Can the media save the world?

Last November, marines stormed 2 houses and shot to death 2 dozen innocent men, women, and children. The Marine Corps tried to cover it up.

Today, a woman was rushing another to a hospital to give birth. The soldiers killed them both.

There is massive rioting in Afghanistan.


The media needs to grow the balls to show the world, every single day, what is going on. Only by disgusting the entire world will we manage to stop this shit. It's insane..

Cry me a river

NEW YORK - With co-host Matt Lauer bringing the tissues, the "Today" show threw a going-away party Wednesday for 15-year host Katie Couric, who is leaving to become the next anchor of the "CBS Evening News."

"I'm feeling happy and sad and completely out of control," Couric said, "and you know how much I like that."

Forty-two minutes into the show, Couric couldn't hold back the tears any longer.

The first tear was spotted in the corner of her eye as "Today" talked to six people she had interviewed — an inspiring school principal, a woman brutally raped in Central Park, survivors of the Columbine school shooting and the World Trade Center bombing and parents of a boy who had died of brain cancer.

"In meeting her and talking to her, I felt that it helped heal me as well," said Lauren Manning, who was burned during the terrorist attack.

One word.. insipid.

The Da Vinci Code

So, I saw the "controversial" film over the weekend. It was your standard crime drama, with elements of Indiana Jones. Follow the clue to the next clue, all while somebody is chasing you, kind of thing. It also reminded me of National Treasure, which actually was a kind of fun film.

Sometime I'd like to see a treasure hunt movie where the hunters are not being hunted by some bad guy or organization. You know, the antagonist could be the puzzle of the treasure itself.

So - anyway.. plot spoiler, stop reading if you don't want to know..

I can see why the Catholics aren't too pleased. They come off as murderous thugs, bent on enslaving mankind. But you know - that's what they are. The basic idea is that Jesus was not divine and was just a man.. who married Mary Magdalene and had children. The main characters are trying to track down proof, and that proof is the holy grail, which isn't really a thing at all but more of a truth. What an amazing coincidence that the female lead character turns out to be the only surviving heir of Jesus bloodline.

What a huge load of bullshit.

Not the "Jesus wasn't divine part". That's true. I'm talking about there only being one blood heir. As I indicated in my post on HIV, human beings breed like rabbits. If Jesus did have any children, the blood would have spread so far so fast that we'd all have some of the DNA in us.. every last person on this planet I suspect.

Anyway, the semi-secret-cult Catholic organization, Opus Dei, is portrayed as some sort of guardian of the big secret, and they would kill anyone to maintain the illusion of Jesus' divinity... yadda yadda yadda.. oh but the Monk who beats himself is a nice touch... especially looking rather albino with scary eyes and all that.

It wasn't a total bore fest. If you want to see a total bore fest, rent Match Point. It's the new Woody Allen movie, and it got stellar reviews, so I rented it. I could only sit through the first 45 minutes before starting to nod off. It was horrid.

Before the Da Vinci Code started, one of the previews was the remake of The Omen. It looks freakin cool.. and opens on June 6. What a brilliant marketing plan.. LOL

You know.. if you take anything away from watching The Da Vinci Code, it's that most human beings are crazy. It's true that when the bible was put together, they simply cherry picked the gospels, and rewrote things to match up with what they wanted. It's that way today. The ancient Gospels of Judas were discovered a couple years ago, but the Christians simply dismissed it. It doesn't fit in with what is the most absurdly obvious fraud in the history of mankind.

What I do think is plausible.. is that Jesus existed, had awesome communication and people skills, said a lot of nice things that Christians today totally ignore, had a wife and kids, and virtually every one of us carries that blood to this day.

The same is true for a great many prophets and kings, and notable historical figures.

Mysticism can be a very alluring thing.. from getting your palm read, to chasing ghosts, and buried religious treasure with magical powers. The problem is, there has never been a documented case where any of it has proven to be unnatural. It would be great if any of it were true. It would be great if John Edwards could talk to the dead rather than being the biggest douschbag liar in the universe. It would be awesome to find a holy relic that heals people rather than counting on Benny Hinn to smack you in the forehead to remove your cancer.

The problem is - none of that exists, or has ever existed, or ever will exist, no matter how much people want it.

Me... I want to see a young girl levitate and spew bile all over a priest while speaking in Aramaic. Ya.. that would be cool.

The Power of Gorak Compels You!!! to go buy something cool and fashionable..

** edit **



While I'm thinking about it.. apparently Da Vinci and other painters of the time did do some intentional coding in their paintings and drawings. For instance if you look at a number of his paintings, there are people pointing, sometimes up, sometimes down. Apparently Da Vinci was fond of giving the church the finger in his artwork without them even knowing.

Oh.. and by the way.. at the end of the movie, the hero figures out where the holy grail is located.. It's under the glass pyramid at the Louvre in Paris. Apparently the people at the Louvre had to rope off that particular area to keep people from trying to dig through the floor to find the grail.

Human beings are, quite literally, insane.

Oh.. and by the way.. Da Vinci was gay..



That's the protrait that Da Vinci painted of his boyfriend..

Gian Giacomo Caprotti da Oreno, nicknamed Salai or il Salaino ("The Little Unclean One" i.e., the devil), was described by Vasari as "a graceful and beautiful youth with fine curly hair, in which Leonardo greatly delighted." Il Salaino entered Leonardo's household in 1490 at the age of 10. The relationship was not an easy one. A year later Leonardo made a list of the boy’s misdemeanours, calling him "a thief, a liar, stubborn, and a glutton." The "Little Devil" had made off with money and valuables on at least five occasions, and spent a fortune on apparel, among which were twenty-four pairs of shoes. Nevertheless, il Salaino remained his companion, servant, and assistant for the next thirty years, and Leonardo’s notebooks during their early years contain pictures of a handsome, curly-haired adolescent.

A shoe queen no less.. Some things never change.

Ninja Q&A

Ninja's are one of my favorite things.. One gives the answers to a great many questions, here:

Bewarned.. after viewing, you may die.

Visit the Ninja web site here.

Quote of the Day

Last night, Gore was as you've heard, loose, funny, and smart. Goddamn, so fuckin' smart. Every time he opened his mouth to discuss some aspect of melting ice caps or fuel efficiency, you just wanted to weep, thinking, "Jesus Christ, he won. Motherfucker won. He should be our president right now, not that inarticulate, shit-tossing baboon hunched in the ditch next to Tony Blair right now." What Gore does better than anyone in the Democratic Party right now, from Hillary Clinton to Russ Feingold, is articulate liberal issues as moral callings. Not squishy, feel-good sentiments, but deep in the soul, religious, even, moral purposes. Like, you know, Christians are supposed to do. - The Rude Pundit

But the problem, again - aye, I'm a broken record - is that Americans are too stupid to respond to "smart". They really do want the father figure that will protect them and make them feel everything will be okay.. the "regular Joe".

Eventually, things will settle to the level it's supposed to.. and so we see this decline in America. It happens to every great civilization for some reason. The religious freaks say it will result from a decline in "morals". I believe it will result from a decline in intellect.

The moonbat left

I was reading over at Americablog, like I do every day, and they had posted a couple of paragraphs from the most recent Paul Krugman column. The NY Times now charges people to read their columnists, and there's no way I'm goign to do that, so I hit the comments section of the post to see if somebody posted a link to the full column.

Anyway... looking for a link reminded me that we do have a shitload of really nutty people on the left. The comment thread is filled with off-topic, useless drivel and conspiracy theories. Many of the posts are simple copy-paste jobs of other news stories that the person posting thinks is the most important thing in the world, and we all need to know about it.

It's re-fucking-diculous.

And the search for the link goes on..

** update **

Found it..

A Test of Our Character, by Paul Krugman, Gore's Movie Commentary, NY Times: In his new movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore suggests that there are three reasons it's hard to get action on global warming. The first is boiled-frog syndrome: because the effects of greenhouse gases build up gradually, at any given moment it's easier to do nothing. The second is the perception, nurtured by a careful disinformation campaign, that there's still a lot of uncertainty about whether man-made global warming is a serious problem. The third is the belief, again fostered by disinformation, that trying to curb global warming would have devastating economic effects.

