It's easy to miss hidden meanings in the information stream. News photographers consider themselves artists, and try to frame their subjects to convey as much meaning as possible within a single photograph.

For example, someone did a study of the number of "halos" there seemed to be hidden in the photos of the campaign trail. I really need a link to that, since it's kind of hard to explain. The photographers often try to arrange themselves and the subject so that some kind of circle is behind their head, simulating a halo, as in this picture of Howard Dean:

So I wondered what the hell the guys in the newsroom were trying to tell us with this weird-ass picture of Kerry from last week:

Until, of course I remembered what the POW*MIA flag looked like. Unbelievably, the Kerry campaign seems to want to associate itself even more with the Vietnam War than it already has, which is almost completely. They should probably stay away from the whole POW angle; the Viet Cong actually used Kerry's "Winter Soldier" testimony to torture American POW's, after all.

What a jackass.

Oh, how terribly sweet.

Sure when he does it, they think it's cute. But when I do it, suddenly it's a "misdemeanor".

Via Maura

Bloggers hit the big time over the weekend. Rathergate broke on Free Republic, picked up by Powerline, and was beautifully driven home by Charles Johnson over on LFG.

So, now both Powerline and Charles are on the radio, making pajama jokes and making like bigshots.

I used to be on the radio, back when I was but a little Rubeling. We played early 80's music, even though it hadn't been out-of-style long enough to have been cool yet. They kicked me off because I got piss-drunk on Jim Beam on-air, and launched into a 10-minute soliloquy about Skylarking.

Coolness under pressure has never really been my strong point. It's probably a good thing that nobody called me to be on the radio. I would probably embarrass, nay, completely discredit the entire blogosphere I do so love, by showing up drunk and doing one of those I-love-you-man things in front of God and everybody.

In October, the murderous, savage followers of Mohammed will be holding a conference in Berlin. The focus of this conference is to plan the undermining of their host countries in Europe, and the destruction of Israel and the United States.

The purpose of Muslims everywhere is to establish a caliphate, covering the entire Earth. Non-believers will be treated as slaves; except for Jews, who will be slaughtered like animals. They don't even bother hiding it anymore.

LFG's Charles Johnson is claiming he got 100,000 visitors yesterday. I think I got 2, and they were both me.

I thought I dodged a bullet yesterday. I posted my entry, Never Forgive, and went about my business. But today, I watched a documentary about September 11. I'm not the crying type. I cry about once every 20 years. But today, I could've cried. I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry for the firefighters, for the widows, for Rudy Giuliani, for the world and what's happened to it. I choked back the tears, and played it Cagney like I did three years ago.

But I want to cry. Today, I wanted to sink my head into my girlfriend's shoulder and let the tears flow, and scream. A world died that day, and another world signed its own death warrant. Other people have more reason to cry than I do, and I shall not cheapen their sorrow.

When no one's looking, and all doors are closed, tonight, I shall cry for the people who died on September 11, 2001. I didn't understand, and I'm so sorry. God, I'm so sorry.

I'm finally crying.

I received a nice compliment today, by way of comments. But after clicking through and reading Flashman's stuff, I have to assume he's mocking me. This guy writes his ass off.

Read it.

Some days are just a total wash. I slept until 2 P.M., then I sat around the apartment reading blogs all afternoon. Now, at 1:30 in the morning, I'm drinking a beer and reading blogs again. At some point, I think I went to the can, but that's pure speculation. It's all been a blur.

Today was an in-betweener. A tween, morphing between the hightoned days of the RNC convention, then the Beslan massacre, and whatever busload of schoolchildren crazed Muslims blow up tomorrow. But today, there's nothing. My entertainment providers are focusing on Kerry trivialities or their cats instead of the right-wing hate-speech I need.

What to do, what to do. I could post a picture of Jones. Ok, here's Jones as a little child-cat:

Awww, my widdle buddy!

To see what Jones looks like today (10 years later), look here.

There's a Turkish guy beating up his wife outside my window. I would say something, but , well, you know.

Live-blogging of Rube losing absolutely all the faith in humanity that remained in his shrivelled, black little heart. (brought to you by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance)

Ok, let's get started.

