The Green Dragon is a Superhero, Not a Villain

The Republican strategy over the last 40 years can be boiled down to one phrase: they are the party of discontent. It's easier to get mad about the state of the world than it is to fix it; it's easier to breed discontent than loyalty to a cause.

It's also easy to create chaos as a smokescreen to legislate morality and advance a selfish corporate agenda that favors the rich.

As the party seems to run increasingly in lockstep with the Religious Right of late, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate the two groups. Although not all Republicans belong to the Religious Right (the smartest ones only sell their souls for tax cuts and corporate socialism), all Religious Right folks are Republicans, and so their fates are in concert.

As such, while I don't find this latest news surprising, I do find it eminently troubling:

Various conservative Christian leaders have united with the Cornwall Alliance for the release of a shocking new 12-part DVD series, "Resisting The Green Dragon," that attempts to debase and discredit the environmental movement by portraying it as "one of the greatest deceptions of our day" that is "seducing your children" and "striving to put America and the world under its destructive control."

In the video, David Barton, founder of WallBuilders, attests that environmentalists' "false assertions are based more on their own morbid pessimistic fears, not on any good science," while the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Dr. Richard Land, says, "Environmentalists have a long history of believing and promoting exaggerations and myths" -- statements both so steeped in irony that they are hardly worth parrying.

"One of the greatest threats to society and the church today is the multifaceted environmentalist movement," says Cornwall Alliance founder and national spokesman Dr. E. Calvin Beisner. "There isn't an aspect of life that it doesn't seek to force into its own mold."

(courtesy HuffPo)

Boy, that WallBuilder fellow sure is good at his job...of building walls wherever they can be built, regardless of need. At least, I assume that's what his job is, since no other description seems to fit the bill.

And so it goes that religious groups continue their relentless march to breed discontent between people who would otherwise find substantial common ground.

All religious doctrine, abridged:

Be nice to people, unless they belong to another group of people who also want to be nice to people. In this case, they are your enemy.

And so the ongoing Republican attack on all the "anti-religious" social advancements of the last 100+ years and vital "job-killing" environmental regulations has a delightfully bold ally in their quest to end mankind's tenure on Earth way ahead of schedule.

Every Little Bit Helps

 "What do I look like, the President?"

He was a moron. A friendly-enough-seeming guy with fantastically devious puppeteers and a name enough dumb people recognized to sweep him into the highest office in the land by a whopping...oh, by a questionable margin, actually; perhaps even a negative one. Twice.

Bonus Trivia:
The 2000 US Presidential contest was the closest in US history since Rutherford B. Hayes up and stole that shit in 1876. Huh. Same old shit...

This being the case--especially once you throw in everything else that transpired from 2000-2008 and consider that I am a man with blood coursing through my veins--I always enjoy hearing tell of every. single. slight. to His Idiocy George W. Bush, no matter how trivial.

These small gems certainly don't make up for what should happen to W--Navy SEALS should hold him on the bronze knee of the Lincoln Memorial while everybody in the world gets three whacks on his bottom with a weapon of their choice--but they are gratifying nonetheless and life is about the simple pleasures, right?

Common-Sense Cagematch #1: Castro v. Berlusconi

Question: Who's more out-of-touch with reality--an 84 year-old oft-hospitalized Communist dictator under a decades-long trade embargo or a womanizing Italian billionaire president?

Answer: Silvio Berlusconi

Viz:

"I hope that in Egypt there can be a transition toward a more democratic system without a break from President Mubarak, who in the West, above all in the United States, is considered the wisest of men and a precise reference point," he said.

-Silvio Berlusconi

"Mubarak's fate is sealed, not even the support of the United States will be able to save his government. The people of Egypt are an intelligent people with a glorious history who left their mark on civilization. 'From the top of these pyramids, 40 centuries of history are looking down upon us,' Bonaparte once said in a moment of exaltation when the revolution brought him to this extraordinary crossroads of civilizations."

-Fidel Castro

(courtesy HuffPo)

The wisest of men does not do...hmmm, let's see...just about anything Mubarek has been doing recently. Does the wisest of men reap millions of dollars from running a nation and then insist on sticking around to get his head chopped-off?

I think not.

If what Berlusconi said were true, Chateau Mubarek in the south of France would be bustling with activity right now, dozens of humble servants preparing for the master to retire there indefinitely and enjoy his spoils.

