Hindus worship elves

They also have celebrations where they roll in cow dung and urine. I know it because government-approved school materials tell me so and my government would never lie to me. Other things that I know because my government, which is always right and never lies to me, tells me: the dots on Hindus' foreheads is a caste mark, rather than simply signifying that they are Hindu (and, for women, marital status). Columbus started off from Portugal. Elephant vocal sounds occur at about 400 Hz and can't be heard by humans. And Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And no torture occurs in U.S. prison camps. I know this because my government never lies to me.

I am thankful to my government for removing from me that nasty need to "think" and filling my head with only the best of information. Because my government wants only the best for me, I am sure that this is all for the good of the nation. Thanks be to our Lord and Savior, George W. Bush, and His holy administration! My life has been so much better since I accepted George W. Bush as my personal Lord and Savior and let Him into my heart! I've had my sins washed away in the Blood of the Lamb who died in His place in Vietnam, and have been saved, saved I say! Oh, it just feels SO good to not have to hurt my head with that "thinking" stuff anymore. Now I can join my fellow true believers on Free Republic and never have to think again, glory hallaleujah, AMEN!

-- Badtux the Newly-Converted Freeper Penguin

My addiction

My name is Badtux, and I am an addict.

My addiction is not to drugs, or alcohol, or food, or gambling, or anything else you may be thinking of. No, my addiction is far more expensive: I am addicted to new cars.

Here is what I have owned over the past ten years:

• 1995 Ford Ranger
• 1996 Ford Aspire
• 2000 Subaru Forester
• 2003 Chevrolet S-10

The Ranger flipped and was totalled when the swing-arm "Twin I-Beam" suspension tucked in while trying to avoid a deer. I lived on a farm at the time and needed a truck, so I bought a really rough farm truck, and then bought the Aspire for the 110-mile daily commute. The Aspire, alas, merely aspired to be a real car (although I must admit that the 35+mpg would sure be nice today!), being horrendously slow, rough-riding, noisy, and cramped, with a top speed of maybe 50mph on Western grades even if you downshifted to 4th gear and floored it. When I got a big bonus for delivering a program on-time (not to mention that by this time I was no longer commuting 110 miles a day, and was making considerably more money), I looked at what was available, looked at what my next move might be (i.e., to Colorado snow country), and bought the Forester. The Forester, alas, proved to be expensive and fragile, albeit it was a technological marvel and drove like a dream. When I bought an older house and started renovating it, I needed a truck again to haul construction materials and tow construction equipment. I bought the S-10 because of the small trucks available, it had the most towing capacity (other than the Dodge Dakota V-8, which had a large-truck price), the largest bed capacity, the lowest overall height (important for handling stability), and the most powerful V-6 engine, as well as being the cheapest.

I sold the house because I had to move due to my job, so I don't use the truck as a truck anymore. In fact, it mostly just sits under its shed, looking sad, because it sucks gas like a warblogger inhales Twinkies, and I mostly drive my motorcycle instead. Not to mention that it has a 122-inch wheelbase and is 18 feet long (barely fits in a standard garage) and thus is horrendously difficult to park in a big city.

Recently my mother and stepfather came to visit, with her 1995 Honda Civic with 150,000 miles on it. Since my truck obviously isn't up to hauling three people around, I hauled her around in the Civic. Even with 150,000 miles, the thing handled so crisply and accelerated and shifted with such verve that my truck felt like a friggin' 18-wheeler by comparison. Oh sure, if I wanted to tow a 5,000 pound trailer, pull a stump out of the ground, haul a load of cinder blocks, or otherwise do truck things, the S-10 is a wonderful truck. It has a fun factor, however, of approximately zero, and just isn't practical in the city. Especially in a city where the price of unleaded still averages over $2.50 per gallon and the thing sucks it down at 14 miles per gallon.

The only good news is that because all the truck does is sit, it doesn't have many miles on it and is in very good condition and thus if I sell or trade it in, I can get a good price for it, enough to pay it off. But the next rainy season starts in three months, then I have to drive the thing again (while I have good rain gear, I really prefer *not* to ride my motorcycle in the rain).

