Song of the Day

I used to post songs every so often.. I think I'll start doing that again.

When I was reading today, I came across an interesting story about Mozart.

A highlight of the Italian journey, now an almost legendary tale, occurred when he heard Gregorio Allegri's Miserere once in performance in the Sistine Chapel then wrote it out in its entirety from memory, only returning to correct minor errors; thus producing the first illegal copy of this closely-guarded property of the Vatican.

You can listen to it here.

He did that at 14 years of age. I could barely tie my shoelaces at 14.

Miserere Mei has been performed at the Sistine Chapel every Holy Week since 1630, and was never allowed to be transcribed or performed at any other time or place. Over the centuries, castrati had been used to sing the soprano parts, but obviously it is done by boys now.

I've visited the Sistine Chapel shortly after it was restored. It's a lot smaller than you would think. I thought that they really must have made a mistake because the frescos that Michelangelo painted appeared to be modern cartoons. Apparently they were painted with vibrant colors intentionally so that they could be seen from the floor of the chapel with only window light, instead of modern lighting.

It's rather awe inspiring to be in the same exact spot that a Mozart, and Michelangelo, and other brilliant historical figures stood and worked, not to mention the papal selections that have taken place over hundreds of years. If that doesn't give you goosebumps, nothing will.

It would seem that Mozart had a sense of humor;

For example, Mozart wrote canons on the words "Lick me in the ass" and "Lick me in the ass nice and clean" as party pieces for his friends. The Köchel numbers of these canons are 231 and 233 (their original German texts are "Leck mich im Arsch" and "Leck mich im Arsch recht fein schön sauber").

If you like Baroque era choral music, some more can be found here.

Asshat Quote of the Day

"We face an enemy that has an ideology. They believe things. The best way to describe their ideology is to relate to you the fact that they think the opposite of the way we think." - Chimp-in-Chief

I guess the only way anybody can avoid getting bombed back to the fucking stone age is to not believe anything and think just like Americans.

Wikipedia

I'm becoming rather addicted to it.

The way it works is that I read something in the news, and then I go look up something relevant on wikipedia, and then follow the endless chains of links in the entries.

Today it worked out a bit backwards. I started reading about various figures in classical music on a whim, then ended up reading about impressionist painters. Then I just saw a news story about the recovery of a work that was stolen a couple years ago called The Scream, by Norwegian, Edward Munch. I'm sure everyone has seen that painting before.



Munch is actually an "expressionist", rather than impressionist, but it seems to me the difference is merely the artists outlook, not the technique. Impressionists tend to be stable (with the exception of van Gogh) and expressionists tend to be like the goth kids on South Park - life is pain.

I can particularly appreciate this painting from Munch called Death in the Sickroom.



I know that look...

Wikipedia is like the cliff's notes of the world. For everything in the world that you think you should know something about, but have no idea, it fills in the gaps at a level that's easy to retain and covers the important parts. If you follow the links, you can get lost for hours and learn many things you should know, but probably don't.

Video of the Day

Olbermann last night.. link:

Unfortunately, the only people who actually understand what Olbermann is saying are the people that already agree.

Required Reading

Scott Adams evaluates the Middle East "crises" and offers the most reasonable solution. Part one here, and the second part here.

If you believe that "Muslims only want to kill all of us and control the world", then you probably won't get much from reading it.

A crash is coming..

Check out this graph. Remarkable, isn't it?

And then there is;

NEW YORK - Worries about the job market caused consumers' confidence in the U.S. economy to tumble even more than expected in August to its lowest level in nine months.

Though there are still more consumers who feel business and labor conditions are favorable than unfavorable, the gap is closing, economists noted — which could dampen spending going into the holiday shopping months.

"It confirms that the economy is slowing down, that things are cooling off a bit, and that consumers are little bit more concerned about the job situation than they were earlier this year," said Gary Thayer, chief economist at A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. in St. Louis.

My sense is that there is a recession coming, and housing prices are going to drop off sharply. If the Republicans keep control of congress in the fall, that will accelerate the process. I think we'll see it by next summer.

For me being in Dallas, prices have been fairly flat. My house may drop down to what it was when I bought it, which is really okay because I planned to own it one way or another indefinately. For others in hotter areas, it looks like the peak is quickly approaching. Certainly I would not buy a house at an inflated price right now. You'll get creamed.

Back - sort of

I'm back at work today.. but will not be at full blog mode for a while I guess. Who knows how things go?

I did reach the age of 40 yesterday. I had written before about how people seem to peak at about 25 years of age, and from then on, genius, or better said achievement, heads rapidly south. I saw this story last week..

MADRID, Spain - A reclusive Russian won the math world's highest honor Tuesday for solving a problem that has stumped some of the discipline's greatest minds for a century - but he refused the award.

Grigory Perelman, a 40-year-old native of St. Petersburg, won a Fields Medal - often described as math's equivalent of the Nobel prize - for a breakthrough in the study of shapes that experts say might help scientists figure out the shape of the universe.

And then the guy turned around and refused all awards and media attention. It reminds me of Bobby Fisher.

Oh.. and that bozo didn't kill Jon Benet after all.. Seems I was right from the beginning. Duh..

Gone for a while

Be back in a few weeks or something maybe..

Bush finally says it

Via Think Progress, Chimpy finally admits the administration had been lying all along.. and while doing so, tells yet another lie;

BUSH: The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.

QUESTION: What did Iraq have to do with it?

BUSH: What did Iraq have to do with what?

QUESTION: The attack on the World Trade Center.

BUSH: Nothing. Except it’s part of — and nobody has suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a — Iraq — the lesson of September 11th is take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody’s ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.

I don't have the link handy, but fully 50% of the American public believes Iraq had some involvement in the 9/11 attacks - which it did not. Even Chimpy is now admitting it. But, because the Republicans have nothing to be elected on, they played the fear angle quite well.

If you look at the Think Progress article, they link to a number of articles quoting administration officials linking Iraq to 9/11. Today we have Chimpy saying the opposite. Chimpy is lying again.. whodathunkit?

Hey.. how's that "freedom agenda" coming along anyway?

The debate is over: By any definition, Iraq is in a state of civil war. Indeed, the only thing standing between Iraq and a descent into total Bosnia-like devastation is 135,000 U.S. troops -- and even they are merely slowing the fall. The internecine conflict could easily spiral into one that threatens not only Iraq but also its neighbors throughout the oil-rich Persian Gulf region with instability, turmoil and war.

The consequences of an all-out civil war in Iraq could be dire. Considering the experiences of recent such conflicts, hundreds of thousands of people may die. Refugees and displaced people could number in the millions. And with Iraqi insurgents, militias and organized crime rings wreaking havoc on Iraq's oil infrastructure, a full-scale civil war could send global oil prices soaring even higher.

I'm begining to think Bush Co. wants a massive civil war to destablize the entire Middle East.

Bonus pic of the day

Pic(s) of the Day

More - Why American Suck

The people at Think Progress have tallied up the time spent on both stories by the major networks, and hereÂ’s what they discovered:

All three major TV networks led their evening news with stories on JonBenet RamseyÂ’s death and the comments made by arrested teacher John Mark Karr. The networks offered multiple segments and numerous expert analyses to provide in-depth coverage on the legal case. The NSA decision received only a passing mention from two of the newscasts, while ABC devoted a full segment to it.

Still, ABC devoted twice as much time to Ramsey as it did to the NSA story. More egregiously, CBS offered seven times as much airtime to Ramsey as it did to the NSA story, while NBC devoted 15 times more airtime.

Yep.. the cute whitey in trouble story is far more important to Americans than a federal judge constitutionally bitch slapping the President of the United States - and raising the specter of criminal prosecution.

Violating FISA law (which the judge held that chimpy has been doing) is a criminal offense.

I wrote more extensively on the topic before. The reason the networks obsess on it is because more Americans care about a 10 year old murder than the current state of politics in the U.S.

I suppose that's too much to ask from Americans.. pathetic..

Video of the Day

Henry Rollins writes a letter..

Netflix

So my queue with Netflix is dried up.. I've seen everything there is to see apparently.. Movies suck fucking ass the last few years. Seriously.. it's all a big huge pile of cow shit.

So I click on the button to get "reccomendations in drama"... and this is the list that Netflix thinks I'd like to see, based on my ratings of other movies (750+).

Get more Recommendations by rating more movies.
Schindler's List

The Titanic

The Bible Collection: Joseph

The Bible Collection: Moses

Fargo

The Bible Collection: Abraham

The Gospel of John (3-Disc Series)

The Bible Collection: David

The Bible Collection: Jacob

Fingersmith

Angels in America (2-Disc Series)

King of Kings

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story

An Early Frost

What the fuck is that bullshit? Does Netflix have some christian freak devs coding bias into the reccomendations program?

Seriously.. am I not massively anti-religion? Don't I think they are all cult freaks, hell bent on destroying the world? And Netflix thinks I should see King of Kings?

