Happy Osama's Dead Day

KABUL (Reuters) - President Barking Mad YoMama, slipping in like a thief in the night, told thought weary Americans that George W. Bush was his grand daddy. He then went on to say, in typical Bush Cowboy fashion that the goal of crushing the al-Qaida network was "now within our reach."

Barking Mad went on to say, "Our goal is to destroy al-Qaida, and we are on a path to do exactly that."

In response, Al's network flipped YoMama the bird & then blew up some shit, killing 6.

In other news, Spitt Slobney, the other right wing presidential candidate, confined himself to smooching huge amounts of fire fighter butt crack while vacuously smiling like a life size Howdy Doody doll.

Normally I would avoid the random blah blah blah of our resident LEADER, primarily because rhetorical screwings leave me a tad bit pessimistic, and more pessimism would just be overkill.

Until today.

Today I learned that "pessimism" is apparently the new optimism.

According to Leslie Brokaw, writing on the MIT Sloan Management Review's Improvisations blog who said,

"Many people put themselves into one of two camps: optimists or pessimists, people who tend to approach the world in either a consistently upbeat or a mostly skeptical manner. But researchers are now looking at the ways people mix and match their approaches, calling this 'strategic optimism and pessimism.'"

Edward Chang, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who runs an Optimism-Pessimism Lab, explains further: "many of us use these mind-sets in a flexible way and this flexibility has a lot of advantages."

Cool.

Quite frankly, after 50 years of strategic pessimism, I should be particularly ripe for some "strategic optimism" & the attendant success it will bring.

Oh fuck.

Leslie has clarified things a bit:

"Surprisingly, [pessimism] can be most helpful at the moments when we might seem to have the least to feel pessimistic about. When we’ve been successful before and have a realistic expectation of being successful again, we may be lulled into laziness and overconfidence. Pessimism can give us the push that we need to try our best."

I suppose that my 50 years of complete & abject failure just ruins my chances.

Oh well

Easy Come

Easy Go

Too Good To Let Slip Away

(Thanks Mr. B.)

Breaking News

A new photograph obtained exclusively by ABC News showing the bloodied back of George Zimmerman's head, which was taken three minutes after he shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, gives possible credence to his claim that Martin had bashed his head against the concrete as he fought for his life.

Not to be upstaged, the Trayvon Martin camp, in an effort to muster sympathy,
released this photo showing young Trayvon's wounds;




Stay tuned for further updates...

More Well Spent Tax Dollars

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Secret Service is reportedly investigating faded '70s rock star Ted Nugent for his recent insistence he'll be "dead or in jail" in a year's time if President Barack Obama is re-elected in November.

At a convention of the National Rifle Association over the weekend, the longtime gun advocate compared Obama and the Democrats to a coyote who should be shot.

"It isn't the enemy that ruined America," he said as he reaffirmed his endorsement of Republican front-runner Mitt Romney.

"It's good people who bent over and let the enemy in. If the coyote's in your living room pissing on your couch, it's not the coyote's fault. It's your fault for not shooting him."

He accused the Obama administration of being "evil" and "America-hating."

"If Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year," he said angrily. "We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November."

He then told his audience of proud gun-owners that if they failed to "clean house in this vile, evil, America-hating administration, I don't even know what you're made out of."

The Secret Service says it's aware of the weekend remarks and is looking into them.

Honestly, this is fucking great. Little Teddy Bear is quite obviously a douche of the highest caliber. He dodges his war, makes a barrel full of money while many of his peers become mental & physical cannon fodder, then he develops a streak of red white & blue patriotism wide enough to choke Rush Limbaugh.

What a fucking hoot!

I thought my irony meter broke when I read a few enviro liberals cry that Dr. Seuss's The Lorax was being whored out to corporate America, and their precious tree guardian was now no longer pure. I found it ironic because their childhood hero created a tree guardian named the Lorax & then proceeded to tell its story on a bunch of dead trees.

Now here's the original "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang," Teddy Bear the Draft Dodger, goosing my meter by throwing the ephemeral weight of his massive hot air inflated ego behind Mitt "The Android" Romney's campaign, espousing oodles of love for the Constitution and Soldier Boys.

To top it off, the Secret Service, looking for something to do that doesn't involve Columbian hookers, appears to be taking Teddy Bear seriously.

Jesus, Ted is only a bad ass when there's a fucking raccoon on the other end of his gun site. He's about as revolutionary as that redundant crap he peddles under the guise of music.

Still, the thought of Teddy Bear behind bars does have a certain charm to it.

One can hope...

I'm A Pussy Assed Slacker But I Ain't No Cracker

Since I spent the Zimmerman/Martin explosion here at home, I talked to no one but my wife. Having returned on Saturday, I got a chance to hear how other people were viewing it.

Unsurprisingly, most folk thought Trayvon was about 10 years old.

I suppose I could go down my usual kneejerk path that starts somewhere around "Americans are stuuuuuuupid" and ends somewhere around "Americans are fat & stuuuuuuuuupid."

But I don't really believe that.

At least not totally.

I really think the average working person with a family just doesn't have the time to assimilate all the garbage the media spoon feeds us.

Instead, they grab quick bites here & there...news snippets...misheard news snippets...work conversations about other peoples misheard news snippets...filter it through personal prejudice & then form it into a little homunculus called an idea or a belief.

It all started me thinking about how abysmally easy it is to, if not completely control public opinion, route it along a desired path.

Now, every photo I've seen of Zimmerman is a variation of this:



Which is a fucking mug shot.

Here's another Florida mugshot:

Carlos I Vargas
Possession of Soma & Xanax

On the other hand, every photo of Trayvon that I've seen is a variation of this:



I would be interested in seeing an updated photo, hoodie included.
I'm sure one exists.
I doubt if I will though. Everyone seems to have stuck Martin's corpse into a time machine & sent him back a decade.
More palatable, I suppose.
More Cosby show than convenience store robbery video.

It's an interesting strategy that seems to be very successful.

Maybe it's a little pre-election race guilt to bump Obama back into office.
Maybe it's a little pre-election race card fatigue/fear of the uppity Negro to bump up the Republicans.

Most likely it's just a continuance of the tried & true "divide & conquer" beastie the Brits so loved with their colonies.
I don't find it particularly hard to believe that the upper class views all of us "lessers" as little more than tribes of savages in need of control.

I lean this way because how one sees this affair seems to be predicated along lines proscribed by ones preformed opinions.
Liberals, always looking for another reason to spank themselves with collective guilt, go towards Trayvon, while Conservatives, sick of feeling guilty for shit they didn't do, go towards Zimmerman.

This all started me thinking about other, established boggarts, & how their reputations for pure evil would have been tarnished by the same treatment.

Imagine Helter Skelter if the predominant image of Charlie was this:



instead of this:



Or imagine how the efficacy old Uncle Adolph is employed with when some new dictator sitting atop a pile of natural resources we need is in need of toppling would be compromised if our predominant image was this:



or this:



instead of this:



"Reality" is looking more & more like one of those Lego sets that occupy whole aisles at Toys R Us. Sadly, most of us are those sad & stiff little humanoid/Lego hybrids with the badly painted hairdos. I don't foresee much good coming from any of it.