Pimping ain't easy

I actually feel for the Bush administration today. See pimping ain’t easy (despite my protestations otherwise in response to Hustle and Flow. Hos be hos. And hos are tough to work with. See, hos can be sneaky and are always being all ho-ish. As the pimp, you would like them to fuck the johns, pay you the money and keep their mouths shut. But there is all this pissing and moaning and dealing behind your back. Then you got to give `em the pimp hand. It just gets irritating.

See Congress was a good bitch for so long. 5 years about. But now they get all up in your face about separating powers and the Constitution and all that shit. Just cause I can’t let some guy keep 90 large in his freezer. Fucking hos.

As a service to the president, I will do his work for him. To the 534 members of Congress. Listen up. I am only gonna say this 1 time. Shut the fuck up. Suck the dicks. Pay the money. Just like always.

Bitches.

Signs of the Fall

I wanted to get this in real quick. Yesterday, Memorial Day, with the country at war in two countries, with troops dying every day, the San Francisco Chronicle devoted the vast majority of the front page (with the 97 point type) to a man with a very large head taking over second place in a child's game. The dead soldiers were off to the side, in normal type.

Fight the Power

Another day at the office

Elvis was a hero to most(3x)But he never meant, shit to me you seeStraight up
racist that sucker wasSimple and plainMother fuck him and John WayneCause I'm
Black and I'm proudI'm ready and hyped plus I'm ampedMost of my heroes don't
appear on no stampsSample a look back you look and findNothing but rednecks for
400 years if you checkDon't worry be happyWas a number one jamDamn if I say it
you can slap me right here(Get it) lets get this party started rightRight on,
c'monWhat we got to sayPower to the people no delayMake everybody seeIn order to
fight the powers that be

More to come on NSA spying as this is actually something I have some background on.

Sadly, the original artist of the above is now the Flavor of Love.

Update: I have some guy calling me a scruffy hippie on his blog. He seems to talk a lot about things he has no knowledge of, as I 1) am not that scruffy and 2) do not do Google's dirty work and 3) we didn't disrupt any game, 4) it was a day after night game, which Baroid usually takes off, so he wasn't playing. Ah, the backwash.

Turning Japanese at Duke

Japan is an interesting place. One of the interesting things about Japan is how the language and the culture are intertwined. In Japanese, there is in-group and out-group. What group you are referring too changes the words you use. The groups are constantly changing. So, when talking to a co-worker, in the office, I would use in-group language as we are peers. However, if I see that person in a bar, while out with friends, I would use the more formal/polite out-group language for them, but the in-group language when referring to my friends. You are constantly thinking about people’s relation to you when speaking with them. It is interesting and may be part of why the Japanese are so (outwardly at least) polite.

The concept of a changing in-group/out-group is interesting when looking at how we identify as Americans. What lines do we draw in terms of race, class, gender, geography, etc? In the Duke lacrosse rape case, you have a group of white, upper class, male lacrosse players from Duke accused of raping a poorer, black woman. So, how do white, upper class, female lacrosse players from Duke identify? Well, so much for the sisterhood. "Innocent" arm bands.

I am curious what it was that caused them to identify that way: race, class, school, stupid sport?

Response to Reader Poll

So, when I was at the Giants game a few weeks ago, I polled readers what to do if Barry Bonds hit his 714th home run. It didn't happen that game. However, my daughter was in attendance for that home run a few days ago. My In-laws took her to the game. She was eating cotton candy and didn't seem to care. Wisdom of youth.

Just the facts, Ma'am

republicans are always wrong. Trickle down my ass. Some lies are repeated so often, they gain legitimacy. But they are still lies.

The best part of this article is

Still, Snow said, given a choice between good economic performance with high
taxes or with lower taxes, "I'll vote for the good performance and the lower
taxes every time."

Does this man not realize that we have deficits as far as the eye can see? Debts which we will have to pay off while the boomers retire - when we will have lower tax receipts from fewer workers and higher government health care costs. Thank you drug bill debacle.

Now, if only the press could stop making love to their wives and calling people who spew this trickle down crap. That is some diresome hole spew.

No Quarter

Now I am no Dixie Chicks fan. At a former job, I worked in a call center, doing analytics and reporting. I sat in a cube out with the callers. To improve morale, they played music over the PA system. The guy who played the music went on vacation and for 2 weeks hear the same 30 songs for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. One of them was A Dixie Chicks song, something about running. When I hear it now, I am temped to jam an ice pick into my skull. Anything to make it stop. Needless to say, not good for morale.

That said, what happened to them was amazing, and I kind of like how they handled it. The death threats, the publishing the address, the boycotts remind us how vicious the enemy is. They have been proven wrong at every turn, and many are slinking away from Mr. 31%. On some level, I am happy. These are voters and the most importing thing is insuring the republican taliban never wins another election. But on another level, I am pissed. Their noses have not been rubbed in it enough. There has not been enough gloating. People need to go to jail for treason. People need to lose their jobs. Those DJs who wouldn’t play the Dixie Chicks in 2003, should be unemployed today.

We must always remember what they did to our country. They should never be allowed to forget it. No republican should ever get to stop apologizing.

Comedy

Oh, Telecom industry. You amuse me with your mergerous ways. Your cravenness titillates me. Your stupidity is a sight to behold.

Stories - Not just for Bedtime anymore

People like to hear stories. People really like to hear stories that reinforce their worldview. This is a marketing rule. Tell people a story they want to hear. That is how you sell anything from Ronald Regan to I-pods. The press, being lazy and stupid, likes to tell the same story over and over again. They also like to make love to their wives. Fortunately, the current story is that Bush is historically unpopular. Nixionesque. That now colors almost every story about him. While the press could not be bothered to hold Bush accountable for the Iraq debacle previously, now they do – because it fits in the current story. Back in 2003, the story was still war on terror, so the press was pro-war – it fit the story. Bush has a huge problem because the press is not going to change this story any time soon. Sending the national guard to Texas is not going to cut it. Even the lazy, stupid press can sniff this out as a publicity stunt. The press may even stick with the current story as Bush rattles the sabers with Iran.

The best part of Bush II is that this is the end of Ronald Reagan’s story for republicans. The idea that the government was bad (except the military) was Regan’s genius. All problems came from the government, so we needed to cut taxes and make the government smaller. Regan wrote the story of politics in the early 80s and that story has been the base story for politics since then. Democrats were pointy heads who didn’t understand that the government was the enemy of regular Joes. Anything could be filtered through this story: welfare queens, deregulation, tax cuts, health care.

However, the colossal cluster fuck of the last 6 years has written a new story. Katrina let us know that, yes, we do need the government sometimes and the republicans are not competent to run it. They will play politics and screw things up. They are not to be trusted. If this story catches and holds, the republicans will be in serious trouble for decades. And that warms the heart.

Bye Bye to Reagan and his hateful legacy. He set this country back so far with his demonizing of the poor. It kind of pisses me off now, all these Johnny come latelys who were pro-Regan and now hate Bush. Yeah, I used to mug old ladies, but I am definitely against murder. Thanks for everything, fuckers. Little slow on the uptake, I guess. But, it is process.

Keep on pushing my love, over the Borderline

Bush’s border bullshit is just that, bullshit. Everyone knows it. That is not newsworthy enough for a post. What is important is how the press is handling it. For the most part, the story is that this is a publicity stunt designed to rally the base as the poll numbers tend towards 30%. The story has changed (see next post). Could they get an aircraft carrier up the Rio Grande? By the way, Rio is one of the great songs of our time. Not as good as Hungry Like the Wolf, however.

Back to the border stunt. This is not going to fly real well for the taliban. I think Karl is distracted by the impending indictments. Yeah, it may rally some of the truly racist base, but this is not going to play real well with most of America. The republicans trade in fear: Big Bad Willie Horton, terrorists under the bed, gays kissing in the streets, Plan B based sex cults (more to come) AAAGGHHHHH. Run for cover! Problem is, Mexicans are just not that scary. Some family crossing the border to pick strawberries and clean houses just doesn’t trigger the old fight or flight response. I mean, the big rallies were all peaceful, normal folks milling around. Then they all went back to work the next day. You can smell the desperation. Smells like . . . Play Doh?

I hate people

I just hate people. Don't like lawyers much either.

One 30-year-old woman, a resident of Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., said she does not
see a psychotherapist but suffers from anxiety and abandonment issues and
learned about emotional-needs dogs from a television show. She ordered a dog
vest over the Internet with the words "service dog in training" for one of the
several dogs she lives with, even though none are trained as service animals.
"Having my dogs with me makes me feel less hostile," said the woman, who refused
to give her name. "I can fine people or have them put in jail if they don't let
me in a restaurant with my dogs, because they are violating my rights," she
insisted.

There was an article in the Chronicle a while back about dog-shit park. So many people walk their dogs there that it is unfit for human beings. They were talking to this woman, who was letting her dog shit everywhere and not cleaning it up. Her response was, well isn't that someone else's job to clean it up. I am not doing that. I pay taxes.

God help the dog people if I ever get a terminal illness.

Reader Poll

No this is not one of those things where I ask you how much you make, so I can advertise here. Tomorrow, I will be going to the Giants game with my entire company. So, there is a chance that I will see baseball history. It is one of those strange things. I am not quite sure how to feel. I don't like Barroid much, and this is a totally false accomplishment. But, these things don't happen every day. Do I root for it to happen while I am there? Do I boo? Turn my back? Throw the ball back if I catch it (won't happen - not in the bleachers).

Chuck K. is really great.

It is pretty sad that the greatest athletic achievment I have ever seen was false. Ben Johnson's race was the most amazing thing I have ever seen in sports. He crushed Carl Lewis the way an older brother beats on a younger one. Crushing him, but letting him know that he wasn't even going all out and it could have been much worse. Johnson had his hands up for the last 5 meters or so and could have turned around to mock Lewis some. Lewis, whose time set a world record. I don't know if Johnson's illegitimate time would still stand as the record, but I never need to see another 100M. Chuck hit this point really well with Barroid.

Is there any wonder why we are so cynical?

Oh, yeah, the poll. So what would you do?

This made me happy

Some people are doing great things out there. This made me smile. Making dreams come true is a great thing. I should do more of it.

Thank you ESPN.

The truth shall set you free. I am glad to see USC, Duke and Mississippi State have all seen the light. Hallelujah. Can I get an Amen?

College is about 1 thing. Jobs. Jobs for professors, deans, administrators, alumni. And not bullshit jobs like teachers and accountants, but high status jobs at high class places. However, to provide the jobs, you need money. And people just won’t give you money to be the dean of who knows what. You need to be educating students. But the students are all whiny and bitchy and suck up so much of my time. Shit, have you spent any time with college students? Arrogant, rude, over indulged. General bastards.

Thus enters: Beer and Circus. Keeps ‘em happy. Keeps ‘em quiet. Keeps them the hell away from me. The added benefit is publicity to my school. Yeah, I would rather everyone know that I am the dean of who knows what at Harvard, but we can’t all have that job. And hey, there is nothing worse than being at a cocktail party and saying, “I’m a dean at Swarthmore.” and having some fuck-wad attorney ask, “Where is that again?”

Thank you ESPN for showing all three articles right there on today's front page that college administrators today are going to stand strong to support their sports programs. There will be no caving to stupid laws, regulations, or common decency. Winning teams come first. Because without sports, what would college be?

Amen brother.