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You are currently browsing the Six Meat Buffet blog archives for February, 2006.
I had no idea.
Watch the video at The International House of Jawas. It’s pretty hilarious – unless you’re easily offended by modern-day depictions of Jesus, as are the Aussies.
The United Campus Workers – a University of Tennessee employees’ union – is demanding a $1,200 across-the-board raise from the state legislature.
“One of our members, she is 58 years old and makes $7.41 an hour working 40 hours a week. That is state-sponsored institutional poverty,” he said.
Among the things Smith fails to note, like so many of his fellow travelers, is that, in America, if you want to make more money, you simply improve your skills and get another job. I realize that takes a little effort and unionized employees aren’t big on effort, but maybe it’s something this poor woman should look into. Additionally, there is no mention of what this woman does for $7.41 and hour. Perhaps what she does isn’t even worth that.
This isn’t China, and no one is holding a gun to her head – well, other than the union.
Knowing full well that the rank-and-file class warfare vote is at stake, State Senator Tim Burchett jumped on the bandwagon quicker than John Edwards can channel the spirit of a dead infant.
Last year the flat-raise bill, co-sponsored by state Rep. Harry Tindell, D-Knoxville, and state Sen. Tim Burchett, R-Knoxville, and others made it out of the education committee but didn’t get to the floor for a vote.
Instead, the Legislature passed a budget calling for a 3 percent raise for higher education employees. All UT employees, for the third straight year, got at least a $750 hike no matter how low their annual salary was.
“We’re going to run with it (the $1,200 flat-raise bill) again this year and just see what happens,” Burchett said. “These folks are such good people, and they just want their fair share and I’m trying to help them get it.”
“Their fair share.” Classic. Burchett has already proven that he can’t be trusted with the State’s affairs, and now he demonstrates that he’s willing to play the “living wage” card to curry the favor of the union vote.
Guess what, Tim. I’m good people too. How about giving back some of that tax surplus? I just want my fair share. Cuz I’m gooood people, Timmy.
Burchett is simply another example that – whether at the state or federal level – there is really no difference between the Republicans and the Donks. It’s all about grabbing political power and holding onto it, no matter the cost – and core values rarely – if ever – enter into the equation.
For those of you who have been waiting (just like I would be if I wasn’t already hitched), Pamela Rogers Turner has been released from jail after 198 days. She’s getting out early for “good behavior”. You know what I’m talkin’ about.
She was not supposed to speak to reporters when she left the jail Sunday. A plea bargain she agreed to in August said no interviews with media outlets for eight years. At the time, Rogers pleaded no contest to sexual battery by an authority figure.
In return, the state dropped two dozen other sex charges in connection with her relationship with the student.
Rogers has registered with the TBI’s sex offender registry. Her picture is already on the sex registry website. The address she gives is her parents’ home in Fentress County.
I really don’t have anything to add, but let’s take another look at this deranged ace poon before she rides off into the sunset of obscurity.
Pennsylvania man dangles girlfriend out window – 23 stories up – loses grip – bad things happen. Oh yeah, and he was drunk. And possibly stoned.
Police said Monday that Kevin Evenrode, a state employee, “was distraught and extremely inebriated” when he was arrested.
In addition to homicide, he will be charged with possession of drug paraphernalia.
Police said Evinrode dangled Rachel M. Kozlusky out the window during horseplay Saturday night and lost his grip on her arms.
Kozlusky, wearing only underwear and a sweater, fell 23 floors, broke a portico skylight and landed on the pavement in front of the building. She was pronounced dead at the scene of massive head and internal injuries.
Apparently there is some debate on whether or not it was an accident.
“Obviously it’s an unusual scenario,” Marsico said. “Even if his version is true, to be holding someone out on a 23rd-story window is beyond ridiculous. It’s as reckless an act as I can imagine, if not malicious.”
It’s hard to imagine that he would hang her out the window in an act of horseplay, but then again, maybe testing gravity was just one of their things.
A true gentleman, however, would have swan-dived immediately after her in a demonstration of love and unity. Pansy.
Feisty points us to some nauseating bilge from the Washington Post, who demonstrates that the old media will do whatever it takes to get their tongue up Dhimmi Carter’s disgusting dumper.
Sickening and sad. Is it any wonder people are tuning out of the Old Media?
