Generate Random Lies About Obama!

The Snowed in Bunker has savagely pointed its (middle) finger at another perennial industry: online political hoax creation. With the litany of worn out, downright lame lies about Barack Obama still limping their way along the Internet, I deemed it was time to invent some fresh ones. Ten hours of labor and half a bottle of scotch later, this was born. Enjoy all the fun of muckraking, but without the questionable aftertaste.

Check it out today at www.randomobamalie.com!. Or maybe you just came here from there, in which case you'd better not unless you want to just keep linking in circles and risk dizziness.

That Old Whack Magic

I write today about something first and foremost on most of our minds today. I'm talking of course, about the scourge of witchcraft. Black magic. Good old, traditional mumbo jumbo superstition.

Now I'm not calling for a witch hunt, mind you. Lord knows Africa is already boiling over with enough bloody accusations of women and children being in league with the night. The stuff going on over there would make a 17th century Salem clergyman roll his eyes. This is more along the lines of institutionalized superstition, the kind readily accepted by every Tomuko, Dicka, and Harrito in the village. My beef lies with the guy you'd occasionally buy a good luck monkey's paw from, not the poor fool a mob stones to death because they think he cursed their cabbage patch. These are the cretins stripping the forests of wing and claw so some qat-chewing yahoo with an AK can wear a charm he's told stops bullets (As such promises usually only offer money back to the original purchaser, refund rates are kept low). This is a growth industry you won't find in the annual Forbes guide.

Much of the basis for this weirdness springs from the well worn mantra that you are what you eat. By this token, since a rhino mates for two hours, it only makes sense that chewing on a hunk of its rotting horn can unleash two hours of sheet slapping. A few bites of tiger gives you, um, a powerful roar and an uncanny ability to sniff out prey. Trump swears by the stuff. Actually it's hawked to cure everything from acne to laziness. I couldn't make this stuff up, even though I've been known on occasion to do just that*. From time immemorial, the town medicine man has been pulling this rabbit from his feathered hat. Shortly before turning it into four keychains.

By and large the biggest culprit in this nutty market is China. Ah, those ever-flaccid Chinese mystics. Just name an endangered species and you can be damn sure some 70 year old Chinaman believes the ground up powder of it's pubic bone will give him heroic wood. Setting aside the mystery of why on God's green Earth a 70 year old Chinaman would need wood, this strange phenomenon brings up a pressing question. Undoubtedly Viagra, apart from actually performing, commands just one hundredth the coin of Bengal Tiger scrotum. So why hang onto such antiquated shamanic fairy tales? Is it a reverence for ancient traditions, no matter how hair-brained? What is the fascination with maintaining every ritualistic act ever to the grace this planet? Because their great grandparents did it. Strangely enough many of the same superstitious masses have gladly moved on from great granddad's bathroom practices of wiping with oak leaves. Can we do something about getting some free pill samples distributed to save a species or three?

I have a friend who tells me that the world will end on December 21, 2012. He doesn't have a particular gift for specifics, that's merely the end of the Mayan calendar. So he (and a surprising number of otherwise intelligent folk) is saving the date for his End Times party. All based on the prophetic scrawlings of a civilization that's not only been MIA for the past 12 centuries, but also held the belief that tearing a toddler's heart from its chest every few moons made the maize crop that much sweeter. Don't get me wrong, I fully plan on attending. Its a party where half the people think the world will end and the other half figure the host won't mind if something gets broken or stolen. Should be a good time. Regrettably no word on the exact hour of the Apocalypto. Nothing worse than spending the last few hours of Earth's history in the can because you were caught doing 120 in a stolen convertible loaded with underage prostitutes. These things must be timed perfectly.

Not to state the obvious, it may have been tried, but has anyone ever flipped their calendar over? Maybe there's a little stone carved with ordering instructions for getting the new one. Like you'd find on the December 1st page of Far Side one-a-days. Or is it possible they were just plain wrong, and that their timetable is due no more reverence than the faded beliefs of leeching or not swimming half an hour after lunch? My HMO hasn't covered leechings in years, at least out of network.

It's high time the witch doctors of the world (and their customers without whom none of this grand slaughter is possible) were loaded into pickups bound for reeducation camps. There they'd be taught the basics ranging from Codeine to the modern, clinically proven methods to enable you to drive nails with your engorged Johnson. Of course it's not just the medicinal skills that need a retread. Rather than place jinxes on the village misfit with pins in a rag doll and some chicken's blood, they would be taught how to start a slanderous email chain about them. We're talking about basic, marketable skills here. I understand they're looking after job security like the rest of us, but when every albino in Tanzania is afraid to stroll to market for fear his ears will end up in some sorcerer's stew pot, its time for a new job assistance program. Guess they're striving to maintain the “Dark Continent” brand.


