No More Mr. Nice Guy!

No more No More Mr. Nice Guy!

My web hosting service contract is expiring soon. I've decided not to renew it and let this blog go dark.

It isn't because I think all our problems have been solved now that Barack Obama is president. On the contrary, our problems get more severe every day as the fallout from eight years of corrupt, cronyist, incompetent and mouth-foamingly insane misrule by the criminal, treasonous rethug junta comes home to roost. And the rethugs who created the current financial meltdown are determined to prolong and exacerbate it for petty partisan reasons. (And one of the few sane politicians in Arizona, Janet Napolitano, has gone to Washington.) The next few years are going to be very rough indeed.

The reason I'm quitting blogging is that firstly I never have time any more, and secondly, I feel like I just keep repeating myself and have nothing new to say. If you're a regular reader you've probably noticed that this blog gets updated less and less frequently.

I've had fun with this blog over the last few years, met some interesting people, learned a lot about web development, and benefited from having a place to vent at the insanity of America's lost decade. But all good things come to an end. I just hope I've managed to entertain you along the way.

So long, folks, it's been real.

Republicans: get out of the way

The infinite hypocrisy and dishonesty of the rethugs never ceases to amaze me. They created a financial clustercheney, they block Obama and the Democrats from doing anything about it, they slap him in the face when he seeks the other party's input (something the Decider-Guy-Chimp-in-Chief would never dream of doing), and when he finally loses patience and decides that something has to be done whether the rethugs are on board or not, they attack him for allegedly breaking his campaign promise to be bipartisan. Hey, it takes two to bi-party, A-holes!

There's an old bumper sticker, "lead, follow or get out of the way". The rethuglicans "led" for eight years and the result of their infinite greed, corruption and incompetence is the financial meltdown we are in today.

They've shown that they're not willing to follow, and are concerned only with playing petty partisan games while the grown-ups try to clean up the mess they've created. So the only thing left for them to do is get out of the way.

The rethuglican party is bankrupt - politically bankrupt, intellectually bankrupt (I mean, Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber? Seriously?) and most of all morally bankrupt. And they have left the country financially bankrupt. It's time for them to shut the hell up, crawl back under their rocks and let the grown-ups sort out their mess.

That's rich!

The right-wing mainstream media is full of pissing and moaning about the dire consequences of the proposed "draconian" half-million-dollar cap on executive salaries that is being tied to government bailouts, and the "wrenching changes" that lie in store for Wall Street. Cry me a river, Gordon Gecko!

The argument that obscene salaries and bonuses are needed to attract and retain "top talent" is so bogus. First of all, if these bloated plutocrats can't manage to make ends meet on half a million a year, what the hell are they doing managing our money?

Secondly, no survey of executive compensation has ever found any positive correlation between pay and performance. And does anyone really believe for a minute that the CEO of the average company is 500 times more productive than the rank and file workers - the people who are actually creating the wealth?

Let's face it, the most overpaid execs are not being rewarded for their ability, but for arrogance and hubris. We live in a culture in which being rich confers alpha male status, and must be rewarded with more and more riches.

The "greed is good" mentality has always been with us, but its embrace by the George Bush Junior misadministration has done incredible damage to the country in the last eight years and left us in the precarious situation we're in today. The rethugs and their Wall Street cronies should just shut the hell up. (Besides, their well paid lawyers will soon find plenty of loopholes to maintain the status quo.) Us "lucky duckies" whose standard of living has declined steadily over the last eight years are sick of whiny conservatives!

Stupid politician tricks

It's the same old story in Washington. What starts off as a good, even an urgently needed idea, gets loaded down with pork, earmarks and provisions that are stuck in purely for the sake of showboating. The Dems are just as bad as the Repubs.

The latest gimmick being clumsily bolted on to President Obama's stimulus package is a move against companies that hire H1-B workers. It's what you'd expect of something cobbled together by a Vermont socialist and an Iowa Republican, and is being sold with standard rhetoric about "putting American workers first".

Here's a dose of reality from someone who's been on the front line. During the dot-com boom I was working in Silicon Valley and frequently had to interview job candidates. I invariably found that only the foreign-born workers - usually Asian - had the skills we were looking for. We needed people who were expert in Java, XML, CORBA, SONET, Tcl, Expect and so on, and the US-born candidates were offering COBOL and mainframe experience. It seems that US workers who bitch and moan about Asians taking away "their" jobs don't feel any responsibility to keep their skill sets current.

That's the thing about H1-B workers - they aren't "doing jobs Americans won't do", they're doing jobs Americans can't do! When the economy was going gangbusters, H1-B workers actually created jobs for US workers by creating innovative products and services.

