Cheap Blogging Crutch 03.12

Waterboarding for dummies
We all know that waterboarding was like a gentle dunk into a lavender and lemon scented bath. Not only that, but Guantanamo is literally like a day spa. But some people, like those who read internal documents outlining our nation's waterboarding practices, want to claim that the procedure was brutal, involved the special design of torture tools, and a liquid diet so that the detainees would not choke to death on their own vomit and lose consciousness. They also devised the use of a special saline solution to drown people with, because the volume of water being forced down the brown people's throats was so great that they were in danger of ultra-rare hyponatremia. You know, frat house prank stuff. Stick out that chest with pride America, it was all done in your name to little discernible benefit.

Nebraska Prenatal Bill Stirs Fight Over Immigration
The typical sarcastic jibe towards pro-lifers is that "life begins at conception and ends at birth", noting how many right wing "life" advocates try to fuck those kids medically, socially, economically, and politically the second they are born. But in Nebraska we're seeing another new strain of pro-life advocacy: the fetus is a life... unless it's a Mexican one, then who gives a fuck? It's part of the Nebraska legislatures new attempt to deny prenatal care to poor, pregnant immigrants. Seriously. I guess it's biblically valid, Jesus weren't no Mexicano.

Did Focus On The Family Board Force Dobson Out?
James Dobson has been pushed aside by Focus on the Family. He founded the organization in 1977 as a vehicle to explain to Americans how gays were causing earthquakes and tornadoes, and has now been removed from the chairmanship of the group and forced to give up his radio show. The reason is presumably that the board doesn't want their organization to bee seen as hatefully crazy and that some have even broached the idea that people who don't vote Republican might be legitimate humans. So they're attempting to modernize and court Democrats. Yeah, I just shuddered at that last sentence too. Anyway, they point is that James Dobson is out of work. So if you happen to have some gays in your neighborhood that need shouted at or some sluts that need shamed... you could do worse. Give him a call.

Church Abuse Scandals 'Creeping Ever Closer' To The Pope
For those of you who like watching the Catholic Church collapse under the wight of it's own crimes, cover-ups, and inability to actually follow the teachings of that beard guy with the holes in his hands, you might want to take note at the recent goings on at the Vatican with Pope Versace I. Yes yes, gay prostitution scandal, but must you focus on the tawdry? There's an actual physical abuse scandal... that involves the Pope's brother. Okay, there's allegations of sexual abuse too, but the man has already admitted the physical abuse charges. At least they're branching out, keeping things fresh.

Health Care Close After Democrats, White House Meet
Are you ready to get your hopes up one last time? It seems that House Democrats, Senate Democrats, and the White House are thiiiiiiis close to hashing out a compromise to get the fuck over themselves and pass a goddamned health care reform bill. Again. You'll note that this is totally different from the last time they all announced they were thiiiis close to hashing out a compromise and that they were going to move on health care soon. And it'll probably lead to another situation where they announced that they have moved even closer to hashing out a compromise to pass a reform bill. If only they had the same conviction for voting on a health care bill as they had for announcing that they were close to voting on a bill, well, we'd have a bill passed. But don't worry, they're getting to it. They promise. Just a few more months. They're close.

The outrage!

That Obama. He's denying coverage to veterans out of pure spite while he laughingly funds abortions and the forced euthanasia of ugly toddlers. Oh this horrible future of government care. Bureaucrats denying people their surgeries. Who ever heard of such a thing? Now the government won't even shame loose moraled women and the kids doing the dancing to the rock & roll music? This is not the America so many veterans fought for. Let this old man get his sex change!

We can avoid this plague of veterans being laughed at, bitter breakfast table conversations with Grampa, fundamentalists not being given dominion over every uterus, and mandatory abortions for everyone who owns a bible: we can join with James Dobson and Family Research Council. Would they lie to you? Yes, but only if Jesus told them it was in the best interest of God. Which, funnily enough, it always is.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.29

Strong Words From Iran’s Opposition
Look out now, Mousavi and the Iranian opposition are speaking out "more strongly than ever" on the issue of religious thugs hijacking their country and election. This was met with what insiders describe as the Supreme Leader laughing "more harder than ever." This will eventually end with Mousavi being fitted with new & improved shackles that are "more stronger than ever." With the end of the 40 day mourning period for Neda, it looks like this whole thing might kick up again. The American media might even deign to cover it. Unless someone important like Donnie Osmond or MC Hammer dies that is.

Paul Stanley, Tennessee State Senator, Quits After Affair With 22-Year-Old Intern
Release the balloons and streamers from the rafters. This marks the 1000th time a gay bashing, holly rolling, no gay adoptions, moralizing crusader for marriage got caught fucking a staffer. He's going to go "focus on his family", which will no doubt involve many awkward silences and his wife's white hot anger of a thousand suns being focused at the most slittable part of his throat. These Bastards gives Mr. Stanley our thanks. In his honor I will be sending him a commemorative cookie cake in the shape of a man nailing someone who isn't his wife and Sean will stifle his own laughter while perusing the donation page on James Dobson's "Focus on the Family" website.

In a Savings Shocker, the Government Discovers That Paper Has Two Sides
Apparently the government, in a scramble to save money without cutting anything important, has found out that if you print stuff on both sides of paper, don't unnecessarily repaint vehicles, delete unused e-mail accounts, and pack soldiers like sardines into transport planes, you can save a buck or two. The Justice Department didn't know you could print copies on both sides of the paper. To be fair the JD did already save us tons of money by not prosecuting the previous administration for torture, wiretapping, or any other Constitutional violations, so maybe they should be allowed to print on one side of the paper.

Stormy Daniels' Political Advisor May Have Been Hit By Car Bomb: Reports
I think this Louisiana Senate race just got interesting. Not only is moralizing hooker banger running for re-election and being challenged by a famous porn star, that porn star's political adviser just survived a car bombing. Take note Chris Matthews, that's political hardball. Still though, car bombing the political adviser to a porn star? Somebody needs to give Dick Cheney something more productive to do with his free time.

A Rorschach Cheat Sheet on Wikipedia?
A helpful hint to all you TB crazies out there: Wikipedia has the answers to the Rorschach test. So when you're going through your next psych evaluation at your job or trying to throw the FBI off your trail of hobo murdering destruction, you'll know to answer "a pony" on the first card, instead of "the founding fathers laughing at my penis" or "the neighborhood dog, ordering me to kill again."

L.A. City Council considers providing loan for Cirque du Soleil performances
Sure, the promise of money has replaced real money in California and Governor Conan is just hacking things out of the budget, but doesn't the state need to get serious and start thinking about the economic stimulus benefits of bailing out an ultra-gay troupe of French-Canadian acrobats? I thought so.

Good and evil do battle at the Miss USA pageant

Lost again, asshole. Maybe your brand of deviancy is more suited for the Miss America pageant.

Get fucked Satan. Your attempts to infiltrate our shallow beauty contests by tempting the recently breast implanted, nude modeling children of God with questions about gay rights have been thwarted. Go tell Chief Justice Perez Hilton that his service for your evil cause failed. Miss California (for now) won her battle with the forces of evil.

Dobson: Why did you give the answer you did with regard to the affirmation of marriage?

Prejean: . . . I felt as though Satan was trying to tempt me in asking me this question. And then God was in my head and in my heart saying, "Do not compromise this. You need to stand up for me and you need to share with all these people . . . you need to witness to them and you need to show that you're not willing to compromise that for this title of Miss USA."

And I knew right here that it wasn't about winning. It was about being true to my convictions.

Aww, now where are these people going to get paid to hate?

Sad news everyone. Focus on the Family, America's favorite Dobson related religious bigot breeding ground, is going to have to lay off 20% of it's workforce. I know, it's emotional. Apparently exploiting Christian beliefs for the enrichment and power of James Dobson isn't a lucrative market now with the Democrats in charge. What's even more shocking is that while they don't have the money to pay 20% of their employees, they certainly did have the money to rail against Prop 8 in California. Not Mormon sized money, but money nonetheless.

In all, Focus pumped $539,000 in cash and another $83,000 worth of non-monetary support into the measure to overturn a California Supreme Court ruling that allowed gays and lesbians to marry in that state. The group was the seventh-largest donor to the effort in the country. In addition Elsa Prince, the auto parts heiress and longtime funder of conservative social causes who sits on the Focus on the Family board, contributed another $450,000 to Prop. 8.

Here's some of what they did

Helped found (in 2003) the organization that led this campaign;
Paid for early polling to determine the best ballot language and strategy;
Assisted with a major fundraising event for the campaign;
Encouraged pastors to get involved (which they did in remarkable ways);
Aired broadcasts urging financial and prayer support from around the country; and
Provided major coverage of the campaign via radio, Internet, mail and Focus magazines

I can't tell, does this fall into the minor reaping what you sow or getting just desserts categories? Here's hoping God curses you with more layoffs, you deserve it.

These Bastards guide to Barrypalooza: Finale

Last night Bill Clinton spoke. I was shocked to hear he don't think much of John McCain, George Bush or his plans for America. So was the media, it seems. Apparently because Clinton was so mad his wife lost he might have gone up and not done what he was supposed to do and mumbled his way through a half-hearted speech. Not quite sure that deserved 5 hours of pre-speech runup speculation, but that's what you got. Then he came out, flashed the old Bubba charm, was booked and arrested for indecent exposure, then was allowed to come back out on the condition he wouldn't flash it again. Old ladies in the front row you see. He gave his speech and the media declared "Everything fixed again" and were now convinced that Bill Clinton and Obama are BFF and they're totally going to go on the road together, and go camping together, and tell spooky stories by the campfire.

John Kerry came back to give a speech and showed he had caught a terminal case of Al Gore disease. You know the one. The disease which makes you give speeches and demonstrate a personality that if it was shown for any length of time during the period in which they were the Democratic nominee for President, they would have won easy.

Then Joe Biden strode to the stage a mix of sound, fury, and minor speech flubs. He gave his rendition of "John McCain is an inept buffoon" in B# and really wailed on the "poor foreign policy choices" solo section.

Tonight, they're letting some Muslim guy speak. That could backfire. Also, they have moved to Mile High Stadium in an attempt to capture the magic of the Jay Cutler led Broncos. Expect whatever backdrop Obama speaks in front to be a sign of his celebrity arrogance. Dobson will flog his rain boner to the bleeding point, we'll see if it works. The Theme: Change You Can Believe In/Vote for this black guy/Hasn't the last 8 years sucked hard enough?

Pledge of Allegiance
Shawn Johnson
Michael Phelps and Nastia Liukin were busy and Usain Bolt is Jamaican. So Obama got America's favorite gold medal jailbait. What hasn't been released to the media is that she will deliver the pledge while trying to perform a complicated routine on the balance beam. If she fails to hit the twisting and flipping dismount "Liberty and Justice" is officially changed from 'for all' to 'some'. No pressure Shawn.

Remarks
Honorable Bill Ritter, Jr., Governor of Colorado
Yes, yes the convention was held in your state. For that he gets to moan on and on about mountains, skiing, secret bigfoots, and voting democratic. I doubt even the people of the state know who you are and your presence will only infuriate the people eating their stadium nachos and trying to flag the beer man while you drone on and on about about how you wrote all the good episodes of South Park. Keep it short.

Remarks
The Honorable Tim Kaine, Governor of Virginia
He'll try to appear to be totally cool with being passed over for Joe Biden, but you'll see the cracks start to form at about the 2:30 mark of his speech. One too many bearded college types and old black ladies welling up with pride will wave around those "Obama/Biden" signs before he just loses it and screams out "I could have given you Virginia! Why hast thou forsaken me?" before his complete emotional breakdown. Mark Warner will try to console him, but there's nothing he'll be able to do. Kaine's a shell of a man now. A shell. Virginia....is for lovers.

Remarks
The Honorable Al Gore
His power point slide presentation on why you should vote for Barack Obama is a thing of beauty. The shots of a melting, cracked, and breaking up John McCain really underscore the risks we run as a country by not addressing this crisis. There's also some fanwank about polar bears and lack of ice. Bonus: You get yo listen to your Republican friend snark about the 'Goreacle'. Why do you let him watch these things? Didn't you learn anything on night one?

Live Performance
Michael McDonald
Just wanted to put that out there. They've got will.i.am, John Legend, Sheryl Crow, Stevie Wonder, and something called the Yonder Mountain String Band Performance. McDonald is the guy they picked to go on last, to the delight of Paul Rudd. I wonder if he's going to sing "Ain't No Mountain High Enough"? I wish I could bet on obvious shit like that. There's no way he plays "Yah Mo B There".

Video/Remarks
SENATOR BARACK OBAMA