Jericho: Damned Dirty Apes!

This is how it begins! Then we get Charlton Heston running around in a loin cloth with a gun!!

Max: Bush Has Plans To Screw Us For Eternity

Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.

Shrub is a shaved head, a white cat and a volcano based lair away from being a fucking Bond villain.

Max: Headline or Horror Movie Premise?

Zombie caterpillars controlled by voodoo wasp

Max: As Gas Prices Rise...

...St. Louis's meager public transit infrastructure begins to crumble.

Mass transit soon will become more expensive -- or more elusive -- in the St. Louis region. Take your pick.

Metro, the regional transit agency, today adopted a $221.6 million operating budget that left no room for the status quo without a new source of money.

Faced with a projected $8.4 million shortfall in the agency's operating budget for the year that begins July 1, Metro leaders are preparing for fare increases and service cuts that could kick in by New Year's Day.

Max: Volcano Belches Hellfire From The Bowels Of Earth

Max: Fuckity Fuck Fuck Fuck

Laura and I are spending $50 a week on gas. Our mortgage just went up (due to insurance). Our water bill just skyrocketed. Food costs are fucking ridiculous.

I'm making more money than I ever have, but we are struggling just as much as when I made half of what I do now.

I guess I'll have to start hounding my boss to schedule me for some Saturdays.

Max: The Autism "Epidemic"

An explanation for the "increasing$quot; incidence of autism

Fashion is a strange thing, and many fields are susceptible to it—not least, medicine. There has, for example, been a vogue (among commentators, if not among doctors) to ascribe the rising number of cases of autism diagnosed over the past couple of decades to childhood vaccinations against measles, mumps and rubella. That this is fashion rather than reality is suggested by the fact that the explanation proffered in Britain has been that such vaccines provoke an immune response that damages the nervous system, whereas Americans have blamed residual mercury in the same vaccines.

We had once come to think of things like mumps, measles, whooping cough, etc as but extinct. But thanks to scientific and mathematical illiteracy, they will soon be on the prowl again. There is a scary degree of stupidity on the march in this country -- the sort of stupidity that thinks it is better to condemn thousands of women to cervical cancer than allow the use of a vaccine that would *gasp* make sex a little safer. Reason seem to still win most of these battles, but it can only win if we are willing to stand up for it -- even in the face of exasperating stupidity.

Max: Bush Sez The Constitution Doesn't Apply Inside The US

Administration Asserts No Fourth Amendment for Domestic Military Operations

Today's Washington Post reports on a newly released memo, 'Memorandum for William J. Haynes II, General Counsel of the Department of Defense Re: Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside the United States' (March 14, 2003) , which which was declassified and released publicly yesterday. Balkinization has commentary on the very troubling opinion.

While the newly released memo focuses on 'asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators,' it contains a footnote referencing another Administration memo that caught our eye:

... our Office recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations. See Memorandum for Alberto R. Gonzales, Counsel to the President, and William J. Haynes, II, General Counsel, Department of Defense, from John C. Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Robert J. Delahunty, Special Counsel, Re: Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States at 25 (Oct 23, 2001). (emphasis added)

Jericho: Big Belly = Kookoo Bananas!

So, as it turns out, there is now a connection between having a big belly and developing dementia later in life.

That's just what I needed. I needed more pressure to lose weight. As if it wasn't hard enough already. If I don't lose weight - I'll go nuts. Lovely.

Are only skinny people supposed to succeed? WTF? Are the rest of we fatties just doomed? God is an asshole!

This is depressing. Ima go have a donut.

Max: Cyborg Moths of Doom

Cyborg insects 'born' in DARPA project

Insects with modified body structures and embedded micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) have survived to adulthood in a US Defense Advanced Reseach Projects Agency (DARPA) programme.

DARPA wants to develop inexpensive micro air vehicles to find weapons and explosives inside buildings or caves. Mechanical and fluidic microsystems would allow remote control, could extend insect life, and provide for gas, audio and even imaging sensors.

In the latest work a Manduca moth had its thorax truncated to reduce its mass and had a MEMS component added where abdominal segments would have been, during the larval stage.

