Scientists find politician telling the truth

Against all the odds, it seems that politicians are in fact capable of telling the truth. It's been shown, by proper climate scientists with slide rules and computers and stuff, that in his film An Inconvenient Truth, former Presidential candidate Al Gore may have portrayed climate change in an accurate and verifiable fashion.

Of course, it's too early to say whether this represents an ongoing trend in political rectitude or if this is just an anomalous event, but it's still a startling result. Such a groundbreaking discovery is bound to cause controversy, but rumours that Jim Inhofe has demanded a congessional hearing are as yet unconfirmed.

What a bunch of tits

Los Angeles' Animal Services agency have come in for criticism because, amongst other things, they were the only department not to have completed last year's sexual harassment survey. Presumably they were too busy gassing dogs, cats and other residents of Skid Row to sit in a room with some lesbian feminist called Eunice discussing whether having one's leg humped by a Jack Russell constituted sexual harassment, and if so how much compensation they could screw out of the City.

Now they're in trouble with the rest of the council for trying to save the taxpayer a bit of cash by having a whip around at Hooters. The spuriously-pious PC elite hated the idea. Well, I hate them. Exploitative, my arse - the woman in that poster probably earns more cash in a single photo shoot than I earn in a month, but I don't see anyone rallying to my cause.

Would anyone from the City Council like to complain about the bikini-clad pictures that typically adorn LA tourist literature, or censor the Hollywood film industry for being exploitative? No, I didn't think so - there's more money to be made from hypocrisy, and more fun to be had killing stray animals.

If I was in charge of the neutering campaign, I'd start with the sexless reactionaries in the City Controller's office.

An apparently offensive human body, dressed for a day at the beach

How to buy contraceptives in the USA

1. Enter campus store

2. Wonder around the 'health and sanitation' section (i.e. deodorants and caffeine pills), with one eye vainly searching for rubber johnnies, and ensuring none of one's own students/colleagues are around.

3. Conclude that they don't have them, and with a heavy sigh head to the main store at the student centre.

4. Repeat step 2, getting increasingly irate. Conclude that against all common sense the spineless, smothering University directors have decided not to sell condoms on campus for fear of alienating parents/the loony right.

5. Having worked oneself into a moral outrage so intense that one has completely forgotten about checking for the presence own students/colleagues, go up to a member of staff and complain. Loudly. Ignore any attempts by the staff member to break one's eloquence, instead focusing on the health and ethical responsibilities of the University, the (potentially highly) sexually active nature of the shop's clientele, and finishing with a damning critique of the hypocrisy displayed given the current campus-wide AIDS awareness programme.

6. Pause for breath. This allows the staff member to gently guide you to the shelf that stocks Mr Happy's Business Suits, tucked coyly behind the sanitary pads and just beneath the yeast infection treatments.

7. Grab largest box available in an effort to retain some dignity. Go to the counter, fervently hoping that the small (but not small enough), sniggering crowd are all graduating seniors and one won't be trying to lecture them about sub-mesoscale dynamics next term.

8. Hand over money, replying "fuck yes I want a bag" to the staff member's environmentally motivated question. Leave shop, vowing to buy prophylactics off the internet, or become a Catholic, or something.

'...if you live in an immoral way with a member of the opposite sex or same sex, you will be terminated.'

Pat Millar makes it clear to anyone working in her roller-rink in Idaho that ...if you live in an immoral way with a member of the opposite sex or same sex, you will be terminated. It's good to see that they're not going soft on the whole messy business of extra-marital unpleasantness in Idaho - until the Supreme Court makes sinful living a capital offence then we need more crusaders like this to take matters into their own hands.

Sadly, it appears that Pat and Marvin Miller don't actually execute their morally-corrupted staff, they only terminate their employment, but at least it's a start. Squirting deodorant into rental roller skates is a responsible job that demands the very highest levels of personal and professional probity, both on and off the rink. If people want to live lives of unwed sin, then they should choose a career that doesn't affect the morality of Our Young - one that allows people to freely engage in acts of the most bestial vileness without actually influencing anybody. Run for Senate, perhaps.

Pat and Marvin also ban public displays of promiscuous activities, homosexuality, intoxication, use of profanity, lewd behavior, use of illegal drugs, child abuse, spouse abuse, unlawful relationships, cross-dressing, stalking and nudity. Nothing about buggering wildlife though. After all, this is Idaho, and they can't afford to completely alienate their client-base. There is no room in heaven for those who can't maintain a successful entreprise*, just ask the Mormons.

*Except for George W. Bush, of course - his repeated bankruptcies, cocaine abuse and alcoholism may be forgiven in light of his righteous smiting of ungodly foreign heathens. Glory be!

Two World Wars and One World Cup....

Apologies that I've not posted for a while, but real life has been getting in the way. Actually, I'm not that sorry at all, if you really have nothing better to do than read ill-concieved polemics on the internet than you could always have posted something on the comments section. You didn't though, so one can only assume that either you had something better to do, or you're just another memeber of the gaping-mouthed bone-idle common herd demanding constant passive unchallenging distraction. In either case, my apology is insincere so we'll say no more about it.

I'm getting very excited about the World Cup. Everybody is, who doesn't live in North America. North Americans have a vague handle on the notion that the Football (not soccer) World Cup is a big deal across most of the the globe, but they don't fully appreciate the significance. Their main exposure to the event is the coverage that their admittedly competent football team gets, so and as a result people here think it's a sporting event. This is nonsense, of course, since the World Cup has absolutely nothing to do with football. Most professional footballers are overpaid coke-snorting wife-beaters against which NBA basketball players seem quite charming. It's absurd to think that billions of people would get excited about watching 22 of these workshy prima-donnas kick a leather ball around. No, the true importance of the World Cup lies in its bigotry.

For just a few weeks every four years, it becomes perfectly acceptable to be as blatantly prejudiced as one likes, with absolutely no factual justification. In capital cities around the globe, one is almost expected to air the sort of views that at any other time would have you locked up in David Blunkett's Brave New Labour World. Being English, my main targets are of course European - proximity and similarity only serve to heighten minor differences. Thus Germans are now to be known as The Boche or simply Bloody Krauts. Italians become referred to as Wops, Spicks, or under a number of names that refer to their proud military history of bravely showing their back to the enemy. I'm sure there are potentially hundreds of appropriate monikers for those idle collaborators across the Channel, but I see no reason to expend effort to think of them, so I tend to just stick with Frogs when I can't avoid referring to France at all. Similar prejudices are played out the world over. In South America, for example the Brazilians can't stand the Argentinians (rightly so - those cheating bastards still owe us for 1986), the Argentinians can't stand anybody, and Paraguayans are bandits that are only good for supplying moody electronic goods.

Here in LA this sort of behaviour would no doubt induce cries of indignation, free-loving tree-huggers that they are. In fact though, this outpouring of bile serves a very important purpose, in that it releases tensions, gets it out in the open, much like Hate Week in George Orwell's 1984. The USA retains some dignity by rising above all this petty, tasteless nationalism, but with occasionally catastrophic consequences. Two to four hours of training in 'warrior ethics' is no substitute for a couple of lagers and a decent gag about rag-heads.

Postscript
The comments board has been rather empty of late, so to liven things up I'm announcing a competition for the best nationalist insults - closing date is Friday so that everyone is ready for the opening rounds. Insults should be original and witty, with extra marks awarded to for insulting the French. A special mention will be given to whoever most cruelly insults the eventual winners in Germany. For those of you who are new to this sort of game i.e. Americans/Seppos, a good place to start is the War. Grievances that are genuine or less than 40 years old just aren't that funny.