January 31, 2003

I must be brief

The officer in charge of my arrest says I have 90 seconds to post, so I'll type fast and cut right to the chase. I met Mark L. for dinner. He brought only ONE WOMAN with him, and he hogged her ALL FOR HIMSELF. I tried to be nice, but those lying waitresses at Wisenbacker's Bar said that I threw the first punch after the fight erupted. That's not true.

I was tucked under a table attempting to look up their dresses. I'm too old for a bar fight.

I need my lawyer.

Off for supper

If you don't believe that we live in a small world, you're out of your freaking mind. I am off to have a meal with marc L, who came all the way from Columbus, Ohio just to meet me, his idol.

Okay, that's a crock of shit.

Marc and I have been blog-buddies for a while, and fate just dealt him a joker from the bottom of the deck and sent his yankee ass to Guyton, Georgia, which is the gizzard in the guts of the tri-city innards of Effingham County. He's about 20 miles away right now, and we're going out to eat. He's in the SECOND most important place in the county. Springfield is the county seat, but it's full of inbred Salzbergers who can't decide whether to wind their asses or scratch their watches. Nobody pays any attention to those troglodytes.

Guyton, on the other hand, is full of farmers and trailer trash with very few teeth, which makes them a cut above Springfield. You actually can find one or two people in Guyton who can read and write. They still have sex with their sisters and cousins, plus as many goats as they can catch, but the citizens of Guyton are a cut above residents of Springfield.

I, on the other hand, live in Rincon, where EVERYBODY is above average. Especially ME.

I can't wait to meet this guy. I like his blog, and he's bringing TWO GIRLS with him.

stranger in the house

I just posted my first-ever guest blog. I guess I shouldn't have sucked down a case of beer before I showed up, but HEY!

She KNEW I was dangerous when she invited me over.

Dave barry

I've been meaning to mention this for days; therefore, everybody in blogdom beat me to it, but I'll post it now because maybe I'll reach the one benighted soul who doesn't already know that dave barry has his very own blog now.

He is an idol of mine. I have all of his books, and my son and I actually conducted the "Flaming Pop-Tart" experiment one day. We had a fire AT LEAST 8" tall coming out of that toaster, too. We laughed our asses off at the sight, threw away the destroyed toaster, made fart-noises with our armpits, then went to Wal-Mart and bought another toaster for $14.

All that beer Dave drinks, however, must have rotted his brain because he's posting on BLOGSPOT, which is a place a writer of his caliber SHOULD NOT GO. Just wait until that black hole starts eating everything he writes, IF he can post at all. He'll see the light soon enough, unless he gets sucked right down the gravity well and stops blogging altogether from sheer frustration.

Don't get me wrong. BLOGGER has been very good to me, because I never would have begun this site without it. It's GREAT for beginners and people who aren't as mentally deranged and obsessed with posting WHENEVER THEY WANT TO as I am. But since the lovely and talented stacy (with no "e" after "c") gracefully transferred me to where I blog now, I have lost exactly ONE POST, and that was all my own dumbass, computer-illiterate, knuckleheaded fault. Hell, I almost lost my entire site that ugly day.

We need to start a "Rescue Dave" campaign, bring (or drag him, kicking and screaming) him down to the river and baptise him in the smooth waters of Movable Type and Hostingmatters.com. First, we need to lure him into our caring arms. What do we use for bait?

Does Heiniken sell gift certificates?

Love is in my heart tonight

Since I'm getting ready to unveil my inner woman on another blog tonight, and since I vented all my vitriol last night, I just want to confess that I really don't hate Dave, even though the incompetent, half-wit bastard DID lose my contribution to The Carnival of the Vanities the week he hosted it.

That is ketchup under the bridge now, and all is forgiven.

January 30, 2003

Enough

Okay, I've attempted to spew as much vitriol as possible tonight, to get it all out of my system before I go blog-sitting tomorrow. I want to be nice and not leave spittle-stains all over the nice wallpaper where I have been invited as a guest. I don't want to become enraged, kill the cat and cook the dog, with rice and gravy. I don't want to be an evil guest from the bowels of hell.

It's gonna be a stretch for me, but I'm gonna try.

Columbus was a racist, genocidal dead white European male

I had enough history credits in college to go to school one extra quarter and have a double-major. But I was happy with the degree in English literature, and it has served me well all my life by allowing me read the instructions on ATM machines so that I can extract the money I make today, manufacturing chemicals.