Isn't this how Mothra got its start?

Max: Nanotech Declared Witchcraft

Via Science Daily

Is nanotechnology morally acceptable? For a significant percentage of Americans, the answer is no, according to a recent survey of Americans' attitudes about the science of the very small.

I was hoping this stupidity came from a failure to grasp what nanotech really is. But;

The moral qualms people of faith express about nanotechnology is not a question of ignorance of the technology, says Scheufele, explaining that survey respondents are well-informed about nanotechnology and its potential benefits.

Welcome back to the dark ages...

Max: Anonymous

Modern life is science fiction.

Max: Zombie Rat Cyborgs Will Kill Us All

They said I was mad at the university

When the neonatal rat heart tissue contracted, the robot’s six horizontally aligned legs (see image below) pulled together. When the tissue relaxed, the legs drew apart. The pulses propelled the robot forward. No speed demon, the rat heart muscle robot streaked through a solution at 100 micrometers per second (about 0.0002 mile per hour).

Max: The Iowa Caucus

Obama v Huckabee scares the shit out of me.

A sitting Senator has not been elected President since Kennedy. Meanwhile, three of our last four Presidents were sitting or former Governors. In fact, I'm pretty sure one of them was Governor of Arkansas.

Huckabee is a dominionist, end times nut job who is eager to outstrip Shrub in his efforts to turn the US into a third world theocracy.

Mayhap it is time to start in earnest looking for jobs in Canada.

Max: The Tao of Max

Last night marked the end of the tech support project that has been my paycheck since last July. But my employer has not completely abandoned me. Today marked my new beginning as a collection agent.

Except my now ex-employer has abandoned me. I don't have even a crappy job.

I think I am starting to enjoy poverty.

Except for the part about not having any money.

Edit:

It would seem I was not clear.

I lost yet another job and am unemployed.

Jericho: Kill me now!

Overheard on the radio:

The worst job you will ever have is the next one you get.

Oy!

Max: The Monkeys Are Rebelling

The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi has died a day after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys.

Jericho: God King George

... get used to calling him that.

Have a look at this Wired article.

I'm not a big fan of George's sense of humor. The man has no poker face. I think he just dropped his trousers and we were all there to see it.

The sad thing is that I will probably one of the few people protesting when he takes over and shreds the Constitution. No one believes it can happen here.

Max: Project Censored

A list of 25 news reports that were not so much censored as ignored, not given the attention they should have been given, in favor of stories about Britany Spears.

Max: Broken Government

When the Republicunts are so far gone that they are getting ripped on by a former Nixon official, shit's done hit the fan. Now if only we can get someone from the Johnson or Carter administration to write a book ripping the Democrats for being spineless shits who act like the Reps still run Congress.

Max: Attack of the Spores of Doom

My nose is closed tighter than a true-believer's mind. Antihistamines seem to have succeed only in wrapping my brain in a gauzy curtain of pure duh. Every hurricane-like sneeze wrenches my neck and back into new levels of pain. I may just have my head amputated.

Jericho: The War on Drugs has FAILED!

The US Government has to stop declaring war on nouns! The War on Poverty, LBJ's pet program, obviously failed. Bush's War on Terror is going no where. Yet, we are still fighting Nixon's War on Drugs! Prohibition didn't work - why should this?

Not only do we keep throwing money at this waste of time, it's coming back to haunt us. Opium and Heroin sales from poppies grown in Afghanistan is supporting the Taliban and probably al Qaeda.

This is what we needed. Money from American addicts is flowing to fighters in other countries who are killing American soldiers. Perfect! Two of our noun wars are clashing and Americans all over are dying from it.

Let me toss out an idea here. This isn't my idea alone, I've seen others with the same idea. Great minds think alike - apparently they just don't think like this in D.C.! This idea is usable in the poppy fields of Afghanistan, the cocaine farms of Columbia and even the marijuana fields of the US of A!

The idea is this: the farmers are the ones producing the product. They produce it because the local drug lords pay top money for it. Much more than what they would pay for equal amounts of food stuffs. Often, the product being grown grows far better than a food stuff as well; mary jane and poppies are practically weeds - they'll grow anywhere!

