It’s official: Iraq is worse off than when the war began. I’m not saying we didn’t already know this, but Congress’ investigative arm, the GAO, has put it in plain terms. (Much like Bush chooses to use.) Here’s one reason: In 13 of Iraq’s 18 provinces, electricity was available fewer hours per day on average last month than before the war. Nearly 20 million of Iraq’s 26 million people live in those provinces.

So what do we do when we fail, everybody? That’s right! Send more troops, because nothing illustrates stong leadership and accountability like ignoring failure. What’s that? We’re out of troops? Well, let’s just call up those who recently left the service and force them to join back up. No problem. See, being a president is easy.

Finally, we men don’t have to resort to Rohypnol in order to get laid. That’s right, once it’s tested in humans, I’m sure they’ll find that the same substance now getting female rats horny as hell will work in female humans as well. Sources say the drug will be able to be ground up and placed in food. Actually, I just came up with that idea.

When you wake up with a hangover after dosing a boatload of women with the new aphrodisiac, you’ll wish you had taken some prickly pear cactus extract. According to researchers, the extract of a prickly pear cactus can prevent a severe hangover and significantly reduce nausea, dry mouth, and loss of appetite. Man, science is kick ass.

Around here, most of us call it “pop”, but you may know it as soda, coke, or even sugar juice. So which areas call it by what name? Find out right here!

Talk about a lame day for the web. I read through all the news stories I could find, and really nothing was screaming out at me to post on the ol’ bloggy-blog. We all know that “power” has been “transferred” to “Iraq” two days early. Big deal. Perhaps in some distant conservative social circle, there is elated conversation taking place… even proposing that this dupes Michael Moore’s film release. Of course I laugh out loud in the faces of those ignoramuses. The word from Iraq is that the entire Governing Council is full of American puppets. This comes from a young lady in her mid-twenties, so you can bet how much faith the elder generations have in these puppets, let alone the “insurgents” or militia members. Yes, I quote insurgents, because I don’t feel we have any right to assume authority over the Iraqi citizens, or even one of their dogs. So anyway, there’s that. There is a poll on CNN.com today asking: “Do you think the new Iraqi government will be able to solve the security problems?” 76% answered NO. Okay, then why is Bush’s approval rating even above 40%? I know the two don’t go hand in hand, but this is the best “new government” Bush could come up with. This is his plan. That’s all he’s got. Man, people are dumb.

There’s a quote at the bottom of my blog, which replaces the personality test results, that I think you should read. It’s from Zappa. Vote Zappa.

Well I had to give out ONE decent link today, so with the help of AllDumb.com, I came across a most disturbing thing. The Countdown to Emma Watson’s 18th Birthday. I’ve never seen any Harry Potter movies, nor read any of the books, so this obsession is new to me, but here’s what I DO know. She’s 14 as of April 15th! Now, I don’t really know how much in advance the Olsen Twins’ famous countdown sites were “erected”, but when there’s 1542 days to go, wouldn’t one ponder the appropriateness of such a site? I’ve got to post this quote from his site: First of all, her name is pronounced her-MY-uh-nee, not her-my-OH-nee! You can remember where the accent goes because it’s on the MY, as in Hermione is MY girl. Not yours, which means don’t even think about it. He’s referring to her character’s name, Hermione. Way to stake your claim, dawg. I’m sure that even SHE has sworn her heart over to you after such a bold, brave assertion of authority. Shit, I’m swooning over you, and I’m a hetero 25 year old male! That last comment made me wonder… hmm… maybe this guy is like 17, and I shouldn’t be so hard on him. So back to his site I went, and I found his “About Me” page. He’s a 37 year old computer programmer named Donald Nyffington! Okay… then I dove over to the pictures page, where at the bottom it says: “I scanned these pictures out of my special leather-bound Hermione photo album. I have her future name imprinted in gold foil on the cover: “Hermione Nyffington.”

See, that was pretty entertaining.

Owned.

On Friday, Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 was released in theaters all over the place. I was present, at 7:55pm, when the ticket guy entered the theater and said “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Shrek 2″. Very funny. He then told us it was sold out, which actually drew applause. So Mr. George Al Harim Assad Bush, what do you have to say for yourself? The documentary was the first ever to top the weekend box office upon debuting. How do you like that? Somewhere I read that those right wing corporate schmucks were planning on making a movie called “Michael Moore Hates America.” Nothing could disgust me more. I’m not saying this movie is perfect or that everyone should agree with it, but it’s hardly even opinionated. It’s mostly facts. At this point, Republicans need to look in the mirror and state the following: “the fact that I like Bush means I’m a greedy jackass who cares more about money than my fellow human beings, and I’m willing to let innocent people die on both sides, just to further my disgusting wealth-grabbing agenda.” Seriously. There is no other reason you could possibly support Bush. Well, maybe if you were a deaf mute with no friends and you hadn’t been outside since Reagan was in office… I could see you holding on for a few minutes until someone was willing to write out exactly how bad things are right now.