What.. the.... fuck...

I'll post my rant to Netflix when I finish it..

Oh.. and Steve.. if you could score me a copy of Snakes on a Plane to watch on my plane trip to Hawaii.. that would be really cool.

** update **

Assholes..

Dear Netflix User,

We appreciate your recent feedback about the Netflix service. Due to
the overwhelming number of great ideas we get from customers such as
yourself, we cannot reply to every customer individually. However,
all comments and suggestions are forwarded to the appropriate
departments for review and consideration.

Pic of the Day

I just noticed something... a bit closer view of the pic I posted the other day.. The pic was taken on the 14th of this month..

Look at Cheney.. He's got that Ariel Sharon look.. sort of starting to lean forward, and the shoulders dropping a bit.. like he can't resist gravity anymore..

Pics from today..






A pic from a couple years ago..




It's not just the difference between smiling and the usual Cheney snarl. It's color and just over all health appearance. Granted, there's more color in the older picture in general, but the subtle cues are obvious. He has that "I'm about to have a heart attack and die" look.

Indeed, that is the Republicans most dangerous political weapon for the mid-term elections this fall. I predict that this October, Dick Cheney will drop dead.. for the party. All they will talk about on the news, night and day, what kind of bounce the Republicans will get from it. They will frame it as "at the risk of sounding morbid, frankly this does have political implications and we would be remiss if we didn't examine them."

Say hello to Vice President Lieberman..

** update **



CNN actually published a mocked up Cheney obit in 2001.. oops..

Felidea

A brief description of how cats kill things, over at the Daily Kos - here:

Using these natural switchblades, the cat first strikes and pierces the flesh, and then cuts a long laceration upon withdrawal. And larger cats can do it with the force of a wildly swinging sledgehammer, all focused on those tiny, sharp, edges, in the blink of an eye.

Ya.. adorable little serial killers..

Housekeeping Monthly - 1955

Holy crap.. look at this:

Now that's what I'm talking about.. be a little gay, and fetch me a fucking drink bitch!

The world truly has gone to hell in a handbasket..

Video of the Day - Part Deux

I wonder if the people that Jon Stewart ridcules actually watch him make them look like completely fools? Wouldn't that be great? Just imagine some complete tool at CNN watching that video.. I'd laugh..

Interestingly enough, I think there is a tide turning away from the complete jackass buffons. If you look at the latest chimp polling, people really don't give a flying fuck about the "terraist" bomb plot in the UK and so on. A great deal of that has to do with The Daily Show.

Americans really are getting tired of all this war, death, destruction, terroism, fear, hating.. It's a big huge pile of shit, but that's Republican politics for you. I think Americans would rather get back into arts and culture..

But, Tom, you may screech.. teh Muslisms want to kill all of us!!111

Ya.. whatever.. fuck off..

Incompetent

The only reason to follow a murder investigation is to make fun of it.. so I'll continue to watch this JonBenet Ramsey thing.. It's looking more and more like I was right.. this "suspect" is just a loon..

It seems some Thai policeman is changing his story about a couple important details. He had originally claimed that the suspect told him he had abducted JonBenet from school, and then drugged her. The murder happened during the Christmas break, and she wasn't drugged.

This is all some big joke.. but of course I guess we shall see when they do the hand writing comparison.. but it's evident this guy is just an obsessive nutjob.

The really great part, of course, is that he got the media to lose their fucking minds, fly reporters all over the place.. make it "BREAKING!!!!111" news on all the cable channels.. and he's going to get a free plane ride back to the US - where once again the cops and prosecutors look like total idiots..

I figure her father did it.. And again, if she was a he and was not cute and white, nobody would fucking care. It's just like my point about the cat pictures.. exactly the same...

Shame on you fuckers...

Video of the Day

That's gotta hurt, niggahz!!!

No contest Gibson

MALIBU, Calif. - Mel Gibson pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor drunken-driving charge Thursday and was sentenced to three years' probation, the district attorney's office said.

The judge ordered Gibson to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings five times a week for 4 1/2 months and three AA meetings per week for another 7 1/2 months.

Seems to me it's kind of odd to order people convicted of DUI's to attend AA meetings. Just because a person drives under the influence doesn't mean they are an alcoholic. Is the government saying that all persons convicted of a DUI should stop drinking entirely?

And then, of course, the person goes to an AA meeting, where the AA cult convinces them they really are alcoholics, and that they are powerless to stop drinking, and that they need to turn their lives over to some higher power, or other such nonsense. Then, to top it off, they will convince them that if they ever drink again, their lives will instantly become a huge pile of shit. After all, people don't have any personal responsibility for their own drinking habits. It's all the "disease"'s fault.

If they're hot - a bunch of people start thinking about "13th stepping" them.

Just seems strange to me.. but I'm sure John will leap to the defense of AA, because it's not at all like that... uh huh..

They all simply lack dischiprin...

A Constitutional Republic

That's our form of government. It's not a pure democracy - always remember that. It's vitally important, and a brilliant testament to the (secular) men that drafted the most extraordinary system of government in the history of mankind.

They save us from ourselves..

DETROIT - A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government's warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy.

Conspiracy Theories

Sully has a big one today.. and it's odd when he writes something that isn't completely moronic.

"Senior administration officials have acknowledged to me that they are considering alternatives other than democracy. Everybody in the administration is being quite circumspect, but you can sense their own concern that this is drifting away from democracy," - a "military affairs expert" who received an Iraq briefing at the White House last month.

I have long wondered whether Cheney and Rumsfeld ever believed that their job was to build a new democracy in Iraq. Rumsfeld had dealt with and supported Saddam in the past; Cheney was extremely suspicious of occupying Iraq in 1990. One subversive theory - which I'm not endorsing, just airing - is that both merely wanted to turn the Saddam regime to rubble, and then play along with neocon democracy supporters, while making sure that the military was never given enough resources to do nation-building. Then Cheney and Rumsfeld could prove their point about the impossibility of reforming the Muslim world, and promote the view that we need merely to pummel enemies, project military fear across the region, and deter Islamo-fascism by "shock and awe." The Likud strategy, in other words.

Under this interpretation, Bush was too trusting or dumb to understand the deviousness of their plan to fail in Iraq; Wolfowitz saw it too late and got out; Rice is stuck managing the debris that a democracy-promoting president and a democracy-hostile Pentagon created. The troops were just pawns in Cheney's and Rumsfeld's strategy. This interpretation would mean that incompetence is not the issue. Cheney and Rumsfeld have succeeded: they have turned Iraq into a failed state, removed its capacity to make WMDs, and detonated a regional Sunni-Shi'a war. Now they want to use the same brutalist strategy against Iran. This theory is probably too complex and subtle to be true. The screw-up theory of history is more often the most plausible. But it does make some internal sense - if you assume that Cheney and Rumsfeld are not complete incompetents.

Jesus.. if that's true.. god damn..

But hey.. a couple days ago Sully was calling Cheney an incompetent wimp, and not airing magnificantly complex conspiracy theories. Allrighty then..

Pic of the day - Updated

One of these is not like the others. One of these does not belong.

Which is it?

You bitches didn't guess, meaning that I didn't get a chance to use the joke. Gah..

The one that is not like the other's is the one in the middle. The other 4 are actually very bright people. Evil, to be sure, but bright none the less.

Bush

Remarkable observations on the Bush presidency from Dan Froomkin at the WaPo here:

Froomkin explains what Bush is. The real story, that will become evident after Bush is gone, is how the Neo-con's managed to pull it off. That the president is insulated shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone. How the neo-cons were able to keep the charade up for 8 years is the big story.

They took a guy that was a former alcohol and drug addict, and a complete failure at every single thing he's touched, and turned him into the President of the United States. They didn't get him elected, but they got him close enough to it that they could work the system the rest of the way with his brother in Florida, and a stacked Supreme Court.

"[T]he president expressed frustration that Iraqis had not come to appreciate the sacrifices the United States had made in Iraq, and was puzzled as to how a recent anti-American rally in support of Hezbollah in Baghdad could draw such a large crowd. 'I do think he was frustrated about why 10,000 Shiites would go into the streets and demonstrate against the United States,' said [a] person who attended.

It's not just that Bush is a puppet. He's clearly not intellectually capable of leading the nation, and desperately relies on long-time family associates to keep from falling apart. But what we're seeing is this whole cadre of neo-cons that only let Bush see a certain point of view of the world. Bush does not see what we see day in and day out. He has no idea what's going on.

It's obvious Cheney and company are managing Bush and simply using him as their tool to get what they want. They even help Bush think he's in charge, simply by leading him to what he thinks are his own policy decisions, but are nothing more than what those that control his viewpoint wanted in the first place.

I don't think there has ever been a president that has ever been in such a bubble as Froomkin describes, and you have to realize that the media establishment is probably in on it. They know what's going on, and probably know the implications of what it would mean if it revealed as fact.

