The Cannon And The Cutlass

You Will Be Visited By Three Ghosts

2008-09-30T22:18:00.002-04:00

I've been avoiding a post about the economy, as I didn't want to put up a rant. But the economy, the relentless Present, fills our minds. My 401k just dropped 10%, who cares if I can't pull money out for 40 years? Gas is 4 dollars a gallon, how am I going to pay to drive my sport ute in and out of the 'burbs every day? How can I somehow get everyone else's money to bail my ass out?

The ghost of the present bears heavily on our shoulders. But, with the election around the corner, that isn't the only ghost that's chosen to visit us.

That dark shadow cast on the earth is the ghost of times past. His name is War, cold and hot, against repressive totalitarian regimes; not disorganized crossdressers like al Qaeda, who can be defeated with porno and blue jeans, but our old adversaries in the former Soviet Union, who are only turned back with heady resolve and American steel. We saw this earlier this year in Georgia, as a progressive Western nation was ripped asunder, while the free world clucked and hissed like old wives. In case you've forgotten, the Russian army is still miles from Tbilisi, and they're digging in for the winter.

Not aggressive enough for you? Well, you wouldn't hear this from the national news, as they dedicate themselves to rifling through Sarah Palin's underwear drawer for scandalous skidmarks, but Russia just sent nuclear bombers to Venezuela. Oh, and they're putting up ~~missile~~ satellite launching facilities in Cuba. Oh, and Russian soldiers are being increasingly decked out with gear bearing the marks of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It'll be a cold night before the sun scares some shadows away.

On the other hand, we do get some reprieve from the ghost of the future; not hollow paeans to hope and change, but genuine enthusiasm and promise. For the first time in man's history, we can now lift a satellite from the earth to the heavens with no government intervention whatsoever.

And what will that satellite share orbit with when it gets there?

A goddamned spacewalking Chinaman, that's what.

Sure, their space program is a cheap knockoff. But if you know the slightest thing about environmentalism, you know the future of the human race doesn't depend on recycling your Red Bulls, or getting your Tahoe hybridized, or throwing up some windmills. It's getting the fuck off of this rock. And with the Chinese in friendly competition, maybe we can get that whole Space Race thing back on track.

Just as soon as I finalize this stock trade, I promise.

The Left-Wing Mindset

2008-07-05T14:32:00.003-04:00

Lemmings, Fascists, Jackbooted thugs, murderers, brainwashed Red-state cannon fodder for Bushitler.

Progressives for change, free thinkers, true patriots, certainly not brainwashed by messianic propaganda.

Man, this is going to be a wild fall.

You Are What You Do When It Counts

2008-05-06T18:54:00.006-04:00

On November 7, 2007, Hospitalman Joshua Flagg saved the lives of two civilians injured in an IED attack while serving in Iraq. In recognition of this, Hospitalman Flagg recieved the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, more commonly known as the NAM.

I have two NAMs. While I won't tell you what I got the second one for, the first one isn't for anything complicated. My division officer, while performing a routine review of maintenance paperwork, realized he saw my name down for doing an awful lot of work. Looking deeper, he realized that, despite being in a division of 7 men, I was at least partially involved in over half the maintenance. Also, I didn't screw it up, not even a bit. This is a big deal in Reactor Controls Division.

Hospitalman Joshua Flagg and his CO (picture by Michael Totten)

Hospitalman Flagg ran towards an IED attack. When he arrived, ignoring any risk to his own life, he immediately began providing medical care. For all he knew, he could have been treating the terrorists themselves.

I consistently used all the proper electrical safety precautions when performing work on energized equipment with exposed voltages greater than 30VDC, despite the ill fit of the rubber gloves and the general shabbiness of the rubber matting.

Jewcano as a Petty Officer, and his CO

Hospitalman Flagg used his medical skills to stabilize two dying patients, ensuring that they could live and celebrate another day with their families.

I used my troubleshooting skills to ensure that thoroughly outdated electronic equipment reliably guaranteed the safety of a submarine nuclear reactor, ensuring that my boat could put to sea and fight pirates, jellyfish, and Godzilla.

Hospitalman Flagg earned the respect and trust of wary Iraqis by putting his life in harms way to save their own.

I earned the respect and trust of my superiors and shipmates by using "V", "VOLTS" and "VDC" exactly as the paperwork required, saving them from getting racked out to recopy the forms.

The NAM is a curious medal. There are lower medals, but those are the ones you get for continuing to breathe in a specific place or for a specific time, usually without getting in serious trouble. The NAM is the lowest award you can get for doing something of worth that actually gives you something to pin to your chest to impress Mama and the ladies. It is also the only medal that one's Commanding Officer can issue without permission from higher-ups. For this reason, it is often issued when the command feels the action would not be deemed worthy for recognition by outside persons. I would hope no one would ever put Hospitalman Flagg into that category.

Just Say No

2008-04-14T00:21:00.002-04:00

While everyone's laughing it up over the fact that Barack Obama doesn't understand white people and hillbillies, they miss this simple truth: he doesn't understand Americans. His money quote, if you're not already sick of it:

"But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Sure, it's a bad case of foot-in-mouth syndrome, and like his other gaffes he shows no real indication that it's anything but what he actually believes. But let's translate it another way. "Cling to guns" could just mean "Believe in the 2nd Amendment." "Religion" sounds an awful lot like something I could've sworn was in the 1st Amendment. Obama may call it anti-immigrant sentiment, but everyone else calls it anti-illegal immigration sentiment, aka being against those who blatantly violate state and federal laws, aka criminals. And anti-trade sentiment? Was it those Pennsylvania hillbillies who put the brakes on the Columbia Free Trade Agreement?

