Category: Executive Branch

  • This transmission is identified as C as in wiped with a Cloth

    This transmission is identified as C as in wiped with a Cloth

    This transmission is identified as C as in wiped with a Cloth.

    This transmission is identified as C as in wiped with a Cloth.

    This transmission is identified as C as in wiped with a Cloth.

    Do not tell Huma.

     

    “What in the hell is that?  A long, unidentifed, cigar shaped object in space?”  Director Abbaszhadeggadaddeghan asked.

    “That’s the best story we could come up with.  Honestly, we don’t really know what we’re dealing with.  It could just be a big rock.” His aide replied.

    “A room full of STEM majors and we have no better explanation for what is probably just a rock?  Why didn’t you just say it was a rock?”

    “We have reason to belive it is not a rock, sir.”

    “Who told you that?”  

    “I told him that.”

    Director Abbaszhadeggadaddeghan turned to see a man appear as if out of nowhere in the corner of his office.  He was wearing a cheap suit, typical of government types with a dingy white shirt and a black tie. He carried around a glass of what Abbaszhadeggadaddeghan assumed was whiskey with too much ice.  That is, it had ice in it.

    He was smoking profusely, and looked to be made out of poorly tanned leather wrapped loosely over a flabby body.  No explanation was given to how this lard ass got into the office without anybody noticing.

    “You see Achmed-in-ijad—“

    “Abbaszhadeggadaddeghan.  Director Abbaszhadeggadaddeghan.”  He interrupted.

    “Thats what I said.  Achmed-in-ijad.”

    “You said it wrong.”

    “You know what happened to the last diversity hire appointed as NASA Director, Achmed-in-ijad?  We found him in a puddle of puke and piss outside of Tijuana. Fun guy, but couldn’t handle his Russian hookers worth a damn.”  He took a drag of the cigarette. “I like you Achmed-in-ijad. I’d hate to see what the locals in Tampa will do to you. You may not eat pork, but let me tell you something—you taste like pork.”

    “What do you want?”  Abbaszhadeggadaddeghan asked.

    “I don’t really want anything but it was determined by my superiors it was time to let you know a bit of the story. But first a bit of background.”  He took a quick drink of this watered down whiskey and a long drag of the cigarette. He put it out on a ceramic icon on Abbaszhadeggadaddeghan’s desk.  He lit another cigarette. “In 1966, you were told Gemini 8 was stuck in an uncontrolllable spin, and—“

    “Because of the quick thinking of Neil Armstrong, Gemini 8 recovered from the spin, and landed safely back to Earth.”

    “You interrupt me again, I might take you to Tampa anyway.”  He said calmly. He took another long drag of the cigarette and with his free hand began to fondle his man breasts.  Abbaszhadeggadaddeghan couldn’t decide if he was sweating profusely under his jacket or lactating. Either way, his jacket was wet under the arms.  “Armstrong was thinking quick on his feet, but Gemini 8 was raped.”

    “Raped?”

    “You heard me.”

     

    This transmission is identified as C as in wiped with a Cloth.

    This transmission is identified as C as in wiped with a Cloth.

    This transmission is identified as C as in wiped with a Cloth.

    Do not tell Huma.

     

    “This happened again in 1970, when the command module of Apollo 13 was raped six minutes after the crew filmed their public address.  That’s why it wasn’t aired to the public.” He took another drag of the cigarette and again put it out on the ceramic idol.  “And even the details of recent missions, you’ve been told are, simply put. Wrong.”

    The man walked closer to Abbaszhadeggadaddeghan.  Close enough for the smell of boiled leeks, bad whiskey, American Spirit lights, spoiled milk, fried okra and the distinctive stench of bad sex the morning after with a half drunken hangover, to invade Abbaszhadeggadaddeghan’s moist, delicate nasal passages.

    “Don’t wince at me because I smell like that broad you tagged, gagged and bagged back an MIT, Achmed-in-ijad.”  He composed himself, slightly adjusting his crotch.  “Just a few weeks ago, you thought, the Hubble Telescope was flipped off and on really fast to reset the onboard software.  NASA even put it out to the press because they thought it was funny.

