yesterday

we went in on a saturday to take care of the last of our office move. my boss and the guy helping us were moving a huge piece of glass, and when my boss went to set it down it cracked, randomly, and a maybe 30 pound piece of it fell onto the palm of his right hand, edge first. the tendons and nerves were sliced open to the bone, and we had a hell of a time getting him in a car. my boss is also my stepdad.
this was maybe 9 in the morning, and at around 5 we got word from the surgeon that he'd get the use of all of his fingers back, with maybe some loss of sensation in the ring or pinky finger. i didn't realize it but i'd been holding in a lot of stress all day, just trying to be calm for my mother who was pretty strong but hurting, be calm for my stepdad, for my whoevers. i lost it badly later that night, and called the ex up to have someone to cry to. but then she got sad and my psychotic need to comfort others took over and i shut it all down again and talked about other things.

i don't know what's wrong with me. i'm getting more stupid as i age. shouldn't it be the other way around?

thought

it occurred to me while reading of the lying christian right's attempts to smear Darwin with Hitler's legacy that this activity is exactly the same as what has going on in the first decades of the 19th century: preachers, ideologues and believers attempting to obfuscate actual history and smear their opponents with the worst, most hideous offenses of their time. in the 1700-1800's they'd use the Jacobin terrors of the French Revolution to tar people they despised, and now they use Hitler. I know there's a whole science about when the H word comes up, but the exact correlation is pretty stunning.
i guess the god-guzzlers have a formula, and they stick with it.

freethinkers

I'm reading a book called "Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism". It's wonderful if at times a little pedantic. The author is attempting to correct a grave injustice, the systematic removal and suppression of atheists, freethinkers, and secularists, as well as radical liberal religionists, from the historical record. So far its a knockout, with occasional clever asides, sometimes snarky, thrown in.
In reading it I came across the name William Lloyd Garrison, who I dimly remembered. He was an abolitionist and journalist, and published The Liberator, a journal of the same issues. Here's from his first print:

Assenting to the “self-evident truth” maintained in the American Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights — among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” I shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population. In Park-street Church, on the Fourth of July, 1829, in an address on slavery, I unreflectingly assented to the popluar but pernicious doctrine of gradual abolition. I seize this opportunity to make a full and unequivocal recantation, and thus publicly to ask pardon of my God, of my country, and of my brethren the poor slaves, for having uttered a sentiment so full of timidity, injustice and absurdity. A similar recantation, from my pen, was published in the Genius of Universal Emancipation at Baltimore, in September, 1829. My consicence in now satisfied. I am aware, that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hand of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.
— William Lloyd Garrison, "To the Public", The Liberator, January 1, 1831

I'd recommend reading up on some of the notable American freethinkers and atheists, especially Thomas Paine, W G Garrison, and Ernestine Rose. I'm sure there's many more that I'm unaware of, but I'm on my journey. I'll come to them when I do.

well now

i thought i'd leaven that last post with some less dirge-like shit that i think is funny.

Dane Cook:
Monopoly. Everyone has it. NOBODY likes it. Even if you think you like it, you don't. It's easy why...cause this is everyone here after two and a half hours into a game- (WHOOSH) FUCK this game! It's four in the morning Grandma! YOU WIN!! I'm sitting on Baltic with crap! I'm paying luxury tax out the ass!! And I hate it when you're the banker--where'd you get those pink fifties you cheating whore?! Don't fuckin' touch me grandpa, NANA is a cheating WHORE!! And I should cut your head off with this little doggy."

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Sound file. don't tell anyone I posted this. Dane's story of the first time he got head.

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Emo Phillips made a joke voted one of the top 75 funniest ever, and the funniest religious joke ever:
Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"
He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"
Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "DIE, HERETIC!" And I pushed him over.

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Daniel Tosh quotes:

I always wondered if those WWJD bracelets worked, so I bought one the other day. Well, a few minutes later, I was on a plane and this little kid was kicking my seat repeatedly, while his sister sang along with her walkman and their mother just sat there. I almost turned around and went off, and then I caught sight of my bracelet. What WOULD Jesus do? So I lit them on fire and sent them all to Hell.

