Sunday, November 28, 2010

Sunday Funnies

-Schlock Mercenary Petey reaches an ethical limit.
-TwoLumps Turkeys do not come down the chimney on Thanksgiving Eve.
-Girl Genius Just think like a bloodthirsty sociopathic despot.
-Digger The skins will treasure Ed. Yes.
-No Need For Bushido General Atsumori needs to rethink his position.
-Delta Bravo Sierra Mom always knows what belongs in a care package.
- Amya Flowers for a pretty lady.
-Lackadaisy Zeb will go with Mitzi for the sleaze.

Not Updated, fie!

-xkcd The artist is having what sounds like a run-in with entropy, in the family. Comic is on hold for a while. We extend positive Snarkatronic emissions to xkcd and all connected.
-Gone with the Blastwave No comic for November, sigh. But check out the video someone made! It does capture the spirit.
-Dresden Codak
-My Ninja Family
-Argghhh-onauts is busy writing to the Complaints Department of Super Sekrit Spy Cams Inc.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Can you see me now?

There have been some good ideas for National Opt-out Day, or Tease-a-TSA day as I like to call it. Kilts. Can't have too many kilts, in my opinion. And I'm sure the guys are all in favor of the lady who decided to travel in a bikini. My suggestion would be a discreetly placed cotton ball drenched in some wretched perfume, such as Giorgio, that could be removed once security was cleared. Don't want to gas your fellow passengers, after all. I'm sorry the TSA screeners have to deal with fat smelly people. Did it occur to them the fat smelly people did not wander up and insist on getting a gropeathon? That someone ORDERED the fat smelly people to get molested in public? I cry precisely two tears for TSA's sufferings.

So, objection #1 to the new TSA order of things is it is capricious. First they say nobody under the age of 12 will be groped, sorry, "patted down", then there are two different Youtube videos showing precisely that. Objection #2, the people making the rules don't have to live with them. Nobody is groping Janet Napolitano (see "fat smelly people" objection above) and she can get away with it. We shouldn't object to the ICUNekkid scanner, but she won't go through and show the public exactly how unobjectionable it is. Objection #3 is the new regime is not uniform. You can board a plane from some small obscure airport and not have to deal with anything but the metal detector, and catch further flights in major airports without getting scanned or felt up. So right there, any bad guys know to fly out of Lower Bumstupf Municipal Airport, and we are right back where we started before the x-ray goggles came out. Objection #4, the New! Improved! scanner system would not stop existing known terrorist attempts, e.g. the PantyBomber. We only survived that one because he was an idiot and doped up to the point he didn't notice his crotch was on fire, plus the passengers leaped at the chance to put out a forest fire at 30,000 ft. Which to me means the solution is to give all passengers a Vicodin and a blackjack on boarding. Objection #5, the scanners in use here are x-ray machines. I can guarantee the TSA folks manning the buttons do not have x-ray technician training. They might, with coaching and flashcards, be able to correctly pronounce the phrase "ionizing radiation". One or two might be able to tell you what it means. Why does this matter? Even if the machines start off with correct, safe settings, you are just one "I wonder what that dial does" moment from turning it into an unsafe machine. Objection #6, this does not make us safe. The full gamut of metal detector, scanner, and grope search will not find suppositories or tampons full of C4. The detonator could be something innocuous like a cell phone. So this is all USELESS. Well, no. Lots of people are going to be publicly humiliated. Someone must want this. Useless for making us safe, rather. And if the TSA thinks there's an uproar now, wait until they roll out the cavity search line!

I do not understand how people can claim we should just accept this. It has gone too far. It is NOT OK for a stranger with latex gloves unchanged from the last search to do things to me only my gynecologist does, and in full view of the public. I might have accepted the scanners, if all the promises they made hadn't turned out to have an expiration date. The images CAN be saved. The scanner screen, showing you in all your natural glory, has been reported as visible to the public on multiple occasions. The scanner would NOT detect the Crotch Payload. And even if you agree to the scanner, they can STILL pull you over and grope you.

I recently met up with some rather liberal friends. I didn't have to bring the subject up; they mentioned it first and they are angry. Look, folks, if you can tick off the conservatives AND the liberals, maybe you did it wrong. Just a thought.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Sunday Funnies

-Schlock Mercenary Schlock is a character reference. Hilarity ensues.
-TwoLumps I'm afraid kitties DO go to the airport. I know of one that will be going through security sometime in March, and if the TSA gropes her I hope their insurance covers face transplants.
-Girl Genius Riding giant mechanical cats, and other perks of being a minion.
-Digger Even dead gods have predators.
-No Need For Bushido New comic Monday!
-Delta Bravo Sierra Max char field is 256, have fewer ancestors plz.
- Amya Accel finally goes to the apothecary.

Not Updated, fie!

