What Reshaping the Middle East Really Means

I read about this over the summer but not in this much convincing detail. Per usual, The Centre for Research on Globalization is way ahead of the curve. Yes, boys and girls, They aren't just considering literally redrawing the borders of countries, they're actually doing it. This was, as pointed out here (esp. in the first bullet point), part of the reason for the Lebanon War last summer. It comes on the heels of what we did in Afghanistan in the eighties and Bosnia in the nineties, in both cases with the help of Al Qaeda, and it may well be (and I hope it's not) one of the several purposes of making Iraq bleed. In this scenario, Iran would be lucky to be bombed, even with nuclear bunker busters, than to undergo the strife of its neighbors. At least they'd get to keep their land--a dubious gift top military planners aren't even granting our ally Turkey.

Oops

Funny.

The Katrinacrat

Thanks to suckers like Donnie McDaniel, I finally started blogging at the Katrinacrat.com. Now I know that me blogging anywhere is close to pointless but that's what pundits are for. At least the unpaid ones. So last night I finally managed to post on the Katrinacrat and hope to pollute that site with the detritus of my ridiculous imagination in the near future.

Masochists, read the post here.

The Ineluctable Question

I understand everybody's wondering if I'm going to run in '08. To reiterate my position, I'm going to take time over the holidays to talk over the possibilities. There's ample reason for this. For one, my lesbian Massachusetts remarried ex-wife would come under even more scrutiny for her investment in fur-seal factory farming. Two, despite my children being full-grown, I have been repeatedly smeared for their DUIs and child-molestation slip-ups (c'mon, everyone makes mistakes)--acts for which I was not responsible, despite my investment in their adult video venture. Three, no matter how many times I point it out, my two girlfriends and one boyfriend (again, the Hodgkins is not my fault) disavowed those snuff films and they are bisexual, not gay. And as for my goat, it began nuzzling up to me before I ever wore that costume, let alone started giving Bessie mulled wine. Last time I ran, the liberal media tore me apart for no reason at all--aside from the allegations of heroin smuggling and snorting coke off my former hooker receptionist's recently altered breasts.

Finally, I would like to thank Joe Lieberman for helping me staff my exploratory committee. I will accept their decision, no matter how painful, when they finish their month of spelunking in the caverns southern Mexico.

Is There a Journalist in the House?

What conservative wrote this ridiculous headline? Elected House Speaker, Pelosi Suffers First Defeat. Gotta gin up that conflict, eh? How about: "Hoyer Elected Majority Leader" or even "Hoyer Beats Murtha for Majority Leader Post." Such a story should note that Pelosi backed Murtha and why (he was the big force behind her rise in the ranks). But her role in the story is not headline-worthy and there is simply no excuse for constructing a dramatic twist when all that exists are minor competitions. Note to NPR: Hire some real journalists. Hint: Real journalists can more easily be found outside of Washington.

Tesla's Dream

Poor Nikola Tesla. He practically invented the modern world of electricity--how it's generated, transported and applied. Thomas Edison shit-canned him and stole his work, enabling him to make piles of cash providing power to cities. Then Marconi stole Tesla's discovery that information could be broadcast wirelessly through electromagnetic fields, eventually giving liars like Rush Limbaugh something to do while popping Oxycontin and Dominican girls. Tesla, the genius who seemed born of and to electromagnetism (and who was allegedly born during an electrical storm) spent the latter part of his life trying to broadcast electrical power itself--without wires. Eventually, he went insane and died. But now his vision may be resurrected--at least over short distances.

Necrobestiality?

As you read through the columns of headlines every day, there's always an odd story or two that stands out, like yesterday's about the invention of a musical shirt. But this one is so far off the map, it's somewhere on that tropical island in Lost: "Man Has Sex with Dead Deer." That alone would suffice, but the story contains several surprises.

A man is accused of having sex with the carcass of a deer that he found lying beside the road – but his lawyer denies that he committed bestiality, on the grounds that a dead deer isn't an animal any more.

20-year-old Bryan James Hathaway of Superior, Wisconsin allegedly had sex with the deer corpse after he found it on the roadside on October 11 this year. Authorities say he told police that he noticed the deer lying in a ditch, and then moved the corpse into the woods.

He is charged with 'sexual gratification with an animal' – but in a magnificent piece of legal footwork, his attorney argues that he can't be guilty of that crime, because a carcass isn't an animal, the Duluth News Tribune reports.

In an act of titanic understatement, the paper's headline reads, "Deer assault case presents unusual issues."

Public defender Fredric Anderson filed a motion last week which claimed: 'The statute does not prohibit one from having sex with a carcass.'

He said that if you try to include corpses in the category of 'animals', then 'you really go down a slippery slope with absurd results.'

As if we haven't gotten lost in that territory already.

The only clear place to draw a line in the definition of what is an animal, and what isn't, was at the point of death, he argued.

He gave the example of a roast turkey – with which it would be illegal to have sex under the braoder interpretation of the law – claiming that it was unreasonable to suggest it should still be classified as an animal for the purposes of law.

And isn't this what makes law more fun than science? In law, anything is possible for those who believe.

In response, prosecutor James Broughner argued that a deer carcass is still an animal – pointing out that in his statement to police, Hathaway called the corpse a 'dead deer,' demonstrating that he still thought of it as an animal.

Ah, but he didn't say "animal," he said "deer." Who knows what "deer" could mean "for purposes of law." Personally, I when I hear "deer," I think "cuisinart."

Judge Michael Lucci noted when hearing the arguments that: 'I'm a little surprised this issue hasn't been tackled before in another case.'

Say whaaa? I'm pretty jaded; I've heard of or seen some really bizarre and unwelcome practices--even outside of John Ashcroft's boudoir. But even in my farthest reaching comic moment, the possibility of people fucking dead animals has never occured to me. Just what sort of legal world does this judge inhabit? Does it overlap with an emergency room? What Rick-Santorum-level of bizarre shit do lonely Minnesotans partake in? Can it be filmed and sold overseas?

If Hathaway is convicted, he could serve up to two years in prison, because of a previous conviction in 2005 for shooting dead a horse called Bambrick. So that he could have sex with it.

Count that as one more thing I hadn't considered. How, exactly, does one come to such a fetish? How do you find out you've got it? Are trudging through the woods one day, on the cusp of puberty, and see a dead dog and get sprung?

After-Math

Hey, asshole Karl, you might want to read this before 2008.

Bye, Bye, Rummy

Would you like a side order of Resignation with your Woopass?

Whew...

After yesterday's ass-whoopin' that we gave the gee oh pee, I'm supposed to be elated. But I'm not. I'm relieved--extremely relieved. It's the same feeling I got after finishing long, complicated projects or term papers. Maybe I'm feel a tinge of elation if we take the Senate. If nothing else, we narrowed the gap and put what amounts to a Congressional flood gate in government. Anybody feel the same way?

On a side note, newly minted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (can't we have Boxer?) declared that this Congress would be "the most honest, most open, most ethical Congress in history." I guess that means none of them will be showing up for work in January....

On another side note, from here on out, things are gonna get fugly. Fortunately, in a Hegelian dialectical reversal, to Democrats fugly = beeyooteefull.

Fake Headline of the Day

Katherine Harris Dead at 90 from Makeup Overdose

Fetus Song

Holy Christ Almighty.

It's the Iraqis' Fault

Late last night, I wrote most of a highly ironic post blaming the Iraqis for the decimation of their own country, because that's the logical extreme of the position so many former war cheerleaders are taking. But nutjob Paul at Power Whine beat me to it. I've never been able to tell how much of their preposterous prattle the lobotomized bruderbund at Power Whine believe, but it's frightening to contemplate the likelihood that much of the time they're sincere. Really, somebody should do a neurological study of them; we might learn something critical about derangement--and that would at least save these people from being total wastes of water. (Via Atrios.)

Exit Polls

Come Tuesday, if the exit polls don't match the official vote tallies, it's time to follow the example of Ukraine, Georgia, the Czech Republic and Mexico: Flood the streets and march on Washington. It's our last chance for democracy. After that, all bets are off.

Et Tu, Bruce?

Wow. I had no idea that director Richard Linklater (A Scanner Darkly, School of Rock, Dazed and Confused) had joined the 9/11 Truth chorus but on set he handed out DVDs about the twin towers' destruction and (apparently) Bruce Willis was so shaken by what he saw that his understanding of contemporary politics has shifted radically. The Boy King was right when he declared that "9/11 changed everything." As usual, what he meant was not what he meant us to think.

Hang?

I was surprised to read not that Saddam was sentenced to death but that he was sentenced to hang. What is no surprise is that George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and the many other murderous sociopathic bastards responsible not only for 9/11 but for the subsequent bloodbath in Iraqistan. They will never be tried. They will never be sentenced. They will never, like Mussolini, be strung up at a gas station to hang upside down for public purview. That is because life is not fair. But now and then there is justice. So let's be glad that Saddam will hang, even if that's maybe not such a great idea for Iraq right now (c'mon, guys, could you maybe put it off for a couple years?)

From the Department of Obviousness Studies

Dear neurotic, sclerotic "news" media: Kerry was insulting the President, not the troops. But the staff of realitique™ don't expect you to listen to the entire quote in context. Because, frankly, you never do that. Which is why I, a former American news consumer, don't read your shit anymore.

Other recent discoveries of the obvious told realitique™, on condition of anonymity, that the obvious place to look to wed General Relativity (or, alternatively Lorentzian Relativity) to Quantum Mechanics is spacetime (neé the Ether) itself (a.k.a. "dark energy," which is quite likely the same thing as the "zero-point energy," which follows logically from the discovery of the Casimer--sp?--effect).*

In other news of the Obvious, Slate's John Dickerson is showing signs of concluding, based on six years of documentary evidence, that President Bush™ almost never tells the truth about anything. Welcome to the club, John; wish you had the mental wattage to figure that out, as the rest of us did, as early as 2001, but then you're a prominent Washington journalist, so obsequiousness, ignorance, incuriosity, spinelessness and a hazy cloud of advanced stupidity were required for you to land your current position as Slate's White House Disinformation Specialist. Tell Tony hi for us, willya?

*Thanks to several talented surgeons over several hours, I am now free of the inexplicably expanding stick up my ass.