One good reason for keeping Iraq War going

Now, hold on, hear me out for just one second.

Look, I've written here and in my eariler blogs my opinion that the invasion and subsequent, and continuing, occupation of Iraq is the worst foreign policy blunder ever. I've written in the past that the troops must be withdrawn, in order to cool the situation in Iraq itself.

But, after viewing the documentary Jesus Camp I've changed my mind.

Keep this Iraq occupation going. In fact, let's invade a couple of more Middle Eastern countries that are doing us no harm.

Let's keep this meat grinder going long enough so the kids in the motion picture can grow up and enlist in the military. Jesus Camp founder, true believer and useful idiot, Becky Fischer wants her kids to be as fanatical as the kids in Hamas, Hizbollah, al Qaeda and the Taliban; to be was willing to die for Jesus as Islamist kids are for Allah.

I say, rather than worrying about Bush's puppy dog terrorist, let's send as many right-wing fundamentalist Christian warriors off to the Middle East as want to go. Fuck, I'd be for deporting all of 'em. This woud be a helluvalot better country without 'em.

LTE: April 22, 2007

The cynicism exhibited by the anti-immigrant crowd, headed by U.S. Representatives Tom Tancredo, CO, and Iowa’s own Steve King, can only be topped by the Register editorial board's hypocrisy in its April 22, 2007 editorial “Iowa should lead way on immigration.”



It is a long held business school mantra; labor is the only cost variable which management can totally control. Low wages equal high profits and stock prices. Toward that end, for the past twenty-five years, business has engaged in a winning strategy of union busting, global outsourcing and encouraging illegal immigration.



Illegal immigrants flood into this nation from the world over, but the greatest numbers come from Central America and southern Mexico. It should be remembered that the adventurism of the Reagan/Bush I administrations in Central America is in large part responsible for the economic conditions in that part of the continent. Moreover, President Bill Clinton reneged on so-called “side agreements,” permitting organizing by American labor unions in Mexico, after signing the North America Free Trade Agreement.



The Register’s contention of a looming labor shortage, due to falling birth rates and the aging Baby Boomer generation, is as pernicious as the anti-Latino slanders throw round by the anti-immigrant crowd, and ignores the simple and contrary logic: The smaller the labor pool, the higher the wage for the laborer.

Stupidity triumphs

Ever since I discovered the late Carlo M. Cipolla's 1987 essay on "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity" on the Web, I kept it bookmarked.

Cipolla's Third, or "Golden Law" of Human Stupidity is that the actions of the stupid always result in loss for the stupid person himself and quite often other around him. Or something like that. I'm quoting Cipolla's Third Law by memory, for his heirs, or at least someone who holds the copywrite, have caused it to be scrubbed from the Web. Obviously worldwide the business community has something to hide, Cipolla, after all, was a professor of economics at the Univeristy of California, Berkeley.

So any way, in total disregard and disrespect of Prof. Cipolla's heirs I have found the basic laws, without explanation. I suggest printing them for future reference.

First Basic Law: Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

Second Basic Law: The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

Third (and Golden) Basic Law: A stupid person is a person who caused losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

Fourth Basic Law: Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be costly mistake.

Fifth Basic Law: A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

Corollary to the Fifth Basic Law: A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.

Certainly someone out there wants stupidity to triumph over intelligence, or at least common sense. Look are our current president, George W. Bush. He most certainly illustrates the "Third (and Golden) Basic Law" as do many, many of our so-called business leaders.

Gee, I hope I drop dead

Christ, I had an appointment for a "Nuclear Study using Treadmill Cardiolite protocol" this morning at ten.

I went. And I left. Why?

Because I refused to sign the release. And why did I refuse to sign the relase. Because I don't want any radioactive goo coursing through my veins for 48 hours, that's why! Oh, but it's in small doseages. Oh, but it's been used for fifty years. Oh, but when I send in my badge it shows my body's only absorded trace ammounts of radioactivity.

What a bunch of horseshit!

Cardiolite is radioactive, goddamnit! What the fuck doesn't the medical community get about that!

