Thursday, December 31, 2009

Being eaten alive

I was watching the Nova TV show “What Darwin didn’t know” and discovered that Charles Darwin was very squeamish, especially about how the byproducts of diversity meet a horrible end, usually by being eaten alive.

Being eaten alive is the most gruesome horror idea, an almost primal fear that is universal in humans, who used to be prey animals.

You cannot live on a ranch for long before seeing a critter being eaten alive, and I’ll never forget watching our barn cat chowing-down on hot bunny chitins while the baby rabbit screamed in horror as he watched himself being eaten alive.

I’ve also seen a frog being eaten alive by a snake, struggling in vain to save himself, and I’ve seen so many fish being eaten alive that it doesn’t even bother me anymore.

Oriental people are especially fond of eating their food alive, and some it is still horrifying to Western sensibilities. Check out this video of an Asian person eating a fish alive as it wiggles on the plate:


Fish being eaten alive

Like Darwin, it’s hard not to be repulsed by seeing an animal being eaten alive, like this snake who is dining on a newly-hatched baby chick. The chick peeps in horror as he is being eaten:

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Did the British commit genocide in Ireland?

I was doing come research on the Potato famine, and I was surprised to find suggestions of a British Genocide in Ireland, an allegation of horror that trumps the Holocaust for its sheer inhumanity.


A sign in Belfast accuses the British of a Holocaust

To learn more about these allegations of de-humanizing the Irish, I was guided to the book Paddy’s Lament: Prelude to Hatred.

This book has convincing evidence on how the English dehumanized the Irish, with striking parallels to the systematic dehumanization of the Jews by the Nazis.



This is right from Adolph Hitler’s playbook "Mein Kamph".



If you want to do ethnic cleansing, you must start by depicting the victims as something less than human:


A British textbook contrasting the features of the Irishman


Like the Nazi’s dehumanized the Jews, the British de-humanized the Irish, depicting them as monkeys.


The Irish were depicted as sub-human by the UK

This carton says it all, the regal British Lion by the Irish Monkey:



At first I did not believe it, treatment so horrific that it was hard to believe that the English could be so cruel:



It is clear that the United Kingdom treated the Irish as animals, as shown in this racist cartoon depicting an Irishman in a circus monkey cage:



Just like with Hitler, dehumanization was critical lest the citizens come to the aid of their starving fellow humans (2):




I visited the Irish famine memorial in Dublin, very moving, but there was never a mention of how the English contributed to the genocide. I did learn that Queen Victoria only donated 1,000 pounds to feed the starving Irish while the the impoverished American Indian's (The Choctaw Nation) raised over $700 to help the dying Irish.



If this university research is true (1) history needs to be revised and perhaps England’s Queen Victoria should be listed as one of the greatest mass murderers in history, right behind Chairman Mao.

--------------------------------------------------------------

(1) http://www.umbc.edu/history/CHE/InstPg/RitFamine/irish-famine-historiographical-issues.html

Professor Daniel Ritschel of the University of Maryland notes that:

"The most important historiographical debate revolves around the issue of British responsibility for the Famine. (4) Irish nationalist have long charged the British with the crime of genocide.

Among more recent examples of such views, the New York-based Irish Famine/Genocide Committee commissioned in 1996 a report by F.A. Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which concluded that:

"Clearly, during the years 1845 to 1850, the British government pursued a policy of mass starvation in Ireland with intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnic and racial group commonly known as the Irish People....

Therefore, during the years 1845 to 1850 the British government knowingly pursued a policy of mass starvation in Ireland that constituted acts of genocide against the Irish people within the meaning of Article II (c) of the 1948 [Hague] Genocide Convention."

--------------------------------------------------------------------

(2) Francis A. Boyle, a professor of International Law at the University of Illinois, finding that the British violated sections (a), (b), and (c) of Article 2 of the CPPCG and committed genocide, issued a formal legal opinion to the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education on May 2, 1996.

Law professor Charles E. Rice of Notre Dame University likewise issued a formal opinion, also based on Article 2, that the British had committed genocide.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Restrict bathroom privacy in airplane cabins?

After the Christmas Al Qaeda terrorist attack, Americans may lose the right to privacy in the aircraft restrooms!

After dirtbag Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab‎ used the airplane bathroom to prepare his bomb, the FAA is talking about imposing new restrictions that will not allow you to use the aircraft bathroom during the last hour of flight!



