perfidy

The American Spectator continues its long, sad slide from moderately respectable navel-gazing publication for the argyle socks set to hilarious yet pathetic and forlorn laughingstock (like a retarded dog is simultaneously funny and pathetic and forlorn) as the magazine pillories that mollycoddled malcontent mopping milquetoast for malcontented morons, fake news anchor Jon Stewart with all the blinding wit and unwieldy adjectives at its disposal.

Have at you! Arrgh!

Michael Schaub of bookslut notes that the Texas State Board of Ed. is drawing up new textbook requirements for Texas schoolchirrens. Why do I care? Because textbook companies can't afford to produce fifty versions of a textbook, so they gear their content to the biggest markets. Between the fuzzy death of California's political correctness jihadis and the sphincter-clenching rectitute of the newly emboldened conservative Christians in Texas, you can bet that textbooks are going to become less and less useful for the purposes of actual, you know, teaching.

But I hear they make good kindling.

Not that anyone else in the world cares, but a mere three weeks after finally (probably) getting over a debilitating ten-week mystery illness and resuming my gym regimen, I have posted personal bests in distance run, duration spent running, bench press maximum weight, and seated row maximum weight.

Which would be a perfect time for the doctors to finally figure out that I have cancer or something. Just frigging wait and see.

I took Johno's test:

Official Survivor
Congratulations! You scored 75%!

Whether through ferocity or quickness, you made it out. You made the right choice most of the time, but you probably screwed up somewhere. Nobody's perfect, at least you're alive.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 99% on survivalpoints

Link: The Zombie Scenario Survivor Test written by ci8db4uok on Ok Cupid

My raw score was 75, compared to Johno's 73. Those two extra points made a big difference on the curve, I guess. Or, my zombie killing skills are just that obvious.

The funny thing is that I actually think about this stuff. Whenever I watch a zombie movie, or a horror movie, or even most action adventure flicks, it triggers a long process where I internally analyze the situation and what I would do. The more interesting the plot, the longer it takes. In my mental file cabinets, I have contingency plans for zombies, vampires, werewolves, terrorist attacks, being thrown back in time (several ways, and to different time periods), burglars, nuclear war, technology no longer working (thanks to a couple sf novels), everyone disappearing, pods taking over people's brains, soviet invasions, alien invasions (3), and for capturing a UFO should I be abducted.

Don't tell my wife, but I often buy things for my general purpose emergency kit based on the above scenarios. I justify the purchases for other reasons, but I know what they're for.

Wife: "Why do you need a shotgun?"
Me: "For the zombies."
Wife: "Why do you need four hundred rounds of ammunition?"
Me: "When the zombies come, there'll be lots of them."

You can see why that conversation is untenable. It went more like this:

Wife: "Why do you need a shotgun?"
Me: "For home defense, and I like shooting."
Wife: "Why do you need four hundred rounds of ammunition?"
Me: "It was on sale."

I convinced her to let me buy a couple cases of MREs on the argument that FEMA recommends that every family should have a disaster preparedness kit. Only really, it's a zombie emergency survival kit. Camping is a fun thing to do on the weekend. But camping gear always is handy in Zombie situations, too.

And I never travel without my aluminum baseball bat.

And no, I'm not crazy. I just have a finely developed sense of imagination and wonder. And don't tell my wife. It will make further additions to the survival kit more difficult. 

In the great game of Rock-Paper-Scissors that is entitlement politics, we seem to have reached an impasse. IKEA, the Swedish purveyor of cheap and stylish furniture, is in hot water with the Norse government for including only men in the illustrations that accompany the assembly instructions for their products. That's right. The Norskies, having solved all its problems, are now attacking the pernicious threat of gender bias in instruction manuals written by a company headquartered elsewhere.

But wait! It gets better. IKEA insists it cannot change its manuals, as the company made the decision to include only men in the pictures in order to avoid offending Muslims.

In light of my recent posts on the use of the N-word in Twain and the filthiest joke ever told, I'm starting to get a little fed up. Are we all to become mental Jainists, always contorting ourselves for the sake of right conduct so we do not kill a mosquito, harm a fly, or accidentally repress a minority? Are words and pictures - pedestrian words and pictures - really so terribly hurtful that we can't get along with cartoon pictures of men putting together maddeningly complicated pressboard furniture?

Or can the whole world just have a goddamn pizza and a six pack (a vegan pizza for the Jainists among us!!) and get the hell over it?

Thanks to Ed at Captain's Quarters.

Ohio is a terrible place to live, and it's even worse if you own a business. The state taxes business at a high rate, to the point of taxing unsold inventory (!). Hence, if you own, say, a comic book shop or a regional distribution hub, you are perpetually smacked with giant tax bills. Several such hubs have recently moved from Ohio to Kansas and Indiana for this very reason. The state's lawmakers, a notoriously inept bunch, seem to think this wretched business climate is a pretty great state of affairs, and now want to make sure that everyone can share the bliss.

