GOP candidate for NY governor threatens editor with violence.
Atheists and agnostics know more about religion than any religious group.
Obama administration strives for N. Korean style control of internet.
DOJ rife with misconduct to this day.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
Modus Operandi Podcast episode 33
Links for episode 33:
Louisville is the country's hottest city this summer.
Nutcracker/hooch.
Witchcraft & the GOP base.
Is your worst fear horny gay turkeys who can put their foot behind their head while defending our nation?
The FBI is spying on evil doers like this.
UK Football and Moonraker are related.
Alan makes predictions about games he knows nothing about.Shop cats:
Kentucky at Florida: 44-13
Alabama at Arkansas: 17-16
Murray High v Trigg Co.: 36-9
Calloway Co. High School v whoever: The pain continues.
"Part of the charm of the podcast is that we're absolutely confused and unprofessional. It's what makes for a truly great podcast."
Dave says during the "Von Goodness Report" that he would vacuum his apartment when he got home which leads to this week's unanswered question: Did Dave vacuum his apartment?
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Ogre-fuck: Virginia Executes Retarded Woman
Virginia joins the depths of hell usually occupied by the state of Texas today as it murders Teresa Lewis. The civilized world takes a dim view on executions of any kind, but especially the execution of the mentally retarded or disturbed. The EU even chimed in:
Nutritionism Comes to Louisville
Bloggers note: I submitted the following opinion to the Louisville Courier-Journal in response to the Louisville Health Department's $500,000 plan to require local restaurants to list the calories in their menu items. And guess what? They've blown me off.
The Louisville Health Department's plan to get local restaurants to list the number of calories contained in menu items is another example of nutritionism, a fake science that has dominated Americans' perspectives on food and eating for over a quarter century. As author Michael Pollan--who will be visting Louisville in October--demonstrates in his 2008 book In Defense of Food, the consequence of nutritionism has been to make Americans less healthy and more ignorant about food than they ever were.
Nutritionism is not a science but an ideology (Pollan, p. 28)--a pervasive but unexamined set of assumptions--that posits the best way to eat is not to focus on food itself but on the nutrients in the food. This unfortunate perspective oversimplifies the complexity of the food we eat, its dynamic interaction with the land and soil, and the political and cultural factors that influence people's health and happiness. The gist is that a "nutrient-by-nutrient" approach to food ignores everything about how people live beyond a dumbed-down breakdown of the nutrients in their food. In other words, nutritionism does not take the old saying "You are what you eat" with a grain of salt, as it were (because, of course, salt is bad for you!). While this saying may be helpful to six year olds who don't understand why they shouldn't eat ice cream all day long, it does not qualify as sound scientific thinking adults ought to understand and appreciate.
Which is a big part of my objection to the Health Department's initiative: putting the calories of food selections on menus is a way of treating adults like children. How clueless and helpless does the Health Department think its tax paying public is? Do I need to be held by the hand every waking second and told what I should and shouldn't eat or drink by complete strangers with whom I have absolutely no social relationship? How soon before government bureaucrats sit down next to me and cut my food up in "safe," chewable bites?
What is so pathetic about nutritionism and the recent proposal to list the calories on menu items is that no one has stopped to ask themselves why adults would need such information in the first place. If people don't know anything about the food they are eating, what, may I ask, do they know about? What are they learning--if anything--at the universities that raise tuition every year while their basketball teams play in multi-million dollar areans named after fast food industries? As much as I like Pollan's book, I wonder how dysfunctional society has to become for people to need someone to write a book reminding them of what food is and how they ought to eat it.
The Health Department's proposal perpetuates the unexamined assumptions behind nutritionism--the idea that blind trust in the food industry and a nutrient-by-nutrient focused approach to food will solve all our problems. But as Pollan's book--and the numerous journal articles he cites (pp. 206-214)--demonstrates, nutritionism not only fails to make people healthier, it does the opposite. Never before in our nation's history have obesity, diabetes, and heart disease rates been higher in our population, and today these health problems affect children as well as adults. Nutritionism's mantra ought to be "Eat right, get fatter" (p. 50), the title of one of the sections from Pollan's book.
Here is a local case in point. About two years ago, the C-J ran an article about a 24 year old who died of heart disease because the doctors who identified his symptoms ruled out that they were attributable to heart disease. Why? Because not long ago it was unheard of that someone in their mid-twenties would get heart disease, a health problem associated with people in middle and late adulthood. Here is where nutritionism goes wrong: by ignorning the complexity of human existence, it ignores the way people live, insisting that only lack of nutrients and excess of calories they consume offer explanations for their health problems. In the case of this young man, the fact he got no exercise, sat around and played video games, and passively gobbled up fast food and snacks all day rather than actively participating in the preparation of the food he ate and sharing it with family and friends during something known as a meal were his undoing. The point is that during the nutritionism era a 24 year old died of a health problem that in previous generations only occured in older people. How does that demonstrate an improved understanding of food and health? It doesn't. As his mother explained, "His age killed him," a sad reference to the fact that even medical experts would never have thought someone just ought of college could be suffering from heart disease. Welcome to "The Age of Nutritionism" (p. 17).
Here's another local example. Recently the C-J published an article on pedestrian deaths here in Louisville. Now, why are people risking their lives just because they cross a street or ride a bicycle? Because Louisville's infrastructure is designed for automotive traffic, and it will never be altered for a light-rail public transit system that would eliminate overdependence on the automobile and make walking and bicycling safe and enjoyable. So a city where it is either dangerous or miserable to get around by any means besides driving is a place where it is difficult to get regular, daily exercise, which, obviously affects people's health, regardless of how much time they spend at stoplights calculating how many more calories they are allowed to consume for the day by their local government.
Not that most people in Louisville care. Besides being a car culture forever stalled in the 1970s, there is a local aversion to exercise here that is not just unhealthy but cryptic and primitive. Just this week, for example, the C-J reported that the Southern Baptist Seminary has condemned yoga since it is rooted in Eastern mysticism and goes against Christianity. Yoga is unquestionably both a good form of exercise as well as a meditative means to emotional and mental health. The calm and peace it brings practitioners runs contrary to the frenetic, rampaging violence that feeds the consumerism that leads to big profits for the food industry and the mindlessness that keeps people listening to religious authorities who condemn exercise and introspection. Sorry to tell you, but praying to Jesus will not lower obesity rates, diabetes, or heart disease, but participating in activities like yoga, bicycling, and walking will.