Another group on their way out by the time November rolls around is Phish. You know, the band. My friend Ben and I drove our silly asses to Deer Creek, outside of Indianapolis, to check them out before they call it quits. Who knows if they really will stay broken up for good, but at least for several years this will be it. I’ve seen them 6 times now, and this show blew all others away. Star Lake in PA was close, but even since then these guys have improved as musicians. I can’t imagine that’s easy to do when you’ve played together for over 20 years. Here’s the setlist, and some pictures. I wish there were some more crowd pictures, just because it was a tremendous gathering. They DID show Clifford however, who we saw several times. The lot was pretty cool too. They sold all kinds of good beers, and even had freakin’ SUSHI when the show was over. You could score some Basil & Sun-dried Tomato Pasta, veggie burritos, Thai noodles… freakin’ everything. After the show, I grabbed a porter and a veggie burger, then we got in line with our car. One hour later we had moved maybe 15 feet (because cars were giving up), when we finally saw some cars moving on the other side of the parking lot. I “off-roaded” over there, hitting trash and bottles on my way, and we made it out about 5 minutes later. After about a half hour, my wuss-ass was falling asleep, so Benny took over driving. With the help of Red Bull, he ballsed it all the way into town. Thanks Benny.

On Saturday, I went to my Padre’s house for some birthday celebration and some grub. While I was there, 2,754 nude people were gathering downtown for a photo, which was taken by Spencer Tunick. Pretty cool, Cleveland, pretty cool.

Yesterday I waged war on my computer, and decided to go out and get Windows XP. I figured that having to install Win98 BEFORE putting on Win2000 wasn’t helping my system out, and maybe, just maybe, some of the blue screens would go away. Well, I will say this - I was actually able to run Flight Simulator 2004. That was an incredible achievement. I think now I need some new components, but at least it’s functioning.

Today I’m bogged down with training sessions. This morning I filmed a parent panel, where some parents came in and answered questions and talked about their experiences with PEP. It was nice to hear how much PEP has helped them, even when they were being prodded to come up with something we could do differently. In about 2 minutes, I’m off to another center to get my Cultural Responsiveness training. Coz you know, I’m a HUGE racist and fan of the KKK. (Really it’s required, and I have no choice.)

Last night I got totally sloshed with Benny, who’s blog is linked here, down at The Brew Kettle. So sloshed, in fact, that I thought it best to spend the night at his relative’s house. It sure was weird waking up there. On the way out, I was informed of a serious backup on I-90, and told to take Lake all the way in. Well, I had no idea where I was, but somehow I found Lake, and by noticing that Lake Erie was on my right, determined I was going the wrong way. I spun ‘er around and popped on my emergency sunglasses, and stayed on Lake until I got to Columbia, then took I-90 in. I managed to get a shower in and left for work a bit early. I feel like one third of my brain was stolen, however. It’s only 8:54am though, so I suppose it’s understandable.

Big surprise, The US has more than doubled its (previous) estimate of the number of people killed by terrorism last year. While COLON “Explanation Man” Powell says there was no effort to deceive people, well… why should I listen to him? He’s been the Bush cartel’s ‘yes man’ for all their propagandistic needs thus far.

SpaceShipOne climbs 62 miles up! Aside from ancient Egyptians and Atlantians, who could fly to any altitude without oxygen, including deep space, this was the first privately-funded space flight ever. What’s that? No, that’s true… Colin Powell told me all about it. Plus, you know, they found Atlantis recently.

I just got my new teeth put in a couple of days ago. How do they look?

Let’s make this snappy.

First and foremost, a friend of Nick’s had a run-in with Johnny law. Truly unbelievable, yet… true. I won’t spoil the story by ranting further about it.. but I will say it’s terribly upsetting.

Man hasn’t left apartment in 8 years because his elevator was broken finally gets to go out.

And in an amazing show of D.W.E. (Driving While Elderly) an 80 year old man hit 15 people in a parade. They sure love crashing into gatherings of people, don’t they? Wasn’t it last year that guy drove through an open air market?

