Easter Season Food Binge

Today's Palm Sunday in A Certain Religion. We saw His Hypocrisy parading around Rome with a woven palm frond, which reminds me that "palm" can also mean a slap to the face.

Palm Sunday is also the start of the Easter season, which I like to celebrate as the first real breakout of Spring.

I'm all about fertility rites, ya know. That makes me pro-life. ::evil grin::

Anyway, I celebrate with foods I consider traditional, so here's what was on the menu:

1. Leg of lamb, about 5 1/2 pounds, trimmed, deboned and butterflied, and smeared all over with a pesto made of basil, rosemary, Parmesan cheese, toasted chopped walnuts, garlic, kosher salt, black pepper and olive oil (makes a nice paste in the processor). Roast fat side up at 325 degrees for 2 hours and it came out deliciously tender, flavorful and medium.

2. Baked sweet potatoes with butter and cinnamon

3. Sweet corn with butter sauce.

4. Homemade cherry pie. I added a tablespoon of Amaretto to the filling, and lined the pie dish with butter and sugar before adding the crust. Tasty!

Meanwhile, Elsewhere in the World

While we've been occupied with the Health Care Reform Law (yes, it's a law now, so get over it, my fellow Republicans), there have been a few things going on in the rest of the world. Important things, too.

A nuclear weapons reduction treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation expired back in December, and we've been negotiating for the past few months. Well, it was announced that Presidents Obama and Medvedev have agreed to a new treaty.

The new reduction pact cuts our nuclear arsenals down to 1,550 warheads each, because let's face it, if you can't destroy Civilization with 1,550 nuclear weapons you may as well hang it up and go fishing.

So Obama has two victories under his belt this month - the centerpiece of his domestic agenda was passed, and now he has a real, bona fide foreign policy accomplishment under his belt. Bravo!

A South Korean warship suffered an explosion and sank near the maritime demarcation line between the two Koreas. That begs the question - how do you draw a line in the water? The matter's being investigated, but with the North having made threats, including a nuclear first strike ... well, this situation bears watching, big time.

Iraq had an election this past week, with Ayad Allawi showing a possible majority over incumbent Nuri al-Maliki. Recounts are being called for, and Iraq's government is showing signs of queasiness. I wonder if we can persuade a bunch of GOP staffers to drop by and intimidate the vote counters, like they did in 2000?

Elections are coming up in Britain on May 6th, and things are getting a bit nuts over in Blighty. There's an airline strike, and scandals are dogging the incumbent Labour Party and PM Gordon Brown. There's been some criticism by the military that Brown, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, had short-changed the Army and other branches by giving them substandard equipment (sound familiar?)

Well, Brown's upped the ante by having a new rule issued - all military personnel, regardless of rank, now have to travel second class. Even generals and admirals, which really has them foaming at the mouth. Of course, Members of Parliament and Ministers still have first class travel privileges. This is going to be fun to watch.

One high-ranking Cardinal in the Catholic Church is saying that a thorough 'housecleaning' is required to get the pedophiles out of the Church, while some are calling on Pope Benedict to resign. Well, folks - that probably won't happen. One of the last papal resignations was about 600 years or so back, and it caused a lot of trouble.

And finally - oh yeah, this is so wrong on so many levels.

Separate But Equal Rears Its Head Again

Yes, indeed, gentle readers, here in America everything old can be brand new again.

Take, for example, the Commandant of the Marine Corps and his Congressional testimony on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

General James Conway told the panel that if gays were allowed to serve openly in the military, his Marines would have to have segregated housing. Keep The Gay isolated, so it doesn't infect or bother the Normals.

(I'm condensing what he had to say a bit, of course.)

Needless to say, this will go a long way to destroying the Marines as an effective fighting force by wrecking the very unit cohesion the General seeks to preserve. Other nations manage quite well having integrated units in their military. Unless, of course, General Conway would like to characterize the Israeli Defense Forces as a bunch of mincing nancy boys.

And, of course, all this bother masks a very real problem in our military - sexual assault.

No, I don't mean our clean-cut lads getting jumped by out-of-control perverts (although what do we have a Navy for, I shouldn't wonder). I mean, of course, the current and probably increasing plague of sexual assaults by American men on American women serving in the military. I say "probably increasing," as it's rather hideously under-reported, whether through shame or fear of reprisal.

