Wow, Are Our Elected Asshats Missing The Point...

Especially when they're sponsoring a law like this one.



The much ballyhooed immigration "reform" bill they're currently debating?



Yeah. According to analysts, it will allow as many as 100 MILLION new immigrants from Central and Latin America over the next 20 years, which:

'would transform the United States socially, economically and politically. Within two decades, the character of the nation would differ dramatically from what exists today.''

That's sure a great idea! How about some more? Thanks to the Sun-Times doing my job for me - they evidently don't like the bill any more than I do, and I just wrote letters to both our Senators, Senator Arlen Specter and Senator Rick Santorum, telling them to vote against it - I don't even have to provide the sarcasm. Of course, just because I don't HAVE TO...

*The bill supposedly would protect American workers by ensuring that new immigrants would not take away jobs. However, the bill's definition of ''United States worker'' includes temporary foreign guest workers, so the protection is meaningless.



*It extends the Davis-Bacon Act's requirement for the payment of ''prevailing wage'' to all temporary guest workers. That puts them ahead of Americans, who have this protection only on federal job sites.



*Foreign guest farm workers, admitted under the bill, cannot be ''terminated from employment by any employer ... except for just cause.'' In contrast, American ag workers can be fired for any reason.

Do I really need to spell out why this is a terrible idea?



Well, what the hell, I will anyway.

If you make this country a haven for workers from foreign countries who do not have to assimilate into our culture, you will rapidly no longer have a culture. Historically, immigrants from every population in the world except two have assimilated fully and completely into our culture, learning the language, learning and obeying the law, and becoming, for all intents and purposes, Americans.



Those two exceptions are Asians and Hispanics.



Asians for the most part seem to manage the trick of assimilation, at least to the point where they can speak English, within four generations of moving into the United States - pitiful, but if you get there, you get there.



Hispanics, however, don't bother. Texas, in particular, is inundated by people who are third-generation citizens and still require bilingual education. This is totally unacceptable.

The really cool thing about this is that all of those people can VOTE. And do. Against any measure to control immigration.



This is what's called a cultural invasion. Mexico is terrible, so they want to come here; but instead of coming here to be like us, they want to come here and make us like Mexico, which will inevitably result in our economy collapsing as well.



In addition to this, giving immigrant workers preferential treatment over American citizens will inevitably result in Americans leaving our country to naturalize in other nations, where they can get treated fairly.



My wife and I are starting to think more and more seriously about Australia.



In the meantime, attempt to stem the tide; join me, and many others, in writing to your Congressmen and pestering the hell out of them not to vote for this bill, as it will be horrifically damaging to our country.



Contact information for your Senators is here; your Representatives can be found here. I urge you to use the opportunity to defend your nation against all enemies foreign AND DOMESTIC.

In Slightly Less Dire News...

...you may remember me saying a couple of days ago that global warming was basically a big pile of horsecrap. Or you may not - everybody seems to have missed that post. Anyway, I did.



Well, I'm not the only one. The National Center for Policy Analysis just released a report about the GROWING HUGE RISK OF GLOBAL WARMING EVERYBODY PANIC OMGWTF!!!



In it, they state flatly that:

Global warming alarmists have attributed increases in hurricanes, floods, droughts, tornadoes, hail storms and heat waves to global warming caused by human activities. However, the evidence does not support their claims.

They go on to say that:

Some have attempted to link the present warming trend to secondary effects, such as species extinction. However, the relationship between species extinction and climate change is even more tenuous.

They then follow that shocker up with this:

It has also been claimed that low-lying coastal areas are endangered due to rises in sea level as the Arctic pack ice, glaciers and the mile-thick Greenland Ice Sheet melt in a warming climate. However, the evidence does not show this is occurring:

They then finish the bitchin' combo move by adding this knockout punch:

The complexity of the climate and the limitations of data and computer models mean projections of future climate change are unreliable at best. In sum, the science does not support claims of drastic increases in global temperatures over the 21st century, nor does it support claims of human influence on weather events and other secondary effects of climate change.

Which means that despite the arrogance of the "environmental action" groups, human beings cannot affect the weather at our current level of technology.

But Wait, There's More!â„¢

They go on to point out that the estimates of future climate impact that have thus far been publicized are flawed, and additionally that the estimates were intentionally based on the MOST ALARMIST PROJECTIONS AVAILABLE:

Thus, the results of the National Assessment are biased in that the extreme Canadian model was considered, but not the numerous models that suggest only modest warming.

A report submitted for the National Assessment added further doubt to the Hadley Center and Canadian model predictions. The report compared real-world observations with important atmospheric and surface variables used in the Hadley Centre and Canadian models to simulate present-day conditions. Over North America, both models tend to show greater changes in air temperature and precipitation than actual observations. In fact, the Canadian model predicts that the United States should have warmed 2.7° F during the 20th century — 10 times more than the observed increase of about 0.25° F.

For precipitation, the Hadley Centre model and the Canadian model produce the two most extreme projections of changes for the United States — twice the estimates of other models. In particular, the models’ simulations predict present-day precipitation that differs from actual observations by as much as 100 percent!

