Sunday, June 29, 2008

Women For John McCain

http://www.womenforjohnmccain.com/

This parody site is wonderful. Today's posting on it - Spousal Abuse, Comedy Gold! is so full of wonderful references and quotes, a blog posting alone can't do it justice.

“And I stopped beating my wife just a couple of weeks ago…”

Those with s X chromosomes, and even those of us with one of those lesser-effective "Y"s can gain fantastic insights, and remarkably clear perspective, checking out this site. Some of the comments on it are superbly illustrative of how perceptive American voters can be: "are you serious, or is this making fun of him?"

Saturday, June 28, 2008

5 sausages

I'm sitting at a small 2 person table at 630am this morning in the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza in Greenville, enjoying my yogurt and fresh strawberries and pineapple, when I notice a large mass... a giant object, of gravitational proportions, approach the breakfast bar. This man was at least 400 lbs, but closer to 500 maybe, standing less than 6 ft tall, and at least 6 feet around. He was so enormous, that the large serving spoon in his hand looked like the kind of tiny spoon you'd feed pureed peas to an infant. The tongs he wielded to shovel an entire plate of bacon and 5 large breakfast sausages onto his plate appeared to be merely tweezers. This man was not "offensive line-man football player big", he was Jabba-the-Hut super sized. He scooped up an entire 12 inch plate of bacon and sausage, and then heaped a second plate of biscuits, gravy, hash browns, and eggs. It was easily a 6000 calorie feast.

I didn't think anymore about this gargantuan creature until I arrived at the airport, and noticed GSP now has free WiFi. How nice! I found a duplex plug on the floor, settled in between the Delta and NW counters, and booted up my GE laptop. As the encryption screens were processing, the floor began to shake. A commuter flight had just sped down the runway, reached rotational speed, and was rising into the thickly humid Carolina sky... was that what was shaking the ground? No. Gigantor from the Crowne Plaza was waddling - legs so ladened with lipids a normal walking gait was not possible - this giant man was shaking the very airport as he walked behind me, 10 feet away. As the distance grew and his gravitational pull decreased, so did the amplitude of the floor's vibrations. While composing this text, The American Heart Association's 'warning poster boy' plodded along back from the snack bar where he needed yet another orally fixated hit of processed food heroine. In these last 2 paragraphs, approx 2 dozen people have traversed the same walkway behind me. Not a single one of the 'normally sized' Americans who passed by caused the floor to perceptibly shake, so I know I was not imagining it.

How does anyone get to be so massive, and stay that way? The food bill alone that such an appetite requires must be mind boggling. The plane I am wait listed on Stand-by to fly on is full this morning, so I have another 30 minutes of waiting for the gate agent to tell me if I will or won't be able to get on this flight. Hopefully, karma won't have me sitting next to this human blob on the Canada Air Jet that NW has parked at gate B4... il faut voir (parkalam - Tamil for we shall see).

Saturday, June 21, 2008

The Surge is Working!

I found this site (http://www.allhatnocattle.net/index.html) this afternoon purely accidentally. The header graphic is hilarious, and the page's top story, too damn funny!

"The Surge is Working!
The Taliban's Surge!"

Not quite as destructive as the Tet Offensive, but that's 41 years ago. Give Afghanistan another 34 years (the French were in Vietnam for nearly a century before they pulled out) and we'll see how things go.

Guantanamo Baywatch

Colbert and The Daily Show has been firing on all cylinders this month, after come off a 1 week break at Memorial Day. This clip, from Thursday night's TDS is hilarious. Crooks and Liars comments succintly:

"Doocy: “So with the recent Supreme Court decision saying that detainees down at Gitmo can wind up with habeas corpus and get legal rights and stuff like that”

Stewart: Legal rights and stuff. It’s actually all been explained in Thomas Paine’s ‘A Treatise on the Rights of Man…and Sh*t’”

It’s crazy to stop and think about how far we’ve come in just eight short years. It is now within “mainstream” right-wing discourse to condemn the Supreme Court for ruling that the President can’t lock people up for life without a chance for them to prove their innocence. Is this even America anymore?"

Kool-aid fanatic Bill Kristol makes some mind-blowingly myopic statements "a milestone towards a more decent and democratic regime in Iraq" - yes, a botched hanging after a rushed kangaroo court trial and sentancing. Awesome stuff.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Amazing SW Images

My friend Jason has posted some truly stunning photos on on his webpage, corneveaux.com. They're of Arizona, Utah, and some of the stunning landscapes, geological features, and places that you typically "can't see from the road". Jason's a determined young man who likes to get as far away from humanity as possible when communing with nature. The images here are uniquely inspiring, award winning, and some of them look other-worldly.

[note, to enjoy these images, one must have a high speed connection, or patience that is glacial (pre-Bush Admin) in breadth (since 20 years from now, we'll probably no longer have glaciers)]

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Baracknophobia!

"The Audacity of Fear" ... Baracknophobia

June 16th Daily Show opening segment (7 minute video) was not only remarkably funny, but factual, poignant, and amazing in that It Took A Comedy Show to "call bullshit" on lies put forth by by Faux News, CNN (repeatedly), MSNBC, et al.
http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=173522
"Some guy I never heard of dot com, is just reporting now, that Barack Obama has lady parts" - LOL!
There's 2 minutes of Hannity Insanity in the middle of the segment got a little tiresome... but wait until the end, where they compare - word for word as Faux news reports - an Obama speech with a Cuomo speech from 20 years ago that Faux news has claimed is "plagiarism". "Practical Verbatim".

"OF TO WE" .... yes... "OF TO WE '82" ... and "OF TO WE '08"... and the kool-aid drinkers lap this stuff up as their elixir of hope for a continued plutocracy.

Amazing what some networks try to pass off as journalistically responsible news reporting now a days.

Senator John McC*nt

this youtube work of art is hilarious. NOT to be listened to without headphones or in the presence of impressionable children.
'If we start saying this word, really Rev.Wrighting it, it'll become part of the fabric of our culture, a societal norm'

....very very funny! Again, not for the easily offended, so be forewarned.

It's All Because (the gays are getting married)

This youtube video is pretty funny. Odedgross has a few good ones, this is his funniest to date I believe. Thanks to Matt for alerting me to it.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Teach The Controversy



...posted this previously... but due to my inept html editing abilities, I apparently accidentally deleted it.

http://controversy.wearscience.com/

" 'Big Science' is always suppressing The Truth with their blatant pro-evolution anti-wacko agenda: from the fact that UFOs built the pyramids to the reality of creationism and fact the universe is "Turtles All The Way Down". It is time to fight back and urge schools to Teach The Controversy with these intelligently designed t-shirts. All designs available in a variety of colors and styles, or feel free to create your own with our custom designer "

and "Wear Science!"
http://wearscience.com/

I truly love the dino BBQ and the babe cloning variants!

Indian variant on "the Daily Show"

Heard this story on NPR this morning. This comedian idolizes Jon Stewart and the Daily Show, and makes his own Indian version of it, lampooning politicians. Sounds quite amusing. When I go to India later this year, I will have to try and see a few of his the shows.

The host's name (upon 3rd listening) is Cyrus Brocha. The show "The Week That Wasn't"

Hilariously, googling "The week that Wasn't" comes up with an Indecision2004 NYTimes report about TDS.

Monday, June 16, 2008

The company one keeps...

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003816651

McCain's new campaign slogan:
RAPE: As long as it's inevitable, you might as well sit back and enjoy it.

Thanks to my buddy Joe for this link.

"The Washington Post said the campaign, when it initially was contacted by the Post and ABC News, questioned why the story was newsworthy; later in the day, the campaign canceled the fundraiser, which had been scheduled for Monday."

Why is it news worthy? Well, if it's NOT newsworthy, why did you cancel the campaign fund raiser (scheduled for today, Monday, the 16th of June)?!?