Heck, there are times when I think Bush knows what's going on and shows signs of crumbling, but for everyone's sake, they need to keep him propped up. There's only a couple more years to go. The key thing is, don't let them make any more decisions about anything until we get a real government in place again.

Joe Scarborough asks the question in this video. Check it out. It's remarkable.

He's over-matched by the English language.

No, he's over-matched by the job.

John Fund asks if anyone can name a Democratic president that was thought of as "dumb". The answer is - no. There's a reason for that, and it sums the entire world of politics quite simply.

** update **

In the Scarborough video, John Fund is the "balance" that defends Bush's intellect. I had to laugh when reading Eschaton and they linked to this Media Matters report that demonstrates what a complete idiot Fund is.

People who have read me for a while know I like to connect-the-dots. This is a great example of what some of you have seen at the Right Wing Guy's blog, and this Lord Brown Mouse person that keeps leaving comments. After all, RWG can't form a coherent sentence himself, so it doesn't occur to him that Bush's inability to communicate is unusual.

The reason they don't understand that Bush is an idiot, is because they are idiots. It's easy to admire Bush when you have a dull/normal intellect yourself. I find it really amusing that Bush's is "defended" by John Fund, who is a demonstrated moron. It makes perfect sense.

There's really two types of people that support Bush. The first is the obvious moron type. They're afraid of "terraists" and they're all up in Jesus ass. The other is the cold and calculating wealthy. These people don't give a shit about Bush's intellect or his foreign policy. They support Bush for purely fiscal reasons. It's all about their money.

At least that part I can understand, even if I think it's pretty slimy. But.. hell.. John and I are going to Hawaii in 2 weeks for an absurdly expensive vacation. The cost of the vacation is more than offset for John by the tax breaks he got as being in Bush's target beneficiary group. I don't think we're going to feel guilty about it.

** updated again **

Morons in action.

Video of the Day

The Daily Show has a new correspondent, and he's a Brit. They look at how the nomination of Ned Lamont has emboldened the terrorists.

I really dig British accents..

Dial D for Murder

D representing "drama" of course...

I normally don't get into this shit, but it's got an interesting twist;

BANGKOK, Thailand - A former American school teacher said publicly Thursday that he was with JonBenet Ramsey when she died in what he called "an accident," a stunning admission after a decade without answers in the 6-year-old girl's murder. But the suspect's ex-wife said she was with him in Alabama at the time of JonBenet's 1996 death.

"I was with JonBenet when she died," Karr told reporters afterward, visibly nervous and stuttering. "Her death was an accident."

Asked if he was innocent of the crime, Karr said: "No."

As he was escorted to his guesthouse to pick up his belongings, Karr told The Associated Press: "I am so very sorry for what happened to JonBenet. It's very important for me that everyone knows that I love her very much, that her death was unintentional, that it was an accident."

He told the AP he made "several efforts to communicate with Patricia before she passed away," referring to JonBenet's mother, who died in June, "and it is my understanding that she did read my letters."

No evidence against Karr has been made public beyond his own admission. U.S. and Thai officials did not directly answer a question at the news conference Thursday about whether there was DNA evidence connecting him to the crime.

Karr's ex-wife, Lara Karr, told KGO-TV in California that she was with her former husband in Alabama at the time of JonBenet's killing and she does not believe her former husband was involved in the homicide.

She said her ex-husband spent a lot of time studying the cases of Ramsey and Polly Klaas, who was abducted from her Petaluma, Calif., home and slain in 1993.

Oh k. I think what we've got here is an OCD nutzoid who is wanting to claim responsibility for the crime, and has probably convinced himself that he did it.

It'll be easy enough to check I suppose. There was a ransom note. Simply have an expert compare this nut's handwriting to the letter. DNA would be nice as well.. but it's just so odd they haven't claimed any other evidence, and what this guy has been doing and saying sounds really insane and stalkerish.

It all makes sense now

NEW YORK, Aug 15 (Reuters) - Bankrupt Northwest Airlines Corp. (NWACQ.PK: Quote, Profile, Research) advised workers to fish in the trash for things they like or take their dates for a walk in the woods in a move to help workers facing the ax to save money.

The No. 5 U.S. carrier, which has slashed most employees' pay and is looking to cut jobs as it prepares to exit bankruptcy, put the tips in a booklet handed out to about 50 workers and posted for a time on its employee Web site.

Northwest spokesman Roman Blahoski said some employees who received the handbook had taken issue with a couple of the items. "We agree that some of these suggestions and tips ... were a bit insensitive," Blahoski told Reuters.

The four-page booklet, "Preparing for a Financial Setback" contained suggestions such as shopping in thrift stores, taking "a date for a walk along the beach or in the woods" and not being "shy about pulling something you like out of the trash."

See.. the whole "terraist" plot in the U.K. was just an elaborate ruse in order to implement new rules forcing passengers to discard more of their possessions in the trash. Who wants to go dumpster diving?!?! Woo Hoo!!

Via AmericaBlog

Kitten War

Jesus' General exposes the brutal act of kitten war:



You know which one I would pick.. and it's not the fluffy one on the left.

Asshat Quote of the Day

Bottom line: Mr Cheney, you're an incompetent wimp who didn't have the will to win in Iraq, or the integrity to uphold American values while fighting a deadly foe. You have thereby made us all less safe, and stained the reputation of America for decades. Your incompetence and brutality have made us both less feared and more despised in the world. - Andrew Sullivan

Naturally, I had to write Sully a little love note;

Bottom Line: Mr Sullivan, you've enabled and cheered on an incompetent wimp, while labeling those who were correct all along "traitors".

But as the beat goes on for the administration disaster, so do you go on. The Kos crowd silence on Israel/Lebanon? Must be traitors again.

Fortunately, in politics we have term limits. In the pundocracy, those whose blunders were only exceeded by those they worshiped merely regroup and reopine. Only next time it's going to be completely different?

I doubt I'll hear back from him. The only time he ever writes me back is when it has something to do with gay rights, or John Podhoretz' fixation on tea room sex. Don't ask...



He could play a conehead without the prosthesis.

Things that make you wet yourself

Getting this email from a guy 3 cubes away from you out of the blue;

You're not one of those angry, far-left, treasonous, liberal bloggers -- Are you?

What to be afraid of

Like I've said many times.. I'm not afraid of many things, certainly not terrorism. But, this is something everyone should be afraid of.

You reap

KABUL, Afghanistan - Opium cultivation in Afghanistan has hit record levels — up by more than 40 percent from 2005 — despite hundreds of millions in counternarcotics money, Western officials told The Associated Press.

The increase could have serious repercussions for an already grave security situation, with drug lords joining the Taliban-led fight against Afghan and international forces.

A Western anti-narcotics official in Kabul said about 370,650 acres of opium poppy was cultivated this season — up from 257,000 acres in 2005 — citing their preliminary crop projections. The previous record was 323,700 acres in 2004, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

"It is a significant increase from last year ... unfortunately, it is a record year," said a senior U.S. government official based in Kabul, who like the other Western officials would speak only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive topic.

Wait a second.. didn't we "defeat" the Taliban, and make Afghanistan a shining beacon of freedom and democracy?

Blogspot

Atrios points out something I noticed but just thought it was me.

Lately, when you reload the blog, sometimes it doesn't display new posts since the last time it was loaded. I've noticed that after I've posted an entry, refreshed the blog, it doesn't show up. The way to fix it is to hold down the control key and then refresh. That reloads the entire page, graphics and all, and takes a bit longer.

Of course, if you're having this issue, then you can't see this post.. so I dunno.. whatever.

Quote of the Day

Political chaos is connected with the decay of language... one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. - George Orwell

Arianna Huffington has a nice piece up about political rhetoric, here:

Everything is connected by language. Wars, death, destruction, politics - it's all about language. Fear is the great tool right now, and it's facilitated by language. And, when I say that people are stupid as fuck - it usually centers around language, and most people's inability to parse the language correctly.

When I say moderates are just indecisive, it's the same thing. There is right, and there is wrong, fact and fiction, truth and lies, and language is what is used to describe the conditions that we must "make up our minds" on, right? That's the big fallacy in politics. There is no "make up our minds", because that implies that truth has a bias or interpretation. Stephen Colbert describes it as "truthiness".

What most people know about the world today is constructed of language that would make Orwell spin. It's constant from the Republicans (to a vastly lesser extent Democrats) and overwhelming from the media. The difference with some of us is that we disregard language and yank out the "truthful" parts of any situation.

There is a vast left wing conspiracy going on in the internets, made up of people who have that same trait for pulling out truth and disregarding bullshit. I've linked some of their blogs over on the right side-bar. There are many, many more out there. They've blown up Joe Lieberman, and they are blowing up the media.

That is the only reason why this happened yesterday.

