I'm still here. Not dead yet.

I realize I haven't made a new blog entry for quite some time, on this or my other couple of blogs that I have or contribute to. I don't know how many times I have started on something and then just faded out, staring and the computer screen in disgust. I don't like anything I am writing anymore, and it seems to be a very large effort to write anything not related to work right now.

I think a lot of my problem is the subject matter. Things are just getting more and more bizarre in this country. It's no longer fun or cathartic to even complain about the insanity. I may try to blog about something here in the near future. But it's pretty difficult right now. For those of you who keep coming back and looking for something, I do appreciate it. Keep with it. I'll find something to write about soon. Hopefully....

So, just to pass the time, here are some Daleks, for all you Dr. Who fans. EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!

Anti-tax lunatic sets fire to his house and crashes small plane into the IRS office in Austin.

I don’t understand why this isn’t a bigger story. Yes, it’s being covered in newspapers and blogs. Here’s the NYT link. But it’s all very low key coverage, no front page big splashes as far as I can tell. Why? To me, this seems like a huge deal. A deranged man who published an anti-government and anti-tax rant on the web mimics the 9/11 attackers, kills himself and apparently two other people, and the biggest story is that the White House isn’t calling this domestic terrorism?

Screw it, that’s EXACTLY what this is! Why cannot the press and Democrats, for that matter, ever call these lunatics out for what they are? If this had been a liberal mad at… I dunno, Fox News and crashed a plane into their building, wouldn’t it have been the story of the year so far? Why this infuriating reticence to call things what they are? Who would they be offending? Tea Party nuts who already think that President Obama is actively trying to destroy the country?

I think acts like this should get laid at the door of people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. They are stoking the fires of anger and hatred, essentially telling everyone that, not only is it O.K. to be angry, but it’s O.K. to act our their violent daydreams. Just a glance at some of the right wing blogs and web sites show that many people on the right are hailing this lunatic as some sort of hero! A hero! For flying a goddamned airplane into a federal building! And yet, here is President Obama, rushing out a statement that they don’t believe this is a case of domestic terrorism.

Christ in a bottle... Here we have a fanatic who goes on a violent suicide mission that emulates the worst terrorist attack in the history of this country, killing two people in the process, and for what? To make a statement! If that isn’t a clear-cut case of domestic terrorism, I don’t know what it.

People are actually hailing a murderer as a hero. This country is on it’s way down, and it isn’t going to be pretty. My biggest concern now is that these nutjobs, who apparently really truly believe the insanity they are spouting, will gain control of the federal government through lawful means, i.e., elections. And then, they are going to go wild and do whatever they want, because that’s what a democracy means, right? The winner of an election, as long as you are a Republican or conservative, of course, can do anything they want.

This sounds so much like Germany prior to the Nazis taking power. Yeah, I know. Godwin’s Law, yadda, yadda. If you don’t know what that is, look it up in Wiki. I’m sorry, but this is what I am reminded of.

You want to tell NBC exactly what you think of their crummy Olympic coverage?

Here's their feedback e-mail address.

feedback@nbcuni.com

Please be polite (meaning no cuss words, they won't even bother reading the rest). But tell them EXACTLY what you think.

NBC sucks.

Comcast blocks CTV's coverage of the Winter Olympics.

That's just great. NBC gives us really crappy coverage, but Comcast is going to make sure those of us near the Canadian border don't get to watch the Olympics on the Canadian network, which provides far superior coverage. Hell, on the west coast, NBC even refuses to show the Olympics in real time. Everything is delayed. So, even though Seattle is 100 miles or so from Vancouver and is obviously in the same time zone, we can hardly watch anything in real time. NBC must be allowed to package up the Olympics so that they appeal to NBC's ideal viewer. Lots of human interest, mostly all American, put all the high profile sports in prime time, even if that means delaying them for hours or even a day. It was not unusual for me to know exactly who won an event and probably even watched it on CBC before NBC ever got around to showing it.

THIS IS WHY THE COMCAST/NBC MERGER WOULD BE A HUGE MISTAKE! Media outlet providers, such as cable television or high speed internet providers, should NOT be allowed to own the content providers. This is such an obvious example of what will happen if the merger is allowed to proceed. NBC and its sister networks (MSNBC, CNBC, a few others) will be favored over the other networks and those other networks may find themselves blocked.

You don't think that would happen? I do. The avarice of U.S. corporations knows no bounds. They will do anything they can get away with in the chase for as much money as they can possible extract from the system.

I have just one question for Comcast and NBC. If NBC's coverage is so superior, so wonderful, as we are told every two years, then why are they both so threatened by the possibility of viewers going elsewhere? If NBC's coverage were that great, wouldn't we all watch the Olympics on NBC? We wouldn't need to go elsewhere.

UPDATE: Boy, am I pissed of at NBC. I knew the results of last night's short track speed skating at about 7:30, thanks to the "crawlers" on ESPN during a basketball game. But NBC didn't get around to showing it until almost 11:00 p.m. Does NBC really think that no one knows the results? Seattle is about 160 miles from Vancouver, and is in the same time zone, but can we watch the event live? No, of course not. And NBC obviously think we are hanging on every work out of Bob Costas and his guests in their sit down studio. Talk some, show some commercials, talk some more, show some more commercials, show Apolo Ono tying up his skates, show some more commercials, THEN show the race. God, NBC sucks. I hope they lose 100 million dollars.

UPDATE 2: I was in error here. The Canadian broadcast is on CTV, not CBC. And my cable doesn't carry CTV. So, I don't know exactly what was the newspaper story I saw where Comcast was blocking the Canadian broadcasts. But I still haven't changed my opinion of NBC's coverage. It sucks. NBC would rather show Bob Costas TALKING about sports rather than actually showing sports. Cripes. I will say that I do like the fact that the announcers for the ice skating events have toned it down. They aren't talking ALL THE DAMN TIME like the usual do. NBC would provide commentary to a symphony orchestra if they could.

UPDATE 3: I do like to watch curling. That's a pretty cool sport. Sort of chess and bowling on ice. And I think I am in love with the Japanese curling team....

A dryad?

At night, the trees sometimes come alive and dance...

From Things That Are Doing It.

"How's that hopey, changey stuff working out for ya?"