All of these political and cultural factors remain unaccounted for in nutritionism's paradigm. If the package is green and the words "nutrients," "vitamins," and "low-fat" appear on it, then the public will no more question the credibility of the corporation selling the food product than big oil will encourage the public to get around by bike or Christian demagogues will encourage their followers to learn about Buddhism. That nutritionism does not account for these political and cultural factors gives away that it is a fake science. An honest, scientific analysis of the mounting health problems that have developed during the "Age of Nutritionism" would have long ago exiled it to the Ideological Dinosaur Museum where it would have taken its rightful place on the shelf next to witch hunts, sorcery, and human sacrifice (which our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could qualify as, but that's a different blog). Nutritionism is an ideology motivated by profit, not a science motivated by knowledge.
But the worst thing about nutritionism isn't its fraudulent nature or the fact it makes people less healthy in the name of promoting healthy eating. The worst thing about nutritionism is that it takes the pleasure out of eating and erases food culture. Humans learn about food--how to grow it, prepare it, and eat it--through family and community. As Kentucky writer Wendell Berry puts it, "Eating is an agricultural act." Government and fake science cannot replace cultural knowledge that has been shared among generations for centuries. The idea that it can is at once absurd and sinister.
I am not a farmer. But I know people who do farm, and I make an active effort to spend time on farms and learn what I can about food and the land from which it comes. One weekend I helped a friend out on his farm move piles of wood, clumsily side-stepping nails sticking out of the boards. Recently I met a farmer in the mountains of western North Carolina, and I've made plans to return there in the fall where I will for the first time milk a cow. Then I will sample some raw milk--in blatant defiance of nutritionist dogma. By nightfall, I will sit down at a table with other like-minded folks, and share a meal consisting of fresh, local food made by the people I'm eating with and harvested from the land that has brought us and this food together. I will enjoy learning how to milk a cow, the unpleasant odors of the barn, the food I will eat and company I will share it with. I will not ask anyone to provide me with a list of calories or nutrients in the food I'm eating.
Which brings me to my last point. At the end of another stressful American day, the last thing I want to do when I go to a pub or diner is to have yet one more thing to think about and worry over. I do not go out to eat to make more analytical decisions. I want to enjoy my food; I don't want to worry about it. How much anxiety and guilt must I endure before I can let down my guard and just enjoy living in my human body? How utterly void of pleasure and self-confidence does my existence have to be? But if the Health Department and its ideologues have their way, the people of Louisville will get another serving of fake science and false hope: another version of the American fantasy world where obese fourth-graders will simply disappear thanks to the availability of more "expert" information, and the willingness of the gullible public to let the authorities live their lives and place their orders for them. Bon Appetite!
Dr. David W. Overbey is an Assistant Professor of English at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Ky. He has focused on Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food and Omnivore's Dilemma in his courses for the last four years.
The Louisville Health Department's plan to get local restaurants to list the number of calories contained in menu items is another example of nutritionism, a fake science that has dominated Americans' perspectives on food and eating for over a quarter century. As author Michael Pollan--who will be visting Louisville in October--demonstrates in his 2008 book In Defense of Food, the consequence of nutritionism has been to make Americans less healthy and more ignorant about food than they ever were.
Nutritionism is not a science but an ideology (Pollan, p. 28)--a pervasive but unexamined set of assumptions--that posits the best way to eat is not to focus on food itself but on the nutrients in the food. This unfortunate perspective oversimplifies the complexity of the food we eat, its dynamic interaction with the land and soil, and the political and cultural factors that influence people's health and happiness. The gist is that a "nutrient-by-nutrient" approach to food ignores everything about how people live beyond a dumbed-down breakdown of the nutrients in their food. In other words, nutritionism does not take the old saying "You are what you eat" with a grain of salt, as it were (because, of course, salt is bad for you!). While this saying may be helpful to six year olds who don't understand why they shouldn't eat ice cream all day long, it does not qualify as sound scientific thinking adults ought to understand and appreciate.
Which is a big part of my objection to the Health Department's initiative: putting the calories of food selections on menus is a way of treating adults like children. How clueless and helpless does the Health Department think its tax paying public is? Do I need to be held by the hand every waking second and told what I should and shouldn't eat or drink by complete strangers with whom I have absolutely no social relationship? How soon before government bureaucrats sit down next to me and cut my food up in "safe," chewable bites?
What is so pathetic about nutritionism and the recent proposal to list the calories on menu items is that no one has stopped to ask themselves why adults would need such information in the first place. If people don't know anything about the food they are eating, what, may I ask, do they know about? What are they learning--if anything--at the universities that raise tuition every year while their basketball teams play in multi-million dollar areans named after fast food industries? As much as I like Pollan's book, I wonder how dysfunctional society has to become for people to need someone to write a book reminding them of what food is and how they ought to eat it.
The Health Department's proposal perpetuates the unexamined assumptions behind nutritionism--the idea that blind trust in the food industry and a nutrient-by-nutrient focused approach to food will solve all our problems. But as Pollan's book--and the numerous journal articles he cites (pp. 206-214)--demonstrates, nutritionism not only fails to make people healthier, it does the opposite. Never before in our nation's history have obesity, diabetes, and heart disease rates been higher in our population, and today these health problems affect children as well as adults. Nutritionism's mantra ought to be "Eat right, get fatter" (p. 50), the title of one of the sections from Pollan's book.
Here is a local case in point. About two years ago, the C-J ran an article about a 24 year old who died of heart disease because the doctors who identified his symptoms ruled out that they were attributable to heart disease. Why? Because not long ago it was unheard of that someone in their mid-twenties would get heart disease, a health problem associated with people in middle and late adulthood. Here is where nutritionism goes wrong: by ignorning the complexity of human existence, it ignores the way people live, insisting that only lack of nutrients and excess of calories they consume offer explanations for their health problems. In the case of this young man, the fact he got no exercise, sat around and played video games, and passively gobbled up fast food and snacks all day rather than actively participating in the preparation of the food he ate and sharing it with family and friends during something known as a meal were his undoing. The point is that during the nutritionism era a 24 year old died of a health problem that in previous generations only occured in older people. How does that demonstrate an improved understanding of food and health? It doesn't. As his mother explained, "His age killed him," a sad reference to the fact that even medical experts would never have thought someone just ought of college could be suffering from heart disease. Welcome to "The Age of Nutritionism" (p. 17).