You know, I owe you an apology. Last week, I led into an interview with a guest analyst and really botched the set-up. The guest had wanted to discuss the Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman statements suggesting that terror groups — Al Qaeda type, to use Cheney’s words — would be buoyed by your win, but I posed it badly, stupidly ad-libbing about "some saying Lamont is the Al-Qaeda candidate." No one, in fact, used that construction. Anyway, I wanted to correct the record, and I’m glad we had this chance to do it. Now, let’s get to the insinuations that were lobbed…

If not for this new tool, and these reasonable people - that never would have happened. We're making progress.

** update **

Huff also has a nice piece up about Clinton. Her point is that he only leads when it's meaningless, and that he needs to step up right now and end this Lieberman debacle.

And I agree. I dig Bill Clinton, and he needs to cast his lot.

Makes sense

SELMER, Tenn. - A minister's wife accused of shooting her husband to death after an argument over money was released from jail Tuesday on $750,000 bail.

Mary Winkler, 32, is charged with killing Matthew Winkler on March 22 at their church parsonage in Selmer, about 80 miles east of Memphis.

She was arrested the following day in Alabama, where she had taken the couple's three young daughters, and has been behind bars on murder charges since then.

Investigators said Winkler told them she shot her husband after a night of arguing over finances and other problems. The couple had been fallen victim to a scam in which victims are told that a sweepstakes prize or other riches are waiting for them if they send in money to cover the processing expenses, her lawyers have said.

I'd pay money to know how that argument went.

Him: You did what?
Her: I thought we could use the money to build a new school!
Him: Oh you dumb bitch!
Her: Hep me Jebus! Hep me!! blam blam blam

Absurd moments in sports

SEOUL, South Korea - A 53-point win over South Korea wrapped up a perfect Asian exhibition tour for a star-studded U.S. team on its way to the world championships. LeBron James scored 23 points Tuesday to lead the Americans to a 116-63 win over South Korea in their final tuneup for the world championships. The U.S. squad went 5-0 in exhibitions leading up to the worlds, which begin Saturday in Japan.

Uh.. hmm... I'm having a bit of trouble articulating my thoughts here..

Oh hell.. the picture says it.

** edit **

Fuck it..

You niggaz some tall ass niggahz, nigga!

Asshat Quote of the Day

It is becoming more clear that if we want to survive as a nation we are going to have to change the way we fight this war, and it is a world war. These extremists are not going away until we put them away. They want us dead, they want our children dead, their whole being is to kill until they are the only ones left. Innocent people have been dying for ages and that will not go away either. At some point, you have to ask yourself, it is either going to be them or us? I would much rather it be them. We are a good people and always have been for anyone that needs help. We just need to face a fact, and that is we need to win this war, and whatever it takes we need to do it. I have never hurt anyone in my life and cannot understand how people just live and breathe for the destruction of an entire people. I would love to live in peace but not on their terms.

That's a comment from some right wing freak brigade, here:

The original post called for, and justified the slaughtering of, Muslim children. It is entitled, quite appropriately, On the Virtues of Killing Children.

Small point before I rant - again, none of these freaks are actually in the military or stationed in a combat zone. That they are cowards is the baseline that I always start with.

The cowardice and the desire to kill children goes hand in hand with shear intellectual banality. These people are frightened of the boogey man, and they aren't very bright. I know I'm stereotyping here, but if you've seen the blogs I've been linking to, and the comments of the blogger and readers, it's pretty apparent we're dealing with a whole bunch of Americans with sub 100 IQs. Hell, Right Wing Guy claimed a 140 IQ, but as I pointed out time and again over there, he doesn't understand the basic rules of English grammar (he even misspelled "grammar"), and simply cannot form a grammatically correct sentence in English. 140 IQ? No no.. that's why I was calling him 85 (patterned after Alien 3 by the way).

Fear + cowardice + being really stupid = desire to kill children

And when you debate with them, their sole argument comes down to "You don't seem to realize Islam is evil and all they want is to kill all of us, including our children". Yes, I do understand the point the right wingers are making, but what I try to get through to them is that the reason they have that point of view is because they are uneducated idiots.

But, because they are that stupid, they'll never understand what I'm saying, so it's really circular. It just goes round and round with them saying the most insipid things, and me trying to explain to them that the reason they believe that is because they are completely retarded, and them not getting it because they are too stupid to understand.

I know these people are lost - but what we really need to work on is the cause. What is the problem?

Duh - religion.

Bet you knew I was going to get there eventually. But mark my words, it is the destruction of mankind... and if you don't believe me... well, then see my point about the right wingers who are too stupid to know why killing children is a new low.

** edit **

Some trackback posts to the original article;

A hard read but a must read from Explicitly Ambiguous
You wont like it but you need to read it.. its the truth. On the Virtues of Killing Children

Grim over at Blackfive has posted what needs to be said: It must be, I tell her sadly, Here: That we pursue war without thought of the children. That we do not turn aside from the death of the innocent

Grim posts a harshly beautiful essay at Blackfive, On the Virtues of Killing Children, that’s an absolute must read -- if only to consider a deeper truth revealed beyond the sensationalist title.

Oh. My. God. Here is an excellent MUST-READ post by Grim at Blackfive On the Virtues of Killing Children. Gird yourself, it is not an easy read. It truly deserves this warning: On the demonstrable virtues of not caring if children die...

Roci, at Rocinante's Burdens, has an excellent post up with several good insights. He point out some hard truths - Hard Truth #1: We are not all entitled to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

No one has written so powerfully of late than Grim, On the Virtues of Killing Children (H/T The Anti-Idiotarian Rottwieller). I am considering this required reading.

It just goes on and on..

Feeling safer?

The government's new order that all airline passengers put their shoes through X-ray machines won't help screeners find a liquid or gel that can be used as a bomb.

The machines are unable to detect explosives, according to a Homeland Security report on aviation screening recently obtained by The Associated Press....

In its April 2005 report, "Systems Engineering Study of Civil Aviation Security - Phase I," the Homeland Security Department concluded that images on X-ray machines don't provide the information necessary to detect explosives.

Machines used at most airports to scan hand-held luggage, purses, briefcases and shoes have not been upgraded to detect explosives since the report was issued.

Airport security is really not about securing aircraft. It's about making the public feel that they are "safe". That's what the business of government is today. The reality is, terrorists can pretty much do what they want. We've seen it time and again, and while sometimes law enforcement does catch them before they strike, it certainly isn't what prevents wholesale destruction.

That's why it's about damn time we address the reasons why there is terrorism, instead of simply dropping more bombs - which ironically only creates more terrorists. It's a crapshoot whether you end up a victim or not, but as I've said before - your odds of ending up a victim of terrorism is less than getting hit by lighting.

I've said it before, Americans are really stupid people. In fact, I think that was a cold war era weapon that the Soviets came up with. We think we actually "won" the cold war, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the Soviets came up with a "stupid weapon" and employed it throughout the United States. Then all they have to do is sit back and wait for us to doom ourselves.

How else to explain going from "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself" to wrapping our houses with duct tape and plastic sheets?

Nail 'em all

BERLIN - Prosecutors plan to keep an eye on Madonna's weekend concert in Duesseldorf to see if the pop diva repeats the mock crucifixion scene that has drawn fire from religious leaders.

Johannes Mocken, a spokesman for prosecutors in Duesseldorf, said Tuesday that a repeat of that scene during Sunday's concert could be construed as insulting religious beliefs.

Madonna, who is known for her theatrical, action-packed shows, wears a crown of fake thorns while performing on a mirrored cross.

The stunt, which has been included from the outset of her worldwide "Confessions" tour, has been criticized as an act of hostility toward the Roman Catholic Church.

Earlier this month, religious leaders in Rome condemned the concert stunt. Some 70,000 fans attended Madonna's performance at Olympic Stadium, some two miles from the Vatican.

Of course it's insulting to religious beliefs. Duh. But is that illegal in Germany? It sure as hell isn't here.

And the Catholic church deserves to be insulted. They're just a bunch of really evil assholes.

Why don't the "German authorities" have anything better to do than monitor a pop artist?

Sorry isn't good enough

Conservative radio talk-show host Doug McIntyre's mea culpa;

I was wrong to have voted for George W. Bush. I believe George W. Bush is unarguably the worst two-term President in the history of the country. Worse than Grant. A case can be made he's the worst President, period. I reached the conclusion he's either grossly incompetent, or a hand puppet for a gaggle of detached theorists with their own private view of how the world works. Or both.

After September 11th, I believed President Bush when he said we would go after the terrorists and the nations that harbored them. I supported the President when he sent our troops into Afghanistan. I supported the war in Iraq because I believed Colin Powell at the UN, and trusted Tony Blair. The President said Iraq was an urgent threat, and after 9-11, the risk seemed too real. But in the months and years since shock and awe I have been shocked repeatedly by a consistent litany of excuses, alibis, double-talk, inaccuracies, bogus predictions, and flat out lies. I have watched as the President and his administration changed the goals, redefined the reasons for going into Iraq, and fumbled the good will of the world and the focus necessary to catch the real killers of September 11th. The President says the commanders on the ground will make the battlefield decisions, and the war in Iraq won't be run from Washington. Yet, politics has consistently determined what the troops can and can't do and any commander who does not go along with the administration is sacked, and in some cases, maligned. I was wrong about everything associated with Iraq.

