Wait, no, not "tempting" that other thing that's the opposite of that.
I mean it's true that they give you a "side of the news that you just can't find anywhere else" -- the greasy, racist, Cheeto®-stained, basement-dwelling side is just so, so unrepresented in print these days. Oooh, ooh, they have "unsurpassed book and movie reviews" too! I do so wish I could stay up-to-date with the latest in shitty right-wing "entertainment" gossip.
Alas, I think I'll have to pass.
So, uh, there was a scandal. So sad, we're all terribly devastated here. It's awful, really. Rending of garments, wailing in the streets, dumping out of craft beer pints, ritual flannel sacrifice, etc.
Oh, wait, no it's not. Yeah, so, other than the Oregonian, and Willamette Week newspapers, pretty much nobody I know gives a shit. Everybody I've talked to about this has the following reaction: "Oh, what? Really? Huh. Who's the new guvna?"
The woman pictured here, that's who, and that's where it gets good. Because of Kitzy's stupidity, we actually get a real, honest-to-FSM liberal female, Kate Brown, as Governor. And get this: She's also bisexual. First openly LGBT guvna in the whole damn USA. Woo! Yay Oregon!
So, if that's the outcome of this scandal, I think we need more scandal around here. Sorry Kitz, you were a good guy, that (mostly) did good work, but you went and fucked up. Hope for your sake you don't go to prison, but that's about it.
The Governor is dead, long live The Governor!
You're welcome. Please especially note that I enabled a nice hi-def zoom, 'cause I'm such a kind, caring person. Just going the extra mile for my vast readership, as usual.
UPDATE for new meme.
Thanks to paleotectonics for the idea:
(left this as a comment at Rumproast but decided it really needed an illustration for proper effect)
After yesterday's post about GMO wheat, Another article out today with a bit more detail. The telling bit from there is this:
"STREAMLINED" SYSTEM
Heavy criticism has already hit Monsanto, including a lawsuit filed Monday by a U.S. farmer who is alleging the seed company was negligent in allowing its experimental seed to escape its control.
Monsanto countered that its wheat development program was "government-directed, rigorous and well-documented and audited."
The field trials were conducted under a streamlined system known as "notification," which is more lenient than the tightly controlled permitting process.
Under the permit process, companies must establish buffer areas around field trial sites to help avoid contamination of neighboring fields; to use only dedicated machinery and storage facilities for GMO material; and train personnel. Annual inspections are required.
Under the notification process, there are fewer field inspections and regulators rely largely on developers like Monsanto for evaluating and reporting the adequacy of their controls.
Over time, more and more field trials have come under the notification process and it now accounts for the vast majority of field trials on biotech crops.
In light of the discovery in Oregon, USDA should assess its review process, said U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon.
"This incident underscores the need for an agency review of field-testing practices to determine how to avoid this situation in the future," he said.
(emPHAsis mine)
Again, who could've possibly predicted that allowing massive corporations to police themselves would result in anything but glorious positive outcomes and rainbow sparkleponies for all? Inconceivable.
Also, thankfully we have an actual progressive Democratic Senator now in Merkley that isn't in the corporate pocket like his predecessor Smith was, and isn't a traditional, wishy-washy, centrist, Paul Ryan-lovin' "normal" Democrat.
(*Note: not urgent at all)
Care to guess which state could possibly ruin all international sales of U.S.-grown wheat? Yep, it's us!
Well, I mean technically, if you want to be pedantic, Monsanto had a little bit to do with it also. But who could've ever predicted that trials of a genetically modified crop could possibly escape into the wild? I mean, that's clearly inconceivable.
Disclaimer: Beer produced by Oregon Beer Snob™ Enterprises LLC, EFI, LOL©® does not contain any wheat, GMO or otherwise...
And the creatures in congress that they own. Fuck them right in the ear, with the biggest example of one of the fucking guns they worship.
What a horrible, fucked up, shitty week.
Once again the fucking idiots in charge of this country have managed to manufacture a completely unnecessary and imaginary crisis and freak right the fuck out about it. And then let it actually happen. Our gloriously useless press is more than happy to cheer on the debacle. They go along because this imaginary self-created crisis perfectly reflects the unfortunately very real beltway consensus that if only there were some perfect, reasonable, moderate people or party in government everybody would get together and talk about reasonable, moderate solutions to this completely imaginary and unnecessary crisis. All while ignoring the few, y'know, actual reasonable people yelling at them. 'Cause "Eew, ick, who wants to talk to a liberal they're always right about everything and so uncivil and so smug. Let's see if we can see what John McCain thinks! He's mavericky!"
Fuck. There haven't been enough fucks in this post yet. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!
You may be able to tell that I'm more than a little annoyed by this. Yeah, it's personal. My livelihood relies on money from the ebil gubmint. I actually end up saving we taxpayers a pretty decent amount of money because I do the work of the equivalent of about 10 six-figure-salaried federal workers back in DC. I know this is true because they call me to do projects they can't manage to finish. And I don't mind, really -- they're good folks, generally. They mean well, they just work in a completely dysfunctional bureaucracy that values the quantity of meetings you attend over the work you produce.
Nothing has been solidified yet, but there's a pretty decent chance my project (a long running project that actually benefits the general public) will get chopped because of this. We've already been running bare-bones ever since the cuts a few years ago, and we can't absorb another one. It's too bad, I've been producing some especially good work recently -- I finished my most recent project on time and on-budget yesterday in spite of them constantly interrupting me with work on unrelated projects. It's pretty darn cool and has been well received by the folks that have heard about it and seen previews. It may all just be flushed down the shitter along with thousands and thousands of similar projects done by similar unknown wage slaves all over this country just because we're ruled by a cult of Austerity-worshiping center-right fools.
Fuck.
I can get another job, and have options lined up. I'll be fine. Fucking pissed, but fine.
Oh well, might as well see what else I can get done before we get chopped...
As I'm sure you've already heard, pope Ratz, chief enabler and coverup artist in the child-rapist cult that is the catholic church, is resigning. I'm sure he'll be succeeded by an equally horrible individual, but at least we can always fondly remember Ratz as The Sexy Soup Nazi.
Note also, in that linked LGM post this comment. It doesn't matter how many kids get raped how many indigenous cultures get destroyed, how many women are forced into lives of oppression and poverty -- there will always be a deluded mass to continue to believe in the infallibility of their magic sky cult.
It turns out that covering up child rape isn't enough, when you get caught and have to payoff the victims, the classiest way to do it is to desecrate the dead just for good measure (found via Booman). Stay classy, catholics!
I've now received two copies of the following idiocy in my email:
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2013 10:45:39 +0700 Message-Id: <201301300345.r0U3jdEh028401@siamnaliga.com> To: [REDACTED] From: Freedom@Network.net Subject: Sandy Hook Shooting Didn't Happen Excerpt from Muad'Dib's January 7th, 2013 Critical Mass Radio interview: ..They used a poster child for this to get everybody's sympathy and to get everybody's emotions up so that they could hopefully bring in a gun ban. They used a little poster child, a little blonde-haired blue-eyed six year old girl. She was the face, the poster child. She was supposedly killed along with the other 19 six year olds and seven year olds at Sandy Hook. Three days later Obama was there doing a photo op and she's sitting on his knee. She's supposed to be dead, used as a poster child, this little girl died - she's sitting on Obama's knee three days later. The same little girl. And then they have her parents interviewed. It shows that they're all actors. It never really happened, because the guy that was supposedly her dad, is shown in the video where he's to the side and he's laughing and joking with other people and then he's called up in front of the camera. He's off to the left. Then he's called to the center, to the focus of the camera to be interviewed and to give his speech about Sandy Hook and about his daughter. And he goes from on the side from laughing and joking with everybody, he comes up to the center and ... he takes the joking, smiling face off and you can see him physically trying to force his face to look sad and then he starts talking about how his daughter's been killed. They're actors. There were no bodies. It was a made for TV drama to try to ram through the gun control laws, because they want to kill the American people and they can't kill armed people. That's why Hitler disarmed the Germans, it's why Stalin disarmed the Russians, it's why chairman Mao disarmed the Chinese and they killed between them something like 120 million of their own people. And that's what they want to do in America and they can't do it because the people have the Second Amendment and they have guns. So they have to do all of this, and they'll keep doing it. There will be more incidents like this, which are made for television, until they manage to persuade the American people to give up their guns. And then they'll start killing the Americans. Because the Americans are the only people stopping them from doing what they want to do already. They know they can't put their next phase, which is reducing the world's population, they can't put that phase into operation whilst the Americans have got millions! of guns.
How the fuck did I get on this person's mailing list?
What do you even say about this level of crazy? I mean we could examine the little details like how this massive conspiracy is necessary so the ebil gubmint can kill all its citizens. Because obviously if we citizens have our cute little semi-automatic rifles to protect us, we'll be completely invulnerable to the government's drones and vast stockpiles of biological weaponry. Right. But that's just the tip of the crazy, crazy iceberg in this one. Definitely not willing to examine this person's various issues any further.
The "author" (I'm being generous -- "screed spewer" is probably more accurate) closes with this:
This message has no links to help it get through spam blockers. If you are interested in the subjects being discussed, please search the Web for more information.
Uh, thanks, but no, really, I'm fine.
Watched a bit of the idiotic "hearing" with Secretary Clinton today and then I later put on this album:
Perfect match!
Hehehe, I just got this in my inbox from an Apple rep (I use lots of Apple stuff, so this isn't to bash them):
Technology makes this a magical time to be a student. And a powerful time to be an educator. The Apple Learning Tour is an opportunity to experience how you can transform learning with innovative new tools for creating, curating, and deploying content.
Due to a technical issue with our registration system, we are currently not able to accept registrations via our website.
Register today by sending an email to...
Emphasis mine. Perhaps fixing your issue might give educators a bit more confidence in this innovative new technology, eh?
