Russian Prez: 'Putin Could Serve 2 More Terms'; Me: 'We Don't Actually Hate Russians'

Linkeydink

MOSCOW – Russia's constitution will be amended by year's end to extend the presidential term to six years, lawmakers promised Thursday — a move that could pave the way for Vladimir Putin's return to the Kremlin.

It would be the first change to the Russian constitution since its adoption in 1993. A six-year term could mean 12 more years as president for Putin — the current prime minister — who has not ruled out getting his old job back.

President Dmitry Medvedev, a Putin protege, had suggested raising the term from four years to six Wednesday in his first state of the nation address.

Pretty much everything GFK was worrying about in his post a couple months back is coming true. Medvedev basically just gave a speech a few days ago saying, "We're back. We're going to kick some ass. Fuck you if you can stop it." Now Putin may wind up back as president for 12 more years due to his handpicked errand boy changing the rules for him.

Gosh, you know, I LOVE Democracy. And I LOVE Authoritarianism! Both have such great tastes, but where can I get both of them together, like in some kind of fucked-up government version of a Snickers bar??? Oh, the president of Russia. Great! Wait, if democracy is the caramel, and authoritarianism gives you peanuts, what's the nougat? DUH - the secret intelligence services!

Putin will probably get away with it because of them. I can't imagine what it must be like to be an opposition leader right now. It's probably like having bowel control issues and going on a roller coaster called THE ELIMINATOR. You probably can't even stand up without your asshole closing to the size of a pinprick. How can you organize anything that might change the government when you could be infiltrated or subverted or hurt?

This probably all sounds mean. Looking back, it looks like we really hate China and Russia. Look, for anyone Chinese or Russian who might ever read this (HA!), we don't. Seriously. Chinese people, chinese food, chinese basketball players, chinese culture (except the music, sorry, I can't take it) rule. Every Russian I've met socially has been all class and really cool to meet. Russian music rules. Russian literature OWNS. And both your countries are so beautiful it's sick.

But here's the thing, obviously we aren't a gang who loves authoritarianism. It's bad. And frankly, your bosses scare the shit out of me. Probably the same way our boss for the last 8 years scared the shit out of you.

When you think back to you having watching a gang run our country without anyone holding them accountable, watching them rewrite the rules to suit themselves and ignoring all the ones they didn't want to bother with, heading out into the rest of the world and fucking with other people however they pleased to win the WARAWN TEAR, maybe you have an idea what it's like for us looking out now.

We've got nothing against the people in either place, and hope they don't feel like we do. Just bear in mind dealing with your bosses frightens the fuck out of us right now. The last couple years couldn't have been a cakewalk for you either, so please just be patient with us if we start running drills about hiding under desks again.

Michael Chrichton Dead

From here:

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Michael Crichton, who helped create the TV show "ER" and wrote the best-sellers "Jurassic Park," "The Andromeda Strain," "Sphere" and "Rising Sun," died in Los Angeles on Tuesday, his public relations firm said in a news release.

(snip)

Crichton also invited controversy with some of his scientific views. He was an avowed skeptic of global climate change, giving lectures warning against "consensus science." He later took on global warming and the theories surrounding it in his 2004 novel "State of Fear," which attracted attacks in its own right from scientists including NASA's James Hansen.

Look, just because all his doctors said that he had cancer didn't make it so. In fact, that probably made it LESS so.

Stop and think about this.

There's a lot of money in cancer.

*holds up back of hand, rubs fingers with thumb*

Laaaaaaaaatta money in it. So what do you think those doctors' diagnoses are going to be? That's right: cancer. See, what happens with this sort of consensus science is these guys don't like to be wrong, so they tend to back each other up with diagnoses and cause-and-effect, because they know doing so makes their jobs secure. They also like to make money. And if they can just keep agreeing with each other, they can keep the funding flowing.

Stop and ask yourself this question: How many years have the global cancer doctors been telling you the reason people die of cancer is "cancer," and how come there's no cure for it yet? They've been fighting it for decades, and cancer's still here. Maybe because... when we realize there's no such thing as cancer, the government checks stop showing up?

The fact is that cancer doesn't exist, and even if it did, it would only be caused by three things:

1. Cancer volcanoes.

2. Cancer spots on the sun.

3. An intergalactic overlord of the Canceroid League named Skip Geech who would come to earth and shoot cancer into people with mind lasers because he heard their bodies stored fresh muffins.

Follow the money.

Obama

I'm so fucking drunk right now.

Nothing will ever be like 2004. When Foulke flipped it to Mientkiewicz, I was pretty sure I heard every person in my neighborhood and for three neighborhoods over totally explode in joy. But this was pretty fucking incredible. I think I heard at least ten surrounding buildings. It probably would have been louder but I bet each network called things at slightly different times.

Who cares? I just went on a parade with about ten other people over about half the city. It was like we were doing kick return coverage or something; we kept running into tons of people dancing and running around, but we kept this wedge formation going on. Maybe we were protecting the booze. Nobody's going to work tomorrow.

I have to go to bed, but a toast before I go. I shouldn't, but one more Jamey isn't going to kill me. No toast to HOPE — too vague. But as the scion of old ward heelers, as the great-nephew of a fixer and a crook and a man so twisted they're going to have to screw him into the ground at the funeral, fuck it: to no longer being scared shitless by my government.

Tomorrow, when I make a cell phone call, I'm just going to stop whoever I'm talking to at the moment so I can say, "Hey, you, crusted photophobic NSA golem listening to every fucking word of this. Start rewriting your resume, you crypto-fascist shitfuck."

how can you not be prepared for the olympics when you're a one-party government that can kill your citizens?

no link because you can literally pick ANY online newspaper, and they have an article on this

what totally confuses me is something i said back here, that i cant imagine how you can have a 1-party government that is accountable to NOTHING (not even the international community; i mean, it's just a week until the olympics, and they're still locking their own people up left and right) and still fuck up this hard

think about it, the chinese govt doesnt seem to care too much about the health&welfare of their own people, and yet they didnt think about dropping a few bodies to get this shit done on time? build a dam, fuck a village...all in the game. but build an olympic village...and suddenly there are deadlines and work stoppages? what?

so now we're going to have an olympics where some facilities are sort of slapped together last-minute and of questionable safety...at the same time, youre going to get a cynical display of communist unity and perfection from a bunch of poor scared-shitless chinese people dressed up like drum majorettes and oompa-loompa-ing around, going, "Oh-wee-Oh, we're here at gunpoint"

meanwhile, the air is like breathing fucking coffee grounds...this is the other thing thats just totally nuts about china...youve got them fucking up central planning and fucking up this gilded age economics and environmentalism thing. its like theyve managed to fuck up both ends of the socio-political spectrum and crush their people to death in the middle. i feel so bad

Terror Cells Kill Tony Snow

CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former White House press secretary Tony Snow -- who once told reporters "I'm a very lucky guy" -- died at the age of 53 early Saturday after a second battle with cancer.

Hate to see a guy meet a timetable like that.

Man gets decapitated on Greyhound Bus

Police in Winnipeg said Thursday they do not know what triggered a vicious attack on a Greyhound bus the night before that led to the beheading of a passenger.

Some officials are saying this was planned, but I hope cooler heads prevail. Sounds like the guy just lost his head.

BUT ... it's almost quittin time here. Looks like I gotta head out.

There Are No Other Words for This Other Than "This Sucks"

Tim Russert dead at 58.

Finding out this happened to Big Russ's baby boy when people like O'Reilly and Hannity still walk the earth suddenly makes me understand how my parents must have felt when they found out that Mark David Chapman pumped a bunch of bullets into John Lennon while Yoko Ono was

standing.

right.

fucking.

there.

massive quake hits china

didnt we just have one of these?

i feel horrible for the chinese people...while theres no way you can blame an earthquake on their completely fucked-up environmental policies, youve gotta think they cant be helping. you can just picture shocks like this creating mudslides due to their massive erosion, cracking deep mines, opening up crevasses that dump all kinds of shit into their groundwater

china sort of amazes me because it seems like they manage to have the fucking worst parts of statist government and gilded age style raping of everything...like, entire regions and local cultures getting wiped out for dams, hillsides washing away under erosion, then you've got everyone basically breathing the equivalent of tailpipe exhaust and working for 10 cents per day in some collapsible shithole

on the other hand, i guess i just want to make jokes like, "so this is what happens when Dragon Meets Phoenix...gotta be a lotta un-Happy Family goin around"

Sark No Longer Feudal

No, not the guy from Alias. The island. The one that's part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey. I am not making this up. I couldn't make this up.

Sark is a small island in the English channel that, until now, was rented from the English Crown by a "seigneur," who ruled the island as its feudal lord, dispensing rents to citizens, given permission to staff the island with a military force, and who was the only person on the island allowed to keep pigeons or an unspayed female dog.

I was going to post the article, but the Wikipedia entry about the whole island is amazing.

Apparently to make it in the EU, they had to give up being feudal, which is sort of disappointing.

Giant-Ass Ice Shelf Makes a Break for It

Apparently something like a 414-square km ice shelf broke off the Wilkins Ice Shelf off antarctica.

I guess it's goal is to become mayor of Sunnydale until it can start the Ascension.

I don't know about you, but when chunks of ice smaller than Philly start breaking off continents, I know I'm thinking 1 thing and 1 thing only: global warming is such total bullshit.

Raul Castro elected president of Cuba

That had to be a nailbiter for him.

Anything can happen. I remember when I was a kid and played FORTRESS with all my stuffed animals and I had an election for Fortress Commander. I just barely won that one. I guess I really didn't do enough to lock down the bear and rabbit vote.

Bush sends budget electronically

I read it here, but it redirects to here:

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all for coming. I just met with my Cabinet, where we discussed a lot of issues. And one issue we discussed is the budget. I submitted the budget today to Congress -- it's on a laptop notebook, an e-budget. It saves paper, saves trees, saves money. I think it's the first budget submitted electronically.

Hello, my name is GFK. I have taken the liberty of mailing you this telegram.

Iran launches rocket into space

linkety-link

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iran fired a rocket from its newly inaugurated space center Monday, laying the groundwork for what it says will be the future launch of its first domestically produced satellite, the semi-official FARS news agency reported.

Gas Prices Hit $100/Barrel

Here.

It's the highest gas/barrel cost in history.

Obviously, this is going to change our lives in ways we can't anticipate, but right now I feel comfortable making predictions about how others will cope and how their lives will change.


EC
• Instead of chasing them, will let the black helicopters come to him.
• Saves money on gas mask filters because fewer planes in the sky mean fewer chemtrails.
• Buys another handgun just to be sure.
• Buys a shotgun to test theory of "shooting away high prices."


LS
• Stops doing everything to save money for his girlfriend's shopping excursions.
• Stops having safe sex because petroleum is used in producing latex condoms, and every little bit helps. Whoops, already took care of this.
• Will get back to you on other changes, waiting for what girlfriend says about them.

Democratic Party Killjoys End Colbert Campaign

NudeYorkTimes:

GREENVILLE, S.C., Nov. 1 — Stephen Colbert’s nascent and satirical presidential campaign came to an abrupt end on Thursday when the Democratic Party in South Carolina decided he was not serious and turned down his application to get his name on the primary ballot.

I can see where they're coming from. Of course, every election is important, but this one has generational significance. As much as I'd love to see Colbert do a performance-art satire of campaigns while conducting one, I understand the worry the democrats would have. Now, if he could run as a republican somehow...