Well, isn't THIS lovely.

US probes Obama 'death' web poll

The poll, described by Facebook as "offensive", asked respondents "Should Obama be killed?" and offered four possible responses: "No", "Maybe", "Yes", and "Yes if he cuts my health care".

Um, "offensive"? Y'THINK?

People yammering about Obama's imminent Socialist dictatorship give cover to this kind of blatant stupidity, to the point where someone posts a poll on Facebook - Facebook, for crissakes! - suggesting the President should be killed. And there's an outcry and the poll is pulled, but someone thought it was a good idea to do it in the first place, and why they thought that should give us pause.

Christ, this is where the blatherers have gotten us with their talk of Revolution and Stalinism and teabaggery and death panels and birth certificates and all that. Some idiot figured this was an appropriate thing to post anywhere. Probably as "a joke", which is what all the cretinous racism and hatred and fear the Right has vomited all over the country for the last 10 months has been inevitably called. "JUST A JOKE! HURR HURR HURR WHY SO UPTIGHT CAN'T YOU TAKE A JOKE!"

Yeah, "just a joke". Meanwhile the next Tim McVeigh prepares to "save his country from Socialism" as he looks over the stock of fuel oil and fertilizer in his garage. And the blatherers continue to blather, and we continue to allow them to debase and poison our culture for their "entertainment".

Glutton for punishment

Why, why, why do I do this stuff? Another day, another dumbass article over at Buzzflash about TEH SEEKIRT EEEVIL GUMMINT KKKONSPIRASY to hide the *T*R*U*T*H* about 9/11 from us moronic blinded sheeple. And, being the masochist I evidently am, I commented on it:

A few points:

* Controlled Demolition, Inc. says they couldn't contemplate doing a building as big as the Twin Towers, and that preparing it for demolition would leave it too fragile and dangerous to be used as an active office building, and take weeks of preparation that would have been painfully obvious to onlookers.

* The Twin Towers were an unusual design; fire weakening the steel girders around the outside could well have caused the collapse (no need for BS arguments about the temperature steel melts at).

* The so-called "squibs" going off were windows being blown out by air pressure from the stories above collapsing (and WHY have them going off in sequence when it'd make more sense to set them ALL of simultaneously?).

* Iron and Aluminum were found in the dust... pretty much what you'd expect from a massive airplane being involved (what are airplanes made of?). No need for stories about "thermite".

* It's perfectly possible to disagree with the "official story" without swallowing any goofball conspiracy Alex Jones comes up with. Life is not an either/or situation.

So, here we go with the comments at me about being a mindless supporter of government policy and a warmonger and a easily-led sheep and a gullible Bush/Obama loving drone and will mindlessly support war with Iran yadda yadda world without end amen.

When will I learn?

UPDATE: Wow, nothing. Color me gobsmacked.

Oopsie!

The Pentagon once again shows what it does best - blowing shiznit up - and what it does second-best - hemming and hawing about civilian casualties:

"Of course, you don't know all the facts until an investigation's complete. And I clearly don't know all the facts now, and would not want to affect a potential investigation by making some conclusion that might be inappropriate.

"But from what I have seen today in going to the hospital, it's clear to me that there were some civilians that were harmed at that site."

"Oh, yes, well," Gen. Stanley McChrystal continued in an interview in my imagination, "there do indeed seem to be some people in front of me who are injured to a certain extent, and, yes, shell fragments found at the site came from U.S. bombs, and the witnesses say they saw U.S. markings on the planes, but I don't want to make any comments about how these 'civilians' - if indeed, that is what they are - came to be injured the way they did. After all, our bombs are smart. Really, really smart. And explosions are cool! BOOM! BOOM! K-WHAM! And so I feel I cannot comment until I slough it off on some- uh, I mean, until all the facts are in."

U.S. Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay released a statement saying, "ISAF will do whatever is necessary to help the community, including medical assistance and evacuation as requested. ISAF regrets any unnecessary loss of human life."

