If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough. - Mario Andretti

Friday, September 30, 2005

Thanks to the guestbloggers for picking up the slack today.  I’m feeling a little better thanks to the wonders of medical science and a delicious cocktail of over-the-counter medications.  Of course, I’m still in JimK mode, where I’ve spent the last two days asleep, thus putting my internal clock totally off.  So, tonight I’m going to mix my OTC drugs with a couple of potent prescriptions, which should knock me on my ass and get me back into regular orbit.

I’ll go ahead and fill in a post, too, with another terrifying glimpse into Illinois politics:

Only a day after learning that Governor Blagojevich’s personal goons are now doing big business with former Ba’athists who have big stakes in French banks, proving the “Nexus” theory, many of us were filled with sadness to learn that former Governor Jim Edgar (R), who was once considered second only to Michael Jordan in Illinois-wide popularity, will not take up the challenge of running against Governor Capone in 2006. I don’t much blame him, since being caught up in the catastrophe that is Springfield today is an affliction, not a blessing, and life is good for Jim now that he’s retired. I’m proud a good statesman entertained the notion as long as he did, but this is a hugely depressing day, because while I’ll probably be endorsing Jim Oberweis for Governor, the odds are that liberal, corrupt state treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, will get the Illinois GOP nomination. She’s the former head of the Illinois Republican Party who is constantly bragging giddily about how much she did to “rebuild” the party, oblivious to how incredibly sad a state it must be in that she is our A Team. With Blagojevich’s approval ratings lower than Governor Blanco’s, she may win, and dance around naked in the moonlit courtyard of the Executive Mansion cloaked in human skins like Hannibal Lecter.

Choosing between keeping Blagojevich and putting Topinka in the big chair would be like arguing the difference between Satan and Lucifer. Maybe we should just run Alan Keyes again. It’s game over, man. I predict that the “tax swap”, designed with a shellgame formula that happens to jack up our taxes by about 30%, will pass before 2008. Then? The Illinois Civil War.

I’d like to make a prediction that Serenity will not only be number-one at the box office by the end of the weekend, but that it’ll kick some serious ass as well.

Does anyone care to comment?

Update: Okay, okay, I understand that I might have overstepped my bounds by posting after the fact that Lee has arrived back in the good ol’ U.S. of A. But hey, he’s knocked-out and tripping the life fantastic because of NyQuil and Chlortrimeton-D --- someone has to provide the Right Thinkers with some reading material to rant about!

Sorry for the lack of posting, I’ve been zonked out on cold pills and NyQuil.  In lieu of a new post I’ll leave you with Denis Leary’s hilarious bit about NyQuil.

I don’t do illegal drugs anymore. Now I just do the legal drugs. Tonight I’m on NyQuil and Sudafed. Let me tell you something, folks. Forget about cocaine and heroine. All you need is NyQuil and Sudafed. I’m telling you right now, I took the NyQuil five years ago. I just came out of the coma tonight before the fucking show! Klaus Von Bulow was standing over my bed going, “Denis, get up! There’s something the matter with Sunny! Hurry up!”

I love NyQuil. Man, I love it! I love it. I love it. I love it. It’s the best thing shit ever invented. Isn’t it, huh? I love the name alone. NyQuil - Capital N, small Y, big fucking Q! I love that fucking Q, don’t you!? What a great advertising idea! Put a huge fucking Q on the box. They’ll get high and stare at it. “The Q is talking to me! The Q is talking to me!”

I love NyQuil, man. Because NyQuil has never changed, man. It’s never changed. All the other medicines are doing that inner-child thing. “We know that there’s a small child inside of you, so now we have grape and cherry and orange flavor.” Not NyQuil! They still have the original green death fucking flavor! You know why!? Because it doesn’t matter what it tastes like! It’s so strong you go, *wheeze* “Hey this stuff really tastes like..” Bang! Yer in the coma already!

“What happened?”
“He said tastes like and he went right into the coma, it was unbelievable!”

We have reached the point where the over the counter drugs are actually stronger than anything you can buy on the street. It says on the back of the NyQuil box, on the back of the box it says, “may cause drowsiness.” It should say, “Don’t make any fucking plans!” Kiss your family and friends goodbye. Say hello to Klaus!  NyQuil, NyQuil, NyQuil, we love you! You giant fucking Q!

NyQuil is the secret for all you twelve step recovery program people. Yes, all you AA people, NyQuil is the key! It’s the thirteenth fucking step! You can drink it! It’s over the counter! Drink as much as you want.

“Are you drunk?”
“No! I have a cold. Same cold I’ve had for two years. I just can’t seem to shake it. I’m high as a kite and my teeth are green. Merry fucking Christmas!”

I skipped the Sudafed.  I’m on NyQuil and Contac Cold+Flu.  And, yes, I drank the original green death fucking flavor.

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Ugh.  7am and no sleep.  I’m going to try and get some sack time.

Update: Oh my God.  I look and feel like shit.  I slept all day and just woke up.  I’ve turned into… JimK!

I’ll admit right at the onset that I don’t know the specifics of the DeLay case other than what I’ve read in the papers today, but here are my initial thoughts.  The guy is probably guilty as hell.  He’s a power broker, and all power brokers are guilty as hell of this sort of thing.  From what I’ve heard of the prosecutor he’s had a hard-on for DeLay for quite some time, so I don’t think for a second that this is without political motivation.  That being said, Clinton’s impeachment was politically motivated; that didn’t make him any less guilty as hell of what he was charged with.

I’m just so disgusted by the entire GOP these days.  The opportunity they had to do so much good and they totally pissed it all away.  And before I get any of the usual bullshit comments about me turning into a liberal, the reason I’m disgusted by the Republicans is precisely because I’m a conservative, at least one in the traditional sense.  Ronald Reagan once famously said that he didn’t leave the Democratic party, the Democratic party left him.  Well, that dynamic still exists today and it’s just as valid.  Let me put it this way, if someone could invent a way to harness the energy generated by a spinning body, hooking one up to the Gipper would supply our nation’s energy needs for the foreseeable future.

Just to let you all know up front, if any of you are expecting me to issue some kind of a heated defense of DeLay in the face of a partisan attack by them durn liberals you’re going to be sorely disappointed.  He’s entitled to the presumption of innocence like anyone else, and if he’s found not guilty then so be it.  But my gut feeling is that he’s the glinting hood ornament for everything that is wrong with the GOP these days, and if he takes a fall for it you’re not going to see me losing any sleep.

"If the Constitution says that the little guy should win, then the little guy’s going to win in the court before me.  But if the Constitution says that the big guy should win, well then the big guy’s going to win because my obligation is to the Constitution.”

—Future Chief Justice John Roberts.

(No wonder the liberals hate him.)

Well, I can’t sleep, so I’ve been surfing the international papers, seeing what the hell is going on in the world.  I happened on everyone’s favorite UK birdcage liner, the Guardian, and was treated to three articles on the current global warming hysteria, and I figured I’d drop a few comments to get back in the swing of things.  First there was this one, which—of course—blames the hurricanes on global warming.

The devastation sweeping America’s southern coast is a ‘wake-up call’ to the world about the dangers of global warming. This was the stark warning made yesterday by the UN emergency relief co-ordinator, Jan Egeland.
Egeland said Hurricane Katrina, which led to the flooding of New Orleans last month, and Hurricane Rita, now battering Texas, are the result of climate change.

‘It is a wake-up call for everybody. You have two of the worst hurricanes ever hitting the US within weeks of each other,’ he said. ‘There is no doubt the climate is changing.’

His remarks are the most specific yet made by a senior official in linking Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and rising global temperatures. Most climate experts argue that there is still not enough data to be absolutely certain of a connection.

‘There is cause for considerable concern,’ said meteorologist Professor Alan Thorpe, head of Britain’s natural environment research council. ‘The behaviour of these hurricanes is consistent with the effects of global warming. The trouble is that our meteorological records do not go far enough back for us to say it is a proven link.’

Therein lies the rub.  The doomsayers wail that global warming will result in terrible storms.  So then we have a couple of terrible storms, and it’s aha! This, of course, does nothing to explain all the other terrible storms that have ravaged the Gulf Coast region over the past few centuries.  In order for there to be a determination of a cause-and-effect there has to be a demonstrable trend.  Looking at these two storms as indisputable evidence of the effects of global warming is roughly akin to looking at the temperature on Monday, then claiming that since it was warmer on Tuesday and Wednesday it’s scientific evidence of a warming trend.  It’s horseshit.  And the fact that a major player at the UN would actually claim this pseudoscientific drivel as evidence of his agenda is nothing more than justification for ignoring everything else the tard has to say.

