Good job, bellend

I don't mean you. Unless, of course, you are the Bellend of the Month for January 2011. But it's going instead to a Jeffrey Alexander Sterling, who is an ex-officer of the CIA who leaked national defence information several times during is 8 1/2 year tenure with the CIA. That bellend was taken into custody early this month by federal agents in St. Louis, Missouri, and was indicted on six separate counts of unauthorized disclosure of national defence information, as well as four additional charges: mail fraud, unlawfully keeping national defence information, obstruction of justice, and unauthorized conveyance of government property. This is not the sort of behaviour that anyone of his profession should be engaged in. That is just low and it's only right that he be the first African-American to receive this great dishonour.

Huck becomes PC

That's right, there should soon be a new edition of Huckleberry Finn which takes out every instance of the N-word and replaces them with slave. I commend NewSouth Books for finally figuring out a way to remove that disgusting word from such a classic literary work and leaving everyone wondering why nobody thought of such a simple substitution a lot sooner. I just hope everyone remembers that edition instead of one which uses the N-word.

Yay! No more Two and a Half Men for a while!

That god-awful TV show has been placed on production hiatus because one of the stars, Charlie Sheen, has checked into rehab. He's not on drugs, instead, he's in rehab for severe pain related to a hernia. I wish him the best, but I'm hoping they cancel Two and a Half Men because that show's just stupid.

Time to rebel against the Rebels

And I'm talking about both the new addition to the Super 14 (now Super 15) AND an Aussie motorbike gang that's coming to New Zealand. The outlawed gang is known as the Rebels Motorcycle Club, with about 2000 members and a record of killings, drugs, arms trafficking and extortion dating back to 1969. I don't want those bellends on our turf, especially considering that two years ago, 27 members were arrested after a series of raids across Australia. Police found huge quantities of drugs, including methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine. Firearms, cash, stolen goods and stolen vehicles were also seized. Nine years earlier another Australia-wide raid netted drugs, firearms and even a crocodile. Those scumbags already have chapters in not just Australia but also in the USA, Thailand, Malta, and Sweden, so they should focus on those before deciding to add to our gang problem.

Peer pressure has gone way too far

An ad on Student Job Search offered students aged between 18 and 29 $50 each to sample free cigarettes for eight days. Those bellends have really pushed it this time. This trial, which they say aims to make smoking less appealing to younger people, will actually make smoking more appealing to younger people, and why wouldn't it considering there was $50 in it. And besides, the $50 is likely to go towards more cigs.

Blackpool get drowned in nail-biting comeback

In the last 20 minutes of this morning’s Premier League clash at Bloomfield Road, Man United came back from a 2-0 deficit to beat Blackpool 3-2. Man United’s comeback was fuelled by two goals from Bulgarian goal-scoring machine Dimitar Berbatov and one goal from Javier Hernandez. The bellends behind Blackpool’s scoring were Craig Cathcart and DJ Campbell. In all, three yellow cards were shown.

Another medical breakthrough for lasers

That's right, lasers have already made their mark on the medical world in the form of eye surgery and kidney stone treatment (they are also good for tattoo removal), but there is a new use for lasers: helping smokers quit. This new therapy is based on the theory that applying the laser to certain acupressure points releases endorphins, and of course it's not for everyone, but this is a medical breakthrough nonetheless. If the patches are still working for you, then keep at it.

New nation in town

The Republic of South Sudan will likely split from the north on the 9th of July. Most of the valid votes cast in the referendum (or at least a sample of the votes) were for separation, so Sudan should enjoy its last days as the largest nation in Africa because come July 9, there will be a new nation in town.

22 down, 16 to go

This morning at Old Trafford, Man United continued their unbeaten run with a 5-0 defeat of the bellends playing for Birmingham City FC. In addition to a hat-trick by Bulgarian-born Dimitar Berbatov, one goal each was scored by Ryan Giggs and Nani. Still, it was a clean, fair game with nobody getting booked.