We're in the "waning days of the insurgency." We're about to slink home with our tail between our legs, leaving civil war in Iraq and a nuclear-armed Iran in our wake And Bin Laden is still making tapes. It's unspeakable. The liberal media didn't create this reality, bad policy did. James Buchanan, Franklin Pierce, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, Warren Harding were all failed Presidents but the damage this President has done is historic. His mistakes have global implications, while the other failed Presidents mostly authored domestic embarrassments.

And speaking of domestic embarrassments, let's look at President Bush's domestic record. He cut taxes and I like tax cuts. But tax cuts combined with reckless spending and borrowing is criminal mismanagement of the public's money. We're drunk at the mall with our great grandchildren's credit cards. We traded tax and spend Liberals for borrow and spend Conservatives. Bush created a giant new entitlement, the prescription drug plan. He lied to his own party to get it passed. It was written by and for the pharmaceutical industry. So much for smaller government In fact, virtually every tentacle of government has grown exponentially under Bush. Unless, of course, it was an agency to look after the public interest, the environment or worker's rights. His open border policy is a disaster for the wages of working people-- he debases the work ethic, "jobs Americans won't do!" He doesn't believe in the sovereign borders of the country he's sworn to protect. And his devotion to cheap labor for his corporate benefactors, along with his worship of multinational trade deals, makes an utter mockery of homeland security and calls into question his commitment to sovereignty itself. Katrina, Harriet Myers, The Dubai Port Deal, shrinking wages for working people, staggering debt, astronomical foreign debt, outsourcing, open borders, the war on science, media manipulation, a cavalier attitude toward fundamental freedoms -- this President has run the most arrogant and out-of-touch administration in my lifetime, perhaps, in any American's lifetime.

America needs a vibrant opposition to check the power of a run-amuck majority party. Tragically, the Democrats have allowed crackpots, leftists and demagogic cowards to snipe from the sidelines while taking no responsibility for anything. In fairness, I don't believe a Democrat president would have gone into Iraq. Unfortunately, I don't know if President Gore would have gone into Afghanistan. However, the Republicans run the show and have more to answer for. With a belated tip of the cap to Ralph Nader, the system is broken, so broken it's almost inevitable it pukes up mediocrities like Al Gore and George W. Bush. Where are the Trumans and the Eisenhowers? Why do we have to settle for recycled hacks and malleable ciphers? Greatness is always rare, but is basic competence and simple honesty too much to ask? Does this make me a waffler? A flip-flopper? I prefer to see it as realism.

For those of you who never supported Bush, it's also fair to accuse me of kicking Bush while he's down. After all, you were kicking Bush while he was up. You were right. I was wrong.

Look, it didn't take a rocket scientist to realize what was going on prior to the 2000 election. All you had to do was look at Bush's history, and listen to him speak. It was not at all difficult to realize what we had on our hands was the Worst President Ever (WPE). Even after "9/11 changed everything", some of us were not frightened into believing obvious lies. It was so completely obvious what was going on, and liberals and progressives are brave enough not to wet our pants and lose our fucking minds over a horrible act of terrorism.

It's important that people keep a rational perspective in the worst of times. That's what leadership is all about.

And now Glenn Greenwald had compiled a list of other right wingers jumping on the trash Chimpy brigade, here: This is in specific reference to the disaster that has been the latest blood bath in Lebanon. It's also important to understand that Cheney authorized the Israeli offensive earlier this summer. It had NOTHING to do with 2 kidnapped Israeli soldiers. That was simply the pre-text, and as we've seen, this bunch is really good at finding pre-texts.

The list includes;

National Review Editors
Dan Riehl
Paul Mirgenoff, Powerline Blog
Michelle Malkin
Peter Brookes, Senior Fellow, Heritage Foundation, NRO Symposium
Soshana Bryen, NRO Symposium
Anne Bayefsky, NRO Symposium
Jeff Goldstein
Pamela "Atlas" Oshry, interviewer to John Bolton
Daily Pundit
Bill Kristol
Charles Krauthammer

Andrew Sullivan has been for months now crying about how sorry he is. But what all of these mother fuckers don't get is - a lot of people are dead now. Thousands and thousands of people are dead - and these assholes are not. They simply keep pounding out words on their keyboards as they have done all along, and now they say they're sorry.

And then in the next column, they'll opine again. They'll have more opinion about the situation the world finds itself in, and make suggestions or observations about the larger world. They simply treat this as if it is a budget issue that they were wrong about. Well, it's not. You can fix budget issues. It's just money. But because of these idiots, thousands of people are dead and many more thousands injured, including the very best of America.

Fuck that. Fuck those assholes. They never get to have an opinion ever again. They should all be fired, and never again have word space in a published journal, or tv show, or write a fucking book.

Good god, fucking Andrew Sullivan has a new book coming out. Fuck you Andrew you stupid piece of shit. People are dead because you were too stupid to see what was so obvious to the rest of us.

Fuck all those assholes. It's time for the people who were right all along to run the show.

Google search of the day

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=infidel express

The Infidel Express
A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches ... feel the need to express a view such as this one has, are stupid as fuck. ...

tomsneurosis.blogspot.com/ - 106k - Aug 12, 2006 - Cached - Similar pages

LOL


runner up;

http://www.google.com/search?q=Jerry%20Falwell%20is%20a%20hate-mongering%20moral%20fascist%20sociopath&hl=en&lr=&start=20&sa=N

Penis envy

From one of my favorites, the Rude Pundit:

Pro-war conservatives have become the guys with tiny dicks who feel the need to compensate in some other way. You know the type: generally, you will know them by their accessories - the black Hummer, the diamond-studded grill, the big wad of cash. Anything shiny or expensive to take the focus off their shame over their wee peckers. It's a pretty damn strong rule: the bigger the bling, the smaller the cock. If you happen to pick up someone at the bar, well, the truth will be revealed soon enough. (And do not worry, dear small-phallused readers; this is only a condemnation of those who try to hide the truth.)

If the volume and viciousness of attacks by the right over Joe Lieberman's public de-pantsing in Connecticut are any indication, the cock of crazed conservativism is actually withdrawing into its torso.

Sure, sure, fer big laughs, you can look at Sean Hannity grinding his manly jaw in full-bore hysterical mode as Democratic consultant Bob Beckel stares at Hannity like he's watching the Wicked Witch dissolve into a puddle (and the disturbing Kellyanne Conway keeps trying to blow Hannity). Or even Bill O'Reilly's attack on the tens of thousands of Connecticut residents who voted for Ned Lamont (O'Reilly is infinitely more idiotic when he's attempting to sound "rational"). You could waste all kinds of valuable time over at that rhetorical shitcan known as Townhall.com. And you'll get the same bizarro statement: Democrats don't want to fight the "war on terror" because they want to get out of Iraq. Even though the opposite is true: Democrats want to fight the "war on terror" because they want to get out of Iraq.

This is amusing to me because John and I have this running joke that anybody driving a Corvette must have a really small schlong.. Well, it's not that funny in the sense that people over compensate for tiny peckers by buying an American car like the Corvette, but it's amusing because I've actually started thinking about it... buying a Corvette that is... and I have no phallic inadequacies to compensate for.

It's just that in 2006, Chevrolet redesigned the Corvette ZO6, and it's pretty fucking monstrous..

Inside every Z06 is an LS7 aluminum-block V8. It puts out an SAE-certified (Society of Automotive Engineers) 505 hp and 470 lb.-ft. of torque. Hand-built at the GM Performance Build Center in Wixom, Mich., the LS7 engine contains a litany of racing-derived components, such as an eight-quart dry-sump lubrication system, titanium valves and connecting rods, forged-steel crankshaft with six-bolt main bearings, high-profile cam, and Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC) machined heads for better air/fuel flow. Even with its performance, the engine does not incur a federal government gas-guzzler penalty.

Schwinggg!!!



I do like my G35c, but you know.. 3.5s 0-60 is oh my godly... $75k - yow!

Say What?

Scott Adams explains why I often turn on the subtitles while watching movies that are in.. English..

So there I sat, watching this DVD and feeling as if someone were slapping me in the nuts with a rake handle.

Boogey-man booger - scared yet?

In a bizarre twist to the "terrorist scare" in England is the notion that the lotion is the threat.

I just rhymed that like Jesse Jackson - right off the top of my head.. because I'm talented like that.

Here's a reality check;

Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan American World Airways' third daily scheduled transatlantic flight from London's Heathrow International Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. On December 21, 1988, the aircraft flying this route, a Boeing 747-121 registered N739PA and named "Clipper Maid of the Seas", was destroyed as it flew over Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, when 12 to 16 oz (340 to 450 g) of plastic explosive was detonated in its forward cargo hold, triggering a sequence of events that led to the rapid destruction of the aircraft.