Furthermore, both models predict high-pressure systems and winter storms that are much more intense than those we are currently experiencing. They also predict current temperatures for the upper atmosphere (between about 5 km and 20 km in height) that are colder than observed temperatures.

Since these models cannot accurately replicate current climate conditions, it is difficult to place much faith in their projections of future climate in a greenhouse gas-enhanced world. Since the National Assessment relied on these models exclusively, its conclusions are suspect.

In fact, they pretty much out-and-out call the whole environmental lobby intentional liars and their conclusions delusional bullshit.

But just in case you missed their point, they decided to make it clear:

In general, our climate has and will continue to exhibit intricate patterns not reliably reproduced by global climate simulations, thus underscoring their scientific incompleteness — and lack of reliability for prediction of future climate scenarios.

In other words, folks, we still can't predict the climate, so Al Gore and the Clintons desperately, cryingly need to STFU about it.

Caught Red-Handed!

AT&T, like the other big telcos, has been backing and filling desperately over the last week or so, since the revelation of the NSA's secret phone monitoring program hit the news services. Playing the cover-your-ass game, they've denied any participation in the program, and repeatedly assured their customers that no records of theirs have been divulged at all.



Sadly, their situation just got about a thousand times worse, and I'm gonna tell you why. THEN you can get pissed off. Trust me on this - you're not as angry about this now as you will be in a few minutes.



Wired News, this morning, posted over 30 pages of documents from the lawsuit over AT&T's alleged participation in the NSA program on the internet.



They did this because:

AT&T claims information in the file is proprietary and that it would suffer severe harm if it were released. Based on what we've seen, Wired News disagrees. In addition, we believe the public's right to know the full facts in this case outweighs AT&T's claims to secrecy.

That sounds about right. Well, what's in these mysterious documents? (Warning: annoying, slow .pdf file!)  Well, despite the judge issuing a gag order against the EFF forbidding them to publish the documents themselves, and AT&T's desperate efforts to hide them:

The court's gag order is very specific in barring only the EFF, its representatives and its technical experts from discussing and disseminating this information. The court explicitly rejected AT&T's motion to include Klein in the gag order and declined AT&T's request to force the EFF to return the documents.

Which means it's ok if I tell you that these documents reveal that not only did AT&T give away phone records, they went a good bit further. Like, for example:

In 2003 AT&T built "secret rooms" hidden deep in the bowels of its central offices in various cities, housing computer gear for a government spy operation which taps into the company's popular WorldNet service and the entire internet. These installations enable the government to look at every individual message on the internet and analyze exactly what people are doing. Documents showing the hardwire installation in San Francisco suggest that there are similar locations being installed in numerous other cities.

Which means that they're not only listening to your phone calls, they're reading your emails, tracking which websites you visit, reading your instant messages, seeing which auctions you go to on eBay; THEY ARE WATCHING EVERYTHING YOU DO ON THE INTERNET. Think I'm kidding? I NEVER KID.

"Anything that comes through (an internet protocol network), we can record," says Steve Bannerman, marketing vice president of Narus, a Mountain View, California, company. "We can reconstruct all of their e-mails along with attachments, see what web pages they clicked on, we can reconstruct their (voice over internet protocol) calls."

I'm not sure what kind of friggin' fan dance this administration has to do to convince people that they're trying to turn the USA into a police state, but THAT'S WHAT THIS IS. This is the old Soviet "internal security," the Nazi Schutzstaffel, the WWII Italian Carabinieri; this is what it looks like when the totalitarians begin their open march against your freedom.



Both Republicans and Democrats voted for the USA-PATRIOT Act. Both groups voted to allow the expansion of police powers; and now both sides are playing "It wasn't me! It was the one-armed man!"



FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, boot ALL of them out of office this next election, and replace them with Independents. Libertarians. Fuck it, the GREEN PARTY is better than these assholes. And they want to take away your car and make you live like the Amish.

Oh No, Not Another Rant About Immigration!

Oh, yes, yes it is.



This has been a banner month so far!



We've had the "America Without Immigrants" protest, which I'm sure made many, many ILLEGAL immigrants feel warm and fuzzy, for about two weeks - until just recently the House and Senate each passed (differing versions of) a bill to make English the official language of the USA for the first time; said bill will also require immigrants to learn English to become citizens, and from what I understand would make it very, very difficult for non-English speakers to get work visas. It will also provide for an option for ILLEGAL immigrants who wish to stay in the USA: huge, crippling fines - like, say, equal to all the income taxes you SHOULD have been paying on your wages from all those under-the-table jobs - or deportation.



Badass!



But now, even though that is truly the world record holder for "protest backfire," I have to admit I've found a new hero in life, and it's for a single quotation.



See, gradually even our dim bulb Congressmen (and women, let's not forget that women can be dumbfucks too,) can recognize something when it's staring them right in the face. Well, if their constituents get pissed off enough about it, anyway.



So: I bring you the truth about immigrating into Mexico. KJ talked about this a week or two ago; well, finally some Associated Press reporters have gotten on the bandwagon, and it's about time. This story casts - and I say again, it's about time - the Mexican immigration policies, and their blatant hypocrisy in the face of Mexican demands for changes to OUR immigration policy, in a VERY negative light indeed. But, as I said, there's one standout: my new hero, J. Michael Waller, of the Washington Center For Security Policy, for the following quote:

If American policy-makers are looking for legal models on which to base new laws restricting immigration and expelling foreign lawbreakers, they have a handy guide: the Mexican constitution.

Ouch. Why is it that when we talk about elected officials, we're almost always talking about retarded jackasses, but when we come up with someone obviously smart and well-informed, like Mr. Waller, they're working for some think tank somewhere whose function though undoubtedly vital is sufficiently unglamorous that we've never heard of it before? Hmmm?



Anyone?



Bueller?

So, It's Like, Really Hot, And Stuff?

Errr, actually, more like not.



See, we've been having unseasonably cool weather for, oh, the whole friggin' year so far.

Wanna see?

And just in case you can't see the fine print:









Now, that's a bit cooler than usual for us.



So, what's the big issue gripping the nation today?

Hmmm?



Why, Bill Clinton yapping on about global warming, of course. Because, you know, all this COLD WEATHER is clearly caused by the GLOBAL WARMING TREND, and stuff.



Of course that's it. And what did Clinton say? That global warming was a bigger threat to us than terrorism?



Wooooo.

I'm scaaaaaared.



Oh, and speaking of GIGANTIC, DANGEROUS, HUGE-ALMOST-BEYOND-COMPREHENSION threats that kinda went *poof* on the environmental lobby, the Antarctic ozone hole is closing up. Of course, all the wonks want to claim it's the CFC bans causing it to close up - except for the fact that the hole is over countries which produce essentially no CFCs to start with, and didn't obey the ban in any event.

Um, so what you're saying is, it was caused by us, because our CFCs go up into the sky and then move 8000 miles before doing any damage? As opposed to the ozone hole forming because the Antarctic doesn't get as much sunlight as the rest of the world - which is why it's the ANTARCTIC - and ozone is manufactured when sunlight hits the atmosphere? You're absolutely, positively sure it's our fault?



Mkay, good luck with that.

Is Jon Stewart Responsible For Distrust Of The Media, And Politics?

That's what this article seems to be claiming.



To me, in recent weeks especially, it seems obvious that what's leading kids to distrust the media is that they lie like a rug.



They distrust politicians because the pols on both sides of the aisle are manifestly out to screw us all, and get us chivvied into either a fascist police state (conservatives) or communist "people's republic" (liberals,) as though either of those goals had worked out well in the past.



As far as the downfall of Western Civilization? I think the politicoes and the media are handling that just fine so far, thanks. The kids are getting skeptical because THEY SHOULD. You're not being paranoid if someone really is out to get you.

Any Bets On Whether This Chick Lost Her Job?

Because, you know, that kind of on-air Freudian slip can cause unemployalarity.



Second inappropriate use of that term this week! What's going on these days? Is gay-bashing making a resurgence?

More at 11!

Unless you're too gay to watch the news.

Gotta Love Political Incorrectness, Dontcha?

...Especially when it happens somewhere you're not, like New Zealand.





Especially when it consists of an applicant for the local police being told he should ditch his scarf, because it's "too gay."



No, really, that's what they told Simon Calcinai of Christchurch, at the Careers Expo in Christchurch on Sunday.



Now, for those of you not willing to read the whole thing to see what all the fuss is about, I will include a copy of the photo that ran with the story, just so you know exactly what went on.

Just for the record: it was a female officer who first told him to lose the scarf. And also for the record: that has to be the single gayest article of clothing I've ever seen in my life. While I don't have anything against people wearing whatever they want, if you wear something that looks like that, you almost have to expect that sooner or later someone will point out the way it makes you look like a complete idiot.

65 Million Years Of Evolution, And Look Where It's Gotten Us: Part 1.

You know our biological imperatives have taken a serious hit over the years if this is a serious problem. I mean, come on, guys. I can sorta dimly understand why you might use a doll as a masturbation tool, but calling it your life partner is, well, nuts. And stupid.

Don't let's forget the stupid.

For those of you out there who remain convinced, despite the Hunter Cressall video, that Macintosh is wonderful and Steve Jobs is on your side, you should also know that Apple makes little girls cry. Seriously. 9 year old Shea O'Gorman wrote to Steve Jobs suggesting a number of ideas for improvements on the iPod. Not only did it take 3 months for the letter to get a reply, it was a disaster:

To the dismay of Shea and her family, the letter wasn't from Mr. Jobs. It was from Mark Aaker, Senior Council of the company's Law Department, telling the third-grader that Apple doesnt accept unsolicited ideas, so she should not send them her suggestions and if she wants to know why, she could read their legal policy posted on the Internet.

And yes, she ran off in tears. Good job, Mr. Jobs. You clearly have a human resources department that's simply top-shelf.

Personal responsibility has surrendered completely. We all know that; but maybe you didn't know that it's not just us. The Japanese are nuts, too. They're now selling cans of - wait for it - oxygen, as a pick-me-up for office workers too lazy to go get some exercise. I'm getting a bit out of shape myself, but at least I admit it's because I'm lazy. It has nothing whatsoever to do with my job.

The former tenant of a townhouse in Ogden, Utah gave his landlord a bit of a surprise the other day: 70,000 beer cans inside the apartment. Apparently, the guy had turned off the water and heat and just sat in his apartment drinking Coors Light. A case a day, for 8 years.


You know what I have to say. DUDE! At least you could have picked a GOOD beer!

Never stop to help another driver in distress.
Not the advice you thought I'd give, is it?
In days gone by - even just a few years ago - I would have said "Of course you stop to help." But not anymore. Stopping can get you - well, it can get you carjacked. And as if that wasn't bad enough, after Alicia Disney - name sounds like something out of Jennifer Government (a novel by Max Barry, ) doesn't it? - stopped to help injured drivers at a car crash, one of them stole her car WITH HER GRANDMOTHER AND INFANT SON STILL INSIDE.
The carjacker abandoned the car and fled several blocks away, leaving the grandmother and her 5-month-old son unharmed, though scared.

Ok, here's a news flash: If your entire body is coated in a flammable gel used to treat a rare skin disorder, you should probably wait until later to have a smoke. I'm just saying. Sadly, some people just HAVE to try things the hard way, so I bring you the late Philip Hoe. Sadly, his life came to an end after he was unable to resist the siren song of cigarettes, lit up, and was later pronounced dead my British doctors after they tried to save him from serious burns.

Oklahoma City police proved recently that they're no better than anyone else when it comes to common sense. After a seven-hour standoff, in which they tried multiple times - and failed, mind you - to get in contact with someone inside the"suspicious" house, they initiated a tactical entry - which revealed that no-one was home.

Now, you and I both know that if you take your child to the movie theater, you ought to make sure that the movie you're going to see is appropriate for your child.

You also know that there are an awful lot of people who don't bother, often taking 4, 5, and 6 year old children to R-rated bloodfests. One mother - using the term very loosely indeed - took her son to the remake of "The Hills Have Eyes," and when he complained that he didn't like the movie, she just told him to shut up. One hopes that the theaters will get around to banning this. It is not discrimination - of any kind - to kick out someone who's ruining it for everyone else.

And just so you know, on top of all the recent NSA - telco furor, the telcos playing CMA with style and panache, the FBI tracking reporters' anonymous informants, and the warrantless tapping of your every activity on the internet, the government thinks it's high time Halliburton got busy earning their enormous contracts; Halliburton is now building enormous "detention facilities" - this is the same terms used for the gulag by the Soviets, as I recall - for "future government programs." I'm not sure I want to know what kind of program requires creation of prison camps in the United States. But I do know I want it stopped, whatever it is.

Let The Ass-Covering Begin

So, now that the NSA phone records database has become public knowledge, and the inevitable outcry has arisen, Verizon and other companies are hastening to announce that they, of course, have nothing whatsoever to do with it, and would of course NEVER divulge subscriber information to the government, say, without telling you first.



This, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with the $50 BILLION lawsuit filed against Verizon for violating its customers' privacy. Or the dozens of similar lawsuits against BellSouth and AT&T.

"The Telecommunications Act of 1934 is as clear as clear can be," plaintiff Carl Mayer said. "You can't turn over the records of your customers and if you do so it's $1,000 per violation. The Constitution is very clear. The Supreme Court has consistently held that the Fourth Amendment prevents unlawful searches and seizures which we believe this to be."

That sounds pretty straight-forward, hmmm? At $1000 a pop for each of Verizon's 50 MILLION subscribers, that $50 billion in ACTUAL DAMAGES.



Is this lawsuit likely to succeed? No. Here's why: The telcos have too much vested in their business to let it come crashing down because the USA-PATRIOT Act says the government can do whatever it wants. They are, right now, in an untenable position, in which they are criminalized by either of two laws regardless of what action they take. The inevitable result? The telcos, or someone working on their behalf, will get a case before the Supreme Court which will get the Supremes to strike the Patriot Act as unConstitutional.



Which is long overdue.



For once, and this may well be the only time you hear me say this: GO LAWYERS!

Just In Case You Think I'm Being Paranoid...

You should know that the FBI is using the phone records database I was talking about in the last entry to find the people who talk to reporters anonymously.



This, I think, is the best bit from the article, just in case anyone still thinks the USA-PATRIOT Act was a good idea:

Officials say the FBI makes extensive use of a new provision of the Patriot Act which allows agents to seek information with what are called National Security Letters (NSL).

The NSLs are a version of an administrative subpoena and are not signed by a judge. Under the law, a phone company receiving a NSL for phone records must provide them and may not divulge to the customer that the records have been given to the government.

Just so you know, that means that if you blow a whistle to the reporters, the FBI can find out without you even knowing they did, and without having to go through the courts. One more step towards the secret police, I'm warning you.

