Poor Little Frustrated Lame Duck!

Gee, it must be tough being George Bush these days. Those big bad congressional democrats aren't letting him get his way, so he has gone on a national whining tour. Here's my favorite part: Bush himself has been complaining more and more bitterly about congressional Democrats in recent weeks. In a private meeting yesterday with House Republicans in the East Room of the White House, Bush recalled how he had been able to work with Democrats when he was Texas governor and said he had hoped to find the same relationships in Washington. [full story] Now that is rich! He never once attempted to do anything the slightest bit bipartisan since befouling the White House six years ago, and now that he doesn't have a blank check congress anymore, he can't function. And I feel so bad for the guy. Really, I do. Here's a man used to having everything he has ever wanted just handed to him. He wants to get into Yale? No problem, daddy pulls some strings. He wants out of Vietnam? No sweat, there's the air national guard. But the air national guard wants to start testing his urine for drugs. No problem, just don't show up and daddy's friends will hide the evidence. Daddy, I want an oil company and a baseball team! You got it, kiddo! Then he loses the presidential election even after his little brother did what he could to purge all the wrong voters from Florida, but not to worry, he's got friends on the supreme court to give him what he wants in a ruling laughed at by most legal scholars. Then he wants a war, but people tell him he doesn't have a good enough case for it. No problem, anybody who questions him gets smeared as unpatriotic or worse. So now for the first time in George W. Bush's life, he's hearing the word "no." What is this word "no?" What do you mean I can't do whatever I want without consequence or accountability? I don't like this job so much anymore. Where's Uncle Karl? Uncle Dick is busy shooting caged birds to help me out of this one. Don't worry folks, this phase of our national nightmare is almost over.

Sunday Sermon: Pat and George

It's been a while since I've delivered a Sunday Sermon. Today's is in two parts. First it Pat Condell talking about what is good about religion: Next up is George Carlin, talking about the greatest story ever told.

Which One is Creepier?

Exhibit A: Real and graphic depiction of sex with Senator Larry Craig Exhibit B: Dumbledore slash fiction.

Ron Paul is an Asshat

OK, I'm sure that Ron Paul is a really nice guy. But I keep hearing about this huge angry online army of libertarians who rape and plunder blogs that say things that they don't like about Ron Paul, and I've been feeling a bit left out. So I heard that if I called him an asshat, tagged the post and pinged technorati, they would come tell me how wrong I am. Here's my opinion on Ron Paul. In a field of republicans who are trying to out-hawk and out-Jesus each other, and he's the only one who doesn't pander to the authoritarian theocratic religious right, and he's the only one speaking out against the Iraq war. In and of itself that might make him more attractive to liberals and progressives who wouldn't be voting in the republican primaries anyway. But upon closer examination, libertarianism is one of those ideas that sounds great in theory but would never work in the real world. Sure, it would be just swell if the magical mystical markets made everything work out right and nobody told anybody what to do. Just as it would be swell if everybody just played their part to contribute to a greater communal good. The problem with utopian theories is that they are pure fantasy. They ignore basic human nature. And that is why debating with libertarians is as annoying as debating with religious fundamentalists. How is it possible to have a rational discussion against a leap of faith? So, to the army of Ron Paul supporters who are supposed to show up and flood my comments - you're not going to change my mind, but you might win a prize. I'll give a DVD of the movie Washington Interns Gone Bad to whoever posts the comment that I find the most outlandish. In order to win, you can't post anonymously. Technorati tag: ron paul

Not Another Damn Dime!

So George Bush wants more money for his war in Iraq. You know, the one we are in because he LIED and manipulated intelligence so that he could prove himself to his daddy. Yeah, that's the one. This poor excuse for a human being let alone an American President has denied affordable health care to American children including my own, yet he wants to spend even more of our hard earned money to keep killing people in a country that we have no damn business being in. Americans, it is time to stand up and say NO MORE. Not one more goddamn dime for this war! Americans come first, whether it be our children or our troops. We are throwing their lives down the toilet because this president is in the pocket of corporations and the extreme right think tanks. Enough is enough, and there really is no rational justification for the way that this country is being led straight down the shitter by these amoral bastards. But that wont stop people from trying to justify it, sometimes embarrassingly badly.

