Beijing Olympics Results, Day One: The 1500 M Smog Dodge

EIGHTH PLACE:

"The expert advice that we are getting is that the situation continues to improve."
-Simon Clegg, British Olympic Association (UK)


SEVENTH PLACE

"Haze does not mean poor quality air."
-China Daily web site (CHINA)


SIXTH PLACE:

"I haven't heard from any athlete that they're not going on with the job."
-AOC VP Peter Montgomery (before any events)(AUSTRALIA)


FIFTH PLACE:

"Most of the smog here is evaporation. It's due to humidity."
-Arne Ljungqvist, chairman of the IOC medical commission (SWEDEN)


FOURTH PLACE:

“The pollution levels are coming down."
-Jacques Rogge, AOC Chairman (BELGIUM)


BRONZE MEDAL:

"I suffer from asthma, and I'm having to take supplements to protect my lung lining"
-Alison Williamson, Archery (UK)


SILVER MEDAL:

"The weather conditions aren't conducive to the dispersal of pollutants,''
-Guo Hu, Beijing Meterorlogical Observatory (CHINA)


GOLD MEDAL:

"If Chinese officials do succeed in temporarily 'clearing the air' in Beijing for the Olympic Games, one is left to wonder what Chinese will say if . . . severe air pollution once again is allowed to return. Will they interpret this to mean that there can only be Potemkinized clean air for foreign visitors?"
-Orville Schell (US)

Now, please rise for the Olympic Anthem:

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Hasbro: Taking Scrabulous Away May Not Be Enough

Once, a long time ago, I was in a Labatt's Beer focus group. I got twenty bucks and a free beer out of the deal. I doubt that Labatt's took my answers to heart ("which of these abstract blue splashes makes you want beer more?") but I understood the process. In an effort to sell more beer, the beer company wanted to find out what beer drinkers really want.

Apparently, no one at Hasbro has that kind of corporate savvy.

In light of the hideous Facebook debacle over Scrabulous and/or Scrabble, I can only draw the conclusion that Hasbro, in raging stereotypical corporate style, is unintentionally bulldozing customer's goodwill in a short-sighted defense of their perceived interests.

(Unless of course this was one of those spooky "let's screw up the brand so the stock price drops and we can sell out" deals. Very few things surprise me anymore.)

Peter Fader, a co-director of The Wharton Interactive Media Initiative, says Scrabulous "has been such a fabulously good thing for the Scrabble franchise [that] Hasbro should have been celebrating."

Hasbro has made some improvements to their official Facebook version of Scrabble since its disasterous premiere... but it still (for the most part) sucks, and all the criticisms about its functionality are still valid. I know, because they fixed the ability to log into it in the forst place. And it still sucks. That's why I'm spending more time on Scrabulous.com, and less on Facebook. Thanks for helping to break that Facebook addiction of mine, Hasbro chumps!

So why the fresh ranting about all this? Because... just in case you were afraid common sense was going to suddenly start becoming a factor in Hasbro's decision-making process... the PR geniuses there are currently "declining to say" whether or not they intend to sue Rajat and Jayan Agarwalla over Wordscraper... their new and not-as-similar-as-you-might-think word game on Facebook.

Wow, Hasbro, you guys sure are... consistent. Just like I will be staying consistently away from your products until you show a few signs of smartening up and not being such pinheads.

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Shakespeare, Sonnet XII, Reviewed By John McCain (Actual Quotes)

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;

-"I spent five and a half years in prison. The worst part was coming home and finding out Green Acres had been canceled. What the hell was I fighting for?"

When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,

-"I believe America did the right thing by not joining the Kyoto Treaty."

And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,

-"I will veto every single beer... er, bill with earmarks."

Then of thy beauty do I question make,

-"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno."

That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow.

-"Presidential ambition is a disease that can only be cured by embalming fluid."

And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence

-"Do not yield. Do not flinch. Stand up. Stand up with our President and fight. We're Americans. We're Americans, and we'll never surrender. They will. "

Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

-"That's not too important. What's important is the casualties."

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December 21st, 2012: The Day The World WON'T End

(I've taken the unusual step of posting this article both here and on my other blog because I believe this is a developing scam that is going to bilk a lot of people in the coming years, and that sort of thing really annoys me.)

According to many, the world is going to end on December 21, 2012. This is when the Mayan calendar comes to an end. Personally, I always thought the Mayan Calendar came to an end at that point because the Mayans weren't planning on going to anyone's birthday party or attending any business meetings hundreds of years after the collapse of their society, but I could be wrong. And many New Age-y types have decided that this is when civilization is going to collapse, because that's when Nibiru comes back.

"Nibiru comes back?" The miniskirt making a comeback, sure. But what the hell is "Nibiru"?