That’s what Sarah Palin said the other day to the big Tea Party convention in Nashville, the one that people had to pay about $550 to see her speak. She actually said that. Really. And, of course, she was also caught with scrawled crib notes on her hand. That video (I might try to find it later), where she is holding the microphone and trying to serrupticiously glance at her palm while speaking is hilarious. Third graders cheating on a test are more convincing. And this person is supposed to be considered as a “serious political figure.” After all, David Broder of the Washington Post likes her, he being the Dean of the Villagers.

Well, all I can say is that this country is further along its long decline into irrelevancy than I had imagined if this is the kind of stuff we can expect from our “leading political figures.”

God, I would love to see a debate between President Obama and Candidate Palin. That would be worth paying money to see.

But back to my central point. We have a leading political figure using made-up words that might embarrass your average self-aware 8th grader if he/she were to use them in a conversation. But even past that, the meaning behind this stupid sounding question is the depth of stupidity underneath it, as it discounts the fact that the Republican Party has decided to contest and obstruct every single thing that the Democrats try to do. They don’t want to offer alternative solutions to pressing problems. They don’t want to try to seek compromises. They don’t even want to try to govern effectively. They just want to try to embarrass and harass President Obama every step of the way, every single day. Yes, people who supported Obama, many passionately, during his candidacy and after he was elected, are very disappointed in a number of things. One big one is that he has not been able to, and at times, doesn’t appear to even want to attempt to force the Republicans into a corner or twist some arms. Many people are upset that he continually tries for that elusive “bipartisanship” that Republicans have made it abundantly clear that they have no intention, ever, of allowing. So, Ms. Palin, to answer your question, you are right. Some of that “hopey” and “changey” stuff is NOT working out so great, and it’s because of your stupid Republican Party and idiots like you who want to obstruct every single thing, even things that Republicans have historically been for.

Think on this for a second. Daily Kos points out that some of the loudest applause that Sarah Palin got from the tea party crowd was about seceding from the country. Ms. Palin’s famous First Dude of a husband, of course, is well known for his membership in a separatist party in Alaska. The tea party people want to “take their country back”, without ever really saying who they want to take it back from, and profess to love their country so much they would be willing to shed blood for it. Remember all those town hall meetings where these loons would bring their guns to places where Obama was speaking? And the signs that indicated that democracy needs to be watered with the blood of patriots? They love their country so much that around 50% of self-identified Republicans want to secede from the United States of America, just because they don’t like President Obama and the policies he is pushing. Imagine that! The President of the United States, who won a fair election by a rather wide margin, is actually trying to do things he believes in! To me, the desire to secede from the Union doesn’t sound like they love their country that much. In fact, it sounds like they hate it. And we are supposed to take these people seriously?

Luckily, recent polling shows that, the more that the American people learn about Sarah Palin, the more they believe she is not qualified to be president. From Talking Points Memo:

Sarah Palin has upped her national profile in recent weeks, but a new poll shows that the extra attention hasn't done her any favors. In the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, the amount of people with a favorable view of Palin has dropped to its lowest point ever recorded by the pollster. More than 70% of respondents said she's not qualified to be president.

Those numbers are somewhat comforting, although they leave me to wonder about the 30% that do still like Sarah Palin.

I have always had little patience for idiots. But what really rubs me the wrong way are smug, self-important idiots who are shown to be idiots, over and over, and it never phases them. It’s always someone else’s fault. Someone is always out to get them. They are never embarrassed, because they know they are superior, when in fact they are out and out idiots.

If Sarah Palin is a view into the future of this country, the entire world had better be very careful.

UPDATE: How could I leave out Death Panels?! Now, THAT is the mark of serious politician.

A MOST EXTRAORDINARY HYPOCRISY!!

Cross posted with full story by SJ at MadMikesAmerica Uptown

More unusual art: food.

Self-identified Republicans prove they are nuts.

Markos ran a poll of “self identified Republicans” in order to actually have some hard data to back up what he has been saying. Here is a tabulation of some of the more interesting results.



Almost 40% of those self-identified Republicans think that President Obama should be impeached. It’s too bad that they weren’t asked why they thought this. Given what happened to President Clinton, “I do not like the current president” or “I did not vote for the current president” are apparently sufficient grounds for impeachment these days.

Over half of these people think that the 2008 presidential election was stolen. Half. By ACORN. A run-on-a-shoestring national advocacy group that helps minorities and disadvantaged people vote and get their voices heard in local politics. ACORN. Stole a national election. My God, the level of craziness in this is absolutely off the chart. You know, if I were a “self identified Republican”, I would think that they last thing I would want to be talking about is stolen elections.

Almost one quarter of the respondents believe that their state should secede from the union. Again, it would have been nice to ask their reasons behind this. They don’t like the current president? That’s the reason? That is what happened when Abraham Lincoln was elected and look what happened next. You would think people might have a few second thoughts about advocating something like this, yet there they are. It apparently doesn’t even matter that their preferred party might win the presidency back within three years. No, they want their state to secede, and they want it NOW. And the breakdown, which I saw in a different post, had the respondents in the old Confederacy states over 80%. The respondents in the northeast and west were slightly less insane on this question.

Only 33% of these respondents think that President Obama is more qualified to be president that is Sarah Palin. I just don’t even know what to say about that one.

In total, the results of this poll are very illustrative of why the two sides cannot have a substantive dialog about anything. We just have two very different realities. The two sides of this country are as far apart in how we view our reality as, say, the Israelis and Palestinians or maybe the Catholics and Protestants during the Irish “Troubles.”

I actually believe that there isn’t anything short of another World War or invasion from another planet that would pull the two sides together. Republicans and conservatives have decided that it is their duty to God and Country to vehemently oppose anything that President Obama and the Democrats are trying to do. Every single thing, even things that Republicans used to support (such as Pay As You Go, which requires Congress to cut spending by an equal amount to balance out any new spending proposals), they are now against, because their sworn enemy now supports it. This isn’t a policy. This isn’t even rational. This is pure craziness.

And thanks to Marcos, we now have poll results that prove it.

More unusual art: Breckinridge CO National Ice Sculpture Championship Part 2

See Part 1 of this series for part 1 of this series.... Obviously.

