At least, according to Hilltop Baptist Church, in Newport, Tennessee.
Guess the pastor there must hear voices in his head or somethin', or maybe just has something against them statue-worshippin' Catholics. Oh well, since I'm a hell-bound penguin I'll be happy to have the Pope as my buddy down there...
- Badtux the Holy Penguin
Thank you, Kinko's! I'm sure that calling the FBI every time you read bad satire is time consuming, but your adoring public appreciates your efforts to keep our nation safe from fake Muslims!
UPDATED: The Secret Service is saving us from bad art, too. Thanks, Secret Service! (Hat tip to Corrente for this one).
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
[ Note: My apologies for the enormous dump, I had a bunch of material accumulated and it was time to free up some of my browser windows so I could close them!]
Seems that now we know where the zombies are going to come from that are going to attack George Rogers Clark High School. It appears that they're in Kings County, and are being fed by the Kings County Coroner using the brains of people he's autopsied. No word yet on whether the Kings County Corner already autopsied Winchester, Kentucky police officials.
Boy, I'm glad THAT mystery is cleared up!
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
A New Zealand biologist, talking about the endangered Kakapo and biologists' diabolical plan to force them to copulate:
"The majority of kakapo sperm is rubbish. Even productive birds have poor sperm because of past inbreeding. They’re so inbred that if they were humans, they’d probably have six fingers and be playing a guitar."
That's BANJO, dude. BANJO. What, you didn't watch Deliverance? And my cousin Bubba the Southern Penguin has six fingers and plays a banjo, so don't diss inbred banjo-players, dude!
All guitar players everywhere should be OUTRAGED that someone would be so stupid as to think inbred humans play guitars rather than banjos!
- Badtux the Guitar-playin' Penguin
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld warns the new Iraqi government about corruption, saying that it destroys trust in government and results in bloated and inefficient government.
Presumably this is the voice of experience speaking. What next, Ken Lay to start giving seminars on business ethics at Harvard Business School? Martha Stewart give talks about how to make money in the stock market? The Ghost of Richard Nixon enlisted to give stern warnings about fair and ethical campaigning? George W. Bush enlisted to teach noocleer physics at Stanford University? John Bolton to now give seminars on how the United Nations is our friends? Curious penguins want to know!
- Badtux the Curious Penguin
There was a bit of high drama on Capitol Hill today, as a baffled Chinese tourist meditating upon the Capitol was screamed at in a foreign language he didn't understand, then tackled, and had his luggage hauled off and exploded by the police. The final tally: one baffled Chinese tourist, one less CD player in the world, and one less wristwatch in the world.
Note: AP says the police report that contrary to early reports, the tourist, dressed like Johnny Cash all in black, did not speak to the police at all (as you'd expect, since the police spoke no Chinese). Other reports that he demanded to see President Bush or verbally refused to open his suitcases appear to be based upon testimony of over-imaginative bystanders who've been drinking too much Department of Homeland Security kool-aid.
Still, the action of the policemen was entirely justified. I mean, you get some dusky-lookin' furriner close to the Capitol Building who, like, speaks only that furriner gabble, why, he just has to be up to some mischief! And that CD player... why, if the police hadn't blown up that CD player, it could have exploded and KILLED US ALL!
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
We are Unitarian Jihad. We will appear in public places and require people to shake hands with each other. (Sister Hand Grenade of Love suggested that we institute a terror regime of mandatory hugging, but her motion was not formally introduced because of lack of a quorum.) We will require all lobbyists, spokesmen and campaign managers to dress like trout in public. Televangelists will be forced to take jobs as Xerox repair specialists. Demagogues of all stripes will be required to read Proust out loud in prisons.
People of the United States! We are Unitarian Jihad! We can strike without warning. Pockets of reasonableness and harmony will appear as if from nowhere! Nice people will run the government again! There will be coffee and cookies in the Gandhi Room after the revolution.
Hmm... must say that when it comes to that jihad stuff, the Unitarians don't quite inspire the kind of fear that, say, Islamic Jihad (or Bush Christian Crusaders) does... but then, these are the same terrorists behind the Cover the Uninsured Week (May 1-8, 2005), so maybe they DO inspire terror -- in health insurance executives.
- Brother Broadsword of Reasoned Discourse
In celebration of Poetry Month and in commemoration of an event that happened a few months ago, I present Robert Zimmerman, a.k.a. "Bob Dylan", and his threat against the lives of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush:
MASTERS OF WAR Copyright 1963 by Bob Dylan Come you masters of war You that build all the guns You that build the death planes You that build the big bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks You that never done nothin' But build to destroy You play with my world Like it's your little toy You put a gun in my hand And you hide from my eyes And you turn and run farther When the fast bullets fly Like Judas of old You lie and deceive A world war can be won You want me to believe But I see through your eyes And I see through your brain Like I see through the water That runs down my drain You fasten the triggers For the others to fire Then you set back and watch When the death count gets higher You hide in your mansion As young people's blood Flows out of their bodies And is buried in the mud You've thrown the worst fear That can ever be hurled Fear to bring children Into the world For threatening my baby Unborn and unnamed You ain't worth the blood That runs in your veins How much do I know To talk out of turn You might say that I'm young You might say I'm unlearned But there's one thing I know Though I'm younger than you Even Jesus would never Forgive what you do Let me ask you one question Is your money that good Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul And I hope that you die And your death'll come soon I will follow your casket In the pale afternoon And I'll watch while you're lowered Down to your deathbed And I'll stand o'er your grave 'Til I'm sure that you're dead
The only thing he left off was the urination upon their gravestones. I suspect that the Secret Service will have to post a permenant guard upon their graves once they're dead, otherwise it will smell like a urinal.
- Badtux the Non-Violent Penguin (hey, urinating on a grave IS non-violent, okay?)
It appears that our Glorious Leader is reading my blog. A while back, I made a modest proposal that we adopt the Roman system of enlistments. After all, if we are to be an empire, we darn well ought to start acting like one!
I am glad to see that our Glorious Leader has heard my advice, extending a soldier's enlistment for 27 years, to 2031. Although I must admit that this penguin is somewhat disconcerted that our Glorious Emperor has not granted the Roman benefits of a plot of land upon retirement, RomanAmerican citizenship, and all the booty that an Imperial centurion can loot. Oh well, maybe next week..
- Badtux the Imperial Penguin
Howdy thare, Bubba the Suthern Penguin here, to talk about our good pal and buddy, Senator Bill Frist. Right now what's I got to talk about is the NOO-CLEER OPTION, which is kinda like killing a cat (something that our good buddy Bill is good at doin', what's yer favrite way to killa cat? Mine's a .22, you ought ter see them critters jump in the air when that thar bullet hits'em!), but is instead about killing Filly Busters.
Now, these here Filly Busters, I'm not quite sure what they is, but they's somethin' about them DEMON-crats stoppin' government from doin' stuff. Look here, feller, that's just plain wrong. When we'uns elected God's Own Administration into office, what we wuz votin' fer was BIG guvernment. TEXAS-sized guvernment. That kicks ass, 'specially them DEMON-crat's ass. Them DEMON-crats tryin' to keep guv'ment from doin' stuff, why, that's just un-AMERICAN! If guv'ment can't do whatever it feels like doin', the TERRORISTS HAVE WON!