History was pretty much the examination of what happened in the past when I studied it. Yeah, I had to do that boring stuff, such as memorizing names, dates and facts (Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock before 1492, and Cyrus McCormack invented the "Grim Reaper," which hasn't worked since Laurence Simon started his Dead Pool, and Beethoven wrote loud music because he was deaf.) I got tested on this stuff and I did okay back then.

It doesn't work that way anymore.

For the second semester in a row, high school students got a break on how their final history exams were scored because school officials worried that too many would fail the standardized tests. The new American and world history exams, which were given in December, are uniform throughout the Palm Beach County School District. There is a 100-question exam for each of the two history courses required of Palm Beach County students -- world history and American history -- and that test was supposed to count for 20 percent of a student's semester grade.

Bejus! These are the ignorant, asswitted spawn of parents who can't figure out a punch-card ballot in a Presidential election! You expect their one-brain-celled offspring to comprehend HISTORY? SHIT! They can't understand the concept of consciousness.

But after school officials did an informal survey of last month's results, they decided to use a different calculation that worked to the student's benefit. Report cards reflected the better of two grades: either the final exam grade or the average of the first two quarterly grades.

"We had to come up with a solution that didn't hurt the kids," said Patricia Mandigo, director of secondary education. "We needed to be able to give the kids a break while trying to create a valid test."

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! The kids all failed and you went scrambling to cover your asses. That "different calculation" is going to amount to WRONG ANSWER=RIGHT ANSWER when you're finished, am I correct? Who gives a flying dingbat whether the kids learn history or not? Give 'em good grades, keep your job, and Bejus stays in heaven and all is right with the world.

The school district decided to use uniform history final exams more than a year ago to ensure that all students in the district were learning about state-required subjects such as African and African-American history, the Holocaust and women pioneers.

I want EVERYONE WHO READS THIS BLOG to study that last quote carefully. Think about history, then think about "state-required subjects such as African and African-American history, the Holocaust and women pioneers." Does anybody really give a shit if students flunk this kind of goddam politically-correct indoctrination that tries to pass as history in school today? I don't.

I would rather my son, Quinton, learn NOTHING AT ALL in public school than have his head crammed full of shit. He doesn't need to "learn" about some mythical King Mooga-Booga who invented a flying saucer in Africa in 500 BC, according to Swahili legend. He needs to learn history to understand how the world works, because it's ALWAYS worked the same way. I've read his "Social Studies" books and they make me want to talk to Ralph and Huey around the porcelain throne.

Then last spring, the test made national news in its first use -- when administrators decided to use a curve that would give students an A for answering just 54 of the 100 questions correctly.

Teachers subsequently met in committees to rewrite the test, which originally had been written by administrators. The new exams, administered in December, were then graded on a regular 100-point scale where 90 to 100 equals an A.

But the students apparently didn't do much better.

"The scores were very low," said Brian Killeen, program planner for student progression and academic improvement. "There were more F's and D's then C's, B's and A's."

Yes, President Bush! Give these people MORE MONEY to educate our children! If we're spending $8,000 dollars per student and the little shits can't find the USA on a map, spend $10,000 per student and the same teachers who didn't show them doodly-squat for $8,000 will do a LOT better. Gag me.

Florida's Sunshine State standards do outline what students should know at each grade level, including history, but the standards are broad, and two teachers could conceivably teach the same course with a focus on different areas. When teachers made up their own tests, they could put emphasis on the areas they focused on. With a standardized test, they have to cover everything.

Kathy Dodgen, an American history teacher at Royal Palm Beach High School, said she found herself teaching nothing in-depth last semester so she could make sure she covered everything on the test. For example, this year she taught the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark expedition and the California gold rush all at once during a two-week period.

"This is the fastest pace we've ever done," Dodgen said.

Well slap my ass and call me Fanny! IMAGINE rocketing through the Louisiania Purchase, the Lewis and Clark expedition and the California Gold rush in a mere two weeks! Hell, you need THREE WEEKS just to talk about Sacajaweia today, to make sure you cover all the reasons why we have a goddam silver dollar with her name and face on it, even though nobody has a clue what she looked like. She was a liberated woman, one of the first true feminists, and a Native American besides. Lewis and Clark, white male European swine that they were, probably would have died if she hadn't rescued them by showing them how to be one with nature and spare the environment.

Bullshit. She was probably a camp-whore instead of a guide. She probably Clarked every Lewis she could get her hands on or legs wrapped around for the entire trip.

