The Invisible Library

It’s Official.  There’s absolutely no one running for president who has my vote.  The Republicans are all evil, belligerent Jesus freaks. Hillary is way too Hawkish (and hasn’t met a principle she wouldn’t sell to the highest bidder for a handful of votes), Edwards can’t seem to say anything coherent and Obama becomes less appealing every damn time he opens his mouth. For a while, I had a slim hope in Kucinich, who aside form some silly, off the cuff remark about UFOs, was pretty damn sensible. But then he went and said that, if nominated, he’d pick Ron Paul as his running mate. While either him or Ron Paul winning the nomination is a slim peg to hang your hat on, I’m seriously disappointed that, out of over a dozen candidates, not one of them is sane, sensible or smart enough to not be a total fuckwit.

So, here we are, a year left until the election and I’m already sick of every single one of these circus freaks we have to choose from. Way to go, Democracy.

BBC:

The UK prime minister is forming a new partnership with other developed countries to make sure international aid is spent effectively.

Ministers from Burundi, Nepal, Zambia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique and Cambodia will take part in the launch. […] Mr Brown said: “There is no greater cause than that every man, woman and child in the world should be able to benefit from the best medicine and healthcare.

“And our vision today is that we can triumph over ancient scourges and for the first time in history, conquer polio, TB, measles, and then with further advances and initiatives, go on to address pneumoccal pneumonia, malaria and eventually, HIV/AIDS.

“Today we come together - donor governments, health agencies and developing countries - with the certainty that we have the knowledge and the power to save millions of lives through our efforts.”

Maybe after Bush and his cronies demolish the country enough for us to qualify for third-world status we’ll finally be able to get Universal Health care here.

According to Omar at Orgtheory, only 73.6% of Americans believe in Heliocentrism. While this may be upsetting, we should rejoice in the fact that, according to Kieran Healy over at Crooked Timber, more people than that are down with interracial dating (83%). Kieran goes on to point out what a marvel it is that the numbers are so high for interracial dating, seeing as how it’s only been forty years since Loving vs. Virginia and there are still people (mostly elderly dinosaurs) who are again’ it. There’s no excuse however for that Heliocentrism number. We’ve known Heliocentrism to be true mathematically and astronomically for more than three centuries and we proved it empirically more than forty years ago.

So, for anyone out there still harboring a bit of doubt: yes, the Earth does revolve around the sun. This isn’t one of those questionable theories like gravity or evolution or electromagnetism, where there’s still a little wiggle room (we’re only 99.998 percent sure about those three). We know Heliocentrism is a fact because we’ve been to the motherfucking moon, people. You can’t build a rocket and go to the moon on it if Heliocentrism is false. It just won’t work. And as big a fan as I am of Interracial relationships (being in one) I’d gladly swap those numbers, if just so that I’ll be able to sleep at night knowing that almost a quarter of my fellow countrymen aren’t concerned that the leprechauns that hold them down to the surface of the Earth aren’t going to bite them in their sleep.

That’s Iraq, since we Invaded.

I’d thought I’d mention that, just for perspective. Next time some Conservative dipshit whose birthing cats over Virginia Tech can’t seem to shed one crocodile tear for the Iraqi dead, you can bring this up. Try not to go deaf in the silence that results as they wrack their pea brains for an excuse (extra points if it involves some tortured argument against gun control).

Aguste at Pandagon has more disheartening stats for you.

Or people in Boston, which may just be the same thing. Since some people in your town can’t tell the difference between a bomb and a cartoon character, here’s a little guide to help you through the chaos:

Not a Bomb

***

Bomb!

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Bomb! Wait! Fooled ya. He just looks like a bomb. Not an explosive device!

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Bomb!

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NOT A BOMB!

In real life, bombs do not look like bombs. They look like plain packages or unobtrusive things. Trash. Boxes. Sometimes shoes (but only once and never since). Or nothing at all because they are hidden inside other things that are innocuous, like cars or plastic bags or chijuajuas. They do not tick. They do not blink.

Bombs are not used as part of a multi-million dollar marketing plan for a movie, even one directed by Michael Bay. They are dropped on people, usually civilians, form a great height, or strapped to the chest of fourteen year olds who still believe in fairy tales. They are stuffed inside soda cans and thrown through windows or mailed to celebrities by a recluse living in a shack in Montana.

Bombs do not ever look like cartoon characters that give you the finger, which you deserve for being so fucking daft that you shut down a whole frickin’ city because the government has you so shit scared that some religious fanatic living in a cave in some lawless zone in Pakistan, using his hand as toilet paper, is going to somehow deliver a state of the art improvised explosive device to the underside of a bridge in the greater Boston metropolitan area.

And even if they could, it wouldn’t light up!

But hay, at least it distracted us all from that war with Iran that Bush is starting.

BBC:

Iran’s foreign minister has rejected criticism of a two-day conference being held in Iran to examine whether the Holocaust actually happened.
Manouchehr Mottaki told participants the event did not seek to confirm or deny the Holocaust, but rather to allow people to “express their views freely”.
Israel’s prime minister has condemned the gathering as “a sick phenomenon”.
[…]Participants include a number of well-known “revisionist” Western academics. American David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, is to present a paper.

This is a mockery of the entire concept of the Open Society. This is a bunch of conservatives and theocrats putting on a pantomime to show the world that fostering an air of open inquiery leads to nothing but a kook convention. This way they can say, “Well we tried your Multiculturalism and look what it did! Oh well, back to the Bhurkas and female circumcision.”

Christian Conservatives have been trying this nonsense for a few years, here in the US. It’s gotten so bad that we don’t even recognize it anymore as a mockery and think now that events like Justice Sunday, which are meetings held by Evangelical Megachurches to discuss legal issues, is just another feature of the fair and balanced media landscape.

Theocrats and Dominionists, here and in other parts of the world, have twisted language to suit their own vile needs. They’ve decided that the simplest way to get what they want is to call whatever their agenda is another name, something innocuous, that has the ring of something benign and maybe even liberal. If the opposite is actually the case, so much the better. Everyone gets duped, no one knows what the fuck is goig on and in the middle of this confusion, while we’re all parsing their mush mouth language, they slip the constitution out from under us and in the name of the Glorious and Holy Revolution, we slide into Fascism and religious dictatorship. Yipee!

Because I live in Georgia, where the Democrats are conservative and the Republicans are Fascists (one local add for the incumbent brags about how he’s agreed with Bush on everything. Like it’s a good thing). Holding my breath still wouldn’t stifle the stench long enough for me to vote for one of these scummy DINOs, not without soiling myself or whoever was in line in front of me.

And even if the Democrats win a majority in Congress, nothing will change. It’s not as if they’ve really been in opposition to anything the Bush administration has done, except with tepid, symbolic gestures. They still voted for the Patriot Act and only made vague Kabuki gestures of opposition to the torture bill.

If the best we can hope for is the same as what we’ve had for the last six years, I can get that by staying home and drinking.

The stars are not just our destiny, they are fucking ours. Not content to invade Middle Eastern countries that are no threat to the US, the Bush Administration has decided to expand it’s imperial goals to include All of Frickin’ Outer Space:

The document - signed by President Bush - also says “freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power”.

The document rejects any proposals to ban space weapons.

But the White House has said the policy does not call for the development or deployment of weapons in space.

Except, that for the last six years, when not dissembling about his role in the destruction of the cradle of civilization, Rumsfeld has been pitching a tent about a laser guided missile defense shield/ space station with lasers. You know that somewhere in the Pentagon, Rumsfeld has a team of engineers working on plans for his very own Death Star so, claiming that we have no designs on weaponizing space is silly.

Having a space based automated “defense” weapon is all part of the Neocon techno fetish. They’ve been flogging this wet dream of waging total global warfare with the minimal number of troops possible for decades and aren’t going to let a little thing like reality or the limitations of technology or utter, abject failure stop them. It’s the same old strategy that went horribly wrong in Iraq, the notion that we don’t need soldiers or Intelligence, we’ll just bomb the shit out of anyone who gets on our nerves. And if we can do that from space (with lasers!) well, that’s just cool as shit.

Wonder if this includes China and their plans of recreating the Lunar Landing by 2012? These idiots will start WW IV because China violates our claims to own the frickin’ universe.

The great Terry Jones has taken a stand for Armageddon:

Those of us who have long been supporters of Armageddon have naturally been greatly cheered by way the president of the United States has been embracing our cause. Our desire to bring chaos, death and destruction to a greater swathe of humanity has, in the past, often been frustrated by peacemakers and do-gooders of all shades of the political spectrum.

For too long, our aspirations have been derided and criticised. In fact, to be blunt, for more than two millennia we have had to put up with opprobrium and vilification, but now all that will be a thing of the past, for in George Bush we have found an ally - indeed, we have found a leader. A man who is prepared to place himself at the head of the forces of destruction and misery, and who is unafraid of the opinion of the rest of the world.

George Bush has finally put Armageddon firmly on the political agenda, and it is likely to stay there for the foreseeable future.

This means that we Armageddonists need keep to the shadows no longer. Bush and his colleagues in the White House have given us credibility and respectability. They have made our goal their goal, and death, disease, war and famine are now the most likely fate for more people in the Middle East than we Armageddonists had ever dared to hope for.

Hat tip to Bob Harris.

sorry for the lack of attention but my ISP has been having server issues the last few days. Everything seems to be OK in computer land now.

I had a fun little post all planned about something or other then World War III started and it all seems kind of silly now, what I was going to say. So, how are you guys? Holding up? Yeah, me too.

The more I think about it the more I come to the inescapable conclusion that our leaders are all crazy people. And I don’t mean “Crazy” in that way that they are just obsessively motivated towards self preservation and aggrandizement of their own ideas but clinically not well. Putin likes to kiss the bellies of little children, The Japanese prime Minister can’t stop himself imitating Elvis in front of the King’s own Daughter and as for Bush, well, he spouts off in unguarded moments, sounding like the drunk at a Shoney’s around 3 AM, talking about Israel and the shit they have to cut out. And these are the popele who are supposed to somehow stop the Middle East from exploding little bits at a time, keep North Korea in check and solve this whole Global Warming thing.

Yeah, we’re all going to die.