Blog Drama and the Music of Mass Suicide

I had a bit of blog drama this morning. I created a Battle of the Blogs over on Blog Explosion in the politics category. That means that only other blogs in the politics category can accept the challenge and everybody can vote on it. The blog that took the challenge was most definitely not even remotely a politics blog, and I made a snarky comment about it there. And then I got a tirade about what a horrible human being I am for being sarcastic. I should have left his comments up to illustrate what a whiny and petty little bitch he was being. I don't usually delete comments, but he deleted mine, including my genuine apology for hurting his feelings. That earned me another angry reply over here. Of course, my response to that, in essence telling him to man up and stop being such a drama queen over silly and petty crap, didn't go over too well either and now I'm no longer welcome to comment there which just makes me just want to cry into a cosmo about it with my girlfriends. There will be no link to this incredibly thin skinned and oversensitive blogger, but Matt, if you're reading this while voting against me in another blog battle, don't forget to change your tampon. And speaking of bloody things (OMG, did I really just segue with that? Somebody slap me!)... the WMFU blog has posted MP3's of the People's Temple gospel album. They posted it 2 years ago, but I just read about it today over at Metafilter. They recorded the album five years before Jim Jones talked 900 or so of them into committing mass suicide at his Jonestown compound in Guyana. And if that's not enough music from murderous cult leaders for you, did you know that Charles Manson released an album of new material just recently under a creative commons license (also found in that metafilter thread)?

Remember When Andy Dick was Funny?

What can I say about Andy Dick that hasn't already been said? His trainwreck hasn't been entertaining since the mid 90's and this mugshot just gives me the creeps. How baked do you have to be to look like that while being arrested for groping a minor?

Profiles in Asshattery - Summer Edition

Every now and then, I like to round up a whole bunch of asshats and profile them so that you, my dear readers, can point your fingers and laugh. Don Imus - You'd think after losing his job for making a boneheaded racist comment (whether he meant to be a racist or not, at least that time), he wouldn't touch race issues with a 10 foot pole. But he's gone and said something incredibly racially offensive again, and says he was just being sarcastic. Sure, it's hard to tell since he's a freakin' mush mouth and all, and perhaps he's so senile that he forgot the whole nappy headed ho's incident. Wouldn't it be funny if he also forgot how screwed he was after throwing himself to the mercy of race extortionist Al Sharpton (who truly deserves his own spot on this list) that he'll go and do that all over again? The best thing about any Imus brouhaha is always Howard's reaction. Charlie Black - Ever since 9/11, the republicans have learned to play fear like a fiddle and use it to their political advantage. But this guy forgot that Americans don't actually want to think that republican fearmongering is on purpose, even when part of them know it is. This asshat McBush campaign aid actually came right out and said that a domestic terrorist attack would help his candidate. That's like if the republicans admitted that they raised the threat level every time Bush needed a boost in the polls or that they held their last convention in NYC as close to the 9/11 anniversary as possible to try to milk that for all it was worth. Political junkies know these things, and many other Americans probably suspect them, but admitting it is tactless to say the least. George W. Bush - It wouldn't be a list of asshats without President Asshat himself. If you have to ask why, please add yourself to the list. But if you need a specific reason, today's reason is the politicization of the Justice Department. James Dobson - Technically more of a douchebag than an asshat, this theocratic jerkoff has figured out how to justify extreme authoritarian oppression with his interpretations of the bible. His holier than thou panties are all knotted up over a speech that Obama gave 2 years ago about how our laws must have a secular basis. Jimmy may talk the theocratic talk, but he doesn't walk the walk. His Islamic counterparts would have blown themselves to bits for their cause long ago. Please join them, Jimbo! (dis)Honorable Mention - This guy. And speaking of people who try to justify every sort of asshattery with the bible, this guy seems to think that Jesus was a libertarian.

The Great Debate on...

