February 28, 2005 by s.z.

Who Said It?

1.  Our first Mystery Guest from last time (the one who said that business is heroic, because it gives the people what they want, while Hollywood is presumably unheroic, since it keeps making movies that he doesn't like) was Michael Medved. 

The first to identify him was bgn, who will receive a complimentary copy of the hissy fit that Medved will undoubtedly have later today while commenting on Million Dollar Baby's Oscar wins.

2.  Our second Mystery Guest (the one who explained how Islam and other pagan gods are mandated in schools these days) was Jen Shroder.   

Diane was the first to identify her.  Diane wins this bonus quote from Jen's column, wherein Jen explains that she didn't get on ABC news because she wouldn't deny God, but that "God had other ways of getting the job done":

One way was through the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations nuclear watchdog, which had linked to my website. There was a lot of evidence that kings and leaders, especially in the middle east, were watching.

You may think that it's highly unlikely that the IAEA actually covertly linked to Jen's site, and that Jen just doesn't know how to read her web stats, but on a page  of her site entitled "Understanding Webstats," Jen explains that she KNOWS that IAEA linked to her site because she has found links from IAEA to Arab websites, and because liberal sites have copied her graphics and stolen her bandwidth. 

 

Therefore, there must indeeed be a lot of evidence that kings and leaders are reading her website.

3.  And our third Mystery Guest  (the one who taught us how to "clarify" things by referring to estate taxes as death taxes) was Frank Luntz. 

Clif identified Luntz (and characterized him very nicely as " Frank 'War is Peace, Peace is War' Luntz, the king of doubleplusgood doublespeak").  Clif wins this Think Progress recap of some of Luntz's advice to aspiring GOP operatives:

Finally, Luntz advises, 9/11 is the perfect way to dodge responsibility for sinking the country in red ink. In a section headed “Without the context of 9-11, you will be blamed for the deficit,” he points out “supporters are inherently turned off to the idea of fiscal irresponsibility.” The best way to counter that fact? “The trick then is to contextualize the deficit inside of 9/11.”

Yes, if 9/11 hadn't forced President Bush to invade Iraq, help out the pharmaceutical companies with a social security drug plan, and give tax cuts to the rich, then we wouldn't have a deficit, so none of it is his fault.  Hey, look over there -- it's Sadam's half brother!

Oh, and heydave was the first to identify all of our Mystery Guests in one post, writing "Since putting the obvious together seems a nice ploy, er...clarification... let me try: Medved, Shroder and Luntz. "

Great ploy, hedave! 

 

Now, Who Said This?

1.  There aren’t too many decisions you can make with worse consequences than choosing the wrong college. Maybe you’re one of the unlucky ones: when you wrote that massive tuition check, it seemed right, because you and your kid bought into all the hype and bogus Pomp and Circumstance College. And then for the next four years, he bought into all the PC hogwash the professors were force-feeding students in the lecture halls! You look back and scream: Why didn’t someone warn me that this school was a liberal indoctrination camp?!

Yes, send your 18+ year-old child to the wrong college (AKA, a "liberal indoctrination camp"), and he or she will have no choice but to become a liberal (because the professors will say liberal things in class, thus forcing your little blank slate to believe their PC hogwash). 

If only there was a book which would advise students to only attend Hillsdale College, Grove City College, Indiana Wesleyan University, Liberty University, or maybe Patrick Henry College!  Because if there was, then you could, say, give the NRO $10, and they would send this book to eager high school guidance counselors across the land! 

2.  Democrat political operative Zack Exley [...] has been hired as a campaign consultant by Britain's Labour Party. A Labour spokeswoman told The Independent that Exley was hired specifically because of his experience working for MoveOn. For those who have been living in a cave for the past year, that's the left-wing activist group that compared President Bush to Hitler.

Those of you who bother to hit the "Hitler" link will read the following:

The liberal activist site MoveOn ran a contest, Bush in 30 Seconds, in which people were invited to create and submit political TV ads [...] Over 1,500 ads were submitted. Out of them, twocompared Bush to Hitler. After years of talking about "feminazis" and "Hitlery" Clinton, the right wing suddenly felt that Third Reich references were absolutely indefensible. Republicans expressed new-found outrage, and the corporate media dutifully tsk-tsked. MoveOn pulled the ads from their contest Website

Hint: For those who have been living in a cave for the past year, this pundit wrote that "Real danger will exist for all Arabs if they aren't relocated to camps. The least act of sabotage might provoke angry reprisals that easily could balloon into bloody race riots.  The most sensible, the most humane way to insure against it is to move them out of harms way, and keep them safe at Gitmo."

Well, that's close enough to what she wrote -- accuracy is for the little people! 

3.  The mental pollution of feminism extends well beyond the question of great thinkers. Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics, so they either write romance novels in space about strong, beautiful, independent and intelligent but lonely women who finally fall in love with rugged men who love them just as they are, or stick to fantasy where they can make things up without getting hammered by critics holding triple Ph.D.s in molecular engineering, astrophysics and Chaucer. 

Some women even write books "filled with otherworldly creatures and all-out spiritual warfare," that blend "the Christian and fantasy genres in a dazzling tale of faith and redemption. " 

You know, because they are too stupid to hack astrophysics. 

4.  I used my student ID to the max for getting into movies at half price, breaking into my girlfriend’s dorm room to check her voice mail to see if the jock in her English Lit class was still calling her and the all important job of separating the seeds and stems from the Colombian Gold I kept hidden on a Frisbee under the passenger seat of my Z28.

Hint:  No, it's not George Bush talking to Doug Wead.

5.  Of course, the more hysterical critics of "The Passion" might argue that its allegedly anti-Semitic elements irrevocably identified the project with an archconservative outlook, but this argument ignores the fact that Jew-hatred appears today far more frequently among the America-hating left than on the flag-waving right. Consider the malicious focus by Michael Moore and his antiwar cohorts on a few relatively obscure "neocons" in the Bush administration: The endless invocation of the names Wolfowitz, Perle and Feith fairly reeks of anti-Semitic conspiracy theorizing.