• 1:10AM: Here is an interesting Q & A between American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and a bunch of fat people (with pic!). Excerpt:

  Question: If two fat passengers fly together, can they buy three seats between them? Southwest: No. Both must buy two seats. They may get a refund if the plane is not full if they let us know in advance.

  Interesting. At the top of that page, they've written

  "Event description: "You are a part of history. NAAFA as invited representatives from Southwest, United, American, Continental, and other airlines to discuss how we can help them better serve our community. Rules of conduct will be available prior to the meeting."

  I will leave it as an excercise for the reader(s) to contemplate what 'rules' the airlines felt they had to have in writing beforehand.
• 1:23AM: Reading more, there's a State of the NAAFA Paper. They apparently have their own jargon. The President, Kara Brewer Allen, who probably bears little or no resemblance to Ann Coulter til around last call, warns the herd against "Feederism", whatever the hell that is.
• 1:26AM: I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable here...

  We LONG to be united! We MUST be united! Healthy choices and lifestyles for ALL PEOPLE People of any SIZE OR SHAPE! NAAFA will be the leading FORCE for all Americans of Size.

  Why did they capitalize "FORCE" like that?
• 1:29AM: I seeeeee...: "Dieting is the leading cause of obesity in the US."
• 1:32AM: Airline Tips for Large Passengers: GATE TRANSPORTATION - It's usually a long walk between curbside check-in and the gate, or between gates when you have connecting flights. When making your reservations, make sure to tell the agent if you will need special services, such as the airport tra m or an armless wheelchair and attendant. I'm beginning to doubt the veracity of that last point about dieting there. Maybe stuffing your face to the point of semi-consciousness, then asking to be wheeled around instead of walking could have something to do with obesity?

Ugh. Enough. Fat people screaming about insensitive treatment. Enjoy being fat, or don't be fat. Unless it's a 'glandular thing', I mean, wink.

Micheal Moore is a real hot potato in American and European Politics. He's the man that gives a voice, not to mention a cherubic, smiling face, to the good side of the American soul. His bucolic, emotional films have earned a special place in the National Conscience, casting that warm light upon family values which makes one feel good about being an American. He fills that void left by such "Golden Years" greats as Norman Rockwell, and Frank Capra.

So it baffles me when I read accounts like this one:

Moore, who attended this week's Republican National Convention as a columnist for USA Today, was greeted by delegates who derided him as a "fat pig." Perhaps they read the book by David Hardy and Jason Clarke, "Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man." Or they came across the suggested slogan for the Web site moorewatch.com "Michael Moore: Putting the vast in vast left-wing conspiracy." ...

The reporter describes the allusions to Moore's husky figure as "...the last acceptable slur in the American arsenal of insults", but I'm sorry: I'm a proud American, and I do not consider this insult acceptable in the least.

I understand how it is when mean-spirited thugs make fun of your body. I understand what Mr. Moore is going through. I, too, have been on the receiving end of personal insults. When I was a teenager, unsure of myself, my body, my own self-worth, the other children would gather in circles and ridicule my enormous, perfectly-shaped penis.

Astonished, giggling 18-year-old girls can be cruel, and creative. Rube McKneehanger they'd call me; Hung-Lo-Rube's Drive-in Noodle Bar; Sir Packs-a-lot; you name it. But through it all, I remained firm, and stood proudly. I salute you Michael Moore, for overcoming such small-minded hatred. I commend you, for sticking it out; as did I all those years ago, oh so many, many times; it takes a tough man to stick to his guns, and endure the insults and derision for almost an entire half a night, while getting paid for an entire week.

Go eat a donut, you whiny-ass tub of goo.

Update: Did I read that correctly? There's a National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance? What the fuck? Google....

One more stereotype that really has me befuddled is coffee. For some reason, everybody thinks Europeans drink a) a lot of coffee, and b) really strong coffee. Let me blow this one out of the water right now. I drink a lot of coffee. Everybody I know in the States drinks a lot of coffee. Europeans? 1 cup. That's it, 1 little cup. In Italy, they only drink one cup, and it's about the size of a shot glass. No refills. No "You wamme to warm that up for ya, Sugar?" Waffle House perks. In Germany, they have some kind of obsession about drinking coffee out of those cappuccino machines. That stuff tastes like thinned-out axle grease, albeit with a hint of nuttiness. Filter coffee is much better. It's smooth, strong-bodied, and actually smells good.

A German boss of mine stopped me in the office cafeteria once, and asked me what I thought of the new cappuccino-style coffee machine he'd just had installed. I told him I hadn't used it, that in the IT department we had our own dripper that we used. He sniffed, then said, "Oh yes, I forgot, you're American. You have no taste." Then walked on. I was miffed for a second. Then realized he was wearing a bright-orange jumpsuit, sandals, yellow sunglasses and, I swear to God, a pith helmet. I figured I'd let it go.

My only co-worker in IT was a Saxon. According to him, Saxons also can't stand the cruddy java that other Germans drink, preferring the manly filter-coffee. Maybe it's because, being East Germans, they appreciate the good things in life that pampered, effete West Germans long taken for granted. Anyway, once the automat was installed in the cafeteria, we absconded with the old dripper, and would have defended it with our lives. I hid it behind the mail server; it was hooked up to the battery backup system, lest the power fail.

Everybody's got something to say about all the other folks in the world. Sometimes it's openly envious. For example, everybody seems to think that the people in other parts of the country tend to be more open and friendly, but maybe a bit shallow. And that's in any country. I've heard it in Germany, New Zealand, England, America, you name it. Bavarians always say that Bavarians are hard to get to know, but once you get to know them, they'll open up to you once and for all; unlike those superficial Rhinelanders. Rhinelanders say the exact same thing, but tend to throw in a bunch of insults about Bavarians being rednecks.

One place there's near-total agreement, however, is on the subject of geography. For some reason, everybody, including Americans, think that the rest of the world spends all their time studying political maps in dog-eared old atlases, committing world capitols and currencies to memory for some mysterious, global Jeopardy match we never get invited to. There's an accepted common knowledge that Americans have no idea where anything is, and are ignorant, arrogant boors.

What utter bullshit. I've lived in Europe for over 5 years now, and in thousands of conversations involving the States, there has never been a single occurence of a European knowing where Atlanta is. They all know Atlanta's in Georgia, somehow, probably from flying through Hartsfield, but not a single one of them has a clue as to where Georgia is. Usually, they think it's on the West Coast. That's America, right? Palm trees and bikini girls? Once they find out it's in the Southeast, they figure it's on the same latitude as, say, Munich. Or maybe Athens? Try Casablanca. Germany doesn't share any latitudes with the United States; except maybe Alaska. I guess

Europeans have absolutely no concept of geography. They plan 1-week road trips in the States, starting in New York, ending in San Francisco. They visit Chicago, and plan on hopping over to Dallas for a day-trip. The U.S., in their minds, seems about as big as Disney World, with a tram between all the major attractions. Of course, when I was 10 I went to Epcot Center and thought I'd just walked through Europe in about a day. But that's different; Epcot actually looks a little bit like Europe, minus the dogshit on the sidewalks.

As Ace succinctly put it:

Was I on crack, or did Zell Miller challenge Chris Matthews to a duel tonight?

Come to think of it, portly Chris Matthews does look a tad like Ned Beatty:

Just goes to show you, don't pick nits with a cracker: Georgia Senator Zell Miller tore Matthews, obnoxious talk-show yapper, the new rectum which he had for so long desperately needed. Nothing irritates an ankle-biting yankee more than a Southern Gentleman who calls his bluff. Although he might have gone a little too far when he suggested settling it with pistols.

Incidentally, it would be the first trans-Mason-Dixon duel in American politics since Vice President Alexander Hamilton was gunned down by Mississippi-born television actor Raymond Burr in the early 19th century, over a woman.

Update

For my German friends and other commies, a little more context: The Republican (conservative) National Convention is going on right now. Zell Miller is a Senator from Georgia. Southern Democrats tend to be more conservative than their cough esteemed colleagues from the Northeast, who've turned their party into the Michael Moore Fan Club. Sen. Miller is an old-school Democrat, which he emphasized last night by quoting the likes of Franklin Roosevelt, and noting the deeds of Roosevelt's successor Harry S. Truman, the last 2 Democratic Presidents who actually accomplished anything. Well, Kennedy did Real Good with the Cuban Missile Crisis. But then there was that Bay of Pigs thing. And, to echo the sentiments of my old boss Ken, I'll never forgive that buck-toothed carpetbagger for dragging us into Viet Nam to clean up France's turdpile. Dickhead.

So anyway, Miller was the Keynote speaker at the convention last night, and gave a humdinger of a speech. Next to his, the speeches of other Democrats seem vague, weak, and despairing. I figure most Dems consider Zell a DINO, but they might want to ask themselves why that is.

It would be nice to have a second party in the US again; maybe some Donks will drop the Blame-America-First hairshirts and Bush==Hitler signs, and get back to being true progressives. Right now, we've just got suits and lunatics to choose from.

The followers of Allah are Terrorists. All of them.

In the 70's, there was a standard disclaimer that ran on television stations, that went something like: "We do not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, or national origin". Which of these things is not like the other? Race and national origin are things that cannot be helped: your parents are who they are, and you're born where you were. But creed? Is that some kind of reference to Jews? Is judaism a 'creed'? Or do they mean Southern Baptists? Or Catholics?

According to Wikipedia,

A creed is a statement of belief -- usually religious belief -- or faith.The word derives from the Latin credo for 'I believe'.

So when did it become illegal to discriminate against people for what they think? Klansmen and Black Panthers are ideological ne'er-do-wells that are discriminated against, and rightly so. Is that illegal? Of course not. It's worthless pork-language tacked onto an otherwise acceptable policy. You should definitely be able to deny services to people whose beliefs are offensive to you. Would a black architecture firm be sued because they wouldn't bid on a contract for a new KKK headquarters? Wouldn't that be a violation of the "race, creed, color" code? It would.

'Creed' should be stricken from the taboo list. 'Creed' is a choice. You decide if you want to believe something. You have that choice. Otherwise, you are not human, and are therefore legally edible. Islam is a creed; it's a cult, not a belief. You are all terrorists, and should be treated thusly. It should be legal to eat muslims.

In the last week, there were 2 bus-bombings in Israel, which involved the murders of numerous women and children; there were 2 plane bombings in Russia, there is so much shit in Iraq that I can't even count it here, and, to top it all off, now Muslims have kidnapped 200 children in Russia, and are threatening to kill them unless some jews are killed or something or other.

There is a boil on the ass of the world, and his name is Mohammed. When will you moon-worshipping philistines wake up? When will the christian-hating liberals of the western world smell the coffee? In every country in the world, there is a violent struggle between the modernists and the Muslims. Islam is hell on earth. Sickening...

Sounds like Cobby had a more interesting weekend than I did.

What's amazing about that entry is that her high-school has a liquor license. But only until 1:00 AM.

Ah, Europe.

The metric system makes you fat. I stepped on a scale a week or two ago, and I'll be damned if I didn't weigh 74,000 grams. That's unbelievable, when you think about it. If Rube were made completely of heroin, he would have a street value of US$8,299,100.00 (€6,915,916.67), according to this undoubtedly bogus heroin price trend analysis I randomly Googled. Any page that contains the word "truth" in the title is guaranteed to have more distortion than a Hüsker Dü closer.

Now, when I was a boy I was really fat, even in the good old Imperialist System. According to the above study, my dwindling stores and the relatively high prices I could've fetched in the early 80's have conspired to reduce my worth by more than 65 million dollars. But even at my rosy-cheeked plumpest my weight never had a comma in it.

Jeepers, man, they'll let anybody blog these days!

That's like Nixon going to China. In case you're wondering, it looks smashing in Konqueror.

Oh, well. I didn't want to go outside any more this month, anyway.

I was sitting on the bank of the Elbe with friends last night, watching the huge container ships going by. It's just down the river from the main Hamburg harbor area. There's a steady stream of large and small vessels, carrying containers stacked high on their decks. The river's not that wide, so when a really big ship goes by, it looks quite surreal, blotting out the other side of the river completely.

Most of the bigger ships went by after dark. I usually get a little romantic watching freighters. I think about the old Kerouac stories of his time in the Merchant Marine, of steaming across the Atlantic in the days before intercontinental air travel. I think about all those sailors saying goodbye to the stevedores they probably all know by name, and preparing themselves mentally for a weeks-long trip by sea to America, Asia, or South Africa.

But last night, a strange ship came by. It was a huge, black, covered-deck ship, looming over us like something the Galactic Empire would be driving around, like Vader's Star Destroyer. The nose was sharp and low, not far above the water, and the body was a wedge driven into the moonlit sky. There was no sign of the unevenly stacked containers, the jutting cranes that usually mark the ships. The windows were all lit, running perfectly even along the waist-line of the vessel, flourescent white-green in color, instead of the usual incandescent yellow. The deep rumble of the engines drowned the conversations, one by one. Deep rumbles are the sign of the bad guys; there is no bass in heaven.

Everyone sat still then, watching the ship approach and eventually eclipse last night's blue moon. In the shadow of that ship, I started thinking about the places of the world which spawned it, and the true misery which is its fuel. I could picture tortured wretches pulling the oars that drove it forward, the deep drone coming from the drums of the galley-masters.

Eventually it passed, letting the moon light up the riverbank again. It disappeared off to our right, around the riverbend. But I couldn't get the ship out of my mind, and it invaded my dreams last night. A black shape with glowing white letters on the side: The Yang Ming Line.

Microsoft revolutionizes desktop graphics!

Amazing! Unbelievable! I was absolutely stunned the first time I heard about it.

Now there's a bit of slang that everyone should have in their vocabulary. A "wig" is the ugly girl that almost-pretty girls go out with to make themselves look better. This is the ugly chick that a wingman has to pretend he likes, so that his buddy can make time with the half-way decent chick.

It's sort of like a "beard". A beard, as most people know, is the hag a gay guy goes out with to make it look like he's straight. So, when you see him dancing in a club with another man, wearing leather pants with the butt-cheeks cut out, you can look shocked and say, "sorry, man! I didn't recognize you without the beard."

I just saw a perfect example of wigiitude walk by. It was two girls: One of them was rather plain, but the but other was an out-and-out dogie, ripe fer punchin'. The dogie was rattling on about something, and the normal one had a look on her face like, 'Dude, it's Friday. I'm just bringing you along so I can get laid. Don't talk to me.'

Chicks.

I'm going to start chaining myself to marijuana plants.

I hate hippies.

I'm now no longer in a bar. I'm sitting in a caf in the Portuguese section of Hamburg, drinking coffee and working. Well, blogging. I don't like crowds of people. Well, let's not be negative. I like working in closed, empty spaces. I'm not an agoraphobic; I'm a claustrophiliac.

It might have something to do with working over the local wireless hotpoint here in this part of town. Public Wi-Fi hot-spots are just...unclean. It's the computing equivalent of a 70s bathhouse sex-romp. Every virus in existence is probably swimming around in these soupy, goldfish-infested airwaves. Sure, I'm using OS X, so there's not much chance I'll get glory-holed by some lame-ass XP user who hasn't installed a patch since his 'partner' caught MyDoom in that San Francisco coffeehouse last week, after a drunken AIM session that he neglected to mention. Pervert. Not to mention the fact that any schmo within 100 yards can just fire up Kismet or tcpdump and get a free peep-show.

Boy, they don't make a fuss about bringing you a beer here, do they? My little gay skirt-wearing glass has been empty for about 10 minutes here, guys. Little help?

I've never won anything in my entire life!

Things are going to start happening to me now.

/Navin Johnson

Of course, as soon as I get five of these mysterious "points", the dude throws them right back in my face.

Bastard.

Don't be such a poser.
Don't talk so much about yourself.
Don't criticize everything and everyone; you're the asshole here.
Don't try to top everybody's stories. Blame it on marine training. Don't live down to everyone's low expectations.
Do it for yourself, not for her.
Make a decision and act upon it.
Get the monkeys off your back; all of them.
Improve your handwriting, for the love of Christ.
Drink moderately.
Find something you enjoy doing, and really enjoy it.
Smile more.
Call your mother.
Before you follow your star, examine the path and make sure you know what you're getting into.
If you don't like something, don't eat it.
If you resist something, try to think of its advantages. If you can't think of anything good about it, you're probably just afraid of it.
Prioritize your time. You'll be surprised how many hours there are in a day.
Never be afraid to show people what you're writing, unless it's about them.
Don't let people fuck with you; you're smarter and more experienced than they are.
Nothing helps you win an argument like being right.
There's nothing wrong with a little hanky-panky every now and then.
Don't cry over movies unless you're drunk or something; no matter what she tells you, your girlfriend will think you're a pussy.
Don't trade in misery; it has no worth.
Don't underestimate yourself.
Don't watch television.
Don't drive unless you have to.
You do not have a monopoly on cool
Write letters to your friends; they like hearing from you.
Visit your cat again before he dies.
Do your paperwork.
Don't be a snob.
Work everyday.
Get your soul back.
Think in nodes.

I just spent 4 days and nights, between work-hours, installing Gentoo on my Powerbook. Gentoo is a Linux distribution that requires that you install everything from source. It's automated, so you don't have to compile everything by hand, you just have to let its package manager compile it for you.

This is undoubtedly the most useless Linux distribution I've ever used. I've installed it on a PC before, and had moderate luck there. It's snappy, for sure. I don't think it's because it's "optimized" for the computer you're installing it on. I think it's just missing a lot of the cruft that plagues distros like Redhat and Mandrake.

But you know what? You can't even boot the thing after installation until it's spent 24 hours compiling shit you've never even heard of. I did that. I sat the machine in the corner overnight, and let it compile KDE, X11, and whatever else it decided was a requirement of those. It took about 16 hours, and once it was done, KDE loaded just as slow as it does on my Mandrake PC.

I want my 4 days back.

The fonts suck under Gentoo. There's no denying it; I've seen it with my own eyes after a default install. I don't think I should have to muck around with a million different font config files to get it to Win98 quality. I did it anyway, and it DIDN'T WORK. I read every fucking forum there is on gentoo.org that had anything even remotely to do with freetype, PPCLinux, sub-pixel hinting, antialiasing, truetype formats, and whatever whatever whatever. The whole time, I'm getting a headache reading the horrifically rendered pages in firefox and konqueror; and in the back of my mind is the image of Mandrake booting out-of-the-box with the best-rendered fonts I've ever seen on a system, OS X included.

In the end, the problem is a symptom of the general Linux mindset. Linux users, myself among them, take criticism terribly. You install Gentoo per instructions, and you get crappy fonts. You complain, and they tell you you did it wrong, that you should edit a million different config-files, and thank them for the pleasure of it all. Linux has the best font-rendering abilities of any operating system, and the Gentoo people can't get their shit together enough to take advantage of it. Even the dolts at RedHat can offer you a decent X11 build! Nice fonts can be easily acheived, apparently, but the Gentoo boneheads are 10 years behind the other guys. Even Slackware has a jaw-droppingly beatiful default desktop configuration! You guys are uglier than Slackware. That takes work.

So, Gentoo, in case you missed it the first time, you suck. Your compile-time bullshit isn't worth it. Mandrake is better-configured, more feature-complete, less arrogant, and faster than you. So are Fedora, Yellowdog, Slackware, Knoppix, Debian, MoviX, Linksys' WRT54G, and the isdn4linux floppy router for that matter. My cell-phone has a better GUI. You are a pox on the Linux landscape. You take a good system like Linux and turn it into a joke, a sad self-parody where productivity takes third place behind teen-angst-style quasi-nonconformity and horribly unnecessary gruntwork. As long as Gentoo exists, every troll in COLA will have the final word.

Project, kill thyself and do us all a favor.

Rube's on the road. Rube's in Hamburg. Rube's enjoying the German summer, which luckily fell on Saturday this year. Today, in fact. It's warm, there's a soft breeze blowing in off the harbor, and I'm sitting here working. Blech.

So, even though I've not written anything in a few days, the page isn't dead. I've just been busier than a butt-legged man in a nun-kicking contest.

I haven't even had time to read the news. What's going on in the world? How you guys doing?