no one of consequence.

YES.

We CAN HAZ!

US Politics | 1 Comment »

Im feeling Obama-Festive today. So to diverge from my usual road of the stark black desktop, I threw together the Obama ‘08 logo (which I happen to think is some DAMN good logo design) with THIS wallpaper I found at DeviantArt after some random googling. Meet my new desktop image, and feel free to share it if you like, download link is HERE.

Ok, so now I know at least one of my readers is going “oh god, not another Obamatron. Let me just put it out there.

A) I’m a Socially Liberal Democrat. Have been since I was about ten and started reading The New York Times. Do I blindly follow party lines? No, I have voted Republican, Independent, and Libertarian when I felt the candidate best suited. Democrat is rather my default setting though.

B) As far as Mr. McCain, I disagree with much of his foreign policy platform, and his anti-abortion stance. I am highly mistrust full of his chosen running mate, who has been quoted as supporting teaching Creationism in schools, and who is also strongly anti-abortion.

C) The repugnant continuing use of 9/11 images and footage by the Republican party (RUDI, STFU ALREADY!) and at the RNC leaves me utterly disgusted. It is inappropriate, it is disrespectful, and to my eye it is nothing but fear and hate mongering.

So Obama it is.

Design Work, US Politics | 1 Comment »

Nailed for getting nailed.

Ah, the joys of schadenfreude…

Life | No Comments »

SEC. 327. LIMITATION ON INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES.

(a) Limitation- No individual in the custody or under the effective control of an element of the intelligence community or instrumentality thereof, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by the United States Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations.

(b) Instrumentality Defined- In this section, the term `instrumentality’, with respect to an element of the intelligence community, means a contractor or subcontractor at any tier of the element of the intelligence community.

Vetoed.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

-The United States Declaration Of Independance.

Get me a gun, goddamit.

Uncategorized | No Comments »

- Wednesday, February 13 2008 22:49:43

HARLAN ELLISON ON THE WRITERS STRIKE SETTLEMENT

YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION TO RE-POST THIS ANYWHERE:

Creds: got here in 1962, written for just about everybody, won the Writers Guild Award four times for solo work, sat on the WGAw Board twice, worked on negotiating committees, and was out on the picket lines with my NICK COUNTER SLEEPS WITH THE FISHE$$$ sign. You may have heard my name. I am a Union guy, I am a Guild guy, I am loyal. I fuckin’ LOVE the Guild.

And I voted NO on accepting this deal.

My reasons are good, and they are plentiful; Patric Verrone will be saddened by what I am about to say; long-time friends will shake their heads; but this I say without equivocation…

THEY BEAT US LIKE A YELLOW DOG. IT IS A SHIT DEAL. We finally got a timorous generation that has never had to strike, to get their asses out there, and we had to put up with the usual cowardly spineless babbling horse’s asses who kept mumbling “lessgo bac’ta work” over and over, as if it would make them one iota a better writer. But after months on the line, and them finally bouncing that pus-sucking dipthong Nick Counter, we rushed headlong into a shabby, scabrous, underfed shovelfulla shit clutched to the affections of toss-in-the-towel
summer soldiers trembling before the Awe of the Alliance.

My Guild did what it did in 1988. It trembled and sold us out. It gave away the EXACT co-terminus expiration date with SAG for some bullshit short-line substitute; it got us no more control of our words; it sneak-abandoned the animator and reality beanfield hands before anyone even forced it on them; it made nice so no one would think we were meanies; it let the Alliance play us like the village idiot. The WGAw folded like a Texaco Road Map from back in the day.

And I am ashamed of this Guild, as I was when Shavelson was the prexy, and we wasted our efforts and lost out on technology that we had to strike for THIS time. 17 days of streaming tv!!!????? Geezus, you bleating wimps, why not just turn over your old granny for gang-rape?

You deserve all the opprobrium you get. While this nutty festschrift of demented pleasure at being allowed to go back to work in the rice paddy is filling your cowardly hearts with joy and relief that the grips and the staff at the Ivy and street sweepers won’t be saying nasty shit behind your back, remember this:

You are their bitches. They outslugged you, outthought you, outmaneuvered you; and in the end you ripped off your pants, painted yer asses blue, and said yes sir, may I have another.

Please excuse my temerity. I’m just a sad old man who has fallen among Quislings, Turncoats, Hacks and Cowards.

I must go now to whoops. My gorge has become buoyant.

Respectfully, Yr. Pal, Harlan Ellison

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How the American Electoral System Works, or Not, by tabula_x_rasa

I Am Highly Amused.

What I am not amused by is the failure of the NYC Bored Of Elections to send me a ballot for the Primary tomorrow. I sent in the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot, because Im tired of this damn nonsense. I applied for my federal absentee ballot on time, I am a registered Democrat, and Im bloody well entitled to vote. I’m going to have to call down there and find out what the hell is going on.

Life | No Comments »

Also. OMGYAYUNIVERSALHEALTHCARE!

It was VERY FUCKING STRANGE going to a medical office and neither paying for anything nor doing the insurance card dance. They swiped my lil card and thats it, done. No questions about the moneys at all.

Now we just need to get you guys still in the States some too… (Go Obama! Nuke Hillary!)

Life | No Comments »

No, I havent seen it. Michael Moore’s opinions dont really interest me. But it’s spurred a lot of talk about medical care in North America.

The Canadian system isnt perfect. Dont let Mike there fool you. (more…)

Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

http://www.myspace.com/saveconeyisland

Thor Equities, the company that has bought up most of Coney Island has begun demolishing the Amusement park.

For years they led everyone to believe they intended to revamp, revitalize and preserve the park, that they didnt intent to change use. Not that everyone believed them.

Now the nonbelievers are proved right. Thor Equities has been seeking zoning changes, in order to build timeshare and high-end condos on at least part of the land. The City has so far resisted, and in response, Thor has begun evicting longtime tenants and demolishing attractions on the site in an attempt to pressure the city into either giving them their zoning changes or having Coney become a wasteland of demolished and empty lots.

Apparently the Go-Carts and the Batting cages are already gone. Possibly the Bumper Boats too.

http://community.livejournal.com/newyorkers/2535724.html?view=24965420#t24965420

A protest is being planned for the near future. Get involved if you can, and help try to save Coney Island from these greedy bastards who want to destroy part of NYC’s cultural heritage because it wont make them millions of dollars. Remember what this kind of action did to Rockaway. Dont let them kill beachfront Brooklyn too.

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Now crap like this is why I dont trust “christian” charities.

Salvation Army Evicts almost 200 Low-Income Women.

The Salvation Army, the second-largest charity in America, is quietly evicting nearly 200 women, many of them elderly and low-income, from a pair of 18-story Manhattan buildings.

Tenant leaders at the two single-room occupancy hotels, the Ten Eyck-Troughton Residence on E. 39th St. and the Parkside Evangeline at Gramercy Park, say officials from the charity have been harassing them for months and have already frightened many long-term residents into moving out.

These are, by the way, buildings which were “specifically donated to the SA decades ago” for the sole purpose of housing low income women.

The funds are to go twards building their “Kroc Centers”… the community centers Ray Kroc the McDonalds bazillionaire gave them 1.5 billion dollars to build a few years ago.

Because yanno, it makes so much more sense to have a community center than oh, say, someplace to live. Of course it doesnt hurt at all that each of these properties will probably sell in the $100 million range. You can probably save a lot of souls with that. Or at least to help pay for the lobby for legalised religous discrimination with public funds.

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