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“Drinkability,” as a rating of a beer, has to be among the most egregious bullshit terms ever devised by man. Drinkability. Drinkability. In a peer-reviewed paper (a peer-reviewed paper), drinkability is defined as “A beer that … invites the drinker to another glass.” Stop. Right. There. STOP. Stop, stop, stop. Right. There.

Drinkability is the category a brewer uses to hype his brew when every other category one can use has failed him:

“The customers think our beer tastes like gravel. They say it tastes like watered-down gravel.”

“That’s one of the categories?”

“No, that’s just the write-in votes.”

“Have you asked about wetness? Or fizziness? Or foofarallitude? How does our beer do on foofarallitude?”

“It’s not looking good, sir.”

“Hmm. Have you asked them about its drinkability?”

“Not yet. What’s that?”

“I don’t give a good goddamn what it is, just ask them about it. They’re going to get tired sooner or later.”

“Okay. How do you want me to spell that?”

I hate people.

Thucydides wrote this around 430 BC describing how Athens and the character of its citizens degraded during the long war with Sparta, but it should send an electric thrill of familiarity down the spine of anyone living here and now:

“To fit in with the change of events, words, too, had to change their usual meanings. What used to be described as thoughtless acts of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one’s unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfit for action.

“Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man, and to plot against an enemy behind his back was perfectly legitimate self-defense. Any one who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and any one who objected to them became a suspect…As a result…there was a general deterioration of character… The plain way of looking at things, which is so much the mark of a noble nature, was regarded as a ridiculous quality and soon ceased to exist. Society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow.”

Thanks, George!

I comment on two blogs/bboards. I used to comment on more. I don’t comment on the two that I still comment on nearly as often as I used to. The reason, I think, is that the lively conversations that attracted me to these bboards in the first place have devolved into predictable kneejerk bloodbaths, with certain prolific parties on the left and right treating most new threads like they were WWI battlefields, fighting over every square inch of dirt whether it makes sense or not. The threads degrade into exercises in name-calling in the blink of an eye. So now, most times, I read a comment I want to reply to, I write a reply to it, then I erase it before posting. I think “why bother?” Sometimes I have an insight into something because of what I do or have done or where I’ve been. It usually doesn’t get posted anymore. Why bother? These people don’t need or want to know what I know. It’ll be just another square inch of dirt in Verdun.

These people aren’t interested in conversation. I know that’s a pretty broad brush, and not true for many, but it seems that way. It seems that way because those who do want to have a conversation, who want to learn or teach something, don’t anymore because they see the same battlefield I do.

It’s amazing: it’s almost as if there is a natural lifespan to a good bboard. Because eventually the Tribes find it and squash it and leave it when it’s dried and dead, and then they look for the next one to kill.

So here’s to the good bboards. May they spring eternally from the ashes of those that came before.

Brown mulls UK oath of allegiance plan – CNN.com

Goldsmith calls for a pledge of allegiance, the establishment of a new national holiday to celebrate Britishness, and expanded ceremonies that would take place when new immigrants become British citizens. He also said schoolchildren should have a citizenship ceremony as well.”We are experiencing changes in our society which may have an impact on the bond that we feel we share as citizens,” Goldsmith said in the report. “I propose a range of measures that may help to promote a shared sense of belonging.”

It’s been a long time since I’ve had occasion to say “at least I don’t live there.” Can you imagine having had to attend a compulsory citizenship ceremony when you turned 18? At 18, when you were old enough to be spooked by the kind of off-handed paranoid power the government would have to invoke to make that happen? Being forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at 8 years old was bad enough, in hindsight. Blessed hindsight. But there would be nothing “hindsighted” about this; this would be dumped right on your developmental front porch step just as you step out into the world for good.

There is nothing wrong with having a sense of place and community, which is what the British government is trying to foster here. There is only something wrong with the idea that a dictated sense of place and community has any worth. It does not. It took me years to get over the fact that my government made me stand at attention and chant at a flag when I was little. In some ways I’m still not over it.

It’s a funny thing: there is no faster way to persuade someone to hold a particular attitude than to demand he hold its opposite.

Bush vetoes bill banning waterboarding – CNN.com

“We created alternative procedures to question the most dangerous al Qaeda operatives, particularly those who might have knowledge of attacks planned on our homeland,” Bush said. “If we were to shut down this program and restrict the CIA to methods in the field manual, we could lose vital information from senior al Qaeda terrorists, and that could cost American lives.”

George is a colossal ass, of course; King of the short-sighted political decision. “Torture is okay for us to use.” Say that, and you can no longer complain about any god damn thing somebody else does to any of our citizens without exposing yourself as a hypocritical fool.