I'd add a fourth reason... But first, ... Mr. Gore couldn't have asked for a better illustration of disinformation campaigns than the reaction of energy-industry lobbyists and right-wing media organizations to his film. ...

As evidence that global warming isn't really happening, [the National Review] offers the fact that some Antarctic ice sheets are getting thicker ... Curt Davis, ... whose work is cited ... has already protested. ... He points out that an initial increase in the thickness of Antarctica's interior ice sheets is a predicted consequence of a warming planet, so that his results actually support global warming...

[T]hey [also] issue hysterical warnings about the economic consequences of environmentalism. "Al Gore's global warming movie: could it destroy the economy?" Fox News asked. Well, no, it couldn't. There's ... broad consensus that even a very strong program to reduce emissions would have only modest effects on economic growth. At worst, G.D.P. growth might be, say, one-tenth or two-tenths of a percentage point lower over the next 20 years. ....

But "An Inconvenient Truth" isn't just about global warming... It's also ..., implicitly, a cautionary tale about what's been wrong with our politics.

Why, after all, was Mr. Gore's popular-vote margin in the 2000 election narrow enough that he could be denied the White House? Any account that neglects the determination of some journalists to make him a figure of ridicule misses a key part of the story. Why were those journalists so determined to jeer Mr. Gore? Because of the very qualities that allowed him to realize the importance of global warming, many years before any other major political figure: his earnestness, and his genuine interest in facts, numbers and serious analysis.

And so the 2000 campaign ended up being about the candidates' clothing, their mannerisms, anything but the issues, on which Mr. Gore had a clear advantage...

I won't join the sudden surge of speculation about whether "An Inconvenient Truth" will make Mr. Gore a presidential contender. But the film does make a powerful case that Mr. Gore is the sort of person who ought to be running the country.

Since 2000, we've seen what happens when people who aren't interested in the facts, who believe what they want to believe, sit in the White House. Osama bin Laden is still at large, Iraq is a mess, New Orleans is a wreck. And, of course, we've done nothing about global warming.

But can the sort of person who would act on global warming get elected? Are we — by which I mean both the public and the press — ready for political leaders who don't pander, who are willing to talk about complicated issues and call for responsible policies? That's a test of national character. I wonder whether we'll pass.

I suspect not.. if history is any indication.

Beslan

VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia - The only known militant to survive the Beslan school siege was convicted in the deaths of 331 people — many of them children — and sentenced to life in prison Friday, touching off an emotional scene in which mothers of some victims tried to attack the defendant in court.

Prosecutors had demanded the death penalty for Nur-Pashi Kulayev, but Russia imposed a moratorium on capital punishment when it joined the Council of Europe a decade ago.

The verdict returned by the court in southern Russia ended a yearlong trial into the September 2004 hostage-taking that survivors and relatives of those who died say has left essential questions unanswered.

The Beslan massacre was a disaster all around. So many people died, and the rescue attempt was botched. The law enforcement were shown to be totally corrupt. I suspect that's true in a majority of countries.

But notice - no death penalty. How many Americans do you think know that? American's execute prisoners regularly and the Russians do not? You've got to be kidding me.

Really.. what do you gain from executing him anyway? Some self satisfaction? Does it change anything at all? Now he'll get to rot for decades.

The other thing that occurred to me when looking at this story.. I suspect that if he had been born in the United States, he'd be a Hollywood star. What the hell happened to him.. What a sad event in every possible way.

Oh.. and by the way.. the hostage takers were Muslim terrorists. They don't look like Arabs, do they? Who would suspect a Collin Farrel look alike? But what would cause people to do such a thing? After all, Muslim terrorists just kill people for fun, right?

An ex-policeman, Ali Tazivey was one of 32 hostages-takers in the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis. He reportedly led the negotiations on behalf of the hostage-takers, and had joined the group after his wife and five children were killed by a Russian bomb.

The Source

ABC News has a report on a study that has determined the source of HIV/AIDS. No, it wasn't a plague sent by God.

WASHINGTON, May 25, 2006 (AP) — Twenty-five years after the first AIDS cases emerged, scientists have confirmed that the HIV virus plaguing humans really did originate in wild chimpanzees, in a corner of Cameroon.

God damn monkeys.

But check out how long ago it happened.

"The genetic similarity was striking," Hahn said. The first human known to be infected with HIV was a man from Kinshasa in the nearby country of Congo who had his blood stored in 1959 as part of a medical study, decades before scientists knew the AIDS virus existed.

Presumably, someone in rural Cameroon was bitten by a chimp or was cut while butchering one and became infected with the ape virus. That person passed it to someone else.

The Sanaga River long has been a commercial waterway, for transporting hardwood, ivory and other items to more urban areas. Eventually, someone infected made it to Kinshasa.

That's amazing. The first known infection was in 1959? Holy cow. And it all started with one person who had the misfortune of mixing blood with the wrong monkey, and now more than 45 years later, 25 million people are dead.

Another thing that occurred to me is just how interconnected people really are. In one way or another, we've all likely had sex with millions of human beings through the sharing of body fluids. Think about it. One man became infected 45 years ago, and as of today, 65 million people have become infected. That means that one mans body fluid has been passed on millions and millions of times, to the point where I'm sure each of us has come into contact with him.

Now - that's just for human to human contact that resulted in actual HIV transmission. Consider the odds of sexual contact resulting in an infection. These statistics assume un-safe sex where indicated *.

Estimated per act risk for acquisition of HIV by exposure route[39]

Exposure Route Estimated infections per 10,000 exposures to an infected source

Blood Transfusion 9,000
Childbirth 2,500
Needle-sharing injection drug use 67
Receptive anal intercourse* 50
Percutaneous needle stick 30
Receptive penile-vaginal intercourse* 10
Insertive anal intercourse* 6.5
Insertive penile-vaginal intercourse* 5
Receptive oral intercourse* 1
Insertive oral intercourse* 0.5

Now, keep in mind I'm not advocating any kind of un-safe sex of any sort. I'm just using statistics to illustrate a point of human interconnectedness.

Notice the actually low chance a person can become infected due to un-safe sex with an infected partner. The highest possible chance of sexual infection is .5%. This means that a person would have to engage in unprotected "Receptive anal intercourse" 200 times with an infected partner before meeting the odds of becoming infected.

Of course, the highest number of infections are a result of heterosexual sex, and the chance for infection is lower per each sexual contact. It's roughly 5 times less likely. So, I'm going to estimate here based on those statistics and say that the chance of infection from un-safe sex with an infected partner per 10,000 acts is 15. So, we have 65 million infected people to date. At the .15% chance to become infected, that means that it took roughly 4.3 billion sex acts in the last 45 years, with at least 1 partner infected with HIV, to result in 65 million infections.

So, consider that sex acts with infected partners represents a tiny fraction of the total sex acts. There's a lot of sex going on. That's why it seems like the odds of becoming infected are so great. A person could go a lifetime only have the most risky sex possible with only infected partners and they'd likely never get infected. However, somebody has to get infected right? Those that did got really unlucky in a number of ways.

The low rate of infection explains why it took from 1959 until 1981 before the disease was even classified. If the average rate of infection were more like 25%, the planet would be over run with infections to the point of possible destruction. But consider, if there is another lethal virus lurking with half the rate of infection of HIV, it could be spreading through the world populations right now, undected just as HIV was.

In the end, we've all had sex with that first guy that got infected by the monkey in 1959, or pretty much anybody else that lived 50 years ago. We've had sex with somebody, who had sex with somebody else, who had sex with somebody else.. and you multiply that billions of times, where I suspect that if you do the math (I'm not going to, this bit made my head hurt already) each one of us has had sex with every person who lived on the planet 100 years ago.. maybe less. It grows exponentially, and because there has never been a human mass extinction, it carries on all the way to the day of the pre-human ancestors.

