'In the silence of a stick buzzing by your head, you realize which self it is you wish to truly defend.'

Dog Brothers Martial Arts, Inc. - NAVBAR_TITLE:

"Marc 'Crafty Dog' Denny replies, 'As Nobel laureate Konrad Lorenz points out, Man is an animal with an aggressive instinct. Whether we like it or not, this instinct will discharge, just as the lack of sex leads to a wet dream. Aggression in nature has three purposes: to spread a hunting species out over territory, for rank within a social group, and for reproductive rights-classically two males fighting over the female or the female in defense of her young. Yet in today's world there is no initiation for the young male, no ritual space to ground this energy, and so it floats, inchoate, spontaneously erupting. I believe that many of the terrible things we read in the newspapers today would not happen if this energy were given its place, acknowledgement, and guidance.

'Some say the world has too much violence, therefore we shouldn't teach violence. I disagree. To quote Carl Jung, 'The idea is not to imagine figures of light, but to make the darkness conscious.' When we go into a fight 'too extreme for the UFC' with no judges, no referees and no trophies, trusting only to the fighters, something very special happens. Of course there a moth and the flame quality to the experience, but I deeply believe that our way of doing things triggers an awareness that to go as deeply as possible into an experience of the true primal core that one must go equally in the opposite direction into a calm wordless state. Wild Dog once said 'In the silence of a stick buzzing by your head, you realize which self it is you wish to truly defend.' I think this is very right. Perhaps even more important than the fight experience is the special altered state which comes in the days afterwards. It changes your life.'"

The Dilbert Blog: Wisdom for Grads

The Dilbert Blog: Wisdom for Grads:

"The person who sits nearest the boss’s office gets the most assignments.

Your potential for senior management will be determined by the three H’s: Hair, Height, and Harvard degree. You need at least two out of three. (Non-Harvard schools will be acceptable if it’s clear that you “could have gone” to Harvard.)

Your hard work will be rewarded. Specifically, your boss’s boss will reward your boss for making you work so hard.

There’s no such thing as good ideas and bad ideas. There are only your own ideas and other people’s. If you want someone to like your idea, tell him he said it last week and you just remembered.

Teamwork is what you call it when you trick other people into ignoring their priorities in favor of yours.

Leadership is a form of evil. No one needs to lead you to do something that is obviously good for you.

You can estimate the time for any project by multiplying the number of idiots involved by one week and adding the number of capable co-workers times four weeks. (The competent ones are busier.)

In any group of three coworkers, at least one of them will be a sadistic loser intent on grabbing your ankle as he circles the drain.

Non-monetary incentives are every bit as valuable as they sound.

Business success is mostly about waiting for something lucky to happen and then taking credit.

Preparing a Powerpoint presentation will give you the sweet, sweet illusion of productivity.

It is better to be an “expert” than it is to do actual work.

The first month on any new job should be spent talking smack about the “idiot who had the job before you.”"

Scott Adams Speaks Wise

The Dilbert Blog: Answer to Your Questions:

"I think opinions have entertainment value and that’s about it. It’s not as if people change their views because someone made a better argument. And rarely are opinions based on adequate information. So from that perspective, all opinions are equally (un)important."

Mad With Power

The finest of Homeland Security.

Defeated by Librarian.

Schmucks with power roam the country.

Fightin' Terra.

Policing Porn Is Not Part of Job Description:

"Two uniformed men strolled into the main room of the Little Falls library in Bethesda one day last week and demanded the attention of all patrons using the computers. Then they made their announcement: The viewing of Internet pornography was forbidden.

The men looked stern and wore baseball caps emblazoned with the words 'Homeland Security.' The bizarre scene unfolded Feb. 9, leaving some residents confused and forcing county officials to explain how employees assigned to protect county buildings against terrorists came to see it as their job to police the viewing of pornography.

After the two men made their announcement, one of them challenged an Internet user's choice of viewing material and asked him to step outside, according to a witness. A librarian intervened, and the two men went into the library's work area to discuss the matter. A police officer arrived. In the end, no one had to step outside except the uniformed men."

Warren Ellis VERSUS Joss Whedon - Beyond Thunderdome.

Two men enter... well... two men leave.

Thousands of geeks cry out in anguish.

Okay, chuckle in pure geekitude enjoyment.

Bringing much funny. And sexual perversion.

Much here, more at link.

Warrenellis.com » The Long March To Nerd Prom Begins:

"Ellis: ...there are one hundred thousand hungry people out there who need to attend San Diego Comics Convention in order to walk right past all that comics shit and go straight to sniffing Brandon Routh’s cricketbox, sending bits of themselves to the cast of SERENITY and masturbating ferociously in the men’s stalls while wearing V FOR VENDETTA masks and discounted Hulk Hands.

No, of course I’m not going.

Nerd Prom: It Begins Now. Never forget.

Whedon: Who is this Ellis guy anyway? He thinks he all that cuz he wroted “Planety”. The facts is, KomiKon is AWESOME becuz people dress up like stuff — but nobody dresses like Warner Ellis, I guess, mister sour grapes. I talked to Sumner Glou and she said nobody ever mailed her body parts except for one time an arm and then a messenger brought her a thyroid gland but big deal, SERENDIPITY fans happen to be the most tastefullest fans who have extra or redundant body parts.

The best thing about Comicvention is the girls are pretty and the younglings are pretty (is that a legal issue?) and the men is pretty when they are Jedi but not so much Sith. I like to meet the Comedy Books artists (Not everyone wants to meet Angelina Michelle Watts, you know) and to buy a picture of an elf or dragon already. So stay off this grumpity webcamsite becuz Warner Ellis is just a grouchypants! I met a real General Griefuss, who amongst you can say that?

Peace, dog.

Altho that hulk hands thing was me. Sorry. Romulan Ale.

Ellis: There will, of course, be revenge.

Whedon: Revenge, eh? So, mister Ellis — (swishes brandy in large glass) — let the games begin, unless they are games of skill, or physical exertion of any kind, or with math. I know the bitter bitter truth, why you are so threatened by my genius, my, class, my big glass of brandy. It’s because you’re so OLD, so terribly terribly OLD, isn’t it! Mountains were hills when you were middle-aged. I hear you left your wife for a younger, trophy Cromagnon. And that you’re… that a young person would find you strange, and… from many years of… you being… DAMN! This round to you, Ellis. But the game is far –(drains Brandy, gasps like beached whale) — from over.

Ellis: I am twenty years younger than Joss Whedon.

Also, HE cannot hide things in his beard.

…of course, he can pay people to do that for him now. He can even pay people to grow the beard for him. And he doesn’t have to run his own website to look big and clever on the internets.

Whedon: All right, Ellis, I am a couple of decades older than you. Touche. But you don’t know all of it. Jeph Loebi-Wan never told you the truth about your father…

Yes. You’re my youngling. Oh for chrissake, everybody knows it but you! Even my beard-growers speak of it freely! Now join me and together we can rule an infintisinimimmsally tiny portion of the galaxy and have a mildly amusing interweb flame war! If you only knew the power of the Hack Side! Join me. Seriously. I’ll cut off your other hand, you pansy.

Ellis: Every time you say “youngling”, I throw up in my mouth a little bit. And look around to see if John Munch from SVU is in the room.

Look, everybody. Joss and Warren are avoiding writing.

[Later]

Joss Whedon: Wow, we both went right to the cross-dressing humor! This is just like the Algonquin round table, except there’s only two of us, and no table, and no particular surfeit of wit, and no great certainty about how spell ‘Algonquin’. Huzzah!

Ellis: The last time I was at San Diego, I saw a porn star being bitched out by a midget pimp. Who was not a pimp of midgets, but a midget who was also a pimp.

Your tv show FIREFOX should have had midget pimps in it.

Is that a guy from The CW I see over there?

Whedon: Well, this has been educational. But it’s hard to type while I’m holding Warren. So on to greater things. Lunch things. May the Federation be with you, or something. Nerds.

Ellis: Move your hand, Joss. Yes.

If you loved me, you’d hold me THERE.

Time for a cigarette. Take it easy, people."

'tis true, 'tis true.

Rigorous Intuition: Why They Fight:

"So, let's see what we've got: when Plame was outed by Cheney's office she was working on the Iran file, tracking WMD technologies; the congressional probe into NSA spying will likely now be dropped; new photos of Abu Ghraib frat pranks have filtered out; an Ohio Republican county commissioner has been charged with the attempted abduction of a 14-year old ('come here, little girl'), and Democratic senate hopeful Paul Hackett has been pressured by his party to drop out of a race the popular Iraq war vet could probably win to ensure a slot for a career politician who probably won't.

What's missing? Oh yeah: Harry Whittington has a pellet in his liver, now too, as well as in his heart (though he's said to be doing 'extremely well'); Dick Cheney admits to drinking; and the ballistics just don't make sense at the reported distance of 30 yards.