As you will read below, not being able to defecate in the aircraft cabin is not a big deal since there is a long history of passengers who never bothered with restrooms, and have shat in the cabin area.

As the cost of air travel falls lower than bus fares, there are more and more reports of crappy people taking a dump inside the aircraft cabin.

I once saw a hobo in NYC drop trou and take a crap, in broad daylight on a public sidewalk:



For the past 20 years, they say that only first-class passengers can use the first-class crapper, ostensibly because they don’t want people from coach walking up near the cockpit.

The airlines make an announcement telling the coach passengers to use the crapper at the back of the plane, yet the poor people regularly walk up into first class to drop their economy feces into the executive potties.

George Carlin used to joke that the issue was that first class passengers did not want coach feces in their bathroom, but the real issue is terrosism safety.

Taking a dump at 30,000 feet

This report talks about a coach passenger coming-up to first class to crap on the beverage cart. Gerard Finneran, a coach passenger on a long flight from Argentina, walked into First Class, to say "hi" and then proceeded to take a dump on the beverage cart:

“[he] then walked up to the first-class cabin, dropped his pants and defecated on a service cart in plain view of the passengers and crew.

Then he stepped in his own feces and tracked it through the main cabin”.

====================================================
Finneran was parodied in David Letterman with his own top-10 list:

Top 10 Gerard Finneran Excuses for pooping on the beverage cart

10. Misread brochure about advantages of first class
9. Confused when steward asked for headset deposit
8. Went nuts after learning they were out of chicken almandine
7. Though he heard somebody yell, "We're going to crash!" and that was just something he always wanted to do before he died
6. Hoping to impress aloof blonde English woman in 2-D
5. Had already used airphone to call everyone he knew
4. You try drinking for 14 hours and see if you can tell the difference between a food cart and a bathroom
3. All part of an elaborate plan to intimidate the real killers
2. His ass wouldn't fit in the overhead compartment
1. "Oh, like you've never done it"

When pigs fly: Feces in first class

We all remember this story where the incident where a lady was flying with her emotional support pig, and the pig went wild in first-class, crapping all over the floor and begging for food from other passengers:

"Throughout this ordeal, the pig acted like a ... well, it acted like a pig.

Unlike real service animals that know how to keep their bodily functions in check, this fat four-legger dropped feces -- more than once. "


Pigs can fly: "emotional support" animals

This makes some of my friends look bad, like Dan Shaw and Cuddles, his seeing-eye horse.


Dan & Cuddles fly everywhere

Dan that Cuddles fly regularly and she will not crap on the aircraft because Janet housebroke her. Cuddles can hold her poo for more than 6 hours.


Dan and Cuddles fly regularly

Feces and the fat

I have always wondered about super-fat people who don’t fit into the airline bathrooms? What do they do after they eat a whole bucket of KFC and they need to defecate in flight?

What, do they use a diaper?

I overheard a stewardess call them "Shamu's". But regardless of the name, super-fat people are more than annoying, they constitute a health and safety menace . . .


When Shamu flies: How do morbidly obese use the airplane bathroom?

Read this link to hear why I don't believe that super-fat people should fly unless they can find bathrooms that will safely accommodate their girth.



Anyway, I hate to be the turd in the punchbowl, but it’s high-time we stopped people from defecating in the aircraft cabin.

The airlines charge extra for blankets, maybe we need to bring back pay toilets, perhaps little bedpans that you can slide under your seat.


The turd in the punchbowl

Monday, December 28, 2009

Eating fetal foods

Just last month scientists announced the successful laboratory creation of real muscle tissue, and created real pork in a Petri dish.

This is not artificial pork, its real pork, meat that is made without killing any animals!



With this new wave of biomaterial tissue engineering (BTE), we are now seeing the advent of unborn meat products, new meat products that have never lived, and never been born.

Eating baby animals

Any honest carnivore will tell you that they love baby animals, and society has no objections to serving-up newborn critters. We all enjoy dining on calves liver, baby lamb and milk-fed veal, and foreigners eat newborn baby octopus, quite tasty:



So, if American love baby critters, is it a big stretch for them to eat unborn animals?

Eating Fetal Meats: No Fetus can beat us!

Anybody who has ever eaten a hard-boiled egg has eaten an embryo, and if Americans can be conditioned to eat something that’s been shat from a chicken, then why not try eating other fetal foods?