And if Michael Moore focused on the neocons in the Bush administration (such as Dick "Jewboy" Cheney, that PROVES that the Left (which hates America) is also the side that hates Jews.

On a completely different topic, here is a photo of Jim Condit, Jr.  Please note the flag in the corner:

 

Jim, who ran for Congress as an Independent who supported the archconservative Constitution Party platform, used this radio ad as part of his campaign:

Overview of 9-11 and a 2^nd Terror Attack

Strong evidence indicates that the 9-11 terror attacks were NOT done by Arabs hiding in caves in Afghanistan, but were pulled off by well placed pro-Israeli operatives in our Federal government and military intelligence, using high technology remote control to crash the 9-11 planes into the World Trade Center. All such evidence has been suppressed by ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and FOX.

Note also the ad Merry Christmas, AND OFF WITH YOUR HEAD! which is about how the "the Jewish Led ACLU" is "always trying to tear the Ten Commandments down from our public buildings" so it can get "Noahide law" to replace our current system of law, and put to death Christians for observing Christmas.

Jim LOVED The Passion of the Christ.  HIs sister, Jennifer Giroux (our favorite "Scarborough Country" regular) even started a site devoted to defending it.

(I just provided the above for your information, and it's apropos of nothing.)

6.  As you might expect, recent developments have left me without an income, but I am determined not to allow that to keep me from speaking out. Your kind messages of prayer and encouragement have sustained me since this all began, and I am hoping you will consider a donation to keep my voice from going silent. This is an excellent opportunity to fight back against the well-funded attack machine of the Left.

Yes, even though he's been rendered incomeless, this guy is determined not to let that stop him from speaking out -- but you'd better give him some money if you don't want his voice to go silent.  Do it to fight back against those well-funded Kossites!

1:40:25 AM  

February 27, 2005 by s.z.

Sunday Cinema

The concluding segment of the Subliminal Cinema chapter "Weird Sex: Making the Beast With Two Backs With the Beast With Two Backs" has been postponed until next week so that we may bring you the following test of the Emergency Rapture Network.

It was Saturday afternoon.  And what do we do on Saturday afternoons, when the sun is shining and the air is fresh and crisp?

We lie on the couch and watch TV. 

And that's what I was doing last Saturday.  However, I was finding it hard to settle on a program to watch.  I looked at the onscreen programming guide, and found nothing that sounded interesting.  So, using the remote, I started clicking through the 100 or so channels provided in our crappy cable company's "bronze package" and found nothing worth watching.  While doing so, I came across perhaps the greatest post-apocalyptic Christian snuff family film of all time.  Allow me to tell you more ...

So, like I said, I was channel surfing, and when I got to channel 14 (the UHF station that has recently devolved into the "the infomercial, shoddy home shopping, and 'Loretta Young Show' and 'Meet Corliss Archer" station"), I paused to watch a scene from what looked like a really bad '70's horror movie (just my kind of Saturday afternoon entertainment).  In the scene, a blonde woman and a young boy were shivering in terror in a rustic cabin while a couple of inbred degenerates try to break in.  The rustics finally got through the plywood door, all the while mumbling gleefully about cutting off the heads of the "Believers."

This didn't seem like one of the Friday the 13th movies, or even a Yugoslavian ripoff of a Friday the 13th movie, so I watched a little more while trying to figure out just what was going on.

So, the cherubic boy escapes out the back door and hides in a culvert.  His mother flees too, with the hicks in hot pursuit.  Then a menacing shadow of some kind of a monster (it resembles the shadow of the lobster monster from Teenager From Outer Space) attacks the female hick.  A rubber thing (maybe an old inner tube or something) smacks her.  And then we cut to brief scenes of an atomic bomb blast, a running herd of horses, and the image of the bomb blast superimposed on the horses (which is apparently meant to suggest that the woman reached sexual release as she was being slapped around by the monster) before being devoured.  We don't see the kid's mother again, so apparently she was eaten too.  The male member of the hick duo finds boy in his hiding place.

Since this plot seemed unfamiliar to me, I checked the onscreen cable guide for info regarding the program -- it seems that it was called "Family Theater," and was described as "religious programming."  It was about half over at that point.

Okay, I thought to myself, while this movie isn't much like "The Wonderful World of Disney" or "The Children's International Film Festival," which is the kind of family theater I grew up with, it's entertaining in its own horrifying way.  So, I stayed tuned for more.

After a dozen commercials, the movie resumes and we see that the boy is locked in a jail run by some guys in generic military uniforms livened up with yellow arm bands.  Also behind bars are a really annoying middleaged man, and a young woman with horrible '70s hair.  One soon realizes that the two inmates are "Believers" because they are dressed in linen car seat covers like the boy and his mother in the previous scenes (just cut a neck hole and two arm holes in a large pillow case and you too can be a post-apocalyptic Christian).

The bad guys want the annoying guy (David) to tell them where some Believer is hiding -- they say they will behead him if he doesn't cooperate.  He keeps asking the ceiling why God would allow such things to happen to him, and we really want God to reply, "Because you're so damned annoying!" 

The young woman (Leslie) is apparently being held on a charge failing to accept the Barcode of the Beast or somethingt.  I guess the kid is in jail because there's no day care after Armageddon.  

Anyway, while David spends his time by wrestling out loud with his conscience, Leslie tells the kid how cool Jesus is.  After she makes the boy a story book consisting of just of pages of blank sheets of construction paper (red represents sin, gold represents heaven, black represents more sin, etc.), she is taken to the guillotine -- and it's a far, far better thing she does than she has ever done before, if her her crappy story book is an example of the kind of stuff she has done before. At first her death is really traumatic, because when we saw the kid's balloon float heavenward we thought it was him who got beheaded.  But it turns out he just gave Leslie his balloon so she would have something to play with as she met Madame Guillotine.  Whew, it was Leslie who died horribly -- that's a relief!. 