Of course it's a vastly different economic climate now, thanks to eight years of Republican corruption, incompetence and blinkered ideology. But the world continues to grow more interconnected and interdependent every day, and knee-jerk calls to "buy American" or "hire American" are at odds with reality. We're all in this together, and the US, having plunged the world into a depression, can't simply raise the drawbridge and say, "let them eat cake."

If we are to pull out of this hole, then we need to have the world's finest minds working for us. This half-assed bill is a typical Washington exercise in not only scapegoating the politically powerless H1-B workers, but in cutting off the USA's nose to spite its face.

Dick Cheney rejects Jesus!

The rethugs still have nothing to offer but fear itself.

"When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry," Cheney said.

Protecting the country's security is "a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business," he said. "These are evil people. And we're not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek."

Oh, why don't you have a heart attack and die, you miserable old bastard.

Get on the bus!

In case you haven't heard about the Atheist Bus campaign in Britain, here's a good summary. And here are a couple of ad campaigns I'd like to see:

For Islamic extremists: And for our domestic religious terrorists, including Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh etc. etc:

Fiddling while the economy burns

The rethugs spent eight years creating the current economic meltdown with their greed, corrupt, incompetence, cronyism and blinkered ideology. Now that they no longer wield a monopoly on power, they are determined to screw the grown-ups who have to clean up their mess.

Taking their marching orders from some drug-addled hate-mongering gasbag, the rethugs are marching in lockstep to defeat President Obama's stimulus package for petty partisan gain. In other words they are playing politics with your job and your children's future.

The 'thugs are like dogs in a manager. If they can't have absolute power, they want to make sure no-one else can get anything useful done. Every time I think my disgust at them couldn't get any lower, they plunge to new depths of sickening, sleazy and cynical behavior.

Sick and sicker

While extreme-righters huff and puff that "America has the best health care system in the world", and that any attempt to make health care affordable for working people is socialism, communism and satanism rolled into one, here's the reality. Thousands of people driving hundreds of miles and waiting for hours in freezing temperatures to appeal for help from a third world charity. A woman living in a tent while receiving chemotherapy, because she couldn't afford rent. Millions of people falling into poverty while the richest 1% grow explosively richer, and mega-corporations spend vast amounts of money to sabotage any possibility of healthcare reform.

This BBC report is the kind of thing you will never see on our corporatist "liberal media". Watch it, and pass it on to everyone you know.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

They stab it with their Steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast...

Is it just me, or is there a hint of desperation and me-tooism about the rethugs' choice of a black man for RNC chairman? I guess even the densest gooper realized that it would be a PR nightmare to elect the closest contender, a southern conservative who had until recently been a member of an all-white country club.

Michael Steele is the kind of token African-American that the GOP is somehow always able to wheel out on demand, but there is no way he represents a genuine change of direction for the party. I don't want to call him an oreo, but he has the Republican language of resentment and anti-intellectualism down pat, and the "my way or no way" arrogance and hubris ("get ready to be knocked over") that comes instinctively to the rethugs. He is a consumate Washington insider with no understanding of the lives of most African-Americans.

Just like picking Sarah Palin for president-in-waiting was a desperate gimmick which backfired badly, so is the choice of Steele. It will make no difference to the long overdue and well deserved downward spiral of the GOP into political oblivion.

The audacity of hate

Every day the Republican party gives a new signal that it wants to fight the Clinton-era wars all over again. Barack Obama has bent over backwards to solicit their input on the economic stimulus bill, and grant them the concessions they demanded (tax breaks for the wealthy, of course), and they still vote unanimously against it, playing petty and juvenile party politics when our economic survival is at stake. (Needless to say, the "liberal media" is depicting this as Obama's failure.)

The rethugs have made it plain that they will take their marching orders from the loathsome tub of guts known as Rush Limbaugh, rather than the voters they are sworn to serve. One congressman even went so far as to grovel to Limpballs on his program, after making a perfectly sane and uncontroversial statement. Tub o'Guts, who saturated the airwaves with the racist song "Barack the Magic Negro" before the election, has now laid out his agenda: he wants President Obama to fail. And the 'thugs are scurrying to do his bidding.

What this means is that this festering pile of feces, who makes a million dollars a week, wants you to fail. He wants you to lose your job, if you still have one. If you still have a roof over your head, he wants you sleeping in the gutter. If you still have access to health care, he wants to take it away.

Lush Limpballs, the pustulent pile of puke, is the visible symbol of everything that is repulsive and despicable about the extreme right. This drug-addled gasbag is their greed, their hatred, their corruption and foulness made flesh.

Ever since the demise of the Fairness Doctrine, Tush Lardbutt has been spewing his toxic hatred all over the airwaves and polluting the political process in this country. My only hope is that enough people will finally see that he has gone too far. At a time when the country faces the worst depression and the most serious challenges in decades, more and more people are realizing that Lardbutt is not simply another penny-a-dozen hate-mongering bloviator, he is the de facto leader of the rethug underground, the contras who want to destroy Barack Obama's presidency by any means necessary. With any luck, Tub o'Guts will be marginalized, preaching only to the choir of lunatic extreme-right haters, and the rethugs will follow him sheep-like into political Siberia.

