Open Thread & Human Rights Posted by spyder, 11 May 2007 05:04 pm

Open Thread (#8)

Up until 1970 i used to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, the very merry month of May, with the rest of the Californios. After that, it became just another day in another month, a post-fourth of May acknowledgement of that dreadful moment in US History. Well in honor of all of those killed by our governments’ evils, i propose that we accept lists of the top-ten, alltime, worst, governmental administrations in world history. Bushco clearly has moved into the top spot in the US pantheon, but is it so horrible, so corrupt, so imperiously evil as to even garner a nod in the top-ten all time on the planet; and by what do we measure that dark force’s influence??? The candidates are nearly unlimited, even if we just stick to the 20th century. But buried deep in the minutiae of history’s dustbins and rubbish piles are some real winners spread across the continents. For example, i might consider Pizzaro more vile than Pinochet, but another would take Colombus over Cortez. Richelieu or Torquemada? I might consider Rove vastly more evil than either Bush or Cheney?? Go have fun with this one, while i research my fabulous ten and post later today.

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Responses to “Open Thread (#8)”

  1. on 11 May 2007 at 5:51 pm 1. christian h. said …

    Good question. There’s really an embarrassment of riches to choose from… this is particularly true in the history of Germany, not because we’re more evil, but because there used to be so many statelets around. I’ll nominate Friedrich V., elector of Palatine, whose stupid acceptance of the Crown of Bohemia on behalf of the Protestant rebels there touched of the Thirty Years War.

    Another off-the-beaten-path candidate is Francisco Solano Lopez, president of Paraguay, who managed to start a war with the three larger neighbors Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay that, by some estimates, eventually led to the death of the majority of Paraguay’s prewar population.

  2. on 11 May 2007 at 6:52 pm 2. spyder said …

    I would love to hear from folks who could provide input of these sorts of regimes across the continents. There are so many i couldn’t begin to consider just in the history of Africa or Southeast Asia. I can’t imagine that India was free from vicious and vile rules, and China even more so.

    Lopez is a good start in South America. I am trying to find some references regarding particular Chavin and Moche periods of the Pacific Coast of SA; as i recall there were a couple of incredibly ruthless lords.

  3. on 11 May 2007 at 7:22 pm 3. christian h. said …

    Want to know why men may become bad rulers? Read all about Nero’s father here.

  4. on 11 May 2007 at 8:01 pm 4. Oaktown Girl said …

    Good topic, spyder. I hope some our more historically astute Party members come out to play here this weekend.

    I’d also like to introduce a concurrent (but related) Top 10 list, if I may: The Worst Leaders in history that somehow maintain a reputation among a staggering number of people of having actually been a GOOD or even GREAT leader. Straight to number one, at least for the United States: Ronald Reagan? More on that from me later.

    Tonight for me is, of course, all about the Warriors trying to climb back into this playoff series against the Utah Jazz (”Utah” and “Jazz” , yeah, right. *snort!* There’s a team that relocated from New Orleans, alright). The thing is, watching basketball on TV totally stresses me out, so I have to check in on the score right quick, then turn it off again. I checked just a few minutes ago and the Warriors had a substantial lead in the 3rd quarter. [Begins holding breath.]

    The’s A’s are playing a home game tonight too, so teh sports are really hoppin’ in Oaktown tonight.

  5. on 11 May 2007 at 8:23 pm 5. Colonel KL said …

    OOOH. I can get way into this one. Going to do my research, stack my stats and let the stuff fly. Putting butt inspection gloves on and hip waders, too. This is going to be a dirty job and smelly until the fresh air and sunshine of truth gets in the crevices.

  6. on 11 May 2007 at 8:32 pm 6. Kiera PSI said …

    Are you turning blue yet, Oaktown Girl? Can they mess up a 20+ point lead in 3 minutes? We’ll see!

    I’m not much on the leader aspect of history, I’m nore into the cultural aspects. I’m not much thrilled with some of England’s finest…we’ve got a lot of backstabbing (almost literally) there, while the people were left to rot in disease and poverty. Fortunately they’ve survived it to…hmm, witness more backstabbing and disease and poverty! And they’re one of the “better” countries!

  7. on 11 May 2007 at 8:46 pm 7. Kiera PSI said …

    Okay, breathe girlfriend, breathe! Golden State wins, 125 to 105 (for some odd reason Utah couldn’t hit a free throw to save their lives). Switching energy to the Oakland game and they immediately go their second homer of the night and are now winning 3-1 over Cleveland.

  8. on 11 May 2007 at 8:53 pm 8. JP Stormcrow said …

    Hey,
    you’re talking about my generation!
    I hope we die before we get really, really, really, freaking old.

    Can’t believe that when I posted this (very on topic riff…) in Dr. F-R’s labor thread, that I forgot about the following video, which I had seen.

    (and now that I mention it, I am beginning to think that Oaktown or someone may have posted it here at waagnfnp somewhere …well if so, here it is again.)

  9. on 11 May 2007 at 8:58 pm 9. Kiera PSI said …

    Make that 6-1 in the top of the 8th. Aren’t you glad I cleaned off the “alter”? I’m heading off for the night…I’ll leave the A’s…and the world’s worst leaders…in all of your many capable hands. I’m looking forward to reading all about it tomorrow.

  10. on 11 May 2007 at 9:35 pm 10. spyder said …

    Well, high on my lists has always been General Nelson Miles, the man appointed by Sherman to do to the Indians of the American West what Sherman had done on his march to the sea. Miles happily obliged, destroying and subjegating one tribe after another, brutally, ruthlessly, devastatingly. He was only following orders. Right?

    So Tiger Woods, barely made the cut at the Players, in T-59 and a whopping nine strokes back at +4. Lorena Ochoa is trying to keep pace with the Tiger by falling seven strokes down tied for 19th. Detroit goes one up on the Ducks, and SoCal is burning as the temps hit 100 three weeks earlier than normal in Arizona.

  11. on 12 May 2007 at 12:24 am 11. Oaktown Girl said …

    Thanks, Kiera!
    I checked back in on Warriors with about 5 game time minutes (very different than real life minutes) left to go. But they still had a good lead, so I was able to watch it through till the end without too much stress. Praise Astaroth! And Utah couldn’t hit their free throws you say? My…how the worm has turned!

    And the A’s broke their habbit of having terrible losses immediately following extreme blow-out victories. Huzzah! So, we’re all cool until the next Warriors game Sunday night. Oy. Why does basketball have to be so stressful?

    Getting awfully late. Looking forward to seeing what evil regimes y’all came up with.

    spyder - maybe we should do it like a NCAA basketball bracket. Divide the evil leaders into certain categories - perhaps region, perhaps era, perhaps some of both. Then we figure the worst in each of those categories, and have our “Final Four” and “Championship” evil regime showdown on Sunday night. Of course, I propose this knowing that I myself need to spend all my research time this weekend on that post that got postponed last week due to illness. (Which keeps me stuck in researching the current evil regime).

  12. on 12 May 2007 at 8:02 am 12. Kiera PSI said …

    Doesn’t it just make you wonder what historians will say when they look back on this era? That’s assuming mankind SURVIVES this era to look back upon it. Sigh.

    They’re going to wonder how Americans suddenly became a bunch of freaking SHEEP.

  13. on 12 May 2007 at 8:16 am 13. spyder said …

    baaaaaa baaaaaaaa baaaaaaaa… i am so tired of all the crying Wolf shit; just leave me alone to graze in my mass consumables while i drive my off-road monster truck through all these trees over here, where i can park on some rocks over a little creek and change my oil.

    But since something is in the air, here is a little post put up today by one of the smirkers: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/7424

  14. on 12 May 2007 at 8:20 am 14. spyder said …

    I like Oaktown Girl’s suggestion of brackets and divisions for a tournament of the damned, who doomed various species (mostly Homo sapiens) of the planet to premature, gruesome and hideous deaths. I propose the following construct for this tournament.

    We shall have six divisions (and i hugely welcome renaming in appropriate referents):
    Asia: (central and northern) including Russia, China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, eh;
    Southern Asia: south of the Himalayas (across the Aral, Caspian, Black seas) from Philippines through the Arabian peninsula, and all of Southeast Asia, India, Indonesia, et al;
    Africa from the Cape of Good Hope to Bizerta in Tunisia, from Dakar to Cape Guardafui and of course we can’t forget the cockroaches of Madagascar;
    Europe adding Turkey but not Russia and accepting the Icelandic Norse berserkers;
    South & Central America up to the 15ºth parallel not missing the del Fuegoans (ruthless);
    North America do i really need to be more specific than that??

    In each division will be four categories: Prehistoric (and/ or indigenous tribal), Ancient/Classical, “those thousand years” (500 CE to 1500 CE), and since 1500 CE.

    So under Asia, i nominate the Empire of Japan beginning in 1901 to 1947!

