A Last, Lovely Moment for 2008

túrána hott kurdís by hasta la otra méxico! from Till Credner on Vimeo.

Israel v. Palestine again and again and again

So let's go over this one more time.

A. Some Palestinians (Hamas) shoot some un-aimed missiles into Israel (if they're lucky) causing some damage and injuries and a death or two if they get lucky.

B. The Israelis bomb the fuck out of Palestine killing hundreds, mostly civilians.

C. In retaliation to the incredibly lopsided Israeli response to the first missiles, Hamas shoots some more missiles into Israel, occasionally hitting their own people by accident.

D. The Israelis bomb the Palestinians even harder and invade with tanks, destroying all buildings and everything else that might help the Palestinians without actually affecting Hamas.

E. Angry Palestinians blow themselves up to kill Israelis.

F. Israel blows up more of Gaza and takes more Palestinian land by cutting it off with a fence.

G. Go back to A.

And around and around and around we go.

Every time this has happened since I was a child I've thought Israel's response was WAY over the top, punishing the Palestinian people for the act of a group they do not necessarily support. But the more civilians Israel kills, the more people support the attacks. After the deaths of civilians and bystanders the Palestinian people march in the streets against Israel. This is especially senseless in the case of these rocket attacks as by the time Israel responds the trucks that fired those rockets are miles away so Israel is punishing the people that had the misfortune of living there. Does Israel expect shopkeepers and teachers to run out and attempt to stop the rocket launch?!? Do they doubt the rapid response from an AK-47 that would result? Israel treats all Palestinians as combatants, is this fair? It makes no sense to me yet something like this happens every time. And in retaliation this time Israel directly targeted the Gaza police force, including a graduation ceremony. Even if some of these police are Hamas fighters, what about all the ones that aren't? Doesn't Israel need a robust police force in their neighbor? Kill 'em all seems to be the Israeli motto. It would not surprise me if Israel becomes the second country to use a nuclear bomb.

Presidential Pardons for as Little As $40,000!!!

Ah, the pardoning of the scum has begun. More evidence of how completely compromised our justice system has become under Bush and the fact that forgiveness is only for the rich:

President Bush pardoned a Brooklyn real estate developer accused of scamming hundreds of poor, minority homebuyers - and whose father donated $28,500 to the Republican Party this year.

Bush pardoned Isaac Toussie, 36, two days before Christmas in a gesture of mercy that outraged ex-customers who said they were duped into buying overpriced, defective homes.

"We're in the middle of a mortgage crisis [and] this is somebody who was alleged to have participated in predatory lending practices," said Peter Seidman, a lawyer who represents 460 people who say they were fleeced.

"To pardon Isaac Toussie is a kick in the teeth to homeowners struggling with mortgages they can't afford."

But it gets better! Much amazed that anyone noticed him pardoning such a scumbag*, Bush is now attempting to rescind his pardon.

Experts said Wednesday they knew of no other instance of a presidential pardon being revoked. Some analysts suggested Toussie might be able to challenge the reversal in court.

"I can't think of another time that it's happened for a presidential pardon," said Margaret Love, who was the lead pardon attorney under President George H.W. Bush and for part of the Clinton administration. "It's not clear to me that it's as easy to do as all that."

White House aides said that the pardon did not take effect until it was "delivered" to Toussie and that that had not happened when Bush changed course Wednesday. The definition of "delivered" was unclear.

It has been suggested in a Harper's Magazine online editorial that if Bush's negation of this pardon is effective, it means that a future President might be able to rescind the current President's pardons. Wouldn't that be entertaining?

*to be fair, Bushco claims the President knew nothing of the campaign contributions. How it is possible that the team that developed the most organized fundraising apparatus in history (prior to Obama) did not instantly know this man's father contributed around $40k is difficult to believe.

Animated .gif Test

Bush Shoes Selling Like Hotcakes

Baydan has received orders for 300,000 pairs of the shoes since the attack, more than four times the number his company sold each year since the model was introduced in 1999. The company plans to employ 100 more staff to meet demand, he said.

“Model 271” is exported to markets including Iraq, Iran, Syria and Egypt. Customers in Iraq ordered 120,000 pairs this week and some Iraqis offered to set up distribution companies for the shoe, Baydan said.

They also claim to be in talks with a U.S. distributor.

via

Xmas Greetings!

A merry Xmas to all y'all out there in space/time.

And yes, I've photoshopped my and my girlfriend's faces onto these frightened children that I stole from this site that I found through this blog post. There's no way real children's faces could look that creepy.

Cheers all!
Alan Evil

Nuclear Energy: Safe, Clean, Cheap ...?

I have three problems with nuclear energy:

1. Waste. This will be incredibly deadly for a period of time longer than the human race's existence. The very idea of burying our nuclear waste and thereby keeping it safe from the curiosity of future humans... or other future life form... or geology... is ludicrous.

2. Safety. Nuclear power plants are designed by, engineered by, built by, regulated by, and operated by humans. Therefore the possiblity of failure is possible at all levels. As Chernobyl proved, failure can be deadly or worse and for a very long time.

3. Expense. Even if we don't include the increasing cost and danger of stored waste (which is monstrous and exponentially increasing with time), even if we don't do that, nuclear power is phenomenally expensive. Add the incredible amount of energy used and environmental destruction wreaked just to create the fuel with the incredible expense of creating this incredibly complex machine and the unmeasurable expense of accidents and waste leaks and it equals "more expensive than is affordable."

It all boils down to not liking it. Burning coal is very bad in the short term, but at our present useage we will run out of coal long before our nuclear fuel will no longer be deadly. For that matter we will probably run out of all combustible materials on this planet before our nuclear waste is no longer toxic.

We must find a way to use the massive forces around us that we can tap as wind, hydro, and tide. We also must constrain the human population as we're pressing the planet to its limits right now, imagine it in 500 years! Everything boils down to too many humans and too small a planet for all of them.

Oh Xmas Tree...

As GM Goes... Aw Jeez That's a Depressing Thought

Darth Cheney Interview With Darth Limbaugh

Perhaps after January 20th we will no longer have our official White House web page besmirched by the words of the traitorous idiot known as Rush.

Still More Shoes and Stuff

from here

More Bush Shoes

from here

Here's a game, already!




from here

The Shoe Duck

And so it begins...





via

Bush Insulted

I don't think we have an insult as bad as this in the West. He is trying to hit him with his shoe (the dirtiest thing on earth) and calls him a dog (the lowest form of animal on earth). Something like that. All we got is "F#@! YOU!" At least the French hit politicians with pies.

The Shepherd?

Bagojevich in Ink