Unfortunately, that also damages unit cohesion. Maybe General Conway should be asked whether he thinks we should get women out of the military, too.

Pity Glenn Beck

Not for his rapidly disintegrating mental capacity, or for his already deteriorating grasp on anything smacking of reality. Oh my, no.

Pity him for the loss of his favorite whipping post.

ACORN, the community organization that went around and registered a lot of low-income and minority voters, has been forced to disband. Part of the reason was the video scandal that erupted when a twentysomething named James O'Keefe posted up a video claiming that he and another person (dressed as a pimp and his prostitute) allegedly got information on how to illegally register to vote.

The video was discredited, and the paper that broke the story has had to apologize.

But the damage was done, and the organization lost funding as several of its largest components went their separate ways.

So Beck will find something else to scribble on his chalkboard and smear onion juice under his eyes about.

Bill McCollum Hates Florida's Sick People

At about 11:30 AM today, President Obama signed the health care reform bill into law.

At about 12:02, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum filed suit against the new law, alleging that it is unconstitutional.

I look forward to reading the briefs for the various arguments, but this is a political move on McCollum's part. See, he wants to be Florida's next Governor, since incumbent Charlie "For the Last Time, I'm NOT Gay" Crist has opted out of re-election in favor of anal rape at the hands of the frenetic Marco Rubio.

McCollum can energize the Stupid Wing of the GOP by attacking what might be considered "socialized medicine" if it ever held anything in it that smacked of socialism. He can also use it to bash Democratic candidate Alex Sink, Florida's current CFO, over the head with it.

Sink, for her part, would be well-served with running attack ads that blare out what I've penned as the title to this post.

How do I know this is a purely political move?

Simple.

Florida has a massive budget deficit, so McCollum's decision to join the lawsuit against the health care reform law will only hurt things further. But that's okay - the GOP-controlled Legislature can always cut a few more social programs.

Say! Are there any widows and orphans they can steal pennies from?

We're Waiting, Rush

Hey, Rush Limbaugh!

You said that you would emigrate to Costa Rica if Congress passed the health care reform bill.

Why haven't you left yet?

Hell, Fat Boy, I'll help you pack!

Just let the door hit you on the way out - don't want to aggravate those pilonidal cysts.

Well, This Didn't Take Long

Only a matter of time for the topical Downfall parody to come out:

Sauve qui Peut!

That's French, by the way. It essentially means "Every man for himself!" and was the cry heard after the French line broke under the Allied charge at Waterloo.

So, what does this mean? you may ask.

Well, I'll tell you.

David Frum is a former speechwriter for George Bush the (very) Lesser and a conservative columnist. In the wake of the health care vote he penned a column titled "Waterloo." Allow me to share it with you:

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:

(1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.

(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.

So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:

A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.

Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.

****

Or, in the words of the immortal Walt Kelly's Pogo, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

March of the Scumbags, Week Two

The Florida Legislature was hard at work over the past couple weeks, with the majority Party (special no-prize for guessing who) grunting and swinging from the light fixtures as they hurled their own feces at each other and spent time in rooms full of crank and cheap booze, plotting to screw the people of Florida.

As related earlier, Florida has about a three billion dollar hole in its budget, and the state Constitution forbids deficit spending. So we need to close that hole - but without paying taxes.

So, what shall the poo-flinging monkeys do?

Why, penalize people, of course!

Three bills currently in committee (two in the House, one in the Senate) would put limits on the retirement funds for police and other law enforcement officers, firefighters, and EMTs. The limits would be things like raising the age a person could be eligible, how much they can get paid, etc.

Now, these people are the guardians of our society, and while I'm Republican and realize the need for fiscal responsibility, you shouldn't pursue it by penalizing those people who are trying to protect your sorry asses.

What else have the Scumbags done so far? Well, they have a law approved by both chambers that would prevent adoption agencies from asking if prospective parents own guns. The NRA, naturally, backed this to the hilt, and I approve - who cares if Little Knothead blows his head off or shoots someone? The Republicans and conservatives in Tallahassee don't care about kids after they're born, after all.

Another bill would excuse nursing mothers from jury duty. I can see this - you don't want a lawyer summing up in court and getting distracted. "And so, ladies and gentlemen of the jury - WHOA! Get a look at those gazongas!"

Another plan to cut the deficit would slash funding to public libraries. Sure, and why not? People don't need to read - they might LEARN something! Let them get what they need to know from the Texas Board of Education and Fox 'News.'

