the defeatists!

oh baby talk dirty to me

behind the scenes here today at Defeatist Central:

On 4/10/07, Commandante Agi wrote:
beautiful. I also want to hear Carl Kasell say it

- Hide quoted text -

On 4/10/07, El Serracho wrote:

frighteningly prescient.

On 4/10/07, Mr.Fundamental wrote:

nail hit head.

like Terri Gross will interview Imus and be like "so now Don, on your
program, you used the words "nappy," "headed," and "hoes."  Could you
give us a little insight into what exactly you were thinking at the
time you uttered these words, and what the implications of them are,
and how you view them personally.

HAHA

On 4/10/07, El Serracho wrote:
> the good that came out of this, i think we can all agree, is hearing
> assorted npr personalities saying "nappy headed ho's." their indignity is
> our moment in the sun.
>
>
> On 4/10/07, Mr.Fundamental wrote:
> >
> http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/04/09/imus.rutgers/index.html
> >
> > what a fucking cracker that Imus prick is.
> >
> >

Victory is Ours!

At last, our long national nightmare is over. Now onto the custody battle!

Yeah, I want a whole bunch of these...

OK -- this is why successful firms have marketing departments that are not staffed by idiots. " Form and dysfunction... I'm trying to envision using the thing, and I'm failing. Granted housekeeping is not something I do; hell, I mainly sit around in a kilt, sharpening Hobbitslicer and quaffing goblets of blood...So, perhaps I'm not really the guy to ask. But still...

“We’re not trying to be nasty or arrogant,” said Mr. Stallard, who characterizes himself and Mr. Fredrikson as “nonreligious.” “We’re saying, ‘Here is a symbol with a story. Read into it whatever you want.’ ”

The brushes were inspired by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “There was all this religious hysteria at the time,” Mr. Stallard said. In response, he and Mr. Fredrikson planned a series of seven to nine brushes, shaped like the world’s best-known symbols of faith, including the Islamic crescent and Judaism’s Star of David. But the designers ultimately decided to make only the cross, in part because of its simplicity, but also because it seemed like the symbol least likely to cause an uproar."   Right...now, if they throw on some Rhinestones, maybe they can sell it through the Jerry Falwell/Liberty University Bookstore.

Not that I really had any doubts, but...

Well, SSSSSSUUUUURRRRGGGEEE isn't working. Failing is perhaps too strong a label, but since even staying even in IraqIranAbsurdistan is failing, perhaps it would be appropriate. This first paragraph from the Times says it all. "American fighter jets carried out an airstrike against Shiite militiamen in the southern city of Diwaniya on Saturday as battles continued there for the second day, American and Iraqi officials said ."

If I understood the concept of this great fucking idea, it was to take and hold thus providing security, basic services and ultimately winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. (Pay no attention to the dweeb behind the curtain! Please pay no attention to the overhead helicopters, the snipers and the hundred man secruity force....) Well that was silly. But, close air support by fighter jets is exactly why we're in this mess in the first place. Shock, schlock and awe(ful) concepts of how wars are fought and how people react.

While I haven't really done a lot of Vietnam comparisons, we should remember that Saigon was pretty secure for most of the war. Securing Baghdad is nice, but only if the rest of the hate-infested place is secure. Otherwise, it's irrelevant. Guess what -- it's as irrelevant as the twits from Whose Line is It Anyway," doing a Karl Rove rap. And, obviously, Karlly boy got no rhythm, or soul...

We Must Declare War on Emo

before it kills us all...

Yet another front in the War on EverythingTM.

More sheer drivel! or, I got your compound thing! Hanging...

One of these days the AXE will remove the daily Buddist mediation from his Google homepage. About the time I bother to prepare for the classes I teach, but that's a character flaw and caused by the ADD/PTSD/LMNOP that afflict me. But this is crap...

Buddhism: Your Daily Meditation

                                                   Decay is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence. - Buddha

I far prefer:

Entropy increases-- Issac Newton

Everything is incredibly screwed up; therefore, any improvement however slight is no mean accomplishment. -- Marcus Aurelius

Ok, you trusted us. You fucked up. -- Animal House

We haven't had any real WOPF lately. I think we need to eradicate the goddamn Buddhists....

I've got your blame right here

I design civil society.

I'm the reason for that pothole.  for all this traffic.  for global warming.  for unsustainable resource consumption.  for the levee failure in New Orleans.  for those stupid landscaping islands in parking lots.  for the width of roadways in residential neighborhoods that you could fit an Abrams tank through.  for leaking landfills.   for the fecal coliform in your local streams and oceans.  for the minor flooding in your basement.  for the major flooding that took out that bridge abutment.  for that bridge failure.  for that gas line that some jackass just stuck a shovel through.   for that road surface you just slid off of.  for erosion.  for that gigantic stormwater basin behind that Walmart.  for Walmart.  for the Los Angeles River.  for suburbia.  for curb and gutter.  for traffic lights.  for all that all-red time.  for traffic circles in New Jersey.  for New York City.  for that tunnel in Boston.  for Atlanta, for Minneapolis.  for the toll road.  for civil society as you know it. 

and so what. 

I do it all for you. 

when society collapses and humans go the way of Crystal Pepsi and dinosaurs, you can blame me, because I could not*** care less.

***updated for moral clarity, dick.

The truth? I pity the truth

You know, the truth about religion. Ever since the paegeant a girl friend dragged me to at the Catholic school where she was student teaching back in the middle part of the last century, I have been able to stare with some degree of shocked schlock...somehow, Christ Risen and the Easter Bunny co-existed. I think that influenced my decision to be a soldier instead of a Jesuit. As a Jesuit, I would have had to endure that sort of crap. As a soldier, I could shoot it...of course, the whole poverty, chastity and obedience thing was a problem to. My fondness for girls, guitars, guns and fast cars made Jesuit an unlikely career choice. So, I am what I am -- an anti-theist with strong Jesuitical leanings.

So, the news that there is no archaeological record of Exodus is probably going to horrify some, confuse others and not bother two groups -- those who believe despite history, and those who didn't believe because of history. No one has pointed to a rosetta stone with the story of Pharonic  army that went off into the Red Sea. Someone would have mentioned it somewhere...or the plagues. You kinda think there would be a record of the plagues. Likewise, lots of small cities pillaged and plundered by the Jews in their ramblings around the vicinity of the Promised Land. If you haven't caught Lewis Black on the Bible and God grab a copy of "Red, White and screwed "

Tertullian was an oirly fadder a da choiuch as Fr Kinsella used to say in Church History 101. He claimed to believe because it was absurd. At one time, I thought that made sense. Hell, I thought Buddhism made sense. Go figure... Believers believe despite not because...and, they're ok with that. I envy them.

But, no manna. No eternal barbecue with the burning bush. No waters gushing from rocks. No hordes of Jews wandering around worshiping golden calves (they were fucking slaves! where the fuck they get enough gold to make a calf? From the chariots of the drowned Egyptian charioteers, I guess. )

Paper of record...but, not so loud

I'm having trouble with the NY Times. Not just Maureen's extended vacation, or the fact that I couldn't compete for the Nick Kirschof trip to Darfur because I'm a part time university teacher, or even because they seem to not be able to review anything vaguely interesting these days. No, it's because of the editorial pages. Robert Wright is a guest columnist, and he wrote a marvelous piece about what the military, specifically the Army brings to the nation.

"In one sense, I was well positioned to enjoy the summer of love. In 1969, I was living in San Francisco, epicenter of hippiedom, antiwar fervor and utopian hope for perpetual peace.      

"Circumstances kept me from sharing the spirit. The part of San Francisco I lived in was the Presidio, which was then a military base. I was 12, and my father was an Army officer. I remember my family once driving toward the Presidio’s Lombard Street gate past tens of thousands of protesters who seemed to think my father was part of a very bad outfit.

"I was sure they were wrong, and I still am. In fact, the whole, larger stereotype — that the military is a right-wing institution, best viewed with skepticism if not cynicism by the left — is way off. Growing up in, or at least amid, the Army helped make me a liberal — not because I reacted against my environment, but because I absorbed its values. If all of America were more like the Army, it would be a better country.

"People think of the Army as hierarchical, but compared with the private sector it’s a bastion of egalitarianism." Emphasis added... As I said, excellent article. See continuation. The reason for that is that they didn't let me save it or share it...it's one of those Times Select things. Absurd...

Part of the issue a lot of folks have with the Times, the Washington Post and so on is that they really never have anything positive about national institutions. Well, of course, there are some pretty good reasons for that. Most of our institutions have been degraded by the clowns running them or running the country. However, there are some great things happening in some of them. We don't hear about them because the dweebs who talk about them do so with blinders on -- Abu Grab Ass is just the night shift; there is no Gulf War syndrome, and so on. Ad infinitum, ad nauseam. So, when the moderate to left side say something good about the Army, they can't believe it. So, they hide it...

See the continuation. It's worth it. The Times is run by Hobbits. So, what else is new...

tear it all down

"I, too, find myself leaving my day at the market in Baghdad with a new sense of cautious optimism that freedom might just work for these people," said Pence

outrage doesn't even begin to describe it.  freedom might just work for these people.  really, I give up.  the arrogance.  the gall.  these people.  freedom might just be the topical cream these people needed applied to them.  off in the shadows during this visit was some chump thinking to himself: sharia law might just work for these people.  sick as the islamist killer beheadist types are, I have to agree with their visceral reaction to idiots like us romping around the place they call home.  I am seriously going to give up on this world.  I don't find comfort in any system.  it's not this, it's not that.  ideology is barren.  talk is cheap.  we really need to take out our heads of state.  I even see no solution in that: the idea is still there, it will only be replaced by different talking heads.  I don't know what to do, what else to do.  developing another system, another ideology is only going to yield the same fruit.  all I want to do is shout down idiots.  shout down big bold ideas.  pick apart and point out the hollow mindless soul and life killing idiocy in the world.  one day I might just stop talking, and just point and laugh, holding back tears.  why try?  why bother?  what can I do to stop you?  what can I do to get you to learn?  nothing works, all too well.