I am sick of this shit. You want all of that fast-paced history in a nutshell? Napolean needed money for his War To Conquer Europe. He had some allegedly French land in the New World that he didn't give a shit about and he offered to sell it to President Thomas Jefferson in 1803. We bought it, lock, stock and barrel for $15 million. Napolean took his money and went to Waterloo. Jefferson hired Lewis and Clark to see just what we bought.

They wandered that vast land for two years and were extremely lucky to survive. But they came back with detailed journal entries, maps, plant samples, drawings and all sorts of other neat crap, plus GREAT drinking stories to tell. We bought a LOT of land out west. The concept of Manifest Destiny came shortly thereafter.

As far as the gold rush goes, I would teach that it started at Sutter's Mill in 1848, and people loaded onto anything that would roll to get out there and become wealthy. The gold was gone before most of them ever arrived, but they stayed anyway, absorbed some Okies in the 1930's and eventually mutated into the certified nut-bowl of America.

Any questions?

i love L.a.(w)

Take the stinky law quiz.

I scored poorly on it. I believed every one of them.

a cat blog

I just wanted to join the ranks of bloggers who talk about all the cute, cuddly things cats do every day.

MADRID (AP) — A British woman was in stable condition today after a lion bit her arm off at the elbow at a Spanish zoo, officials said.

The 54-year-old woman was visiting a zoo Wednesday afternoon in southeast Alicante province when she strayed from a group of fellow British tourists and stuck her arm through the bars of the lion pen to try to pet one of the animals, news reports said.

A lioness named Marta bit the woman's hand and eventually ripped her arm off at the elbow. The limb was not recovered because other lions pounced on it, the news agency Efe said.

Too bad I don't have a cute picture to post.

my aching ass

Here's another example of why our children can't learn in school. They are being taught by fucking idiots.

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) -- A third-grader who took a vitamin with his lunch at school was suspended for five days for violating the Mobile County system's zero-tolerance policy for substance abuse.

People who enforce THAT RULE are teaching our children? We're in a world of hurt.

Read it

Dennis Miller pisses me off sometimes (hell, EVERYTHING AND EVERYBODY piss me off sometimes), but he has a lot to say that I agree with here.

pure scum

Every time I start to think that the Democrat party can sink no lower into the political cesspool it has become, their "leaders" find a way to sink lower in the slime

"If you support Bush on Iraq and he wins, you gain zip," explained a Democratic strategist. "If you support him and he loses, you lose along with him. But if you oppose him and things go bad, you stand to be a big winner."

I don't know whether to puke on my keyboard or go find that "strategist" and choke his chicken-neck with my bare hands. Now we know that from the Dickocrat side, that this upcoming war isn't about Ooooiiilll!, it's about BODY BAGS, and the more, the merrier for them, especially if a lot of American soldiers come home wrapped that way.

See? If THAT happens, they may regain the power they crave above the good of the nation and the lives of our servicemen. A dead soldier is GOOD for the Democrats, so GO SADDAM! KILL OUR TROOPS! KILL LOTS OF THEM!!

What a bunch of maggots.

Full nelson

In a way, it is sad to see a man who once was a legitimate hero turn himself into a walking slapstick joke in his dotage. In another way, the shitheaded bastard pisses me off enough that I want to stuff a used, sweaty, work-sock right into his spewing pie-hole just to STOP THE IDIOCY!

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) -- Former South African president Nelson Mandela has slammed the U.S. stance on Iraq, saying that "one power with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust."

Speaking at the International Women's Forum, Mandela said "if there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America."

Name ONE "unspeakable atrocity" the USA committed in its entire history that South Africa didn't top ten-fold after YOU took over, you blithering cumsponge. I think I know who "cannot think properly" here.

Receiving applause for his comments, Mandela said Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are "undermining" past work of the United Nations.

"They do not care. Is it because the secretary-general of the United Nations is now a black man?" said Mandela, referring to Kofi Annan, who is from Ghana.

No, suckwit, it's because Kofi Annan is ALMOST as big a dumbfuck as YOU are, and the UN is one big, expensive joke. What is the "past work" of the UN that we're supposedly undermining? The sex crimes against children that the "guardians" committed in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Conakry? The way the UN "peacekeepers" stood by with thumbs up theirs asses and allowed the 1995 Bosnia massacre to occur in the "safe area" they were supposed to protect? Or is the fine job their "diplomats" are doing now to demonstrate their own complete irrelevance? Please tell me.

