Pull my finger, capitalist pigs

I don’t think this is an April Fool’s joke by the Beeb, but even if it is, I love it:  Bomb blows hole in Lenin statue.

One of Russia’s most famous statues of Vladimir Lenin has been bombed, leaving the Bolshevik revolutionary with a gaping hole in his rear.

The bronze statue, in the city of St Petersburg, was badly damaged before dawn on Wednesday, when the blast blew a hole in Lenin’s coat.

The picture, though, is what truly makes this work:

That’s Communism in a nutshell, kids.  It just smells like vodka farts.

Distractions

Here’s your WTF moment of the day:  House passes bill taxing AIG and other bonuses.

Acting with lightning speed, the Democratic-led House has approved a bill to slap punishing taxes on big employee bonuses from firms bailed out by taxpayers.

The vote was 328-93.

OK, so let’s recap.  AIG was contractually obligated, by employment contract with certain of their employees, to pay these bonuses.  Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) slipped a provision into the Porkulus bill specifically allowing the bonuses…or maybe it was the Obama Treasury Department that wanted him to do it.

The bonuses come to light, and suddenly, every Democrat (and some Republicans) between Capitol Hill and Pennsylvania Avenue is screaming for blood–including the very people who knew the bonus provision was in the bill.  This, of course, after it comes to light that the two biggest receipients of AIG campaign cash were…wait for it…Christopher Dodd and Barack Obama.

So as a result, the House, spineless lemmings that they are, has now passed a bill that basically targets about four hundred bonus-receiving households with a 90% punitive tax rate–and in noted tax-cheat Charlie Rangel’s words, “we were figuring the state and local would get the other 10%.”  These people who received the bonuses have not been convicted of a crime.  They have not gone through any legal due process.  They’re simply going to have the government yank 90% of these contractually-obligated bonuses away from them–legally it may not be a bill of attainder, but it sure looks damn close, doesn’t it?.  While Chris Dodd and Barney Frank and the people who did as much as any “fat cat” at AIG to fuck up the housing market get away scot free, and the people at AIG have to live with death threats.

Meanwhile, we’re flushing hundreds of billions of dollars down the toilet of a useless pork-laden “stimulus package,”  crushing our children with debt, and talking about loading even more taxes for “carbon neutrality” on top of that, and nobody cares.  But you let AIG give out $165 million in bonuses, and Uncle Teleprompter is on the case, man.

Maybe Obama should’ve gotten Gordon Brown one of these

Just go look.  The pictures alone are worth it, even if you can’t read the Japanese (I certainly can’t).

I wonder if this company has done any other figures like this.  Maybe George Bush with flight suit and “Mission Accomplished” banner?  Bill Clinton with a Mickey D’s takeout sack and lipstick on his collar?  Dick Cheney…oh, wait, there’s already a Dick Cheney figure in one of those shots, never mind.

One thing you never want to hear…

…the grinding sound of a car that’ll turn over, but not start, when you don’t have enough money to pay the bills you’ve already got.

Yep, the Divine Teabag has hit us in the face again.  Wife Unit’s car won’t start and is quite possibly an ex-parrot, leaving us with my rusted, dodgy, 162,000-mile-veteran truck as our sole means of transport for the forseeable future.  Apparently every piece of good news–Wife Unit getting beadwork up on Etsy, and getting in a local Ren Faire at the end of this month–has to be balanced by a much larger piece of bad news, in this case, a broken car with what sounds like serious-to-terminal engine problems.

All in all, it’s just another brick in the wall.  I just wish the wall wasn’t made out of poo.

Blackout for New Zealand

There isn’t a whole hell of a lot that Marty and I agree on politically.  On this particular travesty from New Zealand, however, I think we’re at the barricades shoulder to shoulder:

A “copyright holder” can get you kicked off an ISP without having to provide any evidence of an actual infringement. Having to [provide evidence] is apparently “impractical” and “ridiculous” in the words of RIANZ chief executive Campbell Smith. What happens when the “you” above is a public library, or a school? Or if the “copyright holder” makes a mistake or a malicious accusation?

This is the kind of Draconian ready-fire-aim stuff that powerful organizations like the MPAA and RIAA would love to shove down our throats here in the United States if they could.  So it’s important not to let it get a toehold, even halfway around the world.  Because I don’t care if it’s the USA or New Zealand or bloody Rwanda, I get the heebie-jeebies when I read a former member of the government say:

It is easier for ISPs, Internet Service Providers, to cut off anyone who might be breaking the law.

So.  Moose Droppings is as blacked out as I can get it (considering I don’t actually have any graphics to black out, I did all that I could by changing the theme color).  Stand up for “Guilt Upon Accusation” for New Zealand.

We’ll be back after this brief message

Just a quick personal note here, for them what reads this here blog thang occasionally:  My wife, the lovely and talented Wife Unit, is attempting to sell some of her handmade beaded jewelry.  This stuff is handwoven by her own two hands, from just loose beads, thread, wire, imagination, and time.  She’s been doing it professionally, selling at craft shows around the Southeast, for about twelve years, and since we lost our business website last year (love ya, Network Solutions, mean it) we’ve not had an Internet presence to sell it.  So she’s put some shinies up on her LiveJournal for y’all to ooh and ahh over, and hopefully buy. 

If we sell enough, we’ll be able to afford the entry fee into a local Ren Faire in a couple of months and sell more there.  If we don’t, we can’t.  Simple.  Our theory is, we’re not going to get jack shit out of the $850 billion porkulus bill that Obama and Congress are about to shove down our throats, so we’ll just stimulate ourselves.  And no, you may not watch.

Please go visit The Magpie’s Nest and see if anything strikes your fancy.  Details and contact information are over there.

Thank you.

This just in: Groundhogs have teeth

That is a fact which New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg seems to have forgotten this morning:

Perhaps lashing out against budget cuts for local zoos, or perhaps just because he wasn’t ready to be awakened from his winter nap, Staten Island Chuck took a nibble out of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s hand during this morning’s Groundhog Day festivities at the Staten Island Zoo.

“His hand was nicked,” a Bloomberg spokesman said. The mayor is up to date on his Tetanus shot, so he simply washed his wounded finger and put on a bandage.

(Video of the shocking groundhog attack is available at the link.)

Word is coming down that in response, Mayor Bloomberg is going to propose new taxes on groundhogs, groundhog food, people who own groundhogs, everybody who lives on Staten Island, and teeth.

The world’s greatest complaint letter

Richard Branson’s got some work to do to mollify this frequent Virgin Airlines flier:

Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at thehands of your corporation.

Look at this Richard. Just look at it:

I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?

The whole thing is available at the Daily Telegraph, misspellings and all, including Virgin Atlantic’s response, and pictures of the lovely food that this gentleman was served on a Mumbai-Heathrow flight in December.

Maybe those tiny AirTran bags of peanuts and warm flat Cokes aren’t so bad after all.

Child labor laws, Chicago PD style

Methinks some heads are going to roll over this one:

A 14-year old boy has been charged with impersonating a Chicago police officer after police say he walked into a station house and ended up partnering with another officer on a traffic assignment for about five hours Saturday before he was found out.

Police spokeswoman Monique Bond said the youth wrote no tickets and did not interact with the public.

The Chicago Tribune, citing a police source, said the youth identified himself as an officer from another district. He was “detailed for the day to Grand Crossing and also was savvy enough to sign out a police radio and a ticket book,” the Tribune says.

No word if the 14-year-old asked if the police car had “cop suspension, cop tires, and a four hundred forty cubic inch Chrysler cop motor.”

Now, that’s the official line from the Chicago PD.  But a blog by an anonymous Chicago officer, Second City Cop, tells a slightly different story:

This is classic. A male/1 in full uniform walks into the 3rd district desk and tells them he is from 005 and was sent there to work a traffic car. They get him a locker to use and call in the traffic car. He signs out a radio and jumps in with the female officer and away they go. They handle a traffic accident and when she realizes he doesn’t have a ticket book they go back into the station and he signs one out.

Away they go again. This time he asks if he can drive and she lets him. They write a few tickets and finish their tour.

So according to somebody that’s actually inside the CPD, not only did the kid write tickets, he actually drove the police car.  Oh, and the kid in question?  He’s been busted twice before for impersonating a police officer and was thrown out of a Police Explorer program in December, 2007.

I think the moral of the story here is, Marty, next time you or Shannon get pulled over, ask to see the officer’s middle school ID before signing the ticket.

Pay attention, GOP

Attention Republicans.  Should the American people ever let you back into control of Congress and the White House, instead of “reaching across the aisle” and fawning over Democrats so you won’t get bad press from the New York Times or disinvited to K Street cocktail parties, take a note from Barack Obama about how to handle things:

President Obama listened to Republican gripes about his stimulus package during a meeting with congressional leaders Friday morning – but he also left no doubt about who’s in charge of these negotiations. “I won,” Obama noted matter-of-factly, according to sources familiar with the conversation.
The exchange arose as top House and Senate Republicans expressed concern to the president about the amount of spending in the package. They also raised red flags about a refundable tax credit that returns money to those who don’t pay income taxes, the sources said.

“I won.”  He did.  Convincingly.  Therefore, he and his party get to set the tone and move their agenda forward.  And if you Congressional Republicans think for one second that Obama, Pelosi, or Reid give a flying damn about what you want, you’re sorely mistaken.  They’re not in this to be “bipartisan.”  “Bipartisanship” only cuts one way to them.  To them, “reaching across the aisle” means that you come to them, not that you meet each other halfway.

When the wheel turns, as it usually does, and you get back on top?  Remember this.  And learn well.  Have a clear, cogent agenda, articulate it to the American electorate, and if they give you the chance, enact it.  In other words, lead.  Say what you will about Barack Obama, he doesn’t look to be scared of actually leading…unlike most of the Republican leadership since about 1996.