33 students, faculty member killed at Virginia Tech campus

That was the big news yesterday and the headlines yet reverberate today. This is, as the sob-sisters of the mainstream media are wont to tell us over and over ad nauseam, a tragedy of monumental proportions.

But the real tragedy of this terrible loss of life will not come today or tomorrow or even next week. No, it will happen within six months to a year when some self-serving young man or lady, who just happpened to be in Norris Hall on the Virginia Tech campus when the gunman began his rampage, writes a book on, "How God Saved ME." It will be the usual infantile drivel about how, as the bullets flew, "god reached down and touched ME," and "god saved ME because god has a plan for ME."

I reckon god didn't give a shit about the 33 other folks who died. Either that or god needed a quick transfusion, since we don't offer up blood sacrifices in the form of babies or lambs to the old boy these days. Or maybe god was short a few tenors in his heavenly choir, and an extra soprano or two couldn't hurt.

My guess is that god saved "ME" to write a sappy book to sell to suckers. My guess is that god saved "ME" so TV sob-sisters, like Diane Sawyer, Oprah and Montel Williams, can coo and oooo over how brave "ME" was in a scary situation. TV appearances, book signings and fat honorarium checks from fundamentalist "Christian" churches all for "ME." That certainly beats having to find a real job.

And that, to me, is the real tragedy of these senseless killings at Virginia Tech.

A litte more on "300"

An e-mail from a friend (I have a couple) said:

The last comment on I made Huff was in response to Iran's getting being insulted by the movie 300. I said how I missed all the Spartan slaves - they must have been hiding. I enjoyed the film like I enjoyed Sin City. Graphic novels on the big screen make for entertainment, not a history lesson. The old complaint about Hollywood is the botched job they make of stories and mood. Too many wanna-be's messing with the artistic vision. At least with 300, the vision seems pretty intact.

I responded:

Yeah, I liked "Sin City" too, and, naw, you can't convince me that "300" is anything other than neoFascist garbage with a pretty face, actually buffed and tanned bod. The worst feeling one can have on leaving a movie theater is boredom...and that's how I felt after leaving "300."

Anyway, I stand by my distaste for "300." Labeling it "art" or a "cinematic experiment" doesn't excuse the palpable racism. The 300 Spartants of "300"
are Goebbels-esque poster-boys. If film technology were such that this film
could have been made in 1937, I can imagine Himmler, Goering and Hitler all
creaming-in-their-jeans.

I was googling to find an image from "300" the original graphic novel to compare that with "Nazi" art, but I ran across this exchange at FreeRepublic.com :the(sic) writer of the graphic novel "300" of course !! HE IS ON OUR SIDE ! I was right !

The "writer" of the graphic novel "300" is artist Frank Miller, one of comic book fandom's reigning gods. A clip of a post-SOTU NPR "Talk Of The Nation" interview with Miller is posted at the chickenhawk Web site Little Green Footballs.com. There Miller complains that Twenty-first Century Americans are a bunch of whining, wimps, and spoiled brats; that we are at war with a "existential foe" who "genetically" (sic) mutilate their daughters. Listen to him. The wing nuts are praising him for his tough talk about waging war and making sacrifices.

This is brave talk for a 50-year-old man who never once spent a day in the uniform of any branch of the United States' military. This is bold talk for a 50-year-old guy who's too old to ever have to serve in the military. This is big talk for a 50-year-old man who sounds like a scared little boy.

Let's bury this Imus fool and ethnic slurs too!

For a week now, ever since an overaged cowboy called the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy headed ho's" on his radio program, we've had to endure the soap opera of Don Imus and his bullshit mea culpas:

"Want to take a moment to apologize for an insensitive and ill-conceived remark we made the other morning regarding the Rutgers women's basketball team.

"It was completely inappropriate, and we can understand why people were offended. Our characterization was thoughtless and stupid, and we are sorry."
Maynard Institute.org
And:
"Here's what I've learned: that you can't make fun of everybody, because some people don't deserve it," he said. "And because the climate on this program has been what it's been for 30 years doesn't mean that it has to be that way for the next five years or whatever because that has to change, and I understand that." CNN.com

Oh, just fuck you, Don Imus. Just look at that jackass, nearly 70-years-old and he wears a cowboy suit to work. Hey, this would be O.K. if he hosted the show from Phoenix or Las Vegas or Laramie, Wyoming! But he's lived and worked in New York City since 1971!

And he's a repeat offender in the racial/ethnic/gender slur catagory.

So this old fool is wiggling in a pathetic attempt to try and save his job. His employers, CBS Radio and MSNBC, are giving this aging asshole a two-week suspension. Wow! that's gotta hurt, especially for a 67-year-old man with a fondness for cowboy clothes (I ain't even gonna touch the homoerotic undertones of his particular fetish.)

But dumbass Don's reactionary friends are springing to his defense. Today, Michelle Malkin, the reactionary Filipina-American columnist, writes:

Let's stipulate: I have no love for Don Imus*, Al Sharpton, or Jesse Jackson. I repeat: A pox on all their race-baiting houses.

Let's also stipulate: The Rutgers women's basketball team didn't deserve to be disrespected as "nappy-headed hos." No woman deserves that. I agree with the athletes that Imus's misogynist mockery was "deplorable, despicable and unconscionable." And as I noted on Fox News's O'Reilly Factor this week, I believe top public officials and journalists who have appeared on Imus's show should take responsibility for enabling Imus—and should disavow his longstanding invective.

But let's take a breath now and look around. Is the Sharpton & Jackson Circus truly committed to cleaning up cultural pollution that demeans women and perpetuates racial epithets? Have you seen the Billboard Hot Rap Tracks chart this week?

She then proceeds to merely copy a list of "gangsta" rap lyrics, verbatim. This is one little Flip ho' who knows how to work her ass off to meet her column's deadline. Malkin's implication, and a heavy-handed one it is at that, is that if it's O.K. for "gangsta" rappers to use offensive ethnic, racial and sexist slurs, it must be O.K. for old assholes who wear cowboy hats indoors to do likewise.

Of course Michelle doesn't question who buys the crap or why " gangsta" rap is so popular--suburban white boys be cause it erritates the hell out of a generation of adults who grew up listening to Jimi Hendrix and The Grateful Dead. Or who makes it possible to market this crap--white MBA's who run the record/CD companies, radio stations and TV-music video channels! Michelle and her reactionary crowd seem to think that all African Americans condone the usage of "gangsta" rap and therefore "gangsta" slang and attitutes.

Writes Morehouse College English instructor Darren Rhym of "gangsta" rap:

Typically, gangsta rappers use sexist and misogynistic lyrics for three reasons. First, they are selfish and seek to empower only themselves. Second, they put business before art: Songs with misogynistic lyrics sell millions of CDs and tapes. Sales mean money. Money means power. Finally, gangsta rappers reinterpret their experiences into a packageable product that can sell. They peddle half-truths and fantasies that formulate a stereotypical mythology in which all black women are bitches and/or all gangsta rappers live the life of driving sports cars, collecting thong-wearing, gyrating women, and smoking chronic.
And:
In the end, this whole argument boils down to the fact that misogyny is ingrained into our culture and we allow it. We buy CDs and go to concerts where gangsta rappers call black women "bitches" and "hos." It is not just black women who are victimized. Since gangsta rappers disrespect our mothers, sisters, and daughters, every black man is a victim.

Excuses -- "I like the beat," "I don't listen to the words," and "They are only referring to certain types of women" -- are not acceptable. When gangsta rappers disrespect men and women and preach violence and hate to us, we must reject their messages. We cannot buy their CDs, albums, or tapes, or attend their concerts, or appear in their videos, or even support record labels or radio or television stations that advocate gangsta rap in any way. Malcolm X used to preach about the ills of airing "dirty laundry," and that is what gangsta rappers do when they disrespect black women in rap songs.

Rap is not just music; it is our African-American culture. It is the way we blacks perceive ourselves, and the way we are perceived by the world. The content of gangsta rap music in its current form is unacceptable. It cannot and should not be tolerated by anyone.
Womanist Theory and Research

The right's excuses to get Imus off the hook are bullshit and racist too boot. The reactionary thugs who run this nation know that racism is the easiest method of covering their crimes against the working middle class. Don Imus, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter and the rest are ready to do their bidding because we let them. By excusing Don Imus we are excusing our own inherent racism, we legitimize it regardless if we are of European, African or Asian heritage. But not only should we, the United States' white community, bury Don Imus and all his reactionary "shock jock" ilk our black brothers and sisters must likewise bury the "gangsta" rap mystique. And all us together must bury the "N" word, now and forever. It can be done.
*Pure, unadultured bullshit. She wouldn't have "written" her stupid column if she weren't rushing to Imus' defense.

I'm sick of badasses. How 'bout you?

You want to know why I think the United States is losing respect in this world?

There are just too many people in this country who think they are badasses. Let me tell you what I mean.

Yesterday I went to my local Radio Shack store to exchange a telephone I bought there just after Christmas. Shouldn't have been that big of deal, you know. I tell 'em what's wrong with the phone and they give me a new one, smiles and thank yous all around.

But no.

This young gal, after I told her what was wrong with the phone, asked me why I didn't buy Radio Shack's extended service thingie, that this was the one and only time she'd allow me to return a telephone and yaddy-yaddy-yadda! I mean, why would you spend thirty bucks for an extended warrantee on a forty-five dollars phone? And I only want to exchange this phone, it's not like it's something I do every day! But on and on she lectured about extended warrantees, and in general being a young bitch.

She ended her lecture with a bit of advice, "Maybe you need to clean you phone lines. Have a nice day."

I might not be the shapest knife in the drawer, but I know an insult when I hear one. This gal might as well have added "asshole" at the end of that "have a nice day."

This isn't the first time I've run into this. There was the kid a the Menards store when I went to buy a replacement window. I didn't know shit-from-shinola about windows, I just knew I needed a window...aww, the window's in now and looks great, but you know, the fucking kid, not once, walked his lazy ass out from behind the counter to show me through all the windows on display so I might get a better idea of what I needed. He just asked me a bunch of questions, some of which I didn't think were relevant, and entered bullshit into a computer.

But I digress.

To take my mind off things I decided to watch a movie, Babel. Well, that was a mistake. It's not that it's a bad movie, but some of the heavies are US Customs and Border Protection guards. Now I've had some experience with these assholes, and let me tell you, even if we didn't have a jerk in the White House and an illegal occupation of a foreign country going on, these pinheaded bastards quarantee that anyone from another country gets a bad first impression of the United States.

To show you the kind of assholes you meet when you're crossing the border, here I am, a middle-aged, blue-eyed, white guy, with with a fucking Iowa driver's license, and this motherfucker in a black uniform asks me in a Mexican-Spanish accent, thicker than the waiter's at the restaurant were I just ate cabrito, if I'm a fucking American citizen! No, motherfucker, I'm from Venus! And there's these fucking signs all over the place saying, "No Jokes!" I'm not shitting you! And now, the fucking government demands everybody going back into the United States from Canada and Mexico produce a passport! Oh! like I'm gonna smuggle fucking' bombs into the country. Oh, won't that make us more safe from terrorists. Fuck you!

This fucking country ain't no fucking fun anymore!

Well, it's Tuesday and that means it's garbage day. Got to get the garbage out.

300 reasons to stay home

Finally saw 300 last night. What a piece of crap.

Here's a link to a review

Slant Magazine--Film Review:300

My advice: Don't throw your money away on this stinker if you want to see a motion picture. If you want to see comic book artwork immitating a motion picture, then maybe the ten bucks is worth it.

As for historicity, forget it. Yeah, there was a Battle of Thermopylae, and, yeah, there was a Spartan King Leonidas, and, yeah, he led three hundred hand-picked Spartan hoplites. And, yes, there also really was a Persian King Xerses. And that's about all the true history you'll garner out of this flick.