The evils of penguin porn

Karl was a penguin. Karl was using his laptop to browse penguin porn. Now Karl is a flat penguin, after Karl, intent upon getting a closeup view of the porn, stepped onto the keyboard of his offended laptop which then snapped closed on him.

Thus illustrating the evils of penguin porn. This blog has been the cause of more flattened penguins than any other site on the Internet. Well, other than perhaps that evil supervillain, The Gay Agenda, who has been busily forcing penguins to be gay, which arguably is a worse evil than causing them to be flat.

So will I continue purveying penguin porn, knowing that it causes my waddling cohorts in herring adoration to become flat? Why... YES! The only question in my mind is what to post. Oh dear, so much porn, so little time...

So without further ado, here is some *HARDCORE* penguin porn:

-- Badtux the Pornography Penguin

Bush's PR event

So Commander Codpiece gave a PR speech last night in front of the troops. I didn't bother watching it because I pretty much knew what it had to be -- excuses, lies about how Iraq was a front in the war against those who attacked us on 9/11 and that the Iraqi people have been liberated and how we're winning in Iraq, and accusations that anybody who opposed his dirty little war in Iraq was a wimpy terrorist sympathizer and that we had to "stay the course".

And the dance band on the deck of the Titanic plays "Nearer my God to Thee" while the words of the Captain echo through the decks... "Damn the icebergs, stay the course!"

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Tomorrow's headlines

David Neiwert at Orcinus sees the future, and it looks a lot like the above.

-- Badtux the Alarmed Penguin

Hat tip to the incomparable Tilde...

Safer than the L.A. freeways

Army recruiting is at a disasterous low. Who's to blame? Army recruiters know: It's the parents.

"(Parents) say they don't want to send their son or daughter off into danger," one Los Angeles recruiter said. "There's a lot of misconceptions about Iraq. Frankly, percentage-wise you face more of a risk driving on the freeways out here."

Now, I've not spent a LOT of time on the L.A. freeways, but I could swear that I've never seen scenes like this:

Nor do I recall seeing scenes like this:

Now, perhaps I might have occasionally seen a scene like this:

but really, have you ever seen *this* on a L.A. freeway?

I dunno, maybe I just haven't spent enough time on the L.A. freeways, but I really don't recall seeing car bombs, IED's, and other such explosives going off all the time. Am I just a sheltered penguin? Curious penguins want to know!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Operation Yellow Elephant continues

Our brave man in Mormon land, the very heterosexual General J.C. Christian, Patriot, reports that our brave men (and token women) of the Young Republicans and College Republicans are apparently victims of a sinister plot by liberals. It seems like that dastardly supervillain, The Liberal Agenda, has been sneaking into their bedrooms at night and shooting them with his evil Raygun of Military-Exempting Disability! The Liberal Agenda (whose close pal, that supervillain The Gay Agenda, has recently been spotted horribly mutiliating poor defenseless penguins), apparently has caused an outbreak of bad backs, bad shoulders, fat guts, and other such disabilities amongst the various young Republicans who I am sure, sure I say, would volunteer in a heartbeat for this war they so support if not for their horrible disabilities caused by The Liberal Agenda! I mean, it couldn't be cowardice that is keeping them from signing up, right? Right?!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Are there call centers in Hell?

Pope Horatio Tyrannosaurus Nixon Rex of the Church of Nixon Incarnate notes that Texas appears to be about to be annexed by Hell, noting that most Texans probably won't notice any difference anyhow. Toxic fumes? Check. Fiery weather? Check. Unbreathable air? Check. Water that burns the throat going down and rots out your gut once it gets to the bottom? Check.

Which brings up the question of, if Hell is like Texas (and vice-versa), are there call centers in Hell? My suspicion is that the answer to that question is, why, YES! You must admit that it explains a few things, such as the vague smell of brimstone when you connect to a computer manufacturer's technical support hotline, or that the directions you get from the technical support person appear to be in Modern Demonic rather than in plain English...

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

The Party's war on education

FiredogLake mentions the Party's attacks on higher education, using David Horowitz and his Orwellianly-named "Academic Freedom Act" as the latest tool. This is part and parcel of other recent Party activities, such as their current attempts to destroy PBS, the last bastion of intelligent programming on the airwaves. The goal is to render the American people literally incapable of rational thought, and thus allow the Party to use its control of the media and of the very vocabulary we use to control the populance.

This is all part of a concerted effort over the past 30 years by conservatives. The first prong of this effort was to destroy K-12 education. They have largely succeeded there, having, via standardized testing, destroyed any "education" occuring at the K-12 level and instead installing obedience training that teaches that there is only one right answer for any question and that the right answer is the one that has been given to you by the authorities. The goal of suppressing any form of logical or rational thought has succeeded resoundly at the K-12 level, thus allowing the current administration to use Orwell's _1984_ as a handbook for governance without the majority of people noticing or caring, even to the point of labeling Gitmo as the 'Ministry of Love' while prisoners are tortured in its basements (dig Rummy's reference to Gitmo as a "tropical vacation" for the internees there!).

Higher education has, also, been largely turned into an obedience training institution, but there are always those professors who, like, insist that their students actually *think*. For historical reasons the notion of academic freedom has been highly valued at the university level, so suppressing this last vestige of education in America has been a slow slog for the right-wing Orwellian brigades who cannot fully implement their plan to implement mind control via control of the media and control of the language until these last vestiges of logical and rational thought are eliminated. Thus Horowitz. If he can succeed in muzzling those professors who insist upon their students engaging in logic and reason, then the Party has won.

It's a long-term plan that has passed under the radar of Democrats, and one that explains why the majority of Americans could vote for George W. Bush in 2004 even though all logic and reason said that Bush had fucked up big time. But logic and reason are now foreign to the majority of Americans, who have never experienced an educational system (as vs. obedience training system) and thus have never been taught how to use logic and how to reason and think for themselves.

War is peace. Tyranny is freedom. Torture is love. Obedience training is education. Welcome to 1984+21.

- Badtux the Orwellian Penguin

Thugs and crooks

Seems that it's okay for a convicted right-wing crook to own the New York Yankees, but it's completely inappropriate for a Jewish liberal to own the Washington Nationals.

Can we bring out the N-word yet (the one for fascists, not the one for black people)? Please? At the very least, this is an explicit case of anti-Jewish bigotry on the part of the Republican party. But I suppose they don't care, since by giving knee-jerk support of Israel they automatically get the Jewish vote anyhow, no matter how much they spit upon and despise Jews...

- Badtux the "Let's call bigots bigots" Penguin

So, we're all doomed?

In prior posts I've mentioned a bunch of reasons why typical Democratic and liberal strategies have failed. In this one I gather some of those together, and then in a further post will suggest some solutions whereby the Democrats (or any other party) can a) obtain power, and b) fix the long-term issues that have allowed the Republicans to dominate American politics for the past 20 years.

Okay, Democrat mistake #1: They believe that people normally behave in a rational and logical manner. That's a buncha monkey poop. Oh sure, we have the *ability* to behave in a rational and logical manner. However, that is a learned ability. Our base instincts are those of a monkey, programmed to follow the herd and fling poop at other monkey herds, not those of a rational thinking being. Without education, that instinct is what we fall back onto. And the Republicans have systematically dismantled our educational system over the past 30 years, replacing it, instead, with what is at its core an obedience training system that seems almost designed to reinforce those monkey instincts rather than teach people how to think and behave in a rational and logical manner.

Democrat mistake #2: They believe that most people act in their own best interests. That's a bunch of hoohah. The very fact that an enormous number of Americans are obese ought to destroy that one. Most people act in the way that their monkey instincts tell them to act, rather than using any rational or logical means to detirmine what is their own best interests. Thus the reason why Democrats prattling on about health care, education, etc. has not struck a chord with the electorate. Oh sure, those are great ideas on an *intellectual* basis and would be in the best interests of the majority of Americans, but the Republicans know that they're dealing with a buncha monkeys, and thus proceed to massage the monkey instincts of the electorate (i.e., sling poop, define away the Democrats as "other" and thus evil, etc.) and that's the end of that. You simply cannot make an intellectual argument to the American people. Due to the destruction of the American educational system, the vast majority of Americans simply are INCAPABLE OF GRASPING an intellectual argument.

Democrat mistake #3: They believe that, if they just prattle on long enough with enough reasoned and logical argumentation as to why policy X Y or Z of the Bush Administration is evil and counterproductive, they can convince the majority of Americans to give a shit. Once again, there is no instinct in the human animal to give a shit about anybody outside of immediate family and friends. Thus why the vast majority of Americans simply DO NOT GIVE A SHIT that people are being tortured in the American gulags. They're not our family or close personal friends, so there is no instinctual basis to give a shit. Oh sure, there's the *intellectual* capability to give a shit, but that relies on education, which, as I noted earlier, is no longer provided to Americans, who instead are now subjected to standardized-tested obedience training in their "schools". I hate to agree with Alan Bloom of the "Closing of the American Mind" fame, but while his prescription for overcoming the ills of what passes for "education" in America today was simplistic and easily corrupted by those who hate education, his diagnosis of the ills of American "education" was spot-on.

Democrat mistake #4: They believe that they can engage Republicans via traditional political mechanisms. The problem is that those mechanisms were devised back when the majority of Americans either had an education or at least had not been subjected to 12 years of pure obedience training, and assume that the majority of Americans will behave in a rational manner upon seeing the Republicans abuse their powers. The Republicans, however, have no motivation to cooperate in traditional political processes. After 30 years of programming the American electorate to be a mass of uneducated monkeys who instinctually vote for Republicans because Republicans know how to address their monkey instincts, they have no reason to engage in the old politics that arose during an era when Americans were not sheeple.

Summary of Democrat mistakes: By assuming that the majority of the voting populance consists of rational creatures, they believe that by showing that a) their policies are better for the majority of the people, and b) Republican policies are evil and hurt the majority of the people, that they will obtain votes and thus power. Tragically, the base assumption they're using (that the majority of the voting populance consists of rational creatures) is *wrong*.

Next up: Republican strategies -- how the Republicans pander to the base instincts of the human animal in order to obtain and keep power, and what the Democrats (or any opposition party that arises in place of the Democratic Party, since the Democratic Party seems doomed to irrelevancy) will have to do in order to counter these strategies in the short term.

-- Badtux the Sociologist Penguin

What's with your $#%@ schedule?!

So last week I posted only two posts, one of which was basically pro-forma, and this week I post 2 or 3 times a day? WTF?!

It's like this: I have a life. I have two cats and a job and a motorcycle. I have relatives who visit who need to be shown around town. I have things that happen, like, say, my car breaking down, that I need to take care of. Or some crisis at work requires 16 hour days until it's fixed.

But what about my duty to my three loyal readers, you ask? What duty is that, I ask? I post because I look around and get pissed off by what has happened to my country since the days of my childhood when America was the land of opportunity, land of the free, and home of the brave. I post because living in the land of the chickenhawk, the armchair warrior, the all mouth no balls loot-the-treasury Big Government Republican, torture apologist neo-fascists is getting me major peeved and I either gotta rant or imbibe massive quantities of alcohol and frankly ranting is better for my health. I don't post because of my three readers, though of course I do appreciate their contributions.

And some weeks, I'm just pissed off enough to post 2 or 3 times a day... or at 4:53am (California time) when I'm tossing and turning in my bed, wondering what the hell is wrong with sick SOB's who can make straight-faced apologies for torture and nobody who is anybody seems to ever call them on their bullshit and call it what it is: bullshit by people who get a woodie at the thought of hurting other people, sick sadistic bastards who probably kick dogs and kill cats (hell, who we *KNOW* kill cats, in the case of the sick sadistic bastard Bill Frist), and a supine press that is content to be a transcriptionist and apologist for torturers and cat killers and pesticide-addled bug killers. And some weeks, I decide my mental health is better off going the Soma Nation route and tuning out and doing something else, like the 90% of Americans who don't give a shit about anything outside of their own immediate family and friends because to give a shit would require, like, fuckin' BALLS, and they had their fuckin' balls cut off at birth and handed to The Man on a plate and they're good little fuckin' monkeys going hooo hooo hoo hoo HOOO! and throwing their own feces at anybody who dares point out the point that they're just a bunch of jumped-up monkeys with shit for brains going through their life like brainless robots doing what they've been programmed from birth to do and never possessing a single original thought or doing a single meaningful thing in their entire pathetic useless lives....