Best of all would be if Limpballs finally exploded, like that guy in Monty Python's Meaning of Life. We couldn't afford him even during the peace, prosperity and stability of the Clinton years, and we can afford him even less now as the Bush Depression continues to spiral downwards. Hmmm, maybe someone will mistake Lardbutt for a dead beached whale and shove a stick of dynamite up his ass...

Was it just a dream?

Oh my god, the last few weeks didn't really happen - Barack Obama wasn't elected, and a corrupt criminal rethug is still in the White House. That's the reaction I had when I saw this headline: Text of Nixon's State of the State address. Fortunately, it's about a different Nixon, the Democratic governor of Missouri. Whew!

Pardon me?

What most astonishes me about the end of the neonazi-con era is that George Bush Junior didn't issue a flurry of pardons to himself, Darth Cheney, and everyone else in his corrupt criminal administration who participated in torture, warrentless mass spying on US citizens, lying about WMD's, betraying a covert CIA agent, political purges at the Department of Justice, and many other high crimes and felonies.

No doubt he's counting on the Democrats to be pathetically grateful for some gesture, and respond by caving in and giving away the farm. That's been their standard operating procedure in the past, in the naive hope that it will win them goodwill from the Republicans and inspire the latter to act responsibly and do the right thing. Needless to say it's always come back to bite them.

The consensus among senior Democratic figures seems to be that we should let bygones be bygones, focus on the future, move on, and what not. But while it's all very well and noble to say, "the US will never again use torture and rendition as official policy", this is nothing but a pious aspiration unless it is backed up by accountability for those who tortured in the recent past. Otherwise the minute the extreme right regains power, they will start up the torture gulags all over again.

For all the moaning and wailing about the partisan nature of politics over the last few years, the problem with the Democrats has been that they weren't partisan enough. They made a virtue of cowardice, and elevated compromise (read: capitulation) into a core principle. Even after regaining a majority in Congress in 2006, they let the rethugs stay in control. When a majority of voters gave them a clear mandate to stand up to the abuses and excess of the Junior Junta, they instead timidly sought "middle ground" by surrendering to the Clown Prince's every demand and asking nothing in return.

The voters have given the Democrats one more chance, and they have to use it. They have to demand a full investigation into the treasonous behavior of the previous administration, and let the chips fall where they may.

Obviously it's too late to impeach Bush now, but it's not too late to hold him and his puppetmasters accountable. We the people, and the United States Constitution, determine what is on or off the table - not Nancy Pelosi or any other politician. It's not about revenge - it's about accountability and the rule of law. Remember, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it!

Let's roll

I know I've been "off the air" quite a bit during the past few historic days. No deep political significance, just my insane work schedule. The project I'm working on has become another death march, and the search for scapegoats has already begun. That's the trouble with being a software contractor, you are always at the bottom of the totem pole.

Anyway, my primary response to Barack Obama's inauguration is one of relief. Frankly, I wondered if I'd ever see the day when anyone who wasn't a far-right christofascist extremist hand-picked by the neonazi-cons, let alone a black man, would occupy the White House.

George Bush Junior won - to the extent that he won fair and square - by appealing to all that is worst in America. Ignorance, backwardness, anti-intellectualism, mindless religiosity and reactionism were what propelled this empty-suit figurehead into the world's most powerful position.

Barack Obama could not be more different from Junior. He is a man of substance, education and intelligence, and most of all he gives every indication that he genuinely wants to serve all the people, not cater to the wealthiest 1% by screwing everyone else. He knows that the real world is much more complicated than "good guys" and "evildurrs", that might does not make right, and that empty soundbites are no substitute for hard work and competence. It goes a long way to restoring my faith in the US public that they would elect such a man.

And yet I can't help thinking of the old saying, "if voting could change the system, it wouldn't be legal." The US corporatist elite has enormous power to co-opt and neutralize any threat that it can't destroy outright. Will Obama become a tool of the system, despite his best intentions? Will "Washington reality" water down his policies and emasculate his vision? I doubt that he will depart very much from the status quo on the Mideast, for example - he simply doesn't have room to maneuver, given the stranglehold of AIPAC over Washington. I know he won't achieve all of his stated goals. But only time will tell, and we should give Obama the benefit of the doubt. Unlike Junior, he has earned that much.

I expect and hope for great things from the Obama administration. And I anticipate that the rethugs will spend the next eight years trying to relive the Clinton era, indulging in endless petty partisan sabotage and obstructionism. Bring it on! They are much weaker than they were in Gingrich's day. They had their chance and they blew it.

The Republican party is bankrupt. Politically bankrupt, intellectually bankrupt, and most of all morally bankrupt. And they've left the country financially bankrupt, due to their insane greed, corruption and incompetence. It's time for the grown-ups to take charge. That's why Barack Obama is in the White House today. Abe Lincoln was right; you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

The US and the world still face huge problems and crises, many of them created by Bozo the Bush and his puppetmasters, but I am more hopeful for the future than I have been for the last eight years. Let's roll!

"Regrets, I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention..."

Great moments in presidential farewell addresses:

George Washington: "It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world."

Dwight Eisenhower: "We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."

George Bush Junior (paraphrased): You misunderestimated me, it wasn't my fault, 9/11 didn't happen on my watch, history will say I'm a great presimident, yuck yuck yuck.

One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong...

And so that lame-ass lame duck sings his swan song. I guess his exit strategy succeeded: he got to the end of his term without being impeached, thanks to the criminality and fanaticism of the rethugs and the cowardice and spinelessness of the dems. Mission accomplished! (Mind you, there's still a day or two left to impeach the bastard.)

Meanwhile, the 'thugs have sent a clear signal that they intend to pick up right where they left off when Bill Clinton left office. Oh for those carefree days when insanely corrupt and partisan Republicans like Newt Gingrich and Ken Starr spent millions of taxpayer dollars chasing every far-right rumor and lie, and investigating everyone in the Clinton administration down to Socks the Cat.

Even at a time of virtually unprecedented peace, prosperity and stability, such deranged and juvenile conduct - going so far as to shut down the federal government twice - was unacceptable. Today, with the infinite mess that the outgoing Dolt-in-Chief has left for his successor to clean up, it's nothing short of criminal and treasonous.

But since the 'thugs are in a much weakened position after the last election, we don't have much to worry about - or we wouldn't, if not for the Democrats. Good friggin' grief! Do they think Obama is a Republican? After eight years of craven capitulation, caving faster than a West Virginia coalmine every time Junior scowled at them, now they are intent on showing how tough they are and how much they can stand up to their own president. Absolutely pathetic.

Thank god and greyhound Junior is leaving, and may the shoes of millions of angry Americans hit him in the ass on the way out, but anyone who thinks things will suddenly get better is going to be sorely disappointed...

You don't know Jack about Torture

TV shows like 24 have not only had a huge effect in making torture acceptable and sexy to the US public, but have even influenced the practice of interrogation by the military and law enforcement. Of course, TV torture is totally unrealistic and bears no relation to how one would actually extract information. Plus, the ubiquitous "ticking time bomb" scenario means that every act of torture can be justified by spinning the situation as a ticking time bomb, making the threshold for indulging in inhuman acts much lower.

Watch the short film "Prime Time Torture" for a dose of much needed reality from experienced interrogators. If you don't see the embedded video, click here.

Brits bothered by godless buses

Britain's own version of the straight-talk express has run afoul of the most immovable force in the world: British bureaucracy. Following complaints about an advertising campaign involving the rather mild statement that there is probably no God, Britain's advertisement censors may have to rule on the question of God's existence.

[The Advertising Standards Authority] has recorded 48 complaints since Tuesday when buses first hit the streets emblazoned with the message: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." At least 40 more people were understood to have made objections by last night.

Most of those who have contacted the ASA consider the adverts offensive and say they break guidelines on taste and decency.

However Stephen Green, the Christian campaigner who led the protests against the BBC's broadcast of Jerry Springer - The Opera, is claiming they should be taken down because the statement in the adverts cannot be substantiated.

Good grief! Every day we are deluged with categorical statements that God exists, is exactly as described in the bible, and will cast us into the Lake of Fire to scream forever in infinite agony if we don't bow down to him. Can we sue the entire Christian religion for false advertising? And what about the whole concept of who has the burden of proof - oh, never mind. Religiots see any disagreement with their cherished beliefs as an attack on their very existence, and lash out blindly in retaliation. Logic and facts have nothing to do with it.

Anyway, it's a step forward that the ads made it into the public view in the first place. When it comes to free speech, Australian atheists still have to ride in the back of the bus. Fortunately, Spanish atheists are having their say.

I feel sorry for the religionists who feel so threatened by even the mildest and most polite disagreement with their rigid dogmatism. How secure can their beliefs really be?

Shock and Oy

There's not much to say that hasn't already been said about Israel's savage blitzkrieg against the defenseless inmates of that prison camp known as Gaza. It's overwhelming, it's brutal, it's indiscriminate, and it's cynically timed with an eye to Barack Obama's inauguration schedule. Not to defend the Hamas rocket attacks, but they were mere pinpricks compared to the immense damage and suffering that Israel was causing even before the current huge escalation.

I just want to point out the stark contrast between the US "liberal" media's mindless rah-rah cheerleading for Israel, and the actual situation. Thanks to billions of US taxpayer dollars pouring into Israel's military coffers every year, Israel has an almost infinite firepower advantage, and yet it employs cowardly and thuggish tactics like using human shields and targeting civilians. In the current operation, more Israeli troops have been killed by friendly fire than by Hamas.

Click here for a sample of what's common knowledge in the outside world (i.e. outside the US pro-Zionist media bubble).

Son of a Blagojevich

Congratulations to Al Franken for his victory in Minnesota, which brings the Dems one seat closer to a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. But I remain stunned by the Democrats' infinite talent for shooting themselves in the foot. I refer of course to the ongoing fiasco surrounding Rod Blagojevich's appointee, Roland Burris, who arrives in Washington with a cloud of scandal hovering over him through no fault of his own.

After eight long nightmare years of never-ending corruption, criminality and incompetence by George Bush Junior and the rethug kleptocracy, during which the Dems would at best make a token mewl of protest before caving like a West Virginia coalmine, they finally muster the cojones to take a stand on principle - against one of their own. Good grief!

After the Rick Warren debacle, do the Democrats really think the best way forward is to post armed guards to prevent a black man from entering the Senate? Couldn't they just find a way to make their point and then wimp out quietly like they always do? Don't they realize that this is being spun by the extreme-right noise machine as racist Democrats who hate black people? I know that's incredibly dishonest and only a very stupid and ignorant person would buy it (especially coming from a thoroughly racist party that thinks "Barack the Magic Negro" is side-splittingly funny), but that describes just about everyone who watches Fox "News".

The rethugs have left us with an infinitely huge mess of corruption and incompetence to clean up, a devastated economy and environment, the federal government and judiciary riddled with unqualified cronies and Bush toadies, and of course two wars that are bleeding us dry. The very last thing we need is this self-inflicted black eye and three-ring circus. We need our elected representatives to roll up their sleeves and get down to business, pronto!

Death to the death penalty!

Jim Downey has a discussion going about the death penalty. His father was murdered, which he freely admits biases his viewpoint. Various commenters put forward different points of view.

The paradox of the death penalty, it seems to me, is that some people may indeed be so evil that they have forfeited the right to live, but who has the right to kill them? As I see it, the argument against the death penalty is not what it does to the person being executed, but what it does to society. Aren't we merely being hypocritical when we make a statement about the sanctity of human life by killing someone? Aren't we making ourselves more coarse and brutal by sanctioning violence?

Call me naive, but I think government should be an embodiment of what's best and highest in the society that gives rise to it. It should constantly be on guard against acting out of revenge, or bigotry or ignorance. It should set an example of justice and humanity - it should be better than the sum of its parts.

Make no mistake, the government does play a huge role in leading by example and setting the tone of society in general. Look at how the pants-creaming eagerness of the Cheney regime to embrace torture has filtered down to every police department in the country. Police now routinely and casually use tasers on anyone they take a dislike to or feel like having some fun with. They've had it drummed into them over the last eight years that everyone they meet in their routine day-to-day activities is a potential terrorist, which in their minds justifies the use of extreme measures at the slightest excuse.

What does the death penalty accomplish anyway? Who does it bring back to life? Does it deter anyone from killing? Even if it did, we probably lose more people to wrongful convictions leading to innocent people being executed.

Let's face it, the death penalty has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with revenge. The increasingly common practice of making executions quasi-public so that the victims' families can have a front row seat (one recalls Thomas Aquinas blissfully blathering in Summa Theologica that "the pleasures of heaven shall be augmented by a most perfect view of the tortures of the damned"), and allowing them to make nakedly emotional appeals for the defendant to be put to death, is often dressed up with pretty words like "closure". Hey, if you want closure, see a psychiatrist, don't kill someone. Admit it, it's all about vengeance and an eye for an eye.

Once again, let me state that the death penalty is wrong even if the defendant is guilty beyond all possible doubt and thoroughly deserves to die. It's wrong because of what we do to ourselves in the process.

I want 2009 to be over...

Okay, let me tell you how I spent New Year's Eve. As you may know, I am working temporarily in Pasadena, paying a small fortune to rent a studio apartment the size of a broom closet, and spending every waking minute in the lab at work. Not an ideal situation, but in the Bush Depression, you have to do whatever it takes to survive.

I couldn't go home for Thanksgiving, and barely had time to take a break at Christmas, so when I heard that I could take a few days off for New Year's Day, I lost no time jumping in the car and pointing it towards Phoenix. The trouble was, I'd had a flat tire during the week and the tire shop was screwing around. Although it was a brand new tire that I'd bought from them just a few weeks previously, they said it would have to be thrown away and replaced. And of course they wouldn't honor the warranty and replace the tire without charge - they mumbled something about a "road hazard." Then they told me they would have to special-order the tire, even though it was a perfectly ordinary standard tire. That was on Friday, and by Wednesday the tire still hadn't come in, and when I called the shop, no-one knew anything. So I said to hell with it, and set out for Phoenix with the spare tire, which was one of those piddly little doughnut tires, on the car.