Despicable

and today... it gets better... More refreshing news from Texas (courtesy of Jill and Matt, independently):
" At the Republican state convention, a booth hosted by Republicanmarket was selling a pin Saturday that says: If Obama is President will we still call it the White House. "
GOP '08: Racism We Can Believe In.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

NPR's romance with Sichuan, finally over!



Last week it was one month after the "week long broad cast from Sichuan Province China" for NPR's Melissa Block and Robert Siegel... and they had them and Andrea Tzu their producer on last week one morning, reminiscing about their one week trip to Chengdu China. The first two days of their reporting, was pre-earth quake, and all they could do was wax poetically about how wonderful Sichuan province was. Another day of having to listen to Melissa Block Romanticize about how GREAT China was, and I would have canceled my membership, written a nasty-gram to ATC NPR, and probably had my head explode.

Yes, there was the devastating earth quake. Agreed, that is terrible. There was wide-spread loss of life, and massive destruction. Coverage of that is appropriate, and journalistically astute. That's not what got to me.

What got to me, what Melissa Block's (and to a lesser extent Robert Siegel's) white washing, romanticizing, propagandizing about
- crystal pure streams
- delicious hot pot dining experiences
- wonderful local cuisine
- the abundance of locals who spoke nearly perfect English
- the wonderful highway systems connecting the towns
...and a host of other things, that are so far away from the REALITY of Sichuan province, that it at first infuriated me to hear NPR go on and on about how awesome it was there, and then it just disgusted me, after the 2nd day. In 13 trips, totaling 6 months of my life spent in China, I saw the diametric opposite of what NPR idyllically experienced.

In the sheltered, obviously government minded time that NPR spent in the western province of Sichuan... where was the reporting on:
- the streams and rivers choked so black with pollution and garbage that the Little Calumet River, dug by the Army Corp of Engineers on the southern border of Hammond Indiana in my home town looked like a lush tropical garden of eden in comparison? The Chinese water was so nasty looking, and so fetid smelling, in the north, central, and southern areas of Sichuan province I visited, that WHENEVER I was at dinner and they served fish (which was damn near every meal) I asked directly "is that ocean fish, or river fish?" and the locals would proudly say "local river fish" I would politely decline, and tell them I was Buddhist. No mercury, PCBs, or arsenic for me, thank you.

- the public corpses (BEFORE the earth quake) of people who were killed in auto accidents, and left in the sun to swell on the side of the highway while the driver argued with a disheveled, untucked, green shirted cop? Or the old man who was begging outside the hotel restaurant we ate dinner at nearly every day next to the factory who died staring up at the sun, jaw agape, flies buzzing around him, hand extended, and when I asked... "is he dead?" my Chinese GE minders drew me by the arm into the hotel telling me "don't worry about it" and then called over the proprietor to make sure some removed the body before we finished lunch and I asked any more questions.

- the omnipresent stench of sewers, all around the city, in the business district, in the slums, in the industrial district (plopped down in the middle of slums), at the airport.. everywhere. After the earthquake, ok, yes, there'd be lots of cracked sewer tiles.. but before the earthquake, the city made the East Chicago water treatment plant smell like a perfumerie in comparison.

- the widespread air pollution. Air so thick, that you DID NOT KNOW your plane was about to land, until you heard the landing gear come down. The planes take off, and at about 500 ft altitude, you enter a thick gray smog that obscures all ground visibility. All flying is done on instruments, as visually, you can't see anything between 200ft and 35K feet. (I'll attach a photo of Soviet Made TU-157s that were grounded at the Chengdu Airport, due to being unsafe to fly after an unexplained crash killing 200 people, to help illustrate)

- truck drivers stopping to piss on their brakes along the highways. I thought I was imagining it, but then I kept seeing it, and smelling it. Guess there's no version of a Chinese "Snopes" over there, to dispel the myth that 300 mls of urine will help to cool off over-heated truck brakes.