The March goes on, and we shall all get taken for a ride.

Tonight's the Night!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, tonight is the night when we see if the centerpiece of President Obama's domestic legislative agenda will succeed, or be sent down to defeat.

No matter what, this is the closest we've come to health care reform in over a hundred years. Quite an accomplishment, and it could have been done a lot faster had not Obama insisted on trying to accommodate the Republicans.

Yeah. About those Republicans.

The Tea Party 'astroturf' movement, quietly subsidized by various conservative leading lights and the GOP itself, has started to get uglier. Two leading African-American members of Congress were subjected to racist epithets, and one managed to scream "Kill the bill!" from the House gallery as debate began.

Yesterday, Rep. John Boehner (R-Coppertone) said that "Armageddon" would follow if the bill passed. You really have to love the apocalyptic language, which buys into the radical racist yahoo fringe of the Party and their fixed contention that Obama is the Antichrist.

I know he's not. He's far too nice.

Anyway, we'll know one way or the other by tomorrow.

Buckle up; it's going to be a bumpy night.

The House Republicans kept squealing that we needed to see what the Congressional Budget Office (a non-partisan beancounter group) had to say about the bill. In the past, the GOP has accepted the figures of the CBO as gospel. This bill? The CBO's assertion that it would lower the deficit was derided as an 'estimate.'

Bismarck famously said that laws are like sausages - you don't want to watch either being made, and in truth this has been one truly ugly process.

I just hope no one ends up dead. Considering the penchant of the teabaggers to scream about revolts and civil wars, not to mention wave guns around and make variously implicit and explicit threats of violence, I fear it's only a matter of time.

And if you thought this process was ugly, wait until you see the immigration reform.

Support the Troops!

see more Epic Fails

The True 'Death Panel'

The Preamble to the US Constitution states, among other things, that the people of the United States set up the Constitution in order to "promote the General Welfare."

If that isn't a ringing endorsement for the idea of health care reform, I'm not sure what is.

Now, to be certain, the health care reform bill before the Congress - either version - isn't perfect. It's more insurance reform than any attempt to create an actual health care plan along the lines of, say, Australia/Costa Rica/Germany/Canada/etc. But with insurance companies causing a lot of the ruckus with our health care system it's at least a start.

That doesn't sit well with Certain Serious People - and you can tell they're Serious because they have The Serious Look on their faces.

The Look that says "We're so sorry that you had to see this."

Surprisingly, most of the people having the Serious Look regarding health care reform are Republicans. Imagine that. These wonderful conservatives, who currently enjoy majorities in the Congress (at least, if you listen to Fox News they do) are complaining that the Nasty Evil (EVIL!) Democrats are trying to "ram" the bill "down our throats."

The bill - in both incarnations - has been hanging fire for months now, so long that the alternatives of reconciliation or 'deem and pass' have been bruited about in order to get the bugger to the President before Easter. 'Deem and pass' - sounds like a small defile in the Old West: "We'll head 'em off at Demon Pass, old geezer."

'Deem and pass' is a perfectly legal maneuver, by the way. It's been used a lot in the past 30 years, and a lot of those times the GOP's been in charge of the process.

Another point you keep hearing is that the USA has the best health care system in the world, extolling the quality of care while at the same time bemoaning the skyrocketing costs and massive disparity between those who have medical care and those who have to haunt emergency rooms. Cognitive dissonance used to be painful - guess you can get used to anything.

So the Party of Screw You (which used to be the Party of No, a/k/a the Republican Party) will not be any help, not that that's a great surprise. The GOP has voted largely en bloc in the negative since Obama was sworn in. Of course, that hasn't stopped Congresscritters (both Seniles and Reprehensibles) from boasting to their constituents about bringing them stimulus money that they voted against. Gotta love that bitter tang of hypocrisy.

In fact, the chief GOP Reprehensible, Rep. John "I'm An Orange Smurf!" Boehner and the top leadership of the Republican caucus managed to stand up on their hind legs and stop masturbating furiously to Sarah Palin / Michelle Bachmann slash fiction long enough to swear that they'll repeal the health care legislation if they regain control of the Congress.

