World O' Crap

Random Scenes of the Old Home Town

2012-03-05T17:44:00.000-08:00

Newport Bay from Balboa Island.

It's Probably Something You Effemin-ate.

2012-03-03T01:51:00.003-08:00

By Keith:

Hello. Today we have a lecture on a subject that is dear to everyone – nutrition. And none other than World Net Daily columnist Jim Rutz is here to explain why America is going, well, “sooo, so gay.”

Jim Rutz, "chairman of Megashift Ministries" and a man who knows that while a suede jacket is nice, a suede jacket dripping with fringe is fabulous!

SOY IS MAKING KIDS 'GAY'

There’s a madness to Rutz’s method. I hope you will enjoy it.

There’s a slow poison out there that’s severely damaging our children and threatening to tear apart our culture. The ironic part is, it’s a “health food,” one of our most popular.

Hmm, let’s see, could it be McNuggets? KFC bucket? Reveal to us more, Jim.

Now, I’m a health-food guy, a fanatic who seldom allows anything into his kitchen unless it’s organic. I state my bias here just so you’ll know I’m not anti-health food.

Well with food, even staples, rising in price I can’t always afford a free-range chicken. But agree, I seldom allow anything that isn’t organic into my kitchen. Even the toaster is made from disposable diapers rescued from Fresh Kills (and it’s a Cuisinart).

We don’t have roaches anymore, but when we did, they were organic as well.

The dangerous food I’m speaking of is soy. Soybean products are feminizing, and they’re all over the place. You can hardly escape them anymore.”

Tell me all about it Jimmy. On my last trip to “Trader Joe’s” I was attacked by a dozen very sexy-looking packages of tofu, although their makeup was smeared. I had to fight them off with broccoli spears. Turns out the poor things were lacking in moisture and only wanted beer which the general manager kindly provided.

I have nothing against an occasional soy snack. Soy is nutritious and contains lots of good things. Unfortunately, when you eat or drink a lot of soy stuff, you’re also getting substantial quantities of estrogens.

Estrogens are female hormones. If you’re a woman, you’re flooding your system with a substance it can’t handle in surplus. If you’re a man, you’re suppressing your masculinity and stimulating your “female side,” physically and mentally.

Thanks, Jim. But estrogens don’t exist entirely in the domain of the ladies, anymore than testosterone is solely confined to us guys. It’s just that the gals don’t usually behave, or write, like wanking ‘tards.

It’s like those things that poke out of your tee-shirts, Jim, you know, nipples. And if you ever bothered to “go downtown” on your loved one you might discover more ... but we digress.

In fetal development, the default is being female. All humans (even in old age) tend toward femininity. The main thing that keeps men from diverging into the female pattern is testosterone, and testosterone is suppressed by an excess of estrogen.

If you’re a grownup, you’re already developed, and you’re able to fight off some of the damaging effects of soy. Babies aren’t so fortunate. Research is now showing that when you feed your baby soy formula, you’re giving him or her the equivalent of five birth control pills a day. A baby’s endocrine system just can’t cope with that kind of massive assault, so some damage is inevitable. “At the extreme, the damage can be fatal.

Ok, Jim. I’ve learned something here. I didn’t know that blastocysts preferred the female sex. Always thought it was a biological contingency ... you know, a gestation thingy. Seems sex selection is random enough.

And will someone out there please lead me to understand the phrase “female pattern?” I tried googling but all I got were sites dealing with paper dress designs, some lovely by the way, for those who possess the art of tailoring.

Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That’s why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today’s rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!) Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t homosexual.” No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can’t remember a time when excess estrogen wasn’t influencing them.

OK. I get it. It’s all Aunt Mary’s fault. She was an ardent Seventh-Day Adventist and always fed me and my brother those soy faux-hamburgers that came in a can from Loma Linda. Aunt Mary. You made me what I am today.

Doctors used to hope soy would reduce hot flashes, prevent cancer and heart disease, and save millions in the Third World from starvation. That was before they knew much about long-term soy use. Now we know it’s a classic example of a cure that’s worse than the disease. For example, if your baby gets colic from cow’s milk, do you switch him to soy milk? Don’t even think about it. His phytoestrogen level will jump to 20 times normal. If he is a she, brace yourself for watching her reach menarche as young as seven, robbing her of years of childhood. If he is a boy, it’s far worse: He may not reach puberty till much later than normal.

Oh, lord, where is the damn Merck Manual when it’s needed the most?

Research in 2000 showed that a soy-based diet at any age can lead to a weak thyroid, which commonly produces heart problems and excess fat. Could this explain the dramatic increase in obesity today?

Recent research on rats shows testicular atrophy, infertility and uterus hypertrophy (enlargement). This helps explain the infertility epidemic and the sudden growth in fertility clinics. But alas, by the time a soy-damaged infant has grown to adulthood and wants to marry, it’s too late to get fixed by a fertility clinic.

Well, Jim, we’re getting to know you in an intimate fashion. You have a little, itty-bitty penis shaped like that of a rat. Also mate selection is difficult because it’s awkward for your companion to pick that poor pecker out with tweezers, much less get it past the aspirin she’s holding between her knees. And I’ll bet you’re so cheap you won’t even take her to a nice restaurant after all her trouble.

And just, dear readers, when you thought things couldn’t get worse ...

Worse, there’s now scientific evidence that estrogen ingredients in soy products may be boosting the rapidly rising incidence of leukemia in children. In the latest year we have numbers for, new cases in the U.S. jumped 27 percent. In one year!

There’s also a serious connection between soy and cancer in adults – especially breast cancer. That’s why the governments of Israel, the UK, France and New Zealand are already cracking down hard on soy.

(I have a friend who lost his son to childhood leukemia so I’m just going to pass on this one.)

In sad contrast, 60 percent of the refined foods in U.S. supermarkets now contain soy. Worse, soy use may double in the next few years because (last I heard) the out-of-touch medicrats in the FDA hierarchy are considering allowing manufacturers of cereal, energy bars, fake milk, fake yogurt, etc., to claim that “soy prevents cancer.” It doesn’t.

Well then. What have we to learn from this unexpected editorial comment on the evil of soy? My first experience with soy, apart from Aunt Mary’s Loma Linda burgers (which were very tasty, as I remember) was driving a friend’s 1967 Corvette very fast late at night in rural Virginia and missing a left turn. That missed turn took us through a huge soybean plantation ... and for the rest of the weekend we worked hard in the garage ‘round the clock to pick those damn soybeans out of the chassis.

But Jim, just because I have known soy, and have had accidents with soy, I don’t remember my penis size decreasing as a result. It’s still about the same size it was back in the day although it now has a small mole (which my doctor says is just fine).

But Jim still gets the last word. Sometimes fermentation absolves all.

P.S.: Soy sauce is fine. Unlike soy milk, it’s perfectly safe because it’s fermented, which changes its molecular structure. Miso, natto and tempeh are also OK, but avoid tofu.

[Scott here, with a little mnemonic device to help you fellas avoid unwanted estrogen. "Remember: Soy Sauce is Boy Sauce, but Tofu is Too Fey."]

Behold, a Pale Horse! And Its Rider's Name was Swank

2012-03-02T01:24:00.000-08:00

Well, the Internet seemed to be tying itself in knots over Andrew Breitbart's abrupt exit all day, while the world outside my computer seemed as blissfully ignorant of his death as it was of his existence. I don't really have much to add to the retrospective; in fact, I woke up with a bad headache and didn't even turn on the Mac until after lunch, so I wasn't aware Mr. Big (Fill in the Blank URL) had smeared his last smear until I got an email from Keith, to which I replied, "For those who believe in a Better World, they can take comfort in the knowledge that Breitbart's body has now been reunited with his soul, which predeceased him by several decades." (And I'll apologize for that just as soon as Breitbart retracts his statement that the still-cooling corpse of Ted Kennedy was "a prick.")

Anyway, the conspiracy theories are just getting started, so if you weren't sick of Breitbart and his act before, you'll still have plenty of time to catch up (it's not like deciding suddenly to start watching Lost midway through the fourth season). Personally, though, I'm not in the mood, so I'm giving most of my go-to wingnut sites a wide berth tonight. But then the thought occurred to me: "You know what? We really need some Pastor Swank up in this bitch."

Criminal Jesus? : 'They Hate Me. They Will Hate You Too!'

Sometimes I wonder if the world considers Jesus the Criminal of All Time.

Yes, probably because of that sign over the cross ("INRI," as we all learned in Sunday School, being the Latin abbreviation for "Thug Life").

You'd think so. The way that some rail against Him, His teachings, His church, you'd think that Jesus was one of the most ardent con artists of all time.

No, you're thinking of St. Paul, whose "Letter to the Corinthians" was the Nigerian email scam of its day.

Jesus is hauled off of public property. There He is but a Baby in a manger setting.

Do you have any idea how many harmful parasites and bacteria can thrive in donkey and goat dung? It's no wonder somebody called Child Protective Services and had that kid hauled out of there -- even if he was plastic. (Full disclosure: When I was a child, our family had a very elaborate Nativity Scene that I would help my father assemble each Christmas, until we moved to an exurban area and had to give it up because the placenta was attracting wolves.

Yet He's flung across the lot into some warehouse or dumpster for His very presence is "offensive." So there go Mary and Joseph as well. And the angels to boot.

Is Jesus that outrageously awful? What crime did He commit?

Certainly not Littering.

What terrible deed did He set upon humanity by which, two thousand years later, He's scorned, lifted up as a Madman and then derailed from political life, government property and the marketplace.

I didn't realize Jesus was planning to run for public office, but it seems like the time is ripe. In years past, the Press Corps might have demanded he explain his relationship with Mary Magdalene, but in the post-David Vitter GOP, consorting with prostitutes seems to be a vote-getter.

Santa can stay. Elves can play around. Frosty can scamper. But Jesus has to go.

Apparently because he refused to frolic.

The culture has a hatred settled in maximum when it comes to Jesus.

I hate when that happens, but I keep my hatred settled in minimum to keep winter fuel bills down.

But when I read about Him in the historic records - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

Your standards of historiography are high, Pastor, but let's not forget Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, which is even more historical, because it includes the Apostle Spider-Man.

- I don't come upon a distasteful personality.

Which is unusual for scripture. For instance, Zoroaster spends a good 70% of the Yasna Haptanghaiti calling Ahura Mazda "bossy" and "kind of an asshole."

It's this Jesus who drives straight the discrimination against women by speaking to a Samaritan woman - one considered a half-breed by the culture. He not only speaks with her but offers hope of forgiveness and new life in grace.

Unfortunately, it's Nancy Grace.

It's this Jesus who reaches out to the lepters - the scum of society of the first cenutry rule.

Lepters were first created in the First Century A.D., when the Large Hadron Collider (then located in Rome, and made of terra cotta) accelerated a lepton into a high energy leper.

It's this Jesus who then climbs upon a Roman cross, permitting soldiers to drive spikes into His flesh. He, having committed no wrong, no crime, broken no law, hangs between the skies till He dies.

It's too bad Bill O'Reilly wasn't at the Crucifixion, because then he could have shot Jesus right between the head and put him out of his misery.

Having no money for His own burial plot, He's placed in a borrowed gravesite.

The owner was a little leery, because Christ never brought back that Garden Weasel he borrowed, but amazingly, he promptly returned the plot three days later.

And for His thirty-three years of caring for people, loving the lvoeless and pointing folk to heaven, He's still screamed at, strewn across history's pages as a maniacal religious zealot, and then hacked to pieces in one court room after another.

I always thought that Bailiff from Night Court looked a little unstable.

The ACLU breathes daily to crucify Jesus afresh.

I'm not exactly sure what this sentence is supposed to mean, but I think the ACLU is endorsing Mentos.

So some school personnel - from superintends to classroom teachers to custodians and bus drivers. And those who don't are in fear of losing their positions if they speak out in defense of Jesus.

I remember when I got called into the superintends' officedent. It was so.

There are town clerks who wake up in the morning just to see if any Jesus follower comes into the office with the attempt to display a Nativity School in fonrt of town hall. If the request commes to the desk, the inquirer's knuckles are wrapped and the posterior is pointed to the town hall's exit sign.

So if you want a permit to display a Nativity School in fonrt of town hall, just be aware that they'll make you wrap your knuckles and box the city clerk. And if you lose, you get sodomized by the signage.

Why?

You tell me.

What did Jesus do to the ACLU? What did Jesus do to harm town hall or the school district or the mall? What did Jesus do to hurt society and destroy culture? What, in God's name, did Jesus do to deserve such hatred?

Wait, so now the mall hates Jesus? That's a little hypocritical, considering how much money they make off him every year, although I can certainly see why the Fed-Ex delivery guy hates him.

Yet, Jesus, knowing the desperate damage done to the moral's soul in The Fall, forecast that He would be despised. He would be hated of all men. And those who pikced up His cross dailyi, following in His bloody footsteps, would be despised as well. They would be hated.

Well, they did track blood all over the carpet.

So today those who attempt to sing about the redemption of Jesus' blood in a Unitarian Church are told to worship someplace else.

The same thing happened to me when I tried to sacrifice a ram. Unitarians got a stick up their ass.

Those who speak of Jesus in a public classroom, or, God forbid, try to sing a Christian Christmas carol in a school program, are marched to the courts.

Largely because the courts are better funded than the schools in this country, so the kids get a more comprehensive education there. You probably remember this phenomenon from the end of every Dragnet episode ("On March 2nd, a science class was held in Superior Court, in and for the County of Los Angeles. In a moment, the results of that class." [Spoiler alert: the District Attorney stuck toothpicks in a potato and suspended it in a glass of water to prove it would sprout roots.])

So the Christians persist against the secularists - the ACLU, godless school principals and unbelieving teachers, apostate clergy in various denominating, and those who masquerade as do-gooders for society who all the while work to crush religious freedom, Christian witness, and the due rights of believers to tell the old, old story of the cross.

So I think what the Pastor is trying to say here is, if your story is stale, try Mentos. It's the Freshmaker.

Why Must They Laugh at My Mighty Wand?

2012-02-28T00:37:00.000-08:00

National Review Online editor Kathryn Jean Lopez is furious! Her boyfriends, the Virginia General Assembly, were this close to passing their Chick on a Stick law, but it was snatched away at the last moment by opponents armed with "humor," which according to Kathryn Jean's reading of the rulebook constitutes illegal use of a foreign object.

Jests Mask a More Sinister Agenda

Medieval Fool attired in traditional Pro-Choice Motley.

There's no doubt that Planned Parenthood and its supporters had a brilliant strategy: Get as many people as possible to repeat the word "transvaginal" in news and commentary stories, and accomplish two things: Defeat legislation at hand and make your opposition look like a freak show.

I'd think the mere fact of the Virginia State government decreeing that a patient be forced to pay for her abortion not merely in specie but in pain and humiliation was enough to bring them into ill repute, but no; apparently "transvaginal" is a magic word, and like "Avada kedavra!" it killed the Virginia Vaginal Invasion Act of 2012. (Full disclosure: like a lot of liberals, I have been saying "transvaginal" a lot lately, but I want to assure K-Lo that it's not because I'm trying to discredit the policy goal of shoving an imaging device into every pregnant woman and turning her uterus into an episode of "Big Brother," but only because it just happens to be my safe word).

That's what just played out with a bill in Virginia that would have required women considering having an abortion to get a sonogram first.

From a Washington Post piece about a protest against the bill:

"Molly Vick of Richmond said it was her first time to take part in a protest, but the issue was too infuriating and compelling."

What's infuriating is that we can't have an honest debate about anything that involves women, because it might make Planned Parenthood or any of the political or business wings of the abortion industry uncomfortable.

Modern feminists are such easily distracted crybabies that they can't even carry on a civil discussion about which of their civil rights to give up while Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell is transfixing them with a bollard. And let's face it, Kathryn Jean does have a point. After all, stabbing an abortion patient with a Sonogram Shiv isn't fatal, it's not like they're getting pierced by bullets. That kind of thing is strictly reserved for abortion providers.

This is the new feminist America, and it's just as delusional and duplicitous at the first round.

As we now know, The Feminine Mystique was an elaborate literary hoax, like Robinson Crusoe, or The O'Reilly Factor for Kids.

It's not happening at anti-establishment protests, it is the establishment.

Fundamentalist Catholics like K-Lo and Rick Santorum are the new Hippies, and are out to bring down the Man -- well, the Woman -- with powerful counter-culture events, like a conservative Woodstock, in which clean cut men and women would have fruitful, p-in-v intercourse in a muddy field while Hank Williams, Jr. musically inquired if they had made the proper preparations for football, and the organizers got on the loudspeaker periodically to warn the pregnant women in the audience not to take the brown folic acid. They were also going to have a March on Washington, but it's hard to cover a lot of ground quickly with an aspirin held between your knees, so they're going to save that event for the Summer of Abstinence picnic.

Even "Saturday Night Live" got into the frenzy, mocking the bill and the term of the moment in a recent sketch.

Really? Even Saturday Night Live stooped to cheapshot satire? I'll never look at public affairs programming the same way again.

If only the sponsors of this legislation had foreseen the crippling comic effects of the word "transvaginal," and had pre-empted it with a less risible term. They might have referred to the device in question as the Twat Twizzler, or -- as Mary calls it -- the Vag-O-Matic. Other possibilities include "the Elder Wand," "the Pols' Pole," or "the Staff of the National Review."

Go ahead and read the bill that caused the cries of "state-mandated rape." The word "transvaginal" never appears in it.

To meet the demands of the proposed law, a transvaginal ultrasound is required, but the authors never actually come right out and say it in so many words. So basically, the bill talks in vague, but menacing euphemisms, like a villain from a 1970s detective show ("I want this Rockford situation taken care of...permanently!").

The bill was an update on Virginia's informed-consent law

Otherwise known as the "Orwell? Never Heard of Him" Act.

...which didn't require a particular kind of ultrasound, such as the intrusive procedure that drew mockery and outrage from the left. So doctors on site would be making the calls about what kind of ultrasound would be best for a particular women -- not the governor or the House of Delegates or the legendary exorcist Rick Santorum!

I wonder if these are the same doctors who pointed out that the only way to get the kind of image the bill required was to shish kabob the patient. I also wonder if K-Lo feels obliged to list the lies she tells in her various columns when she goes to confession, or if she's wangled some sort of Papal dispensation that permits her to freely fib for Christ.

And, frankly, even if the bill did mandate an invasive type ultrasound -- sometimes the age of the fetus or other circumstances will call for it --it wouldn't have been state-sponsored rape.

The woman would have had to pay for it, so it would only have been state-inflicted rape.

It's standard medical care. All things in the OB-GYN world tend to be invasive. Are routine exams rape, too? Can we just drop the nonsense already?

Kathryn Jean, are you really incapable of grasping the concept of consent? That's like saying there's no difference between an appendectomy and getting shanked in an alley. Yes, they both involve knives, but in the former case they won't actually cut you unless you sign the form.

I guess not. Not when those who resort to the most shameless rhetoric end up winning.

You seem depressed. Unfortunately, your home state has just passed a law mandating that patients suspected of clinical depression be trepanned to allow the demons to escape their skulls. Have a seat.

Moondoggie would like to remind you to (if possible) please give to the Annti Evict-O-Thon (at least, I think that's what that gesture means). Details in the post below.

Emergency! (Not the One With Randolph Mantooth)

2012-02-24T16:18:00.001-08:00

I need to step out of character (and these Spanx -- they're killing me) and pass on some serious and seriously bad news: one of our own is about to become homeless. And not the cool kind of homeless, where you lounge around on fashionable Kalakaua Avenue in Waikiki and force Dr. Diane Medved to step over you on her way into Fendi.

Our dear, beloved Anntichrist S. Coulter is being evicted on March 6th, and has 11 days to move her remaining possessions into storage -- to say nothing of finding some place to store herself -- and she urgently needs our help.

Long time Crappers know Annti well. She was one of the earliest adopters of Wo'C -- in fact, I can't remember a time when her fluently profane rants weren't lighting up the comments section -- and we also know that she's kind, concerned, utterly decent, and the first to offer assistance to anyone in need. But some may not be familiar with all she's done, and the fact that her generosity of spirit is largely responsible for the situation she's in now.

Annti was in a crippling car accident when she was younger, and had to have her spine pieced back together with Restoration Hardware. She didn't let that stop her, of course; at least, not until Hurricane Katrina hit. While George Bush was giving Brownie a reach-around at a photo op, Annti was going without sleep, loading up her truck, and shuttling supplies to refugees and the LSU Veterinary School emergency shelter. She kept at it ceaselessly until -- and even after -- the screws, rods, plates, and Delta faucets in her spine began to break.

The damage was never completely, or even adequately, repaired, and her health and mobility have deteriorated ever since, eventually forcing her to go on disability and into public housing. Now she's lost even that.

Mary and I gave what we could, and if you're able, please give Annti a hand.

For some reason I can't directly link to her Pay the Pal page, but you can go to her blog, Mark of the Beast, and click the button on the right. If that doesn't work, her email address, for Pal Paying Purposes, is velvetgutter-at-hotmail-dot-com.

Thanks. I apologize for the scanty posting lately, and promise to do better next week. And as further thanks, once we get Annti through this rough patch, I'll be posting a new cat video, which may be our most epic production ever! (I don't want to give too much away, but here's a hint: Dr. Tongue.)

A Rasher of Roth

2012-02-23T00:58:00.003-08:00

With Rick Santorum the Republican frontrunner (although I understand he may have blown his improbable lead with a clumsy performance at last night's debate) even wingnuts are getting nervous that he's a bit too pure and proud an example of the breed.

So this seems like a good time to introduce a little perspective. Yes, Rick Santorum is a religious oddball whose skull is a cage full of a angry weasels decked out in papal robes and working themselves into a frothy mixture, but he's hardly the craziest candidate in the race. That distinction still belongs to Dr. Laurie Roth.

You may remember Dr. Roth, the former disco recording artist and current "'Annie Oakley' of the airwaves," who is taking her Ph.D in Counseling and her black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and running for President on the Flip Your Whig* ticket.

New coming holocaust-- Christians and conservatives

The Coliseum is turning on the lights. Attendants have their popcorn and sodas ready. The stands are packed with distracted and thrilled onlookers awaiting "the battle of Gods."

The watchers know this will be a bloodbath and a gooey entertainment fest like never before.

Apparently the movie Gladiator left me with a rather skewed, historically inaccurate view of what went on at the Coliseum, but Dr. Roth has inspired me to stop letting Hollywood do my thinking for me. So I've decided to do some research and learn for myself which of the many deities in the Roman pantheon was the God of Carbonated Beverages.

Who are the players who will delight the crowd? First we have "Christians and Jews" and those dangerous "Constitutionalists" on one side. Look, they are behaving just like King Obama said — their Bibles and being "bitter clingers."

Personally, I prefer the Bitter ones to the other four flavors of clingers, because unlike Savory, the discovery of the Bitter clinger didn't lead directly to the development of monosodium glutamate.

On the other side are the leaders of Islam, Sharia law, and global elitism. These are headed by their savior, King Obama.

So the leaders are going into the arena to fight to the death? Maybe Gladiator wasn't that inaccurate after all, 'cause this is just like that scene where Commodus faces off against Maximus (and I've got my money on the Elitists, because Obama is in pretty good shape, whereas the average "Constitutionalist" -- at least, the ones who show up on cable TV -- seem a little on the doughy side).

In special, heated box seats, I see the UN and Muslim leadership from the 57 Muslim countries. In another box next door, painted in streaks of bright colors, are all the unemployed movie stars, and wannabe terrorists such as William Ayers and Bernadine Dorn, who obsessively stand with Palestine and anyone attacking Israel.

Sarah Palin repeatedly declared that Ayers and Dohrn were terrorists, and now they've been demoted to mere wannabes? I think at the very least they should have been offered the title of Terrorist Emeritus.

Next to them, by the pop machine, are the traitorous sell-out media and leftist political leaders who routinely sell out America and march her toward the new Holocaust — the control and eradication of Christians who support the Constitution, and Jews who just won't go away.

History teaches us that before his failed Beer Hall revolution in 1923, Hitler hung out by the vending machines and attempted a "Break Room Putsch." And Dr. Roth is right about one thing: judging by the recent blather coming from wingnut bloggers and cable TV talking heads, especially on the topic of contraception, the entirety of "Christians who support the Constitution" probably would fit in a single luxury skybox.

The stage has been set for our demise. 72 FEMA camps have been activated.

FEMA Camps are the Wonder Twins of extrajudicial detention.

The NDAA bill has been voted into law, launched by Marxist posers John McCain and Carl Levin.

So...they're just posing as Marxists? I somehow doubt McCain's performance is very convincing, but I admit, I haven't seen his drag act, so who knows? Maybe he looks good with a beard. Certainly Chief Justice John Roberts does.

None of this is new. The pattern established by Hitler is simply being copied by Obama and his thugs.

Rejected by the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Hitler spent the years before WWI becoming an accomplished dressmaker, and many of his patterns are still sold today by Butterick and Simplicity.

Remember, Obama is the teleprompter King.

He will not be undersold! And now that he's added HDTVs to his inventory, he's locked in a deadly price war with L.A.'s own Paul, the King of Big Screen.

He copies his heroes — Saul Alinski, Hitler, and other dictators. He also obeys what his handlers tell him — global elitists and Islamic leaders.

I never knew Saul Alinski was an unelected head of state who ruled a nation with an iron fist. I also never knew he spelled his name with two i's, but then, neither did his publisher, so I guess I shouldn't feel too bad. I do feel obliged to point out, however, that if you wield supreme, unquestioned power, and yet you obey your own employees, then you're kind of a shitty dictator. (And I'm a little confused by that last sentence. Are his handlers "global elitists and Islamic leaders" or are his handlers telling him, "global elitists and Islamic leaders," which doesn't really sound like a command as much as it sounds like a Jeopardy! category if Sean Hannity were the host.)

Adolph Hitler wrenched democracy and freedom from Germany's hands with "Hitler's Enabling Act," voted legally into law March 23, 1933.

It was smart of him to trademark it like that, because now the Justice Department can go after anyone who illegally enables, so my friends in AA are getting a lot less pressure from Ukrainian websites to have a beer.

It was also called "Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich."

And while the legislation was still being debated in committee, it was briefly known as "Butterflies Are Free."

You may recall that Hitler had the Nazis burn down the Reichstag German government building so they could create enough panic to get the votes for Hitler's enabling act.

You may also recall that just prior the Presidential election in 2004, the Terrorist Swatch Alarm went from Dusty Mango to Passionate Raspberry.

Responding to the signing of the NDAA Bill, Obama stated he would never abuse the power. GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney, also a supporter of this bill, said he would never abuse the power due to his character.

Unfortunately, Romneys' character is a Level 64 Blood Elf, and they're mean.

Listen to the words of another famous person, Adolph Hitler.

Laurie, I don't mean to be critical, but this is not the way you play This Is Your Life. You're supposed to make us guess who it is.

Hitler promised a ton of lies before the vote.

And yet he only delivered 1,633 pounds of lies. The rest of the volume was just packing peanuts.

Hitler and the Nazis were part of the "Green" environmental agenda and supportive of national healthcare, as Obama is.

Maybe we're looking in the wrong direction. Based on this evidence, it's just as likely that the real modern Hitler is Ed Begley, Jr.

From the beginning, the signs were everywhere that we had a tyrant for a president.

Yes, yes, I know, Laurie. They already covered this on Blue's Clues.

Don't forget that Obama and Michelle were supportive of and in attendance at flag-burning events, and stated publicly before Obama was elected how they hated America.

Wow, my memory is really going, because I totally forgot both those things. Even worse, I can't remember who played "Cooter" on The Dukes of Hazzard.

In fact, Michelle said she only started to love America after Obama was elected.

Well, that's not really a fact, since she actually said, "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country," and she actually uttered it in February, 2008, about 8 months before the election, so apparently Michelle is working for Skynet, and is able to come back in time to alter events, which explains the seemingly impossible fact that Ronald Reagan increased taxes 11 times. It also raises suspicions about that incident in 1911 when Reagan's pregnant mother crushed a cyborg in a machine shop.

Obama constantly has surrounded himself with Communists, and with anti-American and anti-Jewish colleagues and employees. His actions from day one have been against Jews, Christians, conservatives, the Constitution, and God himself.

It's clear that Obama targeted these five opponents for one reason: so he could challenge them to a pick-up game of basketball (I mean come on, have you seen that guy's jump shot?). And while most commentators agree that Jesus is a dominating power forward, the ball is always tacky with blood and hard to handle after he dribbles.

Obama will not willfully give up his power.

Well, not today, anyway -- he has a lot of appointments on his calendar. So we're to have to do something drastic, like vote him out of office; but before we can even think about that, we'll have to undertake two perilous quests. First, destroy his horcruxes, and second, open the peoples' eyes to Obama's true nature by marshaling a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care. I'm thinking maybe we could compare him to Hitler.

I predict, as the months unfold toward Election Day 2012, that Internet conservative journals and speech will be greatly diminished.

You've probably noticed, as I have, that whenever people of Laurie's ilk make forecasts, they seldom come true. But this is the first prediction in which I can guarantee that the exact opposite will come true.

This will be a financial attack, regulation attack, and set of contrived legal attacks. Talk radio and conservative commentators will also be attacked and silenced.

This one, however, is almost certain to be fulfilled, provided we define "attack[ing]" and "silenc[ing]" a talk radio host as "switching to the light rock station in time to catch the Four Pack of Dan Fogelberg."

Watch for contrived and invented threats to attack parts of America, while the Russians are blamed......oh yeah, that was Hitler

Actually, that was Poland, not Russia, but let's not interrupt Laurie -- she's on a roll.

Watch out for bold attacks aimed at national Tea Party groups and leaders.

