Probably a Slip of Ye Old Tongue...

As most of your know, I am doing extensive research into the 21st Edition of the Absolute Truth in order to uncover what transpired in the Third Galaxy at the beginning of what became known there as the Terrible Times. However, as I have mentioned before, sometimes when I take a break, I notice that events in that parallel world, in some uncanny way, more and more spill over into our happier and saner world.

In an editorial in the Washington Post on State of the Union speech which was to be held later that day, the author stated that the "nations strong economic performance" in the first part of his reign was ignored by the public because of "the war" and that now Bush is "getting little credit for improved security in Iraq" because of the "struggling U.S. Economy.

If you ignore the fact that the "strong economic performance" was only noticed by the economic predators feasting on a carcass and that the "improved security" is only because the communities in Iraq are either ethically cleansed or surrounded by walls, you might feel a bit sorry for poor, misunderstood George -- but you'll get this bullshit on dry toast stuck in your throat when you read the first line of the second graf in the editorial [my stress]:

That is the problem Bush faces as he prepares to deliver his seventh and probably final State of the Union address tonight.

Probably? An odd choice of words! The 22nd amendment to the Constitution limits every one to two terms and two terms only in the Oval Office.

This parallels the situation was in the Third Galaxy -- the Ground Law of the Unified State of Arrogance also allowed that no person could serve as Prez for more than two terms.

But then came Monstrous Monday and the Prez-elect and Vice Prez-elect, along with so many others, were killed in the wreckage. In order to restore order and protect the Ground Law, Ronald Rexona most reluctantly had to declare the "State of Emergency" which later became the "Enduring State of emergency.

[I got the link to the WaPo editorial from Talking Points Memo]

We Are The Champions (of Europe)

Ok, yeah, I know! Bulimo Charismo trounced Pillory Flintstone in Southern Caroline -- but this means nothing in the Happy Little Kingdom...

Denmark took gold in the European handball championship today, beating Croatia 24-20. Although the country is not expected to get blind drunk, still it's a pretty big thing.

For some damn reason, not chauvinism I'm sure, it is a lot bigger than the women's handball series of gold medals -- Europe, World and Olympic championships...

A Question of Truth

[Note this post has been updated below the line]

An odd thought struck me today while I was preparing supper: pasta with a bit of sugo, fresh green beans and home fried parsley root chips.

In the background, the television was babbling on about the wars and conflicts of the 20th Century -- suddenly it struck me that every one of these wars were based on and sold by lies and that every peace which was declared after each terrible conflict was infected with lies which bore the seeds for the next and, most often, ever more terrible conflict.

So I thought: "If it is correct to say that war is only possible because of the lies which are told, then perhaps it is even more correct to say that peace can only be possible if the truth is told!"?

But then, another picture flashed in my mind: Pilate asks of the condemned man, "What it truth?" There was no answer, that is, not unless you can hear the answer in Jesus' silence.
_________________________

Now, what did I mean by that picture of Jesus and Pilate? I had to think about it my self!

I'm certain i didn't mean silence as means to tell the truth.

Perhaps that last image was a picture of our common humanity approaching a time of ultimate stress and need when the truth perhaps, maybe -- we can hope can't we? -- will explode into a common understanding of some sort, a Unity of Awareness...

Imagine that there is a sort of something to what we think of as telepathy -- not thought transfer as such, but maybe a real form of empathy between us all so that we actually knew and felt the pain and joy of others so the knowledge of our being brothers and sisters was an actual fact and not just a nice, cuddly idea.

If that awareness were suddenly to break out like the glitter of shook tin foil, like lightning shining from east to west and back again -- do you suppose we could then stop these wars, join hands and start to clean up this mess?

Whatever the fact of the matter, that is something I could pray for.

The King's Day...

It's that time of year again. Yesterday, was the third Monday in January, which this year was close to his birthday on the 15th. In a couple of months we'll see the media winding up in recognition of the fact that he was cut down 40 years ago come this April 4th.

And what is he remembered for?

For having "had a dream"?

For having been to "the mountain top"?

My personal choice would be his understanding of the necessity for nonviolent solutions in particular to conflicts between nations. -- an understanding which was flowering into maturity in the time before his murder.

