How John McCain remembers what to say in a variety of circumstances:
Mock him all you'd like...but that POW Card got him an amazing upgrade in the wife department: Younger, healthier & Dirty-Filthy-Sexy Rich with unlimited access to beer and pills...
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
H/T to The McCain Card
John McCain's response to any criticism is a sentence consisting of a noun, a verb, and the letters P.O.W...
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
H/T to Alternate Brain
I have become a hermit until November 4.
That is all.
-- Badtux the Hermit Penguin
PS: Don't expect my resolve to last any longer than it has in the past, heh!
Girl Scout: (Points at lemonade). Is this made from real lemons?
Wednesday: Yes.
Girl Scout: I only like all-natural foods and beverages, organically grown, with no preservatives. Are you sure they're real lemons?
Pugsley: Yes.
Girl Scout: Well, I'll tell you what. I'll buy a cup if you buy a box of my delicious Girl Scout cookies. Do we have a deal?
Wednesday: Are they made from real Girl Scouts?
That's pretty much it. The Addams Family. Just a fun little movie. Popcorn. Christina Ricci's second film after Mermaids, and she nails Wednesday. It would have worked better as a 1 hour episode of the series, 90 minutes is just too long for the thin plot to get stretched across, but still an entertaining way to waste 90 minutes when you're all busted up and can't do anything.
-- Badtux the Movie Penguin
I had a nice little hike today at Wilder Ranch State Park. I did an 11 mile loop through the backcountry, then back along the oceanside. All that bicycling definitely helped my wind, I pretty much chugged away uphill with just a bit of heavy breathing but never out of breath. I shot a bunny rabbit, two deer, a buzzard, a buncha sea lions, various sea birds, some wildflowers, and some surfers (with my camera, of course). Just one problem: My fuggin' right knee decided it didn't like the downhill coming back down from the crest, I ended up having to sort of Frankenstein and hobble on my walking stick with that knee. Then after about 2 miles down the oceanside, about half a mile from the Jeep, it decided to just lock up altogether, making that last half mile very slow and painful. GRRR.
So I guess it's back to the doctor again. All that bicycling was supposed to cure that problem. Well, it helped my cardiovascular fitness big time, but didn't help my knee at all. And yes, I took an anti-inflammatory before setting out. Didn't help.
So anyhow, my camera is down in the Jeep, and I managed to hobble up to the second floor where my apartment is, and I am *not* going back down tonight. So you're going to just have to imagine the deer, the bunny, and the sea lions for now. Meanwhile, I just took an ibuprofen and have the oven heating up for a pizza. Definite comfort food time. And tomorrow, I have a suspicion that I'm going to be working from home...
-- Badtux the Gimpy Penguin
For an 8.5 pound bag of "Science Diet for cats with Sensitive Stomach".
more kittehs
I had bought a small bag to try it to see if maybe Mencken would stop yakking all over my furniture. I mean, I thought maybe it was just that Mencken kept reading the newspapers that I leave hanging around and the news was causing his upchucking, but turns out the "Sensitive Stomach" cat food did the trick -- no more yakking.
I just hope he appreciates his owner's attendance to his needs. Oh who am I kidding, he's a cat, with a brain the size of an almond. Oh well. At least he's warm, fuzzy, and loves to purr on my lap.
-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin
the world's luckiest motorcycle racer. Misses being smashed to a pulp by a microsecond. Also: Be sure your front axle nut is tight and is safety wired or cotter pinned so it can't come off!
-- Badtux the Motorcycling Penguin
Michael Phelps returns to his tank at Sea World.
-- Badtux the Mildly Amused Penguin
Of course not. When a Republican lies, it's not a lie. It's an "error", and when pointed out, disappears down the "memory hole".
So nevermind that Mother Theresa lie. It never existed. The chocolate ration is 25 grams. The chocolate ration has always been 25 grams. If you believe the chocolate ration was ever 30 grams, report for psychological counseling, citizen.
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
A U.S. combat veteran of the Gulf War and his wife have landed on the no-fly list, the one for "terrorist extremists". The problem: He's a pilot. It's his job to fly. But the FAA took his flight privileges away, and nobody will tell him what list he's on, why he's on it, or how he can get off of it. He's suing the government with the help of the ACLU, but expect a Kafka-esque outcome -- the government will claim that "national security" prevents them from being sued in this case, and the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold it.
Their real crime appears to be sending out DVD's of Mass Destruction -- DVD's about the Muslim faith. Erich Scherfen served 13 years in the military, including flying National Guard helicopters. But apparently he defended his country overseas, only to find that his country will persecute him here because of his faith, just as others are apparently being placed on the list for writing a book critical of Bush or other such political crimes. U S A! U S A! Do you want freedom with those fries? Sorry!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
only terrorists will have maps and bicycles.
Yeppers. Denver Police are on alert for the map-wielding Bicyclists of Mass Destruction. Oh the horror!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
PS: I can think of another country where maps are illegal... Way to go, America, you're on par with a Communist slave state!
Nom nom nom...
The Mighty Fang does like his kibble.
-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin
maybe you're out-of-touch with the concerns of real Americans?
For the record, unlike John McCain, I can answer the question "how many houses do you own?". The answer is "One." If you don’t know how many houses you have, then it’s not surprising that you might think the economy is fundamentally strong, eh?
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Some folks have accused me of "being on the side of Russia" when it comes to the Russian reaction to Georgia's attempted ethnic cleansing in South Ossetia. Uhm, no. The only side I'm on is the side of truth. And truth is, Mikheil Saakashvili made a big mistake sending the Georgian Army into South Ossetia. Even if he didn't intend the Georgian Army to engage in a little ethnic cleansing, history notes that whenever Georgian military forces have entered South Ossetia in the past, ethnic cleansing is exactly what happened, whether we're talking 1920 or 1991. Only an idiot would think that Russia wouldn't respond in that case, especially since they had handed out Russian passports to the Ossetians and thus could claim that they were coming to the aid of their citizens (Granada, anybody?).
Does this make the Russians "good guys"? No. They've gone well beyond the boundaries of the autonomous provinces that they claim to be protecting and appear to be rambling around Georgia at random for ill-defined "security reasons". They apparently also are letting various nasty paramilitaries from Chechnya, Ossetia, and elsewhere roam around the Georgian countryside pillaging and looting, and while they haven't committed atrocities themselves, they definitely aren't going about their business with a light touch. But what it does mean is that Saakashvili has nobody to blame but himself for what happened when he prodded the bear in the side with a pointy stick. Even a half-lame bear with bad eyesight is likely to maul you severely at that point.
Now for the last thing: Does this mean that Russia has achieved superpower status again? The answer is no. Russia right now is a thugocracy, ruled by whoever is the most vicious and venal. It more resembles a Mafia-ruled state than any modern first-world nation. It has a declining population, an economy that looks more like that of Saudi Arabia than of any modern state, a military that while better trained now than in the past still is no where near first-world quality, and antique Soviet-era military equipment (the good stuff is all for export, they have only purchased a few brigades worth of modern equipment and most of that sits around Moscow as a last-ditch reserve in case the West invades again like in 1941). That said, they have definitely shown that while not a world-class power, they are decidedly a regional major power, and need to be treated as such. I suspect that other regional states are observing, and reacting accordingly -- i.e., with much caution and respecting the adage, don't poke the bear!.