So, instead of sending in troops with guns and flame throwers, or training local militias (who are often bought by local drug lords) - send in one guy. This one guy will ride around the country side. If you give him a ton of opium, he'll give you a ton of food. If you give him a ton of cocaine, he'll give you a brand new John Deere tractor, or a new diesel powered truck. Next year, same deal, but, instead of poppies for tractors, the guy from America will give you food, seeds and fertilizer to grow a food crop or cotton or some other beneficial crop. The following year, the guy will come by and trade you food for more seeds and fertilizer and maybe another tractor or truck or other beneficial item, etc., etc., etc.

This kind of reverse share cropping will keep the drugs out of the hands of the drug lords and terrorists. The drugs can be burned or turned into useful pharmaceuticals. The drugs will never reach American shores. The drugs that do get to the states will be so high priced that most addicts will have to give up.

This process has got to be cheaper than sending troops and helicopters. It's got to be better than killing innocent people and wrecking their lives. Talk about winning hearts and minds! If I had my choice of trading drugs for a pittance to the local drug lord or trading for farm equipment and Cheerios with an American - I think I would go with the later every time. At least the guy with the Cheerios won't smack me in the head with the butt of his AK-47!

Jericho: Wheat Be Gone

Because being poor just isn't bad enough, now the excesses of the richer countries on the planet are going to make it just that much tougher to live in a poorer country. Global Warming is striking again.

What am I talking about? Read this.

How much longer do we have to wait for viable biofuels?

Okay, I know the answer to that question. No answers are going to come over night. It's just infuriating. I can't believe how much we are fucking up this planet - all due to our own carelessness and lack of fore thought.

Max: Oven

The AC in my office has been out since Friday and won't be back up until Wednesday.

It is at least 100 degrees in here.

I have 150 pounds of extra insulation.

I may not live to see 36.

Oy.

Jericho: Build Bridges not Bombs!

People are going to think I'm picking on STL, well, I'm not. I saw the article first on CNN and then went to KMOV for their coverage.

If it was only two bridges in the entire country, that would be one thing. But it's not. There are many, many bridges and other bits of infrastructure falling apart around us.

Yet, where does the Bush administration waste my tax dollars? On a continuing unpopular war in a far away country. We will not achieve victory in Iraq. We have already done what we can do there.

But, spend that money domestically, and we might be able to win a few battles against the ravages of time and neglect.

And people wonder why I hate driving? If you aren't run over by an SUV in the wrong hands, the bridge you are on falls out from under you!

Max: Broke and Broken

As if my life isn't difficult enough.

Laura and I had some free movie passes and were going to make a double feature out of Knocked Up and Pirates of the Caribbean. On the way there, we stopped at the library, primarily so I could renew my card so I could use the online reservation system again but also to grab a couple of books.

We had just pulled out of the parking lot and were heading north on Lindbergh when I noticed a black car coming out of another lot. Somewhere in the back of my brain, a little voice calmly observed that if he didn't turn, he was going to hit us. Then another, louder voice said, "MOTHERFUCKERHEISGOINGTOFUCKING..." That is as far as the voice got before he slammed into the side of Laura's car and we were eating air bag.

Laura's car is wrecked. We are both bruised and slightly burnt from the air bags exploding. On top of everything else.

I could go on, but my hand is killing me and I don't feel like typing any more.

Jericho: Bad Wage Slave! No Sabbatical!

As some of our readers are aware, I hate my current job.

At heart, I'm a lazy bum. I find "going to work" distasteful at best. Having said that, I seem to find more and more stressful jobs and I seem to hold on to them forever. The last job I had, the stress got so bad I was getting headaches that required prescription meds, an MRI and other treatments. This job has allowed me to add 150 or so pounds and given me atrial fibrillation and congestive heart failure. Yet, I've stuck with it about two years longer than I should have.

So, for about a week I have been mulling over an idea. My health issues are out of control, but most of them could be cured with simple diet and exercise. Yet, my job tires me out so bad that I have no energy to exercise and I have self-medicated with food, my only vice, to fight the effects of the stress. If I didn't have the job, I wouldn't have the stress. If I didn't have to go to work, I would have time to exercise and I would have less access to junk food if I was home with a kitchen full of good nutrition choices.

