An Ode To True Patriots

Happy Memorial Day! It's America's favorite socialist holiday to celebrate the sacrifices made in the quest to defeat fascism and communism. Just so you don't think I'm ungrateful, I already lit a candle or two for the brave and courageous souls at Fox News who slave tirelessly to bring down the tyrannical President Obama and his band of communist cut throats in Congress. The patriotic sacrifices of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly need to be recognized, for their military records and years of public service allowed them to become the astute political commentators they are today. While past generations had to actually do stuff to be considered patriots, this gang figured out that simply saying stuff was good enough to illustrate one's loyalty to this great nation of ours. They truly took to heart the motto of my high school: "Words, Not Deeds." Wait, it's the other way around. Anyway.

In sum, true sacrifice is for terrorists and tax and spend liberals. The only thing we should require of our citizenry to win future wars is that they slap the "support our troops" magnets on their SUVs and memorize talking points. Classics include: "We're fighting them over there so they don't follow us home," "The oil will pay for the war," and "Mission accomplished." Allah Bless America.

Jon and Kate Plus Lying Bullshit

My favorite recent story from the pop culture front has to be the cheating allegations dogging America's favorite breeders Jon and Kate Gosselin. The Gosselins, of course, have an insanely popular show on TLC that follows their lives as parents to a set of eight-year-old twins and a set of five-year-old sextuplets and all the wacky hijinks that ensue. And also about how stressful it is to have so many kids all the same age. And how stressed Mom and Dad are. In fact, there's a lot of stress in the show, which is fairly amusing to me considering how they refused selective reduction on their sextuplets because abortion makes god cry (although apparently he's cool with people subverting his will by abusing science to conceive a litter of little premie ankle biters). Gee, ya think having so many kids might make you go a touch apeshit? Or want to fuck around on your spouse?

I clearly know too much about this show. I admit I got sucked into some episodes in the earlier seasons because goddamn, those kids are freakin' adorable! But now it's all about product placements and skiing trips to Utah and million-dollar mansions. Since Mom and Dad don't have to have to work to pay the bills anymore, they quit budgeting and taking family trips to Sam's Club and doing whatever other "normal" shit that people identified with. Now they have to fill their free time with banging their bodyguards and partying with college kids (allegedly). Because, gat dam it, having eight children eight years and under just doesn't eat up your time the way you'd think it would!

I have zero sympathy for Jon and Kate. I've read a few articles/blog entries online about how bad people feel for Jon and how much of a pushy bitch Kate is but they're both adults. If Jon doesn't want to be a reality tv star anymore, then he can tell the cameras to leave and get a real job to support his family. But look on the bright side- all this publicity has to be terrific for the new season, which conveniently premieres this Monday and conveniently happens to be all about their recent marital travails. And I'm sure I'll be watching and waiting to judge.

Lord, Bless This Bounty For Which We Are About To Conceive

In case you haven't heard, a set of octuplets was born in California last week. All eight babies are said to be doing well, as it their mother. As usual when a woman gives birth to a litter of Frankenstein children, the media is going gaga apeshit over this news. Personally, I find it highly disturbing. Highly.

We don't know much about the mother, because she and her doctors are in some sort of weird media blackout, only occasionally updating us on the status of these freak kids. But we can surely conclude that mother used fertility drugs and that she's a paranoid narcissist.

Because, seriously. How fuckin' full of your own infertile shit do you have to be to think you deserve to have six plus children at once? Only in America is this type of behavior celebrated and encouraged. Remember the McCaughey septuplets, the world's first surviving set of seven babies, born in Iowa in 1997? I do. They were on Oprah the following year, paraded out by their Christian nutbag parents in front of the bright lights and television audience of millions, all in an attempt to prove what a "normal" family they are. A "normal" family that gets a pre- babyproofed mansion as a gift from Oprah.

Now, of course, we have "Jon and Kate Plus 8," a TLC reality show dedicated to this couple with a set of twins and a set of sextuplets. We learn that they are also Christians and full of their own infertile shit. I love how these families are always religious, as if subverting god's own will is going to get you into the express lane to heaven. There's a reason he made you infertile, asshole! Fuck, they're not blessings, they're science experiments. Allah forbid you just adopt a kid or two and leave it at that.

I was watching "Jon and Kate Plus 8" a few weeks ago and Kate was talking about how she gets the kids to line up for shit. She says something like, "I just say, 'Birth order,' and they just know. They know that their birth order was chosen by god." No, not so much. Their birth order was chosen by which fetus was closest to the hole they cut in your overstuffed uterus. And the neonatologists did that, not god. Or Jesus.

There is nothing at all normal or healthy about a woman carrying more than, like, three babies in her at once. And even triplets is a stretch, both morally and anatomically. I can't believe any insurance company in this country would be willing to cover the delivery of eight premature babies at once and the subsequent ten years in the NICU they'll require. But then again, I guess that's what Oprah's for.

Schadenfreude Is Where It's At

I hate to break it to y'all, but I'm still ridin' a slight Obamahigh. Ye olde rage well is runnin' a touch dry and whatnot. I am a bit miffed that he's yet to get a stimulus package through Congress (I seem to recall he told us he wanted to sign said lauded stimulus package into action on Day One) but I understand he's up against a mighty bureaucracy and there's still tons of pork shit to be hammered out, so I'm still willing to cut him some slack. At least until Black History Month. Then it's gonna be on like white on rice. I'm also officially going to hold Obama accountable if I don't get this government job I got lined up. So be prepared for a wall of bitchy shit to come down if I'm still unemployed this time next month.

But leave it to the bitter, insane right wing whiney assholes to jump all over Obama like a Kleenex at a snot party mere hours after he stumbled through the oath. Rush Limbaugh said, on inauguration day, "I hope he fails."

I hope you're happy with that quote. I had to travel to Rush Limbaugh's website to retrieve it and now I feel filthier than a Vegas whore. Clearly, this is the most outrageously unpatriotic thing any whiney little asshole could say, even one as whiney as Limbaugh. When you say you want the president to fail, you're saying you want this country to fail. Wanting America to fail = John Walker Lindh territory. God, it felt way too good to compare Rush Limbaugh to a member of the Taliban. But it's true. Look, if any person said those exact four words about George Bush this month six years ago- in the lead up to the Iraq invasion- Rush would have had no problem throwin' around the "you're a terrorist and want bin Laden's America-hatin' babies" routine. So consider it a dose of your own McCarthyite Oxycotin-laden medicine, Rush. You whiney little bitch.

But honestly, that statement didn't and doesn't really bother me. That's because for the past week, I've felt like Cartman at the end of that South Park episode where he makes that kid Scott Tenorman eat his parents (Cartman grinds his parents into a chili; it's actually really funny). When the kid realizes that he's just eaten his parents, Cartman says, "Oh, god, I love your tears, Scott. Please, let me taste your tears."

That's how I feel and it's great. Picture Scott Tenorman as Rush Limbaugh and me as Cartman and you've approximated my almost orgasmic ebullience over the past week at the Fox New brigade's hate-flavored tears. It's a blast to finally be able to throw their own shit right back in their faces. Don't support Bush Obama? Then you might as well be pissin' all over the hole in the ground at Ground Zero, hippie. Then you want the terrorists to win, commie. You're either with us or against us, Frenchie.

This is America. Love it or leave it, bitches.

18 Krazy Kids Iz Kool

First of all, LOL at that picture. Secondly, I got major beef with this family. They're the Duggars and they have a show on TLC called "17 Kids and Counting," or "And Baby Makes 18," or "And Jesus Sayeth Unto Us: Fucketh Until You Dropeth." I forget. Anyway, you get the idea: 18 kids + evangelical Christianity = reality tv gold.

And I hope you don't think I'm implying they're racists by the title of this post. I would never make such a sweeping indictment of a group of white religious extremists. Because we all know that religious nutbags are never any kind of "ists" or "ophobes" or "judgemental assholes." I just thought it looked nice.