And now it is 5:04 AM California time, and I am going back to bed.

-- Badtux the Sleepless Penguin

Downtown Houston

The Bugman, Tom DeLay, says that Iraq is no more dangerous than downtown Houston. Funny, I used to live in Houston. I honestly don't recall scenes like this one that recently occurred in Baghdad:

Was I perhaps leading a sheltered life, given that I was teaching in an inner-city school in the 3rd ward within shooting distance of downtown? Curious penguins want to know!

- Badtux the Curious Penguin

Bolsheviks vs. Busheviks

When I was a child, my daddy told me that the difference between the godless Commies and ourselves was that we were the good guys. The Commies ran gulags. We did not. The Commies tortured people. We did not. The Commies required an internal passport and government permission to move around their country. We did not.

That, unfortunately was the America of my childhood, not the America of today. I've been pointing out the similarities between the Bolsheviks and Busheviks myself for close to six years now, ever since it became obvious:

1. Bolsheviks used ideology as an excuse for looting the wealth of nations for the benefit of a Party elite. Busheviks use ideology as an excuse for looting the wealth of nations for the benefit of a Party elite.
2. Bolsheviks had an ideological handbook written by Karl Marx that they held up with religious reverence anytime anyone questioned their actions. Busheviks have an ideological handbook written by Adam Smith that they hold up with religious reverence anytime anyone questions their actions.
3. Bolsheviks imposed a system of internal passports wherein you needed the permission of the State to travel around the country. Busheviks imposed a "no fly list" and state ID requirement wherein you needed the permission of the State to travel around the country.
4. Bolsheviks believed in invading countries and overthrowing the legal government of that country if said government espoused an ideology in conflict with theirs. Busheviks believe in invading countries and overthrowing the legal government of that country if said government espouses an ideology in conflict with theirs.
5. Bolsheviks wrecked the economies of their countries with rampant militarism and the looting of their economies by the Party elite. Busheviks are wrecking the economy of the United States with rampant militarism and the looting of the U.S. economy by the Party elite.
6. Bolsheviks believed that any policeman should have the right to stop you on the streets at any time for any reason and ask for your papers. The Bushevik's Justice Department argued and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that any policeman has the right to stop you on the streets at any time for any reason and ask for your state-issued ID.
7. Bolsheviks believed in gulags and show trials. Busheviks believe in gulags and show trials (c.f. Gitmo).

About the only difference appears to be a) the ideology espoused (Marx vs. Adam Smith), and the PR-savviness (brutality against foreigners and darkies is okay in Bushevik America, brutality against white Christian Americans is bad PR and to be avoided).

When did we become our enemy, I wonder? This land full of shuddering cowards, cynical looting politicians, and lack of opportunity is not the America that I grew up in, which (if you were not black) was the land of the free, home of the brave, and the land of opportunity. As a member of the last generation of poor Americans able to get an education on Uncle Sam's dime before Reagan basically dismantled the Pell Grant/BEOG system, I was grateful for the opportunity to prove myself, and pay more in taxes every year now than I received in Pell Grants over my entire college career (something that cannot be said for my schoolmates who did not go on to college, most of whom pay no taxes at all). If those taxes were going to pay for some other poor kid's education, I wouldn't mind at all. Alas, they're not. They're going to pay for Mk77 firebombs (napalm).

But perhaps that is inevitable, in a country where the majority of people apparently don't give a shit....

- Badtux the Patriotic Non-Bushevik American Penguin

Democrats line up to apologize

The head of the Republican Party just said that it's true that Democrats hate our troops, Democrats want to see our soldiers killed and are intentionally helping to get them killed, Democrats didn't give a damn about September 11, Democrats didn't think September 11 was a "savage" attack, Democrats had no desire to strike back at Osama bin Laden after the attacks, and that Democrats actually like Osama bin Laden. In the Democratic response, Senator Dick Durbin apologized. It is rumored that the rest of the Democratic Party leadership, sans Howard Dean, shall shortly line up to do the same.

Meanwhile, lefty blogger Atrios has this to say: For the record, my motives aren't to get more troops killed. If those were my motives I'd ship them off to a war on false pretenses without sufficient equipment to keep them safe. It is rumored that Dick Durbin had an attack of the vapors at hearing that response and had to be removed from the Senate chambers on a stretcher.

-- Badtux the News Penguin

Thursday Penguin Porn Blogging

I don't know what these two guys are doing, but it looks kinky, whatever it is:

We should get the Attorney General out there to arrest them for the crime of having fun, methinks. What's the use of a War on Fun(tm) if the critters still get to have fun?!

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

PS: there is no conspiracy.

Blogger bloggered

I have no idea why Blogger is dumping a bunch of blank lines into my blog :-(.

... followup: I trashed the template for the blog and started over from scratch. Please excuse the temporary ugliness, at least Blogger isn't bloggering my blog anymore :-}.

- Badtux the HTML Penguin

Yet another day in the War on Fun(tm)

Ah yes, the War on Fun(tm), that most excellent fight by our brave Attorney General against anything and everything that might threaten to be, well, FUN! Remember, anything that's fun is EVIL. We're all supposed to wander through our lives with a dour look of suffering on our face. If you're not suffering, you'll go to *HELL*! So we have terrorists plotting to kill Americans, our southern border is out of control, and our brave men (and token women) of the FBI are going up against the REAL enemy of America.... sick people.

Yes, sick people. Those vile cancer patients and chronic pain sufferers ought to just suffer in silence! How *dare* they take a medicine that actually is *effective* for remedying their pain? Why, next thing you know, they might even want to die in a dignified manner rather than writhing in pain while tied to a hospital bed!

No no, we couldn't have that. We *MUST* prosecute these sick people because if we don't, they might, they might, why, they might have FUN! Which is a SIN! Which would condemn them to HELL!

So let us give thanks to our Lord and Savior, George W. Bush, and His holy appointed administration, who are saving those dastardly sick people from themselves. Why, if they only drank of the Holy Koolaid and accepted George W. Bush as their personal Lord and Savior and had their sins washed away in the Blood of the Lamb who Died in His Place in Vietnam, why, they'd KNOW why the full might and power of the U.S. government must be employed to protect them from themselves!

As for those terrorists, well, they'll just have to wait, we have more important things to do, right? Right?!

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Honoring war dead is now a crime

It's official.

Operation Yellow Elephant continues

G.D. Frogsdong has this great recruiting poster to carry down to your nearest College Republicans or Young Republicans meeting (preferably while carrying a pile of enlistment forms and wearing your old military uniform, assuming you still fit into it):

Bad froggy! (In a good way, of course :-).

Meanwhile, a quick Google search shows 5,000 references to Operation Yellow Elephant. Meanwhile, General J.C. Christian, Patriot, weighs in on the 2P or not 2P controversy, and opines that since some Young Republicans and College Republicans are, like, WOMEN, maybe the no-P version will meet the needs of the fairer sex better...

So only one question is left: Since I'm sitting on an ice floe in the South Pacific, where is the nearest College Republican to confront with this recruiting poster? Curious penguins want to know!

-- Badtux the Curious Penguin

Senator apologizes for telling the truth

Apparently telling the truth in America is now un-American, objectively pro-terrorist, and an abject breach of manners for which one must apologize. So Senator Durbin, after a few days of agonizing over whether he should apologize for telling the truth, finally admitted he had no big brass ones and did apologize. After all, telling the truth is downright, well, WRONG, in George W. Bush's America.

Glad we got that straight. Okay, then!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Better Late than Never

George W. Bush is finally going to Vietnam! Yessiree, 35 years after he said no way, no how was he ever going to Vietnam, Dear Leader has finally changed his mind and FINALLY is going to report for duty. Rumors that John F. Kerry was going to go with him in order to show him where Vietnam is have been resoundly squashed by the White House, where Scott resolutely states, "Our President has always known where Vietnam was, he just didn't want to go there."

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Option d)

The Pope asks, quoting the great philosopher Carlin, whether most people are a) stupid, b) crazy or c) just plain full of shit. The truth is, of course, option d), "Don't give a shit."

Look, mankind is, in the end, just a bunch of jumped-up monkeys with big foreheads and not enough hair, with prety much the same hard-wired instincts as any monkey. Our instincts are programmed to follow the beta male. Our instincts are programmed to treat our own troop/tribe/clan as the only "real" people and everybody else as "not really people".

The end result is that we have no instinctual basis for giving a shit about anybody outside our own family and circle of friends. Homeless children? Don’t give a shit. Civilians dying in Iraq? Don’t give a shit. Brutal genocide in Darfur? Don’t give a shit. Bush Administration is lying and trashing America's reputation? Don't give a shit. Oh sure, on an intellectual basis we can be apalled. But that's a function of the forebrain, the least-used part of the human brain and a part that is especially little-used since the American educational system was replaced with an obedience-training system intended to indoctrinate children that Truth is what's handed down by Authority and obedience is a virtue. On an emotional basis, we just don't have the instinctual equipment to give a shit about something happening to some person far, far away that we've never seen nor met.

So what do you do when the majority don't give a shit? That's a good question, and one that I don't have an answer to. I guess I could say, well, the answer if most people don't give a shit is to not give a shit, too. Of course, that way leads to piles of dead bodies, but hey, they're not the dead bodies of me or mine, so who gives a shit?

-- Badtux the "Why give a shit?" Penguin

Why the Downing Street Memo doesn't matter

Oh sure, random lefties and libertarians rant and rave about how the Bush Administration lies, cheats, and steals. But look, in their heart of hearts, the average American thinks this is what *all* politicians of *all* stripes do, and see nothing unusual about it at all, and certainly isn't going to get upset to, like, *do* anything about it, except maybe mutter a few words at the water cooler (oh duh, like the Bush administration is gonna shake in their boots about *that*!).

The fact of the matter is that Americans have had their minds poisoned by the Republican noise machine into believing that *all* politicians are corrupt and useless, whether Republican or Democrat. So why should they care that the Bush Administration is corrupt and useless, if the only other choice is some other corrupt and useless set of politicians?

Fixing that well of cynicism at the heart of the American soul is not going to happen quickly, but must happen in order to reclaim our country from the vultures who wish to plunder its ripe corpse. Enumerating the many crimes of the Bush Administration is not going to make a blessed thing happen unless we have some vision, some vast and shiny lie that is a dream that could be, to offer the American public to give them hope that there's some alternative to a continued cycle of looting and plundering by corrupt and venal politicians. Right now they have no such hope. They have had that hope cynically stripped from them by a Republican noise machine that has every incentive to paint all politicians as evil, corrupt, and venal (since this in turn means they can be evil, corrupt, and venal without it seeming unusual). How do those of us who are apalled by this corrupt regime counter this? It certainly isn't going to be by focusing on the fact that the Bush Administration is evil, corrupt, and venal -- most Americans already know that, DOH!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Operation Yellow Elephant

Operation Yellow Elephant is a go! Join our brave General J.C. Christian, Patriot, as he attempts to get the College Republicans to enlist to fight in Dear Leader's War on Terra. Watch young Republicans flee screaming in horror as enlistment brochures are dropped from the balcony of the assembly center! Hear the frantic pleas of "medical reasons" as recruiters buttonhole potential recruits at the College Republican National Convention! Picture the young suit-and-tie-clad preppies of the College Republicans cowering in fear beneath the tables in their convention hall as they try to evade the hawkeyed gaze of military recruiters looking for fresh meat for the killing fields of Iraq! I love the smell of yellow elephants in the morning. It smells like... chickenhawks pissing in their pants!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Napalm sticks to kids

Marine Corps running cadence (NOT politically correct, and NOT sanctioned by officers and leadership):

Grab your bombs and kill some people
Throw some napalm on the square
Do it on a Sunday morning
Kill them on their way to prayer

*CHORUS*
'Cause napalm, it sticks to kids
Crispy on the outside, gooey on the inside

Aim some missiles at the schoolyard
As the teacher rings the bell
Look at all those kiddies cryin'
As the schoolhouse burns to hell

*CHORUS*

Throw some candy in the schoolyard
Watch those kiddies gather 'round
Lock and load with my 2401
Mow those little fuckers down

*CHORUS*

Rape their horses, kill their women
Eat their little babies, too
We're Marines with M-16s
So tell me who the fuck are you?

*CHORUS*

Seems like it's confirmed: the U.S. has used Mark 77 firebombs (a.k.a. "napalm") in Iraq, despite claims that they had not done so. In fact, it appears from the RFS above that they have dropped at least 993 Mk77 firebombs onto Iraq. This is causing some slight problems with our British allies, who had been told that no Mk77's had been dropped on Iraq.

As with any bomb, these are area weapons, not pinpoint weapons. That is, they serve to deny an area to an enemy, they do not pinpoint a specific individual. And as with any bomb, since they do not query every single individual within the blast area as to whether they are civilian or military, civilians do die ("collateral damage", as Timothy McVeigh cynically called the bodies of dead babies hauled out of the Oklahoma City bombing wreckage). Well gosh darn it, you say, civilians die in a war? Yessiree, they sure do! Who woulda thunk it?!

The U.S. defends use of the Mk77 in Iraq by saying it has only been used against military targets outside of residential areas, where civilians are "unlikely" to be harmed. Given that the Mk77 lacks stabilizing fins and thus tunbles all over the place, this isn't exactly reassuring, but what the heck, politicians never lie and always tell the truth and they say this didn't happen, so I believe them. This still doesn't explain why they lied to the British, but what they hey, they're only wogs, they're not Americans, they're not REALLY people, so it's okay to lie to them, right? Right?!

Okay, then!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Thursday Penguin Porn Blogging

Sorry, no gay penguin porn today. Today's penguin porn is the rockhopper penguin, which lives on various islands in the South Atlantic. This penguin's most distinguishing feature is a set of eyebrows that would make Groucho Marx's look tame. They made it into the news most recently when a few hundred of them went on an unexpected voyage as they were kidnapped off their island and sold to zoos for thousands of dollars apiece. Here's an amorous pair engaged in foreplay:

Oh dear, they're getting it on in the nude right there in public! Yum!

- Badtux the Aroused Penguin

He's still a crook

Sorry about the delay in posting. I had my reasons.

Some things that have happened in the news recently:

Michael Jackson was aquitted. Appears the jury finally was convinced that Michael Jackson wouldn't know what to do with his dingus besides pee with it anyhow, and the lady was scary and was coaching her sun to lie. Tell me how much I care about this decision. NEXT!

Runaway bride -- yeah yeah. NEXT!

Oh, yeah. Pat Buchanon has gotten editorials published that basically accuse the FBI of conspiring to bring down Richard Nixon as part of a vindictive punishment for not appointing J. Edgar Hoover's chosen successor to head the FBI. To which I sent the following succinct message to the letters editor of my local newspapaper: "All of Patrick Buchanan's whining about "conspiracies" won't change one simple fact: Nixon was a crook. Attacking the motives of the people who brought that fact to light doesn't make Nixon one bit less crooked." Thus far, the local newspaper has refused to publish this letter. What? A newspaper editor who's gutless and won't publish a simple statement like, "He was a crook"? You don't say! NEXT!

Finally, regarding the uses of federal power and rights: I received criticism for saying that Clarence Thomas was right about how the commerce clause is being abused. But he was. I am a bit of an expert on how the commerce clause has been used to take away consumer's rights in one particular area (household goods moving). Look at the Carmack amendment on that web site, and especially how the courts and federal law have legalized the theft of your goods and taken away all recourse against those who would defraud you. A truck driver can literally steal your life's possessions right in front of a police officer, and he is powerless to do anything about it because of federal laws and court rulings.

Of all the rights that the federal government has granted to individuals, it has taken far more of them away. As a good Libertarian, I believe that the best government is that which is closest to the people. That is, government of the people, by the people, for the people, and if you don't like one area's government, you either change it or just move on to the next area. So that in the end you get states like Mississippi that are sludge pits of inbred rednecks too stupid to make it elsewhere, and then states like Massachusetts and California that have the best and brightest of the world. What has happened is that the federal government is now punishing the successful states for the crime of being successful, taking far more in resources than are given back in services, in order to prop up the trailer park "flyover states" full of losers too stupid to make it elsewhere and old people who think that cheap labor and cheap goods in their local Wal-Mart are all that matters, to hell with schools and stuff.

I am a reluctant convertee to limited government, because there are some things that simply require a national scale to make work. Social Security, national defense, immigration and border control, and healthcare are four things that have been shown to be more effectively done on a national scale. But I think the events of the past five years have shown just how dangerous an imperial presidency and supine Congress can be when granted unlimited powers. If there are no limits, there is no liberty -- regardless of how many times in the past a court or a Congress has temporarily turned back on itself and restored liberties that had been unlawfully taken away.

- Badtux the Busy Penguin

Friday Cat Killer Blogging

Howdy, fellers! Bubba the Southern Penguin here. Sorry about the delay since my last visit here. See, I was feelin' bad and went home early from work, and Darlene was playing some music by a "musician" called P.J. Harvey that made my balls just shrivel up and run hidin' for cover! Then Darlene started SCREECHING at me about Julia! And I tried playing dumb and pretendin' I didn't know nothin' about no Julia, she grabbed the scissors off of the end table and chased me right on out the door!

So anyhow, I been hangin' out at my cousin Badtux's house (Badtux is my cousin on both my mother's side and my father's side, isn't that cool?!). Now, that was a bit of a bummer, 'cause, like, Badtux is so smart and all and was a real domehead traitor type what with dissing our President and all that, but I fixed him -- I left his computer turned to FreeRepublic.com and it just took a few minutes for his IQ to get almost down to where mine is! Afore you knew it, ole' Badtux was drinkin' Budweiser, watchin' NASCAR, belchin', and singin' the praises of our preznit! Well, until one day when Clarence Thomas made sense and the Freepers made sense, at which point his IQ went back up and he went right back to his old ways. Darn!

Anyhow, I was talkin' to my ole' (cat) huntin' buddy Bill Frist and he was askin' me if I could find him some cats, 'cause he was just so darn mad at them eight Republican senators that went over to the other side and kept him from goin', like, NOO-clear on them thare Democrats. Boom! Crash! Wow that woulda been great! So he's all bummed out 'cause there weren't, like, no fireworks and no Democrats learnin' that their traitor ways isn't gonna be tolerated no more. Anyhow, I had to tell ole' Doc Bill that there just weren't no cats left herebouts for him to cut up to vent his frustrations, he done cleaned'em all out! Last I saw he was off mutterin' about maybe practicin' his surgery skills on Democrats instead of on cats. You think I ought to tell somebody about that? Oh shoots no, what was I thinking, we're talkin' DEMOCRATS, after all, it ain't like he'd be cuttin' up, like, PEOPLE!

Now, if you look off to the right, you see somethin' about a "Big Brass Alliance". I ain't sure what that is all about, so I asked Badtux. All Badtux did was mutter about The Anonymous Hacker ("TAH") and something called a "Down Street Memo". I ain't quite sure what that means, does that means wes got a street that's, like, SUNK? But we gots some senators who say they is holdin' hearings 'bout them. I ain't quite sure what they is hearin' (maybe Satan speakin in they's head?), and what it's got to do with some street, maybe they is gonna help Doc Bill fix up some of the old cars up on blocks in his front yard and have a parade?

Well, gotta go. Darlene just called and asked me to come back home! She said she was missin' me like, big time, 'cause without me around there was nobody to make her feel smart and sophisticated! Wow, I never knew the woman appreciated me so much. Boy, I'm pumped! (In more ways than one, if you know what I mean, heheheh!). I just hope she ain't playin' no more of that PJ Harvey, man, that woman "singer" just makes my tool, like, quit toolin', know what I mean?!

Bloggin' from the Heartland,
-- Bubba the Southern Penguin

Thursday Penguin Porn Blogging

In yet more insidious news, that evil supervillain, The Gay Agenda, has zapped yet MORE penguins with his insidious superweapon the Evil Gay Laser Beam of Gayness. I have put in a call to that righteous superhero, Jerry Falwell, asking him to jump into his Godmobile and go save those poor penguins Wendell and Cass from a lifetime of sodomy and sin via his superpowers of Bible Thumping and Fatuous Oration, but thus far have not seen hide nor hair of him. Perhaps he is busy arming poor defenseless Fetus-Americans??

In the meantime, here are those poor innocent penguins, frolicking naked as the day they were born, nude on the beach:

Yum! (Oh dear, I am a bad penguin, aren't I?!)

-- Badtux the Aroused Penguin

It is not a journalist's job to tell the truth

The Heretik brings us the full scoop. Apparently it is not a journalist's job to seek the truth. Rather, it is a journalist's job to serve as a transcriptionist to power. Thus a journalist cannot tell the truth (i.e., that Bush lied about "exhausting all peaceful means" and always planned to go to war with Iraq no matter how well Saddam cooperated with the weapons inspections). Rather, at most a journalist can retrieve words that Bush transcribed then, and contrast them with words that Bush transcribed now, and hope the reader can tell from the difference in the transcriptions that Bush is lying.

I have a modest suggestion. Since it is apparently a journalist's job to accurately transcribe what those in power say, rather than to seek -- and report -- the truth, why not just do away with "journalists" altogether and have politician's press agents write the stories themselves? That way we KNOW that the politician's words were accurately transcribed.

Oh, you say that a politician's words somehow become confused with being "true" if accurately transcribed by a reporter, and that thus this sytem is more useful (for the politicians) than just doing away with the middleman? Thus "journalists" are still important because they help give politicians (liars) legitimacy? Okay, then...

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Hell Freezes Over: Freepers and Clarence Thomas make sense

Regarding the recent Supreme Court decision to allow the U.S. government to regulate anything, anywhere (but especially medical marijuana), here is what Clarence Thomas has to say:

Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything–and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.

And here's what the Freepers have to say about it:

• Growing for your own use isn't even commerce,let alone inte(r)state commerce.
• ... there are many instances in which the federal government has overstepped its limits set forth by the Constitution. This case is another such example. Our state governments are routinely overruled by federal courts in cases which deal with the sole rights and powers of state goverment.
• I think this decision is humorous in that one of the opinions said something to the effect that if they allow medicinal use of pot, crooked doctors would be writing false perscriptions. What a crock. We can't stop the tons of the stuff that comes into the country or is grown here and they're actually worried that doctors writing bad perscriptions is going to have some kind of major impact? Please. Americans consume tons of pot. I can't believe we haven't legalized it just for the tax revenue... never mind how popular it is.
• The way I understand the SCOTUS decision is that since there is no interstate commerce involved, that has an effect/impact on interstate commerce. I'm confused.
• You're not confused, they're propping up a bunch of people on federal welfare programs like the Injustice Dept., the FBI, the ATF, the ......
• Seems like just another judicial fiat. The law is what we'd like it to be at any given moment, on any given subject, on any capricious whim. NOT GOOD.
• SCOTUS is as a girl? Allowed to change her mind and rules at whim?
• Before I continue, I want to stress that I am not advocating the use of any drug. But I believe in our Constitution, and I think we need to return to the idea of strictly following the supreme law of the land. The Constitution was not written to give the People rights. Those come to us from God. The Constitution was written so that we, the People, could delegate certain limited powers to our federal government, and to prohibit that government from exercising powers not granted to it by the Constitution. [Note: This commenter was NOT me]
• The ferragummit can tell you what plants you can grow in your back yard, and if you defy them, they can throw you in prison. Reeks of Tyranny to me. They can overrule God!
• Gun grabbers use the EXACT same logic in pushing federal bans on firearms.

In other news, Satan was spotted in downtown Kansas City, clasping a Bible and loudly proclaiming that he was accepting Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior and no longer was going to be a bad guy, while George W. Bush announced that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake and that he was pulling out all U.S. troops in favor of U.N. peacekeepers within the next six weeks and providing the people of Iraq with $50 billion in reparations within the next two years. Err... uhm... well, okay, no. But hey, if it's possible for Clarence Thomas and Freepers to make sense, it COULD happen, right?!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Biting the pornographic burger

In a previous post I discussed Carl's Jr. and their pornographic hamburger commercial, which starred a naked hamburger doing a Clinton on an innocent hard-working young girl washing a car. In the spirit of opposition research, I decided to drop by my local Carl's Jr. and see whether they were still purveying this pornography to the innocent youth of America. I am sad to say, YES THEY ARE!

When I waddled up to the counter, I looked up at the menuboard and... (GASP!) Naked hamburgers! Unclad, there for all the world to see! Exposing their vile sexuality where innocent women and children could be exposed and ruined forever, forever I say! So of course I had to order one to see if it would try to do a Clinton on ME, an honest non-gay born-again penguin. So I asked the chunky Mexican girl behind the cash register for the "Spicy BBQ Six-Dollar Burger Combo", and after I gave her money she gave me a little number and a cup, and told me go sit and they'd bring it right out to me (gasp! Customer SERVICE! What kind of vile perversion are these people going to come up with *next*?!).

So anyhow, here's what the hamburger turned out to be. It turned out to be 1/2 pound of high quality ground beef that has more taste than a dozen McDonald's hamburger patties combined (not that this is a high standard, given that McDonald's hamburger patties are comprised of compressed cardboard and fillers), topped by FRIED ONION RINGS, with a few wilted pieces of lettuce and a couple of slices of pickle underneath and a bit of some sort of vaguely BBQ-like sauce. It was quite tasty, actually, especially the meat, which was really high quality beef and almost melted in the mouth. But it wasn't spicey as such, and was not "hot" other than temperature-wise. It isn't going to make me leave my current fave hamburger hangout, a local chain called Juicy Burger, which allows me to dress my hamburgers any way I like. The fries were okay too, but nothing special.

And no, while the hamburger was quite tasty, it didn't try to Clinton me. I must say I'm a bit disappointed, I was relishing the opportunity to smack it down and teach it some manners! But I ate every bite of it, does that make me a bad penguin?

So I guess the verdict is that Carl's Jr. promises more than they deliver, to which I can only deliver thanks to my Lord and Savior, George W. Bush, and His holy administration, for obviously they and their Holy appointed Attorney General, Abu Gonzales, have at least brought this smut perveyor to a TINY smidgeon of decency! And oh, if you're ever on the West Coast and you're really hungry, you might want to try this burger and its siblings in the Six-Dollar Burger family. It's not great, but it's definitely better than Mickey D's. Besides, eating beef is patriotic, my television tells me so ("Beef: It's what's good for you"). Surely my television would never lie to me?!

Ooops, gotta go, my IQ seems to be inching up again, time to go read FreeRepublic.com and drive it down again before I have to, like, actually think for myself (oooh, ICK!)...

-- Badtux the Newly-converted Freeper Penguin

Traitor parents brainwash their children

"Parents," said one recruiter in Ohio who insisted on anonymity because the Army ordered all recruiters not to talk to reporters, "are the biggest hurdle we face."

The NERVE of those parents! These activist parents who have no qualms about projecting their own views onto their children should be ASHAMED of themselves. Their unpatriotic notion that parents are responsible for raising their children, not the Department of Defense, is TREASON! I'm just shocked that these parents think they have the right to instill their own values in their children. Why do these parents hate America? It is clear that there is only one thing us good patriotic Americans can do about this situation: Take away the children of those traitor activist parents and have the military raise them!

My IQ was going up again (it got past 85 for a moment there!) so in order to get it back down again I went to see what my fellow Freepers at FreeRepublic.com have to say about this story. Here's some choice quotes:

• ... these parents are actively interfering with their children's transfer to adulthood.
• IMAGINE! The military teaching people how to use weapons! The Humanity!
• Liberals think freedom doesn't require the ultimate sacrifice. [ Thus why conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg hasn't signed up, because he obviously believes it does -- as long as it is someone ELSE's sacrifice. -- TAH ]
• it is amazing that this sick, anti-American, fantasy mindset can even exist in this country.
• NEEDS A REWRITE: "Rachel Rogers, a single mother of four in upstate New York, aging Hippy, Kerry voter, anti-military liberal zombie and one of those annoying, cloying folks who runs your local homeowners association or PTA with an iron fist and sharp tongue, today took on our nation's military ..."
• THE TRUTH COMES OUT ... IT'S ALL ABOUT THE BOOMERS' SELFINDULGENCE!!
• These screwballs should be drafted and made to walk on the side of the roads in Iraq, looking for bombs!!

Phew! IQ back down below 60 again, and it took only one story to do it! For a moment there, I was scared that I might actually have to *THINK*! Boy, I'm glad I averted THAT disaster, because then I might have, like, felt bad about something that our country or our leaders have done, and we wouldn't want THAT to happen, would we?

In other news, that evil supervillain, The Gay Agenda, has struck again. The Gay Agenda this time used his evil super-weapon, the Gay Laser of Gayness (thanks, Pope Nixon!), to turn a manly-man U.S. Army Ranger into a girly-girl. This is what is going to happen to you too, loyal readers, if you don't help us Freepers stop that evil supervillain, The Gay Agenda! Remember, all you have to do is drop a phone call to one of those superheroes in the service of good, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, or Pat Robertson, and they'll immediately jump into the Godmobile and use their super-powers of Bible Thumping and Fatuous Oration to bring The Gay Agenda to quarter! Do it for your children, please think of the children!

-- Badtux the Newly Converted Freeper Penguin

Terrorist caught!

Oh the horror!.

Gay Agenda victimizes penguins!

After posting the gay penguin porn below, I received a comment from Pope Horatio Tyrannosaurus Nixon Rex of the Church of Nixon Incarnate reminding me that this isn't the first time that gay penguins have been in the news. Given that homosexuality is an unnatural perversion perpetrated by sinners upon one another, how could penguins, who are animals and thus free of sin, be gay? Obviously someone is FORCING them to be gay!

After much investigation, I found the villian! I asked my Freeper friends, and they said that it's The Gay Agenda that's forcing these poor innocent penguins to be gay! Apparently The Gay Agenda is a super-villain much like Lex Luther or The Joker, who goes around forcing men to marry men and women to marry women and boy penguins to, well, boink boy penguins, and The Gay Agenda will come and force YOUR child to be gay if good God-fearing Americans like you and I don't put a stop to him! After some digging around on the Internets, I found a picture of The Gay Agenda:

If you see this villain, contact Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell immediately so that they can rush to the God Cave, toss on their superhero outfits, and foil this evil villain using the mighty superpowers of Bible Thumping and Fatuous Orating granted to them when they were exposed to toxic chemicals as youths! It makes this Freeper's heart just THROB with joy to think of these three-piece-suited crusaders rushing through the streets in the Godmobile to save innocent penguins from being turned into perverts by that evil supervillain, The Gay Agenda!

-- Badtux the Newly-Converted Freeper Penguin

Thusday Penguin Porn Blogging

Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. I found the following picture of naked penguins rioting in one of those "gay rights" parades in connection with a story about gay penguins in Japan:

I will have to consult with the rest of my Freeper brethren to know what I'm supposed to think about this, but it can't be good. Oh the horror, a parade of unnatural militant waddling sodomists waddling down the streets naked, displaying their terrible "Rainbow Power" emblems proclaiming their vile unnatural perversion in a parade, where little children and horses can see them! Surely this will cause the downfall of civilization! I'm sure my Freeper brethren will tell me that these homos ought to keep their perversions in the pantry. Or maybe that's cupboard? Oh dear, I feel so NAKED without access to my Freeper brethren to tell me what is true and what I should think. Why, if this conditions continues, I might even have to THINK FOR MYSELF and make my head hurt, ick! Gotta go, need to get my FreeRepublic.com fix before that horrible thing happens... [some minutes pass...] AH! That feels better, just two stories on FreeRepublic.com and I can feel my IQ dropping! The horror of having to think for myself has been prevented, glory hallaleujah, AMEN!

-- Badtux the Newly-converted Freeper Penguin

Dear Leader confused about Deep Throat

Seems that Dear Leader doesn't know what to think about Deep Throat. Was Deep Throat a hero? Or was he the villain who brought down one of our greatest Presidents? Dear Leader says he'll need to study on that question a bit more.

And Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld basically says "No Comment".

Confused, I turned to our fine patriot friends at FreeRepublic.com. And, as usual, they came through for me! From them I learn:

• "Felt was a petty, vengeful political operative who was later convicted for violating the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens."
• "I say arrest his ass, I dont care if he's 90 something."
• 'Deep Throat is a scumbag. I find it a bit sickening for him and his daughter to be smiling and waving at the cameras, just like they're "All That". Deep Throat is not a "hero" he's, yes, a PROSTITUTE. Prostitute for anti-USA factions that is.'
• "I heard someone on the radio say that the burglars were breaking in to DNC headquarters to get the dirt on a DNC call-girl ring that worked across the street out of the Watergate Hotel. Well, go figure, that the break-in was about sexual misconduct on the part of democrat campaign."
• "how bad really was it, what Nixon did? He was engaging in campaign skullduggery and then tried to cover it up. It was no big deal, the Democrats just blew it up into a big deal."
• "Nixon was a peacemaker."
• "The most terrible thing that Nixon did is be a Republican. This to our great MSM is worse than being a murderer."

I wish to thank my fellow freepers for giving me my talking points! Remember, Richard Nixon was a great President, who was a peacemaker, and the mainstream media was out to get him because he was a Republican, not because he was a crook! Yessirree, I feel a sense of relief knowing that Richard Nixon was the good guy and the #2 man in the FBI the bad guy in this little bit of kabuki theater. After all, Nixon was a REPUBLICAN, and no Republican would EVER lie, cheat, steal, or otherwise abuse the trust of the American people!

Yessirree, this, day two of my conversion to worshipping our Lord and Savior, George W. Bush, has certainly put my mind at ease. No longer must I worry about whether my leaders are crooks or looking out for my best interests, because I have faith, FAITH I say, in my Lord and Savior, and have had my doubts washed away in the Blood of the Lamb who Died in His place in Vietnam! Oh the joy of being Saved! Hallaleujah, AMEN!

-- Badtux the newly-converted Freeper Penguin

No torture happened at Abu Ghraib

WHAT IS TORTURE?

Torture is universally accepted as:

"any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions".

(Article 1 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 1988).

U.S. law has the same basic definition written into it.

European and Russian law is a bit more strict. They basically say that ANY kind of inflicting physical or moral distress upon a prisoner in order to get him to talk is torture.

Now, our glorious Deputy Leader says no torture occurred at Abu Ghraib. And as a good American who has accepted George W. Bush as my personal Lord and Savior, I believe my Vice President, for like George Washington or the apostle John who wrote the Gospel, he is an upright moral person who cannot tell a lie.

When I said this to one of those silly members of the Reality-based community, he said "But what about the pictures of prisoners being tortured at Abu Ghraib?" Silly fool! There are no pictures of torture at Abu Ghraib!

So he said, "What about this picture? Isn't this inflicting severe moral distress and mental anguish upon prisoners by forcing them to simulate sodomy against the precepts of their religion?"

Oh silly, silly person! That's only torture only the Euro-weenie and Russian definition! Why, here in the good ole' U.S. of A, there's people who actually ENJOY sodomy and beastiality, even to the point of man-on-dog, man-on-mule, and man-on-box-turtle action!

So he said, "Okay, so extreme pain is what you want. Isn't this guy suffering extreme pain as he is jacked up and dragged around on the floor while bleeding from a gunshot wound?"

Why NO! Those are just tears of JOY in that man's eyes, JOY at being prisoners of fine upstanding Americans rather than of the Butcher of Baghdad, who, like, TORTURED people at Abu Ghraib!

So finally this silly LIE-beral says to me, "What about this guy? He was tortured to death. Surely that's torture?"

Well, if he's dead, he's not feeling any pain, is he? DOH! How can a dead man be tortured?

Boy, I've felt better about myself and my country ever since I accepted George W. Bush as my personal Lord and Savior! No longer do I have to feel disgust over pictures of prisoners being tortured because, as our Lord's personal deputy tells us, there is no torture. Phew! I feel LOTS better now! Gotta go, need to catch up on the news at FreeRepublic.com so I can know who to hate today during the Two Minute Hate, boy, hate is such a CLEANSING feeling, y'know?

-- Badtux the Freeper Penguin