Return of the Cheap Blogging Crutch - 8.16.10

Right? Right?

Slate's William Saletan dismantles the flimsy arguments against the Ground Zero Mosque Lower Manhattan Islamic Cultural Center with unsurprising ease. What I fail to understand is why nobody is protesting the destruction of the hallowed vacant Burlington Coat Factory.

Speaking of Islam's nefarious attempt to destroy the American way of life and replace it with devil worship, Fordson High School's predominantly Muslim football team is accommodating duties both to team and faith by practicing from 11 PM to 4 AM during Ramadan.

Nick Newcomen, an Objectivist with waaaaay too much time on his hands, drove over 12,000 miles in an effort to write out, in GPS, the largest literature review of all time. I guess it was shorter than writing "I AM A SMUG, SELFISH ASSHOLE."

And finally, after this light snack, I give you a refresher course on some truly impressive shit from fifty years back.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.29

WWII... exactly as it happened.

When you look at the financial crisis, the BP oil spill, and various problems over the last decade, is the problem you see one of too much government regulations? If so, get checked for a concussion or some other form of massive brain bleeding. On the other hand, you'll be really receptive to the GOP platform. John Boehner is proposing what he calls the REINS Act (Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny), which effectively subjects every regulatory action that costs over $100 million to Senate filibuster. I mean a Senate vote. Which effectively means any decent regulatory structure will be tied up in an unending morass of Senatorial hubris. But on the bright side, allowing industry to run unchecked hasn't resulted in a major catastrophe in the last week. That's got to be some sort of a record. Good luck, GOP.

I'm going to have to get up off the fainting couch, but I'm fairly sure our government actually made a semi-progressive and intelligent step forward in the farcical War on Drugs. Finally noting and changing the sentencing disparity between crack and powdered cocaine and realizing how that affected sentencing disparities between blacks and whites, poor and rich. It must have been purely accidental on the part of lawmakers and I'm sure they'll get around to correcting it once someone explains to them what they did. Now, if we can just get them to accidentally make progress on marijuana laws and the entirety of the War on Drugs....

So our appointed better, the Pay Czar, has taken a look at the wanton cash grabbing and money fights our corporate masters have been getting into and has deemed their pay practices lacking. So let's see, he finds that 17 financial firms that have been bailed out are also engaging in pay practices that are "ill-advised" and "exhibited bad judgment". So what's he going to do? Nothing, of course. Theorizing that going after such money would have been contrary to the public interest. Of course. So... all you're telling us is big financial giants are fucking around and getting rich off our dime? We already knew that! The point of a Pay Czar was to find out to what extent and do something about it. Oh sorry, he offered up some voluntary guidelines that they may or may not choose to follow. My bad. Everything's fixed now. Sorry to sound like I was complaining.

In the fight over immigration, many have been appalled at some of the tactics that states like Arizona have taken and the lengths to which supporters of Arizona's laws have gone to justify them. But that's before we learned one important fact: the Bible is for busting in the heads of Mexican interlopers. Yea and the Lord said unto Zedekiah "Them fucking' Mexicans are taking our jobs. Roust them the fuck out of here." It's in Paul's Letters to the Thessalonian John Birch Society. Sure, but what does God think about excessive government regulation?

In This is Kind of Interesting News, Chicago Mag has a story by Myra Daniels on her husband, sixties ad man Draper Daniels, the inspiration for Mad Men's Don Draper. While it does provide a good look into how the ad business worked back then, there's no word if Daniel's life and emotional state oddly synced up with the prevailing political and historical changes of the time. I'd like to read about the proto-Sterling, but that man probably drank himself to death in the fifties.

The sham that is Glenn Beck and those phony buy Gold/"Gold coins are the only way to protect yourself from the black President's inflation" companies... in graphic form. This is why I store my money under my mattress. Or I would if I had any money. Or a mattress.

For the child at heart: photoshops of the Pope in a hat.

Educate yourself

With the combination of a poor economy/job market and the recent will crushing heat, we all know that we need to better ourselves in a way that doesn't make us come into direct contact with the outside world, what with the whole bursting into flames the second your skin hits sunlight thing. So thoughts of course turn to degrees and education and improving your skill set. But what if you lack the rigorous and stellar academic record needed to gain entrance into prestigious Phoenix University? What if your personal tastes in the field of human sexuality has had the man "advise" you to take up other interests online or face a minimum prison term of 5-10 years? What if you are a gullible sort who likes wasting money? What then?

Then you have Glenn Beck to thank. Because he's opening Glenn Beck University... for you.

This July, while others are relaxing poolside, head back to the classroom - from the comfort of your own home. That may sound like an oxymoron but Glenn’s new academic program is only available online.

Offered exclusively to Insider Extreme subscribers, Beck University is a unique academic experience bringing together experts in the fields of religion, American history and economics. Through captivating lectures and interactive online discussions, these experts will explore the concepts of Faith, Hope and Charity and show you how they influence America’s past, her present and most importantly her future.

So don’t miss out on this amazing experience. Enroll in Beck University today

For a mere $10 bucks a month ($75 a year, which is a savings of $45 dollars over the monthly rate) you can learn about American history and American Future combines with heaping doses of the Bible, by a man who seemingly understands none of these concepts. But at least he'll finally have a legitimate excuse for that chalkboard. Oh, and his "Advance Crying Techniques" class will really be a study with the master, as will his "Recognizing the Investment Value of Gold, sponsored by Goldline" class. So join now, otherwise you'll miss out on "Faith 101," "Hope 101," and "Charity 101", which are literally the titles of the classes.

I mean this totally sounds like a legitimate thing and not yet another effort for Glenn to bilk his supporters with some sub-Nigerian e-mail scheme "education" malarkey. He has a crest and everything! It has George Washington on it and a buffalo and some Latin. "Tyrannis Seditio, Obsequium Deo," -> "Revolution against tyrants, submission to God." I bet that totally isn't also the pseudo-intellectual Latin motto of at least 30 or more rural militias.

Anything else I should know?

Beck University will be online-only and courses are not for credit.

I'm sure this has NOTHING to do with the fact that no accredited institution of higher learning would even think about recognizing the curriculum. BAH! I know where I want my masters degree in Faith 101 to come from and I ain't gonna let no gubmint tell me if it's valid or not! Higher education is a liberal plot lorded over by snooty progressive professors in ivory towers!

So if you've got a couple spare bucks and need a good laugh, you could do worse than Glen Beck University. Plus, it's got to be most people's safety school in case they don't get into the Glenn Beck Institute of Technology. It's much more reputable than Beck State is at any event. Everyone knows that's just a party school.

Stay classy, Stevesy

Glenn Beck's 9/12 Project hasn't gone away. You know, that thing where we're all supposed to return to the mindset we had the day after 9/11: panicked, fearful, and willing to sacrifice virgins into volcanoes and gut our Constitution in order to feel a tiny bit safer. But apparently they've moved on from being a vague movement about feelings to teaming up with tea partiers to show their support for Arizona's "Walknig while Latino" law.

People inspired by the words of Glenn Beck and tea baggers joining forces to bag of Mexicans? I wonder who they would get to speak at that event? Turns out the answer is terminally retarded blowhard Rep Steve King (R-IA). What did he have to say? First he made the Jong-il like boast that he alone possessed fence technology to stop Santa Anna's new invasion.

King told the gathering of over 100 people that he could build a border wall that would ensure “not [even] a cockroach” could get across.

I think we know what "cockroaches" he's talkin' about. La cucarachas! HAW HAW HAW!

Any other bright ideas?

King said that under only one circumstance does he support amnesty for illegal immigrants: “Every time we give amnesty for an illegal alien, we deport a liberal.”

HAW HAW HAW! Then them liberals can go to their beloved Mexico which they love so much they are letting it assault our freedoms and pick the blossoming fruit of liberty for sub-minimum wages.

Of course after dropping those two Oscar Wilde-esque bon mots from in front of a Truck Nuts billboard, it was of course time for questions from the audience. Which means he was asked about some conspiracy theory. I wonder how he handled this?

QUESTION: I keep reading that Obama keeps bringing small quantities of Muslims into this country. Why can’t Congress stop that?

KING: You know, I don’t know what the basis is of that. I wouldn’t be surprised that that is the real factual basis. ... I appreciate you making the point. I will try to watch it.

Yup, President Hussein Obama X, the Last Imam hisself, is personally smuggling Muslims into this country. Probably on Air Force One, Sea Force One, or Hot Air Balloon Force One. Small quantities.. cells if you will... setting them up across the country... preparing them for the day after the UN black helicopters steal everyone's guns... then: The United Islamic Caliphate of America. OH I KNEW IT WAS COMING!

Most people would respond to an accusation that the PResident was smuggling Muslims into the country with a nicely placed "Shut the fuck up you crazy and don't get your deluded insanity secretions on me... I hear that's how you spread it" before casually flipping off the audience. Not Steve "Iowa's Pride" King. No, he does his best to confirm that's what he's heard as well and then thanks the person for bringing it to his attention and assures them he'll keep an eye on it. That's how turn crazy into votes.... a probably some future Ruby Ridge style FBI standoff.

Way to keep it classy, Steve. I eagerly await your House Special Committee on The President Who Done What Smuggled All Them Moozlams Into Our Fine Country.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.15

Star Wars political cartoons... is that something you might be interested in?

How little have our elected betters learned from our horrific financial apocalypse? Almost nothing. The latest example is the Herculean struggle Al Franken is currently going through to get the Senate to maybe consider the fact that the financial sector getting to choose the agency which rates its products creates rather a large conflict of interest. On the side of randomizing the selection process: people who are smart. On the side of keeping things as is and trusting our financial betters won't game a shoddy system: a probable filibuster proof majority of Senators. Remember to put on your surprised faces when our next financial collapse comes.

Comically oil executives took to the Hill today to explain all the ways in which they were not like BP in their offshore drilling practices. The main differences? Uhhh.... they aren't named BP and none of them has a drilling rig named Deepwater Horizon. One candid moment was when the executives basically admitted they had no way to handle massive offshore spills. Oh really? I think we've noticed that lo these past two months.

People have started to call bullshit and nakedly manipulative bullshit on the timing and PR strategy behind the whole "Afghanistan has trillions in resources! We'll all be rich... RICH!!" story from yesterday. C'mon. How are we supposed to feel good about this war or as if we're getting something out of it if they don't trump up old shit the Soviets were trumping up in 1985... when they we in the midst of an unproductive slog in Afghanistan? Just keep telling yourself "Just a few more years of fighting... then we'll all be rich."

Were you wondering who was cheering for North Korea today during their 2-1 defeat at the hands of Brazil? It certainly wasn't any North Koreans. No, the Chinese government flew in supporters specifically for the purpose of cheering for Kim Jong-Il's future waterslide park invitees/torture victims (depending on how the tournament goes). Commies stick together. Maybe China can fly in some soccer supporters to the US after our team invariably is eliminated before the semis and we lose interest in the sport for another 4 years.

Media Matters has gone to the trouble of picking out choice excerpts from Glenn Beck's new fiction thriller/Randian teabagging circle jerk... The Overton Window. Amongst the gems; "rule number one is, don't tease the panther", various meandering/awful sections of prose, bizarre asides about the flat tax and Bill Clinton, examples where Glenn doesn't seem to remember things his own characters have done, and a Star Wars reference so hackneyed it would make Kevin Smith cringe. Essentially it's a less funny version of his "serious" non-fiction books. Anyway, it doesn't compare to the liberal writing brilliance of Who Blog In Darkness.

In closing, your daily "Oh shit, we're fucked" oil flow estimate is 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day. Up from the 20,000 to 40,000 from last week. It doesn't really matter; at this point it's like having third degree burns over 100% of your body and complaining about the sniffles.

Guh?

Hey, sorry I've been away. I parked my 1993 Nissan Pathfinder in Times Square and it seems to have gone missing. Been looking for it the past few days. Anyone seen it?

Oh.... Whoops.

Anyway, with all that behind us and a terrorist attack averted, now comes the most important part of any post-attack period: attacking the President for purely political reasons over a perceived lack of manliness and commitment to making America feel it's enemies have been sufficiently brutalized in the name of freedom. Obama's crime this time? He read the suspect his Miranda rights again and the suspect started freely giving up information again. When will he learn? That stuff might work in the real world, but in the fantasies of the right wing politicians of our country it doesn't and we would be better served by waterboarding these people 10 or 170 times. So let's listen to them bitch about it.

In a steady stream of indictments, top-ranking officials in the GOP said it didn't matter that the Obama Department of Justice was getting information from Faisal Shahzad, the now-detained the Pakistani-born American. The fact that the administration chose to read Miranda rights to the suspect shows a national security policy steeped in naivety and potentially dangerous.

"That is a stroke of good luck," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said of the news that Shahzad was cooperating even after getting his Miranda rights read to him. "What if he had not waived them and just quit talking, said 'I want my lawyer'?"

"Maybe we got lucky and [Shahzad] said I will go ahead and talk to you anyway," said Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). "But you didn't know that when you read [him] the rights. So I stand by what I said -- it is better in these kinds of cases to get the intelligence first and then, if you decide you want to proceed with an Article 3 prosecution, then read the Miranda rights."

Peter King and John McCain joined the din shrieking against Mirandizing and having a terrorism policy that made sense, but had to be rebuked by Glenn Beck.

"He is a citizen of the United States, so I say we uphold the laws and the Constitution on citizens… If you are a citizen, you obey the law and follow the Constitution. He has all the rights under the Constitution… We don't shred the Constitution when it is popular. We do the right thing."

Yes, that Glenn Beck.

Dizzy. World spinning. Must... find couch... to... faint on. What kind of world do we live in where Glenn Beck is making sense on terrorism policies and actions taken by the Obama Administration? Wasn't it more likely that Obama would grow a Lenin style goatee, unleash robot death panels, goose step down Pennsylvania Avenue with his Obama Youth squads, and turn into the fascist parody Beck had been painting him as, rather than Beck deciding to make actual sense on terrorism and the Constitution?

This is too much for my brain to process. I heroically overcome a bout of SuperAIDS and have to deal with this mindfuck? Still, score one for Beck doubling his meds and joining the fight to see our counter-intel and interrogation strategies get based on strategies that work instead of something you half remember as being completely awesome when Jack Bauer did them in Season 3 of 24 and would assuredly result in the man not getting convicted. Some other Fox commentator will have to worry about the stiffness of America's war boner, Glenn Beck is dabbling in rationality today. I'm sure we'll have to rescind this literally seconds from now, but... good job... Glenn Beck.

/tepidly golf claps
//belts scotch from a flask

Broken News: Massive Cleanup Underway at Wind Farm

The horror, the horror...

TAYLOR COUNTY, TX--Recovery crews raced to the scene of potentially the largest environmental disaster in United States history, as an accident at America's largest wind farm has begun spewing thousands of cubic meters of air into the air.

The incident occurred at approximately 4:00 am local time yesterday at the Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center in central Texas. With 421 wind turbines and an estimated capacity of 735 megawatts, Horse Hollow is by far the largest such installation in the United States.

State officials were quick to call for federal aid. Texas governor Rick Perry convened an emergency press conference and described the wind farm spill as, "the most troubling man-made disaster to beset the Lone Star State since we got rid of all the Mexicans."

President Obama immediately dispatched teams from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the EPA to the site of the accident. While NOAA scientists have only just begun their analysis, initial testing suggests the foul gaseous mixture spilling into the atmosphere consists of approximately 78% Nitrogen and 20% Oxygen, with trace amounts of Argon, Carbon Dioxide, Neon, Helium, and Hydrogen.

"While we do not yet know the totality of the threat posed by this unfortunate accident, we are taking every step to ensure speedy identification of the substance so that proper countermeasures can be initiated," said NOAA spokesperson Elizabeth McDonald.

Early estimates have tracking an enormous amount of air spilling into roughly 60% of the Lone Star State, with dramatic gale-force squalls rolling into Oklahoma's notoriously un-wind-swept plains. Some analysts have predicted that soon the air leaking out from this environmental calamity will cover most of the Midwest. However, states as far north as Maine are already reporting trace gusts of air in the air.

Pundits were quick to pounce on the incident as proof of the dangers of alternative energy.

"This is just the latest failure of this administration's radical liberal environmentalist agenda. How much longer are we, as Americans, going to permit these immense radical international renewable energy conglomerates to defile our great country? This, my friends, is Obama's Katrina," said prominent conservative figure and noted animal lover, Glenn Beck, on his nationally syndicated radio show.

"Not that the previous administration did anything wrong during Katrina," Beck added. "Those people should have known better than to rely on the federal government."

Damage to flora and fauna has been minimal thus far, resulting in only a few toppled trees and uprooted shrubs, airborne prairie dogs, and several species of bird which had their feathers comically poofed out by the prevailing winds. Early reports of a nun careening through the skies remain unverified.

For its part, NextEra Energy Resources, which operates the Horse Hollow installation, has promised to pay the clean-up costs associated with this massive operation.

Rupert Evanston, the CEO of NextEra, announced at a hastily assembled press conference that his company will be heavily involved in the cleanup effort.

"It is indeed our responsibility to deal with this, and we are dealing with it," said Evans, yelling over the howling gusts. "We will absolutely be paying for the cleanup operation. There is no doubt about that. It's our responsibility -- we accept it fully."

Already NextEra has begun passing out large mason jars and balloons to collect all the extra air being spewed into the atmosphere, as well as free windbreakers to those victims nearest to the spill.

President Obama is expected to travel to Texas later this week to observe the damage personally. Additionally, he has ordered thorough inspections of all domestic hydropower and solar plants in order to prevent a similar incident that might release water into the mixture of oil and water we now call water, or light into the light.

Glenny wrote a book

I just wanted to post up the plot of the newest Glenn Beck novel he/an unpaid intern wrote. It's a harrowing thriller called the Overton Window and it's probably the funniest thing you'll read all day.

There is a powerful technique called the Overton Window that can shape our lives, our laws and our future. It works by manipulating public perception so that ideas previously thought of as radical begin to seem acceptable over time. Move the Window and you change the debate. Change the debate and you change the country.

For Noah Gardner, a twenty something public relations executive, it's safe to say that political theory is the furthest thing from his mind. Smart, single, handsome and insulated from the world's problems by the wealth and power of his father, Noah is far more concerned about the future of his social life than the future of his country.

But all of that changes when Noah meets Molly Ross, a woman who is consumed by the knowledge that the America we know is about to be lost forever. She and her group of patriots have vowed to remember the past and fight for the future—but Noah, convinced they're just a bunch of freaky conspiracy-theorists, isn't interested in lending his considerable skills to their cause.

And then the world changes.

An unprecedented attack on U.S. soil shakes the country to the core and puts into motion a frightening plan, decades in the making, to transform America and demonize all those who stand in the way. Amidst the chaos, many don't know the difference between conspiracy theory and conspiracy fact—or, more importantly, which side to fight for.

But for Noah, the choice is clear: Exposing the plan, and revealing the conspirators behind it, is the only way to save both the woman he loves and the individual freedoms he once took for granted.

After five back-to-back #1 New York Times bestsellers, national radio and Fox News television host Glenn Beck has delivered a ripped-from-the-headlines thriller that seamlessly weaves together American history, frightening facts about our present condition, and a heart-stopping plot. The Overton Window.

Christ, it's like the fantasy world that every one of his hardcore viewers likes to believe they're living in when they watch his show. I will say this about the Glennster: he knows how to suck every dime out of his audience by playing to their fears and paranoid fantasies.

In happier Glenn Beck news, the audience for the Overton Window is going to be smaller than it was, oh, say, a few months ago. Why? His show has lost 1/3 of its viewers since January. Glorious. But in this moment of joy all I can think of is the poor aardvarks he's taking this out on in a weeping rage. Those poor creatures.

/tips a bit of O.E. on the ground

To the aardvarks.

And Boehner wept

We all know the health reform bill, now made horrible, horrible law, is completely racist. Why? Uhh... because. I don't know, Glenn Beck and Rush kept saying it was ushering in a new form of slavery or something. I don't have to explain it, I think we can all see how cheaper health care that is more accessible and available is exactly like owning humans as property and making them toil in your fields. It's valid.

But they were only hinting at the racist depths that this bill sunk to. Not only is it morally and ethically the same as slavery, but it discriminates against white people who have taken the time and effort to change their racial make-up from lily white to a sort of orange-bronze. Let Glenn Beck's understudy, Doc Thompson, enlighten you.

For years I’ve suggested that racism was in decline and yeah, there are some, you know, incidents that still happen with regards to racism, but most of the claims I’ve said for years, well, they’re not really real. But I realize now that I was wrong. For I now too feel the pain of racism. Racism has been dropped at my front door and the front door of all lighter-skinned Americans. The health care bill the president just singed into law includes a 10 percent tax on all indoor tanning sessions starting July 1st, and I say, who uses tanning? Is it dark-skinned people? I don’t think so. I would guess that most tanning sessions are from light-skinned Americans. Why would the President of the United Stats of America — a man who says he understands racism, a man who has been confronted with racism — why would he sign such a racist law? Why would he agree to do that? Well now I feel the pain of racism.

Somehow this is worse than police setting dogs and the firehoses on civil rights protesters. Where is the Martin Luther King of the tanners?

First they came for the tanning bed users, but I did not speak up because I was not one of them. Then they came for the spray on tanners and again I did not speak for I was not one of them. Then they came for the tanning cream users and I was taken away because there was no one left to speak for me.

Sure, some will say that this is a preventative health measure meant to reduce rates of skin cancer, but those people are just anti-tannists. It's a full fledged racial assault and proof positive that now only white people are the victims of racism. Squirt a dollop of Coppertone on the ground for our fallen comrades and know that this injustice will not stand. My God, they could be coming for the bikini waxers next. Stay vigilant, this racist health care bill will not stand.

How things are going to be

Like most regular Freedomericans I too wonder what my future is under the yoke of Obamacare, plowing the fields of socialism. What will this bill mean for me, the most important of all Americans: the lowly read dick joke blogger. Some would say I look at this Washington Post health care calculator to have it specifically tell me what it means for me. Others would offer up Speaker Pelosi's page where the bill, summaries of the bill, bullet points of the bill and all sorts of other information about the bill is listed. Maybe some would say I should look at Ezra Klein's series on explaining the health care reform, or the Kaiser Family Foundation's health reform page, maybe you could look through the health care section of the Wonk Room, take a gander around the Center For American Progress, or maybe you should just avail myself of Google... provided you're outside China.

Those people would be wrong. The people I need to listen to are right wing media pundits. They're going to tell me exactly what it's going to be like now that this reform has become law.

Beck added: "You must -- must get on the phone in your districts. You must wake everybody up you know. This is the end of prosperity in America forever if this bill passes. This is the end of America as you know it."

Beck "warn[ed]" that if the bill "passes, the country is in real dire trouble." He went on to say: "The pieces that the president needs to control every aspect of your life, to fundamentally transform America, will be finished. He'll have them all,"

Limbaugh stated: "It is a government takeover of health care and granny is gonna die. Granny always dies at some point -- we all do. It's gonna be hastened under this bill."

Fox News contributor Dick Morris said what Obama "has in mind is curbing medical care to the elderly," and that he's "going to set up a panel" to determine treatment. Morris said he's "100 percent positive" this will happen.

Fox Business: "Does Obamacare mean millions more jobs destroyed?"

Cramer: "Obamacare will topple the stock market."

Limbaugh: Democrats will regulate "every aspect of our lives."

Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas said on Fox News: "The president says they're not going to pull the plug on granny. No, but they will deny her care because she's costing too much and she's too old."

Radio host Jim Quinn said that "Bolshevik Barbie and our marginally documented president" want "the power to control your body and your life. Quinn added: "Giving the government that power is allowing the government to commit a violent assault on your body -- a violent assault on your most precious possession, which is your life."

Quinn predicted that "if they pass this thing, you are going to see insurrection. You're going to see an uprising. People are just not going to take this.This is about establishing from now on and forever a socialist state in America, ripping the Constitution to shreds which progressives have hated for over 100 years.

Quinn: "If they pass health care ... that is the end of the republic."

Cal Thomas claimed health reform "is an outrage" and "a sham"; "[e]uthanasia is coming."

Limbaugh: "Human beings will die earlier than normal" under "freedom killing" and "life threatening" health-care reform.

Limbaugh said the "whole bill is about death" and "rationing." He continued: "It is the single greatest tool the government will have to regulate every aspect of behavior. This is a freedom killing, and it is going to end up being a life-threatening bill."

Chris Baker suggested that health reform will lead to overweight people going to jail or being put to death

Limbaugh: "Obamacare" will "smother the individual," "aimed at robbing you of your humanity," "all of us will be slaves."

Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.

I don't think I'm going to like this health reform thing at all. Christ, those last three guys were doctors. I don't want my protons reversing or my molecules exploding at the speed of light. THAT'S NOT THE CHANGE I SIGNED UP FOR BARRY!

Oh God, there's no hope. It's really the complete collapse of everything and everything, with slavery, human sacrifice, euthanasia, death panels, and some sort of temporal displacement where George Washington is erased from history. If only we knew beforehand. What have we wrought?

Revolution!

Health care has passed and conservative pundits aren't taking it well. Ok, they weren't exactly taking the run-up to health care reform passing well. Ok, they didn't exactly take the election of Barack Obama well. Ok, they didn't exactly take the eight years of the George W. Bush Presidency well. But on this, they're really not taking it well.

Of course the man taking it the least well is Glenn Beck. We all knew that one was coming. But even I'm a little surprised at how poorly our little aardvark loving aficionado is taking this. Right now he's huddled in a nuclear fallout shelter slamming GI Joes together, making "PEW PEW PEW" sounds with his mouth as he careens a jet fighter through the air, and is ranting about WAR and BATTLE and FIGHTING and THIS ISN'T OVER and YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE! So much so that Media Matters couldn't contain it in one post.

Beck: "The war is just beginning."
...
Beck suggests that progressives support "armed insurrection."
...
"Why would the president take up immigration right away, after he's just punched you in the face with health care?"
...
"You'd pick up a gun? Have you ever thought of that?" He then pointed to several pictures, including images of Obama and Pelosi, and stated: "These people have. Because possibly, maybe the question should be asked, maybe they're tired of evolution, and maybe they are waiting for revolution." Beck also said: "Haven't we just been spanked? Hasn't most of the country -- doesn't most of the country feel like they've been spanked over health care? You bet. I do, you do. A lot of people do."
...
"You can try to put the lid on this group of people, but you will never silence us. You will never -- you can shoot me in the head, you can shoot the next guy in the head, but there will be 10 others that line up."

Yes, we've all been spanked. Erotically spanked by health care. But enough of that, THIS IS WAR! REVOLUTION IS AT HAND! PICK UP A GUN! THEY'RE COMING TO KILL ME!

Yes, Obama has sent out hit squads to silence Glenn Beck. Even as we speak these elite SEAL teams are traipsing through the forests of Glenn's mind, unlatching the aardvark pen, busting through his windows, climbing up his pant leg with his grandma with a knife in their teeth, bursting out of his box of Golden Grahams, and hiding everywhere... waiting to get him. Don't you get it? Don't you see?



MOSES! JEWS! COMMANDMENTS! The second American revolution is at hand!

I feel for Glenn I really do. Ok, I don't. I hope this ends with him lighting himself on fire at Teabagstock '11. But, I guess I just didn't foresee how poorly he was going to take this "slightly cheaper/better health care for the peasants" thing. This has just been what he's been up to over the past few days. Who knows what chalkboard diagrams, battle movements, and calls for armed insurrection he's drawing up in his basement, tears staining the plans as he cries "I didn't want to have to do this to you America, I LOVE YOU!"?

Glenn, just breathe into a paper bag, stop making batches of hard tack, and cancel the fife and drum lessons. It'll be all right. Well, at least until Sebelius and the HHS release the nanites that read thoughts and kill based on the degree of right wing rhetoric rattling around your frontal cortex. Then you're fucked. But there's nothing you can do about it. It's nanotechnology. That's why Obama chose it to kill the elderly and everyone who has ever uttered a thought in opposition to him. Didn't you read this health bill? This is all useless gesturing. You're dead already. Use what time you have left.

Down with the union!

Look we all know that health care reform is many things. A nefarious conspiracy to murder the Greatest Generation, a liberal communist socialist plot to retroactively rape the founding fathers, Nazism, an affront to God, and the personification of all various forms of wars, atrocities, historical black marks, and the work of evil men.

In recent days we've been getting even more specific criticisms of what reform is like. Lindsay Graham mused that it was just like when the dirty japs got all liquored up on sake and made kamikaze runs on our warships. Glenn Beck disagreed. He feels that reform is like when the dirty japs bombed us at Pearl Harbor. In any event I think we know one thing: the passage of health care is a revenge plot from Emperor Hirohito, Japan sucks, and Sunday might just be the day that lives in infamy.

But Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia has other ideas. Health care reform is like the bloodiest conflict in US history... but in a bad way.

BROUN: If ObamaCare passes, that free insurance card that’s in people’s pockets is gonna be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the War Between The States — the Great War of Yankee Aggression.

OK, that wasn't so much a critique of health reform as it was a cheap way to get indignant about Lincoln. Free insurance card? What the hell is that? Plus, the reason Confederate money was so worthless is because they lost the Civil War. By the way, that's what we call it: the Civil War. Or, alternately, the Great War of Southern Treason. In any event, this marks an improvement in Broun's rhetoric as he previously was warning his constituents about how Obama had taken the necessary steps to declare martial law and rule as a dictator.

Maybe this is just part of a new "late 19th century Reconstruction-era racism" bent to health reform criticism. Many have taken up calling reform reparations for black people. Like Glenn Beck. Becuase if there's one thing worse than the descent into socialism, it's the idea that the descent into socialism will result in blacks getting stuff, which is against the founding principles of this country.

So let me reassure the Broun's, Beck's, and Limbaugh's of the world: even if health reform does pass whites will still have considerably more shit than black people. Regrettably though, the South will still have lost the Civil War. So there's a positive and negative flipside to that coin. Sorry, and might I add: THE UNION FOREVER!

Required viewing

As we sometime amateurishly attempt satire here on this blog it is also our duty to point out when the masters do it so effectively. Such was the case last night when Jon Stewart turned the Daily Show into a 15 minute parody of Glenn Beck, his paranoia, and the cancer of the liberalism that Jon finds himself afflicted with.

Angering God

Health reform is seemingly on it's way to passing. Nancy Pelosi has begun her brutal campaign of kidnapping on the fence Democrat's children, has begun breaking arms, has collected a gruesome menagerie of nude photos of our elected betters, and has singled out several pictures where Representatives kind look like they have boners while children sit on their laps. She's playing for keeps and wants this vote done by Sunday.

And in the last gasp of whining before they have to face the fact that Americans might be getting better health care, right wing commentators have moved off the "granny kill squad", "reconciliation and deem & pass are demonic tolls of the devil that have never been used before", and other such memes to latch onto one last pathetic criticism of Barack Obama's attempt to move US health care into the low thirties on WHO rankings: it'll make the baby Jesus sad. Of course Glenn Beck and Rep Steve "Revolution" King of Iowa were involved.

KING: They intend to vote on the Sabbath, during Lent, to take away the liberty that we have right from God. [...]

BECK: You couldn’t have said it better. Here is a group of people that have so perverted our faith and our hope and our charity, that is a — this is an affront to God. ... But I think it’s absolutely appropriate that these people are trying to put the nail in the coffin on our country on a Sunday — something our founders would have never, ever, ever done. Out of respect for God.

The triple threat. The health care bill will not only put the final nail in the coffin of America, but it is both an affront to God and a violation of the principles of the founding father. A Trinity of America hatred.

And you know how pissed God gets about these things. "My children, I know you were attempt to better the health and well being of My other children, but for the love of Me why did you do it on a Sunday? Unconscionable. It's right in the Ten Commandments! You're all being banished to hell and I'm using My veto power, as enumerated to me in the US Constitution, to strike this bill from all creation."

So take note, we've officially reached the "It'll make the baby Jesus cry" stage of health care opposition. It's the last sad stage before what I'm assuming are mass suicides scheduled for a few minutes after Democrats vote to destroy the country, Barry high fives everyone, they eat an ice cream cake shaped like Karl Marx, and Genn Beck immolates himself on the Capitol steps. Rest easy, this whole horrid shitshow is almost over. Except for the filing lawsuits part. By which I mean to say this will never end.

In Further FACE~! News...

Apparently Glenn Beck has finally gone far enough with this "Leave any church that discusses 'social or economic justice'" drivel to piss off Roger Ebert, of all people. How angry is world-class movie taste-maker and all-around good guy Mr. Ebert, you ask?

What Beck has demonstrated, in a singularly inelegant way, is an increasing tendency of the extreme right to automatically describe its opponents in negative buzz words. You would think that if it's possible to be a conservative it's also possible to be a liberal. Not so. In the Beckian theology, a conservative is merely a conservative. Liberals are socialists, community organizers, Marxists, traitors, communists, haters, Nazis, elitists and, in general, liars. Conservatives, on the other hand, are moderates, patriots, reasonable, pro-American, and stand for family values.

...and:

Another quote from Beck. The Communists and Nazis "talked about economic justice, rights of the workers, redistribution of wealth, and surprisingly, democracy." Why, that proves it! Those are the very same things Christians talk about. And Democrats. And liberals. And find me, please, one single genuine Republican who doesn't also talk about them. We can gather that Beck disagrees with all of them. Even -- given his maladroit syntax -- surprisingly, democracy.

...and, beautifully:

I am told repeatedly that Fox News is fair and balanced, that it has the largest share of the (actually rather small) cable news audience, and that it speaks for ordinary Americans. To the degree that this is true, Beck has left them all behind, watching his figure shrink on the far horizon of fanaticism. He has finally, definitively, said something that is completely Wrong from every viewpoint.

As much as I wonder at Ebert's decision to train his powers of humor and insight on someone with the intellectual maturity of of sixth grader, this makes for good reading. And now, more than ever, it's nice (though not surprising) to see Ebert staying sharp between the ears.

Full piece at Ebert's blog HERE.

Oh, Hugo...

(Reuters) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, who is criticized by media freedom groups, called on Saturday for regulation of the Internet and singled out a website that he said falsely reported the murder of one of his ministers.

"The Internet cannot be something open where anything is said and done. Every country has to apply its own rules and norms," Chavez said.

Actually, Hugo, I'm fairly certain that this is exactly what the internet is supposed to be.

Apropos...

Get a job: destroying the country edition

Sure, no one has a job and the Senate's decision to push off health care to put a laser like focus on jobs hasn't resulted in jobs, jobs bills passing, or, at the very least, a cool laser display possibly set to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. But thankfully the census is upon us.

I know what you're saying: "Isn't the census a tool to increase slavery, just like Glenn Beck claims or just a pretext to internment and re-education camps like Michelle Bachmann says?" Yes, yes it is. Especially the slavery thing. But it is also a roaring jobs creator that will mask the ongoing economic horrors for a little while.

The U.S. Census Bureau expects to add up to 750,000 workers to its payroll by May, a hiring binge that could knock the unemployment rate down by as much as a half-point.

The once-a-decade census is coming at the best possible time for President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, who have taken political lumps for more than a year over a jobless rate that stands at 9.7 percent.
...
“This is the best-timed census you could ever dream of,” said Heidi Shierholz, who tracks the labor market at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. She believes the March unemployment report will show the economy added jobs instead of subtracting them.

Whoo-hoo! A once a decade temporary jobs to mask our anemic job creation! Temporary jobs for everyone! Everything is fixed. Cancel those jobs bills, they weren't going to pass anyway.

Now of course you're all worried about the slavery thing and the re-education camp thing, not to mention the whole "ACORN" angle, how it's all a front to steal your property, indoctrinate your children, prep for a UN invasion, target undesirables for predator drone attacks, a White House power grab, and an illegal immigrant takeover. But to this I say: wouldn't you rather be on the inside, perpetrating these simultaneous coups, attacks, and invasions from disparate groups, then be subject to them? I know I would.

So if you need a job and perhaps want to facilitate Ban Ki-Moon's takeover of the contiguous United States, then may I suggest taking a job with the US Census. It's really the only job that's going to be created in the next year. Happy interring and predator drone bombing!

The wisdom of Beck

A lot of things can be said about Glenn Beck. Most of them involve curse words and the word 'lunatic'. But one does have to appreciate the complete and total way he devotes his life to finding Nazi, communist, and socialist hobgoblins in every corner of life. "Can I eat Cinnamon Life cereal this morning," he asks himself, "Or is this what Hitler wants?" "Sure the Kansas City Chiefs have a storied football tradition.... but I don't like the tint of that red on their jerseys."

Given the fervor with which he attacks these menacing demons and the frequency of his tears, this quest has probably turned his life into some sort of living hell where he exists constantly in fear of anything he does leaving the door open for socialist parasites to scamper up his leg and lay eggs in his brain.

So what's he on about now? Religion. More specifically, religions that are Christian, but have yet to be co-opted by the religious right movement. They are, of course, bastions of Nazism and communism. Keep in mind that when he was delivering this sermon, Beck was actually waving around a swastika and hammer & sickle.

"I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

"Communists are on the left, and the Nazis are on the right. That's what people say. But they both subscribe to one philosophy, and they flew one banner. . . . But on each banner, read the words, here in America: 'social justice.' They talked about economic justice, rights of the workers, redistribution of wealth, and surprisingly, democracy."

'Social justice' and 'economic justice'. Do these words appear anywhere in the bible? No. But the concepts they represent? You know, equality of opportunity, equality of outcome, human rights, basic equality, economic egalitarianism, the dignity of a person, and care for the poor? That's all the stuff Jesus said. Glenn Beck just told everyone to run screaming from a church that asks you to be more like Jesus, John Rawls, and Thomas Aquinas and look out for people.

Guess what, if you're in one of the churches that actually spends it's time working for concepts of social and economic justice instead of prattling on about the gay menace or fighting abortion through means that don't ever actually decrease abortions, you're in one of the good churches. You're in a church that is actually committed to changing things in a beneficial and long-lasting way instead of waging a Pyrrhic campaign of ideology at the expense of meaningful action that will never be won.

On the other hand, fuck Diamond J. Sure He was all "Treat the poor well", "A rich bitch ain't going to heaven unless a camel trots his ass through the eye of this needle", and "Hey Judas, who're all your soldier friends and what's with the kissing?", but when did he ever sufficiently bash gays, praise Reagan, or excuse torture? Never, that's when. So why listen to him. As always, Glenn's right. Next time you hear your pastor talk about Jesus that, poor people this, healed leper that, run.

And remember: that healed leper probably cut into a Nazareth insurance companies bottom line.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 03.04

Fox News Can’t Upset Murdoch’s Saudi Prince
We all know the basic rules Fox news operates under. 1.) Warp the meanings of fairness and balance to such a degree that it would cause George Orwell to hork on his Froot Loops. 2.) Hire any raving street corner maniac and give him an afternoon or evening opinion show, provided he of course decries liberals and praises Reagan in between fights with imaginary dragons and cardboard box defecations. 3.) Don't upset the Saudi Prince that bankrolls large sections of the Fox media empire with nasty mentions of the Saudi roll in funding terrorist actions worldwide. Actually that third one is a bit of a surprise. Who knew that such a jingoistic "fear the browns" network would find itself so beholden to Saudi sheiks. This seems like something that should have already fueled 12 ill though out chalkboard scribbling segments with a weeping Glenn Beck. Until then, you'll just have to make due with Joe Trento's take.

Our world may be a giant hologram
Did that headline just blow your mind? If it didn't, go get high and then re-read it. The entirety of existence might just be a 3-D hologram projection of a 2-D universe.... which may or may not be foil stamped onto the back of an even larger universal baseball card. Yes, that's exactly as weird as it sounds. And it's coming from the director of director of Fermilab's Center for Particle Astrophysics based on the theories of Stephen Hawking. You know, crackpots. If all of this sounds surprising to you, you need to read more Warren Ellis comics. Every other page mentions "3-D hologram of a 2-D universe" this or "Zero-point energy" that. You could be ahead of the scientific curve if you just read more superhero picture books.

NHS money 'wasted' on homeopathy
In a victory for science and common sense, the UK decided that paying out money to homeopathic doctors and hospitals on the groundbreaking belief that handing out millions to people who sold magic water as a "cure" was a ludicrous idea. I'd like to take this as a sign that the world is becoming smarter, but we're over here paying out millions to abstinence only education, have state legislature passing measure to decry climate science, and we can't even seem to get a functioning health care system. Still, baby steps.

Ultra-Precise Quantum-Logic Clock Trumps Old Atomic Clock
Now that we have evidence that the mole people are causing earthquakes in order to steal seconds off our clock and throw the earth off its axis (SCIENCE FACT!!!!!!), we are in need of two things. 1.) A bloody, violent, merciless and ceaseless war against the underverse. 2.) More accurate clocks. Since we all know that atomic clocks are prone to creating irradiated scientists and are unreliable if you need time calculated down to the exact second every 3.7 billion year period, scientists have luckily devised a quantum logic clock that monitors the energy state of an aluminum ion. Sadly this has not become the global time standard yet, so as such if one of us is to become a near ageless Godlike being, our watches are going to be off by a second or two every couple of billion years. Such is life.

What Is Time? One Physicist Hunts for the Ultimate Theory
Physicist Sean Carroll is attempting to once and for all finally answer what time is. Easy, it's that stuff that watches emit and is then eaten by our jobs, friends, and family so that you are not allowed to enjoy it. Or, if you want to be a science dick about it, there's probably some sort of equation that explains it with more physics and less bitterness. Whatever. In an interview with Wired, Carroll tries to explain what he's trying to do and just what time is from a physics standpoint.

I have seen the future

Glenn Beck mugging and barking (yes, barking) his way through a typically incoherent rant:


Glenn Beck, three weeks from now:


When he starts shooting people in the night, don't say I didn't warn you New York.