If "no" meant "no" then every man would die a virgin.

If you had to eat another human to survive, do you think they'd taste like their ethnic background?

I have voices in my head, but they're all speaking Spanish, and I have NO idea what they're saying.

I'm all for women who get plastic surgery. Because plastic surgery allows you to make your outer appearance resemble your inner appearance -- fake.

I love women who say "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual". It's the same as when I say "I'm not honest, but you're interesting."

Sometimes, when I'm feeling down because nothing seems to be going right, I like to take a home pregnancy test. Then I can say, 'Hey, at least I'm not pregnant.'

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KICK TO THE GROIN COMICS!

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k, we good now?

oy

i think i've come up with a method, a method to get through the nights. i cannot vouch for its originality...i believe it's one that's been employed for eons. but that very staying power makes me believe that it's viable. it seems i can get through day and week and year and month by simply erasing myself, erasing my person, with either drink or whatever else comes available. i know it sounds terribly dramatic, but in reality it's not, the idea is simply a reaction, like recoiling when you're injured, to an untenable circumstance.
it's similar, in a lot of respects, to watching someone's blood drain out from a deep wound held tightly, manically, by the wounded. you see that rich black blood drop out, a glob at a time, spattering, and it's one day. then the next drop, another day.
the holder of this terrible pact is dead, but they don't know it, or decide to fight it, despite the fact of the inevitable victory of that oozing despot.
or, shit, it might just be the vodka talking

rucking fascists

Sorry for the lengthly excerpt. This article over at Wolcott's site is just too cutting and wonderful.

Conservative New York radio talkshow hothead Bob Grant once said on the air that then-New York mayor David Dinkins (a far more elegant dresser than Grant, by the way) reminded him of a "men's room attendant".

On Imus in the Morning, Imus or one of his crew once joked about the pre-Washington Week in Review Gwen Ifill: "Speaking of reporter Gwen Ifill, he's said, 'Isn't the [New York] Times wonderful? It lets the cleaning lady cover the White House.'"

A week ago, Mickey Kaus's arm candy wrote, "Congresswoman Maxine Waters had parachuted into Connecticut earlier in the week to campaign against [Sen. Joseph I.] Lieberman because he once expressed reservations about affirmative action, without which she would not have a job that didn't involve wearing a paper hat."

And now the cover of the latest Weekly Standard brings us Al Sharpton as a Driving Miss Daisy faithful retainer "who dares not look his master in the eye."

Washroom attendant. Cleaning lady. Cafeteria worker. Chauffeur.

Notice a pattern?

oh come on

my coworker called in sick today with a fucking hangover. what the fucking fuck? i wish i had the cajones to do that. shit, i was hungover this morning, i came in to work any-fucking-way. dick.

torture device owned by feds

the mount soledad cross was transferred yesterday to federal ownership, showing once again that george bush has not seen a religious debacle he can stay out of. all the republicans involved are liars, they're all claiming they're trying to preserve a "war monument". a war monument for only christians of course, and only christians who worship a cross. but that doesn't matter to these fucking douchebags. speaking of which check out this pic:

