History! 3/31/09

Oh Gawd, it's another day of history, why even write this anymore, no one reads it? What a pathetic waste of time and energy this is, why don't I just lay down and die...

1146, Bernard of Clairveaux, noted speechifier and monk gave stirring oration that started the Second Crusade. So moved by the oration that Christ needed to be put in the hearts of the Muslims, via pointed swords, King Louis VII decides to join.



1492, Spain enacts the Alhambra Decree, stating in not too subtle terms that if you are Jewish you would need to observe this simple mathematical equation...
Jew+ Catholic Conversion= Alive
Jew+ Keepin' the Faith= Dead or mailed to a new country in air tight casks

1854, Commodore Matthew Perry signs the Kanegawa Treaty, opening two Japanese ports to the world. Japan is sad.




1903, Richard Pearse flies a heavier than air craft (ergo airplane) nine months before douche twins the Wright brothers do. Richard Pearse is your new God.

1933, FDR institutes the Civilian Conservation Corps, otherwise known as "The group of guys who built every damned thing in this country". Just try driving North to San Francisco and see how many CCC bridges you had to cross to get there.

1942, The Imperial Japanese Army invades the Christmas Islands, Santa Clause is brutally murdered in Bhutan 6 months later.

1968, LBJ, satisfied with his work says he will not run for re-election, Nixon gets out the "party whiskey".

1985, the first wrestlemania takes place, Western Civilization begins its decline.

1995, The critical event of "Selena, the Movie" is reenacted with actual people bearing names of the characters from the film years before the film is made. Selana promptly marries Tupac, they live in a long house on Atlantis with Biggie and the Lindburgh baby.

2004, 4 Blackwater employees are burned alive, decapitated, and have their hearts removed in Fallujah Iraq. America keeps is told to grab its liberty rosary and repeat twelve 9/11's, 4 Homeland Security EULA's and an oath to President for good measure.

History! LITE!

So today we have some History! LITE! Today history is exceptionally boring, except for two instances.

On this day in 1981 America is nearly saved from disaster when John Hinckley Jr. shoots Ronald Reagan in the chest. Unfortunately Reagan lived and has went on to create the maligned War on Drugs, overthrew the Sandinistas, of course there's the Iran Contra affair, his supposed success at "ending" the Cold War (the wall was comin' down anyway people), the ridiculous budget deficit he created, probably underselling crack to inner city youths, and of course reinventing and more or less installing what we recognize today as the modern Republican Party. I went to his funeral to gloat, so does this make me a bad person? NO! Because reinventing the dead because they're dead is a farce. He was not a great man, he did not set this country up for success, the 80's were a miserable misanthropic time and him and the Iron Lady across the pond were responsible. So you know what, if you don't like what I have to say, when i die you can come and gloat, and maybe I'll get a bunch of followers who will try to live out their lives according to my guiding principles.



And in 2006 the Terrorism Act of Great Britain is enacted, one of the larger bricks in the wall keeping Air Strip One safe from the 'terrists'.

I've Developed a Nervous Tic...

That's right, the planet has become too stressful and I have a nervous tic as a direct result. This tic is an annoying left eye twitch, which I'm sure to passersby appears to be my winking insanely at them, but in reality is what amounts to a human red flashing light and klaxon. The tic, appears to be centered around reading news about America, Civil Liberties, Britain, Law, and Economics. It can also be activated by thoughts about adventure, or the suffocating nature of living in a era where every inch of the map is labeled and there is nothing to do but eat and hope your life starts at some point. This has created a slight problem as I have begun reading the "Lost City of Z", which details the adventures of Percy Fawcett, a Victorian adventurer, who was in pursuit of a hidden city in the Amazon. The problem is that when things get interesting (Percy goes looking for buried treasure in Ceylon) my eye begins to spasm and I want to flee from the couch and disappear into the woods until I find a river with gold deposits in it.

I suppose it is best for me to wait out the years until civilization collapses due to the first set of stressors and I can live out my days Mad Max style.

I said I want a Revolution...

Simple as that, I am waiting for the shooting, or the bill getting passed, or the soldiers on street corners, to let me know it's time to grab my clubs and torches and start manning the barricades. Seriously, I am waiting, with nervous energy for the switch to flip and for me and other well mannered people to throw our chairs and crockery through the windows and tear down the state. What the fuck America? Do you have any idea how completely insane it sounds to suggest that four years ago I was otherwise content in the country, albeit looking forward to elections, but that now I am nearly an anarchist? I have seen through the pall of this insidious planets grimy slithering underbelly, I have personally inspected each of the bacteria designed to kill me in its toothy jaws, the whole worlds turned into a god damned Komodo Dragon and all I want to do is bash its head in with an oar!
>

Lets all see if I can get you to the point I'm at, because frankly it's getting lonely for the brick bats to go flying.

First off, lets talk about Airstrip One, or as it was formerly called England. Our friends over the pond have gone completely off the deep end when it comes to powers of the state to monitor and remove you form your rights. England is a country I love more than most people, and to see it in this state is outrageous. For example, the CCTV cameras they have everywhere, they're designed to protect you right? Wrong, stockpiling huge amounts of recorded video footage of you going about your business doesn't make all the thieves and murderers go away, in fact I would guess it probably has made them work harder to avoid detection.

So this constant monitoring of citizens was the first step right? Next step is England's database of DNA. They keep a crime suspects DNA forever, so if I was put in custody of the police for a suspected murder, even if I was innocent, my DNA goes on file to be matched at any point in the future to possible crimes. Further this goes for any infraction, save perhaps for parking tickets or jaywalking, but Christ knows they could find a loophole.

How do we top having everyone's DNA on record, oh I know, lets try and make everyone carry "papers" to identify themselves when traveling around the country. these papers contain RFID chips, which contain all your personal info, like Social Security and stuff like that. They can also be used as trackers, oh yeah and for maybe 200 bucks I can build a device that would allow me to scan the info right off it without you even seeing me, I just have to be nearby. This way when I commit a crime I'll be sure to use your identity.

It never ends does it? NO! FUCK! Besides this there have been attempts to pass laws to make it illegal to photograph police officers, or the cameras watching everyone at all hours. Try going to park and photographing slice of life stuff, you'll get tossed on your ear by the constabulary for being a paedophile. England at this point is so terrified of paedophiles that it has actually pressed charges against photographers for photographing empty swings, as though the essence of a child was there, and the photographing thereof caused the children who had used the swing to be molested from a distance. Madness!

