Monday, October 31, 2005

Bob the Candy Corn Demon: A Halloween Tale

From Lab Kat comes the touching tale of how a lowly janitor in Hell was promoted to be the source of all evil in Halloween candy-hood.

Some searching of the Internets found a picture of Bob in action with his broom (you do NOT want to know what Bob does with his broom on Halloween night!): So this Halloween, remember that, as the Rev. Bob Larson so helpfully informed us, evil is everywhere... even in the candy corn. Or as Bob the Candy Corn Demon might say, "mfff, darn slobs just drop trash everywhere!".

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Sunday, October 30, 2005

(Un)Intelligent Design

An Intelligent Design Proponent Tries to fix a Car:

Tried to start car.
One cylinder not firing properly.
Removed spark plug from cylinder.
Tried starting car, watched gap.
No spark on plug.
Cleaned contacts.
No spark on plug.

Decided electricity is too complicated to understand and therefore the automobile is a creation of God. Went inside and pondered the possibilities thereof. Decided that theory of automotive repair needs to include option that automobile is incomprehensible and that alternate possibilities of automotive theory need to be taught in auto repair schools all over the country.

Four years later, auto mechanics begin praying over autos rather than fixing them. When dealership owners owners complain and fire the mechanics who believe in Intelligent Design of automobiles, they are hit with religious bigotry lawsuits and picketed by the Christian Coalition and the entire congregations of the local Pentecostal, Southern Baptist, and Assembly of God churches until forced to re-hire the mechanics.

Inoperative motor vehicles start to clog the roads. The Southern Baptist Convention and Christian Coalition call for a day of prayer, asking God to repair the inoperative automobiles. The cars, alas, refuse to be healed via prayer, and the economy collapses because trucks carrying goods can no longer navigate through all the car carcasses.

The Republican Party blames it on liberal Democrats, saying that if liberals had only prayed harder, God would have healed all those cars. The American public nods in unison, and votes for another Republican President.

-- Badtux the Futurist Penguin (with some help from the Internets)

Friday, October 28, 2005

Cell phone dealings

If you wonder where I was on Thursday, I was looking for a new phone and service. After looking at all the major providers, I finally settled upon T-Mobile. They had the rate plan that fit me best (let's face it, penguins don't do much conversing on cell phones), and a decent Motorola flip-phone with Bluetooth for "free" (1 year contract) whereas the other vendors wanted a 2-year contract for a new phone and their "free" phones sucked.

So now my iceberg is once more happily in contact with the outside world. Phew, that's a relief!

- Badtux the Connected Penguin

Kibble vacuum cleaner

Last night I tripped over the cat's food bowl, and sent kitty kibble flying all over the carpet. I picked up some of the kibble, and then said "f it, I'm going to bed" and left it for this morning.

This morning I looked at the carpet... and it had been hoovered clean during the night!

Now you know why this cat is fat.

-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin

Not time to gloat

Some lefties are gloating because Bush overstepped himself by putting up his personal hairdresser for Supreme Court justice, and she got slapped down by the right wingers. They see it as the end of Republican unity, meaning there is a chance that the Democrats could have a resurgence.

Nonsense. Utter nonsense.

The Republicans never have been "united" in the sense that Democrats seem to think. The Republican Party over the past 25 years has always been an uneasy alliance of right-wing nutballs, corporatist looters, religious zealots, elitist statists, and the occasional oddball Libertarian who hasn't figured out yet that the Republican Party is the party of Big Government. What kept the Republicans seemingly "united" -- and will keep them united today -- has nothing to do with their "natural" inclinations. This is a pack of mixed carnivores, who would rip each other's throats out in a second if they saw advantage to it.

But they are united nevertheless, and united by the most base and primal of all human emotions: Hate.

Hatred of liberals. Hatred of fun. Hatred of Democrats. Hatred of unions and workers. Hatred of women who are uppity and "don't know their place". Hatred of Muslims. Hatred of the American people, in the case of the statist elites who believe they have been appointed by God to rule us all. Hatred of dark-skinned people. Hate is the spice that sauces the Republican Party and holds it together. And no matter that one bunch of hateful nutballs turned around and nipped another bunch of hateful nutballs in the throat like a pack of wolves skirmishing over pack status. When election day comes, this bunch of thugs and goons will be just where they always are -- at the throats of anybody who stands between themselves and power.

In the end, it is wise to remember that, as Stalin supposedly put it, it's not the people who vote that detirmines the outcomes of elections, it's the people who do the counting. And we already know what that means. As long as Republicans are in charge of the electoral machineries of major states, as with Stalin's Communist party, the only people who will win are CommunistsRepublicans. Until the voters in those states have the courage to string up those bums by the neck and install democracy, those of us who live in states that have democracy will be subjected to these unelected goons and thugs who've been elected to high office via organized thuggery. Or else go our own way and tell the losers sorry, you lack the courage to be real Americans... but that way leads to another sort of disaster, one that is writ in blood.

- Badtux the Pessimistic Penguin

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Big Brother wants your bytes

Specifically, easy access to all bytes that flow over your network wire.

I spent most of the Clinton administration fighting attempts by the Clintonistas to do this, and am pissed that now the Busheviks want to do the same thing. A bunch of Commies, the whole bunch of them -- buncha busy-bodies who think they know better than the scientists and engineers who designed the Internet.

The big difference between the Clintonistas and the Busheviks, however, is rule of law -- or respect thereof. The Clintonistas, as despicable as they were, respected rule of law. They tried to get a law making it illegal to use encryption and requiring all technology to be chipped for immediate government access, and they failed. The Busheviks, on the other hand, don't care about no steenkin' law. They simply issued a dictate from King George III upon high -- "thou shalt re-work the Internet so that Big Brother can easily tap all Internet connections!" -- and that's that. They got guns, and they got power, and that's all they care about. Law? Thugs like this gang *spit* on law. They have no more respect for law than a bunch of crack-sellin' gangstas in the inner city, and about the same mentality i.e. that might makes right and they got guns so that makes it right to terrorize the people.

Goons and thugs. The whole bunch of them. And if this was still a nation of men, rather than a nation of pussy-whipped sheep, they'd all be strung up from a gallows like all goons should be, to hang from the neck as a lesson to any other goons that want to disregard rule of law in favor of rule of gun.

- Badtux the Traditionalist Penguin

Keeping America safer

This morning, the Department of Homeland Security protected America from the Keebler Elf. This nefarious terrorist had conspired to smuggle a bomb aboard a jet airliner in San Diego, California. Our brave passengers and U.S. citizens, however, were protected from this horrible menace via the miracles of high technology. The x-ray machine for carry-on baggage sniffed out the terrorist's evil plans and Homeland Security officials acted swiftly to clear the airport and detain the evil-doer.

The terror weapon, comprised of a cookie and a toy car, was successfully disarmed by the San Diego Police Department's Bomb Squad, and the airport re-opened within less than two hours.

I feel safer now...

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

I got neo-nazis!

Bubba's posting on Prussian Blue attracted at least one of the dim sons, who proceeded to post (twice) a link farm comment. Which of course I immediately deleted (I'm not Atrios, so I have no problem keeping up with all the postings on my blog :-), but it's a nuisance.

Which means I had to disable anonymous comments for the moment, sigh... cleaning up after these losers is just too tiresome. Making them get a Blogger ID before posting will at least slow them down for a few microseconds...

- Badtux the Cleaning Penguin

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

2000

Hurricane Fitzgerald approaches D.C.

By the end of day Friday, Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is likely to bring charges against an array of Bush Administration officials on charges of perjury, lying to federal investigators, and violations of the Official Secrets Act for disclosing the name of a CIA agent to the press in retaliation for her husband not toeing the Party line. So how is the Bush Administration planning to deal with Hurricane Fitzgerald?

From reading the Party press and perusing some of the wingnut sites, it becomes clear: they are going to use the Goebbels Big Lie strategy. To quote the OSS summary of this strategy:

... never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

The goal is, first of all, to paint Fitzgerald as an out-of-control prosecutor on a partisan witch-hunt (tuning up the strategy that Tom Delay is using) who is prosecuting these poor innocents for things that are at worst minor technicalities. Perjury, obstruction of justice, etc., apparently are crimes when committed by Democrats, but only minor technicalities for Republicans. But that doesn't matter. By making their lies so big that people say "it must be true, nobody could surely tell such a big lie with a straight face!", and by repeating the lies over and over again, they hope to discredit Fitzgerald with the American people.

This will not, of course, stop the prosecution from going forward -- prosecutors don't care what the American people think, their job is to enforce the law, period -- but then comes the next stage: The Saturday Night Massacre, where Fitzgerald is removed from the prosecution and sent back to Chicago, and replaced with a compliant incompetent who will drag out the prosecution for years until finally, on Bush's last day as President, he pardons the whole batch of them and the whole thing becomes moot.

Watch and wait. Time will prove whether I am right or wrong... but I'll just note that I've been right more than I've been wrong. After all, I correctly predicted that Iraq had no nuclear weapons or biological weapons programs, I correctly predicted that Iraq's army would collapse rapidly, and I correctly predicted that the resulting occupation of Iraq would be a fiasco. And my current prediction that Iraq will become Iran West is swiftly becoming true -- SCIRI, an Iranian-based Shiite group, is now in control of the Iraqi government, and if we pull out, the Iranians will provide them with all the military force needed to take our place.

So while we wait for Fitzgeraldmas (Christmas in October!), let us not forget that he is, in the end, an employee of the same Bush Administration that he is investigating -- and that, with sufficient political cover, he can be removed from the prosecution with nothing more than an executive order. When you are dealing with an administration that uses the Big Lie strategy almost exclusively as its method of dealing with the American public, no lie, no slander, no depravity is too evil for them to consider...

- Badtux the Political Penguin

Monday, October 24, 2005

Prussian Blue: Them thare girls cain't sing.

Howdy here, Bubba the Suthern Penguin comin' at ya again from Tennessee-land. Sorry I ain't been a'chattin' with you folks, but my ole' cat-killin' buddy Bill Frist has been keepin' me just plain tuckered out. Why, ever since he got tole that the SEC was investigatin' him fer insider tradin', he's been comin' to me, like, ever day, lookin' fer more cats. I swear, I musta done swept ever stray cat from Memphis to Johnson City, but see, I'm kinda scaret. The good doctor keeps showin' up at my door, wearin' his white coat and waving his scalpel and with them black shades dudes with the suspicious earwear right behind him, and with a glazed look in his eye he says "Cats. I need more cats. Get me cats, man!" Then he starts talkin' about how he knows where I live'n'stuff. Well, now, that thare don't surprise me since he, like, is standing on my front porch when he sez that (I mean, c'mon, I done known the good doctor since we wuz both knee-high to a grasshopper, of course he knows where I live!), but the way he eyes my Darlene, why, y'know, a woman does love a medical man, even if he is battier than a fruitcake (I mean, c'mon, wearin' a white coat with black trowsers? the man done lost it!). What if he gives Darlene that thare scalpel that he's, like, wavin' around? Why, it'd make the summer that Darlene played P.J. Harvey nonstop look like a walk in tha sheepyard!

So here I am, with my good buddy the Dr. Mengele of the cat world raggin' on me in the evenin's, and workin' all day long down thare at Joe's Garage, and I'm just plumb tuckered out and so covered with cat scratches that I look like some kinda accident victim. So my buddy Hank down at the garage, he tole' me about the White Pride Concert down at the fairgrounds last weekend, and how they had these two nubile young hotties who went by the name "Prussian Blue" playin' some good hoe-down music. So I went on down thare and caught me some tunes.

Well, now, what I got to report is this: the li'l fillies can pluck that thare gee-tar and stroke that thare fiddle right nicely, but my beloved Emmylou Harris ain't got nothin' to worry about, cuz, like, them thare girls cain't SING! I mean, I never heard such a caterwaulin' in my life (nevermind the lyrics). Then thare was all the pantin' skinheads an' stuff that wuz, like, undressin' these poor li'l girls with their eyes. Man, I ain't ever seen such a buncha losers in one place since I saw part of the Democratic National Convention on tha teevee.

I mean, c'mon. We're talkin' about folks who, like, think Hitler was this great dude an' stuff. Hah! You know why the Germans don't let ya talk 'bout Hitler when you're in Germany? It ain't cause of "hate speech" or nuthin' like that. It's pure-dee embarrassment. I mean, these here blond haired blue eyed Germans let some dark-haired brown-eyed furriner house painter from Ostria fool them into dyin' by tha millions! Why, ever time they think of the fact that they wuz dumb enuf to march to their deaths by the millions on behalf of a house painter, the shame just overcomes them.

So anyhow, that's my report from that thare concert. Gotta go now. Doorbell just rang, and my ole' buddy Bill is out thare, I see through the drapes. And he's waving two scalpels this time...

Yours from Tennessee,
Bubba the Suthern Penguin

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Tight asses and dancin' all day long...

My iceberg is currently parked in one of those "new urban" planned communities. You know the ones I'm talking about, where the city annexed a bunch of empty land, and declared they were going to put a self-contained community there. So we have office buildings, apartments, townhouses, self-contained homes, a shopping center, a school, a bank, police extension, a park, and they're going to be building a branch library soon. All in all, it's pretty convenient -- I can walk to the store (which is about 3/4 mile away) if I want, for example, and if I don't want, I don't burn much gas getting there.