Anything else? Just everything. Everything touched by the fallen angel of the American republic has become a farce, begetting tragedy. It's why The Daily Show has become the premier news program in the United States, because citizen/viewers are permitted to laugh at their condition, but powerless to do anything to change it."

Mrs. Kung Fu Monkey brings the funny.

Kung Fu Monkey: I Married Up -- as in "Funnier":

"Me: Hey, what are you watching?

Lovely Wife: A British show combining the best of sexism and class-ism. 'Ladettes to Ladies.' They take these ten young working class women and send them to English finishing school... There's a team of snotty old women. They 'help' the girls by teaching them how to sew dresses, how to walk, how to wear pearls and cross their ankles, flower arranging ... In this one, they're paraded around at a country mansion dinner party with rich people to see if they can blend in. If, by being sufficiently demure, will they be accepted by their 'betters.'

Me: ... sweet God.

Lovely Wife: (plummy British accent) 'And the winner receives a special prize from the prestigious Eggleston Hall Finishing School.'

Me: What's the prize?

Lovely Wife: A clitirodectomy.

Me: (spit take)"

The Role of Attorney General

REDSOXVILLE: Ignoring the UN:

"...the only times we see Alberto Gonzales these days is when he's defending another of George Bush's illegal programs. It seems his real job is to keep Bush out of prison.

I thought the AG was the nation's top prosecutor. Instead, he's ignoring evidence of criminal wrongdoing by his boss and ignoring the lack of evidence of criminal wrongdoing by everybody else.

Before Bush, you never heard the phrase 'prison for suspects.' But when the United States attorney general is your own private defense attorney (well, him and Harriet Miers), you take liberties with things like due process and the Constitution of the United States. And with Congress tucking its sack at every turn, you get away with it."

Warren Ellis Cracks Me Up

BORN DEAD:

"Warren is home alone from Saturday afternoon until Tuesday evening. Within 24 hours of this message, will Warren be:

1) So drunk that he can barely see, throwing lit matches at the neighbour's baby and calling in bomb threats to totally random telephone numbers?

(Like that time he wiped the outgoing-number data off his fax machine and then wrote a letter in marker with his left hand that read 'I am the brain damaged brother you never knew you had. Call me today or I'll kill someone' and then faxed it to comics artists Steve Pugh)"

"Dick Cheney was picked up twice in Wyoming for driving under the influence of alcohol... at the ages of 21, and 22."

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/cheney_doc.html

Just saying.

The Reality-Based Community: Least hypothesis:

"All right, then.

We've had the Cheney-hunting-accident jokes, and the solemn analyses of how the incident encapsulates the entire experience of the 'ready-fire-aim' Bush Administration: the inexplicable bungling, the contempt for law (Cheney hadn't bothered to buy a bird stamp), the obsessive secrecy, and the reflex to pin the blame on someone else: in this case, the shooting victim.

But jokes and synecdoche only take you so far, and I'd be inclined to agree with Glenn Reynolds that the matter is being attended to all out of proportion to its importance, if it weren't for the fact that Cheney arranged not to talk to sheriff's deputies investigating the incident until the next morning. (There are conflicting reports about the role of the Secret Service in keeping the deputies away from Cheney that evening.)

That, paired with the long delay in making the incident public, has two possible explanations, the same two as apply to Ted Kennedy's actions after the Chappaquiddick incident: either the principal was a complete idiot, or he needed time to sober up. The determination by the sheriff's office that no alcohol was involved in the shooting is, of course, completely worthless; since none of the witnesses was likely to talk, the only way to know would be to have done a Breathalyzer or blood-alcohol test on Cheney within a few hours of the incident.

Cheney told Brit Hume that he'd consumed 'one beer' at lunch, which is exactly half the 'two beers' usually reported to police by drivers too sloshed to walk a straight line."

The Absorbascon: Could Vibe Dance?

The Absorbascon: Could Vibe Dance?:

"There's not enough dancing in comics nowadays. Heroes used to dance all the time; when did we all become so serious, so ashamed, that we became embarrassed about dancing? Nowadays, readers lap it up when characters hump, shoot, decapitate, or yell at one another. Is dancing so much more horrible?

...But now that comics are written for painfully self-conscious adults, desperate to be taken seriously, and to have their prefered reading material taken seriously, heroes must be dour. Our superheroes used to enjoy their jobs; now it seems like a punishment (wow; how very Marvelesque!). Kids try to have fun every day; adults seem satisfied if they can make it through the day on grim determination and a sense of purpose.

Terry Sloane loved having the opportunity to put his talents to use for society's benefit; Michael Holt seems like he's been sentenced to 100 hours of community service. Plastic Man (friggin' Plastic Man!!!) struggles with being an out of wedlock father, Blue Devil wears black leather, Zatanna is a mindraper/mindscraper, Detective Chimp has a drinking problem, the Elongated Man's wife is raped and killed, Flash's Rogues now include a psychokiller who cuts out people's tongues, Aquaman is wielding a sword instead of embarrassing people with the clever use of electric eels.

Why? Because we killed Vibe, because he could dance."

Transference

Overheard in the Office: The Voice of the Cubicle - 12PM Order Pens:

"Co-worker #1: Why do you keep breaking your pens? That's company property.
Co-worker #2: I break things so I don't have to kill again."

"Jesus wouldn't allow it"

Overheard in the Office: The Voice of the Cubicle - 1PM Lunch:

"Co-worker #1: So who is this [Harold] guy?
Co-worker #2: He was hired for a job, but never showed up.
Co-worker #1: Why? Did you ever find out?
Co-worker #2: All he wanted to do was rape and pillage, but Jesus wouldn't allow it in this establishment."

COMICON.com: WARREN ELLIS' THE MINISTRY - "The Single"

COMICON.com: WARREN ELLIS' THE MINISTRY # 1:

"Yeah, mummy and daddy used to go out and hunt their food when they were your age, you bluetooth-earpiece-wearing Star Trek-looking fucker...

(Isn't anyone bothered that that piece of telephonic fashion makes everyone look like a stand-in for Lieutenant Uhura? Are people going to get SMS-ready fashion ridges for their foreheads next?)

In my position as The Minister, I believe that there should only be two kinds of singles. The kinds that tell a self-contained story without the necessity of reading eighteen other comics to understand it, and single-to-collection, the graphic novel serialised in chapters. The latter is the early-adopter form -- if you're paying for cable and watching BATTLESTAR GALACTICA each week instead of waiting for the DVD, you're a cultural early-adopter.

This is the way things should be. This is my Proclamation. And understand, I'm only talking about singles here, not comics in general -- OGN, for Original Graphic Novel, was another of my terms. Sorry about that.

The Single's never going to go away. I would like there to be fewer of them, and for them to be better-considered objects, but that is outside my control. For the moment. The tentacles of my Will extend further every day, like a Japanese monster groping blindly for schoolgirls. It's never going to go away because it's an entry-level format -- small, portable and relatively cheap. The standard graphic novel size isn't something you can shove in a pocket or a small bag, really. This is one reason why manga's finally taken off so big -- the small format makes it easy for a kid to shove a book in a backpack or a coat pocket, like a paperback novel."

Cranky Old Man Truth.

Fred On Everything:

"The other day I found myself trapped next to the lobotomy box in the house of a friend. The show was one of those dismal productions based on sexual innuendo, the sort that I would have found titillating when I was eleven. The format was not complex. Neither, I suspect, was the audience.

Several shapeless young couples sat together. The host asked them seriatim such questions as, “Other than your wife, who did you last take a shower with?” or “What part of your anatomy does your husband most like to kiss?” The studio audience invariably moaned, “Oooooooooooooooooh!” like third-graders who have heard a bad word. The couples themselves giggled with delicious embarrassment also in the manner of dimwitted children.

I happily imagined sending them to some barely heard-of tribe in the Amazon Basin for use in human sacrifice. Almost human. Something involving army ants would have done nicely.

The sexual reference didn’t offend me. I have misspent more hours in third-world skin bars than those people had aggregate brain cells, which means at least three skin bars. I’ve seen raunchy sex shows to the point of boredom, and am not real shockable. Pornography doesn’t upset me. If I had to choose whether my kids watched Dory Does Dallas, or Oprah, I might go with Dory.

No, it was the infantilism, the snickering, low-IQ tastelessness of a class of people who have no class. These, with their childish prurience and slum-dweller’s aversion to civilized existence, now dominate American culture. Anyone who points out that they are crass finds himself attacked as elitist—which, since elitism simply means the view that the better is preferable to the worse, all people should be.

We are not supposed to use phrases like “the lower orders,” which is the best of reasons for using them. Yet the lower orders exist. Its members are not necessarily poor, and the poor are not necessarily members. Nor is the level of schooling a reliable indicator of loutdom. Nor is the level of schooling a reliable indicator of loutdom. Nor is intelligence or race a particularly good marker. One may be a moral moron without being unable to tie one’s shoes. Rather the lower orders consist of people who think fart jokes uproarious.

...The fear of social inferiority always concerns the peasantariat: “You ain’t no gooder’n me.” Until the sudden florescence of pay packets occurred, the lower orders had either accepted that they were the lower orders, however resentfully, or tried to rise. They might learn to speak good English, read widely, and cultivate good manners. Or they might not. If they did, it was likely to work, since in America those who behave and speak like gentlefolk (another inadmissible word) will usually be accepted as such. In either case, they did not impose their barbarousness on others.

Ah, but with their new-found and enormous purchasing power, they discovered that they could do more than compel the production of skateboards, trashy television, and awful music. They could make boorish childishness and ignorance into actual virtues. And did. Thus wretched grammar is now a sign of “authenticity,” whatever that might mean, rather than of defective studies. Thus the solemnity with which rap “music” is taken. Briefly the sound of the black ghetto, it is now around the world the heraldic emblem of the angry unwashed. Thus the degradation of the schools: It is easier to declare oneself educated than to actually become so, and the half-literate now had the power to have themselves so declared.

With the debasement of society came a simultaneous, though not necessarily related, extension of childhood and adolescence. In the remote prehistorical past, which for most today means anything before 1900, the young assumed responsibility early. It wasn’t a moral question, but a practical one. If the plowing didn’t get done, the family didn’t eat. By the age of eighteen, a boy was likely to carry a man’s burdens.

Today, no. Now a combination of the enstupidation of the schools, the inflation of grades, and the threat of class-action suits by the parents of failing students means that an adolescent can graduate without assuming any burden whatsoever. Indeed escaping schooling is easier than finding it. Countless colleges will accept almost anyone and graduate almost anyone. Chores do not exist. Sex and drugs are everywhere available. Few things have obvious consequences.

The result is a cocoon of childhood that stretches on almost as long as one wants it to. I encounter adults in their mid-twenties who cannot be relied upon to show up at an appointed time, who do not read, who judge a professor by whether he makes the material “fun,” who have no idea where they want to go in life. It is not grownup behavior."

Oh. I see. Frank Miller's gone crazy[er].

ABC News: Batman Takes Aim at Osama:

"Beware, terrorists! The Caped Crusader is targeting a villain more sinister than the Joker — Osama bin Laden.

At the WonderCon 2006 comic-book convention in San Francisco last weekend, legendary comics writer and artist Frank Miller revealed that Batman would hunt down bin Laden and al Qaeda in his next DC Comics graphic novel."

Nothing Explains Everything.

It really does.

I mean it.

Literally, even.

And vice versa too.

Think about it.

Willie Nelson is cool.

He's a tax-evading, pot smoking, gay rights loving cowboy.

Awesome.

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Entertainment Columnist Mario Tarradell:

"Willie Nelson's crooned cowboy songs before, from the signature 'Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys' to 'My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.'

But never like this: On 'Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other,' the Texas country icon sings about love among men on the range. Available exclusively at iTunes today, the song aims to show Mr. Nelson's support for gays, particularly to conservative country-music fans.

'The song's been in the closet for 20 years,' Mr. Nelson said in a prepared statement. It was written in 1981 by Lubbock-born singer-songwriter Ned Sublette.

'The timing's right for it to come out. I'm just opening the door.'

Mr. Nelson recorded a song for the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack, the melancholy ballad 'He Was a Friend of Mine.' And the movie about two cowboys in love may have provided the perfect opportunity to release this new song. But Mr. Nelson also has a personal connection to the tune.

Two years ago, David Anderson, Mr. Nelson's friend and tour manager of three decades, told his boss he's gay. Last March, while Mr. Nelson recorded a batch of previously unreleased songs for iTunes, he discovered the song in a stack of demos he had tossed into a drawer.

Singing 'Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other' was Mr. Nelson's way of telling a longtime pal everything was OK, says Mr. Anderson."

True.

Suburban Guerrilla » Teacher:

"And a very wise person once taught me there is no difference between giving and receiving"

Happy day after Valentine's Day

Warrenellis.com » Horny Werewolf Day:

"Happy Valentine’s Day to all. And to those who hate the day, I say this: Valentine’s Day is a Christian corruption of a pagan festival involving werewolves, blood and fucking. So wish people a happy Horny Werewolf Day and see what happens."