Polysics… Or Die!!!!

Rocket

Amend this!

Pic stolen from HERE.

I was just doing some reading and discovered some things I didn't know, or only partly knew. Imagine…

Anyway, I think I may have mentioned something about the US 2nd amendment before, after reading Bill's argument for why it is not the right to bear arms at all. Of course, now those crazy Supreme court fuckers have, as of last month, made it exactly that. It's hard to see how anyone but a complete fucking MORON could misinterpret the text:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The giveaway's at the start, you know, with the WELL-REGULATED MILITIA — not a bunch of rednecks with uzis.

The actual text of the document is a bit irrelevant, however, and the weird, slavish adherence to its every word and the continuous analysis of those words and what exactly they might mean seems to me a bit fucking pointless. First of all, let us not forget that the Bill of Rights was passed in 1791(!?), making it 217 years old. The world has changed a lot in the last fucking two decades, never mind the last two centuries! Let's also not forget that it was written by people, blokes, rich white landowners, the ascendancy, the elite — handing down a couple of things they reckoned might be appreciated by the masses to shut them the fuck up.

The mentality involved in obsessing over this isn't all that surprising given the number of 'Mercans who believe that every word of the Bibble is 100% true. Despite knowing that it has been written and rewritten by MEN — who shit, piss, fuck and fuck up, just like everyone — and not Gawd. Never, ever Gawd.

Em… Yeah, right, so there's this constant struggle with the words as they are and a constant need to make the words fit, or to re-tool the words with new meanings and connotations. Like any bit of text, it gets archaic and needs to be updated. Fucking hell, it's written in 18th century legalese for Gawd's sake! Stop looking for all the answers in the past! We're alive NOW and soon we'll be DEAD — why not worry about the bit in between those two (Life, that is) rather than stuff that went on centuries ago? We can't change any of it and it has no application to our world because half the things we now take for granted DIDN'T EXIST IN 1791!!

Sigh… However, if we're going to Fisk these Fucks, let's have a look at The Text.

For me there are several things which give the BoR away.

The Fifth Amendment: "No person shall be held to answer for any capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

Now, if the new ruling about the 2nd amendment is to be taken to its full extent, EVERYONE in the US is in the militia and therefore NO ONE in the US is entitled to due process or any of it. Guns or due process, hmm? And with all those guns you've got, chances are you'll be hoping for some due process at some point when you SHOOT SOMEBODY. Something you wouldn't have done had you not had a gun.

Something that proves it is now totally irrelevant is the 3rd: "No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law."

Right, OK… Handy perhaps, but not the first thing you'd think of when trying to protect the rights of the citizenry — unless you were a Landed Wanker who had no idea what people's actual problems were. This is a sub-clause in some military lawbook, not a constitutional thing, but there it is.

So, Bill of Rights — nonsense. Needs rewritten in a modern context. Your rights? Not to be fucked about. Responsibilities? Not to fuck about with anyone else. Should be a short document…



Anyway, here's some more stuff to make your hair blanche and your face curl. That fucking phone-tapping bill — what are the Dems at?

Green, like snot?

I just realised I haven't insulted anyone from the Irish Green Party in a while — the sell-out cunts.

So, I went to look around for some reason — any reason, really — to have a go at them. This was the best I could do:



John Gormley looks a bit like…



Zelda from Terrahawks!

I know, weak… Still, how long can you go on about the party that stood on an anti-Fianna Fail platform, pledging not to go into government with them under any circumstances, only to do just that when the dust settled? It was over a year ago now, can I not get over it? Evidently not.

I'm pleased as punch that Gormley and his friends are now in charge of the very environmental disasters they railed against for so many years. Now, if there's a shitty job to be done — an incinerator to be built behind a nursery, a landfill in Cork city centre, helping Shell to rape the Irish west coast for oil and gas nobody in the country'll ever benefit from thanks to another Fianna Fail cunt — Comhaontas Glas is your Gang.

Here's MORE about Corrib, cos it's funny.

Anyway, yes, I blame it all on Trevor Sargent, who made the bold promise that he would not lead his party into government with FF. He sealed the deal, then he resigned as leader and took a junior ministry. Er…



Last time I was in Dublin I was walking with Declan, near the dept. of the Taoiseach, when we espied Trev walking towards us. I can't even begin to describe the level of self control it took not to scream, "cunt, Cunt, CUNT!!!" at him. We got by without incident, but only because Dec has to deal with fucks like that and does not need me making him look mad. He can do that on his own.

To be honest, I feel I'm justified in my opinion. In a world where corporate greed is the only thing that actually exists (God, democracy, hope, etc, all hoaxes, I'm afraid) it's important for parties like the Greens to stand on their principles. (In this case, they only got any seats because they swore fucking blind not to go in with the Fantastic Fucks.) Once they go, who the fuck's left?

Wha-?! Why do I care? S'good question. I might not, really, but I do like swearing, and you can't spell Green without the word Cunt.

Genius!

What can I say? Watch it.

Rottendam and other stories…

On Thursday I went to Rottendam and finally saw Oxbow, supported by Harvey Milk, in a place called Worm, which is in the middle of building site. Actually, much of R'dam is a building site at the minute and it's fucking horrible. (I actually visited the place before and thought the same thing. There's a short note about it HERE.)

Anyway, there we were in Worm, Liz and I, looking for the amenities, when we spied the merchandise stand and a familiar looking bloke shuffling in behind it. "There's Eugene!" We gasped, because it was. So we scurried over to the array of t-shirts and CDs and Eugene and instead of the stunningly intelligent and witty conversation I had planned to strike up with the man whose twisted screams have been making my eardrums wiggle a lot of late, we had some sort of weird exchange regarding the trains and my wallet. Which he thought was cool. So, a little bit disappointing on my part, but what chance did I have? There he was, the fucker, casually strolling about selling shirts like a gypsy carpet-dealer and behaving for all the world like just a really nice bloke who smiles a lot.

I ended up buying The Narcotic Story on vinyl, making a dumb and possibly incomprehensible comment about already having the CD, but being a nerd. ("Yeah," thinks Eugene, "a real fucking nerd…" What is it they say about not meeting your heroes cos they'll disappoint you? I think what the inventor of that ol' saw meant was never meet your heroes because YOU will disappoint THEM.) I also got the "Every man an island" t-shirt I've been coveting remotely for about a year. I now have it — hurrah!

Anyway, it was soon time for Harvey Milk to play and they were pretty good in a sludgy doomy kind of way. I was losing them part way through the 25-minute opening song, but they pulled it back and it was all over far too soon. Liz seemed to think there was disharmony onstage after someone fucked up, although I barely noticed, being too busy going — Look! A Melvin! To myself…



Then came Oxbow. Wow. I will confess to being a bit wary and nervous about seeing the show, having heard tales of violence and cruelty — and not really knowing how I was going to respond to the heaving mass of angry, sweaty flesh that nice man from behind the merch stand was about to turn into. I needn't have worried, it was fucking great. It was interesting to see how the guys in the band interact with one another and how the songs work live.

I was delighted to see that no matter what kind of band it is, there are certain constants. Constant Number One: Bass-players always seem to be enjoying themselves more than everyone else. Of all the bassists I've met, never I have I come across a surly one (well, not entirely true, I have met guitarists playing bass who were surly, but only because they weren't the centre of attention). Surly/surely/surly/wurly. Cof.

Anyway, Dan Oxbass was the one going, "Hey, will we play this, or this, or we haven't played this in a while!" Meanwhile, Eugene is standing to one side of the stage in a trance — in his pants — seemingly not noticing the discussion around him, but launching into the songs without ado at all.

From my vantage point, hiding behind Niko's Ox(key)board, I had a perfect view of all the guitar stuff and all, but was unfortunately too overwhelmed by the fantastic noise these four were making. Oh, well, I guess the Oxbow tribute band (Ox-No?) will have to wait. For now…

Yes, I will go see them again and Pity The Fool who tries to stop me (if it's anyone but The Fool, I may be fucked…). Next time I'll take more pictures, with a decent camera, but this time I wanted to enjoy it for real and not through a lens, hence only a couple of (shitty-looking) snaps from the encore. Taken with my phone. Technolorgasmic!



And what else? Oh, we stayed in a houseboat in R'dam. That was kind of fun, sitting there reading a book and suddenly noticing that the world beyond your window was bobbing up and down. Cool. It was in that houseboat that I read the last of Sherlock Holmes. There is no more Holmes? Weep. It's been fun, though.

On the subject of detectives, I came across the first slew of Batman: Dark Knight reviews. So far Rotten Tomatoes has a 100% rating — which is reassuring. Been looking forward to this for a long time… BUT! I object to the terms used to describe it in some places, such as in the TIME review, which is extremely positive, but which contains this line: "The Dark Knight is bound to haunt you long after you've told yourself, Aah, it's only a comic-book movie."

I am getting really fed up of reviewers, movies types and people in general belittling the the comics medium with words like 'only' or 'just'. How many fucking great comics will there have to be before people stop associating the word with Dennis the Menace and Garfield?

The worst thing about all the vaguely sneering talk about 'only a comic-book movie' is that the films invariably fall far short of the original book in terms of complexity, scope and general level of intelligence. Take anything by Alan Moore which has been filmed, lay it alongside the book and you will see the extent of the dumbing down.

So, if comics are only for idiots and the immature, why is it that when it comes up for repackaging for 'the mainstream' the stories get gutted of all their nuance, commentary, social criticism, etc, and get turned into the same old Hollywood pap? If they're 'only' comic-books, why do they have to be ruthlessly declawed and simplified before they can hit theatres?

Fuck you and your superior attitude, General Public!

It makes me mad…

Earth to get big sun brolly

I was surprised to find THIS, an article about how scientists have been looking into some way of blocking the sun's rays to combat global warming. Didn't they do that in the Simpsons?



I can't believe someone's actually bothered to think about sending massive sunshades into space as a way of combatting global warming, but nobody's asked Chrysler to stop making such fucking huge cars. It won't work, so says the article. I like the caption, "Not a great idea, says study."

Strangely enough, when you get to the bottom of the article scientists involved in the thing say stuff like: "My personal opinion is that we should be focusing our time and money on actually reducing emissions rather than some manmade monstrosity in space."

He's right, of course, but why'd he bother with the thing at all?

An' they say them Iranians is crazy…

All we ever seem to hear about Iran is how they're trying to build nuclear weapons, everyone there's in Al Qaeda and they eat children. For fun. Today, however, I found THIS , which suggests to me that someone in there's thinking sensible thoughts. Basically Iran has now banned athletes, actors other such celeb types from appearing in commercials. How fucking great is that?

Oh, how I long for the day that happens in the West and my hygiene products are no longer sold to me by footballers and actors and musicians…

Oh, and I thought this was great too:

Sometimes it's not total sIHT…

I like reading my newspapers in tinternet because it's a great way of not paying for the news and because it's often so wildly biased in whatever direction that particular outlet is slanted. It also gives you the chance to flick between liberal nutters and conservative nutters, see what they say and deduce the truth from between them. It's a cool game. What does it say about me that I think this is so? I don't even want to speculate.



Anyway, I was reading IHT and I came across this piece: A blind eye on soldiers' suicides, by one James Carroll. It's interesting to read for me, as someone entirely opposed to and utterly agog over the Iraq situation, in that it points up something we should be aware of: that the people out there fucking up the middle east don't want to be there and are aware that their very presence there is the cause of the problem. It can't be an easy position to be in, and there's a lot more involved than simply following orders…

I particularly liked this bit about nationalism: "Whatever ethnic fevers grip Iraqis, for example, American soldiers know, if only unconsciously, that the passion for nationhood on which 19th- and 20th-century wars depended is being undercut by the global citizenship of the 21st century. Not since Earth was seen whole from the moon is nationalism what it was."

I hadn't thought about that before, that the sight of our planet in its entirety, and seeing for the first time that we really are all in the same cosmic boat, would have the effect of undermining the idea of our being wholly independent and separate nations. I suppose this has something to do with my being born in a time when all this was already known, 12 years after the original moon landing. For me the image of Planet Earth has always been there and I can't imagine it being any other way.

There was also an interesting op ed piece by Mikhail Gorbachev, in which he talks about the future presidents task in saving the world from nukes and other WMDs. I would assume old MG has some insight into such matters, his having been a Cold War-era leader and all.

I hope you appreciated my wonderfully witty punning title.