Cucumber Time...

There is a phrase in the language spoken here in the Happy Little Kingdom which roughly translates to: "Cucumber Time". This refers to the silly season during the summer when there really isn't any news and you get "man-bites-dog" stories blown up as Great News.

Of course, I give little credence to the misinformation and psuedo-science which purports to "prove" the "global warming" hoax. It is sufficient that our Dear Leader thinks little of it and I would trust Him with everything, except my life, bank account and honor -- not necessarily in that order.

However, "Cucumber Time" has fallen upon us here in the Happy Little Kingdom -- and it isn't even April Fools Day!

A fellow in a major political party here, Jesper Cowfoot got himself what we used to call back in Poosah City a "piece of ass". Indeed, he got the tenderloin, in fact if it had been in the United State of Arrogance, he would be finding himself on the way to jail. The sweet lady in question was what we called back then as San Quentin Quail -- she was only 15 years old...

However, in the Happy Little Kingdom the age of consent is 15 -- so, there is no scandal, let alone a criminal case there.

But the Tabloids! The headlines were almost as tall as Jesper's little soldier, when standing at attention.

Wow!

This World Class News was followed up the next day by informing us that he had not used a rubber and the little girl had to take a pill to exclude the possibility of pregnancy.

Geeze, I'm not a prude and to be rude, if a 15 year old girl, assuming it wasn't in a place like Georgia, offered to grace my old age with some sweet sweet sugar -- well, I'd have to say, wait and see what I would do.

Mars Rover

Disgusted?

Well, yes, in fact pissed off in a number of ways.

Didja know, we put 800 million dollars into a project to put a couple of things on wheels called Mars Rovers on the surface of, yeah, Mars.

Okay, you might disagree and say that was a lot of money to spend for what.?

On the other hand, the damn things on wheels have been there for three years -- and they only figured they would run three months!

They have given us an amazing real time amount of information about Mars, not the least that there has been running water on the planet. In fact, they are damn close to being able to tell us if there has actually been LIFE there -- this is the goddamn ontological question of the millennium!

It costs some 20 million a year to keep the buggers running, considering that they have continued to work ten times what was planned along with the amazing information they have given us about this sister planet, 20 million a year is peanuts.

HOWEVER, since the Bush (mal)administration has spent one trillion dollars on an military escapade which no one has yet been able to explain, NASA must cut costs, and so, to save 4 million, they will turn off one of the Mars Rovers. When they turn it off, they will not be able to turn it back on. The other Rover will be put on standby and will, perhaps, maybe, be capable of being restarted.

It's a small thing, I guess, compared to the other shit the Codpiece Admin has pulled, but, somehow, it seems to me to be an archetype of their shit.

A Quote from "Arrogance is Run By Gangsters"

[One of my favorite on-line writers is a fellow named Joe Bagent. This quote is taken from the end of his answer to a reader's letter to him "America is Run By Gansters"]

If there is to be so much more misery in the world, I'd rather be among those alleviating it than causing it. We all make choices. There's no high fallutin' moral stuff involved in such a choice. All things considered, it's just easier in the long run to help our fellow man than to fuck him over.

Which proves, at least in my case, there is some moral advantage to being lazy.

Five Years and Four Thousand

Five years and four thousand -- and for what purpose?

Whatever, the leader says it was worth it -- and that victory will be ours...


"Little man, I'm telling you
you'd better figure it out pretty soon
why they bleed you."

"Hail Mary, full of hate,
your sons are soldiers and heads of state,
they hide behind armor and steel plate,
cursed is the fruit of your womb..."

"And the question keeps pounding in my brain:
How much longer must we wait
while others decide our fate?"

"And the answer is always the same:
Peace now -- or pieces later!

Fug da Niggas!!!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, they chuckle as they munch on their pretzels and order a cheeseburger...

Osama (or rather, a voice which experts say sounds like his, on a web site to which no link is given...) mumbles about murder and mayhem against the west because of the reprinting of some cartoons with a guy with a bomb in his turban.