From the Communist Times:

The most frightening thing about the foiled plot to use liquid explosives to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic is that both the government and the aviation industry have been aware of the liquid bomb threat for years but have done little to prepare for it.

Essentially what you have is a bunch of incompetent idiots that really don't give a shit about "protecting" anyone. They're just really good at scaring people into supporting them politically.

I just thought of a great Warcraft analogy.. see.. there's this ability called "fear". You can fear your opponent to gain an advantage (they run off and can't do anything), but it's subject to diminishing returns. In other words, the more you fear your opponent, the less effective it is, and the less fear you actually generate, until the point where it's essentially useless and does nothing.

CBS News Poll:

The arrests in Britain have not helped President Bush's popularity so far, the CBS poll finds. His job approval remains exactly at 36 percent, where it was a month ago. Even the president's rating for handling terrorism – his strongest suit – remains unchanged at 51 percent.

That's what's going on in America today, but the media is really good at supporting the White House propaganda machine. Despite their repeated attempts at fear, America is starting to say "oh shut the fuck up you idiots".

Arianna Huffington has a great column describing how the media is simply the tool they use to cast the fear on you.

The White House fabricated a connection and a neat fit between the "developments" and the "Democrats." But isn't it up to the mainstream media to expose fraudulent connections instead of endorsing them as fact?

The truth, which, sadly, you won't find in the New York Times story, is that in no way do the arrests in Britain bolster the GOP's claims to be the party to best defend America. And the only way they will is if the media swallow Ken Mehlman's talking points and turn them into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In fact, given that we know for a fact that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and that we currently have over 130,000 troops in Iraq, and have spent over three hundred billion dollars there, the Occam's Razor interpretation of these "developments" would be that they demonstrate how badly the White House has squandered our resources and how much the War on Terror is, as even George Will admitted today on This Week, "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation."

Personally, I feel bad for the morons that allow themselves to be frightened. Sure, it's a dangerous world. I've actually done the math in a previous post about a year ago comparing the odds of dying in a car accident to dying in a terrorist attack.

Still, it's all more of that fear mongering. I did some rough calculations. You have about a .014% chance of dying in a car accident in any particular year, and a .0004% chance of being killed in a terrorist attack. Keep in mind that terrorist attack percentage is inflated because of 9/11. If I averaged over the last 50 years instead of the last 5 years, the odds would be negligible, while the car accident percentage would be quite a bit higher.

The essential point being - it's bizarre to credit the Republicans for being more competent to handle issues related to terrorism and security when they've totally botched everything they've done. I'm not kidding. They've botched every single thing, domestic and foreign, that they've done.

It's quite possible there may be another terrorist attack. That's the sad reality that we live in today. You can prepare, and try and prevent, but as shown the Republicans are not really concerned about that. They are simply concerned about spinning the news into yet more scare tactics.

We still get in the car every day even though there's a vastly higher chance that we'll be injured then we would from a terrorist attack.. but we're afraid of the boogey man instead of the idiots on the road?

I don't get that...

** update **

Oh for fucks sake.. can we put all those assholes in prison yet?

Cease Fire?

So, let me see if I have this correct.

Israel bombed and invaded Lebanon in retaliation for the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. Many Hezbollah fighters, Israeli soldiers, and untold number of civilians (including women and children) were killed. Now there is a cease fire in place.

And Israel did not get their 2 soldiers back, and Hezbollah is still Hezbollah.

In other words, nothing at all changed from before the war to after the war, except a bunch of people are dead. That means that war is obviously the solution to the problem, right? When nothing else changes except a bunch of people are dead, that's a great plan!!! you stupid mother fuckers...

This is where 19-year-old Ya'ar Ben-Giat is being buried Sunday.

He was killed in south Lebanon on Saturday, along with 23 other soldiers from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the worst single day of fatalities for Israel since the start of their month-long offensive against Hezbollah.

"We would get weekends off, but Sunday we had to be back at camp," says Dave Rosenberg, a soldier who went through basic training with Ben-Giat. "Everyone would always be depressed on that day, myself included, because we didn't want to be back in uniform. But when Ya'ar showed up, seeing his smile would make everything better. If I would have to describe him I would say he was innocent like a child. In his last phone call to his mother he asked for a Sony PlayStation."

They're just kids.. god damnit.

Freedom of Speech

Does not apply for the right wingers. But have you noticed that most right wing blogs do not allow comments at all, but left wing blogs do?

Anyway.. the "Right Wing Guy" has started deleting my comments at his blog. Yes, I'm pretty aggressive in debate, but I make my political point, even while making my point that they are idiots. Nothing I write is not true - and unfortunately, they are huge pussies that can't debate on topic. It's not surprising because they are the type that refuse to enlist in the military, and instead cheer on others who do.

They are a sad little lot of inarticulate, uneducated, red neck pussies..

Here's the last little bit I dropped on his blog after he finished deleting my comments. Unfortunately I did not save them as I wrote them, so cannot post them here.. but I did save this last one;

Rightwing Guy said...
If Tom wants to leave a comment, than he can do so without insulting the host.

Guess what, I dont care if my grammer is perfect, who the hell are you to judge me anyways.

Yes, i'm more rightwing that Hugh Hewitt. Did you not see the name rightwing guy lol

9:10 AM


Tom said...
Yep.. he's deleting my comments.. I should have seen that coming. It wasn't even that harsh, although I did take him to task for violating the language as well as calling millions of Americans traitors..

I regret not saving the comment and posting it on my blog, but I suspect that RWG has email notification for comments turned on and so has a copy of it. If you could just hop over to my blog and drop the text of what I wrote in a comment of any thread, that would be great. I could highlight it for my blog, and direct interested parties there to make up their own mind.

http://tomsneurosis.blogspot.com/

For the record, nothing I wrote was not true. Unfortunately, he can't stand the heat and like a true right winger, he decides the easier course is not to debate or counter my argument, but simply to delete my comments.

And LBM - words cannot be violent, only actions. The naughty words are not a threat, and cannot possibly do harm, and I find it highly amusing that you want to preemptively vaporize hundreds of thousands of Iranians, and then say my use of 4 letter words is "violent".

I guess I can't really write much without it being deleted. Your blog, delete what you want. And ya.. LBM - it does prove my point.

And it's "grammar", and not "grammer", mister 140 IQ.

Delete away..

He also neglected to use a question mark after asking a question, but I didn't call him on that one... and the lack of an apostrophe in "dont".

** update **

Don't know how I missed it, but this bit is on his sidebar.



Pretty much says it all.

More hope for the future

These are fans of OKGo, the ones that did the tredmill video. They're imitating another of the OKGo videos, and some guy took a bunch of the fan videos and strung them together.

The original is here:

Video of the Day

Are we some dumbass niggas or wah?

Asshat Quote of the Day

Lord Brown Mouse said...
It was men like RWG who defeated Hitler, and all you do is attack and demean him!

RWG is the criminal member of the 101st fighting keyboardist brigade who simply types his "support the troops" drivel from the basement of his mother's house, instead of, you know.. actually being in the army and fighting "terraists" and freeing oppressed peoples the world over.. Oh.. and he has a bad knee or something..

Quote of the Day

Me.. waging war on the stupid people;

You fuckers are mind numbingly brazen in not answering the damn question.

RWG sorta did. He wants the Muslims to evolve their society to be more liberal. Yay. Total agreement there. Everything I'm reading here seems to indicate that your idea for getting there is to wage war on them, and kill as many as possible. Am I misstating your position?

In fact, in another thread, JJ wants to nuke Iran in order to encourage them to evolve their society into a more peaceful, liberal democracy.

You fuckers are insane.

The way you achieve that goal is - you realize that killing "terrorists" does not reduce terrorism, nor does it mean there are less terrorists in the world. You realize that the less violence there is all around, the better off conditions will be - and it can be done while maintaining a strong self defense.

Next, you reach out in dialog - ask what their issues are, act like you give a fuck about their well being. While you're doing that, you subvert their populations with "western media". The more their people know about how great liberal democracy is, the more they will want it, and the more pressure will be exerted on their leaders.

Next, you realize that Rome wasn't built in a day. It takes time to change a culture, and it's not going to happen over night. Iraq is proof of that. There will be peaks and valleys in the process, but you realize that right now, the direction everything is headed is leading to nothing but more warfare and more dead bodies. Turn the corner and head in the other direction where it gets a little better all the time, and not worse.

Next, reduce the influence of fundamentalist religion in the Islamic world by reducing fundamentalist religion in your own country. Western European countries have done a fantastic job of reducing the influence of fundis, whereas the United States has not because we elected a fundamentalist rapture Christian who thinks God talks to him.

Once the likes of Pat Robertson have no voice in this nation, we reduce the influence of the mullahs in the Arab world. And that's what this is all about. Everything that is happening is resulting from the mullahs trying to expand their own power base. They want theocracy, much like the fundis in the US. They know that if they enflame the situation, and excite their followers to violence, that's good for them.

