The Crystal Ball is a Bit Murky, Innit?

Jim points out the potential - shall we say - issues with credit rating agencies. As is frequent with Mr. Jim, his blog post finishes strong, with oak body and citrus overtones:

We don't t charge a dime for telling Washington it's operating like a Three Stooges movie policed by the Keystone Kops.

That statement is so full of a level of win - normally reserved for entire blog posts - that it is at risk of exploding from the pressure exerted by its awesomeness.



tweaker

You Will Have Brotherly Love...

...whether you want it or not.

Having rid Philly of all major crime, the city had to label some legal activities as crime to justify having a police force go after "bad behavior" in the city.

(Those quote marks are not there to point out how completely fucking stupid that phrase is in relation to law enforcement. They are there because that is the wording the city officials used. I am not making this up.)

People of the City of Philadelphia, you voted these idiots into office. Time to do something about that, innit?



tweaker

Headline News

I don't get into the popular headlines. I barely have a shred of a clue anything about Casey Anthony. Don't ask me about celebrity gobbledy-gook. I'm only barely aware of the scandal surrounding some tabloid in the UK that got 86ed because they were hacking phones of victims of crimes and stuff. I did hear that they may have attempted to hack the phones of 9/11 victims, and, if so, I hope they find that Special Level of Hell.

But, in a fit of morbid curiosity, I found myself clicking on a headline that read something to the effect of "first tabloid whistleblower found dead." I thought that was interesting. What moron thought it was a good idea to have what is most likely the most well-lit witness to this whole thing whacked? "What a maroon," I thought, and clicked on over. Unfortunately, Actual Work happened and it was a few moments before I got a look at the page I landed on, and by the time I got back the headline was a far stretch from what I clicked on. "London police feel the heat in UK hacking scandal."

(By the by, didn't article headlines used to be proper nouns and, thus, capitalized?)

Paying only a little attention to that, I read through the article, and found myself frustrated as I scanned through looking for something about a dead witness through paragraph after paragraph of nonsense about the tabloid and folks whose asses are in a heap of trouble. The one and only mention of a dead whistleblower is this little gem:

One of the first voices to blow the whistle on the phone hacking — former News of the World journalist Sean Hoare — was found dead Monday in Watford, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of London. Police said the death was being treated as unexplained but was not considered suspicious, according to Britain's Press Association.

Unexplained, but not considered suspicious? Just what in the Wide World of Fuck is wrong with Scotland Yard these days? To many blows to the head while practicing with the only weapon they're allowed to carry (hint: they aren't pistol-whipping anyone)?

Anyone else hear this music in their heads right now?



tweaker

Go Directly To Hell

Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

In a rare two-in-a-day post - that's how you know this is important - I find myself barely able to contain the rage, so I hereby deploy JayG's famous Rage-O-Meter (courtesy Robb Allen):


I was actually stoked when I saw the headline:

Appeals Court: TSA must halt airport body scanners

I was all evil-grin and everything. Then I read the story. In it, Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals that the porn-o-scanners violate an individual's right to privacy in a way that the old metal detectors did not.

WIN! Right? No. As is frequently the case, some asshole has to go and ruin it for everyone. And by everyone, I mean We The People, because the TSA doesn't have to stop doing a fucking thing:

Ginsburg said he would not order TSA to immediately halt the full-body screening--which resulted in a near-revolt by air travelers last fall--but instead instructs "the agency promptly to proceed in a manner consistent with this opinion."

Basically, the DC Court of Appeals' official ruling is that porn-o-scanners suck, and the fed.gov should have asked what we thought about it first. A further reading of Orin Kerr over at The Volokh Conspiracy tells us the real meat-and-potatoes of the decision, which is specifically that the porn-o-scanners do not violate the Fourth Amendment. The part about not halting the use of the scanners was merely a clarification that the part about not asking what we thought about it, though a violation of federal law, wasn't grounds to stop the practice of taking dirty fucking pictures of each and ever air traveler - or, sexually assaulting them either as an alternative or in addition to, depending on whether or not they like what they saw - and generally treating them worse than criminals.