Thus my addiction. What car should I look for next? Requirements: Has to be fun yet practical. Has to be able to haul me and a female friend and a lot of camping gear on graded gravel roads (no off-road stuff, but traction is useful here). Has to get decent gas mileage (20+ in the city). Prefer it to be roomy enough to carry a fair amount of stuff, at least as roomy as my old Forester was. Prefer a station-wagon or SUV-like shape with a hatchback since that's most practical. Prefer it to be under $20K.

What I've ruled out: Mini Cooper. Too low-slung. Really, really fun, but not the ideal car for blitzing down gravel roads. Toyota Prius. Aside from the waiting list, it can't be fitted with a tow hitch, and while my Trailer In A Bag and motorcycle add up to a whoppin' 500 pounds and thus can be towed by pretty much anything, you gotta have a tow hitch to do it!

What I've not ruled out: Seeing how my mother's Honda behaves with 150,000 miles makes me yearn for a Honda. However, I'm not enamored of Honda's styling, which is bland and, well, corporate. Plus their prices have become quite unreasonable. The Honda Element is non-bland and reasonably priced, though, so that's a strong possibility.

Toyota RAV-4: Blank, bland, bland. Bleh. But drives well.

Used 4-cylinder convertible Geo Tracker or Suzuki Sidekick. Not very practical -- slow, convertible top loud in the wind, etc. -- but really fun, and so tiny that they can park anywhere in the city that a car can park and some places you'd swear a car could NOT park. Too bad they're not sold new anymore.

Any other suggestions for what a penguin with special needs should be driving? Or should I just buck it up and keep feeding fuel to the S-10?

-- Badtux the Addicted Penguin

In memory

Today is a day for remembering those who have died in defense of their country.

But there is another group of men and, now, women, that we should remember on this day. This group of men and women is growing every day now. I am talking about, of course, the many American soldiers who have died not to protect us, but to feed the egos of small and evil men.

I find it hard to believe in God, for these soldiers are dead, while the slime who threw away their lives for the most petty of reasons are still alive or, if dead, died peaceably of old age. If there were a just God, LBJ would have been struck down by lightning the day he walked onto the television stage and lied America into a war we had no business fighting, and George W. Bush would have been turned into a pile of steaming ashes somewhere in 1968 when he used his father's political connections to dodge the draft by taking the National Guard slot of the man who died in his place in Vietnam. But George W. Bush will die in his sleep as an old man, as did LBJ. TANJ, indeed...

If the God that the President talks to endorses what Bush has done, that is not a God that I wish to worship. I prefer the Great Penguin if that's true. At least the Great Penguin merely demands that his subjects sacrifice herring to His holy rotundness and embrace their Inner Penguin, rather than requiring the blood of brave American boys and girls as the sacrifice to His holy eminence.

-- Badtux the Remembering Penguin

Go make Michelle Malkin cry

Buy Dave Neiwert's new book, entitled Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community, which details how a community of Japanese-Americans was rounded up, shipped off, and their land stolen and all attempts to reclaim the land rebuffed by racist whites after the war was over.

Let's all buy it and make Michelle Malkin cry. And read the rest of Neiwert's books and his blog too. He details some dark, dark corners of the American psyche with an ace investigative reporter's eye and a historian's attention to detail. His stuff is well sourced, accurate, and 100% better than the nonsensical stuff coming out of the right-wing noise machine.

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Hat tip to Archie the Blogging Cockroach for the news that Neiwert's new book finally hit the presses.

Playing in the Penguin Lair...

• Pearl Jam's cover of Bob Dylon's Masters of War
• When the President Talks to God by Conor Oberst ("Bright Eyes")
• Your Flag Decal Won't Get You into Heaven Anymore by John Prine
• Deportees by Woodie Guthrie (as sung by his son, Arlo)
• The Hand That Feeds, by Nine Inch Nails

Predictions that come true: H.L. Mencken wrote this sometime in the 1920's, I believe:

"The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre -- the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

"The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

So it is. So it is.

