Remember how I said that the gods would return to show their might? As always, my predictions were accurate (and I don’t even have a völva), as Thor is alive and well and dishing out divine justice in Ohio:

Also gathered along Union Road were Franklin twins and storm chasers Levi and Seth Walsh, who said they were out in the thunderstorm when they heard about the fire through a Facebook update.

“It sent goosebumps through my whole body because I am a believer,” said Levi Walsh, 29. “Of all the things that could have been struck, I just think that that would be protected. … It’s something that’s not supposed to happen, Jesus burning,” he said. “I had to see it with my own eyes.”

“I can’t believe Jesus was struck,” said his brother, who noted the giant Hustler Hollywood sign for the adult store across the street was untouched. “It’s the last thing I expected to happen.”

The now-razed effigy of the White Christ was, appropriately enough, made of Styrofoam.

This is not the first time this has happened. Note that Jim Caviezel was struck by lightning not once, but twice. Presumably the first strike was out of wrath at Mel Gibson’s Jesus movie, and the second was Thor’s attempt to prevent that nauseating teratoma of a Prisoner remake. I can only attribute Caviezel’s survival and subsequent desecration of McGoohan’s legacy to the hand of Loki.

Also, what does it say about the USA that Wikipedia needs a disambiguation page for “Touchdown Jesus”?

In conclusion, St. Boniface can suck my fuckin’ dick.

So I haven’t been writing anything lately about all the newest crimes of the political class and the moneyed interests, let alone posting any of my poems (I remain quite prolific), as I’ve been trying to finish some projects which I’ll probably reveal here when they are done.

But this video was too disturbing to ignore.

Now, I make no claims to being well-versed in the finer points of Jonas-Brothers-based humor (beyond jocularly mispronouncing their names with a “Y” sound, as is my comedic heritage), but I think I get this one: it’s funny because the President claims the right to order American citizens killed with no judicial process!

So I decided to come up with some other punchlines that Barack Obama might like to try out:

“Boys, don’t get any ideas. I have two words for you: Abu Ghraib. You will never see it coming.”
“Boys, don’t get any ideas. I have two words for you: penile torture. You will never see it coming.”
“Boys, don’t get any ideas. I have two words for you: Camp No. You will never see it coming.”
“Boys, don’t get any ideas. I have two words for you: forced sodomy. You will never see it coming.”

Tee hee! I look forward to a great career in White House speechwriting.

In 2008, I expected a lot of nasty shit to go down after Obama took office. I can’t say, however, that I could have anticipated that it would be the so-called liberals in Congress who would deal the final death blow to the dream of socialized medicine and real healthcare reform.

To anyone who supports the bill that just passed, ask yourself why you think any of the consumer protections in it carry any weight whatsoever, when the passage of an individual mandate with no public option means that the insurance companies are now rich enough to gut every reform that cuts into their profits.

There’s a reason (besides poor mental health) that people fall for the lies and demagoguery coming from drug-addled racists, Mansonesque Mormon alcoholics, borderline illiterate Christian jihadist ding-dongs, and the astroturfed “Tea Party” movement, and that reason is the moral bankruptcy of the “liberal” political class in this country. Obama was never for the public option: he secretly promised the for-profit hospital industry that there would be none, and went on to tell the American people he supported one. He made another backroom deal with the pharmaceutical industry to oppose allowing government to negotiate drug prices, and later lied about it.

And what do liberals do? Dennis Kucinich, the most visible exponent of leftist policies in Congress, did what he always does: he made a big show of supporting real alternatives to the corporate model, and then fell in line when it turned out that his vote might actually matter. He did the same thing during the 2008 election when he claimed to oppose any candidate who would “employ war as an instrument of foreign policy,” and then gave a speech at the Democratic Convention endorsing Obama. (Salient quote at 2:40: “The insurance companies took over healthcare! Wake up, America! The pharmaceutical companies took over drug pricing! Wake up, America!”) Kucinich, that paragon of progressivism, has no real principles. Then again, to be fair, I suppose boning leggy redheads who are half your age and twice your height is a pretty solid principle. (more…)

In America, this posting and this blog are the disjointed screeds of violent right-wing extremists.

For contrast, here is an example of a serious and cogent contribution to our political discourse:

WALLACE: How hard do you think President Obama would be to defeat in 2012?

PALIN: It depends on a few things, say he played — I got this from Buchanan — say he played the war card. Say he decided to declare war on Iran or decide to really come out and do whatever he could to support Israel–which I would like him to do. That changes the dynamics of what we can assume will happen between now and three years. Because I think if the election were today, Obama would not be elected.

WALLACE: You’re not suggesting that Obama would cynically play the war card?

PALIN: I’m not suggesting that, I’m saying if he did, things would dramatically change if he decided to toughen up and do all that he can to secure our nation and secure our allies. I think people would shift their thinking a bit.

Here is a quote from Bedell’s “bizarre series of Internet postings”:

The moral values of individuals and communities are increasingly attacked by a political system where deceit is routine and accepted, and the only standard is power. This inexorable attack on morality and conscience must be opposed and overcome.

(more…)

OK, so it’s bad enough that Google knows all my private conversations and preferences in pornography (have I told you about my Lutheran deaconess fetish?*).

And then there’s this creepy NSA collaboration business. Since when is a surveillance agency in the business of cybersecurity anyway? (Although it’s not really a huge surprise.) And how about Youtube’s censorship of questions to President Obama about marijuana legalization?

But now Google had to drop a big steaming turd on my e-mail account. I’m getting tired of your waterhead fuckarounds, Google. All I wanted was e-mail. If I wanted a goddamn social networking site, I would already be on Twatbook or Facefuck or whatever the kids are using these days. And I certainly wouldn’t be on a social network that automatically lists me as “following” my proctologist.

Salient quote:

When I enabled Google Buzz, it was using a photo on my personal Buzz page (not my profile or anything) that I’d taken on my Droid but hadn’t ever uploaded. Why? And why that photo? And–what? That’s just creepy as hell.

And a quote from a Google statement:

We thought very carefully about how to create a great experience in Google Buzz with as minimal setup as possible. We designed our auto-following system to enable users to immediately see content from the people they email and chat with most, so when they start using Buzz, it “just works.” If users are automatically followed to anyone they’d rather not follow, it’s easy to remove these individuals during the auto-following step by clicking on the “edit” link and then clicking “unfollow” next to their names.

(more…)

So Poetariat has been silent for a while, but I guess Smokehouse is probably working, and I’ve been putting some effort into my own personal projects. When finished, said projects may or may not be the subject of a future post.

I also have a variety of subjects I’ve been meaning to write about, but every time I think about writing about poodles or television or Icelandic people, it seems to me to be rather like a conversation about trees.

I don’t really have anything to say about Obama’s snoozer of a State of the Union speech the other night, or about the nasty little fascist dorkwad who gave the Republican response. I realize that “fascist” is a bit hackneyed nowadays, but anyone who thinks that Obama’s record has been marked by excessive respect for civil liberties is truly diseased. (Why, yes, I have adopted Frank Zappa’s typographic idiosyncrasies; glad you asked.) Overall, the most interesting quote from that night was when Chris Matthews said, “I forgot he was black for an hour!” Stay classy, Chris.

Anyway, if the American news media had any priorities, there would be two headlines on the front page of the newspaper every day: a really really big one saying FORCES OF EVIL CONTINUE TO CONTROL PLANET, and then underneath that a smaller one saying “Puppies, kittens still adorable.” But to provide some further detail, here are some interesting links I’ve seen since the last time I posted. Some are old, but they are still relevant because a) timely blogging is THE MAN, b) I assume that everyone who reads Poetariat lives in the wilderness on honey and locusts and has no exposure to other media, c) many of the most important news stories only appear once and then nobody ever talks about them again, and d) to paraphrase Ralph Nader, “to know and not to blog is not to know.” Ralph Nader would probably slap me for saying that.

Gitmo North
detainees are nonpersons
11% think free market is working well
Afghanistan wants foreign killers handed over (more…)

Here are some interesting news stories I read this morning:

RI Gov. Don Carcieri, already known for his authoritarian bent, legalizes police rape (did you know that in areas where prostitution is illegal, a prostitute is more likely to have sex with a police officer than to get arrested by one?)
provisions of leaked ACTA treaty would ruin the internet
patents on human genes challenged
teenagers sue school that violated their free speech rights to enforce Abrahamic “morality”
and speaking of Abrahamic morality…
court says swearing in text messages is legal, as should be obvious to any American with a rudimentary grasp of civics
Sen. Grassley wants to prohibit government advisers from discussing an end to the drug war, as is already the case with the “drug czar”
Maine voters reject love
bats like oral sex

Also, Sibel Edmonds has a new news and commentary site that you should check out, and here is an in-depth interview with her and fellow FBI whistleblower John M. Cole. And here are some very inspiring rugs by Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo.

OK, so I was going to write another diatribe against the American power elite and their toadies in the media who channel popular resentment into astroturfed poot, but I didn’t want to type that much right now, and also I have priorities, so how about that Prisoner remake, huh?

If you’re like me, when you watched the original Prisoner, you kind of liked it, but then you thought, “You know how this could be better? They could have Jesus play Number Six and deliver all his lines like a Republican, and then they could move the whole thing to the desert, put everyone in T-shirts and jeans, and score it with reality-TV music!” Because come on, people, irony is for Eurotrash. This is Straight Talk Express country.

(Seriously though, Americans are fine with irony, as long as it’s used to tell them how hip they are when they vote for center-right presidential candidates.)

Also, did you notice that they gave Number Six a love interest? Because when I think Number Six, I think chivalry, don’t you?

I have responded to this development by creating my own Prisoner remake, which is currently playing a sold-out theatrical run IN MY MIND. In keeping with the original series’ prescient depiction of the neotenous trappings of authoritarian systems, my remake is scored by Takako Minekawa, Kiiiiiii, Polysics, OORUTAICHI, Obakejaa, Salk Vacchin, YMCK, DAT Politics, Gangpol und Mit, and Wobbly. Oh, and there’s also some skweee and early Fin.K.L. All characters, regardless of age, are dressed as exaggerated stereotypes of historical youth subcultures, to illustrate the theme of Faschismus ohne Gleichschaltung. Number Six is alternately played by undead Patrick McGoohan and Mike Gravel, who occasionally freezes time to break the fourth wall and talk about the military-industrial complex. Basically this remake explores many of the same themes presented in Suicide Club and Privilege.

Also, did you know that Poetariat is over a year old now?

Here’s an article about what passes for poetry at the White House. I personally prefer Barack’s own poetry (only the cave-ape one — the other one is tl;dr unless you read it as thinly veiled geronterotica, in which case TTJO).

Speaking of the dawn of man, some scientists think that Neanderthals went extinct because our ancestors ate them. The scholarly contributions of Author Kiss My Ass were surprisingly accurate.

Update: Placentas buried under avocado trees.

Looks like Binyam Mohamed et al. may get their day in court:

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that a lawsuit brought by five men who say they were tortured as part of the Central Intelligence Agency’s “extraordinary rendition” program can proceed, dealing a blow to efforts by both the Bush and Obama administrations to claim sweeping executive secrecy powers.

In a 26-page ruling, the court declared that Binyam Mohamed, a British resident of Ethiopian nationality, and four other former detainees can go forward with a civil lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan, a Boeing subsidiary.

I’m going to pretend that the Viking performance art piece we did on this subject in March had an impact.