If You Really Loved Me You'd Let Me Eat Your Brain

Here's a funny Reuters story for you:

Bangladeshi Muslims protest over U.S. Koran abuse

Thousands of Islamic activists including Burqa-clad women and children marched through the streets of the Bangladeshi capital carrying copies of the Muslim holy book, placards and banners.

"Bush and Sharon, be aware and behave properly, otherwise you will see devastating Muslim human waves on your capitals," Moulana Muhiuddin Khan, chief of Jamiaat-e-Ulama-e-Islam, told a rally before leading a protest march.

Hmmm, just thousands, eh? They've got nearly 145 million inhabitants in Bangladesh, a country slightly smaller than Iowa. And it isn't like the 40% of the work force who can't get a job (yes, 40% unemployment!) have anything better to do than attend an anti-American rally. You mean the mosques couldn't turn out a few million unemployed Bangladeshi Muslims to take to the streets? I'd say a protest of thousands is a pathetic failure.

Perhaps the people of Bangladesh should be adopting our ways instead of protesting them. Let's look at some vital statistics.

Infant mortality rate: U.S.: 6.5, Bangladesh: 62.6.
(deaths per 1,000 live births)

Life expectancy: U.S.: 77.71 years, Bangladesh: 62.08 years.

Population density: U.S.: 83.6, Bangladesh: 2,791.3.
(people per sq. mile)

Annual flooding: U.S.:??, Bangladesh: 33%.
(percentage of country that floods)

GDP per capita: U.S.: $40,100, Bangladesh: $2,000.

So their babies die at nine times our rate, their people die 15 years earlier than ours, they're 33 times more crowded than we are, a third of their country is underwater every year, and they make about 5% of what we do.

Maybe the Bangladeshi's ought to think about fixing their own messes before giving us advice.

The collected entries for The Darth Side: Memoirs of a Monster can now be accessed here, in HTML or PDF format.

The writing is top-notch and wickedly funny. The author sometimes seems to have a better understanding of Vader and the Force than does Lucas, and he's an infinitely better writer of dialogue.

In an effort to better inform and protect you, dear reader, I've installed a state-of-the-art Terror Alert Level indicator. The level, as set by the Department of Homeland Security, is indicated in the graphic just below the calendar in the right hand column. The terror alert level can change many times a day, so be sure to visit often, especially before venturing outside or opening suspicious packages.

Please refer to the handy graphic below to see how much you should worry.

Remember, check early and check often! If you don't read Manual Override at least once a day...the terrorists have already won!

A small avian just chirped me the 411, yo. At 1:30 PM today Mayor Dave Cieslewicz will make Bat Boy an honorary citizen of the city of Madison.

Bat Boy is a fictional character in Bat Boy: The Musical, a StageQ production, currently running at the Bartell Theatre through April 30th. Shows are Thursdays at 7:30 PM, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 PM.

Now I’m torn here, dear reader, because on the one hand, I despise these kinds of empty acts. IMHO legislative bodies spend far too much time declaring special days, weeks, months, and years for odd causes; resolving to oppose vague notions like hatred, war, crime, or global climate change; debating the adoption of sister cities in distant lands; and giving honorary titles or citizenship to people, real or imagined.

On the other hand, I founded StageQ back in 2001, served as the first president of the board, currently serve on the board as the secretary, and helped with the and construction and painting of the Bat Boy sets. I want people to see our plays so we can fulfill our artistic mission.

If I were the Mayor I wouldn’t spend much time on these kinds of issues because you’d end up with every nut with a gripe or microscopic cause (Persons-of-Color-Operated Vegan No-Kill African Striped Frog Shelter Week!) bombarding you with their insipid requests.

In this case I’ll take the free publicity but I do so under protest.

Polish Pope replaced by German Pope? Yeah, I see where this is going. Pope Benedict XVI looks evil, man.

Sell your real estate in Poland and France and start buying gold.

Update!

I knew it! He was involed in the Hitler Youth movement! Read the CNN story.

Ted Nugent addressed the annual NRA convention Saturday night. I heard a self-described progressive radio talk show host flipping out about it today so I looked into The Nuge's comments:

The whole world sucks but America sucks less. And we can eliminate that sucking sound altogether if we all would actually be hardcore, radical extremists, hardcore radical extremists, demanding the right to self defense.
...
Remember the Alamo! Shoot 'em! To show you how radical I am, I want carjackers dead. I want rapists dead. I want burglars dead. I want child molesters dead. I want the bad guys dead. No court case. No parole. No early release. I want 'em dead. Get a gun and when they attack you, shoot 'em.

Sounds good to me. What is it about self-defense that liberals don't get?

Read the Detroit Free Press article here.

Another environmentalist is header for the slammer. Huzzah!

He’s one of the knobs that thought trashing SUVs would get him in good with Mother Earth, but as we all know, Mom don’t give a shit about anyone or anything but Mom. Spend a few weeks in the wild and you'll see. Mother Earth may look all green and pretty and sure, she lets cute, cuddly animals frolic, but it’s all a cover. Behind the scenes Mom is all bitey and scratchy and stingy, and Momma’s hungry! She’ll kill your ass without breaking a sweat. You think she’ll notice another biped kicking the bucket? She’s killed trillions of life forms, man, trillions. She’s seen it all. Asteroids, mass extinctions, atomic bombs – nothing can rattle her. She’s been here billions of years. She’s OG: Original Gaian, esse! Don’t you get it, man? She’s loco!

Anyways, I just hate how these green nitwits have no respect for property rights! From the CNN article:

Rejecting pleas for clemency from William Cottrell, a 24-year-old doctoral candidate in physics at the California Institute of Technology, U.S. District Judge Gary Klausner added more time to the sentence after finding that Cottrell was trying to sway consumers with his anti-SUV message.

"I want nothing more than to be a physicist," Cottrell said. "I would do anything to earn any leniency the court could show in this matter."

Maybe find some hard-ass Green lifers to roll with in the big house.

Hellfire Rocket + Tank = Smoking Hole in Ground

Check it out.

The people doing the grim work of discovering mass graves in Iraq have been busy. From a New York Times article:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 14 [2005] - Investigators have discovered several mass graves in southern Iraq that are believed to contain the bodies of people killed by Saddam Hussein's government, including one estimated to hold 5,000 bodies, Iraqi officials say.

At least 290 grave sites containing the remains of some 300,000 people have been found since the American invasion two years ago, Iraqi officials say.

How could anti-war people continue their opposition to the UN-sanctioned invasion and removal of Saddam Hussein if they were standing on the edge of a pit containing the bodies thousands of murdered men, women, and children?

The mass grave excavators are so busy that they don't have enough qualified forensic workers to dig up all of the graves they've found so far. I've got an idea: Let's ask all those nitwit "human shield" people who raced over to Iraq to protect hospitals and nurseries (but ended up at industrial and military facilities instead) to grab a shovel and help. They're already familiar with the terrain and the culture, and they're oh so concerned about the lives of innocent Iraqi citizens.

I don't know where people get the idea that appearing before a crowd, any crowd, in blackface is going to go over well.

The latest goofball to try it: Central High School teacher Greg Dougherty in Macon, GA. Stupid, stupid, stupid.