The Joyful Wife

Bit bored, so I went to look at statistics of my blog here. Readership is down you losers!!! WTF click my blog more to get my stats up.. I used to get like 40 a day.. now it's like 25. Oh My God!!!11

Anyway.. I was looking at the referrals again, because it's just so amusing to me. I saw one from http://joyfulwife.blogspot.com/ Oh.. you know I just had to go look at that one. Sure enough, bat shit fucking crazy lady.

Check out a sample post;

whisky
One "curse" that our generation bears is the knowledge of all that is really out there in the world. (Compare this to life on Little House on the Priarie...) Like taking the kids with me to SuperWalmart... I think it's horrible for their minds just to see how much "stuff" is available to us.

So that being said, I almost hesitate to share this website with my hubby. I read about it in the Wall Street Journal. It's an old-fashioned whiskey distillery in Scotland that offers an "Academy" - a chance to come live with the owners for a week and learn the trade hands-on. It sounds like an absolute dream vacation for hubby, and I hate to tempt him, knowing that until our children are raised (ha ha ha) he will probably never have the opportunity to splurge on such a venture. As I often say to him... "Honey, in heaven you'll drive all sorts of new cars." And now I can add: "and honey, in heaven you can have your own whiskey distillery, okay?" And it'll be worth the wait.

Yes - Catholics. Notice the aversion to knowledge. She's got a total mind fuck going on and doesn't even know it, and she's going to condemn her kids to a lifetime of therapy. It's sad.

You know what I like to hear? "Honey - I'll buy you a $135,000 sports car". Fuck that waiting for heaven shit.. Lets live in the real world, here and now, and have a good time.

Another post of hers;

This article clearly explains why Christians should NOT see the DaVinci Code move, even "just out of curiosity."

Once again, so typical. If the movie is so off base, why fear it? If someone came to Jesus and said "you are false", would Jesus put his fingers in his ears and scream "la la la, I can't hear you"? I think Jesus would listen to what they had to say and rebutt them. Easy as that.

But not these Catholics. Again - money, wealth, power. They got millions of people so mind fucked that they freak out over the least bit of criticism.

Watching the Deconstruction of the Faith

Early this week, I began to receive numerous phone calls from my fellow Catholics wanting to know what could be done to combat the film — begging me to do something to defend our Lord and our Faith. After prayer, I decided that my friend’s offer was in fact an opportunity to review the film and critique it early on as a Catholic lawyer. Being able to see the film without any risk of financially supporting it or inducing others to go and see it were primary concerns. With those worries allayed, I saw the film on May 17th.

At the screening, many of the critics were giddy with excitement at the prospect of seeing the film. No time was wasted assailing the Catholic Church with open ridicule even before the lights went down. That was the atmosphere of the evening.

As the theater went dark, we were treated to the soaring score of Hans Zimmer, one of the best composers in Hollywood. On screen, an elderly man is seen running through the Grande Gallerie of the Louvre, trying in vain to escape the menacing monk stalking him — a man so pale in the face that death precedes his every step. The monk, as repeatedly advertised in previews, proceeds to murder his helpless victim in cold blood. That is how the film begins. This combination of intense action with a particularly striking score continues, scene upon scene.

At the end of 2½ hours, the lights came back on, and the reality settled into me: Never in the history of filmmaking has the memory of our Lord Jesus Christ and the faith of all Christians been so explicitly targeted, insulted and mocked on such a scale.

Islam, Christianity, it's all the same... living in a self-imposed delusional state and loving it. I really do feel bad that people live like that. I suspect very few people choose to go that insane. Somebody had to have done it to them at some point in their life.

I wasn't very suprised to see this post on her blog;

Depressed?
I was listening to a tape of Fr. Benedict Groeschel today (another advantage of no tv!) and he said he advises really depressed/sad/suffering people to read Psalm 88. (To know that you're not the only one who has felt these universal feelings.) It was a small part of the talk, but I thought it was worth sharing.

I'd imagine she has her lucid moments.. and the cloud of depression settles in on her.. suffocating.

You've chosen your own path.

** update **

Referrals are cool.. This blog is interesting.. http://food-forthought.blogspot.com/

VA

This theft of veteran data story is really blowing up. By the way, the records involved are for vets who served during the Vietnam era and after..

Apparently the VA Secretary was not told about the theft for 2 weeks after the employee reported it. That's extraordinary.

They are also having hearings in Congress about the theft..

"Your own people don't tell you about the theft involving 26 million veterans. You say you take responsibility but then you tell veterans to go call your creditors," he said.

"You're not taking responsibility for this mismanagement debacle," Filner said. "The most dramatic thing to take responsibility is to resign."

That's a bit silly. How the VA Secretary could have prevented the theft is a real mystery, because every regulation and policy in the VA prohibits what one individual did.

At the House hearing, Rep. Steve Buyer (news, bio, voting record), R-Ind., chairman of the veterans panel, said he wanted straight answers as to how Nicholson could have allowed a delay in telling the public about the theft of information after the May 3 burglary at a VA data analyst's home.

"This isn't just an issue of a low-level employee," Buyer told a chagrined Nicholson. "This is a serious case of mismanagement."

The delay in informing the public was done in order to prevent the thief from realzing what he had on the computer. My guess is that there is very little chance that the actual data will be found and distributed. It's very doubtful there is much risk of that.

I still don't get how it's "mismanagement", and it's nice to know that a rep thinks I'm a "low-level" employee. We make this shit work for god's sake.. fuck him..

Somebody screwed up - it happens.. the really amazing thing is that the employee admitted what was on the laptop. He could have kept quiet, and nothing would have happened. If the data would have surfaced, nobody would have known where it came from. As it is, he or she just ruined their career by being honest.

Honestly, I'm not sure what I would have done if it were me. If you keep quite, nobody knows, life goes on, the odds of the data surfacing are very low. Speak up, find a new line of work. Hmm...

Seig!!!

Beugen Sie vor dem herrlichen Leiter hinunter!

Wir werden die Verräter zerquetschen!

Niemand kann uns aufhalten!!1

You got a purty moufh..

and a nice ass..

Ugh.. uhhh.. oh ya.. your big soft hands feel so good Dennybaby..

Is Denny giving Big Time a reach-around? Sure looks like it.. The matching outfits is a nice touch.. so cute..

Yahoo News slideshows are just the best..

** update **

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, is under investigation by the FBI, which is seeking to determine his role in an ongoing public corruption probe into members of Congress, ABC News has learned from high level government sources.

Federal officials say the information implicating Hastert was developed from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government....

House Speaker Dennis Hastert is the No.1 individual recipient of money from Abramoff and his clients, with a total of $68,300 contributed to his campaign committee and leadership PAC from 1998 to 2004.

What the fuck is it with these people? Don't they know that they'll get caught? Seriously.. they are old, and will likely die in prison.. for what? A couple hundred grand? Think the Dukestir wouldn't rather be free to go to poker games and chase boys until he drops dead? Instead, for a bit of greed, he's going to spend the rest of his life being Bubba's bitch.. Same may be the case for Hastert and others. All for what?

God damn morons..

** update 2 **

Yet more millionaire morons convicted and going to prison;

HOUSTON - Former Enron Corp. chiefs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were convicted Thursday of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud in one of the biggest business scandals in U.S. history.

The odd thing is that they are not going to be sentenced until next September. Why the long delay? Why not take them to the prison now? They are going to spend many years in prison, and likely die there anyway.

If I were either of them, I'd run. Get as much cash as possible and head for South America. It's either that or die in jail.

It's good for you too

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Chocolate lovers rejoice. A new study hints that eating milk chocolate may boost brain function.

"Chocolate contains many substances that act as stimulants, such as theobromine, phenethylamine, and caffeine," Dr. Bryan Raudenbush from Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia noted in comments to Reuters Health.

"These substances by themselves have previously been found to increase alertness and attention and what we have found is that by consuming chocolate you can get the stimulating effects, which then lead to increased mental performance."