So whatever these here Filly Busters is (I wonder if they got somethin' to do with taming horses?), contact our good pal Bill and tell'em Bubba sent ya to tell him that you want them Filly Busters to be glowin' in the dark, ka-BOOM! NOO-clear, my man. Whoo! Makes my li'l soldier salute just a THINK'IN about that thare mushroom cloud where them DEMON-crats was thinkin' they were gonna, like, act like democracy was somethin' other than doin' like we'uns tell'em to do!
Well now, I gotta go. I shot me ten of them thare does and they is hangin' up out back of my trailer house and Darlene is whinin' that she's tard of cleanin' them all, that I ought to do some of the work too. Now, ya think I oughtter use my belt on her, or just slap her upside the head till she's thinkin' right? I had to work HARD to lay out 'nuff corn to get all them thare deers to come in front of my 30-30! That thare woman just don't 'preciate the work I do, well, I'm gonna teach her, yessiree!
Yours in luvin' democracy,
Bubba the Southern Penguin
Translations for damnyankees out there, courtesy of Badtux the Snarky Penguin: Filly: a young female horse. Does -- female deer, now that the deer population has exploded it is encouraged to cull does but the limit generally is very small, 4 or fewer per day or per season depending upon what Tennessee county you're in, and deer season ended back in January. Baiting -- quite illegal in Tennessee, you cannot set out baiting stations in order to attract deer to where your stand is set up. .22 -- a small game rifle, typically used by children in the South to kill rabbits, cats, and birds. 30-30 -- a rifle firing the .30-30 Winchester round, one of the more common deer rounds out there (the other common one is the.30-06 Springfield round, which is referred to in Bubba land as a "thirty-ought-six").
Call it an early Friday Bird Blogging present for him :-). (And sorry about the misunderstanding, Bubba, just never got any reply to my EMAIL so ...).
Americans will soon be required to have a passport in order to go shopping across the MExican or Canadian border. This is required in order to deal with all those Mexican and Canadian terrorists that have been entering the country and blowing up buildings like on September 11. I mean, there's been... err.... ah... *NO* Mexican or Canadian terrorists entering America using American birth certificates and picture ID? WTF?
It's clear that this is mostly a mechanism for keeping the prune faces from making those bus trips across the border to get cheap medicines, but taking it on face value (that this is to keep terrorist from travelling), this penguin has a modest proposal: Make a passport required to travel *ANYWHERE* in the United States. Going from California to Arizona? Your passport, please! Going from New York to New Jersey? Your passport please!
It is clear that this would have stopped the 9/11 terrorists, who, after all, had valid passports and visas (WTF?).... thus should be instituted, like, tomorrow!
Remember, "Your Papers, Please" isn't just a good idea -- it should be the law. If we don't turn our nation into a fear-filled fortress state with machine-gun-armed soldiers on every streetcorner demanding your papers, the terrorists have won!
- Badtux the Fascism-luvin' Penguin
for winning the Pulitzer Prize for news photography. Especially touching is this prize-winning photo of an Iraqi terrorist after receiving his just due (because, as Tacitus and Instycracker and Little Green Footballs are quick to remind us, only terrorists get killed by U.S. troops in Iraq):
Yessirree, we gave him Freedom(tm) and threw in the pine box for free...
We are *SO* going to hell as a nation.
- Badtux the Sickened Penguin
Hat tip to The Heretik
Can you think of anything so petty as telling a former President, "Sorry, but I'd rather take my wife and my other wife than you"?
Apparently that's what Bush did -- told Carter the delegation was full because he had to take his wife and his Sally Hemmings in preference to Carter. Jimmy, to his credit, decided not to make an issue of it and apparently allowed the Bush Administration to put out that he withdrew his request upon hearing that the delegation was filled. That still does not excuse the fact that Bush apparently prefers to bring his black mistress to the Pope's funeral rather than a former President who belongs there.
- Badtux the "These Busheviks have no shame, I guess" Penguin
Attorney General Abu "I Love Torture!" Gonzales today spoke before Congress in favor of extending the most onerous provisions of the Patriot Act. In response, those Communist groups "American Conservative Union", "Americans for Tax Reform", the "Citizens' Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms", the "Eagle Forum" and the "American Association of Physicians and Surgeons" formed a coalition of liberal Commie terrorist organizations, called "Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances", in order to oppose the extension of these provisions. It is clear that any group with a name like "American Conservative Union" or "Citizens' Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms" is just die-hard liberal Commies out to DESTROY AMERICA! After all, surely only liberals could dare oppose our Great Leader's just use of domestic spying, torture, and public accusations against known terrorists, right? Right?!
In other news, the Justice Department sticks its tongue out at a group that wants information about its secret detentions of, well, people who haven't been convicted of anything (not a single terrorism conviction in the whole batch, as far as we know). Wanting to know who's being "disappeared" by the Department of Justice is, well, just plain UN-AMERICAN, right? Right?!
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Faced with the prospect of a rabid creationist cretin speaking against evolution on his college campus, mild-mannered biologist Pharyngula fights against the desire to pummel the moron with Biology textbooks. Says he: Jeez, but I'm feeling cranky. Nelson picked a bad week to stroll into my back yard—I'm thinking I better wear a muzzle to this talk. Maybe I can get a few students to strap me to a frame and wheel me in ala Hannibal Lector.
This penguin wants to see that spectacle! The NERVE of those Creationists, believing that God created Man in His image and thus evolution is wrong. Tuxology, as usual, has the answer. It's clear, given that penguins are God's perfect creature, that God created *PENGUINS* in His image, and that Man evolved (or rather, devolved) from penguins! Man, I wish I had time to waddle up there to UMM to flagellate that Bible-thumping cretin with limp herring until he cries for mercy... this guy is DEFINITELY headed for Hell (Arizona) to be flagellated with limp herring by the Penguin Inquisition as soon as we finish installing a Tuxologist theocracy in America, as is only our due!
- Badtux the Tuxologist Penguin
The Heretik reminds us that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 37 years ago today. As we mourn the death of another prince of peace, let us also mourn the death of MLK's dream of a land where all men are born equal, where every little child has all the opportunity in the world limited not by color or race or economic class, a dream that is gone now, lost in violence and lost in hate, lost in fear and lost in tears. Goodbye, MLK. Goodbye.
- Badtux the Saddened Penguin
Now they're not posting comments. This sucks. I'm considering picking up stakes and moving over to LiveJournal, which at least stays up most of the time. Sigh...
Update: Blogger is back. But man, what a bummer. The biggest bummer is that Google refuses to publish any kind of explanation or notice of what's going on with Blogger. It appears that Google's notion of "service" is what a stallion does to a mare. And then the Google recruiters wonder why I just laugh when they call me and ask me if I'd like to work for Google?! Maybe before their IPO... but it looks to me that Google is now a place where you go when you want to work for a successful company, rather than being the kind of company you join when you want to make a company successful. I'm the latter type of person, which is why I'm hacking operating systems in an undisclosed location for a company that might be the Next Big Thing if I and my co-workers execute on what we're doing, rather than going to work for some company like Google that's already successful.
- Badtux the Snarked Penguin
One of the new fronts in the "Christian" right's War on Fun is your helpful drugstore pharmacist, who is being enlisted to deny birth-control pills to women. It seems that some "Christian" pharmacists are refusing to provide birth control pills to women because it "conflicts with their ethics", because it allows women to have fun without getting pregnant (the NERVE of those uppity witches!). After a few pharmacists got fired for this, the "Christian" right started pushing for Freedom of Conscience laws, which say that pharmacists can't be fired for "following their conscience".
The Snarky Penguin applauds this law, because it will protect Tuxologist pharmacists, too. See, Tuxology believes that modern medicine is a conspiracy, and that large doses of cod liver oil are all that is necessary to cure every human disease. So now the following scenario will no longer result in the firing of a Tuxologist pharmacist:
Man: "Hi, could you fill this prescription?"
TP: "Sure! Here you go."
Man: "Uh, this isn't Viagra, this is cod liver oil."
TP: "That's right. Cod liver oil will make your little soldier salute like a Marine!"
Man: "But I want Viagra!"
TP: "Well you can't have any, because I'm a Tuxologist and we Tuxologists don't believe in Viagra!"
Man: "But... but... I have a PRESCRIPTION! And it's your JOB to fill this prescription! What kind of customer service are you providing, anyhow?"
TP: "It's for your own good, sir. You can talk to the manager if you want, but it won't help you, because of the new Freedom of Conscience law, that says I don't have to dispense medicines that my religion says are evil!"
Man: "But... but... that's WRONG! It's your JOB to dispense medicines!"
TP: "Sorry sir, I don't have to dispense Viagra and there's nothing you can do about it. It's the law."
My understanding is that Christian Science pharmacists are especially pleased by the new laws. Since they believe that all medicine is anti-God, their entire job will become handing out religious tracts and pray for the sick when people come to get their prescriptions filled -- Praise the Lord!
Yours in Snark,
Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Courtesy of the South Park character generator toy (note: Must have Flash to see), here is the Snarky Penguin's inner hiker kitted for the trail, in half-snark mode:
The only 'wrong' note is that my boonie hat is more grey than brown, and my shirt is more an olive color than the dark brown shown. Oh well. Note: Montrail's new 'wide' sized hiking boots fit webbed feet like a glove! Finally, I can hike for days without blisters!
- Badtux the Hikin' Penguin
The Catholic Church is one of the most conservative institutions on this planet, as you'd expect of an institution that has managed to survive close to 2,000 years. Anything that old doesn't keep going by making wild changes of direction.
John Paul II was a conservative steward of the Church, and you'll probably hear a lot of so-called "conservatives" puffing their chests in pride at that fact. They shouldn't. John Paul II had nothing but contempt for those who call themselves "conservative" but are anything but. Indeed, he regularly called them small-minded and short-sighted, stating that a world which was divided into rich and poor where the poor were largely deprived of basic services such as health care, education, housing, safe water, and adequate nutrition was not only a moral atrocity but could not, in the end, stand. In fact, many of John Paul II's statements such as his statement opposing the war in Iraq would be called "liberal" by the people who pose as "conservatives" in the United States today. That, however, shows just how far American "conservatives" have moved away from the principles of conservatism, rather than John Paul II being a liberal.
What principles of conservatism did the Pope uphold and American "conservatives" do not? Let me count the ways:
- Badtux the Disgusted Penguin
still trying to get rid of all the pea green in favor of penguin colors (black, white, and orange). My next experiment will be trying to get the pea-green links re-drawn in dark and light orange (for unvisited and visited links). At least I got rid of the annoying pea-green background and the strange box that floated in mid-air!
Afterward: Hmm, the green HTML links do seem to match my mohawk quite well! So I'm going to leave them green. Woohoo, no more stylesheet hacking for me!
Afterward 2: I have now added a NAQ (Never Asked Questions) link to the right. If you want to know Tuxology's opinion of evolution, whether Bubba the Southern Penguin is related to South Knox Bubba (he isn't), or what exactly left-wing Libertarianism consists of, that's the place to start.
- Badtux the HTML Penguin
Of course. And 30 years from now, as President Jenna Bush presides, it will STILL all be Clinton's fault.
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Howdy folks, Bubba the Southern Penguin here, with today's fine feature, Friday Cat Killer Bloggin' with Senator Bill Frist! Today, let's talk about his legendary doctorin' skills. Why, this is a heart surgeon who, like, knows everything about doctorin', who can diagnose any illness via only a few snippets of highly-edited video, even if it's an illness that's got nuthin' to do with heart surgery. Why, that makes him almost as smart as my buddies down at the general store, who know more about how to deal with furriners (nuke'em all!) than the entire U.S. Department of State, despite most of'em never ever even gradgiating high school! (Well, I gots to say I gradgiated, my senior year I took arithmetic, reeding, speling, and auto shop at Cooterville High School and they gave me one of them thare deploma thingies to hang on my wall proudly!).
Yessiree, that's why me'n the good ole' boys down at the general store think Mr. Bill will make a fine, fine Presnit. I mean, look, he tole' it like it was about that Terri Shiavo lady: "In my expert medical opinion, Terri Schiavo is not a vegetable," Sen. Bill Frist (R- TN) said. "Broccoli is a vegetable. Green Beans are a vegetable. Terri Schiavo is not. I done seen her on the TV, and I am a doctor, just like Doogie Howser. So there." You know us southern fellers just love straight talkin' fellers like that! And he was right, y'know? I done seen plenty of vegetables in my life, green beans, collards, turnips, okra, tomaters, you name it, and that Terri Shiavo didn't look like NONE of them!
Well, gotta go. My shift down at the chicken renderin' plant starts in a few hours, and I gotta go fix one of the cars up on blocks in my front yard and borrow some tires from one of the cars in Cooter's front yard so I kin gets to work. See ya down at the gen'ral store!
- Bubba the Southern Penguin
To: Frank Butler
County Inspector
Bartholomew County, Indiana
Dear Mr. Butler,
I wish to applaud you for protecting our community from the horrible obscenity of the Venus de Milo and Michaelangelo's David. It is clear that if we allow reproductions of classic artwork to be displayed where children and horses can see them, we will go the same way as the Italians, who are, well, funny-talkin' furriners, not real Americans like you and I. We must protect the moral purity of America and Americans from these funny foreign ideas like "art", and I thank you for your sterling defense of the values of our community, where we don't want none of them funny outsider idears coming in here and rousing folks up. Them outsiders might call Michaelangelo's David art, but we both know it's just some guy with his pants down. Oh sure, them outsiders might make fun of you as being out of a bad Simpsons episode, but we good Americans know you're not a cartoon, so stand by your guns in defending America from that horrible foreign "art" stuff!
Sincerely,
Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Credits: Ded Space via The Heretik
Us good Americans know the one on the left is art, and the one on the right is obscene.
As far as rants go, yours fit the bill perfectly, but if you were actually trying to convince a moderate that this country is in serious trouble... I think you failed miserably.