Now, one of the things they did was put little bubbles of housing for the poor in this soup. So you have high end McMansions, and then... a small apartment complex for the poor ("affordable housing", they call it). Thus far, it has worked out fairly well. Because these bubbles are small, they don't turn into the cesspools of crime and venality that occur with big housing projects for the poor. This is a very safe neighborhood, where I feel safe walking at any time of the day or night.

And just out my back door is an apartment complex that is temporary housing for homeless families...

Now one thing I do notice, since my patio overlooks their parking lot: These folks actually talk to each other. They're out there in their parking lot, laughing and shooting the bull. Us tight-ass middle-class folks, we don't talk to each other. We come home from our jobs, go into our apartments and homes, and park ourselves in front of the computer or the big-screen television.

And another thing I notice: These folks have a lot more fun than us tight-ass middle class folks. A lot of the homeless dudes are musicians (homeless musicians? Perish the thought!). They're out there jammin' and rappin' and folks are out there dancin' and laughing.

I don't want to glorify the poor. I've been poor before. It sucked. I'm glad I no longer have to worry about where my next meal is going to come from, or whether I'll be able to meet my rent payment this month. But it seems to me that, in the course of turning ourselves into middle-class wage slaves, that us drones here in this Stepford Apartments have lost something, something important: our humanity.

Which explains, I suppose, why the majority of Americans still view 2,000 dead American soldiers as more of a tragedy than 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians...

- Badtux the Thoughtful Penguin

Friday, October 21, 2005

Dr. James Dobson says current administration lacks morality

Shakespeare's Sister fills us in. Says the good doctor, of high school students in the late 60's/early 70's (when the Bushies were in school): "Without being unnecessarily pessimistic, it is accurate to say that the traditional concept of morality is dead among the majority of high school students today."

Who am I to argue? :)

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Yipee! 2000 American soldiers dead!

Why, don't you know that their moms and dads are just proud, PROUD I say, to have their darling little girls and boys go die in some god-forsaken sandpit somewhere in order to protect Vice President Halliburton's delayed compensation? I bet they get up every morning and joyfully recite, "God Bless Vice President Halliburton and His holy annointed corporation!" every morning as they stare at photos of their dead boy or girl on the mantleplace. And then they go out to their jobs in the chicken rendering plants and Wal-Marts of America and with a smile on their face are just overjoyed to reassure everybody they meet about how wonderful it is that their son or daughter died in order to turn Iraq into a new province of Iran, complete with ayatollahs in charge.

And as an American taxpayer, I just LOVE the fact that $200 billion dollars of American taxpayer money, MY money, has been poured onto the sands of Iraq in order to insure that the black festering hole that is Dick Cheney's heart never has to worry about where the money for its next surgery will come from. Nevermind crumbling highways, stagnant schools, an ongoing humanitarian disaster in Louisiana, etc... we all know what's REALLY important: Vice President Halliburton's pocketbook.

So let us all join together and shout with glee, "hip hip hurray!". Ignore the dead bodies, or the tens of thousands of American boys and girls who are now missing arms and legs or have permenant brain damage due to improvised explosive devices blowing pieces of them into the ether. Ignore the ayatollahs taking charge in Iraq. After all, the important stuff -- Vice President Halliburton's well-being -- is being taken care of quite well.

Boy, I love the smell of futility in the morning. It smells like... uhm... VIETNAM! Except on crack, y'know.

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Busted!

Congressman Tom Delay, inmate #904161, in his natural habitat -- the mug shot.

Heh!

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Truth in Advertising

Bill O'Reilly is interviewed by perpetually perky Katie Couric on The Morning Show...

It is unclear which of the two is being accused of invertebracy. Perhaps both, hmm?

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Courtexsy of: ThinkProgress.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Republican Frogmarch Watch

Warrant issued for arrest of Tom Delay, the Republican "hammer" in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Many watching with bated breath to see whether Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury investigating the outing of a top-secret CIA operative in retaliation for her husband not toeing the Bush line will result in half of Bush Administration indicted....

And in another example of crumbling Republican solidarity, Homeland Security Director Skeletor admits that FEMA, not local and state officials, was responsible for the chaos in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Apparently Brownie "Horse Butt Inspector" Brown is going to be the officially designated scapegoat for this disaster...

And finally, yes, it's true: Bush is a uniter, not a divider. He certainly has united the black population of America, which is united in hating Bush. Not that Preznit White Pointy Cap cares, the only negros he cares about are his house niggers (Condi Rice and her ilk), who know how to properly bow and scrape to their massah....

Now, it may seem that I'm gloating. But I'm not. Bush has been a disaster for America, and that's nothing to gloat about. I'd be a very happy flightless waterfowl right now if all I had to report about George W. Bush was that he had balanced the budget, reduced federal incursions into state affairs, reduced the size and scale of the federal government, and hung Osama bin Laden by his neck until dead from a scaffolding on the site of the former World Trade Center (preferably after slowly and carefully flogging every inch of skin off the SOB). This blog would probably be filled with recipes for herring sundaes and other baited breath delicacies if Bush had done all of that. Unfortunately, he has not done any of that -- he's increased the deficit by unheard-of amounts, increased the size and scope of the federal government, intruded into states' rights in the areas of education, drug policy, and humane end of life policy, and Osama bin Forgotten is laughing at us from his cushy condo in Islamabad. If it seems like I hate George W. Bush, no, that's not it. What I hate is the disaster that has been the Bush presidency, a disaster of corruption, incompetence, and borrow-and-spend fiscally-irresponsible Big Government.

- Badtux the Snarked Penguin

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Good news from Iraq

The new Constitution passed with 120% of the vote! Graveyards all over Iraq turned out in record numbers, especially in the province of Ninevah, a majority-Sunni province which, nevertheless, voted 78% in favor of the new Constitution, thanks to a heavy turnout from the majority-Kurdish cemetaries in the city of Mosul.

When pressed about the vote totals, Iraqi officials were defensive. "People should not be deprived of their voting rights just because they are dead!" shouted Iraqi elections commission president Adel Al Lami, prior to jumping over his desk and attacking this reporter with a scimiter. Sunni officials interviewed after this reporter managed to escape to the relative safety of an insurgent kidnap vehicle were less sanguine, muttering "this reminds me of how Saddam conducted elections.

Meanwhile, U.S. Army officers merely shrugged. "It wouldn't surprise me if the election was rigged," said a U.S. Army officer in Mosul who requested anonymity and who worked on security arrangements for the poll with Iraqi security and election officials. "I don't even trust our election process."

Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel, contacted by this reporter, blames the fiasco on Iraq not using ES&S voting machines. "If they'd just used my company's machines, they wouldn't have these silly numbers," he chuckled. "Every time my machines re-elect me, do you see anybody question the results? No? So there!"

President Bush, in a press conference today, congratulated the Iraqi government on its excellent job of waving the magic wand of "Elections" and throwing the magic pixie dust of "Democracy" over the fetid cesspool of hunger and violence that is Iraq. "Why, shore as shootin', purt soon now you won't be able ta tell tha dif'rence 'tween Iraq and Texas!" the President said jocularily.

Upon hearing this, three ranking members of the Iraqi government committed suicide.

And that's the news from today,

- Badtux the Reporter Penguin

New Orleans, Mexico, and the Mexification of America

Contrary to popular belief, tax cuts do not create economic growth. While theory says they do, theory is bullshit. What counts is reality, and we have the reality of almost a hundred years of accurate statistics showing that periods of high taxes in America are periods of high economic growth.

Of course, what counts as "high taxes" in America would be low taxes in Europe, so undoubtedly that has something to do with it -- if you have low taxes, and even lower taxes, neither is likely to affect economic growth as much as the infrastructure that taxes pay for (honest government, highways, regulation of necessary utilities, etc.). So if you are improving the infrastructure (by bring in honest government, building highways, building sewer plants, upgrading water lines, improving the schools, etc.), you will produce more growth than that created by cutting taxes, since people will now be able to move about more easily, be better-educated due to the better schools, be in better health due to cleaner water and adequate sewage treatment, etc. So why the constant unfounded assertions that "low taxes cause economic growth", at the same time that our national infrastructure is crumbling?

Tannish the Wolf, in my previous posting, asserts that our ruling elite wishes to turn the United States into Brazil or Columbia, where the super-rich live in communities guarded by armed soldiers while the poor are left to live or die on their own, and where there is no middle class to interfere with the ability of the super-rich to obtain as many servants as necessary to live in the style to which they are accustomed. I hold that our ruling elite has a different role-model, however: Mexico.

Whenever I hear people complain about taxes, I tell them "So move to Mexico, then, their taxes are half of what ours are." They sputter and then whine that Mexico is a cesspool of corruption and filth. Doh. Yeah, that's what happens when you don't spend enough on the infrastructure of clean government and public sanitation. But then these right-wing tools try to say that it's because of moral failings on the part of the Mexican people that Mexico is a cesspool of corruption and filth. Their pointy white hats, apparently, are constricting the flow of blood to their brains, because they fail to see just how racist and bigotted such an assertion really is.

Reality, of course, is that Mexico is the way it is because Mexico's ruling elite wants it that way. This allows Mexico's ruling elite to live in luxury with plenty of servants, while the remainder of Mexico festers in poverty and filth. And Mexico, not Brazil or Columbia, is the model that our own ruling elite is using, because Mexico is what they are most familiar with. It is a rite of passage, amongst the children of our ruling elite, to go on week-long binges in Mexico where they drink under-aged, imbibe drugs illegal here in the U.S. to the point of being higher than Keith Richards, and mistreat the poorly-paid waiters, drivers, and servants who have no choice but to endure the treatment or else starve to death, waiters drivers and servants who leave their jobs at the end of the day and go home to tin-shack hovels with no running water or electricity. The future of the United States, to these now-grown-up children of our ruling elite, looks a lot like Acapulco -- a fabulous resort for the rich and worthy, grinding poverty for the servant class which keeps it running.

Consider, for a minute, illegal Mexican immigration. Pat Buchanon and the "Minutemen" are right -- sort of. This really IS part of a plan to make the United States into Mexico North. But it is not a plan by the Mexicans themselves. They just want food and shelter and jobs, they have no plan other than survival. Rather, it is part of a plan by our ruling elite to destroy our own working and middle class and thus create a plentiful supply of servants like they feel is their due. Consider the fact that, on any construction site in the Southwest, the only non-Mexican faces you're likely to see are the foremen (easily recognizable because they have the white hats with the brims that go all around, while the workers have dark skin and have the white hats with the brim that is only on the front). Once upon a time, construction jobs were the way that the working poor used to work themselves out of poverty. But with the illegal Mexicans driving down wages by being willing to work for $50 per day as "day laborers", they can no longer do that.

So who benefits from this? Why, it is the ruling elite, the rich white men (and a few women) who control the majority of wealth in America. Why else do you think their government (government of the people, by the elite, for the elite) insures that the Mexicans stay illegal, but that the contractor's sites are never raided by immigration officials? Why else do you think that "our" government has no system for verifying work credentials in real time, thus allowing illegal immigrants to present false work documents and be employed immediately? Why are the "illegals" kept illegal, so that they cannot complain of poor working conditions without being deported? This is all part of the plan to drive down wages, destroy our working class and keep them permenantly in a position of servitude to their "betters".

If you want to see the future of the United States, look to Mexico. And if you want to see that future becoming reality, watch New Orleans and South Louisiana closely... do not allow yourself to be distracted by Anna Nicole Smith's latest boob job or Michael Jackson's latest boy toy charges or whatever. Keep your eye on the ball. Because if you watch closely enough, you will see the Mexification of America in action right before your very eyes...

-- Badtux the Apocalyptic Penguin

Monday, October 17, 2005

Ut-oh...

My supply of hot sauce has been disrupted... Baumer Foods, Inc., the makers of Crystal Extra-Hot, are (were) based in New Orleans. Gah! Luckily, I did a web search and found their new home page (the cox.net page of one of their managers) which states that they've scrounged up enough equipment to get back up and running in Metairie, and are starting their first new batch of hot sauce this week (yippee!!!!).

My other source of fundamental subsistence supplies, Community Coffee, was affected in that one of their warehouses of unprocessed coffee beans spoiled after unloading in New Orleans because of the loss of power at the warehouse. But they're still in business -- just 50 cents per pound more expensive in order to pay for the loss. Sigh.

BTW, there is a humanitarian disaster going on in slow motion as we speak. The state is bankrupt, most cities and towns are bankrupt, 50% of Louisiana now qualifies for Medicaid but there is no money to pay for it, 50% of Louisiana now qualifies for food stamps but there is no money to pay for it... there are going to be a lot of very hungry and sick people in Louisiana within the near future, as the resources currently being funneled in from outside via the Red Cross et. al. disappear as other disasters take the headlines. I laughingly joked, prior to the hurricane, that Louisiana was a third-world nation. Now I'm not so sure it's going to be a joke... there is going to be a *lot* of people living in the rubble of their former homes as they get kicked out of shelters and hotels and relatives' homes. It's going to be a 3rd world scene like one we haven't seen in this nation for over 70 years, with dirty, malnourished, sick children and their families living in tarp-covered rubble.

