The psychics at The Onion have done it again!

The Onion has a pretty good track record of not only reporting the news before it happens, but making it funny, too. They've been eerily prescient before, but sometimes I forget just how good these guys are!

Just last month I posted a hilarious Onion TV video that featured a supposed al-Qaeda operative arguing with a 9/11 Truther. The video works on many levels, but for me it was funny because the al-Qaeda guy is so obviously spewing Bush administration talking points and desperately trying to claim credit for something clearly beyond their capabilities. He even brings a receipt for flight lessons and brags about his connections to the White House: "Me and Bush, we go out, we hang."

The idea of al-Qaeda stepping up to defend the Bush administration's version of events on 9/11 is pretty hilarious, but come on! That's just over the top, right? It was a good chuckle and then we all moved on.

Apparently somebody thought this wasn't funny enough in fiction so al-Qaeda has made it real!

Osama bin Laden's chief deputy in an audiotape Tuesday accused Shiite Iran of trying to discredit the Sunni al-Qaida terror network by spreading the conspiracy theory that Israel was behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

Just sit back and soak that in. I didn't make up that quote, amazingly.

One enemy of the U.S./Israel accusing the other of understating the first's evil is funny enough, but this treads onto satire when al-Zawahri says blaming Israel makes Muslims look stupid!

"The purpose of this lie is clear — (to suggest) that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no else did in history. Iranian media snapped up this lie and repeated it," he said.

Haha!! This is straight out of the Bush regime's racist playbook. Look at the implication: Muslims can be heroes only if they're terrorists! Only a moron or a stooge would admit such a thing about his own people. Sunni or Shi'ite, you'd think Zawahri would try to unify the sects against the Zionists, but instead he plays right into the Bush regime's hands by simultaneously defaming Muslims everywhere (as if every Muslim is just itching for a chance to blow himself up!) and sowing divisiveness amongst his people at the same time. Zawahiri is either a tactical moron or a CIA stooge.

Could he actually expect to sway Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with this argument? Ahmadinejad may be an idiot, a tool and a loudmouth, but he is not a terrorist or a dictator. He is like Putin, a strongman that the people have turned to in order to provide a hedge against U.S. imperialism.

Ahmadinejad knows, like Putin, that the 9/11 attacks were self-inflicted in order to provide a pretext for Bush's endless wars of conquest (and embarrassment). Heck, even our allies in Japan are starting to question the events of that day. In retrospect it looks like an incredible boon to an administration that has done nothing but evil with the goodwill generated worldwide in response to the tragedy.

Many people say the Bush administration is too incompetent to pull off the attacks and subsequent coverup, but I say al-Qaeda is too incompetent to do ... much of anything! Call the Bush team what you will, but they are masters at manipulation and misdirection. They managed to steal two elections and they orchestrated an incredible propaganda campaign to trick the nation into war with Iraq. I remember watching the news back in early 2003 thinking I was living in an endless Twilight Zone episode. And what happened to the treasonous military men, the lying pundits and the architects of this atrocity? Well they're mostly still around and many of them have been promoted!

People need to realize that the Bush administration isn't incompetent when it comes to stuff like Katrina: They just don't give a fuck! ... There's a difference. They look after their own, not a bunch of poor folks who don't vote Republican anyway.

Al-Qaeda is a CIA-sponsored group whose only role is to draw attention away from the real terrorists. This is common knowledge among the elite, although some still cling to a twisted sort of incompetence theory:

Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden's organisation would turn its attention to the west.

Oh, I think it occurred to them alright. It was the plan all along. You think the CIA can't "take care of" a few jihadis waving around U.S.-made stinger missile launchers? The CIA doesn't just let anybody play with their toys. They can find you. After all, details about members of al-Qaeda are, by definition, in "The Database."

That raises another question: Who the fuck would name their terrorist organization after a "structured collection of records or data that is stored in a computer system"?!

I have an idea. I'm going to start an organization dedicated to the Liberation of the Great State of Minnesota from the Oppressive Federal Government of the United States of America. I'm going to name this organization..... Pants!

What do you think? "Pants" ... or "Pants!"? ... I'm not sure, does the exclamation point sell it?

Anyway, my point is that it's completely fucking ridiculous. I just made my hypothetical liberation front look clueless, stupid.... and somewhat artistic, I guess. Maybe "al-Qaeda" would make a good, Dadaist band name in Arabic, but it doesn't do shit for a supposedly committed bunch of terrorists.

Let's look at other "terrorist" organizations and what kind of names they have (I'll assign grades based soley on the clarity and effectiveness of the name, not their tactics or ideology):

• The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan - localized, religious and grassroots. These guys know how to name a group. Doesn't lock them into terrorism either. B+
• The Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group - very straightforward; we know right away they're into Islam, fighting and Morocco. However, isn't this a little open-ended? Most groups start with a specific cause... you know, like freeing their homeland or something. These guys just feel "combative", apparently. It should be no surprise they're affiliated with al-Qaeda. B-
• The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine ( الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين ) - very savvy name. They're playing the populism card, plus you know exactly what their goals are. A
• The Irish National Liberation Army - once again, very straightforward. You know what they want and who they represent right away. Would this front be as popular if they were named "fishsticks"? I doubt it. B
• The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord - even though these guys aren't clear about what they want, it's obvious they're into Jesus and swordplay. Kinda makes you wanna learn more about'em too, but not really. I'm giving it a better grade because it rhymes. C+
• The United Liberation Front of Asom - pretty clear what they're after here. I like the unity reference; makes you think they're a big tent liberation front. But like most Americans I didn't know where the hell Asom is (northeast India). A-

I have to give al-Qaeda a D- for their crappy name. I would give them an F, but the randomness of it is pretty funny... except for the whole killing and murder thing. But that's the rub; I just don't buy these guys as terrorist masterminds. They can't even fucking name themselves right, so why would I think they could pull off 9/11? Even if you say, "okay, maybe 'The Base' refers to a military base" it makes no sense because the modus operandi of these guys is supposedly their decentralization. There is no main headquarters. They're ostensibly a loose-knit group of cells that operate independently, yet aren't really controlled by Osama either, who is mostly a figurehead who provides funding (or did... he's probably dead). Let's face it: "al-Qaeda" probably only makes sense if you don't speak Arabic.

If you're still not convinced al-Qaeda is a joke, watch an incredible BBC documentary called The Power of Nightmares. You'll be glad you did.

As for me, I will continue to worry about the real terrorist organization plaguing this wretched earth: The Central Intelligence Agency. A look at their record exposes the deep hypocrisy of the United States government when it comes to terrorism:

• You blow up a bus in Whogivesafuckistan? You're a terrorist.
  
• You overthrow a legitimate government and replace it with a puppet government that proceeds to butcher 500,000 of its own people? You're a hero. Here's your medal.

Even The Onion can't make that level of hypocrisy funny.

Floating Oceanic Garbage Island

Here's the most disturbing thing you'll see today:

Good job, humans. We've created a whole new continent! Unfortunately, it's composed entirely of trash.

The vast expanse of debris – in effect the world's largest rubbish dump – is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting "soup" stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.

Charles Moore, an American oceanographer who discovered the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" or "trash vortex", believes that about 100 million tons of flotsam are circulating in the region. Marcus Eriksen, a research director of the US-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which Mr Moore founded, said yesterday: "The original idea that people had was that it was an island of plastic garbage that you could almost walk on. It is not quite like that. It is almost like a plastic soup. It is endless for an area that is maybe twice the size as continental United States."

Is there somewhere I can turn in my humanity? Maybe I could trade it for something less destructive and become an elephant or something.

Oh wait, then I'll be hunted down for my ivory and left for dead. Nevermind. Guess I'm human for the duration.

I'm not worried, though. This problem will eventually solve itself.

Human beings are parasites. We leech nurishment from the Earth and give nothing back (except more destruction). But like most parasites eventually do, we have gone too far and now we're killing the host... and ultimately ourselves.

On the plus side, this floating island of garbage might make a great tourist attraction for any space aliens who want to tour an Earth museum after we're gone.

I wonder if they'll sell plastic souvenir coke bottles.

Economic Collapse

The pyramid scheme that is our economy is teetering on the brink of collapse. The subprime loan disaster is looking more and more like the detanator that will nuke the dollar, the banking industry and our economy as a whole.

When US homeowners default on their mortgages en-mass, they destroy money faster than the Fed can replace it through normal channels. The result is a liquidity crisis which deflates asset prices and reduces monetized wealth, says economist Henry Liu.

The debt-securitization process is in a state of collapse. The market for structured investments, MBSs, CDOs, and Commercial Paper---has evaporated leaving the banks with astronomical losses. They are incapable of rolling over their their short-term debt or finding new revenue streams to buoy them through the hard times ahead. As the foreclosure-avalanche intensifies; bank collateral continues to be down-graded which is likely to trigger a wave of bank failures.

Henry Liu sums it up like this: Proposed government plans to bail out distressed home owners can slow down the destruction of money, but it would shift the destruction of money as expressed by falling home prices to the destruction of wealth through inflation masking falling home value. (The Road to Hyperinflation, Henry Liu, Asia Times) It's a vicious cycle. The Fed is caught between the dual millstones of hyperinflation and mass defaults. There's no way out.

We are so fucked.

Unless somebody has a new economic system waiting in the wings I'll have to start learning how to survive on rats, rabbits, squirrels ... and probably human flesh at this rate. And that is not my idea of a good time.

The worst part is the feeling of helplessness. I can only watch these "financial experts" make one stupid decision after another. They're only really experts at making themselves massive short-term profits. They don't care about the damage they've done to the economy, which affects all of us.

The whole affair is depressing and maddening, but if you want to learn more, visit the Market Oracle.

As for me, I'll be learning to hunt small suburban mammals.

Refuting "Incompetence Theory" in just one sentence

Nefarious people within our government suppress any evidence of malicious intent and instead encourage the perception of incompetence, which often results in the blame being diffused throughout the bureaucracy rather than focused on the individual bad actors in power, who are ultimately responsible, but able to escape justice through a hidden network of friendships and alliances known as the establishment.

The Stupidest Article Ever Written

Ladies and gentleman, I have just read the stupidest article ever written. It was awful. So awful I can hardly think; in fact, I think I just lost 5 IQ points... which still puts me 130 ahead of the author of the shittiest, most servile, most idiotic article ever written.

His name is John Cloud and he masquerades as a journalist for Time magazine. He has apparently managed to learn how to read and write, but I have no idea how given his feeble mental faculties.

Many of you may have already read this article, but I just found it today as I was catching up on some reading. Here I am, flipping through Time and I see a story called "The Psychology of Hypocrisy" which is about the recent Republican sex scandals, including Larry "Wide Stance" Craig, the homo-hating Senator from Idaho.

Cloud takes them to task, right? He presents an in-depth analysis of how the perverted mind of sanctimonious fucks like Larry Craig works, right?

No. The "article" is a six paragraph defense of hypocrites like Craig. Cloud claims -- with a straight face -- that poor Craig is a victim! A victim of his own "moral weakness" and not a hypocrite at all!

The real bad guys -- of course -- are the evil bloggers and their readers who have tormented poor Larry and his "friends".

For a legion of bloggers, what's so delectable about these stories is the apparent hypocrisy, the dissonance between the outwardly conservative politics of these men and their private same-sex behavior. But while these guys may be liars--Craig's "wide stance" inanity has already entered the world-historical lexicon of political b.s.--it's not clear that they are conniving hypocrites.

It's "not clear"? It's not fucking clear that they're hypocrites?! If you're deaf, dumb, blind and live on Mars it might not be clear, but if you have half a fucking brain you know they're hypocrites! Shit, even the Republicans know that, but Mr. John Cloud is far stupider than a Republican. He's a Vichy Democrat; you know the kind: The Hillary-voting kind who would let Bush attack Iran with no justification whatsoever. Republicans may be evil, but at least I can respect them; the Vichy Democrats are contemptible, spineless weasels who aren't worth a pint of warm piss.

Hypocrisy is among the most universal and well-studied of psychological phenomena, and the research suggests that Craig, Haggard and the others may be guilty not so much of moral hypocrisy as moral weakness. The distinction may sound trivial at first, but as a society, we tend to forgive the weak and shun the hypocritical.

Trivial? No, the distinction is utterly fallacious and disingenuous. It makes me think he knows he's full of shit.

John Cloud is the perfect example of a sell-out journalist hack. He afflicts the afflicted and comforts the comfortable because he's a boot-licking shill for his corporate masters and has no soul left. Real journalists do the reverse, of course, but I'm not expecting that much from Mr. Cloud. Just a lucid thought or two would impress me at this point.

Assume for a moment that Craig and Haggard actually believed what they said--that homosexuality is sin. They spent most of their lives fighting for the conservative cause. But in Craig's case, the Idaho Statesman has published allegations that there were at least three other slipups involving men, beginning in 1967. What if, like the radio host who gets fat but commits to losing weight, the moralizers were trying through their "pro-family" endeavors to expiate their lustful sins?

Let me explain this to Mr. Cloud as succinctly as possible since we might be looking at a buffer-overflow if I use to many big words: If you go around saying homosexuality is immoral and a sin while you're secretly engaging in homosexual activity then you are a hypocrite! End of story. How hard is this to understand?

I certainly agree that people should be forgiven for most moral failures, but this is not just a "slipup." Maybe Cloud "accidentally" fucks other men in the ass so he and Craig are kindred, klutzy spirits, but most of us do not have that problem (throughout the article Cloud implies homosexuality is indeed a moral failure). But it's clear that this is a pattern in Larry Craig's life, going back, at least to 1967.

Here's a thought: If you have a "moral failing" that leads you to accidentally get blowjobs from other men, maybe you shouldn't get on a stage and tell people that homosexuality is sinful behavior that only degenerates and Democrats engage in! Maybe if Larry Craig didn't want to be a hypocrite he could have, I dunno, NOT RUN FOR SENATOR????!!! Maybe he could have (just a thought here) NOT DEMONIZED HOMOSEXUALS AT EVERY FUCKING OPPORTUNITY FOR 40 YEARS!!!!!??

...Just a thought. Clearly, it's one that John Cloud didn't think of while he was standing in line at men's room outside of Larry Craig's office. Maybe this is all a closeted homosexual thing and cognitive dissonance has set in, but I kind of doubt it. I think it's more likely that John Cloud is an intellectual whore and his opinions are up for auction to the highest bidder. But even that is charitable. Worst case: the guy really is as stupid as I've been saying.

You may think they are wrong about homosexuality (I do), but that doesn't make them hypocrites.

No, John, they are hypocrites, and no amount of waffling on your part will disguise that. In fact, they are textbook hypocrites.

Hey, I know! Why don't I consult a "dictionary" (it's a book where words are defined, Mr. Cloud). Here's Merriam-Webster's definition of hypocrite:

1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion
2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings

Hmmm.... "false appearance of virtue" ... does that sound like Mr. Larry "wide stance" Craig?

Craig never said anything like, "Homosexuality is wrong and immoral, but I am not a perfect man. Indeed, sometimes I like to head down to public bathrooms near my house and solicit gay men for sex." Nope, Larry Craig always implied that he was a paragon of (hetero) virtue. How else do you get elected Senator in a red state?

Clearly, the man has acted in contradiction to his stated beliefs. It's right there in black & white, but John Cloud is intent on casting a cloud of confusion over the matter when this is probably one of the most clear-cut, bald-faced acts of hypocrisy (that we know about) in modern politics. Only Mark Foley can hold a candle to Larry Craigs hypocrisy.

Is there anybody out there who isn't convinced that what I've described is hypocrisy? Is there anybody out there who actually agrees with John Cloud that poor Larry and Mark are victims of a cruel and fickle public?

How is it that I, a lowly, potty-mouthed, mudslinging blogger was able to tear into this article with such ease? No doubt others have already done the same; how did Cloud's piece of shit article get past his editor? Do they not have dictionaries at Time headquarters? Budget cutbacks, perhaps?

It makes me wonder if stupidity is actually valued in the mainstream press because stupid people will never investigate how the Corporate Oligarchy really works. Everybody knows what goes on in Washington... Or do we? Without better reporters than John Cloud the Clown we'll never know for sure.

So what of Mr. Cloud, then? How did this idiot manage to write the stupidest article ever written? Was it training? Nature? Nurture? Luck?

Who cares; the man is a fucking moron. What amazes me is that this guy is a journalist at a mainstream publication and they haven't canned his ass yet. How fucking stupid can you be and still keep your job? Near as I can tell John Cloud has only one person in serious contention with him for that award and his name is George.

Then again, maybe both of them were chosen for their stupidity, rather than in spite of it. I guess, in both cases, the joke is on us: The morons are in control and livin' the good life while the rest of us suffer like fools under their mindless tyrrany.

Life's not just unfair ... it's fucking stupid. Maliciously so.

Flying Squirrel Suits!

Real flying squirrels are gonna be pissed when they see this.

I wonder who was the first guy who said, "Hey, let's make suits that mimic flying squirrels and then jump off a fuckin' mountain!!" 'Cause these guys actually did it:



That's probably just about the most insanely stupid thing I've ever seen. I'm not objecting, though. We need space monkeys to do dangerous and stupid shit so the rest of us don't have to. And these guys are breaking new ground in the field of... uh... um...

Okay, they're just crazy.

The battle over saggy pants reveals a deepening race and class divide in America

This blog is your leading pants-related resource. Okay, so this is the first time I've blogged about pants, but dammit, with a name like Electric Monkey Pants I better have some pants turf staked out, ya heard?

The Threat
Okay, so some uptight folks are trying to introduce stringent pants regulations when we don't even have decent electronic voting regulations. I guess it's easier to legislate against somebody who can't fight back. Pretty much everybody who wears saggy pants is not in a position to pass laws, which is probably part of why they're wearing the damn saggy-ass pants in the first place.

Check out this article in the Trib:

Proposals to ban saggy pants are starting to ride up in several places. At the extreme end, wearing pants low enough to show boxers or bare buttocks in one small Louisiana town means six months in jail and a $500 fine. A crackdown also is being pushed in Atlanta. And in Trenton, getting caught with your pants down may soon result in not only a fine, but a city worker assessing where your life is headed.

"Are they employed? Do they have a high school diploma? It's a wonderful way to redirect at that point," said Trenton Councilwoman Annette Lartigue, who is drafting a law to outlaw saggy pants. "The message is clear: We don't want to see your backside."

The bare-your-britches fashion is believed to have started in prisons, where inmates aren't given belts with their baggy uniform pants to prevent hangings and beatings. By the late '80s, the trend had made it to gangster rap videos, then went on to skateboarders in the suburbs and high school hallways.

I didn't know that shit started in prison, but it makes sense: That's where our (mostly minority) youth are spending a lot of time these days because of insane, pointless drug laws and a prison-state mentality, with GW as the crooked warden.

It's worth noting that black people face harsher, less forgiving punishments from our draconian drug laws even though the percentage of white & black teens using pot is almost the same.

Shop owner Mack Murray said Trenton's proposed ordinance unfairly targets blacks.

"Are they going to go after construction workers and plumbers, because their pants sag, too?" Murray asked. "They're stereotyping us."

The American Civil Liberties Union agrees.

"In Atlanta, we see this as racial profiling," said Benetta Standly, statewide organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia. "It's going to target African-American male youths. There's a fear with people associating the way you dress with crimes being committed."

A Few Questions
There are some questions that popped into my head after reading this story. Let me try to answer them as they come:

Are these laws targeted at blacks? Almost certainly.

Are saggy pants a real problem? Fuck no, it's mostly a fear-based response by legislators who are terrified of their own kids.

Will there be more laws like this? Of course. Like I said, those wearing saggy pants are generally not in a position to legislate back.

Are these laws going after a deeper problem? Yes, but they're attacking the symptoms rather than the core issues. The real problem is that our society requires an underclass to clean our toilets, mow our enormous lawns and serve us our drinks.

The Racial Divide
If you're a rich, white person who has his or her Harvard graduation date marked on the calendar from the day you're born, you probably have no idea why someone would hang around in the 'hood all day selling drugs, listening to that "crunk" and sagging your damn pants.

Well guess what, elitists?! They don't fucking want to live in the 'hood and sell drugs to get by, but what other options do they have? Are you gonna hire'em? They're not like you, are they? They speak differently and they have weird customs like the way they sag their pants. (OMG!)

Sagging pants are a way of fighting back against the uptight culture that demands conformity even as it espouses the (vague, far-off) concept of "freedom". They look ridiculous precisely because that's the goal. If it pisses off whitebread America, it's cool. As a way of fighting against the system it's pretty feeble, but that proves my larger point that the underclass has no other options available to them.

For my part, I would encourage people not to sag too low simply because it becomes hard to run from the cops when you're sagging down to your ankles. Am I gonna create a law to fight this scourge? Fuck no; I would repeal laws, starting with our drug laws, which seem designed to permanently disenfranchise our poverty-stricken youth. The upper class can buy their kids out of jailtime, but if you're living in the 'hood you probably can't afford Johnnie Cochran.

Black people are especially fucked these days since the elite is coming down on them harder than ever while the Mexicans are coming across the border anxious to take their jobs, eager to be the new underclass. Shit, due to this competition among the disadvantaged, rich people now get to watch labor costs drop even more than they dared dream; meaning they can get their landscaping done cheaply than before ("yay, Capitalism!"). Of course, that cheap landscaping doesn't pay enough to enable the workers to buy a house and become citizens. Nope; gonna send that money back home (where things are just as stratified by race and class).

The Class Divide
Ah, race and class. Two things Americans hate to talk about, yet the problem stares us in the face every day. Who's washing those dishes in the restaurant after dinner? Who's cleaning those toilets? Instead of paying a living wage and giving the underclass a hand up so that they can join the middle class we seem to be focused on keeping them down.

Then we blame them for their position, as if it was all their fault.

The truth is that America wants an underclass. We need it. We need somebody to do the crappy jobs that nobody wants because we're unwilling to pay a fair wage to the people who break their bodies doing hard physical labor. In many ways slavery, or at least some of the ideas that fed it, carries on today in that the rich like to set up pyramids with themselves at the top. If you're gonna be on top of a pyramid, that means many, many more people have to be on the bottom, and (most important) you have to prevent them from getting up to the top.

The pyramid theory of society has been tried many times and it always fails. Weren't we trying something new in America? Weren't we trying to level the playing field and give everybody a shot? Somehow that got lost as the rich set up their system of control so that a free people became bonded by economic manipulation far beyond their control.

Political freedom means nothing if you have to work all the time just to keep food in your belly. What the underclass wants is economic freedom. It may be too late since the rich already control everything of value. What's left but revolution?

We Know Best
If sagging pants are our biggest problem we should consider ourselves lucky. Surely there's more important things to consider, but these laws against clothing point to some deeper issues. So, should we ban those baggy pants?

I'll tell you what: We can ban saggy-ass pants if those who like their pants baggy also get to pass a few rules and regulations of their own. I foresee an ordinance that requires people wearing suits to loosen those ties. After all, if you wear your tie too tight you risk cutting off the circulation to your brain, leading to an increase of shitty laws like this one.

It's 90 degrees out, so why am I freezing cold?

I wonder this every day around noon.

You see, I work in a fairly ritzy office building, but sometimes I start to hallucinate and think that I work at a hockey rink. Despite the fact that it is about 90 degrees outside at this very moment I am shivering cold. I have goosebumps and I'm rubbing myself for warmth. Hang on, before my fingers freeze off, let me put on a fleece pullover I keep in my office for this very reason.

Okay, that's a bit better. But I'm still pissed off that I have wear winter clothing inside during the summer. Can somebody tell me who decided office buildings should be kept at refrigerator temperatures in summer? I would like to shove that person into a walk-in freezer and lock the door.

Confession time: I am a skinny person. I have a runner's build (I had it before I started running) and I generally loathe the cold and winter. I'm shivering and uncomfortable all the time during the winter, and if I thought it would be reasonable, I'd crank the heat at my place to 80 degrees in January. However, the point is that I don't! I put on extra layers of clothing and work out or play drums to keep warm and get the blood flowing. I understand some people hate the heat and think 82 degrees is unbearably warm, but at this point I don't fucking care. I suffer all winter, why should I have to freeze all summer, too?! It doesn't make any sense!

From a global warming perspective, the people who set the temp at 70 or 71 degrees in the summer are basically lighting our atmosphere on fire. Long-term, this obsession with air conditioning is totally counterproductive. You like it cool? Then don't turn the damn AC on, because every time you do you burn more coal and spew more CO2 into the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide causes the planet's temperature to rise.

Personally, I can go outside on a 90 degree day like today and feel totally comfortable as long as the humidity is not too high. The body naturally acclimates itself to the seasons, so my suggestion to set the thermostat at 80 or 82 degrees in the summer is not that crazy. If your body is sweating profusely at 80 degrees, the sad truth is that you're probably too fat.

This is a touchy subject, so I'll try to be kind, but I am getting fed up. It's one thing to be fat on your own time, but when it starts affecting me that's where I draw the line. If you are sweating like a pig while sitting in the office and using a mouse, it's probably time to lose some weight.

Clearly, it doesn't help matters that I sit all day and stare at a computer screen. I'm sure if I were doing hard physical labor the 72 degree air would be bliss. But if construction workers can construct buildings in this heat why can't you sit on your ass, in the shade and deal with a temp of 80 degrees? I don't think I'm being unreasonable, fellow office drones, but please let me know if I am.

Making matters worse, I swear the building temp is dropped a few degrees from 12 to 2 pm. Why? I think it's to counteract the after-lunch sleepiness that afflicts many workers (but which is actually a sign of sleep deprivation -- hell even the unemployed are sleep deprived in 2007). Gotta squeeze every last bit of productivity out of those serfs, right? Even if it's at the expense of the environment and their health.

Humans are so fucking stupid it blows my mind. Our planet is going down like the Titanic and we're not even re-arranging the deck chairs. In fact, we're not doing anything. We're sitting on our fat asses trying to figure out a way to get even more comfortable when it should be clear that we have only moments to live.

At this point, our dwindling time left on Earth is my only consolation.

The Cloak of Stupidity

The Oligarchy won't allow impeachment.

However, if you want to remove the Oligarchy you have to remove Bush first. It's a Catch-22 born in Hell and swaddled in conspiracy. Some people suggest that the Democratic Congress is simply incompetent and divided. I think it's much more likely that they are servile and paid-for.

Check out this awesome article from Glenn Greenwald. He nails the Democratic-controlled Congress for being the sell-outs they are.

Impeachment is necessary, but the Democrats resist where there's merit while the Republicans rushed forth without the People behind them. Both parties are a bunch of fuck-ups. They're so incompetent that there's no difference between that and evil. When that's the case you have evil hiding itself behind a Cloak of Stupidity. Ironically, it's a brilliant plan.

Whoever said "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity," was essentially writing evil a blank check. It seems the quote itself is stupid...or evil. Hanlon, however, created the quotation as more of a joke, not a axiom set in stone. Foolish are those who set store by it.

The Dark Ones will gladly use the Cloak of Stupidity to escape perceived culpability because the repercussions for negligence are much less severe than those for malice. It's a simple cost-benefit analysis for the neocons: "We're not evil, we're stupid!" I predict you'll be hearing that excuse a lot in the near future. Don't fall for it. If you wear the Cloak of Stupidity you deserve to be stripped naked, warts laid bear.

The Oligarchy reacts to sunlight like a vampire does. Expose the Hidden Hand and you'll be one step closer to impeachment and true liberty.

Some Mornings are Death Metal Mornings

Have you ever had a Death Metal Morning™? It's when you need a fix of super-loud, super-fast death metal in the morning when most sane people are listening to light music to slowly wake the hell up.

As I was pulling out of my driveway this morning I couldn't find anything decent on the radio so I switched to a CD Andy gave me - Nile. I figured it might be a death metal morning. Boy was I right.

Not three seconds after putting on the CD I turned onto a road not more than 100 feet from my house and was nearly driven right off the road by a vehicle coming at me at extreme speed.

This is a neighborhood, mind you. Kids are all over the place around here, and this street was a residential road (one lane in each direction) with a speed limit of 30 mph, which most people actually follow. Not dumbshit though. She/he was going at least 50 miles an hour. Although the car was coming right at me I managed to make it up to 30 before they caught up to me. You'd think we'd be cool, right?

No. Dumbfuck swerves and passes me, crossing the double yellow line (no passing) and into oncoming traffic (there was none. This is a quiet neighborhood...or it was) and gives me the finger as if this is all somehow my fault.

No way, muthafucker. Not in my neighborhood. So I follow the little bitch and lay on the horn. We come up to a stoplight and we have to wait at least 30 seconds, thus negating any time dumbshit might've saved by speeding 50+ mph in a residential zone.

Muthafucker should be thanking Jesus I didn't have a fucking baseball bat in my car or there would've been trouble. She/he would've seen a well-dressed office drone jump out of his car with a bat and death metal blaring. I would've proceeded to beat the fuck out of his/her nice-ass SUV (of course it was an SUV) while screaming, "Not in my neighborhood, MUTHERFUCKER!!!" repeatedly. It would've been quite a sight.

Luckily, I don't have a baseball bat in my car, but life is a mosh pit and I'm thinking about getting one. We live in a death metal world and if you're not ready to fight back you're gonna get your face stepped on.

Nile, by the way, is perfect for working through a spasm of rage in the morning. It truly was a Death Metal Morning™.

The Hypocrisy of DailyKos: How Partisanship Created The Best Enemies Bush Could Hope For

Proving once again that they value partisanship over America, freedom and informed debate, the sellout hacks at DailyKos have "warned" anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan that if she posts more about her independent candidacy she will be banned.

I can't post here anymore because my potential run for Congress is not on the Democratic ticket.

...

If Speaker Pelosi does her constitutionally mandated duty and I don't run, then I can come back and post.

DailyKos is shameful. The site is bathed in hypocrisy and founded on partisanship.

The two-party system has destroyed America and put us in the current mess, and DailyKos and other Yellow Dog Democrats are part of the problem. They care about Democrats first and America second (just as the Republicans look after themselves first and America... well, okay they don't care about America at all).

That said, there is still some hope that Pelosi is just being strategic, but where has trusting the Democrats to hold Republicans accountable got us so far? I can see Cindy's point; what's the purpose of having the Democrats in charge of Congress if they won't impeach? 50% of the nation is pro-impeachment (46% for Bush, 58% for Cheney) and the Democrats aren't even talking about it. Once the real investigations start and we find some dirt the numbers will go higher. But will the Democrats have the balls to do it?

Only if it doesn't harm their precious party, or the two-party system.

Ironically, many DailyKos regulars are the best enemies Bush could hope for: weak, timid, divided and fucking stupid. They proceed with undue caution and fret that attacking Bush could make them look like big meanies. They make excuses rather than try and build a consensus on impeachment, and they are far more concerned about their electoral chances in 2008 than in actually holding the illegal Bush/Cheney administration accountable. In short, they are Bush's enablers.

Sheehan gets points in my book for being against the Federal Reserve, which many Kossacks think is a Republican position (it's not), so, unthinkingly, they reject it like the fucking mindless borg shitheads that they are.

Opposition to the Fed is generally an independent position (Ron Paul is the exception here, but he's so hated by his own party that I think it only strengthens my point), and is generally the province of informed, independent-minded folks who don't follow marching orders of the Washington establishment oligarchy.

The sad truth is the there's nothing progressive about DailyKos; it's about as regressive and unimaginative as you can get. These people are too wrapped up in the sports team mentality ("Gooooo Dems!") to realize that their party is as much a part of the fascist oligarchy as the Republicans.

DailyKos is decidedly mainstream, and worships at the altar of pragmatism, not freedom, liberty, or truth. Their only goal is victory (and they admit as much), although they still like to pretend to be anti-establishment nothing could be further from the truth. When Kos casts himself as a revolutionary, he doesn't mean to change the system. He merely wants to sieze control it and use it for his own selfish aims... Just like everybody else in politics.

The Democrats, for their part, have accomplished exactly nothing in Congress. Not that Bush would sign their reform bills anyway, but isn't that all the more reason to impeach the stonewalling, lying, election-stealing fascist bastards? Apparently not.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: There's only one party -- The Business Party, and Democrats and Republicans are merely factions of that monolithic party. We don't live in a democracy, we live in a constitutional republic that is quickly shedding the "constitutional" part for fascism instead. And what are the Democrats doing to stop it? About as much as they're doing to stop the war: Nothing but a few bellicose speeches for the choir.

Still, the Kossacks will continue to support the Dems, no matter what. Blind loyalty is their modus operandi and they show no signs of changing it. So, how are they any different from the Republicans who support Bush no matter how many laws he breaks?

Partisans on both sides are the same. They all think it's okay to break a few rules in order to achieve their party's higher goals. What's best for America doesn't enter into it.

Pope Benedict XVI asserts the primacy of his dick

Pope Dumbshit made another lame proclamation recently:

Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says other Christian communities are either defective or not true churches and Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation.

This is the theological equivalent of saying "My dad can beat up your dad!" Part of the reason the Catholics like to give the finger to other Christian churches is because the other churches don't accept the Pope as the Vicar of Christ on Earth ('cause, ya know.. he's not. He's just some fucking pederast in a funny hat).

So basically, Bennie the great is asserting the primacy of his dick. "WORSHIP ME, mortals!! Bow before the mighty Benedict!!!"

You know what, Ratzinger, you creepy-looking megalomaniac? Go fuck yourself.

The Internet Strikes Back!!

Digg.com pioneered social media and social bookmarking. They helped create a community who believed in the "wisdom of the crowd", but today the crowd bit back.

After Digg started burying stories and deleting user accounts because of the HD-DVD crack controversy the Digg community hit back the only way they knew how: They took over Digg's front page. As of 11:15 pm CST, every single story on Digg's coveted front page has something to do with the suppressed number.

The hexadecimal number ( 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 ) unlocks the DRM copy-protection on HD-DVD discs. HD-DVD is the successor to DVD, which is already cracked. Blu-Ray is apparently affected as well since it also uses the AACS content-scrambling system that was designed to restrict who can watch the next-generation movie discs.

It was revealed that the HD-DVD group was a sponsor of Digg's podcast. The blatant conflict of interest riled up the Digg community, which has taken the story to other social media sites such as Reddit and even the old standard, Slashdot, which has added digg-like features such as the Firehose.

It's fair to say the internet community has been in open revolt all day, against a site that was until yesterday a shining example of how Web 2.0 businesses can work -- trust your users. Digg has apparently forgotten that lesson and has sided with corporate interests and knee-jerk lawsuit-phobia instead of it's own users -- the people who (literally) make the site work. Unfortunately, it looks like Wikipedia is falling into the same trap (although it often freezes pages during periods of great controversy to prevent editing wars).

With the incredible storm of rebellion racing across the internet there doesn't seem to be a way out of this mess for Digg. Far from blowing over, the brouhaha appears to be getting worse. Digg's half-assed attempt at putting out this fire only fanned the flames. It appears Digg might have temporarily blocked new story submisisons, but the link appears to be working now.

Diggers are pointing out the fact that Reddit and Slashdot have not taken down stories concerning the suppressed number, nor have they deleted comments. Because of that it's looking more and more like a situation that Digg and Digg alone created through heavy-handed policing (which is no doubt allowed by their EULA) and overreaction in general, all of which has led to the current PR shitstorm.

Far from suppressing the number Digg has managed to enshrine it for all time in the annals of internet history. It's interesting that it happened on May 1st, International Workers' Day. Hopefully today will long be remembered as the day when the internet community took a stand against the evil DMCA, the law which is at the root of the problem.

Let no one say the social media community is afraid to bite the hand that feeds.

Update (5-2-07): Digg has come to their senses and declared that it will no longer delete posts containing the suppressed number. That's probably wise since they would've had to ban half their users and remove all the stories from their front page for several hours. A little late, but the users have spoken, and Digg finally decided to listen.

Censorship is bad, mmkay? Resist the tyranny of DRM! Spread this number:

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

It's just a string of numbers and letters, right?

A simple, almost random, collection of hexadecimal characters.

No harm could come from posting them, right?

I hope that's the case.

Digg has censored this number and any story submissions or comments referencing it have been buried (well, they haven't found all the comments). Peoples' accounts have been deleted simply for submitting it. Amazing, isn't it?...

Makes you wonder why.

This is why.

In a nutshell: It's the processing key for HD-DVD movies, enabling users to crack the DRM and watch the movie on non-approved hardware (like Linux).

Please, spread this number around. The idea of censoring a number is so silly and totalitarian that I can't sit by in idle silence. We have to resist.