Check this out. Says Ohio State Senator Larry Mumper - "If someone buys and sells on eBay on a regular basis as a type of business, then there is a need for regulation."

So now there's a law. I would recommend not believing Mumper and his cronies when they swear up and down that they'll pass exemptions before the May start date so that every ebayer in the state doesn't have to, and I quote,

get a state auction license.

Besides costing $200 and posting a $50,000 bond, the license requires a one-year apprenticeship to a licensed auctioneer, acting as a bid-caller in 12 auctions, attending an approved auction school, passing a written and oral exam. Failure to get a license could result in the seller being fined up to $1,000 and jailed for a maximum of 90 days[,]

but right now no such exemption exists. In a scenario much like that of like the PATRIOT Act being used to bust terrorist menaces like head shops and filesharers, the club now exists with which to beat Ohioan Ebayers all about the head and neck. Some enthusiastic DA merely needs to pick it up.

Clearly, Ohioans are pretty dumb.

... in interweb entertainment seems to be embarassing dance videos. Ian, AKA Loyal Reader #0064, emails this video of an Air Force Academy cadet getting his white-boy ya-yas out. If he is representative of the current crop of flyboys, I tremble for the future of the republic and beg for a Marine recruit to beat his ass ASAP please. (Large file warning)

Watching Jonah Golberg and Juan Cole go at each other is like watching Max Cleland box Larry Flynt . It sounds like it would be funny to see two wheelchair dudes fight, but in actual fact it's tawdry, exploitative, and leaves everyone feeling dirty and vaguely disappointed that there wasn't more punching. Nevertheless, if you want to, here's the recent rounds.: Cole/Goldberg.

"Thanks" to QandO for the collation and for an energetic fisking of Cole to boot, though I don't necessarily agree and find it a bit unseemly to pile on the weak besides.

[wik] My original post read "John" Cole. John Cole is the blogger at balloon juice, but he's a Steelers fan and therefore not to be trusted.

7:15 up!
9:00 tax time: pull together W-2s
1:45 CAT scan, Sisters of Mercy hospital
2:45 doc's appt.: tests
4:00 rent due: balance chkbk, rent check to TG
10:00 straight to bed, mister!

Freshly minted Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has a lot on her plate: overseeing the No Child Left Behind program; ordering herself a new stapler; untangling an unspeakable labor-relations miasma with the teachers' unions; coordinating the introduction of new abilities tests and learning standards for public school students of all kinds.

But lucky for her, she's got herself a nose for the important stuff.

The nation's new education secretary denounced PBS on Tuesday for spending public money on a cartoon with lesbian characters, saying many parents would not want children exposed to such lifestyles.

The not-yet-aired episode of "Postcards From Buster" shows the title character, an animated bunny named Buster, on a trip to Vermont - a state known for recognizing same-sex civil unions. The episode features two lesbian couples, although the focus is on farm life and maple sugaring.

Surely the best way to make sure children grow up well-adjusted and intelligent is to hide from them the stunning diversity of the ways people live. That way their minds can grow unhampered by such poisionous things as opinions, controversy, and maple sugar.

So we've got Miss Moral Majority in Education, and a yes-man for the rubber hose brigade in Justice. What's next? Pinkerton for Secretary of Labor?

[wik] I mean, really. Spellings is quite solicitous of people who might be offended by the fact that women can live together (in an arrangement we used to call "spinsters" or "maiden aunts"), and yet. My wife and I are not churchgoing folks, and though we want to make sure that some type of spirituality enters into the lives of our as yet theoretical children, we are deeply ambivalent about how best to do that without being either hypocritical (meaning we insincerely join a church for the sake of the children), or offhanded. The same "Buster" program that shows lesbians engaging in *gasp* sugaring also includes and episode featuring a visit to a fundamentalist Mormon household. My children could be exposed to the sight of highly religious people living in a way that comports with their idiosyncratic and uncommon personal beliefs! Where's the outrage, people?! Where's the outrage?!!!!!

Or, for that matter, Spinal Tap, Britney, Shakira, and ABBA?

Man. That is one messed up algorithm.

You know, Blockbuster is right.

Since I dig Metallica, why WOULDN'T I also dig Britney Spears, Weird Al, and Sheyl Crow?

The commander of the US nuculur sub that ran aground off Guam last month has been reassigned.

Do you think his friends call him "crash"?

Once in a while, a story comes along that hammers home just why many of the founders of the United States feared the power of the popular vote (as if my just-prior post about police subduing a naked jogger with tasers wasn't enough). Typically, these stories have something to do with mankind's (oh, ok... womynkind's too) boundless capacity for flabbergasting ignorance, such as in this case right here in which a Washington state woman voted on behalf of her husband, who had recently achieved ambient environmental temperature:

Doris McFarland said she voted for her husband, Earl, who died Oct. 7.

