50,000th Visitor

I just broke the 50K barrier, which dovetails with a post I was going to write (honest) about not blogging from work. Maybe I'm stickler,but I don't think that it's right to blog from the workplace.

It's not quite like playing mine sweeper or solitaire while on the clock, which is something you can't do in a small office. Maybe on your lunch time, but do you want to involve your office/company in any bloggy backlash that could occur if you're using company resources.

I've read a number of stories of people getting fired for blogging from work. This is not a sermon, just people in this biz can track IP adresses and this more of a cautionary tale.

The point I'm making is work can be a detriment to blogging, or a Billmon says contrariwise :

However, the last few months have been somewhat less than fully productive at the office, thanks to this blog and the potentially insignificant distractions discussed herein.

Friday is my last day at the office and I expect to post more often and recover the loss of some of those daily hits by posting more often.

While I'm not sermonizing, here is another thing I won't do:

Allen Deer Head Defense

Virgingian candidate Allen is gettin' a lot of flack from a bunch of left-wing Macaca-heads.

The story as I understand it is, the young destined to be senator after a sweaty day of hunting deer bagged one and through his largesse generostiy wanted to share his catch with some poor unfortunate black family nearby.

So he tenderly severed the head from his prized catch and left it in mailbox of the neediest family for their next unexpected meal - kind of like the tooth fairy.

What poor folks can do with discarded leftovers is sometimes very scrumptous. Have you tried pig's feet?

The only problem is I can't find any good recipes for deer head soup or deer head stew. If you know of any please let me know. Maybe those folks are just jealous of their recipes, or have not figured out the internet yet...

Torture is so Horror Show

Dave Neiwert says about the religious folks who supports the Bush's program of torture.

Yes, it's true that fundamentalism attracts all kinds of right-wing authoritarians. And frankly, there is no hope of reaching the hard core among them. But there are many, many of them who are not fully absorbed by it, whose humanity lies not too far under the surface. And I believe we can reach them.

I'm not so sure. Not because they claim to be Christians, but rather people who advocate taking the gloves off are lacking in empathy. It is possble these same people would not treat dogs so inhumanely as they say we need to treat suspects in the GWOT. But then again we do have laws against cruelty to animals because we need them.

I am reminded of this scene of sociopathic Alex in the filmA Clockwork Orange:

INT. PRIEST'S LIBRARY - DAY

Alex reading the Bible.

ALEX (V.O.)
It was my rabbit to help the prison charlie with the Sunday service. He was a bolshy great burly bastard, but he was very fond of myself, me being very young, and also now very interested in the big book.

Priest walks by and nods pleasantly.

ALEX (V.O.)
It had been arranged by the prison charlie, as part of my further education to read him the Bible. I didn't so much like the latter part of the book which is more like all preachy talking, than fighting and the old in-out. I liked the parts where these old yahoodies tolchock each other and then drink their Hebrew vino and, then getting on to the bed with their wives' handmaidens. That kept me going.

BIBLE FANTASY - FIGHTING - DAY

Biblical fighting shot. Alex slashing away. Blood spurting.

HANDMAIDEN FANTASY IN TENT - DAY

Alex lying with three semi-nude handmaidens.

EXT. BIBLICAL STREET

Christ being whipped on by Alex, dressed as a Legionary.

ALEX
Move on there. Move on.

ALEX (V.O.)
I read all about the scourging and the crowning with thorns and all that, and I could viddy myself helping in and even taking charge of the tolchocking and the nailing in, being dressed in the height of Roman fashion.

Authoritarian measure will always attract extreme types. The history of the inquisition is replete with stories of abuses and atrocities. Maybe they were fervent Christian warriors rooting out the evil doers of their day, but they were monsters by all modern and civilized conventions.

Yet lo, we are about to take a giant step backwards in the name fighting for civilaization. You have religious leaders arguing that torture is a Traditional Christian Value.

How far back must one go to find that is a tradition. The Romans would not allow the testimony of a slave in court unless that slave had been tortured first. It like the part of the package the President wants. Or like this article from December 2004 says, Detainees have no rights:

Evidence gained by torture can be used by the United States military in deciding whether to imprison a foreigner indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as an enemy combatant, the government concedes.

Statements produced under torture have been inadmissible in US courts for about 70 years.

I can only imagine that information gained under torture was part of the unimpeachable evidence that the Cheneyites claimed as a basis for Saddam's WMD and ties to Al-Queda. Most like it was also the impetus at Abu Grahib to go further with degrding improper interogations to find that incontrovertable evidence, which atthat time proved to be false. So more evidence was needed - most likely extracted under agressive interogation techniques. Torture begets torture and still no clues provided to the supposed WMDs or ties to Al Queda.

I must admit that it is possible that you'll get reliable and actionable intelligence through torture. All things are possible. But we have as of yet we have not been given one concrete example of this to be true. We are told we must trust the adults. We must be droogs and follow the sage advice those smarter than us.

And the way things are turning out it is, as they say in Nadsat, real horrorshow - not!

RIP Roxiblu

1994-2006

It was a good run.

I will miss you...

Bush Searching for Bin Laden

Breaking News:Bush Vows to Google Bin Laden

.
Enlists World's Most Powerful Search Engine in Hunt for Madman

In a nationally televised speech today, President George W. Bush issued his most direct threat ever to Osama bin Laden, vowing to use the search engine Google to find the al-Qaeda terror leader.

"Mr. Osama bin Laden, you can run, but you can't hide," Mr. Bush said, with his trademark steely resolve. "Google will find you."

Mr. Bush concluded his speech by warning the world's most wanted madman, "I'm searching you on Google right now, and I'm feeling lucky."

News reports that the CIA had recently disbanded a special unit dedicated to finding Mr. bin Laden suggested that the White House no longer saw his capture as a top priority, but the President's decision to use what he called "the most powerful search engine on the Internets" sent a different message.

But even as Mr. Bush announced plans to enlist Google in the search for bin Laden, he attempted to manage the expectations of the American people, warning, "The Googling of Osama bin Laden will be a long and arduous Googling."(more)

(via Other Crap)

Bummer of a Birthday , Dude...

I've heard that a few times when I admit my birthday is on September 11th. Or, as the ancient Romans might say IX/XI.

Well, when I was kid it sometimes fell on the first day of school. Now that was a bummer. All my presents were back-to-school crap!

Sometimes, I had wished I were born on a different planet (let me off this one's gone fucking crazy).

Amazingly enough, I found a calculator that would give Your Age on Other Worlds.

So as a Martian, my next bithday would be on Sept. 19, and I'd only be turning 25.

Not quite John Carter of Mars....But I can live with that....

The False Path to 9-11

Rewriting history is usually best left until all the major protagonists are dead and buried. ABC/Disney does not understand this. See for yourself at what is touted as the scenes that The Tradional Values. Org says is the ABC footage that Bill Clinton Does NOT want you to see.

The first clip is the ficticious account of how US special forces and The Afghani Northen Alliance surrounded a compound where Osama and top Al Quaeda members are gathering. It is shown with the same thermal imaging used by the viewpoint of the Predator in the flick with Schwanzenegger.

Nice touch but unlikley as the company that produced that technology was looking for a round investment funding in 1998 (although the CEO did tell me they lent a prototype to the production of the Predator film). Maybe the CIA had a version of the $125,000 camera mount for the raid to upload by satellite to Langley. Maybe they relayed it by ISDN.

But what strikes me as false in this clip is that The Northern Alliance didn't go in kill everybody because the Americans said stop.

Anyhoo, watch it yourselves, don't belive my fuckinglying eyes...