"It's not a question of nonviolence as opposed to violence -- it's a question of nonviolence as opposed to nonexistence!" This was something he repeated several times in various ways in speeches he gave up to just a couple days before the end.

Earlier, Dr. King had recognized that war could be a "negative good" -- that is, a war fought to avoid subjugation to a tyranny. However, as the clock of human history clicked all too quickly into the '60s, he came to understand that our weapons had become so destructive and so demonic, that a war of negative good was no longer possible. If our species is to survive, war must be discarded as a means of resolving conflicts, in particular between nations.

Indeed, he saw that peace is not a goal, but a means to achieve the goal.

They [our leaders]are talking about peace as a distant goal, as an end we seek, but one day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal.

In my own words, the means justify the ends

What is the difference between a terraist with a bomb and a world leader a hand on a red phone? As far as I can see, the one can kill a lot more of us!

The fact is, dear hearts: All the bombs are in the hands of terrorists!

Continuing the Horse Races...

There are those who say that it is an affront to refer to the Holy Primary Elections in the Unified State of Arrogance as a series of horse races -- all we can say is, "What color is the rock have they been sleeping under?"

Indeed, a good sports writer could come up with a better script than the pundits have puked on their listeners up to now in the Quadrennial Horse Races. True, the sports writer will do his/her best to drum up interest for this or that team, but in their wildest [wet] dream no sports writer would think that her/his reporting could have any measure of influence on the result of a horse race or other sports event.

However, in the heat earlier this week in Midge-again, this is exactly the sort of bullshit we saw. Midge Gromney trounced Mad Kane -- but what can you expect in a district which many thought was named after Gromney?

More disgusting was the effluvia the media sprouted over the "win" Pillory Flintstone had in Midge-again. Because of a flap in the national party headquarters of the Dumbrats, the delegates from Midge-again (and Floriduh) will not be allowed to participate in the great "Hoorah!" at the Hoorah-vention next summer.-- therefore, the only hopeful on the Dumbrat ballot was Pillory Flintstone. Even with the advantage of such an outrageous handicap, Pillory got only 55% of the votes -- this is a "victory"?

But now we move on to South Caroline. The heat here will only be between the Repugnant hopefuls -- the Dumbrat balloting will be next weekend.

Horni Fug'n'flee is hoping for a win here -- this is the last ballot where independents can vote and if Mad Kane does not win, or at the very least come in a close second, his chances of favor from the Big Money Boyz will surely fade.

Oddly enough, but hardly by chance, it was in South Caroline that Mad Kane was screwed eight years ago. His opponent tarred him with a smear that he had fathered a "black love child" -- the "fact" was that he and his wife had adopted an orphan who happened to have a darker complexion than normal in the dominant ethnic group in the Unified State of Arrogance. But such is the way of smear -- just the talk of shit makes a person smell bad!

This time, the smear is more subtle.

People who have no provable connection to the Fug'n'flee campaign are putting out what is called a "push poll". A "push poll" is a refinement of the old trick question, "When did you stop beating your wife?" In this case, people are called up and asked, "Would you vote for Mad Kane if you knew that: he eats his boogers; drowns kittens in his bathtub; uses cow dung as an underarm deodorant..."

On the other hand, some of the things that Fug'n'flee himself says would be prime stuff for a "push poll":

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Ground Law...But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Ground Law than it would be to change the word of the living Potato. And that's what we need to do...amend the Ground Lawso it's in the Potato's standards rather than try to change the Potato's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."

Status Report...

Well, dear hearts, after a year and a half of blogging, my post last Monday was number five hundred, so I guess it's time to take stock of what I am doing here.

First of all, I want to thank my readers who are few but faithful, especially my cousin, Nuke Watcher, for their continued encouragement and advice.

When I started, I had the idea that the discipline of writing regularly would make my writing, if nothing else, more fluid. I also had the idea that perhaps it would shape up some ideas I had been fooling around with for a long time and perhaps be able to mush them into a more continuous skein of words -- what people call a "book".

Well, as for the first, I think that that is the case, the fluidity is there and the writing at least seems to give the impression of cogency.

I have downloaded various portions of the posts and am now trying to edit them -- it is harder work than I would have imagined!

If the world doesn't end, I hope to have a rough text for "The Automated Armies of Arrogance" and "The Arrogant Prophecies" sometime during this year -- time will tell!

Anomalies in the Horse Races...

The second heat of the Quadrennial Horse Races in New Hamhock turned out differently than the pundit bobble heads said/decided it would/should.

Pillory "won" while both Bulimo and Forewards "lost" and the bobble heads wondered "how did this happen?". Why hadn't the voting public listened to their superiors in knowledge and understanding of things political, the teevee Chattering Class? Hadn't they understood or even gotten the message that when Pillory cried on television she had destroyed her political career?

Indeed, the voters seem to have "gotten" the message that the pundits were a rabble of raving misogynists pilling on in a verbal gang-bang on Pillory simply she was a woman showing emotion.

That said, it is a bit odd to say that Pillory "won" New Hamhock. First of all, she got 39 to Bulimo's 36%, which is but a 3% spread. Secondly, delegates in New Hamhock are selected in proportion to the candidates share of the votes cast -- that means that, together, Bulimo and Forewards (17%) got more delegates to the Hoorah-vention than Pillory.

The same can be said for the much ballyhooed "victory" of Mad Kane over Midge Groaney -- the spread in percentage of the Repugnant votes cast was really not all that much of a landslide.

Speaking of the percentage of votes received, an anomaly has been noticed, which for some reason, very few have been speaking of. This in itself is a bit odd since anomalies seem to be occurring with more and more frequency in Arrogant elections -- especially those elections which might "tip the scales" or "change things".

The anomaly in the New Hamhock voting appears when the number of hand counted paper votes are compared with optically scanned and touch screen votes. For every one in the second heat held in New Hamhock the percentage difference between hand and electronic counts was almost nil, less than 1%.

That is except for Pillory and Bulimo! Pillory received 5% more "electric" votes while Bulimo got left with 3% less -- which is less than the official spread between the two.

In a normal world, this, an election plagued by anomalies of this sort would have triggered some degree of recount. But the Third Galaxy is not a normal world and the Unified State of Arrogance is not a normal democracy. In fact it has been the policy of the Repugnants these past seven years to make big noises about people voting fraudulently. Legislation has been enacted making it quite difficult for the poor and elderly who might be expected to vote for the Dumbrats to register and later on actually vote. In fact, there shown to be very little fraud of this sort. However, prosecuting attorneys who refused to bring cases to court that were obviously little more than harassment were either fired by the Codpiece administration or forced to retire.

Obviously, if there is any problem it is with the electronic vote talleys -- especially the equipment which leaves no paper trail.

An Epiphany Most Strange...

Even as the realities of life in Bodybag and the rest of Wudda-Wrek continued to devolve into yet more nightmare and churning chaos, a few hundred kilometers to the south west of Bodybag, the Codpiece-in-Chief is standing on the balcony of his exclusive suite at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.

He is here on his Mission to Bring Peace to the Muddled East in general and the Holy Land in particular.

It is early morning and he is wearing the pure white bathrobe emblazoned with the emblem of the Codpiece-in-Chief on one side and his name in gold on the other. The hotel prepared had prepared this for him at his request.

Also, at his request, the Old City is dark, there are no lights, not even those which normally bathe the ancient walls. He will be able to see the sunrise over the City Holy to the Great Potato just as the Holy Idaho himself must have seen it two thousand years ago. A tear trickles down one of his cheeks as the first rays of the sun poke above the dark silhouette of the city. He raises his arm to greet the Holy Dawn and perhaps Receive a Blessing.

Suddenly, it seems as if his hand is enveloped in fire!

What can this be?

The Revelation bursts into his consciousness -- the Great Potato wants to speak through him to the world!

He is certain of it!

He smiles and mutters under his breath, "Damn, I knew I was special, but this whups ass bit time!"

For, as everyone will soon learn, "God speaks to the world from a Burning Bush!"

Kicking a Pregnant Woman Can Be a Bummer...

[We've been here before -- the scene: a plush office in the Dream Zone. The Dream Zone is located in Bodybag, the capital of Wudda-Wrek. This is the only place in that sovereign state where an free, Arrogant citizen can walk freely about with little fear of a bullet or a piece of shrapnel flying through his bag of popcorn. Every other place in Wudda-Wrek is known as the Bloody Zone.]

An aide rushes in...

"O no," groans the bald, fat man behind the desk, "it's not Brackwater again?"

"No, sir."

"Cornflake and Hallibut?"

"No, sir -- three of our Arrogant soldiers were killed."

"Bomb?"

"Gunfire, sir, close range."

"Well, you know the procedure, flag draped coffins, no pictures -- why bother me about it?"

"Sir, the gunman was a soldier!"

"What!?"

"A soldier from the Wudda-Wrek Army we have been standing up so that we can stand down blew them all away."

Silence, "Well, he must have been an infiltrator of some kind -- an al-Qube suicider?"

"He didn't kill himself sir, and from his name he's from the al-Janubbi clan -- hardly someone the al-Qube could recruit."

"Well then, do you have a better explanation of what happened?"

"Well sir, they were on patrol and they entered this house. No body was home except this young pregnant woman and the soldiers started yelling at her, slapping her around, you know, to soften her up. She fell down and they kicked her some -- in the stomach, even."

"O."

"So this Caesar al-Janubbi, the Wudda-Wrek soldier who was on patrol with the Arrogants, begged them to stop -- but they just laughed and told him they could do whatever they wanted to do. So he went out to the patrol car, grabbed a gun, went back in the house and killed three of our soldiers..."

An extended silence, "Well, we all know that it's not the facts but the story that matters. The point is that it has just been announced that no one will be charged for the murder of 24 people in Hardteetha, most of them were women, children and old men -- you do see that the "facts" could be a bit sticky?"

"Yessir!"

The story is that this fellow was a nut case who had been recruited by al-Qube. There was no young woman alone in the house and she wasn't pregnant. Our brave soldiers were treacherously betrayed and shot in the back -- that's a much better explanation."

Quadrennial Horse Races, Second Heat

The second heat in the Quadrennial Horse Races where one hopeful from the Dumbrat and Repugnant party will eventually be selected to run for Prez later this year started not long ago...

As you know, in the first heat Bulimo Charismo stomped Pillory Flintstone while Hug Fug'n'flee blew all the other Repugnants out of the water.

The media pundit bobble heads have been desperately trying to figure out where they went wrong in all their predictions as well as somehow spin a message that they really weren't all that wrong -- just premature...

In the meantime, the message is being prepared and honed to bring Bulimo down if he is so uppity as to actually win the Dumbrat nomination -- but first, they have to get Pillory out of the running. In an ordinary horse race, commentators cannot influence the outcome -- they can only gin up the excitement. Not so in the Quadrennial Horse Races!

In earlier horse races, hopefuls have been laughed out of their race for office for strange "missteps". Because they "screamed into the microphone" after the first heat, or because their suits were "earth toned", or because their patriotism was suspect because they had only lost two legs and an arm in the "War to Save the World from the Dominoes".

But hardly anything can compare to the way in which Pillory Flintstone has been trashed by the bobble heads. If she is calm, she is "rigid!"; if she giggles or gets angry, she is "hysterical!"; if she wears a dress, the question is "did she show too much feminine cleavage?"; if she wears a suit with pants, "what message is she trying to send?"

Conventional Wisdom, i.e., the babble of media pundits, says that if Pillory loses to Bulimo in today's heat in New Hamhock, she will have "lost too much momentum". On the one hand, I think we should forget all the hype and wait and see how the votes are cast. On the other hand, these two races are taking place in two of the smallest districts in the Unified State of Arrogance which, all told, total less than 5% of the total population.

If Pillory's attempt to win the Brass Ring does fail, you will see the Repugnant Smear and Echo Machines go into high gear and we will be treated to a most disgusting orgy of mudslinging, innuendo, lies and whisper campaigns aimed at Bulimo Charismo.

True, we should have said more about the Repugnant hopefuls -- the questions being, will Mad Kane outrun Midge Gromny, or will Midge's deep wallet save the day for him. On the other hand, Hug Fug'n'flee, who cannot be expected to do well in New Hamhock, will, on the other hand, have a better chance in Southern Charlene, where there are oodles of Peelers committed to removing the paragraphs in the Ground Law which separate religion and government. Their deepest wish is that the Unified State of Arrogance be ruled by the Book of the Holy Idaho and not silly "man-made" laws. For, as the Peelers say, people are too stoopid to govern themselves without the guidance of the Great Potato.

It may well end with the Peelers proving they are correct, sort of...