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Tuesday, September 15, 2020

The Daily Cannibal

Posted: 14 Sep 2020 08:32 AM PDT

Gavin Newsom on California’s wildfires:

"California, folks, is America fast forward. What we are experiencing right here is coming to all across the United States of America unless we get our act together on climate change — unless we disabuse ourselves of all the BS that's being spewed by a very small group of people that have an ideological reason to advance the cause of a 19th century framework and solution. “

Sorry, guv, but what you have there is not global warming, but local insanity. Your state is burning because you mismanaged your forests, largely for budget reasons. Clearing away brush was just too expensive for a state that needed the money for…more important things.

Now, surrounded by choking fumes and a nightmare sky, you angrily insist that this is all coming to the rest of America, because the future happens first in the no-longer-quite-so-golden state,

You further assert that climate change is settled because we’ve taken a vote, and “only a very small group of people” deny it. This is

a. untrue.

b. so funny that it’s hard to believe you could say it with a straight face.

History is replete with angry Cassandras prophesying, in the words of PG Wodehouse, “some kind of hell which would ultimately stagger civilization and turn the moon to blood. ” But the prairies will not become a living Hell of natural vengeance, nor will the New England forests erupt into evergreen calderas, nor the blue hiils of Virginia, the Ozarks, the Appalachians, nor any other sanely–managed greenery of the rest of our verdant paradise.

I sympathise with your rage. People whose streets are festooned with shit are seized with an understandable compulsion to fling it at those who mock them. I do not envy your situation, but neither does it impel me to share your despair. You made your future; the rest of the nation will make its own way.

Friday, September 11, 2020

The Daily Cannibal

Suffer, You Bastard

Posted: 10 Sep 2020 08:09 AM PDT

Bad news from the Wall Street Journal:

“Men Urged to Limit Alcohol to One Drink a Day Amid New Concerns”

What “new concerns?” Is somebody worried that we don’t feel bad enough already?

Our federal medicos note that the pandemic has occasioned an increase in national alcohol consumption, and this comes as news to no one. When you can’t walk outside without covering your face like an ISIS jihadist or you’ re washing your hands more often than a deranged Lady Macbeth, alcohol seems like a sensible option.

The virtuous ask: “Do you really need a drink?” The answer might be found in a passage from Robert Stone’s Dog Soldiers:

"The last moral objection that Converse experienced in the traditional manner had been his reaction to the great Elephant Zap of the previous year. That winter, the Military Advisory Command, Vietnam, had decided that elephants were enemy agents because the NVA used them to carry things, and there had ensued a scene worthy of the Ramayana. Many-armed, hundred-headed MACV had sent forth steel-bodied flying insects to destroy his enemies, the elephants. All over the country, whooping sweating gunners descended from the cloud cover to stampede the herds and mow them down with 7.62-millimeter machine guns…The Great Elephant Zap had been too much and had disgusted everyone. Even the chopper crews who remember the day as one of insane exhilaration had been somewhat appalled. There was a feeling that there were limits…And as for dope, Converse thought, and addicts—if the world is going to contain elephants pursued by flying men, people are just naturally going to want to get high."

Look at what is happening all around you, as earnest talking heads and politicians assure you that looting is redress, arson is protest and violence is valid. What else is left, to make sense of this, but a few belts of attitude adjuster?

Wednesday, September 9, 2020

The Daily Cannibal

California Dreamin’

Posted: 08 Sep 2020 09:08 AM PDT

California governor Gavin Newsom announced new guidelines today for state residents to help combat poor air quality resulting from climate-driven wildfires.

“The emissions generated by large-scale forest fires have significantly reduced the state’s air quality, resulting in correspondingly lower oxygen levels,” the governor stated.

“We therefore request all residents to reduce respiration levels by 5% in order to conserve our air quality.”

Noting that lower atmospheric oxygen levels “impact the elderly and sick disproportionately,” Newsom suggested that younger healthy residents might consider “holding their breath for one minute out of every ten,” in order to “provide for those less fortunate.”

The respiration reductions are “recommended, but not mandatory,” the governor stated, but cautioned that continued wildfire activity “might require compulsory restrictions on wasteful consumption of our limited oxygen resources, which I am confident the legislature will pass, if necessary to preserve public health.”

Monday, February 18, 2019

The Daily Cannibal

Dear America

Posted: 17 Feb 2019 09:21 AM PST

From our friend nemo, posted earlier today on Bill Quick’s Daily Pundit:

To my fellow citizens/residents:

Recently I was involved in a widely-reported incident that has been badly distorted by the media, and misunderstood by most of the public.

Despite the negative publicity these misperceptions have brought me, I am grateful for the spotlight the media has thrown onto the story, because my own comfort is nothing compared to the need to heighten America's focus on the clear and demonstrable racism epidemic in our country.

In brief, I staged a real-time bit of theater, in which I reported that I had been assaulted in Chicago by two white males who attempted to lynch me.

I regret that the media failed to understand that this was a symbolic act on my part, designed to call attention to the thousands of similar episodes that actually take place in our nation each day. As a professional actor with some measure of success in my craft, I used the skills at my command to make what I believe to be a valued and thought-provoking contribution to our national racial dialogue.

I sincerely regret the misunderstanding my symbolic act has generated, but still firmly believe that I have acted in the best interests of those still threatened, oppressed and even killed by the scourge of racism that has stained our national honor and disfigured our historical legacy for three centuries. If this has resulted in highly unpleasant repercussions to me personally, I gladly accept the burden, how ever unjust, if it benefits even one person who struggles for dignity and equality in the toxic environment of American injustice.

With head held high, and a grateful salute to those who have also sacrificed their own safety and self-interest in the cause of freedom,

Jussie Smollett

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

The Daily Cannibal

Like life doesn’t already suck enough

Posted: 16 Feb 2016 12:13 PM PST

Kofi Annan, former UN General Secretary, wants you to quit eating meat, because global warming.

"And of course there are alternative sources of protein. For example, raising insects as an animal protein source," Annan said. "Insects have a very good conversion rate from feed to meat. They make up part of the diet of two billion people and are commonly eaten in many parts of the world."

You always knew that, if he could, this dude would make you eat bugs. Because you deserve to suffer, you bastard.

I think I get it….

Posted: 16 Feb 2016 11:46 AM PST

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

The Daily Cannibal

There’s just something about this….

Posted: 11 Jan 2016 03:42 PM PST

I’m running this in its entirety from Bill Quick’s Daily Pundit. Because it’s so good. I didn’t even ask if I could. He won’t mind. Neither will razorbacker.

No Purchase Required

He stepped out of the soup kitchen, packed as always on bitterly cold nights with the soup watered to the point of absolute clarity, and the wind hit him like a knife blade.

His mother had been right; he never listened. His coach had been right; he never gave his all. His high school guidance councilor had been right; so much potential, so little effort. His ex mother-in-law had been right; he'd never amount to anything. At last able to see himself for what he was, a loser, he turned upwind to head for the mission bed for the night.

The howling wind blew debris into his face, including a small slip of paper. He reached up and dully examined it. A lottery ticket. For tonight's drawing. He slipped it into his pocket…maybe this time. Maybe this time.

If this were the opening to a novel or short story, would you keep reading? I know I would.

Not bad, razorbacker. Not bad at all.

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

The Daily Cannibal

Merry Christmas

Posted: 07 Dec 2015 01:35 PM PST