That's why I'm calling the GOP - my Party, by the way - the Party of Screw You. That's what they want to do, you know. Bend you over and screw you, so long as they continue to line their pockets and those of the Upper One Percent of the economy. Rep. Patrick Ryan's GOP budget proposal (sort of a "Contract On America" redux) actually spells that out: if you make less than $20,000 a year, you get a tax break, and if you make more than $200,000 a year you make out like a thief. For those of you in the middle, myself included - we'd better get used to spending lots more on Preparation H.

Idaho Governor Butch Otter (Otter? So THAT'S where he went after Animal House!) has weighed in, saying that his state will sue the Federal Government if the bill passes, and the Mafia Don masquerading as Virginia's Attorney General is also making noises about it. Naturally, guess which Party these fools belong to?

That's right.

Of course, we've seen this before, with Medicare and with Social Security way back in the 30s. But once people get over the shock of the new (and we iron out the bugs in the bill; like I said earlier, it ain't perfect) things will settle down. According to the CBO, the program actually lowers costs and decreases the deficit.

Which brings me to the death panels, use of which term has reared its misshapen head again this week. The GOP started this crap, as usual - that there'll be a shadowy cabal of faceless bureaucrats who will arbitrarily decide who gets medical care and who doesn't.

News flash, people.

There already are death panels.

But they aren't faceless government bureaucrats.

They're faceless insurance company bureaucrats.

That's why we have to reform the system.

Meet the real Government Death Panel, folks (partial list only):

Senator Mitch McConnell
Senator Lindsay Graham
Senator Ben Nelson (token Democrat)
Senator Jim DeMint
Rep. John Boehner
Rep. Eric Cantor
Rep. Mike Pence
Rep. Michelle Bachmann
Gov. Butch Otter
Sarah Palin

St. Patrick's Day - Fox News Style

Fair ...



... and Balanced.



Erin go Bragh!

Wow ... Just ... Wow.

First it was the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Now we have this. (h/t Pharyngula).

I'll nominate myself as First High Priest.

So THAT'S What's Wrong

Silly us.

Here it was always assumed that the current crop of sex, pedophilia, and child abuse scandals currently plaguing the Catholic Church were the fault of sexually repressed celibates whose semen has backed up into the brains and fried what was left of their synapses.

Silly us.

The official Vatican Exorcist (yes, there actually is one, and he looks nothing like Max von Sydow) has a better explanation.

Satan is stinking up the place around St. Peter's.

Yeah.

Satan.

If this schlock says that "The Devil made them do it," I expect the estate of the late Flip Wilson to sue their surplices off.

What Are You Afraid Of?

I've started asking my fellow Republicans that, because it really interests me. The power point recently leaked from the Republican National Committee's fundraising section seems illuminating enough, complete with scary caricatures of Obama, Pelosi and Reid. But what, if anything, are the rank and file of the Party (and the Tea Partiers, Independents, Christians, etc.) supposed to be afraid of?

"They're taking away our rights!"

I hear that a lot, but let's unpack that a bit, shall we?

If we examine the Bill of Rights, we see that the majority of our rights in the first ten Constitutional amendments are still intact. I haven't seen Rush Limbaugh imprisoned, or Glenn Beck put away into a mental asylum. I haven't even seen AM talk radio or Fox News suppressed, let alone any of last year's Tea Parties dispersed by baton-wielding cops.

Freedom of Religion? One of the things that has become very tiresome to hear is the constant screeching that Christians are an oppressed minority, being persecuted by Godless Atheists. As of 2009, there are about 249 million people in the USA who identify themselves as Christians, as opposed to 2 million self-identified atheists, irreligious, skeptics, etc. Hardly seems a fair fight.

Right to bear arms? With the Supreme Court poised to strike down municipal gun-control laws, I don't see why people say this. The Dems tried this about twenty years ago, failed, and there's no sign of any legislative push against guns.

Right to privacy's taken a lot of hits, thanks to the "USA PATRIOT Act." I won't go out of my way to say who was the majority Party and President back then (GOP and GWB) - that's SO pre-9/11.

"Obama's a Socialist/Muslim/Fascist/Atheist/Communist/Progressive/Doodyhead/Liberal/Stalinist/etc.!" (Pick one, people - some of these are mutually exclusive)

There's currently only one close-to-genuine Socialist in Washington right now, and he's a Senator from Vermont. What people are saying with the above declaration is that they're afraid of that 'change' thing. Machiavelli put it best when he said there's nothing harder than doing real change - the people who are against it are solidly against it, and even your supporters will be lukewarm. No matter what he does, it's an uphill climb.

"Obama's made us less safe!"

How? He's unleashed more missiles from more drones than his predecessor, he sent more troops into Afghanistan, and he personally authorized Navy snipers to kill Somali pirates. The Underpants Bomber merely points out the stupidity of trying to make airport security airtight. A lone fanatic will always make it through.

"Obama's trying to enlarge government!"

So did Bush, with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security.

"We don't need government-run health care!"

Ever heard of Medicare? Medicaid? COBRA? Those are government-run health care programs. Fifteen times the number of people who died on 9/11 die every year from lack of affordable health care. THAT fact should scare the fertilizer out of you.

So you see, gentle readers, you really DON'T have much to be afraid of - apart from the lies, hatred and sheer screaming bullshit spewing from Fox News. But this rabid pandering to The Fear has finally touched a nerve. People have started to close their wallets to the GOP (notably a big-time private evangelical donor) and the GOP Senate leadership has had to start running away from their own Party's strategy.

So calm down. There is less here than meets the eye.

March of the Scumbags

The Florida Legislature opens its 2010 session with the Governor's 'State of the State' Address.

No rotten tomatoes will be allowed.

Then the Republican-controlled houses will start meeting to figure out how they can get out of actually doing anything to help the people who elected them.

The state budget's got a $3 billion hole in it, but Cthulhu forbid that taxes should be raised - in fact, there's a bill already on the table that would hold off increases in unemployment taxes.

So the gap will only get bigger. Since the state can't run a deficit Governor Crist, who has decided not to run for re-election in favor of getting anally raped by Marco Rubio in the Senate race, will be forced to accept cuts in spending that will continue to cripple the state.

Lots of fun are expected.

Another item or two from the GOP's Stupid Wing includes a bill to outlaw abortion clinics.

News flash: Abortion is LEGAL. It's been LEGAL for 38 years, and the sooner you crotch-sniffers and Jesus Freaks understand that the better off you'll be. Women are no longer chattel slaves and brood mares. Get over it.

So we strike up a nice piece of music and sit back to watch the March of the Scumbags.

Westward the Course of Empire

If you take the long view,it had to happen sooner or later.

The United States ended up on top of the heap in terms of global hegemony and power projection after World War Two. Let's face it - it couldn't have been anyone else. The British Empire had been bled into relative impotence, the Russians were still recovering from the Great Patriotic War, and there was no one else.

Over the next five or six decades the United States could basically project its power wherever it wanted. Aircraft carrier battle groups were a familiar sight in foreign waters, and the possibility of the Marines showing up on your doorstep usually was enough of a threat to keep the smaller and more troublesome nations in line.

No more, according to a recent study by Andrew Krepinevich with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Other nations have learned from our example and are devising ways of limiting our global reach.

Those two nations are the People's Republic of China and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The Iranians have the ability now to shut down the strategic Strait of Hormuz with antiship missiles and torpedoes. Their ability to defend themselves has increased since we beat Iraq down, to the point that they can put allegedly their nascent nuclear stockpile out in the open and dare us to do something about it.

The Chinese are developing a blue-water naval defensive capability, to include two aircraft carriers. Their first line of maritime defense starts at Guam, and they have the capability to make life very difficult for the Navy if we move assets into the area around Taiwan, as we did back in 2001. They're also showing a lot of progress in cyberspace operations.

Does this come as a surprise? Not really; a clear-minded thinker could have told you that we've been teaching other nations how to counter our military forces for years now.

Want to hamstring our ground forces? Insurgency operations.

Want to hamstring our air superiority? Keep your troops mingled with the civilian population.

Want to hamstring our naval forces? Develop next-generation ship killers, like the Russian Shkval, which can reach speeds of 200 mph.

Our military, particularly the Navy, has grown to become a burden on our resources. The Fleet is now composed of fewer than three hundred very expensive ships, the centerpieces of which are the current Nimitz-class carriers. They're big and pretty impressive, but the late Admiral Hyman Rickover, the 'Father of the nuclear Navy,' didn't give them much of a chance in the face of a determined enemy.

And, according to the study, there is a solution.

It just hasn't been thought of yet.

Meanwhile, the ability of the United States to trail its coats wherever it wants continues to wane.

Religious Ads We'd Love To See

Ia! Ia! Ia Cthulhu ftaghn!