The wedding could yet be off

Prince William and Kate Middleton aren't even married yet - that will take place April 29 - but some Britons are already betting they will end up getting divorced. This is an experiment doomed to fail because there is still a chance that the wedding could be called off. And besides, there are better things to bet your money on, such as which numbers will be drawn during the weekend. But I suppose that's just the way book-makers these days are - they'll accept bets on anything, including Birmingham City FC losing to Man United tomorrow morning.

It appears something good came out of the recent Tucson shootings

Besides those huckaleros from the Westboro Baptist Church hopefully having been kept away from the resulting funerals, the corneas of a young girl who died in the shooting (for the record, she was born on 9/11 and her grandfather managed the Philadelphia Phillies when they won the World Series in 1980) have each been able to save the sight of one lucky kid elsewhere in Arizona. Although the bullet wounds would render her internal organs unusable, the fact that two kids are now able to see again because of her corneas would be one of the few good things to come out of a death. And speaking of death, I hope the scumbag that shot her gets the chair.

Rural South Auckland - it's the poo

Better put, its residents' houses are being splattered with poo that is being dropped from planes flying over the area. The Civil Aviation Authority should do something about this - maybe forbidding planes from releasing excrement from the onboard toilets until they're on the ground and a big bucket to collect it all can be put in place - because the unethical practice of dropping passengers' poo onto other peoples' houses in mid-flight is not cool. There are people living out in the country and the last thing they need is planes releasing crap in mid-air all over their nice lifestyle block. It's bad enough that they have poor TV reception out there.

I don't have anything to write about

And that's about it for tonight.

At least those bellends tried

Tottenham Hotspur failed to defeat Man United yesterday morning at White Hart Lane. The final score was 0-0, and a total of six players were booked. Rafael, who was one of those six players, was booked a second time and subsequently sent off.

It's time to GET BACK THAT HOUSE!

Garfield Gillings's house was stolen from him in 2003 in the wave of a pen, but the fight to get it back is still on. On the second anniversary of 9/11, Mr. Gillings called a collection agency to negotiate a payment of outstanding tax and water bills. He was told that the debt had already been paid. He asked who paid it and was told he did. But Mr. Gillings had not really paid the bill, which also removed a city tax lien. A few days later, he performed a title search and discovered that the old brick house, which he had been using as an art studio and storage spot, was no longer his. Somebody had forged his name on a bogus deed, signed the property over to a holding company, then filed papers with the city register. This sort of criminal behaviour is just low and it's only right that some woman from Long Island was eventually charged with and sent to prison for stealing Mr. Gillings’s house, along with more than 30 other properties. They need to find all the other people that that bellend was working for and leave those nasty pieces of scum to rot in the slammer, because a part of his life had been lost (workers hired by those nutjobs even threw out some of his paintings that he kept there) and the bellends that did it don't care one bit. This egregious conduct is not on, but they should do it to Amy Chua. Why? Read the post below this one.

I would never use the C-word about any woman

But it's headed that way for some woman I've just heard about named Amy Chua, who wrote an essay published by the Wall Street Journal titled "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior". She argues that tough love is the key to raising successful children. A little here and there may be OK, but this is too much: her parenting methods include never allowing her two daughters to "attend a sleepover, have a play date, be in a school play, complain about not being in a school play, watch TV or play computer games, choose their own extracurricular activities, or get any grade less than an A." I don't mean to be racist but such a stupid parenting style belongs in the Dark Ages and I cannot recall my parents using such a counter-productive style like the one that that bellend is advocating. A response that rebuts that essay comes from a Chinese mother who says "I am challenging Chua. Like her, I am a Chinese mother, born in Manila, with parents like hers, raised like her. Unlike her, I vowed to be a different parent from my parents. I encouraged my daughter to enjoy all the things Chua prohibited. I even let her miss school to watch the Oscars! Still, she scored 2340 on her SAT, 60 points off perfect, and was accepted by Harvard, Princeton and Yale. It would be interesting to see if Chua can produce the same results with her methods. I did not push. I encouraged. And I loved unconditionally." Because, seriously, no kid will be accepted by three Ivy League colleges after enduring the torture Chua puts her kids through.

Happy tenth birthday, Wikipedia!

Today is also Martin Luther King Day. In line with his dream "that [his] four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character", I must point the finger at the movie Burlesque. It's nothing to do with the skimpy costumes worn by some of the characters, but more to do with some rapidly flashing lights in one scene. I don't have epilepsy, but I do know that lights which flash that fast can cause epileptic seizures in some people. It had a tad too much swearing for its M rating and also had some scenes depicting drinking and cigarette smoking, but it's the flashing strobe lights and their possibility of causing a seizure that give this movie a thumbs down - if you have epilepsy, I'd recommend seeing something like The Dilemma, Tangled, or Yogi Bear instead.

It's Martin Luther King Day AND Wikipedia Day tomorrow

So happy 10th birthday for tomorrow, Wikipedia. And guys, please try to judge people not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.

I can't handle 1500 dogs - can you?

Ha Wenjin, a middle-aged woman from Nanjing, China, has adopted 1500 dogs. I see the point in having just one or two dogs but 1500 is way too many to care for - it's way too expensive especially if you're on minimum wage, they make way too much mess, and they will all need to be exercised. So here's a tip: if you have that many dogs, you should sell them to people who will actually do something with them.

Not today, Mr. Phelps.

Arizona residents are locking arms to stop the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church from disrupting the funerals for victims of Saturday's shooting in Tucson, with bikers and others organizing a massive counter-protest and state lawmakers fast-tracking a bill to hamstring the group. This is by far one of the best ways to stop those bellends, who show up at the funerals of dead soldiers and other high-profile gatherings wielding anti-gay signs containing hateful speech along the lines of "God Hates Fags", from picketing a funeral scheduled for Thursday for a 9-year-old girl who was one of six fatally shot over the weekend at a Tucson grocery store. I hope the little girl's family is left to grieve in peace without having to listen to those religious wackos who think us ordinary people have lost touch with Christianity when they're actually the ones who could be going to hell.

Conscription is on its way out for Germany and Switzerland

It's about time those two countries moved on to an all-volunteer force, because I don't approve of conscription (a form of state-sanctioned slavery colloquially known as the draft) and if New Zealand hadn't abolished the draft by whatever age I would've gotten the call-up, I would've withdrawn all my savings and moved to Canada or some other country without the draft. Those young German and Swiss men are being drafted against their will into an unnecessary part of a country's infrastructure. It is worth having an all-volunteer force to help bring the regime of a tyrannical ruler to its knees but the draft is just stupid, and if I got a call-up notice, I'd be off on the next plane out of the country.

So what if it's a boy?

An Australian couple have aborted twin boys just because they wanted a girl, and they are going to court to win the right to use IVF treatment to choose the sex of their next baby. This is almost the same carry-on that goes on in China but with genders reversed. I'm all for abortion but doing it just because the baby is the wrong sex is not necessarily the right thing to do. If it's to save the mother's life, by all means go ahead - after all, it is an emergency. If it's because of incest or rape, it might not be the baby's fault but hey, let's face it: do you really want to be weighed down with a potential descendant of that scumbag for nine months? If it's for socioeconomic factors, I'd suggest getting funding from charities or tax credits or giving the baby up for adoption but if you feel the need to have it sucked into a vacuum, then there should be a clinic within easy reach. If it's because of foetal defects, I wouldn't recommend it: former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin carried her youngest child Trig to term despite the fact that he had Down's syndrome (and no, we do NOT call them mongoloids anymore), but if you'd rather not be having to care for these sorts of defects, then it's time for your kid to go the way of Old Yeller. But please bear this in mind: PENISES AND VAGINAS DON'T COUNT AS FOETAL DEFECTS - WE ALL HAVE EITHER ONE OR THE OTHER (sorry to be typing in uppercase - just hoping you get the message). Like I said, I'm all for abortion unless it's done just because of the appendages between the baby's legs. And I hope those bellends lose their court case.

The South shall rise again!

Southern Sudan, that is. Because a vote today by the black Christians and animists in the autonomous region of Southern Sudan could mean independence from the northern government dominated by Arab Muslims. But they are doing it the wimpy way when they could just unilaterally declare independence. The USA just up and split from Britain back in 1776 so how hard could it be?

Will they split? I say let the voters decide.

This isn't a reality TV show. This is real life and it's about to go down in the southern part of Sudan, which could split from the rest of Sudan if a majority of voters vote yes in a referendum scheduled for next week. Five years ago, Montenegro broke away from Serbia in a similar process with the percentage of yes votes slightly over the 55% majority that was needed for Serbia and Montenegro to go their separate ways, and I'm pretty sure we could see Sudan splitting in two with the blessing of a good enough majority of voters. But they'll need a new internet TLD, a new international dialling code (+28 is still unassigned), and a new currency. I hope all goes well and no bellends use unfair tactics to win.

UPDATE: South Sudan are going with +211 as their international dialing code (fitting because they split from Sudan in 2011), changing their currency to the South Sudanese pound (currently exchangeable at a 1:1 rate with the Sudanese pound), and have applied for the .ss internet top-level domain (which some believe will be rejected because SS was the abbreviation for the Schutzstaffel, which was a Nazi paramilitary corps). Also, Google Maps still haven't updated their maps to include the Sudan-South Sudan border.

This blog is turning one in nine weeks

Like I said, this blog is turning one in nine weeks.

Now they're after our Antarctic base?

Those freeloading Aussies are at it again - they stole a cricket match from us by having the final ball bowled underarm back in 1981, they are stealing people away from New Zealand with their lower tax rates and warmer climate (unless, of course, you settle in Tasmania), and now they've tried to get the US Air Force's Antarctic operations base moved from Christchurch to Tasmania, according to a cable released by WikiLeaks. Documents released by the whistle-blowing website show Mr Garrett, the Australian Environment, Heritage, and Arts Minister at the time, raised the issue in February of last year noting it would be faster (reportedly half the time it would take to fly from Christchurch) to fly from Tasmania than Christchurch to Antarctica. But they're wrong - Christchurch is 220km closer to the base, and besides, the New Zealand Government values the co-operation it has with the US at the Christchurch base. Sorry, descendants of convicts, but the base is not for sale.

THREE HUNDRED POSTS!

But first things first: Man United took their unbeaten run to 20 by beating Stoke City again in a clean, fair game in which nobody got booked. This time, it was a 2-1 victory at Old Trafford. Man United’s goals were scored by Javier Hernandez and Nani, and the bellend that prevented a shutout was Stoke City’s own Dean Whitehead.

Cancer could soon be its own victim

Last month, I posted on how some lucky German guy was supposedly made immune to HIV after receiving a blood transfusion. And there is also a post dating back to November mentioning a way to turn skin into blood. Now, the medical industry has come up with yet another breakthrough - a new test that could revolutionise cancer treatment. Apparently, the test just needs a teaspoon of blood to find a single cancer cell lurking among a billion normal ones, and can find the cancer before it is advanced enough to show up on other tests. It's not a cure but it's a start, as is the case with the outbreak of another Korean War.

Hopefully the extra Republicans won't be a Boehner

I wish the new Congress luck in passing legislation. It's not going to be easy with a Republican majority in the House and the Democrats just managing to hold on in the Senate, but people have made it through in tough times.

WBA pwned in Man United's second away win

2011 is getting off to a good start for Man United, who got their second away win of the season by beating West Bromwich Albion 2-1 at The Hawthorns. Man U's goals were scored by Wayne Rooney and Javier Hernandez, and West Brom scored at the hands of James Morrison. Four yellow cards all up were shown to various bellends from both teams.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I just hope the All Blacks can win the Rugby World Cup and end the 24-year drought.