Evidence for the prosecution

(April 18, 2008) As part of its abuse and neglect case, my blog offered up this pointless morsel into evidence. It has allegedly been sitting as a draft since it was first written and then apparently abandoned in late 2006. Lawyers for the lazy could not be bothered to comment.
Since the NYT link won't really work anymore, let me clarify; I have no idea anymore what the article was about. The Ann Coulter bit is always amusing, though.
Well, if Bush says so, what kind of fools would we be to listen to the professionals?
Ann Coulter has a tantrum

Psychic, I tell ya

Wow, me and the New York Times (you know, the liberal rag that's the voice of the evil Jews and homosexuals), we're like this. I know you couldn't see that, but my fingers were entwined, symbolizing our union in bacchanalian homage to Satan, in whose service we are determined to ruin your family by not being like you. My chaotic rant the other day about language and what have you must have inspired them (the NYT, that is), because on the very same day they published an article about "Bucking the English-only Mentality" in education. Keep in mind that I'm in Japan, so my September 24th is 12 hours or so ahead of theirs, so no I didn't read it - and still can't. They've reached some higher level of evil, probably at least level 16, while I'm a mere level 5, so I'm not allowed to read the article unless I actually pay for Times Select. If anyone has the text I'd much appreciate it. (Can you imagine the nerve in the age of the internet, to demand that people actually give money for something besides their connection? That's evil squared.)

Another interesting article I admit I haven't had time to fully read, but looks very good, is this one from 1993 (ok, i know it's pretty old) about alcohol consumption maybe not being a bad thing in moderation. I'll see the authors of that in Hell while we're being violated in every orifice and then some by demons on "Takin' Care of Liberals" duty. The article refers to another NYT article about a couple who lost their restaurant in Red country (NC) because they put wine on the menu, and their righteous asinine Christian customership dried up because how dare that be a choice.

Oh yeah, and another in the DUH category: the Iraq war increased the real threat of terrorism. Directly. Cause and effect. This one's gonna need a lot of spin, like in one of those high G-force simulators fighter pilots and astronauts use, whipping out the old Gravitron won't do it this time.

That's all. The post stops here.

Well, gee, Cletus, ya think?

Wow. Oops. I just realized this post is a bit outdated. I started it a few days ago and didn't have time to finish it, and you know how the hours just fly by when you're playing with your belly button lint or whatever the hell I was doing. So here it is days late and getting stale, but I gotta feed this monkey! So I'm posting it anyway.

The Senate Intelligence Committee (no, it's not a search for some or an oxymoron) yesterday released last year's report by the CIA about Hussein-Al Qaeda ties. More specifically, the complete lack of them. About the only surprise in the report is that the Republican-controlled committee let the word out. Sure, the real thing came out last year, but better late than never, right? At least it was in time for the elections. It just might have been a threat to National Security to tell the mothers of 3,000 dead soldiers that their children died not to spread democracy or fight terrorism, but for oil. On the other hand, I have heard of a documentary about the soldiers in Iraq (I can't find it now) where one of them says "I sure hope we're here for oil" or something to that effect. Oh goody. This is the kind of stuff Ann Coulter skims off the top of her fetid little pond of a mind. (My all-time favorite by her is, "I'm a Christian first and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don't you ever forget it." But it is a very hard choice; there is a lot of really premium, choice idiocy among her nosenuggets of wisdom. One more: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war." Delightful lady, isn't she?)

As recently as Aug. 21, President Bush said at a news conference that Mr. Hussein “had relations with Zarqawi.’’ But a C.I.A. report completed in October 2005 concluded instead that Mr. Hussein’s government “did not have a relationship, harbor or even turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates,” according to the new Senate findings.

The C.I.A. report also contradicted claims made in February 2003 by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who mentioned Mr. Zarqawi no fewer than 20 times during a speech to the United Nations Security Council that made the administration’s case for going to war. In that speech, Mr. Powell said that Iraq “today harbors a deadly terrorist network’’ headed by Mr. Zarqawi, and dismissed as “not credible’’ assertions by the Iraqi government that it had no knowledge of Mr. Zarqawi’s whereabouts.

Well, color me surprised...

I looked at my good friend Youtube's belly button lint for a while and came up with these:

MC Bush on The Daily Show
A trippy effects video with real quotations
Don't worry when you see the title of this one
George Bush: Mistaken

And last, here's another article similar to the one mentioned in the previous post about the spread of Western lifestyle and eating habits creating problems for people around the world.

