July 1, 2004 by s.z.

Bursting the Family Circus Bubble Today's Cartoon  [I am pretty sure that this really is today's cartoon -- I'd check it with my paper, but apparently my paper boy is part of the conspiracy, since I didn't get a paper today.  Anyway, I'm hoping that we're all part of the same space-time continuim now, and that Jeff Keane really didn't kill his father.] A blubbering PJ is running across a meadow, soap bubbles all around him, tears falling from his eyes and his head.   Mommy, who is still missing half of her face (the result of botched plastic surgery, no doubt) appears mildly concerned (with only a partial mouth and a missing chin, it's hard to express much emotion). Billy, who has been blowing the bubbles, says: "He's just mad because he can't get a grip on a bubble." Analysis PJ, the neglected Keane child, is Dubya this time.  PJ (Bush) is mad because every time he tries to grab hold of a beautiful dream (A short but heroic military operation resulting almost immediately in an America-loving puppet state in Iraq; He is hailed as a financial genius when a booming economy, lots of new jobs, and no deficit all arise from his "tax cuts for the rich" plan; He becomes the hero of the elderly by spending a lot tax money to make Medicare way more complicated), it bursts in his hands.  He goes crying to his mother (Karen Hughes), only to find that she really can't help, and doesn't really care anyway, since she's busy planning her campaign for the governorship of Texas.  This makes PJ cry all the more. Prediction In the future, it will be brother Jeb, not George, blowing the bubbles.  Prepare yourself for Bush Presidency III.  And then the world ends. Well, that's one idea.  Here are more, from some of your more industrious but morally backward classmates: Analysis: Little what's his name (the littlest kid who only appears to be an intermittent family member) is running through a field of bubbles and starts to wail when he can't catch any. His childish demeanor and complete detachment from reality shows us that he is our Boy Emperor running through a field that partially resembles Europe (i.e. Turkey). Little Billy represents, for once, Jacques Chirac - fiendishly torturing the little Bushman while Mommy (the rest of Europe) looks on. Notice Mommy's strange posture? She's obviously not at all upset at Billy and instead appears ready to pummel the tiny Bushman. Prediction: The Bushman's strange meltdown on Irish television now has all of Europe mocking him while he shakes his tiny fist in fury. He will continue to rage helplessly while Europe tries to distance itself more and more from him. Americans will finally take notice of his complete detachment from reality and his wanton destruction of traditional friendships and vote him out of office in November.  Pete M. •  " He's just mad because he can't get a grip" A bit of a tautology admittedly, but in this timeline Keane evidently just runs a picture of Bush with the message "He's insane" under it.   Alison •   For today's cartoon, "intermittent brother" trying to catch the bubbles: little bro clearly represents the american working class, trying to grab on to Billy's (W) promises of a better economy, only to realize that housing & stock market bubbles evaporate when we recognize them for what they are - false indications of economic recovery. pucca totale • But you probably have your own idea about what this cartoon means-- and it has to be better than mine, or Pete's, right? 8:05:29 AM

Fun With Wingnuts 1.  Rarely is the question asked: Could your kids be given to 'gay' parents? In the debate over gay marriage, strikingly little attention has been paid to the impact on children. Some question the wisdom of having children raised by two homosexuals, but the best they can seem to argue is that serious flaws vitiate the literature defending it. Almost no attention has been devoted to what may be the more serious political question of who will supply the children of gay "parents," since obviously they cannot produce children themselves. I always thought that gay "parents" would buy their offspring at Kids 'R Us, but it turns out that the state is going to steal my kids and give them to a same-sex couple.  Granting gay couples the "right" to have children by definition means giving them the right to have someone else's children, and the question arises whether the original parent or parents ever agreed to part with them. And that's the real topic of this piece: how the state convinces women to get rid of their innocent, decent husbands so their kids can be abused, and social services can then take them and make money by putting them up for adoption.   Yes, it seems that the bee in the bonnet of this particular columnist (Stephen Baskerville, "president of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children") is that the courts allow women to get divorces, and then award them custody of the children; gay marriage is just a trendy cause with which to link his fathers rights' crusade Child abuse is overwhelmingly a phenomenon of single-parent homes. Government and feminist propaganda suggest that single-parent homes result from paternal abandonment. In fact, they are usually created by family court judges, who have close ties to the social service agencies that need children. By forcibly removing fathers from the home through unilateral or "no-fault" divorce, family courts create the environment most conducive to child abuse and initiate the process that leads to removal of the children from the mother, foster care, and adoption. Gay adoption is simply the logical culmination in the process of turning children into political instruments for government officials. What this demonstrates is that same-sex marriage cannot be effectively challenged in isolation. Opponents must bite the bullet and confront the two evils that pose a far more serious and direct threat to the family than gay marriage: the child protection gestapo and the even more formidable "no-fault" divorce machine.   So, Social Services and family courts are the ones behind this whole "gay marriage" racket (or those gay activists are behind the no-fault divorce machine and the Child Welfare Gestapo) -- I should have known!  Update: Seb at Sadly,No! has more, and better, about this important story. 2.  Now, here's Compassionate Conservative and World Mag editor Marvin Olasky, here to explain that the liberals are like the Red Coats -- and so the godly evangelicals (who are like the "theist" founding fathers, such as Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry) must band together with the worldly Republicans (the not-exactly-Christian-but-still-patriotic Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin) to defeat their common foe. Today, conservative evangelicals and conservative secularists need to coalesce against liberals who, like their 18th century British counterparts, are wedded to higher taxes and lower vices. To work in coalition, old-line Republicans and evangelicals need to see each other as colleagues, not aliens. Republicans who follow the Declaration's example will support life and liberty, and attack imperial Washington, in a way that promotes coalition rather than exclusion. Evangelicals who work for such commitments will be showing their understanding of what Witherspoon and Adams knew: Coalition is not the same as compromise. For example, we need to honor prophetic voices and at the same time find ways to save lives now from abortionists. As Franklin said, if we do not hang together, we will all hang separately.   Democrats get to hang Republicans and evangelicals?  Cool!  And apparently we rule "imperial Washington," even though the Republicans control both houses of Congress and the White House.   (I guess our empire is Hollywood, France, and the movie theaters showingFarenheit 9/11.  I don't know who our emperor is, though -- I would have said Hillary Clinton, but she's in New York.) But I wonder why Olasky's call for coalition doesn't extend to pro-life Democrats (and does include pro-choice Republicans) -- it couldn't be that he's just trying to mobilize the evangelicals to get George Bush elected, could it? 3. Now, let's hear from The Virgin Ben, who holds that since the Supreme Court has "written sodomy into the Constitution of the United States" and upheld the first amendment rights of internet pornographers, then it must be liberal, not conservative, like some people claim -- meaning that it awarded the presidency to George Bush, not out of partisanship, but because it hates him. In other news, that "conservative" court has decided that certain attempts to limit access to Internet pornography violate the First Amendment. Yes, that's right, Virginia! Getting together with your friends, incorporating and buying a political ad in the weeks leading up to an election is illegal in the United States -- and that ban is constitutional. But asking Web site operators to use credit cards, personal ID numbers or adult access codes to bar minors from entering porn sites is unconstitutional. So that's what the founders were thinking: Anti-Kerry ads must be stopped, but for God's sake, please protect "Lord of the G-Strings"! I just did a Google search, and it turns out there really IS a movie called Lord of the G-Strings ("If you want to buy a movie with a buch of naked women ... then this is the video for you").  So, why does a nice, religious boy like Ben know anything about it?  I guess Ben have discovered first-hand just how ineffective those filters are at keeping porn from kids. 6:34:29 AM

Teresa Kerry to Use Billions To Clone Dead First Husband; Says She Doesn't Love John Pete (blogging at the noted Dark Window), asks "How Low Will NewsMax Go?" (It seems that because Mrs. Kerry told an interviewer that she isn't glad that her first husband died, thus making her a wealthy woman, NewsMax claims in their title that "Mrs. Kerry Longs for Republican Husband.") While I can't predict to what further depths NewxMax may sink, I can point you to somebody just as base: Rush Limbaugh.  He calls his segment about the story "Teresa Wants Old Husband Back." Rush starts by quoting from the Boston Globe story: "Teresa Heinz Kerry, who inherited a vast family fortune and heads a billion-dollar foundation, said Tuesday that she would give up the money to have her first husband back. 'It was a very sad day when that happened,' Heinz Kerry said, speaking of Senator John Heinz, heir to the Heinz food fortune who was killed in a 1991 plane crash. 'I'd rather have my husband alive than that money.' Then Rush gives you his profound insights on her words: She wants her husband back. Now, you have to respect that. I'm not lampooning that. Do-o-on't misunderstand, folks. Far be it from me to intercede in the hearts and the affairs and the desires of other people. But if I'm John Kerry and I read this, if I'm married to her now, and she's out there saying, "I wish I had my husband back," and I would give up all this money for it? (Chuckles.) Well, let's just say it would not make my day. Of course, nothing like that has ever happend to Rush -- all of his ex-wives say that they WISH he were dead, and they AREN'T giving up the money.  Thus, Rush gets to pity Kerry for having a wife who liked her first husband more than his money. My heart wouldn't be skipping beats and I wouldn't be eager... It just would make me scratch my head and start saying, "Why did we let her out of the house? We tried to keep her in the house. We tried to keep her gagged but I can't because it's her money. So this is the price I've got to pay." Yes, Rush's first thought would be, "Why did we let the woman out of the house?'  See, Rush knows all about trying to keep women bound and gagged in the basement ... 6:04:32 AM

Deep Thoughts, by Peg  They're in Einstein-land, gardeners, and thinking of eternity. And I thought they were just retards with spades. That's Our Lady of the Dophins, writing from flowery London and explaining why gardening isn't as lame as you probably think.  (Her ruminations bring to mind Dorothy Parker's line about how you can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.) Peggy goes on to voice her fear that people will vote for Kerry because Bush is just too manly, honest, and exciting for them. Here is my fear: that the American people, liking and respecting President Bush, and knowing he's a straight shooter with guts, will still feel a great temptation to turn to the boring and disingenuous John Kerry. He'll never do anything exciting. He doesn't have the guts to be exciting. And as he doesn't stand for anything, he won't have to take hard stands. He'll do things like go to France and talk French and they'll love it. He'll say he's the man who accompanied Teresa Heinz to Paris, only this time he'll say it in French and perfectly accented and they'll all go "ooh la la!" Yes, I hear that veterans and union members in particular are planning to vote for Kerry almost entirely because of the "ooh la la!" factor. OK, readers, tell me I'm wrong. Or if you think I'm right or part right, tell me what Mr. Bush can do about it Peggy, you're 100% right.  And the only thing that Mr. Bush can do about it is to become smart, articulate, and grown-up, so he won't be quite so "exciting."  Maybe he should also tone down his "straight shooter with guts" image by, oh, lying to the American people.  It's his only hope of overcoming Kerry's appealing disingenuousness. P.S.  In the interest of balance, here's the thought for today from the 1999 "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey" calendar: If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will try to catch you because, hey, free dummy. Maybe I will send this advice along to Peggy, so she can use it to help Mr. Bush.  5:13:26 AM