All Hallows Eve

My second favorite holiday.

First Off, a complaint: I love to see originality in costumes. I tend toward the conceptual, making up something out of my head, or, if that fails, going as Alice Cooper.

Anyway, I propose a moratorium on "sexy" angels, nurses, schoolgirls, maids, etc. Everytime I see one, I feel like saying "Wow...Did you come up with that all by yourself?!". Naturally, if any of these are Undead, that's a different story...

Oh, and fellas...Going as Mr. T is one thing, but going in blackface is an entirely different thing. I'm not overly P.C. or anything, but some of the costumes I saw over the weekend were toeing a very fine line. You might wanna refrain from that. And speaking of blackface: Thanks for confirming this Right Wing Talking Point, you stupid fuck.

Secondly, I was trying to find something scary to post, and I came across the above. The footage is from the early Danish Expressionist film Haxan, a classic of horror. The music, equally sublime, is provided by the band Coil from their classic paen to Pier Paollo Pasolini Horse Rotorvator. Scary. Actually, this is scarier (or funnier).

Finally, I've been annoying folks with the quote below, but it's a Wizard tradition. It's about Werewolves:

"formulae ueteres exorsismorum et excommunicationum strigas et fictos lupos credere daemon pellem lupinamin trunco quodam cauae arboris occultandum halloween, halloween, halloween, halloween halloween, halloween, halloween, halloween halloween, halloween, halloween, halloween metamorphoses lycanthropie possunt inquam metamorphoses lycanthropie possunt inquam halloween, halloween, halloween, halloween halloween, halloween, halloween, halloween" (The Misfits "Halloween II").



Beware of Razorblade Apples.

The Inconvenient Truth

Hmmm.

It seems like Global Warming might have disasterous consequences. Economic ones.

Will they listen now? We're talking about $$$$!!!!

No.

Gay Marriage

Christ, not this again. They might be getting desperate:

"'Activist judges try to define America by court order', Bush told the crowd of 4,000 at Silver Creek High School, flanked by local Rep. Mike Sodrel, R-Ind., who is running for re-election. 'Just this week in New Jersey, another activist court issued a ruling that raises doubt about the institution of marriage. We believe marriage is between a man and a woman'."

I spent a long time in Indiana. Hell, I graduated from High School out in God's country, and it doesn't shock me at all to read the account here of such reactionary sentitments. Indiana is a reactionary state, by and large, at least in the southern portion, which is where the Klan is still active. It is also a place where Bush could sell his bullshit lies at this late point, where as the rest of the country is starting to wise up. Indiana is a lot like George Bush: Stupid, short sighted and paranoid.

Where I used to live, a little slice of heaven known as "Bright", though it was anything but, was full of recent transplants who were fleeing from the nasty realities of ...Western Hills, to the idyl that was a willful actualization of a Simulacra known as Mayberry R.F.D.

Yes, I understand why they love Bush in Indiana. That's why I left.

Oh, here's some context on Gay Marriage, or rather, a way to think about it.

Winning the War/Emboldening Terrorism

This can't be good:

"Nearly one of every 25 weapons the military bought for Iraqi security forces is missing."

Can't imagine what might have happened to them, though I would imagine that there is a good possibility that they are being used to kill Americans, or will be.

As my father would say, "This is more of a goat-fuck everyday".

Lynn Cheney

Ah yes! Liberal Bias!

Embargo...Bartertown...Screwed!!!

Bush, Cheney and the duality of man:

"Bush: The U.S. doesn't torture. Cheney: Oh, yes it does!"

Actually, not really a duality perse...more like MasterBlaster from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, with Bush in the part of the big stupid one.

Holy Shit, I can't wait until these lunatics are held accountable.


UPDATE: "I mean...no we don't"

Jedi Mind Trick

The Runner Up in the Green Screen Challenge.

October: Suprise!

Guess what? We can't get our elections together any better than those third world countries we feel entitled to, and they have one thing on us: No Karl Fucking Rove.

Yes, folks, via Kos, democracy is already getting the Hot Karl. Ask James H. "Jim"...

Republicans: The Party of Lincoln and Roosevelt-CROOKED AS A BARREL OF GODDAMNED SNAKES.

Don't let them steal this one.

What a dick

Limbaugh gets nasty upon finding out that Alex P. Keaton, his role model, was just a character.

In wondering whether Fox quit taking his meds, I wonder if he was wondering "You think he'd wanna sell any?".

Justice...

Finally...

Skilling gets 24 years.

Bull Elephant

The ever eloquent DarkSyde presents the myth of a good economy.

Time Bomb

No, not the Rancid song, though I find that infinately more edifying.

Instead, we are talking about folks who do not realize that 24 is a television show, and think that we need to conduct our anti terrorism in the same way. This was the sentiment of John Fund (My Bad...It was Stephen Moore-Wiz 10.24, 16:22) on Maher's show last week, and to which, Barney Frank, thankfully, took him to task.

Folks, listen up:

Television is not real. Movies are not real. The 1950's were not Father Knows Best. Rambo is not foreign policy. Ronald Reagan was just an actor.

You have a so called conservative agenda that privileges simulacra over reality. Yes, by asserting that this privilege is truth, its proponents get to fill that sign with heroism, rigtheousness, and "good feelings"-all of which are constructed in the world of the narrative.

Baudrilliard, in asserting the simulacra as a xeroxed reality, does not deny the reality under the representation. Similarly, phenomenology asserts that all we "know" is our experience of the world, but this is not solipsism, because what we know is necessarily informed by verifiable fact, which we also experience, yet, sadly, it is the very misreading of these people that informs this problem. It is a travesty, really, that the people who are making decisions in our name do not know the difference between representation and reality, as though they took a Critical Theory class, got to Baudrilliard, and failed to complete the reading, or, more likely, they chose to cherry pick, as they do, to support their world view.

In a sense, then, it was no suprise to see Bush reading Existentialism; it was only suprising that he hadn't gotten to the misapprehension of that known as Martin Heidegger, whose work with phenomenology and Nietzschean thought apologized for National Socialism. Afterall, his conclusions allowed for the strong to create reality in their own image, something very appealing to the NeoCon thinktanks.

We do not create reality (regardless of what ever dorm-LSD epiphany you may have had): We reflect it, or deflect it, or genuflect it, but nevertheless, it is always there, independent of us. The material is always here, and I think its about time that we demand it be accounted for. It is dishonest to continue to deny it, and yet it gets denied, and that is the real scandal.

"Abortion Hurts Women"

Of course it does: Any procedure of this sort hurts. Something to consider the next time someone tells you that a woman can nonchalantly have one.

Another thing to consider, however, are the tactics of the uterine police in South Dakota:

"Abortion opponents here deliberately avoid the familiar slogans of their movement. They don't talk about the 'murder of innocent babies' or quote the Bible on the sanctity of life. Instead, campaign manager Leslee Unruh has taken what she calls a feminist approach, arguing that legalized abortion exploits women and – for their sake – must be stopped."

Geez...I wonder how that works? Let's see...

"'We women buy the choice line. We're panicked, or we're being pressured, or we're ashamed to have a child outside marriage', Ms. Unruh said."

Peer pressure? Of course! I see people all the time outside of Planned Parenthood, with signs and coat hangers, shouting "C'mon chicken! Just End It!".

And the shame of a child out of wedlock? Wonder what kind of people who make a woman feel bad about having a child out of wedlock? Who would ostracize such women?

"'If you don't do your job right as a mother', Ms. Unruh asked, 'what good is everything else?'"

I actually agree with this statement, which is why I am pro choice.

Diebold Blues

Yikes...

"Diebold Election Systems Inc. expressed alarm and state election officials contacted the FBI yesterday after a former legislator received an anonymous package containing what appears to be the computer code that ran Maryland's polls in 2004."

My my...where do you suppose that came from?

Incidentally, HBO has a documentary on these kind of shenanigans.

Will Rove steal this election as well?

The Republican Revolution: De-Evolution

1994 all over again?

I'm not sure yet, given the ever Tricksey Rove machine.

However, I can say this: There are a lot of pissed off people out there, and they are likely to take it out on G.O.P.

Glow Sticks all around...

What happened to the holes in the brain this stuff caused?

"Research Links 'Ecstasy' to Survival of Key Movement-Related Cells in Brain"

Impeachment/ The End is Nigh

Don't know about you, but is there a bit of Freudian slippage oozing from Horowitz's rag, almost as though the Arch Neo Con is trying to get ahead of something...

Cheney'd make a hell of a Romulan

I always imagined, when it came to Space Policy, it might look something like the United Federation of Planets.

Instead, it looks like we're the Romulans.

Blackface?

Has anybody actually heard this? Can they be this stupid...

Habeas Corpus

George W. Bush murdered democracy, and has now hid the body. All of these Senators and Representatives , regardless of party, who passed this are accessories to this crime. These people are traitors, the real traitors to this country, and regardless of party, should not be re-elected under any circumstances.

Olbermann, as per usual, eloquently breaks it down.

The Final Fuck You...

As if these folks, all folks, in this country haven't suffered enough indignities at the hands of this crook:

"Kenneth Lay's Conviction Erased From Record
Ruling Worries Employees and Investors Who Lost Billions"

Evidentally, there is a tradition of expunging the records of dead men. Even 13 counts of fraud which cost thousands of jobs, millions of dollars, and one Governor his job.

In this case, I think the tradition is wrong, because not only did this jackal escape this mortal coil without serving a second of time, now he gets to escape the noose of official record. This is a disgrace.

Shout it from the rooftops, the mountaintops, and the top of the Capitol building. Never let them forget.

Black/ALL Poets say the darndest things...

Nikki Giovanni, in a move that would surely make the former Poet Laureate of New Jersey proud, decided that the Fountain Square unveiling was a good time for some truth telling, via Cincinnati, and, as always, an entertaining read. The outcry, against the latter, as well as the former, are the same, except that Nikki Giovanni won't be booted from such a prestige gig.

Because the Enquirer only has excerpts, and transcribed ones at that, I will not put the whole thing up, because the textual integrity is in question. However, most folks are reacting to...

". . .
I am not a son of a bitch like Kenny Blackwell
...
I will not use the color of my skin to cover the hatred in my heart
I am not a political whore jumping from bed to bed to see who will stroke my knee"

In typical Cincinnati style, the rabble starts its low roar, ranging from the delusional to aesthetic judgments:

" This is not the time or place. She hurt Cincinnati's reputation as a polite, friendly place to live. "

Or:

"Was that a 'poem?' I guess Cincinnati has a very low standard for invited public speakers."

People tend to forget that poetry is not always nice. Poetry's first mission is always expression, speaking truth to power, and if you give a poet a forum, then so be it.

In this case, I think Giovanni did a great job reminding people of the good things (there are some) about this city without sugarcoating its bad things, which we see all to often. Indeed, it would be poetically dishonest to pretend that nothing bad or unjust has ever gone on in the Dirty Old Town, and in a political climate where reality is undersiege, I think it incredibly brave to do so. Sugarcoating, as an idealized version of this city, would be an ideological act and political statement as well. Things are defined by what they are as well as what they are not.

Moreover, let us keep in mind the political implications of people attacking this piece as a crafted object, as a poem made. The kind of aesthetic judgments, like the one above, e.g. "Was that a poem?" are themselves another kind of ideological statement, and a political one, positing that a poem has to be such to be a poem, and anything else is substandard. This kind of parsing up poetry, literature, or art, for that matter, would tend to suggest a worldview of untenable absolutes, in which the only rule is who has the power to make an aesthetic, subjectivjudgmentnt accepted as an aesthetic, objective fact. In other words: reactionary crypto fascism., otherwise known as New Criticism.

I think it's hilarious, really, that there ara lotot of people running around whose conception of the possibilities of art are frozen in Matthew Arnold, who saw the modern world, with all its icky truths, and ran to the lie that was neoclassicism.

Poetry and Art edify in the sublime. They cannot, or should not, privilege one aspect over another. Speaking truth to power is the ability to reconcile the sublime with our expectations.
That is poetry...not nice...not rhyming...but the powerful invocation of Truth.

If you want nice poetry...then you know nothing about poetry.

"Let's not all start sucking each others dicks just yet"

The Wolf's quote, from Pulp Fiction, got your attention?

Good. via Covington, Digby's got some bad news for us. Read this.

It's Morning in America! Which explains the hangover.

KANSAS CITY, MO. - The share of national income that went to wages and salaries in the first half of 2006 was at its lowest level since the Department of Commerce began keeping such records in 1929.

In contrast, the share of national income that went to corporate profits was at its highest level since 1950.

Ugh.

Why do you suppose that is?

from 13 March 1978. premature?

It's amazing, isn't it, that in this country, particularly among the right wingers, the equation goes a little like this...

Political Left + Reform=Fifth Column/Return of Stalin.

and

God+Capital ≥ Everything Else.

Even more amazing is how quickly the former becomes a dictatorship (and before the trolls chime in...yes, I know there have been leftwing dictatorships, and no, I do not support dictatorships of any kind) when it is democratically elected, or popularly supported, because we cannot conceive of why anyone would want anything aside from the latter.

Friendliest Fire

In one of the horrible incidents that can only happen in the fog of war (an illegal one at that):

"A coroner ruled Friday that U.S. forces unlawfully killed a British television journalist in the opening days of the Iraq war."

Chances are, we've killed tens of thousands in Iraq with "accidents", among them, Tarik Ayoub, who was "accidentally" killed while broadcasting from a roof in Baghdad.

An immoral situation breeds immorality, so I'm not going to blame our soldiers. The blame belongs to the achitects of this immoral situation. The blood is on the administration's hands. We had no business there in the first place.

Hey fuckers, win a game first

This is on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers site this week. I would think a team that has yet to win a game this year (0-4 record) would not choose to go here just yet.

The Cincinnati Bengals are sitting at 3-1 this year, and they are 7 point favorites to go on the road to Tampa, and beat the shit out of the Bucs this Sunday.

Life or Death in the South

"We CAN force our party to listen to us[...]"

I agree. The liberals have controlled this country far too long, and we're now bogged down in an unnecessary war, the economy is robust for a few, and congressional scandals abound...

Oh wait. It's the Bizarro world: Another call to arms from this blog's favorite paranoid southern "goth" mom:

"This is a war like no other–it’s not Vietnam, it’s not the Cold War–but there are lessons to be learned from both. Democrats let Saigon fall, and they’ll do the same with Baghdad."

Hmmm. Wasn't Ford in office?

Oh well, this one goes out to you, Bamapachyderm. Keep fighting the weird fight.

Electric eye, in the sky
Feel my stare, always there
's nothing you can do about it.
Develop and expose
I feed upon your every thought
And so my power grows.
Protected. Detective. Electric eye.

Foreign Policy 101

via WhiteHouse.org, Condi's lecture on the finer points of policy.

Mediocrity: Sic et Non

via Brad as recalled and poorly, geekily transcribed by The_Wizard:

Sic: Ladies and Gentleman...propoganda from another time. Yes! It is possible to get worse than "Where were you"...In fact. this may be the biggest piece of shit I've ever seen. I mean, there's a palpable sense of "Hey, we're behind you 45%!"

Non: A palet cleanser.

Strange Love

obvious photoshop fun

via State of the Day..."Mein Fuhrer...I can walk!"

FOX News Labels Foley A Democrat

How about a retraction Rupert?

Back in the Saddle: A Commentary.

courtesy of Time.

Watching the G.O.P's hegemonic house of cards collapse certainly bodes well for those of us desperate for some small measure of hope these last six horrible years, yet I have a bitter taste (slight pun) in my mouth.

Here's what's up: Mark Foley is a hypocrite, a liar, and is evidentally little better than the leery manager of a Taco Bell, who might take advantage of his/her High School employees through suggestive comments, inappropriate touching and generally creepiness. This guy's a creep.

Several pundits have stated thus, and its absolutely true: This thing is about the conspiracy to protect this guy,plus its attendant hubris, and not really about the sex itself. Yet, I have the feeling that, if this is really the G.O.P's underdoing, we really haven't learned anything. That is not to say that I am unsympathetic to his victims, because I'm not, but in the grand scheme of things, given everything this Administration and its sycophants in both houses have pulled off in the last six years...I would be crestfallen to learn it was sex that did it.

C'mon! Habeas Corpus, the legal standard since the Magna Carta, no longer applies for some of us (and that us being up to the discretion of the President). Domestic Spying. The bullshit lies leading up to Iraq. Abramoff. The assault on reality. All of these things, a host of others, and the American People are finally saying "Enough" over some soft core gay porn chat? Again, I don't want to minimize what a sleazy bastard this guy Foley is, but please. This is the worst thing the G.O.P has done in the last six years? We are one lit match throw from the Reichstag, and this is what you focus on?

I would be crestfallen because, in some way, it would be a replay of the Clinton thing, proving that people want "sexy" scandals, even at the detriment of their national good. The Republicans and the NeoCons could make some nominal reform, throw Hastert to the wolves, "punish" some people, and voila-everything is good again. The scandal, the real one, might go away, and the twisted, right wing agenda that these folks, either through ideological simpatico or just craven partisanship that has brought us to the precipice, does not get discredited as corrupt and immoral, and is allowed to live on, becoming a false analogy to Clinton's thing, and because reality has been reduced to an ignorable inconvenience to ideology, that false analogy may live long enough to become "true".

I hope I am wrong about the people. I really do.

Focus this for the world to see: Look what they've done to our Republic. Expose and discredit these fake patriots, this harbingers of fascism. Now is the time to expose this corruption for its true source: The Hubris of the G.O.P. Let the world see that Americans can do the right thing.

Update: Trav over at WireCan has an interesting tidbit that, while ostensibly about "moral voters", demonstrates exactly what I am afraid of:

"Most of the evangelical Christians interviewed said that so far they saw Mr. Foley’s behavior as a matter of personal morality, not institutional dysfunction."

Follow the link, and you get this little number:

"'This is Foley’s lifestyle' , said Ron Gwaltney, a home builder, as he waited with his family outside a Christian rock concert last Thursday in Norfolk. 'He tried to keep it quiet from his family and his voters. He is responsible for what he did. He is paying a price for what he did. I am not sure how much farther it needs to go'.”

Cover-up, schmover-up. Institutional Malfeasance, Negligence, nay, Criminal Conspiracy,-no way, they say. Foley was slaughtered, and let that be the end of it. After all, we can't hold these Bush bootlickers accountable, can we?

Passes on the all of the above, naturally. These people aren't Christians; They're Republicans diguised as Christians.

Is there nothing these "Christians" won't forgive? Oh yeah...

"How about the 'adulterer-in-chief' himself? Clinton's sickening affair with Monica Lewinski violated the federal sexual harrassment legislation that Clinton himself signed into law. He was not only defended, but he was celebrated by the left!"

The Scattered Thoughts of a Man on the Verge of Mental Collapse

Almost Done. Heading in for printing, collating and scanning. Coffee is my best friend...

Last Week was WHO DEY! This Week is What DA?! The boys looked like shit, that's for sure, but I'm certainly not willing to declare the sky is falling. I am, however, willing to thank Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Vishnu, and the Coyote God for a bye-week.

Hey...I still think Due Process is important, even if I might not get it by writing this.

Reminds me of that that XTC song "The Man Who Murdered Love". Or "Dear God".

Hate to say I told you so...Occupation creates terrorists. Did in our case, right?

Oh, yeah...can somebody please torpedo these "Swift Boat" assholes before they smear another good man.

Has he lost his mind? Please let it be better than Daredevil.

Oh yeah: Special Shoutout and Bon Anniversaire to the Deacon at the outset of his Christolic Year, whose beloved Seahawks, like the Bengals, looked like complete shit yesterday. Hope yer sufficiently hungover, brother. Remember: It all changes week to week.

Wizard out...

UPDATE:...some 12 hours later...

Jesus...its not a document, its an endurance contest.

If I could remember how to say "I am victorious" a la Vlad Dracul from Bram Stoker's Dracula, I would. Come to think of it, the whole experience felt like that battle...dossiers impaled on lances...

No matter. It's done. And unlike poor Elisabeta, I'm going which ever way the river's flowin'...