The clock ticks and we are just one terraist act away from Mad Kane as Prez of the United State of Arrogance...

Again, meanwhile, the media gorges itself on a tidbit -- the pastor of Bulimo Charisma’s church, said something which has gotten the pundit class to tie their underpants in knots. Bulimo, who wasn’t even in the goddam church at the time has been accused of being in a class with flag burners, which, as we know is next to terraism!!!

What did the pastor say?

As far as I can tell, but I have yet to find the terrible words. It seems to me that pastor Williiams did the horrible thing, which a nigga never should do -- tell the truth.

The fuggin truth!

Pundits can come on about the libruls and how they plan to destroy our Arrogance and ought to be shot, hung, crucified and so on -- but when a goddam nigga speaks truth, well, it's politically uncorrect to lynch the motha nowadays, but we can do the next best...

Arrogance has created, embellished and fostered at least ½ of the life-threatening problems we face today -- and I am whiter than white, my ancestry goes back to the Mayflower...

The pundit class is puking green snot -- the bottom line is that niggas can be accepted, if they is high yellow and even better, ain’t from the slaves, but they will always be niggas!

Happy Anniversary

[If this was the Third Galaxy, this is what you might hear from the bobble heads on the glowing screens]

Happy Anniversary!

It was five years ago today that the liberation of Wudda-Wreck began with a fantastic display of fireworks on your tee-vee screen. As the song goes:

"If there's one thing Arrogance hates,
it's dictators in oil-rich states,
we shoot them with bullets, rockets and bombs
and you get to see it on color television!"

Yes indeed, it all went so fast with the "Shock and Awe Show" that some of our advertisers were, slightly, miffed. But still, as patriotic Arrogant citizens, they were happy to see how we were greeted by the liberated people of Wudda-Wreck -- for them, the bottom line is not the most important thing!

The showers of flowers, the embraces and kisses of the liberated people!

It was so inspiring that we could accept the few incidents where some of our troops slipped and hurt themselves on the piles of rose petals they had to wade through...

Today, five years later, we see how Wudda-Wreck enjoys the benefits of Purple Finger Democracy!

Why just the other day, several members of the Wudda-Wreck government ventured outside of the Dream Zone in Bodybag to meet with Mad Kane, the Repugnant candidate for Prez. They met at an undisclosed location and talked about things we know nothing about, before he wiped the sweat from his brow and flew back to the United State of Arrogance.

We can assume they had a nice lunch because, when he returned, Mad Kane announced that things continue to improve so much in Wudda-Wreck that we may be able to withdraw our military presence there in a 100 years or even sooner if the oil runs out...

I Can't Help It...

[By chance, I ran across the liner notes that Ichabod Rain put together for one the hard copies he made of a collection he entitled, "I Can't Help It" with the remark that it was of his "sad song". Just what he meant by that, I haven't yet determined -- but I am convinced that it is a play on words of some sort.

With this in hand, I will post over the next days, the texts and, hopefully, further comments that Ichabod may have made about these compositions -- one never knows what one might uncover in the 2nd and 3rd level footnotes to the Absolute Truth, 21st Edition]

What A Monkey Can Do -- an old friend told me about being attacked by some skinhead nazis and this song was the result. It's really not about fascists -- it's an examination of the theme that there is no way to find a limit on the goodness or wickedness us little monkeys can demonstrate.

I Can't Help It -- a pretty little thing I put together one afternoon which starts with a complaint that I had lost my "genuine triangular tortoise shell flat pick" and glides over to deep philosophical speculation, if you know where to look.

Crazy Lover -- a take off on an old traditional guitar piece, "Buckdancer's Choice" to which I found a few words somewhere...

The Earth -- Sunflower Woman hates this song because she sees it as a rip off on Woody Guthrie's "This Land is your Land" -- which it isn't. True, the concept owes a lot to "This land", but the melody has no relation and the structure of the chorus as well as the development of the first two verses is a lot different.

Freight Train -- my modest interpretation of Elizabeth Cotton's classic

Rambler Gambler -- my interpretation of a classic folk song

The Water is Wide -- my interpretation of John Jacob Niles' arrangement of a lovely, classic folk song. The D-tuning arrangement is something I picked up somewhere at least 30 years ago.

Deep Water -- if I was to choose, I'd say that this is best thing I've ever done, "...perhaps you are afraid to go, but still you cannot stay -- love is the journey we must all go on someday and it's deep, incredibly, perhaps infinitely deep."

Terrible Times -- a Kvad Revisted...

I recently uncovered, in 3rd level footnotes to the Absolute Truth, 21st Edition, a fourth verse to the kvad, "Terrible Times" by the unknown poet of the Third Galaxy I posted earlier:

All we need right now is time,
time to take the steps we should
and train ourselves for what will come.
And what will come are the Terrible Times
which will test our human qualities.
But there is no time for, as it always has:
the time is now!

Indeed, the monster seems to have had no shame!

Although he once boasted of having escaped active service in the War Against the Dominoes. Which is no shame in itself, but later, as Supreme Hole, he sent thousands to die in Farawastan and Wudda-Wreck and then had the gall to tell soldiers that he wished he was younger and not "otherwise engaged", because he figured it would be cool to go out and fight for democracy in the mud, blood and flies. Well, no he didn't quite say that -- mud, blood and flies weren't quite his rambo illusion.

Whatever, here is the kvad as it now stands -- if I can find more stanzas, I will post them.

Here is the Terrible Times kvad as it now stands:

Their lack of common decency,
was only matched by their hypocrisy.
They pretended to spread democracy
by dispensing justice from the barrel of a gun.
At the end of the day, the goal of their game
was to conquer the world or bring it down in flames.

It was said, "It's about the oil and other stuff!"
That was true, but not quite true enough...
It was about all things that could be abused,
up to and including human lives.
Their genes were seen as a hill of beans;
to be counted and added to the bottom line.

It was a time, a Terrible Time,
when wicked works were wrought by all.
By all except the few who saw
and recognized the nature of the beast.
The beast which ripped the womb of birth
and desecrated the Mother, Earth.

All we need right now is time,
time to take the steps we should
and train ourselves for what will come.
And what will come are the Terrible Times
which will test our human qualities.
But there is no time for, as it always has:
the time is now!

A Kvad for a Monster

[Kvad was a poetic form used in the North Lands of the Third Galaxy. The unknown poet apparently experimented more with this form than I previously thought. As usual, he takes great liberties, as the kvad should have two consonantal alliteratives in each of the six tetrameter lines. Whatever, this "kvad" takes the form of Rexona responding to the question of his crimes in a light hearted manner]


"In regard to the millions you mention who died,
it's not my fault!" the monster replied.
"I only did what had to be done
to protect the Arrogant Way of Life,
preserve freedom and thickly spread
democracy across the world."

"To make an omelet, you break some eggs
and you waste some flour to bake some bread.
Our Cause was Justice, Freedom and Peace,
so why the fuss about the dead?
Should a leader with visions such as I
be concerned when a few millions die?"

"I only did what I was told
by the Great Potato's only spud,
the Holy Idaho Himself!
So, yeah, I sleep good at night.
Right now, there's some brush to clear on the ranch
and a barbeque that's coming up tonight."

The Burning Fuse...

[I suppose that what follows below could be seen as a background, after the recent events which caused me to compose and post the day before about Ooog and Schmoog.

In any case, although I hope it is still not to extinguish, I do strongly feel that the fuse, which will ignite the conflagration which can only be thought of as the Ultimate Wars, was lit the day Yitzhak Rabin was murdered.]

It is those who have the power who have to make the first move in a situation collapsing in a spiral of violence. This is especially true when the party with the power is an intruding force.

An obvious problem course is that the perceptions of the various sides are -- incompatible.

The English were incapable of seeing themselves as outsiders, intruders. One side in Northern Ireland saw themselves, not as Scottish Immigrants, but as rightful heirs returning to their Homeland -- the Irish population had a rather opposing view.

The years the Thatcher gov't refused to "negotiate with terrorists" were wasted. It was obvious, even to a relatively ignorant person like myself that this was a bullshit stand point. The only way to end the conflict militarily would have been to either expel or exterminate the entire Catholic population from the North. A political solution, negotiation was the only real solution. Finally, it was the Brits, with the support and pressure of the US that made moves which ended in ending the bloody stalemate. True, the present situation is not perfect or even stable for certain. But it's better than the bloodiness that ruled before.

This is ever so much more true of the eye of the storm in the Muddled East -- so much so that it is almost impossible to speak of the actual situation on the ground and the incredible suffering of millions of people there without being accused of a bias of anti-semitism -- which is weird since most of the people involved are semites, albeit affiliated with different religious systems..

The Oslo Accord in 1993 was a turning point -- again marked by the influence pressure of the US as a superpower as well as the brave initiative of the Rabin gov't.

Three things snuffed this small flame of hope.

One was, of course, the murder of Rabin. The second was the goal of a Greater Israel pursed by the Netanyahoo and Sharon gov'ts. The third was the corruption and incompetence of the Arrafat led Fatah and PLO. This led to the rise of the Hamas movement.

The present situation is that people are being murdered, except for their innocence, indsicriminently by the handfuls, by the dozens and by the hundreds in both Israel and the Gaza. As this goes on, land continues to be expropriated on the West Bank to sate the dream of a Greater Israel.

Again, there is no way out of a tragic situation except negotiation. Again, it is the party with the power and which is also the intruder, in the Gaza and the West Bank, which can initiate negotiation.

Unfortunately -- and this is a failing of the Bush administration which exceeds even Iraq -- the US has not used its influence and power in any meaningful way -- and there are still elements in the Olmert gov't which see "transfer" [expulsion] and even "shoah" [annihilation] as the final solution.

Fifteen years ago I saw the fuse lit which will eventually ignite what, in the Third Galaxy, were known as the Ultimate Wars. But it does not have to be. The burning fuse could still be extinguished

A Last Supper...

The last battle was between Ooog and Schmooog and it didn't last long.

Ooog struck Schmooog a mighty blow with his sword, "Snicker-Snack" and Schmooog's left arm fell to the ground, severed from his body. But Schmooog quickly snatched up the appendage which had so recently been a part of him and, swinging it over his head, struck Ooog such a blow that it cracked his head open and Ooog expired, dead on the spot.

"Yeaaaaaggghhh!!!"

Schmooog cried the cry of Ultimate Victory!

However, unable to stench the flow of blood, also he collapsed, his body falling over that of Ooog.

The carrion crows were, of course, happy for the double meal, but their joy was tempered by the knowledge that there would be no more free meals coming their way. This was, so to speak, their Last Supper.

Purple Finger Freedom

[I found this obscure rant in 3rd level footnotes to the 21st Edition of the Absolute Truth. It would take a stretch of the imagination to apply it to our world, which is far saner than that of the Third Galaxy, but I post it as a warning -- not that I think we could ever devolve to the levels implied here...]

There are different kinds of freedom!

Some freedoms are trivial and some are rather important.

There is the freedom to get yourself a free purple finger every few years and then there is the freedom of being able to go to the market place without wondering if it will be your turn this time to be blown into instant dog food...

There is the freedom of being able to work in a sweat shop without worrying about being deported by ICE agents and then there is the freedom of not starving to death.

There is the freedom of having access to clean drinking water so you don't have to watch your baby die of dehydration from the diarrhea it contracted because the clean water had been privatized and you couldn't afford it.

Now that's a real cool freedom, but there are those who judge it not quite on a par with the freedom of the purple finger.

There are two reasons.

The nice reason is that the purple freedom spreads democracy.

The nasty reason is that, if some slimebags can make money from privatizing clean water or even fresh air to breathe -- heck, if a consortium buys up rights to human genes even, why that is cool...

The reason is that Free Market Forces are Holy and any suffering caused by the exploitation of human resources or rape of the environment is okay because -- at the end of day -- there will be growth and prosperity and a few drops of the wealth will trickle down, perhaps, maybe...

In any case, to be on the safe side, leave your socks hanging on the mantle piece or your tooth under the pillow -- who knows? There might really be a Santa Claus or a Tooth Fairy!!!

An Abject Apology to Bush Lite

I apologize!

I am so ashamed for the snarky things I wrote about Mr. Bush-Lite, a.k.a. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the other day. I both deeply and abjectly apologize.

First of all, I snarked that Anders Fogh had, except for a few measly contracts gotten very little in repayment for the Danish lives wasted in Wudda-Wreck and on the rocky plains of the Helmand province in Farawaystan -- that was a mistake and I apologize!

Not only did Bush-Lite and his wife get to enjoy a real Arrogant hamburger prepared by the nimble hands of the Codpiece Himself, they got to sleep overnight on the ranch. But, best of all, Bush-Lite got to ride a mountain bike alongside the Codpiece -- twice! -- once in the evening sunset and once in the morning sunrise! To top it all off, the Codpiece actually praised Bush-Lite, saying that Anders Fogh had not even broken out in a sweat!

In return, Anders Fogh was allowed to ask the Codpiece about the crossing of Danish airspace and actual landing of Arrogant airplanes on Danish soil, planes which carried prisoners being extraordinarily rendered -- that is, being sent to dark foreign places where they would be tortured. The Codpiece smiled his strange smile which some call a smirk and replied, "I'll ask them to look into it..."

To show his gratitude, Bush-Lite said, "You, Mr. Prez and the Unified State of Arrogance have done more than any other to promote this vision of freedom and democracy throughout the world, please let me praise you for that!"

Ah yes, the Codpiece is a real piece of work when it comes to defending freedom! What can we do but praise Anders Fogh for having drawn attention to this only slightly indisputable fact? For only a brave leader such as the Codpiece would have the gall to veto law which requires all Arrogant agencies to abide by and follow the guidelines in the Universal code of Military Justice which prohibits such fun pastimes as:

Forcing a prisoner to be naked, perform sexual acts or pose in a sexual manner.
Placing hoods or sacks over the head of a prisoner, and using duct tape over the eyes.
Applying beatings, electric shocks, burns or other forms of physical pain.
Waterboarding.
Using military working dogs.
Inducing hypothermia or heat injury.
Conducting mock executions.
Depriving a prisoner of necessary food, water or medical care.

When Bush Lite Went to Crawford...

[Barf bags should be near at hand...]

Bush Lite, a.k.a. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Prime Minister of the Happy Little Kingdom is grabbing sound bites and headlines here in the Danish media because he has scored yet another success in what passes for international diplomacy these days. Even as I, with some success, control my retch reflex, he and his wife are eating lunch in Crawford with the Codpiece-in-Chief, Himself!

This is a crowning achievement for Anders Fogh, putting in the shade, having breakfast in the White House, lunch and even being invited to Camp David!

These are rewards for lying to the Danish Parliament so that they would okay Danish participation as a member of Coalition of the Willing in the invasion of Wudda-Wreck and the ensuing on-growing catastrophe devolving into utter nightmare and the middle circles of Dante's Hell...

Although one might argue that a couple dozen Danish lives lost in Wudda-Wreck and Farawaystan was a bad investment, it can't be denied that there have excellent economic returns! But, of course, this pales in comparison with having been one of the very select few to have been invited to lunch at The Ranch!

On the other hand, maybe the Codpiece intends to seek political asylum here next year?