The Bitch Is Back

Yeah, it's been a while. I actually tried my hand at Twitter for half a minute, just to see if its 140-character limit could more acutely hold my attention span, but it wasn't meant to e-be. I found myself yearning for the bad old days (re: a few months ago) when I wasted all my time on ye olde Common Nonsense. And now I have RETURNED!! *maniacal laughter*

Just wanted to comment on a few stories/events from the past few weeks:

1) Miss California. It never ceases to astound me how much emphasis we place on the opinions of random dumbasses. Whether it's Joe the Plumber, Sarah Palin, or Rush Limbaugh, we're always clamoring to dissect, debate, dismiss or deify the utterly inane comments of the utterly idiotic.

2) The Gay Marriage Wave In New England (And Fuckin' Iowa). This is something that totally caught me off guard in a completely terrific way. Who would have thought that the same state that launched Mike Huckabee into the national spotlight would have legalized gay marriage before California? Or New York? Or my home state of Maryland? We got some work to do to regain our commie crowns, *AHEM*

3) The Tea Parties of Last Month. Apparently nothing bothers Republicans more than the Democrats doing exactly what they do- namely spending shitloads of federal money. I was both amused and nonplussed while watching the Fox News coverage of the "tea party" protests of last month. While touted as a "non-partisan" event by proponents, I couldn't help but notice the crowds looked very white and very middle-aged. Favorite sign I spotted: "Obama bin-Lyin." Good to know the Republican Party is attempting to foster a new post-racial image to capture the hearts and minds of a new generation of voters. That sign is almost as good as when people were screaming "OFF WITH HIS HEAD" at McCain/Palin rallies last year. Almost.

4) Mark Your Calendars! A New Supreme Court Shitfight Is Afoot! Oh come on. Who isn't looking forward to this?! I always love the abortion litmus test that no one every really says is about abortion but we all know is about abortion. And just because I'm sexist, racist and a heterophobe, I hope Obama puts a black or Latina lesbian on the court. Nah seriously, it's about goddamn time the Democrats get to put a dude or chick on the Court after two George W. Bush apointees. Not that the Supreme Court should be politicized...that would be WRONG. ;)

E Pluribus Dumb

I have a hate/hate relationship with my fellow Americans. They're wrong on every single crucial issue: George Bush, Republicans, gay marriage, Jesus, evolution, climate change, international relations (*cough* Israel *cough*), guns, drugs, and Sanjaya Malakar. Just when I was ready to take up and move to China, they elect Obama and a Democratic Congress and I rethink my utter antipathy toward them. On November 4th and 5th, I really felt like we were the movie monster who redeemed himself at the end of the movie when we decided to quit cracking skulls and use our powers for good. As I was celebrating Obama's victory with a trip to a classy titty bar in Asscrack, West Virginia (not to be confused with Bumfuck, Maryland, where I live) the weekend after, I drunkenly declared, "We're back, bitches!" I was so happy, and not just because it was midget stripper night.

Invariably, my hopes and happiness get dashed quicker than Jamaican gold medalist Usain Bolt (man, I gotta quit with these shitty analogies). Barely a week after Obama's election, there were stories of crosses being burned into the lawns of black Obama supporters in Georgia, nooses being hanged, Hitler-worshipping white supremacists being arrested for saying they were going to go on a cross country black killing spree that would end with the coup de grace- a dead Obama, and my personal favorite, "second graders on a bus in Idaho chanting, 'Assassinate Obama'." And this is just after the election; all year, we had to deal with charges that Obama was Muslim, Arab, a Black Panther, a communist, has terrorist buddies, and, of course, that he's the anti-Christ. Even John McCain himself had to talk down a racist asshole when she said something like, "I don't want Obama to be president because he's an Arab."

Today, my beef is a little less serious but illustrates why I have to hang my head and sigh when admitting my nationality. The second most popular story on MSN, after an article on tonight's full moon, is "Makeover! From frumpy to foxy!" This story is more popular than the escalating shitfight in Gaza, the 7.2% unemployment rate, the 2.8 million jobs lost in 2008, Bush's request for more bailout money, the disastrous week on Wall Street, and our general slide into hell and chaos. "Makeover! From frumpy to foxy!" I can't think of anything more critical to our survival. I'm surprised Oprah's admission that she was depressed last year didn't crack the top five.

It reminds me of something Jon Stewart said in '04 about the coverage of the Iraq war. "As CNN was showing the rotting corpses of Uday and Qusay Hussein, the news ticker across the bottom said, 'Beyonce doesn't like the word bootylicious.'" But then again, Stewart and I are pretentious liberals who denigrate the "average Joe the plumber" with our "intellectual pride" (what's that about?) and holier than thou humor. Oh Sarah. Thank Jebus you haven't gone away. The idiots need you.

You Had Me At 'Demonic Sex'

Oh boy! It's Armageddon Week on the History Channel and I'm in devil heaven. I'm currently watching a program on the Apocrypha and they're discussing Adam's first-wife-turned-bitchass-succubus Lilith. Tonight they're going to air "Seven Signs of the Apocalypse" and I can't fuckin' wait. I think I've seen it before (both the program and the signs) but I'm still looking forward to it...because there's no better way of ushering in a hopeful new year than to watch a series of shows dedicated to dissecting the myriad of ways we can all be killed. Way to piss all over my optimism parade, History Channel!


Switching gears...I couldn't believe my eyes when I read that Barack Obama is actually considering $300 billion in tax cuts. I had the same visceral response to this article as I did when I read that John McCain had selected Sarah Palin as his runningmate: "You've got to be fuckin' kidding me." I am no economic expert, but I do have a memory and seem to recall tax cuts were the first thing George Bush did exactly eight years ago after he took office. Obama's tax cuts are going toward lower and middle-income families, unlike Bush's that went to the genteel, but I'm just stunned. It reminds me of that crackpot "stimulus package" idea Congress had last year to throw $300 at each American to avert a recession. Yeah, great idea. That worked like gangbusters and took $152 billion out of the already gutted Treasury. Let's do it again!

According to the same article, the U.S. economy shed a further 445,000 jobs in December, which was a great way to cap off a year that saw two million other jobs vanish into the ether of Bush's historically shitastic legacy. And that's excellent news for me, who's been looking for gainful employment for months now. Goddammit, George! I swear to Allah, if I have to get a job stocking Barbies and rifles in my local Wal-Mart because you shipped my potential good job to Bangladesh...well, I'm gonna be one pissed off liberal atheist hillbilly. And no one wants that. *shakes fist at screen*

Sarah Palin, Grandma at 44

The Governor of Alaska's 18-year-old unmarried daughter Bristol popped out her first (of many, I'm sure) kid today. Bristol "Abstinence-Only Sex Programs Just Make Me Wanna Fuck More!" Palin and her hot baby daddy Levi Johnston named their son Tripp. Ah, it's lovely to see this young couple continuing the Palin tradition of shit awful first names. Oh by the way, they're still not married. So Jesus is a very unhappy god-man right now.

And just because I really don't care for Sarah Palin, I'd just like to mock her children's names a little longer. Bristol is one of five children; her siblings are Piper, Track, Willow, and Trig. It's like Sarah and Todd just threw darts at random nouns to get these names. "'Track?' That's a high school sport! Meh, fuck it." "'Trig?' Oh come on now! We're Alaskan hicks, Todd! Gosh, my college degree is in journalism; I can barely read talking points off a teleprompter! I can't do math; I don't even know Africa is a continent!"

Ah, white trash. There's nothing more American.

The Following Dumb Things Make Me lOLz

-Watching that kickass Iraqi journalist throw his shoes at George Bush's face. It will never get old and gives poignant new meaning to the phrase "shoeicide bomber." But I do have to take issue with the media reporting that his flying shoes represent only Muslim outrage at Bush. Believe me, no one hates Bush more than Americans right now.

-Knowing people are booking rooms in my hometown for Obama's inauguration, even though it's long, lonely, red two and a half hours away from Washington, D.C.

-The final election results from my county. We went almost 2:1 for McSame-Palin.

-The giant leaning Christmas tree downtown. I would have taken a picture but I kept laughing too hard to hold the camera straight. There's also a Santa Claus holding an American flag, which struck me as slightly insane.

-The Republican "outrage" over the Rod Blagojevich thing. And listening to tv hosts continually stumble over "Blagojevich."

-Listening to all the hicks who live in my hometown freak out over Obama's victory. One of them actually said: "I'm scared." What's to be afraid of? He's only the anti-Christ. And why are you afraid of the impending apocalypse? Isn't that what you nutbag Christians are trying to precipitate in the Middle East with your bizarrely vociferous support of Israel? Hell, man, look on the bright side! Obama's gonna be great for the sales of the Left Behind: It All Started November 4, 2008 series!

-Facebook status. It's just so narcissistic and stupid (unlike, say, having a blog where you espouse your worthless opinions). But at least I get to know whenever one of my "friends" is "so sad it's ridiculous" or "laughing so hard because McCain got beat like a cat gets beat down the stairs." (<--- They're real!) I mean, these are mostly people I haven't seen in five years or more and this is all I get about their lives since high school. And if it says anything...aw, fuck it. It doesn't say anything! It's just pointless inanity!

-Dick Cheney nonchalantly admitting he OK'd torture. And that Iraq never had WMDs (remember them?). And our collective indifference to those admissions.

-My mom's reaction to the Caylee Anthony case. OK, even I think it's sad that a two-year-old probably got killed by her mother, but my mom is acting like it's the first time the media has blown a filicide case out of proportion. I think she also views it as a reason she's a good mom, like I should be thanking her for not chloroforming me as a toddler. Uh, thanks Mom.

-Conservative bloggers. Get on talk radio! The blogosphere is our thing!

-Procrastination. I went to the big city today (Hagerstown, Maryland, population: 39,640) and every discount store I went to was packed with lazy (yet pushy and vicious) last-minute shoppers. While I was sitting in traffic waiting to leave the mall parking lot, I couldn't believe we're going through the worst economic crisis in 80 years. It certainly isn't keeping people out of the mall or off the roads. The way the media portrays it, every single American is spending the holiday season cowering in terror and hoarding their pennies in their soon-to-be-repossessed homes.

-That Iraqi journalist throwing his shoes at George Bush's face! You're my hero, man!

My Free Wishlist

Here's a quick post for a thing at Twentysomething bloggers:

"A wishlist of things you want that are free":

-To see Obama and his family walk into the White House, knowing he's a smart guy who's right for the job. And knowing the White House was constructed by slave labor. It'll be pretty righteous. :)

-To see George Walker Bush walk out of the White House. For. ever. And just generally putting a period at the end of the past eight years of shock and blah.

-I wouldn't mind witnessing a Nuremberg-style trial for the Bushites but I'd settle for closing Guantanomo Bay.

-To watch the swearing in of the Republican-lite 111th Congress.

-To see that Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at Bush win the Nobel Prize for Awesome.

-For 2009 to not suck, personally and professionally.

-To see this depression lift, personally and globally.

-That Sarah Palin continues to hang around. She makes me lOlz.

-Wuv and understanding. And more hugs. Hugs are always good.

-To see a less insane world. Or at least a world that's more 'good' crazy than 'batshit' crazy.

-For more people to just freakin' relax and laugh at shit. Humor does not have a partisan bias (though we libs are way funnier).

-For Obama to really be the anti-Christ. Wouldn't that be hilarious?!

*Yawn*

Time magazine has named our next president as Person of the Year in its annual issue. And yeah, that's not the right cover. This cover is from 2006 and note the title of the article: "Why Barack Obama Could Be The Next President." Come on! Two years ago, we were all laughing at that shit! A brotha? Are you kidding? The next president all the way back then was maybe going to be Hillary or quite possibly Rudy Guiliani (because he was fucking there on 9/11). Barack Obama? Shit, with that name he should be glad he made it to the Senate. And that was before we even knew his middle name. I mean, the fact that we were even considering Hillary as a viable candidate was too much for most of America. A white woman as president? Whoa whoa whoa there, little lady! Why can't you bitches just be glad one of yous is Speaker of the House? Leave the commander in chiefin' to the men. ROAR!

Anyway, that was before Obama kicked the shit out of Hillary and John Edwards in the Iowa caucases, before the country got used to his booming smokers' voice speechifyin' about hope and shit in packed stadiums coast to coast, before the youtube videos and "grassroots" Internet campaigning. Before the $700 million raised and the Obamamania...OK, you get it.

As I've written before, I'm glad he won. I'm really really really glad he won. But this is such a boring, predictable, political choice by Time. Not as political as selecting Rudy Guiliani over Osama bin Laden in 2001 (bin Laden was the original choice but the Time peeps pussied out at the last minute) but it's just expected. Just to be an asshole, I would have picked Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh and written articles about how their brand of hate, "anti-intellectual pride" (David Cross quote, I loves it!), and lowest common denominator bullshit brilliantly backfired this year. I then would have parlayed that into how America is changing and shit, you know, the stuff we progressives love to hear.

But seriously, I hope this will be the last of the Obama apotheosis pieces and we can get down to the business of being more skeptical and critical of his decisions. The election's over, America has climaxed, and now we're waiting to see how our baby develops. Obama has a lot on his plate, which means he actually has to do shit. And a lot of it. Let's leave Obama the Celebrity in '08, please?

Top Ten Best Things About 2008 (4-1)

4) The world doesn't hate us anymore! (at least they didn't November 4th and 5th)

3) The New and Improved (and Blue) Electoral Map.

2) The Saturday Night Live-centered election. Normally, elections are parodies of themselves. Not this year. I propose that for 2012, we should just abolish the debates and town hall meetings and condense the entire campaign to a series of SNL skits. As long as they bring back Tina Fey to do Sarah Palin.

1) Obama Wins

Holla.

Top Ten Best Things About 2008 (10-5)

OK, so I've noticed the tone of my previous posts is dark, bitter, bitchy, and depressing. I'm going to attempt to stay on the light side with this one and countdown the 10 best things of the year in my not-so-humble opinion. 10-5:

10) Bush's last year!

9) Obama surprises everyone by winning the Iowa caucuses, proves the Internet isn't just for porn addicts and fat virgin bloggers.

8) "Paper Planes" by M.I.A. goes Top Ten (I adore her because she makes real, weird music), upsetting the natural order of popular music being shit.

7) Barriers Are Broken- from Clinton and Obama to (yes, even) Sarah Palin, 2008 was a serious year for civil rights.

6) "The Dark Knight" proves all the good movies weren't just made in the 30s.

5) Sarah Palin keeps talking, proving with every word how incompetent she is.

Sarah Palin Won't Go Away

Fresh off her election night ass-handing three weeks ago and her turkey holocaust last week, the Governor of Alaska is exploring her options. She recently spoke (all by herself!) at the Republican Governors Assocation and, you know, gave a fuckload of "exclusive" interviews to every cable station in this great land of ours. But good news for the vp wannabe! Incumbent Republican senator Saxby Chambliss wants her services in Georgia to help him win reelection!

Being insane, Chambliss said he wants her help because she's popular in Georgia. OK, even though she's not anywhere else in the country. In one of the infinite number of irrelevant polls taken on Election Day, one that stuck out in my mind is that a huge number of people in the suburbs think Palin is unqualified for high office. You cannot be a viable politician and be that loathed by the people in the 'burbs (where, you know, there's lot of voters). But, this being the GOP, they don't give a shit about the suburbs and their stinkin' commie politics (and their lots and lots of people). They want the white, dumbass, pointlessly religious, Joe the Plumber demographic to resurrect itself in 2012 behind- yes, you guess it!- Sarah "Africa is a Continent?" Palin! You think destroying John McCain's career and reputation in two short months would have been, you know, an obstacle to ascending in the ranks of the GOP. Nah, not for the Republicans. No, no, no, she gets the "star" treatment. She's the future and by "future," I mean George W. Bush circa 2000.

God, I was really hoping this one would fade into obscurity, like the crying Britney fan. But alas, she appears to have the staying power of "The Evolution of Dance."

The Nation's Got The Blues

Drink that shit up. There's a whole lot of fucking blue where there wasn't just four short years ago. How far we've come indeed.

I just wanted to add my voice to the chorus of people commenting on the future of the Republican Party. I love how the media is acting like they'll go in some new, sane, non-Christiany direction. Puh-lease. The religious right is that party's eyewall; the notion that the GOP would drop kick them in favor of "attracting new voters" is ludicrous. The nutbag Christians are the reason the Republicans can always rely on the South to deliver red. And the fact that the brightest "star" in that party right now is Sarah Palin should speak volumes about the "new" direction they plan on going in. Karl Rovism may have failed this year, but like a malicious phoenix rising from the ashes, it'll be back. I'm sure it'll be just more of the insane same from the GOP.

Obama Will Destroy Israel, Plumber Predicts

According to America's new sage Joe the Plumber, a vote for Barack Obama equals a vote for the destruction of Israel. John McCain's hero said as much during an impromptu interview with a McCain/Palin supporter at a rally at some redneck locale this week.

At first, I didn't understand why anyone would say such a thing. But after I pondered it for about 10 seconds, it came to me in a flash of divine clarity: "Oh yeah. I forgot. Obama's a Muslim." Jesus Christ. But the really embarassing thing for Mr. Plumber is that Shepherd Smith totally called him out on this shit during an interview on Fox News. Dude, when you have a Fox News commentator calling you a bullshit liar, you should reconsider your tactics.