So that’s true. But something else unsettles me about this article, too. Been annoying and unsettling me for quite some time now: I find the use of the word “homeland” over the past few years very spooky. I don’t remember hearing it used in any kind of official way prior to 9/11. It’s as if George and his pals had wanted to use “fatherland” or “motherland,” but recognized that the nazis and the commies beat them to it.

I’m not comfortable living in a country that has a pet name for itself.

Earthrace – The Boat

In March 2008, Earthrace will attempt to set a new speed record for a powerboat to circumnavigate the globe running 100% biodiesel, and with a net zero carbon-footprint, in order to increase awareness of the environment and the sustainable use of resources.

“Net zero carbon footprint.” While I don’t want to detract from something cool–I like it when cool things happen– this phrase is beginning to really grate. This boat has a 3,000 gallon fuel tank. A non-trivial amount of energy went in to making it in the first place. It’s only “net zero” because the company buys carbon offsets. I could make a Hummer or a Boeing 727 “net zero” doing that.

You know, if *everybody* bought carbon offsets to reduce their carbon footprint to “net zero,” we’d still have a problem. I don’t care how many trees you plant, a 727 still does what it does.

Before someone says that I don’t understand the concept behind carbon offsets, let me just say this: I understand it. It’s a wonderful way to roll around in your cake and then eat it. It’s a wonderful way to keep doing what you’re doing with a clean conscience. I *understand* that. You gave at the office. You adopted the skinny televised black kid in Ethiopia. What you didn’t do was leave your Hummer at home and walk to the grocery store.

“Net zero carbon footprint.” Jesus Christ. The phrase is about to become absolutely meaningless as every damn company piles on with its own product. It’ll be like what happened to the word ‘retarded’ when it leaked out into the mainstream; psychiatrists had to come up with some other word. A perfectly descriptive term, ruined by squatters.

When a can of coke is advertised as having a “net zero carbon footprint,” the retardeding of the phrase will be complete.

King pardons Saudi rape victim – CNN.com

It’s funny how seriously the world community takes the kingdom. As if they have some sort of point, some sort of gravitas.

The need for the pardon defies all. The kingdom will not last another 50 years. So says the Great Curmudgeon.

In solidarity with Gillian Gibbons, I’ve decided to name my son’s old teddy bear Muhammad. Also 3 of my lawnchairs, the kitchen table, the old skillet that the teflon’s peeling from, the brown patch in the backyard, and the keys to my truck. These are all henceforth renamed Muhammad.

The stuff that collects under the couch between vacuumings I rename What The Fuck Is Wrong With You People? .

I swear I need some symbolic something to go apeshit over, too. I’m totally lacking in symbolic apeshittery. I feel kind of naked because the only response I have now to somebody else’s godly freak-out is a kind of bemused anxiety, which I’m getting kind of tired of, frankly. Thousands of screaming townsfolk marching on my house with torches and stones in their hands, and all I get is bemused anxiety to fend them off? That rarely works. So that changes now, Jack.

From now on, I consider the act of shaking someone’s right hand an affront. AN AFFRONT TO EVERYTHING I HOLD DEAR. If I see someone, a Right-to-lifer or a Sudanese fringewit Muslim or who-have-you, shaking someone’s hand with his or her right hand, I reserve the right to call for their fucking heads. Because shaking someone’s hand with your right hand…why, you may as well have murdered puppies in my living room. Shat right there in the gumbo. The only way I’ll cancel the fatwa is if I get some serious fucking media play. The world has to realize the magnitude of the blunder before I’ll call it off.

While I’m at it, I also call for the heads of those people who haven’t named their various kitchen appliances or outdoor furnishings Muhammad. These people make my blood boil. And those who haven’t had an abortion or performed an abortion, who are high on my holy shit list? Death to them.

THE WORLD WILL ACKNOWLEDGE MY SYMBOLIC APESHITTERY.

We establish the importance of an event or idea by mashing and smashing it, kicking it around, to see where it ends up in the community’s Big Ball of History and Importance. “9/11 goes here; pet rocks go here.”

After the thing has found its spot on the ball, if it’s deemed important, it takes a lot of effort to move it. That’s why no one wanted to hear what Galileo had to say. It would involve a lot of digging and heavy lifting, and everybody was already sitting down comfortably in easy chairs.

If it’s deemed unimportant, it comes to occupy a little hidey-hole in some out of the way place, and is very easy to move about. If one can track down all the mentions of an event, one can fabricate plausible lies and change history: “The pet rock was first mentioned in conversation in Little Rock, Arkansas.” “Really? Whoa.”