Assuming you can find one somewhere. Maybe try the Cracker Barrel...

Watch out for pastors to be arrested for preaching from the Holy Bible and not editing their speech.

Grammar Nazis. I hate these guys.

We are seeing Obama war with the Catholic Church and Christian faith.

A price war. Just like with Paul, the King of Big Screen, Obama is underbidding the Prince of Peace with free birth control bills!

His healthcare mandate intends to force churches and religious organizations to provide abortion drugs and supportive products.

Oh, great. First Obama made Catholic affiliated companies offer health insurance that includes contraception, now he's forcing the Vatican to underwrite the purchase of morally objectionable jockstraps and spleen trusses!

There is no place in our Constitution where insurance companies and religious groups can be forced to pay for abortion services and products.

There's also no place in our Constitution where Catholic bishops get a veto on Federal legislation.

Yet, this president, who hates the Constitution, just continues to ignore it as he takes bold leaps forward into his beloved new and improved, Fascist America.

Nazis on pogo sticks. I hate these guys.

We have a president who is demanding the nation pay for abortions regardless of Americans' beliefs.

That is Fascist. I think the President should go the Communist route and demand that abortions be free. Then Archbishop Dolan won't have to worry about his parishioners' donations going to subsidize an objective evil, like drugs that suppress ovulation, and can instead be spent on projects which benefit the entire body of Christ, like grudging compensation to victims of clerical sexual abuse.

If we let him, he will start forcing assisted suicide on all who are disabled, medically too expensive, or just too old to contribute anymore. Remember, this was already done in one of the most civilized countries on earth, Germany. We are watching it unfold right before our eyes in America. History MUST NOT repeat itself.

Laurie, on the other hand, must repeat herself. Frequently.

Those of you who love our Constitution, freedoms, and Judeo-Christian values and heritage — understand that you are on a growing enemy list. "Bitter clingers" that you are.....buy more guns, Bibles, and ammo NOW. ... Don't ever submit to forced healthcare

Except for transvaginal ultrasounds.

Don't ever submit to authorities arresting you in the middle of the night.

If you must die for your liberty, die with these words on your lips. "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country, and I particularly regret that I gave it while wearing plaid pajama bottoms and a t-shirt from the "Baldknobbers Jamboree Show" in Branson, Missouri."

*Apologies to the decidedly non-crazy FlipYrWhig.

The Water-Repelling Pundit With The Glossy Shine

2012-02-14T15:10:00.000-08:00

I get excited whenever I see a new column by Alan Caruba, probably because I tend to mistake his byline for a headline, and always think it's going to be something about the islands of the Caribbean, or perhaps the "queen of waxes." Alas, neither subject ever comes up, and by the end of the piece I'm instead reminded that Alan's career has largely been devoted to providing positive PR spin for various pesticides, because I find myself feeling much as I did that one time, during California's Ride of the Valkyries-like helicopter assault on the Mediterranean Fruit Fly infestation, when I walked home late and got doused with malathion.

The global warming hoax is now killing people

By Friday, February 10th, an estimated 500 Europeans had died from the freezing weather gripping the continent. This is the price they and British citizens are paying for embracing the global warming hoax, spending billions for wind power when they should have been building coal-fired and other sources of energy to heat their homes and businesses.

Well, neither of the articles Alan links to blame the deaths on wind power, although they do mention, "The increasing toll of hypothermia over the past five years coincides with a surge in energy costs, especially gas prices which have gone up by 40 per cent." This seems counter-intuitive, since gas and coal, unlike wind, are plentiful and inexhaustible resources which should only become less expensive as their use becomes more widespread. But, as we shall see, victims of seasonable but extreme European weather froze to death directly as a result of windmills, just like Frankenstein's monster, except he burned to death. (Spoiler alert: according to eyewitness Una O'Connor, he actually didn't)

I and others have been warning for years that the Earth has been cooling since 1998

Somebody should take it off the window ledge. If we leave it out there much longer a raccoon might get it.

and that the planet is on the cusp of a new ice age because the average length of an interglacial period of warmth between such ages is now coming to an end after the passage of some 11,500 years.

According to Wikipedia, which seems like an apt source of rebuttal to Alan's boilerplate from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, "The Earth has been in an interglacial period known as the Holocene for more than 11,000 years. It was conventional wisdom that 'the typical interglacial period lasts about 12,000 years,' but this has been called into question recently. For example, an article in Nature argues that the current interglacial might be most analogous to a previous interglacial that lasted 28,000 years. Predicted changes in orbital forcing suggest that the next glacial period would begin at least 50,000 years from now, even in absence of human-made global warming (see Milankovitch cycles)."

For those with an incomplete grasp of the geophysical sciences, "Milankovitch cycles" refers to the brand endorsed by Lance Armstrong.

All aspects of global warming legislation and spending programs must be utterly reversed if we are not going to see huge losses of life and the disruption of entire economies.

Alan is like a trauma surgeon in an ER, except that instead of giving the patient oxygen and starting an IV of Ringer's Lactate and D5W while yelling "Stat!", he blows cigarette smoke in her face and gives her a shot of DDT.

The Ottawa Citizen published an Agence France Presse article on Friday reporting that "Thick ice closed vast swaths of the Danube on Thursday, crippling shipping on Europe's busiest waterway, as the death toll from bitter cold across the continent rose...as it has every day for nearly two weeks." The report noted that "Navigation was impossible or restricted in Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria, as ice covered the river or formed dangerous floes in shipping lanes."

No shipping means no delivery of coal and oil and no shipping of food and other necessities.

Yes, extreme weather, such as snow, ice, and sand storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, torrential rains and floods, can all play havoc with the orderly distribution of goods. Sadly, the predictions by climate scientists that anthropogenic global climate change will result in extreme weather becoming increasingly common were clearly off base, because it's happening a lot quicker than they expected. I'm going to go disable my catalytic converter just to display my contempt for their imprecise computer modeling skills.

Europe is freezing over as the United States has been experiencing an unusually mild winter thus far.

Cold winter in Europe = global warming theorists are wrong! Warm winter in U.S. = global warming theorists are wrong!

That, too, is likely to yield to the increased cooling of the planet and then, maybe, Americans will realize the threat to their lives that the closing of coal-fired plants, instigated by the Environmental Protection Agency, really means.

If only the Neanderthals had been less hamstrung by government red tape, they could have developed a bronze-smelting industry that would have jump-started global deglaciation, and today, people in Elko, Nevada would enjoy beachfront property and cool ocean breezes, while Florida would be a sandbar, but only at high tide.

England, now gripped by foolish green notions of renewable energy, has covered itself with wind turbines, despoiling its countryside and coasts while proving unreliable and incapable of meeting its energy needs.

"Renewable energy sources provided for 6.7 per cent of the electricity generated in the United Kingdom in 2009, rising to 9.6% in the second quarter of 2011." So I don't think anyone expects them to replace other forms of energy generation. In fact, Britain "plans to open four new [nuclear] plants in the UK by 2017."

And as everybody knows, while this is an eyesore:

This is a delight to the senses:

Especially if you're a Jayne Mansfield fan.

In Europe, other news organizations reported that "Many of the dead were homeless people, who literally froze to death as the temperatures dropped to minus 50 degrees in some parts of the continent. Their bodies were found in the streets buried under snow, in rivers, and in doorways.

I suppose developing programs that give people an alternative to sleeping on the sidewalk might be one solution, but since Alan hates not only windmills, but also homeless shelters, subsidized housing, unemployment insurance, and all forms of welfare, the only way to keep our thoroughfares from becoming cluttered with frozen corpses, like the Siege of Leningrad, is a massive industrial mobilization to Pollute Our Way to the Perfect Temperature.

Writing in a Turkish newspaper, the Hurriyet Daily News, Sophie Quintin Adali, an analyst for a project of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, said, "As if the debt crisis weren't bad enough news, the climate freeze sweeping across Europe is wreaking havoc by severely disrupting travel, business and people's lives. Local authorities, indeed whole countries, are caught poorly prepared." Turkey is experiencing record snowfall and low temperatures.

It's the fault of those lying bastards at the EPA that Turkey doesn't have enough snowplows.

"The lack of readiness should come as no surprise because for decades the sensationalist message of global warming has dominated the public area," said Ms. Adali.

Emphasis in original. Just in case it wasn't obvious from the name, "The Atlas Economic Research Foundation is a nonprofit organization connecting a global network of more than 400 free-market organizations in over 80 countries to the ideas and resources needed to advance the cause of liberty." So while they clearly have an axe to grind, it's not political -- they just need to chop down a forest.

We have not built a single new nuclear plant in America since 1978.

And in the wake of the tsunami-induced meltdown in Japan, this is the perfect time to approve additional nuclear power plants, especially here in California, because ever since first seeing The Road Warrior at an impressionable age, it's been my dream to one day outrun mutants in an irradiated wasteland.

EPA rules are forcing the closure of coal-fired plants throughout the nation.

Well, that's part of it: "Two factors have made it easier for utilities to shut old coal plants in recent years. Power demand has been weakening in recent years because of the slow economy and energy efficiency programs. And natural gas prices, which have fallen to decade-low levels in recent weeks, have allowed utilities to switch from coal to natural gas without impacting customer bills. Meanwhile, demand from China and elsewhere has driven up the price of coal."

The national grid for the distribution of electricity is in need of upgrades.

This is absolutely true, and something Al Gore frequently harps upon (so Alan, if you and the former Vice President are ever trapped in a glacier together, you'll have something to chat about until you're eventually thawed out and eaten by Siberians with a side of Mammoth). Of course, the grid just distributes the electricity. It doesn't care whether it came from a coal or natural gas-fired plant, a hydro-electric or geo-thermal source, solar radiation, or human beings who are trapped in a computer generated world and harvested by malevolent machines for their body heat.

The nation's policies are controlled by the most environmentally insane administration in its history, wasting billions on so-called green energy. Its new budget raises taxes and proposes a trillion-dollar deficit without any significant effort to cut the spending that has left this and future generations in debt while the price of gas soars to new heights.

By Alan's standards, I'd say Nixon's was the most "environmentally insane administration," since the EPA didn't even exist until he came along. Still, the fact that natural gas and oil are finite resources, but Alan loathes the very notion of "renewable energy" makes me think his column is really addressing a larger issue. Why is he so determined to stop policies that might prevent, or at least mitigate, catastrophic global climate change? Well, he's 75 years old next October, and I think he looked in the mirror one day, accepted the inevitable fact of his own mortality, and decided that if he had to go, he was taking the Earth down with him!

America and the rest of the world have been horribly deceived by the United Nations Intergovernmental Climate Change Panel that continues to drive the global warming hoax. The lying scientists who got on the global warming gravy train, the politicians that embraced it, and the media that misled millions are all culpable, all responsible.

This is the part of the scientists' scam I've never quite understood. How much money really is there to be made in forecasting a decrease in Arctic sea ice, or testifying on behalf of regulations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions? If I had a Ph.D and wanted to ride the scientific gravy train to riches and bitches, I'd investigate impotence and get my name on the patent for a new erectile dysfunction drug Big Pharma could roll out right after Viagra goes generic, because there's a lot more money to be made from boners than polar bears.

They should be driven from office, defunded, and chased through the streets like villagers in pursuit of Frankenstein.

So the villagers who chased Frankenstein with torches and pitchforks were also being chased? Presumably by other villagers who were outraged that the first villagers' torches -- while smoky -- weren't producing enough chlorofluorocarbons to keep the Danube from freezing.

It's like a Benny Hill sketch written by Americans for Prosperity.

People are freezing to death in their homes and in the streets. What will it take to drive a stake into the heart of the global warming monster?

Perhaps the people with homes could invite the homeless people inside, then they could all huddle and share body warmth. But if that's a little too egalitarian, Alan, then I have, if not exactly good news, then at least a ray of hope to offer. The same Ottawa Citizen article you link to ends this way:

While many in Europe were fed up with the bitter cold, residents in the Netherlands were disappointed with a slight warming in that country that resulted in a legendary iceskating race along canals being cancelled.

The race has not been run since 1997.

So apparently there's one man who can turn back the new Ice Age: Hans Brinker.

Post-Friday Beast Blogging: The "Never Go to Bed Angry" Edition

2012-02-12T13:31:00.000-08:00

"Tell the gentleman from me that I'm not speaking to him!"

"And you can just tell Miss Thing over there that I'm not speaking to her!"

"Hmph!" "Hmph!"

"(Sigh)...I hate it when we fight."

I See London, I See France...

2012-02-08T02:09:00.000-08:00

Generally speaking, there's good news and bad news, but not true and false news. Unless it's news about a political enemy that's so bad it's too good to be true, in which case, grab your vellum and your composing stick, and print the legend!

Which brings us to Jeannie DeAngelis' latest -- and if I may say so, definitive -- demonstration of the Does She or Doesn't She? school of journalism, in which Jeannie exposes Michelle Obama for possibly buying lingerie from a British company, thereby contributing to the collapse of the American corsetiere industry, as well as threatening the livelihoods of small business owners such as the two Ukrainian-American guys who run FirstLadyUpskirtPix.com (a fair and balanced site, by the way, which features both Democrats ["See Lady Bird Johnson's Nest!"] and Republicans [the "Barbara's Bush" gallery alone has over a hundred photos]).

Is Michelle Obama America's Agent Provocateur?

If the rumors are true -- and despite "angry denials" by the White House, it's finally public knowledge -- then when hanging around the presidential living quarters, Michelle Obama does not wear ripped sweatpants and an old "Yes We Can" Obama 2008 T-shirt. Recently, we've come to find out that last year, while hubby was out preaching the gospel of fairness, wifey may have been busy acquiring a few "must-have" items from Hollywood-style British retail lingerie shop Agent Provocateur.

So there you have it. If the rumor is true -- and despite White House denials, we've heard about it, thereby proving that we have so much time on our hands we can afford to waste some of it reading American Thinker, which is a damning indictment indeed -- then Mrs. Obama may have bought underwear. Some people may think this is ridiculous source material for a political scandal, but personally, I believe anyone dumb enough to deal with a company who's name means "Entrapment," has it coming.

Ironically, a provocateur is someone who "provokes trouble, causes dissension or the like; an agitator." Whether the fancy underwear story is true or not, either way, Mrs. Obama is indeed an agent provocateur.

So she's working for the cops? Perhaps she went undercover to help nab a gang trafficking in counterfeit Spanx and contrabandeaus (there was a similar storyline in the second season of HBO's crime drama, The Underwire).

And, based on her continued dedication to extravagant self-indulgence, spending oodles of dollars on thongs doesn't seem far-fetched.

And, based on an unsourced rumor in the Fashion section of a British tabloid, I completely believe it.

Let's remember: Michelle Obama pays absolutely no mind to public indignation over things like wearing a $2,000 sundress to church.

Which is exactly the kind of crass, tone deaf, nouveau riche crap a true First Lady like Nancy Reagan would never have pulled, because it would have reflected poorly on the Office of the Presidency, and would have required going to church.

Now we find out that the first lady may have filled a van with $600 corsets at a high-end Madison Avenue girdle shop.

She may have filled a van with stolen big screen TVs and driven it across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge at 3 in the morning to meet a fence in Staten Island, only to see the deal go sour and a brief gun battle break out, during which Mrs. Obama was grazed by a 9mm round and the fence fatally shot, forcing the wounded First Lady to dump the body in the Fresh Kills Landfill before eventually abandoning the truck at rest stop and fleeing in a stolen silver or light gray two-door sedan with Pennsylvania plates. We just don't know.

Whether she did or she didn't, either way, Misunderstood Michelle shouldn't worry about being disparaged for behaving like the voluptuary she is.

Perry Mason couldn't have summed it up better. "Your Honor, I submit that whether my client did or did not murder the victim is unimportant, because even if he's innocent, he was just acting like the killer he is."

If the going gets tough, the first lady can divert attention from her shopping in a store that sells "the most erotic lingerie in the world" by whining about things like being unjustly viewed as an "angry black woman," or serving turkey tacos to schoolchildren with Rachael Ray.

I must have missed that last interview, but if I was forced to spend time with Rachel Ray, I'd bitch about it too. Especially if the taco meat steam trays were taking the curl out of my hair. Here's a question, though: which lingerie eroticism ranking is proper for a First Lady? I think underwear that is seeded 18th in the world is most suitable, but you guys may have different opinions.

When asked about his clients, Agent Provocateur's chief executive Gary Hogarth refused to reveal whose names were on the "secret list."

Actually, he didn't say anything about a "secret list" in the article Jeannie linked to, but who's to say he wasn't thinking it? We may never know.

On the other hand, this did appear in the piece: "A spokesman for the label told MailOnline: 'Recent claims regarding Michelle Obama and purchases made at an Agent Provocateur boutique are incorrect.'"

However, he did admit that the brand had "attracted a high number of 'unexpected famous names' -- especially in the US, where sales have overtaken the UK." If U.S. sales have surpassed the U.K.'s, could it be because one very famous woman traded in bunny slippers for some size 11 Pom Pom Mules?

Meow.

"Madam, this may come as a surprise to you, but there's rather a large gulf between the fine art of Cattiness, and just being a bitch."

No one knows for sure what Agent Michelle the Provocateur hauled away in those pink and black shopping bags, or if she actually did shop there.

It doesn't really matter, though, because according to the multiverse theory, every decision you make causes reality to fracture into potentially infinite alternate dimensions. Therefore, even if Mrs. Obama didn't go to a store on Madison Avenue and buy underwear, quantum mechanics proves that somewhere, in a parallel universe, she did. So impeachment seems mathematically sound.

But what we do know is that Mrs. Obama would have zero problem brazenly shutting down a street in New York City; she did it before for date night, and if in need of shopping therapy in a sexy skivvy shop, she'd likely do it again.

I didn't realize that in addition to urging school children to eat healthy, Michelle has also usurped the power of motorcade traffic management from the Secret Service. On a more rib-tickling note, Jeannie's link goes to a Foxnews.com story from 2009, which includes these timely passages:

Even before the Obamas left Washington, the there-and-back trip drew criticism from Republicans. They questioned the president's decision to travel to New York for a night of entertainment during a recession and while automakers struggle to survive.
[...]
The Republican National Committee issued a news release that chastised Obama for saying he understands American's troubles, but then hopping up to New York for "a night on the town."

Noting that General Motors is expected to file for Chapter 11 protection on Monday, the news release said: "Putting on a show: Obamas wing into the city for an evening out while another iconic American company prepares for bankruptcy."

If the politics thing doesn't work out, the RNC could always consider shifting gears and competing head to head with the Psychic Friends Network.

Despite White House denials, it could be that at one point Michelle did shop at the Madison Avenue boutique, and if she did, reports are that she allegedly rang up a $50K tab.

It's possible that Jeannie spent one hazy, Sterno-fueled summer haunting the Southern Pacific freight yards in the High Desert, sleeping in culverts and emerging only on moonless nights to eviscerate hobos and feast on their kidneys. You'll note that she hasn't even bothered to deny it.

Besides buying push-up bras, $50,000 could feed and house the family of at least one disenfranchised worker to whom Barack Obama promised a job but has yet to deliver, not to mention pay for a four-year college education for a disadvantaged child.

Too bad General Motors is bankrupt, or the disenfranchised anecdote might have found work there. Personally, though, I think that making children attend college can lead to more stress than a 9 year old can easily handle, even if universities are more likely to have working rest rooms and less Mac 'n Cheese in the cafeteria than the public grammar schools they normally attend. Plus -- and I speak from experience -- if you try to pay off the bursar in brassiers, you're going to spend a lot of time filling out forms at the Financial Aid office.

Then, less than a week after [the State of the Union Address], the British press reported that Mrs. Obama, the woman who brightened up the SOTU address in a $2,000 shimmering peacock-blue Barbara Tfank dress, "[a]long with the Queen of Qatar, Sheikha Mozah," played by her own rules, descended on "Madison Avenue, and spent some girlfriend time slapping big bucks on the counter of a lingerie shop."

That quote certainly does sound incriminating. Especially when you paste it into Google and find that Jeannie just made it up, because that means that somewhere in the multiverse, there's a reality where an alternate Jeannie DeAngelis found an actual, relevant quote that conclusively proved Michelle's guilt. Now we just need to find a Federal judge willing to issue a transdimensional bench warrant.

And what exactly would Mrs. Obama buy if she did actually shop there?

It's fun to fantasize, although Jeannie is the first grandmother I've met who's deposited Michelle Obama in her Spank Bank.

Could be that Mrs. Obama isn't a provocateur at all, and if she actually did go on a secret shopping trip, perhaps she simply wanted to introduce the "sensuality and flirtation of the 70s" into the White House. Her ultimate goal may have merely been to whip into playful submission a president who is turning out to be even worse than 1970s icon Jimmy Carter.

"Whaddya think she bought? Huh? Somethin' sporty. Somethin' peek-a-boo. Somethin' crotchless maybe? Think she's a goer? Huh? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Say no more..."

Kyle-Anne Shivers With Antici...pation

2012-02-01T01:14:00.000-08:00

Francois de La Rochefoucauld observed that "Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue," and while that's a snappy one-liner that probably had them chortling in Madeleine de Souvré's literary salon and nudging each other under the table, at least until someone bumped the bloated foot of a gout sufferer, and the laughter was rent by screams, it's a little too Louis Quatorze for our modern age, when the Divine Right of Kings has given way to the testicle-crushing powers of Article II of the U.S. Constitution. So nowadays, La Rochefoucauld's maxim would more aptly state, "Hypocrisy is the alarm lever behind the brittle pane marked 'In Case of Negro in White House, Break Glass.'" And it's just this kind of exigency that has allowed Newt Gingrich to buy a papal indulgence from Professional Moralist (and "frequent contributor to American Thinker and PJ Media") Kyle-Anne Shiver.

Why I'm Giving Newt a Pass on the Scarlet-A Factor

Ah, so what I've been mistaking for a Republican Presidential primary campaign is actually a TV reality competition. That explains the last debate when Moderator Joe Rogan forced the participants to drink donkey semen; I admit I was confused at the time, since in most Republican interactions with the press, the jizz traditionally flows the other way. Particularly with David Gregory.

Newt Gingrich is an adulterer many times over, which is old news.

And Old News is No News. Unless it's the Gospels, in which case it's Good News.

The second Mrs. Gingrich, scorned in favor of the third Mrs. Gingrich, is in the process of spilling the sordid divorce beans in her long-stated goal of stopping Newt's climb to the presidency.

I once traded a cow for some divorce beans. Worst deal I ever made.

But I decided a couple of months ago to give Newt a pass on the Scarlet-A factor, and I seriously doubt there's a single thing an embittered ex-wife can say that will change my mind at this point.

For one thing, it would mean rearranging all the hobgoblins.

Yes, I empathize with the 2nd Mrs. Gingrich.

The 1st Mrs. Gingrich, however, can apparently suck it.

Yes, I believe that adultery is a very serious offense. Yes, I wish the man I am supporting for president had a perfect track record in all aspects of his life, both public and private.

Ironically, the sign of a true Gingrich supporter in 2012 is they sound like a Clinton supporter in 1998.

I'm putting my country over the matron's sisterhood here, and a couple of my friends have already stared at me incredulously as I've explained my reasons.

Some of them have been so scandalized they've threatened to quit the matron sisterhood and return the traveling mom jeans.

How could I, outspoken defender of monogamy and premarital chastity, so compromise my own principles to vote for a man who has trashed his own wedding vows and, if he wins the presidency, would ensconce his former mistress as first lady?

Well, it's complicated.

You liked it as a Facebook Relationship Status, now you'll love it as a Presidential Campaign Slogan.

For one thing, I don't see red-blooded, healthy, high-testosterone men through a set of 1950s June-Cleaver glasses.

At first I thought Kyle-Anne meant the mother from Leave It to Beaver, but given the hyphen, I assume that "June-Cleaver glasses" are some sort of gruesome, but innocuous-looking instrument of murder, like the booby-trapped binoculars in Horrors of the Black Museum.

Newt's a Boomer, for crying out loud. He's a Boomer through and through, down to every one of his adulterous acts.

Just imagine how much richer our literary heritage would be if adultery had been invented before 1966. Georges Feydeau might have written a farce about it.

We Boomers honestly did believe that sexual morality could be separated from all other spheres.

Except the Music of the Spheres, because it didn't matter how cool your bachelor pad was, you weren't getting laid without a little lush cocktail jazz on the HiFi.

We heralded cohabitation as the commonsense precursor to healthy marriage.

Worked for me. Did Newt and the first Mrs. Gingrich shack up before tying the matrimonial slipknot? Might have helped.

We pushed the bounds of every sexual prohibition to its furthermost limits and insisted on the right to exterminate our young in the womb to offset female disadvantage.

Male disadvantage, on the other hand, is primarily addressed by adjusting one's golf handicap.

We've embraced serial monogamy so enthusiastically that we've made it mainstream. Kids from our broken families are everywhere now

Clearly we need better womb exterminators.

...and bonded step-families are now as commonplace as they were rare in June Cleaver's America.

Bonded step-families are fine, I had one myself, but as I've matured, my tastes have become more sophisticated, and I find myself preferring cask-strength single-malt step-families. It has a deeper and more robust flavor profile, which I attribute to all the extra hyphens.

In many ways, Newt Gingrich is us.

Great. Now I've got to figure out how to shave without actually looking in the mirror.

He is us in ways Mitt Romney doesn't even seem to know exist in the real world.

I think Kyle-Anne is saying she'd rather spend a drunken, sexed-up weekend in Vegas with Newt Gingrich than Mitt Romney. I say we pour some Canola oil in an inflatable kiddie pool and let her and Katherine Jean Lopez fight it out.

Not all Boomers bought into this now-quite-blemished idea of separating our sex lives from all the rest in terms of morality, but more of us did than didn't. And pretending that's not the case isn't going to put this Boomer-released genie back into its bottle.

Even as a child, I blamed my parents divorce on Barbara Eden.

America will have to depend upon the new generations' learning from our mistakes to even come close to doing that. And I doubt seriously whether these young libertarians want to go back to straight-laced, Christian sexual morality enforced by law anyhow.

So tough titty, Santorum! Newt's driving the Party Bus to Spring Break!

The point is this. Newt Gingrich, like Bill Clinton, is a Boomer in this sexually liberated regard. And right this very minute, there are as many women who identify with Callista Gingrich, the mistress who became a wife, as will identify with the formerly scorned ex. In my own circle of close female friends, two of them were former mistresses.

And astonishingly, knowing these women personally has given you a fresh perspective on life and a dash of empathy that has actually encouraged a relaxation of your normally incoherent but inflexible moral outrage. Brava, Kyle-Anne. On the down side, if you accidentally make a gay or black friend, you're going to run out of material real fast.

As Boomers, we would have to do a whole lot of Scarlet-A shunning to keep the marriage vow-breakers out of our midst. Unfortunately, that would mean most of us Boomers would have fewer friends than we could count on one hand. Amongst the younger generations, the only place where one can beam solidly on the side of chastity is at church on Sunday.

It's been many years since I've been to church, so I can only assume they've added American Gladiator style spectacles to attract the young, or perhaps "beaming" is the part of the service where the fornicators and the adulterers remove the lumber from each others' eye.

At any rate, fair is fair, and since the 2nd Mrs. Gingrich is now nursing her divorce-grudge in public...

Well I don't blame her. I was pretty pissed off when I threw those magic divorce beans I bought out the window, and they grew into a giant divorce-grudge overnight. And I wasn't even married.

... the public needs to remember just how it was that Marianne came to be the second wife of Newt Gingrich. She had an affair with him while he was still married to wife #1. Exactly so, dear readers. The second wife, now running to the press crying foul over Newt's adultery, was his mistress (in an adulterous affair) before she became his wife.

Far from crying foul, I think Mrs. Gingrich 2.0 is actually gloating that Mrs. Gingrich 3.0 wasn't nearly as good a mistress as she was. After all, Newt left his first wife for Marianne, but with Callista he wanted to maintain a full-time mistress, but still keep a wife on the side (you know, for Bridge parties, progressive dinners, or those nights when you just don't feel like getting a blowjob).

Let's not forget that Newt Gingrich is a Southerner. And Southern men have long, long, long, long been known for their randy ways, which a great many of us women find as attractive as we find it nettlesome when we are ourselves scorned for more verdant female pastures.

When I worked in Alabama, most of the people I met were very nice, but it was often embarrassing to accompany my male co-workers to the local Hooters, where they'd get liquored up and shout, "Look at the meadows on her!" and, "How'd ya like to graze on that herbage?"

Whether South Carolina women will give Newt a pass on his hound-dog history is up in the air, but knowing Southern women as well as I do, I will bet that they will.

I haven't seen breakdowns of the vote by sex, but this still marks the first time I have ever witnessed Kyle-Anne make an even remotely accurate prediction. I can only hope this isn't the beginning of a trend, or I'm going to run out of material.

Many are thinking right this minute along the lines of Sarah Palin.

I realize not everyone can afford a mistress, let alone three, but it's sad to think of anyone being reduced to this when there's so much free porn on the Internet.

We've got bigger fish to fry at the moment, and when one's Country is on the line, it's no time to be indulging puritan fantasies about men. Many women are thinking that we've got a once-married, publicly chaste president in the White House now, and it's not working out so well for America.

While it's true that last time the U.S. enjoyed a vibrant, expanding economy, there was a blowjob enthusiast who also defined oral sex in a narrow, pettifogging, pubic-hairsplitting way in the White House, that might just be a coincidence. However, if Kyle-Anne can prove causation, one of you ladies might have to take one for the team and seduce Obama in order to strengthen the labor market (I presume this is what John Boehner means when he starts breathing heavily about the importance of the "job creators").

Southern women are not idealists wearing rose-colored glasses, especially when it comes to men.

However, Southern men are advised to avoid donning the June-Cleaver glasses if their wives suspect they're screwing around.

