I'm a sucker

Thanks, Erica, for bringing to my attention that I've been had. I guess now we all know which things I'm more than willing to fall for! I got all worked up over a satirical piece. Silly, silly me. Stupid me.

Gravity: "Just a theory"

So, I'm scanning th headlines when I quickly skim "Foes of Evolution Set Sights on New Target: Gravity".

Wait…what?! They can't really be that insane, can they?

So I read the article and, yes, they really are that insane.

"I don't want to say that these people are idiots but they obviously don't know a whole hell of a lot about physics."

Well, you know what they say: "if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…it's probably an idiot Christian fundie bonk job". Or something along those lines.

For her part, Mrs. Dittie says that she's all too familiar with Einstein's theory—and that her curriculum improvement group is already contemplating launching a charge against the German physicist.

...her curriculum improvement group?? Shouldn't they at least be forced to be honost about what they're really doing? It's called curriculum destruction.

"But the last thing we need to expose our kids to is a theory of relativism. They're already being told that there's no right or wrong. If you want to learn about Einstein, fine. I just don't want my tax dollars going to pay for it."

What a dumbass. Einstein's Theory of Relativity isn't about moral relativism.

For those keeping score at home, it's "Tax dollars going to pay to indoctrinate kids into believing that invisible men in the sky and fairy tales are real": 1. "Tax dollars going to pay to teach our kids science, history and reality": 0.

Rent-a-cops are Assholes

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “They can’t all be assholes”. But I believe that in making the claim I’ve come relatively close to the truth. Let me tell you why Rent-a-cops are assholes. Rent-a-cops – and to an even greater degree, real cops – are conditioned to treat everyone as a suspect of some wrong doing or other. Also, they are conditioned to believe that they are never wrong. What’s worse, few people seem to care that the police carry out their duties in the manner of assuming we, members of the general public, have done something wrong. Hardly an eyelash is batted when an otherwise law-abiding citizen is pulled over for doing 65 mph in a 60 and is treated as though they just wiped their ass with the U.S. flag, took a piss on the Highway Revenue Collector’s family grave, belong on death row, or all of the above.

Of course, at least, real cops are backed by an authority which helps explain the way in which an asshole attitude can fester and boil. Rent-a-cops, on the other hand, have no real authority. It’s like one of those annoying, untrained Shih-tzus running out of its yard and across the street, barking at you rabidly because you happen to exist. Just makes you want to punt it back into its own yard and go, “Shaaadup!” Same with attitude-laden rent-a-cops

So, here’s the deal. Only a rent-a-cop could present the following joyful news in such a way as to piss me off: facilities will be building more motorcycle parking for us!

As I’m leaving work today, there are tall, narrow semi-permanent road cones where yesterday there was a lane of travel through the parking lot. It looks to me as though they’ll be extending the existing motorcycle parking and I figure it’s a way of indicating that this is now the parking area. The cones are far enough apart and there is no hazard preventing me from safely riding between them at parking lot speeds, so I begin to ride through. Well…what to my wondering eyes does appear, but Mr. Disgruntled, “Today they gave the lone bullet to one of the female rent-a-cops and I’m pissed about it” Asshole Rent-a-cop? He steps directly into my line of travel. So I accelerate, and mow him down. Bwahahahahahaha!! Okay, no. That didn’t really happen, but would’ve been infinitely satisfying, knowing what I know now about our encounter. I slow to a stop and flip up my visor, so he can see that I’m not a threat and that he won’t have to radio to the rent-a-cop who does have the bullet today to “come quick”. He sees that I’m no threat, but insists on reading me the riot act anyway.

“Do you think you’re special? Do you think you can go through here just because you’re smaller than the cars that have to go around?”

“Well, yeah”, thinks I, already knowing that the experience in which I’m about to partake will likely rip me from my happy place. What kind of stupid question is “Do you think you can go through here just because you fit”? That’s precisely why I went through! Did he think I did it because of some licentious attraction to road cones on my part? Did he think I was rendered unable to keep away? And, yeah, I'm also special. I'm better for traffic. I'm better for world peace (I need less gasoline and oil and, therefore, am less apt to create a demand for oil which precipitates war). And I'm better for the environment. Way better, in fact, than the mouth-breathers using their 25 gallons-per-mile macho F350 Superdootie pick-ups as commuter vehicles. Anyway...

He goes on: “If there had been tape between the cones, you wouldn’t have been able to go through”.

Maybe. Or maybe I’d go through anyway and liberate the oppressed yellow crime scene/road construction ribbon from its shackles, allowing it to trail joyously behind me while I pretended to be the winner of the pageant! But no, I probably would’ve gone around. Mr. Obvious must’ve thought it made him look smart to point out that tediously boring fact. It just made him all the more annoying. So?

So I say to him, “What is all this?” waving in the general direction of the cones, which now surround us. (What! You thought I was going to let him stop me before I got into them? Huh-uh. I rode right up to the prick.) He proceeds to lecture me on how it’s an unsafe place to travel and they’ll be making it a permanent crosswalk and extended motorcycle parking area, inaccessible to motorized vehicles, but for the purposes of parking said two-wheeled variants.

As this is happening, a fellow rider is gearing up for his commute home in said soon-to-be-expanded motorcycle parking area and chimes in to the discussion. “So, I suppose you’re going to want me to go alllll the way around, too, huh?” I detect the sting of sarcasm. I’m pretty sure rent-a-cop lacks the requisite synapses firing to put together an understanding of sarcasm. Good for you for getting in a little jab, fellow rider!

“No”, says Stinky McAsshole-rent-a-cop, “we’ve decided to let anyone who parks in this area ride through”.

WTF?? Holy Arbitrary Nonsense, Batman!

Anyway, I feign a look at the rent-a-cop that says, “Wow, more motorcycle parking? This is really great news!” Which it is, even though it won’t directly benefit me because I park in another area. The thing that irritated me wasn’t that they had blocked off the lane where I usually ride (it’s a parking lot, fer Chrissakes, you can ride practically anywhere), but the manner in which the information was presented. So, at this point, I’m just itching to be on my way, because it’s taking everything I’ve got to remain civil and not call this prick a prick right to his face. (No, really! I was seriously thinking about it. Mild-tempered me! I mean, what’s he gonna do? Fill out one of those silly forms they do when you park illegally because there are too many people at the plant, and not enough paces to park? The ones that get sent to HR and then forwarded to your supervisor – now directly to your supervisor because of the cutbacks in HR – that result in…well, nothing? Okay, if you get enough of them, they “make” you take a day off without pay. But I’m getting off track here).

Anyway, not content to leave it be, Asshole Rent-a-cop says, “You got your badge?”

I say, “yeah…in the top case”, and nod my head aft.

He begins to walk away, fighting his asshole instincts, apparently thinking it’d be too much trouble for me to get off the bike, open the trunk, and show him my badge (which it would be, especially in this amazingly non-issue “incident”). But the A-hole Force is strong with this one and he just can’t let it go. He spins back around and says, “Get it out, I need to see it”.

Good thing for full-face helmets, because I wouldn’t want this asshole to have the pleasure of seeing me biting my tongue so hard it should’ve been bleeding. What goddamn difference does it make whether or not I have a badge? I wasn’t inside the gate, I was in the parking lot (admittedly, company property, but quite accessible to the general public, none the less). What if I didn’t have my badge? What if I was just on my way home after arriving and then discovering that I had left it? Or what if I didn’t even work there at all? Would the outcome of our little chat been any different? Anyway…as I retrieve my badge (and asshole rent-a-cop completely abdicates his primary duty to guard the gate from nefarious, would-be intruders, in favor of harassing me), I look at the fellow rider and just shake my head. He gives a bit of a chuckle and a smile as if to say, “Yup, he’s a Grade-A Prick, alright”.

So, I show a-hole my badge without even looking at him. (I know…like it mattered. I had on a full-face helmet – which only serves to further bring home the point of how ridiculous it is of him asking to see my badge in the first place). As I’m putting my badge away, with my back to Mr. Drunk-on-faux-authority, he says to me, “Have a nice weekend”.

What?! He pulls this lame-ass attitude with me and then thinks that “Have a nice weekend” makes the whole confrontation a shining example of his stellar people skills? I don’t think so. Fucking prick. The conversation would’ve gone over so much better if he’d have waved me down and, right from the start, treated me respectfully and just said something along the lines of, “I just wanted to let you know that we’ll be making this area into a permanent pedestrian/motorcycle parking area because the way the aisles all come together here is unsafe. Please start coming down the next aisle over.”

I’d have had no problem with that, and would’ve been happy to comply. “Have a nice day, Officer”, would’ve been my pleasant reply. But no. He had to be a prick and flex what little authoritative muscle he has. Bad, Shih-tzu! Bad!

God Loves Sex!

Anal, oral, whatever! Plus...He's simply famous with glee over erections!

I'd like to see the uncontrollable twitching from the Rabid Christian Reich when they see this one!

Sex in Christ

Amnesty International warns US leaders could face prosecution for war crimes

Amnesty International takes aim at Gitmo

White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the charges of widespread abuse "ridiculous" and said the U.S. was on top of the situation. "We hold people accountable when there's abuse," he said. "We take steps to prevent it from happening again."

Let's see...on top of it? Yes. Indeed. I've seen the pictures. You strip down a bunch of Iraqis, pile 'em up like a pyramid and then climb on top! What else...oh, yeah. "We hold people accountable". Absolutely. Not the right people. Usually just some low-level, expendable patsy, but we hold people accountable. And as far as taking steps to prevent future abuses...yeah, right.

The signers (of a call for an independent investigation of prisoner abuse) -- ranging from former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta to David Keene, head of the American Conservative Union, and former FBI director William Sessions -- said a comprehensive study by a group modeled after the Sept. 11 Commission was needed.

Fat lot of good that'll do. Unless these signers are a bunch of shills for BushCo, shouldn't they be looking for a successful model? The Sept. 11 Commission was a flop.

One signer, Kevin Barry, a retired Coast Guard captain and military judge, said military probes suffered from an inability to point the finger at higher-ups in the Pentagon.

"You can't indict the boss," Barry said. "But we have so much evidence of abuse in so many locations that to say it's a couple of bad people here or there has lost credibility with the public."

Hasn't this guy been paying attention? Bush could walk into Guantanamo, personally brutalize a prisoner (as if Bush would ever do any of the dirty work himself) and then shoot him in the head in front of live news cameras, and still get away with it.

...And 'Murikans from sea to shining sea would praise him for it.

Yeah, Baby!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/18/vibrating_knickers/

Anal Rape and Sex With Mules

From this week's Top Ten Conservative Idiots at the Democratic Underground.

Not much delights me in the way that the Idiots do. And this week was a banner week! This week's Top Ten flows deliciously from one act of ass-clowning to another, so it really must be read in it's entirety. But I'm especially giddy with the deviant lechery of Idiots #4 and #5: analy raping one's wife (apparently now a "family value") and sex with farm animals (which the conservative idiot engaging in the act finds normal…and explains, only seems weird and wrong to us urban dwellers, aka liberals, who are too far removed from the reality of domestic life on a farm).

Reich Wing Rallies Around Its Lead Criminal

Reich Wing Fundraiser to Support Illegal Fundraising

"I'm tired of hearing from the left and not enough from the right," said Migliore...

What's the matter...TV broke? Never heard of AM radio? Because there are about a half dozen TV "news" stations that spout nothing but Reich Wing blather and a person can stop just about any where on the AM dial and the chances are good you've just tuned in to Reich Wing Hate Radio. What kind of ass thinks there's not enough propaganda coming from the right?

...who added that he admired DeLay for pushing Congress to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman...

Ah. That kind of ass. The brain-dead kind.

The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition, who will attend the dinner with several members of his organization, said that religious conservatives hold DeLay in high regard and do not think he has done anything wrong.

Well he is a reverend. Which basically means that he also believes in childish fairy tales and wishes others to believe the same, so perhaps the regard in which he holds DeLay, or the fact that he doesn't think DeLay has done anything wrong, should tell us something. Apparently, the inference to be made is that "traditional values" equals political crime.

al-Libbi, al-Liby...What's the Difference?

I was watching the Daily Show (as I am wont to religiously do) one day last week when it had on, as guest, Tom Ridge, former Secretary of Hinterland (er, I mean "Homeland") Security. Ridge commented on how this nefarious al-Libbi character, supposed "number 3 man" in Al Qaeda's leadership, had just been captured and Jon Stewart didn't challenge it. He even commented that it was a good thing and I was left thinking, "Wait a minute...we caught the number 3 guy in Al Qaeda? Impossible. BushCo isn't nearly that adept (although, they are just that lucky)". Well, I can't fault Stewart too much for not taking Ridge, or the Bush regime, to task. He is, after all, a fake news commentator. In any case. Here's the challenge to the capture. Turns out it may all be a case of mistaken identity. Oopsie!

Ethics Training Pisses Me Off

But not because I'm unethical (that's beside the point), because it's been proven not to work -- by top executives, no less! -- and yet they continue to ram it down our throats.

Celebration of our Ethics Training:
The (not-so-super-secret employer name goes here) Ethics and Our Business (formerly Recommitment to Ethics) is a mandatory 1 1/2-hour training event to refocus (refocus? Have we gotten out of focus? Were we focused on the wrong thing?) employees on making ethical decisions both for their own benefit and that of the company as a whole.

I'm sorry…the what-now? Celebration of our Ethics Training? First off, who's celebrating? Secondly, what have they to celebrate? Executive philandering? Corporate cronyism? Over 8,000 reports to the ethics office last year? Besides, since when do "Celebration" and MANDATORY go together? This is Orwellian on a level the Bush administration can appreciate. Yeah…ethics training works. It works to grate on my last raw nerves.