It's been a hard day's night Not everyone enjoyed the band as much as I did

I saw this band at a Xmas party in our Tokyo suburb. It was a spot-on Beatle tribute band made up of four local government employees. They had the whole thing down cold -- the same matching suits, the same instruments, even the same boots as the Beatles. They even managed the same vocal harmonies, no easy feat! I was quite enjoying them until about their fourth or fifth number, the chorus of which went like this: "Rub, rub me do. You know I rub you. I always be two, so pea-e-e-e-e-e-ease, rub me do. "

I couldn't really concentrate too well after that, what with the wine coming out of my nose and my sides aching. It was all I could do not to start requesting Rutles songs.

h/t to Steve Resume

Naked pictures
Someone, somewhere must have a box full of photographs of the head of Doubleday books having carnal relations of an exceeding degrading nature with a variety of farm animals or possibly K-load. That is the only possible explanation I can come up with for the publication of Jonah Goldberg's (aka Doughy Pantload aka Doughbob Loadpants etc etc) magnum opus "Liberal Fascism." Not only is it nearly 500 pages of complete, ill-considered, unresearched, dim-witted twaddle that would not pass muster in a remedial high school history course, but he was two years late delivering the manuscript to the publishers. If there were any justice in the world at all, the closest this shovelful would have come to publication would have been the Pantload trying to hawk home-mimeographed copies of his hand-printed screed at conspiracy nut conventions and through classified ads in the back of KKK newsletters.
David "Orcinus" Neiwert has the formal takedown at The American Prospect and Jon Swift, prior to publication of the Pantload's fantasy alternative history, had this spot-on summary of the "book".

Sunday night round up
So much to blog about and so little time, so here are some of the recent highs and lows I've seen on the interweb toobz

SS restrains Falafel Boy
Never content to play by the rules of civil society, FOX News douchebag Bill O'Reilly got a warning from the Secret Service the other day for shoving a member of Barrack Obama's staff while trying to get the candidate's attention at an event.

Blogosphere buries another of the fallen
Maj. Andy Olmsted blogged for the Rocky Mountain News and at Obsidian Wings (under the pen name G'Kar after the Army cracked down on soldiers blogging). By all reports, he was the best sort of soldier and certainly came across as a profoundly decent man in all he wrote. He died in an ambush in Iraq on Jan. 3rd. His "in the event of my death " post can, and should, be read here and his stuff at the Rocky Mountain News can be read here. His old blog, discontinued a year ago, is here. Our condolences to his wife Amanda, his family and his brothers-in-arms. I disagreed with him on an awful lot of things, but he was a thoughtful and honorable person and he will be missed.

Gotta love Karma and the CBC
Stuart McLean and Vinyl Cafe have been mentioned here before and probably will be again. McLean likes to give out the "Arthur Awards" on an irregular basis for the little, decent things that people do for one another. Back in the fall he gave one to Jaime Hawkins

Jaime Hawkins was one of our Vinyl Cafe Arthur Awards winners this year. Jaime was not, by his own admission, a good high school student and he continued to struggle after high school. He turned his life around at the age of 27 and got into university as a mature student. He is now a finance student at St Mary's University and he is carrying a $45,000 student loan.
One day last year Jaime went to the ATM at his school cafeteria to withdraw some money. There, by the ATM, he found $10,000 in cash. Jaime didn't keep the money, he turned it in and we thought that was pretty great.
We decided that as we moved across the country this year on the Vinyl Cafe tour bus that we would invite people at our concerts to contribute to a little fund for Jaime Hawkins...just small donations...only loonies and twoonies. Well, we collected donations over the past couple of months and we presented Jaime with the donations this week on the Vinyl Cafe.
To hear the interview with Jaime Hawkins you can listen to the Vinyl Cafe this Tuesday, January 1st, 2008 at 11 pm on CBC Radio One. You can also hear the entire show on our podcast.
You can download the latest podcast or subscribe to the Vinyl Cafe podcast at (link to our podcast). You don't need an iPod to download or listen to a podcast. All you need is a computer. We will also re-air the Jaime Hawkins interview on the radio in a couple of weeks. You can hear that show on the radio: Saturday January 12th, 10 am Radio Two Sunday January 13th, 12 pm Radio One Tuesday January 15th, 11 pm Radio One

They presented Jaimie with over $15,000. Damn, I love the Vinyl Cafe, the CBC, Canada and all who sail in her.

Don't believe everything you see on TV
A group of award-winning radical Czech artists might go to jail for hacking the evening news and faking a nuclear attack on television. Watch the video!


Onward Christian airmen
It is starting to sound like Rev. Dobson and his merry gang of wild-eyed Christian Supremacists are doing their best to start their own armed forces (coughBlackwatercough) and take over the USAF officer corps. Given that it is the USAF that controls most of the United States nuclear arsenal, and given that fundementalist Christians are supposed to welcome Armageddeon, I think this might be cause for concern.

Dare to be stupid
Via Roy Edroso at Alicublog with are treated to the utterly unironic call to arms for conservatives not to be intimidated by smarter, more educated people than themselves. This tendency toward Forrest Gumpism is hardly surprising given that the current crop of nativist conservatives are the direct intellectual descendants of the "Know-nothings" and the current administration's motto, despite Bush's intention to be the "edumacation president", is the most hostile to science, reason and fancy book-learning since, well...possibly Andrew Jackson, but at least Old Hickory, for all his faults, recognized the danger posed by corporations.

From Alicublog, first quoting then analyzing Lee Harris' original paean to thickheadedness:

In a world that absurdly overrates the advantage of sheer brain power, no one wants to be seen as a member in good standing of the stupid party. Yet stupidity has been and will always remain the best defense mechanism against the ordinary conman and the intellectual dreamer, just as Odysseus found that stuffing cotton in his ears was his best defense against beguiling but fatal song of the sirens.

That's the close; the rest doesn't illuminate it much. Smart people will attempt to "pull the wool over the eyes of the rest of us," and though "the intellectual conservative of our day excels in good arguments," he must not use them to defend propositions such as (to use Harris' own example) resistance to gay marriage, because he might get out-argued by the smart alecks.

When the leading candidates for the party's presidential nomination all publicly state that they don't believe in evolution, can there really be any doubt that John Stuart Mill was right in calling conservatives the Stupid Party?

A belated Xmas post
Another member of the International Santa Conspiracy is heard from in Ponoka. We are everywhere.

I cannot bear Mitt Romney
And neither can the Mike Huckabee, who in typical Republican Mayberry Machivelli style held a press conference where he told the assembled stenographers that while the campaign was going to attack Mitt Romney with negative ads, Holy Roller Huckabee just felt he could not stoop that low. And to prove it he showed the negative ad he had decided not to use to press, who immediately broadcast the ad on every major news program as part of the "story" thus saving the Huckster's campaign the expense of paying to air it. This has all the subtlty and earmarks of success of the "hey, look behind you" gambit so often attempted by third graders hoping to escape the class bully.
This campaign ad, courtesy of Jesus' General, is definitely not safe for work, especially if you work at a bear sanctuary or zoo or even if you just really, really like bears. As someone who was there in that very French cafe on that fateful night, I can attest to the fact that the bear consented--in fact it asked Mitt to call the next day so the two could "do brunch and then maybe hang out down at the dump or push over a honeytree." And you thought Mitt's magic underpants and Mexican roots were shocking.

Remember to forget
The on-going battle to keep the media monoliths from screwing with fair use in copyright and extending their ownership of creative work to include just about everything made me think of this great short story by Spider Robinson, which naturally is protected by a Creative Commons copyright.

Headlines we are inordinately proud of - Part 73

Today's Daily Yomiuri - I didn't edit this one, but I did suggest the headline

SDF ready for Godzilla, but not for aliens

and the day before, I insisted on:

Supreme Court rules 'Shane' copyright won't come back

Thank you, thank you -- we'll be here all week, tip your waitress. Try the veal.

Hello U.N.? I'd like to report a crime against humanity

The horror, the horror.

From the article:

Among the dishes, Manaka especially recommends akaza shrimp and foie gras cooked in savoy cabbage and served in sauce americaine as well as char-grilled Iberico pork shoulder served with Madeira wine sauce. They will be served with Glenlivet Nadurra and 18-year-old whisky, respectively. "We recommend that you enjoy Nadurra with just one rock and the 18-year-old straight or with a little water."

Ma Chambre also will serve a cocktail prepared with 12-year-old Glenlivet, orange juice and grenadine syrup as an appetizer for the 12,000 yen set menu.

Glenlivet master distiller Jim Cryle said what makes the whisky special is that it is an original malt that became the "benchmark" for whisky in the Speyside region of Scotland.

First of all what kind of lunatic serves whisky with a main course, especially French or Italian food. These culinary styles evolved along side the best wines in the world, why would you serve them with something like whisky that would numb the taste buds? Why would you do that? Why?

As to the gross blasphemy of the so called "cocktail" I'm absolutely speechless. Glenlivet is hardly the be all and end all of the whisky world, but I'd rather see good 12-year-old single malt scotch used to water the garden than see it insulted. How do you think the French chef would feel if some Scot decided that the perfect accompaniment for his haggis, neeps and tatties or deep-fried Mars bar was a nice late '80s to mid '90 Chateau Latour burgundy, mixed with Diet Sprite and a dash of triple sec. France would invade Glasgow and bomb Edinburgh back to the stone age in retaliation. And they'd be right.

No nailfiles, no liquids, no pulling of fingers
And lay off the chili and beer the day before a flight too. Holy unintended consquences Batman! If you think this woman was embarrassed when she cut the cheese in economy class, imagine how she feels now.

From the BBC:

Flatulence leads US jet to divert
An American Airlines plane made an emergency landing in Nashville after passengers reported the smell of sulphur from burning matches.
The matches were found on the seat of a woman who had attempted to conceal the odour of flatulence with the matches, Nashville airport authorities said.


We await the inevitable lawsuits.

And the winner is.....
Not me. But just the same, I'd like to thank the members of the academy, my producers, the writers, my parents, and of course a shout out to he who makes all things possible. And it really was an honor to be nominated. (scroll down, scroll waaaaaay down) Meanwhile, Me and my fellow ink-stained wretches led by heavy-hitter Cap'n Dave over at the Galloping Beaver came fourth. If only I haven't used the c-word back a few months ago, I'm sure we could have overtake the Canadian Cynic juggernaut. Congratulations to Lefty blog of the year POGGE and silver medalist April Reign. Just wait until next year!
Speaking of awards, the nominations are now open for the annual Canadian Blog Awards (hint, hint) and those of you who know your way around the Canadian blogosphere may smile at one of the early nominees for best humour blog.

Peace on Earth and goodwill toward men, except for you bastards in the back, you're lucky to be getting coal in your stocking

This being the season of brotherly love and peace on earth and all that, let me say to the Santa cynics and soldiers in the Christmas War out there, with all due respect, shut your festering fruitcakeholes!

First, lets get one thing straight -- There is no war on Christmas. No one cares if you want to to go to mass, put up a nativity scene or put little crucified Jesuses (Jesui?) on your tree, but the government can't play favorites when it comes to religious images. Christmas is not just a religious holiday and hasn't been since before Bing Crosby and Jimmy Stewart started making 'holiday movies'. If you think there needs to be a war to save Christmas, you are dumber than Jonn Gibson and Bill O'Rielly in a bag of hammers. To steal a line from John Lennon, fighting for Christmas is like fucking for virginity. Stop spoiling the holidays by inventing something for people to get pissed off about or you are getting coal in your stocking.

Second, there is too a Santa Claus, (the Marx Brothers bit notwithstanding). Don't give me any of your pet theories about how he was created by Coca-Cola or any of that malarky. If Santa didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

Santa exists.

He exists in all those people who give anonymous gifts to the food bank, in all those who put a up a tree and lights and try to make the world a little brighter, even if only for a few days. He exists in those people making the effort to bake treats for the potluck office party instead of picking up a box of timbits, in those people stand on the corner ringing bells in subzero weather to raise money to help people in need, and, indeed Virginia (and the rest of you doubters, in the hearts of little children everywhere.

As one of the blogosphere's most ambivilent agnostic fake clergymen, I'm not big on the notion of there being an all-powerful sky wizard or even a not-so-intelligent designer cum watchmaker in the clouds. I'm okay with the whole Jesus thing - he had some good words to say - I'm just not too keen on a lot of the shit done in his name. Christmas would be one major exception to that.

Christmas deserves to be celebrated just as much as Martin Luther King Day and even from a strictly secular point of view is unquestionably an Objectively Good Thing(TM - pat. pending). How can setting aside a day or a few days to spend with family, give gifts and be nice to each other be a bad thing? What's so funny about peace on earth and goodwill to men. Santa is a big part of that, as he is the embodiment of the secular side of Christmas.

I live in a non-Christian country that loves the secular side of Christmas. Most of the 30 or so kids and a least half the adults at the community Christmas party I attended wouldn't know who Jesus was if he walked across Tokyo Bay and started pushing loaves and fishes on them, but you can bet they knew who Santa was when he arrived.

If you have any doubt that unconditional love exists or that Santa lives in the hearts of small children, get yourself a red suit and cheesy fake beard and go hand out candy canes at a kindergarten some time. It is the most fun you can have doing anything and the most satisfying exeperiece you'll ever have with your clothes on.

Santa is the best and most successful international conspiracy ever, with millions of willing co-conspirators. Resistance is futile, even Scrooge got Santified. Leave the shortbreads and milk/beer/single malt scotch out near the tree on Christmas Eve, or suffer the consequences!

And these evil shits who sent hateful letters to innocent kids? They are going on the naughty list. If I had my way they'd be worked over with a stocking full of coal and tied to four reindeer heading for four different points on the compass. But Christmas is the season of forgiveness, so I guess I'd settle for JJ's suggestion of a peppering with high velocity dogshit.

I am Spartacus Santa Claus!

Priorities
Lucky for all you folks in the Excited States that your government has its priorities in order. In this time of war and economic turmoil, with White House shenanigans aplenty to be investigated, and an election in the offing -- not to mention global warming and the various crises in health care, education, civil rights, race relations, mall shootings and the writers' strike --- it is good to know that your Congress has its eyes on the prize.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) has introduced a resolution (H.Res. 847) saying that Christmas and Christians are important. The House passed this bill Dec 10. The vote, surprisingly, was 372-9, with 10 members also voting "Present," meaning they took no position on the legislation, and 40 not voting. One of the "Present" votes was cast by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.). More Democrats -195 - voted for the bill than Republicans, 177.

Just wait until the new year when the Republicans bring in their controversial bill declaring "Water is Wet" or the all important "America loves ice cream" omnibus bill with clauses declaring puppies, kittens and bunnies "cute" and cockroaches "icky"

New Fish
Let's hope his lardship looks good in stripes. Ex-Canadian and media baron Conrad "Lord Tubby" Black has been sentenced to six and a half years in a low security Florida prison, proving that no one is above the law. Of course, it is the minimum possible sentence he could have received and he will be serving it in a low security prison, where he is more likely to get tennis elbow than be shanked in the yard, so William Zanzinger Conrad Black is being dealt with in the way we have come to expect from the justice system in "class free" America. Thank Jebus he didn't do anything really bad like get a consensual drunken blow job from a fellow teenager or get caught with drugs while brown.
No confirmation yet on when Lady Barbarella Amiel is buying him cartons of cigarettes or soap on a rope for Christmas.

"Hi, I'm Scarlett and I'll be your waitress this evening..."

the flip side of "dollar draft" night

Now, admittedly this beverage includes an 11-caret diamond ring, but still for $70,000 I'd be expecting a half gallon of 100-year old single malt sipped out of a solid platinum, gem-encrusted shot glass nestled in Scarlett Johansen's cleavage (or Brad Pitt's navel for the ladies) and I better get to keep both the shot glass and the bearer.

Violence, while understandably tempting, is not the answer
No matter how often one is seized by an urge to literally slap some sense into a politician, acting on that urge is understandably frowned upon, especially when the victim is someone as comparatively inoffensive as Joe Clark. Having said that, I will not rule out giving Brian Mulroney an atomic wedgie if we are ever alone in an elevator together. I'm saying it would be the right thing to do, I'm just saying I'm not sure I could resist. And I still think there is a certain deterrent value in my suggestion that every pre-Katrina resident of New Orleans should be given a seat at the Superdome and be called, in alphabetical order, down onto the field and given the option of kicking George W. Bush in the nuts.

Musical Interlude

Blogging is likely to be light this week, so feel free to talk amongst yourselves in the comments - I'll give you a topic: Would moving to Anarctica make Kelly Joe Phelps any cooler?

Stupid du jour
While daytime chat shows have never been a beacon of intellectual elitism or fancy book-learnin' one wonders just how stupid one has to be to be on "The View"

From the Huffington Post

For whatever reason, the ladies on "The View" were discussing ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus this morning. Naturally, talk soon migrated to the topic of religion, and Sherri "I don't know if the world is flat" Shepherd came out to play. More specifically, to spew ignorance and a complete lack of understanding of basic
world history! Discussing whether Christians were around during Epicurus' time (Epicurus lived from 341-270 B.C.), Sherri chimed in, "[The Greeks] had Christians 'cause they threw them to the lions."
When Whoopi tried to cautiously navigate her through the timeline of basic world events, saying, "I think this might predate that," Sherri responded, "I don't think anything predated Christians." Joy's attempt to explain the Greek-Roman-Christian chronology was futile, as Sherri insisted, "Jesus came first before them." Sherri's argument was all the more powerful due to her convincing "use your finger to write on the table" trick, but she can't fight the facts. Perhaps if Barbara were on today she would have explained THAT WHOLE B.C. THING (you know, as in, Before Christ).

This story raises two questions: How long before Whoopi Goldberg snaps and hits Sherri Shepherd over the head with a chair and would hitting her in the head have any effect at all?

Sometimes, snark fails me. This is one of those times.


"And believe me, no one suffers more than their president" - Laura Bush

President Bush looks at a t-shirt with Lance Cpl. Isaac Gallegos, left, during the President's visit to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. On the right is Captain Revi Venkataramani. Thursday, Nov. 8, 2007

Trent's Lott
Hmmmm, radical right-wing social conservative and close personal friend of definitely-not-gay-because-he-persecutes-gays Larry "tap dance" Craig Trent Lott is resigning to spend more time with his family or some other obviously bullshit reason.
Would it be irresponsible to speculate? No, it would be irresponsible NOT to speculate.