Even the most religious among us tend to see men as they are and not as we would wish them to be. Even in the Antebellum South, women turned a willfully blind eye to a husband's sexual romps in favor of financial security and the social status of marriage.

Even in the Antebellum South, when women had so many legal and property rights and so much social autonomy? Wow. And that's to say nothing of the white women.

Then, Civil War and Reconstruction deprivations only reinforced this already-strong survival instinct among Southern women, who quite often will put up with a mistress on the side and only get vengeful when the husband takes that mistress for his new wife.

Ah, that explains it -- Marianne is suffered from Post-Reconstruction Era Stress Disorder, which has been demonstrated to cause deviant behavior. I understand that Nathan Bedford Forrest was driven to found the Ku Klux Klan when he learned that one of his closest associates -- a man who had served under him at the Fort Pillow Massacre -- was seeing another war criminal on the side.

Southern women tend to believe that it's as much a woman's duty to keep her man as it is a man's duty to remain in marital fealty.

"I'm sorry, honey, it was your responsibility to keep me honest and faithful, but so far you've done a demonstrably unsatisfactory job. As I see from your file, you received a written warning after that intern tossed my salad. Yet, I also note that I've been banging a Congressional aide repeatedly in my office bathroom, and you have still failed to develop and execute an effective action plan to stop me. So I'm afraid I've got no choice but to let you go. Please clean out your nightstand and your half of the bathroom sink, and be out of the house by five."

So, I'm getting pretty darned fed up with men running around screaming that Newt will cause a gender gap so huge that it simply can't be ameliorated by other factors more important. I'm planning to vote for Newt myself. And I can guarantee you we women are a heck of a lot more complicated than this anyhow.

Actually, c-o-m-p-l-i-c-a-t-e-d doesn't even spell the half of it when it comes to women.

Actually, it does. All you need is a "w" and an "n," and you're good to go -- although I still think it's kind of a crummy anagram.

Our Lady of the Aspens

2012-01-28T00:52:00.000-08:00

Here's Wo'C Correspondent Keith, with one of those VH-1 Behind the Music-style profiles of Judith Miller: ex-New York Times reporter, former Scooter Libby sexting partner, and a human vuvuzela who spent most of 2003 with her ass end plugged into Dick Cheney's puckered gob. Take it away, Keith!

I’ll have a glass of Chalabi please ... No make that Chablis.”

Someone left a copy of New York Magazine at the unemployment office back in early November 2011. Unfortunately the crossword puzzle page had been ripped. As a consolation prize we were treated to a feature article regarding a certain former New York Times reporter, Judith Miller.

According to the celebrity profile, Judy is still shopping around that blockbuster tell-all book despite the fact that no legitimate publisher will cut her an advance. Also, Judy has switched her martini formula from gin to vodka. At home, perched before her laptop and typing away on a purloined copy of Microsoft Word, she’s probably just drinking the gin straight out of the Tanqueray bottle with few embellishments. Because Judith Miller is now blogging for Newsmax.

Warning: Judy is just plain dull. Her style is turgid and constipating. I feared Judy was not stupid enough for “World ’O Crap” readers. Then found this article, “The Many Talents of Gen. Petraeus.”

“David Petraeus spent his first day out of uniform doing something he rarely did during the last few years of his 37-year military career: He took the entire day off. He also escorted his sainted wife, Holly, a veteran of 23 moves during his army career, out to dinner. In fact, he’s taking the rest of the week off too, straight through Labor Day.”

I’m unaware of Saint Holly’s ordination but dammit I want one of those graven images for my dashboard. She’s the patron saint of moving. The boxes! The crumpled newspaper! The lost receipts!

“Except, of course, for the daily briefings he’s been getting for the last month. Those will continue. So, too, will the “prep sessions” he has been holding to prepare for his swearing-in and first meetings next Tuesday as the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

“Welcome to what newly retired, four-star general David Petraeus calls downtime. If Wednesday’s literally star-studded retirement ceremony focused mostly on the past, Labor Day weekend is all about the future.”

Nice to know being briefed-in as Director of our nation’s premier intelligence agency is considered “downtime.” Maybe they kicked-back with a bowl of Doritos, a six-pack of 16 oz. Bud Lites and talked about Valerie.

And Judy, doesn’t the future of Labor Day weekend mean the retirement of white trousers and, if you are a lady, white pumps? Let’s continue, because I must know which stars actually literally studded this retirement ceremony.

“For Petraeus, life is all about staying in the fight. His career is hardly ending; it’s morphing, his battle ground shifting. But his many wars — boots-on-the-ground and bureaucratic — are destined to continue. He knows that his greatest challenges may lie ahead.

Where are the celebrities? How long do we have to go on reading this crap before we get to the celebs? Except Judy Miller there aren’t any present. What a lost opportunity, Judy. You suck.

There’s more. Let’s transit over to another Judy Miller Newsmax feature. Whether fueled by Tanqueray or Old Mr. Boston, I’m not entirely sure. You decide:

“If you want to understand why the jihadist movement is losing its appeal, consider the body bomb. Reports surfaced last week that al-Qaida has been considering trying to slip a suicide bomber through airport security by surgically implanting explosives in the prospective martyr’s belly, rectum or breast. Yes, women can be homicidal maniacs, too.”

I agree. Women can be potential homicidal maniacs. Particularly in the employ of the military-industrial complex and fully-rigged with half-assed association with prominent world media in addition to DoD security clearance of dubious origins.

“The generic belly bomb has been the talk of the intelligence community since August 2009 when Ibrahim Asiri, the infamous, inventive al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula bomb maker now living in Yemen, planted an explosive device on his 23-year-old brother Abdullah for a suicide mission. When that failed, he recruited another would-be martyr, Mohammed al Awfi, a former Guantanamo Bay inmate who nearly killed Saudi Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who heads the kingdom’s counterterrorism effort.”

Maybe Abdullah opted for the two-piece knit Chanel and plastique flats. Judy, please, now that you have our interest, where exactly was this bomb implanted? I’m not expecting any celebrities this time.

“Initial reports said that Asiri had planted the bomb inside al Awfi’s rectum. But Anthony Kimery, a veteran analyst and editor of Homeland Security Today, reported soon after the incident that Asiri had planted from 100 grams to 1 pound of explosives (expert opinions vary) not in the bomber’s rectum but in his underwear, which he assumed (correctly) Saudi security would not check.”

Anthony Kimery conducted a thorough physical examination of al Awfi. He found the other glove. That’s about it.

Judy, I’m very disappointed with you. There I was, sitting in the unemployment office all by myself, with nothing but an abandoned copy of New York Magazine to console me. Then I thought I might get a gig blogging about your Newsmax columns for a reputable snarky website. But your copy is as stale as Scooter’s old voice-mails. Have you lost your edge? Is something wrong? Judy, I’m very depressed. Please contact me asap.

Regards,
Keith

Deadline U.S.A.

2012-01-19T17:10:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: You guys are cheering me the hell up with your high quality captionry, and I really appreciate it. Thank you.

On another happy note, Cat Rescue Operative Emily posted in the comments to this post that Adele, the beautiful feline featured in the video, has left the halfway house for a new home: "Adele was adopted on Saturday! She was featured in an ad in the Oregonian and was adopted that day. Huzzah!"

I usually frown on the use of "Huzzah!" outside the context of a Renaissance Faire, but in this case it seems appropriate. Kudos to Emily and her colleagues at the Cat Adoption Team.

My apologies for the dead air, but I do have an excuse -- I'm bumping up against a deadline on a modest, but paying assignment (so in other words, I have an excuse I stole from Jonah Goldberg). On the bright side, this should be (and really, really needs to be) finished by late tomorrow afternoon, so normal blogging will resume this weekend.

In the meantime, I'm hoping you'll allow me to crowd source the entertainment around here, by leveraging the legendary Wit O' the WO'C readership with a caption contest. I'll get things rolling...

"You were fantastic..."

Flash-mob that sucker!

Mike & Ike Go to The Grindhouse

2012-01-13T12:05:00.000-08:00

We don't usually review things we like, because to do so would violate the mission statement implicit in our blog title. S.z. and I always regarded WO'C as a kind of Distant Early Warning System for bad movies and worse pundits, but occasionally something comes along that makes us happy, and it would feel selfish to bogart it (this would include things such as Bogart [the noun, not the verb, which actually makes us unhappy] ).

I've mentioned Mike and Ike in the past, and linked to some of their videos and podcasts (full disclosure: I've appeared as both an interviewee and a panelist on their show, the All Star Summer Jamboree, or ASSJAM).

Mike and Ike are a couple of pop culture gadflies who started off posting savagely funny YouTube rants about movies, and are now in-house media mavens at Geekplanetonline, a portal for all things of a genre-related or nerd-bait nature. Like most critics they have their bete noires and their irrational enthusiasms, but what I enjoy most about M&I is their habit of viewing everything -- even things they love -- with the same jaundiced eye. Their stoned, snarky critiques remind me of two buzzards perched on a tree, writing a restaurant review of the dead, bloated cow below them, and getting sidetracked by a philosophical discussion on the morality, let along the esthetic value, of using tumbleweed as a garnish.

Mike and Ike have also written and directed two well received horror shorts, Surprise and Skeletons, and are about to start production on a third. In between all that, they wrote and performed a live show entitled The Grindhouse, featuring their peculiar brand of brainy low comedy and sober, informed heckling.

Now, I going to just come right out and admit something: I am a devoted admirer of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (and while we're on the subject of shocking revelations, I hear that Kristy McNichol is a lesbian!). I generally take a dim view of imitations (although I make allowances for MST3K's legitimate progeny, Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic), but while Mike and Ike's style, which they call "CommentaRIFFING," follows in the grand tradition, it's sufficiently different to be its own thing -- a satisfying hybrid of DVD commentary and stand-up comedy.

After road-testing the Grindhouse, they recorded a studio version, and the result is both funny and weirdly enlightening. The show consists of three segments, each stranger than the next, and all laced with jokes, little known facts, jokes, bizarre trivia, dirty jokes, and some surprisingly savvy observations from two guys who know movies and love weirdness.

The appetizer, if I may call it that, is the 1931 Merrie Melodies short, Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land, which features singing swine in blackface, and is sort of a bizarre Uncle Remus rip-off for people who liked Song of the South but wished it was more racist. Seriously, this thing makes Birth of a Nation look like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Hallelujah Land is one of the "Censored Eleven" cartoons that were banned from television in 1968, and while I'm opposed to bowdlerization on principle, it's amusing that this ossified chunk of minstrelsy was undone by a blacklist.

Still, it must be seen to be disbelieved, including its shameless pickpocketing of other, better cartoons (it all but traces the opening sequence of Steamboat Willie.)

The middle portion is an abridged (and with this film, the more abridged the better) version of Beach Girls and the Monster (1965), an effort by faded matinee idol Jon Hall (he both co-stars and directs) to cash in on the vogue for Beach Party and Teen Monster flicks. The result is an abomination that makes The Horror of Party Beach look like The Creature From the Black Lagoon. (If Hall's name sounds familiar, you may know him as Dorothy Lamour's beefcake paramour in 1937's The Hurricane. That proved to be Hall's professional peak, and from there he took his John Agar-sized acting talent on a long, slow toboggan ride to obscurity. His career climaxed with the title role of Ramar of the Jungle, a 1952-54 syndicated series which, if you ever happened to catch one of the episodes where Hall took off his shirt, might more accurately have been titled Man-Boobs of the Backlot.)

The entree is Jack Hill's cult classic Spider Baby (1964), which features one of Lon Chaney, Jr.'s last (and oddly, least drunken) performances, and which, if seen without proper protective gear, will warp your brain like a bra in a dryer. This is a rich slab of hot-buttered What the Fuckery, and it inspires Mike and Ike to some of their best work (although I take issue with a few of their satirical jibes, particularly about Mantan Moreland, who I think deserves credit for invariably rising about the thin and demeaning material he was given, even in the Monogram Charlie Chan films).

Those caveats aside, my only real complaint is with their decision to let the cartoon unspool without any commentary from the boys, because it doesn't really set you up for what's to come. But I'm a sucker for these forbidden and forgotten film curios, so it's a minor lapse. Overall, I found the Grindhouse funny and entertaining, and I give it 5 out of 5 Racist Minstrel Pigs.

Mike and Ike's Grindhouse, Volume I is available from Geekplanetonline as "a DRM-free download, provided as a thank you gift in exchange for a $10USD donation." All three featured films are in black-and-white. Running time is approximately 84 minutes. Joe Bob says check it out.

Special Mid-Week Pre-Friday Beast Blogging! With Special Guest Stars!

2012-01-11T01:03:00.000-08:00

I'm having a bit of an ulcer-inducing week, and wasn't feeling up to harvesting even the usual low-hanging fruit today. Fortunately, long time reader and lurker Emily was kind enough to send us a package of "Cat Crazies," to augment Riley and Moondoggie's new Pillar of Scratchitude (along with an additional supply for Sheri's menagerie, which I have dutifully forwarded), so instead of reading crazy crap from RenewAmerica, I just sat for awhile and watched my own cats take enthusiastic leave of their senses. It was highly therapeutic.

Cat Crazies, for those who don't know (and I didn't), are deceptively simple toys consisting of tabbed, uneven plastic rings that flip out of one's non-opposable grasp at the slightest pounce, thereby causing the cat itself to flip out, and providing hours of fun (or minutes, if it takes a bad hop and winds up under the couch).

She also shared an image of her own cats, Richmond and Burnaby, who appear to be the Chang and Eng of the feline world:

Cute, huh? I don't know their breeds, but Richmond appears to be a Hitler Cat who slept on his mustache.

Emily, like s.z., is also in the Feline Rescue business, and provided a video featuring one of their refugees giving a Ron Popeil-like demo of the Cat Crazy in action:

Emily explained: "Our manager at the shelter in Petco is also a videographer, so she makes tons of movies at the one I work at (CAT's youtube channel is here)." She concluded by saying:

So If you have any friends or friends of friends in the Portland area looking for a cat to adopt (or to foster, or to visit, or to sponsor, but to hopefully adopt), look no further than Cat Adoption Team, in beautiful Sherwood, Oregon. It's a no-kill, feline only shelter with outreach centers in several Petco, Petsmart and Nature's Pet locations in the Portland Metro Area.

So to you Portlandians I say this: It doesn't matter whether you're a Beaver or a Duck...we all need Cats.

Crazy Cow Lady Cracks Christ Conundrum

2012-01-09T23:57:00.000-08:00

WorldNetDaily columnist Patrice Lewis, who lives on a 20-acre spread with her husband and two children, describes herself as "a practical constitutional conservative stay-at-home gun-toting homeschooling cow-milking rural-living Christian mom." But she's also a keen observer of pop culture, aware of all internet traditions and abreast of the latest trends, as witnessed by her prompt comeback to this year old bit from the Colbert Report:

It all started with a quote I recently read, attributed to comedian Stephen Colbert:

If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus is just as selfish as we are or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition … and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.

Without condition? This got me thinking.

As some of you may recall, the last time we caught Patrice thinking, she reflected on how the Pill caused women to "rut like cattle," admonished men to "keep their wicks zipped" and ladies to "keep their bloomers buttoned," then wrapped up by telling us she was off to give her cow an abortion.

Now it always amuses me when people with no apparent interest in Jesus as a Messiah will try to pigeonhole Him into supporting their own socialist agenda in the name of “compassion.” But the question here is whether or not Jesus would approve of entitlement programs.

Like his modern followers, Jesus believed in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps; and he would have led by example, too, except he wore sandals.

Progressives like to claim Jesus was a socialist. They say welfare is morally equivalent to the teachings of Jesus, who urged us to have compassion on the poor and destitute. Liberals, from their position of lofty superiority, say we “must have no personal wealth beyond our needs.”

That doesn't actually sound like any of the liberals I know -- certainly none of the ones I've voted for -- and for a second there I thought Patrice was propping up a strawman, but then I noticed she used quotation marks, so it must be true. I would have liked a link, or a citation, or even just a name, but even I know that any liberal who confided our ulterior agenda to a gun-toting cow-milker would only do so on deep background.

To prove their point, they cherry-pick various Bible verses to support their logic. But of course the devil can cite Scripture to his own purpose.

Lately he's been strip mining Leviticus for good gay-bashing quotes.

Progressives long for a utopian society of complete equality, a land of neither rich nor poor. Human nature being what it is, such a utopia can only be accomplished and maintained through centralized economic management and forced income redistribution. Thus, what progressives ultimately want is communism.

Well, they're pretty sneaky about it, because the "progressives" in the current Administration and Congress don't even seem to want single payer health care. But the bigger question is, now that progressives want communism, what's left for communists to want? I haven't had a chance to ask one, but if I had to guess, I'd say either "catabaptism," or "toaster pastries."

But the historical track record of communist societies isn’t too good when it comes to charity and mercy. Communism has killed 100 million people in the last century. Trust me, 100 million dead people is not compassionate.

Unless they all simultaneously broke a leg while running at Pimlico and had to be shot.

And that’s why conservatives oppose entitlement programs … because they lead to socialism.

Which leads to communism, which is why Christ's weird injunction that the wealthy give their worldly goods to the poor in order to store up treasure in heaven inevitably turned the late Roman Empire into a egalitarian hellhole that was only rescued from oblivion by the meritocratic job creators of feudalism.

First, welfare creates a dependent class of voters who are guaranteed to vote for more entitlements. Second, entitlements don’t help the poor. Indeed, they cause poverty, not cure it.

Food Stamps allow people to live -- indeed, to wallow -- in poverty, whereas the traditional method of forcing the poor and destitute to starve to death or emigrate to America put a efficient period to their misery, although it occasionally led to public health problems (e.g., dozens of dead Little Match Girls rotting in alleyways after the Spring thaw, or severe Irish infestations).

The proof is in the pudding. If the trillions of dollars we’ve so far spent on entitlements cured poverty, we would have no poor people in this country. None.

Poverty is like chickenpox -- once you've had it you can never catch it again. Unless there were, say, a major economic downturn, with high unemployment and a widespread housing crisis, but really, how likely is that? Anyway, this is why I never give money to the homeless, because they'll just use it to buy tapioca.

Jesus did not come to influence the government leaders of the day. Rather, he came to offer salvation and guidelines to the individual.

The rugged individual. So I guess this means you guys don't want to elect Christians to office, or legislate morality anymore? Because it's too collectivist?

We – not the government – have the responsibility to care for the poor and destitute. Jesus’ message was not one of forcible seizure of individual wealth and unchecked redistribution of that wealth. It was a message of personal charity and compassion.

Yes, there was that whole "render unto Caesar" thing, and some might say "We the People" means we are the government, and are delegating certain tasks to it which we can't easily perform ourselves, such as issuing Social Security checks to widows and orphans, but in reality, Jesus was only interested in private altruism. He was like a personal trainer for your soul and his message was simple: Let the Poor go to Bally's.

But liberals don’t see it that way. They look at Acts 4 and conclude that because the early Christians adopted a communal lifestyle, then communism is the biblical ideal. But this entirely misses the point. The early Christians voluntarily engaged in communal living as an endurance mechanism against prosecution. It was not forced by government mandates; in fact, it was a survival tactic against a hostile government bent on their destruction. Savvy?

I am, indeed, hip to your lingo. And of course, once Christians finally did get control of the government, they gave up that hippie shit and devoted themselves to private enterprise and the destruction of their enemies, just the way Jesus would have wanted it.

Social justice, one of the buzzwords of the progressives, is not the same as caring for the poor. Forced redistribution of wealth is not charitable. It’s easy to get the government to do your “charitable” work for you.

Yeah? Try raising taxes. Hell, try raising the debt ceiling. (Argument not valid in cases of corporate welfare, because I freely admit, I've never had a hard time getting the government to handle that for me.)

Government programs of theft and entitlement do not make someone compassionate.

However, Title XII, a government program of wire fraud and emolument has been shown to make participants increasingly puissant.

Those who advocate the theory that Jesus was a socialist point to the rich man who was instructed to sell everything he owned and give his money to the poor, and then to follow Jesus (Matthew 19:21-24). The man went away crestfallen because he loved his wealth more than God. Jesus said, “It is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Progressives read this and then somehow make the extraordinary leap of logic that the government must seize and redistribute all wealth (while conveniently ignoring the “follow me” part).

Actually, I think they read this paragraph and think, "Was that the quote? I thought it was something really catchy about a camel and the eye of a needle..."

Of course, Jesus was talking to an individual and suggesting an individual course of action.

It's unfair to infer a larger meaning from any of his words, because that's not how parables work. They're very surgical.

He didn’t tell the rich man to pass a government program to take everyone’s money and give it to the poor. He didn’t hold a gun to the rich man’s head and tell him “donate or die.”

Although if the Gospels contained credible reports that Jesus pulled a Glock .380 on the moneychangers, even progressives would have to admit that was a legitimate miracle. Or at least a really cool episode of The Wire.

The Demon Barber of Fleet Enema

2012-01-05T11:25:00.000-08:00

Matt "Bam Bam" Barber was, as you probably recall, an obscure employee of Allstate Insurance, until he started writing anti-gay jeremiads on the internet, and the Good Hands dropped him like a hot rivet. Naturally, he was scooped up by the loving arms of Professional Homophobia, and now spews his santorum from a doubly secure double sinecure: "Vice President of Liberty Counsel Action and...Associate Dean and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law at Liberty University School of law. In addition to his law degree, Matt holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from Regent University." (Matt obtained the MA when he went to collect his BS, and they asked him if he'd like to Super Size it.)

Since taking up residence at Jerry Falwell's diploma mill in Lynchburg, Virginia, Bam Bam's harangues have taken on a more bible-banging fervor, even when writing for the relatively secular (or at least non-sectarian) Townhall, and has now reached the point where his average column sounds like any random pull quote from Elmer Gantry. But this week Bam Bam has pulled off a masterstroke, turning the atheists' love of unholy science against them, by enlisting Albert Einstein in his army of Christian soldiers.

The Folly of God-Denial

Every year secular-“progressives” and obnoxious atheist pressure groups exponentially ramp up demands that all traces of Christianity be purged from the public sphere; particularly at Christmas time. This is like demanding the abolition of penicillin during an outbreak of Typhoid Fever.

Unfortunately, the Constitution mandates a separation of church and antibiotic. But the next time you come down with typhus, Matt, by all means, feel free to take an intravenous creche.

Albert Einstein, who is often falsely characterized as having been an atheist, once said of non-believers: “The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who – in their grudge against traditional religion as the ‘opium of the masses’ – cannot hear the music of the spheres.”

Einstein also said (in the same interview from which Matt will shortly be quoting):

"My own career was undoubtedly determined, not by my own will but by various factors over which I have no control--primarily those mysterious glands in which Nature prepares the very essence of life, our internal secretions."

"It may interest you," [the interviewer] interjected, "that Henry Ford once told me that he, too, did not carve out his own life, but that all his actions were determined by an inner voice."

"Ford," Einstein replied, "may call it his inner voice. Socrates referred to it as his daimon. We moderns prefer to speak of our glands of internal secretion. Each explains in his own way the undeniable fact that the human will is not free."

So Einstein didn't believe in free will (something he says several times in the interview), but he does believe that his destiny could be foretold, if not by an astrologer, then certainly by an endocrinologist. The point being, given how often Einstein was interviewed from 1916 on, you could probably piece together quotes that would have him seemingly endorsing homeopathic medicine, the Church of Scientology, or Applebee's new Sizzling Skillet Fajitas.

Although there is no evidence that, in life, Albert Einstein accepted the lordship of Jesus Christ, when asked if he believed in Jesus the historical figure, he responded: “Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.”

Well, not to get nit-picky, but seeing as Bam Bam's already gotten cherry-picky, I'll just point out that there's no exclamation point in the original interview. And the quote continues, "How different, for instance, is the impression we receive from an account of legendary heroes of antiquity like Theseus. Theseus and other heroes of his type lack the authentic vitality of Jesus."

So Einstein thought Jesus was livelier than that guy who sneaked around labyrinths with a ball of yarn and sucker-punched Minotaurs. Still, it's only one man's opinion that Christ had more "authentic vitality," not settled fact, so in the spirit of fundamentalist demands that science courses treat creationism and evolution as equally plausible, I think Sunday Schools should "teach the controversy," and let the kids decide if they want to worship the pacifist hippie, or the dude who decapitated a giant bull-man and killed Mickey Rourke in 3D.

As we mentioned, Bam Bam is quoting from interview that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post (October 16, 1929), which Einstein granted to George Sylvester Viereck, a German-American poet who also interviewed (and defended) Hitler, and who was later convicted of being a Nazi agent. Viereck does bring up Jesus quite a bit in the piece, but he also asks Einstein if he thinks of himself as a German or a Jew, and whether he believes in assimilation.

"We Jews," Einstein replied, "have been too adaptable. We have been too eager to sacrifice our idiosyncrasies for the sake of social conformity."

"Perhaps assimilation makes for greater happiness."

"I do not think so," Einstein replied. "Even in modern civilization, the Jew is most happy if he remains a Jew."

So there we go. In the same interview in which Einstein affirms a belief that Jesus was a historical figure, he also rejects assimilation into Christian society, let alone conversion. But Bam Bam draws a different conclusion:

I write this with complete confidence: Albert Einstein presently acknowledges the deity of Jesus Christ.

I write this with even greater confidence: Albert Einstein is dead (as is Jesus, so admittedly they have that in common), and is therefore not presently endorsing anybody's claim to godhood. Unless what Bam Bam means is that Einstein, because he didn't "accept the lordship of Jesus Christ," realizes that he screwed up by being a Jew, because he's presently roasting in hell (but still has the graciousness to admit it was a fair cop).

Still, the mere belief in a creator God, or an admission that Jesus walked the earth, is altogether insufficient to recompense the debt owed for the fruits of wickedness, sown and harvested throughout our lives. As James 2:19 declares: “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder.”

Yep. Einstein is roastin' in hell. Even worse, he's still getting calls from collection agencies.

So there is a question of principal importance to every human, and it is this: Is Jesus who He claimed to be: God, Creator of the heavens and earth; the singular path to salvation? Or was He something else? As with any yes-or-no question, there is a yes-or-no answer. There must be.

This seems like it ought to be a multiple choice, rather than a True or False quiz.

As author and Christian apologist C.S. Lewis observed...

Sigh. Here we go again...

...Christ could have been only one of three things: A lunatic, a liar, or – as He often claimed and as billions have believed – the sovereign Lord and Creator of the universe.

Or he could have been -- misquoted. So four things. Or exploited after his death by a group of men who may themselves have been either sincere lunatics or cynical opportunists, but who clearly had their own agenda. So five, he could only have been one of five things. Or maybe he was a wholly fictitious mascot for a New and Improved brand of religious doctrine, like Betty Crocker or the Quaker Oats guy. So six. Six tops.

The Bible is one of two things: it’s either simply an ancient text chock-full of creative tales and loose philosophies no more relevant to our daily lives than a Tony Robbins self-help book, or it is what it says it is: the inerrant, inspired Word of God. It can be nothing else.

Now replace the word "Bible" with "Koran" and run the test through the Scantron machine again. Then try it with "Book of Mormon," "the Veda," "the Avesta," and, just so we have a control group, Jim Bouton's Ball Four.

It's All About Love or, Parts: The Dorothy Hamill Horror

2012-01-04T12:56:00.000-08:00

Jim at The Velvet Blog sent me an email the other day, kind of like one of those "For Your Consideration" ads you see in the trade papers, and on billboards along the Sunset Strip, except it contained a recommendation for our sequel to Better Living Through Bad Movies. Like his previous suggestions, it was a movie I'd never heard of -- a state of blissful ignorance I can now only look back upon with a wistful sigh of nostalgic yearning -- which didn't surprise me, as Jim seems to possess an encyclopedic knowledge of -- and eclectic taste in -- bad cinema. This time he nudged me toward a bucket of art-house offal by Thomas Vinterberg, a Danish filmmaker who co-founded the Dogme 95 movement with Lars von Trier. Jim proffered a few brief plot details, but basically summed up the film by asking:

Good lord--what were they thinking??

I have to admit, I dozed off near the end, so I'll probably rewatch the last 15 minutes to see what, if anything, I missed.

If you have any desire to see this train wreck, it's on Netflix streaming--but it expires on Sunday, I think.

I probably should have taken this as a warning rather than a challenge, but since Sheri and I tend to write about either big- or low-budget Hollywood fare, our repertoire is a little light on moderately-priced, EU-funded art films starring B-list American actors. So what the hell, I figured. And if it got really bad, and I found I could neither match Jim's fortitude, nor fall into a defensive coma, I could always just turn the thing off.

Unfortunately, once I'd sat through the first six hours of this one hour and forty-one minute movie, I realized it was too late to turn back. Much, much too late. So Join Us, won't you?

It’s All About Love (2003)
Directed by Thomas Vinterberg
Written by Mogens Rukov and Thomas Vinterberg

“It was the hot summer of 2021.” That’s what Joaquin Phoenix tells us, in a “Polish” accent that makes you want to beat him with a truncheon made of kielbasa. Joaquin is stopping in New York to see his wife, Clare Danes, the World’s Greatest Figure Skater, and sign their divorce papers. Instead, he’s met by two of Clare’s sinister private security agents: Mark Strong, who’s struggling to maintain an American accent and suppress the urge to kill everyone in the terminal, and an elderly bodyguard who’s struggling with jowls and the urge to switch from Metamucil to Ducolax.

Joaquin agrees to stay in town and attend Clare’s “premiere,” but naturally he’ll need a tuxedo, because in the future, Holiday on Ice is a black tie affair, while people wear Crocs and those beer-caddy hardhats to the opera.