So - we have very different viewpoints of how we encourage the Arab world to adopt more western style liberal democracy. You want violence, death and destruction, because you watched too many damn Hollywood war movies and you are filled with testosterone driven rage resulting in this weird pre-occupation with weapons of death. You think that the people we kill will finally see the errors of their ways and be more like us - their killers. And, you have a copy of Platoon on DVD, and watch it at least once a week and think it would have been really cool to be in Vietnam and kill some gooks.

Liberals on the other hand, have a different plan that doesn't involve dropping nuclear weapons on hundreds of thousands of living, breathing, human beings.

And that, in a nutshell (so to speak), is why I think you people are out of your fucking minds.

Quality

This is classic;

(AgapePress) - A conservative military watchdog says she intends to question West Point Military Academy officials about why a former cadet was given an award for a thesis objecting to the U.S. military's ban on homosexuals serving in the armed forces.

Second Lieutenant Alexander Raggio describes himself as the straightest guy imaginable; but in his senior thesis at West Point Academy, he argued that the military's policy banning homosexuals from service is not only wrong but harmful to America's armed services. For his controversial paper, the then-senior cadet received an award from the Academy's English Department.

This incident has led Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, to wonder what officials at the Academy were thinking. "I do intend to bring this to the attention of some of the people in the leadership roles at West Point," she says. "I think it ought to be questioned."

Donnelly says this is the first she has heard of Raggio's commendation from the English department, but news of the faculty's conferral of honor on a graduating cadet for his pro-homosexual thesis has given rise to some grave concerns. "Certainly," she asserts, "it does call into question the judgment of those who gave this award.”

Apparently, Donnelly says, when Raggio wrote his thesis, he was saying the ban on homosexuals serving in the military should be lifted. "That is a very unusual view," she asserts, "and he is certainly entitled to his opinion." However, the military readiness expert observes, studies have clearly shown that homosexuality and military service are not a good mix.

Where to start. Well, first of all, again - the majority of religious people, at least those that feel the need to express a view such as this one has, are stupid as fuck. I'm not just talking about having a certain point of view, or opinion on an issue. I'm talking too stupid to fucking live dumb as fuck.

First, the point of the award. If that stupid fuck had actually taken upper division English courses in college, she would know that that the subject of a thesis does not determine the grade. You could write a thesis on the fruit basket sitting on your dinning room table, and if you construct it properly, receive an award.

The cadet doesn't even have to hold the opinion that he states in the thesis to receive recognition. That's a skill the lawyers must master, and why being a lawyer requires mastery of the language. They often express views to support their client that they don't even believe themselves.

This cadet, to his credit, does support the ending of the "don't ask, don't tell" ban, because it's hurting America. We've seen, time and again, highly trained Arabic linguists dismissed from the military due not to their job performance, but merely their orientation. This "Christian" supports that notion, and in an era of heightened terrorism threats, it diminishes the military's capability to combat terrorism. Therefore, the Christians are actively working against the security interest of the United States.

Finally - the stupid fuck is lying. None of the European nations have such a ban, and it has not had any detrimental affect on their military. Even the British have no concern about orientation, and studies have shown no ill effects what-so-ever, because people who are not stupid as fuck know that orientation has nothing to do with any of it.

I suspect that West Point cadet will do well and go far. Good for him.

The Christian bitch can DIAF.

Irony

Seems odd that the first political victim of the Bush administration is a 3 term Democratic Senator.

The rest of the victimization will take place in November... then one more year until a new president. I can't fucking wait.

Here's a prediction.. Lieberman is going to get savaged.. and it's going to feed on itself like a flesh eating bacteria, until he finally gives up. But, even if he does give up, he's not quite dead yet, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him end up appointed to some position in the next administration - whether democratic or republican.

Americans are really stupid

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Some 30 percent of Americans cannot say in what year the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington took place, according to a poll published in the Washington Post newspaper.

While the country is preparing to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives and shocked the world, 95 percent of Americans questioned in the poll were able to remember the month and the day of the attacks, according to Wednesday's edition of the newspaper.

But when asked what year, 30 percent could not give a correct answer.

I'd wager my bank account that if somebody asked Chimpy the same question on the spure of the moment.. he'd take at least 10 seconds to get the answer out..

But hey.. it certainly makes the job market easier..

Quote of the Day

The future is grim. Until the Arab Muslim world lets go of its refusal to embrace modernity and its rigid, honor-bound defense of the most extreme version of Islam, we will have to fight a long grueling war, in which I fear some nuclear or WMD exchange is inevitable.

Sullivan is slowly losing his mind..

Oh.. and by "we" - he means everyone else that gets sent into the meat grinder. He lives in P-town you know.

I suppose I should spell out what Sully is saying there.. When he says "I fear" - he's setting up plausible deniability for what he really wants, but doesn't have the balls to say. He's really afraid, always has been. He's not looking at any peaceful way to resolve the situation. He's setting up his future arguments for nuking the fuck out of Iran and Syria.

Me? I'm just going to spend a week in Hawaii for my birthday. Hope the Japanese don't invade again while I'm there..

Red Alert!!

Remember the last time we had a "terraist alert"? Yep.. the summer before the '04 elections.. and Oh.. My.. God.. the liburls beat out Jumpin' Joementum, oh he of the french kissing Chimpy fame, and now we need to start yanking that color coded whatchamacallit up and down to get everyone focusing on the the important issues again. That being - the weakness of the anti-American Americans.

This time, they're starting at the very top of the scale.. RED ALERT MOTHAFUCKAS!!11

No sir, we're not fucking around with some panzy ass blue alert.. nope, yellow is for those elite intellectuals in their coastal enclaves. Not even orange is gonna get the job done this time.. Nope.. we need RED FUCKING ALERT!!111 OMG we're all gonna diez!!1

Oh.. but here's a question.. why not just be on "red alert" all the time? Isn't dear leader Chimpy supposed to keep us safe? Why not have the security tight all the time? I mean.. if the terraists did pull off some nerfarious plot, and we were only at orange alert, wouldn't people be pissed off and say.. you motherfuckers weren't on RED FUCKING ALERT and you see what happens?

So.. why not make RED ALERT the normal alert level, and then make that a little more alert with a bright PINK ALERT, for when the homos go all getting married and shit. OMG the end of civilization..

In other words.. they're all a bunch of assholes really.. If you let the chimp brigade scare you into voting for them again, you're really too stupid to have a vote.

And you know.. if I were a terraists, and I wanted to do some terrorizing, I'd probably not do it while the RED FUCKING ALERT is being splattered all over the place. I'd wait a couple weeks until the guards went back to sleep.

In other words.. our entire system of security is based on the premise that terrorists are really fucking stupid. If anything, 9/11 provide that theory fatally flawed.

** update **

I lifted the pic from Jesus' General.. unka Karl so good.. yet so bad.. really pisses me off he's not a liberal.

The towering intellect

Yes.. I'm still arguing with people that dress like that.. It's really amusing to me.

The Himmler mustache is classic..

Portraits

Just really cool.

Allrighty then.. Part Deux

Ad on the side bar of Scott Adams' blog..

Looking ahead

Hey Joe

...where you go'n with that gun in your hand?

Allrighty then..

Melinda French Gates visits with commercial sex workers in Kolkata, India.

I was just reading about a new half billion dollar grant from Bill Gates to an AIDS assistance organization... so went to the Gates Foundation website and looked at some pictures.. For some reason, that caption made me laugh, but I'm just strange that way..

I think you can tell a lot about a society by the appearance of their hookers.

But, the larger point, of course, is that Microsoft might be the evil empire, but Bill Gates is actually pretty cool.

Yes - I'm going there

*cough*Dickerson*cough*

heh

And as an aside.. I'd just like to say that there's a certain liberating feeling when you really don't give a fuck what anybody else thinks about yourself.

Winnah!

Holy shit! Lamont won the CT primary over Lieberman. Oh.. my.. fucking.. god..

This is a huge deal.. and now Lieberman has announced he's running as an independent.. Time to kick his ass Seabass..

Heh - Eat it

We’re hearing from the New York Times blog that the Lieberman camp hasn’t ruled out asking that the election results be invalidated as a result of the "attack" on their web site. This is making me think that the Lieberman camp may well have originated this attack from within in order to have ANOTHER excuse not to abide by the primary results.

link:

[I] have the definitive answer as to why Lieberman’s site went down.

They are paying $15/month for hosting at a place called MyHostCamp, with a bandwidth limit of 10GB. MyHostCamp is currently down, along with all their clients.

Here’s the deal — you get what you pay for. My hosting bill is now over $7K per month. A smaller site doesn’t need that much bandwidth, but if you’re paying $15 because your $12 million campaign is too freakin’ cheap to pay for quality hosting, then don’t go blaming your opponent when your shitty service goes out.

