Blog Tips: Maintaining a Sterile Environment

Actor John Cusack tweets:

FoxNews reports:

[VIA]

You know, this method of posting about stupidity has a distinct advantage over actually writing about it: by not typing it myself, there's no way "the stupid" can rub off and infect me...

Wow

It seems that while I was away, the constitutionally elected government of The United States passed a bill to introduce universal health care to its citizens. My own impression is that while this bill is far from perfect, it's a huge step. At the very least people should soon stop it with the negative comparisons to Cuba, etc. already...

Welcome to the 20th... er, 21st Century, America! Surely the End Times are near!

Liars

I meant to comment on this last week, but I've been huddled in the cold the whole time, standing in a line of five thousand people in the middle of a forest on the side of a mountain, eating worms and whatever else I can find for sustenance as the crowd jostles and jockeys for position in line for the last three tablets of aspirin in Japan.

My headache is killing me, but in Japan this is the reality of the health care system. Every once in a while somebody in the line flips out because they can't take it any more. Like clockwork a soldier emerges from the trees and shoots the complainer on the spot. This is good news for the patient ones nearby. For a couple of days they stop grubbing for worms.

I don't complain, and not just because I don't want to be shot. I come from Canada. There's a hellhole if there ever was one. I fucking escaped Canada, dig? In Canada there is no aspirin. I'd never even heard of that shit until I came to Japan. A pill for a headache? Get the fuck outta here! Hell, Canada doesn't even have running water, never mind high-tech shit like toilets.

Shit, I've gotta go. The chubby American who said he'd loan me his iPhone for ten minutes if he could talk to my little girl is coming back. I don't see my daughter, though...

On Marriage... and Equality

Reasoned and impassioned, New York State Senator Diane Savino argues as well as anyone I've ever heard for marriage equality. Watch the whole thing. It's worth it.

[Via: Cynical-C.]

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

So let's see if I've got this straight. Conservative Americans think it's OK to pray in school and force their contemptible beliefs on children; but if the president wants to talk to schoolchildren, it's "indoctrination"? And the rest of the country simply has to eat this steaming mound of shit?

For crying out loud, America. Will you take your fucking country back, or what? You become more pathetic with each passing day. Where is your spine?

[With sincere apologies to my many sane American friends.]

Are You Really that Stupid?

As each post-Obama-election day passes it becomes increasingly clear that the American "right" consists of nothing more than a bunch of whiners and sissies. Big Hollywood is probably the best example of what I'm talking about. How the right can drone on about a "free market" while crying about Hollywood making money on (allegedly) "leftist" movies is quite beyond me.

And really, it's ridiculous and pathetic at the same time to read something like this:

Nowhere is Hollywood bias more blatant than at awards shows. The nominations and prizes provide a remarkable window into the political leanings of the industry. The snub of Clint Eastwood for Best Actor in “Gran Torino” is symptomatic of that overwhelming bias.

Now, as anyone who's been watching movies since anytime before, say, yesterday, knows, Clint Eastwood has been nominated eleven times for Academy Awards (he's won best director and best picture twice, as well as a lifetime achievement award--that's five Academy Awards).

What really pisses me off, however, about the above-linked piece-of-shit-posing-as-political-commentary, is the attempt to whore-out, as it were, a true American icon like Clint Eastwood (and by "true" I mean real, not some bullshit facsimile).

I don't give two flying fucks what Clint Eastwood's actual political leanings are. In fact, since I only "know" Clint Eastwood through his movies, I have no idea how he votes. I have no idea what Eastwood thinks of abortion, of the stimulus package, and a whole bunch of other shit (well, OK, I'm pretty sure he likes jazz).

I'm a huge, and I mean fucking gigantic, fan of Clint Eastwood's body of work. Unforgiven is an existential masterpiece by my reckoning ("It ain't got nothin' to do with deservin'..." Damn!).

Apparently I'm the only guy on the planet who had no idea that Clint Eastwood was/is a political conservative. How can that be? I'll tell you how that can be, in case it isn't so obvious to you. I know Clint Eastwood through his art. He's a fucking artist, not some shill for a bunch of Christ-bothering, knuckle-dragging, racist, sexist, ultimately fucking stupid bunch of losers who wouldn't know a good movie if it came up and bit them on their sorry asses.

Hockey Moms Against Sarah Palin

I'm always looking for hockey-related stuff, so I'm a bit surprised I just saw this for the first time tonight:



Now tell the truth: do you know the difference between "icing" and "offside"?

Hollywood's Left Wing Agenda...

If the title of this post isn't enough to make you spew beer (or your latte) all over your keyboard in wonder-struck hilarity, maybe you should head over to Big Hollywood for some real guffaws.

See, for example, The Top 5 Conservative Characters on "Lost", and wonder to yourself, is this a joke? There are people out there who give a shit about how characters in a fucking TV show might vote? Really? Sadly, yes.

There's much more, of course, but I won't bore you with the sorry details. You can check it out for yourself and come to to your own conclusions. You should probably also check out this post at Kung Fu Monkey [Note: Link fixed 1/22] if you want to get some sense of how things really work in Hollywood.

I'm going to go off on a tangent for a moment or two. Clearly these conservative idiots have no understanding of what constitutes "drama." Don't get me wrong. It's not necessary to have read Aristotle's Poetics to have an intuitive idea of dramatic concepts like "recognition" and "reversal" (for example). In fact, just reading the terms is probably enough to evoke a pretty good theory of what they mean from anybody who's actually watched any sort of dramatic presentation. It gets a bit thornier with concepts like "plot" and "character," and this is where these conservative "critics" show themselves for the un-cultured assholes that they really are.

(Aristotle, by the way, laid out the template for pretty much everything we recognize as "drama" even today. However he, wrongly I think, assigned more importance to "plot" than to "character". A great strength of "Lost," for example, is its meticulous attention to both. I would also include the newer version of "Battlestar Galactica" in any list of good TV shows. I remember very clearly watching the movie Reservoir Dogs at around the same time I was studying Greek drama and the Poetics. I was completely fucking floored. It's one of my favorite movies of all-time. It's a bloody Greek tragedy!)

I remember a few years ago somebody tried to do a hack job on The English Patient by comparing it with Casablanca, the basic beef being that the main character in the more recent movie tells the Nazis what they want to know in a desperate attempt to save his lover, whereas Bogie sacrifices his personal interest in order to fight the Nazis (well, something like that--I'm working from memory). I think both movies are great, and I think both movies are "true" (in an artistic sense--they both speak to some human truth). I think a typical TV-watching, movie-going person has absolutely no fucking problem whatsoever with the moral and ethical dilemmas posed in a good dramatic presentation. Only a fucking retard would walk out of The English Patient thinking to himself, "What a fucking sissy commie wimp, talking to the Nazis for a piece of tail." Nor would anyone leave Casablanca thinking "Man, that Rick is a fucking loser, I would have so nailed her ass."

Now that I'm going, I'm reminded also of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and Virgil's Aneid. And really, this brings us directly to what the Big Hollywood site would like to see: propaganda. They would like to see productions that glorify their view of the world, their achievements (whatever conservatism's achievements might possibly be...), their worldview. But wait...

Homer and Virgil? What the fuck am I talking about? I'll tell you what the fuck I'm talking about, and I'll tell you because I've had the benefit of a liberal arts education and because I've read this stuff and it's secondary literature, and because I'm not just making funny noises out of my asshole.

Homer (it's very questionable whether "Homer" was a single individual, but that's irrelevant for the purpose at hand) told stories. He told stories that he'd had passed down to him, and he likely embellished those stories with things he thought might be interesting to those listening. Homer is especially famous for telling the story of The Trojan War and the story of Odysseus and his voyage home after the war. You know that (I hope). Homer told (well, actually, he sang) his stories in bars and pubs and such for food and drink. Homer was an artist.

Virgil was an artist, too. (I don't want to diminish the importance and sheer skill of Virgil in the following. He had a tough boss, though.) Virgil had the (arguably) good fortune to be in the employ of Augustus Caesar. Virgil was basically instructed to write a poem glorifying (and justifying) the origins of the Roman Empire. He did a damned good job (although he plagiarized Homer almost unforgivably). Such a good job that, a couple of thousand years later, most people don't recognize it as an early piece of propaganda. (Let the evil comments begin!) Apocryphally (i.e. I read it somewhere, but I'm getting too drunk to verify it), Virgil, on his deathbed, instructed that the Aneid be destroyed.

As I think I've suggested above, most people can distinguish between "art" (something that, somehow, imparts some human truth) and propaganda (something that attempts to tell you the "correct" way to do or think about something.). The mere idea that somebody, somewhere, thinks I should be watching this or that material is, in and of itself, extremely offensive.

"Lost" is not a "conservative" show, you incompetent fucking idiot.

[UPDATE: See also alicublog and Sadly, No!.]

Line of the Day

I bow in humble awe:

Before criticising anyone in Iraq, you should first walk a mile in his shoes, so you can throw them at GW Bush.
The insurgency is in its last throws.

Indeed.



No matter how many times I watch that I can still hardly believe my eyes.

[UPDATE: Fun and games for the whole family! Tip o' the hat to ArtSparker!]

None Shall Pass

Reading stuff like this:

The conservative in me hopes that Obama sees the wisdom in governing as a centrist, if not a center-right, president.
Conservatives believe that we have the right solutions to the problems that face all Americans, and that it would be better for the country if Democrats adopted the right policies, even if it helped their party politically.
--Jonah Goldberg, New York Post

And this:

He [Obama] may have opened the door to enactment of the long-deferred liberal agenda, but he neither received a broad mandate from the public nor the needed large congressional majorities.
--Robert Novak, Chicago Sun Times

Reminded me of this:



"The Black Knight always triumphs!" Heh.

Exhale...

Whew! I'm glad that's over.

Stupid Wingnut Tricks

I know, I'm posting too much crap these days that's related to American politics. I should probably change channels. Not yet, though...

In this video clip Sarah Palin, who's giving a speech somewhere, responds to a heckler with the following:

Bless your heart sir, my son is in Iraq fighting for your right to protest.

Palin's audience, of course, let's out a cheer. But really, how stupid do you have to be to fall for such an utterly fluffy (and completely false) bit of rhetoric?

I'm wondering when someone in the McCain campaign is going to drag out the old "silent majority" meme...

Wingnutopedia; This Is a Joke, Right?

Although I'd heard about Conservapedia ("The Trustworthy Encyclopedia") before, it wasn't until yesterday that I steeled myself and actually went over for a look. In case you haven't heard of it, Conservapedia is basically a wingnut version of Wikipedia. Yes, that's right: It's not bad enough that the personal prejudices and general stupidity of ordinary people/writers clouds and distorts "the facts" by accident, but God-bothering, evolution-denying, fag-hating, racist, knuckle-dragging, dimwitted, wingnut conservatives want to channel the forces of prejudice and stupidity and do it intentionally. It might actually be funny if it weren't so pathetic. Let me illustrate with a relatively innocuous example.

Here is the opening sentence from Barack Obama's Wikipedia entry:

Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2008 general election.

Pretty straight-forward, right? Now compare that with the first sentence from Conservapedia's Obama entry:

Barack Hussein Obama II (allegedly born in Honolulu, August 4, 1961) is the 2008 nominee of the Democratic Party for president.

"Allegedly" born in Honolulu? Give me a break. Moving right along, we have the first sentence of Wikipedia's entry for John McCain:

John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the senior United States Senator from Arizona and presidential nominee of the Republican Party in the 2008 presidential election.

Again, nothing to raise the eyebrows, but compare that with the first sentence of McCain's entry in Conservapedia:

John Sidney McCain III (born in the U.S. Panama Canal Zone, August 29, 1936), is the Republican nominee for President in 2008, prominent maverick politician and Vietnam War hero, and is the senior Senator of Arizona.

Are you gagging yet?

The Trumpet

A little ditty from the archives for my American friends currently fighting the forces of darkness and stupidity. Enjoy and be inspired!

Sing Along with JFK-The Trumpetalt. link

She Doesn't Understand English

My grasp of the Japanese language is, to put it somewhat charitably, shit. Sure, I can get by pretty well in most daily situations--shopping, eating out, stuff like that, but as soon as I'm required to comment on something of substance, or express a nuanced opinion (i.e. something a bit beyond, say, "yes, I like sushi!" or "no, I don't like natto!"), it's like walking into a brick wall. Fortunately for me most Japanese that I meet sense this, and very gracefully avoid putting me in a position where I might embarrass myself. Sometimes though, circumstance (or my own stupidity) forces me into a position where I'm required to speak Japanese at a level far beyond my abilities.

For example, if someone were to ask me, in Japanese, about the financial bailout currently being debated in the US, I might be lucky enough to catch a key phrase or two, allowing me at least to have a vague idea about what exactly it is that I'm expected to expound upon. Assuming I'm that lucky (and it's a big assumption), my strategy then is to resort to a type of linguistic flailing: I spout as many terms and phrases as might pop into my head that are in any way related to the topic at hand, in the (usually vain) hope that I will hit upon the desired/expected response.

I had planned to make up an imaginary dialogue to give you, gentle reader, an idea of what I'm talking about. But then I stumbled upon a video excerpt from a recent interview Katie Couric conducted with American vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Here is a concrete example of what it is like to speak about difficult topics in an unfamiliar language:

COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Allow them to spend more, and put more money into the economy, instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it’s got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and getting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade — we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation.

Sarah Palin clearly does not understand English.

[Dialogue via Sadly, No!]

[UPDATE: URL (above) for "natto" fixed, courtesy natto nitpicking Brendan.]

I Suppose I Could Google This...

... but do the Democrats always have their convention before the Republicans? Or is it like baseball where the league that wins the All-Star game gets home field advantage (with the party in power being the "winner" of the last "All-Star game"?). Just wonderin"...

Two-faced, Fork-tongued Fucks

I sincerely hope a lot of Americans watch Jon Stewart...

Stupid or Ironic? Who Can Tell These Days?

Just consider this the Ministry of Truth...

--Dick Wadhams, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, discussing a Republican "war room" set up at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

[Via Fark.]

From the Department of Stupid Questions

Prolegomenon to a wingnut theory of higher education:

Why bother attending college if you can't play the sport you love?
--Phylis Schafly, wingnut

[Via Sadly, No!]

I Laughed Out Loud

The funniest thing I've read this week:

"Maybe they're hoping to learn that Obama's real first name is Damien and that his mother was a jackal."

From The Right's Five Most Hilariously Boneheaded Anti-Obama Smears.