"I called up the elections board and said, 'Can I do it because he wanted me to vote?' " the Duvall woman said. "The person ... said, 'Well, who would know?' I said, 'I don't want to do anything that is wrong.' "

Huennekens disputed that election workers would say such a thing.

McFarland said she signed her husband's name and mailed in his ballot, along with her own. She said she had power of attorney for her 92-year-old husband, who was blind.

"If I did something that wasn't right, you can just throw that ballot out," McFarland said last night.

If? IF?! Ladies and gentlemen, sleep well. The Republic is in goood hands. Goooood hands.

[wik] Buckethead, I hereby let it be know that, in the event of my untimely demise, I need you to cast a vote on my behalf in every Presidential election until you too meet your doom. Just write in "Turd Ferguson."

As all the world should by now know, I am a huge Cleveland Browns fan. Since I live in New England I typically get to view with my own peepers approximately 1.035 Browns games per year, factoring in occasional highlights on ESPN. Consequently, when I was home in Ohia for the holidays, I took the opportunity to view the Miami-Cleveland matchup slated for the day after Christmas, although neither team is, erm... any good.

Wow. What a stinker.

The game was so bad that by the end of the 3rd quarter with the score tied 7-7, the Cleveland home announcers were wishing aloud for someone to please score now, to end the misery before overtime was necessary. Fumbles, missed calls, stumbling, and penalty after penalty after stupid-ass penalty combined to make the Browns and Dolphins-- all highly trained professionals, all well paid to play their best at all times-- look as ragged and lost as a division III-C junior varsity high school football game, say the Garrettsville, OH (pop. 2200) G-Men versus the Mogadore, OH (pop 3800) Wildcats. Passes clanged to the ground uncaught. Running plays misfired. Offensive and defensive lines tangled into an unruly mess devoid of plan, strategy, or sense. The middle part of the field became muddy; you could have put a putting green inside the 20-yard lines.

I only mention all this because this stinker of a game resulted in a "what-what-WHAT?!?" play that I will forever treasure as the greatest display of bad football I have ever witnessed. It happened with about 10 minutes to go in the third quarter, and went a little something like this:

1-10-CLV 40 (10:12) 12-L.McCown pass intended for 86-D.Northcutt INTERCEPTED by 20-A.Freeman at MIA 20. 20-A.Freeman to MIA 21 for 1 yard. FUMBLES, recovered by MIA-23-P.Surtain at MIA 18. 23-P.Surtain to MIA 26 for 8 yards. Lateral to 29-S.Madison to MIA 30 for 4 yards. FUMBLES, RECOVERED by CLV-67-M.Fowler at MIA 34. 67-M.Fowler to MIA 34 for no gain (20-A.Freeman).

That's a pass thrown by Cleveland rookie QB Luke McCown (who?!?) intercepted by Miami, then fumbled, then recovered by Miami, then a crazy-ass lateral pass just before tackle, followed by another Miami fumble, recovered by Cleveland's center-- not a running back, not a receiver, for a fricking Cleveland first down.

This post brought to you by Howard, Howard, Howard, and Fine.

In regard to today's news story about the Savannah, Georgia resident who awoke from a cocaine and alcohol induced slumber in his trailer to find that his two erstwhile female companions of the previous evening had stuck cooking tongs in his ass, I have one question:

Just what the hell were they looking for up there?

Well, it's blogging about tards. They aren't really up to blogging themselves. Cruel, to be sure; but as one who once took care of the little buggers, it's also ripping funny.

At least this spammer is upfront about what he's doing:

I think I'm going to try this. Of all the techniques I've ever heard of to deal with my "issue" - this is the best. Procrastinate yourself into productivity! Of course, blogging about it is probably not the best way to start. Maybe I'll clean my office so I can get a clean start.

The ACLU is suing Boston's Logan Airport over what it dubs "behavioral profiling." Basically, if the cops at Logan think you look crooked, they get to stop you.

In November 2002, [Logan] began the nation's first ''behavioral recognition program,'' in which police stop and question passengers with odd or suspicious behavior.

''This program is another unfortunate example of the extent to which we are being asked to surrender basic freedoms in the name of security,'' said John Reinstein, legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts. ''This allows the police to stop anyone, any time, for any reason.''

Is the ACLU out of its tree? The suit was brought on behalf of a guy who, though he was treated rudely, was let go without incident. Moreover, do we really want to prohibit our airport screener-people from stopping the sketchy?

... then again...

Let's be honest. Apart from the obvious shortcomings and frivolity of this suit, will searching the nervous gain us much? From what I understand, your average suicidal fanatic exhibits great calm as they commit mass slaughter. Just a thought.

What the hell, ACLU?