Quote of the Day

“Some of the people pushing this idea are also pushing the idea of banning handguns,” said Graham, darkly. “I don’t think banning handguns makes me safer.

[link] Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) trying desperately to rationalize why terror suspects should be put on No-Fly lists and denied Miranda rights, but still be able to purchase whatever fucking guns they like.

With the exception of part of the 2nd Amendment, the U.S. Constitution is officially null and void to these fucking GOP assholes.

That Day Has Arrived...

So, I went over to MSNBC to see if I could catch up on the HCR summit being televised today, but I was diverted by the group of stories I saw over next to the picture of Obama...



"Woman's Mauling By Chimp Haunts Police Officer" Hell, it haunted me for a bit...
"Video: Orca shook trainer violently witnesses say" $50 someone uses the words "rag doll."
"Orcas have history of killing humans" I know. I saw the movie. He sure killed the hell out of Richard Harris...
"Shark-filled aquarium springs leak" All part of the plan...

The best part of the whole thing is at the end of the video in the third link, the reporter informs Matt Lauer that video footage from Sea World cameras or a tourist "could be critical for investigators to determine what went wrong here and insure it never happens again."

Let me guess what that video will show: Tilikum, the killer whale, grabbing his trainer dragging her underwater and swimming around with her until she drowned. The only determination of "why it happened" will come from a Spock mind-meld with the whale. And as far as making sure "it never happens again?" Exactly how? Aside from not creating entertainment based on intimate interaction with 15,000 pound apex predators in an environment that starts out potentially fatal to humans, what exactly will this investigation propose?

Maybe the investigators can get together and enjoy a showing of "Grizzly Man" while they await footage from Sea World.

UPDATE: Mrs F thought I was perhaps a bit too cynical with this post...Yeah. I guess so. I do feel that it sucks that the trainer was killed. In all likelihood she was a marine biologist-type who had dedicated her life to the study of the animal that took her life. That's awful.

My issue is with the situation that created the event and the absolutely preposterous coverage of this event as if it was some cross between a premeditated homicide and a preventable job hazard.

That whale was doing what it was evolved and born to do—grab prey and drag it to it's death.

There is no question that marine mammals are anthropomorphised more than any other wild animal due to their intelligence. Would anyone do this show with a great white shark? Or a crocodile? Or even a lion with a history of killing trainers? Of course not. "But these animals are so intelligent!" Yes. But the fact remains that they are wild animals—and in this case, not just a carnivore, but one at the absolute top of the food chain. In fact, is there a predator on earth with a higher spot than an orca?

This is a whale that already killed a trainer, and was sold by it's original owner (captor) in British Columbia to Sea World with the understanding that it would NOT be a performing animal. That's a fucking problem. I'm sure these new trainers honestly believed they could train and control him, so eventually he found his way into the arena.

This event isn't a tragedy. It's a matter of time. It's a matter of luck running out.

These are wild animals used to patrolling a range that probably covers hundreds of square mile stuck in a pool. It's an intensely social animal that lives it's whole life in a pod. Instead he is forced to interact with another species that has him do unnatural things. He wasn't a rescued animal or bred, he was captured in the ocean and placed in captivity. Tilikum survived in captivity for at least eight years (that's time between the killings), and that's DOUBLE the average captive lifespan of four years. In the wild, they live over 35 years.

He was in that show because humans, in their infinite arrogance, thought they could master him. And in a display of man's infinite greed, Sea World knew they could make a bundle off him.

So, yeah, it really sucks about that trainer. But if he's as intelligent as given credit for, it sucks more for the whale.

"Get a Brain Moran!"

"[link] The half of my family who voted for Obama are for Brown," said Dennis Sheehan, an electrical technician from Lowell, who cheered the Senate candidate outside a Boston Bruins game. "They felt sold out. He said he'd bring the whole country together. I've never seen the country so divided in my life, and I grew up in the '60s, with Vietnam."

Yeah. And that's Obama's fault. And this will help.

This election is turning into The Darwin Awards.

A Terrorist's Best Friend

Is a GOP wingnut.

Don't these moron right-wing clowns like Hoekstra (R-MI) it is they themselves who are "aiding and abetting" the terrorists by taking a botched failure of an incident and hyping it up for maximum fear and terror.

The stupid. It burns. Like a powdery substance in my pants that I am desperately trying to ignite.

Ugh...

Nothing beats dropping your wife and two young children off for a plane flight to Detroit today.

Let me ask a question here: If you have to sit in the terminal—with or without kids—for an hour waiting to take off, would you prefer to watch an endless loop of stupid-ass CNN "analysis" of the botched terror attack on a plane, or might the airport think of switching the feed to TNT and an endless loop of "A Christmas Story." Or fucking marathon of "Cake Boss." I don't much care.

Assholes.

Stay Classy, Sarah!

Speaking to the conservative talker Rusty Humphries today, Sarah Palin left the door open to speculation about President Obama’s birth certificate.

“Would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?” she was asked (around 9 minutes into the video above).

“I think the public rightfully is still making it an issue. I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think that members of the electorate still want answers,” she replied.

“Do you think it’s a fair question to be looking at?” Humphries persisted.

“I think it’s a fair question, just like I think past association and past voting records—all of that is fair game,” Palin said. “The McCain-Palin campaign didn’t do a good enough job in that area.”

Not to get all Andrew Sullivan on you...but if she wants to see a birth certificate for Obama, she make an even exchange for Trig's.

There are honestly more questions surrounding the proof of the birth of her last child than there are about Obama's. Even Glenn Beck isn't sailing on the U.S.S. Birther.

[h/t Balloon Juice]

Brilliant

The newest right-wing tantrum movement is calling for a boycott of General Motors and Chrysler. That's right, buying American is now un-American. Or something.

And guess who is leading the charge:

Limbaugh reassures any GM workers who might be listening that the boycotters aren't angry at them. "They don't want to patronize Obama. They don't want to do anything to make Obama's policies work!" he explains.

Yeah! 'Cause if it's not the assembly-line workers the listeners are furious with it must be the highly compensated—and likely Republican—executives who drove GM into a ditch? What?...it's just that Obama got involved? Well, since Rush and the Dittoheads want him to fail at any cost, sorry U.S. autoworkers, this time it'll be your jobs.

And so goes Ohio... this fat fucking loudmouth is doing a bang-up job leading the Republicans off a cliff.

"Get a brain, morans!"

Stamford Tea Party
(TIA ANN CHAPMAN / HARTFORD COURANT / March 27, 2009)

[h/t Bob Cesca]