Another Reason for Evangelicals to Hate Harry Potter

Apparently Dumbledore is gay. But when the questions began — they had been submitted by audience members before the event — she came into her own. Finally able to talk freely about the end of a series that had been so long-anticipated, she left nothing out. The big revelation of the night came when she was asked if Dumbledore had ever found love. With a sigh, she seemed on the verge of saying no, but then revealed, "my truthful answer to you... I always thought of Dumbledore as gay." After a collective gasp, the audience roared with applause. Rowling was clearly astonished by the positive reaction and exclaimed, "if I'd known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!" She went on to say that she thought Dumbledore had fallen in love with Grindelwald, a Dark Wizard he defeated in battle in 1945, which possibly made it forgivable that he had not seen Grindelwald's true nature, because "falling in love can blind us to an extent." [full story] Bloggers are already calling this announcement The Most Important Development in Slash Fiction since Sulu Came Out. Check out this sermon on Harry:

Stupid Stupid Stupid!

As the 2008 Election Season is officially upon us now, the Bush Cheney Crime Family are getting really desperate to keep their dying neoconservative cabal intact. And in the last 6 years, the only thing that has ever been able to boost their numbers (besides a whole bunch of anti-gay bigotry wrapped around "morality issues" in 2004) is terror. For a while there, all they had to do was raise the terror level to squeeze out a few points before even the dumbest Americans got wise to that scam. They held their convention as close as they could to Ground Zero itself and pushed the date up closer to 9/11. Then there was Saddam's execution right before the 2006 midterm elections which fired up some of the base but not enough where it counted. So what's their pathetic last ditch Hail Mary play this time around? Politically motivated officials at the Pentagon have pushed for convictions of high-profile detainees ahead of the 2008 elections, the former lead prosecutor for terrorism trials at Guantanamo Bay said last night, adding that the pressure played a part in his decision to resign earlier this month. Senior defense officials discussed in a September 2006 meeting the "strategic political value" of putting some prominent detainees on trial, said Air Force Col. Morris Davis. He said that he felt pressure to pursue cases that were deemed "sexy" over those that prosecutors believed were the most solid or were ready to go. [full story] This sort of thing doesn't even give me a ripple of outraged surprise anymore. Whichever politicized appointee came up with this scheme forgot one very important wildcard in the world of massively public show trials... a certain Mr. Orenthal James Simpson! If they think that their kangaroo terror court will even possibly compete with OJ going all OG in LV, they're as deluded as any bunch of people who thought they'd get away with lying their way into a war. OJ already had the trial of last century. It's a whole new century and a whole new trial and the public wants some JUICE!

Farynghoula Mutating Meme

I've been tagged by Tangled Up in Blue Guy for a blog meme. I only do these every now and then, but this one intrigues me because it's not just the usual list of things. This one is a study of genetics and mutations that took me about three reads to understand (I'm a little bit slow today - but it eventually made sense to me). Here are the instructions: There are a set of questions below that are all of the form, “The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…”. Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations: * You can leave them exactly as is. * You can delete any one question. * You can mutate either the genre, medium, or subgenre of any one question. For instance, you could change “The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is…” to “The best time travel novel in Westerns is…”, or “The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is…”, or “The best romance novel in SF/Fantasy is…”. * You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form “The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…”. * You must have at least one question in your set, or you’ve gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you’re not viable. Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the blog you got them from, to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions. Finally, pass it along to any number of your fellow bloggers. Remember, though, your success as a Darwinian replicator is going to be measured by the propagation of your variants, which is going to be a function of both the interest your well-honed questions generate and the number of successful attempts at reproducing them. OK, got that? Yeah, I know. Read it again. Tangled Up in Blue Guy’s nucleotides are in orange, any novel mutations are in blue. Now here it is: The best romantic movie in SF/Fantasy is: The Princess Bride The best hip hop song from speed metal is: “I'm the Man” by Anthrax The most disturbing movie in Independent Film is: Jesus Camp The best anti-war song in Working-Class Folk Music is: “It's All About the Price of Oil” by Billy Bragg. The trashiest reality show on cable TV is : Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. My genealogy is: My great-great-great-great-great-grandparent is Pharyngula. My great-great-great-great grandparents are The Flying Trilobite and Metamagician and the Hellfire Club. My great-great-great-grandparents are Flying Trilobite and Leslie’s Blog. My great-great-grandparents are A Blog Around the Clock and The Meming of Life. My great-grandparents are From Archaea to Zeaxanthol and The Primate Diaries. My old granddad is The Other 95%. My pater in this meme is Tangled Up in Blue Guy. OK, now the hard part: choosing people to tag with this who might actually keep it going. JSF Scoobie Davis and last but not least, Fox News Channel's very own: Bill O'Reilly!

My Shit List

These are the worthless pieces of shit in congress that voted against affordable health care for my daughter: Aderholt Akin Alexander Bachmann Bachus Baker Barrett (SC) Bartlett (MD) Barton (TX) Biggert Bilbray Bilirakis Bishop (UT) Blackburn Blunt Boehner Bonner Boozman Boustany Brady (TX) Broun (GA) Brown (SC) Brown-Waite, Ginny Burgess Burton (IN) Buyer Calvert Camp (MI) Campbell (CA) Cannon Cantor Carter Chabot Coble Cole (OK) Conaway Crenshaw Cubin Culberson Davis (KY) Davis, David Deal (GA) Diaz-Balart, L. Diaz-Balart, M. Doolittle Drake Dreier Duncan Everett Fallin Feeney Flake Forbes Fortenberry Foxx Franks (AZ) Frelinghuysen Gallegly Garrett (NJ) Gingrey Gohmert Goode Goodlatte Granger Graves Hall (TX) Hastert Hastings (WA) Hayes Heller Hensarling Herger Hoekstra Hulshof Hunter Inglis (SC) Issa Johnson (IL) Johnson, Sam Jones (NC) Jordan Keller King (IA) Kingston Kline (MN) Knollenberg Kuhl (NY) Lamborn Lewis (CA) Lewis (KY) Linder Lucas Lungren, Daniel E. Mack Manzullo Marchant Marshall McCarthy (CA) McCaul (TX) McCotter McCrery McHenry McKeon Mica Miller (FL) Miller, Gary Musgrave Myrick Neugebauer Nunes Paul Pearce Pence Peterson (PA) Pickering Pitts Poe Price (GA) Putnam Radanovich Reynolds Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rogers (MI) Rohrabacher Ros-Lehtinen Roskam Royce Ryan (WI) Sali Saxton Schmidt Sensenbrenner Sessions Shadegg Shimkus Shuster Smith (NE) Smith (TX) Souder Stearns Sullivan Tancredo Taylor Terry Thornberry Tiahrt Walberg Walden (OR) Wamp Weldon (FL) Weller Westmoreland Whitfield Wicker Wilson (SC) Thanks a bunch, assholes! And George Bush, you're at the top of the shit list. And while we're at it, fuck the democrats too! That stupid Armenian genocide bill could have been used as a bargaining chip for this before it got sunk coming out of committee. Labeling some century old atrocity means shit to me or probably any other American not of Armenian descent. Not that I'm insensitive to genocide, but what does putting a label on it 100 years later actually accomplish? Is that more important than the health of our children? Congress, get your shit together and your priorities straight. Our children come before people who died 100 years ago, dipshits!

Don't Let the Door Hit You on the Way Out

Apparently cultural crusader and evolution denier Sam Brownback is stepping out of the presidential race. Unfortunately, he's still a senator, representing the hyper-authoritarian religious right fringe. Now that he doesn't have to spend time campaigning anymore, he can get back to business fighting against free speech and science. Just check out the voting record of this guy. And in news that more Americans care about than Sam Brownback, apparently Britney now can't even have supervised visits with the kids.

Posting Somthing Fun Before I get Pissed Off Again

OK, this blog needs a bit of levity today so I figured I should post something before I read any news. I tend to rant a lot about crazy religious people of all persuasions. Usually I don't use the term crazy at literally mentally ill. Here's a guy who had his own public access TV show where he claims to be God. The loonie bins are chock full of people who think they're God. But I don't think any of them have preached their gospel with such brilliant command of the English language as this guy, or with as much funk. I'd take this nutjob over any of these far right mega-church evangelical theocrats any day of the week. If you're watching at work, put on the headphones! There's a whole lot of great clips of this guy. You can get your religion on here.

The Cornered Animals Attack

I had a feeling yesterday that this was going to be an angry week on this blog, but this morning I woke up feeling like maybe today there would be something fun and irreverent to post about. And then I read this. Apparently, whenever some right wing blowhard gets shouted down or pied in the face, their faithful flock of sheep point at that as evidence that the left are evil and antidemocratic for daring to mock the hate and the lies and absolute bullshit that come out of their mouths. Yet when a liberal talk radio host gets severely beaten or shot at or shot and killed even, we hear crickets from the right. Folks, violence is a desperate act, committed by cornered animals who know that their days of running amok in this country are drawing quickly to a close. They don't care that they are to blame for their immanent downfall. They got a taste of near imperial power. They got a glimpse of what this country could be like run their way with no accountability, checks, balances or constitution. And they LOVED it! And as they realize that their Orwellian fantasy is about to be yanked right out of their clutched fingertips, they are in full attack mode. Randi Rhodes, I wish you a speedy recovery. I've listened to your show once or twice and while political talk radio of either persuasion is not my thing, I liked what you have to say. I always got a kick out of the fact that you share a name with Ozzy's old guitarist. I hope you got a good look at whoever did this to you because they need to be made an example of. UPDATE: Apparently Randi Rhodes tripped and face planted all on her own. As I was posting this, I knew I was being a bit hasty in hurling accusations of hate crime, but in the current political climate it did not seem that unlikely of a scenario. While I obviously retract my accusations, I stand by everything else I have said about the rightwingnuts. I suppose I should probably denounce this, but what's really going to happen to a woman if she gets hit with a lightly lobbed bagel?

When is Antisemitism OK?

The answer is that antisemitism or any other kind of bigotry is never OK. But amongst those who use tend to hurl that word around the most, I do not think that word means what they think it means. Apparently to them, as long as the person saying it is a conservative, the following exchange would not be considered antisemitic at all: DEUTSCH: That isn't what I said, but you said I should not -- we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians, then, or -- COULTER: Yeah. DEUTSCH: Really? COULTER: Well, it's a lot easier. It's kind of a fast track. DEUTSCH: Really? COULTER: Yeah. You have to obey. DEUTSCH: You can't possibly believe that. COULTER: Yes. I don't really like mentioning Ilsa She Wolf of the GOP by name too much here on this blog as she really shouldn't be taken seriously in the slightest, and I expect her to say outrageous things like this in order to keep herself in the limelight. And that's not what this post is about. This post is about the excuses that the right are making for her blatant antisemitism. These are the people who say that anybody who even knows anybody who has anything the slightest bit critical to say about the government of Israel are Hitler-league Jew-haters, but when a tranny-scarecrow looking neoconservative shock jock says that Jews need to be "perfected" by becoming Christian, she gets a pass, either by silence or defense and excuses, or referring to it as a "manufactured scandal." And once again, the right wing blogosphere sinks to a new low. I don't dare ask where they go from here. What's the next logical step in this week's progression from smearing a 12 year old to making excuses for bigotry? That said, I am glad that the US Senate has not (yet) wasted any time making an official condemnation. Getting involved in matters of free (even if repugnant) speech is not their business and it only pumps up that ego of hers bigger than her adam's apple. Could they be learning something? Probably not. Geez, it the way things are starting this Monday, it looks like it's going to be another angry week on this blog. Somebody lighten things up with a joke or something, preferably one that involves s priest, a rabbi and some other kind of person all walking into a bar.

Al Freakin' Gore Again

The political blogosphere is going to explode today. Why? Because Al Gore won a Nobel Peace Price for publicizing the issue of global warming. Democrats with short memory spans will want him to run for president again (who actually has the stomach to watch him stumble around on the campaign trail again?), while republicans will bash, whine, bash, deny scientific evidence, bash, point to biased studies, bash, make bad analogies, bash, bash, and then bash some more. While it will be fun watching these two camps go at each others' throats today, I wonder if I'm the only one who just doesn't care about anything that Al Gore has done since losing the election. I have at least a tad of appreciation for anything that manages to get the rabid far right wingers spewing like a pack of wild weasels and making themselves look like an even bigger bunch of jerkoffs than usual. But I have a real hard time getting excited for the guy whose awful campaigning in 2000 has delivered us two awful terms of the worst president ever. Thanks a lot Al! If you really cared about our world, you would have done a better job when it counted. Now you're just another rich guy who says a lot and does nothing. And I still hate your wife for teaming up with the religious right in the 80's to try to destroy rock and roll.