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

The Corndog Cometh

Somehow, from some other blog, I managed to open the NRO page in a new window. I was not finished reading the other blog, so clicked the other blog's window to bring it back on top and kept reading. When finished, I closed that window... and wondered, "Why am I looking at the National Review Online's page?" After spending several minutes scanning several of the articles looking for the one that the blog I came from must have linked to, I realized: "Hold it, this isn't the National Review Online, this is a PARODY of the National Review Online!"

I guess that just goes to show that parodying the National Review Online is a redundant task. I mean, how could you tell the difference between the parody and the real thing, anyhow?

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

That's one hot burger!

The Puritan Television Council is outraged. In the new commercial for Carl's Jr.'s new hamburger, the Million Dollar Spicy BBQ Burger, PTC's spokesman, Mrs. Melissa Coldwell, frigidly complains that the burger appears to be NAKED on the television screen. "This is soft-core porn!" she vehemently exclaims, especially noting the burger's vicinity to a sexy-looking naked car being soaped down on the television screen, and the fact that the burger is being bitten like a sex kitten being attacked by porn star Dirk Dagger.

A Carl's Jr. spokesperson contacted by this reporter seemed blase' about the accusations. "Sure, the burger is hot and sexy. So? That's what our young studly male customers want -- a hot sexy burger to nibble on and relish!"

Upon being informed that Carl's Jr. had no plans of backing down, Mrs. Coldwell, after a session of sputtering and gasping for breath at the affrontery of anybody refusing to back down to the Puritan Television Council, said that her next step would be to mobilize the forces of her million-plus brown-shirt-clad members to lobby the FCC to ban the commercials. "We must protect our children from these sexy hamburgers!" she exclaimed, hyperventilating and occasionally puffing on an inhaler. "Even if it takes jack-booted goons with guns to do it, nothing is more important than protecting our children from anything that might offend their innocent eyes!"

This reporter interviewed an 11 year old and asked him what sex was. "Well, a boy and a girl, they lie down. And the boy sticks his dingus into the girl's front. And it's FUN!" At this he grinned broadly. When asked what he thought about Mrs. Coldwell trying to protect him from sexy burgers, he said "That's stupid!"

Oh, Parish Hilton was in the commercial too. It is unknown whether Mrs. Coldwell noticed this, fixated as she was on that hot, juicy burger as it dribbled juices down the chin of the person eating it like a hot stud engaged in messy fellatio to a nubile young woman...

-- Badtux the Pornographic Penguin

Thursday Penguin Porn Blogging (Orwell edition)

This post appeared on Thursday, May 26, 2005. If you looked at this site on Thursday, May 26, 2005, and did not see this post, it is your fallible memory that is at fault. 2+2=4. Except when it is 3, or 5, or 3,4, and 5 all at once. War is peace. Tyranny is freedom. Death is liberation. Welcome to 1984+21. Please view these African beauties and not notice the fact that, National Geographic style, they are topless, indeed, naked.

-- Badtux the Orwellian Penguin

Support the troops

Unless you're a Republican congressman, in which case you say screw the troops.

-- Badtux the "Hypocrisy? Republicans? NAAWWWW!" Penguin

Woohoo, another jihadi dead!

Woohoo, another jihadi dead! Why, sure, she was just four years old, but a four-year old can pull the trigger on an AK-47 too, y'know! Why, if us good patriotic Americans didn't bankrupt ourselves paying taxes to support killing little Iraqi children, those little Iraqi children would KILL US ALL!

-- Badtux the Freeper Penguin

PS: We are *SO* damned to Hell, and I ain't talkin' Hell, Arizona, either...

How's Warblogger Appreciation Month going?

As I reported earlier this month, May is Warblogger Appreciation Month, a month in celebration of warbloggers and the only sex they ever get in their citadels in their mother's basements. So what are they up to?

Doughy Pantsload (Jonah Goldberg): Apparently kidnapped by aliens who cloned him. Unfortunately, all that pusillant dough caused the alien flying saucer to explode, returning more doughy pantsload to Earth than was kidnapped in the first place.

Josh Trevino ("Tacitus"): Flaps his feathers and goes "cluck cluck cluck cluck CLUUUCK!" when confronted with the question "if you support the war so much, why don't you enlist?". Last seen hiding behind the washing machine in his mother's basement, whimpering in fear that some mean liberal was going to hunt him down and force him to leave his momma's basement and go into, like, DAYLIGHT, and get SHOT AT.

Confused Wanna-be-White Dude (Adam Yoshida) is shuddering in fear of slanty-eyed Asians and was last spotted sobbing, curled up in the fetal position in a corner of his mother's basement, because someone hurt his feelings by pointing out that *he* was a slanty-eyed Asian...

Preznit Horse Wanker was last spotted hiding under the desk in his daddy's old office, whimpering to Karl Rove, they're being defeated, and that's why they fight, right? At the last cabinet meeting, Donald Rumsfeld made Preznit Horse Wanker cry by saying that, because the Preznit hadn't fulfilled his National Guard committment, Donald was activating him and sending him to Iraq. Since then, nobody has been able to get Georgie out from under Daddy's desk.

So how is YOUR favorite warblogger celebrating Warblogger Appreciation Month? And has anybody asked him yet, "Why aren't you in Iraq?" Leave comments below. This penguin doesn't really want to know, but has a strange compulsion anyhow, perhaps somewhat like the compulsion that leads lemmings headlong over a cliff. The horror, oh the horror! The pusilent trembling pale flabby biceps with the tattoo of the Pilsbury Doughboy, the mascot of the 101st Fighting keyboarders! The dazzling flights of illogic and made-up "facts"! The stench of unwashed warblogger that hasn't left Mommy's basement since 9/11! Oh the horror!

-- Badtux the "Strangely fascinated by horror movies" Penguin

Spanking, sex, and red state fundamentalism

Skippy the Bush Kangaroo asks, "What is wrong with these religious fundamentalists?". It seems that the right wing nuts have a bad habit of pronging their kids, as has been shown over and over again. And nobody should be surprised -- the whole foundation of these nutballs' notion of "discipline" is repressed sexuality expressed as sado-masochism.

Sexual abuse of this type is a natural result of the way that the fundys raise their kids. Their kids grow up believing that it is their duty to be absolutely obedient and subservient to their parents and pastor/priest, and that it is okay for their parents and pastor/priest to touch them in any way necessary to discipline them. Spanking the bare buttocks with the hands is a common disciplinary method, I will leave it to you to imagine the sexual context thereof and how easily it is that their parents and/or pastor/priest can move from the sado-masochism of spanking the bare buttocks to more explicit sexual acts.

My suspicion is that the reason why every fundamentalist that I've encountered in my life is, excuse my language, stone-ass crazy, is because of all this hidden sexual abuse in their childhood. Thus the reason why they are so warped when it comes to sex, to the point of trying to outlaw various sexual acts between consenting adults. These are some sick puppies, and we aren't doing them any favor by treating them as if they were sane adults. They're not. They are, excuse my language, fuckin' nuts. Literally.

-- Badtux the Red-State Refugee Penguin

Let's go NOO-coo-lar!

Yessiree, the North Koreans are doin' nukes. The Iranians is doin' nooks. Hell, even Chavez down in Venezuela wants to do nukes, and Brazil is enriching uranium. So with the threat of a radioactive planet growing by the minute, what is the Senate of the United States doing? Why, that's simple: They're going nuclear too.

Does this mean that Washington D.C. is going to become a radioactive wasteland? What, you thought it wasn't, already? The big reason to keep the filibuster is because it slows down the making of laws. Now, making laws is sort of like making sausage. Sometimes we like the results, but I suspect the majority of us here really do NOT want to see how a sausage plant operates. And truly, the results typically are not so great anyhow. Sausage are bad for you, full of grease and fat and stuff you don't want to know about. Same deal with most laws.

In case you have't figured it out, I'm all for anything that slows down the making of laws. The way I figure it, we need maybe three or four laws a year passed to protect us from new ways that people have figured out for ripping us off, and then a few budget laws for the military and social services and such, and that's pretty much it. The current situation, where we pass so many laws that Congressmen can't even read them all before voting on them, is just plain ludicrous. I mean, do you think any Congressman read the Patriot Act, all ten inch stack of paper of it, before voting on it? When it was presented to them six hours before the vote? Puh-LEEZE!

