Blowing the Dust Off

Phew. Who the hell left this sandwich lying on the console?

Okay, so I was away for a while. I want to thank the staff and those husky damn interns at the Sunnyvale Home for the Particularly Stressed for the length of my stay, and a certain pathological psycologist (you know who you are, sweetie) for its abrupt end, and I'm sure the insurance will cover everything.

Lots going on in Canada right now. In particular there's the Olympics. Yet somehow they seem smaller and meaner than the 2000 gala. My country's neuroses seem to be on full display. Perhaps because everything feels like a little too little of most things (snow, actual tickets rather than fake ticket shops, the hopeless bloody Canada Pavillion pictured below) and far too much of others ("own the podium," Prime Ministerial photo-ops, those stupid-ass mascots and also the Canada Pavillion).



Parliament still isn't sitting. The Harpercons are relying on the Olympic spectacle to distract the masses, so it seems. Well hey, if you can't give them bread, give 'em circuses, I guess. O'course bread could be had had we not spent our bread money on tax cuts and Olympic circuses.

But still, whatever gets you through, eh?

Of the Olympics, I think the best thing is that due to the neurotic rah-rah "own the podium" propaganda push, we have at least learned the names of some of our athletes.

Me? Well I've been busy elsewhere. That is all ye know and all ye need know. I haven't forgotten my promise to address the silliness of global warming denialism, and I plan on making that my next effort.

Hope you've all been behaving while I was away.

This Is News? #94

Caribou Barbie has blackened her running mate's name.

Uh, didn't she do that pretty much as soon she joined the campaign? Not that he wasn't making a fine job of it on his own, but he needed someone to ensure that there was something in his platform for crazy, gun-loving, Bible-thumping, white people who weren't male, too.

Do You Think the National Post Could Use an Editor?

Canada's National Post, whose "Full Comment" section would make fine budgie-cage liner did it but exist in print, has been allowed by a bankruptcy court to shuffle under a different corporate umbrella and has thus survived the death of its parent.

Oddly, this has not improved the quality of its content, save that John Baglow has apparently decided he enjoys bear-baiting sufficiently to allow the NP to reuse his blog posts. I believe he feels this will promote discussion.

While I must admit the comments there are considably smarter than the NP average, I feel this is because the standard is improved by the presence of actual thinking commenters, not common elsewhere. Witness the savaging John Moore, the sole critical thinker writing in the NP until Baglow came along, receives on this post.

However, they've clearly cut back on actual editors and actual journalism. The wrong is tremendous and the irony could shoe a racetrack.

First, the Senate didn't "weaken" the bill. They affirmed the rights of individuals. I'm personally in favour of Bill C-6 because it'll trounce some of the woo-practitioners unless they can prove that their bark, roots, herbs, or magic can actually DO something. But I never wanted inspectors to be able to raid homes without a warrant.

Secondly, a paper that staunchly defends the Federal Government's right to evade torture accusations claims that reaffirming the need for a warrant "weakens" legislation. It is to laugh, hollowly.

Third: Here's the accompanying picture.



This, on the other hand, is Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, an Inuk and one of the few Conservative Ministers I've had any respect at all for.

Clearly, all brown people DO in fact look alike to them.

A Few Tweaks

I've been away a lot lately. Scrabbling for work, mostly.

Let's see, what's been happening. Well I've been spending a lot of time reading about the so-called "Climate-gate" scandal, and I've concluded that a handful of emails, even if they contained a plot that would make Dan Brown wet his shorts, don't in fact change thirty or fifty years of science, backed by the actual data.

There's a lot more. But for some good reading on the subjects, I'd try Deltoid and DeSmogBlog. This is a debate where style has heretofore trumped science, and those two are trying hard to counter that.

What else ... Oh yes, I've been sort of outed. I left a rude comment over at Canadian Cynic and one of the subjects took the two minutes it took to Google me. He says my name is Ted, and I'm willing to take his word on that. But I knew, and was warned by no less an intertubes big gun than Raincoaster, that no-one's really anonymous on the 'net. So it isn't as though I hadn't expected this to happen at some point.

It'll be interesting to see whether the idea of having a name linked to this blog is likely to change the way I express myself. I hope not. Metro's the little bit of me that I keep locked away when someone's saying something that makes me want to grab their lapels, haul them up to my nose and scream "Are you ₤µ©λing NUTS!?"

Such as when a pleasant, white-haired old lady tells me that Barack Obama is the devil, and means it ... So instead I smile and nod, and when I get home I write it down and try to dissect it.

Anyway ... As you can see, I've updated the blogroll a bit to more accurately reflect where I've been spending my time. If the links look a little left-ish, well I'm hoping to find some reasonable writing from the other side of the spectrum. But it's often a matter of luck. For example, there's today's smart, sensible piece:

At Dr. Dawg's Blawg, I stumbled across a link to this. I linked to Little Green Footballs once, and only once, way back in the prehistory of the ol' Metroblog. I didn't hang about because teh crazy seemed infectious. I forget how I got there, but the Nazi site Stormfront was involved. And no I'm not linking there.

But now I find this post "Why I Parted Ways With the Right, and it so well traces my own retreat from Conservatism that I had to clip a few choice bits off and post them here:

...
4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.)

5. Support for homophobic bigotry (see: Sarah Palin, Dobson, the entire religious right, etc.)

6. Support for anti-government lunacy (see: tea parties, militias, Fox News, Glenn Beck, etc.)

7. Support for conspiracy theories and hate speech (see: Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Birthers, creationists, climate deniers, etc.)
...

There's more. I reccomend reading that piece.

Partly as a result of hanging around at places that define the extremes of the argument, I'd been very dispirited and bitter lately about the quality of ideas out there. So it's nice to see that sometimes reason does, in fact, prevail.

Meantime, I'm pleased to meet you.
Now you know my name.

Play me off, Mick and Keith!

Quote of the Day #349

And it's from "E!" network, fer FSM's sake--The gut-spilling, wrenching void of celebrity goss and toss.

"The truth, no matter how uncomfortable, is never too much information."

It's the last sentence of a surprisingly deep blog post that must have been handed out to E!'s headline writers without notification that this was a genuine piece of thoughtful opinion.

The headline is "Mackenzie Phillips Is Not Oversharing!" The headline is a damn-near-slight to a woman who seems to be determined to unburden herself publicly of some of the most asocial revelations anyone could put themselves through. Money quote:

We don't want to hear it. Any of it.

And that might be the ickiest thing of all.

My feeling when a semi-celeb comes out with revelations like this is that you do need to look for the motive. But while Phillips has been doing the talk-show circuit, she could have done that by simply asserting that Papa John had beaten her, or something less ... icky.

The Best Statement I've Yet Heard on Climate Change

"And the very same people who told you that weapons of mass destruction were real are telling you that climate change is not."

Indeed.

One should consider one's sources. They were wrong about the economy, about the Iraq misadventure, and about so many other things ... Why would anyone trust them on anything at all?

From this video, found on Pharyngula.

The Healthcare "Debate"?

Let me declare my biases:

I'm Canadian

I was born to parents whose own parents didn't have "socialized health care" and who regarded it as one of the finest achievements of civilization

The Canadian health care system helped, at the very least, to save my life on at least one occasion.

So I'm mad when I see the system so mischaracterized by the forces who want to continue screwing US citizens out of their money. Because that's what private-for-profit health "care" does: It rations health care. The very thing it accuses "government-run" or "bureaucratic" or "socialized" health care of.

Because economics is all about scarcity. The scarcer something is, the higher a premiuim it may command on the open market. Healthy people just aren't good "health consumers."

It is reckoned that the US pirate-for-profit system costs several billion dollars in lost productivity each year, not counting the $46 bn in direct costs. Yet there are outfits out there who are frantically trying to avoid the Obama health care debate by going to their "consumers" and trying to defend their (the consumers') right to go bankrupt for cancer treatment, their right to pay premiums and have coverage denied anyway, and their right to go entirely without any form of health care. And, purely co-incidentally I'm sure, these organizations end up defending their right to profit off the sick and healthy alike, through fear.

