A Field Guide For Recognizing Modern Fascists

This is the best piece of thinking I have ever read about the defining features of Fascism. Read it.

Before anyone accuses me of posting some Bush-slandering propaganda hack job tailored to villifying American conservatives, I would like to point out that the piece was published in 1995.

A Flu For All Swine

I have finally decided that the swine flu is not, in fact, the zombie apocalypse everyone who has ever played a video game has been hoping for.

I now believe that the Swine Flu is Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's final revenge upon the filthy, teeming mass of humanity that so disappointed him in life. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, from one kind of swine to another.

The virus was obviously bred in pigs at the Owl Farm beginning in late 2000. I feel confident that the avian portion of the virus will be found to have originated not with chickens but instead with peafowl. The Judas-pigs were distributed to all attendees of his funeral, to be released in many places at strange intervals. The delay between the funeral and the outbreak has been to give this cadre time to prepare their own defences and build up an immunity to the disease through living closely with their pigs. Expect the tide of chaos and madness to rise sporadicly, with no real warning and leaving nothing but strange rumors of men releasing live pigs in shopping malls and grocery stores.

In the end humanity will be much, if not totally, closer to Dr. Thompson's ideal. The depopulation will allow all of the survivors enough space and resources to live the kind of wild and depraved life the good Dr. most approved of, and no one will care what kind of drugs you want to do.

I sure hope you didn't care what I think...

... because I haven't been sharing it for over a year. Feel free to sue me, or otherwise complain. I assure you I will take it Very Seriously, in much the same way that most companies take things Very Seriously, i.e. by seriously not caring very much.

I have no intention of catching everyone up with my life over the past year. In fact, right now I just want to post a link:

Pwned!!!-
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/10/matt_taibbi_and_byron_york_but.html


I am going to start trying to post again. This will depend largely on whether or not I think of anything worth writing down.

House Obtained

We seem to have nailed down a nice place in Ravenna/Greenlake. It has 2 bathrooms! None of you will understand how much of a coup this is just look at the housing ads for Seattle on Craigslist. For some reason nobody in Seattle prior to about 1980 has ever needed more than one bathroom in a house, regardless of how many bedrooms they have. You can find places just outside of Seattle (generally built after 1980) that have multiple bathrooms, but not actually IN Seattle.
It also has a nice fenced yard and is close to the best video store ever (Scarecrow Video. Look it up). I'm pretty happy with it.

In celebration of my good fortune, I give you a cartoon kind of making fun of Andy, though probably not on purpose: Link

We Walked Out Of The Woods, But Then Immediately Entered Another Set Of Woods

So as of yesterday we were totally sure that we had a house. Mar had met with the landlord, who had wanted her to sign the lease and give a deposit check right there (which she hadn't told Marla when setting up said meeting). Mar didn't have the checkbook with her, so she said she would overnight the check today along with a signed lease. So lo and behold today Mar opens the envelope with the lease to find that none of the info is filled in, it's just a generic blank lease with no addresses or names or whatnot. So Mar calls the prospective landlord and says "Hi, I was going to sign the lease and send it with the check and I noticed that it's all blank, so I need you to tell me if I should fill it in or do you want to fax a lease that you've filled out? It also occured to me that I could just put our deposit directly into your bank account if you wanted (the landlord had made a big deal about how she preferred the rent to be done via electronic bank transfer). Call and let me know what to do, I'll be available until 6:00 but have to teach class from then till 8:00." She left this message at 11:00 am.

So what does the landlord do?

She calls at 7:00, like a chickenshit, and leaves a message telling Marla that it had gotten "too complicated" and to go find somehwhere else to live.

In what way is asking someone to respond to basically 2 questions "too complicated"?

?!

Crap.

Our landlord just notified us that we have to move by October because he is going to sell the house.
Fuck.
I hate moving.
And we're broke, but only for the exact period during which we will be looking for/putting deposits on/moving into a new place. One month after we move we will be fine financially, but from now till mid-October we were just going to squeek by. Fucking wonderful.
Oh, and we just had to buy a new car for Marla, so not only do we not have the best credit scores in the world, we also just took on a new car payment, which any landlord will be able to see when they run our credit.

Have I mentioned that I hate moving?
At least this time we can wait until the end of the worst of the summer heat.
Fuck.

Go With Your Gut

In the wake of Secretary Chertoff's pronouncement that his gut told him America would be attacked by terrorists this summer, Wired's Threat Level blog presents this gut-based Security Advisory System. Just as useless as the old, but with added flavor.

In other Homeland Security news, I also present to you the "Jam Band Fan or Taliban" blog, which presents pictures of bearded men and challenges you to determine if they are dangerous Islamists or filthy filthy hippies. Now imagine trying to do the same while screening passengers at an airport.

P.S.- The word of the day, apparently, is "presents".