Ogre-oid: Tea Party Comix

Whether these are legit or not seems to miss the point.  These comics are art whether they believe they are skewering Obama with the gross stereotypes and flat out racist depictions of Obama and liberal ideals or they are reflecting the animal racism of the teabaggers.  Either way, these will make you squirm a little.  Many more pictures here and here.

Bat Shit Crazy Report: Tea Party Attacks Bachmann

The comparisons between American politics and the Mad Hatter's tea party in Alice in Wonderland seem to take less and less effort as time passes.  Yes, you read the headline right, the queen of the bat shit crazies, Michelle Bachmann, has come under attack from the Missouri Teabaggers.  Did someone get a picture of her reading a book?  Maybe she scolded someone for calling her black butler "boy?"  No, it's because she's endorsed Roy Blunt (R-MO) in his bid to retain his Senate seat.  That's right, she's stepped out of line and her name is mud.  Curiouser and curiouser.

Some Links

Shirley Sherrod to sue Andrew Breitbart.





wikileaks, wikileaks, wikileaks

Modus Operandi Podcast episode 27

episode 26 7/9/2010

Back together after a week off and a couple of weeks of Dave's vacation the two have a particularly funny show that really hits a nice crescendo of hilarity at the end.

My apologies for how late this podcast is.  I've had vehicular difficulties and visiting friends and family that have seriously delayed my editing this particularly excellent episode of the show.  It's so frickin' late that we'll be recording a new show, via cell phone again, tomorrow night.  Hopefully I will be able to edit and upload the show by Saturday night.  I plan on following up on several topics we discussed and we will be continuing the "Dave Says Something Positive About Anything" segment.  And I even threw in a little chunk of the soundtrack for Star Wars at one point in the hopes we will get sued into visibility.  A free Ogrefest T-shirt to the first listener that posts the topic I backed with the Star Wars music.  And yes, at this point I'm just trolling for search engine hits for Star Wars in the hopes someone that will enjoy the podcast and the blog will happen by and join our merry family.  I don't want to be a spoiler, but our use of the Star Wars theme music is used as satirical mood music for part of the show.  Satire's pretty well fair use so, let's go.  Star Wars, Star Wars, Star Wars.  There, said it three times and you have to appear.  These are not the droids you're looking for.  Move along.  Move along.

Dave's Tattoo

More Doom for the World's Oceans

Over 500 penguins have washed up dead on the shores of Brazil recently as well as some turtles and a porpoise.  The cause of death appears to be starvation.  These penguins usually feed over a wide area and should be finding huge amounts of food.  I have this horrible feeling this is another sign of the death of life in the oceans of the world.  In 1808 the passenger pigeon numbered in the billions and there were many millions of bison.  By the end of that century there were no passenger pigeons and only a few thousand bison hiding in Yellowstone.  Yes we can obliterate all life in the oceans because we're foolish enough to believe we can't.

Rumors About the Gulf

"World killing event."
Turtles and crabs may become extinct in the Gulf.
Brown pelicans, just removed from endangered species list, threatened.
Here's seven more.
Too early to say if it's the worst disaster in history or not, but it's up there.

Modus Operandi Podcast is on Vacation

We're taking a week off because that's how we roll.

Look forward to a discussion of information availability in the age of the internet, and a whole new segment where Dave is required to talk, at length, about something good in the world.

See you this weekend!

On Nuclear Energy

I wanted to say something about the stupidity of nuclear energy.

4th of July continues America's obsession with the mutilated body

In reviewing recent editions of the NY Times, I was struck by the July 4th edition, the front page of which is graced by a centered, in-color picture of one Brendan Marrocco, 23, who lost all four limbs in Iraq. I can't think of a better illustration of America's obsession with mutilated bodies than this choice for a front-page picture to commemorate the nation's birth. Not families in the park having a picnic, or attractive young ladies in bikinis soaking up summer rays, but a human being reduced to a head and torso. And I can hear mainstream America's sugar-coated spin on Mr. Marrocco's "situation:" "The young man is lucky that he lives at a time when we have the medical technology to get him on the mend. With perserverance and faith in the Lord, he'll be able to get back on his feet . . . er, I mean abdomen cartiledge. If he were living in another part of the world, there wouldn't be any hope for him!" Gee, maybe if America weren't a war-mongering shithole, the guy would still live in an intact human body and it wouldn't be an issue in the first place. I'm not sure that losing all four limbs is any better if you're an American than if you're not. After all, the guy can't even drive a car! Personally, I feel bad for Mr. Marrocco, but I don't see the point of putting his picture on the front page of the Times. I see it as an unconscious expression of a national pathology wherein humans accept the destruction of the human body as a necessary part of human life. What do people think happens in war? How many burnt, bloodied, mangled bodies does one have to see before one gets a point that is pointless? What difference does all this information and communication about the human cost of war matter when the wars never end? As always, Americans have better things to do and think about like . . .

. . . buy and wear circle lenses--colored contacts imported from Asia that make one's eyes appear larger because they cover part of the whites of the eyes, not just the iris. It would be bad enough if it were just braces-wearing teens sticking these things into their eyeballs, but even women in their thirties are caught up in the puerile, vapid craze. The FDA has warned that these lenses can deprive the eye of oxygen and result in blindness, you know, like when the eye--which is there to provide the human with sight--can't see. But the obsessive trend has caught on with women even in their thirties, like Joyce Kim, who says wearing circle lenses is just like "wearing mascara or eyeliner." I can't think of a more shallow perspective on one's own body than to regard one's own eyeballs as nothing more than an ornament. How alienated from one's own body does one have to get to equate putting a potentially-blinding lens on one's own eyeball with using makeup? How does this person think she is able to have vision? Does she think she is just a digital link or projection screen or something? Are her eyes there for her to be able to see or just for other people's aesthetics? As always, the obsession with circle lenses is fueled by the extreme conformity that typifies the digital age. Originally, Ms. Nina Nguyen, a student at Rutgers, resisted wearing the circle lenses, not wanting to risk her eyesight. But because everyone else at Rutgers was wearing them, she decided she had to also, and now she is a self-professed "circle lens addict." Since everyone else is doing it, that makes Ms. Nguyen think it's OK. Boy, the internet really has improved communication hasn't it? Now people conform and do things because they see everyone else doing it. Now how's that for the independent thinking online communication promotes! Clearly a step forward, no doubt. And also an encouraging sign that American universities promote an atmosphere of critical thought that resists blindly following whatever is popular at the time. For me, the circle lens is just another form of bodily mutilation: it poses a risk to one's eyesight that is completely pointless. Some advice for the females: if you're attractive, you don't need circle lenses. If you're not attractive, potentially ruining your eyesight will not change your bland physical appearance. The only thing worse than a physically unexciting woman is a physically unexciting woman who is so fucking stupid she is voluntarily blinding herself so she can look like everyone else. "Hey, meet my unattractive girlfriend-wife. Our relationship was kind of dull, until she went blind and now I have to do everything for her and we can't do things like go to museums or sight-seeing. Next month she's going to have an operation to have her body covered with tree moss, apparently that's a big hit in Mongolia." Whether they are pretty or not, your eyes are there for you to be able to see, not to be seen. You have objectified yourself to the point of turning your own eyes into the opposite of what they are obviously meant to be. Women who wear circle lenses are conformists with mundane perspectives on beauty and the meaning of their own human existence. The circle lens craze reinforces American's obsession with the mutilated body and illustrates how the digital era promotes stupidity as much as anything else.

Some Links

D.C. Settles Protest Arrest Suit


Courts Overturn FCC (it's about fucking time)


B.P. Stops Oil Flow?


General Petraeus: "Trying to train and equip host nation forces in the middle of an insurgency is akin to building an advanced aircraft while it is in flight, while it is being designed, and while it is being shot at."

Modus Operandi Podcast episode 26

episode 26 7/9/2010

Dave returns from his vacation all fresh and relaxed while Alan is still dazed from a pair of particularly brutal days of hard labor in the high heat of a filthy attic.  An oddly chill podcast, considering.

Bat Shit Crazy Report: Bachmann Says Obama is Making Us Into Slaves

Michele Bachmann says Obama is turning the U.S. into "a nation of slaves."  That's right, a black man is making "us" (read "white people") into "slaves."  Dense as iron, thick as as a brick, and dumber than a door nail, she and Palin make such lovely bookends for the ever expanding batshit crazy branch of the GOP.  Talking Points Memo has a lovely slide show of this nutjob and there's even a comic book series about her!

Ogre-links

National Marine Fisheries Service failed in BP oversight.
BP and sea turtles
BP is now THE LAW

Glenn Beck opens his own "university."

Healthcare.gov recommends poor people "look for free clinics."  What's changed, exactly?

1970's:  CEO's make $45 for every $1 paid employees.  Now it's $1081 for every dollar.  Now who, exactly, is to blame for unemployment?

Ogre-oid: The rapid decline of American sports culture (and sports in general)

When UK coach John Calipari announced that all five UK players in the draft going in the first round was the greatest moment in the history of UK basketball, he formalized what any remotely realistic and honest person already knew: UK basketball is a professional organization, and the university itself is a sports complex, not an academic institution. Details, details: once any player, from UK or elsewhere, declares for the draft, they are no longer part of the university team! Those players taken in the draft are pro players, not UK players. They stopped being UK players when the disgraceful regional final against West Virginia mercifully ended. Worse still, his comment betrays that in basketball and all American sports, the games themselves are now secondary! Not a final four or national championship, but a complete non-athletic moment--a draft for God's sake--is the greatest moment in the program's history. Yeah, sure, whatever. The promotional sideshow, Twitter gossip, and endless blather from so-called analysts like Jay Bilas--who is a compete fraud, an ex-jock from Duke who tries to pull off the ethos of an intellectual when all he does is speculate about meaningless sports issues, like which player will get drafted by which team and when--have overtaken the fun and excitement of watching a game. There is only one good thing about sports--if there is anything good about them--and that is enjoying the games. Shut the fuck up and put a fucking game on!

America's pseudo-love of soccer, which the rest of the world calls football, because that is what it is. Shots of Americans as people who actually enjoy life and community, getting together at the pub during the workday to celebrate the World Cup and cheer on the team are as fradulent as John Calipari or Jay Bilas. Americans don't care about soccer, and as soon as the U.S. lost to Ghana--a country that doesn't quite have the standard of living America does--appreciation for a truly great game vanished quicker than unemployment benefits. Now, predictably, the image of Landon Donvon's goal against Algeria will be played over and over and over to sell worthless crap that has nothing to do with the game itself.

Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals was the worst game of basketball I've ever seen in my life. Neither team scored in the hundreds--unlike the final scores of the previous four Game 7 finals meeting between the league's most storied franchises. While I appreciate a hard-nosed defensive effort, if you can't score the ball, you can't play. The only thing more pathetic than the performance of the two teams was the referrees' taking control of the game in the fourth quarter by calling a foul on the Celtics every time Kobe Bryant crashed into the lane or flailed his arms in Ray Allen's face. Kobe got his hardware but at the expense of any plausible comparison to the game's greats. Great players don't have off-nights in Game 7 of the finals, and watching Kobe--and the game itself--was painful. There simply should have been no champion this year. Hey, I've got an idea: let's start drafting eighth graders, expand the league to 67 teams, let each player have ten fouls per game, and put more money into marketing. Just let me and my dead grandmother know when tryouts are. Only 21st century America could turn baseball into a high scoring game and basketball into a low scoring one.

Uruguay's deliberate handball at the goal line in the final moments of their match with Ghana exposed a major flaw in the game. If a player uses his hand to bat down what obviously will be a goal--and in this case would have been the winning one--it should be goaltending, just like in basketball, and the goal should count, no free kick necessary. Granted, Ghana missed a free kick to win the game they should have made, but Uruguay's victory is cheap because they shouldn't be rewarded for a skill-less move in the game's most pivotal moment.

Ogre-oids; supplemental

In the original Star Trek, Kirk would at times announce "Captain's Log, supplemental". As I've been away for a couple of weeks, here are some Ogre-oids of recent interest.

NYPD Stop-and-frisk: Taking shallowness to new depths, the city graced by the Statue of Liberty has been randomly stopping, frisking, and interrogating U. S. residents. Apparently, the people of NY couldn't care less. Maybe they think if the city throws away enough civil liberties, the World Trade Center will sprout out of Ground Zero. That kind of superstition is consistent with the primitive tactics of the NYPD, and American law enforcement in general. Any halfway decent group of adults who call themselves Americans wouldn't stand for this kind of thing, regardless if it were (surprise, surprise) happening mostly to minorities, who, never having had it that great in our land of equality, can now be profiled as terrorists. Obviously it is undesirable to harass, intimidate, and humiliate people because they live in bodies. That's basically what this tactic amounts to. And spare me the chickenshit crap about how this is all to make New Yorkers--once notorious for their toughness and indepedence--"safer." Cops acting like punks didn't stop some assfuck from Pakistan from parking a car with a bomb in the middle of Times Square. Listen: the more people you piss off and alienate, the more danger you are inviting into your life. Let's be up front about all this: the tyranny of post-September 11 America is for fun, and we all know it. Beyond that it is completely pointless. Tactics such as stop and frisk are brutish, mean-spirited, ex-jock reactions to a national tragedy that has already happened and cannot be neutralized or redeemed no matter how much carnage, mutilation, and humiliation we can heep on other people. How does imposing martial law on Americans preserve the American way of life in face of a terrorist threat? Turning Virginia Tech's campus into a military, lock-down fortress does nothing to bring back to life the 30+ people slaughtered by an insane man who got his hands on two handguns. All this acting tough and strong and pretending to be ready for something that's already happened because people weren't ready for it is like turning a fire hose on a pile of ashes, then calling yourself a hero. Never waver!

Obesity: Next time you want to learn about how fat and ugly America is, instead of reading more goddamn "information" about it, go to the beach. Last week at the Outer Banks of N.C. I watched in sublime disgust as at least half of the younger adults and children at the shores of the Atlantic were obese. I didn't say anything about on my life-feed on Podcast 24 because you can't get away from them and being on vacation I didn't feel like insulting people to their faces (for once). One of our neighbors was a heaping mound of fat sluting around in a two piece! We'll find Osama bin Laden before another person finds her blubber-shrouded cunt. Yes, entrepreneurs everywhere can start the next big hit at 34th and 7th--provocative beachwear for people who weigh more than an office copier. A four year old was so fat her arms have a circumfrance bigger than my thighs. Once we returned to the corporate shithole of Rocky Mount, the hits kept coming. On our only trip out to a restaurant, we saw another gigantic tub of lard whoof down not one but two calzones like they were oyster crackers. Of course, this isn't a problem since America is a free country: you can be as fat as you want, eat as much shit as you want, be as big an asshole as you want, buy and shoot as many guns as you want, look at as many obese or mutilated bodies as you want, and hate everyone's guts to boot!

Powerless President Obama continues to be exposed as a typically American "didn't-see-the-next-big-disaster-coming-and-AGAIN-wasn't-ready-for-it" clueless asswipe corporate buttplug as the oil continues gushing into the Gulf. Fortunately for us, the oil hadn't made it to the Outer Banks . . . yet.

The Bat Shit Crazy Report: Ever Expanding Insanity on the Right

Forgot all about these two nutjobs.

Senator Robert Byrd's Speech Opposing Iraq War

here

Modus Operandi Podcast episode 25

Recorded, edited and uploaded 7/1/2010, Alan again flies solo despite trying to raise the good Doctor on the wireless thingy.  Alan talks to you about the week's ogre-oids, the Kagan nomination, the death of Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), and there is even a glimmer of our sports theme as he mentions the World Cup.  There is a weather report and Von Goodness update as well.  Enjoy!

Please enjoy our RSS feed in your podcast device

episode 25 7/1/2010

The Week in Ogre-oids

Afghanistan - June was the deadliest month yet for coalition troops in our endless, stupid war in Afghanistan.  I can find no mention of how many civilians were killed but I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest it was a fucking lot of people.

The deaths of 102 servicemembers included a record 59 Americans. Nine of the 46 nations in the U.S.-led coalition suffered fatalities, the most countries to lose troops since the conflict began nearly nine years ago.  via

GOP Blocks Extension of Unemployment Benefits - After more than a decade of spending like drunken sailors with a pocket full of stolen credit cards, GOP Congress members have blocked an extension of unemployment benefits because it would add to the deficit.  War is fine with them, tax cuts for the ultra-megas are fine with them, but helping people out whose jobs have been lost thanks to the Republicans' reckless behavior?  Not a chance.  I think I'm going to print myself a bumper sticker that says, "Fuck the Poor! vote GOP."  more


Proof Our Newspapers Are Too Chickenshit to Call Torture Torture - Worst offender?  The NY Times which virtually stopped referring to waterboarding by Americans as torture after Bush/Cheney decided it was hunky dory while still calling it torture if other countries do it according to a new study by Harvard’s Kennedy School (pdf).

Examining the four newspapers with the highest daily circulation in the country, we found a significant and sudden shift in how newspapers characterized waterboarding. From the early 1930s until the modern story broke in 2004, the newspapers that covered waterboarding almost uniformly called the practice torture or implied it was torture: The New York Times characterized it thus in 81.5% (44 of 54) of articles on the subject and The Los Angeles Times did so in 96.3% of articles (26 of 27). By contrast, from 2002‐2008, the studied newspapers almost never referred to waterboarding as torture. The New York Times called waterboarding torture or implied it was torture in just 2 of 143 articles (1.4%). The Los Angeles Times did so in 4.8% of articles (3 of 63). The Wall Street Journal characterized the practice as torture in just 1 of 63 articles (1.6%). USA Today never called waterboarding torture or implied it was torture. In addition, the newspapers are much more likely to call waterboarding torture if a country other than the United States is the perpetrator. In The New York Times, 85.8% of articles (28 of 33) that dealt with a country other than the United States using waterboarding called it torture or implied it was torture while only 7.69% (16 of 208) did so when the United States was responsible. The Los Angeles Times characterized the practice as torture in 91.3% of articles (21 of 23) when another country was the violator, but in only 11.4% of articles (9 of 79) when the United States was the perpetrator. via

NPR's Continued Practice of Allowing It's Correspondents to Also Work For Fox News - Fox News is not a news organization.  They follow no rules of journalistic ethics.  They are a propaganda service for the far right of American politics and anyone in their employ is damaged goods.  NPR and Fox's Mara Liasson manages to insert some Fox bullshit into every article aired on NPR and she once again managed it by noting, for absolutely no reason other than to sound the fascist dog whistle, that President Obama was "reading from a teleprompter" during a speech in Louisiana.  It's utterly disgusting that any organization that claims to report facts would allow these hacks to sully its broadcasts.

Here's an exchange I had with the ombudsman's office.