The stature of a hero is measured by the villians he faces
Tuesday, 21 August 2007

Nefarious!
Without a good nemesis, you’re nothing. I wanted it to be Steve Pool. Always rubbing his smile in my face… I can be happy any time I want! I’ve just been busy lately. I’ll get around to it, Steve! You’re not half the body of water I am. Your booking agent can’t protect you forever, man! Then we’ll see what the weather will be like this weekend!!!
So, I need a good nemesis and not a dizzy, peroxide-blond Yiddish broad either.
Turns out, like everything else, if you want something done right you have to do it yourself. Good thing I’m a Scorpio.
Man on the street: Did you hear Ashley finally named his kid?
Nemesis: Oh, yeah. What?
Man on the street: Darwin.
Nemesis: Wow. Talk about commitment to a bit.
The Reagan Diaries, chapter “Shiftless, Looking for Easy Work”
Monday, 20 August 2007
A moment I’ve been dreading. George brought his ne’re-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida. The one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I’ll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they’ll hire him as a contributing editor or something. That looks like easy work. Entry dated May 17, 1986
Via J-Walk. We’ll see if the quote is accurate. The street date on the book is tomorrow.
Update
What’s the oldest thing you own?
Monday, 20 August 2007
Re: The Awesomeness Of Muscular Awesomeness
Saturday, 18 August 2007
This week in the news #32
Friday, 17 August 2007
U.S. paid $1 million to ship two 19-cent washers
It’s really a total bargain you look at it properly. It is only 3/10ths of 1¢ for each washer1. Jesus! What are you pricks complaining about? That’s practically free!
Miss Teen USA 2007 contestants line up for their official swimsuit photograph
And on a clear day you can see the mountains of Montana. There’s gold in them thar hills.
You’ll also note there is nothing wrong with parading these fine young women around with bathing suits glued to their narrowly shaved pudenda. And the desire to poke one of the 18-19 year-olds is perfectly natural. But any sexual spark felt toward the 15-17 year-old girls is unnatural, perverted, and a heinous crime against women, society, and all civilization. As they don’t carry identification during the competition, you’ll best be able to gauge their ages at the time of your arrest.
Internet is “the new Afghanistan”: NY police commissioner, Ray Kelly
One can only hope! Afghanistan has so far managed to take on, without so much as an instigating middle finger, the three biggest powers from the 20th century and fight the first to a veritable draw and knock the others’ dicks in the dirt.
If the Internet is where superpowers go to be humbled for the next 100 years, suits me fine.
Ray Kelly, Bob Dole’s replacement as spokesman for Viagra®
Myself: You know, he doesn’t look half-stupid. For a mick.
Me: What?! How do you justify that?
Myself: Easy. First, it’s impossible to be racist against an upper class white man. Second, we’re all the same race. Remember? So what if I’m English and he’s Irish. As any black man can tell you, all whites are the same race, ergo, it’s not racism.
Me: Maybe he is analogy challenged but that has nothing to do with his being Irish.
Myself: No…? Well, then I’ll just let him bask in the warmth he feels when a towelhead is eradicated. The price of admission is reminding him that I’m English and a paddy is a paddy is a paddy.
Me: I can’t work with you on this.
Myself: Look, man. Normally I’m with you on this topic. But in a post Patriot Act, Alberto Gonzales world, ad hominems are all that’s left. You oughta try it. Bottling up that shit’s gonna make you found a militia one of these days.
Me: At least it won’t have race restrictions.
Myself: Your mom’ll appreciate that.
Further thanks owed to him for this résumé item–
Prior to September 11th, 2001 there were fewer than two dozen officers working on terrorism full time; today, there are over 1,000. Ray Kelly2
If only he had been hired in time to put 1,000 cops on the street, those 767s would have been caught midair and forced to surrender. Or shot to death when they reached for their wallets.
I’ve got a great follow-up idea. We should hire 300,000 cops and station them somewhere there never even was a remotely operated terrorist act against America.
Australia discovers world ocean “missing link”
Australian scientists have identified one of the last missing links which shows how the world ocean system is interconnected in governing global climate. Reuters
The subtext being, we still don’t really understand how the oceans regulate the Earth’s temperatures. Shhhhh… don’t tell Al Gore.
Farewell to the Yangtze River Dolphin
And good riddance. Some mammals think they’re too good to stay on the land with the rest of us. I say we next move on to clubbing all the land traitor seals to death and wearing their skins as a warning to the capybaras and hippos spending a little too much time wet.
Why Bugs Are Not Huge
The reason has to do with a bottleneck that occurs in insects’ air pipes as they become humongous, new research shows. In the Paleozoic Era, insects were able to overcome the bottleneck due to a high-oxygen atmosphere. Livescience.com
If it’s new research why have I known this fact for 15 years? Maybe because I have precognition abilities in regards to entomology or maybe because you “science” outlets never tire of writing about cryptozoology and newly discovered meteorites collected and cataloged in the 80s.
And to think I put you jackasses in the blogroll recently. Better watch out or you’ll be the topic of the next “Why I can’t link to your site anymore.”
Screw giant insects anyway. There were 8 foot long water scorpions back then and these guys are with us today–
Queen guitarist to complete doctorate
Astrophysics. I always knew there was something alien about his guitar solos. I don’t care how drunk he was, it still can’t explain the one in Dragon Attack.
SS officer in 1944 French massacre dies
This guy, Heinz Barth, killed 400 women and children in one sitting and did various other ridiculously evil gopher tasks for the once and future losers which are the pasty, Western, mixed-breed version of Aryans.
Then he ran free after the war and lived a regular life until he was found in 1981. He did some time till 1997 and was released for health reasons. Released for health reasons. He died of natural causes a week or two ago. 16 years in the clink for burning 200 kids to death in a church.
The idea that God can forgive any sin has always struck me strange. How can we imagine something we ourselves could never do? Well, no longer strange. At least one good thing came out of it. I learned one of the last things about you that I haven’t been able to figure out.
Fossil hunter condemns Lucy tour of U.S.
One of the world's leading paleontologists denounced Ethiopia's decision to send the Lucy skeleton on a six-year tour of the United States, warning Friday that the 3.2 million-year-old fossil will likely be damaged no matter how careful its handlers are. AP, Nairobi, Kenya
Getting Americans to reconcile with some of their great-grandparents is more important than the integrity of any specimen. I’d break every bone in Olduvai to make that happen.
Army suicides highest in 26 years
Guess we know where a few of those surplus rounds are ending up.
Also,
Far above reasonable averages, they’re coming home to divorces. They’re coming home unemployable, unable to function in normal society; damaged goods, psychological splatter damage. They’re coming home to kill their wives. They’re coming home to kill themselves. They’re even coming home with the potential to be the exact thing they’re supposedly stopping, the worst single terrorist we’ve had. Told you so
1 For each and every American.
2 The sad thing is, this guy was an exceptional man. A man of immense talent and ability with one of the best work ethics I’ve seen. Let him be a cautionary tale of how the War on Terrah!® grinds up the best men in its gears and elevates and enriches the worst.
Dear Adult Swim #2,
Thursday, 16 August 2007
Really? I fairly worship at the altar of Coincidence but really. You could just offer me a job. For the price and volume you could street 5 interns and 2 junior editors. Or is it a junior editor poaching to avoid getting his marching orders? Find out where that can go—An irony more ferrous.
Recycled QWA: javascript case randomize
Tuesday, 14 August 2007
<script type="text/javascript">//<![CDATA[
function curry (n) {
if ( n.nodeType == 3 ) {
n.data = scrambleCase( n.data );
}
var kids = n.childNodes;
var str = '';
for ( var i = 0; i < kids.length; i++ ) {
var ret = curry( kids[i] );
str += ret;
}
return str;
}
function scrambleCase (txt) {
var wordish = txt.split(' ');
for ( var i = 0; i < wordish.length; i++ ) {
var w = new Array ()
for ( var n = 0; n < wordish[i].length; n++ ) {
var letter = wordish[i].charAt(n);
if ( ( Math.random() * 2 ) > 1 ) {
letter = letter.toLowerCase();
}
else
{
letter = letter.toUpperCase();
}
w.push( letter );
}
wordish[i] = w.join('');
}
return wordish.join(' ');
}
//]]> </script>
This snake in the news
Monday, 13 August 2007
AP: Parker says snake in promo photo is real
I must admit skepticism. I mean look at it! So round. So smooth. Such unnaturally perfect curvature. Obviously firm to the touch. Cool with the promise of a hot crushing force once encoiled.
“I’ve been naked quite a bit, actually,” Parker said of posing for the photo. “You Google me, you’ll see it all.”
I’m especially grateful for this invitation. I’ve wanted to Google that woman cross-eyed since 1991.
Republicans + evolution
Monday, 13 August 2007
I don’t know why so many Republicans seem to have a problem with the notion of evolution. It presents pretty clear cut cases for–
- eating meat,
- letting the weaklings die,
- killing those who stand in the way of success,
- breeding, even when it kills the mother, and
- rape being a natural right of the more physically powerful and post-coital mobile gender.
One must assume if they’re still against it it might have something to do with their nature being–
- prey-like,
- weak,
- unsuccessful,
- impotent, and
- submissive in all encounters with bigger dogs.
Rejected because I’m gay?
Sunday, 12 August 2007
No. Because your apostrophes are typographically inept.
Why I can’t link to your site anymore: FriendlyAtheist.com
Saturday, 11 August 2007

…we can’t be sure “there is no God.” Atheists can only say they “don’t believe in God.” Friendly Atheist
We may not be sure that the Star Trek episode “The Trouble with Tribbles” wasn’t the single direct revelation this potentially real God has given to mankind either but I sure as fuck can say whatever I want about it including that it definitively was not. I can be so sure about it because it’s exactly as likely—and as ludicrous, though infinitely less dangerous—as the proposition from which it stems. I don’t have to qualify that jazz with any version of “belief.”
Addendum to the sworn affidavit given by one Max Cady –or– I can out diff you
Friday, 10 August 2007
| I ain’t no white-trash piece of shit. I’m better than you all! I can out-learn you. I can out-read you. I can out-think you. And I can out-philosophize you. And I’m gonna out-last you. | I ain’t no white-trash piece of shit. I’m better than you all! I can out-learn you. I can out-read you. I can out-think you. I can out-philosophize you. And I can out-breed you. And I’m gonna out-last you. |
Catalyst + TT + Unicode in template + Unicode in YAML config + POST = double encoding
Thursday, 9 August 2007
Nerd warning
This very nice module, Catalyst::View::TT::ForceUTF8, is an add and forget for handling utf8 problems with Catalyst and Perl. But even with it as the base for your TT2 view, you will get double encoded utf8 in your web pages on POST if you have utf8 coming into your template from a YAML config file. To fix this simply “use” YAML::Syck in YourApp.pm. It understands how to properly bring in utf8 and the double encoding should disappear.
US military deaths at 4,102
Wednesday, 8 August 2007
Just keeping you honest. Any bets for 5,000? How about March 15th of 2008. That seems philosophically right if overly aggressive.
Speaking of Afghanistan, it’s a great time to get in on the ground floor as a heroin dealer. Any economist will tell you that when production is hopping, the market will bear established prices until distribution channels expand. If we’d just invade Columbia my COCAN stock might finally take off.
PS: Cost of the War in Iraq — (JavaScript error)
Update
US anti-terror military death count JavaScript for your site.
I am totally, totally, totally in the wrong line online
Tuesday, 7 August 2007
As you can see, I am in the wrong line online. I should not be giving the extensible yum-yums away to an actively disinterested collective of myfaced wanna-be-has-beens. That with one post on Ajax I went to the top of 5.2 million web pages is proof positive I’m not just a fool but the kind of jerk-off who busts his anvs doing little graphics and ironic but accurate statistics for hours on end to please the 0.3‰ of surfers who are literate, libertine, and sober enough to understand, appreciate, and forgive the average article here.
I could just be writing simplistic advice and docs for stuff that is already widely covered and easily discovered. I’d probably be making Dooce money by now. So–
If y’all don’t start churning the butter for me, I’m’a closing out the terrah and nuclear bomb fun in favor of Idiots’ Guides to Acronyms1.
1 Oh, Jesus! Initialisms then. Asshat. Abbreviation is a perfectly serviceable word, incidentally, and more accurate for dipshit language maneuvers like PHP and XML.
The tree and the cherry apple and how far it falls
Monday, 6 August 2007
2 Year-Old
What did a pillow say next to a daddy?
Dad
What?
2 Year-Old
Interrupting cherry apple!
Dad
That’s the worst joke I’ve ever heard.
2 Year-Old
(Gleefully.)
I know!!
The Paedofinder General — YouTube week, day 6
Saturday, 4 August 2007
And here is where we separate the moo from the cow. Certainly not something I should admit publicly but Monkey Dust is my favorite show1. I eagerly await the SWAT visit I have initiated.
The show is brilliant but it’s not easy to get that from a clip. You need to see three episodes to understand. It’s not just that it’s the only carnivore out there without corks on its teeth. It’s also using a format—telling the same approximate story with the same characters over and over with different plots and props—which becomes psychologically infectious. But in a good way.
I recommend the Monkey Dust DVD for everyone but as of today it’s only available with region 2 encoding so you’ll have to check back if you’re in the #1 region instead of second place.
Planet of the Apes remixed as a Twilight Zone episode — YouTube week, day 4
Thursday, 2 August 2007
Act I
Act II
Act III
Thou shalt always remember lyrics are what make rock equal Bach — YouTube week, day 1
Monday, 30 July 2007
In the spirit of continuing publications in which I offer no original content–