No, THIS IS ENGLAND!!! Lets keep going with England, fuckin' hell I haven't even gotten to America yet! HAHA! Beyond this there's also this crushing paranoia about teenagers. Teens are forming gangs and engaging in Lord of the Flies esque crime sprees. this is an actual problem, so what is England's plan, rather than deal with the roots cause, a problem with the societal structures they're dumped into they instead opt to criminalize youth. Buzzers are placed around shopping centers, emitting a high pitched whistle only teens can here (utter bollocks though as the frequency is quite noticeable to anyone with good ears). To keep them from loitering they've put special stairs in to make it harder to sit on them. They want to put pink lights to enhance the presence of acne on them so they will feel bad about their appearance and go home. They made an ordnance, that was labeled for 16's and under, but which contained descriptive language that broadened the definition of the particular section to mean 'anyone'. The ordnance in question states that if a officer sees you in a group of two or more, and he has reason to suspect that you could be a disturbance, or a nuisance to another person in the area, he can ask you to split up and not return to the area for 24 hours. Sure you could use this on knife wielding lunatic kids, or if some loon with a chip on his shoulder tells the officer you and your girlfriend make him nervous, it states that the officer needs to go and split you two up. Good fuckin' luck England! Guess what, hope you don't try to organize an overnight protest of government in England, once the curfew kicks in your asses are in Black Mariah's headed for the prison ship to Australia, where they'll control all your Internet to protect you from dissent towards the government.

Oh yeah, if you think that because this is happening in England it's not our problem


It's a global problem! The German police are kickin' down doors on alleged 'searches' for child pornographers, you know who they're actually arresting? Political activist bloggers. Ever heard of wikileaks? Wikileaks is a website where whistle blowers from around the world can hand in secret documents that affect the lives of millions but are classified for spurious reasons. National security my ass! Well one of the founders just got taken in by these raids for possessing a list of banned sites from the upcoming Firewall that will descending over Australia shortly. Guess what this list contains lots of sites that have zilch to do with illegal pornography. There's a website for a tour bus company, that happens to have a pick up stop in the same area as an adult book store. This is not mentioned on the tour bus company's site. This means that they are banning this site because they are doing something that is offline and not a crime, because last time I checked, sex shops in Australia weren't outlawed, not that I check that often, but apparently in the world we live in I have to know what my rights are in every god damned shit hole fascist state that's sprung up on this spinning cesspool.

So we've got those fuckers, naturally France wants all sorts of awful things when it comes to the Internet. Realistically if you spin the globe and put your finger down, if the country isn't third world, it's well on its way to a 1984 style mad house.

Now lets get on America's case.

Read The Big Takeover, by Matt Taibbi. It's not a book it's available online from Rolling Stone, here's a link http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/print

If you've finished, I mean really finished, you should be ready to explode with indignation and rage at our whole structure of government, wealth, pretty much everything. In this article Taibbi basically points back to sniveling cocksucker named Joseph Cassano, who worked at AIG and pretty much started the ball rolling on destroying all existence as we understand it.


There's the little prick now, peekin' out around an office building, hoping no one's realized that he is Shiva Destroyer of Worlds. So if you see this guy, punch him, punch his miserable near sighted face for every dollar he fucked away for his tenure at AIG.

So basically, we live in country, where the whole branch of the government that is designed to protect us from the little ghouls, is run by these little fuckin' ghouls! Oh, and guess what, the Fed can do whatever the fuck it wants, and not face any inquiry from anybody, so fuck you government, sorry all the seats here at the fed are filled with ex-Goldman-Sachs employees, who happen to be bailing out all the fuckers they're friends with. Hey motherfuckers, I spent some money less than wisely once, give me a check you pencil necked knuckle dragging corpse fuckers! Jesus Christ, you have to read that article, so you can run on just undiluted rage, it's like drinking rocket fuel for God's sakes, being so angry at the entire civilization you live in that you would willingly burn down everything associated with it if it meant you could get a little change.



Yeah that's right Barry, I knwo you're all about change and hope and crap, but I think we could really use some help right about now. So far you've been nice repealing a few stupid things W. did, but when it comes to this skullfuckery. Where the hell are you on it? Just going to keep agreeing that AIG and every other parasitic ass lancing worm out there needs a handout because they're too big to fail? Come on man, I don't care if you get impeached the next day, you get on the TV and tell the public exactly what's going down and close with a "so do what you think you gotta do." at which point you will be lead off stage and thrown out of the public light forever, but then again 'we the people' would probably rise up within the week anyway, so if the civil war works out I'm sure your act of bravery would get you re-elected. Then again Barry, I'm runnin' out of patience, and slowly but surely people are going to start figuring out what kind of clusterfuck this is, and they are not going to be happy.

Also, seriously with the whole marijuana thing, I'm not even a drug user and I know how retarded the war on drugs is, hope you got a cool shot glass from some dive bar in TJ as a thank you from whatever cartel leader asked you not to stop the good times for him.

So there, I am all raged out, which means I'm going into a coma rage. Read that damned article and get back to me, you don't have to get all of it, you just have to be able to reach the end and be holding enough strings of understanding together to say "We are all fucking doomed!"

Oh yeah, lest I fuckin' forget...

History! March 24th!

Well let me get this out of the way, it's World Tuberculosis Day, so please don't breath on or share any enclosed spaces with me. Now we can get on with the reason we're here, or rather I can continue with what amounts to me plinking away alone in a cave with an electric typewriter, no one hearing my mumbles, or able to read the paper crawling from the machine, as it is too dark.

1603, with Elizabeth I dead England needed a new monarch, fortunately James "Jimmy" Stewart was well informed of the events and was already on his way down to accept his coronation as the first Stewart monarch of England.


Notably it was James I (as his friends and enemies called him) who was one of the targets of that lovable scamp Guy Fawkes.

1765, Britain passes the Quartering Act, a law requiring colonists to house troops. You might remember that this pisses the colonists off so bad that they chuck in a note about it in the 3rd amendment of that document that no longer has any relevance after the last eight years, the Constitution.

1832, Noted jerk Joseph Smith Jr. founder of modern Mormonism, is beaten, tarred and feathered by the good people of Hiram, Ohio. His crime, being Joseph Smith Jr.

1837, Canada beats everyone on the North American continent to the punch by making it legal for black men to vote. Women collectively sigh and are ordered back into the kitchen.

1882, Robert Koch identifies the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis, 127 years later and still no cure. The term consumption falls out of favor.

1944, The great escape occurs at Stalag Luft III, Steve McQueen waits patiently for his film career to start.

1958, Elvis joins the Armed Forces, everyone worries if he'll turn the Cold War "hot".

1989, The Exxon Valdez super tanker runs aground spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude and celebrities into the ocean. The celebrities immediately begin scrubbing penguins in front of cameras.

2003, surprise, surprise, the Arab League votes 21-1 in favor of asking the U.S. to "please leave Iraq". 6 years later they're still waiting for us to return the call.

Theoretically I could do a little thing here about observances or holidays in different countries, however I won't. It's primarily because since I started most of the observances have been in honor of some Saint, or Saints, every...damn...day. Catholicism, you have too many Saints.

Blindness

So today is a special treat, I am going to dissect my opinion of the Julianne Moore vehicle Blindness. Let me begin by saying
!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!

So if you really don't care about the ending or plot of this film read on, if however you do, please stop here. However I will point out that if you read on and listen to my words you will have every reason to avoid this movie, in the same way audiences did.