The US system simply doesn't make sense in a civilized world. Of course, a civilized world would have to be one in which profit might occasionally have to take a back seat to charity, mercy, forbearance. Which doesn't suit insurance companies at all. After all, it takes an especially twisty kind of thinking to take the wrong end of a bet on whether or not you will die, and still make money on the deal.

The Calgary Herald has today an excellent, simple editorial outlining the fractured thinking going on behind the drive to preserve health as something people who produce nothing and contribute nothing good to the economy should continue making a profit on (I'm speaking specifically of HMOs. Insurance itself is useful, and a vital financial instrument that has to be in place for any kind of market-based economy to thrive).

Oh, and to any US Avid Fans: If you hear anything from a Doctor Brian Day, ignore it. He's a rotten lousy shill for the health insurance industry. Because up here in "Marxist" Canada, where "rationed" healthcare dictates who gets what, we allow people to see private quacks out of their own pockets if they like. And we allow said quacks to set up clinics so that they can go about the business of gouging money out of the healthy.

In Canada, doctors are in private practice. But the patient is shielded from predation by drug companies, "health management" companies, and doctors who're so terrified of liability that they send you for unnecessary tests.

The US can't do it like Canada, exactly. There are too many entrenched interests, too long a history, and possibly too decentralized a government (Although we've steadily been devolving responsibility to the provinces--and it's been a bit of a disaster).

Now, no system will ever cover everything (there's that scarcity again). But it seems to me that while government provided systems usually have to justify refusing care, all an insurance company has to say is "Sorry--we don't cover that." It's on record: Companies have routinely sent "deny-first" letters to clients hoping they'll simply give up and go away.

But the US has a chance to step out and show the world. Perhaps a blended private-public system like many of the Scandanavian countries would do it?

Like the old commercials say: "Two flavour great--No debate!"

In any case, if they really want an easy way to jump-start the economy, the first thing to do is to get everyone some form of basic health coverage.

Like Shooting Gefilte Fish

From one of those rags I don't normally read comes this gem:

Three city mayors, two state politicians and five rabbis were among 44 people arrested across New Jersey today when federal agents cracked an alleged Sopranos-style crime ring accused of bribery, money laundering and trafficking body parts and counterfeit handbags.

I just knew I shouldn't have bought that handbag made of human skin, but it was so smooth and silky ... And oy such a deal!

From the CBC:

Much stricter controls are needed over the use of Taser stun guns by police in B.C., former judge Thomas Braidwood says in the first phase of findings from his inquiry into stun guns.

I would just like to say to Justice Braidwood: Bravo. And also WELL DUH

On CTV we learn that Canadian versions of internationally branded foods tend to be higher, sometimes much higher, in salt:

A serving of Burger King onion rings has 1,500 milligrams of sodium per serving -- more than 100 per cent of the daily recommended intake. A serving of BK onion rings in the UK has just 500 mg -- even though the serving size in the UK is about 30 per cent larger.
[...]
Canada, meanwhile, has some of the highest levels of sodium in our packaged and chain restaurant foods, which might explain why the country has such high rates of high blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart attack, heart failure, stroke, and kidney disease.

We're just trying to convince the cannibals to leave us alone. They hate salty food too.

There's a massive, beautiful thunder-and-lightning storm outside my window right now. The noise rumbles through the ground like an earthquake. My lights are flickering as the lightning flashes. I hope the rain does the firefighters some good. The big fire in Fintry got worse yesterday.

Life Update: The Office

No, I haven't found work yet. Not entirely for lack of trying, although perhaps for lackadaisical trying. I am definitely busy though: Thus far this summer I'm:

Working on a piece for a local magazine
It pays, quite frankly, crap. But the important word in that sentence is the second one.

Hosting, Hosting, Hosting
Last night, a party complete with steel drums. Prior to that, four teen/pre-teen girls and their den mother. Prior to that, unfortunately, Raincoaster.

Trying to Plan a Summer Holiday of Some Description
Last year, due to piss-poor communications, Mme and I failed to do any camping. This year, my time comittments are all over the map. Thus far it appears that the second week in August is the soonest we'll manage it.

Building Mme Metro's Office
Mme and I have been sharing an office. Unfortunately we're both pack rats in a small space. The result is that we're getting in each others' way, and on each others' nerves, not to mention paying huge interest on bills we lose in the piles of paper which are slowly turning into peat. So I'm converting one room of the house into her office. This has led to some short, hard lessons in:
1) Plumbing
2) Electrical wiring
2a) Electrical workplace safety
3) Drywall hanging
4) Insulation
5) Furnace ducting

Hopefully nothing I've done thus far will require fixing anytime soon, because this time next month it'll all be behind walls.

Unfortunately, fixing one room in a house is like polishing one spot on a car--it tends to highlight how dingy the rest of it is. In a way, it's a blessing. The required recarpeting and painting once we've packed Raincoaster home again (Isn't it nice that Air Canada is allowing pets in the cabin nowadays?) won't seem as arduous.

On top of this, at least two appliances have decided to have little hissy fits--Water all over the floor from the washer, once, may be a blip. Water all over the floor from the washer, several times, accompanied by enough lint to choke a yak, is probably more significant. And water from under the fridge is just plain bad and wrong.

In the meantime I'm trying to put out a couple of what I think will be pretty hot fiction stories, fix one of my Three-Day Novel contest works up, and try to hit the beach at least once!

So as you can see, it's an eventful summer chez Metro. But as I've said elsewhere on this blog, I'd generally rather be busy than bored.

Michael Jackson Eases on Down the Road

It's a surprise ending to a brief, sad life dogged by controversy. Assuming it's not a publicity stunt (update: it looks as though it isn't).

I liked Jackson's earlier work--up until Thriller. My sister went a long way towards killing any affection I might have had for him by overplaying the album (just as she did with any music she enjoyed. My loathing of Abba remains unabated).

Mr Jackson did the rest. With his increasingly bizarre behaviour, unfortunate inability to form normal human relationships, and continued devotion to plastic surgery that would make a hard-core body-mod nut wince.

But I always did feel sorry for him. So many people with talent seemed doomed for greatness and madness. And he was both personified. Above all, I'm not sure he ever realized that he was transient.

So long Michael. Peace at last, perhaps (As long as no-one tries to buy his skeleton).

Farrah Fawcett has also died today. I don't have much to say about her. Unlike many modern stars, she seems to have managed to live a largely blameless life without attracting undue attention (the Majors divorce aside), for a TV star.

But a small piece of my childhood goes with her. I watched "Charlie's Angels" before I even understood why I liked girls--Possibly before I was even ready to admit that I liked them.

My thanks, Farrah.

The Right Wing: Screwing Itself Into Irrelevance: Part One

Correction:
As Joshua has pointed out in the comments, I've oviously misunderstood Mr. Graham's remarks. He clearly is advocating some level of accomodation. That said, it changes my perception very little.

This is from today's New York Times. The US Republican party is engaged in a struggle between those who, y'know, work in the real world and know what the word "compromise" means and those who feel that Der Party is not sufficiently ideologically pure, like Michael Reagan (the Gipper's kid--Not as bright as daddy was but not far behind either):

“It’s interesting that people say the right has taken over the Republican Party — but no one can say what we’ve done,” Mr. Reagan said. “We’ve been closeted for the last eight years; it’s time for the right to come out of the closet.”

No, Mikey. Your party spent the past eight years $#!7ting on other people's countries, playing the politics of $#17ting-your-pants, slavishly leading the country into the economic hole it finds itself in today, legalizing doestic espionage, enthusiastically repudiating the Constitution, legalizing and embracing torture, laying claim to executive privilege unknown to most despots, and otherwise completely ₤µ©λing up the country and your fellow citizens.

The country knows exactly what's happened to your party, sir: It's become Rush Limbaugh's bitch. Like a teen hooker in the Dominican Republic.

Witness also Senator Graham:

Mr. Graham scoffed at the notion that the party was suffering because it was not conservative enough.

“Do you really believe that we lost 18-to-34-year-olds by 19 percent, or we lost Hispanic voters, because we are not conservative enough?” he said. “No. This is a ridiculous line of thought. The truth is we lost young people because our Republican brand is tainted.”

