Umbrellagate!

OMG it’s an umbrella!

So the latest “scandal” is… an umbrella?

You have to be fucking kidding me. An umbrella? A fucking umbrella is a scandal? What… the… fuck?

You want scandal, here’s scandal: 22% of all U.S. children in 2010 lived in families below the poverty line, and nearly half lived in families making less than $30K/year (below which it’s damn hard to make it as a family here in the United States). You want scandal, here’s scandal, the banksters defrauded pension funds across the United States by selling them bogus “mortgage backed securities as good as U.S. Treasuries” that they *knew* were trash backed by liar loans, yet not a single bankster is going to jail, instead, policemen, firemen, and teachers across the United States are being told “sorry, the banksters stole your retirement but *you* have to pay, not them, you don’t get to retire, sorry sucker!” You want scandal, there’s a couple of damn fine scandals to be offended about.

But an umbrella? Are you fucking kidding me?

Of course, we all know the real reason why tighty whities err righties are so offended. The Marine is white. And the the Sheriff is a ni[CLANG!]. For folks raised to believe that black people are supposed to be servants of white people and not the other way around, that must be pretty damn strange. But you know what I gotta say to the kinda folks offended by that kinda thing? Fuck’em. They’re on the wrong side of history. The sheriff is a ni[clang]. Deal with it, bedsheet-wearin’ assholes.

- Badtux the “You gotta be kiddin’!” Penguin

Insomniac sunlight

Tweaker, “Crude Sunlight”, off their 2004 album 2 A.M. Wakeup Call. On a somewhat experimental kick still. This album, unfortunately, no longer appears to be available *anywhere*. I don’t know whether Chris Vrenna suddenly decided he no longer liked the album and voluntarily withdrew it from the market, or whether there are label problems, but the only ones I can find are used…

-Badtux the Music Penguin

Strange whisperings

Recoil, “Want”, off of 2010′s Recoil: Selected.

One of Alan Wilders, uhm, wilder experimental works… not quite sure what I think about it yet. Definitely got my attention somehow though.

- Badtux the Music Penguin

And so it begins

My duplex faces the back of an old shopping center. An old shopping center that I’ve known, for almost a year now, is going to be torn down to make way for a new Super Target. The last tenant of the shopping center, a Walgreens, moved to new digs last month. So it was pretty clear that construction was going to be underway shortly.

Today I wake up to boomBoomBOOMcrashBOOMbangSmash and the whole duplex is shaking. Yeppers, demolition is underway.

That is my life for the next two years until the Target opens in the fall of 2014. Yay.

- Badtux the Under Construction Penguin

French Faces

Calling Marian, “We’ve Seen Faces”. The young French girl who records under this name recorded the song in her bedroom, as usual. But she has a much better voice than me, and much more patience for the multi-tracking that she uses to get her sound…

- Badtux the Music Penguin

Angelina Jolie’s boobs

They’re fake. Duh.

Uhm, okay, so we already knew that. Sorta. Well, actually, Angelina Jolie had voluntary duel mastectomies because she carries a gene that almost certainly guarantees breast cancer. This was a medical choice she made. A choice that most women who carry that gene don’t have, because they’re not rich and insurance won’t pay the $60K cost of the gene test, mastectomies and follow-on plastic surgery.

Now I hear you say, “but isn’t that cheaper than treatment for breast cancer?” But see, here’s the deal: health care in the United States is provided by the employer. And every single health insurer gambles that you are with a different employer and a different insurer by the time you get breast cancer so that they pay *ZERO*, some other insurer will be stuck with the bill.

Of course, every single insurer is throwing the same dice, so for every woman they manage to avoid treating until another health insurer has to pay for treatment, they get another woman foisted off onto them that is to the point where treatment is required. I.e., it’s a zero-sum game. Other than the health of women, which is a net loss, but hey, they’re just women. They don’t count, right?

- Badtux the Bitterly Sarcastic Penguin

Masks

Steven Wilson, “Harmony Korine”, off his 2009 album Insurgentes. Brilliant British indie-art-rock…

- Badtux the Music Penguin