Something Someone Else Said

"In the Western world today, there is a group of people who live in a haze of unreality, and are prone at any moment to break into paranoia, hallucinations, and screaming. If you try to get between them and their addiction, they will become angry and aggressive and lash out. They need our help. I am talking, of course, about the Drug Prohibitionists: the gaggle of politicians, bishops and journalists who still insist that the only way to deal with the very widespread drug use in our societies is for it to be criminalized, where it is untaxed, unregulated, controlled by armed criminal gangs, and horribly adulterated," -Johann Hari, The Huffington Post.

Illogic is indeed powerfully addictive.

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Serenity Now Trailer

The comedy was just a cover for the deep-seated pain and anguish lurking just below the surface:


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Ferris Club

Was Ferris just a manifestation of Cameron's impotent subconscious, brought to the fore by his inability to find meaning or joy within our morally bankrupt society? This mash up trailer makes the case:


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Chart Of The Day

High reelection rates like this for incumbents is one of the reasons I'm in favor of term limits for pretty much every elected office, at least on the federal level. A somewhat rigged primary system for both parties is partly responsible but gerrymandering is also a contributing factor, evidenced by the significantly lower reelection rates for senators who can't just change the shape of their state to ensure their perpetuity in office. Even given the large populist wave sweeping across the country right now I wouldn't expect these rates to change too significantly this November though for one simple reason: lazy, ignorant people vote.

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Something Someone Else Said

"The Bush-Cheney presidency was, in some respects, the perfect pseudo-conservative administration. They waged war based on loathing of the experts (damned knowledgeable elites!); they slashed taxes and boosted spending for their constituencies, while pretending to be fiscally responsible; they tore up the most ancient taboos - against torture - with a bravado that will one day seem obscene; and they left the country in far worse shape than they found it.

Throughout all this, the Tea Partiers supported them. So how do they manage the cognitive dissonance that two failed wars, a financial collapse and a debt crisis have brought? How do they deal with the fact that their beloved president was manifestly the most incompetent and disastrous in modern times? They blame it on the next guy.

Yes, they are doing all they can to avoid facing the fact that they did all of this ... to themselves. And sometimes, the truly, deeply humiliated can only carry on through blind rage." -Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, trying to understand the Tea Party.

And make no mistake: their anger is real. Obviously hypocritical and at times incoherent, but it's real. How that anger affects the midterm elections this fall remains yet to be seen.

What If You Really Liked Garfield?

I've been trying to take a bit of a break from the news and politics lately in an attempt to retain my sanity so I apologize for the lack of regular posting of late. That said, I have the whole day off today and I'm in a weird mood so I thought I'd spend the day posting some strange and interesting stuff for your enjoyment.

You know that weird thing that turns you on that you've never told anyone else about? The most fucked up sexual fantasy you have that you think is so strange and dangerous? The dark, sticky fucked up thing that you think about when you're fucking the person you fuck to help you fuck them better? That thing? Well you can relax because "weird" is a vast sliding scale and there are people in the world like this guy to make you feel relatively normal about your life. Warning: once read the following resolved question from Yahoo! Answers can never be unread:

Really freaked out my girlfriend need help?

As a teenager I suffered from severe depression and formed a strong bond with the character Garfield and his outlook. Its sad but reading garfield anthologies obsessively was the only thing that made me feel normal and it eventually took on something of an erotic fixation.

To avoid feeling like a sicko I drew pictures of garfield with a womans(Think Pamela anderson circa 1991) body and garfields head, so that I was assured that my fixation wasn't with animals or repressed homosexuality. This garfield/pam hybrid still had the same biting wit and acerbic outlook and tended to cut herself in self loathing while wolfing down a lasagna to fill the void after sleeping with drawings of a much more handsome and muscular version of myself. These drawings eventually evolved into erotic fanfiction starring garfield and myself (In my head Garfield still has a womans body but someone reading the stories would think Im having sex with regular Garfield.) I killed off Jon in a jealous rage, I didn't touch Odie, I enjoy his companionship and don't mind if he watches.

The stories are your pretty basic wish fulfillment stuff, balanced with self loathing rants. I've been doing this near daily for years and I have a substantial amount of writing in a folder I keep buried in 8 different folders.

My girlfriend stumbled across them by accident when they came up in a search and is pretty freaked out. How can I show her I'm just a normal guy with a weird outlet for my psychological problems and not some kind of sicko?

Here is a small sample so you get the picture.