"We apologize for any inconvenience caused by our bombing... sorry..."

MAH REVIEW LET ME SHOW YOU IT

Ah! I found it.

Keep in mind I wrote this back in 1995 (5/4/1995, from the datestamp on the file), so it's probably not as good as it might be.

_WHAT TO DO WHEN THE RUSSIANS COME_
by Robert Conquest and Jon Manchip White

Subtitled "A Survivor's Guide", this book (written in 1984) supposedly shows how the Evil Soviet Bloc will "soon" engulf the Free World, and what you can expect and must "plan" for. HOW this would be accomplished is dismissed in a few paragraphs (a limited nuclear strike or just plain wussing out on America's part are the most likely plans) so the writers can get straight down to the "good stuff". Advises once the Occupation has begun you should run to a free country... if there ARE any! (Da-da-dunnnn!) Stalin-era gulag stories are then cooked into a thin gruel and served up with nuggets of cheesy right-wing hysteria. Evidently not only will we have a totalitarian government complete with concentration camps for the Christians and brainwashing for the kiddies, but they'll also ban sunny days while they're at it. Gives several pages of what to expect, sorted by "profession, opinion and habit"... evidently anarchists, Maoists, Birchers and the military will have it especially hard, while "poison pens", sadists & criminals will prosper. In typical melodramatic tones the book finishes up with the advice to "burn this book" if/when the Commies do invade. Me, I'd be tempted to be REALLY prepared and do it right away.

Lordy, the old days. And notice I didn't even have the ability to do italics for the title - I think it was bog-standard Notepad that I wrote that with.

Five unauspicious words

"Huh, that name sounds familiar."

Which is what I said to myself the other day after I found a Google video of one of my favorite films, "Crack in The World". Great special effects, magnificent soundtrack, piss-poor science but still, a cool movie nevertheless.

So I'm watching the credits with that great "Crack in The World March" theme in the background, and I see the story and screenplay are attributed to one "Jon Manchip White". "Huh", I says, "that name sounds familiar".

Well, the reason it sounded familiar, I find out, is not because he was a SF writer as I thought at first.

No, it was because he was a co-writer of a slimy little screed called What To Do When The Russians Come: A Survivor's Guide. which reads like little more than a script for "Red Dawn". It's really too bad the Amazon listing doesn't include a summary; basically it's standard Cold War dreck, painting the Red Army as a unstoppable mechanized juggernaut rolling over the Free World and therefore the best we can hope for is to take advice from this book on how to survive the hellish Soviet system, at least until the True Patriots rise and overthrow their dark Satanic Communist masters and free people can breathe freely again in a free country. Anecdotes from the Stalinist era are passed off as characteristic of modern-day Russia, Stalin is treated as a archetypal Soviet leader, and every cheesy stereotype of Russians is dragged out by Conquest & White and put on display.

Funniest part? The fact that, as this book was being released in 1984 (!), the real-life Red Army was bogged down in Afghanistan, right on the Soviet border, by rag-tag partisans and holy warriors. To some extent, exactly what they'd have faced in America. Oops.

As I said (more or less) in a review I wrote when I first read it, "The last words in the book are 'If the aforementioned comes to pass, BURN THIS BOOK after reading it.' Myself, I was ready to burn it to begin with, just in case."

That'll teach me to look things up. Yes, there are indeed Things Man Was Not Meant To Know.

EDIT: No wonder Robert Conquest was writing about Russia from a Stalin-era point of view - it was pretty much his obsession. I see he was still writing after the pullout from Afghanistan and the fall of the Warsaw Pact & Soviet Union; one wonders if he ever got around to admitting he might have been overstating things a bit that the Soviets could have successfully invaded and occupied the United States. Somehow I don't think so.

Adventures in Reading Comprehension

Comment on my previous post:

"If he’s like the average gLibertarian he’s more concerned about white guys, like him, going up against the police.

Brown and black people, not so much."