There’s a dead man blocking the bottom of the escalator, and Strong explains that everybody’s heart has gone on the fritz (“The heart,” Joaquin says, touching his chest, “That’s in here.”), and people are just dropping dead, often while leaning over to collect their suitcases, leaving their corpses to ride slowly around on the baggage carrousel, and turning JFK into the most depressing theme park in the Tri-State Area.

Clare’s hotel is an armed camp. Joaquin is frisked before being hustled to her floor, which is sealed off like the White House Situation Room, the halls crowded with murmuring Men in Black, because the whole city is abuzz about “the skating show.”

So to recap: Everything in 2021 will look exactly the same as 2003: fashions, cars, technology. The only noticeable difference is that in the future, more people than usual will keel over while buying Eagle Snacks, and ice skaters will have their own militias.

Joaquin and Clare mutter and giggle about why she didn’t meet him at the airport (because she never goes to the airport – apparently she just skates everywhere, like Hans Brinker). Clare also has a vague Slavic accent, and if anything, it’s even worse than Joaquin’s. But it fades in and out like a weak UHF channel, so I’m hopeful that one good hail storm will knock it out entirely.

Clare’s massive motorcade heads to the skating show. Joaquin calls his brother, Sean Penn, who is mincing up and down the aisle of an Airbus and flavoring his own Polish accent with a sparkling tablespoon of Fey.

It seems Sean’s doctor prescribed a drug to ease his fear of flying, but he took an overdose, and now he can’t stop flying – he’s always in the air. This is pretty funny, but I think it’s actually supposed to be poetic. Meanwhile, people in Uganda are flying without planes, spontaneously floating into the sky like Ed Wynn in Mary Poppins, except they clearly don’t love to laugh; in fact, they seem kind of depressed about it.

At the rink, Joaquin and his tuxedo watch as Clare and her hair-weave do a few listless double axels. The crowd goes out of their frigging minds with joy, suggesting that in the future, figure skating is the only form of entertainment allowed, TV and movies having been outlawed. Which at the moment doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

Clare walks out into the hall and confronts Another Clare, dressed forbiddingly in a babushka and Zebra-print raincoat. Her two-toned, black and white color scheme obviously represents Manichaeism, or Cartesian Dualism. But then Another Clare screams at Clare, “You go away! Go away!” which makes me think she might actually symbolize rottentomatoes.com.

Clare begs Joaquin to skip his flight and get in her motorcade of white limousines, so he will know what it would feel like if the President of the United States were a 17-year old prom queen. Then they drive to a bar to use a payphone, because it's the future.

Joaquin discovers that there’s a conspiracy to send Clare to Moscow for a vacation, so the two of them hold hands and run toward the camera, just like the opening credits of The Mod Squad, if it had been a show about two Polish people who were depressed because they didn’t have cell phones.

Meanwhile, Sean Penn is still airborne and Polish, but he’s less fey now, so thankfully the overdose of Rip Taylor he took is starting to wear off.

Joaquin and Clare check into a flophouse in Brooklyn and pantomime intercourse under a musty blanket. Suddenly, it starts to snow. They walk out into a flurry, and Joaquin, who totally nailed the location of the heart earlier in the film, says to someone standing off screen, “Hello, sir! Have you seen that it’s snowing?” Dude is in the zone.

Joaquin passes out from all the implied sex, while some shadowy men kidnap Clare. He goes back to her hotel, where Another Clare weeps and screams “Get out of here!” and threatens him with a knife. Then a Third Other Clare sprints past the camera, presumably because she spotted a better script across the room. It turns out that a supervillain is buying skaters at a discount in Eastern Europe, then scientifically transforming them into Clare – so for convenience sake we’ll call them Clonya Hardings.

Joaquin walks outside and faints. Meanwhile, it’s also snowing in Venice. He wakes up in Clare’s hotel, just in time for a weird debutante ball, where all three Clonya Hardings are formally presented to Joaquin. Then things get a trifle uncomfortable when they dopplegang-bang Real Clare, rubbing her all over and begging to smell her.

Clare swoons (a good 41% of this film consists of people greeting each other in hotel rooms, smoking on airplanes, and fainting). Later she wakes up in her hotel room and drinks a glass of water just as a TV anchorman warns the audience that all fresh water in the world is about to freeze for two minutes. This saves Clare and Joaquin a trip to the ice machine, and they celebrate by simulating sex under a quilt.

Afterwards, Clare squints at something off screen and shouts, “Look!” Cut to Paris, where it’s snowing. Cut back to Clare, who can see unseasonable weather three thousand miles away, suggesting that in the future, Lasik surgery works really well.

Joaquin and Clare decide to escape to Poland. Before fleeing for their lives, however, they stop by the rink so Clare can figure skate with her psychotic clones. They are all dressed in identical pink outfits, and one of them – I think it’s the shouty, knife-wielding Other Clare – repeatedly tells Joaquin how “beautiful” he is, before whispering, “I meese men.” So before she was transformed into Clare, Other Claire apparently had an affair with former Attorney General Edwin Meese, which frankly would have put me off penis in any form, but then I have a weak constitution.

Somebody with a yen for German Expressionism illuminates the rink, and Clare’s four body doubles slowly figure skate through the light and shadows, in what can best be described as The Ice Capades of Dr. Caligari. Tickets available from all Ticketron outlets.

There’s a gunshot, and one of the Clares is hit! They all continue to skate, however, because Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t interrupt Jackie Kennedy’s ice dancing, did he? Bang! She takes another slug while doing a Hamill Camel, spraying the rink with blood like a Rainbird. Somebody should probably do something, but Joaquin is busy smoking, and the Clares are concentrating on their salchows. In fact, the only person who even seems to notice the gory assassination is the Zamboni driver, and he just looks annoyed.

Two more shots ring out, and the Remaining Clares drop dead. Okay, enough is enough; Joaquin walks onto the ice in a snit, stands over Clare’s body and snaps at the gunman, “Stop that!” But it’s okay, because it’s only the Other Clares who are bloody corpses – Real Clare took a dive. Aren’t you relieved? You won’t be when you look at the time code and realize there’s still 25 minutes to go.

Joaquin and Clare wander across a vast, snowy landscape, just like Omar Sharif in Doctor Zhivago, except you keep hoping they’ll run into that bear from Grizzly Man. Meanwhile, people continue to fly in Uganda, which means someone is still capable of thinking happy thoughts. Personally, I can’t manage it.

Clare develops painfully chapped lips, so she decides to die, perishing slowly and languorously in Joaquin’s arms while he stares into the camera, which is what he’s been doing for a good 50% of the film. Seriously, I am way more intimately acquainted with his face than I ever wanted to be; I feel like I went to high school with that scar on his upper lip.

Anyway, he sits there, until he and Clare are just two blue faces sticking out of a snowdrift. Then Sean calls again to say, “John, you’re probably out there somewhere in the snow.” Well, yeah. “Both of you. It’s like the old days.” Remember when you kids would wander into the Arctic Circle and die of hypothermia? Mom would get so mad…”

Cut to Africa, where dozens of floating Ugandans are tethered to the ground by ropes and wriggling like Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade balloons with a panic disorder.

We fade to black, and these words appear: “It’s all about love.” Just in case you were wondering what the deal was.

According to the time code there are still five minutes to go, but since it's just the end credits, I’m going to turn it off (words I’ve been weeping and screaming for the past hour, like George C. Scott in Hardcore), because I’m reasonably sure there isn’t a hilarious blooper reel at the end.

Happy Belated Birthday, Doghouse Riley! I Got You a War!

2012-01-02T23:46:00.000-08:00

Well, I screwed up. Boy, did I screw up. After I had to restore my phone, the app I used to keep track of Significant Dates ceased popping up with reminders, and as a result, I failed to offer birthday greetings to Doghouse Riley on December 21st. In some ways, this is entirely in keeping with tradition, since I've gotten the date wrong for the past two years in a row, but never before have I flat out missed it.

So my sincere apologies to DR, who we think is kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being we've ever known, and one of the finest writers on the Internets -- although thanks to geographic destiny, his gift is mostly devoted to the creation of new and better euphemisms for Mitch Daniels' brief stature. As a small token of our vast esteem, please accept this tardy photo of Sabrina Ferrilli:

And please join me in wishing the Hoosier Sage a very happy, if criminally overdue, birthday.

It's not enough though, is it? Okay, in penance, I will read Larry Klayman's pitch for a wacky 3-camera sitcom: Larry Loves Curtis LeMay.

You're familiar with Larry Klayman of course -- the attorney (law license currently suspended) who founded Judicial Watch in 1994, and made his bones filing multiple, redundant, and groundless lawsuits against the Clinton Administration. In 2006, in a comic misunderstanding worthy of Love, American Style, Larry sued Judicial Watch, perhaps due to a clerical error, or maybe he'd visited the optometrist, then tried going back to work while his pupils were still dilated. After that episode, he ran for the U.S. Senate in Florida, but got trounced in the primary. Now he's back with another group, this time called Freedom Watch, because Watch on the Rhine, Someone to Watch Over Me, and The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything were all copyrighted.

Larry also writes a column for WorldNetDaily (check out their snazzy new WordPress template!), and this week he goes from Watching the Judiciary and Freedom, to Watching Dr. Strangelove, which he seems to think is a documentary:

Let’s be blunt.

And realistic. In fact, let's use reality as blunt instrument, then touch off a thermonuclear weapon to burn down the crime scene and destroy the evidence. By the time the cops are through sifting the ashes, we'll be on a beach in Zihuatanejo, painting a boat.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is and has always been the major problem and danger in the Middle East and internationally.

Ah, so apparently the Middle East is all one country -- someone inform Google Maps. But Larry's right. Remember the Iran-Iraq War? True, Iraq started it, but Iran got top billing for a reason.

Iran will within months acquire atomic weapons that can be delivered through missiles as well as planes and ships

...and yet the bomb is still cold when it gets here! 30 minutes or less my ass...

...and has threatened – in the face of increased sanctions – not only to annihilate Israel and attack us too, but also to set ablaze the Strait of Hormuz, which is the gateway to oil shipments from Middle Eastern producers throughout the world. This would cripple the world’s economy and send us into an irreparable depression.

While turning the oil-rich sands of the Middle East into a radioactive wasteland is just a smart business plan, assuming we followed it up by immediately switching to an all glass and mutant-based economy.

Iran’s threat is a declaration of war, and we must now respond in kind with massive force!

Wouldn't responding in kind to a threat mean...making a threat? "I can explain, Officer. She slapped me, so I responded in kind by dismembering her with a chainsaw."

Anyway, it's been 70 years since we last declared war, so it figures we're a little rusty on the fundamentals, but a threat isn't a declaration. Threats, at least at the diplomatic level, are usually a negotiating tactic, while in every day life, threats are usually a sign that you're spending too much time in a Youtube comment thread.

The immediate need to destroy the Islamic regime once and for all is heightened by what is going on in neighboring Iraq.

Because what's a sitcom without wacky neighbors?

Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, even by the admission of the liberal New York Times, “is moving to consolidate authority, create a one-party Shiite dominated state” and in effect throw his lot in with his Shiite brothers in Tehran – the neo-Nazi mullahs who not only threaten and are thus far succeeding with world conquest in the name of Allah

...assuming you count their Sunday afternoon games of Risk in the mosque basement. Still, it's not the first time Persia has threatened Western Civilization, so Larry, I need you to round up 300 beefy guys in rawhide jockstraps and start painting them with olive oil.

...but also torture, maim and murder their own people to hold on to total power.

Which we hate, unless you're Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, or the Oakland Police Department, in which case we'll pay for it.

So now Iran and Iraq will essentially be one big terrorist state – with tremendous wealth, thanks to their huge oil resources and revenues – bent on successfully waging Islamic revolution not just in the Middle East, but worldwide. And, of course we know that the Islamic regime supports other terrorist states and groups and is the major financier and source of terrorism.

Face it, they have a monopoly, just like the old Ma Bell, and it's producing the same anti-competitive effect. The Justice Department needs to immediately sue to break up the Islamic regime, or smaller, regional terrorist groups will be priced out of the market.

I, for one, am aghast not just at the prospect of a “greater Iran,” but I am outraged that our so-called political leaders sacrificed a huge number of American lives for what was inevitable in the end. But despite the stupidity and negligence of George W. Bush and Barack Hussein Obama and their enablers, like Sen. John McCain, in not making the removal of the Islamic regime in Iran the major priority, now is the final time to act before it is too late. The radical mullahs in Tehran are a scourge that must be destroyed. To allow them to exist one minute more would be tantamount to reliving the mistakes that led to the rise of Adolf Hitler, World War II and the Holocaust.

So we should atone for our failure to stop the Holocaust in Germany by committing genocide in Iran.

Importantly, an increasing number of Iranian-Americans now understand that war with Iran will entail significant civilian casualties in their native country.

Clue Fever: Catch it!

And, while many Iranian-Americans still have loved ones there, they are increasingly willing to accept the consequences of all-out war with the Islamic regime.

If their loved ones are anything like my relatives, it's not surprising.

That is because they know, better than most of the rest of us, what this terrorist state means not only to the fight for freedom in their own country, but to world peace and hoped for economic prosperity. This is the most evil regime since the Third Reich, and it must be expunged now before it is too late.

So if Grandma promised you'd inherit her collection of porcelain figurines, you might want to go grab them now, before her Hummels acquire a half-life of 10,000 years.

Ironically, if there ever were a time to use nuclear weapons, like radiation-reduced neutron bombs, to excise a cancer such as this, now is the moment.

Even more ironically, a neutron bomb is an "enhanced radiation weapon (ERW)," since "the enormous radiation released by ERWs that is meant to be a major source of casualties." So no offense, Larry, but I think I'd like a second opinion before we start the cancer treatments.

While our armed forces are now clear of the quagmire in Iraq, to sacrifice many more American lives would be criminal. And, a quick strike is necessary – much like the Israeli pre-emptive air strikes that quickly put an end to what otherwise would have been a devastating war with neighboring Arab states in 1967 – to prevent a counterattack that would let the Islamic regime “get off the mat” and wreak devastation on the world economy by closing the Strait of Hormuz and attacking and seriously if not fatally harming Israel, and even other Western interests.

We must hit Iran with a nuclear sneak attack, because if we just do what we normally do -- bomb the indiscriminate crap out of them with conventional high explosives -- there might be someone left alive to shoot back at us. And yeah, sure, perpetrating the equivalent of Pearl Harbor with nukes might seem harsh, but it would be criminal to lose a single American life to this worthy enterprise, whereas torching every Iran man, woman, and child would at worst get you into civil court.

To kill this regime, strong and decisive measures are necessary. The threat is not one just toward Israel anymore, but the entire civilized world, and in particular the well-being of the United States.

In other words, we need to take a strong dose of nuclear medicine. Then we need to chase it with some potassium iodide to deal with our now luminous thyroids.

It is indeed sad that it has come to this. If Presidents Clinton, Bush and now Obama had had any foresight, a nuclear attack on Iran could have long since been averted.

We're expunging you more in sorrow than in anger.

Much like taking out a small lump in a cancerous female breast, the operation could have been simple and done with. Now a total radical double mastectomy is required.

We're going to bomb them back to the training bra.

Because of this inaction, this Islamic state – so strategically powerful – is the equivalent of Germany prior to World War II. And, it intends not just to eradicate Jews, but Christians as well in furtherance of its Muslim war on all of us.

Using the same conversion chart, I find that Larry is the equivalent of James Spader in Mannequin.

We are just days from the Iowa caucuses, and some of you may look to a new Republican president in 2012 to solve this and other major problems. Even were a great leader to emerge...we cannot wait until early 2013 to crush the mullahs in Iran.

"Because this erection has already lasted longer than four hours, and my doctor's phone is going straight to voice mail."

And frankly, no Republican candidate has advocated a massive strike to end the Islamic regime.

Oh sure, they're crazy...but they're not Klayman Krazy.

The Republicans just talk a good game. Where have they been for the last three years, as the cancer grew to a tremendous size under the “mullah in chief,” Barack Hussein Obama?! Their efforts amounted to little more than political gamesmanship and are sickening!

Unless he is forced, the prospects of President Obama ordering this forceful action are not great. We thus need to put heat on our political and governmental interests by rising up and demanding this.

Apocalypse Now!

Obama and Hillary Clinton are traitors, and they are probably bribed to the hilt by Iran, but that does not relieve the rest of us from demanding action! We cannot allow for the rise of another Hitler-type regime at this time in world history.

It might conflict with our Spring recital by Sparkle Motion.

There are enough problems that confront us, and we must NOW take drastic measures to remove these vile and evil Islamic terrorists from the face of the earth, if for no other reason than to allow us to deal with other matters and get on with business.

"People, people... (taps gavel)...The Chair cannot entertain any motion to consider new business until the Clerk has read the minutes of the last meeting and everyone in Iran is a smoldering corpse."

Have a Paranormal New Year!

2011-12-31T00:39:00.000-08:00

Here's Keith, with a little story about the World's Worst Sex Tape.

Paranormal Activity
86 min., color, 2009
Director & screenwriter: Oren Peli

From Reuters, Oct 14, 2011:

San Diego, which has been touted as having one of the best climates in the United States, is also the luckiest, according to a new ranking ...

To determine the most charmed towns the magazine analyzed data about cities with the most lottery and sweepstake winners, the most hole-in-ones on the golf course, the fewest lighting strikes, the least deaths from falling objects, and the lowest debt due to playing the lottery and race betting.

San Diego's multiple jackpot winners, its low lightning strike count, and its low number of lightning-related injuries and deaths helped push it to the top.

It took the statisticians from Men’s Health Magazine, rated highly for mathematical prowess, to concoct this index of “luck” and I’m happy they’ve set a new standard. A Steinway “D” model falls from a ninth floor apartment and no one is injured. Golf balls get where they’re intended. Lightning strikes, but strikes only the “Bad 7-11” and not the “Good 7-11.” And if you have a lotto number or a horse you really like --- bet that bad boy to win, win, win!

However, the quants at Men’s Health didn’t consider the metric of “Demonic Possession” which upon inclusion tarnishes San Diego’s luck in the most unpleasant manner possible. And if you are perhaps twenty-something with nothing to do all day but sit around with your thumb up your ass, then the heartbreak of demon possession becomes all too clear.

Meet Micah and Katie. They are the people who live next door. They are exceptionally nondescript, neither handsome nor unattractive.

Micah is a day-trader who must be doing very well, because he has purchased the latest Sony pro HD camera. (He’s so excited about the HD-cam he accidentally throws away the owner’s manual and can’t operate the thing properly.)

Katie does something, we don’t know what.

Micah: “Hi Katie. How was your day?”

Katie: “I just cashed in my scratch-off lottery ticket and won $1500.”

M: “I had a great day too. Was playing golf, then it started raining, but lightning struck dumb Jeff instead of me. So I bought this nifty camera.”

K: “Micah, there was something unusual at the 7-11 when I cashed in the ticket. I felt like something was reaching out for me. Something trying to grab my leg.”

M: “That was good luck reaching out for you, baby-doll. Here, let’s retire to the Ethan Allen suite and I’ll set up my camera to record our very lucky sex.”

K: “Micah, does all the Target kitchenware rattle at night? I mean, I hear all the pots and pans making noise even upstairs. I may have the receipts. Should we return them? I don’t like self-animating kitchenware.”

M: “That’s odd, Katie. I spilled dishwashing detergent on the floor last night, and this morning there were weird cloven footprints all over! Do you think it could be the Easter Bunny?”

K: “I don’t know Micah. Perhaps we ought to call a kitchen appliance expert.”

Indeed. And rest assured, Dr. Maytag arrives on a house call. “I just love San Diego,” he says, “I should visit more often. A Steinway grand piano dropped outside of my parking space, but hit another vehicle instead. I sure feel lucky.”

K: “Dr. Maytag, our appliances make strange noises at night. Is there anything you can do to help? I can’t stand it anymore.”

DM: “Katie, I understand your concern. But after a cursory examination of your kitchen, your appliances originate from “Whirlpool” so I’m afraid I can’t help you at this time. However, I have an associate, a “Whirlpool” specialist, located in LA. Here’s his number. Call him right away. Whatever is wrong with your dishwasher and refrigerator ... they need to be destroyed!”

M: “Can’t we just haul them out onto the street and have sanitation take them away?”

DM: “No. Absolutely not. Your appliances are cursed. They will come back for you. You have to perform disposal in the most professional way. Bye-Bye. I’m leaving a little early to get in a race or two at Del Mar. There’s a forty-to-one long shot I like.”

Katie and Micah retire to the Ethan Allen suite, where the Sony HD-cam is mounted on a tripod ready to record their every nocturnal spasm. Sex is out of the question because of the accursed appliances downstairs. So much noise.

The next day sleep-deprived Micah reviews the video footage but can’t find a money shot to post on his Facebook page.

M: “Katie. Come look at this!”

K: “What? Can’t you see I’m busy packing up this “Wearever” shit to return to Target?”

M: “Katie. The bedroom door moved. It moved all by itself.”

K: “That’s odd. Today my bowels moved ... all by themselves!”

Night after night, Katie and Micah suffer the same intolerable noise and confusion. And each morning after Micah reviews his HD-cam footage to reveal the bedroom door does, in fact, open and shut by itself. Katie insists on calling Dr. Whirlpool but Micah resists. “I can figure all this out. I have an internet connection. And a Ouija Board”

M: “Katie, where did you get those bruises? And your hands are burned. You need to go to the Emergency Room.”

K: “Micah, the refrigerator door opened by itself and hit me in the thigh. And then the dishwasher started by itself and I tried to save the Wedgwood. By the way, I’ve had this problem all my life. My family’s house burned down. The fire department said it was the clothes dryer.”

M: “Do you want to go to the hospital?”

K: “No, Micah, I’m perfectly content to stay here and sleep under the cold glare of your Sony HD-cam. I have another scratch-lottery ticket to cash tomorrow.”

So ends our adventure with the lucky but hapless youngsters. What can we learn from their experience? First, when your kitchen appliances go “evil” on you, pick up the first blunt instrument you have and smash them to pieces. It’s a very satisfying experience if I may say so.

Secondly, if your partner has previously experienced evil appliances and hasn’t told you, watch the hell out.

Finally, think twice before throwing away the “Extended Warranty” card that might be included with the owner’s manual. You might need it someday.

"I'm Midnight, and I disapprove of this movie."

Happy New Year to all.

Gentlemen Prefer Pythons

2011-12-30T00:29:00.000-08:00

First, I'd like to thank everyone again for the many kind donations to the WO'C Beg-a-Thon -- you guys made it possible for us to survive a very ugly and desperate time, and we're sincerely grateful.

But while most every cent went for debt service, after the hospital and vet bills were paid we did put aside a little money to buy a Christmas present for the cats. So in the spirit of those "Your Tax Dollars at Work" signs that are always posted alongside a public works project, and are supposed to make you feel better about creeping along at five miles per hour until the flagman waves you past the orange cones, here's where a fraction of your generosity went:

Riley and Moondoggie's Scratching Post as of December 24:

Just in case you've ever wondered why, in every murder in which mutilation plays a part -- from Jack the Ripper to the Black Dahlia -- the first suspect is always a cat.

And the Christmas Day Scratching Post:

"It's a Christmas miracle...!"

Wo'C Staffer Keith also went all out this year, as seen below, in his brief, Linus-like essay on the true meaning of Christmas.

By Keith:

Santa can tell you, every boy and girl wants a nice, plush, cuddly eight-foot snake under their tree. I copped one.

"A Bob Clampett car-toooo-OOON!"

Dorothy: Were you doing anything you wouldn't want Mr. Esmond to see?

Lorelei: Why, no -- My goodness, yes!

Dorothy: What?

Lorelei: He was telling me about South Africa. lt's dangerous. Full of snakes called pythons. lt seems a python can grab a goat ... and kill it by squeezing it to death.

Dorothy: Get to the point.

Lorelei: That's all.

Dorothy: What's incriminating about that?

Lorelei: Well, Piggie was being the python, and l was a goat.

Dorothy: Oh, Lorelei!

Happy New Year!

Not So Cold Case

2011-12-29T12:49:00.000-08:00

You may remember the shooting that took place in the streets of Hollywood on December 9th. It occurred fairly close to our home, although the gunfire we heard that day came not from a jilted loon attempting to commit suicide-by-cop, but from the nearby set of Gangster Squad. Nevertheless, our roving correspondent Chris Vosburg was nearly an eyewitness, and only escaped being in the wrong place at the wrong time because he couldn't resist taking in the 10 AM rerun of Perry Mason before embarking on his errands.

Well, Chris returned to the scene of the crime to do a little forensics work, and filed this follow-up report. The story you are about to see is true. The names haven't been changed because I'm too lazy:

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that my Perry Mason habit spared me from the shoot-’em-up on Vine St, and speculated idly at the time that you might find a few pockmarks in the Bank of America masonry as a result. I finally made it up to the bank last Friday, and, while waiting for a bus south afterward, I had a look around the bus stop at the southwest corner of Sunset and Vine:

That’s the Bank of America building behind the bus shelter; didn’t see any dings in the BofA itself, but did see this, in the eighth-inch-thick perforated steel backing of the bus shelter itself:

Another shot from the opposite angle:

It’s hard to see in the photos (especially when you’re using a cheap cellcam like I’ve got), but that dimple is clearly the result of a small heavy projectile traveling at high speed, and the fact that it hasn’t rusted up yet makes it fairly recent, so I’m inclined to conclude that yep, Tyler Brehme put one of his bullets into the bus shelter.

I don’t mean to make a big drama out of this, but whew: had someone been seated on the center of the bench in the bus shelter, it woulda hit ‘em square in the chest.

Scott adds: On the other hand, if we didn't make a big drama out of everything in this town, TNT and Lifetime would be showing 24 hours of test patterns. So I'm going to imagine Chris wrapping up by saying, "Looks like it's lucky that someone...(PUTS ON SUNGLASSES, STARES INTO THE DISTANCE)...sat this one out."

YYEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH !*

*thanks to Bogie for the reminder to properly close my David Caruso tags.

Dr. Mike: The Bitch is Back in Town

2011-12-28T00:16:00.000-08:00

In keeping with tradition I went to the mall today to return the two polyester dress shirts from my aunt, and the Deluxe Barbeque Tool Set (which I was actually kind of sorry to return, as it contained "a basting brush, a grill brush, a spatula, fork, heat-resistant tongs, and 8 corn holders," but sadly, that's 2 fewer corn holders than I need. We're serious about our corn-holding here, and I don't want any of my guests to be stuck wrestling bare-handed with a greasy cob), and I exchanged them all for a new column from Professor Dr. Mike Adams.

This week Dr. Mike writes fanfic to PETA, in which he imagines -- lovingly, and in great detail -- kicking a dog.

Liberal Hypocrisy is a Female Dog

What fresh hypocrisy is this? Actually, it's the same old story: Dr. Professor Mike is ticked off that PETA devotes its resources and energies toward a ban on animal testing, rather than breaking into fertility clinics and freeing frozen embryos. You may remember when he planned to celebrate his 45th birthday by trepanning kittens on the steps of the Women's Resource Center, thereby demonstrating that feminism is gross, or vivisection is cool, or -- I'm not actually sure what his point was, but I'm pretty sure he should have just gone to Chuck E. Cheese.

This week he's laid another of his elaborate traps, in which he plans to ensnare PETA in a web of email. Let's watch:

Dear PETA: I have a neighbor who is being extremely rough with his Golden Retriever. He kicks the dog with the side of his foot whenever she is in his way. The dog weighs about 80 pounds and is not likely to be seriously harmed by the kicking. However, the dog is pregnant. Is this animal abuse? Would you recommend reporting this to the police?
Mike Adams

I think we can all see where this is going. Dr. Mike has painstakingly dug a Malay tiger trap and baited it with puppy fetuses. Now all he needs is for the luckless PETA volunteer in charge of answering crank emails to wander across its fragile covering of twigs and leaves...

Mike, thank you so much for reporting this to us! Is there any change [sic] at all of sneaking some footage of this? How hard does he kick her? Also, could you give me the name and address of the owner, and can you tell me what her living conditions are like- does she live inside, outside, chained, is she fed properly, etc? Please be assured that we take your anonymity very seriously.
Thank you and I look forward to hearing back from you!
Rachel, PETA

Crap! She's focusing on the made-up guy kicking the imaginary dog, not the potential impact on the imaginary unborn dogs. C'mon, lady, step in the trap already!

Dear Rachel: Thanks for getting back to me. I am not prepared (morally or technologically) to surreptitiously film my neighbor. He is not kicking the animal very hard. It would not be an issue but for the pregnancy of the animal.

Get it, Rachel?

She lives outside, is unchained, and appears to be fed properly. As an armed citizen, I am wholly unconcerned with the issue of anonymity.

Wow, I can hear Rachel hitting the Delete button from here.

I am more concerned with wasting my time with the authorities as I just don’t know whether there is a crime to report. The litter appears to be at risk, not the mother. I wonder whether the owner is even liable if any of those unborn puppies is either stillborn or deformed. I honestly don’t know the answer. Any help you can provide is appreciated.

Mike

You see, Rachel, if you care about animal cruelty, then you are morally obligated to consider abortion the equivalent of abusing a dog. So if you're okay with beating a dog hard enough to cause a spontaneous abortion, but not hard enough to hurt it (which would require a very precise and surgical application of abuse -- I would recommend practicing first on a stuffed animal), then you clearly see no problem with kicking a pregnant woman until she miscarries.

Of course, kicking anybody, pregnant or not, is already a crime, as is animal cruelty. And a woman can consent to both pregnancy and abortion, while a dog cannot. In fact, it's legal to artificially inseminate a bitch, or a cow, or any domestic animal for breeding purposes, whether they're in the mood or not, which may be the root of Dr. Mike's drive to force women and dogs to share legal rights, since he hasn't had much luck fathering a child the normal way.

