I wasn't going to blog today, being against-the-wall with work, and hell-bent on finally sweeping my apartment. An I most certainly was not going to talk like a pirate.

But Jeff Jarvis touched on the one topic that just shivers....me....timbers.

In short, I'll channel John Galt: Buy your own goddamn health insurance and get out of my way!

Let me explain a few things about my social philosophy. Everything you must do is as much oppression as everything you can't do. Every cent you earn that is taken away from you without choice or compensation, is slavery. Every cent you take from someone without their consent, is theft.

Oppression, slavery, theft. These are not words that anybody associates with the United States of America (well some people, maybe), but it's exactly the direction America is headed in. Socialized Health Care is exactly the kind of "slippery slope" into slavery that collectivists use to seduce the masses.

Socialized Health Care is not a "Get-out-of-Death-Free" card. It's mandatory health insurance. It offers nothing that's not already cheaply and widely available to all Americans. The only difference will be that you do not have a choice. The government enjoys controlling people's lives, and they'd like nothing better than to put a gun to your head and say, "You will pay for health insurance, or go to jail". And it will be more expensive owing to bureaucratic overhead, and the inevitable abuse of it by welfare bloodsuckers.

The burden of health care will fall upon productive citizens, to the benefit of the non-productive. In Europe, the aging population and monstrous overhead of entrenched bureaucracy conspire to rob taxpayers of an enormous amount of income. The average tax burden in Germany is close to 70%; and that's not including the enormous taxes included in things like heating costs, and gasoline, which are 3 to 4 times more expensive than in the United States. "Free" health insurance in Germany costs 10-12% of monthly income. If you earn $24,000 per year, expect to pay at least $200 per month just for yourself; i.e., forget about dependents: they cost extra.

Of course, if you don't work, you don't have to pay for your health insurance. That, of course, makes it much more attractive to be unemployed. You can go for years without working, and it involves much less paperwork than either being employed or having employees. A generous unemployment incentive, and a downright scandalous income penalty, discourage financial independence and doom small enterprises to certain failure.

Mandatory, government-enforced health insurance is just another way to generate guilty citizens. Ayn Rand said, "laws were made to be broken, because you cannot control an innocent man." It enrages me to see intelligent men like Mr. Jarvis telling people that the elimination of free will in any matter is beneficial.

That's my premise, now let's look at Mr. Jarvis' points one by one.

All citizens must be insured: If a prosperous society cannot help the sick among us, then what good is the prosperity?

There's that "must" again, sweetened by an appeal to a guilty conscience. "Shame on you for being successful," that sentence says. "How dare you put your own selfish interests before that of the common good". A citizen should have the choice of being insured or not. What good is health insurance to a billionaire? Health insurance costs more than it's worth. Most people never need catastrophic health care. It's there for the case when you will need it, and it's a lovely way to have peace of mind. But in your 20s, you do not need it. A cheap insurance plan with a massive deductible is the most cost-effective way to insure yourself against catastrophic illness or accidents.

Apparently, only the healthy are prosperous in our society. At least that's what I read from this horribly worded argument.

Insurance remains private: Who should run insurance? Government or industry. I say industry. The last thing we need is another inefficient and irksome government bureacracy. We need competition. We need choice.

This sounds fishy to me. First we need to remove people's choice as to whether they'd rather spend their money on cable TV or health insurance. Then suddenly we need choice? I thought we were giving up choice in order to not have to feel bad about boneheads who'd rather have 15 versions of HBO than a sound dental plan?

But who should pay? Think about it: By what logic should should employers have to be the ones who pay for health insurance? What started as a benefit of employment has become an entitlement for many, but then the rest are left out in the cold. Offering health insurance via work makes no sense.

Employers do not have to pay for health insurance. They've historically done it in order to get better employees. The are two main reasons so many companies offer health insurance as a benefit: 1) Due to workplace competition, and 2) Union pressures. Offering health insurance via work makes perfect sense if that will get you better employees. At any rate, an organization or corporation should have the choice of offering health insurance as a benefit.

Who should pay for R&D?: It is similarly illogical that through high drug costs, the sick underwrite R&D for new drugs to cure other diseases they don't have. I don't know how this system works today but it seems logical that government should help underwrite some cost of development -- and then get the benefit for all of us of lower prices for the drugs that result.

Never mind the fact that our current system allows the United States to provide the lion's share of medical breakthroughs. Let's fuck with it.

The paperwork torture must end: Insurance companies are managing costs via harassment, in paperwork and in "managed care." As I understand it, one great thing Canada did was standardize paperwork and bureacracy. With the Internet, it is now possible to standardize and modernize this entire system, from doctor to hospital to pharmacy to insurance company. It reduces the costs considerably for doctors and hospitals (and that should stop some of their complaining) and it reduces the hassle for us, the sick.

Sigh. Yes, let's get the government involved in order to reduce paperwork. Anybody who has never lived under socialized health care will never understand what torture it is to not only arrange your health care, but to be able to prove to the IRS (or equivalent organization) that you are, indeed, paying your fair share of it. Expect an audit everytime you're in the hospital. An accountant becomes an expensive necessity, because nobody understands the tax code over here.

Malpractice should be limited: But the threat of malpractice must remain over the heads of incompetent practitioners. We are still consumers of health care. We reserve the right to go after bad doctors -- protecting fellow consumers from them -- the way we can after bad contractors. And, yes, lawyers must stop being the primary beneficiary of the malpractice system.

We agree here. I'm not exactly sure how this fits into his plan of turning America's health care system into Cuba's, though.

We must grapple with extreme care: I don't want anyone unplugging me and letting me starve or choke to death. No thanks. And I hate seeing old people treated like the leftovers at garage sales. But I also recognize that some care is extreme and costs everyone a great deal of money for buying little hope. Who should set and enforce the standards of what is covered and is not?

UPDATE: TB in the comments raises a good point: People who don't take care of themselves cost the system and us. So how about higher rates for people who not only smoke but, what else?, get fat, don't exercise, don't get preventive tests on a set schedule....

I propose higher rates for: Smokers, drug abusers, homosexuals, people under 30, people over 30, sky divers, bungee jumpers, and alpha types. Of course, in order to assess those at risk, the government will need a big huge database of exactly who the smokers, sky divers, and homosexuals are.

Invest in manufacturers of little pink triangles, for they have a bright future. Why anyone would want to put John Ashcroft in charge of health care, I'll never understand.

Arrrrrrrrrrr.

Notice the title of the page.

"To be accused of being a whore is one thing, but to be accused of being a weblogger is actionable."

For Linux gearheads, the SCO vs. IBM/Hewlett Packard/Torvalds+dog saga is like Ra^thgate, only it's been going on for what seems like years.

A pretty damning appraisal of SCO's claims scrolled by on Slashdot today. Good fun. Hopefully, Slashdot won't get a Bitchdotting, owing to the current traffic of frothing-mad Spaniards flooding my site.

I just found this entry in my travelling journal from 1999.

March 8th, 1999 Brisbane, Australia Our flight from Auckland with Garuda Indonesia was bumpy at the best of times, but I was able to remain calm until the landing; which proved that the Duke Boys in the cockpit were all roaring drunk, which I had suspected all along

Today, I can't imagine how cheap a flight would have to be before I signed on with an Indonesian airline.

Twice in my life have I had the kind of airplane landings that shook the luggage compartments open. Once with Air Garuda, as above. The other time, the airplane actually had to abort the landing and come around for a second try, seeing as the previous plane had failed to leave the runway. Or, so I hear. I was mercifully oblivious to the entire flight, lost in a Percocet/Alcohol wonderland.

Oh, guys, you had me at pidé Pardon.

Some of us have to get some work done here. I can't wait for this thing to be over, one way or ahem the other.

I live in Augsburg, a small city with about 300,000 people in it. According to this article in the local rag (Google Translation), there was some sort of kerfuffle last night between the neo-Nazis (which the Germans call pretty much any Nationalists) and...someone: A bar which is frequented by hard-right political activists got a bit of a Kristallnacht treatment.

Perhaps unrelated, the group believed to be targeted by the firebombing was responsible for stonewalling the building of an Islamic community center in Augsburg in February. The group in question, "National Opposition Alliance", bolstered their credibility recently by naming their Internet site Neu-Schwabenland, and associating themselves with UFOs:

So, if fighting breaks out between Nazis and Islamists, where do the Jews fit into all this?

Via augsburg.blog-city.com

Our friends the spanish...

click for fullsize

For Allah, who unfortunately was quicker than I.

Nous sômmes seulement les americains

Update For Spanish reactions to the El Pais ad, check out these links:

delavegaBlog granermano Escolar.net

Google Translate is your friend.

If anybody ever tells you that the world hates Americans because of Bush or 9/11, just nod knowingly. And spit in their face.

The people who hate Americans now, have always hated Americans; and they likely always will. In fact, they hate everyone. It makes them feel better about their position, and distracts them from the obvious deficiencies they suffer themselves.

I've had, thankfully, just a few run-ins with anti-Americanism over the years since I left the States. The one incident I think of the most, when the subject comes up, was an encounter with someone I refer to as "The Friendly Tourist". Here are my journal entries, starting in Koh Samui, Thailand, in July of 1999.

July 2, 1999 Koh Samui, Thailand

This morning, we were again awoken by the same knuckleheads who had kept us up all night. I drag-assed out of bed like a man who hadn't had a good night's sleep for a week, and took a shower. We went into town and grabbed breakfast at the usual place, then rented a motorbike for the day.

[later that night...]

Afterward, I went to bed, too. The Danish Girls nextdoor were in full voice, and were totally out of hand. They kept falling onto our porch, shaking the whole hut and keeping us awake. I went outside once, to let them know that there was someone in the bungalow. When I'd gone back inside, they started jumping on the porch again, so I opend the door and asked them nicely to stop it. They did, but they still sat outside our bungalow yelling, singging, running the engines on their bikes. Why are Europeans so obnoxious?

July 3, 1999 Koh Samui, Thailand

Well, today got off to a great start. I got to sleep about 3:00 am last night, in spite of the noisy roommates. Then, about 7:30, they started trying to crank a motorbike right outside of our window. I guess they'd never heard of a manual choke before, because tehy'd crank it, rev it up to about 8,000 RPMs, and then it would die. And they'd do it again. This went on and on, and finally, I just got out of bed.

By the time I'd gotten dressed and had gone out onto the porch for a cigarette, they were all gone. They had apparently never gone to bed, and had taken up all the showers, so I sat on the porch brushing my teeth. Then, Mr. Motorbike came back. He pulled up and stopped his bike of front of one of the girls' bungalows, almost killing himself in the process. He had a bamboo water-pipe in his front basket, which he grabbed and took inside the Hut. He came back out and had a puzzled look on his face.

All this time, I was sitting there on the porch of our bungalow, staring at this burn-out and thinking he, and he alone, was to blame for my being out of bed. He saw me and said, Hey, can I have some water?. I was surprised that he was English, and not Danish like the rest of them. I looked at my water-bottle next to me, which had less than an inch of water left in it.

What, you're serious? I asked him.

Did this loser actually think that, after keeping me up all night, and forcing me out of bed at 7:30 in the morning, I was going to give him the last of my water for his bong?

He really went nuts when I told him no. He jumped on his bike, cranked it up, and tried to gun it straight at me. He made it about a yard before it almost dumped, since he'd left the kickstand down. He pointed at the Australian flag-patch on my pants, and slurred, "Is tha' where you come from?"

When I said I was from the U.S., he got right into my face and started yelling that same old shit.

"American? You want to know why everybody hates Americans? It's because you're all a bunch of fookin' pricks, tha's why!"

He walked his scooter closer to me, almost falling over twice, all the while babbling away.

"Everybody fookin' hates Americans, because they're not fookin' friendly!", he continued. "That's why everybody loves the English, because we knows how to be friendly, see?"

He had reached my porch by this time, and he leaned to within about an inch of my face. "That's what I am: I'm a friendly tourist! I'm gonna fookin' rip ya!" he screamed at me. The irony was apparently lost on him.

I just looked at him. It was no use talking. He was so drunk and stoned he wouldn't have listened, and if he'd taken a swing, he probalby would've just falled over or punched himself.

I made a motion to stand up.

"Where you think you're going?", he asked.

"I'm going to put my boots on. Then I'm going to stomp your guts out," I replied.

He defused, or rather postponed, the situation by saying that, since he'd been drinking all night, he was going away, but he'd be back tomorrow 'cause he knows where I live and all that. Then he drove away, almost killing himself by forgetting about the kickstand again. He really wasn't much of a scooter driver.

I was glad when he left. I grabbed my stuff and went to take a shower. Afterward, D_ and I went to the cantina for breakfast, but I wasn't very hungry, then checked out.

On the way out, I saw the Friendly Tourist was back, driving his scooter awkwardly around and being a general nuisance. I went back to the front desk and told them what was going on. Well, actually I told them he was driving around asking for hookers and selling drugs, which, ironically, is frowned upon in rural Thailand. The lady there went out and found the guy and told him to beat feet, with a couple of scary-looking Thai guys not too far away. The Friendly Tourist looked like he was going to argue, but as I walked by I heard that he was almost crying, yeelling about how nobody understood him. Typical drunk-shit.

We quickly grabbed our packs and walked right past the guy, b ut he didn't say a word, just stood there tying not to get bum-rushed. We walked up the sandy main street, until we got to the north end, where all the taxis to Na-Thong were. We brabbed on for 30 baht each, and we were away.

It's photo-ops like this one that reaffirm my belief that, come November, John Kerry is going to be savaged like a hymen on prom night.

Danielle is having a bandwidth drive.

Click here to help her out.

(Note: if you're using Mozilla/Firefox, you'll need to turn off popup-blocking, or temporarily switch to IE for a second, click the link, then wash your hands, gargle with listerine, scrub your skin with a toilet brush, and then repeatedly siphon the filth from your soul with a plunger, à la Ace Ventura, then switch back to Firefox, telling yourself all the while it was for a good cause, and plus, hey, they told you it was art! It'll be our little secret.)

Heh.

For the record I blog exclusively in my pajamas. The baggy red ones with the footies, and the little flap in the back in case you have to go #2. Some of your snootier Internet Cafés don't really like it, but you know...

Here's a little javascript-button I wrote for your toolbar that will popup the BugMeNot Password for the page you're currently viewing.

BugMeNot

In Mozilla/Firefox, just drag it to your Favorites/Bookmarks toolbar. If you reach a registered-only news page, just click the button. In Internet Explorer (which you shouldn't use anyway), right-click the link and choose "Add to Favorites". Popup-blockers like Google Toolbar will interefere with its operation, unfortunately.

Right now, it pops up below the current browser window. Anybody know how to get around that?

Ever since I was a little kid, I've seen swimmies. Those are the little things that swim around in your vision when you look at uniform surface, like a wall or the sky. They look exactly like the little bubbles you see when you look at something under a microscope. Does everybody see those, or is it just me?

It's gotten pretty bad lately; not only are the little amoebae running around, but there's little sparks that show up and go around in circles. Maybe it's because I used to sit around in the dark and poke my eyelids so I could see the pretty lights. We were too poor for real firecrackers, I guess.

The lights you see when you push your eyeballs are called phosphenes, by the way. I'm not sure why I know that.

It's easy to miss hidden meanings in the information stream. News photographers consider themselves artists, and try to frame their subjects to convey as much meaning as possible within a single photograph.

For example, someone did a study of the number of "halos" there seemed to be hidden in the photos of the campaign trail. I really need a link to that, since it's kind of hard to explain. The photographers often try to arrange themselves and the subject so that some kind of circle is behind their head, simulating a halo, as in this picture of Howard Dean:

So I wondered what the hell the guys in the newsroom were trying to tell us with this weird-ass picture of Kerry from last week:

Until, of course I remembered what the POW*MIA flag looked like. Unbelievably, the Kerry campaign seems to want to associate itself even more with the Vietnam War than it already has, which is almost completely. They should probably stay away from the whole POW angle; the Viet Cong actually used Kerry's "Winter Soldier" testimony to torture American POW's, after all.

What a jackass.

Oh, how terribly sweet.

Sure when he does it, they think it's cute. But when I do it, suddenly it's a "misdemeanor".

Via Maura

Bloggers hit the big time over the weekend. Rathergate broke on Free Republic, picked up by Powerline, and was beautifully driven home by Charles Johnson over on LFG.

So, now both Powerline and Charles are on the radio, making pajama jokes and making like bigshots.

I used to be on the radio, back when I was but a little Rubeling. We played early 80's music, even though it hadn't been out-of-style long enough to have been cool yet. They kicked me off because I got piss-drunk on Jim Beam on-air, and launched into a 10-minute soliloquy about Skylarking.

Coolness under pressure has never really been my strong point. It's probably a good thing that nobody called me to be on the radio. I would probably embarrass, nay, completely discredit the entire blogosphere I do so love, by showing up drunk and doing one of those I-love-you-man things in front of God and everybody.

In October, the murderous, savage followers of Mohammed will be holding a conference in Berlin. The focus of this conference is to plan the undermining of their host countries in Europe, and the destruction of Israel and the United States.

The purpose of Muslims everywhere is to establish a caliphate, covering the entire Earth. Non-believers will be treated as slaves; except for Jews, who will be slaughtered like animals. They don't even bother hiding it anymore.

LFG's Charles Johnson is claiming he got 100,000 visitors yesterday. I think I got 2, and they were both me.

I thought I dodged a bullet yesterday. I posted my entry, Never Forgive, and went about my business. But today, I watched a documentary about September 11. I'm not the crying type. I cry about once every 20 years. But today, I could've cried. I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry for the firefighters, for the widows, for Rudy Giuliani, for the world and what's happened to it. I choked back the tears, and played it Cagney like I did three years ago.

But I want to cry. Today, I wanted to sink my head into my girlfriend's shoulder and let the tears flow, and scream. A world died that day, and another world signed its own death warrant. Other people have more reason to cry than I do, and I shall not cheapen their sorrow.

When no one's looking, and all doors are closed, tonight, I shall cry for the people who died on September 11, 2001. I didn't understand, and I'm so sorry. God, I'm so sorry.

I'm finally crying.

I received a nice compliment today, by way of comments. But after clicking through and reading Flashman's stuff, I have to assume he's mocking me. This guy writes his ass off.

Read it.

Some days are just a total wash. I slept until 2 P.M., then I sat around the apartment reading blogs all afternoon. Now, at 1:30 in the morning, I'm drinking a beer and reading blogs again. At some point, I think I went to the can, but that's pure speculation. It's all been a blur.

Today was an in-betweener. A tween, morphing between the hightoned days of the RNC convention, then the Beslan massacre, and whatever busload of schoolchildren crazed Muslims blow up tomorrow. But today, there's nothing. My entertainment providers are focusing on Kerry trivialities or their cats instead of the right-wing hate-speech I need.

What to do, what to do. I could post a picture of Jones. Ok, here's Jones as a little child-cat:

Awww, my widdle buddy!

To see what Jones looks like today (10 years later), look here.

There's a Turkish guy beating up his wife outside my window. I would say something, but , well, you know.

Live-blogging of Rube losing absolutely all the faith in humanity that remained in his shrivelled, black little heart. (brought to you by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance)

Ok, let's get started.

• 1:10AM: Here is an interesting Q & A between American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and a bunch of fat people (with pic!). Excerpt:

  Question: If two fat passengers fly together, can they buy three seats between them? Southwest: No. Both must buy two seats. They may get a refund if the plane is not full if they let us know in advance.

  Interesting. At the top of that page, they've written

  "Event description: "You are a part of history. NAAFA as invited representatives from Southwest, United, American, Continental, and other airlines to discuss how we can help them better serve our community. Rules of conduct will be available prior to the meeting."

  I will leave it as an excercise for the reader(s) to contemplate what 'rules' the airlines felt they had to have in writing beforehand.
• 1:23AM: Reading more, there's a State of the NAAFA Paper. They apparently have their own jargon. The President, Kara Brewer Allen, who probably bears little or no resemblance to Ann Coulter til around last call, warns the herd against "Feederism", whatever the hell that is.
• 1:26AM: I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable here...

  We LONG to be united! We MUST be united! Healthy choices and lifestyles for ALL PEOPLE People of any SIZE OR SHAPE! NAAFA will be the leading FORCE for all Americans of Size.

  Why did they capitalize "FORCE" like that?
• 1:29AM: I seeeeee...: "Dieting is the leading cause of obesity in the US."
• 1:32AM: Airline Tips for Large Passengers: GATE TRANSPORTATION - It's usually a long walk between curbside check-in and the gate, or between gates when you have connecting flights. When making your reservations, make sure to tell the agent if you will need special services, such as the airport tra m or an armless wheelchair and attendant. I'm beginning to doubt the veracity of that last point about dieting there. Maybe stuffing your face to the point of semi-consciousness, then asking to be wheeled around instead of walking could have something to do with obesity?

Ugh. Enough. Fat people screaming about insensitive treatment. Enjoy being fat, or don't be fat. Unless it's a 'glandular thing', I mean, wink.

Micheal Moore is a real hot potato in American and European Politics. He's the man that gives a voice, not to mention a cherubic, smiling face, to the good side of the American soul. His bucolic, emotional films have earned a special place in the National Conscience, casting that warm light upon family values which makes one feel good about being an American. He fills that void left by such "Golden Years" greats as Norman Rockwell, and Frank Capra.

So it baffles me when I read accounts like this one:

Moore, who attended this week's Republican National Convention as a columnist for USA Today, was greeted by delegates who derided him as a "fat pig." Perhaps they read the book by David Hardy and Jason Clarke, "Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man." Or they came across the suggested slogan for the Web site moorewatch.com "Michael Moore: Putting the vast in vast left-wing conspiracy." ...

The reporter describes the allusions to Moore's husky figure as "...the last acceptable slur in the American arsenal of insults", but I'm sorry: I'm a proud American, and I do not consider this insult acceptable in the least.

I understand how it is when mean-spirited thugs make fun of your body. I understand what Mr. Moore is going through. I, too, have been on the receiving end of personal insults. When I was a teenager, unsure of myself, my body, my own self-worth, the other children would gather in circles and ridicule my enormous, perfectly-shaped penis.

Astonished, giggling 18-year-old girls can be cruel, and creative. Rube McKneehanger they'd call me; Hung-Lo-Rube's Drive-in Noodle Bar; Sir Packs-a-lot; you name it. But through it all, I remained firm, and stood proudly. I salute you Michael Moore, for overcoming such small-minded hatred. I commend you, for sticking it out; as did I all those years ago, oh so many, many times; it takes a tough man to stick to his guns, and endure the insults and derision for almost an entire half a night, while getting paid for an entire week.

Go eat a donut, you whiny-ass tub of goo.

Update: Did I read that correctly? There's a National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance? What the fuck? Google....

One more stereotype that really has me befuddled is coffee. For some reason, everybody thinks Europeans drink a) a lot of coffee, and b) really strong coffee. Let me blow this one out of the water right now. I drink a lot of coffee. Everybody I know in the States drinks a lot of coffee. Europeans? 1 cup. That's it, 1 little cup. In Italy, they only drink one cup, and it's about the size of a shot glass. No refills. No "You wamme to warm that up for ya, Sugar?" Waffle House perks. In Germany, they have some kind of obsession about drinking coffee out of those cappuccino machines. That stuff tastes like thinned-out axle grease, albeit with a hint of nuttiness. Filter coffee is much better. It's smooth, strong-bodied, and actually smells good.

A German boss of mine stopped me in the office cafeteria once, and asked me what I thought of the new cappuccino-style coffee machine he'd just had installed. I told him I hadn't used it, that in the IT department we had our own dripper that we used. He sniffed, then said, "Oh yes, I forgot, you're American. You have no taste." Then walked on. I was miffed for a second. Then realized he was wearing a bright-orange jumpsuit, sandals, yellow sunglasses and, I swear to God, a pith helmet. I figured I'd let it go.

My only co-worker in IT was a Saxon. According to him, Saxons also can't stand the cruddy java that other Germans drink, preferring the manly filter-coffee. Maybe it's because, being East Germans, they appreciate the good things in life that pampered, effete West Germans long taken for granted. Anyway, once the automat was installed in the cafeteria, we absconded with the old dripper, and would have defended it with our lives. I hid it behind the mail server; it was hooked up to the battery backup system, lest the power fail.

Everybody's got something to say about all the other folks in the world. Sometimes it's openly envious. For example, everybody seems to think that the people in other parts of the country tend to be more open and friendly, but maybe a bit shallow. And that's in any country. I've heard it in Germany, New Zealand, England, America, you name it. Bavarians always say that Bavarians are hard to get to know, but once you get to know them, they'll open up to you once and for all; unlike those superficial Rhinelanders. Rhinelanders say the exact same thing, but tend to throw in a bunch of insults about Bavarians being rednecks.

One place there's near-total agreement, however, is on the subject of geography. For some reason, everybody, including Americans, think that the rest of the world spends all their time studying political maps in dog-eared old atlases, committing world capitols and currencies to memory for some mysterious, global Jeopardy match we never get invited to. There's an accepted common knowledge that Americans have no idea where anything is, and are ignorant, arrogant boors.

What utter bullshit. I've lived in Europe for over 5 years now, and in thousands of conversations involving the States, there has never been a single occurence of a European knowing where Atlanta is. They all know Atlanta's in Georgia, somehow, probably from flying through Hartsfield, but not a single one of them has a clue as to where Georgia is. Usually, they think it's on the West Coast. That's America, right? Palm trees and bikini girls? Once they find out it's in the Southeast, they figure it's on the same latitude as, say, Munich. Or maybe Athens? Try Casablanca. Germany doesn't share any latitudes with the United States; except maybe Alaska. I guess

Europeans have absolutely no concept of geography. They plan 1-week road trips in the States, starting in New York, ending in San Francisco. They visit Chicago, and plan on hopping over to Dallas for a day-trip. The U.S., in their minds, seems about as big as Disney World, with a tram between all the major attractions. Of course, when I was 10 I went to Epcot Center and thought I'd just walked through Europe in about a day. But that's different; Epcot actually looks a little bit like Europe, minus the dogshit on the sidewalks.

As Ace succinctly put it:

Was I on crack, or did Zell Miller challenge Chris Matthews to a duel tonight?

Come to think of it, portly Chris Matthews does look a tad like Ned Beatty:

Just goes to show you, don't pick nits with a cracker: Georgia Senator Zell Miller tore Matthews, obnoxious talk-show yapper, the new rectum which he had for so long desperately needed. Nothing irritates an ankle-biting yankee more than a Southern Gentleman who calls his bluff. Although he might have gone a little too far when he suggested settling it with pistols.

Incidentally, it would be the first trans-Mason-Dixon duel in American politics since Vice President Alexander Hamilton was gunned down by Mississippi-born television actor Raymond Burr in the early 19th century, over a woman.

Update

For my German friends and other commies, a little more context: The Republican (conservative) National Convention is going on right now. Zell Miller is a Senator from Georgia. Southern Democrats tend to be more conservative than their cough esteemed colleagues from the Northeast, who've turned their party into the Michael Moore Fan Club. Sen. Miller is an old-school Democrat, which he emphasized last night by quoting the likes of Franklin Roosevelt, and noting the deeds of Roosevelt's successor Harry S. Truman, the last 2 Democratic Presidents who actually accomplished anything. Well, Kennedy did Real Good with the Cuban Missile Crisis. But then there was that Bay of Pigs thing. And, to echo the sentiments of my old boss Ken, I'll never forgive that buck-toothed carpetbagger for dragging us into Viet Nam to clean up France's turdpile. Dickhead.

So anyway, Miller was the Keynote speaker at the convention last night, and gave a humdinger of a speech. Next to his, the speeches of other Democrats seem vague, weak, and despairing. I figure most Dems consider Zell a DINO, but they might want to ask themselves why that is.

It would be nice to have a second party in the US again; maybe some Donks will drop the Blame-America-First hairshirts and Bush==Hitler signs, and get back to being true progressives. Right now, we've just got suits and lunatics to choose from.

I wasn't going to blog today, being against-the-wall with work, and hell-bent on finally sweeping my apartment. An I most certainly was not going to talk like a pirate.

But Jeff Jarvis touched on the one topic that just shivers....me....timbers.

In short, I'll channel John Galt: Buy your own goddamn health insurance and get out of my way!

Let me explain a few things about my social philosophy. Everything you must do is as much oppression as everything you can't do. Every cent you earn that is taken away from you without choice or compensation, is slavery. Every cent you take from someone without their consent, is theft.

Oppression, slavery, theft. These are not words that anybody associates with the United States of America (well some people, maybe), but it's exactly the direction America is headed in. Socialized Health Care is exactly the kind of "slippery slope" into slavery that collectivists use to seduce the masses.

Socialized Health Care is not a "Get-out-of-Death-Free" card. It's mandatory health insurance. It offers nothing that's not already cheaply and widely available to all Americans. The only difference will be that you do not have a choice. The government enjoys controlling people's lives, and they'd like nothing better than to put a gun to your head and say, "You will pay for health insurance, or go to jail". And it will be more expensive owing to bureaucratic overhead, and the inevitable abuse of it by welfare bloodsuckers.

The burden of health care will fall upon productive citizens, to the benefit of the non-productive. In Europe, the aging population and monstrous overhead of entrenched bureaucracy conspire to rob taxpayers of an enormous amount of income. The average tax burden in Germany is close to 70%; and that's not including the enormous taxes included in things like heating costs, and gasoline, which are 3 to 4 times more expensive than in the United States. "Free" health insurance in Germany costs 10-12% of monthly income. If you earn $24,000 per year, expect to pay at least $200 per month just for yourself; i.e., forget about dependents: they cost extra.

Of course, if you don't work, you don't have to pay for your health insurance. That, of course, makes it much more attractive to be unemployed. You can go for years without working, and it involves much less paperwork than either being employed or having employees. A generous unemployment incentive, and a downright scandalous income penalty, discourage financial independence and doom small enterprises to certain failure.

Mandatory, government-enforced health insurance is just another way to generate guilty citizens. Ayn Rand said, "laws were made to be broken, because you cannot control an innocent man." It enrages me to see intelligent men like Mr. Jarvis telling people that the elimination of free will in any matter is beneficial.

That's my premise, now let's look at Mr. Jarvis' points one by one.

All citizens must be insured: If a prosperous society cannot help the sick among us, then what good is the prosperity?

There's that "must" again, sweetened by an appeal to a guilty conscience. "Shame on you for being successful," that sentence says. "How dare you put your own selfish interests before that of the common good". A citizen should have the choice of being insured or not. What good is health insurance to a billionaire? Health insurance costs more than it's worth. Most people never need catastrophic health care. It's there for the case when you will need it, and it's a lovely way to have peace of mind. But in your 20s, you do not need it. A cheap insurance plan with a massive deductible is the most cost-effective way to insure yourself against catastrophic illness or accidents.

Apparently, only the healthy are prosperous in our society. At least that's what I read from this horribly worded argument.

Insurance remains private: Who should run insurance? Government or industry. I say industry. The last thing we need is another inefficient and irksome government bureacracy. We need competition. We need choice.

This sounds fishy to me. First we need to remove people's choice as to whether they'd rather spend their money on cable TV or health insurance. Then suddenly we need choice? I thought we were giving up choice in order to not have to feel bad about boneheads who'd rather have 15 versions of HBO than a sound dental plan?

But who should pay? Think about it: By what logic should should employers have to be the ones who pay for health insurance? What started as a benefit of employment has become an entitlement for many, but then the rest are left out in the cold. Offering health insurance via work makes no sense.

Employers do not have to pay for health insurance. They've historically done it in order to get better employees. The are two main reasons so many companies offer health insurance as a benefit: 1) Due to workplace competition, and 2) Union pressures. Offering health insurance via work makes perfect sense if that will get you better employees. At any rate, an organization or corporation should have the choice of offering health insurance as a benefit.

Who should pay for R&D?: It is similarly illogical that through high drug costs, the sick underwrite R&D for new drugs to cure other diseases they don't have. I don't know how this system works today but it seems logical that government should help underwrite some cost of development -- and then get the benefit for all of us of lower prices for the drugs that result.

Never mind the fact that our current system allows the United States to provide the lion's share of medical breakthroughs. Let's fuck with it.

The paperwork torture must end: Insurance companies are managing costs via harassment, in paperwork and in "managed care." As I understand it, one great thing Canada did was standardize paperwork and bureacracy. With the Internet, it is now possible to standardize and modernize this entire system, from doctor to hospital to pharmacy to insurance company. It reduces the costs considerably for doctors and hospitals (and that should stop some of their complaining) and it reduces the hassle for us, the sick.

Sigh. Yes, let's get the government involved in order to reduce paperwork. Anybody who has never lived under socialized health care will never understand what torture it is to not only arrange your health care, but to be able to prove to the IRS (or equivalent organization) that you are, indeed, paying your fair share of it. Expect an audit everytime you're in the hospital. An accountant becomes an expensive necessity, because nobody understands the tax code over here.

Malpractice should be limited: But the threat of malpractice must remain over the heads of incompetent practitioners. We are still consumers of health care. We reserve the right to go after bad doctors -- protecting fellow consumers from them -- the way we can after bad contractors. And, yes, lawyers must stop being the primary beneficiary of the malpractice system.

We agree here. I'm not exactly sure how this fits into his plan of turning America's health care system into Cuba's, though.

We must grapple with extreme care: I don't want anyone unplugging me and letting me starve or choke to death. No thanks. And I hate seeing old people treated like the leftovers at garage sales. But I also recognize that some care is extreme and costs everyone a great deal of money for buying little hope. Who should set and enforce the standards of what is covered and is not?

UPDATE: TB in the comments raises a good point: People who don't take care of themselves cost the system and us. So how about higher rates for people who not only smoke but, what else?, get fat, don't exercise, don't get preventive tests on a set schedule....

I propose higher rates for: Smokers, drug abusers, homosexuals, people under 30, people over 30, sky divers, bungee jumpers, and alpha types. Of course, in order to assess those at risk, the government will need a big huge database of exactly who the smokers, sky divers, and homosexuals are.

Invest in manufacturers of little pink triangles, for they have a bright future. Why anyone would want to put John Ashcroft in charge of health care, I'll never understand.

Arrrrrrrrrrr.

Notice the title of the page.

"To be accused of being a whore is one thing, but to be accused of being a weblogger is actionable."

For Linux gearheads, the SCO vs. IBM/Hewlett Packard/Torvalds+dog saga is like Ra^thgate, only it's been going on for what seems like years.

A pretty damning appraisal of SCO's claims scrolled by on Slashdot today. Good fun. Hopefully, Slashdot won't get a Bitchdotting, owing to the current traffic of frothing-mad Spaniards flooding my site.

I just found this entry in my travelling journal from 1999.

March 8th, 1999 Brisbane, Australia Our flight from Auckland with Garuda Indonesia was bumpy at the best of times, but I was able to remain calm until the landing; which proved that the Duke Boys in the cockpit were all roaring drunk, which I had suspected all along

Today, I can't imagine how cheap a flight would have to be before I signed on with an Indonesian airline.

Twice in my life have I had the kind of airplane landings that shook the luggage compartments open. Once with Air Garuda, as above. The other time, the airplane actually had to abort the landing and come around for a second try, seeing as the previous plane had failed to leave the runway. Or, so I hear. I was mercifully oblivious to the entire flight, lost in a Percocet/Alcohol wonderland.

Oh, guys, you had me at pidé Pardon.

Some of us have to get some work done here. I can't wait for this thing to be over, one way or ahem the other.

I live in Augsburg, a small city with about 300,000 people in it. According to this article in the local rag (Google Translation), there was some sort of kerfuffle last night between the neo-Nazis (which the Germans call pretty much any Nationalists) and...someone: A bar which is frequented by hard-right political activists got a bit of a Kristallnacht treatment.

Perhaps unrelated, the group believed to be targeted by the firebombing was responsible for stonewalling the building of an Islamic community center in Augsburg in February. The group in question, "National Opposition Alliance", bolstered their credibility recently by naming their Internet site Neu-Schwabenland, and associating themselves with UFOs:

So, if fighting breaks out between Nazis and Islamists, where do the Jews fit into all this?

Via augsburg.blog-city.com

Our friends the spanish...

click for fullsize

For Allah, who unfortunately was quicker than I.

Nous sômmes seulement les americains

Update For Spanish reactions to the El Pais ad, check out these links:

delavegaBlog granermano Escolar.net

Google Translate is your friend.

If anybody ever tells you that the world hates Americans because of Bush or 9/11, just nod knowingly. And spit in their face.

The people who hate Americans now, have always hated Americans; and they likely always will. In fact, they hate everyone. It makes them feel better about their position, and distracts them from the obvious deficiencies they suffer themselves.

I've had, thankfully, just a few run-ins with anti-Americanism over the years since I left the States. The one incident I think of the most, when the subject comes up, was an encounter with someone I refer to as "The Friendly Tourist". Here are my journal entries, starting in Koh Samui, Thailand, in July of 1999.

July 2, 1999 Koh Samui, Thailand

This morning, we were again awoken by the same knuckleheads who had kept us up all night. I drag-assed out of bed like a man who hadn't had a good night's sleep for a week, and took a shower. We went into town and grabbed breakfast at the usual place, then rented a motorbike for the day.

[later that night...]

Afterward, I went to bed, too. The Danish Girls nextdoor were in full voice, and were totally out of hand. They kept falling onto our porch, shaking the whole hut and keeping us awake. I went outside once, to let them know that there was someone in the bungalow. When I'd gone back inside, they started jumping on the porch again, so I opend the door and asked them nicely to stop it. They did, but they still sat outside our bungalow yelling, singging, running the engines on their bikes. Why are Europeans so obnoxious?

July 3, 1999 Koh Samui, Thailand

Well, today got off to a great start. I got to sleep about 3:00 am last night, in spite of the noisy roommates. Then, about 7:30, they started trying to crank a motorbike right outside of our window. I guess they'd never heard of a manual choke before, because tehy'd crank it, rev it up to about 8,000 RPMs, and then it would die. And they'd do it again. This went on and on, and finally, I just got out of bed.

By the time I'd gotten dressed and had gone out onto the porch for a cigarette, they were all gone. They had apparently never gone to bed, and had taken up all the showers, so I sat on the porch brushing my teeth. Then, Mr. Motorbike came back. He pulled up and stopped his bike of front of one of the girls' bungalows, almost killing himself in the process. He had a bamboo water-pipe in his front basket, which he grabbed and took inside the Hut. He came back out and had a puzzled look on his face.

All this time, I was sitting there on the porch of our bungalow, staring at this burn-out and thinking he, and he alone, was to blame for my being out of bed. He saw me and said, Hey, can I have some water?. I was surprised that he was English, and not Danish like the rest of them. I looked at my water-bottle next to me, which had less than an inch of water left in it.

What, you're serious? I asked him.

Did this loser actually think that, after keeping me up all night, and forcing me out of bed at 7:30 in the morning, I was going to give him the last of my water for his bong?

He really went nuts when I told him no. He jumped on his bike, cranked it up, and tried to gun it straight at me. He made it about a yard before it almost dumped, since he'd left the kickstand down. He pointed at the Australian flag-patch on my pants, and slurred, "Is tha' where you come from?"

When I said I was from the U.S., he got right into my face and started yelling that same old shit.

"American? You want to know why everybody hates Americans? It's because you're all a bunch of fookin' pricks, tha's why!"

He walked his scooter closer to me, almost falling over twice, all the while babbling away.

"Everybody fookin' hates Americans, because they're not fookin' friendly!", he continued. "That's why everybody loves the English, because we knows how to be friendly, see?"

He had reached my porch by this time, and he leaned to within about an inch of my face. "That's what I am: I'm a friendly tourist! I'm gonna fookin' rip ya!" he screamed at me. The irony was apparently lost on him.

I just looked at him. It was no use talking. He was so drunk and stoned he wouldn't have listened, and if he'd taken a swing, he probalby would've just falled over or punched himself.

I made a motion to stand up.

"Where you think you're going?", he asked.

"I'm going to put my boots on. Then I'm going to stomp your guts out," I replied.

He defused, or rather postponed, the situation by saying that, since he'd been drinking all night, he was going away, but he'd be back tomorrow 'cause he knows where I live and all that. Then he drove away, almost killing himself by forgetting about the kickstand again. He really wasn't much of a scooter driver.

I was glad when he left. I grabbed my stuff and went to take a shower. Afterward, D_ and I went to the cantina for breakfast, but I wasn't very hungry, then checked out.

On the way out, I saw the Friendly Tourist was back, driving his scooter awkwardly around and being a general nuisance. I went back to the front desk and told them what was going on. Well, actually I told them he was driving around asking for hookers and selling drugs, which, ironically, is frowned upon in rural Thailand. The lady there went out and found the guy and told him to beat feet, with a couple of scary-looking Thai guys not too far away. The Friendly Tourist looked like he was going to argue, but as I walked by I heard that he was almost crying, yeelling about how nobody understood him. Typical drunk-shit.

We quickly grabbed our packs and walked right past the guy, b ut he didn't say a word, just stood there tying not to get bum-rushed. We walked up the sandy main street, until we got to the north end, where all the taxis to Na-Thong were. We brabbed on for 30 baht each, and we were away.

It's photo-ops like this one that reaffirm my belief that, come November, John Kerry is going to be savaged like a hymen on prom night.

Danielle is having a bandwidth drive.

Click here to help her out.

(Note: if you're using Mozilla/Firefox, you'll need to turn off popup-blocking, or temporarily switch to IE for a second, click the link, then wash your hands, gargle with listerine, scrub your skin with a toilet brush, and then repeatedly siphon the filth from your soul with a plunger, à la Ace Ventura, then switch back to Firefox, telling yourself all the while it was for a good cause, and plus, hey, they told you it was art! It'll be our little secret.)

Heh.

For the record I blog exclusively in my pajamas. The baggy red ones with the footies, and the little flap in the back in case you have to go #2. Some of your snootier Internet Cafés don't really like it, but you know...

Here's a little javascript-button I wrote for your toolbar that will popup the BugMeNot Password for the page you're currently viewing.

BugMeNot

In Mozilla/Firefox, just drag it to your Favorites/Bookmarks toolbar. If you reach a registered-only news page, just click the button. In Internet Explorer (which you shouldn't use anyway), right-click the link and choose "Add to Favorites". Popup-blockers like Google Toolbar will interefere with its operation, unfortunately.

Right now, it pops up below the current browser window. Anybody know how to get around that?

Ever since I was a little kid, I've seen swimmies. Those are the little things that swim around in your vision when you look at uniform surface, like a wall or the sky. They look exactly like the little bubbles you see when you look at something under a microscope. Does everybody see those, or is it just me?

It's gotten pretty bad lately; not only are the little amoebae running around, but there's little sparks that show up and go around in circles. Maybe it's because I used to sit around in the dark and poke my eyelids so I could see the pretty lights. We were too poor for real firecrackers, I guess.

The lights you see when you push your eyeballs are called phosphenes, by the way. I'm not sure why I know that.

It's easy to miss hidden meanings in the information stream. News photographers consider themselves artists, and try to frame their subjects to convey as much meaning as possible within a single photograph.

For example, someone did a study of the number of "halos" there seemed to be hidden in the photos of the campaign trail. I really need a link to that, since it's kind of hard to explain. The photographers often try to arrange themselves and the subject so that some kind of circle is behind their head, simulating a halo, as in this picture of Howard Dean:

So I wondered what the hell the guys in the newsroom were trying to tell us with this weird-ass picture of Kerry from last week:

Until, of course I remembered what the POW*MIA flag looked like. Unbelievably, the Kerry campaign seems to want to associate itself even more with the Vietnam War than it already has, which is almost completely. They should probably stay away from the whole POW angle; the Viet Cong actually used Kerry's "Winter Soldier" testimony to torture American POW's, after all.

What a jackass.

Oh, how terribly sweet.

Sure when he does it, they think it's cute. But when I do it, suddenly it's a "misdemeanor".

Via Maura

Bloggers hit the big time over the weekend. Rathergate broke on Free Republic, picked up by Powerline, and was beautifully driven home by Charles Johnson over on LFG.

So, now both Powerline and Charles are on the radio, making pajama jokes and making like bigshots.

I used to be on the radio, back when I was but a little Rubeling. We played early 80's music, even though it hadn't been out-of-style long enough to have been cool yet. They kicked me off because I got piss-drunk on Jim Beam on-air, and launched into a 10-minute soliloquy about Skylarking.

Coolness under pressure has never really been my strong point. It's probably a good thing that nobody called me to be on the radio. I would probably embarrass, nay, completely discredit the entire blogosphere I do so love, by showing up drunk and doing one of those I-love-you-man things in front of God and everybody.

In October, the murderous, savage followers of Mohammed will be holding a conference in Berlin. The focus of this conference is to plan the undermining of their host countries in Europe, and the destruction of Israel and the United States.

The purpose of Muslims everywhere is to establish a caliphate, covering the entire Earth. Non-believers will be treated as slaves; except for Jews, who will be slaughtered like animals. They don't even bother hiding it anymore.

LFG's Charles Johnson is claiming he got 100,000 visitors yesterday. I think I got 2, and they were both me.

I thought I dodged a bullet yesterday. I posted my entry, Never Forgive, and went about my business. But today, I watched a documentary about September 11. I'm not the crying type. I cry about once every 20 years. But today, I could've cried. I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry for the firefighters, for the widows, for Rudy Giuliani, for the world and what's happened to it. I choked back the tears, and played it Cagney like I did three years ago.

But I want to cry. Today, I wanted to sink my head into my girlfriend's shoulder and let the tears flow, and scream. A world died that day, and another world signed its own death warrant. Other people have more reason to cry than I do, and I shall not cheapen their sorrow.

When no one's looking, and all doors are closed, tonight, I shall cry for the people who died on September 11, 2001. I didn't understand, and I'm so sorry. God, I'm so sorry.

I'm finally crying.

I received a nice compliment today, by way of comments. But after clicking through and reading Flashman's stuff, I have to assume he's mocking me. This guy writes his ass off.

Read it.

Some days are just a total wash. I slept until 2 P.M., then I sat around the apartment reading blogs all afternoon. Now, at 1:30 in the morning, I'm drinking a beer and reading blogs again. At some point, I think I went to the can, but that's pure speculation. It's all been a blur.

Today was an in-betweener. A tween, morphing between the hightoned days of the RNC convention, then the Beslan massacre, and whatever busload of schoolchildren crazed Muslims blow up tomorrow. But today, there's nothing. My entertainment providers are focusing on Kerry trivialities or their cats instead of the right-wing hate-speech I need.

What to do, what to do. I could post a picture of Jones. Ok, here's Jones as a little child-cat:

Awww, my widdle buddy!

To see what Jones looks like today (10 years later), look here.

There's a Turkish guy beating up his wife outside my window. I would say something, but , well, you know.

Live-blogging of Rube losing absolutely all the faith in humanity that remained in his shrivelled, black little heart. (brought to you by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance)

Ok, let's get started.

• 1:10AM: Here is an interesting Q & A between American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and a bunch of fat people (with pic!). Excerpt:

  Question: If two fat passengers fly together, can they buy three seats between them? Southwest: No. Both must buy two seats. They may get a refund if the plane is not full if they let us know in advance.

  Interesting. At the top of that page, they've written

  "Event description: "You are a part of history. NAAFA as invited representatives from Southwest, United, American, Continental, and other airlines to discuss how we can help them better serve our community. Rules of conduct will be available prior to the meeting."

  I will leave it as an excercise for the reader(s) to contemplate what 'rules' the airlines felt they had to have in writing beforehand.
• 1:23AM: Reading more, there's a State of the NAAFA Paper. They apparently have their own jargon. The President, Kara Brewer Allen, who probably bears little or no resemblance to Ann Coulter til around last call, warns the herd against "Feederism", whatever the hell that is.
• 1:26AM: I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable here...

  We LONG to be united! We MUST be united! Healthy choices and lifestyles for ALL PEOPLE People of any SIZE OR SHAPE! NAAFA will be the leading FORCE for all Americans of Size.

  Why did they capitalize "FORCE" like that?
• 1:29AM: I seeeeee...: "Dieting is the leading cause of obesity in the US."
• 1:32AM: Airline Tips for Large Passengers: GATE TRANSPORTATION - It's usually a long walk between curbside check-in and the gate, or between gates when you have connecting flights. When making your reservations, make sure to tell the agent if you will need special services, such as the airport tra m or an armless wheelchair and attendant. I'm beginning to doubt the veracity of that last point about dieting there. Maybe stuffing your face to the point of semi-consciousness, then asking to be wheeled around instead of walking could have something to do with obesity?

Ugh. Enough. Fat people screaming about insensitive treatment. Enjoy being fat, or don't be fat. Unless it's a 'glandular thing', I mean, wink.

Micheal Moore is a real hot potato in American and European Politics. He's the man that gives a voice, not to mention a cherubic, smiling face, to the good side of the American soul. His bucolic, emotional films have earned a special place in the National Conscience, casting that warm light upon family values which makes one feel good about being an American. He fills that void left by such "Golden Years" greats as Norman Rockwell, and Frank Capra.

So it baffles me when I read accounts like this one:

Moore, who attended this week's Republican National Convention as a columnist for USA Today, was greeted by delegates who derided him as a "fat pig." Perhaps they read the book by David Hardy and Jason Clarke, "Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man." Or they came across the suggested slogan for the Web site moorewatch.com "Michael Moore: Putting the vast in vast left-wing conspiracy." ...

The reporter describes the allusions to Moore's husky figure as "...the last acceptable slur in the American arsenal of insults", but I'm sorry: I'm a proud American, and I do not consider this insult acceptable in the least.

I understand how it is when mean-spirited thugs make fun of your body. I understand what Mr. Moore is going through. I, too, have been on the receiving end of personal insults. When I was a teenager, unsure of myself, my body, my own self-worth, the other children would gather in circles and ridicule my enormous, perfectly-shaped penis.

Astonished, giggling 18-year-old girls can be cruel, and creative. Rube McKneehanger they'd call me; Hung-Lo-Rube's Drive-in Noodle Bar; Sir Packs-a-lot; you name it. But through it all, I remained firm, and stood proudly. I salute you Michael Moore, for overcoming such small-minded hatred. I commend you, for sticking it out; as did I all those years ago, oh so many, many times; it takes a tough man to stick to his guns, and endure the insults and derision for almost an entire half a night, while getting paid for an entire week.

Go eat a donut, you whiny-ass tub of goo.

Update: Did I read that correctly? There's a National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance? What the fuck? Google....

One more stereotype that really has me befuddled is coffee. For some reason, everybody thinks Europeans drink a) a lot of coffee, and b) really strong coffee. Let me blow this one out of the water right now. I drink a lot of coffee. Everybody I know in the States drinks a lot of coffee. Europeans? 1 cup. That's it, 1 little cup. In Italy, they only drink one cup, and it's about the size of a shot glass. No refills. No "You wamme to warm that up for ya, Sugar?" Waffle House perks. In Germany, they have some kind of obsession about drinking coffee out of those cappuccino machines. That stuff tastes like thinned-out axle grease, albeit with a hint of nuttiness. Filter coffee is much better. It's smooth, strong-bodied, and actually smells good.

A German boss of mine stopped me in the office cafeteria once, and asked me what I thought of the new cappuccino-style coffee machine he'd just had installed. I told him I hadn't used it, that in the IT department we had our own dripper that we used. He sniffed, then said, "Oh yes, I forgot, you're American. You have no taste." Then walked on. I was miffed for a second. Then realized he was wearing a bright-orange jumpsuit, sandals, yellow sunglasses and, I swear to God, a pith helmet. I figured I'd let it go.

My only co-worker in IT was a Saxon. According to him, Saxons also can't stand the cruddy java that other Germans drink, preferring the manly filter-coffee. Maybe it's because, being East Germans, they appreciate the good things in life that pampered, effete West Germans long taken for granted. Anyway, once the automat was installed in the cafeteria, we absconded with the old dripper, and would have defended it with our lives. I hid it behind the mail server; it was hooked up to the battery backup system, lest the power fail.

Everybody's got something to say about all the other folks in the world. Sometimes it's openly envious. For example, everybody seems to think that the people in other parts of the country tend to be more open and friendly, but maybe a bit shallow. And that's in any country. I've heard it in Germany, New Zealand, England, America, you name it. Bavarians always say that Bavarians are hard to get to know, but once you get to know them, they'll open up to you once and for all; unlike those superficial Rhinelanders. Rhinelanders say the exact same thing, but tend to throw in a bunch of insults about Bavarians being rednecks.

One place there's near-total agreement, however, is on the subject of geography. For some reason, everybody, including Americans, think that the rest of the world spends all their time studying political maps in dog-eared old atlases, committing world capitols and currencies to memory for some mysterious, global Jeopardy match we never get invited to. There's an accepted common knowledge that Americans have no idea where anything is, and are ignorant, arrogant boors.

What utter bullshit. I've lived in Europe for over 5 years now, and in thousands of conversations involving the States, there has never been a single occurence of a European knowing where Atlanta is. They all know Atlanta's in Georgia, somehow, probably from flying through Hartsfield, but not a single one of them has a clue as to where Georgia is. Usually, they think it's on the West Coast. That's America, right? Palm trees and bikini girls? Once they find out it's in the Southeast, they figure it's on the same latitude as, say, Munich. Or maybe Athens? Try Casablanca. Germany doesn't share any latitudes with the United States; except maybe Alaska. I guess

Europeans have absolutely no concept of geography. They plan 1-week road trips in the States, starting in New York, ending in San Francisco. They visit Chicago, and plan on hopping over to Dallas for a day-trip. The U.S., in their minds, seems about as big as Disney World, with a tram between all the major attractions. Of course, when I was 10 I went to Epcot Center and thought I'd just walked through Europe in about a day. But that's different; Epcot actually looks a little bit like Europe, minus the dogshit on the sidewalks.

As Ace succinctly put it:

Was I on crack, or did Zell Miller challenge Chris Matthews to a duel tonight?

Come to think of it, portly Chris Matthews does look a tad like Ned Beatty:

Just goes to show you, don't pick nits with a cracker: Georgia Senator Zell Miller tore Matthews, obnoxious talk-show yapper, the new rectum which he had for so long desperately needed. Nothing irritates an ankle-biting yankee more than a Southern Gentleman who calls his bluff. Although he might have gone a little too far when he suggested settling it with pistols.

Incidentally, it would be the first trans-Mason-Dixon duel in American politics since Vice President Alexander Hamilton was gunned down by Mississippi-born television actor Raymond Burr in the early 19th century, over a woman.

Update

For my German friends and other commies, a little more context: The Republican (conservative) National Convention is going on right now. Zell Miller is a Senator from Georgia. Southern Democrats tend to be more conservative than their cough esteemed colleagues from the Northeast, who've turned their party into the Michael Moore Fan Club. Sen. Miller is an old-school Democrat, which he emphasized last night by quoting the likes of Franklin Roosevelt, and noting the deeds of Roosevelt's successor Harry S. Truman, the last 2 Democratic Presidents who actually accomplished anything. Well, Kennedy did Real Good with the Cuban Missile Crisis. But then there was that Bay of Pigs thing. And, to echo the sentiments of my old boss Ken, I'll never forgive that buck-toothed carpetbagger for dragging us into Viet Nam to clean up France's turdpile. Dickhead.

So anyway, Miller was the Keynote speaker at the convention last night, and gave a humdinger of a speech. Next to his, the speeches of other Democrats seem vague, weak, and despairing. I figure most Dems consider Zell a DINO, but they might want to ask themselves why that is.

It would be nice to have a second party in the US again; maybe some Donks will drop the Blame-America-First hairshirts and Bush==Hitler signs, and get back to being true progressives. Right now, we've just got suits and lunatics to choose from.

I wasn't going to blog today, being against-the-wall with work, and hell-bent on finally sweeping my apartment. An I most certainly was not going to talk like a pirate.

But Jeff Jarvis touched on the one topic that just shivers....me....timbers.

In short, I'll channel John Galt: Buy your own goddamn health insurance and get out of my way!

Let me explain a few things about my social philosophy. Everything you must do is as much oppression as everything you can't do. Every cent you earn that is taken away from you without choice or compensation, is slavery. Every cent you take from someone without their consent, is theft.

Oppression, slavery, theft. These are not words that anybody associates with the United States of America (well some people, maybe), but it's exactly the direction America is headed in. Socialized Health Care is exactly the kind of "slippery slope" into slavery that collectivists use to seduce the masses.

Socialized Health Care is not a "Get-out-of-Death-Free" card. It's mandatory health insurance. It offers nothing that's not already cheaply and widely available to all Americans. The only difference will be that you do not have a choice. The government enjoys controlling people's lives, and they'd like nothing better than to put a gun to your head and say, "You will pay for health insurance, or go to jail". And it will be more expensive owing to bureaucratic overhead, and the inevitable abuse of it by welfare bloodsuckers.

The burden of health care will fall upon productive citizens, to the benefit of the non-productive. In Europe, the aging population and monstrous overhead of entrenched bureaucracy conspire to rob taxpayers of an enormous amount of income. The average tax burden in Germany is close to 70%; and that's not including the enormous taxes included in things like heating costs, and gasoline, which are 3 to 4 times more expensive than in the United States. "Free" health insurance in Germany costs 10-12% of monthly income. If you earn $24,000 per year, expect to pay at least $200 per month just for yourself; i.e., forget about dependents: they cost extra.

Of course, if you don't work, you don't have to pay for your health insurance. That, of course, makes it much more attractive to be unemployed. You can go for years without working, and it involves much less paperwork than either being employed or having employees. A generous unemployment incentive, and a downright scandalous income penalty, discourage financial independence and doom small enterprises to certain failure.

Mandatory, government-enforced health insurance is just another way to generate guilty citizens. Ayn Rand said, "laws were made to be broken, because you cannot control an innocent man." It enrages me to see intelligent men like Mr. Jarvis telling people that the elimination of free will in any matter is beneficial.

That's my premise, now let's look at Mr. Jarvis' points one by one.

All citizens must be insured: If a prosperous society cannot help the sick among us, then what good is the prosperity?

There's that "must" again, sweetened by an appeal to a guilty conscience. "Shame on you for being successful," that sentence says. "How dare you put your own selfish interests before that of the common good". A citizen should have the choice of being insured or not. What good is health insurance to a billionaire? Health insurance costs more than it's worth. Most people never need catastrophic health care. It's there for the case when you will need it, and it's a lovely way to have peace of mind. But in your 20s, you do not need it. A cheap insurance plan with a massive deductible is the most cost-effective way to insure yourself against catastrophic illness or accidents.

Apparently, only the healthy are prosperous in our society. At least that's what I read from this horribly worded argument.

Insurance remains private: Who should run insurance? Government or industry. I say industry. The last thing we need is another inefficient and irksome government bureacracy. We need competition. We need choice.

This sounds fishy to me. First we need to remove people's choice as to whether they'd rather spend their money on cable TV or health insurance. Then suddenly we need choice? I thought we were giving up choice in order to not have to feel bad about boneheads who'd rather have 15 versions of HBO than a sound dental plan?

But who should pay? Think about it: By what logic should should employers have to be the ones who pay for health insurance? What started as a benefit of employment has become an entitlement for many, but then the rest are left out in the cold. Offering health insurance via work makes no sense.

Employers do not have to pay for health insurance. They've historically done it in order to get better employees. The are two main reasons so many companies offer health insurance as a benefit: 1) Due to workplace competition, and 2) Union pressures. Offering health insurance via work makes perfect sense if that will get you better employees. At any rate, an organization or corporation should have the choice of offering health insurance as a benefit.

Who should pay for R&D?: It is similarly illogical that through high drug costs, the sick underwrite R&D for new drugs to cure other diseases they don't have. I don't know how this system works today but it seems logical that government should help underwrite some cost of development -- and then get the benefit for all of us of lower prices for the drugs that result.

Never mind the fact that our current system allows the United States to provide the lion's share of medical breakthroughs. Let's fuck with it.

The paperwork torture must end: Insurance companies are managing costs via harassment, in paperwork and in "managed care." As I understand it, one great thing Canada did was standardize paperwork and bureacracy. With the Internet, it is now possible to standardize and modernize this entire system, from doctor to hospital to pharmacy to insurance company. It reduces the costs considerably for doctors and hospitals (and that should stop some of their complaining) and it reduces the hassle for us, the sick.

Sigh. Yes, let's get the government involved in order to reduce paperwork. Anybody who has never lived under socialized health care will never understand what torture it is to not only arrange your health care, but to be able to prove to the IRS (or equivalent organization) that you are, indeed, paying your fair share of it. Expect an audit everytime you're in the hospital. An accountant becomes an expensive necessity, because nobody understands the tax code over here.

Malpractice should be limited: But the threat of malpractice must remain over the heads of incompetent practitioners. We are still consumers of health care. We reserve the right to go after bad doctors -- protecting fellow consumers from them -- the way we can after bad contractors. And, yes, lawyers must stop being the primary beneficiary of the malpractice system.

We agree here. I'm not exactly sure how this fits into his plan of turning America's health care system into Cuba's, though.

We must grapple with extreme care: I don't want anyone unplugging me and letting me starve or choke to death. No thanks. And I hate seeing old people treated like the leftovers at garage sales. But I also recognize that some care is extreme and costs everyone a great deal of money for buying little hope. Who should set and enforce the standards of what is covered and is not?

UPDATE: TB in the comments raises a good point: People who don't take care of themselves cost the system and us. So how about higher rates for people who not only smoke but, what else?, get fat, don't exercise, don't get preventive tests on a set schedule....

I propose higher rates for: Smokers, drug abusers, homosexuals, people under 30, people over 30, sky divers, bungee jumpers, and alpha types. Of course, in order to assess those at risk, the government will need a big huge database of exactly who the smokers, sky divers, and homosexuals are.

Invest in manufacturers of little pink triangles, for they have a bright future. Why anyone would want to put John Ashcroft in charge of health care, I'll never understand.

Arrrrrrrrrrr.

Notice the title of the page.

"To be accused of being a whore is one thing, but to be accused of being a weblogger is actionable."

For Linux gearheads, the SCO vs. IBM/Hewlett Packard/Torvalds+dog saga is like Ra^thgate, only it's been going on for what seems like years.

A pretty damning appraisal of SCO's claims scrolled by on Slashdot today. Good fun. Hopefully, Slashdot won't get a Bitchdotting, owing to the current traffic of frothing-mad Spaniards flooding my site.

I just found this entry in my travelling journal from 1999.

March 8th, 1999 Brisbane, Australia Our flight from Auckland with Garuda Indonesia was bumpy at the best of times, but I was able to remain calm until the landing; which proved that the Duke Boys in the cockpit were all roaring drunk, which I had suspected all along

Today, I can't imagine how cheap a flight would have to be before I signed on with an Indonesian airline.

Twice in my life have I had the kind of airplane landings that shook the luggage compartments open. Once with Air Garuda, as above. The other time, the airplane actually had to abort the landing and come around for a second try, seeing as the previous plane had failed to leave the runway. Or, so I hear. I was mercifully oblivious to the entire flight, lost in a Percocet/Alcohol wonderland.

Oh, guys, you had me at pidé Pardon.

Some of us have to get some work done here. I can't wait for this thing to be over, one way or ahem the other.

I live in Augsburg, a small city with about 300,000 people in it. According to this article in the local rag (Google Translation), there was some sort of kerfuffle last night between the neo-Nazis (which the Germans call pretty much any Nationalists) and...someone: A bar which is frequented by hard-right political activists got a bit of a Kristallnacht treatment.

Perhaps unrelated, the group believed to be targeted by the firebombing was responsible for stonewalling the building of an Islamic community center in Augsburg in February. The group in question, "National Opposition Alliance", bolstered their credibility recently by naming their Internet site Neu-Schwabenland, and associating themselves with UFOs:

So, if fighting breaks out between Nazis and Islamists, where do the Jews fit into all this?

Via augsburg.blog-city.com

Our friends the spanish...

click for fullsize

For Allah, who unfortunately was quicker than I.

Nous sômmes seulement les americains

Update For Spanish reactions to the El Pais ad, check out these links:

delavegaBlog granermano Escolar.net

Google Translate is your friend.

If anybody ever tells you that the world hates Americans because of Bush or 9/11, just nod knowingly. And spit in their face.

The people who hate Americans now, have always hated Americans; and they likely always will. In fact, they hate everyone. It makes them feel better about their position, and distracts them from the obvious deficiencies they suffer themselves.

I've had, thankfully, just a few run-ins with anti-Americanism over the years since I left the States. The one incident I think of the most, when the subject comes up, was an encounter with someone I refer to as "The Friendly Tourist". Here are my journal entries, starting in Koh Samui, Thailand, in July of 1999.

July 2, 1999 Koh Samui, Thailand

This morning, we were again awoken by the same knuckleheads who had kept us up all night. I drag-assed out of bed like a man who hadn't had a good night's sleep for a week, and took a shower. We went into town and grabbed breakfast at the usual place, then rented a motorbike for the day.

[later that night...]

Afterward, I went to bed, too. The Danish Girls nextdoor were in full voice, and were totally out of hand. They kept falling onto our porch, shaking the whole hut and keeping us awake. I went outside once, to let them know that there was someone in the bungalow. When I'd gone back inside, they started jumping on the porch again, so I opend the door and asked them nicely to stop it. They did, but they still sat outside our bungalow yelling, singging, running the engines on their bikes. Why are Europeans so obnoxious?

July 3, 1999 Koh Samui, Thailand

Well, today got off to a great start. I got to sleep about 3:00 am last night, in spite of the noisy roommates. Then, about 7:30, they started trying to crank a motorbike right outside of our window. I guess they'd never heard of a manual choke before, because tehy'd crank it, rev it up to about 8,000 RPMs, and then it would die. And they'd do it again. This went on and on, and finally, I just got out of bed.

By the time I'd gotten dressed and had gone out onto the porch for a cigarette, they were all gone. They had apparently never gone to bed, and had taken up all the showers, so I sat on the porch brushing my teeth. Then, Mr. Motorbike came back. He pulled up and stopped his bike of front of one of the girls' bungalows, almost killing himself in the process. He had a bamboo water-pipe in his front basket, which he grabbed and took inside the Hut. He came back out and had a puzzled look on his face.

All this time, I was sitting there on the porch of our bungalow, staring at this burn-out and thinking he, and he alone, was to blame for my being out of bed. He saw me and said, Hey, can I have some water?. I was surprised that he was English, and not Danish like the rest of them. I looked at my water-bottle next to me, which had less than an inch of water left in it.

What, you're serious? I asked him.

Did this loser actually think that, after keeping me up all night, and forcing me out of bed at 7:30 in the morning, I was going to give him the last of my water for his bong?

He really went nuts when I told him no. He jumped on his bike, cranked it up, and tried to gun it straight at me. He made it about a yard before it almost dumped, since he'd left the kickstand down. He pointed at the Australian flag-patch on my pants, and slurred, "Is tha' where you come from?"

When I said I was from the U.S., he got right into my face and started yelling that same old shit.

"American? You want to know why everybody hates Americans? It's because you're all a bunch of fookin' pricks, tha's why!"

He walked his scooter closer to me, almost falling over twice, all the while babbling away.

"Everybody fookin' hates Americans, because they're not fookin' friendly!", he continued. "That's why everybody loves the English, because we knows how to be friendly, see?"

He had reached my porch by this time, and he leaned to within about an inch of my face. "That's what I am: I'm a friendly tourist! I'm gonna fookin' rip ya!" he screamed at me. The irony was apparently lost on him.

I just looked at him. It was no use talking. He was so drunk and stoned he wouldn't have listened, and if he'd taken a swing, he probalby would've just falled over or punched himself.

I made a motion to stand up.

"Where you think you're going?", he asked.

"I'm going to put my boots on. Then I'm going to stomp your guts out," I replied.

He defused, or rather postponed, the situation by saying that, since he'd been drinking all night, he was going away, but he'd be back tomorrow 'cause he knows where I live and all that. Then he drove away, almost killing himself by forgetting about the kickstand again. He really wasn't much of a scooter driver.

I was glad when he left. I grabbed my stuff and went to take a shower. Afterward, D_ and I went to the cantina for breakfast, but I wasn't very hungry, then checked out.

On the way out, I saw the Friendly Tourist was back, driving his scooter awkwardly around and being a general nuisance. I went back to the front desk and told them what was going on. Well, actually I told them he was driving around asking for hookers and selling drugs, which, ironically, is frowned upon in rural Thailand. The lady there went out and found the guy and told him to beat feet, with a couple of scary-looking Thai guys not too far away. The Friendly Tourist looked like he was going to argue, but as I walked by I heard that he was almost crying, yeelling about how nobody understood him. Typical drunk-shit.

We quickly grabbed our packs and walked right past the guy, b ut he didn't say a word, just stood there tying not to get bum-rushed. We walked up the sandy main street, until we got to the north end, where all the taxis to Na-Thong were. We brabbed on for 30 baht each, and we were away.

It's photo-ops like this one that reaffirm my belief that, come November, John Kerry is going to be savaged like a hymen on prom night.

Danielle is having a bandwidth drive.

Click here to help her out.

(Note: if you're using Mozilla/Firefox, you'll need to turn off popup-blocking, or temporarily switch to IE for a second, click the link, then wash your hands, gargle with listerine, scrub your skin with a toilet brush, and then repeatedly siphon the filth from your soul with a plunger, à la Ace Ventura, then switch back to Firefox, telling yourself all the while it was for a good cause, and plus, hey, they told you it was art! It'll be our little secret.)

Heh.

For the record I blog exclusively in my pajamas. The baggy red ones with the footies, and the little flap in the back in case you have to go #2. Some of your snootier Internet Cafés don't really like it, but you know...

Here's a little javascript-button I wrote for your toolbar that will popup the BugMeNot Password for the page you're currently viewing.

BugMeNot

In Mozilla/Firefox, just drag it to your Favorites/Bookmarks toolbar. If you reach a registered-only news page, just click the button. In Internet Explorer (which you shouldn't use anyway), right-click the link and choose "Add to Favorites". Popup-blockers like Google Toolbar will interefere with its operation, unfortunately.

Right now, it pops up below the current browser window. Anybody know how to get around that?

Ever since I was a little kid, I've seen swimmies. Those are the little things that swim around in your vision when you look at uniform surface, like a wall or the sky. They look exactly like the little bubbles you see when you look at something under a microscope. Does everybody see those, or is it just me?

It's gotten pretty bad lately; not only are the little amoebae running around, but there's little sparks that show up and go around in circles. Maybe it's because I used to sit around in the dark and poke my eyelids so I could see the pretty lights. We were too poor for real firecrackers, I guess.

The lights you see when you push your eyeballs are called phosphenes, by the way. I'm not sure why I know that.

It's easy to miss hidden meanings in the information stream. News photographers consider themselves artists, and try to frame their subjects to convey as much meaning as possible within a single photograph.

For example, someone did a study of the number of "halos" there seemed to be hidden in the photos of the campaign trail. I really need a link to that, since it's kind of hard to explain. The photographers often try to arrange themselves and the subject so that some kind of circle is behind their head, simulating a halo, as in this picture of Howard Dean:

So I wondered what the hell the guys in the newsroom were trying to tell us with this weird-ass picture of Kerry from last week:

Until, of course I remembered what the POW*MIA flag looked like. Unbelievably, the Kerry campaign seems to want to associate itself even more with the Vietnam War than it already has, which is almost completely. They should probably stay away from the whole POW angle; the Viet Cong actually used Kerry's "Winter Soldier" testimony to torture American POW's, after all.

What a jackass.

Oh, how terribly sweet.

Sure when he does it, they think it's cute. But when I do it, suddenly it's a "misdemeanor".

Via Maura

Bloggers hit the big time over the weekend. Rathergate broke on Free Republic, picked up by Powerline, and was beautifully driven home by Charles Johnson over on LFG.

So, now both Powerline and Charles are on the radio, making pajama jokes and making like bigshots.

I used to be on the radio, back when I was but a little Rubeling. We played early 80's music, even though it hadn't been out-of-style long enough to have been cool yet. They kicked me off because I got piss-drunk on Jim Beam on-air, and launched into a 10-minute soliloquy about Skylarking.

Coolness under pressure has never really been my strong point. It's probably a good thing that nobody called me to be on the radio. I would probably embarrass, nay, completely discredit the entire blogosphere I do so love, by showing up drunk and doing one of those I-love-you-man things in front of God and everybody.

In October, the murderous, savage followers of Mohammed will be holding a conference in Berlin. The focus of this conference is to plan the undermining of their host countries in Europe, and the destruction of Israel and the United States.

The purpose of Muslims everywhere is to establish a caliphate, covering the entire Earth. Non-believers will be treated as slaves; except for Jews, who will be slaughtered like animals. They don't even bother hiding it anymore.

LFG's Charles Johnson is claiming he got 100,000 visitors yesterday. I think I got 2, and they were both me.

I thought I dodged a bullet yesterday. I posted my entry, Never Forgive, and went about my business. But today, I watched a documentary about September 11. I'm not the crying type. I cry about once every 20 years. But today, I could've cried. I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry for the firefighters, for the widows, for Rudy Giuliani, for the world and what's happened to it. I choked back the tears, and played it Cagney like I did three years ago.

But I want to cry. Today, I wanted to sink my head into my girlfriend's shoulder and let the tears flow, and scream. A world died that day, and another world signed its own death warrant. Other people have more reason to cry than I do, and I shall not cheapen their sorrow.

When no one's looking, and all doors are closed, tonight, I shall cry for the people who died on September 11, 2001. I didn't understand, and I'm so sorry. God, I'm so sorry.

I'm finally crying.

I received a nice compliment today, by way of comments. But after clicking through and reading Flashman's stuff, I have to assume he's mocking me. This guy writes his ass off.

Read it.

Some days are just a total wash. I slept until 2 P.M., then I sat around the apartment reading blogs all afternoon. Now, at 1:30 in the morning, I'm drinking a beer and reading blogs again. At some point, I think I went to the can, but that's pure speculation. It's all been a blur.

Today was an in-betweener. A tween, morphing between the hightoned days of the RNC convention, then the Beslan massacre, and whatever busload of schoolchildren crazed Muslims blow up tomorrow. But today, there's nothing. My entertainment providers are focusing on Kerry trivialities or their cats instead of the right-wing hate-speech I need.

What to do, what to do. I could post a picture of Jones. Ok, here's Jones as a little child-cat:

Awww, my widdle buddy!

To see what Jones looks like today (10 years later), look here.

There's a Turkish guy beating up his wife outside my window. I would say something, but , well, you know.

Live-blogging of Rube losing absolutely all the faith in humanity that remained in his shrivelled, black little heart. (brought to you by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance)

Ok, let's get started.

• 1:10AM: Here is an interesting Q & A between American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and a bunch of fat people (with pic!). Excerpt:

  Question: If two fat passengers fly together, can they buy three seats between them? Southwest: No. Both must buy two seats. They may get a refund if the plane is not full if they let us know in advance.

  Interesting. At the top of that page, they've written

  "Event description: "You are a part of history. NAAFA as invited representatives from Southwest, United, American, Continental, and other airlines to discuss how we can help them better serve our community. Rules of conduct will be available prior to the meeting."

  I will leave it as an excercise for the reader(s) to contemplate what 'rules' the airlines felt they had to have in writing beforehand.
• 1:23AM: Reading more, there's a State of the NAAFA Paper. They apparently have their own jargon. The President, Kara Brewer Allen, who probably bears little or no resemblance to Ann Coulter til around last call, warns the herd against "Feederism", whatever the hell that is.
• 1:26AM: I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable here...

  We LONG to be united! We MUST be united! Healthy choices and lifestyles for ALL PEOPLE People of any SIZE OR SHAPE! NAAFA will be the leading FORCE for all Americans of Size.

  Why did they capitalize "FORCE" like that?
• 1:29AM: I seeeeee...: "Dieting is the leading cause of obesity in the US."
• 1:32AM: Airline Tips for Large Passengers: GATE TRANSPORTATION - It's usually a long walk between curbside check-in and the gate, or between gates when you have connecting flights. When making your reservations, make sure to tell the agent if you will need special services, such as the airport tra m or an armless wheelchair and attendant. I'm beginning to doubt the veracity of that last point about dieting there. Maybe stuffing your face to the point of semi-consciousness, then asking to be wheeled around instead of walking could have something to do with obesity?

Ugh. Enough. Fat people screaming about insensitive treatment. Enjoy being fat, or don't be fat. Unless it's a 'glandular thing', I mean, wink.

Micheal Moore is a real hot potato in American and European Politics. He's the man that gives a voice, not to mention a cherubic, smiling face, to the good side of the American soul. His bucolic, emotional films have earned a special place in the National Conscience, casting that warm light upon family values which makes one feel good about being an American. He fills that void left by such "Golden Years" greats as Norman Rockwell, and Frank Capra.

So it baffles me when I read accounts like this one:

Moore, who attended this week's Republican National Convention as a columnist for USA Today, was greeted by delegates who derided him as a "fat pig." Perhaps they read the book by David Hardy and Jason Clarke, "Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man." Or they came across the suggested slogan for the Web site moorewatch.com "Michael Moore: Putting the vast in vast left-wing conspiracy." ...

The reporter describes the allusions to Moore's husky figure as "...the last acceptable slur in the American arsenal of insults", but I'm sorry: I'm a proud American, and I do not consider this insult acceptable in the least.

I understand how it is when mean-spirited thugs make fun of your body. I understand what Mr. Moore is going through. I, too, have been on the receiving end of personal insults. When I was a teenager, unsure of myself, my body, my own self-worth, the other children would gather in circles and ridicule my enormous, perfectly-shaped penis.

Astonished, giggling 18-year-old girls can be cruel, and creative. Rube McKneehanger they'd call me; Hung-Lo-Rube's Drive-in Noodle Bar; Sir Packs-a-lot; you name it. But through it all, I remained firm, and stood proudly. I salute you Michael Moore, for overcoming such small-minded hatred. I commend you, for sticking it out; as did I all those years ago, oh so many, many times; it takes a tough man to stick to his guns, and endure the insults and derision for almost an entire half a night, while getting paid for an entire week.

Go eat a donut, you whiny-ass tub of goo.

Update: Did I read that correctly? There's a National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance? What the fuck? Google....

One more stereotype that really has me befuddled is coffee. For some reason, everybody thinks Europeans drink a) a lot of coffee, and b) really strong coffee. Let me blow this one out of the water right now. I drink a lot of coffee. Everybody I know in the States drinks a lot of coffee. Europeans? 1 cup. That's it, 1 little cup. In Italy, they only drink one cup, and it's about the size of a shot glass. No refills. No "You wamme to warm that up for ya, Sugar?" Waffle House perks. In Germany, they have some kind of obsession about drinking coffee out of those cappuccino machines. That stuff tastes like thinned-out axle grease, albeit with a hint of nuttiness. Filter coffee is much better. It's smooth, strong-bodied, and actually smells good.

A German boss of mine stopped me in the office cafeteria once, and asked me what I thought of the new cappuccino-style coffee machine he'd just had installed. I told him I hadn't used it, that in the IT department we had our own dripper that we used. He sniffed, then said, "Oh yes, I forgot, you're American. You have no taste." Then walked on. I was miffed for a second. Then realized he was wearing a bright-orange jumpsuit, sandals, yellow sunglasses and, I swear to God, a pith helmet. I figured I'd let it go.

My only co-worker in IT was a Saxon. According to him, Saxons also can't stand the cruddy java that other Germans drink, preferring the manly filter-coffee. Maybe it's because, being East Germans, they appreciate the good things in life that pampered, effete West Germans long taken for granted. Anyway, once the automat was installed in the cafeteria, we absconded with the old dripper, and would have defended it with our lives. I hid it behind the mail server; it was hooked up to the battery backup system, lest the power fail.

Everybody's got something to say about all the other folks in the world. Sometimes it's openly envious. For example, everybody seems to think that the people in other parts of the country tend to be more open and friendly, but maybe a bit shallow. And that's in any country. I've heard it in Germany, New Zealand, England, America, you name it. Bavarians always say that Bavarians are hard to get to know, but once you get to know them, they'll open up to you once and for all; unlike those superficial Rhinelanders. Rhinelanders say the exact same thing, but tend to throw in a bunch of insults about Bavarians being rednecks.

One place there's near-total agreement, however, is on the subject of geography. For some reason, everybody, including Americans, think that the rest of the world spends all their time studying political maps in dog-eared old atlases, committing world capitols and currencies to memory for some mysterious, global Jeopardy match we never get invited to. There's an accepted common knowledge that Americans have no idea where anything is, and are ignorant, arrogant boors.

What utter bullshit. I've lived in Europe for over 5 years now, and in thousands of conversations involving the States, there has never been a single occurence of a European knowing where Atlanta is. They all know Atlanta's in Georgia, somehow, probably from flying through Hartsfield, but not a single one of them has a clue as to where Georgia is. Usually, they think it's on the West Coast. That's America, right? Palm trees and bikini girls? Once they find out it's in the Southeast, they figure it's on the same latitude as, say, Munich. Or maybe Athens? Try Casablanca. Germany doesn't share any latitudes with the United States; except maybe Alaska. I guess

Europeans have absolutely no concept of geography. They plan 1-week road trips in the States, starting in New York, ending in San Francisco. They visit Chicago, and plan on hopping over to Dallas for a day-trip. The U.S., in their minds, seems about as big as Disney World, with a tram between all the major attractions. Of course, when I was 10 I went to Epcot Center and thought I'd just walked through Europe in about a day. But that's different; Epcot actually looks a little bit like Europe, minus the dogshit on the sidewalks.

As Ace succinctly put it:

Was I on crack, or did Zell Miller challenge Chris Matthews to a duel tonight?

Come to think of it, portly Chris Matthews does look a tad like Ned Beatty:

Just goes to show you, don't pick nits with a cracker: Georgia Senator Zell Miller tore Matthews, obnoxious talk-show yapper, the new rectum which he had for so long desperately needed. Nothing irritates an ankle-biting yankee more than a Southern Gentleman who calls his bluff. Although he might have gone a little too far when he suggested settling it with pistols.

Incidentally, it would be the first trans-Mason-Dixon duel in American politics since Vice President Alexander Hamilton was gunned down by Mississippi-born television actor Raymond Burr in the early 19th century, over a woman.

Update

For my German friends and other commies, a little more context: The Republican (conservative) National Convention is going on right now. Zell Miller is a Senator from Georgia. Southern Democrats tend to be more conservative than their cough esteemed colleagues from the Northeast, who've turned their party into the Michael Moore Fan Club. Sen. Miller is an old-school Democrat, which he emphasized last night by quoting the likes of Franklin Roosevelt, and noting the deeds of Roosevelt's successor Harry S. Truman, the last 2 Democratic Presidents who actually accomplished anything. Well, Kennedy did Real Good with the Cuban Missile Crisis. But then there was that Bay of Pigs thing. And, to echo the sentiments of my old boss Ken, I'll never forgive that buck-toothed carpetbagger for dragging us into Viet Nam to clean up France's turdpile. Dickhead.

So anyway, Miller was the Keynote speaker at the convention last night, and gave a humdinger of a speech. Next to his, the speeches of other Democrats seem vague, weak, and despairing. I figure most Dems consider Zell a DINO, but they might want to ask themselves why that is.

It would be nice to have a second party in the US again; maybe some Donks will drop the Blame-America-First hairshirts and Bush==Hitler signs, and get back to being true progressives. Right now, we've just got suits and lunatics to choose from.

I wasn't going to blog today, being against-the-wall with work, and hell-bent on finally sweeping my apartment. An I most certainly was not going to talk like a pirate.

But Jeff Jarvis touched on the one topic that just shivers....me....timbers.

In short, I'll channel John Galt: Buy your own goddamn health insurance and get out of my way!

Let me explain a few things about my social philosophy. Everything you must do is as much oppression as everything you can't do. Every cent you earn that is taken away from you without choice or compensation, is slavery. Every cent you take from someone without their consent, is theft.

Oppression, slavery, theft. These are not words that anybody associates with the United States of America (well some people, maybe), but it's exactly the direction America is headed in. Socialized Health Care is exactly the kind of "slippery slope" into slavery that collectivists use to seduce the masses.

Socialized Health Care is not a "Get-out-of-Death-Free" card. It's mandatory health insurance. It offers nothing that's not already cheaply and widely available to all Americans. The only difference will be that you do not have a choice. The government enjoys controlling people's lives, and they'd like nothing better than to put a gun to your head and say, "You will pay for health insurance, or go to jail". And it will be more expensive owing to bureaucratic overhead, and the inevitable abuse of it by welfare bloodsuckers.

The burden of health care will fall upon productive citizens, to the benefit of the non-productive. In Europe, the aging population and monstrous overhead of entrenched bureaucracy conspire to rob taxpayers of an enormous amount of income. The average tax burden in Germany is close to 70%; and that's not including the enormous taxes included in things like heating costs, and gasoline, which are 3 to 4 times more expensive than in the United States. "Free" health insurance in Germany costs 10-12% of monthly income. If you earn $24,000 per year, expect to pay at least $200 per month just for yourself; i.e., forget about dependents: they cost extra.

Of course, if you don't work, you don't have to pay for your health insurance. That, of course, makes it much more attractive to be unemployed. You can go for years without working, and it involves much less paperwork than either being employed or having employees. A generous unemployment incentive, and a downright scandalous income penalty, discourage financial independence and doom small enterprises to certain failure.

Mandatory, government-enforced health insurance is just another way to generate guilty citizens. Ayn Rand said, "laws were made to be broken, because you cannot control an innocent man." It enrages me to see intelligent men like Mr. Jarvis telling people that the elimination of free will in any matter is beneficial.

That's my premise, now let's look at Mr. Jarvis' points one by one.

All citizens must be insured: If a prosperous society cannot help the sick among us, then what good is the prosperity?

There's that "must" again, sweetened by an appeal to a guilty conscience. "Shame on you for being successful," that sentence says. "How dare you put your own selfish interests before that of the common good". A citizen should have the choice of being insured or not. What good is health insurance to a billionaire? Health insurance costs more than it's worth. Most people never need catastrophic health care. It's there for the case when you will need it, and it's a lovely way to have peace of mind. But in your 20s, you do not need it. A cheap insurance plan with a massive deductible is the most cost-effective way to insure yourself against catastrophic illness or accidents.

Apparently, only the healthy are prosperous in our society. At least that's what I read from this horribly worded argument.

Insurance remains private: Who should run insurance? Government or industry. I say industry. The last thing we need is another inefficient and irksome government bureacracy. We need competition. We need choice.

This sounds fishy to me. First we need to remove people's choice as to whether they'd rather spend their money on cable TV or health insurance. Then suddenly we need choice? I thought we were giving up choice in order to not have to feel bad about boneheads who'd rather have 15 versions of HBO than a sound dental plan?

But who should pay? Think about it: By what logic should should employers have to be the ones who pay for health insurance? What started as a benefit of employment has become an entitlement for many, but then the rest are left out in the cold. Offering health insurance via work makes no sense.

Employers do not have to pay for health insurance. They've historically done it in order to get better employees. The are two main reasons so many companies offer health insurance as a benefit: 1) Due to workplace competition, and 2) Union pressures. Offering health insurance via work makes perfect sense if that will get you better employees. At any rate, an organization or corporation should have the choice of offering health insurance as a benefit.

Who should pay for R&D?: It is similarly illogical that through high drug costs, the sick underwrite R&D for new drugs to cure other diseases they don't have. I don't know how this system works today but it seems logical that government should help underwrite some cost of development -- and then get the benefit for all of us of lower prices for the drugs that result.

Never mind the fact that our current system allows the United States to provide the lion's share of medical breakthroughs. Let's fuck with it.

The paperwork torture must end: Insurance companies are managing costs via harassment, in paperwork and in "managed care." As I understand it, one great thing Canada did was standardize paperwork and bureacracy. With the Internet, it is now possible to standardize and modernize this entire system, from doctor to hospital to pharmacy to insurance company. It reduces the costs considerably for doctors and hospitals (and that should stop some of their complaining) and it reduces the hassle for us, the sick.

Sigh. Yes, let's get the government involved in order to reduce paperwork. Anybody who has never lived under socialized health care will never understand what torture it is to not only arrange your health care, but to be able to prove to the IRS (or equivalent organization) that you are, indeed, paying your fair share of it. Expect an audit everytime you're in the hospital. An accountant becomes an expensive necessity, because nobody understands the tax code over here.

Malpractice should be limited: But the threat of malpractice must remain over the heads of incompetent practitioners. We are still consumers of health care. We reserve the right to go after bad doctors -- protecting fellow consumers from them -- the way we can after bad contractors. And, yes, lawyers must stop being the primary beneficiary of the malpractice system.

We agree here. I'm not exactly sure how this fits into his plan of turning America's health care system into Cuba's, though.

We must grapple with extreme care: I don't want anyone unplugging me and letting me starve or choke to death. No thanks. And I hate seeing old people treated like the leftovers at garage sales. But I also recognize that some care is extreme and costs everyone a great deal of money for buying little hope. Who should set and enforce the standards of what is covered and is not?

UPDATE: TB in the comments raises a good point: People who don't take care of themselves cost the system and us. So how about higher rates for people who not only smoke but, what else?, get fat, don't exercise, don't get preventive tests on a set schedule....

I propose higher rates for: Smokers, drug abusers, homosexuals, people under 30, people over 30, sky divers, bungee jumpers, and alpha types. Of course, in order to assess those at risk, the government will need a big huge database of exactly who the smokers, sky divers, and homosexuals are.

Invest in manufacturers of little pink triangles, for they have a bright future. Why anyone would want to put John Ashcroft in charge of health care, I'll never understand.

Arrrrrrrrrrr.

Notice the title of the page.

"To be accused of being a whore is one thing, but to be accused of being a weblogger is actionable."

For Linux gearheads, the SCO vs. IBM/Hewlett Packard/Torvalds+dog saga is like Ra^thgate, only it's been going on for what seems like years.

A pretty damning appraisal of SCO's claims scrolled by on Slashdot today. Good fun. Hopefully, Slashdot won't get a Bitchdotting, owing to the current traffic of frothing-mad Spaniards flooding my site.

I just found this entry in my travelling journal from 1999.

March 8th, 1999 Brisbane, Australia Our flight from Auckland with Garuda Indonesia was bumpy at the best of times, but I was able to remain calm until the landing; which proved that the Duke Boys in the cockpit were all roaring drunk, which I had suspected all along

Today, I can't imagine how cheap a flight would have to be before I signed on with an Indonesian airline.

Twice in my life have I had the kind of airplane landings that shook the luggage compartments open. Once with Air Garuda, as above. The other time, the airplane actually had to abort the landing and come around for a second try, seeing as the previous plane had failed to leave the runway. Or, so I hear. I was mercifully oblivious to the entire flight, lost in a Percocet/Alcohol wonderland.

Oh, guys, you had me at pidé Pardon.

Some of us have to get some work done here. I can't wait for this thing to be over, one way or ahem the other.

I live in Augsburg, a small city with about 300,000 people in it. According to this article in the local rag (Google Translation), there was some sort of kerfuffle last night between the neo-Nazis (which the Germans call pretty much any Nationalists) and...someone: A bar which is frequented by hard-right political activists got a bit of a Kristallnacht treatment.

Perhaps unrelated, the group believed to be targeted by the firebombing was responsible for stonewalling the building of an Islamic community center in Augsburg in February. The group in question, "National Opposition Alliance", bolstered their credibility recently by naming their Internet site Neu-Schwabenland, and associating themselves with UFOs:

So, if fighting breaks out between Nazis and Islamists, where do the Jews fit into all this?

Via augsburg.blog-city.com

Our friends the spanish...

click for fullsize

For Allah, who unfortunately was quicker than I.

Nous sômmes seulement les americains

Update For Spanish reactions to the El Pais ad, check out these links:

delavegaBlog granermano Escolar.net

Google Translate is your friend.

If anybody ever tells you that the world hates Americans because of Bush or 9/11, just nod knowingly. And spit in their face.

The people who hate Americans now, have always hated Americans; and they likely always will. In fact, they hate everyone. It makes them feel better about their position, and distracts them from the obvious deficiencies they suffer themselves.

I've had, thankfully, just a few run-ins with anti-Americanism over the years since I left the States. The one incident I think of the most, when the subject comes up, was an encounter with someone I refer to as "The Friendly Tourist". Here are my journal entries, starting in Koh Samui, Thailand, in July of 1999.

July 2, 1999 Koh Samui, Thailand

This morning, we were again awoken by the same knuckleheads who had kept us up all night. I drag-assed out of bed like a man who hadn't had a good night's sleep for a week, and took a shower. We went into town and grabbed breakfast at the usual place, then rented a motorbike for the day.

[later that night...]

Afterward, I went to bed, too. The Danish Girls nextdoor were in full voice, and were totally out of hand. They kept falling onto our porch, shaking the whole hut and keeping us awake. I went outside once, to let them know that there was someone in the bungalow. When I'd gone back inside, they started jumping on the porch again, so I opend the door and asked them nicely to stop it. They did, but they still sat outside our bungalow yelling, singging, running the engines on their bikes. Why are Europeans so obnoxious?

July 3, 1999 Koh Samui, Thailand

Well, today got off to a great start. I got to sleep about 3:00 am last night, in spite of the noisy roommates. Then, about 7:30, they started trying to crank a motorbike right outside of our window. I guess they'd never heard of a manual choke before, because tehy'd crank it, rev it up to about 8,000 RPMs, and then it would die. And they'd do it again. This went on and on, and finally, I just got out of bed.

By the time I'd gotten dressed and had gone out onto the porch for a cigarette, they were all gone. They had apparently never gone to bed, and had taken up all the showers, so I sat on the porch brushing my teeth. Then, Mr. Motorbike came back. He pulled up and stopped his bike of front of one of the girls' bungalows, almost killing himself in the process. He had a bamboo water-pipe in his front basket, which he grabbed and took inside the Hut. He came back out and had a puzzled look on his face.

All this time, I was sitting there on the porch of our bungalow, staring at this burn-out and thinking he, and he alone, was to blame for my being out of bed. He saw me and said, Hey, can I have some water?. I was surprised that he was English, and not Danish like the rest of them. I looked at my water-bottle next to me, which had less than an inch of water left in it.

What, you're serious? I asked him.

Did this loser actually think that, after keeping me up all night, and forcing me out of bed at 7:30 in the morning, I was going to give him the last of my water for his bong?

He really went nuts when I told him no. He jumped on his bike, cranked it up, and tried to gun it straight at me. He made it about a yard before it almost dumped, since he'd left the kickstand down. He pointed at the Australian flag-patch on my pants, and slurred, "Is tha' where you come from?"

When I said I was from the U.S., he got right into my face and started yelling that same old shit.

"American? You want to know why everybody hates Americans? It's because you're all a bunch of fookin' pricks, tha's why!"

He walked his scooter closer to me, almost falling over twice, all the while babbling away.

"Everybody fookin' hates Americans, because they're not fookin' friendly!", he continued. "That's why everybody loves the English, because we knows how to be friendly, see?"

He had reached my porch by this time, and he leaned to within about an inch of my face. "That's what I am: I'm a friendly tourist! I'm gonna fookin' rip ya!" he screamed at me. The irony was apparently lost on him.

I just looked at him. It was no use talking. He was so drunk and stoned he wouldn't have listened, and if he'd taken a swing, he probalby would've just falled over or punched himself.

I made a motion to stand up.

"Where you think you're going?", he asked.

"I'm going to put my boots on. Then I'm going to stomp your guts out," I replied.

He defused, or rather postponed, the situation by saying that, since he'd been drinking all night, he was going away, but he'd be back tomorrow 'cause he knows where I live and all that. Then he drove away, almost killing himself by forgetting about the kickstand again. He really wasn't much of a scooter driver.

I was glad when he left. I grabbed my stuff and went to take a shower. Afterward, D_ and I went to the cantina for breakfast, but I wasn't very hungry, then checked out.

On the way out, I saw the Friendly Tourist was back, driving his scooter awkwardly around and being a general nuisance. I went back to the front desk and told them what was going on. Well, actually I told them he was driving around asking for hookers and selling drugs, which, ironically, is frowned upon in rural Thailand. The lady there went out and found the guy and told him to beat feet, with a couple of scary-looking Thai guys not too far away. The Friendly Tourist looked like he was going to argue, but as I walked by I heard that he was almost crying, yeelling about how nobody understood him. Typical drunk-shit.

We quickly grabbed our packs and walked right past the guy, b ut he didn't say a word, just stood there tying not to get bum-rushed. We walked up the sandy main street, until we got to the north end, where all the taxis to Na-Thong were. We brabbed on for 30 baht each, and we were away.

It's photo-ops like this one that reaffirm my belief that, come November, John Kerry is going to be savaged like a hymen on prom night.

Danielle is having a bandwidth drive.

Click here to help her out.

(Note: if you're using Mozilla/Firefox, you'll need to turn off popup-blocking, or temporarily switch to IE for a second, click the link, then wash your hands, gargle with listerine, scrub your skin with a toilet brush, and then repeatedly siphon the filth from your soul with a plunger, à la Ace Ventura, then switch back to Firefox, telling yourself all the while it was for a good cause, and plus, hey, they told you it was art! It'll be our little secret.)

Heh.

For the record I blog exclusively in my pajamas. The baggy red ones with the footies, and the little flap in the back in case you have to go #2. Some of your snootier Internet Cafés don't really like it, but you know...

Here's a little javascript-button I wrote for your toolbar that will popup the BugMeNot Password for the page you're currently viewing.

BugMeNot

In Mozilla/Firefox, just drag it to your Favorites/Bookmarks toolbar. If you reach a registered-only news page, just click the button. In Internet Explorer (which you shouldn't use anyway), right-click the link and choose "Add to Favorites". Popup-blockers like Google Toolbar will interefere with its operation, unfortunately.

Right now, it pops up below the current browser window. Anybody know how to get around that?

Ever since I was a little kid, I've seen swimmies. Those are the little things that swim around in your vision when you look at uniform surface, like a wall or the sky. They look exactly like the little bubbles you see when you look at something under a microscope. Does everybody see those, or is it just me?

It's gotten pretty bad lately; not only are the little amoebae running around, but there's little sparks that show up and go around in circles. Maybe it's because I used to sit around in the dark and poke my eyelids so I could see the pretty lights. We were too poor for real firecrackers, I guess.

The lights you see when you push your eyeballs are called phosphenes, by the way. I'm not sure why I know that.

It's easy to miss hidden meanings in the information stream. News photographers consider themselves artists, and try to frame their subjects to convey as much meaning as possible within a single photograph.

For example, someone did a study of the number of "halos" there seemed to be hidden in the photos of the campaign trail. I really need a link to that, since it's kind of hard to explain. The photographers often try to arrange themselves and the subject so that some kind of circle is behind their head, simulating a halo, as in this picture of Howard Dean:

So I wondered what the hell the guys in the newsroom were trying to tell us with this weird-ass picture of Kerry from last week:

Until, of course I remembered what the POW*MIA flag looked like. Unbelievably, the Kerry campaign seems to want to associate itself even more with the Vietnam War than it already has, which is almost completely. They should probably stay away from the whole POW angle; the Viet Cong actually used Kerry's "Winter Soldier" testimony to torture American POW's, after all.

What a jackass.

Oh, how terribly sweet.

Sure when he does it, they think it's cute. But when I do it, suddenly it's a "misdemeanor".

Via Maura

Bloggers hit the big time over the weekend. Rathergate broke on Free Republic, picked up by Powerline, and was beautifully driven home by Charles Johnson over on LFG.

So, now both Powerline and Charles are on the radio, making pajama jokes and making like bigshots.

I used to be on the radio, back when I was but a little Rubeling. We played early 80's music, even though it hadn't been out-of-style long enough to have been cool yet. They kicked me off because I got piss-drunk on Jim Beam on-air, and launched into a 10-minute soliloquy about Skylarking.

Coolness under pressure has never really been my strong point. It's probably a good thing that nobody called me to be on the radio. I would probably embarrass, nay, completely discredit the entire blogosphere I do so love, by showing up drunk and doing one of those I-love-you-man things in front of God and everybody.

In October, the murderous, savage followers of Mohammed will be holding a conference in Berlin. The focus of this conference is to plan the undermining of their host countries in Europe, and the destruction of Israel and the United States.

The purpose of Muslims everywhere is to establish a caliphate, covering the entire Earth. Non-believers will be treated as slaves; except for Jews, who will be slaughtered like animals. They don't even bother hiding it anymore.

LFG's Charles Johnson is claiming he got 100,000 visitors yesterday. I think I got 2, and they were both me.

I thought I dodged a bullet yesterday. I posted my entry, Never Forgive, and went about my business. But today, I watched a documentary about September 11. I'm not the crying type. I cry about once every 20 years. But today, I could've cried. I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry for the firefighters, for the widows, for Rudy Giuliani, for the world and what's happened to it. I choked back the tears, and played it Cagney like I did three years ago.

But I want to cry. Today, I wanted to sink my head into my girlfriend's shoulder and let the tears flow, and scream. A world died that day, and another world signed its own death warrant. Other people have more reason to cry than I do, and I shall not cheapen their sorrow.

When no one's looking, and all doors are closed, tonight, I shall cry for the people who died on September 11, 2001. I didn't understand, and I'm so sorry. God, I'm so sorry.

I'm finally crying.

I received a nice compliment today, by way of comments. But after clicking through and reading Flashman's stuff, I have to assume he's mocking me. This guy writes his ass off.

Read it.

Some days are just a total wash. I slept until 2 P.M., then I sat around the apartment reading blogs all afternoon. Now, at 1:30 in the morning, I'm drinking a beer and reading blogs again. At some point, I think I went to the can, but that's pure speculation. It's all been a blur.

Today was an in-betweener. A tween, morphing between the hightoned days of the RNC convention, then the Beslan massacre, and whatever busload of schoolchildren crazed Muslims blow up tomorrow. But today, there's nothing. My entertainment providers are focusing on Kerry trivialities or their cats instead of the right-wing hate-speech I need.

What to do, what to do. I could post a picture of Jones. Ok, here's Jones as a little child-cat:

Awww, my widdle buddy!

To see what Jones looks like today (10 years later), look here.

There's a Turkish guy beating up his wife outside my window. I would say something, but , well, you know.

Live-blogging of Rube losing absolutely all the faith in humanity that remained in his shrivelled, black little heart. (brought to you by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance)

Ok, let's get started.

• 1:10AM: Here is an interesting Q & A between American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and a bunch of fat people (with pic!). Excerpt:

  Question: If two fat passengers fly together, can they buy three seats between them? Southwest: No. Both must buy two seats. They may get a refund if the plane is not full if they let us know in advance.

  Interesting. At the top of that page, they've written

  "Event description: "You are a part of history. NAAFA as invited representatives from Southwest, United, American, Continental, and other airlines to discuss how we can help them better serve our community. Rules of conduct will be available prior to the meeting."

  I will leave it as an excercise for the reader(s) to contemplate what 'rules' the airlines felt they had to have in writing beforehand.
• 1:23AM: Reading more, there's a State of the NAAFA Paper. They apparently have their own jargon. The President, Kara Brewer Allen, who probably bears little or no resemblance to Ann Coulter til around last call, warns the herd against "Feederism", whatever the hell that is.
• 1:26AM: I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable here...

  We LONG to be united! We MUST be united! Healthy choices and lifestyles for ALL PEOPLE People of any SIZE OR SHAPE! NAAFA will be the leading FORCE for all Americans of Size.

  Why did they capitalize "FORCE" like that?
• 1:29AM: I seeeeee...: "Dieting is the leading cause of obesity in the US."
• 1:32AM: Airline Tips for Large Passengers: GATE TRANSPORTATION - It's usually a long walk between curbside check-in and the gate, or between gates when you have connecting flights. When making your reservations, make sure to tell the agent if you will need special services, such as the airport tra m or an armless wheelchair and attendant. I'm beginning to doubt the veracity of that last point about dieting there. Maybe stuffing your face to the point of semi-consciousness, then asking to be wheeled around instead of walking could have something to do with obesity?

Ugh. Enough. Fat people screaming about insensitive treatment. Enjoy being fat, or don't be fat. Unless it's a 'glandular thing', I mean, wink.

Micheal Moore is a real hot potato in American and European Politics. He's the man that gives a voice, not to mention a cherubic, smiling face, to the good side of the American soul. His bucolic, emotional films have earned a special place in the National Conscience, casting that warm light upon family values which makes one feel good about being an American. He fills that void left by such "Golden Years" greats as Norman Rockwell, and Frank Capra.

So it baffles me when I read accounts like this one:

Moore, who attended this week's Republican National Convention as a columnist for USA Today, was greeted by delegates who derided him as a "fat pig." Perhaps they read the book by David Hardy and Jason Clarke, "Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man." Or they came across the suggested slogan for the Web site moorewatch.com "Michael Moore: Putting the vast in vast left-wing conspiracy." ...

The reporter describes the allusions to Moore's husky figure as "...the last acceptable slur in the American arsenal of insults", but I'm sorry: I'm a proud American, and I do not consider this insult acceptable in the least.

I understand how it is when mean-spirited thugs make fun of your body. I understand what Mr. Moore is going through. I, too, have been on the receiving end of personal insults. When I was a teenager, unsure of myself, my body, my own self-worth, the other children would gather in circles and ridicule my enormous, perfectly-shaped penis.

Astonished, giggling 18-year-old girls can be cruel, and creative. Rube McKneehanger they'd call me; Hung-Lo-Rube's Drive-in Noodle Bar; Sir Packs-a-lot; you name it. But through it all, I remained firm, and stood proudly. I salute you Michael Moore, for overcoming such small-minded hatred. I commend you, for sticking it out; as did I all those years ago, oh so many, many times; it takes a tough man to stick to his guns, and endure the insults and derision for almost an entire half a night, while getting paid for an entire week.

Go eat a donut, you whiny-ass tub of goo.

Update: Did I read that correctly? There's a National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance? What the fuck? Google....

One more stereotype that really has me befuddled is coffee. For some reason, everybody thinks Europeans drink a) a lot of coffee, and b) really strong coffee. Let me blow this one out of the water right now. I drink a lot of coffee. Everybody I know in the States drinks a lot of coffee. Europeans? 1 cup. That's it, 1 little cup. In Italy, they only drink one cup, and it's about the size of a shot glass. No refills. No "You wamme to warm that up for ya, Sugar?" Waffle House perks. In Germany, they have some kind of obsession about drinking coffee out of those cappuccino machines. That stuff tastes like thinned-out axle grease, albeit with a hint of nuttiness. Filter coffee is much better. It's smooth, strong-bodied, and actually smells good.

A German boss of mine stopped me in the office cafeteria once, and asked me what I thought of the new cappuccino-style coffee machine he'd just had installed. I told him I hadn't used it, that in the IT department we had our own dripper that we used. He sniffed, then said, "Oh yes, I forgot, you're American. You have no taste." Then walked on. I was miffed for a second. Then realized he was wearing a bright-orange jumpsuit, sandals, yellow sunglasses and, I swear to God, a pith helmet. I figured I'd let it go.

My only co-worker in IT was a Saxon. According to him, Saxons also can't stand the cruddy java that other Germans drink, preferring the manly filter-coffee. Maybe it's because, being East Germans, they appreciate the good things in life that pampered, effete West Germans long taken for granted. Anyway, once the automat was installed in the cafeteria, we absconded with the old dripper, and would have defended it with our lives. I hid it behind the mail server; it was hooked up to the battery backup system, lest the power fail.

Everybody's got something to say about all the other folks in the world. Sometimes it's openly envious. For example, everybody seems to think that the people in other parts of the country tend to be more open and friendly, but maybe a bit shallow. And that's in any country. I've heard it in Germany, New Zealand, England, America, you name it. Bavarians always say that Bavarians are hard to get to know, but once you get to know them, they'll open up to you once and for all; unlike those superficial Rhinelanders. Rhinelanders say the exact same thing, but tend to throw in a bunch of insults about Bavarians being rednecks.

One place there's near-total agreement, however, is on the subject of geography. For some reason, everybody, including Americans, think that the rest of the world spends all their time studying political maps in dog-eared old atlases, committing world capitols and currencies to memory for some mysterious, global Jeopardy match we never get invited to. There's an accepted common knowledge that Americans have no idea where anything is, and are ignorant, arrogant boors.

What utter bullshit. I've lived in Europe for over 5 years now, and in thousands of conversations involving the States, there has never been a single occurence of a European knowing where Atlanta is. They all know Atlanta's in Georgia, somehow, probably from flying through Hartsfield, but not a single one of them has a clue as to where Georgia is. Usually, they think it's on the West Coast. That's America, right? Palm trees and bikini girls? Once they find out it's in the Southeast, they figure it's on the same latitude as, say, Munich. Or maybe Athens? Try Casablanca. Germany doesn't share any latitudes with the United States; except maybe Alaska. I guess

Europeans have absolutely no concept of geography. They plan 1-week road trips in the States, starting in New York, ending in San Francisco. They visit Chicago, and plan on hopping over to Dallas for a day-trip. The U.S., in their minds, seems about as big as Disney World, with a tram between all the major attractions. Of course, when I was 10 I went to Epcot Center and thought I'd just walked through Europe in about a day. But that's different; Epcot actually looks a little bit like Europe, minus the dogshit on the sidewalks.

As Ace succinctly put it:

Was I on crack, or did Zell Miller challenge Chris Matthews to a duel tonight?

Come to think of it, portly Chris Matthews does look a tad like Ned Beatty:

Just goes to show you, don't pick nits with a cracker: Georgia Senator Zell Miller tore Matthews, obnoxious talk-show yapper, the new rectum which he had for so long desperately needed. Nothing irritates an ankle-biting yankee more than a Southern Gentleman who calls his bluff. Although he might have gone a little too far when he suggested settling it with pistols.

Incidentally, it would be the first trans-Mason-Dixon duel in American politics since Vice President Alexander Hamilton was gunned down by Mississippi-born television actor Raymond Burr in the early 19th century, over a woman.

Update

For my German friends and other commies, a little more context: The Republican (conservative) National Convention is going on right now. Zell Miller is a Senator from Georgia. Southern Democrats tend to be more conservative than their cough esteemed colleagues from the Northeast, who've turned their party into the Michael Moore Fan Club. Sen. Miller is an old-school Democrat, which he emphasized last night by quoting the likes of Franklin Roosevelt, and noting the deeds of Roosevelt's successor Harry S. Truman, the last 2 Democratic Presidents who actually accomplished anything. Well, Kennedy did Real Good with the Cuban Missile Crisis. But then there was that Bay of Pigs thing. And, to echo the sentiments of my old boss Ken, I'll never forgive that buck-toothed carpetbagger for dragging us into Viet Nam to clean up France's turdpile. Dickhead.

So anyway, Miller was the Keynote speaker at the convention last night, and gave a humdinger of a speech. Next to his, the speeches of other Democrats seem vague, weak, and despairing. I figure most Dems consider Zell a DINO, but they might want to ask themselves why that is.

It would be nice to have a second party in the US again; maybe some Donks will drop the Blame-America-First hairshirts and Bush==Hitler signs, and get back to being true progressives. Right now, we've just got suits and lunatics to choose from.

I wasn't going to blog today, being against-the-wall with work, and hell-bent on finally sweeping my apartment. An I most certainly was not going to talk like a pirate.

But Jeff Jarvis touched on the one topic that just shivers....me....timbers.

In short, I'll channel John Galt: Buy your own goddamn health insurance and get out of my way!

Let me explain a few things about my social philosophy. Everything you must do is as much oppression as everything you can't do. Every cent you earn that is taken away from you without choice or compensation, is slavery. Every cent you take from someone without their consent, is theft.

Oppression, slavery, theft. These are not words that anybody associates with the United States of America (well some people, maybe), but it's exactly the direction America is headed in. Socialized Health Care is exactly the kind of "slippery slope" into slavery that collectivists use to seduce the masses.

Socialized Health Care is not a "Get-out-of-Death-Free" card. It's mandatory health insurance. It offers nothing that's not already cheaply and widely available to all Americans. The only difference will be that you do not have a choice. The government enjoys controlling people's lives, and they'd like nothing better than to put a gun to your head and say, "You will pay for health insurance, or go to jail". And it will be more expensive owing to bureaucratic overhead, and the inevitable abuse of it by welfare bloodsuckers.

The burden of health care will fall upon productive citizens, to the benefit of the non-productive. In Europe, the aging population and monstrous overhead of entrenched bureaucracy conspire to rob taxpayers of an enormous amount of income. The average tax burden in Germany is close to 70%; and that's not including the enormous taxes included in things like heating costs, and gasoline, which are 3 to 4 times more expensive than in the United States. "Free" health insurance in Germany costs 10-12% of monthly income. If you earn $24,000 per year, expect to pay at least $200 per month just for yourself; i.e., forget about dependents: they cost extra.

Of course, if you don't work, you don't have to pay for your health insurance. That, of course, makes it much more attractive to be unemployed. You can go for years without working, and it involves much less paperwork than either being employed or having employees. A generous unemployment incentive, and a downright scandalous income penalty, discourage financial independence and doom small enterprises to certain failure.

Mandatory, government-enforced health insurance is just another way to generate guilty citizens. Ayn Rand said, "laws were made to be broken, because you cannot control an innocent man." It enrages me to see intelligent men like Mr. Jarvis telling people that the elimination of free will in any matter is beneficial.

That's my premise, now let's look at Mr. Jarvis' points one by one.

All citizens must be insured: If a prosperous society cannot help the sick among us, then what good is the prosperity?

There's that "must" again, sweetened by an appeal to a guilty conscience. "Shame on you for being successful," that sentence says. "How dare you put your own selfish interests before that of the common good". A citizen should have the choice of being insured or not. What good is health insurance to a billionaire? Health insurance costs more than it's worth. Most people never need catastrophic health care. It's there for the case when you will need it, and it's a lovely way to have peace of mind. But in your 20s, you do not need it. A cheap insurance plan with a massive deductible is the most cost-effective way to insure yourself against catastrophic illness or accidents.

Apparently, only the healthy are prosperous in our society. At least that's what I read from this horribly worded argument.

Insurance remains private: Who should run insurance? Government or industry. I say industry. The last thing we need is another inefficient and irksome government bureacracy. We need competition. We need choice.

This sounds fishy to me. First we need to remove people's choice as to whether they'd rather spend their money on cable TV or health insurance. Then suddenly we need choice? I thought we were giving up choice in order to not have to feel bad about boneheads who'd rather have 15 versions of HBO than a sound dental plan?

But who should pay? Think about it: By what logic should should employers have to be the ones who pay for health insurance? What started as a benefit of employment has become an entitlement for many, but then the rest are left out in the cold. Offering health insurance via work makes no sense.

Employers do not have to pay for health insurance. They've historically done it in order to get better employees. The are two main reasons so many companies offer health insurance as a benefit: 1) Due to workplace competition, and 2) Union pressures. Offering health insurance via work makes perfect sense if that will get you better employees. At any rate, an organization or corporation should have the choice of offering health insurance as a benefit.

Who should pay for R&D?: It is similarly illogical that through high drug costs, the sick underwrite R&D for new drugs to cure other diseases they don't have. I don't know how this system works today but it seems logical that government should help underwrite some cost of development -- and then get the benefit for all of us of lower prices for the drugs that result.

Never mind the fact that our current system allows the United States to provide the lion's share of medical breakthroughs. Let's fuck with it.

The paperwork torture must end: Insurance companies are managing costs via harassment, in paperwork and in "managed care." As I understand it, one great thing Canada did was standardize paperwork and bureacracy. With the Internet, it is now possible to standardize and modernize this entire system, from doctor to hospital to pharmacy to insurance company. It reduces the costs considerably for doctors and hospitals (and that should stop some of their complaining) and it reduces the hassle for us, the sick.

Sigh. Yes, let's get the government involved in order to reduce paperwork. Anybody who has never lived under socialized health care will never understand what torture it is to not only arrange your health care, but to be able to prove to the IRS (or equivalent organization) that you are, indeed, paying your fair share of it. Expect an audit everytime you're in the hospital. An accountant becomes an expensive necessity, because nobody understands the tax code over here.

Malpractice should be limited: But the threat of malpractice must remain over the heads of incompetent practitioners. We are still consumers of health care. We reserve the right to go after bad doctors -- protecting fellow consumers from them -- the way we can after bad contractors. And, yes, lawyers must stop being the primary beneficiary of the malpractice system.

We agree here. I'm not exactly sure how this fits into his plan of turning America's health care system into Cuba's, though.

We must grapple with extreme care: I don't want anyone unplugging me and letting me starve or choke to death. No thanks. And I hate seeing old people treated like the leftovers at garage sales. But I also recognize that some care is extreme and costs everyone a great deal of money for buying little hope. Who should set and enforce the standards of what is covered and is not?

UPDATE: TB in the comments raises a good point: People who don't take care of themselves cost the system and us. So how about higher rates for people who not only smoke but, what else?, get fat, don't exercise, don't get preventive tests on a set schedule....

I propose higher rates for: Smokers, drug abusers, homosexuals, people under 30, people over 30, sky divers, bungee jumpers, and alpha types. Of course, in order to assess those at risk, the government will need a big huge database of exactly who the smokers, sky divers, and homosexuals are.

Invest in manufacturers of little pink triangles, for they have a bright future. Why anyone would want to put John Ashcroft in charge of health care, I'll never understand.

Arrrrrrrrrrr.

Notice the title of the page.

"To be accused of being a whore is one thing, but to be accused of being a weblogger is actionable."

For Linux gearheads, the SCO vs. IBM/Hewlett Packard/Torvalds+dog saga is like Ra^thgate, only it's been going on for what seems like years.

A pretty damning appraisal of SCO's claims scrolled by on Slashdot today. Good fun. Hopefully, Slashdot won't get a Bitchdotting, owing to the current traffic of frothing-mad Spaniards flooding my site.

I just found this entry in my travelling journal from 1999.

March 8th, 1999 Brisbane, Australia Our flight from Auckland with Garuda Indonesia was bumpy at the best of times, but I was able to remain calm until the landing; which proved that the Duke Boys in the cockpit were all roaring drunk, which I had suspected all along

Today, I can't imagine how cheap a flight would have to be before I signed on with an Indonesian airline.

Twice in my life have I had the kind of airplane landings that shook the luggage compartments open. Once with Air Garuda, as above. The other time, the airplane actually had to abort the landing and come around for a second try, seeing as the previous plane had failed to leave the runway. Or, so I hear. I was mercifully oblivious to the entire flight, lost in a Percocet/Alcohol wonderland.

Oh, guys, you had me at pidé Pardon.

Some of us have to get some work done here. I can't wait for this thing to be over, one way or ahem the other.

I live in Augsburg, a small city with about 300,000 people in it. According to this article in the local rag (Google Translation), there was some sort of kerfuffle last night between the neo-Nazis (which the Germans call pretty much any Nationalists) and...someone: A bar which is frequented by hard-right political activists got a bit of a Kristallnacht treatment.

Perhaps unrelated, the group believed to be targeted by the firebombing was responsible for stonewalling the building of an Islamic community center in Augsburg in February. The group in question, "National Opposition Alliance", bolstered their credibility recently by naming their Internet site Neu-Schwabenland, and associating themselves with UFOs:

So, if fighting breaks out between Nazis and Islamists, where do the Jews fit into all this?

Via augsburg.blog-city.com

Our friends the spanish...

click for fullsize

For Allah, who unfortunately was quicker than I.

Nous sômmes seulement les americains

Update For Spanish reactions to the El Pais ad, check out these links:

delavegaBlog granermano Escolar.net

Google Translate is your friend.

If anybody ever tells you that the world hates Americans because of Bush or 9/11, just nod knowingly. And spit in their face.

The people who hate Americans now, have always hated Americans; and they likely always will. In fact, they hate everyone. It makes them feel better about their position, and distracts them from the obvious deficiencies they suffer themselves.

I've had, thankfully, just a few run-ins with anti-Americanism over the years since I left the States. The one incident I think of the most, when the subject comes up, was an encounter with someone I refer to as "The Friendly Tourist". Here are my journal entries, starting in Koh Samui, Thailand, in July of 1999.

July 2, 1999 Koh Samui, Thailand

This morning, we were again awoken by the same knuckleheads who had kept us up all night. I drag-assed out of bed like a man who hadn't had a good night's sleep for a week, and took a shower. We went into town and grabbed breakfast at the usual place, then rented a motorbike for the day.

[later that night...]

Afterward, I went to bed, too. The Danish Girls nextdoor were in full voice, and were totally out of hand. They kept falling onto our porch, shaking the whole hut and keeping us awake. I went outside once, to let them know that there was someone in the bungalow. When I'd gone back inside, they started jumping on the porch again, so I opend the door and asked them nicely to stop it. They did, but they still sat outside our bungalow yelling, singging, running the engines on their bikes. Why are Europeans so obnoxious?

July 3, 1999 Koh Samui, Thailand

Well, today got off to a great start. I got to sleep about 3:00 am last night, in spite of the noisy roommates. Then, about 7:30, they started trying to crank a motorbike right outside of our window. I guess they'd never heard of a manual choke before, because tehy'd crank it, rev it up to about 8,000 RPMs, and then it would die. And they'd do it again. This went on and on, and finally, I just got out of bed.

By the time I'd gotten dressed and had gone out onto the porch for a cigarette, they were all gone. They had apparently never gone to bed, and had taken up all the showers, so I sat on the porch brushing my teeth. Then, Mr. Motorbike came back. He pulled up and stopped his bike of front of one of the girls' bungalows, almost killing himself in the process. He had a bamboo water-pipe in his front basket, which he grabbed and took inside the Hut. He came back out and had a puzzled look on his face.

All this time, I was sitting there on the porch of our bungalow, staring at this burn-out and thinking he, and he alone, was to blame for my being out of bed. He saw me and said, Hey, can I have some water?. I was surprised that he was English, and not Danish like the rest of them. I looked at my water-bottle next to me, which had less than an inch of water left in it.

What, you're serious? I asked him.

Did this loser actually think that, after keeping me up all night, and forcing me out of bed at 7:30 in the morning, I was going to give him the last of my water for his bong?

He really went nuts when I told him no. He jumped on his bike, cranked it up, and tried to gun it straight at me. He made it about a yard before it almost dumped, since he'd left the kickstand down. He pointed at the Australian flag-patch on my pants, and slurred, "Is tha' where you come from?"

When I said I was from the U.S., he got right into my face and started yelling that same old shit.

"American? You want to know why everybody hates Americans? It's because you're all a bunch of fookin' pricks, tha's why!"

He walked his scooter closer to me, almost falling over twice, all the while babbling away.

"Everybody fookin' hates Americans, because they're not fookin' friendly!", he continued. "That's why everybody loves the English, because we knows how to be friendly, see?"

He had reached my porch by this time, and he leaned to within about an inch of my face. "That's what I am: I'm a friendly tourist! I'm gonna fookin' rip ya!" he screamed at me. The irony was apparently lost on him.

I just looked at him. It was no use talking. He was so drunk and stoned he wouldn't have listened, and if he'd taken a swing, he probalby would've just falled over or punched himself.

I made a motion to stand up.

"Where you think you're going?", he asked.

"I'm going to put my boots on. Then I'm going to stomp your guts out," I replied.

He defused, or rather postponed, the situation by saying that, since he'd been drinking all night, he was going away, but he'd be back tomorrow 'cause he knows where I live and all that. Then he drove away, almost killing himself by forgetting about the kickstand again. He really wasn't much of a scooter driver.

I was glad when he left. I grabbed my stuff and went to take a shower. Afterward, D_ and I went to the cantina for breakfast, but I wasn't very hungry, then checked out.

On the way out, I saw the Friendly Tourist was back, driving his scooter awkwardly around and being a general nuisance. I went back to the front desk and told them what was going on. Well, actually I told them he was driving around asking for hookers and selling drugs, which, ironically, is frowned upon in rural Thailand. The lady there went out and found the guy and told him to beat feet, with a couple of scary-looking Thai guys not too far away. The Friendly Tourist looked like he was going to argue, but as I walked by I heard that he was almost crying, yeelling about how nobody understood him. Typical drunk-shit.

We quickly grabbed our packs and walked right past the guy, b ut he didn't say a word, just stood there tying not to get bum-rushed. We walked up the sandy main street, until we got to the north end, where all the taxis to Na-Thong were. We brabbed on for 30 baht each, and we were away.

It's photo-ops like this one that reaffirm my belief that, come November, John Kerry is going to be savaged like a hymen on prom night.

Danielle is having a bandwidth drive.

Click here to help her out.

(Note: if you're using Mozilla/Firefox, you'll need to turn off popup-blocking, or temporarily switch to IE for a second, click the link, then wash your hands, gargle with listerine, scrub your skin with a toilet brush, and then repeatedly siphon the filth from your soul with a plunger, à la Ace Ventura, then switch back to Firefox, telling yourself all the while it was for a good cause, and plus, hey, they told you it was art! It'll be our little secret.)

Heh.

For the record I blog exclusively in my pajamas. The baggy red ones with the footies, and the little flap in the back in case you have to go #2. Some of your snootier Internet Cafés don't really like it, but you know...

Here's a little javascript-button I wrote for your toolbar that will popup the BugMeNot Password for the page you're currently viewing.

BugMeNot

In Mozilla/Firefox, just drag it to your Favorites/Bookmarks toolbar. If you reach a registered-only news page, just click the button. In Internet Explorer (which you shouldn't use anyway), right-click the link and choose "Add to Favorites". Popup-blockers like Google Toolbar will interefere with its operation, unfortunately.

Right now, it pops up below the current browser window. Anybody know how to get around that?

Ever since I was a little kid, I've seen swimmies. Those are the little things that swim around in your vision when you look at uniform surface, like a wall or the sky. They look exactly like the little bubbles you see when you look at something under a microscope. Does everybody see those, or is it just me?

It's gotten pretty bad lately; not only are the little amoebae running around, but there's little sparks that show up and go around in circles. Maybe it's because I used to sit around in the dark and poke my eyelids so I could see the pretty lights. We were too poor for real firecrackers, I guess.

The lights you see when you push your eyeballs are called phosphenes, by the way. I'm not sure why I know that.

It's easy to miss hidden meanings in the information stream. News photographers consider themselves artists, and try to frame their subjects to convey as much meaning as possible within a single photograph.

For example, someone did a study of the number of "halos" there seemed to be hidden in the photos of the campaign trail. I really need a link to that, since it's kind of hard to explain. The photographers often try to arrange themselves and the subject so that some kind of circle is behind their head, simulating a halo, as in this picture of Howard Dean:

So I wondered what the hell the guys in the newsroom were trying to tell us with this weird-ass picture of Kerry from last week:

Until, of course I remembered what the POW*MIA flag looked like. Unbelievably, the Kerry campaign seems to want to associate itself even more with the Vietnam War than it already has, which is almost completely. They should probably stay away from the whole POW angle; the Viet Cong actually used Kerry's "Winter Soldier" testimony to torture American POW's, after all.

What a jackass.

Oh, how terribly sweet.

Sure when he does it, they think it's cute. But when I do it, suddenly it's a "misdemeanor".

Via Maura

Bloggers hit the big time over the weekend. Rathergate broke on Free Republic, picked up by Powerline, and was beautifully driven home by Charles Johnson over on LFG.

So, now both Powerline and Charles are on the radio, making pajama jokes and making like bigshots.

I used to be on the radio, back when I was but a little Rubeling. We played early 80's music, even though it hadn't been out-of-style long enough to have been cool yet. They kicked me off because I got piss-drunk on Jim Beam on-air, and launched into a 10-minute soliloquy about Skylarking.

Coolness under pressure has never really been my strong point. It's probably a good thing that nobody called me to be on the radio. I would probably embarrass, nay, completely discredit the entire blogosphere I do so love, by showing up drunk and doing one of those I-love-you-man things in front of God and everybody.

In October, the murderous, savage followers of Mohammed will be holding a conference in Berlin. The focus of this conference is to plan the undermining of their host countries in Europe, and the destruction of Israel and the United States.

The purpose of Muslims everywhere is to establish a caliphate, covering the entire Earth. Non-believers will be treated as slaves; except for Jews, who will be slaughtered like animals. They don't even bother hiding it anymore.

LFG's Charles Johnson is claiming he got 100,000 visitors yesterday. I think I got 2, and they were both me.

I thought I dodged a bullet yesterday. I posted my entry, Never Forgive, and went about my business. But today, I watched a documentary about September 11. I'm not the crying type. I cry about once every 20 years. But today, I could've cried. I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry for the firefighters, for the widows, for Rudy Giuliani, for the world and what's happened to it. I choked back the tears, and played it Cagney like I did three years ago.

But I want to cry. Today, I wanted to sink my head into my girlfriend's shoulder and let the tears flow, and scream. A world died that day, and another world signed its own death warrant. Other people have more reason to cry than I do, and I shall not cheapen their sorrow.

When no one's looking, and all doors are closed, tonight, I shall cry for the people who died on September 11, 2001. I didn't understand, and I'm so sorry. God, I'm so sorry.

I'm finally crying.

I received a nice compliment today, by way of comments. But after clicking through and reading Flashman's stuff, I have to assume he's mocking me. This guy writes his ass off.

Read it.

Some days are just a total wash. I slept until 2 P.M., then I sat around the apartment reading blogs all afternoon. Now, at 1:30 in the morning, I'm drinking a beer and reading blogs again. At some point, I think I went to the can, but that's pure speculation. It's all been a blur.

Today was an in-betweener. A tween, morphing between the hightoned days of the RNC convention, then the Beslan massacre, and whatever busload of schoolchildren crazed Muslims blow up tomorrow. But today, there's nothing. My entertainment providers are focusing on Kerry trivialities or their cats instead of the right-wing hate-speech I need.

What to do, what to do. I could post a picture of Jones. Ok, here's Jones as a little child-cat:

Awww, my widdle buddy!

To see what Jones looks like today (10 years later), look here.

There's a Turkish guy beating up his wife outside my window. I would say something, but , well, you know.

Live-blogging of Rube losing absolutely all the faith in humanity that remained in his shrivelled, black little heart. (brought to you by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance)

Ok, let's get started.

• 1:10AM: Here is an interesting Q & A between American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and a bunch of fat people (with pic!). Excerpt:

  Question: If two fat passengers fly together, can they buy three seats between them? Southwest: No. Both must buy two seats. They may get a refund if the plane is not full if they let us know in advance.

  Interesting. At the top of that page, they've written

  "Event description: "You are a part of history. NAAFA as invited representatives from Southwest, United, American, Continental, and other airlines to discuss how we can help them better serve our community. Rules of conduct will be available prior to the meeting."

  I will leave it as an excercise for the reader(s) to contemplate what 'rules' the airlines felt they had to have in writing beforehand.
• 1:23AM: Reading more, there's a State of the NAAFA Paper. They apparently have their own jargon. The President, Kara Brewer Allen, who probably bears little or no resemblance to Ann Coulter til around last call, warns the herd against "Feederism", whatever the hell that is.
• 1:26AM: I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable here...

  We LONG to be united! We MUST be united! Healthy choices and lifestyles for ALL PEOPLE People of any SIZE OR SHAPE! NAAFA will be the leading FORCE for all Americans of Size.

  Why did they capitalize "FORCE" like that?
• 1:29AM: I seeeeee...: "Dieting is the leading cause of obesity in the US."
• 1:32AM: Airline Tips for Large Passengers: GATE TRANSPORTATION - It's usually a long walk between curbside check-in and the gate, or between gates when you have connecting flights. When making your reservations, make sure to tell the agent if you will need special services, such as the airport tra m or an armless wheelchair and attendant. I'm beginning to doubt the veracity of that last point about dieting there. Maybe stuffing your face to the point of semi-consciousness, then asking to be wheeled around instead of walking could have something to do with obesity?

Ugh. Enough. Fat people screaming about insensitive treatment. Enjoy being fat, or don't be fat. Unless it's a 'glandular thing', I mean, wink.

Micheal Moore is a real hot potato in American and European Politics. He's the man that gives a voice, not to mention a cherubic, smiling face, to the good side of the American soul. His bucolic, emotional films have earned a special place in the National Conscience, casting that warm light upon family values which makes one feel good about being an American. He fills that void left by such "Golden Years" greats as Norman Rockwell, and Frank Capra.

So it baffles me when I read accounts like this one:

Moore, who attended this week's Republican National Convention as a columnist for USA Today, was greeted by delegates who derided him as a "fat pig." Perhaps they read the book by David Hardy and Jason Clarke, "Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man." Or they came across the suggested slogan for the Web site moorewatch.com "Michael Moore: Putting the vast in vast left-wing conspiracy." ...

The reporter describes the allusions to Moore's husky figure as "...the last acceptable slur in the American arsenal of insults", but I'm sorry: I'm a proud American, and I do not consider this insult acceptable in the least.

I understand how it is when mean-spirited thugs make fun of your body. I understand what Mr. Moore is going through. I, too, have been on the receiving end of personal insults. When I was a teenager, unsure of myself, my body, my own self-worth, the other children would gather in circles and ridicule my enormous, perfectly-shaped penis.

Astonished, giggling 18-year-old girls can be cruel, and creative. Rube McKneehanger they'd call me; Hung-Lo-Rube's Drive-in Noodle Bar; Sir Packs-a-lot; you name it. But through it all, I remained firm, and stood proudly. I salute you Michael Moore, for overcoming such small-minded hatred. I commend you, for sticking it out; as did I all those years ago, oh so many, many times; it takes a tough man to stick to his guns, and endure the insults and derision for almost an entire half a night, while getting paid for an entire week.

Go eat a donut, you whiny-ass tub of goo.

Update: Did I read that correctly? There's a National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance? What the fuck? Google....

One more stereotype that really has me befuddled is coffee. For some reason, everybody thinks Europeans drink a) a lot of coffee, and b) really strong coffee. Let me blow this one out of the water right now. I drink a lot of coffee. Everybody I know in the States drinks a lot of coffee. Europeans? 1 cup. That's it, 1 little cup. In Italy, they only drink one cup, and it's about the size of a shot glass. No refills. No "You wamme to warm that up for ya, Sugar?" Waffle House perks. In Germany, they have some kind of obsession about drinking coffee out of those cappuccino machines. That stuff tastes like thinned-out axle grease, albeit with a hint of nuttiness. Filter coffee is much better. It's smooth, strong-bodied, and actually smells good.

A German boss of mine stopped me in the office cafeteria once, and asked me what I thought of the new cappuccino-style coffee machine he'd just had installed. I told him I hadn't used it, that in the IT department we had our own dripper that we used. He sniffed, then said, "Oh yes, I forgot, you're American. You have no taste." Then walked on. I was miffed for a second. Then realized he was wearing a bright-orange jumpsuit, sandals, yellow sunglasses and, I swear to God, a pith helmet. I figured I'd let it go.

My only co-worker in IT was a Saxon. According to him, Saxons also can't stand the cruddy java that other Germans drink, preferring the manly filter-coffee. Maybe it's because, being East Germans, they appreciate the good things in life that pampered, effete West Germans long taken for granted. Anyway, once the automat was installed in the cafeteria, we absconded with the old dripper, and would have defended it with our lives. I hid it behind the mail server; it was hooked up to the battery backup system, lest the power fail.

Everybody's got something to say about all the other folks in the world. Sometimes it's openly envious. For example, everybody seems to think that the people in other parts of the country tend to be more open and friendly, but maybe a bit shallow. And that's in any country. I've heard it in Germany, New Zealand, England, America, you name it. Bavarians always say that Bavarians are hard to get to know, but once you get to know them, they'll open up to you once and for all; unlike those superficial Rhinelanders. Rhinelanders say the exact same thing, but tend to throw in a bunch of insults about Bavarians being rednecks.

One place there's near-total agreement, however, is on the subject of geography. For some reason, everybody, including Americans, think that the rest of the world spends all their time studying political maps in dog-eared old atlases, committing world capitols and currencies to memory for some mysterious, global Jeopardy match we never get invited to. There's an accepted common knowledge that Americans have no idea where anything is, and are ignorant, arrogant boors.

What utter bullshit. I've lived in Europe for over 5 years now, and in thousands of conversations involving the States, there has never been a single occurence of a European knowing where Atlanta is. They all know Atlanta's in Georgia, somehow, probably from flying through Hartsfield, but not a single one of them has a clue as to where Georgia is. Usually, they think it's on the West Coast. That's America, right? Palm trees and bikini girls? Once they find out it's in the Southeast, they figure it's on the same latitude as, say, Munich. Or maybe Athens? Try Casablanca. Germany doesn't share any latitudes with the United States; except maybe Alaska. I guess

Europeans have absolutely no concept of geography. They plan 1-week road trips in the States, starting in New York, ending in San Francisco. They visit Chicago, and plan on hopping over to Dallas for a day-trip. The U.S., in their minds, seems about as big as Disney World, with a tram between all the major attractions. Of course, when I was 10 I went to Epcot Center and thought I'd just walked through Europe in about a day. But that's different; Epcot actually looks a little bit like Europe, minus the dogshit on the sidewalks.

As Ace succinctly put it:

Was I on crack, or did Zell Miller challenge Chris Matthews to a duel tonight?

Come to think of it, portly Chris Matthews does look a tad like Ned Beatty:

Just goes to show you, don't pick nits with a cracker: Georgia Senator Zell Miller tore Matthews, obnoxious talk-show yapper, the new rectum which he had for so long desperately needed. Nothing irritates an ankle-biting yankee more than a Southern Gentleman who calls his bluff. Although he might have gone a little too far when he suggested settling it with pistols.

Incidentally, it would be the first trans-Mason-Dixon duel in American politics since Vice President Alexander Hamilton was gunned down by Mississippi-born television actor Raymond Burr in the early 19th century, over a woman.

Update

For my German friends and other commies, a little more context: The Republican (conservative) National Convention is going on right now. Zell Miller is a Senator from Georgia. Southern Democrats tend to be more conservative than their cough esteemed colleagues from the Northeast, who've turned their party into the Michael Moore Fan Club. Sen. Miller is an old-school Democrat, which he emphasized last night by quoting the likes of Franklin Roosevelt, and noting the deeds of Roosevelt's successor Harry S. Truman, the last 2 Democratic Presidents who actually accomplished anything. Well, Kennedy did Real Good with the Cuban Missile Crisis. But then there was that Bay of Pigs thing. And, to echo the sentiments of my old boss Ken, I'll never forgive that buck-toothed carpetbagger for dragging us into Viet Nam to clean up France's turdpile. Dickhead.

So anyway, Miller was the Keynote speaker at the convention last night, and gave a humdinger of a speech. Next to his, the speeches of other Democrats seem vague, weak, and despairing. I figure most Dems consider Zell a DINO, but they might want to ask themselves why that is.

It would be nice to have a second party in the US again; maybe some Donks will drop the Blame-America-First hairshirts and Bush==Hitler signs, and get back to being true progressives. Right now, we've just got suits and lunatics to choose from.

I wasn't going to blog today, being against-the-wall with work, and hell-bent on finally sweeping my apartment. An I most certainly was not going to talk like a pirate.

But Jeff Jarvis touched on the one topic that just shivers....me....timbers.

In short, I'll channel John Galt: Buy your own goddamn health insurance and get out of my way!

Let me explain a few things about my social philosophy. Everything you must do is as much oppression as everything you can't do. Every cent you earn that is taken away from you without choice or compensation, is slavery. Every cent you take from someone without their consent, is theft.

Oppression, slavery, theft. These are not words that anybody associates with the United States of America (well some people, maybe), but it's exactly the direction America is headed in. Socialized Health Care is exactly the kind of "slippery slope" into slavery that collectivists use to seduce the masses.

Socialized Health Care is not a "Get-out-of-Death-Free" card. It's mandatory health insurance. It offers nothing that's not already cheaply and widely available to all Americans. The only difference will be that you do not have a choice. The government enjoys controlling people's lives, and they'd like nothing better than to put a gun to your head and say, "You will pay for health insurance, or go to jail". And it will be more expensive owing to bureaucratic overhead, and the inevitable abuse of it by welfare bloodsuckers.

The burden of health care will fall upon productive citizens, to the benefit of the non-productive. In Europe, the aging population and monstrous overhead of entrenched bureaucracy conspire to rob taxpayers of an enormous amount of income. The average tax burden in Germany is close to 70%; and that's not including the enormous taxes included in things like heating costs, and gasoline, which are 3 to 4 times more expensive than in the United States. "Free" health insurance in Germany costs 10-12% of monthly income. If you earn $24,000 per year, expect to pay at least $200 per month just for yourself; i.e., forget about dependents: they cost extra.

Of course, if you don't work, you don't have to pay for your health insurance. That, of course, makes it much more attractive to be unemployed. You can go for years without working, and it involves much less paperwork than either being employed or having employees. A generous unemployment incentive, and a downright scandalous income penalty, discourage financial independence and doom small enterprises to certain failure.

Mandatory, government-enforced health insurance is just another way to generate guilty citizens. Ayn Rand said, "laws were made to be broken, because you cannot control an innocent man." It enrages me to see intelligent men like Mr. Jarvis telling people that the elimination of free will in any matter is beneficial.

That's my premise, now let's look at Mr. Jarvis' points one by one.

All citizens must be insured: If a prosperous society cannot help the sick among us, then what good is the prosperity?

There's that "must" again, sweetened by an appeal to a guilty conscience. "Shame on you for being successful," that sentence says. "How dare you put your own selfish interests before that of the common good". A citizen should have the choice of being insured or not. What good is health insurance to a billionaire? Health insurance costs more than it's worth. Most people never need catastrophic health care. It's there for the case when you will need it, and it's a lovely way to have peace of mind. But in your 20s, you do not need it. A cheap insurance plan with a massive deductible is the most cost-effective way to insure yourself against catastrophic illness or accidents.

Apparently, only the healthy are prosperous in our society. At least that's what I read from this horribly worded argument.

Insurance remains private: Who should run insurance? Government or industry. I say industry. The last thing we need is another inefficient and irksome government bureacracy. We need competition. We need choice.

This sounds fishy to me. First we need to remove people's choice as to whether they'd rather spend their money on cable TV or health insurance. Then suddenly we need choice? I thought we were giving up choice in order to not have to feel bad about boneheads who'd rather have 15 versions of HBO than a sound dental plan?

But who should pay? Think about it: By what logic should should employers have to be the ones who pay for health insurance? What started as a benefit of employment has become an entitlement for many, but then the rest are left out in the cold. Offering health insurance via work makes no sense.

Employers do not have to pay for health insurance. They've historically done it in order to get better employees. The are two main reasons so many companies offer health insurance as a benefit: 1) Due to workplace competition, and 2) Union pressures. Offering health insurance via work makes perfect sense if that will get you better employees. At any rate, an organization or corporation should have the choice of offering health insurance as a benefit.

Who should pay for R&D?: It is similarly illogical that through high drug costs, the sick underwrite R&D for new drugs to cure other diseases they don't have. I don't know how this system works today but it seems logical that government should help underwrite some cost of development -- and then get the benefit for all of us of lower prices for the drugs that result.

Never mind the fact that our current system allows the United States to provide the lion's share of medical breakthroughs. Let's fuck with it.

The paperwork torture must end: Insurance companies are managing costs via harassment, in paperwork and in "managed care." As I understand it, one great thing Canada did was standardize paperwork and bureacracy. With the Internet, it is now possible to standardize and modernize this entire system, from doctor to hospital to pharmacy to insurance company. It reduces the costs considerably for doctors and hospitals (and that should stop some of their complaining) and it reduces the hassle for us, the sick.

Sigh. Yes, let's get the government involved in order to reduce paperwork. Anybody who has never lived under socialized health care will never understand what torture it is to not only arrange your health care, but to be able to prove to the IRS (or equivalent organization) that you are, indeed, paying your fair share of it. Expect an audit everytime you're in the hospital. An accountant becomes an expensive necessity, because nobody understands the tax code over here.

Malpractice should be limited: But the threat of malpractice must remain over the heads of incompetent practitioners. We are still consumers of health care. We reserve the right to go after bad doctors -- protecting fellow consumers from them -- the way we can after bad contractors. And, yes, lawyers must stop being the primary beneficiary of the malpractice system.

We agree here. I'm not exactly sure how this fits into his plan of turning America's health care system into Cuba's, though.

We must grapple with extreme care: I don't want anyone unplugging me and letting me starve or choke to death. No thanks. And I hate seeing old people treated like the leftovers at garage sales. But I also recognize that some care is extreme and costs everyone a great deal of money for buying little hope. Who should set and enforce the standards of what is covered and is not?

UPDATE: TB in the comments raises a good point: People who don't take care of themselves cost the system and us. So how about higher rates for people who not only smoke but, what else?, get fat, don't exercise, don't get preventive tests on a set schedule....

I propose higher rates for: Smokers, drug abusers, homosexuals, people under 30, people over 30, sky divers, bungee jumpers, and alpha types. Of course, in order to assess those at risk, the government will need a big huge database of exactly who the smokers, sky divers, and homosexuals are.

Invest in manufacturers of little pink triangles, for they have a bright future. Why anyone would want to put John Ashcroft in charge of health care, I'll never understand.

Arrrrrrrrrrr.

Notice the title of the page.

"To be accused of being a whore is one thing, but to be accused of being a weblogger is actionable."

For Linux gearheads, the SCO vs. IBM/Hewlett Packard/Torvalds+dog saga is like Ra^thgate, only it's been going on for what seems like years.

A pretty damning appraisal of SCO's claims scrolled by on Slashdot today. Good fun. Hopefully, Slashdot won't get a Bitchdotting, owing to the current traffic of frothing-mad Spaniards flooding my site.

I just found this entry in my travelling journal from 1999.

March 8th, 1999 Brisbane, Australia Our flight from Auckland with Garuda Indonesia was bumpy at the best of times, but I was able to remain calm until the landing; which proved that the Duke Boys in the cockpit were all roaring drunk, which I had suspected all along

Today, I can't imagine how cheap a flight would have to be before I signed on with an Indonesian airline.

Twice in my life have I had the kind of airplane landings that shook the luggage compartments open. Once with Air Garuda, as above. The other time, the airplane actually had to abort the landing and come around for a second try, seeing as the previous plane had failed to leave the runway. Or, so I hear. I was mercifully oblivious to the entire flight, lost in a Percocet/Alcohol wonderland.

Oh, guys, you had me at pidé Pardon.

Some of us have to get some work done here. I can't wait for this thing to be over, one way or ahem the other.

I live in Augsburg, a small city with about 300,000 people in it. According to this article in the local rag (Google Translation), there was some sort of kerfuffle last night between the neo-Nazis (which the Germans call pretty much any Nationalists) and...someone: A bar which is frequented by hard-right political activists got a bit of a Kristallnacht treatment.

Perhaps unrelated, the group believed to be targeted by the firebombing was responsible for stonewalling the building of an Islamic community center in Augsburg in February. The group in question, "National Opposition Alliance", bolstered their credibility recently by naming their Internet site Neu-Schwabenland, and associating themselves with UFOs:

So, if fighting breaks out between Nazis and Islamists, where do the Jews fit into all this?

Via augsburg.blog-city.com

Our friends the spanish...

click for fullsize

For Allah, who unfortunately was quicker than I.

Nous sômmes seulement les americains

Update For Spanish reactions to the El Pais ad, check out these links:

delavegaBlog granermano Escolar.net

Google Translate is your friend.

If anybody ever tells you that the world hates Americans because of Bush or 9/11, just nod knowingly. And spit in their face.

The people who hate Americans now, have always hated Americans; and they likely always will. In fact, they hate everyone. It makes them feel better about their position, and distracts them from the obvious deficiencies they suffer themselves.

I've had, thankfully, just a few run-ins with anti-Americanism over the years since I left the States. The one incident I think of the most, when the subject comes up, was an encounter with someone I refer to as "The Friendly Tourist". Here are my journal entries, starting in Koh Samui, Thailand, in July of 1999.

July 2, 1999 Koh Samui, Thailand

This morning, we were again awoken by the same knuckleheads who had kept us up all night. I drag-assed out of bed like a man who hadn't had a good night's sleep for a week, and took a shower. We went into town and grabbed breakfast at the usual place, then rented a motorbike for the day.

[later that night...]

Afterward, I went to bed, too. The Danish Girls nextdoor were in full voice, and were totally out of hand. They kept falling onto our porch, shaking the whole hut and keeping us awake. I went outside once, to let them know that there was someone in the bungalow. When I'd gone back inside, they started jumping on the porch again, so I opend the door and asked them nicely to stop it. They did, but they still sat outside our bungalow yelling, singging, running the engines on their bikes. Why are Europeans so obnoxious?

July 3, 1999 Koh Samui, Thailand

Well, today got off to a great start. I got to sleep about 3:00 am last night, in spite of the noisy roommates. Then, about 7:30, they started trying to crank a motorbike right outside of our window. I guess they'd never heard of a manual choke before, because tehy'd crank it, rev it up to about 8,000 RPMs, and then it would die. And they'd do it again. This went on and on, and finally, I just got out of bed.

By the time I'd gotten dressed and had gone out onto the porch for a cigarette, they were all gone. They had apparently never gone to bed, and had taken up all the showers, so I sat on the porch brushing my teeth. Then, Mr. Motorbike came back. He pulled up and stopped his bike of front of one of the girls' bungalows, almost killing himself in the process. He had a bamboo water-pipe in his front basket, which he grabbed and took inside the Hut. He came back out and had a puzzled look on his face.

All this time, I was sitting there on the porch of our bungalow, staring at this burn-out and thinking he, and he alone, was to blame for my being out of bed. He saw me and said, Hey, can I have some water?. I was surprised that he was English, and not Danish like the rest of them. I looked at my water-bottle next to me, which had less than an inch of water left in it.

What, you're serious? I asked him.

Did this loser actually think that, after keeping me up all night, and forcing me out of bed at 7:30 in the morning, I was going to give him the last of my water for his bong?

He really went nuts when I told him no. He jumped on his bike, cranked it up, and tried to gun it straight at me. He made it about a yard before it almost dumped, since he'd left the kickstand down. He pointed at the Australian flag-patch on my pants, and slurred, "Is tha' where you come from?"

When I said I was from the U.S., he got right into my face and started yelling that same old shit.

"American? You want to know why everybody hates Americans? It's because you're all a bunch of fookin' pricks, tha's why!"

He walked his scooter closer to me, almost falling over twice, all the while babbling away.

"Everybody fookin' hates Americans, because they're not fookin' friendly!", he continued. "That's why everybody loves the English, because we knows how to be friendly, see?"

He had reached my porch by this time, and he leaned to within about an inch of my face. "That's what I am: I'm a friendly tourist! I'm gonna fookin' rip ya!" he screamed at me. The irony was apparently lost on him.

I just looked at him. It was no use talking. He was so drunk and stoned he wouldn't have listened, and if he'd taken a swing, he probalby would've just falled over or punched himself.

I made a motion to stand up.

"Where you think you're going?", he asked.

"I'm going to put my boots on. Then I'm going to stomp your guts out," I replied.

He defused, or rather postponed, the situation by saying that, since he'd been drinking all night, he was going away, but he'd be back tomorrow 'cause he knows where I live and all that. Then he drove away, almost killing himself by forgetting about the kickstand again. He really wasn't much of a scooter driver.

I was glad when he left. I grabbed my stuff and went to take a shower. Afterward, D_ and I went to the cantina for breakfast, but I wasn't very hungry, then checked out.

On the way out, I saw the Friendly Tourist was back, driving his scooter awkwardly around and being a general nuisance. I went back to the front desk and told them what was going on. Well, actually I told them he was driving around asking for hookers and selling drugs, which, ironically, is frowned upon in rural Thailand. The lady there went out and found the guy and told him to beat feet, with a couple of scary-looking Thai guys not too far away. The Friendly Tourist looked like he was going to argue, but as I walked by I heard that he was almost crying, yeelling about how nobody understood him. Typical drunk-shit.

We quickly grabbed our packs and walked right past the guy, b ut he didn't say a word, just stood there tying not to get bum-rushed. We walked up the sandy main street, until we got to the north end, where all the taxis to Na-Thong were. We brabbed on for 30 baht each, and we were away.

It's photo-ops like this one that reaffirm my belief that, come November, John Kerry is going to be savaged like a hymen on prom night.

Danielle is having a bandwidth drive.

Click here to help her out.

(Note: if you're using Mozilla/Firefox, you'll need to turn off popup-blocking, or temporarily switch to IE for a second, click the link, then wash your hands, gargle with listerine, scrub your skin with a toilet brush, and then repeatedly siphon the filth from your soul with a plunger, à la Ace Ventura, then switch back to Firefox, telling yourself all the while it was for a good cause, and plus, hey, they told you it was art! It'll be our little secret.)

Heh.

For the record I blog exclusively in my pajamas. The baggy red ones with the footies, and the little flap in the back in case you have to go #2. Some of your snootier Internet Cafés don't really like it, but you know...

Here's a little javascript-button I wrote for your toolbar that will popup the BugMeNot Password for the page you're currently viewing.

BugMeNot

In Mozilla/Firefox, just drag it to your Favorites/Bookmarks toolbar. If you reach a registered-only news page, just click the button. In Internet Explorer (which you shouldn't use anyway), right-click the link and choose "Add to Favorites". Popup-blockers like Google Toolbar will interefere with its operation, unfortunately.

Right now, it pops up below the current browser window. Anybody know how to get around that?

Ever since I was a little kid, I've seen swimmies. Those are the little things that swim around in your vision when you look at uniform surface, like a wall or the sky. They look exactly like the little bubbles you see when you look at something under a microscope. Does everybody see those, or is it just me?

It's gotten pretty bad lately; not only are the little amoebae running around, but there's little sparks that show up and go around in circles. Maybe it's because I used to sit around in the dark and poke my eyelids so I could see the pretty lights. We were too poor for real firecrackers, I guess.

The lights you see when you push your eyeballs are called phosphenes, by the way. I'm not sure why I know that.

It's easy to miss hidden meanings in the information stream. News photographers consider themselves artists, and try to frame their subjects to convey as much meaning as possible within a single photograph.

For example, someone did a study of the number of "halos" there seemed to be hidden in the photos of the campaign trail. I really need a link to that, since it's kind of hard to explain. The photographers often try to arrange themselves and the subject so that some kind of circle is behind their head, simulating a halo, as in this picture of Howard Dean:

So I wondered what the hell the guys in the newsroom were trying to tell us with this weird-ass picture of Kerry from last week:

Until, of course I remembered what the POW*MIA flag looked like. Unbelievably, the Kerry campaign seems to want to associate itself even more with the Vietnam War than it already has, which is almost completely. They should probably stay away from the whole POW angle; the Viet Cong actually used Kerry's "Winter Soldier" testimony to torture American POW's, after all.

What a jackass.

Oh, how terribly sweet.

Sure when he does it, they think it's cute. But when I do it, suddenly it's a "misdemeanor".

Via Maura

Bloggers hit the big time over the weekend. Rathergate broke on Free Republic, picked up by Powerline, and was beautifully driven home by Charles Johnson over on LFG.

So, now both Powerline and Charles are on the radio, making pajama jokes and making like bigshots.

I used to be on the radio, back when I was but a little Rubeling. We played early 80's music, even though it hadn't been out-of-style long enough to have been cool yet. They kicked me off because I got piss-drunk on Jim Beam on-air, and launched into a 10-minute soliloquy about Skylarking.

Coolness under pressure has never really been my strong point. It's probably a good thing that nobody called me to be on the radio. I would probably embarrass, nay, completely discredit the entire blogosphere I do so love, by showing up drunk and doing one of those I-love-you-man things in front of God and everybody.

In October, the murderous, savage followers of Mohammed will be holding a conference in Berlin. The focus of this conference is to plan the undermining of their host countries in Europe, and the destruction of Israel and the United States.

The purpose of Muslims everywhere is to establish a caliphate, covering the entire Earth. Non-believers will be treated as slaves; except for Jews, who will be slaughtered like animals. They don't even bother hiding it anymore.

LFG's Charles Johnson is claiming he got 100,000 visitors yesterday. I think I got 2, and they were both me.

I thought I dodged a bullet yesterday. I posted my entry, Never Forgive, and went about my business. But today, I watched a documentary about September 11. I'm not the crying type. I cry about once every 20 years. But today, I could've cried. I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry for the firefighters, for the widows, for Rudy Giuliani, for the world and what's happened to it. I choked back the tears, and played it Cagney like I did three years ago.

But I want to cry. Today, I wanted to sink my head into my girlfriend's shoulder and let the tears flow, and scream. A world died that day, and another world signed its own death warrant. Other people have more reason to cry than I do, and I shall not cheapen their sorrow.

When no one's looking, and all doors are closed, tonight, I shall cry for the people who died on September 11, 2001. I didn't understand, and I'm so sorry. God, I'm so sorry.

I'm finally crying.

I received a nice compliment today, by way of comments. But after clicking through and reading Flashman's stuff, I have to assume he's mocking me. This guy writes his ass off.

Read it.

Some days are just a total wash. I slept until 2 P.M., then I sat around the apartment reading blogs all afternoon. Now, at 1:30 in the morning, I'm drinking a beer and reading blogs again. At some point, I think I went to the can, but that's pure speculation. It's all been a blur.

Today was an in-betweener. A tween, morphing between the hightoned days of the RNC convention, then the Beslan massacre, and whatever busload of schoolchildren crazed Muslims blow up tomorrow. But today, there's nothing. My entertainment providers are focusing on Kerry trivialities or their cats instead of the right-wing hate-speech I need.

What to do, what to do. I could post a picture of Jones. Ok, here's Jones as a little child-cat:

Awww, my widdle buddy!

To see what Jones looks like today (10 years later), look here.

There's a Turkish guy beating up his wife outside my window. I would say something, but , well, you know.

Live-blogging of Rube losing absolutely all the faith in humanity that remained in his shrivelled, black little heart. (brought to you by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance)

Ok, let's get started.

• 1:10AM: Here is an interesting Q & A between American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and a bunch of fat people (with pic!). Excerpt:

  Question: If two fat passengers fly together, can they buy three seats between them? Southwest: No. Both must buy two seats. They may get a refund if the plane is not full if they let us know in advance.

  Interesting. At the top of that page, they've written

  "Event description: "You are a part of history. NAAFA as invited representatives from Southwest, United, American, Continental, and other airlines to discuss how we can help them better serve our community. Rules of conduct will be available prior to the meeting."

  I will leave it as an excercise for the reader(s) to contemplate what 'rules' the airlines felt they had to have in writing beforehand.
• 1:23AM: Reading more, there's a State of the NAAFA Paper. They apparently have their own jargon. The President, Kara Brewer Allen, who probably bears little or no resemblance to Ann Coulter til around last call, warns the herd against "Feederism", whatever the hell that is.
• 1:26AM: I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable here...

  We LONG to be united! We MUST be united! Healthy choices and lifestyles for ALL PEOPLE People of any SIZE OR SHAPE! NAAFA will be the leading FORCE for all Americans of Size.

  Why did they capitalize "FORCE" like that?
• 1:29AM: I seeeeee...: "Dieting is the leading cause of obesity in the US."
• 1:32AM: Airline Tips for Large Passengers: GATE TRANSPORTATION - It's usually a long walk between curbside check-in and the gate, or between gates when you have connecting flights. When making your reservations, make sure to tell the agent if you will need special services, such as the airport tra m or an armless wheelchair and attendant. I'm beginning to doubt the veracity of that last point about dieting there. Maybe stuffing your face to the point of semi-consciousness, then asking to be wheeled around instead of walking could have something to do with obesity?

Ugh. Enough. Fat people screaming about insensitive treatment. Enjoy being fat, or don't be fat. Unless it's a 'glandular thing', I mean, wink.

Micheal Moore is a real hot potato in American and European Politics. He's the man that gives a voice, not to mention a cherubic, smiling face, to the good side of the American soul. His bucolic, emotional films have earned a special place in the National Conscience, casting that warm light upon family values which makes one feel good about being an American. He fills that void left by such "Golden Years" greats as Norman Rockwell, and Frank Capra.

So it baffles me when I read accounts like this one:

Moore, who attended this week's Republican National Convention as a columnist for USA Today, was greeted by delegates who derided him as a "fat pig." Perhaps they read the book by David Hardy and Jason Clarke, "Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man." Or they came across the suggested slogan for the Web site moorewatch.com "Michael Moore: Putting the vast in vast left-wing conspiracy." ...

The reporter describes the allusions to Moore's husky figure as "...the last acceptable slur in the American arsenal of insults", but I'm sorry: I'm a proud American, and I do not consider this insult acceptable in the least.

I understand how it is when mean-spirited thugs make fun of your body. I understand what Mr. Moore is going through. I, too, have been on the receiving end of personal insults. When I was a teenager, unsure of myself, my body, my own self-worth, the other children would gather in circles and ridicule my enormous, perfectly-shaped penis.

Astonished, giggling 18-year-old girls can be cruel, and creative. Rube McKneehanger they'd call me; Hung-Lo-Rube's Drive-in Noodle Bar; Sir Packs-a-lot; you name it. But through it all, I remained firm, and stood proudly. I salute you Michael Moore, for overcoming such small-minded hatred. I commend you, for sticking it out; as did I all those years ago, oh so many, many times; it takes a tough man to stick to his guns, and endure the insults and derision for almost an entire half a night, while getting paid for an entire week.

Go eat a donut, you whiny-ass tub of goo.

Update: Did I read that correctly? There's a National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance? What the fuck? Google....

One more stereotype that really has me befuddled is coffee. For some reason, everybody thinks Europeans drink a) a lot of coffee, and b) really strong coffee. Let me blow this one out of the water right now. I drink a lot of coffee. Everybody I know in the States drinks a lot of coffee. Europeans? 1 cup. That's it, 1 little cup. In Italy, they only drink one cup, and it's about the size of a shot glass. No refills. No "You wamme to warm that up for ya, Sugar?" Waffle House perks. In Germany, they have some kind of obsession about drinking coffee out of those cappuccino machines. That stuff tastes like thinned-out axle grease, albeit with a hint of nuttiness. Filter coffee is much better. It's smooth, strong-bodied, and actually smells good.

A German boss of mine stopped me in the office cafeteria once, and asked me what I thought of the new cappuccino-style coffee machine he'd just had installed. I told him I hadn't used it, that in the IT department we had our own dripper that we used. He sniffed, then said, "Oh yes, I forgot, you're American. You have no taste." Then walked on. I was miffed for a second. Then realized he was wearing a bright-orange jumpsuit, sandals, yellow sunglasses and, I swear to God, a pith helmet. I figured I'd let it go.

My only co-worker in IT was a Saxon. According to him, Saxons also can't stand the cruddy java that other Germans drink, preferring the manly filter-coffee. Maybe it's because, being East Germans, they appreciate the good things in life that pampered, effete West Germans long taken for granted. Anyway, once the automat was installed in the cafeteria, we absconded with the old dripper, and would have defended it with our lives. I hid it behind the mail server; it was hooked up to the battery backup system, lest the power fail.

Everybody's got something to say about all the other folks in the world. Sometimes it's openly envious. For example, everybody seems to think that the people in other parts of the country tend to be more open and friendly, but maybe a bit shallow. And that's in any country. I've heard it in Germany, New Zealand, England, America, you name it. Bavarians always say that Bavarians are hard to get to know, but once you get to know them, they'll open up to you once and for all; unlike those superficial Rhinelanders. Rhinelanders say the exact same thing, but tend to throw in a bunch of insults about Bavarians being rednecks.

One place there's near-total agreement, however, is on the subject of geography. For some reason, everybody, including Americans, think that the rest of the world spends all their time studying political maps in dog-eared old atlases, committing world capitols and currencies to memory for some mysterious, global Jeopardy match we never get invited to. There's an accepted common knowledge that Americans have no idea where anything is, and are ignorant, arrogant boors.

What utter bullshit. I've lived in Europe for over 5 years now, and in thousands of conversations involving the States, there has never been a single occurence of a European knowing where Atlanta is. They all know Atlanta's in Georgia, somehow, probably from flying through Hartsfield, but not a single one of them has a clue as to where Georgia is. Usually, they think it's on the West Coast. That's America, right? Palm trees and bikini girls? Once they find out it's in the Southeast, they figure it's on the same latitude as, say, Munich. Or maybe Athens? Try Casablanca. Germany doesn't share any latitudes with the United States; except maybe Alaska. I guess

Europeans have absolutely no concept of geography. They plan 1-week road trips in the States, starting in New York, ending in San Francisco. They visit Chicago, and plan on hopping over to Dallas for a day-trip. The U.S., in their minds, seems about as big as Disney World, with a tram between all the major attractions. Of course, when I was 10 I went to Epcot Center and thought I'd just walked through Europe in about a day. But that's different; Epcot actually looks a little bit like Europe, minus the dogshit on the sidewalks.

As Ace succinctly put it:

Was I on crack, or did Zell Miller challenge Chris Matthews to a duel tonight?

Come to think of it, portly Chris Matthews does look a tad like Ned Beatty:

Just goes to show you, don't pick nits with a cracker: Georgia Senator Zell Miller tore Matthews, obnoxious talk-show yapper, the new rectum which he had for so long desperately needed. Nothing irritates an ankle-biting yankee more than a Southern Gentleman who calls his bluff. Although he might have gone a little too far when he suggested settling it with pistols.

Incidentally, it would be the first trans-Mason-Dixon duel in American politics since Vice President Alexander Hamilton was gunned down by Mississippi-born television actor Raymond Burr in the early 19th century, over a woman.

Update

For my German friends and other commies, a little more context: The Republican (conservative) National Convention is going on right now. Zell Miller is a Senator from Georgia. Southern Democrats tend to be more conservative than their cough esteemed colleagues from the Northeast, who've turned their party into the Michael Moore Fan Club. Sen. Miller is an old-school Democrat, which he emphasized last night by quoting the likes of Franklin Roosevelt, and noting the deeds of Roosevelt's successor Harry S. Truman, the last 2 Democratic Presidents who actually accomplished anything. Well, Kennedy did Real Good with the Cuban Missile Crisis. But then there was that Bay of Pigs thing. And, to echo the sentiments of my old boss Ken, I'll never forgive that buck-toothed carpetbagger for dragging us into Viet Nam to clean up France's turdpile. Dickhead.

So anyway, Miller was the Keynote speaker at the convention last night, and gave a humdinger of a speech. Next to his, the speeches of other Democrats seem vague, weak, and despairing. I figure most Dems consider Zell a DINO, but they might want to ask themselves why that is.

It would be nice to have a second party in the US again; maybe some Donks will drop the Blame-America-First hairshirts and Bush==Hitler signs, and get back to being true progressives. Right now, we've just got suits and lunatics to choose from.

I wasn't going to blog today, being against-the-wall with work, and hell-bent on finally sweeping my apartment. An I most certainly was not going to talk like a pirate.

But Jeff Jarvis touched on the one topic that just shivers....me....timbers.

In short, I'll channel John Galt: Buy your own goddamn health insurance and get out of my way!

Let me explain a few things about my social philosophy. Everything you must do is as much oppression as everything you can't do. Every cent you earn that is taken away from you without choice or compensation, is slavery. Every cent you take from someone without their consent, is theft.

Oppression, slavery, theft. These are not words that anybody associates with the United States of America (well some people, maybe), but it's exactly the direction America is headed in. Socialized Health Care is exactly the kind of "slippery slope" into slavery that collectivists use to seduce the masses.

Socialized Health Care is not a "Get-out-of-Death-Free" card. It's mandatory health insurance. It offers nothing that's not already cheaply and widely available to all Americans. The only difference will be that you do not have a choice. The government enjoys controlling people's lives, and they'd like nothing better than to put a gun to your head and say, "You will pay for health insurance, or go to jail". And it will be more expensive owing to bureaucratic overhead, and the inevitable abuse of it by welfare bloodsuckers.

The burden of health care will fall upon productive citizens, to the benefit of the non-productive. In Europe, the aging population and monstrous overhead of entrenched bureaucracy conspire to rob taxpayers of an enormous amount of income. The average tax burden in Germany is close to 70%; and that's not including the enormous taxes included in things like heating costs, and gasoline, which are 3 to 4 times more expensive than in the United States. "Free" health insurance in Germany costs 10-12% of monthly income. If you earn $24,000 per year, expect to pay at least $200 per month just for yourself; i.e., forget about dependents: they cost extra.

Of course, if you don't work, you don't have to pay for your health insurance. That, of course, makes it much more attractive to be unemployed. You can go for years without working, and it involves much less paperwork than either being employed or having employees. A generous unemployment incentive, and a downright scandalous income penalty, discourage financial independence and doom small enterprises to certain failure.

Mandatory, government-enforced health insurance is just another way to generate guilty citizens. Ayn Rand said, "laws were made to be broken, because you cannot control an innocent man." It enrages me to see intelligent men like Mr. Jarvis telling people that the elimination of free will in any matter is beneficial.

That's my premise, now let's look at Mr. Jarvis' points one by one.

All citizens must be insured: If a prosperous society cannot help the sick among us, then what good is the prosperity?

There's that "must" again, sweetened by an appeal to a guilty conscience. "Shame on you for being successful," that sentence says. "How dare you put your own selfish interests before that of the common good". A citizen should have the choice of being insured or not. What good is health insurance to a billionaire? Health insurance costs more than it's worth. Most people never need catastrophic health care. It's there for the case when you will need it, and it's a lovely way to have peace of mind. But in your 20s, you do not need it. A cheap insurance plan with a massive deductible is the most cost-effective way to insure yourself against catastrophic illness or accidents.

Apparently, only the healthy are prosperous in our society. At least that's what I read from this horribly worded argument.

Insurance remains private: Who should run insurance? Government or industry. I say industry. The last thing we need is another inefficient and irksome government bureacracy. We need competition. We need choice.

This sounds fishy to me. First we need to remove people's choice as to whether they'd rather spend their money on cable TV or health insurance. Then suddenly we need choice? I thought we were giving up choice in order to not have to feel bad about boneheads who'd rather have 15 versions of HBO than a sound dental plan?

But who should pay? Think about it: By what logic should should employers have to be the ones who pay for health insurance? What started as a benefit of employment has become an entitlement for many, but then the rest are left out in the cold. Offering health insurance via work makes no sense.

Employers do not have to pay for health insurance. They've historically done it in order to get better employees. The are two main reasons so many companies offer health insurance as a benefit: 1) Due to workplace competition, and 2) Union pressures. Offering health insurance via work makes perfect sense if that will get you better employees. At any rate, an organization or corporation should have the choice of offering health insurance as a benefit.

Who should pay for R&D?: It is similarly illogical that through high drug costs, the sick underwrite R&D for new drugs to cure other diseases they don't have. I don't know how this system works today but it seems logical that government should help underwrite some cost of development -- and then get the benefit for all of us of lower prices for the drugs that result.

Never mind the fact that our current system allows the United States to provide the lion's share of medical breakthroughs. Let's fuck with it.

The paperwork torture must end: Insurance companies are managing costs via harassment, in paperwork and in "managed care." As I understand it, one great thing Canada did was standardize paperwork and bureacracy. With the Internet, it is now possible to standardize and modernize this entire system, from doctor to hospital to pharmacy to insurance company. It reduces the costs considerably for doctors and hospitals (and that should stop some of their complaining) and it reduces the hassle for us, the sick.

Sigh. Yes, let's get the government involved in order to reduce paperwork. Anybody who has never lived under socialized health care will never understand what torture it is to not only arrange your health care, but to be able to prove to the IRS (or equivalent organization) that you are, indeed, paying your fair share of it. Expect an audit everytime you're in the hospital. An accountant becomes an expensive necessity, because nobody understands the tax code over here.

Malpractice should be limited: But the threat of malpractice must remain over the heads of incompetent practitioners. We are still consumers of health care. We reserve the right to go after bad doctors -- protecting fellow consumers from them -- the way we can after bad contractors. And, yes, lawyers must stop being the primary beneficiary of the malpractice system.

We agree here. I'm not exactly sure how this fits into his plan of turning America's health care system into Cuba's, though.

We must grapple with extreme care: I don't want anyone unplugging me and letting me starve or choke to death. No thanks. And I hate seeing old people treated like the leftovers at garage sales. But I also recognize that some care is extreme and costs everyone a great deal of money for buying little hope. Who should set and enforce the standards of what is covered and is not?

UPDATE: TB in the comments raises a good point: People who don't take care of themselves cost the system and us. So how about higher rates for people who not only smoke but, what else?, get fat, don't exercise, don't get preventive tests on a set schedule....

I propose higher rates for: Smokers, drug abusers, homosexuals, people under 30, people over 30, sky divers, bungee jumpers, and alpha types. Of course, in order to assess those at risk, the government will need a big huge database of exactly who the smokers, sky divers, and homosexuals are.

Invest in manufacturers of little pink triangles, for they have a bright future. Why anyone would want to put John Ashcroft in charge of health care, I'll never understand.

Arrrrrrrrrrr.

Notice the title of the page.

"To be accused of being a whore is one thing, but to be accused of being a weblogger is actionable."

For Linux gearheads, the SCO vs. IBM/Hewlett Packard/Torvalds+dog saga is like Ra^thgate, only it's been going on for what seems like years.

A pretty damning appraisal of SCO's claims scrolled by on Slashdot today. Good fun. Hopefully, Slashdot won't get a Bitchdotting, owing to the current traffic of frothing-mad Spaniards flooding my site.

I just found this entry in my travelling journal from 1999.

March 8th, 1999 Brisbane, Australia Our flight from Auckland with Garuda Indonesia was bumpy at the best of times, but I was able to remain calm until the landing; which proved that the Duke Boys in the cockpit were all roaring drunk, which I had suspected all along

Today, I can't imagine how cheap a flight would have to be before I signed on with an Indonesian airline.

Twice in my life have I had the kind of airplane landings that shook the luggage compartments open. Once with Air Garuda, as above. The other time, the airplane actually had to abort the landing and come around for a second try, seeing as the previous plane had failed to leave the runway. Or, so I hear. I was mercifully oblivious to the entire flight, lost in a Percocet/Alcohol wonderland.

Oh, guys, you had me at pidé Pardon.

Some of us have to get some work done here. I can't wait for this thing to be over, one way or ahem the other.

I live in Augsburg, a small city with about 300,000 people in it. According to this article in the local rag (Google Translation), there was some sort of kerfuffle last night between the neo-Nazis (which the Germans call pretty much any Nationalists) and...someone: A bar which is frequented by hard-right political activists got a bit of a Kristallnacht treatment.

Perhaps unrelated, the group believed to be targeted by the firebombing was responsible for stonewalling the building of an Islamic community center in Augsburg in February. The group in question, "National Opposition Alliance", bolstered their credibility recently by naming their Internet site Neu-Schwabenland, and associating themselves with UFOs:

So, if fighting breaks out between Nazis and Islamists, where do the Jews fit into all this?

Via augsburg.blog-city.com

Our friends the spanish...

click for fullsize

For Allah, who unfortunately was quicker than I.

Nous sômmes seulement les americains

Update For Spanish reactions to the El Pais ad, check out these links:

delavegaBlog granermano Escolar.net

Google Translate is your friend.

If anybody ever tells you that the world hates Americans because of Bush or 9/11, just nod knowingly. And spit in their face.

The people who hate Americans now, have always hated Americans; and they likely always will. In fact, they hate everyone. It makes them feel better about their position, and distracts them from the obvious deficiencies they suffer themselves.

I've had, thankfully, just a few run-ins with anti-Americanism over the years since I left the States. The one incident I think of the most, when the subject comes up, was an encounter with someone I refer to as "The Friendly Tourist". Here are my journal entries, starting in Koh Samui, Thailand, in July of 1999.

July 2, 1999 Koh Samui, Thailand

This morning, we were again awoken by the same knuckleheads who had kept us up all night. I drag-assed out of bed like a man who hadn't had a good night's sleep for a week, and took a shower. We went into town and grabbed breakfast at the usual place, then rented a motorbike for the day.

[later that night...]

Afterward, I went to bed, too. The Danish Girls nextdoor were in full voice, and were totally out of hand. They kept falling onto our porch, shaking the whole hut and keeping us awake. I went outside once, to let them know that there was someone in the bungalow. When I'd gone back inside, they started jumping on the porch again, so I opend the door and asked them nicely to stop it. They did, but they still sat outside our bungalow yelling, singging, running the engines on their bikes. Why are Europeans so obnoxious?

July 3, 1999 Koh Samui, Thailand

Well, today got off to a great start. I got to sleep about 3:00 am last night, in spite of the noisy roommates. Then, about 7:30, they started trying to crank a motorbike right outside of our window. I guess they'd never heard of a manual choke before, because tehy'd crank it, rev it up to about 8,000 RPMs, and then it would die. And they'd do it again. This went on and on, and finally, I just got out of bed.

By the time I'd gotten dressed and had gone out onto the porch for a cigarette, they were all gone. They had apparently never gone to bed, and had taken up all the showers, so I sat on the porch brushing my teeth. Then, Mr. Motorbike came back. He pulled up and stopped his bike of front of one of the girls' bungalows, almost killing himself in the process. He had a bamboo water-pipe in his front basket, which he grabbed and took inside the Hut. He came back out and had a puzzled look on his face.

All this time, I was sitting there on the porch of our bungalow, staring at this burn-out and thinking he, and he alone, was to blame for my being out of bed. He saw me and said, Hey, can I have some water?. I was surprised that he was English, and not Danish like the rest of them. I looked at my water-bottle next to me, which had less than an inch of water left in it.

What, you're serious? I asked him.

Did this loser actually think that, after keeping me up all night, and forcing me out of bed at 7:30 in the morning, I was going to give him the last of my water for his bong?

He really went nuts when I told him no. He jumped on his bike, cranked it up, and tried to gun it straight at me. He made it about a yard before it almost dumped, since he'd left the kickstand down. He pointed at the Australian flag-patch on my pants, and slurred, "Is tha' where you come from?"

When I said I was from the U.S., he got right into my face and started yelling that same old shit.

"American? You want to know why everybody hates Americans? It's because you're all a bunch of fookin' pricks, tha's why!"

He walked his scooter closer to me, almost falling over twice, all the while babbling away.

"Everybody fookin' hates Americans, because they're not fookin' friendly!", he continued. "That's why everybody loves the English, because we knows how to be friendly, see?"

He had reached my porch by this time, and he leaned to within about an inch of my face. "That's what I am: I'm a friendly tourist! I'm gonna fookin' rip ya!" he screamed at me. The irony was apparently lost on him.

I just looked at him. It was no use talking. He was so drunk and stoned he wouldn't have listened, and if he'd taken a swing, he probalby would've just falled over or punched himself.

I made a motion to stand up.

"Where you think you're going?", he asked.

"I'm going to put my boots on. Then I'm going to stomp your guts out," I replied.

He defused, or rather postponed, the situation by saying that, since he'd been drinking all night, he was going away, but he'd be back tomorrow 'cause he knows where I live and all that. Then he drove away, almost killing himself by forgetting about the kickstand again. He really wasn't much of a scooter driver.

I was glad when he left. I grabbed my stuff and went to take a shower. Afterward, D_ and I went to the cantina for breakfast, but I wasn't very hungry, then checked out.

On the way out, I saw the Friendly Tourist was back, driving his scooter awkwardly around and being a general nuisance. I went back to the front desk and told them what was going on. Well, actually I told them he was driving around asking for hookers and selling drugs, which, ironically, is frowned upon in rural Thailand. The lady there went out and found the guy and told him to beat feet, with a couple of scary-looking Thai guys not too far away. The Friendly Tourist looked like he was going to argue, but as I walked by I heard that he was almost crying, yeelling about how nobody understood him. Typical drunk-shit.

We quickly grabbed our packs and walked right past the guy, b ut he didn't say a word, just stood there tying not to get bum-rushed. We walked up the sandy main street, until we got to the north end, where all the taxis to Na-Thong were. We brabbed on for 30 baht each, and we were away.

It's photo-ops like this one that reaffirm my belief that, come November, John Kerry is going to be savaged like a hymen on prom night.

Danielle is having a bandwidth drive.

Click here to help her out.

(Note: if you're using Mozilla/Firefox, you'll need to turn off popup-blocking, or temporarily switch to IE for a second, click the link, then wash your hands, gargle with listerine, scrub your skin with a toilet brush, and then repeatedly siphon the filth from your soul with a plunger, à la Ace Ventura, then switch back to Firefox, telling yourself all the while it was for a good cause, and plus, hey, they told you it was art! It'll be our little secret.)

Heh.

For the record I blog exclusively in my pajamas. The baggy red ones with the footies, and the little flap in the back in case you have to go #2. Some of your snootier Internet Cafés don't really like it, but you know...

Here's a little javascript-button I wrote for your toolbar that will popup the BugMeNot Password for the page you're currently viewing.

BugMeNot

In Mozilla/Firefox, just drag it to your Favorites/Bookmarks toolbar. If you reach a registered-only news page, just click the button. In Internet Explorer (which you shouldn't use anyway), right-click the link and choose "Add to Favorites". Popup-blockers like Google Toolbar will interefere with its operation, unfortunately.

Right now, it pops up below the current browser window. Anybody know how to get around that?

Ever since I was a little kid, I've seen swimmies. Those are the little things that swim around in your vision when you look at uniform surface, like a wall or the sky. They look exactly like the little bubbles you see when you look at something under a microscope. Does everybody see those, or is it just me?

It's gotten pretty bad lately; not only are the little amoebae running around, but there's little sparks that show up and go around in circles. Maybe it's because I used to sit around in the dark and poke my eyelids so I could see the pretty lights. We were too poor for real firecrackers, I guess.

The lights you see when you push your eyeballs are called phosphenes, by the way. I'm not sure why I know that.

It's easy to miss hidden meanings in the information stream. News photographers consider themselves artists, and try to frame their subjects to convey as much meaning as possible within a single photograph.

For example, someone did a study of the number of "halos" there seemed to be hidden in the photos of the campaign trail. I really need a link to that, since it's kind of hard to explain. The photographers often try to arrange themselves and the subject so that some kind of circle is behind their head, simulating a halo, as in this picture of Howard Dean:

So I wondered what the hell the guys in the newsroom were trying to tell us with this weird-ass picture of Kerry from last week:

Until, of course I remembered what the POW*MIA flag looked like. Unbelievably, the Kerry campaign seems to want to associate itself even more with the Vietnam War than it already has, which is almost completely. They should probably stay away from the whole POW angle; the Viet Cong actually used Kerry's "Winter Soldier" testimony to torture American POW's, after all.

What a jackass.

Oh, how terribly sweet.

Sure when he does it, they think it's cute. But when I do it, suddenly it's a "misdemeanor".

Via Maura

Bloggers hit the big time over the weekend. Rathergate broke on Free Republic, picked up by Powerline, and was beautifully driven home by Charles Johnson over on LFG.

So, now both Powerline and Charles are on the radio, making pajama jokes and making like bigshots.

I used to be on the radio, back when I was but a little Rubeling. We played early 80's music, even though it hadn't been out-of-style long enough to have been cool yet. They kicked me off because I got piss-drunk on Jim Beam on-air, and launched into a 10-minute soliloquy about Skylarking.

Coolness under pressure has never really been my strong point. It's probably a good thing that nobody called me to be on the radio. I would probably embarrass, nay, completely discredit the entire blogosphere I do so love, by showing up drunk and doing one of those I-love-you-man things in front of God and everybody.

In October, the murderous, savage followers of Mohammed will be holding a conference in Berlin. The focus of this conference is to plan the undermining of their host countries in Europe, and the destruction of Israel and the United States.

The purpose of Muslims everywhere is to establish a caliphate, covering the entire Earth. Non-believers will be treated as slaves; except for Jews, who will be slaughtered like animals. They don't even bother hiding it anymore.

LFG's Charles Johnson is claiming he got 100,000 visitors yesterday. I think I got 2, and they were both me.

I thought I dodged a bullet yesterday. I posted my entry, Never Forgive, and went about my business. But today, I watched a documentary about September 11. I'm not the crying type. I cry about once every 20 years. But today, I could've cried. I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry for the firefighters, for the widows, for Rudy Giuliani, for the world and what's happened to it. I choked back the tears, and played it Cagney like I did three years ago.

But I want to cry. Today, I wanted to sink my head into my girlfriend's shoulder and let the tears flow, and scream. A world died that day, and another world signed its own death warrant. Other people have more reason to cry than I do, and I shall not cheapen their sorrow.

When no one's looking, and all doors are closed, tonight, I shall cry for the people who died on September 11, 2001. I didn't understand, and I'm so sorry. God, I'm so sorry.

I'm finally crying.

I received a nice compliment today, by way of comments. But after clicking through and reading Flashman's stuff, I have to assume he's mocking me. This guy writes his ass off.

Read it.

Some days are just a total wash. I slept until 2 P.M., then I sat around the apartment reading blogs all afternoon. Now, at 1:30 in the morning, I'm drinking a beer and reading blogs again. At some point, I think I went to the can, but that's pure speculation. It's all been a blur.

Today was an in-betweener. A tween, morphing between the hightoned days of the RNC convention, then the Beslan massacre, and whatever busload of schoolchildren crazed Muslims blow up tomorrow. But today, there's nothing. My entertainment providers are focusing on Kerry trivialities or their cats instead of the right-wing hate-speech I need.

What to do, what to do. I could post a picture of Jones. Ok, here's Jones as a little child-cat:

Awww, my widdle buddy!

To see what Jones looks like today (10 years later), look here.

There's a Turkish guy beating up his wife outside my window. I would say something, but , well, you know.

Live-blogging of Rube losing absolutely all the faith in humanity that remained in his shrivelled, black little heart. (brought to you by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance)

Ok, let's get started.

• 1:10AM: Here is an interesting Q & A between American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and a bunch of fat people (with pic!). Excerpt:

  Question: If two fat passengers fly together, can they buy three seats between them? Southwest: No. Both must buy two seats. They may get a refund if the plane is not full if they let us know in advance.

  Interesting. At the top of that page, they've written

  "Event description: "You are a part of history. NAAFA as invited representatives from Southwest, United, American, Continental, and other airlines to discuss how we can help them better serve our community. Rules of conduct will be available prior to the meeting."

  I will leave it as an excercise for the reader(s) to contemplate what 'rules' the airlines felt they had to have in writing beforehand.
• 1:23AM: Reading more, there's a State of the NAAFA Paper. They apparently have their own jargon. The President, Kara Brewer Allen, who probably bears little or no resemblance to Ann Coulter til around last call, warns the herd against "Feederism", whatever the hell that is.
• 1:26AM: I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable here...

  We LONG to be united! We MUST be united! Healthy choices and lifestyles for ALL PEOPLE People of any SIZE OR SHAPE! NAAFA will be the leading FORCE for all Americans of Size.

  Why did they capitalize "FORCE" like that?
• 1:29AM: I seeeeee...: "Dieting is the leading cause of obesity in the US."
• 1:32AM: Airline Tips for Large Passengers: GATE TRANSPORTATION - It's usually a long walk between curbside check-in and the gate, or between gates when you have connecting flights. When making your reservations, make sure to tell the agent if you will need special services, such as the airport tra m or an armless wheelchair and attendant. I'm beginning to doubt the veracity of that last point about dieting there. Maybe stuffing your face to the point of semi-consciousness, then asking to be wheeled around instead of walking could have something to do with obesity?

Ugh. Enough. Fat people screaming about insensitive treatment. Enjoy being fat, or don't be fat. Unless it's a 'glandular thing', I mean, wink.

Micheal Moore is a real hot potato in American and European Politics. He's the man that gives a voice, not to mention a cherubic, smiling face, to the good side of the American soul. His bucolic, emotional films have earned a special place in the National Conscience, casting that warm light upon family values which makes one feel good about being an American. He fills that void left by such "Golden Years" greats as Norman Rockwell, and Frank Capra.

So it baffles me when I read accounts like this one:

Moore, who attended this week's Republican National Convention as a columnist for USA Today, was greeted by delegates who derided him as a "fat pig." Perhaps they read the book by David Hardy and Jason Clarke, "Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man." Or they came across the suggested slogan for the Web site moorewatch.com "Michael Moore: Putting the vast in vast left-wing conspiracy." ...

The reporter describes the allusions to Moore's husky figure as "...the last acceptable slur in the American arsenal of insults", but I'm sorry: I'm a proud American, and I do not consider this insult acceptable in the least.

I understand how it is when mean-spirited thugs make fun of your body. I understand what Mr. Moore is going through. I, too, have been on the receiving end of personal insults. When I was a teenager, unsure of myself, my body, my own self-worth, the other children would gather in circles and ridicule my enormous, perfectly-shaped penis.

Astonished, giggling 18-year-old girls can be cruel, and creative. Rube McKneehanger they'd call me; Hung-Lo-Rube's Drive-in Noodle Bar; Sir Packs-a-lot; you name it. But through it all, I remained firm, and stood proudly. I salute you Michael Moore, for overcoming such small-minded hatred. I commend you, for sticking it out; as did I all those years ago, oh so many, many times; it takes a tough man to stick to his guns, and endure the insults and derision for almost an entire half a night, while getting paid for an entire week.

Go eat a donut, you whiny-ass tub of goo.

Update: Did I read that correctly? There's a National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance? What the fuck? Google....

One more stereotype that really has me befuddled is coffee. For some reason, everybody thinks Europeans drink a) a lot of coffee, and b) really strong coffee. Let me blow this one out of the water right now. I drink a lot of coffee. Everybody I know in the States drinks a lot of coffee. Europeans? 1 cup. That's it, 1 little cup. In Italy, they only drink one cup, and it's about the size of a shot glass. No refills. No "You wamme to warm that up for ya, Sugar?" Waffle House perks. In Germany, they have some kind of obsession about drinking coffee out of those cappuccino machines. That stuff tastes like thinned-out axle grease, albeit with a hint of nuttiness. Filter coffee is much better. It's smooth, strong-bodied, and actually smells good.

A German boss of mine stopped me in the office cafeteria once, and asked me what I thought of the new cappuccino-style coffee machine he'd just had installed. I told him I hadn't used it, that in the IT department we had our own dripper that we used. He sniffed, then said, "Oh yes, I forgot, you're American. You have no taste." Then walked on. I was miffed for a second. Then realized he was wearing a bright-orange jumpsuit, sandals, yellow sunglasses and, I swear to God, a pith helmet. I figured I'd let it go.

My only co-worker in IT was a Saxon. According to him, Saxons also can't stand the cruddy java that other Germans drink, preferring the manly filter-coffee. Maybe it's because, being East Germans, they appreciate the good things in life that pampered, effete West Germans long taken for granted. Anyway, once the automat was installed in the cafeteria, we absconded with the old dripper, and would have defended it with our lives. I hid it behind the mail server; it was hooked up to the battery backup system, lest the power fail.

Everybody's got something to say about all the other folks in the world. Sometimes it's openly envious. For example, everybody seems to think that the people in other parts of the country tend to be more open and friendly, but maybe a bit shallow. And that's in any country. I've heard it in Germany, New Zealand, England, America, you name it. Bavarians always say that Bavarians are hard to get to know, but once you get to know them, they'll open up to you once and for all; unlike those superficial Rhinelanders. Rhinelanders say the exact same thing, but tend to throw in a bunch of insults about Bavarians being rednecks.

One place there's near-total agreement, however, is on the subject of geography. For some reason, everybody, including Americans, think that the rest of the world spends all their time studying political maps in dog-eared old atlases, committing world capitols and currencies to memory for some mysterious, global Jeopardy match we never get invited to. There's an accepted common knowledge that Americans have no idea where anything is, and are ignorant, arrogant boors.

What utter bullshit. I've lived in Europe for over 5 years now, and in thousands of conversations involving the States, there has never been a single occurence of a European knowing where Atlanta is. They all know Atlanta's in Georgia, somehow, probably from flying through Hartsfield, but not a single one of them has a clue as to where Georgia is. Usually, they think it's on the West Coast. That's America, right? Palm trees and bikini girls? Once they find out it's in the Southeast, they figure it's on the same latitude as, say, Munich. Or maybe Athens? Try Casablanca. Germany doesn't share any latitudes with the United States; except maybe Alaska. I guess

Europeans have absolutely no concept of geography. They plan 1-week road trips in the States, starting in New York, ending in San Francisco. They visit Chicago, and plan on hopping over to Dallas for a day-trip. The U.S., in their minds, seems about as big as Disney World, with a tram between all the major attractions. Of course, when I was 10 I went to Epcot Center and thought I'd just walked through Europe in about a day. But that's different; Epcot actually looks a little bit like Europe, minus the dogshit on the sidewalks.

As Ace succinctly put it:

Was I on crack, or did Zell Miller challenge Chris Matthews to a duel tonight?

Come to think of it, portly Chris Matthews does look a tad like Ned Beatty:

Just goes to show you, don't pick nits with a cracker: Georgia Senator Zell Miller tore Matthews, obnoxious talk-show yapper, the new rectum which he had for so long desperately needed. Nothing irritates an ankle-biting yankee more than a Southern Gentleman who calls his bluff. Although he might have gone a little too far when he suggested settling it with pistols.

Incidentally, it would be the first trans-Mason-Dixon duel in American politics since Vice President Alexander Hamilton was gunned down by Mississippi-born television actor Raymond Burr in the early 19th century, over a woman.

Update

For my German friends and other commies, a little more context: The Republican (conservative) National Convention is going on right now. Zell Miller is a Senator from Georgia. Southern Democrats tend to be more conservative than their cough esteemed colleagues from the Northeast, who've turned their party into the Michael Moore Fan Club. Sen. Miller is an old-school Democrat, which he emphasized last night by quoting the likes of Franklin Roosevelt, and noting the deeds of Roosevelt's successor Harry S. Truman, the last 2 Democratic Presidents who actually accomplished anything. Well, Kennedy did Real Good with the Cuban Missile Crisis. But then there was that Bay of Pigs thing. And, to echo the sentiments of my old boss Ken, I'll never forgive that buck-toothed carpetbagger for dragging us into Viet Nam to clean up France's turdpile. Dickhead.

So anyway, Miller was the Keynote speaker at the convention last night, and gave a humdinger of a speech. Next to his, the speeches of other Democrats seem vague, weak, and despairing. I figure most Dems consider Zell a DINO, but they might want to ask themselves why that is.

It would be nice to have a second party in the US again; maybe some Donks will drop the Blame-America-First hairshirts and Bush==Hitler signs, and get back to being true progressives. Right now, we've just got suits and lunatics to choose from.

I wasn't going to blog today, being against-the-wall with work, and hell-bent on finally sweeping my apartment. An I most certainly was not going to talk like a pirate.

But Jeff Jarvis touched on the one topic that just shivers....me....timbers.

In short, I'll channel John Galt: Buy your own goddamn health insurance and get out of my way!

Let me explain a few things about my social philosophy. Everything you must do is as much oppression as everything you can't do. Every cent you earn that is taken away from you without choice or compensation, is slavery. Every cent you take from someone without their consent, is theft.

Oppression, slavery, theft. These are not words that anybody associates with the United States of America (well some people, maybe), but it's exactly the direction America is headed in. Socialized Health Care is exactly the kind of "slippery slope" into slavery that collectivists use to seduce the masses.

Socialized Health Care is not a "Get-out-of-Death-Free" card. It's mandatory health insurance. It offers nothing that's not already cheaply and widely available to all Americans. The only difference will be that you do not have a choice. The government enjoys controlling people's lives, and they'd like nothing better than to put a gun to your head and say, "You will pay for health insurance, or go to jail". And it will be more expensive owing to bureaucratic overhead, and the inevitable abuse of it by welfare bloodsuckers.

The burden of health care will fall upon productive citizens, to the benefit of the non-productive. In Europe, the aging population and monstrous overhead of entrenched bureaucracy conspire to rob taxpayers of an enormous amount of income. The average tax burden in Germany is close to 70%; and that's not including the enormous taxes included in things like heating costs, and gasoline, which are 3 to 4 times more expensive than in the United States. "Free" health insurance in Germany costs 10-12% of monthly income. If you earn $24,000 per year, expect to pay at least $200 per month just for yourself; i.e., forget about dependents: they cost extra.

Of course, if you don't work, you don't have to pay for your health insurance. That, of course, makes it much more attractive to be unemployed. You can go for years without working, and it involves much less paperwork than either being employed or having employees. A generous unemployment incentive, and a downright scandalous income penalty, discourage financial independence and doom small enterprises to certain failure.

Mandatory, government-enforced health insurance is just another way to generate guilty citizens. Ayn Rand said, "laws were made to be broken, because you cannot control an innocent man." It enrages me to see intelligent men like Mr. Jarvis telling people that the elimination of free will in any matter is beneficial.

That's my premise, now let's look at Mr. Jarvis' points one by one.

All citizens must be insured: If a prosperous society cannot help the sick among us, then what good is the prosperity?

There's that "must" again, sweetened by an appeal to a guilty conscience. "Shame on you for being successful," that sentence says. "How dare you put your own selfish interests before that of the common good". A citizen should have the choice of being insured or not. What good is health insurance to a billionaire? Health insurance costs more than it's worth. Most people never need catastrophic health care. It's there for the case when you will need it, and it's a lovely way to have peace of mind. But in your 20s, you do not need it. A cheap insurance plan with a massive deductible is the most cost-effective way to insure yourself against catastrophic illness or accidents.

Apparently, only the healthy are prosperous in our society. At least that's what I read from this horribly worded argument.

Insurance remains private: Who should run insurance? Government or industry. I say industry. The last thing we need is another inefficient and irksome government bureacracy. We need competition. We need choice.

This sounds fishy to me. First we need to remove people's choice as to whether they'd rather spend their money on cable TV or health insurance. Then suddenly we need choice? I thought we were giving up choice in order to not have to feel bad about boneheads who'd rather have 15 versions of HBO than a sound dental plan?

But who should pay? Think about it: By what logic should should employers have to be the ones who pay for health insurance? What started as a benefit of employment has become an entitlement for many, but then the rest are left out in the cold. Offering health insurance via work makes no sense.

Employers do not have to pay for health insurance. They've historically done it in order to get better employees. The are two main reasons so many companies offer health insurance as a benefit: 1) Due to workplace competition, and 2) Union pressures. Offering health insurance via work makes perfect sense if that will get you better employees. At any rate, an organization or corporation should have the choice of offering health insurance as a benefit.

Who should pay for R&D?: It is similarly illogical that through high drug costs, the sick underwrite R&D for new drugs to cure other diseases they don't have. I don't know how this system works today but it seems logical that government should help underwrite some cost of development -- and then get the benefit for all of us of lower prices for the drugs that result.

Never mind the fact that our current system allows the United States to provide the lion's share of medical breakthroughs. Let's fuck with it.

The paperwork torture must end: Insurance companies are managing costs via harassment, in paperwork and in "managed care." As I understand it, one great thing Canada did was standardize paperwork and bureacracy. With the Internet, it is now possible to standardize and modernize this entire system, from doctor to hospital to pharmacy to insurance company. It reduces the costs considerably for doctors and hospitals (and that should stop some of their complaining) and it reduces the hassle for us, the sick.

Sigh. Yes, let's get the government involved in order to reduce paperwork. Anybody who has never lived under socialized health care will never understand what torture it is to not only arrange your health care, but to be able to prove to the IRS (or equivalent organization) that you are, indeed, paying your fair share of it. Expect an audit everytime you're in the hospital. An accountant becomes an expensive necessity, because nobody understands the tax code over here.

Malpractice should be limited: But the threat of malpractice must remain over the heads of incompetent practitioners. We are still consumers of health care. We reserve the right to go after bad doctors -- protecting fellow consumers from them -- the way we can after bad contractors. And, yes, lawyers must stop being the primary beneficiary of the malpractice system.

We agree here. I'm not exactly sure how this fits into his plan of turning America's health care system into Cuba's, though.

We must grapple with extreme care: I don't want anyone unplugging me and letting me starve or choke to death. No thanks. And I hate seeing old people treated like the leftovers at garage sales. But I also recognize that some care is extreme and costs everyone a great deal of money for buying little hope. Who should set and enforce the standards of what is covered and is not?

UPDATE: TB in the comments raises a good point: People who don't take care of themselves cost the system and us. So how about higher rates for people who not only smoke but, what else?, get fat, don't exercise, don't get preventive tests on a set schedule....

I propose higher rates for: Smokers, drug abusers, homosexuals, people under 30, people over 30, sky divers, bungee jumpers, and alpha types. Of course, in order to assess those at risk, the government will need a big huge database of exactly who the smokers, sky divers, and homosexuals are.

Invest in manufacturers of little pink triangles, for they have a bright future. Why anyone would want to put John Ashcroft in charge of health care, I'll never understand.

Arrrrrrrrrrr.

Notice the title of the page.

"To be accused of being a whore is one thing, but to be accused of being a weblogger is actionable."

For Linux gearheads, the SCO vs. IBM/Hewlett Packard/Torvalds+dog saga is like Ra^thgate, only it's been going on for what seems like years.

A pretty damning appraisal of SCO's claims scrolled by on Slashdot today. Good fun. Hopefully, Slashdot won't get a Bitchdotting, owing to the current traffic of frothing-mad Spaniards flooding my site.

I just found this entry in my travelling journal from 1999.

March 8th, 1999 Brisbane, Australia Our flight from Auckland with Garuda Indonesia was bumpy at the best of times, but I was able to remain calm until the landing; which proved that the Duke Boys in the cockpit were all roaring drunk, which I had suspected all along

Today, I can't imagine how cheap a flight would have to be before I signed on with an Indonesian airline.

Twice in my life have I had the kind of airplane landings that shook the luggage compartments open. Once with Air Garuda, as above. The other time, the airplane actually had to abort the landing and come around for a second try, seeing as the previous plane had failed to leave the runway. Or, so I hear. I was mercifully oblivious to the entire flight, lost in a Percocet/Alcohol wonderland.

Oh, guys, you had me at pidé Pardon.

Some of us have to get some work done here. I can't wait for this thing to be over, one way or ahem the other.

I live in Augsburg, a small city with about 300,000 people in it. According to this article in the local rag (Google Translation), there was some sort of kerfuffle last night between the neo-Nazis (which the Germans call pretty much any Nationalists) and...someone: A bar which is frequented by hard-right political activists got a bit of a Kristallnacht treatment.

Perhaps unrelated, the group believed to be targeted by the firebombing was responsible for stonewalling the building of an Islamic community center in Augsburg in February. The group in question, "National Opposition Alliance", bolstered their credibility recently by naming their Internet site Neu-Schwabenland, and associating themselves with UFOs:

So, if fighting breaks out between Nazis and Islamists, where do the Jews fit into all this?

Via augsburg.blog-city.com

Our friends the spanish...

click for fullsize

For Allah, who unfortunately was quicker than I.

Nous sômmes seulement les americains

Update For Spanish reactions to the El Pais ad, check out these links:

delavegaBlog granermano Escolar.net

Google Translate is your friend.

If anybody ever tells you that the world hates Americans because of Bush or 9/11, just nod knowingly. And spit in their face.

The people who hate Americans now, have always hated Americans; and they likely always will. In fact, they hate everyone. It makes them feel better about their position, and distracts them from the obvious deficiencies they suffer themselves.

I've had, thankfully, just a few run-ins with anti-Americanism over the years since I left the States. The one incident I think of the most, when the subject comes up, was an encounter with someone I refer to as "The Friendly Tourist". Here are my journal entries, starting in Koh Samui, Thailand, in July of 1999.

July 2, 1999 Koh Samui, Thailand

This morning, we were again awoken by the same knuckleheads who had kept us up all night. I drag-assed out of bed like a man who hadn't had a good night's sleep for a week, and took a shower. We went into town and grabbed breakfast at the usual place, then rented a motorbike for the day.

[later that night...]

Afterward, I went to bed, too. The Danish Girls nextdoor were in full voice, and were totally out of hand. They kept falling onto our porch, shaking the whole hut and keeping us awake. I went outside once, to let them know that there was someone in the bungalow. When I'd gone back inside, they started jumping on the porch again, so I opend the door and asked them nicely to stop it. They did, but they still sat outside our bungalow yelling, singging, running the engines on their bikes. Why are Europeans so obnoxious?

July 3, 1999 Koh Samui, Thailand

Well, today got off to a great start. I got to sleep about 3:00 am last night, in spite of the noisy roommates. Then, about 7:30, they started trying to crank a motorbike right outside of our window. I guess they'd never heard of a manual choke before, because tehy'd crank it, rev it up to about 8,000 RPMs, and then it would die. And they'd do it again. This went on and on, and finally, I just got out of bed.

By the time I'd gotten dressed and had gone out onto the porch for a cigarette, they were all gone. They had apparently never gone to bed, and had taken up all the showers, so I sat on the porch brushing my teeth. Then, Mr. Motorbike came back. He pulled up and stopped his bike of front of one of the girls' bungalows, almost killing himself in the process. He had a bamboo water-pipe in his front basket, which he grabbed and took inside the Hut. He came back out and had a puzzled look on his face.

All this time, I was sitting there on the porch of our bungalow, staring at this burn-out and thinking he, and he alone, was to blame for my being out of bed. He saw me and said, Hey, can I have some water?. I was surprised that he was English, and not Danish like the rest of them. I looked at my water-bottle next to me, which had less than an inch of water left in it.

What, you're serious? I asked him.

Did this loser actually think that, after keeping me up all night, and forcing me out of bed at 7:30 in the morning, I was going to give him the last of my water for his bong?

He really went nuts when I told him no. He jumped on his bike, cranked it up, and tried to gun it straight at me. He made it about a yard before it almost dumped, since he'd left the kickstand down. He pointed at the Australian flag-patch on my pants, and slurred, "Is tha' where you come from?"

When I said I was from the U.S., he got right into my face and started yelling that same old shit.

"American? You want to know why everybody hates Americans? It's because you're all a bunch of fookin' pricks, tha's why!"

He walked his scooter closer to me, almost falling over twice, all the while babbling away.

"Everybody fookin' hates Americans, because they're not fookin' friendly!", he continued. "That's why everybody loves the English, because we knows how to be friendly, see?"

He had reached my porch by this time, and he leaned to within about an inch of my face. "That's what I am: I'm a friendly tourist! I'm gonna fookin' rip ya!" he screamed at me. The irony was apparently lost on him.

I just looked at him. It was no use talking. He was so drunk and stoned he wouldn't have listened, and if he'd taken a swing, he probalby would've just falled over or punched himself.

I made a motion to stand up.

"Where you think you're going?", he asked.

"I'm going to put my boots on. Then I'm going to stomp your guts out," I replied.

He defused, or rather postponed, the situation by saying that, since he'd been drinking all night, he was going away, but he'd be back tomorrow 'cause he knows where I live and all that. Then he drove away, almost killing himself by forgetting about the kickstand again. He really wasn't much of a scooter driver.

I was glad when he left. I grabbed my stuff and went to take a shower. Afterward, D_ and I went to the cantina for breakfast, but I wasn't very hungry, then checked out.

On the way out, I saw the Friendly Tourist was back, driving his scooter awkwardly around and being a general nuisance. I went back to the front desk and told them what was going on. Well, actually I told them he was driving around asking for hookers and selling drugs, which, ironically, is frowned upon in rural Thailand. The lady there went out and found the guy and told him to beat feet, with a couple of scary-looking Thai guys not too far away. The Friendly Tourist looked like he was going to argue, but as I walked by I heard that he was almost crying, yeelling about how nobody understood him. Typical drunk-shit.

We quickly grabbed our packs and walked right past the guy, b ut he didn't say a word, just stood there tying not to get bum-rushed. We walked up the sandy main street, until we got to the north end, where all the taxis to Na-Thong were. We brabbed on for 30 baht each, and we were away.

It's photo-ops like this one that reaffirm my belief that, come November, John Kerry is going to be savaged like a hymen on prom night.

Danielle is having a bandwidth drive.

Click here to help her out.

(Note: if you're using Mozilla/Firefox, you'll need to turn off popup-blocking, or temporarily switch to IE for a second, click the link, then wash your hands, gargle with listerine, scrub your skin with a toilet brush, and then repeatedly siphon the filth from your soul with a plunger, à la Ace Ventura, then switch back to Firefox, telling yourself all the while it was for a good cause, and plus, hey, they told you it was art! It'll be our little secret.)

Heh.

For the record I blog exclusively in my pajamas. The baggy red ones with the footies, and the little flap in the back in case you have to go #2. Some of your snootier Internet Cafés don't really like it, but you know...

Here's a little javascript-button I wrote for your toolbar that will popup the BugMeNot Password for the page you're currently viewing.

BugMeNot

In Mozilla/Firefox, just drag it to your Favorites/Bookmarks toolbar. If you reach a registered-only news page, just click the button. In Internet Explorer (which you shouldn't use anyway), right-click the link and choose "Add to Favorites". Popup-blockers like Google Toolbar will interefere with its operation, unfortunately.

Right now, it pops up below the current browser window. Anybody know how to get around that?

Ever since I was a little kid, I've seen swimmies. Those are the little things that swim around in your vision when you look at uniform surface, like a wall or the sky. They look exactly like the little bubbles you see when you look at something under a microscope. Does everybody see those, or is it just me?

It's gotten pretty bad lately; not only are the little amoebae running around, but there's little sparks that show up and go around in circles. Maybe it's because I used to sit around in the dark and poke my eyelids so I could see the pretty lights. We were too poor for real firecrackers, I guess.

The lights you see when you push your eyeballs are called phosphenes, by the way. I'm not sure why I know that.

It's easy to miss hidden meanings in the information stream. News photographers consider themselves artists, and try to frame their subjects to convey as much meaning as possible within a single photograph.

For example, someone did a study of the number of "halos" there seemed to be hidden in the photos of the campaign trail. I really need a link to that, since it's kind of hard to explain. The photographers often try to arrange themselves and the subject so that some kind of circle is behind their head, simulating a halo, as in this picture of Howard Dean:

So I wondered what the hell the guys in the newsroom were trying to tell us with this weird-ass picture of Kerry from last week:

Until, of course I remembered what the POW*MIA flag looked like. Unbelievably, the Kerry campaign seems to want to associate itself even more with the Vietnam War than it already has, which is almost completely. They should probably stay away from the whole POW angle; the Viet Cong actually used Kerry's "Winter Soldier" testimony to torture American POW's, after all.

What a jackass.

Oh, how terribly sweet.

Sure when he does it, they think it's cute. But when I do it, suddenly it's a "misdemeanor".

Via Maura

Bloggers hit the big time over the weekend. Rathergate broke on Free Republic, picked up by Powerline, and was beautifully driven home by Charles Johnson over on LFG.

So, now both Powerline and Charles are on the radio, making pajama jokes and making like bigshots.

I used to be on the radio, back when I was but a little Rubeling. We played early 80's music, even though it hadn't been out-of-style long enough to have been cool yet. They kicked me off because I got piss-drunk on Jim Beam on-air, and launched into a 10-minute soliloquy about Skylarking.

Coolness under pressure has never really been my strong point. It's probably a good thing that nobody called me to be on the radio. I would probably embarrass, nay, completely discredit the entire blogosphere I do so love, by showing up drunk and doing one of those I-love-you-man things in front of God and everybody.

In October, the murderous, savage followers of Mohammed will be holding a conference in Berlin. The focus of this conference is to plan the undermining of their host countries in Europe, and the destruction of Israel and the United States.

The purpose of Muslims everywhere is to establish a caliphate, covering the entire Earth. Non-believers will be treated as slaves; except for Jews, who will be slaughtered like animals. They don't even bother hiding it anymore.

LFG's Charles Johnson is claiming he got 100,000 visitors yesterday. I think I got 2, and they were both me.

I thought I dodged a bullet yesterday. I posted my entry, Never Forgive, and went about my business. But today, I watched a documentary about September 11. I'm not the crying type. I cry about once every 20 years. But today, I could've cried. I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry for the firefighters, for the widows, for Rudy Giuliani, for the world and what's happened to it. I choked back the tears, and played it Cagney like I did three years ago.

But I want to cry. Today, I wanted to sink my head into my girlfriend's shoulder and let the tears flow, and scream. A world died that day, and another world signed its own death warrant. Other people have more reason to cry than I do, and I shall not cheapen their sorrow.

When no one's looking, and all doors are closed, tonight, I shall cry for the people who died on September 11, 2001. I didn't understand, and I'm so sorry. God, I'm so sorry.

I'm finally crying.

I received a nice compliment today, by way of comments. But after clicking through and reading Flashman's stuff, I have to assume he's mocking me. This guy writes his ass off.

Read it.

Some days are just a total wash. I slept until 2 P.M., then I sat around the apartment reading blogs all afternoon. Now, at 1:30 in the morning, I'm drinking a beer and reading blogs again. At some point, I think I went to the can, but that's pure speculation. It's all been a blur.

Today was an in-betweener. A tween, morphing between the hightoned days of the RNC convention, then the Beslan massacre, and whatever busload of schoolchildren crazed Muslims blow up tomorrow. But today, there's nothing. My entertainment providers are focusing on Kerry trivialities or their cats instead of the right-wing hate-speech I need.

What to do, what to do. I could post a picture of Jones. Ok, here's Jones as a little child-cat:

Awww, my widdle buddy!

To see what Jones looks like today (10 years later), look here.

There's a Turkish guy beating up his wife outside my window. I would say something, but , well, you know.

Live-blogging of Rube losing absolutely all the faith in humanity that remained in his shrivelled, black little heart. (brought to you by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance)

Ok, let's get started.

• 1:10AM: Here is an interesting Q & A between American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and a bunch of fat people (with pic!). Excerpt:

  Question: If two fat passengers fly together, can they buy three seats between them? Southwest: No. Both must buy two seats. They may get a refund if the plane is not full if they let us know in advance.

  Interesting. At the top of that page, they've written

  "Event description: "You are a part of history. NAAFA as invited representatives from Southwest, United, American, Continental, and other airlines to discuss how we can help them better serve our community. Rules of conduct will be available prior to the meeting."

  I will leave it as an excercise for the reader(s) to contemplate what 'rules' the airlines felt they had to have in writing beforehand.
• 1:23AM: Reading more, there's a State of the NAAFA Paper. They apparently have their own jargon. The President, Kara Brewer Allen, who probably bears little or no resemblance to Ann Coulter til around last call, warns the herd against "Feederism", whatever the hell that is.
• 1:26AM: I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable here...

  We LONG to be united! We MUST be united! Healthy choices and lifestyles for ALL PEOPLE People of any SIZE OR SHAPE! NAAFA will be the leading FORCE for all Americans of Size.

  Why did they capitalize "FORCE" like that?
• 1:29AM: I seeeeee...: "Dieting is the leading cause of obesity in the US."
• 1:32AM: Airline Tips for Large Passengers: GATE TRANSPORTATION - It's usually a long walk between curbside check-in and the gate, or between gates when you have connecting flights. When making your reservations, make sure to tell the agent if you will need special services, such as the airport tra m or an armless wheelchair and attendant. I'm beginning to doubt the veracity of that last point about dieting there. Maybe stuffing your face to the point of semi-consciousness, then asking to be wheeled around instead of walking could have something to do with obesity?

Ugh. Enough. Fat people screaming about insensitive treatment. Enjoy being fat, or don't be fat. Unless it's a 'glandular thing', I mean, wink.

Micheal Moore is a real hot potato in American and European Politics. He's the man that gives a voice, not to mention a cherubic, smiling face, to the good side of the American soul. His bucolic, emotional films have earned a special place in the National Conscience, casting that warm light upon family values which makes one feel good about being an American. He fills that void left by such "Golden Years" greats as Norman Rockwell, and Frank Capra.

So it baffles me when I read accounts like this one:

Moore, who attended this week's Republican National Convention as a columnist for USA Today, was greeted by delegates who derided him as a "fat pig." Perhaps they read the book by David Hardy and Jason Clarke, "Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man." Or they came across the suggested slogan for the Web site moorewatch.com "Michael Moore: Putting the vast in vast left-wing conspiracy." ...

The reporter describes the allusions to Moore's husky figure as "...the last acceptable slur in the American arsenal of insults", but I'm sorry: I'm a proud American, and I do not consider this insult acceptable in the least.

I understand how it is when mean-spirited thugs make fun of your body. I understand what Mr. Moore is going through. I, too, have been on the receiving end of personal insults. When I was a teenager, unsure of myself, my body, my own self-worth, the other children would gather in circles and ridicule my enormous, perfectly-shaped penis.

Astonished, giggling 18-year-old girls can be cruel, and creative. Rube McKneehanger they'd call me; Hung-Lo-Rube's Drive-in Noodle Bar; Sir Packs-a-lot; you name it. But through it all, I remained firm, and stood proudly. I salute you Michael Moore, for overcoming such small-minded hatred. I commend you, for sticking it out; as did I all those years ago, oh so many, many times; it takes a tough man to stick to his guns, and endure the insults and derision for almost an entire half a night, while getting paid for an entire week.

Go eat a donut, you whiny-ass tub of goo.

Update: Did I read that correctly? There's a National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance? What the fuck? Google....

One more stereotype that really has me befuddled is coffee. For some reason, everybody thinks Europeans drink a) a lot of coffee, and b) really strong coffee. Let me blow this one out of the water right now. I drink a lot of coffee. Everybody I know in the States drinks a lot of coffee. Europeans? 1 cup. That's it, 1 little cup. In Italy, they only drink one cup, and it's about the size of a shot glass. No refills. No "You wamme to warm that up for ya, Sugar?" Waffle House perks. In Germany, they have some kind of obsession about drinking coffee out of those cappuccino machines. That stuff tastes like thinned-out axle grease, albeit with a hint of nuttiness. Filter coffee is much better. It's smooth, strong-bodied, and actually smells good.

A German boss of mine stopped me in the office cafeteria once, and asked me what I thought of the new cappuccino-style coffee machine he'd just had installed. I told him I hadn't used it, that in the IT department we had our own dripper that we used. He sniffed, then said, "Oh yes, I forgot, you're American. You have no taste." Then walked on. I was miffed for a second. Then realized he was wearing a bright-orange jumpsuit, sandals, yellow sunglasses and, I swear to God, a pith helmet. I figured I'd let it go.

My only co-worker in IT was a Saxon. According to him, Saxons also can't stand the cruddy java that other Germans drink, preferring the manly filter-coffee. Maybe it's because, being East Germans, they appreciate the good things in life that pampered, effete West Germans long taken for granted. Anyway, once the automat was installed in the cafeteria, we absconded with the old dripper, and would have defended it with our lives. I hid it behind the mail server; it was hooked up to the battery backup system, lest the power fail.

Everybody's got something to say about all the other folks in the world. Sometimes it's openly envious. For example, everybody seems to think that the people in other parts of the country tend to be more open and friendly, but maybe a bit shallow. And that's in any country. I've heard it in Germany, New Zealand, England, America, you name it. Bavarians always say that Bavarians are hard to get to know, but once you get to know them, they'll open up to you once and for all; unlike those superficial Rhinelanders. Rhinelanders say the exact same thing, but tend to throw in a bunch of insults about Bavarians being rednecks.

One place there's near-total agreement, however, is on the subject of geography. For some reason, everybody, including Americans, think that the rest of the world spends all their time studying political maps in dog-eared old atlases, committing world capitols and currencies to memory for some mysterious, global Jeopardy match we never get invited to. There's an accepted common knowledge that Americans have no idea where anything is, and are ignorant, arrogant boors.

What utter bullshit. I've lived in Europe for over 5 years now, and in thousands of conversations involving the States, there has never been a single occurence of a European knowing where Atlanta is. They all know Atlanta's in Georgia, somehow, probably from flying through Hartsfield, but not a single one of them has a clue as to where Georgia is. Usually, they think it's on the West Coast. That's America, right? Palm trees and bikini girls? Once they find out it's in the Southeast, they figure it's on the same latitude as, say, Munich. Or maybe Athens? Try Casablanca. Germany doesn't share any latitudes with the United States; except maybe Alaska. I guess

Europeans have absolutely no concept of geography. They plan 1-week road trips in the States, starting in New York, ending in San Francisco. They visit Chicago, and plan on hopping over to Dallas for a day-trip. The U.S., in their minds, seems about as big as Disney World, with a tram between all the major attractions. Of course, when I was 10 I went to Epcot Center and thought I'd just walked through Europe in about a day. But that's different; Epcot actually looks a little bit like Europe, minus the dogshit on the sidewalks.