On December 18, 2008, the mom gave birth to the eighteenth kid in this family. It was a girl they named Jordyn-Grace, because all the kids have names starting with the letter J. I was definitely disappointed she didn't squeeze out another boy, because then they could have named him Jesus. Or Jesus Bob. The birth of little Jordyn-Grace was chronicled on a TLC special and I watched it. I don't know why; I guess it's that masochism coming back into play. I think I like the parents because they remind me of a real life Ned and Maude Flanders from The Simpsons. You know, painfully nice, soft spoken, and batshit crazy into religion.

But it gets better. Cause tonight, we get "A Very Duggar Wedding" that follows the oldest Duggar child as he prepares to get married at the rip old age of 20. From the previews, we learn that he and his blushing bride-to-be followed a strict Christian form of asceticism and didn't even kiss before their nuptials. Didn't even kiss. Didn't even kiss. Oh shizz! That was the hook for me!

I do have to give it up to the Republicans via the evangelical Christians in da South, though. Deal with a diversifying America? Fuck you! If we can just get all the crazy Christian white folks to have 20 kids a piece, we won't have to compromise the Joe the plumber crowd. We'll balance out all them damn latinos and force America back to the 1800s, complete with no tv, no Democrat Party, and lots of creepy pioneer dresses for the girls. Praise be to god.

I Took All The Ws Off The Keyboards And All I Got Was This Lousy New Pepsi Ad

Obviously, I have nothing of actual import to bitch about (assuming the hot Facebook topic has been settled). Obama signed an executive order to close Gitmo, Obama is still alive, and I'm feeling- get this- happy and optimistic about the future. Gross. So clearly, the past few days have been a living hell for your sarcastic, cynical, bitter girl. I'm hoping I'm not coming down with an acute personality change, cause then I may have to spend more time among my fellow homo sapiens and not in this here 'puter chair. Again, gross.

So yeah. As I was tearfully watching the inauguration coverage on CNN and MSNBC, I kept noticing this new Pepsi ad that spans generations and oldass Pepsi cans. The new commercial ends with the slogan, "Every generation refreshes the world." Not to mention the above ad, which clearly apes the Obama "change" sign and steals word-for-word his entire campaign platform. And, well, I think that's dumb. So there's that.

Also, I kept waiting for CNN to outdo its lameass Election Day holograms with something equally lameass, but it didn't (because, really, how does a network outdo a dancin', holographic will.i.am?). I thought that satellite photo they kept promoting was actually pretty cool, even though their loud, hyberbolic description of the millions of people on the Mall was indeed lameass: "They look like a swarm of ants!" and "They look like millions of tiny ants!" and other ant-related comparisons. Yeah, wow! It's a picture taken from fuckin' space! Look at them miniscule folk an 'em! They look like ants on an anthill about to devour the White House pic-a-nic basket! Jesus Christ, shut up and get back to the cuteness that is Sasha and Malia!

And speaking of the First Children, have they gotten their puppy yet? What kind? From where? And is it a mut, like Obama? Fuck, now that was a news story with legs! Where for art thou, First Puppy? Among other pressing issues of the week, like Michelle Obama's universally-panned inaugural dress. Christ, lady! You graduated from Princeton and Harvard and that's the best you can do? Why did you waste all that time developing your mind when you could have been studying haute couture? Think! Jackie O ain't remember for her dissertation!

Anyway, that's the best I can do on this sunny Friday. I can only hope that Obama's change depresses me at some point.

