SemiConscious Dot Org

Crack open the champagne and break out the waterboards; our baby’s turning one. Yes, that’s right: one year ago tomorrow, the Abu Ghraib “torture” photos first appeared in the national press. This is a wonderful, glorious day for those proud Americans like myself who understand that, in order to to Cook the Omelette of Freedom, it is occasionally necessary to Crack a few Constitutional Eggs. Or heads. Or something that makes sense.

Anyhoo, this date has, not surprisingly, been met with bleating from the predictable sources. There are those who will try and tell you that the abuses in Abu Ghraib are not an isolated incident, but in fact just the tip of the iceberg; that they are merely the most public example of systematic torture taking place in US military prisons and camps all over the world. This laughable assertion would, if true, certainly seem to strongly indicate that some of those in positions of power in the military knew of, condoned, or even ordered the abuses. But not to worry; just last week the Army top brass finished investigating itself in this matter, and found itself completely innocent.

Oh, sure, the nattering nabobs will squawk “coverup,” and say that a few low-ranking “bad apples” are being made scapegoats, but these same people yelp “coverup” all the time. I ask you, was Watergate a coverup? Was Iran-Contra a coverup? Ok, bad example, but you get my meaning.

With all their bellyaching about “torture” and “Geneva Conventions” and “human rights,” it’s a wonder these po-faced bedwetters can ever crack a smile. Luckily, true Culture of Life Warriors like Brother Limbaugh are around to see the humor in this situation. Buy your favorite liberal a dog collar or pair of handcuffs or jumper cables in honor of Abu Ghraib Day? Well played, Rush! You are truly a sparkling wit! Capital jape, sir.

I will, however, admit to some puzzlement when I pondered the question of why, after a productive year of beating and choking and drowning and electrocuting the mortal shit out of people in the defense of freedom, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would announce that the Iraqi insurgency remains just as strong as it was a year go. General Myers was quick to add that the increase in attacks meant nothing, and that US forces are actually winning, but this apparent contradiction only made things more confusing. Truth be told, after reflecting on these questions for a short time, my faith commenced to waver and my head to hurt, and I had to lie down for awhile.

No sooner had my headache gone away when further seeming contradictions arose to confound my poor psyche: I discovered that the State Department has decided to stop publishing an annual report that compiles and analyzes terror attacks around the globe, despite the fact that last year was the most violent in the 19-year history of the report. Considering that administration officials are constantly reminding us that we’re Winning The War On Terror™, how to reconcile the apparent contradiction between their words and actions? My poor head set to throbbing again, it did.

But we all know that The War On Terror™ is about winning hearts and minds, about the war of ideas. Luckily for us all, Fafblog is there to leap bravely into the breach and explain the heretofore unnoticed connection between quantum mechanics and Republican pretzel logic. After all, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle states that the act of observing an experiment changes its outcome. Therefore, by ceasing to talk about global terror, the administration knows that we, the American public, will soon stop thinking about terror, and eventually… Poof! Terror will disappear. The exploding building doesn’t exist, unless you think it does! Quantum Physics, bitches!

In a completely unrelated story, 53% of Americans now hate America. Hmm, looks like we’ve discovered where the enemy really lies. I’m thinking we may need to start scouting out locations for some new, domestic Abu Ghraibs…

Last Saturday, I found myself in a heated theological discussion with some unsaved heathens, on a topic which is of paramount importance to our lives, indeed our very souls. The debate became louder and more heated, until the very floor on which we stood shook with the fury of our voices…and with the throbbing of the bass.

I speak, obviously, of the eternal question: “What Is The Funkiest Song Ever Written?”

Operating, as we did, from a common acceptance of the incontrovertable fact that Stevie Wonder, in the years 1971-76, laid down the funkiest music the world ever has or ever will produce, the question narrowed to which of Stevie’s masterpieces from that era should hold the title of Funkiest Ever. One of my hosts rather strongly averred that “I Wish” takes the title. His wife just as vociferously disagreed, claiming that the top spot must go to “Boogie On Reggae Woman.”

