Report from Otakon 2009–How did I twist my neck so hard?

A poor schnook has twisted his head completely around from ogling the scantily clad cosplayers as his doctor wonders how to unwind him.

What happens to old farts at anime conventions

Well, I’ve just returned from Otakon 2009 (Otakon = otaku, Japanese for fan, + con), the biggest anime convention on the East Coast, and I’ve gone for a complete weekend without reading the news–and what a relief THAT is. The only news channel they played continuously at the hotel bar was Fox News (which I saw at breakfast) and the only thing I caught was Fox & Friends, specifically a segment on how the Bible was important to study in American History because after all, the Founding Fathers were all Christians. Naturally, they didn’t suggest that Americans might have to study Montesquieu in American History–the FRENCHMAN who actually devised the blueprint for the three-branch government–not only was he an atheist but he was also French. Did I mention he was French? Or that Madison, Jefferson and even Franklin read him…in French? Anyway, at least I didn’t see the segment on why the Bible was important for studying biology. After all, plants and animals are all mentioned in the Bible…
I went to my first RAVE! Now that might not seem like much to anyone under 30, but for us old farts that’s kind of an accomplishment. For those OTHER 50+ers out there, a rave is a dance where you don’t dance with anyone in particular–unless you’re already hooked up–as much as you dance with everyone at the same time. You need equipment–fluorescent light sticks, poles, swords, rings–and you decorate yourself with these and wave them in the air while you dance–which is basically bouncing up and down. Side to side movement is only for the brave. You can also do light acrobatics with your light sticks–and groups gather around to watch the mini-lightshow people are putting on if they’re any good. Now with everyone bouncing up and down–naturally the floor–on the third floor of the Baltimore Convention Center–goes up and down with you in time to the beat and the bass line, which are the only two things you can actually hear–I swear I heard one bass line using the Darth Vader theme from Star Wars DA DA DA–DUM DADAA–DUMDADAAAAA! Very appropriate at a con. Anyway, yours truly managed to get a blister on his foot from all the walking he’d been doing and threw his back out a bit by favoring his foot (no, not from whipping my neck to gawk at the cosplayers like the poor subject of today’s cartoon–that’s why you bring a camera–for a good EXCUSE to gawk at the cosplayers! Ooo, there was a guy with a stereo camera rig for 3-D photography there, but he didn’t have a card

phooey, I’d have given him a shout ) and made an interesting discovery. If you stand JUST RIGHT against a metal pillar in the middle of a rave–you can get a nice vibration massage from the beat! Some cute girl in a nurse’s outfit gave me a big hug after the Saturday night rave–A fun time was had by all

A few shout-outs–I saw my friends Ananth from Applegeeks.com and Chris Malone from Blue and Blond. HEY GUYS good to run into you again! And a fun little occurrence. I was chatting with Kittyhawk who draws Valkyrie Yuuki–she advertised her cartoon as a FREE WEBCARTOON LOL so I told her so is mine and we exchanged cards. She looked at mine, and her eyes bulged a bit, she looked at my T-shirt — with my screaming caffeine freak matching the card–and then at me and said, “OMG, I’ve seen your cartoon before!” LOL I guess I’m not quite as obscure as I thought–anyway, it was a nice egostroke

Nice to have met you Kittyhawk and I hope I can give you a little bit more publicity from here!

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Swine Flu? Bioterrorism? We Report, You Decide!

If you saw the press briefing about the swine flu outbreak the other day (replayed in part on The Daily Show) in which one reporter asked if this could be a bioterrorism attack. Well, this naturally causes one to voice the question, “WTF???” Bio-frickin’-terrorism? Who the hell would have THAT kind of paranoid fantasy? Well, MY guess would be the people who believe that the USA became less safe as of January 20, 2009. You know, the ones who discovered a terrorist plot every time they needed to score some political points so they could claim they’d made us “safer” and who now claim that revealing our use of torture–that everyone already knew about anyway–had made us less safe. Yeah, I’m looking at you, Dick Cheney and Fox News. But it isn’t just limited to them. President Obama went down to Mexico City and shook hands with an archaeologist and the next day, said archaeologist> dropped dead of flu-like symptoms. DUN DUN DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Obama was tested and found clear of the flu virus–a good thing too, because some people may have accused him of giving the flu to the archaeologist, instead of him contracting it from one of the thousands of flu victims in Mexico City. I can see a call for closing the borders coming–keep them illegal immigrants and their flus away.

Foxy, the cable news reporter, asks if the swine flu outbreak could be an act of bioterrorism. On being told there did not seem to be any reason not to ascribe it to natural causes, she naturally assumes that since the answer wasn't no, it was confirmed that the answer could be yes...

In the world of cable journalism, non-denial is as good as a confirmation.

