Amurika's Greatest Blog

CHUFF CHUFF CHUFF

2010-07-05T10:55:00.001-07:00

Amurika is the TV and movie capital of the world, yet all kids cartoons are made in Japan or Canada. Can someone explain Why?

PRISON BREAK

2010-06-30T23:49:00.001-07:00

So to recap, Sarah:

1) Holds her breath while being drowned for about 20 minutes
2) Unplugs the drain thing (with her teeth?)
3) Her hands were tied up behind her to a chair, then they weren't.
4) Jumps out the window, lands on a car, but doesn't die. In fact she just gets up and walks away.
5) Has a cell phone that nobody is tracking (that wasn't damaged while she was being drowned or jumping out of the window) and (I guess the government forgot they could track her phone?)

NEXT FOOD NETWORK STAR

2010-06-30T23:47:00.000-07:00

This season is crap. There's usually 3 good chefs and 7 bad ones and the 7 bad ones get slowly voted off the show. This season there's 1 good one and 9 bad ones and the bad ones are REALLY bad. How is this a competition? It's more like celebrity sex rehab only with the addicts cooking.

OMG WHY THERE SO MUCH MSG IN ME FOOD PLZ!

2010-06-26T18:49:00.001-07:00

I'm reading yelp reviews trying to find a good Chinese restaurant near me (there are none) and every review for every restaurant has someone bitching about MSG.

First off, how does anyone know whether the food has MSG in it? Are they buying some food and then shipping it off to a lab for analysis? And what do they think MSG tastes like? I guess it would be funny to point out that EVERY SINGLE double-blind test ever done on MSG has concluded that:

1) People can't actually tell whether food has MSG in it.
2) Food with MSG in it doesn't have any harmful or even unpleasant side effects.

Everyone is convinced that MSG is bad for you because everyone is convinced that it's bad for you, so whenever someone doesn't like some Chinese food, they immediately scream "oh it was that MSG!"

Jackasses

Fuck you microsoft

2010-06-26T11:48:00.000-07:00

Thanks for installing updates without my permission. If I say I don't want to restart, it means I don't want to fucking restart. It does not mean you should ask me every minute until I agree. I really want to find the engineer that designed the restart-nag and punch them. It's my computer and I don't want to restart it.

POST OFFICE TIPS

2009-12-14T15:22:00.001-08:00

Dear all of you old folks who are currently or about to be on a gigantic line at the post office. There are a few things you should know:

You don't need to take packages to the post office. The post office will actually come to your house and pick up your mail and packages. There is no need to go to the post office unless you're mailing an international package. Really. That's what all those tiny trucks are for. Learn to use the Internets.
Your house has a mailbox. Put your letters in the mailbox and the post office will pick them up. If you need stamps, buy them at one of the 900 places that sell stamps that aren't the post office. Which brings us to-
Don't buy stamps at the post office. There are a few people with a legitimate reason to go to the post office and they can't get their business done because you want to buy stamps. If you really believe that the post office is the right place to buy stamps, use the fucking machine.
Don't come to the post office to ask questions. Whatever you need to ask is already answered on the post office website. If it isn't, then you can call the post office and ask. If you're bored/lonely then turn on the TV and watch Matlock. Some people actually have a legitimate reason to go to the post office. You don't.
Learn to use flat-rate boxes. This will save you time and/or money. If it doesn't save you money then it will still save you time. Is it really worth an hour on line at the post office to save $2?
It should take less than one minute to complete a post-office transaction. When you get to the front of the line, that means your package is taped shut, you have the proper postage ready, you know exactly how you want to send your package, and all of the stupid forms are filled out. If any of those aren't true, you're a fucking idiot and you don't deserve to have your package delivered, so go home.

THE KIDS AIN'T RIGHT

2009-11-24T12:16:00.000-08:00

This is to all the kiddies in my math class who think high-school-level math is hard and tests of any kind are unfair. Go fuck yourselves.

When I went to college the first time, I didn't do my homework, didn't show up for classes, and never studied. I got C's and F's. After I got my grades, I had a choice to make. I could either straighten up and start acting like a good student, or drop out. I chose to drop out.

Kids at my community college have no such choice to make. The teachers treat the kids like customers who must be pleased at all costs. They get a passing grade just for registering and get a B just for showing up for class. Putting in even a little effort is considered a big deal and makes you an overachiever. And people wonder why every America is one of the stupidest countries on the planet.

THREE MUSINGS

2009-11-24T11:46:00.000-08:00

New law: You're not allowed to wear aviator sunglasses unless you're an aviator and are flying an airplane. Anyone else who wears aviator sunglasses doesn't look trendy or stylish. They look like the unibomber. If you're a woman and you wear aviator sunglasses, you look like an idiot but your friends don't have the courage to tell you.

New rule: You shouldn't be buying espresso for your 8-year-old kids. Let your kids learn to do drugs the way I learned to do drugs - in the basement of their friend's house when no adults are awake.

New rule: If I ask for a large drink, you're not allowed to ask me any follow-up questions, such as whether I want the 32-oz large or the 48-oz large. If I ask for large, that's the end of the conversation. Large, by definition, is the biggest possible size. Anything else is not large, it is medium or small.

Helicopter Halloween

2009-11-01T12:01:00.000-08:00

Last night I saw something new. Parents were driving their giant SUV's down the street, stopping at some houses but not all houses. They would then make their kids run out of the car, get candy from one house, and then run back into the car to move on to the next house. Attachment parenting has reached new heights.

THE ATM FEES

2009-11-01T11:59:00.001-08:00

I just paid $3 to get money out of an ATM, not including what my own bank will charge me. Do you know how much it should cost to get my money out of an ATM? It should cost nothing. Because it's my money. I'm moving my money from the bank to my hand, and somehow in the process, part of it disappears. Why the fuck do we let banks do that?

The bank's job is to move money from point A to point B. That's actually they only thing they do. If they can't do it cheaply, then why are they doing it at all?

SOME THINGS I HATE

2009-06-09T19:14:00.000-07:00

Miley Cyrus. Who the hell is she anyway?
Listening to all options before I make my selection because the menu has recently changed.
Psychology.
Reading books.
Landlords.
The highway.
Dead grass.
Boxes.
Republicans.
Contractors.

WAHHHHHHHHHH

2006-06-13T11:34:00.000-07:00

I just read this TRIPE in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Given the zeal with which federal prosecutors reportedly are investigating Barry Bonds for possible perjury and tax evasion, there is a chance the Giants' standard bearer will be indicted. If so, it could happen soon.

So speculates Bonds' lawyer, Michael Rains, who told KTVU (Channel 2), "It's only a guess. I don't have proof of this, but if they're going to try to indict, they're going to try to indict by July because the U.S. attorney's reappointment comes up again in July and, as I say, I think politics still are at the root of this case."

Should Bonds be indicted, the greatest impact will be on his family, for no matter what one thinks of Bonds, he has a wife, a mother and three children who care for him. Should he be indicted during the season, the impact on his baseball family could be profound, too.

Let me just reiterate, WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! WAHHHHHHHHH! (Those are crying noises.)

Barry Bonds, who made his millions by being a fraud and a cheat by using illegal steroids, may get indicted (and rightfully so), but I'm supposed to feel sorry for his wive and kids that care for him? Please!

While I personally don't give two shits about baseball or overpaid steroid-using players, I think Bonds and everyone else in Baseball that uses steroids should sit down and shut the fuck up, and stop carrying on with the laughably unbelievable lie that he didn't know he was taking steroids. You know, all men's muscles naturally triple in size and strength when they're in their late 30's.

The steroid mutants ruined baseball and many other sports for their own short-term greed, they broke records through cheating, and set a pretty shitty precedent: Don't even bother trying to compete in Baseball or any sport using your own natural abilities. Natural abilities are for suckers. Just cheat the easy way with illegal steroids. The new contest is who can cheat the hardest and fastest and pump the most steroids without dying.

I don't care whether someone uses drugs or not. But if they're going to use drugs in the furtherance of an illegal act, then I think that is pathetic and should be stopped.

If baseball wants to separate itself out into two leagues, one of normal people and one of steroid injecting pseudo-human mutants with giant bulging veiny muscles and shrunken nuts and man-tits and cancer, then fine do it. But don't tell me that a normal person and a steroid mutant are supposed to be competing against eachother, that's just rediculous.

(A)sshole (P)ress strikes again

2006-06-02T13:43:00.000-07:00

The Christian Science Monitor usually posts thoughtful, well researched articles. But today, I came across an article that was picked up by the AP that's so jam-packed full of bullshit that I don't even know where to start.

In 'docu-ganda' films, balance is not the objective

Let's not read the article just yet, I can't even get past the headline. According to the jackass that wrote this article, documentaries are now called 'docu-ganda', implying that movies released as documentaries are actually propaganda.

