Hallowe'en-Themed News for Some Reason

Over at The Economist, some EU news:

For some years, voters in the east Midlands of England have been represented by Roger Helmer, a man who has earned a cult following on the Tory right with his robust views on European Union (pah), climate change (pshaw) and law and order (during the summer riots, he called on the government to "get tough", bring in the army and "Shoot looters and arsonists on sight"). Mr Helmer announced this week that he was standing down at the end of this year, partly out of disillusionment with Conservative policies. Under the rules of the European Parliament, nothing so time-consuming as a by-election is triggered (this is, after all, a body which has watched turnout fall at each and every European election in the last 30 years, and responded each time by demanding new powers and more money). Instead, Mr Helmer is replaced by Rupert Matthews, the candidate from the 2009 European election who secured the most votes for the multi-member east Midlands seat without actually winning a ticket to Strasbourg.

Mr Matthews is also a man of robust views, it emerges. In particular, he is exercised by the Lisbon Treaty, which he asserts grants the European Commission powers to invade Britain, should the British ever try to leave the union. I spent many weary hours reading the treaty, and cannot for the life of me think of the articles he is referring to. There are treaty articles which talk of deploying military forces on peacekeeping missions outside the Union, but they all make clear that national governments are in charge of such missions. There is a bit about member states being entitled to ask for help in the event of a natural disaster or attack, but only at their own initiative. There is an article which talks about uses for Europol, a body bringing together policemen from forces across the EU, but it expressly states: "Any operational action by Europol must be carried out in liaison and in agreement with the authorities of the Member State or States whose territory is concerned."

Okay okay okay, that is somewhat odd in addition to being somewhat boring. But he's a Tory! And today is the day we demand spooky with our kooky. There must be more. And there is!

No No No

Jay Nordlinger:

If you’re a conservative, perhaps you’ve had this same experience: In the past few weeks, several people have said to me, “Have you made your peace with Romney? Have you accepted him as the nominee? Are you resigned to him?” My answer is: I actually look forward to his nomination. And to his candidacy in the general. And to his presidency.

I think he’ll be quite good, if he gets a chance.

Obviously, there is a big sincerity question about Romney: Does he mean what he says? Does he intend to do what he pledges? I think so, yes. All candidates tell people what they think they want to hear, to some degree. Frankly, I imagine most people are guilty of this, whether they’re in politics or not.

But

STOP RIGHT THERE FOR GOD'S SAKE.

Pumpkin Carving Time

Out for most of the day. Guess which one is mine?

The Internet Brings People Together

They Funk You Up

Not really sure what this guy was doing at that Larkin poem:

Needs some cheerier thing than that I think... Maybe this is appropriate:

The Bitch Deserved It Dept.

Shorter Jeannie DeAngelis:

Madonna is just like a crazy stalker except STALKING YOUR CHILDREN.

It's Only Right and Natural

If you are like me - and of course you are - you read this and thought "Hey, what if I could make Don Surber's stupid fucking head squoosh in and out of his stupid fucking shirt like he was some kinda office mollusc?"

No, I Say the Mormon Will Get Us the Other Planets

Michael Moriarty's Book of Revelations:

Despite the vaunted, “nuanced” thinking among Harvard graduates, the final goal of a Marxist New World Order is simple mathematics: the Obama Nation’s goal demands the “fundamental transformation” of the Declaration of Independence, the American Constitution and the United States itself:

“Gestating infants are not created equal!

Many can and, in some cases, must be aborted!”

The Progressive New World Order, the American Autumn and the Arab Spring were everything our Founding Fathers tried to prevent with America’s founding documents. However, what can The Founding Fathers possibly do with a Runaway America?!

It is now up to Herman Cain to bring America home. Perhaps it is predestined that a child of American slavery should perform that seemingly impossible feat.

No other Republican candidates can do it. They are actually not American enough.

Herman Cain, by God, is American to the deepest sense of that word’s charismatic meaning. Obama Care belongs to not only a different continent but an entirely New World Order.

The only “New World” I’ll ever recognize happened when explorers confirmed that a new continent called America even existed. The only new worlds we should expect to build are on other planets.

Amidst God’s other stars.

Explorations in Nazi Hashtags

For reference's sake when I'm too senile to figure out what the title meant.

DIV TAG ASYNCHRONY, DAMMIT!

WHY NOT UPDATE?

Dear God: Thanks for Everything

Compare and Contrast

Here's the sort of story you can only get from Indian newspapers:

Safdar Nagori, the 41-year-old face of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), has topped a course on value education run in Sabarmati Central Jail, beating suspended encounter cop DG Vanzara who took the same course in jail, by nearly 10 per cent marks. Vanzara is in jail in connection with the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case.

Nagori was nabbed from Indore in 2008 after back-to-back serial bombings across cities, attributed to Indian Mujahideen, a breakaway faction of SIMI and self-proclaimed home-grown terror outfit. He was brought to Ahmedabad after serial bomb blasts allegedly carried out by IM rocked the city on July 26, 2008, killing 57 people.

Our American friends will never find that peculiar Indian glee over examination results in a story about a currently-jailed John Walker Lindh doing better in a course on spirituality than a currently-jailed Dick Cheney*.

* That Dick Cheney would take a course on spirituality at all is dubious as to the best of my knowledge Dick Cheney's spirit was purchased in a joint partnership between The Forces of Hell and Richard Nixon. Later on the soul was packaged and repackaged in an endless series of shifting soul bundles, the history of which is difficult to track given the inadequacy of the Mortuarius Electronic Registration Systems database, and further confused due to the Phantasmal Panic of 2008, key to which was the overvaluation of said bundles of souls, the "toxicity" of which was hidden from various investors. I blame The Invisible Hand.

Also Dick Cheney is not currently jailed.

Evening Plans

Well This Is Embarrassing

Deanna Murray:

I really hated Trailer Trash Barbie.

Remember her? The knocked up Barbie doll from the late 1990s wearing a teeny tiny skirt and tube top?

The thing is I probably didn’t hate it for the same reason the mainstream conservative would hate it. No, I didn’t get on a high horse and tout the moral downfall of an iconic toy with her outside-of-wedlock pregnancy … I cared more about the fact that:

A. I grew up in a trailer – and it was a VERY nice one!
B. I happened to be a teen mother – and wouldn’t have traded it for the world.
C. And I’d never wear a mini that short – trailer girls aren’t automatically hussies.

See, it was a stereotype, one stating those who grew up in trailers were trash, likely to get pregnant, and would never really amount to much.

Well gosh darn it, that trash business is not very nice.

Somehow I am reminded of Michael Moriarty meeting the accusation of craziness with a confession of shock therapy.

Bill's in the Mail

Q. How much is a box of quackers?

A. Ten ducks.

Should Be Doing Work...

Stole a GIF from a certain zombie.

These tags will work if you steal them...

<marquee scrollamount="17" behavior="scroll" direction="right"><img src="http://i56.tinypic.com/2lb04yo.gif" border="0" height="150" /><img src="http://i51.tinypic.com/a5byw9.gif" border="0" width="75" /><img src="http://i52.tinypic.com/t8ndip.gif" border="0" height="120" /></marquee>

The divs referred to in comments look like this in the Newt post:

<div style="background: url(&quot;http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-t5Rc3Sc6fxA/TpoCHsJ3CaI/AAAAAAAABvk/bm6GQB-Hrpo/s1600/Newt410.gif&quot;) repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; text-align: center;"><div style="background: url(&quot;http://i55.tinypic.com/2lxiftk.gif&quot;) repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; text-align: center;"><div style="background: url(&quot;http://i55.tinypic.com/1256c5c.gif&quot;) repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; text-align: center;"><div style="background: url(&quot;http://i51.tinypic.com/344358x.gif&quot;) repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; text-align: center;"><div style="background: url(&quot;http://i56.tinypic.com/25077es.gif&quot;) repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; text-align: center;"><div style="background: url(&quot;http://i55.tinypic.com/25rgw9y.gif&quot;) repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; text-align: center;"><img src="http://i51.tinypic.com/a5byw9.gif" border="0" height="558" width="408" /></div></div></div></div></div></div>