Hey Pere,
Why don't you check out his website before prejudging his character. Your snap judgement happens to be dead wrong.

This actually had nothing to do with my post; it was on a comment thread over at Sadly, No! where I was commenting on - hell, I don't really remember, some Libertarian guy making a comment about guns or something. And got taken to task for it because this guy was evidently a fighter for minorities as well and against police brutality and all kinds of suchlike. AND evidently that bug was so far up the ass of this guy's defenders that it was necessary for someone to carry the accusation of lack of Libertarian political correctness over to this blog, on a totally unrelated subject.

Of course, the fact that what I wrote was "If he's like the average gLibertarian" was ignored - "average gLibertarian" representing someone like, oh, say, Wankers for Ayn (aka Objectivists) or Perfesser Reynolds or Jonah "What, you expect me to SOURCE my writing, you Fascist?" Goldberg. And the sad fact that I personally have seen too many Libertarians who do fail to object to police brutality and fail to object the capital punishment (if the State can't be trusted in general, why should it LITERALLY have the power of life and death?).

All too often "Libertarian" is defined to the right - yes, I know there are left-libertarians (of which I consider myself), but the visible face of libertarianism in our capitalist-dominated society is the right-Libertarianism of Ayn Rand and the Cato Institute, as seen in the idiot "world's smallest political quiz" which makes a big deal over influence of government on your life but totally ignores, in a typically right-wing blind spot, the growing influence of private and corporate power on our lives. (Which is why I prefer to call myself "Democratic Socialist" or just "Socialist" as opposed to "Left-Libertarian".)

So I made a false statement about one person - kind of. If Libertarianism can't deal with criticism directed to it as a whole, maybe it should be a little more careful about the people it chooses to represent it.

Compare and contrast

American with America's great private health care:

Before Napientek was wheeled into an operating room Oct. 27, his doctor obtained a preauthorization number. The surgery went well, and within weeks Napientek was feeling much better.

Until April. That's when the couple began receiving a series of letters from the insurance administrator with chilling news: Claims for the surgery had been denied, leaving them on the hook for the heart-stopping total of $148,000.

American in dirty hippie France with their awful socialized medicine:

Another woman told me that the emergency surgery, with two doctors working nearly an hour, was going to cost me a grand total of 100 euros, or 140 dollars (really only 100 dollars if the exchange rate weren't so out of whack). Added on to the basic emergency room visit and consult fee of 23 euros (32 dollars), that meant my emergency room visit and emergency room surgery came to a grand total of 172 dollars.

Hey, this is depressing

Headlines from CNN.com this morning:

Palin: 'I am not a quitter; I am a fighter'

Palin's every word, breath satirized

Image in a tree Michael Jackson? Jesus?

Squirrel-in-cleavage gal explains acts

Brief history of toilet paper


And, of course, "live, instant updates" from the Michael Jackson memorial service, as if something is going to happen. What, I dunno - mass suttee by his fans? Resurrection?

Meanwhile Governor Sex Machine gets a slap on the wrist from the Sou' Ca'lina GOP:

Members of the South Carolina GOP's executive committee approved a resolution censuring Sanford for conduct that demonstrated "repeated failures to act in accordance" with the party's core principles and beliefs, according to GOP sources on the teleconference.

The resolution also reprimands the governor for "falling below the standards expected of Republican elected officials."

Yeah, he should have been cruising in a men's room or giving speeches to white supremacist groups, f'crissake. What was he thinking?

Unmentioned of course is (merely) the latest GOP racist incident. Nice to see the GOP getting so much use out of the "delete" button.

So, let's review - Michael Jackson's face in a tree and a woman with a squirrel in her cleavage: newsworthy. The GOP's latest lurch towards just busting out with the "N" word in referring to the President: not newsworthy.

Well. Priorities.

And as far as Palin goes - Major Kong over at Sadly, No! had it right: "Heat…….kitchen…….etc."

WTF is going on in this state?