You lost Hispanics because you're raving, foaming, anti-immigrant racists, and you lost the young because your ideas froze solid back in the Goldwater days and never thawed, even to simply keep up with history. But that's okay. Eventually, if Senator Graham and Mike Reagan have their way, the moderates will all become Democrats and the party will regain what they appear to think is its true identity.

It's time for the right to crawl back under its rock and sit out the next three decades or so while the grown-ups get on with repairing the damage. If Specter stays a Democrat (and although I'm inherently suspicious of floor-crossers I've generally liked him), and Franken finally gets the Minnesota senate seat he won (in other words if Norm Coleman stops being a douchebag--Sorry, that's like asking a snake to stop being a reptile), then the Senate belongs to the Democratic Party.

Conservatives in Canada should keep this in mind. But it's likely to be awkward under a Prime Minister Harper, who uses "compromise" as a metaphor for "₤µ©λ you".

Oh, is it ever going to be awkward. Next post.

A Passing Thought

Mme and I were having a discussion as we walked to work (her work. I'm as yet underemployed) about the things that sometimes happen to couples.

"I think," quoth she "that we're good enough friends that even if things didn't work out we'd still live together."

She thinks.

Naturally my first thought was to wonder why the hell that thought had ever crossed her mind.

However, on second thought we've both heard of couples separated by time, distance, and circumstance, so it's fairly natural to consider a future under which we might find ourselves one of those couples.

"Well," I returned "We haven't seen Mum and Dad's house since the remodelling. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that they'd moved into twin beds or even separate rooms. I mean, Mum snores something historic!"

"Wait" I second-thoughted, "Why would Dad care? He's deaf nowadays."

Mother Nature is a true romantic sometimes.

Slice of Metrolife (A la Mode Not Available)

This week Mme and I took in a wandering, wayfaring stranger from the Katimavik program. Katimavik is a Canadian service-club/youth experience which sends young people in diverse groups all across the nation to serve and grow in experience.

We've hosted three of these kids--all about a week prior to Christmas. We often get "the French ones" who have little or no English, as Mme and I together can speak French (separately we muddle through).

The last batch tended to hang out in groups, went about independantly, and were rather a joy in that while we knew they were going out to smoke dope, they tended to gather in a friendly group and do it down by the school where all the other kids did.

The current kid has done little but sit and watch TV and movies. I managed to get him out to poker last night though, and he took seventh place (I got sixth).

He also talks. I am reminded of Alan Rickman's line from "Dogma":

The one who speaks ... an' he will ... at great length ... whether you want him to or not ... will make mention of himself as a prophet.

Si it is with Big G.

Big G has enlightened us as to the natures of his father, grandfather, and mother. He has professed support for the Bloc Quebecois, claims Quebec can be economically independant (16th largest economy in the world, apparently), and has generally displayed the blinkered certainties of a twenty-one-year-old who grew up in a separatist culture (two actually--he's part native and claims his grand-dad is a chief).

In short, he reminds me a lot of myself at that age.

I just wanted to apologize to anyone who knew me then.

He also claims he's bad luck, and has recounted many episodes when his black dog has dragged his friends down, usually in small ways. I notice he doesn't blame his bad luck for the street-racing death of his childhood friend, though.

Anyway--he may be attended by a poltergeist or other household demon. When he entered the house, our stove went belly-up. That was Saturday.

Yesterday the kitchen dimmer switch began to crackle and smoke, and the lights to flash in a manner reminiscent of your high-school play's lightning storm. I pulled it from the wall and shut off the breaker, deluminating half the house.

One is left wondering "What the hell next?"

Unless "next" is the fact that the smouldering brush war between me and the Black cat has flared in earnest.

It's a simple issue: The cat pisses in locations whence I do not desire that cat urine should be deposited. My new strategy is also simple. Where she pisses, I place a mothball. Cats apparently strongly dislike the smell of mothballs (which means the whole house must currently be very unpleasant for both of them.

Until now, the smell of napthalene orbs seemed to have a salutary effect. However, yesterday I discovered two old deposits of cat urine, followed by at least one, possibly two, new ones. Those are the ones we've found.

The odour of the spheres being unpleasant to her, Blackie has nevertheless continued to urinate outside of the desired receptacle. The war continues.

Eventually either the cat will remember what the litter box is for, or the floor will be so covered with mothballs that movement will become impossible.

I'm game if she is.

Stop, It Mr. Harper ... You're Killing Me!

So you're a Prime Minister in a resource-dependant, toruism-heavy country with massive natural beauty. Your people are vaguely concerned about the environment, in a well-intentioned but fuzzy way. Your main constituency, though, regards climate change as a "socialist plot."

You vilified your last opponents' green plans as "A tax on everything," and have generally shown the sort of enlightened outlook on the environment that the cat is showing to my furniture (Piss on it).

So what do you do when you realize that even your friends hated your budget, that your credibility is shot, your woefully inadequate leadership skills exposed, and that, actually, people dislike you intensely and just elected you to hold the spot until the Liberals could clean house?

What, in particular do you do as your numbers fade once again into the minority territory reserved for your ideological predecessors?

That's right: Go green. People like green.

Oh, and of course: Blame someone else.

Harper used to begin all bad news speeches and press announcements with "The previous Liberal government," and follow through with the blame game. He gave it up after about two years.

So now he has a new line:

"The previous Republican government ..."

That's right. Now that his ideological twin has gotten the boot, Harper's saying that he now feels free to enact environmental regulation that bad ol' George the Lesser was holding in check:

Barack Obama's presidency is ushering in a new era of North American co-operation against climate change after George W. Bush's inaction held back Canada's ability to tackle greenhouse-gas emissions, Stephen Harper says.

Is anyone supposed to believe this load of manure? George W. Bush was the guy who, you recall, pushed for voluntary emissions limits. He called it a "cap and trade" scheme, but it meant that companies essentially could pollute pretty much at will, and reams of reports from the US Deaprtment of the Interior, EPA, and other agencies concur.

Harper's plan to fight pollution? A "cap-and-trade" system designed to allow all industries to pollute more, net, if the amount of pollution per item produced dropped.

Does Harper really think we're this stupid? I'm seriously insulted here. If I had more than one vote to cast for someone else, I'd do it.

(Sings) Happy Monkey to You, Happy Monkey to You ...

It's Darwin Day! Old Charlie would have been two hundred years old today. One wonders what he'd be saying were he still alive today.

Possibly "Why is it so dark in here?" Or "Why am I in this box?"

I was directed to this item via Pharyngula. However, it looks better in its native environment, which is Seed. Make sure to watch it all. The beginning is wondrous, but all the really exciting stuff is packed into the last few parti-seconds.

However, Darwin's birthday is a time to reflect upon how far we've come; and how far we have yet to go. From the Wall Street Journal (which I hardly ever read since the Murdoch acquisition):

It would make sense to try to predict the actions of the multitudes by assuming that each individual would act in the interest of his (or her) own selfish genes.
In reality, we often don't. [. . .] At the micro-level, we'll drive across town to save $25 on a $100 microwave, but not to save the same $25 on a $1,000 flat-screen TV, showing both that we are blind to the cost of our own labor, and confused about the fact that money is an absolute rather than relative commodity.

The average American watches three to four hours of television a day, which does nothing for our "reproductive fitness" or even for our happiness [. . .] We procrastinate on important projects until we have too little time to complete them properly ...

Um, just realized I have to finish a project that was due yesterday ... Seriously, go read that editorial.

Ah, just had to add. There's one glaring error in that editorial:

We allow consumers access to credit cards, for example, because we assume (despite ample evidence to the contrary) that they will be smart enough to balance their short-term needs as consumers with their long-term capacity to maintain a fiscally sensible reality.

No. Credit-card companies push credit cards on consumers precisely because of the mountain of evidence to the contrary. It's one reason barter and lay-away are making comebacks.

Who Loves Baby Dolls?

No, not that sort. Don't you lot ever think of anything else? A comment to this post at Celebrating the Absurd got me thinking.

In the dim, distant Metropast I lived in a small town, more a teeny tiny suburb, only not quite, where we actually had a village toy shop. The local paper was interviewing the owner at the height of both the popularity of Cabbage Patch Kids and that of teen pregnancy in our area.

The owner of the toy shop was explaining that his primary clientelle was grandparents. Silver-haired ladies and gentlemen thronged the shop on their way to visit various grandkids. A popular gift for girls was a dolly.

But he was quite specific: They wanted cute little-girl dollies, the ones that look like they're about five. Pink dresses were popular, as were blonde curls, smiles, and bright white teeth.

The article mentioned that at the end of the line was something called, if memory serves "Your Real Baby".

The "Your Real Baby," like the Cabbage Patch Kids, came with a birth certificate, and like the CPKs, you had a choice of ethnicity rarely seen in the adorable-little-girly doll market. But there the similarities ended. While the CPKs all looked like the hydrocephalic, button-eyed little morons they still resemble today, YRB looked 100% real. It was wrinkled. It was either bald or covered in that fluff real babies sometimes arrive wearing. It had a freshly-cut umbilicus with band-aid, and a diaper with the (then-new) half-moon cut from it to accomodate said umbilicus.

It had on its face the expression babies usually have: The purse-lipped, scrunch-eyed malevolent glare of someone who's figured out that YOU are responsible for tipping it out of its comfortable liquid home and introducing it to the cold, cruel, world and is going to make you PAY once it gets the lungs and vocal chords in synch.

The article quoted the toy shop owner as lamenting that while pink-dressed little-girl dolls flew from the shelves, no grandparents seemed eager to offer their offsprings' offspringers the experience of holding a genuine, real-looking baby.

Although I'm sure they chuckled and cooed enough when the respective grandkids were also pinkish/yellowish/brownish and squidgy.

I've always remembered that article, and what it suggested about the reaction of humans to the real world.

A Thought on Unemployment

So here I am lounging about in my pyjamas, sipping orange juice and reading the news. I mean, there's really no difference between me and Hugh Hefner at this point, save for about fifty years, $80 million, and about a hundred nude ladies running around my house.

Applications from nude ladies will be gratefully considered.

Uh, Well, Fuck.

The recession just tagged me. I have joined the ranks of the unemployed.

Worse yet, it happened by phone. Not worse for me, worse for my (now-ex-) boss. She's a personal friend, and when I assured her that we'd still be friends she burst into tears on speakerphone.

Ironically, she was on speakerphone because I'd arisen late and was slow getting in. So I was strangely almost relieved--I feel horribly guilty goofing off. But not no more, I guess.

I'm still processing things. First things first--I'm taking the rest of the week off. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that Mme is earning decent coin, and thank His Noodliness twice for a social safety net.

So we're not ecstatic, no we aren't O Avid Fans. But we're not dead, dying, nor even severely injured. I have a scratchy throat and a slight sniffle, but otherwise I feel fine.

Of course, my termination is effective immediately. They won't even let me back into the building. Not sure I feel good about the innate suggestion that I might be inclined to go postal.

But in fact if anything I'm inclined to go oppositely.

Still absorbing it all. We'll have to see what happens, I guess.

I Just 'ad a Mind-Bogglin' Fought

Whilst researching ways to sneak a pill into a cat (Mme Metro has another of those convenient trips to the Big Smoke this week), I spotted several online discussion boards with titles like "Administering a Pill to a Cat, Orally or Anally."

I thought about that second option. I mean, cats like nothing so much as to stand on one's chest and present their hindquarters to the person attempting to read the book they're standing on. It would surely be the work of a moment to surprise the hell out of him.

But I'm kind of attached to my blood--I prefer to keep it inside.

Phone Sex Operators Talk to You Live!!!

Well, not quite live, I guess ... From Mother Jones comes this photo essay about phone sex operators.

Lest you think it's all fun and games, and laughing at the chumps willing to spend $3.99 a minute to alleviate their desperation and loneliness for another night, help yourself to a free quote:

Just last night I received possibly the most disturbing phone sex call I’d had in a long time.

A caller shot himself with me on the phone.

Things like this always scare me.

My current track record stands at one confession of incestuous sexual abuse, and two other suicides.

Oh, and as I sidle toward a posting on free speech and the law, here's a fine example of what happens when we pervert language.

And another one.