In Memoriam: Cardinal Jaime Sin. Of course, everybody loved a prince of the church named Sin, but the guy was a bastion of stability in the frequently-unstable Phillipines, using his granted moral authority to its best effect. If the Church is looking at the fast track for JP Deuce, consider putting Sin on the same path.
In Memoriam II: Jack Kilby, without whom you would not be reading this right now. So thus he’s important enough to throw in here.
Well, since this is categorized under wrestling, I do feel the need sometime to discuss wrestling in here, even if in a minor fashion. I had a chance to watch Slammiversary yesterday, and it was a complete waste of my time except for the Daniels/Sabin portion of the X Division title match. I’m damn glad I don’t buy these things, although I wish that PWTorrents would get back up on a steady basis soon (they’re still fiddling around with a new server). The one thing I wish that PWTorrents wasn’t doing was behaving like a bunch of complete fascists in regard to sharing. Mandatory ratio enforcement is just a sign you’re doing the goose-step, boys. And that little top-of-page in-house pimp from Wife-Beater has to be eliminated, now.
Other than that, I’m just sitting here waiting for Unemployment to call for a phone interview. Apparently it’s required in this state (or else it’s required since I was a federal employee, and they have to go through hoops with the feds for shit just like anyone else). Let’s just hope that I’m my normal charming self on the phone so that I can short-circuit any possibility of not getting my just recompense. I’m also waiting for a couple recruiters to call back, amnd in fact one of them woke me up this morning with the news that I’m having a phone interview on Friday
Enough of that. Let’s move on…
THE PIMP SECTION
McCullar put in a claim to me last week that the abominable conviction of an eighteen-year-old geek for terrorist activities as per allegedly threatening to kill people at his school was more of a post-Columbine thing than a post-September 11th one. I dunno about that. The overreaction might be Columbine-based, but the terrorism charges sure as hell aren’t. He’s a good guy, so I’ll see his promotion of neo-fascist director John Milius as something not characteristic of him.
Maillaro has that Marvel thing going again…where’s Stevens?
And this is what happens when you do one Pimp Section on Tuesday Afternoon and another on Wednesday Morning. You fall short of pimps. Sorry.
And on to the news…
THE POLITICALLY CORRECT THING TO DO
From CNN:
The Senate’s No. 2 Democrat apologized Thursday for remarks comparing the treatment of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp to methods used by the Nazis, Soviets and other repressive regimes.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said he “never intended any disrespect” to U.S. troops with his June 14 comments, for which the minority whip has endured a week of criticism from Republicans and some Democrats.
“In the end, I don’t want anything in my public career to detract from my love for this country, my respect for those who serve it, and this great Senate,” Durbin said in an emotional statement on the Senate floor.
“I offer my apologies to those that were offended by my words.”
In the June 14 floor speech, Durbin read from an FBI agent’s account of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay being shackled to the floor without food or water in extreme temperatures for up to 24 hours at a stretch.
Prisoners in those conditions sometimes urinated or defecated on themselves, the agent reported.
“If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings,” Durbin said.
The White House, which insists prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, called Durbin’s remarks “reprehensible.”
Republicans quickly called for Durbin to apologize — a call he rejected Friday, saying his statement was “misused and misunderstood.”
But Durbin said Tuesday he had erred by invoking the specter of the Holocaust, which he called “the greatest moral tragedy of our time.”
“Nothing should ever be said to demean or diminish that moral tragedy,” Durbin said. “I’m also sorry if anything I said, in any way, cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military.”
He said he would “continue to speak out on the issues that I think are important to the people of Illinois and to the nation.”
Sen. John McCain — who was a prisoner of war for more than five years during the Vietnam War — said Sunday that Durbin should apologize.
But the Arizona Republican also said reports of controversial interrogation techniques and allegations of abuse could endanger American POWs in a future conflict.
Now I love Dick Durbin to death. After all, the guy was my senator for a while, he’s an Illinois Democrat, and you know me. That’s why I’m very disappointed that he felt the need to apologize.
And for what? Comparing the Junta to the Nazis, the Soviets, and Pol Pot? Frankly, that’s putting the Junta into flattering company. He should be apologizing to the Nazis, the Soviets, and Pol Pot for putting that low-rent bunch of thugs, led by a moral reprobate and pathological liar who only wishes he could be Stalin, in with strong company.
And as for the White House, longtime readers of this column are doubtless aware of the fact that I have showed which sections of the Geneva Convention that the Junta has violated in re Abu Ghraib. Same shit’s going on at Gitmo, so the same violations are being committed. Just remember the two words “pathological liar”. The fish stinks from the head down.
And why not compare it to the Holocaust? Hyperbole gets people’s attention in this time of limited attention spans. You need to invoke Godwin’s Law sometimes in order to get the facts into the heads of the moronic voters, 51% of whom committed high treason against the rest of the American public last November. It doesn’t trivialize it, because politics already pre-trivializes everything, on a stage where nothing should be trivialized.
When the revolution comes and I’m brought to my proper position as Autocrat of the United States, Dick Durbin’s going to be my right-hand guy. I’ll even let him pull the trigger when I order Bill Frist’s execution.
Yeah, I decided to keep this one short because it’s pretty obvious to everyone what I was going to say anyway. You could have written it for me. However, it feels good to get it out.
PIG-FUCKER IN THE UN POKE
From the New York Times:
President Bush on Tuesday pressed Senate Republican leaders to continue fighting to confirm John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, even though Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, said his options had been exhausted and some Republicans urged the appointment of Mr. Bolton when Congress recesses.
“The president made it very clear that he expects an up-or-down vote,” Dr. Frist told reporters after meeting with the president. Back in the Capitol, he added, “I don’t want to close that door yet.”
Earlier in the day, Dr. Frist suggested the door had been closed, telling reporters that “me bringing up a vote is not going to change anything.”
Some leading Republicans, meanwhile, called on Mr. Bush to bypass the Senate by installing Mr. Bolton at the United Nations while Congress is in recess.
“Yes,” Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, said when asked if Mr. Bush should make a recess appointment. “He should.”
The back and forth among Republicans underscores the difficulties the White House faces in trying to send Mr. Bolton, a blunt-spoken former under secretary of state for arms control, to the United Nations, which has been without an American ambassador since John C. Danforth left the post in January.
On Monday evening, Republicans fell 6 votes short of the 60 necessary to break a Democratic filibuster over Mr. Bolton. One Republican, Senator George V. Voinovich of Ohio, is calling for Mr. Bush to withdraw the nomination, but the White House said Tuesday that he would not.
Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, also suggested that the White House had no intention of giving Democrats the documents they are seeking related to Mr. Bolton’s tenure at the State Department, as Senator Trent Lott, the former Republican leader, recommended Tuesday. “It’s a thin reed they’re standing on,” Mr. Lott said, referring to the White House.
The two sides remain in the same standoff they have been in for weeks, raising the prospect of a recess appointment, which is not possible until Congress leaves town for its July 4 break. In the meantime, the administration appears intent on criticizing the Democratic leadership as obstructionist while trying to sway a few Democratic senators to its side.
“We’ve got lots of options,” Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s chief political adviser, said in an interview on Tuesday on the MSNBC program “Hardball.” But he added that the “most important option” would be “an up-or-down vote on John Bolton.”
Dr. Frist did not sound optimistic.
“I haven’t been able to move the Democrats,” he said, in a brief interview outside his Capitol office. He said he was encouraging his Republican colleagues to talk to Mr. Bolton’s two chief Democratic detractors, Senators Joseph R. Biden of Delaware and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut. “They’ve got a lock on the filibuster.”
Oh, please, yes, do a recess appointment, I beg you. You want to provide some material for the mid-terms next year? This would be a great one: the only way Dubbaya could get his hyperidealogue pus-hog into the UN is to go around the backs of Congress. This is what the filibuster was meant for: to protect the body politic against the tyrrany of the majority when the majority proves to be tyrranic, promoting policy that works against the benefit of the country. In actuality, the last five years should have been one filibuster.
Let me be frank, so frank that even a Republican can understand: Bolton is a menace. His appointment would be as harming to the United States in the world community as Jeane Kirkpatrick’s was. He’s an ideologist and nothing else, following the line that the Junta barely keeps hidden, a line that nauseates the majority of Americans. He’s a creature of the far right wing, the force that has destroyed the Republican Party, turning it from a parallel force to the Democrats into a group of morally-bankrupt oligarchs who want to push their social agendas down the entire world’s throats. Bolton is a symptom of this, as was Kirkpatrick of the Senile Old Fuck’s Project Bullshit America. He’s a symbol of the quarter-century degeneration of the GOP, and putting him in the august body that attempts to keep the world from spiraling into genocidal war is not only cynical, but also representative of the “I Don’t Give A Shit” attitude of the Junta. If they really feel that way about the UN enough to send Bolton in there (and go for lower funding levels, and keep up the press leaks pertaining to the alleged influence peddling, etc.), why just not pull out of the UN and ship its ass from Noo Yawk to Geneva?
Apparently the monsters in the Junta and the GOP don’t seem to recognize the fact that we have something in common with the other hundred ninety-some countries out there: we’re human. The primary job of government is to work collectively toward the betterment of the human condition. The Junta won’t. They’ve sold themselves to their business buddies and to the Religious Reich…
…oh, God, not another anti-Junta jeremiad from me? I’m sorry, folks, but it’s stories like this that make me dread that I’m an American. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have faith in the democratic system and its abilities to remove malignant tumors like the Junta and the right-wing from the sysstem. When faith is lost, there are two options: emigration and assassination. And I’ve decided to keep both open.
I SEE SCAREMONGERING IS BACK IN FASHION
From CNN:
The chance of an attack with a weapon of mass destruction somewhere in the world in the next 10 years runs as high as 70 percent, arms experts have predicted in a U.S. survey.
Most of the more than 80 experts surveyed in the report released on Tuesday believed one or two new countries will acquire nuclear weapons in the next five years, with two to five countries joining the nuclear club during the next decade.
The survey, commissioned by U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, also showed that four out of five people said their country was not spending enough on non-proliferation efforts.
The most likely scenario for a nuclear attack would be for terrorists to use a weapon they made themselves with material acquired on the black market, the survey said.
“The results underscore the need to improve security around tactical nuclear weapons and nuclear material in Russia and expand our ability to detect transfer of weapons or materials from rogue states to terrorist organizations,” said a summary of a report outlining the survey results.
In 1991, in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, Republican Lugar and former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn initiated a program to combat the proliferation threat posed by former Soviet states.
In an introduction to the report he commissioned, Lugar said the success of that program proves the spread of WMD can be stopped by building “extraordinary international relationships.”
He said establishing a “worldwide system of accountability” for WMD could prevent terrorists from acquiring such weapons.
“Even if we succeed spectacularly at building democracy around the world, bringing stability to failed states and spreading economic opportunity broadly, we will not be secure from the actions of small, disaffected groups that acquire weapons of mass destruction,” Lugar said.
“Everything is at risk if we fail in this one area.”
So, in other words, according to Dick Lugar, diplomacy is the best way to short-circuit an attack with WMDs. Maybe he can inform his coreligionists…sorry, fellow GOP members…of that fact. You know, stuff like, oh, working with the UN by sending in an actual diplomat instead of an ideological monster…
…you have to admit that I’m pretty consistent going to and from previous entries in this column, don’t you?
So, in other words, it’d be best if nations could get together and develop controls on the ability of others to manufacture and deliver WMDs. Presumably, these controls would not include the invasion of a soverign nation on the pretext that there were WMDs that weren’t actually there, and settling in for a long, painful, murderous occupation…
…whoops, I did it again, so to speak. I really must stop this. By the way, my anti-government feeling right now has absolutely no connection to my job situation. It’s just that all of these types of stories seem to be in prevalence this week for some reason, which triggers the anti-Junta hatred in me to no end.
In fact, I hate them so much that I don’t trust this report despite the rational measures given in it. You want to know why? Let’s take a look at the list of whom CNN was involved in this survey:
Sam Nunn: Proud tool of the US Military from his time in the Senate.
Retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf: Tool extreme. Egotist and GOP partisan. I never bought into the Stormin’ Norman image and cult of personality, even when I was in the military, and shame on you if you did.
Former defense secretaries William Cohen and Frank Carlucci: Enough said, really. All defense secretaries are in the pocket of the defense industries. Some of them even branch out into being in the pocket of the oil industries (hello, Mad Dog).
Former CIA Director James Woolsey: And we all know how trustworthy the CIA is.
Former National Security Adviser Richard Allen: Always was a dickhead, really.
Former Iraq chief weapons inspector Richard Butler: Oh, like he’s dispassionate. He was a total Junta creature, still is.
Former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott: Still a journalist at heart looking for a good story, and propping up the Scare Scale is still considered a good story.
David Kay, who led the hunt for WMD in Iraq after the fall of Saddam: Where I can get loads of money for doing nothing?
Yet another attempt by the Junta to buffalo the hearts and minds of the populace, folks. And this one’s even more cynical because it’s presented under the guise of diplomacy and compromise, two things that the Junta are not going to do under any circumstance. And CNN bought into this. Shame on them.
ALL-NATURAL BIRTH CONTROL
From Reuters:
A plant chemical found in soya, tofu and legumes could potentially damage sperm and affect male fertility, a British researcher said on Wednesday.
Professor Lynn Fraser, of King’s College London has shown that genistein, which can mimic the effect of the female hormone estrogen, affects sperm in mice.
But it seems to have an even stronger impact on human sperm.
In laboratory tests, Fraser found that small amounts of the chemical can cause human sperm to “burn out” and lose fertility.
“Human sperm proved to be even more responsive than mouse sperm to genistein,” Fraser told a fertility meeting.
She added that if women eat soya and other foods high in genistein it might have a bigger impact on male fertility because the chemical is likely to affect sperm when it is in the female preparing to fertilize an egg.
“Maternal exposure to the compounds is probably more important than paternal exposure,” Fraser explained.
Although it is very preliminary research, Fraser speculated that the findings could have an impact on women trying to conceive.
“On the basis of what we have seen, it might be a practical thing to do if you are in the habit of eating lots of soya-based products to restrict your diet for a short time over the window of ovulation,” she told the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology meeting.
Professor Richard Sharpe, of Edinburgh University in Scotland, described the research as interesting and said the results were surprising.
“It could of course have human health/fertility implications as indicated by the authors,” he said in a statement.
Goddamnit, the second page of this article isn’t loading, but you get the gist.
Well, folks, this is a real body blow toward vegeterianism, isn’t it? Eat tofu, and your little buddies lose their strength. You know, the Religious Reich constantly prattle on about the “terror” of gay men “recruiting” young men to be in the Fraternity That Shall Not Speak Its Name. So why don’t they start bitching about vegans as well? If they have problems reproducing (which is the crux of the Religious Reich’s scare tactic as per gays), that means they have to “recruit” people to their deviant philosophy as well.
People, mankind was put on this planet to eat meat and poultry. It’s part of our nature. We’re omnivores, not herbiovores. We SLAUGHTER the damn herbiovores and put their meat on our table, whether or not tables were invented yet. Our teeth are designed to chew muscle tissue, and our taste buds designed to savor the yummy flavor. No amount of disease involved in such can stop it. Trichinosis? Listeriosis? Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease? Pish-tosh. Pass the steak sauce.
Well, maybe this will teach vegans a lesson. The nice vegan couple who want children are utterly bereft, condemn to watch silently as the brood of their next-door neighbor cavort on the lawn, all because they believe that Meat Is Murder or their cholesterol’s a little high…
…is someone out there claiming a little bias on my part due to my field of work (when I have work, that is)? No, no, no, no…yes. Meat keeps me in money, people. Naturally I’m going to latch on to news like this and start promoting it. I need to eat as well. And I sure as hell don’t dig into bean sprouts. I can’t stand the taste of them anyway.
CAN WE FIND SOMETHING NON-POLITICAL, PLEASE?
From Reuters:
Hollywood’s bitterly divided actors union, the Screen Actors Guild, rejected on Tuesday a recently negotiated contract with the video game industry.
But the vote was unlikely to have any effect since most games are produced with non-union talent.
In addition, the three-year contract has already been approved by the smaller American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or AFTRA, which negotiated the deal jointly with the actors guild.
Many actors who do voice-over work in games belong to both unions, and will therefore be covered by AFTRA. All pension and health contributions will go to that union and not to the Screen Actors Guild, or SAG.
SAG’s national executive committee voted by a narrow margin to reject the contract, which had already been recommended by the negotiating committee and SAG staffers.
It marked the latest rift between two rival factions, one led by SAG President Melissa Gilbert of “Little House on the Prairie” fame, and another one whose members include Valerie Harper (“Rhoda”) and Elliott Gould (“Ocean’s Twelve”).
The latter group has already successfully opposed such plans as a merger with AFTRA, a new oversight deal with talent agents and a dues increase.
The deal offered by leading gaming companies including Electronic Arts Inc. and Activision Inc. offered to boost wages for voice-over and other performers by 36 percent over the life of the contract. However, the unions were unable to obtain residuals, or a share in the revenues generated by the video games they perform in.
Hollywood’s actors, along with unions representing writers and directors, have all recently been forced to accept new contracts denying them a bigger share of profits from the hugely lucrative DVD market.
I think I’ve got the jump on this one, since neither the Games nor Movies section has this one up at time of writing. Maybe it’s too Movies for Games or too Games for Movies or too business for both, even for Games. But, anyway…
Yeah, this really is irrelevant, other than to point out the split in SAG that’s going on right now. It’s not necessarily for the reasons given, though. Yeah, most games use non-union talent. That’s simply both a cost-cutting method imposed by the bosses, and the fact that the bosses live overseas and in general don’t understand the necessity of playing ball with the Hollywood unions in order to boost the quality of their games. Hell, they can’t play ball with any union. How much of the work in the video game industry is unionized? None?
The video game guys go for “name” talent when they’re dealing in the main with licensed product, and licensed product seems to be going by the wayside for right now in favor of original products (if you can consider sequels and remakes to be “original”; that trend has recently hit its high-water mark with the loaded DVD-9 that is Bard’s Tale). The games industry has realized that putting a well-known name on something doesn’t necessarily guarantee any quality (and might just affect sales in the future as well; Activision totally destroyed the licensed market with its piece of unmitigated shit Enter the Matrix, which conned a lot of people into buying it at first release, and those people won’t soon forget what Activision did to them). So this wasn’t a difficult decision for the companies to make. Their economic impact would be minimized because they’re simply not making as much of product that would utilize “name” voice talent than they were. And the one person they do use constantly, Michael Dorn, is covered under the AFTRA agreement anyway.
(As for the wrestling angle on this, the boys are members of AFTRA as well, so this doesn’t affect whatever THQ is going to be foisting on the public next.)
I dunno why I put this in. Maybe it was to show that this site actually has some synergy after all. Or maybe it’s my interest in video games. All I know is, it’s my column.
And I don’t know what else to throw in here right now, really. I could comment on the Smackdown draft pick, but that would be tacky, plus I’d get billions of letters bitching at me for spoiling stuff. Guess I’ll have to wait on the Short Form for that. I do, know, however, that I’ve got the Short Form on tap, plus it’s a WWE PPV weekend, so I’ll throw in comments in the Round Table as well. Until such time as I return, be sure to survive.