-xkcd The artist is having what sounds like a run-in with entropy, in the family. Comic is on hold for a while. We extend positive Snarkatronic emissions to xkcd and all connected.
-Gone with the Blastwave No comic for November, sigh.
-Dresden Codak
-Lackadaisy
-My Ninja Family
-Argghhh-onauts is busy writing to the Complaints Department of Super Sekrit Spy Cams Inc.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Today in Mad Science

Cool stuff found in the S-bend of the Intertubes!

Mad science as in the science of madness. Possible link between schizophrenia and MS. I did not know there were physical signs of disease in the brains of schizophrenics. All due, it is suggested in the article, to some proto-lemur getting sick sixty million years ago -- and we've carried the retrovirus DNA ever since. Even better, this new approach may allow a vaccine-type treatment for newborns, and better treatment for existing patients. And who knows what other conditions might also be related?

Get blown up a tad and have some gaps? Grow completely new muscle. The trouble is muscle, to work, needs "grain" or direction. These treated fibers guide new cell growth plus they appear to encourage good blood vessel development.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Sunday Funnies

-Schlock Mercenary Leave? But we just got here!
-TwoLumps Snooch is behind on his napping.
-Girl Genius The Map of the Castle.
-Digger The skins have a bug on a stick. Yes.
-No Need For Bushido Ken considerately removes the need for understanding hand signals.
-Delta Bravo Sierra Need a tango whacked? There's an app for that.
- Amya And in the latest news, a Very Important Person has been kidnapped.

Not Updated, fie!

-xkcd The artist is having what sounds like a run-in with entropy, in the family. Comic is on hold for a while. We extend positive Snarkatronic emissions to xkcd and all connected.
-Gone with the Blastwave No comic for November, sigh.
-Dresden Codak
-Lackadaisy
-My Ninja Family
-Argghhh-onauts is a veteran of the Great Cheesy-Bean Burrito Conflagration and Massacree. Just ask him. From upwind.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Life sucks, deal with it

I recently watched a YouTube clip, now lost in the chaos of the Intertubes, wherein the media spokesweasel tried to make a savagely ironic point to a conservative guest by asking “You say government needs to be cut, but those Tea Party folks say don’t cut my Social Security. What are you going to do?” Or translated, you nasty people may have sorta won the election, maybe, but you are still WRONG and MEAN and we are going to prove what hypocrites you are.

Since the interviewee was Chris Christie, however, the spokesweasel got shoved into a rhetorical blender and intellectually pureed. Then he was smacked around a bit. It was fun.

The Official Snarkatron Position on the Unfairness of It All: We are out of money.

It’s like this. We are all in a plane. The engines have caught fire and are barely working. The plane is losing altitude. We can a) attempt to make a controlled crash into terrain. Some people will probably die. Some people will be injured. Or, b) we can demand a better in-flight movie with the sound cranked so we can’t hear the screaming from the cockpit, demand to get to the airport on time to make our connecting flights, and crash in an uncontrolled fashion when the engines seize and/or run out of fuel. Everyone dies. Nobody makes their connecting flight, the luggage is lost beyond redemption, and by the way there are NO PEANUTS IN HELL. Ahem.

The entitlements known as Social Security and Medicare are running out of money.

Social Security has no assets. It has lots of IOUs from the government, and the only way they can be redeemed is by the government getting more money from someone.

We have no more money.

Social Security is not an enforceable contract. The government can and will change the terms (see COLA adjustments, retirement age adjustments.) You cannot sue to get your SS payments back. They are a tax, they do not belong to you. There is no trust fund.

Wir haben kein Geld mehr.

Old people are depending on Social Security. I acknowledge this.

No mas dinero.

Yelling and complaining about how the Government Lied will not change the facts on the ground, i.e. WE HAVE NO MONEY. It does not matter what you were promised.

The only way the Government can get more money is either print it (which they are doing) which devalues it, or by taking it from people who have it. There is no other way. If you take it from people who have it, they will hide what they have and refuse to earn any more than they absolutely need to, because they know it will be taken away from them. And then we are right back where we started. To wit,

WE HAVE NO MONEY

Sunday, November 07, 2010

Sunday Funnies

-Schlock Mercenary When you need to teraport, you need to teraport.
-TwoLumps A very special discrimination case
-xkcd
-Girl Genius Agatha has a very cool library. I want one too.
-Digger Digger tells a god to push off.
-No Need For Bushido New page Monday!
-Delta Bravo Sierra No stewardesses?
- Amya Accel has the wrong map.

Not Updated, fie!

-Gone with the Blastwave No comic for November, sigh.
-Dresden Codak
-Lackadaisy
-My Ninja Family
-Argghhh-onauts is opening smuggling franchises. Dubious weaponry a specialty.

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

It's Weasel Stomping Day!

Thanks to Washington's all-mail voting system, my digital salute to the incumbents was sent in some time ago. Get out and vote! Stomp the weasels!

(warning, video contains gratuitous cartoon violence and Viking hats)