Override!

City Councilor Kevin Starr has done something that I didn't think anyone on the City Council had the balls to do; he has proposed a Prop 2 1/2 override for Fitchburg.

Ward 4 Councilor Kevin Starr said he'd like to see an override question be put on November's ballot to avert deep cuts in public-safety departments.

"So many people have strong opinions and their voices need to be heard," Starr said. "The choices shouldn't be left up to 11 people on the council. They should be decided by an entire city."

Makes sense to me.

The city needs money, and a way to get it is through a Proposition 2 1/2 override. It certainly seems like the sort of thing that's at least worth exploring. If the voters go for it, then it can help fix a lot of problems. If they don't, they have nobody to blame but themselves.

Councilor Jody Joseph sounds like he's on-board with at least having a vote.

Ward 6 Councilor Jody Joseph said he doesn't see many places in the budget to cut.

"I've been through the budget and to me, to cut any more would be taking something that's already bleeding to death and cut it even more," Joseph said.

Joseph said his priorities are not only in the public safety departments, but the human service departments, too.

Joseph said the only option besides cutting is adding new revenues.

Joseph's quotes here address what will most likely be the biggest complaint about an override (besides "I don't want to pay taxes, waaah!"); the idea that it's a lazy way to get around cutting junk from the city budget. There's only so much junk in the budget in the first place, so cutting only works to a degree. After that, you need revenue.

Of course, not everybody is going to be so accepting of the idea.

Ward 2 Councilor Norman Boisvert said he would not support an override.

"Once you add taxes they never come off," Boisvert said.

Boisvert said the city's fiscal problems will not go away next year, or the year after.

"Are we going to have an override every year?" Boisvert said. "Maybe we should just learn to live within our means."

Or, you know, we could understand that Prop 2 1/2 is inherently flawed and counterproductive and look for ways to work around it?

There have been nearly 4,500 attempts (about 1,800 successful) to override Prop 2 1/2 it since it first became possible to do so in 1983. Does that sound like a law that's benefiting communities, or one that's standing in their way?

City Councilor Solomito also weighed in with a bit of stupidity:

Ward 5 Councilor Joseph Solomito said he wouldn't support an override either.

"I think the people have already spoken," Solomito said.

Attention Fitchburg: All future elections are hereby suspended, because Joseph Solomito thinks that you've "already spoken" about everything, and your decision is whatever Solomito says it is. Solomito will be declared councilor-for-life, because if he was able to get elected one time, that must mean he'll get elected every time he runs in the future. Representative democracy is for wussies.

Incidentally, the public perception is arguably that an override can't pass. I don't exactly know why this is the public perception, but it probably has something to do with the loud and incessant whining of the anti-tax brigades.

Luckily, we're not dependent on public perception for our facts here, and can just look at these statistics on overrides from the Mass. Department of Revenue.

Fitchburg has only had one override vote on this list. It was for fiscal '92, seeking $200,000 for ambulance services. It lost almost 2:1. But that was nearly 20 years ago. During the 90's, overrides didn't fare well in general, with 1,843 attempts being defeated and only 931 attempts passing.

Now times are different, so let's focus on the years just from 2000-2009. Things have changed pretty dramatically. From 2000-2009 there have been 1185 override attempts. Of those, 580 were defeated and 605 won.

You could perhaps argue that the dramatically lower number of total override attempts explains the wins. Maybe people are less likely to propose overrides after the drubbings of the 90's, and only propose ones they think they can get support for.

Maybe so, but it's already been proposed. I don't know what Starr's thought process is, but I doubt he would have proposed it if he thought it was doomed to go down in flames. So we're already past the first step, and overrides clearly don't carry the same "no way will that happen!" stigma they had for many years.

So yeah, let's vote on it. Up until we do, I'm sure there will be plenty of local idiots ranting about socialism and "unconstitutional" taxes and probably abortion (because they always work it in somehow) for us to enjoy. Which will make for easy blog posts.

Thanks, Kevin!

Is this seriously their new argument?

Yesterday I read this editorial in the S&E. It was mostly boring "give us whatever services we demand, but screw everyone else" bullshit, but one particularly odd pseudo-argument stuck out at me.

Here it is, with my bolding added:

We urge the mayor to remember she is still proposing a $92 million budget, which we feel should be more than enough to not only reject the idea of reducing the days of operation at the library and Senior Center, but to increase them.

Obviously, this stuck out because the fact that there's a $92 million town budget has fuck-all to do with there being money to spend on any particular service.

It's not like there's just a pile of 92 million dollar bills sitting around, unspoken for. The vast majority of it is going to be tied up, and there are far more programs and services that deserve funding than $92 million can cover.

Budgeting is about choosing what gets part of that money and what doesn't. The total amount of money in the budget is somewhat irrelevant, unless it's so high that you can fund absolutely everything anyone suggests, or so low that you can't even fund the very basics. Even the richest of oil-rich nations don't fall into the first group, and few (if any) places in the US fall into the latter one. Everyone else needs to make choices about what to fit within the available budget.

Using the town's $92 million budget to suggest that money is readily available for any particular purpose is about as sensible as using Sudan's $12.95 billion budget to claim they should have no problem building a dozen world-class hockey rinks. That's just not the way it works, guys.

But we expect to find baffling non sequiturs presented as arguments in everything McMenemy writes, so it wasn't such a big deal.

Then just this morning, I noticed this (my bold):

"I have said all along that I don't believe we need to implement any kind of waste disposal ordinance in order to generate revenue because our budget is still in the mid-90 million (range)," [City Councilor Dean] Tran wrote in an e-mail.

I don't know who's stealing whose talking point there, or if Tran is actually just as pathetically clueless as McMenemy and they both arrived at their red herring independently, but it really doesn't matter. It's a stupid argument, no matter where it originated.

There may be sound arguments against a trash fee (although I've yet to hear anyone present one), but just mentioning the size of the entire budget is absolutely not one of them. You could have a $92 million budget with a trash fee paying for part of it and helping to fund services, or you could have a $92 million budget with no trash fee and fewer services.

And that's assuming a balanced budget. If revenues are below expenses we're still screwed, even if it were a $92 billion budget.

The total size of the budget is irrelevant to this argument. Well, it's irrelevant unless Tran believes that every service that deserves funding can be funded perfectly well on this size. Maybe he does, but since I haven't seen giant billboards listing the names of all area sex offenders at 100-yard intervals on every street in town, I'm going to bet he doesn't.

Of course, it's possible that Tran and McMenemy know that they're putting forward nonsense arguments. In which case they're just using the size of the budget as a rhetorical tool, because they think you're stupid enough to fall for it.

So we're left with two choices: Either the editor of the local newspaper and a prominent city councilor are totally clueless, or they believe that we're the clueless ones and that we'll fall for their nonsensical rhetoric.

Neither one especially fills me with hope.

Ode to Jenny McCarthy

The GOP is clearly thriving

Call it schadenfreude if you like, but I really enjoy watching those on the far right as they flail around trying to convince everyone that the Republican party isn't dying. It's an even mix of delusion and desperation, which unfailingly serves to convince all watchers that yep, the Republican party sure is dying.

Today we have a fine example of that, in a Star Parker-penned editorial entitled No need for a GOP eulogy.

Poor Ms. Parker doesn't like the way people are saying the GOP is dead!

The columns are all over the place, and all the analyses seem to be the same.

The Republican Party is supposedly deader than a doornail. Except in a handful of states in mid-America and in the South, Americans, according to these columnists, see Republicans as irrelevant, out-of-touch, mean-spirited dinosaurs.

Well, that's probably because Republicans are irrelevant, out-of-touch, and mean-spirited. I wouldn't call them dinosaurs, though. Dinosaurs are pretty cool, and as far as I can tell the coolest Republican in the world is Kelsey Grammar. That's definitely a sub-dinosaur level of coolness.

But, may I remind folks, that we just had a presidential election in which 130 million voters cast ballots and the difference between the winner and the loser was 9 million votes. Not exactly what I would call an insurmountable divide.

Personally, I would call the difference between Obama's 69,498,215 votes and McCain's 59,948,240 votes 9.5 million. But maybe that's splitting hairs.

Of course, when you consider that even 9 million votes is about 15% of the total votes for McCain, that seems a little more sizable than the way Ms. Parker frames it. Math is fun!

Nor should we forget that there was that window following the Republican convention when the McCain-Palin ticket was leading.

Yeah, for like two days after the Republican National Convention McCain was actually ahead!

If only people had voted back then, when half the country thought Sarah Palin was just some MILF-y governor and not the repugnant idiot they later recognized her to be, then the Republican ticket would have (possibly, and just barely) won. Informed electorates are bad news for the GOP, I guess.

Having exhausted the "Republicans are strong because we lost the election" line of reasoning, Parker turns to a recent poll to further strengthen undercut her argument.

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll shows 42 percent self-identifying as Democrats compared to 31 percent as Republicans. But the same poll shows 35 percent identifying as conservatives compared to 24 percent as liberals.

Umm, so? That conservative/liberal split doesn't really mean good news for the GOP. Unless she's just pleased that conservatives have done a fine job of convincing people that the word "liberal" is a pejorative.

Here's the source data (evil PDF link) for the poll. As you can see, Parker has her numbers right. But the implied interpretation that the GOP is doing okay because more people self-identify as conservatives than as liberals is just nutty.

It's not really surprising that more people self-identify as conservatives than as Republicans, since there are presumably at least a few conservative Independents and Democrats. But if we assume that the vast majority of Republicans identify themselves as either somewhat or very conservative (which I think is a fair assumption), then that means that very few Democrats or Independents think of themselves as conservative at all.

What's more, the 35% of the country that self-identifies as "moderate" therefore must lean heavily towards either the Democrats or "strictly independent." Mostly the former, since only 19% of respondents identified as strictly independent.

Was this supposed to be evidence that the GOP isn't a party of far-right kooks who are driving away moderates (and everyone else)? Because if anything it just suggests that yeah, the GOP is totally driving away moderates.

Of course, Parker may be happy about this. Segue to ranting about Arlen Specter...

According to Dick Polman of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Arlen Specter's switch to the Democratic Party shows what's wrong with Republicans -- they can't tolerate moderates -- and not what is wrong with Specter.

But there is little doubt that Specter changed parties because polls were showing him getting his clock cleaned in the Republican primary by conservative Pat Toomey.

Yes, he was going to get beaten by Toomey in the Republican primary. Because he's too moderate for the increasingly hard-line conservative Republican base which votes in the primaries.

Apparently Ms. Parker interprets that to mean that Specter is a weenie-head, not that moderates can't win election in the Republican party. Now, Specter is indeed a weenie-head, but he was clearly driven out by the far-right Republican base.

Of course his switch was all about self-interest. He's said as much. But the only reason it's in his self-interest to switch is because the Republican base wouldn't vote for a moderate. If they would, he would have no reason to leave.

At this point the editorial sinks into a boring mire of whining about how Arlen Specter is a big jerk who isn't as awesome as George Washington. I'll ignore most of that tedious nonsense (because who really gives a shit?) and just skip to the end.

We should also recall Washington's guidance in his farewell address that "Of all the dispensations and habits which led to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports."

It's a message as relevant to today as when Washington wrote it in 1796, and relevant to every American of every background.

I guess atheists aren't Americans. Maybe Sweden will take me.

This is, however, a nice example of just why the GOP is dying. They just can't resist any opportunity to tell other people how to live their lives. If they can do so by quoting someone who died before the advent of indoor plumbing, so much the better!

Okay, last couple of lines.

Republican Party problems started from straying from principles, not from sticking to them.

The party's future lies in principles, not in pandering. We need George Washingtons. Not Arlen Specters.

Yep, it's another Republican saying that the way to stop moderates from leaving the GOP is to focus even harder on "principles." Which is wingnut-speak for "become even more conservative and drive out all the moderates!"

Good luck with that, guys. It's been working great so far.

Hey, remember this?

I'm taking a bit of a mini-vacation from the blog this week. To tide you over, here's an old (1997) clip from WFXT about a Marilyn Manson concert that local idiots treated as if it were a huge scandal.

I particularly love the totally unbiased way this starts off. TV news hasn't changed a bit...



I was actually there as part of the counter-protest, though I don't spot myself in that footage. Honestly, it's sort of odd that this clip even exists, because the whole thing was a total non-event.

For one thing, the anti-free expression protesters were apparently too frightened of those scary Satanists to cross the street, even though the vast majority of concertgoers looked perfectly normal. The elaborately made-up goths in the clip were an almost insignificant minority.

Instead, the protesters gathered in front of what used to be the old RMV, barely visible from the Civic Center. There really weren't many of them either (the "handful" mentioned in the clip is being generous), despite constant ranting from the newspaper and local church groups prior to the concert.

The counter-protest actually took place in front of the Civic Center, near the attendees but far from the pro-censorship nuts. It was also small, not to mention totally disorganized. But it didn't really matter, because the protest itself was just so incredibly lame.

Anyway, you can view this as evidence that Fitchburg has had a core population of whiny idiots for quite awhile. They may be ranting about different things now than they did twelve years ago, but it's the same principle at work.

And they're just as ridiculous and impotent now as they were back then.

Saturday Video Bonus

While I'm obviously an aging punk, Mrs. Unicow is more of an anti-folk fan. Oddly enough, there are instances where these two genres overlap.

As proof, here's a video for Jeffrey Lewis' cover of an old Crass song, off his album 12 Crass Songs.



Neat.

Swine Flu, Satan, Obama, and the NWO?

I couldn't possibly introduce this better than the description given by the uploader:

EXCLUSIVE EVIDENCE .. comment ...rate ... AREA CODE 619 MANTRA WAKE UP TO TRUTH.. supercharged binary patheogens false flag bio weapons. USA is being sacrificed!..by NWO psycopaths ..wake up to the truth!

The video makes exactly as much sense as that description...



I don't know about you, but that sure convinced me. I am really disappointed that I missed the "Ba'al day of worship" festivities, though. Maybe next year.

Swine Flu Tied to Beloved Actor?

The Boston Globe has pretty reasonable swine flu coverage. It's mostly sane stuff that promotes caution, while avoiding things that just serve to freak people out. For instance, they avoided irresponsibly sticking a giant "OUTBREAK" headline on the front page of the paper like our local idiots did today.

Anyway, as part of their coverage they have this neat "flu spreads" graphic.

The graphic consists of six slides, but it's slide number four that really caught my eye.


That is clearly Wilford Brimley in an Army helmet. Thanks for the pandemic, Wilford!

All you need to know about this idiotic pro-torture editorial

Unsurprisingly, another pro-torture editorial appears in the S&E. It's by syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock this time, and it's somehow even worse than McMenemy's evil nonsense from a few days ago.

It's not even worth reading, to be honest. So let's just gut it right at the outset, which is easy because the entire thing is premised on a total lie.

Here's how it starts. (All emphases mine.)

Library Tower looms 73 stories above Los Angeles. But the Pacific Coast's highest skyscraper could have become a smoldering pile of steel beams had CIA interrogators not waterboarded Khalid Sheik Mohammed 183 times in March 2003, as declassified memoranda reveal. Americans should be proud that our public servants had the patience and persistence to pressure al-Qaida's self-described military chief until he cracked, ratted out his homicidal conspirators, and prevented a bloody attack that could have murdered thousands of innocents and transformed much of downtown L.A. into Ground Zero West.

Simple enough. The claim is that the torture of Mohammed, who was arrested in March of 2003, prevented the Library Tower from being attacked. The entire editorial rests upon this premise.

Which means the entire editorial is based on an outright lie, since the plot was foiled in February of 2002.

From a White House Press briefing:

Q: Fran, just one other follow up. What we don't know is the time. Can you give us some more details on the timeline on this -- meaning, you know, when, exactly, was this plot scheduled for? Do we know that?

MS. TOWNSEND: We don't know exactly when the plot was scheduled for. The intelligence tells us that Khalid Shaykh Muhammad began to initiate it in October of 2001. We know that between then and when the lead operative was arrested in February of '02, between those two periods of time, they traveled through Afghanistan, they met with bin Laden, they swore biat, they came back, and the lead guy is arrested, which disrupts it in February of '02. So you see what I'm saying? It's during that short window of time, between October of 2001 and February of 2002, but we don't know when they planned -- we don't know when it was planned to actually be executed.

Want confirmation? Ok, how about this Fact Sheet put out in 2007 by the Bush administration?

In 2002, we broke up a plot by KSM to hijack an airplane and fly it into the tallest building on the West Coast. During a hearing at Guantanamo Bay two months ago, KSM stated that the intended target was the Library Tower in Los Angeles.

So the torture of KSM in March of 2003 retroactively led to the foiling of the Library Tower plot in February of 2002? That's quite a feat.

Is there any lie these monsters won't tell to justify their beloved torture?

Swine Flu: From space?

The "authorities" think the current Swine Flu outbreak started with a small Mexican child, but we know better!



Everyone knows that airplanes are giant disease-mobiles. Obviously, a space vessel could only make matters worse. George Lucas has screwed us yet again.

Torture's dumbest apologist

Yesterday's Sentinel contained a particularly repugnant editorial (un-bylined, but presumably by editor Jeff McMenemy) about torture. It requires evisceration.

The editorial has the remarkably self-unaware title of Don't 'torture' us with half-truths.

Yes, there's a pun about torture in the headline, which shows you just how casually our shitsack editor views torture. As for the "half-truths"? Well, McMenemy mostly just lies, but maybe we can pick up on some of those too.

Sigh. Here we go.

Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney is right: If President Barack Obama wants transparency regarding the CIA's alleged harsh interrogation methods, he should release all the top-secret memos, including those detailing information learned that led to successful anti-terrorism efforts.

This first paragraph contains the one thing I can agree with Cheney and McMenemy about.* I want to see all the memos released too. Let's see just how much useful information really is contained within. I suspect it's a lot less than McMenemy believes, but would like to see for myself.

Now we go our separate ways.

Obama's release of the memos -- some leaked selectively to the media to embarrass the Bush administration -- has stirred considerable debate among former CIA directors and national security experts. Most believe the interests of the United States have been weakened by the disclosure. Even Leon Panetta, Obama's CIA director, questioned the motives behind the disclosures.

Shit, this is going to take awhile.

What was "leaked selectively to the media"? Not the torture memos, which are readily available to anyone who wants to look at them. So it's not selective, and since they're declassified and are available to anyone who wants them, they're not "leaked" either. **

And if these non-leaked, non-selective memos embarrass the Bush administration, who's to blame for that? They're Bush administration memos about Bush administration policies. If the Bush administration is truly embarrassed about them, then maybe they shouldn't have fucking used them in the first place.

As for "most" security experts thinking the US is "weakened" by the release of these memos about torture methods we don't even fucking use anymore, that's totally made up. I doubt there are good statistics on this, but I've certainly heard a lot more "experts" saying that this information was pretty much known anyway than pretending it will actually have an effect on the country's safety. But I don't exclusively consume right-wing news.

Concerning Panetta, who really gives a shit? Of course there were people who wanted to cover this up, and Panetta's one of them.

More lies...

At first, Obama said he would not prosecute any officials but now he is flip-flopping as Democrats seek revenge. But revenge from what? The country's safety?

First of all, you flaming asshole, it's not revenge, it's accountability. If you commit war crimes, you should fucking be held accountable. That's what it's about.

Also, Obama has been consistent in saying that the people who were "just following orders" should not be prosecuted. The people who gave those orders get no such leeway, and anyway the decision is not Obama's to make. He's not the one prosecuting anybody, it's up to the Justice Department.

The Obama administration is rapidly changing the rules on CIA procedures. Techniques that were legal just months ago are being ruled off limits while Holder develops new guidelines. But the call to prosecute CIA interrogators who were doing their jobs, legally, is absurd.

Who's calling for the prosecution of interrogators? Not Obama. There's not a lot of political support at all for prosecuting the people at the bottom of the chain. So way to argue against something that very few people are arguing for, dumbass.

The bigger question is how will the U.S. fare going forward when it comes to obtaining valuable intelligence from captured terrorists?

While we know very little about the intelligence gleaned from the CIA's efforts, one thing is perfectly clear: The Bush administration, after 9/11, kept America safe from foreign attack for seven years. Our allies also benefited from an exchange of information.

Anyone who believes that is pretty much an irredeemable idiot. So it's a standard right-wing talking point, natch.

Obviously, the fact that the US wasn't attacked on its own soil since 9/11 in no way means the Bush administration "kept America safe." It just means we weren't attacked.

You can see that as being because of the Bush administration if you're so inclined, and rather stupid. I see it as being despite the Bush administration, who in reality made America far less safe than we would have otherwise been.

To then make the jump from "we weren't attacked" to "torture is good!" requires a special kind of malicious stupidity. It's highly prevalent in this editorial.

What we find unsettling is that the administration seems bent on "correcting" America's values and character on the world stage, as if the global perception of what America did and didn't do is worth more than its national security.

This is a foolhardy agenda that can only lead to soft spots in our diplomacy and defenses.

Once again, stupid binary thinking rears its head. The worldwide perception of "America's values and character" has a significant effect on America's security. Alienating the rest of the world isn't exactly a great way to increase security, but it's a fantastic way to ensure everybody is out to get us. Artificially separating the two makes no sense.

And what's this "soft spots in our diplomacy and defenses" nonsense? Does that even mean anything? Other than that the editor wants us to torture even more brown people?

America is not a monster, and it bows to no one. While we have made mistakes -- and acknowledged them in public -- we have set a standard for human rights, charitable aid and the cause for freedom. There is little to be ashamed of in the course of our accomplished history.

Jingoistic rubbish.

Genocide of the Native Americans, slavery, internment camps, the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, the My Lai massacre, the continuing shitty way anyone who's not a straight white Protestant male is treated, and the fact that we fucking torture people are just a few of the many shameful things in the course of American history.

America has much to be proud of too, of course. But ignoring the bad things benefits nobody.

The world is a dangerous place. Threats exist against America, and there is no justification for letting down our guard or coddling terrorists.

Apparently in McMenemy's mind, "not torturing" equals "coddling." Be glad you're not his kid.

If President Obama wanted to prove something to the world in disclosing the CIA's top-secret memos he has failed, largely because his selectivity has tarnished the work of dedicated agents following orders to protect America against its worst enemies.

What? How the fuck can you "tarnish" torturing people? It's pretty much as tarnished as anything can possibly get.

That's all I'm going to bother with. McMenemy is a ghoul. His "defense" of torture doesn't even attempt to offer a moral or practical justification for using it. His concern isn't whether torture is right or wrong (NB: it's wrong), this editorial is all about public relations damage control for the Bush administration. It's a bitch-fest that the truth has finally been told.

But yeah, let's release everything we can. Let's get the whole truth out there. Not that people like McMenemy will ever pay attention to it, but let's get it out for the rest of us.

Then let's hold the monsters who were in charge of it accountable for their actions. And let's let apologists for torture (like McMenemy) know that they don't speak for us.

Ghouls like these called the shots for eight years. Their time is over, and we need to make sure they never have the opportunity to practice their twisted brand of ethically-insupportable "justice" ever again.


* I don't for a second believe that Cheney really wants all the memos released. It's political wrangling, because he knows full well that most of them won't be released and as long as something remains classified he can claim that the Obama administration is just not releasing the stuff that justifies the Bush administration's actions.

** I recognize that McMenemy was likely trying to claim that the memos were selected to embarrass the Bush administration and that claiming they were "leaked selectively" was just his usual incompetent writing. It doesn't matter. Of course they were selective on what memos were declassified. They couldn't possibly release them all at once, for reasons that are obvious to everyone but McMenemy.

Swine Flu: What to do, and not do

There's a lot of news about swine flu right now, and for good reason. While it's impossible to know at this point whether this will lead to a flu pandemic, the potential does exist.

There's a lot that's still unknown about this flu strain, but there are some basic things that people can do--and other things people should avoid--at this point. I'm not going to offer medical advice, since I'm not qualified to do so, but most of this stuff is pretty simple.

Let's start with what you can do to protect both yourself and others. Most of these should be obvious, but they're worth repeating anyway.

1) Wash your hands. Use hot water and soap. A quick splash is not enough, you need to spend a bit of time. Recite the alphabet to yourself while doing it, and by the time you're done that should be about enough time. If you're unable to get to a sink for whatever reason, you could carry around some Purell or a similar product to sanitize your hands.

2) Cover your mouth if you cough or sneeze. But don't sneeze into your hand! If you have a tissue, use that and then throw it away immediately. Don't keep a used-up disease rag in your pocket. If you don't have a tissue, then cough or sneeze into your elbow, like this:


Yeah, you might gross up your inner elbow, but it's better than getting gunk on your hands and then spreading it to others, or sneezing unimpeded and spewing germs all over the room.

3) Learn about the flu. As with any fast-moving and poorly-understood disease, there's going to be a ton of bad information out there. Inoculate yourself against it with good information.

Here are some good resources:

• The Center for Disease Control's Swine Flu page - Good general clearinghouse.
• Pandemicflu.gov - Also handy if you're still worried about Avian Flu!
• The World Health Organization's swine flu page - Another good clearinghouse for information.
• Effect Measure blog - A blog written by epidemiologists and public health officials. Provides better context and analysis than simple press releases.
• H5N1 blog - One of the better "flu blogs" out there. Is covering H1N1 (swine flu) extensively.

Most of these sites also provide a lot of links if you want even more information.

4) Don't kiss any pigs. This is just a good rule in general.

So, those are a few simple things that you can do to cut your own risk and the risk you might pose to others if you happen to get infected. Now on to things you really should not do.

1) Don't go to work/school/public events if you're sick. Going out in public while sick doesn't mean you're tougher than the disease, it means you're a jerk who doesn't care about making everyone else sick. Unless you really want to be known as the guy/girl who spread disease to all your friends, just stay home.

2) Don't stick your hands in your mouth, eyes, or nose. Again, obvious. Even if you think your hands are clean, the mouth, eyes, and nose provide an easy way for diseases to get into the body. Best just to avoid them.

3) Don't listen to quacks. You're going to see a lot of scammers offering totally ineffectual "cures" over the next few weeks. There will be spam emails trying to sell you imaginary medicines, there will be people offering the insanely diluted liver of a diseased duck as a medicine, there will be holistic "healers" and homeopaths aplenty offering you products that are nothing more than a placebo. Don't waste your money.

4) Don't blame Mexico. I include this only because I've already seen people trying to use this outbreak to grandstand about illegal immigration (Google "swine flu" + immigration and you'll find lots of examples). That's utterly absurd. This outbreak could have started anywhere, and viruses don't care one bit about political borders. People who try to tie this to immigration are playing politics in the stupidest possible way.

5) Don't panic. Panic never helps, and there's no reason for it anyway. While H1N1 has the potential to become a pandemic, it's impossible to know how it will turn out at this early stage. There's a lot more we don't know about this flu strain than there is stuff we do know, so don't freak yourself out by jumping to conclusions that aren't based on fact.

As always, these lists are incomplete. But these are easy things to do, and they're good ideas even when there isn't a potential pandemic looming on the horizon.

Thursday Angry Video

I had started to write about the torture memos that were recently made public, but had to stop due to severe rage.

Instead, here's a live Big Black video.

Local AIDS denialism!

If you don't pay a lot of attention to the lunatic fringes, you may not be aware that there are a fair number of people out there who deny the well-established link between HIV and AIDS.

Sure, there are the crackpots like Jeremiah Wright who think that the government invented HIV, but they're not the ones I'm talking about. Rather, I'm talking about people like Peter Tocci of Leominster, who in addition to being a local "holistic healer," just wrote a horribly misinformed letter to the editor that appears in the S&E today.

Fisking time!

Tocci starts off in the realm of reality. Don't worry, it won't last long.

On Jan. 30, the Sentinel & Enterprise ran a story about AIDS activist John Chittick's return from his awareness campaign in Africa.

On March 11, a Fitchburg march for National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day was reported.

Dedicated people like Mr Chittick, as well as Dorine Russo, who courageously told her story at the march, convey official AIDS information in good faith.

Well, that's pretty factual. See here for Chittick's website if you like. He's a good guy, doing good work, and is from Fitchburg.

Sadly, Tocci's use of the phrase "official AIDS information" suggests what's to come. So let's get on with it.

However, many qualified, even distinguished, scientists such as Nobel laureates Walter Gilbert and Kary Mullis, question HIV/AIDS. HIV was never isolated, and no study proves it causes AIDS.

There we go!

Our letter-writer gets his facts wrong right from the start. While Walter Gilbert did win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1980, and was indeed an AIDS denialist, it appears that he changed his mind no later than 2006, due to the efficacy of antivirals in dealing with HIV/AIDS.

Kary Mullis, on the other hand, is not only the winner of the Chemistry Nobel in 1993, but remains an AIDS denialist. That's far from his only batshit-crazy belief, though.

In the lab, Mullis kept his beer in the radiation refrigerator, scoffing at safety regulations. He disputes that humankind can do anything to harm the environment. He believes in alien abductions; that he was visited by a radiant raccoon ET; in astrology; in telepathy; in “astral planes.” He happily recalls synthesizing experimental psychedelic drugs—and trying them out on himself. “It takes all kinds,” they say, and Mullis is in his own category. Colorful, creative, no doubt quite intelligent, he is many things…but not exactly a reliable guide to scientific facts and clear thinking, as the above examples show.

So our letter-writer has cited a guy who doesn't agree with him and a total nutcase as evidence for his claim. He pretty much had to go with these guys, though. After all, Mullis is the only Nobel winner to deny that HIV causes AIDS, and Gilbert at least used to agree.

How about "HIV was never isolated"? That's not true either, though it indeed hasn't been isolated to the very restrictive and largely arbitrary specifications that AIDS denialists demand. Go figure.

"[N]o study proves it causes AIDS"? Almost too absurd to even respond to. If you want to see some such studies, you could start with this and then dig into the references it cites. That's a tiny fraction of the studies out there, of course.

Phew! That was a lot of crap in one little paragraph. Let's move on.

No one denies people are sick. Cause(s), definitions, and approaches are what's being challenged.

Ralph Moss, Ph.D., author of The Cancer Industry, said, "The paradigm that was laid down for how to milk the cancer problem is basically the same paradigm which is being followed in milking the AIDS problem."

Hey, we're back to quoting crazy people! First, let me note that Moss's Ph.D. is in classics, nothing even remotely science related. He's a quack, who wants you to have coffee enemas and eat shark cartilage to prevent cancer (because sharks supposedly don't get cancer, even though they do).

So I'm pretty comfortable just dismissing him out of hand. I'll make sure to look him up if I ever have any questions about Jane Eyre or something, though.

More from our letter-writer:

Many people are taking highly toxic "anti-retroviral" (ARV) drugs. The DNA-chain terminator AZT was originally a cancer drug so toxic it was shelved. But the deadlier the disease definition, the deadlier the drug allowed, so AZT was revived.

The lies and misinformation just keep coming!

First, AZT is a reverse transcriptase inhibitor. It's not primarily a DNA chain terminator, for reasons too esoteric to get into here (see here if you're curious).

Second, it wasn't shelved because it was too toxic. Here's what its inventor had to say about it:

"It proved to be completely inactive in all of the test systems [Dr Sartorelli] employed. In my laboratory I found AZT incapable of inhibiting the growth of Jensen sarcoma cells in vitro at very high concentrations. Thus, AZT showed no activity as a potential anticancer drug at that time."

In other words, it was shelved as an anticancer drug because it was pretty crummy as an anticancer drug. Go figure.

Back to Tocci:

The lone AZT study used to manufacture FDA approval was a shambles. But treatment cost $18,000 a year at the time.

Those two statements don't go together, and have absolutely no relevance to the issue. Moving on.

Certain ARVs, such as Nevirapine/Lamivudine/Zidovudine, also contain the politically approved neurotoxin-carcinogen aspartame.

I have no idea if those drugs "contain" aspartame, but I can say that aspartame is neither a neurotoxin nor a carcinogen, so who cares?

Also, this isn't relevant to the topic either. At this point, Tocci is just running through a series of his misconceptions about health. I know who I won't be visiting next time I need a "holistic healer" (which is never, because they're quacks).

Officially, HIV antibodies (revealed by unreliable tests) are a death sentence. But you can "live with HIV" if you take toxic drugs whose effects, if they kill you, will be blamed on the virus.

Seriously? I have trouble believing even Tocci believes that nonsense. If you die from drug toxicity, it will be blamed on drug toxicity. That's why they do studies like this one that examine AZT and liver function. Because they recognize the dangers.

Authority recommends mandatory HIV testing and flu vaccinations (mercury-laced) for pregnant women: Pregnancy, flu vaccines and flu itself (among numerous other things) give false-positive HIV tests.

Oh boy, he's an antivaccination loon too! Jackpot!

Yes, some of the flu vaccines available contain thimerasol. Not that this matters either, since thimerasol isn't dangerous in these doses. Of course, that link comes from "Authority" (AKA people who know what they're talking about), so I'm sure Tocci would reject it.

As for false positives, a lot of things can conceivably cause them. Which is why any positive HIV test is followed by a confirmatory test. When using the Western Blot confirmation, the false-positive rate in a low prevalence area is about one in 250,000.

Once again, though, this isn't relevant to the topic. Tocci just likes to vomit his ignorance everywhere.

Wait, there's more!

My contact in South Africa doggedly researches HIV/AIDS. She says the millions of HIV-positives there may be false. This, and widespread depletion of CD4 cells, she says, are likely attributable to genetically modified (GM) corn.

GM organisms were introduced to Africa in 1985 as "food aid," coinciding with the onset of AIDS. There was also epidemiological correlation early on with the World Health Organization Smallpox Eradication Program.

Oh boy, he has a "contact" in South Africa (where they shower to avoid HIV) who has an utterly insane idea about corn!

That idea isn't backed up by any research I could find, though I did find this Onion piece about how "Generic Candy Corn Will Give you AIDS." Maybe that's where Tocci is getting his information!

I couldn't find any information about the supposed correlation between corn and AIDS. Probably because there isn't one, but even if there is it hardly matters. Correlation is a far cry from causation.

Getting tired, let's wrap this nonsense up.

Society must thoroughly rethink the HIV/AIDS hypothesis. Please look carefully into this before acting on official pronouncements.

Mr. Tocci clearly doesn't follow his own advice. If he did, then he wouldn't be promoting so many utter falsehoods.

Of course, actually following the science and the massive body of evidence tying HIV to AIDS would be detrimental to Mr. Tocci's quack healing business. And we wouldn't want that, would we?

That's it. Hopefully nobody was too tempted to take medical advice from some "holistic healer" who wrote a letter to the editor of a crummy paper in a small community. But just in case, now you know better.

Pointless Anti-Marijuana Laws

As one of the many people who support drug legalization--particularly of marijuana--I was of course pleased last November when the voters in Massachusetts decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Sure, I would have rather seen pot legalized (and taxed), but it was a good first step.

Of course, not everyone agrees. As this AP article from 4/20 (coincidence?) points out, there are a number of local cities and towns that have passed anti-marijuana laws since that time.

Voters in November decriminalized possession of an ounce or less of marijuana, and replaced the maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $500 fine with a $100 civil fine and forfeiture of the drug. The new law does not require a suspected offender to provide identification.

Since then, seven communities — Duxbury, Lynn, Medway, Methuen, Milford, Salem and Springfield — have passed bylaws regulating or prohibiting marijuana use in public. Others are considering similar measures.

This is just baffling to me.

Question 2 didn't legalize marijuana, it decriminalized possession of an ounce or less. That's a pretty major difference. Marijuana possession is still illegal, you just face a fine and confiscation of the drug instead of potentially going to jail.

It's a bit baffling that law enforcement officials don't seem to understand this fact. Of course, it's probable that they do understand it, and are simply using it as a red herring for their power-grab.

“If I’m driving down Main Street in Springfield, and I see a guy drinking a can of Budweiser and a guy smoking a joint, the only guy I can lock up is the beer drinker,” Springfield Police Sgt. John Delaney said. “It seemed only natural to pass a law to keep people from smoking marijuana in public.”

Perhaps that's all technically true. You can't "lock up" a guy for smoking a joint on the street. You can fine them $100 and seize their pot, which seems like a pretty effective way to get them to stop smoking it, in public and elsewhere.

I also question the wisdom of locking up somebody for drinking a beer in public. Make them stop, sure, but why the hell would you even want to put them in jail for it? If they're drunk and being a public nuisance, that's one thing, but just drinking a beer in public seems like a pretty stupid reason to lock someone up.

Unless you're locking them up for drinking Budweiser specifically. I can almost endorse that.

Here are some of the details about what these cities are doing:

In Springfield, first-time offenders face a $100 fine; second-time offenders, $200; third-time and subsequent offenders, $300. In Salem, police reserve the right to subpoena into court people smoking marijuana in public. Offenders are required to identify themselves and face a fine of up to $300. The city also can fine an offender up to $300. In Lynn, offenders who smoke in public also face a $300 fine. In each community, the local penalties are in addition to the state fine.

What's with everyone wanting $300?

It's already illegal to smoke pot, not just in public, but anywhere. These local laws are--at best--attempts to solve a problem that already has a solution. More realistically, they're attempts to subvert the decriminalization of marijuana by adding more hassles and fines to something that's already illegal.

Surely they have a good reason for doing this, right?

For Police Chief Robert M. St. Pierre, Halloween in Salem — when thousands visit the city because of its spooky history — is enough reason to pass bylaws for possession of marijuana in public.

“When you have 60,000 people crowded in a small downtown, you can’t allow public drinking or public marijuana use. You have to have some laws with teeth to protect Salem, especially at that time of year.”

That makes perfect sense! People come to town for Halloween, therefore unnecessary marijuana laws must be put into place year-round!

Come to think of it, I've noticed that there's an awful lot of jaywalking that takes place on Halloween too. Jaywalking is already illegal, but I think we need stronger laws to make it even more illegal. Somebody needs to get on that right away!

Can this whole thing become stupider? Easily.

State Sen. James Timilty, a Walpole Democrat, has introduced a bill that he says clarifies some confusion. Timilty’s bill would allow police to arrest anyone who fails to produce identification. Police Chief St. Pierre said that amendment would help him deal with thousands of Halloween revelers in full costume.

“It’s very hard if someone is bent on trying to commit a criminal act and they have masks or face paint or a costume,” he said.

This man is allowed to enforce laws?

First, we're not dealing with "a criminal act." Remember that fancy "decriminalization" word? It means that marijuana possession is now a civil offense, not a criminal one. This seriously shouldn't be that hard to understand.

Second, do the Salem police somehow have pictures of everyone who goes there for Halloween? Is the one thing stopping them from identifying these foreign ne'er-do-wells on sight the fact that they're wearing costumes? Seriously, what the hell?

Also, are police really so easily foiled by people wearing costumes and/or masks?

If so, I'm going to head over to that costume shop by the strip club, buy a naughty nurse outfit or something (since 90% of their stock is "slutty something-or-other" costumes and I'm in a rush), don it, and rob all the banks in town. The police will be helpless to stop me as long as I don't carelessly remove my mask. It's a perfect crime!

The amendment in question appears to be this one, by the way (thanks for not citing anything yet again, "journalism"). It appears to do what they say, amending the current law to add the ability to arrest people who don't give correct identification when suspected of a marijuana offense.

It also does some other things that look worrisome, but that I don't have the time to cross-reference right now to find out for sure. If you want to check how the amendment changes the current law in other ways, feel free. The current law is here.

There is a fatal flaw in Timilty's amendment, though. Nowhere does it say that people have to take off their ridiculous costumes. Salem's dumbest will never manage to get around the masks and face-paintings without a law explicitly stating they have to be removed!

The reality behind all these utterly insane rationalizations should be easy enough to see. City governments want to appear "tough on drugs," so they make up pointless laws to solve non-problems.

Never mind that there's little indication that public pot smoking is any sort of significant problem. Politicians want to be seen as doing something, even if they're not actually accomplishing a damn thing.

That's why you get so many pointless (and sometimes counterproductive) laws about sex offenders, and it's why you get pointless laws about smoking pot. The people being targeted probably aren't going to put up much of a fight, so they're easy pickings for unimaginative city councilors.

It's totally legal for them to do so, since the state law allows for it. It's straight from the ballot question itself, which allowed for it for reasons I can't fathom. They're no doubt political in nature.

But just because they can make these silly laws doesn't mean they should make them. They're unnecessary, redundant, and even if they fit the letter of the ballot question, they certainly don't fit the spirit of it.

CRITICAL BREAKING NEWS!

There is BREAKING NEWS in the Sentinel!


Yes, Britney Spears' house has been... trespassed... against(?). We must follow this story, as it is perhaps the most important news item of our lifetimes!

Here's the news, which I reiterate is very important.

Miranda Tozier-Robbins, 26, a longtime former Fitchburg resident, said she knew going onto pop star Britney Spears' Los Angeles County property was illegal, but she did it anyway.

"I went in through the back yard, to the gate, it was unlocked and open already," said Tozier-Robbins. "I was just sort of like on cloud nine being in Britney Spears' backyard."

Security personnel on Spears' property quickly found Tozier-Robbins and LA Sheriff's deputies arrested her and charged her with trespassing and disorderly conduct.

[blah blah blah pointless nonsense]

*See Saturday's edition of the Sentinel & Enterprise for complete coverage.*

That's not enough information! I must know more about the home of this talentless crime against music! Is it ok? Were flowers trampled? Was the grass stayed-off-of?

Luckily, they'll fill us in on all the details tomorrow.

But... hold on... oh my god!


NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

GODDAMN YOU, MCMENEMY! WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO HIDE???

Obama is Brainwashing us with the Tee-Vee!

This starts off slow and boring, so just skip to about 2 minutes in. That's when the crazy kicks into high gear. It gets even better around 4:50.

And people wonder why I say that conservatives have lost touch with reality.*


* That's a lie. Nobody wonders.


[UPDATE!] You're probably wondering how Joe the Plumber Phone Sex Operator fits into Obama's mind-control-via-digital-tv-converter-box machinations.

As it turns out, he's part of the conspiracy!



We're through the looking glass, people.

Hooray for Teabagging!

It's hard to know where to begin with this whole teabagging thing.

Once upon a time, it took effort to make fun of Republicans and Libertarians. Not a whole lot of effort, admittedly, but the jokes at least didn't write themselves.

Over the last few years, however, the right wing in this country has done its best to become not only completely insane, but also totally clueless about how others perceive them. That's comedy gold, but sort of too easy. Let's try to resist making the easy jokes as best we can. Leave that to the newscasters.

If you're not familiar with the whole "Tea Party" thing yesterday, let me sum it up for you. See, these brave patriots are mostly angry about taxes, but they also hate the deficit, as well as other things (like black people). The majority of them have had their taxes lowered by their elected representatives, which is obviously upsetting.

As you'll recall from grade-school history classes, early American gangsters once railed against "Taxation Without Representation" and dressed up as American Indians in order to dump tea in Boston Harbor, to protest Britain's Tea Act. Also, they were probably drunk.

The commonality between the colonists and modern tax-evaders is really striking, isn't it? Except for the "Without Representation" part. Or most of the other parts, actually. But maybe some of them were drunk?

Anyway, let's take a look at this Telegram article, cleverly entitled "Taxes not their cup of tea." (Oh, Telegram headline-writer, you are a stitch!)

It's about a "Tea Party" in Worcester yesterday, which supposedly attracted 1,500 people (though you wouldn't know it from the photos, which you really must see).

Quoting time!

“I heard about this watching Glenn Beck on TV,” said Ms. Stearns, a Worcester mother of three who stood next to her son, Elijah, 10, who held his own placard exclaiming, “Obama Spends, Jesus Saves.”

Actually, Jesus advocated giving away all your stuff. No going to heaven for you, Elijah!

Here's an interesting quote:

“Think of what our founders did,” [event organizer Kevin] Mandile said to a cheering crowd, speaking over the cacophony of automobile horns blown in solidarity. “They took on the most powerful country in the world, and won.”

“… I’ve even heard that the Department of Homeland Security considers the Tea Party an extremist organization and a threat. We are a threat, to the crowd in Washington.”

Is that thing about the DHS true? I could only find it being promoted by right-wing blogs, who aren't exactly known for their fact-checking skills.

Whether or not it's true, is it really smart to go threatening the government? I appreciate a good revolution as much as anybody, but generally revolutionaries try to actually do something, and not just dress up in silly costumes and whine about taxes.

Also, remember a few years ago when anybody who dared criticize Bush in any way was called a "traitor" and had their patriotism questioned? That was for criticism, not calls for armed insurrection (which you don't find in this article, but are certainly happening). The people who called folks like me a traitor back then are the ones calling for a revolution now. Would it be too much to ask for a little logical consistency?

Yes, it would.

Jodie Chapin of Northboro, who carried a framed photograph of former President Ronald Reagan, stood at the base of the granite stairs to Worcester Memorial Auditorium with her daughter, Juliet, 11.

“Ronald Reagan would not have allowed things to get to the point where we would have to do this,” she said. “He epitomized the Free World. He is the hero to all the people here. He was a proud conservative who believed America was a shining city on a hill.”

Oh what the fuck, people? Why don't you just form a new religion, call it "Reaganism," get the religious tax exemption, and shut the fuck up?

While you're at it, maybe you shouldn't whine about the deficit while lionizing Reagan, who took the deficit from 2.3% of GNP to 5.6% of GNP, adding more than a trillion 1988-era dollars to it. Hell, even with his disease-ravaged brain, Reagan himself recognized that he screwed up.

Look, conservatives, we need to have a talk.

I know you guys are new to this whole "revolution" thing, because "conservative" and "subversive" are basically antonyms. So let me offer you some advice for your next horribly misguided public spectacle. If you just follow these simple guidelines, you should be fine.

1. First and foremost, don't name your protest after a slang term for a sex act. If you're considering Dirty Sanchez immigration protests or Angry Pirate anti-piracy rallies, you might want to reconsider.
2. Making protest signs is an art. You want to be brief, but clever. It also helps if they make sense. Additionally, you should probably not endorse slavery on your sign.
3. Costumes are always a nice touch, but giant furries with huge penises are probably not going to draw a lot of people to your cause.

There are obviously more than just these three guidelines that should be followed, but they would at least be a good start.

Once you get the blatantly ridiculous bullshit out of the way, we can get into more esoteric stuff like "actually understand the historical events you refer to," "don't contradict yourself mid-sentence," and "for God's sake, just shut the fuck up already." But we have to start somewhere!

In conclusion, teabagging rocks!


PS. Note that this post contained almost no jokes about scrota. Yay, self-control!

Does DiNatale value streetlights over firefighters?

Roughly a month ago I wrote this post, about a couple of city councilors making fun of Marcus DiNatale for being an annoying, hypocritical buffoon.

If you recall, the issue at question was the whole streetlight idiocy, and DiNatale wanting to raid the city's free cash in order to keep more streetlights on. Stephan Hay and Jody Joseph then made fun of him for being a self-ordained "fiscal conservative" while being so eager to spend the city's free cash, and also for being an oppositional dummy.

Good times...

Now it's a month later, and we have this story about the city council transferring $91,000 from free cash to pay the city's firefighters. You just know that DiNatale will have something stupid to say about it, and he delivers right off the bat!

"I'm not crazy about taking money out of free cash," said Councilor at-large Marcus DiNatale.

Huh? Where did the freewheeling, free cash-spending Marcus of late March go? That guy would have been totally on board with this plan!

Maybe he just doesn't think firefighters are as important as having some extra streetlights on? Or maybe he's hoping that the light produced by burning homes will eliminate the need for more streetlights? Who knows?

He can believe whatever he likes, but I have to disagree on this issue.

See, if my home is on fire, then I really don't care if the sidewalk near it is well-lit. My bigger concern would be getting rid of the fire, which is where the firefighters come in. It's considerably more important to me to have a home that isn't just a smoking pile of rubble than it is to not stub my toe on a dark sidewalk.

DiNatale's stated reasoning isn't along those lines, of course. Rather, it's a fine example of a dumb idea couched in reasonable-sounding language (like most politics, really).

DiNatale said three budget line items have had money left over in them at the end of the year for each of the last three years.

Those include accounts in the building, health and employee benefits categories.

"Those three accounts, I believe, can cover this overage without using free cash," DiNatale said.

Golly, that almost sounds reasonable on the surface. Well, if you ignore the fact that he's relying on a speculation that maybe there will be money left over at the end of the year.

This argument was pretty-well eviscerated by Mayor Wong.

But Mayor Lisa Wong urged councilors not to support DiNatale's plan.

Wong said the fiscal year is not over, so it is not definitive those accounts will remain where they are. Furthermore, Wong said if those accounts do under run, any money left over would go back into the free cash account.

"At this point it doesn't make sense to transfer money out of those departments," Wong said after the meeting.

Ouch. That's eminently sensible.

If they use free cash and DiNatale's three cited accounts end up with extra money, it'll go back into free cash anyway. Which means what DiNatale is suggesting is basically a stupider and more limiting way of doing the same thing Wong is proposing.

Hmm, if that's the case then why would he be opposed to it? Oh, maybe late-March Marcus is back!

Let's not forget about what Jody Joseph said back then:

Ward 6 Councilor Jody Joseph said he was "tired" of hearing DiNatale criticize Wong.

"I'm constantly hearing the same thing, 'My way is right, her way is wrong,'" Joseph said.

This leaves us with three potential explanations for DiNatale's inconsistency.

1. He could legitimately believe that raiding free cash to turn on a few streetlights is more worthwhile than using it to pay firefighters.
2. He could reflexively disagree with everything the mayor supports, just to be a dick.
3. He could actually not believe anything at all, and just grandstands about any issue he thinks might appeal to local dimwits, in order to get his name in the paper and further his political career.

Whichever of those is correct (I vote for all three), I sure hope he keeps it up.

Not for the good of the city, mind you. Being obstinate doesn't really help the city, as far as I can see. No, he should keep it up because after the disappearance of Rachel, Fitchburg is in desperate need of more insanity in its politics. Because it's funny.

Alternately, he could adopt sensible positions and actually study issues instead of just being a reflexively oppositional nuisance about everything. Then he might actually be well-respected and get something worthwhile accomplished. But where's the fun in that?

Stay the course, Marcus. For the comedy!

Tuesday videos, because why not?

One of my absolute favorite albums of all time is The Rezillos' Can't Stand The Rezillos, which sadly was also their only studio album. Anyway, here's a good old (1978-ish) video of them.



A good chunk of that band later reformed as The Revillos, who were still pretty enjoyable, but a bit too new-wavey for me. Still, crazy video!



Man, the 80's were nuts from the very start.