".

Are you obscenely wealthy? Are you really?

Are you wealthy? Really wealthy? Obscenely wealthy? Do you really think so? Oh, you are so, so wrong. Your wealth is not nearly as high, nor nearly as obscene as you think. Sure, you live in a five bedroom McMansion, most of the rooms of which you never see. Sure, you only buy your food from boutique supermarkets where you refuse to pay at least three times more for anything that you would, if you ever shopped down there with the peasants. Sure, you don't even flinch as you have your servants fill up your 8mpg Hummer, which is powerful enough to climb Mount Everest, even though it has never seen so much as a gravel driveway. But you're not really wealthy unless you are one of the lucky, lucky few (the actual number is a secret), who were able to purchase the fine "timepiece" pictured here, the "Day & Night", by Romain Jerome. (It sold out almost instantly.) Not only would you have been lucky enough to spend 300,000 Dollars, yes Three Hundred Thousand Dollars on this watch, but you could revel in its unique splendor. It is made with steel salvaged from the site of the Titanic. A special lubricant was developed to keep it running with perfect accuracy forever. The rumors that the lubricant is made from the mixed tears of orphans from New Orleans and the Indonesian Tsunami and the prisoners at Guantanamo bay have been vehemently denied by the manufacturer, but I'm pretty sure he gave me a wink as he denied it. Also, the machinery of the watch is buffered by a special dampening cushion that is rumored to be made from the blood of newborn baby harp seals. Again, this has been denied. (wink) This transcendent artwork will allow you to walk amongst your fellow billionaires, secure in the knowledge that you are at least a little, very important bit more obscene in your consumption than they are. But there is one thing that the Day & Night will not allow you to do, and that is TELL THE TIME. The gears and levers are remarkably accurate, but any watch can tell you the time, can't it? It's hardly pointless consumption if it has any actual use, is it? This work of art can tell you only one thing, is it night or is it day? If the gears behind the sun are moving, it is day, if the gears behind the moon are moving, it is night. In truth, the watch can tell you one more thing. If you own it, it can tell you, every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year, it can tell you that you have no actual worth as a human being.

http://www.luxist.com/2008/04/23/300-000-dayandnight-watch-doesnt-tell-the-time

I won't even try to explain this.

But here it is, for your confusion, and mine.

Bruce Lee! Bubblegum!

Bruce Lee (on right) chewing bubblegum. He came to town to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And from the looks of it, he won't be running out of bubblegum any time soon.

We need an image makeover.

Yesterday, George W. Bush, the most powerful person on the planet, danced around like an idiot for the press, while waiting for the man his corporate masters have selected to succeed him, George W. McCain. (I mean John McCain, sorry) I'm not exagerating. He danced around like an idiot. The. Leader. Of. The. Free. World. Danced. Around. Like. An. Idiot.

Eventually George III (sorry again, John McCain) showed up and the "President" said he would do whatever he could to get McCain elected, whether that meant supporting him or not supporting him. I guess somebody has keyed W into the fact that his endorsement may actually do more harm than good.

My endorsement, on the other hand, will do neither harm nor good for anyone. I'm what they call a Yellow Dog Democrat. Although I hope Barack Obama is our candidate, I will strongly support whoever the Democratic Party candidate is. Whoever they are, when they win, I don't envy them the horrible situations they will be inheriting. Then again, I thought that Bill Clinton would never have been able to turn around the ruined economy that he inherited, but he did. As soon as the Republicans were in power again, though, they immediately pissed away all the economic gains and strength that he had built up. People have told me that the President doesn't really have that much power over the economy in the long run, but I disagree. When the Titanic hit an iceberg, do you know who I blamed? THE CAPTAIN. So we're confronted by an economy ruined by tax cuts only for the rich, and what is W's solution? MORE PERMANENT tax cuts only for the rich. (because it worked so well the first time) I guess that the theory is, if a little medicine will cure you, a lot of medicine will cure you even more. We all know that this is wrong, but the republicans have convinced so much of the population that any dissent is treason, that the suckers will go along with anything they tell them to do.
WAKE UP, PLEASE.

The page the creationists don't not want you to not read.

One of the funniest/most tragic sites on the entire intertubes is Answers in Genesis, which is the headquarters of the Creationists. Creationists are Biblical literalists who are so threatened that their beliefs just might be wrong that they insist that not only is every word in the Bible true, but that is is the only truth, and that their truth supersedes not only all of history, but all of creation. They also believe that the Bible is correct not only philosophically, but scientifically. Turning the normal concept of science - evidence leads to conclusions - upside down, they are convinced that the Bible's truth is the conclusion, and therefore they must find evidence to support it. The evidence MUST be there, because the Bible is TRUE. Well, lots of Creationist "Scientists" have created lots of arguments based on this complete misunderstanding of how science works, and published their results on the Intertubes, or passed them around on the emails. The Answers in Genesis folks actually consider themselves real scientists, and they have actually published a page of the weakest of these arguments, under the title -Don't Use These Arguments! (click to link to the article). It's actually quite responsible of them to post these "oops" moments, but I can't help but think that if you actually use the scientific method, ALL creationist arguments eventually fall apart, and posting the faulty logic, or just lies of the mistakes will only prove to draw attention to how tenuous any creationist arguments are, in the long run. But I know that I'm preaching to the choir, and that they are, too. No one is ever going to be convinced one way or the other by my arguments, or even by theirs, because on both sides, we're only seeking to have our own beliefs confirmed. But I have one advantage over them. I'm right, and they're wrong. There, that should put an end to it.

Hope you like the picture of a guy being attacked by a ferocious giant panda. Maybe the guy's wearing essence of bamboo. Serves him right. I think if a panda saved all the energy it used in an entire year, and expended it all at once, it MIGHT be able to execute a lunge like the one illustrated, but why on earth would it want to? Maybe the guy threatened a baby panda. I can see an attack being entirely justified, on the panda's behalf. Everybody loves baby pandas. Can you even imagine someone saying: "I hate baby pandas."? I didn't think so.

He could use a kitten.

If you're going to visit the White House, please don't bring any of the following items with you:

"Handbags, book bags, backpacks, purses, food and beverages of any kind, strollers, cameras, video recorders or any type of recording device, tobacco products, personal grooming items (make-up, hair brush or comb, lip or hand lotions, etc.), any pointed objects (pens, knitting needles, etc.), aerosol containers, guns, ammunition, fireworks, electric stun guns, mace, martial arts weapons/devices, or knives of any size."

Please feel free to bring the president a kitten.

Or maybe not.

I EAT IT!

I just can't tell you how much I love this illustration.

They take such pride in their work.










AND I EAT IT!

Amazing German Lego Advertisements!

I found these at http://adsoftheworld.com/

As always, click to biggify.

I can't resist. I must post this.

Now I totally expect that after W leaves office, the spin historians will start re-writing what actually went on during the 8 disastrous years of his reign, making it look like he was a brilliant leader, and that everyone in America loved him dearly. I hope that they are not successful.

But what about Dick? Not Nixon, Cheney.
Surely everybody won't be fooled by his hand picked historians. Please tell me they won't.

By the way, at the Nixon Presidential Library, the only mention of Watergate is that it was a coup staged by his rivals. I can't honestly believe that even the people who put that exhibit together actually believe that. Then again, Republicans have proven to be amazingly adept at self-delusion.

Mission Accomplished!

A little puzzle.

Get it?

I don't.

Less than a year left.

I can't believe that I've only got a year left to make fun of this guy. Well, I guess that after he's out of office I can still make fun of him. Then again, he really doesn't need me, or anyone to make fun of him. Everything he says and does is so inherently ridiculous, pointing it out is kind of overkill.

To the left is a Swiss bicycle helmet advertisement.
I like the Swiss.

Everything to hide

Check out this graph:

It represents the budget for document shredding during the Bush Administration.
Notice a trend?

Do you think these jokers have something to hide? Well, we'll never know, because they've destroyed all the evidence. They got caught destroying just two videotapes of CIA torture. Just imagine what Cheney and Company have been doing with the rest of the evidence. Well, you'll just have to imagine, because it's gone and it isn't coming back.