...the Massachusetts Teen Pregnancy Pact! Apparently seventeen girls at one high school got it through their brilliant teen minds that all having babies together would be a super fun way to bond. These dumbasses have obviously never changed a diaper at 3AM, but they sure can't wait to go to each others baby showers and buy cute little clothes. This is the perfect issue on which our candidates can grandstand. People are sick of hearing about how badly we're getting raped at the gas pump. We're saddened by the Iraq war. We're tired of the insipid gotcha bickering. Does anyone outside of the beltway give a rat's ass about public financing? If the two campaigns went to a guy who really knows what Americans want to hear, Dr. Phil, and asked him what they should focus on, he'd tell them that exploitative stories of personal drama and misery with the choice of a sex or drugs side order is what gets him through sweeps months so well. As long as you approach a potentially titillating story as showing how wrong it is, you can exploit all the hot underage sex you can cram into a behind the scenes segment. So how can our presidential candidates seize this golden opportunity and exploit it for all it's worth? McBush needs to play the tough guy on this one, while throwing some bones to a religious right who are skeptical about him. He should bash liberal gay Hollywood (gotta throw gay in there to really ratchet it up a few notches for the base) for glorifying pregnancy in movies like Juno and Knocked up. He should promise that as president he would send Judd Apatow and Diablo Cody both straight to Guantanamo Bay, along with Ellen Page and Katherine Hiegle for good measure. Obama would have to respond by saying that McBush's reaction is just more of the same divisive politics and how as president he would offer new ways for dealing with problems like this. He would also like a chance to speak personally with the girls about his experiences growing up with an absent father and offer them free abortions if they choose that after talking to him. McBush would then quickly call Obama naive about the birds and the bees, and reaffirm his stance that despite how wrong these pregnancies are, these girls must be forced to have these babies. Then, if he really wants to get more air time on the issue, he would go into near-pornographic detail of just how wrong it is for two young people to engage in hot sweaty sex with their smooth skin and perky body parts and fully functioning organs and young bodies flexible enough to get into positions that the Bible says are evil. He would close this speech with a Girls Gone Wild montage to further demonstrate how our country is becoming Soddom and Gamorah thanks to liberal gay Hollywood and the liberal gay Democrats. Obama would then call McBush a dirty old man who would rather talk in detail about teenagers doing the nasty instead of looking at bigger problems like education. McBush would then say that Obama was being ageist. He would then go on to say that Rap music glorifies out of wedlock pregnancy and that he had heard on Fox News that Obama had a baby mama of his own. And it could go on and on like this for days! Come on, candidates! Give the people what they want!

Summer's Here and the Time is Right...

...for using Google Earth to find people's swimming pools! This is why I was born 20 years too late: Teens begin by surfing Google Earth’s satellite images to find houses with swimming pools - or at least paddling pools. Once a target has been identified, sweaty swimmers then use Facebook to arrange an organised, but uninvited, pool-crash. [full story]

what What WHAT!?

Tim Russert just dropped dead in his office of a heart attack. He was only 58. Say what you will about bias, softball questions, etc, this guy revolutionized the Sunday morning political talk show. Although I'm probably the only political junkie who never watches the Sunday shows, I'm really bummed and my heart goes out to the Russert family. And needless to say, I am rather curious to see who the new host of Meet the Press will be. It's going to be a weird election cycle without Tim there. And now for a completely unrelated mini-rant... As mentioned in the comments of my previous post, not only is it a triumph for this country's justice system that the supreme court upheld habeas corpus despite the continued attempts by the Bush-Cheney crime family to do away with one of the oldest cornerstones of a justice system in a free country, the fact that Bush was obviously unhappy with it made that decision all the more sweet. Now John McBush has come out and called this “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.” No, Senator Asshat, this decision keeps our country from sliding further into becoming an authoritarian banana republic. There was no habeas corpus at the Hanoi Hilton, was there? Oh, but it's not fascist when we do it, right? Now if you want to see a bad court decision, try this one on for size.