Instead, 'rental guillotine' has been the most searched-for term on Google Egypt for weeks now--among those with pirated internet access, of course.

Bon voyage, imbécile. May your blood stain the sands of Egypt sooner rather than later. I hope it was all worth it.

And somebody in charge of such things please grant Fidel Castro +16 cool points right now for understanding the will and power of the masses. Bravo, señor.

_

People in Mexico Must Be Afraid of Being Fed to Dogs for No Reason At All

The somehow-always-escalating violence in Mexico over the last decade has just got to stop being so crazy. Thankfully, despite their brutality, our era's thugs still pale in comparison to both the brutal conquistadors and the psychopathic tyrants they supplanted, but still--come on.

It's like Mexico is an episode/season of Breaking Bad--the best show on television--so no matter how bad you think things are going to get they always get much worse and keep you on the edge of your seat.

One day you're a respectable family attending a provincial bullfight, feasting on all manner of delectable street meat, and dozing in the cool shadow of a mountain of used plastic silverware and putrid diapers trucked in from Texas, the next day you have a sack thrown over your heads, get fed into a sausage grinder, and become a hasty buffet for a pack of alpha-male pitbulls raised to ruthlessly erase all evidence of your existence. For no reason. Well, other than the fact that some asshole druglords want to send the government agents and their employers (aka taxpayers) a message that they are not to be fucked with or everybody will die eventually die a horrific, carnival death.

Mayors getting kidnapped and stoned to death in the woods, their corpses lying in the back of a pick-up truck for days before being found?

Wacko lieutenants becoming famous for dissolving bodies in vats of lie? Headless bodies hanging from bridges when the President comes to town?

People's faces being peeled-off and sewn onto soccer balls?

Danny Trejo's severed head riding atop a turtle's shell?

It's like the Mexican druglords have spent the last ten years one-upping each other, hell-bent on bringing home the Most Sadistic Would-Be Batman Villain Ever hardware every year at their annual, always-fabulous Mexican Druglord Conference in Cancun and things are really coming to a head here, the fate of a nation in flux until one of the longtime favorites (or will it be a darkhorse?) is finally cast by Christopher Nolan in his next movie already. [C'mon, Chris, don't be selfish here--think of the people of Gotham. -Ed]

Only then will a winner be declared. Only then will these men tire of the game and get back to being productive members of society, stop destroying whatever they can get away with.

If Christopher Nolan fails us here (he will), no living soul in Mexico is safe. People invited to dinner parties will start making ridiculous excuses like "Oh, I'd love to come, Sandra, but I'm afraid my entire family might be fed to dogs for absolutely no reason if somebody happens to see us in the street" and it won't be funny because they would totally mean it.

Dogs and cats will be murdered in cold blood and often later eaten by starving Mad-Max scavengers--or used as bait to lure a meatier human out of hiding if they feel strong enough for a struggle.

Even budding flowers will fall victim to the casually lethal boot-heels of restless warriors.

Harmonicas can be quite deadly

Eventually the Wild West will reign again, as all men remaining in Mexico will be pitted against each other in a relentless series of unscheduled, unregulated, him-or-me machine-gun duels.

In the end, some Mexican-Jeff-Goldblum eccentric-billionaire type (or perhaps total-Bond-villain Carlos Slim?) will square up against a rough-and-tumble bully from the other side of the tracks and smile knowingly as he smites him with a remote-controlled missile to win--finally--the entire vacant blood-soaked nation as his playground/torture chamber.

Hey, whatever--heavy is the head that wears the crown, right? Jeff/Carlos will kill 'em all, eat 'em, play the game, and figure the rest out later! Once he wins the competition!

After all, if the end result of all his efforts is for whatever reason less than ideal, he can always just drink himself to death at an abandoned luxury resort in Acapulco while writing one hell of a suicide note. If that is indeed Jeff/Carlos' path, I hope that he also has the foresight to attach the lengthy missive to a particularly-burly trained seagull's foot before he dies and send the winged slave to find A Living Person in America Who Would Open a Random Piece of Mail Delivered by a Seagull and Be Able to Make Some Sense Out of Nearly-Illiterate Post-Apocalyptic Pidgin Spanish with no delay.

