Wow. Suggestion for their next study: the connection between DOFS (Dusty Orange Finger Syndrome) and the consumption of Cheetoes...
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...so long as it's taught as mythology.
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Just when you start to lose "faith" in the system...gosh, I wonder if, er, I mean HOW he'll beat the charges?
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Laura Bush has gotten a free ride for FAR too long. Let's get down to the brass tacks regarding the "First Lady"...anyone STUPID enough to marry a moron like Dubya, by simple extrapolation, would have to be TWICE as stupid as he is. Possibly even "functionally retarded"; whatever the fuck that means. I'm sick of her coming off like the second coming of Mother Teresa, while Hillary Clinton (who granted, is a HUGE bitch, albeit one I admire) is portrayed as Lady Macbeth. Especially knowing what an enormous cunt Dubya's mom is; and the tendencies of such pussy-ish men to marry a woman "just like momma"...yeah. And don't get me started on the hypocritical pile of shit that is Lynne Cheney.Oh, and FYI: if you're the director of a reality show, and during the course of your duties you need to use the phrase "act surprised!"...guess what? You have CEASED TO BE THE DIRECTOR OF A REALITY SHOW. YOU ARE NOW DIRECTING A STAGED FICTION, AT BEST. STOP LYING TO YOURSELF, FUCKTARD.
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A Rita Update...
Regarding the safety of my family I wrote about here...many thanks to everyone who called, e-mailed, or just grabbed me and hugged me. Everybody's fine.
It's weird to hear and see the words Beaumont, Port Arthur, Groves, Jasper, & Lumberton in the national news. To me; these are towns I knew as a child. I was born in Beaumont, at St. Elizabeth's Hospital. I lived there until I was four or five, when we moved to Houston, where I lived most of my life before escaping to Chicago.
My dad has been acting as a "tour guide" for a group of French TV journalists. They pay well (or at least they buy him expensive meals...), and he can't work until things return to normal in Houston anyway (he is a real estate agent, and he also teaches real estate licensing courses).
My mom, John, et al, ended up weathering the storm at John's house. Mom's back home, and pissed because her cable is out, and she can't watch Law & Order nineteen times a day. She can't even play MUCH freecell on the doohickey the GF and I sent her, as the Warner cable guys fucked up her RF modulater thingy. Morons.
My brother John has been drafted by the City of Houston to oversee some sort of project. He's an electrical engineer for Cingular, so it may have something to do with...that.
Domino (my niece) weathered the storm at John's house (along with her awful mother and her ancient and wicked step-father), and is probably happily reading or playing video games, awaiting her triumphant return to school. I can't WAIT until she's up here in December. Two weeks away from that hell, in the winter wonderland that is Chicago. Yay! She is a jewel, and solely of her own creation; any part that others have played in the delightful goddess she is PURELY accidental.
My brother Mark (aka Mic, aka Domino's dad) escaped with his girlfriend to Marshall, Texas. He'll soon be getting drunk and smoking much pot back on Crystal Beach in between construction jobs.
We think my Aunt Bobby (not my real aunt; she's actually my godmother) is with her niece in The Woodlands, north of Houston.
My friends Kim, Jeremy, and the darling Abby made it through okay as well.
I haven't heard from a few people; but I won't start worrying until, oh, Friday.
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I Do Not Support The Troops.
Nope. I don't. Do I wish them harm? No. Do I want them to do "well" (i.e., kill many, many "bad guys", injuring many, many civilians in the process)? No, I do not. Those who say that we shouldn't pull our troops out of Iraq because it would "destabilize the region" or "lead to civil war" need a history lesson and a reality check, not necessarily in that order. The US/"coalition"/POLISH (DON'T FORGET POLAND!!!!11) military presence there has already fucking destabilized the region...and civil war is an inevitability, if not currently a REALITY. Is Saddam being gone a positive? I guess that depends on who you ask. It's not like the "new boss" (i.e., whoever the CIA, Cheney, and Bush, in that order, decided should be in charge) is any better; after all, Saddam was their (poorly) trained dog to begin with.