Link:

This is the political version of "my dog ate my homework". Not going to work.

Oh man

Just looking at referrals again.. and somebody hit that same post about the Empire Corporation on saturday.. but from their home in Cali and not from the Empire Corporation.

What the hell man? I haven't written about anything confidential, or in any way negative to any organization I'm professionally associated with. It just is what it is.. so please do piss off.

Also, noticed that somebody hit my blog by searching for the name of a remote office belonging to the organization I help support. I had gone there on a business trip a year and a half ago, and dropped 2 sentences in my blog about it.

This is the post;

Just arrived at the BLAH BLAH BLAH. It's very nice weather here, but I only got about 3 hours sleep. I'm pretty tired. All in all, not too bad. We didn't get delayed or lost. Gonna get some lunch and meetings start in about an hour.

Will update more later..

What the hell is it with people doing searches on this shit? I don't know how much innocent crap I've posted in nearly 2 years of blogging that relate to my job, but god knows how I'm going to make it go away. I could delete the blog, but I've written nearly 2 full length novels worth of shit that I'd rather not loose.

I guess I need to start the scrubbing process in earnest.

Dirty tricks

HARTFORD, Conn. - Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman, who was locked in a battle with an anti-war challenger in the nation's most closely watched primary race Tuesday, accused his opponent's supporters of hacking his campaign Web site and e-mail system.

How much you want to bet they did this themselves. Naturally they're blaming Lamont.

"I'm concerned that our Web site is knocked out on the day of the primary, you'd assume it wasn't any casual observer," Lieberman said.

Come on.. hacked their web site? Shut their e-mail down? I notice the web site is still down. What.. no backups? Nothing?

Bullshit - this is simply a desperate attempt to smear Lamont on the day of the election, and I wouldn't be the least surprised that a detailed examination proves they did it themselves.

Election Day!

In Connecticut.. here's hoping Lamont has a nice victory, but I'm conditioned to always being disapointed. Nobody ever lost money betting on the stupidity of others, eh? Still.. would be nice if I could vote in the election. I've only ever lived in areas with really stupid people that vote for the wrong person. I grew up in Arizona.. Remember Evan Mecham - bat shit crazy mormon car salesman?

During his time as governor, he was plagued by controversy and became the first U.S. governor to simultaneously face removal from office through impeachment, a scheduled recall election, and felony indictment.

How about J. Fife Symington the 3rd? Just the name alone makes you want to punch him in the face..

Symington was the subject of an investigation over his involvement with Southwest Savings and Loan, a failed Phoenix thrift, but he was later cleared, and won reelection in 1994. Later, he was indicted on charges of extortion and making false financial statements, and of bank fraud. He was convicted of bank fraud in 1997.

On February 4, 2005, in an interview with the Arizona Republic, Symington expressed interest in running for governor in 2006 against Democrat Janet Napolitano, setting the state political landscape abuzz.

Both Republican slime.. and now I live in Texas - the land that gave the world a fucking chimpanzee as our president.

But this wouldn't be a political election without the media totally fucking up the coverage.

This is typical;

Lieberman's instincts for collegiality and bipartisanship, once regarded as virtues, are now seen as virtual disqualifications by his critics here and nationally.

Supposedly one would need to be pretty smart to write for the national media. One would have to have some common sense, so I can only conclude that the media is totally fucking this up intentionally - and the distinctions are important.

Lieberman’s problem is not his "instincts for collegiality and bipartisanship". His problem was that he was "bipartisan" on really bad policy. If the Republicans put forth a good idea, then yes, be "bipartisan" to move it forward. But the media is putting the spin on the story that to be "bipartisan" is good, and to oppose policy (regardless what the policy is) is bad.

Does that make sense? In other words, if Ric Santorum offered up a bill that said "All poor people are to be rounded up and bussed off to Mexico", it would be a bad thing in the eyes of the media to not be "bipartisan" and oppose it.

The media simply cannot get it through their heads that the reason why so many voters want Lamont and not Lieberman is because of Lieberman’s decisions to support really fucked up policies. That's all there is to it.

Yet - there you go again - stupid fucks in the media.. either not getting that, or deliberately trying to undermine people powered politics.

Fuck you.

Video of the Day

Most of the videos I come across are via my Warcraft guildies..

This particular one gives me hope for the future of our country.. and that's no joke..

When Cheetos attack

So ya.. I've been going a bit bonzai over at that psycho Right Wing Guy's blog. He's posting some crazy shit, and flat out lying to suit him.. all the while avoiding the war at all costs.

Rightwing Guy said...
I will continue to delete your comments Tom unless you have something other to add other than your hate and insults. You claim to have such a high IQ and all but can't seem to do anything but act like a 10 yr old. If that is the case please keep your comments to yourself.

Iraq in the Bush mold

Graphic photos obtained from Baghdad sources too frightened to identify themselves as having known a gay man, and seen by the Observer, show other gay Iraqis who have been executed. One shows two men, suspected of having a relationship, blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs - guns at the ready behind their heads - awaiting execution. Another picture captured on a mobile phone shows a gay man being beaten to death. Yet another shows a corpse being dragged through the streets after his execution.

One photograph is of the mutilated, burnt body of 38-year-old Karar Oda from Sadr City. He was kidnapped by the Badr Brigade in mid-June. They work with the Ministry of Interior and are the informal armed wing of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, who make up the largest Shia bloc in the Iraq parliament. Oda's family were given an arrest warrant signed by the Ministry of Interior which said their son deserved to be arrested and killed for immorality as a homosexual. His body was found ten days later.

From the Guardian:

I can't imagine how horrifying it must be to live in Iraq now. I wonder if it's even possible to get the hell out?

This is yet another example of why religion must be destroyed. Left to their own devices, Christians in America would do the same thing. The difference is, if they came for me, I wouldn't go very quietly at all..

MMORPG

Great article here about computer role playing games, the motivation behind why people play them, and the future consequences.

In the future, long after World of Warcraft has gone the way of ARPANET, everyone will have a virtual-world twin. An upgraded, digital representative of yourself which I'll henceforth refer to as Awesome You. And you'll see a time in your life when more people know Awesome You than know the real you.

Some people live like that already.

I've mentioned before that one of the consequences of technology is that society tends to isolate itself. We have big screen television with a billion channels of programming, any type of food you want can be delivered, and then there's the computer. People used to socialize for the sole reason that they were bored senseless at home. This applied to married people as well. Now, when I'm at home, I talk to more people I know online than I did during the day in the real world - (IRL), "in real life". Seriously.. millions of people have to make a distinction in their conversation between what is simulated and what is IRL.

One of the consequences of the isolation is the resurgence of religion. Most people do not choose the isolation solution of online interaction, but that's only because they haven't truly found out about it yet. Human beings will do whatever is easiest, and it's far easier to get your human interaction sitting in front of your computer than it is to actually take a shower and get dressed to go outside.

It's true - it's only a matter of time before people discover the MMO existence en masse, religion will die, and you'll hardly see any traffic on the roads at all.

But like all things, when the pendulum swings too far one way, it comes back the other. I think most people will burn out from the online existence. At least it's hard to be as hardcore as a Korean at a net cafe. My WoW guild is falling apart right now because a lot of people are burning out, but the reason for the burnout isn't because people don't like the online existence. It's because the game creator made it so difficult to get the "reward" that people have become discouraged and give up - amidst much finger pointing and drama. At the end of the day, it's a "team" game, and there are always the best players and the worst players on any team. Sucks to be the worst player I bet.

Specifically in the case of Warcraft, this is kind of dangerous to the game. The expansion is still 4 months off, and nothing is going to change to give a positive feedback to the user base. They've really screwed up the game if you ask me. The lesson they need to learn is that in the world of make believe, it damn well better not be as shitty an experience as most of the real world. People want the alter ego, the brave dragon killer, and when the dragon kills you no matter what you do, that gets on people's nerves, and they go find something else where the effort/reward ratio is balanced properly.

Truly, in game design, the designers job is to lead human beings around by the nose, and pat them on the head, just like a dog jumping through a hoop. It's exactly the same thing. The designer who comes up with a way to make a game interactive with many others, but allows the player to set their own effort/reward scale will win everything.

It may turn out, like it appears to be happening to people that I know, that even if a game perfectly simulates what motivates people, people will catch on that it's not real, and doesn't feel quite right. They're the type that may just shut the thing off, take a shower, and head out side to see the sun.

Anyway.. the article is interesting. Everyone should read it as it will be come on of those "next big thing" that we all have to deal with.. and the author is correct. Much of our lives are already bits and bytes on a computer server someplace. Your bank account, your mortgage, your social security number, your paycheck, your medical records, your taxes, your music, soon your art. Human beings are digitizing their world.

And that, my friends, will be a watershed moment in human history. The point where we can trick the senses into thinking a piece of software is real, thinking a real supermodel is in our bed or a dragon is in our front yard or our dead mother has come back to give us advice, that's when everything changes.