Mexico - Mexican Moms have a party where they serve-up a steaming chile stew made with Mom's afterbirth. Some foreigners will eat anything, and as proof, here is a recipe for human placenta sausage.

Philippines - Filipino folks love their Balut, the delicious duck embryo's, served almost ready to hatch, with yummy feet, beaks and feathers inside:


Placenta helper

In the world of animals, almost all new moms chow-down on their placentas, a mechanism to prevent predators from smelling the fresh blood, it's called placentophagy, and it's all natural, just like these human examples of fetus feasting.


A Cat eating her afterbirth

But what about eating human abortions?

What an abortion

Abortions may be good for more than just stem cells, they could also be a tasty treat, as in this report from China where they claim that people eat human aborted fetuses!!


Human fetus stir fry: It’s what’s for dinner

Now that you are sufficiently horrified, please note that this is a web hoax, where a whacky Chinese guy made a fake “fetus” from a plastic baby doll!

To see more horrifying pictures, please read my full notes here how eating unborn meat foods is the wave of the future.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Bill Mauldin meets the Muslims

I just got the two volume set of the collected works of two-time Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Bill Mauldin, Willie & Joe, the WWII years, plus the book Bill Mauldin’s Army.


Mauldin's Willie & Joe created the term "GI Joe"

Mauldin was a real genius at observing the globalization of Americans in WWII. This was the time when American's liberated Europe, and first became exposed to strange and bizarre cultures of foreigners.

Mauldin’s cartoons are never artificial and they capture the true character of the “greatest generation”, the honorable men who went on to make America the greatest power of the 20th Century.

Much of Bill Mauldin’s work chronicles the mundane indignities of being GI Joe, but if you strip away the uniforms, it’s all relevant today.

Every cartoon hints of Mauldin’s pure unvarnished genius, like this one:


The Prince and the Pauper

WWII was the time when Americans became globalized, and for many a soldier, this was the first and only time that they set foot outside the USA. Mauldin was a typical country boy (raised in New Mexico) had he never seen a foreigner, much less been overseas.

Mauldins's first impressions of new cultures reflect the boys in blue, and they are both hilarious and fascinating.

Meet the Moslems

One interesting cartoon in the book illustrates the first time GI’s ever met non-Christian people, the native “Moslims” of North Africa and he depicts the Muslim children with cigarettes hanging from their lips!

Mauldin writes about this encounter with Muslims in his cartoon titled “Bath Day”:

“A Moslim’s religion makes him very modest.

He shrouds his wife from head to foot, and would have a fit if his youngest son rolled-up his sleeves.

But let a soldier start his bath, and if there is a Moslem within 20 limes, he will bring his wife and 17 little Moslems quietly upon the scene and stare”.


Bill Mauldin was not afraid to tackle tough issues and remained the sounding board for the real-America, like in this desegregation cartoon from 1960:

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Holiday tipping guide at a country club

It’s that time of year again where everybody comes a pandering with their hands out, saying "God Bless You”, and telling you how much they enjoyed serving you this year.



I've seen holiday country club tipping etiquette that recommends tipping everybody from the sommelier to the club shoeshine boy, but unconditional tipping in a country club is never a good idea.

If you are new to a country club, remember that you are setting a precedent for your tips, and resist the temptation to over-tip. Remember, you may be with these country club people for decades, and if you tip your club caddy $100 this year, you are locked-in to that amount evey year hence!


There is a protocol to tipping at a country club, like the rule that don't tip cash to your country club manager. But there are lots more country club tip guidelines, see my notes on tipping at Christmas at a Country Club

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Merry Christmas!

Have a merry Christmas, just like we do here in NC:

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

The world’s most expensive salad dressing

I can understand how a 50 year-old Cognac or a 50 year old whiskey is expensive, after being aged all those years in a charred oak barrel, but now we see aged salad dressing!

It seems like anything that you age for 50 years gets pricey, even if it’s only balsamic vinegar.

I saw this in a store window in Europe, and this has got to be the most expensive salad dressing in the world, about $250 for a pint of 50 year-old balsamic vinegar!



For the less stupid, you can get the 30 year-old salad dressing for only about $80, and seeing these prices makes me wish I had started aging stuff when I was younger.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

The perfect Christmas gift for the redneck

Introducing the Snug-wow, a perfect hybrid of two great products:

Shoes with Spats are back in fashion!

What’s old is new again, and the Roaring 20’s “Gatsby” look is back!