Thanks for reading.

In my own little corner

Since I live in japan, it's always a treat when I find English reading outside of the internet, especially when it's not the spin-it-till-it-pukes swill that Fox et al pump out. So when I found a good, lucid article about the problems of a growing population - not in numbers, but in literal size, I just had to come back to the net and create a link so that I can find it again. (Added 09/12:) Here's my favorite bit:

Technology has changed everything but us. We evolved to survive scarcity. We crave fat. We're quick to gain weight and slow to lose it. Double what you serve us; we'll double what we eat. Thanks to technology, the deprivation that made these traits useful is gone. So is the link between flavors and nutrients. The food industry can sell you sweetness without fruit, salt without protein, creaminess without milk. We can fatten and starve you at the same time.

Please have a look for yourself, but be careful not to be branded Anti-American (thanks Kris!) just because you like to hear ideas once in a while.

Also, please be patient with me while I bring the last trinkets from the old site over.

Finally, a solution!

You know, a lot of good things have come out of Switzerland: knives, watches, Einstein's famous e=thingy, Cyndi Lauper's ancestors. The Swiss invented light, and just look how handy that turned out to be.

Yes, they're an innovative and hardworking bunch of folks, and recently Canada had the benefit of one of Switzerland's pioneer thinkers turn his attention to our highway woes. Specifically, speeding. During a brief roadside interview last Sunday, he took a few moments of his tremendously valuable time and disclosed the seeds of a potential solution to an undisclosed OPP officer. So Canada, what are you waiting for? Send in the goats!

Go ahead, make my... order a double

(Original post and comments here.)

You know how it is. You want extra butter? Dark meat, anyone? Gravy on your salad? They deep-fry the fries here in a vat of cheese and top them with crisp chicken skin, want some? Well, according to this guy, or at least the doctor who autopsied him, go ahead. The 5'7", 140-lb last surviving WW1 vet in California died at 112, with the organs of a 50 or 60 year old, even though his diet consisted "largely of sausages and waffles." The same doctor went on to say, “A lot of people think or imagine that your good habits and bad habits contribute to your longevity. But we often find it is in the genes rather than lifestyle.” (Click the title for the article these quotations came from.)

I think that's just misleading. I'm no doctor, but I think it's a fair guess to say the vast majority of people don't have the genes to live a long life with a crappy diet and bad habits, and the burden on our economy and health care systems is on my side in this one, I think. (The Canadian site, not as good, is here.) It's absurd and harmful for a doctor to say crap like this without clarifying himself, and it's the kind of thing that hardens tobacco lobbyists' nipples. This is the crap they seize on, despite years of science, common knowledge, and a pretty good recent US federal court ruling against tobacco companies. I know there's no mention in the first article of the "supercentenarian" being a smoker, but I've already talked about obesity above and in a previous post, and even though some of the comments there made it clear that some people didn't realize I was kidding in that one, I'm gonna lay off. In any case, smoking definitely deserves a serious mention here as a huge risk factor and cause of grief for millions of people.

I'm becoming a grumpy old fart. Ah well, whatcha gonna do? To lighten the mood, here's a photo of a toilet.

Teehee, it's a toilet!

Aha, but not just any toilet. Note the sticker on the underside of the lid. Can't read it? Try this one(click for a larger version):

Instructions!

See, some very rural people or older folks in Japan who still aren't used to western toilets don't quite get the idea. Once in a while you can still walk into a public bathroom and find footprints on the seat, facing the back. So they include instructions, and pretty detailed ones at that. Meticulous folks, the Japanese.

6 Minutes of Awesome

(Original post and comments here.)

Click the title, take 6 minutes out of your day, and enjoy. This should be the most linked to video on the net for the next few days. Absolutely brilliant. I just hope a few americans see it before they head to the polls.

Bated Breath

(Original post and comments here.)

Click the title for an article in the NY times. I'm just fascinated wondering how Bush will sneak out of his main objection. Should be a classic bit of backpedaling.

In other news, the fuji story is finally up on my webpage and monstrously huge, still working on trimming it down so's it wont be an obscenely long blog entry, but it's taken way too long to get this far, so I'll put it up on my site for now. Here's one other linkto tide you over.