    But it wasn’t funny for the ISS crew.” He pulled out a 1980s era tape recorder and firmly pressed play.

     

    This transmission is identified as C as in wiped with a Cloth.

    This transmission is identified as C as in wiped with a Cloth.

    This transmission is identified as C as in wiped with a Cloth.

    Do not tell Huma.

     

    “EVA 1,  did you hit the unit?”

    “Roger that Houston.  Unit given a good hard kick.”

    “Roger that EVA 1, unit appears to have come back online.  Good work EVA 1”

    “Houston, we’re getting some kind of interference…you picking this up Houston? Some kind of transmission from a Smith?”

    “SPACE SMITH FIX FLYING METAL BALL!  BY FIX, MEAN RAPE”

    “Houston…”

    “SUPPORT WAZ COMPLETELY CONSENSUAL.  SPACE SMITH SEND YOU BILL FOR TECHNICAL SERVICES”

    “This is horrible.  Houston, do you copy?”

    “Ahhhhh. Who let this thing in the maintenance bay?”

    “SPACE SMITH NO COPY,  HIM HAVE ORIGINAL MOVES.  BY ORIGINAL MOVES…MEAN RAPE”

    “Houston, we are sealing off the maintenance bay.  Houston, do you copy?”

    “IN SPACE, NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU RAPE”

    “Houston, maintenance bay breached!”

    “THAT NOT ALL THAT BE BREACH.  SPACE SMITH BREACH EVERYTHING HIM REACH”

    “Houston, we are initiating Soyuz escape pod checklist.”

    “SPACE SMITH RAPE SOYUZ LAST WEEK.  IT NO FLY”

     

    This transmission is identified as C as in wiped with a Cloth.

    This transmission is identified as C as in wiped with a Cloth.

    This transmission is identified as C as in wiped with a Cloth.

    Do not tell Huma.

     

    Abbaszhadeggadaddeghan’s blood ran cold.  

    “What is that object in space?”  He asked.

    “We don’t really know, Achmed-in-ijad.”  The man said before blowing smoke in his face.  “We just call it SPACE SMITH.”  He took one last drag.  “I can’t wait to see what he does to Elon Musk.”

  • Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Yuman Trafficking

    Cha too ma laya conky, ya neema loka nyan.

    During a press conference held earlier today, Donald Trump made the claim that thanks to the Internet “there’s more yuman[sic] trafficking, and slavery, than at any time in the history of this world.” Of course, Trump provided no citation for this remarkable claim, because citations are for losers. Nevertheless, I was curious as to the truth of this claim.

    A cursory internet search revealed many articles that put forward this claim, the earliest, being from an Alternet post in 2009. Indeed, this claim was repeated as gospel by several outlets across the ideological spectrum, including The Atlantic, World News Daily, and various newspapers. When authors of these articles deigned to provide a source for this claim, they usually pointed to various think-tank reports, including an Obama-era report by the Department of State, all of which place the total number of those enslaved around the world from 20 to 40 million.

    When one considers that on the eve of the American Civil War, there were almost 4 million slaves, this number may seem shocking. Well, it may seem that way if you are a drooling microcephalic. People who possess an intelligence quotient of 80 or higher (Stanford-Binet or WAIS, take your pick) are cognizant of another absolutely shocking fact: there are more people alive now than at any time in the history of this world!

    If, for the sake of argument, we take the highest estimate for the current number of slaves in the world, it represents a mere 0.5263% of a total global population of 7.6 billion individuals. Are Trump et al. truly claiming that in the past the total number of slaves had never represented more than half a percent of the world’s population? In 1860, slaves represented 12.57% of the total population of the United States alone!

    Comparing total number of slaves across time periods without accounting for the increase in total world population is a statistical trick even worse than the “1 in 5 women are raped at university” claim. Whereas the latter myth relies on cooking the books with both an extremely expansive and idiosyncratic definition of sexual assault that utterly destroys its construct validity and a piss-poor sample size that provides nowhere near the statistical power needed for the inferences made by the report, the former merely pins its hopes on the fact that you are innumerate.

    Now, all of this may just be merely risible fodder for the world-famous Glibertarians.com sneer take if it weren’t for the fact that these factoids are used as rhetorical lubricant for advancing public policy. The 2012 Department of State report used this claim to advocate for less restrictive requirements for victims of human trafficking seeking asylum, the 2016 WND op-ed uses the same claim to advocate for immigration restrictions from countries that follow sharia law, and today, Trump squarely placed blame on the Internet for this supposedly unprecedented number of slaves around the world.

    It is this mythology that is used as a screen for the power-grabs the Federal government has made through the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) and Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), which Trump signed into law on April 11th. FOSTA-SESTA remarkably passed the House of Representatives with a 388-25 margin, and the Senate 97-2, with only Ron Wyden and Rand Paul voting against. Truly, it seems the naked ambition to control one’s fellow man is the only thing that enjoys broad bipartisan support these days. Well, that and the erroneous belief that there is more human trafficking and slavery than any other time in world history.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Who Wants To Be President?

    An amusing news story yesterday caused some discussion. These seem to pop up every year or so and are generally used as a way for academics to bash their latest not-a-leftist target. Eight straight years of “see, Bush is horrible!” followed by eight straight years of “Obama is dreeeeamy!” sort of triggered my cynicism meter. Of course, the inclusion of presidents still in office is de rigeur for sending the desired signals, and putting Trump on the list after barely a year in office is reminiscent of Obama’s affirmative action Nobel Peace Prize, just before he started six new wars and began drone-killing Americans.

    Likewise, historians love presidents who were incredibly active, preferably ones who killed a few hundred thousand people. The bias that “doing something” is better than “leaving us alone” is a powerful means of slanting the ratings. So given OUR biases as libertarians, how would you rank our presidents?

    My own personal feeling is that there’s probably 5 or six great ones, five or six horrendous ones, and most of the rest form a blob in the middle and ranking them is useless.

    My Top Five:

    1. Calvin Coolidge- did a wonderful job of leaving us alone, and look what happened. Economic boom time, which only ended when a more activist president and congress decided to start meddling.
    2. George Washington- for doing what every president ought to do: serve his time, then go home and shut up. I put him here in the top 5 because he wasn’t John Adams.
    3. Grover Cleveland- someone whose first instinct is to avoid federal action unless specifically demanded by the constitution ought to get more libertarian love. And he had a wonderful way of phrasing.
    4. Bill Clinton- wait, what? His arrival here wasn’t due to anything he deliberately did, but what he managed to do accidentally was totally tie the government into knots so that they were too busy with perjury and blowjobs to fuck things up. Economic boom, balanced budgets, only minor wars, who can complain?
    5. William Henry Harrison- for the obvious reason.

    My Bottom Five:

    45. Richard Nixon- the guy who came close to killing a million, brought us the War On Drugs, the EPA, wage-and-price controls, “Affirmative Action,” decoupling of currency from hard assets… he was a fucking disaster, top to bottom.
    44. Lyndon Johnson- easily the most corrupt and murderous human to ever occupy the Oval Office. Besides killing millions, he halted the progress of black Americans and destroyed their next several generations.
    43. Woodrow Wilson- it was hard to not rank him the worst, and I think a good argument could be made for that. Besides getting us into a world war and setting the conditions for an even bigger one, he was famous for his intense racism, his love of eugenics, his complete disregard for the constitution, and… well, I can think of absolutely nothing in the favor of that disgusting piece of shit.
    42. James Buchanan- sometimes the historians are right.
    41. John Adams- the Alien and Sedition Act and the Quasi War sent the US in the wrong direction from which we still haven’t fully recovered.

    I have not towed the libertarian lion of putting Lincoln in that bottom five, mostly because (unlike the guys there) he was a mixed bag and besides the obvious evil, accomplished some great things as well (like Amendment XIII). And FDR came oh so close to the final cut, and I would not argue about his inclusion…

    OK, my droogs, discuss.

  • Show me that nu-male smile!

    Nu-male Smile, also known as the Soylent Grin, Nu-Male Face and Cuckface, is an internet slang term referring to a facial expression associated with men described as nu-male or Soy Boys who are photographed expressing surprise or excitement with their mouth agape.

    Know Your Meme

    Sad!