Suck it BP!

Finally the Obama administration is taking a step, albeit a small one probably more about punishment than actual environmental protection, in the right direction.  Today, or probably yesterday, the EPA banned BP from future contracts with the US government stemming from their pathetic attempts to take responsibility for the Deepwater Horizon disaster and their lack of real efforts to clean up their mess.  The ban isn't permanent, technically it's a suspension, but will remain in effect until criminal proceedings are over and BP cleans up their act. 

Read more here: http://news.msn.com/us/bp-suspended-from-new-us-govt-contracts

Now, onward Obama to more environmental conservation measures!  Oh.  No?  Oh, okay.  Rabble-B

Things I've remained blissfully ignorant of until today

A few things I've recently been exposed to on Youtube:

Who the fuck is Nicki Manaj and why does this video have 93 million views?!  The first 45 seconds is a bunch of nonsensical space ships and tribal dudes and then she walks out of the ocean and starts sort of but not really singing a song?  I'm not sure what happens after that, I turned it off.  Why is this person famous?  Music blows these days, nothing I can stomach anymore was recorded after 1978.

779 million people thought this was worth checking out before I'd ever heard of this.  That's almost a sixth of Earth's entire population.  I still don't know what happens in this video, it's beyond the limits of human comprehension.  This video is truly vexing in the worst way.

I don't like Taylor Swift's music, at all, it's terrible, which is why I'd never seen this video until today.  I do appreciate though that she writes her own music and unabashedly writes about her life, as dumb as her existence seems to be.  But seriously, what is with the guy in the dog suit playing guitar in this video?  Yes, that's right, I said, "the guy in the dog suit playing guitar".  Is he on ecstacy?  Is he from a failed mid 2000's pop punk band and this is his big break?  Is he a little touched?  He's really freakin' me out.

Ok, I get it, you're a fucking map!  Just show me how to get to 7-11 and shut the fuck up!

Rabble-B

Not quite the irony I was looking for

Yesterday I read this:

3 BP executives indicted over Gulf oil spill

Rick Jervis and Kevin Johnson, USA TODAYShare

BP agrees to pay $4.5 billion in fines in the largest such settlement in U.S. history.

 Then today I read this:

Four injured, 2 missing in oil platform blaze off Louisiana coast

 I thought there was just a little bit of justice in the world with BP shelling out billions for their role in the largest environmental disaster in US history but then another rig explodes the day after.  It would be ironic if people weren't injured and/or dead.  So when are those new safety regulations supposed to kick in?  Yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh...

Solar people, solar.  And wind.  We'll never be rid of oil and that's fine but we CAN reduce our need for oil and maybe, just possibly (I'm getting too far away from my own cynical mind) we can reduce the power oil companies have over our economy and politics and maybe, just possibly they'll actually be forced to implement real safety measures for people and the environment instead of cutting corners to pump out more $4.50 gas and fuel for wars we don't need.  By that time though, we'll have established a Mars colony and we won't need this dump of a planet anymore.  Fuck it, pollute it all!  I'm buying a Hummer!  Rabble-B

John Ashcroft isn't the only one...

...to lose an election to a dead man.  Yep that's right, in case you don't remember John Ashcroft lost his Missouri senate race in 2000 to the ghost of Mel Carnahan.  And no, it's not the first time that has happened in US politics but I just have to imagine you must be a real piece of shit to lose like that, and true to that theory, John Ashcroft was in fact, a piece of shit.  And then there's this from last week:

Dead candidates win elections in Florida, Alabama

 By Barbara Liston and Verna Gates

The two apparently died of natural causes, which did not sway voters.

Florida Democrat Earl K. Wood and Alabama Republican Charles Beasley won their respective elections but they will not take office.
Both men died weeks before the Nov. 6 election yet managed to beat their very much alive opponents by comfortable margins.
Wood died on Oct. 15 from natural causes at age 96, during his campaign for a 12th term as Orange County Tax Collector in Orlando, Fla.
Criticized for rarely coming into the office while collecting a $150,000 salary and $90,000 pension, Wood initially announced he would step down, only to change his mind when a longtime political foe made plans to seek the seat.
Wood's wide name recognition after almost half a century in office scared off several serious contenders. His name remained on the ballot and he took 56 percent of the votes to 44 percent for a Republican who promised to eliminate the office altogether if elected.
Beasley, 77, died on Oct. 12, possibly due to an aneurysm, while trying to reclaim his old seat on the Bibb County Commission in central Alabama.
Beasley's name also remained on the ballot and he won about 52 percent of the vote. His Democratic opponent, incumbent Commissioner Walter Sansing, took the loss especially hard.
"It is a touchy situation. When you are running against a dead man, you are limited as to what you can say," Sansing told Reuters.
He blamed people voting straight Republican tickets for his loss.
In Orlando, Scott Randolph, an outgoing Democratic state legislator and state party activist, was selected by his party to receive votes cast for Wood and he will assume the office. In Alabama, the governor will appoint a new commissioner with input from local Republicans.

***I love Wood, he rarely even showed up to work while collecting $150,000 a year?!  This is what's wrong with our government.  This exactly, right here.  And, the Republican guy is such an idiot he ran for an office that he wanted to eliminate, thereby eliminating his own job if he'd won.  What a moron!  And poor, Walter Sansing, you must be a giant pile of elephant dung, and you proved it by blaming voters for voting a straight Republican ticket and insinuating you might have won if the wasn't! dead because then you could campaign harder?  Ooooookay...  Rabble-B

General Rabbliness

Ok, it's been a couple weeks now and I've got all this rabblin', both good and bad, in my head. 

First, happy birthday to three dudes, Slice and Le Porters.  Dudes.

Second, the Giants won the World Series!  And, I've said before, I'm not really into baseball so much anymore, but the Giants were my team when I was a kid.  Will Clark, Kevin Mitchell, Willie Mays, the '89 quake series, doesn't get any better.  Yeah.  Well anyway, the victory parade route happened to run in front of my work downtown SF so I got to watch the whole thing.  Crazy!  Give SF any reason to throw a party and they will show up.  At 8:30am when I arrived (two and a half hours before the parade started) there were already teenagers running through the streets with bottles of liquor in one hand and blunts in the other.  Throw in all the drunk bros, tourists, legit Giants fans and crazy hobos and it was one insane party.  Oh yeah it was Halloween too...
This is pretty much what I saw.  Needless to say, a great time, and I got paid to be there.

I also got to vote in California for the first time.  Man, is it fucking work.  It makes you ponder if dictatorship is the way to go.  The thing that got me the most, other than the TWO public pool propositions on my ballot, is the "connect the arrow" bullshit.  This is my sample ballot where I can vote for Eleanor Roosevelt or Bruce Lee.

See, you're supposed to connect the arrow to make your choice.  Who the fuck thought this trash up?!  Not that it's difficult, though I'm sure some voters just gave up, but it's needlessly different.  Fill in the bubble.  Everyone has filled in a bubble.  We've all taken those stupid Scantron tests.  The one where every time you wanted to fill in the bubbles to look like a middle finger but never actually did, yeah that one.  So it would be really simple if every ballot just looked the damn same.  No more hanging chads or broken arrows.  No recounts no bullshit.  Oh, wait, haha, silly me, it's politics, it's all bullshit.  And for what it's worth even dead Bruce Lee would make a way radder president that either of the jokers that actually have a shot in any presidential election.  And no, I did not vote for Rosanne Barr...

In other great election buffonery, California has Proposition 35 to increase penalties and expand definitions of human and sex trafficking.  Seems like a no brainer right?  In voter pamphlet the argument against was written by the following:

MANUAL JIMENEZ, CFO

Erotic Service Providers Legal,
Education, and Research Project, Inc.

NORMA JEAN ALMODOVAR

STARCHILD

 

Seriously, you couldn't make this shit up if you dropped acid and went to the planetarium. 

And, in case you were confused as to what month it is, we're now in either, Novembeard or Movember, your choice.  This year I'm rockin' the fu manchu and it's already starting to come in nicely after less than a week.  I'll post a photo about mid month to show you the halfway point.  I'm not trying to raise money, I mostly just like facial hair.  However, lots of men are and mens' health issues, including prostate cancer, are very serious and very back burner in our society so buck up men and go to the doctor.  Let him stick his thumb in your butt and push on your testicles, it's for your own good and your family too.  

Lastly, here's some fish I caught recently:

Me with double chin and very dead chinook caught on a clouser.

A fine Delta striper.

Rainbow from the Upper Sacramento

My first Roosterfish, East Cape, MX

Many rabbles and many unrabbles-B