Balls of Fire

Merry Xmas, Free World, enjoy the last days of the year pondering the 23 year-old idiot who tried to explode a Delta plane going to Detroit.
It turns out that:
1. His own father alerted the US Embassy in Nigeria about his son's extremist activities.
2. He was on a counterterrorism list of names (just 500,000 people on that list) but not on the no-fly list.
3. He's got a 2 year visa to the US, which the article points out IS STILL VALID.
Have a pleasant stay in the US, you asshole.
4. He badly burned his balls in the attempt, which is the fittingest punishment imaginable. Couldn't think of a better one, being dragged off the plane with his pants down and his balls in a state of utter chicharrón. Good. Total humiliation. Serves him right, for doing dirty work for evil, cowardly, inhuman bastards.
5. Bravo to the passengers for averting tragedy, saving their own asses and not tearing that idiot to shreds. He ended up sitting in first class, wearing handcuffs.
We are, after all, civilized people.
6. Immediately a new set of inane rules is issued about passenger restrictions on planes.  How about restricting dangerous passengers BEFORE they get on the planes instead? Instead of confiscating my lip gloss, how about you freaking find the asshole with explosives tied to his ass? Amsterdam? WTF?
What good can it possibly do to prevent the passengers from standing up the last hour of the ride or curtail their amount of luggage, if they are fucking terrorists?

Sometimes, A Great Notion...

If anybody deserved a good zetz in the yapper, it was this man.
I, for one, feel deeply satisfied.
It is sad that the reports claim that Berlusconi's attacker has a history of mental problems. Not that violence is the answer to things, but in this case it seemed like an act of brilliant clarity. We don't know the reasons. They may be all the wrong reasons. But symbolically, the act is perfect.
What is funny about the video is the utter chaos after the zetz. The Italian secret service needs to get their act together. It is amazing to me that Berlusconi sits bleeding in the car, which can't move an inch because there are people not only surrounding it on all sides but even on top of it. Perhaps another fitting symbol of the disorganization and chaos that come from the very top.
What a country!

Dubai Bye

This article in The Independent appeared in April but it is very timely, now that this idiotic place has been reduced to a pile of useless rubble, with terrible ecological and human consequences. It is harrowing reading.
Dubai was a mirage in the desert, in the worst possible way.
Kind of like White Mischief all over again, a postcolonial colonialist nightmare of vulgarian Eurotrash losers abusing defenseless imported maids (or rather slaves), of people being sent to jail for what I am writing right now, of bogus luxury and wealth. Of cultures clashing in a godforsaken desert at 120 degrees in the shade. 
A petty, dictatorial, undemocratic hellhole.
Goodbye and good riddance. 

Mr. Good News

Seymour Hersh is the human equivalent of that movie 2012, only he's really, really scary.
Whenever I want to burst into cold sweats, I read him.

Department of Newfangled Etiquette

In Brazil, where they have always been progressive about the human body (behold their beachwear) , if not about anything else, there is an ad campaign encouraging people to pee in the shower in order to conserve water.
I have always found peeing in the shower a little gross, but leave it to the British to come up with very sensible rules in case you are feeling virtuous and want to do your part for the environment as you bathe.

Grading Obama

CNN has a fun and kinda stupid interactive report card for Obama's 200 days. It's interesting to look at the numbers. Everybody is unhappy with the performance so far. But the flaw of the grading system is that it doesn't say why. Both blue and red states give him bad marks on health care, but perhaps for totally opposite reasons. One can't tell from the poll. But a good thing is that except for 12 benighted states, the rest of the union gives the Republican party an F. This is encouraging.
CNN asks people to comment (read comments at your own peril.). Here is mine.

I give Obama an average of C-.
Obama has been disappointing for many of us liberals that voted for him for a number of reasons. The government bailout of the banks seems to have been conducted by insiders to benefit their banker pals, and even though it is possible that the measures may be helping stem our economic decline, unless more stringent regulation of banking practices in enacted, it's going to continue being business as usual and an ethical scandal.
I am extraordinarily disappointed with Obama and the Democrats' handling of health care reform. This country needs a single payer system, even if it means more taxes. Our health cannot be beholden to the greed of insurance companies. It's a pity that the people who are most affected by this unjust state of affairs are the ones who complain the loudest about getting health care for all. Obama is too busy trying to be liked by everybody to have the cojones to push real reform. In this case, he looks like politics as usual to me.
In terms of foreign affairs, anything is better than the preceding 8 years and we have regained some of our standing in the world. But he needs to stop the grandstanding and get down to brass tacks. Let's get out of Iraq as soon as possible. Let's push aggressively for a solution to the Palestinian issue. Let's understand exactly why we are in Afghanistan, what is it going to take, and if it's going to work. Let's look at our south of the border neighbor more actively, and push for improvements on the immigration problem and the drug war, which Mexico is waging on it's own to satisfy the insatiable demand for drugs of American citizens.
Obama promised to stop torture and close Guantanamo. It's not clear that this is happening.
The Republican leadership is an undignified freak show. They are imploding and they deserve it. They are completely out of touch. They are bizarre.
Congress in general is disgraceful. Our elected representatives work for the corporate lobbies and not for the citizens, regardless of party affiliation. There must be political reform.
The media is pathetic. There is no real coverage of what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. More time is devoted to Michael Jackson or to absurd and offensive fringe movements like "birthers", than to informing the American public of the real issues facing us. No news organization can be trusted, because none is delivering the news. The media is overrun by hysterical personalities that bring the lowest polarizing discourse to the table. Walter Cronkite and the likes of him are gone forever.
Obama needs to act on his promises and he needs to stop behaving as if he is still courting favor with red states and blue states. He is the president now. Time to put his foot down.

Department of Veteran Affairs

Why doesn't the US Army take care of its veterans?
This breaks my heart.