Finding a new job would get rid of the current suckiness of my job, but I would probably be trading high stress for just as high if not higher stress somewhere else. I seem to attract crap jobs.

Thus, leaving the work-a-day world, even for a short time, would allow me to work on my health. Taking a sabbatical to fix my issues might help me a great deal.

There's no way I can afford unemployment. Our money situation is 100 times better than it was two years ago and about 20 better than this time last year - but we still have bills and a quality of life to support. I gotta have my cable Internet and DVR!

I have a 401k that is doing pretty well, despite the Stock Market's volatility. (If you are working and don't have a 401k, you are mad! Never too early to plan for retirement.) If I cashed it out, even after paying taxes and penalties, I'd have the equivalent of what I bring home for six months. That's a heck of a sabbatical! Cashing out one's 401k is not a smart thing, but at the rate I'm going, seeing 65 is getting less likely all the time. Even if I did get there, my medical bills would eat through my savings in a minute.

About three problems appeared when I got to this point. First, I'm a lazy bum. If I did this and failed to at least put my health on the right track, it would have been a huge waste of time and money - not to mention jeopardize getting a job when I'm done. Second, taxes. Retirement accounts like the 401k are loaded with tax pitfalls - especially when you use it in a way that wasn't intended. Last, I gotta have medical insurance. COBRA is expensive, but I should be able to get on my wife's plan, right?

I went to Steph with this plan on Wednesday. She saw its wisdom and its pitfalls. The first point above seemed to bug her the most. She began listing out if-then gates; "If you are going to do this then you will be at the gym everyday." and "If you continued to screw around for 30 days, then your fat ass would be looking for a job" - she was nicer about it than that - but I had to agree. I know I'm a bum, having some metrics as a guide would be a great idea. It was actually something of a relief to be able to find an easy was to regulate this. I'm not looking for a vacation here, I'm looking to fix the bad crap that has built up the last 20 years. Steph said she would look into the insurance aspect of it and I immediately sent email to Judi, Max's Mom and Tax Goddess, with tax questions. This might just be doable!

(Judi, if you are reading this, don't worry about answering my email. It just doesn't matter at this point. How's that for foreshadowing?)

Yesterday, my job proved how fucking back-ass-wards it is in so many ways. Too many ways to list here. But, even in the face of adversity, I kept a smile on my face. I had a way out. This was only temporary. I felt like a depressive who has finally set the date for his suicide - I had a secret, it was going to hurt a bunch of people (my employers in this case) and I was ready to go! Excellent.

After work, Steph and I are driving home. Steph tells me she looked into it. Voluntarily leaving a job doesn't constitute a "change of status" in the eyes of her employer's insurance company. So, the only way I could get onto her insurance would be during open enrollment - in January. I can't last at this job that long. I blew up at Steph - not her fault, I know, but I was so angry. I can't catch a fucking break. I come up with a way that could quite literally save my life, a way to make my life better and of course some insurance company is standing in my way.

I AM FUCKING TRAPPED! I HAVE NO WAY OUT OF THIS SITUATION! I CAN'T STAND THIS SHIT ANY MORE!

I regained some composure and apologized to Steph - but it's not enough. She doesn't deserve me yelling at her. I'm really sorry, hun. I just don't know what to do.

So, in a week or two - maybe sooner, I'm going to start looking for a new job. Maybe something for a non-profit - at least then my work will not be making some rich asshole richer. If I wait around until July when they announce my insult, I mean, "raise" - I'll likely end up in the klink on assault charges.

The bad news is that the stress in my life will likely continue to mount as my body continues to fail more and more egregiously. The good news is that my 401k will pay for one hell of a wake - everyone is invited!

Max: Parasite Hijacks Brain

LiveScience.com - Bizarre Human Brain Parasite Precisely Alters Fear

Rats usually have an innate fear of cat urine. The fear extends to rodents that have never seen a feline and those generations removed from ever meeting a cat. After they get infected with the brain parasite Toxoplasma gondii, however, rats become attracted to cat pee, increasing the chance they'll become cat food.