- bribes at the toll stations. In between every town, there is a ubiquitous toll booth, on every high way. If you don't have the right traveling papers, you cannot go to the next town. If the booth inspector sees you have Westerns in your car, you get pulled over (as we pulled over, every time). And the driver gets talked to, sometimes pass ports are handed forward, always cash is handed from the driver to the inspector, who counts it, and then lets us pass. Melissa never mentioned this....

- corn and canola drying on the road, to be cracked by passing cars. Yes, it sounds nuts, because it IS nuts. Makes for a slippery surface, but the farmer doesn't have to actually mill his corn that way, he just lets passing cars do it for him. Yummy! In the "one month later" report, Robert Siegel DID mention this, anecdotally.

- 1944-Dresden-like smoke. Granted, the Dresden smoke was during the "burning season" when the Chinese take all their stalks and tailings and burn them, in the fields, to make charcoal, which they then spread over the fields for fertilizer... makes breathing a bad idea, and chokes the air and all living things with fine particulate. The worst place I saw this was in Xian, and the country side around that megapolis.

- "back of the line" pushing and shoving, at tourist attractions, buses, airport ticket counters, any ticket counters, baggage claim, boarding gates, airplane stairs (rolled up to the side of the plane)... you name it... Chinese have a very hard time waiting in line in Chengdu, Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Xian...). An earlier posting on silly signs alludes to this. No one from NPR mentioned anything about this. Maybe, from 2001 (when I was last there) to 2008 there has been a radical shift in "politeness" within China, but I highly doubt it.

- "hello!" relentlessly. Everyone who sees a Westerner in Chengdu, and wants to sell them something, beg from them, get their attention, scam them, says "Hello" in their best grade-school-English-class voice, incessantly, repeatedly, annoyingly. [I would frequently turn to them, and say "Ni Hau" (literally "you good" or colloquially "hi")] In the month-after piece, in the background you could hear a clip they played with a child saying "Hello!" to Melissa Block... she of course didn't acknowledge the kid.

- table upon table of pirated DVDs and CDs in street markets. Every large city has these. NPR's reporting didn't mention it. Maybe copywrite law enforcement have driven this under-ground now...

- orange vested old women street sweeping with bundles of branches. Taking a fag of branches, elderly women would manually "sweep" public streets, whether they needed them or not. These orange vested women also were used as the "eyes and ears" of the local government, and would report anyone who was not conforming rigidly to societal norms.

- throngs ignoring all traffic rules, every person for themselves, during rush hour. The orange vested women didn't sweep BUSY streets, oh no, that would be taking life in their own hands. They swept lesser traveled street. The heavily traveled ones, millions of pedestrians and bicyclists would JAM, CROWD, ignore all traffic laws, and make lemming-like attempts at crossing streets without the aid of traffic signals.

- poorly translated signs "keeping of the green", "autos no", "noise no please" (see previous posting)

- waitresses and waiters wearing surgical masks. During the bird flu pandemics, SOME of the wait staff would be wearing these, but not all. I would inquire when I saw them, and I'd be told "that's just for her protection, she thinks it will keep her from getting sick". Nobody bothered to tell them that viruses are sub-micron, and cloth masks will not stop a virus.

- first class hotel carpets that get so filthy daily, they have to be changed in elevators and lobbies. In the morning, the carpets looked pristine. By the evening, they'd be black. Didn't matter if it rained, if it didn't rain, regardless. The filth of the cities coated everything.

- "airport tax" that has to be paid, in cash (about $20), at the airport, before you can get a boarding pass. This little money making scam was like the toll booths, outside cities on the highways. Leaving by air? That'll be $40 internationally, and $20 domestically, thank you.

- hotel staff who try to break into your room, to physically wake you, instead of calling on the phone for a wake up call. At more than one hotel, I had hotel staff who actually used their pass key, and wanted to creep into your room, to personally wake you, instead of calling. I learned to use the door chain, and if necessary, prop up my luggage and a desk chair against the door, for privacy.