While I was busting my humps yesterday at the Y, I got to see some of Fox News’ inane coverage of ongoing Mardi Gras celebrations.
I had flashbacks of watching Katrina coverage 6 months ago – people wandering the streets in a disoriented and distraught fashion; streets littered with urine, fecal matter and other sewage; a complete breakdown of law and order – I couldn’t tell if they were running stock footage from the storm or party footage from today.
Then there was a tsunami of happy talk about New Orleans’ rebuilding and how it’s going to be bigger and better than ever, blah, blah, blah. No one bothered to mention that the city still lies below sea level. And even worse – last week, Chocolate City officials said that they don’t want the deadbeats to come back to town – even if Mayor Nagin holds out a block of government cheese as some type of bait.
That was the message from three New Orleans City Council members who said government programs have “pampered” the city’s residents for too long.
The news that some New Orleans City Council members weren’t keen on the city’s poorest returning home added another layer of discomfort in Houston, where local residents and elected officials alike have stretched to meet the needs of thousands of Louisiana residents in the months after Hurricane Katrina.
The Katrina disaster has turned into a golden opportunity for New Orleans to both literally and figuratively sweep out the human debris and push its layabouts off on the rest of the country. Houston, in particular, is a little ticked-off.
“A city is a combination of all kinds of people,” said Councilman M.J. Khan, whose district has absorbed most of the city’s evacuees. “We definitely want everybody to be productive, wealthy and educated. But in any society it’s not always possible. We cannot pick and choose who will live in a city.”
Translation: Pleeeeaaasee take these people back!!!
You know that comment didn’t sit well. Let’s face it, as Katrina approached, most of New Orleans had the good sense to get out of town. Those that didn’t sat around blaming government for their ills. They’re still blaming government to this day. If you’re going to rely on government to take care of every facet of your life, you’re at their mercy when they don’t bother to put their evacuation plans into action.
But you can forget about all that crap this week, because it’s party time in the Big Easy. Time to drink until you have to run into the street to vomit on the sidewalk. Drink up, Nawlins! Show us your tits!
John Fund notes a disconcerting new admission to Yale’s campus in this morning’s Wall Street Journal:
Something is very wrong at our elite universities. Last week Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard when it became clear he would lose a no-confidence vote held by politically correct faculty members furious at his efforts to allow ROTC on campus, his opposition to a drive to have Harvard divest itself of corporate investments in Israel, and his efforts to make professors work harder. Now Yale is giving a first-class education to an erstwhile high official in one of the most evil regimes of the latter half of the 20th century–the government that harbored the terrorists who attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001.
“In some ways,” Mr. Rahmatullah told the New York Times. “I’m the luckiest person in the world. I could have ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Instead I ended up at Yale.” One of the courses he has taken is called Terrorism-Past, Present and Future.
Is there no depth that American universities will not sink? But surely this man is just some low level functionary. From the NY Times piece that prompted Fund’s concern:
Rahmatullah heard bin Laden speak at a house in Kandahar in 1998, not long after Qaeda agents financed by bin Laden blew up two U.S. embassies, in Kenya and Tanzania, and President Clinton retaliated by launching 75 cruise missiles at what were thought to be four terrorist training camps near the eastern Afghanistan town of Khost.
Fund rightfully asks:
I don’t believe Mr. Rahmatullah had direct knowledge of the 9/11 plot, and I don’t think he has ever killed anyone. I can appreciate that he is trying to rebuild his life. But he willingly and cheerfully served an evil regime in a manner that would have made Goebbels proud. That he was 22 at the time is little an excuse. There are many poor, bright students–American and foreign alike–who would jump at the opportunity to attend Yale. Why should Mr. Rahmatullah go to the line ahead of all of them?
[...]
In the wake of his being blindsided by his own administration over the Dubai port deal, he should be interested in finding out exactly who at the State Department approved Mr. Rahmatullah’s application for a student visa.
If supporting the people who have tacitly supported public beheadings is good enough for our State Department, perhaps Condi can make with the figurative beheadings of our own traitors at State.
When mrs. smantix informed me that her Valentine’s Day present to me was a trip to Atlanta to see one of my favorite obscenity-laced bands, it was not without some trepidation of a city I primarily associate with the Atlanta Urinal-Constipation, The Commie News Network, Cynthia “The Joooos” McKinney and Wayne Williams.
Sure, the recalcitrant Defeatocrat leftist in me has a hard time separating myself with the events of the day. With all the bad news in Iraq, naturally my thoughts turned towards the cradle of a civilization. A once proud city burned to the ground by war criminals, occupied by a cruel foreign army and forced to take part in an imperialist power’s democracy at the end of the barrel of a gun.
But enough about Atlanta’s history.
Where the Night Takes Us
I was reminded of another reason not like Georgia upon entering the state as all roads lead to The Carter Center. Georgia’s omnipresent paean to Preznint Planters. While the rest of the country has tried to apply some electoral Resolve to the stain of Jimmeh Peanut’s Reign of Error, Georgia has immortalized Arafat’s speechwriter, dottering enabler of dictators and history’s greatest monster.
Back to the hotel.
Uniquely decorated rooms include personalized touches such as delicately scented toiletries made in the north Georgia mountains. The eclectic Virginia-Highland area surrounds this lodging with lots of restaurants, cafes, antique stores and art galleries. A leisurely walk through the neighborhood offers pretty views of Craftsman-style architecture and gardens. This location appeals to artsy types and business travelers avoiding a generic downtown hotel experience.
Aside from an inviting facade, this generic dump was unarguably the most delicate and eclectic shitbox it’s been my displeasure to darken. Hallways as narrow as my mind and a room with a myopic view to match. Radiators are for cars, not hotel rooms in the year 2006. An anachronism on par with Harrison Ford tracking down a renegade Pentium II Compaq Presario in Blade Runner. On this balmy Feburary evening, we were blasted out of a room so hot that our skin would fall off the bone if marinated in garlic butter and kept behind a locked door for 25 to 30 minutes per pound.
I asked the desk clerk if he could turn it down as the dial on it seemed to have no effect at all and was told that it could be turned down but that one thermostat sat the temperature for all of the rooms and some of the residents get cold.
Fair enough. I just needed it turned down a little. But it’s dinner time for a stranger in a strange land.
Me: What’s good around here? I thought I read that there’s a steakhouse right down from here…is it any good?
Clerk: It’s mediocre but I’m going next door to the Eclipse di Sol.
It surely couldn’t be worse than the Veggie Burger/Tofurkey joint across the street.
Candles Mean “Class”
Unlike most trips, this time I didn’t meticulously plan one day from the next. Where would the night take us? A disarming jewel, a discerning dive – either fine by me.
On to Eclipse di Sol. What is it about $9 martinis that is so impressive?
“Can I start you off with some drinks?”, asked our capable attendant.
“I’ll have a Stella draught. and mrs. smantix, the tea.”
An ambitious menu left more question marks than curiosities. Eclipse boasted an “eclectic” crowd as well. The only thing more shocking than the draped-in-black, hipster doofus clientele was the absence of a tv. Even at the bar. The menu couldn’t have announced the target demographic any better if it boasted Baby Brokeback Ribs. Braised in a loving man’s milk demi-glaze.
Me: You want an appetizer? The calamari? What looks good to you?
mrs. smantix: How about bail?
me: Bail?
mrs. smantix: Bail.
me: They’ve got a roasted chicken. You like roasted chick-
mrs. smantix: Not with smashed root beets.
me: They’ve got a pan-seared salm-
mrs. smantix: With root bee-
me: Gotcha.
mrs.smantix: Bail.
(via Garfield Ridge)
Barney, we hardly knew ye.
UPDATE:
Make it a double, barkeep. Darren McGavin, long-time actor and dad from A Christmas Story, is dead at 83. RIP.
Don’t be confused – it’s not a Driver’s License. It’s a Certificate for Driving – Not To Be Used For Identification Purposes.
Much like TennCare (our state’s attempt at HillaryCare), the Governor’s office promised that this program would serve as a model for other states to follow. What could go wrong? You’re an illegal alien? Come to Tennessee, we’ll get you documented, we don’t care if you’re just here from Mexico to work at the Brentwood car wash or if you’re here from Yemen to assist in a multi-faceted terror plot. It doesn’t matter to us – no credit? No problem!
Also, much like TennCare, it’s been a monumental failure. Consequently, the state is giving it up. This is one stillbirth that should have been an first-trimester abortion. Only a politician could argue that giving drivers’ licenses to illegals is somehow a good thing.
Tennessee’s interim safety commissioner announced Friday they are suspending the driving certificate program until March sixth. After that, only immigrants who can prove they are here legally will be able to get the certificates.
Commissioner Nicely says there have just been too many problems implementing the program and it may have threatened our safety.
Commissioner Nicely has a firm grasp of the obvious. It’s a shame it took him nearly two years to reach that conclusion. I guess that gave his landscapers enough time to get their projects done.
More than 50,000 driving certificates have been issued since the program started in Tennessee in 2004.
Officials say about 80 percent of the people who have them got them by showing only identification and proof of residence, but no proof they were in the country legally.
Before today’s suspension, Tennessee was one of 11 states that did not require proof of legal residence to obtain a drivers license or certificate.
Donna Rowland, State Rep from Murfreesboro points out that, predictably, “busloads of people from other states poured into Tennessee to get the card.” This was yet another effect that the Bredesen administration just couldn’t forsee.
Here’s a tip for all of the illegals from surrounding states who are ticked off about this change – how about coming here legally instead of slapping the faces of the immigrants who have worked hard to become citizens? Compared to the landscaping, construction and service industry work you do, learning English and passing a test should be a piece of cake.
For anyone sick of the incessant bombardment of G-dawgs flashing dollar, dollar bills to the camera in front of rented Humvees or so-called 38 year-old “men” who write whiny songs about their momma’s kicking them out of the house or worse, Mother Earth – this weekend finds me not ridiculing but rather partaking in the culture that’s given us so much and asked for so little. Especially in the field of dentistry.
Picture Motorhead downing a litre of Crown Royal right before dropping 4 hits of orange sunshine and beating up AC/DC behind the dumpster of an Atlanta titty bar.
If I’m not back by tomorrow night. Somebody call the jail or a preacher.
Not since the 2004 elections has Howard Dean faced such a quixotic opponent and internal strife at the DNC as al-Qaida showed that it too can fail boldly and spectacularly enough to be qualified for the Chairman’s seat of the Democratic Party:
ABQAIQ, Saudi Arabia – Suicide bombers carried out a bold attack on the world’s largest oil processing facility Friday but were stopped from breaking in by guards who fired on their cars, exploding both vehicles and killing the attackers.
[...]
Al-Qaida purportedly claimed responsibility for the attack, the first on an oil facility in Saudi Arabia.
[...]
At least two militants were killed in the explosions, and Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television reported two security guards also died. Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki could not confirm the deaths of the security guards but said two were critically wounded with potentially lethal injuries.
An unnamed contact with the Dean campaign insisted, “The whole idea that al-Qaida thinks they’re against terrorism more than we are is just plain wrong. But if it’s a fight they want, it’s a fight they’ll get. We’ll bury them like we did Harry Reid.”
al-Qaida spokeman Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Najdi had a few stern words for the current Donk chairman:
“How dare infidel Dean question our patriotism? No one supports bringing the troops home more than we do. The time for cheap talk has passed. When given the choice between voting for the pretenders and the real-thing, we trust the people of Iowa and New Hampshire to be the solid progressives they’ve always been.”
The lyrics to King Missile’s “Detachable Penis,” (lyrics by John S. Hall, reprinted without permission):
Now for the real-life, less amusing, more painful, detachable penis:
Concerned about an unusual odor from the oven, the clerk opened the microwave to check on the item and out tumbled what appeared to be a severed human penis, wrapped up in the paper towel.
Police were called immediately and the man ran out of the store empty handed.
“Hopefully, they’re looking for the person this belongs to,” said Sandy Furman, of McKeesport.
If anyone has seen a penis-less man (well, other than Barney Frank) flailing about in a distraught manner, please contact McKeesport Police.
hat tip to Tiny E
You had me at:
Read his DNC Nomination Acceptance speech. Then his RNC Nomination acceptance speech. I don’t care if he has a D or an R after his name, I’m votin’ for him.
UNRELATED: The Holmes clan and I will be signing autographs at Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies in Gatlinburg today. If I run into you, I’ll let you buy me a souvenir t-shirt.
I’ve been so conflicted about the the idea of having Dubai Ports World running several U.S. ports.
At first, I was strongly opposed to it. Last night, however I heard Bill O’Reilly’s reasons why it is not a bad idea. Normally, I think O’Reilly is a self-absorbed gas bag. This time, he was a self-absorbed gas bag that made sense.
The USA cannot win the War on Terror without the help of moderate Arab nations. “Talking Points” believes we will actually lose the terror war unless we build alliances in the Middle East. Right now, there’s no reason to fire the Arab company, except that they are Arabs. Isn’t that racism? Can America afford to send that message to the world?
This morning I’m listening to my favorite talk radio show and he’s making a very good case as to why this is a very bad idea. And now I’m back where I started.
So, let’s look at the pros and cons and reach an informed decision.
Pro: The CIA characterizes the United Arab Emirates favorably:
Con: The U.A.E. was identified as a major financial center used by al-Qaeda and was one of three governments to recognize the Taliban.
Pro: In both cases, after 9-11, the U.A.E. quickly cooperated with the U.S.
Pro: James Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute, pulling the race card, says it’s all about the prejudice.
Surely we’re not prejudiced.
Con: Then again, maybe we are. Given their track record, perhaps there is a good reason.
Pro: Constructively engaging an Arab country could help in moderating them and bringing about reforms.
Con: Look at the moderating effects we’ve had on Saudi Arabia with billions and billions of dollars in oil revenues.
Pro: President Bush is for the deal.
Con: President Bush is for the deal.
When it comes to helping his friends out in ways that might hurt our national security, Bush gives us that “I can’t believe you actually took that stuff seriously. C’mon that was a State of the Union address!” (See also Julie Myers)
Pro: There was this great exchange student from the U.A.E. in one of my classes. Marwan was his name. Anyway, at the end of the semester we all went out afterward. He insisted on buying a round of beer even though he didn’t drink.
Good guy.
So upon reflection, I think it is a good idea to let the U.A.E. company run the U.S. ports.
Marwan. Good guy.
UPDATE:
Marwan is not the same one as the terrorist from Ohio. Actually the crew from Ohio had that whole ZZTop thing going. My friend didn’t.
My favorite morning Talkshow guy was still on the warpath against the deal this morning. His angle was that this section of 9-11 commission report shows the U.A.E.’s complicity with al Qaeda:
Yes, no argument there. But pre-9-11 who was serious about offing bin Laden? Bill Clinton? The Sudanese offered him up to us free of charge.
Pre 9-11, Pakistan was a good friend of al Qaeda and the Taliban too. Though not exactly worthy of sainthood, it appears that they came around and were no longer penalized by the U.S.
Funk, I hear your concern. That is the bigger question for another time.
Also, Sister Toldjah has a very complete roundup of what everyone is thinking. Check it out.
UPDATE II: Conservative Sub makes some good points too. Mostly by mentioning Six Meat Buffet, but also kissing up to Dan of Riehl World View
And also for saying this:
UPDATE III
Then again, LindaSoG presses the point that maybe a moderate Islamic state isn’t so moderate after all.
Something to consider…
Ken Starr, famous for going after President Bill Jefferson Clifford for his marital infidelities, has resurfaced in the defense of convicted rapist/murderer Michael Morales.
Morales was scheduled to get the needle last night, but a pants-shitting Federal judge decided that lethal injection was “too painful” for the subhuman heap of fecal matter and the execution was stopped.
“Any such intervention would clearly be medically unethical,” they said. “As a result, we have withdrawn from participation in this current process.”
California state authorities rescheduled the execution for 7.30pm yesterday (3.30am Wednesday British time), opting for a different procedure that would not require anaesthesiologists.
The state has until midnight on Tuesday to execute Morales, who was found guilty of the 1981 rape and murder of a 17-year-old woman. The death warrant expires today. Officials would have to go back to the original trial judge who imposed the death penalty at the 1983 trial to obtain another warrant. But that judge, Charles McGrath, has since changed his mind about the sentence, and wrote to the state governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, asking for clemency. The request was denied.
With any luck, this mound of murdering human debris will get the needle tonight. I don’t care if they lop off both his arms with a wheat sickle and leave him there to bleed to death, the sonofabitch needs to die yesterday. In fact, I’d prefer that he be tortured for quite a while before he’s allowed to die. Here is a sample of the cruel and unusual punishment that Morales dispensed upon his victim:
Ortega couldn’t bring himself to watch but heard the girl struggle against the grip. After about 15 seconds, the belt broke. That’s when Morales pulled out a hammer.
He slammed the hammer against Winchell’s head – over and over. Twenty-three times.
She screamed for Ortega to help her and tried to fend off the assault, even ripping out her own hair. Ortega kept driving. Morales eventually beat her unconscious, crushing her skull.
Then, Ortega pulled over. Morales told him to drive away and come back in 15 minutes.
He dragged Winchell from the front seat and across the roadway, face-down, into the vineyard. He then raped her.
Morales began walking away from the girl, but decided to turn around. He pulled out a kitchen knife and plunged it into her chest – four times. “To make sure she died,” according to the state attorney general’s report.
Christian waited for her daughter to come home. By 8 p.m., she said she knew something had happened. By midnight, she could feel her daughter was gone.
“It’s a feeling I had in the pit of my stomach, like your insides are ripped out,” she said. “That feeling has never left.”
Ken Starr, who went after Clinton with the ferocity of a spurned lover (perhaps because Monica just wasn’t that into him), says that Morales should be spared because he’s shown remorse and has returned to his Christian upbringing.
Starr said Morales, now 46, was influenced by his cousin to commit the crime, and was using PCP and drinking at the time of the murder. He later expressed remorse for the crime, has returned to his Christian upbringing and maintains relationships with his three adult children.
Well, in that case, Kenny, let’s just set the fucker free.
No.. wait… On second thought, let’s send Morales to hell TONIGHT.
UPDATE:
No such luck. California demonstrates once again that it cannot be trusted to be a part of the union.
Given President Junior’s lack of concern for our borders, it should come as no surprise that he’s selling out the security of six major U.S. ports to the freakin’ United Arab Emirates. Just consider that concept for a moment. If I wasn’t already painfully aware of President Junior’s political tin ear, I would think this was some type of joke. But, of course, it isn’t.
So, since Junior seems to need a little help with his wacky security schemes, let’s help him make his next strategic move by voting in tonight’s Sunday Monday Night Poll.
UPDATE:
It gets worse. Dhimmi Carter has announced that he endorses the “turn the ports over to the UAE” plan of action. Call off the deal, President Junior. Call it off.
***AN OPEN LETTER TO THE RECIPIENT OF THE $365 MILLION DOLLAR POWERBALL LOTTERY***
Dear Unannounced Winner of the $365 Million Powerball,
In light of a recent call by a Pakistani cleric to put out a bounty of $1 Million dollars on the cartoonists who accurately lampooned the mouthpiece of a minor deity, I would like to request that you put out a $1 Million and $1 dollar bounty on that particular cleric.
After taxes, that will still leave you enough money for 160 to 170 other clerics who are encouraging attacks on our troops, embassies and tourists abroad.
Forego that extra 5,000 square feet on your new mansion and take a stand that will make international news and set a precedent in hopes that more lottery winners will follow suit.
Have I mentioned how much I hate the Olympics?
Even so, the boys over at Team Swap have some ice skating photos that made me chuckle.
If I didn’t know that 96% of all male skaters were gay,
I would think he was tryin’ to throw a hump into her.
In other Olympic news, the U.S. women’s curling team has been ELIMINATED from medal contention.
I just have to point this out – Curling – a sport where people push things around on ice with a broom – was too taxing for our women’s team. I say it’s time for the U.S. women’s team to get back in the kitchen, pick up a broom and practice, practice, practice.
Yeah, I went there.
For almost six months now, Dave from Garfield Ridge has been sending me e-mails and leaving me phone messages gloating. GLOATING that he had a Sobek interview and I didn’t. If I wasn’t already a raging alcoholic, it would have driven me to drink.
But now I’ve got my own Sobek interview and Sobek introduces you to the man behind the pork products. Be forewarned, I don’t think you can handle the truth.
Take that stupid Dave from Garfield Ridge!
No, it’s not Jesus. It’s Jingjing! The next closest thing to a god you’ll be coming into contact with in Communist China. Jingjing represents the super, happy, new public relations tool of the Chicom’s proud campaign to suppress all dissent. But Jingjing is not alone. He comes equipped with Chacha – an elite cyber Sino-assailant who has already escaped death once by the seditious act of being born a female and working for the very government that tried to have her dispatched in the womb. While the Despotic Duo may be omnipresent and omniscient, they are sorely lacking in the Forgiveness Department says one Chen Minli, Maoist mouthpiece of the Shenzhen City Public Security Bureau’s Internet Surveillance Centre, in today’s Financial Times:
“In my family, if my child does not lay her chopsticks down properly, then I will smack her, but maybe in your family you are too relaxed about such things,” Ms Chen says. “Each family has its own rules and countries are the same.”
Except replace “lay her chopsticks down properly” with “toe the Communist Party line” and “I will smack her” with “life in prison” or “death”. However you slice it, it’s a virtual nightstick to any pro-democracy activists in the backroom of a Beijing Police station:
“Now internet users know the police are watching them,” Ms Chen says in an interview at the Bureau’s gleaming new 28-storey building in central Shenzhen.
[...]
Jingjing and Chacha operate by appearing as clickable adverts on local websites and as virtual users of the hugely popular QQ instant messaging system operated by Nasdaq-listed Tencent.
[...]
“He is just like a policeman, interactively moving along with you. Wherever you go, he is watching you,” Mr Xu says.
I feel safer already. But what if this pesky brain of mine starts thinking about inconvenient words like “freedom” or “Tiananmen Square”?
Ms Chen says the mere appearance of the icons makes users think twice before posting sensitive messages. When Jingjing and Chacha arrived on local websites, the number of postings that had to be filtered out because of suspect content fell more than 60 per cent.
When the pair send warning messages to websites under investigation for alleged fraud, the sites’ operators often immediately shut them down, she says.
China’s internet laws do not stop at such crimes. Users are also barred from a range of offences including the posting or even consultation of content judged to challenge the political order, incite secession, promote “feudal superstition” or harm the “honour of national institutions”.
Such laws have been used to jail people who peacefully question the Communist party, and they lie at the heart of debate overseas over the role international internet companies should play in China.
In honor of US companies’ historic complicity in the oppression of freedom around the world, Microsoft has released a new marketing campaign that’s sure to catch on – whether you like it or not.
(hat tip: Cranky!)
We are in the process (yet again) of moving to a new webhost. Posting this weekend will be sporadic and there could be site outages as I fumble my way through the process.
I apologize in advance for the lack of entertainment and potential lack of connectivity as we make the move.
UPDATE:
Well, we’ve made the switch and the domain is now pointing to the new site (at least to my IP address). If you’re seeing this update, then it’s working for you as well. The rest of you will have to wait.
Everything seems to pretty much be working okay, except for some behind the scenes issues, that I’ll have to figure out later, but so far so good. If anyone sees anything really strange (other than the usual content and the fact that 6MB looks like crap in Firefox – I already know that), let me know.
This is from The Drudge Report Friday morning, February 17. *
OK kids, help me out on this one. Does the picture go with the headline above or below it?
If below, then is it really bird flu or murderous Jihadi geese?
* No guarantee it will still be there tomorrow or even in 20 minutes.
No American servicepeople are involved. Go back to sleep ACLU, International ANSWER, Ramsey Clarke and the rest of you useless defenders of justice.
Rusty has the story (and yes, it has him in a tizzy too):
The images below are not graphic. They show two prisoners in Iraq just before they are murdered by the soldiers holding them. They were both murdered by soldiers in Iraq in the last week. The soldiers holding them openly boast that the prisoners will be killed, even though this is clearly a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
It seems that, on the inspiration of Right Wing News, some bloggers are listing their favorite blogs – and even worse – daring to rank them in order of their personal favorites.
The sheer bravado shown by these bloggers calls for an angry mass public delinking.
First on the list is MacStansbury.
MacStansbury has Six Meat ranked #24 out of 40. I find this entirely unacceptable. To be left out of the top-20 is an offense to myself, Smantix and, from what I’ve just learned, has caused Cranky to stay home from work today because it has “sickened him beyond all imagination.”
As a result, we’re delinking Mac for the rest of the day. After which, we will add him back. This will teach him a lesson that he won’t soon forget.
On the flip side, there is Buckley F. Williams at TNOYF, who properly sucks up and lists us #11. This is the kind of bloated ranking we can live with.
As a result of this blatant sucking-up, we’re moving TNOYF to the top-level favorites blogroll.
As for Right Wing News, I just realized that I didn’t even have RWN on my blogroll, so I’m adding them, then DELINKING them as a show of disgust at not even making the top 40. After which time I’ll probably them back, since John has thrown a link or two our way in the past. BUT, for today, DELINKED!
I’m also publically DELINKING Vince Aut Morire for absolutely no reason whatsoever.