The first URL in it goes to a picture of Newt as a background, and almost every other URL goes to a GIF that's transparent except for a chunk of Newt's face (in the same proportion as the background pic), also as background images. The only exception is the img tag before all the divs close: it's a transparent GIF sized to make every one of the background images display properly. The way the style attribute works precludes the use of a marquee tag on any of the background images, and using the marquee any place outside the opening and closing tags fucks up the proportion of your image and won't overlay the scrolling items because the divs just work like fancy near-borderless blockquotes. These tags should be easy enough to steal as well, and you too can have a Grotesque Gingrich. Replace the images with images of your choice, minding the proportions of each, and you have a new kooky picture.

One caveat is that the the div backgrounds seem to vary from the sole foreground image by a few pixels in either direction; this is probably some CSS bullshit related to this template that I don't wanna figure out right now. Just make sure your backgrounds all match up and you can tweak the transparent foreground to frame your lovely construction properly.

Not Knowing When To Get Out of Town

Telepathic Ed:

These Ragheads are certainly cruel, I don't see where the U.S. get off injecting itself into every fracas that comes along as though they rule the World. I was once on the Campus of Brigham Young and was in their basketball arena where I saw a girl student washing windows. I said the Mormons believe that the American Indians are descended from the 2 Lost Tribes of Israel anybody who'd believe that......Millions of People believe that just because you don't......I said most People aren't Mormons. Ima Hogg (1882-1975) was the daughter of Texas Governor James "Big Jim" Hogg and heiress to the immense Hogg fortune which increased greatly in the 20's due to oil being discovered on Hogg land. A Philanthropist and Patroness of the Arts she never married and was called "Miss Ima" and known as "The First Lady of Texas." Knowing when to get out of town is one of the most important things one can ever learn.

The Great Debate

VS, um, vs. J. Vernon McGee. It's a loooooong bus ride.

I Still Have This Movie on Videotape

Tropical Verse

There once was a cock-boring eel,
Who squirmed his way into some heel
Who’d a date set that night
And to the cock-eel’s delight,
Cunt was its very next meal.

HIGH-QUALITY ILLUMUSTRATION UPDATE:



TRAGIC VERISIMILITUDE UPDATE:

Here is a completely true verse about DKW's family:

Your dad's greatest role is as cock-abuse keener,
To this end he sticks a weird fish in his wiener.
The fish come right out of your mom's little flower,
And the fee to go fishing is ten bucks an hour.

FURTHER SPANKING UPDATE:

The sailors all take their turns banging your dad,
But when ship sets sail they feel secretly glad,
Because dad (and his son!) have no feel for the rhythm,
So fee-be-damned they take your mom on board with 'em.

OGDEN GNASHING UPDATE:

Your dad's wonky rhythm makes truck drivers swear
They chain his ass up so his hole stays right there.
He'll do while your mom works her way through the queue,
But if he tried to rhyme he'd just fuck that up also.

HOLIDAYS ARE APPROACHING UPDATE:

In early December your dad takes the member
Of Santa while asking for toys
But when Christmas arrives he pouts and he cries
Because Nick fucks your mom with the boys.

Yay! Something for Catholics to Apologize For!

Go read. This is insane:

Spanish society has been shaken by allegations of the theft and trafficking of thousands of babies by nuns, priests and doctors, which started under Franco and continued up to the 1990s.

I first met Manoli Pagador in Getafe, in a working-class suburb of Madrid. She was attending a meeting for people affected by the scandal Spaniards call "ninos robados" - stolen children.

She has three daughters and lots of grandchildren, but she has never got over the loss of her first-born - a son - nearly 40 years ago.