This may be true (it's not), but the author (Daniel B. Wood) posts no evidence whatsoever to support this vapid terminology.

Next, the writer states "balance is not the objective". What the fuck is that supposed to mean? When Al Gore shows us a picture of a glacier melting, is that somehow unbalanced?

When Michael Moore shows footage of Disaster Monkey reading My Pet Goat with a blank/drugged stare on his face while the nation is under attack, is that unbalanced? What exactly would balance that, a picture of that school we keep saying we built in Iraq?

Let's just knock that term out right now. When a Republican says something is unbalanced or "biased", what they're saying is: "This is truthful and makes us look bad", where as Fox News is called "fair and balanced" because they lie and make Republicans look good. See how that works?

Let's go through some excerpts of the article now:

These two follow in the footsteps of other recent movies in the same nonfiction genre: last year's "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price," "Sir! No Sir!" (about the G.I. antiwar movement during Vietnam), "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," and 2003's "Super Size Me" (about obesity and fast food).

All deliver on the promise to tell an "untold" story, but is theirs the full story? Or even the true story?

To answer the author's Rumsfeld-esque questions, YES these movies are truthful, and yes they tell the whole truth (although I haven't seen Sir no Sir or the Enron Movie). McDonald's food is bad and makes people fat. Wal-Mart sucks money and jobs out of communities and exports it to China.

Is that a surprise or something? If these movies aren't telling the truth, what aren't they telling us? If you're going to blast out an AP article to the whole world accusing documentary film-makers of lieing, shouldn't you take the time to gather evidence? Obviously not.

Don't count on it, say media experts. The days when "documentary" reliably meant "inform the audience" - rather than "influence the audience" - are no more. The makers of such films today see their cinematic contributions as an antidote to media consolidation that, they say, restricts topics and voices to the bland and the commercial. As such, they feel little or no obligation to heed documentary-film traditions like point-by-point rebuttal or formal reality checks.

"We need to clarify that this new wave of 'documentaries' are not, in fact, documentaries," says Christopher Ian Bennett of New School Media, a communications and public-relations firm in Vancouver. "They fail to meet the Oxford Dictionary definition, in that they editorialize, and opine far too much. They are entertaining.... But they can be dangerous if viewers take everything they are saying as the whole truth."

First off, fuck the dictionary. If your whole argument rests upon the definition of a word in a dictionary, you have a really weak argument that you know doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

Here, the writer says documentaries don't tell the truth or the "whole story", and says "media experts agree", but then he only quotes one person!

I'm sure I could find one person to quote saying the world is flat or that we found weapons in Iraq, but that doesn't make it true. Taking a false hypothesis and then stating it as fact because a single person agrees is fraudulent journalism.

The so called expert Christopher Bennett says that documentaries are not documentaries, but doesn't cite a single example or give any evidence to support his claim.

I agree that documentaries such as Supersize Me and fahrenheit 9/11 will influence people, but so what? How does that make them not documentaries? How does that make them "dangerous"? If they are dangerous, how are they dangerous?

The "expert" says that a documentary is supposed to have "point-by-point rebuttal or formal reality checks", but who made that rule? What constitutes a formal reality check? If something is true and can be proven true, what other reality check do we need, and who gets to decide whether something is real or not? Certainly not the AP.

The expert's last sentence about documentaries "editorializing and opining" is just too funny when you consider this article is coming from the AP. I don't think I need to explain why.

The author then goes on to state that Fahrenheit 9/11 was "about the Bush administration's march to war after the 9/11 attacks", which demonstrates that he never saw the movie. Fahrenheit 9/11 was about how George Bush stole the 2000 election and allowed the attack of 9/11 to happen, and then prevented any investigation and so on.

One problem with such "docu-ganda," say some media experts, is that the films risk limiting their audiences to those who agree with their premises.

"One concern I have about such films is that they are merely preaching to the choir. You're not going to have a fellow with an NRA [National Rifle Association] bumper sticker walking into [Moore's] 'Bowling for Columbine,'" says Matt Felling of the nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington, which studies news and entertainment media. "[Former US Sen.] Pat Moynihan was famous for saying, 'Everybody is entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts,' " says Mr. Felling.

Here he goes again with that tired and pathetic anonymous sourcing, "some people might say", "experts agree", etc. This is what writers do when they can't find anyone to quote, or when they only have one person to quote and want to make that position seem accepted or mainstream.

If you think that Bowling for Columbine is anti-guns (and therefore Michael Moore is anti-guns), you haven't seen the movie! Who does this jackass think he's fooling? Bowling for Columbine was about the culture of war, violence, and killing in America, not guns.

I'm not sure what's the point of that little quip about people not being entitled to their own facts. I guess when your article has little or no facts and almost no substance, you might as well fill space with bumper-sticker slogans.

The Evidence

2006-03-26T13:29:00.000-08:00

I just watched the pilot episode of The Evidence, A lame cop show that supposedly takes place in San Francisco. After watching the show, I've learned the following things:

The Trans-America building is the only noteworthy building in San Francisco. If we don't see images of the Trans-America building every five minutes, the audience will forget that the show is filmed in San Francisco.

Detectives in San Francisco are actually called "inspectors"

Inspectors spend less than half of their time actually investigating crime. The rest of the time they spend having flashbacks, buying rings, and flirting with female police.

The audience of cop-shows are very stupid, and can't figure anything out without being specifically told.

Inspectors spend all of their investigation time in tourist spots that everyone recognizes, such as Castro St, the Embarcadero, and Chinatown.

A police inspector makes over a million dollars a year, since that's what it would cost to have a house in San Francisco with a front lawn.

Red's Javahouse, the place where I park my car, is actually a big cop-hangout and not a sleezy dive that no one would ever go to.

Slashing someone with a hunting knife can take your finger off.

When two Inspectors are executing an arrest warrent on a murder suspect, they don't go in with ANY backup, and they don't bother to cover the back exits. They also knock and give the suspect plenty of time to escape through the back exit which they didn't think to cover.

After spending many years watching high calibar police-drama's such as NYPD Blue, Law and Order, and The Shield, I have to say that this is one of the dullest and most unrealistic shows I've ever seen. I realize that all TV shows have an element of fantasy, but come on, do they think we're really that stupid?

This show has no likeable characters, every main character is one-dimensional and emotionless, and the audience doesn't have to do any thinking at all. Boring!

Things I don't understand

2006-03-10T13:32:00.000-08:00

I was getting a burrito this morning and a [vegan?] lady ordered a decaffe soy latte. Now what the fuck is the point of that?

I can understand ordering a decaffe latte because you like the taste of a latte but don't want the caffeine. I can understand ordering a soy caffinated latte because you want caffeine but don't want to drink milk. But what the hell is a decaffe soy latte? You don't want caffeine but you want a drink that tastes like hot cat shit?

The shame of America

2006-03-09T10:26:00.000-08:00

This is what the United States of America does:

New evidence has emerged that US forces in Afghanistan engaged in widespread Abu Ghraib-style abuse, taking "trophy photographs" of detainees and carrying out rape and sexual humiliation.

Documents obtained by the Guardian contain evidence that such abuses took place in the main detention centre at Bagram, near the capital Kabul, as well as at a smaller US installation near the southern city of Kandahar.

The documents also indicate that US soldiers covered up abuse in Afghanistan and in Iraq - even after the Abu Ghraib scandal last year.

...

In the dossier, the Iraqi detainee claims that three US interrogators in civilian clothing dislocated his arms, stuck an unloaded gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger, choked him with a rope until he lost consciousness, and beat him with a baseball bat.

"After they tied me up in the chair, then they dislocate my both arms. He asked to admit before I kill you then he beat again and again," the prisoner says in his statement. "He asked me: Are you going to report me? You have no evidence. Then he hit me very hard on my nose, and then he stepped on my nose until he broken and I started bleeding."

...

In sworn affidavits to a British-American human rights lawyer, a Palestinian says he was sodomised by American soldiers in Afghanistan. Another former prisoner of US forces, a Jordanian, describes a form of torture which involved being hung in a cage from a rope for days.

Both men were freed from US detention last year after being held in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. Neither has been charged by any government with any offence.

Hussain Adbulkadr Youssouf Mustafa, a Palestinian living in Jordan, told the lawyer, Clive Stafford-Smith, that he was sodomised by US soldiers during his detention at Bagram air force base in 2002.

He claims to have been blindfolded, tightly handcuffed, gagged and had his ears plugged, forced to bend down over a table by two soldiers, with a third soldier pressing his face down on the table, and to have had his trousers pulled down.

