Through the Miracle of Wingervision

Here's a very funny creation which shows how the Right view the world: pass the cursor over each article and photo and see reality transformed into the Rightzarro World version.

Me, I'm wondering what the glasses look like. Do they have spirals on the lenses, or lightning bolts on the frames, or what?

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "There are none so blind...."\\

You Were Saying About Racial Profiling?

Benamar Benatta was seized (he was never exactly arrested) by the FBI on September 12th, 2001, because he fit a racial profile that includes about 20% of the human race.

They knew by November that he wasn't a terrorist.

He was freed this week, without apology.

I want my country back.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Not every journey reaches its desitnation."\\

18,181

Kathe sent me an e-mail, quoting from a blog she'd read today. The blogger claimed that three candidates for office in three Texas counties each received the same number of votes -- an event more than merely unlikely. She sent this to me under the headline "Is this true?"

So, I Googled a few variations, and there it was: 18,181 votes.

So, do you want to get back that democracy you used to have?

//The Magic Eight-Ball says "What you want can be achieved, but it will cost you."\\

Stinking Like Natto

If you are a person who comes by here every few days to see if there's something new lately (which is to say, if you are Peni R. Griffin), you've been disappointed more often than not lately.

I'm afraid that my blogging output has been curtailed lately on account of how my life lately stinks like natto.

I've been very unhappy lately, in powerful need of a good laugh. And nobody was more surprised than me when Kathe sent me a link to the blog Steve, Don't Eat That! and I found out that Steve could make me laugh.

And boy, did I ever need it.

Thanks, Kathe.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "DOn't eat those, man! They'll kill you!"\\

Muhammad al-McGyver

"So, here's the plan: we sneak precursor chemicals onto the plane (we'll need refrigerated containers) mix them in the restroom cubicle (we'll need at least an hour uninterrupted), mix them up into high explosives (all without making one of a number of mistakes that would kill you without damaging the plane)...and blow it up!"

"Is this really the best idea we can come up with to terrorize and demoralize Western civilization?"

"Um...so far, yes."

"I sure hope this scares them enough."

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Use your head, for crying out loud."\\

The Latest Trick From the Devious Chinese

From the New York Times:
..China seems to be offering Africa something new, a straightforward business relationship between equals based on mutual interest and noninterference in the internal affairs of its allies. Or as the economist Jeffrey Sachs put it at a conference in Beijing this week, “China gives fewer lectures and more practical help.”

To which Kathe made the comment: "Geez, imagine Africa falling for *that*!"

Indeed. What sort of way is that for a country to behave towards Africa?

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Some mysteries are inscrutable indeed."\\

Missing Links

The Pentecostal Church in Kenya has a new way of dealing with the evidence for evolution: hide it.

Simply shuffle Kenya's immense accumulation of hominid fossils (the world's largest, including many of the most famous Leakey finds) away from public view and into a back room, where fewer impressionable young people will see it.

Brilliant.

//The Magic Eight Ball is currently inside a taped-up cardboard box on top shelf in the closet, but we are informed that it says "Darwin was wrong!"\\

The Revolution Will (Not) Be Merchandised?

The blog Haiku Politics offers a link to Anti-Capitalism breakfast cereal.

Well, my mind is boggled. How about you?

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Some of my best friends come out of cereal boxes."\\

What'd He Do?

"But what, exactly, did George W. Bush do that you angry leftists should be so, um, angry with him?"

[Sneers, waves hands in air.]

"He did this."

[Hands over a copy of The Constitution in Crisis]

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Next question."\\

More Control

A friend who often sends me text messages, some of them cryptic and some clearly only intended to let off steam, sent me one just now that said, "I need more control over my life."

I replied, "Tell us about it, luv. You need control, I need control. Earlier today I came upon a person smashing the remains of his stereo tuner into tinier bits. He's looking for control, too. All of us here in this handbasket need more control."

//The Magic Eight-Ball is on vacation. Filling in for him is his cousin the Control Voice, which says, "There is nothing wrong with your set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture."\\

I Want My Country Back

And so does the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, otherwise known by the catchy (and all-too-appropriate) name of DefCon.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "I don't know about you, but I'm kind of tired of irony coming this easily."\\

Making Vote Fraud Absurdly Easy

Just follow the simple instructions in the educational video.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Education may leave one wiser, but sadder."\\

National Energy Security and Good Medical Practice

Sound like good ideas to me.

Apparently, they sound good to Evan Bayh and Hillary Clinton, too.

Working sixty-some hours this week, I could use some energy.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Then why aren't you in bed?"\\

Making Vote Fraud Easier

Gee, that sounds like a bad idea to me.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Do the right thing. It won't make any difference, but you'll feel better."\\

Sometimes, Life....

Sometimes life just won't let you live.

I feel kind of like Woody Allen's character in Love and Death, where he recounts the woes of his life, concluding with a small sore on the inside of his lower lip.

** My grandfather has colon cancer, and it has metastasized.

** Another family member is an alcoholic, and we're reaching the limit of what we can do for him.

** And I do in fact have a nasty spot on the inside of my mouth.

Wounds on thge inside of the mouth actually heal faster than damage to the skin. But it sure doesn't seem that way when you have one.

I bit the inside of my right cheek the other day, and it hurt so badly that I couldn't take solid food for three days.

Oh, well. I'm trying to lose weight anyway.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "This is not a good week to go crazy. Try to postpone that and other recreational activities."\\

She Plays One On Radio

This morning I was spinning the radio dial and came upon Laura Schlessinger's radio show. Gee, she's still out there? Sure enough.

And still calling herself "Dr. Laura" to give herself a folksy air of authority (interestingly, she really does have a doctorate...in physiology).

She was reading something which she said was a fax from a gay male listener who gushed over her "moral values" and just happened to mention how a few years back she had suddenly dropped her savage vendetta against gay men (but only in order to focus on the problems of "traditional families", of course), and observed on the funny coincidence that her sudden change of format came at just the time that a massive national boycott of her show (which she herself at the time called "financially devastating") was peaking.

She closed this reading with the writer asking her not to use his name, lest his tires be slashed by gay civil rights activists.

Now, for all I know, she really did read all of that off a fax sent to her by a real listener, who might even be gay. But the combination of fawning adulation with an extremely convenient recitation of the Schlessinger version of the spanking she got from the gay community leads me to accuse her of sock puppetry.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "You, on the other hand, only put your words into the mouth of an inanimate object...that doesn't even have a mouth."\\

Roof Torn Off -- But That's Okay By Us

Noty as hot today as it had been, yet this was the day that I decided to turn pale, with a racing pulse and a profoundly sick feeling. Who knows what it was? Oh, well.

In between periods of lying down, I pulled some more roofing nails from the broken shingles Jake had been showering down on the tarp on the lawn.

Seeing the roof with its skin off reminded me of earlier projects in and around the house, and of schemes I devised over the years for restoring houses without having to restore them. My personal favorite is enclosing the entire house in a geodesic dome or in a zome. That way, not only do you not have to worry about the leaky roof, you can even tear the whole roof off and have a sun deck. Well, just a thought.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "A house is a machine for keeping your books dry."\\

You Mean, Kill A Person? Deliberately? That's Barbaric!

We have been warned for years that international treaties regarding war crimes, torture and the treatment of POWs might one day resulty in American service members being tried in foreign courts, where any war crimes they commit would be treated as though they were war crimes.

Now, Bush Administration officials have discovered that the War Crimes Act of 1996 obliges the U.S. government to respond to (some) violations of the Geneva Convention as though they were violations of the Geneva Convention.

Some persons charged under it might even be in danger of the death penalty, which they would not face in most foreign courts.

Is there no end to such insanity?

Well, probably. Legislation is now being written creating exemptions for, well, everybody.

But the law itself will not be repealed, because the USA takes war crimes very seriously.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "You should see how serious Dick Cheney's face looks right now."\\

Free Choice Does In Fact Save Lives.

FreeChoiceSavesLives.org has sent me an e-mail asking me to ask my representatives in Congress to provide students with complete and accurate birth control and prophylactic information. I think that's a good idea, don't you?

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "I do."\\

Liberal Outrage

Silly liberals. So angry all the time.

And over the silliest little things.

Like people who have lost everything else, now being deprived of the most basic human rights.

Stuff like that.

//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "At times, the highest expression of love is attack."\\