This is really weird. Palin's statement was virtually incomprehensible, riddled with self-contradiction. To stay in office would be the path of a quitter? Huh? A point guard dribbles through the press with her head up? Huh? Her presence in office wastes the taxpayers' money? Huh? "The world needs more children like Trig." WuzzafuckHUH?
I agree with Sasha who has not, as of this second, published this theory (and who, to my unbounded giggling delight, has finally renounced the savior I worked so hard to get her to reject, failing because, as best I could tell, Bill Clinton gave her herpes), but seems pretty convinced that Palin's getting indicted on Tuesday, or that the other shoe is otherwise going to drop hard, soon. The content of Palin's attempt at coherence certainly supports this notion; her tone was unbelievably paranoid and defensive, in addition to just plain weird. It sounded like the sort of thing that will click into place as a point-by-point defense in a few days. Sorta like Mrs. Cake forgetting to turn off her precognition. Except less charming. Okay, except not-at-all charming.
While I do favor major scandal as the most likely option I maintain that, given Palin's nearly complete disconnection from reality, it's possible that she actually thinks that this utterly bizarre behavior will help her preznitential bid. That's loonier than a barrel of Canadian dollars, but that's really never stopped her before.
It's also a little weird that someone so determined to pick fights was so clearly determined to back away from them. A subtext of her rambling statement was that she thinks that her continued ventures into public ridicule (every one of them self-triggered and self-exacerbated) are some sort of a distraction, that as the governor of one of our smallest states, she was drawing fire. Uhm...no. As a self-marketed national political spokesperson for an opposition party that just got its ass kicked and seems to be doing its best to self-destruct, Palin will remain a target for as long as she chooses to do anything public as a profession.
And she'll deserve it. Her behavior has been shameless, self-promoting, detrimental to her family, and a disservice to her state. She's an intellectual lightweight and a paranoid bully who has wasted unquantifiable energy taking revenge on real and perceived enemies, and on every perceived slight. Guess who was thinking about pedophilia in relation to a talk-show host's joke about one of her daughters getting knocked up in Yankee Stadium? It wasn't David Letterman. Palin chose to ignore the obvious about her daughter, the unwed teenage babymama, and hold up her younger daughter in connection with the concept. Any suggestion to the contrary is either idiotic or contrived.
Palin's every bit as unconcerned about the welfare of her state as she is about the welfare of her family. She fought a losing battle to reject federal stimulus money for her state (that alone should've gotten her impeached, or shot from a helicopter, or whatever it is they do to inept state officials in Alaska), did psychotic pinwheels in her positioning over former Senator Ted Stevens and his legal issues, and attempted to appoint a Republican to a seat that, under state law, had to go to a Democrat. LGM, with a Juneau-based contributor, has done a fabulous up-close job of covering Palin's ineptitude as governor.
Of course, it's all mightily entertaining. Watching Palin flail away in public appearances is like watching her struggle with a Chinese finger puzzle. The only way for her to beat the thing is to destroy it. The same applies to her political career. Had she simply stayed in place, shut the fuck up, done a little studying, and waited for every one of her potential rivals other than Pawlenty and Huckabee to ejaculate themselves out of contention, she'd have had a really good chance to beat Mitt Romney for the 2012 Republican nomination and lose in a 1972esque landslide to Barack Obama. It's actually a shame; the lunatic fringe of the right wing needs to be led by a crazy person (which Huckabee isn't--quite--and we'll have to hold out for the continuing emergence of Bobby Jindal). It's potentially bad for our side, since pushing the extreme right's head under water and holding it there for 4 years is the only chance the Republicans have of reclaiming the White House for a very long time. But all that needs to ripen.
Thanks, Sarah. And just like my wife's former colleagues at Yes, I'm Packing, So What? High School were grateful to the other county school that had a stabbing incident a week later, Mark "I Finally Bagged A Chick That Likes Sex" Sanford thanks you, too.
Update: It's possible that, in my fascination with the bizarre, I overlooked the simple. The Anchorage Daily News, which has long been one of the best news sources in the world for Palinalia, quoted Mike Hawker, a Republican state senator from Anchorage as stating that the resignation "gives her unfettered ability to pursue her economic interests, whether it be a book deal or speeches, that type of thing, without being cluttered by state ethics law."
If it's that simple--and I'd opine that it seems as likely as any of the other possibilities bandied about so far--it's less bugfuck crazy than I thought, which makes her statement's rambling incoherence all the more bizarre. But that may just be a reflection of her utter discomfort inside her own skin. The manic urgency of her narcissism has, since her rise to national attention, seemed to drive that sort of scary pseudopositive blather, that transparent and inept attempt to portray ignorance as wisdom, to portray deep, all-consuming paranoia and outright crazy behavior as serving the public interest.
It also doesn't do her political ambition (assuming she still has some--she's been acting pretty desperately defeated) any service. Y'know, I try not to revel in other peoples' mental illness, but this person really challenges my principles.
Friday, July 03, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
My Friend Beth
In the midst of busy lives, we must make room for joy and sadness, sometimes simultaneously. My friend Beth passed away a few days ago, after an illness of several months. Beth's brain cancer had been in remission for a number of years, but when it recurred, all courses of treatment were ineffective.
Beth was someone that very few of you knew; she was a colleague of mine in my immediately past life as a non-profit guy. She was a program officer at the foundation that funded our work, and for 5 years, I worked closely with her, travelled with her, and saw her only a few times a year, when the winds of work put us in the same city.
Beth was full of the joy of life, and I know that she wanted us all to revel in it, and to remember only good things now, to remember her as she lived. My favorite time with her was in Beijing 3 years ago; we shared a stunningly inexpensive meal at an out-of-the-way local restaurant. I had chicken so spicy that the hostess was dashing to wash off pieces of it in a finger bowl to spare my delicate American sensibilities. I blushingly declined. The next day, my last in Beijing (and the first day I had an opportunity for sightseeing), we went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City in the rain, accompanied by another colleague. Twice, Beth yanked my braindead tourist ass out of the path of fast-moving police vehicles (sidewalks in Beijing are a dicey proposition sometimes, especially for those of us with heads tucked firmly in our hinders).
Beth and I were opposites; you know me as relatively dark and brooding and cynical, and she was far more positive, in a northwest rainforest crunchy sort of way. Despite that difference, our friendship thrived. She always chose to believe in the best in me, no matter what the surface evidence showed, and no matter what I thought of myself. That's a gift for which I will always be grateful.
I have to cry for Beth, long and hard, but I know I must let it pass. I owe her that.
Goodbye, my friend. All good things...
Beth was someone that very few of you knew; she was a colleague of mine in my immediately past life as a non-profit guy. She was a program officer at the foundation that funded our work, and for 5 years, I worked closely with her, travelled with her, and saw her only a few times a year, when the winds of work put us in the same city.
Beth was full of the joy of life, and I know that she wanted us all to revel in it, and to remember only good things now, to remember her as she lived. My favorite time with her was in Beijing 3 years ago; we shared a stunningly inexpensive meal at an out-of-the-way local restaurant. I had chicken so spicy that the hostess was dashing to wash off pieces of it in a finger bowl to spare my delicate American sensibilities. I blushingly declined. The next day, my last in Beijing (and the first day I had an opportunity for sightseeing), we went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City in the rain, accompanied by another colleague. Twice, Beth yanked my braindead tourist ass out of the path of fast-moving police vehicles (sidewalks in Beijing are a dicey proposition sometimes, especially for those of us with heads tucked firmly in our hinders).
Beth and I were opposites; you know me as relatively dark and brooding and cynical, and she was far more positive, in a northwest rainforest crunchy sort of way. Despite that difference, our friendship thrived. She always chose to believe in the best in me, no matter what the surface evidence showed, and no matter what I thought of myself. That's a gift for which I will always be grateful.
I have to cry for Beth, long and hard, but I know I must let it pass. I owe her that.
Goodbye, my friend. All good things...
Saturday, June 06, 2009
June 6 Revisited
I blogged three years ago about this date, and that post remains relevant, because my prose is pretty timeless that way. Go read it.
It bears repeating that false equivalence remains a popular way to evidence one's argument, especially if the argument is too moronic to stand on its own (that doesn't render my side immune to the temptation). The false equivalence is likely to mount, what with that centrist fraud we elected President traipsing about Europe for the 65th anniversary of D-Day, reflecting (as he should) on the horror and the sacrifice and the necessity and that which followed.
Think today about the men and women who worked and fought and died and sacrificed 65 years ago for a less threatening world--by which I mean a world that was actually less threatening, in a very real way, to millions of people. Think about the advances in quality of life, for billions of people, that ensued. And think about what it will take to advance, even in a small way, the quality of life for the four fifths of the world's population that have yet to enjoy much of that prosperity, and hope or pray, as suits you, that humanity has what it takes to make even some fraction of that happen. There's not a damn thing about that equivalence that's false. At this point in my thinking, the certain fact that the President is a centrist fraud diminishes a little in importance, because fraud though he is and will remain, at least he's not a dick (in this regard), and I do believe that he has some glimmer of hope and concern for that four fifths of humanity.
And that's what D-Day means to me.
It bears repeating that false equivalence remains a popular way to evidence one's argument, especially if the argument is too moronic to stand on its own (that doesn't render my side immune to the temptation). The false equivalence is likely to mount, what with that centrist fraud we elected President traipsing about Europe for the 65th anniversary of D-Day, reflecting (as he should) on the horror and the sacrifice and the necessity and that which followed.
Think today about the men and women who worked and fought and died and sacrificed 65 years ago for a less threatening world--by which I mean a world that was actually less threatening, in a very real way, to millions of people. Think about the advances in quality of life, for billions of people, that ensued. And think about what it will take to advance, even in a small way, the quality of life for the four fifths of the world's population that have yet to enjoy much of that prosperity, and hope or pray, as suits you, that humanity has what it takes to make even some fraction of that happen. There's not a damn thing about that equivalence that's false. At this point in my thinking, the certain fact that the President is a centrist fraud diminishes a little in importance, because fraud though he is and will remain, at least he's not a dick (in this regard), and I do believe that he has some glimmer of hope and concern for that four fifths of humanity.
And that's what D-Day means to me.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
A Punch In The Balls
Housekeeping first; as the last Xtranormal movie warned, I'm not going to blog that way for some time. It limits my expression, it keeps this guy from being able to easily grab quotes1 from me so that I get published in a higher-traffic blog (which is, as we all know, my sole raisin), it's getting repetitive (although everyone loves the Ilse dance), and most importantly, the scripts that Xtranormal loads as a result of the embeds significantly slow down my site's load time (UPDATE: Gee, the site seems to load much faster this morning, just not having an embed as the top post.). For that reason, I'll leave the embeds as they are for a bit, then convert them to links in a week or two. Or less, if I have time and get really sick of the slow loads.
Let's move on to the topic of the night, which this guy correctly, understatedly, and uncharacteristically (for him--he's obsessed with keeping his blog clean, although I hope he never kisses me with that mouth, even though he's a total sex god) referred to as "a punch in the balls."
As you will find from other sources, DCU lost at New England tonight, only its second loss of the season, and only 2-1, after a more-or-less acceptable first half and a not very good second half. As D pointed out in his first impressions, they shouldn't have been in a position to lose.
That said, center official Hilario Grajeda called a travesty of a game. The centerpiece of it was a fuckawful penalty in the 89th minute against Brian Namoff. Grajeda blew the whistle a full six seconds after Taylor Diving Fucking Twellman flopped backwards and pretended Namoff had pulled him down.3 D offers that he'll forgive Grajeda if it develops that the assistant referee thought it was a penalty.
I won't. The assistant referee had a better angle (for once--offsides calls coming from that A.R. were consistently off, too, in both directions), but a more distant view. It should've been obvious to him that Namoff didn't pull the diving fucker down. I also won't forgive Grajeda because, in the last minute of stoppage, he didn't call a penalty when Rodney Wallace was blatantly and obviously pulled down, by the jersey, in the box, as he was trying to play a pretty well-placed cross. The foul committed against Wallace was far more egregious--and booking-worthy--than the foul Namoff was alleged to have committed.
That was the worst of it, but Grajeda lost control of the game early and kept paying for it. Sainey Nyassi should've been booked three or four times, by my count; the inept fucking moron actually booked Josh Wicks for making a fucking save--again, because Taylor Diving Fucking Twellman fell down and rubbed his pussy; and he consistently overlooked bumping and shirt-tugging. Some of it cut both ways, but when it counted, Grajeda very clearly and decisively favored the home team (or maybe he was getting Taylor Diving Fucking Twellman's jersey after the match).
This is getting old. Sometimes MLS officials' ineptitude is just plain distracting, as it was in the USOC game at RFK against the Red Scum. That was a dreadfully officiated game, and fortunately the game was so decisive that the referee couldn't fuck it up. Mostly. Other times, entire games revolve around asinine decisions by people who shouldn't be in the middle of a pitch.
It's also a credible view that the team shouldn't have been in a position to go down on a 90th-minute penalty. But that doesn't matter. If you live on the edge, that's where you live, and if you keep getting yourself out of the deep cacky, you have a right not to be put back in it by utter fucking incompetence.
I've been hard on Tom Soehn. I've softened that view the last couple or three games, although I still think that his mentality--and thus the team's--is entirely too defensive. I think Soehn has some heat to take for tonight's effort. The Rev have some speedy motherfuckers on the wing, and playing a slow 3-5-2 against that is just bone fucking dumb (I'm not the first person to say this: has Tom Soehn ever played Football Manager?). On the other hand, the lineup was well-chosen (the subs weren't--McTavish was a dumbass sub from a coach who swears he wants to bring Jacobson into the offense more, and I'd have brought in Moreno before Mister Sulu, although it was appropriate not to start Jaime), and the team's effort in the first half didn't seem to reflect a bunker mentality. Wicks shouldn't, in my view, have to take much of a rap; he made a great and appropriate effort on the Shalrie Joseph goal, and Joseph just plain beat him, though Jacovic (I think it was him--whoever was defending the cross on the right side just got stomped on that play5) probably should.
After all of my rant, D still said it better and best: what a fucking punch in the balls.
1 While I'm on the topic, I am putting a jihad on him for not doing a full debrief on the RSL game, thus leaving to the book of unwritten history this best six-word game summary evar: "They're the real hot item, Powdermilk."2
2 Yes. I'm done now.
3 Some are contending that Grajeda called a handball on Jacovic that was simultaneous with the Twellman dive. Twellman didn't think so. On the other hand, he tells us in the same interview that he also thinks he has a God-given right for the goalkeeper to get the fuck out of his way and let him score, and that failure to do so constitutes a penalty, so I'm not sure I want to bank anything on what Taylor Diving Fucking Twellman4 thinks.
4 Way more discommodated (as a Terp) than Tino Quaranta ever was or ever will be as a human.
5 UPDATE: I now think it was Pontius who got punked there, adding another slice of flat to what was really not a very good game for the lad. Who this guy doesn't like any more anyway.
Let's move on to the topic of the night, which this guy correctly, understatedly, and uncharacteristically (for him--he's obsessed with keeping his blog clean, although I hope he never kisses me with that mouth, even though he's a total sex god) referred to as "a punch in the balls."
As you will find from other sources, DCU lost at New England tonight, only its second loss of the season, and only 2-1, after a more-or-less acceptable first half and a not very good second half. As D pointed out in his first impressions, they shouldn't have been in a position to lose.
That said, center official Hilario Grajeda called a travesty of a game. The centerpiece of it was a fuckawful penalty in the 89th minute against Brian Namoff. Grajeda blew the whistle a full six seconds after Taylor Diving Fucking Twellman flopped backwards and pretended Namoff had pulled him down.3 D offers that he'll forgive Grajeda if it develops that the assistant referee thought it was a penalty.
I won't. The assistant referee had a better angle (for once--offsides calls coming from that A.R. were consistently off, too, in both directions), but a more distant view. It should've been obvious to him that Namoff didn't pull the diving fucker down. I also won't forgive Grajeda because, in the last minute of stoppage, he didn't call a penalty when Rodney Wallace was blatantly and obviously pulled down, by the jersey, in the box, as he was trying to play a pretty well-placed cross. The foul committed against Wallace was far more egregious--and booking-worthy--than the foul Namoff was alleged to have committed.
That was the worst of it, but Grajeda lost control of the game early and kept paying for it. Sainey Nyassi should've been booked three or four times, by my count; the inept fucking moron actually booked Josh Wicks for making a fucking save--again, because Taylor Diving Fucking Twellman fell down and rubbed his pussy; and he consistently overlooked bumping and shirt-tugging. Some of it cut both ways, but when it counted, Grajeda very clearly and decisively favored the home team (or maybe he was getting Taylor Diving Fucking Twellman's jersey after the match).
This is getting old. Sometimes MLS officials' ineptitude is just plain distracting, as it was in the USOC game at RFK against the Red Scum. That was a dreadfully officiated game, and fortunately the game was so decisive that the referee couldn't fuck it up. Mostly. Other times, entire games revolve around asinine decisions by people who shouldn't be in the middle of a pitch.
It's also a credible view that the team shouldn't have been in a position to go down on a 90th-minute penalty. But that doesn't matter. If you live on the edge, that's where you live, and if you keep getting yourself out of the deep cacky, you have a right not to be put back in it by utter fucking incompetence.
I've been hard on Tom Soehn. I've softened that view the last couple or three games, although I still think that his mentality--and thus the team's--is entirely too defensive. I think Soehn has some heat to take for tonight's effort. The Rev have some speedy motherfuckers on the wing, and playing a slow 3-5-2 against that is just bone fucking dumb (I'm not the first person to say this: has Tom Soehn ever played Football Manager?). On the other hand, the lineup was well-chosen (the subs weren't--McTavish was a dumbass sub from a coach who swears he wants to bring Jacobson into the offense more, and I'd have brought in Moreno before Mister Sulu, although it was appropriate not to start Jaime), and the team's effort in the first half didn't seem to reflect a bunker mentality. Wicks shouldn't, in my view, have to take much of a rap; he made a great and appropriate effort on the Shalrie Joseph goal, and Joseph just plain beat him, though Jacovic (I think it was him--whoever was defending the cross on the right side just got stomped on that play5) probably should.
After all of my rant, D still said it better and best: what a fucking punch in the balls.
1 While I'm on the topic, I am putting a jihad on him for not doing a full debrief on the RSL game, thus leaving to the book of unwritten history this best six-word game summary evar: "They're the real hot item, Powdermilk."2
2 Yes. I'm done now.
3 Some are contending that Grajeda called a handball on Jacovic that was simultaneous with the Twellman dive. Twellman didn't think so. On the other hand, he tells us in the same interview that he also thinks he has a God-given right for the goalkeeper to get the fuck out of his way and let him score, and that failure to do so constitutes a penalty, so I'm not sure I want to bank anything on what Taylor Diving Fucking Twellman4 thinks.
4 Way more discommodated (as a Terp) than Tino Quaranta ever was or ever will be as a human.
5 UPDATE: I now think it was Pontius who got punked there, adding another slice of flat to what was really not a very good game for the lad. Who this guy doesn't like any more anyway.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
What, You Thought I Forgot?
Friday, May 15, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
Dear Pittsburgh
Shut the fuck up a whole lot. Seriously, whatever happens tonight, or Wednesday night? Or doesn't? Just shut the fuck up. Your whole fucking Yinzer city, with your greasy soft coal, your shitty beer, your northern redneckitude, your bandwagoning and anti-bandwagoning and your whole western side of the state? Shut the fuck up. Seriously. A whole lot.
I mean, y'all have the most massive inferiority complex anyone in this universe has ever seen. And it's about Cleveland. That's just fucking sad.
Update: Assholes.
I mean, y'all have the most massive inferiority complex anyone in this universe has ever seen. And it's about Cleveland. That's just fucking sad.
Update: Assholes.
Saturday, May 09, 2009
In Which I Sound The Same Note
That note being that Tom Soehn cannot be gone from my futbol team's life soon enough for my taste. Did he give up two stupid goals? No. Did he actually put in an innovative lineup against Toronto tonight, one that generated some energy? Yes. Did he bunker, during the 5 minutes in which he could possibly have done so? No.
Then why, Landru, why? Why do you so hate this man? Why do you hold it against him, and not his predecessor, Saint Piotr of Polska, that he played for the fucking Fire? Why do you deride his coaching ability when his team, your team, isn't as bad as you feared, as bad as it probably should be, would be if not for the sucky rubitude of Rinky Dink League Soccer (h/t this guy, as ever)? Why do you bust out in uncontrollable laughter at the sight of his tough-guy picture during introductions? Why can you not restrain yourself from chanting "wanker" when his name is called?
Because he's the worst man manager ever, that's why. I'll give him credit for the starting lineup. I just did. See? It's right up there, top of the post. I wasn't even pissed off by the first sub, at least not too much--Fred needed to have a sit, and while Tino Quaranta will remain forever unforgiven, he's no longer discommodated and he doesn't quite suck. And his wife just had a baby, so he's all peppy and shit. Fine. I was apoplectic about his second sub. Lessee...restarting from a stunningly stupid goal that puts us down one, we remove the one guy who's been showing energy up front, the guy who's still running his ass off and showing some flair, and put in Jaime Moreno and his osteoporosis--who already went 70 minutes, about 30 over his weekly limit, on Wednesday night? And leave in Emilio, who's acquired this hobby of trying to dribble into three defenders on every touch? What the fucking fuck, dood? The only good thing I can say about it is that he didn't pull Rodney Wallace and put in Boy Z--my faith in Soehn is such that, while I'm pretty good at predicting his substitutions--even the braindead ones--I missed with that prediction around the 60th minute or so.
So, the Moreno thing actually turned out good--anyone else in the game in stoppage would've shanked the penalty that equalized--but not percentage baseball, not good situational management. And you will never in a million years convince me that Soehn was playing a hunch.
It was also dumb in light of the offense's particular affliction tonight, which was that it wanted to play with its food. Time and fucking time again, the attack put together beauty touches to get the ball in the 18, then kept trying to make more beauty touches rather than beautifully touching the ball in the direction of the fucking goal. Here's a clue, boys: the mouse is better in your tummy than it is scuttling off wounded into its hole in the wall. Cut it the fuck out and shoot.
What was I babbling about? Oh yeah, the one guy who wasn't playing with his food? Ange N'Silu, yanked by Tommy Soehn after Dejan Jacovic gave up The Dumbest Goal In History.
Look, there's nothing better than standing with this guy and this guy and this guy and watching United, except maybe substituting my wife for that last guy--she has considerably less back hair. But he's a perfectly palatable sub. No matter: I love my club. I love the game. I love many of the players. But Jesus H. Tittyfucking Christ on a Wobblyass Bamboo Crutch, I'm tired of the dumb.
Final weird and unrelated note: every time someone scored in this game, someone scored in the hockey game, which I was tracking on the Crackberry. Damnably odd. I'll forget about it by my end-season hockey rant, which by my calculations will be coming sometime very soon.
Then why, Landru, why? Why do you so hate this man? Why do you hold it against him, and not his predecessor, Saint Piotr of Polska, that he played for the fucking Fire? Why do you deride his coaching ability when his team, your team, isn't as bad as you feared, as bad as it probably should be, would be if not for the sucky rubitude of Rinky Dink League Soccer (h/t this guy, as ever)? Why do you bust out in uncontrollable laughter at the sight of his tough-guy picture during introductions? Why can you not restrain yourself from chanting "wanker" when his name is called?
Because he's the worst man manager ever, that's why. I'll give him credit for the starting lineup. I just did. See? It's right up there, top of the post. I wasn't even pissed off by the first sub, at least not too much--Fred needed to have a sit, and while Tino Quaranta will remain forever unforgiven, he's no longer discommodated and he doesn't quite suck. And his wife just had a baby, so he's all peppy and shit. Fine. I was apoplectic about his second sub. Lessee...restarting from a stunningly stupid goal that puts us down one, we remove the one guy who's been showing energy up front, the guy who's still running his ass off and showing some flair, and put in Jaime Moreno and his osteoporosis--who already went 70 minutes, about 30 over his weekly limit, on Wednesday night? And leave in Emilio, who's acquired this hobby of trying to dribble into three defenders on every touch? What the fucking fuck, dood? The only good thing I can say about it is that he didn't pull Rodney Wallace and put in Boy Z--my faith in Soehn is such that, while I'm pretty good at predicting his substitutions--even the braindead ones--I missed with that prediction around the 60th minute or so.
So, the Moreno thing actually turned out good--anyone else in the game in stoppage would've shanked the penalty that equalized--but not percentage baseball, not good situational management. And you will never in a million years convince me that Soehn was playing a hunch.
It was also dumb in light of the offense's particular affliction tonight, which was that it wanted to play with its food. Time and fucking time again, the attack put together beauty touches to get the ball in the 18, then kept trying to make more beauty touches rather than beautifully touching the ball in the direction of the fucking goal. Here's a clue, boys: the mouse is better in your tummy than it is scuttling off wounded into its hole in the wall. Cut it the fuck out and shoot.
What was I babbling about? Oh yeah, the one guy who wasn't playing with his food? Ange N'Silu, yanked by Tommy Soehn after Dejan Jacovic gave up The Dumbest Goal In History.
Look, there's nothing better than standing with this guy and this guy and this guy and watching United, except maybe substituting my wife for that last guy--she has considerably less back hair. But he's a perfectly palatable sub. No matter: I love my club. I love the game. I love many of the players. But Jesus H. Tittyfucking Christ on a Wobblyass Bamboo Crutch, I'm tired of the dumb.
Final weird and unrelated note: every time someone scored in this game, someone scored in the hockey game, which I was tracking on the Crackberry. Damnably odd. I'll forget about it by my end-season hockey rant, which by my calculations will be coming sometime very soon.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Perversity in Sports
Heh. You thought you were gonna get pictures of WAGs.
Last night I went to RFK to see United begin its defense of the US Open Cup. I didn't stay home and watch the Caps lose to the Rangers to go down 3-1 in their playoff series. Did I make the right choice? I can't decide.
I went in expecting the Cup defense to be about 92 minutes in length, and I was pleasantly surprised when a fundamentally reserve lineup beat Dallas' fundamentally reserve lineup. That said, Dallas really, really sucked. They brought in star dickweed Kenny Cooper late in the game, and he rewarded them by banging his penalty kick off the post (and then illegally putting the ball in the net before another player touched it--a subtlety which escaped a lot of people, including, it appears, DCU's goalkeeper). They were essentially hapless. That really limits the amount of good news I'm willing to take away from a game in which Fred walked the ball into the net (and nearly didn't), and this guy (intellectual property credit to this guy):
donkeyed it in from 22 yards off of a for-once-our-way bounce. The beautiful thing about the goal is that it came well after the 52-minute mark, which was about when Soehn started to thank the 2,000 of us who showed up (each of us counting for about 2.5 bodies in the announced count) by heading for the bunker. Take that, Soehn, you bitch. You better hope every team's as bad as the Burn.
Last night I went to RFK to see United begin its defense of the US Open Cup. I didn't stay home and watch the Caps lose to the Rangers to go down 3-1 in their playoff series. Did I make the right choice? I can't decide.
I went in expecting the Cup defense to be about 92 minutes in length, and I was pleasantly surprised when a fundamentally reserve lineup beat Dallas' fundamentally reserve lineup. That said, Dallas really, really sucked. They brought in star dickweed Kenny Cooper late in the game, and he rewarded them by banging his penalty kick off the post (and then illegally putting the ball in the net before another player touched it--a subtlety which escaped a lot of people, including, it appears, DCU's goalkeeper). They were essentially hapless. That really limits the amount of good news I'm willing to take away from a game in which Fred walked the ball into the net (and nearly didn't), and this guy (intellectual property credit to this guy):
donkeyed it in from 22 yards off of a for-once-our-way bounce. The beautiful thing about the goal is that it came well after the 52-minute mark, which was about when Soehn started to thank the 2,000 of us who showed up (each of us counting for about 2.5 bodies in the announced count) by heading for the bunker. Take that, Soehn, you bitch. You better hope every team's as bad as the Burn. Really, I can't complain about the game. I'm not sure I watched the same game WaPo guy Goff did; his ratings sort of suck. He was overimpressed by Barklage, and by Greg Janicki, whose handball let to the failed PK. I said the handball was incidental and the PK was a judgment call; the aforementioned bDr played the "what if it happened to us?" card, for which he can bite my shorts, although I admit that I don't know what a ref could do other than award a PK or wave the thing off, since they're not really supposed to find a way to even these things up. The wanktard Mr. Soehn seems to think I'm wrong, too (he blamed Janicki's inexperience, which suggests a perception of willfullness), so I'll have to go find footage and flagellate myself with it until I agree with the rest of the universe on this one.
Anyway, Goff was also overimpressed by Quaranta, who starts off any game with a minus three rating in my book, and way underimpressed by BoyZZZ (who ran his ass off but made two bad, but inconsequential, flow-of-play decisions) and Jacovic (who did a fine job of making it look like the team wasn't bunkering, by moving forward from his right-side slot).
Also in Goffinho's quotes: Soehn hedges his bets on Milos Kocic, dismisses Santino Quaranta's hamstrings (I think Tino is a lot of bad things, but I don't think he's shirking), shuns the novel notion that attacking is good ("For [Moreno], it's always good to bring him in, hold the ball and kill off a game."--I thank you for the readiness with which that phrase springs to your lips, Tom, and I'm sure your team's captain thanks you for going to him first when you need to do nothing productive in the course of a game), and backhands both Janicki (aforementioned) and Reg Barclay. Soehn also dissed Louis Crayton in his commentary on Kocic, praising Kocic for doing the same shit Crayton does, only dumber. I guess it all rests on how Tommy's feeling about his fiber intake from day to day. As bDr said a few weeks ago, I'd sure hate to play for this guy.
I can't articulate this very well right now, but I'm getting a little sick of Goff, too. I'll have to think on that one a bit before I take it on. He's a fine writer, but he's starting to radiate more of a smug quality that's putting me off. I'll be back to you on this. Just as soon as I figure out how to blame it on Soehn.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Tom Soehn, Ralph Friedgen, What's the Difference?
Heads. Stakes. Public places.
Say what you will about Jair Maruffo, reputedly one of the best officials in the league, hating DC United (he does), or being unable to tell time (he can't), or having some deep, abiding love of Shalrie Joseph's cock that prevents him from sending off Joseph for the most egregious of fouls (I'd submit that a Maruffo threesome with that fuckface Joseph and punkass bitchJohn Thorrington Wells Thompson is not out of the range of plausibility). That didn't cost United a chance at three points tonight. No sirree. Seriously for reals.
What more compelling evidence do we need that Tom Soehn needs to be run out of town on a rail? The fucker* started bunkering at halftime of a 0-0 draw, subbing out Clyde Simms (who was, it appears, hurt, so no foul--and in any event, replacement Andrew Jacobsen played pretty well) and the apparently uninjured Marc Burch at halftime of a game in which Christian Gomez, Jaime Moreno, and Ben Olsen (combined actual age: 99; combined Futbol age: approaching 600) were still playing.
Two defensive halftime subs, one unnecessary, in a 0-0 draw. Defensive subs. On a night when Chris Pontius, on the right, could do nothing but lay back and shoot at the sky (money quote from this guy: "I don't like Pontius anymore."), and when Emilio, up front, could do little but yell at teammates, and the entire motive power of the attack to that point was provided by a 600-year-old hydra.
Go on, poofy technicality person, argue with me that inserting Quaranta and dropping back Wallace is an attacking move. Bullshit. Dropping Rodney Wallace back to replace Burch--who sucked no worse than usual--is in no way anything but bunkering the fuck up.
Chickens started returning to roosts a little while in to the second, when Gomez, frustrated by two consecutive Pontius skyballs, suddenly turned up lame. Looked suspiciously like a high vagina sprain to me. Soehn inserted Fred, and moved the still unforgiven** Quaranta to the middle. Minutes later, Moreno turns up lame (he appeared to take a knock, unlike Gomez, who had most recently, before his exit, been seen screaming at Pontius). Gesticulating wildly at the sideline with the "sub me" motion, Moreno showed that he was so unaware of his surroundings that he didn't realize that he was on the field with three guys who weren't there when he started. Niiiice.
There's a talent shortfall on this team, and I'm beginning to doubt the heart of an awful lot of players not named Benny. And I'm damn sure doubting the testes of any coaches named Tom. Even if I'm not thrilled with the effort of...oh, crap--a whole lot of United players from South America--the heart that's there deserves better management than a guy who thinks bunkering is acceptable any time before the 75th minute. And really: how many different ways can Soehn find to retreat?***
I'm done. Head. Stake. West Front of the Capitol. Now.
*Substitute palliative phrasing in case this guy honors me with an attendance certificate for showing up here so soon after a game: "simpering sissy bitch."
**But no longer discommodated. This can, of course, turn on a dime.
***With apologies to, again, this guy, the word I'm looking for is "pussy."
Say what you will about Jair Maruffo, reputedly one of the best officials in the league, hating DC United (he does), or being unable to tell time (he can't), or having some deep, abiding love of Shalrie Joseph's cock that prevents him from sending off Joseph for the most egregious of fouls (I'd submit that a Maruffo threesome with that fuckface Joseph and punkass bitch
What more compelling evidence do we need that Tom Soehn needs to be run out of town on a rail? The fucker* started bunkering at halftime of a 0-0 draw, subbing out Clyde Simms (who was, it appears, hurt, so no foul--and in any event, replacement Andrew Jacobsen played pretty well) and the apparently uninjured Marc Burch at halftime of a game in which Christian Gomez, Jaime Moreno, and Ben Olsen (combined actual age: 99; combined Futbol age: approaching 600) were still playing.
Two defensive halftime subs, one unnecessary, in a 0-0 draw. Defensive subs. On a night when Chris Pontius, on the right, could do nothing but lay back and shoot at the sky (money quote from this guy: "I don't like Pontius anymore."), and when Emilio, up front, could do little but yell at teammates, and the entire motive power of the attack to that point was provided by a 600-year-old hydra.
Go on, poofy technicality person, argue with me that inserting Quaranta and dropping back Wallace is an attacking move. Bullshit. Dropping Rodney Wallace back to replace Burch--who sucked no worse than usual--is in no way anything but bunkering the fuck up.
Chickens started returning to roosts a little while in to the second, when Gomez, frustrated by two consecutive Pontius skyballs, suddenly turned up lame. Looked suspiciously like a high vagina sprain to me. Soehn inserted Fred, and moved the still unforgiven** Quaranta to the middle. Minutes later, Moreno turns up lame (he appeared to take a knock, unlike Gomez, who had most recently, before his exit, been seen screaming at Pontius). Gesticulating wildly at the sideline with the "sub me" motion, Moreno showed that he was so unaware of his surroundings that he didn't realize that he was on the field with three guys who weren't there when he started. Niiiice.
There's a talent shortfall on this team, and I'm beginning to doubt the heart of an awful lot of players not named Benny. And I'm damn sure doubting the testes of any coaches named Tom. Even if I'm not thrilled with the effort of...oh, crap--a whole lot of United players from South America--the heart that's there deserves better management than a guy who thinks bunkering is acceptable any time before the 75th minute. And really: how many different ways can Soehn find to retreat?***
I'm done. Head. Stake. West Front of the Capitol. Now.
*Substitute palliative phrasing in case this guy honors me with an attendance certificate for showing up here so soon after a game: "simpering sissy bitch."
**But no longer discommodated. This can, of course, turn on a dime.
***With apologies to, again, this guy, the word I'm looking for is "pussy."
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
World Autism Awareness Day 2009
Woot. It's time to celebrate, again. Oh, wait a minute...We first visited WAAD last year, and what a post that was. What's changed? Not a lot, except that Bam-Bam's food choices are a little narrower these days than they were a year ago.
Idiots still abound. The science blogs to your right have done their usual fine job of covering the idiocy. CNN continues to let Larry King invite Queen Idiot Jenny McCarthy onto his show to allow her to spread misinformation that furthers her goal of killing people. Minions commemorates Jenny's this with a new sidebar link to the Jenny McCarthy Body Count, which tracks the number of U.S. deaths from vaccine-preventable illnesses. Way to go, Jenny. Every single one of them is on your head. Time chose today to help CNN out with its Jennyrobics, in an appalling interview in which Jenny tells us that children with disabilities are called "shadows" and that she'd cheerfully sign her kid up for the measles, a potentially fatal disease. All of this is in aid of her latest premeditated and willful attempt to kill people with preventable diseases.
By the way, Jenny hates "toxins" in vaccines but is an avid supporter of Botox.
Meh. Enough of that. I'll look forward to CNN's and Time's coverage of holocaust denial, Flat Earthism, and the Easter Bunny (hippitus hoppitus!)
Bam-Bam remains who he is. There's been no breakthrough in his development since the last time we discussed this, and maybe there will be one someday, or maybe there won't. We do what we can. He does what he can, giggling most of the way. This morning, Bam-Bam and I will get up, and he'll snuggle into my lap for 5 minutes (possibly grabbing my hands and placing them on his butt, indicate that he wants me to drum lightly there for a few beats, or maybe we're past that now), and eat his Wild Berry Poptarts and his Krispix, and ask me for a video (it will be a Sesame Workshop production, his current video obsession) before he gets on the bus to go to school, and turn around and throw his head back so he can look at me upside down, and bounce on his trampoline after he throws me out of his playroom so that he can have some time to be Bam-Bam before the world starts making demands of him.
I'm okay with all of that, because there's no other rational choice.
Give a thought to Bam-Bam and the rest of the spectrum, and vaccinate your fucking kids. That is all.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Things to Blog About
There's definitely shit to blog about. It's soccer season, and we finally just went ahead and went in on season tickets with this guy, since he started making scary noises about dropping his two perpetually unused tickets that have allowed me to sit behind Barra for years, mostly for free. I'm still fascinated with hockey--more in a minute. The saddest thing ever happened last night, and thanks to Kristie Tolliver, Master Assassin, and her running buddy Marissa Coleman for a great four years--it's a dreadful shame for it to end on one off night against a red-hot, well-coached team with a good game plan, but it is what it is. I have a thought-wank percolating in me about culture, which isn't a post yet because it pretty much boils down to some stunning obviousness, even though I'm pretty sure there's something profound-sounding in it somewhere.
But I'm tired and busy and work bites a dick, so I'm keeping it to a quick hockey post. Steinbog tells us about some Pennsylbama metal band and its "Crosby Sucks" anthem, and interviews the band. That's all just mildly entertaining. They want Crosby to "fall in a volcano." So do I. Commonality of interest is great. They hit their interviewing stride, though, when Steinberg asks them about their next Caps song:
Stay tuned. The thought-wank on comparative culture is coming. And when it's done and the mess is cleaned up, I'll turn it into something postable.
But I'm tired and busy and work bites a dick, so I'm keeping it to a quick hockey post. Steinbog tells us about some Pennsylbama metal band and its "Crosby Sucks" anthem, and interviews the band. That's all just mildly entertaining. They want Crosby to "fall in a volcano." So do I. Commonality of interest is great. They hit their interviewing stride, though, when Steinberg asks them about their next Caps song:
Change "Schultz" to "Jurcina" (though I respect my fellow Caps fans who would just as soon keep as Schultz, or change it to Erskine), and that's a pretty good cover of the very few things about the Caps that make me insane.Sports Bog: So what's the next Caps-related anthem?
LJ: These things just happen. It could be a "how to" guide on playing defense, sung directly to Jeff Schultz. Or maybe a verbal roadmap on getting out of skating circles
for Michael Nylander. We'll have to see...
P-rap: Probably a song about Brooks Laich beating down Walker, President of Texas.
OBM: A cover of the National Anthem, except we'll be screaming OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!' after every line.
Stay tuned. The thought-wank on comparative culture is coming. And when it's done and the mess is cleaned up, I'll turn it into something postable.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Happy Birthday, Planet
Dear Planet,
Isn't it amazing how much an aging Fred Schneider looks like your Uncle Weird?
No, honey, I mean your other Uncle Weird.
Love,
Landru
Isn't it amazing how much an aging Fred Schneider looks like your Uncle Weird?
No, honey, I mean your other Uncle Weird.
Love,
Landru
This Year? I'm This Guy.
Secrets of March Madness revealed:
Although, as Mr. Johnson says, "NO ONE follows college basketball..."
Although, as Mr. Johnson says, "NO ONE follows college basketball..."
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Sidney Crosby Is A Pussy
It's a gorgeous weekend here in My Local Locality, and tonight will be our third consecutive evening of tossing some meat on the grill for dinner, and we're very happy about all that. But despite Whispers' barely veiled ode to spring homosex and the imminence of footy, there's winter business still, and the Caps play the Pens today at 3 PM Eastern, if you can figure out when that is, what with the vicissitudes of the clock this weekend.
Which should return to our minds the preeminent fact about hockey: that Sidney Crosby is a pussy. This is not a personal failing I'm all that harsh on, in real life.* A whole lot of people can go through life as pussies, and barely, if ever, draw my ire.** They are not hockey players. Sidney Crosby, Giant Public Pussy, is a hockey player, and hockey players aren't supposed to be pussies. I myself? Am capable of the occasional high vagina sprain. I myself? Do not get paid millions of dollars to chase other people around ice at high speed, with sticks.
Sidney wants your respect. I left a few ounces of respect for you in my turlet a few minutes ago, Sid. Pussy. Go Caps.
*Yes, I'm lying.
** This is very nearly true.
Which should return to our minds the preeminent fact about hockey: that Sidney Crosby is a pussy. This is not a personal failing I'm all that harsh on, in real life.* A whole lot of people can go through life as pussies, and barely, if ever, draw my ire.** They are not hockey players. Sidney Crosby, Giant Public Pussy, is a hockey player, and hockey players aren't supposed to be pussies. I myself? Am capable of the occasional high vagina sprain. I myself? Do not get paid millions of dollars to chase other people around ice at high speed, with sticks.
Sidney wants your respect. I left a few ounces of respect for you in my turlet a few minutes ago, Sid. Pussy. Go Caps.
*Yes, I'm lying.
** This is very nearly true.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Other Things
But first, some words on the previous post, which was as inside as baseball gets. Only two of you got it, and only two of you have a hope of getting it, and I didn't get it until I casually and without rancor waterboarded the post's focus. Tough.
Further, I must, in the interest of responsibility, update the previous post without destroying its tone and flow, which was in fact an homage (which more than two of you should have gotten, and which you should work on if you didn't). The update is this: the author in question isn't Japanese, he's thoroughgoingly English and has a Japanese name by virtue of having emigrated from Japan to England at a young age. All this lies squarely in the realm of fact, none of which should denigrate the beauty of my previous post. Disagree? Don't like? Don't care? Tough.
The Washington Capitals today traded....uhm...no one. Some fans are outraged, others not so much. I'm the latter. I understand that the Cup may not happen this year, and that I need to put myself in the position of begging, as I once did for a local basketball team, for an uberchampionship once in my life, and be done with my bad self, understanding that that once may not be this year (as it was not, when I did it for that gloriously, but now drunkenly and pedophiliacally coached, major college team). The Caps had nothing to give that wouldn't have kept them from an outside shot at a serious run this year AND a number of serious runs in the future.
More later--I'm interested in this thing our President did today, one that has the potential to directly affect my life.
Further, I must, in the interest of responsibility, update the previous post without destroying its tone and flow, which was in fact an homage (which more than two of you should have gotten, and which you should work on if you didn't). The update is this: the author in question isn't Japanese, he's thoroughgoingly English and has a Japanese name by virtue of having emigrated from Japan to England at a young age. All this lies squarely in the realm of fact, none of which should denigrate the beauty of my previous post. Disagree? Don't like? Don't care? Tough.
The Washington Capitals today traded....uhm...no one. Some fans are outraged, others not so much. I'm the latter. I understand that the Cup may not happen this year, and that I need to put myself in the position of begging, as I once did for a local basketball team, for an uberchampionship once in my life, and be done with my bad self, understanding that that once may not be this year (as it was not, when I did it for that gloriously, but now drunkenly and pedophiliacally coached, major college team). The Caps had nothing to give that wouldn't have kept them from an outside shot at a serious run this year AND a number of serious runs in the future.
More later--I'm interested in this thing our President did today, one that has the potential to directly affect my life.
My Friend
Winter makes many of us fat and sleepy. It's why Euros play futbol now, rather than in summer, when some of us get fat and sleepy and sweat more of it off than we do in winter, while others, like my friend, go traipsing. Winter is not for them like my friend, who tizzes when he can't traipse, bending his (perfectly pleasingly) lysergically cubisticized and educationally wallpapered head around the unbendable, chewing and effervescing and bloopblooping until the interior of his thought becomes Asimovian space where impenetrable Japanese English-language novels become comprehensible and terrifying. Or even, the process seen from a more droogy (and, plausibly, far more dissociated) perspective like mine, laughably meaningful. Breathe unconditionally, bitchez.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Briefly
WE got new underpants for Bam-Bam. The previous ones were too small. Ilse didn't understand that briefs could be too small. She thought we menfolk like our boys snug. While this probably explains a great many things about Ilse, I'm not sure exactly what they are.
IF you are sporting a bumper sticker advertising a political concept, philosophy, or sporting team with which I sympathize, please do not drive like a dick.
Say Hi to Sid
THE Washington Capitals fucking rock, and the word "douche" is too nice, and far too tasteful, for Sidney Crosby.Note the Sid-friendly spin on the title of the video. Lessee...play is stopped, and Sid hooks Ovie, shoves him over the boards, whining the whole time, and then has a high vagina sprain when Ovie pays him back. Niiiiiice. That's definitely Ovie roughing Sid up.
I've discoursed before on my abject, most unpretty hatred of every Eastern Conference NHL team that isn't the Caps, and on my grievous distaste for much of the Western Conference as well. When it comes to hockey, I am, in fact, a black hole of hatin'. I can hate other hockey teams with the best of them. I got the PhD in Hatin'. There is no hell fiery enough to punish me for the degree and volume of my hockey hate. This may sound a little Brer Rabbity to some of my closer friends, but really, I am a bad, bad person when it comes to hockey fandom/hatedom, and in an eternal, philosophical sense, I almost certainly deserve some form of retribution for this stain on my karma.
Even so, Sid Crosby is such a hateful, whinging, bleeding pussy that it detracts from my enjoyment of how much I hate the Rangers, Flyers, Devils, Bruins, Islanders, and Canadiens. I mean, seriously, the Pens are fucking-A despicable, and it's a long, hard hate, born of far more spite than is healthy to have experienced in one short lifetime, a hatin' awesome enough to match my 40-year hate on the fucking Habs, which dates back to Ken Motherfucking Dryden (yeah, yeah, you kids get off my lawn).
So fuck you, Sid Crosby, you fucking viral cockblight, for fucking up my joy in hatin', for monopolizing my black soul's dark places so thoroughly (at least until tomorrow night, when the Caps take on the Flyers) that I couldn't even properly hate on Sergei Gonchar and Brooks Orpik and NBC's coverage of yesterday's game total monster ass-whupping. While you, Sid Crosby, are in fact a douche, your douchedom is of a character far too grotesque, too pestilential, too infected, too seedy, too odiferous, to be articulated in this hallowed space. Just fuck you, Sid, and with the dick of someone I don't like.
All this is a little funny, because Thursday, I'm taking this guy and Planet, the Best Kid Ever, to a Caps game (her first, I believe; I'm not sure about him) against the Thrashers, who aren't really worth the energy to hate. I hope they're not disappointed.
Okay, that wasn't brief. I got rolling. Totally my bad.
FINALLY, I can't find an online cite to the story, but I heard on my local all-news, all Badenful all morning, all scary all panicky traffic guy all afternoon, radio station that the president of my local locality's county council is a douche. Now, this is a douchedom less spectacularly pustulent than the aforementioned pestilential douchedom of Cindy Crysby. But it's still pretty doucheriffic, because this guy loves trees almost as much as he hates teachers. The man belongs on the Left Coast, which hasn't stopped him from getting elected and hanging in long enough to take his turn as head of the council (it rotates, I think annually). But now, the aforementioned radio station tells me (without backing it up on the station's Web site) that Council President Duckfucker is tearing into the county Board of Education for its $13-million (chump change) contract to buy Promethean Boards, claiming it violated state law for the Board to scatter a few pennies to install these things in every classroom in the county without first sucking Council President Duckfucker's tiny shrivelled classic liberal pussy dick.
Ilse, Goth (blog deceased), and this wise and wonderful uberwoman, will tell you that Promethean Boards are a life-altering event for teachers. I've seen them in action, and as a total layperson, I agree totally. That Council President Duckfucker wants to interpose his tree-loving self into the educational spending process in this, a top-ten U.S. school system, is just diamond shitting of the worst sort. That this jerk has actually caused me to abstain from voting in a council election makes it even worse. Suck it, Phil Andrews.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Big Autism Newsy Day
Three big stories coming from the world of autism today. The biggest is that the Special Masters in the U.S. federal Autism Omnibus proceeding denied compensation for vaccine-related injury to three petitioners who asserted that the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine caused their childrens' autism. These three cases were test cases for around 5,000 other cases under the vaccine injury program. They involved only claims about the MMR vaccine; claims regarding the use of thimerosol in vaccines, and on vaccines in general, have yet to be decided. Today's decisions certainly don't bode well for the petitioners in those cases.
Key elements of today's decisions:
1) This wasn't close. The decisions blasted the quality of the petitioners' evidence. The most excellent and sublime Kathleen Seidel has more on this at Neurodiversity.
2) These cases were subject to a pretty light burden of proof, one that has been characterized as "50 percent plus a feather." The petitioners didn't meet that burden. Thus, these cases didn't come close to meeting a greatly diminished standard than many legal decisions.
Advocates of the purported--and now thoroughly, fatally debunked--link between vaccines and autism are having difficulty dealing with this. Many of them are still silent (the decisions are, at this writing, less than 12 hours old), and many are falling back on conspiracy theories, faulty logic, and straw men. Just STFU, and let's get on with treatment research, increased funding for behavioral interventions, and public education into how best to help those on the autism spectrum fit into the alien planet they find themselves on (and how best to help us aliens fit with them).
This last is tricky. Another story--this is actually a few days old, but I heard it today, so it's news to me--comes from Ohio, where an 18-year-old severely autistic man is in jail and under indictment and alleged to have killed his mother (h/t Kristina Chew). This is a seriously fucking sad story. This kid is likely rotting in jail wondering where Mommy is. The likelihood that he meant her harm is almost nil; it's inconceiveable that he could've had the capacity to mean her harm. And judging from some of the comments on the story linked above, there is a serious shitload of assholes in Ohio.
While sad, the story is indicative of nothing, typical of nothing, and will cause Ilse's ex, the incomparably stupid Oafus, to continue pustulating that Bam-Bam--who is by no means severely dysfunctional--needs to be fucking institutionalized. Fuckface.
Finally--and this is today's news--comes a tale of woe involving ourside hero Keith Olbermann, who really stuck his dick in a cheese grater. Olbermann first invoked the name of Andrew Wakefield, a British physician and noted liar and falsifier of research data who singlehandedly caused the MMR scare that now has unvaccinated children and adolescents dying of measles, as a Worst Person in the World. Wakefield was largely brought down by the journalism of Brian Deer, a...well, journalist. After Olbermann was besieged by antivaccination fucktards such as David Kirby, he decided that Deer himself was a WPITW, alleging that Deer initiated complaints of malfeasance against Wakefield, then profited by writing about them. It appears that Olbermann was also incensed by Deer's crime of working for a Murdoch-owned paper.
One problem: Kirby (who bragged about this on idiocy snotrag HuffPo) and his ilk are lying fucks. Deer wasn't the complainant in the case that brought Wakefield down (I've linked to Orac's coverage of this story as it unfolded, but there are other places you can get the story, lest you be one of my few readers who eschews Orac).
So Olbermann's a stupid fuck, and one who's so paranoid about Murdoch that he'll say anything to slam Old Dead Zombie Ruppert. Yeah, I know, I have trouble getting too excited about that part, too. The point, though, is that while Olbermann appears to have been duped, the con man was David Kirby, who continues to think that research docs are thieves and murderers, while chelators and diet practitioners are holy, who continues to move goalposts and plant untruths, and who continues to champion the very odd notion that the plural of "anecdote" is "data." Fuck you, David Kirby.
Key elements of today's decisions:
1) This wasn't close. The decisions blasted the quality of the petitioners' evidence. The most excellent and sublime Kathleen Seidel has more on this at Neurodiversity.
2) These cases were subject to a pretty light burden of proof, one that has been characterized as "50 percent plus a feather." The petitioners didn't meet that burden. Thus, these cases didn't come close to meeting a greatly diminished standard than many legal decisions.
Advocates of the purported--and now thoroughly, fatally debunked--link between vaccines and autism are having difficulty dealing with this. Many of them are still silent (the decisions are, at this writing, less than 12 hours old), and many are falling back on conspiracy theories, faulty logic, and straw men. Just STFU, and let's get on with treatment research, increased funding for behavioral interventions, and public education into how best to help those on the autism spectrum fit into the alien planet they find themselves on (and how best to help us aliens fit with them).
This last is tricky. Another story--this is actually a few days old, but I heard it today, so it's news to me--comes from Ohio, where an 18-year-old severely autistic man is in jail and under indictment and alleged to have killed his mother (h/t Kristina Chew). This is a seriously fucking sad story. This kid is likely rotting in jail wondering where Mommy is. The likelihood that he meant her harm is almost nil; it's inconceiveable that he could've had the capacity to mean her harm. And judging from some of the comments on the story linked above, there is a serious shitload of assholes in Ohio.
While sad, the story is indicative of nothing, typical of nothing, and will cause Ilse's ex, the incomparably stupid Oafus, to continue pustulating that Bam-Bam--who is by no means severely dysfunctional--needs to be fucking institutionalized. Fuckface.
Finally--and this is today's news--comes a tale of woe involving ourside hero Keith Olbermann, who really stuck his dick in a cheese grater. Olbermann first invoked the name of Andrew Wakefield, a British physician and noted liar and falsifier of research data who singlehandedly caused the MMR scare that now has unvaccinated children and adolescents dying of measles, as a Worst Person in the World. Wakefield was largely brought down by the journalism of Brian Deer, a...well, journalist. After Olbermann was besieged by antivaccination fucktards such as David Kirby, he decided that Deer himself was a WPITW, alleging that Deer initiated complaints of malfeasance against Wakefield, then profited by writing about them. It appears that Olbermann was also incensed by Deer's crime of working for a Murdoch-owned paper.
One problem: Kirby (who bragged about this on idiocy snotrag HuffPo) and his ilk are lying fucks. Deer wasn't the complainant in the case that brought Wakefield down (I've linked to Orac's coverage of this story as it unfolded, but there are other places you can get the story, lest you be one of my few readers who eschews Orac).
So Olbermann's a stupid fuck, and one who's so paranoid about Murdoch that he'll say anything to slam Old Dead Zombie Ruppert. Yeah, I know, I have trouble getting too excited about that part, too. The point, though, is that while Olbermann appears to have been duped, the con man was David Kirby, who continues to think that research docs are thieves and murderers, while chelators and diet practitioners are holy, who continues to move goalposts and plant untruths, and who continues to champion the very odd notion that the plural of "anecdote" is "data." Fuck you, David Kirby.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Disaster Narrowly Averted
I hadn't commented on this yet because of the possibility that he would actually be confirmed--in which case I never would've commented, for reasons obvious to those of you who know who I am, and suspectable to those who don't know exactly--but Ba'al is great for preventing the ascension of Tom Daschle to Sec'y of HHS. The chance that Daschle would've brought about meaningful change in health care was nil.*
I think it went down like this: The Obama people are generally nice, and don't want to piss anyone off without a reason, despite their penchant for picking jaded Clintonista hacks for key posts*** and their affinity for picking asshat right-wingers for political leverage that isn't going to develop. They assume, in good faith****, that people like Daschle have the good sense to understand when they've become liabilities.
Sadly, no.
So when it became apparent to the Obama folk that the Senate was about to confirm its old butt buddy and leave our President holding his very first gratuitous and unnecessary flaming bag of dog shit, they stepped in and gently adjusted the dirty whore's attitude just a tad.
This and this***** (the word you're looking for is "pussy"******) do nothing to dampen my ardor for this theory.
Buh-bye, Senator Daschle, you painted fucking tart.
Oh, and let's just go ahead and launch a preemptive strike against the inevitable observation on my civility and objectivity from the most staunch of defenders of the clean-living, hard-working-and-honestly-dirty-handed Midwestern civility and middlingness ethic, which observation I can clearly see getting ready to pop up over the closest ridgeline to spray me with conveniently contrarian centrist attention-whore seed from its unswervingly fair-minded Firehose of Moderation: Fuck you, Purple.
* A waggle of the Satanic weenie to Whispers for a headsup on the first Greenwald post, and my gratitude to him as well for calmly and seriously considering the matter after I bludgeoned him to death with my righteous outrage about it on Saturday, peeing most ungraciously over his initial observations on a well-considered, if suboptimally timed**, comparison between media treatment of Daschle and Geithner and media treatment of Presidents who lie and start wars of aggression and suspend habeas corpus and authorize torture.
**You did say, "Run with it," dood.
***To wit.
****I concede the flaw in my theory, but while it's hard to believe that Rahm the Destroyer is capable of assuming good faith, I think he's got orders.
*****A friendly flap of the Satanic flippers to Sasha, who provided the video and Ezra links.
******"The word you're looking for is 'pussy'" meme is more likely than not the intellectual property of this guy.
I think it went down like this: The Obama people are generally nice, and don't want to piss anyone off without a reason, despite their penchant for picking jaded Clintonista hacks for key posts*** and their affinity for picking asshat right-wingers for political leverage that isn't going to develop. They assume, in good faith****, that people like Daschle have the good sense to understand when they've become liabilities.
Sadly, no.
So when it became apparent to the Obama folk that the Senate was about to confirm its old butt buddy and leave our President holding his very first gratuitous and unnecessary flaming bag of dog shit, they stepped in and gently adjusted the dirty whore's attitude just a tad.
This and this***** (the word you're looking for is "pussy"******) do nothing to dampen my ardor for this theory.
Buh-bye, Senator Daschle, you painted fucking tart.
Oh, and let's just go ahead and launch a preemptive strike against the inevitable observation on my civility and objectivity from the most staunch of defenders of the clean-living, hard-working-and-honestly-dirty-handed Midwestern civility and middlingness ethic, which observation I can clearly see getting ready to pop up over the closest ridgeline to spray me with conveniently contrarian centrist attention-whore seed from its unswervingly fair-minded Firehose of Moderation: Fuck you, Purple.
* A waggle of the Satanic weenie to Whispers for a headsup on the first Greenwald post, and my gratitude to him as well for calmly and seriously considering the matter after I bludgeoned him to death with my righteous outrage about it on Saturday, peeing most ungraciously over his initial observations on a well-considered, if suboptimally timed**, comparison between media treatment of Daschle and Geithner and media treatment of Presidents who lie and start wars of aggression and suspend habeas corpus and authorize torture.
**You did say, "Run with it," dood.
***To wit.
****I concede the flaw in my theory, but while it's hard to believe that Rahm the Destroyer is capable of assuming good faith, I think he's got orders.
*****A friendly flap of the Satanic flippers to Sasha, who provided the video and Ezra links.
******"The word you're looking for is 'pussy'" meme is more likely than not the intellectual property of this guy.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Dear NFL
Uhm...you could at least pretend to review that incomplete pass by Warner to determine that the officials completely fucked it up and it was not, in fact, anything that even remotely resembled a fumble?
None of which excuses the Cardinals' reversion to the defense that couldn't possibly have gotten them into the Super Bowl. But still, dood. I mean, you could just maybe sort of act like you didn't feel some compulsion to hand the game to those Yinzer fucks?
Holy crap.
None of which excuses the Cardinals' reversion to the defense that couldn't possibly have gotten them into the Super Bowl. But still, dood. I mean, you could just maybe sort of act like you didn't feel some compulsion to hand the game to those Yinzer fucks?
Holy crap.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Fear the Turtle for All the Wrong Reasons
I got no time to respond to bait, but events conspired independently to ensure that, eventually, I had to post on the Maryland Terrapins gruesome attempt at a mens' basketball team this season.
It's like this: I lost interest in Terps basketball about 4 years ago, when this jackass was running the point. Subsequent events have vindicated my disdain for the guy; he's been cut by teams in Israel, France, Latvia, and the NBA's developmental league (Idaho Stampede!). His arrogance infected subsequent Terp teams with a plague of selfish, boneheaded dipshittery of the sort that should not be tolerated by fans of any respectable ACC team.
In the years since the chesty little twit (with whose name I won't even infect my blog) left town a year early to go undrafted by the NBA, Maryland has failed to make the NCAA tournament (a minimum requirement for fans of any respectable ACC team) more than it's succeeded. And Maryland has sucked in the Not Inthe Tournament when it's gotten in, too, losing to teams like Manhattan College (in its own house). Badly. See here, for instance.
The disease has spread to the coach. Look, Gary Williams has given me many happy moments, including the one fucking national title I asked for in my time on this Earth. I'm never going to support firing his drunk, barely-legal-cheerleader-loving ass. On the other hand, Our Blessed Juan Dixon's* success in life has endowed Gary with the sense that he can take any kid off of any playground in America and turn him into a two-guard who will lead a team to the Final Fucking Four, and really, the more felonies the kid's committed, the better.
This is not acceptable coaching behavior. Gary has utterly lost it. He can't recruit, his teams can't rebound, and his teams don't listen to him. The latest, a squabble with the athletic department over whose fault all this is, is the fucking end. While I will not support his termination, I certainly urge his retirement. Immediately. Before I get a hankering to visit the M Circle.
And yeah. I'm off to the hockey game tomorrow.
*And seriously, if you say one bad word about Juan Dixon, ever, within my perceptive range, I will fucking hurt you. I will track you down like Belkar the Sexy Shoeless God of War and I will hurt you. I will fucking cut you, motherfucker. In fact, go to my comments section right now and say nice things about Juan Dixon, even if you don't fucking know what I'm talking about, y'hear? Do it. Now!
It's like this: I lost interest in Terps basketball about 4 years ago, when this jackass was running the point. Subsequent events have vindicated my disdain for the guy; he's been cut by teams in Israel, France, Latvia, and the NBA's developmental league (Idaho Stampede!). His arrogance infected subsequent Terp teams with a plague of selfish, boneheaded dipshittery of the sort that should not be tolerated by fans of any respectable ACC team.
In the years since the chesty little twit (with whose name I won't even infect my blog) left town a year early to go undrafted by the NBA, Maryland has failed to make the NCAA tournament (a minimum requirement for fans of any respectable ACC team) more than it's succeeded. And Maryland has sucked in the Not Inthe Tournament when it's gotten in, too, losing to teams like Manhattan College (in its own house). Badly. See here, for instance.
The disease has spread to the coach. Look, Gary Williams has given me many happy moments, including the one fucking national title I asked for in my time on this Earth. I'm never going to support firing his drunk, barely-legal-cheerleader-loving ass. On the other hand, Our Blessed Juan Dixon's* success in life has endowed Gary with the sense that he can take any kid off of any playground in America and turn him into a two-guard who will lead a team to the Final Fucking Four, and really, the more felonies the kid's committed, the better.
This is not acceptable coaching behavior. Gary has utterly lost it. He can't recruit, his teams can't rebound, and his teams don't listen to him. The latest, a squabble with the athletic department over whose fault all this is, is the fucking end. While I will not support his termination, I certainly urge his retirement. Immediately. Before I get a hankering to visit the M Circle.
And yeah. I'm off to the hockey game tomorrow.
*And seriously, if you say one bad word about Juan Dixon, ever, within my perceptive range, I will fucking hurt you. I will track you down like Belkar the Sexy Shoeless God of War and I will hurt you. I will fucking cut you, motherfucker. In fact, go to my comments section right now and say nice things about Juan Dixon, even if you don't fucking know what I'm talking about, y'hear? Do it. Now!
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
It All Works Out
Mockery is good, and it's what we're all about here at Casa Satanica, and it's what we did while hundreds of thousands, if not more* , stumbled and pooped and littered and woo-hooed their way about My Local Locality yesterday, forcing jaded and cynical Localitarians to plumb the depths of their Obamapostasy**. Here at La Casa, we sat watching with Dr. Death, as we are wont to watch things generally, and observed/mocked, with a puzzled Databoy watching quietly with occasional interruption, and an indifferent Bam-Bam doing the things that Bam-Bam does when he's not allowed to go to school.***
Of course, such a day produces a lot of thoughts that would appear random if they weren't being triggered by structured events and the reactive media fucktardery appurtenant thereto. Our choice of fucktards for much of the day was Olbermann and Tweety on MSNBC, because Olbermann bats for our team, even though he's a douche, and Tweety is just plain fucking insane, which makes for better television than the pompous twats on CNN or the vanilla soup of twatly pomps and spright airheadedness on the broadcast nets. Later, when we just wanted to watch the damn parade (we love a parade) without listening to Tweety chirp and Olbermann preen, we flopped over to CNN, which produced a lot less fun, given that they were doing a full Wolf and mixing in lots of strikingly inappropriate stuff like having Quincy Jones basically tell Soledad O'Brien**** on national TV that he wants to stuff her like a fucking terducken, as he propagandized for the concept of a Secretary of Arts (not a bad idea, but Q got a little distracted by the scorching fuck-me that Ms. O'Brien can't help projecting).*****
Jesus, where was I? Oh yeah, the TV coverage. Of course, I noticed some stuff. Like, TV correspondents who live here or hang out here a lot have absolutely no clue about local geography, because they have limo drivers and taxi drivers and satellite truck drivers to move them about the city. One does not turn north on Constitution Avenue, as either Tweety or Olbermann suggested as Obama's limo approached the Capitol. One does turn northeast on Louisiana Avenue, which is what the limo did. Goddamn lying liberal media.
Tweety was obsessed with a royalty theme yesterday; he kept riffing on it throughout the coverage. At one level, I'll give Tweety a little slack; he had a lot of dead air to fill, and he's got a woody for celebrity that approaches bad-Viagra-trip levels. At another level, I will not forgive Tweety for comparing the Bushes to the Romanovs. The great thing about America, Tweety, is the regular and timely peaceful transition of executive power. If the Bushes were the Romanovs, then we'd have perforated their patrician asses and dumped them in a fucking mineshaft 16 years ago. Asshat. I detest the Bushes as much as the next guy (I do give Poppy props for snuggling up to Bubba on as many issues as they can stand, in the name of national cohesion, but can't forgive W, Jeb, and the two closeted ones, and letting Babs run the Star Chamber for lo these 40 years has been pretty reprehensible, too).
My point? Oh yeah. Perforation. Mineshaft. Peaceful transition. STFU, Tweety.
Quick notes on style and fashion: I'm going the other way. I thought Michelle's inauguration dress was fuck-ugly, but that's a color problem, by me; I'm not a fan of yellow. On the other hand, I thought her ballgown was lovely. But all that is just noise to give faux context to the meat of this graf: I have never been sorry that I missed an inaugural ball, until now.
The speech was a little tame for my taste; I didn't think it was one of Obama's best. It was adequate, workmanlike, predictable, fine, whatever. It wasn't Lincoln's second inaugural address, or Clinton's first. The line that got the most reaction hereabouts was his statement of commitment to restoring the role of science in decisionmaking. That forgives a lot of faults, and faults there are, aplenty.
Opostasy? Sure, whatever. He ain't the Messiah, and I've said so forever. This guy has not-at-all famously opined about O's .06 percent less suckage than the best alternative. Prolly true. But he does suck, and that's the basis of Opostasy. As I was ranting yesterday, you can think your government is you, and there are degrees to which that's true and beautiful, for given values of truth and beauty. Whatever keeps you from soaking the neighbors in gasoline and lighting them on fire.
The practical truth is that your government is me. I'm deadly serious, not in the sense that I control you or rule you or anything of the sort, but the dumbass work of putting on a government? That's me, and millions like (and unlike) me. You may think that's a waste of your money. And for given individuals or programs, you may be right. Congress and Presidents say otherwise, and at the macro level, some of my friends and I are what they fund. We go on, regardless of hope, change, energy, dynamism, red, blue, snow, Intertubes mockery, and inaugurations. I'm not looking for props or whining/bragging/self-crucifying; I'm just pointing out that we are governed by an apparatus with an elected manager. We've elected a better manager, and that's what we were partying about yesterday. In the heat and energy of the moment, it's probably Opostasy to suggest that the man has some good points, some bad points. It all works out.*******
*Metro says just shy of a million, and they always undercount because, in crushes, people get through the gates without paying. But they don't undercount by a lot, and it's hard to believe that many people operated in the city yesterday without using Metro.
**Intellectual property of this guy.
***Jumping on trampoline, flapping, intermittent shrieking, throwing unwanted objects from his playroom, and watching Dora and Muppets and that stupid fucking Bear, with occasional demands to be released to the bathroom, which is at least an improvement on certain recent underwear-unfriendly behaviors. It's what makes the boy happy, and really, wouldn't we all prefer to be that uncomplicated?
****Do me, Soledad. Just do me. Yes, I will utterly wreck you, but you'll dig it. Oh yes you will.
*****Okay, I just did a little reading on Soledad in the course of my duly diligent research for this here piece, and discovered that her full name translates as "The BVM of Solitude O'Brien" and that she's really pretty much a bitch, having recently moved to have some neighbors thrown out of their co-op because their dog farts and drools (I'd give you the link, but it's in a certain huffy online post to which I will not link, and there's no reason to doubt the veracity of that rag's reporting on this issue). That moves the whole thing from fantasizing about sex to fantasizing about crime, and I'm just totally not about that. Mostly. Sort of. In any event, scratch the whole wrecking Soledad thing******, before we end up with a restraining order. Those are for other folk.
*******Happy now, honey?
*******I am not, however, a little freaked out.
Of course, such a day produces a lot of thoughts that would appear random if they weren't being triggered by structured events and the reactive media fucktardery appurtenant thereto. Our choice of fucktards for much of the day was Olbermann and Tweety on MSNBC, because Olbermann bats for our team, even though he's a douche, and Tweety is just plain fucking insane, which makes for better television than the pompous twats on CNN or the vanilla soup of twatly pomps and spright airheadedness on the broadcast nets. Later, when we just wanted to watch the damn parade (we love a parade) without listening to Tweety chirp and Olbermann preen, we flopped over to CNN, which produced a lot less fun, given that they were doing a full Wolf and mixing in lots of strikingly inappropriate stuff like having Quincy Jones basically tell Soledad O'Brien**** on national TV that he wants to stuff her like a fucking terducken, as he propagandized for the concept of a Secretary of Arts (not a bad idea, but Q got a little distracted by the scorching fuck-me that Ms. O'Brien can't help projecting).*****
Jesus, where was I? Oh yeah, the TV coverage. Of course, I noticed some stuff. Like, TV correspondents who live here or hang out here a lot have absolutely no clue about local geography, because they have limo drivers and taxi drivers and satellite truck drivers to move them about the city. One does not turn north on Constitution Avenue, as either Tweety or Olbermann suggested as Obama's limo approached the Capitol. One does turn northeast on Louisiana Avenue, which is what the limo did. Goddamn lying liberal media.
Tweety was obsessed with a royalty theme yesterday; he kept riffing on it throughout the coverage. At one level, I'll give Tweety a little slack; he had a lot of dead air to fill, and he's got a woody for celebrity that approaches bad-Viagra-trip levels. At another level, I will not forgive Tweety for comparing the Bushes to the Romanovs. The great thing about America, Tweety, is the regular and timely peaceful transition of executive power. If the Bushes were the Romanovs, then we'd have perforated their patrician asses and dumped them in a fucking mineshaft 16 years ago. Asshat. I detest the Bushes as much as the next guy (I do give Poppy props for snuggling up to Bubba on as many issues as they can stand, in the name of national cohesion, but can't forgive W, Jeb, and the two closeted ones, and letting Babs run the Star Chamber for lo these 40 years has been pretty reprehensible, too).
My point? Oh yeah. Perforation. Mineshaft. Peaceful transition. STFU, Tweety.
Quick notes on style and fashion: I'm going the other way. I thought Michelle's inauguration dress was fuck-ugly, but that's a color problem, by me; I'm not a fan of yellow. On the other hand, I thought her ballgown was lovely. But all that is just noise to give faux context to the meat of this graf: I have never been sorry that I missed an inaugural ball, until now.
The speech was a little tame for my taste; I didn't think it was one of Obama's best. It was adequate, workmanlike, predictable, fine, whatever. It wasn't Lincoln's second inaugural address, or Clinton's first. The line that got the most reaction hereabouts was his statement of commitment to restoring the role of science in decisionmaking. That forgives a lot of faults, and faults there are, aplenty.
Opostasy? Sure, whatever. He ain't the Messiah, and I've said so forever. This guy has not-at-all famously opined about O's .06 percent less suckage than the best alternative. Prolly true. But he does suck, and that's the basis of Opostasy. As I was ranting yesterday, you can think your government is you, and there are degrees to which that's true and beautiful, for given values of truth and beauty. Whatever keeps you from soaking the neighbors in gasoline and lighting them on fire.
The practical truth is that your government is me. I'm deadly serious, not in the sense that I control you or rule you or anything of the sort, but the dumbass work of putting on a government? That's me, and millions like (and unlike) me. You may think that's a waste of your money. And for given individuals or programs, you may be right. Congress and Presidents say otherwise, and at the macro level, some of my friends and I are what they fund. We go on, regardless of hope, change, energy, dynamism, red, blue, snow, Intertubes mockery, and inaugurations. I'm not looking for props or whining/bragging/self-crucifying; I'm just pointing out that we are governed by an apparatus with an elected manager. We've elected a better manager, and that's what we were partying about yesterday. In the heat and energy of the moment, it's probably Opostasy to suggest that the man has some good points, some bad points. It all works out.*******
*Metro says just shy of a million, and they always undercount because, in crushes, people get through the gates without paying. But they don't undercount by a lot, and it's hard to believe that many people operated in the city yesterday without using Metro.
**Intellectual property of this guy.
***Jumping on trampoline, flapping, intermittent shrieking, throwing unwanted objects from his playroom, and watching Dora and Muppets and that stupid fucking Bear, with occasional demands to be released to the bathroom, which is at least an improvement on certain recent underwear-unfriendly behaviors. It's what makes the boy happy, and really, wouldn't we all prefer to be that uncomplicated?
****Do me, Soledad. Just do me. Yes, I will utterly wreck you, but you'll dig it. Oh yes you will.
*****Okay, I just did a little reading on Soledad in the course of my duly diligent research for this here piece, and discovered that her full name translates as "The BVM of Solitude O'Brien" and that she's really pretty much a bitch, having recently moved to have some neighbors thrown out of their co-op because their dog farts and drools (I'd give you the link, but it's in a certain huffy online post to which I will not link, and there's no reason to doubt the veracity of that rag's reporting on this issue). That moves the whole thing from fantasizing about sex to fantasizing about crime, and I'm just totally not about that. Mostly. Sort of. In any event, scratch the whole wrecking Soledad thing******, before we end up with a restraining order. Those are for other folk.
*******Happy now, honey?
*******I am not, however, a little freaked out.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Star Wars IV: A New Hope
Look, I can't be having with all this hope and change crap. Of course, I am overjoyed that, at noon, our 8-year national nightmare is no more. This is, in fact, the day we've been waiting for. But you people? You're taking a big dump on my city. Did I particularly want to head into town today to see John the Daftist and other relations? Well, yeah, it would've been nice, actually. They're all kinda crunchy and stuff, for moneyed elitists, and they've descended like flies on an Aunt Jemima-covered superhero.
The two basic inaugural themes never change. I well remember an Inauguration Eve 16 years ago*, similarly rife with...uhm...hope and change. In fact, I seem to recall another imminent inaugurant, from...uhm...a town called...uhm...Hope.
The other theme, of course, is Fuck You, Peasants, Mind If We Take A Dump In Your Living Room For Four To Eight Years?
Are we glad Barry's going to be Preznit in a little over 2 hours?** Duh. Can y'all leave my town and let the man get down to making splendiferiously good and vomitoriously bad decisions? Yes. In the approximate words of another bringer of hope and change: Yes, you can. We have a government to continue to fuck up, just like we always have, regardless of leadership ideology, and your portapotties are crapping up our park.
*There's a story here, involving alcohol, hundreds of hookers in fur coats lining the streets of Northwest DC, preznitential motorcades, more alcohol, and...uhm...alcohol, although I think there was some food in there, too. So I won't bother telling it.
**Barry called me, and told me that he doesn't mind if I call him "Barry." He also told me that it was tough shit that I think there's a 72-percent chance that the new Ubertsar of the federal agency whose budget pays for my family to eat and be warm and have fast Intertubes will turn out to be a dipshit. But that's okay. Barry's honest** with me, and I'm honest with him.
***For a given value of "honest."
The two basic inaugural themes never change. I well remember an Inauguration Eve 16 years ago*, similarly rife with...uhm...hope and change. In fact, I seem to recall another imminent inaugurant, from...uhm...a town called...uhm...Hope.
The other theme, of course, is Fuck You, Peasants, Mind If We Take A Dump In Your Living Room For Four To Eight Years?
Are we glad Barry's going to be Preznit in a little over 2 hours?** Duh. Can y'all leave my town and let the man get down to making splendiferiously good and vomitoriously bad decisions? Yes. In the approximate words of another bringer of hope and change: Yes, you can. We have a government to continue to fuck up, just like we always have, regardless of leadership ideology, and your portapotties are crapping up our park.
*There's a story here, involving alcohol, hundreds of hookers in fur coats lining the streets of Northwest DC, preznitential motorcades, more alcohol, and...uhm...alcohol, although I think there was some food in there, too. So I won't bother telling it.
**Barry called me, and told me that he doesn't mind if I call him "Barry." He also told me that it was tough shit that I think there's a 72-percent chance that the new Ubertsar of the federal agency whose budget pays for my family to eat and be warm and have fast Intertubes will turn out to be a dipshit. But that's okay. Barry's honest** with me, and I'm honest with him.
***For a given value of "honest."
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Keeping You Safe
The Secret Service, the National Park Service, and the Metropolitan Police Department (DC police) today announced the following measures for the protection of those attending the upcoming inauguration of President-Elect Obama:
Road Closures: Every street in the District of Columbia and Montgomery and Prince George's Counties in Maryland, Fairfax, Loudoun, Arlington, and Prince Billy Bob Counties in Virginia, and the cities of Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, and Manassas will be closed to vehicular, equine, cycle, and pedestrian traffic. All denizens of the affected areas will be required (except as noted below) to huddle inside their homes. Guests will not be allowed to leave their hotels, boarding houses, and brothels. Violators will be subject to arrest by MPD, USSS, or the 3rd Armored Division, which will be deputized as sworn law enforcement officers to assist with downtown crowd control.
Public Transit: You've got to be fucking kidding. Subways and bus routes would be, like, direct pathways for terrists.
Mandatory Evacuations: The 101st Airborne Division, which didn't bleed from the feet in the freezing Eurofag winter at Bastogne so that you cocksuckers could elect some Negro as President, will be escorting every resident of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia to somewhere else. Tennessee, maybe. We hear they got space there. Oh, shit, did we forget Delaware? You too. Get moving.
Forced Blackouts: We're turning off the electricity so terrists can't plug in their walkie-talkies. No water, either. If we make the plumbing more like their home countries, the terrists won't want to come here.
Foam: To enable better crowd control, we will be spreading a 14-foot-thick layer of foam over the entire area between the Susquehanna, the James, the Appalachians, and the Atlantic Ocean.
Timing: All of the aforementioned measures will lapse from effect at 12:01 PM on January 20, when it will no longer be this administration's problem. But we're damned if you're gonna shoot the nigger on our watch.
------------------------------
It used to be that the funniest jokes began with "Duck walks into a bar"* or "Three individuals, whom I am about to stereotype, including one about whom I will be downright bigoted, were in a structure, vehicle, or outdoor setting." Now they begin with "The USSS announced today..."
*Duck walks into a bar and asks the bartender, "Got any condoms?" The bartender says, "Screw you, we don't sell condoms to ducks." Next day, same duck, same bar, duck asks the bartender, "Got any condoms?" Bartender says, "I told you once, we don't sell condoms to ducks, and if you ask me again, I'm gonna nail your little webbed feet to the floor." Next day, duck walks in, asks the bartender, "Got any nails?" Bartender is puzzled, says, "No." Duck asks, "Got any condoms?"**
**That one's actually for you, Dweeze.
Road Closures: Every street in the District of Columbia and Montgomery and Prince George's Counties in Maryland, Fairfax, Loudoun, Arlington, and Prince Billy Bob Counties in Virginia, and the cities of Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, and Manassas will be closed to vehicular, equine, cycle, and pedestrian traffic. All denizens of the affected areas will be required (except as noted below) to huddle inside their homes. Guests will not be allowed to leave their hotels, boarding houses, and brothels. Violators will be subject to arrest by MPD, USSS, or the 3rd Armored Division, which will be deputized as sworn law enforcement officers to assist with downtown crowd control.
Public Transit: You've got to be fucking kidding. Subways and bus routes would be, like, direct pathways for terrists.
Mandatory Evacuations: The 101st Airborne Division, which didn't bleed from the feet in the freezing Eurofag winter at Bastogne so that you cocksuckers could elect some Negro as President, will be escorting every resident of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia to somewhere else. Tennessee, maybe. We hear they got space there. Oh, shit, did we forget Delaware? You too. Get moving.
Forced Blackouts: We're turning off the electricity so terrists can't plug in their walkie-talkies. No water, either. If we make the plumbing more like their home countries, the terrists won't want to come here.
Foam: To enable better crowd control, we will be spreading a 14-foot-thick layer of foam over the entire area between the Susquehanna, the James, the Appalachians, and the Atlantic Ocean.
Timing: All of the aforementioned measures will lapse from effect at 12:01 PM on January 20, when it will no longer be this administration's problem. But we're damned if you're gonna shoot the nigger on our watch.
------------------------------
It used to be that the funniest jokes began with "Duck walks into a bar"* or "Three individuals, whom I am about to stereotype, including one about whom I will be downright bigoted, were in a structure, vehicle, or outdoor setting." Now they begin with "The USSS announced today..."
*Duck walks into a bar and asks the bartender, "Got any condoms?" The bartender says, "Screw you, we don't sell condoms to ducks." Next day, same duck, same bar, duck asks the bartender, "Got any condoms?" Bartender says, "I told you once, we don't sell condoms to ducks, and if you ask me again, I'm gonna nail your little webbed feet to the floor." Next day, duck walks in, asks the bartender, "Got any nails?" Bartender is puzzled, says, "No." Duck asks, "Got any condoms?"**
**That one's actually for you, Dweeze.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
What Ginger Said On Her Holiday Vacation
daddy this iz jinjer meen ppls don't feed me i iz starvd help now can't be on tablz or rubs on faces help snd fish kthxbaiUpdate: She lies. However, I'm sorry, Whispers, but I did blur your cat. It was an accident.
More Update: And yeah, I promise not to do any more cat blogging.
Still More Update: Catblogging. It kills your friends' brains.
The Updating Never Ends: Kills them dead, I say.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
The Suck...The Suck
Now that the NFL regular season is over and another Redskins nightmare is in the can, it's time to play, "Who Needs To Be Unemployed?"
AFC East:
Miami: While Tony Soprano, or Steve Spurriano, or whatever the fuck the guy's name is, is a reprehensible thug, and the Phins suck donkey boners, I suppose he can keep his job for edging out the Patsies for an AFC East title.
New England: Hah! HAhahahahahahahahahaha!!!! But seriously, we kid because we love. It's just that we don't love Hoodie Check or the Patriots. That said, they did a lot more with a raw injury deal than anyone, including beloved friend and Pats fan Whispers, ever really thought they would. Of course it's not Hoodie Check's fault, and if he got fired, who would I hate on?
J-E-T-S: No. Eric Mangina, AKA Mike Ocho Pussy (h/t to Whispers, who coined this most appropriate nick one afternoon in the basement of Casa Satanica as we watched our fifth fucking Jets game in six weeks earlier this year), makes life worth living and, now you mention it, he's who I'd hate on if Hoodie Check was gone. But that doesn't mean I'm changing my mind.
Buffalo: Who the fuck cares? Buffalo is a sports sewer, the team is a pack of useless, and someone has to coach there. They're almost too pathetic to hate on. Of course, I said that about their hockey team, the only team in the NHL's Eastern Conference (other than the Caps) that I didn't hate, until I had to sit 12 rows above them the other night. Douchebags.
AFC North:
Who the fuck cares? Every team and coach in this division is either useless or fucking reprehensible. Kudos to the Deathbirds, I suppose--they have no business snagging a wild-card spot. Romeo Crennel is dead meat, and he deserves it, although I can't summon up a loogie's worth of feeling about that.
AFC South:
Titans: I think Jeff Fisher may be the best coach in the league. I really like the Titans, except for Kerry Collins. To be fair, it's hard to imagine that they'd have done this well had Vince Young not flaked out, though.
Colts: Ba'al, I hate Tony Dungy. Homophobe, Republican, dickhead. Fuck him to pieces.
Houston: Couldn't name their coach if you paid me. Useless franchise.
Jags: It's always a shame when the Jags don't pay off. Silky Gerard is fun, and Jack of the River is one of the finest coach names in all sports. Given the number of old guys they're carrying, he gets a pass by me.
AFC West:
Who the fuck cares? Shanahan is detestable, Herm Edwards needs to be roasted on the same spit as his pal Tony Dungy, and I have no idea who's minioning for Zombie Lord of the Universe Al Davis. There is one coach who stands alone: firing isn't good enough for Norv. It's a crime against humanity that teams keep hiring this fucktard. Wassup with that?
NFC West:
Seriously who the fuck cares? Whisenhunt is a douche--he mismanaged the Cardinals to a record two games worse than they might have gotten to otherwise. He's still not going anywhere, since they're in the postseason for the first time since I hated them in Saint Louis. Singletary is a douche, not least for publicly dissing mighty Terrapin Vernon Davis. Mike Holmgren ate Andy Reid ate Romeo Crennel, and he's talking about retiring anyway. And I couldn't tell you who's coaching the Rams, not least because I don't fucking care. Linehan's firing didn't abate the suck, I know that much.
NFC South:
Fox and whoever's running the Falcons (again, don't care, although I'll buy him whatever he wants for knocking the Girlz out of the playoffs) are fine, and safe. Gruden is a super maya maya douche, but he's not going anywhere. He'll just blame it all on his gay quarterback. Payton should probably be fired, but he's probably got another year to suck because he managed an NFC title game out of those wankers and the Saints had a lot of injuries this year.
NFC Central:
Minnesota: Ned Flanders must die. I've hated the Vikes since I was a kid, although not to Girlz/Pack/Buzzsaw/Eagles/Giants standards. That has nothing to do with it. Flanders is simply fucking inept. There's no way in hell the Vikings should've been struggling to win that division this year, not with their defense, Purple Jesus, and a couple of reasonably good receivers. And Flanders has no fucking clue how to call plays or manage a game. From a generalized fan perspective, the Vikings are one of the most frustrating teams in football right now, and it's almost all Flanders' fault (I operate on the assumption that Tarvaris Jackson is his fucking fault, too).
Chicago: Lovie Smith must die. The Bears hurt for receivers, but Rashied Davis and Devin Hester/whoever the fuck else they string wide aren't that big of a suck. Orton is a quality quarterback, the line isn't bad, Matt Forte was a great find, and the defense is as solid as any, most of the time. I conclude that Lovie Smith can't call plays to save his life, and that he couldn't win a division where his main competition was Ned Flanders is the final nail in his ineptly constructed coffin. I hate the Bears for atavistic reasons, and have been forced to accept them into my heart a little bit because of my wife's confusion over how many football teams she's allowed to call herself a fan of. There's no reason they should be that bad, except that Lovie Smith can't run an offense.
Green Bay: Mike McCarthy is a hateworthy figurehead for a hateworthy team.
Detroit: Who cares what corpse is running this club?
NFC East:
Giants: Scream scream scream. Coughlin isn't going anywhere, and shouldn't until Eli Manning is exposed as a fraud. The morale genocide of being a New York team will do it, in time; the cracks are showing. But Coughlin's also managed to stoke some quality talent to plaster over the cracks.
Iggles: I will be genuinely sorry if Andy Reid, who ate Mike Holmgren who ate Romeo Crennel, really retires. He's been a worthy adversary, and the relationship between him and Don McNabb is one of the great coach/QB stories in NFL history. I struggle to hate the Eagles, who represent the city of my birth, although I manage just fine, in the long run. It'll really be a shame if Reid goes away. Special thanks to the Iggles for pasting the Girlz today, for utterly assraping them in their own filth, laughing as they did it and posting the pics on a humiliation porn site. The only thing better than the Girlz losing is a 747 full of Steelers fans crashing into a Girlz-Pack game.
Girlz: Lard Tits is dead, and I sure hope that Crazy Jerry replaces him with smug bitch Jason Garrett, mostly so he can take the hit when people finally conclude that that choking pussy Tony Romo is a choking fucking pussy. I mean, anyone whose opinion is worth spit has already concluded that; I'd just like Troy Fucking Aikman, who should NEVER be allowed to work an NFC East game, and Joe Buck, who should be gibbeted on the Hall of Fame, to actually notice that Romo is a choking fucking pussy. Crazy Jerry would, objectively, be right to flame Lard Tits; while the Girlz' defense is a pack of whinging crackheads, they and the offense--holy SHIT, Felix Jones is a good ballcarrier, and I thought TO had the best hands in the league this year--should've been solid enough to salvage a playoff spot. Blame Fudgy the Coach. Or thank him, as I do.
Skins: I hate Zorn; he's Gibbs Lite, and I hated Gibbs. The only reason I don't want Zorn fired is that I'm afraid DannyBoy will dump a shitload of cash in the lap of a certain cocksucker who used to coach the Steelers. And if that happens? I'm outta here. Seriously. If the Skins hire Cowher, that revolting blob of dried Western Pennsylvania spooge, I will kneel down in public and proclaim, before Ba'al and everyone, my undying (until DannyBoy's gone) allegiance to the Philadelphia Fucking Eagles.
Oh yes I will.
AFC East:
Miami: While Tony Soprano, or Steve Spurriano, or whatever the fuck the guy's name is, is a reprehensible thug, and the Phins suck donkey boners, I suppose he can keep his job for edging out the Patsies for an AFC East title.
New England: Hah! HAhahahahahahahahahaha!!!! But seriously, we kid because we love. It's just that we don't love Hoodie Check or the Patriots. That said, they did a lot more with a raw injury deal than anyone, including beloved friend and Pats fan Whispers, ever really thought they would. Of course it's not Hoodie Check's fault, and if he got fired, who would I hate on?
J-E-T-S: No. Eric Mangina, AKA Mike Ocho Pussy (h/t to Whispers, who coined this most appropriate nick one afternoon in the basement of Casa Satanica as we watched our fifth fucking Jets game in six weeks earlier this year), makes life worth living and, now you mention it, he's who I'd hate on if Hoodie Check was gone. But that doesn't mean I'm changing my mind.
Buffalo: Who the fuck cares? Buffalo is a sports sewer, the team is a pack of useless, and someone has to coach there. They're almost too pathetic to hate on. Of course, I said that about their hockey team, the only team in the NHL's Eastern Conference (other than the Caps) that I didn't hate, until I had to sit 12 rows above them the other night. Douchebags.
AFC North:
Who the fuck cares? Every team and coach in this division is either useless or fucking reprehensible. Kudos to the Deathbirds, I suppose--they have no business snagging a wild-card spot. Romeo Crennel is dead meat, and he deserves it, although I can't summon up a loogie's worth of feeling about that.
AFC South:
Titans: I think Jeff Fisher may be the best coach in the league. I really like the Titans, except for Kerry Collins. To be fair, it's hard to imagine that they'd have done this well had Vince Young not flaked out, though.
Colts: Ba'al, I hate Tony Dungy. Homophobe, Republican, dickhead. Fuck him to pieces.
Houston: Couldn't name their coach if you paid me. Useless franchise.
Jags: It's always a shame when the Jags don't pay off. Silky Gerard is fun, and Jack of the River is one of the finest coach names in all sports. Given the number of old guys they're carrying, he gets a pass by me.
AFC West:
Who the fuck cares? Shanahan is detestable, Herm Edwards needs to be roasted on the same spit as his pal Tony Dungy, and I have no idea who's minioning for Zombie Lord of the Universe Al Davis. There is one coach who stands alone: firing isn't good enough for Norv. It's a crime against humanity that teams keep hiring this fucktard. Wassup with that?
NFC West:
Seriously who the fuck cares? Whisenhunt is a douche--he mismanaged the Cardinals to a record two games worse than they might have gotten to otherwise. He's still not going anywhere, since they're in the postseason for the first time since I hated them in Saint Louis. Singletary is a douche, not least for publicly dissing mighty Terrapin Vernon Davis. Mike Holmgren ate Andy Reid ate Romeo Crennel, and he's talking about retiring anyway. And I couldn't tell you who's coaching the Rams, not least because I don't fucking care. Linehan's firing didn't abate the suck, I know that much.
NFC South:
Fox and whoever's running the Falcons (again, don't care, although I'll buy him whatever he wants for knocking the Girlz out of the playoffs) are fine, and safe. Gruden is a super maya maya douche, but he's not going anywhere. He'll just blame it all on his gay quarterback. Payton should probably be fired, but he's probably got another year to suck because he managed an NFC title game out of those wankers and the Saints had a lot of injuries this year.
NFC Central:
Minnesota: Ned Flanders must die. I've hated the Vikes since I was a kid, although not to Girlz/Pack/Buzzsaw/Eagles/Giants standards. That has nothing to do with it. Flanders is simply fucking inept. There's no way in hell the Vikings should've been struggling to win that division this year, not with their defense, Purple Jesus, and a couple of reasonably good receivers. And Flanders has no fucking clue how to call plays or manage a game. From a generalized fan perspective, the Vikings are one of the most frustrating teams in football right now, and it's almost all Flanders' fault (I operate on the assumption that Tarvaris Jackson is his fucking fault, too).
Chicago: Lovie Smith must die. The Bears hurt for receivers, but Rashied Davis and Devin Hester/whoever the fuck else they string wide aren't that big of a suck. Orton is a quality quarterback, the line isn't bad, Matt Forte was a great find, and the defense is as solid as any, most of the time. I conclude that Lovie Smith can't call plays to save his life, and that he couldn't win a division where his main competition was Ned Flanders is the final nail in his ineptly constructed coffin. I hate the Bears for atavistic reasons, and have been forced to accept them into my heart a little bit because of my wife's confusion over how many football teams she's allowed to call herself a fan of. There's no reason they should be that bad, except that Lovie Smith can't run an offense.
Green Bay: Mike McCarthy is a hateworthy figurehead for a hateworthy team.
Detroit: Who cares what corpse is running this club?
NFC East:
Giants: Scream scream scream. Coughlin isn't going anywhere, and shouldn't until Eli Manning is exposed as a fraud. The morale genocide of being a New York team will do it, in time; the cracks are showing. But Coughlin's also managed to stoke some quality talent to plaster over the cracks.
Iggles: I will be genuinely sorry if Andy Reid, who ate Mike Holmgren who ate Romeo Crennel, really retires. He's been a worthy adversary, and the relationship between him and Don McNabb is one of the great coach/QB stories in NFL history. I struggle to hate the Eagles, who represent the city of my birth, although I manage just fine, in the long run. It'll really be a shame if Reid goes away. Special thanks to the Iggles for pasting the Girlz today, for utterly assraping them in their own filth, laughing as they did it and posting the pics on a humiliation porn site. The only thing better than the Girlz losing is a 747 full of Steelers fans crashing into a Girlz-Pack game.
Girlz: Lard Tits is dead, and I sure hope that Crazy Jerry replaces him with smug bitch Jason Garrett, mostly so he can take the hit when people finally conclude that that choking pussy Tony Romo is a choking fucking pussy. I mean, anyone whose opinion is worth spit has already concluded that; I'd just like Troy Fucking Aikman, who should NEVER be allowed to work an NFC East game, and Joe Buck, who should be gibbeted on the Hall of Fame, to actually notice that Romo is a choking fucking pussy. Crazy Jerry would, objectively, be right to flame Lard Tits; while the Girlz' defense is a pack of whinging crackheads, they and the offense--holy SHIT, Felix Jones is a good ballcarrier, and I thought TO had the best hands in the league this year--should've been solid enough to salvage a playoff spot. Blame Fudgy the Coach. Or thank him, as I do.
Skins: I hate Zorn; he's Gibbs Lite, and I hated Gibbs. The only reason I don't want Zorn fired is that I'm afraid DannyBoy will dump a shitload of cash in the lap of a certain cocksucker who used to coach the Steelers. And if that happens? I'm outta here. Seriously. If the Skins hire Cowher, that revolting blob of dried Western Pennsylvania spooge, I will kneel down in public and proclaim, before Ba'al and everyone, my undying (until DannyBoy's gone) allegiance to the Philadelphia Fucking Eagles.
Oh yes I will.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Lwaxana Checks Out
It took a nudge from bDr to clue me that Majel Barrett Roddenberry died yesterday, and I'm pretty stunned by it. No one who reads this should be surprised that I am a Trekkie. For those who will watch just about any Star Trek franchise product (I draw the line at Enterprise, and I missed a lot of DS9 owing to my then-inability to schedule anything), Majel Roddenberry, pictured above with Gene Roddenberry not long before his death in 1991, was iconic--probably now more so even than Gene. I'm gonna bum on this for a while.
Which won't keep from relating my thought that a John DeLancey versus Majel Barrett Roddenberry episode of Celebrity Deathmatch could've been pretty fucking cool. Trust me, or do your own backtrace.
bDr's flawed claim that his mother-in-law is Lwaxana Troi is both true and false (and thanksnot for the visual-by-implication, bitch). I'll leave it there.
RIP, Daughter of the Fifth House, Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx, Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed.
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