Hump Day Roundup

Just a few hit and run things today... New Radiohead album available to download today for however much you'd like to pay! But it should come as no surprise that the site is down from the massive bandwidth hit. JSF's latest post talks about how when faced with foreign anti-Americanism, he defended both our country and Bill Clinton who was president at the time despite the fact that he personally loathed Clinton and asks why those of us on the left can't do the same for Bush. While I can't speak for the entirety of the left, here's what I would say if I were in a foreign country faced with somebody asking me why my country and president suck so badly. "Would you want people to judge your whole country based on your politicians? Politicians are slime. It doesn't matter what country it is or what their party is. They are all in it for themselves and their big money sponsors and they rarely if ever truly represent the people who they supposedly work for. Most Americans are good people, but outside of putting on a show where we choose which head of the two headed corporate beast runs our country every 4 years, we have absolutely zero control over what these people do. Feel free to hate our government. I don't know much about your government, but chances are there's something about them for me to hate. But you seem like an OK dude just doing what you can to get by in this life and I certainly wouldn't hold anything your government does against you personally." I've been mentioning how ugly the debate over Children's Healthcare has been lately, with the vilest of vile right wing attack chihuahuas smearing hard working struggling families including my own and that of the 12 year old boy who gave his own personal account of how SCHIP saved his life during the democrats' radio address. Just when it boggles the mind at how low these vermin are willing to crawl to deny children affordable health care (which in and of itself is pretty damn low even without all the personal smear jobs), it looks like they've resorted to stalking now. The question is, would the NRA defend the Frost family if they shot Michelle Malkin for trespassing? And lastly, for those who are wondering how the extended cut of Out of the Can is coming, I'm about half way through and you are going to love it! The one comment I've been getting from a lot of people is "what's the deal with naming the notorious prank phone caller character Prince Albert? Isn't that a genital piercing?" Indeed it is a genital piercing, but I am using it as a reference to the classic prank phone call. There used to be a pipe tobacco called Prince Albert, and the pranksters would call a store, ask if they had Prince Albert in the can, and when the shopkeeper would say "yes," the prankster would say "well you better let him out," giggle, and then hang up. It's so old school that I think it was the second phone call made by Alexander Graham Bell. Should I put an explanation somewhere in the credits, or just leave it in as an in-joke for people who get these kinds of obscure references?

Winning the Hearts and Minds?

Yes, I'm talking about Children's Healthcare again. Right on the heels of a massive flame war with some far right wingnut neanderthal on some message board who decided unto himself that I am cheating the system by having my daughter on this program while (gasp) having my own website and (even bigger gasp) going on a couple of vacations years before we had her. While I have no love for the sort of people who would stoop as low to make a political point, I figured that this was just some lone douchebag who is compensating for some shortcoming of his own by lashing out at a hard working struggling family that he doesn't even know. Man was I wrong! Apparently smearing hard working families is part of the game plan from the right wing propaganda machine. There's a whole lot of right wing bloggers who have gone beyond the pale (even for people who regularly smear combat vets who say things they disagree with) and have leveled attacks on the family of Graeme Frost, the 12 year old who delivered the Democrats' radio address about the Children's Health Care program that saved his life after a serious car crash. Not content to just call people who disagree with them (ie most of the civilized world) a bunch of unpatriotic satanists who should leave America if they hate it so much and blah blah blah blah blah, these vile knuckle draggers have been smearing a 12 year old. My blood boiled when that jerk on the message board posted one of my pictures of Stella to attack me, so hearing this makes me want to go to the next Free Republic convention with an industrial sized can o' whup-ass to open up. What the hell is wrong with people? There is absolutely ZERO excuse to be against providing affordable health care to our children. ZERO! We are supposed to be a civilized society, but it sure is hard for us to continue to evolve when we still have this gang of still-not-quite-humans dragging us back to the stone ages. Oh, that's right. They don't believe in evolution either.

