Ahab Has A Blog.

There's a bankrupcty reform bill currentlly winding its way through Congress. The bill makes it harder for consumers to declare bankruptcy, even though the the two main reasons for bankruptcy in the US today are medical bills (even for those with insurance) and shady lending practices by credit card companies.

The funny thing is, the avowedly religious President and many who style themselves as both Christians and conservatives are driving this bill onward. The reason it's funny is that they deflect criticism of the bill by saying, well, if people buy too much crap on high interest cards, it's their own fault. The reason that's funny is that, well, the Bible is pretty clear that usury - the charging of excessive interest - is a no-no. Back in the day, see, that was one of the main forms of debt servitude. Not much changes. Except that many so-called Christians seem to think it's a great idea.

It's funny, for a minute I was going to ask how the administration gets away with pretending to be observant Christians when their actions say otherwise at every turn. Oh, that's right, it's because they are fucking liars.

Linked is just one story about local legislators protecting corporate interests, killing capitalism, and royally fucking the public. There are many more stories like this, these days. They reveal a concerted policy on the part of communications companies to prevent competition: apparently, they can't even compete even with volunteer efforts.

Apparently, communications companies have found local legislators easier targets when trying to make it illegal to give away Internet access for free. Let us be clear about this type of policy: it is not captalist, it is not free market, and it is not good for the public. We are certain that if you probed deeply enough, you could find grounds to jail these servile toadies for bribery and send them to pound-you-in-the-ass prison.

By the logic these companies employ, there should be legislation against public water fountains. If, say SBC communications has such a problem with legitimate capitalism, they should establish operations in Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, or any number of other countries where government power and private interests conspire against We The People. But as far as we are concerned, these companies can go fuck themselves.

funny, in an era when the FDA is green-lighting dangerous drugs like Vioxx, the feds still have time to go after native american tea. and while the FDA is banning herbal extracts of "ma huang" which contains the powerful stimulant ephedrine (and possibly banning pseudoephedrine-containg cold remedies like Sudafed for their usefulness in methamphetamine production), they aren't doing a fucking thing about ephedra tea, which in the US is called "mormon tea" because it's approved for use by Mormons, despite it's being an extremely powerful stimulant, even as they ban caffeine use, at least until they acquired major shares of pepsi and made some "exceptions", which means... this shit is completely fucked up.

honor among hypocrites? that's all i've got to explain this.

anyway, it's good to see that Al "torture defends freedom" Gonzales can overcome his diffcult background as an unprivileged minority and in one of his first acts as USAG, shit all over a tiny and even less priveleged minority group. what a fucking hero.

and hey, while we're on the "faith-based" theme, what was the epithet most often hurled by Jesus in the gospels? sinner? BZZZZZZT. "hypocrite". indeed.

some helpfule rules of the road for residents of a certain yankee state:

• Turn signals are for turning and changing lanes. They are not for merging, because we know where you are going. And if you aren't going FORWARD AND MERGING, I'm going to have to start keeping a shotgun under my seat. They are not for telling the driver behind you that the road turns left. If you aren't crossing a painted line on the road - and yes, we have them here - or the imaginary extension of painted lines through an intersection, then do not use your fucking turn signal.
• When getting onto the highway, accelerate. While this seems obvious, I see, day after day, people slow down to 20 or even 15 miles an hour when approaching the end of an onramp as they look fearfully over their left shoulders. Hint: when the logging truck going 75 hits you, do you want to be doing 15 miles an hour or 70? Another hint: 70, you idiots! Put your foot on the fucking gas pedal!
• If a sign says the lane is closed ahead, it is fucking open right now. Again, this seems obvious, but whenver a sign says "right lane closed ahead: merge", Mainers, particularly females, seem to regard this not as an advisory, but as a direct order. So they merge into the left lane miles before the actual lane ending. Apparently they think this is a "posta" behavior, and some get so outraged when I continue driving in the FUCKING OPEN RIGHT LANE that they straddle to block. These people are total assholes who don't understand that making a traffic jam stretch 2 miles instead of 1 isn't doing anyone any damn good.

Learn the rules of the road you idiots. Until you do, I am revoking your right to complain when a bunch of "Massholes" up for the weekend flout the rules of the water and drive about in their powerboats like drunken midgets in bumper cars. And I drove in Boston for the better part of a decade, so don't think you're going to outsmart me on the road.

Quoth Station Manager Ken of WFMU:

I answered your freaking question, left it up for a few hours and then took it down again. Sorry, but we have an FCC issue here that is potentially very dangerous for the station. Kenny has been suspended and will return to the air in his normal timeslot on February 9th. I cant discuss this here. Problem is, if I lock the topic, it remains at the top of the list which I dont like to do because although this is not a secret, it is also something that I just cannot discuss so I therefore prefer not to emphasize it. Sorry to be so weird about it but the FCC is making me feel like I'm operating a radio station in Nazi Germany.

That's as bad as thought it might be. So what is FCC?

• Fucking Commie Cunts?
• Fatcat Corporate Conspiracy?
• Fidel's Communications Company?
• Fascist Cunts in Charge?
• FBI Cointelpro Continued?
• Flogging Citizens' Communications?
• Freebasing Cops' Connection?

I'm gonna get a guard dog and a bazooka.

Now here is a rant. I don't know why, precisely, but rants from the Blue (Left and Right have been banished from our academy) are so much funnier than rants from the Red. It's not a matter of sympathy, it's a matter of wit. Rush spends so much energy on verbal mimicry precisely because the content of his mockery just isn't funny. Anyway, it's a good rant.

Worth reading, especially for those conservatives, especially of the chickenhawk variety, who think that all miltary people are conservatives. Leadership Matters.

Whatever their political leanings, real leaders have to deal with the truths on the ground. Here's a good quote: Leadership must demonstrate a hard-headed, stubborn and almost masochistic recognition of the truth, the harsher the better.