Here's another local example. Recently the C-J published an article on pedestrian deaths here in Louisville. Now, why are people risking their lives just because they cross a street or ride a bicycle? Because Louisville's infrastructure is designed for automotive traffic, and it will never be altered for a light-rail public transit system that would eliminate overdependence on the automobile and make walking and bicycling safe and enjoyable. So a city where it is either dangerous or miserable to get around by any means besides driving is a place where it is difficult to get regular, daily exercise, which, obviously affects people's health, regardless of how much time they spend at stoplights calculating how many more calories they are allowed to consume for the day by their local government.
Not that most people in Louisville care. Besides being a car culture forever stalled in the 1970s, there is a local aversion to exercise here that is not just unhealthy but cryptic and primitive. Just this week, for example, the C-J reported that the Southern Baptist Seminary has condemned yoga since it is rooted in Eastern mysticism and goes against Christianity. Yoga is unquestionably both a good form of exercise as well as a meditative means to emotional and mental health. The calm and peace it brings practitioners runs contrary to the frenetic, rampaging violence that feeds the consumerism that leads to big profits for the food industry and the mindlessness that keeps people listening to religious authorities who condemn exercise and introspection. Sorry to tell you, but praying to Jesus will not lower obesity rates, diabetes, or heart disease, but participating in activities like yoga, bicycling, and walking will.
All of these political and cultural factors remain unaccounted for in nutritionism's paradigm. If the package is green and the words "nutrients," "vitamins," and "low-fat" appear on it, then the public will no more question the credibility of the corporation selling the food product than big oil will encourage the public to get around by bike or Christian demagogues will encourage their followers to learn about Buddhism. That nutritionism does not account for these political and cultural factors gives away that it is a fake science. An honest, scientific analysis of the mounting health problems that have developed during the "Age of Nutritionism" would have long ago exiled it to the Ideological Dinosaur Museum where it would have taken its rightful place on the shelf next to witch hunts, sorcery, and human sacrifice (which our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could qualify as, but that's a different blog). Nutritionism is an ideology motivated by profit, not a science motivated by knowledge.
But the worst thing about nutritionism isn't its fraudulent nature or the fact it makes people less healthy in the name of promoting healthy eating. The worst thing about nutritionism is that it takes the pleasure out of eating and erases food culture. Humans learn about food--how to grow it, prepare it, and eat it--through family and community. As Kentucky writer Wendell Berry puts it, "Eating is an agricultural act." Government and fake science cannot replace cultural knowledge that has been shared among generations for centuries. The idea that it can is at once absurd and sinister.
I am not a farmer. But I know people who do farm, and I make an active effort to spend time on farms and learn what I can about food and the land from which it comes. One weekend I helped a friend out on his farm move piles of wood, clumsily side-stepping nails sticking out of the boards. Recently I met a farmer in the mountains of western North Carolina, and I've made plans to return there in the fall where I will for the first time milk a cow. Then I will sample some raw milk--in blatant defiance of nutritionist dogma. By nightfall, I will sit down at a table with other like-minded folks, and share a meal consisting of fresh, local food made by the people I'm eating with and harvested from the land that has brought us and this food together. I will enjoy learning how to milk a cow, the unpleasant odors of the barn, the food I will eat and company I will share it with. I will not ask anyone to provide me with a list of calories or nutrients in the food I'm eating.
Which brings me to my last point. At the end of another stressful American day, the last thing I want to do when I go to a pub or diner is to have yet one more thing to think about and worry over. I do not go out to eat to make more analytical decisions. I want to enjoy my food; I don't want to worry about it. How much anxiety and guilt must I endure before I can let down my guard and just enjoy living in my human body? How utterly void of pleasure and self-confidence does my existence have to be? But if the Health Department and its ideologues have their way, the people of Louisville will get another serving of fake science and false hope: another version of the American fantasy world where obese fourth-graders will simply disappear thanks to the availability of more "expert" information, and the willingness of the gullible public to let the authorities live their lives and place their orders for them. Bon Appetite!
Dr. David W. Overbey is an Assistant Professor of English at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Ky. He has focused on Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food and Omnivore's Dilemma in his courses for the last four years.
Someone in Senator Chambliss's Office Hates Fags
Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) has admitted that someone in his office posted "All Faggots Must Die" on a gay blog but says he doesn't know who posted it. The hacker community immediately tracked the I.P. address to Chambliss's office in Atlanta. It is only a matter of time until the exact machine from which this hate speech was sent will be found out and, hopefully, the homophobic bully that posted it. A bill repealing "Don't Ask Don't Tell" was being debated on the Senate floor at the time of the posting. The bill failed.
Ogre-oid Outbreak!!!
The CDC has just issued an official alert: antibiotic-resistant Ogre-oids are spreading faster than bedbugs . . .
Poverty is at its highest level since the early 1960s, unemployment remains at 10%, the debt remains in the trillions, the Afghan war recklessly charges onward like a crashing NATO helicopter . . . it can only mean one thing: the recession is over! Yes, the lastest example of America's cryptic institutional schizophrenia should be a relief to the millions of Americans who have been out of work for over a year. Nothing like access to information, is there? Economists have said repeatedly that this recession is worse than others in recent decades because of how bad it has been and how slow the "recovery" out of it remains, yet somehow the endless American fountain of good news and progress keeps on a-flowin'. I guess if you have the kind of bullshit job that the people who are paid to tell the rest of us the recession is over have, it may as well have never happened in the first place. What I want to know is, now that the recession is over, how soon before I get reimbured the $2,600 plus interest bailout money I loaned the government to plug Goldman Sach's asshole (yeah, Lloyd Blankfein, I'm referring to you!). With the interest added in, that'll be much-needed money Americans can skirt by on while they continue to look for a dead-end, degrading shitjob. And what do you know, this announcement comes just five weeks before mid-term elections! The vicious sprials continue to suck the life and reason out of us. Truth is "the recession is over" is Obama's version of "Mission accomplished." Give me a fucking break.