Now, if the Democrats *REALLY* want to go nuclear, they should promise to filibuster every day for the rest of the legislative session until the right to filibuster is acknowledged by Frist the Cat Killer and his cronies. Not only would this be a threat that would make the Republican neo-con big government lackeys whine in pain since they'd be unable to pass their borrow-and-spend big government agenda, but it'd also have one very big benefit for the American people: as Will Rogers put it, "This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer. Something is going to get smashed." If Congress is frozen in place, why, less stuff gets smashed!

Problem is, this would require guts, party unity, and organization on the part of the Democrats. And as Will Rogers *also* remarked, "I am a member of no organized party. I am a Democrat".

So anyhow, as we all contemplate the virtues of glowing in the dark thanks to North Korean, Iranian, Venezuelan, and Brazilian nukes, let us contemplate the virtues of *Congress* glowing in the dark... at the very least, without budget authority, Preznit Horse Wanker isn't going to be able to do more stuff to piss these folks off. Oh sure, there'd be some issues when disabled folks no longer get their disability checks, VA hospitals close for lack of money to pay their workers, and the Army runs out of bullets because they can't pay their suppliers, but really, I think we can make some SMALL exceptions to the glow-in-the-dark strategy. But once those exceptions are made... filibuster high, filibuster low, filibuster by day, filibuster by night, filibuster until the Cat Killer screams, Senator Reid! Let's watch Washington D.C. *GLOW* in that noo-coo-lar light, yessireee!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Free stress tests!

So I'm wandering around the mall looking for the futon store, and there's these earnest looking young people pitching a "free stress test" on a little-used cross corridor where they'd been exiled by mall management. They have a big pile of books by a science fiction writer turned self improvement guru turned religious leader behind them, so it doesn't take ten milliseconds to figure out what cult they're with and what their con is (said "stress test" always says you're stressed out and need to join their cult to get relief).

So I'm a bored penguin, the futon store is not looking like it's anywhere near, and I say to them, "Your publisher misprinted a word in the title on your books, it should say 'Dietetics'."

The earnest young girl says "Huh?" and I point to the word. "Sure, Dietetics, the science of better digestive health through scientific application of herring technology. Sure-fired cure for stress! You guys ARE with the Church of Tuxology, right?"

"Uhm, no."

"Are you sure? You're sure you don't worship the Great Penguin, Tux, who created the heavens and the earth?"

"Uh, Tux?"

"Sure! The Great Penguin created intelligent life on Earth, which then devolved from the rotund waddling perfection of penguinhood into the bizarre beast called 'mankind'. But if you embrace your inner penguin, you, too, can find perfect peace and joy!"

"Are you sure you don't want to take our stress test? You look a little stressed."

"Oh, no, I'm not stressed at all, because I just came from participating in the Sacrament of the Herring at the local Ice Cathedral and had all my woes washed away in the perfection of the Great Penguin! Say, you know, you're looking a little stressed yourself. Would you like to come down to the Ice Cathedral at the next low tide and see exactly what Tuxology can do for you?"

"Uhm..."

At this point I can see these young people thinking, "Is this guy nuts?" Mixed with, "Is this guy making fun of us?" It's making their heads hurt! So I flip'em my business card (the one with the "Supreme Poobah, Church of Tuxology" on it), and tell'em, "Well, give it a shot. What can it hurt? Improving your digestive and mental health is always a good thing!" And I go on my way, leaving them looking very puzzled.

I wonder, though: Should I perhaps warn the proprietors of the local ice skating rink that he is about to have a group of very confused young people show up? For that was the address on said business card (printed on my ink jet printer, nachurally!).

Nawww... they went back to selling their books (rhymes with "Dietetics") and forgot all about me within ten minutes. Oh well, improved digestive health just doesn't seem to be a priority with Americans today, which is a darned shame -- if Americans were just a little less anal, maybe they could have some fun without having to engage in pulping to do it.

-- Badtux the Tuxologist Penguin

What happens if we leave Iraq *now*?

Even many of those who opposed the war in Iraq now claim we must "stay the course" because if we leave "there will be civil war". I don't buy it. That sounds like an excuse, not like reality.

I've heard all sorts of dire predictions of what happens in Iraq if we just pick up and leave. I consider all those predictions to be so much bull****. Iraq is not Somalia, filled with ignorant tribesmen. Iraq is a civilized, well-educated country with enough natural resources to sustain its citizens. The reality is more likely to be similar to what happened the *last* time we toppled the government of Iraq -- and left. After about a week of chaos, one strongman managed to accumulate enough support in order to take charge, and he swiftly put the majority of the country in order, other than the northern Kurdish portion which even today is a de-facto "Kurdistan". He did this by playing off the various factions against each other, giving the Shia some special priviliges that they didn't previously have such as the right to run their own religious schools for girls, giving the tribes autonomy over civil matters in their areas, etc. as well as by judicious application of force where necessary, Oh sure, he probably killed 100,000 Iraqis in the process, but we've killed that many Iraqis too, and we haven't even restored order, and are nowhere near even *attempting* the complicated balancing act that kept that strongman, Saddam Hussein, unsteadily perched on top of that powder keg for close to 10 years after we toppled him the first time.

In short, I don't believe there's going to be a civil war in Iraq, other than perhaps on the same lines as happened in Saddam's time (i.e., the Kurds get their Kurdistan up in the north, and the Shia and Sunni come to an arrangement in the south). If we pulled out today there'd be a lot of bloodshed for a couple of months -- Saddam killed maybe 100K people last time we did that -- but sooner or later, a "Saddam Lite" would step up and restore order and everybody in Iraq, at least, would breathe a sigh of relief.

Of course that would be the end of the neo-cons dream of democracy in Iraq, so they're going to fight it tooth and nail, but in my opinion the neocons have already proven it's impossible to impose democracy at gunpoint -- it's time to just get out and let the Iraqis handle what's of interest to the Iraqis, only intervening if our own national interests are at issue. A people has to be ready for democracy before democracy is possible. As the United States proves, not all nations have a population that is ready or willing to do what it takes to create and/or maintain a working democracy, and all that happens if you try to impose it at gunpoint is a lot of dead people.

The end result is the same, anyhow. The Iraqis are, in the end going to detirmine what form of government they have in their country, no matter how much we attempt to impose a government at gunpoint. All we're doing is prolonging the bloodshed.

-- Badtux the Realist Penguin

Give 'till it hurts

http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/. Give till it hurts. They already did.

- Badtux the Patriotic Penguin

Friday Cat Killer Blogging

Howdy, Bubba the Southern Penguin here, with Friday Cat Killer Bloggin' starring Senator Bill Frist! Sorry I didn't get 'roundbouts here last week, see, I was barbecuing the week before, and Darlene just *INSISTED* on grillin' some vegetables. Imagine that, grilling VEGETABLES! On the same barbecue grill that I GRILL MY RIBS ON! Why, I taught her a lesson that she'll NEVER forget, yessiree! Anyhow, once I got out of the hospital yesterday, well, ah, err... look, when she fed my ribs to my ole' hound dog Trigger, why, I just HAD to, uhm, well, I guess I sorta tripped over the grill, ah, uhm...

So what's our Doctor Mengele of the cat world been up to lately? Why, settin' up to go NOO-clear. KaBOOOM! Yeah Billy boy, show them thare LIE-berals just how big of girly-men they really is! So today, our buddy Bill got his pal John Cornyn to pull himself away from admiring box turtles in order to to fire off the trigger of the noo-CLEAR option. Those Democrat wimps, meanwhile, whine that this is breaking the rules and illegal besides. Oh boo hoo! Don't you wimpy LIE-berals get it yet? Rules are for losers, and laws are only for Democrats! Look, we'uns is on top, and you losers are on the bottom, and we gonna make you wimps squeal like a pig, and there ain't nothin' that you'uns can do about it, bwhwhahahahaha!

Meanwhile, at home I went to the theater the other day and was talkin' with Darlene about how that thare LIE-beral media was a'lyin' about our glorious victories in EYE-rack, and then these two stupid dudes interrupted me and said I was wrong, that EYE-rack was a mess and the insurgents were winning and they knew this because they were soldiers on leave from Iraq and they had just got back from six months over there. I told'em they didn't know what they was talkin' about, 'cause we'uns back here got Fox News and they tells us lots more than soldiers learn over there in EYE-rack! Then one of these stupid dudes says yeah sure, I know better than people's that was over there, of course I do, I'm a good Republican who watches Fox News and listen to Rush Limbaugh so I know LOTS more than soldiers who, like, are actually fighting, about what's going on in EYE-rack! Finally, one of these losers says to me if I think things are so good in EYE-rack, why isn't I volunteering? Oh puh-LEEZE. You can't get the NASCAR Channel in EYE-rack! Besides, I is needed here at home to, like, make sure the guys over there gots plenty of, well, err, well, look, cars need their oils changed! Yessiree, my job down thare at the Quicky Loob is, like, VITAL TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, if I ain't down thare changin' folks' oil, why, their cars will all die and our whole economy will collapse!

Besides, my lovable Darlene is just so great a lady, shorely I couldn't leave her to go over there to EYE-rack? Why, if I stick around for another six weeks or so, she may even let me, err, do my husbandly duty, well, after the cast comes off anyhow. By the way, who was this John Wayne Bobbit dude that Darlene's been talkin' about? She sez I'm 'bout to be just as manly as him, see, if I keep on like I is, and while "John Wayne" surely is a manly name, "Bobbit"... well, ain't that the kinda name that one of them pukey damnyankees would have?! But anyhow, I'm glad that Darlene appreciates my manliness, and I'm sure she'll let me sleep on my bed instead of the couch pretty soon!

-- Bubba the Southern Penguin

Thursday Penguin Porn Blogging

As you all know, AT&T refused to give me my penguin porn. That's why I have been forced by those meanies at AT&T to go Google for my own penguin porn. Googling this morning, I came across these rotund beauties:

Oooh, look at the rotund lovers cuddling and kissing! And their two rather stern-looking bodyguards there to keep the hoi poloi like you and I from interrupting their gropefest! Aren't they just beautiful? Makes a penguin's flippers flap in appreciation!

-- Badtux the Appreciative Penguin

Oops! We broke the Army!

U.S. Army generals have now backed away from rosy predictions that the Army's problems are no big deal because they will start drawing down in Iraq soon, and instead soberly predict that the U.S. will be in Iraq for years with force levels similar to today. Meanwhile, recruiting is down, lots of soldiers are going AWOL or deserting rather than go to Iraq, and Army recruiters are using unethical practices that at the very least are deceptive and only barely removed from the British press gangs that recruited soldiers to fight against George Washington during the American Revolution (and we all know how effective THAT army turned out to be!).

The situation is indeed dire, but the only real solutions -- the draft -- is vehemently dismissed. That leaves only one solution: Destroy the economy so that young people have a choice of either starving to death or joining the Army. The current housing bubble , basically created by the Federal Reserve printing money and giving it to the mortgage companies (it's more complicated than that, they're actually giving the money to the Chinese, who are then giving it to the mortgage companies by buying "mortgage-backed securities"), appears that it may be just the ticket...

I *do* hope you've moved your savings into a stable currency? The Euro is looking REALLY interesting right now. Hmm.

If it ain't drafty in here, bet on the economy collapsing. That's the only other way the neocons can get the foot soldiers for their campaign of perpetual war for perpetual peace. The only problem with a mercenary army of that sort is that, after a while, they tend to tire of their rulers and overthrow their rulers... remember, Alaric the Visigoth, who sacked Rome in 410AD, had originally been a commander of Roman soldiers. If this is the direction our neo-con rulers are intending to go, fear for what little is left of democracy in America.

-- Badtux the "Anybody feel a draft in here?" Penguin

Is this guy sane?!

Sadly, no!

The delusional nutcases are swarming, with our president talking on a weekly basis with a total loon. Studies now find that the United States is no longer the land of opportunity -- if you're born poor in America, you're more likely to stay poor than in Denmark, the Netherlands, or France. It appears that the agenda of the Republicans to turn the United States into Mexico with better roads, complete with large illiterate peasant class and tiny but filthy rich elite class, is well underway.

So what were the words to "Oh, Canada!" again?

- Badtux the Depressed Penguin