What I want to know is, if someone was planning on a bioterrorist attack on the US, why did they start the outbreak in Mexico? Why not New York CIty or Chicago or any other crowded US metropolis? I think the only attack here, beyond the simple microbial, is an attack on reason. But that never stopped anything in this country! Reason, schmeason, the economy is in the toilet, our leaders had authorized torture, let’s have a good old-fashioned plague to get things really going. I’m surprised no one’s said it’s God’s wrath. Oh wait a minute, Tiffany Wellsley on Republican Faith Chat tells us that it’s GOD’S LATEST PUNISHMENT OF IDOL-WORSHIP, meaning Catholic saint veneration, and ends her screed with the “silver lining” that it may do something to alleviate the illegal immigration problem. Well, there you have it–a call to close the borders. I’m not going to post THAT url–if you need to find it, google it.

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More Torture Memo Fun: Shepard Smith Finds a Conscience

Not-So-Innocent Condoleezza After All

Do you realize that Dick Cheney has seen the surface world more times in the last three months than in his entire tenure as Vice President? As usual, his current surfacings have been to tell us how bad a President Barack Obama is, how he’s endangering us with his reckless transparency and, of course, how effective our torture program was to gain information. Of course, we can’t find out if this is true because the documents are classified but Darth Cheney, aka, the Penguin, told us he made a formal request that they be declassified. Well, guess what? He isn’t VP anymore, just an ordinary mortal like the rest of us. He COULD have declassified the information himself before he left office, but naturally he assumed that Obama would just shut up about his predecessors misdeeds since that is the way the game has traditionally worked. But it seems Cheney didn’t ask the CIA about this, he made a FOIA request to the National Archives who, as of 2006, were 4 millions pages behind in filling FOIA requests. I don’t think they’ve caught up.
But what intel did we get? Marcy Wheeler of the Empty Wheel Blog dug through the 9/11 commission reports and found only 10 pieces of information obtained through the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah. The first three, to give examples of the quality of info we got, were: 1. “Abu Zubaydah describes his role running the Khaldan and Derunta training camps.” 2. “Abu Zubaydah describes Rahim al-Nashiri’s success as a recruiter.” 3. “AZ describes Bin Laden’s popularity.” (See Marcy Wheeler: 83 Waterboardings, 10 Pieces of Intel in the Huffington Post. Wow, that must have saved innumerable lives, Mr. Cheney.
Notice however, that Cheney never really addresses the moral issue of whether or not we should torture. His argument is strictly, “It’s effective, therefore we should do it.” And apart from being little Miss Innocent, it’s seems Condi (Condoleezza) Rice was actually one of the FIRST to OK waterboarding Rice OK’d CIA waterboard request as Bush adviser. All the top people, Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and Tenet were involved. Only Colin Powell appears to have been out of the loop, but remember, CIA is part of the State Department, which he headed.
In other news, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith has a new growth someplace on his body. It looks like…a conscience! I’m sure the Fox News health plan provides for the removal of these growths, but in the meantime, let’s take a look at HIS reaction to the memo problem. We have to agree with Shep’s response to Cheney. It doesn’t matter if it works. We’re America. We don’t torture.

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“I’m sick and tired of all this government spending!” Well, Where the Hell were you when the bill was being rung up?

Rich White People hold their own Tea Party so they won't come in touch with the riff-raff.

Don't Tread on Me--You'll scuff my Italian leather

Once again, Fox News has come out to protect the American Rich Person–and convinced a good number of the not so rich to support them. Does anyone over there even know that the tax increase only effects people making over $200K a year? What do they all think–they’re all gonna win the lottery? Or do they care, because in the back water of extremist right wing hate, it’s being claimed that this tax increase will be going to pay minorities to do nothing. Who needs roads, who needs education? Burn the books–as someone shouted at one of Glenn Beck’s 9-12 meetings the other week. Is Fox a news network or a cheering section? Do they blame George Bush for running up our national credit debt to ungodly proportions? No–it’s Obama’s debt, even though he’s been in office less than 3 months. A return to pre-Bush levels of taxation on the wealthy? TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION! What–do they think it’s only legitimate if Republicans vote the tax bill? Impeach Obama–not because of what he did but because of what he MIGHT do. Hey, isn’t that the kind of thinking that got us into Iraq? Texas may have to secede, says its governor, Rick Perry. Well, won’t that be a shame.
Look, I don’t give Obama a 100% on his report card so far. He’s done some good things, but I think he’s headed for trouble in the way he’s handling the financial crisis by listening to the people who are hoping that this is just a glitch in need of a big correction. And Afghanistan may turn out to be as bad a morass as Iraq if we escalate our presence. And his Justice Department needs a good swift kick in the rear. But if anything, he hasn’t raised taxes on the wealthy ENOUGH. He’s done nothing to warrant impeachment, unlike the fratboy who held the office the last 8 years, unless you believe all the lies that were spread about him with the help of the so-called “fair and balanced” news network that spread innuendo as if it were fact and bravely “asked questions” where there weren’t any questions that needed to be asked. And for God’s sake, how can he be a fascist AND a socialist at the same time???
Do this group know what it means to teabag someone? You bet they do. They want to teabag Obama and all the people who voted for him, all the people who voted out Republicans from the Senate and the House, all the people who believe in science instead of creationism, all the people who think they’re so smart, all those blacks and hispanics and asians and…

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