Umm... Who?

So, the donk VP was announced Friday, just in time for the convention in Denver today. Sen. Joseph Biden is the man standing next to, or slightly behind, the man.

Wait, seriously, Joe Biden? Somebody with a more of a clue is going to have to explain this to me, because I just don't get it. Aside from being possibly one of the whitest white boys in the Senate, what the hell does he bring to the table? Delaware? Which has how many electoral votes and has gone donk since '92? I'm not getting the rationale here.

Anyhow, expect more coverage from all quarters on the donk disaster in Denver. I've got work to do.

Lose Weight, Chubby

Without going into the entire global warming discussion right now, this site and the little mascot amused me. Why does the mascot wear a measuring tape as a belt? Why does the earth look like it's concerned about its weight and workout routine? What, global warming occurs because Gaia is fat? So slimming down and measuring the equator and working out until she gets a buff six-pack measuring a svelte 22,000 miles in circumference is gonna make the sad polar bears happy?

Damn, but... ah, never mind. Just remember, global warming is the earth getting fat. So go kick the dirt and tell the world what to do.

Fun with the RNC

So J forwarded to me a listing of the scheduled happenings at the RNC. Once again, it’s a hearty round of patting each other on the back for the obvious wisdom in choosing John McCain as the nominee. Unless he subsequently loses, in which case they'll invent some convoluted reason why it's not their fault.

In that vein, each day of the convention has a theme of one of John McCain’s values or virtues or delusional self-aggrandizing traits. Something, anyway. Each day is kicked off in the schedule with a quote from everybody’s favorite crazy old man, JMcC. Of particular amusement to me is the quote for day 2: Reform.

If you find faults with our country, make it a better one. If you are disappointed with the mistakes of government, join its ranks and correct them.

I guess if you view the drastic expansion of the federal state as a problem, you’re supposed to fix it by… participating in the expansion of the state? I think the portion of my brain that handles logic just exploded. Besides that fundamental issue, isn’t it telling that his Senatorialness thinks the only way to fix government is to join it? Apparently all of us citizens out here going about our lives shouldn’t expect other people to reform the government for us. Other people like THE FUCKING IGNUTS WE ELECTED TO RUN THE GOVERNMENT, PERHAPS? Pardon the outburst, but this is a rough election season for me. I guess he thinks one can't do anything to effectively reform the government from the outside. Should I be surprised he missed the whole petition for redress of grievances part of the amendment he hates the most? Probably not.

I also find amusing the RNC’s insistence McCain “has dedicated his career to taking on special interests and the status quo”. I can dismiss this particular bit of blatherskite with two simple words: Charles Keating. Additionally, we can note that Johnny Mac has no problems gutting the First Amendment to aid a particularly small special interest group of which he is a member. One might also, and I will, note the absolutely implausible idea of a guy who has spent the last 20 years in the U.S. Senate being a fighter against the status quo. McCain hasn’t quite ossified into his chair like others I could name (Byrd, Inouye, and Kennedy for starters) but he’s part of the freaking status quo. I have a voting age person in my house who wasn’t yet born the year he took office, but he’s gonna fight the status quo! I hope he starts by slapping the shit out of himself and Russ Feingold. I'll buy tickets for the PPV broadcast.

Moving on, day 3 is going to be a lecture on “Prosperity”. Given that McCain has so far in the election displayed the economic understanding of an incontinent tree frog, I can’t imagine how he thinks he’s qualified to discuss prosperity. A guy who has spent his entire life completely insulated from any real job market is perhaps not qualified to explain the American Dream and the achievement thereof to the rest of us. We can’t all spend our entire adult lives working for the gummint, John. Also, bringing out Carly Fiorina to talk about prosperity is kind of ironic, isn’t it? Should I call my buddies who lost their jobs after the HP-Compaq merger to ask their opinions? Or is the 50% drop in share price during her tenure as HP CEO sufficient evidence without resorting to anecdote? Again, we can’t all get millions of dollars in severance after running a multi-billion dollar company into the ground.

I’m glad I’m not going to Minneapolis for the convention, because my liver can’t take the amount of booze I’d have to drink to make it through. Listening to this crap sober for four days would make me wanna cockpunch (or crotchpunch, to be gender-neutral) every sumbitch wearing a GOP pin.

Worldwide Pee

From the fine people at passive-aggressive notes, I learn the personnel issues we face in my factory are faced by factories the world over. Seriously, is it so hard to walk to the damn restroom?

Rough Weekend

Nothing like running around all weekend trying to get things done only to open up your email and find out some dumb twunt is libeling you in court filings. We were content to stay in the background and be peaceable about the whole thing, but she had to go and make unfounded accusations. She was stupid enough to mention us by name with ridiculous accusations of drug use and "other risky behavior".

I don't think the court hearing is going to go at all like she thinks it will.

On the plus side, we did get N moved into the dorm.

Ore Strike!

Well, the rich vein of comedy gold I prophesized with Cynthia McKinney’s nomination has began to produce. We have an interview with her craziness from, of all places, the Final Call. I guess this comes out of the alternate universe where anybody pays much attention to either.

A few highlights:

Final Call thinks McKinney has “star power”, although whether she has more or less than Ralph Nader is not discussed. Since the quotes are in the original, maybe they're just trying to butter her up.

McKinney thinks “Politics is the authoritative allocation of values in a society”. Umm, what? Values are allocated? Authoritatively? Does this make any sense to anyone?

Final Call misses the obvious point that crazy people have different motivations than normal, sane people.

McKinney also thinks policy is made at a real table, and that the Green Party can get a seat at that table by winning 5% of the vote. Remember that tidbit: somewhere in Washington there’s a table where policy is made. Also remember this woman served in Congress.

By the way, did you know political parties don’t represent the values of those that don’t vote?

I could continue in this vein, and point out more choice bits of looniness. It ain't like McKinney's public statements don't just drip with teh crazy. I’ll instead leave you with this thought. The Green Party and the Libertarian Party both nominated former congresscritters for President. Amazingly, the Green Party picked someone even crazier and more abhorrent than their usual candidates. The Libertarians picked someone who appears calm and reasonable and doesn’t come off as a complete fucking loon. This may be a warning sign of the Apocalypse or something.

Crushing Dissent

So, in an attempt to promote orthodoxy and silence alternative viewpoints, a fine group of lefty political activists is going to send out letters to conservative donors to try to intimidate them into not participating fully in our shared civic discourse. Or, to use the language of the New York Times:

Led by Tom Matzzie, a liberal political operative who has been involved with some prominent left-wing efforts in recent years, the newly formed nonprofit group, Accountable America, is planning to confront donors to conservative groups, hoping to create a chilling effect that will dry up contributions.

“We want to stop the Swift Boating before it gets off the ground,” said Mr. Matzzie, who described his effort as “going for the jugular.”

The warning letter is intended as a first step, alerting donors who might be considering giving to right-wing groups to a variety of potential dangers, including legal trouble, public exposure and watchdog groups digging through their lives.

The NYT can describe Tom Matzzie anyway they like, but that don’t make it so. We have wandered pretty far from the original meaning of the word when someone trying to hijack the legal system to threaten others for engaging in political discourse is described as “liberal”.

Me, I’d rather not be associated with odious pricks like Tom Matzzie, so I guess I’ll continue to avoid the donks. Way to make your side even more unattractive, Tom! Good jorb.

Editorial Discretion

I'm feeling cranky this morning. The first e-mail I got today was a notification about some anonymous twunt making insulting comments on a two year old post. That's okay, I got an answer for shit like that. There's a little trash can icon right next to every comment posted. Clickity-poof! Away with you, foul upstart!

If the sum total of your commentary is "HURR! U R TEH STUPID!", don't expect the world to be able to see your insightful prose for very long. Mmmkay? We don't need to be insulted on our own blog, especially when we didn't start with the name calling. You want to start slinging insults, get your own fucking blog and have at.

As always, this is the editorial policy of the moment and subject to change at the discretion of either of the principals. If you don't like it, you can shuffle your eyeballs elsewhere on the internet. We won't mind, nor will we care.

Vocabulary Enrichment Day

In a shameless attempt to loaf in the face of looming disaster, we are pleased to bring you yet another installment in the YPS language arts curriculum. Today's lesson is on how to insult people in such a fashion that they suspect strongly you're insulting them, but can't actually prove it without recourse to an unabridged dictionary or the intarwebs. If you're like me, part of the joy of insulting people is the expression after they realize they were just called an offensive little twunt without the good sense given bacteria. It's truly a priceless moment in human interaction, and one I get to experience far too little these days.

I also got to enrich N's vocabulary this weekend. I was working on recovering my old lightning damaged system. Windows XP does not like it when you change a bunch of hardware at one time. She learned all kinds of new phrases as I vigorously lectured my electronic components about the moral and physical shortcomings each possessed. Loudly, at times. I finally gave on up on trying to recover my old XP installation. I'll be installing a clean copy on a new hard drive and using the old hard drive just to recover until I can get everything sorted out. Then I'll wipe it and put Ubuntu on it.