Personal responsibility for thee but not for me

So it looks like the cop killer in Washington state was a killer who was granted clemency by Mike Huckabee when he was governor of Arkansas. And it looks like the Huckster gave this guy clemency over the objections of prosecutors and the family of those he murdered way back when. To her credit, and believe me I don't make a habit of reading her twisted blog, Michelle Malkin rips Huckadouche a new one over all this.

But just like Sarah Palin, Gomer Huckabee, man of the god of angry white racists, refuses to accept responsibility for his actions. He's blaming the judicial systems of both Arkansas and Washington state, while trying to deflect blame from himself. Real Christian of you Mike. The lesson here is unmistakable: What would a man of Jesus do? Blame others while trying to maintain his position as king of the hill on the moral high ground. If it weren't so sad it would be comical to read how his true believer followers try to absolve him of any and all blame for the deaths in Washington state.

The fact is if the man who killed those police officers is indeed the same man who Huckabee pardoned back in his days as governor of Dog Patch USA, then he's responsible for those deaths as well. And his national political career should be over as a result. He can join that other ex governor named Mike on the couch of also rans whose political ambitions were derailed because of murders they didn't commit.

I don't watch FOX Noise but I'm betting they're a tad mum on this story. Just like they were on the Knoxville Unitarian Church shooter and the murders at the Arkansas Democratic Party HQ. Too bad they won't report negatively on one of their own and too bad Huckabee won't man up and admit he made a mistake. But as we've learned from Republican after Republican, personal responsibility is a good thing for everyone but them.

Trouble at Horse Camp (episode 2)

Click here to read episode 1 and click on each page to enlarge it.

A Monkey Movie Review

I watched this movie again last night:
It's the story about a Swedish boy who due to his mother's illness is forced to live with his uncle in a small town full of eccentrics. After being accepted in the town he goes back to be with his mother but upon her death he goes back to live with his uncle for good.

This film is one of the sweetest movies you will ever see. It's warm and funny and it's the cinematic equivalent of big bear hug that you never want out of. The performance given by the lead actor, Anton Glanzelius as the little boy who gets moved around too much, is nothing short of fantastic. And the performance given by the tom boy who is growing into her female body, Melinda Kinnamen, is touching and sweet as well.

If you have never seen this film you are missing out on one of the finest films ever made. It's well worth your time, even if you hate movies with subtitles.

Gift ideas

My friend Southern Female Lawyer has some gift basket ideas for the conservatives in your life. I cut most of the conservatives out of my life after my heart attack. I didn't need the stress of dealing with them and their failed political philosophy.

Sometimes...

...even Canadians can be douchebags. Seriously, Canadian border guards, get over yourselves and stop hassling our national treasure Amy Goodman.

Timmy loved playing...

...the tease with the neighborhood sex offenders.

Remember that time I did that thing and you said something about it?

Okay. Just checking. Thanks.

Equal time

That's Sparky's dad on the left in the coat and tie.

Daytona Beach 1953

Sparky's mom, footloose and fancy free in 1953. This photo was taken right before she got married. Click to enlarge.

Today in paranoid literature

Here's one for Sarah Palin:And here's one for Glen Beck:
Oddly enough, both books were published in the early 1980's and neither even they warn us about has taken place yet. Maybe we should just stop listening to fear mongering religious extremists and just enjoy our lives.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm thankful that I never had to learn archery and wear tight satin shorts while doing it. I'm also thankful that I found this picture the other day in a social studies textbook that I bought at the thrift store the other day. That topless little girl shooting her bow just slays me. And the shorts on the young boy also make me giggle.

Have fun eating your turkey, your tofurkey, and whatever else you're having today. We'll be heading over to Sparky's folks house in the afternoon and we'll eat far too much food while we're over there. And then we'll go back on Friday to eat leftovers from Thursday's meal. It's a tradition with us.

And speaking of tradition, we'll be heading over to Snad and John's on Saturday for our new tradition of having another Thanksgiving meal, playing board games, and hanging out with them on Thanksgiving Saturday. Yay new traditions!

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Here's the latest Candian gal I'm in lurve with

Hubba hubba!

Michelle Obama brings the glamour back to the White House. Too bad her husband isn't bringing the socialism to the White House like his wife is bringing the hotness to it.

Trouble at Horse Camp (episode 1)

Click on the pages to enlarge them and then click on them once more so you can read the dialogue with relative ease.



Words by me, pictures by whoever took or drew them in the first place.

Kiss me, I'm evolved

Happy 150th birthday On the Origin of Species!

Barn of the week

Bummer

Thanks to some wannabe thieving asswipe my old computer had to be put to rest and a new computer had to be purchased yesterday evening. My old computer had been infected with some kind of worm/virus that I inadvertently downloaded. It looked like one of those warning thingys you get from time to time from Microsoft but instead of being a nice note telling me that I needed to download the latest Windows related security fix, it was a malware/trojan horse bad news virus that was made to steal passwords, credit card data, and other nefarious shit.

This nastiness took full bloom yesterday evening and it wouldn't let me open any program that didn't have something to do with the internet, which meant that I couldn't get into any of the thousands of images I've scanned or the thousands of photos I've taken, or anything else. So I went and bought a new PC, which sucked because I really didn't want to have to spend that much money in one lump sum, especially this time of year. And it doubly sucks because I am on Social Security Disability which is an incredibly fixed income.

Which leads me to this: I'm going to do a fund raiser here on the blog. You'll notice in the upper left I put a Paypal button and if you are so inclined you can donate to help me defray the cost of the new computer. I know things are tough economically for many of you but if you can spare $5, $10, $15, etc, then I'd appreciate it. Any help you want to give me is much appreciated. And if by some miracle in the next few days, I raise the all the money I laid out on this new computer ($325), then I'll give what ever is left over to charity.

Any help you may want to give is much appreciated. And thanks again to all of you who read this and my other blogs.

Can I get you anything?

Sure thing. Coming right up.

A crime against tomatoes

Care for some booger and dirt stuffed tomatoes?

Life in the provinces

Here at Monkey Central, we love the British sitcoms that take place in small country towns. We're huge fans of The Vicar of Dibley and we've seen all the various episodes of it many many times. We also love The Thin Blue Line with Rowan Atkinson, one episode of which my original adopted actor Archie Panjabi guest stars in. Our latest small town Brit-com that we've take a shine to is Clatterford, and yes, I know it goes by a different name in the UK but since I don't live over there I call it by the name they gave it when it hit our shores.

We loved it when they aired the first series on BBC America and we bought the DVD when it came out. The second series never aired on BBC America, so I thought they weren't going to release it over here. But Sparky noticed it was out and she said something about it to me so I was planning on buying it and giving it to her for Christmas. But knowing how much she loves Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, and the first series of this show, I decided to buy it and give it to her immediately. And after watching the first two episodes tonight, I'm glad I did. It's as sly and funny as the first one was. It's full of inside jokes, funny performances, and best of all, it's chocked full of great British comediennes. In addition to the ones I mentioned earlier, it features some of my favorites, including Sally Phillips, Suzy Aitchison, and Pauline McLynn.

This great comedy is just the type of show that would never ever be put on the air here in the USA because most all of the leads in it are women over the age of forty. Yay BBC! Yay small town Brit-coms!

A Monkey Movie Review

I watched this last night:
It's about a world that exists next to ours and what happens when people from the different worlds meet and interact. Sure, there's more to it than that, such as witches, airships, dead royalty, vain women, falling stars, pirate captains who aren't all they seem, and more, but if I got into all that then I spoil it for those who haven't seen it.

Bottom line is it's an entertaining fantasy movie and it's a nice diversion from real life.

Everyone is good in it and since Neil Gaiman wrote the novel it's based on every one speaks with a British accent, except for Robert DeNiro that is. For a guy who is supposed to be the greatest actor of his generation a British accent was too hard? Oh well, at least his character is amusing. Ricky Gervais pops up in a funny cameo in the film and as usual he steals the couple of scenes he's in. And finally, Claire Danes looks very pretty in it this movie but I found her lack of eyebrows disconcerting.

All in all this is a fun movie. I recommend it.

Kooky is as kooky does

She never really went away, she just left us for awhile

Everybody's favorite angry ballerina, Angry Ballerina, is back with a blog. Click here to read it. I'm not sure about you, but I sure missed her.

Coming soon to a theater near you

The Adventures of Tico McGhee MD, monkey gynecologist.

My inner geek is rejoicing

I peruse the 5 for a $1 bins at my local comic book store a couple of times a month and the other day I ran across a comic book that had a bunch of purposely blank pages in it. They're templates for people to make their own comic books. Here's one of them:
I snapped that comic book up and I've begun making some of my own comic pages. Here's one I made:
It's a bit of an esoteric page, esoteric seems to be the word of the week here, so I changed one picture and I came up with this one:
Oh the possibilities!

No worries, I'll share all my creations with you as I make them.

I should not be allowed out around civilized folk

This exchange took place between me and a cute young cashier at Earth Fare earlier this evening:

Cashier: (When she saw me coming) Here comes trouble.
Me: Yep. I'm trouble.
Cashier: (Smiling) How come you always get in my lane Mr. Trouble?
Me: Because I like causing pregnant women lots of trouble.
Cashier: (Shocked) What? I'm not pregnant.
Me: (Thinking she's kidding) Sure you are.
Cashier: No, I'm not. Seriously, I'm not.
Me: Umm, well, errh, uh...
Cashier: I know why you said that. It's these aprons they make us wear. We used to could wear them down around our waist, but now they're making them wear them all the way up and it must make me look pregnant or something.
Me: (Relieved) Yeah, that's it.

I'm Running Away (a vintage kid's book remix)

"I've had it," thought Joan to herself. "I'm trapped in this freezing wasteland with husband who sports a comb-over and an underachieving son. I'm glad I found those nice Uruguayan dock workers who like to eat lots of meat and drink beer all day long and who want to hang out with a mom from the USA. It will be hard breaking the news that I'm running off to Uruguay City to be them but my husband and son will get over it in time."

Just then her son Billy came home from school.
"Hi mom!," said Billy. "I'm starving after that long walk home from school. It must be forty below zero out there. Can I have a snack and some hot cocoa?"

"You can have anything you like son. In fact, go upstairs to daddy's special fridge and get us both a beer and a pickled egg. Trust me when I tell you you're going to want to get hammered after I tell you my news."

Billy said, "What's up with you mom? You're acting funny."
"Am I pounding down a big ass can of Bud in between bites of pickled egg yet Billy? No? Well, the reason for that is you haven't done what I asked you to do then. Now hop to it and get us both a beer!"

Billy did as he was told and after he drank his can of horse piss, aka Budweiser, he went back to his room and contemplated his existence.
Just as he was about to have a philosophical break through his mother shouted up at him, "Billy you better be looking wistfully out a window like kids in After School Specials do or I'm going to be pissed."

"Okay mom, I'll get right on it." And then Billy did as he was told because he knew his mom meant business.
After looking out the window while screechy violins and disjointed keyboard music played in the background Billy sat back down on the carpet in his room and he thanked his lucky stars that he didn't have to wear corrective shoes and that he wasn't named Herman.
His mom staggered into his bedroom and drained the beer she was drinking. She said to Billy, "Look kid, I've had it. I'm running away. Mommy still loves you in her own way but she just can't live here any more. I'm moving to Uruguay because they eat lots of meat and they speak Spanish there. It's been my dream to eat lots of meat amongst Spanish speakers since I was a little girl and since I'm not getting any younger I've decided to go now before you and your father rip the last few good years I have left from me."

Billy ran to hug his mother and he began to cry. He also began to pee his pants because he could not hold his beer like an adult can.

"Billy!" His mother was very cross towards her son. "You pissed all over my shoes and my slacks!" She peeled him off her leg. "It's a good thing all my shoes and slacks look the same, now go pack some in a bag for me while I polish off another one of your dad's beers."
Billy did as his mother asked and he also put some of his things in there in the hopes that she would think of him when she ate all that meat with those lusty Spanish speaking Uruguayans. He heard her stagger downstairs just as he finished packing his things in with hers so he ran down after her.
"Okay Billy, hand over the bag and let mommy inspect it. I'd hate to find out that you put some of your shit in there in some lame ass attempt to make me feel guilty about leaving you." She opened the bag and did indeed find all the extra stuff Billy packed and she tossed it out. "Not cool dude," she said as she drained another beer.

Billy's dad pulled into the drive way and Billy woozily ran out to greet him with the news.
"Dad! Mom is leaving us! She's running away to Uruguay to eat meat, drink beer, and speak Spanish!"

As they went inside, Billy's dad said, "Holy shit Billy, you smell like a brewery. Have you been drinking?"

"Mom made me."

"Really? That doesn't sound like your mother. Let's get her in here and I'll get to the bottom of this. Joan! Where are you?"

"I'm right here Dave," she said as she walked into the living room.

"Billy said you made him drink beer and that you're leaving us to go eat copious amounts of meat and drink lots of beer in Uruguay. Is that right?"

Billy looked at his mom. His mom looked at him and then over at her husband. "He's a liar! I never told him that. He's making it all up." She whispered loudly to her husband, "I'm pretty sure he's off his meds today honey, look, he pissed his pants again."
In his drunken state Billy thought, "Meds? What meds? Is my mom crazy? Or did I make all this up in my head?"

As those thoughts swirled around in Billy's huge head his mom let out a huge burp and the smell of stale beer filled the room. Then she began cackling like a mad woman. "I'm just fucking with you Dave, the kid's right. I'm out of here. I'm going to eat pork stuffed with beef sausage and other meat abominations while I wash it down with beer after beer. You can take care of things here while I go have some fun and clog my arteries whilst I converse in Spanish with my Uruguayan dock worker pals. Now Billy, give your dad your coat so you won't chase after me."

Once more Billy did as he was asked and as soon as he did he watched his mom disappear into the cold winter night.

Two weeks after she left his dad brought home a stripper who he met in a chat room and they married soon after that. She bought Billy a Nintendo Wii and she let him have a snack with his hot after school cocoa every day.

Billy's mom was never heard from again but around campfires on the Uruguayan docks, stories are told of a wild drunken female gringo who speaks broken Spanish and who will steal your meat and gobble it down as she howls at the moon.

Quakers are really really nice

Suzy the Wisconsin Quaker vixen sent me a package of swell swag.

She sent me this DVD:
And also she sent me this CD:
How nice is that? It's super nice, that's how nice it is. I've been meaning to get some music by Enter The Haggis but I just never got around to it. Boy howdy, am I glad that Suzy got around to it for me because this band rocks. They're not the usual Celtic/Gaelic band, they've got a hard edge to their music that I'm really digging on.

Thank you Suzy!

Esoteric joke of the week

Auditions for the all Filipino version of Bent went exceedingly well.

Ooooo, oooo, that smell

Dude farted. That's what that smell is. Dude totally farted.

A tale of two Prejeans

For your consideration:

Prejean #1Sister Helen Prejean, noted Christian who lives her faith by serving others and counseling death row inmates.

Prejean #2
Carrie Prejean, noted 'Christian' who is self serving and uses her surgically enhanced body to titillate others.

Sister Helen Prejean was portrayed in a film about her life by Susan Sarandon:
Carrie Prejean usually plays herself and plays with herself in films about her life but now that she's found favor with the Christian right she may want to get surgically enhanced porn actress Jenna Jameson to play her or play with her in a bio pic:
When it comes to choosing which Prejean I'd most like to spend time with, I choose the nun one over the one with the fake tits eight days a week and twice on Sunday.

A Monkey movie review

I finally saw this film last night:
And I can tell you it lives up to it's hype. It's one of the sweetest warmest most beautiful films I have ever seen. And by beautiful I mean it's beautiful to look at and it's got a beautiful message.

The film is about a family that moves out to the country for recuperative reasons, the mother of the family has an unnamed illness. The two little girls of the family meet up with creatures only they, and other children, can see. And when the youngest of the two gets lost on her way to see her mother in the hospital, the creatures come swiftly to their aid. I know, the story sounds thin but believe me there is more character development and story in this film than there is in any CGI enhanced piece of shit that comes out of Hollywood. There is more humanity and compassion in this film than there is in all of Christendom. And there is more art and joy in this film than there is in any art museum and gallery.

It's a timeless and border-less classic. The story may take place in Japan outside of Tokyo and the characters may have funny sounding names but they could be anybody living anywhere where children are allowed to roam around, are loved, and allowed to think for themselves. This film touched me deeply and I highly recommend it to everyone of all ages.

Let's call a spade a spade

I haven't written about the Fort Hood shootings any because I wanted to see what the fall out would be and what the shooter would have to say if and when he ever talked. But since the rabid Christian right is shouting and braying that the alleged shooter (and that's the correct thing to call him since it has not been proven in a court of law that he did the shootings yet, and please you right wingers, remember that our justice system is based on the principle of innocent until proven guilty) is a Muslim terrorist I'm going to wade into this bullshit.

They claim that the alleged shooter is a Muslim jihadist bent on taking down Americans and the American way of life (but what they mean when they say 'American' is Christian). To them since he contacted a Muslim cleric in some dusty Middle Eastern country then he's got to be a terrorist, never mind that he contacted him for information relating to a paper he was writing for the Army. They also go on to say the President Obama is at fault for not weeding him out of the Army because doing so might have made some other Muslims mad, after all the President is a Muslim himself so he wanted to be politically correct and save his Muslim homeboys from embarrassment, never mind the fact that the alleged shooter was seen as a threat while Bush was in charge and nothing was done back then.
The guy is a Muslim and he killed Christian Americans and he shouted "Allahu abkar!" before he opened fire, so he's a terrorist.

What they fail to mention is that this guy is also a terrorist:
Remember him? He's the guy who shot up a Unitarian church in Knoxville because he wanted to kill liberals, which he did by the way until one of those lily livered liberals kicked his ass and held him for the cops, and he's the guy you never hear anything about on FOX Noise anymore because they don't want to be tarred with his stink. He's a Christian and he used violence to achieve his desired political ends, and that's the classic definition of terrorism. Oh yeah, he also explicitly said he wanted to kill all the people in Bernie Goldber's book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America. And his house was full of books by people who work for FOX News.

They also gloss over this guy:
He's the Christian who shot up the Holocaust Museum, which he chose as a target because he hated Jews. And they love to forget to mention, when they mention him at all, that he's a former white supremacist, which is a far right wing political movement, of which the Tea party crowd are a part and so are Libertarians.

Here's another Christian terrorist:
He's latest killer of doctors who perform abortions, which is still a legal medical procedure in this country by the way. They tie themselves in logic knots when trying to prove that this animal isn't a terrorist. But since this Christian man used violence to achieve his desired political end, he's a terrorist. He's a Christian and he's a terrorist. And to the anti abortion crowd, he's a hero.

And finally we end this parade of infamy with the American Christian terrorist who killed the most people in one fell swoop ever on US soil:
The late Tim McVeigh. He was in the US Army and he was a Christian. He killed to achieve his desired political end and he was caught, tried, convicted, and murdered for his crime. But they never talk about him when they talk about terrorists.

The point here is that if you're going to bitch that people aren't calling the Fort Hood shooter a terrorist because they are being politically correct and you're not calling those Christians who committed terrorist acts terrorists, then you're intellectually cowardly and you're hypocrites. And the argument that only good things come from the Christian god doesn't apply, because if you believe that the Christian god created everything then he created everything, including terrorists of all kinds, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc. The other point is, and this is the one that most people, and by most people I mean the right wingers, is that religious extremism of any stripe is bad, be it Muslim, Christian, Jewish, etc.

If this tragedy shows us anything, it shows us that we need to get the hell out of the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan and that we need less religion in our world.