  15. on 12 May 2007 at 8:23 am 15. spyder said …

    and while people try to put us down, i still won’t be no Cathy’s Clown!
    (gratuitous acknowledgement to upcoming summertime blues)

  16. on 12 May 2007 at 8:27 am 16. spyder said …

    okay, one more thought:

    The essential nominating criteria must be the ultimate “what if” value:
    What would the nominee have done if s/he had had the GNF???

    Afterall, we are here to promote the all-vaporizing wisdom of the party and Gojira!!!

  17. on 12 May 2007 at 8:53 am 17. Kiera PSI said …

    I need new glasses. I typed a lovely long post about the mongols and typed the security code and typed submit…and it all disappeared because I mistook 8’s for 0’s. Grrrr. It’s gonna take me a while to reconstruct that puppy…and I’m sure I’ll have lost all of the wonderful nuances…once your muse gets done, it’s done!

  18. on 12 May 2007 at 8:54 am 18. Jams said …

    I think one should be watchful of one’s hyperbole. HushCo hardly stands out as being exceptionally awful.

    Take Nixon, for example, who - with Kissinger’s aid - intensionally prolonged the Viet Nam war just so the peace could be achieved during his term in office, and then didn’t make it happen. That’s pretty astoundingly corrupt. And of course, there’s Watergate. Bushco at least tried to create a legal framework to justify spying. Even Iraq doesn’t really stand out as an exceptional American war, rather, it seems somewhat typical of American administrations. Mind you, the “co” of BushCo littered Nixon’s administration.

    Leaving America, the commonness of corupt “evil” power is somewhat overwhelming. The Spanish inquisition launched whole generations of corrupt administrations - not to mention the Catholic church in general; frequent genocides dot our globe’s past; political assassinations are everyday occurrences; and so on and so on. It’s hard to throw a stone at history without hitting a greater tyrant that Bush and the gang.

    Ya know?

  19. on 12 May 2007 at 9:18 am 19. spyder said …

    Jams, you are kidding me right??? If anything, what highlights Bushco is that Rove has learned from the right hand of his fathers to avoid some of the pitfalls of the Nixon regime in order to insulate the perpetrators, and increase the levels of corruption and empire building. I was a US Senate staffer during the Nixon era, and am more than familiar with the perils that were laid before this nation during that time. And if you assume that executive orders, issued by fiat, were trying “to create a legal framework to justify spying,” it is a sad day for this nation’s great soul. The processes involved in creating the unitary executive were developed from the failures of the Nixon and Reagan/Bush administrations to fully control the US government across the breadth of the Constitution. Stacking courts with politically aligned associates; filling the offices of prosecutorial personnel with xTian certified loyalists to insure that the corruptions would go unpunished; issuing signing statements to destroy any and all pieces of legislation they found troubling–no, this is beyond the scope of our own national history.

    Iraq is the outcome of an imperial invasion to control planetary natural resources. Though not unlike the Monroe doctrine, or invasions of various Latin American and other countries in previous centuries, this current empire building is being done, not in the behest of the US national security interests, but rather for the corporate neo-feudal lords of capital. The closest analog might be Emperor Palpatine??

    Yes, my point was that in the grand scheme of things i don’t find Bushco in the upper echelons of the pantheon of planetary evil doers. I do recall mentioning Torquemada in my original post, and would certainly add some of the popes to that list of all-time thuggery.

    Do you have any nominations for the divisional categories???

  20. on 12 May 2007 at 9:27 am 20. spyder said …

    For a brief primer on the corruptions and evil of Bushco see William River Pitt’s latest column: Two Hearings, One Reality

    sample?:

    I remember clearly my interview with Stewart Scott, a former Halliburton employee. With pain and rage in his voice, he asked how dare Halliburton put its people up at five-star hotels while the soldiers, who he was there to help, were sleeping on the ground. I did not believe him at first, but then he began naming the hotels and the locations. It was all true.

    I also spoke with Shane Ratliff, a truck driver from Ruby, South Carolina. He saw Halliburton advertising a job for truck drivers in Iraq and he signed up. When Shane started telling me that empty trucks were being driven across dangerous stretches of desert, I assumed he was mistaken. Why would they do that? Then he explained that Halliburton got paid for the number of trips they took, regardless of whether they were carrying anything. These unnecessary trips where putting the lives of truckers at risk, exposing drivers and co-workers to attack. This was the result of cost-plus, no-bid contracts.

    Another young Halliburton worker named James Logsdon told me about the burn pits. Burn pits are large dumps near military stations where they would burn equipment, trucks, trash, etc. If they ordered the wrong item, they’d throw it in the burn pit. If a tire blew on a piece of equipment, they’d throw the whole thing into the burn pit. The burn pits had so much equipment they even gave them a nickname: “Home Depot.”

    The trucker said he would get us some photos. And I naively asked, how big are they, the size of a backyard swimming pool? He laughed and referred to one that he had seen that was 15 football fields large and burned around the clock! It infuriated him to have to burn stuff rather then give it to the Iraqis or to the military. Yet Halliburton was being rewarded each time they billed the government for a new truck or new piece of equipment. With a cost-plus contract, the contractors receive a percentage of the money they spend. As Shane told me, “It’s a legal way of stealing from the government or the taxpayers’ money.” These costs eat up the money that could be used for other supplies

  21. on 12 May 2007 at 10:12 am 21. Colonel KL said …

    Submitted as fuel for the Shrub fire:

    New charges have been filed alleging that a former top CIA official pushed a proposed $100 million government contract for his best friend in return for lavish vacations, private jet flights and a lucrative job offer.

    The indictment replaces charges brought in February against Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, who resigned from the spy agency a year ago, and Poway-based defense contractor Brent Wilkes. The charges grew from the bribery scandal that landed former U.S. Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in prison.

    The pair now face 30 wide-ranging counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.

  22. on 12 May 2007 at 11:15 am 22. Kiera PSI said …

    But this, too, has happened throughout history. Monarchs and other despots enriching themselves at the cost of those they are supposed to serve and protect. It’s shameful, terribly, horribly shameful, but nothing new.

    What I find truly annoying is that they’d shown their true colors during the first four years, yet they were given another term to truly screw us into the ground. If only a few more sheep would have opened their eyes in time, we would have moved on to the next “crew”.

    I had a coworker who was going to vote for Kerry up until he declared in support of pro-choice. Not pro-abortion, mind you, pro-CHOICE. So, she voted BushCo back in. “WHY?” I asked. “Well, he’s against abortion.” “Oh, so you don’t care that he’s going to send your son to Iraq to die and further enrich his oil buddies, just so long as he doesn’t allow some poor pregnant woman to decide what to do with her own body.” Later, she got totally pissed off at one of the administrations atrocities. “Talk to the hand,” I told her. You voted for him and you gave up any right to complain. This is ALL YOUR OWN FAULT. But hey, I heard it’s going to be next to impossible for a pregnant woman whose life could be endangered to save her life at the expense of a three week old fetus, so it’s all good, right?” She stopped talking to me altogether after that.

  23. on 12 May 2007 at 11:39 am 23. spyder said …

    The only little issue there in your co-workers vote is that there sufficient evidence (including guilty pleas) that the 2004 Presidential election was electronically hacked to give Bush Ohio. That means that this adminstration was not elected into office either time, but rather put themselves into office to facilitate the takeover of the entire US government apparatus and use taxpayer revenues to enrich themselves and their friends. Monarchies and feudal empires are supposed to do that, not supposedly democratic republics.

    Alas, I am still waiting for more nominees in the categories. Do we hear any suggestions for most vile Babylonian/Persian/Turkish regimes? How about some of those Mughal emperors??? Can we compare and contrast the Manchu versus the Mongol rulers??

  24. on 12 May 2007 at 1:05 pm 24. Oaktown Girl said …

    Kiera- I’m so sorry you lost that great comment you were working on. We’ve all been there, hate that.

    Here’s what I highly, highly recommend for you and everyone: when you find you have an inspired comment going, after the second paragraph start “selecting” and “copying” it frequently as you go along - even before you get to the Preview/Post stage.

    I usually pay a very high price in time and frustration when I fail to do this. And I can’t emphasize enough that you need to do it even before you’re ready to hit the captcha or preview buttons, because what’s even worse - much worse - than the computer eating your brillant, inspired, and can’t-possible-be-recreated comment is when your fingers accidentally hit the wrong key and you delete that brilliant comment YOURSELF!!

  25. on 12 May 2007 at 2:36 pm 25. Kiera PSI said …

    Looks like the USA is following the path of the “great” democracies/republics of Greece and Rome. How long do you think it will take before we have a popularly declared “Ceasar”? They’re setting themselves up to try and push for a “cohesive government” which I’m sure they’ll tell us we need to “win the war on terror” or to “win the war on drugs”. Wait…I know…we’re going to have…

    Kaiser Schwarzenegger!

    Although with recent happenings it will be to win the war on the poisoning of our food supply. The sleeping dragon has found a way to defeat us without a massive war machine.

  26. on 12 May 2007 at 2:41 pm 26. JP Stormcrow said …

    (gratuitous acknowledgement to upcoming summertime blues)

    I am still a bit ambivalent on the whole retro tour thing. For instance apparently there is a whole “Hippiefest” tour and it is coming by here this summer. This is a moderately interesting lineup - although I could certainly lose The Turtles - but my God, the name and the advertising!! And if you buy “platinum” seating at Hippiefest for $48 are you still groovy? … but then again there is that free parking.

    Hippiefest - 8/10/2007, 7:00 pm

    Take a trip back to the time of free love, bell bottoms and tie-dyed shirts with a lineup of musicians that will be far out! The lineup includes The Turtles featuring Flo & Eddie, Felix Cavaliere’s Rascals, The Zombies featuring Colin Blunstone & Rod Argent, Mitch Ryder, Badfinger featuring Joey Molland, and Country Joe McDonald. It’ll be far out!!!

    Ticket prices are $48 for platinum seats and $28 for lawn seats. Free parking.
    .

    Ah, my daughter says she will go with me - I have my cover….

  27. on 12 May 2007 at 2:44 pm 27. Kiera PSI said …

    Okay, with all that doom and gloom, it’s time for a cute family pic. Let’s see if I can get the code right.

    [JP - edited your code to make it work. Use < src=”url” > Here is a good source for HTML tips.]

  28. on 12 May 2007 at 3:15 pm 28. christian h. said …

    Here’s what I highly, highly recommend for you and everyone: when you find you have an inspired comment going, after the second paragraph start “selecting” and “copying” it frequently as you go along - even before you get to the Preview/Post stage.

    Or write the whole thing in an editor first. Or, get more inspired, make your comment into a post, and submit it! That would be a great idea.

    Sorry about the captcha thing, though. It can be really annoying. And thanks for the calming family picture, though I think half is still missing.

  29. on 12 May 2007 at 3:21 pm 29. spyder said …

    Oh dear me. It is almost sad that Country Joe is on that tour, although he can sing the song he wrote ten years ago for the 30th anniversary of the Summer of Love called Summer of Love. That was a pretty amazing day actually, as were many of those other days between 1965 until July 1967. A hippyfest for the fortieth anniversary seems a bit much though.

    Anyway, i was trying to ignore this; but if any of you are the least bit interested, here is my “Indentured Servitude* Summer Tour of 2007″:

    We start in LA, CA on May 26th with Pravda (an LA Philharmonic event)
    June 1-3; Merced, CA: for the Heartland Farms Organic Farmer’s summer picnic
    June 8 -10; Santa Rosa, CA: Harmony Festival
    June 15-18; Santa Barbara, CA: Live Oak Music Festival
    June 22-28; Tucson, AZ: Molehill Orkestrah CD release and solstice fest
    July 5-9; Quincy, CA: High Sierra Music Festival
    July 13-15; Eugene/Veneta, OR: Oregon Country Faire
    July 20-22; Eugene: FaerieWorlds Festival 2007
    July 26-29; North Plains, OR: String Cheese Incident Full Moon Dreamdance and Summer Camp
    August 3-5; Camp Zoe, MO: Big Summer Classic with String Cheese Incident
    August 10-12; Red Rocks, CO: String Cheese Incident’s final faretheewell shows
    August 24-26; North Plains, OR: Northwest String Summit Spectacular
    August 27-Sept??; Black Rock City, NV: Burning Man 2007 Green Man

    *i am enslaved to three production companies that are entwined in a wonderfully-collaborative, vertically-integrated, economic way.

  30. on 12 May 2007 at 3:32 pm 30. Kiera PSI said …

    It was probably too big…let’s try this one…I couldn’t find the tutorial for pictures on that link, just for italics, bold, and links.

  31. on 12 May 2007 at 3:33 pm 31. Kiera PSI said …

    well, dang it, it didn’t even show the code let alone the picture.

  32. on 12 May 2007 at 3:38 pm 32. christian h. said …

    spyder, you comment was caught up as spam due to the number of links, sorry.

    Kiera, your comment 30. (formerly 29.) doesn’t show any embedding code. How odd. Computers are a total mystery…

  33. on 12 May 2007 at 4:03 pm 33. Oaktown Girl said …

    Hey Kiera -
    That is a great picture!
    You definitely want to shrink them up a bit before trying to post them so they don’t break the margins and whatnot.

    Also, register with ImageShack and upload your cool photos and images there. Then ImageShack gives you the linking code to post them here, and you don’t have to worry about any html code at all! Plus (and this is very important), you don’t eat up our alloted memory space (or whatever the technical term for it is) because ImageShack is “hosting” your photos. Go register right now…it’s easy!

    http://www.imageshack.us/

    spyder - perhaps if we’re going to do a round-robin tourney for Worst Regimes Ever, we need to give some advance notice so folks can have some research time. I don’t know how many crack historians we have here on a regular basis…yet.

  34. on 12 May 2007 at 4:16 pm 34. Oaktown Girl said …

    Problems posting comments?

    The MOJ received this in her mailbox from a “Daniel”:

    maybe you could find out why they’re [posting comments] impossible for some of us with weird systems, like Mac Power
    Book running 10.4 and current Firefox (with proxies turned off and cookies fully enabled, for this moment, to see whether it would help, and it didn’t.)

    Gripe gripe gripe, and Napoleon was a bigger and more adulated loser
    than even Ronald Reagan, so there.

    Any technical folks got any ideas how to help with this? Much appreciated.

  35. on 12 May 2007 at 4:45 pm 35. Kiera PSI said …

    Okay, just tried to post two different times with code provided from image shack, neither one posted. It’s worse than photobucket! I’ll try the last code they offer.

  36. on 12 May 2007 at 4:46 pm 36. Kiera PSI said …

    I tried posting three different times, each time using a different line of code offered by ImageShack. None of the posted at all.

  37. on 12 May 2007 at 4:55 pm 37. christian h. said …

    Ok, I’ll post this comment as a test from a logged-out computer.

  38. on 12 May 2007 at 4:57 pm 38. spyder said …

    I have been made aware today, that other posting comment hosts are having a similarly difficult time. Haloscan is running only marginally, as is Google’s blogger. Perhaps there is an ongoing “denial of service” hack????

    We might just have to let it be for a bit and see what happens????
    This is a test of the image feature system, using embed codes from photobucket???

  39. on 12 May 2007 at 4:58 pm 39. James Killus said …

    JP,

    I will not, not, not stand for anyone dissing The Turtles, Tricia Nixon’s favorite band, snorting coke in the White House and providing Frank Zappa with the Phosphorescent Leach (Flo) and Eddie, who formed the most killer vocal backbone to “Who Are the Brain Police?” that the Mother’s ever performed.

    F&E also had a radio show in LA for a time, and while I do not remember specifics of their inerview with The Firesign Theater, other than wanting to know who was the “Stills of this group,” I have it on good authority that it was surrealist heaven, said authority, of course being me.

    Check out “The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands” before you mock. It is a polished gem.

  40. on 12 May 2007 at 4:59 pm 40. christian h. said …

    Ok, so your comments got caught in the spam filter for no discernible reason. Even so, clearly two of the embed codes don’t work. I’ll try some editing to see what happens, and then delete two of these attempts.

  41. on 12 May 2007 at 5:02 pm 41. christian h. said …

    Well, the < src=”url” > code works, even without the whole < a href= > stuff; the other two, don’t. I’ll delete those.

  42. on 12 May 2007 at 5:17 pm 42. spyder said …

    One of my most favorite koan haiku’s:
    for the turtle to go
    any where, first it has
    to stick its neck out

    KPPC became KMET and host to the Flo & Eddie show, along with Dr. Demento, et al. This was after the heyday of such luminairies as the Obscene Steven Clean, Jeff Bonzo Gonzor (who played the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah band excessively), the Credibility Gap (now among the elite of Hollywood animation voices), Elliot Mintz (obviously better a radical radio host than Paris Hilton’s publicist), and others. From 1967 to 1971 you could enjoy such moments as “Bath time with Bach” and your morning Alan Watts meditations; along with the premiers of, what are now regarded, the greatest albums of the period, played straight through, over and over until you had them memorized in the first 24 hours (nothing like 8 hours of Saucer Full of Secrets and Ummagumma to waste your mind). They originally broadcast from the basement of the Pasadena Presbyterian Church and sponsored great concerts all over SoCal. They also helped with lunchtime free concerts at UCLA often performed by the Mothers and others.

  43. on 12 May 2007 at 6:09 pm 43. JP Stormcrow said …

    I will not, not, not stand for anyone dissing The Turtles

    James, I will admit that I was/am rather unaware of the full range of The Turtles’ work. Only really knew Happy Together and She’d Rather Be With Me and both have worn poorly for me - it was not really needing to hear those two again that was the basis for my comment. Will try to find some of the items you mention.

    … and this is the kind of things that happens when you are an insufferable music n00b like me. But, no worries - I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus.
    It’s just that some bozos are more equal than other bozos.

  44. on 12 May 2007 at 6:41 pm 44. spyder said …

    no worries - I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus.

    I’m sorry, that over there is the Bozo bus, we are only Bolo’s on this one, and it is off limits to all Bozo’s. So sayeth the most holy gospel according to St. Dilbert, as translated from the ancient Mandean by Robert Hunter:

    “St. Dilbert was walking in the market one day when up staggered a Bozo to ask his opinion on whether the king, who had been caught with his hand in exchequer, ought to abdicate, be deposed, have his hand cut off, or be given a medal. With very little pondering, the Dilbert is said to have replied: “You Bozos slay me. You pick a king who best represents the sum of your individual lameness to rule you, and then complain because he has a big red nose.” While considering this reply, the Bozo smelled smoke, and looking down realized that the Dilbert had, once again, placed a lighted match between his toes.”

    No, sir: I am a Bolo. The rest of you are all a bunch of Bozos

    However St Dilbert could not resist the pull of the crass capitalists of the Bozo bus. He had been lured by the magical hypnocracy, the double-secret super-special handshakes and chilling zone that was the lair of the Bozo.

    For example, consider the rise of hypnocracy during April and May 1972. The Bolo bus had a john in it and its seats faced forward. The Bozo bus had a refrigerator and some of its seats were installed facing back, to accommodate four tables. And to look back. The subtle difference in character and import and atmosphere between the two omnibuses was so profoundly hidden and enigmatic that you could never possibly understand it. The Bozos wore masks, and the Bolos showed their faces. At one time the Bozos staged a raid on the Bolo provisions; at one time the Bolos staged a raid on the Bozo provisions.

    One time St. Dilbert defected from the Bozos and lived for a season with the Bolos. In view of his subsequent martyrdom, his penitence and reconciliation with the Bozos, it came to be said that he was a true hypnocratic missionary to Bololand. And to look back, it appears evident that Bozo and Bolo knew themselves each the other’s raison d’etre. Is hypnocracy not the aspiration to know what it is?

  45. on 12 May 2007 at 7:14 pm 45. JP Stormcrow said …

    I am afraid that I am little help on the nominations. Upon examination, I find that I am left with little but masses of “anecdotes” about various notorious rulers through the ages - and many have an “urban legend” ring to them. I do think Pol Pot’s Cambodia is a sure entry and probably Tamerlane - although he gets some props in some areas and did support the arts

    Timur’s legacy is a mixed one, for while Central Asia blossomed, some say even peaked, under his reign, other places such as Baghdad, Damascus, Delhi and other Arab, Persian, Indian and Turkic cities were sacked and destroyed, and millions of people were slaughtered brutally.

    … it’s always the millions of people were slaughtered brutally that gets them.

    But back to our own personal soft bigotry of low expectations “not the worstest regime in history” regime.

    I was reading a very good article on the US Attorney situation at Lawyers, Guns and Money and via a quick web link or three from there got back into some of his analysis of the whole 2000 election recount (which I read because I had temporarily run out of bamboo shoots to stick under my fingernails.) He pointed to a great article, Kim Lane Scheppele’s When the Law Doesn’t Count: The Rule of Law and Election 2000.

    Building the narrative around the Knights Who Say NI from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (they demand a shrubbery - but then still will not let you through when you bring them one.) Scheppele gives some interesting background on “the rule of law” and shows how the court decisions (and the Supreme Court decision in particular)violated the concept. The US does not have an explicit “rule-of-law” clause in the Constitution - unlike many post WWII ones in Europe. Scheppele calls them “post horror”, in part because they are intended to counter both the advantage the Nazis took of overly fomalist readings of the Weimar constitution (gee sound familiar a bit) and/or the pseudo-legalistic trappings of the abuse doled out within many Communist states. Two specific “abuses” of the rule of law are pointed out:

    “Whipsawing” - where the law (or the interpretation of it at least) changed rapidly from the Supreme Court’s first instructions back to the Florida Supremes that basically said “follow the letter of the law, do not invoke broader principles from the Florida Constitution” - even though the law itslef was internally inconsistent and specifically gave the judges broad latitude - followed shortly thereafter by the invocation of a fucking Equal Protection argument (that the Supremes had basically rejected earlier.)

    “Legal Impossibility” - the fatuous invocation of the “safe harbor” deadline in an opinion released two hours before that deadline - where the US Supremes did a massive “mind read” of Fla legislative intent.

    Really, the Soviets could not have done it any better.

    Reading it just reinforced my sense of what perilous times we are dealing with. Makes me want to propose an explicit “rule-of-law” amendment. The main prinicple is to assure that “the law itself cannot be used as a tool of abuse against those subject to the law.” The paper gives a number of examples of the actual use of such clauses in Eastern European countries.

    I do realize that the “rule-of-law” is precisely not what is needed for show trials and other legal operations of the Party. Please remember that I am not proposing to apply it to Party business, but rather to the decrepit oligarchy of the US of A. I beg the MOJ to take this into account and be merciful.

  46. on 12 May 2007 at 7:21 pm 46. Oaktown Girl said …

    Testing ImageShack:”Hotlink for Websites”.

    Seems to be working just fine, and I have logged myself out so I’m not posting this as an administrator.

    Kiera - did you do this:
    Once you have your image uploaded into ImageShack, click on “Image Details”. Then copy the code for “Hotlink for Websites”, and paste it here in the comment box.

  47. on 12 May 2007 at 7:26 pm 47. Oaktown Girl said …

    spyder -
    Thanks for the update about people having problems with the comments on other sites too. I will pass that along to Daniel.

  48. on 12 May 2007 at 11:42 pm 48. Oaktown Girl said …

    Testing image for Kiera:

    (So very, very cute!)

  49. on 13 May 2007 at 1:07 am 49. James Killus said …

    Everybody’s talking bout Surfer Dan
    Doheny to Nirvana in his Chevy Sedan
    Moving so fast you can’t see him go by
    (ooh….)

    He’s a gremmie Mahareshi in his baggies and beads
    Super Stock surfer jock down to his knees
    He’s so ripped he can’t see you go by

    Surfer Dan someone that everyone knows
    (he’s so cool you know his cool is cool)
    27 girls follow wherever he goes

    Everybody’s looking for Surfer Dan
    Skinny Minnie, mom & dad and Uncle Sam
    He’s so cool they can’t see him go by

    SOLO (Whahooo, Wah, Wah Wahooo..)

    Surfer Dan someone that everyone knows
    (he’s so cool you know his cool is cool)
    27 girls follow wherever he goes

    Everybody’s talking bout Surfer Dan
    Doheny to Nirvana in his Chevy Sedan
    Moving so fast you can’t see him go by
    He’s so ripped He can’t see You go by
    He’s so cool you can’t see him go by
    –Surfer Dan, by The Turtles

    One day Mal-2 asked the messenger spirit Saint Gulik to approach the Goddess and request Her presence for some desperate advice. Shortly afterwards the radio came on by itself, and an ethereal female Voice said YES?

    “O! Eris! Blessed Mother of Man! Queen of Chaos! Daughter of Discord! Concubine of Confusion! O! Exquisite Lady, I beseech You to lift a heavy burden from my heart!”

    WHAT BOTHERS YOU, MAL? YOU DON’T SOUND WELL.

    “I am filled with fear and tormented with terrible visions of pain. Everywhere people are hurting one another, the planet is rampant with injustices, whole societies plunder groups of their own people, mothers imprison sons, children perish while brothers war. O, woe.”

    WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THAT, IF IT IS WHAT YOU WANT TO DO?

    “But nobody wants it! Everybody hates it.”

    OH. WELL, THEN STOP.
    –Principia Discordia

    Hey, man! Don’t let him bring you down, now. There’s a lot of young people in this country, just like myself, who really know where the Indian’s at. And don’t worry. Soon we’re all gonna be out here on the Reservation, livin’ like Indians, ‘n’ dressin’ like Indians and doing all the simple, Beautiful Things that you Indians do. Hey - got any peyote?
    –Temporarily Humbolt County, Firesign Theater

    I think I’m gonna do a little breakout thing here and suggest that we not restrict our attention to “administrations” and consider that “just following orders” still is no excuse, and it wasn’t just Cortez, Pizzaro, Jackson, and Sherman who did the killing that gave us this fine land we live on. I don’t have much belief in inherited sin, nor inherited virtue either, come to think of it, and if I’m gonna bet on all time heavyweight matchups, my money’s on Ali over Schmeling.

  50. on 13 May 2007 at 7:42 am 50. spyder said …

    All Hail Eris, but please stop whistling while you’re pissing.

    Down in Doheny where the surfers all go
    There’s a big bleach blondie, named Surfer Joe
    He’s got a green surfboard and a Woody to match
    And when he’s ridin’ the freeway’s,
    Man, is he hard to catch

    Surfer Joe
    Now, look at him go-o-o-o-o-o
    Surfer, Surfer, Surfer Joe-o-o
    Go man go-o-o
    Oh-oh, oh, oh, oh, Surfer Joe

    I saw him one day flyin’ down the road
    With tenty-six surfboards
    And a hundred pound load
    I knew where he was headin’
    Tryin’ to reach the playground
    Of the surfer’s, Doheny Beach

    Repeat Chorus

    He went down to Huntington Beach one week
    For the annual surfer’s convention meet
    Hangin’ five and walkin’ the nose
    And when the meet was over
    The trophy was Joe’s

    Okay let’s go!

    Surfer Joe joined Uncle Sam’s Marines today
    They stationed him at Pendleton, not far away
    They cut off his big blonde locks, I’m told
    And when he went on maneuvers, Joe caught cold

    Now, no, that didn’t stop him
    Or keep him away
    When the surf was up
    He still had his day
    They caught him at the trestle
    Down by the sea
    And now, poor Joe is doin’ KP

    Surfer Joe~ the Surfaris

    Of course i also received this email notification last night:

    Frank Donahue died at his home at Carlsbad-by-the-Sea Retirement Community. He was 88 years old. Born in Santa Monica he spent 86 years there before moving to Carlsbad in 2004. Frank was a true adventurer and his life read like a work of fiction. Frank was a legendary surfer, lifeguard, underwater diver and photographer, screen and television writer, actor, stuntman, boat operator, fisherman, airline owner and innovator. A Navy frogman during World War II, Frank was credited with the creation of the television series “Sea Hunt” that starred his friend Lloyd Bridges.

  51. on 13 May 2007 at 8:55 am 51. christian h. said …

    Just on a random enjoying-the-summer note regarding the last couple comments: ain’t language great?

    Now back to our regularly scheduled programmming, where language is used not for enjoyment or edification, but to hide the truth, and twist and manipulate people. Like a US VP standing on board of one of many US warships sent thousands of miles from home to meddle in other nations affairs grandly proclaiming that we will not let the countries there… meddle in their neighbors affairs.

  52. on 13 May 2007 at 9:01 am 52. Kiera PSI said …

    Testing again. Sorry, no surfing pictures available to honor Mr. Donahue (you’d think after all those years in Hawaii, I’d have a few somewhere), so sending out some more puppies.

    As for said VP, if they’re going to bomb him when he’s visiting said countries, the least they could do is NOT MISS.

  53. on 13 May 2007 at 9:07 am 53. christian h. said …

    As for said VP, if they’re going to bomb him when he’s visiting said countries, the least they could do is NOT MISS.

    Oh no! Time for Howie Kurtz to spew some sad reflections on the incivility of the left-wing blogosphere.

  54. on 13 May 2007 at 9:14 am 54. spyder said …

    Cheney was begging for his security protection to be bombed; the perfect excuse to bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.

    And now for old men at Old Man’s, just another day in the life of legends. Scary for me sometimes to realize just how long i have known these guys (more than 40 years in some cases).

    In the center in this photo is Kemp Aaberg (with whom i started lifeguarded at Zuma beach in 1965); one of the three surfers i hugely admired five years earlier in the lineup at Malibu.

    Center of this photo is Henry Ford, another lifeguard friend from the 60’s. He also worked a long time in rock-n-roll promoting and producing shows in SoCal and Hawaii.

  55. on 13 May 2007 at 10:36 am 55. Oaktown Girl said …

    Yea! Kiera got her images to work!
    And I happen to know that even though she looks like a spoiled rotten little princess now, the dog in “red” on the right was a very badly abused dog that needed months of extra-patient care and understanding and training to overcome her past and become the spoiled rotten happy companion she is today.

    Cheney - yeah, can you imagine if he died in bomb attack? It’s always problematic tying to muster up sympathy for the grieving family for someone like that who’s been so directly responsible for the suffering and misery of countless other families.

    And James, if we’re going to talk about “just following orders”, can we include former CIA chief Geroge Tenet who made like a $4 million dollar advance on his bullshit book for “following orders”?

  56. on 13 May 2007 at 12:33 pm 56. James Killus said …

    Oaktown Girl,

    I do confess that there’s a heap o’ orders that I will follow for $4 million, though there is the fastidiousness of wanting to keep my own hands clean and wanting others to do the wetwork.

    Spyder,

    I woulda also posted the lyrics to Buzzsaw, except that they are approximately as complex as the lyrics to Tequila.

    I used The Turtles’ version of “Earth Anthem” as a background music for WRPI sign-off cassette many years ago. The cassette lasted about two weeks until a big fracas led to the spite erasure of everything I’d done by persons unknown (except that I pretty much knew who did it). Ah, those were the days, when we were all free of spirit, primed and ready to form grudges that would last for decades.

  57. on 13 May 2007 at 2:15 pm 57. Kiera PSI said …

    There were a couple of good things in the paper for me and the D-man (hubby) to “not discuss” today (we have a mixed marriage, he’s registered Republican, I’m registered Democrat). First, Doonesbury, with it’s nod to how much money is being spent on a daily basis to attempt to restrain a people when we could be spending a lot less to just rehabilitate the entire region. Second was an article by Robyn Blumner of the St. Petersburg Times about the fallacies of BushCo’s immigration policy…or lack thereof. Our local paper is so far behind that this is not her current column, but one from April 15th. I don’t know the handy-dandy secret to making a link (sorry, couldn’t figure it out from the how-to page) so I’ll try to post the url. http://www.sptimes.com/2007/04/15/News/Pay_us_enough__and_we.shtml

    Not getting anywhere on my world’s worst regime nominations…you all have mentioned the ones I can think of. Unless you count the Medici’s who just poisoned anyone and everyone who didn’t bow to them and give them control of all their money.

  58. on 13 May 2007 at 3:20 pm 58. Oaktown Girl said …

    I do confess that there’s a heap o’ orders that I will follow for $4 million

    James - shiiiiiitttt. We are in such an anti-labor market these day, there’s a heap o’ orders that I’d follow for $4 hundred dollars.

    Thanks for that link, Kiera. What that article says about workers and working conditions ties in to my thinking about why your husband is a registered Republican, which must have happened for one of two reasons: 1. He grew up in a Republican family, so it’s always just been that way, or 2. He got swept up with the so-called Reagan Revolution and hasn’t gone back to look at the repercussions of that yet.

    The Regan revolution did more to put the corporate boot on the necks of working class people than any administration since the Gilded Age, and it’s just been downhill ever since. Yet Reagan still maintains a huge myth of “greatness” among working class folks like your husband, who is one of the lucky ones enjoying a living wage a good benefits: everything the Reagan agenda tried to stamp out. Anyway, that’s why I posed a corollary list of most eveil leaders that are somehow still beloved by many up in #4.

  59. on 13 May 2007 at 3:36 pm 59. Kiera PSI said …

    Oh yes…we had to make a trip to the Reagan Library and Museum the last time we were in So-Cal. Though he admitted it was more because he wanted to go into Air Force One (the one retired when the new and luxurious plane ordered during GHWB’s reign was delivered during Dubya’s).

    I enjoyed the display of all the personal gifts made to them. That man had more western themed belt buckles than you’d see at a Rodeo.

    Generally, I measure how I feel about a president based on how I’m doing when they leave office as opposed to when they got in. I was doing pretty good when Ronnie left. I was doing really well when Clinton left…but if it weren’t for the D-Man, I’d be doing really crappy when Bushco goes. I still don’t have a permanent job, no personal way to get group insurance coverage, and I’d have probably been a few steps away from the street if I hadn’t had the foresight/luck to fall in love with a man with financial stability!

  60. on 13 May 2007 at 6:16 pm 60. spyder said …

    Ronnie???mmmm

    The Trouble With The Entire World Is A Guy Named Ron
    by Robert Weitzel | May 13 2007 - 8:37pm

    This is not a parody. I swear. It’s all true.

    Just so you’ll know that what follows is scientifically possible, I will acquaint you with a 2003 study funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation and published in the American Psychological Association’s Psychological Bulletin.

    The study found that conservatism can be explained as a set of beliefs and behaviors that result from a psyche controlled by fear, aggression, closed-minded dogmatism, and intolerance of ambiguity, compounded by mental rigidity and decreased cognitive complexity [dumbness].

    Seriously, I’m not making this up!

    …

    Ron identifies himself as “ . . . a conservative Republican . . . [and] a reasonable person.” I suppose they’re not always mutually exclusive—at least they didn’t use to be. “Conservatives believe in smaller government . . . they think you can run your own life without all of this government control [domestic spying good . . . control bad].” Oh sure, “Republicans shoot themselves in the foot once in a while . . . although sometimes they get gun shy and sound a little like being politically correct and cave in to world opinion.”

  61. on 13 May 2007 at 6:26 pm 61. Kiera PSI said …

    Well, the D-Man’s not dumb…but the other things occasionally apply. I think it’s mostly a family tradition. Poor farmers who made it good without government assistance by working their fingers to the bone (or bodies into the grave) resentful of those who take advantage of government aid - and their tax dollars - who don’t work hard (don’t get me started on how this applies to corporate America…they just see it as applying to welfare abusers).

    It’s an old fashioned kind of thing, I guess. They don’t want poor people getting government handouts, but if someone is working hard and struggling, they will literally give them the shirt off their own back.

    Does this make sense to me? No. But it makes sense to them and there’s no argument, logic, or evidence in the world that will change their minds.

  62. on 13 May 2007 at 6:35 pm 62. James Killus said …

    I wish that the “decreased cognitive complexity” were simple dumbness, but I know some fairly bright people who’ve managed to turn their interior landscapes into deserts. I think the “fear, aggression, closed-minded dogmatism, and intolerance of ambiguity” are the dominating features, those plus a desire to blame everything bad that happens of somebody else.

  63. on 13 May 2007 at 6:38 pm 63. spyder said …

    At this very moment i am watching one of the recent the Jessie and John Danz lectures from the University of Washington: RACE MATTERS with Cornel West. “We must never confuse charity with justice; charity is an expression of the soul through compassion, justice is a fundamental human right!”

    “Can a democracy survive such a market driven culture that ignores the democracy to pursue its profits on the premise of increasing the numbers of the poor???”

    “Never confuse hope with optimism, ever!” Hope says i am going to do what is right anyway!”

  64. on 13 May 2007 at 8:17 pm 64. Oaktown Girl said …

    Wow - thanks for that link to the lecture series, spyder. (I do have that book by Mr. West).

    Quick TV check in on the Warriors-Jazz Game 4 playoff happening right now in Oakland: The Warriors just tied the game in the third quarter with 2 made free throws. I saw the 2 free throws go in, and immediately changed the channel. (Too stressful!)

  65. on 13 May 2007 at 11:13 pm 65. christian h. said …

    (Too stressful!)

    I know what you mean. I didn’t even watch a minute of the Bulls-Pistons game today…

  66. on 13 May 2007 at 11:18 pm 66. Oaktown Girl said …

    Crap. The Warriors lost. Utah’s up 3 games to 1 in this best of 7, and the next game is in Utah. Warriors had no energy tonight, and had lousy shooting to boot. But even with that, they kept it close, and had a small lead deep into the 4th quarter. Imagine what they would have done with just a little more “Oomph” tonight. Oh well. Jazz played well, so now it’s Miracle Time because the next game is Tuesday night…in Utah.

    On the other hand (and hardly a comparison since it’s not the playoffs), the A’s were down 7-5 in the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs when Milton Bradley hit a 2-run homer (with one of those pink Mothers’ Day bats some of the big leaguers were using today) to tie it, and then A’s newcomer Jack Cust* hit a 3 run homer for the walk off, and the A’s win 10-7. Exciting stuff.

    So - spyder, TC: I hear Tiger didn’t do so well this weekend. Whut happened? And I don’t particularly care for “Lefty”, by the way. Something about him is just screaming to be smacked upside the head. But I suppose you could say I feel that way about a lot of male golfers. (Some more than others, of course).

    *A’s have lots of “newcomers” these days since most everybody else is on the disabled list. (Milton Bradley just got off the DL a few days ago himself).

  67. on 14 May 2007 at 6:02 am 67. Sadish said …

    Just a test comment to see if your problem still persists.

    Sadish

  68. on 14 May 2007 at 6:29 am 68. Kiera PSI said …

    Sorry about that on the Warrior’s game…I got distracted in the hot tub and forgot the candles. :(

  69. on 14 May 2007 at 7:30 am 69. spyder said …

    The former Torquemada meme inheritor, and current Pope Benedict XVI spoke yesterday condemning globalization and Marxism as the causes of many of Latin America’s ills on the final day of his trip to Brazil, and lamented the wide gap between the region’s small elite and its poor masses. Wow, somehow both capitalism and socialism are the cause of all the world’s problem simultaneously. That can only mean one thing: absolute monarchy is the only possible alternative to save it all!!! We can’t have capitalists because they exploit the poor, we can’t have communists because they exploit the rich and we can’t have both because neither are sufficiently religious. Therefore a good patriarchial monarchy, totalitarian dictatorship must be the perfect remedy, forcing religion on the masses and extracting wealth from the rich!!

  70. on 14 May 2007 at 7:35 am 70. Kiera PSI said …

    Nah, we need a MATRIARCHAL totalitarian monarchy. The patriarchal ones have all flopped rather spectacularly.

    I volunteer to be the matriarch (it’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it). I can be the new and improved version of Elizabeth I (the pseudo-religious icon, not the “official” virgin)…may the sun never set on my empire. You may bow.

  71. on 14 May 2007 at 7:43 am 71. JP Stormcrow said …

    Vatican Über Alles!!

  72. on 14 May 2007 at 7:55 am 72. spyder said …

    You know i think i have got it–Aha. The fundamentalist- evangelical- dogmatic- reconstructionist xTian leadership are supremely jealous of the Imams and other dictatorial lordships in the Islam world. They want one for themselves. The Jews get their own country, the Muslems get some of their own countries, the Hindus get their own country–but what do the poor xTians get?? A bunch of countries that barely tolerate their desperate desires to impose theocracies. It is just so not fair!!

  73. on 14 May 2007 at 9:05 am 73. spyder said …

    on the pink bats:
    On Sunday, Major League Baseball players used symbolic pink bats for Mother’s Day. The bats will be auctioned off, and the funds will be earmarked for breast cancer research as well as treatment and public-awareness initiatives.

  74. on 14 May 2007 at 10:48 am 74. Kiera PSI said …

    Well, if they’d all just unite instead of factionalize, maybe they’d be able to actually accomplish something.

    *looks around nervously*

    Hopefully, they won’t listen to that advice.

  75. on 14 May 2007 at 10:52 am 75. christian h. said …

    Well, if they’d all just unite instead of factionalize, maybe they’d be able to actually accomplish something.

    The WAAGNFNP supports sectarianism in all its forms. We are very inclusive that way.

    christian h.
    Tribunus Laticlavius
    MOOAD, WAAGNFNP

  76. on 14 May 2007 at 11:08 am 76. spyder said …

    I am sure she meant “fractionalize” right?

  77. on 14 May 2007 at 12:32 pm 77. Kiera PSI said …

    I’m ALL for fractionalizing them…they’ll get smaller and smaller - although they’ll never completely go away, the significance of each will be reduced to a level of comfort - ours, not theirs. And yes, that is the “royal” ours…I’m practicing for when I’m elected dictatress for life.

  78. on 14 May 2007 at 12:46 pm 78. Kiera PSI said …

    Corporate American Name Appropriateness:

    A company called Cerberus Equity has purchased 81% of Chrysler from Damlier Chrysler.

    As we all know, in Greek mythology, Cerberus or Kerberos (Greek Κέρβερος, Kerberos, “demon of the pit”) was the hound of Hades, a monstrous three-headed dog.

    Cerberus guarded the gate to Hades and ensured that spirits of the dead could enter, but none could exit and to keep the living out (generally, if you faced Cerberus, you’d end up no longer among the living, so that handled that).

    I prefer truth in advertising, kudos to Cerberus Equity for a naming job well done!

  79. on 14 May 2007 at 4:39 pm 79. Seattle said …

    Aurangzeb

    For your top 10 worst.

  80. on 14 May 2007 at 4:57 pm 80. Oaktown Girl said …

    Fine. Go ahead. Make me look up Aurangzeb. I’m at work, but that’s OK (grumble, grumble).

    Aurangzeb was remarkably pious and zealous. Strict adherence to Islam and Sharia (Islamic law)—as he interpreted them—were the foundations of his reign. He codified and instituted Sharia law throughout the empire, abandoning the religious tolerance of his predecessors.

    I like it. Sounds like a good model for the Ministry of Justice to study. Just substitute “WAAGNFN Party Doctrine” for “Sharia” law, and I think we have a winning formula for victory!

  81. on 14 May 2007 at 9:47 pm 81. Colonel KL said …

    Hmm, been lurking, boning up on tech and learning new things, practicing this and that. Consider this, Scientology. Religion of the famous and the stupid. I’ve seen cults come and go. This one, submitted for your disapproval, is very dangerous. Yes, it’s easy to discount it, considering its most famous folks are H’wood types. However, ask Kiera. If I warn you, pay attention. Look very deep and you might be surprised by what you find.

  82. on 14 May 2007 at 9:48 pm 82. Colonel KL said …

    I wear my veil of civilization lightly.

  83. on 14 May 2007 at 10:00 pm 83. Colonel KL said …

    To quote General Custer, if he’d had a cellphone, “I’ll get back to you, I’m up to my ass in Indians right now….” I introduce a dear friend and one of the two most intelligent people I know. Man knows his history. Trust him with my life, too. [Deleted by request of the author who apparently was up to her ass in dogs at the time.]

  84. on 15 May 2007 at 7:37 am 84. Kiera PSI said …

    Any “religion” invented by a sci-fi writer has got to be “buggy”. It takes the insecurities of a hollywood type (or their emulators) to find “truth” in such a thing.

    The Travolta types may be embarrassed by the Cruise types of the movement, but the Cruise types represent the fanatical core…that which makes ANY religion dangerous.

    Hon, get out the 12-gauge, the fanatics are coming.

    Speaking of religion, and getting back on topic…look no further for your worst leaders than the papacy. Here’s a handy-dandy site that reviews some of the more questionable actions and reigns of horror: http://www.geocities.com/missus_gumby/papal.htm

    I have to admit that one of these was a bit picky. The dispensation for Richard II to marry a 7 year old was for political reasons…Richard NEVER bedded the girl, he treated her like a favored niece. She was so fond of him that after his death (some say starved to death by his uncle, Henry of Bolingbroke, later Henry IV, she refused to marry Henry’s son as she wanted no parts of the family responsible for Richard’s death. This began Henry V’s fascination with Catherine of France, the girl’s sister.

  85. on 15 May 2007 at 11:01 am 85. Kiera PSI said …

    And speaking of religious fanatics…The Rev. Jerry Falwell, who founded the Moral Majority and built the religious right into a political force, died today (5/15/07) shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University, a school executive said. He was 73. They’re saying it was probably heart failure…which will confuse all of his critics (it is my heart, that organ which you say I do not have).

  86. on 15 May 2007 at 11:14 am 86. spyder said …

    “ding dong the….” Oh wait, that isn’t very nice of me. I suppose his soul is standing on the banks of Styx awaiting the Luciferian invitation to join in the fun of eternal hell and damnation for all the suffering he precipitated. I should take solace in that, but i would rather like to envision his last moments, gasping for air while experiencing excrutiating, nauseating pain begging in desperate propitiation to be redeemed and saved, and no one, not a soul or an angel or a deity, answers. Just the echo of his anquish and suffering all to himself. Tell me, how does it feel Reverand, to be on your own, a complete unknown, not even a rolling stone???

  87. on 15 May 2007 at 11:19 am 87. Seattle said …

    Jerry Falwell: the man who bought you Ronald Reagan. Burn in Hell, buddy.

  88. on 15 May 2007 at 11:48 am 88. Oaktown Girl said …

    Well Kiera - I’m at work, so you’re the one breaking the Jerry Falwell news to me.

    What really makes my stomach churn is how the corporate media is going to portray his life and works in their “retrospectives” of him: 90% great guy devoted to his flock and saving the eternal soul of Amereica, 10% (if that) to him being a “controversial” figure. And even that 10% will be spun to make his opponents seem like anti-religion god haters with no mention at all of all the religious (and non-religious) folk who opposed him on both Constitutional (patriotic) grounds, as well as theological grounds.

    And what a boon for BushCo - another high-profile death to keep the media busy and give them another excuse to avoid covering the Judicial firings scandal and investigation.

  89. on 15 May 2007 at 12:01 pm 89. Kiera PSI said …

    The man (shrub) may be an ass and an idiot, but he’s the luckiest sumnavich around. They do say the devil looks out for his own.

    Believe it or not, the hand of the divine is on that one…the size of the “chord” to the spiritual plane is rather large. That doesn’t mean he’s any good…just means that he is advancing the divine plan. Of course, that plan could be leading us to armageddon…

  90. on 15 May 2007 at 12:24 pm 90. Oaktown Girl said …

    Divine plan? Well, even if one is absolutely sure that there is such a thing, it seems rather hoity (and I know that was not your intention) to declare which events are and are not “advancing” such a plan. Plus, that stance gives off the appearance that you think you are seated at the “Right hand of God”, which is just where the Jerry Falwell types claimed to be. And I’m pretty sure you don’t want to be in that company.

    No matter what you feel to be the truth in your heart, I’d do my best to stay on the humility train, at least in public statements. “God” may be laughing at your interpretation of things as much as we think s/he/it is laughing at Falwell’s interpretation, right?

  91. on 15 May 2007 at 1:07 pm 91. Oaktown Girl said …

    Kiera and Seattle and spyder- you will like this!

  92. on 15 May 2007 at 2:59 pm 92. Kiera PSI said …

    If you have a better explaination for the size of the chord, go for it. It doesn’t mean the person is godly, or not godly, it just means there’s a lot of action going on there. It’s a tangible thing if you know how to feel for it. I certainly don’t like the idea, but it’s there. There’s nothing to have humility about or to be proud about…it’s like taking a tape measure and measuring something. I certainly don’t know what the divine is up to, never claimed to, never will claim to. I’ll be as surprised as anyone in the end.

  93. on 15 May 2007 at 3:14 pm 93. Oaktown Girl said …

    Well, then I misinterpreted your statement here: That doesn’t mean he’s any good…just means that he is advancing the divine plan.

    What idea is it that you don’t like, by the way (that you mentioned in #92)?

    On to more pressing matters. Reminder: the Warriors play tonight. Schedule says it will be 7:30 PST. Please do not be in the hut tub again!

  94. on 15 May 2007 at 4:41 pm 94. Kiera PSI said …

    It just means he’s likely being used to accomplish a probably unsavory goal. Not unlike Judas…though probably not in so (from the xtian POV) beneficial a way.

    I don’t like the idea of depending on idiots and their evil entourages for anything that affects the whole world. You can’t trust them to keep down the collateral damage…just to watch out for their number one.

    I’ll be in the midst of meditation when the game starts tonight…I’ll be sure to redirect some of the generated energy in the Warrior’s direction…thanks for reminding me!

  95. on 15 May 2007 at 5:08 pm 95. James Killus said …

    As you might expect, science fiction has something of a, ah, relationship with Scientology, and a while back I wrote an essay that described one example of that relationship.

    One sees the famous Scientologists, and they are the bait, well rewarded for what they do. The rest get the switch, as it were. But really, it’s not that different from most of the other religions I grew up with in that respect.

  96. on 15 May 2007 at 5:17 pm 96. Oaktown Girl said …

    Thanks, Kiera. You know, I won’t be too disappointed if the Warriors don’t win the series. They’ve come so far and have already gone above and beyond expectations. I just want them to play well - not just give it away to Utah by dumb mistakes. If Utah wins, I want them to really have had to earn it.

    James - bait and switch, eh? Well if their Leader was ever well respected, his image in most people’s minds has been severely tarnished by the behavior of his followers. Again - just like most religions! I look forward to reading that essay.

  97. on 15 May 2007 at 5:35 pm 97. christian h. said …

    Well, speaking about the NBA… it’s do-or-die for the Bulls, too, tonight, in Detroit. So far, so good: they lead 31-25 after the first. Still, at no point did I get the feeling they’ll win it. It just looks like the Pistons are content to hang around until the third quarter and then they’ll bury the Bulls. Sigh. Similar to Oaktown Girl, I won’t be too disappointed if they loose the series, but the way they gave away game 3 on platter, that’s the kind of thing I can’t stand watching.

  98. on 15 May 2007 at 6:02 pm 98. Oaktown Girl said …

    Good luck to your Bulls then, christian!

  99. on 15 May 2007 at 6:11 pm 99. christian h. said …

    Thanks, Oaktown Girl. Well, Bulls are up 8 at the half. But they’re shooting 75%. And are still only up 8. Damn it.

  100. on 15 May 2007 at 8:07 pm 100. christian h. said …

    Looks like being relentlessly negative helps. Bulls actually buried the Pistons. Warriors are up 26-21 in the first.

  101. on 15 May 2007 at 9:01 pm 101. Oaktown Girl said …

    Well congratulations, on that Bulls’ victory tonight, christian!

    I just turned on the Warriors game to see what the score is, but it’s halftime and they are showing the Bulls’ highlights at the moment. Still waiting on that Warriors score. Should be up any minute…and the Warriors up by a basket at halftime 54-52.

  102. on 16 May 2007 at 6:44 am 102. Kiera PSI said …

    Rats, rats, rats…sorry Oaktown Girl…I gave them my best shot. Guess I missed. sigh.

  103. on 16 May 2007 at 7:31 am 103. christian h. said …

    Yes, I am sorry, too. I think the Warriors were just getting tired, with all the running they always do, and a short rotation.

  104. on 16 May 2007 at 9:57 am 104. Oaktown Girl said …

    Thanks, christian and Kiera. I think your analysis is pretty on target, christian. It was a great run while it lasted, and this was their first time even making the playoffs in 12 YEARS! And for them to do that, and then beat the top seated team in the first round, well there’s just too much joy in that to be sad about losing to Utah, though it would have been nice to take the Jazz to 6 or 7 games.

    Here’s a snip from a nice wrap up from the SF Chronicle sports blog:

    The Warriors’ postgame locker room was remarkably upbeat. Jason Richardson and Stephen Jackson spoke calmly, without regret and with tremendous hope for the future. (snip)

    The Warriors couldn’t stop Carlos Boozer and Andrei Kirilenko inside — not tonight, not in Game 4, not ever. While the Warriors shot at a comically bad pace (6-for-30 from 3-point range), Kirilenko was 8-for-12 from the floor, Boozer 9-for-16, virtually all of it close to the basket. The Jazz’ edge in offensive rebounds (20-6) was particularly telling. You can’t have too many regrets when you basically get hammered, by a team with more size and better balance, and that’s how the Warriors are treating this.

    “There will be no teary eyes in our locker room,” said coach Don Nelson. “We had a fantastic year, and I’m real proud of that team. We competed tonight as hard as we could, and I thought the Jazz were sensational. Sometimes I wondered why, but there we were for the last four or five minutes of the game, with a real shot to win, and that’s when they showed their dominance. So congratulations to them, and to Jerry Sloan.”

  105. on 16 May 2007 at 10:52 am 105. Kiera PSI said …

    Well, what a classy response. Sure to generate good karma…maybe they’ll be able to take it all the way next year.

  106. on 16 May 2007 at 3:59 pm 106. Oaktown Girl said …

    Hey James! I just came across this while doing research here at work. The MIT Dean of Admissions got canned last month when it was discovered she had falsified her resume regarding her attendance at guess where? Your alma mater Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute! Maybe you already heard about this on the RPT alumni wire, but here it is.

    Excerpt:
    Marilee Jones, MIT’s dean of admissions who has spoken out nationally against the craze over beefing up teens’ resumes, has resigned after 28 years at the school for misrepresenting her academic degrees, university officials said today.

    Jones listed on her resume that she had degrees from Albany Medical College, Union College, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, but she had no degrees from any of those schools, said MIT chancellor Phillip Clay.

  107. on 16 May 2007 at 4:16 pm 107. christian h. said …

    I know numerous MIT alumns, both undergrad and graduate students, and they all wondered why she was fired. General consensus was that if it became widely known that somebody without degree could do the job extremely well (as she apparently did), people would start to ask themselves if all our fancy degrees are really necessary for many jobs that now require them; and that, the academic powers-that-be couldn’t risk. Hence, they fired her.

  108. on 16 May 2007 at 4:40 pm 108. Oaktown Girl said …

    Christian - that sounds like a good theory to me.

    I know that in some fields it’s really important to have the advanced degrees, but certainly not in all fields. It’s particularly frustrating in social services where I’ve worked with so many folks who have Masters degrees but who don’t know their asshole from their armpit. But they have the job because the Grant for the position specifies it has to go to someone with a Masters. So then the folks with the most experience working on the front lines and who are imminently qualified (like yours truly) don’t even “qualify”. It’s totally fucked up, and the people trying to receive services suffer for it.

  109. on 16 May 2007 at 4:46 pm 109. James Killus said …

    RPI and Union and Albany Med? Yeesh. There was actually a Biomedical Engineering Program that crossed the RPI and Albany Med, but it didn’t award degrees from both.

    The real question is who would ever believe a story like that, and why would someone with those credentials settle for a mere job as Dean of Admissions?

    It also reminds me of a story I once heard at RPI about a guy I shall call Harvey:

    “You’re going through the latest Greek House and some guy tells you that you just missed an incredible guy. He’s a black belt in Karate and an operatic tenor. He just came back from performance in Hawaii, where he went skydiving, without a parachute, and landed on a surfboard on a 50 foot wave. There was a cannon on the surfboard, so he used it to fire himself back up into the plane, which he then landed, by himself, on the top of Mauna Loa. When you hear the guy tell you that, you’ll know that Harvey had just been there.”

  110. on 16 May 2007 at 8:54 pm 110. Kiera PSI said …

    We won’t even BEGIN to discuss the “writing samples” provided by candidates for a “Dean of Students” position at my college. Oh. My. God. All of them had masters, half of them had doctorates, all but one of them wrote at what I consider a junior high school, or at best, high school level. I could not believe it. And one of these bozos (not the one who wrote at a post-graduate level) will now be earning $128,000 a year plus amazing benefits. It’s enough to make me sick.

  111. on 17 May 2007 at 1:57 pm 111. The Constructivist said …

    Just poking my head in the door to say, wow, what a fun blog! Where else does a thread run from devising an Absolute Evil Scale to Live Basketball Commenting to HTML Coding to Music from Before I Existed (Mostly) to What Makes Writing Good to Left Wing Incivility to Science-Fiction-Based Religions (and their similarity to the usual suspects)–not in that order, but you get the gist!

    Oh, and I stand by 95% of my anti-Bush diatribe from around this time last year. And I endorse the Bush-Palpatine analogy. The 30th anniversary of the first Star Wars movie (episode iv, that is!) is May 25th, by the way. Anyone who wants to participate in Mostly Harmless’s “Break from LPGA Blogging” contribution to the massive bloggy carnival that’s taking place that day just send me your submission.

    And it’s Phil Mickelson’s plastic smile and perfect-looking family (in that classic white “middle”-class mold) that makes him so smackable.

  112. on 17 May 2007 at 4:13 pm 112. christian h. said …

    …just send me your submission

    Are sort-of-reviews of SciFi legal? I just discovered Ken MacLeod (how the hell did I miss him till now?), and boy - how much better can it get. Golden-era throwback Science Fiction, written by a socialist, with Trotkyist in-jokes. He has a new one coming out in June, check out this post (warning: actual radical left blog, not suitable for members of the CML.)

  113. on 18 May 2007 at 2:22 am 113. The Constructivist said …

    Thanks, Christian, this goes on my list (of books I can’t wait to buy but have to b/c it costs so damn much to ship them back to the States).

  114. on 18 May 2007 at 10:35 am 114. The Constructivist said …

    Here are the official Star Wars‘ 30th Mostly Harmless rules for those interested. Plus the other (better-planned) event (or rather, series of events): “Take Your Blog to the Course” weeks this summer (I’m actually going to try to “organize” Blogoramaville on an utterly trivia media campaign for a not-yet-utterly-corporatized-enough women’s sport–guess which one!).

  115. on 18 May 2007 at 10:45 am 115. spyder said …

    Rules?? Rules???? Who makes the rules?? Why would anyone in the WAAGNFNP want to follow the rules??? Aren’t rules made to be broken? Or is it that since everything is broken, then following the rules is breaking them???

    Cool. I got four different song lines in that paragraph. Is that in the rules?

  116. on 18 May 2007 at 12:46 pm 116. JP Stormcrow said …

    Why would anyone in the WAAGNFNP want to follow the rules

    WAAGNFNP constitution:
    There is only ONE rule - and that is: There are no rules.
    Anyone found violating the ONE rule will be hunted down, defenestrated and/or shot, depending on the length of the MOJ’s hair that day.

  117. on 18 May 2007 at 7:07 pm 117. spyder said …

    the post that never dies… damn it all. I formally, as Minister of Defense and Offense of the Ministry of Offense and Defense officially kill this thread. Move over rover and let number nine take over.
    Number nine….Number nine….Number nine….Number nine….Number nine…. Number nine….Number nine….Number nine….Number nine….Number nine….

  118. on 18 May 2007 at 9:00 pm 118. JP Stormcrow said …

    I formally, as Minister of Defense and Offense of the Ministry of Offense and Defense officially kill this thread.

    Ha!
    This is the thread that never ends,
    Yes, it goes on and on, my friend
    Some people started commenting not knowing what it was,
    And now they’ll keep on commenting forever just because,
    This is the thread that never ends …

    Attica! Attica!

  119. on 18 May 2007 at 9:27 pm 119. spyder said …

    What sort of proper dressing would you prefer applied on your slide dish of Cervello in Frittata Montano???

    Welcome back my friends to the thread that never ends
    We’re so glad you could attend and watch it die
    Come inside! Come inside!
    There behind a glass is a real shade of crass
    be careful as you pass.
    Shrug along! Shrug along!

    Come inside, the thread’s about to die
    guaranteed to blow your head up high
    Rest assured you’ll get your money’s worth
    The greatest thread in Heaven, Hell or Earth.
    You’ve got to see this thread, it’s a dyin slow
    You’ve got to see this thread, it’s rock and roll …

    Soon the Gypsy Queen in a glaze of Vaseline
    Will perform on guillotine
    What a scene! What a scene!
    Next take upon the sand will you please extend a gland
    to our thread killing band
    Roll up! (for the Magical Mystery Tour)
    Roll up! Roll up! See the thread!

    Performing on a stool we’ve a sight to make you drool
    Seven virgins and a mule
    Keep it cool. Keep it cool.
    We would like it to be known the threads that you’ve been shown
    were exclusively our own,
    All our own. All our own.
    Come and see the thread! Come and see the thread! Come and see the thread! See the thread! Die Fred Die!