-- Badtux the Geopolitical Penguin
Got a load of books from the SF book club recently. So I'll do a few quicky book reviews.
First up is Charles Stross, Saturn's Children. This is a rollicking space opera that's half depraved Isaac Asimov, half warped Robert Heinlein, and half deranged Charles Stross. Think Robert Heinlein's sex-crazed Friday if she were one of Isaac Asimov's robots from I, Robot incarnated as a sexbot, combined with Charles Stross's big-picture space opera and an espionage plot that aims to bring back the slavemasters who've died out -- the human race.
I wouldn't call it a significant book. But it's rollicking good fun if you have the background in science fiction to know what novel by which author he's riffing off of at any given time (Friday is the main one of course, but he riffs off of other "classic" science fiction novels too). And oh, there is a riff on one of Robert Heinlein's favorite statements, the one where he said that a human being ought to be able to do this, that, and the other... and his lead character (the sexbot) says "but why would I need to do any of that, when I can get someone else to do it in exchange for sex?" Heh. Look for it. Also look for Stross's other space operas, most of which are better than this one, though not as much fun.
Next up... having read one space opera, I went back to my bookshelf and got one of my favorites out, C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen. I re-read this every few years and always enjoy it every time. It's a big brick of a book with a fascinating lead character who is reincarnated via cloning after she dies -- or is she? What does it mean to be "human", anyhow? As usual, I enjoyed this novel immensely, perhaps because it is more a sociological / psychological novel than a space opera even though it's set in one of her space opera universes in a space-going civilization. The only thing I'm really dissatisfied with is the ending -- her "father" who raised her for many years tries to kill her, and we never are told why. There are other issues that are never resolved too, such as who killed Ari 1.0 (or was it an accident?), and the beginning of the book (which shows Ari 1.0 as a real bitch who frankly I would have been tempted to murder too) is way too flabby, we get pounded over the head by Ari 1.0 being a bitch over and over again (okay, Carolyn, we got it the first time!). But once Ari 2.0 is birthed from her vat, all is forgiven. I wouldn't say this is a "classic" of the field, but the fact that I re-read it every few years -- which is not true of very many books -- means it tweaks something in my psyche. And maybe in yours. It didn't win the Hugo Award because it was lousy. Oh, there's a sequel coming out in January. I'll be looking for it...
And that's today's literary drive-by shootings. Tomorrow, I have a couple of real stinkers. Hint: What happens when you have right wing writers write politics into their novels instead of sticking to traditional space opera with space battles and stuff? It ain't pretty...
-- Badtux the Literary Penguin
John McCain tells lies. Press reports them with a question mark. Obama gives some speech somewhere that the press doesn't cover where he calls McCain on his lies. Nobody knows because the press only covers the lies, not the response.
Tomorrow, more of the same. And the next day. And the next day. And the next...
- Badtux the Tired Penguin
Literally. And that's not counting exploding iPods, power supply cables that catch on fire, and roasting video chips. Seems that one of their IT buildings caught on fire. Luckily it apparently wasn't an important one.
As for Apple's other, err, hot, problems, oh well. Apple still makes the best personal computers on the planet. A shame they're so expensive, but so it goes...
-- Badtux the MacPenguin
A 17 year old kid let an 85 year old granny hold him at gunpoint with a .22 caliber pistol.
If this had been one of the gang-bangers that I worked with at the center back in the day, Leda Smith would be dead. He would have had a gun in his hand when he went in, and he would have shot her and killed her the moment she emerged from the bedroom with a gun in her hand, because she came out of that bedroom ready to talk, not ready to shoot to kill. Luckily this was some neighborhood kid intent on a quick smash and grab, rather than a hard-core criminal. Otherwise there would be a dead body on the floor.
But I'm sure that the tighty righties are now going to all join together and chant, "arm the grannies!" Nevermind the body count, that's just a trifling detail...
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
PS: Found the perfect photo for the tighty righties:
He turns out to be... a rubber Halloween costume.
Yet last week newspapers were uncritically printing press releases about how these jokers had found Bigfoot, had DNA, and so forth. It just goes to show you what kind of press we have here in America -- stenographers. Useless stenographers. You could replace pretty much every reporter in the American media with a tape recorder operated by a trained monkey without any difference in the quality of the "reporting".
-- Badtux the Media Penguin
Over at Moto-Tux, I talk about a flying penguin and the Never-Ending Electrical Project, which is, oddly enough, *ending* shortly as soon as I get the first circuits hooked up (two circuits, one at the handlebars for the GPS, one at the side for a heated jacket or vest or etc.).
So if you are interested in motorcycle technology, go take a gander...
-- Badtux the Motorin' Penguin
In honor of all the looting going on in Georgia by the Vostok Brigade (Chechen brigands armed and supported by Russia), Ossetian irregulars, and pretty much every other nasty militia in the area, here is a video of Putin devising his plan for Georgia...
I don't think Putin has sent in the bull dykes yet though, but give him time!
Of course, given that the Vostok Brigade is currently persona non grata in Chechnya due to their ongoing feud with the current "president" of Chechnya (another nasty militia chief by the name of Kadyrov who is being paid by Russia to not make war against Russia much as the Vostok Brigade is being paid by Russia to not make war against Russia), this musta seemed like the opportunity from heaven for Russia for getting the Vostok Brigade out of their hair.
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Later in the afternoon, around 5:30, four Russian tanks rattled past the Russian checkpoint at Igoeti and drove in the direction of Tbilisi. Soldiers were piled on top, cradling Kalashnikov rifles.A word to the wise. When someone in a tank orders you to move your car, and all you're armed with is a 9mm pea-shooter, it's always a wise idea to move your car. These Georgians seem to be about as bright as your average chunk of granite...As they drove past, one old man, Koba Gurnashvili, stepped into the street and yelled at the them: "Where do you think you're going!" One of the soldiers yelled back: "To Tbilisi!"
But they did not, instead turning up a side road leading to a village near the border with South Ossetia. At an intersection blocked by Georgian police cars, the Russian commander climbed off his tank and began arguing with the Georgian police officers.
The Russian officer said that he had orders to move up the road; the Georgian said that he had orders to remain on the road and asked to call his superiors for guidance. The Russian said: "You have three minutes to move your cars."
The two argued for a few minutes longer. Then the police stepped away from the cars, stony-faced, taking the keys with them. The commander ordered his tank to drive forward, and it smashed aside the cars and kept going.
A Georgian policeman looked at the dusty tanks passing, took off his hat and spat at the ground.
-- Badtux the Mildly Amused Penguin
No, clearly, unless doctors are allowed to discriminate, doctors will have to, uhm, serve the public instead of serving some religious agenda based on hate and ignorance. And we can't have that, can we? Why, why... if we make doctors treat people equally regardless of sexual orientation, that nasty Gay Agenda will zap us all with his Gay Ray of Gayness and then the human race will die out because nobody will reproduce (except those nasty lesbians gay-marrying each other and getting artificially inseminated of course) and ... and... uhm, what was I saying? I lost my train of thought there. For some definition of "thought". Hmm.
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
I am working on a new song. It is dark, dark, dark.