So, the official position of the staff here Where Sometimes Things Go Bang is, fuck the DC Circuit Court of Appeals for helping shit all over the Constitution, and fuck CNET for having their heads all the way up their asses for posting a headline that was blatantly false.

Proceed in a manner consistent with this opinion? Judge Ginsburg, extra fuck you in the face with a fucking cherry on top.



tweaker

Better Late Than Never

It occurred to me a few minutes ago that I have let go the immediacy of what, in my humble opinion (ha! Humble. I even typed that with a straight face), is a major news update.

The Little Girl, as many of you know, began riding horses in April of 2010. Around the same time this year, she transitioned from riding lessons to barrel racing lessons. She's ridden in three or four "practice runs" (they don't call 'em rodeos, because they're only for kids that ride at that ranch and because the insurance companies collectively shit bricks when they hear the word "rodeo") prior to last Friday. During those runs, she was noticeably upset when the other kids were winning ribbons and she was not.

Last Friday, she went in having won zero ribbons. When the smoke cleared, my daughter had won three. I wasn't this proud after her first trip to the shooting range. I am so proud!!! She took third in (cloverleaf) Barrels, third in Straightaway, and second in Poles! She was hauling ass, y'all. She would have posted first-place time in the Stake Race, but she missed the stake, so she posted no time.

Tonight, she rides again. I will be there, working the arena and screaming my head off, as usual.



tweaker

WTF??

I was thinking about ranting and raving about the recent Netflix price hike because, damn it's hard being me.

;)

But then I saw something that caught my eye, and now I've kinda forgotten about, well, anything else that was going on.

Rodney King was arrested for DUI.

I swear before God, I clicked on the link to make sure that it wasn't some news link to an old story because maybe today was significant to the whole Rodney King/L.A. '92 thing. Nope. He's been busted for DUI. Again. No videotaped beatings have been reported, though his mugshot lies somewhere between this one and this one, minus some hair.

Seriously. After what happened in 1991, if I'm Rodney King? I'm never drinking again, and I'm sure as hell not doing it anywhere near California.



tweaker

For The Record

I want to go on the official record here.

• Before debt-ceiling talks, the basic premise has been this: Republicans wanted to cut spending. Dems did not. Can kicked up street.
• Debt-ceiling deadline approached. People squawked. D.C. basically did nothing.
• Debt-ceiling deadline got deadly close. Shit hit fan. Republicans want to cut spending. Dems didn't, but now do (as long as taxes go up). Republicans said GTFO.
• President offered giant deficit cut (hugely aided by tax increases). Republicans said GTFO. President even offered to throw Medicaid & Social Security under the bus. Republicans still said GTFO.
• President accused Republicans of political pandering. Speakertweaker drew the fucking line.

President Barack Obama, hear me now. For the first time in as long as I can remember, someone in Washington, D.C. is listening to the people what elected them.

So, for the record, I do not want any tax increases. I don't care who you allege to levy the increases against. I believe - right or wrong, and for better or for worse - that any tax increases will be a destructive force on this already fragile economy, and I don't gods-be-damned want them. If House Republicans are doing any political pandering, then, for the first time, they are pandering to their own constituents, and they should be applauded for doing so. Whether or not you are getting what you want out of it.

And everyone within the scope of my nearest voting booth had damn-well better heed these words.



tweaker

Deadly Force IMO

Jay links to a post over at Weer'd's blog (I'm sure that's the first time I've ever used two apostrophes in a single word. Neat.) concerning the use of Deadly Force. I was inclined to post my $0.02 here due to the need for blogfodder. Anyhoo.

(Let it be noted that the law in TX regards the threat of deadly force in the same regard as deadly force itself. That works out in favor of the self-defender.)

Jay mentions at the beginning of his post:

On its face, and this is a point the anti-gun folks like to make, is that the contents of your wallet are not worth killing someone over. From a very superficial standpoint, this is absolutely correct - I tend to not carry much cash on me, maybe $20-30 at any given time. That's not worth taking someone's life.

He goes on to clarify a very good position on self-defense, wherein the goblin gets custom ballistic body piercing. But for me, my 'splaining stops right after the aforementioned paragraph. It's the first half of the next sentence that says all I need to say:

When someone threatens me with deadly force for my wallet...

That's it. At that point, I'mma drill his ass, and it ain't got a damned thing to do with the wallet or its contents. Goblin's going down for threatening me with deadly force. Full stop. Fortunately, and due in large part to TX's definition of lethal force I mentioned earlier, I don't have to engage a big thought process over how much money I have in my wallet (none, usually). I don't need to weight out what the bad guy's trying to take. I shouldn't have to, and if I did I'd likely be wasting precious seconds when I should be acting.

It ain't pretty, it ain't pleasant, and the aftermath of having to shoot someone is simultaneously not something I'm going to pretend is easy and a discussion for a separate post. I can certainly plan for what's going to happen before and when I pull the trigger (God forbid), and it's not going to be over enough cash to cover fast food for two if it happens.



tweaker

MRI Suck Factor: Seven

On the long list of things that suck, I can say that a full body MRI (as opposed to an extremity MRI) gets a bump way up near child molesters and people who talk at the theater.

I wouldn't say I get claustrophobic easily. I really don't dig on small spaces, but I don't freak out in elevators or automobiles, for instance. It's really not until the space is so small that I can't move that I start to consider dismantling my container. Well, an MRI is roughly the size of a toilet-paper roll as far as I'm concerned, and laying still in it for 45 minutes was surely the equivalent of what William Wallace experienced at the end of Braveheart.

Thank God they didn't use an MRI. Whew!

Srsly. Fuck each and every inch of that machine.

When I was fully inside, there was a little vent right in front of my face that blew cool air. It would have been nice, except it blew it directly into my left eye. Having ice cold air blowing into my eye while the rest of me cooked in what must have been a heated MRI laid the groundwork for a nice headache. I was sweating already as my nerves degenerate from civilized human to rabid, raging zombie silverback gorilla, and as the temperature climbed to somewhere around SterileºF, things only got worse. The headache was settling in nicely right around the time that my pain meds wore off, which meant my back started to stiffen up and eventually ache along with my head. At least with the earplugs in, I could hear my pulse pounding along with the throbbing in my head and back, and it kinda made for a nice song in my head (something along the lines of "Hammer-Smashed Face" by Cannibal Corpse).

Never again. Next time I have to have an MRI, the only thing that will keep the recommending doctor's limbs attached will be the prescription sedative he gives me for the special day.

Oh, and a six-pack of double wheat bock will return your nerves to normal. Eventually.



tweaker

An Eye for a Shitload of Eyes

I was afraid the .mil justice system was going to find itself, like many other military things, awash in bureaucracy and reduced to the least offending denominator.

Looks like I was wrong. I hope they light his ass up in a hurry.



tweaker

My Gift to the Internets

Recently, I was turned on to a beer mixer that I quite like. It's called a Bitter Monk. Not to be confused with the double IPA from Anchorage Brewery that shares the same name, this combination of two beers - think Black and Tan - comes together to make a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

To make a Bitter Monk, take equal parts Leffe Blonde and Stone Pale Ale. If you're going to use 12-oz. bottles, get yourself a big damned mug, because when you pour the Leffe you're going to end up with a shit-tonne of head. Pour the Leffe first, then pour the Stone in behind it. Don't bother with a bar spoon or Lagerhead: the Leffe and Stone are both more or less equally dense, and they won't separate like a Black and Tan or a Half and Half will. Just let 'em mix.

Then, take your big-ass mug of brew and pour it into your face. Enjoy!

*sidenote - thank all the Gods for Blogger's autosave feature. I damn-near lost this post when I closed the wrong tab!



tweaker