Thereby proving this country is in serious trouble single-handedly and without my intervention. Look at the facts:
The answer: They don't. And they won't. Anybody not already convinced that the country is in trouble, doesn't *WANT* to be convinced. They are good Germans, as described by Sophie Scholl right before the Nazis executed her for distributing anti-Nazi literature in 1943:
You cannot convince people like this to budge themselves from their pointless lives of masticating and defecating and fornicating and accumulating useless baubles. It is not worth even trying, for they will always -- ALWAYS -- believe lies rather than truth, because the truth is cold and harsh and unyielding, while lies are warm and soothing comfort in the face of a reality that is terrifying to any thinking man. They live, they die, and nothing changes. I have been on this Earth for more decades than I want to think about, and I have observed these Good Germans through most of those decades as they go about their pointless lives, and I weep for what could be, would be, if only humanity had a spine and was willing to face the cold harsh reality of truth rather than demand soothing lies to justify their pointless lives.
Sometimes I have a dream, a dream that is a nightmare. Jesus Christ comes to Earth again, and is born as an infant in a shotgun house in the Fourth Ward of Houston, where lives are short and fates are small. He is born addicted to crack cocaine, and goes to a "school" that has no books, no teachers worth the name. He grows up, and there are no jobs, no place for a man like him in this world, a man of color with no education and the wrong face. One day he dies, shot down on the street as he scavenges, hungry, for some scraps of garbage from a dumpster. He ascends to heaven, and his Heavenly Father asks, "did you find a man -- any man -- worthy of Paradise?" And Jesus only shakes his head and says not a word.
Then the fire comes.
And who amongst us, really, do not deserve it, other than a few innocents not yet corrupted by this world?
- Badtux the Misanthropic Penguin
This penguin applauds the Florida legislature for moving an Academic Bill of Rights towards passage. This bill, opposed by those evil intelligent and educated people, would give equal time to both those evil liberal atheist professors' beliefs and those of my religion, Tuxology, the Religion of Digestive Health. Tuxologists everywhere applaud this. Leftist elitist professors hate it. With their irrational belief in things like "scientific method" and "evidence", these "scholars" are obviously anti-America and objectively pro-terrorist. And with their elitist belief that studying a subject for decades makes them better qualified than 18 year old students or semi-literate state legislators to make statements about their subject, why, what an elitist attitude! Next thing you know, they're going to insist that, say, a doctor who has spent decades studying and doing surgery is more qualified to remove an inflamed appendix than a guy who went to his local book store and picked up a copy of "Surgery for Dummies"!
The first target of young Tuxologist college students, once this bill becomes law, will be Geography professors. See, we Tuxologists believe that the world is a flat disk carried on the backs of four elephants facing in the directions of the compass, all of whom are standing upon the back of Great A'Tuin the World Turtle as he swims through the sea of stars. We insist -- nay, DEMAND -- that these evil elitist Geography professors give equal time to our theory! And the law says that if they don't, we can SUE them! YAY! *Finally* we can give these evil dictatorial Geography professors, with their ridiculous notion that the world is round (what a silly notion!), exactly the treatment they deserve -- a quick trip to Hell, Arizona, to be flagellated with limp herring at the hands of the mighty Penguin Inquisition. Fear the Penguins!
So remember: Either you support David Horrorwitz's "Academic Bill of Rights" giving equal time to Tuxology's theory that the world is a flat disc, or you're, you're, a LIBERAL DOODY-HEAD and ANTI-AMERICAN!
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
More when blogger quits eating my posts... ... well, blogger is back now, but it's midnight. Screw it. I'm goin' to bed. - Badtux the Tired Penguin
Hi, Bubba the Southern Penguin here, fillin' in fer my cousin BadTux. I understand that them thare LIE-berals haves this "Friday Cat Blogging" tradition thingy. Since us right-wing penguikns ain't gonna do nuthin' like them thare Satan-worshippin' types, I figger we needs us a new kinda tradition, so I got one: Friday Cat Killer Blogging. Today's Friday Cat Killer: Senator Bill Frist.
To quote Bill Frist's autobiography:
Yessirree, Senator Bill Frist (Republican representing Hospital Corporation of America) is a fine, fine man, and we'uns down here in Jesusland definitely appreciates him!
Hey, Darlene? Whare's my beer, NASCAR reruns are comin' on! Err, hold it, gotta go smack that woman around some more, she been getting some of them thare IDEARS from them LIE-berals and ain't been doin' for me like Jesus sez to do...
Blogging from the Heartland,
Bubba the Southern Penguin
We members of the Church of Tuxology applaud the recent moves towards imposing theocracy in America. We believe we shall be better rulers of America than, like, the People. And anybody who disagrees is a heretic and will go to Hell, Arizona, where they will be required to kneel for eternity in the Ice Cathedral while being flagellated by limp herring.
Once we Tuxologists take power, herring will be declared the national food, wearing tuxedos will be required before you will be allowed to be on the street, and all public buildings will be required to install air conditioning systems capable of cooling down their building to a nice toasty 31 degrees (Farenheit, not Celcius) so that us waddling bishops of the Church of Tuxology don't have to sweat when we survey our vast domains.
Remember, Tuxology (the science of applied herring technology) will result in whiter teeth, fresh (herring) breath, and many other advantages. Tuxology is a workable system. Evidence may be seen in the lives of millions of Tuxologists and the positive effect they create. People improve their lives through Tuxology principles. As Tuxologists in all walks of life will attest, they have enjoyed greatest success in their relationships, family life, jobs and professions. Why, many famous actors are even Tuxologists, and we have an Ice Cathedral in Hollywood itself to provide them with plenty of fresh herring and ice baths!
Ah yes, it will be SO great when we manage to finally get a Tuxologist theocracy imposed on the United States...
What? What? You say those... those... BARBARIANS who aren't even TUXOLOGISTS want to impose their OWN theocracy upon us all? The NERVE of those savages!
- Badtux the Outraged Penguin
From The 18 Minute Gap:
Number of prisoners who have died in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan within the past three years, mostly from "violent causes": 108.
Number of POWs who died in North Vietnamese custody during the entire Vietnam war(nine years): 114
Obviously, we need better torturers. Ours seem to be killing three times more prisoners per year than North Vietnam's torturers.
Hold it, wasn't North Vietnam supposed to be evil, and the United States supposed to be good? Oh, nevermind, that was in the 20th century. This here's the 21st century, bay-bee! Booyah, let's find us some more prisoners to torture to death, evil is FUN!
Yessirree, we're the good guys. Really. (Wink wink!).
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
We've all probably heard of "Jeff Gannon", the media whore who really WAS a whore. A gay male whore, that is. Who claimed to be ex-military. An ex-Marine, in fact, and advertised his, err, "services", on that basis, claiming that he was still in the IRR (Individual Ready Reserve) as a Marine Corps corporal.
At which point, of course, the question arises: Why isn't he being called back up to serve in Iraq? And isn't it supposed to be impossible to be a gay Marine? At which point someone whacks himself over the head, saying "Don't ask, don't tell", that old Clinton policy where you can be gay and in the military as long as you pretend you're NOT gay... but hmm, Guckert says he's still in the IRR, so he is still subject to military discipline on that account IF he is in the military... but... IS he in the military?
So an intrepid reporter went off and filed a FOIA request for the public part of James Guckert's military record and... NADA!.
Seems that Jim/Jeff's military "service" was about as bogus as his "press credentials"... leaving only one question remaining:
Can the users of his, err, "services", now sue him for fraud based upon the fact that he lied to them about being an ex-Marine? I mean, c'mon, they signed up for some jar-head lovin', and instead they got a fake! It's as if you ordered a diamond, and when you got it wet it dissolved because it was actually just salt. What a gyp!
But then, everything about the Rethuglicans is fake. They create fake issues like that brain-dead woman in Florida to try to rile up their base. They create fake "focus groups" to create the illusion of popular support for their program to take America back to 1399. They create a fake "Social Security crisis" in order to float a plan for enriching their Wall Street cronies. Is there *ANYTHING* real in the Republican Party? Curious penguins want to know!
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
The 51st State of the United States, Canada, has now declared that being prosecuted for refusing to fight an illegal war is no big deal, and is preparing to send back soldiers who signed up to defend their country and instead got sent into battle to defend Halliburton's profits, and who objected to that breach of contract (the NERVE of them, why, it's every American's patriotic duty to protect Vice President Halliburton's paychecks from Halliburton!). We here at Snarky Penguin HQ applaud Canada's sniveling cowardice, and request only that they take a shower after their daily session of whimpering servility as the United States's bitch.
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Yes, the pea green color will be going away shortly. The problem is that this penguin has been more verbose than usual lately, and needed some extra space. The previous template was too constrictive, and attempts to open it up failed. Thus the pea green template. Soon this blog will be back to a beautiful black, white, and orange, just as God intended for penguins. Or maybe not, because penguins really aren't that good at web design either (alas, alak)...
- Badtux the "Pardon our mess, we're renovating!" Penguin
3Martini notes that a Red State America is doomed. It is already the case that Red State America avoids mass starvation only because of massive income transfers from the wealthier states on the coasts. Those massive thefts of money from the innovative creative states in order to prop up failures is destroying the wealthier states too, though. If California had every bit of money that the Federal government is stealing from it in order to prop up failed states like Kansas and Mississippi, California would have no budget deficit, and would be able to fund its schools the way it used to back in the days before the federal government started stealing California's wealth in order to prop up a bunch of inbred losers and cretins in the failure Red States.
But that's no longer possible, and it's killing the engines of American innovation. The fact is that California, and New York, and Massachusetts, and every other state filled with creative and innovative people are being sucked dry to prop up a bunch of ignorant cretins who think evolution is a conjecture rather than a fact, science is evil, the Bible is the only book you need, Harry Potter is a plot to corrupt America's youth, Twinky Winky the Teletubby and Spongebob Squarepants have hot gay sex in their hot tub, and the Bible should be the law of the land.
And it's only going to get worse, as the rot of ignorance slowly seeps outward from the rot at the heart of America. It is only a matter of time before things on the West Coast and Northeast collapse the way they did between the coasts. You cannot maintain a high tech economy when 3/4ths of the nation is an economic basket case producing nothing of any economic value other than a few agriproducts and relying on welfare handouts from the wealthy states to avoid mass starvation (look at the statistics at how much money the state of Mississippi gets from the U.S. government vs. how much in taxes it pays, for example - it gets back $1.83 from the U.S. government for every $1 in taxes it sends to D.C.). As the rot at the core of America continues to spread outwards, it WILL eventually hit the coasts. The only winner here will be Wal-mart -- because that's the only store that the New America will be able to afford to shop at.
The end result is going to be a failed nation similar to the majority of states in the Middle East, full of suspicious and violent religious nutcases who are anti-science and shun creativity and innovation. What to do? There ain't a goddamn thing we *can* do as long as we're part of the United States. The bastards are the majority now, and they're ready to party like it's 1399. About the only thing we in the innovative prosperous states could do would be to secede and let those bastards rot in their ignorance and hate.
Unfortunately, I find that people here don't see the threat yet -- they live in an enclave of sanity and tolerance, and have no inkling, no clue of the insanity and evil that has become Heartland America. But as an exile from a decrepit trailer park state full of losers and old people, I saw that insanity and evil, in its full Bible-thumping banality, up close and personal... and I tell you, those bastards are not only utterly delusional insane MF's, they're fuckin' EVIL, they don't view anybody who is not part of their own Bible-thumping cult religions as being human beings, and they're going to destroy anything and everything that ever made America great and there isn't a damned thing we can do about it except cut them off from the welfare teat and let them turn their own states into the theocratic hell-holes that they really desire.
The exiles alone -- every creative innovative person who is currently in places like Austin or Atlanta, but who would flee if a Taliban-style theocracy was imposed the way the evil religious nutcases want -- would give the innovative states such a boost that we could give the big F-U to the American Taliban. Screw'em. Let them get on with their wife-beating gay-killing dark-skinned-person-hating ways without us enabling them like a wife making excuses for an abusive husband.
So let the bastards party like it's 1399. Why should we who have brains and creativity, who left those evil bastards behind because we recognized the rot at the heart of Middle America and it disgusted us, prop them up? I say secession is the only way -- the ONLY way -- that the most creative and innovative people ever to walk this Earth can continue their creative ways. Let the ignorant bastards rot in their own hate and ignorance. Feh.
- Badtux the Exiled Penguin
Dead children piled upon the street
dead dreams vanishing upon the wind
while rough men walk upon the land
rifles warm and eyes cold and empty
boys given guns, and told to kill or be killed
pushing the fear deep inside
and a boy grows old before his time
Ah, Jesus, this muscular man of the 21st Century
killer of children, taker of souls
kicking rear and taking names
sending jihadis to meet their maker
(And women and children too,
"collateral damage", oh well)
in some Satanic universe of death and fear
in Jesus's sweet name we pray
Amen
And Jesus weeps
But no one hears
in their pointless lives of apathy and fear
defecating and masticating and fornicating
collecting silly baubles of no import
"Let someone else do it"
says this fine exemplar of human thing
afraid to dream, afraid to dare
21st Century Man at the end of time
Capable of nothing but fear and whine
Once upon a time... ah, once upon a time.
Once I had a dream, I know
In another time, another world
But that dream's forgotten now
Dreams of love, dreams of peace
Dreams of the world a better place
But now I don't dream, I've forgotten how.
So I live my life of pointlessness
and cheer the soldiers on the TV show
as they tell us of their great victory
and forget even that there was a dream
A dream we called America.
- Badtux the Poetic Penguin
Watching the rain fall, and feeling too melancholy to snark.
The Snarky Penguin joins the campaign to force all baseball players to take steroids. After all, who does NOT enjoy seeing a steroid-enhanced baseball player launch the ball into the stands? Home runs are one of the few exciting portions of the second most boring game(*) on Earth!
- Badtux the Sports Penguin
(*) Golf is, of course, the MOST boring game on earth... but baseball does not fall far behind, especially with pitchers who seem to spend ten minutes scuffing the pitcher's mound, spitting, shaking their head at pitches flashed in by the catcher, scratching their crotch, ...