More Crap In My Eye

The plan. I was tempted to give this one its very own post but it isn't worth it. Mother Dearest has been on me to come up with a "plan" for my life. I'm all like, "But I did the plan. The plan was college. My high school guidance counselor told me if I went to college, all the doors in the world would open up to me, flowers would bloom in the desert, Muslims and Jews would get it on, and my life would resemble a trendy sitcom about Modern Woman if I got a framed piece of paper with my full name on it. I did the plan. THE PLAN FAILED." I guess what she really means is that she wants me to solve this historic global economic crisis all by my lonesome in between blog posts and gin shots. "Well, you have to get a job," she bitches. Right. Because I haven't ever tried looking for a job. I'm waiting for one to knock on my bedroom door, take me by the hand, and introduce me to his (or her) HMO and 401k. Here's the rub, Ma: We're. In. A. Depression. No. One. Hires. In. A. Depression. Speaking of declaring the obvious...

Generation Y Job-Seekers Hit Hard. That's an actual article title on MSN. One, two, three: NO FUCKIN' SHIT! I really should quit reading MSN. It always pisses me off.

Automatic things. Everything is automated. Think about it. Doors, sinks, toilets, hand dryers, "people movers" (or as I call them, "flat escalators"). I was in a mall bathroom the other day (not soliciting a handjob, Senator Craig) and all of a sudden, I felt like I was living in a lame episode of The Jetsons. If, you know, people in the 60s thought automatic sinks were blazing new technology. The philosophy behind this shit is astounding. Automatic bathrooms? Well, we're saving trees by not wasting as much TP and paper towels. Wow, except for every piece of already recycled paper towel you save from being recycled again, you've wasted more than that in electricity to run this Lay-Z-Boy bathroom! You, sir, are a tool.

I, and you, are capable of touching things and wiping our own hands with paper towels. Allah gave us manual dexterity and opposable thumbs for a reason. Not to wave them under literally stupid computer chips that don't always detect our presence all in some vein attempt at eco-conscientiousness. Besides, every time I approach an automatic door, I get that Simpsons episode in my head where Bart sells his soul to Milhouse for a comic or something and all of a sudden he cannot walk through an automatic door because he lacks a soul. I have a mild panic attack every time I see an automatic door, knowing if it doesn't open, I'm most certainly soulless. Which leads me to my next beef...

I am the living embodiment of entropy. Entropy is the second law of thermodynamics that states the universe tends towards chaos and decay. I am that principle in action. More on that later.

The plane that crashed in New York yesterday. It's a bird! It's a plane! No wait, it's a bird in a plane! I am legitimately relieved to hear there were no causalities, but come on! How insane is it that a plane crashes in New York on the very same day George Bush gives his farewell address on keeping us safe! Well apparently, he should have declared a War on Ducks because those fuckers almost killed 155 people yesterday. Or a War on Human Error. Remember the plane that crashed in Queens on November 12, 2001, killing 265? No you don't! Because it crashed from run of the mill, and way unsexy, piloting error. Certainly nothing to steamroll the Middle East over.

I don't believe in fate but if there is a god, he has a cruel sense of irony. I like that!

Spin Cycle and Fake Dog Balls

Bush and Cheney are on a media blitz to try and convince us the past eight years were awesome and/or that Bush is some unrecognized genius that only time can vindicate. Sort of like Vincent Van Gogh, if, you know, Van Gogh were a retard who sucked at life. The whole gang have been real busy beavers these past few weeks lying and attempting to rewrite history. Dick Cheney actually said, "[The administration] didn't base going after Saddam Hussein on any connection with 9/11." Wow. Now see, I seem to recall the exact opposite that but I do have the memory of a pot smoker so this ain't cool, Dick! Don't fuck with my head like this! It's amazing that the lead up to the invasion was just six short years ago and they actually think they can make up bullshit about something that just happened and we all just lived through. God, make shit up about the War of 1812 or the Norman Conquest! How the hell would we know?

Karl Rove recently pulled the Bullshit Express into the Bill O'Reilly show to make shit up about Bush's apparently sweet legacy, but also to make shit up about the liberal media cabal to elect Obama (because they overstated the Depression we're currently in) and implying that if we get another 9/11, it'll be Obama's fault for being a pussy liberal.

I love how people say that Karl Rove is a genius for orchestrating George Bush's "wins" in 2000 and 2004. He's not a genius; he just stole his playbook from some 16-year-old gossipy bitch. John McCain has an adopted daughter from Cambodia? Not anymore! She's now an illegitimate black kid he had out of wedlock. That'll really rile some feathers among the Klan crowd in South Carolina. John McCain spent five years in a VietCong prison camp where he was horribly tortured? Well then he's clearly too crazy to be president. John Kerry is also a Vietnam War hero? No problem! We'll spread malicious lies that he overstated his war achievements by trotting out and paying some dudes who look like veterans to say he's full of shit. Nevermind the fact that Bush and Cheney were too craven to actually fight in Vietnam themselves. But hey, they had better things to do. Fuck you, Vietnam War! Obama is massively popular around the world? Piece of fuckin' cake! We'll just compare him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, thereby implying that his popularity is media-orchestrated and he's a braindead whore.

Karl Rove is not a genius. He's Perez Hilton without the sense of humor. This man, on the other hand, makes Einstein look like Special Ed:

Neuticals go for $85 for the original, $189 for the natural, and $349 for the ultra-plus. According to the genius himself, pets in all fifty states and 47 countries have reaped the benefits of ball implants to stem the tide of their denuting depression. Reach for the stars, kids! Anything is possible in this land of milk, honey, lies, and fake dog balls.

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.

Not Another Israel Post

I'm sick of that shit so I'm going to ramble incoherently for this particular entry. Here are some things that are chapping my lily white ass right now:

Number one: The cover of Joe The Liar's new book. Presumably, "Joe The Plumber: Fighting for the American Dream" means fighting against the forces of the gay liberal conspiracy to destroy America under a fake persona with an exposed ass crack via a book that was ghostwritten by someone smarter than you.
-Nostradamus, his fan club, and Nostradamus-related programming. He was not a prophet. He wrote vague statements about the events of his day that people later interpreted as prophecy. Sort of like the people who wrote the Bible. Take this quatrain: "The sky will burn at 45 degrees / Fire approaches the great New City / Immediately a huge scattered flame leaps up / When they want to have proof of the Normans." Clearly this references airplanes flying into the Twin Towers on 9/11. Because if there's one thing the hijackers hated, it was a lack of proof of the fuckin' Normans! Goddammit, they hated that shit! I think that's also mentioned in sentence one of bin Laden's first fatwa against the U.S. Check it. But it does teach me an important lesson if I ever decide to enter prophecy as a profession: if it's vague bullshit, the people will come. I just want to thank the History Channel for airing three successive and sincere programs on this asshat.

-The Bible Code. Basically like Nostradamus for your computer nerd religious fanatics, the Bible Code is supposedly a series of secret messages hidden in the Bible that can only be found via a computer program that runs a series of matrices on the text to find vague, chopped up words that, if you squint your eyes and damage your cerebral cortex, clearly predicts events of our day. If god is omnipotent, then I think he can do better than "the assassin will assassinate" in reference to Yitzhak Rabin's murder. Yeah, god, assassinate is what assassins tend to do. Funny thing is, some Australian scientist ran the same matrix on "Moby Dick" and found similar shit. So I think there's one thing to conclude here: HERMAN MELVILLE WAS THE SECOND COMING AND WE FUCKIN' MISSED IT! OMFG!

-Educational bureaucracy. It took me a half hour to unenroll from a community college where I was planning on studying something in the medical field. I had to fill out a form in one building, drive to the other side of campus to get it signed by my advisor, drive back to the first building, and then take the form to three different offices to have it notarized by two different people. And you know they'll still send me a bill for the classes I'm now unenrolled from.

-My town's roundabout. In an effort to be cool, European-like, and save money on another useless traffic light, my town erected a roundabout (or "traffic circle," if you're a lame Yank) near said community college. Problem is, the local yokels cannot figure it out. As I was passing through it today, a guy in a truck did like a 380 in it; he went around it completely then took the right he was closest to when he pulled up to the damn thing. During that minute he was driving around, he must have been pissing himself in terror that he'd died, been sent to hell, and give this Sisyphean task as eternal punishment for his inability to understand the hard science of yielding to your left and exiting to your right. And I'm sure he's not the only one who's had that existential crisis while frantically trying to exit this black hole of a demon known as our town's roundabout.

-Maintaining this constant level of outrage. It's exhausting. :)

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*

New Year, (Mostly) Same Old Shit

I managed to survive my gin and juice-fueled evening to see the dawning of 2009. I've been awake since 3:47am humming the hypnotic chorus of the eponymous Snoop Dogg song: Rollin' down the street, smokin' indo, sippin' on gin and juice. Yes, I am really, painfully white.

Anyway, I awoke to more than just a headache and a belly full of liquor. Turns out some actual shit has gone down since I passed out last night. First and foremost, today was declared "Sovereignty Day" in Iraq because the U.S. symbolically returned control of the lauded Green Zone over to the Iraqis. The area gets a lot of press because it's the center of the international coalition U.S. presence in Baghdad and supposedly the safest place in Iraq, even though we've heard about tons of suicide bombings going off in it for years. The area is home to our embassy there as well as Saddam's palace, which I saw the inside of when Kathy Griffin toured it on an episode of "My Life on the D-List." And goddamit! I just realized I slept through her New Year's coverage with Anderson Cooper! Shit. Still, this is one of the few "feel good" moments of the Iraq war. If, you know, there are any "feel good" moments of the Iraq war. Accompanying the article I read, there was this poignant image of soldiers hoisting an Iraqi flag up a pole but I thought the Chucky image was funnier.

And in Minnesota, the state supreme court has rejected incumbent Republican Norm Colemen's claims that some of Al Franken's votes were counted twice. Lest you think this shit is over and done with, this ruling just opens the door for lawsuit upon lawsuit. I suspect litigation to be filed by each candidate, party, innocent bystander, and Elian Gonzales. It's not damn likely there will be a winner declared before January 6th, when Congress reconvenes, and it's looking increasingly dim that there will be a winner before January 20th, when the new Congress is sworn in. I say great. As the Devil, I heart Murphy's Law and governmental incompetence. Whoo hoo!

I'm actually looking forward to this new year and hope that B. Hussein Obama (as my Republican friends refer to him) and the Republican-lite new Congress can get to cleanin' up this clusterfuck of a shitfest George The Baptist has left us mired in. Personally, I have a lot of options and my one and only resolution for 09 is to be less of a crybaby bitch. :)

The Year In Bill Maher

I can't think of a better way to sum up the year in politics than this clip of Bill Maher from November 7th talking about Barack The Magic Negro Obama's win and the Republican reaction.

And just for shits and giggles, here's Bill Maher's list of Dickheads of the Year from Rolling Stone's December 07 issue. My favorites (and two things that are timeless in their suckdom) are:

College Republicans: The place where cutthroat, amoral putzes like Karl Rove cut their teeth. They're all staunchly for the Iraq War, although none have volunteered to go, even though they're the same age as the grunts doing the fighting they say is so important. Doughy losers who, at age twenty, care more about tax cuts than girls. And lately they've been holding these "Catch an Illegal Immigrant" parties around the country where they basically play hide-and-seek with one lucky player posing as the wetback. Usually you have to be older and married before you start hating life so much you try to blame the Mexicans for all your problems, don't you?

George W. Bush: Come on, no list of assholes and fuck-ups could be complete without the Dipshit in Chief. Who will tell this president what everyone but him already knows? The theory of evolution. And the times tables. And where the sun goes at night. And that Iraq is going to be three different countries. And that everyone hates us and we've run our military into the ground and the Taliban is back and we still haven't caught bin Laden and the economy is tanking and we wasted eight years blowing the oil companies while the Earth is melting. We had a pretty nice house when this Cat in the Hat of presidents came in and made the mess of all time. And who's going to clean it all up — Rudy Giuliani?

Luckily, no, it wasn't the guy who was fucking there on 9/11. That dumbass got his ass handed to him by a bunch of sundried Florida retirees after a spectacularly inept campaign. No, it's going to be a guy no one outside of Illinois, the Trinity United Church of Christ, and the Internet had even heard of last year at this time. And a black guy no less! Twenty more days!

However, I need to bitch a little about our president-elect. I keep receiving e-mails from his campaign (can we even call it that anymore?) still wanting money for shit, this time to throw the inaugural ball to end inaugural balls. Seriously, B, are you fuckin' kidding me? You raised $700 million in the general! Where the fuck did that go? And I did spot you $15 back in October, dude. That's the best I can do until I can get a job rebuilding infrastructure and a greener America and shizz.

Anyway, Happy New Year. Here's to 09 being slightly less shitty.

Happy Xmas Eve Eve

The sign homeless Santa is holding says, "The sleigh broke down." This picture would probably be funnier if it were 1999 but I wanted to give a shout out to the economic crisis in this otherwise cheery post.

Robot Santa from "Futurama." He's the reason I will only refer to Christmas as "Xmas."

And this one is just for lolz. I hate kids, so this one brings a tear to my eye.

I actually enjoy Xmas Day but I'm not really sure why. I was about 9 or 10 when I caught on to the great Santa conspiracy and I never really forgave my parents for that injustice. Ever since I was about 12, Christmas at the Beelzebub household has really been like Hanukkah. We just get each other the practical shit we asked for. No surprise, no excitement, other than the unwrapping. "Oh, it's that book I asked for. Thanks." "Oh wow. A whole pack of socks? It really must be Christmas!" OK, you get it. I guess that's one of the joys of growing up.

However, I do love the food and being around family. Yeah, my cyncism hasn't completely calcified and I don't actually hate being around my family at holidays. And there's one reason for that: they're all fucking nuts. My grandmother, for example, has been calling George Bush the anti-Christ since at least summer 2001 and finds the need to mention it at every familial get together. And my 50-year-old uncle is a spinster. I'm unaware of an equally offensive term for men but if that word exists, my uncle is it. He has never been married and lives alone with four cats, one of which he named after himself. Yes, he owns a cat that he has named after himself. A cat.

Anyway, enough with this nonsense, I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Xmas. I was going to give you the secular "Happy Holidays" but even I as an atheist hate that shit.

Local Randomness and Maudlin Self-Reflection

It's snowing! It's our first measurable snowfall of the year and the whole area is overreacting, as usual. Schools let out two hours early and most other public buildings closed early as well.

Yeah, I know. This isn't very exciting... until you realize that it was a humid, sunny 58 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday. It's a good thing this climate change thing is nothing more than liberal scare tactics rather than an empirical historical trend. Fuck you, Al! And now for a completely gratuitous Simpsons quote:

"Could this record-breaking heat wave be the result of the dreaded 'greenhouse effect'? Well, if 70-degree days in the middle of winter are the 'price' of car pollution, then you'll forgive me if I keep my old Pontiac"- Kent Brockman

I had a job interview today! The job is for a part-time census-taker position. Actually, it wasn't an interview, it was a test. I had to take a standardized test in a room full of other potential applicants. It was a test divided into sections designed to measure our strengths in particular areas of intellect (ie verbal, math, etc). Sort of like the SAT. I suddenly realized the absurdity of the situation when it dawned on me that I took the SAT exactly six years ago this month...in a room not unlike the room I sat in today. And when I was taking said SAT six years ago, I certainly thought I was preparing myself for a job beyond the one I was applying for today. I did manage to graduate from college (finally, after five years) but for what? To end up taking a test in a room full of people who were all easily at least twenty years older than me, some so old I was convinced they'd probably signed up for a job like this during the last depression?

It's almost enough to make me depressed...until I realize I don't really care. The job only lasts ten weeks and the pay is insane. I do realize that the time is coming for me to make a decision: to be (a grad student) or not to be. Or to continue down this path of working random jobs far below my skill set for a few weeks at a time because I'm too lazy to move away from this shithole hometown I loathe.

But this intrapersonal melodrama is gonna have to wait. Rachel Maddow's on!

God Is In Your Taxes

This is what boredom and insomnia will do to you: I just finished a marathon YouTube session (I'm officially over 8,000 videos watched!) that lasted about an hour and a half. OK, maybe an hour and a half isn't such a long time but when your normal posture ranks somewhere between Kurt Cobain and Quasimodo, sitting in a computer chair for an hour and a half can fuck up an already-fucked up back. Anyway, I digress. On to the topic at hand.

This is one of the coolest/weirdest videos I've seen about atheist campaigning. I'm always glad to see fellow atheists fighting for our constitutional rights against the "moral majority" and I'm always glad to see it done in creative/funny ways. I also enjoyed the tv hosts' faux shock at the idea that atheists actually exist and can afford billboards.

But what the fuck was up with that religious right-winger radio host? "Income tax doesn't not exist just because somebody doesn't believe in it. And the same is true with our creator, god." Um, yeah. That is easily the damn dumbest analogy I've ever heard. Well, dude, I know income tax exists because I can see where the government has taken it from me each paycheck. I can see it and I can feel it. God? Not so much. Maybe if god wants to make his presence known, he should send himself to Earth in the form of tax.

Actually, upon second thought, God and government have a lot in common. Both are primarily concerned with taking money from its people under false pretenses. Both are obsessed with image and concerned with the adherence to arbitrary laws. Both are war-mongering hypocrites. And both get national holidays for their shit.

But I do have to give the random dudes who wrote the Bible god his props for this gem, which is easily my favorite biblical verse:

Proverbs 22:14: "The mouth of strange women is a deep pit." Yes, it is.

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.

Look How Far We've Come

My favorite president is Thomas Jefferson. He was a genius in about everything he did (outside of the slave raping). He supported the full funding of education from kindergarten through university level. He wrote his own bible. He provided his personal library to start the Library of Congress. He negotiated the Louisiana Purchase. He was also a fellow dreaded secular progressive.

It always cracks me up to hear the Bill O'Reillys of the nation rant and rave about the nefarious impact people like me have on society with our wacky, liberal beliefs. I hate to break it to these people but we were a nation founded by secular progressives. Actually, we were founded by a group of secular radicals. The great thing about men like Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, et al (and there are many great things about them) is that none of them would be considered great today. They'd be vilified by people like O'Reilly and reduced to some kind of wailing banshee demon like Howard Dean. It's like we started at the top and have just been sliding downhill ever since.

We've just gotten progressively dumber and (coincidentally) more religious over the years, which is completely bizarre and at odds with every other fucking First World country on earth. All those grand cathedrals in Europe may look impressive on postcards but come Sunday, they're as empty as the Federal Reserve. I was thinking about an exchange Bill Maher (my hero) had with Larry King a while back on this same topic. Larry said (I'm paraphrasing): "FDR always said 'I never went wrong relying on the American people.'" To which Bill Maher replied, "Well, people were smarter back then."

Maybe tv's to blame. Maybe the Internet. It just feels like we've devolved to the point where we're so narcissistic (and so very very dumb) that we could go, in just 199 years, from electing a man like Jefferson to electing a totally emotionally retarded, cipher, frat boy whose longest held job title pre-presidency was "alcoholic."

I am happy we elected Obama, because I feel like his victory sort of balanced out the past eight years of madness, but we'll be dealing with the repercussions of Bush's breathtaking ineptitude for years and years to come. And for that, I'd like to give a heartfelt "fuck you" to the red states for allowing this man to ransack America for nearly a decade. Because, really, without you, it wouldn't have been possible.

Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher are God

Yeah, she got shut down. This definitely tickled me. It also reminded me of a somewhat heated appearance Bill Maher made on "Scarborough Country" a while back.



And this is why I don't believe in religion. I could make a serious argument for why religion's bullshit but I prefer the devastating humor of people like Dawkins and Maher. Thank you and good night.