Well, I made it back alive.  I’ve spent the day sitting around doing nothing, peppered with bouts of partial unpacking.  Oh, and I’m sick as a fucking dog, too.  I caught a cold or bronchitis or something a couple of days ago and I feel like total shit.  So not only will I be taking a couple of days to get over my jetlag, but now I have this to deal with.  Lovely.

And on a totally unrelated note, what happened to Manwhore’s post about the woman who was fired for blogging?

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

More random anecdotes: I had to go with my father to visit a family friend today. On the way, we had to pass through a pretty sleazy trailer park (pardon me, “mobile home estate"), where out of the alley came the filthiest, scraggliest cat I’ve ever seen in my life.

“Whoa,” I said, as the cat turned to stare at us, slack-jawed with a face like an owl, skeletal and covered with matted fur.

My father takes a look and says “Wow, yeah, he doesn’t look like he’s doing too good. He’s pretty down on his luck: He has to live off the trash of trailer trash.”

“I’ll bet even the other alley cats look down on him.”

“If you were a cat, would you hang out with him?”

“Nope. I’ll bet he hasn’t been petted in years. His girlfriend left him last year because he couldn’t afford the rising cost of cat-health insurance.”

“Sometimes he just sits alone in the dark, drinking from a half-empty bottle of malt liquor he found in the garbage.”

“Contemplating cat-suicide.”

At this point, we burst into tears of laughter for some reason. Well, it was funny to us, anyway.

Just to kick comments into high gear, I present yet another rigorous testing that the Theory of Evolution has been put through, and from which it emerged with flying colors.

If Darwin was right, for example, then scientists should be able to perform a neat trick. Using a mathematical formula that emerges from evolutionary theory, they should be able to predict the number of harmful mutations in chimpanzee DNA by knowing the number of mutations in a different species’ DNA and the two animals’ population sizes.

“That’s a very specific prediction,” said Eric Lander, a geneticist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., and a leader in the chimp project.

Sure enough, when Lander and his colleagues tallied the harmful mutations in the chimp genome, the number fit perfectly into the range that evolutionary theory had predicted.

Their analysis was just the latest of many in such disparate fields as genetics, biochemistry, geology and paleontology that in recent years have added new credence to the central tenet of evolutionary theory: That a smidgeon of cells 3.5 billion years ago could—through mechanisms no more extraordinary than random mutation and natural selection—give rise to the astonishing tapestry of biological diversity that today thrives on Earth.

Good thing it’s just a “Theory”, though, eh?

I’d like to remind the anchors, editors, readers, conspiracy theorists, knuckleheads, and everyone else who is frothing at the mouth that Tom DeLay’s indictment only means that a Grand Jury believes there is enough evidence to proceed to trial.

It does not mean there has been a trial, and that he’s been tried and convicted.

Yes, there are other benefits to law school. People who like to comment and pretend to be lawyers should really give it a shot.

And while we’re on the subject, how come the phrase “innocent until proven guilty” has become so subjective lately that it can be attached and detached as people see fit?

Updates to follow.

Since I know there is no way I’ll be posting again before Lee retakes control of his madhouse (I actually have something to do, it’s like a miracle)...let me take this time to speak to you fine, fine people.

Bowser from Sha-Na-Na was a god to me.

No, wait...wrong speech.  Sorry.  What I meant to say was I love assplay.  The way it feels, the way it smell/////...no...wait.  That’s not it either.

Fuck.  See, I intended to come in here and say something nice and not be a foul-mouthed little punk, but unfortunately, it’s in my blood.  You can’t fight genetics, people.  You can try, and maybe you’ll create a race of supermen who are bigger and faster and stronger, but something will have to give, like they’ll all look like Oliver Platt or they have huge vaginas or something.  What I’m saying is you have to give to get.