So Blindness is a adaptation of a book by the same name, if the problems I mention here are because I didn't read the book well, fuck along now. I think that film adaptations of books or other materials should be regarded as two independent entities, I shouldn't need the plot filled out by going and reading the book, the plot should be self evident. So please don't say something like "But you see such and such had this, in the book they very clear-" SHUT THE FUCK UP!

The film begins by showing you a little bit of the city, namely the roads therein, however we learn quite a bit within the first few minutes before the "BLINDNESS" sets in about the world we're supposed to give ourselves over to. Namely that the first victim speaks Mandarin, I think, didn't sound like Japanese, maybe he was Korean. Anyway, we see that the cars have long license plates with a handful of large numbers on them, suggesting a European city. We however then see the environment as being somewhat temperate, almost tropical in places. We see the citizenry, the people of this city are like a mural for multiculturalism, every race, color and linguistic barrier is melded into this city. This very clearly states one thing, the city is made up, it doesn't exist in any government or country we know, what is meant to bring to us is the idea that this city represents the whole planet. Well, I like when my movies try to depict civilization in a realistic manner. In effect when you use science fiction to convey something about society, you need civilization clearly delineated, it must be real. Otherwise what you get in this case is,

A) Unbelievable event: Ergo the Blindness, or the sudden end of fertility in Children of Men.
B) Made up society, not based on any existing model.
C) Critical view of human condition in what amounts to a completely unreal environment that humans wouldn't make.


It's like picking up all of humanity and placing them in a human ant farm, it's not a real depiction of society, so any actions people take in this made up world simply don't ring true because they're already in an unbelievable place.

The reason it seems so unbelievable is quickly revealed when the outbreak begins. Once people start going blind randomly hazmat teams show up and start taking people to a "Facility". Firstly it is the earliest stages of the outbreak that they do this, moreover the way they handle the outbreak at the facility is incredible.

The place looks like a run down third world mental institution. So we have gone from the first world to the third world in the same city. Moreover from earlier views of the city and culture therein it feels like a democratic society, with the usual urges to build over everything, or at the very least keep everything looking clean, so the very presence of this dilapidated abandoned prison/asylum is incongruous with the rest of the world we've seen.

Now we have seen that people in extreme situations, under orders can do inhumane things, but it takes time, a wilting and weathering of morals. In this movie it is zero to threatening to blow a mans head off in two days.

You see, Julianne Moore's husband has acquired the disease, and she opts to go with him to the facility when the hazmat teams arrive. She pretends to be blind so she can get in, the proceeds to become the mother protector of the whole place. Now, she seems completely non plussed at the outset of arriving in the facility. This is amazing because she's probably been involved in the society in which she lives for some time, so seeing this place should freak her out, the water is brown, everything is rusty or from the 30's, there's no food or medical kits. Moreover there are no teams of scientists, remotely interested in studying the people where the outbreak began. Instead we have a wall and guards terrified of the disease, which has yet to destroy society, it's simply really annoying right now. It would be the equivalent of people spontaneously breaking into song and being unable to stop, so the government locks them in an abandoned school then refuses to send researchers certain that soldiers can do the research through osmosis.

So we have gone from first world to the third world in the same city, we are ignoring the human rights issues with the treatment of early outbreak survivors (something a modern society would cling to for at least a month or two). Worse yet is the fact that in these early stages there aren't even hazmat teams there to try and cull some knowledge of the outbreak from the victims, the victims are behind locked doors, out of sight, milling around with almost no food. Seriously what the fuck? So what happens inside this place is supposed to be a realistic indictment of humanity, when we don't even see humanity presented as its own history has made it!

Anyway, after a few days buses arrive with more victims. This is where the movie really goes down hill. With the arrival of bus loads of people we see a sudden drop in quality of life inside the already miserable conditions of the asylum. Now we are dealing with a teeming city, full of people, hundreds of thousands if not millions, the asylum appears to be the go to facility, and I'm certain in the book that the place ends up with hundreds if not thousands of people getting dumped there. In our movie asylum we see the contrary, the buses drop off what amounts to maybe 60-70 people all together. Inside the asylum is split into wards, three in total, with 34 people to a ward. The first ward is Julianne Moore and her husbands ward, we all root for ward 1, good people. The second ward is pretty much unseen but we sense it's a lot like the first ward, because Julianne becomes a mother to the whole place. Huge fucking problems occur because of this, but I'll get to those later. The third ward is for people turned away from the first two wards. We meet ward 3 when Moore's husband goes to ask for help burying the dead (a common problem a month in), ward 3 says no dice. We see ward 3, we see its occupants, which number around 6 to 8 people. A rowdy fucker declares himself king of ward 3 and vows to not make his people work, there are cheers from the assembled 8 douchebags.

From this point on I was sorely disappointed in the film, even more than I was before. You see when the next shipment of food arrives ward 3 takes it and holds it hostage. The rowdy fucker pulls a gun he slipped past the quarantine and brandishes it at the 70 or so other people there (who are already getting close to starving). He is backed up by his team mates who are wielding lead pipes, big ones. Moore demands to know what ward 3 wants for the food. Well rowdy fucker suggests that ward 3 is now a supermarket, and the other wards need to pay for food.

Alright, so we have a building through of blind people, one group of blind people takes all the food and demands everyone else pay. Now you could make a case for everyone complying due to the fact they have no idea how many people are in ward 3, to try and force them to return the food would end in a number of deaths and potentially more soon to come. However Julianne Moore is not fucking blind! She knows that the other wards outnumber the third 4 to 1, moreover is the fact that being the only person with sight means she could theoretically do whatever she wanted to them at any time. Well, the movie feels differently, Moore needs to pretend to be unable to affect any changes at all, it's called acting. So people gather their possessions and hand them off in bags to the caretakers of ward 3, who then hands over cartons of food based on how they feel at the moment. Moore's husband notices that one of ward 3 douche crew is an actual blind person, not someone afflicted with the disease, but a from birth blind person. He is depicted as gifted with special superpowers.

Alright, so Moore decides that it is better to play ball with ward 3 than risk anyones life ending their dictatorship. Now from the get go you know that rowdy fucker is trouble, more than likely the kind of guy who would kill his own mother to get ahead, so her attitude that somehow appeasing him and not using her ability against him is incredible.

As an audience member my first reaction is "So once we've handed over our belongings, and you give us enough food for a single day, what happens next?" Moore doesn't think this far ahead, her mental process is a complete unknown to anyone born with a living soul.

So things get worse, rowdy fucker discovers the intercom system and starts making decrees. First decree, give us your women.

I really didn't expect the next thirty minutes of the movie to take place. Moore, knows there are 8 guys in ward 3, she has seen them, and everyone is blind. When they demand women for food her husband worries that trying to fight back against rowdy fucker will lead to a multi ward war. Moore's husband is clueless as to the numbers of people in ward 3, Moore on the other hand knows, she is completely capable of finding out if she doesn't as well.

That was nice wasn't it. Anyway, Moore's response is to say "you know what? Why not? Who wants to come get raped?" So Moore has entertained notions of killing the king of ward 3 for a while, she has a pair of scissors she keeps eying every time he speaks, but you know what whatever, rape was on her bucket list.

So after a brutal rape scene, which could have been averted sixteen thousand ways to Sunday, she comes back to ward 3 with a dead coworker, killed during the unnecessary rape. She finally decides it might be time to do something before the next brutal rape, hers, not the women from ward 2 who are busily being raped. She heads on down to ward 3 and stabs the shit out of rowdy fucker, something that comes a little too late. Blind superman finds the gun, that somehow Moore decided simply wasn't worth grabbing when she was stabbing rowdy fucker. He grabs the gun and impotently fires at her as she escapes with the victims of the rape going on while she was stabbin' people.

Well her husband freaks out and is like "We gotta barricade the doors!" because he imagines the Persian army is about to barrel down the hallway. Moore is like "Whatever." and decides she won't mention the fact that there is now 6 people in ward 3 (she convinced blind fucker to shoot a confederate as she was escaping by playing sound games). So the barricades go up and people start arming themselves. Now when your General can see, and when maybe someone who has any brains might say "Lets make long poking spears from all this piping, and we'll stick close to the ground so the bullets will miss us because everyone will think to aim high!" but no, they make clubs, and walk down the hallway bunched together unsure where to point their cudgels. Fortunately we avert any more rapes or deaths because one of ward 1's women sneaks up to ward 3 and lights a bed on fire, effectively killing everyone inside and destroying the facility.

Lets jump back. Earlier in the film we learn from Danny Glover (fuckin' Murtaugh yo!) what is happening in the world. Apparently a bunch of round table discussions occur, nothing is solved concerning the disease (we never know what caused it, but this is a standard sci-fi trope so it's acceptable) and suddenly the person everyone pays attention to, the head of the National Health Organization reveals that she too has gone blind. So we have a world where people care more about her, than whoever the President is, plus there is a modern streamlined National Health Organization in a country with run down banana republic hospitals.

Anyway, this stupid ass movie carries on, apparently the guards are gone, everybody is blind now and Moore leads the few survivors we're supposed to sympathize with to her and her husbands home. I would get into the gritty details of her husbands tryst with a hooker and the loveless marriage he and his wife share in their soul crushing suburban neighborhood, but I am so fucking over this movie that I can hardly stand to keep typing. Suffice it to say that people regain their sight, and once that happens Moore looks out side, up at the sky and you get the feeling that her life has now lost all meaning since apparently the disease is about to go away. No more will she idly watch as people are killed during brutal rapes, and then lord over them like a Godhead because she's the only one that can find food. Never mind the fact the city has like 100 people in it tops.

Ultimate opinion of Blindness

FUCK YOU BLINDNESS I HOPE YOU DIE! YOU ARE NOT CHILDREN OF MEN!

History! March 20th!

I don't even know why I write these, no one reads them. Except you, which is actually me, simply re reading them later. So today we are going to jump into that slimy swamp called history and pull up some catfish.





1602, we see the founding of the Dutch East India Company. this is where things start falling apart for the world. The DEIC is the first multinational corporation, as well as the first megacorporation. The Company was given a 21 year monopoly over trade in Asia, and was the first company to issue stock. how weird must that stock market be.





"So what's up today?"


"Dutch East India Company."


"What can I buy?"


"Dutch East India Company."


"Anything else?"


"Not till GE is invented."


PARADOX!





Also they had the ability to strike their own coin (make their own currency, ala Disney Bucks) and wage war. We'll see a steady increase in Piracy right after the formation of this and the British version.





1616, Walter Raleigh gets released from the Tower of London after 13 years of imprisonment. Raleigh had spent quite a bit of time wandering around the Tower before. During Queen Elizabeth's reign he had a knack for charming her into not killing him for making mistakes. He was involved in the colonizing of Virginia, and when he got home he promptly married one of Elizabeth's assistants, which is something you don't do without permission, which is exactly what he did. Quite a few people believe Raleigh was involved with the Queen in one way or another, which I tend to support based on his smarmy habit of getting out of trouble by telling Elizabeth how great she was all the time. Anyway, back to the story, Walter gets thrown in jail with his wife for a few years, then get released, he gets bored, starts telling people that there's a city of gold in South America. He keeps an eye on the royal household, which proves pretty bad for him because Elizabeth croaks and James I takes over. James hates Walter, probably because Walter tried his smarm tactic on James and James took offense. So James hurls Walter back into the Tower because he is convinced that in spite of his service to the country in the past he was probably involved with some protestants who wanted to replace him with a Spanish cousin. So on this day in history Walter was released again. His next stop? South America!





1815! Napoleon never liked being imprisoned on Elba, it didn't suit his ideas about what a "Good Time" constituted. So today after his escape and arrival on mainland France he arrives in Paris with a regular force of 140,000 and a volunteer army of 200,000. So begins Napoleon's 100 Days Rule. Across the channel the Duke of Wellington looks out his window and goes into a Dragonball powerup mode. When asked about his level he commented that it was "Over 9,000!"





1852, that bitch ass Harriet Beecher Stowe releases "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Stowe is a "Bitch Ass" because whilst on one hand trying to illuminate people to the plight of enslaved Africans she is also known to have spent time in Scotland and Ireland while writing the book and said that the Scots weren't much more than animals and deserved to be treated as such by their cruel landlords. Fuck you bitch.





















1856, William Walker is routed by Costa Rican forces. I would explain what that means more in depth but instead I will direct you to rent or purchase the film "Walker", staring Ed Harris, with cameo's by Joe Strummer, who also composed the score. Lets just say Walker was "President" of Nicaragua, and he denied a trading contract to a Vanderbilt (19th century equivalent of Bill Gates, only with the desire to see men die) who promptly sent Costa Rican troops and American mercenaries to oust him.



1916, Einstein publishes his General Theory of Relativity, to quote Bill Murray "Einstein did his best stuff as a patent clerk." SPECIAL CHALLENGE: Post the name of the movie this is from...SPECIAL SPECIAL CHALLENGE: It can't be Nate.



1933, Giuseppe Zangara is executed by electric chair in Florida. His crime? the attempted assassination of FDR. I highly recommend picking up a CD of the musical "Assassins", you learn quite a bit about this thanks to it.



1942, General Douglas "Douchebag" MacArthur lets the Philippines know that "I shall return."



1952, the US finally ratifies a peace treaty with Japan, as though in those intervening years we were worried they would hit a secret button and giant robots would shoot out of every paper house and blow up our carrier fleets.



1956, France finally lets Tunisia go, Vietnam on the other hand...



1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono get married. I'll say this once, I don't hate her, and I'm glad the Beatles didn't keep going so they could end up like The Rolling Mummies...I mean Stones.



1999, Legoland opens, tumble weeds blow through. A distant coyote yaps at the dusty sky.



2003, We start the bomb droppin', gas guzzlin', American youth killin', Civilian maimin' adventure called the Iraq War...I'm sorry, not war "Enduring Freedom Fries of Democracy Brought to You by Pizza Hut and the Good People from Boeing."



Also, today is the second day of Quinquatria, a roman festival celebrating the birth of Minerva. Today we would have gladiatorial fights.

History! March 19!

Here I go again on my own, going down the only road I've ever known...history. Today will be fun because I can now make my own macros and I have a plentiful source of gifs to illustrate my point. History will now eat up bandwidth like motherfuckin' Far Cry 2 on ultra settings.


So today we start on March 19th 1279 AD...in MONGOLIA!

Wherein our brave yak herders defeat the depressing Song dynasty at the battle of Yamen. Nobody cared...except the Chinese.

In 1863 a Confederate cruiser Georgiana is sunk on her maiden voyage. In her hold is literally the economic future of the South. Valued at around $1,000,000 at the time the South throws up their hands and asks "What next?" (For those of you who want a clue the answer rhymes with 'Rickett's Barge')

1915, Pluto is photographed, but is still not acknowledged as a planet. Looking back a history post or two ago reveals the secret date that the Freemason's and Illuminati selected as the birth of their planet-not-planet's admittance date into the pantheon of shitty space debris larger than a football field.

1916 America launches its first ever air combat operation, the target, that crazy bitch Pancho Villa. Villa escapes and goes on to be remembered as a cool guy, primarily because he hung out (robbed) with white people every once in a while. The actual cool Mexican revolutionary is Zapata, and everyone should know it.

1918, the U.S. approves of time zones (makes sense) and daylight savings times (fuck you). It makes you wonder just how the hell you set your watch in the past.

1920, We reject the Treaty of Versailles again, because hey, maybe World War 1 was everyone's fault right? (The Treaty of Versailles being the document created by the victors of the war, stating in no uncertain terms that Germany was to be Europe's bitch for all eternity, and that every German male had to be kicked in the nuts at least once by a Frenchmen or he would buried alive in Verdun. Naturally when tempers cooled and Germany still had some hard feelings about the economic catastrophe such brutal reparations unleashed on them they started invading places...

Good job Triple Entente :(

In 1921, from what appears to be "This Day in WTF!?" some Italian fascists are riding a train through Slovenia and decide to shoot at some kids like they're Buffalo. Two are killed, two mangled, and three wounded, the local Indian tribe mourned because the Italians didn't use the whole body.

1931, gambling legalized in Nevada, intelligent few prefer to stay at home and flush their money down a toilet instead.

1941, the Tuskegee Airmen are activated. This being an all black unit in the air army corp.

In 1945 Hitler orders all industry, shops, military installations...pretty much everything you see when you look out a door to be demolished in light of the approaching allies.

OH SHIT! In 1965, the Georgiana (sunk earlier in this post) is rediscovered with its cargo intact and soggy. Modern estimates (a la 1965) puts the cargo at a worth of $50,000,000.

In 1978 the UN politely asks Israel to leave Lebanon and stop blowing up their shit. Israel complies and the UN sends a force to act as a human shield between Israel and its neighbor.

1979, C-SPAN is put on air! WOOOOO!!! For those of you who aren't in the "know" C-SPAN is basically a live feed of Washington D.C. and all the crusty old White People who work there. If you've ever wanted to see an inauguration or senate hearing and not have Fox News' pundits trying to tell you what to think go here. You'll also get to see full comments from Senators and Congress people instead of insta blurbs edited for dramatic effect.

1982 Argentina lands some troops on South Georgia Island, forcing England into war. Happy "Beginning of the Falklands War" everyone!

1987, Jerry Falwell, the ignorant fucker that he is, takes over the Christian organization PTL, after its former leader leaves due to...SHOCK! SURPRISE! a sex scandal.

2003, President George W. Bush (Or Dubya as the cool kids call him, I prefer Ass Goblin) tells the American public, that we will be invading the hell out Iraq. His reasons include...

1. Lies he made up

2. Lies Cheney made up

3. Lies the CIA made up

4. Lies Collin Powell was told to tell to the UN

5. "I just don't like 'em"

This will be the second time I've had to roll out Nicholas RAGE in a week.

Good Lord

I decided to look at my blogs front page, my first mistake, and see if anyone had viewed it or commented or anything. Well, I have long suspected my writing to be readioactive and completely unreadable. Well I found out why, I glanced to the immediate right of my posts at the advertising space and noticed a little advertisement that seemed odd.

LEARN ARMENIAN ATROCITIES
But Armenian archives are closed. For history not propaganda go to
http://www.turkishcoalitionofamerica.org/





What?



The Ottoman Empire killed thousands of Armenians around 1915 in what could only be regarded as genocide. Well after the Empire fell and was replaced by modern Turkey, naturally there was some backlash about using the term in regards to the attrocities. So Turkey has done some serious work to discount any claims of genocide, might I add that insulting Ataturk (founder of modern turkey) or saying thinsg that aren't glowing about Turkey is considered a crime in that same said country.

No one reads my blog because it is literally one ad click away from being linked to holocaust deniers.

History! March 13 2009!

Lets peer through the muted shades of time and find the events most interesting to have occurred since recorded time.

On this day in 1138 Gregoria Conti is elected Antipope. The antipopes are not to be confused with the song "I Am The Antipope" by Zlad! Antipopes originated in the fact that the Catholic Church didn't always do things in lockstep and every once in a while a Bishop would become Pope and the rest of the Cardinals and Kingdoms who cared would say "Whoah bitch! You'd better back up off my transubstantiation!" These indignant catholics would select a better leader, labeled an antipope. Gregorio led an interesting life as Antipope, however the details of this life are only interesting to people who really care about squabbling in the 14th century Catholic church, that is to say almost no one.

William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781, his plan to draw the name from a hat backfires terribly after he refuses to accept the previously drawn names "Urectum" and "Urgay".

In 1862 Union commanders are ordered to not return any fugitive slaves, effectively negating the fugitive slave act of 1850. This will be followed by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

Oh lordy! In 1884 the siege of Khartoum begins. Britain had been mucking around the world for ages by the time the famed General Charles George Gordon was sent to the Sudan. Egypt had been battling insurrectionists in the country for years and an evacuation had been ordered, the plans for this were spearheaded by the British General Gordon (Egypt being a near colony of England at the time). Gordon was the most colorful General in Her Majesty's employ at the time, going by names such as Chinese Gordon, Gordon Pasha and eventually Gordon of Khartoum. He had acquired these nicknames by virtue of the fact that when he arrived in a new country he automatically adopted the manner of dress of the locals, "going native" as it were. In the Sudan Britain and Egypt had been experiencing troubles with a local leader called The Mahdi. The Mahdi was in open revolt against the Egyptian authority in the Sudan and wished to spread Islam to all corners of the globe. Technically speaking "the Mahdi" is a term in Islam to describe a chosen one who is prophesied to arrive at the end times. Anyway, Gordon is ordered to evacuate and leave Sudan to the Sudanese, but decides that doing so would mean that there would be a spot on the map that wasn't under direct British supervision. so to force the hand of government in London he remained in Khartoum waiting to battle the Mahdi when he arrived. London went batshit. "Who the fuck does Gordon think he is, he knows the public loves him, and he knows how shitty this will get if he stays and we're forced to show up and hand people their asses. Fuck you Gordon!" Was most likely the conversation Prime Minister Gladstone had when he heard the news. So on this day in history, Gordon closed the doors, distributed the guns and waited patiently for the Mahdi to blow him the fuck up or the British army to crest the nearest hill and kill everyone with maxim guns. Oh yeah, you probably want to know what happened next...Gordon gets decapitated on the steps to his office, the Mahdi gets killed too, but a little while later when the British (surprise surprise) show up late. The Mahdi's one world Islamic revolution falls apart, most likely because he's dead for most of it.

1900 sees the capture of a town by the British in the Second Boer War. this is a war in which we see the British battling Dutch farmers for control of South Africa. Britain built the first concentration camps for this conflict to house all the conquered farmers in blistering heat without food. You might also remember (probably not) that the First Boer War (previously the Boer War) was the engagement that featured fictional Doctor James Watson.

1921 Jesus. Mongolia declares its independence from China. You think you know Mongolia? You think its just yaks and plains? Fuck no, Mongolia is one of those places that creates fuckers like this! Baron Roman Nickolai Maximilian von Ungern-Sternberg, go to wikipedia and look at his fucking picture, no wait I'll put it here...

What the fuck, you know this guys nickname, the Bloody Baron, you know why? Because anyone who looks at this picture and doesn't just kinda feel that name in the back of their head is just as crazy as he is. He is some of the crazy detritus that got launched from the wounds of the Russian Revolution. He wanted to restore the Romanovs as well as the Mongolian monarchy, however for lack of adequate living descendants of either he decided to exterminate Jews and Communists instead. Seriously, why is it when your crazy and born before 1950 the only answer to a question of leadership is "Do I kill Jews or communists today?"

"What are we going to do about the grain shortages Baron Unger-BloodTrough?"

"Hurm...we must eliminate the Jews and their intellectual allies."

"Okay."

Anyway this clown was crazy, crazy like real clowns are crazy, he would intentionally mispronounce his name because it sounded and I quote "to jewy". He loved nomadic peoples and fought in World War 1 where he was considered brave but slightly unhinged, which surprisingly hurt his opportunities for promotion. After the revolution he was sent with General Semanov to take control of the far flung Asiatic territories of the former Russian Empire. Backed by Japan he was given a chunk of land where he began to brutally repress his villagers. On top of these regular outbursts of lunacy he and Semanov hated the Blosheviks AND the White Russians, they were at war with both sides of the freakin' civil war! So pissed off that the world is moving forward to quickly he separates form Semanov and becomes a regional warlord, deciding that monarchies are the only thing that will save humanity from itself. He begins planning a restoration of the Qing Dynasty that will unite all of East Asia, to enact this plan he surrounds the Mongolian capital and at night lights a number of fires to convince the Chinese occupiers that the force is much larger than it appears. The following day he takes the city after a protracted and bloody fight. So today on March 13th he declared Mongolia independent, and named himself dictator. He led a reign of terror with his army that lasted all the way to August, when the Red Army, sick to death of his bullshit, captured and executed him by firing squad, bringing the number of people on Chris' list of "People the Soviets killed who deserved it" to one.

In 1925, oh fuck yeah, the Scopes Monkey Trial begins. We all went to high school, and we all read Inherit the Wind, the only difference between you and me is probably that I loved the whole thing and own the original film version plus the newer Hallmark series version. I also own numerous biographies of Clarence Darrow, on whom the character of Charles Drummond is based.

1930, stupid ass Pluto is discovered. Stupid stupid freezing space rock.

1943, Germany eliminates the Jewish ghetto of Krakow. There is nothing funny to say about it. I once met a man who was at Krakow and was then sent to Auschwitz, he was the one of the nicest people I ever met.

In 1962 Lyman Lemnitzer, chairman to the Joint Chief's of Staff for JFK offers up a nifty little plan called Operation Northwood. His awesome plan is to stage a fake terrorist attack on Gitmo which will give us a cassus belli to attack Cuba. JFK throws him from a window and includes a classic Kennedy one liner "Fuck off and die."

2003, in France scientists report that 350,000 year old human footprints have been found in Italy, science again subtly says "fuck along now" to New Earth Christians.

Visit katebeaton.com

Jim Cramer Roasted Alive, Fed to Viewers

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 2

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

there are another two parts to this, this is the middle, this is important. Then again you probably all already know this, you've probably seen it and are nodding along. If not you need to watch it and then see if you can prowl around youtube for a clip of Cramers show 'Mad Money', wherein he plays an apoplectic moron who tells you what to do with your money.

I loved the interview, I have held a very specific contempt for Cramer since I saw him on TV about a year ago, he just seemed like an asshat, well lo and behold. This is how the stock market works, there are people like Cramer, and the people he talks to in private, then there's you, the people reading this. I doubt anyone that will ever read this makes an income sizable enough to qualify as a person who has Cramer's ear. So the reality is that although he tells us (him and most other guru's) what to do with our money, he really only cares about netting a profit for that tiny percentage who already have all the money any one of us would ever need. He was taking us on a ride, where the bubble never bursts and if you keep putting money into these companies and this system you will always come out on top, the truth is that he didn't care when actual economists, who potentially cared about the world market said "We are driving off the cliff, stop it."

So it now falls to Stewart to bring it up. I think that things have been going along now for so long, just getting brushed off by the actual news agencies that are supposed to be watchdogs , that Stewart feels compelled to start tackling them. How sad is that? Stewart, a comedian, who seems to relish his job is forced to play actual journalist because the real ones are all out to pasture. Stewart is the only whistle blower anyone can hear anymore, because anyone else who does it has to go through the press and the press just don't care.

The last thirty years have seen the death of American journalism. Think about it, there was a time when guys like Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward were digging around letting people know that shit had gone south. Now who tells you anything? When was the last time anyone dug up anything and saw it printed where anyone could see it? Where you aware that Senate republicans were using tax payer money to purchase elaborate mansions with television studios and printing presses inside so they could make propaganda for the party? Did you know that when you see a news report about some item or concept (new drug, new kind of agricultural practice) and the anchor doesn't appear to be with that station, that it is actually an advertisement bought by the company being reviewed, to make consumers believe the product is good or bad for them. That is a commercial being passed off as news, that isn't something that weighs the pros and cons, it's tests made and geared towards making their product sound good. Were you guys aware that we are in a war to keep telecoms from controlling the Internet and determining just how much of it you can use during given hours? What about the whole "new great depression"? Did you ever think that the people who keep saying this are the same people who would make a killing if it happened? Or heck how about the struggle between Republicans and Democrats in government. The news paints the picture of this epic clash of beliefs between two well manned parties, vying desperately for public support, every day a struggle to see who can convince the American public that they have the right plan. It's not fucking happening! If you look at a mesh of statistics it says one thing and one thing only, maybe 20% of people in the country give a rats ass about the republican party anymore, everyone else either doesn't care either way or supports the Presidents plans. So why then is the media pretending that "Claire" from Muskogee is upset with plans to improve education, and that she represents a growing trend provided by the Heritage Foundation (group of conservative fuckers who wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire). It doesn't exist, there is no competition anymore, nor is there any semblance of a need for bipartisanship!

So the question remains, is Jon Stewart the only person of importance who will start telling America the truth about the people who they're supposed to trust with their lives and livelihood?

History! Jesus there's a lot on March 12th!

Good Christ, who knew that some days in history would hold so much signifgance! Yesterday, being the anniversary of the beginning of the Flagstaff War and all, well that was like the most interesting thing to happen that day, but today, geez!



On March 12, 538 AD, Belisarius (famed general of the Byzantine Empire, last of the true Romans) succesfully takes Rome after an extended siege. Belisarius was the single best general the Byzantines had and was pivotal in executing Justinian's plan to retake the former territories of the Roman Empire. It didn't happen, but Belisarius was cool.



in 1622 Ignatius of Loyola founds the Jesuits! This dude gets a sainthood as a result. the rest of the world gets an easily recognizable bad guy for any movie that predates Nazi's or America. Technically speaking Jesuits weren't all that terrible, unless you went to Japan where they lorded over trade and human life like kings.



1894, a personal favorite event, in Vicksburg Coca Cola starts manufacturing glass bottles for its delicious cocaine drink. This was the single best move for Coca cola ever, nothing is more refreshing than a glass bottle coke, made with real sugar, chilled to 34 degrees.



In 1918 those commie pinko bastards in Russia moved the capital from St. Petersburg to Moscow, hey jerks! The Romanov's preferred St. Petersburg, say hi to your mother for me.



1930, motherfuckin' Gandhi does his march to the sea to protest the British monopoly on salt. On the way he eats twenty Big Mac's then buys a suit from Armani*.



1933, first fireside chat from FDR, he discusses important things rlating to the country, primarily about shanty towns, hobo beans and the nine ways to boil a cat for nutrition.



Does history ever stop marching?



NO! Fuck you!



1938 Austria gets annexed by Germany, guess what Poland, you're next! As for Great Britain and France, they don't have to worry because the guy who wrote Mein Kampf only wants some Liebenstrom, which is obviously smaller than all of Europe right?



The Truman Doctrine is announced in 1947, we are now poised to show Communism we aren't soft on them, lets keep 'em out of everywhere we find 'em! America!



That's about it, but lord, look at that history back there, just all piled up on the 12th. Also today we have a very special fictional birthday...


Rorschach!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY YOU NUT!

*This probably didn't happen, but we don't have the time machine to prove it.

Galaxy Trucker, a cruel game in cruel space...

Recently my friend Owen brought a game 'round to the apartment. I had seen it on the website boardgamegeek a while ago and was intrigued. The name of this little gem is Galaxy Trucker...

To be perfectly honest I think I would be safer in that than in any ship you make in this game. Don't get me wrong however, the game is a blast. The idea behind Galaxy Trucker is that you are a "Truck" driver, who is braving the harsh mistress called space in hopes of earning a few pennies for yourself, either for a drinking habit your character would be sure to develop or perhaps your child has a disease. A space disease. The game takes three rounds, which grow progressively more difficult the further you get. Each round opens with you and a tile card with an outline of a ship on it, a small ship for level 1, medium for 2 and two different types of level 3 ships (one being a rough outline of the starship Enterprise). You then race against the other players to build your ship from tile pieces in the game lid. These pieces are square and have a number of different purposes, some are shields, others engines and lasers and the like. The tricky part is that they have different types of corridors connecting them, and you need the right kind of corridor to match it to or else it doesn't connect. Likewise you can get penalized for having open corridors leading off into space. Now once you've completed your spacecraft, to the best of your ability, you grab a token representing your place on the board.



The horrors commence once you lift off. Once in space you have a deck of cards for each round, when you draw a card you must fulfill whatever dark lovecraftian prophecy it demands. Sometimes you flip a card and discover a planet that wishes to trade some valuable junk that can be sold later down the lane, or maybe there's a derelict spaceship floating around that can be crewed and brought home. That ship is derelict for a damn reason, space trucking is the equivalent of flying fighter planes in World War 1, after five successful flights your a national hero, otherwise your fucking dead! So lets say you don't get a fun card like the ones I mentioned you get Space Pirates, Smugglers or Slavers, hell a meteor shower even comes along. If you're first in line (you finished your ship first) you deal with it first. If you don't have enough lasers to drive it off or kill it you get smacked around, bad. Now if you have shields you can bear the brunt of the pirate or slavers attack until such time as they move on, to the next player, and the player after that. However shields and certain lasers require batteries to be used to power them, so if you run out of gas (a likelihood as you can't refill during a round) you get hammered by the attacks, or lose precious crew to insidious rapscallions. This is where Galaxy Trucker gets really brutal. In round three, after barely surviving the first rounds I design my Enterprise, it doesn't have all the guns in the world or all the engines, but it does have a pretty good showing of batteries. Well there are certain cards where "combat" occurs, where your ships are matched against each other and the loser of each of the categories suffers some grisly fate. Well when you lose both the laser and engine challenge not even shields will save you when all your batteries are depleted. You rolled for hits to your ship coming from different directions. Most things can be blocked by shields, but shields need energy, so when you run out anything can be a game ending disaster. I was struck by a stray asteroid after I'd run out gas, right in the neck of my ship, scissoring it in half. You could easily imagine the crew (most of which were in the lost half) struggling to the windows, watching as the saucer drifted away without them, then the air runs out. I lost 70% of my crew in a single hit. As I drifted further I encountered pirates who obliterated my cargo holds, then finally a slaver showed up and took my captain for Snoo Snoo. This was literally the first four cards into the last round. Well it didn't turn out that bad for everyone else after I died, after those tragedies it was pretty much empty ships and open planets all the way to the end. That is the essence of this game, maybe something bad will happen in the vacuum, and everyone dies in less than thirty seconds, or maybe you make so much money you can retire and nurture your drinking habit. It all depends on your skills in building and your luck. i highly recommend this game for people with vivid Sci-Fi imaginations.





"Good news everyone, we're going to play Galaxy Truckers! In the Nebula of Melting Brains."

History! For 3/11/09, The Flagstaff War!

So on this day in history in 1845 we see the beginning of the Flagstaff War, a British affair with the Maori in New Zealand. The whole thing began when Britain (busily sailing around the world putting flags and bodies in things) arrived in what would become New Zealand. Noticing that there was open space with a handful of indigenous people on it the British got revved up and began settling, starting with a document called the Treaty of Waitangi, which was vague on a number of important points. Vague in so much as it convinced the British they could start emigrating, whilst at the same time convincing the Maori they could keep their land and heritage intact, well we all know where this going. New Zealand is annexed in 1840, which irks the Maori, then things start going downhill in the relations between the two "tribes". There were land skirmishes between independent companies in the region and the regular list of crimes to be expected in such an action, eventually one of the original signatories of the treaty, Hone Heke, a tribal leader was notified by the French and Americans that the British flag over the island meant the Maori's were slaves. Naturally Hone believed the other two imperial powers and took matters into his own hands.



Hone requested that a young girl from his tribe, who had been living with a butcher, be returned post haste. She refused, apparently enjoying her new found Englishness, leading Hone to march into town with a few friends and ransack the shop taking the girl back. On his way back he noticed the "slave" flagpole (which was actually a gift from him to the British) and chopped it down. This upset the British to no end, forcing them to send for the 96th regiment to handle the situation. The pole was replaced by Hone after some negotiations, then chopped down again after everyone realized there had been no trial of strength between the Maori and English, moreover there were now more Europeans than expected so things were getting uncomfortably "continental". The 96th arrived replaced the flag, only to find that this one was almost immediately cut down.



Then came this day in history March 11, 1845, the stubborn British replaced this third flagpole with one sheathed in iron and surrounded by guards, no fuckers come onto British soil and chop down the Queen's own flag, fuckers. Well the Maori came back...with a vengeance, incensed that their craftsmanship was not being appreciated they charged up to the guard shack killed the soldiers and chopped down the flagpole again. Meanwhile at a nearby settlement another tribe began burning buildings after a semi orderly evacuation of the premises. They opted to not burn the missions however.



With great jubilation Hone Heke watched as the H.M.S. Hazard departed with a few escorts, loaded with Europeans, headed for Auckland to get away from the flagpole haters.



The war continued naturally, it's not as though the 96th was going to sit idly by and watch British subjects getting evicted by people who didn't wear starched collars. The 96th returned on March 28th and burned a fortified village called a Pa. For whatever reasons however (to almost everyone in attendance's confusion) they burned the village of a Chief who was strongly neutral since the outset of problems and had even made efforts to bring more Europeans in to trade with his village.



The war went surprisingly well for the Maori in the end, in spite of suffering serious losses and a few villages (one of which was designed as a target for the British) the British accepted a ceasefire and left the flagpole down, and minimized their incursions into the Maori lands.

This Day in History/ March 4th

I figure to keep me writing I should observe certain events from history. Today we have a special treat, today in 1797 America witnessed the first non violent transfer of powers between two elected leaders. In this case George Washington had wrapped up his presidency and felt like going back to his plantation and handed off the cursed title of President to the newly elected John Adams. Washington most likely remarked "Terribly sorry for you John, it will not be 'fun'", to which Adams probably grabbed him by the arm and escorted him from the premises so he could finally be leader. I like Adams, and I always felt he got a bad rap, however his brother Samuel was a douche bag who I have always hated.

In These Days of Evil Presidente...

I would rather like to see that one or two pay their due. I am speaking of course that at this juncture it has become pretty clear that the United States (since 9/11) has been under something akin to a dictatorship of the executive. I mean seriously how can you ignore it at this point, or wax complacent about "moving forward". When the executive of the U.S. and his associates actively work in collusion to remove opposition from the judicial branch, and the legislative is just a bunch of morons then we have a serious issue that needs serious repercussions. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/us/politics/03legal.html

I mean for fucks sake the President was actively trying to claim the 1st amendment wasn't applicable to modern war efforts. Our constitution is our countries source of direction and trying to circumvent that to wield powers over the country seems a tad bit treasonous.

Now I am a big fan of Nixon getting forced out of office by Watergate, but in my opinion it didn't gor far enough, he needed to be put on trial like a regular criminal. After America let Nixon go and deigned to move forward we opened up the option of pushing the limits on government abuse of power, because what could you do that would get you arrested? Well, it looks as though the answer is anything. I know a bunch of people in this country want Bush and every other skull fucker responsible for the last eight years to get put away and charged for all of their evil, but they won't. Now naturally if you or I did any of these things, or plotted to do them in basements, wearing beards and quoting scripture from any other source besides the bible we would be found and prosecuted. However since this man did it in broad daylight as our elected leader he gets a "get outta jail free" card. Think about it, are you pissed off? Yes, what are you gonna do about it, I wrote to my congressmen and senators, they said they wanted to move forward instead of looking back. Heh,heh. Well if I commit a crime now and no one knows until I'm 80 and everyone involved is dead, I still get tried and could go to jail, so I think that it's only fair that someone who commited crimes up to four weeks ago should, I don't know, GO TO FUCKING PRISON! So now what? I've done my civic part, but it didn't matter because even if we all wrote in and complained the government doesn't give a shit, because it's not as though we would actually rise up and slay them for being pricks. What the hell do we have to do as a nation to say, well, in spite of our learned friends from the deep south the rest of the country would like to make sure the terrorists don't win, by trying the dudes who are responsible for making us live in abject fear.

Also, none of that well in this country the first amendment allows you to say that, which is better than some other countries. FUCK YOU! The "Prez" tried to fucking abolish it, the fucker tried to get rid of it you assholes! If you don't actually hold the government responsible for their activities you are complacent in the crimes just as much as they are. Rush Limbaugh, die in a fire.

The Stock Market Can Eat a Dick

http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/02/markets/markets_newyork/index.htm

Cry you pig fuckers!

I have generally been deeply distrustful of the stock market, there was something about the idea of people spending money on "magic papers" in hopes that the "capital fairy" would visit them that seemed ultimately ludicrous and prone to whining. So today when I checked the news and saw the doom wire known as CNN laying a million shits. Apparently AIG explained that they have suffered a loss, arguably a nightmarish loss of billions of dollars, but still something you would kind of expect to happen when the worlds economy is grinding to a halt.



It's less that AIG is suffering that irks me, it's the stock market as a whole. You have a room filled with men and women representing other outside entities all running around screaming at the heavens, gnashing their teeth and panicking at the drop of a hat. Seriously, if you even glance at the economic forecasts it always reads the same, "Stocks tumble as wallstreet expresses fear over X." You can put anything you want in that spot, X could be anything from "Asteroid headed for Milwaukee" to "Gophers seen in White House lawn". Now the problem with the stock market is that when the investors and the crazies in the pit start to freak out on E and stop doing whatever voodoo they're there for the stocks tumble, which causes them to panic, which causes the stocks to tumble. Meanwhile, they also have a tendancy to want to sell certain ideas like "the world is ending, we can stop it if you just give us more Ameri-bucks!", but there are never enough Ameri-Bucks. We also have the White House beginning to move towards a consolidated "fuck you" to the sectors responsible, which are sectors closely linked to Wallstreet, which of course means that Wallstreet will hold the country ransom till they get more money, so they can then panic when things don't get better. Seriously, it's as though they have either no clue that things could be getting any worse, or lord help us they know and want to collect as much in cash before we all start battling it out in Thunderdome.