Somewhere in Arizona, twenty miles from nowhere, the inevitable happened - I got another flat. I called the auto club, and after dealing with a rather dense customer service rep, to whom I had to explain patiently three times that I was not in Colorado, while a constant stream of eighteen-wheelers hurtled past at 85 MPH inches away from me, I finally got a tow truck to come and tow me to the nearest settlement - a wide spot in the road named Quartzsite.

Then I called my wife to see if she could come and pick me up. Bad news - her daughter had gone to a party and left her to babysit. She'd also left her car in the driveway, blocking my wife's car, but she'd taken the key. And to top that, she'd left her cellphone in the car so there was no way to reach her.

I had visions of having to spend the night by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, and perhaps even spending the entire weekend in East Jesus, Arizona, waiting for the tire shop where the car had been dropped off to reopen. (Although the shop had a sign saying "Open 24-7", there were no signs of life.) Fortunately, my wife was eventually able to extricate her car, and sometime well after midnight she arrived in Quartzsite.

At this stage we were both collapsing with exhaustion so there was no question of driving back to Phoenix. Unfortunately there was no room at the inn in Quartzsite, apart from a Super 8 where they couldn't check us in because their computer was down. We drove almost as far as Blythe, California, before finding a motel and checking in at some ungodly hour in the morning.

After a sleepless night, we drove back to the tire shop and still found it closed. There was nothing to do but leave a note on the dashboard of my car and hide the key in the ashtray, and head back to Phoenix.

The next day, Friday, I called the tire shop several times but there was no answer. Then at last the phone was picked up but all I heard was some coughing and wheezing. After a few minutes of shouting "Hello?" with no result, I hung up and called the other number I had for the shop, and got a busy signal. The phone was off the hook and nobody at the shop new it! I would have to drive back again just to speak to them!

To cut a long story short, we drove back to Quartzsite and the world's most uncontactable "24-7" shop, got the flat fixed (the tire had to be replaced, but the charge was reasonable), picked the car up and returned to Phoenix on Friday afternoon, about two days after I left Pasadena. Let me tell you, after two minutes in Quartzsite you've seen everything there is to see in it, and I never want to go near the godforsaken place again.

My wife told me at some point over the weekend that according to something she read in the newspaper, how you spend the first day of the year determines how the rest of the year will go. Aaaargh! Nooooooo!

The only good thing about 2009 that I can say so far is that we will finally see the back of George Bush Junior and his cabal of corrupt criminal traitors. Unfortunately it look increasingly unlikely that they will be held accountable for their many war crimes. I just wish they could be rounded up and shipped off to a remote, undisclosed location where they can't hurt anyone else ever again. And I happen to know just the place...

The pope is a dope

I promised I would take a break from blogging, but people keep saying stupid things, and leave me no choice but to vent my frustration at their idiocy.

Today's target is the Vatican, that relic of medieval feudalism which causes misery and suffering throughout the world with its rigid, blinkered insistence that human beings are nothing more than breedstock. This anachronistic cabal is just now getting around to "rehabilitating" Galileo:

VATICAN CITY: Galileo Galilei is going from heretic to hero.

The Vatican is recasting the most famous victim of its Inquisition as a man of faith, just in time for the 400th anniversary of Galileo's telescope and the U.N.-designated International Year of Astronomy next year.

If you ask me, it's the Catholic Church that needs to rehabilitate itself. What made Galileo a hero was not his faith, but the fact that his reason was stronger than his faith. How much heroism does it take to toe the party line in a theocracy? The cowards were the inquisitors who refused to look through Galileo's telescope to see with their own eyes the things they were condemning Galileo for claiming to exist. Even back then, reality had a well known liberal bias!

But wait, there's more papal bull! Now El Popo himself is suggesting that homosexuality is as much of a threat to the survival of the human race as climate change. And of course we all know that homosexuality started some time in the last few years - otherwise the race could never have survived until now.

Monday's remarks follow hard on the heels of the Vatican's refusal to join a United Nations appeal for the universal decriminalisation of homosexuality launched on December 18 by 66 countries.

More than 80 countries have laws against homosexuality, including nine in which it is punishable by death.

The Vatican is a staunch opponent of the death penalty, but fears the proposed UN resolution would encourage gay marriage.

St. Paul said it was better to marry than burn, but when it comes to gays, El Popo thinks it's better for them to burn, or hang, or be stoned to death, than marry! What a lovely sentiment at this time of goodwill towards men.

Okay, that's definitely my last post before the holidays - unless something even more imbecilic happens, forcing me to blog about it. "The stupidity... it burns!"

Here's wishing you a not unbearably stupid holiday...

How the Grinch stole America

Okay, one last post before I take my War-on-Christmas vacation. Here's a video which features a humorous presentation of a very serious subject: how George Bush Junior, the lame-ass lame duck, is using his unitary executive powers to do as much damage and sabotage to the country has he can before he finally gets his bony ass kicked back to Crawford. Watch it and pass it on! (If you don't see the embedded video, click here.)

Merry War on Christmas!

This will probably be my last post before 2009, so as Phyllis Diller would say,

Money's scarce
Times are hard
Here's your f******
Xmas card

(liberated from Wired.com)

Is there life before death?

Here's the latest blog meme going round - mark an X for each of the following 212 movies that you've seen, and if mark more than 85 movies, you officially have no life. I only got up to 73, but that doesn't prove anything...

Thanks to Heathen Dan.

(x) Rocky Horror Picture Show
( ) Grease
( ) Pirates of the Caribbean
( ) Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest
( ) Boondock Saints
( ) Fight Club
( ) Starsky and Hutch
( ) Neverending Story
( ) Blazing Saddles
( ) Universal Soldier
( ) Lemony Snicket: A Series Of Unfortunate Events
( ) Along Came Polly
( ) Joe Dirt
( ) KING KONG which version? (The last two, not the original)
( ) A Cinderella Story
( ) The Terminal
( ) The Lizzie McGuire Movie
( ) Passport to Paris
( ) Dumb & Dumber
( ) Dumber & Dumberer
(x) Final Destination
( ) Final Destination 2
( ) Final Destination 3
(x) Halloween
(x) The Ring
( ) The Ring 2
( ) Surviving X-MAS
( ) Flubber Orignal version only
( ) Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
( ) Practical Magic
( ) Chicago
(x) Ghost Ship
(x) From Hell
( ) Hellboy
( ) Secret Window
( ) I Am Sam
( ) The Whole Nine Yards
( ) The Whole Ten Yards
( ) The Day After Tomorrow
(x) Child's Play
( ) Seed of Chucky
( ) Bride of Chucky
( ) Ten Things I Hate About You
( ) Just Married
(x) Gothika
(x) Nightmare on Elm Street
( ) Sixteen Candles
( ) Remember the Titans
( ) Coach Carter
( ) The Grudge
( ) The Grudge 2
( ) The Mask
( ) Son Of The Mask
( ) Bad Boys
( ) Bad Boys 2
(x) Joy Ride
( ) Lucky Number Sleven
(x) Ocean's Eleven
(x) Ocean's Twelve
(x) Bourne Identity
(x) Bourne Supremacy
( ) Lone Star
(x) Predator I
(x) Predator II
( ) The Fog
( ) Ice Age
( ) Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
( ) Curious George
(x) Independence Day
( ) Cujo
( ) A Bronx Tale
( ) Darkness Falls
(x) Christine
(x) ET
(x) Children of the Corn
( ) My Bosses Daughter
( ) Maid in Manhattan
(x) War of the Worlds
( ) Rush Hour
( ) Rush Hour 2
( ) Best Bet
( ) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
( ) She's All That
(x) Calendar Girls
(x) Sideways
(x) Mars Attacks
(x) Event Horizon
( ) Ever After
( ) Wizard of Oz
(x) Forrest Gump
( ) Big Trouble in Little China
(x) The Terminator
(x) The Terminator 2
(x) The Terminator 3
(x) X-Men
( ) x2
( ) x-3
(x) Spider-Man
(x) Spider-Man 2
( ) Sky High
(x) Jeepers Creepers
( ) Jeepers Creepers 2
(x) Catch Me If You Can
( ) The Little Mermaid
( ) Freaky Friday
(x) Reign of Fire
( ) The Skulls
( ) Cruel Intentions
( ) Cruel Intentions 2
( ) The Hot Chick
(x) Shrek
(x) Shrek 2
( ) Swimfan
( ) Miracle on 34th street
( ) Old School
( ) The Notebook
(x) K-Pax
( ) Kippendorf's Tribe
( ) A Walk to Remember
( ) Ice Castles
( ) Boogeyman
( ) The 40-year-old-virgin
(x) Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring
(x) Lord of the Rings The Two Towers
(x) Lord of the Rings Return Of the King
(x) Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
(x) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
(x) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
( ) Baseketball
( ) Hostel
(x) Waiting for Guffman
( ) House of 1000 Corpses
( ) Devils Rejects
( ) Elf
(x) Highlander
( ) Mothman Prophecies
( ) American History X
( ) Three
( ) The Jacket
( ) Kung Fu Hustle
( ) Shaolin Soccer
( ) Night Watch
( ) Monsters Inc.
( ) Titanic
(x) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
(x) Shaun Of the Dead
( ) Willard
( ) High Tension
( ) Club Dread
( ) Hulk
(x) Dawn Of the Dead
( ) Hook
( ) Chronicle Of Narnia The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
(x) 28 days later
( ) Orgazmo
( ) Phantasm
( ) Waterworld
(x) Kill Bill vol 1
( ) Kill Bill vol 2
( ) Mortal Kombat
( ) Wolf Creek
( ) Kingdom of Heaven
( ) the Hills Have Eyes
( ) I Spit on Your Grave aka the Day of the Woman
( ) The Last House on the Left
( ) Re-Animator
( ) Army of Darkness
(x) Star Wars Ep. I The Phantom Menace
(x) Star Wars Ep. II Attack of the Clones
(x) Star Wars Ep. III Revenge of the Sith
(x) Star Wars Ep. IV A New Hope
(x) Star Wars Ep. V The Empire Strikes Back
(x) Star Wars Ep. VI Return of the Jedi
( ) Ewoks Caravan Of Courage
( ) Ewoks The Battle For Endor
(x) The Matrix
(x) The Matrix Reloaded
(x) The Matrix Revolutions
( ) Animatrix
( ) Evil Dead
( ) Evil Dead 2
( ) Team America: World Police
(x) Red Dragon
(x) Silence of the Lambs
(x) Hannibal
( ) Battle Royale
( ) Battle Royale 2
(x) Brazil
(x) Contact
( ) Cube
(x) Dr. Strangelove
( ) Enlightenment Guaranteed
( ) Four Rooms
(x) Memento
(x) Pi
( ) Requiem for a Dream
(x) Pulp Fiction
(x) Reservoir Dogs
( ) Run Lola Run
( ) Russian Ark
(x) Serenity
( ) Sin City
( ) Snatch
( ) Spider
(x) The Sixth Sense
(x) The Village
( ) Waking Life
( ) Zatoichi
( ) Ikiru
( ) The Seven Samurai
( ) Brick
( ) Akira