- garbage strewn along the road sides and used as erosion control (like blue Walmart bags, except they're red, Everywhere) In all of the rural areas, the red plastic bag was everywhere. Road sides, ditches, embankments, farm fields, most of them full. It was truly disgusting, and quite sad to see total disregard for the environment. Hell, even the road leading to the Chengdu Panda preserve was rife with red bag trash.... and Melissa did a joyful report from there!

- no birds, no squirrels, not even pigeons.. no wildlife, whatsoever, except a few breeding pandas. My buddy Gary who worked in Chengdu for many years said to me "I want to raise my daughter where she can see birds, there are no birds here". I never saw a bird when I was in Chengdu, or anywhere in Sichuan province.

- open trenches without running water, used as toilets (you squat over the trench). They flush the trench once a week (usually on a Tuesday), unless a GE VP is coming, then they flush it that morning (also, usually on a Tuesday).

- no toilet paper, unless you bring your own copy of the newspaper, you can use the sports section when you're done reading, Needless to say, I carried ALOT of tissues around with me, just in case I needed to use one of these wonderfully smelling, modern bathrooms, before getting back to my hotel each night.

- no sunlight - just a gray haze (I held a shiny manually polished part up to the sky and tried, in vain, to find the sun to reflect off of it to show the unwanted waviness of the polished surface, and the Chengdu factory manufacturing manager tells me "don't worry, here in Chengdu, no sunlight to see waviness, mei wenti [no problem]). truly, there was never a "blazing sun" in Chengdu. It was perpetually occluded by thick thick smog. They've brought 2 new coal fired power plants (without emissions controls) outside Chengdu since I was last there. I am sure the air quality is infinitely better now.

- the chicken foot, floating in the bowl of soup "you so lucky! getting the foot is always good luck!" (with claws still attached.. mmmmmm). No one rom NPR mentioned anything about the chicken foot soup - it's not chicken soup, it's CHICKEN FOOT soup. Common dish served in Chengdu. Staying there a week, they must have had it at least once.

- communal hepatitis hot pot ... where the Chinese host picks up food from the boiling pot, with chop sticks that had just been in their nightmarishly multicolored mouth (lacking teeth and supporting 16th century bridge work), put the extracted food on your plate, and tell you "you try it" ... no thanks, I don't care for Hepatitis type C [and the "food" is Ox throat, Ox stomach, Ox intestine, Ox "tail" (meaning "penis"), Ox Kidney (looks like a 1950s contoured rubber swimming bonnet), Ox {insert organ here} ... where the hell is the muscle part of the Ox??]

So... imagine my amazement, when NPR waxed on and on about how wonderful, pleasant, beautiful... etc Chengdu was in May 2008. The more Melissa Black opined the more I wanted to scream at the radio "where the hell were you!?!?! that is NOT Chengdu!" Maybe, if NPR made her go there 13 times, over 3 years, she'd form a different opinion, somewhat aligned with my experiences. Maybe I'm just evolving into a curmudgeon - Bu Xie Bu Que Chi - that's not impossible. =)

Chinese Signs I've personally seen

From my 13 trips, over 3 years, totally about 6 months in China (Chengdu, Chongqing, Xian, Beijing, Shanghai, Wuxi, Guangzhou, ShenZhen, Guiyang) there were several signs that were quite ironic, amusing, or just plain silly.

Distroy - how much would a native English Speaker, to proof read the sign maker's work order, would have cost?



This "Care of the Green" sign was posted in Tiananmen Square (circa 1999, 10 years after the student protests). "Care of the Green"... really?



This was in the old Hangzhou Shanghai Airport (before they built the fancy Pudong modern airport on the more modern side of town). I am not sure how adverbs make for a meaningful warning sign... perhaps a good editorial observation of traits that someone should demonstrate when motoring around the airport, but "DRIVING CAUTIOUSLY, AVOIDING AIR-CRAFT" ... just didn't really make much sense.