I watched the movie ‘Boa’ last night, with Dean Cain. Whooo boy, is that ever bad. It fit right into my favorite genre of giant animal flicks, though. The Boa itself was some pretty half-ass CGI. When they only showed its body, that was okay. The head was a disaster. It didn’t look like a boa at all. From what I saw, and I saw most of it, it only reticulated around a person ONE time. Also, Dean Cain and his wife were both doctors of some kind, who happened to know about ‘arctic reptiles from the past’. Dean my man, why didn’t you run screaming out of the office when they proposed the premise? A lot of the movies in my favorite genre are lacking in plot, but because of the lack of genetic understanding we have today, you can sort of ‘write off’ the more preposterous inferences. Boa, on the other hand, jumped to conclusions that were perhaps out of it’s own range. In the future, there’s a maximum-security prison on Antarctica, and some type of outside drilling awakens the sleeping, prehistoric boa. It makes its way into the prison and begins eating people. Without explaining the mission, the government takes Dean Cain and his lady down there to get rid of it. Death ensues. Arctic reptiles? Uhh… dude, they’d freeze.

Okay, brace yourself. I should have posted this earlier, but well, here it is anyway. On SomethingAwful.com’s forums, somebody posted a link to this site. I Am Asian.com This is a McDonald’s-run site. It completely fails to identify the rationale behind creating such a campaign. Your guess is as good as mine, and I’ve already read everyone else’s guesses on the forums. Utterly fucking clueless.

We’ve already given up so many of our rights to the government in these past four years, so why not give them up completely? Pentagon seeks OK to spy on Americans. As if we have any say in this. This is yet another story that I will post here on my blog, but will not reach any mainstream source, and the public will never know or care. Enjoy.

Here’s a story I hope people will remember, and ensure that GW Bush and Rummy get decades of jailtime for: U.S. holding thousands in secret jails. Okay, so what’s the difference between this and any other dictatorship with ‘rape rooms’ and ‘torture chambers’? Oh yeah, NOTHING. Well, you did it GW, you became what you hate. Or, at least what you say in public you hate. We all know you’re an anti-gay, anti-minority, facist pig as well.

Blastfax kudos all around.

Right now I’m copying a vhs tape entitled First Impressions: Male Hygeine. This is part one of a two part series. There’s a hack of a dermatologist on the screen right now. To my right is my recently-swiped iMac from the other department, playing a CD. A delivery of cookies and ice is imminent. After a more thorough inspection of our camcorder yesterday, I realized it does indeed have firewire, and proceeded to hook it up to the iMac. After a little fuckin’ around, I created a movie with transitions and some title text, exported it to the camcorder and then used our DVD burner to make my very first DVD. Awwww.

I found a nice article regarding the widening gap between the rich and poor in this country of ours. It is recommended that you give it a gander.

Why is the gap windening so much, when the most important prerequisite for being on the rich side is to disregard common sense? These days when I read a conservative’s editorial, or even hear a blatantly biased news report, the commentary is mostly insult-driven, and while they may re-visit their tired platforms, they don’t justify them… they simply reiterate them angrily. They like to blame MoveOn, Michael Moore, Al Franken… all in hopes of painting all progressives as lunatics. Like Bill O’Reilly, for example, compares Al Franken and Michael Moore to Goebbels, in the propaganda sense. Answer this, O’Reilly: what kind of asshole fights a movement whose goal is essentially to improve the standard of living for all Americans, and especially in Michael Moore’s case, the troops? Tell you what, I’ll answer it for you. Rich cocksuckers who are hording both power and money in order to fuck over average citizens for their own personal gain. I’m beginning to think that once you’re a part of that elite upper caste, whether you were born into it or not, you inherently dislike the poorer classes. There can be no other justification for their dogmatic movement to destroy the lower class.

THEY also order prisoners to be treated like dogs. I can just hear O’Reilly or Limbaugh’s response to this report. “Well they ARE dogs, people. These vermin are trying to destroy our country.” Wrong wrong wrong. Firstly, I’d be willing to wager that 90% of the prisoners we’ve detained did nothing wrong. In that respect, I’ll let all the accounts of mistaken identities and wrongful accusations speak for me. So by treating these largely innocent peoples like dogs, do conservatives really believe that doesn’t matter? Sure they do, but it does matter. It matters because the ones who are released - or the ones whose stories make it to the newspapers - influence the rest of the population. Then you end up with an astonishing 80% disapproval of America’s actions over there. What else happens? People start to hate Americans even more. What happens THEN?! New terrorists are created. I don’t care if we dissolve al Qaeda… the people of the world have a right to distrust and despise the American government right now. Let’s just hope they don’t despise the average American as well.

The Cleveland Schools announce their budget cuts. $100 Million in budget trimming will take place, including 1000 teacher jobs, plus an additional 400 positions. Sherona Garrett-Ruffin, a school board member, said “This represents loss of the ‘American Dream’ for our students.” Though I can’t seem to find the story again, I also read about a research project finding the best and worst places for children to live. It said that Cleveland was the worst major metropolitan area in the country for children to live in. Well, this budget crisis sure ain’t gonna help that.

On top of budget issues, a man in Columbus was planning to blow up a mall. There must be some misleading al Qaeda membership figures out there, because I heard there were only 190-some members in the world. Well, this guy supposedly at least had connections with al Qaeda. Being the intensely paranoid and clueless culture we are, the news about Columbus has sparked fears about Cleveland malls as well. “When you walk through the mall, into the doors, you go through metal detection, everything comes out of your pockets, they wand you and then you have to stay there,” said John Juszkiewicz, Galleria Director of Protective Services. “You can’t go out and grab a cigarette and come back and go through the process so I don’t think the American public is ready for that.” Yeah fucking right! I hate going to the mall already… you think I’m gonna wait at a security checkpoint AT CHRISTMAS TIME while they search EVERYONE? Well, if that does happen, my last mall visit ever will be just before it goes into action.

Now it’s time for some cool shit.
Truck carrying nine million bees overturns on Montana highway. Awesome.

Yukon men convinced they saw sasquatch. Just a little bit more awesome.

Susumu Tachi invents all sorts of really cool shit. Like his optical camouflage, aka INVISIBILITY CLOAK! Please do youself a favor and check out all the cool things this guy is working on! Man, this guy is awesome.

Get over to SomethingAwful.com today, because their awful link of the day is RateMyFursuit.com! Oh god is that shit funny.

Since I don’t have a picture, here’s something I made in Photoshop to illustrate the dumb law in Canton, Ohio -> No Power Wheels on City Streets

The picture I WISH I was posting here is a sight my bro and I were privy to at Tops this weekend. It was… the biggest mullet I’ve ever seen. Ethan trailed him to his car but failed to get a snapshot before he ducked into the vehicle. I’ll do my best to translate its glory into the words of mortals: The entire thing was frizzy and dry, but not out of control, just completely lacking conditioner. On top, a glorious afro-like crown of dry, black hair adorned his skull. The ‘party in back’ was a free-flowing waterfall, unchained from criticism and fads, reaching nearly to his ass. This was a white man, not jewish (as the inclusion of the word afro may have indicated), and he appeared to be a fan of NASCAR. As a side note, his total AT THE SELF CHECKOUT was $210. Thank Jeebus I arrived when he was almost done.

Who else is saying Bush must go? A group of 26 former senior diplomats and military officials, including some big ticket Republicans. In this article, it discusses how their ‘timing was bad’. Oh yeah? Well, someone wrote a fucking story about it, didn’t they? I’m READING the story, aren’t I?

Here’s one I wish I HADN’T read: Pentagon blows $100 million on airline tickets. Thanks, fuckfaces.

A new global cost-of-living report discovers the most expensive places to live. San Francisco is NOT the most expensive place in the US to live, despite what I thought. New York city is, then LA, then Chicago, and THEN San Fran. Tokyo is #1. Suprises to me: Beijing, Ho Chi Minh City and MOSCOW. Hm.

Here’s a shocker: New studies say drinking soda may be hazardous to your health. When you click this link, check out the expression on the reporter’s face. I know it’s a stock photo, but it says it all. Terrible, terrible journalism. Bitch. (Oh yeah, I went there.)

ATTN NDR - ATTN NDR - ATTN NDR - ATTN NDR
I can’t believe this. Lemme explain. On the SomethingAwful forums, people are repeatedly posting this one weird image of an alien-like creature. I wondered what it was. I knew a photographer had created it to use in some weird pictures. Then I found this article about him. His name is Charlie White, and he’s a surrealist photographer. His first big project was FEMALIEN, featured in Cheri magazine. (I just so happened to have this exact issue of said porno, and was always baffled by it. The alien-like creature I was referring to earlier is called ‘Joshua’, and can also be seen in the article. It’s supposed to represent what a person feels they look like, not what they actually look like. Interesting.