Last Post of 2007

I wanted to wrap up the year with some kind of year in review type post, perhaps a best of and worst of list, predictions for next year and all that jazz. But who the hell has time for that with all of the family obligations, travel, shopping and tying up all the year-end loose ends at work? I sure don't. So to all of my regular readers, all three or so of you, I wish you a merry Christmas/Hanuka/Kwanzaa/Solstice/Festivus and a happy new year. The only good thing that we know for certain will happen in 2008 is the end of our long national nightmare of the Bush/Cheney Crime Family. That's something to look forward to. Everything else is a crap shoot, so let's prepare for the worst while hoping for the best and I'll see you all next year.

Joe Lieberman is an Even Bigger Douche Than I Thought

It's bad enough that this guy called himself a democrat while teaming up with Bill Bennet to try to censor our entertainment. It's bad enough that his republican-lite ways as the VP nominee helped hand this country over to the worst president in history. It's bad enough that this guy has voted with the republicans every time it mattered. It's bad enough that Bush liked him so much to plant a big smooch on him at the State of the Union Address. It was bad enough that he was effectively kicked out of the democratic party by his constituents. And now this asshole thinks that the way to reunite our country from 6 years of the ugliest, most bitterly partisan era of division is by heaping on more of the same old bullshit? That's right, Senator Sanctimonious has endorsed John McCain. The same John McCain who lost to Bush in the primaries thanks to some of the most deeply personal dirty tricks in Karl Rove's vile playbook and then came back like the perfect victim of abuse that he is to be Bush's biggest cheerleader even after the majority of the country woke up and realized that Bush is nothing but a fuckup. Considering that McCain hasn't been a viable nominee in months, I shouldn't really care. Both of these neoconservative jerkoffs are back on the road to relative obscurity as just a couple of republican Senators with failed higher ambitions. But that Lieberman guy has always just rubbed me the wrong way. There's this air of sanctimonious smugness about him. He thinks he's smarter than everybody and we should just listen to him because he knows what's best for us. And unlike Bush who is clearly just in it to drain the treasury for his friends, Joe seems to actually believe the bullshit. Connecticut, in 4 years would you mind finishing what you started in 06 and elect either a real democrat or even a real republican to your senate seat instead of a guy pretending to be something that he clearly is not? Thanks.

Congress Goes to War

My republican blogging pal, JSF, says that this congress is a "do-nothing congress," but in light of today's news, I feel that that he is unfairly mischaracterizing these brave public servants of ours. While they may not have been able to renew the program that provides affordable health insurance for my daughter, or to end the war in Iraq, or to go after the administration for all of their illegal acts, they have been just super about passing resolutions against enemies of America such as newspaper ads. And today, they have shown their bravery again by getting themselves involved in the War on Christmas! Yes, as you may have heard from the likes of Bill O'Reilly and his Fox News cohorts, despite the fact that you can't go anywhere in America this month without seeing Christmas trees and lights, hearing Christmas music, going to Christmas parties and falling into the fuzzy lap of somebody dressed up as Santa Claus, this holiday is clearly under attack by those evil, godless, terrorist-loving and America-hating liberals. And this attack on Christmas is so serious that Congress needed to drop everything and pass a resolution to defend this holiday from the heathens, state it's importance, and further erode that wall between Church and State by stating Christian supremacy on a country full of people with an assortment of diverse beliefs. Take that, stupid diversity! Remember Congress, your positions of power do not make you immune to the all seeing eye of Santa! He knows which of you have been naughty and which of you have been nice and he's got plenty of lumps of coal this year.

You're a Mean One, President Grinch

Just in time for the holidays, our wonderful president has chosen the profits of the insurance industry over the good of my child (and millions of other children from hard working American families) again and vetoed another version of SCHIP, the program that gives my daughter affordable health care. Here's a favorite holiday jingle just for you, President Dipshit: You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch. You really are a heel. You're as cuddly as a cactus, You're as charming as an eel. Mr. Grinch. You're a bad banana With a greasy black peel. You're a monster, Mr. Grinch. Your heart's an empty hole. Your brain is full of spiders, You've got garlic in your soul. Mr. Grinch. I wouldn't touch you, with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole. You're a vile one, Mr. Grinch. You have termites in your smile. You have all the tender sweetness Of a seasick crocodile. Mr. Grinch. Given the choice between the two of you I'd take the seasick crockodile. You're a foul one, Mr. Grinch. You're a nasty, wasty skunk. Your heart is full of unwashed socks Your soul is full of gunk. Mr. Grinch. The three words that best describe you, are, and I quote: "Stink. Stank. Stunk." You're a rotter, Mr. Grinch. You're the king of sinful sots. Your heart's a dead tomato splot With moldy purple spots, Mr. Grinch. Your soul is an apalling dump heap overflowing with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable, Mangled up in tangled up knots. You nauseate me, Mr. Grinch. With a nauseaus super-naus. You're a crooked jerky jockey And you drive a crooked horse. Mr. Grinch. You're a three decker saurkraut and toadstool sandwich With arsenic sauce. UPDATED TO ADD a very special Christmas message from the President himself (via freakgirl)

That Damn Liberal Media is at it Again!

Oh, those evil liberals who control the media just can't leave well enough alone! What is it this time? Just their refusal to present certain viewpoints in paid advertising. Just look now in outrage at the latest example of the left's censorship.

Bill O'Reilly is Dead

I realize that a lot of my readers got a moment of glee from the above headline and it is unfortunate that I have to report that it's not the actual Fox News jerkoff who has kicked the bucket. No, that guy is still alive and yelling at people. For the longest time I had resisted every urge to join MySpace. I was perfectly happy with Tribe.net as my social networking site of choice. I had seen MySpace and it all seemed so tacky and cheesy and pedophile-y. But there was a point when I had heard that MySpace was bought by Fox News' parent company, Newscorp, that I decided I needed to be on there to cause some trouble. And I decided that the best possible persona to take on and make trouble with was none other than Bill O'Reilly. So I did a quick Google image search and found this horrible photoshop job of Bill on the beach wearing a skimpy little banana sling, joined MySpace, and started befriending camwhores, porn stars, and other trolls taking on an assortment of famous personas. Bill started a blog and would post bulletins demanding his "fair and balanced minions" to read his latest blog posts. He joined as many conservative groups as he could and would advocate for extreme (even by neoconservative standards) positions and get the real right wing kids to agree with him on everything from sending anti-war protesters to Gitmo to deporting gays to France (just the men, the lesbians would be forced to perform for straight men's entertainment), and going to war with most of Europe. Anyone who dared say that he was not really Bill O'Reilly but some liberal impostor got the biggest, reddest, all caps-iest "SHUT UP" that MySpace would allow, calling them America-hating, Jesus-hating liberal terrorists and calling for somebody to kill their mic. He would berate anyone who crossed him, telling them that his new job at NewsCorp was to make MySpace fair and balanced like he did with cable TV and that meant killing any and all liberal bias. He would tell them that all he had to do was say the word to Rupert Murdoch and they would lose their account. If they persisted in insisting that he wasn't the real deal, he would tell them to call into his show, giving Howard Stern's call-in number. One person actually tried and was awfully confused. He would also go into anti-Fox, anti-Bush, anti-war and other more liberal groups and yell at them, demanding they immediately cease and desist with their liberal bias and get fair and balanced. And Bill made no bones about admitting that "fair and balanced" was just a catch phrase to legitimize some very non-mainstream extreme right ideas. Most of them got the joke, and those who didn't were even more fun to play with. And then there was Bill's "sexy" side. Armed with his real sexual harassment deposition papers, Bill was on the prowl. There was not a single woman in groups like "Republicans are Better in Bed" who were not invited into Bill's shower for some hot massages with "that falafel thing." And that was Bill being his most charming. Being Bill, I could get into much bluer material than I ever could under my own name, and it was FUN! I'd get these conservative kiddies to admit to some kinky stuff they've done and then tell them how they were making baby Jesus cry every time they did that stuff. Once Bill had amassed hundred and hundreds of friends, he started directing traffic to the myspace page of a "documentary" that he "produced" that showed behind the scenes dirt on real democratic congressional staffers. The name of that "documentary," that Bill supposedly produced? Washington Interns Gone Bad, of course. Once Stella was born, I didn't put a whole lot of time into trolling as Bill, but every now and then I would log in, accept all my friend requests, spam them, maybe post a quick blog about winning the war on Christmas or blaming something ridiculous on liberals, and go. Yesterday Bill logged on and posted a blog bashing the striking TV writers and urging the networks to hire cheap internet replacements and posting a link to The Writers Room as an example of this. Then he went into some conservative women's group and offered a free dirty sanchez to the first one to send him a naked pic of their unshaven bush (to support the president, of course!). Today his account was deleted and tonight we mourn the passing of a MySpace troll. I am amazed that I was able to keep it going for as long as I did, as obnoxiously as I did. Part of me wants to jump right back into MySpace with a new troll, just because I'm pissed about being deleted. But I'm not even really that pissed. It was a nice ride while it lasted.

Effective Movie Marketing

There are a few things that can get me really interested in seeing a movie. Sometimes all I know is that it's the new movie from a certain director and that's good enough. Sometimes it's based on reviews, or if the movie is based on source material that I love. To a lesser extent the casting might sway me. And to an even lesser extent if the movie is about a place that I know very well. But how do I go from no interest at all in a film to wanting to catch it on opening weekend? A boycott from the religious right! when I saw the trailer for The Golden Compass, I thought that it might be a kids movie with some interesting eye candy. But now the American Taliban are freaking out about how this movie and the books that it's based on promote atheism, I am all of a sudden intrigued. Yes, these poor Christians are once again being oppressed by evil godless liberal Hollywood. As their authoritarian institutions based on, as George Carlin so eloquently put it, "the greatest bullshit story ever told," is shown, metaphorically, for what it is, they cry intolerance and oppression. Ironic, coming from people who preach a doctrine of intolerance for anyone but themselves on a daily basis. Ironic also for organizations whose very existence is protected by the first amendment to be attacking the first amendment rights of others. But when you live in a country with large and vocal groups of religious extremists, these ironies are something that you start getting used to. So good job Catholic League and Focus on Family and all the rest of you theocratic jackasses! You've helped bring this movie to a wider audience of people who are psyched to see anything just because it pisses you off. I can only hope that on opening weekend this movie packs more seats than your mega-churches, and it has more influence on the children of this country than you do.

Mr. President, Your Pants are on Fire... Again

I can't believe this jerkoff almost got away with lying this country into war TWICE! First it was Iraq and their nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. Then came Iran and the threat of World War Three if they got nukes. And they would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for those meddling kids! (emphasis is mine) President Bush got the world's attention this fall when he warned that a nuclear-armed Iran might lead to World War III. But his stark warning came at least a month or two after he had first been told about fresh indications that Iran had actually halted its nuclear weapons program. The new intelligence report released yesterday not only undercut the administration's alarming rhetoric over Iran's nuclear ambitions but could also throttle Bush's effort to ratchet up international sanctions and take off the table the possibility of preemptive military action before the end of his presidency. [full story] Does that man have enough credibility left to so much as sell used cars when he gets out of the White House? Maybe he can start up a used SUV lot somewhere in the South where he can get what few supporters he has left to buy inferior gas guzzlers under with clever sales gimmicks as "it comes with a free Support the Troops magnet" and "won't this piss off those stupid Prius-driving libruls?" But let's face it, given his track record in the worlds of business and politics, even that simple business is doomed to fail.

The Writers Room

I had mentioned before that I was going to make a short film about the writers strike. Here it is. Info on how you can support the strikers is below: As usual, we've got a situation of corporations finding new ways to make new money but without passing along a share of these new revenues to the people who make the products that they are selling. These writers deserve a piece of the new media pie, and whether you support that or not, unless you want to see your TV and movies written by dorky fans or even more of these bullshit reality shows, you need to support the striking writers. Visit their blog and watch their YouTube channel to learn more and see what you can do to help.