The Art of Kicking 'Em When They're Down

House republicans have perfected the art of screwing the downtrodden, and in an election year no less! The economy is going south, jobs are disappearing, we're getting raped at the gas pumps, and what do these compassionate conservatives do? They vote against extending unemployment benefits. To quote Casey Kasem, "Boy, is this fucking ponderous man... ponderous, fucking ponderous!" What are these people thinking? After flushing trillions of dollars down the toilet of an unnecessary war and every expensive pet project in their home districts, when it comes to Americans who need help through a really bad time they all of a sudden decide to be fiscally conservative? And this is going to help them win what could be their hardest election cycle how? Of course, so much of their base are like the frat boys getting paddled and saying "thank you sir may I have another" but I really hope that at least some of the working class rank and file who are struggling through this recession that supposedly isn't really a recession but really is finally realize that the people they keep voting for don't give a damn about them. Oh, I forget, this is supposed to build character for those rugged individualist types. Aaaaarrrgggghhhh!!!! And if this isn't bad enough, when Americans could most use a drink, John McBush now says that he will veto every single beer. From my cold dead hands, Mr. Senator!

WWII Vet: 1 - Right Wing Blogger: 0

This is great! In an all too typically classless move, some right wing asshat gets it into his head to try to swiftboat Obama's grandpa great uncle who helped liberate a concentration camp in WWII. He takes it upon himself to try getting some dirt from a vet from the same unit. Hilarity ensues!

Finally Sunk?

Could this finally be the last nail on Hillary Clinton's campaign coffin? "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California," Hillary Clinton said yesterday, referencing the fact that past nomination contests have stretched into June to explain why she hasn't heeded calls to exit the Democratic race. She was in an editorial board meeting with a South Dakota newspaper, and she didn't even seem to notice she'd just uttered the unutterable. [full story] Where's Dan Aykroyd when we need somebody to turn to her and say "Hillary, you ignorant slut?" While I really hope that this was just a slip of the tongue rather than a veiled threat, at the very least it was a Freudian slip of wishful thinking on her part, so natural that she didn't even bat an eyelash as she said it. Because at this point an assassin's bullet is about the only thing that could give this power-mad woman that thing for which she would sell her very soul (and judging by the campaign she's run so far the existence of her soul is debatable). So now can this horrible woman just please go the fuck away and stay the fuck away? She is the perfect example of exactly what is wrong with this political system of ours. We don't need people in our government who crave power like a junkie craves their smack. We don't need people who are willing to put ethics aside for a while just to get what they want. And anyone who even thinks about being inspired by her slip of the tongue, You Kill Obama and we will BURN SHIT DOWN! Nobody wants their shit burned down.

God's Will?

There's nothing that the republican crowd wants more than keeping people focused on Obama's former pastor Jeremiah Wright. And who can blame them? The dude said some really offensive things that sound even worse when taken out of context. And when somebody close to a candidate does something that might be considered offensive, it's like a dream come true to the opposition. I'm sure when Obama gets the highly coveted Flavor Flav endorsement, we'll be hearing that crowd spewing out lyrics from Fear of a Black Planet. Yet in the meantime, John McCain has been sucking up to the lunatic fringe of the religious right, actively seeking their endorsements since he doesn't have the kind of fundy cred that Mike Huckabee has. As far as I know, he actually believes in the theory of evolution, and science that kind of kooky liberal nonsense will certainly not fly with that crowd. The kinds of crazy shit these people spew on a daily basis makes Wright look like Ward freakin' Cleaver, yet the press barely picks up on it and the right keep on making excuses how their wackos are more acceptable than our wackos. But the latest thing to come out of John Hagee's mouth will hopefully be the last nail on the coffin of this ridiculous guilt by association game. Because it's one thing to blame natural disasters on the gays, but it's another to say that Hitler was fulfilling God's will by exterminating millions of Jews. "Oh no he didn't," you shout. But oh yes he sure did. Going in and out of biblical verse, Hagee preached: "'And they the hunters should hunt them,' that will be the Jews. 'From every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks.' If that doesn't describe what Hitler did in the holocaust you can't see that." He goes on: "Theodore Hertzel is the father of Zionism. He was a Jew who at the turn of the 19th century said, this land is our land, God wants us to live there. So he went to the Jews of Europe and said 'I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel.' So few went that Hertzel went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the holocaust. "Then god sent a hunter. A hunter is someone with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the Bible says—Jeremiah writing—'They shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from the holes of the rocks,' meaning there's no place to hide. And that might be offensive to some people but don't let your heart be offended. I didn't write it, Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel." I'm sure it will give great comfort to people whose relatives died in those gas chambers that it was all just part of the plan to bring about an end of the world scenario where they get to go directly to hell without passing Go and collecting $200. Hagee is a Christian Zionist. He supports Israel not so much because he has any great kindness for the folks who he blames for killing Jesus, but because in order for the apocalypse to happen, the Jews need to control the holy land. And anything to hurry that scenario along, whether it be shooting at rock throwing kids, collective punishment of families, or the attempted fucking genocide of a whole race of people is all part of this wackjob's God's great plan to pick up him and his followers in a giant cross shaped UFO and bring them to the great big Stryper concert in the sky. So, let's refresh... On one hand you've got a pastor who sounds like a Public Enemy album. On the other, you've got a guy saying that the Holocaust was all part of God's great plan to end the world so only the people who believe in one particular interpretation of an ancient book of mythology get to have themselves a private party while laughing and saying "I told you so" at all the people who thought they were just a bunch of nutjobs. I challenge anyone to try making excuses for John McCain not publicly bitchslapping this raving loon and telling him not to come within a hundred feet of his campaign. Or better yet, you guys shut up about Wright and we'll shut up about this guy and perhaps we can all focus on the issues that actually effect our lives instead. UPDATE: Hagee kicked to the curb!