It is unlikely, however, that the members of the fearsome 101st Fighting Keyboarders such as Jonah Goldberg will hurry forth to enlist, meaning that even more drastic measures will need to be taken. Thus my new proposal, which will both solve the enlistment crisis and insure the future solvency of both Social Security and Medicare:
Require military service in order to receive Social Security benefits!
Walkers and hearing aids will be provided to our brave new fighting forces, and the enemy will die (laughing) at the very sight of our new legions as they shuffle into battle in the uniform of the 101st Fighting Geriatrics -- bathrobes and fuzzy slippers. But hey, a M-16 doesn't care how old the person pulling the trigger is! Oh sure, old eyes aren't as sharp as young ones, but look, modern scope technology helps a lot with that. As for reflexes, sure, their reflexes suck, but they counter that with wisdom! Well, there's the problem of old fingers being trembly and maybe pulling the trigger too often, but hey, that's a problem with young soldiers too, so what's the big deal?
I think it is clear that the future of our nation and victory in Iraq both depend on it! So I urge you, call your Congressman today, and urge him that, since it is obvious that recruiting requirements cannot be met in any other way, we should up the maximum age to 75 and require anybody between ages 61 and 75 to join the Army in order to get Social Security!
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Billmon outsnarks the Snarky Penguin when it comes to the Terri Schiavo case:
Washington D.C. (AP) -- In the largest legal action of its kind to date, nearly 300 doctors in the Washington D.C. area have asked a federal court for permission to withdraw food, water and other forms of life support from their patients -- all of them members of the House and Senate Republican caucuses.
In their brief, the doctors contend their patients have lapsed into a "persistent vegetative state," and have shown "absolutely no signs of cognitive brain function" since September of 2001. All hopes for recovery are gone, they added.
Lawyers for family members of the afflicted Senators and Representatives asked the judge to reject the petition, saying the standard for withdrawing life support proposed by the doctors would permit the involuntary euthanization of almost 51% of the voting-age American population.
However, after reviewing the evidence -- House and Senate voting records for the past four years -- the judge agreed to take the matter under advisement.
Don't hold your breath. Unless you're a Congressman :-).
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
If you are wondering where I have been for the past two days, it is simple: I have been buried deep in the guts of my computer, which locked up from time to time then when reset, came back rebuilding one of my RAID arrays.
First, a quick run-down of my computer's configuration. This is not an el-cheapo setup by any means. I make my living with this thing, and I long ago learned that skimping on the tools of your trade is no virtue, quality pays. This thing has a top of the line Antec case and power supply. A Promise 4-port SATA controller. A top-of-the-line (at the time) Soyo motherboard with a one-notch-below top of the line (at the time) VIA chipset that has two SATA ports onboard, as well as normal IDE, Ethernet, Firewire, and USB2.0. A middle-of-the-road NVIDIA video card (ultimate video performance is not required for my purposes, whereas absolute stability is). A 2.1ghz AMD Athlon XP processor (one notch below top of the line at the time) and 512MB of RAM. And, most importantly, three 160GB Maxtor 7200RPM SATA hard drives, arranged as one RAID1 (mirroring) array across the bottom for my boot partition, and five Linux RAID5 arrays splitting up the rest of the drives for my various partitions. All of this is running Red Hat Fedora Core 3 Linux. To round things out, I have a Firewire DVD burner and 250GB Firewire external hard drive that get shared with my laptop for backups, and of course a couple of printers (a laser printer for invoices and other business printing, an Epson inkjet for my personal printing).
Okay, the first notion was that because I heard a loud click from the hard drive area when it locked up, it was a hard drive locking up. The problem is this: Why in the world should a hard drive locking up take out the whole freakin' computer?! I mean, the whole point of RAID is that if a hard drive goes AWOL, only that one hard drive goes out, not the whole friggin' system! So I did a read test of all the drives. Unfortunately, they all passed the read test (i.e., I could read every byte on every drive). It was clear that a read test wasn't going to diagnose the problem.
At the time I had the on-board SATA disabled, and was using only the four-port Promise SATA. So I decided, hmm, maybe Promise's driver for Linux sucks. So I enabled the onboard SATA and moved two drives to it, and rolled a new initrd with the driver for the onboard SATA and rebooted into the new configuration.
Well, it locked up again when I tried to back up everything to the firewire hard drive. So I said to myself, "Hmm, maybe it's the one that's still on the Promise controller." So I swapped cables.
And sure enough, it locked up again the next time 'round... but *THIS* time, using the VIA SATA driver, it printed out which drive was gumming the works. So I unplugged that drive, rebooted (into degraded mode), backed up my stuff to the Firewire hard drive with no problem (which 100% verified that the drive in question was the evil one gumming up the works), and then I had to repair the thing.
So a quick trip to Fry's Electronics, grab a new drive, install it, boot into rescue, copy the partition table from one of the other drives, manually assemble the RAID arrays in two-drive (degraded mode), hot add the new partitions to the RAID arrays, wait for the RAID arrays to rebuild (25 minutes -- this is a FAST computer), and... It works!
Lessons learned:
- Badtux the Linux Penguin
Asking me, or any other blogger, to answer questions about who took snark-enhancing drugs in front of television cameras will not solve this problem. If a blogger answers, 'No,' he simply will not be believed. If he answers, 'Yes,' he risks public scorn and endless government investigations.
I will use whatever influence and popularity that I have to discourage young bloggers from taking any drug that is not recommended by a doctor. What I will not do, however, is participate in naming names and implicating my friends and fellow bloggers like Norbizness, Seb, Jay, Skippy, or that dude blogging from the gates of Hell (hmm, do snark-enhancing drugs do any good for dead people?).
And in conclusion, I know that I tested positive for snark-enhancing drugs back in 2002 but that was just a pickled herring given to me by someone I thought was a fan. How was I to know that it was laced with snark-enhancing drugs?
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Religious conservatives have been at war against fun for hundreds of years, because fun is sinful. We're talking about the kind of folks who talk about "marital duty" and make sure to keep an image in their mind (like, say, Dick Cheney naked) so that they don't enjoy themselves too much whist doing their "marital duty" (and then wonder why they need Viagra to get it up).
So they looked around, saw that people were enjoying themselves watching this "baseball" thing, and started immediately looking at this "baseball" thing looking for the evil... and... AHAH! They might be using DRUGS! Which are FUN! Which are thus EVIL! Which thus means we must use the full power of the State to squash it, even if the only person being harmed is the dude ruining his liver and shrivelling his testicles!
Thank you, Congress, for ruining my enjoyment of baseball. Why, if you didn't hold McCarthy-style inquisitions ("Are you now, or have you ever, used performance-enhancing drugs?"), why, those baseball players could run amok and KILL US ALL!
Boy, this Congressional action really makes this penguin feel safer, y'know? It sure is reassuring to know that the mighty Drug Warriors in Congress are protecting me from those evil baseball players... why, if Congress didn't protect me from those evil baseball players they might... they might... give me some entertaining sports to watch! GAH! The evil! The pure evil! (whimper!)
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
A Bump In The Beltway reports that the Army has proposed a modest solution for their recruiting problems. As we all know, the Army (and to a lesser extent the Marines) are having a problem recruiting enough new soldiers. As a result, the Pentagon is asking Congress to extend enlistments by 2 more years.
This penguin says this: We need an end to these half measures! Since it is obvious that our Legions will be occupied invading one country after the next for the rest of the foreseeable future, we should do like our famous forefathers, the Roman Republic, did:
But hey, look, that's the future. Why, I don't imagine the Mexicans will sack Washington D.C. for another couple hundred years under my proposal! Surely nobody cares what happens after you and I are dead and gone, right? Right?! After all, if anybody cared about THAT, we wouldn't be running up trillion-dollar deficits and everybody just shrugging and saying "No problemo!" about it, right?
Look: If we're going to be an empire, we better darn well start *acting* like one! None of these half-measures!
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
The self-described Prince of Darkness, Pentagon specialist Paul Wolfowitz, has been nominated by President Bush to lead the World Bank. Now here's the question: is Wolfowitz, all of whose jobs have been in the Pentagon or in intelligence agencies, qualified to lead the World Bank? To help you figure this one out, this penguin has put together this handy-dandy comparison chart of each candidate's qualifications:
| Wolfowitz | Bozo the Clown | |
|---|---|---|
| Banking experience: | Once walked into a bank lobby as a customer | Balances his bank account on the tip of his nose. |
| Economics knowledge: | Stated that the Iraqi oil would pay for all of the costs of the war in Iraq. | Knows you don't spend money you don't have |
| Business school training: | None | Clown School |
| Accounting experience: | None | Counts the number of balls in the air while he juggles |
| People skills: | Scares the shit out of anybody who knows him | Everybody loves Bozo |
Yessiree, scientific proof for one and all: Bozo the Clown is *MORE* qualified than Paul Wolfowitz to be head of the World Bank. At least Bozo finished Clown School!
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
A majority of Americans say the war in Iraq is not worth the cost. "The public sees some benefits of the war — but more for Iraq than for the United States, and, for many, not enough to justify its costs. Seven in 10 in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll call the level of U.S. casualties in Iraq unacceptable, and 53 percent, on balance, say the war was not worth fighting."
Hmm, as an opponent of this war I was often called a "liberal anti-American communist" by the freeper scum despite the fact that this penguin is a very well armed LIBERTARIAN (as in, small government, personal liberty, no wars of foreign aggression, etc., dig?). I am glad to say that now this penguin is part of the REAL moral majority.
Which just leaves one question for the Freepers to answer before I start whacking them with the rotting herring again: If disagreeing with this war is "hating America", why do the majority of Americans hate America?
BOOM! Sorry about the mess, folks, that was just freeper head exploding... WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK bad freeper, messing up my nice little iceberg with your messy little room-temperature-IQ brains! Five lashes with a rotting herring for you!
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
As we all know, Freepers have a room temperature IQ. The only question is whether it is room temperature as measured in Farenheit (i.e., app. 72), or in Celcius (i.e., app. 20). Let us add a data point: Freeper reactions to a California judge stating that bars on same-sex marriage between two consenting adults are illegal under the California constitution's Equal Protection clause.
So here's the Freeper response:
Final score:
Boy, glad we got that out of our system... my eyes! Oh my aching head! I only managed to read two pages of Freeper "thought" (hah!), and have already felt my IQ drop a good 50 points, from 200IQ to a mere genius 150IQ! After reading this bilge for day after day, year after year, it's no WONDER that Freepers are freepin' morons with a room-temperature IQ -- in Celcius, no less!
- Badtux the "Oh my head!" Penguin
"If homosexual marriage isn't outlawed, what's next? Man-and-dog marriage? Man-and-box-turtle marriage? Man-and-sheep marriage?" -- Sen. Santorum, Sen. Cornyn, other Republican senators
Curious penguins want to know: Why are Republicans so familiar with the details of beastiality?
Perhaps it has something to do with this...
ah yes, man and sheep together, a love story.
Or perhaps they have carnal knowledge of cats, which is why their cats hate them. But be warned, cats have a way of getting back at owners who offend them.
It is clear, however, that Republican know far, FAR too much about these details of beastiality to be the upright innocents that they paint themselves as. Curious penguins want to know: How far does this Republican conspiracy of carnal knowledge of animals go?!
- Badtux the "Hey! Santorum! Keep your thingy away from me!" Penguin
It is well known that the only people ever interned at Abu Ghraib Prison were, to quote the Rabid Rotweiller's web site, "previously busy cutting off peoples heads. Fuck them, I say we start publicly burning terrorists alive. I'll provide the gasoline."
Now we learn that at least one of the inmates at Abu Ghraib Prison was at most 11 years old. Out of curiousity, this penguin investigated, and found this Iraqi terrorist training ground:
But then this penguin investigated further, and found that not only is Iraq dotted with these training grounds for 11 year old terrorists, but there is one in his very own neighborhood! And probably in your neighborhood, too!
Obviously this must be stopped. Therefore I suggest that you write your city counciller, county commissioner, and legislators immediately and demand why they are financing these training grounds for terrorists in our very own towns and cities!
Remember, boys and girls: Eleven year old terrorists will DESTROY US ALL unless we rip them from their mommas and daddies and stick them into decrepit hell-hole prisons such as the one regarded as the most notorious prison in the world.
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
The Snarky Penguin was about to comment on the new Kumbayah Report, Corrente beat him to it with a pithy snark that this penguin cannot out-snark:
| Those "few bad apples" bob back to the surface as the Defense Department and Congress turn their backs, join hands and sing Kumbayah:
"A top investigator ordered by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to look into abuses at Abu Ghraib and other military detention facilities laid blame at the feet of individual troops and their commanders, but not top-level officials and policy-makers." Note: No officials were hurt in the investigation of these crimes. |
- Badtux the out-snarked Penguin
The cornerstone of Massah Bush's new plan for rewarding his campaign contributors and putting the little people in their place is simple: "Bankruptcy Reform". See, this way Massah Bush and his fellow wealthy Americans will be able to shield their wealth in expensive mansions and trusts, but you peons, well, you know you deserve to work as slaves for your betters anyhow, right? Don't worry, the law provides for that -- you won't be able to declare bankruptcy, instead, you will be a slave to your debtors for the rest of your life, even if it is a debt that you didn't ask for, like horrific medical expenses not covered by insurance (the most common cause of bankruptcy).
But it is expected that a lot of people will refuse to be slaves, so of course now we will need to bring back debtor's prisons, where people who refuse to work for their massahs can be incarcerated in order to pay back their debt. It's called "contempt of court" nowdays -- if you fail to make your payments and the court decides that you can pay, you're sent to jail, and you are presumed guilty until proven innocent. Now, in the old days, those interned in debtor's prisons raised vegetables or carded wool or otherwise did things of that nature in order to earn money to pay for their room and board and repay their creditors. But in today's world, we have Mexicans for that kind of stuff. So this penguin helpfully looked at the Bush Administration's previous record when it comes to running prisons, and came up with some new money-making activities for the inmates of our new debtor's prisons:
 | Christmas Tree -- we can rent out our new debtors as Christmas trees for Massah Bush's friends and relatives! Gives new meaning to the phrase, "live Christmas trees", note especially how the electrical cords hook up! |
 | Cheerleaders! Entertain your family and friends with your very own pile of naked cheerleaders! Why do something boring like, say, hire a stripper, when you can have your very own slave cheerleading squad to be the life of the party? (Prison guards not included.) |
 | Jeff Gannon's sex slave! Every male prostitute needs a male prostitute, after all, especially when you've traded in your call boy outfit for a presstitute outfit. |
 | Pet. Be the only one on your block with your own pet slave! Dogs and cats are like, so, yesterday, y'know? C'mon, get with the program, nobody who is anybody is anything without his or her own pet slave to lead around on a leash and feed kitty kibble! |
The possibilities are limitless! Why, it makes this penguin's flippers flap with glee, just thinking of all the ways we can use the new slaves in America's new debtor's prisons...
- Badtux the "Slavery is the new American Value!" Penguin
Mr. Smith, in the meantime, insists that pussy tastes "just like chicken".
That's all the news that counts for today...
- Badtux the Reporter Penguin
PS: Bonus pussy on the right! Whoohoo!
![[John Bolton]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tUjv9gmXWNuVqYB3-QnsIt6P-BwcY--7KHSE4H-N8Fayjotps2EBoJPq2pN2HDIk8nIahCc5h5RqcnVd-KDWA3JZnp4Mg=s0-d)
But then, this isn't the first time that Mr. Bolton has been nominated to pretend something doesn't exist. During Iran-Contra, his job within the Reagan Administration was to pretend that the Contra drug dealers weren't actually importing cocaine by the ton on the same planes that were hauling guns back to Hondurus for the Contras. Then while employed by the Bush Sr. administration, he was paid by the Taiwanese to propose that the United States give Taiwan a seat in the United Nations as an independent country.
Let's see, other things that Mr. Bolton doesn't believe in:
So what does John Bolton believe in? Well:
Bush's conclusion? A PERFECT United Nations ambassador! Yessiree, it's clear that Mr. Bolton is going to be highly effective as ambassador to the Easter Bunny (which he apparently believes has as much reality as the United Nations)... and hey look, we save money as a nation too, since obviously Mr. Bolton isn't going to accept a salary to be ambassador to an imaginary entity! Truly an inspired choice by Mr. Bush!
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
The man on the left goes by the alias "Bill Graham" and claims to be the defense minister of the Commonwealth of Canada, but my sources in the Department of Homeland Security say that he's actually Mohammed bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's second cousin, and is actually in charge of al Qaeda's Canadian operations. All DHS security personnel have been given permission to shoot on sight, if they can get the bullet out of their pocket into their gun without shooting their foot.
Remember: Canada is the REAL Axis of Evil. If we do not invade Canada now, they will pelt us with poutine and KILL US ALL!
- Badtux the Sarcastic Penguin
I was withdrawing money from the ATM near a local grocery store when I looked towards the store and... awwwwe! The cutest little girl was standing there in a green smock and her long blond hair streaming in the wind, in front of a huge pile of Girl Scout cookies! Awwwwe...
So here I am, twenty dollars lighter and twenty pounds heavier, wondering this: Are Girl Scouts spawn of Satan, or spawn of some lesser demon? Because surely only pure Evil could have created such devestating cuteness on the part of a little pixie Girl Scout just calculated to lighten one's wallet and fatten one's waistband!
Note: While penguins like herring, penguins also like Thin Mint cookies... anybody want to buy $10 worth of cookies? Oh nevermind, by the time you get around to answering I will have already gobbled them up anyhow :-}
- Badtux the now-fatter Penguin
Well, as predicted, the Freeper Fascists are all a'twitter about their hero Justice Anthony Kennedy bolting from the pro-death camp into the pro-life camp in banning the killing of children by the State.
A few facts:
So much for that. Now, here's the question: Why do so many people who call themselves "Christians" also support the death penalty?
I've asked some of them, sometimes. They always point to something or another in the old Hebrew liturgy. Deuteronomy 19:21 (the "eye for an eye" one) is a favorite. The problem is that they claim to be CHRISTIANS, not JEWS, and Christians are supposed to be followers of Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ explicitly denounced Deuteronomy 19:21, saying:
38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. -- Matthew 5:38-40
The Bible has many cases of Jesus saying that it's not for Man to judge God's law, such as the case of the woman about to be stoned for adultery (John 8:2-11) where Jesus challenges her accusers, saying unto them, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." Jesus's basic philosophy regarding killing based upon hatred and vengeance is summed up best by Paul:
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. -- Romans 12:19-20
Thus it is clear that killing out of vengeance is not a Christian thing to do. What, then, about those who claim to be Christians who support the death penalty?
Well, if the death penalty deterred murder, that'd be one reason. All killing is a moral blasphemy against God and his creation. But we are, after all, mortal men, and we have biological needs for self preservation and defense of innocents built into us. I somehow doubt that we will burn in hell for giving in to those needs. Thus all good Libertarians have no problem at all with killing someone in self defense. The problem is with killing that is NOT in self defense. The statistics show the death penalty doesn't deter murder. In fact, the states with the death penalty are the states with the highest rates of murder. Thus the death penalty as imposed by the State (as vs. by an individual who is in the course of protecting his own life) is not necessary for self defense.
Once you get beyond that, then there just isn't anything in the New Testament to support the death penalty, and you have to go back to Jewish Old Testament law. Which is fine if you're a Jew. But that's sort of problematic if you're a Christian, who is supposed to follow, like, Christ *doh!*. Even a herring-breathed penguin knows that much!
So how else do these supposed "Christians" justify taking vengeance upon themselves in contradiction of the teachings of Jesus and his disciples? Well, mostly they lie. They lie and claim the death penalty deters crime (when all the statistics show it doesn't). They lie and say that the death penalty is cheaper than life in prison (when all the statistics show it isn't). They lie and say that the death penalty protects the public better than prison does (when life in prison without possibility of parole protects the public just as well). They lie and lie and lie and lie and lie. What else is new? Have you ever met a right wing Freeper type who was NOT a liar? I sure haven't. Whether they're lying about decorated war veterans, or lying about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, or lying about loving democracy at the same time that their favorite politicians overthrow democratically elected governments overseas in order to install right-wing dictators, they lie and lie and lie. It's built into them, like hate and envy.
There's nothing that we in the Reality Based Community can do about them being, well, fuckin' NUTS. But at least we can let others know that these nut case fruitballs aren't Christians, aren't moral, and if they are the majority, they're at least not a MORAL majority. Jesus Christ did not preach unto the masses, "Go out and kill yourself some darkies for Jesus." No. He taught,
7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. -- Mathew 5:7-9
That is what Jesus Christ says to do -- not "blow the crap out of darkies who are sitting on *our* oil." Freepers aren't Christians. Period. And we do grave harm both to ourselves and our nation when we let them pretend to be without speaking truth and pointing out that they're about as Christian as the Pharisees who would have stoned that woman but for Jesus.
- Badtux the Christian Penguin
[ Note to any Freepers coming by: Don't bother posting hate-filled missives here. I will delete them. This blog is my private property, and as a Libertarian I have no problem with defending my private property. Go whine about "censorship" on your own property, scum. ]