But then, a couple of minutes later, the boy IS beheaded -- but it's okay, because he had accepted Jesus as his savior.  (Kids, being a martyr is fun!)

Then David is led to the guillotine, and the movie concludes on a happy note, because David has got to be the most annoying movie character I've seen in quite a while. The End.

But the fun isn't over yet, because our host for Family Classics, Dr. Bob Reccord, tells us that we should call his church and, at no obligation to ourselves, learn how we can be guillotined for Jesus.  (Or something -- I changed channels about then, and found some A&E program about prisons, which makes a cheery change from "Family Theater.")

**********

So, that was last week.  Now we come to yesterday, and again I I'm lying on the couch, flipping through the channels, and I happen upon another "Family Theater" movie (once again, I'm apparently joining it about halfway through). 

This one also features David, who apparently had his head glued back on after last week's flick.  He is accompanied by a different blonde woman and her teen daughter, Jodi --  neither of them have accepted Jesus.  It's still after the apocalypse, and David is on a mission from God (but not a good one, like in The Blues Brothers).  No, David's mission to take a transmitter to some Christians who are hiding in a cave above Hoover Dam (David, being an expert in '70s technology, is apparently the only one who can do it).

Oh, and the bad military guys with the yellow arm bands are back too, and their headquarters is right beneath the dam.  Their only goal is life is to locate David, since there's apparently not much else to do in this radioactive papiermache world.

David and the chicks are driving the van used in the McKenzie brothers film,The Mutants of 2051 A.D. ("I was the only one left on the planet after the holocaust, eh. The earth had been like dezvistated by nuclear war. Like Russia blew up the US and the US blew up Russia. There wasn't much to do. All the bowling alleys had been wrecked. So's I spent most of my time looking for beer.")  The bad guys are trying to track the van via radio waves (or something).

It turns out that some girl who had been carpooling with David is really working for the militia guys.  Oh, and her skin is now falling off because she has Omega Man syndrome.  (She gripes about how the Believers don't get the icky skin lesions, so maybe jealousy and/or a desire to learn the Christians' beauty secrets is behind the frantic search for David and his group.)  She quotes a scripture about where the vultures gather, there you will find the carcass -- it doesn't seem to relate to anything, so I guess she just does it to annoy her militia boss. 

But the bad guys are getting closer, so David comes up with a cunning plan.  By having the teen (Jodi) talk like a chipmunk on the radio, David lures the Judas and one of the head bad guys to a train track, where they are hit by a train.  Then vultures eat their flesh, as predicted in the Bible.

David takes the transmitter to the Believer Cave (unlike the Bat Cave, this one is just a cave).  The Believers are hanging out, singing hymns and stuff, but they don't seem very futuristic.  Jodi is so impressed with the singing that it causes her to gush about how Jesus really loves her -- apparently she is now saved.  However, her  mother refuses David's offer to let Jesus into her heart and David into her bed, so she presumably goes to hell, or gets eaten by vultures or something.

When David plugs the transmitter into the Christians' short wave radio, the group's rendition of "Onward, Christian Soldiers" causes sound waves which crack Hoover Dam.  Water pours downhill, and the model of bad guy headquarters starts to collapse.  The movie ends with a fairly long scene featuring an especially wimpy bad guy being crushed by the debris, and weeping in pain.  The End.

So, a family classic. (Dr. Bob was also back, but again I changed the channels before learning exactly how Jesus prevents radiation sores or vulture attacks.)

Anyway, I was so intrigued by these films that I did some research, and via End Times Movies, I learned that the film from last week was Image of the Beast, one of a series of post-apocalyptic Christian dramas made in the '70's and early '80's by Mark IV Productions.  (The series began with Thief in the Night, which was about what happens if you sleep through the rapture.)

And here's some of what I missed during the first half of the film:

Image of the Beast opens with a very much older Patty shrieking again, this time at Wenda's headless corpse. [...]

Patty continues to waver and weep, right up until she's strapped into the guillotine. As soon as she's secured, some heavenly judgement-or-other strikes, there's an earthquake, and the world in plunged into darkness. Thus begins the most horrifying sequence in the series, and absolutely the best piece of filmmaking.

The earth shakes, the ground splits, and everybody not strapped to a guillotine scatters. Patty tries to snag a passing guard, groaning "I'll take the mark! Give me the mark!" to no avail. Abandoned, Patty lies breathless in the pitch black aftermath of the earthquake, and the camera pulls back, slowly, to show a crack across the parking lot, ending just before the guillotine. This is a perfect, harrowing, quiet moment, and a beautiful one, worthy of some of the gothic Italian horror directors — certainly a Fulci, if not an Argento. The camera then switches between several close shots of Patty and the guillotine. Patty struggles to free herself, begins to get a belt loose, and then hears a sharp click. She gasps and tries harder to undo the strap, and we jump between her face from the blade's viewpoint, the blade from her viewpoint, the catch on the blade slipping gradually looser, and her fingers frantically working the buckle of the strap.

And then the blade falls and Patty screams "NEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!" one last time.

Exit Patty.

Geez, I can't believe I missed that!  What a great family movie moment that would have been.

(Oh, and from End Times Movies  I learned more about the monster that ate the woman.  It seems that it's based on Revelation 9:7-10, and was supposed to be a locust/horse/woman with a breastplate of iron and a tail like a scorpion.  Now it all makes sense!

I also learned that the movie from yesterday was The Prodigal Planet (the title apparently loosely stolen from Hal Lindsey's The Late, Great Planet Earth).

End Times Movies explains that David was saved from the guillotine by a convenient atomic bomb blast -- which was nice for him, but apparently gave the other survivors those gross festering wounds, and turned some of them into mutants.