It's 3 AM Again

It's 3AM. There's an insidious enemy preying upon America's children. And only one person currently running for president has the experience taking on this enemy. When the new Grand Theft Auto game hits the stores, do you trust Barak Obama to go after a video game? He's never gone after video games before. Even John McCain who bravely fought the Vietcong never fought against video games. These guys don't have what it takes. But Hillary Clinton sure does! She has bravely gone to bat with the religious right to take on video game entertainment before. Hillary is the only candidate calculating and shrill enough to truly take on the evil video game industry who dare to put out cutting edge gaming entertainment for adults. Because as any member of the American Taliban will tell you, nobody should have any entertainment if it isn't appropriate for the youngest children. If you hate video games, please vote for Hillary.

The Right vs The Earth

I try to understand the thinking behind today's conservatives. I may not agree with them, but in many cases I try to at least understand where they're coming from. The one thing that I cannot quite understand is the level of vitriol they have toward environmentalism. I know that as adherents to complete and total free market capitalism (except when a little bit of government tweaking can benefit somebody who can help finance them but otherwise would not benefit a free market, think companies that rhyme with Schmenron or Falliburtin), they are against any kind of laws that might regulate business, and that of course includes environmental regulation. Sure, if people want clean air then the market will clean the air, and if it doesn't, then the market dictates that the air is supposed to be dirty. I know, it's ridiculous, but they actually believe this kind of shit. They take their position against environmentalism to new and exciting levels because to them, it's personal. They have better things to say about the child raping members of polygamist cults than people who drive hybrid cars. And with the majority of scientists in agreement that there's something wrong, these people go with a minority of scientists who are directly linked to the businesses who do not want to change anything that they are doing. What causes ordinary people to forgo reality and science with such levels of fear and loathing? All I can deduce is that it comes out of hate, and a very specific hate at that. They hate Al Gore. They REALLY HATE Al Gore. I can relate to that as I'm no fan of his after the way he blew it in '00, and after my teen aged punk rock self watched his wife's attempt to ruin rock and roll in the 80's. But the right isn't satisfied in just stealing the election from him. If they had it their way, elections would mean the winner actually kills the loser with their bare hands to demonstrate to the opposition and the world their massive manliness (but only if the winner is their guy, of course). No, here's the guy who dared to run against their imperial lord and messiah of neoconservative asshattery, who then won the Nobel prize and the Oscar for his Power Point presentation on climate change. And let's face it, the guy does come off a bit smug. And that pisses them off enough to forget about the majority of scientists (besides, everyone knows that science and truth and fact and all that has a liberal bias) and just be against anything he has to say. And that, in a nutshell, is modern conservative intellectualism. I would love to find out what my conservative readers have to say on this. Forget about my sarcasm, that's just my style. I really want to know why you are so against environmentalism.

Worst. Blog. Ever.

I've come across some decent blogs on Blog Explosion. And I've waded through some crap. But there's one guy who always manages to piss me right the hell off. He's some holy rolling dipshit who seems to think that Jesus was a right libertarian and has a whole bunch of blogs where he makes inane political rants and then wraps it around some irrelevant Jeebus stuff. Now I'm not one of those atheists who automatically goes after anyone because they are religious. I just go after asshats, religious or otherwise. I've considered lambasting this particular jerkoff here before, but I've thought better of it, until now. The drivel that this imbecile posted today just could not go ignored. He's outraged that the big bad police state is not allowing these wingnut fundamentalist Mormons in Texas to keep on RAPING YOUNG GIRLS. The big bad police state is apparently violating their rights to practice their religion, part of which is RAPING YOUNG GIRLS!!! I've always found right libertarians to be annoying much in the same way as religious fundamentalists. While one group takes various mythology to be the absolute literal truth, the other takes economic theory as absolute literal truth, and they both take it to extreme levels. So when you've got somebody out there using fundamentalist belief in ancient mythology that would never hold up to the light of science and rational thought to attempt to justify a fundamentalist belief in an economic system that would never work in the real world and you've got one of the most annoying assholes in the entire blogosphere! I think I'm going to start my own religious sect. I received a revelation from the Flying Spaghetti Monster who touched me with his noodly appendage and told me that the one true way to worship him is by smoking crack and beating the crap out of fundamentalist Christian libertarians. Let's see how long I can get away with that claiming that it's my religion and the big bad police state is trying to keep me down. Of course, I do believe that there is a police state that tries to criminalize a lot of things that shouldn't be crimes, but what universe does somebody have to come from to believe that RAPING YOUNG GIRLS in the name of some religion or otherwise is something that that should be freely practiced? And what kind of libertarian censors their blog comments? That is the opposite of libertarianism, dummy! OK, rant over. Thanks for your time.

I Got Nuthin'

I've really been wanting to write another post, but I'm having a real hard time channeling anything coherent that any of you might want to read. So instead I've got some links to other stuff that you might enjoy. First up is a set of found photos from Flickr of a few kids in the 80's doing things that kids in the 80's did best. For that Wizard of Oz meets Dark Side of the Moon vibe, you might want to play the audio from this youtube clip while you look. Next up, the anti-immigration crowd is about to get a double whammy when Mexican emo kids start running for the border for political asylum. And lastly, if you're outraged about what Obama's pastor had to say, check out this crazy church service that Hillary attended!

Is There Honor Among Thieves?

What is it that keeps a gang of criminals from stealing from each other? There's usually some kind of code of honor amongst thieves and other lowlife criminals, usually punishable by death. But besides that, most criminals know better than to trust each other because they know that if the shoe was on the other foot and they had the opportunity to steal from somebody who trusted them and there was the possibility of getting away with it, they'd do it in a heartbeat. Apparently, leaders of the largest white collar crime ring in the country aren't smart enough to figure out that the kind of people who help plunder our national treasury for their corporate cronies wouldn't think twice about robbing from each other. And that is how the National Republican Congressional Committee lost upwards of a million dollars to their former treasurer! That's a million they could have otherwise wasted in their futile attempt to gain any house seats this election.

Antisemite Alert: Condi Rice

Why does Condoleezza Rice hate the Jews? Did you hear, she had the nerve to tell Israel not to kill so many civilians in Gaza. Of course, if it was a liberal who dared make the understatement of the century that Israel can be a bit on the heavy handed side, we'd never hear the end of the accusations of antisemitism, support of terror, and complicity in the freakin' holocaust. I wonder what the rabid neocon crowd is going to say about one of their own criticizing the only uncriticizable country in the world. And then there are the wackjob christian faction who will see her as interfering in the chain of events that they are counting on to deliver them the apocalyptic thrill ride that they read about in the Left Behind books. Those nutjobs will turn on her quicker than you can say "Reverend Ted Haggard smokes the pole." And of course, for the high crime of speaking outside of the very narrow bit of orthodoxy that the far right minority has set for discussing the topic of Israel, I become yet another free thinker inadvertently helping the far right to further water down the very meaning of antisemitism.

Desperation, Ego and Stupidity

The primaries are just about over. On the republican side, McCain is all but official as nominee though crazy theocrat guy continues to try to stay in the race nipping at his ankles. JSF says that Huck is a Clinton puppet and I'm not entirely sure I buy that theory. But if it's true, it's the smartest thing the Clintons have ever done! And that's kind of why I doubt that it's true. Hillary's campaign is all but derailed at this point. She is lashing out in anger and sarcasm at Obama and I can just picture her convention speech, berating the democrats for rejecting her like an angry mom on her period. Leave the sarcasm to the bloggers, lady! It was entertaining when your husband was sarcastic about Bush. But the thing he has that you don't is a likable personality! If you had an ounce of dignity, you'd see the writing on the wall and drop out now. And while Hillary spins out of control, Obama has been acting more presidential by the day. It thrills me to hear a presidential candidate talk about how trade agreements like NAFTA need to be reworked to not screw over the workers. And as the wackjob right tries to swift boat him on his patriotism, he doesn't play their game for one second. He dismisses it for the sheer stupidity that it is. How refreshing it is to have a candidate who acts like a rational person rather than part of a well oiled political machine set to play the game in very specific and narrow ways! It's awfully nice to have a candidate who actually calls bullshit while shining a bright light on the actions of those who are ineffectively trying to smear him. Just look at his response... About not wearing an American flag lapel pin, Obama said Republicans have no lock on patriotism. "A party that presided over a war in which our troops did not get the body armor they needed, or were sending troops over who were untrained because of poor planning, or are not fulfilling the veterans' benefits that these troops need when they come home, or are undermining our Constitution with warrantless wiretaps that are unnecessary? "That is a debate I am very happy to have. We'll see what the American people think is the true definition of patriotism." Right wing noise machine, YOU GOT SERVED, BEEYOTCHES!!! And the rest of you bunch of spineless excuses for an opposition party, take note of this. Don't get suckered into the silly games of a side that has zero substance or credibility. Laugh at their lame attempt at political gamesmanship and spotlight their lack of substance and credibility on the very issue they want to try to smear you on. If they weren't wrong on the issues, they would offer better arguments against you. Smears and character assassination are the surest sign that they don't have anything better to offer. An then there was Ralph. Yep, Ralph Nader is running again. In 2000, he taught a valuable lesson to progressives. We may not like a lot about the democratic party. We consider them the lesser of two evils. But as long as we are in a two-party system, we have little choice but to support the lesser evil. After the wakeup call of the 2000 election fiasco, a cool thing happened. We progressives started getting organized and flexing our collective muscle within the democratic party. I really like the idea of more than just the 2 headed corporate party, but you can't just start off by running a president from a third party. For a third party to be even remotely viable, they have to build from the bottom up. Start with a school board or two, maybe a mayor or county legislator. Get members in state governments and maybe a governorship. Then start getting members of congress. By then, you've got the grassroots party machine that you need to mount a serious presidential campaign with people in the legislative branch to work with them if they actually win. Ralph's run now, especially with Obama as the likely democratic nominee, is an ugly display of stubbornness, ego and more than likely irrelevance. I agree with Ralph that corporate interests own both parties, but there are more effective ways of combating that than running for president. I hope to post about the Academy Awards later on today.

Just Nod if You Can Hear Me

In the heyday of this blog, I was getting upwards of 100 hits a day from actual readers. Now when I look at my web stats it makes me feel like I'm just some crazy dude yelling in a bullhorn on the street corner who people walk by pretending not to see. But I do enjoy some of the search engine strings that get people here. There's the ever popular searches for Kelly Tripplehorn, the obnoxious young evangelical guy who will never live down an embarrassing breakup email he sent to a girl when he was a congressional intern. I thought it was funny when he was just some disgraced republican intern, but now that he's spewing pseudo-intellectual nonsense for the lunatic fringe of Christianity (and since he blocked me on YouTube when I posted part of his email as a comment to one of his dumb videos) it brings a smile to my face that people googling him find out exactly what a tool he is. In the same vein, I really enjoy the fact that I am the number two search result for "Joe Lieberman Douche!" No, the democrat independent republican senator from Connecticut has not started his own line of kosher feminine hygiene products, but the Senate would be a slightly better place if he switched careers to that. If you want to have some angry laughs, I suggest you read some of the other links on that page. So what's coming next? Stupid Tuesday is in a couple of days which to a political junkie like me is bigger than the Superbowl (I don't care much about sports at all, but as a NYer in exile, I'm pretty happy about the Giants win). The democratic side is still too close to call but I'm rooting for Obama. On the republican side, I think I'm hoping for a Romney win since he would fare far worse in the general election than McCain. As always, JSF and myself will be providing our left-right coverage to all 3 of you people reading.

Partisan Asshattery and the Hillary Problem

JSF over at Valley of the Shadow wants to know what liberals can do to stop Hillary Clinton from becoming the next president, but since I wasn't crazy about the way he posed the question on his blog, I've decided to post about it here instead on my own terms. Despite our fundamental disagreements on our worldviews, I like JSF, though sometimes he plays partisan games which make me want to tear the hair out of my head. The latest is this mock outrage over "liberal hate speech." People have said nasty things about people with whom they disagree since the dawn of humanity, and politics can bring out the worst in that. The republicans have become masters at painting themselves the perpetual victims of nastiness from the left whilst often ignoring the same exact stuff from their own side. Just look at this primitive political cartoon portraying a gang of savage cave-liberals ganging up on an innocent republican woolly mammoth, found in a prehistoric cave in what is now Washington, DC. Democrat partisans do the same thing to a lesser extent. Everybody knows it's nothing more than a diversionary tactic to rile up the less bright members of the base and keep them from thinking about how their respective parties are only paying them lip service while really just serving those who give them money. And it's exactly that kind of partisan stupidity which is why I am against Hillary Clinton's candidacy. Do any democratic voters actually remember the 90's? Bill Clinton did some good things and some not so good things, but our government was ground to a goddamn standstill because of how much the republicans hated him personally. Two years into his first term we had the Gingrich revolution and that Contract they took out on America. Their was complete gridlock. They wasted billions of dollars investigating him for various crap and all the best they could get was a lie about a blowjob. And this vicious partisan crap led us straight into the worst president in the history of the world. Do we really need to go through that again? So to answer JSF's question as to what liberals can do to keep her out of the White House, it's incredibly simple. Remember the 90's and DON'T VOTE FOR HER!!! And if conservatives don't want her in office, the best thing they can do is tone down their vitriol. They should know that liberals will get behind people who they see under attack by conservatives. I'm not saying to lay off by any means, but give constructive reasons why she would not make a good president rather than calling her Hildabeest, Hitlery, or whatever variation on evil communist lesbian satanist you people come up with. And try to put it in terms that might appeal to likely democratic primary voters since it's pretty much a given that the next president is not going to be one of your guys. You don't want Hillary. Many of us on the left don't want her. And we really need to work together to stop her while we still can.

Heckling 101

Heckling is a precision art form. While on the surface it just sounds like some rowdy loudmouth in the crowd, a good heckler creates just the right soundbite and chooses just the right moment to drop their word bomb. Even for the best hecklers, mixing heckling with politics can be a risky venture. A successful heckle should catch the speaker completely off guard, really strike a nerve, get them to act unprofessionally on camera, and generally make them look like an ass while making a political point. On the other hand, an unsuccessful heckle gives gives the speaker sympathy from the audience as well as an opportunity for a clever comeback while the hecklers just look like morons, even to people who may not be fans of their intended target. Given an opportunity to heckle Hillary Clinton, I'm not sure what I could come up with, but it would have definitely been better than this.

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.

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