Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Exercising His Job Bone

After Labor Day may come a moment of truth for Barack Obama. With unemployment still over 9 % he needs to lay out a jobs planthat will sell him to the American people for another four years. His opponents in the Republican party are selling tax cuts and deregulation: in short, everything we’ve been doing for the last ten years with no effect. That’s likely to win; thanks to the two-party system, whenever the economy tanks we have to go with whoever’s out of power, however wrong-headed their ideas obviously are.

Speaking of out of power, Barack Obama. Right now there’s an internal White House debate as to whether Obama should present a large, ambitious plan that would inspire his base but face almost certain defeat in a Tea Party–driven Congress or focus on small bore goals thatwould face almost certain defeat in a Tea Party–driven Congress. Obama will probably try to achieve a compromise defeat.

Here are some of the ideas likely to be floated after Labor Day:

Payroll Tax Cut

Workers pay into Social Security with this tax, so what could go wrong with another payroll tax holiday? The benefits to the economy would far outrun any long-term risks to seniors, because nothing inspires consumer consumption in a debt-ridden society more than barely perceptible incremental increases in their paychecks. Concerns being raised about this cut’s affecting Social Security’s viability should be drowned out by troubling comments from the right, such as Governor Rick Perry’s comparing Social Security to “a giant Ponzi scheme.” Which brings us to our next plan for creating job growth in America…

A Giant Ponzi Scheme

The traditional Ponzi scheme involves paying off early investors with money from newer investors, which is a system doomed to collapse once new capital stops flowing in. Yet what if the scheme was guaranteed by the full faith and power of the U.S. government? Then the early investors could pocket their money, and maybe spend money on an extravagant birthday party or something. We’ll all go into catering, literally catering to the rich!

Infrastructure Bank

If our roads and bridges are so important, why did we give them a name, “infrastructure,” which sounds like something the Fantastic Four use to fortify their super lab headquarters? ’Nuff said about that.

As for creating jobs, the administration would create an infrastructure bank, which could then quickly go insolvent. The government could then bail the bank out without stipulations, and the corporate officers could give themselves huge bonuses. The rising tide lifts all boats, which is great for boats, but not so great for our bridges and highways, which are crumbling.

Mortgage Reform

Nothing’s going to improve until the housing situation improves. Why don’t we just strike the last five words of that sentence?

Outsource the Unemployed

What if we paid people in Thailand to be unemployed for us? It might be cheaper. Those people work for next to nothing. Also, what if we peg the U.S. dollar to the Chinese Yuan (Their currency sounds vaguely Spanish. Did China outsource their entire economy to Mexico? This would explain a lot.), which is pegged to the dollar? It could create a time warp or a black hole or something really cool like that. Or what if we paid Mexicans to do our drugs for us, and then sold THEM the drugs? Or what if we pegged the U.S. dollar to the drugs?

Start Another War

Why is that World War II got our economy going, but now wars cost a lot of money and don’t seem to do any good? It’s like the whole military-industrial complex is just a giant Ponzi scheme that kills a lot of people. Which brings us to our next plan for creating job growth in America…

A Giant Killer Ponzi Scheme

What if we got those killer drones to attack poverty-stricken parts of the U.S? Would YOU like to get in early on this killer investment deal?

These are the options Obama’s got to work with. His best bet is that the anemic growth we’re seeing is enough to get us to 8.9 % unemployment by next year, and that by then, 8.9 % feels like good news. We’re in the new normal, people, also known as “the new awful.” The truth is that the only way to get any new stimulus through Congress is to elect a Republican president. Only crass hypocrisy can save us now!

--Dan Kilian

Mr. Obama: Playground Monitor


Batman vs. The Taliban

The Screaming Majority - 1937

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNK0FOsr8KU&w=480&h=390]

--The Screaming Majority

The Screaming Majority – Rupert Murdoch On The Line


Buncha Videos

The Screaming Majority - Corporations Are People



--Paula Carino: vocals, words/music
--Dave Benjoya: keys, bass, drums
--John Sharples: avuncular voice over
The Screaming Majority – Barack’s Immaculate Timepiece

Buncha Videos

High Drynophatic

So this old guy was up on a big rock hill –

Like a mountain?  Jeez, Cassidy, weren't you listening during, like, geometry?

Yeah, mountain, whatever.  Anyway, he was up there in a big wrinkly coat with a dirty hood –

A cloak.

Yeah, a cloak, with stars and planets and all sorts of space stuff on it –

Like the Sygils of Eronard the Lesser?

Yeah, that, and he was in front of this gross cow-gore that was –

"Cow-gore"?  WTF?

You know, the points that the cow uses to gore a matador in Spain or wherever, which is total cruelty to animals and why I am NOT going to make out with Alvaro –

But he's cute!  And it's called a horn.

Anyway, the old guy in the cloak was muttering all this stuff in Arabic or something –

Probably High Drynophatic.

Completely!  So then all this smoke comes out of his mouth and his teeth are all yellow and gross and he leans forward and blows into the 'horn' and the smoke comes billowing out and spilling down the mountain, which I'm sure is against the Clean Air Act or something –

We should boycott.

Yes!  Anyway, the smoke is all dirty and there are all sorts of gross shapes in it –

The soul-rending forms of the massless undead, torn from the fabric of Chaos by the fell sorcery of the wizard you describe?

Probably.  Anyway, the smoke poured down into the village below and the sounds of that minor extinction still haunt me!

No doubt.  We better get back to class.

--Steve Kilian
Batman vs. The Taliban

The Ghost Is Dead But The Corpse Is Still Walking Around



Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Of Ice and Sea

The spotter's airship was barely visible above.  The cable that tethered it to the deck of the icecutter hummed in the wind.  Fergus watched the broken ice refreeze in the wake of the ship, a jagged scar across the floes, poorly stitched and angry for it.  They'd been three weeks in the North, three weeks from Winterport.

The ship's surgeon joined him at the rail.  Doctor Kettering hadn't slept for days, and his skin was pale and hung slack from his bones.  "Three more today," he said.  Fergus did not begrudge him this little inhumanity.  He surely knew that the three dead sailors were Fitzpatrick, Mollineaux, and Richards.  But Fergus also knew that for the doctor to do his work he had to put some distance between himself and the men.  Or what had been men.

Soon three canvas sacks joined the scar, and by nightfall were gone from sight.

--Steve Kilian

Dropping Science


Project Run For Your Lives

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Song Request

Could you write a song about a warrior race that has some ritual dance of ascension for the new warriors which takes place on the Sands of Kraal (you can change that if it doesn't work lyrically), after which molten steel is poured into the tracings in the sand, forming unique blade patterns which are then forged into the sacred weapons of the new warriors who must then develop their own individual martial art form based on these random blades?  I know it's a lot, so you can split it over many songs if necessary.  Maybe something like:

Readying the Sands (Intro)

The Sands of Battle /The Dance of Battle

The Image in Steel

Forging

The Voice of the Blade

Finding the Way:

Part 1:  Academy

Part 2:  Challenge

Part 3:  Mastery

Readying the Sands (Outro)

Awesome!  Thanks, brother.

--Steve Kilian

The Final Thoughts of Lamplighter 34


One Great Wisdom and One Great Truth


Dino


 

Monday, August 8, 2011

Dear Acme Product Returns

Dear Acme Product Returns,

I am returning your rocket propelled bicycle, and desire a full refund. I don’t say that I expect a full refund, as I have come to learn not to expect anything from your company, or that any of my expectations shall bear fruit, but that is the idea, isn’t it?

I shall humor the process a little more: This product, rather than propelling me down the road at enormous speeds, as advertized, did something quite different. It lifted the back half of the bicycle off the ground while my front tire wobbled frontwards and back at dramatic speeds, and then the propellant tank loosened, driving me face down in the ground repeatedly.

Still I did not die. I heard a brief Doppler-ized “Beep beep” as my nemesis scooted by, but I did not die, even having been crushed into the Earth at rocket speeds, repeatedly. This is the same mocking sound I have heard so many times over the years as your products have failed me. The flying machines, the earthquake pills, spring loaded shoes. All flights fell, all springs sprung out of control, all poisons only poison coyotes, just not enough to actually kill.

How I have tried to die. No amount of bludgeoning, no crushing weight, nothing will kill me. Explosions leave me blackened, but intact. I have fallen from towering cliffs, with boulders, even huge slabs of mountainside following soon after. I see their growing shadows, but never feel the sweet kiss of oblivion.

Now I see the David Lynch movie I am in. Since I cannot die, I must already be dead. It explains this endless, lifeless desert. For I am in Hell. Year after year I strive, isolated, but for that devil of yours who speeds by for the purpose of mocking and tantalizing me.

Now I get the wicked twist that is your name. You are The Acme. The mysterious place I cannot know. Heaven. God. Does it really create such pleasure to torment me, so far below? Now that I know my punishment, is there truly no penance for whatever long forgotten sins I may have committed in my earthly form? Was I even a coyote? Is there no way back? Please. I implore you. Bring me to Acme, let me be with you. Let me be with the others in your blessed realm! I shall not eat them!

Barring that, I’d like a grenade launcher fishing pole, please. Charge it to my usual account.

Sincerely,

W. E. Coyote

--Dan Kilian

This was the program for the most recent show by The Ks! 

The Hall of IP

Sardines

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Buncha Videos

So I've been making some videos, and I just finished one, and I thought, maybe Klog's readers would like to see this! Then it occurred (which is a ridiculous looking word, all those Cs and Rs) to me that I have a lot of videos and now that I'm opening Pandora's worms I might as well hit you in one big goob.

This is the one that I just finished. It's for this project called The Screaming Majority I've been engaged in. It's for Sam Seder's Majority Report radio show, and every week we come up with a song full of lefty outrage on the current event.  This one's about Grover Norquist. If you've ever wanted to see Americans for Tax Reform satirized with muppets, now's your chance. It's called "Flipping Grover The Big Bird."
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgcD4QP1mc0&w=480&h=390]

Here's the latest one I've made for The Ks. It's called My Name Is Love
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XrQ8RhcL0w&w=640&h=390]

Some more Ks videos AND Screaming Majority videos below. More than anyone could possibly want!

The Ks

The Great Depression

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTc4qCeV3dQ&w=640&h=390]

I'm All Over The Place (Official Video)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0z-QeNWQnw&w=640&h=390]

Good Man (Most of the Time)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OpQzJjIxDE&w=640&h=390]

A Couple Nights A Week (Official Video)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcS7av8Kw9E&w=640&h=390]

Shiraqin

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7KJUhV8l9I&w=480&h=390]

The Mosquito

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psCs_j76SDE&w=480&h=390]

Election Night

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSrW65NHqgg&w=480&h=390]

The Screaming Majority:

Pray For Us Perry

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-DYg-ejtxw&w=480&h=390]

Rupert Murdoch On The Line

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VstDpEIhLnI&w=480&h=390]

Da Dumb Money

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSCeUVku3ig&w=480&h=390]

El Senador Furioso

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei29hb1kl8o&w=480&h=390]

Enough!

--Dan Kilian

Why I Listen to Monster Magnet


McMantis

Monday, August 1, 2011

Mr. Obama: Playground Monitor



Mr. Obama! Mr. Obama! Robby punched me! And he says he’s going to beat me up after school!

 Hello Donnie! So you’re saying we’ve only got until 3:00 to make you and Robby be friends?

 I don’t want to be friends with Robby!

 But friends don’t punch each other. You don’t want to be punched, do you?

Can’t you just make him not punch me?

No, that kid’s crazy! But he’s got some good ideas. If I stop him, he’ll probably just go nuts and punch everybody on the playground. You don’t want that do you?

I GUESS not.

Hey Johnnie! You’re friends with Robby, right?

I GUESS so.

Can you tell him not to hit Donnie after school today?

I can’t tell him THAT! Then he wouldn’t want to be friends with me!

All right, let’s talk to Robby. Hey Robby!

WHAT?!

You don’t want to hit Donnie here, do you?

I sure do!

Think maybe you’d like to be friends with him instead?

NO!

Well, what if, instead of beating Donnie up at 3:00, you guys trade punches? You hit him, and he hits you?

NO!

What if you get to hit him five times, and he only gets to hit you once?

NO!

Donnie, do you see how reasonable I’m being? This kid is really something.

Yeah that’s great, but he’s still gonna beat me up at 3:00.

Which is fast approaching. We’ve all got to do something. Hmm…Johnnie, you got anything?

What if at 3:00, Robby gets to punch Donnie in the face, and then, in return for not hitting him more, he gets to punch him again at 3:00 tomorrow?

No, I don’t want to be dealing with all this again tomorrow. How about, if they’re not friends in a week, then Robby can punch Donnie’s lights out.

Well, I guess I can TALK to him about it.

See what you can do. Well, that was messy, but at least we avoided a fight.

I’m still getting punched in the face.

Yes, but at least you don’t have to fight! That’s exhausting.

--Dan Kilian
The Putt Putt: World’s Best Mini Golf, Holes 1-9

Sweet Boroughs