Friday, July 02, 2010

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) The latest wave of terrorism comes from Al Diptera.

2) "...And STAY dead!"

3) I suppose the alternative is he would swallow? I see what you do here, Howard Kurtz! On the other hand, good for you, Lindsey, speaking truth to the moronic.

4) This is a plan everyone, regardless of party or dampness of bag, should get behind. Roosevelt electrified rural America. Eisenhower paved it. Both utilities brought enormous change and progress to rural America. Obama will go down in history as one of the great ones if he can get this passed, which he should.

5) Mel Gibson's new tape should be titled "Passion Of The...KEEEEEEEEEEEE-rist!!!!!"

6) Of course, it's possible Mel merely thought Oksana should go forth and multiply. He might be on Angle's blast fax list.

7) Worried you might see your end of days? Find out for sure.

8) I want to borrow my own column for a few paragraphs. Lately, there's been a lot of talk in America about how glad people are the US is out of the World Cup. Soccer is a game for little children. Soccer is socialist.

It all really comes down to one thing: soccer is, allegedly, boring.

Boring...boring...boring...and unmanly.

Bad soccer is boring, just like bad baseball or bad basketball or even bad hockey. Or bad writing (I'm looking at you, Thiessen). Good soccer is not.
But, good NFL football is boring, too. And there's the irony of the whining from the Sliwa's and Thiessen's of the world.

Here's a typical football game. Imagine it's a little after one on a Sunday afternoon in October. You've just come back from your son's soccer game. It was such a pleasure watching six year olds chase after a big friendly multicoloured ball, have fun, and get some exercise.

You click on the TV. Twenty-two men are lined up facing each other, their breath visible in the crisp autumn air. Wearing artificial body enhancements like shoulder pads and cups to accentuate their studliness, they glare across at the opposing team.

The ball is hiked, passed between the legs of a man bent over at the waist to the man standing directly behind him, firmly placing his ball in the quarterback's hands. The quarterback grasps the ball with both hands and begins to withdraw. He turns, and shoves his ball into the crotch of a large muscular sweaty man behind him. This man takes the ball and runs straight into a pile of men from the opposing team, extending his body in a plunge of tumescence, penetrating their territory one full body length.

OK, that part's actually...kind of arousing. But that gets him 2% closer to his goal. Only 50 more of those, and he can score!

You glance at the clock. A whole three seconds has run off. Both teams gather in a clump on opposite sides of the bed, I mean, line and spend the next five minutes discussing the color of the drapes, whether the down lineman on the other side is really dating her(!), and oh, yea, figuring out the next position.
I mean, play. The telecast goes into commercial after fifteen minutes of two guys drunk on cheap beer talk about how "the football" moved six feet forward and the quarterback's skillfull hand-off of "the football" to the fullback. 


Apparently, the guys are broadcasting a football game but attending the ballet and need to remind themselves constantly that they're working, and not goofing off.

The first of a string of beer and pickup truck commercials begins. You pick up War And Peace, which you haven't read since high school, and crack open the cover. As you read, various messages urging you to be a man and buy Amurican trucks and beer (built in Mexico and brewed by a Belgian company, respectively) waft thru the air like Muzak in an elevator.

Somewhere around the point where Prince Andrei leaves Lise and his father to go to war, the screen goes black, which is the universal symbol that corporate male bonding has stopped and the game is about to begin again. The huddles are still formed, and the topic of conversation has moved onto who on the team would make the best back-up dancer for Lady Gaga.

They clap hands, in delight presumably, and break the monotony. I mean, huddle. They line up, man on man, pawing the ground in anticipation and eagerness to collide with their counterpart on the opposite side. The quarterback barks out GPS coordinates to the nearest IHOP, and once again, the center passes his ball thru his anal cleavage to the quarterback, who hungrily accepts it, and shares it with the fullback once more.

With an almost orgasmic delight, the fullback dances and pivots his way into the pile of men....mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, so exciting! In a grand jeté, he leaps into the pile, practically shouting "Take me! TAKE ME!" The imapct jars loose his most prized possession, overinflated balls, which drop to the ground like an exhausted sailor in a whorehouse.

The defense, sensing a chance to be tops, pounce and smother his ball. The fullback grimaces and writhes in agony at his fumble. The referees, apparent furry-lovers wearing zebra shirts, race over to the pile either to try to get sloppy seconds or to extricate the ball. Whistles, the kind you'd hear on a dance floor at Studio or the Ramrod, blow with delight as the men disentangle. One man wins the prize, and races off the field, his trophy held high over his head. His teammates slap his rear-quarters, copping a cheap feel while he's still numb from all the manflesh he fought through.

