The Funny Farm
Where life is beautiful all the time and I'll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats...
Adventures of a Basic Force For Good in Our TimeTM
Saturday, 3 Falltring 2007
I don't know if any of my american friends have been made aware of some police shenanigans that some Canadian cops were recently involved in. To short a long story: a peaceful protest was infiltrated by some undercover police, who then tried to incite the peaceful protesters into a violent physical confrontation with the crowd control officers at the event. Some of the protesters smelled the rats, told them to go away, and turned them over to the on duty cops at the scene. There's a YouTube video, and, thanks to an unrepentant old hippie, I'm able to show you this:
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Like, thanks to Funny Farm Fave cathie from canada for, like, lots of bloggy goodness on this topic, eh?
No undercover police actions were harmed during the production of this blog post.
Fryday, 2 Falltring 2007
A Day Late And A Dollar Short post from the Funny Farm
[Emphasis of all kinds and / or off color commentary courtesy of the Funny Farm Editorial Staff]
President Bush 10:50 A.M. C The |
As
Abu Gonzales's tenure as These various positions have required sacrifice from Abu After months of unfair treatment I've asked
End 10:54 A.M. C |
Y'know, the Petulant One might just be upset that his vacationeering got disturbed. Besides seeming somewhat testy at being thwarted from getting what he wants while having to cut his vacationing short. Again. And you know what a disaster it was last time!
[Editors' Note: this entry has been cross-posted at the American Street]
Saturday, 19 Sweltring 2007
After finally watching neocon extraordinaire Billy Kristol (no, not that one) shamelessly lie through a segment of Two Jews Disagreeing the other night [reproduced here in all its' glory thanks to the good graces of Comedy Central]
I can't help but ask if it would have been possible (and feasable, funny, and perfectly in line with some cinematic history) for a large swath of the audience enlightened enough to know when they are listening to complete horsehockey to behave somewhat like the audience does in this example (the first half minute or so of the following video) :
Might I suggest (cough)(cough)bull$hit(cough)(cough)? I would also think that (cough)(cough)loofah(cough)(cough) and (cough)(cough)PigBoy(cough)(cough) could be situationally appropriate depending on the venue and bull$hitter encountered.
[Editors' Note: this entry has been cross-posted at the American Street]
Tuesday, 14 Sweltring 2007
It is very difficult for me to try and conceive of the mindset that knows it is right when it tries to enforce its' pagan occult superstitions as if they were the law of the land, and must be obeyed by all citizens regardless of those citizens' beliefs. In other words, even if you don't believe any of the doctrinal nonsense in a particular belief system, you are required to accept that it has the force of law. In the United States of America in the twenty-first century. Go on, pull the other one...
Yet, here it is in all its' (cough) glory*:
[Emphasis of all kinds and / or off color commentary courtesy of the Funny Farm Editorial Staff]
Idaho congressman disturbed by Hindu prayer in Senate, election of Muslim to House
A conservative Idaho lawmaker believes America's founding fathers would not have wanted a Muslim elected to Congress or a Hindu prayer delivered in the U.S. Senate. Last month, the U.S. Senate was opened for the first time ever with a Hindu prayer. Although the event generated little outrage "We have not only Sali says "You know, the Lord can cause the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike," says the Idaho Republican According to Congressman Sali, the only way the U.S. can continue to survive is under that protective hand of God. |
Jeebus H. Koresh on a crutch, people - how can such dreck walk upright, much less get electorated as a congresscritter? Even in Redneck Central, it is hard for me to understand how otherwise rational citizens can toss all that logic onto the woodpile and listen to this idiocy for more than ten seconds at a time, much less consider someone who spouts it to be qualified enough to vote for because of their superstitious beliefs.
Too bad they couldn't get Ratzi the Nazi as their new Head of the Inquisition, should they ever manage to give their occult superstitions the force of law - he's had mondo experience abusing that position to hide pedophiles from their congregants. But he's got a new job now...