My main point (and I do have one...) is this: invading Iraq was unnecessary, imperialistic, and ultimately, a waste of resources, time, and energy. They could have used Delta or SEALs to "snatch and grab" Saddam and put him on trial, if that was the "real reason" for the invasion to begin with...I've lost track of Dubya's many imaginary reasons. The net result would have been the same, with less loss of life (American, Iraqi, coalition, EVERYONE) and waste of US taxpayer moolah that could have been used for, oh, I dunno, SCHOOLS, MEDICARE, FOOD/MEDICINE/CLOTHES/JOB TRAINING FOR POOR PEOPLE, INFRASTRUCTURE, LEVY REPAIR IN LOUISIANA, ETC.
You know what I DO support? Bringing the troops home alive, so that mothers like Cindy Sheehan don't have to go through the pain of losing someone they love for a cause that ultimately means nothing in the grand scheme, such as it is. If you're going to die for a cause; make it a good one. Oil and the pretense of freedom are NOT good causes.
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Oh, So Many Things To Talk About...
Rita!
Most of my family still live in Houston; my mom tried to get out with one of my brothers on Tuesday...they drove for eight hours, traveling a total of 30 miles. They turned back at that point; as they were traveling (in two cars) with two cats, a dog, my elderly mom and five kids. They plan to ride the storm out in my brother's office building, which has no windows (on his floor), and its own generator. My dad, meanwhile, plans to hole up at a friend's second story apartment.
Another brother who lives on Crystal Beach (near Galveston) evacuated to Beaumont...sort of like evacuating to the breakfast nook when your kitchen is on fire. I have no clue where he is now, or my godmother, who lives in Beaumont. Cell phone service down there is nonexistent, and land-line service is almost as bad. Dad told me that Houston may turn off all power at some point this evening. Yikes. I hope* Rita goes further east.
I've read several places that the Texas DOT had no full emergency/disaster evacuation plan for the Houston area. Odd, considering its value as a terror target, and the large number of chemical plants, and oh, the NUCLEAR REACTOR. My understanding is that the roads out of the area were not fully contra-flowed until it was too late for that to do any good. I'm glad that I moved to Chicago; but I'm scared for my family.
* Were I not a very happy atheist, I might have used the word "pray"...
TV is teh AWESOME!
I love this show. LOVE. IT. The GF hates it...PRE-EMPTIVE DIVORCE TIME. Har. Nah. She is kind enough not to tease me about watching this embarrassing teenybopper sudser/90210 knockoff...although her love of crappy reality shows more than balances the scales.
Aw.
Methinks Miss Manning has never actually BEEN to Dodger Stadium. Their "fans" leave in the sixth inning so that they can skip the traffic. Not exactly what one might call "fanatic"; or believe them capable of any form of celebration.
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"Drug money, you say? ¡Si! The church WELCOMES donations from the 'amateur pharmaceutical industry'!"
From the article:Aguilar was responding to comments made Monday by Roman Catholic Bishop Ramon Godinez, of the central state of Aguascalientes, who said that donations linked to drug trafficking are not out of the ordinary -- and that it's not the church's responsibility to investigate their origin.
"If they have money, they have to spend it; I don't know why such a scandal has been made of this," Godinez said in a follow-up interview with the Televisa television network Tuesday. "If a drug trafficker gives, we are not going to investigate if he's a trafficker or not."
"Let me explain: We live on this, on the offerings of the faithful. And we do not investigate where they acquired the money."
On Monday, the bishop said money can start out being dirty but "can be transformed" when it enters the church, Mexican news media reported. Magic is KEWL.
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Um. Okay. Dude? That's your fucking JOB.
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And.........? Nothing? That's it? That's the ONLY thing he takes responsibility for? What a monumental fucktard.
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You Can Take Your "Government" And Your Imaginary Friends And SHOVE 'EM!
Hmmm. I have officially decided to label myself as an "atheist anarchist". Does this mean I have to leave?
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But...my iPod helps me work better! And keeps me from going crazy at work! And it's my FRIEND! Wah!
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Um. Ick? I wouldn't even advise giving money to the Red Cross, as their overhead is MASSIVE (I've heard that something like 60% of all donations go toward their administrative costs); instead, donate to smaller groups (like Second Harvest, or OxFam America) and animal rescue groups that run no-kill shelters (such as Capital Area Animal Welfare Society (CAAWS), in Baton Rouge or The Animal Defense League).
* Just to clarify; by "take him out", I mean that someone should kill him; preferably using a wooden spoon, or perhaps we could revive the Brazen bull just for him. I don't want someone to accidentally "take him out" for pancakes; or (forefend) dancing...
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Dude. Why steal documents and destroy them? Just use the Bush/Cheney/Rove methodology, and pretend that the events detailed in the documents NEVER HAPPENED.
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Interesting article on Salon.com (you need a login to read it, or you can get a day pass by watching a commercial) about FEMA's reaction to election year hurricanes (in particular, last year's hurricane in Florida), vs. the current Katrina debacle. Debacle. I love the word debacle. DEBACLE!
An excerpt:
Writing last November for GovExec.com, which touts itself as "the independent business magazine of government," Charles Mahtesian noted, "Now that President Bush has won Florida in his 2004 reelection bid, he may want to draft a letter of appreciation to Michael Brown, chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Seldom has any federal agency had the opportunity to so directly and uniquely alter the course of a presidential election, and seldom has any agency delivered for a president as FEMA did in Florida this fall."
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From the Department of Obvious Questions...
What if the effects of Katrina had been caused by a dirty bomb instead of a hurricane? What would the reaction be? Aren't terror attacks what the re-tooled FEMA (seconded now to the Department of Homeland Defense) is supposed to be the first responder to in this so-called "Post 9/11 World"?
Also: do you think Rehnquist has joined Reagan and Hitler in stoking the fires of hell? I do* Then again, maybe he's not dead...he could just be "napping".
* I know, I know...I'm an atheist, and as such, I don't believe in hell. Please don't ruin my fantasy.
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Audition Notice
Via the lovely Vera Kelly:
"Portia Coughlan" by Marina Carr. Directed by Brad Armacost. Performances at Irish American Heritage Center, 4626 N. Knox Avenue, Chicago on October 28, 29, 30 and November 4, 5, 6. Auditions at IAHC on: Saturday September 10th, from 2-5 p.m. and Tuesday September 13th, 6-9 p.m. Cast consists of one male age 12-17, three males ages 30-40, two males ages 45-60, one female age 30-40 and three females ages 45-65. For additional Information: call (773)-485-1404 or e-mail portiacoughlan@hotmail.com.
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"Not anticipated" = "We can plan for what happens if Osama and his pals attack us using nail clippers and lighters, but the possibility of a natural disaster happening during a YEARLY HURRICANE SEASON destroying the infrastructure of a BELOW SEA LEVEL CITY, thus causing COMPLETE AND TOTAL ANARCHY? Nope. We have no clue how to respond to THAT."
Ah. More lies. And some truth.
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Ribbons, armbands; they remind me of something...
I've started a mischievous practice of late; whenever I see a magnetic ribbon on a car, I flip it upside down. A flag presented upside down is a symbol of distress, so my thinking is that a magnetic ribbon reading "UNITED WE STAND" or some such jingoistic bullshit is in need of a flip. And don't get me started on those fucking rubber bracelets people wear. Here's a thought: instead of wearing a crappy bracelet, why not volunteer your time at a hospice? Or maybe just find someone who needs your fucking help and HELP THEM.
I wear one of these. Yeah, I guess that makes my an anti-hip hipster. Eh. I've been called worse.
Oh, yeah....they remind me a little of this.
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Knives are for poking.
If you're bored, and maybe need many, MANY inexpensive pocket knives, leatherman tools, or other things you can no longer bring onto airplanes; go to e-bay.com and type "NTSA" or "confiscated" into the search field. Hee.
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