Glass Half Empty? Shut It Down!

Tonight at midnight, the government may or may not shut down. This is not Scary, and should not induce Fear - it is simply a dick-measuring game of chicken being played between the Democrats and the Republicans, at the negligent expense of Us, where they're battling to see in which way they will be screwing us for the rest of the year.

Sure, it will effect anyone who draws non-Social Security income from Uncle Sam or likes to engage in illicit activities in the shady groves and lush underbrush of our National Parks or - better still - in the dark corners of our Courthouses. But those with filthy habits will find other places to lurk and Social Security will be back up and running in no time - so to quote the great Alfred E. Newman; "What, me worry?"

The root of this hogwash seems to be in the fact that the Republicans are being out Republicaned by Tea Partiers, who are calling for broader sweeping budget cuts - but again, this is all moot because what they're really arguing about are outdated and arcane philosophies about Women's health and air quality. But while our Congressmen hide in back rooms palming each others balls as John Boehner looks on with a tear in his eye, take comfort in the fact that when the Government does shut down tonight, at least the paychecks of the egregious bastards who got us into this pickle will go uninterrupted.

The Appalachian Tactical Sasquatch

"You're gonna need a bigger boat..." Brody, Jaws (1975)

First it was a mass bird death, then a fish die off, now it's coming for our delicious cows. There's something out there, and it's stalking and killing very specific things. But what is it? Are people next? If so, what kind?

I have many theories of what it could be, but none can be tested, so we must wait and see. One theory is that a race of Tactical Sasquatch - a mix between monkey-wrenching hill people and the North American brown bear - have emerged from the Appalachians and are bent on destroying small portions of the continent's ecosystem.

Other theories include: this is the Tea Party's answer to global warming, or perhaps a delayed effect of one of Nikola Tesla's experiments from long ago. But I suppose the most likely candidate is the reverse-Noah apocalypse. Somewhere out in the farthest reaches of the Atlantic, beyond the visibility of the most sophisticated spy satellites, there is an enormous sea-faring vessel who's decks are littered with thousands of carcasses, all organized, in piles, down to the letter: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. The ship is Captained by an agitated Dennis Hopper, who is awaiting a great flood to repopulate the lands with the rotting flesh and bones of every kind.

Soft Losses?

A final word on the elections...

Well, we can finally put this thing to bed... sort of. We're all tired of the hype - and after last night, no one really cares anymore, excitement has waned. The one thing that really bothers me about being personally shut out at the poles is that I had several high-stakes bets in place that could have generated a great windfall, but the lone stipulation to these wagers was that I would have had to put my money where my mouth is and Vote Hard. Even at two-to-one odds Blumenthal was an easy bet placed with many takers - with or without the ten point spread. This could have easily made up for whats shaping up to be soft losses (9am)  a dead heat (10:30am)  soft losses (1pm) an apparent Democratic WIN (days later) on the Foley/Malloy front.

And of course the biggest failure of the day goes to Prop 19 out in California which lost by some 9 percent. This could have been a strong move for the state to flacidize the underground drug trade and raise tax revenue while unencumbering the legal system and ratifying bad decisions of the past - but does it even matter? The Tea Party is coming to Privatize Government, shouting "Down with Big Government, up with Big Corporate! Anything Goes!" The pot smokers will Run Wild due to the lack of authority. With enough of those loons in office, certain demographics will surely be labeled zombies and the order will go out to shoot them on sight. They've already lead an assault against Bigelow Tea's Charleston Tea Plantation in Wadmalaw Island, South Carolina, dumping all the tea into the Wadmalaw Sound. It's a mixed message at best.

Politico Ultraviolent

"I ain't no goddamn son of a bitch, you better think about it baby." - Glenn Danzig

Being fully in the spirit of the season, I've got the Misfits on shuffle - turned up to eleven. Tomorrow might be Devil's Night, but it'll be Halloween to me... the day I dress up as Abe Lincoln and give a drunken New Gettysburg Address. I will be shot, as always, by my lovely wife, sexy John Wilkes Booth.


And in true Halloween form, Rand Paul's Tea Party supporters are going all American History X on anyone within arms reach. That's right kids, put your mouth on the curb because it's open season on heads. I know this is like a week old, but I think it's important to recognize that we are moving into a profound new political era where it is a power-move to stomp heads.

Next week should be very interesting as voters wearing the wrong colors are gutted and dragged from the poles in small towns across the land, and left to rot in the wake of the victory parties. I think we should embrace this new Politico Ultraviolent with open arms - let the bastards put that big money where their mouth is, shake out the cowards, and return power to the strong invincible psychopaths of yesteryear.

Is Everyone Taking Crazy Pills?

Hell, even sometimes I'm guilty of it...

I just stood one side of a door holding a knife, and as it opened, my coworker on the other side was clearly shaken. I consoled him: "Remember Frank, you never know what's on the other side of this door."

Sometimes, the leadership needs to be struck down. Everyone IS taking crazy pills. Things are getting weird around here - in a local sense and in a national sense. I remember a time when I relished in the idea of a pseudo-Republican Tea Party... I thought it was great to see all the crazies in together in a group. At least that way I could identify them en large. But now things are getting scary - these kooks are amassing, absorbing other strange factions - the gun pushers, the midwest anti-commie movement, the crazed pro-poverty types (read: pro-life)... It's turning into a weird Renaissance faire. Huge legs of meat, horses, men in full battle array.

The misguided soft-racist mid-western vote is getting strong. If this weirdness gets legs in the Republican party, we are all screwed. I can at least cope with the old archetype -  a greed-sick bozo glomming on to everything within reach - because at least even the most brazen try to hide it. The other option is far worse: lunatics in tri corner hats and powdered wigs who are armed to the teeth and believe in goblins and dragons.