More unusual art: Breckinridge CO National Ice Sculpture Championship Part 1

Pretty amazing stuff, considering how much work these people are putting into their creations and yet they will be gone within hours of experiencing warm temperatures.

FU, e-bay.

No, really. Just Fuck You. Several times.

I used to be somewhat active as both a buyer and seller a few years ago, but haven't really done anything lately. I had been wondering why pretty much all sellers only advertised Paypal as their only accepted means of receiving payment. When I was looking at bidding on something this week, I had noticed one of them had a statement, "We only accept Paypal per e-bay payment policy." My reaction was, "What?!" I went and looked, and sure enough, their payment policy page has a list of what is acceptable now and what is prohibited. And asking for payment via check or money order, except on a very small list of categories, is prohibited.

There apparently is a raging discussion on a number of e-bay posting boards which I skimmed through yesterday. A lot of people are upset about this. I refuse to have a Paypal account, as I have heard some people have had bad experiences with it. My wife used to have an account which was hacked and some crook ran up hundreds of dollars on it charging tickets to concerts. We didn't have to cover any of those, as our CREDIT CARD company (not Paypal) called us up and asked if these were valid charges. So, no. I don't trust Paypal or any electronic payment method at all.

e-bay's rationale for going this way is pure BS. "It protects both the buyers and sellers!" Oh, bull hockey. Money orders, if you don't trust personal checks because people can and do bounce checks, are perfectly safe. There is no reason to require this, other than perhaps the fact (and I didn't know this until yesterday) e-bay just HAPPENS to own Paypal. Gosh, what a coincidence! And Paypal charges $45 a year to have an account! How about that?

They are doing this just because they can, and it opens up all new "sources of revenue" (i.e., screwing your customers) to them. This is the same rationale as airlines charging $$ for people to pay for checking bags when flying. For a family going on vacation, this can add up to hundreds of dollars, if they check them both ways (which is pretty much a given, I would say).

I absolutely detest Corporate America these days. They are all about screwing their customers and grabbing as much cash in as little a time as possible. This thinking is now so pervasive, we hardly even notice it anymore.

I have pretty much decided to avoid flying whenever I can. Sometimes I can't, but sometimes I can. I am either asking to attend business meetings via a web conference (which has been remarkably successful) or taking the train. Yeah, taking Amtrak for long distance travel takes a while, but it sure is a more sane and civilized way to travel than the zoo that is commercial air travel. And I guess I am now going to boycott e-bay. Screw them.

Poster from Very Demotivational.

"Courtney Cox Not Pregnant"

That's one of the headline stories that greeted me this morning on the Seattle PI web site.

Famous people don't even have to actually DO anything now to get a story written about them. They just have to NOT do something....

Tethys Behind Titan

What's that behind Titan? It's another of Saturn's moons: Tethys. The robotic Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn captured the heavily cratered Tethys slipping behind Saturn's atmosphere-shrouded Titan late last year. The largest crater on Tethys, Odysseus, is easily visible on the distant moon. Titan shows not only its thick and opaque orange lower atmosphere, but also an unusual upper layer of blue-tinted haze. Tethys, at about 2 million kilometers distant, was twice as far from Cassini as was Titan when the above image was taken. In 2004, Cassini released the Hyugens probe which landed on Titan and provided humanity's first views of the surface of the Solar System's only known lake-bearing moon.

Photo and text from NASA's Astronomical Photo of the Day. See list at the right for a link. Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, ISS, JPL, ESA, NASA.

You know what I can't figure out?

I can't figure out how the Democrats now holding a 59-41 majority in the Senate "imperils" pretty much everything that the Democrats are trying to do. How did this happen? Whatever happened to majority rules? I haven't researched this or seen anyone else with the numbers, but I would imagine that the times in the history of this country where one party held 60 or more seats in the Senate are very, very few and far between. So, are we saying that 95% of the time, nothing can get done in this country because one party or the other doesn't hold a super-majority in the Senate?

What kind of a stupid system is this? And why does it only seem to apply to the Democrats? Is this what Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and John Adams really wanted to implement?

The Dems should have taken the Republicans up on their "offer" during the Bush administration of the so-called "nuclear option" which would have done away with the filibuster. Would have served the Rethugs right. However, the Dems will eventually be back in the minority (probably sooner than later, the way things are looking) and they wouldn't want to take away that tool from their future toolbox. No, couldn't do that. Besides, that would upset all these Republicans who are going to keep on calling them mean names regardless of what they do.

I always used to hear the phrase that democracy is messy, but it works. Well, I rather doubt that little platitude is true any more. Democracy seems to have come to a screeching halt, with the transmission laying in the middle of the road. This system is no longer working as it was intended, but no one is going to have the balls to actually try to fix it.

Why are Democrats worried about NOT pressing ahead with healthcare reform before the new senator from Mass. is seated?

I cannot believe how accommodating the Dems are on this. Does no one remember just a few months ago how Republicans threw everything they could, including the kitchen sink, in order to NOT seat Al Franken as a senator from Minnesota, after it was very clear that Franken had won the election? And Republicans were very clear on their motivation. They were doing everything they could so the Dems would NOT have that mythical 60 vote super-majority that could pass healthcare reform. But now, we are all worried about subverting "the will of the people of Massachusetts" if the Dems try to push something through at the last minute?

Man, the Democrats are pissing me off. Yes, there are fighters within the party, such as Alan Greyson from Florida. But, taken as a whole, the Democratic Party comes off as scared of its own shadow.

Massachusetts elects a tea-party Republican who once posed nude as a replacement for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat.

Oh, boy. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any weirder, this happens. Everyone and their brother already had their spin on this one mapped out long ago. Republicans, of course, are claiming that this represents a total repudiation of everything that the Obama administration was trying to accomplish, especially healthcare reform. Many progressives are claiming that Obama deserted his progressive base, the one that really turned out to elect him in 2008, so they stayed home and all the true independent voters decided that the Republican in the race was the true anti-establishment candidate.

Truthfully, I have no idea what it all means. Since I always go for “the answer is likely to be more complex than it is to be very simple” approach, I would guess that, whatever rationale a person might come up with for what occurred in Massachusetts, it is probably true for at least some section of the electorate. Me, I am just dumbfounded that the state that I considered to be the most liberal in the country just elected a tea-party Republican who brings along lots and lots of baggage to replace Ted Kennedy, of all people. Kennedy’s passion was healthcare reform, and the results of this special election are likely to kill any chance of that happening. But what it means for the future and for the country as a whole, I have absolutely no idea, other than the Democrats better watch out.