* - the editors would like to point out that they believe** that the Funny Farm enhancements add to the esthetic and infotainment value of the original report, and ultimately, in spite of the blasphemous abuse of their Invisible Sky Fairy in the original, would make this report more spiritual. And in the end, glorify their nebulous concept of an All Being, Master of Space, Time, and DImension*** even more than the original ever could, by trying to inject more reality-based rational thought upon the matter. But that's just what you do when you're a Basic Force For Good In Our TimeTM.
** - realistically speaking, in terms of impact and exposure to the abuse of their religion by barking mad loonies like the (cough) esteemed Mr. Sali.
*** - who has also been to Europe...
[Editors' Note: this entry has been cross-posted at the American Street]
Saturday, 12 Sweltring 2007
Hey there fellow campers! Things have been quiet of late for a number of reasons, most of which I will try and go over in today's diatribe. But in the meantime I would like to give a big shout out to some of my friends south of the border, who I finally managed to visit. One of them even had a shiny new toy to show me, and should now be showing up 'round these parts from time to time.
So, here's the deal: I've been having some SiCKO adventures of my own. Towards the end of June, I finally went back to a doctor after a considerable period of time without having done so. They did the whole physical thing, and after informing me that it feels (cough) like I don't have colon cancer (news: Yay! procedure: Not so much*), they did an EKG - all standard procedure for physicals these days. The GP then came into the examination room, and told me (I'm paraphrasing here) that "when the EKG looks like this, it usually means that the person attached to the machine has had a heart attack."
Which kind of set me back a bit. I always thought that a heart attack was not something you went through without noticing, and I didn't recall any sort of episode, nor did anyone in my personal circle. Then again, I am one of the few people that anyone knows who has slept through an earthquake - so I might have slept through that event as well. Then I read about silent heart attacks, and being a very good example of a very stubborn Belgian, I might have thought to tough out this type of event. Yet I still do not have any sort of recollection of that sort of thing happening to me. I did mention one piece of medical news that I thought was a good thing - I used to have plantar warts, but they went away over the last several months - and was surprised to hear the doc tell me that this lended even more credence to her theory.
Well, this led to a whole series of subsequent medical consultations, which led me to be admitted into a hospital on Tuesday for a cardiac catheterization. Basically they poke a hole in your femoral artery, stick a tube with a camera in it, inject some dye to make the pictures easier to see, and take close up and personal snaps of your circulatory system. Then, depending on what they see, some tuneup procedures may be done to make sure everything is working good enough to ensure survival. In this case, that involved inserting a stent into one of my arteries.
And, the best part: after all of this, the experts got to take a good look at the ticker, and they let me know that I didn't have a heart attack after all!
For now, I'm on a number of additional medications, I'm not allowed to drive until Friday at the earliest, I can't go up stairs, lift much of anything, stay in the sun, or have sex until the weekend either, and I think it's time to re-quit smoking once again**. The initial scare from the end of June caused me to make significant changes in my diet and exercise regimes as well, resulting in some much needed weight loss (now I'm just under being obese enough for stomach stapling to be medically recommended, although this doctor said she would still give me all the necessary doctor's notes if I chose to get this done) and positive reinforcement that it is possible for me to get in shape on my own. I'm down to two strong cups of coffee a day (let's not even get into the caffeine headache I got last night, until I could convince a nurse to give me a cup of coffee at 11PM). It looks like I have a handle on the current situation (at the very least I have something to do that may be able to positively affect it). And, as long as I can stick to the general rule of nothing in excess, most anything in moderation, I should be able to engage in most of the activities I used to enjoy - although I'm not entirely sure when I will be back on the ice between the pipes again. Maybe I can get down to playing bogey golf in the next few years...
* - I know some people get a lot of enjoyment in having two other attractive people in the room, and having one of those people insert things into your rectal cavity. I hear some even get paid a lot to do that sort of thing in a non-medical capacity. Let me go on the record here and inform the studio audience that it is most definitely not among the more kinky things that Your Humble Narrator would desire in the way of inter-personal interactions...
** - I have managed to get down to about five cigs a week, so, yes, I am somewhat close to my goal already. And relatively proud and happy to make it down to that level.
[Editors' Note: this entry has been cross-posted at the American Street]
Fryday, 11 Sweltring 2007
If you have to lie, cheat, and steal to survive, and you have a problem with lying, cheating, and stealing - how do you survive? |
Sunday, 6 Sweltring 2007
Hey, he's not around any more, and even though it's a dirty job sifting through Reich wing disinformation, somebody's got to do it!
My first offering is tentatively titled Fuzzy Math:
A priority of mine in my budget will be paying down national debt. And yet, after setting priorities, there's still money left over. And so while we're concerned about the federal budget, I'm also concerned about the budget of people such as the Yahngs, who are here standing next to me.
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The Pentagon has estimated a one-time cost for an Iraq war of about $50 billion -- about 0.5 percent of GDP -- and O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution has estimated the war could carry a one-time price tag of between $30 billion and $50 billion. But occupying a post-war Iraq and helping it rebuild could cost between $5 billion and $20 billion per year, O'Hanlon said, with the costs shrinking with time.
James Phillips, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said he thought this annual post-war cost estimate sounded a little high. "Once the [initial] conflict is over, Iraq is such an oil-rich nation, it can finance its own reconstruction," he said. "We would have to pay the costs of deploying forces, fuel, ammunition, etc.; but some of those would have to be paid regardless of where the troops were based." |
The Bush administration is refusing to produce any estimate of the possible cost of war and rebuilding in Iraq, which a series of outside studies have placed at anywhere from $50 billion to more than a trillion dollars.
The White House maintains that any estimate now would be no more than a guess, since the timing and length or war, and the duration and nature of post-war peacekeeping and reconstruction, are unknown. |
Gen. Tommy R. Franks said today that violence and uncertainty in Iraq made it unlikely that troop levels would be reduced "for the foreseeable future," and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld nearly doubled the estimated military costs there to $3.9 billion a month.
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Congress expects the White House to request as much as $100 billion this year for war and related costs in Iraq and Afghanistan, congressional officials say.
It would be the third and largest Iraq-related budget request from the White House yet, and it could push the war's costs over $200 billion — far above initial White House estimates of $50 billion-$60 billion. So far, the Iraq war has cost about $130 billion, according to the White House's Office of Management and Budget. |
George W. Bush has turned out to be one of the most free-spending presidents on record, even after discounting the effects of the Iraq War and post-9/11 homeland security requirements. Apparently, there is no pork-barrel program so egregiously unjustified that he won't sign it into law. Amazingly, he is the first president since John Quincy Adams to serve a full term without vetoing anything.
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The cost of the war in Iraq will reach $320 billion after the expected passage next month of an emergency spending bill currently before the Senate, and that total is likely to more than double before the war ends, the Congressional Research Service estimated this week.
The analysis, distributed to some members of Congress on Tuesday night, provides the most official cost estimate yet of a war whose price tag will rise by nearly 17 percent this year. Just last week, independent defense analysts looking only at Defense Department costs put the total at least $7 billion below the CRS figure. |
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The war in Iraq could ultimately cost well over a trillion dollars -- at least double what has already been spent -- including the long-term costs of replacing damaged equipment, caring for wounded troops, and aiding the Iraqi government, according to a new government analysis.
The United States has already allocated more than $500 billion on the day-to-day combat operations of what are now 190,000 troops and a variety of reconstruction efforts. In a report to lawmakers yesterday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that even under the rosiest scenario -- an immediate and substantial reduction of troops -- American taxpayers will feel the financial consequences of the war for at least a decade. |
[Editors' Note: this entry has been cross-posted at the American Street]