Wait, what the hell was that?  Oliver Platt and huge vaginas?  I’m so far off topic.  Oh screw it.  Thanks for the ride, kids, and I apologize if I offended anyone.  Except stogy.  stogy I still want to see bleeding from the ass in the bathroom of the D Block in Pelican Bay.  I see it as an overhead crane shot, slowly pulling up from the tears streaming down stogy’s face, slowly pulling up, ever up, tracking the flow of blood as it mixes with the shower water on the cold, white tile, spiraling toward the drain, and oblivion.

Wow.  That was moving and powerful.  I’m so talented.  Which, of course, you can see for yourself should you deign to stop by my various homes on the interw3bs… Right Thoughts for all your bloggy rant-type needs, Moorewatch for...well, watching Michael Moore & related topics, and my baby, my little jewel, the most repulsive thing I have ever birthed...The Starkcast, a weekly “comedy” and rant podcast.  I use the term “comedy” loosely, after all I’m mentally ill, not stuck on stupid.

I’d say “peace out” but peace is a pipe dream.  Just keep your weapons clean and oiled, and make sure you have plenty of singles for tips.  You can make the dancers do a lot more for twenty singles than you can for a twenty dollar bill.

I thought CNN pretty well had this niche covered already:

An internet video newscast called the Voice of the Caliphate was broadcast for the first time on Monday, purporting to be a production of al-Qaida and featuring a presenter who wore a black ski mask and an ammunition belt.

The presenter, who said that the report would appear once a week, reported news about the Gaza Strip and Iraq and expressed happiness about recent hurricanes in the US. A copy of the Koran was placed by his right hand, and a rifle attached to a tripod pointed at the camera.

The main segment recounted Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, which the narrator proclaimed as a “great victory”, while showing the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, walking and talking among celebrating compatriots. That was followed by a repeat of a pledge on September 14 by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, to wage all-out war on Iraq’s Shia Muslims. An image of al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born Sunni Muslim, remained on the screen for about half of the broadcast.

The announcer reported that a group called the Islamic Army in Iraq claimed to have launched chemical-armed rockets at US forces in Baghdad. A video clip showed five rockets fired as an off-screen voice yelled “God is great” in Arabic.

The final segment was about Hurricane Katrina. “The whole Muslim world was filled with joy” at the disaster, the presenter said, noting that President George Bush was “completely humiliated by his obvious incapacity to face the wrath of God, who battered New Orleans, city of homosexuals”.

If only Mayor Nagin had been one of the faithful. During a break, they apparently ran trailers for upcoming Islamic movies, such as Mousslim Mouwaheed’s “Total Jihad”.

National period of sensitivity expires: TBS is running “The Waterboy” twice tonight, I’d forgotten how hilariously cruel this movie is to Louisiana. Suffice it to say, poor old Mayor Nagin isn’t going down in popular culture with Rudy Giuliani. In fact, the whole state seems to be run by looters.

The state’s representatives have come up with a request for $250 billion in federal reconstruction funds for Louisiana alone—more than $50,000 per person in the state. This money would come on top of payouts from businesses, national charities and insurers. And it would come on top of the $62.3 billion that Congress has already appropriated for emergency relief.

That’s, what, well over $1,000 from every taxpaying American? Even Michael Brown is coming back from the grave to put the blame where it belongs.

“We can’t deny the point that it worked in the other states and it didn’t work in Louisiana,’’ Brown told the House Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation and Response to Hurricane Katrina. “The people of FEMA are tired of being beat up and they don’t deserve it.’’

Brown said the failure to evacuate New Orleans and other affected areas of Louisiana in a timely manner “‘was the tipping point for all the other things that went wrong.’’

“I just couldn’t pull that off,’’ he said. “My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional.’’

Democratic Representative William Jefferson of Louisiana said he was stunned that Brown put “the blame for FEMA’s failings at the feet of the governor of Louisiana and the mayor of New Orleans.’’

“I think that’s a very weak explanation of what happened,’’ he said.

Jefferson, who had already had his home and office raided by the feds for apparent securities fraud, was the same guy who diverted rescue resources (including two squads of National Guardsmen, a helicopter, and two trucks) to help him get his stuff out of his flooded house. I’d say the dysfunction of Louisiana’s public servants is not just a strong explanation, it’s an incredibly generous way to describe them. Sadly, it’s like a parody of a real state.