"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
No, not the game. I mean something that is truly trivial to pursue.
I had another one of those “When/how did you start blogging†emails last night and it spurred me to check my stats/TTLB ranking. Trivial pursuit. Let’s see… from the time I checked the same the say before (then the *CRASH!* day of) my first “blogiversary†I have something like sixty fewer links noted by TTLB Blogosphere Ecosystem. And I’m ranked about 400 places higher.
Since I’ve lost my dreadlock wig and chicken bone rattles, these sorts of voodoo phenomena have stumped me.
And, naturally, because I don’t show the sitemeter stats on my front page, my “visitors†stats are stuck at late March 2005.
But who cares? It’s a truly trivial pursuit, anyway. The real goal is distracting all the voices in my head. Heh
Just now trying out Opera version 9 Preview. Yeh, it’s a beta version, not yet ready for prime time. or is it? So far, really, really snappy load times, great display of web pages—even faster a better in those categories than Opera 8.5, which has greeatly ourperformed both Firefox and Internet Exploder on my machines.
Nice.
Importing and setting up new wallpapers, skins has improved, too. Lotsa other neat new features, I’m still digging around in.
Fun.
Back to it. Yeh, I know: a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it…
heh
Going strong on three legs. One kinda petered out when the tagee forgot to play the whole game, and one is AWOL, About par.
OTOH, The MaryHunter, Cao and Romeocat have all tagged some real live wires!
I’ll work this week on a post harvesting all the posts I can find (those who play the “ACLU: Here’s Your Sign” meme pool game to a “T” are easiest to find; those who don’t will be hit and miss) and making a lil linkfest outa it as a resource in developing real-world memes to combat the enemies of America that call themselves the ACLU.
Meanwhile, here’s one standout blogger who’s really taken the bit between his teeth and bids well to run away with a first place showing if Stop the ACLU decides to hold a linkfest/vote on the best sign (I need to talk to John/Jay about that, I guess… ). Here are two of the examples of fine signage iHillary has contributed. Check the blog for more, cos there’s more great info (and another sign) there, and I have a feeling more to come…
iHillary, sign #1: ACLU Jihadist Donkey
iHillary, sign #2: Deconstructing America (Ya just have to love the backhand reference to post modernism.)
Edited post to include links to the original meme post, for reference.
Linked at Stop the ACLU
What’s with that?
Can someone explain to me why women think “pink†is a color, not a vicious assault on the eyes? I mean, really, whatever devil’s brew of pigments Satan’s minions use to come up with it, pink is never more than a pallid, weak, sickly red. Like red? Fine. Use RED. This abortion called “pink†is disgusting.
I think maybe so many women think this ugly so-called color is appealing is because of early patterning stemming from abusive parenting. I mean, folks, what else can you call it when parents inflict “pink†on girl babies—pink clothes, toys, rooms for heaven’s sake?!?!
*sigh*
Oh. Well. At least I have sunglasses. (Although with some so-called “pinks†a blindfold would be more useful.)
Coda: BTW, you heard that Barbie and Ken split up, didn’t you? Yeh, The real story is that Ken had spent so many years being brainwashed by Barbie pink that he finally ran off with Blaine. (Yeh, Blaine was only dating Barbie to get to Ken, anyway.)
Nah, there’s no good reason. I’m just doing this cos I can.
Watching some excessively violent choreography on one computer featuring the dance interpretations of Jet Li. heh
Updating an old Win98 comp.
Blogging this entry on another.
Just cos I can, that’s all.
Yeh, it’s official: it’s a rant. See the steam coming out of my ears? It’s the natural result of a normal human being coming into contact with a petty government bureaucrap.
[Warning: Stream of consciousness flowing your way. If you thought “Ulysses†and “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Manâ€â€”heck, anything by James Joyce—were as big a pile of crap as I did, this may not be your cuppa tea.]
Yeh, that time of the year, again. Because we live about 200 feet inside the “city limits†of this one-horse Third World County™ town, we have all the “benefits†of city livin’.
Like, for example, the fact that we’re on a city sewer line that’s older than I am, is only an eight inch line and serves an upflow/downflow population more than a hundred times the size of when it was laid. Result? Oh, backups a normal backflow valve isn’t designed to handle at least once a year. Yeh, gotta love it.
We do finally have a mostly full time police force. Well, a couple full time deputy dawgs and the weekend’s are covered by part-timers.
City hall… what shall I compare thee to? Nah. Better not go there.