A Flame War Play by Play

Yesterday and today I got involved in a big flame war. I know that stuff like that is completely futile, but I felt insulted and felt the need to spread a little hate. It left me incredibly riled and angry, but then I saw a link in my referers that cheered me up. Apparently there's a rival message board who thoroughly enjoyed my immature antics, and here's their shoutbox chat: (Today, 12:36 PM) Ames Guy: Anybody been reading JBuckley's fight with Mr.Cub? (Today, 12:53 PM) jmmather: can you please tell a bit? I'm curious (Today, 12:54 PM) jmmather: MrC berated Jbuckely for what he had about health care on his website. He put down J's family. Let's just say he started one of the nastest war I've seen. J has called him and his mamma every name in the book. (Today, 12:56 PM) jmmather: Jesus!!! and the administration and/or mods dont do anything? (Today, 12:57 PM) Ames Guy: Not yet and it started yesterday. Mr. C must be bleeding anally. (Today, 12:58 PM) jmmather: Even 89 who is pretty laid back ask J to stop. (Today, 12:59 PM) jmmather: Barryman asked him to stop and he went after Barryman. (Today, 01:00 PM) jmmather: wow... mister C is wild (Today, 01:01 PM) Ames Guy: Fun Fun Fun! (Today, 01:01 PM) Ames Guy: OK. Here is J's website. http://www.jasonbuckley.com/blog/2007/07/t...s-personal.html (Today, 01:19 PM) Ames Guy: so because a blog he exploded? ... I'm not that surprised after my experience with the global warming thread (Today, 01:22 PM) Ames Guy: It was fun while it lasted. It's be shut down now. (Today, 02:23 PM) jmmather: It started with MrCub making some assumptions about Jason's family and lifestyle. He said some inapropriat thing about the family that Jason took umbridge to and escalated from there. (Today, 03:11 PM) Ames Guy: ???? WOW! Who's jason,,etc....WOW! i may have to check this out!! scape.gif When I went to that forum and showed up in the shoutbox, I got the rockstar treatment, told them the whole story about how I wound up there and why a normally mild mannered guy like me turned into a fountain of asinine profanity. Anyway, there is a moral to this story:

This is Classic!

Did you hear the one about the Republican Convention Logo?

How I Spent My Saturday

I can't believe it. I made a film in 10 hours. And I can't believe that it actually turned out pretty good. And here I am at the 14th hour posting it online. At 9:00am we were given three ingredients to include in the film: Turning 30 (in honor of the Mill Valley Film Festival's 30th anniversary), chocolate, and a muffled laugh. My incredibly talented team brainstormed and banged out a script in a couple of hours, we shot in just over 3 hours, and after an hour of logging and capturing it only left about an hour and a half for editing, sound mixing and exporting before we had to race back to Mill Valley and turn it in. Then just an hour later all the films were screened. I truly enjoyed every film that was made today, and I am particularly proud of ours. We shot so much and had to leave a lot of really funny stuff on the cutting room floor, so I plan on doing an extended cut which will screen in San Francisco in a few months at a festival that a friend of mine runs. So without further ado, I present "Out of the Can." For a higher quality downloadable version, click here.

Friday Morning Roundup

There's so much to post about but I've been incredibly busy. Tomorrow is Cinemasports! I am very much looking forward to doing some filmmaking, and it should be a lot of fun trying to do a short in 10 hours. I've put together a great cast and crew and I just hope that I can pull off shooting it as nicely as I hope to. In political news, it looks like Senator Larry "Glory Hole" Craig has decided that he's not going to resign after all. He made a big mistake voting against the Matthew Sheppard Hate Crime bill because the republicans are going to have a massive hate crime on him for sticking around through the 2008 election! Between an anti-gay senator soliciting bathroom blowjobs and all the top leading candidates lacking in religious wingnut cred (or in Romney's case lacking in the the right brand of religious wingnut cred), the republicans are looking at an embarrassing day come next November. This will most likely lead to four years of disappointment from a democratic government, but I've learned over the years that disappointment is better than constant outrage so I'll take what I can get. In the world of pop culture, everyone and their mother has weighed in on Britney Spears and her troubles this week. Last night even Dr. Phil had a whole show discussing what a trainwreck she has become. It's tragically humorous to see a former Mousketeer making Courtney Love look like Martha Stewart, but as a parent I really feel bad for those kids. Here's my personal favorite Britney moment. It takes a lot to make K-Fed look smart, but she does it. If she was smart, her upcoming album would capitalize on all of this and be a little more hard edged, tripped out and gangsta. The usual mildly slutty bubblegum pop just isn't going to seem very honest coming from her anymore. She needs to do a cover of Jay Z's 99 Problems (preferably a take on the Dangermouse remix with the Helter Skelter samples). And lastly, from the no shit sherlock department... Clear Channel, the very same corporate radio sleazebag conglomerate who dropped Howard Stern for saying things they didn't agree with about Bush have come out to defend Rush Limbaugh for referring to military personnel who are against the Iraq war as "phony soldiers." It would be nice to see them as championing free speech for once if they were the slightest bit even handed about it, but this is a solidly republican company who only supports free speech that they agree with. And that's all folks. The next thing you see from me will probably be the short film that I make tomorrow.