Anyhow, Rachel didn't fall for Mike's Judas zygote, so he's forced to shift from dialogue into his usual supervillain monologue.

Dear Rachel: Moments after I wrote you, I received an email from PETA containing the following passage, which is relevant to my inquiry: “We speak up for, among others, rabbits and foxes who are skinned alive for the fur trade, chickens and cows who suffer hellish conditions on factory farms just to end up on someone's dinner plate, and the dogs who should be treated as part of the family (emphasis mine) but are relegated to a lonely life on the end of a chain. PETA is the voice for animals who have none (emphasis also mine).”

It appears that PETA does not draw a moral distinction between dogs and humans.

Because PETA also insists that Grandma not be chained in the yard, skinned alive for her leathery hide, or eaten by the rest of the family.

Therefore, in answering the question of whether the dog’s unborn puppies are protected, we must look to the alternatives available to us if the neighbor had been striking his pregnant wife.

So if Dr. Mike, armed citizen, saw his neighbor beating a pregnant woman, he would immediately run to the computer and email a group of animal rights lobbyists for advice.

There are three distinct possibilities:

1. Dr. Mike is an asshole

2. Dr. Mike is an asshole and a rectum, combined together for one low price like a Hardee's Meal Deal.

3. Dr. Mike is actually an entire prolapsed sigmoid colon, which is writhing and dancing sinuously while a Sri Lankan fakir charms it with a flute.

Or, there's always Dr. Mike's guesses:

The unborn has no legal protection whatsoever.

Obviously not true, as any Professor of Criminology would know, so we can scratch that one...

2. The unborn has legal protection contingent upon its mother’s intention to carry it to term.

Well, a pregnant woman has legal protections, which supersede a fetus. Even Rick Santorum agrees with that (for his wife, anyway. The rest of you bitches can curl up and die.)

3. The unborn has legal protection regardless of its mother’s intention to carry it to term.

It's called "damnapping," in which the kid holds it's mother's body hostage. Although it's only a crime in 15 states, damnapping becomes a federal offense if the fetus forces the pregnant woman to cross state lines.

Obviously, the third possibility is precluded by the ruling in Roe v. Wade. According to that ruling, the unborn baby human is not given absolute protection. According to PETA’s stated position of dog/human equality, the unborn puppy must also lack absolute protection.

This becomes crucial when we remember that Marbury v. Madison established the system of "checks and balances" we know so well today, dividing the powers of government between the executive, the judiciary, the legislative branch, and PETA.

PETA cannot say that the puppy does have absolute protection without elevating animal rights above human rights.

And I'm sure PETA members wriggle in this logical cleft stick all day long, when they're not liberating white rats or posing naked for anti-fur campaigns. Anyway, Mike goes on and on, chasing the tail of his hypothetical argument until he decides that "PETA must somehow over-turn Roe v. Wade," while John Roberts, Sam Alito, and Clarence Thomas loiter outside Lincoln Center, waiting to throw red paint on dowagers emerging from the opera.

I know many women who have had an abortion and regretted the decision later.

And if you believe that, Dr. Mike would like to introduce you to his neighbor, the pregnant dog-kicker.

Some have partially assuaged that guilt by going on to have children.

So if your mom had an abortion at any point in her life before you were born, no matter how much she may say you were wanted and planned for, and no matter how much she may say she loves you, you're a Guilt Baby, and it's your job in life to make eternal amends to your saintly aborted sibling.

I hope that PETA will not locate women who have had abortions and hand their children coloring books with pictures of aborted babies.

Unless Elizabeth Arden starts shaving fetus butts and painting them with rouge.

The words “Your mommy is a murderer” would be especially harmful to children who have lost a sibling to abortion.

I don't know -- it would have made my mom sound a lot cooler, actually. But I think Dr. Mike's belief that kids whose mothers had abortions are traumatized, and suffer survivor's guilt, betrays a certain naivete about child psychology. First of all, how would they know? My mom was careful to speak in Pig Latin around me when she was discussing Peyton Place with the neighbor lady, I kinda doubt she'd bring up her abortion while passing the Brussels sprouts. Second, kids are solipsists, and knowing that your mother carried you to term, but aborted a potential competitor means you win the Sibling Rivalry by default. Third, young children aren't the most empathetic types, and are most likely to react to an aborted fetus by saying, "Better you than me."

We must remember that children are just as valuable as dogs.

Yeah? Try getting a team of babies to pull your sled in the Iditarod. Try training a 6-month old to go poop in the yard. Try deterring thieves by putting a "Beware of Baby" sign on your junkyard fence.

It should be our guiding principle as we work together. The evolution of a grate organization depends on it.

And yet, no matter how hard they try, they'll never be as grating as you, Dr. Mike.

In Memory of a Reasonable Conservative

2011-12-27T22:26:00.000-08:00

The 2011 Jon Swift Memorial Roundup is now up. Founded by the dryly hilarious and much lamented Jon Swift in 2007, it consists of "The Best Posts of the Year, Chosen by the Bloggers Themselves." (Mine was sort of an arbitrary decision, since I waited until the submission deadline had almost passed, and wound up just going with our most highly trafficked post since moving to the new site. But I'm sure all the other bloggers made thoughtful choices, and only after long, agonizing deliberations. Or they took payola. Either way, there's a lot of good stuff there.)

Many thanks to Batocchio for keeping the legacy alive.

WO'C Annual Holiday Special: Jack Frost

2011-12-25T14:35:00.000-08:00

Ask any ecclesiastical professional, priest, minister, or nun, “What is the most important Christian holiday?” and they will inevitably respond, “Easter, of course,” although the nun might vary things a bit by also attempting to break your knuckles with a ruler. But more than Church favoritism, the Feast of the Resurrection benefits from a far cooler dramatic premise, which a side-by-side comparison makes clear:

Easter is about zombies.

Christmas is about a baby shower.

So Christmas has to work harder to make you like it, getting you drunk on wassail and buying your love with toys. But what if Christmas could combine its best features – gift-giving, twinkling lights, stop motion animation – with the walking dead? How cool would that be? As it turns out, not that cool, really...

Jack Frost (1998)
Directer: Troy Miller
Writers: Mark Steven Johnson and Steve Bloom & Jonathan Roberts and Jeff Cesario

We open on The Jack Frost Band playing a holiday gig in the scenic, snow-covered little town of South Park, Colorado. They’re a rising R&B group, comprising a blond Michael Keaton (lead vocals and harmonica), the heavyset nude dancer from The Full Monty (keyboards) and about fifteen other people, most of whom appear to have recently received their AARP discount card. But they've got so much soul that the excess has leeched into the water table, contaminating the local snowmen, and causing a Zuni fetish doll to chase Karen Black around the house.

Meanwhile, in a cutaway he will later fail to stress on his resume, a baby-faced Paul F. Thompkins (actually, he's so young here he looks fetal-faced) nods along to the band's hard-rockin' cover of "Frosty the Snowman," then points authoritatively at the stage and says, “Yeah!”

The next day kids pour out of school for Christmas vacation. Suddenly, Michael’s 11-year old son, Charlie, detects the distant but approaching sounds of war: the chatter of machineguns, the whistle of artillery shells. Thrilled that he might, through a clerical error, have been cast in Red Dawn instead of this heartwarming family bullshit, he runs toward the carnage, which turns out to be a bunch of second graders getting pounded in a snowball fight.

The 7-year olds regard Charlie as a combination of Joan of Arc and Knute Rockne (because like Rockne, Charlie is an exemplar of good sportsmanship, and like Joan he has aural hallucinations), and beg him to end this orgy of wanton slaughter and inappropriate sound effects. Their faith is not misplaced, for Charlie has gleaned wisdom about the ultimate futility of war from Fifth Grade history class, so he parlays with the enemy leader, then sucker punches him in the face with a snowball he hid behind his back. So less Knute Rockne and more Mike Tyson.

At home, the fridge is covered with Charlie’s crayon drawings which, like the Salvador Dali-designed dream sequences in Spellbound, provide clues to the source of Charlie’s rage and dementia. All the illustrations depict his father in a vehicle, constantly on the move, because he’s a musician and must tour, or because he’s being chased by a crowd that didn’t want to hear one more long, peppy, Blues Traveler-like harmonica solo in the middle of “Silent Night.”

But Michael is a loving dad, and when he returns in the middle of the night, he startles his child from a sound sleep and forces him to construct a snowman. He’s also a cool dad, because when Charlie suggests their icy golem needs a nose, Michael pretends to hear “hose,” and temporarily grafts on a penis (thereby establishing the movie's the theme, as a snowman's traditional lack of sex organs will provide much imitation humor to come).

Michael chivvies the boy off to bed, because his wife (played by Kelly Preston, who's pretty hot for a Scientologist) indicated she was in the mood for a full Body Thetan massage. But first, he says the time has come to give his son the harmonica he bought the day Charlie was born, presumably because Charlie has also impregnated some girl. More importantly, the instrument has “magic powers.”

“When you play that,” Michael assures him, “no matter where I am…I can hear it.” So, sitting on the toilet. Standing in line at the bank. Having sex, reading an eye chart, doing his taxes, Michael will constantly hear a child honking inexpertly on a phantom harmonica. I can only imagine that after awhile, death would come as a sweet release. But let’s not get ahead of the story…)

The next day, Michael and Full Monty are leaving for a recording session, because apparently the world is clamoring for a dirty, Delta Blues version of “Good King Wenceslas.” Charlie needs his father to teach him the family's secret hockey technique, “the J-Shot," but Michael's in a rush and can't stay, although he does take a moment to tenderly address his son as “butt boy.”

Now let’s intercut scenes of Michael being a perfectionist as he records his demo album, with shots of Charlie sucking at hockey – missing shots, running into walls, falling over. Then Michael notices the late hour and clutches his face in despair, realizing that he has missed the irreplaceable chance to see his son stink on ice.

Michael offers to make it up to Kelly and Charlie by taking them to a remote cabin in the woods for Christmas. There's no phone, video games, or TV, but it does come with a Necromonicron in the bedside table (thank you, Gideons) just in case anybody dies and needs to be reanimated as a snowman.

Unfortunately just as they're leaving, Record Company executive Ebeneezer Scrooge calls, and offers to sign Michael and his up-and-coming band of pensioners and Early Bird Special patrons. But only if they play a gig at Scrooge's Christmas party in Aspen. Charlie is outraged that the fulfillment of his father’s lifelong dream means that Michael won’t be at the Cabin when the zombies attack, and he snottily returns the Magic Harmonica for a full refund.

Michael gets halfway to the gig when he decides that he would rather be a good father and husband than a superstar recording artist with a platinum record for his hard-rockin’ version of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” (the official Christmas carol of the Church of Scientology). Having achieved his epiphany, he promptly drives full speed into a wall and dies (proving that it's never a good idea to rush into an epiphany, which is why so far I've mostly just been window shopping and getting some quotes on the internet).

One Year Later. Charlie gets out of school for Christmas break again, but with his father dead, he doesn’t even feel like sucker-punching a classmate. But that night, Charlie sculpts a disturbing simulacrum of his father out of snow, topping it with Michael's signature porkpie hat, but deliberately leaving off the penis. Then he crawls into bed with the Magic Harmonica (apparently filched from his father’s corpse) and attempts to summon the devil by blowing into it. Unhappily for us, it works. Michael’s soul possesses the pile of slush and its computer generated features come to a hideous mockery of life.

The first thing Snow-Dad does is grab for his junk and howl in existential agony. The second thing is curse his son for giving him a cork for a nose instead of the traditional carrot, because now he can't even switch things around in a sexual emergency and wow this thing got Oedipal all of a sudden...

Still, Michael seems instantly comfortable with his reanimation from the dead (suggesting that there’s no afterlife, else where has he been hanging his porkpie hat for the past year), and when he’s instantly run over by a snowplow, beheaded and gruesomely dismembered, he jauntily dubs his various body parts Ball Two and Ball Three, and makes lame jokes about “separation anxiety.”

In the Faustian tradition, Charlie immediately regrets his deal with the devil. But like Mephistopheles, Michael commands dark, elemental powers, which he uses to harass Charlie's classmates by beaning them in the face with weaponized slush.

This sneak attack inspires Charlie’s friends to heave chunks of ice at his head and chase him to a high cliff, then laugh as he falls off the edge and dangles from a tree root. Thanks, Dad. Glad you're back.

Snow-Michael saves Charlie with a jump cut, which was a nice gesture but doesn't seem to have done much to shorten the 1 hour and 41 minute running time. (Oddly, when the movie came out, it was 95 minutes long, so apparently the DVD copy I got was the Restored Sadist's Cut.).

Anyway, they escape on a toboggan, and suddenly it turns into the climax of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, as the entire Fifth Grade pursues them down the mountain (why the District chose to build an elementary school on the edge of a sheer precipice is something that really ought to be brought up at the next School Board meeting) on snowmobiles, skis, snowboards, and what looks like a rocking horse. Needless to say, most of the children involved in the chase die horrible deaths, but since they were apparently working after school for SPECTRE, they had it coming.

“You da man!” the icy golem assures his son.

“You da man,” Charlie retorts.

“No,” Michael says, “I’m da snow man!” Anyone old enough to remember this line from the movie’s trailer will probably also recall it was the moment they decided to add the book Final Exit to their Christmas Wish List.

Michael spies on his wife through the window, bemoaning his lack of a penis and considering the feasibility of making one of those ice dildos used in BDSM temperature play (I admit, some of this is subtext). Meanwhile, Charlie develops the same obsession with the weather report that Mel Gibson had with conspiracy theories in Conspiracy Theory, or with blow jobs and Jesus in real life.

Charlie takes Snow-Dad to his secret Ice Cavern (which most 12-year old boys have – hell, I had one and I grew up at the beach), where Michael teaches him important lessons about life, and how not to suck at hockey, while a dark, grim shadow of whimsy hangs over the film.

Meanwhile, Kelly is worried about her son, because he's taken to hauling a snowman around town in his wagon, while carrying on a bickering, would-be comic dialogue; so Charlie is either psychotic, or he misunderstood his agents and thought he was cast in the Morgan Freeman role in Driving Miss Daisy.

Kelly’s solution is to browbeat Full Monty into dragging Charlie to “Shiverfest,” the town’s annual salute to hypothermia, where the kid stands outside the Father-Son Snowman-Making Contest looking depressed. Frankly, in Charlie’s place I’d be feeling smug as hell. Yeah, sure, you kids got a live dad, and you can build a crappy snowman together, but can you imbue it with unnatural life? Can you drag a soul from beyond the grave and trap it in a graven image, merely through your dark mastery of the Hohner mouth organ? I think not.

Michael goes to watch his son not suck at hockey for once, but somehow being in an ice rink makes him start to melt. Fortunately, the kid Charlie sucker-punched in the opening scene agrees to help him load Michael onto a truck heading for the mountains, because “Snow dad is better than No Dad.” I assume this is one of those Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints billboard slogans that didn’t quite make the final cut.

Charlie and his undead Dad jump off the truck into a Currier and Ives print, where Michael rolls around in the snow and exults, “My balls are freezing!” Amazingly, they’re within easy walking distance of the family's vacation home. Michael puts Charlie to bed on the couch, kisses him with his weird puppet mouth, then places a creepy call to Kelly, who is – strangely enough – not soothed by the sound of her dead husband’s voice telling her to come find her son at a remote, snow-bound cabin, then abruptly ending the call with a click and a dial tone.

Kelly takes her time getting there – apparently there was an episode of The Amazing Race on her Tivo she hadn’t seen – but she does arrive just in time to watch Michael die again. On Christmas. That's two years in a row, which has to be some kind of record.

Everybody tells everybody they love each other, then Michael briefly turns human again so he can croon a heart-rending snippet of a public domain song to Kelly. Then he dissolves into a whirlwind of snow and ice. But just before he vanishes, Michael says, in a raspy, demonic voice, “I will always hear you...!” So I hope when Kelly eventually takes up with another man she keeps the sex quiet, or she might find coitus interrupted by an angry snowman.

Talk about blue balls.

From Mary, Riley, Moondoggie and I...

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Chrtistmas Then and Now. And Then Again.

2011-12-23T22:30:00.000-08:00

In Antebellum Hollywood -- that is, back in those gracious, genteel days before the War on Christmas -- the city fathers would really tart the place up. Illuminated trees were impaled on every lamp post, garlands of tinsel were strung across the street, dripping with stars and snowflakes and mug shots of Santa, like huge and garish charm bracelets, and quaint wooden street signs would officially, if temporarily, change the name of Hollywood Boulevard to "Santa Claus Lane." Here's a taste of what the place looked like during the Christmas season of 1948:

And the reverse angle from 1950:

Recently, the makers of a movie called Gangster Squad dressed up Hollywood Boulevard in its vintage holiday finery for the first time in half a century. So pardon me while I throw a little stardust in your eyes...

As you can see, they've recreated the street light tannenbaums and the garlands. The glass cases outside the Chinese Theater contain lobby cards for She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Red River, so this sequence is probably set in 1949, when John Wayne went through a phase, not unlike Picasso's Blue Period, in which he would only star in films named after primary colors.

Across the street is a green screen a half block long. In the 40s and 50s this was the site of such iconic Hollywood night spots as the Seven Seas nightclub, so it will be interesting to see what the CGI artists put in place of the Hooters and the Baja Fresh.

The recreated trees in front of Grauman's were highly detailed, down to those old fashioned, egg-shaped light bulbs. But opposite the theater...

...they only built half-trees. I hope I haven't spoiled the illusion for you, and that nobody is having a fit like Sidney Greenstreet at the end of The Maltese Falcon, clawing at their computer screen and wheezing, "Fake! It's fake!"

Eventually, they brought out the picture cars, which were driven up and down the block by Teamsters in full period regalia, including fedoras. Which raises a question that -- as a Golden Age film aficionado -- has always puzzled me: why the hell did men wear their hats while driving? I mean, it's not like they were going to get sun stroke in the car. Was it a rule of the road, like the seatbelt law, or were they all like Indiana Jones, duct-taping the thing to their forehead every morning before leaving the house?

A Sunbeam Bread truck and an old Pacific Electric Red Car.

We'll leave you now with this image, courtesy of the Art Department, which reminds us that occasionally, while working the graveyard shift, the Dream Factory turns out a Nightmare.

Programming Note: Our Annual Holiday Special features a particularly egregious movie this year, so check back in on Christmas Day and share the hate.

MaryC's Holiday Gift Report: Santa's Bringing You Crap for Christmas! Literally!

2011-12-22T01:14:00.000-08:00

It's a familiar conversation, one you've probably overheard dozens of times at the pet store, or while waiting in line to see Santa at the mall: a little boy or girl wants a puppy for Christmas, and the parents caution the child that "having a dog is a big responsibility. You'll have to feed it, and walk it, and clean up after it." Well...this toy isn't for those kids. This canine simulacrum is apparently intended for a slightly narrower niche: kids who don't particularly want to walk, cuddle, or even play with a puppy, but who really like the sound of that whole "clean up after it" thing.

In short, this is the perfect toy for the budding coprophiliac in your family. I give you...Doggie Do.

To paraphrase Martin Lawrence in Bad Boys: "Shit just got fake."

So...Yeah. It's a plastic dog that poops. You feed it, and it poops. This is actually my least favorite part of pet ownership, but apparently the Fresh Air Fund is sending kids to Fecal Fantasy Camp these days.

I wonder, is this a gift for people who live in "no pets allowed" buildings, but still yearn to clean up after a defecating dog? Do they roam the sidewalks of their neighborhood, plastic bags in hand, hoping against hope that at least one of their neighbors has thoughtlessly neglected to curb their Akita and collect the steaming pile, so they could swoop down on it like a carrion bird with a fetish so disgusting it makes the other vultures in the flock uncomfortable and faintly nauseated?

I think, in this case, the only person who could possibly provide an appropriate reaction to this is Dr. Clayton Forrester:

Jim Henson's Wingnut Babies

2011-12-20T21:40:00.000-08:00

Katie Pavlich is another new face -- to me at least, although she's been micro-blogging at Townhall's The Tipsheet ("Breaking News & Analysis From The Townhall Crew") since at least last February, and has appeared on that Greg Gutfield show on Fox...Deadeye? Browneye?...whatever it's called. According to her byline, Katie is News Editor, Townhall, so while she may not be a Big Cheese in the world of online punditry, nor -- judging by her fresh and dewy headshot -- a fine old Mold-Ripened Cheese in the Cal Thomas or Bay Buchanan class -- she is nonetheless a coagulated milk-based product to be reckoned with. So let's get recking.

Romney Still Won't Admit Obama is a Socialist

Time to resort to enhanced interrogation!

If Barack Obama looks like a socialist

...then socialists are tall, handsome dudes with nice pecs. No wonder they get all the ladies.

...walks like a socialist

...a skill he learned from Bill Clinton who, during his time at Oxford, interned at the Ministry of Socialist Walks. Young Clinton was particularly celebrated amongst his fellow Rhodes Scholars for his ability to execute the classic Emmeline Pankhurst with a double reverse Hubert Bland, and finishing off with a half-Laski -- a highly challenging stride that can occasionally result in a rupture.

...and talks like a socialist

...specifically, George Bernard Shaw, who was also incapable of delivering an epigram without the aid of a teleprompter. This was a source of some vexation to Shaw, because prior to the development of video technology, speeches were written on player piano rolls, requiring the orator to translate the pattern of punch-holes on the fly. (Toward the end of his life, however, after addressing the public on countless occasions, Shaw had become so adept at transforming the rapidly scrolling series of perforations into words and sentences that he once boasted, "I don't even see the code anymore," a line which inspired the Wachowskis to write The Matrix.)

...he's probably a socialist.

Oh. I thought this was going to be one of those "You Might Be a Redneck" jokes. And I was right. Zing! Take that, Katie!

Between his big spending policies to "stimulate the economy," the government take over of healthcare through ObamaCare, his "spread the wealth around comments,"

His "not quite knowing how to use quotation marks"...

his constant class warfare rhetoric and his desire to be more like Europe

TEACHER: So, Barry, would you like to be President of the United States some day?

YOUNG OBAMA: Actually Ma'm, when I grow up, I want to be a continent.

TEACHER: North America?

YOUNG OBAMA: No, America has too much gun violence and venereal disease. I was hoping for something with a rational health care system, high speed rail, and more casual toplessness on TV.

it's fair to say Barack Obama is in fact a socialist.

Just as fair as it is to say that you are in fact a "News Editor."

But, despite all the evidence, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney is unwilling for the second time this year, to classify Obamaas such.

I'm sure he would have, Katie, but there's just no room in the budget for classification purposes after the GOP pushed through the Bush taxonomy cuts.

You know, I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Then just fucking kill yourself now, and avoid the rush.

Mayor Mike - The Minions Edition

2011-12-19T03:08:00.000-08:00

By Keith:

World O' Crap's Special New York Correspondent brings us a Miltonian piece on Mayor Mike's fall from The Man on a White Horse (granted, it was really more of a Shetland pony that had been spray flocked a cottony white using left over Christmas technology, and it made the horse kinda puffy and wooly, so Bloomie really looked more like The Man on a White Sheep -- nevertheless, he took a spill).

City Hall, November 2009, Office of Mike Bloomberg.

Chief of Staff: “Your Honor, I believe you’ll want to check your Daily Agenda.”

MB: “It’ll have to wait. I’m shorting a position here. Margin call, you know.”

COS: “Well, you have to announce a replacement for the School Board Chancellor. Mr. Klein is leaving at the end of the month.”

MB: “Where’s he going?”

COS: “To the Carlyle Group. Or Fox News, I forgot which, sir.”

MB: “Where’s Carly Fiorina? I thought we were doing a phone conference or something.”

COS: “Ms. Fiorina is unavailable. Something to do with negotiations with the Blackberry people.”

MB: “Well, who’s that other broad ... you know, the one at Hearst? The VP. Something black.”

COS: “That would be Ms. Cathie Black, sir. I’ll arrange an interview right away.”

MB: “Excellent. Whew! Who would think investing in pork bellies could be so volatile. And now I’ll have a cup of tea, and one of those nice cucumber sandwiches you promised me.”

COS: “Mr. Bloomberg, there were no cucumbers in the market his morning, sir. I went down twice.”

MB: “ No cucumbers!”

COS: “No sir, Not even for ready money.”

So ends one adventure with commodities, and begins another in the commoditization of public education in the nation’s largest school system.

Readers, may I introduce you to Ms. Cathie Black? She has no degree in education, or higher education, or anything that might involve education. So in this “special” situation, Ms. Black must require a “waiver” from the State of New York to overcome her deficient qualifications. The waiver comes with a rider --- she must be monitored by someone with at least a Masters Degree in Education. Or at least a high school cafeteria worker. Something.

Here’s Cathie:

Well, we know she has a fetish for “dog collars” or whatever costume jewelry strikes her fancy. Cathie didn’t last long after the “Sophie’s Choice” line, but the money-shot: “Can we have some birth-control here?” She lasted two weeks, perhaps three.

Post-Friday Beast Blogging: The "What's the Matter With Kansas?" Edition

2011-12-18T12:40:00.000-08:00

As you probably heard, the Kansas Tea Party group, Patriot Freedom Alliance, posted a photo of a skunk on its website, with the caption: "The skunk has replaced the eagle as the new symbol for the President. It is half black, half white, and almost everything it does, stinks." Naturally, this did not escape the attention of the cats.

Riley, of course, is also black and white, and has likewise suffered for it, frequently enduring the unwanted attentions of an amorous French skunk who sees only her saddle shoe color scheme. But she chooses, as always, to remain dignified, and replies to the Hutchinson, Kansas Tea Partiers by flashing her Malcolm X gang sign, just to mess with 'em.

Moondoggie is also two-toned, although as a Marmalade he is seldom subjected to racial abuse, and only occasionally faces the threat that a thoroughly pissed English football hooligan will attempt to spread him on toast. As a result, he remains young and innocent, and his response is to crawl into my lap, gaze into my eyes, and ask, "Why are people so mean?" Then, when I find myself at a loss to answer this guileless and profound query, he immediately follows it up with, "Why aren't you scratching my butt?"

From the mouths of babes.

"I Have Been Acquainted With The Night"

2011-12-14T00:53:00.000-08:00

We generally don't note the passing of show folk around here, except in certain, special circumstances -- say, the deceased happened to be someone we'd savaged repeatedly in Better Living Through Bad Movies -- because that's really more the province of Ivan from Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, or the Fabulous Stacia of She Blogged By Night. But I was genuinely sorry to hear about the passing of ex-moppet Susan Gordon, at age 62.

Susan, the daughter of independent filmmaker Bert I. Gordon ("Mr. B.I.G."), was an accidental actress; she filled in for an ailing moppet on Gordon's sci-fi cheapie Attack of the Puppet People (1958), and evidently made a splash. She'd later appear in three more of her father's films, including her last, Picture Mommy Dead (1966), with Don Ameche and Zsa Zsa Gabor.

But Susan had a very active career beyond the nepotistic embrace of the Notorious B.I.G. She was terrific as Danny Kaye's daughter in The Five Pennies, and memorable in the rare heart-warming Twilight Zone episode, "The Fugitive," in which she played a handicapped girl who befriends J. Pat O'Malley's runaway alien.

In 1959 she played the Natalie Wood role, opposite Ed Wynn, in an NBC remake of Miracle on 34th Street, broadcast live and in color, and went on to guest star in many familiar series of 1960s, including Playhouse 90, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Route 66, Gunsmoke, and 77 Sunset Strip.

After she outgrew the moppet stage, Susan went to college, lived in Japan for 13 years, got married, became a mother and grandmother, and earned a Masters in Computer Graphics.

But to us, she will always be Sandy, The Girl Who Knew Too Much, in Bert I. Gordon's Tormented (1960) It's one of our favorite Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes -- a Halloween perennial around here -- and in tribute, I've put together a brief compilation of her scenes.

It's not her best performance -- like all of Bert I. Gordon's efforts, it was done quickly and cheaply, and this film perhaps more so than most, since Mr. B.I.G. had sunk a lot of his own money into it -- but in every sequence she does us the enormous courtesy of blowing Richard Carlson off the screen. And for that, I will always be grateful.

Rest in peace, Susan.

Ginni Thomas' Profiles in Courage

2011-12-13T00:23:00.000-08:00

If you've been wondering what passive-aggressive drunk-dialer and pillow talk influence-peddler Ginni Thomas has been doing lately, look no further than today's edition of TheDC Morning, where Jim Treacher obligingly flacks for the obliging flack.

Since she last irritated the public eye by phoning Anita Hill at the crack of dawn and singing "You Ain't Woman Enough to Take My Man" into her answering machine, Mrs. Thomas has not been idle. It seems that merely being the wife of a Supreme Court justice and a lobbyist for parties with a financial stake in Supreme Court decisions wasn't sufficiently potent to satisfy her conflict of interest jones, so now Ginni's a journalist as well. The self-described "self-appointed ambassador to the (GOP) freshmen class and an ambassador to the tea party movement,” is now working the Tiger Beat at the Daily Caller, scoring a series of puff piece interviews with the new meat.

But let's let Jim tell it in his own, apparently easily imitated, style:

More bad news for Holder -- Yet another Republican is being mean to him by holding him accountable for his actions. Matthew Boyle reports:

Freshman Republican Rep. Steve Southerland of Florida told The Daily Caller that Attorney General Eric Holder's "blatant disregard" for the congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious and the subpoenas he's been issued is an affront to the American people. In an interview with TheDC's Ginni Thomas, Southerland said Holder's apparent failure to comply with lawfully issued subpoenas is an exhibition of his "sense of entitlement"--

Translation: "Uppity."

--by acting like his position is his "stake in life" and that he doesn't "owe anyone for that position..."

