Some points to ponder on Iraq's political situation.

As if it needs to be said, the fucking disgraceful deed has been done.

My condolences to anyone in California who tried to fight this recall. And a big hearty fuck you to all the assholes who did this. Thanks for setting an ugly precedent. Thanks for showing what a bunch of fucking morons we are in this country, a country that will elect someone because they're a movie star and not because they have any qualifications for being a state governor.

Oh, and thanks for letting yet another Republican power-grab slip by, and for forcing us to take one more step towards single-party statehood. Slowly but surely, they're chipping away.

Washington.

California.

Texas.

Roe v. Wade.

The PATRIOT Act.

Just to name a few examples. Welcome to Hell, kids. Population: us.

Since I posted a bunch of WaiWai stories last Wednesday, I decided to do it again and build a weekly feature around it. So here is the second installment of the Weekly Wednesday WaiWai Roundup, or W^4 for short. I would have called it the W^4 "Woundup" to continue with the alliteration, but that would just be fucking retarded. Let's get it on.

Here is the winner of this week's worst headline award.

If a boyfriend told me I wasn't dressed well enough, I'd just kick him in the nuts and leave. But if you want to turn it into a materialistic mission, that's cool, too. "Upwardly mobile"... That's just classic.

Those girls in Nagoya can learn a thing or two about handling their boyfriends from girls in Tokyo. Personally, I'd be willing to cover train fare for that whole uniform deal. As if I needed to say that.

One big problem they have in Japan is men who grope women they don't know on crowded commuter trains. They've even gone so far as to have women-only trains in some instances to combat the issue. We have NAMBLA, they have Tomo-no-Kai. Sure, groping isn't as bad as child molestation, but they're all a bunch of assholes. Also, it sounds like Arnold would fit right in with these people, if only he weren't an 8-foot tall Austrian motherfucker.

And finally, don't bother reading this one around mealtime (or maybe just not at all), unless of course if you're into good old-fashioned sado-masochism.

Another salvo is fired in the P2P music debate.

Here's some international toy news that for once has nothing to do with the Japanese.

I still like Roseanne's idea of having new Barbies like Alcoholic Barbie. Also, this article made me kind of curious: what are cartoons like in other countries? I'm fairly well versed in American and Japanese animation, but I would be interested in seeing what others put out.

What do you call Iranian cartoons, anyway? Iranimation? Regardless, I don't see us going to any Iranian animation cons anytime soon.

I am so fucking pissed off right now.

I saw an article in yesterday's paper that gave me the impetus to speak out in defense of yet another group of assholes. This time, it's Big Tobacco. There was some kind of rally downtown where people were marching against the industry's advertising tactics, which I think is pointless.

The tobacco industry's street cred as the worst kind of money grubbing fucks is well known. They are in business to make as much money as possible, and they don't care about the thousands who die thanks to their products.

The reason why I defend the tobacco companies is exactly for the fact that their reputation is well established. Furthermore, everyone knows that if you smoke, and you keep doing it, you're greatly increasing the chances of serious illness and death. This isn't the 50s and 60s anymore where Big Tobacco is lying and telling us that smoking is actually good for us, either. With all this information, lots of people don't care. And you know what? That's their choice. I could give less than a fuck about what someone else wants to do with their body. Besides, as Chandler from Friends pointed out during the first season, "The bottom line is, smoking is cool and you know it."

Do any smokers out there smoke because of an advertisement they saw? I doubt there are many, if any. No, people smoke for plenty of other reasons - peer pressure, to relieve stress, whatever. Neither Joe Camel nor the Marlboro Man ever showed up at anyone's door or any bars and started cramming cigarettes into people's mouths and fired them up.

Speaking of ads, I saw an ad put out by Philip Morris themselves promoting helping people quit last night, and this offended me. They're actually being forced to help try get people to stop buying their products? To do something that is just bad business? Come on, this has gotten way out of hand.

I have never smoked a cigarette in my entire life, and to be honest, fucking hate being around cigarette smoke in most instances. But you know what? I don't care if anyone else does it, because they have all the information they need, and they're free to make their own decisions. For the most part, I can just avoid smoke if I want to, so everyone's happy.

Continuing with the advertising realm, fuck those stupid "Truth" commercials. You know, the ones where they stack bodybags outside of tobacco company buildings and shit like that. I'm tempted to track these assholes down and light up in front of them just to make a point to those sanctimonious Nazi fucks.

Fuck you, Truth people, and fuck you, assholes rallying downtown. If people really want to smoke, they're going to smoke. Also, it's not like you're exposing some great evil - the evil is already well known. So just go home and get over yourselves already.

In the words of Ned and Jimbo, thin out their numbers.

The do-not-call list is back on. For now.

A new Onion is up, including the latest from Smoove B.

Sony is pushing the next rev of the PS2 with the official unveiling of the PSX home entertainment console.

Meanwhile, things are looking real good elsewhere in the Middle East. Christ, hearing Sharon talk about fighting for peace is like... Well, hearing Bush talk about peace. Sure, fighting terrorism is a good thing, but neither Sharon nor Bush really want an end to terrorism. Sharon is much happier continuing to kill the people he hates, and Bush is all too glad to continue "fighting" the terrorists who have given his administration its legacy.

I am so fucking unmotivated right now to go out and read news stories and do much 'blogging. That's pretty pathetic seeing as how I 'blog when I'm unmotivated to do all the other shit in life - eat, sleep, work, beat off... You know how it goes. At this point in the week, about all I've found motivation for is to hunt down some websites and magazines that focus on my beloved Japanese schoolgirls. Let's see what we can do.

I'm sure I'll be plenty pissed off tomorrow, however, when Arnold is crowned governor of the world's fifth-largest economy. Based on the reports I'm hearing about tons of voters coming out, it looks like people are pissed in one way or another, which is at least one sign of hope if there's anything to be taken away from this recall shit. Also, people aren't fucking kidding when they say that Gray Davis has less charisma than Al Gore.

Despite all the pre-war issues, Turkey is preparing to send troops into Iraq, much to the chagrin of... Everyone. Well, except for the Turkish government, who is getting a nice $8.5 billion loan bribe, and the U.S. which is getting "credibility." We are in serious fucking trouble if we think that just because Turkey is a Muslim nation that there will be a toning down of the hatred towards us.

Naturally, there is plenty of other good news coming out of Iraq. The Knights who say "Nii!" are going to be fucking pissed about that damaged shrubbery.

Oh, but wait - things are going to be OK now that Condi is getting a promotion. I don't know enough about how things work to fully understand the implications of changing the NSC's role like this, but it sounds pretty important. Also, awarding the communications licenses to Middle Eastern firms: token move or a sign of progress?

The deadline for turning over destroying potential evidence in the CIA operative leak scandal is today. Yeah, I'm sure Asscroft's investigation will turn up the culprit. "I want to see to it that the truth prevails" "We would not condone that kind of activity." Bullshit.

Finally, the Pentagon is slashing prices! Everything must go!

Hey, so does everyone remember the Chinpoko Mon episode of South Park? You know, the one making fun of the Pokemon craze? Well, this may not be news to everyone else, but I just discovered that "chinpoko" is a Japanese euphemism for "penis."

Also, remember the episode with Towelie and the Okama Gamesphere? Okama is a word the Japanese use for "gay."

Found these and other useful sex-related Japanese terms on this (non-work appropriate, blah blah blah) page. Just some fun facts on a dull Monday night.

Okay, so I decided to go ahead and move all of the buttons, including the BlogSpeak button, to the bottom of the page. If the button was somehow causing the problem I mentioned earlier, maybe this will fix it. If not, let me know. And if issues new or old show up for anyone, please shoot me off an e-mail (and don't be shooting off anything else in my direction, while we're on the subject) or leave a comment.

Everything looks a-okay on Mozilla 1.4 under Linux. However, Mozilla has been a douchebag in at least one other circumstance, causing another 'blogmaster (who suffers from OCD, nonetheless) possibly unnecessary headache. Hopefully, the site looks right for everyone else in addition to me. And by "looks right" I'm talking HTML-wise, and not the shitty content of the site.

Although the linking is not new, a big thanks to Tiberius and the Evil Colonel for the latest front-page recognition.

Love him, hate him, or just don't care about him, The Guardian presents an interview with Michael Moore.

I smell a veto coming.

I somehow can't help but think that this is bad.

An update on the energy bill in the works in congress.

I saw a train wreck this weekend. The train wreck was entitled Sailor Moon Live Action. Yes, that's right. The Japanese have made a live-action version of the anime. If you've seen any Sailor Moon, you can at least appreciate the fact that some things are just going to be goofy when translating the show into live action.

We watched a "raw" version of the first episode, which is elitist anime fuck speak for un-subtitled, un-dubbed. All Japanese, so we had no idea as to what the hell they were saying, but it didn't matter. We didn't really care, and it was much more fun to just make up our own commentary and dialogue. I totally think we need to come up with our own subtitles for it, or make it into some kind of drinking game. Unlike some people I can name, I don't know enough about the Sailor Moon anime series to make any such endeavor truly amusing or worthwhile, though.

The thing that really pisses me off is that I'm going to watch more of this. For one, it's just pretty fucking funny. Second, they've gotten some cute actresses for the show, and the next episode appears as if it's going to focus around one of these hotties who wears glasses. I am a total sucker for an attractive woman who wears glasses, so those bastards have succeeded in making me want to watch at least one more episode.

Don't you just love a nice, romantic story? You know, some guys actually go over to Iraq, and they have their lives changed in a way that doesn't involve dying or being seriously wounded. Something positive happens, and they run up against stupid racist bullshit. And it is racist, since "Muslims and Christians just don't jive together." Maybe that's a realistic statement to make, but it's kind of a non-issue since these servicemen converted to Islam. Again, that may be naive, and I'm sure issues will arise - but even if that's the case, you've just gotta let people make their own mistakes. At least some people are trying to get along with people who come from other cultures.

In the end, the whole mess on not "jiving" is just another example as to why religion is stupid and dangerous.

I nearly broke my 'blogging moratorium when I read this. The jokes and scathing commentary pretty much write themselves, don't they?

What goes around, comes around. I ran into sidebar problems with someone else's site, and now someone else has run into sidebar issues with Fuck Everything.

The problem they're seeing is that the page will only load down as far as the "Comments Powered By 'Blogspeak" button. Things load fine for me, and this is the first I've heard of the issue from anyone else. This reader is using IE 6 on WinXP. Anyone else experiencing the same problem, or running IE6/XP with no problems?

So far, one suggestion I've gotten hasn't worked out. I'm not sure what else to try, since I know next to nothing about HTML and all that related nonsense. If worse comes to worse, I will just try moving the buttons to the bottom of the page and see if that solves the issue.

I decided to take a couple of days off of 'blogging. That's right; this is how sad I am: I had to make a conscious effort not to 'blog. I took a "vacation." I'm sure there's a medication out there for this condition, but fuck that shit.