The Awesomest Thing Ever

This new picture of the International Space Station against the Moon is the awesomest thing ever, right ?

Wait, that's actually from 2010.  Oh, right, here we go...

No, sorry, that's from 2014.  How about...

Nope, 2011.  How about...

Nope, 2009.  Maybe...

2014 again.  Surely, the next one...

Yer fuckin with us now arsehole...  Okay, okay...for realsies:

Seriously, not to be an asshole about it.  Just that I see this kinda shit in the news* all the time, think, hang on a minute, are you sure no-one has never shot that before, and...

The picture is awesomely cool...even if it's not the first.


* Not sure if that was one of the sites I was thinking of, because a certain mobile browser lost all my tabs...again.

No Taxpayer-funded Campaigning Under M. Harper, Non

In accordance with our commitment to a fixed election-date, the next general election will be held as prescribed by law.  As it is my intention to begin campaign-related activities, and it's also the case for the other party-leaders, it's important that these campaigns be funded by the parties themselves, rather than taxpayers.

My fucking jaw dropped when I heard this on the CBC.  The balls on this man...

And how about deceptive robocalling-campaigns ?  Is it okay for them to be funded by the taxpayer, Mister 'Message from the Government of Canada' ?


Meanwhile, that economic downturn I'm currently overseeing ?: More reason you be very very afraid of the opposition and keep me in power even longer.  And also, ISIS: VERY, VERY AFRAID !  Liberals & NDP weak !  Justin inexperienced !  Me protect you from Scary Vladimir Putin ! BE AFRAID !

Oh, and in case I don't sound enough like an American Republican: 'Best country in the world !'  But only so long as you keep us in power.  BE AFRAID !!!

Cilla Black

RIP

Belated, but then...I'm not exactly BBC Breaking News:

Colorama: Mari Lwyd

Clickbait

Indeed.

Doesn't help that just about every major news-site, up to, and even including the BBC, seem to be adopting the format of all content replaced by a series of squares or rectangles wherein an image is overlaid or captioned with a line or two of text, in a manner that just so happens to be almost indistinguishable from their 'promoted' content, be it from Taboola, Outbrain, their own in-house system, or the devil himself.

Our brave new online world has much to recommend it at times.  But more often than not, it just sucks.



And then the effect bleeds into the offline world as well, what with all those full-page ads. in magazines that just so happen to look like news-stories, till you start to smell bullshit, look down, and notice: 'Sponsored Content' in microscopic font.

Never mind the effect on commercial television, which seems to think that having a bunch of himbos & bimbos standing around a laptop watching cat-videos constitutes 'news'. 

Fuckin' Internet...

Maybe the GOP is Right about Obama's Foreign Policy

This is pathetic.

Obama team, military at odds over South China Sea

Some U.S. naval commanders are at odds with the Obama administration over whether to sail Navy ships right into a disputed area in the South China Sea — a debate that pits some military leaders who want to exercise their freedom of navigation against administration officials and diplomats trying to manage a delicate phase in U.S.-China relations.

The Pentagon has repeatedly maintained it reserves the right to sail or fly by a series of artificial islands that China is outfitting with military equipment. The Navy won’t say what it has or hasn’t done, but military officials and congressional hawks want the U.S. to make a major demonstration by sending warships within 12 miles of the artificial islands and make clear to China that the U.S. rejects its territorial claims.

By not doing so, they charge, Washington is tacitly accepting China’s destabilizing moves, which are seen by U.S. allies in the region such as Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam as highly threatening.

“We continue to restrict our Navy from operating within a 12 nautical mile zone of China’s reclaimed islands, a dangerous mistake that grants de facto recognition of China’s man-made sovereignty claims,” Sen. John McCain, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told POLITICO.

I hate to agree with John McCain, but he's right here.

Sources in the military and within the administration acknowledge the difference of opinion privately, but would not go on the record to discuss the differences between Navy leaders and the administration.

...

The dispute is more than just a naval territorial dispute — there are global economic implications if China claims ownership of this part of the sea, which sees trillions in goods shipped between Asia and the rest of the globe.

...

China claims it has exclusive control over waters hundreds of miles off its coast, and U.S. officials say Beijing believes the man-made islands strengthen its claim to the disputed Spratly Islands chain, which China and several Southeast Asian countries claim as their own.

...

The artificial islands have added to a broader disagreement between Washington and Beijing over freedom of navigation. The United States and most other countries, citing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, maintain that a coastal nation has the right to regulate economic activities such as fishing and oil exploration within a 200-mile economic exclusionary zone and that it cannot regulate foreign military forces except within 12 nautical miles off its shores. China, however, has insisted it can regulate economic and military activities out 200 nautical miles.

...

More than $5 trillion worth of international trade, from Middle East oil bound for Asian markets to children’s toys bound for Wal-Mart stores in the U.S., pass through the South China Sea each year. If China can restrict the passage of ships through what today are considered international waters, that could cause shockwaves for the world economy, U.S. officials warn.

...

The National Security Council also declined to discuss the dispute or outline the White House’s view, referring questions to the Pentagon.

But the Obama administration is increasingly seen as eager to avoid a confrontation by actually doing so — at least publicly — and Republicans are trying to pressure President Obama ahead of the Chinese leader’s visit to more aggressively assert himself in the face of China’s controversial behavior.

Just think back at the reaction of the US, when Russia annexed its own historical territory in Crimea, with the agreement of most of the Crimean population.  The PRC is, with its ridiculous EEZ-claims*, and creation of military outposts out of open ocean, effectively claiming exclusive ownership of and control over an entire sea !  At the expense of the actual territorial waters of the countries in the area, and at the expense of the entire international community's rights of navigation.  And the US response ?**  'Pretty please, don't do that, huh ?  What if we ask you really, really nicely ?'  Which is pretty much what I'd expect from a government that puts short-term corporate profits ahead of all other interests.

The US can't be counted on to stand by the Philippines or Viet Nam, here, can't be counted on by its Asian allies generally, if it allows this to stand without even attempting to assert its own legal right of navigation.  Sailing in international waters is an act of provocation towards a country a thousand kilometres away ?  Is that really a precedent you want to set ?  No-one's asking you to go to war with China.  Just assert your damn legal rights, and let the PRC take the first shot, if that's really where they want to go with this.  Shit !

Oh, but they left the best piece for last in that article:

But at the same time U.S. military leaders are advocating for something else — for the U.S. Senate to ratify the UN Law of the Sea treaty that it repeatedly cites as as the international framework for navigation of the high seas.

“We undermine our leverage by not signing up to the same rule book by which we are asking other countries to accept,” Gen. Joe Dunford, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate earlier this month.

That's right, as with so many other international agreements, the US signs up for something, then won't fucking ratify it, 'cos historically, the US has kinda not given a shit, figuring it will just do what it wants, regardless of the international community.  Which becomes somewhat problematic, when it comes up across another country with the same arrogant attitude, and the muscle to stand up to the US.

In the case of the UNCLOS, the US finds itself in a club that also includes the likes of North Korea & Iran.  But not the PRC, which ratified the agreement...but then just ignores it anyway.


* And absurd territorial claims based upon a bullshit made-up map from nineteen-forty-fuckin'-seven.

** Never mind the EU's silence on the matter.

Speaking of Which...

As All of America/The Entire Republican Party/Fox News Viewers/A Handful of Political Junkies eagerly await the pretend Republican debate(s) on Fox News next week, meanwhile, the actual debate of Republican candidates not named Trump, with an actual chance at the nomination, will take place in southern California this weekend as charisma-less son and brother of former presidents, JEB!, personal puppet-doll of the Kochs, Scott Walker, lunatic clown, Ted Cruz, pretty boy, Marco Rubio, and for some altogether inexplicable reason, failed businesswoman Carly Fiorina compete for the chance at being the billionaire Koch Brothers' chosen bitch in the coming Republican primaries.

Although the remaining eleven 'serious' candidates & Carly, may have a chance of being chosen for the historically most-often powerless VP spot (Darth Cheney, and to a lesser degree, Uncle Joe aside), really, most of the others have no chance of winning, and know that full well, but are running anyway, because...they have nothing the fuck to lose in so doing, and can hoover up oodles of cash in the name of an utterly futile campaign.  They could also have counted on oodles of attention from the media, were it not for one attention-crazed multiple-bankrupt property-developer entering the race...

Fiorina's presence puzzles me a little.  I can only assume, that either, a) the Kochs have her in mind for the VP slot, thinking that her possession of lady-parts somehow lessens Hillary's chances in the General Election, or that b) they think it's needful to string her utterly hopeless campaign along a little longer at least to counter the idea that the GOP is solely a party of rich white men.  Which to be true, it isn't.  It also includes a lot of people, who desperately would rather they were rich white men, and are more than happy to paper over any differences in order to gain even a junior seat at the big boy's table.

Regardless, keeping the Donald's joker-card in mind, almost certainly the nominee will be one of these four assholes: JEB!, fascist fuck Scott Walker, the always entertaining idiot Ted Cruz, or, less likely by the day, 'I'm so Young and Pretty; Isn't Hillary an old Hag' Marco Rubio.  The rest of the crowd is just so much entertainment-value, funded not just by the Brothers Koch, but by the rest of the billionaire-establishment that made Citizens United possible (H/T Chief Justice John Roberts, H/T as always Harriet Miers).

Of course, the Koch-sucking show will all take place behind closed doors (please let someone have sneaked in a camera, please !) as the top candidates get down on their knees and promise various ways in which they, if president, will personally advance the Kochs' agenda of maximally increasing their own personal wealth and power, at the expense of any other single consideration of humanity.

But don't worry, proles, though you are, and long have been, completely shut out of decision-making in your own so-called democracy, at least you'll get to laugh at the pretend candidates in the 'debates' on Fox.

What you won't get, which our more wise historical overlords knew the value of of, was the chance at public dunkings, and throwing rotten fruit.

Jimmy Carter Acknowledges the Obvious

Lynn Anderson: (I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden

RIP