Translation: Holder is an Affirmative Action hire. Not really sure what the 'stake in life' thing means. Perhaps it's a local idiom that doesn't translate well to English.

Southerland added that he thinks Holder is acting like he's personally guaranteed the position of Attorney General of the United States...

You know how hard it is to fire an affirmative action baby; at the first whiff of a pink slip they get the NAACP involved.

...and isn't showing any regard for answering questions the American people have about Operation Fast and Furious. "When we're elected, we must thank those that put us here," Southerland said.

We must also bitch about how a Congressman's salary really isn't all that great:

According to the U.S. Census Bureau the median household income in 2009 was $49,177, almost $98,000 less than what a member of the House of Representatives makes. But that's apparently not enough for Rep. Steve Southerland (R-Fla.).

During a town hall meeting in Florida on Wednesday, when asked about his pay, the congressman told his constituents that his yearly salary of $174,000 was "not so much" -- especially once you account for the number of hours he works, the fact he had to sever ties with his family's funeral home business upon assuming office, and the heightened danger he faces as a public official.

"By the way, did I mention? They're shooting at us. There is law-enforcement security in this room right now, and why is that?" Southerland told his constituents, according to the Tallahassee Democrat. "If you think this job pays too much, with those kinds of risks and cutting me off from my family business, I'll just tell you: This job don't mean that much to me. I had a good life in Panama City."

Yep, not only are we failing to adequately compensate Steve for the 2½ days a week he he actually shows up for work, but we're too stingy to offer him combat pay, even though this heroic man, like our brave troops, has seen more than his share of death -- primarily due to his inheriting a string of funeral parlors.

Anyway, sorry for interrupting. You were saying, Steve?

"And, when an elected official appoints someone else, they do owe the American people the appreciation of having that position. So, I find the blatant disregard of answering subpoenas and the stall tactics -- it is really a slap at the American people."

That's the problem with Affirmative Action babies -- they're ingrates. But then, you can't be expected to value something unless you've earned it.

Southerland was clearly made livid by Holder's testimony -- enough to start blowing his dog-whistle as furiously as the Police Sergeant in The Pirates of Penzance -- but racist code words aside, one must defer to his expert judgment. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Southerland has been witness to...Oh, he's not? He wasn't there, grilling Holder like Perry Mason? Then why the hell are we listening...Well, yeah, I suppose the opinion of the lowest ranking member of the Subcommittee on Nutrition and Horticulture does provide an unusually fresh perspective.

Back to Jim:

Remember: Eric Holder wants the Daily Caller to stop asking Congressmen for their opinions on Fast and Furious and then publishing their answers.

Actually, the Daily Caller's disgraced "reporter" phoned the nuttier members of Congress out of the blue and demanded to know if they thought Eric Holder should resign. A few -- among them some of Congress' dimmest lights -- said yes, reasoning they had a 50/50 chance of getting it right.

AKA the practice of journalism.

Yep. Fourth Estate. Fifth Beatle. 8th Dimension. What's the diff?

He does not like it one bit.

Wait'll you try serving him Green Eggs 'n' Ham.

Just try to imagine if an Attorney General had behaved like this during, oh, let's say 2001-2009.

Then try to imagine that, while "[e]xplaining his role in the botched firing of federal prosecutors, Gonzales uttered the phrase 'I don't recall' and its variants ('I have no recollection,' 'I have no memory') 64 times," including the immortal formulation, "I don't recall remembering."

The prevailing media reaction would've been a bit different, don't you think?

Yes, I think you'd have been defending him. And defaming any Congressman or -woman who asked him a direct question.

Let's take a quick peek at Ginni's interview before we go...

Southerland stands out as a real leader with clear vision and strong faith that is tested regularly in the nation’s capital. [...] The Daily Caller’s Ginni Thomas sat down last week with him to hear what makes him tick.

In this interview, this Freshman says and sees what many others don’t:

He should stop huffing the leftover embalming fluid.

While America is clearly broke, the Obama Administration is “redistributing our wealth” to other nations, according to Southerland, through the Federal Reserve and the IMF.

It's too bad Rep. Southerland is already married. I'd love to set him up on a play date with Dr. Laurie Roth.

Southerland derides the wealth and “money flowing like honey” around Washington, D.C.’s power centers, evidenced by nine construction cranes visible from the U.S. Capitol.

While there are some people who might be cheered by signs of increased economic activity -- especially during a prolonged recession -- Steve sees what many others don't, and to him, Prosperity looks like a dead body.

He would be hard pressed, he said, to find nine in the entire state of Florida.

But not all economic news is bleak in the Sunshine State! Thanks to rising rates of malnutrition and suicide, Happy Days Are Here Again in the mortuary industry.

He Was Actually Saying "Yoo-Hoo!" to Admiral Ackbar

2011-12-12T17:12:00.000-08:00

You may have heard about the shooting in Hollywood on December 9. Or maybe you didn't -- it's not exactly an uncommon occurrence in the U.S. In brief:

26-year-old Tyler Brehm...angrily stalked the Hollywood streets in front of dozens of witnesses, screaming that he wanted to die and firing seemingly at random at passing drivers, unloading close to 20 rounds from what appeared to be a .40 caliber handgun.

An off-duty officer working at a movie set and a detective confronted and shot him, police said.

A truck and another car were struck by bullets, leaving two men with minor injuries — one man with a graze wound and another with cuts from broken glass.

I mention it only because it happened quite close to where we live, and our friend Chris Vosburg was nearly caught up in the mayhem. As he wrote at the time he took this photo, he was "out running a few errands and wondering what all the copters were about (found out later). Jeez, glad I was too lazy to swing by my bank" [located at the same intersection where the shooting occurred]. "As Marge Gunderson might say, 'gosh, and it’s such a beautiful day.'"

Also of note, Pam ("Atlas Shrieks") Geller and her circle of Anti-Caliphate Crusaders have apparently decided the Media is concealing Mr. Brehm's secret Muslim identity, because one eyewitness claims he heard the shooter pause in the midst of shouting things like, "kill me!" and "I'm gonna die" to say "allahu akbar." Which, if you're trying to attract gunfire from an American police officer, sounds like an efficient way to go about it.

M Bouffant has more on the story: ~~Muslim~~Muslin Cover-Up.

The Wrath of Roth

2011-12-12T00:25:00.000-08:00

UPDATED below.

Spanning the globe...to bring you the constant variety of Wingnut! The subject of today's scouting report is Dr. Laurie Roth. Syndicated talk radio host. Martial arts action hero. And the next President of the United States!

Before we plunge into Laurie's plan for Undoing Obama (there is, as the headline notes, "Such much to undo"), let's verify her bona fides, shall we? Not that I doubt the good doctor's qualifications, for long experience of RenewAmerican has taught me one infallible rule: the longer the bio, the nuttier the pundit, and Dr. Roth's resume runs a very promising 200 words. But we'll just hit the highlights:

Dr. Laurie Roth — the "Annie Oakley" of the airwaves —

I assume this means she puts on displays of trick marksmanship for her listeners. "I'm about to shoot at a playing card that's over 50 yards away! I'm aiming...I'm squeezing the trigger... (BANG!) I just put a bullet right through the eye of the suicide king. Had he known I was taking a bead on him, he probably would have saved himself the trouble of sticking that sword in his head! Hahaha. We'll be back after this message from Goldline..."

is a nationally-syndicated radio talk-show host. She has hosted successful talk shows on radio stations from Boston to L.A. with no shortage of callers.

No shortage of gentleman callers, anyway... [Smooths her frock of yellowed voile, then glides across the room with a bouquet of jonquils].

Laurie has a Ph.D. in counseling and a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. If she can't reason with you, you had better duck before the roundhouse kick sends you flying!

Happily, if she puts you in the hospital with a broken jaw, she won't charge you for the sessions you miss.

She is a singer/songwriter with five CD albums to her credit, one track which landed her in Billboard's top 40 ranks and on the cover of Cash Box Magazine. She plays the piano, keyboard, and violin and has a voice that can penetrate your very soul.

Assuming the kicks and the gunfire don't do the trick. And what is Cash Box Magazine? Well, apparently "Cashbox (or Cash Box) magazine was a weekly publication devoted to the music and coin-operated machine industries in the USA which was published from July 1942 to November 16, 1996."

In 1989, Dr. Roth was voted "Most Likely to be Confused With Alannah Myles From a Distance and in Poor Lighting Conditions," while in 1992 she became the first "Miss Coin-Op Laundry" to hold a Doctorate in Counseling, a record that still stands today.

Laurie recently announced her candidacy for President of the United States as an independent. Her campaign website is www.laurieroth2012.com

She just published a book titled The People's President, outlining her stances.

If you hurry, you can still be the first person to review Dr. Laurie's book on Amazon (actually, you can probably take your time -- Jesus's General hasn't even gotten there yet). Anyway, on to her column...

Such much to undo--so little time - Time to separate the REAL Americans from the cowards and posers

Our very country and freedom have been at stake since the Obama regime took over, backed by progressive leftists transforming us into a Marxist Dictatorship 5 steps at a time.

Sounds like the way my sister and I played Monopoly after we lost the rule book.

Was this the "change" some of you signed up for?

Actually, I signed up for up for Volleyball and Skills Certificate in Business Software Applications. Have you got a drop slip handy...?

For starters, we have seen Obama shred the greatest healthcare system on earth

Well, it's winter -- he had to make a nest out of something...

insert hidden and draconian taxes

Because the more draconian a tax, the less likely you are to notice it. Most historians agree that Colonial Americans weren't even aware of the Stamp Act or the Tea Tax until four determined young people and a Great Dane rolled onto Boston Common in a psychedelic wagon dubbed the Deus ex Mystery Machina. And Parliament would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids!

...force government-approved health insurance, controls, and fines on nearly all Americans, force salaries on doctors, and impose death panels on our seniors, and he is making us all pay for abortions and the care of illegal aliens.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Dr. Roth, Representative Michele Bachmann is standing just behind her, making that "ca-RAZY" rotating-finger gesture beside her head.

Those are just some of the cancers inserted all through Obamacare.

Obamacare is like that dry, tasteless "King Cake" you get at Mardi Gras, except instead of a tiny plastic baby doll, you dig around in it until you find a tumor.

We have watched Obama fulfill another threat to destroy one of America's historical backbones of energy: coal.

Now Americans are going out of their way to disappoint Santa Claus, just to fuel their barbecues.

Now he and his minions announce coal plant closures all over the country in the next 18 months, while hurling draconian regulations at power plants. As planned, thousands more will be out of work, utility rates will go even higher, and we will become more dependent on government and international energy sources.

That sounds awful! Still, I love it when a plan comes together.

We are now, eleven months before the November 2012 election-of-all-elections, surrounded by mountain-high lists of impeachable offenses all aimed at Obama. From illegal wars in Libya, to hiring members of the Muslim Brotherhood who work closely with him and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to suing and threatening his own governors for protecting the safety of their citizens.....on we go. I'm dizzy even trying to sort them all out.

That much is obvious, Doctor, although I might quibble with your grasp of cause and effect.

Then there is that teensy-weensy problem that causes most "Republicans," "sound-bite conservatives," "most media," and "the House and the Senate" to run for cover at Olympic speed. This is quite a dazzling feat to watch, since while running they are also hurling endless insults and slander against anyone or any group daring to point out Obama's ineligibility.

I actually have a bit more respect for these people now. While Obama just hurls draconian regulations, the rest of the team not only hurl endless insults (which sounds exhausting. Are there relief hurlers they can bring in from the bullpen if you tear a rotator cuff?), but they have to pitch slander while running the 100 meters in 9.58!

Then there was his arrogant, bravado moment showing America and the world his middle finger of a long-form birth certificate — forgery and total fraud. This was proven by several examiners and experts within hours of the big press revelation to be a total forgery. This was far from "tin helmet" and racism, but out and out crime and fraud.

A $25 donation to Dr. Roth's Presidential Campaign will buy a much needed thesaurus.

There was no one patriotic, honest, or brave enough to shine the light of truth on this constitutional and legal emergency, except the brave and gutsy voices in talk radio and online media journals such as the one you are reading now.

I have to admit, I'm a little curious about Dr. Roth's radio program now. I imagine it consists largely of random gunshots, and the sound of splintering wood as she breaks boards with her feet while screaming "Forgery!" and "Total fraud!"

To bring this never-ending saga to the present

The "seizing of America" plan moves boldly forward. We saw the Senate betray America and vote to permit our military to arrest and detain Americans without charge, indefinitely. Then we saw, per the revelation of a document revealed to the masses by Alex Jones and noted in my last article, the activation of FEMA camps all over the country. Why? I think we are starting to know why, folks.

I'm generally not in favor of Nanny State regulations, but frankly, I think these were exactly the kind of injuries the Tin Helmet Laws were designed to prevent.

UPDATE. Bill S. writes:

After reading the latest entry in WOC on wingnut Laurie Roth, I decided to see how much truth there was to the claims about her music background. It probably won't come as too much of a surprise that her albums are now out of print. Amazon offers used copies of her debut album -- which was, indeed reviewed in Billboard -- for as low as a penny. The vinyl's slightly pricier, but that's because it's rarer. In any case, the Billboard entry I found online says the album didn't chart.

As for the claim that "one track landed her in BILLBOARD'S Top 40 ranks", that's almost true.

She's never had a hit in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 -- or in the bottom 60 of it, either.

But she has placed a song on Billboard's Dance Music chart, back in 1993. It lasted for 5 weeks, and peaked at #41.

But this is the best part: it's a remake of the very racy hit by the Mary Jane Girls, "In My House". Unfortunately I can't find it on YouTube (surprising, considering you can find almost anything there), but I wonder why her bio fails to mention that her one and only almost-hit is a sex-laced song made famous by a girl group named for a slang term for marijuana?

And written, apparently, by Rick James. Here's Dr. Roth's rendition of "In My House" (Close Encounter Dub Mix):

Sadly, it's not a music video and she doesn't really sing much, but you do get to hear her panting quite a bit.

"Regrand? He Wrote the Score to 'Umbrellas of Cherbourg,' Right?"

2011-12-11T00:53:00.000-08:00

Our roving Hollywood correspondent Chris Vosburg sent me the following report, along with a rare image documenting the actual Birth of a Neologism. You almost never witness this sort of thing in the wild:

Snapped with my cellcam this morning at the Car Wash at Vine and Willoughby...

A new word for us all, can’t wait ‘til this one makes Merriam-Webster:

Part I like best about this is wondering if the Banner Shop that knocked it out just didn’t care, or tried to talk the customer out of it, or merely figured that it was a perfectly cromulent word.

Jim Treacher Wants You to Stop Laughing at Ted Haggard!

2011-12-09T16:55:00.000-08:00

As I've mentioned in the past, I receive a diurnal update from Tucker Carlson's slam book, The Daily Caller, entitled -- idiosyncratic kerning in the original -- TheDC Morning. In this post, back in July, 2010, I speculated that these emails were the anonymous handiwork of Sean "Jim Treacher" Medlock, because they seemed to epitomize his unique Mad Libs style of humor -- mean girl snottiness, culminating in a blank space where the reader is invited to fill in the punchline.

Jim appeared at the sound of his name, alá Beetlejuice, and informed us that he does not in fact write TheDC Morning. Okey doke. For the past few months, however, the thing has not only maintained the same tone of breezy asininity, it's been carrying his byline, so Jim either misled us about his contribution, which is certainly understandable, or TheDCers pulled off an extraordinarily smooth transition. Or, possibly, the intern who was aping Jim's style eventually went full Single White Female and assumed his identity, and Jim is chained to a wall somewhere like the Forgotten Prisoner of Castlemare.

But frankly, after reading the most recent update, I suspect that Jim is well and free and cranking it out:

4.) One banana sheikh, comin' right up -- It's important to get your daily allotment of fruits and vegetables, right? Wellllll... TheDC's Caroline May reports:

"According to the Bikya Masr news service, an Islamic cleric in Europe has ordered Muslim women to prevent 'sexual thoughts' by staying away from bananas, cucumbers, carrots, zucchini, and other phallic produce. The unnamed sheikh reportedly advises that if women wanted to eat these kinds of food they would need to be cut into smaller pieces, in private, by a man -- preferably a relative -- because the foods 'resemble the male penis' and could 'make them think of sex...' Bikya Masr reports that Muslims' online responses have been largely negative, with one Muslim noting that the cleric gives Islam 'a bad name' and another encouraging him to quit his post."

If you think it's racist or inflammatory to report on this, please shut up about how sexually repressed Christians are.

Racist? Inflammatory? Try hilarious, Jim. Delightful. A warm, reassuring reminder that deep down we are all alike, and that fundamentalism is funny, no matter what the culture.

Treacher seems a bit butt-hurt over all the snickering occasioned by America's greatest renewable resource -- evangelical hypocrisy. Face it, Jim -- sex is funny. It makes people act irrationally, and like greed, and the desire to avoid embarrassment, is one of the great engines of farce.

And there are few things more more risible than the spectacle of some ecclesiastical bureaucrat who decides to suppress the human urge to hump by unleashing his awesome Wonder Twin powers of Freudian Obsession and Utter Cluelessness; or when a clerical functionary (or fundamentalist-fellating politician) sets himself up as a moral exemplar, then gets caught with a Rentboy. I mean, Jesus reserved some of his harshest rhetoric for hypocrites, but I bet even he thought that shit was funny.

I think the problem is, Treacher is a bit confused between the non-denominational urge to laugh at some bluenose with his pants around his ankles, and telling a Jew Joke. The former is ludicrous (as witnessed by the reactions of Muslims themselves to the mullah's Prohibitions Against Cheating with the Produce Department), the later is bigotry. (There is some traditional latitude for intra-group trafficking in ethnic humor, which is why Black people can use the "N" word and Rick Perry can't, Latinos can make jokes that would not be warmly received from the gob of Tom Tancredo, and Americans living in a culture dominated by fundamentalist Christians can feel free to titter when one of them turns up sporting two wetsuits and a dildo.)

Harry Potter and the Crappy Analogy

2011-12-08T00:20:00.000-08:00

William A. Levinson is new to me, but he's apparently been writing at American Thinker since at least April, bringing his expertise as a Professional Engineer to the culture and political problems of modern America. And like Father Amorth, he believes there are hidden messages to be found in the Harry Potter canon, although not necessarily from Satan, or your yoga instructor.

Anyway, let's whet our appetites with a quick squint at his bio:

William A. Levinson, P.E. is the author of several books on business management including content on organizational psychology, as well as manufacturing productivity and quality.

Okay, now I can't wait to read his insights on YA literature.

Harry Potter and the Islamization of America

The success of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series is due largely to the fact that the story contains elements for sophisticated adults as well as teenagers.

I suppose children can enjoy the stories on some level too, but most of the people I've seen reading Harry Potter books were sherry-sipping adults wearing boiled shirts and spats.

The latter can enjoy the magical creatures and battles between wizards, while older readers and viewers can relate to the very real historical events that apparently influenced Rowling's writing. The series' theme is anything but fictional because it happened once and it is happening again.

Crap, you mean we're going to have to live through the Goblin Rebellions of 1612 again? I'd better have Jeeves pour us another round of Oloroso.

Britain's experiences prior to and during the Second World War seem to have influenced Rowling's writing significantly. Her characters believe that the First Wizarding War had ended the menace of Lord Voldemort forever, while the First World War was purportedly the war to end all wars. The First World War also maimed an entire generation of European manhood

Wow. Jake Barnes had a lot of company.

The racial policies of Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters make them obvious stand-ins for Hitler and Nazis despite the implications of Godwin's Law.

Right. Say, Engineer Levinson, you do realize that Harry Potter is a 4,000 page book series, and not a Usenet thread, right? Meaning, Godwin's Law doesn't really apply in this case, because I don't think it's actually possible for Jo Rowling to lose an argument she's having with herself.

(Rowling is in fact on record as saying that she modeled Voldemort with Hitler in mind.)

Ah, so she's confessed to breaking Godwin's Law. I'm sure an Auror, or at least a Moderator, will be along shortly to take her into custody.

The former regard only pure-blooded wizards -- the magical world's counterparts of Aryans -- as equals. A "mudblood," or a wizard with a non-magical parent, is to them an Untermensch (subhuman) whom they are free to abuse or even kill. The movies include Gestapo-like enforcers who bring people in for questioning about their genetic purity, and elimination if they do not meet the standards. The same agenda applies to Muggles or non-magical people.

That certainly paints an awful picture. And wouldn't it be ironic if, only a few paragraphs later, you used Rowling's allegory on the horrors of racial profiling to argue that Muslims are inherently violent, dangerous, and a threat to society? But c'mon...what are the odds of that happening?

Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge is meanwhile the obvious counterpart of Neville Chamberlain ... Albus Dumbledore, who recognizes Voldemort as a threat from the outset and is ridiculed as a result, is the counterpart of Winston Churchill.

Despite this obvious comparison, President Obama removed the bust of Albus Dumbledore from the Oval Office.

The comparison of Voldemort to Hitler can be taken only so far because the First World War was not started by Nazis or even by Imperial Germany.

There's nothing like watching a Professional Engineer construct an argument. Well, it's maybe a little like walking in on my 5-year old sister as she was trying to assemble my Mousetrap! game, but otherwise -- sui generis, baby.

What is far more important is the parallel between the denial in Rowling's stories, the denial that preceded the Second World War, and today's denial of the menace of Islamization. This makes Harry Potter a good teaching tool for teenagers and young adults. It's a fictional story, but it is also the story of something very real that took place more than 70 years ago as well as things that are happening in the world today.

So Harry Potter is a fictional version of "Islamization," which is what you'd get if The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion was non-fiction?

Dolores Umbridge is among the more memorable villains of the series. She threatens to punish any student who talks about Voldemort, and she punishes Harry Potter for insisting that he has returned. Umbridge's real-world counterparts abound in European countries, universities, and even the U.S. Government. They punish or ridicule as an "Islamophobe" anybody who depicts militant Islam as a menace to Civilization.

So Voldemort is Hitler, who was evil because he falsely painted the Jewish people as the enemies of Christian society, and oh, by the way, have you heard the Muslims are out to destroy Civilization? And all of it, too, not just the game by Sid Meier.

Danish Member of Parliament Jesper Langaballe [sic] for example pled guilty to hate speech for saying accurately that rape and honor killings are frequent among Muslim families. "Under Danish jurisprudence it is immaterial whether a statement is true or untrue. All that is needed for a conviction is that somebody feels offended."

Actually, according to Langballe's own apologia, what he said was, "Of course Lars Hedegaard should not have said that there are Muslim fathers who rape their daughters when the truth appears to be that they make due with killing their daughters (the so-called honour killings) and leave it to their uncles to rape them."

Whether these remarks are criminal under Danish law is something best left to a Danish court (although I will note that while Harry endured daily torture and mutilation rather than retract his statements about Voldemort, Mr. Langballe pre-empted his trial by confessing), I think it's safe to say that Rowling's "Churchill," Albus Dumbledore, would consider them criminally rude.

The once-respectable Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has meanwhile joined the ranks of politically correct thought police and mind guards. The Daily Prophet denounced Harry Potter as "the boy who lies" for testifying accurately that Voldemort murdered one of Harry's classmates while ADL has similarly denounced Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) as Islamophobes. "The organization, led by Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, warns of the encroachment of Shari'a, or Islamic law, and encourages Muslims to leave what it describes as the 'falsity of Islam.'"

I'm having a bit of trouble following along here, Engineer Levinson, maybe you can walk me through it. Hitler made false claims about the Jews (such as "He has never founded any civilization, though he has destroyed civilizations by the hundred") and tried to exterminate them in the interests of Aryan supremacy. Voldemort and his henchmen also trafficked in lies, and murdered and imprisoned vast numbers of people in the service of some demented notion of racial purity. They're the Bad Guys, right?

Spencer and Geller (and Langballe, who said, "Islam and Christianity cannot be reconciled. And they haven't been able to during the 1500 years that Islam has been in existence. I see the religion Islam as a threat to any society where it settles"), claim that Islam is a false religion which seeks to destroy our civilization. And they're...the Good Guys? Or am I confusing them with that defunct chain of West Coast consumer electronics stores?

A phobia is an irrational fear of an imaginary danger. This video from Hamas says "we will annihilate the Jews," speaks of becoming "masters of the world," and later talks about "laying the cornerstone for the ruling of the world by an Islamic leadership."

Right, but if just claiming you're going to become "Master of the World" means that it's true, shouldn't we already be ruled by Fu Manchu, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Dr. Clayton Forrester, or Vincent Price?

"Eat my dust, Hamas!"

The last ideology that talked about annihilating Jews and ruling the world meant every word it said, and it killed about forty million people (including about seven million of its own in the end) before the civilized world stopped it.

And the best proof of this serious, real world, existential threat to the free world is this series of children's books about a Boy and His Wand.

Voldemort at least had the good sense to conceal his existence as long as possible, and Hitler also pretended to seek peace to put the rest of the world off its guard.

Yep. If there's one thing you can say for Hitler -- he was subtle.

Militant Islam on the other hand makes no secret of its agenda, and it even calls the non-Islamic world the Dar el-Harb: the House of War. When somebody calls you a harbi (enemy), it is generally a good idea to take him at his word and treat him accordingly.

Point a stick at him and bellow "Expelliarmus!"

The Harry Potter series also addresses a widespread unwillingness to call the enemy by name. Even Voldemort's enemies usually call him "He Who Must Not Be Named,"

Because "Ultraman," "Miss Congeniality," and "Master-Blaster" were already taken.

The Ideology That Must Not Be Named has declared openly its intention to destroy our civilization, freedom, and way of life. It also has a name, and that name is militant Islam.

Just don't say its name five times into a mirror, or you'll wind up covered in bees.

Harry Potter and the Cauldron of Crazy

2011-12-05T22:21:00.000-08:00

There are an abundance of housecleaning services in Hollywood, with names like Merry Maids, White Glove, Sparkle Maids and the like. I've never employed one, but a friend who's frequently out of town has called them in on occasion, and each time the "Maids" who showed up were lugubrious Russian men in their mid-40s who littered the balcony with cigarette butts, sawed resentfully at the grout with a wire brush like they were trying to extract a confession, and stole the half-full bottles of Pine-Sol and Formula 409 from under the bathroom sink.

So when I read that "Father Gabriele Amorth, who for years was the Vatican’s chief exorcist...claims to have cleansed hundreds of people of evil spirits" I wondered if he works on weekends, what he charges for a house call, and if he slyly pockets your soul and your cinnamon-scented votive candles on his way out the door.

Alas, it seems that Father Amorth is retired, and no longer spends his days mopping up after Mephistopheles. On the bright side, he now has more time to devote to his hobby of spouting parochial blather and demented cultural analysis. For instance, he recently said:

[Y]oga is Satanic because it leads to a worship of Hinduism and “all eastern religions are based on a false belief in reincarnation”.

"Pilates are the path to Pazuzu!"

So if you've spent your life treating trauma and mental illness by waving around an action figure of a dead man dangling from a torture device, while mouthing a bunch of Latin mumbo jumbo, I'm sorry, but you made your choice, this is as good as it gets, and you don't get a do-over.

Anyway kids, don't do yoga, because if you become physically flexible, you can't remain morally inflexible, or something like that. But the Cow Face, or the One-Legged King Pigeon aren't the only threats facing today's youth:

Reading JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books is no less dangerous, said the 86-year-old priest, who is the honorary president for life of the International Association of Exorcists, which he founded in 1990, and whose favourite film is the 1973 horror classic, The Exorcist.

I admit it -- I'm delighted by the thought that these elderly exorcists are so hardcore that they'd get drunk and boo Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone off the screen because the kids don't projectile vomit and masturbate with religious relics enough.

The Harry Potter books, which have sold millions of copies worldwide, “seem innocuous” but in fact encourage children to believe in black magic and wizardry, Father Amorth said.

Suddenly, the old priest whacked a passing Denny's waitress with his crucifix because "her knees were making an unholy crackling sound that probably means they're filled with demons, or arthritis," then Father Amorth rose from his booth and shouted, "The Power of Christ compels you to honor my coffee coupon!"

“Practising yoga is Satanic, it leads to evil just like reading Harry Potter,” he told a film festival in Umbria this week, where he was invited to introduce The Rite, a film about exorcism starring Sir Anthony Hopkins as a Jesuit priest.

Meanwhile, as the audience snickered and reached for their coats, the festival director wrenched a crozier from the hands of a nearby bishop and attempted to hook Father Amorth off the stage like a poorly received Vaudevillian.

“In Harry Potter the Devil acts in a crafty and covert manner, under the guise of extraordinary powers, magic spells and curses,” said the priest, who in 1986 was appointed the chief exorcist for the Diocese of Rome.

Well Father, the curses are mostly used by evil characters in the books and movies, but as for the "extraordinary powers" and "magic spells," don't you claim to have the rather extraordinary power to evict demonic squatters, and perform the alchemical feat of turning bread into human flesh and wine into blood? I mean, isn't it possible that there's just a wee bit of professional jealousy involved in your criticism, if only because transfiguration spells are so much more crowd pleasing than transubstantiation?

“Satan is always hidden and what he most wants is for us not to believe in his existence."

I don't know who Satan's with, but he's getting seriously crappy PR advice. He should talk to Platform Media Group, or Qorvis Communications.

"He studies every one of us and our tendencies towards good and evil, and then he offers temptations.”

Father Amorth himself was nearly led astray by the sprightly tempo of "Girl (Why You Wanna Make Me Blue)".

Science was incapable of explaining evil, said Father Amorth, who has written two books on his experiences as an exorcist. “It’s not worth a jot."

Science also lacks any precise scale for measuring Jackassery, so you can see why Father is skeptical. Also he believes that whole Galileo thing should be treated as a Cold Case and reopened.

