Stuff and Nonsense: Paranoia, Poetry, Politics, Popular Culture, Science and Assorted Weirdness
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
And NO, I Will NOT "just fucking get over it...."
Keith Olbermann tells us what the NeoScum accomplished and why we need to hold this grudge until the scum who did this are all ground up and thrown into the dustbin of history
Friday, January 16, 2009
Don't Let the Door Hit You in the Ass as You Go
May I never see your fucking smurking face again, except during your sentencing at the upcoming war crimes trial.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Some modest suggestions
My decidedly old school recommendation wishlist for the new administration. I look forward with wonder and delight (and probable amazement) to President Obama's actual choices.
Agriculture: Kathleen Sibelius
Attorney General: Robert Kennedy, Jr.
Commerce: Michael Bloomberg
Defense: Wesley Clark (when he becomes eligible)
Director of National Intelligence: Jane Harman
Education: Graham Spanier
Energy: Amory Lovins
EPA: Al Gore
FEMA: Douglas Wilder
Health & Human Services: Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg
Homeland Security: Janet Napolitano
Housing & Urban Development: Ellen Sahli
Interior: Olympia Snowe
Labor: Andy Stern
National Security Advisor: Richard Clarke
Poet Laureate: Martin Espada
Special Prosecutor: Dennis Kucinich
State: Bill Richardson
Transportation: Susan Kupferman
Treasury: Paul Krugman
UN Ambassador: Bill Clinton
Veterans Affairs: Max Cleland
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
The Pettigrew principle
From KOLCHAK:
If you were attending Catholic school at that time, you could subscribe to a comic book called Treasure Chest. As you might imagine, given the time and the audience, there were lots of “educational “and “inspirational” stories in Treasure Chest. As an adult, I would probably find these stories stupid or offensive, or both…if I remembered them. Fortunately, the stories I remember are the ones that slipped in under the radar. There was a series about kids living on a space station that I remember liking, and there was 1976: Pettigrew For President..
From what I’ve been able to put together so far, 1976: Pettigrew For President ran for 10 chapters in 1964. Treasure Chest came out every two weeks, so the story played out over roughly half a school year. The title character was Gov. Timothy Pettigrew, who was running for his party’s presidential nomination in that exotic future year of 1976. I would’ve been in fifth grade when the series ran, but my parents were already wondering how much longer would I be reading those weird funnybooks.
It probably took me a couple of chapters before I realized that there was something strange about “Pettigrew.” We would never see the governor’s face. We would hear his voice as part of a telephone conversation, but, if he was in the room, his head would always be blocked by something, or someone. I knew that the strip’s creators were building up to something, but I don’t think I had any theories about what it was. So I was definitely surprised when, on the last page of the story, as he accepts his party’s nomination, Tim Pettigrew is revealed to be African-American.
I know: to an adult, this all sounds heavy-handed, at best. To a fifth-grader, though, it was anything but, even though we never find out if the governor was elected president.
For what it’s worth, there’s a similar reveal in “Judgment Day,” a story that appeared in one of the classic EC science fiction comics. In this story, a man from Earth comes to Cybrinia, a planet where humans had deposited a colony of super-intelligent robots sometime in the distant past. The visitor was to evaluate the culture the robots had developed, to see if Cybrinia was worthy for inclusion in the Galactic Republic.
While many aspects of the cybernetic culture are positive, the Earthman quickly discovers that the robots with orange skins are discriminating against the robots with blue skins. This disqualifies the Cybrinians for membership in the Republic. Throughout the story, the human visitor wears a spacesuit that obscures his face. In the last panel, though, he takes his helmet off and “the instrument lights made the beads of perspiration on his dark skin twinkle like distant stars.”
“Judgment Day” first appeared in 1953, but I first read it in Tales Of the Incredible, a paperback reprint which came out in 1965 (and is sitting beside my computer right now).
Someone named Bob Wundrock—another survivor of the Catholic School system, I’m guessing—has posted some pages from 1976: Pettigrew For President on YouTube. They confirm another memory I had of the series—Pettigrew actually looks a bit like Obama—and they provide some plot points that I’d forgotten.
Pettigrew’s major opponent for the nomination is the ominously-named Senator Oilengass. The governor picks Oilengass to as his vice president , but a typo adds some unintentional humor to the invitation. The word balloon reads: “Senator, will you run as vice-president with me? I’d be proud to have you?”
Go ahead, look at it again. I’ll wait.
Even in fifth grade, I was far enough into comics that I was looking at credit boxes and noticing artists’ signatures. So it registered on me at the time that 1976: Pettigrew For President was drawn by Joe Sinnott. Sinnott is probably best known as Jack Kirby’s inker on the Fantastic Four comic, but he was providing both pencils and inks here.
As for the writer, I still don’t know much about him. He appears to be someone named Barry Reese, but that’s all I’ve been able to find out. For the record, “Judgment Day” was drawn by Joe Orlando. I haven’t been able to find a writing credit for this story either, but stories in the classic EC comics are usually credited to Al Feldstein.
1776:Pettigrew For President may have been an indicator of the liberal trends in the Catholic Church at the time. Or it may have just slipped in under the radar. In either case, the so-called real world is finally catching up to it.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Barack O'Bama
Obama is as white as he is black.
And he is neither as well.
This song hits exactly the right tone about something that has always baffled me about the subject of race in America. Oh I understand the "reasoning" about a "drop" of the fatal blood and all that. But if being white is so superior you'd think that well, the "good" would overcome the "bad'. Seems to me.
Of course that doesn't stop someone who has a cousin who dated a woman who once kissed an Irishman from claiming that that makes him Irish as well.
Oh and by the way, you fucking racist asshats coming out to Gov. Palin's rallies..
KISS MY MIXED RACE BEHIND!
Friday, October 10, 2008
Thursday, October 09, 2008
This is so appalling
These are the people Sarah Palin is bringing out. My God. If I were McCain I'd hang my head in shame that I'm depending on them for their votes. Unbelievably foul human beings.
This is scary friends
And all McPalin can talk about is Bill Ayers, a former radical activist who is now a Distiguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois in Chicago. A man who has worked closely with that known bunch of radicals The Annenburg Education Foundation (snark). A man who was named "Chicago Citizen of the Year" in 1997.
The economic world is crashing down around us largely because of the policies championed by McCain and his chief economic wiz, Phil Gramm.
And all they can talk about is this meaningless gossip.
It is to weep.
From the Mighty Pen of the Great John Cleese
via TPM:
Ode to Sean Hannity
by John Cleese
Aping urbanity
Oozing with vanity
Plump as a manatee
Faking humanity
Journalistic calamity
Intellectual inanity
Fox Noise insanity
You’re a profanity
Hannity
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
OH JOY!!!!
HE'S BACK!
Bring out the fatted neocons. Line up innocent conservative students so that their lives, spirits, and careers may be properly crushed by inappropriate leftist mental touching. Fire up the zamboni. Let the merrymaking begin.
Michael Berube, Penn State's own member of David Horowitz's axis of academic evil and the ONLY person who has ever been able to make it possible for me to both understand a discussion of critical theory and to then have me believe that it in any way matters, has restarted his superlative blog.
The political whirlwind is now in full storm.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
VP debate prediction
At some point, when faced with a particularly hard hitting point from Mr. Biden, Ms. Palin will quietly begin to cry. Brushing away her tears she will then make a speech about how much she loves America and that she trusts in God to show her the way.
This will not be an accident. It is standard Rovean politics.
Mark my words.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Dear lord....
An excerpt from Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric to be aired later tonight on the CBS Evening News:
COURIC: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?
PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land-- boundary that we have with-- Canada. It-- it's funny that a comment like that was-- kind of made to-- cari-- I don't know, you know? Reporters--
COURIC: Mock?
PALIN: Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah.
COURIC: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials.
PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our-- our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They're in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia--
COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?
PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We-- we do-- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where-- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is-- from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to-- to our state.
You just can't make this stuff up...
Sarah Palin, the gift that keeps on giving....
A brief history of McSames's experience in an economic Crisis
McSame was a central figure in the first major Republican buyout to save their rich buddies' asses. I guess that's what he means by using his expertise to solve this crisis.
And for the record, McSame has made exactly one vote in the Senate this year. He wasn't present for the GI Bill vote nor for the economic stimulus package vote. What makes this vote so special?
My guess, he wanted to get the debate moved to next week so that they could finese the VP debate off the table. Ms. Palin is clearly not ready for prime time. Her "interview" on CBS was so lightweight that I thought I was watching a bad Saturday Night Live sketch. Nobody in national politics could actually mutter that mealy mouthed bilge with a straight face and mean it, right?
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Hoist. Petard. Even...
"We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself. We believe in the free market as the best tool to sustained prosperity and opportunity for all."
OH PLEASE!! PLEASE!!!!
With six weeks remaining until election day, McConnell, the Senate minority leader, now holds a 49%-46% lead over Lunsford, which is within the poll's 3.9% margin of error. Compared to an identical SurveyUSA poll released six weeks ago, Lunsford is up six points, McConnell is down three.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Is he trying to lose?
“Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.” — John McCain
My God, the man hasn't a clue.....
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Demand that McCain release his medical records
The multiple melanoma McCain has been treated for is one of the most life threatening types of cancer. Yet he refuses to allow his medical records to be scrutinized. How can we determine his fitness for office? If the cancer were to reappear, the treatment he would have to undergo is so debilitating he would become unfit for office. That makes Sarah Palin's lack of qualification for office even more critical.
McCain has allowed a small group of reporters only 3 hours to view over 1000 pages of records covering only the last 10 years of his life. What is he hiding?



