Tuesday, November 23, 2004
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Listening to that Aretha Franklin song in the car today and it struck me that maybe all this respect is just a euphemism for cunnilingus. Or is that already well known?
Monday, November 22, 2004
I fucked up first here. We use UPS Automated Office or whatever the hell it's called here at the office. You set your package up to be shipped online and then print out the label on your printer. Well I mixed up labels for two packages. Sent the 1 lb package that was supposed to Tennessee across town and the 5 lb package that was supposed to Tennessee across town.
I learned about it the next day when the office across town called to say that they received a dog calendar that looked like it was supposed to go to someone in Tennessee. I immediately recognized my mistake and phoned UPS to arrange to have everything sent back. UPS told me that the package meant to go across town and now on its way to Tennessee wasn't scheduled to be delivered until Friday (this was Tuesday). I would have to call back then to intercept it.
So I monitored the package all week on line, waiting for it to reach Knoxville. It arrived late Thursday night. I tried to call then, but their customer service office was closed for the night (I thought this was a 24-hour operation.)
So I got up at 5am the next morning (because we're always 3 hours behind here on the west coast) and called and told UPS to STOP THAT PACKAGE. Was told by the support guy that a call would be put into the Knoxville office and someone would call me back. Never got a call back. So I called when I got to work a couple hours later. Same request. Same reply. Told I would get a call back. No return call. So I checked later online and saw it said package was out for delivery (I'd include the tracking number and link here, but I guess it's against their terms of service to put this on a website.) When I saw this, I called their customer support line again and was told that the change in status wouldn't be reflected until the next day.
So I check back this morning and what do I find? THEY DELIVERED THE FUCKING PACKAGE. Goddman it! The UPS online system is pretty smooth. But the fact that they couldn't stop this package floors me. Absolutely floors me. I'm on the floor right now typing this. Pony Express shipping control was more sophisticated than this. It's like I'm trying to stop the nuclear payload in Dr. Strangelove or something. Got some insane UPS dispatcher holed up in a command center with Peter Sellers raving about P.O.D. Purity Of Delivery. Paid On Delivery. Print On Demand. Meanwhile, Slim Pickins is out yahooing to the doorstep with my package.
It wasn't even my package. I had just offered to send it out as a favor to a friend in the office who was trying to figure out how much postage it was going to cost to send to his parents a dog calendar. Now their lives have been ruined by this, too.
I don't know how UPS could ever make this right. So far, they haven't even tried. But, I promise you this, someday, somewhere, a package will be intercepted.
I learned about it the next day when the office across town called to say that they received a dog calendar that looked like it was supposed to go to someone in Tennessee. I immediately recognized my mistake and phoned UPS to arrange to have everything sent back. UPS told me that the package meant to go across town and now on its way to Tennessee wasn't scheduled to be delivered until Friday (this was Tuesday). I would have to call back then to intercept it.
So I monitored the package all week on line, waiting for it to reach Knoxville. It arrived late Thursday night. I tried to call then, but their customer service office was closed for the night (I thought this was a 24-hour operation.)
So I got up at 5am the next morning (because we're always 3 hours behind here on the west coast) and called and told UPS to STOP THAT PACKAGE. Was told by the support guy that a call would be put into the Knoxville office and someone would call me back. Never got a call back. So I called when I got to work a couple hours later. Same request. Same reply. Told I would get a call back. No return call. So I checked later online and saw it said package was out for delivery (I'd include the tracking number and link here, but I guess it's against their terms of service to put this on a website.) When I saw this, I called their customer support line again and was told that the change in status wouldn't be reflected until the next day.
So I check back this morning and what do I find? THEY DELIVERED THE FUCKING PACKAGE. Goddman it! The UPS online system is pretty smooth. But the fact that they couldn't stop this package floors me. Absolutely floors me. I'm on the floor right now typing this. Pony Express shipping control was more sophisticated than this. It's like I'm trying to stop the nuclear payload in Dr. Strangelove or something. Got some insane UPS dispatcher holed up in a command center with Peter Sellers raving about P.O.D. Purity Of Delivery. Paid On Delivery. Print On Demand. Meanwhile, Slim Pickins is out yahooing to the doorstep with my package.