the guy in the middle is my rep, brian "i've already voted myself a raise!" bilbray. i hope he falls in a vat of sewage and swallows a bunch of it.
don't they look like republicans? like they'd kick your little dog? fucking dickbiters. they'll bend over and cram a cross up their asses if it would shore up the loony vote. and it will of course.
there's a tiny problem, in that 17 years (so far) of case law in this matter has said well no, it's not kosher to have a giant torture device of great significance to one single religious sect (or group of sects) on publicly owned land. that's my gripe too. if they sold that to a private party, hell, put a big penis and vagina combo on there. i don't care. it's private land. but it's public land. i don't know why the religionists aren't upset about this. they seem, in recent years, more interested in shoving their bullshit fairy tales down people's throats than in leading christ-like lives. i'm unimpressed.
here's a couple other neat things about this bullshit: the senate voted unanimously to okay the transfer. the house voted 349-74. what the fuck? only 74 of the 500 some-odd reps could be counted on to say "hey, separation of church and state is a good thing". fucking weak douchebags.
from the article: While Bush made no public statements after yesterday's signing, the White House has said that “judicial activism should not stand in the way of the people” and that “the people of San Diego have clearly expressed their desire to keep” the cross where it stands.
what if it was an image of a mission indian being whipped by a jesuit? would that be cool if a majority of the people wanted it to stay? what about a vast majority? what if it was a jew being gassed by a mighty laughing german? cool if a majority supports it? this isn't even in the realm of separation of church and state necessarily, but principled civilization.
this cross is a pro-christian religious symbol. the function of the courts is to intervene when the constitution is not being adhered to. the bush admin, the city of san diego, and all of the local republican congresspeople (and dianne feinstein and barbara boxer, don't forget) are all wrong. it's sick too. it makes me wonder why we bother. i mean, if we're just going to throw over our nation to religious police forces, why are you fucking bothering? you fucking liars. you claim belief in a free and just society. unless you claim that freedom and justice for all, you're a liar. and you know what these people are claiming in this matter? freedom and justice for christians, and only christians. and what's more, only those that worship crosses.

so fuck you, and fuck your lies. you people are seriously pathetic.

I've got an idea

Let's drink til we can't feel feelings anymore!

feh

today

today was weird and boring, but i did dominate the puzzle. at the nearby starbucks (which was once a rally burger, big buford no onions, put the fries ON THE BURGER, thank me for that later), i took the NYT out in the yard and put a real hurting on it, 15 minutes for a friday Times is a good one for me. i do have to adjust my streak though, since last week i missed one. i'm on 9 in a row. i don't anticpate that changing, though i may have to do saturday's at a different time, since i have crap to do. why are my weekends busier than my weekdays?
last night i sat around sully's with k & j, we had pints and talked shit. good times. i hope keri figures out her cable problems.

it's a funny game.

The pricks on the con side of the aisle (funny huh) came up with a "funny" graphic mocking dems on security. it's really clever, like a white flag that says "democratic national security plan" or some shit. retards. oliver willis had this up in response and i think it says it all.



Don't ever fucking forget who was on the job, and who fucked it all up. Bush helped those people die. he directly helped kill the thousands that died in New Orleans that everyone basically is saying "eh?" about, mainly because they're poor and black. and he has directly killed thousands, tens of thousands, fuck, who knows hundreds of thousands in the middle east.

So fuck that guy, fuck you lying cons for your lies and bullshit, and fuck the numbnuts half of the voters that put these shits in office. when do i start loading up the molotovs again? fucking retards.

hey

in case anyone cares, I did do monday, tuesday and wednesday NYT, they capitulated with relatively little fight. i was moderately challenged by today's puzzle, but finished it off in less than 20 minutes. God, think of the guys who'll do a puzzle like that in less than a minute. I don't even think I can write that fast....
Monday I did in about 8 minutes. I'm getting closer to being able to do a really easy puzzle in 8 times the amount of time it takes good puzzledoers to fill in a really hard puzzle. that kind of made me a little sad. sniff

i hope life is kind to yall

i almost crapped

When asked if there was anyone who can get him to stop his independent run for Senate:

LIEBERMAN: Respectfully, no. I am committed to this campaign, to a different kind of politics, to bringing the Democratic Party back from Ned Lamont, Maxine Waters to the mainstream, and for doing something for the people of Connecticut. That's what this is all about: which one of us, Lamont or me, can do more for the future of our people here in Connecticut. And on that basis, I'm going forward with confidence, purpose and some real optimism.

Taking the party back from the guy who just beat you in a primary? Joe, you're the fucking establishment. The party is taking itself back from YOU, you dick! Shut your fuckin' piehole, got to the big-money DNC/DSCC donors, kiss them square on the anus and tell them thanks for keeping you in office for 18 years, and RETIRE, DICK.

Uh, and Maxine? If she's the one Joe wants to take the party from, well, I'm gonna say it again: FUCK YOU JOE. What happened to the freedom-bus rider? The guy who stuck his neck out for principle? Your principle can be summed up in a couple words now: Cash fucking money. You dick.
Maxine is a hell of a congressperson, and if she helped oust your ass, then I'm sending her a donation today.

still not getting it.

Atrios posts this from the DSCC:

“The Democratic voters of Connecticut have spoken and chosen Ned Lamont as their nominee. Both we and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) fully support Mr. Lamont’s candidacy. Congratulations to Ned on his victory and on a race well run.
“Joe Lieberman has been an effective Democratic Senator for Connecticut and for America. But the perception was that he was too close to George Bush and this election was, in many respects, a referendum on the President more than anything else. The results bode well for Democratic victories in November and our efforts to take the country in a new direction.”

MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE? My ASS "more than anything else". How about this?

"In Connecticut, it shouldn't take more than a short ride to get to another hospital,"

That was explaining his opposition to the "morning after" pill, specifically affirming his belief that hospitals can choose NOT to fill prescriptions or provide emergency contraceptives (on a side note, notice the word "contraceptive". that means no babies are harmed. But the religious right is not interested in saving babies, but in controlling lives. That kind of proves it, their dislike of contraceptives).
Joe also helped destroy the fillibuster (we saved it so we can never use it, we're so great!), push through bankruptcy "reform" (screw you poor people!) and get Alito and Roberts nominated (loves him some wingnuts). Joe sucked. He practically fellated Cheney in the 2000 debate, while savaging Ned in debates. Joe only has a spine when criticizing fellow Democrats.
And of course his support of Bush and his disastrous military adventurism is hard to deny. Lieberman coming out and saying "Things are peachy in Iraq!" is insane. Imagine if thousands (relative numbers) of people were being killed in the US every day because of terrorist attacks and religious warfare. You think a fucking school getting painted is going to make the news you dick? I don't. I think the headlines might read something like "Thousands Killed, Holy Fucking Shit!"
I know Joe's a corpse. He can still fuck up the election in his stinky corpse-ness by running as an independent. He has no chance of winning, but it would likely put a Republican in the Senate from Connecticut. So if Joe wants to take out the last bit of his legacy, pour gas over it, and burn it on top of the ashes of his credibility, then an independent run is the way to go. (Note: Confirmed, Joe is running as an independent. Fuck you Joe)
Joe's independent run basically proves all he cares about is staying in power. This is the Zidane of politics....long distinguished career, goin' down in flames at the end. Him and DeLay. I think I'll call him Joe "Zizsou" Lieberman from now on. Fucking dickhead.

just to be clear

i oppose war. i opposed the bombing of afghanistan, based on nothing more than my feeling that it was fucked up, and that it wouldn't accomplish shit. it was, and it didn't. i opposed the current iraq bullshit our kids are fucked in. i opposed kosovo, i opposed fucking panama, grenada, the international terrorism supported and managed by our government in every poor resource-rich country in the world.
did you know it took years to get the across-the-board resistance to the vietnam war that ended up defining a generation? and before any hostilities were statred there were MILLIONS protesting around the world over the fucked-up Iraq invasion plan. not a shot fired. 12 years of ruinous (to the iraqi people, not the disgusting US-supported dictator) sanctions had given people an idea of what was coming, i'd imagine, but still, there was not the "grace period" of a few years of unremitting violence, including bombing civilians, initiating free-fire zones, and chemical warfare that the government had in vietnam. it was instantaneous. millions around the world marched the streets.
the news coverage? ZILCH.
that's all kind of an aside. war is stupidity. its worse. war is anti-human. if you're a human being, and you believe human beings are worthwhile, war is the ultimate worst thing there's ever been. period. that's what i think anyways. and it's right.

hey

we're doing a mural of a pirate map over my fireplace.

sunday crossword.

sunday is a big pussy. i defeated it after a passage of time at the local starbucks. it took an hour, but it was just...drudgery. there was a couple of couples of old people talking about africa in the table behind me. they began talking about sushi and i tried to make a comment, but they looked at me like i was insane.
i don't have anything good to say otherwise. the puzzle gave up its treats like an easy chick on prom night.

i do a lot of crossword puzzles II

today i went after the saturday puzzle, the king of all NYT puzzles. I didn't go in with monster expectations, i've often failed at this one. i headed over to Penny Lane in San Marcos to set up my camp and go to battle. i'd had to do some moving from our office storage unit and was a little sweaty and uncomfortable, but relaxed with the gentle caress of Stella.
Here's the scene:

beer, smokes, puzzle. the pilot precise was champing at the bit to enter the fight, so i let loose after a swig of Stella Artois. At first I had nothing...the puzzle yielded only a could short clues, and the vast expanse of unfilled squares mocked me for about half an hour. at last, i returned fire and managed to fill in the bottom right corner.

one thing about puzzles, your first impression is often right. that makes it awful when you're wrong, and the first impression is way off, which happened to me on this puzzle. the clue "the opposite of relaxed" seemed simple. "tense", five letters, let's go. but it turned out to be wrong, the correct answer was "antsy". so blah.
The rest of the puzzle looked impossible. i probed constantly, running possibilities through my head. i kept running into small squares i'd filled in wrong, like when i put "SPRINKLES" in (it ended up being "splatters" "falls in drops". I began to lose hope for this one. at some point, you begin to think you can't make it. you're two hours into a puzzle, and you just start to think "that's it, i gave it my best". I even capped my pen and talked with the bar back for a while, a nice guy named Pat. a huge group of people showed up for some kind of birthday party in a chartered bus. i actually sat for about an hour just ignoring the puzzle, trying to psyche it out.
at some point, you give up and fill in things you're not sure about. i try to visualize the whole thing before filling in letters, but sometimes it's just obfuscated, it's behind a fog. so i just threw a couple guesses in there. i knew, inside, i'd given up.
but to my surprise the guesses were right. they started the wonderful fall of dominoes that can lead to you filling out a whole grid in minutes. there's a competitive crossword series called the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Ken Jennings won a lower division challenge recently (the guy who won millions for weeks on Jeopardy!). These guys literally fill in the hardest puzzles in minutes, or faster. I heard an NPR interview with a winner who filled in a huge saturday-sized puzzle in less than a minute. i wish.
so after my last-gasp guesses, i ended up finishing, to a small amount of amazement on my part. so for the week, i ended up finishing all but one puzzle, going from sunday to saturday. the loss on a wednesday puzzle was odd, but the NYT is a mean beast, and can strike with vengeance at random moments.
all in all, not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

(i wrote "is my bitch" after "New York Times")

more deliciousness from seanbaby

Here:

And am I the only one that noticed that Mike Myers in the Cat in the Hat makeup is a childhood vision of horror? If this god damn nature-taunting cat man was a howling scorpion with my father's face riding the blood-soaked ghost of Joseph Stalin I couldn't be more terrified of it.

I just had a seangasm.

i do a lot of crosswords

*note: while true, this post is totally ridiculous. i like it that way.

i sit a lot, trying to stay chill, trying not to bust holes in the wall. i do a lot of crossword puzzles. humiliating my friends at games like scrabble and trivial pursuit is one of my favorite hobbies. tried throwing myself into my work and found that shit bores me a lot of the time. so the NYT crossword is like my daily challenge. it gets harder as the week progresses, generally peaking on saturday. the sunday puzzle is larger, but in my experience not as hard. just big.
today i went to the starbucks by my work on my lunch break and busted out mr. friday, by my formula the second-hardest puzzle of the week. usually i'm about 75% finishing fridays. monday through thursday are generally gimmes (except this wednesday's, which dominated me) but fri-sat is the evil axis of devastating puzzledom.
often you don't have to even look at the clues to know how hard a puzzle will be...if the grid has few black squares, and from a bit back has a lighter feel to it, you could be in trouble. this is indicative of a lot of long, long words/phases with fewer opportunities to fill in chunks with shorter words overlapping a lot. today's friday had a definite lack of black squares. it was whiter than beverly hills.
well, i'm not letting some puzzle scare me am i? a little. perhaps a small whimper of fear escaped my quivering lip. but i bore ahead bravely, dove into the fray, etc. wielding my pen as a sabre, i scanned the field of battle for vulnerable enemies. while it presented an imposing front, there were weaknesses, and i quickly moved to exploit them. the bottom left began immediately to buckle under the weight of my assault, and discovering a 3 letter "asian holiday" (tet) afforded me an opportunity to rout the enemy from this part of the field. with the center of the line holding, i moved to the bottom of the grid, and scored a coup when i filled in a long one ("staring into space") and the bottom fell, though not without a hard-fought battle.
one way to tell if you've done a good job on the puzzle is to see how clean it is when you're done. if you have written over words again and again trying to find out what the right one is, you've fucked up, and deserve to be sent to a corner. as an aside: never use a pencil. it shows weakness, and the New York Times crossword puzzle can smell weakness from several newspaper racks over. use only pen, preferably one with a strong, clear black line. i prefer rollerball pens, the pilot precise V5 to be specific.
anyhow, my top third of the puzzle today was riddled with errors. i incorrectly remembered the german word for "high" (its 4:20 zumvere, ya?), putting "alte" (the word for "old") instead of "hoch". the bitterness in my mouth was unbearable. the battle was turning against me, and my lunch hour was dwindling. i became desperate, scanning the three long, grid-wide across clues that composed the top three lines of the puzzle. "Deviant, in a way" "You know...that woman." 'there are no options". I could think of nothing. the corpses of several incorrectly filled squares led me to chase many red herrings, feints and counter feints in the blood-soaked grid of battle. i feared i would lose this conflict, my pen forced to flee the field. morale plummeted and my hand shook with exertion.
all of a sudden, as a lone raven flew overhead, it struck me. "Deviant, in a way". SADOMASOCHISTIC. the random letters i'd managed congealed in my head and i let out a fierce whoop of bloodlust. i bore down on the now-shattered puzzle, routing its armies from the plain. "You know...that woman" OLDWHATSHERNAME. there are no options....YOUHAVENOCHOICE. My victory was complete.
i sat back. and looked around. i get very intent when i'm doing puzzles and often miss things happening around me. if there had been a pterodactyl attack, i would have been fucked. thankfully, no ancient flying dinosaurs were menacing my local starbucks. i had a smoke to calm my nerves, still singing with the joy of combat.
then i got up and threw the paper away, and made my way back to work. i wondered...do the passing drivers know? can they see it in my face?

then i realized it's highly probable i'm completely insane. i had a little chuckle over that, but it was interrupted by a ferocious pterodactyl attack. ah, but that's a tale for another day.

sudan revisited

on august 19 1998 the US launched missiles into Afghanistan and the Sudan, in response to terrorist attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. the Sudan missiles destroyed the Al Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries factory, and its owner's assets were frozen by the US Treasury Department, as his factory was accused of producing/hiding/harboring chemical weapons. Eight months later, to no notice in the US media, the government unblocked the owner's (Saudia Arabian Salih Idris) assets with the admission that the bombing had been a mistake.
i haven't found direct evidence of the efficacy of the Afghanistan bombings, and thus can't comment on it. But the attack in Sudan was ridiculous and caused death and suffering for many people. The fact that the world's lone superpower felt it necessary to unload advanced munitions against a factory that it had no credible evidence to suggest was dangerous constitutes, in my mind, a war crime. From Media Monitors:

The ultimate consequences of the U.S. missile attack on Sudan has been the ongoing death of thousands of innocent Sudanese civilians who due to the destruction of the al-Shifa plant, have no access to medicines that would otherwise have been made easily available by the plant. The death toll, in other words, of the U.S. missile attack, has continued to increase to this day.

Try reversing positions, and imagine a Sudanese warship had launched missiles into the US and destroyed medical and pharmaceutical facilities. The response would be unequivocal and devastating, and the nation of Sudan would likely have been wiped off the face of the earth. But this does not enter into the equation. This was a terroist act. The Sudanese government asked for an apology. Needless to say, none has been forthcoming for the last eight years.
This is justice? ask the parents of the dead children.


The Independent Onlinearticle(archived at Refuse and Resist!)
What Really Happened?

legs

i got a nasty sunburn in colorado when i was riding around on my kayak. my legs were really red. the next day i went out again, because chris (who never posts because he's a douche) was visiting from denver. i so paranoidally sprayed sunscreen on my charred legs that it eventually lacquered them in a clear coating. i didn't get burned, though it was completely disgusting.

the best, best best part of getting a sunburn is, of course, getting to peel the skin off later. it's like a joyous romp to me. i giggle with glee at the thought of getting a long, sheer section of skin peeling off. it's not a sexual fetish, not yet anyway...

being fairskinned, i feel cautious about getting burned, so when i get a real good peel working it's like a special treat from the melanoma bunny.

telling

I know it's just one staffer for one insane idiot neo-con, but it's still telling. Bear in mind that this is in reaction to ONE op-ed in ONE newspaper.

“Connecticut should have its statehood taken away from it. The foolishness of its pampered residents should be demonstrated to others by a government program to bulldoze the entire state, salt the land and construct a windfarm to supply NYC with electricity. And its residents should be relocated to Guantanamo Bay where they can take a number behind the 3 who hung themselves this weekend, since they seem so intent on suicide.”
-- Daniel Kish, a senior adviser to Pombo, in an email

we live in a time where a significant chunk of the country supports a party that believes it's okay to kill and imprison other Americans if they disagree with a political standpoint you have. That is alarming as fuck. some people call it a "rise in eliminationist rhetoric". i call it "buy a fucking gun and keep your name and address secret". Because, although they're right now just a bunch of windbag assholes, they're setting the groundwork for the even bigger psychos who will come after them. And since their predecessors set the bar for acceptable rhetoric so low, they will infer that the bar for acceptable actions is equally low. And then horrible tihngs happen.

I have a counter-proposal to Mr. Kish. I posit he should defend his call to imprison Americans and destroy their belongings because of a disagreement over a miniscule amount of oil (less than a week's supply) that his boss's wealthiest contributors are likely to squeeze a couple extra dimes out of. I say to Mr. Kish: You, by this email, have qualified as a grade-A fucking psycho dickbag, and should be locked up in a nice, clean mental facility and routinely cavity-searched. That's a little nicer than your desires for the people of Connecticut isn't it? Pudding twice a day, i bet.

hey! you're doing the same thing! you may holler at the screen, slapping your knee in outrage, perhaps gripping the drapes. Sure. But look closely at the context. Mr. Douchebag is advocating imprisonment and impoverishment for millions because he doesn't like something they said. I'm advcocating a nice "vacation" (perhaps some ECT) for his call to destroy a US state. I know he's engaged in rhetoric, assholes. So am i. but he's help pushing norms to gross places, as i explained above. so fuck him. Fuck him in the ass with a big rubber dick. than break it off inside and beat him with what's left, and ditch his still quivering shitpile of a body in a filthy men's room in some run-down ghetto his fucking party makes bigger and smellier and more hopeless.

just kidding.

just in case

you ever wondered about the pro-life movement, and the motivations of its intellectual masters, read this post by Jill guest-bloggin at Rude Pundit. Whatever their motivations may be, however honorable or hopeful, they do nothing but provide cover for a Nazi-esque program to control women, wombs, and reproduction in service of a vile agenda. PERIOD. There is no "life" in "pro-life", only control. the goal is to gain control of women's ability to dictate their reproductive lives, and it's revealed in deed after deed. don't listen to their profoundly dishonest rhetoric. look at their deeds. the truth will be evident, and it is as fucking awful as you could imagine.