I already mentioned how the Western Roman Empire collapsed after its emperors grew tired of the mundane task of maintaining the infrastructure and pursued pure power for the sake of power. By the end of the Empire, what had been the greatest city in Europe, a city of over a million people, was a crumbling ruin with maybe 100,000 people sheltering in the rubble. But the ruin of Rome was preceded by the ruin of outlying areas of the Empire. In the American Empire, it appears that 1/50th of the Empire has now been reduced to ruins by looting and weather... how much, then, until the remainder falls?

- Badtux the Depressed Penguin

Sunday, October 16, 2005

White "supremicists" squeal like pigs...

and run for cover, as a black mob comes gunning for their ass. People say that the black community should take care of itself. Well it just did so -- and now we find out that what we've asked them to do isn't necessarily the boon that we thought it to be.

This is what happens when rule of law fails. When law protects those who would joyfully murder, maim, and kill, rather than folks who just want to be left alone in peace, what you get is vigilante justice of the sort we just saw. It is ugly, brutal, and dangerous, but it is inevitable when law fails to protect the people and instead protects only those who wish to harm the people.

Once upon a time, the leaders of our nation knew this. Programs such as affirmative action and Medicaid arose during the 1960's not because the leaders of our nation cared about black people or poor people, but, rather, because they feared armed revolt against their rule if they came down too hard on the people. However, in the decades since, they've beefed up the paramilitary capabilities of the police (a "SWAT team" or "riot squad" would have been unheard of for the typical police force in the 1960's, today even small cities have these), created a state of war between the police and the people (the "war on drugs") so that the police are no longer of the people but, rather, view themselves as outside of the people, and made great strides towards disarming the people (starting in 1968 after RFK's assassination when they banned sales of automatic weapons and heavily restricted sales of many other weapons). The ruling elite has also made great strides in dividing the people, managing to fool many working-class people into believing that they are middle-class and that they are thus completely different from "poor" people who are lazy lay-abouts who deserve their poverty (nevermind that most poor families have at least one full-time worker in the household, and that many of the working-class families who believe they are "middle class" are actually poor if you add up their income vs. living expenses in their city).

But in the end, there is rule of law, where law is viewed as fair and just by the majority of people, and there is rule of gun. You can have one, or the other. Our ruling elite in the 1960's knew this. Our ruling elite today believes they can have their cake -- rule of law -- without paying for it -- i.e., making it fair and just for everybody, not just for the ruling elite. But the world doesn't work like that, and either our ruling elite will have to impose outright rule of gun with all its drawbacks in terms of stifling of economic and intellectual activity and resulting impoverishment of the nation, or will have rule of gun imposed upon them... or maybe, just maybe, some sanity could come back to this nation's ruling elite and they could go back to the notion of law being fair and just for all, not just for the ruling elite.

But my suspicion is that, alas, they will not come back to sanity voluntarily. I am not optimistic. Stocking my iceberg with MRE's seems like a better idea every day...

- Badtux the "Rule of law" Penguin

What's for dinner?

Okay, last week's entry from The Bachelor's Cookbook (by BadTux the Rotund Penguin) was tuna/cheese melt wraps. Today's is slightly (very slightly) more complicated but has the benefit of using up the leftover tortillas and cheese from last week.

Bean and Cheese Burritos

Ingredients:

One can refried beans
Pre-shredded monterrey jack and chedder cheese in a pouch (left over from last week)
Burrito-sized tortillas (left over from last week)
Salsa at your desired level of hotness (since I'm from Louisiana, I buy the "Hot hot HOT!" variety of salsa, damnyankees probably buy the mild stuff).

Dishes dirtied: One spoon, one knife.

Place one tortilla on paper plate.
Open can of refried beans.
Spread beans onto center of tortilla with knife.
Spoon salsa over beans, spread as desired.
Sprinkle cheese over salsa.
Wrap burrito-style.
Nuke in microwave for 45 seconds.
Eat.
Repeat until full.

Enjoy!

- Badtux the Rotund Penguin

Friday, October 14, 2005

Say hello to Big Brother

21 years behind schedule, but he finally arrives. We don't know his name (he's a clandestine CIA agent), but he sees all and knows all, whether gathered by FBI, CIA, NSA, or DIA...

You must forgive me for signing off for a while, I need to re-arrange my underwear drawer to make sure all my underwear is neatly folded and lacks holes, and also need to make sure my herring stock in my pantry is ordered in neat rows. After all, I wouldn't want this guy to think I'm a slob!

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Of dead servers and midnight oil

A server died at work at 1:30pm yesterday. By the time I had all data restored from backups and all services properly running again, it was midnight.

Maybe it's time to go back to that iceberg and subsist on herring again...

- Badtux the Tired Penguin

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

FEMA really DID disconnect emergency communications

One of the more explosive accusations by Parish President Aaron Broussard of Jefferson Parish, in his televised outburst, was that FEMA had disconnected the parish's communication lines and that his Sheriff had been required to dispatch scarce deputies to guard the communications. Now the New Orleans Times Picayune give us the details.

Seems that a FEMA "emergency communications team" arrived, looked for a tower to set up their own communications on, and spotted the Jefferson Parish communications tower with an antenna already on it. So they broke in via a door that was clearly marked "Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office", disconnected the Jefferson Parish equipment from the antenna, and plugged their own equipment into the antenna.

The exact details of who these people were, why they unplugged the Sheriff's equipment rather than climbing the tower and putting their own antenna on top, and who could be held accountable, is still unknown. But this is just an example of how the Feds have "helped" Louisiana... maybe if Louisiana had been a foreign nation, rather than part of the United States, help could have arrived within days like in Pakistan rather than most Louisianians still waiting for help weeks later. Hmm, do ya think?! What the freakin' use is it being part of the United States if the federal government cares more about Pakistanis than it cares about what is supposedly its own people?!

- Badtux the Peeved Penguin

Woohoo! Good news for Louisiana businesses!

I was listening to WWL last night, and found out that the SBA has really gotten cranking on those disaster relief loans for Louisiana businesses trying to rebuild from KatrinaRita. They've pumped up their numbers by 50% in the past week -- from 4 loans, to 6!

Why, at that rate, they'll manage to process the loan applications of the remaining 50% of Louisiana businesses that suffered storm damage sometime around... uhm, 2095?

May God Bless George W. Bush and His holy annointed administration for their blazing and sterling example of efficiency under pressure!

In the meantime, I know one group of people who are NOT having to wait for their money:

Just count it as part of the Bush Administration's "No Billionaire Left Behind" Act. After all, if we didn't give the money to these billionaires rather than to the poor struggling guys on the gulf coast, why, those poor struggling billionaires might even have to sell their personal jets or somethin'!

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Is this the beginning of the Chinese century?

The Chinese orbit another couple of men in their revamped Soyuz capsule (it's a bit bigger and roomier than Soyuz, but uses Soyuz technology). Wal-Mart might as well be called "China-Mart", given that everything in the place is made in China. American icon IBM's computers are made in China, as was the HP Pavilion DV4000 laptop that I am typing this on. China's economic growth over the past 15 years has been staggering, and their potential internal market, of over 1 billion people, makes marketeers slobber at the mouth. Is this going to be China's century?

In a word, NO.

The basic problem is that workers in most of China labor under conditions of slavery, and slaves do not innovate. Most of China's population still endures 3rd world conditions, with entire families in one-room mud huts with no electricity or running water working the land with hand tools to survive. Entire swaths of China are basically run by local mandarins or landlords who switched their allegience to the Communist Party back when that was the thing to do, but continue to run their area like a personal fiefdom for their own benefit, and who use thugs to beat and intimidate any who would object to their bogus "elections". China's factories are old and delapidated, extremely inefficient, unable to compete with factories in the modern world if they had to compete on an open market rather than being worked with slave labor and subsidized by the national government. The nation's factories, commercial buildings, and homes (those that are electrified) are very fuel-inefficient, because the Communists gave no thought to conservation when they built them -- they're drafty and their furnaces waste most of their heat up the stack. China's innovative middle class in the big cities have gotten lots of press lately, but compared to the size of the middle class in the United States or Europe, it is pitifully small -- maybe a few tens of millions, rather than the hundreds of millions in the U.S. and Europe. And bringing those vast hoards of peasants up into the innovative class is not on the agenda for the oligarchs who rule China, because that could threaten their rule.

But most important is limited supplies of one final, crucial component for a modern economy: *OIL*. China does not have sufficient indigenous oil supplies to fuel much more economic growth, even if its inefficient infrastructure were brought up to modern standards. So China is reduced to buying oil on the open market like anybody else. This is why China's currency reserves aren't as outrageously large as you'd expect given their trade imbalance with the United States -- all those dollars are flowing to the Saudis and Iranians in exchange for oil. Furthermore, China does not have a military capable of projecting force. They have no long-range bombers. Their navy is small and, with its emphasis upon shallow-water diesel-electric submarines and destroyers, oriented around coastal defense. They have vast numbers of Vietnam-era fighter jets which are quite sufficient for air defense purposes but which lack the range and armaments to be useful in an offensive capacity, and they only have a few squadrons of modern fighter jets, and no air refueling capacity for them, so said modern fighter jets would only be useful for sinking American aircraft carriers that ventured too close to the Chinese coastline. Their army is large, but lacks logistical capability -- if their army marched more than a day's walk away from their own border, it would literally starve to death, because they lack sufficient trucks and ammunition transport capability to keep it alive away from China's rail infrastructure. It is an army that was designed to defend China against American attack, and it could do that quite well, but more than that would be beyond it.

So as oil becomes scarcer and scarcer, the fact that China can't send military troops to seize it will become more and more important. The United States has entire divisions of troops camped in the prime oil-producing regions of the world. Those troops can, and will, be used to intimidate local oil barons to sell to the United States rather than to China if China becomes uppity. Unless China develops force projection capabilities to match their growing economic capabilities, it is impossible for them to rule the 21st century the way that the U.S. ruled the 20th century or Britain ruled the 19th century. And without a large innovative middle class, they simply lack the intellectual capital to develop such force projection capabilities -- China cannot at present build even a 1950's-era B-52 bomber, much less a B-1 or B-2, and cannot at present build even an oil-fired aircraft carrier, much less a nuclear powered supercarrier.

So while China will continue to be a regional worry, the notion of the 21st century being "the Chinese century" are misguided. Nonwithstanding their creaky and sure-to-explode political system, reality is that declining resources probably insure that there will never again be someone else's "century". There simply is not enough oil and other resources left in the world for something like that to happen again.

- Badtux the Analytical Penguin

Monday, October 10, 2005

Why penguins are smarter than Republicans

We eat more fish.

That is all.

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Notes on FEMA corruption from WWL:

Lafayette debris removal company: Wanted to bid on debris removal, but debris removal contract was put up for bid on a web page only mentioned to Bush cronies.

Jefferson parish mobile home dealer: Bought hundreds of mobile homes, tried to get FEMA to talk to them for weeks, but FEMA never returned their calls. FEMA signed a contract with a Tennessee Bush crony.

Avondale Shipyard wanted to bring back their workforce and open up for business, but didn't have any housing for their workers. FEMA refused to talk to them for weeks. And now has passed down a memo that says FEMA will not provide housing for workers near their workplace, only will provide housing in Femavilles (Bushvilles?).

From NOLA.com: Chicken warehouse cleanup goes to Bush-connected cronies who are doing a lousy job. Local contractors who could do a better job are bypassed, and Corps of Engineers ignores the chicken company's pleas.

More examples of FEMA corruption from NOLA.com

And they say Louisiana government is corrupt?! Compared to the Bush crime syndicate, Louisiana politics is ludicrously innocent!

- Badtux the Astounded Penguin

When the levee breaks...

The levees on the canals in the western part of New Orleans apparently broke because they were built on top of mud (doh!) and the mud washed out from under them, allowing the whole levee to be pushed inwards until the walls on top broke loose from each other.

The levees on Lake Ponchartrain were the same height, but were much broader at the base (and much heavier) due to the fact that they are 100% earthen, thus the mud didn't wash out from under them. Indeed, the mud under them has been so compacted by the thousands of tons of soil levee on top that it likely has the consistency of concrete.

What this implies is simply repairing the existing canal wall system will not be enough. Either the canals need to be disconnected from Lake Ponchartrain (perhaps by putting enormous pumping stations at their heads to pump out their waters into the lake) or large swaths of land on their sides will need to be condemned in order to make room for broader-based levees so that the mud under the levees won't wash out.

After Bechtel gets the contract, expect to see $35 billion spent on profit, and $5 billion actually spent building the levees -- in a way that they are guaranteed to fail at the next big hurricane (gotta guarantee Bechtel another round of profits, after all!).

- Badtux the Cynical Penguin

Sunday, October 09, 2005

What's for dinner?

Tuna melt wraps:

Ingredients:
One (1) pouch of Sweet'n'Spicy Starkist Tuna
One bag of burrito-sized tortillas
One bag of shredded Monterrey Jack cheese.

Take tortilla. Place on paper plate. Open pouch. Spread some tuna on the tortilla. Spread cheese on top of tuna. Wrap. Nuke in microwave for 30 seconds. Eat. Repeat until full.

This recipe from The Bachelor's Cookbook (written by Badtux the Snarky Penguin), filled with fine cuisine by bachelors, for bachelors.

Note: Do not use this recipe while girlfriend over. She will not understand. Believe me. That's the time you want to raid the fresh veggies aisle and fresh shrimp counter of your local supermarket and break out the food processor and rice cooker and make her a good shrimp creole... shrimp creole over rice is a sure-fired ice-breaker with those of the fairer sex. One bite, and they're like, "Whoa! What is this? This isn't like anything I've ever eaten before! This is good!"

Unless she is a Cajun girl, in which case she will complain that Grandma's shrimp creole was better. But then, you never win with a Cajun girl, so best not even try (heh!).

PS: Hide the "Enola Prudhomme's Low-fat Cajun Cooking" cookbook before Girlfriend comes over, it sort of ruins the effect...

- Badtux the well-fed Penguin

Who's getting the money?

2.2 million people have been registered as storm victims, of which 1.2 million had been approved for federal assistance that so far totaled $3.3 billion. That's an average of $2,750 apiece, in case you're doing the math. Boy, that's really gonna help folks who've had their whole life's possessions swept away, isn't it? So where's the other $40+ billion in storm relief gone?

Well, Governor Blanco of Louisiana says that almost 50% of Louisiana businesses suffered storm damage. So perhaps the money has gone to SBA disaster relief loans to help them rebuild? Err, no. The same article says that four (4) -- *FOUR* -- SBA disaster relief loans have been granted. FOUR WHOLE LOANS.

So where is the money going? I don't know, but I have a suspicion:

-- Badtux the Suspicious Penguin

Friday, October 07, 2005

Funny summary of Republican corruption

You've heard of the television show C.O.P.S., but I bet you've never heard of the show G.O.P.S.....

Remember, the Republican party is the party of clean government.

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

You have the right to dislike the President

Except in Wal-Mart.

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Thursday, October 06, 2005

26 questions

The Louisiana Weekly is still puzzled about the disaster response in Louisiana, publishing a list of 25 unanswered questions about the disaster and the response to it. Some of their unanswered questions are, let us say, interesting:

1. Why did the floodwalls along the 17th Street Canal only break on the New Orleans (majority Black) side and not on the Metairie (largely white) side?

2. Who owned the huge barge that was catapulted through the wall of the Industrial Canal, killing hundreds in the Lower Ninth Ward-the most deadly hit-and-run accident in U.S. history?

5. Why did Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff not declare Katrina an "Incident of National Significance" until August 31 - thus preventing the full deployment of urgently needed federal resources?

7. Similarly, why wasn't the Baltimore-based hospital ship USS Comfort ordered to sea until August 31, or the 82nd Airborne Division deployed in New Orleans until September 5?

21. Where were FEMA's several dozen vaunted urban search-and-rescue teams? Aside from some courageous work by Coast Guard helicopter crews, the early rescue effort was largely mounted by volunteers who towed their own boats into the city after hearing an appeal on television.

22. We found a massive Red Cross presence in Baton Rouge but none in some of the smaller Louisiana towns that have mounted the most impressive relief efforts. The poor Cajun community of Ville Platte, for instance, has at one time or another fed and housed more than 5,000 evacuees; but the Red Cross, along with FEMA, has refused almost daily appeals by local volunteers to send professional personnel and aid. Why then give money to the Red Cross?

24. As politicians talk about "disaster czars" and elite-appointed reconstruction commissions, and as architects and developers advance utopian designs for an ethnically cleansed "new urbanism" in New Orleans, where is any plan for the substantive participation of the city's ordinary citizens in their own future?

25. Indeed, on the fortieth anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, what has happened to democracy?

Well, I can answer #25. Our founding fathers had a loathing for democracy, holding that it was the worst of all possible forms of government because the people were not qualified to govern themselves and would allow themselves to be swayed by demagogues and charlatons. Thus they designed a Roman-style republic instead, deliberately designed so that only the elites or their puppets would hold power. Which, in general, has been the case through the years, with a few notable exceptions. Similarly, they designed a strong Presidency because they wanted their war Caesar, George Washington, to be their peacetime Caesar (Emperor). While Washington refused to cross the Rubicon and be emperor, the job is still written into the Constitution, albeit with the requirement for periodical "elections" to detirmine who shall be Caesar for a particular four-year period.

The other questions, well, I can't answer them. All I can say is that the "official" response from FEMA and the U.S. government as a whole seems to have actually hindered the handling of the disaster. Much-needed volunteers and supplies were turned away. Chertoff and Brownie delayed the evacuation of the convention center and Superdome when they actually lied to Governor Blanco telling her that buses were on the way when they really weren't (in the end, FEMA provided only 100 buses to evacuate the Superdome and Convention Center -- the rest were either Louisiana school buses driven by National Guard soldiers from around the country, or volunteer buses that Governor Blanco rounded up by calling other governors around the country and asking them to please call their local charter bus companies and ask them to send buses).

The whole notion of centrally-managed disaster relief is as ludicrous as the notion of a centrally-managed economy when applied in a nation as rich as the United States. Like a centrally-planned economy, it only works when you have a competent leader. Like a centrally-planned economy, it tends to reduce the number of resources going into a disaster area, because it assumes that resources are limited and thus must be carefully dispatched only to the places where they are needed. We would have been much better off if the only centralized response to the disaster had been to send thousands of satellite phones to every affected community, whereby they could then appeal for volunteers and needed supplies themselves via the radio and television. In the end, if the death toll in New Orleans remains below 10,000, it is only because of those thousands of volunteers who sent a flotilla of boats into the city immediately after it was drowned -- and has nothing to do with the federal government, which merely delayed, obfuscated, and outright lied until such time as they were forced by the outrage of the Republican base to actually do something about the disaster unfolding on everybody's television screens.

Given this, I have a question to add:

26. If the Federal Government is largely useless, why have it at all? Feel free to answer in the comments.

- Badtux the Louisiana Penguin

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Why don't Americans care about politics anymore?

It's true -- the average American knows less about the men (and occasional women) who govern them, than they know about Michael Jackson's sex habits. Do you know who your senators are? Your representative? If so, then you're highly unusual. Most people don't have the foggiest idea.

So why don't Americans care who rules them? Well, it's simple: Most Americans know, deep in their heart of hearts, that they do not live in a democracy.

Think about it for a few minutes. Think about who is running in a typical U.S. election. You won't see many brown skins, or many women either. What you'll see is white men. Rich white men. When it is one rich white man running against another rich white man, when the majority of America is not rich white men, it is hard to believe that this is a democracy. In a democracy you would figure that the candidates would be, well, representative members of the community, rather than all being rich white men. Thus even though there is a real difference between the rich white men who are running for office, the majority of Americans, not believing they live in a democracy, just ignore them all and go on with their lives. Or they simply go through the motions, pushing the buttons or flicking the lever or marking the oval for whatever candidate was least smeared in the last mud-flinging festival, secure in the notion that they are doing their duty to the Fatherland, even though they see no real meaning to the duty.

I suppose we could resolve this issue by bringing democracy to America. But that would distract me from following the story of the latest missing white chick on the teevee news shows, and besides, I hear that tonight's episode of Desperate Housewives will be, like, totally bitchin', y'know? As long as I can delude myself that I live in a democracy (even though in my heart of hearts I know I don't), I don't have to, like, DO anything. I mean, what do you expect -- that I'll get up from my easy chair where I'm munching kippered herring and downing cod liver oil while watching Survivor: Iraq, and actually do something?!

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Asshole of the week:

Brigadier General Michael D. Barbero, commander of the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana, for his response to Hurricane Katrina:

The report states that Brigadier General Michael D Barbero, commander of the Joint Readiness Training Centre at Fort Polk, Louisiana, refused permission for special forces units who volunteered to join relief efforts, to do so. General Barbero also refused to release other troops.

This asshole also refused permission for temporarily housing Katrina and Rita refugees in the hundreds of empty barracks bunks on the Fort Polk reservation (most of them are destined for demolition, but they're still better than nothing -- one of my friends was sleeping in them less than ten years ago), and refused to share water with the City of Leesville when falling trees fell on the power lines to their deep well and knocked out their water system.

For all that he's done to prove that assholery is not limited to Bush Administration civilian appointees, this penguin hereby declares Brigadier General Michael D. Barbero as this iceberg's official ASSHOLE OF THE WEEK.

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Stolen snark: Bush nominates can of spam

From the darn, I wish I'd written that department:

(Dateline - Washington, D.C) President George W. Bush made history this morning when, while browsing shelves in the white house pantry for a after-midnight snack, he came upon an undated can of spam and quickly nominated it to serve on the United States Supreme Court. Aides assured media representatives in a hastely called press conference just after sunrise that the can of spam has no skeletons in its closet (actually a low cupboard next to the currently unused dog food storage section) and no ideological agendas.

One astute reporter questioned where the can of spam had been during its shelf life prior to the White House years, but the answer was prefunctory. An unnamed but reliable source in the White House catering office captured the mood in the building with the comment: "Utter lack of qualifications versus utter lack of disqualifying characteristics...What's the difference? Just because this president likes his comfort food doesn't mean he is disdainful of the dinner party."

Quick research by a Washington Post reporter disclosed that the same can of spam was seen on shelves in the Texas Governor's mansion, and that it may have traveled with kitchen crews serving candidate Bush's team during his first presidential campaign. Asked whether this can has ever disagreed with the president's pallet or digestion, the spokesman at first declined comment, but then after suppressing a burp, indicated that no, he was not aware of a single instance when the spam can differed from the president on any subject. He smiled then, and noted with a wink that she (the mentioned can of spam) has a reputation among long-term Bush staffers as a "Yes Can."

If approved by the senate, the newly identified and suddenly famous can of spam will be moved to a shelf in the Supreme Court building basement where she will need to be sequestered from other bland food stuffs regularly used in preparation of cafeteria style lunches for congress persons, court staffers and even the general public. Though the plans are not complete, one likely scenario is that she would be stored in the private area reserved for the Chief Justice's favorite snacks.

-- Badtux the Appreciative Penguin

The Blame Game

Wiley channels Drownie Brownie...

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Hammer hammered

So what's happened over the past three days that I've been working far too many hours?

Hmm, checking the news... Tom "Mr. Exterminator Man" DeLay is hammered with more charges! Couldn't happen to a betterworse person.

And of course Boy Scout Tom claims that prosecutor Ronnie Earle is being partison and vindictive. That's kinda like the pot calling the kettle black, or, as Ronnie put it, "Being called vindictive and partisan by Tom DeLay is like being called ugly by a frog". Fact of the matter is that a grand jury decided to lay charges against Tom, not Ronnie Earle. All that Ronnie did was lay the evidence in front of the grand jury and let them decide whether it merited charges or not.

Let's see, what else happened... oh yeah. The CEO's of Sun and Google, apparently tired of playing golf all day, decided to hold a news conference. What was this news conference about? Was it about, say, Google buying Sun? Or maybe Sun was going to sell Google thousands of servers? Or what? Err, none of the above. These two guys got themselves all spiffed up and got the Silicon Valley rumor mill working overtime over... err... two icons added to the Google toolbar.

Then there's the news about George W. Bush nominating an unqualified person. So what else is new? Like Drownie Brownie, she's certain to rise to the task. I mean, after all, sure, she's never been a judge, but if a man can go from inspecting horses' asses to being in charge of all disaster relief in America, surely a woman can go from being Dubya's personal masseuse to being a Supreme Court Justice and do just as well, right?

Time to stock my iceberg with some more MRE's, I guess...

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Monday, October 03, 2005

My new ride

2005 Kawasaki Concours sport-touring bike. Mine looks identical to that one except that I've added a Givi E45 topbox for more storage.

- Badtux the Motorcycle-ridin' Penguin

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Karl "The Mailman" delivered

Karl Malone, a logger who used to be "The Mailman" for the Utah Jazz, delivered again. He took his logging crew down to Mississippi and started helping people clean up their property -- but not without FEMA resistance:

When Malone arrived, he says he ran into resistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Army Corps of Engineers officials who said he wasn't authorized to bring his machinery into the area to clear private property.

Bob Anderson, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, says FEMA and the corps by law could only allow approved contractors to clear debris and that only government agencies could work on "public rights of way."

But just as Karl never let anybody get in his way when he was driving for the basket, the same thing happened here:

"Once I get in my machine, no one is going to get me out," he says. "We just said 'the hell with it.' FEMA didn't approve, but we did it for the people."

Steve Glenn, a FEMA official in Mississippi, said rules regarding clearing debris on private property exist to protect individuals' rights: "We can't just go onto private property on a whim."

Can we just string all these Bush Administration bastards "people" up by their necks and get us a government of the people, by the people, FOR the people again? Curious penguins want to know!

- Badtux the Disgusted Penguin

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Deadline@work

Will be working all weekend long. Probably not back until Tuesday. Bummer.

In the meantime, try the fine bloggers over on the right side...

- Badtux the Hard-working Penguin