The post-Katrina pogrom

Here's a shocking story. In the days immediately after Hurricane Katrina, when the "liberal media" was barraging us with breathless stories of savagery at the Superdome, the real savagery was taqking place on the streets outside - as heavily armed gangs of white vigilantes roamed the streets shooting African-Americans on sight. The police and coroner's office covered up this crime and harassed journalists who tried to investigate it - and some police officers may have been part of this wave of racist murders.

Racism is a rotting cancer at the heart of US society, and for many people it is just as alive today as it ever was during the days of slavery and Jim Crow. We may have elected an African-American president but we still have a hell of a long way to go.

The pander-driven presidency?

I was disappointed and concerned when Barack Obama went to the "Saddleback Mountain" love-in between megachurch leader Rick Warren and John McCain. And I'm really pissed off that Obama has now asked Warren to put the divine seal of approval on his inauguration.

I can't understand how Obama can be so tone-deaf to the signal he is sending with this choice, considering the pivotal role Warren played in getting Prop 8 passed - only the most recent incident in his long record of gay-bashing and hatemongering. Warren has an undeserved rep as a "moderate" religious right leader, because he doesn't foam at the mouth quite as openly as your Pat Robertsons or John Hagees, but he is as extreme and wacko as any of them.

Of course, liberal Christians are saying Obama should replace Warren with a female lesbian rabbi or whatever. Here's my question: why does the inauguration of the US president have to be a religious ceremony in the first place? I suppose church-state separation is quaint and obsolete, just like habeus corpus and freedom from torture?

The annual War on Christmas snafu should make it clear that it simply is not possible for the government to accomodate all religions without playing favorites. There are always going to be cults and sects, large or small, who violently object to the mere existence of any other group and are constantly at each other's throats. The Founding Fathers saw very plainly that the only feasible agenda for a democratic government in a religiously diverse society is strict secularism and neutrality - too bad we've forgotten their wisdom.

Getting back to Obama - clearly he wants to build a consensus with as many people as possible, and that's good up to a point. But at some point you have to stand up for your values and realize that many people will never be on board because their values are fundamentally different. I don't want to invest too much significance in who utters which holy mumbo jumbo on the first day of Obama's presidency, but he needs to clarify how much influence the religious right will have with his administration, and he needs to send a clear message that he will uphold the progressive values of those who voted for him.

Shoes to the Chief

There are a couple of places on the web where you too can throw a shoe at George Bush Junior:

• Sock and Awe
• Bush Shoe Throwing Game
• Bush Boot Camp

More games and animations here. And the custom of throwing shoes has been eagerly embraced everywhere from New York to Washington DC to the Philipines. How nice to see the people of the world coming together in unity. Maybe Junior will leave a positive legacy after all!