Tolerate this.

Oh. My. Stars.

I'm a fan of the Manic Street Preachers and I was familiar with this song, but I had never seen the video before.

Mother of pearl. This a triple serving of sanctimony with a side of narcissism that borders on the pornographic (euphemistically; video is SFW).

It also borders on self parody. Were it not for the subject matter, one could be forgiven for wondering if the video was a joke: now a close up shot of James Dean Bradfield practically licking his reflection; cut to the other prettyboys staring intently into the camera, running fingers through hair or generally pouting; cut to scene of drummer slowly, slowly strapping on oxygen mask... Yes, this is meant to be taken seriously. It's too pretentious not to be.

The song's inspiration comes from the Spanish Civil War (background here), but the video (I presume) is an admonitory of nuclear war. Between shots of the band in a sterile, quarantine-like environment (all is white and electric blue, a sensor device (Geiger counter?) runs along the neck of a guitar, the drums are wrapped in plastic, the walls are mirrored--suggesting two way glass, and (umbilical?) cables, attached to each musician, extend down from somewhere out of sight), the camera returns to a "nuclear" family in their bathing suits. While vaguely Asian in appearance, it is impossible to discern this as their faces have all been melted off. The Manics seem to be calling to mind the atomic bombs dropped on Japan (a-la their earlier song Enola/Alone).

No one who is not evil hopes to see another bomb or warhead detonated ever again. To create art that reminds us of the horror that nuclear weapons can unleash can be laudable, provided it doesn't morally equivocate or sympathize with the wrong camp. I'm not sure the Preachers are equivocating. If they are, it's modest enough that it doesn't bother me too much.

But I think they could have gotten the "message" such as it is across better if there had been less pretty posturing. Yes, I realize it's the pout shots that make their fans, particularly the females, watch.

Shameless

Words can't express how angry and sorrowful this makes me.

You selfish, infantile, stupid pigs. And no, the irony that you probably consider the comparison to a pig to be a complement is not lost on me.

You have no idea what you've done. You think you have an idea, but you don't. You're far too stupid to appreciate the awful magnitude of what you've done.

I don't know who it is that you think you've harmed. It isn't The Architects of the Bunny Holocaust, the "Biped Sadists" or whatever sort of bogeyman personas you devise for people doing groundbreaking research of the sort that has made your pathetically confused lives longer and healthier than those of your imbecile forebears.

No, you didn't hurt the scientists, not ultimately. They can, and will buy more mice and better security systems to keep pathetic know-nothing vermin like you from getting in again. You set them back, you wasted some of their research dollars. But you won't stop them. Just delayed them.

And therein--the delay--is revealed whom you've really harmed through this pathetic tantrum: my son. My autistic twelve year old son, who might one day have benefited from some discovery or breakthrough, be it ever so small, that those scientists were on the road to uncovering. Take a victory lap, heroes.

Those scientists will still make discoveries, and my son might still benefit from them, but you've put years of daylight between my son and potential quality of life improvements.

You probably don't care. I don't think you operate on an emotional level at which empathy exists. I don't think you even care about the animals, ultimately. I think your actions were committed out of pure narcissism. YOU vandalized a research facility because YOUR sensibilities were offended, and YOU decided that YOUR feelings trump all else and so YOU decided to impose YOUR will over society and its laws. Sure, YOU like animals, because they haven't disappointed YOU the way people have. Also YOU are too developmentally stunted to recognize that people are of more inherent value than animals. But rest assured: if it wasn't the plight of animals, YOU would be doing something else to draw attention to YOU and to make YOURSELF feel important. Ultimately, there is only YOU.

And so, feel high minded if it helps YOU sleep at night. But at the end of the day, YOU are a selfish, petulant child, who decided that if YOU couldn't be happy, no one could. Not even kids with autism.

You'll excuse us if we don't erect a statue in your honor. I'm sure any monument that man could build would pale in comparison your opinion of yourself.

Well, that didn't take long.

Update to previous post.

