New Plan For Birthers

Hola muchachos! It’s your hombre-in-chief, Angry New Mexican here. I stumbled upon this article the other day, which explains why requests for Obama’s birth certificate is starting to have a non-trivial cost on the government of Hawaii. I shared it with my fellow angry men and they had some better ideas than just making it illegal — charging the birthers to for their requests. Angry Overeducated Catholic, explains it all using his usual wit.

Angry Overeducated Catholic

I agree with the proposal to turn birthers into a profit center; this seems to be a no-brainer. It’s not even an ideological or political issue—agencies regularly charge reasonable recovery fees for FOIA requests, and rightly so.

Processing documents is expensive…even if, as I’m sure is the case, the birth certificate is in a special file near the main desk since it’s requested constantly…

The thing that gets me is, why the heck do people keep requesting the documents? If you weren’t satisfied with Hawaii’s documentary standards the first 100 times, what do you expect to learn from the 101st? If Hawaii was snowed by a crafty foreign devil and his bewitched American sugar momma and gave a birth certificate to a shift foreign-born baby, what can you possibly learn from the birth certificate that will substantiate that? There’s clearly no smoking gun, or the first 1000 folks would have found it.

(It would be like constantly pestering the USAF to re-release the Project Blue Book documents. Not the real, super-secret ones proving alien life, you understand, but the same ones they’ve already released that you didn’t like. Again, and again, and again.)

Hey, birthers, move along! There really is nothing to see here! The princess is in a different castle!

But, as others have pointed out, they have every right to request it, and Hawaii has every right to charge them each a $25 processing fee. Heck, waive the fee for Hawaiian residents who have made less than 10 requests in a year. And waive the first 10 fees for any given document, if you are really generous. But by all means if thousands of dumbasses keep requesting the document they’ve already viewed on the Internet a million times, make those idiots pay!

 

The Scandal of Mark Sanford (and the Republican Descent into Madness)

Let’s be honest – regardless of what label one applies to him, Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) manages to make that entire group look bad. In case anyone wanted a list of his potential rules violations, the NYT has cordially provided it. My favorite highlights are included below
These include:

–Approval of the purchase of four first- and business-class commercial airline tickets for a June 2008 trip during which he met with his mistress in Argentina.

— Personal use of state-owned aircraft for trips such as the birthday party of a campaign contributor in Aiken, and flying from Myrtle Beach to Columbia for a ”personal event,” including a haircut.

— Reimbursing himself nearly $3,000 using campaign contributions, including about $900 for expenses to attend a Republican Governors Association meeting in Miami and a hunting trip in Dublin, Ireland, several days later.

As Angry Diesel Engineer astutely noted: “What an idiot! You can’t take the gubernatorial helicopter to Supercuts, because your new do will get all messed up when you get back in the thing!”

The bigger news is that my good friend Angry Overeducated Catholic has begun his descent to madness. Rather than condemning Sanford’s inability to follow the laws of the state he governs, AOC has been reduced to shouting “ZOMG Democrats are teh sux0r!” Witness gems like:

AOC on Sanford’s purchace offirst/business class tickets to meet his mistress:
Note that this would apparently have been legal if he’d flown coach. (Or used his own money, naturally.) Well, or, let’s be honest, if he’d been a Democrat, although possibly only if he’d also chartered a private jet instead.

AOC on Sanford’s personal use of aircraft:
Of course, again, all of this is legal and standard for Democratic Congressmen. Remember the giant Midwestern funeral which was also a giant Dem campaign rally! Sadly, poor Sanford had the bad sense to join the wrong party for those without ethics.

AOC on Sanford going to Miami, and Dublin on campaign funds:
That is odd, since you’d think that attending the Governors Association would generally be covered by good old taxpayer funds, as it is in states where Democrats are governors. But he might also have used monies or goods provided by a “good friend”, another SOP across the aisle. And a decent Democrat would certainly have successfully argued that a trip to Ireland was for “economic development” for his state (hey it works for Daley).