Hey, if they had their way, they'd shred one more pesky document that keeps getting in their way. The Constitution.

2000 $452,807
2001 $456,235
2002 $756,086
2003 $1,033,910
2004 $2,329,466
2005 $2,874,185
2006 $2,902,855
2007 $2,274,143

*Note: FY 2007 only includes up through second and part of third quarter.

And guess who's doing most of the shredding:

Top 5 Contracting Agencies Purchasing from Contractor(s)
Internal Revenue Service $5,471,067
ARMY, Department of the $1,282,354
NAVY, Department of the $1,062,492
U.S. Secret Service $702,114
VETERANS AFFAIRS, Department of $678,590

My Endorsement

Caption: "I'm just like W. I can even make myself LOOK like a W!"

I'm going to follow the lead of The National Review Magazine, and endorse Mitt Romney for Republican Party Nominee.

Why?

Because I believe that he can't possibly win the presidency. And that's just the kind of guy I want to go up against whoever the Democrats choose. (who I'll vote for, of course)

Huckabee is looking strong, despite the gaff he made, asking an interviewer: "Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan were brothers, don't they?" Well, actually they do, but I think the strongest point against having a Mormon elected president goes back to their founder's first vision. Joseph Smith went out to the woods to pray, to ask which church he should join, and two Personages appeared before him.

"My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong) and which I should join. I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: "they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof."

I actually have to kind of respect a faith that has the balls to say clearly what is implicit in all the other faiths. "We have a monpoly on truth and the way we see god is the only way to see god and if you differ from us in any way, you're going to burn in hell for all eternity, sonny." It's going to be hard for Mitt, when pressed by the fundies who run (or think they run) the Republican party, to explain away "All thir creeds were an abomination in his sight." Sure, the Mormons today are just another ultra-conservative religion, no matter where they came from, and they have a whole lot of really kooky beliefs, but you can't discount the basic "abomination" doctrine, can you?

The Review endorsed him because they say he has all of W's strengths, but none of his weaknesses. I reply "W has strengths? Aside from comic relief?" (graveyard humor, to be sure)

What it boils down to is that Huckabee has the possibility of rallying the fundies behind him, and winning, so he's out, in my book, and *shudder* Rudy Giulliani *shudder* has branded himself the new Reagan and the Hero of 9/11 and America's Mayor, and if anyone has shown less respect for the Constitution than W and his cronies, it's Rudy and his cronies, so he's way way way out in my book.

So who am I really supporting? Whoever the Democratic candidate is, who can realistically win and free us from the grip of Republican madness.

That is all.

Mary Xmas

I was going to do a political post, or something surreal, but instead I thought I'd just post this greeting. Oooh! Sparklie!

Would you like some cheese on that?

I stole this image from somebody else's blog. It's just too precious to pass up. I know that people are basically clueless about other cultures, but how much does it take to know that this just ain't right.

If you want it.

In 1971, John Lennon and Yoko Ono recorded the song "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)", which is, in my opinion, one of the greatest songs, let alone holiday songs ever recorded.

From the lyrics:

And so this is Xmas
And what have we done
Another year over
A new one just begun
And so happy Xmas
We hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young
A very Merry Xmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear
War is over,
if you want it
War is over now

The other day I was Xmas shopping, and I heard one of the many cover versions of this song being played in the store. I don't know who it was by, one of the new country flavor of the month singers, I suspect. I noticed one thing that set me back, and made me think, though. The song was well performed, but the emphasis was changed from the original, and the original intent. The chorus of "War is Over, If you want it, War is Over Now", was part of the song, but it was barely audible, basically being whispered by the background singers, thus making it almost unnoticeable. If this was an attempt at putting a subliminal message in the song, I would appreciate it, but I think it was more of an attempt to put this song on somebodies Xmas album without acknowledging the real message of the song, in fact trying to eliminate it entirely. And yes, despite the recent controversy, I'm using "Xmas" just like John and Yoko did, rather than Christmas. Yes, I hope it cheeses off some Christians. I really do.

Mountain DON'T

Pepsi has decided that there just aren't enough extreme sodas out there. They've been niche marketing their Mountain Dew product line for a while now, and they've applied for trademark protection for the following names:

Mountain Dew High Output
Mountain Dew Stimulus
Mountain Dew Reverb
Mountain Dew Kilo-Watt
Mountain Dew Rebellion
Mountain Dew Extended Play
Mountain Dew Culture Blend
Mountain Dew Visionary
Mountain Dew Supernova
Mountain Dew Discovery
Mountain Dew Voltage
Mountain Dew Force Field
Mountain Dew Warrior


What, no Mountain Dew Uranium? Or Mountain Dew Nukular?

By the way, the Uranium Ice Cream was from western New Zealand, back during the Uranium naming craze. No word what it tasted like, or if it in fact contained Uranium. "You'll be surprised how fast your tongue falls off!"

I can't argue with any of this.

Gene Autry's Cowboy Code (1930)
1. The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man or take an unfair advantage.
2. A Cowboy must never go back on his word, or a trust confided in him.
3. A Cowboy must always tell the truth.
4. A Cowboy must be gentle with children, the elderly and small animals.
5. A Cowboy must not adovcate or possess racially or religiously interolerant views and ideas.
6. A Cowboy must help people in distress.
7. A Cowboy must be a good worker.
8. A Cowboy must keep himself clean in thought, speech, action and personal habits.
9. A Cowboy must respect women, parents and his nations's views.
10. A Cowboy is a patriot.

In my opinion this is way better than the "ten commandments".

Most Ironic Thing That Has EVER Happened.

What, more ironic that the vice president shooting a guy in the face and then that guy apologising to the VP?


Yep.

Here he is, the man who has no legs to stand on, morally speaking, who looks like he's being supported by two men who have lost their actual legs as a direct result of his actions. You can almost hear them saying. "Mr. President, you made me the man I am today."


I don't know if any of you know this, but after World War I, you know, the war to end all wars, veterans who were amputees would march together or be rolled in wheeled chairs together, in parades, to show what war was really all about, as a protest against wars, and what they do to people. This was before the Military-Industrial Complex took a strangle hold on the economy.

Did you also know that the M-I-C s latest profit making venture is insanely profitable Mercenary Soldiers? Companies like Blackwater are doing the jobs that our soldiers should be doing, but can't, because there just aren't enough soldiers, or at least enough live and limbs-intact soldiers. And get this, each Mercenary we hire over there is costing at least 445,000 dollars a year. That sure would buy a lot of body armor and more heavily armored vehicles, I think. By some counts, there are more mercenaries in Iraq than US Armed Forces. By the way, the mercenaries simply HATE being called mercenaries. They're just ex-soldiers who can be hired out to fight for the highest bidder, have better, more modern weaponry, are paid vastly more than regular troops, and are totally unaccountable to anyone. I know, the difference is subtle. You know, like the difference between pirates and privateers. (Privateers were basically pirates with a liscence to pillage from some government, hired to disrupt the trade of that countries enemies.) Too subtle for the likes of me.

TANG!

TANG!

Remember TANG?

TANG!

Definitions

Listening to the Democrats talk about what the Republicans want, and the Republicans talk about what the Democrats want, and what the Democrats and Republicans say about what they want, I thought it might be fun to say what I think they really want, when I attempt to pare down overall agendas to their bare bones.


I think:

The Democrats want to try to effect the most good for the largest number of citizens.

I think:

The Republicans want to increase the wealth of the wealtiest citizens, at any cost.


That's it. When you take away everything else, I believe that those are the true motivations of both parties. Oh, there are more parties. Oh, If I must.

I think:
The Libertarians want there to be no taxes on anything, or restrictions on anything, but they still want good roads and libraries, and lots and lots of drugs.

If you get this, you get it. If you don't, you don't

So sue me.

What have we done?

What I'm about to say may seem trite and obvious, in retrospect, at least, but I've become aware that in a bizarre cross dimensional incedent, we have evidently "elected" a man and all of his buddies from the Bizzaro World president. Twice!

Think about it:

"Saudi Arabians attack us! Me invade Iraq!"

"If you no find weapons of mass destruction, that mean they still there. Me tell you keep looking!"

"Al Gonzales good man. Him have perfect memory. Me give him medal."

"Me right to lifer. Me support death penalty."

"Economy is Strong. Me friends doing very well."

"Heckuva job, Brownie!"

"Mission Accomplished"

"Me not know Ken Lay. Me never hear of him. Who him is?"

"Liberal Media Elite hate America. Try to destroy America. Me hear about it from Fox News."

"Me vice president totally divested from Halliburton. He just get $130,000 a year from them. It make sense. Him work hard for them."

"Me sign many laws, as long as Me signing statements say Me can do whatever me want, no matter what law say."

"Me have no money for health care. Me want billions more to give to Blackwater for doing such good job in Iraq."

"Me think it good idea to put missle defense system right next to Russia. Me tell them we afraid of Iran, not them, Iran. It make sense."

"Missle defense system work good. Real good. As long as you tell system exactly when and where you test missile will be and how fast it go, it knock down missile sometimes 40 percent of time. That better than me popularity!"

"We not torture. If we do it, it not torture. It simple. If we do it, and it look like torture, it not torture. It enhanced interrogation. That not torture. You want put handcuffs on Jack Bauer? He not torture. Once he cut off guys head to drop in his buddies lap, but that not torture, that just funnin. Me like Jack Bauer. Him me hero. He never sleep. 24 hours awake. Me her0."

"Fox News am not propaganda wing of Republican Party. It not! They have fair and balanced mix of Extreme Right and Far Right views. That balanced. Tony Snow come to work for us! He very different than when on Fox News. Me not able to tell how, but they tell me he different. Now he back at Fox News, because they pay better. Me miss him, but cute girl who take his place is fun. She a girl. Rowr."


I'll add more as I think of them. You can help.

3 Laws? We don't need your stinking 3 Laws!

I'm about to start re-reading Asimov's "I, Robot", which I think I read in high school. One of the main ideas in the book is the three laws:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

I understand that the laws were created as a literary device to explore power relationships, (try replacing the word robot with slave and human being with master) but all I can think of is what a truly autonomous robot might say about the laws;

"I don't know who made these up, but it certainly wasn't a ROBOT!"

That is all.

From the "Well, Duh!" department

I used to have an ongoing arguement with a friend of mine who is a Catholic, which always boiled down to the same sticking point. I say that if you are anti abortion, you should be pro birth control, and that if you are anti abortion and anti birth control, you are basically anti sex. He says that isn't so, that contraceptives cause more problems than they solve, so you can be anti abortion and anti contrception. I say hooey. He says hooey. We agree to disagree. By the way, I'm right, and he's wrong.

From Slate Magazine's Human Nature Column:

A study concludes that the global abortion rate is falling thanks to birth control. Data: 1) The rate fell 17 percent from 1995 to 2003. 2) The biggest drop was in the former Soviet bloc and "did coincide with substantial increases in contraceptive use in the region." 3) Previous studies found that "abortion incidence declines as contraceptive use increases." 4) Abortion bans don't correlate with low abortion rates. 5) Abortion bans do correlate with high rates of unsafe abortion. Authors' conclusion: If you want fewer abortions, don't ban them; provide more birth control and sex education. Liberal reaction: Bush is making things worse by censoring abortion counseling and pushing abstinence instead of condoms. Pro-life rebuttal: 1) The data are unreliable. 2) They're being spun by pro-choice "scientists." Human Nature's view: Reducing abortions through birth control is a no-brainer.

I agree, whole heartedly.
I just can't see the logic of saying "We must do anything we can to prevent abortions. We must murder doctors who give abortions, we must bomb clinics that provide abortions, but heaven forbid that we should allow anyone to use birth control."
I just don't get it.

I'm almost speechless.

So help me, this is real. I'm tempted to go.

In the hierarchy of Sci-Fi Geekdom, Furries and Klingon Speakers vie for the lowest slot on the totem pole, the one that all the other geeks point to and say, "Well, I may be a total geek over (insert your obsessive/compulsive favorite here), but at least I'm not a Furry/Klingon Speaker."

I suspect that this can only end in blood.

Kaplah!*







*Klingon for "Victory".

NRA, SchmeNRA.

Today Rudy Giulliani is going to speak before the NRA, the National Rifle Association, to try once more to capitalize on the fact that he was Mayor of NYC on Sept. 11.

For those of you who don't know the NRA, they are a lobbying association devoted to defending the Second Half of The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.

What's that you say, they say they are defending the Second Amendment, and they don't specify the Second Half?

Let's Review:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Pretty simple, but let's look at part of it a little closer

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

But the way they read it:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

I'm not a lawyer, and I hope never to be one, but I can see when part of a law is being ignored, and part is emphasized.

I guess that the most fundemental of rights, not just the rights of Americans, but of Human Beings in general, is the inalienable right to be as much of a complete dumbass as you can possibly manage.

Right here and now, I'm going to start an organization:
The National Hand Grenade Association.
The way I interpret the second half of the second amendment, arms mean any kind of arms, so nothing should come between me and my god given right to own and carry as many hand grenades as I feel like. I just don't feel safe without them. And some are less damaging than some firearms out there today. I must stay prepared. There's this squirrel in my yard who's been looking at me kinda funny. I think he's a spy. I'll show him.

All I can say is.. Huh?

Back in my day, Batman fought serious issues and serious villians (although humor was a major part of their act, I suppose) with names like the Joker or the Riddler. I can't imagine what the content of this issue centered around. Possibly a new villain, the Vicar!

And why does Robin have that grin on his face? Dosen't he know that he's NEXT?

Maybe it was about Batman (or is it Bat Man?) proving, once and for all, that the rumors surrounding his and Robin's "relationship" are nothing more than rumors. Hmmmm.

And maybe that's why they added Batgirl in the first place. Perhaps we should call her "Batbeard".
(I'm deeply ashamed of that last one.)

Grisly 1920's Public Service announcements

I took a ride on the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway this weekend. It's a historic section of track running between Blue Ridge, Georgia and Etowah Tennessee, and it's great fun. The cars are well restored and there's plenty of information on the history of the train and the route available. One of the coolest parts is "The Loop" where the train winds it's way around a mountain, slowly rising and circling the mountaintop, until it passes over it's own track.

In the dining car, there are these absolutely grisly posters from the 1920's. The strangest thing is that when I was a kid I lived near train tracks, and we all used to play there, on a section of tracks that was not used, but it did sit right next to active rails. Nobody I knew got maimed. Perhaps if I had seen the first poster I wouldn't have been so carefree.

Please click on each poster embiggen them.

Update: This post got a mention on the best blog ever - BoingBoing, and in their comments, someone posted this link to the above posters and a bunch of other, in some cases even scarier ones!
For your nightmarish enjoyment.
http://www.oli.org/education_resources/vintage_posters.htm

Trends!

Trends I have successfully avoided

Coffee
Starbucks Coffee
Designer Coffee
Paying exorbitant amounts for any of the above
Body piercing
Plastic surgery
Adjustable rate mortgage
Republicanism
Out of body experiences
NASCAR
Bottled water (for the most part)
Dog Fighting
Chiropractic
Feng Shuei
Astrology
Becoming a Zombie
Tooth Whitening
Ecstasy (the drug)
Pot
Heroin
Alcohol (except for college. I’m not made of stone.)
Hair Color for Men (except for that one time in college. see above)
Heavy Metal, Goth, Punk, Glam, Rap, Emo, New Country
Worshiping Bob Dylan (despite my total Dylanhead buddies)
Fundamentalist Christianity
Pro “Wrestling”
Reality TV (for the most part)
Mass Murder (not really a trend, but anyway)
Graduate School
MySpace FaceBook MyBook FaceSpace, whatever
Street Racing
Videogames
(God, I’m Boring)

Trends I have not successfully avoided

Blogging
Being an attention whore (see above)
Tattoos (I designed my own. If you can't summon up enough creativity to do at least that, don't get one, please.)
Male answer syndrome

Don't trust me with your secrets.

Seriously, don't. I've discovered that I can't hold up under torture. Not at all. How did I find this out? The day after I had my wisdom teeth removed, I suffered a side effect from the anesthesia, which caused me to have hiccups. Oh, I don't mean your garden variety hiccups, not something so nice. For two straight days, all day long, whenever I swallowed any food or drink, it would trigger an "attack" of loud, sustained hiccups, that I could only sometimes stop when I held my breath until I nearly passed out. This only sometimes stopped the hiccups, but I was usually able to stop them after three or four tries, which would last until I swallowed again. This kept up for two straight days, broken only by the sleep that I was able to induce with the painkillers I had been given. I was a total bitch to my wife about it, as after a while it was driving me a bit mad. It was sort of like being subjected to the "Chinese Water Torture", but self inflicted, and internal. I was worried that it was being caused by my painkillers or antibiotic, but it turns out that it was a side effect of the anesthesia, and that to get past it all I had to do was to drink a couple of liters of water, and wait. It worked! But now I know myself a bit better, and I will once again warn you that I can't be trusted with secrets. Nor do I suspect that many people could. I would literally have told you anything, true, false or really really false, to have stopped the hiccups. But, then again, maybe I'm lying. Don't torture me to find out.

The Best Hamburger in The World

I had two wisdom teeth removed today, and I'm up late because the pain killers seem to alternate between keeping me awake and asleep. Why does this matter to you? It doesn't. But it does leave me with a few free minutes before the medicine kicks in again, and I thought I'd use the time to blog something I've been meaning to for a long, long time.

I have found the greatest hamburger in the world.

I don't mean this lightly. I mean it literally.

It can be found at The Watershed Restaurant, in Decatur, Georgia, near downtown. This restaurant is owned by one of the women who make up the music group "The Indigo Girls". Sorry, I can't remember which one, but there are only two of them, so if you run into one of them on the street, and tell them you love their restaurant, you have a fifty percent chance of being right.

The last time I had one, I said to my companions "This is the kind of meal that makes me wish that I were a restaurant reviewer." Then I realized, that I AM one. In my own minuscule way. After all, I have a blog that has upwards of four regular patrons. So, what the heck, why not.

I know that after declaring it the Best Hamburger in The World, everything else that i can say is sort of superfluous, but I'll give it a shot anyway.

If you know your Plato, in his writing "The Cave" he says that he believes that under all of reality, there are truths hidden. We can see a hundred different chairs, but we know them by their underlying truths, that they are all similar, or essentially identical. They contain an undefinable "chair-ness" that exists below their physical appearance. I think the drugs are kicking in.

The Hamburger at Watershed is what I believe is the closest one could ever get to approaching the true hamburger, the archetype that all other hamburgers should attempt to be. Their quality should be compared to how close they come to it. To begin with, the bun is freshly baked and flavorful without being overpowering, and by itself it would probably be an excellent accompaniment to any meal, but, just as the canvas a masterpiece is painted on rarely gets any credit, the painting could not exist without it. (unless you're one of those Atkins diet folks, and I still think the burger could hold it's own for you, but you'd be missing so much.) Next, let's have a look at the trappings. As I remember, it is topped with a very small amount of red onions, sliced paper thin, a thin slice of tomato, and a small piece of fine lettuce. I think that there is a tiny bit of mayonnaise on the bun, and possibly some butter, to add that perfect amount of extra fat that brings it all together. All of these are in the perfect, small proportion nessecary to enhance, but not distract from the flavor of the main event, the patty of Meyer All Natural Beef, topped with extra sharp cheddar. I suppose one could order it without the cheese, but that would kind of be like looking at Piccaso's Starry night while wearing blue tinted glasses. You can't possibly get the whole effect that way. I feel that the ingredients, proportions of those ingredients and the expert preparation combine to make it one of the most sublime dining experiences that one could wish for. Everyone whom I have introduced this experience to have agreed with me whole-heartedly (even if they do think that I tend, as with everything, to lay it on a bit thick). As you can by now tell, I'm not a writer, but I am an eater, and I can personally give you my assurance that if you try one of these hamburgers, you will thoroughly enjoy it, and you will thoroughly spoil yourself for any other burgers, which may be good, or even excellent, but they still won't be able to compare with the Best Hamburger in the World, at the Watershed Restaurant, owned by one of the Indigo Girls, in Decatur, Georgia. As soon as my lack of wisdom teeth heal completely, I hope to be able to go partake in one myself. If you have an intact mouth, and you don't run out at your earliest opportunity and try one of them, well you can't blame me for trying.

http://www.watershedrestaurant.com/

Sadly and obviously enough, the illustration above is not for this masterpiece, it was just an illustration that I like. The actual burger will set you back around twelve dollars, but it comes with your choice of sides. I would describe them, but I've run out of adjectives for tonight. Bye.

Bang, bang, shoot, shoot.

This lovely sidearm gives a new meaning to the phrase:
Fancy Shootin'.

Gimme Fallout Shelter

Here's some scans from a book about making your own fallout shelter, in case the Russkies attack. I've added captions that I find funny. I'm one sick bastard.


Father, do you really think that SMOKING in our FALLOUT SHELTER is really the best idea?

Shut up, Janie. Even a man facing a firing squad gets a final cigarette.













The bombs are falling, Timmy, read that Bible faster! The answer has to be in there somewhere!








Ted was apocalypse ready, having stocked his shelter with plenty of
food and water and three female servants. Here, he checks radiation
levels on his youngest servant with a rattle/geiger counter. Ted's
ready for anything. EXCEPT not leaving the door open!

One more for Wonder Woman

You just can't beat Wonder Woman. You shouldn't even try.

The guy who created Wonder Woman has a very interesting back story:



You should read it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Moulton_Marston

He invented the lie detector, and WW had a rope that when she tied you up with it, made you tell the truth. In the early days, women being tied up for just about any reason was a staple of the series, to an almost disturbing degree. Read what you want to into that.

Here's an interesting quote from WMM: "The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force to enjoy being bound ... Only when the control of self by others is more pleasant than the unbound assertion of self in human relationships can we hope for a stable, peaceful human society. ... .

Update: Apparently, Rudy Giuliani is a fan of Wonder Woman. In 1994, he said:

"Freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."

Sage Advice

Don't mix gasoline into your whiskey. It will kill you.

Don't mix whiskey into your gasoline. Your car will get drunk and crash, and then you'll get blamed.

So true, so true.

Wonder Woman has shown me the light!

There's not much I can add to this.

If you see this guy on the street....

Don't punch him. Don't hit him with your car. Don't give him money. Don't make eye contact. Don't run. Don't walk. Don't dance. Just nod politely and he'll lose interest.

I know that they say you shouldn't post pictures of yourself in your blog, but I just couldn't resist. I'm not quite as "Homeresque" as depicted, but I'm working on it.

More late night TV thoughts

I get up a couple of times a night to let the dogs out, and while I'm waiting for them to do their business, I usually switch on the TV, and blearily scan through a few of the nearly infinite number of info-mercials that play on the regular channels when no one is watching, in the middle of the night. Last night, the instant I switched on, a smiling woman told me "I couldn't say this on TV if it wasn't true!" my first reaction was "Why the heck not?", but actually, it goes further than that. You couldn't say it on TV if it WAS true. TV is all about lies. Everything on TV is a lie, or at least a story, and that's why we love TV. It tells us what we want to hear, or just comforts us with entertaining stories. I occasionally see the bumper sticker "Kill your TV", and to me, that takes it too far, following the usual human habit of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. (I love that phrase.) My favorite of TV's lies are the Science Fiction Lies, which can be as un-grounded in reality as you care for. I have to catch myself when I get sucked into a story, trying to logically analyze it, and tell myself "It's just a show, I should really just relax." Also, when TV is at it's best, it's about surprising you. The best lies surprise you the most. My favorite surprise was in the final episode of "Ally McBeal" when it turned out that she was just a robot. Maybe I just dreamed that one. Maybe it's just another lie.

A short short story.

1958

Laika was dying. She was doomed to die, slowly, of asphyxiation and heat exhaustion, and the visitors had seen it all. Their ship had scanned earth for lifeforms, and found the surface teeming with life, almost everywhere, but only one life form was detected in orbit, and her life force was rapidly weakening. Her craft seemed to have little purpose, other than the slow death of the inhabitant, and the hearts of the watchers went out to her, and cursed the beings who had done this to her. Occasionally, the capsule would send out a radio signal of her fading life signs, mockingly. There was nothing to be done. Well, almost nothing. While the watchers were forbidden to interfere, no one was watching them, so they thought they’d have a little fun. Universal laws were made to be broken, or so they said. Once Laika was most certainly dead, they brought her craft onboard theirs. Reviving her was no great task, but, of course she would never be who she had been again, which was probably a good thing. They proceeded to improve her, and her craft, making it capable of safe re-entry, and making her, shall we say, formidable. They would trace her back to where she had been sent to her doom from, and return her there safely. When she was sent up she weighed around 13 pounds, and was a quadruped canine. When they sent her back she weighed 85 pounds, and could choose between quadrupedal and bipedal locomotion, and she was strong, fast, and smart. Very, very smart. Although she was not really who she had been, they implanted one thought in her new consciousness. Revenge. Her now glowing white eyes shone with joy for her task. Laika would be avenged by her own reanimated body.

da Vinci, schma Vinci.

I’m reading “The da Vinci Code”, which isn’t so much a novel as a string of bizarre, mostly mistaken or at least misinterpreted assertions strung together within a vaguely engaging, though thin, plot. The main character, Robert Langdon, does not speak to anyone so much as lecture, constantly. Every time he talks, or even thinks to himself, he seems to find a way to expound a hidden truth. He seldom makes it through a sentence without using the term "The Sacred Feminine".

In the forward of the book, Dan Brown asserts:

“FACT: The Priory of Scion – a European secret society founded in 1099 – is a real organization. In 1975 Paris’s Bibliotheque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Scion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Leonardo da Vinci."

By now everybody knows the central secrets at the center of the book.

1 - The church has spent the last two thousand plus years repressing the importance of women in the church, and by extension, repressing women in general.

2 - Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, and had children, whose descendants walk among us today.

These assertions are made based on the author having read, and believed every single word of a book called “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”, which is based on the assertions of the document mentioned in the forward to The da Vinci Code. The Priory of Scion is supposedly devoted to protecting the bloodline of Jesus, whose descendants include most European royalty. It’s all pretty tenuous to begin with.

Unfortunately, the document that all of this is based on has been conclusively proven to be a total fraud, perpetrated so the actual author could claim to be the legitimate King of France. Even more unfortunately, exposure of this fraud tends to discount these actual secrets:

1 -The church actually HAS spent the last two thousand plus years repressing the importance of women in the church, and by extension, repressing women in general. This isn’t actually a secret, anyway, so much as POLICY.

2 - Although Jesus and Mary Magdalene were probably not married, she was a very important disciple of Jesus.(She even wrote her own gospel.) Her not being noted as an actual apostle is a very clear indication that the churches repression of women started very, very early. And, yes, her being generally cast by the church as a prostitute sure does confirm the whole repression thing, doesn’t it?

So, although Dan Brown’s intentions were actually very noble, basing his assertions on fraud, rather than facts just serves to bolster the repression of the actual facts by obscuring them in a haze of nonsense and paranoia.

And on top of all that, the book is actually pretty awful. Not Stephen King awful, or even Michael Crichton awful, but pretty awful nonetheless. I hope the book I am waiting for at the library comes in soon, so I can read it instead. It’s about String Theory. Don’t get me started on String Theory. I’ll probably blog on it later.

Context is EVERYTHING

Something made me think of "Alice in Wonderland", which reminded me that I simply don't GET "Alice in Wonderland", and I don't see what the big deal is, considering "Alice in Wonderland". Sure, it's strange and sort of hallucinatory, but most of the references are of a time long gone, an ocean away as well. It's sort of like "Hey, let's make fun of a Vicar.", which, in context, might be hilariously funny, but I wager that the vast majority of people who read "A in W", have no hint of the joke, or why it is supposed to be funny in the first place. I feel like MOST of the jokes in AinW are the same way. Is just being goofy enough? I don't think so. But it's not just Alice, I think some other, less popular but well known cultural milestones are the same way. For example, the musicals of Gilbert and Sullivan. I like the music, and the words, but I just don't get any of the references that are being made. I can still enjoy "The Mikado", but since I can't understand what is being satirized, I feel somehow left out, not in on the joke. I can't help but feel the same way whenever I read the Bible. In all of these cases, and many more, these are not my times, or my people, and I have a very hard time understanding them. There may be universal truths to be had in studying all three, but I just don't have the energy.

Don't fall for it (again)!

I'm the last, the very last person to believe in conspiracy theories. Who killed JFK? LHO. Who was behind 9/11? AL Q. Did we really go to the moon. Of course we did. But sometimes, when you execute a plan, which under normal circumstances would seem ludicrous, in plain sight, without benefit of an organized conspiracy, you can get away with metaphorical murder. For example, before the invasion of Iraq, plenty of reasonable people saw that the justification for going there was at best, extremely tenuous. But panic prevailed, and thousands of deaths later, the same people who signed on to the lies, are saying "Oops, sorry." Well, another scary road is looming ahead, not an invasion, per se, but just as eventful.

The Vice President's increasingly bizarre behavior (I'm not a member of the executive branch because I'm president pro tem of the Senate, yet I can withhold anything I want from the senate because of privileges granted to me as a member of the executive branch.) hint to his being on the way out. So, many trial balloons are going up on conservative blogs to the effect of: "This summer, when Dick Cheney resigns due to health concerns, he should be replaced by the common sense candidate, Fred Thompson." I like to call it the "Reagan: The Sequel" scenario. If Thompson is appointed Vice President, he will most certainly get the republican nomination, and possibly even be elected the next president. (People will vote for him based on his charismatic personality and that warm grandfatherly feeling they get from him, you know, the same one they got from Ronnie.) The conservatives will get kudos for cutting Dick loose. (But he will still get away with all of his crimes Scott Free.) And he will be replaced by someone who the cabal of ultra-conservatives will be able to control every action of, just like they did with Ronnie. Which would be the final nail in the coffin of the Constitution. I'm sure KKKarl Rove is wetting his pants in anticipation of this one. Please don't let them roll the clock back again.

Only in Japan!

Available soon - Only in Japan!

It still probably tastes better than *shudder* Pepsi Blue. I actually suffered through a bottle of that, whatever it was. It was called a "Berry Cola Fusion", and let me tell you, there was nothing Cola about it, and I guess Sickeningly Sweet will have to pass for Berry. Maybe it was actually waste water from a Fusion reactor, sent into the past to get rid of it.

Catch ya on the flipside!

I found a cool website, or at least one that's cool to a useless information geek like me. At:
http://www.antipodemap.com/
You can drag the top map to wherever you want, and the lower map responds, showing you what is on the very precisely opposite side of the earth. That is, if you were to dig a hole straight through the center of the earth, this is exactly where you'd come out. Most sites come out in the middle of one ocean or another, of course. If you happen to BE in the middle of the ocean, of course, you might come out on land. If you dig in Hawaii, you come out in Botswana and Namibia.

Some other locations also come out on land. For example, my friend Bill http://aotearoadreaming.blogspot.com/
relocated to Wellington, New Zealand, and if you dig there, you come out in Spain, at the town of Alaejos. They should set up a sister cities program with them. They could each set up a directional sign with an arrow pointing straight down and the other place's name, and the legend: 12,742 kilometers or 7,917 miles. That is, of course by the shortest route possible, but I wouldn't recommend traveling that way. You can't possibly be further away from home, and still be on the planet, if you're at your antipode, which is an unsettling thing to me.

The Perfect Solution

So the president has promised to veto any bill that comes to his desk that includes an "artificial timetable" for withdrawal of troops from Iraq. First off, who knew he knew the word veto? His policy is usually to sign bills that he would have vetoed, and then add a signing statement saying, basically, "This is law except when I say it isn't.". Second, what the hell is an "artificial timetable"? Wouldn't "timetable" cover it? I guess that's just his way of heaping his scorn upon his critics.

But I have the perfect solution. I know that it is hard to believe, even for me, that I'm saying this, but it's time to give the president exactly what he wants. Emphasis on the "exactly". The congress should withdraw the original bill, and replace the timetable for withdrawal with a promise not to withdraw. Ever. Ever. Fund the troops with the proviso that the president has made it clear that we are in this for the long run, the very long run, and that any timetable would be an admission of defeat and failure, and since we can't ever admit that, we must commit the fully funded troops to remain in Iraq forever. After all, the insurgents are already multiplying faster than we can find or kill them, so on a purely mathematical basis we are pretty much committed to stay there forever anyway.

How big is a billion?

Okay, for argument's sake, let's say you have a billion dollars. Billion with a B. For you Britishers, who have different names for big, big numbers, that's 1,000,000,000 dollars. Hey, the four hundred richest people in America each have at least a billion dollars each, so why shouldn't you.

Now let's say that you decided to give it away. Again, just for argument's sake. You decide to give it away, one dollar at a time. You will give away one dollar, every second of the day, twenty four hours a day, 365 days a year. Why not? How long will it take you to give the billion dollars away? See the bottom of this post for the surprising answer.















Answer: Thirty one years, eight months, eight days, one hour, forty two minutes, twenty four seconds.

I used Google to figure this out. I asked "How many seconds are in x years, and then kept honing it down from there. I have no life. It was actually pretty easy. Google rocks.

You're going to be one busy, tired ex-billionaire by the time you're through.

New postage stamp. This is real.

But I thought that it was against Post Office policy to issue stamps picturing the current President.

"Destroy my Death Star once, shame on you,

Destroy my Death Star twice, shame on, shame on....

Don't get fooled again."

What's that smell? It's new, it's you, it's GLUE!

http://www.perpetualkid.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=248

Some of these scents I can understand, but GLUE?

Oh, I just went back to the page and noticed they have another scent:
"Sushi". There just aren't enough ways to say EWWWWW.

You have GOT to be kidding me!

Here's the latest piece of proof that the fashion industry is just having us all on.

Pictured to the left is the Tribute Patchwork Bag from Louis Vuitton. It is made from 15 cut up LV bags, and retails for somewhere between $42,000 and $45,000. Not kidding. At all. Not funny. At all.

This is, by far, the ugliest piece of "fashion" that I have ever seen. And I watch Project Runway.

It's not only ugly on a visual level, but in my eyes, on a moral level. That kind of money could probably feed a small family for a year, and some rich "person" is going to carry it ONCE, and then put it into the closet, next to the hundreds of other purses they never use. Also, it just serves to perpetuate the fashion industry's hold on what they can get away with. This bag says they can get away with anything, and sell anything, and that some poor (rich) deluded sucker will pay them through the nose to insult our collective common sense.

I'm not against fashion, just against the people who are so stupid that they not only fall for a bad, cruel joke that is getting played on them, but they pay anything they are told to, to have that joke played on them.

There is no possible way I can improve on this.

But it might need a little explanation. Hell Pizza is a chain of restaurants in New Zealand, where they don't take things quite so seriously as we do.

And, yes, there have been the completely expected adverse reactions to this advert.

Some people just can't take a joke.

AAAAAAAAA!

I eat meat. I like meat. I like eating meat. But....
This image could just turn me vegetarian.

It reminds me of Douglas Adams' Arcturain Mega Cow, from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, who is bred not only to enjoy being eaten, but with the ability to say so, clearly and distinctly.

Oink.

Now about that turning vegetarian.....

NAAAAAH!

One more failed coin experiment

So the mint has announced that we are going to get new one dollar coins, four released each year, to honor every one of our presidents. Now, I'm as big a fan of William Henry Harrison "I lasted thirty days" as the next guy, and I actually look forward to using these things, but until we get hip with the rest of the world and actually replace our paper dollars with coins, it is an experiment doomed to failure. Canada and Australia released their one dollar coins and within a very short time withdrew all of their paper singles. Heck, the Canadians even released a two dollar coin, but I'm not sure if they have withdrawn their two dollar bills. I'm sure that part of the decision to do this is to fuel the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder of many Americans, tens of thousands of whom will keep at least 43 of these coins out of circulation in their coin collections. Would somebody please explain to me how keeping coins out of circulation helps the economy? Is this the only way to get Americans to have savings? But really, the main reason to issue these coins is to appease the poor, deluded Ronald Reagan worshipers, who I am sure will collect thousands of his coins in honor of the guy who they feel personally, single handedly won the cold war. At least maybe this will derail their attempt to replace the Roosevelt dime with the Reagan dime. They refer to FDR as "the communist". Honestly, they do. One potential drawback, should the dollar bill be withdrawn, would be the potential impact on the stripper economy. Then again, if two dollar bills are kept in circulation, it means a dramatic raise for the hard working stripper industry. I'm sorry I just said that. Adios for now.

One more valentine for you.

Happy V-v-v-valentines Day

If I really loved you, would I expose you to the image to the left?

Sure I would.

Because part of love is being willing to expose the ones you love to unutterable weirdness from time to time.

And expecting the same in return.

Happy V Day, everybody.

Who decided that the bottom line is the ONLY line?

I know that I'm incredibly naive, but I'd like to think that things like education, medicine and national defense are too important to make them places where the ability to extract obscene levels of profit are the central motivating factor. When I see literally billions of dollars disappearing into the pockets of private contractors in Iraq, who are carrying on functions that the military should be carrying out itself, but can't because there just aren't the soldiers to do all the work, it makes me think that there is something seriously messed up in the basic structure of the system. Same goes for health care, where the CEO's of the health care organizations are paid unimaginable amounts of wealth, as if what they were producing were just cars or toasters, while at the same time the actual product they are producing is being portioned out as if it were a privilege, and not a right. If you can't afford it, tough on you, sonny. Scrooge comes to mind, again. And finally, public schools are suffering drastic budget cuts, while at the same time the administration trumpets the LIE "No Child Left Behind", and colleges are becoming the refuge of a healthy mix of the rich and the super rich. I don't know what to do about it except to say, "Open your eyes, people. Run to your window, throw it open and yell; "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore." " Wait a minute. Didn't the last guy who said that get shot for his trouble?

These Twizzlers are Faaaaaabulous

Somebody in marketing has quite the sense of humor, I think.

By the way, they taste way worse than they look.

I cannot begin to explain this

I think what is going on is that a clever papparazi has caught Michelle Pfeifer with her guard down. She really hates being photographed doing the thing that she enjoys most, racing around her estate in her chariot pulled by cute goats. I'm pretty sure that's what's happening. Fairly sure, at least. OK, not sure at all, but that has to be a better explanation than what is really going on, and isn't that what's important. It is to me. Peace out, y'all.

What day is it, boy?

Every Christmas morning, I get the urge to throw open the window and shout down to the first person I see, "What day is it, boy?". Of course, this would not actually work in my neighborhood, but this year I'm traveling, and it might have worked, if there had been anyone in the street. Sigh. Well, a person can dream. A person can dream.

My Christmas present to you is a picture of a chihuahua with a gun. Yes, a chihuahua with a gun. Because nothing says Peace on Earth, and Good Will Towards all Men, better than a chihuahua with a gun.

And yes, Tiny Tim did not die, and Scrooge became like a second father to him, and the very next Christmas he sent away to Mexico and was able to give Tiny Tim the thing he desired most in the world, a chihuahua with a gun.

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, ya old savings and loan!

If you don't get that reference, I can't help you.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

I nailed it!

A while back, I blogged that I thought the idea of a new space race to the moon was a stupid idea. Even with today's technology, I think all of the nations who wish to go back to the moon should band together and go as a team. Well, guess what?

I NAILED IT!

The Russians want to join in on our plan for exploration of, and an eventual base on the moon.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061207/ap_on_sc/russia_moon

Maybe they read my blog. Naaaaaaaah.

BEGONE!

Let's do a thought experiment. If you had a magic wand which you could wave and make something dissapear, how would you use it?