Max: The Courts Will Save Us.

Or not

More here. Site NSFW.

A California woman whose doctor says marijuana is the only medicine keeping her alive is not immune from federal prosecution on drug charges, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The case was brought by Angel Raich, an Oakland mother of two who suffers from scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea and other ailments. On her doctor's advice, she eats or smokes marijuana every couple of hours to ease her pain and bolster a nonexistent appetite as conventional drugs did not work.

The Supreme Court ruled against Raich two years ago, saying that medical marijuana users and their suppliers could be prosecuted for breaching federal drug laws even if they lived in a state such as California where medical pot is legal.

Because of that ruling, the issue before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was narrowed to the so-called right to life theory: that marijuana should be allowed if it is the only viable option to keep a patient alive.

Raich, 41, began sobbing when she was told of the decision and said she would continue using the drug.

'I'm sure not going to let them kill me,' she said. 'Oh my God.'

Jericho: Electric Slide This!

This is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. And, considering who I am and the subjects we have covered on this site - that's saying something.

First, why would you claim responsibility for thirty years of White People Conforming? This dance makes the Macarena look like a ... okay, I don't know where to go with that - both of these dances are amazing examples of the depths of human poopy-headedness.

Then to try to copy-right something this late in the game? I think this guy should have woken up a little sooner. If I was a judge, I'd say he has released this to the public domain and that he needs to work on a new dance instead of wasting the court's time.

Max: How Shrub Is Insuring We Are Well And Truly Fucked

We are funding al Queda.

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

One contradictory aspect of the new strategy is that, in Iraq, most of the insurgent violence directed at the American military has come from Sunni forces, and not from Shiites. But, from the Administration’s perspective, the most profound—and unintended—strategic consequence of the Iraq war is the empowerment of Iran. Its President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made defiant pronouncements about the destruction of Israel and his country’s right to pursue its nuclear program, and last week its supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on state television that “realities in the region show that the arrogant front, headed by the U.S. and its allies, will be the principal loser in the region.”

Instead of going after bin Laden and al Queda, Shrub tricked the less distrustful of us into thinking that Saddam had a part in 9/11. So we let bin Laden go so we could get into a quagmire in Iraq. Now, thanks to the mess we made, we are now funding the people who thought 9/11 was a pretty neato thing.

Why this fucker has not been frog-marched out of the White House and into his own cell at Gitmo, I do not know.

Jericho: Time Friends

This was made here.

Max: Yay! War!

Target Iran: US able to strike in the spring | Iran | Guardian Unlimited

US preparations for an air strike against Iran are at an advanced stage, in spite of repeated public denials by the Bush administration, according to informed sources in Washington.

The present military build-up in the Gulf would allow the US to mount an attack by the spring. But the sources said that if there was an attack, it was more likely next year, just before Mr Bush leaves office.

Neo-conservatives, particularly at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, are urging Mr Bush to open a new front against Iran. So too is the vice-president, Dick Cheney. The state department and the Pentagon are opposed, as are Democratic congressmen and the overwhelming majority of Republicans. The sources said Mr Bush had not yet made a decision. The Bush administration insists the military build-up is not offensive but aimed at containing Iran and forcing it to make diplomatic concessions. The aim is to persuade Tehran to curb its suspect nuclear weapons programme and abandon ambitions for regional expansion.

Max: 'Doomsday' vault design unveiled

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | 'Doomsday' vault design unveiled

The final design for a 'doomsday' vault that will house seeds from all known varieties of food crops has been unveiled by the Norwegian government.

The Svalbard International Seed Vault will be built into a mountainside on a remote island near the North Pole.

Max: These Presidents Today...

Israeli President charged with raping ministry worker

President Moshe Katsav of Israel is to be charged with rape and abuse of power, the Justice Ministry announced yesterday.

Lawyers for Mr Katsav, whose seven-year term of office ends in August, said that he intended to fight the charges and would respond today. “The President believes that everyone will see that he is the victim of false charges,” David Libai, his lawyer, said. Some of the complainants were motivated by revenge after being fired from their jobs, he added.