On behalf of Donald Rumsfeld and other U.S. citizens and military members to be named later, may I simply say:
That is all.
If you want more information, however, about who is behind this in the U.S., go here.
I use Powerblogs as my blogging service and I’ve been very happy with it. The platform offers a lot of nice features for just $5 a month, and whenever I’ve screwed something up or had a problem I’ve been able to email my man Chris at Powerblogs HQ and he takes care of it promptly. One of the things I’ve noticed in our communications back and forth is that at the bottom of Chris’s emails is always a philosophical quote from something called Evil Overlord.com. Each of these statements is from a list of things that any aspiring evil overlord should be sure to do when he (or she) comes to power to ensure that do-gooders don’t undo all their hard work.
Since there are some who think this blog just isn’t evil enough I thought I’d research this Evil Overlord thingy and tease you with some of the 100 top suggestions. Not all of them, of course. If you want to read those in their entirety you’ll have to follow the link. (Pardon me while I work on my maniacal laugh — A-henh-henh-ha! How’s that? No? Oh well).
Anyway, check out the link above. It’s for your own good, really, because I know Tiger Lilly is sure to be memorizing every detail.
From the site:
Being an Evil Overlord seems to be a good career choice. It pays well, there are all sorts of perks and you can set your own hours. However every Evil Overlord I’ve read about in books or seen in movies invariably gets overthrown and destroyed in the end. I’ve noticed that no matter whether they are barbarian lords, deranged wizards, mad scientists or alien invaders, they always seem to make the same basic mistakes every single time. With that in mind, allow me to present…
The Top 100 Things I’d Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord
- My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.
- My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
- My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.
- Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
- The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.
- I will not gloat over my enemies’ predicament before killing them.
- When I’ve captured my adversary and he says, “Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?” I’ll say, “No.” and shoot him. No, on second thought I’ll shoot him then say “No.”
- After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks’ time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.
- I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled “Danger: Do Not Push”. The big red button marked “Do Not Push” will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labelled as such.
- I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum — a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well.
- I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.
- One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.
- All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.
- The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request.
- I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.
- I will never utter the sentence “But before I kill you, there’s just one thing I want to know.”
- When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice.
- I will not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would provide a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time.
- I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero’s rugged countenance and she’d betray her own father.
- Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it’s too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.
The birthdays have been rolling in hot and heavy here lately, and Saturday was the 17th for Bonita. I set up the fire pit on the back patio where the kids could hang out and The Reverend Mother baked the Cafe Latte chocolate and pecan layer cake. We had some of our family over while Bonita invited her friends from the youth group at the church where she has grown up. These youth were all Hispanic and spoke mostly in Spanish. I know a little Spanish, but this can be disconcerting. At one point I think they were mocking our curtains, but I can’t be sure.
The kids were a good group, each was gracious and respectful when they arrived and they all thanked us for having them over when they left. In between they were a pretty exuberant group without the sulky faces and attitude you sometimes get with teenagers when they have to be around adults (yeah, yeah, I know adults can put on some pretty strange faces and attitudes when they have to be around teen-agers, too). We pretty much left them alone and they hung out outside near the fire for awhile but the Mall Diva and Tiger Lilly eventually lured everyone into our basement for the infamous “Dance-Dance Revolution” game. Sometimes I think these two sit around trying to think of ways to get people to come over so they can stomp them into the game’s vinyl dance pads.
Well, it wasn’t long before the young men in the group had to call for reinforcements, and five more gentlemen soon arrived. These were introduced with names such as Israel and Rueben (Gad and Napthali apparently couldn’t make it) They were soon flung into battle, but Bonita and the girls had reinforcements of their own: the Reverend Mother was summoned to the basement and she continued the humiliation. Her domination of one of the young men greatly amused his comrades, one of whom called out, “She’s whipping you like your mother!” No wonder these guys have learned to be respectful!
The place was definitely rocking, whether from the loud music and loud voices, or all the youthful exuberance (or hormones) bouncing off the walls. The next generation certainly has some advantages over us older types, however; for instance, no matter how loud it got, you could always see at least two of the youngsters talking on their cellphones as well. I can barely operate my cell phone when I’ve got 50 feet of air space around me.
It was a really fun night and Bonita was thrilled. We were delighted to meet her friends and we’ll be happy to see more of them in the future. We don’t have too many photos from the party because the room was so full there wasn’t room to squeeze a digital camera in there, but I may post a few in the updates later.
I saw the ad, but I don’t remember what they were selling. Well, of course, we know what they were selling, it’s just that I can’t remember what this particular product was, or how it was going to help me achieve whatever it was I didn’t know I was missing. The picture was a young couple in bed in their underwear. He was underneath her, boxer shorts and rippling abs, even lying on his back. She was poised above him, long, lithe legs and pastel scanties and an intense but sensitive look upon her face.
They are young and fit, of course, and they have to be as the unseen photographer says, “hold it, just like that…a little longer now…now turn your hip slightly” as the lights flash stark and artificial like the supposed intimacy they are illuminating. In reality he may be thinking of his boyfriend and she’s probably thinking how great it will be to get home and put on some comfy flannel pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt, or about the mole on the back of her thigh that they will airbrush out. But all that is necessary is that we buy the illusion, buy the sandwich, buy the toothpaste, buy whatever is pictured in the corner of the ad and not think about the artificiality of it all.
Except.
Except, my dear, that this is how you look to me, this is the way you look at me, this is the moment that never gets old. This is the way we were, this is the way we are, this is the way I will always see us. Illusions, allusions, I care not. Whatever you’re selling, my love, put me down for a whole case.
Port McClellan, via Drudge, links today to a nighttime satellite photo of North and South Korea that is, well, night and day.
The article featuring the photo is from the Daily Mail of London, not exactly the New York Times of credibility (though the NYT isn’t exactly the NYT of credibility any more, either). The story begins:
North Korea might now have The Bomb, but it doesn’t have much electricity
As the world grapples with how to rein in the “axis of evil” state which this week conducted a nuclear test, this spectacular satellite photo unveiled yesterday by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shows in stark detail the haves and have-nots of the Korean peninsula.
The regime in the north is so short of electricity that the whole country is switched off at 9 p.m. – apart from the capital of Pyongyang where dictator Kim Jong-il and his cohorts live in relative luxury. But even there, lighting is drastically reduced.
The result, as shown in this picture taken one night earlier this week, is a startling contrast between the blacked-out north and the south, which is ablaze with light, particularly around major cities and the capital, Seoul, in the north-west of the country.
Mr Rumsfeld showed the picture to illustrate how backward the northern regime really is – and how oppressed its people are. Without electricity there can be none of the appliances that make life easy and that we take for granted, he said.
A Hoax?
While the photo is illuminating, the absolute darkness in North Korea outside of Pyongyang is almost too absolute. Then there were some things in the Mail article that kind of tweaked my antenna. Reading over it again, I couldn’t find any reference to just where Secretary Rumsfeld was and who he was talking to “yesterday” when he showed that photo.
Could it be a hoax? It’s easy to be alert to fake or misleading information coming from the left, and in fact this skepticism has had to become standard procedure. I hope, however, that I can be as sensitive to similar bad vibes even if the pictures or news line up with my own expectations or world view. A lie is a lie, whether “left” or “right”; in fact I’d be even more outraged if I discovered a lie that was from “my side”. The truth is sufficient for our arguments.
Therefore I did a little checking. I couldn’t find anything about a similar speech by Secretary Rumsfeld on the CNN, Fox or Snopes sites (or anything about “Rumsfeld North Korea Satellite Image”), but a Google search did turn up a presentation he gave that included this satellite imagery — on December 23, 2002, linked on GlobalSecurity.org.
It appears the image is authentic, even if the latest reporting is suspect. I’m glad I took the time to poke around a bit before passing it on.
As for the conditions the people of North Korea are living under, I suggest that the not give up on Kim Jong Il just yet. He is showing that he won’t rest until his whole country is glowing in the dark. (But that’s just my opinion).
He’s back. (And here and here.)
Or maybe not.
Doug’s been away so long it’s almost kind of hard to remember his style. The new posts are very good, so they could easily be from Doug. But there seems to me be a bit of, oh, Tucci-ness to them, too. That guy gets around the MOB quite a bit (keep your doors locked, people), but he’s mostly been associated with a certain group that’s been known to play a good-natured blogging prank or two.
I’m hoping it’s the real deal. Welcome back, Big Fella.
Avast and look lively, ye slimy mollusks! International Talk Like A Pirate Day is hull-down on the horizon and’ll be on us faster’n you can say, “Blow me down!” You Jolly Rogers and Jolly Ritas out there best be polishing up your conversational broadsides before September 19 if’n ya don’t wants to have yer booty kicked!
Follow the link above for more scuttlebutt, and if ya needs a refresher, eyeball The Five A’s of Talking Pirate video — it’s what ya call educational. Arrrr!
Talk about putting a call on hold:
(AP) Cell phones found inside four prisoners
The prisoners are gang-members in El Salvador. According to the article,
Capt. Juan Ramon Arevalo, director of the prison known as Zacatras, said the gang members had introduced the cell phones, wrapped in plastic bags, into their bodies through their…
Well, there are only so many ways to get contraband into prison, so you figure it out. Let’s just say the “vibrate” ring-tone setting may have been problematic. Man, talk about your “anywhere” minutes!
I guess that really makes them “cell” phones, though. Can’t you just picture a prisoner’s friend getting a call at 2:00 a.m. and saying, “What ******* is calling me at this hour?”
Not content with trying to get his pro-life, pro-family, pro-small business points across in his blog or through his work as official graphic designer and tee-shirt maven to the MOB, my friend Derek Brigham has decided to run for the Minnesota Senate in District 45. The 45 is a deep-blue bastion and current fiefdom of long-time DFL incumbent Ann Rest.
If you want to help Derek to join the State Senate and change our government towards more conservative leadership (especially within the Republican Party), please go to his site and make a FULLY REFUNDABLE (up to $50 if you live in MN) donation. He needs to make his donations goal before the end of August, so the time is now. Please help if you can. It won’t cost you a thing through the MN PCR donation plan.