This is the part I am really sorry to have missed:

The crew picks up a morose little mutant boy along the way who falls for Jodi, naturally, although not as hard as he falls for Jesus. The "Mutant Boy witnesses to Jodi" scene is almost the entire reason to watch the film, and it's priceless. I won't spoil it, save to let on that Mutant Boy uses his festering wounds as an evangelistic tool ....

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is family entertainment.

Besides finding the titles of the films, I uncovered some information about www.christian.films, the outfit which put together "Family Theater." It seems that they sell DVDs and videos of Christian films, such as the following:

M10.28

Released in 2000 by Lockhorn Limited

This drama is an intense discussion starter about three teenage girls who attend a party which turns out to be a nightmare! Viewer discretion is advised as this movie presents a very worldly atmosphere, a brief sequence in "hell", and is aimed at a secular audience or very lukewarm group. It will grab people's attention and bring a dose of reality to any viewer. Eternity is coming. You go to heaven or hell. Also, if there was ever such a thing as a "Christian" horror film, this is it.

Yeah, better scare those secular or lukewarm teens into Christianity before it's too late -- and besides, they need a dose of reality, as represented by "hell," to get their attention, so it's not like you're terrifying them without a good reason.

Anyway, the site indicates that ChristianFilms has a movie series on TV which features "the best Christian films ever made from the last 5 decades."  While the films are all packaged and ready to go, ChristianFilms is looking for church groups to sponsor the series locally so they can plug their own denomination.

And apparently that's where our friend Dr. Bob Reccord comes in.  It turns out that Dr. Bob is "the President of the North American Mission Board for the Southern Baptist Convention (NAMB)."  (Note: that's NAMB, not NAMBLA.)  Dr. Bob is a frequent guest on "The 700 Club" and the Focus on the Family radio show. 

And per Michael McManus, paid shill for the Bush Administration, Dr. Bob has missionaries reaching out to the lost souls in "such tough places as Manhattan and Chicago" -- and, based on his pitches on Channel 12, where I live (you will never find a more wrteched hive of Republicanism and religion, albeit not the Baptist kind, than where I live, so I can see why Dr. Bob is reaching out to us lost souls here). 

See, it turns out that Channel 12 is a part-time affiliate of "FamilyNetTV," which is run by the Southern Baptists ("FamilyNet is the entertainment and information television network dedicated to providing a reliable, safe viewing destination for today’s family. Owned and operated by the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, FamilyNet has award-winning programs for the entire family").  Their schedule indicates that Family Theatre "features the best of Christian movies including A Thief in the Night and The Hiding Place." Family Theatre plays Saturdays at 2:00 PM Eastern, Tuesdays at 4:00 AM Eastern, and Sundays at 3:00 AM Eastern.

I suggest that you visit the Family Net's handy "Where to Tune" guide, and learn how YOU can catch this fine family film series.  Then you can join me in watching it next time, when we might get treated to another Mark IV movie, and you can ensure that your children learn that unless they shape up, they will be eaten by a scorpion/horse, get the plague, or face the guillotine).
Or if you have other things to do Tuesdays at 4:00 AM Eastern, you can purchase the whole "Prophecy 4-pack," which includes A Thief in the Night, A Distant Thunder, Image of the Beast, and Prodigal Planet.  It's available from Armageddon Books, your one-stop shopping center for the Apocalypse, for just $99.95.

Oh, it seems that Amazon also has a few copies.  But as I look through the Amazon customer reviews of the films, I am beginning to suspect that they may not be appropriate for children.  For instance,Arvavh says:

I remember this movie as it came out in 1973,how could I ever forget it as it was also used in my church when I was a child as a so called "Witnessing tool" now as an adult I can see it for what it really was ...A scare tactic to get one to believe and if I didn't I would be "Left behind to go to hell". The tool worked as I would have panic attacks till I was the age of 36.

While Avah has now left Christianity, one can assume that she never allowed the bad guys to place the barcode "Mark of the Beast" on her hand, so all the trauma was worthwhile.

A Viewer, who titles his review "Enough to Scare the Crap out of you," writes:

I first saw this movie when I was attending a right-winged conservative Baptist private school. I can honestly say that this movie scared me for life, aside from making me a full believer in God and Jesus. This movie gave me nightmares for years, and I will probably never be able to watch it again.

Another success story!

Jonathan H. claims that the films will "scare the bejeezus out of you," but he doesn't seem to believe that's a good thing, religiously speaking:

Oh yes, rest assured, there will be nightmares. There will also be a turning away from religion, and probably therapy in later years. Ask anyone in Generation X who saw this as children, when we were bused to churches in large crowds. These 4 movies are one major reason for our "issues" as a generation. We all lived in constant fear of 5 things: the Rapture, the Russians, the vampires, the aliens, and nuclear annihilation in World War III.

Never having seen these films in my youth, I was only scared of Russians, vampires, aliens, nuclear annihilation, and going to hell, which was enough anxiety for a kid, I think.

Reviewer Kris A. says

I remember watching this as an edge-of-puberty 12 year old growing up in a large and fear-based Southern Baptist church. For one, this should have a rating of R for extreme gore, and is NOT suitable for children AT ALL. They used it as a teaching tool about the end times and the "mark of the beast". All I learned is that if you don't go to church, you might get your head chopped off in the guillotine (they love those guillotine shots). Heads will, and do, roll. For weeks I had to watch this series and couldn't look at a telephone pole or streelamp without having guillo-flashbacks. Traumatizing, and another reason they wonder why we don't go to church anymore.

Reviewer NIchtsein was also deeply impressed by these films:

My loving parents forced me to see this entire series at the impressionable age of 9. It is disturbing enough to see any sort of scary movie at that age, but to be told that what you are seeing is real and will happen at any moment...Let's just say I didn't sleep for months. Whenever my parents left the house without telling me beforehand, I would cower in the corner, fully convinced that I had missed the rapture and would now be forced to endure a world of giant locust-men, a sun that would scorch people with fire, man-eating vultures, bloody faced anarchists in black robes, and a government that wanted to decapitate me with a guillotine. On one such instance, I even got a buture knife from the kitchen and held it to my throat, wondering if I should kill myself in order to avoid the tribulation to come. My childhood exposure to these movies played no small role in the deep-seated loathing I have for Christianity today. I urge all well-intentioned but misguided Christian parents who have access to these movies: PLEASE DO NOT SHOW THESE MOVIES TO YOUR CHILDREN! To do so is child abuse.

Would Dr. Bob be a party to child abuse?  What would Pat Robertson and James Dobson say?

LotusScrum calls A Thief in the Night the "First Christian B Horror Movie," and gives it 5 stars.  He says:

It scared the (...) out of me back in the day as a kid but now its up there for me with "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Evil Dead" and "70's/80's Slashers"

Which is a great endorsement for a family film -- that is, if you usually let your tots watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre on Saturday afternoons.

You don't, you say?  And you think that Brent Bozell and his group would be flooding the FCC with emailed form complaints if any non-cable channel was airing Texas Chainsaw Massacre on Saturday afternoons as part of something called "Family Theater"?
Well, maybe we should all go to Brent's Parents Television Council site and file a complaint.  Except that it seems that all you can report is obscenity (material that incites you to lust, but has no redeeming artistic value, as determined by you) or indecency (material dealing with "sexual or excretory organs or activities.") 

So, it seems that there are no regulations that punish networks for airing creepy, sick, violent shows when children can see them.  Therefore, feel free to air Texas Chainsaw Massacre as part of any Family Theater presentations you might be planning for your own broadcast channel. 

As for me, I will try to set the VCR for 4:00 AM on Tuesday to see if I can catch the scene from Image of the Beast where the mutant boy uses his lesions as a witnessing tool.

3:10:45 AM

February 26, 2005 by s.z.

Scams that the Liberals Don't Want You to Know About!

So, you're a typical NewsMax reader: out of shape, working at a minimum wage job, shunned by women, always getting beat up by street punks and Iraqi terrorists, and generally having a sucky life.  And whose fault is it?  Obviously, the Left's! 

Just look at the copy from some of the current NewsMax ads:

* Matt Furey's Politically Incorrect Fitness & Fighting Instruction: Win Any Fight! Instantly Destroy Any Thug! (""What The Commandos of WW I and WW II Knew About Winninga Real Fight")

* He's Rich!  You Should Be Too! ("It's like owning the detailed maps to 100 buried treasures.")

* Hand-to-hand Israeli Fight Sytem ("Real, Blood-On-Your-Hands Combat!")

* Military "Slip-Up" Allows Top Spec Op Counter-Terrorism Expert To Reveal Hand-to-Hand Secrets That Middle East Soldiers Are Using Right NOW to Slaughter Enemy Combatants In Iraq and Afghanistan

* "She Will Never Leave You When You're Ready For Action" - China's secret sexual Kung Fu and Love Making System.  ("In China they have a saying, 'If A Man is Too Fat, His Penis Is Very Short.' Seven years ago, when I first visited China's Hainan Island, I heard the above saying for the first time. And let me tell you, it was so right on I instantly wrote it down so I would remember it.")

And one of my favorites:

And what is this book that HIllary doesn't want you to read?

 The Power of Concentration Success System.

And why doesn't she want you to read it?

Well, presumably because she hates you, and doesn't want you to discover "The Secrets To Wealth Beyond Dreams of Greed.”  Hillary is such a bitch that way.

But my very favorite ad is:

Men: Why Women Will Now Approach You First
Imagine, no more heartbreak, rejection, misery or emotional turmoil wth women ever… now they approach you first, no matter your looks, age or income. Discover little-known attraction secrets the left wing women’s movement is afraid you’ll discover… click here now before this controversial article is removed

Every so often this ad gets the premier spot at the top/left of the NewsMax page,  and its blinking come-on contains additional copy that advises:

Announcing a whole new approach to women, dating, and relationships the liberal media is terrified you'll discover.

Forbidden attraction secrets the liberal media does NOT want you to know

Hey, if the liberal media and the left-wing women's movement don't want you to learn these secrets (and the article might be removed by them at any moment), it MUST be a great program!  So let's learn a bit about it:

"You're Only Seven Seconds Away from Discovering Jealously Guarded Attraction Secrets, Deliberately Hidden From You... Until Now"

Deliberately hidden from me?  Damn it, I bet Hillary Clinton was behind that too!

Dear Friend,

Inside you'll discover remarkable, little-known secrets that literally compel desirable women to approach you first, no matter your looks, age, social status, or income. 

That's a common theme among the NewsMax pitches: it doesn't matter how ugly, old, poor, weak, flabby, or generally loser-ish you are, because if you will just give them some money, you can become rich, powerful, desirable, and gain the ability to kill anybody who looks at you funny.

You'll discover powerful secrets like:

No more heartbreak, no more rejection by women ever again  (imagine, living a life completely devoid of emotional turmoil, knowing you can quickly and easily choose your own relationships with women-- and when they approach you first, YOU get to make the "rejection decision, not her)

Yes, reject women before they can reject you, and you can live a life completely devoid of emotional turmoil!  Sure, you won't have any relationships, but you can fantasize that if you did, they would be with really hot chicks who would adore you, and never break-up with you, and would always do things your way.

How Even the Ugliest Man Can Date the Most Beautiful Women -- Why Looks, Age, or Income Just Don't Matter (strangely enough, it's actually easier for a poor, broke guy to date hot women than a "rich, 'GQ' stud" IF you know this secret-- few men do)

What is this secret?  We suspect "lying" is involved, but don't know for sure.

Which of the Three Types of Women Should You Be Dating? (How to avoid psychopaths, gold diggers and outright scheming bitches who want to use and abuse you.  Now you can spend your time only with wonderful women who bring nothing but joy, happiness, and pleasure into your life)

Presumably the three types of women are  (1) Psychopaths, gold diggers, and  outright scheming bitches who want to use and abuse you; (2) Wonderful women who bring nothing but joy, happiness, and pleasure into your life; and (3) Your mother.  You should be dating the second type.

Anyway, to learn more, you have to sign up with John Alanis, "The King of Let 'em Come to You."  While John cautions that he is only letting us have access to his site as "part of a special, scientific test," and that he may start turning people away at any minute because he doesn't want too many guys knowing these "forbidden secrets," I still didn't feel comfortable giving John my personal information.

So, I just went to his website (www.JohnAlanis.com) and read some of his secrets WITHOUT signing up.  I bet the liberal media didn't want me to do that either!

So, here are a few of John's tips for you:

Dating tip #1: Don’t date.

Works for me!

Dating tip #2: The less you do and say, the more she’s attracted to you.

In fact, if you never even meet her, she'll be wild about you!

Dating tip #3 Be a “naughty little boy.”

All women want to date bratty first graders! 

But here's more on that one:

When you’re talking to sexy women, make unexpected and mischievous comments, the kind that leave them thinking, “I can’t believe he just said that… but I like it.” This shows sexy women you’re NOT impressed by their looks, that you need to see more. This is so different from what they’re used to they can’t help but be attracted. I cannot emphasize the importance of this dating tip. 

"I can't believe that he just told me that I have girl cooties, and that I am a stinky, ugly, poopiehead ... but I like it!  This must be a guy who is who is NOT impressed by my looks, and so I can't but help be attracted to him, since he's probably gay!"

Dating tip #7 Date multiple sexy women at once, and make sure the others know about it. Sexy women love a man who is attractive to other sexy women, and will compete to “win you.” (Here’s another dating tip: for proof of this, read any good romance novel). If you want to settle down, you can choose one, but she will always know you’re desired by other sexy women—and in a strange way, this creates even more attraction for you. This dating tip really is a secret, but it works very well with sexy women.

Yes, it's a secret known only to romance novels and subscribers to John's attraction system.  And here's how it works:  (1) Date multiple sexy women; (2) Tell each of them about the others, thus ensuring that they will fight over you; (3) Watch them as they use the Isreali "blood on your hands" combat system on each other; (4 ) Settle down with the one left alive; (5) Live happily ever after. 

Now that was easy, wasn't it? 

Anyway, it seems that John is not just a dating expert, but also a big internet marketing expert.  In fact, I could "Get Big Checks Month In and Month Out For Revealing Dating Secrets to Men--with Virtually No Work On My Part Whatsoever!"  (However, I don't know if this post, which does reveal dating secrets with virtually no work on my part, qualifies me for that big check.)

But we are now near the bottom of John's home page, and assuming that you have been following his advice, you are now irresistable to women, and earn a comfortable living scamming ... I mean, sharing dating tips with other men.  Life is pretty good, isn't it?

But wait! 

What Will You Do When You and the Woman of Your Dreams Are Suddenly and Brutally Attacked By a Vicious, Knife (Even Gun)-Wielding Criminal?

Think fast, pal!

Will you run away, leaving her to her fate? Will you be killed trying to defend her because you simply don't know what to do?

Damn, it seems that winning the woman of your dreams may not be as much fun as John made it seem.  Anyway, this is proof that on even the safest-looking website, you are in constant danger from criminals, thugs, terrorists, and those kids who made fun of you in high school.  And THAT is probably what the liberal media is so dead-set against you learning.  I just hope that Hillary doesn't find out I told you about it ... because she knows the secrets that Middle Eastern soldiers are using right now to slaughter enemy combatants!

3:13:20 AM

February 25, 2005 by s.z.

America's Worst Mother® Pregnancy Watch (A feature suggested by the comments of M.S., and conducted in honor of TBogg, America's best writer of Jonah Goldberg slash fan fiction). To recap, the clues so far: Dec 23 P.S: I never did meet a man in epaulets who could fly me into Mogadishu.  Obviously code for "My husband doesn't give me orgasms, the bastard." Jan 14 That evening after supper, my husband and I are sitting on the edge of our massive new bed with an air of hypnosis. "A real bed," I say redundantly. "Wow," my husband says. "It's so...solid." Presumably, the new bed and the lack of anything to talk about lead to sex. Feb 11 "Mummy, why do you keep yawning?" ... "Stomach trouble," my husband supplies. ... There is a pause around the table, and then Violet asks: "Is it a frog?" "In her stomach?" ... Suddenly, I find I cannot finish my orange juice. "Okay, children," I say as soon as I can speak, "clear your places and scram. Please." Uh oh, morning sickness!  But that was kind of quick, wasn't it?  So maybe Meghan and husband got the bed (and had the sex) a month or two before she wrote the column about it.  Or maybe the frog in her stomach was actually conceived on another occasion, possibly when the husband came home drunk from his office Christmas party and thought Meghan was somebody else. Or hey, maybe Meghan does start to feel unwell a month after getting knocked up -- I'm sure she'll tell us all about it later. Now the item for today: Feb 25 The first paragraph warned easily nauseated readers to read no further, and being somewhat delicate these days, I obeyed. ... Happy, queasy days unfolded with no further thought of WVD. ... One afternoon I am lying on the sofa taking refuge in a catalogue from a sudden bout of queasiness when Phoebe comes over. ... So, definitely morning sickness (we think).  What are your ideas for names for the littlest Gurdonette?  We are currently partial to Epaulette if it's a girl, and Mogadishu if it's a boy. UPDATE: So Sunnie has already covered this at her blog.  Fine.  That doesn't mean that she is the hot, new blogger in town, and we are the tired, old, stale one -- no, it just goes to show that the AWM pregnancy thing is now a meme that is being passed through the very air we breathe like that barfing sickness that Meghan's kids contracted. Oh, and we now think the little one should be named Sundry, but called Sunnie for short, in her honor.  Anyway, Sunnie covers the whole column -- check it out. 12:09:57 PM

Possible Career Move for Jeff Gannon: Paid Spokesman for AbsorbShun Oh, and speaking of JimJeff, John Tully has an informative piece called "THE JAMES GUCKERT/ JEFF GANNON, FAKE REPORTER IN THE WHITE HOUSE QUESTION IS MOOT!" over at the LA Sun. One of my favorite bits: Howard Kurtz, the longtime and wise sage media critic with The Washington Post, trusted by little old Quaker ladies in Cleveland Park D.C. and lobbyists alike, just could not figure out what the big fuss was all about and immediately chalked it up to over-eager WWW types and their preoccupation with the salacious part of the story. But then, any article that makes fun of Howie is okay by me. And speaking of Dr. Professor Mike Adams and his problem with his penis, maybe AbsorbShun could help him stay firm in the presence of feminists, women with loud voices, women wearing suggestive T-shirts, and vaginas.  And speaking of AborbShun, Frederick from BeatBushBlog writes: I notice that Southern California has experienced the wettest year in over a century (they count from July 1 to June 30 of the next year, for some zany reason). With 33.61 inches so far in 2004-05 and over four months to go, Southern California may break its record for the wettest season known -- the 38.18 inches in 1883-84. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6998659/ Do you suppose your inventive friend  could branch out into meteorological AbsorbShun to take care of Southern California's problem with excessive wetness? What do you think? It would surely be a more useful product than the original. I quite agree.  It's time Cynthia introduced Industrial Strength AbsorbShun for cities that want to feel "large" and creeks and rivers that want to feel "tight."  IS AborbShun helps stop the mess and loss of pleasure that comes with flooding, and it drives WeatherChannel viewers wild!  (Caution: product may cause abrasions, earth quakes, and Biblical plagues -- treat symptoms with Hoof cream.)   9:59:08 AM

The Voice Won't Shut Up  JeffGannon.com, 9 February 2005: The voice goes silent. Because of the attention being paid to me I find it is no longer possible to effectively be a reporter for Talon News.  In consideration of the welfare of me and my family I have decided to return to private life. JeffGannon.com, 23 February 2005: I'm  baaaaaaack!  If you thought I was going to slink away - then you don't know much about me. Someone still has to battle the Left and now that I've emerged from  the crucible, I'm stronger than before. Um, sure, dude.  Whatever. Yesterday in the "blog" portion of his site (which basically consists of links to conservative/Republican articles about GuckertGate), JimJeff posted a link to Biblical Christianity, and it's most recent post,The Gannon/Guckert "scandal": a golden opportunity.  JimJeff says it "hits the nail on the head."  The item in question says that if the Democrats want to investigate GuckertGate, then the Bush administration should make all White House reporters complete a questionnaire which would include the following questions: Ask if any reporter is a homosexual. Ask if any has ever exchanged sex for anything. Ask them to list all web sites with which they have ever had any involvement. Verily, let he who is not a gay prostutute who has put nude photos of himself and advertised his penis size on the internet throw the first stone. Anyway, we think it's sweet of JimJeff to link to this blog, which is run by a guy named Daniel J. Phillips, when Phillips has such strong feelings about homosexuality.  For instance, when discussing Maya Keyes, Phillip wrote: Further, Keyes is a Roman Catholic. So I can have no assurance as to what he told his dFaughter, beyond (by her own admission) that homosexuality is evil, and that she should pray for God's help to leave it. Thus far, I'd certainly agree -- and he's done better by her than parents who enable such a destructive choice by their embrace of it. And in a post about a female pastor who was fired by her church: [T]he woman "announced to her bishop and congregation that she was living in a committed relationship with her partner, Chris Paige." That's PC code for meaning she regularly practices perverted sex with another woman. And one his posts at FreeRepublic: Why Can't My Moms Marry? Posted by BibChr to srm913 On News/Activism 02/18/2005 7:21:49 AM PST · 30 of 186 They can, of course. Any available, willing man they choose.  Minimal moral sanity, of course, prevents them from calling anything they might do with toaster ovens, geese, horses, children, corpses, or other women "marriage." But that's pretty much of a "duh."  But they can marry.  Dan  Biblical Christianity BLOG Oh, and here's part of one his posts at FreeRepublic about JimJeff himself: Journalism double standard: Doesn't the media get it? Posted by BibChr to pookie18 On News/Activism 02/11/2005 5:42:12 AM PST · 9 of 19 1. I find his behavior odd. I know, not being in his shoes, it's easy to judge. But I think he had an opportunity to expose one of our worst internal enemies: the MSM. He seemed to buckle and run awfully fast. Not, as I've said, a profile in courage. So, like I said, I think it was sweet of JimJeff to link to Dan's blog. 9:16:07 AM

Who Said It? The results from last time: 1.  Our first Mystery Guest (the one talking about how freedom of speech demoralizes the troops and causes the enemy to blow up our buildings) was Debbie Daniel.   She was first identified by Bill S.  In Bill's honor, here is a little song about Debbie.  It was written by one Bill S. A Musical Tribure To Debbie Daniel(sung to the tune of "Look At Me, I'm Sandra Dee" from Grease) Look at me, I'm Debra D., Bursting with insanity Cover my ear, No, I don't want to hear About reality! Watch out, hey! The things I say Scare my neighbors all away They think I'm nuts, But they'd best watch their butts When comes the judgement day! I don't drink, I don't swear or own thong underwear I get ill when I see my own breast- Don't you dare defame our Dear Leader's name! Don't you know that George Bush knows what's best? As for you, Phil Donahue And all the other liberals too, I'll feel just swell When you all burn in hell- that's what faith means to me! We think that somebody should write a teen comedy/musical about Debbie Daniel.  Bill should be immediately hired to write the libretto. 2.  Our Mystery Guest with ED was Dr. Professor Mike Adams, Ph.D.  And here's more about how feminists are responsible for his wilting manhood (but apparently it was a homosexual who caused irreperable damage to Mike's sensitive penis): In 2003 (February), when campus feminists marched around stage chanting “vagina, vagina” during the Vagina Monologues, I experienced ED again.  Even worse, it happened to me on Valentine’s Day (which, by the way, is not known as VD)! In 2003 (March), when the university hired a self-proclaimed “queer Muslim” speaker named Irshad Manji, I experienced by most intense bout with ED. In some ways, I’m still recovering. In 2004, I saw a campus feminist (student) wearing a shirt that read “f*** Bush.”  It wasn’t really the shirt that gave me ED.  It was probably the leather combat boots and dog collar she was wearing.  I even thought about calling animal control. Dr. Mike was first identified by Zen, who is urged to never say "vagina, vagina" around Dr. Mike, since apparently vaginas make Dr. Mike's salami go soft. 3.  Ann Coulter was the Mystery Guest who would dump her wife for Rush Limbaugh, if only she had a wife.  (Recalling all of Rush's comments about accessing gay porn online, we think this could be a love match, and we encourage these two starry-eyed kids to go for it). DanF correctly I.D.ed our Ann. He wins this lovely photo of her: 4.   Thomas Sowell was the "Random Thoughts" guy.  From reading his post, you can get an idea why he is such a iconic figure with the young people, and why that Sowell poster is so big on college campuses. DanF was also the first to identify Mr. Sowell.  His prize is that we won't post another photo of Ann Coutler. 5.  Of course, the Mystery Guest with the creepy heart was Doug Giles. merlallen was the first to ID Doug (and yes, one of them is always Doug, because we find him emminently quotable, and chock full of rowdy, creepy, wingnutty flavor). Merl wins this info about Doug's ClashChurch: For men, we embrace a masculine spirituality.  We believe God created men to be men without apology.  We believe that Biblical masculinity is necessary for the church to be the overcoming organism God intends for it to be.  Therefore, we avoid the feminization of men and the spiritual emasculation of God’s rowdy warriors that usually accompanies most evangelical churches. Yes, it's a man's life in the ClashChurch!  And thank heaven for an evangelical church where men can be rowdy warriors, even if they do have creepy hearts.  Enjoy, Merl! 6.  The "simple guy" who said that unless you're pro-Patriot Act, pro-torture, and anti-Bill of rights, you're on the side of the enemy (burn in hell, ACLU!) was Bill O'Reilly  Zen was the first to identify Warrior Bill.  Zen wins this bonus quote from Bill: Many foreign-born people work in the service industry, and, generally speaking, the service is not good. Last night, for example, I had to take a car to Universal City. The driver didn't speak English, didn't know where he was going. We got lost, 35 minutes driving around. Finally, I had to get out of the car, grabbed a security officer, and she actually had to get inside the car and direct us to the location using sign language. Yes, Bill grabbed a female security officer (old sexual harassment habits die hard).  But it's all the fault of those damned foreign-born people who aren't providing Bill with the kind of top-rate personal service he deserves! ... Although, there was that little short brown woman from Bali, who was so amazed by Bill's penis.  She provided good service. And Thorlac was the first to name all of our Mystery Guests.  He  wins a lifetime supply of wingnuts.  Congrats to Thorlac, and to all of our winners! Now Who Said This? 1.  (The mise en scene: our wingnut is on "The 700 Club," plugging his new book) MYSTERY GUEST: One of the lessons that I learn in my life is that business is not exploitive. It is heroic. The idea of business is giving people something they want to buy. PAT ROBERTSON: And making life for – better for them. MG: It does benefit us. These people are not greedy, but trying to make a living. ROBERTSON: That's the point. MG: If you get ahead in America, it is an indication of serving other people, providing a good or service that they want. That's always been my philosophy as a film critic and my big argument with Hollywood. The worst material they create is not there to give the public what they want. It is there to indoctrinate Yes, "business" is all about nobly serving humanity, while film making is about making movies that people don't want to see, but are forced to.  That's why this guy watches films for a living instead of heroically working at WalMart. 2. The following is a quote from this wingnut's most recent Renew American column, which tells how God got her bookings on "The 700 Club" and Fox News.  (This all happened a couple of years ago, but hey, everyone wants to relive their glory days.) My own son came home mimicking the schools reasoning one day. "Mom, its not right that we have Jesus in school because it offends other cultures. I said, "Honey, if we moved to Africa and they worshipped their African god, would we be offended?" No. Kind of a stupid question isn't it. So why are other cultures so offended when they come to what was once a mighty Christian nation and see the word Jesus Christ? Why are we forced to relinquish our own culture? God is no longer allowed in court, the Ten Commandments are being ripped right off the walls. In public schools, the name of Jesus is virtually outlawed, but Islam and every other pagan god is MANDATED. Yeah, if our culture is Christian, we damned well should be able to teach kids to worship Jesus in our public schools -- and if other cultures don't like it, they can move to to some other country, and worship that African God or the pagan god Islam.  3.  From a PBS "Frontline" interview from last November: Q: Who hired you? The Republican National Committee hired me, and they hired me because they wanted someone who could look members straight in the eye and tell them the truth. [...] Q: What about replacing "global warming" with "climate change?" What is the difference? It is climate change. Some people call it global warming; some people call it climate change. What is the difference? Look, for years, political people and lawyers -- who, by the way, are the worst communicators -- used the phrase "estate tax." And for years they couldn't eliminate it. The public wouldn't support it because the word "estate" sounds wealthy. Someone like me comes around and realizes that it's not an estate tax, it's a death tax, because you're taxed at death. And suddenly something that isn't viable achieves the support of 75 percent of the American people. It's the same tax, but nobody really knows what an estate is. But they certainly know what it means to be taxed when you die. I argue that is a clarification; that's not an obfuscation. And the rest is history . . . 4:19:55 AM