Topics

And look up Ezekiel 23:20.

DO YOU EVER SEE THIS?



IF ANSWER IS YES, YOU'RE IN SOUTHAMPTON.

PROTIP:  NESSIES CAN'T CLIMB LADDERS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfCeSfujB3U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jSYQXcFd7ls

I love this shit.   

There's a certain type of Discordian that spends a lot of time worrying about Discordia's past, instead of its future.  I am not so much refering here to hobbyists and amateur historians such as Adam Gorightly (although the obsession with the founders many people have is a little strange), but rather the sort of person who obsesses over minor points in Discordian thinking that have been done to death for 10 years or more.

For example I spent an hour or so last night, going over a few "General Semantics" sites, including of course the facebook page.  While many fine points WERE made, none of these points were new.  All of these pages seemed to consist of people trying to show each other how jaded they were, how every ounce of human free will is "a story", among other spastic fits of solopsism.

Now, if that's how these folks get their rocks off, fine & dandy.  I am not here to get between them and their groove.  But, speaking personally, I can't decide which is more dismal:  the solopsism or the bog-standard primate pecking order games that seem to be continuous among even the established users...Without even the comic relief (or attempted comic relief) I have come to expect from Discordians.  These people are serious.  Perhaps that's the joke?

Also, this weird cult of personality that is re-emerging around Thornley, Hill, and Wilson.  There is nothing wrong with preserving some of that shit, you know, as a hobby...But to throw up newly-discovered pics and/or writing like it's the dead sea scrolls containing commandments 11-20 doesn't seem - to me - to be much more than some weird priesthood of sorts.  Yes, yes, you met/knew one of the originals, way the fuck back in the year dot.  Get over it.

These things, taken together, imply a certain level of stagnation that approaches Lutheranism, in which synods meet every so often to debate precendent going back to 1600 or so, with new thought being viewed as a direct affront to God.  Not to mention, of course, the urge that both above behaviors result in; cleansing the temple.  Lutherans spent 350 years griping about "creeping Calvinism", while these days, a certain type of person gets riled by Subgenius/Pastafarian/Last Thursdayist influences creeping into Discordia.

*ahem*

THEY WERE ALREADY IN DISCORDIA.

Because, if we're gonna quote holy writ, remember that ALL persons are Discordians.  ALL OF THEM.  This INCLUDES these other, lesser churches, NOT TO MENTION all the "mundane" religions such as Catholicism, Jainism, and even pro wrasslin' fans.

So, again, I am not here to tell you how to behave or what ought to set off your monkey, but it seems to me that the urge for old-timey and/or so-called esoteric studies are in many circumstances a case of not being able to see the forest for the trees.  Discordia encompasses so much fun weirdness, it is so vast, that it seems kind of weird - in my opinion, mind you - to sit down and obsess over one small part of it.

At this point, I was going to go a little further into the free will thing mentioned above, but it seems to me that it might require an entire rant of its own.

Or Kill Me.

Note:  I can only speak for myself, of course, but I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.

People call us the "Doom & Gloomers" in other Discordian communities.  I don't understand this, because we're always GRINNING.  Sure, we may be snickering about things that other people wouldn't even bring up, sure the smile might be a combination of The Fear, indignity, and media-induced Bell's Palsy...But it's still a GRIN, and that's what matters.

Me, I'm always smiling, even when it looks like (online) I'm raging.  I am raging, of course, but I'm wearing a shit-eating grin while I'm doing it.  I am told by certain freaks that this means I am not a "real Discordian", whatever the fuck that is.  Okay, so I'm not.  Excommunicate my spotty arse...I'll be GRINNING while you do it, and I'll STILL be doing my shit the exact same way.  I just won't have the "happy dancing children in the wildflowers" badge of approval while I'm at it.

Neither will I have an Eris that is basically internet soft-core porn.  Eris is and was a hag, a horrible old woman with the hem of her dress soaked in the blood of the people NEXT to the people who were NEXT to the guy who pissed her off.  The continual urge shown by people to depict her as a barely-legal hippie stripper is fucking hilarious, and just ANOTHER reason to laugh LIKE HELL.

Now, everyone who knows me (and a bunch of other people as well, apparently), knows that I don't have much time for the absurdist/dadaist/happy chaos crowd.  This is true, I really don't.  But that doesn't mean that I don't consider them Discordians (which is more than some of my detractors can say).  It's just that THEIR discordia is different than MY discordia which is probably different from YOUR discordia.  I don't feel the need to make excuses for anyone's discordia, particularly my own. 

The problem is, people mistake my pooping on people for an attempt at censorship.  It is of course no such thing.  While I may be voiding my bowels from a great altitude on any given person, that doesn't mean I expect them to conform to my way of thinking or to stop talking about what they were talking about.  It is, as the kids say, a "doggy-dog world", and if some random asshat on the internet pisses you off so much that you feel an aching need to either ragequit or go stalking, then let's just say that this ain't gonna be your century.  I'M just telling you to SHUT UP.  The people you need to worry about don't WANT you to shut up. They want you to keep talking, while they record each and every word.

But worrying about a world-wide police state in what we used to call "the free world" (HAW HAW!) takes more energy than telling hot dog jokes on Friday or telling people they're doing it wrong, or board-nannying.  Don't get me wrong, I don't think Discordia is or will ever be ready to TOPPLE THE MACHINE™, but you can at LEAST stick a crowbar in the gears here and there, can't you?

I'LL GET ON THAT TOMORROW!

Yes, yes, we know.  Much like the tumblr nation, you are too busy cleansing the temple to deal with the torch-bearing mob of yahoos OUTSIDE of the temple.  Your priorities are all fucked up.

In any case, MY entire Discordia boils down to "DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO" and "YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD".  That is to say, while I am willing to listen to an argument about the validity or non-validity of any given opinion I may have, that doesn't mean that I am willing to bend the fuck over to please the Myspace Facebook Discordians, or the twitter legions, or the tumblr assmonkeys.  Or anyone else.  And if YOU are never wrong, then you don't have a lot of credibility when you tell OTHER people that THEY are Doin' It Wrong.

I will in fact say that if you are aiming your shit cannon INSIDE of The Church™, then you are in fact an idiot.  If, on the other hand, you just have an accidental discharge that gives your pals an Elmer Fudd face (only with poop instead of soot), then you're MY kind of idiot; that is to say, the giggling loon who won't go after his own side, but doesn't worry too much about collateral damage.  And sure, I get butthurt when that collateral damage is ME, but I get over it, just like everyone should.  So long as it's collateral damage, of course.  I don't get mad at the man who accidentally runs me over with a steam roller, but I get pissed LIKE HELL at the person who shoots me intentionally with a spitwad. 

As the martyred Saint ECH once said, "Sack up".

As the late, lamented Badbeast once said, "Never Mind the Bollocks".

And, finally, as my favorite Scotsman once said, "HAW HAW HEE heeeee ho ho rumpy pumpy"
(Translation:  Fuck you and your bullshit, I'm gonna drink paint thinner and get laid).

OR KILL ME!

...ATE ALL THE EUCALYPTUS TREES.



Koala Bears: Ecological menace or communist enemy of the noble logging industry?

[Part 1]

Part 1

I'd been down here a long time; just how long, I couldn't say.  It was just one of those 20th century things.  Could have been the Archduke, could have been a funny little Austrian clown making funny little speeches.  Could have been critters in the tunnels, Nessies in the sewers maybe, or just a little phosgene gas in the trenches.  Just another day in the happy place.

I made my way up a set of stairs made from expended artillery casings, and walked out into "daylight".  Trenches spread out before me.  Concertina wire.  A Fokker triplane strafing some Tommies.  My duster and pistols were gone, and I was in filthy khaki and puttees.  Okay, so it was going to be the world war I thing. 

I was really tired of the world war I thing.

I  crouched and ran along the trench line.  I never know what I'm supposed to do when these things start.  It just sort of works its way out as I go along.  Hell, most of the time I just wind up bearing witness to other peoples' tragedies.  And make no mistake, every corpse on this field is a tragedy...To the parents, the wives, the siblings, most of all to the dead young men piled up in windrows, slowly becoming one with the soil.

I went around a bend in the strangely-empty trench, and there she was...The curls of her hair tucked up under her "pie-plate" helmet, her uniform completely clean except for her puttees.  Nobody, not even generals, can keep clean boots in this mess.

"Excuse me, Miss, but what the hell are you doing here?"

"Well, I am here to ask you that exact question.  What are YOU doing here?"

"I don't know.  I got lost a few years ago.  I've been in this place - or places very much like it - ever since.  I'd like very much to go home to my wife and my kids."

"Then why don't you go back the way you came?"

I looked back over my shoulder.  Nothing there but mud.  I looked back at her.

"That's not funny."

"No, it isn't.  Just turn around.  Go home."

There was a series of sharp whistles.  I lunged into a dugout, screaming for her to take cover.  When the barrage was over, I peeked out of my hidey hole and looked.  No sign of her.  I jogged down the trench, looking around, in case she'd been injured or hurled down the trenchline.  Nothing.

I stood there for a while, absent-mindedly picking at nits in the seams of my uniform.  What the hell had just happened?  My stomach growled after a time, so I buggered off down the trench line, looking for some food.

After about an hour, I ran into some Frenchmen, the powder-blue of their uniforms completely obscured by the ever-present mud.  I have no French, but fortunately two of them spoke English.

"I am Emile.  This dour young man next to me is Andre", the older of the two said with ghastly relish, "You are welcome to eat with us; there are enough weevils for all."  Andre said nothing, instead digging through a poke and fashioning a cigarette of sorts.

"Thanks.  How long have you boys been on the line?"

Andre barked laughter.  Emile just looked at me strangely for a moment.  "We have been here since the beginning."

"What?  Since the war STARTED?"

"Yes.  It has become boring.  Today, a gas attack.  Tomorrow, it is the artillery.  The next day?"  He gave a very Gallic shrug, "Perhaps an assault from the boche.  It makes no difference.  God looks upon you, and you live.  God turns his head, and you die."

I must have been more tired than I thought, because at that moment, Emile flickered.  Just for a second.  Just long enough that I was sure I saw it.

"Perhaps you will bunk with us this night?  Perhaps you can find your unit in the morning?"

I had a really bad feeling about this, but it was dark as pitch by that point.

"I guess maybe I better."

"Excellent", Emile said with a strange smile, "Perhaps there will be Pinot later."  Beside him, Andre just smirked.

To be continued.

Transference is a phenomenon characterized by unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another.
- From Wikipedia

For me, things tend to get very jumbled over time.  Priorities get scrambled, my reactions to others get a little weird, that sort of thing.  Then something generally happens, and my mental state sort of crystalizes.  What that something is can vary quite a bit.  It can be the loss of a friend or relative, a car accident...or maybe just a good shot to the head.  And then I am away from the noise, thinking in perfect silence inside some weird glass hallway, with all the normal noise & chaos outside.  Whatever it is that's going on, I'm not actually there.  I'm somewhere else, watching.

Another fact that's relevant is that I can't just write.  I have to write TO someone.  A muse, perhaps.  Most of the MSY series was actually written to Bella, for example.  And when she vanished in a puff of marijuana smoke, I was sort of stranded.  I had lots to say...The engine was running full blast, but the transmission wasn't there, at least until I had transferred the "recipient" of what I was writing to someone else, without actually realizing that it was happening.

Just recently, this has happened again.  Work stress, an unrecognized depression, a misunderstanding with a very good friend that just gets more and more misunderstood...Then my "muse" laughed at me.  Not screamed at me (that's normal and accepted, even my family screams at me, I tend to do things that cause it), not laughed with me, laughed at me.  Then bourbon and pills.  Then a whack to the head.

And here I am, back in that glass corridor, watching.  Watching Putin annex the Crimea.  Watching wreckers and vandals, an entire generation of undisciplined and vicious children wearing adult clothes and performing adult roles, as they tear down the basics of human dignity; as they tear up the great works of their ancestors.  Watching normal people doing normal things, for that matter.  Watching and waiting.

Because that transference has taken place and, as usual, I missed it (If I saw it happening, it wouldn't be transference, it would be something else entirely.  Hell, if I saw it happening, it wouldn't have happened).  But until I learn to say things in a manner in which I am understood by that person, then I can't really say much of anything at all. 

And that's why I can't write anymore.

For now.

Or Kill Me.

...Such as the fact that he was excommunicated by his own weird church in August of 2013 (but not why).

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/16/1285133/-Fred-Phelps-of-Westboro-Baptist-Protests-Near-Death#

Also, this at the end was worthy of Hunter S Thompson:

But Fred, you old hate monger, you despicable human being..  Thank you for putting a real face on hatred and bigotry.  Your hate, your venom, your sheer level of evil reminded people all over the country that they couldn't be on your side of this civil rights battle.  And for that, I'll tip my glass, and be glad the world is rid of you when you're gone, and glad the world had to confront your madness as it did.

I am, in the past two weeks, come into incredible temporal power (with associated wounds) at the same time as I have been scarred for life; everything is sideways. I am out of bullets.

http://news.discovery.com/tech/robotics/taser-drone-could-stun-criminals-with-80k-volts-140310.htm

"The drone can be deployed when an alarm is triggered. It can find a subject and send live video to the owner's phone and ask if you want to authorize the subject or detain them," Chaotic Moon explained, according to RT. "If you detain them, it drops into fully autonomous mode to detain them until police arrive -- if needs be, stunning them with 80,000 volts of electricity to render them incapacitated."

Chaotic Moon wants to add pepper spray to CUPID in the near future. The firm is also working on an UAV that interferes with intrusive paparazzi drones, using an electromagnetic pulse to zap the offending drone's electronic system and causing it to crash.

That last bit...Am I the only person that sees the drawback in that item?

Emote-worthy?

...But nobody showed up to my peedee party. 

[Chapter 1]

Chapter 1

I remember it all like it was yesterday.  Kitty and I had gone to a party celebrating her latest anthology of poetry, Throw All Ex-Boyfriends Into the Ocean.  I really didn't like literary parties, but I was her editor, so I kind of had to go.

Now, any editor will tell you that authors and poets are, generally, the worst people on Earth.  This party was no exception, and bringing Kitty there was like adding a great white shark to a piranha tank.  We weren't there 10 minutes when the trouble started.

After I'd fixed us both a drink, we were approached by the artist "P3nt", who hails from Scotland.  I figured I'd introduce them.

"P3nt, I'd like you to meet Kitty Parson, the guest of honor tonight.  Kitty, this is P3nt, an artist from Scotland who occasionally hurls himself into the North sea for reasons unknown."

"Hello, P3nt", Kitty began...But then it all went wrong.  Kitty couldn't help noticing that P3nt wasn't looking at her so much as her cleavage.

"oooooohohoho", P3nt replied.

"I'm up here", Kitty said, in a testy voice.

"HOhoooooHo"

"Fuck this noise", Kitty said, reaching in her purse.

"NO KITTY, DON'T", I hollered, but it was too late.  Kitty had pulled a 23K stungun out of her purse, and jammed it firmly onto P3nt's arm.  P3nt flopped like a fish, then stood straight up, and then toppled over onto his back.

"Now you've done it", I said.

"What?  I zapped some ass at a party."

"No.  You've initiated what passes among the Scots as a 'courtship ritual'.  QUICK!", I yelled to the room in general, "IS THERE ANY HAGGIS AROUND?  IT'S OUR ONLY CHANCE.

A sea of uncomprehending faces looked back at me.  The music had stopped.

"oooo", said P3nt, from the ground, "ooo rumpy pumpy heh heh HAH heh"

"We have to go.  Now."  I grabbed Kitty's arm and hauled her out toward the car.  "If he wakes up before we're gone, it could get really fucking ugly."

I jammed the car in gear, and screeched out of the parking lot.  Kitty was looking at me with a cross expression on her face.  Clearly she didn't comprehend what was going on, but there was no time to explain.

To be continued

DEATH WAFFLE

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/10677230/Army-commander-bans-sandwiches-in-attack-on-barbaric-habits.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIKqgE4BwAY#t=28

:

On the drive to work this morning, I passed 3 signs, about 10 miles apart, which were big yellow bastards saying WAFFLE HOUSE.

And that's bragging.  I don't care how many houses you have, there is no need for a sign 30 meters up saying you own it.

That is all.  You may now return to your frozen butter sammiches.

You see a lot of confused people out there, brothers & sisters.  You hear people say "The government's listening to my phone calls.  They're autotuning country music.  I GOT FETA CHEESE ON MY PIZZA!  WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?"

Well, I am here to tell you what's going on.

The government IS listening to your phone calls...And though you aren't important enough for them to listen to you, they're doing it ANYWAY.  You're paranoid, but you aren't paranoid enough.  Somewhere, some 3rd rate pervert is listening to your cell phone, the sort of person that would be in JAIL if he hadn't found a way to make his perversions bring in a paycheck.  J Edgar Hoover is weeping tears of joy somewhere in hell.  What kind of people want a job listening to other peoples' phone calls?  What kind of people get off reading other peoples' emails? 

And you pay for it.  That's the funniest part.  They're spanking it to the racy phone call you made to your significant other, and YOU'RE SIGNING THE CHEQUE.

HAW HAW!

The situation with autotune country music is fairly similar.  They are pumping out the "country" version of Rebecca Black or Justin Beiber, because YOU'LL PAY FOR IT.  If the albums didn't sell, they wouldn't be down on Music Row, getting winos and wannabes to sign on the dotted line.  All that is required to be a country star these days is to have decent biceps, 5 days of growth on your face, and a flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off.  Because that's what YOU will pay GOOD MONEY for.

HO HO HO!

The flip side of this is the feta cheese/sushi/kimchi pizza.  Yeah, if nobody BOUGHT it, they wouldn't SELL it...BUT:  Unlike country music, what you have here is people making something NEW, something other than the same old fucking pizza we've been eating for 3 generations.  How many tomato sauce & dead pig pizzas were you after, exactly?  You're trying something NEW, not the same old shit, and THAT is the difference.  And if it's "trendy", who gives a fuck?  Not me, brother...I'm stuffing my face with pizza that not only isn't BORING, it's almost even kinda GOOD FOR ME.

And if that makes you wrinkle your nose, then you just shove that snout back in the Dominos Feed Bag™ and enjoy your 4 cheese/5 kinds of dead pig/party cut heart attack American Standard.  Fuck you and the 30-minute-delivery-or-it's-free horse that pizza rode in on.

You'll put up with anything, won't you?  Perverts in the NSA, micro-Nazis in the airports, cops just randomly shooting people, crappy autotuned country music, crappy pizza, macrobrewed American "beer", all that shit.

I'd tell you to go to hell, but YOU'RE ALREADY THERE!  And you PAY the demons to do all this horrible shit to you!  WHY?  What the hell is WRONG with our society?  What kind of SICKNESS would cause otherwise rational people to run out and BUY their own BUTT RAPE?

WHO ORDERED THIS?

Well...I guess that would be you and me, wouldn't it?  And I don't know about you, but I'm getting just a little sick and tired of it.  I am tired of being a GOOD CITIZEN in a BAD SOCIETY.  Unfortunately, there's nowhere else to go, because AMERICA IS EVERYWHERE.  So maybe the only solution is to BREAK SOME SHIT (in sneaky, undetectable ways), to throw sand in the gears of EVERYTHING.  To be a WALKING GLITCH, a wrench in the works, a whole pack of sanitary pads down the crapper.

They used to call people who did that "wreckers", and it was a perjorative.  But that's when people had a VESTED INTEREST in the society they lived in.  Right now, the only people with a true, vested interest are the people who own the people who own the country.

I can hear you, brothers & sisters.  I can HEAR you saying "Shut up, Rev, everything is better now than it ever has been, you should be grateful.", and the only response I have is "SHUT UP YOURSELF, JACKASS!  At NO POINT did we all agree that when our standard of living reached a certain point, we should all SIT DOWN and SHUT UP and let ourselves be SCREWED OVER because we have some NICER STUFF than Grandpappy had.  At NO POINT did we agree that we can't CRITICIZE the system because we have more STUFF than people in Darfur had.  That's like saying a slave can't run away wearing the pants his master issued him!  So FUCK YOU!"

To summarize:  Break shit, try something new, and SHUT ME UP or FUCK YOU.

AAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE!

Or Kill Me!

1st edition Rolemaster set IN THE PLASTIC for $40.

It has been brought to my attention that certain Discordians feel that we are "doing it wrong", and that "several people" agree with Monad in principle, but feel that he worded things badly.  To those people, I can only say "Suck the peanuts out of my shit, pilgrim".

I'm The Good Reverend Roger, and there's nothing I like more than having the peanuts removed from my shit.

As any fucking half-wit knows, if you ask 8 Discordians what Discordianism IS, you'll get a minimum of 9 answers, a fist fight, two flounces, and a completely unrelated discussion.  So you'll have to excuse my horse laughter at the "several people" who agree with this carpet-bagging Monad jagoff, who seems to be in this for the purpose of gaining the domain name principiadiscordia.com.

Which, come to think of it, reminds me of that "Gavriel" asshole who used to come around demanding free artwork that HE could sell for his own profit, because...because.

Now, since the person didn't clarify who the "several people" were, I just plan on ignoring the existence of everyone on IRC who doesn't also post here at least occasionally.  I know some people there specifically who don't like me, or the board, or whatever.  They know who they are, and they can have all the butt-peanuts they want.  I won't be delivering them, though...I can't actually be bothered.

A word of advice to these shit-slurping crackheads, though:  If PD is so fucking bad, go make your own fucking board.  Seriously.  If you at least made an ATTEMPT to create the sort of board you'd LIKE to see, you'd have more fucking credibility than you do screeching about how everyone else is "doing it wrong" or "using the wrong software" or whatever.  Seriously..."Using the wrong software"?  Sorry we didn't tailor the board STRICTLY FOR YOU, YOU PRECIOUS LITTLE SNOWFLAKE.

So there you have it.  The board is what it is, nobody cares about your fucking opinion, and free butt-peanuts for everybody.

Now, fuck off back to your chatrooms.

Love and Kisses,
TGRR

http://truedemocracyparty.net/

More WOO per page than even Mysticwicks.

Maybe I'd better get some sleep, you know?  Maybe I'd better straighten up, get my shit together.  Delete facebook, maybe.  Nobody likes me there, anyway.  Maybe I should kill my laptop.  Maybe I should SHUT UP, because there isn't anyone listening anyway.

Maybe I should stop shitting on the neighbors.  Maybe I should stop hurling dead animals into their yards.  Maybe I should wear a SMILE on my face at work instead of a GRIN.  Perhaps I should stop making Greg the racist drink out of the hot tub at parties. 

Maybe I should walk.  Be one of those people walking, even if I have been against that sort of thing in the past.  Maybe I should stop taking Nigel's advice, even if it makes me GRIN until people move to the other side of the bus.  Maybe I should stop horse-laughing at zealots.

Perhaps I should take up meditation and clear my chakras.  Maybe I oughta stop calling our engineer "blow hole".  Maybe I should stop trying to be the last gunslinger in the last city that remembers who Jimmy Stuart was, and why he was always drunk.

Maybe I should stop pouring my bourbon into a glass.  Who am I fooling, here?  That bottle is going DOWN, and I'm NOT SHARING, so why not just cut out the middle man?  Maybe I should re-develop my peyote habit.  Perhaps I should just accept the fact that a few of my friends are gone, at least the friendship is gone, and maybe, you know, move on with my life.

Or maybe not.

Maybe I don't listen to Nigel's advice RIGHT.  Perhaps I am DOING IT WRONG.  Like the GOP, I am just not being the way I am ENOUGH, and the resulting disconnect is why the neighbors all think I conduct human sacrifices in the back yard.  Which I'm not.  As far as you know.

Maybe it's not my behavior, but ME.  I may very well be a different breed, some sort of horrible mutant.  Some one-off that God reconsidered after the fact.  Not For The Production Lines.  Send it to Tucson, where we can all safely forget about this most unfortunate incident.  Even God gets embarrassed sometimes.

Maybe I'm in Hell.  This would distress many people, but not me.  No, all that Hell means is that the worrying is over.  Here you are, may as well get your weird on.  May as well be good and fucking disreputable and scare six kinds of shit out of the neighbors.  They never liked me, and I never liked them...It's a working arrangement, everyone is comfortable with it.

Maybe we should just all forget that this thread was ever written. 

Maybe I should get some fucking sleep.

Or Kill Me.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/55140/10-japanese-travel-tips-visiting-america

...But you'll notice that you never see him and Macklemore in the same picture.

Just saying.

"I'll show you a parking ticket, you Jitney-driving bastard", EoC shouted, while he beat the traffic warden with a tire iron.  I just stood there in shock...This sort of shit just doesn't happen in America.  Shit hole 3rd world countries like Europe, maybe.  But not here.

"You fascist jerks are all the same!", he screamed, to a cop no longer capable of listening.

"Calm down, jackass!", I yelled, "We have to get out of here NOW!"

We jumped in his unidentifiable compact car...The brand logo was completely obscured by The Airborne Toxic Event bumper stickers.  He ground the gears for a few seconds (quite a trick in an automatic), and we lurched into traffic.  His sudden entry into traffic flow caused some kind of accident behind us.  A "Croc" sandal flew into the air.  Probably not a big loss to society.

"I fucking hate cops", he snarled, "They're all the same."

"Yeah, whatever, you Goddamn animal.  Just get us to Brown University...I have a steak & kidney pie on my mind."

EoC drove like a man possessed, weaving from lane to lane.  At one point, we were on the sidewalk.  Then down an alley, trash flying skyward in our wake.

"What the fuck is it with you and that miserable English 'food', Rev?"

"I'm trying to stay in touch with my roots", I began, "Oh, shit."

A cop car had swung in behind us, it's lights flashing.

"Fuck THAT noise", he grated, screeching at high speed into another alleyway.  The cop made the curve, but sent a pedestrian flying into the side of the adjacent building.

I heard a muffled thumping coming from the trunk.  Apparently, the horse tranquilizer we gave Richter had worn off.  Great.  Just fucking great.  The fucker had already sharpened the gear selector, the cigarette lighter, and the valet parking attendant...Which meant we had to park ourselves, which meant that EoC got a ticket like always.  And, as always, he lost his temper and we were on the run again.  Again.

Three more cop cars, now.  EoC was screaming incomprehensibly as he slammed through traffic.  He was talking to someone who wasn't in the car, I think.  Crazy bastard.  This always happens to me on vacation.

There was a loud BANG and the car slewed sideways...We had lost the left front tire.  We slid gracelessly into a light pole and ate airbag.  Worse, the trunk popped open.

Everything seemed to come to a standstill as I crawled out of the car.  EoC slid out the other side.  Three police were standing, guns drawn, behind the open doors of their car.  "PUT YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM", one of them yelled.

A faint giggling came from the trunk.

"HAW HAW!", I yelled, "YOU HIPPIES ARE IN FOR IT NOW!"

"Wat", the cop responded...As Richter came flying out of the trunk with a razor sharp spare tire.  For the sake of human decency, I will not describe the events that immediately followed this...Let's just say the widows & orphans fund took a beating that day.

Five minutes later, the three of us were driving away in a stolen squadcar.  EoC was bent over the wheel, while behind us, Richter tried to stick his tongue through the grating separating the front and back seats.  Richter was saying something, but it just came out as "fuh fuh fuh".

I never got my fucking steak & kidney pie, either.

Bastards.

To the tune of I Can't Dance by Genesis

Hot sun, upside down
Velcro on my feet for just walking around.

Hot sun making me sweat
Maori getting close, haven't got me yet

I can't dance, I can't walk.
Only thing about me is the way I talk.
I can't dance, I can't sing
Im just standing here nailed to everything.

Miguel there, nailed to the floor,
I'm trying to get away, but they locked the door

Senora Paesor's got a body in the back room,
A cc of bovine cortisol is gonna seal my doom

Cos, I can't dance, I can't walk.
Really officer, I'm honestly ready to talk.
I can't dance, I can't sing
Im just standing here telling.

Oh and checking everything is in place,
Six pounds of cocaine and some tractor porn.

Young Lady driving nails through my shoes,
Her crazy husband talking to me trying to steal my blues.

Thick smoke, see her smiling through.
I never thought so much could happen just shooting pool.

But I can't dance, I can't walk.
Feeling kinda lucky that I can still talk
I can't dance, I can't sing
Im just standing here selling

Oh and checking everything is in place
Laced bourbon and an exit visa
Another body with a missing face - uh-huh.

No, I can't dance, I can't walk.
Ten penny nails driven through my socks
No, I can't dance, I can't sing
Im just standing here telling everything.

But I can talk.
No I can't dance.
No no no I can't dance
No I said I can't sing.
But I can talk.
Officer.

The wife of an 80-year-old man who was shot dead by Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies in a mistaken meth lab raid is planning to sue the county for $50 million, she said.

Read more: http://ktla.com/2013/10/10/widow-to-sue-over-fatal-shooting-of-husband-80-by-sheriffs-deputies/#ixzz2tohGQMDN


But WAIT!

No evidence of a meth operation was ever found, though sheriff's officials say marijuana was found on the property.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2014/02/18/stray-chihuahuas-terrorizes-arizona-town/

I was recently asked to explain a term I often use, that term being Saturday Night™.  The fact that I have to explain this concept indicates that things are far worse than even I had imagined...That my wretched pessimism was actually an idiotic level of optimism.

Saturday Night™ can vary greatly in detail from person to person.  It can mean shaking your ass on the dance floor at THE GAY BAR, or it can mean hanging out the window of a jeep with a 12 gauge, blasting stop signs and howling like a loon.  It can mean doing the nasty with your SO and a bottle of something high-test.  It can mean drag racing, bare-knuckle boxing, or just taking your spouse out to dinner and a movie.

What it IS, is "the act of getting out of the office, away from the computer and the teevee, and having FUN".  Remember fun?  It's that thing you used to have, before they built a cage around you and slapped you stupid with tax forms.  It's what you used to DO, before you got so fucking serious.

You get precisely ONE (1) trip around this here rollercoaster (unless you're a Buddhist, and fuck those guys) and there is only ONE (1) meaning for that life:  TO FUCKING ENJOY YOURSELF.  Hell, isn't that what Slack™ is?  The art of ENJOYING THE RIDE?

Oscar Wilde had it right.  "Anyone who never gets carried away should be.  Or as the Subgenii say, "Don't just eat that cheeseburger, eat the hell out of it!" 

Do nothing in a small way, because you are not a small person.  In your frame of reference, you are the main character...And you don't want to be remembered as the lead role in Lost in Translation, do you?  Fuck no.  Big Trouble in Little China or GTFO.

So live large.  You don't need to be rich to do this; I am not suggesting you have to race around in a Jag or anything...Just do whatever it is you do LOUDLY and PROUDLY.  Stomp the terra.  Screech spittle and horse laughs in THEIR faces while they stare at you in horror.  Clothing may or may not be optional, your mileage may vary.

There is NO FUCKING EXCUSE for sitting by while your life dribbles away.  DO something on Saturday Night™, even if it's just dancing in the living room to bad top 40 music.

And remember:  Saturday Night™ isn't a day of the week, it's an idea. 

EVERY NIGHT IS SATUDAY NIGHT™!

AAAAAAIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

What did she say to you when your head was in the toilet, and you were puking up the Robotussin you guzzled?  What did she whisper in your ear after you fell down in the gutter?  What, in fact, did she say when you got fired for getting all fucked up on drugs and fucking the boss's cat?

Oh, yeah, you remember.  How could you forget?  She was laughing at you, laying there with a bong stuck in your arm and crusted filth all around your neck.  You know she laughed, you HEARD her laugh.  And then and then and then she said

What did she say?

SHAKE THAT

That's right, you lousy fucking degenerate.  She told you to fucking DANCE.  Dance in your office.  Dance at your desk.  Dance while you're being written up and suspended.  Dance in their faces, shake that thing, make everyone good and sick to their stomachs.

This is Goddamn 2014.  According to the Mayans, we've all been DEAD for more than a year, so get up and RATTLE THOSE BONES!  Stop saying you can't dance to a dirge, that you can't shake that ass to the soundtrack of Schindler's List.  THINK ABOUT IT.  WHAT ELSE ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO DO?

Dance in the back of the squadcar.  Dance in the razor wire enclosure.  Dance to the nightstick fandango they're playing on your ribcage.  Dance in your little meaningless wage-slave life.  Dance with a stranger.  Dance with your wife.  Just fucking dance.

You don't see LMNO being a wallflower, and he - in his field - probably sees more DOOM than even Cain.  Sure, it's a quieter doom, but it is as implacable and unstoppable as a glacier.  And speaking of glaciers, how's the weather?  DANCE ON YOUR ICESHEET.  DANCE ON YOUR BRAND-NEW DESERT.  Dance while the topsoil all blows off into the ocean.

Because, when you get down to the nitty-gritty, you're FUCKED and DOOMED and there's NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.  So dance.

DANCE, I SAID!

Or Kill Me

To the tune of American Pie By Don McLean

A long, long time ago
I can still remember how Peedee used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance that I could spout some wicked rants
And maybe spags'd be happy for a while

But February made me shiver with every screed I'd deliver
Junkenstein playing dubstep, I couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if I cried when I read about his brony pride
But something touched me deep inside the day that peedee died

So bye, bye all you internet guys
Moved my browser to the frontpage and told Faust to just die
And Nigel was there, she was drinking wine & Rye
Singing this'll be the day Peedee dies, this'll be the day peedee dies

Did you write the book of Mu and do you have faith in vindaloo?
If Suu & Richter tell you so?
Now do you believe in rock and roll? Can Saturday Night save your mortal soul?
And can you teach me how to rant like a real troll?

Well, I know that Junk is a police plant
'Cause I saw him linking to my rant
The bastard works for special branch
Man, I want to kick him in the pants

I was a lonely middle-aged trolling fuck
With a bigmouth a keyboard and a ton of SHUT UP
But I knew I was out of luck
The day that peedee died
I started singing die, die, I hate you guys
Get off of my internets I'm fit to be tied
And Nigel was drinking paint thinner and rye
Singing this'll be the day Peedee dies, this'll be the day that PD dies

Now, for ten years we've been on this board
Before it was ruined by the British horde
When ECH fooled Lauren and Hugh
On an IP he borrowed from Pud's crew
And a voice that came from me and you

Oh, and while Lauren was looking down
ECH stole her admin crown
The old crew was tossed out
And Hugh went to OM to pout

But while we all read rants all day
The Brits snuck in through the back way
And we posted tubgirl the GIGGLES way
The day that peedee died

I was singing eat shit and die, you European guys
Ranted my guts up at peedee but peedee had died
And Nigel was drinking sterno and rye
Singing this'll be the day peedee dies, this'll be the day peedee dies

Helter skelter in apple talk
The members fucked off to facebook
150 Million morons and growing fast
smoking the pot drug grass
and posting selfie ass
With LMNO's TPS reports due Tuesday last...

Now the Tucson air was sweet perfume
While Twid played a death metal tune
Waffle got up to dance
Oh, but he never got the chance

'Cause Junkenstien tried to take the field
Twid's metal band refused to yield
Do you recall what was the deal
The day that peedee died?

I started singing get cancer and die you limey fucks
Moved over to EB&G but EB&G was fucked
And Nigel was drinking ethelyne and rye
And singing this'll be the day peedee dies, this'll be the day that peedee dies

Oh, and there we were all in one place, a generation lost in F4
With nobody left to rant some more
So come on Cain be nimble, Cain be quick
Cain got a job as a writer 'cause doom is the editor's only friend

Oh, and as I watched Junkenstein on the page
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in hell
Could break that Satan's spell

And as the post count dropped out of sight
The Brits just snickered at my plight
I saw Junkenstein laughing with delight
The day that peedee died

I was singing die in a fire, you British spags
There's no traffic at all and the board STILL lags
And Nigel was drinking antifreeze and rye
And singing this'll be the day peedee dies, this'll be the day that peedee dies

I met a Portland girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news
But she just puked and turned away
I went down to the sacred board
Where I'd written some rants years before
But the boghopper there said the rants were archived

And in the streets the children screamed
The teabaggers cried and the liberals dreamed
But not a word was spoken
Their spirits all were broken

And the three men I admire most
ECH, Cain, and LMNO
They caught the last train for the coast
The day that peedee died

And I was screaming fuck you Junk just fucking die
Take your Scotsmen with you, nobody likes those guys
And Nigel was drinking benzine and rye
Singing this was the day peedee died, this'll be the day that peedee died

I was screaming, fuck off and die
You toofless unwashed crumpet eating guys
And Nigel was drinking gasoline and rye
Singing this'll be the day that peedee dies

Chapter 3
The Wisdom of Richter

3:1  A political reality is still a reality.  Planning for humans to behave rationally is like planning for your fairy godmother to solve your problem for you...Comforting, but useless.  Always assume that someone will oppose a workable solution for non-technical reasons.

3:2  Hanlon's Razor:  Never attribute to malice that which can explained by stupidity.

3:3  When someone says "God hates" something, they are really claiming to be God, because the fact is, the person speaking is the one who hates whatever it is.

3:4  That being said, God really hates the concept of no-fault insurance.

3:5  A kind word and a court order will get you more than a kind word.

3:6  You can't fight City Hall.  Therefore, you should instead go to City Hall and jam up the toilets, squirt glue into the parking meters, and distribute fake and disruptive memorandums.  Carbon-papering the mayor's signature will gain far more results than standing around holding a sign.

3:7  A statement of fact that begins with "everyone knows" is almost certainly wrong.

3:8  Being a good citizen only works if you live in a good society.  Even then, it has a derogatory effect on Saturday Night.  Good citizens are not welcome at the punk show.

3:9  Things are generally better when properly sharpened.  This includes everything from butcher knives to golf balls to pizza delivery boys.

3:10  People often confuse Murphy's Law with Finagle's Law.  Finagle's Law states that "If it can go wrong, it will go wrong."  Murphy's Law states that "If there is a wrong way to do something, someone will do it".  Guess which one causes more trouble?

3:11  Sabers don't jam when you don't have time to clean them; a big ass hammer has no moving parts to fail.  Simplicity is both more reliable and more satisfying.  Dirty Harry would have been ten times cooler if he'd had a Samoan war club instead of a ridiculous hand cannon.

3:12  The Richterian doesn't make things; he/she makes things sharper.

3:13  If one pill works, two pills will work better.  Woe unto him who stops after only one glass of Maker's Mark, because moderation is for monks.

3:14  The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum.  This is as certain as the dawn.

3:15  Light a fire for a man, he will stay warm for a day.  Light a man on fire, he'll stay warm for the rest of his life.  Always think in the long run.

3:16  Inanimate objects are out to get us; we must get them first.  Therefore, always have thy whetstone to hand.

3:17  There  is a motivation in every human to troubleshoot the trash disposal by jamming one's hand down inside of it.  Many people can and do allow themselves to listen to this motivation, which is why there is an endless supply of people with their junk in the meat grinder and a silly grin on their faces, just waiting for someone to come along and turn the crank. 

3:18  Thus, the difference between heaven and hell is which side of the crank handle you're on.

3:19  A bazooka is always a convincing argument, even when you're wrong.

3:20  For every Greek wise man, there were 300,000 hairy, goat-eating barbarians who thought wife-stealing was a pretty good plan. 

3:21  It is a good idea to assume that everyone else on the road is a moron who will do the worst possible thing at the worst possible time...Even if they all look like Albert Einstein or Saint Francis of Assisi.  For all you know, those two were assholes at the wheel, too. 

3:22  Therefore we must assume that competence in one area does not imply competence in other areas.  This assumption is, of course, why so many middle managers appear to be idiots.

3:23  God didn't do that shit, YOU did that shit.  Wipe that smirk off your face and clean up this mess.

3:24  That person who has never woken up hung over and mortified has wasted their life.

3:25  There are no rest stops on The Lost Highway.  There are no chairs at the punk show.  Brakes are for those who cannot plan ahead.

3:26  A reliable but crappy-looking car has every practical advantage over a nice-looking car.  It will never be stolen, people stay the hell away from you on the road, and you don't care if some bastard keys it.

3:27  A proper human does not take orders from a machine.  End of story.

3:28  Door-to-door evangelists are a gift from God.  Just not in the sense that they have in mind.

3:29  There is no law against being an asshole.  There is no ethical dilemma in slapping a busybody.  There are no moral qualms at the punk show.

3:30  Never live in a ground floor apartment.

3:31  The number of friends you have is most accurately determined on moving day.

3:32  If every story you have involves you as the central character, you are being a bore.

3:33  Drugs are for people who can't handle Nyarlathotep.

3:34  Never plan on using something in the range between its operation limits and its engineering margin.  This cannot be stressed enough.

3:35 What is the nature of a nail?  To be pounded into wood.  Thus, what does the nail that sticks up desire?  It desires the hammer.  This is why the nail that sticks up gets the hammer; it demands it.

3:36  The early worm gets the bird.  The second rat gets the cheese.  A penny saved is a penny depreciated.  Proper planning keeps the fuck up fairy away.  SLOW DOWN.

3:37  Consider the Zen monk; the regular monk tells koans and gets results.  The Zazen monk uses a stick and gets better results.  The Richterian monk uses rebar and never has to repeat himself.

3:38  Study the legend of the Gordian Knot.  When a situation looks impossible, consider that the implied solutions will not work, but that other solutions might.  How do you ski through a revolving door?  Remove the door.  How do you solve the bridges of Prague puzzle?  Learn to swim.

3:39  You can't polish a turd.  It is what it is.  To expend energy denying basic tenets of the universe is best left to certain segments of the Texas and Kansas populations.

3:40  If you are doing something and it isn't working, check your procedure.  If you are getting the procedure correct but the results are wrong, throw out the procedure and try something else.

3:41  When the words "if only" come out of your mouth, you are wasting time and energy.  Imagining a dream world in which things just automatically go your way is yet another obstacle to getting your way.  Instead, learn the rules of the universe you are in, and use those rules to obtain what you want.  Cardinal Richelieu didn't get where he was by asking nicely.

3:42  Never panic.  Panicking shuts down your problem-solving skills.  You may safely ignore this if you are on fire, in which case all bets are off.

3:43  The reason artists such as rock stars, etc, go berserk isn't that they became artists.  Instead, they are artists because they are berserk.  Expecting them to behave themselves is like expecting the leopard to change his spots.

3:44  Therefore, it is important to establish root causes when examining a problem.  Troubleshooting from false assumptions does not yield viable results.

3:45  Aristotle was a jerk.  There is no substitute for testing a hypothesis via empirical evidence.

3:46  Be therefore not like that kind of engineer.  Go forth and get they boots and hands dirty, looking at the situation as it is; let your actions display your brains, not your mouth display your arrogance and ignorance.

3:47  A fool and his debating partner are indistinguishable from one another.

3:48  Argue not therefore with idiots; stand back and watch the show.  There is more humor to be had in watching a moron than there is in almost any other endeavor.

3:49  If the math says it is so, then it is so, no matter how weird it is.  Lots of shit happens that you aren't told about, so there's no way for you to judge what's too weird to be true.

3:50  90% of all insane fuck ups occur because people think they know how weird the universe can get.  Your plans should reflect this.

All people fall into two catagories:  Those smarter than Richter, and those dumber than Richter.  90% of people are dumber than Ricther, and you can tell who they are.  They walk around happily, knowing that they are more or less safe in this year of our Lord 2014.  The other 10% do not.  They are the ones that know that Richter exists, and that he's been sharpening people again, amassing a stockpile of living edged weapons. 

Nigel knows that life is like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute.  There is an absolute certainty that you will go splat at the end of both scenarios.  So what you do is have fun on the way down.  Do backflips, do a swandive, summersaults, etc.  Why the hell not?  Nigel, however, has another item on her agenda...When the end is near, aim for people.

Dirty Old Uncle Roger moves through Tucson the way electrons move though a power cable...The chief difference being that electrons don't dance.  So when you see a 240 pound bald cave man shaking his ass down the street toward you, don't think.  Just run.

More later.

SEE WHAT WE'VE
COME TO, AMERICA?

It occurs to me that I have mechanics for mechanical problems, Electricians for electrical and instrumentation problems, and even a programmer for software problems.  What I don't have is a technician for operator problems. 

So I am going to hire ECH.

When an operator does something really dumb, ECH will rip that operator's lungs out with his bare hands, shove the bastard into the ball mill, and drop a case of dynamite in with him.  Pour encourager les autres.  For this he will be well-compensated, though I have my suspicions that he'd almost do this sort of thing for free, for the sheer joy of it.

I will then have ECH attend meetings, with club hammer in his belt.  When someone speaks outside of their expertise, or does any other stupid fucking thing to demonstrate how "smart" they are, ECH will pound them into hamburger.  Not a word will be said; we will cut to the end and just start with the horrible beating.  I am guessing that the usual 2 hour meeting will end in about 5 minutes, tops.

All of this came to me in the late hours of Saturday night, when I was performing my traditional ritual...Staying awake an extra hour just to hate You People more.  It came to me in a flash, an epiphany normally only found in the very religious, or the teenager who just discovered pot or DMT or Discordianism for the first time, and wants to tell everyone about it forever. 

It was actually a much more developed idea, so I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget it...But the next morning, the paper only said "Hire ECH.  Buy more ammunition.  The Seahawks are doomed."  Once again, the pills have robbed me of both a great idea and my better judgement.  Fortunately, nobody bets on football around here, or I'd have made an ass out of myself worse than I did in 2003.

The Superbowl itself was brutal.  I won't go into it here, save to say that this sort of shit never would have been tolerated even as recently as 1995.  I suppose I'd better hire ECH quickly, before the NFL has the same idea...The thought of Peyton Manning at the mercy of ECH is simply too awful to contemplate, at least when he could be doing the same shit to Mike the engineer.

Fortunately for Arizona, our football teams sucks so bad that we never have to embarrass ourselves on the national stage...We have politics for that.  Denver, on the other hand, can spend the next few years wallowing in shame.  And they'll need to find their own heavy, because I saw ECH first.

Or Kill Me.






 

[This means that even if the hospitals know that the on-duty doctor won't provide appropriate medical care, Alabama law says that in most cases they have no obligation to find someone who will.]

If you're having a miscarriage, the hospitals "will not have to participate in an activity that ends your pregnancy".

https://www.aclu.org/blog/reproductive-freedom-womens-rights/alabama-hospitals-pregnant-women-sorry-honey-we-wont-help

No shit.

All miscarriages can be devastating. But, for women in Alabama, this nightmare could soon get a lot worse. This week, the Alabama Senate is set to consider a cruel bill (HB 31) that would permit the hospital staff, including any doctor, nurse, counselor, or lab technician, to refuse to participate in any phase of patient medical care related to ending a pregnancy, even if that is what a patient like this woman needs to protect her own health and future fertility

But wait!  Couldn't a doctor or hospital get sued?

The bill would also protect health care professionals from liability for refusing to provide necessary medical care. What's more, the bill would exempt the hospital from liability under Alabama law. This means that even if the hospitals know that the on-duty doctor won't provide appropriate medical care, Alabama law says that in most cases they have no obligation to find someone who will.

Bolding mine.

The original bill is here:

http://alisondb.legislature.state.al.us/acas/searchableinstruments/2014RS/Printfiles//HB31-eng.pdf

Oh, and the representatives that wrote it?

Becky Nordgren

http://www.legislature.state.al.us/house/representatives/housebios/hd029.html

April Weaver

http://www.legislature.state.al.us/house/representatives/housebios/hd049.html

I was reading a book last night, and I heard the sound of mumbling from the walk in closet.  Naturally, I figured it was Crazy Jeff or one of my other pals, here for his Great Big Payback.  Perhaps Greg, who has never forgiven me for making him drink out of the hot tub in 2009.  In any case, it was really ever only a matter of time before one (or more) of my enemies came to settle the score.

I got up and walked over to the closet, stopping at the dresser to fish out my pistol.  But when I got to the closet, I realized that the noise was actually coming from the attic, which is accessed through a hatch in the roof of the closet.  I could definitely hear it, now...It sounded like a dozen people or so having a very quiet but intense argument.  Time to call the exterminator, I suppose.  Powerful big rats out here in the desert.  Powerful big.

Thing is, when I walked to the bedroom door, I found that it had been sealed shut with putty.  Same thing for the door out to the upstairs balcony.  I grabbed my cell phone and dialed 911.

"911 Operator, what is the nature of your emergency?"

"I have intruders in my house."

"Where in the house?"

"In my attic."

"Sorry, we are currently unable to assist you.  We suggest you contact an exorcist."

"A what?  Look, there are people in my attic."

"No, there aren't."

"I can hear them."

"What makes you think they're people?  In any case I have to keep this line open for emergencies which we are capable of dealing with.  Injuries, fires, that sort of thing.  No paranormal activity or weird physics.  Goodbye."  She hung up.

I dialed again, hoping to get an operator that wasn't insane.  In the closet, the voices were getting a bit louder.  The phone rang for perhaps 30 seconds, and then connected.  All that came out was a screaming noise, like a whole stadium full of people screaming in terror.  I slammed the phone shut.

I figured I'd better wake my wife up, in case things became dangerous...But when I shook her, I discovered that what looked like her in the bed was just a bunch of pillows under the covers.

Then I froze, as I heard the attic hatch screech open.

With my wife missing, there was no reason to find out what was coming out of the attic, so I grabbed a sheet, held it in front of me, and jumped through the bay windows.  Or tried to, at any rate.  What actually happened is that I bounced off them like I'd hit a brick wall, landing in a heap on the floor.  Looking up, I noticed that the windows were just paintings on the wall. 

I heard something - someone - drop out of the attic into the closet.  Then another.  I jacked a round into my pistol, and tried to get to my feet...But I was hopelessly tangled in the sheets.

Footsteps came out of the closet.  I twisted around and aimed the pistol towards the noise.

From the closet came two men dressed in revolution-era clothing.  One was Nathan Hale, his head flopping around on his broken neck, and the other a Black man with a wound in his head.

"Stop where you are, or I'll shoot", I screamed, feeling very foolish.  These two men are already dead.

The Black man smiled.  "Go ahead, I've been shot before."  Hale just laughed, a horrible gurgling noise.  They walked over and grabbed the sheet, and started hauling me across the floor to the closet.  As they did so, the Black man said, "My name is Crispus Attucks.  We're going to get to know each other really well."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because we all died for a principle that has been shat upon ever since.  We don't hate the yahoos that do the shitting.  They can't help themselves; they are a product of their time.  You, on the other hand, you know better.  But all you do is talk...And while you talk, everything goes to hell in a handbasket.  So now you get to go to hell, too."

They hauled me up into the attic.  For a brief moment, I could see that the attic floor was packed with people laying side by side.  Some were dressed in revolutionary outfits, some in world war two uniforms.  Sacco and Venzetti were there.  So was Joe Hill.  They all looked at me, and began to grin.

Then the hatch slammed shut, and the attic was plunged into darkness.

I am hereby starting The First Church of Vinnie. Here's how it works. You all tithe 10% of what you make. This doesn't buy you a spot in heaven, though (wrong sort of religion), it just means that Vinnie doesn't come by to make your knees bend the wrong way.

This way you can have all the religion you want, without any of those pesky restrictions on sex and drugs, and nobody telling you what to do (I mean, other than the tithe). 

Ten reasons to convert TODAY.

1. Vinnie doesn't care about premarital sex.  He himself does it all the time.
2. Vinnie won't get mad at you for coveting your neighbor's ass.  He covets it too.
3. Vinnie doesn't give a flying fuck about abortion or prayer in school.
4. Vinnie doesn't care how the world was created, as long as he gets his cut.
5. Vinnie won't tell you "what atheists believe".
6. Vinne never told anyone to kill in his name.  He does that just fine on his own.
7. Vinnie doesn't care if you actually show up to church.  In fact, there isn't actually a physical building.
8. Vinnie is tangible and obeys all known scientific laws (other laws, not so much).
9. Vinnie never launched a crusade, a witch hunt, or burned any heretics.  There's no money in it.
10.  If you don't convert, Vinnie will make your knees bend the wrong way.  I believe I mentioned this earlier.

EVERYBODY SHUT UP.

You know, when your beliefs get in the way of everything else, either you are Saint Francis of Assisi, or you've become somewhat fanatical.  The former is far less likely than the latter.

We've seen this in the drug threads (RWHN), the privilege threads (Garbo), the Atheist threads (Coyote, a few others).  It's happened more recently among Discordians, on facebook.  So how do you know if you've become fanatical?  It's easy...When you can no longer laugh at the assholes, when Satire becomes offensive, then you have lost your Happy Thoughts™ and become a fart-huffing fanatic under the blanket with the rest of them.

In at least 3 cases, the excuse offered was "my friends might see this".  If your friends would disown you because someone ELSE told a joke, then GET NEW FRIENDS.  As the good book says, "FUCK 'EM IF THEY CAN'T TAKE A JOKE"...And just to clarify, the joke in question (the most recent one) was at the expense of R Kelly, not at the expense of rape victims.

Now, the interesting part is, I've had at least one former Subgenius tell me that they are PROUD to be a fanatic (reminscent of aini saying that any SO of hers would have to "prove his/her commitment to the lifestyle").  I call that being a PINKBOY.  I call that being PROUD OF NOT THINKING.  I call that TEABAGGERISM IN A FUNNY DRESS. 

If that hurts your feelings, well, the truth is seldom gentle.  And it is not the business of a Holy Man™ to tell you that everything is going to be just fine, when you're actually doomed.

Fanaticism, incidentally, is almost ALWAYS the result of blanket/fart huffing.  Even RWHN, it turns out, had been spending hour after hour in a google groups echo chamber, listening to people just like him (this is still active and can be accessed, and is horrormirthy as hell).  Garbo had her group of "CISHET" haters (one professor in particular, not to mention the hipster in the video).

Only Captain Utopia operated without a fart support group, but he was batshit insane.

So in the end, if you can't laugh about it, you're a fanatic.  If you can't laugh about it because your friends might see, just spraypaint yourself pink.  Worst part is, in neither case are you actually HELPING anything, because nobody's listening to you except your fellow fanatics.  This is known as the Palin Principle; Nobody ever accomplished anything by whipping their base into a frenzy.

That is all.  You may now return to saving the world via venom and anger.

Or Kill Me

WTF IS THIS SHIT?

[Part 1Recognizing the Apocalypse]

Part 1
Recognizing the Apocalypse

You, yes, YOU, might be enduring an apocalypse without even knowing it, friends!  The modern apocalypse isn't the apocalypse of your father's day...Or it IS, but we may no longer recognize the symptoms.

For example, is that madman talking to God?  Or does he simply have a Bluetooth in his ear?  Sometimes, it's not so easy to tell.  Is that blizzard of shit the sign of an angry God, or has a local chemical company not been performing its required inspections?

Let's look at Little Billy.  He is enjoying a normal day, staring into the plasma screen of his new iPod.  Perhaps he is running a simulation of riding his bicycle to school.  Suddenly, his avatar sees a FLASH, and ducks and covers.  Was Little Billy's virtual self in the blast radius of an atomic attack?  Or was he merely getting trolled by his Facebook friends?

The Book of Revelation says that all men shall bear the mark of the beast, or they will be unable to engage in trade.  This may remind you of using a credit card for shopping on Amazon, but consider:  There are many methods of payment, from Mastercard to Paypal to one of these exciting new digital currencies.  This would imply that either this isn't the mark of the beast, or there are many beasts, and you may serve more than one of them.

Let's look at pestilence.  Little Billy is home sick from school today.  He has a high fever, the shakes, and occasionally coughs up blood.  Careful!  It may be Ebola Zaire.  Or perhaps Tuberculosis.  Or maybe Little Billy's just been on the Krokodil again, that scamp!

Then, there's famine.  Is what's going on with the desert in China the sign of the End Times?  Or maybe they just did a little overgrazing.  The sea is turning into a collection of jellyfish and not much else.  On some days, the sea may be turning red and slimy.  An ocean of blood?  Or just a runaway ecological disaster?

Yes, it's hard to tell when armageddon has arrived.  Sometimes, it's even hard to tell if it matters if the apocalypse is upon us, because everyday events look more and more like the End Times as described by our ancestors.  You could have a biblical event and perhaps not even notice it.

Here at Shut Up, the Journal of American Horrorology, we have a simple test we do to see if what we're experiencing is the apocalypse, or just another day in Tucson.  We turn on the tap.  If no water comes out, then it is in fact the end...Though we may have up to a week to think about it, or perhaps to shoot our neighbors for their bottled water.  If, on the other hand, water does come out of the tap, then it's just another day, and you can safely ignore the 7-headed beastie that has you double parked.

In the next chapter, we will discuss what you should do, should the apocalypse actually occur.   

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/16/dea-official-freaks-out-at-senate-hearing-reckless-marijuana-legalization-scares-us/



It's like a fat RWHN, melting down all over the fucking place.

"Legalization has failed everywhere it's been tried."

Before now, where has it been tried?   

"SOCIAL COSTS!  CRIMINALITY!"

"MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES ARE FRONTS FOR METH!"

Best of all...

Diane Feinstien:  "I believe that it (marijuana) is a gateway drug.  For meth."