I really doubt that even this severe of a wake-up call that pulls the rug out from any notion that the ever did have that mythical “60 vote super-majority” in the Senate will motivate the Democrats to use reconciliation (which means they can pass legislation with just a regular old run-of-the-mill 51-49 majority) to pass healthcare reform. The Democrats are just that gutless, afraid of offending someone (who, I don’t really know). I do know that Republicans never had and never will have any such self-imposed limitation, as they used reconciliation on numerous occasions to pass their legislation such as Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy without bringing in other sources of revenue. That alone is one big reason why the deficit that President Obama is currently wrestling with is so huge. Yet one more example of IOKIYAAR (It’s O.K. If You Are A Republican). I have no idea where the healthcare package that is currently in negotiation between the two Houses of Congress might end up now, but I would bet even money it won’t be improved through the use of reconciliation. I think the absolute best-case scenario right now is that the Democrats in the House swallow whatever bitterness they already feel about the process and just vote Yes on the version passed by the Senate. That, at least, is a doable scenario and it doesn’t require getting people like Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson and Susan Collins to vote for something that you know they absolutely will not support.

Why is it that the world always presents so much turmoil and the chance to totally screw things up for the Democrats, even when the last two national elections pretty much gave them a mandate to finally accomplish many items on their agenda? It’s the Republican Party that is currently resembles a zoo whose attendants left all the doors to the cages open and all the animals, who haven’t been fed in weeks, are roaming free. The Tea-Party brigade is attempting to take over the actual machinery of the Republican Party, while the Republican Party itself is trying to co-opt the outrage and energy provided by their Tea-Party promoting base. The Republican Party looks to be imploding, and this special election in Massachusetts once again shows the Democratic Party to be run by a bunch of incompetent boobs.

Will Sarah Palin be the Republican Party’s candidate in the 2012 presidential election? Could she win? It beats the hell out of me. In a sane world, the answers to both of these questions would be an unqualified “Hell, no!” But this is not a sane world. Who knows what the electorate of this country is actually thinking or might do in the future? It’s a total mystery. It would be downright amusing to watch all of this play out, if this were some farcical comedic film. But as it appears the direction of that this country could go is currently resting on a knife’s edge. One little nudge could cause it to go hard-over, one way or the other. I was really hoping that the nudge might have been the 2008 presidential election. However, it now appears that is not the case. Let’s hope that nudge was also not the 2010 special election in Massachusetts.

Movie Review: Avatar

Sort of a combination of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Aliens, Dances with Wolves, Disney's Ferngully and maybe one or two episodes of Star Trek TOS thrown in for good measure. The special effects and computer animation was absolutely outstanding and this is the first movie in 3D that I have seen. (My eyes don't work really well together, so I have never been able to watch those 3D movies with the red and blue glasses.) It was pretty dang neat. The imaginative scenery and plant and animal life on the planet were captivating. The storyline itself was a little silly, overly simplistic and more than a little predictable. However, I found it very interesting that by the end of the film, you were rooting for the blue people from an alien world and against the villainous sky people, who just happen to be from Earth. This made for an interesting "teachable moment" while driving home with my 14 year old daughter, to whom I have been introducing the idea of movies as metaphors. I explained the whole "Godzilla as a metaphor for the atomic bomb" one to her a while ago. Actually, I just asked leading questions and let her provide her own answers. "Who did the blue people remind you of? That's right, the Indians!" I didn't even have to point out the horses and bows and arrows. So, it was nice to be able to do that. She was actually the one who brought up the issue of predictability. I was rather proud of her to recognize that.

I won't bother with any sort of substantive review here, as it has been done already in numerous places. It was certainly worth the time and money, which is certainly more than can be said of many recent films. It better have been, considering how much James Cameron spent to make this thing.

Image from Official Avatar The Movies Wallpapers By NOSHOMAX

Thoughts regarding Pat Robertson.

According to Pat Robertson, God in all His Glory just killed around 50,000 Haitians because their ancestors of several generations ago made a pact with Satan (“and he said, “Okey Dokey”), so they could gain their freedom and not live as slaves anymore.

Do I have that right, Pat? God waited several hundred years to obliterate an entire city because of something their ancestors did? This is the Just and Merciful God I keep hearing you and others like you talk about? You know, based on what the Bible says about the Jews, Moses and the Pharaoh, I would have thought God would have been on the side of the slaves. You remember that, don’t you, Pat? God conjured up a number of plagues to help convince the Pharaoh to let the Jews go. Parted the Red Sea. That's really impressive and dramatic stuff. You would think that God must like helping slaves. But in the case of the Haitians, it was Satan that came to their rescue. And your God was pretty peeved about that, apparently.

I am sorry, but your God sort of sounds like a malicious Motherfucker to me. Your God apparently likes to hold grudges and punish the innocent. He will kill tens of thousands of people at the drop of a hat who probably have no idea what He might be upset about? This is your God, Pat, you sordid piece of shit? This wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Haiti is populated with black people who don’t share your extreme view of Christianity, would it? If I remember correctly, you weren’t very sympathetic after Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans and it left thousands and thousands of people, who also happened to be black, homeless if they were weren’t floating face down in filthy water. Is there any connection there at all, Pat? I think at that time, you blamed Katrina on a gay pride parade held in New Orleans. Yes, that certainly makes sense. God should then wipe out the poor, mostly black section of the city because, you know, God hates fags.

Is this what you and George Bush talked about when you used to be able to just call up the sitting President of the United States of America whenever you felt like it? Did you tell George that it was O.K. to invade Iraq where thousands and thousands of non-white, non-Christian innocent civilians would die because of this invasion and the lousy job that Bush and his minions did? Is God fine with that, Pat, you sanctimonious prick?

If that is your God, Pat, then I think you should just go to Hell. You and He will get along nicely.

UPDATE: According to KO on MSNBC, the estimated death toll in Haiti is now up to 140,000. That's two football stadiums full of people, as a way of comparison.

These aren't the squirrels you are looking for...

From Very Demotivational.

Don't come complaining to us. You've been properly warned.

From Oddly Specific.

Wingtip vortices.

Actually, these vortices are coming off the outboard corner of the trailing edge flaps on the wings, not the wingtips themselves. But you get the idea.

See, honey, when two airplanes really, really love each other....

So, it comes to this.

Our national discourse is now about whether or not President Obama uses the word “terrorism”, regardless of whether or not there is video evidence of him doing exactly that on numerous occasions.

What a screwed up country.

You know what's really weird? The Lingerie Football League. That's what's really weird.

Check out this story and video at the Seattle PI. Extremely bizarre.

Maybe they can work NASCAR in there as well. And country music....

Update: I added pictures, just because the weirdness doesn't get translated properly just with a couple of lines of text. Maybe I will get a few more hits from these pictures. And no, I don't find these photos especially tittilating. Just weird.

The Republican Party let the Crazy Genii out of the bottle, and there is no putting it back in again.

Many books and blog posts have been devoted to the idea that, in order to chase the votes of the Religious Right, they continued to pander to them and promise them the moon. I still remember the acceptance speech of Dan Quayle at the Republican convention where he spoke of “family values” and introduced the demonization of a television character (Murphy Brown) for being an unwed mother. This was my first introduction to the “family values” crowd, as I was an extreme political novice at the time. But I do remember being dumbfounded that an entire nomination acceptance speech would be dedicated to something that government had absolutely no control over.

Of course, the Republican Party of Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Bush I had no intention of actually delivering on those promises. They were just using those “wedge issues” to get the extreme conservative right all riled up in order to guarentee they would vote and get all their friends and family to vote as well. But did the Republican Party ever really decide they were going to push something like a revoking Roe v. Wade? No, they did not. For one reason, not everyone on their side supported that position. Another reason is that their real intention was to put that issue safely away in a box, only to be brought out next election where they could bash the Democrats and rile up their value voters again.

It really didn’t take a genius to figure out that the religious right wasn’t going to take this for decades and decades, where they were only important during the campaign season. No, those people wanted results, especially since they had been promised to have their every wish granted by the Republican Party for the last 35 years. The quickest way for them to achieve their goals was to actually take over the Republican Party. Which is what we have now, and why the “stars” of the Republican Party are people like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Jim DeMint, etc., who I doubt that the mainstream conservatives of 35 years ago would have given the time of day.

But that is the situation we now find ourselves in today. The lunatics are in charge of the asylum, and no one really knows what to do about it. In fact, it is considered “bad form” for the mainstream media in this country to point out that this has occurred. There are two reasons behind this. One is that many in the media are terrified of getting accused of being a “liberal press.” The other is that many in the media, especially in the “Beltway” of Washington D.C., have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, which says that Republicans are serious people and should be in charge and that Democrats are strictly unserious who want huge government and are weak on national security. Plus, there are many who have made their way into the mainstream press who actually believe the right wing ravings, such as Charles Krauthammer. I won’t even get into the fact that there is a new even-righter wing press in this country now, centered around Fox News and supported by Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Maulkin, Ann Coulter, etc., whose entire Raison d'être is to blame Democrats for every real and imagined problem that this country has ever experienced. It is now common practice for this right wing media to blame Democrats for the Great Depression and claim that they are the real fascists.

There is no going back. There is no putting the geneii back in the bottle. The only possibility seems to be if the rational grownups in the Republican Party would be to retake the party and put in place real leaders and try to minimize their crazy fringe. However, I see no prospect of this actually happening. Any tiny attempt at criticisms along this line have been met with immediate and harsh condemnation where the person who spoke up either ended up apologizing (usually to Rush Limbaugh) or pretended that isn’t what they meant and they were really criticizing Democrats, because everyone knows that Democrats can’t be trusted, ever. Democrats love terrorists, want to destroy this country and are in league with governments all over the world to set up a Single World Government. The other option is that, instead of criticizing the current Republican Party and trying to change it, the rational adults, such as Chuck Hagel and Lincoln Chafee, retire and fade away into the night.

I do not know where this society is going to end up. I cannot see the current situation as being stable, where the status quo can be maintained for years. This looks decidedly like a very dynamic situation, where the current status is just a transformational one ready to morph into something else. It could go toward the recovery mode, or it might get decidedly nastier. I am thinking that I should really make some plans (hopefully just contingency plans and nothing that I really expect to put into action) to move to another country when I retire. I feel I have too much invested in my current job, house and financial situation to pick up and leave now, less than 10 years away from retirement. But afterwards, who knows? If things do start really getting out of control, such as having the Tea Party crowd in charge of the country, then there will still be enough time to actually pick up stakes and get the hell out of Dodge.

Hopefully, it won’t come to that. One friend of mine says that my fears are overblown, that things are never as dark as can be imagined. Another friend says, in so many words, that things are much worse than we are admitting and views the current United States as an out of control monster. And I see his points, why he is saying what he is saying. What the real state of affairs is, I am not sure we are actually going to be able to gage until 30 years from now, where historians can look back and this fork in the road and see which way our country and our society went.

2010: Happy New Year.

One can hope, I suppose.

My end of the year list: Bad Advertising!

Everyone seems to make a list at the end of the year. I would guess it is now part of those internet traditions that everyone is aware of. Books, movies, bad celebrity dresses, stupid quotes, etc. So, in keeping with this tradition, here is my list of deceitful, manipulative, stupid or annoying television commercials that I hope to never see again in 2010.

1. Capital One Credit Cards: This series of commercials have to be one of the weirdest ways to promote a credit card whose fine print is no doubt littered with landmines that will increase your loan rate at the drop of a hat. Visigoths ransacking villages, a dumbass in front of a computer whose dog is much more intelligent than he is and survivors of an airplane crash who are stuck on an island trying to get off are the spokesmen and women for Capital One. But the big selling point for this particular credit card is you can put your own picture on your card! Absolutely fu*king amazing! Let’s order a couple and one for little Sally as well, even though she is only six years old! What a STUPID selling point. Anyone who actually orders one of these credit cards on the basis of being able to put your picture on it deserves whatever happens to them.

2. Free Credit Reports Dot Com: This one has been in the news a lot, so this isn’t going to be much of a surprise. But advertising something “free” if you buy their service and is something that you can get free anyway from another source anyway is not really “free” in my mind. That’s like telling someone that they can get a free car jack, as long as they buy this car. No, that’s not even a good analogy, because to be a true analogy, you would need to be able to get a car jack for free somewhere. This is a commercial put together by lying SOB’s that do not care they are lying. “Free”, my ass.

3. The Big Head “Burger King”: These commercials, to their credit, are not deceitful. They are just weird and creepy. In these commercials, Burger King comes off as some sort of creepy stalker guy who never says anything. He’s just there. The ad agency behind these ads obviously figured that the Jack In The Box commercials are such a big hit that they would make their own! The only problem is, they failed miserably.

4. Ads for health insurance companies: Now, these aren’t all for the same company. This one is more of a category or genre. All these commercials are trying to accomplish is to make you feel all warm and cuddly about your insurance provider who is STILL going to find any reason they possibly can to drop your coverage if you get really sick and need it. One commercial that comes to mind actually doesn’t even really mention insurance. It’s just some kid talking about her mom who donates her piano, which she had as a kid and really loves, to a school or some other kind of organization that really needs it. Heartwarming. *Sigh* How nice… The problems are, of course, this has absolutely NOTHING to do with health insurance and it never addresses the fact that the CEO of this company will probably make about 85 mil this year while dropping coverage for anyone who might come down with a cold.

5. Verizon “Maps”: These commercials are annoying on their own. I especially disliked the one with Santa and his reindeer, which mercifully is not shown anymore since Christmas is over. But the point here that I haven’t seen anyone make is the colors of the maps. Verizon’s is red, and boy, it covers almost the entire U.S.A. A.T.&T’s map, on the other hand, is blue and barely covers anything. Yeah, this is deceitful on its own merits, since they are implying that ALL cell phone coverage provided by each company is what is shown, not just the 4G variety. But red vs. blue? That’s an interesting choice, especially when you look at the politics behind Verizon. I wonder what target audience these commercials are aimed at?

6. Jewelry commercials: This again is more of a category than a specific series of ads, because all the big jewelry chains do this. I wrote about this one before Christmas. But it’s not just Christmas. Valentine’s Day is also a biggie. I’ll just repeat what I said before.

The Christmas ads that really burn me are the ones for jewelry. I really dislike ostentatious displays anyway, and big, fat diamonds are about the best way to show that. Talk about a totally worthless expenditure of money to support an industry that has a corner on the market. That aside, I am really annoyed by the implication that buying someone a really bright, shiny bauble is the ultimate in romance. All these people in these commercials are young and beautiful, and they act like they came out of a romance novel. Tell me, what guy in his right mind would go out in the middle of the forest and wrap a living tree in lights, just so he can spring a diamond necklace on his girlfriend? And that assumes that he has a REALLY long extension cord or lugged a car battery out there as well. I think that these ads are really targeting the lazy bum who really isn’t normally too keen on keeping his wife’s or girlfriend’s feelings close to his heart and sees that buying jewelry would be a nice, easy (albeit expensive) way to immediately get back in his wife’s or girlfriend’s good graces. The women in these commercials always, without fail, are just awestruck and have this look on their faces that they would do absolutely anything for this guy who just bought her this piece of junk.

7. Geico Insurance: I admit I kind of liked the caveman commercials and the ones with the gecko are tolerable. But the ones with the stack of money with googlie eyes are weird and don’t even make a lot of sense.

8. Mixed message ads: This, again, is a category. It seems very trendy now to have commercials that are about two things at once. Sometimes, tie-ins are evident, such as toys of the latest Disney movie at McDonalds. But sometimes, there doesn’t even have to be an obvious tie-in. They are just trying to ride the latest wave of popularity. One playing now is about a bunch of guys eating a Big Mac that has something to do with James Cameron’s latest film, Avatar. I just do not get that one.

9. Miracle Whip “We will not tone it down!”: I won’t say much about this. Just watch it. Miracle Whip, the ultimate in rebellion!

You have any nominations? I may promote good suggestions from any comments received into this post itself. Boy, won't that be a thrill for YOU.

What did I learn from 2009?

I suppose I learned the lesson that Stupid is now not just acceptable. Being Stupid does not disqualify you from anything. In fact, in many cases, being Stupid is very helpful. It endears you to “common folk.” It shows that you are one of them. It reinforces their Stupid beliefs when they hear someone famous espousing the same Stupid things that they also believe in. Being Stupid can elevate an unemployed plumber to celebrity status. Being Stupid can make common folk believe you are doing something great when you quit your position as an elected official and somehow try to turn that into a selfless and noble act. Being Stupid can get you a program on a major cable “news” outlet where you can say whatever Stupid thing that pops into your mind and the audience eats it up. Being Stupid seems to actually be a requirement to become an elected official from the state of Oklahoma. Being Stupid results in joy when the U.S. loses a bid for hosting an Olympic Games and anger and resentment when the President of the United States wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

Being Stupid is no longer a cause for shame. Being Stupid is something to be cultivated and celebrated. When you say something Stupid, or even Really Stupid, you are no longer required to remove yourself from the public limelight for a suitable period of time. No, the correct response to being caught saying something Stupid or Really Stupid is to either pretend you never said it, even when your Really Stupid remark is one of the most highly viewed You Tube videos of the week, or become offended that the liberal elite media took your statement out of context or is so liberal and elite that they are obviously out of step with the rest of Stupid America.

Stupid is now so routine that most Stupid things rarely even get noted anymore, other than at some of the liberal blogs, who are obviously loser teenagers in pajamas who work from their parent’s basement. Being Stupid didn’t disqualify George W. Bush from being President of the United States, although most people in the country probably didn’t realize how incredibly Fu*king Stupid he actually is. However, we may be reaching the point that being Stupid may be the thing that gets someone like Sarah Palin elected President.

STuPid. Get yours today!

Sarah Palin makes even less sense now she’s a climate change denier.

From the Washington Monthly, here is one of her tweets on Twitter about her new favorite subject, the Great Big Climate Change Hoax.

In a late night posting on her Twitter feed, Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin continued to blast climate change believers Friday, calling the talks in Copenhagen, Denmark a representation of man's "arrogance," for believing people have an impact on nature.