I looked at her as she lay on the floor crying, my satisfied cock dripped droplets of life juice on her toes, flaccid yet still distended, looking satisfied like a man who has just run a mile and is rewarding himself with a slice of pie.

She reached for the knife as she always did and sliced into her familiar wound, mumbling 'i hate you, i hate you'. Its your own worthless soul you hate, god hates us all and thats why he laughs, he created the world to laugh at our pain, now eat up! I kicked her in the stomach incapacitating her and as she doubled over forced a pan of lasagna down her stupid throat, she coughed most of it up but I made her lick up every last drop as she cried the tears of an empty soul I found my cock get hard from her pain and went for her ***, rubbing her blood gushing forearm into her stupid face.

Odie looked at me with a look of fear mingled with hatred but he new not to interfere, and I could tell by his doggie hardon that he didn't truly mind, she would suck him off later he knew for my amusement. I made her suck many people off, to gain friends in the community but mostly to humiliate her and destroy any self esteem she had left.

I'm no psychologist but I suspect that his issues might encompass slightly more than just an odd Garfield fixation. When I first read that I didn't know whether to laugh hysterically or be creeped out by it so I just did both. This could very well be a joke but after all of the other freaky shit you've seen on the Interwebs would you be at all surprised if it wasn't? Crazy.

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Boys Will Be Girls And Girls Will Be Boys

Four guys channel their girlfriends:


And the girls reciprocate in kind:


To me, the guys' interpretation appears more spot on (the girls' seemed a bit too over the top stereotypical) but I'm willing to admit that perhaps this is just my innate maleness coloring my perceptions (or maybe I just don't know that many guys from NYC). Damn funny, either way.

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Jim Carrey's Website Is Hella Trippy

It's a bit creepy and surreal coming from the guy who used to speak out of his ass but also quite interesting. And I couldn't locate the "childhood vaccinations cause autism" section but maybe I'm just not crazy enough. You can check it out here.

Something Someone Else Said

"What if I told you insane was working fifty hours a week in some office for fifty years at the end of which they tell you to piss off; ending up in some retirement village hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time? Wouldn't you consider that to be insane?" -notorious fictional serial killer Garland Greene, Con Air.

Yes, I rewatched it on cable last night and yes, it was both extremely entertaining and incredibly horrible at the same time. Question: Is there a hairstyle that doesn't look bad on Nick Cage? I'm just asking for the rest of the world...

American Power And Brain Rage Hatin'

A few months ago I stopped commenting at my conservative counterpart Donald Douglas' blog American Power because the little lady kept deleting my posts that he didn't like and I got tired of banging my digital head against a brick firewall. I still stop by every once in a while when I need a good laugh or cheering up but I don't waste any more time there than that. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw that my tubby little buddy hasn't forgotten all about yours truly:

Actually, this seems like a comment from folks like snark-ass JBW:

Dear Dr Douglas: If you want to see the Liberty Bell, or the place where the Declaration of Independence was debated and signed, we have the originals here in Pennsylvania; you don't have to see faux copies.

But actually, that's from Dana at Common Sense Political Thought.

The rest of the post is about a tea bagging party held at a replica of Independence Hall Don went to in So Cal to see free range Republican cougar Michele Bachmann talking about how everyone in government is bad and wants to destroy America except for her and her friends. I was going to make some snarky comments about Don being an unprovoked hater vis-à-vis the Chappelle's Show inspired graphic above but then I remembered how totally racist it was of me suggesting that he would have to fight my hate monkey Thade a while back and I didn't want to upset the old boy through word association. Oh, and Don doesn't know this because he and I have never met face to face but I actually have the words "Snark Ass" tattooed across all of my knuckles, hard core gangsta-style. Don't hate the blogger, Don; hate the game.

How Coakley Could Have Beat Brown

Scott Brown, the new Senator-elect from Massachusetts, won the special election there by running on a platform of tax cuts and opposing congressional health care reform even though he never laid out any plans to cut federal spending to balance out those cuts and he voted in support of a state-run health care plan as a state senator. In short, he ran on principles and populist talking points without actual ideas or plans for dealing with the problems this country faces. Yes, Martha Coakley also ran a horrible campaign and one of her problems was that she didn't know how to talk to American voters in the manner successful politicians on both sides of the aisle have perfected:


Brian's assessment of undecided voters is right on in my opinion. This is why President Obama has had so much trouble throughout his first year in office: He speaks to American voters as if they are rational thinking adults, and apparently they hate that (or just plain can't comprehend it). If the Republican party does well in the next election cycle it will be in part because they knew how to tell voters what they wanted to hear without putting forth any policy proposals other than tax cuts, torture and the status quo. And Americans will get the government they deserve for their inability to take politics seriously.

Something Someone Else Said

"This is about more than health reform and we have to see it in that context. This is about a cynical nihilist attempt to break this presidency before it has had a chance to do what we elected it to do by a landslide vote. It is an attempt to destroy a majority's morale, to break a president's foreign policy autonomy, to prevent engagement in the Middle East peace process, to stop action on climate change, to restore torture, to increase tensions with the Muslim world, to launch a war on Iran. We cannot delude ourselves that if Obama fails, this is not the alternative. It is.

And we have to re-engage as powerfully as we did in the campaign to fight back against these now emboldened forces of reaction. I think this is true not just for the sake of the country but also for the sake of the GOP. The nihilist obstructionism and rhetoric they have embraced makes constitutional democracy close to impossible. Their total lack of any workable alternatives to dire problems is a form of degeneracy we have to avoid empowering.

So fight, Mr President. And to the House Democrats who won't go along with the only way to salvage health reform: this is the only sure-fire way you will lose in November. If you pass this bill, you may also go down in this climate. But you will have done something you can be proud of. Politics cannot always be about narrow self-interest. If it always is, nothing important can get done.

Do your duty. And grow some. Fight back. Explain why you're right. Tell the liberals they can always come back later to reform the bill. Just get this passed." -Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, reminding me to stop my fucking whining and remember why I supported Barack Obama in the first place. He warned us that real change was going to be difficult, so I suppose I can go a bit longer before throwing in the electoral towel.

[Update: Just the thing for the Democrats in congress:


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The Arcade Fire: Wake Up

In keeping with my determination to make 2010 a better year than 2009 I'll likely be posting more random things that just make me smile and this song is definitely one of them. You'll probably recognize it from the trailers for Spike Jonze's adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are from last year:


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The Hitchhiker's Guide To Murder

This why Santa drives his own sleigh (also, it's hard to hitchhike in mittens):


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Silence Is The Most Powerful Scream...

My sincerest apologies for the lack of posting over the past week. Although this wasn't a pre-planned break I still should have said something by way of explanation for those of you who are nice enough to come here on a regular basis to read my stuff. It was rude and neglectful of me and I really am sorry.

If I were going to stay true to form as to my past compulsions I'd lie and come up with some type of innocuous explanation for my lack of commentary, like that I've just been too busy with other things or that life has just been so exciting lately that I couldn't make the time to sit here and write. I could lie to you all (I'm actually pretty damn good at it) but none of that would be the truth. The truth is that I just stopped caring. I stopped wanting to write, to rant, to rave, to debate, to piss off other people and to be pissed off myself. My fire went out, and I found myself not giving a damn anymore.

To your collective credit (and frankly, somewhat to my surprise) several of you noticed this change in tone and tenor well before my self-imposed hiatus, emailing me privately to say so and ask whether I was OK or not. I was aware that I wasn't writing much and rather just posting soulless minutia culled online but I guess that I should have given you more credit than that. Some of you I answered and some of you I ignored (again, I apologize for my lack of manners on that count) but please know that I really did appreciate the sentiments and your attempts to reach out. Sometimes people are so much nicer to me than I feel I deserve.

It was recently suggested to me by a friend who knows about such things that I might be manic depressive, and it's a possibility that I've seriously been considering over the past several weeks. It would certainly explain some of the patterns I've noticed over the course of my life: charging headlong into some new endeavour or project, throwing the entire weight of my heart and soul into the breach only to abruptly stop caring at some point and letting everything I've worked towards wither and die while I float seemingly rudderless on a sudden and inexplicable sea of ennui.

And that's where I now find myself: emotionally anchorless, rudderless and every other ship part I can recall from my nautical archaeology courses-less. I'm in a very dark place right now. The future currently appears very bleak to me and I don't see any clear course ahead that gives me any kind of hope for tomorrow. And to be totally honest the Christmas holidays, which I've always eschewed mainly for reasons of blatant consumerism and seasonal goodwill hypocrisy, are not making things any easier. I understand why suicides always peak around this time of year.

And to be completely clear, this is not a suicide note nor is it even a precursor of such an event (although I'd once again be lying if I said that I'd never contemplated that possibility in the past). This is neither a cry for help nor is it a plea for attention. In fact, I expressly do not want to discuss my feelings on this subject nor do I want to engage in any of that other weak, pathetic therapeutic bullshit. As always, I can and will handle whatever life throws at me on my own. This is merely an explanation to those of you who were concerned enough to inquire as to my current state of mind and also to those who were too polite to do the same. I sincerely appreciate that type of personal respect.

So there it is. I hope that this uncharacteristic bout of emotional honesty has not ruined your Christmas holidays and if it has I once again apologize; that was never my intent by writing this. I sincerely hope that everyone reading this has one of the best Christmases ever along with a comparably kick ass new year to boot. Regular posting will resume at some point in the very near future but I'll be honest one more time and tell you that this declaration is neither written in stone nor blood. Happy holidays to you all, and thank you for indulging my wasted intellect and shattered psyche once again. I truly appreciate it.

Something Someone Else Said

"He tore up a copy of the UN charter in front of startled delegates, accused the security council of being an al-Qaida like terrorist body, called for George Bush and Tony Blair to be put on trial for the Iraq war, demanded $7.7tn in compensation for the ravages of colonialism on Africa and wondered whether swine flu was a biological weapon created in a military laboratory. At one point, he even demanded to know who was behind the killing of JFK. All in all, a pretty ordinary 100 minutes in the life of the colonel." -The Guardian U.K., recapping Wednesday's speech by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

I haven't heard or read this speech but the Guardian is one of the more reputable papers of record out there, so now having said that: What a crazy Libyan motherfucker, and I'm sure the right-wingosphere will try to tie this insane bastard to Obama in some way. It's kind of sad when acting like an asshole is predictable for you. And before any of you ask: Yes, I also want to know who killed JFK, but I keep that shit on the downlow when someone puts a microphone in front of me.

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Moving Day

When I was a kid I was a total pack rat. I couldn't bear to throw something away out of some irrational fear that I'd inevitably need it as soon as it was gone. I've gotten a lot better about it since supposedly becoming an adult but I still seem to amass a great deal of shit on a regular basis which suddenly becomes much less valuable to me when I have to actually move it. So now my rule is that if I haven't taken something out of its box and used it since the last time I moved it then it gets trashed without a second thought. I've grown tired of trying to hold on to useless things. Regular posting will resume again tomorrow.

Glenn Beck: Crazed 9/11 Trajedy Whore

I was watching Glenn Beck on the FOX News channel yesterday. Yes, I know... After showing the obligatory montage of the 9/11 attacks set to ominous music that he plays every year to remind us why we should be scared of terrorism he actually started saying something I agree with. Ever on the verge of tears of course, Beck was lamenting the fact that eight years after the World Trade Center had been destroyed there was still just a huge hole in the ground where it used to stand.

He basically said that this is fucked up, and I agreed with him. Then he said that since the Empire State Building was completed in 400 days we should definitely have been able to build the new Freedom Tower with its memorial to fallen Americans in eight years, and I agreed with him. Then he began to decry the name change from "Freedom Tower" to "One World Trade Center", and I agreed with him. Then he said that the change was made to keep from offending people who don't like freedom, and I said "Wait, what the hell...?":

You know why we're not even calling it the Freedom Tower anymore? It's gonna be One World Trade Center. One World, isn't that great? Oh, might be too offensive to call it the Freedom Tower, we sure wouldn't want to have anybody offended by that! We want to make sure we have the occupancy there. Really?! They used to call it the Empty State Building. Do you want somebody who's offended by freedom in that tower? Who could they be? Oh well, China, China. I don't want anybody in the Freedom Tower who's offended by freedom, do you?

Now obviously communist China is hardly a bastion of freedom but I found it a little hard to swallow that we'd changed the name strictly because it offended them or anyone else. It turns out that it was hard to swallow because it wasn't true:

...this week, the owners of ground zero publicly parted ways with the Freedom Tower name, saying it would be more practical to market the tallest building in New York as the former north tower's name, One World Trade Center.

...others privately repeated fears that have plagued the building as negotiations with major corporations to take up space in the tower came and went: that the 102-story Freedom Tower's name could make it more susceptible to future attacks than a symbol of defiance against it.

"The fact is, more than 3 billion dollars of public money is invested in that building and, as a public agency, we have the responsibility to make sure it is completed and that we utilize the best strategy to make certain it is fully occupied," the agency said in a statement Friday.

Agency chairman Anthony Coscia was more critical in remarks Thursday, when the Port Authority announced its first corporate lease at the tower with a Chinese business center.

"As we market the building, we will ensure the building is presented in the best possible way," he said. One World Trade Center is "easiest for people to identify with, and frankly, we've gotten a very interested and warm reception to it."

So Beck was telling the truth when he said that the name change was made to better facilitate its occupancy but he flat out lied about the name offending China or any of the major corporations which might become future occupants. It was changed by a group of bureaucratic businessmen for marketing purposes in order to ensure a larger profit. It was Glenn Beck's good friend capitalism. The Invisible Hand had scratched out the old name and written in a more profitable one but for right-wing screechers like Beck it's better for ratings to rail against non-existent political correctness than corporate profit motives.

And as to those legitimate, yet in my opinion exaggerated fears, that the old name might have made the building more of a target? Beck had this plan for how he and his followers would have redesigned and built the new building:

The Freedom Tower would have been done years ago and it wouldn't have been the Freedom Tower, it would have been the Freedom Towers because we would have built both of these towers back the way they were before except we would have built them stronger. We would have built them in a way that they would have resisted attack. And do you know what my guess would...? They would have been 25 stories taller and have a big fat "Come try that again!" sign on top of it.

Brilliant. We're having trouble filling the tower with paying occupants because of fears of another terrorist attack and Beck's (who will not ever personally be working there, mind you) response is to dare our enemies to do it again. Does this style of arrogant schoolyard taunting remind you of someone else?


Just like every other chicken hawk screaming about how tough we should be in the face of terrorist danger neither of these men has ever been a rescue worker nor have they served in a combat zone. This is the type of tough guy bravado that passes for patriotism amongst the political right in this country now that their savior Ronald Reagan has passed away into that great Drug War in the sky. Hallelujah!

How To Beat Up Anything

A humor website that is "A guide to fighting anything. Bullies, politicians, robots, even future-versions of yourself, back to harass you about your life choices". Being a huge Batman fan I've always wondered how best to take him out. It was a bit more psychological than I would have imagined:

Let me ask you something, are you determined? Really truly single-minded in the pursuit of your goals?

Cause that’s what it’s going to take to beat the Batman. The bad news is this process will take ten years. The good news is, at the end of those ten years, you’ll have taken out the goddamn Batman. That’s a nice little detail to have on your resume.

Step 1: Forget about fighting him. Seek him out and befriend him. Become his pal. Be “there” for him. Get to the point where he’s relied on you and trusts you with his life. Occasionally, do things to reassure him. Point a projectile weapon at him and say, “I’m going to murder you.” Then pretend to shoot him, and say, “Nah, I’m just joking” then hand him back the weapon. Maybe even say, “But I could have…” Now, it’s going be hard, but do your best to say this last part without menace. DON’T let your gaze harden and then drop your head, while eyeballing him in a malevolent manner. If a camera zooms in for a close-up and possible freeze frame on your scowling countenance, push it away. Just try to keep it light. “But I could have… LOL! Who wants lunch?” Like that. Also, avoid repeating lines with an inappropriate intensity. For example, he picks up the tab for the aforementioned lunch and says, “You can get me next time.” Do not mutter, “Oh I’ll get you alright. I’ll definitely... get you… next time.”

On the last day of your tenth year as friends ask him to come over to your desk to help you with a computer game. He may balk at [t]his, as he’s not known as a computer game expert, but be firm, insist he take a look at the screen. “Why not ask him to help you with something he is knowledgeable about?” you ask? I’m sorry, WHO’S GIVING THE TUTORIAL HERE, YOU OR ME? That’s right.

Step 2: When he leans on your desk to get a look at the screen, quickly snatch his wrist, then stand and pivot. Using your superhuman strength hurl him through the roof of the building. Then quickly fly through the hole his body created, shoot him [with] your heat-vision, then grab him and huck him into the fiery Sun.*

*You must be Superman for this tactic to succeed. I hope that part was clear.

There's always a catch. I also especially liked "How To Beat Up a Tyrannosaurus Rex and Actor Mark Wahlberg". He talks to animals, you know.

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While He Was Away

If you've ever been in a relationship with an "intense" person you'll relate to this guy's story much as I did:


If this is indeed real here's my one question: Dude, you never checked your email the whole time you were in Europe? There are cheap Internet cafes everywhere there. Obviously this particular chick was a psycho hose beast but still...

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