So, as I suspected, Sanford’s real crimes: being a Republican and an asshat. Fool that he was, Sanford forgot to switch parties before defrauding folks and sleeping around. Bad for him, but good for us, since he got exposed, deposed, and now indicted…none of which would have happened to Gov. Sanford (D).*

*Well, he might have resigned. I should be carefl here, as some Democrats actually do resign when their shady deals are exposed. I’m just presuming that since this guy was such an asshat, he wouldn’t have done the right thing even when outed. Instead he would just emulate Kennedy, Jefferson, Clinton, Frank, Reid, etc. and bulled on through.

Though Republicans are chomping at the bit to eviscerate each other for being insufficiently conservative, evidently flagrant ethics violations only get a “But Democrats are worse!” It’s just one of those reasons why the Republicans are headed into permanent minority status. Well, that, and assclowns like Tom Tancredo who make hating mis amigos an article of faith. You know, just like the Anglo Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself; unless, of course, he is a filthy Mexican.”

 

For All You Gangstas: A History of Holding Your Gun Sideways…

The folks over at Slate have written up a history of holding your gun sideways. As you might have expected, the Angry Men added some interesting commentary.

Angry Military Man
Unprofessional jackasses. This is one cultural trend that seriously pisses me off, I had a devil of a time trying to teach people how to properly hold a fucking pistol. They were always trying to be gangsta.

Angry Overeducated Catholic
But AMM why does this annoy you? I mean, I understand that this idiocy by your students annoyed you, sure. But how is this outcome anything but welcome:

As police chased Raymond “Ready” Martinez through Times Square on Thursday, the street hustler and aspiring rapper fired two shots, holding the gun sideways “like a character out of a rap video.” According to the New York Post, Martinez’s side grip caused the gun to jam, enabling police to shoot and kill the suspect.

By all means, let’s do whatever we can to encourage this sort of poor gun control by our criminal classes. If they’re going to abuse their rights, at least let them abuse them in a way that minimizes their danger to others and maximizes their danger to themselves.

I want a lack of professionalism in my would-be professional criminals!

Angry Immigrant
In that case…

I would like to propose a new gangsta style grip that involves holding the pistol upside down next to the head, barrel pointing forward. This would allow the spent casing to bounce “awesomely” off of the temple of the shooter, signifying toughness and promote true “def” style hearing loss.

Sighting the barrel directly next to the eyes should maximize the shooter’s conception of aiming accuracy, as it brings a point-and-shoot cyborg mentality for the shooter.

This new all-def method makes no claims of actual accuracy improvement. In case of a gun jamming, this may cause grievous explosive injury to the shooter, but that’s the risk of being tru-4-life.

Angry Libertarian
We can do better and have.

A suspect in the rape and armed robbery of several woman in River Forest accidentally shot himself in the head during a police chase Monday night in Oak Park. The suspect died several hours later.

Angry Overeducated Catholic
Well, yes, but of course in this case do we have any certain knowledge that he was in fact holding his gun when he shot himself in the head? There may have been a little officer-assisted suicide going on…this is River Forest we’re talking about.

On the other hand, it’s pretty clear that this guy was one of the dullest knives in the drawer. Of course there’s the inevitable tagline in modern America:

Patillo had convictions for aggravated unlawful use of a fire arm and drugs. He was paroled April 25 from the Sheridan Correctional Center.

Gosh, a parolee is released and within a year escalates to even more dangerous and violent offenses? What a shocker!*

Be interesting to find out whether this guy was off as part of Governor Quinn’s early release programs to save money…apparently they’re quietly releasing increasingly dangerous types because of funding issues.

Yippee!

*Note that this crap also makes the lives of actual reformed ex-cons even harder. Now that everyone knows that parole is a “get out of jail to rape and murder for free” card, there’s even less chance given to actual honest parolees who earned their parole through actual reform. When you make an earned privilege a natural right, you cheapen it 9 times out of 10.

 

Medical Marajuana: A Fig Leaf For Tokers

Let me be honest for a moment, hombres. There are few people in the world I have less respect for than those folks who want to advocate for “medical marajuana.” Let’s be honest. 99% of these folks just are too damned lazy to smoke a blunt illegally like everyone else who has that disgusting habit. The only 1% have legitimate medical issues and have been misled by a bunch of filthy hippies and their crypto-stoner allies in the fringes of the medical community that burning a doobie is the only way they can deal with their medical problems. This is, of course, total bullshit.