Britney Spears will end up in a little hidey-hole in an out of the way place, eventually. People will tell the most obtuse lies about her, and other people will believe them. But since we had the tremendous foresight to hammer her onto an inconsequential region of the Ball, none of it will matter.

Here’s an example of what we will deem important: the coming presidential elections. The coming presidential elections will matter. These elections are weighty, and what comes out of these elections will be even weightier. Sides will be taken. No dumb lies will be told; all lies will be cagy and mean.

These elections are going to be put in the Ball’s juicy center. It will be decades before a historian offers a different view of what happened than that which the winners will dictate: “We’ve agreed to bury it here; we’re going to bury it right here.”

Nobody in the United States is untouchable by the law. Everyone has done something that could have resulted in fines or imprisonment. Everyone. It almost goes without saying, except that I had to say it in order for the next paragraph to make the right kind of sense.

The inculcation of patriotism into every one of us at a young age is identical in form to the inculcation of a sense of religion into church-goers. People have used processes of religion such as this one to set up this thing that behaves like a god: it demands reverence; it demands tithing. It has the power to make your existence miserable, should you incur its wrath.

And, again, everyone has given it cause. There is no one who obeys all the laws or scrupulously calculates his taxes. He does not drive 35 in a 35 mile-per-hour zone, nor does he come to a complete stop. The person who does that would be a saint: The Saint of Traffic By-laws. What kind of crappy saint is that? It’s the crappy saint of a crappy god.

Government and the government are constructs of human imagination and need. They are an attempt to make a real, live, actual god. A drunken, lurching, real, live, actual god, but a real one nonetheless.

Government is not now omnipresent or omnipotent, but we’re trying to improve this god by allowing it to learn how to keep better track of where everybody is, for example, by satellite tracking of our stuff. And if you know where our stuff is, you know where we are. That’s key for a god; You have to know where Your people are. And people are fine with that because they don’t really know what kind of power they’re giving this drunken thing. People aren’t ready (yet) to put computer chips in their bodies, so the chips are going into the cellphones for now.

We can almost pay 10 dollars online to find out where any person is within an error of fifty feet. And I see a day when we can almost pay 5 dollars.

Did the founding fathers know what they were doing? That they were replacing one god by another? I think so; I think the founding fathers knew that they were setting up a substitute god when they separated church from state. That’s practically a smoking gun. And I think they thought of it in just that way: that it was time to change gods. And they knew their new, stupid god would never work if the older gods were allowed to bind to it; without that separation the substitute god would never have taken hold.

And the fathers had reason to do what they did. The old gods hadn’t ever seemed to work out. Why not create a new one? Things couldn’t get much worse.

In reality, things got much better. For a long time. Because the substitute god was consciously made to be crappy, and was meant to stay that way. But now, because engineers–the priests of the crappy god–are able to build things with the potential to allow the government to know where we all are all the time, the god is becoming less stupid. It’s getting smarter, taking on more of the qualities of gods. This is not a good thing. This is not what the founding fathers wanted.

I’m not ready to watch the crappy god evolve and grow; to become less crappy. The reason this god is tolerable to me at all is precisely because it is so stupid. I’m not ready for the government to know where I am all the time. So the more ways I can keep actively bothering the record-keeping function of the government while keeping a low enough profile that I still adhere to the American Compact, the longer I can keep the lurching god off balance and dumb.

That’s the curmudgeon’s goal, even if he doesn’t know it.

Superjumbo ends historic flight – CNN.com

The airline says its jets will set a “new standard for luxury and comfort,” fitted with 399 economy seats, 60 business seats and 12 Givenchy-designed “suites” featuring a flat bed behind sliding doors.

Thank goodness new standards for luxury and comfort are being set for those who can afford it.

I don’t watch much television. It’s not that I’ve become an unbelievably productive person because I don’t fritter all that time away in front of the tube anymore–I haven’t–it’s just that the bulk of my frittering is done in front of a computer instead. Don’t get me wrong; I’m still pretty smug about it regardless of the fact that I haven’t really benefited from it.

But there are reasons, I think, to feel smug about it, viz: I just finished spending an entire month in Dallas because I had to. I spent the bulk of that time in a hotel room. The bulk of the time I spent in the hotel room, the television was on, because it was sitting there not 3 feet away from the bed. So during the last month, I probably spent more time watching tv than I have in the past 3 years combined. And I noticed several things that one may not have noticed had one been watching television more or less constantly during that time.