To let him and his fellows rest, a fresh crop of men trot out onto the field as the announcers begin to analyze what went wrong, showing the replay of the fullback's balls over and over again, from every possible angle including some that are practically pornographic in their detail. "The football" is mentioned often as if it is a living, breathing being, revered as a god when in reality it's just flesh that's been pumped hard.

You glance at the game clock. Another five seconds has run off, but there's a time out on the field as the refs reposition the piles of men and face them in the opposite direction, presumably so they can get even tans.

Except darkness is beginnning to fall. It's gets late early these days: it's barely halfway thru the first quarter and already the wife is calling you to dinner!

The announcers warn of a commercial. An image of the Dodge Ram appears on your screen as you pick up WAP again. Prince Andrei has his vision of the battle of Auterlitz as the game resumes. It's Wednesay, 5AM. You have voicemails from work that eventually see you fired that your 30 year old son was arrested for DWI, and your wife left you fourteen years ago for the soccer coach.

Another sweaty beefy man passes his ball through his anal crack to the quarterback, who fondles it gently and steps back, caressing it. Suddenly, he thrusts his arm back and forward, and ejaculates a long pass to a fleet-footed gazelle prancing down a sideline in the open, having evaded the pack of jackals tasked with restraining him. His hands creep skyward, and he cradles the QBs ball with delicacy and intimacy, nestles it in his bosom and begins to sprint towards his goal. Pursued by the jackals, he has no choice but to distract them by shimmying his hips, flaunting his fanny, and basically perform a ritual mating display down the sidelines.

Diving over the goal line, the receiver, a "wide out"..boy, there's a loaded term!...lays on the grass-like substance for a second, basking in the glory of his accomplishment. His teammates swarm over him, piling on top like he was Easy Mary at the drive-in on a Saturday night, kissing and holding him in various ways too disgusting to describe in a family newspaper. The defense...which until last week was the offense...stomps off the field, madder than a man who missed the annual sale at Barney's because his Filofax wasn't up to date.

The two teams line up for the point after, which is really kind of like cuddling after sex. Now, here's the funny part:

The ball is explosively expelled from the center's anal cavity to a quarterback lined up a few yards back. Pretty impressive, but here's the kicker, literally: a little foreign guy, WHO WASN'T MAN ENOUGH TO PLAY SOCCER because he'd have to expose everything except his shins, kicks the ball through the uprights, a Freudian symbol in itself!, and leaps into the arms of his team for scoring one. Stinking. Point.

And that, my friends, is why soccer is better than Americans deserve!


(h/t to Thers for setting me off)

9) *Whew!* That was exhausting! I need a shower now. (Much of that was off the top of my head but was based on an email I sent to a DJ friend of mine who whined about how boring soccer was on his show one day).

10) If your car has to be towed out of a creek, don't tell the cops you hydroplaned. They may not stop laughing. (Um, the name alone tells you all you need to know about this story)

Thursday, July 01, 2010

Yobs, Yobs, Yobs

The children in Congress are at it again:
 
Once again, the Congress is going to go on a break without having extended long term jobless benefits, as the Senate failed to get 60 votes last night on another plan from Democrats.

By my count, this is the third time that Senators will have gone on a vacation without an agreement on extending those jobless benefits - the first time was Easter, the second just before Memorial Day, and now before the July 4th break.
 
Clearly, it is far more important to take a vacation than to help 1.3 million Americans stay off welfare. Maybe the Senators could hire a few of their constitutents to flip burgers at the family barbecue. They can label it "job training" and pay for it with office earmarks. Win-win, as they say.
 
Add to this the latest ridiculous selfish trope the Teabaggers are throwing out with regards to unemployment benefits: that they actually create long-term joblessness.
 
Anyone who's been on unemployment for a length of time-- and believe me I have-- knows that the unemployment benefit barely pays for food and possibly rent. Maybe, especially if your landlord is sympathetic. It's based on a percentage of your income and is capped at a couple of hundred a week. That might not sound half bad: if you're making $20,000 a year, that published report of $500 a week is more than your salary.
 
But if you're making $20,000 a year, you won't be eligible for $500 a week. You're generally eligible for half your salary, or $190 a week. And the formula is determined by state. For example, in Arizona, the maximum benefit is $200 a week. One can only imagine what a minimum wage worker makes in unemployment.
 
None of this takes into consideration the fact that the worst part of being unemployed is the shame and embarrassment of being out oa f job. Most people want to work. Most people will settle for a decent job that pays a decent wage that they can feed their families with. Any lifestyle beyond that, including mortgages and debts, will fall by the wayside. 
 
I know when I was out of work for a couple of years (thanks, Bush family!) my attitude towards my creditors was, "Sorry about your damn luck for lending money to a loser." Now, I never walked away from a debt, but I knew if I had to, I could. It took a lot of the sting out of getting those letters and bills each month.
 
The GOP attitude seems to be, "well, someone is having fun on our dime, and it must stop." And yea, there's a few people out there, probably a higher percentage now than when the recession first hit, that are enjoying the dole. So?
 
You folks in Congress work three months out of the year, get your health insurance paid for, despite drawing a six figure salary, have a guaranteed pension plan in place, have healthclub privileges, get free cafeteria food, have expense accounts and that's just for starters with the LEGAL perks of being a Congresscritter! It seems to me the percentage of corrupt Representatives and Senators is a LOT higher than the percentage of folks on unemployment who might buy the occasional six pack to drown their sorrows!
 
Grow up, nut up, shut up, and butt out!  
 
 

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Please, Lord...I Ask For So Little

But could you please let this come true?

Washington • Republican leaders have not ruled out filibustering to block Elena Kagan from ascending to the Supreme Court, a last-ditch effort that could throw the Senate into turmoil in an already tempestuous year.

“We’re hoping that a filibuster is not necessary, but I think the examination did not go well today,” Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking Judiciary Committee Republican, told The Salt Lake Tribune midway through Kagan’s second day of confirmation hearings.

From your slimy racist anti-Semitic mouth to God's ear, Senator.

By filibustering a perfectly innocuous nominee to the Supreme Court, one who has demonstrated time and again during the hearings the patience to put up with the moronic and mind-numbing idiocies demonstrated by conservatives, and then presenting a formidable case for her arguments, Kagan has shown she can clearly work with moral and intellectual turpitudes like Clarence Thomas and Antonin "Never Met A Bribe I Didn't Like" Scalia.

Of course, a filibuster won't happen, to be sure. There are not 41 Senators on the Red side of the aisle who would dare oppose a nominee to the Supreme Court ahead of a Congressional election in which many will be asked why they chose to block that perfectly nice lady from New York when the voted to let Sotomayor be seated. Even Orrin Hatch, who believe it or not is actually a voice of reason these days, thinks it's unlikely.

One exchange did annoy me, however. When Sessions called Kagan out on the recruiting ban Harvard University had in place with respect to the military (far more of which has been made than reality calls for, I should add), he mentioned that her actions prevented a prime "recruiting season".

Now, I'm confused: since when is Harvard Law School fertile ground for any military recruitment, if in fact it is part of the "Eastern liberal elite" that conservatives harp about like it was a thorn in their feeble paws?

I would have called Sessions on that, and glared mightily at him, daring him to reconcile his stupidity.

But I digress. It looks like Kagan will be confirmed and soon.

 

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Set Up For The Low Down

You know that queasy feeling you got yesterday when you read this story?

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that cities and states must abide by the 2nd Amendment, strengthening the rights of gun owners and opening courthouse doors nationwide for gun rights advocates to argue that restrictions on firearms are unconstitutional.

In a 5-4 decision, the justices said the right to have a handgun for self-defense is "fundamental from an American perspective [and] applies equally to the federal government and the states."

Embrace your nausea. There's more here than meets the eye.

Essentially, what the Court ruled is that Constitutional rights trump states' rights or een individual rights. "Libertarians" may mark this as a good thing, but I do not. See, the Second Amendment prescribes that, in order to ensure your God-given inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, you have to buy a gun. 

I'm betting that's not what the Founders intended. This might be the only enumerated right that requires a citizen to do something in order to enforce it. A truly libertarian position would be that an individual's right to privacy is far more important than the constitutionality of a manufactured good. 

This is a glaring distinction that so-called "glibertarians" (e.g. people who read and masturbated to Ayn Rand books) fail to grasp and it's really a simple concept: no man is free if for that freedom he is requred to carry a weapon. 

But hold that thought for another time. Here's the really scary part.

This decision opens the door for the Court to decide that individual state laws are unconstitutional. Should Roe V. Wade for example be overturned, there is no check on the Court to decide that New York's abortion law violates the Constitution. Or New Jersey's. Or California. Should a consitutional challenge to the gay marriage ban fail in SCOTUS, that would open the door to overturning Hawaiian law, Iowan law, and would also prevent any number of states from recognizing homosexual marriages. 

It wouldn't stop there. Your state doesn't have a death penalty? Too bad. You might be forced to get in line with the totalitarians. Our laws would revert to the lowest common denominator of a moron state like Alabama or Mississippi.