"They forcibly rammed a stick up my rectum," he reports. "It was excruciatingly painful ... Only when the pain became overwhelming did I think I would ever scream. But I could not stop screaming when this happened."

In a second affidavit, the Jordanian citizen, Wesam Abdulrahman Ahmed Al Deemawi, detained from March 15 2002 to March 31 2004, says that during a 40-day period of detention at Bagram he was threatened with dogs, stripped and photographed "in shameful and obscene positions" and placed in a cage with a hook and a hanging rope. He says he was hung from this hook, blindfolded, for two days although he was occasionally given hour-long "breaks".

This is what America does, we torture and we kill innocent people for no reason. Every time we pay taxes, we pay to keep this torture machine going. Our income taxes, sales taxes, business taxes are all paying for torture, paying for murder.

It makes me ashamed and embaressed to be an American. America tortures. America rapes. America murders. I hate what America has become, I hate it, and I want to leave.

Stupid policy statements

2006-03-07T12:09:00.000-08:00

WAPO:

"It could be a great year for Democrats," said Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), but the party must present a more moderate face and distinguish itself more clearly from the GOP on issues such as ethics. "The comment I hear is 'I'd really like to vote for you guys, but I can't stand the folks I see on TV,' " Cooper said in a telephone interview from Nashville.

Hey inept moron, stop telling people what Democrats should be doing, and start doing it. Holy fuck, do we need to wipe his ass for him too? Stop saying we need to distinguish, and start DISTINGUISHING. Holy shit I'm so sick of this kind of stupid bluster and hee-hawing.

Stop saying what we need to do, and start god damn doing it! We've as good as lost the 2006 election and the campaign hasn't even started yet.

The lights are on but nobody's home

2006-03-03T08:28:00.000-08:00

Can you say DUMB BASTARD?

Most U.S. troops in Iraq support withdrawal

2006-03-01T12:33:00.000-08:00

Most U.S. troops in Iraq support withdrawal

WASHINGTON - Nearly three out of four American troops serving in Iraq think U.S. forces should withdraw within a year, and more than one in four say the United States should leave immediately, according to a new poll published Tuesday.

That's nice, but who the hell cares what our troops think? Their purpose is to follow orders, not have an opinion. If they do have an opinion, they can keep it to themselves, because their opinion doesn't matter, it counts for nothing.

David Segal, a military sociologist at the University of Maryland, said that while most service members were more conservative than society as a whole, it wasn't surprising to see them reflect attitudes similar to civilians, who increasingly oppose the war.

Those views aren't necessarily an indication that troops are losing faith in the war, Segal said.

"One could argue that troops are saying, `Hey, we've accomplished a great deal. It's time to get out,' which is what you hear a lot of people in Washington saying," he said.

Wew, that fascist nazi just said a mouthful. Where do I start?

First off, we're not at war. Duh. WE ARE NOT AT WAR. We can't win or lose a war that we're not in. That plain simple fact negates most of what this Bushist has to say.

Also, what did we accomplish? Is killing innocent people an accomplishment? Is creating a civil war an accomplishment? Is destroying a sovereign country for no reason an accomplishment? I would like to see a list of our so-called accomplishments. Of course you'll never see such a list, because we would need to actually accomplish something for there to be a list.

A different nazi jackass chimes in:

"The poll's findings certainly aren't reflective of the attitudes we see displayed by the majority of troops, who are performing in a remarkable manner in a combat situation far from home," said Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman.

Yah um, yes they are actually. Three-quarters is certainly a majority, is it not? That's a little trick I call math. Also, which part of what our troops are doing is remarkable? Is it the way we torture innocent people? Or is it the way we indiscriminately bomb civilians? Is it the last few weddings we blew up or the entire cities that we destroyed? Is it the way we use chemical weapons like white phosphorus? What?

85 percent of those surveyed believed that the war was "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9-11 attacks," although the 9-11 commission in 2004 found "no credible evidence" that Iraq had cooperated with al-Qaida in the attacks.

Wow that's scarey as all fuck, isn't it? Who told the troops that Saddam had anything to do with September 11th, when everyone in the world knows that he didn't? Oh yah, our government did. Nice work.

ITS THE SMELL!

2006-02-16T08:25:00.000-08:00

Every day, I come to work wondering what San Francisco will smell like today. Will it smell like shit? Like rotting fish? Like homeless people? Today I discovered a new smell, old cheese. The entire city smells like old rotting cheese.

What's in the news today?

Four Dallas Police Officers Shot

(02-16) 07:53 PST DALLAS (AP) --

Four police officers were shot Thursday as they tried to serve a federal drug warrant on a home in southwest Dallas.

Wow, I'm glad to hear that Dallas has so little actual crime that they can focus all their time on winning the war on drugs. We've been fighting that awesome drug war for like 50 years now, right? So by now we must be winning, right? How long do you suppose it will be before there's no more drugs? Another 50 or 100 years?

Aren't there more illegal drugs available now than there ever were in the history of the country? Aren't they more readily accessible than any time in history? Don't a higher percentage of people claim to have used illegal drugs than any other time in history? Oh there I go again using facts and logic. I really ought to stop thinking for myself.

More sort-of news-

House panel rips administration on Katrina response

"If this is what happens when we have advance warning," the special House committee said on Page 18 of its 530-page report about Katrina, "we shudder to imagine the consequences when we do not. Four and a half years after 9/11, America is still not ready for prime time."

Um, didn't we have advanced warning of the 9/11 attack? Something about Osama Bin Laden being determined to strike in US, a month before he striked in the US?

Also what's this shit about prime time? Is it supposed to be funny to compare this criminal corrupt regime to Saturday Night Live? Ha ha ha?

What shoebombers?

2006-02-15T10:49:00.000-08:00

I'm surprised that last week's fake shoebomer story expired after only one 24-hour news cycle in the old media (TV, newspaper) and then lasted for about two more days in the blogosphere where it was ridiculed over and over. I would have thought that the old media would keep this freakshow alive for a few more days to keep everybody scared.

The Cheney attempted murder story is getting a lot more play than I thought it would. I figured this story would go away after a day or so since it's not really news and no one seems to care about it. It looks like the more attention it gets, the weirder the story gets. This is probably a side effect of the reflexive instinct of this criminal administration to lie about EVERYTHING.

From jesus' General:

The police report says that Whittington was 30 yards away when Dick shot him. It also notes that the elderly gentleman was hit in the face, chest and neck. Agents of the Ministry of Truth characterize the shooting as a "peppering." Taken all together, these things would suggest that the shot was fairly well dispersed.

Unfortunately, a more detailed look at the facts reveals something else. Our Deputy Leader was using 28 gauge shotgun shells loaded with 3/4 oz of #7-1/2 shot. That particular load carries approximately 262 BBs. The doctor caring for the wounded man said that he removed about 200 BBs. That means about 4/5ths of the shot in the load struck the man in an area no larger than about 18 inches in diameter.

That seems like an awfully tight pattern at 30 yards. It can only be explained by the existence of a magic BB that would ride herd on the other BBs, keeping them as bunched up as possible.

The narrative of this story is coming along nicely...

The White House kept this story a secret for more than a day. Scottie claims that no one at the White House knew about it because everyone was so concerned about getting Whittington medical care that no one had time to call the president. Sorry but that's a dog that won't hunt.

Maybe I can believe Cheney accidentally shot someone if he was actually hunting, but he wasn't. Hunting has nothing to do with what he was doing, which was shooting at caged pheasants that were released three feet away from him. He killed over 400 of them. How the hell do you accidentally shoot someone in the face with a shotgun in a situation like this?

MSNBC reported that Cheney had been drinking before shooting the old man in the face, but then all traces of this comment were erased, thrown down the memory hole, scrubbed from reality.

Then we have the blame the victim narrative.

Everything about this story is getting smoothed over and whitewashed. Whittington wasn't shot in the face, he was "peppered".

Whittington "came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself," Armstrong said.

"The vice president didn't see him," she continued. "The covey flushed and the vice president picked out a bird and was following it and shot. And by God, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good."

More peppering-

Hospital officials in Corpus Christi announced Tuesday that Whittington had suffered a "minor heart attack" and was returned to the intensive care unit.

...

"At this distance he's peppered with lot of small holes," said Dr. J. Wayne Meredith of the Wake Forest School of Medicine, who has seen similar injuries.

When did people start referring to shootings as "pepperings"? Isn't that something you do to a steak? And just what the hell is a minor heart attack?

Dailykos has a good diary entry about this that really makes you wonder what the hell is going on.

Scalia is CRAZY

2006-02-14T15:00:00.000-08:00

Neo-Nazi Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says:

People who believe the Constitution would break if it didn't change with society are "idiots," U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says.

In a speech Monday sponsored by the conservative Federalist Society, Scalia defended his long-held belief in sticking to the plain text of the Constitution "as it was originally written and intended.

For those of you who don't know, the constitution as it was originally written:

Had no bill of rights. No freedom of speech. No protection against cruel and unusual punishment. No separation of church and state. No protection against illegal search and seizure, and so on

Did not allow anyone to vote except white male landowners

Specifically allowed slavery and regarded black people as 3/5 of a person

This is the world that this fascist bastard lives in and this is how he judges cases in the highest court in the land. Scarey

SHOT HIM IN THE FACE

2006-02-14T10:14:00.000-08:00

Jon Stewart:

Jon Stewart: "I'm joined now by our own vice-presidential firearms mishap analyst, Rob Corddry. Rob, obviously a very unfortunate situation. How is the vice president handling it?

Rob Corddry: "Jon, tonight the vice president is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Wittington. According to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush.

"And while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Whittington's face."

Jon Stewart: "But why, Rob? If he had known Mr. Whittington was not a bird, why would he still have shot him?"

Rob Corddry: "Jon, in a post-9-11 world, the American people expect their leaders to be decisive. To not have shot his friend in the face would have sent a message to the quail that America is weak."

Jon Stewart: "That's horrible."

Rob Corddry: "Look, the mere fact that we're even talking about how the vice president drives up with his rich friends in cars to shoot farm-raised wingless quail-tards is letting the quail know 'how' we're hunting them. I'm sure right now those birds are laughing at us in that little 'covey' of theirs.

Jon Stewart: "I'm not sure birds can laugh, Rob."

Rob Corddry: "Well, whatever it is they do ... coo .. they're cooing at us right now, Jon, because here we are talking openly about our plans to hunt them. Jig is up. Quails one, America zero.

Jon Stewart: "Okay, well, on a purely human level, is the vice president at least sorry?"

Rob Corddry: "Jon, what difference does it make? The bullets are already in this man's face. Let's move forward across party lines as a people ... to get him some sort of mask."

Try this game, it's fun

Bush's Job Approval Stuck Near Bottom

2006-02-10T10:44:00.000-08:00

From the Associated Pissants

WASHINGTON -
President Bush's marks on overall job approval and for handling the economy are mired near their lowest levels despite a spike in consumer confidence over the past month, an AP-Ipsos poll found.

Bush's job approval is now at 40 percent and his approval on handling the economy at 39 percent. Those numbers haven't budged over the last month even with the public's confidence in the economy growing and the president delivering an upbeat State of the Union address.

I guess that's sorta good news. Only 40% of our country are fascist nazi bastards who deserve to be deported to China.

What's all this huffy-huff about a "spike in consumer confidence"? Is any sane American confident about ANYTHING AT ALL, much less the economy, which is still stuck in the Bush depression?

Over the past five years that the disaster monkey has been occupying the White House, personal income has fallen every year, jobs have been LOST every year, wealth has been shifted away from the poor and middle class and up to the top 1% of the country's wealthy elitist class.

Well paying jobs have been eliminated or outsourced overseas and been replaced by nothing at all or low-paying service/retail jobs.

Since the Great Depression, no other president who served at least 52 months has overseen a net loss in private sector jobs through this point. In addition to lack of job growth, real weekly and hourly wages have declined since the start of the recession. At a time when middle-class Americans are experiencing stagnant wages and vanishing benefits, CEO pay continues to rise.

Source: Center for American Progress, Economic Policy Weekly, Jenna Churchman, June 6, 2005

Americans are being suffocated by crushing debt that will never ever go away. Personal debt is at an all time high, which matches the federal government's debt which is also at record highs.

But you know it's all worth it to pay for everlasting war, welfare for greedy corporations, and giveaways to the ultra-mega-rich.

How do you hijack a plane with a shoe bomb?

2006-02-09T15:46:00.000-08:00

From Atrios:

Stop Making Sense

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush disclosed new details on Thursday of a thwarted al Qaeda plot to use shoe bombs to hijack a plane and fly it into a Los Angeles building, as he sought to justify his tactics in fighting terrorism.

Um, you can't hijack a plane with shoe bombs. You can blow up a plane with shoe bombs.

Q Scott, I wanted to just ask a follow-up about the LA plot. Is there something missing from this story, a practical application, a few facts? Because if you want to commandeer a plane and fly it into a tower, if you used shoe bombs, wouldn't you blow off the cockpit? Or is there something missing from this story?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know what you're referring to about missing. I mean, I think we provided you a detailed briefing earlier today about the plot. And Fran Townsend, our Homeland Security Advisor, talked about it. So I'm not sure what you're suggesting it.

Q Think about it, if you're wearing shoe bombs, you either blow off your feet or you blow off the front of the airplane.

MR. McCLELLAN: There was a briefing for you earlier today. I think that's one way to look at it. There are a lot of ways to look at it, and she explained it earlier today, Alexis, so I would refer you very much back to what she said, what she said earlier today.

Atrios makes a very good point. Can you rob a bank with a shoebomb? "GIVE ME THE MONEY OR I'LL BLOW MY LEGS CLEAN OFF!"

My Fucked Company

2006-02-09T10:01:00.000-08:00

The company I've been working for during the past 2 months kept a few secrets from me during the interview process. After I was hired, I was told that the company is in bankruptcy, and looking for a buyer. Great, just what I need.

In 2005 I worked for six different companies. I stayed at any given company an average of two months. Every time I find a company that I can tolerate, they go out of business. For example, Epinions.com, Grand Central, and now this company.

In every case, during the interview they hide the fact that their company is in trouble and tell me whatever I need to hear to get me hired. This makes no sense, as a company that's about to go under should not be hiring in the first place.

I predict that within the next six months, probably much sooner, my currently company will be bought. I predict that 80% of the staff, including myself, will be laid off. I predict there will be no severance, or maybe a very small sevarance like two weeks.

Around and Around We Go

2006-02-09T07:37:00.000-08:00

Here we go again! Bush gets harshly criticized at Coretta Scott King's funeral, and today we have news that a terrorist plot was thwarted four years ago. Of course this is a lie, OF COURSE it's a lie. IT NEVER HAPPENED.

CNN BREAKING NEWS

President Bush says in mid-2002, U.S. disrupted al Qaeda plot to use shoe bombs to hijack plane for attack on L.A.'s Liberty Tower.

I call bullshit. I know for a fact that this never happened because everything Bush says is a lie. If Bush says it's raining, he's lying. If Bush says the sky is blue, that's a lie. See? You know he's lying because his mouth is moving.

On Tuesday, for the first time in his illegitimate presidency, at King's funeral Bush was in a room full of people who were not hand picked by his handlers, who did not sign loyalty oaths, who did not have scripted questions and pre-approved speeches. For the first time, he was outside his bubble, and he was taken to task and then some. He sat there like a brain damaged MONKEY and rolled his eyes as he was slapped in the face with plain damning truth.

"She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions way afar," Lowery said. "We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there [pointing at Bush]. But Coretta knew, and we knew, that there are weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war, billions more, but no more for the poor."

The disaster monkey rolled his eyes and squirmed and didn't know what to do. Who are these colored folk who dare to criticize me? Don't they know that weapons of mass destruction was like 14 excuses ago?

Then today, to knock that story off the front pages, we get what? TERRA! TERRORISM THWARTED! Back to the terror well, the gift that keeps on giving. The news media dutifully plays along just like they always do.

WE ARE JUST THAT STUPID

2006-02-08T18:27:00.000-08:00

This just posted by the Associated Asshole newswire-

(02-08) 18:19 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --

At least eight senators were among 200 people being held in a Capitol parking garage Wednesday night after a security sensor indicated the presence of a nerve agent in their office building. A later test proved negative.

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT. Sure. Yah I believe that. Every time the news media starts to report bad news for the White House, there's news of terrorism. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

The alert level changes. A second in command in Al-Qaida is arrested (we now have over 7,000 Al-Qaida second in commands). A city is under threat of attack that never happens. A fake terrorist plot is pretended to be thwarted.

What's in the news this week? Chief Torturer Abu Gonzales testifies in a senate hearing where he repeatedly refuses to answer any questions at all about George Bush's illegal wiretapping of American citizens (such as me). Then, right on cue, we have a fake terrorist threat on the capital.

Just how stupid do they think we are? Well since we re-elected this bastard, I guess they already know the answer. We are highly fucking stupid. All that's left is to put a little scare into the senators that are calling for investigations. Trust us or you'll all be killed by the terrorists they say. Look a nerve agent! It doesn't really exist but hey we're going to scare you anyway.

The nazi bastards in the Bush crime family will stoop to any level to keep their entrenched hold on power, what little they have left. Anyone that threatens their regime is reminded that they can be killed at any time.

For the nazi Bushists, terrorism is the gift that keeps on giving. Whenever they need to change the narritive or keep the rubes (all of us) in line, they just dip into that reliable terrorism well that never dries up, and it's never failed them. Never, so long as our incompetant, whorish, and traitorish newsmedia go along blindly, just as they ALWAYS do.

Batshit Crazy Wingnuts, Go Away

2006-02-08T18:13:00.000-08:00

If you are a batshit crazy right winger, go away. Read someone else's blog, like Assrocket's Powerline or the Drudge Report or some other blog that's fit for the brain of a five year old.

Turn on Fox News. Watch Scarborough Country. Listen to Rush Limbaugh. Do whatever you want, just go away. Don't read my blog, don't comment on it. I don't want your stupidass comments, I don't want you reading what I have to say. You won't understand it.

You are ignorant of the entire world. You have no understanding of anything that goes on around you except your own sparkly shoes. No one cares what you think, especially me. Infact, I find you vile, treasonous, and a waste of space on this planet. You do not deserve to breath the same air as I do. You are a worthless human being, if you can even be called human.

Go about your stupid meaningless life. Go shop at Walmart and make the Chinese rich. Go put more gas in your SUV and make the Saudis rich. Go to public school and learn how sex is bad and will kill you and drugs are bad and will kill you and how the war in Vietnam, the holocaust, the eradication of the native Americans, and other major world events never really happened.

Just go. Go now. Get the fuck off of my blog.

A little common sense

2006-02-08T12:41:00.000-08:00

I'm bored at work so I decided to read some of the moronic bullshit that rightwing Senator Joe Lieberman puts on his website. I was reading his congratulatory puff-piece on Bush's state of the union speech. None of it is worth reading because Joe Lieberman is nothing more than a sycophantic right-wing lunatic. But this part is interesting:

We remain a nation at war - at war in Iraq and also at war with Islamist terrorism around the world and it was important for the President to discuss it with the nation tonight. Now we must look to the details of his forthcoming budget to see how well funded his plans are for achieving progress and victory in the years ahead.

Here are some points to consider-

We are not at war with anyone. No one is at war with us. The Constitution plainly says that only Congress can declare war, see Article 1 of the Constitution. They did not declare war, thus we are not at war. That's a little trick I call logic.

If we really are at war in Iraq, who are we at war with? We invaded and occupied Iraq, does that mean we're at war with ourselves?

How can you be at war with terrorism? Terrorism is a method, not a person or a state. You can not be at war with a method or an activity.

Although it is universally accepted as fact, there is no evidence whatsoever that Al-Qaida attacked us on September 11th. None. Nada. Zip. The only reason we think that Al-Qaida attacked us is because George Bush said so, but we know Bush is a pathological liar who has never spoke a word of truth in his entire life.

How do you declare victory on a budget? This is very strange Orwellian language.

Bush says stuff, media claps and cheers and begs for more

2006-02-08T10:58:00.000-08:00

Why does shit like this get any play in the news media?

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush called Wednesday for an end to violence triggered by drawings of the Prophet Mohammed but also said press freedom should be exercised with sensitivity.

You mean Bush can just get on TV and tell the world to do stuff and they'll, like, magically do whatever he says? If it's so easy then why doesn't he call for the freedom fighters in Iraq to surrender to their new rulers? Why doesn't he call on China to stop taking our precious oil? Why not call on congress to stop investigating him?

Of course to anyone who's capable of rational thought, we know that when Bush says these things, he's not talking to "the world", but to his small base of lunatic supporters. The rest of the world doesn't listen to Bush because he has no credibility, and thus America has no credibility.

When he threatens military action against countries like, say, Iran, people laugh because we have no authority anymore. None. This crap is purely for "domestic consumption" of the moron-Americans who continue to prop up this neo-nazi regime.

Is the San Francisco Police run by George W. Bush?

2006-02-08T10:23:00.000-08:00

Over the past few days, the San Francisco Chronicle, one of the only newspapers in this country that attempts actual journalism, did a series of articles on the rampant incompetence and corruption of the San Francisco Police Department.

It's common knowledge in San Francisco that the city has one of the highest per-capita murder rates in the country, and the lowest crime clearance rate OF ANY CITY IN THE COUNTRY including a 28% solvency rate for murder and other violent crimes. For any criminals reading my blog, that means you have a 72% chance of getting away with murder, where the national average is something like 55%.

The San Francisco Police may or may not respond to a 911 call regardless of the importance. I can tell you from many firsthand experiences that getting a police response, if it happens at all, will take upwards of 20 minutes and requires multiple calls.

The Chronicle pointed out that SFPD officers routinely break the law by using force when situations do not warrant it. Complaints against officers are never acted upon, infact the worst abusers are often promoted.

On Monday, the chronicle did a story on one of the worst offenders of criminal use of force, officer John Haggett. Everything in the article was factually accurate.

On Tuesday, after several articles had been done on the SFPD, the city finally responded. They dressed police chief Heather Fong up in a police costume, which we can assume she never actually wears to work because she isn't a patrol officer, and pointed out that the picture that was published in the John Haggett article was not of John Haggett, but someone who isn't even a cop at all. It turns out he's a taxi driver.

Now obviously this is a stupidly embarrassing error on the Chronicle's part, but this is completely immaterial and irrelevant. Heather Fong did not refute any of the chronicles allegations about rampant corruption and criminal conduct, nothing about illegal use of force on innocent civilians. She just went on and on about the picture being the wrong person.

Ever since then, the story about the SFPD has kind of gone away and been replaced with front page articles about the man in the picture.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say the police department was run by George W. Bush and Karl Rove. This PR strategy is taken directly out of their playbook. When someone points the finger, attack the finger. Do everything you can to distract and confuse the public. Find an irrelevant point that takes the attention off your own wrongdoing and point the spotlight on something else.

This is very fucking disturbing that it is happening in San Francisco, a supposedly liberal anti-bush city. Police Chief Heather Fong has proved that she is corrupt and she needs to be fired and held to account for her horrible management style. The entire city should be outraged at this disgusting use of PR tricks and DEMAND that someone be fired.

Worst San Francisco Drivers

2006-02-07T16:19:00.000-08:00

The worst San Francisco Drivers:

Bicycle Riders

Refuse to stop for stopsigns or red lights

Ride on the wrong side of the street, or against traffic on one way streets

Ride on the sidewalk instead of the bike lane

Generally disregard every single law, but then complain that car drivers don't respect them

Muni Drivers

Never yield right of way to pedestrians in cross walks

Run red lights

Drive with wreckless disregard for human life

Asians

Have no concept whatsoever of the world around them. Drive completely oblivious to other people

Always driving while on cell phone, always

Complete disregard for pedestrians

Able to pass driver's test with total lack of understanding of driving laws

Vote

2006-02-07T16:18:00.000-08:00

Use the comments to vote in this fair and balanced poll:

1) Pull out of Iraq now
2) I hate America

Q & A: Our Omnipotent President

2006-01-27T10:49:00.000-08:00

This is funny

Q. Can the president spy on Americans without a warrant?

A. The president has to spy on Americans without a warrant! We're at war, and the president's gotta defend America, and he's not gonna wait for a permission slip from a judge or a senator or America to do it!

Q. That's just the kinda tough, no-nonsense thinking I like in a de facto dictator! Now some crazy people say the president broke some silly old laws like FISA and the National Security Act and the Fourth Amendment. Are these crazy people crazy?

A. They sure are! Maybe those laws worked back in 1978 back when Leonid Brezhnev was snortin coke with Ayatollah Khomeini and groovin to the hits of the Bee Gees, but in today's dark and dangerous times they just aren't enough.

Q. Things sure have changed since the innocent days of mutually assured destruction! But is it legal for the president to ignore the law?

A. Maybe not according to plain ol stupid ol regular law, but we're at war! You don't go to war with regular laws, which are made outta red tape and bureaucracy and Neville Chamberlain. You go to war with great big strapping War Laws made outta tanks and cold hard steel and the American Fightin Man and WAR, KABOOOOOOM!

Q. How does a War Bill become a War Law?

A. It all begins with the president, who submits a bill to the president. If a majority of both the president and the president approve the bill, then it passes on to the president, who may veto it or sign it into law. And even then the president can override himself with a two-thirds vote.

Q. Is the president above the law?

A. Nobody's above the law! As commander-in-chief the president just outranks the law.

Q. Can the president eat a baby?

A. If that baby has suspected ties to al Qaeda, then it's the president's duty to eat it - for the sake of national security.

Q. The president doesn't want to eat sweet, delicious babies. He just wants to protect America from the growing threat of a rogue baby insurgency.

A. Exactly. And nobody will have more compassion for that succulent baby barbecue than him.

Q. How many non-terrorist babies would it be acceptible for the president to accidentally eat in the course of enforcing a rigorous terrorist baby-eating program?

A. First of all, the president would never ever eat a baby unless it was reasonably suspected to be affiliated with possible terroresque program activities. Second of all, do we really wanna start tyin the president's hands when he's tryin to protect everybody from jihadist babies? They could be Islamifying our country's drool supply as we speak!

Q. Sir, I demand the immediate establishment of a cabinet-level Department of Baby-Eating!

A. Just til we win the War on Terror, of course!

Air America's Fucking Annoying Commercials

2006-01-27T10:42:00.000-08:00

Air America, despite being my favorite radio station, has the most fucking annoying commercials I've ever heard. They consist of:

Scam weight loss pills

Scam magical hair regrowth formula

Get rich quick scams

Lawyers

Magical vitamins that don't really do anything

I've finally had it with listening to their damn commercials and decided to listen via podcast. By listening to podcast, I listen to the same show, a day old, but with all the commercials stripped out.

Just to demonstrate how many commercials they play, a three hour Al Franken Show, minus commercials, comes out to a mere 1 hour 20 minutes. That means commercials make up MORE THAN HALF the programming.

As TV's John Stossel would say:

Give me a break!

What the fuck are the satellite sisters?

2006-01-23T11:15:00.000-08:00

I just heard that Air America is taking the Mike Malloy show off of WLIB, the flagship station in New York. This doesn't really affect me since I don't live in New York and don't listen live anyway, but what the hell is going on at Air America?

First they get rid of one of their best shows, Unfiltered, and replace it with the softball right-of-center musings of Jerry Springer. I didn't really like the Springer show, but then they even took Jerry off the air and replaced it with nothing.

The Al Franken show has gone to shit ever since he dropped his co-host Rachel Maddow. What was once a hard-hitting energic political powerhouse is sounding more and more like just another morning-drive talkshow.

The Randi Rhodes show is offset by 3 hours so that we can listen to Ed Shultz, who's a good radio host but isn't part of Air America. I don't know what the hell that is all about. Every other radio show is live except for Randi Rhodes, and Randi is one of the only show hosts that actually had prior radio experience.

And now Air America has worked their suicide magic again by replacing Mike Malloy, my favorite show, with the fucking Satellite Sisters, which seems to be some kind of rightwing happytalk show. Here's an excert from their lame website:

Did you know that scientific research suggests that chuckling can boost the body's immune system and decrease stress hormones? That’s good to know because laughing is one of our favorite things to do!

Yes, uhh um, lets hear it for laughter. Yah. Somehow I don't think their show is worthy of being broadcast to millions of people who are hungry for truth and compelling progressive political talk. It seems like more of the same watered down crap that we already hear on every single radio station. What the hell is Air America thinking??

Water Falls From Sky: Dog Gets Wet

2006-01-21T17:12:00.000-08:00

Sunnyvale, CA.

A white miniature schnauzer was caught in the rain today and returned home from his walk "soaking wet". Early reports indicate that his fur became very curly, and witnesses state that he tracked mud all over carpets his mother spent all morning shampooing.

His little brother, a black miniature schnauzer named Farfel, also got wet, but it was less obvious due to his black fur. At press time, he too tracked mud throughout his house, and his snout was reportedly wet also.

Both dogs are home and resting comfortably in front of Star Trek, TNG reruns on G4. They are in good health, though Farfel is said to have a "wiggle-tooth" which could fall out at any moment.

ORGY?!?!!

2006-01-21T10:31:00.000-08:00

Today I read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about some shrill loudmouthed no-nothing sky-is-falling asshole, Corine Fanene, saying that kids dancing at a school dance is an "orgy":

The television trucks were lined up four deep at Foothill High School on Wednesday night for the announcement that the school is banning sexually suggestive "freak dancing." And no wonder. It was a story made for headlines: "School Forbids Sex-Crazed Dancing."

...

Not that the passion shown by those who did attend wasn't real. Corine Fanene, the single parent who accidentally set off the whole fuss, says she was shocked by the behavior she witnessed at a Dec. 16 school dance. Girls, she said, were rubbing the backs of their skimpy dresses into the crotches of the boys they were dancing with. "It almost looked like an orgy," she says. "Really."

Definition of orgy:

A large, and often lavish, gathering of people for the purpose of having group sex.

So let me get this straight. At a school dance in Pleasanton, monitored by staff, there was a large gathering of kids having group sex. Yes sir, group sex in a school. And obviously Corine Fanene would know what an orgy looks like.

What actually happened, contrary to this stupid wingnut moron and the people that feign outrage about it, was that kids were dancing. That's it. Please shut the fuck up about it and go back to your sex-free disney channel home filled with gumdrops and candycanes and pictures of santa claus and the tooth fairy and run-on sentences. Jesus god what the hell is wrong with people!

Here is an example of what so-called "freak dancing" may look like-

Oh my god, call the junior anti-sex league! The clothed backside of a male has come into indirect contact with the frontside of a clothed female! Surely the entire fabric of society is about to come UNDONE!

The Hammer

2005-10-03T13:27:00.000-07:00

Giving 'The Hammer' his due

Democrats seized by 'schadenfreude'
Monday, October 3, 2005; Posted: 3:03 p.m. EDT

WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- The Germans have a word for the emotion that seized many Democrats after hearing of the criminal indictment on money-laundering charges of House Majority Leader Tom Delay, R-Texas. The word is schadenfreude, which is defined as taking malicious pleasure at the misfortune of others.

Dear Mark Shields and CNN,

On behalf of Democrats, fuck you. Fuck you for impugning our motives. Fuck you for pretending to read our minds. Fuck you for quietly suggesting that everyone who doesn't like Tom Delay is a Nazi. And of course, fuck you for lying.

No one, Democrat or otherwise, has said they take pleasure in Tom Delay's misfortune. We struggle to live our lives within the limits of the law, whilst criminals like Tom Delay profit off of their illegal acts, and use those profits in order to entrench their illegally gotten power.

Do we take pleasure? Yes we do. We take pleasure because we choose to do right, while Tom Delay chooses to do wrong, and has finally been stopped after years and years of getting away with it.

Why shouldn't we take pleasure knowing that good has finally triumphed over evil? Isn't that how a decent person should react? When the bad guy is killed at the end of a cheap hollywood action film, are we supposed to take pity on the antagonist, lest we be accused of "schadenfreude"? No, we take pleasure knowing that "good" finally triumphs.

Fuck you for suggesting otherwise, you partisan hack.

DAMN DOES THAT HURT

2005-09-29T13:45:00.000-07:00

Well it doesn't hurt so much today but the entire upper-right side of my body feels like someone beat me down with a baseball bat. Yesterday I couldn't even move. Dr. Jackass said that I should feel better by Saturday. Then I go back on Wednesday next week and he can do the injections on my left side.

Here's some light reading.

IT HURTS

2005-09-28T19:08:00.000-07:00

Well I just got my first series of triggerpoint injections from Dr. Jackass. One injection of lidocaine in three different muscles on my right side, one in the back, one shoulder, one neck.

All I can say is, OH FUCK IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS

I go back for another series next week. This better fucking work.

Media Whoredom

2005-09-27T12:53:00.000-07:00

I was just browsing Google news, and I caught this headline:

Anti-war mother in White House arrest

A LEADING United States anti-war protester, Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, was yesterday arrested at a demonstration outside of the White House.

This is about the 500th time that I've seen the mainstream newsmedia refer to Cindy Sheehan as "the Anti-War mother" or "Anti-war protestor". One of the most hurtful ways that media whores distort the truth is their use of labelling. Read this excellent peice by Ted Rall to further explore this topic.

Here's my point. When did Cindy Sheehan ever say she was anti-war or a war protestor? Infact, when has anyone ever directly called her anti-war? The answer is nobody, nowhere. The fact of the matter is that Cindy Sheehan wants a face to face meeting with Bush, and she wants a clear and direct answer to a single question, why did her son die? Ergo, why are we in Iraq?

I think this is a fair question to ask, and the fact that our government will not answer it proves that her son died for no reason, and that we have no reason to be in Iraq. First it was weapons of mass destruction, then it was about getting Sadam, then it was about freeing the Iraqi people and spreading democracy, and now it's about nothing.

Even if you believe that this war was about oil, where is the oil? Reality check, the price of oil more than tripled under Bush's presidency, worldwide consumption is at an all time high, worldwide oil production is dropping off sharply, and oil costs CONTINUE to rise.

We are fighting and dying in a war for nothing. Why isn't that the headline?

Cenk Uygur: Does America Stand for Torture?

2005-09-27T12:43:00.000-07:00

Cenk Uygur: Does America Stand for Torture?
09.27.2005, HuffingtonPost.com

Does anyone really believe there are 230 rogue soldiers who were all out of control and did the same abuse throughout Iraq at the same time by coincidence? If you do, please check your beverage because it is clearly either way too much Jack Daniels or way too much Kool-Aid.

And remember these are only the 400 cases the Army decided to pursue. As is evident from the testimonials of the men in the 82nd Airborne, there were many cases of abuse that the Pentagon refused to investigate.

Now, I’ve been calling what happened to the detainees “abuse” for most of this piece. But I’m soft pedaling it. To be fair, we should call it what it is – torture.

If that word makes you uncomfortable and you instinctively don’t want to believe it, then I will let the soldiers of the 82nd Airborne explain it to you:

“We would give them blows to the head, chest, legs, and stomach, and pull them down, kick dirt on them. This happened every day.”

“[Military intelligence personnel] wanted intel. As long as no PUC’s (Persons Under Control) came up dead, it happened. We kept it to broken arms and legs.”

“Despite my efforts, I have been unable to get clear, consistent answers from my leadership about what constitutes lawful and human treatment of detainees. I am certain that this confusion contributed to a wide range of abuses including death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage taking, stripping, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment.”

Now imagine if Saddam’s forces had captured some our boys and stripped them naked, broke their arms and legs, took members of their family hostage, threatened to kill the soldiers and sometimes carried out that threat. What do you think we’d call it then? Abuse?

My guess is that we would be perfectly comfortable calling that torture if it happened to us. The Army has also investigated over 30 homicides of detainees by US soldiers, including throwing people off of bridges, suffocating them and, most often, beating them to death. I guess those were the cases where we couldn’t just keep it to breaking arms and legs.

It isn’t any easier for me to write this as it is for you to read it. I love this country and I have always believed that is a special place. A place where things like this don’t happen. A city on a hill that aims to be a light unto the world. That is what makes me so sick about what has happened.

And it has happened in our name. They did this in the name of America.

Click here to read entire article

Zero Stars

2005-09-27T07:39:00.000-07:00

From: Jesse S
To: Hoover Customer Service
Subject: Zero Stars

I just returned my Bissel Proheat because it broke after two months. I should be so lucky.

The Hoover SteamVac is the most expensive rug cleaner that Target sells, so I figured it would be the best. Wrong. This thing is very poorly constructed. The parts are thin, flimsy platic, most parts are glued together. The water tank leaks and doesn't fit right, and honestly I don't know what holds it together.

The directions are a joke. The tool caddy doesn't fit on right and the attachments fall out every time you move it.

The water tank is so brittle I could have broken it with one finger.

I ran it for 15 minutes, it performed much better than the Bissel. It got a lot of dirt out of the carpet. Then the engine made a funny noise and started smoking.

I wanted to be sure I wasn't imagining things, so I ran it for a few more minutes. Then I hear a loud BANG and smoke shoots out of it, sets off my fire alarm, and I'm literally covered in SOOT like a chimney sweap. This thing is HISTORY.

Hoover, you should be ashamed for putting such an expensive peice of garbage on the market. This thing isn't only bad, it's dangerous.

Jetblue

2005-09-24T09:18:00.000-07:00

Ok if you haven't seen that Jetblue video, YOU MUST SEE IT. HOLY SHIT.

CBS News go here and look at the videos on the right side, watch all of them.
CNN and look on the right side for WATCH and click on Emergency landing in Los Angeles

Arranged Marriages

2005-09-23T14:01:00.000-07:00

At the company where I work, almost everyone is Indian/Asian, but mostly Indian. In my engineering group, I am one of 3 white people of a group of some 20 Indian.

We had a group lunch today because two people in my group have their birthday today, and my boss said something about his wife's birthday is tomorrow, then somehow he said something about his arranged marriage. And then I was like, did you just say you had an arranged marriage?

And it turns out that every Indian person in my group had arranged marriages, and they're in their 30's or 40's, so we're not talking oldschool Indian.

They say for the men, their parents will come up with a criteria for a woman that their son will marry, I'm not entirely clear, but they must be from the right village, must speak the right language dialect, and so on.

Then the parents will present their son with a list of single women that fit the criteria. I don't believe the man gets to meet any of the women before making their choice but I'm not clear on that point.

Then the two parents' families arrange the marriage details, paying the dowry or whatever they need to do.

It's, just, so, weird!

Fake Lawyering

2005-09-23T11:11:00.000-07:00

The whole getting-hit-by-a-car thing left me with an interesting question which I posed to the cop, am I legally allowed to ride my scooter to work, and if so, do I go on the sidewalk, bikelane, or make full use of the driving lane?

In short, he had no idea. He got out the vehicle code book and told me that there are too many conflicting rules and he'd have to get back to me.

I went to the DMV website and this is what it says:

VC 21235. The operator of a motorized scooter shall not do any of the following:
(b) Operate a motorized scooter on a highway with a speed limit in excess of 25 miles per hour unless the motorized scooter is operated within a class II bicycle lane.

...

I called the city traffic engineer, and he told me that the road I take to work does have a class II bicycle lane. So scarey as it may be, I am legally allowed to ride my scooter to work.

Just an interesting bit of info for anyone else who is thinking of getting an electric scooter in California.

It won't stop

2005-09-21T22:50:00.000-07:00

Well I don't know what happened but around 7:30pm today, Mr. Barclay vomited up at least a pound of dogfood on the floor in front of the couch. We Taylor cleaned it up while I looked on in horror. Then a few minutes later, Mr Barfley had another go at the rug.

Taylor cleaned it up again while I comforted the doggy and tried to give him some water. We went upstairs to the bedroom and about 10 minutes later the dog followed us. I wasn't paying attention and a few minutes later I see another pile of unswallowed dogfood. I had no idea the dog could hold this much food.

While Taylor was cleaning that up, I was pondering whether the dog was really sick or not. Then he runs downstairs and vomits on his petbed. This earns him a trip to the vet where there is only one way to take a dog's temperature.

One hour (and roughly the cost of a new dog) later, I had a happy nonsick Mr Barclay, and some x-rays which show that he is full of skeleton and dogstuff. We have no idea what went wrong, althrough I have my theories:

Eating the carpet
Eating the wicker-basket that holds his toys
Eating Taylor's papers, shoes, and cell phone all in the same day
Eating every single thing that he encounters on his walk, alive or not

We will give him anti-nausea and anti-biotic for a few days and he should be fine.

Today gets better and better!

2005-09-21T17:00:00.000-07:00

So I came home from work early because my brain was unable to simultaneously deal with just having been ran down by a crazy asian lady, getting constantly lectured by an old arrogant chinese man at work who we'll just call TV, and having to deal with everything else I have to deal with at work.

Taylor and I decided to order chinese food from the only place around here that I've decided has good potstickers (thats California for pork-dumplings) and Taylor's decided has good ribs. When I know someone is coming over to deliver something, I'll put Mr. Barclay someplace so he doesn't run out the door.

The chinese delivery guy gets here and he must have been at least a 70 year old man. I don't know what went wrong but after the guy hands me the food, the dog comes flying out of nowhere and runs up to the guy to say hi. He didn't lunge or bite or anything.

The chinese guy recoils in horror and backs into the corner of the hallway, shaking in fear, and puts up his hands as if he's about to be eaten by the Alien, and makes some kind of noise like "OH NO NO NO AH AH".

I picked up Mr. Barclay and put him back in the house and then went back to the door, the chinese delivery guy looked like he was about to have a heart attack. I've never seen a look of such horror on someone's face, ever.

I was genuinly concerned about this man's heart stopping on my doorstep which I don't think is covered in my renter's insurance. I asked him a few times if he was alright, if he needed to sit down, needed help getting back to his car. "NO NO I FINE". I gave him his money and he shook himself down the stairs.

I called the restaurant and asked to talk to the owner and told them what happened and that I was afraid the delivery man might be dying of a heart attack or something. They actually laughed at me and told me not to worry about it.

So yah, Mr Barclay almost killed an old man.

WHY WHY WHY

2005-09-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

So as some of you know, I drive an electric scooter to work on some days so that Taylor can have the car. I have the Razor e300 scooter which goes 10-15 mph.

My office is only a mile away, but it's a scary mile because I have to cross through this road called the Central Expressway. There's traffic lights but you can go like 60mph on it. I enter the expressway at a traffic light, only when I get a green left arrow (which only happens if a car is there to make the light change), and I stay in the bike lane.

I am on the central expressway for 200 feet where I take the first exit to Middlefield Ave. The exit ramp of Middlefield ave is about 300 feet long. Once you are off the exit ramp, you are no longer in Sunnyvale, but you are now in Mountain View.

Once you hit the border, there is a bike lane, and a giant sign that says "Mountain View is a Bicycle Friendly Community". Remember that too, it's also important later on.

I am on Middlefield ave, a two lane road, for approximately 3/4 mile, then I turn right onto Ellis Ave. At the intersection of these roads are companies such as Verisign, HP, AOL, and so on, and some place called Synopsys.

Today I took my scooter to work and I got onto Middlefield ave. When I got to the entrance of the parking lot to Synopsys, which is right before 237 in the map image, some lady drove right along side of me and then made a right turn into the parking lot without looking. I had no time to react and went right into the side of her car. Didn't get hurt or damage the scooter somehow.

I don't think she even noticed. She got into the parking lot and I started banging on her window and told her to pull the fuck over and stop about 5 times. She stopped and parked.

I took out my cell phone and called the Mountain view police. I gave them my exact location and they told me that I am not in Mountain View, but I am in Sunnyvale. They told me they would contact the Sunnyvale police and have them send someone.

I waited about 15 minutes and no cop, I called the Sunnyvale police and they told me that I need to call the Mountain View police because I am in Mountain View. The dispatcher was very rude. They insisted that no part of Middlefield Ave is in Sunnyvale, which is sort of true, only the exit ramp onto it is in Sunnyvale. I argued with them for a few minutes and finally they decided to call Mountain View police and I guess have a police to police negotiation about what city I was standing in. Anything to avoid wasting precious police resources.

The cop finally showed up and I told him what happened and the lady didn't dispute anything I said. The cop asked what either of us want done. I said, "I think she should get a ticket."

The cop asked why, and I said "In California, it is illegal to make a right turn without first looking to see if it's safe, and then hit someone, therefore she should get a ticket."

The cop informed me that since there were no witnesses, I had no injuries, and there was no damage to my scooter, that he had no basis to write a ticket. Apparantly I didn't learn my lesson from the guitar bandit, which is that before yelling a stream of obscenities for 10 minutes, find a witness.

I asked the cop whether it's even legal to ride the scooter in the bike lane. He told me that it shouldn't be in the street because it goes less than 25mph, and it shouldn't be in the bike lane or sidewalk because it is a motorized vehicle. I asked him whether it was legal to ride it at all, so he went and got out the california vehicle codebook. He read through it and couldn't find anything that said whether it is illegal or legal, so he said someone would call me back.

The lady went away and thanked the officer. I thanked her for hitting me.

The end

All Airlines Suck

2005-09-18T23:22:00.000-07:00

From: Jesse S
To: Continental Airlines Customer Service
Subject: Continental Airlines Flight experience

Dear Continental Airlines,

Thank you for trapping me on your horrible airplane for 7 hours today. I was just wondering after being forced to watch your president talk about how great your airline is, has he ever ridden in coach? And does he hate dogs?

If he doesn't hate dogs, then why do you make it so damn hard to travel with a tiny dog that weighs 20 pounds(with carrier) - that I paid $160 for alone out of a total fair of almost $1000?

Not to mention the fact that our carry-on dog and carry-on luggage were dealt with arbitrarily on round trip using the exact same airports and airplanes.

When I called your customer service two weeks ago to confirm the max size of carry on bags, the representative told me that 50 inches was fine. I specifically asked about the part of the flight from Newark to Hartford/Bradley. I told your rep this flight was on a smaller airplane, and he told me that our carry on bags would fit as carry-on on the smaller express planes.

On the flight from SFO to Hartford, we had no problems with checking in the dog, but we were told that one out of two of our carry on bags were too big, even though it was well within the dimensions listed on your website and given to me by your customer service agent, (50 inches).

In checking in for the return flight from Bradley to SFO via Newark, the curbside check-in guy was a creepy weirdo who would frighten any reasonable man. He said that I had to bring my dog to the ticket counter. This did not happen on the original flight from SFO to Hartford.

The ticket-counter agents at the Bradley Continental departure terminal were arguing with us over whether the dog carrier was too big and whether the dog was too heavy, which he was not. They said they would be fined by the something-or-other agency but after arguing about it for 10 minutes they let us go through.

On the flight today from Newark to San Francisco SFO, they put us in the 9th row which is only the second row of coach. Coach is where you put the poor people and give them chairs that bend their spines into a J.

Also the chairs recline which is nice, but the arm rest does not recline, so if you have a lady with you and would like to sit closer together, you're being punched in the face by the armrest.

By the time I was allowed to board, which was last of course, there was no room for any of my carry on, and all of my fragile cargo had to be checked (Checked is when the underpaid teenager throws the bag onto the plane- beneath the other seventy five bags he'll also throw in)

When we arrived at SFO and waited for the baggage to arrive at the carousel, we again were delayed. We landed in SF at 7:30pm, and didn't have everything we'd checked until at LEAST 8:30pm.

I don't understand why so much money gets me so little service. I can't say that I will ever fly your airline again with my dog, if I fly it at all.

Good cheeseburgers though.

2005-07-07T18:09:00.000-07:00

I don’t know how my simple dailykos post got turned into an argument about-

Whether we should have gone to war with Afghanistan

Whether we should have gone to war with Iraq

Whether the Iraq war was legal

Whether the no fly zone around Iraq was sanctioned by the U.N.

Whether the Geneva conventions and UN charter consider this war illegal

Whether the UN is corrupt or not

I am also not interested in talking about any of those things. I’ve just read all 50 of the comments that are so far in here.

How DARE you.

How DARE any of you tell me that when I speak the simple truth, that I’m being offensive and I should delete my diary out of respect for the dead. Let me tell you about offensive.

In the last five years, I have seen everything I know about my own country undone right before my eyes. I was taught to believe that no one is above the law, even the president.

I was taught that we have a representative republic where our leaders are elected in a fair election.

I was taught that our country liberated the oppressed. I was told that the holocaust could never happen again.

I was taught to believe that America is the greatest country in the world, that we are the freest country, that people abandon other countries just for a chance to make it in America. The American Dream.

Now five years after Bush stole the presidency, the American Dream has been choked, punched, pissed on, waterboarded, and had its balls electrocuted until it admitted to being a terrorist, and then it died.

I’ve seen TWO elections where there was glaring evidence of massive vote-rigging, and not a single investigation. Not a single one!

Do you know how fast the government investigated the NASA shuttle exploding? Or how many congressional hearings there were on baseball player steroid use? THAT is offensive.

I’ve seen our government bully other countries, for short term financial gain, with an arrogant foreign policy that shows complete indifference to human life.

I’ve seen the president and his top lieutenants commit criminal acts and warcrimes, and no one does anything to stop him.

But now we are the oppressors. And the holocaust has happened again.

So many civilians have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan that we don’t even bother to count! The best guess we have is that 100,000 or more innocent civilians were killed by indiscriminate bombing in a war started for no reason.

Don’t you dare tell me that I’ve crossed the line. Don’t you dare tell me that my diary is bullshit or in poor taste. Don’t you dare tell me that I should stop being offensive, take a day off, wait for people to stop being sad. I have been quiet, and too many of us have been quiet for too long, and now it might be too late.

England invaded a country for no reason. They knowingly murdered innocents, and aided the U.S. in murdering innocents, for no reason. They were AND STILL ARE active conspirators in propagating a huge lie on the British and American people, that the war is justified and worth it.

What happened on September 11th and in England today is horrible. The people who did it should be brought to justice.

However, what happens in Iraq every day is horrible, and the people who brought that horror on the world should be brought to justice. The world has been waiting for them to be brought to justice for over three years, and it hasn’t happened. Not only that, no one is even paying attention.

We have militarily engaged a nation, and arguably a race of people, who do not have a military with which to fight back. What do you expect them to do, throw spitballs? They believe that they have a right to self defense, and they are exercising the only means of persuasion they have on a world that is not interested in their problems.

The people of England who died did nothing to deserve this. They are people who go to work to make an honest living, have families and kids, and want to live their lives and be left alone. Their government has a duty to protect them, and their government has not only failed in that duty, but played an active role in harming them.

Perhaps I should have made this point more clear.

More of the same

2005-07-07T07:46:00.000-07:00

CBS News is currently interviewing a cop at SFO about how they're searching bags extra today. How relavent.

NBC News showing the running of the bulls in Spain. At least that's close to England.

FUCK THE NEWSMEDIA

2005-07-07T07:34:00.000-07:00

A major world event has just occured.

ABC News: showing the weather
CBS News: showing local traffic and giggling news anchors
NBC News: showing a very important story on child porn

CNN: Showing Penn station in New York and talking about whether people in Texas are scared (fuck Texas also)

President: telling us to be vigilant and scared. Fuck the president.