* I had a hard time keeping a straight face the other day when someone asked where I'd heard Chinese Olympians were bound for assembly lines once they lost. Sounds like something that could happen though doesn't it? How about this for a system- if a post looks like a news article, there's a solid chance I'm mostly full of shit. Just mostly.

Take This Job and Love It

BEIJING-
The first batch of losing Chinese athletes are due to be reassigned to various manufacturing posts beginning Friday.

According to Yang Xu of the Chinese Olympic Federation, most of the positions are low-level, usually within the textile or household goods industries scattered throughout Guangdong province. Traditionally an exception is made for those fortunate enough to at least muster a bronze in their events. These can often expect to enjoy at least a third-shift line supervisor’s position along one of the sweat-soaked assemblies.

Failed swimmer Jian Jou told the Xinhua News Agency her new job sewing zippers onto doll outfits is more than she deserves, “for so humiliating my family and my nation.” At her new wage of three dollars a day, it will take Ms. Jou a long time to repay her nation’s generosity for twelve years of intensive, if fruitless training.

To some the fourteen hour shifts may come as a welcome relief from the rigorous training schedules to which they’ve become accustomed. After being taken from their families at an average age of five, Olympic hopefuls are put through daily regimens that would make most people weep for mercy. “I hear you get Sundays off” beamed 7th place sprinter Yao Zhoung, bound for a pesticides factory. “I don’t know what I’ll do with myself all day.”

A large banner reading “Welcome Olympians to Your New Future” hung overhead at the Dongguan poultry processing factory, where a number of poorly performing athletes were soon expected.

Mr. Xu scoffed at the notion that such assignments were of a punitive nature. “There is nothing more glorious than participating in the advancement of our great State” he said. “Except of course, winning their contests as they had been instructed.”

By the end of next week, hundreds of former athletes are expected to be laboring in an array of menial, yet necessary tasks ranging from chemical mixer to quality control on new Michael Phelps apparel.

Now Hear This

We at the management of the Snowed in Bunker are aware of the ever-increasing pressures to modernize our operations and have responded in kind. At first our editor recommended a switch to soy-based inks or "something to do with our ROI". Our editor watches a lot of those IBM business commercials but doesn't quite understand them.

Instead we here in the copy room are pleased to announce the appearance of a new, bright green Technorati link, which we hope will burgeon our meager readership into some we can't count on a single, non birth-defective hand. We also now feature an RSS Feed, for her pleasure. Avoid embarrassment at your next cocktail party by not missing the latest screed from the Bunker!

China Puts on its Sunday Best

Watching the great Red unfurling last night made the past months and years of dreary Chinaphobic news melt away. It was impossible to look away from, the most stellar piece of monumental theater all but the deepest of cynics would admit to witnessing. This is what a few billion buys you these days. Plus they probably know a couple really good guys for fireworks.

I even watched the athletes march in, that never-ending segment usually signaling it's time to fix dinner or go out and change the oil. Too much was happening for a traditional narrative. Rather than compose that segment into a theme, because what theme is there but young overachievers carrying their flags into a stadium and walking in circles, here is instead my stream of consciousness. Pardon me while we shift literary gears for a moment, with apologies asked if it comes off as an incomprehensible Burrows-ian brain dump. This is what results when you forgo an edit:

Did they have to make Paraguay look like such bean farmers? Ah, traditional Chinese bagpipes in the background. Did the four Palestinians make you feel sad? Did you laugh when the John McCain commercial came on? George and Laura both checked their watches around the same time. Dubya's a real toe tapper. Halfway through if you Tivo-ed. When Iraq came by he clapped, yet looked like some guy with a belly overfull on steak and PBR. Just observing, not judging. I'm sure my Lazyboy is cushier than his bleacher. Plus there are no cameras to capture my occasional nose pick, so who's got the better seat now? Karzai's black bodyguard clearly dozing at his side, sleeping a sleep he hasn't enjoyed since signing on. Let him dream in a tranquility only 10,000 officers can provide. Sucks to be Chad or Luxembourg, settling for a quick recap after the commercials. Let's hope some of their kids get the competition over early, allowing them a week to try nailing the gymnasts already out of the running for bronze. Maybe one of those sweet Croatian chicks. And let's hope some dude from Gabon medals to win that promised dream house. Everyone walking through paint to create a footprint. Clever bastards. The UAE prime minister's daughters being the first female entrants a coincidence? That Bob Costas sure can hold his tongue, but you know he thought it was baloney too. Half the countries entered the Small World Thunderdome now. Twenty to go before the Star Spangled boys. Dubya check, he's looking ready to haul ass, leaning in with program firmly rolled in hand. You can almost hear him praying, “Screw this no alphabet in Chinese bull, when does USA come on so I can hit the head?” NBC not happy with Hugo Chavez apparently. Or the Ruskies. I was worried they wouldn't hold their hosts' feet to the flames, when they actually did talk politics I was surprisingly annoyed. Or at least felt I was being proselytized to. Looks like only Kazakhstan's mother still buys their clothes. Georgie's jacket is back on for the home team. Team USA arrives looking fresh from the yaught club. China has no time zones? Right now Mugabe is watching this from some smoke-filled Hong Kong airport bar swearing to himself. Fuck him. Good for you, Red Dragon. Nice to see them finally developing some standards. The longest Olympic wrestling match dragged on for 11 hours? Imagine making that into a film. “Come on Roc, let's get you a quick burger and a crap before the next round!” Two chunky yet cheerful female lifters in a row. Kinky. That Botswana girl was under some sort of trance à la Serpent and the Rainbow. Did I miss Jamaica dammit? Here comes the home team. What's with the holdup in the hallway, did someone chain themselves to a railing and the cameras panned away? You'll never know my friend. Let's all cry as we recall the story of the 11 year old earthquake hero. Great kid, but the commentators wanted to take that little twerp home in a silk bag for their wives. Enough of him already. Sap sells in any nation I guess. The teams mingling and whooping it up now. What a night for them. I can picture them enjoying breakfast in the communal lunch room, scolding "no politics!" to a noisy conversation and light-heartedly hurling a handful of dry Wheaties in jest. Thirty years from now, a Gabonese boy will ask “Grandpapa why do you save those old shoes with the paint on the bottom?” And the well preserved old man will laugh wistfully as he sits to tell him the story of his life.

Enough of that, it's as exhausting for the reader as it is the writer.

As an American those ceremonies scared me. Down to my bones. You already knew they had our jobs and could whip up a cheap pair of Pumas. They own our T-bills and now they've even seemingly got Hollywood licked, Spielberg or no. Is this what it looks like to see a superpower torch passed? Too early to say. But this is what they can do now, watch out.

The show did its best to support the Party view- Hey there's been upheaval here for a millenium or so, don't mind us if we need to disappear a few rabble rousers to a dark hole now and then. Look at our end product! This is the future of authoritarianism. Drink the Kool-Aid. The affair makes you so mesmerized you half don't care about the bad if this is the taste of its fruit. No accident I'm sure. Granted Taiwan had a flag agreed on by the Politburo, but the hypnotic aura designed to sooth and calm, that theirs would be a peaceful ascension if there were such a thing, could touch even the likes of Ted Nugent. Or at least elicit a “helluva show, considering..” This sounds like the nicest thing he'd be capable of saying.

My only beef came in the form of ever-present chatter from the NBC booth goons. There is an unwritten policy in effect at the National Broadcast Co. that at least two out of every five seconds must be packed with inane aural spoon feeding, lest your simple eyes and ears be distracted from the Billion dollar high def miracle before you. Are all other nation's Olympic VJ's so inclined to point out the number of laborers that hammered the steel for one of those Olympic rings? If only we could get a international visitor to pipe up on this one. I hear this Internet thing goes on all the way to deepest corners of the dark continent. Did Lauer and pals actually need to tell us “...and if you listen now you can hear her singing”? No, I can't hear. Somebody please tell them this is not Niners at Kansas City. There must be some concerted effort by the networks to dumb us down. Probably makes it easier to hawk sedans and antacids each night.

Setting aside that one whining complaint, the rest went spectacularly. The human powered jack-in-the-boxes, dancers on the surface of spinning planets, a zero gravity torch chase overhead, mind blowers all. The show's themes of Harmony and Promise did their jobs well. I know they're still building another ten jillion coal fired boilers but didn't you think, at least for a moment, that things could change after that? Slick marketing. Here's a toast to there being some substance behind that promise and that it wasn't nothing more than a 3 hour communal drug trip. We could all use it.

We here at the bunker were of mixed thoughts before this show. For a year I'd halfway hoped some madman in a parachute with the flag of Tibet stitched on his ass would land on someone's box seats. Stir up the system a bit. But after seeing this hopeful reminder of humanity, I can't help but feel more a world citizen. Yes gas is through the roof and you can't drive a mile without spying a neighbor's furniture dumped on the lawn by the sheriff when the bank came calling, but at least someone appears to be doing well. Several coats of bitter nationalism lay in pieces at my feet. Dear God, I must have been drinking scotch watching NBC late at night. That explains it. I'll likely forget it all by morning.

Save the Axes!