Medical marijuana? Nope. Speed limit of 55? Gone, mostly because the federal government mandates it in exchange for highway funds, so all it will take is some yahoo from Montana to overturn that necessary and safer speed limit, and your state won't be able to do a thing about it. Property rights? Eminent domain will encroach and absorb as many properties as it deems necessary, because the SCOTUS has already ruled it's perfectly constitutional to appropriate your land and turn it over to a developer.

Are we sure we want to walk this path when it's taken so long and we've worked so hard to bring even a shred of progressivism to the nation? 

 

The Set Up For The Low Down

You know that queasy feeling you got yesterday when you read this story?

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that cities and states must abide by the 2nd Amendment, strengthening the rights of gun owners and opening courthouse doors nationwide for gun rights advocates to argue that restrictions on firearms are unconstitutional.

In a 5-4 decision, the justices said the right to have a handgun for self-defense is "fundamental from an American perspective [and] applies equally to the federal government and the states."

Embrace your nausea. There's more here than meets the eye.

Essentially, what the Court ruled is that Constitutional rights trump states' rights or een individual rights. "Libertarians" may mark this as a good thing, but I do not. See, the Second Amendment prescribes that, in order to ensure your God-given inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, you have to buy a gun. 

I'm betting that's not what the Founders intended. This might be the only enumerated right that requires a citizen to do something in order to enforce it. A truly libertarian position would be that an individual's right to privacy is far more important than the constitutionality of a manufactured good. 

This is a glaring distinction that so-called "glibertarians" (e.g. people who read and masturbated to Ayn Rand books) fail to grasp and it's really a simple concept: no man is free if for that freedom he is requred to carry a weapon. 

But hold that thought for another time. Here's the really scary part.

This decision opens the door for the Court to decide that individual state laws are unconstitutional. Should Roe V. Wade for example be overturned, there is no check on the Court to decide that New York's abortion law violates the Constitution. Or New Jersey's. Or California. Should a consitutional challenge to the gay marriage ban fail in SCOTUS, that would open the door to overturning Hawaiian law, Iowan law, and would also prevent any number of states from recognizing homosexual marriages. 

It wouldn't stop there. Your state doesn't have a death penalty? Too bad. You might be forced to get in line with the totalitarians. Our laws would revert to the lowest common denominator of a moron state like Alabama or Mississippi.

Medical marijuana? Nope. Speed limit of 55? Gone, mostly because the federal government mandates it in exchange for highway funds, so all it will take is some yahoo from Montana to overturn that necessary and safer speed limit, and your state won't be able to do a thing about it. Property rights? Eminent domain will encroach and absorb as many properties as it deems necessary, because the SCOTUS has already ruled it's perfectly constitutional to appropriate your land and turn it over to a developer.

Are we sure we want to walk this path when it's taken so long and we've worked so hard to bring even a shred of progressivism to the nation? 

 

Monday, June 28, 2010

How Much Cock?

How much cock does Glenn Beck suck?
Fox News host Glenn Beck's apocalyptic political thriller has shrugged off a pile of bad reviews to debut at number one on the New York Times bestseller list this week.
 
The story of a young, handsome PR executive's quest to save America from a 100-year-old plot to destroy it, The Overton Window was described as "didactic, discursive [and] sporadically incoherent" in the Los Angeles Times, and as "not just a bad book ... an instructively bad book because it offers a complete colour-by-numbers picture of the contemporary Wingnut psyche" in the Daily Beast.

We can presume just two things: one, Glenn Beck's rabid fans, all five of them, have bought multiple copies they can't afford on Social security and unemployment and, most likely, some right-wing welfare benefactor has gone out of his way to smooth Beck's feathers after the reviews he received, not just in what he might term "liberal mainstream media," but from respected writers and reviewers with no plausible agenda.

Which of course raises the issue "Who?" Who is stupid enough to push this godawful hateful shameless little man into a best-selling author, thus neatly overriding countless hours teachers across America have spent trying to instill in young minds good grammar, good syntax and a metaphorical prose somewhere north of a barroom tale?

Presumably, someone who hates America. Presumably, it was Glenn Beck himself, a man not known for, um, modest displays of temperment or emotion. The man cries often enough, we would have called him a sissy and made him wear a dress back in my old neighborhood.

However, even Beck could not possibly have that much money that he could afford to buy his own book (even if authors usually pay a remaindered price on copies they order). So we must search other, wealthier and more American-hating sources.

Rupert Murdoch springs to mind. His America-destroying agenda has been well-documented, as his Fox network competes with his Fox News network and various News Corp. in a race to the bottom, dragging millions of sheeple along with him. Why does Murdoch hate America so?

Any other ideas? List them in comments.