God Bless Amercia

Got the tip from Pryme (who always seems to do me right) and he got it from Gizmodo.

The upshot is that the Romney campaign made a minor spelling error and apparently people have taken the opportunity to razz the campaign about it. Apparently to get in with the hipsters and other cool kids with their iPhones, iPads, Droids and other high-tech handheld devices, the created an app that users could download full of pithy Mittsperational slogans. This would be no big thing if the Obama campaign had made a similar error, for the Republicans at any event for who among us hasn't fallen prey to a simple spelling error from time to time.

If you have not yet guess the word that was misspelled was America we'll let the guys from Gizmodo take it up:

Mitt Romney's new iPhone app, With Mitt, "lets you customize photos with a variety of Mitt-inspired artistic frames." Slogans like "Believe in America," "Obama Isn't Working," and "I'm a Mom for Mitt" are just a few of the Mitt-tastic phrases that can be slapped on your iPhone photos, proudly pronouncing your support of the GOP candidate.

If only he was equally as concerned with supporting our great nation. Much to the delighted displeasure of Twitter, one particular frame option betrays Romney's secret agenda working toward bettering a place known as Amercia.

Yes, that's A-M-E-R-C-I-A.

A-M-E-R-I-C-I-A.  Some might view that as quite the gaffe, and I shudder when I think about how many days Rush would ride that pony if the Obama Campaign had made a similar mistake. How the Sunday Gabfests would spend at least half of their available time parsing the meaning of the gaffe. Because in IOKIYAR world, that would be how they roll.

After looking at the word Amercia, i immediately became a proud one and thoughts floated back to a time before I was born, 1953, to be exact. I started to see the misspelling not as a gaffe, but almost as part of a greater, though subliminal, truth. Since that first successful overthrow of a democratically elected government by the CIA, it might be argued that that was the watershed event, the one that founded the United States of AMERCIA.

That they have managed to fuck up every thing they have had their hands on (a liberal interpretation of the mission outcomes-Blowback anyone?), or were doing exactly what the Powers that Be wanted them to with smashing success (a Conservative viewpoint, destabilize geographical regions rich in natural resources allow your corporations to loot them blind, and all the while in your best Alfred E Newman impression "What, Me? I'm no Colonialist")

In any event I think I can safely say that next year, the truth be told, we will be celebrating the 60th Anniversary (at least) of the Birth of a Nation called AMERCIA.

Getting Under their Skin

X-posted @ Codpiece Hagiography

You know that you must be doing something right, when you pick up a wingnut stalker and concern troll who will follow you from site to site, attempt different tactics to get the attention they so dearly crave.

I have been doing what I usually do once I have exhauted any amusement that might derive from direct contact, which is ignoring the party in question, but I feel like it deserves a shout out, because at this point it might be the person most responsible for the recent uptick in traffic at my blogs.

So I would like to take this time to thank my stalker for spending such energy, time and "concern" mixed in with the occasional insult and gross misunderstanding, and as always, wrapped in a ball of projection.

FWIW participating in a google bomb is not doing opposition research on George Tierney of Greenville South Carolina nor is collecting publicly broadcast information from ones twitterfeed. If you want to be a massive asshat on the internet, then you should be ready to reep what you sow.

Mom, thank you.

Mother, I love you dearly.

You are possibly the smartest person I have ever known and I can't tell you how much that fact has made a difference in my life.You are the source of my intelligence, tenacity and acumen.

Thank you.

Portraits of an Artist as a Young Man

Coss posting here as I figure it likely that this might be my hangout for awhile

Having lost a bunch of pictures, the result of the raveges of circumstance, I offer these three from my perfomance at a Rock show in 1990 ( a benefit btw).

What follows is a litany or compendium of accomplishments, a start of a process to document all of the crazy shit I have done, most of it well. How do you make a resume for this guy (thumbs pointing in the obvious direction)


I was a publisher of a zine called Read This! (I think we only got one issue out, but I thought it was a good one).

I built my own revolutionary bicycle frames from a box full of tubes, some lugs, some brass, flux, and an oxy acetylene torch. Using an angle iron jig, c-clamps and some proper tubing blocks (picture an aluminum cube bored to an inch or an inch and an eight straight down the middle and sawed in half).

I was a bass player in six bands.

I tought myself more or less all of the previous shit and that which will follow.

I have cut threads on a metal lathe and turned a brass rod which previously measured .375 into a cube measuring .305 with an accuracy of + or - 5 thousands of an inch. demonstrating my facility with a four jaw chuck, dial indicator, surface plate, etc.

I have been paid for an article published in a medical journal.

I have built my own computers.

I have competed in the national championships on a bicycle, later being invited to try out for the National team as a first year Junior. I was 16 at the time competing with 17 and 18 year olds for a spot. In the only race we in which we competed en masse, I finished 13th out of 90, in my first cyclocross event on a course with two inches of snow, riding a bike with slick tires. I think I crashed once during the race.

I was President of my senior class.

I have had an actual Mechanical engineer tell me in earnest that I was a better mechanical engineer than he was. Eight yars later when i ran into him again he reiterated his previous stance (while appending that with; in his opinion I was worth at the very least 80K a year). Thank you Tom for giving me the highest compiment twice. and the first time I thought you might have been shitting me.

I have had moderating privileges at Slashdot and the Daily Kos, and have been called one of the nicest people on the internet.

I have fixed* a problem with a clutch on a 53 Plymouth Cranbrook with the assistance of the library, microfilm, and a wrench which happened not only to be the correct size, but was located under the passenger seat.

I coughed up the idea of a multiverse while walking home from highschool, around the time that string theory was being developed.

I made the little league all star team as a catcher based soley on my defensive skills (nothing got past me though I could not hit worth a damn, but if i got on base, I was dangerous).

I ran three quarters of a mile on a cross country course in 3:15 during a ladder drill.

I ran the mile on every indoor track in town in under five minutes a year out of highschool, when I wasn't actually training.

I have had pictures appear at BFA shows, the result of borrowed camera's and drunken evenings.

I have written papers that got other people A's, in college.

I played my first gig less than two months after picking up the bass guitar, in a trio, with a guitarist that had been nominated for a grammy two years prior (Jeff beck won that year).

I have been a ham radio operater, have built my own radios, and made contact with other hams in over 130 countries.

I have built a fire from a single spark (pro tip-Dryer lint for tinder).

I have worked in two bakeries and more kitchens than I care to count, but at one point was asked by an eastern European lady if I was a chef, because the first time I ever thought about making ratatoui, I apparently knocked it out of the park. My braided Challah was also a big hit with the local jewish population. And while I have made amazing croissants, I am no chef.

I know my way around a darkroom, have processed thousands of photos, and rolled my own film.

In any event once I learned of the concept of the Renaissance man, which was right around the time that I read Fahrenhiet 451 I figured that I had to become one, and try to learn everything that I could wrap my mind around.

I tend to do a horrible job of selling myself, though once people get to know me they tend to find that i am competant, knowledgeable about a wide variety of things respect life (and the choices made in its service). If anybocy who has made it this far would like to help me turn the above into a resume I would greatly appreciat it.

Attempts to Uncover The Grand Unified Wingnut Fielld Theory

A little background. I was a Junior grade Astonomer growing up and learned my Messier numbers before I got to middle school and at the time harbored ambitions to study Cosmology or Astrophysics at MIT. Math got the better of me so for the short period of time that I was in college, I studied history, political science and psychology.

I have always retained an interest in science, particularly Astronomy and have never forgotton my first love Cosmology. Recently I came across a YouTube channel that featured Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" and have since re-watched them all.
I have also recently watched Burkes "Connections" and prior to that spent a few hours watching programs about string theory.

The programs about string theory reminded me of a walk across the park on the way home from High School, I was a Freshman or Softmore at the time, and I was riffing on the concept of Time travel and managed to independantly cough up the concept of the multi-verse. In any event, I take science seriously and while I don't have the chops for the high end math, I generally have a handle on the theory, which brings us to this point in space and time.

The day before yesterday while reading a post at Sadly, No! eviscerating (or would that be excoriating? both seem appropriate) a column (which come to think about it is an insult to the word column) by one Jim Hoft, the self proclaimed "Gateway Pundit" and possibly the stupidiest man alive who has not managed to "Peter principal" his way into the territory occupied by Doug Feith.

Anyhoo I coughed up a hairball of an idea which began thusly:

Provider_UNE_OwnerOfThreads™ said, May 5, 2012 at 10:14

But didn’t you know that Ready was secretly a far-left dirty hippie Occupy protestor? I know because the Dumbest Man In Saint Louis said so.

Another from BJ. While dumbest man in St louis is accurate, one could argue that he is the most idiotic person who retains the capacity to string words together. I am pretty sure that my roomates cat Pippi (with her longstockings natch) has more going on upstairs than Hoft. The itch to leave the vessel for some quickly erased Jim like bitchslapping is strong. Futility be damned. *splash*

(I'll have to deal with bloggers latest implimentation of the blockquote and HTML at a later time) And so it begins.The italicised part above is a comment from Balloon Juice a pretty much daily read of mine and another blog that has a few bright people that hang out in the comments. The *splash* bit is to indicate that I have decided to get off the "boat" and either bring back snips from the "column" in question to mock, leave a comment, or bring something back from the commentariat (of the 17 people that might read this 15 are likely to know this shit already so the explanation is for the 2 who probably did not make it this far). So I went to Hoft's site and left the following comment, which I don't think ever made it past the "Goalie", (this is gonna kind of be a lengthy post so I hope that the three readers who have made it this far bear with me).

You guys know that shithouse rats have been laughing at you with impunity? Sure the niggity Nig Soshulist takeover of the country is a problem of great import, but really do we have to give the game completely away in search of a “villian” to identify so that each one of us can share in a bit of martyrdom? We don’t need to look too far, as Obambi has his hobnailed cloven feet on our necks and Holder is planning to pen us up in Fema CC’s. I mean there is tin foil, and then there is a requirement to purchase futures in Reynolds. We can do better than this.

I have to admit that i find the "hobnailed cloven feet on our necks" an inspired turn of phrase, even possibly one of the best i have coined all year. So at some point shortly after, inspired by Sagan and my love for Astrophysics, I cough up the following:

Provider_UNE_OwnerOfThreads™ said, May 5, 2012 at 15:04 Some of those commenters can’t have two brain cells to rub together. Wish that it were so, but most of them have the requisite number yet choose to imitate the cognisense of a single celled organism…Wait, I might not be looking at this in the right way, and you might in fact be correct. If fear is the mind killer, and I think we have an abundance of evidence to support that hypothesis, then the minimal number of neurons required to keep the lizard brain alive + 2 might come close to equaling one Hoft. In fact I think that the Hoft should represent a measure of somekind, like the Kelvin. Though I have not figured out whether it should measure a quantity of cognitive dissonance or a “black hole” causing a negative IQ. Suggestions will be welcomed. We have our Friedman unit, courtesy of Atrios. I see no reason that we should not have at the very least a Hoft and or a Geller or even an Earnest T Bass, aka a Heh Indeedy, to explain in scientific terms certain elements of wingnuttery. I Think a Geller shouold be the unit for Projection, a Hoft for stupid, and an ETB for smug self satisfaction. Anyhoo this is a start, I am open to options. TIA.

Thus at roughly 3 in the afternoon (Paris Time, which is where the Sadly server is hosted) began an adventure in space and time, all starting with the concept that a Unit of Stupid should hithertoo be referred to a Hoft.

I usually don't cross post my stuff, but thought that this kernel of an idea could benefit from some of the smart people I run into on the intertrons, so I put up a copy at Roy's and a modified version at Balloon Juice, which is where the fun really began. Along the way I have had some really good suggestions from people who will be attributed, and picked up a stalker...Tomorrow, later today or next week I will take up the story from here. And to the one person that actually made it this far, I salute you. :)

Anyway Roy has a new post up and that commentariat is filled with genius and I don't want to miss the fun. There is also breakfast to consider. Anyone who might want a sneak preview into the next episode of this little drama, would be advised to visit the comment left on the previous post.

Hugs.