My favorite commentator on all weed-related issues is none other than General Barry McCaffrey, former “Drug Czar” in the Clinton administration. Here’s my favorite highlight from an old 1996 PBS interview

MARGARET WARNER: What are you saying to doctors who say in their medical judgment they have certain patients that other therapies cannot work for and that their own medical judgment, their own ethics tell them I should recommend they find marijuana and use it to help them with this?

GENERAL BARRY McCAFFREY: I would urge them to listen to the judgment of the American Medical Association and to listen to the viewpoint of the National Institute of Health and the FDA and don’t use the Schedule one drugs. They’re dangerous, and they’re alleged by medical authorities to not have a benefit. So that’s really what we’re saying.

But let’s say for a moment, contrary to all evidence, that taking a monster hit off your roomate’s bong has some real medical benefit besides getting you shit-faced and giving you a supreme case of the munchies. Rather than fill your lungs with nasty particulate matter and spread the foul stench of that f’ing reefer across the apartment complex, we can use the power of Science(TM) to make the alleged medical benefit of wacky tobacky available to you in suppository form! Because if you seriously need it for medical reasons, you should have no problem shoving that hippy lettuce straight up your ass.

This is of course, not an original idea as I’m stealing it from General McCaffrey (search the link for “suppository” to find the relevant quotes). But the old coot certainly has a point. To all the stoners out there who claim a bit of Mary Jane is the only thing to kill the pain I say: Fine. But I’ll only believe you’re not just a lazy, filthy joint-smoking douchebag if you’re willing to take it in the end. Then you can have as many suppository parties as you want.

 

Lewis Black, The NRA & PETA

There are few groups more hateful to America and all she stands for than the NRA (and I don’t mean the National Restaurant Association). Like a Freudian nightmare, their slavish devotion to thanatos marks the decline or western civilization as clearly as that of the perversion of eros wrought on the world through Hugh Hefner and his smut empire. The difference being that lefties are more likely to defend Hef, while right wingers are more likely to claim that the only thing more American than mom and apple pie, is shooting full auto. If you really want to do that go to f#$%ing Somalia. Hell, even Mexico is a haven for raging gun battles these days. We don’t have these things in Real America, but in the NRA’s lock-and-load paradise, that’s the way things will roll.

Anyway, you find funny things when you google for phrases like “The NRA is evil.” Funny things like this comedy bit by Lewis Black. Yeah, it’s over a year old, but it’s pretty funny, and as a bonus to my friends on the right, Black rips the crap out of PETA too (who also desperately deserves it). Enjoy hombres, and stay angry!

Lewis Black’s Root of All Evil
NRA Vs. PETA – The Case
www.comedycentral.com

 

Manhattan and 9/11

As a New Yorker by birth, I find it impossible to look at today through any lens except that of New York’s Bravest (for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, I mean the FDNY). Three hundred and forty three heroes met their ends that day trying to save people in the WTC. If anyone were to dare to badmouth the FDNY for their performance that day, any self-respecting New Yorker would punch the jerk right in the face.

Sadly, however, Manhattan on 9/11 has become a mecca for another type of people who need a good punch in the face: Truthers (a name so filled with distortions and lies that it alone makes me want to punch them in the face). The people who are firmly convinced by alien radio signals that 9/11 was a evil plot by the Bush Junta. Now admittedly, Dick Cheney is obviously evil (something even his admirers admit), but even he isn’t that evil. The raw hatred and perversely twisted logic of the 9/11 “Truth” Movement makes me physically ill. Which is why though I seldom agree with Angry Military Man on issues of politics and such, I’m 100% behind the below proposal:

Angry Military Man

Today is 9/11, which means the tinfoil hat wearing truthers are gonna be out in force, especially in Manhattan. Everyone wish Manhattanites our best, they’re gonna need it. I propose skipping the memorial day recommendation for 9/11 and instead make it a national holiday. “9/11 National-Punch-a-Truther-in-the-Face-Day!!!”

 

Workplace Discrimination: You’re Doing it Wrong!