One of them is that television news–all of it outside of PBS–uniformly sucks. And when I say it sucks, I mean it’s not actually news anymore; it’s pre-digested opinions about people–personalities–who simply shouldn’t matter. It’s a vanilla milkshake, a naked pandering to the fail, the people who desperately want to be among the winners, who imagine themselves at the head table where nothing real matters anymore.

I saw several Dallas news shows, along with some morning news shows, Fox news (which you might think, and I would have thought a month ago, is kind of unfair of me to use to indict all news shows, but you and I would be wrong), and CNN. I saw Wolf Blitzer and Hardball and Tucker, 60 Minutes and 48 Hours and Face the Nation.

Do you know what I learned after watching all that? I learned that Britney Spears is totally fucked up. I learned that again and again and again. Everyone wanted to weigh in on Britney. Guests were empaneled on news shows so that the reigning talking head could canvas them on their Britney opinions.

Now, I care what Britney Spears does and says as much as the next guy, as long as the next guy doesn’t give a flying fuck what Britney Spears says or does. Me and him, we could not care any less. You could not underbid us on it. We simply don’t care what Wolf’s guests think about this. She’s some kid from Louisiana that got rich somehow; good for her, but that’s all we need to know.

What we do care about is the news. What is going on in the world? What happened in Sri Lanka yesterday? What’s Putin up to? How close we gettin on that frickin cancer cure? That’s what we want to know. But we don’t spend money the way the fail do, in clumps and gobbets that depend on the television for guidance. So (apparently) we don’t get television news aimed at us anymore.

Fox news… Fox news has been an evil tabloid since its inception, spewing vitriol and obnoxiousness 24 hours a day. But CNN? When did CNN become a tabloid? When did CNN begin to spew tawdriness and fail? When did that happen?

Okay, fine. Fine. Television is not aimed at me. I get it. But television is aimed at somebody, and it is huge and relentless. And it shapes people, and that shape is conformity, banality, and failure. I get it. So I’m smug, of course, but it’s not a happy smug.

Not so fast, Christian soldiers – Los Angeles Times

You need a free login (or bugmenot) to access the story, which is a good read that illuminates (again) the cozy relationship between the military and the evangelical Doomsday crowd. A fundamental idea concerning the war and our strained relationship with our Muslim friends is noted and bears repeating: “The Rapture is not a viable exit strategy.”

AlterNet: Neocons on a Cruise: What Conservatives Say When They Think We Aren’t Listening

From time to time, National Review – the bible of American conservatism – organises a cruise for its readers. I paid $1,200 to join them. The rules I imposed on myself were simple: If any of the conservative cruisers asked who I was, I answered honestly, telling them I was a journalist. Mostly, I just tried to blend in – and find out what American conservatives say when they think the rest of us aren’t listening.

These are the winners, the smooth talkers, the sundogs; certain the losers deserve to lose, and they themselves deserve to win. They believe in the wall, in the way things have always been, in examples and lessons. But a time is coming, and they are afraid of it, when the wall will be used for reasons other than those they built it for. When that time comes, it will come heavily.

That’s an odd question. What they’re asking is whether or not the country is ready for someone who holds beliefs that sound bizarre when you say them out loud. But, of course, every national politician at least professes belief in the fantastic. Why should I prefer someone with one fantastic worldview over another?

I’m not ready for a Methodist or a Catholic president, to tell you the truth, but they keep getting elected anyway.

Wildlife populates Chernobyl site – CNN.com

Dense forests have reclaimed farm fields and apartment house courtyards. Residents, visitors and some biologists report seeing wildlife — including moose and lynx — rarely sighted in the rest of Europe. Some birds even nest inside the cracked concrete sarcophagus shielding the shattered remains of the reactor itself.

It’s interesting (in an appalling way) that wildlife and plants cope with massive radiation better than they cope with everyday human activity. Ordinary people going about their ordinary lives are orders of magnitude worse for our companion species than the worst nuclear disaster we’ve yet served up.

Coalition: Taliban have Iran arms – CNN.com

Weapons crossing the border from Iran to Afghanistan may be winding up in the hands of the Taliban, the hard-line Islamic militia that is battling U.S.- and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, U.S. and British officials said.

It’ll take Regime Change before I believe anything the US or British administrations say again. And the Taliban might very well have Iranian arms.

It’s a pretty sad state of affairs.

Darwin takes back seat at new Creation Museum

An Australian evangelist named Ken Ham came to Kentucky to spread the Word. The Word is you should believe every single piece of the bible, no matter how silly or made-up it sounds. It’s all true, friends; believe it all. Because if you start backsliding on this or that, on apes or carbon dating or sense or what-not, you’re on the highway to hell:

“You’re then telling the next generation they can reinterpret the Bible. Then what we’ve lost is Christian morality. If there is no absolute authority and we’re just animals, why not do what you want to do?” asked Ham, whose books include Why Won’t They Listen? The Powers of Creation Evangelism.