But wait, there's more...

In their 1999 report, the Institute of Medicine's panel of experts flatly rejected the idea that herbal (usually smoked) cannabis would ever be considered a safe and effective medicine for widespread use. They noted that ... because smoked marijuana can increase the risk of lung damage, cancer and complications during pregnancy, it is appropriate only for short-term use (less than six months) by acutely suffering patients who have failed to find relief with other therapies and who are under the close supervision of a doctor.

Marijuana smoking does not increase a person's risk of developing lung cancer, according to the findings of a new study at the University of California Los Angeles that surprised even the researchers. They had expected to find that a history of heavy marijuana use, like cigarette smoking, would increase the risk of cancer.

Instead, the study, which compared the lifestyles of 611 Los Angeles County lung cancer patients and 601 patients with head and neck cancers with those of 1,040 people without cancer, found no elevated cancer risk for even the heaviest pot smokers. It did find a 20-fold increased risk of lung cancer in people who smoked two or more packs of cigarettes a day.

[Dr. Donald Tashkin, senior researcher and professor at the UCLA School of Medicine] theorized that tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, a chemical in marijuana smoke that produces its psychotropic effect, may encourage aging, damaged cells to die off before they become cancerous.

So.. what do you say we get a big pile of chocolate.. and get high as a kite? It's the healthy thing to do..

Republican balls

Interesting political essay here:

But after having wallowed in our fear these last five years, maybe what we need next are leaders who will raise us above it. The one man who taught us better than any other to conquer fear was no Governor Terminator. His muscles were unimpressive. He had no physical swagger to him at all. His military experience was a desk job. He wore no cowboy gear. He smoked cigarettes not like a Marlboro Man but filtered through a slender, feminine holder that could have been a prop from the Follies Bergere. He didn’t promise to protect us. He made us believe we could protect ourselves -- from the violence of fascism and the vicissitudes of capitalism alike. And he handed us the tools to do the job. We built the better part of the American century on the back of an aristocratic, polio-addled cripple. Now that was a man.

It's interesting what motivates people, and how bright people exploit it. I suspect there are a number of people I know that were politically influenced by the idea that George Bush has a pair of balls. Somehow John Kerry, even though he did actually serve in combat and was wounded, had smaller balls.

But the essential argument, once again like it always does, comes down to the fact that Americans are really fucking stupid people.

It's not really so easy to pin down the one central cause that changed our nation from a place where an effete man in a wheel chair could lead a victorious nation in the greatest war the world has ever witnessed, to a place where a complete idiot wins elections just so long as he clears brush, and wears a flight suit like a man. Stephen Colbert was right. Bush could stand on rubble and use a bullhorn.

There are hundreds.. thousands.. millions of reasons why we need the perception of a father figure in office. Even Hollywood has played it's part. Who wouldn't want a masculine badass like the Terminator as governor?

Which of course all goes back to the idea that conservatives are idiots. Not like "idiots" in the sense that I just think they're wrong. I'm speaking of "idiots" in the sense that they are simply dumb people. Liberal and progressives recognize that it's not the size of the dick on the president. It doesn't matter if he says "dead or alive". What matters is substance, intellect, wisdom, judgment. Certainly the man in the wheelchair humiliates the chest thumping gorilla.

It must suck for him if he knows it..

What to do?

The guy that sits in the cube across from me makes me insane. Well, really he doesn't. He's a nice guy, fairly sensible - not irritating. The problem is that for some reason there is a continuous parade of people that come to his cube and start chit-chatting. Some do it quietly. Most, like the guy there right now, are loud. The guy in the cube behind the guy across from me often joins in their discussions. There is also another guy from the end of the row there. So, there is the guy in the cube, and 3 other guys just bs'ing right now.

It happens maybe 5 or 6 times a day. Some last a couple minutes.. some conversations last a half hour or more. Now, I'm not always working when I'm sitting at my desk.. like right now. But sometimes I am, or sometimes I'm on conference calls. None of that makes any difference to the people who stand right outside my cube and have zero consideration for my sanity.

Just now my irritation level was so high I had to get up and go down to the cafeteria and get an orange to munch on, and I just put in a Simon and Garfunkle CD and stuck the headphones in. I can still hear the indistinct voices, and see them out of the corner of my eye standing outside my cube.

In other words, these people are making me insane, and I don't know if it's because I'm an "introverted" person, or it's because they are just being inconsiderate assholes. They aren't bad people.. it's just that it's not a once in a while deal. It's several times a day, every single day. When I'm on the phone, I want to just put it on mute, turn and tell them to all to fuck off.

Simon and Garfunkle is so awesome. Baker Street playing right now.. I guess Paul Simon has a new CD out. Nobody cares.

You ever think that you have some kind of genius when you're 25 years old, and for the rest of your life you try to recreate a different kind of genius, but whatever you do sucks because nobody gets more than that one time at genius? Who's done it more than once?

When you're pushing 40 and realize your shot at genius is gone, it's kind of depressing.

The Sound of Silence is on now. How ironic, right?

The guy in the cube across from me has acknowledged the parade of people to me a couple times. He doesn't phone them up to ask them to drop by. They just do. I downplay it as if I don't care.. I don't mind being a frank asshole to people on the net. They don't affect my pay. Here I'm exceptionally careful what I do and say.

So.. what to do... I could talk to him. It might be hard to believe, but I do know how to tart up the conversation the right way so it doesn't seem confrontational.. I can fake people skills really well. But - regardless of how you have that conversation, you immediately create drama no matter how you do it. For instance, he might have no problem with what I say, but he tells one of the people that regularly comes by not to do it so often anymore. They ask why. He tells them I complained about it. Now that person thinks I'm a whiner... and so on. It's a no win situation.

I've tried to use body language to convey my irritation. There was no doubt I was pissed when I got up to go get the orange. They probably thought I was pissed about something work related, and didn't even have a clue that I wanted to tell them all to get the fuck out of my space. Nothing seems to work.

The other option is going to management, but that's even worse. Not only will he end up knowing it was me that bitched anyway, he'll think I run off to mommy instead of dealing directly. I could request to be moved somewhere else. That's probably not a bad idea, but they'll still know I did it because I was irritated with their behavior.

The last option is just to find a better way to cope when it's going on. I don't want to always rely on the headphones, because I don't like people coming up behind me when I don't know they're there.

There is this part of me that just wants to turn around in my chair when there's a big debate going on and tell them all that they are making me insane and to please not do it outside my cube 5 times a day.

My kingdom for an office.. but then I don't want to get into management. Managers have to deal with this sort of bullshit I'm describing, and that would suck.

Seig

Heil!!!

Big Time is in Cali to shore up the desperate Republicans.. but of course most people think the Republicans suck ass, so if I were a candidate, I wouldn't want to get shot in the face.. I mean I wouldn't want Big Dick around..

McCloskey, who said he used to be friends with Cheney when he served in Congress from 1967-82, said he was surprised by the vice president's swing through California.

"The Dick Cheney I knew would have been appalled at Pombo and Doolittle and the whole Abramoff scandal," McCloskey said. "You have to ask if power has corrupted Dick Cheney."

I totally dig the Yahoo slide shows..

Meanwhile..



Guys like that are dying every day in Iraq.. Fuck Dick "5 Deferments" Cheney.. fucking asshole.

Hail Satan

So I lied.. had to post this;

PARIS - Brad Pitt sent an e-mail to the Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday saying he was unable to attend because of the "imminent arrival" of his new spawn of Satan.

Henri Behar, who moderates Cannes' news conferences, read a message from Pitt, who has been in Namibia with his "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" co-star, Angelina Jolie, awaiting the birth of the couple's first child.

"With the imminent arrival of the newest addition to our coven, I am unable to join Alejandro, Cate, Gael and the rest of the cast and crew in introducing" his new film, "Babel," the 42-year-old actor said in the message. Pitt added, "Though not that it matters much, since Armageddon is upon us, and the denizens of the underworld shall rule the earth for a thousand years."

