Human Rights Law

Friday Follies

By blueness

Comfort Stations
Air Force generals are attempting to divert "War on Terra" funds to pay for "comfort capsules" that will allow government VIPs to enjoy world-class travel on military transport planes. Four generals have poured over "design details" associated with the program, scrutinizing the color of carpeting and leather chairs. The generals have demanded $16 million in counter-terrorism funds for their comfort stations; although lawmakers to date have said no, $331,000 has nonetheless already been diverted to pay for cost overruns.

What Would Buddha Do?
Armed Thai and Cambodian troops are facing off over "ownership" of an 11th Century temple situated along the border of the two Buddhist nations. Each nation says the temple belongs to it, and that the other nation is "stealing" it. The temple in dispute, Preah Vihear, is dedicated to Shiva, a Hindu deity. Shiva, among other things, created and maintains the universe in a continuous act of sexual union with Shakti. Shiva is also said to have burned to ashes Desire with the opening of his third eye. There do not at present seem to be a lot of opened third eyes there on the Thai/Cambodian border.
Two Legs Good,  Four Legs Who Cares?
Not content with killing, maiming, and psychologically mutilating only human beings, the US Army over there in Hawaii is today shooting live pigs as a "training exercise."

Har-Har
Bomb McCain's smutty-Rotarian sense of humor is on display again: in 1986, we learn, he regaled a Washington, DC audience with this thigh-slapper: "Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, 'Where is that marvelous ape?'" McCain now says he does not "recall" telling such a "joke."

Pot, Kettle
Joesph Ratzinger, hierophant of what for the past 1700 years has been the most consistently acquistive and osentatious outfit on the planet, denounces "insatiable consumption."

Wag The Dog
After everyone in Washington and throughout the blogosphere, from right to left, had the opportunity to deeply embarrass themselves by instantly reacting in their usual respective knee-jerk fashions, the great Iranian "missile test" was revealed to have been a fake.

Condi Becomes A Verb
Israeli TV broadcasters have aptly captured Condoleezza Rice's bufoonish bumblings through the Middle East by transforming her last name into a verb, meaning "to go endlessly around in circles, accomplishing nothing."

Welcome To The Party
The Dalai Lama has concluded that George II suffers from a "lack of understanding about reality."

Smells Like . . . Victory
Meanwhile, voters in San Francisco will this November decide whether to rename a local waste-treatment facility the "George W. Bush Sewage Plant."  

Gimme
Oliphant succinctly summarizes the Fannie Mae/Freddy Mac debacle. (He also deflates Jesse Jackson.)

Nickelodeon
American audiences continue to believe that the highest and best use of the motion-picture camera is to animate comic books. Last month's outrage, the anti-woman Sex in the City, is eloquently eviscerated here by Anthony Lane: "I walked into the theatre hoping for a nice evening and came out as a hard-line Marxist, my head a whirl of closets, delusions, and blunt-clawed cattiness."

Fatal Attraction
Russian officials are blaming a recent spate of lightning deaths on cell phones and digital music devices. "These things are electro-magnetic field carriers," one official said. "That makes them, in essence, conductors. Thunderbolts are frequently attracted to such things, and hits are often connected with a lethal outcome."

Family Values
When a coworker bravely grappled with one of the miscreants, knocking his wig and glasses off, Denton, Texas restaurant worker Stephanie Martinez  discovered that the three people attempting to rob her and her restaurant, the Pizza Patron, were her parents and husband.  

Full post as published by Never In Our Names on July 18, 2008 (boomark / email).