It creeps me out every time I realize the Jesus-heads think that morality can only derive from fear of divine power. It creeps me out. And I’m glad they believe, because what kind of super freaks would they be if they didn’t think some gigantic be-lightning-bolted gorilla was just waiting for them to slip up?

“When we first started to research property in 1996, they caused all sorts of problems, and they stirred up trouble, and there were all sorts of things that went on.

“Anyway, as a result of all that, we lost that piece of property – it was 20 minutes off the freeway, and we were going to build a 30,000-square-foot building,” Ham said.

“The Lord directed us to this piece of property, right on a major freeway at a major interchange. And we decided to build a far bigger building (nearly 60,000 square feet), and a far bigger vision and a far bigger impact around the world – and I just want to thank, sincerely, the local secular humanist group.”

You churlish swine.

In related news, Roswell considers a UFO-themed amusement park.

Cindy Wainscott* Annette Hatfield writes in to the “Readers Comment” section of The Cincinnati Enquirer (Cincinnati is the largest nearby town):

I think it is wonderful that the Creation Museum is finally being completed and will open in our area. One question for those against its opening: What are you so afraid of? Our nation is one of free speech, enterprise and thought. Are you so afraid that your beliefs will not be able to stand when faced with competition? I know the Creation viewpoint can and will stand up against all opposition.

You’re goddamned right I’m afraid, Cindy Annette. You, and half of the country, and 3 of the 10 Republicans running for President, believe in magic. And when you believe in magic, you’re liable to do any damn thing that pops into your head, if you think it popped in there divinely. And you believe this stuff in the most benign of times. Can you imagine what will happen if and when the environment and our quality of life start to really crumble around the edges? Common sense is not these people’s strong suit. Anything could happen. I hope I don’t become too jaded to say “I told you so” when I’m lined up against the wall.

The Scientific American weighs in on what the new museum means for the Queen City:

Pro: Now Cincinnati will be known for something other than race riots.

Con: Now Young Earth Creationism, which one would hope would be recognized as both bad theology and bad science, has its Mecca. (Can a Hajj be far behind?)

But surely this is only American bufoonery. Surely we are the only ones with the dollars and without the sense to put something like this together. “Whither Canada?” you ask. Well, Canada whithers here, too.

CALGARY — The country’s first permanent creation museum — set to open June 5 — will use fossil displays to support the Bible’s explanation of creation.

Owner Harry Nibourg said the museum provides compelling evidence for creation and refutes any unguided, “natural” processes such as evolution.

Here’s Ken Ham in action, speaking to children (LA Times):

“Boys and girls, if a teacher so much as mentions evolution, or the Big Bang, or an era when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, “you put your hand up and you say, ‘Excuse me, were you there?’ Can you remember that?”

The children roared their assent.

“Sometimes people will answer, ‘No, but you weren’t there either,’ ” Ham told them. “Then you say, ‘No, I wasn’t, but I know someone who was, and I have his book about the history of the world.’ ” He waved his Bible in the air.

“Who’s the only one who’s always been there?” Ham asked.

“God!” the boys and girls shouted.

“Who’s the only one who knows everything?”

“God!”

“So who should you always trust, God or the scientists?”

The children answered with a thundering: “God!”

I don’t know about God. But I do know that creepy swine like Ken Ham know less about Him than I do.

*my apologies to Cindy Wainscott, whose only mistake** was to write in of her concerns about the museum just before Ms Hatfield.

**which was actually my mistake.

Team working up new strategy for Iraq war – CNN.com

…the announcement apparently is an acknowledgment that the traditional war-fighting stance of trying to capture or kill all insurgents is failing, that the country may have devolved into a civil war, and that the only way to proceed is to use military force sparingly and attempt to bring many insurgents into the fold.

NEW: Strategy could involve negotiating with amenable Shiite extremists.

Amenable Shiite extremists! Amenable Shiite extremists! Amenable Shiite extremists!

Calling all amenable Shiite extremists! Do you have what it takes to join our joint campaign plan redesign team? Do you? Well, do you, punks?

Note: Unamenable Shiite extremists & ‘determined’ suicide bombers need not apply.*

* Until we’re even more desperate to leave than we are now. Say 2009 or so.

This is what happens when people who are used to winning realize they’ve lost but don’t realize everyone else already knows that. So they continue to make noises and move their arms about and cobble together insane plans–insane plans.

Amenable Shiite extremists!