And This Year's Biggest Douche in the Universe Award Goes To...

George W. Bush. The reasons are many, but the fact that he just vetoed the bill to keep funding the program that allows my daughter affordable health coverage is on the top of the list. Thanks a bunch, President Fucktard!

Do Libertarians Ride Subsidized Busses?

I read at Wonkette that if I asked this question I could expect a whole bunch of "crazy PaulTards" will flood my comments with their delusional libertarian fantasies of their privatized social darwinist utopia. Let's make it a contest, shall we? I will not waste my precious time getting into a pointless debate (anyone who has ever attempted to debate with libertarians knows what I'm talking about), but the wingnuttiest libertarian commenter wins a Washington Interns Gone Bad DVD. Obviously anonymous commenters are ineligible.

Free Speech in the Land of Hillbilly Heroin and Is Our System Beyond Repair?

Rush Limbaugh is having the best week ever! He hasn't gotten this much press since his most recent drug bust. Nothing energizes an egomaniac shock jock quite as much as being the focus of the Senate (the only Rush I ever listen to are a prog trio from Canada, but Howard Stern sure gets excited whenever some sanctimonious right wing Senator brings up his name as a reason to be against the XM/Sirius merger). So while I agree with what the democratic senators are saying about Rush and his reprehensible comments referring to soldiers who are against the war as "Phony Soldiers," I still do not think that griping about what people say is the business of our government, especially given that people are currently dying in a war and the Bush/Cheney Crime Family is all set to take affordable health care away from the children of struggling working parents including my own daughter. Oh, Rush said something obnoxious? Stop the presses! And in other news, the sky is blue and there are no WMDs in Iraq. These Senators are playing right into his hands. Take Sen. Tom Harkin's speechifying for example: "I want to make it clear that I respect Mr. Limbaugh's right to say whatever he wants, but we also have a right," Harkin said. "We have a right not to listen to him. I think the best thing to do for him is tune him out. Just tune out Rush Limbaugh and listen to more responsible talk show hosts in this country." How ridiculous is it to even talk about a guy if you want people to tune him out? And are any talk shows really all that responsible? Of course, this is just more partisan posturing after the Senate lost their minds over a newspaper ad a few weeks ago, and it is a shining example of the failure of our two party system. These clowns have started a game of political grabass over speech while they ignore the real issues, and now it's a tit for tat. Each side is saying that the other side started it and instead of holding themselves to a higher standard, they just accept that the game they play got a little bit dirtier and the partisans on each side of the fence use that as an excuse for why their individual side are acting like a bunch of school children. But on the other hand, if one side constantly gets away with playing dirty and it keeps working for them, what's the other side to do? My solution might be a bit radical, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I say we fire our entire government, ban political parties, ban campaign contributions, and elect some real leaders based on their ideas.

Leave that Fascist Pill Popping Assclown Alone!

I can't believe I'm saying this, but for the sake of real fairness and balance (as opposed to the Fox News use of those words that I do not think mean what they think they mean), I have to say that the Senate needs to leave Rush Limbaugh alone. I hate every word that comes out of that sanctimonious drug addict's mouth. I think he is a vile human being. And I think our Senate has a lot more important things to do with their time than worrying what some jerk on the radio is saying. Instead of demanding an apology from a shock jock, they should be demanding an end to a war and affordable healthcare for our children from the worst president ever. Enough with worrying about WORDS and time to focus on ACTIONS. I'm not saying Rush should get a pass for saying the kinds of reprehensible stuff he says. But beating up Rush for doing what he does for hours every day is the job for bloggers, not for our elected officials. OK, now I need to take a shower.

Reason 1,536,242 Why I Love Radiohead

Radiohead have a new album coming out on Oct 10. They are releasing it without a record label. You can go to their website to pre-order. There are two format options available. You can get the discbox which contains a CD, two vinyl records, digital files, album artwork, lyrics and comes in a nice package for £40 (around $81). Or, you can buy the digital files alone. Sure, everybody and their uncle sells their music digitally these days. There's nothing exciting or new about that. But Radiohead let the buyers set their own price. Could this gang of nerdy Brits completely change the face of the music business forever? We'll just have to see. I just can't wait to hear the album. But to whet the appetite, here are a few of my favorite videos: