This new white format allows me to post complete pics (the other Blogger formats cut them off, practically in half). Pretend you're reading your newspaper or something.
Dates separate each post, barely, so look for the dates on the left. Print is large & readable. Comment section is unchanged. My Profile info was at the bottom, but I moved it back to the top. Deal with it.
ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE.
If you have already abandoned hope,
please disregard this notice.
In this blog, you'll be exposed to the way I see things. Lots of things. Stuff I think of. Things that happen. Random weirdness. Occasional seriousness. My life. My world. My universe. My reality. By reading this, you have given me brief control of your mind....
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin said today that America was less safe now that she was no longer keeping an eye on Russia, but added that she hoped other Alaskans would step up to fill the security void she has left.
"What with me being out and about trying to progress the agenda of so many Americans out there, it's not possible for me to be seeing when Putin's rearing his head like I used to be doing," she said.
She urged fellow residents of her hometown, Wasilla, to keep an eye out for the suspicious activities of any Russians they might see from their front porches.
"It's just like a neighborhood watch, only with the neighborhood being America and the watching we're doing not being for car thieves and all but for Communists with big furry hats," she said.
She also admonished the media to "quit making things up," adding, "that's my job."
In other news:
Congress urged Americans not to get sick until after the August recess.
Palin Update: A spokesman for the former Governor denied rumors that the Palins were divorcing, saying, "It's not like her to walk out on a commitment."
Carrots are good for your eyes but only if you take them orally.
I don't have any idea if the ongoing flight of sponsors from the Glenn Beck Show is having any effect on its bottom line, but it sure isn't tempering its content! Friday's Glenn Beck show was MAGICAL. I really hope you watched it, and I really hope you watched it in the same way I did: on YouTube, mentally yelling thought rays at my laptop (so as not to wake Buffy), "What's he saying now? That stuff sounds BONKERS! Is it burning my retinas to look at it? Should I wake Buffy for a hug?" Here's what you missed:
HILARIOUS ILLITERACY
Glenn Beck took to his whiteboard to demonstrate how various words revealed a disturbing hidden secret about the Obama administration. It sort of went something like this: Gimme an "Obama!" Gimme a "left!" Gimme the word, "international!" Gimme some "graft!" Here's the reference to "ACORN" that I am contractually obligated to mention once a show! Gimme a "revolutionaries!" Followed by "hidden agendas!" And now, give me a "Y," because surely, the world is staring at Glenn Beck and asking themselves, "Why? Dear God in Heaven, why?" What do you get when you take the first letters of those words and spin them through your Little Orphan Annie decoder rings? "OLIGARHY!" This is NOT A WORD, in any language on the planet Earth.
DIRE WARNINGS
OMGZ! Have you heard that Obama is fashioning himself a private Army, made up of Americorps volunteers? It's true! And who hasn't gazed upon the average gaggle of Americorps volunteers, fresh and clueless from college, and thought to themselves: "From this raw material, I could surely fashion a brutal cadre of fearsome shock troops that will finally bring Western civilization to its knees!" The mere prospect of such a thing happening led Beck to compare President Obama to Saddam Hussein, underscoring the way Hussein attempted to tyrannically "adopt" all of Kuwait's highways.
First, Americorps came for the seniors, and I SAID NOTHING, because it turns out Americorps was just bringing them food, listening to them tell stories about their childhoods, and promising to visit them and stuff.
BECK GETS EMO
Nothing really beats Glenn Beck when he goes on a full-tilt victimization binge. Here's how he ended his show (I didn't watch it, just read the transcript, as follows):
BECK: I'm tired of being a sheep. I'm tired of being a victim. I'm tired of being pushed around. You know what? The gloves come off.
I have no idea who is pushing Glenn Beck around! He gets his very own television show and radio show and book deals and he gets to say whatever in the world he feels like saying and people give him millions and millions of dollars for it. He can have, if he wants, his very own pony at his gigantic and secluded manse to ride on whenever he wants and can hire someone to bake him delicious funnel cakes any time he likes! These are the hard won perks of being a celebrity, earned from having a dedicated fan base.
Nevertheless, he says the gloves come off! A preview: the hands underneath those gloves will be free of callouses and as soft as an infant's tush!
The Republican Party announced today that it will honor the legacy of Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy by continuing its campaign to defeat any prospect of health care reform.
"Senator Kennedy was a great humanitarian," said Michael Steele, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, "who worked tirelessly to improve the lives of the least fortunate because he understood how easy offering such help can be. We, the Republican party, will honor his memory by continuing our scorched-earth campaign to ensure that not one single uninsured resident of our country ever receives access to health care."
