my ploy to drag accidental traffic to my website by using the phrase "three-armed chinese baby" worked rather well. in celebration, i will choose not to harp on the fact that the war in afghanistan is proving to not be over. i will not point out the fact that the war in iraq is going worse, not better, lo these three years since we've been supposed to be done with major combat operations.

isn't that nice of me?

but fuck bush anyway. fuck all the bushes, from babs to jeb.

two posts in one morning... amazing, i know.

this baby looks surprisingly like jack.

this is hands down the cutest three-armed chinese baby i've ever seen.

as of this weekend, gthedamned reached the 200o hit threshold (i put the counter up about two years ago), thus sending my readership to heights reached by the likes of sheepfacedmonkeys.com and doihavegreatearlobesorwhat.edu. thanks to all thirteen people who actually meant to navigate to this page.

desmond dekker, 1941-2006

just a quick bit of self promotion...
gthedamned is going to be published! regular gthedamned readers have the jump on the general internet populace, as the submission was a previous post. nevertheless, now the decidedly larger audience that checks out mcsweeneys.net will get a taste of yours truly.

oh yeah, and fuck bush.
gthedamned

i still think that the immigration debate that we're having as a country right now is a dodge, much like gay marriage was a dodge. they're both great ways to get (white)middle america up in arms. who can remember gross ethics violations, misguided warmongering, or tax cuts for bill gates and his three hundred closest friends when there are dangerous brown people/creepy homos lurking about, seeking to attack our flagging economy/sacred bond of marriage (and divorce)?

that said, here's a bit of economic thought for the racists out there who want to deport all the immigrants becuase "they're taking our jobs." right now, illegal immigrants are available to work for $2/hour with no benefits whatsoever (ok, perhaps a drive to the hospital if the lawnmower cuts your hand off, but that's it, and we will be squealing the tires out of the parking lot as soon as your foot touches the ground). that's a lot cheaper than hiring a legal citizen for $5.15/hour (dear god, we need to fix that... $5.15 an hour?!!), so a lot of less than scrupulous employers are going to go with that option. if we make immigration easier, everyone will have to be paid at least minimum wage, and immigrants have the same chance at getting a job as native born white and christian xenophobic citizens. i wonder if that thoguht can turn around in your narrow, narrow mind.

so, i realize my posts last week were somewhat lacking, but it was a rough work week. i will try to get back up to pace on the ranting, but the republikkkans are shooting themselves in the feet so much these days, i've wondered if i shouldn't jinx things by pointing them out to both of my readers. any way, here's what's been taking the majority of my time...

it's hard to be mad at anyone when this is waiting at home for you.

to: jack
from: daddy

regarding your mothers favorite lullaby, "hush little baby," i have a few observations that it would be to your financial benefit to hear.
first of all, disregard the opening lines completely. you are still only one month old, little baby, and if you want to say a word, please do. it would be thrilling, and we could probably make some good investments off of all the infant product endorsements. if you have a particular word in mind, go with that, but if not, i'll bet we could make a lot of money with "similac." practice it in your spare time.
secondly, this mockingbird that is alluded to, i will assume is trained to sing a little snippet of a tune. i would hope so, as mockingbird song is not so pretty when they aren't imitating. if we're going to have to be cleaning up bird shit off the carpets, we'd better at least get a pleasing jingle out of the deal. however, we might actually hope for the mockingbird to be tone-deaf, as the replacement has far greater value. should the mockingbird be songless, your mother has agreed to buy you a diamond ring. i know this seems dangerous, and in fact, it is, but we will most certainly be putting said ring into a safety deposit box for you. before doing so, i will be taking the ring to a reputable jeweler, as your mother has a tendency to buy products as advertised, without further inquiry as to the quality of the workmanship. i will take her condition "if that diamond ring turns brass" to be an oversight, and not some sort of wealth reducing alchemy, for we both know (even you at such a young age) that metals cannot be transmuted into other metals. therefore, we will assume that your mother is only concerned with the diamond itself, which we will snatch out before she tries to trade it in on a looking glass. frankly, the diamond is the real bargain here. i'll buy you a looking glass, jack. we'll not be trading diamond rings for mirrors, not matter the composition of the ring. take my advice. i may not be an investment banker, but i know a ripoff when i see one.
i don't know if your mom expects the mirror to have some kind of preternatural glow or what, but if it proves not to "shine" (perhaps it just needs a good cleaning), you're getting a bottle of wine out of the deal. even considering our relatively lax views on underage drinking, i would assume that she's looking for a bottle with some aging potential. one would hope that she would at least consult me on this one, as i do work in the wine business. i'll try to get you a good vintage of bordeaux, but it'll take some doing, and frankly, you might be better off keeping your investments in something more stable, like perhaps, diamonds. this is also where things start to go way downhill for you in terms of profit potential. your mom, on the condition that the bottle of wine "gets broke" (a painful misuse of grammar, and from an english teacher, no less), will buy you a billy goat. now, i'm not saying that there is no money in a goat, but to make a real income from them, you'll need several milking goats (therefore nanny goats, not billy goats), and some cheese making facilities, neither of which is possible in our apartment.
"if that billy goat runs away, mama's gonna buy you another day." this is puzzling to me, as i can't figure if it means that you're out of luck and will have to start afresh tomorrow in this whirlwind commodities trading, or if someone has a contract on your life, and she has been wiring the assassin funds to stave off your execution. either way, tomorrow, let's see if we can get another diamond. if we keep stockpiling them for a few weeks, i know a guy. we can go live out our days in the Caribbean. as long as she learns a little about exchange rates first, your mom can come too.

what do you want to bet that if you're reading this blog, you're a target of the nsa phone record collection? it does make you highly suspicious after all. this blog contains subversive materials/writings, and its author is not a blind flag-waving screamingly zealous pseudo-patriot, so, by association, you are a terrorist.
i realize that this must come as a shock to you, but i have a few tips to make coming to grips with your obvious emnity towards the united states a little easier.

- when making phone calls to your terrorist buddies, be sure to use a clever code. for example, when you mean "we're going to set off a roadside bomb along the entire length of i-70 to strike at the heartland" you could say "we're just going to sit around the house and watch a few movies."

- change your e-mail signature to "yours in terror."

- whenever speaking outdoors, aim your head skyward. how else are the satellite lip-readers supposed to figure out your evil machinations?

- be sure to speak ill of our dear president when in public to identify yourself as a terrorist.

- when booking a plane ticket, try not to give away too much info. for example, try not to say "i'd like a one way ticket through the wall of the oval office, i mean, to the dallas/fort worth airport."

if you follow these steps, your transition from being a terrorist (secretly, unbeknownst, even to you) into a fully functional terrorist (as broadcast by the nrc and the nsa) will be smooth as can be.

go ahead and cut those capital gains taxes again. go ahead and cut the taxes on dividends again. it ain't gonna matter after the poor and middle class revolt.

and oh yeah, you mean jack abramhoff wasn't the only crooked lobbyist in washington?

burn, fundies, burn.

so let me get this straight. dubya wants to put the head of the nsa, perpetrators of the illegal and frankly terrifying wiretap scandal in charge of the cia? i know they're all seperate organizations, but i'm pretty sure cia chief trumps head of the nsa. so either the guy is the mastermind behind, was complicit in, or was totally unaware that this wrongdoing was taking place, and he's getting a promotion?

let's try a comparison. you are a cashier for a family owned restaurant. one day, the cash register turns up empty. the managers try to put up a smokescreen, explaining to the owner that the till needed to be emptied to pay the insurance premium, but the fact remains that the money is missing, almost definitely by illegal means. now, you are the person in charge of the cash register. only you and the managers ever have access to the drawer, and you are the one who stands by it all day long. if you sat there and let the till be stolen, you deserve to be fired for negligence of your duties. if you used your key to open the drawer, and then waled away, letting one of the managers take the money, you deserve to be fired for being a part of the conspiracy to steal. if you had the idea in the first place, you're probably going to jail. but amazingly, after one manager quits to avoid a big fuss over the whole thing, the owner decides to make you manager in his place.

apply this to the situation we're seeing, and get back to me.

and here i thought dubya was so tight with vincente fox because of his proficiency en la lingua español...
good god, the man can't even speak english properly, scott, why would he be able to speak a second language fluently? the funniest part is that his ignorance is being used as a protective measure here (and not in a "i have no reccollection of that, senator" kind of way).

and according to this headline, he can't count either.

god, i only wish this excerpt meant what i thought it did...
Republicans fear an Election Day massacre.
see the full article here

this is downright scary on multiple levels. sure. lots of people in the country (and the rest of the world) pray. that's no excuse for a theocratic regime like dubya's. also, i think it's funny that he thinks the average citizen would be asking him about potholes.

and finally, this is a few days old, but is perhaps the most frightening of all. i'm not saying there shouldn't be any check on the supreme court's power, but the lawmaking body shouldn't have oversight of the law checking body. period. especially not the highest court in the land.

republikkkans are scary when they're cornered...

thank god for our brilliant lawmakers. they're talking about passing a law that would place penalties on energy price gouging. how revolutionary. does anyone believe that there will be a single corporate bandit taken down with such a law? this law would make a nationwide standard for price-gouging (likely at the expense of states with a lower cost of living), but it won' t address the real problem. oil companies are currently taking a certain percentage of the price of oil as their profit. this percentage has remained the same even thought the price of oil has skyrocketed, pulling the profits through the roof as well. when the price of oil goes this high, the oil companies need to lower the percentage to take some of the pain out of filling up.
but i guess that makes me a communist.
fucking republikkkans.

bolivia has nationalized its natural gas industry in an attempt to avoid being exploited by the energy gobbling united states, adding another latin american country to the list of "people who are tired of being exploited by the united states." another major component of this group is "most americans."
even most of the democrats don't really care about the little guy. (one of) the problem(s) with representative democracy is that too much effort is expended trying to be reelected. we need to cut their salaries down to a living wage; maybe then, we could get some leaders who were actually in it to be the voice of their constituents. i'll bet they'd fight a lot harder for universal health care if they were uninsured.

yeah, i'm trying to pick a class fight. rich political bastards.

today marks the three year anniversary of the flightsuit aircraft carrier "mission accomplished" speech. three years ago, our president tried to claim that major combat operations in iraq were over. in that three years vast numbers more american soldiers have died than during the official war itself. every day, thanks to dubya, rumsfeld, cheney, etc., we create new terrorists (and though it was hardly true when it was a talking point, now there are lots of foreign fighters using iraq as a great place to hurt the people of united states on pennies a day). can we really continue to believe that this man has the best interests of our troops in mind? are there any remaining military families who are glad they voted for him instead of kerry? as only a man who has never risked his own life can do, george w bush is wasting the lives of our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters, and a disproportionately large percentage of our working class and poor teenagers. does this man care about anything but his own personal wealth (and the wealth of those close to him, so they can be there to bail him out as his dad had to on more than one occasion due to his business incompetence).
he doesn't care about any of the lives lost in the name of "freedom." he profanes the names of the september eleventh victims by using them the create more useless death and to perpetuate the fear that makes everyone else willing to give up their rights. he casually spends the lives of our troops to fight a meaningless war, and now is talking about the possibility of doing it all again in iran, which is much larger than iraq, and would be infinitely more dangerous for our already weary military.
happy anniversary, you vile bastard. i'd wish you to taste the acid that should come from your contemptible deeds, but you'd probably have something from your pharmabuddies for that already.
fuck bush.