perfidy

Exposed! Today in the Boston Globe: Mobile homes a risk in hurricane areas!

Sure, I understand that many people can't really afford to live in other than a single-wide for reasons of culture, economy, family, or other circumstance. Sucks to be them. Sucks bad to be them. But is it really such a surprise when they fall over!?

This was on Drudge, but I have to link it myself. I have often joked about becoming one with the couch. This woman actually did.

John Kerry needs help.

To get his Ohio rallies up and rolling, Kerry used a set of jokes to open his events. In Bowling Green, his shtick went something like this:

"If you elect me and my running mate, John Edwards, we are going to give you the courageous leadership you need. We'll take the tough positions, the courageous positions, the tough stands. But there's one tough position I will not take: I am not going to choose between the Falcons and the Rockets" -- this is a local reference to the well-known rivalry between Bowling Green University and the University of Toledo.

"I will say this," he added. "There is nothing better than Buckeye football, period!"

Kerry used this set piece several times in Ohio, to great effect, never mind the waffling with the generality of "Buckeye" football. Was he talking Ohio State University specifically? Or just football in the state in general? Only Kerry knows.

But then Kerry dug a huge hole for himself. On Sunday and into Monday, Kerry hit Michigan, where he attempted to use the same Ohio jokes. Clearly, the sports humor has to be taken out of his hands before he really embarrasses himself.

"I just came here from Bowling Green," Kerry told the crowd to subdued applause. "I was smart enough not to pick a choice between the Falcons and the, well, you know, all those other teams out there. I just go for Buckeye football, that's where I'm coming from."

At that point, before all the boos began raining down upon him, Kerry seemed to realize his error. In an attempt to silent the angry crowd of University of Michigan supporters, Kerry said, "But that was while I was in Ohio. I know I'm in the state of Michigan and you got a great big M and a powerhouse of a team." Then his face, presumably, the Botox permitting, turned Big Blue.

Wow. Just wow. Homework, John. Do your homework. And please, please, please make sure you don't give the "hook 'em horns!" when you roll through College Station, Texas. Or, if you wish, by all means do! And follow it up with a good old cry of "Roll, Tide" at a campaign stop in Auburn! And, don'tcha know, potential voters in Philadelphia just love the New York Jets, ya dumbass.

The USA men's Olympic basketball team continued their proud march to the gold yesterday, defeating Germany 80-77 in a buzzer-beater. Before you let your organs of pride swell in victory, you should know this: the German team they beat didn't even qualify for Athens.

Next stop: the unstoppable powerhouse of Serbia-Montenegro.

But there is one in "Biyatch!"

The US Olympic men's basketball team, consisting of NBA players including Tim Duncan and Lamar Odom, got their asses handed to them by fricking Italy in an exhibition game yesterday. The final score was 95-78.

Sez Odom, "We need more time together. These teams play together for years and we have to put it together in a couple of weeks. . . . Our defense wasn't up to par. This was a lesson for us." Duncan echoed the defensive woes, also adding "It doesn't hurt at all. It's great preparation."

Or, gentlemen, perhaps the problem is that the rest of the world still spends time on crazy timewasters like shooting, ball-handling, team play, and defense, while American basketball players prefer to dunk! dunk! dunk! and work on their foul-drawing pratfalls. Woo! Lookit me! I'm dunking! Hey ref! That guy hacked me! Ow, ow, ow! Now, where's my Escalade!

The NBA is a pit of crappy play and lax refereeing, and the league's entire culture rewards criminal behavior, total irresponsibility, and utter selfishness.

Check out this bit from the end of the article: "LeBron James delivered [the pyrotechnics] late in the third quarter, breaking away on a turnover and throwing in an emphatic dunk. The crowd booed loudly when the basket was negated by a traveling call." When is the last time you saw and NBA player called for travelling on a three-step dunk?

Italy, man.

[wik] Of course, part of the issue is that these days the biggest players don't want to risk blowing out a knee in some stupid non-paying glory gig. Just check out the roster from the original 1992 dream team: Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, Scottie Pippen, Chris Mullin, Clyde Drexler, John Stockton, and Christian Laettner.

Now, let's compare it to this year's version of Team USA: Carmelo Anthony, Carlos Boozer, Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson, LeBron James, Richard Jefferson, Stephon Marbury, Shawn Marion, Lamar Odom, Emeka Okafor, Amare Stoudemire, and Dwyane Wade.

Who?

Even though this wholesome citizen didn't die perpetrating the crime, he is nevertheless on the fast track to improving our gene pool.

For the rest of us, call it a life lesson learned well: keep your head in the bus window; don't eat the big white mint; and don't try and pull an armed robbery at the gun store.

Today is a special day. This morning I was nearly run down in a crosswalk by an inattentive driver, and in fact ended up partly perched on the hood of his car shouting "woah! woah! woah!" as he plowed ahead. This is fairly common in Massachusetts even though it's state law that pedestrians have the right of way in marked crosswalks. So, that's not so much the special part.

Today, after five cumulative years of living in Massachusetts and nearly being run over dozens of times in clearly marked crosswalks, marks the first time I can remember that the driver of the car did not yell an enraged and indignant "Fuck you!" at me as he drove away.

The sad part is, Zac Moussaoui isn't even trying for an insanity defense. This is what he calls keepin' it real.

Choice bits of crazy falling from his pen to your upturned eyes: "United Sodom and Gomorrah States"... "Slave of Satan Bush & Co"... referring to the judge on his case as "Brinkema the [unreadable] Death Judge"...

Guilty or innocent, this guy is a hoot! Keep the crazy coming, Zac!

Loyal reader MapGirl alerts us to a disturbing situation, reported over at The Cheese Stands Alone. At first, I could not but believe that this was some sort of allegory, or satirical comment on the failings of modern culture. If true, and I am certainly willing to extend my faith to encompass this, I am frankly stunned.

Go read it. Back?

My father never uttered the phrase, "I'll give you something to cry about." However, a similar thought crossed my mind while reading that post. I don't think I'd be able to avoid intimidating this... person... ever after. I have never lost a game of Trivial Pursuit. (Well, except once. But I was blind stinking drunk and playing seven people on the other team. And even then it was close.) I would make references to things you've never heard of. I'd couch every comment, every request, every passing remark in a thicket of classical, historical, and early 80s pop culture allusions. I would go to absurd lengths to make my every communication absolutely unintelligible to someone who doesn't read as much as I do. Then I'd start making things up. Then mix them together. And if she made a move to file a complaint again, I'd kick the crap out of her. Then I'd say, "Take the hit. That's what intimidation is." On the inside.

My wife doesn't let me be mean anymore.

Begging to Differ notes a norbizness post that references this Time Magazine article about this email*.

The email was sent to Pentagon staff in the wake of Fox News' posting of the Taguba Report (detailing prisoner abuses at the Abu Gharaib prison by people who really should have known better). It exhorted Pentagon staffers NOT to download the Taguba Report from FOX News, where it was available to read to anyone in the world with access to an internet connection, and in fact was being downloaded by everyone and their dog at at exact moment, because.... wait for it.... the memo is still classified. So if you work for the DoD, just remember, just because a memo has been read by millions of people worldwide doesn't mean it's not still secret!

Snuh?

The email reads, in part,

From: Information Services Customer Liaison, ISD
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 12:45 PM
To: MLA dd - USD(I) - ALL; MLA dd - NII ALL
Subject: URGENT IT BULLETIN: Tugabe Report (FOUO)
Importance: High

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

AUDIENCE
All ISD Customers

SUMMARY
Fox News and other media outlets are distributing the Tugabe report (spelling is approximate for reasons which will become obvious momentarily). Someone has given the news media classified information and they are distributing it. THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED. ALL ISD CUSTOMERS SHOULD:

1) NOT GO TO FOX NEWS TO READ OR OBTAIN A COPY
2) NOT comment on this to anyone, friends, family etc.
3) NOT delete the file if you receive it via e-mail, but
4) CALL THE ISD HELPDESK AT 602-2627 IMMEDIATELY

This leakage will be investigated for criminal prosecution. If you don't have the document and have never had legitimate access, please do not complicate the investigative processes by seeking information. Again, THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED; DO NOT GO TO FOX NEWS TO READ OR OBTAIN A COPY.

I especially love the advice on how to cope with dealing with this no longer secret yet still very classified report in four easy steps.

And whatever you do, for God's sake, do NOT visit FOX NEWS DOT COM. (EVER.)

* ain't the internet grand?!?

[wik] Commenters below have now broken the LAW a combined... lessee... 11 times. And counting. Oops-- thirteen.

Yesterday I went to one of those office farewell parties where everyone stands around gabbing and snacking and some nebbish has to go without cake. The snacks were the usual fare, nachos and a taco dip, desserts and drinks, except for the pork rinds. Pork rinds! For the life of me I couldn't imagine what pork rinds had to do with the apparently faux-Southwestern culinary theme the rest of the eats had going on, nor could I see a connection between pork rinds and a degree in Poetry, which is what my departing cow-orker is leaving to pursue.

So I asked. "Why the heck are these nummy pork rinds here?" The answer I got: "No carbs. Atkins friendly."

Take a minute to let that sink in. No carbs. Atkins friendly.

I look upon the Atkins craze with grave suspicion and faint disdain, and view the new food-industry embrace of it as sheer lunacy. Low carb beer! Low carb bread. Low carb effing cheese! Moreover, many people seem to take Atkins' dietary rules as license to eat as much steak with a side of cheese as they can get, to the exclusion of such delicious low-carb alternatives as green vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. The entire Atkins industry is more than a little ludicrous.

No offense to those hardy souls who have enthinned themselves at Atkins' knee, but if you need more proof that the Atkins diet in the popular interpretation is the fad-diet peer of alchemy, orgones, EST, the jackalope, and the extended warranty, consider this: Pork rinds are now a health food.

I guess I should expect that Orgasmatron any day now.

Just like in a horror movie.

The woman is walking from her parked car to her home after work. She drops something and, as she's stooped to pick it up, sees the bad guy charging her from the treeline.

She gets into her house, but can't bolt the door before he's upon her. Muttering obscenities and a chilling monologue, he shoves powerfully against the door. She ends up on her butt, on her own kitchen floor...just seconds before she'd been just walking toward her house, and suddenly she's in mortal danger...then he's in the house, nearly upon her...she sees the gun in his hand....she thinks of her teen daughter, also in the house...terrified, adrenalin racing, she sees his eyes...

Then she pulls her 9mm from her waist and puts 3 rounds in his fucking head.

Real life, not a horror movie. The incident took place in Detroit, and the lady in question said it was like "Friday the 13th...except it was Tuesday." Police determined that she had actually fired 6 rounds, but the autopsy showed (probably a very brief autopsy) that cause of death was multiple gunshots to the mellon.

Now, any person who can go from her everyday mundane pattern to immediate mortal danger, be off balance, ambushed, needing just a little more urging to head into panic, yet have it together enough to put 3 rounds in the bad guy's head is fabulous. Just fabulous. That's the difference training can make, as opposed to just packing to feel safer.

Opponents of Michigan's new concealed-carry statute "predicted a large increase in self-defense-type shootings". I'm not sure why that's a bad thing; would those CCW opponents be happier, and feel safer, if this lady and her daughter were dead and this convicted fellon was still marauding about with his unregistered weapon?

She has admitted she has conflicted feelings over all of this. She knows she did the right thing by defending herself and her daughter, but is not thrilled she had to kill someone. Personally, I'd rather be alive and feel bad about killing the bad guy than be dead.

Without presuming to make any assumptions or accusations about the courage of the Bulgarian people and their armed forces, the following quote, from an MSNBC article about the renewed fighting in Fallujah-- including artillery-- struck me funny.

Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov demanded Tuesday that Bulgaria’s 450 troops be moved to safety away from the holy city of Kerbala after his convoy was fired on when he visited them Sunday.

CBS News is reporting an HIV scare in LA's porn community. Apparently this is only the latest such outbreak. Porn talent tested positive a few times in the '90s, and then, as now, a sort of quarantine was imposed while who had scenes with whom (and whom and whom) was sorted out. New production has been suspended in the meantime.

You know, I had some pithy remarks about... well, about this. But in retrospect I just can't seem to work up humor or snarkiness over people with HIV, be it people in porn, trucking, advertising, insurance, whatever.

But all in all, I have to admit I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often.

"We should put this S.O.B. up against a wall and say 'This is one of our bad days,' and pull the trigger."

Thus reads an ad placed in a local paper in St. Petersburg, Florida by the St. Petersburg Democratic Club. Club Vice President Edna McCall said her club is in direct contact with John Kerry campaign.

"We're all working together."

"Nader tells youths to brace for draft."

On my planet, which my people call earth, it is known that we have not had a draft for thirty years and that it would not only be political suicide to reintroduce it, it would destroy the lavishly equipped, intensively trained and stupendously lethal volunteer force we are so very proud of.