In reaction to Mandela's comments, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush was grateful to the many European leaders who "obviously think differently."

"The president will understand there are going to be people who are more comfortable doing nothing about a growing menace that could turn into a holocaust. He respects people who differ with him. He will do what he thinks is right and necessary to protect our country," Fleischer said.

I believe Ari said "Nelson, stick it in your ear," about as nicely as he could. But he's highly paid for saying harsh words gently.

I would have told Nelson to stick it somewhere else.

Fatheads

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Give a man a book of Food Stamps, and you make him a big, fat pig.

The U.S. government's food aid programs for low-income people are contributing to the high obesity rates of America's poor, according to a recent report from a Washington think thank.

"Today, the central nutritional problem facing the poor -- indeed, all Americans -- is not too little food, but too much of the wrong food," writes Douglas Besharov in his paper, "We're Feeding the Poor as if They're Starving."

I thought fat people were all McDonald's fault.

In his article, Besharov says that although around 65 percent of Americans are overweight, with more than half of them obese, the best estimates place the rate of obesity among the poor at 5 to 10 percent higher.

He writes that despite this high rate of obesity among the poor, low-income families have access to more free or low-cost food than ever before through federal food programs. They are even allowed to use all three programs at the same time while receiving welfare assistance.

But we have poor children STARVING in this country because of evil, wicked Republicans, who made DRACONIAN CUTS in federal food programs. Didn't this guy talk to any Democrat politicians before he published this study?

Besharov, however, compares the program's ticket-based design -- in which recipients receive vouchers on a credit card that can be used only to buy food -- to tickets purchased for rides at an amusement park. He says the general tendency for most people is to buy more tickets than they need, which leads them to go on more rides than they planned in order to avoid wasting the extra tickets.

In the case of the food stamp program, he says the phenomenon results in over-consumption because recipients purchase food they would not otherwise buy. Besharov recommends fixing the problem by switching the program to a direct cash payment system.

Food stamp recipients should be forced to stay on amusement park rides until they PUKE, which would get rid of some of the excess food that's making them fat. Or, we could just give them cash and let them spend it on beer, lottery tickets and crack cocaine. THAT'LL make 'em lose weight.

Whitmore also noted that her research shows that the percentage of people who fail to meet their daily nutritional requirements rises quite a bit among the 20 percent to 30 percent of cash recipients who did change their spending patterns.

"I think this is some evidence that people who change their behaviors would get worse nutrition, and not better, as he suggests," she said.

See? I told ya so.

Robert Lerman, director of the Labor and Social Policy Center at the liberal Urban Institute, said that although Besharov presents an interesting case, he fails to establish a sound connection between federal food programs and obesity in the poor.

Nevertheless, he said that it is worth pursuing Besharov's assertion that better dietary habits among the poor might be achieved through efforts to provide better nutritional counseling.

"It is not obvious to me that it would work. But on the other hand, if it were to work it could have a pretty good long term payoff because we know the health costs (of obesity)," he said. "From a government cost-benefit perspective, the relief to long-term health outlays might make it worthwhile."

Mark my words. "Obesity" is going to be the next "Joe Camel" that justifies all sorts of behavior modification laws from our beneficent nanny government. Once those fucknuggets start talking about justifying their actions through "relief to long-term health outlays," our freedom to eat what we want, when we want and where we want just fell right in the middle of the crosshairs of the government Save YOU From YOURSELF sniper rifle. That gun is loaded with high-powered legislation and litigation, and they'll shoot you with it for your own good.

The only problem is, there are a LOT more fat people than there are smokers in this country. Hell, butt-wipe politicians and bullying do-gooders could kick smokers around all they wanted to. Smokers were a reviled minority. But a lot of our butt-wipe politicians and bullying do-gooders are FAT PEOPLE, too (can you imagine Ted Kennedy bloviating about the problem of obesity in America? What would Michael Moore think?).

The attack of the Fatheads may not work, because the Slim-Nazis are outnumbered by the Fat-asses among us. I'm on the side of the Fat-asses, even though I really need to gain a few pounds. I don't like seeing bullies and sanctimonious shit-birds pick on people just because they can.

I know what that's like because I smoke cigarettes.

January 29, 2003

then

Here, he WANTED the job.

Now

Here, he got what he wanted.

the poet in me again

I didn't send this one off to the contest. It's just for ME!

Would you look at the neatest cool rage?
It's BLOGGERS who brag of their age
Though they may be younger
I still have the hunger
To say, "KISS MY ASS" on this page.

words and music, copyright 2003 by Acidman

Why does anybody do it

I looked through some more pictures in the photo-box last night, and I was amazed to see how much I've changed in the past 10 years. Ten years ago, I had little silver streaks above my ears in my dark brown hair that kinda looked like the wings on that uniform The Flash wears in comic books. Now, my hair is almost totally gray silver. Back then, I didn't have all the character lines I have around my eyes now. All of my teeth were mine. I resemble a robust, mature but young, man in those pictures.

Today, I look ten years older than I was in those pictures. But it's BEEN ten years, with some rough days thrown into the mix, and I believe the difference between 40 and 50 in your life is one of the most profound 10-year changes you'll ever experience, except for that cosmic leap from 10 to 20 years old. (I don't count 0 to 10. You're too young to notice much of anything at that age.) Mother Nature and Father Time conspire together to fuck the life right out of you from the day you're born, and no matter how hard you fight them, they start to get the upper hand when you turn 50.

That's why I was astonished when I saw a couple of pictures on Drudge today of George Bush appearing ten years older from the campaign trail to today, in a mere two years. Did you EVER see a President who didn't age a goddam lifetime while in office? People fight, claw, lie, pander, beg, borrow, steal and campaign until they are hoarse to WIN a job that I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole.

Oh, if you need a constant blow-job for your ego, the way Clinton did, I can understand. Like some crazed moth in mating season, he flew toward the brightest light he could find, but that was all about HIM and his twisted, egotistical desires. Clinton wanted the job just to ACT like a Tall Dog, garner all the attention and strut, without ever having the balls to actually BE a tall dog. All hat, no cattle, as they say in Texas. I understand him, but eight years in that job weathered his narcissitic ass the way it's done everyone else. Even Slick Willie couldn't escape that trump squeeze.

Why does anybody want that job? I don't.

I'm certainly not willing to go through the demeaning experience it takes to get it, and I don't want the awesome responsibility that comes with it. I am not lying when I say that I would rather live in my humble Crackerbox than live in the White House. Yeah, it may be good to be king, but it comes with a huge price for an American President in the world today.

Just imagine what George Bush faces every day when he gets out of bed. We're going to war and American servicemen (and maybe women) will die because of orders he gives as Commander-in-Chief. If he gives the WRONG orders by listening to the WRONG people, a lot more soldiers die. That's heavy pressure.

Meanwhile, he has the idiotarian left gnawing at his asscheeks like termites on a rotten log and fucksticks such as Tom Daschel aiding and abetting the enemy with other sniping attacks. He also knows that the terrorists are out there plotting and he may see another attack that makes 9/11 pale in comparison if we get caught with our drawers down. He's got more pots on the stove to tend than a Waffle House cook during a breakfast rush, and he's got to watch them all.

Why does ANYONE want that job?

I believe that two kinds of people seek to be President of the United States. First are the totally ego-driven, such as JFK, Nixon, Clinton and Gore. Second are those who really believe that they can make a difference, such as Ronald Reagan (the man that I CALL the greatest president of my 50-year life) and George Bush.

The people in the second group seek the office not for the power, the political swill and the grand spotlight that comes with the turf. They do it because they believe they have a duty to do right by their country. When they speak of a "vision" of where we need to go, they didn't get that vision from a Dick Morris political poll. It came from their hearts, their spirits and their core beliefs.

I believe that George (the moron cowboy) Bush has the potential to be a great American President, because he has the balls, the beliefs and the best advisors around. I hope he lives up to his potential, because we need a man like that right now. And I thank Bejus once again that Al Gore LOST the 2000 election.

But I still don't want that job.

Carnival

The 19th Carnival of the Vanities is up at Ipse dixit. I actually managed to send an entry without screwing it up for a change.

I am certain that ravenwood is both proud of me and amazed at my newfound email prowess. Of course, Mr. Ravenwood is not home this week and is crazed enough to allow Laurence Simon use his site as part of the Amish Tech Support Blog-a-Day tour.

He'll NEVER get all the cat-hair out of his keyboard after that.

By the way: I have been asked to blog-sit a friend's site this weekend. I will tell you more if she doen't come to her senses before Friday. Would YOU want me writing on YOUR site with no control over what I put there? Of COURSE you would! And so does she.