"The scientist simply explores what God has already created.” His views may seem extreme, but in fact reflect previous warnings by Pope Benedict XVI, when as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger he was the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s enforcer of doctrinal orthodoxy.

So while the Vatican's former chief exorcist says that Science is a lot of crap, it's not really that extreme a view when you remember that it's shared by the guy who used to head up the Inquisition.

In 1999, six years before he succeeded John Paul II as Pope, he issued a document which warned Roman Catholics of the dangers of yoga, Zen, transcendental meditation and other 'eastern’ practises.

So just to review: According to Cardinal Ratzinger, widespread child molestation in the Church? Not a problem. Fitness classes at the Y? The death of Christendom.

They could “degenerate into a cult of the body” that debases Christian prayer, the document said.

Bodies, like children, should be seen and not heard. Especially not in the presence of a District Attorney.

Yoga poses could create a feeling of well-being in the body but it was erroneous to confuse that with “the authentic consolations of the Holy Spirit,” the document said.

But that's true with any form of exercise, really. For instance, Jim Fixx was struck dead because his "runner's high" was helping him to achieve a more personal relationship with Ba'al.

Father Amorth has previously said that people who are possessed by Satan vomit shards of glass and pieces of iron and have such superhuman strength that even children have to be held down by up to four people. He has also claimed that the sex abuse scandals which have engulfed the Catholic Church in the US, Ireland, Germany and other countries was proof that the Anti-Christ is waging a war against the Holy See.

Science, however, has missed, or failed to explain all these phenomena, thus proving just how jotless it is.

Ask Your Spin Doctor If ContagionEx Is Right For You

2011-12-04T21:50:00.000-08:00

From the kitchens of Mark Fiore:

(via WO'C staffer Keith)

Happy Birthday, Actor212!

2011-12-04T14:21:00.000-08:00

Please join me in wishing a very festive natal day to our buddy and fellow blogger, Actor212. Whether he's riding 50 miles on his bicycle, writing thoughtful, but acerbic commentary on politics and contemporary society at Simply Left Behind, taking stunningly gorgeous underwater photographs, or simply letting his eye for the ladies roam free (which is roguish and endearing, until it reaches the end of the optic nerve and then just hangs there, swinging back and forth like a Clacker), he is...the Most Interesting Man in a Four Block Radius of Manhattan.

In celebration, here's some Ann Coulter anti-matter: a photo of Scandinavian Siren Christina Lindberg in an old Swedish magazine ad:

"Twas Beauty sold the Battery!"

(I tried to find some sexy cheesecake engravings from the Kalevala, but it's mostly beefy, bearded dudes, and elderly witches with warts and osteoporosis.)

Happy Birthday, Carl!

Thanks, Everybody! I Got You a Wingnut!

2011-12-02T14:51:00.000-08:00

Before we get to our jerk du jour, I'd like to step out of character for just a moment. Unfortunately, I don't have a character, at least nothing so distinctive and cool as s.z.'s Supermodel/Astronaut/Spy identity, although I have been developing a wacky sitcom neighbor (it's still a work in progress, kind of a fusion of Jm J. Bullock and Kramer, but less butch, and with more manageable hair).

But what I really want, and need to say is, you guys have saved our bacon, our Sizzlean and our Steak-umm, and on behalf of Mary, Riley, and Moondoggie, I want to express our heartfelt gratitude to everyone who contributed to the Beg-a-Thon. Thanks to you, we're now square with our Vet, and no longer complete pariahs at the E.R.; long-deferred prescriptions have been filled for both humans and cats, and we're finally able to take Moondoggie back in to resume treatment for his liver.

I also want to thank Doghouse Riley, Roy, and Thers, who all kindly linked to the B-A-T, and sent a lot of very nice people our way -- Aliculatti, Atriots, and -- (we need a nickname for readers of Bats: Left, Throws: Right...Ambidextrians?); I hope I haven't missed anybody who helped spread the word -- if I have, please let me know.

Update: Our beloved Anntichrist S. Coulter also beat the drum for us -- both here, and at her own blog, Mark of the Beast. I knew I was forgetting someone important! Let this be a lesson to you, Kids. Stay in school. Stay away from drugs. And don't try to write blog posts on your phone.

I also want to thank s.z. for coming out of retirement, like the ex-Black Ops assassin she is, for one last job. Or post. (Actually, I'm sure she'll write more when Holiday Cat 'n' Dog Adopting and/or Abandoning Season is over, thereby making this completely anti-climatic. Plus, we've got lots of upcoming stuff about the new book to talk about).

And on the subject of fundraisers...We're late to this, thanks to medical appointments and the internet outage, so you've probably already heard the terrible news about Rumproast blogger StrangeAppar8us, who suffered a disabling brain injury on November 3, and has lost his sight. His friends and co-bloggers are trying to raise money for his medical bills and rehabilitation. If you're able to help with cash or moral support, please click here for the details.

On another note...When I think of the good and the kind, of people generous of spirit, I generally don't think of Bryan Fischer. Mostly, Bryan makes me think of a guy who cadges drinks in the Skyline Lounge at the Pocatello Airport Holiday Inn by pretending to be Peter Graves.

But of course there's more to Bryan than a possible tendency to scam a Crown Royal and 7-Up out of a drunken dowager with dubious claims of being the lesser Arness brother. No, Bryan Fischer is also a talk radio host and Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association, but he's not afraid to contradict right wing orthodoxy, or even august figures in the conservative pantheon, when they interfere with his urge to be an asshole and a scold (or an asscold, as we like to call it, not to be confused with the kind of gastric distress which produces a stifled, high-pitched, tight-sphinctered sound that resembles the dainty sneezes of cats and well-bred Victorian ladies).

The last time Bryan gave the rhetorical piñata treatment to a titan of Conservatism, it was Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. This week, he's predicting the Christ-like resurrection of Rick Perry, because -- although the Liberal Media doesn't want you to know about it -- Newt Gingrich likes to gad about with a satchel full of lava rocks and Buff Mexican Pebbles.

Get ready for a Perry comeback

Newt is the current flavor of the month in the GOP race for the presidential nomination, and grabbed a coup in New Hampshire.

The coup filed a restraining order against Newt, who nonetheless insists the grabbing was consensual, and maintains that his lechery is motivated by a volatile combination of manliness and love of country, a condition scientists now believe is caused by an excess of a hormone called patriotosterone.

However, Newt has enough baggage with enough rocks in it to drag him below surface again.

And even when he's not dragged below surface, he still gets hassled by the TSA, which has a stupid rule about limiting carry-on rocks to under three ounces (on many occasions, the ex-Speaker has been reduced to traveling with nothing but a Ziplock bag full of aquarium gravel).

[W]e now know he took $1.8 million from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac right when they were dragging the housing industry to the bottom of the sea.

So I guess the lesson here is, if you're a government-sponsored agency that securitizes mortgages, don't travel by sea rather than air just because Carnival Cruises will let you put rocks in your steamer trunk. Also, don't limit your customer base to the cast of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Newt's at the bottom of the pile on that one.

Sounds like Newt had one of those Paul Simon/Kodachrome experiences where he gathered together all his ex-wives and the mistresses he cheated upon them with (although the Venn Diagram shows a certain amount of overlap) for just one night; but instead of an orgy, they tried to crush him by piling rocks on his chest like Giles Corey.

He's flip-flopped as much if not more than Mitt Romney, who, inspired by the musings of James Carville, I have affectionately nicknamed Governor Windsock.

I wouldn't count too much on the precision of a windsock. Sometimes it accurately registers a stiff wind, and sometimes the stiffness simply means that your adolescent son found your Playboy collection and your windsock, and affectionately nicknamed the latter "Miss November."

Newt's been horrible on embryonic stem cell research and horrible on man-caused global warming, an exorbitantly costly scam whose credibility is rapidly disintegrating before our very eyes.

Unlike Bryan's contention that we haven't suffered another "Muslim attack" on the scale of 9/11 solely due to the decision by Major League Baseball to replace the traditional singing of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the Seventh Inning Stretch with "God Bless America" (please note that foiling any terrorist attack is prohibited without the express written permission of Major League Baseball), which is just becoming more empirical by the moment.

But the truth will out, and that spells trouble for Newt.

But a scoop for The Advocate!

This will create another vacuum, only this time there is no one new to fill it...When the air went out of Cain's balloon over the false allegations of harassment and the more substantial problem of his lack of depth on foreign policy, the air went into Newt's tires.

This, right here, seems like the real scandal, and I'd love to see it brought up at the next Republican debate:

CAIN: You siphoned my balloon!

GINGRICH: I had a flat!

So the question becomes: where does the air go when it leaks out of Newt's tires?

Well, what else holds air besides tires and balloons? I'm guessing it'll go into Lloyd Bridges' SCUBA tanks from Sea Hunt (and not a moment too soon, because by this time, his lungs are aching for air).

Politics as well as nature abhors a vacuum, and somebody is going to benefit from Newt's descent. Like an elevator on its way to the basement, a countervailing weight must rise.

Gov. Perry's star will rise once again.

So the air Gingrich stole from Herman's balloon will leak out of Newt's tires, causing Rick Perry's star to rise like a lead weight. I know Bryan isn't in favor of mixing races, cultures, or religions, but apparently he's fine with metaphor miscegenation.

This Is The Least Creepy Thing On Hollywood Boulevard...

2011-12-02T10:35:00.000-08:00

...and it only comes out at night.

He Blows a Lot

2011-12-01T17:14:00.001-08:00

And by "he," I mean Santa Ana. And by "Santa Ana" I mean the gale force winds that blew through here last night, not the Mexican general who killed Fess Parker and Buddy Ebsen.

Anyway, I apologize for the absence of posts, but the Internet has been out since sometime after midnight, and according to the computer-generated voice I get whenever I call our provider (which manages to sound both robotic and impatient, like a Dalek that would LIKE to exterminate you, but is simply too fucking exasperated) there is currently no ETA for when service might be restored. So I thought I'd see if I could post a Please Stand By notice using my phone.

Apparently so. And it's every but as tedious to write as it is to read -- like a cyber-Jiffy Pop!

Hope to be back online soon.

Time to Get Tough, Michele!

2011-11-30T15:22:00.000-08:00

"...and I'm wearing this brass-buttoned Hussar's uniform as a tribute to our brave Ruritanian allies."

Michele Bachmann has the right idea (announcing that if she were President, she'd shut down our embassy in Iran), but she's too timid in her convictions. If I were President, I'd close our embassy on the Moon, recall our ambassador from Babylon 5, and withdraw from the League of Nations!

Ball's in your court, Michele.

Horrors of the Hollywood Christmas Parade!

2011-11-28T03:56:00.000-08:00

[Quick Note: Due to an unusually long car trip to see family over the weekend, my chronic back injury has fully flared up -- and is, in fact, more full of flare than Jennifer Aniston in Office Space -- but in the wake of the Beg-a-Thon, we have many people to thank, and I'll be writing more about that as soon as the drugs kick in.]

When I was a kid, the annual Hollywood Christmas Death March was called "the Santa Claus Lane Parade," and it was as low tech and quaint as as a hand-carved hobbyhorse from some tourist trap in Vermont. The city spruced up the boulevard with lights and decorations, but the event itself consisted primarily of high school marching bands; modest, DIY floats that lived their shabby lives in the shadow of the Rose Parade and had a real Oh Who Honestly Gives a Crap? feel to them; and Grand Marshals who -- while admittedly more recognizable than the local newscasters and kiddie TV show hosts who invariably handled such duties in smaller media markets -- were solidly So What? style celebrities, in the Joe E. Brown, Tony Danza, Susan Lucci mold (this year we're getting Marie Osmond). But hey...it was our Macy's parade, a cherished local tradition, and if you were a child growing up in Southern California -- where there is seldom any change in arboreal set dressing; the trees remain stubbornly green, the thermometer hovers steadily in the mid-to-high 70s -- you looked forward to this day as the official start of the Holiday Season.

But it didn't make money, so the Chamber of Commerce decided to kill it (although I give them credit for being the only local Republicans who can actually organize to get something done, even if it does involve the homicide of a child's dream). But Disney has a major presence on Hollywood Boulevard, thanks to their flagship theater, the El Capitan, and they smelled a nice cross-promotional marketing opportunity, so they've stepped in and under their aegis the charmingly rough-hewn and amateur feel of years past has been replaced by the soulless, sub-contracted style of false, mandated cheer one one often finds at a State Fair. Along with some of the most disturbing inflatable characters in holiday parade history. They're the official barrage balloons of the War on Christmas™.

The neat, parallel rows of nipples makes it appear that NASA and Italy are preparing to launch the she-wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus into orbit! Spectators should take the rare opportunity to suck on her space teats, because they dispense Tang! But beware, because judging by the melting, Daliesque character on the right, the bright orange, granular milk produced by her lupine bosoms is hallucinogenic.

"Homer Simpson was found dead today, dressed in a dog collar and a Tickle Me Elmo costume, and trussed with an elaborate network of Japanese bondage-style ropes. Auto-erotic asphyxiation is the presumed cause of death..."

"A giant, gut-shot pirate is seen seconds before collapsing on a crowd of parade watchers in Hollywood earlier today. Police are seeking a large, inflated assailant tentatively identified as Cap'n Jack Ruby..."

It's like Oscar the Grouch is jumping out of an R2D2 birthday cake -- in which case I'm definitely tempted to call Chippendales about a refund.

And what could better symbolize "Stories from the Golden Age By L. Ron Hubbard" than a gas bag that vaguely resembles a giant block of cheese?

I can't decide if this headline should read, "A giant, crawling eye, best remembered as the star of the 1958 Forrest Tucker film The Crawling Eye, lost a knife fight, and a good deal of vitreous humor, today..." or, "The dessicated corpse of Snoopy has been discovered, beneath the floorboards of an abandoned artist's studio in Santa Rosa, California..."

Anyway, I'm sure you guys can come up with better captions, so have at it in comments.

Special Video Beast-Blogging: The Happy Thanksgiving Edition!

2011-11-24T11:51:00.000-08:00

As promised, a Special Comment from the Cats. Riley and Moondoggie in their first Mental Hygiene film.

And from Mary, Riley, Moondoggie, and me...Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Mayor Mike: Episode I: A New Dope

2011-11-23T15:21:00.000-08:00

By Keith, World O' Crap's Municipal Megalomaniacs Correspondent.

Introduction

Dear reader, cherish the thought should you choose to continue: No Mayor of the City of New York has ever been successful in a bid for higher office.

It's either an optimal steady-state solution to a turbulent non-linear surface, or perhaps dumb punk luck.

But whatever it is, let us rejoice such that our odds against it ever occurring are so favorable.

"So...am I supposed to pardon this turkey, or what's the deal?"

Mayor Mike

There is nothing unusual about media barons buying government. Mayor Mike is a media baron. His personality is perhaps a bit dull compared to those of Chandler, Hearst or even the Sulzbergers, but intellectually ingenious for the early embrace of electronic publishing, as well as the velocity of information through the Bloomberg data corridors.

Global trades of equities, commodities and foreign currency exchange are all informed by the rigorous data mining capabilities of Bloomberg's portal.

But unlike his competitors, Rupert Murdoch for example, Mayor Mike isn't at all concerned with pushing Flintstones reruns to Tirana, Albania via cheap Intelsat allocations acquired on the fly. This is some other kind of data, bits, bytes and hexadecimals determining the flows of capital through global exchange of contracts, legitimate or otherwise.

Mike's only competitor in this arena is the Thomson Reuters publishing empire. A per-person monthly subscription to either product will set you back about one thousand eight hundred US dollars. The Flintstones are loss-leaders for all the Murdochs or Mordors out there carpet-bagging the developing world. Compared to Mayor Mike's personal take per transaction, it's nothing but stale peanuts.

To Be Continued in Chapter 2: When Electrons Collide! At This Same Theater!

MaryC's Holiday Gift Report: The Pleasure Chest Edition

2011-11-23T00:33:00.000-08:00

Oh, God. A plush toy which sounds like it's singing through one of those electronic voice boxes, and sporting a mouth that looks like a Today Contraceptive Sponge. So if you ever wondered what the Chipmunks would sound like it they all had throat cancer, well...Merry Christmas!

(I'm not taking the fall for this one. You can ~~blame~~ thank Bill S.)

Ann Coulter Makes Rob Long

2011-11-22T12:34:00.000-08:00

Rob Long was one of the Speakers on the NRO Ship of Fools Cruise back in August, but I disqualified his headshot from the Miss Wingnut Pageant -- despite being an unusually smug and douchey example of the art form -- because unlike most of the contestants he actually has a few entries on his resume outside the field of Professional Whining.

But just because Rob has a slight acquaintance with the world beyond the right wing bubble does not mean he is immune to its strange fevers and dark passions. Witness this sonnet he's cranked out in praise of Ann Coulter's feminine charms:

Unapologetic, Unsinkable, Unwavering Ann Coulter

Had she been born a century ago...

...it would explain those missing co-eds and that brownish-red ring around her bathtub.

...Ann Coulter would have been a movie star.

And Max Schrek would have been shining shoes outside the UFA commissary.

She’s got movie star eyes:

Three, in fact. One belonged to Sammy Davis, Jr., one to Sandy Duncan, and the third was acquired by Ann in 1997, when she rolled a drunken Peter Falk outside Musso & Franks. Friends have advised her to take up a less gruesome hobby, like collecting Troll Dolls, or scrapbooking.

They’re big and round and they lock onto you with the intensity and fire that silver nitrate film was invented for.

Unfortunately, they're equally as volatile, and during a visit with her parents to the MGM lot in 1967, Ann's eyes caught fire in the film vault, burning the Technicolor scenes from Broadway Melody, the Three Stooges musical short, Hello, Pop!, several silent Our Gang comedies, and the camera negative of London After Midnight.

And she’s got a movie star laugh:

Specifically, Eddie Deezen's.

It’s full and round and loud when she wants it to be, and she almost always wants it to be.

This also describes her attitude toward Jonah Goldberg's ass.

But more than her starlet eyes and her ravishing laugh, Ann Coulter is having fun. She loves being the unsinkable, unapologetic Ann Coulter.

I never really thought of Ann Coulter as a refugee from the Golden Age of Hollywood -- a latter day Veronica Lake, perhaps, or -- with her puckish sense of wit and whimsy -- a modern Carole Lombard, or Skelton Knaggs. But perhaps Rob was inspired by his own resemblance to Thomas Mitchell's eyebrows.

I assume Rob saw a recent photo of Ann that sizzled with old time Glamor and Allure, and caused him to see her in this fresh new perspective. Here's the image that accompanies his post:

I think I'm in love.

And that drives the left around the bend, which is reason enough to list Ann as one of the nation’s top conservatives, let alone top female conservatives.

Because as Socrates said, "It's not the quality of your argument that will carry the day, but how big a snot you can be while making it."

We already know the basics: Ann is a dazzlingly gifted polemicist. She’s a scary-smart writer—

I may not agree with your politics, Rob, but even I've got to admit -- when you're half-right, you're half-right.

readers of her latest book, Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America will have noticed a new level of power and philosophy in her writing.

The title, along with the black candles and blood-stained goat skull in her living room, hint at the source of Ann's increased powers. Therefore, Unbeliever, beware when you crack her tome, for it is full of the deadliest philosophy, and has been known to kill with a single syllogism.

On television, where we all (sadly) get increasingly more of our information, Ann Coulter is a dervish of debate and verbal smarts: Ann never backs down, never shrugs a question and, what’s more, alone among the pundits (left and right) she’s never weasel-worded an answer.

Ann Coulter: glamorous movie star. Sufi ascetic.

This gets her into trouble—there are protests in the universities, outrage in the left-wing press, and general bafflement among the smug media courtesans. How could this blonde she-devil capture so many readers? How can this troublemaking, outspoken lady, clad in her chic little dresses and glamour-girl shoes, be so popular?

If by "popular" you mean "continues to be stocked in Dollar Stores long after her Sell By date has passed and the button has popped up on her lid," then yes. It's a mystery.

Ann is our powerhouse, our Patton.

"Coulter...You magnificent bastard! I didn't read your book! But I understand it's being given away free with a subscription to Human Events..."

Ann marches in front of our parade with a fearless wit, and in sexy heels, too.

You're really fixated on her feet, Rob. I'm no dating and romance expert, but I assume the next stage of your relationship will involve you sneaking into her bedroom during a cocktail party and trying on her fuck-me pumps. Best of luck to you crazy kids! and bring a shoehorn.

Ho-Ho-Hozell

2011-11-21T00:06:00.000-08:00

[Note from Scott: Just wanted to let everyone know that we'll be wrapping up our Beg-a-Thon this week (click here for the somewhat embarrassing details), concluding with a Special Video Special on Thanksgiving.]

By Keith, World O' Crap's War on Christmas Correspondent:

(Almost) Nothing is Sacred by Brent Bozell

In advance of Tinseltown's parade of Christmas insensitivities [sic] -- they've already unloaded the marijuana movie A Very Harold and Kumar 3-D Christmas -- let us stipulate that it's not just seasonal. The manufacturers of pop culture thrive on offending every traditional value.

Brent, nothing “seasonal” about stoner comedies. This genre has perennial charm. If it’s got “legs” you’re guaranteed a 15% return on investment. Maybe more after foreign screens and DVD release.

Start with Pamela Anderson, the ridiculously surgically enhanced former Playboy Playmate, home-movie porn specialist and "Baywatch" star. She's been cast to play -- are you ready? -- the Virgin Mary in a TV "Christmas" special in Canada.

There aren’t many juicy roles for older women actors and Pam has mortgage payments to fulfill. Have you no decency, Brent? Besides, I’m not entirely sure her surgical enhancement is worthy of the adjective “ridiculous.” I’ve always found her work to be reasonably well-crafted. Plus it’s held up awfully good given the mileage.

It's called A Russell Peters Christmas and Peters will play Mary's husband Joseph in the sketch “comedy.” Peters was raised Catholic and attended a Catholic school until eighth grade. It didn't take, to say the least. The show will air as a holiday "centerpiece" in Canada on CTV and the Canadian Comedy Network, which also runs U.S. shows such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

You’re just being snippy because neither Jon nor Steve have featured you as a guest. I can’t remember if Mary and Joseph were actually wed, but legend has it she herself was scheduled for some surgical work in Antioch. The night before she and Joseph took in a show – A Very Oedipus Rex Bacchanalia -- and Joe walked out in disgust, dragging poor Mary along with him.

Publicists are already touting the show with the usual lingo. It's “an irreverent twist on the Christmas special making it unlike anything viewers have seen before,” and will be “tastier and more dangerous than a cup of spiked eggnog.” Pamela Anderson does have reverence for one cause: Her Facebook page profile picture is an anti-fur symbol. Mock Jesus, but love animals.

“Love the sinner, hate their wardrobe,” as Betty Bowers once said after knocking back eggnog spiked with Everclear, Oxycontin and lorazepam. Let’s face it, Brent, you’re stalking poor Pamela on Facebook, aren’t you? You went for the boobs and got PETA instead. Now you’re apoplectic. What else do you have for us?

Another very serious (if not sacred, surely profound) day on the American calendar is Sept. 11. That means 9/11 is just begging for satire, if you're Fox and Seth MacFarlane, at least. Two years after 9/11, college reporter Matt Chayes interviewed MacFarlane and said he "claims he would never do a 9/11 gag." That pledge has been violated repeatedly. Now he's devoted the entire plot of the Nov. 13 episode of "Family Guy" to mocking 9/11.

Stewie, the super-smart baby, invents a time machine. Pal, Brian, the talking dog, and he travel back in time to retrieve an old tennis ball. In the process, current Brian warns past Brian about 9/11, and, as a result, it's avoided. But when they return to the present, they find out that George W. Bush lost the 2004 election because he had no 9/11 with which to scare the public.

Damn, I missed that episode, Brent. Now I’ll have to watch for it in syndication.

This historical twist results in Bush creating a second Confederacy -- naturally -- which starts another Civil War with nuclear strikes that kill 17 million people and turn the U.S. into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, of course. So the duo goes back to fix the past, and after they succeed, the baby declares, "We did it Brian! We made 9/11 happen! High five!"

“Mission Accomplished” would have been a better closer than “High Five” imho.

Speaking of messing up the time machine, Hollywood is really going back in time to smear J. Edgar Hoover. They've never forgiven him for being a staunch anti-communist or for mucking around in the personal lives of their heroes, from the Kennedy's to Martin Luther King. When Time asked actor Leonardo DiCaprio how true the movie was to life he replied, "Historically, it's incredibly accurate."

Did you mean Time Magazine or Time, the physical dimension that co-exists with space in a cosmological continuum?

That's quite a clash with the quote from his cast mate Armie Hammer, who plays Clyde Tolson, the close Hoover aide alleged to be his lover. "What really brings the film to life are the scenes that no one can prove happened."

Too bad Ayn Rand is no longer with us to script-doctor for Clint.

The movie's climactic scene arrives when Hoover tells Tolson he's getting married. Tolson and Hoover wrestle, and Tolson kisses Hoover, only to have Hoover reject him. As Tolson storms out, Hoover begs Tolson not to leave and even says, "I love you." There's also a creepy scene when Hoover's mother dies. Hoover descends into a crying mess as he puts on a dress and a necklace.

The accusation that Hoover cross-dressed came from a convicted perjurer with mob ties; Soviet disinformation agents circulated rumors that Hoover was gay. But Hollywood doesn't care about sources or evidence when it makes "historical" movies. What they cared about was using ersatz history to promote the gay agenda.

As a high-profile Fed in frequent attendance at Roy Cohn’s infamous soirees of yester-year this alone is enough evidence to conclude that J. Edgar was perhaps “A Friend of Dorothy.” There’s more than a touch of lavender to this complex individual. At least Clint didn’t demean Mr. Hoover by making DiCaprio wear a copy that wretched two-piece knit thing. Clyde hated that two-piece knit.

Now that agenda is the closest thing to a unanimously sacred cause in Hollywood. Movie director Brett Ratner was just unceremoniously canned as director of the 2012 Academy Awards broadcast. He crossed the line by saying "Rehearsals are for (gay F-bombs)." That will get you fired. Mocking an FBI director, 9/11 or the Virgin Mary? That is apparently "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying."

What lessons have we to learn from Mr. Bozell’s poorly-spelled and poorly-punctuated rant? Well, we’ve learned he is stalking Pamela Anderson on Facebook. Watch out, Brent. You’re not the first. I’d stay away from her. She doesn’t like it.

(We’ve also learned that, despite constant lobbying by his publicist, he has been declined an audience with either Jon Stewart or Steve Colbert. Tough nuts, Brent. Get over it.)

Secondly, Mr. Bozell was absent from class the day they introduced basic structures, such as the outline, as an aid in organizing one’s thoughts.

Thirdly, we have learned that Brent is a terrible pop-culture critic. He sucks big time. I’ve done him a tremendous favor by omitting some of the worst paragraphs (it just goes on an on) so I’m awaiting Brent’s holiday (sorry, “Christmas”) card as a token of his appreciation.

MaryC's Holiday Gift Report, V2.0

2011-11-19T22:30:00.000-08:00

The horror. Oh, GOD! The Horror!

The unholy noise cracks upon their ears, and the little girls' heads whip around, their pigtails flying, as they instinctively recognize the danger. But before they can flee the room, the demon latches upon their souls and consumes them, and soon the entire Babysitters Club is cackling with the demented hysteria of those who have gazed upon the indescribable horror of the Elder Gods, and been denied the blessed release that only death can bring.

By Remco!

You Can Thank John Stossel for Your Electronic Tape Worm

2011-11-18T21:52:00.000-08:00

I'm not a morning person, and generally unpleasant to be around until lunchtime. But any day's a good day that starts with a post from s.z, and when you add in Dennis Prager telling the ladies to just lie back and let him, Bill Bennett, Mike Gallagher, Michael Medved and Hugh Hewitt fill their pretty little heads with the industrial run-off from their big pulsing Man Brains, well...that's about as close as I come to greeting the dawn with a smile and a wink across the brim of my coffee cup like the vivified spokesmodel in an old Yuban commercial.

Sheri also mentioned that she took the time out of her day to teach the fundamentals of Objectivism to an 11-month old infant, which takes a rare, Daniel-in-the-Lion's-den kind of courage, because babies are, by and large, not a sympathetic audience for the Randian Facts of Life. Most of them, in fact, are needy, greedy socialists with a teat-draining attachment to the Nanny State (have you ever seen a pair of baby booties with actual bootstraps? I rest my case).

And speaking of Self-Made ~~Mustaches~~ Men, let's check in with ex-consumer reporter and wrestler whipping boy, and current Galt's Gulch real estate agent, John Stossel:

"What's wrong with these chains? These are the chains I forged (via a reputable off-shore subcontractor) in life! Because I'm a producer! Sure they chafe a little, but you know what? Jacob Marley was a wuss..."

FDA Kills Smokers

My intuition makes me grateful that the FDA is there to protect me -- to make sure that every drug is proven both safe and effective -- but "protection" kills people.

Look, John, just be frank and tell her you don't like wearing a condom. Or even fake a latex allergy if you must, but as pre-coital patter goes, this is a bit of a buzzkill.

Last week, I discussed how the FDA kills by keeping useful medical devices off the market.

Like the Battle Creek Vibratory Chair, scourge of constipation! Or Sanitized Tape Worms!

"Easy To Swallow!" (Just like the claims in this ad!) And best of all, "No Baths!", unlike our exclusive line of Schistosomiasis Worms, which require immersion.

Now, we learn the FDA threatens the health of cigarette smokers who want to quit.

You know what I love most about English? It's a such a vibrant, living language, always evolving and adapting. Why, when I was a lad, we no longer said things like "when I was a lad," because it sounded archaic, or at least overbearingly precious. And "learn" meant "to master a skill," or "acquire a fact," rather than "to distort a press release," or "to root around and pull shit out of my ass like an Okie noodlin' for catfish on Hillbilly Handfishin'."

