What is this, Nineteen-fucking-Fourteen?

East-European power of dubious global military significance invades its smaller, annoying neighbour, apparently convinced that it has the unconditional backing of a Great Power.  Russia mobilizes, people kill each other, destroy homes, et-fucking-cetera.  And because things apparently aren’t exciting enough yet, we get this:

• Bush sends help to Georgia (The Herald)

The US entered the battle zone of Georgia last night as George Bush said America would provide military aircraft and naval forces to deliver aid to its ally.

[...]

“The United States of America stands with the democratically elected government of Georgia. We insist that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia be respected,” said Mr Bush.

Uh, Dubya?  Georgia started this shit when they invaded South Ossetia.  Backing their play is not a good idea.  Sure, sure, they’ve a “democratically elected government” — so do the Russians (well, if you squint).  That doesn’t make their motives pure or their cause just.  Grandstanding bellicosity isn’t going to help.

I am forced to admit that, as wartime leaders go, Dubya plays the role of Kaiser Wilhelm II pretty convincingly.

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No matter where you go, politicians love to talk about “fiscal responsibility”.  Just about everyone gets bitter when they see their hard-earned and sorely-missed tax dollars cavalierly showered on specious bullshit, so it’s in the politicos’ best interests at least to pretend that they’re trying to invest said plunder wisely.  Setting some of it aside for the future, say, in case the Boomers can’t in fact fund their en masse retirement simply by exploiting their children’s and grandchildren’s generations.

Now, should you — the private citizen — try to do something similar, you’d best be careful that Leviathan doesn’t steal confiscate claim your savings:

• Shutting down an avenue to legalized theft by California (Daily Press)

Do you know what “escheat” means? It means that government — in this case the state of California — can seize supposedly unclaimed property in bank and stock brokerage accounts, safety deposit boxes and other places people keep their money after a certain number of years have passed when no “activity” by the owners has been recorded.

Which means that, if you have an account in a bank and haven’t made a withdrawal or deposit for several years, the bank is required to report to the state that the account has been “abandoned,” and the state then has the right to foreclose on the account’s assets.

Cute, huh?  According to the article, the government of California collects about $400,000,000 per year from this grotesque little scheme.  Even if the money involved is well and truly abandoned, four hundred million dollars could back a fair number of shaky mortgages.

Of course, if California left it sitting in those quiet bank accounts, its bureaucrats wouldn’t get to take their cut.

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It shouldn’t shock anyone that a whole bunch of Americans don’t like the idea of Mexicans slipping over the border without asking Leviathan’s permission and taking jobs that those Americans didn’t want anyway.  (There’s an illegal-Mexican-immigrant joke in fucking Die Hard, fergawdsakes; this shouldn’t be news.)  Most of them tend to be called politically conservative.  Then there’s PETA.

Yes, PETA.

• PETA wants to put vegan ads on border fence (Houston Chronicle)

I am not repeat not making this shit up.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals plans today to announce an unusual marketing pitch to the U.S. government: Rent us space on the fence for billboards warning illegal border crossers there is more to fear than the Border Patrol.

The billboards, in English and Spanish, would offer the caution: “If the Border Patrol Doesn’t Get You, the Chicken and Burgers Will — Go Vegan.”

This is a sick fucking joke, right?

PETA says its billboards would picture “fit and trim” Mexicans in their own country, where their diet is more in line with the group’s mission. Another image on the sign would portray obese American children and adults “gorging on meaty, fat- and cholesterol-packed American food.”

“Stay in Mexico, where you won’t get fat!”  Yeah, good call.

It may surprise the careful reader to learn that I’m entirely in favour of this plan.  I like the idea of people this stupid giving huge amounts of money to the government — better their money than mine, after all.  I also like the idea of PETA making a spectacle of themselves, and I imagine that any immigrants reading those signs could use a chuckle.

But holy shit, the idea of these people breeding frightens me.

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Let’s return to Europe.  Seems that the European Union — perhaps a bit ticked off with the recent Irish display of nonconformism — wants to take a page from the history books (East Germany ca. 1950-1990) and collect and store its subjects’ citizens’ personal communications.  Naturally, this is being pursued with gleeful alacrity in Britain:

• Home office measure gives public bodies access to personal emails and texts (The Guardian)

Local councils, health authorities and hundreds of other public bodies are to be given the power to access details of everyone’s personal text, emails and internet use under Home Office proposals published yesterday.

Ministers want to make it mandatory for telephone and internet companies to keep details of all personal internet traffic for at least 12 months so it can be accessed for investigations into crime or other threats to public safety.

[...]  As the measure is the result of an EU directive, the data will be made available to public investigators across Europe.

Better sit where the vidscreen can’t see you, Winston.

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Right-wing nutjob of the week: Ann Coulter

Normally the shrill and bitter Ms. Coulter is so obvious a target as to evoke a sense of backhanded pity, rather than schadenfreude.  Picking on Coulter — hell, picking on any Republican these days — is much like playing jokes on the retarded: it’s too easy to be fun, and you feel kind of bad afterwards.  But every once in a while the right-wing nutjobs of America eat their own, and this week Bill O’Reilly (previously featured here) made the Coultergeist (sorry, couldn’t resist — and yeah, I feel kind of bad now) flip her shit:

• Mudslinging expert, Ann Coulter, proves that mud is all she has to offer (News Hounds)

Bill O’Reilly did a segment about the effectiveness of political mudslinging and naturally invited Ann Coulter on as the expert on the subject . Apparently, Coulter is much better slinging mud than discussing the practice rationally or intelligently. At first, Coulter did her usual routine but when BOR asked her about her mocking of Obama’s middle name, she got defensive, disorganized, and clearly agitated. Finally she blamed Democrats and Andrew Sullivan.

This is what I truly love about election season: watching shallow demagogues make asses of themselves with neurotic enthusiasm.