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Monday, December 15, 2008

Don't Look At This As Goodbye, Ed

Just that we won't share our time together here anymore. That's right, this website is now defunct. I am very excited to announce the purchase of the Shambollocks web domain. Yes, that's right-from now on, Shambollocks will be as free as a bird! So please visit us at our new location here:

http://www.shambollocks.com/

It's new, it's spiffy, and you'll love every second wasting your time with a whole slew of added features!

Thanks Blogspot for being the cradle. But now, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to kick this baby into overdrive.

Friday, December 12, 2008

'Batcat'


Will eat you alive! Mwaaahahahaaaa!

Found-MBV.

Bobby Rush-Working For Us

I know, I know, this week has not been kind to my fellow Illinois citizens. Our initial excitement at the news of Boy Blunder's downfall has turned into horrid embarrassment as the national media attention changed our state's image to that of an -izikstan. At least my wife can say she's from Iowa. Me, I got nothing.

And yesterday the Tribune reported that another Illinois politician continues their excellent public service in Congress, one Bobby Rush. Bobby is my representative in Congress, although I voted for him once-in my first election. This week, he sponsored a bill guarding our great nation from the tyranny of a false college national championship game.
He [Rep. Joe Barton of Texas]said the bill — being co-sponsored by Reps. Bobby Rush, an Illinois Democrat, and Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican — "will prohibit the marketing, promotion, and advertising of a postseason game as a 'national championship' football game, unless it is the result of a playoff system. Violations of the prohibition will be treated as violations of the Federal Trade Commission Act as an unfair or deceptive act or practice."

I give. Next time, Kara and I have the Iowa talk I'm calling her bluff.

Illinois, vote these bums out

Historical note- the above congressman waxed our President-elect in a primary here a few years back. For the record, I voted for Obama.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Afghanistan- Gung Ho? Or No?

I stand as one of the few people who said after American forces invaded Afghanistan, "This is a bad idea." For as long as we have written history, attempts at occupying that country have come to naught. And for good reason. The country is as inviting as a Rush Limbaugh, post-show hug. When you're not dealing with impassable mountains you're stuck in flesh-melting heat. The great majority of the country has no running water or electricity. The New Republic this month provides a thorough examination of just what kind of mess President-elect Obama is hell-bent on entering.

That America's October 2001 invasion failed to impose peace and stability is not exactly a surprise. Afghanistan is like a Chinese finger trap: The harder you try to solve it, the more it constricts you. Ask the Russians. In 1979, the Soviet Union sent military forces to install a pro-Soviet government in Kabul. At its peak in the country, the Red Army numbered some 140,000. But, after ten years of inconclusive fighting, 15,000 dead, and tens of thousands more wounded, the battered Soviets mounted a humiliating retreat--one that probably helped speed the collapse of their empire. ("They've already repeated all of our mistakes," one former Soviet general from the Afghan campaign recently said to The New York Times of the U.S. occupation.) Or ask the British. More than a century earlier, the United Kingdom dispatched a huge army to Afghanistan from India to secure it against Russian influence. That adventure, too, was a disaster, ending in a retreat of 16,500 troops and civilians through the Khyber Pass into Pakistan. Only one survivor made it--his life spared by the Afghans so he could recount the ghastly tale for others.

From the beginning, experts with this historical perspective in mind warned that crushing the Taliban was impossible: "No matter how successful the U.S. campaign is," wrote the Council on Foreign Relations's Kimberly Marten Zisk in November 2001, "never will all the rebels defect to the winning side. The rebels who are left will not stop fighting, no matter how hard conditions get." The past seven years have made those words look prescient. Today, the Taliban is as bold--and as brutal--as it has been since the United States first drove it from power. The Pashtun Islamic radicals who controlled the country from 1996 to 2001, and provided safe harbor to Osama bin Laden before September 11, have found sanctuary and regrouped just across Afghanistan's eastern border, in Pakistan's self-governing northwestern tribal areas.


The Afghans know how to kill and maim, yo. Obama, you best watch it. They will fight forever because that is all they know. I don't think America is ready for an interminable occupation of Afghanistan. My advice-gather a regional council of NATO, Russia, China, India, and Pakistan. Collaborate on an infrastructure for Afghanistan that gets modern knowledge and sanitation for these people. Agree to spend what it would cost to house 300,000 troops there. Invest in the Afghanis- not the crooked tribal chiefs or warlords.

Success in Afghanistan would do much to make the world forget the Iraq debacle. But it can't be done by any repeat of an Iraq strategy. When in doubt, don't forget to ask the Russians.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Twat(s) of the Day


Empire of the Sun, "Walking On A Dream" from Benjamin Technology on Vimeo.

If you were wondering what it would take to make the Chinese go all al-Queda on our asses, check out this video. Not only does the song make a Chinese laundry joke sound cutting edge, these two Australians make a video that collectively dumps on Chinese culture. It is the music video version of Road Rules Europe. Let's show how enlightened we Aussies (thank God, they are not Americans) are by trading on the same level of self-involved irony we do at home!

Please feel free to play this whenever you need an outlet for that irrational rage issue you have.

woxy Holiday Mixer

My wife is a wonderful, adorable woman in almost every conceivable, measurable way. But when Christmas comes every year she desires holiday music to the near exclusion of all else. Of all the music genres, I am quite sure that holiday music contains the most rubbish. And the most repetition. It it truly necessary to hear 'The Christmas Song' fifteen times, even if it is the classic Nat King Cole version?

To our collective rescue comes woxy with their Holiday mixer. I just listened to unique Xmas songs by Shambollocks favorites Guided By Voices and Ron Sexsmith.

Feel free to hang mistletoe with care- and with devils horns.

'Children of the Revolution'-T Rex, Elton, Ringo '72


This rocks a whole hell of a lot. Three drummers, T-Rex, and Elton bang out this classic T-Rex hit. On the flip, you also see the wasted self-love which made the '70s suck. Bolan starts off by serenading EJ from within his piano. Ringo, who directed a T-Rex feature from which this is taken, walks around in a clown suit filming T-Rex in a mirrored cube. Ick!

Amount of degradation before and after this was shot- Epic!

Found- MBV.