It wasn't even my package. I had just offered to send it out as a favor to a friend in the office who was trying to figure out how much postage it was going to cost to send to his parents a dog calendar. Now their lives have been ruined by this, too.
I don't know how UPS could ever make this right. So far, they haven't even tried. But, I promise you this, someday, somewhere, a package will be intercepted.
Friday, November 19, 2004
Planned Obfucklescence
The latest consumer-fuck: the AT&T/Cingular merger.
It's almost 5:30. I've now been on hold with AT&T for over 40 minutes! I'm just trying to get an explanation for a $163 "GSM EQUIPMENT (CHARGE)" on my current invoice. They've transfered me to three different people, and I still haven't been able to get a straightforward itemization. There must be a word for this -- when corporations fragment information among customer support offices to frustrate your attempts to understand your bill or get technical support. If not, I've got one:
Planned Obfucklescence
I'm experiencing it right now.
(That voice-operated phone tree isn't making anyone's life easier, either. Except maybe the fingerless.)
It's almost 5:30. I've now been on hold with AT&T for over 40 minutes! I'm just trying to get an explanation for a $163 "GSM EQUIPMENT (CHARGE)" on my current invoice. They've transfered me to three different people, and I still haven't been able to get a straightforward itemization. There must be a word for this -- when corporations fragment information among customer support offices to frustrate your attempts to understand your bill or get technical support. If not, I've got one:
Planned Obfucklescence
I'm experiencing it right now.
(That voice-operated phone tree isn't making anyone's life easier, either. Except maybe the fingerless.)
Thursday, November 18, 2004
Just received in my inbox:
Unfair perhaps, but I have to concede a certain amount of truth to it.
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
--H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
Unfair perhaps, but I have to concede a certain amount of truth to it.
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Are You Gonna Be My Girl?
I heard that it took twenty-three takes to get that throat-clearing sound at the beginning of the song just the way Nic Cester wanted it.
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
David Brooks in today's Times sounding like a fucking Quaker:
Brooks and Wolfe, for looking askance on scientifically informed contempt for the notion of a soul, I curse you both to God:
Wolfe sprinkles his book with observations about how the word "immoral" now seems obsolete, about how sophisticated people now reject the idea of absolute evil, about a hypermaterialistic neuroscience professor who can use the word "soul" only when it is in quotation marks.
Brooks and Wolfe, for looking askance on scientifically informed contempt for the notion of a soul, I curse you both to God:
Oh Lord, I entreat you, in your infinite mystery and absence, to demonstrate unequivocally, for the benefit of these poor scared souls, Brooks and Wolfe, the fact of your non-existence. And arrange for something really embarrassing about that other opportunistic, sexually repressed moralizer, David Frum, to come out while you're at it.
Amen.
Amen.
Morning in America
I'm not a religious man. Which is partly why the results in this last election made me as sick to my stomach as they did. But I'm thinking about getting into black magic. Not that I believe this kind of shit. But I imagine anyone who believes in angels, magical Palestineans, heaven, or god would. So this could be very empowering.
Driving to work today, some prick in a white Mercedes S500 (license plate no. 4LJJ372) with a God Bless America sticker on the bumper cut me off. So instead flipping him off, rear-ending him when he had to stop at the next stop light, and throwing him a project beating before we exchange insurance information, like I normally would do, I simply cursed him. Cursed him to hell. Actually, even better, I asked God to curse him to hell. God, I said, curse this motherfucker to hell. For the sin of impatience and having a God Bless America sticker on a luxury German import. That's right, dude, you're fucked. God has cursed you to hell.
If you can think of other ways to make this guy's life and afterlife miserable, please let me know.
Driving to work today, some prick in a white Mercedes S500 (license plate no. 4LJJ372) with a God Bless America sticker on the bumper cut me off. So instead flipping him off, rear-ending him when he had to stop at the next stop light, and throwing him a project beating before we exchange insurance information, like I normally would do, I simply cursed him. Cursed him to hell. Actually, even better, I asked God to curse him to hell. God, I said, curse this motherfucker to hell. For the sin of impatience and having a God Bless America sticker on a luxury German import. That's right, dude, you're fucked. God has cursed you to hell.
If you can think of other ways to make this guy's life and afterlife miserable, please let me know.
Friday, November 12, 2004
New Rule
You flout the no solicitors/no call injunction I've imposed, you end up on the Shit List.
How it works: if I get the impression you're just doing your job, only your company gets listed. If you're a prick about it, you personally get added.
Sorry if this took you off guard, but steps had to be taken.
Listed:
Lanier: A Ricoh Company
1063 McGaw Suite #150
Irvine, CA USA 9214 [sic]
Phone 949-851-1050
Fax 949-851-0871
www.lanier.com
Niagra Water
17842 Cowan Street
Irvine, California 92614
Phone: (949) 863-1400
Toll Free: (877) ITS-PURE (877-487-7873)
How it works: if I get the impression you're just doing your job, only your company gets listed. If you're a prick about it, you personally get added.
Sorry if this took you off guard, but steps had to be taken.
Listed:
Lanier: A Ricoh Company
1063 McGaw Suite #150
Irvine, CA USA 9214 [sic]
Phone 949-851-1050
Fax 949-851-0871
www.lanier.com
Niagra Water
17842 Cowan Street
Irvine, California 92614
Phone: (949) 863-1400
Toll Free: (877) ITS-PURE (877-487-7873)
Wit's End
Been there since about 10:30 this morning. Good thing that prick Scott Peterson got nailed, else I was gonna lose it.
A man (or woman?) after my own heart. He's tapped into the pulse of something:
Fuck the South. Fuck 'em. We should have let them go when they wanted to leave. But no, we had to kill half a million people so they'd stay part of our special Union. Fighting for the right to keep slaves - yeah, those are states we want to keep.
And now what do we get? We're the fucking Arrogant Northeast Liberal Elite? How about this for arrogant: the South is the Real America? The Authentic America. Really?
Cause we fucking founded this country, assholes. Those Founding Fathers you keep going on and on about? All that bullshit about what you think they meant by the Second Amendment giving you the right to keep your assault weapons in the glove compartment because you didn't bother to read the first half of the fucking sentence? Who do you think those wig-wearing lacy-shirt sporting revolutionaries were? They were fucking blue-staters, dickhead. Boston? Philadelphia? New York? Hello? Think there might be a reason all the fucking monuments are up here in our backyard?
No, No. Get the fuck out. We're not letting you visit the Liberty Bell and fucking Plymouth Rock anymore until you get over your real American selves and start respecting those other nine amendments. Who do you think those fucking stripes on the flag are for? Nine are for fucking blue states. And it would be 10 if those Vermonters had gotten their fucking Subarus together and broken off from New York a little earlier. Get it? We started this shit, so don't get all uppity about how real you are you Johnny-come-lately "Oooooh I've been a state for almost a hundred years" dickheads. Fuck off.
Arrogant? You wanna talk about us Northeasterners being fucking arrogant? What's more American than arrogance? Hmmm? Maybe horsies? I don't think so. Arrogance is the fucking cornerstone of what it means to be American. And I wouldn't be so fucking arrogant if I wasn't paying for your fucking bridges, bitch.
All those Federal taxes you love to hate? It all comes from us and goes to you, so shut up and enjoy your fucking Tennessee Valley Authority electricity and your fancy highways that we paid for. And the next time Florida gets hit by a hurricane you can come crying to us if you want to, but you're the ones who built on a fucking swamp. "Let the Spanish keep it, it?s a shithole," we said, but you had to have your fucking orange juice.
The next dickwad who says, "It?s your money, not the government's money" is gonna get their ass kicked. Nine of the ten states that get the most federal fucking dollars and pay the least... can you guess? Go on, guess. That?s right, motherfucker, they're red states. And eight of the ten states that receive the least and pay the most? It?s too easy, asshole, they?re blue states. It?s not your money, assholes, it?s fucking our money. What was that Real American Value you were spouting a minute ago? Self reliance? Try this for self reliance: buy your own fucking stop signs, assholes.
Let?s talk about those values for a fucking minute. You and your Southern values can bite my ass because the blue states got the values over you fucking Real Americans every day of the goddamn week. Which state do you think has the lowest divorce rate you marriage-hyping dickwads? Well? Can you guess? It?s fucking Massachusetts, the fucking center of the gay marriage universe. Yes, that?s right, the state you love to tie around the neck of anyone to the left of Strom Thurmond has the lowest divorce rate in the fucking nation. Think that?s just some aberration? How about this: 9 of the 10 lowest divorce rates are fucking blue states, asshole, and most are in the Northeast, where our values suck so bad. And where are the highest divorce rates? Care to fucking guess? 10 of the top 10 are fucking red-ass we're-so-fucking-moral states. And while Nevada is the worst, the Bible Belt is doing its fucking part.
But two guys making out is going to fucking ruin marriage for you? Yeah? Seems like you're ruining it pretty well on your own, you little bastards. Oh, but that's ok because you go to church, right? I mean you do, right? Cause we fucking get to hear about it every goddamn year at election time. Yes, we're fascinated by how you get up every Sunday morning and sing, and then you're fucking towers of moral superiority. Yeah, that's a workable formula. Maybe us fucking Northerners don't talk about religion as much as you because we're not so busy sinning, hmmm? Ever think of that, you self-righteous assholes? No, you're too busy erecting giant stone tablets of the Ten Commandments in buildings paid for by the fucking Northeast Liberal Elite. And who has the highest murder rates in the nation? It ain't us up here in the North, assholes.
Well this gravy train is fucking over. Take your liberal-bashing, federal-tax-leaching, confederate-flag-waving, holier-than-thou, hypocritical bullshit and shove it up your ass.
And no, you can't have your fucking convention in New York next time. Fuck off.
And now what do we get? We're the fucking Arrogant Northeast Liberal Elite? How about this for arrogant: the South is the Real America? The Authentic America. Really?
Cause we fucking founded this country, assholes. Those Founding Fathers you keep going on and on about? All that bullshit about what you think they meant by the Second Amendment giving you the right to keep your assault weapons in the glove compartment because you didn't bother to read the first half of the fucking sentence? Who do you think those wig-wearing lacy-shirt sporting revolutionaries were? They were fucking blue-staters, dickhead. Boston? Philadelphia? New York? Hello? Think there might be a reason all the fucking monuments are up here in our backyard?
No, No. Get the fuck out. We're not letting you visit the Liberty Bell and fucking Plymouth Rock anymore until you get over your real American selves and start respecting those other nine amendments. Who do you think those fucking stripes on the flag are for? Nine are for fucking blue states. And it would be 10 if those Vermonters had gotten their fucking Subarus together and broken off from New York a little earlier. Get it? We started this shit, so don't get all uppity about how real you are you Johnny-come-lately "Oooooh I've been a state for almost a hundred years" dickheads. Fuck off.
Arrogant? You wanna talk about us Northeasterners being fucking arrogant? What's more American than arrogance? Hmmm? Maybe horsies? I don't think so. Arrogance is the fucking cornerstone of what it means to be American. And I wouldn't be so fucking arrogant if I wasn't paying for your fucking bridges, bitch.
All those Federal taxes you love to hate? It all comes from us and goes to you, so shut up and enjoy your fucking Tennessee Valley Authority electricity and your fancy highways that we paid for. And the next time Florida gets hit by a hurricane you can come crying to us if you want to, but you're the ones who built on a fucking swamp. "Let the Spanish keep it, it?s a shithole," we said, but you had to have your fucking orange juice.
The next dickwad who says, "It?s your money, not the government's money" is gonna get their ass kicked. Nine of the ten states that get the most federal fucking dollars and pay the least... can you guess? Go on, guess. That?s right, motherfucker, they're red states. And eight of the ten states that receive the least and pay the most? It?s too easy, asshole, they?re blue states. It?s not your money, assholes, it?s fucking our money. What was that Real American Value you were spouting a minute ago? Self reliance? Try this for self reliance: buy your own fucking stop signs, assholes.
Let?s talk about those values for a fucking minute. You and your Southern values can bite my ass because the blue states got the values over you fucking Real Americans every day of the goddamn week. Which state do you think has the lowest divorce rate you marriage-hyping dickwads? Well? Can you guess? It?s fucking Massachusetts, the fucking center of the gay marriage universe. Yes, that?s right, the state you love to tie around the neck of anyone to the left of Strom Thurmond has the lowest divorce rate in the fucking nation. Think that?s just some aberration? How about this: 9 of the 10 lowest divorce rates are fucking blue states, asshole, and most are in the Northeast, where our values suck so bad. And where are the highest divorce rates? Care to fucking guess? 10 of the top 10 are fucking red-ass we're-so-fucking-moral states. And while Nevada is the worst, the Bible Belt is doing its fucking part.
But two guys making out is going to fucking ruin marriage for you? Yeah? Seems like you're ruining it pretty well on your own, you little bastards. Oh, but that's ok because you go to church, right? I mean you do, right? Cause we fucking get to hear about it every goddamn year at election time. Yes, we're fascinated by how you get up every Sunday morning and sing, and then you're fucking towers of moral superiority. Yeah, that's a workable formula. Maybe us fucking Northerners don't talk about religion as much as you because we're not so busy sinning, hmmm? Ever think of that, you self-righteous assholes? No, you're too busy erecting giant stone tablets of the Ten Commandments in buildings paid for by the fucking Northeast Liberal Elite. And who has the highest murder rates in the nation? It ain't us up here in the North, assholes.
Well this gravy train is fucking over. Take your liberal-bashing, federal-tax-leaching, confederate-flag-waving, holier-than-thou, hypocritical bullshit and shove it up your ass.
And no, you can't have your fucking convention in New York next time. Fuck off.
Thursday, November 11, 2004
Needless Customer Service Aggravation
Trying to return a Sony monitor that's not the right color. Didn't discover it was the wrong color until I opened it. Ingram-Micro said talk to Sony. Sony said talk to Ingram-Micro. Know what? Fuck you both. I'll keep the monitor and you're both pieces of shit.
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
The Neural Electorate
A new graph that vividly illustrates both a sad fact about America and my contempt towards the last election:
Blue Gray Matter (Daily Kos)
The Democrats still maintain a wide neural majority.
Of course, don't let the hicks, rubes, yahoos, or rednecks get wind of this. The smart conservatives claim this graph is precisely one of the reasons why rural and Christian America votes the way it does. They're sick of being reminded how dumb, or poorly educated, they are.
Plus, as any political pundit now knows, it's your M.Q. 'morals quotient' that counts (where 'morals' essentially means you're scared by gays and vague terrorist threats and don't understand biology.)
Blue Gray Matter (Daily Kos)
The Democrats still maintain a wide neural majority.
Of course, don't let the hicks, rubes, yahoos, or rednecks get wind of this. The smart conservatives claim this graph is precisely one of the reasons why rural and Christian America votes the way it does. They're sick of being reminded how dumb, or poorly educated, they are.
Plus, as any political pundit now knows, it's your M.Q. 'morals quotient' that counts (where 'morals' essentially means you're scared by gays and vague terrorist threats and don't understand biology.)
Sunday, November 07, 2004
Internet Explorer
Hate it. Absolutely hate the fucking thing. Granted it's better now that they've followed Mozilla in adding all the new security and management features. But those should have been there at least 18 months ago. And still no tabbed browsing to my knowledge.
Anyway, I noticed that the Google ads posted on this site show up just as they are supposed to in Firefox, but don't appear in IE. It's possible I've coded it incorrectly. But I'm wondering if IE is somehow programmed or preconfigured to block them automatically. This would be a very nefarious way for MS to cockblock Google, since I have the impression Adwords is the major component of Google's business model.
Haven't found anything to confirm this. But I have raised the question about the non-appearing adwords with Google.
Anyway, I noticed that the Google ads posted on this site show up just as they are supposed to in Firefox, but don't appear in IE. It's possible I've coded it incorrectly. But I'm wondering if IE is somehow programmed or preconfigured to block them automatically. This would be a very nefarious way for MS to cockblock Google, since I have the impression Adwords is the major component of Google's business model.
Haven't found anything to confirm this. But I have raised the question about the non-appearing adwords with Google.
Unfortunately, it's not because he cheated:
-- New York Times
He's got political capital. Watch him squander it.
In Pasco County and other places, Republicans relentlessly called and visited members of their base and the so-called lazy voters in the 72 hours before Election Day, extracting promises that they would vote. Mr. Bunting rented and borrowed six vans to drive voters to the polls on Election Day. When surveys of voters leaving the polls showed Mr. Kerry leading that afternoon, volunteers crammed into tiny offices to make hundreds of last-minute calls.
Late on Tuesday afternoon, a polling place near Pensacola Christian College ran out of ballots, forcing more than 1,000 voters to wait in the rain for hours. The Republican Party handed out bottled water to the voters, who sang "God Bless America." When the polls in most of the state closed at 7 p.m., volunteers statewide placed more than 100,000 get-out-the-vote calls to Escambia County, home of Pensacola, which is on Central time and had another hour of voting.
-- New York Times
He's got political capital. Watch him squander it.
Friday, November 05, 2004
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said.
Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.
Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch.
State and county election officials did not immediately respond to requests by The Associated Press for more details about the voting system and its vendor, and whether the error, if repeated elsewhere in Ohio, could have affected the outcome.
Bush won the state by more than 136,000 votes, according to unofficial results, and Kerry conceded the election on Wednesday after acknowledging that 155,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted in Ohio would not change the result.
The Secretary of State's Office said Friday it could not revise Bush's total until the county reported the error.
The Ohio glitch is among a handful of computer troubles that have emerged since Tuesday's elections.
In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost because officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did. And in San Francisco, a malfunction with custom voting software could delay efforts to declare the winners of four races for county supervisor.
In the Ohio precinct in question, the votes are recorded onto a cartridge. On one of the three machines at that precinct, a malfunction occurred in the recording process, Damschroder said. He could not explain how the malfunction occurred.
Damschroder said people who had seen poll results on the election board's Web site called to point out the discrepancy. The error would have been discovered when the official count for the election is performed later this month, he said.
The reader also recorded zero votes in a county commissioner race on the machine.
Workers checked the cartridge against memory banks in the voting machine and each showed that 115 people voted for Bush on that machine. With the other machines, the total for Bush in the precinct added up to 365 votes.
I don't want to wallow in denial, but are we sure we lost this thing?
But I was a little puzzled by this passage:
Are they even showing Cialis ads on PBS nowadays?
If you're really worried about pop culture sleaze, instead of watching TV in the evening with your kids, shouldn't you be explaining New Yorker cartoons to them?
The mothers of the classmates of my eighth-grade daughter and my 18-year-old son gather at school functions, where we talk obsessively about how much we worry and strategize and push back against the tsunami of pop culture sleaze that seeps into our kids' psyches. Who among us, as poor John Kerry would say, is not sick and tired of hearing the Cialis ad discuss four-hour erections while we're sitting there trying to watch TV with the kids?
Are they even showing Cialis ads on PBS nowadays?
If you're really worried about pop culture sleaze, instead of watching TV in the evening with your kids, shouldn't you be explaining New Yorker cartoons to them?
Thursday, November 04, 2004
It's All FAB
In response to the unexpected and highly disturbing events of Tuesday, I'm launching a new movement: Fuck Against Bush.
I'm urging all Kerry supporters to go out and have safe, responsible, fabulous, non-procreative, venge-fucking causal sex with each other. Fuck Against Bush and fuck each other like only tolerant, socially progressive, blue-America moderates and liberals can. Be sure to have an independent, third-party supporter there to take a photo of you while you Fuck Against Bush. Then post it on your blog. Show Red America what they're missing.
And remember, don't fuck any Bush supporters (and especially don't fuck any Nader supporters!) Don't feel bad, they've already fucked the rest of us.
Make Culture Love, not Culture War!
Code Snippet:
I'm urging all Kerry supporters to go out and have safe, responsible, fabulous, non-procreative, venge-fucking causal sex with each other. Fuck Against Bush and fuck each other like only tolerant, socially progressive, blue-America moderates and liberals can. Be sure to have an independent, third-party supporter there to take a photo of you while you Fuck Against Bush. Then post it on your blog. Show Red America what they're missing.
And remember, don't fuck any Bush supporters (and especially don't fuck any Nader supporters!) Don't feel bad, they've already fucked the rest of us.
Make Culture Love, not Culture War!
Code Snippet:
<a href='http://enemiesblog.blogspot.com/2004/11/its-all-fab.html'>
<img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/36/1021/640/fab2008.jpg'>
</a>
I read somewhere on the internet that even Liz Phair voted Bush/Cheney.
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Fallout
`The result is now clear: a record voter turnout and a broad, nationwide victory,'' Cheney said. ``President Bush ran forthrightly on a clear agenda for this nation's future and the nation responded by giving him a mandate.''
After pausing to take advantage of the period generously alloted to "reflect on the results," I've decided that is the worse part: all the unreflective blowhards, pissants, creationists, chickenhawks, uncle-fuckers, crackers and jackasses in the country are probably feeling pretty well vindicated by this clumsy demonstration of the fact that more people tend to think like them than like, say, Robert Reuben or Abraham Lincoln.
The upside -- if you can call it that -- it is Bush who will still be standing there smirking when the shit really starts to hit the fan. (A comment, I realize, that suggests that we haven't all been splattered by a pile of crap already.)
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
In honor of election day
A couple favorite government-by-ballot-proposition references from The Simpsons (especially poignant here in California):
Of course, can't forget the whole Prop 24 episode. One of the more brilliant -- and funnier! -- satires of modern American democracy.
Anchorman Kent Brockman: Now, here are some results from our phone in poll. 95% of the people think Homer Simpson is guilty. Of course, this is just a television poll which is not legally binding. Unless proposition 304 passes, and we all pray it will.
Local TV Station Manager: I'm sorry little girl, we just don't put people on TV, unless of course you're replying to an editorial...
Lisa: Uuh..I am! I'm strongly opposed to..proposition ah 3..0....5
Local TV Station Manager: You're against discount bus fares for war widows?
Lisa: Uh..you bet I am!
[On air:]
Lisa: "I was supposed to talk about Proposition 305 ..."
Homer [watching at home on television, mutters]: "Lousy mooching war widows."
Lisa: Uuh..I am! I'm strongly opposed to..proposition ah 3..0....5
Local TV Station Manager: You're against discount bus fares for war widows?
Lisa: Uh..you bet I am!
[On air:]
Lisa: "I was supposed to talk about Proposition 305 ..."
Homer [watching at home on television, mutters]: "Lousy mooching war widows."
Of course, can't forget the whole Prop 24 episode. One of the more brilliant -- and funnier! -- satires of modern American democracy.
"The Poor Voter on Election Day"
John Greenleaf Whittier
To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.
To-day, alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known;
My palace is the people's hall,
The ballot-box my throne!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of gray.
To-day let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide;
I set a plain man's common sense
Against the pedant's pride.
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in my right hand!
When I'm honest with myself, my vote probably could have bought by the Bush campaign for about $10,000. Not in the form of bullshit ads featuring wolves, mendacious swift boat veterans, or the children of dead soldiers, but with a cashier's check.
John Greenleaf Whittier
To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.
To-day, alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known;
My palace is the people's hall,
The ballot-box my throne!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of gray.
To-day let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide;
I set a plain man's common sense
Against the pedant's pride.
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in my right hand!
When I'm honest with myself, my vote probably could have bought by the Bush campaign for about $10,000. Not in the form of bullshit ads featuring wolves, mendacious swift boat veterans, or the children of dead soldiers, but with a cashier's check.
Monday, November 01, 2004
The Secret to Clay Aiken's Success?
My 76 year-old Japanese grandmother.
My mom told me today that, for Christmas, she's taking my grandmother to see Clay Aiken sing Christmas songs. At $87 a pop! Mom expects an arena full of swooning elderly Asian ladies. According to mom, grandma listens to tweeny-bopper pop stations all day just to hear him. I don't know -- it must be some kind of recessive Japanese gene. They certainly have weird pop fetishes.
My mom told me today that, for Christmas, she's taking my grandmother to see Clay Aiken sing Christmas songs. At $87 a pop! Mom expects an arena full of swooning elderly Asian ladies. According to mom, grandma listens to tweeny-bopper pop stations all day just to hear him. I don't know -- it must be some kind of recessive Japanese gene. They certainly have weird pop fetishes.
Voted
Ok, I just sent off my absentee ballot. It has to get 80 miles by US postal carrier by 8pm tomorrow. The question: will it make it in time to save the election?