For some reason I don't write happy songs anymore. Not that I really did, I've written maybe three songs in my entire life that qualify as "happy", but at least they were songs about life and lost loves and broken dreams. The best way I can describe what I've written over these past few years is... apocalyptic? Too many visions of small bodies and blood running down streets as the world runs down and everything comes to an end. It's hard to motivate myself to write them down, much less record them.
I would say I'm depressed, except it's not that, exactly. Observant, perhaps. I am witnessing a race between technology and species extinction, and unfortunately a majority of the human race seems more inclined toward the latter than toward the former When the oil runs out, people are going to start dying of starvation by the billions -- without fertilizers and farm equipment, we can raise food for maybe a billion people. And when that happens...
-- Badtux the Gloomy Penguin
Traffic was backed up this morning because of a concert/festival at Shoreline Ampitheater starting at 11am this morning. Lots of alternative/electronica/metalcore bands that I never heard of. The kids walking down the street (having parked elsewhere to avoid paying parking fees) are certainly the fashion plate. Apparently, for teen guys, skinny saggers are apparently the "in" thing. These combine tight pants that cling to the legs with low-riding waist that shows the butt crack area and gives you a good view of the dude's underwear. Call it ghetto slim. For gals, it's tight shirts and hip-huggers that showcase their fat hips and thunder thighs as they blob their pasty way down the street. None of the girls appeared to be over 20 years old or so, as you'd expect since older girls would have a job and not be going to a concert on a Friday afternoon. Almost all of them seemed to have said "super-size it, please!" more than once when grabbing chow at a fast-food place.
Sigh. Kids today. (Insert photo of crotchety old man shaking his fist and saying "you darned kids get off my lawn!").
-- Badtux the Fashion Penguin
Did anybody else notice that the Chinese "women's" gymnastics team looked more like the Chinese "elementary school girls" gymnastics team? The youngest/smallest "women" on the team couldn't have been more than twelve years old!
-- Badtux the Observant Penguin
I assume my gay readers are having a really nice time watching the U.S. swim team. It's like gay porn without the sausage. As a penguin I'm not quite sure what exactly is the attraction -- their plumage is rather, err, lacking, and they swim like monkeys thrashing the waters desperately instead of elegantly like penguins -- but just for those who appreciate, here is some beefcake:
Just making sure you get your daily dose of gay porn!
-- Badtux the Helpful Penguin
They might run screaming like little children anytime a Russian points a water pistol in their direction, but they sure are hard on unarmed journalists.
To be fair, if I saw a Faux News "journalist" around and I was armed with an AK-47, I might be tempted to see how fast he could run too :-).
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
and step away.
Propaganda:
Lucky the Russians had conveniently built up 20,000 soldiers just north of the border on training exercises one week prior to the crisis.
Reality:
The Russians normally keep that many troops in the region because of Chechnya, which, remember, is less than 100 miles away from South Ossetia. In fact I'm wondering what the Chechens are doing right now, since the troops that normally would be chasing Chechen rebels are currently inside Georgia.
Propaganda:
And, of course, the Russian peacekeepers already in South Ossetia, who armed the South Ossetian rebels, must not actually be Russians on Georgian soil.
Reality:
That depends on whether South Ossetia is Georgian soil. South Ossetia was an autonomous province within the Soviet Union, nominally within the administrative boundaries of the Soviet state of Georgia but never ruled from Tsibili. Georgia arbitrarily declared the autonomy of South Ossetia null and void in 1993 despite the fact that Georgia had never ruled South Ossetia, ever, not even hundreds of years ago, and only Russian troops prevented Georgia from actually making good on that. South Ossetians are "rebels" in much the same that Mexicans would be "rebels" if we declared that Mexico was our 51st state -- South Ossetia never was culturally part of Georgia, and never was ruled from Tsibili, and is about as "Georgian" as Mexico is "American".
So clearly the situation is more complex than "Georgia attacks rebels". South Ossetia is obviously too small to be an independent nation. It will have to join either Russia or Georgia. The Georgians seem determined to make sure that South Ossetia joins Russia rather than Georgia. So be it. But to say that Georgia was "justified" in invading South Ossetia because it is just a state of Georgia, is like saying that the U.S. would be "justified" in invading Mexico because it is just a state of the United States. That has not been historically true, and arbitrary lines drawn on maps do not make it true.
Conclusions:
-- Badtux the Geopolitics Penguin
One of my new babies is leaving the cradle tomorrow. Just finished teaching him how to write good code and now he leaves me, boo hoo hoo! But anyhow, he has one last checkin to make into the source tree. And I have to go over it with a fine tooth comb before he leaves. And he leaves at 2AM my time because that's when the last bus leaves his time and like most people in his nation he doesn't own a car, he's reliant on mass transit. And that's it. So I may be up to 2AM working with this guy...
These multi-national software development efforts are the pits sometimes :-(.
-- Badtux the late-working Penguin
To whit: this creep, Raymond Daniel Thurmond, who held his wife and three children captive for years in a mobile home. He apparently screwed the windows shut, locked the doors with padlocks, and threatened to kill them if they tried to escape.
So now he gets his own captivity. Hopefully sharing a jail cell with some 300 pound 7 foot tall brute named Bubba. Who don't like child abusers. Squeal like a pig, Gay Ray, squeal like a pig!
-- Badtux the Disgusted Penguin
No, Civil War fans, this isn't about Sherman's March to the Sea. I'm talking about the Former Soviet Georgia, which the Russian bear just slapped silly and threw against the wall as an object lesson to small nations that want to piss off neighboring large (and surly) nations. And The Political Cat has probably the best round-up I've seen on the situation so far. I especially like one of his snarky lines: He (Saakashvili) is trying to draw the U.S. and Europe into a war with Russia — a war which no one will win. Vladimir Putin is an ex-KGB man and nobody's fool. And unfortunately, the U.S. is currently in the hands of the biggest fool to ever walk the planet.
Alrighty, then!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Stratfor brings reality into the anthrax-as-weapon discussion. Says Stratfor: It ain't as easy as sci-fi thrillers make it sound. For example:
The [Aum terrorist] group sprayed thousands of gallons of aerosolized liquid anthrax in Tokyo. This time, Aum not only employed its fleet of sprayer trucks but also used aerosol sprayers mounted on the roof of their headquarters to disperse a cloud of aerosolized anthrax over the city. Again, the attacks produced no results and were not even noticed.Oooh, I'm so scared of anthrax!
Reality is that terrorists go with what gets them the most bang for the buck. A single suicide bombing in Iraq typically kills more people than have been killed in all the anthrax attacks in known history -- combined. And it takes less than a hundred bucks worth of explosives, not a massive R&D laboratory and fancy equipment and shit. The humble truck bomb that blew up the Oklahoma City federal courthouse is what we should be concerned about insofar as terrorism is concerned. Some bug that even the most highly weaponized version, out of our own weapons lab, can't manage to kill more than a dozen people total despite multiple attacks... uhm, yeah. About those truck bombs...
-- Badtux the Practical Penguin
Librarian recognizes man who ran down two old ladies, calls cops. Turns out he was a 66 year old dude who was living out of his car, who apparently has "problems".
Our society's treatment of its old, its poor, its mentally ill is abysmal, and the result is dead bodies. But hey, we don't care, because at least we don't have to pay taxes to take care of the old, the poor, the mentally ill, and money is more important than human beings, right? Right? Right?!
-- Badtux the Priorities Penguin
Gunman invades office of Arkansas Democratic chairman, shoots him multiple times, and drives off in pickup truck. What do you bet that we're going to find out that this guy has copies of Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and Rush Limbaugh's books sitting on his bookshelves?
-- Badtux the "Had enough hate speech yet?" Penguin
It's Not Criminal If You're Republican. Attorney General Michael Mukasey confirms that there are two laws in this country -- one if you're a Democrat, and one if you're a Republican. If you're a Democrat, it's a crime. If you're a Republican, you're not. Mukasey says the Justice Department broke the law by applying partisan political considerations to non-partisan positions, but he intents to do nothing about it because, well, INCIYR. Or as Attorney General Mr. Mugookasey put it, "Not every violation of a law is a crime."
So much for that old "equality" and "justice" bullshit, eh?
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
This "body wash" stuff just doesn't feel right. I dunno, there's something somehow... manly... about boldly seizing a big bar of soap and rubbing that sucker all over your body. I understand the soap scum argument (which isn't a problem with "body wash"), but it just feels weird.
One of my cat towels finally managed to collect something yesterday. When I got home, I found that Mencken had puked all over the office chair in front of the computer desk. Luckily a towel lives on that office chair, so I just had to change towels.
In my never-ending electrical project on the Nightstrom, I gave up on trying to relocate the relays and fuses behind the battery to being behind the left side panel. It's just too hard to get the left side panel off. Instead I used plastic stick-on hooks to move them to a more compact location, and will put the fuse panel relay next to them. The fuse panel itself, alas, has to go into the place I didn't want to put it -- the tray where the owner's manual is supposed to go. Oh well. I've strapped on a tractor owner's manual tube to the left-side Givi rack and will simply relocate the owner's manual to there. More on that project at Moto-Tux...
-- Badtux the Busy Penguin
Georgian troops abandon their posts, run screaming in terror for home.
Shades of the ARVN running screaming like little girls from the NVA...
What is it with U.S. "training" anyhow? It seems all the U.S. is able to do is train armies to run screaming like little girls whenever someone shoots in their direction. There was an action recently in Afghanistan against the Taliban where nine U.S. soldiers were killed and fifteen wounded that exemplifies that. There were approximately 200 Afghan soldiers and 40 American soldiers involved in this action. Not one -- ZERO -- of the Afghan soldiers were injured at the end of the day. You just know that the moment the first shot came their direction, they ran like the dickens the other way and didn't come back until the U.S. soldiers had saved the day.
U.S. training of foreign militaries seems to go like this, from what I can see:
-- Badtux the War Penguin
The "leader of the free world", Jenna, and Not-Jenna show the world how dignified a U.S. President can be as they watch the Olympics.
Note the scabbing on the Chimperors' right arm. Looks like Chimpy McBoozy's been hitting the bottle and falling down drunk again...
-- Badtux the More-dignified Penguin
(Probably the permanent formal wear, heh)
Uhm... no. You have free speech only if you speak in government-approved manner about government-approved topics. It is okay to diss a member of one branch of the Party, praise a member of another branch of the Party, or otherwise engage in speech that has absolutely no effect upon the profits or power of our ruling elite. Heck, you can even say that every member of our ruling elite should be strung up by the neck from the nearest oak tree and democracy brought to America, because our rulers know that if you say this, people will just laugh at you -- after all, centuries of propaganda have convinced most Americans that democracy already is in America.
This is a softer, gentler rule that we live in here, where our rulers do not feel the need to remind us every few hours that we are ruled, this is a rule where the iron fist is well disguised in a most plush velvet glove. But if your conduct ever truly rose to the point of threatening the profits or rule of the oligarchs who run our nation... well. You, too, would find a court order slapped into your hands prohibiting you from speaking. Or perhaps even, like Eugene Debs, slammed into a jail cell for the crime of disagreeing with the ruling elite. But as long as we are merely nattering here on the Internets rather than taking any real action to bring our rulers to justice and bring real democracy to America, why would our rulers bother? It's just a way for us to let off steam. It's not as if we threaten their rule doing this nattering. That would require us to, like, actually do something, rather than just natter along...
-- Badtux the Nattering Penguin
Okay, let's recap this:
In 1999, a province of a Russian ally, Serbia, decided to declare independence. In response, Serbia sent their troops into that province to reassert control. When bombing of Serbian troops by U.S. bombers did not result in Serbian troops leaving a Serbian province, the United States started attacking civilian targets within Serbia itself -- bridges, water treatment plants, and the occasional Chinese embassy. This forced Serbia to withdraw their troops from their province of Kosovo, and U.S. troops poured in as "peacekeepers" to take their place. During all of this, Russia was fussing big-time about Western meddling in the former Yugoslavia, saying that Kosovo was a Serbian internal matter and the West should just butt out. The United States ignored Russian objections. Kosovo recently declared independence and its independence is now recognized by the United States and most Western nations, but not by Serbia or Russia.
Okay, let's fast forward to 2008. In 2008, a province of a U.S. ally, the Republic of Georgia, had declared its independence some time back. Georgia sent its troops into the breakaway province of South Ossetia to reassert control over the breakaway province. Russia responded by sending its own troops into South Ossetia just as the U.S. sent its troops into Kosovo, and by bombing Georgia just as the U.S. bombed Serbia. And, just as Serbia had to do in Kosovo, Georgia apparently has now been forced to withdraw its troops from the breakaway province of South Ossetia. And just as the U.S. ignored Russian objections to the U.S. breaking away part of a Russian ally to turn it into an independent nation, Russia is ignoring U.S. objections to Russia breaking away part of a U.S. ally to make it into an independent nation.
It's payback time for Russia. They've played the Kosovo playbook, except in reverse. And it's unclear that there's anything to be done about it. The U.S. cannot seize the moral high ground here -- the Russians did not do anything in South Ossetia that the U.S. did not do in Kosovo. And just as Kosovo wasn't worth starting WWIII for Russia, South Ossetia is not worth starting WWIII for the United States. If this were a chess game, both sides just pushed their king's pawn forward by two spaces in reciprocal moves. Now we get to wait and see the next move in this geopolitical chess game... and oh, too bad about all those dead bodies, huh?
-- Badtux the Geopolitical Penguin
In a word: no. Yes, it's likely that lower echelons of the CIA and State Department were aware that Georgia intended to attack South Ossetia. But no, Bush didn't in any way give them "permission" to do so, and it is unlikely that his aides had any understanding of why the lower echelons were sending them this information about some place they'd never heard of. Saying that Bush somehow gave Georgia "permission" to invade South Ossetia ascribes far too much competence to George W. Bush and the people around him.
In the end, George W. Bush is a tool of ideologues who have as their goal the destruction of the United States Government, which they feel is too much an impairment to their ability to make profits off of the suffering of other people. He is not a Putin or even a Medvedev who controls the machinery of state, Bush doesn't control even what he has for breakfast. Anyhow, one of the side effects of this is that the competence of major arms of the U.S. government has been destroyed by driving out competent people and replacing them with incompetents who can then be used as an excuse to dismantle portions of the U.S. government. An example is the U.S. Secretary of State, who as National Security Advisor was warned that al Qaeda was about to strike inside the United States by hijacking airliners and, rather than issue a directive to the domestic law enforcement services to be on the lookout for al Qaeda operatives trying to hijack airliners, instead feebly asked the people at the meeting where she was warned to gather more information. As her reward for incompetence she was made Secretary of State. That is the sort of incompetent person that is appointed to positions in the U.S. government today. Even if the CIA advisors in Georgia noticed the preparations to invade Ossetia, there was literally nobody competent in the U.S. government that they could communicate that to, all the competent people have been fired or pushed out into retirement as part of the plan to destroy the U.S. government...
So in any event, the notion that the U.S. somehow "allowed" Georgia to do this does not pass the laugh test to those of us who have viewed with dismay the dismantling of major portions of the U.S. government over the past seven years. Most of the upper echelons of the U.S. government are no longer competent to walk and chew gum at the same time, much less evaluate urgent notices from CIA operatives overseas... and these people have nuclear weapons. That is scary. Very scary.
I notice that people outside the United States ascribe more competence to the U.S. government than it deserves. I suspect that this happened to the Georgians -- they got mixed signals from the morons at the U.S. State Department and decided that this was a deliberate action on the part of the U.S. government to say that the U.S. would back them if they took action without actually saying so. Sad for all the dead Georgians and Ossetians, this ascribing of competence to the U.S. government was utterly wrong. The U.S. government is a bunch of morons with nuclear weapons, and should be depended upon for nothing more than invading the wrong country (the only country in the Middle East that did *not* contribute to the WTC destruction) and sending aid to "democracies" that boil and skin alive their own people.
-- Badtux the Geopolitical Penguin
When Chinese passengers land at LAX (Los Angeles International), their luggage is searched and they endure a three-hour wait to get through Customs.
When American journalists land in Beijing, their luggage is searched and they endure a three-hour wait to get through Customs. Oh the horror!.
Silly untermenschen. Why, next thing you know they'll produce some document whose second paragraph starts with "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal ...", which clearly would be a Communist document and anti-American. Sheesh!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Missouri illegally denies people right to vote, arrests someone for the crime of trying to legally cast his ballot.
Just as a coincidence, I happen to have a photograph of the Missouri Elections Board in session:
Yippee, I just love how this country has just come soooo far since the 1950's when it comes to voting rights, yay!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
You are fond of saying that Obama espouses "socialist policies". Can you please point to me one of those socialist policies? Because I read Obama's web site, which has enough policy proposals on it to make a penguin's head spin, and all I found was centerist policy proposals based upon using the free market to solve problems (with a bit of a nudge from government in terms of tax breaks, incentives, etc.). Just in case you're fuzzy on the concept of socialism, socialism is the notion that government itself should directly provide employment, goods, and services -- tax breaks and incentives have nothing to do with socialism.
So can you point me to one web page on Obama's web site that espouses a socialist policy, i.e., that proposes government replacing private enterprise in providing employment, goods, and services? This penguin is willing to believe, but he's kinda a Missouri mule -- ya gotta show him the money or he don't believe ya. So -- got a link?
-- Badtux the Skeptical Penguin
I was recently assigned a new team of engineers, completely green, not familiar with the computer language of the application in question. After three weeks of tutoring, code reviews, etc, they just checked their first two modifications to the system into the source control system. Not minor ones either, these were major critical pieces of functionality needed for release.
I feel like a proud daddy who just saw his baby take her first steps...
-- Badtux the Managing Penguin
It was announced today that Darth Cheney will speak at the Republican National Convention. It is expected that Darth Cheney will remind Americans that voting for the Jedi Obi-wan Obama will result in terrorists swimming the Atlantic Ocean from Iraq, sneaking into their bedrooms in the middle of the night, and killing them all. The smell of brimstone is expected not to bother the assembled Republicans, given their propensity for raping young girls (and their mothers), having inappropriate relationships with teenage interns, accosting various strangers in gay gloryholes (but they aren't gay, no sirree!), and having sex with mules, box turtles, and the occasional basset hound.
However, the pathetic stench of flop sweat emitting from the Bush Administration may cause many Republicans to skip Darth Cheney's speech and instead catch it on their hotel room's television... after all, who wishes to be in the audience when someone whose popularity rating is only barely above that of genital herpes is speaking?
No word on whether Darth Cheney will bring his imperial storm troopers with him, or will simply use The Force to strangle anybody who does not appropriately clap and cheer upon prompt...
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
It's lumpy.
Of course, we all know why that is...
-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin
My subconscious is trying to tell me something. I got woken up several times by nightmares last night. The basic theme of all of them was, "evil is coming. Run and hide."
What exactly is tickling my subconscious, I have a bad feeling I'll find out in the coming weeks...
-- Badtux the Omen-scrying Penguin
Literally, in this case. Maru explains.
It's all about power. These Republicans are Republicans because they want power, they want dominion, they want to rule. They don't want to govern. They don't care about governing. They want only the ability to fuck anybody or anything they want in any way they want, without repercussion.
Missouri state Rep. Scott Muschany(R-Sickfuck) is the latest of the pervert Repubs to be arrested. He was indicted today in connection with a reported sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl on May 17, the day after this year's Legislative session ended.The alleged victim is the daughter of a state employee that Snotty was apparently romantically involved with -- despite being married. So let's get this straight. Scott "Family Values" Muschany was two-timing his wife by fucking his co-worker. AND he was two-timing his co-worker by... fucking his co-worker's 14 year old daughter? Sick sick sick sick SICK.
But I guess you can't expect better from a Republican...
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Chocolate cupcakes
I'm a bit hungry, so in honor of this cool t-shirt I went out on the Internets and found this generic recipe for chocolate cupcakes:
Combine all ingredients into large mixing bowl. Mix at low speed for 30 seconds, and scrape bowl. Mix at high speed for 3 minutes.
Fill liners 1/2 to 2/3 full of batter. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Cool 10 minutes in pans then remove from pan, and place on wire racks to cool completely.
Frost when chocolate cupcakes are completely cool.
Eat.
-- Badtux the Soon-to-be-more-rotund Penguin
Having stomach cramps and are afraid it's your appendix? It's 3am on a Saturday morning and your regular doctor isn't going to be available until next week? Well, head on down to the emergency room... but be prepared to wait. Because while the number of people in the United States has gone from 270,000,000 to 300,000,000 over the past ten years, the number of emergency rooms in America has declined from 4800 to 4500 over that same period of time -- and the number of hospital beds has declined also, from 1,465,828 in 1975, to 1,213,327 in 1990, to 946,997 in 2005. So people back up in the fewer emergency rooms waiting for an open bed in one of the fewer beds available in the medical system.
As Anne Zieger points out, where healthcare is concerned, supply and demand apparently just don't work the way they do in other industries. If demand is going up because a shortage of primary care doctors is leading to even insured people going to emergency rooms for primary care, you would expect there to be an explosion in the number of emergency rooms, not a decline. Supply should increase to match the demand, right? Right?
Except that it doesn't work like that in real life as vs. Republican masturbatory delusions. The reason it doesn't work like that is because of two things: a) health care eats up 15% of the U.S. GDP and sick people don't make 15% of U.S. GDP, meaning that sick people are not capable of paying the full cost of their care, meaning that hospitals can't get emergency room costs reimbursed by the people using their emergency rooms because you just can't squeeze 15% of the U.S. GDP out of people who don't make 15% of the U.S. GDP, and b) insurance companies are refusing to pay for the care that they contracted to pay for, and government isn't making them pay. So emergency rooms, which should be a profit center for hospitals, are instead a massive drain on their financial resources. So no more emergency rooms get built. Not because of lack of demand. Not because of lack of money -- health insurance compannies are making record profits. But because health insurers are refusing to live up to their contractual obligations, and the U.S. government is letting them do so.
Add in the 18% of emergency room visits by the uninsured, and you have a health care crisis. And it's a health care crisis that's 100% predictable. Health insurers have a financial motivation to not pay out claims, so unless there's government intervention to force them to pay out claims, they don't pay. At one time they wouldn't have dared, because from 1968 to 1980 or so they were under warning that if they refused to live up to their obligations, the Medicare system created by LBJ for old farts would be extended to everybody (i.e., Medicare For All) and put them out of business. But nowdays they seem to believe they can simply refuse to live up to their contractual obligations and get away with it. Hmm, I wonder why that is? (Hint: Follow the money... straight into Congress's pockets).
Regarding the current Presidential race: Neither candidate has a plan that will do anything about the continuing collapse of the U.S. health care system, a system that was the best in the world in 1975 but now can only barely provide minimal care for most people under the best of conditions (i.e., no plagues or epidemics) and which would totally collapse if stressed by any major disease outbreak. John McCain continues to utter nonsense about the "magic of the marketplace" despite the fact that the marketplace has utterly failed to provide sufficient emergency rooms and hospital beds to meet the nation's needs, and Barack Obama's plan privatizes the profits of health insurers while socializing the costs (by having government take on the expenses of being reinsurer for people who use more than X$ of services due to need for expensive surgeries or cancer treatments or etc.) while doing nothing to force insurers to live up to their contractual obligations. Both candidates get an "F" from this health care penguin for their health care plans. But McCain gets an "F-", and I'll talk about that one later...
-- Badtux the Health Care Penguin
You might remember that I bought a stationary bicycle for $50 off of Craigslist (and laughed at the people who paid $350 for it new). Last night I did 45 minutes on it. Still haven't lost my penguin rotundity (sigh!), but at least my resting pulse is down to 70 and my blood pressure is at least 10 below "number to be concerned about" on both systolic and diastolic measures. So in that regard, I've gotten my $50 worth. Now to lay off the herring and jalapeno pizzas, sigh...
I've been alternating riding the KLR and the Nightstrom to work, but will soon take the Nightstrom apart to do the electrical modifications to it. More on that shortly at Moto-Tux. Once I have everything done to the Nightstrom, then it'll be the KLR's turn to get torn down, except in the KLR's case I have some more invasive things to do to it, I want to strip it down to be basically a dirt bike with lights now that I have another bike to serve as my primary commuter and long distance tourer. For example, that big ole' ugly fairing on the KLR has to go...
Pretty soon we're all going to be owned by the Chinese. I work with several teams of Chinese engineers. Don't let anybody tell you that these guys aren't smart or creative. They are. They're green, they don't have the experience, and they have a hard time understanding the context of what you're trying to do (they're geeks, they love technology, they love gee-whiz things, they love exposing all sorts of bells and whistles, they have trouble putting themselves in the heads of customers who aren't geeks who just want to get a job done in the simplest easiest way possible), but that differentiates them from any engineer with less than five years experience... how? Get some experience under their belts, and I can tell you where the new center of world innovation is going to be, and it ain't going to be in the San Francisco Bay Area.
So I spin along, and next up, a posting on the U.S. health care crisis and the collapse of the U.S. hospital and emergency room system...
-- Badtux the Spinning Penguin
Give a man a fish, and he's fed for a day. Teach a man to fish and give him a fishing pole, and he's fed for life. Steal his fishing pole and then whine that he isn't feeding himself, you're just an asshole -- or a Republican, same difference.
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Yesterday I posted a YouTube link to a typical tiny-waif-with-big-guitar-and-single-name of a type that afflicts far too many hip coffee shops thinking they're writing songs that are just so precious and true but actually just recycling all the tropes of every other tiny-waif-with-big-guitar-and-single-name that has ever existed. Don't get me wrong, I dig these types, I mean, I am male, but I don't take them too serious. Which of course drives them insane, but... shrug. Maybe after they grow up. Anybody seen "Jewel" lately?
Anyhow, here is someone who is not a tiny waif with a big acoustic guitar and a single name singing oh-so-precious songs:
Beth Orton, live, playing Stolen Car. (Embedded object fixed, sorry!)
-- Badtux the Music Penguin
Governor Schwartzenfuhrer proposes 1% sales tax hike that will fall predominantly on the poor and elderly. The poor and elderly are already buying the minimum needed to survive, and state services to the poor and elderly have already been cut to the point that many are homeless and dying due to lack of medical care (because Medi-Cal disbursements have been cut to the point where no doctors or hospitals will accept Medi-Cal). Having 1% of their income suddenly taken away from them will result in even more misery. Meanwhile, a 0.5% hike in the state income tax would raise just as much money, while not affecting the poor and elderly (who don't pay state income tax), but apparently is off the board because, well, the poor and elderly didn't vote for the Schwartzenfuhrer so he prefers to stick it to them instead.
That's a "compassionate conservative" for ya, though. Never passing by another opportunity to stick it to the poor and elderly if it avoids having to raise taxes on his own peeps, even if it's a trivial and temporary and most importantly, DEDUCTIBLE ON THE FEDERAL INCOME TAX tax hike like the 0.5% hike in the state income tax mentioned above. The poor don't make enough money to pay federal income tax, so even if they did take advantage of the new sales tax deduction, it doesn't get them anything... but hey, we gotta punish them for being poor, we gotta steal not only their bootstraps but their boots, and then whine that they aren't pulling themselves up by their bootstraps when we fucking *stole* their bootstraps by cutting schools to the bone so they can't get an education, depriving them of health care so they're too sick to work, and so forth. Whatta deal!
Teach a man to fish, and he's fed for life. Steal his fishing pole and then whine that he is a lazy slacker who doesn't feed himself, and you're just an asshole. Just sayin'.
-- Badtux the ain't-an-asshole Penguin
So this is a warning to any taxi driver who picks up a fare. Make sure it's not Henry Kissinger, George W. Bush, or any other war criminal, or you, too, just like Salim Ahmed Hamdan, could be found guilty of driving a war criminal around.
I mean, c'mon. This is it? This is all they got? 7 years, 700 billion dollars, and all we got is a fucking taxi driver? What next? They kidnap and put on trial Osama's barber? Jesus fucking Christ, if this is the extent of America's "war on terror", prosecuting a goddamned TAXI DRIVER for picking up the wrong fare, we're in a helluva goddamned fix, doncha think?!
- Badtux the Taxi-ridin' Penguin
Obama wants to "surge" troops to Afghanistan by withdrawing from Iraq. I just have one question: What the hell are we doing there in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban? The Taliban haven't attacked us. They never will. We ought to be ignoring the Taliban. Instead, we're fighting them as mercenaries on behalf of an Afghan central government that we devised and installed which apparently is incompetent to control its own territory and its own people.
In the end, we had no business trying to build an Afghan state in the first place. Our goal in Afghanistan should have been to catch Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda freaks, the guys who attacked us on 9/11 remember, and then leave. That's our only strategic interest in Afghanistan. Otherwise the place is an armpit, and all we do by staying there is breed enemies. The Taliban never attacked us and as a native Pashtun nationalist movement never will, we have no national interests involved fighting them, and I am still appalled that anybody thinks we have any business dealing with the Taliban in any way other than to make them a deal, "you give us bin Laden and his Arabs, we stop killing you and leave your country." Which is what they want, in the end -- us to leave their country. No more, no less. And bin Laden and his Arabs, remember, are the folks who attacked us on 9/11/2001 -- *not* the Taliban.
And if Obama wants to continue the current failed policies in Afghanistan, I will oppose those policies just as much as I oppose the failed policies of Dear Leader and Dear Leader's Buddy (John McInsane)... in my opinion, Obama has things half-right. Which is better than all-wrong (which is where Dear Leader and Dear Leader's Buddy are), but he deserves to have his feet held to the grindstone on this, and I have no compunctions about doing so.
-- Badtux the Geopolitical Penguin
Oops!. Prince Georges County (Maryland) cops had no warrant to break in the door of Mayor Cheye Calvo of Berwyn Heights, MD, all they had was a standard search warrant that requires the cops to "knock and announce". A PGC police officer also purjured himself to the judge by claiming he gave the mayor a copy of such a search warrant at the time of the search. In actuality, a police officer brought the warrant to the mayor's lawyer several days after the raid.
So let's summarize:
The sad thing is that most folks in the area don't care that the PGC cops are serving as judge, jury, and executioner -- they *want* to live in a dictatorship where the police can invade any home they feel like invading and kill anybody or anything they feel like killing regardless of whether they've been convicted of a crime or not. Democracy does not seem to be much loved in today's America, sad to say. The whole Constitution thing, with its separation of powers that says you're innocent until found guilty by a jury of your peers (or by a judge if you forgo the jury), apparently is viewed by the average American today as just a piece of fancy toilet paper, sorta like how Sheriff Joke (Joe Arpaio) gets re-elected every time in Maricopa County AZ despite having killed dozens of people in his jail who have never been convicted of any crime. But the average American apparently thinks that whole "fair trial" thingy is just a quaint tradition that is irrelevant today. Sad. Just sad. Our founding fathers gave us a Republic, and we're pissing it away because, apparently, democracy is just too much hassle for the average American today.
-- Badtux the Disgusted Penguin
Especially if you're a wrinkly old white-haired dude, because she will bitch-slap you big-time. Word of warning. I laughed so hard when I watched this video that I started coughing and now my chest hurts. You have been warned.
Score: Paris Hilton 1, John McCain 0. Don't mess with the celebs, Johnny McNasty. Especially when they're richer than your blond bimbo wife will ever be. Their rich parents don't like it, and they know how to make you look like a total jerkoff, big time. Got it?
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Three cops in Boulder, Colorado were so terrified by a man rolling around naked in the grass that they fired at him three times with tasers. Apparently Christopher Dornfield's, err, weapon, made them feel small. Now, my suggestion to those cops would be that, if they feel small, they should try some Viagra. But what can I say. I'm sure they were terrified, terrified I say, that Mr. Dornfield was going to use his Weapon of Mass Engorgement to, err, gay rape them or somethin'?
No no, I'm sure they had no alternative but to use a high tech version of every torturer's favorite weapon, the cattle prod, in order to diffuse the mere possibility of Mr. Dornfield aiming his massive Weapon of Mass Engorgement at them. It's just a matter of officer safety. I mean, what, you think they issue police officers with jumbo-sized condoms nowdays? Why, if they hadn't tasered Mr. Dornfield, he might have aimed his massive Weapon at them and... and... EWWWW!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
The Center for Strategic and International Studies says that Americans could save around 800,000 barrels of oil per day by doing the things that Obama mentioned that individual Americans could do to help the oil situation -- inflate their tires, tune up their engines, change their air filters. The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030.
In short, Obama was right that opening the coasts of Florida and California to drilling doesn't produce enough oil to drill us out of the hole, and while he has now said he's not opposed to doing this drilling as part of a larger energy solution, he is correct to state that we cannot drill our way out of this oil crisis. The United States uses 20 million barrels per day of oil, of which 70% is imported, so that makes it pretty much obvious that 200,000 barrels of oil are not going to solve the U.S. oil addiction problem without some serious conservation measures -- the simplest of which is the one that Obama suggested.
You don't have to ask me, just ask any mechanic. Or NASCAR. But I forget, that can't be true, because these are liberals, and anything a liberal says is by definition a lie. If, for example, a liberal said that the sky is blue, that's when we'd all know that it's actually purple, because by definition a liberal is a liar. Haven't you learned anything by listening to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity?! Yeppers, those liberals like those anti-American NASCAR fellers or George H.W. Bush (thanks Rook!) is just lyin' to us about tire pressure, yessiree!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
That's the suspicion aroused by this photograph. If so, that's disconcerting in more ways than one. Blackwater mercenaries are accountable only to their owner, Erik Prince, who makes Dick Cheney look personable and sane. Placing heavily-armed mercenaries accountable only to the far right in positions where they can use said weapons in pursuit of an agenda that has nothing to do with America or Americans and everything to do with pure, unbridled power... that would be alarming indeed.
So is this just a case of a rogue DEA agent wearing a Blackwater shirt instead of his official DEA shirt? Or something more ominous? Curious penguins don't want to know, but can't keep from asking the question anyhow :-(.
-- Badtux the Querulous Penguin
Be sure to stay around for the ending of this video. It's... horrible! meep!
-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin
When you go to feed your cat, when you are standing by the kitchen cabinet where the cat food is stored and you pull out the bag of cat food, is one or or more cats going in circles around one of your legs?
If I look down as I pull out the bag and measure out the food, I get dizzy. Around and around and around...
For me, it's The Mighty Fang that does the circle duty. The boy does like his chow. Probably why he's an 18 pounder, heh.
-- Badtux the Dizzy Penguin
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." -- H.L. Mencken
I have a deal for ALF animal rights activists: since you care so much about those little bunnies and mice and rats being used in cancer research, obviously much more than you care about the thousands of human beings dieing in agony right now from incurable cancers, here's my deal for you: Take their place. I mean, you already say that mice and rats are more valuable than human beings, so that's not a big sacrifice, is it?
C'mon. Let's treat you guys with these cancer drugs and make sure you don't die from them, and then we won't have to experiment with them on the rats and mice that you guys obviously care so much about that you're willing to fire-bomb the homes and cars of cancer researchers. And if we can figure out some way to give you cancer too, so we can see whether these drugs actually work, more the better! Bummer if the drugs don't work, but hey, you already said that a rat's life is worth more than your own life, so it's no big deal, right? Right? Right?!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
The Boston Globe reports on yet another victim of Dear Leader's War on Brown People. This young boy was victimized not once, but twice. First he was paralyzed by American bullets that killed his entire family. Then, two years later, he was killed by a car bomb allowed by the chaos that occurs when you try to occupy a country with less than 1/3rd the forces needed to create order in a country.
His name was Rakan Hassan, and he is dead. Mishun Acomplished, Dear Leader. But of course nobody in America cares in anything other than an intellectual way, because he's not one of God's chosen people, the only real people, Americans. He was just an untermenschen, a darkie, a wog, a raghead, a haji, a sand nigger, not a real human being like you and me (well, I'm a penguin, but you get the point, right?).
-- Badtux the Saddened Penguin
A crotchety old man who hated democracy and wanted to restore the Russian monarchy has died. And oh yeah, he also won a Nobel prize for literature for his works about the Soviet gulag.
Now that the American Gulag is worldwide, with dozens of CIA "black sites" as well as more open outposts in places like Baghran AFB in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay Naval Bse in Cuba as well as thousands upon thousands of county lockups that are twice the size they need to be thanks to generous grants by our federal government to create a "stealth gulag" that is in almost every county of the nation, it might be a good idea to re-read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's works. At the very least, they might serve you well as a survival guide for how to survive in the new Soviet America that is rising from the ashes of the American Republic. Just don't call the man who wrote these works a "fighter for freedom", because he wasn't. He simply hated the Communists, and he had no love for freedom or democracy because he felt the average person was simply too stupid to take advantage of freedom or democracy. So it goes.
-- Badtux the Sovok Penguin
Woman says cat saved her from fire
Wow, that's some smart cat, you say to yourself when you see that email in your inbox. Alas, when you click it open, all you see is a typical male penile enhancement advertisement.
-- Badtux the Spammed Penguin
This was before any questions were asked so apparently Johnny Mac just didn't like the way that reporter looked. Apparently Johnny Mac is trying to up his credentials with the KKK crowd for being "tough on niggers".
-- Badtux the "Can we call it racism yet?" Penguin
Even the 12 year old girl ones. A 12-year old girl in New York City, Grace Bergere, survived a 180 foot fall down a chimney and escaped with only a broken hip. When not taking swan dives down chimneys, she is the drummer in a band called "Fluffy Skulls". Clearly, she landed on her head, a drummer's densest part. Ba da boom! (Yeah, you know how us guitar players love ribbing drummers about their thick skulls, heh!).
-- Badtux the Well-wishing Penguin
Q: What's the difference between a politician and a prostitute?
A: You get fucked either way, but with a prostitute you (usually) enjoy it.
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Did you know that Obama is Hitler? I didn't, not until I accidentally clicked on a blog run by right-wing kool-aid drinkers. "Obama holds rallies just like Hitler!" one of them said. "Obama brownshirts!" "Thank god they don't have guns." "They will!"
Jesus fucking christ, projection, anybody? This was a blog that had the word "guns" in the goddamned title, where those stupid-ass motherfuckers were circle-jerking each other while stroking their guns ("is that a pistol in your pocket, or are you happy to see me?" -- both, for these assholes), where past posts expressed a desire to attack "liberals" physically, and they are talking about armed *OBAMA* "brownshirt" supporters?! Talk about a lack of self-awareness!
For what it's worth: Hitler talked about exterminating Jews in Mein Kampf which was published in *1925*, seven years before he took power. Hitler formed his armed "brownshirt" SA in 1920, TWELVE YEARS before he took power. When Hitler took power, he had a clear record of saying that he was going to do *exactly* what he did -- re-militarize Germany, seize the property of Jews and get rid of Jews, and head off and re-conquer the lost German provinces in Poland, France, Czechoslovakia, and then merge with Austria to form "Greater Germany". At the time that he was elected, *EVERYBODY* knew that he was a militaristic Jew-hater with his own paramilitary that beat up and killed opponents. And the Germans elected him anyhow.
Now, can anybody show me ONE EXAMPLE of Obama expressing hatred of *ANYBODY*? Can anybody show me ONE EXAMPLE of Obama stating that the U.S. needs to go off and conquer *ANYBODY*? Can anybody show one ONE EXAMPLE of Obama leading an armed militia of "brownshirts" that beat up opponents of Obama? No? That's right. Obama has expressed *NONE* of the sentiments that Adolph Hitler expressed, and has *never* had an armed militia that beat up his opponents. Case closed. Comparing Obama to Hitler can only be done if you're the stupidest goddamned shit for brains on the whole goddamned motherfucking *PLANET*. If you compare Obama to Hitler you don't got the brains that God gave to my stupid-ass goddamned CAT, and you deserve nothing more than for those of us with more brains than a rutabaga to point and laugh at your ignorant stupid ass self. 'Nuff said!
-- Badtux the Rude Penguin
The Mighty Fang demonstrates one way to make sure your nose is clean. It does, alas, require a long prehensile Pink Tongue Of Mass Grooming to make it work...
-- Badtux the Cat-owned Penguin
I'm almost disappointed, all the best liberal blogs are being locked out by Blogger.com yet my own little penguin nest on the Internet is still posting fine. Maybe they just like all the penguin droppings littering the place, sob!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
"The latest bit of snarling, mean-spirited nonsense to come out of the McCain camp was the accusation, leveled by campaign manager Rick Davis, that Obama had 'played the race card.' He did so, apparently, by being black. " -- Eugene Washington, Washington Post.
Oooh. This penguin does so appreciate snark.
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Some damned fools have stated that the right-wing whackaloon Jim Adkisson who shot up Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville would not have been able to fire off all three shells in his shotgun if someone in the congregation had been armed. My response to that is: Bullshit. No, let me restate that: Bull Fucking Shit.
It was a semi-automatic shotgun. You pull the trigger three times. It fires three times. There was no way -- *NO* way -- that anybody would have had the ability to pull out a weapon, acquire this whackaloon as a target, and take him out before he managed to get his three shots off -- and remember, THERE WERE CHILDREN IN THE BACKGROUND so if you missed, you had a chance of killing a child.
Furthermore, we're talking UNITARIANS, people. Unitarians are like Quakers. They don't believe in killing people or in violence. They *do* believe in putting their own lives on the line to protect others. That is why this whackaloon did not get a chance to reload and fire off three more shots -- rather than running away, the men in the congregation ran *toward* him to distract him from shooting at children, and gang-tackled him (in a loving way, I'm sure, them being Unitarians and all). A Unitarian simply is not the kind of person who a) carries, and b) uses a handgun for any purpose other than perhaps varmint hunting on his farm. The folks who go around heavily armed are called "Baptists". Duh.
In other words, someone in the congregation with a handgun would be both a) unlikely because it's against their religion, and b) wouldn't have made any difference because by the time anybody could have cleared their weapon and gotten a firing angle where they didn't risk killing children in the background if they missed, this guy was already tackled by the men of the congregation. What made a difference here and prevented more people from dying was the brave men of the congregation who, rather than flee like little girl-men (or Republicans), protected their wives and children by rushing this asshole and tackling him. Folks who want to use this tragedy to make any statement about guns -- pro or con -- can just go fuck themselves.
-- Badtux the Rude Penguin
Scientist about to be charged with terror attack "commits suicide".
Funny how that always seems to happen in these cases.
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