The staff here at the Snowed In Bunker (myself) realizes the unique position we (I) are in to enlist the help of you, the devoted reader (both of you). If you’re a follower of that harbinger of all that is bleak and depressing- the news, then you’ll be fully versed in the fact that Iron Maiden’s guitarist was ripped off in Athens yesterday. A pseudo-travesty yes, but it gets worse. Apparently this was but part of a rash of thefts of unique past-their-prime axes. In Montreal the Stooges too, fell victim. On Monday a Ryder rental truck hauling everything from their stash box (I’m assuming here) to Mike Watt’s Carter-era bass went the way of the dodo. Montreal is fast becoming the Bermuda triangle of stolen instruments, with the band-jacking becoming their version of the Nigerian royalty email.

I sense a worldwide conspiracy at work. Most likely some white, thirty-something burnout has recently come into some riches, I’m thinking Powerball, and as we speak is constructing a Dr. Evil-style rocker lair in need of stocking. “Over here we have the spandex room. Would you care to see my Hall of Guitars? Muhahahaha!”

Has one of your rocker buddies suddenly started dressing all in furs or acting like Jack Black? Have you noticed any craigs list ads inviting 80’s bands to an industrial district for a high paying gig no-questions-asked? At this rate it is just a matter of weeks before Rick Nielsen is robbed of his trademark 5-necked monstrosity in broad daylight!

It’s probably too late to help Sonic Youth recover their instruments, who endured an eerily similar Ryder truck heist in the late 90’s. Surely those have already been stripped down to their chassis and parted out, destined for one of the seedy underground guitar parts markets. But if we as a community band together (that is the first and last pun ever to be committed to print at the Snowed in Bunker), maybe we can nab these villains. And collect some consolations and kudos in the process. Maiden is offering a signed tour jacket. My advice is to throw in a lifesize Eddie doll, or a groupie or two as reward to swell the ranks of the hunt.

The Reel Thing

Now it's often said that he who isn't read will someday wish he were. Perhaps not often as I just coined it, but perhaps it might be. If only my son and his friends had known their Twain, they wouldn't so easily have ended up mowing my lawn as I slowly sipped gin and tonics from the comfort of my rocker. And while it could be argued that pushing a reel mower is somewhat more entertaining than white-washing your aunt's picket fence, the effect is the same. After just a minute's enthusiastic demonstration, the three boys were fighting over whose turn was next and I was sauntering off to the shelter of the porch fan and its aforementioned libations.


Anyone over the age of thirty having spent at least some time in the country or simply digging through a grandparent's tool shed will instantly recognize one of these blasts from the less-obese past. I say less obese because if more folks were pushing one of these whirling dervishes each weekend, the markets for diet soda, tummy tucks and gym memberships would dry up overnight. While remarkably light and maneuverable, the thing does tend to become a challenge in the thick stuff, and mine's maiden voyage took it chopping through foot-tall bahia still swelling from an afternoon's downpour. Hardly a fair test, but a typical run as I tend to ignore the lawn until I can't see my shoes on the walk to the mailbox. Normally I would have just fired up my trusty 20 horse riding mower and been done with the whole affair in a matter of three songs on the headphones. But thanks to some poorly laid gardening plans of husband and wife, a fair stretch of front lawn lay unreachable by my able Craftsman, cut off by the meandering tendrils of a patch of watermelon vine. For the past couple months I've been reduced to giving the area an occasional haircut with a weedwacker, a tedious affair at best. Why not kill that bird along with saving the Earth by saving a few gulps of gasoline? Plus a free workout would be mine. I would be the neighbor that didn't give a damn what the Joneses were up to, I was cutting my lawn the old fashioned way. The way God intended. There were no holes in this plan. The fact that the boys were doing my work for me was but sweet icing on a well thought-out cake.

As I sat in my rocker admiring the unfolding of my ingenious social experiment, I couldn't help but judge the job the three were doing. With so many blades spared unscathed in their wake it was a wonder they ever managed a decent shave. I had to remind myself the trio were each five to ten years shy of learning such a morning ritual, and forced myself to withhold judgment. Sure enough, just a few drinks later the front yard and even the side were sporting a new trimming, albeit a bit sloppy in places. I took it upon myself to show the boys how it was done and proceeded to clean up their primitive yet appreciated efforts.

I soon saw why their prepubescent attempts had failed to yield the manicured expanses I was hoping for. When your lawn is say, sixteen inches high, the spinning steel of a reel mower just tends to tickle half the blades. The things are not designed for the slovenly, they expect at least a minimal level of effort on the owner's part. A number of passes was still not enough to bring some of the longer rebel strands to bear, and I was required to rev the thing up to full speed with some quick pushes before flipping it airborne and slamming it straight down on the heads of the ornery holdouts.

I tried pointing out to the boys my discovery that their slipshod job had been due to engineering rather than incompetence on their part, but by then they had disappeared up the lane to the thrills of the neighbor's trampoline. The novelty had surely worn off or had at least been called into question. My lawn had been mowed for free the one time it ever would be. They couldn't be conned into spending another afternoon doing my bidding. Of course, there's always cash.