Because we are (barely) inside city limits, we have the benefit of paying the city an annual Danegeld for having dogs. Yep. We pay so the dogcatehr can be paid to run down the dogs of the irresponsible folks who let their dogs run loose. Still, that’s not unbearable. And The Boys do almost earn their keep, what with their varmint hunting in the back yard.
What is unconscionable though is what I encountered down at city hall when I went to pay the Danegeld.
Walked in. Clerk (the one clerk, whadda you think this is, a real city?) “serving†someone. I sauntered up with my documentation from the vet’s office. Yep, the person being “served†was asking about a sales tax rate chart she’d handed to the clerk. The clerk was studying it carefully with a puzzled look on her face. I glanced at it and saw that it was plainly marked as being from a different lil town some 60 miles away. Hmmm, thought I, what is the problem. As I listened, the (what would evidence itself to be so stupid as to hardly seem human) clerk said such things as, “What do you want.†And “I don’t know.†Repeatedly.
I heard the questions she was being asked too, of course.
“Can I get a rate chart like this for Xxxxx (our town) here?†(Response to the clerk’s “What do you want?â€
Uhm, that’s the question that was answered, “I don’t know.†THEN, again, “What do you want.â€
Huh?!?!? Asked and answered, dummy. If the stupid clerk hadn’t kept screwing up her face, studying and puzzling over the rate chart from another town and then asking again “What do you want?†then the other end of that stupid exchange wouldn’t have answered (looping the exchange—not elevated enough to be a conversation—once again), “Can I get a rate chart like this for Xxxxx (our town) here?â€
To which the response was again, “I don’t knowâ€â€¦ screw up face, study the rate chart for different town again and again ask, “What do you want?â€
I swear, I thought I had been transplanted to hell for that five minutes.
I was wrong. Because AFTER the mayor had popped in and told BOTH the clerk and the idiot who brought in the rate chart “We don’t have those here,†then, THEN it was MY TURN.
Arrrrrgggghhhhh!!!
I swear, nothing will improve in this country until ALL the petty bureaucrats are fired and replaced by chimps who will, of course, be much more intelligent, much more ethical, much more diligent workers. You know, beings who actually EARN the wages they are being paid.
Heck. I’d swear my son’s DOGS could have filled out the paperwork faster.
First this subliterate subhuman had to find the right forms. While doing so, she noticed another person had entered and so asked that person to step to another window to be served—then proceeded to go ahead with them, leaving me to cool my heels.
I DON’T THINK SO!
I simply intervened, told the other person being “served†to wait their turn, told the clerk to get hopping on my tags and made certain it was so.
Of course, if the mayor hadn’t called me by name while he was in, carried on a short conversation with me, etc., before straightening out the previous mess, I doubt the clerk would’ve even “heard†me.
Smiling pleasantly, the idiot proceeded to slowly demonstrate a level of subliteracy that boggles the mind as she waded through filling out her paperwork. “No, you dumbass,†I thought, “you don’t have to write “canine†there, since there’s a checkbox with ‘canine’ two spaces before it.†But I only thought it. “What color is the dog?†Damn. Still on dog #1? *Sheesh!* LOOK AT THE VET’S CERTIFICATE DUMBASS! THAT’S WHAT IT’S FOR! (Again, just a thought bubble.) Takes the original over to the copier to make a copy. Of course, she already has a carbon copy right there, plain as day. Stupidity. Does same one more time. Slowwwwwwwer.
Oh, there’s more, so much more.
Ya know, this “person†exemplifies much of what is wrong with the TSA, tag agencies, DMVs, etc.,—in fact almost every single solitary government employee outside the military I am ever likely to come into contact with: When a stupid person does something they KNOW is wrong, they always claim they are simply doing their job.
Of course, that so many government employees are doing jobs that the government shouldn’t be doing to begin with isn’t the point at all (well, not of this little tale) is it, now?
Nah, this government employee, though of the lowest rung on any scale of authority—a salaried functionary a small city office—is an example of the multiplied thousands like her: taking a paycheck for NOT doing a job (that often doesn’t need doing, anyway) well. In my book, that’s theft. The great thing about being a government “burrocrapâ€â€”however far down the totem pole—is that stealing from the people you abuse is such a great way for incompetent self-made idiots to make a living.
At least I feel much better now.
(Oh, and for the “WWJD†namby-pamby crowd, let me refer you to Matthew, chapter 21. Oh, for a flail and a few tables to overturn! And yeh, I know that passage doesn’t directly apply to thieves in bureraucrapic civil government garb. But it could… )
Here ya go. This just begged to be added. Kipling on servants (and that’s what petty bureaucrats claim to be, right? “Public servants”?):
The Servant When He Reigneth
“For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear. For a servant when he reigneth, and a fool when he is filled with meat; for an odious woman when she is married, and an handmaid that is heir to her mistress.” — PROV. XXX. 21-22-23.
Three things make earth unquiet
And four she cannot brook
The godly Agur counted them
And put them in a book —
Those Four Tremendous Curses
With which mankind is cursed;
But a Servant when He Reigneth
Old Agur entered first.
An Handmaid that is Mistress
We need not call upon.
A Fool when he is full of Meat
Will fall asleep anon.
An Odious Woman Married
May bear a babe and mend;
But a Servant when He Reigneth
Is Confusion to the end.
His feet are swift to tumult,
His hands are slow to toil,
His ears are deaf to reason,
His lips are loud in broil.
He knows no use for power
Except to show his might.
He gives no heed to judgment
Unless it prove him right.
Because he served a master
Before his Kingship came,
And hid in all disaster
Behind his master’s name,
So, when his Folly opens
The unnecessary hells,
A Servant when He Reigneth
Throws the blame on some one else.
His vows are lightly spoken,
His faith is hard to bind,
His trust is easy boken,
He fears his fellow-kind.
The nearest mob will move him
To break the pledge he gave —
Oh, a Servant when he Reigneth
Is more than ever slave!
Feelin’ a little Italian, today, but please don’t tell on me, ‘K?
Blogger doesn’t “do†open trackbacks. In fact, without such as Haloscan, blogger doesn’t do trackbacking at all. Basil has done a yeoman’s work explaining a kludge that allows a sorta open trackback post on Blogger, but I’m not going there Too much like work for my taste (I do this to amuse the voices in my head, not as work. Heh).
That said, this is an “Open Trackback†post, anyway. Nah, it’ll not an automatic open trackbacking kinda thing. But it’ll be real. Here’s how it’ll work:
Oh, and I ALWAYS visit blogs that trackback to me. Well, unless I miss their trackback. I’m only human, despite what my Wonder Woman says.
Other blogs doing open trackbacks:
Cao’s Blog
Outside the Beltway
Mudville
MacStansbury.org
Citizen Smash at the Indepundit
The Political Teen
Jo’s Cafe Thursday Specials
Bacon Break Open Post(Note: TMH seems to have a temporary problem loading this page, so just check back)
bRight and Early
Oh, yeh: gonna also try Blogger’s “Backlinks” thang to see if it’ll be any help here at all, at all.
TMH’s Bacon Bits tracksback with:
Advice, Consent, and Political Hay Excerpt: Should the Senate reject presidental nominees to high court for simply any reason at all? Or, does the “Advice and Consent†clause imply that there must be specific and serious reasons?
Don Surber tracksback with:
Iraqi Semper Liberi
Excerpt: News Busters says the media ignores the good news in Iraq. Not me. Here is today’s column in the Saturday Gazette-Mail…
Diane, of the eponymous Diane’s Stuff tracksback with:
Blogging Blind Excerpt: How in the world does someone who is blind operate a computer, and do blind people blog?
heh. Missed one late yesterday. MacStansbury trackedback with OPEN TRACKBACKS
The Alliance of Free Blogs’ Precision Guided Humor Assignment this week asks the question, “What will be the most memorable quotes to emerge from the trial of Saddam Hussein?”
Out of the morass of denials by Saddam, certain flabbergastery will rise head and shoulders above the crowd to stand as truly monumental silly and incredible examples of bumfuzzlery:
“Seven (semi-)Perfect Lies”
Of the Kurds: “I looooove Kurds (especially with a little whey). I hate spiders, though.”
Kurds II: “I said ‘They’re a gas, man!’ Not “Gas them to the last man’ as has been falsely reported.”
“I did not order men, Desperate Housewives and children to be put through wood chippers. I said, “They’re so chipper! There’s not a shred of disrespect for me in those men, Desperate Housewives and children.’ That an offhand comment on my people’s love for me could be so tragically miscontrued without my knowledge or consent is not my fault.” (He later presents his strange reference to a crappy American TV show as evidence of torture by his captors.)
Plagiarizing Richard Nixon: “I am not a crook evil scum-sucking murdering bastard cross-dressing nancyman like my accusers.”
In a bizzarre reference to his miscalculation in the Kuwait invasion that led to the brief Gulf War: “The child is not mine. It was too late to pull out, anyway… ”
Referring to photographs taken in several of his palaces: “Those are not the skulls of people I had flayed alive, boiled, rendered for fat and pigfeed because they allowed their shadows to fall on me. Those were designer bowling balls for use in my solid gold bowling alleys.”
Finally, of his relations with CNN and other allies in the Mass Media Podpeople’s Army, he takes a page from the defense mounted by William Jefferson “Perjury’s my real middle name” Clintoon: “I did not have sex with that woman, Christiane Amanpour.”
This has been a Precision Guided Humor Assignment
Linked at Cao’s Blog, The Political Teen, bRight & Early…
(BUMPED to Thursday–see note at foot)
Yesterday (Thursday, OCt 13) was a “lost day†so my Stop the ACLU post is a day late. Heh. Maybe today can be my Thursday…
But it is a good thing, cos I just read Kit Jarrell’s Stop the ACLU post and thought it encapsulated a great idea, one that should be spread. In fact, I’m going to set it up as a “meme-ish†kinda thing and actually tag some folks on it. Others, please respond in comments.
What Kit wrote that got me thinking this was
Maybe we should hang a sign on the ACLU headquarters that says “Muslims are Pig F—ers. GO USA!â€â€¦Actually now that I think about it, this could be fun. If you could hang a sign on the ACLU building to …draw attention to it, what would you put on your sign?
OK, here’s one of several that occurred to me:
“F*** the children: Go NAMBLA!â€
(Yeh, I just now—10/20—added the graphic, cos so may tagees have been making actual, like, signs, man… Grandpa has to play catchup, here. heh)
It has the advantage of potentially energizing a larger base of antipathy than Kit’s Muslim goad (at least here in the USA—there have to be more parents who care about their children than there are Muslims in the US, right? I mean, don’t there? I hope… ) EDIT: In addition, this sign does have basis in actual support for NAMBLA by the ACLU…
So, how will this “meme-ish†kinda thing work? Well, I’m going to tag five folks asking them to answer Kit’s question: “If you could hang a sign on the ACLU building to …draw attention to it, what would you put on your sign?â€
Next, I’m asking that each of them tag five.
Then (he says with a wink), those who respond add their name and a link to their post to the bottom of the list below. Trackback either to this post or to the post of the person who tagged you. Don’t take names off the top, cos I want to find out how far this one goes. (Yeh, imagine all the extended entries this one might generate 😉
Here goes:
Tagging
Harvey of Bad Example
Cao of, well, Cao’s Blog
Romeocat at Cathouse Chat
George at GM’s Corner
The Mary Hunter at TMH’s Bacon Bits
Now, the list to add your blogpost to:
Euphoric Reality
third world county
Have fun.
Alpha Update: Cathouse Chat is first on board with “Heeeeere’s yer sign…”
Beta Update: TMH’s Bacon Bits rings in with “Hey ACLU: Here’s Your Sign Right Here!”
Gamma Update: Harvey proves to be a Bad Example of following directions but comes up with a very good example of signage for the All Communists’ License Union. Now, if only he could get in the spirit of sharing the joy… 🙂
Delta Update: Cao advances the “ACLU: Here’s your sign” blogosphere meme pool thang to “a whole nother level” with “Tagged with a meme”
Epsilon Update?
N.B. added the forgotten blockquotes and edited some links, a redundant word or two. Left all other mistakes. *LOL*
also: linked at Cao’s Friday Open Trackback party, at Stop the ACLU and at Conservative Cat.
As I explained today—10/19/05—to an email correspondent, Kit’s question is just so seminal: if folks’d stop and think about the ACLU and think about what one thing they’d want everyone to know about it, package it up in a succinct sign, well, we’d have some meme-fodder of a powerful sort, ya know the kinda meme fodder the Mass Media Podpeople’s Army foisted off on their audiences of sheep with the “Bush lied” meme.
People Mass Media Podpeople-dependant sheep think in unreasoned memes and sound bites. And Mass Media Podpeople-dependant sheep form an (unhealthy) fraction of the electorate. We need memes that catch and hold their tiny attention spans. That’s why as much fun as this lil blogosphere meme pool thing can be, it could potentially help us develop some effective weapons to use in the war to win folks’ minds.