"Arrogant&Naive2say man overpwers nature," Palin tweeted.

"Earth saw clmate chnge4 ions;will cont 2 c chnges.R duty2responsbly devlop resorces4humankind/not pollute&destroy;but cant alter naturl chng," the former Republican vice presidential nominee wrote.

Uh huh. It’s “arrogant and naïve to say that man overpowers nature.” I guess she is unfamiliar with things like the Chernobyl accident which has rendered huge amounts of land in the former Soviet Union uninhabitable for centuries, mountaintop removing mining, clear cutting of forests, or having rivers and lakes so polluted that, not only can’t people actually go in them, but they actually used to catch fire.

Maybe she’s talking about a global scale, not just localized impacts on the environment caused by mankind’s activities, although I would argue that chopping down the Amazon rainforest is having a global effect. Maybe she thinks that the Earth is so huge that it will be able to absorb anything that mankind chooses to do.

This is the same kind of thinking that Americans held in our early history, which lead to the slaughter and near extinction of what used to be vast herds of buffalo. They are there for the taking. Mankind is the master of the planet, and what self-respecting master of anything willingly puts rules on himself? We can do anything we want! We can overfish the oceans so that the population of jellyfish has exploded due to lack of predators. Rules are for wimps and liberals. After all, photographic evidence of receding glaciers is easy to ignore when you have "Climategate" to talk about.

It’s all part of the conservative thought process. No restraints on anything that they want to do, and to fight tooth and nail against anything that their perceived enemies are for. I don’t know if this attitude comes from what they think are the teachings of Christianity or not. It seems likely to me. We are, after all, God’s chosen people. We’re special. I saw one quote sometime last year about God and climate change. Some person (I wish I had kept this quote) said something like, “God won’t let the Earth be destroyed.” I thought THAT statement was the epitome of arrogance. God will save us from anything that we choose to do. Except when God Himself chooses to destroy the Earth in Armageddon. Or maybe, this perspective on the universe is more rooted in the deep psychology of conservatives. I don’t know the answer.

There are two things that spring to mind when I see something like Princess Sarah’s statement above. One is that she is somehow one of the leading lights of the new conservatives. This person doesn’t even seem to have enough on the ball to qualify as a third grade teacher.

She is also so lacking in science that she doesn’t know the different between an eon and an ion. But I suppose that’s about par for the course for someone who has stated that living in a place where you can see Russia somehow gives her credibility in international diplomacy, and that Africa is a country.

God, this country is so screwed up.

So, this is what it is like to live in a parallel universe.

Huh. Interesting. I thought there might be more time warps or cities whose entire population consists of people who look like Winston Churchill. Of course, there is Lady Gaga. And the fact that the absolutely most important story of the year is the fact that Tiger Woods apparently screws around a lot. I guess this must really be a parallel universe.

Because, you see, in the universe that I thought I lived in, people act in a rational way and do things because they are in their self-interest. This universe I find myself in is in no way rational. Everywhere I look, people are acting like they have been infected with the Franz Kafka disease. Nothing makes sense anymore. The richest and most powerful country on earth has been brought to its knees by some unknown force that renders it incapable of doing anything remotely intelligent.

Affordable healthcare that can’t be cancelled just because you get sick and need it for once is the same thing as the Holocaust. The President of the United States is a fascist, a communist, a socialist, a non-America Muslim with a crazy Christian pastor who is actively trying to destroy the country. Protesters with signs within 100 yards of a Republican president is enough to get you arrested, but carrying a loaded gun to a town hall meeting where a Democratic president is speaking is just exercising one’s right to freedom of speech and to carry guns anywhere you might want to. It’s fine to invade another country that was absolutely no threat, where over 4000 Americans have died and trillions of dollars are spent, but spending money on propping up an economy on the brink of collapse and millions of people are out of work is a cause for angry mobs wearing Lipton tea bags on their hats to come out and carry racist signs. Television news picks up rumors and treats them like the Watergate break-in, but politicians spouting untruths on television that anyone with a computer and 15 minutes free time could easily demolish are invited back on next week’s program. Things such as filibusters that were the epitome of evil three years ago are now acceptable. Science is now on par with palm reading and phrenology. Hard scientific data showing our globe is heating up at an alarming rate is a plot to destroy capitalism. Everything that your enemies do is either sinful or a crime, but when you and everyone else that thinks just like you do does the same thing, that’s O.K.

Nothing makes sense. Our society has decided to play by the rules of Calvinball, and no one is willing to point it out.

So, this is a parallel universe… I don’t particularly like it much, but I suppose it is better nothing at all. I just wonder how I got here and whether it’s possible to find my way back to the universe that I thought I knew, where things made sense and people acting rationally. Probably not. Wormholes only work in one direction, as far as I know.

Here’s my annual “bah, humbug” post.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I am not bashing the Christmas holiday itself. I am what you might call a “non-believer”, but I really have no problem with celebrating what is supposed to be a purely Christian holiday. I have said before that if I were a Christian, I would probably be a tad annoyed at what the holiday has become as well. And that is what I am really annoyed about.

Pressure. That is really what this holiday has become. There’s pressure to find the perfect gift, to bake the perfect pie and cookies, to have the perfect Christmas with your perfect family. Why? Because corporate America wants to sell you stuff. And not just ANY stuff. A lot of stuff and most of it expensive.

I remember when Christmas commercials were a lot about kids toys and maybe a commercial for an electric razor thrown in for good measure. (“Even our name says Merry Christmas!”)

What are the predominant Christmas commericials these days? From what I see, they are for luxury automobiles and a lot of very fancy and expensive looking jewelry. How many people really go out and buy luxury cars for themselves and their spouses at Christmas? And this is at a time when it is estimated that one in 8 kids in America is getting support from food stamps. Where unemployment is running in the double digits. Luxury cars for Christmas? I guess the well off will buy their gifts no matter what else is going on around them, and that this advertising is aimed at them. People without jobs or getting assistance from food stamps aren’t going to have much purchasing power, so the advertisers seem to have acknowledged that fact and just about abandoned the lower and part of the middle class altogether.