Former Representative Newt Gingrich explained the thinking behind the Republican strategy.
"So far," Mr. Gingrich explained, "we have distracted the American people with outrageous lies, stoked fringe paranoids into a violent rage to break up town meetings, and fomented a nationwide atmosphere of hysteria that makes every decent citizen wonder if the country has gone to Hell."
"We've completely stolen the conversation," Gingrich said. "So part of it is, we are so close to putting a stake through the heart of this thing, we cannot afford to stop."
"But also," Gingrich continued, "now is the time to take our dissembling hypocrisy to the next level. You thought death panels, Obama-Hitler posters, and gun-wielding citizens at town meetings were brazen, and possibly insane? Wait until we honor Senator Kennedy by bludgeoning his most cherished legislative dream into oblivion."
Some Republican Senators, speaking off the record, said their party's strategy may be reprehensible, but they have no choice but to go along.
"It breaks my heart to stand mute as our party operatives honor Senator Kennedy by sabotaging health care reform," one Republican senator said, "but you should see the campaign donations I received from drug and insurances companies in the last cycle. Jesus, it was unbelievable."
Other Republican strategists explained that Kennedy's passing only increased the need for outrageous distractions, and that as far as outrageous distraction were concerned, this one would take the cake.
"We cannot afford to have the passing of America's foremost proponent of public health care create a somber moment in which the national conversation turns to the merits of reform," one strategist said. "That's a game-changer for us. It's the Hail Mary pass that beats us in the last second."
"That's why we're going to, again, manipu -- er, direct the conversation in the way we have to this point," he said. "In these situations, you go big. You go bold."
Republicans denied that their plan to honor the Massachusetts Senator by killing his greatest legislative dream was insensitive, irrational, hypocritical, or insane.
"This is no more crazy than claiming that the Senate health care bill would institute death panels," one strategist said, "or recruiting mobs of LaRouche wingnuts to tout Obama's Nazi affiliations, or denigrating a program that will lift millions out of misery by calling it 'socialist.' And you don't hear anyone in the media calling those stunts crazy."
"Except," the strategist added, "that guy who has that comedy show. But he was the only one."
Rush Limbaugh offered himself some kudos for predicting in March that the health care bill wouldn't be passed before Ted Kennedy's death.
"Before it's all over, it'll be called the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care Bill," Limbaugh said at the time.
Indeed, with Kennedy's passing, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) has called for health care reform legislation to be named in Kennedy's honor.
Limbaugh, who was criticized for his insensitivity over his Kennedy remarks, is expressing vindication. "I predicted it, and I caught all kinds of grief for it out there," he said. Maybe because you're still a big fat insensitive lying idiot, Rushie. Just sayin'...
Washington, DC (ABC News) - Sen. Ted Kennedy died shortly before midnight Tuesday at his home in Hyannis Port, Mass., at age 77.
The man known as the "liberal lion of the Senate" had fought a more than year-long battle with brain cancer, and according to his son had lived longer with the disease than his doctors expected him to.
"We've lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever," the Kennedy family said in a statement. "He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it."
Sen. Edward Moore Kennedy, the youngest Kennedy brother who was left to head the family's political dynasty after his brothers President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated.
Kennedy championed health care reform, working wages and equal rights in his storied career. In August, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- the nation's highest civilian honor -- by President Obama. His daughter, Kara Kennedy, accepted the award on his behalf.
By now we have all seen the signs, heard the shouts, watched the footage of protesters calling Obama a nazi for trying to reform health care. And, until this week, they had all gotten away with it. Enter Barney Frank. At a health care town hall in Dartmouth, MA, a woman asked, "Why are you supporting this nazi policy?"
Frank responded with a question asking,"On what planet do you spend most of your time?" He called her question "vile, contemptible nonsense," and said "Trying to have a conversation with you would be like arguing with a dining room table."
Jon Stewart gave Frank "snaps" last night and suggested other insults he could use in the future.
In a segment called "Glenn-Harried Glenn-Lost," Colbert explained that Beck didn't call Obama a racist, but said he believed Obama was a racist, which is totally different. "The problem is too many people only focus on the first half of what Glenn Beck says, not the second half where he immediately disavows the first half, or maybe they're confused by the third half when he repeats the first half. And, yes, you can have three halves except in a society where the government has death panels for fractions."
Great Barrington, Mass -- The Obama administration's commitment to science already seems to paying dividends as researchers in the medical school at Simon's Rock College have made what they call a "major breakthrough" in discovering the neurological disorder that leads to becoming an influential Republican.
Although scientists have debated theories for years about the potential causes for Republicanism (also known as Terminal Conservativism) it's only been in recent weeks that they were able to determine the specific areas of the brain that lead to the condition, which has been nearly fatal to the United States. Despite the new findings, researchers are quick to point out that a cure is potentially decades away and that the current strain of Republicanism has mutated into a highly resistant and unpredictable disorder. They point to a recent case in New York where an outbreak was caused by a bizarre combination of marriage and military service, as well as the tragic case of the entire state of California, which is currently on life support.
Still, researchers seem confident that by finding the exact region of the human brain that leads to becoming an important and respected member of the Republican party that it will be possible to isolate and ultimately eradicate the condition. Lead Researcher Biff Stoller told reporters, "We have developed such specific data about the areas in the brain that cause GOP that we think it's only a matter of time before we start poking at it with a knitting needle. Seriously, we can't wait for that part."
So where is Republicanism? Researchers say it's in lower right cortex, between the lobes that cause you to feel awesome while driving drunk on the wrong side of a Texas freeway with a transvestite prostitute in the passenger seat of your Lincoln Navigator and the part of your brain that causes you to feel shame for sneaking into your sister's room at 2am and stuffing her panties in your mouth while suffocating her baby kitten to death with a pillow your Mom embroidered with the Ten Commandments.
Stoller explains, "This general neurological region that allows one to feel a false sense of superiority, a blind and seemingly endless pit of rage, a numbing religious guilt, barely suppressed sexual desire, and the complete lack of ability to appreciate the long terms consequences of one's own actions is area that we discovered to be exceptionally well developed in all important Republicans we've studied. Not only that, it starts throbbing like crazy even when seemingly healthy people are exposed to Republican ideas for very long."
As an example, Stoller showed a chart of a Rhode Island man who was repeatedly given expose to doses of Sean Hannity. A noticeable ridge was visible along the bottom right section of the man's brain. Stoller pointed out the sections above and below the ridge. "This section here is what makes you want to sucker punch a gymnast from the Special Olympics. And down there is the part of the human brain that decides to experiment early one Sunday morning by seeing how many pretzel sticks would fit into one's own rectum. That area in between -- that's Sean Hannity."
NOTE: Sorry, people. I know it’s been a day since I’ve posted anything, and I can't promise to blog anything in the coming week either (computer issues). I’ve had to go to the dentist(s) at the ungodly hour of 8:00 am two days in a row and have slept away most of each day to recover. Plus, this health care debate is making me insane, and is difficult to satirize, since it satirizes itself with little assistance from me. I think I’ll go yell “The Star Spangled Banner” at a town hall meeting.
The World According To Me Exclusive Photo: President Obama Convenes First Health Care "Death Panel"
SATIRE: Fox News host Glenn Beck stirred populist outrage today by reporting that taxpayer-aided General Motors is set to make cars that run on the fuel of euthanized grandmas.
Mr. Beck said that the grandma-fueled cars were part of President Obama's "Hitler-like plan" to bail out the auto industry by converting the elderly into fuel.
While acknowledging that he had "no facts" to back up his report, Mr. Beck said, "There's only one way to find out if this plan is for real: run out into the street and start shouting."
NOT SATIRE: Appearing at a town hall in his home state of Iowa, Repub Sen. Chuck Grassley told a crowd of more than 300 that they were correct to fear that the government would "pull the plug on grandma." Even more disturbing, Grassley is one of the three Republican senators working on a bipartisan health care bill. [WATCH]:
As an homage to the Brown Shirts of yore, die-hard opponents of health care for all Americans are attempting to dominate the debate through the time honored tactics of out-shouting, intimidation and purchasing tea bags.
Using completely irrational arguments and ignoring all facts, these brave delusional supporters of a failed system are willing to sacrifice the poor, the young, gold brickers with pre-existing conditions, those with really expensive-to-treat conditions, in short, pretty much everyone, to the higher good of upholding the values of a failing for-profit medical system. That this system might itself collapse as fewer and fewer people can afford its services does not deter the fighters in the battle to restrict health care to the few, the favored, and the not really very sick.
Calling upon heroic sacrifice on the part of others to achieve their ends, these brave persons, defending the spirit of independence and self-reliance that has made our nation great, fight against the slippery slope that an alternative health insurance package creates.
Asked to comment on condition of anonymity, the brave and mostly elderly shouters mentioned that socialized medicine for all would both ruin the famed backbone of America and just might affect their own generous Medicare benefits. At the very thought, several collapsed, and had to be revived by medical personnel. Costs associated with this effort will, of course, be covered under Medicare Part B.
Ever since Sarah Palin's abrupt and odd resignation as Governor of Alaska, people have been speculating what her next career move might be.
Well, that speculation may be coming to an end, as Inside Radio is reporting that
"Palin representatives have been quietly testing the waters to see how much interest radio syndicators have for her."
It appears now that Palin's people are doing more than just testing the waters. We have obtained exclusive footage of Sarah Palin, in the studio, recording a demo to shop to potential syndicators. Take a look.
With a demo like that, Rush Limbaugh better look out.
Before I go about demonstrating how, sadly, easy it is to prove the dumbness dragging down our country, and I am not specifically singling out AZ INDY here, let me just say that ignorance has life and death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq War, 69% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11. Four years later, 34% still did. Or take the health care debate we're presently having: members of Congress have recessed now so they can go home and "listen to their constituents." An urge they should resist because their constituents don't know anything. At a recent town-hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his Congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare," which is kind of like driving cross country to protest highways.
If you doubt that America is a stupid country, polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. 24% could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does. Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive. You know, like the way the Slumdog kid knew about cricket.
Not here. Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators and more than half can't name their congressman. And among Republican governors, only 30% got their wife's name right on the first try.
Sarah Palin says she would never apologize for America. Even though a Gallup poll says 18% of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth. No, they're not stupid. They're interplanetary mavericks. A third of Republicans believe Obama is not a citizen, and a third of Democrats believe that George Bush had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, which is an absurd sentence because it contains the words "Bush" and "knowledge."
People bitch and moan about taxes and spending, but they have no idea what their government spends money on. The average voter thinks foreign aid consumes 24% of our federal budget. It's actually less than 1%. And don't even ask about cabinet members: seven in ten think Napolitano is a kind of three-flavored ice cream. And last election, a full one-third of voters forgot why they were in the booth, handed out their pants, and asked, "Do you have these in a relaxed-fit?"
And I haven't even brought up America's religious beliefs. But here's one fun fact you can take away: did you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That's right, half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament and cannot figure out which one came first.
And these are the idiots we want to weigh in on the minutia of health care policy? Please, this country is like a college chick after two Long Island Iced Teas: we can be talked into anything, like wars, and we can be talked out of anything, like health care. We should forget town halls, and replace them with study halls. There's a lot of populist anger directed towards Washington, but you know who concerned citizens should be most angry at? Their fellow citizens. "Inside the beltway" thinking may be wrong, but at least it's thinking, which is more than you can say for what's going on outside the beltway.
And if you want to call me an elitist for this, I say thank you. Yes, I want decisions made by an elite group of people who know what they're talking about. That means President-Actually Obama, not Sarah Palin.
Which is the way our founding fathers wanted it. James Madison wrote that "pure democracy" doesn't work because "there is nothing to check... an obnoxious individual." Then, in the margins, he doodled a picture of Joe the Plumber.
Until we admit there are things we don't know, we can't even start asking the questions to find out. Until we admit that America can make a mistake, we can't stop the next one. A smart guy named Chesterton once said: "My country, right or wrong is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying... It is like saying 'My mother, drunk or sober.'" To which most Americans would respond: "Are you calling my mother a drunk?"
Jon Stewart was positively giddy, not because American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling were released from North Korean prison, but because Bill Clinton is in the news again. "THE BIG DOG IS BACK," Stewart yelled jubilantly as he danced to the "Shaft" theme song.
Stewart's glee didn't last long though as he moved on to the coverage of Clinton's trip. CNN had nothing to say so they discussed how airplanes operate and showed color bars of North Korean TV. Fox News on the other hand was upset that the journalists were freed in the first place. John Bolton said the situation turned out better for North Korea than the U.S., and Dick Morris argued that the journalists should have "lived with the decision to go there."
"Does the sun ever shine during a Democratic administration? With Obama in office now when babies laugh do you hear only the sound of kittens drowning?" Stewart asked, before eviscerating Fox for their choice in anchors.
RALEIGH - Immediately after brokering the release of two imprisoned journalists in North Koreayesterday, former President Bill Clinton flew from Pyongyang to Mayberry, North Carolina to seek the release of town drunkard Otis Campbell from the local jail.
Mr. Campbell has been incarcerated on an intermittent basis without a trial in violation of international law since 1960. He is often subjected to cruel mental indignities by the town’s deputy sheriff, Bernard ”Barney” Fife. The jail has been condemned repeatedly by Amnesty International due to its lax security and the fact that prisoner meals are prepared off-site by a non-staff spinster aunt of the town’s Sheriff, Andy Taylor.
The White House characterized Clinton’s mission as ”solely a private matter.” President Obama’s spokesman, Robert Gibbs, denied that Obama gave Clinton a private note to pass along to Sheriff Taylor, thanking Taylor and his son, Ron “Opie Taylor” Howard for supporting him in the last election by appearing in a peculiar television commercial.
Clinton is hoping to arrange a meeting with Sheriff Taylor this morning. This afternoon, he hopes to get a blow job from Sheriff Taylor’s girlfriend, schoolteacher Helen Crump.
(2009-08-05) — When Buffy asked me how the cash for clunkers program worked, I said I didn't know, but I looked into it enough to find it satireworthy:
A pilot program to replace older, inefficient, high carbon-emission Congressmen with greener models has already run out of funding, according to a bipartisan statement by Congressional leaders.
“It’sall gone,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, “America will just have to keep what I like to call her ‘classic’ members of Congress.”
The so-called ‘Cash for Incumbents’ program provided up to $4,500 for each politician who voters replaced with a modern public servant that burns less IRS revenue, and emits fewer vitriolic toxins into the atmosphere. The measure contained a provision requiring voters to ‘junk’ the old politician, to ensure he doesn’t return to Capitol Hill as a lobbyist.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-OH, explained that the funding disappeared overnight.
“It didn’t get spent. It just vanished,” said Rep. Boehner. “I’ve heard reports that it was transferred to the Congressional Franking Commission to be used by members to send important legislative information to their constituents…but that’s just a rumor.” Here's the latest.
Or you can watch the Glenn Beck rightwing insane take on this (tinfoil hat recommended):
The conventional wisdom is that August is the slowest month for news, thus it's tailor-made for the "Birther" movement -- crazies that come hand-delivered to the media in their month of need, like barrel-dwelling fish that shoot themselves. Today, they're waving around a supposed "Kenyan birth certificate" for President Barack Obama without regard to the fact that it would have to have come from an alternate reality where Kenya became Kenya before Kenya was Kenya, and on which Obama is said to have been born in a city that was actually part of Zanzibar at the time of his birth. It's all pretty awesome and fun and now everyone's getting in on the "let's all forge up some birth certificates" craze. It's August 2009, and America is precisely where our founders envisioned we would be.
On Monday, David Shuster and Tamron Hall hosted celebrated "Birther Queen" Orly Taitz, who is a walking Saturday Night Live character, possibly played by Chris Kattan, come to life. The resulting discussion was, as you might imagine, pretty special! Taitz came on, speaking as if in a panic, presaging her answers with complaints about CNN, referring to David Shuster as a "brownshirt," and making oddball claims about how "85% of Americans think Barack Obama was not properly vetted."
Anyway, this video is like Shuster and Hall attempting to interview an angry Fraggle. I remind you that the Birther Lunar Cycle of Mania may hit a peak today, August 4, because it is President Barack Obama's birthday...IF HE WAS "BORN" AT ALL. MWAHAHAHA.
Bill Maher recently took on the "birther" movement because, in his words, "In America, you know what, if you don't immediately kill errant bullshit no matter how ridiculous, it can grown and thrive and eventually take over like crab grass or cirque du soleil."
"In America," Maher explained, "There is no idea so patently absurd that it can't catch on." The idea catching on here is that Obama is an undocumented alien, with no U.S. birth certificate, and his presidency is, thus, "illegal."
"Lou Dobbs said recently that people are asking a lot of questions about the birth certificate." Maher continued. "Yes. The same people that want to know where the sun goes at night. And... where to put the stamp on their email. And Lou, you're their new king"
(08-01-2009) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, today announced a new provision to the massive health care reform bill that would provide treatment for so-called Blue Dog syndrome which she said has afflicted members of her own party.
The condition causes a rash rejection of legislation that includes new expenditures without compensating cuts. Recent outbreaks threaten to cripple major Obama administration initiatives.
While the cause of Blue Dog syndrome remains mysterious, experts think it may originate in a lawmaker’s home district, and spread by face to face contact with voters.
“If we don’t suppress it early,” said Rep. Pelosi, “we risk a pandemic that could threaten our way of life.”
Rep. Barney Frank Goes After "Blue Dog Democrats" Over Health Care:
