JABbering Stooge

I chose this as the background image for my Twitter account:

Based on my first two tweets, I’m pretty sure she’d be calling me a baka right now…

Sidebar: Have I mentioned yet that “baka” is my favorite Japanese word?

Here’s a good candidate for the WTF?! Files:

Das Kapital turned into a manga comic
Karl Marx’s seminal anti-capitalist tome Das Kapital is to be reincarnated ­ as a Japanese manga comic.

By Danielle Demetriou in Tokyo
Last Updated: 12:04PM GMT 18 Nov 2008

Das Kapital, the manga version, is due to hit bookstores across Japan next month with its complex ideas ambitiously repackaged into digestible comic format.

The appearance of the famous economic treatise in the form of a comic is the latest sign of a resurgence of leftwing literature in Japan as the world’s second largest economy sinks into recession.

The rise of part-time workers and increasing erosion of financial security have fuelled a boom in Communist Party membership in Japan along with a fashionable revival of anti-capitalist literature.

Heh. Mangaka of the world, unite!

Right.

Sarah Palin quote of the day:

Oh, I think they’re [critics] just not used to someone coming in from the outside saying you know what? It’s time that a normal Joe Six-Pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency, and I think that that’s kind of taken some people off guard, and they’re out of sorts, and they’re ticked off about it.

Sarah Palin IS Ranma Saotome!

The American Patriarchy Association’s “newswire” OneNewsNow has been revealed to be running Associated Wankers articles through its Secret Decoder Script™ in a most hilarious fashion:

But the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow website takes the phenomenon one step further with its AP articles. The far-right fundamentalist group replaces the word “gay” in the articles with the word “homosexual.” I’m not entirely sure why, but it seems to make the AFA happy. The group is, after all, pretty far out there.

The problem, of course, is that “gay” does not always mean what the AFA wants it to mean. My friend Kyle reported this morning that sprinter Tyson Gay won the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials over the weekend. The AFA ran the story, but only after the auto-correct had “fixed” the article.

That means — you guessed it — the track star was renamed “Tyson Homosexual.” The headline on the piece read, “Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials.”

Heh. Indeed. Memo to the AFA:

For the second time in as many months, Atrios channels Pedro from Excel Saga. This time, it’s over Mitt Romney’s withdrawl from the quest for the GOP nod.

And the hilarity resumes.

Atrios channels Pedro from Excel Saga.

And hilarity ensues.

The fine folks at Sadly, No! have done it again. It seems that the naughty tentacles of the species Fundigelicalis talibani Christii (F. talibani Christii) are poking their way into the not-so-virginal hole of manga.

The result? Serenity: New Bad Girl in Town. Think of it as Souped-up Chick Tracts on Crack. Even the most fair and reasonable reviews I could find complained about the simplicity of the plot, the thinness of the characterization, and even the disappointing crudity of the artwork - apparently, the artist is capable of drawing much better than the effort demonstrated in this series. Check out some sample pages from Volume 1 to see what I mean. Then realize that there are five volumes of this drek currently available, with a promise of more to come.

Put more eloquently than I by S,N! commenter Christopher:

Oh, hey, Elendil gave us a preview, I think I’ll just take a look inside and JESUS CHRIST MY EYES! That is the BIGGEST difference between cover and interior art quality I have ever seen. Seriously, somebody should sue them for false advertising. I mean, you buy what looks like a competant Amerimanga and you open it up and it looks like the illustrations from an airplane safety card. Pastor Calvin especially looks like he’s going to pull down his mask and place over his face before helping any other passengers who may need assistance.

And, Vishnu’s blood, is that an endorsement from Stan “The Man” Lee? Jesus, I hope he was just talking about the script, because the art is just inexcusable.

Frankly, the script’s not much better. I keep hoping a Christian will write a nice Christian story about helping people, but there’s an unrepentant atheist who’s still a nice guy and a good Hindu family. But all I get is prettied up Chick tracts. Bleagh, Bleagh I say!

The only thing this series has going for it is that at least the Modern-Day Pharisees Christians here show some semblance of fallibility, unlike Chick’s Godlike (sorry) "Christians." The characters in Serenity are a bit closer to Marguerite "Christian Mommy" Perrin than to a certain Nazerene carpenter.

Stinger:

I think I’ll just take a look inside and JESUS CHRIST MY EYES!

Okay, I’ve been sitting on this long enough. It’s time to do my A-kon report.

A-Kon 16: Report from the trenches

You know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men, right? Well, that’s what happened to us at the start. Originally, we had planned on having an acquaintance from Kuk Sool Won drive a whole group of us up to Dallas in his SUV. Unfortunately, he couldn’t make it, and neither could most of the people we had planned on taking. It ended up being me and the two friends who had helped plan the whole thing. And, oh yeah, I got saddled with driving everyone up there in my Honda POS.

If you’ve been reading my blog lately, you can kind of guess that one of my little addictions is Japanese animation (anime). Anime has developed a bit of a cult following here in America, much like, say, Star Trek, Star Wars, or Babylon 5. Commensurate with this, several conventions devoted to anime fandom have been organized. So, being the anime fan that I am, I am planning on going to one such convention, A-kon 16, in Dallas on Saturday with a couple of friends who are also anime fans.

Interestingly enough, Austin has its own anime convention, Ushicon, that usually takes place on the last weekend of January. Thus far, I have been to three of the last four Ushicons, but this will be my first trip to A-kon, one of the largest anime conventions in the country. Should be fun. I’ll make sure to get some choice pics and post them to the blog.

Note: Due to legal issues, January, 2006 was the last time that Ushicon would ever be held.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jun. 2, 2005 5:50 AM)

The assault on freedom of speech continues. This time, Bill Maher - no stranger to controversy, for sure - committed the crime of joking about the Army missing it’s recruitment goal for April by 42 percent. As a result, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R - AL) has called for Maher’s show, Real Time with Bill Maher, to be cancelled because of the remarks.

"I think it borders on treason," Bachus said. "In treason, one definition is to undermine the effort or national security of our country."

Forgive my utter ignorance - I know I’m just a stupid, evil, terrorist, traitor, spawn-of-Satan liberal, but how is showing concern for the problems our military is facing, albeit in a satirical fashion, in any way at all "undermining the effort or national security of our country?"

I guess Congressman Bachus is going to have to provide a list of state-approved jokes, because I’m a bit confused as to what sorts of jokes are patriotically correct. I am sure of the following, though:

• Laura Bush joking about her husband’s penchant for masturbating horses is high comedy.

• Bill Maher satirizing the sorry state of our military is high treason.

I’m going to have to defer to an objective, independent source for comment on this development. Take it away, Ruri-chan!

He’s a baka.

(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Jun. 2, 2005 4:49 AM)