Victory Soap v. 2.0

That would be Charles Johnson III, the "The most politically incorrect man in the state of Texas." Groovy:

You can tell Charles Johnson when you see him coming down the road in Amarillo. He's the one with the huge stuffed hog riding in the sidecar of his BSA motorcycle.

"I was in Bulgaria and I shot a big 450-pound hog," explained Johnson, 52, an investments business guy who has visited 165 countries around the world. "I had my taxidermist down in Kerrville stuff him with foam rubber. I stuff him in my sidecar and take him barhopping. He probably has a lot more fun dead than alive. We put dollar bills in his hooves for the girls in the strip clubs."

Read on for details on the topless dove hunt next to the prison. (By the way, no, this isn't the same Charles Johnson who runs Little Green Footballs. In case you were wondering.)

(Via Steve H.)

I'm beginning to wonder if Jimmy Carter converted secretly to Islam or something. Not recently -- back when or even before he was president. There could have been more behind our limp response to the Iran hostage "crisis" than Vietnam War weariness, reluctance to disturb the Soviets, and fear of irritating the oil-rich Muslim world. Sure, those were important factors, but then-President Jimmah's response was more supine than circumstances called for. And then there are his subsequent antics.

(Via.)

Update: maybe he's just horrible. (Via.)

Update: no one told me I wrote "subsequence" when I meant to write "subsequent." Guys, you're supposed to keep track of these things!

Slightly related to this in a weird way: "Daucus Karota" was the name of a band formed by Rozz Williams, the former lead singer of the punk/goth band Christian Death.

As Kathy might say: Oh. My. God.

(Via Overtaken By Events.)

Googoth, the search engine with real bat chunks in it. That's the actual page title. It's a Goth parody of Google... or is it? Search, if you dare...

(Via the Flea.)

Addendum: hold me mommy, I'm scared.

Want to know what Bridezilla eats?

March 15, 2007 — - In 2003, a large suitcase containing the remains of 26 butchered monkeys was confiscated at Logan Airport in Boston on its way from Ghana.

The 300 pounds of raw meat, destined to be served as the main course at a wedding in New Hampshire, was "oozing out of its container," said Tom Healy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

(Bolds mine.) I have nothing else to say, really.

(Via Ace of Spades HQ.)

It is very important not to tailgate someone who has apparently had approximately 900 cups of coffee that day.

Leftists are terrified of him, but pre-teen girls love Vice-President Dick Cheney. I leave you to make your own conclusions as to what this says about pre-teen girls and leftists.

(Via Kathy Shaidle.)

This is probably just a coincidence, because I rather doubt that a 60 year old NASA employee could be inspired to go on a rampage by a 20-something killer college student, but it's odd how these things tend to cluster together. It could just be a trick of media reporting, though. Also a hostage situation/killing at NASA is big news even without anything else happening. (Or is it? You would think that the usually all-things-NASA-obsessed Orlando Sentinel would have this prominently on their main web page, but I find nary a mention of this. I did find out, however, where all the smoke that is making my throat feel like someone scraped it with sandpaper is coming from.) On the whole, it supports my theory that sometimes a sort of free-floating Evil Force builds up periodically, causing sporadic outbursts of extra disaster.

One final note. The article in the Houston Chronicle contains the immortal line (so standard to these stories it must be a macro in every newspaper office's Word setup), that the killer was "known in his neighborhood as a quiet man who kept to himself." Of course! Is there any other kind? I can see it now -- anyone with the slightest indication that they aren't frantic social butterflies will be bothered within an inch of their lives, just to make sure they don't grow up into crazed sociopaths. This won't help introverts like me, who know that there are two kinds of loners in the world: those who like to be alone because they accept themselves for who they are and are content with their own company, and those who seethe silently because no one likes them or appreciates their special qualities, until they finally snap and take revenge on an uncaring, indifferent world that refuses to center itself around them.

Link via Instapundit. Also, a commenter on Ace of Spades says he was a friend of the slain hostage, David Beverly.