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not disparaging either of the aforementioned tunes. Both tracks are funkier than practically anything released by any other human being, living or dead. (I would also find it hard to quibble with someone who placed either “Higher Ground” or “Sir Duke” at the top of the heap.) However, they are not Stevie’s best. The track I proclaim to the Pinnacle of Human Funk is, not surprisingly, the hymn which with every Uber Nixon church service begins. I speak, of course, of “Superstition.”

Feel free to weigh in on the relative merits and rankings of the preceding tracks. One might even attempt to offer an alternate song title or artist as candidate for Funkiest Ever. To disagree with a religious man of my exalted stature would, of course, make one guilty of blasphemy. But don’t worry, it’s not “bleeding head mounted on the battlements”-level blasphemy. (After all, my hosts disagreed with me, and they’re still alive.) Think of it instead as, perhaps, “Karmic Pimp Slap”-level blasphemy.

I don’t know about all of you, but my most horrible, gut-wrenching thoughts—you know, those thoughts that, once they’ve infected your brainpan, remain there for weeks, popping up unbidden and ruining otherwise enjoyable moments, waking you up at 3:30am in the type of ice-cold sweat that can only be borne of sheer existential terror—for me, those thoughts often generate spontaneously, appropos of absolutely nothing.

Take tonight, for instance. I was sitting on my couch, reading a book, sipping slowly and respectfully on a Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout... when suddenly, out of nowhere, it occured to me:

The fortieth anniversary of the Summer Of Love is only two years away.

Dear god, what a wretched, wretched thought. Given the fondness of my parents’ generation for endless bouts of egregious, excessive, entirely undeserved orgies of middle aged self-congratulation, this could get ugly.

If you don’t believe me, just think back to 1994-95. Ye gods, what a double-whammy that was: the 30th anniversary of the Beatles’ arrival on these shores, coupled with the 25th anniversary of Woodstock. And then, less than a year later, the retrospective news specials on “Baby Boomers Turn 50: What Does It All Mean?” Every time you turned on the tube, endless replays of grainy, black and footage; endless tv roundtables featuring old bald bearded guys in ponytails and granny glasses blathering on and on ad nauseum about the historical and sociopolitical “significance” of Flower Power.

We had to smile and nod politely when they waxed excruciating about their long-gone youth; we had to feign sympathy when they turned the national stage into a forum for wading through their self-pitying emotional molasses. Sure, we could’ve told them “Nobody fucking cares, Gramps,” but really, what good would it have done? They’d just have kept right on talking and talking and talking. They always do.

Yep, it’s a frightening prospect, people. And, of course, you realize that, Boomers being who they are, the “Summer of Love: Whither Us Now?” retrospectives will start at least a full year before the actual anniversary. Which means that we have barely a year to start stockpiling Dramamine and Pepto, folks.

I apologize for ruining your day in such a callous manner. I don’t have the foggiest idea what triggered such a terrifying train of thought, but I feel strongly that it’s better to be physically and emotionally prepared to face the horror. Consider yourselves warned.

(pic via Happy Furry Puppy Story Time With Norbizness)

Well, children, it’s all over but the Inquisitioning: After surprisingly short deliberation, Cardinal Ratzinger has been named the new Pope. Earlier in the day, there were some rumors that Giblets had wrested the throne of St. Peter away from Ratzinger by besting him in single combat, but these rumors have since been proven false. Despite feelings of bitterness over my own failed campaign for the Papacy, I feel we should take the high road and offer congratulations to the new leader of over a billion Catholics, Pope Skeletor I.

As the risk of repeating ourselves, that would be this guy:

In the harsh, cleansing, self-critical introspection that oftens accompanies the failure of a major endeavor, I have analyzed the smoking ruins of my Papal campaign, and decided to place the blame squarely where it belongs: WITH ALL OF YOU. Yes, YOU, my erstwhile “followers,” are entirely to blame for my failed takeover of the Roman Catholic Church.

Ooooo, so you wanted a “controversial” Pope, did you? Ratzie is such a badass, huh? You looked at his 23 years as head of the Inquisition and his condemnations of divorce and women in the priesthood and his characterization of homosexuality as an “intrinsic evil” and his polarizing effect on an already splintered Church and you got all weak in the knees. You swooned like a bunch of little schoolgirls. You…you…you groupies.

If it was “controversy” you wanted, how could you not vote for me? What would be more controversial than a non-Catholic pope? Not to mention that I favored replacing Communion wafers with Jello shots, building the Vatican its very own nuclear arsenal, and launching space missions to Mars to evangelize the microbes that might live under the Red Planet’s polar ice cap? Forget “fetuses have souls” or “sperm cells have souls;” single-celled organisms have souls!!! Untold billions of these extraterrestrial protozoans have already been damned to the pits of Hell for never having heard the Word of God! HOW MANY MORE MUST BURN???

You could have had a true conservative heading the Church for the next fifty years….but noooooo, you had to go ahead and elect a wishy washy milquetoast pantywaist liberal to the Papacy. I hope you’re proud of yourselves. As for me, I need to work off some of this frustration in a positive, constructive, Christian way. There will be new bloody heads on the battlements by tomorrow morning, I promise you. My vengeance will be swift and terrible!

Your Inner European is Irish!

Sprited and boisterous! You drink everyone under the table.

Sure, and thot’s a big fookin’ surprise to all a’ ye, innit? (link via Studio Zoe.)

Once again it’s April 15th, and once again I have waited too long to deal with this shit. So here I sit, badly jetlagged, desperately consulting tables and appendices in a frantic attempt to figure out how many of my hard-earned ducats I owe to the Military Industrial Complex this year. I can smell a faint whiff of burning, which I’m pretty sure is the scent of my synapses fusing together.

Moreover, it suddenly occurs to me that it’s been weeks since this site has been graced with a post that didn’t concern either politics or the Boston Red Sox. Therefore, it’s time to take a break from the 1040, because we are long since past the time for a sustained burst of pointless, unmitigated silliness. Indeed, our very lives may depend upon it:

Behold the South Park Self-Portrait Generator!

(link via Chapel Perilous)

Not silly enough for ya? Well then, perhaps the terrifying spectre of Drunken Monkeys Playing Ska While Riding on Flying Beer Cans is more to your liking.

Still not laughing? Jeebus, you people are hard to please. Well, how about another installment in our staggeringly popular “Germans Are Nuts” series? We haven’t had one of those in months…

German man tries to run over his dentist!

German diner compensated after eating live cockroach in restaurant!

German man has doctors build him a second penis!

Dude, what the hell is wrong with German people?

That does it, I’m all out. My Kung Fu is spent. If you ungrateful wretches don’t find any of this stuff hilarious, then pray tell let’s see you find something funnier!

Apologies for the lack of recent posts. The school is on spring break this week, the liberry is closed, the rugrats are on vacation, and I am enjoying some badly-needed rest and relaxation at an exclusive resort high in the snow-capped mountains of Indiana. The place is staffed entirely by Hungarian immigrants who don’t speak a word of English, but their eyes are kind and they always respond promptly whenever I resume my howling for drink.

I’m not sure about the Pope and his followers, but the last time I talked to him, he mentioned something about spending this week attending to the fortifications on his private South Seas island. Amidst the unhinged rants and gibberish, I was able to clearly make out such words as “missile silos,” “death rays,” and the rather ominous-sounding “subatomic squashifier.” It appears, from the general content of his rants, that he actually believes last week’s ludicrous fantasy of finding a way to escape the coming global energy crunch. I could tell him that, when the shit goes down, he and his merry band of lunatics are just as screwed as the rest of us, but why spoil their fun? Besides, it gives them something to do, and keeps them from bothering Serious People.

Anyhoo, regular updates will resume on Monday.

Oh, those wacky, wacky environmentalists. They’re at it again, trying to scare the American consumer out of their minds and SUVs with breathless talk of yet another sky-is-falling Doomsday Scenario. Will these Chicken Littles never learn that their squawks fall on deaf ears?

The latest boondoggle the squawkers are selling is something called Peak Oil. This bit of frippery ludicrously asserts that the world’s supply of oil is finite and that, once peak production is reached, the supply of oil will enter an irreversible decline which will drive prices ever higher and cause economic hardship all over the world. This theory, which was obviously developed by some capitalism-hating Commie peacenik who—what? You say he was a geophysicist in the employ of Shell oil? Oh. Well, no matter, the theory is without doubt riddled with error and—hold on, it says here that using this theory, he was able to predict, way back in 1956, that US oil production would hit its peak in 1970 and go into irreversible decline after that, causing America to import an ever-growing percentage of its oil from overseas. Hmm, it appears that did actually happen. Ah, it was probably just a lucky guess.

Anyhoo, the recent explosion in oil prices up to $58 a barrel has caused a lot of worrywarts to fret that the global oil peak was just around the corner, and that yearly oil production would start to decline soon after. This laughable fear ignores the obvious fact that the oil companies have massive reserves and are constantly discovering new oil fields and—what? They’re not? They’ve actually overstated the size of their reserves and haven’t found any new major oil fields in 20 years?

Alright, so maybe—possibly!—we are nearing the point where yearly global production of oil starts to decline. And maybe, maybe, every single aspect of our modern economy—from the vehicles we drive to the consumer goods we buy to the food we eat to the pharmaceuticals we depend on—are completely, utterly dependent on a cheap source of oil to exist. But no matter! If the oil starts to dry up, we can switch to any number of alternative sources to replace it and—what? None of the putative replacement sources are remotely capable of taking oil’s place? Natural gas supplies, which run most of America’s power plants, are beginning to decline too? Coal is energy-poor, expensive to transport, and produces more pollution than any other source? Ethanol and other biomass fuels are grown with fertilizers and pesticides made from petroleum products? Solar and wind power are far too unwieldy and expensive to set up and dependent on parts and machinery made from petroleum products? There are nowhere near enough nuclear plants to take up the slack, not to mention the radioactive waste? Shit.

Well, I’m sorry, I still don’t believe that modern, industrial society could be in serious trouble in the next few years. “Peak oil” and all these doomsday scenarios are nothing more than the ranting of a bunch of tree hugging hippies who—what? Highly respected investment bankers are saying this? Republican Congressmen? A coalition of former national security officials?

Hmm, seems we could be in a bit of a bind in the next few decades. No gas for the cars, no plastic to build the cars (or anything else) out of, no cheap, abundant consumer goods and food flown in from all over the world…not much of anything. Luckily for me, shortly after I made my first billion from the Church of the Uber Nixon, I hired a team of faith-based scientists to tackle that pesky cold fusion problem that’s been baffling humanity for almost a century. Late last year, we made our critical breakthrough; we can now generate limitless energy through the fusion of hydrogen atoms into helium…using nothing more than the power of prayer.

When the global energy crunch hits, I, my pet scientists, and several hundred of my closest followers will retire to an unnamed island in the South Pacific that I have purchased and fortified for just such an eventuality. There, we will while away our days on the beach, slurping margaritas made in blenders powered by the Fusion Of Faith. Of course, the lack of oil means there will be no synthetic fabrics from which to make bikinis…which means all the women on the beach will be wandering around naked. Praise Nixon! (and Jesus.)

Meanwhile, America, China, India, and the other remaining global powers will exhaust the remnants of their waning economic and military strength in vicious land wars over the few remaining dregs of oil. It will be a nasty time for all you unsaved, but you will adapt. I suggest you acquaint yourselves with the divine mysteries of subsistence farming…or perhaps cannibalism.