Hubris or Chutzpah?

We are having an unprecedented winter, as far as my experience goes, here in the Northwest.  Snow, and lots of it.  My friends from back East have been giving me shit, but I literally had to go out and but gloves, a hat, a scarf, and snow boots.  We just don’t need them here in Seattle (usually).

I have been thinking that if the Earth is a self-regulating system, global warming would naturally cause something of an ice age.  think about it.  If the surface is warming up, throw some reflective material down and overpower the blanket effect of the CO₂.  It’s what I’d do if I were a planet.

But I digress.  Tell me if this seems more like hubris or chutzpah:

MEXICO CITY – A U.S. anti-kidnapping expert was abducted by gunmen in northern Mexico last week…

Wait. What?

U.S. security consultant Felix Batista was in Saltillo in Coahuila state to offer advice on how to confront abductions for ransom when he himself was seized

I’ll be damned.

Batista was frequently cited as an anti-kidnapping expert at conferences and in the press.

This is where I’d say, “Physician, Heal Thyself”, but that’d probably a little cold, especially this close to Baby Jesus’s big day.

Change I can believe in…

h/t droogie6655321

Meet the Automatic Complaint Generator

So Obama is having noted evangelical preacher and Proposition 8 supporter Rick Warren to give his inaugural invocation. And the right thought he was the most liberal senator.

In honor of this, and because I consider my self progressive and have not complained about Obama yet, I will see what the old complaint generator gives me:

My complaint about Pres. Obama

Although Pres. Obama wants nothing less than to make mountains out of molehills, I want this letter to speak a language of reconciliation, not retaliation. For the sake of review, we must help others to see through the empty and meaningless statements uttered by him and his compeers. This call to action begins with you. You must be the first to act against injustice, whether it concerns drunk driving, domestic violence, or even Dadaism. You must be the one to deal with him appropriately. And you must inform your fellow man that my purpose here is not to encourage the ethos of exchange value over use value. Well, okay, it is. But I should point out that in a tacit concession of defeat, Pres. Obama is now openly calling for the abridgment of various freedoms to accomplish coercively what his cuckoo canards have failed at.

By framing the question in this way we see that if anything will free us from the shackles of Pres. Obama’s disorderly expositions, it’s knowledge of the world as it really is. It’s knowledge that he believes that trees cause more pollution than automobiles do. Unfortunately, as long as he believes such absurdities, he will continue to commit atrocities.

As long as the beer keeps flowing and the paychecks keep coming, Pres. Obama’s sympathizers don’t really care that simplism was founded on a world system of enslavement and land theft. But you knew that already. So let me add that his cop-outs are not witty satire, as Pres. Obama would have you believe. They’re simply the shrewish, disingenuous ramblings of someone who has no idea or appreciation of what he’s mocking. Even as I write those words I can feel Pres. Obama cringe. That’s okay. Cringe. I don’t care because you might have heard the story that he once agreed to help us speak up and speak out against him. No one has located the document in which Pres. Obama said that. No one has identified when or where Pres. Obama said that. That’s because he never said it. As you might have suspected, Pres. Obama’s idiotic claim that all it takes to start a rabbit farm is a magician’s magic hat is just that, an idiotic claim. Stand with me, be honest with me, and help me help you reflect and reexamine your views on Pres. Obama, and together we’ll take stock of what we know, identify areas for further research, and provide a useful starting point for debate on his sententious, recalcitrant subliminal psywar campaigns. We’ll shout back at his propaganda. I’m counting on you. Thanks for reading this.

Go try it yourself. I find it especially fun when playing with trolls.

Oh, and I can’t believe the leader of the most powerful military-industrial complex in the world has not upheld my steadfast progressive values. Really. Who could have seen this coming?

h/t Righteous Bubba

Fuck You, Baltimore!

I am taking a hiatus from writing about politics because I’m pretty certain that they are all crooks, criminals, and liars, and I’ve gone hoarse screaming at the sky. So here is one of the best commercials ever produced:

Democrats

I swear, this party pisses me off sometimes:

Politico’s Mike Allen is previewing an article set to appear in Sunday’s Las Vegas Sun about Harry Reid’s efforts to roll back the Vice President’s expanded role under Dick Cheney by barring Joe Biden from Senate Democratic caucus meetings:

“The new Congress will reassert its constitutional independence from the White House by barring the vice president from joining in internal Senate deliberations, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in an interview with The Sun. The move is intended to restore checks and balances to a system that tilted heavily toward the White House in the Bush presidency. By giving Vice President Dick Cheney regular access to Senate Republican caucuses, at times with White House advisers in tow, party unity became more important to many Republicans than upholding their responsibilities to provide legislative oversight of the executive, experts say. Asked if Vice-President Joe Biden will be allowed to attend Senate Democratic caucus meetings, Reid said: ‘Absolutely not.'” Must credit Las Vegas Sun. Full story 2 a.m. Sunday at http://www.lasvegassun.com/

This is a great idea, the ridiculous growth in power of the executive branch under the Bush administration has been horrible and unconstitutional. So why, two years after they took control of congress, are the Democrats acting to stop it now? Their concern over the growth of power of the White House only applies to when Obama and Biden take office? What the hell is wrong with this party?

Holy Shit!

Item 1:

“The Vatican instructed Catholic bishops around the world to cover up cases of sexual abuse or risk being thrown out of the Church.

The Observer has obtained a 40-year-old confidential document from the secret Vatican archive which lawyers are calling a ‘blueprint for deception and concealment’. One British lawyer acting for Church child abuse victims has described it as ‘explosive’.

Item 2:

…the Catholic hierarchy in California decided to cut a deal with a group who most Catholics don’t really consider a religion, but, when it comes to gay bashing, nothing is off-limits. The Catholics don’t have much spare cash these days because they’ve spent hundreds of millions to settle sex abuse cases….a reporter in Idaho Falls, Idaho…busted open a scandal involving sex abuse, the Boy Scouts and the Mormons. Apparently, the Mormons pretty much control the Boy Scouts in several Western states. The perp involved in the case molested a lot of young kids and a lot of adults in the Boy Scouts and the Mormon Church knew what was going on and did nothing to stop it. In fact, they kept putting the perp in positions where he was in contact with kids. They went to great lengths to cover it up.

Item 3:

The Vatican is drawing criticism from gay rights groups and newspapers editorials after Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the United Nations, told a French Catholic news service that the Vatican opposes “a proposed U.N. resolution calling on governments worldwide to de-criminalise homosexuality.” Migliore claimed that the resolution “would create new and implacable discriminations” against opponents of same-sex marriage.

The resolution has nothing to do with marriage. It’s aimed, in part, at nations that kill gays. Killing gays. How Christian. That should make the Prada wearing Pope very proud.

The Catholics are now in some weird competition with their new friends, the Mormons, to see which church can bash gays more. Of course, both churches should spend more time preventing young children from being molested by church leaders, but that’s another story.

So those are two of the biggest religions in the world, right?

And they say Islam is backwards…