Nader needs to stop smoking the crack.

At least, that's what Andy Rooney thinks. That's the actual title of the piece. I never liked the pretentious blowhard much before, but now I really can't stand him. Read this article, and bask in the awesome disregard and complete lack of understanding exhibited therein. Whenever I have seen an interview with troops in the field, they are constantly saying - in complete contradiction to Rooney - how they are proud to fight, knowing that they are preserving the liberties and safety of Americans back home; even of fat condescending fucktards like Rooney. This excrement is a classic example of the worst kind of liberal contempt for, and lack of comprehension of, the military.

As if the first effort didn't give me a full-body papercut and throw me in a deep pit of lemon juice, a group of soulless miscreants has decided that making a sequel would be a fantastic idea.

What movie, you ask? Why, it's Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation. From the Movie Web:

The Story: A small group of troopers who find themselves taking refuge in an abandoned outpost as they attempt to fight against the encroaching arachnids-not realizing that a much graver danger is actually infiltrating their unit.

But that doesn't begin to describe the horror. Notice this little tidbit:

Release Date: June 1st, 2004 (Straight To Video)

Starring a group of people you've never heard of, and directed by a special effects expert, you know this is going to be great, character-focused drama. Your hopes will be confirmed when you realize that the genius screenwriter from the first Starship Troopers has returned!

From some movie blog, guy goes to panel to listen to discussion of the abomination, I mean, movie:

Sammon kicked things off with a simple slide-show, and an outline of the movie's basic plot. The first analogy he came up with was that if Starship Troopers had been like World War II (with Gestapo like Psi-officers and a fascist, Aryan-friendly government) then ST2 is like the Korean War. The human-bug conflict has been raging for five years as the flick opens, and humanity is losing the battle - although through all-pervasive, pro-war propaganda, the majority of humanity doesn't know that.

Ross, sounds like an alegory for what's happening right now, doesn't it?

Then screenwriter Ed Neumeier shows up. I have never met the man, but I am certain that he is a sleazy, no-talent assclown. Our virgil in this hell describes the scene:

The other big question asked by Heinlein fans who still feel cheated is about power armour, and whether it'll appear in ST2. It was fairly obvious to me given the budget that it wouldn't, but Ed Neumeier confirmed that was the case... Inexplicably, Ed Neumeier blames himself for the lack of power armour in the first film, saying that it ultimately came down to a 'believable bugs or power armour' argument, and the bugs won. As he pointed out "Some people hate me for that movie," referring to some of the more extreme Heinlein fans out there (some of whom were present in the audience).

Really, why might that be? Aside from the fact that you based your first screenplay on a glance at the book cover and a cursory reading of the publisher's blurb? Jackass.

Fans of the original's sarcastic take on war propaganda will be pleased to know it's going to return for the second flick also, and that Ed Neumeier wouldn't have it any other way.

You mean someone actually was a fan of that clumsy, overreaching satire of something that wasn't even in the book? Great, we need more! Jackass.

I remember that HBO had a "Making of" special before the release of the first nightmare. In it, Veorhoven (or however you spell his retarded Dutch name) and Neumeier went on and on that their movie was an homage to the dean of sf writers. I thought ST1 was bad. It is bad. But now this collection of human trash has to go and make another movie even further removed from the original novel.

I need to go brush my teeth.

A great many people are taking dKos to task for this statement

That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.

A lot of bandwidth has been wasted on finding just the right adjective for Kos in the wake of this stunningly rectrocranial eructation: "Cuban-style Socialist," "heartless" and so on.

Gentlemen, gentlemen, let's not bicker! Let's just all agree that one word sums up the Daily Kos on this day: "dickhead."

No middle-aged white guy should go there. Check out the screedly ignorance from WorldNetDaily about hip-hop moon units Outkast performing at a Democratic fundraiser.

This dude has no idea who the hell Outkast is. That much is clear, or he'd have understood that Andre 3000 brandishing a pink pistol in the liners to "The Love Below" was sort of the opposite thing of what he thinks it is.

Politicians should stay the hell away from hip-hop. It makes them look stupid at best, and like grade-a buttholes at worst.

[wik] At the very least, it should be recognized by all that Outkast's reliance on sex songs means that they don't do the drug-dealing and killing songs so much. And let's not forget that their biggest hit to date was about a gentleman apologizing to the mother of his baby-mama, promising to grow up, be a good father and make with the child payments already.