How can I say that?

Perfunctorily? Unconvincingly? In Percy Kilbride's Downeaster accent from The Egg and I?

Hasn't the FDA proposed that new warnings and gruesome pictures be placed on cigarette packages because the old scares apparently weren't working? ... So the FDA certainly seems to be trying to save smokers' lives. How can I say the FDA threatens smokers?

Because you have the morals of a Ukrainian phishing scammer?

What other conclusion can we draw when we consider that the FDA now talks about banning electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes. It sent threatening letters to manufacturers of the product.

The FDA sent letters threatening to kill smokers? Talk about typical government fraud and abuse! Instead of wasting our tax dollars threatening to kill people who are already killing themselves, they ought to be actually killing healthy people -- vegans, teetotalers, pilates enthusiasts!

E-cigarettes look like cigarettes, but instead of burning tobacco, they vaporize liquid nicotine when users puff on, or "vape," them. The resulting aerosol mist satisfies "smokers" without their inhaling tars and the most dangerous of tobacco's chemicals into their lungs.

What could be healthier? I'm sure high-end spas will soon be replacing macrobiotic diets and yoga studios with "vape rooms."

What could be wrong with that? Well, the FDA says e-cigarettes contain trace chemicals that "may" be "toxic."

So do chips of lead paint, but that's no reason kids shouldn't be allowed to dissolve them in soapy water and smoke them in a bubble pipe.

But most everything "may" be toxic.

This column, for instance; and yet Townhall still doesn't carry a Surgeon General's Warning.

New York Times science columnist John Tierney writes: "The agency has never presented evidence that the trace amounts actually cause any harm, and it has neglected to mention that similar traces of these chemicals have been found in other FDA-approved products, including nicotine patches and gum."

True, although no one has ever suffered from Secondhand Gum, unless they got a blob of it stuck to the bottom of their shoe, or tried to French kiss Ann Coulter while she was working on a Red Man-sized chaw of Nicorette.

"The agency's methodology and warnings have been lambasted in scientific journals."

Like the Ladies Home Journal, and the Journal of the Whills.

Brad Rodu...

Who certainly sounds like a Star Wars character...

...a professor of medicine at the University of Louisville, concluded in the Harm Reduction Journal that the FDA results "are highly unlikely to have any possible significance to users" because it detected chemicals at "about 1 million times lower concentrations than are conceivably related to human health."

Moreover, Michael Siegel, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, told Tierney: "It boggles my mind why there is a bias against e-cigarettes among antismoking groups" such as the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association.

Anti-smoking groups are opposed to nicotine addiction? Call me impertinent, Professor, but it seems like your mind is easily boggled, so I suggest you decline any future invitations to actually play Boggle, otherwise it might set up a feedback loop that would ultimately result in a Scanners-like cranial explosion.

But in the interests of peer-reviewed science, let's see exactly what's behind this beef the anti-heart disease, contra-cancer extremists seem to have with vapin'.

[A]uthorities are wary of e-cigarettes and already several states, including New Jersey, New York, and New Hampshire, have made moves to ban them.

As an ardent Libertarian, Stossel naturally supports States Rights, unless they involve stronger consumer regulations, because that's like castrating Superman.

Affordable and readily available online by adults and minors alike, some argue that this product, which comes in flavors like chocolate or apple, is just another way for teens to get hooked on nicotine.

But it's a potential boon to dieters. Just imagine: you're in a restaurant, you've just finished a rich meal and you're trying to resist the dessert cart, when someone at a neighboring lights up a Strudel-flavored e-cigarette. Suddenly, the flourless chocolate cake is forgotten, and all you can think is, "Mmm, your habit smells delicious! Just like Großmutter used to make -- except, while we did gorge on her pastries after Sunday dinner, we didn't literally inhale them."

The American Cancer Society, Cancer Action Network, American Lung Association and others said in a statement on the product that "absent scientific evidence, these claims…that they are safer than normal cigarettes ... are in blatant in violation of FDA rules."

And suspicions about these unregulated devices are not unfounded. The FDA survey of e-cigarettes found that one brand, Smoking Everywhere, contained diethylene glycol, a toxic chemical found in anti-freeze.

Now your teen won't overheat in the summer, or freeze up in the winter. Anyway, back to Stossel:

It boggles my mind, too, because...e-cigarettes not only pose merely a hypothetical risk compared to real "cigarettes containing thousands of chemicals, including dozens of carcinogens and hundreds of toxins"... True, the cigarette substitutes are basically nicotine-delivery devices. But so what?

The American Association of Public Health Physicians wrote that e-cigarettes might "save the lives of 4 million of the 8 million current adult American smokers."

Four million lives!

It's unusual -- even surprising -- to see Stossel so exciting about saving lives. I would assume this means he also supports a Single Payer national health insurance program that would save many millions more, except I know him. Still, he probably feels entitled to credit for caring enough about his fellow, if inferior Man to save his miserable, moochery existence by unleashing the power of the Free Market, in the form of an untested, hand-held incinerator that delivers a highly addictive substance, seasoned with automobile coolant.

The FDA seems to believe that it can create a risk-free environment here on earth.

The FDA also seems to believe the American Businessman would put rat shit and brake fluid in baby formula if they could turn a half-cent per unit higher profit. Bunch of airy-fairy Utopians.

But that is pure balderdash. Life is always a choice between greater and lesser risks -- zero risk is not an option. Striving to abolish risk kills people.

Preventing the Mark Eden Breast Development System from claiming it was "clinically proven to give you the front end of a 1955 Cadillac!" killed more people than Hitler and Mao combined.

"It's time to be honest with the 50 million Americans, and hundreds of millions around the world, who use tobacco," Rodu writes. "It's time to abandon the myth that tobacco is devoid of benefits and to focus on how we can help smokers continue to derive those benefits with a safer delivery system."

I don't know what planet Rodu comes from -- although I assume it's lousy with Sith -- but I think his statement would sound more credible if he was talking through a Darth Vader-style breath mask.

Q: "Does a Full-Time Homemaker Swap Her Mind for a Mop?"

2011-11-17T09:31:00.000-08:00

A: Only if she listens to Dennis Prager's radio show.

Hi, everybody! I am honored to be back as your guest lecturer today during this special pre-holiday week in which we are encouraged (by your guest lecturer) to take a moment to be thankful for our many blessings, and to also help others if we can. And in that spirit, if you give a couple of bucks to help Scott, Mary, and Moondoggie, I have it straight from Satan himself that you will be considered to ghost-write a best-seller (you can have your choice of "Killing George Washington: The Shocking Story of How Pinheaded Liberals Secretly Assassinated the Father of Our Country" or "She Says That I am the One, But the Kid Is Not My Baby, Baby, Baby." Seriously, Mary and Scott are good people (and Moondoogie is a good cat, relatively speaking) who are dealing with major medical expenses, and if you can help, it would be a very good thing to do.

Anyway, I thought I would take a moment to update you on what I've been doing since we last communicated. So here it is: I fed, housed, and cleaned-up after a multitude of needy cats. Of course, while this is important work, in that it saves the lives of animals who were either scheduled for euthanasia, cruelly abandoned by their former owners, or born to poor, unwed cat mothers who were addicted to 'nip, it isn't all that intellectually stimulating. So, I was happy to learn from NOW president Dennis Prager that staying home and caring for unappreciative beasts can be more mentally enriching than working at NASA or ghost-writing an inaccurate historical best-seller for Bill O'Reilly.

Dennis starts out by stating that he regularly writes about "male-female issues" because "I want to help men and women, especially husbands and wives, get along better" by furthering the goals of the Stepford Wives project. He says he also does it get lefty bloggers to pay attention to him for a few laughs, because they are the only people who will. For instance, "just a few weeks ago, [Daily Kos] declared me a misogynist for my column on what I believe to have been four negative legacies of feminism for women. I actually wrote the column on behalf of women, yet I was labeled a misogynist. Why?" Aw, it's always sad to see a right-wing radio personality who just wants to help women be so sadly misunderstood, so if anybody wants to answer Dennis's heart-rending enquiring, be my guest.

But, as Dennis says:

Why that is so is not my subject here. Rather, I seek to refute the idea that full-time homemaking is intellectually vapid and a waste of a college education.

In fact, if more women would major in Laundry Studies or Hamburger Helper-nomics, they would find their college studies exceptionally relevant.

Nor do I wish to romanticize child rearing. As a rule, little children don't contribute much to the intellectual life of a parent

I'm glad that Dennis pointed this out, because I spent yesterday afternoon caring for an 11-month-old baby, and although I tried to engage her in a discussion of the Occupy Wall Street movement, she found her time better served by searching for and eating stay bits of dog kibble. I then suggested that we watch some C-Span to further our understanding of current events, but instead she chewed on the remote and tried to fight the dog for more kibble. As a salon, it was a sad failure -- and now I know why, thanks to Dennis!

The point is that she can find such stimulation without leaving her house. Furthermore, the intellectual input she can find is likely to be greater than most women (or men) find working outside the home. There is a reason that about half the audience of my national radio show is female -- they listen to talk radio for hours a day and broaden their knowledge considerably.

Or, these stay-at-home scholars leave the radio on for hours a day to drown out considerably the sounds of the neighbors' arguing or their own crying babies.

To the left, the notion that talk radio enhances intellectual development is akin to fish needing bicycles.

And to the right, the notion that talk radio enhances intellectual development is akin to prying guns from cold, dead hands. Or throwing babies out with mop water - or whatever is the opposite of what Dennis said the left believes, if only we knew what that was.

But that's because the left's greatest achievement is demonizing the right and because they never actually listen to the best of us.

Get ready for such a list (and if Dennis isn't on it, I'll eat some dog kibble)!

I am syndicated by the Salem Radio Network. My colleagues are Bill Bennett, Mike Gallagher, Michael Medved and Hugh Hewitt. Two of us attended Harvard, one Yale and one Columbia. One of us taught at Harvard, another at the City University of New York. And a third teaches constitutional law at a law school.

Wow, what a chance for us lowly homebound women to learn at the feet of some guys who attended some Ivy League colleges! I feel edified just by reading their names! And so I offer them this tribute: I heard the best minds of my generation on talk radio, spouting madness, starving hysterical stupid, dragging themselves through the Townhall streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, poopy-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the AM dynamo in the machinery of the right.

In addition to reviewing the news and discussing our own views, we all routinely interview authors and experts -- left and right -- in almost every field. The woman who listens to us regularly will know more about economics, politics, current events, world affairs, American history and religion than the great majority of men and women who work full-time outside of the house.

Sure, what these women know will be slanted, warped, and/or flat-out wrong, but they will inarguably know more of it than the great majority of people who are too busy splitting atoms and such to listen to right-wing talk radio.

But still, Dennis has given me hope that I too can join the exquisite world of the mind available to agoraphobics and housewives who possess only AM radios with which to muffle the sounds of that tell-tale heart (and not enough energy to change the channel from Salem Radio Network).

MaryC's Holiday Gift Report!

2011-11-17T00:06:00.000-08:00

Looking for that perfect, non-denominational Holiday Gift for your Christmas Warrior? Look no further than "Milky! The Marvelous Milking Cow!"

Obscene? A little. Unnatural? You bet! Creep out the Bill O'Reilly fan on your list and put this thing under their heavily taxed Christmas Tree!

Then, while the kids are manufacturing fake milk out of weird chemical dust, you can make fake eggnog! Once you've poured in a pint of Captain Morgan, you won't care where the hell it came from! (Psst! It came from Union Carbide).

Demi Moore's Breast Implants Were Made of C-4!

2011-11-16T00:06:00.000-08:00

Okay, if you haven't read the clever and funny New American Slogans in the comments to this post, I urge you to check them out. They are mint-worthy mottoes that are suitable for engraving on coins, paper currency, Great Seals, license plates, and those yellow "Piso Mojado" sandwich board signs on freshly mopped marble floors. And don't forget to add your own! After all, This Land is Your Land®, for a Limited Time Only, at Participating Dealers. Offer Void in Utah.

Also, this is Day 3 of our World O' Crap Beg-A-Thon. If you can, please consider making a donation (guilty explanation here).

Meanwhile, in the War on Terror, Florida Republican Allen West believes that America will remain safe and secure from attack only so long as Demi Moore is wearing a Water Bra, or something like that.

Rep. Allen West: 'Demi Moore was waterboarded' in movie 'G.I. Jane'

Many people were surprised -- relieved, of course, but nonetheless surprised -- that a massive terrorist attack did not coincide with the tenth anniversary of September 11th. As we now know, such a disaster was averted only because in 1997, brave members of the U.S. military tortured vital information out of Al-Qaeda's Number Two, Demi Sheikh Moore.

Republican Rep. Allen West (Fla.) cited the movie “G.I. Jane” while defending the use of waterboarding as a military tactic Monday, saying the controversial practice has yielded useful intelligence.

If torture is a "military tactic," then why isn't it an option in "Risk"? ("Whoo hoo, I rolled a 12! Sorry, Billy, but I'm taking Irkutsk and crushing your testicles with a vice-grip.") Still, you learn something new every day. I never watched the Saw films, but I assume when the creepy mask came off, Jigsaw turned out to be Sun Tzu, or Ender Wiggin.

[Fig. 1: Taking a tip from beauty queens who employ professional pageant consultants to coach them on poise and deportment, Rep. West has spent the past few months working on a trademark smile -- the Dead-Eyed Grimace with Perfunctory Half-Smirk -- under the tutelage of former Vice President Dick Cheney.]

"The president is the benefactor of a lot of information that came from waterboarding," said West on Fox News. "Furthermore, in the movie ‘G.I. Jane,’ Demi Moore was waterboarded and we do that in military training; in survival, escape and resistance training."

I had no idea that SERE training involved drowning Demi Moore, but as someone who sat through Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, I can't say I'm surprised.

The congressman, who served in the military for more than two decades, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel...

But then he read the handwriting on the wall and realized he had pretty much peaked at the military equivalent of District Manager, and was never going to make it to Regional Supervisor due to that trifling incident where he plunged a cashier's hand in hot frying medium when she came up short on her register count.

While serving in Taji, Iraq, West received information from an intelligence specialist about a reported plot to ambush him and his men. The alleged plot reportedly involved Yahya Jhodri Hamoodi, a civilian Iraqi police officer. West, who was not responsible for conducting interrogations in Iraq and had never conducted nor witnessed one, had his men detain Hamoodi. In the process of detaining Mr. Hamoodi, soldiers testified that Hamoodi appeared to reach for his weapon and needed to be subdued. Hamoodi was beaten by four soldiers from the 220th Field Artillery Battalion on the head and body. West then fired his pistol near Hamoodi's head, after which Hamoodi provided West with names and information, which Hamoodi later described as "meaningless information induced by fear and pain." At least one of these suspects was arrested as a result, but no plans for attacks or weapons were found. West said "At the time I had to base my decision on the intelligence I received. It's possible that I was wrong about Mr. Hamoodi."

In hindsight, the Lt. Colonel's failure to acquire accurate intelligence was rather to be expected, since the only leverage West could apply was a four-man beating and a mock execution. If he'd had a waterboard at his disposal, however, he likely would have gotten "meaningful information induced by fear and pain and drowning." It's the drowning -- the cherry, as it were, atop the sundae of coercion -- that really pulls it all together.

...[the congressman] told Fox News that he believes there is precedent for treating non-state, non-uniformed combatants differently than state actors in wartime.

"Precedent" is the new "Atrocity."

He told Fox News that while in the military he was investigated for an incident in which he fired a pistol over a detainee's head as a "psychological intimidation tactic."

"It kept my men safe," West insisted.

Startling prisoners with loud noises is our first, best defense against asymmetric warfare, which is why the Army War College now requires a course in Sneaking Up Behind the Enemy with an Inflated Paper Bag. West himself developed many of these tactics on the battlefield during the Iraq War, and in 2005 he was credited with saving an entire company of Army Rangers using nothing but a joy buzzer.

Businessman Herman Cain said during the debate that while he did not support the use of torture, he would allow military leaders to determine if waterboarding constituted torture.

"The Fantastic Mr. Fox has determined that in order to comply with Title VIII: The Fair Housing and Equality Opportunity Act, a certain percentage of units in this Hen-house must be set aside for coyotes, owls, raccoons, and other underprivileged tenants."

Anyway, just imagine if Herman Cain had been President while the Lt. Colonel was serving in Iraq. Why, West might still be in the military today, pulling double duty at Guantanamo: War Criminal by day, Etymologist by night.

(h/t to our friend Actor212 at Simply Left Behind)

The United States of AWESOME!

2011-11-15T01:18:00.000-08:00

[NOTE: We're having a Beg-A-Thon this week (embarrassing details here). If you can help out, the Begging Button is at the top left. Or you if you'd prefer to follow Washington's Farewell advice about avoiding electronic entanglements, please feel free to email me at scott.clevenger - at - gmail.com for our snail mail address. Thanks! And we now join the blog, already in progress...]

AdvertisingAge (which I always thought sounded less like a trade magazine and more like the title of a Will & Ariel Durant book) advises us to drop our drawers, bend at the waist, and prepare for the hickory smoked smell of seared buttocks, because we're about to be branded.

America's got a new plan of attack when it comes to marketing itself around the world. Going forward, the country will base communications around the idea that this is the "United States of Awesome Possibilities."

Ah yes, the Good Ol' USAP, where Everything is Possibly Awesome. Or at least, where there's a 50% Chance of Awesome (personally, I'm no fan of stuffy Latin credos, and have always felt that our national motto should sound more like a local TV weather forecast).

Just imagine how potentially bitchin' it will be, living in the United States of Awesome Possibilities! The Founders may have been Christians, they may have been Deists, but one thing is certain: wherever they are, they're kicking themselves that they didn't think of this first (although Benjamin Franklin came close, during one of those late night, drunken bull sessions at the Second Continental Congress, when he suggested the Great Seal of the United States should read "E Pluribus Unom nom nom." Then he stole Lambert Cadwalader's bucket).

The country's new positioning comes courtesy of the Corporation for Travel Promotion, which this summer hired JWT to handle a global marketing campaign and is worked with branding firm The Brand Union to create a logo for Brand U.S.A.

I can tell you this, if I were president, I wouldn't go on some World Apology Tour. I'd stand up before the United Nations, and proudly declare that the United States is the greatest brand on earth, and that I am a firm believer in American Exceptionalism™ (Reg. U.S. Pat. Off) and its subsidiary brands, Diet American Exceptionalism®, and American Exceptionalism Extreme with Lemon®.

But as Chris Perkins, JWT'S CMO for the CTP said, "What is so compelling about the United States is that no one thing can explain who we are as a nation."

True that. We get plenty of out-of-towners here, and I once asked a foreign visitor why he chose Hollywood for his vacation. He said, "Oh, I considered lots of other destinations -- Europe, Japan, Australia -- but I just found myself really drawn to your vagueness."

I just hope the CTP can find a way to entice potential tourists with the limitless, Lovecraftian depths of our shapeless inky void. I think they've made a very good start with the logo:

The group said in a press release that the dots in the campaign's logo, shown above, create a "21st-century brand" which "symboliz[es] the boundless possibilities of the U.S.," as well as representing America's "diversity."

The DiscoverAmerica campaign is in the early stages of development, and is still seeking a legend for their logo, one which "evokes and celebrates our ambiguous, ill-defined nature. But No Spoilers!" So I sent them my suggestion:

America: We're Hard to Explain, And We Look Like the Measles.

So what's your catchy slogan for the United States of Awesome?

"If 'Are You Being Served?' is the Kind of Programming..."

2011-11-14T00:15:00.000-08:00

This is going to be difficult to write -- and possibly irritating to read -- so if you'd prefer to skip the sob story, there's a new post just below this one, and cat pictures below that.

Okay. [Deep Breath]...About a year and a half ago we sideswiped the Iceberg of Insolvency, and found ourselves flooded with frigid seawater and overacting Billy Zanes. We held a fundraiser, and even though times were hard, WO'C readers very generously came to our aid, and I swore to myself that that was the absolute last time we would ever appeal for donations.

It didn't work out quite the way I'd hoped. Starting in the spring, Mary suffered a series of health crises, climaxing in an 11-hour sojourn in the ER, and followed by nearly a month in which illness and pain prevented her from working. At the same time -- in some weird Elliott-and-E.T. symbiosis -- Moondoggie started losing weight with alarming speed; and it turned out he had two infected teeth and was on the verge of liver failure. To pay for his treatment (along with Mary's hospital bill), we had to defer a lot of other bills, pretty much all of which are now coming (over)due. Or home to roost.

The sum of all this nervous palaver is that World O' Crap is having another Beg-A-Thon this week, for which we sincerely apologize. To cushion the blow, a Special Celebrity Guest will be dropping by, and we'll probably be seeing a new cat video, if I can get these fuzzy prima donnas to cooperate.

So that's our grim and embarrassing situation. I know times are even tougher than they were in 2010, so if you're in no position to help, we completely understand (besides, blogging has no Fair Market Value, since the ha'penny is no longer in circulation).

But if you've enjoyed our time-honored, time-killing services, and have a few bucks to spare, we would greatly appreciate anything you could manage. You can click the button at the top left of the blog, or, if pay is not your pal, please email me at scott.clevenger-at-gmail.com, and I'll send you our snail mail address.

Thanks.

Merry Christmas and a Happy Inquisition

2011-11-14T00:08:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile since we looked in on radio scold Michael Medved, largely because his wife, Dr. Diane Medved, has been much more entertaining, what with her dedication to treating the PTSD of monied matrons scarred by the sight of hobos in Hawaii. As a result, we missed the news that pundit and oatmeal spokesman Warner Todd Huston drummed Michael out of the Right Wing, in a ceremony similar to the opening credits of Branded, in which a U.S. Army officer strips the epaulettes and brass buttons off Chuck Connors' Cavalry uniform, except it's hard to picture either Warner or Michael actually serving in the military, so it's actually more like that scene in I Love Lucy when Lucy and Ethel wear the same outfit to a charity talent show, and wind up ripping the bugle beads and ruffles off each others gown while warbling a duet of Cole Porter's "Friendship."

Fig. 1: Warner Todd Huston confronts Michael Medved on his inadequate fealty to conservative principles (Dramatization).

An Example of Why Radio Host Michael Medved is No Conservative

Michael Medved is touted as a “conservative” radio host from the Salem Radio Network. But just how conservative is he?

I always thought he went up to 11, but perhaps I'm confusing that with his IQ.

One has to wonder with his constant dismissive attacks against any and every conservative politician. But this week he revealed another reason why he is less conservative than he pretends.

This week's episode of Michael Medved, Secret Beatnik is brought to you by Prell Concentrate, and new Liquid Prell. It leaves your enormous mustache Radiantly Alive™.

Medved started his political life working for the Kennedy’s in the 60s, so like many young people he started out as a liberal. But from his radio show yesterday it seems pretty plain that he never really turned the corner from a big government liberal to a true conservative.

I can't wait to find out which crime of Wrong Think Michael committed. Perhaps he enabled Moocherism by dropping a quarter in the honor jar next to the coffee maker in the radio station break room.

He obviously still has a ton of far left beliefs in the wondermentatudenousness that is government.

You can tell Warner has been reading Hayek in the original German, because his compound nouns are really coming along nicely.

The subject of Obama’s tax on the Christian Christmas icon, the Christmas tree came up on his Tuesday radio program. Obama floated the idea that a 15 cents per tree federal tax should be put on Christmas trees this year to fund another bloated boondoggle government agency.

No...really, Warner? Seriously? Hoo boy, this is even better than I'd hoped. Not only is the insufferable Michael Medved getting attacked from the right, but he's the victim of an archetypal wingnut smear.

As Steve Benen noted:

It seemed like a simple little idea. The Christmas tree industry, which has been struggling in recent years, wanted to fund a promotional program, encouraging consumers to buy real, rather than artificial, trees over the holiday season. The idea was for Christmas trees to follow in the footsteps of milk, beef, and cotton, all of which benefited from successful promotional campaigns.

To pay for the effort, the industry launched the Christmas Tree Promotion, Research and Information Order, asking the Agriculture Department to approve a 15-cent fee, per tree, on domestic producers and importers. It was requested by the industry, to benefit the industry, and to be paid for by the industry.

In other words, it's not a "tax," and it didn't original with the Obama Administration. An industry trade group asked the USDA to approve a "check-off" (basically an assessment on the industry by the industry) to fund a private-public promotion and marketing campaign designed to encourage consumers to buy real Christmas trees (rather than the artificial trees they increasingly prefer).

Media Matters explained:

Examples of other agricultural commodity Checkoffs include the egg, beef, pork, mushroom, milk, and honey, etc. industries. We're all familiar with the Dairy industry's ad campaigns; "Milk Does a Body Good" and "Got Milk." "Pork: the Other White Meat," "Beef: It's What's for Dinner" and "The Incredible Edible Egg" are recognizable slogans developed and funded by Checkoff programs. These four 'big guns' collect between $45 and $91.2 million in assessments annually.

Funding for promotions and research comes from within each industry.

However, the Heritage Foundation issued a shrieking denunciation of a thing that isn't happening, which was picked up, of course, by Drudge, and that was good enough for the Gateway Pundit. Eventually, it dripped down the inseam of the right wing blogosphere until it finally puddled in Warner, who I like to think of as the comfortable old shoe of wingnuttia.

But while the others tut-tutted about governmental overreach, Warner took the whole thing very personally, to the point of swearing out an indictment against one of the higher profile members of the tribe for high treason in the War on Christmas. Perhaps because Medved isn't really a member of the tribe...

Michael Medved reveald his complete unconcern over this intrusion of the federal government on our Christian holiday.

Medved, like Dennis Prager, is not shy about professing his Orthodox Jewish faith, so either Warner is incredibly tone deaf, or he's trying to make a point of some kind here...

He argued on his radio show that this tax on Christmas trees is no big deal because it’s “only fifteen cents per tree.”

Of course a principled conservative would be against this idiotic tax even if it were but one penny per hundred trees!!

This reminds me of the way David Arquette's character in Ready to Rumble reacted to any suggestiopn that WWF matches were staged managed, by screaming, "Wrestling's not FAAAAAAKE!"

So since it's a voluntary assessment proposed by the industry itself, I assume Warner either doesn't know what a "tax" is, or he is vehemently opposed to trade group advertising campaigns on principle, because they reek of Stalinist collectivism. I imagine him glowering at his TV, his voice rising in volume and pitch every time another one of these commercials came on: "Got Milk? Got bullshit!...Pork: the Other Bullshit Meat!...Beef? It's what's for BULLSHIT!"

The point is there is no need for this tax, no need for this program to advertise Christmas trees (even if the Christmas tree industry wants the tax), and most especially no need for yet another bloated federal bureaucracy for Christmas trees!

The FDA has been organizing these campaigns for decades, and seems to have no difficulty coordinating the efforts of huge industries such as beef and dairy, but it's clearly going require the creation of a new government agency and a massive, Manhattan Project-sized effort to promote these seasonal holiday decorations.

As they say, there is nothing so permanent as a government program and this one would be just another government boondoggle that would grow and grow until it cost us billions a day like so many other useless government agencies.

Yes, the Real Christmas Tree Awareness Program is destined -- some would say doomed -- to become the next Social Security or Department of Homeland Security. Certainly we've been living under the National Egg Board bootheel for most of our lives. But I'm curious -- how is this going to "cost us billions," when the money comes from Christmas tree producers (and the beneficiaries of the program) themselves? I suppose you could say "they'll just pass along the cost to consumers," but that's true of every advertising campaign (who do you think bought those pearls the silken-haired models were always plunking into bottles of Prell shampoo? You, Comrade!), and of course, to avoid paying this "tax," you can simply forgo the purchase of a Christmas tree, which most people are doing anyway, which is why the tree farmers want the USDA to pimp their product in the first place.

Worse, how long would it be until this new unnecessary government agency would begin to ask for more money and more powers over Christmas with the faux justification that it is promoting it?

How long before we have a Cabinet level Department of Christmas? (I have to admit that the idea of, say, the Undersecretary of Yuletide Affairs attempting to gain "power of Christmas" sounds like a 30-minute holiday classic just waiting to happen, and I sincerely hope Rankin/Bass will get right on that.)

That Michael Medved doesn’t see this and isn’t concerned about birthing another wasteful government agency and giving this agency new controls over our lives, well it pretty much shows that he — admittedly once a liberal — never really did become a true conservative.

Maybe Michael thinks that just because he's Jewish he'll be exempt from service to the USDC, and won't be forced at the point of a Wham-O Air Blaster to toil in their underground tinsel caves.

With friends like Medved, who needs enemies?

Apparently you do, Warner. And the supply must be drying up if you've actually sunk to cooking Michael Medved in a spoon.

Post-Friday Beast Blogging: The Happiness is a Warm Utensil Edition

2011-11-13T02:23:00.000-08:00

Traditionally, winter is the time when Randian Ants get to tell Looter Locusts "I Told You So" and "Suck it" -- pretty much in that order. But it's also a time of feline rapprochement, for as the temperature drops, the minor squabbles over toys, territory, and food bowl protocol tend to be set aside in the greater interest of cuddling on the couch. It's much like the ecumenical spirit which thrives amongst the world's great faiths during this holiday season, although so far the Pope has successfully resisted the impulse to spoon the Jews.

Moondoggie: Dude, look...you said, "Get a room." We got one. It's called the living room. Now can you get lost? I mean, come on -- I hung a flea collar on the door.

Moondoggie: I swear, if you don't put that camera down, I'm gonna sue you for harassazzzzzz..."

Random Scenes of Hollywood

2011-11-12T02:00:00.000-08:00

"If we stay very, very still, no one will notice we escaped from Easter Island..."