So Nyah Nyah Nyah, America

Carney on furloughs and flight delays: Hey, don't say we didn't warn you

The link is the exact title of the piece at Hot Air, which I have left unchanged because it makes me laugh.

Yeah, you warned us about a lot of stuff, Jay. Fewer cops, defense cuts, less for "the children," dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria, etc.

In the meantime, we've seen no abatement in the first family's vacation schedule, no paring back on gala balls at the White House, and, perhaps most amusingly no cuts whatsoever in the Department of Homeland Security Bagpipe Corps (Now that one I don't mind so much, because Lord knows how I like to hear a piper play Amazing Grace when I'm getting fondled by the TSA). Sure the White House tours were cancelled, but hey. Obama took a 5% pay cut. So, even Steven, I guess.

Seriously. Anyone with half a clue would have given up by now on these feeble attempts to make the public "feel the pain" of sequestration. The White House should have learned its lesson after the tour cancellation fiasco. The FAA furloughs are going to play much worse. Contrary to the President's assumption, people are not going to blame Congress for delayed flights; voters are going to blame the guy who could pick up the phone and tell Ray LaHood to get the air traffic controllers back on the job. Obama doesn't have to stand for re-election, but a lot of vulnerable democrats do--next year. There is speculation that the Senate may flip. I suspect that very soon, Harry Reid will be begging the President to put an end to this latest petty pageantry and get things back to normal, stat.

Prayer about Daniel 5:27

Daniel 5:25-28 NASB

"25 Now this is the inscription that was written out: 'MENĒ, MENĒ, TEKĒL, UPHARSIN.' 26 This is the interpretation of the message: 'MENĒ'-God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it. 27 'TEKĒL'-you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient.  28 'PERĒS'-your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians."

Lord, how I never wish to hear you say to me Daniel 5:27. Lord keep this verse from me on the last day. And from my family as well. Preserve your servant and his family. Make us to persevere. Amen.

The Pain Train

So, I'm sure there's a moral or a metaphor or something in this post but I'm still having a brain hangover from playing at five Easter services so I'm not exactly connecting the dots. 

I don't know why I still bother trying to sleep on the morning train. Evening, I'm like a narcoleptic, liquored up pygmy hippo. But everything conspires against me in the A.M.  And I'm a fairly deep sleeper. Like all red-blooded American men, I'm able to sleep through approximately 90 minutes of screaming baby. But my morning commute has obviously been tampered with by someone who hates me.

By all indicators, you would think that the ride in would be a perfect place for a short coma. I'm dead tired; I sit in the "quiet" car; I have about a 70 minute ride that consists of a gentle rocking motion. But there's always something, or set of somethings that renders all of the above about as effective as a cotton-candy hockey mask.

First there's the PA system. This has been designed for two types of people: those with acute tinnitus, and those who wish to acquire it. This thing is so freaking loud that Motorhead could gig with it. I go from semiconsciousness to ducking my dad's belt every time a stop is announced. And it goes off as you're leaving one stop to announce the next stop, and again as you're approaching the next stop. Which means that at some points along the route, it's blaring every 60 seconds. And no, it can't be turned down, because the volume control is located--wait for it--on the underside of the railroad car! Yup, they though of every convenience.

Then there's the "climate control." Heat on the train is hit or miss during the winter months. Sometimes the heat doesn't work, and sometimes it's a Turkish bath, and there is no middle ground. Try to sleep with frozen feet, or drop down to featherweight: those are your options, champ.

Then there are the fun little wildcards, like today when I sat one seat ahead of Gammy Toot-Toot. Although she slept the whole way through, she nevertheless conveyed quite eloquently that yesterday's Easter brunch had a little too much dairy in it.

But still, I go through the motions. Occasionally I manage to score a few Zs for the last 10 minutes of the ride. Which leaves you feeling like you've accomplished something when the ticket collector shakes you awake and tells you to get the hell off his train.

Nah. There's no meaning to this post.