What the fuck is up with his hair? God damn, you know somebody pays hundreds for that.. and it looks like a god damn wig..

** update **

So I went to IMDB to see what else the father of the Anti-Christ is up to, and he's got several movies in the works.. This one sounds depressing;

Plot Outline: Told to "go home and die" after developing full-blown AIDS in 1986, electrician Ron Woodroof delves into the world of underground pharmacies that supply HIV drugs not approved for use in the U.S. in an attempt to prolong his life, and, ultimately, the lives of thousands of other people.

I knew a bunch of people that died of AIDS back in late 80's through the mid 90's. It fucking sucked beyond words. Going through that ordeal tends to make a person much more sensitive to the hatred from the Christians and other assorted bigots of all varieties.

It's been ages, maybe 8 years or so, since somebody I knew died. It just doesn't happen anymore, which is good news.

Brad Pitt is just one of those actors that is so good that they can do any roll.

One of those days

So.. I get to work on time for a meeting this morning.. in fact early enough to get some coffee going. I have a lot of it because I'm up too late again. Naturally.. have to go attend to the bio functions and I always have boxers on.. so I'm really needing to go and can't find the fly.. when I realize.. yep.. I've got them on backwards... so now I have to go the entire day knowing that my shorts are backwards, and there's nothing I can do about it... and while it's not uncomfortable, it's like having an itch that you can't quite reach to scratch.. and when you expect things to be just so, and they aren't just so, you slowly go mad.

And that's about all I have to say today...

Oh.. except that "Force Ministries" are back in action.. staging a big show, where they praise Jebus and fire automatic weapons. Link:

Security

Oh shit..

WASHINGTON - Personal data, including Social Security numbers of 26.5 million U.S. veterans, was stolen from a Veterans Affairs employee this month after he took the information home without authorization, the department said Monday.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson said there was no evidence so far that the burglars who struck the employee's home have used the personal data — or even know they have it. The employee, a data analyst whom Nicholson would not identify, has been placed on leave pending a review.

Nicholson declined to comment on the specifics of the incident, which involved a mid-level career employee who had taken the information home to suburban Maryland — on disks, according to congressional sources who were briefed on the incident — to work on a department project.

We all just got an email from the VA Secretary concerning this issue a few minutes ago. This is really bad.. but worse, it's really fishy. There's something not right.

We don't use "disks" at all.. though theoretically, it could be that the person copied the data onto a CD and then took that home.. unencrypted. But then they turned around and reported a disk was stolen? Very strange.

It's not unusual for people with access to sensitive data to use laptops with docking stations (I do) and to take them home to do work, or whatever. Thing is, we're never supposed to trade in "real" data at all. The VA has data scramblers, and you just wash your data through that and it randomly changes everything.. names.. birthdates.. SSN's.. addresses.. the whole thing.

Just to make sure, I verified this does not apply to infrastructure information, such as programming code and database definitions and so on - just patient data. I have all kinds of code and DB stuff on my laptop and regularly take it out of the office. That's okay..

/whew

We're Wired

Wired magazine just published a story, including documentation of internal AT&T memos, describing the NSA's illegal data mining of the internet. It's quite amazing. This is not far left moonbat territory. It actually includes photos, schematics, original memos and so on.

Link:

Stop the madness

Last week a work email thread exploded into a huge spam clusterfuck. Here's the setup;

Hundreds of people are added to an email group. This group is added to an automated notification system that alerts users when there are network issues. The network is massive - nation wide. Therefore, we start getting quite a few of these emails and they are irreleveant to the vast majority of us.

One person "replies all" and says "please remove me from this thread". That's all it took before dozens of people were doing the same. Even when asked to stop, and given instructions on how to unsubscribe - the replies just kept coming. What was even more amusing were the people that replied all to say "stop the madness" and ask other's not to reply all. They don't seem to understand that in their attempt to stop the reply all spam, they are simply adding to the spam by doing the reply all.

This was my very favorite one;

_____________________________________________
From: blah blah
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 2:45 PM
To: blah blah; VA WAN Notifications
Subject: RE: HOW TO GET REMOVED FROM THE LIST

Please stop the madness and follow the instructions as per Janet's email.

Notice how perfect that is. She's asking people to stop the madness by referring to somebody else's email that gave people instructions on how to stop the madness, thus all she did was add to the spam and offered nothing new. She was, after all, trying to cut down the spam but did the complete opposite of that.

Now, normally I just delete everything, or create an outlook rule so that the emails are automatically deleted, but I simply could not resist that one. So, I wrote the author back. Note, I did not "reply all", because I'm not a complete retard.

____________________________________________
From: me
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 3:07 PM
To: Dummy
Subject: RE: HOW TO GET REMOVED FROM THE LIST

I wonder how many "stop the madness" emails need to get sent "reply all" in order to stop the madness.. so more people don't send more emails asking more people to stop the madness by replying all.

Better still.. replying all to ask people to refer to somebody else's email that was sent in reply to all in order to resolve the issue of the largest single spam episode I can remember, makes perfect sense.

Sadly, I didn't hear back from her.

Which raises another point I've been thinking about.

Now, I work in a large IT shop. Everyone is supposed to be super smart, but for some reason there are still a lot of complete retards. So, you stop and think, "hey.. if that's a computer engineering field and there's a lot of retards in it, does that mean there are retards in every field?".

The answer is yes, yes there are.

Does that mean you may go to a doctor and he's a complete retard? Yep. Does that mean your lawyer may be a complete retard? Oh yes, very possible.

Does that mean that members of the main-stream media are complete retards? Now there's the rub.

A lot of us that consider ourselves to be in the "reality based community" wonder why it is that the media does something like this.

PART 1—STILL CRAZY: Al Gore was right about global warming—way back in the 1980s. He was also right on internal combustion. And oh yes, he was right on Iraq, in a prophetic speech in September 02—a speech Joe Klein praised at the time. In a rational world, this would make Gore a reigning star—but we live in the world of a millionaire press corps, and we suffer, every day, from its judgments. On Friday morning, Michael Kinsley heaped torrents of praise on McCain, who was wrong. But how does the pundit corps treat Gore, the man was actually right on Iraq? On this weekend’s Chris Matthews Show, one empty scribe turned to another (Joe Klein), who then said what they’ve said all along:

KLEIN (5/21/06): You know, there’s a big question here. If you read Al Gore’s speech just before the war in Iraq where he came out against it, it’s a brilliant speech. If you saw Al Gore delivering it, he looked like a madman.

MATTHEWS: Kathleen, you wrote a column recently—I like the phraseology—you said Al Gore is “one slice short of a loaf.” (Group laughter) I mean, that’s like they say up in Massachusetts, they say things like, “He’s got a few shingles missing from the roof.” What’s your point? Is he a little nutty, are you saying?

So how does one go from being "right" to being a "madman"? I keep wondering about how it is possible that the media keeps beating the McCain saint drum when the facts are completely flipped from rational observation?

How can this be?

Occam's razor. The media employes a bunch of really stupid people. I mean - really so fucking stupid that if it weren't for making up a bunch of bullshit, and looking good in front of a camera, they'd be homeless, whacked out coke whores. I know it's hard to believe, but trust me. When you work in a scientific field, and you see a number of people who couldn't think their way out of a wet paper bag, you realize that no profession is exempt from stupid.

Incompetent

If you have an interest in the specifics of the military, read this piece. No doubt Bush will give Rumsfeld the medal of freeance.

This is what happens when you put bat shit crazy people in office. It's not so much that they are incompetent, it's that they are dangerously incompetent to the degree that threatens the safety and stability of our national defense.

This is also why being very up-to-date on current events and politics is the most important civic duty an American citizen can perform. It boggles the mind to think of ordinary people who barely read the news voting in a presidential election. They are simply taking a guess.

They guessed wrong - and just read of what it has done to this nation.

via Atrios

Canadian Marriage

Two cops in Canada getting married.. which is a nice thing for them of course.. But the thing I noticed is that they look identical.

Madonna

She's just started a new tour...

Later on, she donned a crown of thorns and suspended herself from a giant mirrored cross to deliver the ballad "Live to Tell." Video screens showed images of third-world poverty and reeled off grim statistics.

During one of her half-dozen costume changes, another video montage juxtaposed images of Bush, members of his administration and British Prime Minister Tony Blair with footage of Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden, and Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe. Midway through the new song "I Love New York," she deviated from the script and made a crude reference to Bush and oral sex.

And she's 47 years old.. LOL

** update **



The Dixie Chicks have a new album out as well. Remember all the grief hurled on them for saying they were "ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas"? The chimpsters approval rating is under 30% now.. and in Texas is less than 50% as well.. so yes, America agrees that Bush is an embaressment... but unfortunately for the Chicks, they knew it before a lot of other people did.. and unfortunately again, their music generally caters to the country-western crowd, which isn't exactly known for their intellectual curiosity.

Quote of the Day

"Christians are of course on both sides of the argument about the use of force -- when it is indeed just to use force and when it is not. We have overthrown a dictator who brutalized his population. Sometimes you have to get rid of really, really bad regimes." - Condoleezza Rice

Eh? What about WMD? What about al-Qaida? What about terraists? What about 9/11? You mean all that shit was a lie? Oh My God!

Isn't it amazing how the Iraq war has become an exercise in getting rid of a bad guy? Do Americans want our kids killed for that shit? How about the 13,000+ wounded, disfigured, maimed..

Fucking right wing cowards.. go die for some Iraqi's "freedom" if you want, but god damn all you assholes for lying to America and our soldiers. Think they would give up their lives for an Iraqi's? Fuck that..

I'm off

To Southern California for a long weekend. Hasta la vista..

Quote of the Day

"[Bush] may get his way, but he won't get it this year. He may get it next year because the conservatives will be so angry at the Republican leadership - starting with the president, but the congressional Republicans also - that I'd be surprised if many, many don't stay home, turning the congress over to the Democrats. And, of course, the Democrats, next year, would give the president what he wants because then they'll be able to govern America for the rest of the 21st Century [with the support of former illegal aliens who had become newly-legalized voters]." - Richard Viguerie

The hard core conservatives are really unhappy with the chimpster over this whole immigration issue. Could he be right? One can only hope.

While we've had to endure the most heinous presidency this country has ever known, it might turn into colossal good fortune if it directs this country back to a saner, secular, progressive society.

What's all this fuss about immigration now anyway? Isn't there a war on? Isn't Osama still at large, planning to attack us again? Isn't there a gay marriage amendment that the Republicans can use to try and distract the nation with, rather than making Mexicans the new target to bash?

The mind boggles..

While I'm at it.. John at Americablog lists the most pressing issues that evangelical Christians care about.

- gay marriage
- immigration
- prayer in school
- obscenity/porn
- abortion

How many of those have to do with sex? 3 out of the 5. Christians obsess about sex. It's all they think about. But more to the point - aren't those issues the dumbest shit to be focusing on? Jesus Christ what a bunch of fucking dumbass people.

By the way.. Al Gore's movie is opening.. It's called "An Inconvenient Truth", and you should probably see it if you get a chance. It's about global warming and how hundreds of millions of people may die in a decade unless we reverse the trends. Of course it's all scientifically based, and the clips I've seen included what would happen if the sea were to rise due to glaciers melting.

So all of this discussion about politics may be a moot point if anarchy breaks out after mass flooding around the world.

Oh.. and as we like to compare and contrast.

Al Gore - concerned that we're ruining the ecosystem of the planet that could result in the deaths of hundreds of millions of people.

Christians - concerned that people are having sex.

Quote of the Day

One thing you cannot repeat enough: The founding fathers were the opposite of Christianists. In fact, their constitution is designed to protect us from Christianism. And, by and large, it does. But in the Christianists' attempt to stack the courts and in undermining critical secular institutions like the military, they still represent a threat to limited government and religious freedom. And that threat needs to be exposed and resisted. - Andrew Sullivan

If you're an active reader of political discourse, you might wonder why I read Sullivan regularly. He makes me insane after all.

There are two things that Sullivan is crystal clear on, and makes every bit of logical sense you could want; gay rights, and the dangers of fundamentalist Christian attacks on our government.

The problem is that he's a snob conservative elitist on every other issue. He is the ultimate Jew for Hitler even though he has a platform and a fairly sizeable reader base to cry to about being beat by daddy. Promise you'll be a good boy Sully and maybe they won't send you off to Gitmo.

I do think the only reason Sullivan has a problem with Christian fundamentalists is because he's gay. If he were straight, he'd be lock-step in the right wing Christian agenda.

Look, what used to be thought of as "liberal" - the tree hugging tofu eating beatnik flower-power acid tripping hippy pacifist, is not what liberal is anymore. The new liberal is more like the old conservative, where everyone is treated absolutely equal regardless of any innate trait, where we value intellect and achievement, keep our morals out of other people's affairs, feel real empathy for other human beings, stand up to the bullies wherever they are, and don't lie with every single word. That's why I always tell people that if they are not drinking the kool-aid, they are a liberal, even if they don't know it.

I'm really confused where this insurgence of Christian fundamentalism has come from. Sully is correct in that everything this country stands for revolves around keeping religion private. Are human beings naturally susceptible to cults?

James Madison, indeed, would be appalled by the cultification of the American government. Where is the new James Madison?

The angry liberal

When people tell me they can't take me seriously because I'm so angry.. well.. that's only because I'm much more knowledgeable in current events.

There’s been some ink spilled lately denigrating so called ‘angry liberals,’ that is, people who have allegedly lost their right to be taken seriously because they are ‘angry.’ And they are ‘liberal.’

Well, I hereby declare myself a charter member in the ALC (Angry Liberal Club).

Sure, at first I felt guilty -- what right do I have as a patriotic American to be angry? Or liberal? Oh, I tried to repress the ‘angry thing,’ I tried -- if I was asked, I claimed I was a ‘peeved moderate.’ Or a ‘mildly upset centrist.’ But after much work through ‘BIT’ (Blog Immersion Therapy), I stopped feeling the shame. I’m coming out of the closet to announce I am an Angry Liberal Guy. And I am pissed.

You might be saying “Man, what are you so angry about, Angry Liberal Guy?”

I’ve compiled a short (and by no means complete) list just so I could see it all in one place:

I’m angry about the shredding of the constitution…illegal wiretaps…falsified intelligence…secret prisons… use of torture as an accepted means of interrogation…Terry Schiavo…the war on science…denial of Global Warming…the fascistic secrecy of our elected officials… presidential signings that declare the President above the law…the breakdown of the wall between church and state…the outing of a clandestine CIA agent for purely partisan political gain…the corrupting influence of K Street… the total sell-out of the legislative process to corporate interests… appointments of unqualified cronies at every level of government…Harriet Miers…Brownie…Abu Ghraib… Scooter …the complete mismanagement of the war in Iraq…the lies about the complete mismanagement of the war in Iraq…the grotesque budget deficits… the pathetic response to Katrina… a civil rights division dedicated to undermining civil rights…an environmental protection agency that refuses to protect the environment… (Take a breath, Angry Liberal Guy.)

And I’m angry about a smug, simple-minded, incompetent, unqualified President, and a press that denies the obvious fact that we have a smug, simple-minded, incompetent unqualified President.

If these things don’t make you angry, I have to ask -- what the hell is the matter with you?

And what would it take to make you angry? -- C.B. Shapiro

Or maybe the interpretation of these truths is somewhere in the middle..


via Wildsects

OT-VII

Operating Thetan, level 7, Tom Cruise executes Oprah Winfrey. Click:

The dweebs in my warcraft guild come up with some funny shit from time to time.

Buzz

Word flying around right now is that Unka Karl is going to be indicted shortly. We shall see..

Quote of the Day

"It takes a real man to confess Jesus as lord and savior. I'm not talking about no faggot or no sissy," the pastor said on a church tape recording obtained by the City Paper.

"Wait a minute! Let all the real men come on down here and take a bow," the pastor said, inviting them to the front of the church. "All the real men -- I'm talking about the straight men," he preached.

"You ain't funny, and you ain't cranky, but you're straight. Come on down here and walk around and praise God that you are straight. Thank him that you're straight. All the straight men that's proud to be a Christian, that's proud to be a man of God," - Bishop Alfred A. Owens Jr., pastor of Greater Mount Calvary Holy Church on Rhode Island Avenue NE.

In case anyone ever wonders why I depise Christians, that's a big part of it. This sissy would jack that nigger so hard he'd never walk again.

And what's up with the butchering of the English language? Why do all the niggers insist on using their ghetto slang instead of proper English? And the niggers think that rap is music? Please.. and all the niggers have to put spinners on their Escalades.. that they can't even afford anyway.. What's up with that? And why do the nigger women have to have a different father for each of their 10 children? Then they go on wellfare so the rest of us can pay for the nigger kids that are going to do nothing but grow up to be criminals. Why should I have to pay to support some coon bastard child that might just rob me one day?

I normally don't speak like that, but that's exactly what the good pastor did in his sermon.

via Sully

The political winds

My most recent pick for the '08 nomiation was Russ Feingold. I'm going to modify that to demote Feingold to VP, and pick Al Gore as my favorite. He has simply been amazing the last 5 years, and his speeches brilliant.

In fact, President Clinton is polling better today than Bush, by a margin of 2 to 1. Clinton was impeached for god's sake and he's polling better than the current president. Americans know they elected Gore in 2000, and combined with the nostalgia for Clinton, I think Gore wins easy next time around as long as he doesn't try to tone down his demeanor. There's no better way to make up for that mistake in 2000 then to do the right thing in 2008.

For a taste of what could have been, click here:

In a stroke of coincidence, Scott Adams has posted his prediction today;

Hilary Clinton – Too divisive

John McCain – Too ugly

Colin Powell – Too smart to run

Al Gore – Too charisma challenged

Jeb Bush – Too soon

Joseph Lieberman – Too whiney sounding

Wesley Clark – Too tiny looking on TV

Howard Dean – Too crazy

John Edwards – Too goofy

Almost everyone else is too lightweight and/or too unknown. That leaves us with one candidate that can win: Joseph Biden.

On the mark on some, off on others. Al Gore certainly knows he lost in 2000 due to his wooden personality.

Liberal or Conservative revealed

Nope.. no trickery here. In fact, Sen. Kay O’Connor has appeared on my blog before, doing something typically right wing bat shit crazy. Today, it's exploiting minors. Link:

Topeka — Citing Loretta Lynn and the Virgin Mary as successful women who married young, Sen. Kay O’Connor voted against a bill that would prohibit 14-year-olds from marrying.

But the Senate didn’t go along with O’Connor on Wednesday, approving the measure 36-4. The House is expected to take up the bill today, and if it approves, the proposal will be sent to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who has called for restrictions on underage marriages.

During Senate debate, O’Connor, R-Olathe, said, “I see this as a pro-abortion bill.”

She said if a 14-year-old girl was pregnant and she and the families involved were OK with the girl getting married, then the state shouldn’t interfere.

By prohibiting a marriage, the state is pressuring the girl to get an abortion, O’Connor said.

“Every family has their own circumstances. Sometimes the best decision is to allow the marriage to go forward,” O’Connor said.

The issue erupted last year in Kansas when a 22-year-old Nebraska man impregnated his 14-year-old girlfriend and seven months later brought her to Kansas to get married. Nebraska law prohibits the marriage of people younger than 17 regardless of parental consent.

Isn't that amusing? It's better for a 14 year old to marry then get an abortion.. LOL

In many states, the guy from Nebraska would be charged with a felony and likely spend some time in prison being bubba's bitch.. but in Kansas, you can actually marry a kid and get away with it as much as you want.

The moral of the story is simple of course. People in the "bible belt" and "gawd fearin Christians" are out of their minds fucking insane. A lot of them are in positions of public trust, like the chimpanzee that is our president.

Despite Ms. O'connor's protests, Kansas did raise the minimum age of consent.. to 15. If you like 'em young.. that's the place to live.

Indian pop

The repercussion of MC Hammer are still being felt around the world.. The Indian's are getting ghetto.. click:

The origin of time?

So, Scott Adams asked an interesting question, and while it's not really a new question and has been asked before, it is THE question of all questions.

I’m fascinated by people’s opinions of the “start” of the universe.

The most popular theory is that God came first and created everything. But that leaves hanging the question of how God got here. If God was always here, then time has no beginning. And if time has no beginning, then God is unnecessary because the rest of the universe could have just as easily always been here. I know someone will leave a comment with babble about God being “beyond time” or something similarly incomprehensible. That won’t help.

The Big Bang isn’t an answer because something had to cause it. And something had to cause the cause, etc. That never answers the question of what came first.

My best guess is that time is a closed loop, and we are destined to exactly repeat our existence to infinity. I’m sure some physicist has come up with the same theory.

Truly, how could anything exist? The words you read on a blog on the internet have no business existing at all. What came first? - the question of all questions.

Shallow thinking people, of course, do the GOD thing. That's the lazy way to think about it, as they simply make up some sort of creator that fits in with human thinking perfectly as the only explanation you really need. Duh..

I'm kinda with Adams here. Everything exists because it always has and always will. We're here perceiving it because we always have and always will.

Ask yourself what your existence was like the first 13 billion years of the universe? Did you exist? Did you mind that you didn't exist and weren't having thoughts and such? Is that same void what it's going to be like when you die?

I think that all time and space exists all the time. Therefore, you are never really in a void. It would have to be an amazing coincidence that your frame of reference has suddenly come into existence at this point in time. I think in reality, your frame of reference always exists, and you are never in the void.

In other words, I've written these exact same words an infinite number of times, and will do so infinitely. The next word out of the keyboard has no randomness to it.. no free will.. and I have no choice in changing what it is destined to be.

I've seen studies done on the brain that have determined that free will is an illusion. There is a "subconscious" part of the brain that makes decisions, and the conscious part simply rationalizes the decision as if it were our choice. It's really not. There is no free will. There can be no free will because that could alter the next word I'm going to type, and that can't happen in a closed loop system of time.

So, I think there's a really good chance that when you die, your frame of reference will simply shift back to your first awareness.. zing.. you're born..

So what's the consequence of that if I'm right? Well, you better start having a really good fucking time, and enjoy things.. and do the things you want to do for yourself and so on.. because you're going to do it over and over and over..

But then.. if you subscribe to that philosophy and make changes based on it to improve your life, then you've already done that an infinite number of times, so you really have no choice but to do it.. Or not.. the choice isn't yours..

Liberal or Conservative?

Remember way back we used to have this recurring game where I'd post a picture and ya'll would guess if the person was a liberal or a conservative? I thought for old time's sake we'd do another..

Obviously I didn't make this one too difficult..

Sex cures all

Google has a tool (trends) that will give you a regional breakdown on word searches. So, follow the cause and effect with me here.

Terrorism and violence is the big problem.
Organized religion causes terrorism and violence.
Organized religion demonizes sex.
Everyone just wants to get laid.

So, look at the regions that most often search google for the word "sex".

1. Pakistan
2. Egypt
3. Iran
4. Viet Nam
5. India
6. Indonesia
7. Turkey
8. Saudi Arabia
9. Poland
10. Romania

Yow.. it's all those freaky religious nutbag countries that oppress sexuality and individual freedom. So when you wonder why Abdul would strap on some C4 and blow himself up - remember it's because he never gets laid, and they told him he'd get some 70 virgins in heaven.. or something like that. Boom!

So, if you take it one step further, how do you end religious nutbaggery, and the violence and terrorism it spawns?

Encourage sex... everyone fucking each other's brains out is the best defense against terrorism.

Oh.. and by the way.. that's also why most conservative Republican right wing jebus freaks are all uptight and violent. They are simply sexually frustrated.


via Sully

T-Shirt Hell

Truly awful taste in shirts.. but very amusing.. link:

A picture is worth..

Unka Karl plumpin' up again.. He's gotta have some serious eating disorder or something.. Pick a weight and stick with it Karl..

I like the picture though.. there's Chimpy looking completely clueless.. kinda like a special ed kid that sees a toy pony, and Rove.. his eyes saying "I could have you killed.. have a nice day."

Smoking?

The FDA approved a new drug, and some background on the issue here:

Oh.. and the NSA has a record of every phone call you've made in the last 5 years, stored in the most massive database in the world.

What do you call a black NSA agent? Big bruddah. LOL

Link:

What the

Fuck?

He's figured out a way to make money doing the stupidest shit a person could dream up.

Meanwhile.. last Thursday, I missed the "National Day of Prayer". Can you believe I missed that? They even had some sort of video featuring the "founding fathers", which I find terribly ironic since 7 of the 9 men considered as the founding fathers were not Christians. I've written numerous times on how the bat-shit crazy people try and rewrite history, especially when it comes to that cruical point.



Chimpy with Shirley Dobson - wife of James Dobson, one of the most rabid freaky nutjob assholes ever to launch an assault on the establishment clause.

The Sun

Wikipedia's featured article today is about solar eclipses, and one of the diarists over at The Daily Kos, had a little write up about sun power today. It's interesting stuff.

I liked this bit;

Neutrinos are the phantoms of the particle physics universe, each has a fifty-fifty chance of making it through several lights years of solid lead without so much as slowing down. Because of that keen penetrating ability, right now, there are literally billions of neutrinos passing through you every second, some having been shot out of the center of the sun just a few minutes ago and others from the earliest stars to form at very edge of space and time.

Isn't that amazing when you think about it? Right at this very moment, there are particles literally storming your body that were smack dab in the middle of the sun a few minutes ago. That just boggles the imagination.

Kennedy

Rep. Patrick Kennedy said Friday he is entering a drug rehabilitation program, following the car accident Thursday in which he slammed into a security barrier on Capitol Hill. "I simply do not remember getting out of bed or being pulled over by police... That is not how I want to live my life," he said. Kennedy added: "I know that I need help."

It has been a while since we've had any Kennedy drama, eh? They really do love their chemicals..

Family Values!!!111

Scream it louder!!

WASHINGTON - CIA Director Porter Goss resigned unexpectedly Friday, leaving behind a spy agency still battling to recover from the scars of intelligence failures before America's worst terrorist attack and faulty information that formed the U.S. rationale for invading Iraq.

It was the latest move in a second-term shake-up of President Bush's team.

There's a hooker and bribery scandal brewing the last week or so. Goss' name has been linked to it. I would not be the least bit surprised to see it erupt, and some big names go down in flames.

Look at the picture.. that's what a man looks like when his reputation is about to be ruined.. The Duke-stir had the same exact look before he went to prison. And, you know.. there's a reason why they do these things on Friday afternoon. They get much less press coverage..

But you know what would fix it all up? A constitutional ammendment preventing same-sex partners from getting married.. coz we're all about tradition and family values.

I think Jonathan Davis said it best when he said; "fuck all that bullshit.."

** update **

The buzz is that Goss is caught up in the same bribery scandal that sent the Dukestir to the slam.. and of course there were hookers.. LOL

Quote of the Day

It's apparently okay in official Washington for there to be a nation whose leader thinks words speak louder than actions, that an impudent comedian is more offensive than the ongoing slaughter in Iraq, and that 2-3 dead American troops per day is barely worthy of notice.

One keeps imagining that the grownups will finally wake up and try to change things, but if the last decade has taught us anything it's that if there are any grownups in Washington no one bothers to listen to them anymore. - Duncan Black, aka Atrios:

I always like to go back to the bottom line, and when you wonder how it is that politics and media is so screwed up, you have to remember that it's due to the incredible stupidity of the American public. None of this would have been possible without you.

I get messages from people wondering why I'm so angry all the time. It's because every single day, of every month, of every year, I remember that there are American service members dying in unjustified wars. I remember that many more innocent civilians die. I remember that the numbers of horribly wounded are unfathomable. Most people simply do not want to think about that because they want their regular daily lives of going to work and raising a family.

Well, me.. I carve out space every single day to think about the dead, the dying, and the maimed.. every single day.. and it makes me angry beyond words.

I think Americans just want Bill Clinton back.. well, except for the right wingers that never get any sex and don't want anyone else to either. They don't want the Clenis back again. The rest of us just want everyone home and going to work, and raising kids, making some money, and having a good time... You know.. where the big concern of the day was whether or not the prez was getting blown by a chubby intern.

Today Bush's approval ratings are in the low 30's, but that doesn't say so much about Bush as it does about America. That says that American's think that Americans suck.

More Colbert

Froomkin does more analysis of Colbert's performance at the press club dinner last weekend, here:

I often talk about real differences between the way liberals and conservatives think. It's often demonstrated, as is the case this time as well.

A lot of people are doing a bad job, a comedian rips them for doing a bad job, right to their face, right in their own self-congratulatory social event. They think the comedian sucked, and the rest of us are snickering at them for not getting it.

Truly, the brilliance of Colbert was not that he was performing for the president or the press in attendance. He was performing for us, the American public. Most American's think Bush is a terrible president, and is a lying sack of shit. Most American's think the press is complicit in allowing Bush to lie over and over. Colbert knew that his performance would resonate across the internet.

He stood up and said "you're all a bunch of idiots". He's right - and they know it. That's why they're pissed.

I won't go to the next one either

Reminders from Juan Cole. The essential point being; the same murdering assholes that brought you Iraq are gearing up for a repeat performance, and willfully mistranslating language to scare people into supporting it.

And the line of right wing neo con freaks that refuse to put their own ass on the line stretches as far as the eye can see. Fucking cowards.. worse than that, if that's possible. That's not them in the coffin, or the wheel chair.. or with the stumps of feet.. or laying in a pool of blood being tortured..

They are the ultimate un-American traitors.

Quote of the Day

He had a chance to tell the president and much of important (and self-important) Washington things it would have been good for them to hear. But he was, like much of the blogosphere itself, telling like-minded people what they already know and alienating all the others. In this sense, he was a man for our times. - Richard Cohen in the WaPo

He's commenting on Stephen Colbert's performance at the annual press club event. You can watch it here: Colbert does his Bill O'Reiley routine and basically tells everyone in the room they're a bunch of morons and lap dogs. It's really great, watch it.

Cohen seems to think it wasn't funny. Well, much of it wasn't, but what Colbert did was push the shit right up under their noses and made them get a real good whif of it... all with Chimpy mere feet away and unable to move.

I wrote Chohen a little letter;

Of course you didn't think it was funny. You're one of the idiots that Colbert is talking about.

And yes, most left wing bloggers know we're preaching to the choir. We really don't give a flying fuck who gets alienated. People who are alienated that easily are too stupid to get the point in the first place, so why should we waste time and energy on them?

And I'm talking about the people that voted for Bush - the 2nd time.

Don't panic

I'm still here.. just didn't feel like blogging for a while, and there was nothing really good to write about. There still isn't really..

If you want to read something fun, or scary, this column from John Dean is a great study on presidential personality. You remember Dean of course, oh he of the Nixon flavor.. I suspect he knows a thing or two about the subject.

It's really an excellent read. Check it out.. unless, of course, you're one of those psycho right wing freaks.. in which case, don't bother because it would be impossible for you to understand as you likely suffer from many of the same traits.

President George W. Bush's presidency is a disaster - one that's still unfolding. In a mid-2004 column, I argued that, at that point, Bush had already demonstrated that he possessed the least attractive and most troubling traits among those that political scientist James Dave Barber has cataloged in his study of Presidents' personality types.