Someone might want to contact the heads of Abercrombie & Fitch and teach them how to get away with work place discrimination. Not that it is ever a good thing to discriminate against your employees. We here at the 12 Angry Men don’t endorse such behavior at all. But if you’re going to treat your workers unfairly it is generally best to do so with uneducated minorities who are disenfranchised and don’t garner much sympathy with the popular media.

It’s pretty clear that Abercrombie and Fitch are going to learn this lesson the hard way, because really, what do you think is going to happen if you discriminate against a young attractive white female with a prosthetic arm who, just by the way, happens to have finished sitting her law exams and is nearly a practicing lawyer? Does that really sound like a great idea? To me it just sounds like a recipe for getting publicly humiliated and shelling out £25,000 in settlement to a budding lawyer who is sure to become a darling of the press. Say it with me everyone, “Abercrombie & Fitch, you’re DOING IT WRONG!”

-Angry Midwesterner

 

Removing the Blindfold from Justice

There is a statue in Dublin Ireland that stands atop the gates of the castle. It was meant to represent justice, but has a number of peculiar things about it. The first is that in Dublin, Justice wears no blindfold. Instead she is admiring a sword which she carries. Second, she has turned her back on the city and faces instead the castle. Lastly she carries a set of real scales that normally are perfectly balanced. Yet when the rains come in (as they often do in Dublin), one of the ends of the scales is sheltered by her arm, causing the scales of justice to tilt unfairly.

All of these facts were disturbing to the people of Dublin, and Ireland as a whole, as Dublin Castle, and the justice it represented, was made by their British oppressors. To them this statue represented the sort of “justice” they received from the crown. When Ireland won its independence one of the first things they did was to drill a hole in both sides of the scales, so they would never be unbalanced again. They could not reblind justice, nor make her face the people, but they made what changes they could.

In America we have long prided ourselves on the nature of our justice. In America Lady Justice has always been blind. Our constitution itself attempts to secure equality for all, and while we have not always achieved it, we have always strived for it. Until now. Now we have a President who wishes to do an abominable thing. Obama wants to remove the blindfold from Justice.

Obama’s nomination of Sotomayor is nothing less than this. He has even stated openly that he wants to appoint a Supreme Court Justice on the basis of “empathy”. This is a weasel term as much as calling attaching the label of “Patriot” to a well known and unjust act. Empathy has no place in our courts. Justice should be blind to empathy, and should be applied fairly to everyone regardless of their race, class, or situation. Empathy in the courts is just another way of saying “a different standard of justice for differing types of people”. While I will always support mercy in our law, when we apply our law it should be in a fair manner that is blind to circumstances. Everyone, low or high, should be treated the same. This standard for justice is one that has defined America for centuries.

But now we have a President who so hates America and our way of life that he wants justice to be applied unfairly. Make no mistake he has selected the right justice for the role. Sotomayor is a self avowed racist and sexist who believes latina women are endowed with more wisdom and grace than white men. For her a certain sort of “empathy” (better known as bigotry) is assured.

In the end, however, we should not be surprised by Obama, or his actions. After all he has already shown us that he would rather give our tax money with no strings attached to rich business men, than loan it with interest to blue collar workers. Why should we be surprised that he wants to apply justice unfairly as well?

-Angry Midwesterner

 

(Un)Professional Behavior and Geeks

What is it about Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics that attracts the socially inept? I’m not just talking about the lack of hygiene issues some dorks have, the tendency of geeks not to bathe, or even the very disturbing lack of respect for personal space some open source weenies display. Specifically I’m talking about the inability of many dweebs, especially in technology, to understand when and where certain types of jokes or behaviours are appropriate. It has lately come to my attention that the cadre of foul smelling basement trolls, behind the (incredibly useful) open source plotting tool gnuplot, have decided it’s perfectly professional to throw up a pornographic picture on their tool’s manual. Sure it’s “just a line drawing”, but it’s the kind of line drawing that if you used as your background at work would get you sued for sexual harassment, and rightly so.

Evidently the nerds behind gnuplot don’t get out of their filth ridden cave very often, or if they do, rarely see beyond their bristly neck beards, because otherwise you’d think they would realize that this sort of objectification of women, *especially* in a field where women are under represented, and often intimidated by the chauvinistic exclusionism which pervades the field, is not cool in a professional context. I’ve talked to many people who are angry about this particular infantile prank, and the worst part is, it seems the folks at gnuplot have been asked several times to take down the image, or move it off of the professional portion of the site. A quick Google search turns up a lot of irate messages from people who have been trying to get the gnuplot folks to have shred of adult conscience with no avail.

I’d like to ask our readers to write to the gnuplot dev team (gnuplot-beta@lists.sourceforge.net), and ask them to move this image off of their tool’s site. It’s degrading to women, disrespectful to professionals in the field, and utterly unprofessional. I’ve sent my own message, and if I don’t see some change, will likely be reporting their behaviour to the IEEE and ACM, both of which have codes of conduct which prohibit this sort of behaviour in professional contexts.

Hopefully this is a very poor representation of the men in the field. I’d like to believe professionals in technology have grown up a bit, but displays like this one make me doubt the maturity of anyone who works with computers. Left unanswered, stunts like this reinforce the unfortunate opinion that behavior like this acceptable in a professional context. Its no secret that the field of CS is currently lacking in raw talent, there simply aren’t enough Computer Scientists at the present as evidenced by the current trend of outsourcing amongst top companies. The field needs more creativity, diversity, and skilled professionals. By behaving in a way that excludes women, the socially ept, and men with an adult sense of humor these bozos are pretty much ensuring CS won’t be recruiting the kinds of people it needs.

 

Breaking News: Cheney Defeated, Flees Planet In Shame

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Things in Washington seem to be quiet at last after the last day’s worth of events. Shortly after the statement of John Smith from London, a 1950’s era police box appeared on the White House Lawn with an army of Cheney clones ready to open fire. At that moment a crack force known only as the Wolverenes lead by actor-cum-badass Chuck Norris dropped via parachute onto the lawn to engage the clone army. Obama sycophant David Axelrod was at the scene preparing babies for Cheney’s consumption. He says:

“We were all forced to do horrible, unspeakable things at the hands of President Cheney, lest we be shot in the face by the clone army. Suddenly the clone army assembled as a 1950’s era British police box appeared out of nowhere on the lawn. Immediately thereafter, Chuck Norris’ crack team showed up and engaged the army in a wicked fight. That man’s chief export is pain, but I doubt that he knew what a machine Dick Cheney really was. Anyway, in the midst of the fighting, this John Smith fellow and some woman I couldn’t make out slipped out of the police box and headed for the Oval Office. Since I had recently finished soiling myself, I followed on hands and knees to see what was happening.”

Accounts from this point differ, but it appears that Mr. Smith confronted a well prepared President Cheney in his office fortress. After capturing Mr. Smith in a sonic net, President Cheney took the opportunity to gloat:

“Leave it to a foreigner to send an alien to fight me! To slothful to fight their own battles in Iraq or Afghanistan, even now as I cement my reign on this planet, they cannot be bothered to fight for themselves. I look forward to consuming their bloated, decadent flesh, as I will consume yours, Doctor, for I know who you are.”

According to Mr. Axelrod, Mr. Smith then responded,

“I think not Dick, or can I call you Richard, you know I’ve always preferred the name ever since I met Richard the First, great chap. Anyway, where was I? Oh right, stopping you from taking over the earth.”

Mr. Cheney replied:

“And you will do this how?”

Mr. Smith responded:

“First, your sonic net is no match for my sonic screwdriver, and second, I was just trying to distract you while she hit you over the head.”

At that point, Senator Hillary Clinton hit Mr. Cheney over the head with what appeared to be a copy of Ann Coulter’s latest book, Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America. By the time Mr. Cheney recovered consciousness, his clone army had suffered a viscous beating at the hands of Chuck Norris, a man who does not get frostbite; rather he bites frost. Mr. Cheney immediately triggered his teleportation device and oddly forgoing the usual “I’ll be back” speech, returned to his waiting spacecraft and left earth. By this time the mysterious Mr. Smith and his more mysterious police box has vanished.

A spokeswoman for Senator Clinton said she’d be spending some time away from Washington, looking at the stars. Besides, the Senator noted, there may be some world that really would want her to be president.