You May Have Heard About This...

...or you may not. Either way, the NSA is spying on your phone records.



Yeah, you, chief.



To be more specific: with the exception of Qwest Communications and some locals, every major telecommunications company serving the US has coughed up their call records - ALL OF THEM - to the NSA, ostensibly so that the NSA can look for them bad evil terrorists.



Qwest, and some of the locals, have refused - despite stiff pressure from the NSA and other government agencies - to comply with warrantless, un-subpoenaed demands for phone records. My Hero.



Now,  no doubt some of you are thinking: OMG, how can they possibly get away with this?!?



So are a bunch of our illustrious Congressmen.



I will tell you exactly how they are getting away with this.



BECAUSE THE IDIOT FUCKTARD COCKMONKEYS IN CONGRESS MADE IT LEGAL FOR THEM TO DO SO.



Now, that may seem a bit hard to believe. However, that's only if you haven't actually read the USA-PATRIOT Act. Let me show you. This is the Epic.org copy of the text - it's easier to get to. Here's the Library of Congress page.



Now, see, what you want to read, realllllllly closely, is Title II - Enhanced Surveillance Procedures. This is the part where Congress voted to let the NSA - or anyone else working for the government, pretty much - search your house, car, business, or anything else without providing a warrant except in retrospect, up to 60 days after they searched you in the first place. This is where they made it legal to wiretap, well, everything. They SPECIFICALLY included internet communication, so that the long-running NSA email-reading program is now legal, and can therefore be publicized without real cost to them.



I'm getting tired of the monkey games by Congress. These assholes VOTED FOR THIS LAW. Not once, but several times. Wanna see?



Vote #1 was the original USA-PATRIOT Act itself.

Vote #2. Vote #3.

See what I mean?

Go to the Library of Congress website and search "Popular Titles" for "Patriot." Ignore any further political "we didn't knooooow" posturing, and write to your Representative, and your Senator. Tell them that searching the phone records of millions of Americans is totally against our Constitutional protections under the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure, and the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination.



Tell them to knock it off.



And always remember what the Roman statesman, Marcus Tullius Cicero, said, in the first century B. C. - yeah, that long ago -

Remember, above all things, that never was a government but that was a liar, a thief, and a malefactor.

I think he pretty much nailed it, don't you?



No poll today; I'm pretty much just pissed off.

Violent Vengeance Violating Vagaries Valiantly - It Must Be V For Vendetta!

At IMDB.com!

The futuristic tale unfolds in a Great Britain that's a fascist state. A freedom fighter known as V (Weaving) uses terrorist tactics to fight the oppressive society. He rescues a young woman (Portman) from the secret police, and she becomes his unlikely ally.

Here's some background on V For Vendetta.

Originally, it was a comic book, or more properly, serial graphic novel, by Alan Moore, who also wrote From Hell, The Watchmen, and The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Before you vomit, remember that Alan Moore himself has disavowed every film version of his work. DC Comics owns the rights to his work, and can therefore make movies if they want, but the movie versions have pretty universally been crap. Although I personally enjoyed From Hell as a movie, it was a TERRIBLE adaptation of Moore's work.

Now, V For Vendetta I will give one thing: it TRIED harder than the others did to be a good film version of Moore's graphic novels; it failed only by virtue of the fact that the Wachowski Brothers, the EXCELLENT gentlemen who made Matrix: Reloaded and Matrix: Revolutions, didn't understand the point of the exercise.

See, in Moore's graphic novels, the point is the resistance to the oppression of an ever-increasingly totalitarian government. In the movie, the filmmakers aren't sure if they want you to feel that, or if they want to blame the Iraq war and President Bush for the totalitarian nightmare of the future. They certainly try to muddy the issue by using "news" broadcasts to describe the situation - saying that the reason the world is all fucked up is because the U. S. "bit off more than they could chew." The fact that anyone living in that society would know that, and therefore not need the handholding of the news broadcasts to remember it, seems to have escaped the Wachowskis; the ham-handedness with which they ladle blame on America diverts attention from the anti-totalitarian nature of the story.

It also suffers from the fact that they dulled-down the villains so they'd be more acceptable. In Moore's novels, the villains were completely reprehensible in every way; the only reason they were tolerated by society was because the citizens didn't know how to resist, and didn't know that they COULD. Enter "V," a masked rebel who promises to overthrow the government, and suddenly society's vague but powerful resentment of the ruling elite has a crystallizing leader to follow.

Not so in the movie. V appears, makes vague pronouncements about freedom being better than secret police and totalitarianism - which, you'd think, wouldn't be necessary - anyone knows they are - but then rescues Evey (Natalie Portman) from a squad of the government's "fingermen," who were planning to do unfortunate things to her for curfew violations. He murders a mouthpiece of the regime, after which takes place the best scene in the film.

The government, of course not wanting to admit that there are terrorists, announces that the man in question died of natural causes; Evey, watching the news, realizes that the anchor herself knows the story is a lie, because she gets shifty-eyed.

That was a dig at the media, and their collusion with a particular ideology that I'm actually surprised made it past the Wachowskis; since the media can at best be described as "hostile" to the right, seeing the anchors willingly colluding with the group in power, despite knowing the falsity of the news reports and the differing ideologies, makes the media look very bad indeed, and most filmmakers these days choose to portray the media and its members as heroic crusaders for truth, despite the total, obvious falsity of such an image.

The movie quickly bogs down because the Wachowskis cannot understand that illogical, unrealistic things are jarring to suspension of disbelief, unless given a context; we didn't object to the insane stunts in The Matrix because we were told from the beginning that it was not reality; we therefore didn't expect it to conform to reality's laws. However, V for Vendetta is set, at least partly, in reality; we are expected by the premise to see the world of V for Vendetta as something that might arise from our own reality, if certain decisions are made, or not made; yet things happen in this movie that are impossible to believe unless they are in the Matrix. Maybe the Wachowskis didn't understand that this is not another sequel, and that it's time to move on.

Sadly, unlike the graphic novels, there is no real underlying ideology behind V For Vendetta, other than that the government is bad; well, ok, but what are you planning to replace it with? No mention is made of any plan to replace the government with something more friendly to the citizens; V's only priority seems to be destruction, which is totally counter to his character in the graphic novels. Obviously, if you haven't read the graphic novels, you won't realize that this wasn't the original intent, but you will nonetheless feel the inner soullessness of this movie; it's unavoidable, as they have characters behave in ways that humans simply don't behave, just to gain a plot point.

At one point, V does something so hideous to Evey that you are left with the feeling that everything that follows in the plot is impossible; those events could have been unfolded in a different way, and they might have worked, but as the film shows them, not a chance. And V's final pronouncement to Evey at the end of the movie betrays his character in a way irreparable by the inevitable Director's Cut; it changes the fundamental motivations of the character in a way so counter to his original intent that, for me, it ruined the movie.

The original graphic novels are a wonderful reading experience; that cannot be said for the movie. Don't buy this. If you just HAVE to, rent it, but be prepared for anti-American propaganda, plot silliness, superhuman powers in the hands of those not superhuman, without explanation; and last, but not least, a total lack of moral understanding on the part of the filmmakers.

You don't need morals to make most movies; but when making a movie about morality, politics, and the moral responsibilities of the citizens, it helps if you have some. Just a thought. Hey! Wachowskis! Stop making movies and go back to film school, because you suck.

Luckiest Mofo, Ever

So there's this guy in Albuquerque, New Mexico, named Larry Trujillo.



He likes his local AAA baseball team, the Albuquerque Isotopes.



He likes them a lot, as a matter of fact - last year, they gave him a brand new Nissan Xterra.



See, he went to a game, and signed up for a random drawing at the park. He won the drawing - about 60 people entered - and what he won was a guarantee that he would get a car if a particular player hit a grand slam home run in a particular inning.



Now, that's a good deal for the company sponsoring the contest, because the likelihood of that actually happening approaches the likelihood of life spontaneously forming on the primordial earth by a good bit.



To give you an idea: the odds of winning the drawing were 60:1. that gave him a chance at an inning - 9:1, a player - 18:1 (two teams of nine players,) and a particular play. To get the likelihood of the grand slam - very loosely - here we go.



162 games in the regular season, times 9 innings, is 1458 innings. Each inning features an average of about 10 at bats, so 14580. That means on any particular play, a base hit is about 3:1, depending on the batter and pitcher's relative skills. Now, for a grand slam to take place, that 3:1 has to happen 3 times, and THEN the homer has to be hit. Last year, out of an approximate 14580 at-bats, MLB recorded 132 grand slams, or 110.45:1 against.





Which means that when Mr. Trujillo got his car, he had a 1 in 60 chance of having a 1 in 9 chance of having a 1 in 18 chance of having a 1 in 110 chance of getting it, or a 0.000000093 percent chance of his getting it. Looked at another way, the odds of him getting the car last year were 1069200:1 against.



So this year, when he drove his year-old Nissan to the game and won a brand-new Ford Escape, he was a bit surprised.



This might be because the odds against doing it twice are a million to one against having a million to one chance, or 1,000,000,000,000:1 against.  More accurately,  1,143,188,640,000:1 against. That's trillions, dude. Luckiest mofo, ever.



Wanna pick my lotto numbers, Mr. Trujillo?





[*Edited to add: none of this takes into account the likelihood of him winning in CONSECUTIVE YEARS, which was somewhat less likely than apes evolving into humans.]

Just So You Guys Know...

...The original, unaltered, Han Solo-shot-first-you-dimwit version of the Star Wars Trilogy will be released on DVD September 12th. You'd better get it while it's hot, though; they'll stop selling it December 31st.



The release will contain both the original, classic versions and the new, fucked-up versions of each movie, in 3 2-disc sets. Hopefully they will be, as ComingSoon.net promises, "reasonably priced," but somehow I doubt it.



That is all.

Hey, I wonder If PennDOT Makes This Mistake...

...because I can think of a helluva lot worse things to put on an unlocked construction sign than "Klaatu Barada Nikto."



I'm just saying. However, that's funny enough, and when complicated by a "UFO Crossing" sign, Comedy Gold.™



Yeah, basically, these signs are often left - I know where one is right now, as a matter of fact - and apparently they're often left unsecured. I may go take a look at our local one. 

...And Our Lead Story...

You Know How I Always Say The Media Lies?

To reach this audience—and to add a veneer of credibility to clients' messages—the public relations industry uses video news releases (VNRs). VNRs are pre-packaged "news" segments and additional footage created by broadcast PR firms, or by publicists within corporations or government agencies. VNRs are designed to be seamlessly integrated into newscasts, and are freely provided to TV stations. Although the accompanying information sent to TV stations identifies the clients behind the VNRs, nothing in the material for broadcast does. Without strong disclosure requirements and the attention and action of TV station personnel, viewers cannot know when the news segment they're watching was bought and paid for by the very subjects of that "report."

Yeah, that means what you think it does. GM gets tired of talking about how they're tottering ever closer to bankruptcy, so rather than try to fix things, they have their PR department cook up a "news" segment, bought and paid for by GM, which of course paints them in a very forgiving light indeed. Then, they hand it out to "news" stations, which have been playing them on air, within their regular news broadcasts, without telling you, or even having the decency to admit that they were paid for by their subjects.
Nice to know that the media's got honesty on the brain, hmmmm?

Well, at least you have me to give you the real deal.

You wanna know who my corporate favorites are? The CEO and co-founders of Google, and the CEO of Delphi Automotive. Each of them is making a salary of - wait for it - $1 per year.

Yeah, I said a dollar. At least they're TRYING to save their companies money. They know the stock shares that they get are where the real money is anyway, and they know better than to drain their companies' liquid cash by taking salaries like... oh, I don't know, maybe Lee Raymond of ExxonMobil? He makes $144,000 a day. Read that again. That's $1.67 a second, folks. Holy hell. No wonder we're paying through the nose at the pump, hmmm?

In a totally unrelated note: what's scary about this page right here is that I not only remember those games: I actually HAD an Atari 5200, and furthermore can probably still find my cartridges for most of those games, if I were to really dig through my closet. Boy, have games come a long way, or what?

Falling into the "Click this link before it's gone" category, someone is selling a Titan-1 ICBM missile silo and launch base on eBay for $750,000. Now, you, too can become a nuclear power! Woohooo! Join the arms race like never before!

I'm sure someone will think to ask the question that immediately popped into my mind on seeing this article: "What can possibly go wrong?"

Just so you guys know, there was a really, really friggin' huge earthquake in Tonga today. (Just like most people, I scratched my head and said "WTF is Tonga?!?" Thankfully, there's Google Maps.) FYI, Tonga is barely 20 miles long, and is southeast of Fiji. What's really cool about it is that when the earthquake - more properly, seaquake, got started, alarms went off in places as distant as Alaska, but nobody bothered to call tiny little Tonga and say "Hey, dude, you're about to have a really freakin' bad day..."

Hey, if you happen to be the guy who tried to abduct 13-year-old Brendan Nichol from his school in Midvale, Utah Tuesday morning, the police want to talk to you. They know who you are; you've been the only person in the whole town walking around with a broken-off pencil embedded in your face. That oughta teach you to try to get 'em a bit younger next time, guy. If a 50 pound dog can kick your ass, a kid who's 5'5" might have a chance, you know? Just saying.

Just so you guys know, stupid is not a solely American pastime. That's right: Stupid has gone international. The Proof?™ I bring you this Malaysian housewife, who claims an exorcist "fooled" her into having sex with him 51 times in order to exorcise the evil spirits infesting her. The best part? He charged her for it.

Oh, the sweet, sweet irony: the Filipino judge who claimed imaginary mystic dwarves helped him see the future failed to foresee the Phillippine Supreme Court disbarring his ass and removing him from the bench for being a psycho. Maybe rather than concentrating on the prognostications of vertically-challenged faith-based imaginary friends, he should have been trying to do his job. Just a thought.

Now for an unexpected pleasure: two people in the public service sector who are as outspoken as I am. Sadly, they're in Ireland. See, for some reason, Irish truck drivers don't seem to be able to grasp that the height signs on bridges aren't kidding. One particular bridge has been hit 70 times in the last five years. That's an awful lot of taxpayer cash going to road repair, which is probably why rail spokesman Barry Kenny, and Jeremy Quinn of the Irish Road Haulers' Association sound so pissed off:

Irish rail spokesman Barry Kenny expressed frustration after the most recent bridge-slamming in Dublin.

"It's gross stupidity not being aware of the height of the bridge," he said. "Another bridge that is regularly struck is 10-feet-6-inches. It's absolutely insane that somebody could be stupid enough to hit that bridge."

Jimmy Quinn of the Irish Road Haulers' Association agrees.

"Anybody who's driving round in a vehicle and doesn't know its height is stupid," said Quinn. "That's a bald fact and only an idiot would try to defend that."

And finally, proving once and for all that sarcasm can be a deadly weapon all by its little self, comes the clerk of the Open Pantry convenience store in Burlington, Wisconsin. See, a gentleman by the name of Billy W. Babe walked into the store about 4 AM April 21st, and told the clerk he was there to rob the store. Hilarity ensued.

Unwilling to believe Babe – who was not brandishing any kind of weapon at that point – the clerk retorted, “I want a raise.”
Frustrated by that response and his apparent lack of credibility with the clerk, Babe continued to tell her three or four times that he wanted the cash, twice adding “I’m
serious.”
After continuing to tell him what his purchase totaled and Babe repeating he wanted the cash, police say the clerk eventually walked away to call police – at which point
Babe fled in his truck at a high rate of speed.

The excellent gentleman in question was later apprehended after robbing a different, apparently sarcasm-challenged convenience store later that same day.

Thank goodness it's not just us; apparently no nation is sacred. It's entertaining, every once in a while, to sit back and see the waves of stupid coming from other places than Washington.

Someone, As Usual, Is Missing The Point.

...And as Billbear pointed out, it's the illegal immigrants.



See, immigrating to the US is great, and we all wish you'd do more of it. But there are RULES, you see. LAWS governing the manner in which you may do so, and when you break those laws, you are a criminal.



A criminal, you see, is someone who breaks the laws of the society in which they find themselves. The government, in passing more stringent regulations for immigration, and more severe penalties for illegals, is not "criminalizing"  illegal immigrants - they are already criminals - but merely changing the fashion in which those laws are to be enforced.



Theodore Roosevelt talked about immigration quite extensively throughout his later life. There is a fairly well-known speech of his about the topic, often emailed as spam, with the misattribution declaring that he said it when he was President, which is in fact not true; it was from a letter he wrote 3 days before his death in 1919. However, it's still true, so without further ado:

In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

Now, I can understand simple things.

I grit my teeth when I see someone, here, flying the El Salvadorean flag; you're not IN El Salvador, there, bud, and expecting you to act as though you wish to be a part of this society does not diminish your cultural heritage. Neither does expecting you to learn the lingo; I guarantee that if you move to Mexico, they will expect you to learn Spanish, and there aren't any foreign-language citizenship applications in Mexico.

But none of that approaches the sheer effrontery of "Nuestro Himno," the illegals' marching song - the United States' national anthem, translated into Spanish, with additional lyrics urging their people to "break the chains." This is an insult to OUR cultural heritage. We have one, you know - it's why you want to immigrate to the US in the first place.



But let's be logical for a minute, hmmmm? I know it's a bit of a challenge for some, but give it a try.



The US is not like Mexico. It's not like Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Peru, Ecuador, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Colombia, or Panama; the US is pretty much unique.



It's also the biggest economy in the world.

The two are not separate things; the factors that make the US unique are the same ones that make it the biggest economy in the world.



Which is why anyone from a poor country wants to come here - not because they like us, because by and large, they don't, but because they want the money.



Fine.



The problem is, if you come here from somewhere else, and refuse to assimilate into our culture, you will wind up with exactly the same conditions as pertain in the huge majority of the poor countries of the world today: warring tribes, squabbling like dogs over a scrap.



In other words: come here from Mexico, refuse to learn English, demand that our government perform to your standards, require services that most of our citizens don't qualify for, and refuse to support the existing culture, and if you succeed, the US becomes Mexico, part II.



Then we can all be poor together, and won't that be nifty?



Instead, we should deport the illegals, and make a serious, concerted effort to keep them out, rather than the half-assed nod in that direction for political capital we have today. Make the process of attaining citizenship simpler, but with firm requirements of English language use, both written and verbal; a "good faith" period in which you must remain employed, or face visa revocation; and tolerance for others equal to their tolerance for you, by which I mean - we require a common tongue in order to form a society. That doesn't mean I hate Spanish, but English is the lingua franca of THIS society. We have a flag. We have a national anthem. Accepting these things as part and parcel of your new life as a US citizen does not in any way denigrate your heritage; but you must be an American, or not. There should not be any hyphens, because hyphens imply in their nature a separation between two things.



In other words, if you're calling yourself a Mexican-American, then first you're saying you're not an American at all, and second, you're a segregationist, and we all know how well that worked out last time, don't we?

There's A Good Reason...

That you don't invite someone like Stephen Colbert to speak at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.



Yeah, they did. And ooooooo, it was bad.



Anyway, rather than spoil the fun, here's the video of the whole affair, and here's a transcript in case you miss any of his 7,000 or so jokes.



Reportedly The Prez wasn't very happy with some of his comments. I hate to say this, Boss Man, but if you're not familiar with his kinda humor, WTF did you invite him? Stephen Colbert is a tiny bit sarcastic. Just a little.



I will conclude with a quote, just to give you a taste.

I feel like I'm dreaming. Somebody pinch me. You know what? I'm a pretty sound sleeper -- that may not be enough. Somebody shoot me in the face. Is he really not here tonight? Dammit. The one guy who could have helped.