The Christmas ads that really burn me are the ones for jewelry. I really dislike ostentatious displays anyway, and big, fat diamonds are about the best way to show that. Talk about a totally worthless expenditure of money to support an industry that has a corner on the market. That aside, I am really annoyed by the implication that buying someone a really bright, shiney bauble is the ultimate in romance. All these people in these commercials are young and beautiful, and they act like they came out of a romance novel. Tell me, what guy in his right mind would go out in the middle of the forest and wrap a living tree in lights, just so he can spring a diamond necklace on his girlfriend? And that assumes that he has a REALLY long extension cord or lugged a car battery out there as well. I think that these ads are really targeting the lazy bum who really isn’t normally too keen on keeping his wife’s or girlfriend’s feelings close to his heart and sees that buying jewelry would be a nice, easy (albeit expensive) way to immeidiately get back in his wife’s or girlfriend’s good graces. The women in these commercials always, without fail, are just awestruck and have this look on their faces that they would do absolutely anything for this guy who just bought her this piece of junk.

My favorite holiday, I think, is Thanksgiving. It hasn’t been completely taken over by crass commercialism. This is mostly because there aren’t any gifts involved. If there were, you can bet that Corporate America would immedialely jump in there. Christmas should be like Thanksgiving, with maybe a few gifts but witbout any pressure. Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Emphasize the “merry” and “little.” Celebrate family. And your religion, if that is part of it for you. But do not pressure yourself into living up to some ridiculous ideal concocted by Madison Avenue to sell you an every increasing array of very expensive crap that you probably can’t afford.

Robbie the Robot falls on hard times.

It's sad to see when big movie stars hit rock bottom.

Uh, you missed a spot over there by the front tire.

Out of control Russian rocket, or something else?

From MSNBC:

A spectacular spiral light show in the sky above Norway on Wednesday was caused by a Russian missile that failed just after launch, according to Russia's defense ministry.

When the rocket motor spun out of control, it likely created the heavenly spiral of white light near where the missile was launched from a submarine in the White Sea.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that a Bulava ballistic missile test had failed.

However, it is my firm belief that this is all a gigantic hoax involving the governments of a multitude of countries.

In reality, I have proof that the sighting over Norway was actually of Gamera, the giant, rocket powered flying turtle.










You decide.

Amazing photos of physics in action.

Kopp-Etchells Effect

When helicopters pass through dust storms, contact of the particles with the rotating blades produces either sparks or static electricity.

The phenomenon has been observed during combat operations in Afghanistan; Michael Yon has documented the effect, and has named it after two U K Soldiers who died there. "Kopp-Etchells"

When operating in sandy environments, sand hitting the moving rotor blades erodes their surface. This can damage the rotors; the erosion also presents serious and costly maintenance problems.

The abrasion strips on helicopter rotor blades are made of titanium, which is very hard, but less hard than sand; so when a helicopter is flown near to the ground in desert environments abrasion occurs, and at night there is a visible corona or halo around the rotor blades, caused by the sand hitting the titanium and causing it to spark and oxidize .

Note that these photos are under copyright by Michael Yon.

This is so sick and disturbing in so many ways.

From the Seattle Times.

Four officers were shot and killed at 8:15 a.m. as they worked on their laptops at Forza Coffee Company in Parkland. The first two officers were "flat-out executed," while the third tried to stop the gunman and the fourth fired at him, Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said.

Those killed were identified as Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39, and officers Ronald Owens, 37, Tina Griswold, 40, and Gregory Richards, 42.

Lakewood Police Chief Bret Farrar has scheduled a 10 a.m. news conference today to discuss the officers and the shooting.

Clemmons has a long criminal record in Arkansas and Washington. He was released from custody in Pierce County just a week ago, and was facing a charge of raping a child. Family members described him as being in a state of mental deterioration. Last spring, he was also accused of punching a sheriff's deputy in the face.

I have so many questions about this... Where did a guy with documented criminal history like this and who was released from prison only last week get a gun? I have seen other stories that said this guy believed he was a "messiah" and President Obama was going to visit him, personally, to verify this. This guy was obviously unstable. Why was he released? Why did he get clemency in Arkansas? (No, I am not blaming Mike Huckabee, even though this is the second time this has happened with someone he let loose from the Arkansas criminal justice system. If anything, it's the system at fault. A Democrat could have just as easily let this violent lunatic go.)

I am so sick about this. These people were doing their jobs and they lost their lives for it. Their families will never see them walk back in the front door.

I am so sick of this country right now...

American politics as seen as a Japanese giant monster movie.

I wish I had written this.

From Vagabond Scholar.

I've have concluded two things about politics in the U.S..

1) The U.S. government is essentially and forever broken. It's broken-ness is forever and will never return to a government "for the people, by the people." It is sort of "directed" (but not totally run by) by Big Money, War-Mongers, Egomaniacs and Fundamentalist Religionists. The U.S. government does not have the best interests of its citizens in mind. Only when those best interests coincide with the interests of at least one of those other groups does anything actually happen.

2) The citizens of the U.S. deserve exactly the kind of government we are getting, because we let this happen and we did not push back when it was hijacked by these special interests. We're screwed, and it is now too late to do anything about this. The only thing that I can see that a single person can do is keep his/her head down and hope the unpleasantness doesn't sweep him/her up.

So, that summarizes everything I could put in a political post, I think. Everything else is just more details about those two points above.

Merry Christmas.

No, still haven’t thought of anything to write about….

Thanks for checking in, though.

I do know that I don’t really like what this blog has become, which is very much a one-trick pony complaining about the insanity of the conservatives of this country right now. I think this feeling about the blog reflects my general feeling about this country as a whole. I don’t like where it is going and what it has become. To quote the immortal Joel Robinson, "It stinks!" No amount of complaining about it is going to change that fact. Pointing out the insanity isn’t really even cathartic anymore. It’s boring. And when you admit your own blog is boring, then it’s time to go in a different direction.

I thought I hit a pretty decent stride about a year and a half in, and I was actually doing writing some interesting stuff and getting some interesting things from elsewhere to collate here. Maybe I need to try to get back to that. It is really difficult to gather up the enthusiasm to actually write an interesting and coherent entry, especially when my job entrails a lot of reading and writing.

Check back periodically. Maybe I will find myself a muse somewhere. I tried to pick one up on eBay last week, but was outbid at the last moment. I hate when that happens.