Just barely enough time to find out about one racist South Carolinian Republican and boy howdy there's another one (courtesy once again Brandi at Sadly, No!):

Indigo Journal, a liberal blog in South Carolina, reports that GOP operative Mike Green posted a racist joke about President Obama on his Twitter account over the weekend -- and in a brief conversation with TPM, Green did not deny it. (Late Update: Green has now admitted it in a new set of Tweets, and apologized. See new section after the jump.)

Green posted this, then deleted it some time later:

JUST HEARD OBAMA IS GOING TO IMPOSE A 40% TAX ON ASPIRIN BECAUSE IT'S WHITE AND IT WORKS.

Wheee! Of course, Green apologized for it after the fact... as usual ignoring the principle "if you don't do it in the first place, you don't need to apologize".

Then again, to be fair, it isn't just South Carolina - hard on the heels of these lovely actions we find that Tennessee is jumping on the bandwagon:

now we’re learning about some super-funny racist emails sent out by a Tennessee GOP legislative staffer for Republican state senator Diane Black. Let’s meet the charming Sherri Goforth, who sent the image [above] to god knows how many people because, ha, a Negro in the White House?

The image in question being a montage of proper white European Presidents... and a black square with a pair of eyeballs peering out. The kind of thing that was considered funny back in, oh, 1932 or so.

And here as well the Party of Personal Responsibility is being all personally responsible:

When I asked her if she understood the controversial nature of the photo, Goforth would only say she felt very bad about accidentally sending it to the wrong list. When I gave her a second chance to address the controversial nature of the email, she again repeated that she only felt bad about sending it to the wrong list of people.

“I went on the wrong email and I inadvertently hit the wrong button,” Goforth told NIT. “I’m very sick about it, and it’s one of those things I can’t change or take back.”

Oops! Wrong button! Wrong mailing list!

Here's an idea, Sherri - don't mail crap like this out to begin with and you don't have to worry about hitting "the wrong button".

Or is that too much to expect from the people who supposedly work for the public's benefit?

The Republican race-baiting continues

The Republicans, as the original comment over at Sadly, No! said, continue to stay classy with respect to the First Family:

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - A state Republican activist has admitted to and apologized for calling a gorilla that escaped from the Riverbanks Zoo Friday an "ancestor" of First Lady Michelle Obama.

A screen capture of the comment, made on the Internet site Facebook, was obtained by FITSNews, the website of South Carolina politico Will Folks.

The image shows a post by an aide to state Attorney General Henry McMaster describing Friday morning's gorilla escape at Columbia's Riverbanks Zoo.

Longtime SCGOP activist and former state Senate candidate Rusty DePass responded with the comment, "I'm sure it's just one of Michelle's ancestors - probably harmless."

And as always with Republican "apologies" when the mask slips, it's got a caveat attached:

DePass took his apology a bit further. He also said, "The comment was hers. Not mine," saying the first lady made statements in the media recently saying we are all descendents of apes.

But an Internet search for those comments turned up no news articles of the like.

ah, the ever-popular "she said it first!" response, so useful to wingnuts when they're called on their racism. (And probably a dig at evolution, since liberal Darwin-worshipping atheists like the Obamas think we all descended from apes blah blah flibberty-floo.)

And the original post and comment? Down the memory hole!

The comment has been removed from Facebook. DePass' Facebook page has also been deleted.

I said it before, I'll say it again - it's only a matter of time before one of theirs just goes ahead and pops off with the "N" word. Probably before December, at this rate.

(Yes, the original news story says "descendents". Blogger and Firefox both tell me it's supposed to be "descendants". Which it should be. Gotta love the care with which local news editors check their copy.)

BLEAH

Evidently the problem I'm having with links is due to Blogger's "style sheet"... which I have no idea what that is. So I'm looking at a web page that looks like crap but that I can actually click links on. Whee, this is fun.

I'm about to go back to DOS 7.0 at this rate.

EDIT: I can get to it through Firefox. No idea what the problem is with Opera.

Lesson - don't rely on just one browser.