"No spitting", "No crowding" ... in a Chinese airport (or any public place that involves getting in lines) both of these are extremely common place. "Back of the line" and "wait your turn" are meaningless phrases which the modern Chinese traveler or tourist ignores, contemptuously. Being that I was a foot taller and had 50% more body mass than most of the Chinese pushers and shovers, when I got pushed, and then I pushed them back, the errant Chinese (usually male) gave me a much "wider berth" and typically didn't repeat his foolish rudeness.



I know there are sites online that show all sorts of mis-translated products, and postings, but these are the ones I saw personally. An upcoming post will rail against the "systematic idealization" of China by the media, as the Olympics approach.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Fight the Smears

It's amazing what comes from right wing hate radio, and even more mind boggling how sheep eat up that kind of garbage. This site, set up by Obama's campaign, publishes those rumors, and promptly debunks them. I am a huge fan of truth (and "truthiness" in a Colbert mindset). I really like this site, and will be emailing it to all my relatives who have quoted the smears listed here as "fact".

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/fightthesmearshome/

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Golf Gear we can Believe in!

http://store.johnmccain.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=FDR2583

This, ladies and gentlemen, is too hilarious to not post. I am Not Sure how long the McCain campaign will keep these comments about the McCain Golf Bag (product code FDR2583) on their official website.... but while it lasts, it IS beautiful!

in case they delete the webpage, Daily KOS has a copy here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/11/2165/55268/106/533829

As of the time of this posting (11pm pacific), there's only 7 Google hits for "FDR2583"

Hat's off, and infinite thanks, to my buddy Matt for not only bringing this up and making this possible, but also putting in several quotes and reviews himself!

I can't stop toggling between laughter, snickers, grinning maniacally, and giggling.

=)

B2's Guam crash report

My buddy Zim, long ago, used to work for the maker of this plane. Interesting report.

Pitot tube calibration, using heated air to burn out moisture build up, the Air Force concludes, could have prevented this crash. Luckily, no one was killed, but it was another $1.4 BILLION dollar mistake, coming from an administration (and Air Force recently) full of mistakes.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Chemical Party

tip o'the hat to Rick for pointing this one out.

Funny. Kinda Cheesy, but worthy of a smile. Good stuff.

those whacky EU scientists... This just got uploaded into Youtube last week.

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/06/chemistry_lesson.php

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Flying Spaghetti Monster - Conversion game

This game is kinda fun. When you get done, you can see the conveyor belt of strippers coming out of the heavenly factory and the beer volcano in the background. (the music gets very annoying though)

Goodnight Bush

This children's book is sure to be a classic!

Good Night Bush. If only my son was younger, I'd read it to him at bed time! (but it would probably give him nightmares... maybe not)

The link has a preview, where you can page through the first dozen or so pages. Precious!

Bill Moyers turns tables on Fox

This link, courtesy of Crooks and Liars, is wonderful!

Bill O'Falafel's laughable producer Porter Barry get's smacked down by Bill Moyers when he tries to ambush him. My buddy Rick has worked closely with Bill Moyers in recent years. A total class act. Consumate professional, reputable journalist, all-around good human-being. I've never seen such a polite, gentile, smooth, calm, persuasive elder-statesman argument put forth, to an obviously out-gunned, little slime ball, worthless little slug (or, more eloquently put, 'pièce de merde').

The clip is kind of long, but it's well worth it.

Moyers:
"Has Bill ever done any reporting?"
(then, off screen... "He did 'A Current Affair' ") - SNICKER! SNICKER! GUFFAW!
"That's right, he did 'A Current Affair' " - too damn funny!

"Bill is not a journalist, he's a pugilist" - LMAO!

"If Bill O'Reilly wants to lie, let him lie, you don't have to lie for him" - superb!

"I will come on the O'Reilly show first, when Rupert Murdoch explains why we are not getting $20 a barrel oil that the Iraq war would deliver" - BAM! gotcha!

Near the end of the clip... (it is 9 minutes) American News Project asks Porter:
"I just want to know one, thing. Is what you're doing journalism?" - LOL!

It'll be interesting to see how the footage gets cut and spliced for O'Falafel's show (since his camera crew was there as well with Porter).

It's good to laugh! =)

Thursday, June 5, 2008

BiG LiZARD iN MY BACKYARD



Leaping Lizards! (or at least frozen still, trying to blend in, and then scurrying quickly away without leaping)

We've got striped lizards here in Arizona, and without spraying any pest control chemicals, my backyard has a wide variety of flora and fauna.


There's at least 3 of these reptiles - 2 of them are male, posturing, doing "push ups" on the top of the fence wall to try and look impressive - who visit / dine in / run about my back yard escape from the encroaching neighborhood.

This lizard reminds me of one of my favorite albumns of my freshman year:

The Dead Milkmen's debut albumn

(pictured to the right)

Lieberman gets confronted by Obama

'Tip o'the hat' to my buddy Matt for this gem.

Barack has a nice little chat with Joe L:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/198727.php
one possible visual for the mind's eye, is reminiscent of LBJ's style of one-on-one... discussion:
If / (When?) Dems pick up more seats in the election (whether or not Obama wins), Lieberman's days are probably numbered. He will get booted from his committee chairs and will silently sink in irrelevance and obscurity.

Public Speaking 101, compare & contrast

compare and contrast

McCain (not a maverick, or straight talker, for the last 18 months)

and

Obama (not a secret time traveling Muslim)

If, when speaking publicly, the ability to
- use the English language
- inspire an audience enthusiastically
- draw a large crowd
- read a teleprompter
- present original material
- inspire your critics and many pundits to comment positively upon you
- present a vision for the future
- not base your speech entirely upon your opponents' talking points
- get more than a C+ in a public speaking class

....is any indicator of how a general election can go, then the election in November should be a landslide of Reagan-esque proportions, for the Democrats (if they don't blow it).

It makes me cringe to think back at how I used to subscribe to McCain's straight-talk email mailing list. Ouch.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

NATO's short of equipment, to fight the Taliban

The outgoing US military commander for NATO forces in Afghanistan says the mission is "under-resourced." not enough equipment (poignant report on PRI's "The World")

All the equipment the US needs in Afghanistan is tied up on the other side of Iran, in Mess-o-potamia, where none of the 9-11 hijackers came from.

Thanks again Neo Conservatives who have all drank the kool aid and launched this unjustified war, endangering the US by bogging it down and distracting it from the Real War on terror in Afghanistan.

Have you Hugged your Hummer?

I heard on the radio today, how GM is considering selling off the Hummer Brand.

Wait! I thought Hummers were better than hybrids. I read all about it here, at Reason.org back in 2006, and also over here in 2006 at the absolutely factual and unbiased "Weekly Standard" (The Hybrid Hoax They're not as fuel-efficient as you think.) and on endless blogs and commentaries in the last 5 years.

And GM pulled the plug on their "lease only" EV1 that spawned the interesting movie "Who Killed The Electric Car?" ( http://www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com/ )

And our genius president, back in 2003 stated "a comprehensive energy plan must encourage consumption" (Remarks by the President on Energy Efficiency, The South Lawn, 25 Feb 2002 [Pre-Iraq]).

So according to all the SUV loving naysayers, and Me First, Me First, Me Firsters! ... it's a bad idea to buy smaller cars that are more fuel efficient. Isn't it?

Hmmmm... it's interesting what $4/gal petrol prices will cause consumers to do. As the visionary S.Colbert has stated "the market has spoken, it must be true".

The back-pedaling that red staters will be doing in the months to come as they pretend they've never said such ludicrous things in years past will be interesting to watch.

$cientology hilarity

I stumbled across this link this afternoon... I'm still grinning.

"$cientology
makes the Baby Jesus cry,
and should be treated with caution contempt!"


Classic Colbert material...

"$cientology is a dangerous cult created by L. Ron Hubbard in order to prove his assertion that the weak-minded Hollywood glitterati will believe anything as long as it comes out the talk-hole of a pretty entertainer and has nothing to do with God. Many critics believe that Scientology is by far Hubbard's greatest work of science fiction.

Its sole purpose is to give Hollywood elitists ... a pedestal from which to attempt to destroy America. It is in truthiness and truth a cult, not a church. The only true church was formed by The Baby Jesus, way before Hubbard even thought of inventing a church to win a bar bet."

What did Jesus say about being gay?

The Colbert Interview with fundamentalist Tony Perkins was beautiful. "Where did Jesus talk about gay people, because I have looked, and I can't find it" Colbert asked TP.

"Do you keep Kosher?" - Stephen and I are of the same perspective on this very important point. Take all the Bible literally, without cherry picking what you want from it and forsaking the rest.

This clip embodies the main paranoid precepts of the far right. Excellent satire.

War on Terre Haute

Having been born and raised and educated in the Hoosier State, I found this classic clip (2 years old, is that "classic"?) wonderfully reminiscent. Dan Bakkedahl is not my favorite correspondent, but a mediocre Bakkedahl report is better than 90% of any Jason Jones' reports.

It's also nice that Comedy Central has REMOVED the annoying ads they used to force people to watch before they can see a clip! =)

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=114182&title=war-on-terre-haute

WWFSMD?

http://www.venganza.org/

Ramen

He is everywhere... even a child's play with sparklers reveals his omnipresence.

http://www.venganza.org/2008/05/29/sparklers.htm

Monday, June 2, 2008

McBush, I hope not.

New McCain Communications Director: President has “near dictatorial powers”

from www.crooksandliars.com

amazing...

Know thy enemy

I've started reading a biography of the Bin Ladens by author Steve Coll, in an effort to understand why someone born so rich would want to wage a violent conflict against Western civilization that doesn't agree with his preferential brand of fundamentalism.

In the same vein of things, I heard on the radio last week, an interview with several people who work at the Combating Terrorism Center, and it lead me to their website where they've got translations of many captured documents.

http://ctc.usma.edu/harmony/harmony_docs.asp

Very messed up people, these fundamentalists are.

Christian Fundamentalists:
Eric Rudolph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Rudolf#Bombings
David Koresh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branch_Davidians
Fred Phelps, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson.... all are in the same boat as these guys who the CTC here documents. Cultural, religious wars of ideology...

... I'm hoping the biography will help me to understand a little better, why a gadgety, pampered, technology focused, brother-of-a-rock-star-thrill-seeker, one-of-54-kids, embraces a fundamentalist theology that desires to take society back to the 13th century, eventually.

My looney bun is fine Benny Lava!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA1NoOOoaNw

This video is out of Kollywood (similar to Bollywood, but in Tamil, not in Hindi)

It's an intentional mis-translation... it's been "Buffalaxed" very catchy tune =)

wiki pedia link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_Lava

(link contains examples of the authentic translations, as well as the Bufflaxed translations)

here's the full Tamil / English translation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyp7D2Nzib0

History of "the internets"

it's a series of tubes.. it's Not a dump truck.

S. Colbert facilitates a masterful description here:

http://www.wikiality.com/The_Internets

Sunday, June 1, 2008

A Guide to Christian Clichés and Phrases

http://unreasonablefaith.com/2008/05/29/a-guide-to-christian-cliches-and-phrases/

I found this to be rather accurate. Sadly.

Vomiting Demons into a bag

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/86658/

there's no shortage of extremist weirdos in the world. America (in this case, Texas in particular) seems to be at the fore-front of bizarreness.

How to quietly disenfranchise US voters

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6757612420128645563

disturbing that this can happen with such breadth and depth, socio-economically, cross culturally, geographically.

First Attempt

My old friend Ron kept telling me I should blog... and that by sending out observations via email, I was essentially blogging using inferior technology. So here's my attempt at creating a blog. We'll see how it goes.