Every generation has teenagers who try to be shocking to their parents, and the roaring 20’s was no exception, with their shocking funky hats, spats and greasy hair helmets.

My Dad was a teenager in the 1920’s, and he once showed me how to use Pomade (Bear grease), wax paper and an “iron”, to melt this sticky crap into your hair, creating a super-shiny hair helmet that outraged the parents of the day.


The 1920' look is coming back into fashion!

I like the new Gatsby hats (sometimes called ”newsboy” hats).

I just got a really nice Gatsby hat from Stetson, the Rolls Royce of hats sold by haberdashers. It cost me a C note, but it’s real 1920’s stylin:



Are spats next?

Janet and were in Monaco recently and I noticed an odd fellow in a Monte Carol casino who was wearing spats!


Janet in front of the Monte Carlo Casino

Even the movie stars are wearing spats now, it looks like 1920’s fashion is coming back into style!


Spats are not just for French people and homos anymore

You don’t see people wearing spats much anymore, except in military color guards.

Maybe it’s time to bring back the timeless elegance of spats.


Nothing says more about your personality than your choice of shoes, and I’ve noticed that the “Gatsby hats” are back in style, so why not spats?

Monday, December 21, 2009

How to make frog legs move!

On summer nights in NC It’s always fun to send the young’ins out into the woods at night with only a burlap bag, a flashlight and a sharpened broomstick.



When you shine the flashlight on ole Mr. frog, he will freeze-up, and you can stab him til he croaks.

In just a few hours your kiddies have a bagful of tasty treats, fresh frog legs that still move for hours after being killed!

Cooking croak monsieur

Frogs legs are great fun to watch because they dance in the frying pan when you cook them, but if you want some real fun, just drizzle some salt water over the frog legs before serving and watch them twitch on your dinner plate!

Making little kids eat frogs is hard, and anything that you can do to make it fun is appreciated, especially when they can see their frogs legs move on the dinner plate! It’s like eating the frog alive!

Kids just love this trick, try it and listen to them squeal with glee:



Saturday, December 19, 2009

Dressing a rabbit

Every country boy learns how to dress a rabbit. Dad takes them hunting and they learn to kill them, peel the skin from their bodies and spill out their steaming guts, great fun for the whole family.

It's sad that the skill of dressing a rabbit has been lost on today’s youngsters, and the problem is with our tree-hugger society.

If you took your 7 year old child hunting and forced him to kill Thumper, the PETA hippies would be outraged. And if you made junior gut him and peel the skin off of his fuzzy face, you would probably go to jail for child abuse. It’s kinda sad.

I was at a market recently where you could buy rabbits live, dressed, or ready to eat, your choice:


Folks still eat these things

My parents knew how to milk a cow, how to pluck a chicken and how to dress a rabbit, but after thousands of years, mine is the first generation to lose these essential survival skills.

The interweb is weird; you get bizarre images like these when searching for how to dress a rabbit:



Some people are too weird, dressing their rabbits:


Designer dresses for rabbits? That’s sick:




And this perv below, dressing his rabbit replete with a gay hat. If you look closely, his hands appear like he is also molesting the poor rabbit:



But this is what a real dressed rabbit looks like:



I also saw some dressed goats at the market:



Dressing a rabbit is easier than it looks, it’s really easy to get the fur off with a few hard tugs and after you slit the throat and open-up the belly, the innards slide right out!

Friday, December 18, 2009

Albuquerque’s fortified wines

I was in Funchal recently and I saw a poster with this picture on a poster proclaiming how Francisco Albuquerque has won many awards for his fortified wines.


Albuquerque is named “fortified wine maker of the year”

Albuquerque is quite proud of his fortified wines, and they are quite different from American fortified wines:


American fortified wines are not for the gourmet

American fortified wines have classy names like night train, T-bird and wild Irish rose.

They are classified as “bum” wines, maybe because they taste like ass?


Bum wines: taste like ass

Albuquerque wines are made from local grapes, and there are vineyards everywhere:


Madeira vineyards

They were giving away free samples, and since American fortified wines cost less than gasoline, we did not have high expectations.

We are not “winers” (oenophiles), but we know what we like, and we did not care for Albuquerque’s wine, and while we don’t agree that Albuquerque sucks, the Albuquerque wine was sweet and left a mighty nasty aftertaste:



We work with computers, so if we had to choose a fortified wine, I would go with one that has a high-tech name, like this one:


A high tech fortified wine

At least Funchal is beautiful: