Operation Yellow Elephant: Las Vegas

The new front in Operation Yellow Elephant is the Young Republicans National Convention, July 6-10 2005, Mandalay Bay Las Vegas NV.

The perfect op would be to put on your old military uniform (for you vets out there), and, holding a pile of enlistment forms, cruise for yellow elephants, and watch the yellow elephants run screaming for cover! For after all, like their Glorious Leader, they know that military service is for people who are, like, poor, or dark, or otherwise not REAL people who by definition are only rich white brat kids like themselves. Fighting is, like, so declasse', like cleaning toilets. They hire people for that sort of thing.

Meanwhile, our brave General J.C. Christian, Patriot, has the perfect bingo card for your next game down at the VFW! Read all about it.

When I walked up to the recruiting station so many years ago, I knew Ronald Raygun was a senile nutball who could get us all vaporized at any time. I knew that the chances of the military wanting a flat-footed penguin were close to nil. But dammit, at least I showed up and signed on the dotted line before the medical people said "Sorry, we don't want you." Not all birds is tha same, y'know. Some birds actually have, like, courage. Unlike Generation Yellow Chickenhawk Elephant, which I'm sure are absolutely terrorizing those aweful terrorists in Iraq that they are always blathering about. I mean, look, what AK47-armed terrorist could ever stand up to their mighty superpowers of fatuous oration?! If they just spout enough hot air, why, I bet all those terrorists will just curl up and die from sheer embarassment at being called a poopy-head doo-doo brain by Generation Yellow Elephant!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

The Bugman makes sense (for a change)

Our favorite pesticide-addled exterminator, Tom Delay, and the rest of the Republican indulgers in beastiality, e.g. John "Box Turtle" Cornyn and Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum, have finally done something that makese sense: They are going to prohibit federal money from being used to take away people's property in order to give it to private developers.

This is all politics, of course. After leading the biggest growth in the size and scope of government since FDR, the Republican Party can hardly claim to be the party of "small government" and "get the government off of people's backs" anymore. Indeed, they seem to be more the party of "take from the poor and give to the rich via government contracts" nowdays, sorta a reverse Robin Hood. And the practical effect of this ban will be virtually nil. The real grunt work is going to have to be done at the state level, adding amendments to state constitutions to prohibit states from taking from the poor in order to give to the rich (the victims of these sort of "redevelopment" projects tend to be poor homeowners, who are given a pittance for their humble homes and then thrown out on the streets). But still, it is the sort of rhetoric that once was common for Republicans, back before they were the party of Big Government. And it's the sort of rhetoric we need to hear more often -- our government needs to be concerned about *our* rights, not about the rights of Halliburton stockholders or Iraqis.

-- Badtux the Libertarian Penguin

Our Dear Leader loves our troops

After all, he is always showing up in front of our troops wearing a giant codpiece and uniform, showing us all exactly how manly a man he is. Our dear leader obviously loves our troops. Sincerely. At least, his codpiece says he's happy to see them.

Well, at least he loves our troops as long as they're not combat veterans. As of February, VA officials reported, 85,857 of the 360,674 veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq who had separated from active duty — 24% — had sought healthcare from the VA. This included treatment for both physical injuries and mental health problems.

Yet Bush's budget proposal for the VA was far, far below what everybody acknowledges is necessary to care for all the newly-disabled veterans that Bush's dirty little war in Iraq is creating. Thus Congress had to come in and basically back-fill with enough money to give our veterans the medical services they have earned by doing their duty to our nation. As hard as it is to believe, invading random nations, killing their citizens, and standing on the smoking ruins is their duty to our nation -- the Constitution states that they must obey their Commander in Chief, the President of the United States, and President Bush was elected by 3/4ths of the voting age pouplation -- by 1/2 of the people who voted, and by the remainder who were so satisfied with Bush that they didn't bother voting. It's a tough job, but it's one we told them to do, either via our sins of commission or omission, and they damn well deserve the best medical care that America can offer once fulfill their duty.

So the question I have is this: Why does Bush only love our soldiers when he is staring at their dinguses, and hate them all the rest of the time, not giving them the armor and equipment they need, shorting them on medical care, etc.? Curious penguins want to know: Is our Dear Leader yet another victim of that dastardly supervillain, The Gay Agenda, and his evil superweapon the Gay Raygun of Gayness?!

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

The evils of penguin porn

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

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

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

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

-- Badtux the Pornography Penguin

Bush's PR event

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

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

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Tomorrow's headlines

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

-- Badtux the Alarmed Penguin

Hat tip to the incomparable Tilde...

Safer than the L.A. freeways

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

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

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

Nor do I recall seeing scenes like this:

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

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

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

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Operation Yellow Elephant continues

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

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Are there call centers in Hell?

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

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

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

The Party's war on education

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

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

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

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

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

- Badtux the Orwellian Penguin

Thugs and crooks

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

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

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

So, we're all doomed?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- Badtux the Sociologist Penguin

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- Badtux the Sleepless Penguin

Downtown Houston

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

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

- Badtux the Curious Penguin

Bolsheviks vs. Busheviks

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Badtux the Patriotic Non-Bushevik American Penguin

Democrats line up to apologize

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

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

-- Badtux the News Penguin

Thursday Penguin Porn Blogging

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

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

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

PS: there is no conspiracy.

Blogger bloggered

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

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

- Badtux the HTML Penguin

Yet another day in the War on Fun(tm)

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

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

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

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

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

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Honoring war dead is now a crime

It's official.