Good grief -- is this amok time for employers or what? Every big corporation seems to be trying their Stupid Plan this year, and I don't say that just from personal experience (wait until I'm free from the Large Unnameable Homebuilding Company, then I'll have some stories to tell you); I see it happening all over the place. Another industry that like the homebuilding sector is tanking is that of print media. The reason why is obvious to anyone except those who run the newspapers; the internet has far outstripped the newspapers when it comes to content that is dynamic and interesting. When there were no other news outlets but the papers, radio, and the morning and evening news segments, people had no choice but to watch the tv, listen to the radio, and buy the papers to get their news. And the papers and news shows got complacent and lazy, and the increasing amount of bland "human interest" filler, politically correct "teach your children well" lectures disguised as news, and morbid fascination with disaster and victimization, were the result. But now that we have the internet, we can get news faster than reporters on the field, and we can get information about what interests us, not what Our Betters in Media think should interest us. But all the owners of what I will start calling Old Media can see is a public recalcitrantly refusing to buy the paper for some mysterious reason, they know not why... (That story about the poodle who saved the orphan with spina bifida from the burning trailer home after the tornado destroyed the trailer park didn't wring enough hearts? What about running another sobstory about a dead soldier in Iraq and the quintuplets his wife is left at home to raise alone? And throw in a cartoon making fun of the president -- in a time of war! What do you mean sales are down?)

All this is to lead up to this week's entry in Corporate Follies: beloved Bleatist James Lileks has had his popular column in the Minneapolis StarTribune cancelled by the paper's overlords and has been put on the local reporter beat. That's as in straight reporting without any quirky asides.

Tim and James ask us to contact the paper with our opinions of this bizarre move, but I am not sure that contact is possible with beings that think writers are interchangeable as cogs. It's as if Hemingway's editor said to him "your stories are great and all but we think it's time you started doing nurse romances" or math textbooks or something. I mean what's the difference, it's all just a bunch of words, right? It's not like they mean anything.

I could send the above, suitably embellished in a letter, to the owners of the Star Tribune. But I know the kind of people that they are without even meeting them -- they are the sort of people who think that stories about retarded bag boys* (oh excuse me, mentally handicapped) who put post-its saying nice things into customers' bags, are inspiring enough that they make Powerpoint presentations for meetings of their fellow business executives -- instead of working on a presentation about something that actually has anything to do with their company's business. They are the sort of people who think that the way to "build morale" is to give out fake certificates that say something along the lines of "you're a great person!" -- when all that would make the "great person" feel better would have been to pay them more money.

And so on and so forth. If you try to explain to people like this that they are making a profoundly stupid move with their latest little scheme, they will stare at you with a bright, incomprehending gaze, their smiles frozen as whatever passes for their brains carefully scrub themselves free of your words. As far as they are concerned they have had a great idea, and no amount of fact will disturb their belief in it.

*This was actually passed around my company via email from our regional executive, who thought it was just the greatest thing ever. I nearly tossed my cookies -- it was accompanied by the most treacly music as well. You can probably find it on Youtube -- I refuse to look. And that very same week we got the announcement that our department was being canned. So beware of when that email comes around in your company -- it means that they've weighed your worth in the balance with a retarded bag boy and chosen the guy who gives smiley face for minimum wage.

What The Hell Update: Well, I went ahead and sent a line or two to the reader rep. I figured it was the least I could do. Here is the missive:

Dear Ms. Parry,

I confess myself at a loss for words: your paper is taking one of your feature writers, James Lileks, and putting him on some sort of straight reporting beat. I will be short: this is a spectacularly stupid thing to do. It is clear to anyone who has read Mr. Lileks' writing that he is not the sort of writer who can be shoehorned into any old typing gig. If your paper's owners were so tired of Mr. Lileks' distinct authorial personality, why didn't you just fire him? It would certainly have caused much less ire than this clumsy, ill-considered move.

I am from Florida. I have little interest in straight news of Minneapolis. I am certainly not interested in news about local internet doings in Minneapolis -- whatever those can possibly be. For one thing, the words "local" and "internet" are an oxymoron; if it had not been for the internet, I rather doubt I would have heard of James Lileks in the first place. Once his column is gone I will have no reason to read your online publication. Of course I am only one reader, but I'm not the only one that will no longer be building up your ad revenue.

In closing, I am

Andrea Harris
Altamonte Springs, Florida

Perhaps it will have a good effect. But maybe James should ask himself (as I ask myself daily): do I want to keep working for this kind of people?

One more thing I forgot to mention: I tried my best not to fawn, and in any case I refuse to use phrases like "one of your finest writers" and all that garbage, because fanboi drooling of that sort makes me queasy and is counterproductive in the cynical world of journalism, regulating such letters to the "old lady in love with the cute young reporter" file. And in any case, his Star Tribune column, the Quirk, wasn't an example of his best writing -- you can get that on his Bleat and in his more serious columns elsewhere. His writing for the Star Tribune, though often charming, was necessarily unserious and inoffensive as befits a column for a timid Old Media publication. I just hate seeing talent misused; in this case talent for first-person commentary (what could be called "what I think about something" writing -- for example, Orwell's "As I See It" columns) does not translate into an ability to do personality-free third person reporting -- as James himself admits. But the idea that "anyone can do anything" is our nation's cracked answer to the old "Renaissance Man" ideal, leaving aside the fact that during the Renaissance it was possible for a man to have more than one ability because there weren't as many things for people to do. And in any case, what we really mean is "anyone can do anything for money" -- unless we figure out that money isn't everything, and the idea collapses.

Uh oh.

What did I tell you? This is how it begins:

First they start talking about recycling and other "green" things.

Then they start letting the "save money" talk creep through.

Then they send out memos asking employees not to order supplies more than once a week.

Then the supplies are put behind lock and key, the key in the charge of a manager who is always in meetings.

Then they start buying the cheap pens that leak and run out of ink after three days.

Then the coffee supplies start being replaced by cheaper items -- real cream packets with powdered creamer (and not the kind that actually creams, but something that looks and tastes like plaster dust).

Then the coffee maker vanishes, and you find out (from the company grape vine, because no announcements ever go out about any of these changes) that they have cancelled the contract with the coffee company. You have to get your own coffee from the cafe in the lobby or boil instant in the microwave.

Brand-name sodas are replaced in the machine by generic knockoffs.

Strange men and women without company nametags appear in your area, making notes on memo pads as if they are counting the number of cubicles, computers, and so on. They do not introduce themselves, and no one introduces them. Their visit was not announced, and you are told nothing about it. When you ask your manager who they were she gives you a blank look and then changes the subject.

People start disappearing. One day you have a coworker in the next cubicle over, the next day he's gone, and you are given all of his assignments to do as well as your own. No one will tell you why he (and several others) were fired.

A meeting is abruptly called. You are given a speech by your boss's bosses about how In These Difficult Times Every Associate ("employees" is officially not allowed to be used) Has To Help. Something vague about "changes" is talked about, but nothing of any substance is said. Several of your remaning coworkers start looking at all times as if their dog was dying.

In the next few weeks you are given assignments to do "yesterday" and when you break your head to get them done on time no one seems to care anymore. The frustration is so thick it can be scooped up with a spoon. You no longer have any idea what you are supposed to be doing, and your boss is always in meetings.

The word "restructuring" starts oozing into company announcements - what little they emit these days.

Then they finally admit you're being axed. But in order to get your severance pay you have to stay for the final excruciating weeks while they figure out what to do with the tangled ball of wool that used to be your company. But don't forget to use up your personal and sick time, because you don't get paid for that.

Jesus Christ, people in California have too much time on their hands. What we would call over here in the sane part of the world "defective pigeons" (or "roast squab"), have a fan club:

Roller pigeons are bred for a genetic quirk that strikes in mid-flight, causing a brief seizure that sends the birds spiraling uncontrollably toward the ground. Thousands of hobbyists compete to see who can best make their birds roll in unison.

And of course, like most fan(atic) clubs, the members of this one are killing anything that gets in the way of their stupid pastime:

But for a hawk or falcon, a plummeting roller pigeon is fast food. Fed up by raptors spoiling their sport, some of the leading competitors in the roller pigeon field began illegally killing the predators, according to a federal indictment released Thursday.

Steve Sailer is mocking the retarded pigeons, but I think their fans are just as retarded and useless. I propose a new sport: we take these "roller pigeon hobbyists" and drop them from a plane and see if they can "roll in unison" before they hit the ground. And then feed their remains to the hawks and falcons.

Stupid people enrage me.

I wonder if this isn't the key to what is wrong with San Francisco: they banned burial of the dead within city limits in 1900, and by 1937 most of the cemeteries had been eliminated and the bodies removed. Of course, I'm sure there were sanitary reasons for this, but I can't help but think there is something wrong with a city without a resting place for its dead.

(Via Joe Sherlock's Car Blog, which does not have permalinks.)

I just don't get them, and no, actually being one doesn't help. In the comments to this post of Moxies about her night out at a new restaurant, I commented that it must have been expensive (it was one of those places that is booked until the Second Coming, and such places are usually expensive), and joked a bit about being so poor that my idea of luxe dining was the Olive Garden. Apparently my remarks were taken as catty, or something, and I got lectured to by Amy Alkon on how she budgets herself whenever she's in Paris. Well, I wasn't being catty, it's just the sort of thing I say, as I have money a bit on my mind these days.

Of course I could be wrong and she could actually think that her example of budget living (when she's in Paris she stays in an apartment so she can eat in and thus have extra cash to splurge on a couple of five-stars) has any sort of connection with mine (I live as long as possible on bad food from my fridge and when I finally run out of moldy bread and ramen noodle soup I walk to the bus to go to the grocery store, on the way passing the Olive Garden that I can't afford to eat in).

Anyway, this isn't to start some sort of fight with the woman (even though she called me "the Olive Garden person" when my real name is there at the bottom of my comment). I don't know anything about Amy Alkon except I think that she's some sort of media person, and that once I went to her web page from a link on someone else's page, and her website not only froze my browser window, it caused my entire computer to go into some sort of paralytic seizure. I not only couldn't click away from her website, I couldn't close the browser window, couldn't ctrl-alt-delete, couldn't even shut the computer down. My computer was transformed from a laptop into a black plastic frame holding a picture of Amy Alkon's website.

So this is all just to say that her website really seems to dislike me, or at least my computer.

You know that popular image of Death, the guy with the scary hooded black robe, sharp thing, etc.? Looks like we'll have to be redrawing the brand.

Or you know, maybe the cat just thinks he's about to get a nice fresh lunch.

(Via Tightly Wound.)

More evidence that the Seventies sucked, as if you needed more.

(Via Dawn Eden.)

Jesus. What the fuck is matter with this year?

More and more websites are being put in Websense's "Social Networking and Personal Websites" filter. Check your blog on Websense to see if it is on this banned list. Mine isn't, fortunately, but a whole lot of sites are, and not just Blogspot sites as I thought yesterday -- unless they are adding them as I surf.

I am sending this from work -- which by the way may be the only way I can get online for a while. I simply can't afford the phone line and the dsl anymore. In a few days it will probably be shut off (I have to look at my last bill), and getting it restarted -- or getting something else set up -- may take a week or more. I do have a McDonald's that supposedly has (not free) wireless up the street, and a Panera with (free) wireless a bus ride away, but I can't go there every day. The coffee shop I used to go to has a new sign on it and it's currently closed. It's going to still be a coffee shop, but who knows if they'll still offer the free wireless they used to offer.

(Yes, things are getting a bit more expensive than I expected. I am on the verge of selling all my stuff and moving into a room, I am so irritated by never having any money. But people around here want as much for a room as rent for an apartment, so that won't work.)

Oh dear lord, bees!

I'm disappointed that so far no one has suggested fire. All those firemen about, you think they'd know what to do.* Where's your Florida gumption, people?

*Whaddaya mean that's not what "fireman" means? There's "fire" in that word, isn't there?

To me, the most disturbing thing Al Gore says as recounted in this article is the following, to the question "Who's the most amazing person you've ever met?":

“Nelson Mandela. He’s a hoss[.]”

I'm... not gonna go there.

(Via Tim Blair.)

(I'll get around to the rest of the Road Trip saga soon. I've been feeling a bit under the weather.)

I am not only right-brained, but I think my left brain must be completely shut down. The article says I should be able to make the animation go anti-clockwise by "focusing" on it, but no matter how hard I concentrate it just keeps going clockwise. (According to the article, left-brained people see the animation go anti-clockwise, right-brained people see it go clockwise.)

[/drool]

(Via.)

Or does Tippi Hedren in Hitchcock's The Birds not look just like Paris Hilton? (That thick, smooth, non-moving lower lip, always set in a sort of Etruscan half-smile -- like she just got back from the dentist and the novocaine hasn't worn off.)

Also, do they have Paris Hilton masks for Halloween? That'd be a much scarier costume than the old Nixon mask standby.

I never watch "Law and Order: Criminal Intent," but I'm at a friend's house and it's their tv. So. There's something wrong with Vincent D'Onofrio, isn't there? He's not right in the head?

Gah!

Come on, people, get those lists ready.

(Via.)

We lost. (Note: have eye-washing bleach handy.)

Katastrofala omslag (Catastrophic Album Covers). To make you glad the world switched to CDs. The fear.... oh, the fear...

(Via.)

A jillionteen NEJ! update: and then there is the village in Borneo which kept the shaved orangutan prostitute. Remember, children, Western Culture is the font of all evil! Keep chanting it, like a mantra.

"Jellyfish," my eye. I think we all know that the Great Cthulhu is about to arise from the depths where He lies dreaming, and this is the first sign.

And the Care Bear Stare is useless against Him and His gelatinous helpers.

This is just weird: according to the ever-reliable Xinhua news, Tom Cruise is going to be in an upcoming episode of Doctor Who. Well, he's short enough to play a Dalek.

And this list of Tom Cruise-themed links at the bottom of the article are almost as weird:

"Ruined" Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise not a happy camper
Tom Cruise returns to big screen with Afghan-themed film
Tom Cruise mourns anti-Nazi heroes in Germany
Tom Cruise named "Sexiest small man."