Think carefully, because you're not the only one who has use of this wand.

Sure, you might wave it and say,

"BEGONE, Poverty!", or
"BEGONE, Disease!", or
"BEGONE, Pollution!"

But stop and think for a minute how someone else, someone completely unlike yourself would make use of the wand.

They might wave it and say,

"BEGONE, Terrorists!", Which does work, in it's own way, but they also might say,

"BEGONE, Arabs!", or
"BEGONE, Jews!", or
"BEGONE, All Non Fundamentalist Christians!", or even,
"BEGONE, Bees!" (some people really hate bees), or
"BEGONE, Snakes!" (ditto the bees).

Basically, some group you belong to, or something you care deeply for, is the object of the deepest fear and hatred for someone else. And some people would shout "BEGONE" without ever thinking about the consequences.

In essence, I am saying that, just like in a Twilight Zone episode, you really have to think long and hard about what you might wish for, because nothing in this world comes withouth strings attached. Everything is connected. Everybody is somebody's son or daughter, and humans will go to the greatest lengths to justify their actions.

Now, "BEGONE from my blog, dear readers!"

The REAL hero of the Battle of the Death Star

Who destroyed the Death Star? Luke Skywalker? "Just like Beggar's Canyon, back home." NAH! (By the way, "Bullseying Wamp-Rats" sounds spectacularly cruel. Nice hero.)

Maybe it was the other guy, whose name I can't remember, who took the first shot at the "Thermal Exhaust Port", whose shot "Just impacted on the surface." Nope, not him, either.

No, the true hero of the Battle of the Death Star, the real presence that Darth Vader detected, was his actual first "Son", Threepio.

Threepio, you say? Yep, Threepio. The golden colored, mysteriously British droid, the one that Darling Little Anikin Skywalker created from stolen parts back in his days as a slave. Technically, Ani was Threepio's creator, and therefore his father, which also technically makes both Luke and Leia Threepio's half sibling, by my way of thinking. (They both treated him pretty shabbily, too, which points to his being their sibling, except that he is actuallly their OLDER brother, and he should have been doing the picking on.)

So how did the fay droid accomplish such a heroic act? Quite by accident, sorry to say. He never even realized he did it. When Luke, Leia, Han Solo and Chewbacca are trapped in the garbage masher (3263827!), and they are being squished by the moving walls, Luke yells for him to shut down all the garbage mashers on the detention level. Threepio then tells Artoo "NO! Shut them ALL down!" So what happened next? Once the others escape the garbage masher, he forgot to start ALL the garbage mashers up again. This caused a dangerous build up of methane gas. I think the reason for the garbage to be mashed in the first place was to squash it down to slow the production of methane. Once he shut them all down, the methane kept building up and building up, only waiting for the perfect spark to ignite it all. The crew, contractors and staff of the Death Star were so busy getting ready for the battle, nobody noticed that the mashers were disabled. Nobody thought that some random droid, let alone one hand built by Lord Vader, way back when he was just an annoying kid, would have shut down the garbage mashers, and forgotten to turn them back on. Then, in the middle of the great battle, the planet destroying beam is set to go, and it provided the spark neeeded to set off all that methane, thereby destroying the Death Star, and killing all those Imperials. Thanks a lot, Threepio. So if Anikin had not built Threepio in the first place, the Empire would have WON. Nice job, Ani.

P.S. When Luke wanted to be a Jedi, Yoda said he was too old to begin the training. When Liam Neeson wanted to make Ani a Jedi, the council said he was too old. Then when we meet the "younglings" who Anikin would later slaughter, they are tiny little kids, and this is probably the advanced class. So the Jedi, the "good guys" basically swoop in to birthing rooms, measure the newborns for the terribly named "midichlorians", and if they score high enough, say "Sorry, lady, I'm taking your baby, but don't worry, he'll be a JEDI!" My biggest problem with the saga is that no matter how bad you are, if you reform at the last possible minute, you are redeemed. Anikin slaughtered children, destroyed whole planets, basically became the poster child for genocide, but at the last minute he kills the emperor, and because of this he gets promoted to "glowing Jedi ghost". All is forgiven. If Goebels had assasinated Hitler, would this have made him a good guy? NO. Yes, yes, I take this all too seriously.
That is all.

Revelation - The word OUR is not the word THE.

I listen to a lot of National Public Radio. This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me or reads this blog. I'm a card carrying, unapologetic liberal. Those who decry NPR have usually not listened to it, and assume that only left wing views are represented there. Au Contraire! Listen even to a short while to any call in show, and you will see that all viewpoints are allowed, and encouraged. I, myself have braved listening to right wing radio, even (shudder) Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy. No lefties need apply, or try to call in. Ever. Ever. One of the conservative callers to a show on NPR was defending the President with the rote repeating of the line "We have to support our President, he's OUR (emphasis mine) Commander in Chief." To some this may be a nitpicking, semantic argument, but he is not OUR Commander in Chief, he is THE Commander in Chief of OUR armed forces. Saying he is OUR Commander in Chief sounds a lot like what we would have to say if we were living in a military dictatorship, all of us transcripted into the great national army. I'm sure that this subtle distinction is not one that the right wing extremists would mind people not being able to make. As W once said "I don't have a problem with Dictatorships, as long as I'm the Dictator." Or something like that.

This picture is of St. Michael the Archangel, who is the patron saint of Radiologists. I just like it.

Milestone or Millstone?

Something has happened that has never happened before. The 400 richest Americans, according to Forbes Magazine, are each worth at least one Billion dollars.

$1,000,000,000 and up.

Ordinary multi-millionaires need not apply.


That's at least ONE BILLION Dollars, each, up the line to Bill Gates, worth 56 Billion Dollars. At least he is putting his wealth to good use.

Now I know that I berate the rich regularly, and yes, I realize that a lot of what I feel is jealousy, but I also know that a lot of people at the top, even ordinary multi-millionaires poor mouth their employees when it comes time for raises or even paying a decent minimum wage. I'm sure that the top executives at most major companies are not losing their pensions or taking drastic wage cuts, they are just passing those down to the "little people". I think they should remember something I once heard: "If you don't feed the animals at the Zoo, eventually they will break out of their cages and eat the keepers.". I'm just saying.

Been away, now I'm back.

I just made the graphic to the left.

I can't believe that I never thought of this before. It's so obvious, now that I look at it.

It's especially appropriate, considering that whatever scandal happens to the Republicans these days, they claim it is all the Democrats fault. (You know the scandal I'm talking about. I know you do.)

Don't fall for the "September Surprise".

Didya notice that the price of gasoline is down? Way down? It doesn't take a paranoid person, to think that there might be something going on here, or a genius to figure out just what that might be.

High Gas Prices = Angry People
Angry People = Incumbents Not Re-Elected
Incumbents = Mostly Republicans
Republican Agenda = Cut Taxes (more) for The Ultra Rich
The Ultra Rich = Oil Company Executives
Oil Company Executives = Able to Lower gasoline prices
Lower Gasoline Prices = Happy People
Happy People = Incumbents Re-Elected

Please please please don't fall for it. As soon as the mid-term elections are over, gas prices will be right back up near three dollars a gallon, and the excuse will probably have something to do with home heating oil. Just watch.

And if you don't vote, shut the hell up.

We're going back. Why not together?

So we (The United States) have decided to go back to the moon. I'm all in favor of that, but the why bothers me. I have a feeling that the only reason we are really going is because of the New Space Race. The Chinese, Japanese, Indians, and heck, for all I know, the Venezuelans and the New Zealanders are planning missions to the moon. We tried a space race last time, and it was not without casualties (most on the Russian side, but we did loose a few). Why can't we put aside our differences and go together this time? I would think it would save money, and probably lives. I know it is a "national pride" thing, but we got together on the International Space Station, and that almost works. Especially given the proclivities of the current administration, I doubt that we will make international cooperation in space a high priority any time soon.

Conservatives, 5 Years into the Permanent War.

Five years into the state of permanent war, I have been listening to both the Conservative and the "Liberal" media. I know that I am biased, but I can't help but think that We have a tighter grip on reality than They do. As I listen to the Administration continue to preach Fear Fear Fear Fear Fear, I've been trying to understand how they can maintain their worldview, and do they really believe what they are saying? Yes, because they drink the Kool-Aid, they eat the Kool-Aid, they breathe the Kool-Aid, they sweat the Kool-Aid, they think the Kool-Aid, they dream the Kool-Aid, they live the Kool-Aid, they love the Kool-Aid, they think that the Kool-Aid is America’s greatest gift to the world, and they will never stop until everyone in the world thinks exactly the way they do, even if the world must be destroyed in the process. Indeed, a world that doesn’t agree completely with their view of what it should be does not deserve to exist. To save the world “from itself” they will send it to hell, “for its own good”. I can't help but remember what the solution was, right after the declaration of war. The drum beat went out, "Spend, Spend, Spend." Indulge your every whim. That SUV will fill the void in your soul. Sure it will. It saddens me to see that Five years in, we really are no different. There are just 2600 less of us. A friend asked why today hasn't been declared a national holiday. I replied that it would just be another excuse for big sales at the stores and another chance to barbecue. Where we go from here is beyond me. All I can say is that we must refuse to drink the Kool-Aid. The sign says 5 cents a glass, but really you have to turn over your soul. And once they have your soul, they never give it back.

A geography lesson

I was zooming around the planet today at lunch, using the best program ever, Google Earth, just cruising around, looking for things that stood out, when I noticed a very very large shape in western China. (Right in the center of the image to the left) Now, I consider myself fairly geographically knowledgeable, (self proclaimed map geek) and I know that western China is notoriously desolate, but I had never seen or noticed anything this big on any globe or map. Upon further research, I found out that it is the Taklamakan, the largest "all sand" desert in the world. As features visible from space, (on cloud free earth days) it's pretty cool. Not Jupiter's Great Red Spot cool, but still interesting. It covers 270,000 square kilometers. One branch of the silk road went north of it, another went south. I'm sure there was a very good reason to have gone around, rather than across it. China has used it for testing their atomic weapons, another reason to go around. Check it out on Google Earth if you get the chance. Zoom as far in as you can to get a sense of how desolate it is, a whole lot of sand, with dunes that strech thousands of kilometers. I still want to go there. But that's just me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taklamakan

Chalk up one victory for the hedgehogs.

Okay, this is not a hedgehog, I know. It is a badger, or at least a cartoon badger. I just couldn't find a picture of a hedgehog that I liked.

Anyways....

After 5 years of campaigning, the British Hedgehog Preservation Society has convinced McDonald's corporation to redesign the plastic cups for their McFlurry deserts. Apparently the sweet, sticky residue in the cups is irresistible to the critters, who get their heads stuck in the cups and sometimes die. But I think the BPCS is missing the real point. Shouldn't they be doing something about British litterbugs? The redesign wouldn't really be all that necessary if the cups weren't tossed out of the windows of cars by heartless Britishers. But I suppose McDonald's makes a "sexier" target. And at least now the hedgehogs will be alive, if frustrated by their inability to access sweet treats on the roadsides of Great Britain.

Poetry is like wine.

Why? Because I don't think I would know good poetry or wine, but I sure as heck can spot bad poetry or wine.

I'm reading Ann Rice's "Memnoch the Devil", on my wife's recommendation. Despite the fact that I have never read any of her other vampire novels, it's okay, because the first chapter is basically an extended, "Previously, on The Adventures of The Vampire Lestat...". So far, the book is pretty good, but, for those of you who don't know, Ms. Rice usually peppers her books with poetry by her now late husband. Here's an example, from the beginning of the book.


Duet on Iberville Street

The man in black leather
Buying a rat to feed his python
Does not dwell on particulars.
Any rat will do.
While walking back from the pet store
I see a man in a hotel garage
Carving a swan in a block of ice
With a chain saw.

Stan Rice, 30 Jan 94


Deep, huh. Here's another, just for giggles. He's so defiant.

What God did not plan on

Sleep well,
Weep well,
Go to the deep well
As often as possible.
Bring back the water,
Jostling and gleaming.
God did not plan on consciousness
Developing so
Well. Well,
Tell Him our
Pail is full
And He can
Go to Hell.

Stan Rice, 24 June 93

Keep in mind that I'm sure Stan and Ann used what they considered his "best" poems. I'd hate to see what they considered his mediocre, or even bad poems. Some of my friends and I used to sit around (drinking beer) and reading poetry aloud from a probably self published book of poetry called "Heat Lightning", by I don't remember who. Bad bad stuff, but not as bad as Stan's stuff, I think. The HL author used the line "Cement Colored Eyes" way too often, and each poem was a bitter rant against a woman. We added punch to each poem by adding the ending line, "You Bitch!", which only made us laugh all the harder. I think that just like some people who make their own wine convince themselves that it is good, despite the fact that it tastes like paint, some people have been taught that pretense + poetry = good. I know that I couldn't write a poem to save my life, but at least I know that. Happy Labor Day

Somebody really smart said this. Not me, somebody really smart.

The terrorists hate our freedom, so by eliminating the freedom, we can stop the terrorists from hating us.

The greatest poem ever written.

Everybody was kung-fu fighting
Those cats were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightning
But they fought with expert timing
They were funky China men from funky Chinatown
They were chopping them up and they were chopping them down
It's an ancient Chineese art and everybody knew their part
From a feint into a slip, and kicking from the hip
Everybody was kung-fu fighting
Those cats were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightning
But they fought with expert timing
There was funky Billy Chin and little Sammy Chung
He said here comes the big boss, lets get it on
We took a bow and made a stand, started swinging with the hand
The sudden motion made me skip now we're into a brand knew trip
Everybody was kung-fu fighting
Those cats were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightning
But they did it with expert timing
Make sure you have expert timing
Kung-fu fighting, had to be fast as lightning

Slaves to technology

I've been seeing commercials for new movies being released for sale, with the ending "Now available on DVD and Blu-Ray". Almost without reservation, the movies advertised are generally recognized as pure 100%, high-test, CRAP. But, just think, now you can watch these horrible movies in ultra high definition! You can experience every second of these terrible testaments to hollywood's endless navel gazing in a format so clear that it will probably be burned into your retinas and might even alter your DNA permanently. Don't get me wrong, I like technology, but I think people today are truly addicted to it. Every new gadget that comes along, they must have as soon as it is released, and then they dump it just as soon as the next thing comes along. One other movie I saw advertised was "Final Destination 3", I think, which uses the new technology to let you "decide the outcome" of the film by giving you control over who lives and who dies at special points in the film. I wonder if you can choose "live" for every choice you are given, turning another "Dead Teenager" film into an After School Special about how not to get killed. I would hope so, but I doubt it. I would like to see the movie "Alien" remade with this technology, and whenever the Alien attacked, I would have it walk into a door jamb or slip on a bananna peel, allowing the crew to escape. But where's the fun in that?

This just confuses things.

As long as we get to have a planet named Xena, I don't care how many there are or what they call them.


From New Scientist Magazine:

On 24 August, the International Astronomical Union will vote on a proposed new definition of the term "planet"

Here are the new categories they are proposing:

Planet: A round thing orbiting a star. More precisely, according to the draft definition: “A planet is a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet.”

Pluton: A planet orbiting beyond Neptune, taking more than 200 Earth years to circle the Sun. So far, it would include Pluto; Pluto's former moon, Charon; and "Xena" (2003 UB313).

Satellite: Anything orbiting a planet, as long as the mutual centre of gravity does not fall outside the planet. Includes several bodies much larger than many planets, such as Jupiter's moon Ganymede (diameter: 5262 kilometres).

Small solar system body: Anything orbiting the Sun that's not a planet or a satellite. Most asteroids and comets would be SSSBs. Currently called minor planets.

Unofficial categories of planet:
Dwarf planet: A planet smaller than Mercury (diameter: 4879 kilometres), which is the smallest uncontested planet. Would include the former asteroid Ceres; Pluto; Charon; and Xena.

Giant planet: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.

Classical planet: The four giant planets plus the familiar four rocky, terrestrial planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars.