Pronounced Lynryd Skynyrd live in 1976 with "Saturday Night Special"...sure it's about a handgun, but I have Christmas guests coming on Tuesday, and I really need to clean the crib. Happy Saturday, see you tomorrow.
12.18.2009
Your Country is NOT Fucked: New Zealand
If Italy is shaped like a boot, then New Zealand is a horse dong
Welcome to New Zealand, one of the more-recently populated countries on our tour, with the Polynesian Maori not settling in this paradise until around 800 BCE. One thing to know about New Zealand right off the bat, being comprised of islands (and there are two major ones), each one has its own vibe. North NZ is the one with the majority of the cities and cosmopolitan environments: weathier, more populated, and has the capital of Auckland. The South Island is the more rugged of the two, less populated (even if it's bigger), and -by far- the Whitest of all New Zealand, with over 90% being cracker.
The New Zealand High Commission on Honkey Affairs required all South Island residents to place this sticker on their lapels...
But, no matter the island, New Zealand is renowned for its diverse and natural beauty. This is the nation where a thousand fantasy worlds have come to life on celluloid, including the LoTR trilogy, Bridge to Terabithia, Avatar, Last Samurai, The Narnia films, and Eagle vs. Shark. This is also borne out by the fact that 70% of the nation's $120bn economy is based on services, and a fully 19% are involved in tourism.
You could have stopped at Return of the Kings.
And that, of course, is one of the main problems with the New Zealand economy: it is heavily reliant on the dollars of foreigners. Manufacturing accounts for a scant 6% of the industry. There are plenty of mines in the country though, and, as you'd expect, mining employs 10% of the country and ore products count for a good bit of the Kiwis' exports.
New Zealand miner after a hard day in the shafts...
New Zealand truly is a paradise. Unlike its deadly neighbor, Australia --the place where everything will kill, ever-- New Zealand has virtually no dangerous wildlife. According to the country's tourism website:
There is no dangerous wildlife; no snakes, and only two poisonous spiders, the Katipo and the white-tailed spider. Bites are serious but rarely fatal.
In fact, my extensive research reveals only two major dangers in New Zealand.
1. Being overcome by the rapturous masculinity of the Haka
Pussies.
2. Balrogs
If you're not dicking around in Moria, I think you'll be cool...
I sincerely want to hate New Zealand; I want to find one thing that makes New Zealand a shithole, but I just can't. How can you hate on a nation that is abidingly middle class, has reasonably decent relations with its indigenous inhabitants, is at peace with every fucking nation on earth, has a stable republican democracy, low crime, almost no violence associated with hard drug abuse (aside from meth), almost no violence period, is temperate and the people are nice and abiding? I just can't do it.
So, New Zealand, you're not fucked (which is a first), but that makes me hate you all the more.
This is what every person and critter thinks of you, New Zealand...
*Anyone who can think of reason to hate on New Zealand, shoot me an email...
Wouldn't you trust them?
I'm supposing their state doesn't permit business names, eh?
From the Fail blog
Y can't Friday Read like Tori
Tori Amos does not want you to see this...ever. Her god-awful, Jersey slut band "Y Cant Tori Read". Clever name in a way, but just terrible in all other respects: musically, artistically, aesthetically.
12.17.2009
Admit it, Canada, y'all are rednecks too...
Our friends in Manitoba have their 'Necks....
The special Eastern Canadian subtype known as the Newfie...
The scary-ass, methheads & roughnecks in Alberta (with Bonus Mullet!!!...
The lovely hick ladies of the Canadian Midwest (a/k/a Saskatchewan)...
The Yukon's version of Piggly Wiggly...
The French-speaking cretins in Quebec...
The larval 'Necks of Ontario...
The shitkickers and douchewads in New Brunswick (with Bonus Mullet!!!)....
The gestational mouth-breathers of British Columbia (with double-bonus Baby Mullet!!!)...
So, see Canada...you're a lot more like us than you admit it: You've got roughly the same educational attainment, the same degree of heavily-armed wood-dwelling recluses, a shit-load of mullets, trashy women, toothless miscreants and country cookin'. This works out well for both of us.
When we come to annex your oil, gas, timber and Megan Fox, we'll fit right in and get along in one big happy redneck family....The way we always should have been.
Just like Tommy & Pam...only hotter...and with a bigger dick
Puppies & Tubes
That sounds like an helluva' indie movie....
This is one interesting tale and reaffirms what most dog-owners know, that Fido will go to extraordinary lengths to mooch. I didn't know, and really, we couldn't anticipate that they'd go this far to bum a meal. Apparently, in Moscow some innovative dogs have learned the subway routes, and have begun to take morning and evening commutes to their favorite haunts, and then returning home again in the evening. Of course, bumming a meal or two along the way:
This thing is always running late....
The reprinted Sun article follows*
STRAY dogs are commuting to and from a city centre on underground trains in search of food scraps.
The clever canines board the Tube each morning. After a hard day scavenging and begging on the streets, they hop back on the train and return to the suburbs where they spend the night.
Experts studying the dogs say they even work together to make sure they get off at the right stop - after learning to judge the length of time they need to spend on the train. The mutts choose the quietest carriages at the front and back of the train.
Wake me when we get to the Square...
Scientists believe the phenomenon began after the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s, and Russia's new capitalists moved industrial complexes from the city centre to the suburbs.
Dr Andrei Poiarkov, of the Moscow Ecology and Evolution Institute, said: "These complexes were used by homeless dogs as shelters, so the dogs had to move together with their houses. Because the best scavenging for food is in the city centre, the dogs had to learn how to travel on the subway - to get to the centre in the morning, then back home in the evening, just like people."
Dr Poiarkov told how the dogs like to play during their daily commute. He said: "They jump on the train seconds before the doors shut, risking their tails getting jammed. They do it for fun. And sometimes they fall asleep and get off at the wrong stop."
Let sleeping dogs lie...unless you want to feed them.
The dogs have learned to use traffic lights to cross the road safely, said Dr Poiarkov. And they use cunning tactics to obtain tasty morsels of shawarma, a kebab-like snack popular in Moscow.
They sneak up behind people eating shawarmas - then bark loudly to shock them into dropping their food.
With children the dogs "play cute" by putting their heads on youngsters' knees and staring pleadingly into their eyes to win sympathy - and scraps.
Dr Poiarkov added: "Dogs are surprisingly good psychologists."
Top that, guinea pigs...
*The above is copyright The Sun, and is available at: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2372125.ece#ixzz0ZxPQpcRm
If it happens after midnight, I guess she was asking for it...
That apparently is the logic being employed by Indian MP, Shantaram Naik.
Naik is from the now-infamous Goa region of India, where the international case of 15 year old Scarlett Keeling has put the city on the map. Keeling was an attractive 15 year old Brit touring the area. She was drugged, abducted and raped by a local bartender and one other man, with her body later being found in the river. Even then, it took the Indian government a disgracefully long time to correct the autopsy to indicate that she had died of unnatural causes rather than drowning. Goa is a well-known font of sexual assaults and other tourist attacks, so much so that some governments are warning their citizens to steer clear.
Some things you can't make up...this is one of them.
Mr. Naik probably really gets off on the hot, consensual action in "The Accused".
Naik is from the now-infamous Goa region of India, where the international case of 15 year old Scarlett Keeling has put the city on the map. Keeling was an attractive 15 year old Brit touring the area. She was drugged, abducted and raped by a local bartender and one other man, with her body later being found in the river. Even then, it took the Indian government a disgracefully long time to correct the autopsy to indicate that she had died of unnatural causes rather than drowning. Goa is a well-known font of sexual assaults and other tourist attacks, so much so that some governments are warning their citizens to steer clear.
Scarlett Keeling, in happier times.
Naik, responding to the Russian government's concerns that its citizens might not be safe in Goa, came up with the stupefying logic that sexual assaults occuring after midnight are not rape, hell, aren't even a crime.
"An alleged rape of a lady who moves with strangers for days together even beyond middle of the night is to be treated on different footings," said Mr Naik, as opposition MPs shouted their disapproval.
Some things you can't make up...this is one of them.
That's one solution, Mr. Naik...
12.16.2009
The Greatest Motion To Continue....or not.
Click for fullsize
Seriously, read this...
An attorney really put his name to this.
Even as a strident Alabama alum, the only thing I can think is...BWAHAHAHAAHAHAA.
On a more somber note, I am stunned that someone put their name to it…this is the kind of shit you say to a judge in a hurriedly-convened scheduling conference, not put that crap in the record. If the plaintiff, down the road, wants to complain about the delay causing prejudice etc then I don’t see how an appellate court couldn’t entertain that argument and the abuse of discretion to permit the continuance.
Shadowy Bookshelf...Republican Gomorrah
I read quite a bit, and listen to a shit ton of Audible books as well. My primary interests are high fantasy (think Tolkien or GRR Martin, but not the ass-clown Robert Jordan); political history (any country, any time frame); historical fiction, especially barbaric fucks (Bernard Cornwell; Conn Iggulden); religion; and contemporary stuff on political theory and diplomatic wrangling.
Shadow's Verdict?
Blumenthal's expose is a profoundly disturbing and illuminating look at the abusive, authoritarian personalities that have shaped movement conservatives, and the extreme violence inflicted upon them as children, and which they are in turn inflicting on the weaker of society. To borrow from Erich Fromme, the authoritarian personality is an inherently abusive and sadomasochistic one.
While engaging in occasional drivel bordering on psychosocial autopsy, it is nevertheless an important topic, an under-discussed one at that, and is an important read.
A shit-ton is substantially more than an ass-load...
Pic absolutely unrelated.
Today's selection is what I'm listening to currently (since it's on my iPod for leisurely baths, drives, cooking and cleaning). Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Killed the Party by Max Blumenthal.
With a title this promising couldn't you find a picture of Pat Robertson applying nipple clamps to a goat or something?
What does Publisher's Weekly think?
Journalist Blumenthal documents the movement of conservative evangelicals from the political wings to center stage, delving into the psyches of those who now lead a Republican Party "fixated on abortion, homosexuality and abstinence education; resentful and angry." Guided by Eric Hoffer's 1951 cult classic The True Believer ("Faith in a holy cause, is to some extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves,") and Eric Fromm's 1941 psychoanalytical study of the Nazi movement (Escape from Freedom), Blumnthal suggests that childhood abuse has shaped the personalities of key leaders, including Focus on the Family guru James Dobson. Blumenthal is at his best examining these characters up close, including presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich and his born-again conversion; John Hagee, a Pentecostal pastor who lauded Hitler for "forcing the Jews to Israel"; Sarah Palin, whose political aspirations first came to her as part of a religious conversion; and evangelical pastor Ted Haggard, a self-proclaimed spiritual warrior caught in a relationship with a male prostitute. For those who enjoyed Jeff Sharlet's Capitol Hill exposé The Family, this makes a spicy follow-up.
What don't you understand about dropping the marginal tax rate?
Why would anyone give this radical liberal two cents for anything he decided to write down.
"The Republican Party is a Host Body for the Christian Right and the Radical Anti-Government Movement that's sprouting up around the country. They can cause a lot of damage. They can cause it by repeating what we saw during the 90's which was mass domestic terrorism. It's a campaign against the Government of the US by radical elements that want to change the nature of the Government." Max Blumenthal
This is clear hate speech against a political view and those that align themselves with smaller Government and anti-Government take over of private businesses such as the Insurance and Banking industries. It's one thing to give a contrary view but page after page is nothing but personal attacks against any one of a number of figures on the Right.
Amazon.com should jump further into the book to show how much hate Max Blumenthal clearly has for the Right with his personal attacks on Sarah Palin and others.
Shadow's Verdict?
Blumenthal's expose is a profoundly disturbing and illuminating look at the abusive, authoritarian personalities that have shaped movement conservatives, and the extreme violence inflicted upon them as children, and which they are in turn inflicting on the weaker of society. To borrow from Erich Fromme, the authoritarian personality is an inherently abusive and sadomasochistic one.
While engaging in occasional drivel bordering on psychosocial autopsy, it is nevertheless an important topic, an under-discussed one at that, and is an important read.
Good shit...four out of five spider monkeys.
Two meals from away from a wolf...
Here's a story from my part of the world, and continued validation of two facts: The first is that dogs are the coolest pets ever; the second, is the old maxim that every dog is two meals away from being a wolf...
If you do not give this dopey family companion its Alpo, in a few short days...
She will get hungry and wolf out on you...
In Papillion, Nebraska (which, for some reason known only to midwesterners, they pronounce as Pap-ill-ion) just outside of Omaha, a middle age man had adopted two pugs, Harry and Sally, as his companions. Like a lot of the elderly or lonely, the dogs were his pets and, sadly, his only real company. And, like many of the home-bound and reclusive, when things happen --such as sudden death-- it takes a while before anyone notices.
Well, the two puppies had to eat, you know, so they did what dogs are want to do in the wild:
Two loveable pets are forced to survive by eating their owner’s dead body. The pugs named Harry and Sally spent two weeks in a Papillion home after the 51-year-old man died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Police don’t suspect foul play. A neighbor noticed there were no tracks in the snow from the home and called police last week.
Officers found the man dead and determined that his pets had no dog food. So Papillion Police believe the dogs survived by using their owner’s face, head and torso as a food source. The pugs were turned over to the Nebraska Humane Society. The director of animal welfare for NHS Denise Gurss told Channel 6 News, “There was not any actual evidence that we saw that there was blood or tissue anywhere on the dogs.”
Police re-enactment...
The dogs have been deemed "loveable" and "well-adjusted" by the humane society, a spokesperson for whom stated:
"They're happy to have someone around them who wants to touch them," said Gurss. "They were thrilled to get a bath, jump up and kiss faces and see people. So I think they are going to be just fine."
That's not affection, that's tenderizing...
This whole story smacks of grisly doesn't it? But really, if you think about it, it's not. It's just dogs doing what they did for millions of years, hunting and scavenging. And, if you think for one instant that your beloved family member, companion and best friend won't do the same thing should you fall ill or die suddenly, well...let's just say that I'll be happy to let you test that hypothesis...
I will totally fucking eat you...
12.15.2009
Wednesday is Immortal...and Farked
But never this Immortal. For those who've been asleep during the age of the Internet, Immortal is one of the prototypical Nordic Black Metal bands. They epitomize the genre with their corpse paint, speed metal, blast beats, trebly warbly music, lyrics of ur und blut, and general fuck-all attitude. Take a bow, boys...
And, did I mention they are satirized....
A lot....
Ummm....A helluva' lot?
These never get old....
Thank you librarians...
Libraries are the heart and soul of a community. A town lacks its essential character if there is not a place to open a book, open a mind and explore the inner world of imagination, creativity and learning. Of the many things that government does right, public libraries are among the most innovative and essential. And, in this Elysian intellectual field, the First Amendment flourishes and finds no more cherished champion.
Too bad some conservatives don't feel that way, to the point where this sign was even necessary....
Too bad some conservatives don't feel that way, to the point where this sign was even necessary....
Have you hugged your librarian today?
Hippies are trying to kill us: Kashi Vive
This is not a food product...it's Liquid Plumr for people...
Hippies are trying to kill us. When they are not destroying Canada's ecosystem with the manufacture of their Prius batteries, or causing allergic reactions with their noxious cloud of patchouli, they are fucking with our food. Good wholesome things like cereal used to be hands off for dirty hippies, not anymore....
By "fucking with breakfast cereal", I am of course referring to the infusion (infection?) of our bowl with unAmerican things like bran, and sesame, and snozzberries. And, you know who started this? The bastards at GrapeNuts and their collusionists/co-conspirators in the Granola industry. I was willing to let it slide until the above abomination hit my pantry: Kashi(tm) Vive(r) Probiotic Digestive Wellness cereal.
Slightly less dense than a bowl of gravel...
This $5.29 box of fail has puffed balls of sesame, whole bran flakes, two strands of wheat DNA, and is allegedly flavored with "vanilla". However, it is the same texture, smell and density of rabbit pellets. there is shit in this box that --no shit-- is PATENTED. Patents are for cars and iPhones and better mousetraps, not breakfast. And, then getting to the taste...styrofoam dogfood with a whey caoting that defies milk and sanity. think we're done? No no, my friend. Look at the label. This abomination of the morning sup has a gut-busting 46% of daily fiber...and 11 grams (almost as the 12g of fiber) of something referred to as "insoluble organics."
Also an organic insoluble...
As bad as all that is, you are really in for a treat the next morning, when 23 grams of "fiber" decides to put a chill-inducing shiver down your spine and straight into your colon. You only think you've needed to shit before...and it's not a gentle passing; it's the Titanic of bowel movements: epic, large, unsinkable, and destined to fail.
Seriously, skip this...you'll thank me later.
I don't want this thing in the same room as me...
I wish I had a vagina for this one reason....
The OhMiBod vibrator.
A lot of sex toys are ghastly, disturbing concoctions of hard plastic, rubber, polyurethane that more closely approximate the auto de fe than bedroom intimacy.
Why do chicks get cool, musical toys while we get....
Fuckable silicone snails?
A lot of sex toys are ghastly, disturbing concoctions of hard plastic, rubber, polyurethane that more closely approximate the auto de fe than bedroom intimacy.
I know that sometimes you're just in the mood for a tentacle...
But, sometimes people just get it right. OhMiBod is such an example. This little gadget attaches to your iPod or iPod docking station and --no shit-- pulses along to the beat and timbre of your soundtrack. Below are a couple of hotties from the UK demonstrating the appliance, but alas, not showing it's use.
Two's company, three's a good start...
For some decidedly NSFW videos (that are damned hot) visit their website.
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