According to Zecharia Sitchin, who claims to be an expert in Ancient Sumerian studies (but got his degree in Economic History), Nibiru is a giant planet, the size of Jupiter or larger, on an eccentric orbit that brings it into the inner Solar System about once every 3600 years or so. His decoding of ancient Sumerian and Mayan texts apparently confirm this. The story is that Nibiru will be returning soon... making its closest approach to Earth on December 21, 2012.

Those ancient Sumerians and Mayans... they couldn't hold their empires together, but apparently they were waaaay better astronomers than we are.

I'm not fluent in Mayan or Sumerian, so I have no place Sitchin's archaeology. But others have, and there is a fairly exhaustive rundown of Sitchin's errors here. But astronomy and astrophysics? Those are subjects I do know. And I can tell you with great confidence that THERE ARE NO GIANT RAMPAGING PLANETS OUT THERE COMING TO EAT YOU. Honest.

Consider this: everything with mass in the universe has a gravitational field. The greater the mass, the stronger the field. That's why apples fall to Earth, and why the Earth doesn't fall towards apples. The Earth orbits the Sun. If the Earth were travelling faster, it would achieve "escape velocity": the speed needed to fly away from the Sun and off into the Cosmos. If the earth were to slow down, it would fall into the Sun. Every planet in the solar system has a gravitational effect on every other planet, though (relative to the huge mass of the Sun) the pull that, say, Neptune has on Venus is pretty weak.

Put another way: when you were born, the mass of the obstetrician had slightly more influence on you than the planet Mars did... but slightly less than that of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.

If two bodies of sufficient mass pass close enough to each other, they will have an effect on each others orbits around the Sun. Many asteroids have had their orbits affected by the occasional(relatively) close brush with Jupiter: picking up speed and moving out into more distant, less circular orbits around the Sun as a result.

Even though Niburu has such a long orbit, given the age of the Solar System (about 4.5 billion years), it would have passed by Earth (and all the other planets) about one and a quarter million times in the life of the Solar System. And yet despite all these close brushes with a giant planet, Mercury through Neptune remain in relatively stable, circular orbits. The odds of that being the case with a Niburu whipping through the neighborhood that many times is comparable to the odds of making your first break in a game of pool by throwing a bowling ball onto the table... and having all the pool balls drift elegantly back into their original triangular configuration. Try it sometime... with someone else's pool table, ideally.

Furthermore... you'd think that with something that big in our own Solar System, there would be some kind of observational clues... after all, we found Pluto, and it's a tiny, insignificant little thing compared to Uranus and Neptune. Uranus, in turn, is much smaller than Nibiru allegedly is; and Uranus was discovered in the 1700s. As far as observational data for Nibiru: there was a misidentified sighting of a distant galaxy by the IRAS satellite in 1984 that has gotten a lot of coverage as being "Nibiru," and the occasional misidentified sun dog.

The primary reason all of this bothers me... other than it being a sign of how damned bad public education really is these days... is that there seem to be a lot of people out there exploiting the fear of Nibiru Doom for profit.

Like these people. Or these people. Or this guy. But most of all: THIS guy.

And regardless of which religious tradition one follows, or which ancient texts on bases one's beliefs on... most faiths agree that hoodwinking the gullible for profit is a bad thing. And I agree.

So: no need to panic. The only threat to the world in 2012... or now... is human nature itself.

Okay, in light of that... maybe you can panic a little.

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Astrologyzone.com Didn't See This Coming

Dear Blogger.com:

I love you guys. Really, I do. A lot of us do. But you've recently handed me (and it appears, hundreds of other bloggers) a real pain in the ass in the form of evil, rampaging robots. More specifically, you've apparently unleashed a horde of hungry 'bots designed to weed out the many "splogs" (spam blogs... if you've ever done a Google search for a given term and found a blog that consisted of hundreds of variations on phrases like "Lindsay Lohan Nude Lesbian Astrology Zone Viagra!" then you've seen one).

(I hope I just didn't turn my blog into a splog by talking about splogs, if you're out there reading this now, Blogger.com people...)

But guys, please, I pour out what little is left of my heart and brain into my two blogs, and thanks a lot for unlocking this one... but can I please, please have my other blog that I've poured my soul into back?

Please?

This all goes to prove an important point I made a while ago... ROBOTS SHOULD NOT SMOKE MARIJUANA. It makes them do crazy, irresponsible things.

And hey... ever had a look at my other blog? You really should before I move it away from here...

Oil Prices Change. Greed Remains The Same.

Consider this before you heave that big sigh of relief that the price of a barrel of oil is down a couple of bucks:

Chevron just announced a record profit of 11 billion dollars in the last quarter. Exxon is currently making over $89,000 per minute.

And you? Where is your piece of this juicy free-market pie?

Forgive my bitterness: it's probably just from my attempts to afford a loaf of bread and a bus ticket.

Absolutely no one... certainly not the experts, believe that screwing up the environment with more American drilling offshore and in the Arctic will do any good at all, any time soon. But of course that hasn't stopped the major oil companies from crying for it, using your suffering at the pumps (directly and indirectly... you don't think that loaf of bread got to the store itself, do you?) as ugly and cynical leverage to push for it anyway.

Who would be crazy, stupid, greedy, and nearsighted enough to support that sort of thing? Who would be vile enough to push that social, economic, and environmental suicide agenda?

This guy, that's who. You know, the guy who gave you this problem in the first place:

Angry yet?

Facebook, Scrabble, Scrabulous: Hasbro Unwittingly Makes A Political Point

Dad was always ruining Family Games Night with unwelcome commentaries on economic theory...

The ongoing cyberspace PR disaster over Scrabble on Facebook continues, and brings with it (unintentionally) an important point about political theory.

Consider for a moment some of the traditional arguments used by conservatives/neocons/libertarians that any given government function can usually be operated better and more efficiently by the private sector and competition.

-Large, complex structures produce large, complex inefficiencies. And governments are the largest, most complex structures of all.

-Competition reduces waste, because the private sector is inherently geared to make a profit, rather than to supporting a large infrastructure.

-Having many choices will tend to improve service, because if you don't like the job A does, you can take your business to B, or C.

In theory it looks pretty simple, and admittedly (even if conservative politics rub you the wrong way) it still has a certain ring of truth to it. But many may have made the mistake of assuming that "government" is the large structure prone to stupidity, and that "the private sector" are inherently the Good Guys. Consider the case of Hasbro vs. The Two Guys From India.

Hasbro has recently enforced its North American copyright on Scrabble and forced the Scrabulous application, a clone of their game made by two guys from India, off of Facebook... at least for users in the U.S. and Canada. Scrabulous was one of Facebook's most popular applications, with hundreds of thousands of games being played each day.

Scrabulous generally worked well and efficiently. Hasbro's official application, on the other hand -- which Hasbro has had months to work on, and huge financial resources to put into, has produced "Scrabble Beta"... that's right, it's still only a beta version... despite Hasbro's statement that the legal action "...in deference to the fans, [Hasbro] waited in pursuing legal action until Electronic Arts had a legitimate alternative available."

That "legitimate alternative" suffers from the following problems:

-At least half the time, the application doesn't proceed past "checking IP address" -- making sure that you are in fact in the United States or Canada.

-The IP address block makes it impossible for someone in the U.S. or Canada to play a game with anyone in the rest of the world, and vice versa... an important consideration given the nature of Facebook.

-Attempts to join games are usually greeted with the message "Error joining matches, try again later." This, despite the fact that at any given time there are hundreds, if not thousands, of willing players waiting.

-If one does manage to join a game, unnecessary animations slows the down significantly.

-The entire colour scheme of the "official" version is less authentic than it is with the "clone" version.

-The tiles are smaller and more difficult to read than with Scrabulous.

-Players must give a name to each individual game, rather than simply being assigned a number

-Apparently the game does not have the capacity to trade in your tiles if they all suck (like with the real game or Scrabulous)

-Scrabble Beta does not have a chat feature, so you can't exchange messages with the other player(s) as one could with Scrabulous. Note to Hasbro: Facebook is a social networking site. You might have considered that social interaction was an important part of the game.

And now, the final bit of "the private sector is becoming the enemy" unintentional comedy: ...Hasbro is blaming the terrorists, in a sense, for their problems with Scrabble Beta.

Maybe the neocons got it right, but forgot that there are many kinds of jihadists in the world. Maybe the conservative/neocon/libertarian point is right about how to best deliver a service. Unfortunately, we now live in a world where The Big Evil Lunkhead isn't necessarily and automatically "the government" any more.

Facebook Shuts Down Scrabulous: How To Not Win Friends And Influence People

Facebook has shut down access from The U.S. and Canada to Scrabulous, a Scrabble clone that has turned out to be an insanely popular feature with Facebook users, myself included.

If you've been following this story at all, you'll know that this is a matter of copyright infringement, and that in North America "Scrabble" is owned by Hasbro. Hasbro has, of course, known about Scrabulous for some time, and could in theory have shut it down earlier.

I assumed (ha!) that one of the reasons Hasbro held off on taking this action was because they knew that Scrabulous is popular with hundreds of thousands of users. Since Hasbro was working on a Facebook-friendly online version of the game, it would make sense to wait until their application was ready to roll before pulling the plug on the clone. Whether or not Hasbro was losing money because of Scrabulous is debatable. But if you are going to yank a product that a lot of people really like for purely legal reasons in order to replace it... the replacement should work.

Ahem.

Users attempting to install the Official Scrabble application are getting this message today:

We're working on some tech problems and Scrabble will be ready to play as soon as possible!

We appreciate all the great feedback we've received over the past week and as a result we're making changes to Scrabble for its official launch in mid-August, including a streamlined app with the option to turn-off animations for faster gameplay and full keyboard functionality for those who prefer this way to play.

Please continue to let us know how we can make Scrabble - the best word game on Facebook - even better!

"The best word game on Facebook"? You mean, the other word games don't work at all, either?

As it stands, the games are off. And I couldn't help but notice that the "official" application is called Scrabble Beta. As in, "it's unlikely this thing is going to work nearly as well as a completed product should."

Besides... I was about to play "sequoias" on one of my games. Do you have any idea how many points that would have been worth?

So, despite months to plan ahead, Hasbro has resoundingly dropped the PR ball. But I'm willing to forgive you for now, Hasbro... just like I forgave you for selling me that copy of Cranium Cadoo that was covered in deadly Chinese lead-based paint. And don't even get me started on that Easy-Bake Oven problem with the third degree burns and the partial finger amputations on five-year-old girls.

Oops. Guess that was kind of cheeky of me to mention that. "Cheeky"...that's an 18-point word. A shame I can't use it now...

Your Search Engine Sucks: Cuil, Day One

To much fanfare, a new search engine claiming to have more links than Google, to work better than Google, and to have hired former Google engineers opened its virtual doors today to await an incoming huge rush of love, money and popularity. Cuil (pronounced "cool," as in "Isn't it cool how much money there is to be made on the Internet for just the cost of a press release and a promise to give Google a run for its money?") is available here, if you have large amounts of time to waste and/or are a big fan of frustration. If you don't, rest assured that The Church Of Mothra has already gone to the trouble of testing it for you... thank us with your generous donations.

Let's see how Cuil measures up against Google...

Number of entries found for search: "Church Of Mothra"

Google: 83,800
Cuil: 111

Direct Link To "The Church Of Mothra" Blog:

Google: First Item
Cuil: NONE

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Number of entries found for search: "onion sombrero" (exact phrase)

Google: 1150
Cuil: 1052 (most of which do NOT contain the exact phrase as specified)

Location of Church Of Mothra article on "onion sombrero"

Google: Page One
Cuil: NOWHERE

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Number of entries found for search: "Cuil sucks" (exact phrase)

Google: 1260
Cuil: 1 (and it isn't about Cuil at all)

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Amount of investor money reported poured into development of Cuil: over $30 million dollars.
Number of Cuil investors actually happy about it today: NONE.

Do It Yourself Paranoia: Mothra Puts On The Onion Sombrero

You may have recently been exposed to a commercial for Coke Zero involving a disembodied tongue, eyeball, and brain, debating the merits of Coke Zero while a second tongue stands in the distance and watches...

No, this is not something that happened to me on LSD. It's a real commercial.

The thing ends with the brain breaking up the tongue/eyeball debate. He threatens to make the tongue eat dirt, and ends with this very peculiar threat to the eyeball:

"You are going to have to wear the onion sombrero. All. Day. Long. Señor."

I've seen the ad several times and I can confirm that yes, the brain does say "onion sombrero." At first I wondered if this was some slang term I simply hadn't heard before, like "Dirty Sanchez."

I think I have uncovered the secret of The Onion Sombrero. I think Coke is trying to launch a meme. It's a catchy phrase, and a Google search reveals that the phrase didn't exist prior to the commercial. And hey, if Google can't find something, it doesn't exist, right?

Long-time readers of this blog may recall my ongoing attempts to find a corporate sponsor. Given the underwhelming response to my entreaties, I've decided to attach myself to this meme while it's young... like a pilot fish attached to the Great White Shark of Coca-Cola's marketing department.

Thanks in advance Coke... in exchange for your unintentional generosity, I promise I won't mention that recent settlement where you paid out $137 million US to your shareholders regarding a little matter of stock price manipulation. Or at least I'll keep it to a minimum.

Time to sit back and rake in the Google-fueled attention!

And if Google brought you here (just like all those fine people looking for "Kat Von D Naked"), please... feel free to check out the rest of my blog. Who knows... you may end up accidentally having a good time.

It Really IS "McNews"

"Bitch, where's my traffic report?"

McDonald's wants to penetrate your consciousness some more... this time by making obnoxious product placements in major American news markets.

For one thing, this may mean you aren't very likely to see this story about a restaurant in Dearborn, Michigan that's willing to sell halal McNuggets but won't hire employees in traditional Muslim garb. Or this story about how McDonald's is participating in action to prevent a law that would require them to post nutritional information. One McDonald's veep says the "...could create confusion, increase the ordering times, increase our total experience times, reduce throughput at critical times of the day and adversely impact our customer's experience and our business." Apparently he expects the law to cause McD's to be swarmed by cardiologists doing research.

Not that any of these stories are getting a whole lot of airplay anyway.

Worst of all, it means my own ground-breaking research on the inner workings of a Big Mac is less likely to see broadcast any time soon.

Oh well. It's not like those are the ONLY news stories being shamelessly ignored.

Oxycontin And Oil: Two Tales Of Addiction

1)  We had left home two days before, but had hardly been anywhere outside of either the car or the hotel room. Scattered on the dresser was an assortment of pills -- prescription opioids of every description. They were dumped out like a kid's candy on Halloween night. It was a festival of numbness.

I had been awake for over 24 hours, but had been fully alert for almost none of them. I had recently discovered the joys of crushing and snorting Oxycontin -- the champagne of cheap prescription highs. I slowly surveyed the remaining drugs... morphine mostly, with a healthy mix of methadone and some other things... but I had been snorting. Nothing makes the buzz come faster than crushing and snorting an Oxy. Well... nothing that doesn't involve a needle, anyway.

This is perhaps the only matter that I will ever wholeheartedly agree with Rush Limbaugh on. Oxycontin is fucking great.

We were out of Oxys. I half-seriously considered waking (if in fact "asleep" applied in the normal sense) the naked beauty on the bed to see if we could get more. Normally contemplating the generous curve of her hips would have me thinking other things. And sure, there was still plenty of other junk left, but I know what I like. Besides, the feeling was starting to return to my extremities.. and what kind of a vacation is that?

But then I saw it. Ground into the carpet was one last Oxycontin, trampled in our rush to get back into the room with our drugs. I sat on the bed for a long time (or so it seemed -- everything takes a long time on a good Oxy buzz) contemplating my options. I didn't like what I was becoming. But the sensation... or perhaps the lack of it... was simply too good a time to neglect. I also contemplated my dignity, and whether or not I wanted illegal brain chemistry to be the driving force in my life.

Eventually, I got up and wobbled over to the crushed tablet. I stuck my nose down on the carpet. I smelled powder and carpet cleaner and sneakers and dirt. And I snorted as hard as I could, taking in every last speck of pill and carpet fibre I could inhale.

I ran to the bathroom and gagged, as often happens when one snorts these things. I would have vomited if there had been anything left in me, but it had been a long time since I had eaten. And then I wobbled to the bed and laid down, watching The Weather Network and drooling, unsure of where the remote control was, and unmotivated to look for it.

And for a little while, things were good again.

2) A recent report from the US Geological Survey indicates that The Arctic holds 90 billion barrels of untapped oil... enough to keep the world's appetite for it fuelled for three whole years, most of it in Canada! And Alberta's Oil Sands are loaded with oil, at a cost of only 80 kilos of greenhouse gases for every barrel produced!

Let the good times keep rolling!

Mr. & Mrs. Serious Voter Debate Voting For Obama, O'Reilly Style

(SCENE: The kitchen of Mr. and Mrs. SERIOUS VOTER. Mr. SV is sitting at the table, reading the Sports section of the newspaper, which he holds upside-down. Mrs. SV places a frozen chicken finger in the cat's food dish.)

MR: Me am confused by Presidential politics!

MRS: Me am too! Me am not sure which Barack Obama to vote for!

MR: Me want more choices from a President. Barack Obama not be like John McCain. John McCain be tortured when McCain am prisoner of war. Him big hero! Now McCain am in favor of torture so him look tough on terrorists! Him big bully!

MRS: John McCain give us choice of John McCains to vote for!

MR: McCain like choices!

MRS: (Sweeping away starved corpse of the the cat) And McCain NOT like choices! Him change mind, him say Constitutional amendment overturning Roe V. Wade am now good idea!

MR: Him call Jerry Falwell "an agent of intolerance" then him kiss Falwell's ass and hire Falwell's debate coach!

MRS: Him co-sponsor campaign finance reform bill... then him NOT support own bill!

MR: See? Lots of McCains to choose from! Obama? Just one Obama. Me not sure which Obama to vote for.

MRS: Me vote for Obama who states a position, or Obama who follows through on what Obama say?

MR: Me am confused by only one Obama! (repeatedly smashes a sealed can of beans against his forehead) And me am hungry! Ow! Hungry hurts!

MRS: Me try to open beans! (Looking in refrigerator) Hey! Shotgun am not in fridge! How me open beans?

MRS: (Excitedly) Look! Bill O'Reilly am on TV!

MR: Him help us make informed choice!

MR & MRS: (chanting) No spin! No spin! No spin!...

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The "Bill O'Reilly Quote Of The Day" Translator

Hmmm. People should read up on Plato before they vote? People should know they have a world-view? They should know what it is? They should understand how preconceptions influence perceptions? The USA (itself not a living being with a central nervous system) nonetheless has a world view? America sometimes gets it wrong? Jihadists, in seeking an ordered world based on their perceptions, nonetheless want LESS order?

Oh, right. Barack Obama is the enemy of America. Um, I guess it really is "that simple," Bill.

Bill O'Reilly is always at his most straightforward and easy to understand when he speaks on matters that are truly near and dear to him. Like this...

Please Ignore The Children's Corpses: Enjoying Your Italian Vacation

Italy has found a way to steal some vacation business from The Beijing Olympics, with a fun-loving nationwide re-creation of the golden age of Italy. No, no the Roman Empire part... the fascism and genocide part.

Here are some of the exciting events you'll see:

-The registration and identification of ethnic minorities (ie, the Roma (Gypsy) population

-The peaceful silence as the European Union and the rest of the world does absolutely bugger all about it!

-Mysterious deaths of ethnic minorities where local officials take the patently ridiculous first story they hear that claims it was "an accident."

-Hand out racist leaflets. You have the backing of Italy's courts. Who knows... it might even help you get elected mayor, like Flavio Tosi, the mayor of Verona!

Coming soon: free train rides and tattoos!

Here are some handy Italian words and phrases for you to use while enjoying all the fascist, genocidal charms that bella Italia has to offer:

"Mussolini was a good man, and he made the trains run on time":
Il Mussolini era un buono uomo, e ha fatto i treni corrono in orario.

"Ignore the economy... there are strange-looking people next door!"
Ignorare l'economia! Ci sono le persone di guardare strane vicine!

"All Gypsies are thieves."
Tutti gli zingari sono ladri.

"They drowned. There was no crime."
Hanno annegato. Non ci era crimine.

"Don't worry. The rest of the world isn't paying attention. This happened before, in Germany."
Ne preoccupazione. Il resto del mondo non sta prestando attenzione. Ciò è accaduto in Germania.

See? Even hatred sounds better in Italian. Memorize these phrases and hateful attitudes and you'll fit in perfectly! And of course... you'll want to fit in, in Italy. Look what happens if you don't.

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Do It Yourself Paranoia: Why Is The Jolly Rancher So Damned Jolly, Really?

It's easy to be paranoid. Most people are, to one degree or another. The Church Of Mothra... like all good belief systems... is here to relieve you of your unfocused, ill-defined suspicions and replace them with very specific ones. Today's installment: what horrors lurk within Jolly Rancher candies?

I've been disturbed by this for a while. Not only do Jolly Ranchers have an uncanny ability to spot-weld themselves to my fillings, they also disturb my mind. Consider:

1) They are fruit flavoured... not meat flavoured. Fruit is grown in an orchard. Meat animals are raised on a ranch. The kind of place run by a rancher.

2) Why would someone... namely, a rancher... be so jolly if he's apparently in the wrong line of work?

3) Why do I need pliers to get one of these things off my fillings?

The truth... as is so often the case... could be far more horrifying than you might think.

The ingredients of a Jolly Rancher are, in order: Corn Syrup, Sugar, Butter, Citric or Malic Acid, Salt, Glycerin, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Modified Concentrated Butter Flavor, Lecithin, Artificial Colors (FDC Yellow #5, FDC Yellow #6).

Hmm. Glycerin. Better known among your chemist buddies as "glycerol." It's a thick gooey clear fluid with a lot of uses, like soap, nitroglycerin, toothpaste, and (in suppository form) makes a nice laxative. It can be made from plants. Often as not though... it's made from animals. And according to a respected source of science information, The Hare Krishnas, the source of the glycerol in Jolly Ranchers is... pork.

Never mind the millions of Jews and Muslims and vegetarians who have unwittingly enjoyed pork because of this. Pigs aren't raised on a ranch, either. That's for cows. Pigs are raised on a farm.

So... why is this Rancher so Jolly? Could it be because he's found a way to profitably dispose of those who would actively voice dissent against The System?

Maybe he's laughing at you, because you're next.

For further details, please refer to the 1980 classic horror film "Motel Hell," featuring the tag line '"IT TAKES ALL KINDS OF CRITTERS TO MAKE FARMER VINCENT'S FRITTERS."

You've been warned.

Sympathy For The Diesel - A Love Letter To (Most Of) The People In Oil And Gas

A recent article in The Globe And Mail attempts to explain the peculiar mood among the people of the oil and gas industry in Calgary. Despite record oil prices and record profits, there is an unusual mood of unease among the individuals working in the industry.

Unfortunately, I think an otherwise thoughtful and well-written piece has mostly missed the point. The usual concerns that make the Business section of a newspaper are all there: will prices hold? Is now a good time to make an acquisition? Do we expand, or stand pat? Will there be new regulatory concerns? And so on.

I believe there's another reason for the frowns and worry lines crossing the faces of oil and gas people here in Calgary. The same article, written for the Lifestyles section of the paper, would have an entirely different spin. Yes, there is a dark mood brewing among the people who work in the petrochemical business here. I've seen this mood a lot, having recently had the chance to work among a large number of Calgary's oil and gas people. And, for the most part, I don't believe any of it is directly caused by any of the above stated reasons.

Even in a relatively open and democratic company structure, decisions about company strategy are not usually the concern of most employees. For every one high-level decision maker, there are many engineers and secretaries and assistants and accountants and receptionists and so on. They are in the majority, and I believe their general mood is slowly filtering upwards, as opposed to the usual "boss has a bad day, everyone has a bad day" dynamic.

And why is this? Not only are the underlings the ones who have to struggle with three dollar loaves of bread, expensive gasoline, and ever-dimming public opinion . The main reason is entirely simple, and I can demonstrate it to you in four simple steps:

1) Find someone who is an employee of an oil and gas company. Start a conversation with this: "So... how long have you been working in oil and gas?" Your test subject will then answer with "(X number of) years."

2) Refer to the following handy table, showing the change in price per barrel since back in the day:

CHANGE IN PRICE OF A BARREL OF OIL IN THE LAST X YEARS ("Y")

Since 20 years ago: +580%
15 years ago: +400%
10 years ago: +360%
5 years ago: +370%
4 years ago: +380%
3 years ago: +210%
2 years ago: +185%
1 years ago: +140%

3) Ask your friend/neighbor/acquaintance: "So, in X years of work, has your income increased by Y, just like the price of the commodity you work with?"

(Trust me, the answer will be "no." Anyone in oil and gas who is in a position to say "yes" isn't going to be getting involved in a personal conversation with riff-raff like you or me.)

4) Then ask: "And during that X number of years, do you find you've been working harder, or less hard at your job?"

(The answer here is almost certainly going to be "harder.")

5) Pause thoughtfully... perhaps rubbing your chin in a scholarly manner... and say something like: "Hmmm. In a free market, SOMEONE must be getting rich off of what you do. I guess it isn't you though. How does that make you feel?"

Now, sit back and enjoy the show as the truth of the matter... whether the person you are talking to has consciously thought of it in these terms or not... bubbles to the surface like Jed Clampett's Texas Tea.

Of course the world needs energy. The problem is petro-power is not the energy being most egregiously wasted here. There is a source of energy more powerful (and less exploited) in Alberta that could change things for the better. Here: Public Image Ltd. wrote a song about it back in the 80s... when oil was 20 bucks a barrel...

What If Telus And BCE Ran The Post Office?

BCE and Telus have announced that, starting in August, customers without service contracts will be charged fifteen cents per incoming text message... even the ones they didn't ask for.

(SCENE: Dave Consumer's house. The doorbell rings and DAVE answers. The LETTER CARRIER is there holding out the mail, but does not hand it over)

LC: Here's your mail.

DC: Thanks (Waits for LETTER CARRIER to hand it over)

LC: That'll be one dollar and forty-three cents.

DC: Umm... what for?

LC: We have a new policy. Your mail is fifteen cents a piece unless you have a contract with us.

DC: What? Fifteen cents a piece?

LC: That's right... plus tax. It's all driven by market forces. Can't argue with market forces, can you?

DC: Sure I can. Most of this stuff doesn't look like mail I even expected.

LC: I dunno... looks like Ming's Kitchen here is having a take-out deal. That might be something you'd want.

DC: Or it might not. Either way, I won't know until I've paid for it. And... wait a minute... none of those things say "postage due"!

LC: No, of course not. We don't do COD any more.

DC: So, let me get this straight... you expect me to pay to receive mail I didn't ask for that someone else has already paid for to send to me?

LC: Look pal, you want your mail or not? Of course... if you have a "rate protection plan" in place you could get all your mail for one low monthly price (some conditions apply)! We have a number of options all tailored to your individual needs, and you can change your rate protection plan at any time over the three year term ($20 change fee applies)! Imagine the convenience of getting all your mail for one low monthly fee (subject to a network access fee)!

DC: All my mail that someone else already paid to send to me.

LC: Well, like I said, we don't do COD.

DC: So you're doing this to make me agree to a service contract, aren't you?

LC: I prefer the term "rate protection plan" or (better yet!) "bundled service."

DC: Call it what you will, it's still a contract. (Sigh) I give up. (Hands over the money)

LC: Okay. (Hands DAVE the mail) Here's your power bill, your cell phone bill, a letter from your Aunt, four take-out menus, and a package from Taser International of Scottsdale, Arizona.

DC: (Examining the Taser parcel) Hmmm. These things usually take less than 24 hours to charge up. Will you be back around this time tomorrow?

LC: Yes.

DC: Good. I'll be waiting for you.

***

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(Don't) Let Them Eat Pancakes -- The Assholification Of The Calgary Stampede

The city of Calgary is once more in the grip of its annual Big Party -- The Calgary Stampede. Every year a large portion of the city dresses like ranch hands and glorifies a way of life that primarily existed before the popularization of the internal-combustion engine... where it existed at all.

I moved here about twenty years ago and, like many newcomers, I was fascinated by the tradition of "the Stampede Breakfast," in which various sponsors -- businesses, mostly -- would serve up free pancakes and sausages and juice packs to all who were willing to show up early in the morning and stand in line. I was intrigued by the concept. It was nice to know that the people making money in this town, back when oil was an outlandish $20 a barrel or so, were willing to share a little something with everyone else, even if it was only a tax-deductible token gesture.

The whole notion of Calgarians being better or more generous people than others because they come from "a Western tradition" or because "they're cowboys at heart" is a lie of course, but some lies can be ennobling. And I admit I am a sucker for free food.

Twenty years later, the Stampede Breakfast concept is still going strong. I've seen five of them in the last three days. Hardly anything has changed.

Except that since I got here some twenty years ago, the average person's real income adjusted for inflation (in this town where everyone works so frantically) has gone down about 50 bucks a year. The banks and oil companies who usually host Stampede Breakfasts? Their profits are setting records. And now oil is $145.00 a barrel.

Put another way: a barrel of West Texas Intermediate is now worth about six months income for one of the Chinese slaves made to stitch the Wal-Mart purchased boots and shirt of every faux cowpuncher lined up for those free scrambled eggs.

One more thing that's changed? The five Stampede Breakfasts I've seen in the last three days have all had big "PRIVATE FUNCTION" signs posted in front of them. That, and security guards to keep away the homeless, the wage slaves, and the riff-raff.

I wonder: if Tsar Nicholas II were to appear at one of these early-morning pancake flip-offs, would anyone recognize him? Probably not. There's no money to be made off of dire warnings from the past.

See that homeless guy over there? Ride 'em cowboy. Ride him until he bucks you off.

Ashley "Kristen" Dupre: Diary Of A Monster

January 1st: Happy New Year, diary! 2008 is going to be fantastic, I just know it. I'm so happy, I started singing in the shower, and thought about how uber-cool it would be to be an R & B singer. Or maybe a model. Someone famous enough that someone will talk about me and offer me money just for being ME. Note to self: find a way to get into the recording industry without having to blackmail someone. After all, I'm not a monster.

January 8th: Client 12 is a music producer. He says that it's really hard to break into the music industry because it takes, like, lots and lots of talent. "What about Nelly Furtado?" I asked, which was a huge mistake because for the rest of the night he insisted I wear a strap-on and refer to myself as "Timbaland." I charged him extra... hope he doesn't think I'm some kind of monster.

January 27th: Client 3. He's some kind of publisher guy. I asked him about getting a break and appearing in Playboy or Penthouse. He didn't seem interested in helping me. All he could do is bitch about how his nun's outfit got all wrinkled and stuff in his suitcase on the flight from LA. He was so annoying about it, I had to charge him extra. Now he probably thinks I'm a monster or something.

February 2nd: Client 8 is a publicist. I asked him what that meant, and he said it meant that he makes people famous, and makes famous people more famous. The crap some guys will tell ya just to be impressive! Jeez. Client 8 went on and on about his work, until he finally passed out from the Scotch and Oxycontins. He usually tips pretty well, so I went ahead and grabbed a little extra out of his wallet while he was sleeping. I left most of it there though. I'm not a monster!

February 13th: Client 9. Pays well, but always starts out with the same joke. "Hi, I'm Spitzer. And for the money this is costing me, you'd better Swallow'er." Ha ha. Then he insists I tell him how big his wang is. "It's a monster! it's a monster!" I yelled. He loves that.

March 3rd: I hate work. $1100 an hour sounds like good money, but I want more. I want to be BIG. I pray every night that Jesus will send me a way to make it big without having to work so hard. Not even a monster deserves to slave away like I have to. Note to self: KY Jelly is on sale at Wal-Mart.

March 11th: The phone won't stop ringing! It turns out that Client 9 is, like, the governor of New York State or something like that. It's all over the news, and I can't keep up with my new Friend Requests on Facebook, which sucks. But now I have an agent, and it looks like a movie deal, an album, and a nude photoshoot are in the works! Life is great, and I got it all just from going to work and doing my job.

I just don't want to be thought of as a monster...

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