The Funny Farm

Down The Memory Hole

^{Fryday, 4 Shivring 2005}

No, it isn't enough that the BFEE can vanish the photgraphic record when it decides that Jumpin Jack Abramoff is an unperson.

It isn't enough still that Putsch is flip-flopping about fifty times as much as anyone ever accused Kerry of doing (when he didn't) in the run-up to the 2004 selection when he now all of a sudden remembers to pass the boogeyman's name out of his vacuous piehole.

No, it's the inherent conservative media bias* that has gone too far as far as I'm concerned. If there was a Democratic scandal involving a bagman fundraiser like this for the Democratic party, it would be front page news, and blared out on the Conservative News Network and Faux Snooze all day every day. The deafening silence (relatively speaking) regarding Putsch's pledge to get bin Laden "dead or alive", the seeming lack of curiosity over the timing of boogeyman warning alerts, and the different levels of respect accorded to politicians by the media depending on which side of the aisle they're sitting on has been growing steadily for quite some time now. I wanted to let you know of yet another example of it available for viewing right here at the Funny Farm.

You might notice a boxed link on the left hand side in the Links Zone that shows how many days it has been since the Chimperor's first speechifying about bringing Osama in "dead or alive". Quelle surprise, ABC News has vanished their article about this down the memory hole. Thank goodness I found the original press conference** where this fooforaw all started. At least I can now point to the original - at least until the White House scrubs their files...

* - the article I saw about this for which I can't find the linkage being one of the reasons why it has taken so long to get this onto the website. Anyone who knows where I can find the article in question, please feel free to show me where I can find it in the comments to this post.

** - as well as a very interesting article from CBS news that shows fairly clearly a lot of the inherent conservative biases I'm talking about - independent Senatorial critter Patrick Leahy*** is designated a Democrat, a lot of the negative comments are coming out of Democratic mouths (when there were a large number of more virulent comments from the Publican side of the aisle), and it seems to paint a picture of scurrilous Democrats getting in the way of our glorious Chimperor. Funny how that works...

*** - (Update 20060131) I have mistakenly confused Pat Leahy (D - No Cojones) with Jim Jeffords (Independent). Sorry about that...

A Glimmer Of Hope

^{Tuesday, 30 Premise 2006}

For some, this might be somewhat of a ray of sunshine cheering up your dreary end of Premise blues: Susie wrote a post about The Next Hurrah finding a post from Constant Pated on a way of having some additional voices (besides those who are already officially calling for chimpeachment) sending some official requests before the rubber stamp for The Illegally Installed Drunken Cokeheaded Deserter the congress of the United States. The monolith of the left that is the Dkos Nation has a handy dandy post with links to different source materials, and a poll to vote on which state should be the first to send their requests (through the elected representatievs of their state) to their congressional representatives, so that they can be read into the congressional record.

Also, some wondrous Noribizness mind candy for your mental dessert (after digesting so much in that last paragraph).

Now, go run along and see if you can't drum up some support in your local legislature. It's never too late to throw the bastards out...

Quick Question to the Federal Election Commission of the United States Government

^{Sunday, 29 Premise 2006}

How come the Canadian election can be counted and verified by hand by the time the Royal Canadian Ballet closes down for the night, but youse guys can't allow international observers to verify the vote, and can't count it right - even after almost five and a half years (don't even start about the last two [national and mid term] elections) after you stole the first one. Are you hoping to be long gone from this mortal coil before the truth comes to light? And, do you think it might be possible for you to study the elections going on next door to see how somebody else does a pretty good job of registering the choice of their voters? Maybe so that you can learn how to do it yourself?

There's A Song In My Head

^{Fryday, 27 Premise 2005}

Plus I have a few other things to show you first, O my brothers. Which will hopefully help you get a better handle on your karma, and lead to fantabulous mind candy for your melon.

To begin with, I guess I don't feel so much like royalty just because I get to utilize the internets any more. So the royal plural should be pretty much kicked to the corner* on these pages. I also have more reality based activities which are drawing me away from trying this posting thang with any sort of regularity. After hearing Randi Rhodes on Air America this week, I think I might need to be ready for a few more examinations of my web surfing habits anyhow. We apologize for the inconvenience.

And so we come to the next point I wanted to talk about, which I would like to go back to from recent jottings. Everything old is new again. It gets mixed up in different ways, and some have different emphases on different syllables in the reality script they are ad-libbing on, but it all comes around to the same themes in the end. A lot of the verbiage that exudes through the ether is just (and justly) recycled so that maybe we can all get a little more out of it than we did the first time. A lot of it is also just recycled kimchee. And a lot of it just depends on your point of view.

Once I get the mental circuitry together, and a bit of time to work on it, I hope to get a bit of an explanation of the legend of the Ghost of Bill Sprint, who occasionally dropped by at the Original Funny Farm. Possibly he can be talked out of retirement, especially if he can find a few other places to stop at during his rounds. But I wouldn't expect to see that any time soon, unless Mr. Soros is listening and would like to make an investment in prolonging my future retirement by funding a blogging cooperative that would make Open Sores Media money look like penny ante coin.

Speaking of investments, it looks like there's a new credit for hybrids this year**. Only the first 60,000 vehicles for each manufacturer during the year will be entitled to the credit, so certain manufacturers might be at a disadvantage - especially if they have a number of hybrid options available to offer to the consumer. So hopefully you consumers out there will get to the limited quantity of tax credits for this sort of thing before the corpo-weasels do. Although I wouldn't hold my breath for too long waiting for that outcome to become reality based if I were you...

Anyways,... about that song in my head. And creating anything new for posting in front of your eyes, O my brothers. Or even adding to the output that has been recorded and no doubt diced, sliced and triply analyzed for casual amusement since I have been able to put words on the intenets. It seems to me to be a combination of the experiences you've been through, and how you can deal with their consequences and get on with your life. Sometimes, if you're fortunate and you've got the ability to make it happen, you can write down somewhere your own thoughts and the new ways in which you've seen all of the old stuff. And, for someone else who has been on a different path, and sees for the first time that which you've finally gotten to, the old becomes new for them too.

So some of us frail mortals keep going back again and again to similar paths. And keep on realizing variants on a theme to try and advance a certain viewpoint. Which is a long and roundabout way to get to the point of informing you, gentle reader, that I will be trying to continue with a few of these posts that have a recurring theme. The Quick Note series springs to mind immediately, as well as these haunting melodies that I keep on focusing on from time to time. Like now...

* - I've never had anyone say much of anything on the score.

** - thanks to Blognonymous for the link and the alternate tax / credit system that was proposed at the other end of the link in this blogfootnote.

Outrage

^{Thursday, 18 Premise 2005}

Apparently, it appears that beating the homeless to within an inch of their lives is considered somewhat of a fashionable sporting activity among some young white males. It also appears, now that some of those beatings have caused death, it is time for some faux outrage and some show trials so that the place where this is happening (which just so happens to be Florida. What an amazing coincidence that there is a callous attitude towards the less fortunate in a state controlled by a member of the BFEE*. Go figure!). Hopefully the yokels will buy it and still flock to Jeb!Land (where it's okay to shoot somebody if you think they're threatening you). which brings me to the question I was going to ask you, gentle reader:

What do you think the reaction would be to someone who's packing heat, and pretends to be indigent so's he can legally bag him some snotty white boys? Especially if that someone was not a white boy himself (like, say, Hispanic or African-American or [horrors] female)? How long do you think it would be before the lynch mob got its' torches together for a friendly little march to the local hoosegow?

There was no mention of how the videotape evidence was obtained in this article. Now, how do you suppose video was shot of some good ole boys beating up indigents in a public place in the middle of the night? Could it be that there is some sort of, oh, I don't know, maybe surveillance cameras set up all over the place? So that the government can make certain everyone is safe and secure when running around in public, I'm sure.

Is anybody else scared yet?

* - BFEE = Bush Family Evil Empire, in case you weren't already aware of that little factoid.

Seven Questions

^{Humpday, 17 Premise 2006}

seven things to do before i die
go to Europe
buy some land
watch the Montreal Canadiens win the Stanley Cup again
go on a cruise as a guest passenger
relinquish my crown as BartCop Pokerfest Champion
sell enough Midling Calendars to retire and live in a lifestyle that I'd like to become accustomed to
play a game of Mah Jongg at a place where I am currently residing

seven things i cannot do
be the All Being, Master of Time, Space, and Dimension
magic
sing and play a musical instrument at the same time
believe that any religious text is the literal word of an Invisible Cloud Being (whatever name you wish to use)
agree with my father about almost anything
lose weight
effectively express how lucky I feel to have been able to live my life pretty much as I choose

seven things that attract me to... blogging
being able to put it in writing
finding like minded individuals on the internet
being able to post whatever I want, whenever I want
pointing out things that I think others might be interested in
being able to practice writing and receive rapid analysis of what I write
the possibility that something I write will generate a comment from some of those who read it
being able to develop rudimentary html skills and verify that they work the way I want them to

seven things i say most often
HABS!
anyways,...
is it time to go home yet?
homey don't play that
marriage is an institution - and I'm not ready to be institutionalized just yet
systems, this is Tom. Can I help you?
you'll never believe what I just saw

seven books that i love
all five books of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy
all the books in the Lord of the Rings set including the Silmarillion
all the books in the Foundation series (six Foundation books, and the R. Daneel Olivaw novels)
all the books in the Heinlein alternative history series*
all the books in both of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever
Illusions
all the books in the Spider Robinson Callahan's Crosstime Saloon series

seven movies that i could watch over and over again
History of the World, part I
Spun
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Heavy Metal
the Shawshank Redemption
Blazing Saddles
And Now For Something Completely Different

seven movies that i watch over and over
the seven dramedy/action movies showing on the cabloid movie channels at the curent time that I decide to stop at when there's nothing else (that I would be interested in viewing) on and I'm channel surfing**

seven people i want to tag (after doing a search on their recent blog material and confirming that they haven't played in the near past)

bruce at This is Class Warfare
hoffmania
tina's shark tank
suburban guerrilla
psotd
blaugustine
Nathan Newman

* - I'd love to sneak Job (A Comedy of Justice), Stranger In A Strange Land, The Number Of The Beast, and At Long Last Love Time Enough for Love*** into the set, too, if I could get away with it.

** - which almost never happens any more, so it's pretty much a moot point. I think I'vr seen Kill Bill I a few times lately, Spidey 2 has been viddied more than once, and the Shawshank Redemption is always popping up of late.

*** - faulty rememberence of novel title corrected by the Funny Farm Editorial staff. D'oh!

It's Good To Be Back!*

^{Fryday, 13 Premise 2005}

We haven't been in much of a writing mood of late (perhaps you've noticed), and since we don't seem to be getting those million dollar book advances** we don't seem to be all that concerned these days about getting our thoughts out there for all and sundry to viddy.

But we keep coming back to something our good friend T. Rex said in our comments - that we haven't put together any new and original bloggy goodness for all of you for quite some time here at the Funny Farm. And for that, we offer our apologies. This whole writing gig is pretty tough - and I can only imagine what one goes through if one's livelihood depends upon one's ability to shamelessly whore promote and publish their prose. And we firmly believe that there is very little that's new in any field of human endeavor - we're all just re-doing something that someone else has already done. We don't think that there's much we can add to the discussion these days with bloggy goodnes of our own. Those of you who see our comments at other places should be noticing that we are mainly reactive in our writing style - we see something that someone else has written, and it stirs up a reaction within our neural net, and sometimes we just can't keep our big mouth shut. That seems to happen with decreasing frequency as we advance in age, and we can't decide if that's because we accept the futility of this particular brand of pissing into the wind, or if it's that we just don't care so much any more. Especially with ditto monkeys and the religiously insane - there's just no reasoning or debating with them at all these days without things degenerating into an insult throwing shouting match. So we've backed off a bit and avoided reacting to what we have seen from the Drunken Cokeheaded Deserter or any of the rest of his cabal as much as possible. It seems to be helping with our blood pressure, as well as our maintenance of a relaxed attitude about life.

We could tell you about all of our wondrous adventures just getting through the days - but that would be, well, telling. You don't need a rocket scientist and software like Echelon and Carnivore to connect all the dots and find a way to be a problem or an observer in our sordid little personal doings*** if you wanted to. Which hopefully won't be a huge problem as long as we have our documents in order. But still - there's others involved, and we have found that some think it to be a morally upstanding act to threaten to harass them just because they associate with us (not to mention any Psycho Hose Bitches by name or anything).

And there has been much too much to be going on in the real world for us to do anything but the Putsch in the headlights bit about it. After all, if it's writing bloggy goodness on the score, Koresh knows there's Crooks and Liars and the All Spin Zone and Media Mattersand Think Progress and Buzzflash (for starters) who just happen to be some of the best news bloggers on the planet today, and can help you out with updates on what's going on. Praise Odin that they have the intestinal fortitude to sift through the muck and provide the rest of us with the best (cough) of what the media whores are spinning on any given day.

There's also the fact that some of these bloggers are really good at that whole writing thing, more than we could ever hope to be. Take our favorite landsnark, for example. Just since the new year began, he has given us this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this. Some very good stuff there - including links to the man who said no to Wal-Mart and Putsch's latest attempt to con the American public into thinking he's listening to anthnig but the voices in his melon. The meetings described in these articles seem to be quite similar to our eyes - one side out of touch, expecting a certain reaction, and doggedly sticking to their talking points, even though they have no relation to the reality of the situation.

So we would have to say that our little outpost on the Fashionable Left Bank of Blogistan will probably not be updated nearly as often as it has. Then again, with our luck we'll start finding all sorts of reasons to post all sorts of things here in the near future. Especially now that we've posted it here for all to see. You'll just have to keep on coming back to find out what we decide to do...

* - this is our own little version of Thudfactor's (and of course many many others, there's that nothing new under the sun thing again, sorta) Guess Ten post. Do you know of (at least) one song whose first line is It's good to be back!? Can anyone guess the name of the artist, the song, and/or the album that the one we're referencing came from? Long time associates of the Funny Farm might have a clue as to the nature of the identity(ies) involved (or even what the frell it is that we're talking about), but we would be interested in knowing if there are any others out there who can solve our mystery with the correct answers in the comments to this post.

** - much less those multimillion dollar deals to pretend to blog while spewing Repugnicant talking points possibly get the next Abramoff under way while we're busy taking care of the first and supply a nice, safe haven for those contributions looking for a new home bloggers (not to mention any Open Sores in the Media by name or anything like that).

*** - but we're sure it helps. Right, gang?

Update, Fryday, 27 Premise: the song is Myopia by Scott Merritt off of the album Gravity Is Mutual in case you were interested.

Yet Still More Holiday Frivolity

^{Humpday, 10 Premise 2006}

Not dead yet, and not thinkin' I'll be stone cold in a minute, either. I feel happy!!...!!...

[whap!]

I wouldn't have gotten back to this just yet, but there is a time-sensitive element in some of the post, so it needs to be done right away. Or so the impulses in my melon that have caused me to put this up at this late hour are telling me. Anyways,...

Still no sign of land? Still More Things to Do:

Vote and nominate contestants for voting for in the 2006 Bloggies. You have until the 15th of Premise (January 10th in the outmoded Gregorian calendar) to nominate bloggers in various categories, they will be voted upon and the actual voting starts on the 25th and continues on through the 6th of Shivring (January 20 - 31 Gregorian).

Email me and ask me what the Cheney is going on, why the Cheney I'm not pimping my recent email to BartCop, or why I haven't updated the calendar with all those funky days in it that I referenced in the previous paragraph, or any other Cheneying Putschian dren that gets to the conscious section of your frontal lobes these days.

Watch the upcoming Hockey Day In Canada.

Wait and watch here for further bloggy goodness, which might even be reality-based at this site in the near future.

P.S. Thanks (cough) greatly to all those online gambling sites and lifestyle enhancement opportunities, whose spam in our comments has caused us to devote the majority of our personal attention to in some of the only other internets interaction we've been getting into lately. Hopefully you won't need to access the sites referenced in their comments spam that will probably be removed as soon as I can verify it has been pasted there. TTFN