Once I get my hands on that suicide note (ohpleaseohpleaseohplease) I can finally publish my (unrelated) bestselling novel about the unsympathetic, stomach-churning trials and tribulations of a notorious, suddenly-repentant-at-the-end, murdering asshole that The New York Review of Books will call "Lyrical, raw, and positively breathtaking--an astonishing debut focusing on a megalomaniacal prick who is so delusional he actually thinks he is a normal person, a person with strengths and weaknesses you can weigh, despite all evidence pointing to the fact that if he is not the spawn of Satan he may as well be."

That kind of success being something I could immediately take to the bank, I will probably set up direct deposit to an account in the Cayman Islands and never be seen or heard from again once the raucous celebration--for the humble but well-appointed launch of what will turn out to be the groundbreaking novel of a burgeoning Golden Era of Literature, the captain of the elite avant garde--winds down and I seize the perfect opportunity to sneak away unnoticed.

I will disappear in plain sight and live on the lam under the assumed identities of a series of retired international playboys who share a voracious appetite for women, adventure, and the fruits of the sea.

I will rewrite my memoirs for the rest of my life--on stained cocktail napkins stapled together--until I accidentally fall off a hotel balcony in paradise and nobody ever even figures out who I was, much less what wisdom I wanted to impart to the Earthlings I left behind.

But enough about me--what will all of you do, America? Will it even affect you? Will you even notice that your drunken trips to coastal Florida are not taking place in Cancun, a beloved resort you will never be able to visit for the rest of your life because murderous warlords own the streets? Will you join them or fight them when the furious, probing tentacles of their violence become too much to bear?

Please send me your well-reasoned answers and I shall peruse them with casual interest while traveling aboard one of my many identical yachts speeding in different directions across the vast watery stretches of globe, while wearing a clever disguise that just makes you want to weep for its beauty.

Thank you,
Goodtime Charlie

_

Oh, to be young and feel like your opinion matters...

Huh. I wonder what the map would look like regarding issues such as gay marriage, ending wars, health care, taxes, and the legalization of pot.

Would it seem as crowded as the National Mall when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert took to the stage last Saturday?

Only one way to find out...

"Internet--somebody get to work on those maps, okay?"

We might be missing out on a giant social trend going on under the radar here in Planet America Inc--young people these days may be for the most part pretty easygoing and sensible compared to the older generations embarrassing the shit out of themselves* all over the country these days.

If only good were as contagious as bad.


*Sometimes literally, often into non-biodegradable diapers afterwards tossed unapologetically into the gyre

_

Don't Forget to Vote Today, Democrats!

Now that the Republicans have cast all those votes for every Representative up for election, it is time for the Democrats to take their turn.

Don't be intimidated by how many votes you will need to defeat the Party of No or by how many people tell you the polling place is no longer accepting votes--JUST DO YOUR CIVIC DUTY and get Democrats into office.

Why? Well, because although most of them are reprehensible human beings, they are slightly better than Republicans.

Here's why:

- They actually want to pass laws, rather than just say "No" to everything and accept bribes
- Most of them are in favor of stopping the ridiculous tax cuts for the rich and providing aid to the poor and unemployed
- They do not want to eliminate the IRS, EPA, Department of Education, or Social Security because they are smart enough to realize we would be TOTALLY FUCKED if that happened.
- They weren't members of the party that got us involved in two expensive wars, deregulated and then got into bed with the financial industry, and bailed out Wall Street with no strings attached

Do you need any other reasons?

Okay, they seem to frequent prostitutes a bit less than Repubs, fewer of them are self-loathing homosexual gaybashers, and their party chairman's wife makes the best potato pancakes you have ever eaten.

So get out there and vote, Democratic America!

Or risk 2 years of frustratingly constipated government/name-calling, as the Dark Side plots and rubs hands together mirthfully in a dark room, ushering in a 4-year period of pain, torture, and destruction unrivaled since the days of Sodom, after some as-yet-unnamed Teabagger demon rides a throne of skulls from the banks of the River Styx all the way to Warshington, atop a tidal wave of disembodied souls, and turns back the clock to 1848, when "shit was pure" and the evil corrupt rich white man ruled unequivocally, sans pesky liberal fruit flies buzzing around their luscious picnic basket full of money.

Your choice.

With love,
Your Senator

_

Inside Job

I have been covering the financial sector for quite some time now, as the sole correspondent for Tell It Like It Is News, so the facts, figures, and villains on display in Charles Ferguson's Inside Job were hardly new to me. I know what happened, I know who did it, and I know exactly why--greed.

With that in mind, there were a few moments I felt the movie dragged (1h45m felt like 2h30m), but overall it was a surprisingly slick production chock-full of beautiful visuals and some highly-entertaining gotcha moments that make it well-worth watching.

And, as an added bonus for the ladies out there, Matt Damon's voice is also on display for at least twenty minutes in total. Although I am so manly I shave the bottoms of my feet, I got chills everywhere whenever he spoke. Money well-spent, Sony Pictures Ltd Intl Inc Megacorporation Nation-State.

Much like the villains in this tragedy have always claimed, there will be plenty of people out there who will hem and haw and tell you everything isn't black and white and it's really complicated but actually rich people getting richer helps poor people somehow.

If you believe these people you are dumb and you know it, which strikes at an important point of similarity that people in the media never seem to point out:

Just as the financial market demolition expert (aka 'Investment Banker') gets his conscience to swallow enormous lies in a series of more easily digestible incremental white lies, truth-bending, and questionable justifications, the Average American engages in a similar series of incremental lies regarding their limited exposure to ruin, the volatile nature of the "free-market" economy, the trustworthiness of those in power, the priorities of the rich, and the extent to which pure evil has permeated our society.

In other words, just as the banker knowingly swallows the lie that he is not evil, his victim also swallows the lie that the banker is not evil.

And so, whether he realizes it or not, the victim is kicked down another rung on that great big ladder from serfdom to Lord, forced to scramble to make ends meet, cut back on spending, get another job, get deeper in debt, etc, until the house of cards ultimately crumbles--at which point he is hopefully old enough to die.

I am a firm believer that the root of most of the problems facing America today is the fact that people don't want to know what is happening in the annals of power. They intentionally ignore the news, ignore the altruistic activists, ignore the canaries in the coal mines, because deep down they know the Warshington/Wall Street elite is so evil they would rather not know the details. Ignorance is bliss, none of my business, everything seems fine, that's just the way things go, the market is cyclical, the Matrix is actually pretty cool, yadda yadda yadda.

Well, to all of you out there who think ignoring a problem of this magnitude is okay because you have yet to be turned out on the street yourself, remember this:

The ostrich with his head in the sand eventually gets bitten in the ass.

_

Too Right

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United States v. Muslims: By the Numbers

(courtesy The Atlantic)

Just goes to show you that, despite our wealth and military muscle, we are but a moon orbiting the Muslim planet, and we should remember that as we spend trillions of dollars and end tens of thousands of lives chasing down the smallest enemy fighting force we have ever faced.

So take a step back, warmongers, hide your misspelled vitriol for a moment, and start taking up a collection to bribe your Congressional representatives to get us the hell out of Afghanistan, Michael Moore-style:

Let's dig a few thousand wells in Afghanistan, build a few free mosques, leave behind some food and clothing, fix their electrical grid, issue an apology and set up a Facebook page so they can stay in touch with us -- and then let's get the hell out. Your own National Security Advisor and your CIA Director have told you there are less than 100 al Qaeda fighters in the entire country. 100???                           (courtesy HuffPo)

As long as our unemployed serf brethren pony up more than Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Halliburton, and Xe Services (nee Blackwater) combined, it should be easy enough to transform the United States into a slightly more sensible world power.

_

Republican Party Nominates 3 Newcomers to Defuse Tea Party Insurgency

Tired of losing ground to the Tea Party in the battle for who is the most irrationally conservative, the Republicans have decided to drag three newcomers--longtime listeners, first-time callers--into the political ring to avoid having the rug pulled out from underneath them this November.

This guy = Not crazy enough

The candidates for the new ruling committee known as the First Triumvirate of Idiocy--which would yield supreme legislative power over all three branches of the popularly-elected puppet government--are known only as the Three Horsemen of the Corporatocracy (their real names/identities will never be known) and are shown below in a photo taken at the stark press conference announcing both their candidacy and inescapable victory:

Where did these handsome young chaps come from and how is their victory assured, you ask?

Well, they came from nowhere, probably some place really remote, never listened in school, have the craziest ideas you have ever heard, and couldn't run a 7-11 on their own, but that is exactly why they will be elected--THEY ARE SOMETHING NEW AND DIFFERENT.

Besides, it's inevitable, right? You might as well just email them your ATM pin and jump headfirst into the party of the people before they force you to at gunpoint.

_

What a Stupid C*nt

She's laughing at you, Arizonans, because she thinks you'll vote for her no matter what she says (or doesn't say). Jan Doofus can ask all she wants, but let's hope she doesn't get any of your votes this fall, despite the fact that she has did done fixed everything.

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Further Proof People Will Watch Anything If They Have No Good Choices

The Expendables takes the crown two weeks in a row, after FIVE new movies premiered this past weekend? And all it took was a $16.5 million haul in August?

Some shitty spoof of shitty vampire movies came out to no acclaim? A 3D remake of low-budget cult-hit Piranha? Bow-Wow wins the lottery? Some movie about Julia Roberts eating gelato in Italy while looking for herself/a man that middle-aged women don't even like?

What the fuck is going on? Is this the third horseman?

It gets worse: The Nanny McPhee sequel beat out America's Sweetheart(TM) Jennifer Aniston's The Switch. Ha-ha!

Will this undeniably laughable result finally decrease her shitty-romantic-comedy output to less than two per year in the coming decade (until she finally ODs on whatever it is that numbs her), or do I have to sew my eyeballs shut every time I risk encountering a billboard or commercial?

Speaking of Jennifer Aniston (nee Brangelina), I know there are plenty of men out there who would 'put one in her,' but aside from that, does anybody actually care for her at all? Anybody not on her payroll, I mean. Does she have fans? Who are they? Do they not realize how boring and whiny she is, or are they interested in her like somebody who goes down to the Y once a week is interested in some little kid without a dad?

By the way, not all movies made these days are shitty--the ones that are good are usually just really hard to find. For example, when will we finally get to see 2009's I Love You Phillip Morris?

Which 12 old white men running this country from the rec room at the C-Street House do I have to blow like a circus seal during some clandestine pagan ritual in order to get the religious-right minority to back down on this one? Would they even realize the irony in making me do that? How many of them will write me checks for my services because they don't know how to use an ATM?

I'd rather not have to accidentally blow any footsoldiers, so precision is appreciated here, my child; do whatever you need to in order to get me those names.

Love,
Your Mother

_

Ann Coulter Equates College Students with al-Qaida

Al-Qaeda, al-Qaida, al-Qa'ida, Qaeda...call them what you will, Bushites--the bottom line is they are the enemy and they are potentially everywhere, including Texas and the other 58 states.

Who are they? Irrelevant. Towel-heads. Brown people. Taxpayers. Liberals. Nuke 'em. God will sort 'em out. Whatever.

Noted foot-in-mouther Sarah Palin must have been busy watching the wet nurse breastfeed Trig as she gagged/Twittered, because this little number was left up to fellow conservative darling Ann Coulter (Hmm...the most prominent conservatives are Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin because...they are the best?)

"They hired me to give a speech, so I'm giving a speech. I do it all the time," she said. "I speak to a lot of groups and do not endorse them. I speak at Harvard and I certainly don't endorse their views. I've spoken to Democratic groups and liberal Republican groups that loooove abortion. The main thing I do is speak on college campuses, which is about the equivalent of speaking at an al-Qaida conference. I'm sure I agree with GOProud more than I do with at least half of my college audiences. But in any event, giving a speech is not an endorsement of every position held by the people I'm speaking to."

(courtesy Huffington Post)

"The main thing I do is speak on college campuses, which is about the equivalent of speaking at an al-Qaida conference."

Who is this supposed to insult more, al-Qaida or college students? Is she really equating ALL college students with al-Qaida members? Why? Because they're getting educated and don't just take whatever you try to cram down their throats? Has she ever met an al-Qaida member? Why are we listening to this woman again? Who IS she?

Ann Coulter was born in New York City, to rich parents, went to Cornell, then to Michigan, then was a law clerk in Kansas City, before she was scooped up by a Republican party desperate for pretty faces and controversy. She writes awful books and delivers awful speeches to anybody with deep pockets.

Seeing that Ann Coulter went to not one but TWO colleges, she's pretty much Public Enemy #1, as that of course implies that she is one of al-Qaida's most sophisticated operatives. Although I am unsure of her motives in revealing this new shit to the world--is she a double agent? triple agent?--many thanks to Imam Coulter, for it is now easier than ever to spot terrorists.

They are the ones who read books and think critically--and their names and addresses can conveniently be found in the admissions department at any college in the country.

Get out your guns, people! Kill the nerds that hate your freedom!

_

Time for a Re-Post

Ladies and gentlemen, it is nigh. And when I say 'it,' I mean THE WEDDING OF THE CENTURY.

For those of you living in Bumblefuck eating sandwiches made from the cheese between your toes, this wedding is between Chelsea Clinton and some guy who is not important right now and never will be.

Who is he? Who cares. All I know is that I am full of woe because he is not the guy who offered 40 goats and 20 cows for her hand.

Now, for those of you not familiar with the current woman-to-animal exchange rates, let me tell you this--those terms are very favorable, especially in this difficult economic climate. Ma and Pa Clinton would be wise to reconsider this generous offer on the eve of their daughter's wedding to some nameless loser, unless of course that guy's parents are providing an even more lucrative dowry.

But we all know they aren't. Instead, a portion of Bill's speaking gigs and book royalties are providing a $3 million wedding for some toothy girl who has done nothing to deserve such luxury. She was in college before her parents ever had that much money and now they are dropping it on her wedding.

WTF, America? This is why we will wind up killing each other during the apocalypse.

Well, whatever--the important thing is that nobody on the East Coast can fly or drive for an entire weekend and some fourth-cousin will make millions of dollars selling poorly-composed photographs to the tabloids on Monday.

Sigh.

And now, for completists, a trip down memory lane.

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Louisiana Has the Easiest Choice This November

In the land of Huey Long and All the King's Men, all the voters have to do this November is read Wikipedia entries on their Senatorial candidates or cruise any news source other than Faux News and the Limbaugh/Beck Propaganda Hour, and the decision should practically be made for them.

Check it out, after the jump...

Hypocrisy, By the Numbers

All life, even that of unwanted, unborn babies the size of pencil erasers, is important. It is the most important thing in the world. How important?

Way more important than dealing with all the starving/malnutritioned, poorly-educated children all over the country who were born into a life of poverty, crime, and neglect.

So important that right-wing asshole ideologues will kill medical personnel to make sure there isn't any killing going on.

Since 1977, there have been eight confirmed murders of abortion providers or other clinic staff, 41 bombings, 175 arsons and 96 attempted bombings or arsons, according to the National Abortion Federation.

(courtesy HuffPo)

Breaking the law to interfere with legally-sanctioned activities and ignoring all the most important tenets of every major religion, all in the name of hypocrisy. Thanks, Red America.

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Some Things Are Too Important to Ignore

Serpentine--the rock that seduced a state, who then betrayed it in front of everybody 

In an age where lawmakers across the globe have heaping plates of important legislation to deal with, unsustainable debts, and record unemployment, it is nice to know the industrious folks in Sacramento are doing their best to make time for less sexy, if still extremely important issues that might otherwise get swept under the rug.

From the New York Times:

California May Drop Its Official State Rock

The lawmaker and others who would like to see serpentine stripped of its title say the olive green rock found all over the state is a grim symbol of the deadly cancers associated with asbestos, which can be found in the rock. Geologists, who have taken to Twitter on behalf of the rock, assert that serpentine is harmless and is being demonized by advocates for people with asbestos-related diseases and possibly their trial lawyers, too.

The bill to defrock the rock — which recently passed the full State Senate and is awaiting a vote in the Assembly — is sponsored by Senator Gloria Romero, a Los Angeles Democrat, with the strong support of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization.

Declaring that serpentine “has known health effects,” the bill would leave California — one of roughly half the states in the nation with an official rock or mineral — without an official rock. (According to the bill, California was the first state, in 1965, to name an official rock.)

OMG! Say it ain't so, Californ-I-A! No official state rock? Why, that would change...absolutely nothing about the lives of every single Californian!

Please write your Representative today, call his or her office, post on their Facebook wall, send nude photos of yourself eating a hot dog atop a pony every single day until this offensive bill is stuffed into the shredder in the accounting department, because if there is one thing you deserve, California, it is an officially-designated state rock.

Get yours!

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Beware the Conservative Constrictor

My first reaction to the news that the Governor of Louisiana has just signed into law legislation that makes it legal for permit holders to carry concealed weapons in houses of worship was laughter. 

Finally, some crazy legislation that I can get behind!

Maybe if laws like these make church even scarier for those people on the religious fence, less of them will go there to waste their time and money getting brainwashed by creeps.

On top of that, why not segregate the armed fanatics and let them kill each other over some minor difference in the interpretation of the Bible as it may--or may not--relate to the local sports team.

Give that fly-on-the-wall Christ-on-his-Cross some goddamned entertainment, I say.

And then my second realization struck me--this is simply one more in a long series of backwards Conservative victories of late--legalized racism, leniency for the banks, revolts over better health care, corporate-sponsored elections--and it seems like it is happening all too easily.

Like they've practiced it. Like they're well-practiced at it.

After all, we are in a fairly catastrophic economic depression right now--that they caused, of course--and yet they are successfully using it as ammunition against the Liberals and the forces of good.

The total lack of logic here is startling only until you think about how easily controlled people are by the forces of evil. I mean, look how powerful the Church is, despite the fact there is not one bit of logic associated with it (faith being allergic to logic, of course), despite the fact that the number of Christian fanatics these days seems favorably tied to the number of exposed serial child molesters in their ranks.

If we take the bait and assume the Conservatives are forces of evil, then they must also be capable of using frighteningly awful deeds to further their interests.

What if, throughout history, the Conservatives (who have worn many different political uniforms over the years, mind you--generally whatever was in fashion) have not only deliberately underfunded education in order to keep the sheep content with the ass-end of life, but also intentionally caused recessions and depressions in order for The Men in Charge, in the ensuing panic, to get a tighter grip on the throat of the populace, to stir up trouble that warrants extreme measures of their choosing, to gorge themselves on the public coffers, to gradually get power and weapons in subservient hands?

What if the these Reagan/Bush years we have endured of late represent the crowning achievement of The Men in Charge in their millenia-long struggle to tax its serfdom to unbelievable yet invisible amounts and their struggle to raise the largest army in the world without paying a dime?

They enact a big tax cut for the rich and a small tax cut for the working classes, then use all of it to pay their companies too much money to do things that are not needed, to let the banks they all own borrow our money interest-free and gamble it for profit--with no promise of repayment, and to reward themselves with exotic holidays to places where gay prostitutes know how to keep their mouths shut.

All it takes to achieve such heights, after all, is a nation of self-absorbed rubes, a tight grip on the reins of power, subtle yet effective propaganda, clever empty promises, the patience to turn the screws slowly, a complete lack of compassion when breaking a few billion eggs, and the wisdom to know the best time to strike.

It may not be true, but it may not be wrong. Regardless, every time you wonder how it is that we are living in such a fucked-up society, remember the wisdom of the Dude: "It's like Lenin said, you know? You look for the person who benefits and...y'know?"

Well, the Conservatives are the only ones benefiting these days, so it's not as far-fetched as it may sound at first blush that their generations-long agenda is crushing the blue-collar torso of our country like a gargantuan boa constrictor.

Every time the Liberals come in to rescue us after a bad stretch and we breathe a sigh of relief at their arrival, the Conservative Constrictor just laughs and squeezes a little tighter, that much closer to their goal.

It's all part of the plan.

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My New Favorite Website

Steve Forbes

There aren't too many things in existence that I wish I had created myself (Five Easy Pieces, Tropic of Cancer, American Psycho, The Office, Sticky Fingers...), so although today has just begun, it has already been a day for the ages.

As I was trolling through Huffington Post--ie, reading the morning paper--I stumbled upon a website that I totally should have started a long time ago. It's called "Tea Party Jesus: The Words of Christians in the Mouth of Christ" and it is a stunning work of absurdist political comedy.

Check out a few of my favorite works after the jump and click on the name of the speaker for a link to the quote source. Also, if you can't read the text, just click on the image to enlarge it.

Armageddon is Nigh?

A quick perusal of Huffington Post this afternoon was perhaps the most depressing thing I have done in a long time. For all of you out there that don't believe me, read on and see if you can stand it:

What Can Brown Do for You: Scott Brown blocks Wall Street reform to ensure that taxpayers, not banks, pay the $19 billion cost of the bill
This one wins best title, for its apt use of what is most likely the worst corporate slogan in history. I've said it before and I'll say it again: why is one man who is not the President powerful enough to stop anything from happening?