Looks like the Catholic church has another past time besides ass-raping choir boys: money laundering! Hey, if you've got to get those cum-stained tighty whiteys and priest robes in the washer, may as well throw in a few thousand euros and Swiss franks along with the bleach. The NY Times (2010, September 22) reports that the Vatican is under investigation even after hiring a once well-respected banker to make its dealings more transparent. Lest you worry that money-laundering has diverted the church's energies from lubeing up children, Baptist megachurch minsiter Eddie Long allegedly has been taking up the pedophiliac slack, as he has been accused of coercing young men into sex. Just goes to show that even though the Vatican has sovereign state status, it doesn't have a monopoly on pedophilia.
But don't think the Christian church is all bad. This week the G.O.P.--the Christian appendage of American government--successfully blocked repeal of the unconstitutional "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gay servicemen. While this discrimination may be a blessing in disguise saving gays from pointless death in the forlorn Afghan war, it reinforces the reality that America, now in the second decade of the 21st century, remains a backward nation dominated politically by primitive Christian dogma, as clearly exemplified by the ascent of . . .
. . . Delware senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell, who recently praised turkeys who are no longer able to have sex because bio-technologists have been breading them for big chests. Since the turkeys have been neither baptized nor wed, O'Donnell regards them as models of abstinence for all Americans . . . even those who don't have big tits.
In addition to saving us from gay soldiers and lustful turkeys, the Christian church has also denounced yoga, saying that its roots in Eastern mysticism run against Christian doctrine, where one is only supposed to mediate on the word of God, e.g. more cryptic institutional schizophrenia. In case your worst nightmare is a horny gay turkey who can put its leg behind its head, these are great times to be an American, whether you're employed or not.
With such holy viligence in our presence, clearly there is no need to worry about the 69% increase in coalition deaths in Afghanistan in the three-month period ending September 14 from the same three-month period in 2009. Five of the nine soldiers killed in this week's helicopter crash are from nearby Fort Campbell--that's right, the same Fort Campbell that was the focus of an in-depth C-J report just weeks ago about the toll that the loss of life there is taking on the community. Nothing like the power of knowledge and information in a democracy to uphold the well-being of the people in the face of government ctyranny. Please explain: If Team Obama can declare the recession is over, why not declare "mission accomplished" in Afghanistan and get the fuck out of there?
Then there could be more "Welcome Home Hero" parties to celebrate the beginning of fall, where in Kentucky it's 98 degrees with a heat advisory. Gee, these temperatures couldn't have anything to do with the bleached coral reefs in the ocean which are suffocating in record heat? Perhaps these coral reefs are making a fashion statement, or maybe they've called off their symbiotic relationship with the algae that provided the microbos in them with nutrients and oxygen in honor of Christine O'Donell, but I'm guessing that marinebiologists are probably concerned when once colorful and vibrant coral reefs start to look like Andy Warhol.
Finally, no Ogre-oid Outbreak Update could be complete without mention of Austin "Salmonella" DeCoster, the egglord responsible for the spread of salmonella-tainted eggs across the country since 1987. But American government has done nothing over the past two decades to stop or punish DeCoster since salmonella-tainted eggs have nothing to do with putting people into privatized prisons over drugs. Tell me: when was the last time you read about a strain of cannabis that killed dozens of people and led to emergency rooms being flooded with people vomiting and shitting themselves? So why are millions of Americans in jail because of cannabis prohibition while DeCoster has raked in millions selling his while oval vermin? Because DeCoster is big-money-make-money, which means mainstream America wants to swallow his cum (which reportedly does not contain salmonella).
Poverty is at its highest level since the early 1960s, unemployment remains at 10%, the debt remains in the trillions, the Afghan war recklessly charges onward like a crashing NATO helicopter . . . it can only mean one thing: the recession is over! Yes, the lastest example of America's cryptic institutional schizophrenia should be a relief to the millions of Americans who have been out of work for over a year. Nothing like access to information, is there? Economists have said repeatedly that this recession is worse than others in recent decades because of how bad it has been and how slow the "recovery" out of it remains, yet somehow the endless American fountain of good news and progress keeps on a-flowin'. I guess if you have the kind of bullshit job that the people who are paid to tell the rest of us the recession is over have, it may as well have never happened in the first place. What I want to know is, now that the recession is over, how soon before I get reimbured the $2,600 plus interest bailout money I loaned the government to plug Goldman Sach's asshole (yeah, Lloyd Blankfein, I'm referring to you!). With the interest added in, that'll be much-needed money Americans can skirt by on while they continue to look for a dead-end, degrading shitjob. And what do you know, this announcement comes just five weeks before mid-term elections! The vicious sprials continue to suck the life and reason out of us. Truth is "the recession is over" is Obama's version of "Mission accomplished." Give me a fucking break.
Looks like the Catholic church has another past time besides ass-raping choir boys: money laundering! Hey, if you've got to get those cum-stained tighty whiteys and priest robes in the washer, may as well throw in a few thousand euros and Swiss franks along with the bleach. The NY Times (2010, September 22) reports that the Vatican is under investigation even after hiring a once well-respected banker to make its dealings more transparent. Lest you worry that money-laundering has diverted the church's energies from lubeing up children, Baptist megachurch minsiter Eddie Long allegedly has been taking up the pedophiliac slack, as he has been accused of coercing young men into sex. Just goes to show that even though the Vatican has sovereign state status, it doesn't have a monopoly on pedophilia.
But don't think the Christian church is all bad. This week the G.O.P.--the Christian appendage of American government--successfully blocked repeal of the unconstitutional "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gay servicemen. While this discrimination may be a blessing in disguise saving gays from pointless death in the forlorn Afghan war, it reinforces the reality that America, now in the second decade of the 21st century, remains a backward nation dominated politically by primitive Christian dogma, as clearly exemplified by the ascent of . . .
. . . Delware senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell, who recently praised turkeys who are no longer able to have sex because bio-technologists have been breading them for big chests. Since the turkeys have been neither baptized nor wed, O'Donnell regards them as models of abstinence for all Americans . . . even those who don't have big tits.
In addition to saving us from gay soldiers and lustful turkeys, the Christian church has also denounced yoga, saying that its roots in Eastern mysticism run against Christian doctrine, where one is only supposed to mediate on the word of God, e.g. more cryptic institutional schizophrenia. In case your worst nightmare is a horny gay turkey who can put its leg behind its head, these are great times to be an American, whether you're employed or not.
With such holy viligence in our presence, clearly there is no need to worry about the 69% increase in coalition deaths in Afghanistan in the three-month period ending September 14 from the same three-month period in 2009. Five of the nine soldiers killed in this week's helicopter crash are from nearby Fort Campbell--that's right, the same Fort Campbell that was the focus of an in-depth C-J report just weeks ago about the toll that the loss of life there is taking on the community. Nothing like the power of knowledge and information in a democracy to uphold the well-being of the people in the face of government ctyranny. Please explain: If Team Obama can declare the recession is over, why not declare "mission accomplished" in Afghanistan and get the fuck out of there?
Then there could be more "Welcome Home Hero" parties to celebrate the beginning of fall, where in Kentucky it's 98 degrees with a heat advisory. Gee, these temperatures couldn't have anything to do with the bleached coral reefs in the ocean which are suffocating in record heat? Perhaps these coral reefs are making a fashion statement, or maybe they've called off their symbiotic relationship with the algae that provided the microbos in them with nutrients and oxygen in honor of Christine O'Donell, but I'm guessing that marinebiologists are probably concerned when once colorful and vibrant coral reefs start to look like Andy Warhol.
Finally, no Ogre-oid Outbreak Update could be complete without mention of Austin "Salmonella" DeCoster, the egglord responsible for the spread of salmonella-tainted eggs across the country since 1987. But American government has done nothing over the past two decades to stop or punish DeCoster since salmonella-tainted eggs have nothing to do with putting people into privatized prisons over drugs. Tell me: when was the last time you read about a strain of cannabis that killed dozens of people and led to emergency rooms being flooded with people vomiting and shitting themselves? So why are millions of Americans in jail because of cannabis prohibition while DeCoster has raked in millions selling his while oval vermin? Because DeCoster is big-money-make-money, which means mainstream America wants to swallow his cum (which reportedly does not contain salmonella).
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Surprise! FBI Investigated Peace and Environmental Groups Under Bush
The Justice Department has reviewed the FBI's investigations of anti-war and environmental activist organizations and, according to Inspector General Glenn A. Fine the investigations were "improper" and the records are still around. This is not news to me as it was confirmed years ago that the FBI had actually spied on scary terrorist organizations like the Quakers.
From the LA Times:
FBI agents improperly opened investigations into Greenpeace and several other domestic advocacy groups after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, and put the names of some of their members on terrorist watch lists based on evidence that turned out to be "factually weak," the Justice Department said Monday.
However, the internal review by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine did not conclude that the FBI purposely targeted the groups or their members, as many civil liberties advocates had charged, after antiwar rallies and other protests were held during the administration of President George W. Bush.
But Fine said the FBI tactics appeared "troubling" in singling out some of the domestic groups for investigations that lasted up to five years, and were extended "without adequate basis." He also questioned why the FBI continued to maintain investigative files against the groups.
"In several cases there was little indication of any possible federal crimes," Fine said. "In some cases, the FBI classified some investigations relating to nonviolent civil disobedience under its 'acts of terrorism' classification."
In addition to the environmental group Greenpeace, the FBI investigated People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, and the antiwar groups Catholic Worker and Thomas Merton Center. [more...]
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Modus Operandi Podcast episode 32
A lively show covering a lot of ground from current events to crowd psychology theory to sports to hipsters and how they want to be gay lumberjacks and beyond.
Linky Dinks
Karl Rove speaks the truth and is immediately beaten into submission by the rest of the GOP.
America so lame, belief in witchcraft not automatic disqualification for holding public option.
BP finally seals Deep Water Horizon well for good, media barely notices.
The Recession is over... a year ago! Unemployed Americans realize they're just whiners.
America so lame, belief in witchcraft not automatic disqualification for holding public option.
BP finally seals Deep Water Horizon well for good, media barely notices.
The Recession is over... a year ago! Unemployed Americans realize they're just whiners.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Ogre-oids, 16 September 2010
Christine O'Donnell: The Tea Bag's victory in the Delaware Republican primary illustrates America's imminent descent into a right-wing dystopia, not to mention the obsolete and futile efforts of Obama to find "common ground" and "work with" the other party. As the Democrats continue to insist on compromise and moderate views in the name of denouncing extremism, right wing America becomes extreme to the point of surreal. O'Donnell's rants against masturbation and funding for AIDS are a perfect example of how bad things get when people don't jack off and use condoms: pieces of shit like her are born and rise to power.
Another example of how pointless compromise is in today's America: G.O.P. campaign spending far exceeds Democrats'. Unequal media access results in one party's views dominating public discourse. How's that for common ground! Of course, Obama's appeals to compromise and common ground are nothing more than disguises for his own conservative views. Two years in, Obama has shown himself to be just another Democratic convinced that his only chance at political success is to mimic Republicans: the Afghan "surge," bashing teachers, coddling investment banks, letting big oil kill people, destroy local economies, and flood the Gulf with oil.
Speaking of, scientists have discovered through continued empirical research that the oil in the Gulf hasn't "dispersed" or been gobbled up by angelic microbes out of a Pixar film, but has sunk to the ocean's bottom. Reports show that as much as two inches of oil cover the bottom of the Gulf--and the dead plants and animals that once lived there (for free, which means it's good they're dead. The only good socialist is a dead one!)
Since there are more dead crustaceans, that means less of a burden on taxpayers, who have had to foot the bill for these freeloaders (hey, at least they didn't need swimming lessons). Fortunately, Mitch McConnell is doing everything he can to make sure there will be no compromise, a la Obama's closet conservatism, when it comes to ending Bush-era tax cuts for the rich. "Only in Washington could someone think it's a good idea to raise taxes during a recession." As always, Republican economics is perfect and unquestionable, the word of God. Now that I think about it, how can you argue with the party that started two decade-long wars that have cost billions of dollars, and supported financial and regulatory policies that led to the worst economic collapse in a century. But Americans love it: Republicans are rich, and in the land of freedom and equality, one does not dare to question big-money, make-money. That would be extreme!
Following Republican's sound and rational example, Steve May of Arizona decided to drop out of the race for State Senate after the criticism he received for recruiting several homeless drifters to run as Green party candidates. Truthfully, homeless dudes would probably have more guts and resourcefulness than today's Democrats.
Fortunately, the future looks bright, as today's college students will be tomorrow's leaders, that is, those who are not among the 238,000 students who defaulted on their student loans last year alone. This must be another sign of how corrupting liberal arts education into ideological conditioning for the business and finance world makes people savvier about money than whacked-out liberal academics who understand basic math.
But who cares? As long as the American university sports culture keeps roaring along, we can all bask in the glory of victory! And who would know better how to be a winner than the sports teams of American universities! Take the University of Kentucky, for example, who last week beat Western Kentucky 63-28, sending the Hilltopers to their 22nd consecutive loss since their "competitive" move to be a Division I football power! Beating up on scarecrow opponents like WKU has become part of the Big Blue winning tradition, whose non-conference opponents over the last decade have a blazing cumulative record of 78-124! How's that for being a winner! The unbridled triumph will continue this weekend when powerhouse Akron comes to Lexington, another winless UK opponent who last week lost to Gardner-Webb -- yes, the same school that beat UK basketball 84-68 in Rupp Arean in Billy Gillespie's first season, not to be confused with the Virginia Military Institute team that beat them 111-103 to kick off his second, and final, NIT year.
Of course, there is a new day in Big Blue world, thanks to Coach John Calipari and recruits like Eric Bledsoe, who, the NY Times reports, received an "A" in Algebra III despite never taking Algebra II. What's the big deal? I mean, in basketball you can hit a three-pointer without having to make a two-pointer first, right? The actual grade Bledsoe got in the course was a "C" which would have made him ineligible to play last year. Cheating, lying . . . all trademarks of being a winner.
But you can always find somewhere where it's worse: like up in Bloomington, IN, where IU inducted former coach Lee Corso into its Hall of Fame. Corso's career record: 41-68-2. Hey--if he weren't such a winner, he would have lost those two games he tied and wound up with 70 losses!
Winners have character too, like Saints Reggie Bush, who forfeited his 2005 Heisman over the scandals of improper payments and benefits to USC jocks (who, like all college jocks, don't default on their student loans, because they're winners! not losers!).
And just to show that the winning American spirit is catching on internationally, a couple of Ogre-oids from overseas: French president Nicolas Sarkozy is under investigation by the EU for targeting and discriminating against Roma during his summer campaign to purge them from France. Nothing says "liberté,
Another example of how pointless compromise is in today's America: G.O.P. campaign spending far exceeds Democrats'. Unequal media access results in one party's views dominating public discourse. How's that for common ground! Of course, Obama's appeals to compromise and common ground are nothing more than disguises for his own conservative views. Two years in, Obama has shown himself to be just another Democratic convinced that his only chance at political success is to mimic Republicans: the Afghan "surge," bashing teachers, coddling investment banks, letting big oil kill people, destroy local economies, and flood the Gulf with oil.
Speaking of, scientists have discovered through continued empirical research that the oil in the Gulf hasn't "dispersed" or been gobbled up by angelic microbes out of a Pixar film, but has sunk to the ocean's bottom. Reports show that as much as two inches of oil cover the bottom of the Gulf--and the dead plants and animals that once lived there (for free, which means it's good they're dead. The only good socialist is a dead one!)
Since there are more dead crustaceans, that means less of a burden on taxpayers, who have had to foot the bill for these freeloaders (hey, at least they didn't need swimming lessons). Fortunately, Mitch McConnell is doing everything he can to make sure there will be no compromise, a la Obama's closet conservatism, when it comes to ending Bush-era tax cuts for the rich. "Only in Washington could someone think it's a good idea to raise taxes during a recession." As always, Republican economics is perfect and unquestionable, the word of God. Now that I think about it, how can you argue with the party that started two decade-long wars that have cost billions of dollars, and supported financial and regulatory policies that led to the worst economic collapse in a century. But Americans love it: Republicans are rich, and in the land of freedom and equality, one does not dare to question big-money, make-money. That would be extreme!
Following Republican's sound and rational example, Steve May of Arizona decided to drop out of the race for State Senate after the criticism he received for recruiting several homeless drifters to run as Green party candidates. Truthfully, homeless dudes would probably have more guts and resourcefulness than today's Democrats.
Fortunately, the future looks bright, as today's college students will be tomorrow's leaders, that is, those who are not among the 238,000 students who defaulted on their student loans last year alone. This must be another sign of how corrupting liberal arts education into ideological conditioning for the business and finance world makes people savvier about money than whacked-out liberal academics who understand basic math.
But who cares? As long as the American university sports culture keeps roaring along, we can all bask in the glory of victory! And who would know better how to be a winner than the sports teams of American universities! Take the University of Kentucky, for example, who last week beat Western Kentucky 63-28, sending the Hilltopers to their 22nd consecutive loss since their "competitive" move to be a Division I football power! Beating up on scarecrow opponents like WKU has become part of the Big Blue winning tradition, whose non-conference opponents over the last decade have a blazing cumulative record of 78-124! How's that for being a winner! The unbridled triumph will continue this weekend when powerhouse Akron comes to Lexington, another winless UK opponent who last week lost to Gardner-Webb -- yes, the same school that beat UK basketball 84-68 in Rupp Arean in Billy Gillespie's first season, not to be confused with the Virginia Military Institute team that beat them 111-103 to kick off his second, and final, NIT year.
Of course, there is a new day in Big Blue world, thanks to Coach John Calipari and recruits like Eric Bledsoe, who, the NY Times reports, received an "A" in Algebra III despite never taking Algebra II. What's the big deal? I mean, in basketball you can hit a three-pointer without having to make a two-pointer first, right? The actual grade Bledsoe got in the course was a "C" which would have made him ineligible to play last year. Cheating, lying . . . all trademarks of being a winner.
But you can always find somewhere where it's worse: like up in Bloomington, IN, where IU inducted former coach Lee Corso into its Hall of Fame. Corso's career record: 41-68-2. Hey--if he weren't such a winner, he would have lost those two games he tied and wound up with 70 losses!
Winners have character too, like Saints Reggie Bush, who forfeited his 2005 Heisman over the scandals of improper payments and benefits to USC jocks (who, like all college jocks, don't default on their student loans, because they're winners! not losers!).
And just to show that the winning American spirit is catching on internationally, a couple of Ogre-oids from overseas: French president Nicolas Sarkozy is under investigation by the EU for targeting and discriminating against Roma during his summer campaign to purge them from France. Nothing says "liberté,
égalité, fraternité" like ethnic cleansing. Not to be outdone, the notorious hard-ass Swedes are mounting in support of right-wing anti-immigration parties, sick of coddling non-whites!
Europeans are jumping on anti-immigrant right-wing parties like walruses are jumping on Alaskan islands' shores since the ice they used to live on has melted. But since there is no climate change, as the right-wingers tell us, there's nothing to worry about!
Next thing you know, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio can jail these walruses for immigrating without proper documentation! In the plea bargain deal, the walruses can do jail time, or agree to run as candidates for the Green Party.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Bat Shit Crazy Report: Christine O'Donnell cont'd
Remember, the most important thing we can do in the fight against AIDS is to fight the "lifestyle" that causes it.
Bat Shit Crazy Report: Christine O'Donnell
I'm just going to let it be known that the hyper religious are fucking crazy in my opinion. That, and they're really fucking obnoxious. This self centered little Jesus whore reminds me of the religious kids I went to high school with. Always pitying me that I wasn't "saved" while filled with pride over how superior they were. I wonder how many of these worthless pathetic backwoods rednecks are still on their first marriage and how many of them were married the first time because "they had to." Anyway, her opposition to masturbation might explain why she's the current bat shit crazy GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate in Delaware. Enjoy this little video from a mere 14 years ago of Christine O'Donnell telling MTV about "The Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth" (S.A.L.T.). You can't masturbate without lust in your hearts, kids!
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
Fox Opposes 20th Century
From Media Matters:
Since President Obama's election, Fox personalities have expressed opposition to or called for the repeal of virtually every progressive achievement of the 20th century, including Social Security, Medicare, the Americans with Disabilities Act, portions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the 16th and 17th Amendments to the Constitution. more
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
Ogre-oids, 3 September 2010
Denial about Iraq: Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson wrote yesterday that "only one thing is clear about the outcome (from the Iraq war): we didn't win." Then he goes on to say, "We didn't lose either, in the sense of being defeated." This is classical Orwellian nonsense. If the objective of a war is to win and you don't win--you lost. Get over it. This chronic denial is exactly why nothing good is ever going to happen again. If you can't ever take an honest look at yourself, your country, and your culture and admit to abject failure when it occurs on a horrifyingly gruesome scale, you have no chance of improvement and will continue to fail and to lose.
This obsession with winning drives the relentless jock culture conquest of the American university, as today's NY Times reports that universities all over the country are tripling investments in all sports, even marginal ones that annually lose money, at a time when the crippled economy is forcing universities make severe budget cuts, which means letting go teachers, getting rid of tenure, rising the cost of tuition. In other words, education has become so obsolete to the American university the college professors aren't even as good as sports programs that lose money year after year. The rationale is that by making sports high profile, places like the University of Florida send a message that it is a place for winners and thus keep rich alumni connected to the university community. Listen: any university that puts sports ahead of education is a haven for losers. The goal of a university is to produce enlightened citizens, not "winners," and anyone grown up who goes through life thinking they are a "winner" in this day and age is more delusional than a Tea Party rally on the anniversary of MLK "I have a dream" speech.
It makes sense, then, that a society that pridefully sabotages its educational system into jock hubs will be a place that can't produce its most basic needs without chronic failure and destruction to both its own land and its people. Just this past week reports surfaced that Hillandale Farms and Wright Co. Egg cut so many corners in its industrial egg operations that there were piles of manure four to eight feet high. Gee, if only the eight foot manure piles could master the "Dribble Drive" offense, UK coach John Calipari would have another number one class locked up. The result of this maggot factory was countless salmonella-tainted eggs being transported to 17 states. Omelettes anyone?
Worry not, though, for the youth of tomorrow have the benefit of being on anti-psychotic medication by the time they are six months old! Yes, another breakthrough. Yesterday's NY Times reports that pharmaceuticals have been pumping toddlers with combinations of psychotropic drugs resulting in major weight gain and zombie three year olds more brain dead than today's college students, who, according to a piece from today's NY Times are leaning Republican for November elections! This shift occurs less than two years after the same demographic flocked to Obama like young British females did The Beatles. Where do I begin to explain how absurd and depressing this is? Obama's determination to alienate every demographic that supported him in 2008 by reaching out to right-wing zealots who would still hate his guts if he personally resurrected the Christ-child? Or could it be the miserable digital-age, where the complete obliteration of focus and sustained thought means wild ideological swings among today's young adults who, because they are so well "informed" in this "information age" equate the current economic malaise with Obama and not the traitors who ran the country into the ground the previous decade? How's this for inspiration: Philip Stricker, a biology major at Colorado State University who voted for Obama reportedly explained to the Times, "There's a vibe," he said while lifting weights in the gym, "the Republicans just seem to care a lot more than the Democrats." This take is doubly sad: He's right, and he's stating his political perceptions from the most important facility on today's college campuses: the gym. The Democrats persistently come across like they just don't care once they get elected, no matter how much momentum they seem to have going for them. What's idiotic is that these college students are leaning to the right because they concerned about the lack of career opportunities ahead of them. Yet another vicious spiral at work: the university turns into a jock complex where jock culture overtakes education as the university's primary purpose, thus the only reason for attending class and getting a degree is get a job, but because the country is run by hot-head psychopaths obsessed with "winning" rather than learning, there aren't any fucking jobs out there, so the credentialed college graduate of tomorrow, in between another set of reps, thinks the wise thing to do is either not vote--not live as a citizen--or vote Republican--and either way perpetuate the vicious spiral by reinforcing the power of the very uneducated, anti-intellectual relevant social groups that have brought about the decline of the university and collapse of the economy since the turn of the century. Oh well. I guess it will get worse before it gets worse.
One last thing: since my blogpost from two weeks ago in which I said "Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa is a fucking idiot" St. Louis has fallen eight games behind the Cincinnati Reds in the NL Central, turning a neck-and-neck division race into a runaway. The Cardinals' main problem? They can't hit or score runs. Guess that affirms LaRussa's decision to bring close buddy Mark McGwire of steroid 70 home run fame out of the shameful shadows by hiring him as the team's hitting coach. Just a guess here, but if the team can't hit, the hitting coach sucks. Maybe you should hire the best person for the job instead of your best buddy for personal reasons. Then again I'm working with a set of principles whereby performance corresponds to investment, and as today's university jock culture shows, the more a sports program loses money, the more money it gets. I guess nothing makes you a winner like being a complete fucking loser.
This obsession with winning drives the relentless jock culture conquest of the American university, as today's NY Times reports that universities all over the country are tripling investments in all sports, even marginal ones that annually lose money, at a time when the crippled economy is forcing universities make severe budget cuts, which means letting go teachers, getting rid of tenure, rising the cost of tuition. In other words, education has become so obsolete to the American university the college professors aren't even as good as sports programs that lose money year after year. The rationale is that by making sports high profile, places like the University of Florida send a message that it is a place for winners and thus keep rich alumni connected to the university community. Listen: any university that puts sports ahead of education is a haven for losers. The goal of a university is to produce enlightened citizens, not "winners," and anyone grown up who goes through life thinking they are a "winner" in this day and age is more delusional than a Tea Party rally on the anniversary of MLK "I have a dream" speech.
It makes sense, then, that a society that pridefully sabotages its educational system into jock hubs will be a place that can't produce its most basic needs without chronic failure and destruction to both its own land and its people. Just this past week reports surfaced that Hillandale Farms and Wright Co. Egg cut so many corners in its industrial egg operations that there were piles of manure four to eight feet high. Gee, if only the eight foot manure piles could master the "Dribble Drive" offense, UK coach John Calipari would have another number one class locked up. The result of this maggot factory was countless salmonella-tainted eggs being transported to 17 states. Omelettes anyone?
Worry not, though, for the youth of tomorrow have the benefit of being on anti-psychotic medication by the time they are six months old! Yes, another breakthrough. Yesterday's NY Times reports that pharmaceuticals have been pumping toddlers with combinations of psychotropic drugs resulting in major weight gain and zombie three year olds more brain dead than today's college students, who, according to a piece from today's NY Times are leaning Republican for November elections! This shift occurs less than two years after the same demographic flocked to Obama like young British females did The Beatles. Where do I begin to explain how absurd and depressing this is? Obama's determination to alienate every demographic that supported him in 2008 by reaching out to right-wing zealots who would still hate his guts if he personally resurrected the Christ-child? Or could it be the miserable digital-age, where the complete obliteration of focus and sustained thought means wild ideological swings among today's young adults who, because they are so well "informed" in this "information age" equate the current economic malaise with Obama and not the traitors who ran the country into the ground the previous decade? How's this for inspiration: Philip Stricker, a biology major at Colorado State University who voted for Obama reportedly explained to the Times, "There's a vibe," he said while lifting weights in the gym, "the Republicans just seem to care a lot more than the Democrats." This take is doubly sad: He's right, and he's stating his political perceptions from the most important facility on today's college campuses: the gym. The Democrats persistently come across like they just don't care once they get elected, no matter how much momentum they seem to have going for them. What's idiotic is that these college students are leaning to the right because they concerned about the lack of career opportunities ahead of them. Yet another vicious spiral at work: the university turns into a jock complex where jock culture overtakes education as the university's primary purpose, thus the only reason for attending class and getting a degree is get a job, but because the country is run by hot-head psychopaths obsessed with "winning" rather than learning, there aren't any fucking jobs out there, so the credentialed college graduate of tomorrow, in between another set of reps, thinks the wise thing to do is either not vote--not live as a citizen--or vote Republican--and either way perpetuate the vicious spiral by reinforcing the power of the very uneducated, anti-intellectual relevant social groups that have brought about the decline of the university and collapse of the economy since the turn of the century. Oh well. I guess it will get worse before it gets worse.
One last thing: since my blogpost from two weeks ago in which I said "Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa is a fucking idiot" St. Louis has fallen eight games behind the Cincinnati Reds in the NL Central, turning a neck-and-neck division race into a runaway. The Cardinals' main problem? They can't hit or score runs. Guess that affirms LaRussa's decision to bring close buddy Mark McGwire of steroid 70 home run fame out of the shameful shadows by hiring him as the team's hitting coach. Just a guess here, but if the team can't hit, the hitting coach sucks. Maybe you should hire the best person for the job instead of your best buddy for personal reasons. Then again I'm working with a set of principles whereby performance corresponds to investment, and as today's university jock culture shows, the more a sports program loses money, the more money it gets. I guess nothing makes you a winner like being a complete fucking loser.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Modus Operandi Podcast episode 30
I think we've covered most of what's in the podcast in our blog posts. As always if you have any questions or comments please send them to mopod@psychicreform.com or just ask or comment below.
The design for "Ogre Fest - War Mongering Machine" is coming soon. I swear.
Weekly Link Dump
Teabagger Politician accused of fucking little girl he met at church where he's an "elder."
David Vitter (R-LA) is avoiding debates with his opponent Charlie Melancon.
Who knew Afghanistan was an EXXXTREME version of ancient Greece?
Even Fox Noise's own Chris Wallace can see that Glenn Beck is full of shit.
The Waterworld of white self pity.
David Vitter (R-LA) is avoiding debates with his opponent Charlie Melancon.
Who knew Afghanistan was an EXXXTREME version of ancient Greece?
Even Fox Noise's own Chris Wallace can see that Glenn Beck is full of shit.
The Waterworld of white self pity.
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