She had come to think she was crazy for believing he was alive, instead of dead and buried as hospital doctors had told her.

"Now," she said, gripping my hand tightly. "Look around the room at the other women here. All like me. The same background. The same experience. I'm not mad and my family finally believes me."

In 1971 Manoli, who was 23 at the time and not long married, gave birth to what she was told was a healthy baby boy, but he was immediately taken away for what were called routine tests.

Nine interminable hours passed. "Then, a nun, who was also a nurse, coldly informed me that my baby had died," she says.

They would not let her have her son's body, nor would they tell her when the funeral would be.

Of course this is isolated baby-stealing by a few rogue priests and nuns and doctors and fascists and the proportion of baby-stealers in the general population is not that different. And nobody knew nothing about nothing nohow. And nobody has said they fucked the children yet and that counts for something.

Yves Smith on Le Show

Download from here.

Never heard her speak before: she's good.

Maybe, though, you're a fan of WEIRDOS.

Those Without Dates Make Do with Dr. Smut

Um...

Daniel Foster Gaydar Check

Sharing Knowledge for Peace

Google Translate is not the greatest with Farsi, but I am fairly certain that Hamedan University of Medical Sciences is sharing some very valuable information with the world:



They are even kind enough to host the relevant files.

Short Memories

Henry Payne:

Penske Corporation, ArvinMeritor, Compuware Corporation, GM, Ford? These Metro Detroit firms all are major sponsors of the Detroit Opera House, which anchors the south side of Grand Circus.

“Tax the rich! Tax the rich! Tax the rich!” chanted the ’60s-throwbacks in Grand Circus. But why? Detroit’s rich are pouring millions into downtown Detroit to try to resuscitate it. Why does Occupy Detroit want to confiscate that money and send it 500 miles away to Washington, D.C.?

Assuming - just for fun! - that protesters really wanna send all the rich's money to Washington, hasn't Washington had some positive role in keeping Detroit alive? Just wondering.

Steven Pinker Thread at CT

Popcorn on the go.

Note that Steven Pinker is a jerkwad.

Eye of Newt

Attempting to fill this space. Bear with me. Asynchronous animation of Newt's face achieved and ongoing. What to do with the mouth and the nose now that the nose is slightly empiggened? Or You may also occupy yourselves by spraying Newt with penguin poop. Your choice, citizen.

Somebody's On Your Case

Approaching Singularity

What sorcery is required to get all these assholes together to be assholes?

What Happened to Hot Stewardesses?

October 13, 2011 1:13 P.M.

By Daniel Foster

I can’t find a post here, so I figure it was probably in a G-file, but I know Jonah has noticed the decline in physical appeal of flight attendants, and if I recall, posited that the culprit was feminism. In an instance of what is either mildly chauvinistic great minds thinking alike or intellectual plagiarism, Glen Whitman has asked himself the same question, but come up with a different answer. There are less cuties in the friendly skies, says Whitman, because of deregulation. When airlines were legally barred from competing effectively on price, they competed instead on quality. One of the ways they did it was by hiring young, pretty girls. Since deregulation, though, airlines have discovered that fliers are more interested in cheap flights than eye candy.

Megan McArdle disagrees. She agrees with (my memory of) Jonah, that it’s more likely about anti-discrimination laws/norms and “feminist shaming,” but also about union power [...]

You know you are grateful for the editorial discretion there.

HA HA WHAT A SILLY JOKE I MADE THAT ONE TIME:



And what could make this shit worse? Mark Steyn.

In a world where the customer’s right to “service” no longer exists, why be surprised that you wind up with the developed world’s surliest trolley dollies in worn, shiny, shapeless navy stretch pants?

Okay, I don’t want to be sexist here. If you want to see America’s worst-dressed gay men, take a plane. Where have all the hot stewards gone?

It's like an Ouroboros that's all distended anus.

The Role of Rodeo Clown in Other Cultures

Via the Jubail Technical Institute comes an outfit that I am certain has never existed before and must never exist again.