What Obama really said was, even when times get tough, the economy gets lousy and jobs are scarce, everyday mainstream Americans are still dedicated to the ideas of maintaining the rights of the people and the limitations of the government. It's not that they feel betrayed that the G-men haven't rappelled in and saved them; it's that they don't think that's the job of government in the first place. And that idea is the Bogeyman to the educated elite, who consider it an affront to their self-acknowledged intelligence that little things like the Constitution should get in the way of what they know is clearly right for the country.

The best thing the Federal government can do for these small towns in trouble is to stop taking so much tax money, and get the hell out of the way so people can work. But that will never, ever emerge from Barack Obama's lips.

Amnesty Means Amnesty...

2008-03-24T20:39:00.004-04:00

... according to the DC Police, who starting today are going door to door, politely asking that you give up any self-defense firearms you may have, and let them rifle (!) through your sock drawer looking for hash while they're at it. They really want to go through your children's sock drawers, though. Oh, and anything they find that can be tied to a crime will lead to, uh, charges and arrest. Not much amnesty, that.

Now look, I'm sure they mean well. Very few people try to take away your rights without first convincing themselves that they're really doing you a favor. But let's not sugarcoat this. DC has some nasty unsafe parts, and if you live in them, you should have a gun. Period. If you think that, when that burglar / nutjob /rapist breaks into your house, that that 911 call is going to save you, you're wrong.

But take this in context, too. Thanks to District vs. Heller, Columbians (?) are within weeks of being able to legally defend themselves with firearms again, for the first time in 30 years. Why would the district government suddenly, right now, be in a mad rush to gather up all the guns? Doesn't this seem like really odd timing?

Personal firearm ownership is a distinctly American right. It represents the confidence in the common man to be able to stand up against the tyranny of the mob and the tyrant. Without it we would be just another nation of serfs. I own a gun, certainly not because I want to ever shoot anything, but because I feel it's my responsibility as an able-bodied male of fighting age to do so. And I keep it in Virginia, where it is safe and legal.

When the MPD knock on your door, tell them this: "No, thank you, officer, brave Americans fought and died for me to have my rights, and I think I'll exercise them, thanks. But thank you for keeping us all safe, and have a good evening." Maybe even give them some hot chocolate. But they're drinking it outside.

Always Have Someone Proofread Your Work

2008-03-19T06:53:00.004-04:00

The Oldest Profession For A Reason

2008-03-14T21:15:00.004-04:00

Thanks to Eliot Spitzer, the media's ablaze with the subject of prostitution. But most people don't have a clue what they're ranting about.

Is prostitution about an uncontrollable desire for sex? Men are uncontrollable horn-dogs, starved to the point where they'll pay through the nose for the kitty, right? Hardly. There are very, very few cultures in the world where prostitution is even grudgingly accepted and sex out of wedlock (for men, at least) is forbidden or even difficult. The fact is, if you want to bang, there's always someone else out there who wants to bang. It's all a matter of a) how much you're willing to put forth effort towards it, and b) the standards you're willing to apply to your partner. This is why, near any military base, there will be at least one well-known dirty watering hole, whose only real purpose is to match up smelly, tired young single sailors who have neither the cash to woo a real girl nor the private room to bring her back to, with Brunhilda the ham monster, who thoughtfully has already put fresh blankets on the seats of her van in the parking lot.

So, is it about sex with really, really hot chicks? No, not really either. First of all, there's the long record of Hollywood stars, who can already bang hot bimbos at will, paying for sex from rather homely whores. Second, if you actually go down to the Red Light District, you'll see most of the girls, they're not exactly 9's and 10's. Let's face it; a serious knockout can get plenty of men to give them cash and shiny things without a contractual obligation to respond with blowjobs (although that sort of attitude predisposes them to become prostitutes - see below). And most of what you do with an everyday hooker is going to be in the dark, probably while drunk, and whether or not she could model in Vogue is not going to be the subject on your mind.

Then there's the meme that it's all about power. See, men get a thrill from the sex trade because of its denigration of women: he makes a call, she shows up, he shows the cash, she does the business. He owns her. Yeah, OK, no. It's a popular idea because it reinforces the feminist notion that all prostitutes, no matter how willing, are victims of gender slavery, subject to the whims of the stronger sex that keeps them subjugated. My, they're almost as trapped as stay-at-home moms. Look, you need to stop watching blaxploitation films. Read the Pajamas Media artlicle as it tries to defend this - it masterfully contradicts itself. Girls become prostitutes because they want to, not because they have to. They could make a living doing something else, but they don't want to. They like hooking. They generally enjoy sex, and they really like hoodwinking dumb men.

The reality is, it's about attention. Married men aren't running off to corner skanks (or college interns) because they're devolved sex fiends, drunk with the human form, or control freaks. They do it because their wives aren't paying any attention to them. It's not Jack Spratt, whose wife has always domineered him, looking to turn the tables on some unsuspecting floozy. It's Clark Kent, who knows Lois used to worship him in public and in the bedroom, but now only seems to want to talk about how the Parkers down the street refinanced their house to put in a new bathroom. It's not about getting fucked. It's not about getting fucked by a hot 20-year old. It's about getting a hot 20-year old to act like they think you're groovy. Ask any guy: which would you really rather be, Governor of New York, or college football star quarterback? You want to know why? Because hot chicks swoon over quarterbacks, not politicians.

And this is why the girls get into it. Girls a cut above have generally been snookering men to get what they want since they left junior high school. They didn't have to take it up the ass, they could just play with their hair a little, maybe invade personal space a bit, and once they got the concert tickets / diamond earrings / 3rd period math homework they needed, a giggle about being such a good friend and twirl on the heels and they were off to the next sucker. Think about the hottest couple you knew in school; the guy was in it because he got so much face time from a really hot chick, the girl really, really enjoyed her friends seeing her with a good catch. (This is a big part of why even young men sneak around and women almost never do.)

Prostitution, then, is just the distilled version; by pretending to be impressed and interested by the client, sometimes for as little as a few minutes, the hooker gets an immediate cut of cold cash. The highest cost service, almost without fail, is vaginal penetration, not because it is brings more physical joy than a masterfully played rusty trombone, but since its inherent risk of pregnancy lends the illusion of commitment the most sincerity. (Fun fact: if singing karaoke carried the same pseudorandom chance of dramatic, permanent life change as sex, men would pay girls to come up to dirty hotel rooms and belt out Showtunes. Ok, they might masturbate too.)

This is why the kinkier stuff, even if it's devoid of any recognizable sexual content, makes sense. Sure, you can use the power argument for men that pay to be tops. But what about the ones that want to be bottoms? What about the ones that want a handjob from a girl dressed like a panda? What about the ones that want to have belts pulled tight round their necks while hot wax is poured on their nuts? It all boils down (literally, in the last case) to having a girl so willing to please you that she'll go to those lengths. Well, except for the furry stuff; that shit is just wrong.

So is prostitution wrong? I'd still say yes, but probably not for the reasons you'd think. Prostitution still tends to bring the charming halos of drug abuse, assault, child kidnapping and slavery (especially outside the US.) But then again, those are vices of the girls themselves, or between the girls and their pimp/madam, not between the girl and the client, and the enabling factor for such evil behavior is not the sex, but the fact that it is illegal and unregulated. Go to Rotterdam (or even Vegas) and try to pick a fight with a call-girl, and it's not the pimp's enforcers you need to worry about, it's the Long Arm of the Law, which is far, far more effective. Prostitution being illegal, or even stigmatized as immoral, lends more to the actual negative consequences than any amount of paid ATM does.

Really, the biggest downside to prostitution is that it is a youth-limited industry, as much as professional sports, pop singing, and acting. There are no genuine, long term marketable skills involved. Sure, some people get really good or really lucky and can make a career out of it, usually by branching into management and coaching. But for most, as discussed in the Pajamas article, after a while, their physique and their charms fade, and even if they can hit a baseball 300 yards, or cram it in their cooch, no one's interested any more, and their career is over. And any industry where most of the participants are doomend not to stagnation but to abject failure is inherently stupid. Then again, prostitution actually is excellent training for an acting career, although I think it usually works the other way 'round.

Plus, let's face it, the total insincerity of it nullifies the benefit. If the same amount of cash gets the same treatment, regardless of the man involved, then the woman's not really paying any attention at all. In the end, prostitutes really are just for virgins in a mighty hurry to back up their lies.

(Oh, and sailors on shore leave. But let's face it, after a few months at sea they're subhuman anyway, and you should be happy to have any of them boosting the local economy at the brothel, and not out crudely humping your daughter, your wife, or your mailbox.)

Perverts From The Future

2008-03-13T19:45:00.003-04:00

Gizmodo is nice enough to link to a video of what they call a robotic White Boy Dance:

Apparently, they didn't notice the bulging, swirling, uh, midsection. Sure, you could say this was just the simple drive mechanism for what really is a pretty crude automaton. Or you could see it as the inevitable precursor to the terror of the Rapist Robots.

God, I Love This Country

2008-03-09T03:46:00.002-04:00

Chinbeard FTW.

Edit: for the record, I posted this -before- Instapundit, thank you very much. I was apparently behind the Manolo on the Ukrainian Army chicks meme, though.

Dance Of December Days

2008-03-01T16:43:00.002-05:00

In the dream she’s 12, which would have to make me barely 11. I can feel the grass tickling my ears; she has my arms pinned to the ground with her knees. At this point she’s got me by six inches and more than a few pounds, so it wasn’t a fair fight from the start, but I don’t care. I’m looking up at her, with the evening sun filtering through her disheveled hair, and it’s like looking at a goddess.

“I can’t believe you said something like that, “ she says, rolling off of me so we can brush the lawn clippings off our clothes. It’s been so long I can’t remember what I said, but it was good. Something about having centipedes in her snatch or something along those lines. The shiner I can feel already beginning to swell was well earned.

“You know I was just trying to get your attention,” I reply.

“No, I know that, I just forgot we were already talking like that.” She’s giggling as she tries to tie her hair back up. Stupid girl.

It’s the point in the dream where I climb the playground set, so I walk over and make my way to the top and lean over the railing to face the sunset. She follows behind, of course, throwing her arms around me. She’s got a white short-sleeved shirt on with goofy puffy shoulders. If I remember right that’s what I started making fun of her for in the first place. Now the cotton has grass stains. I can feel the silly little lace on her sleeves and her loose hair on my neck.

“It worked, you know.”

“What?”

“It got my attention. All your stupid games. I hated you so much I couldn’t stop thinking about you. You’re the reason I got that C in French class.”

“I thought it was because you sucked at French.”

“Shut up,” she laughs, and gives me a little kick in the heel. She’s got me pinned the railing, so it’s not like I’m going anywhere. Not like I’d ever try.

“It’s so romantic up here. It even makes me horny.” She presses up on my back and wiggles.

“Cut it out,” I scowl. This is not that kind of dream.

When the sun goes down we’ll get down from the playground. I’ll walk her home and think about holding her hand. She’ll give me a playful peck and joke about how I taste like dirt. And then I’ll go home myself. We know how this plays out, that evening, the next day, the years to follow. It’s OK to remember only if you know where to stop.

“I would’ve married you, you know.”

“What?” This isn't the normal script. I turn around in her arms and see how serious she is.

“If you had asked me, back then, I would have married you. In a heartbeat. I wanted to spend my whole life with you.”

“And what would I have proposed with, a ring from a cereal box?”

“I would have taken it. Besides, we would have promised, and that would have been enough.”

“Bullshit. We were children. And besides-”

“I know, I know.” She’s shivering now and I’m forced to hold her to keep her warm. “I want to believe it, though. It’s so lonely here if I can’t believe it.” But little kids' promises wouldn’t have made a bit of a difference, and we both know it.

Her head’s on my shoulders and I can smell her hair. The scent of grass, but not the grass of the playground scuffle. It’s the scent of the grass we found her lying in, long afterwards, when she decided she’d had enough. I don’t want that smell in my nostrils, but I can’t pull away. I never could abandon her when she got like this.

Some days you thank God for the alarm clock.

Utterly Horrifying Patriot Thursday

2008-02-14T21:13:00.004-05:00

One of these days I'm moving to Berkeley.

CNN Says I Don't Count

2008-02-12T23:13:00.003-05:00

... because I voted for Fred, goddamnit. Hell, they've got Romney listed. Those TV jerks are still trying to stick it to Fred.

Having to watch or at least hear CNN at work, I've become convinced it really is the Clinton News Network. Even if I was an Obama fan I'd be pissed. Those guys really, really want Hillary to win; her campaign gets so much screen time, between her, Bill's antics and whatever light scandal of the day orbits around them, that I'm fairly sure she outclocks all the other candidates on both sides all together. Then again, she's probably just lucky there hasn't been another outbreak of Paris Hilton activity to draw away the cameras.

Update: The Clinton campaign claims it is "not fair" to be competing with a black man during Black History Month. Penn Jillette quips "Unfortunately for Hillary, there's no White Bitch Month." Immature, but cute.

Comprehension

2008-01-28T23:55:00.000-05:00

It's never too old to teach yourself new tricks. Two things I learned today:

I always thought you were supposed to run on those elliptical machines at the gym. I always wondered why it felt so wrong and what the hell the swinging handles were for. Turns out I was supposed to pretend to ski. Suddenly it makes sense.

Pink Floyd's "One of These Days" has only one spoken line, a garbled bit snarling "One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces." Sketchy. But, until today, I always thought the line was something pretty different. I think my version is something I'd be much more comfortable muttering to myself: "One of these days, I'm going to dance with the demons."

The Holiday Spirit

2007-12-25T21:33:00.000-05:00

In general, I don't like charity. I feel it's almost as easy to harm with kindness as it is with malice (why yes, I am Republican.) Fact is, most charity ends up lining someone's pockets instead of going to who you hope it's getting to anyway. And throwing money aimlessly at poor places of the planet can cause a whole lot of undesirable havok and suffering.

If someone asked me what charity to donate to, I wouldn't hesitate: OLPC. I can't think of a better gift than freedom from ignorance. It's Promethean, it's disruptive, it's like giving original sin. It's also the purest way of ensuring that someone has a better life ahead of them. Feel-good stories are already coming in.

But I didn't give to OLPC this season. Instead, what did I donate to? This. On the one hand, it is a gift that can't really be diverted, used for bribes, or confiscated to line a warlord's pockets. On the other hand, it makes for an excellent prank. The discussion thread has some truly wondrous imagery.

Want to make a donation that makes a difference this season? Well, like I said, OLPC is the way to go. But if you need something a little more, well, deviant, you can't go wrong with the goonswarm.

Random Cartoon Screenshot Thursday

2007-10-12T01:01:00.001-04:00

The Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong Cannon. Hey, it's really perfect!

When Red Riding Hood Thinks She's The Woodcutter

2007-10-08T23:21:00.000-04:00

DC is a very prissy town. City self-image aside, most of the girls here are quite proper, demanding a respectable amount of effort to get them in the sack, where they behave in ways their grandmothers would hardly disapprove of. Despite this, many women like to make themselves feel better by imagining themselves to be dirty, as it adds fantasy to their otherwise orthodox lives. To those who have been around real skanks, this makes DC women seem childish, naive and inexperienced. To demonstrate this, I present the following comparison between the girl who merely thinks herself Naughty, versus the gutter filth of the genuinely Nasty.

Naughty: Has a boyfriend back home.
Nasty: Fianceé downstairs playing the slots.

Naughty: Scratches.
Nasty: Chokes.

Naughty: Doesn't bother taking off all her clothes before sex.
Nasty: Doesn't bother leaving the dance floor.

Naughty: Has slept with at least one guy her best friend has also slept with.
Nasty: Traded partners halfway through the night, with high-fives involved.

Naughty: Has slept with an older man solely because of his wealth and power.
Nasty: Has slept with an older man because he could get her cigarettes.

Naughty: Has been romanced and seduced by a visitor from a foreign land.
Nasty: No common language whatsoever, and man stinks of chemicals and fish. Seduction lasted two hours.

Naughty: Talks dirty. Breathes heavy, squeals at appropriate times.
Nasty: Is dirty. Grunts and snarls while rutting like a beast in heat.

Naughty: Has left the club and gone to a hotel room with a strange man.
Nasty: Has left the club and gone to a hotel room with five other girls and seven strange men, including three Marines.

Naughty: Had sex in high school, and made no secret of it.
Nasty: Slept with her freshman history teacher. Made no secret of it.

Naughty: During sex, will play with herself to hasten orgasm.
Nasty: During sex, attempts to put a vibrator up your ass, without warning.

Naughty: Has had a one night stand with a man whose name she didn't remember.
Nasty: Vaguely remembers his buddies filming it, but is fairly sure none of them know her husband.

Naughty: Hooks up while on her period.
Nasty: Leaves the tampon in.

And endless deviations, culled from personal experience. Pretending to be a bad girl when you're not puts you in the same category as the 14-year old trollops at the mall, trying to have their mothers help them figure out how to be sexy. As always, trying not to be someone else is the best way to avoid looking foolish.

Cosmetic Honesty

2007-10-07T23:53:00.000-04:00

Women who die their hair are compulsive liars.

While non-fruitcake men have always eschewed masking their appearance with chemicals and unguents, women have been doing it for ages. This is because women think it not only acceptable but expected for them to mislead men about their appearance. While foot-binding and girdles are passé, women still dollop their faces with makeup before going to the club, the office, the grocery mart. But with the exception of Tammy Faye-style caking, makeup is a mere fib. At worst it makes a girl look like a painted whore, at best it accentuated pleasant features the girl already has. Neither case is a great deviation from the truth. Most of the time it just covers up bad skin. Men are surprisingly inattentive to makeup anyway, which makes the fact that before leaving the house most women do the same routine as Ronald McDonald does all that much siller.

Hair dying is another matter. At this point the woman is actively attempting to falsify her appearance. A man who likes blondes may find out his object of attraction is a brunette only after she has bedded him. This doesn't sound serious, but it is; it is actively lying in the course of seduction. A woman would not appreciate the man giving a fake club name, lying about his age, his status of employment, whether he is single. This is even more ridiculous considering today's trends of girls dying their hair several different colors at once. The man has no idea which one is genuine, and is left to wonder why girls think it is attractive to look like Cindi Lauper.

When a woman who lies to you about her hair color says she's unmarried, clean, and on the pill, wonder what else she's not being so honest about.

La Saison De Vélocité For The Discriminating Squid

2007-10-01T20:14:00.000-04:00

It's one of my favorite times of year. No, it's not due to being able to see the local sports team participate in that event against their regional rival, or because the interns are out in force, or anything so trite. It's not even because my favorite holiday of the year is only a month off. No, it's new model announcing season, and this year, the big Four are coming big.

Yamaha was first out of the gate, but their updates are minor, so far. Yams remain the bike to ride if you want to pick up easy girls with it, as they drench the road in sexy just standing still. That is, assuming you're too self-respecting for a Harley, and can't afford a Ducati.

Next was a big swing by Kawasaki. Now I'm a big Big Green fan, being a Kwak rider myself, and every year I tire of them sucking ass in Superbike and hope they'll come out with the bike that will blow the doors off of everyone else. Well, this year, I dunno. On the one hand, the new ZX-10R looks to be, as usual, suicidally fast. On the other hand, the front end looks stolen from a Buell Firebolt and the can screams for More Cowbell. They festooned my precious Z with this silliness, why the open-classer? And they've done away with the 'tribal' color scheme, which means that again the best color for the Ninja is jet black.

The bike to beat, racing-wise at least, is the GSX-R. And Suzuki made some pretty sweeping changes here, too, ditching the stacked headlights for the first time since '95. On the one hand, the new face now looks even more like the Chinese dragons that GSX-R-riding hoons have tattooed on their backs. On the other, it now looks very much like a Triumph Sprint ST. What is it with the stolen fascia? Regardless, this bike is one seriously, seriously hot ride. It helps that Suzuki actually paints their bikes, well, different colors, instead of one color and matte black. I like the orange best.

Last of the big names, Honda came out with all new plastic as well. In it's favor, it has by far and large the best exhaust of the bunch, not counting the Yam's obsolete underseats. But anyone who can afford the insurance on these things is going to get an aftermarket can anyway. And the front end? Some have claimed it rips off the Duc 1098. I don't see it. I'm sure it's very aerodynamic, but, somehow, it looks smooshed, almost retarded. Maybe it'll be better in person. But compared to Honda's stunning concepts, or even last year's bikes, it fails it.

Do these bikes go faster or turn tighter than last year's model? Who cares? If you're on the street you can reach felony-level speeds on any stretch of pavement out there without shifting out of first gear. You don't even need this kind of ride to do it; my bike, which was a parts-bin special since the day it came out, will beat any Porsche to 60 and will gladly accelerate beyond speeds at which air resistance would tear me bodily from the cockpit. This is about looking good while stunting like your father. Which is why I give respect to BMW, who has fully embraced the single-sided swingarm, the key ingredient to pure, undiluted sex on wheels.

Do I want any of these rides, then? Nope. Sure, the GSX-R's nice. But I know what I'm waiting for.

The Waterfront Job, Pt 1

2007-09-26T22:50:00.000-04:00

When you’re on fresh turf for the first time, you’re there to case the joint. Get the feel of the place. The lay of the land. You do not, repeat, not, go for the big prize on the first day.

I know this. Any pro knows this. Only the greenest kid gets greedy fingers his first time out. You can get burned, bad. Stumble sideways into all the worst sorts of games, snag your limbs in nasty traps, get your face on the wall in all the wrong ways.

Best to lay low, stay a shadow, make ‘em think your only interest is your bottle. Wait till you’ve got the info you need, so when you do see goods worth going for, you move in like a champ, no mysteries. No surprises. Clean and neat, in like you're Batman and dazzle everyone so they don't even think of resistance. But until then, you Bruce Wayne your way out the far side of anyone's memory.

I know this. Any pro knows this. Which is why I was biding my time, nursing my whiskey, keeping the bar stool warm and the bar wench happy. Just some dumpy watering hole anyway, a quick shelter from the foggy evening, nothing to see of any consequence, just some baboons and their painted harpy dames, chattering away with their daily drivel. It was going to be a long and quiet night.

And then she walked in. Long red dress, loose and tight in all the worst places. Dresden in low heels. The kind of haul a man sweats for.

The hyenas were circling before she even made it down to the main floor. Fools. Popped-collar kids fresh from Mamma’s teat. They didn’t stand a chance, somewhere in the back of their mind knew it, but thought strength in numbers would pull them through. The native tramps were trying to kill her off with snotty resentful stares, but their daggers bounced off as if unnoticed. Must’ve been her first time there, too, else they’d have thrown up fortifications in advance. This was going to get ugly fast.

She’d made it to the bar, the first drink was on the way, something by name, and in a pointy glass. Touch of class, this one. The first hyena moved in, and with a glance she had him cut in half at the waist, legs thrashing at the stools while his upper half still gasped for some witty comeback. As his buddies laughingly dragged off his leftovers, another one plopped himself down on her other side and proceeded to swallow air in an effort to appear larger. She had him charred to cinders in seconds, the ashes sifting off the chair and filthying up the floor. This time, no one bothered to come over and sweep him up.

This was going to end up a bloodbath. The indigent goons were licking their wounds, but it was only a matter of time before yet another douchebag wound himself up and went in. This gal could see them coming eight miles away, but they didn’t care. To them she had "Come hither" written all over her in eighteen different dialects of body language. So what the hell was she doing in this shithole? It was like Venus emerging from her half shell in the middle of the bayou. Unlike ome common succubus, she didn’t look to be gaining glee from any of this. Just sat there, sipping the martini and looking lonely. Doll, you could’ve shook that thing up in the comfort of your flat and saved everyone the agony.

I could've sat there all night, watching the chumps jump the trench and get cut down. Could've sat all night, enjoyed the booze, and the next day I'd have been none the worse off for it. But something was wrong with this scene, and it was up to me to get to the bottom of it. Or so I told myself.

Do not, repeat, not, go for the big prize on the first time. And yet, here I was, staring down the goddamned Hope diamond with the case wide open and the security guards out taking a leak. This way leads to destruction.

Fuck it. I went for it.
(to be continued)

Make Fast The Mizzen Mast

2007-09-19T20:14:00.000-04:00

September 19th, if you didn't know, is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. I can only hope you had as much fun today as I did, teaching Indians to add "Yarrrr.." to the end of each sentence. Which is, of course, only the most elementary of piratespeak. To be more advanced you must get more imaginative.

All attempts to date to use my balls and bite down hard have met with extremely undesirable results. I'm chalking this one up to mistranslation.

Boing Boom Tschak

2007-09-18T23:51:00.000-04:00

New science projects in the lab keep me cackling maniacally until well after dark, which unfortunately is cutting into my Internets time (unlike most of the blog scene, I don't get online at work.) So here's something to entertain, a hint of hymns hummed to my automata when the pesky humans aren't around.

Happy New Year!

2007-09-13T22:15:00.000-04:00

I may not actually do much for the High Holy Days these days, but at least it gives me an excuse to post one of my favorite Hasidim pics.

Vive la France. Oh, and to Roissy, who claimed my SanFran link wasn't distasteful enough, you clearly didn't look around the site much. My personal favorite is the man in the top hat.

Brave New World

2007-09-11T23:53:00.000-04:00

Roissy posts today on a street festival in Adams Morgan and believes it heralds the worthlessness of the neighborhood. Frankly I see it as just another way DC fails to live up to the standards set by other big cities. Scenester opinions aside, the District is not and never will be trendy and hip like New York. It is not happening and filled with excitement like LA. The eternal transplant population will never have the heritage and history of Philadelphia or Boston.

And, in this case, regardless of aspirations it will never attain the stultifying strangeness and frothing class denial of San Fransisco. For those of you who know better than to follow my links, an excerpt:

"On the way, we passed a giant purple head emerging from the ground."

Even little old Austin has a world-famous transvestite hobo. In return, DC has, what? Congress? Total bush league.

The Long Tail Fails You, or, A Tirade To Our Bulimic Heroine

2007-09-10T19:30:00.001-04:00

Like it or not, the above comic, while cute, is bunk. The truth is, it really is a numbers game. A 30 year old dates anyone from 22-46? No, dear, that median age really does screw you, much more so than it does Stick-Figure Graphy Man. See, guys are out there for one of two things from women: a quick fuck (or series thereof) or a long-term relationship. Quick fuckers, depending on their desperation levels, are going to balance looks with easiness. So as youthful appearance fades, your suitors get skeezier and skeezier. That may keep you warm at night, but that path does not to happy marriage lead.

And the men looking for love? Serious relationships (successful ones, at least) lead to children. As women age, not only do their bodies lose their corporeal enticements, they also deteriorate in ways that lessen the chance for healthy offspring. This is basic biology; it's why men are attracted to young women in the first place. Banging a chick who can pop out kiddies is the survival of the species. And if you think you're going to pull a man by trying to deny his baser bestial instincts, you're crazy.

Men don't have this problem, and again, it's biological. Absent disease, men will spout sperm of viable volatility till the day they die. Older men if properly maintained retain both their physical attractions and the mating appeal of being able to provide and protect. That's why Makes-Graphs-On-Saturdays up there will be bending some intern into hot Reverse Polish action long after your jagged line-titties have draped into bezier curves. Throw yourself on the mercy of the Bell at your own peril.

Stupid Is

2007-08-06T20:54:00.000-04:00

If you haven't been keeping up with this story, it continues to get sillier and sillier. There's two reasons I bring it up here.

For one, these goofballs are suspected of planning to attack NPTU Goose Creek. Gimme a break. I was stationed there for a year, and it was a great experience, primarily because the only active units on the base are Naval Nuclear Power Training Command and the Nuclear Power Training Unit. Collectively, Nuke school. It may sound intimidating, but it's home to the biggest bunch of nerds in uniform today. Before this story broke the base was mildly notorious for having the highest rainbow chit rate in the whole Navy. A would-be attacker would have to fight their way past innumberable golf courses, navigating a gauntlet of drunken Chiefs towing their bass boats up and down Red Bank all day. Any attempt to avoid the main road would put them at dire risk of being devoured by gators. Not to mention the site is guarded vigilantly day and night by the ghost of Hyman G. Rickover. Seriously, Pope AFB's right down the street. At least there you stand a good chance of blowing up a volleyball game.

That being said, and not really knowing much about this case, I have a strong suspicion these guys aren't guilty of anything more than speeding while donning bodacious chinbeards. But c'mon, guys. Us Jews, we've learned the hard way when it's a good time to lay low. If it was 1942 and you were Japanese, you probably would think twice about that camping trip to the woods around San Fran with the Amateur Ham Radio and Astronomy Club. Similarly, if your name is Mohamed (or, alternately, Megahed, which I'm pretty sure is a Bobby-Sue like combination of Mohamed with Megatron) you probably should avoid speeding around in the dead of night outside a nuclear submarine base with homemade bottle rockets in the trunk. I'm just saying.

Paranoid Android

2007-07-31T23:30:00.000-04:00

I once attended a concert featuring Atari Teenage Riot, the Wu-Tang Clan, and Rage Against The Machine. I really only wanted to see ATR, my buddies and I were big Rage fans, and we kinda figured Wu-Tang would be an added bonus. ATR turned out to be a wash; German thrashcore ends up sounding like total crap in a big outdoor pavilion. Rage was pretty good, since this was before de la Rocha went nutty, but I got beaten so badly in the mosh pit I ended up throwing up in the lawn. When you're 16 and 130 pounds soaking wet, don't put yourself in a pit where everyone else has the size, build, and demeanor of Henry Rollins. I'm just saying. But Wu-Tang spoiled the whole escapade. Hip-hop music, like thrashcore, really doesn't work outside at anything bigger than a block party. And the Clan, who has more members than Parliament (and I don't mean the George Clinton kind) kept shuffling people on and off stage so we had no idea from the cheap seats what was being sung or if we were even looking at anyone famous. At any given time there were at least 5 people schlepping around the stage shouting, with no indication they were even doing the same song. ODB didn't even show. Instead, vast portions of the show were screamed by somebody's (RZA's?) 7-year old nephew, who didn't give a shit about the words and whose voice kept clipping the amps. Wu-Tang would easily lead the list of "Worst Performers I've Ever Seen" if not for that David Bowie concert.

I bring this up because I'm pretty sure these guys could've put on a better show.

Positive Reinforcement

2007-07-29T21:51:00.000-04:00

One of the things technology gets us is the ability to communicate, quickly and easily, with those who share similar ideals, visions, hopes and dreams. The Internet takes this to the next level; newsgroups, chatrooms, message boards and blogs allow rapid gatherings of those with like minds to share and develop great and powerful ideas.

At least in theory. In practice it allows people to build insular communities shielded from those who might think of disagreeing. While at the worst case it helps build al-Qaeda cells, the more common examples are more mundane. If, at least, you consider dressing up like an animal and having sex with other people dressed as animals to be mundane. (Note: Do not, ever, actually follow the second link.) As the title of this post states, it becomes a self-reinforcing feedback loop, with no hope of correction.

Which brings me to the reason for this post. These glasses.

Click on the picture and you'll get the Coolhunter post describing some fashion designer making it huge with her "fun and funky" yet "quirky fashions." Coolhunter every now and then has some bitchin' resorts I'll never have the millions to afford to go to. But in the end most of what's on the site is ridiculous, and remains so because it focuses on the avant-garde of the fashion industry, and the fashion industry has such a flawed feedback loop. You would need to have your head firmly ensconced in your own sphincter to really believe that a guy who looks like this is a hip trendsetter. The creme de la creme, though, is these glasses.

Look, I don't know why these women have some unidentifiable but clearly not sweat fluid on their faces. (Maybe they're crying after seeing their visage in the mirror.) They look like they might even be attractive in person. We'll never know, because they look like they decided to get their accessories from a Happy Meal.

Don't make their mistake. Seek exterior feedback today.

In a world run by Men

2007-07-03T22:42:00.000-04:00

US Out Of The Mall

2007-06-17T13:20:00.001-04:00

This is clearly a quagmire, regardless of how the Administration tries to pretty it up. By the sounds of it we're losing ground every day. The whole town crawls with soldiers and it's not slowing the deterioration down one bit; if anything, having those boots on the ground is just making it worse. If you ask me, it's high time we strategically redeploy out of that cesspool before we get any more bogged down. I recommend Philadelphia, of course.

Reanimation

2007-06-17T12:34:00.000-04:00

So I'm starting this thing back up. Previous blog attempts haven't made it very far at all, but hopefully this instance has a bit more staying power.

Why am I (re)starting this blog? Pretty simple, really. One, blogging (disturbingly enough) seems to be an excellent venue for meeting girls. Why, I'm still not quite sure; you would expect it to have about the pull power of administrative rights in a Debian support chat room. But no, it seems to work pretty well. Two, I enjoy telling other people what I think; this could be rephrased as 'I like the sound of my own voice'. I don't think typing it out takes any of the oomph out of the narcissism.

Some change is in order, of course. Minutiae of blog appearance may be changed. I've anonymized the blog upon recommendation from legal counsel. But the big change is that I'm gonna try to cut the politics crap down a bit and transition to more entertaining stories of drunken downtown antics. We'll see how that goes.

At A Loss

2006-04-22T18:35:00.000-04:00

Went down to the Five and Dime, bought myself a copy of Time. And, on the cover, was a woman that I knew when I was excavating in the mountains of Peru. Caught a plane to LIA, didn't know what I would say, maybe she would like me, I had lost a lot of weight since she had last seen me in 1988.

Went to a local bar, ordered a Cerveza, asked a man about the woman on the cover. "Dijo claro que si, es El Presidente's daughter." Asked him where she might be; "You did not hear this from me: the girl is a terrorista en las montanas a Chuquibambilla." Took a bus through mountains, oh, my head was pounding. Gotta keep strong and carry on. Gotta keep strong, it won't be long. Arrived in the villa, surrounded by guerillas; then my girl took me in her arms.

She said, "How you been? Oh, but I'll see you again." I woke up in a coffin underneath an altar to the east of Machu Pichu. The sun was bright, it burned my eyes. I knew that she was gone, so I went down to the riverside, I cried. I went down to the riverside, I went down and I cried.

Muchas veces, I'm at a loss, I don't know if I'm coming or I'm going.
Muchas veces, I'm at a loss as what to do.

My friends say she's nothing but pain. I say that I still love her the same. All she needs is a little bit of love and I'm sure I can make her change. So What about that girl in Zaire that you met while a volunteer? She got quite the education and quite the pair of legs on her." Oh, she married an Englishman, a correspondent for CNN. She thought he was rather handsome in a UN blue flak jacket. Oh, I see where you're coming from, but for me there is no other one. I must be on my merry way.

Clutch's "Muchas Veces." Sometimes I'd rather post song lyrics than commentary. So sue me. ;P

Yarr.

2006-04-08T12:52:00.000-04:00

Full sail, bouncing on the briny
Jolly Roger's flapping with a score of 84's
Many pretty treasures, so much booty to be taking
The cannon and the cutlass on a rebel man-o'-war

The lyrics come from a Real McKenzies song, “Cross the Ocean.” I don't remember where or when I first heard it, sometime shortly after I'd joined the Navy. But it became my unofficial anthem, every time my boat pulled away from the pier. Every sailor has that little bit of a pirate in him; the knowledge that he's really outside the realm of normal people, cast off from any civilized nation, free to prowl the seas as he may. If you don't have that passion for the open ocean, you'll tire of the life pretty rapidly, and many sailors do. Me, I loved it. Nothing summed it up better than my rare excursions topside on the surface, late at night, with the cold spray in my face, and not the briefest hint of land in any direction.

The pirate lifestyle has seen a resurgence as of late. Modern interpretations gloss over the rape, pillage, buggery, slavery and other undesirable aspects genuine piracy usually involved, instead glorifying the free, idealistic, rebellious life romantically attributed to it. From movies like Pirates of the Caribbean to cartoons like One Piece pirates are now heroes. (I'm not going to even try to interpret the pirate's role in Flying Spaghetti Monsterism) This is the theme I'm trying to invoke, not the lawless, despicable reality of piracy centuries ago, or today on the seas of southern Asia or South America.

There's also a line that's been making the rounds of the blogosphere lately, this one from H.L. Mencken: “Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.”

That's pretty much it. I started this blog because there's an unbelievable amount of Very Important Stuff going on in the world right now that few people seem to know about, fewer seem to care about and fewer still seem to be actually informed about to provide any useful dialogue about it. Honestly I'm probably in the second category much more than the third, but at least I'm trying. Seeing controversies like the Danish Cartoon circus and the horribly uneducated debate over the UAE ports deal infuriated me. This country (and the rest of the world) are at one of those points in history where our behavior affects the outcome of the world for centuries to come, and the majority of the people involved either have no clue what's going on at all or are hopelessly undereducated about it. So now I have a venue where I can speak my piece, outside of someone else's post comments, hoping that I can enlighten at least a few other minds. I'm hoisting my black flag, and nailing it the beam right here. I'll leave you with the last verse from the same song as above; hopefully you'll see ahow it sums up this whole enterprise.

We are sailing from our homeland
Cross the ocean, on the sea
For whatever our reasons be
We question all authority