The World O' Crap Archive

Welcome to the Collected World O' Crap, a comprehensive library of posts from the original Salon Blog, and our successor site, world-o-crap.com (2006 to 2010).

Current posts can be found here.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Now I Know How Scrooge Felt

I had a feeling that our friends the Marley Brothers had linked to Wo’C, judging by the sudden influx of Christmas crusaders hopped up on figgy pudding and just itching to drive a stake of holly through our hearts.  So I thought I’d check out their latest efforts to staunch the dark tide of retail clerks who would profane this most sacred of shopping seasons.

Personally, I’ve always felt that the more question marks you use, the less serious your analysis is likely to be.  In fact, studies have shown that scholarly papers with titles that feature three or more exclamation points often perform poorly in peer-reviewed journals.

In addition to celebrating the birth of their savior with the help of a bunch of pilfered pagan symbols, and magical beings (I don’t care how right jolly he is, Santa — according to a link from the Marley’s own site — is an elf, and I’d really like them to point out the verse in the New Testament where elves won the no-bid contract to supply birthday party services to the Messiah), the Marleys have become the 1 Millionth Wingnuts to make the “World of Crap is right, because it’s full of CRAP” joke.  And they’ve won a grand prize selected especially for them!
It’s the traditional First Sign of Christmas in Hollywood:  A man and a woman leading an adolescent camel into an office building on Sunset Boulevard.

Congratulations, boys!  You deserve it.
Now get your candy asses back in the War.


86 Responses to “Now I Know How Scrooge Felt”

Oh, I always miss the fun stuff on Sunset when I’m at work! :(
Speaking of work–tomorrow my class will be going to the Holiday Show at my school, where they will be treated to christmas songs old and new (hopefully NOT “The Christmas Shoes”), including CAROLS which mention angels, wisemen and BABY JESUS!
Next week, the Secret Service will be escorting that right jolly old elf, Santa back onto our playground for his annual pre-Christmas visit. Will the GRINCH be on hand? Or is he safely imprisoned at Gitmo? What kind of danger are my first graders in for?!??!!?
Find out next week!
We’re being visited by frothing-at-the-mouth, batshit-crazy republicunt-tool so-called “christians”?!??!
GOOD.
FUCK YOU ALL SIDEWAYS WITH A CHAINSAW, RECTALLY UNTIL THE BLADE EMERGES FROM YOUR NOSES.
Fuck their fake holiday and their bullshit fake morality and their complete and utter LACK of concern about ANY ACTUAL HUMANS on this planet.
Fuck ‘em all.
(Not me, though, I wouldn’t fuck a christian with a stolen dick.)
How nice for them, that these douchebags don’t have any REAL worries about the world, like FEEDING THE HUNGRY or CLOTHING THE POOR or HOUSING THE HOMELESS.
FUCK. YOU. ALL.
DIE.
FREE UP SOME OXYGEN FOR PEOPLE WHO DESERVE IT.
That office building door has been officially renamed “The Eye of A Needle” so rich Christians will be able to sleep at night without hacking up their own hypocrisy.
I love how those idiots, the Marley Brothers, are taking credit for stores doing what they would already BE doing whether or not the Marley Boys even EXISTED!!!
That’s right, fuckwads. If you had never been born, Sears, Toys R Us and the rest of your “good stores” would have STILL been using the word “Christmas” in their ads this year! Why?! Because the whole, stupid and FAKE “War On Xmas” thing has enabled the word “Christmas” to become good marketing, and guess what–you assholes didn’t even START the damn thing. It would have occurred whether you existed or not.
There’s your damn dirty “Wonderful Life” moment.
Twerps.
Wow. May I suggest the Marley brothers (and did anyone actually suggest they were a gay couple, or is the nutjob commenter just projecting?) wrap up their War On Grammar And Spelling before they launch into the War Against The War On Christmas?
I’m especially fond, btw, of the dork who advised us pagans to get our own holiday in March. We did, it’s called Easter, and you twerps stole that one too. Happy holidays, children.
Maryc, are we twins or something? I was just off calling them twerps too. They must just give off such a twerpy vibe. I think it’s the leaving-rants-in-comments-of-blog-items- everybody-else-stopped-reading-days-ago thing. Free advice, kids: You have thirty six hours to come up with a relevant or even just witty comment, after that nobody cares even more than they usually don’t.
HELP!!!!! I’M BEING PEEEEEERRRRRSECUUUUUTED!!! PEOPLE ARE SAYING “HAPPY HOLIDAYS” TO MEEEEEEEEEE!!! THIS IS WORSE THAN THE HOOOOOOLOOOOCAAAAUUUSST!!!!! MERCYYYYYY!!!! HAVE MERCYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!
The reverse political corectness movement is here. It is just as obnoxious than what it claims to be fighting. Petty repression breeds petty retaliation, and sanity suffers.
Also, Antichrist S. Coulter needs to loosen up a little.
Also, Antichrist S. Coulter needs to loosen up a little.
Really? She seems fine to me.
Maryc, are we twins or something? I was just off calling them twerps too
Hey! We’re the WonderTwins! WonderTwin Power, ACTIVATE!
:D
You know, I visited the the Marleys’ website, and I DID learn something new that changes how I think about them and their crusade.
Some may not have noticed the surreptitious and skullduggerous attack that is being perpetrated against Christians and our most cherished Holiday, Christmas.
Obviously, Bob is mocking Bill O’Reilly, John Gibson, et. al. by claiming that people might have failed to notice their whole War on Christmas shtick.
But more importantly, I’ve always believed that we Christians cherish Easter a little more than Christmas, since it celebrates the atonement and resurrection of Christ, which is the basis of our whole religion. So, I’m forced to conclude that the Marleys aren’t actually Christians who are figting for a religious principle, but really just some guys hired by rival department stores and malls to stir up trouble for the competition. What a phony war this is turning out to be!
skullduggerous? ah, English as she is spoke!
These poor poor persecuted construction workers write:
“The site is world o’crap. Their not kidding”
But they never go on to explain anything about your kidding, or not kidding. It’s a tease. I give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they don’t mean “they’re”, because that would be anti-scholarly, and I hate to think they are not serious about their scholorship.
I live in Bumhump Maryland and wrote a little column for the biggest rag hereabouts, and they published it. I’m not kidding. It’s right up this blind and decrepit alley.
Uhm…meant to include web site for article.
http://www.stmarystoday.com
/is_christmas_really_under_attack.htm
Santa is an elf? Goodness. He should have gone easy on that bread Galadriel cooked up.
So according to Bob Marley, the forces of “Corporate America and the leaders of our Cities and Towns wants [nice grammar, Bob]to align with” S.Z and Scott and some guy named Austin Clarke who is “a digital design professional who works in photo editing, Web site design, and computer graphic design.”
While I can’t comment on Mr. Clarke who seems to be a fine web designer and a good God-fearing atheist, we should only live so long to see Corporate America taking its cues from World-O-Crap (now that would be one hell of a present to find under my green pre-lit flame retardant poly ethylene “tree” which I won’t take down until sometime in March). Such a suggestion, though, does answer one question about which Mr. Marley Bob is:
“BOB MARLEY was stoned and dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was
signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker,and the chief mourner. And the other Wailers could attest to the quality of his weed. Scrooge smoked it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘the Web,’ for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. And stoned to shit.
Dammit, I was all set to say, “Will the last wingnut to make the ‘World-o-Crap??? You sure got that right!!!!!’ joke please turn off the lights when he leaves?” when you beat me to it, Scott. Which is only right, I guess.
So, I’ll just note how chortle-inducing it is that the boys’ fetish object, confirmed-bachelor “Jesus Christ”, is what normal, rational, competent English speakers say when their vehicles won’t start, the furnace stops supplying heat, or that tall, cool glass of milk they’ve been longing for turns out to be homebrewed refrigerator yogurt.
In Terry Pratchett’s book “Masquerade”, the people investigating the crimes of the Phantom of the Ankh-Morpork Opera House know he is insane because he finishes his sentences with five exclamation points. Throughout the book, the closer a character comes to being crazy, the more exclamation points they use to punctuate their sentences. I can’t see why the same rule can’t be applied to question marks.
The War on Christmas is a joke. How can atheists and secularists compete with maniacal wing nuts who are well-funded by crappy Chinese products sold at Wal*Mart?
B8ovin,
You wrote something for the Examiner?
Anntichrist: You didn’t use enough !!! or any ???? No random “scare” quotes, either!!!!
Well at least we know where the entire group of lefties hangout spewing their vial venom. Why is it that when you can’t have your way, you all behave like 2 year olds; although, I must say that the site is a change from the normal rhetoric; some here can articulate the F-Bomb pretty well; that must take a lot of effort. Just a heads up, children read this garbage. You may want to consider that before you go on a hate-filled diatribe about absolutely nothing. You guys have to get over this petty jealousy, it is a national holiday and its OK to say Merry Christmas.
With that said Merry Christmas, and may God Bless and cradle all of you in the palm of his hand.
Speaking of cherished Yuletide traditions, doesn’t it seem like there’s a lot less wassailing these days than there used to be? I blame the radical secularist-Big Retail nexus, and George Soros.
Scott, s.z., think of the children and keep your venom in its proper vial!
This damn war on christmas is one of those dificult things for me, like which way to turn a screw or how to talk to hot chix. I always have to stop and think about it: “OK, if I say “Merry Christmas” that means that I’m secular,umm, no, ok it’s like this, if I say Happy Holidays I’m anti semitic, no wait, if I say “Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer” I’m saying the president’s a drunk – Dammit! I can’t keep it straight…”
mikey
Children read this? Oh my… Think of all the young minds who’ve been corrupted by your reviews of the Batman serial. Which reminds me that it’s been quite some time since the last installment.
Just a heads up, children read this garbage.
Children read political snark? None of the children I know do. It’s got no pics…
mikey
Maybe he meant, “Just a heads-up, children: read this garbage.”
Also why should it bother you if we want Christmas restored to the public? I would honestly like a civil answer. No crazy ramblings, just the truth. We have asked so many people what is so offensive about Christmas? No one tells the truth, everyone dodges the question and gives some off-handed reason. I’d respect someone a lot more if they just said, yes I’m jealous that your holiday is the prominent one in December, that I could appreciate. Then I would be able to console them by making them understand that jealousy and hatred is the real root of all evil, not Christmas. I hope I can get a civil response, especially whereas I have broken the golden rule.
You know that rule, how to talk to a liberal, you don’t.
Again Merry Christmas
I’d respect someone a lot more if they just said, yes I’m jealous that your holiday is the prominent one in December, that I could appreciate
I can’t tell you how deeply I crave your respect.
See , just can’t get a normal response.
Let me just say one more thing then, as some have noticed I have linked this site to ours in order that the people out there will know that there are people like you out there.
Lets not say I didn’t try.
Merry Christmas
I don’t know anyone who finds Christmas “offensive.” Certainly, many people recognize it as a commercialized charade and the public flogging of a preposterous mythology, but…offensive?
I have yet to hear of someone flying into a rage because someone wished them “Merry Christmas.” But we now have campaigns encouraging morons to poop their pants publicly if someone tells them to have “Happy Holidays.”
I say: if they want war, give them war. They’re rightwingers: they won’t last a minute in a real fight. I’m going to start crucifying Christmas trees upside down, planting “peace sign” wreaths all over down, and I just send the White House a “document” showing that there are huge oil reserves under the North Pole.
Happy Holidays, fools.
Why is it that when you can’t have your way, you all behave like 2 year olds
Store clerks don’t say “Merry Christmas” when you want them to, you throw a tantrum, and *someone else* is behaving like a 2-year-old?
‘Scuse me, that’s “all over TOWN,” and “I just SENT the White House…” Sorry, I must be sampling the spiked eggnog I’m going to serve the children…BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
Happy Halloween!
Happenstance, I thought that was part of group, save the Caribou, while our young men and woman die in Iraq
I personally don’t care if someone wishes me a Merry Christmas or not. What pisses me of is that employees are threatened with their jobs if they say it. As usual you miss the point.
Uh…wow. I guess TCG is sampling his own “eggnog” as well. That didn’t make a lick of sense.
However, thanks for acknowledging that while you’re supporting The War On The War On Christmas from your keyboard, real Amercian men and women continue to die for one of the Right Wing’s OTHER major moments of idiocy. Very sporting of you.
Think I’ma buy a few of these:
http://www.cafepress.com/tomsworld/2167761
That is exactly why we have taken a stand, while the world and this country is in constant turmoil, your ilk, continues to erode the fabric of this country.
Clearly I am wasting my time here, so this will be my last visit, nice not chatting with you.
Merry Christmas
Ah, yes: Wal-Mart telling employees to say “Happy Holidays” in order to be inclusive of shoppers who aren’t Christian, when strained through the Right Wing Hysterical Asshole Filter, equals “threatened with their jobs if they say it.” I’m surprised you didn’t explode into all-caps and multiple exclamation points as you pointed to a multi-source conspiracy. Congratulations on your self-control.
Happy Hanukkah!
Aw id baby gonna wun away maaaaaad?
But then who will stop me from further eroding the fabric of this country? (snort)
Ave Dasani!*
(*I wrote to Coca-Cola suggesting this awesome commercial, but all they sent me back was a restraining order.)
You also must be ok with the muslim prayer rooms at the airports, that Ellison won’t take his oath on the bible, that other moron that called for the elimination of all white people on the planet. You are a real credit to the country. Some asshole called for the murder of the entire white race, and you want to rant and rave about Christmas.
Some asshole called for the murder of the entire white race, and you want to rant and rave about Christmas.
Ah, so when the Marleys issue demands for a White Christmas…
Gotcha. Duly noted.
“You also must be ok with the muslim prayer rooms at the airports, that Ellison won’t take his oath on the bible,”
Yes. Yes I am. However, you remain packed completely full of shit:
For starters, the oath you’re referring doesn’t require a Bible or religious text of any sort. That’s just one more bit of much-ado-about-nothing in the phony “war on Christianity” to keep idiots like you distracted. (Google it, fool.) Second, I work for United at one of America’s largest airports, and it has a meditation room–nothing more. (I like how you cite all these things without reference.)
But then you fly completely off the handle, bringing up some totally unrelated nonsense:
“Some asshole called for the murder of the entire white race, and you want to rant and rave about Christmas.”
TCG, you’re the one parking here screaming about Christmas. Do you not understand that? And what the hell do the mewlings of “some asshole” have to do with Christmas or the “War On” it?
You were doing better when you ran off crying and sobbing that you weren’t coming back ever (right before you came back). Every time you reply, you’re making a bigger and bigger fool of yourself. (Don’t stop on MY account, though.)
Happy Kwanzaa!
Lessee:
1) Came into comments section of partisan political blog and expressed surprise that commenters were partisan and not particularly civil. Check.
2) Began responding to every single post shortly thereafter. Check.
3) Then announced absolute, final departure due to incivility/refusal of regular posters to reverse their opinions. Check.
4) Returned two minutes after absolute, final departure. Check.
Dude, you forgot to tell us you “used to be a Liberal.” Plus, it’s clear the RNC stopped paying for the routine in early 2005. Good money to be had at your local Army recruiter’s, though, white boy.
can anybody lend me a very small funnel? i’m having a terrible time pouring my vile venom into my venom vials, and its getting all over my hands and the kitchen table and everything, and i don’t want the cats to get in to it.
Dear Christmas Guys,
Even though you said you weren’t coming here to play anymore ( something to do with Happenstance buying a pack of Tom Tomorrow’s cards), I know you can resist, so here’s my two cents.
First, while there is quite a bit of snark, there is very little,if any, hate. Amusement at your suggestion that America’s Corporate leaders are in league with Scott and S.Z. to destory Christmas. Bemused at your sense of persecution. Chortling at your convoluted and confused logic. Well, I can go on, but under H – sorry, but it’s humor, not hate.
As far as I am concerned,it’s not the celebration of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwawnzaa that is the issue. I absolutely love the holiday seasons. I even love the War of Christmas. You can’t imagine how much joy you have given to me. Where I find you a bit odd is in how over the top you characters are about how “we” are about to destroy America ( your values, Christmas itself, Santa Claus – actually I am not sure just what it is that you think we are destroying). Seriously, at times you seem to meld preceived slights against Christ, Yule logs, “It’s A Wonderful Life,” and green and red paper plates into a strange conspiracy lead by the ACLU, and composed of the entire population of San Francisco. And it is all directed at you Culture Warriors. Tonight I am going to my son’s middle school Holiday Concert where I will joyously listen to the most wonderfully out-of-tune, off-key versions of “The Little Drummer Boy,” “The Dreidel Song” and “Happy Holidays.” We are all going to get together as a community over the next few weeks to go to tree lightings, to visit with friends, to wish each other Seasons Greetings, Joy to the World, Peace on Earth, (as a Patriot Act Free Zone, we really emphasize the Peace on Earth part). It’s a great season. You guys should really try enjoying it, instead of worrying about whether a group of underpaid and medical benefit-less Wal-Mart Workers uphold your particular variant on the season. For me, the more diverse it is, the more joyous it is, and the better it is.
I was going to leave but I see the anger mounting, and I thought I could catch a little more dribble in my dribble cup.
oh, Annti- is Boy back yet? Please tell us he got home safe, we’re worried for you, darlin’.
our Shadow was gone for three days once, in mid-winter here in Maryland, and when he returned he had a torn ligament that cost him another three days in the hospital and months of hobbling, and us a thousand dollars we couldn’t well afford- but he came home.
Luck be with you, dearheart.
I know for myself, when I’m dropping $500 on Xbox games and Limp Bizkit CDs and golf clubs to commemmorate the birth of MY Savior, I get pissed if the clerk doesn’t acknowledge the sacredness and the majesty of my highest holy day.
Tomg, I can appreciate your point of view, however, I disagree, when other people across the globe declare a utopia, then and only then will I be all embracing, until such time there is only peace where there is peace.
Now I really have to go it was nice chatting folks, I just want to leave a little poem for you guys.
Christmas Lost???
Twas the month before Christmas
And throughout our land,
Not a Christian was seen caring
Nor taking a stand.
Cuz the “Politically Correct Police” had taken away,
The reason for Christmas – which we could no longer say.
The children were told by their schools not to sing, About Shepherds and
Wise Men and Angels and things.
“It might hurt people’s feelings”, the teachers would say December 25th is
just another Holiday!
Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit
Pushing folk down to the floor just to get it!
CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod
Something was changing, something quite odd!
As Targets hung their trees upside down
At Lowe’s the word Christmas – could nowhere be found.
At K-Mart and CVS and Penny’s and Sears
You won’t hear the word Christmas; it won’t touch your ears.
Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty
Are the “correct” words that are used to intimidate me.
Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen On Boxer, on Rather,
on Kerry, on Clinton,!
At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter To eliminate Jesus,
in all public matter.
And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith,
Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace.
The true Gift Of The Child was exchanged and discarded The reason for
the season… stopped before it started.
So as you celebrate “Winter Break” under “your Tree”
Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.
Choose your words carefully, choose what you say, SHOUT AND SING MERRY
CHRISTMAS!…
And remember, “your tree” is a CHRISTMAS tree!!!
Wait, BobChristmasGuy said,“Just a heads up, children read this garbage”? But over at his site he wrote this about World o’ Crap:
You have to read the rants from the children on this site. The’re getting crazier by the minute.
So, if the children are WRITING this stuff, why should I be worried that they’re also reading it?
“when other people across the globe declare a utopia, then and only then will I be all embracing, until such time there is only peace where there is peace.”
Translation from Boob to English: “I’ll turn the other cheek when everyone else is Christian. Until then, yer all out ta git me!”
Meh. I don’t care if you’re ever “all-embracing” (with you yo-yos, it’s always all-or-nothing); but you’d be doing yourself a favor if you’d pull your head out of your ass, knock off the hysterics, and check the occasional fact before blasting off on another keyboard-war adventure.
Happy Fornicating!
I was going to leave but I see the anger mounting, and I thought I could catch a little more dribble in my dribble cup
Don’t you mean “vial”?
I’d really like them to point out the verse in the New Testament where elves won the no-bid contract to supply birthday party services to the Messiah
It was in the Gospel According To Macy’s, Chapter One, verse 83….right after the Blessed Miracle On 34th Street
Also why should it bother you if we want Christmas restored to the public?
Left by The Christmas Guy

When was it taken?
Seriously. When did the networks STOP showing A Charlie Brown Christmas in favor of Omar’s Eid-ul-Fitr? Or Moishe’s Hannukah?
When?
When did Sears stop showing Christmas trees and Santas?
When?
Why is it so wrong to include the other small percentage of the country who also celebrate a holiday this time of year? If your sister married a Jew or a Muslim, or a black (I know, shuddering in your hood, aintcha?), you’d go out of your way to be polite and do SOMETHING inclusive, wouldn’t you?
So lemme ask you something: when did America stop being a family?
You also must be ok with the muslim prayer rooms at the airports, that Ellison won’t take his oath on the bible
Left by The Christmas Guys

Were you OK that Lieberman didn’t? He took it on the Torah, and if you’re going to be technical, that’s less a Bible than the Koran, which includes an awful lot of Jesus’ teachings in it.
Or hadn’t you read the thing before you decided it was some sacreligious text?
What happened to my smiley santa?
I worked hard on him, and was hoping for suggestions about a beard. Currently he looks like -um- ?? *
Skullduggery…
Bahumbuggery…
Mindless thuggery…
I feel a limerick coming on.
Well this was really fun, however, it is time to fight the war on Christmas. I’ll see you guy in the winners circle. Farewell to the mindless, the ludicrous, and the ridiculous. I’ll give Bill, Sean, Anne, John and all the wonderful people at Fox News your regards. Oh and by the way we were on Fox & Friends yesterday morning @ 7:20, I believe I gave you guys Kudos.
I was going to leave but I see the anger mounting, and I thought I could catch a little more dribble in my dribble cup.
Oh? So what explains your attraction to that sort of thing, Philistine? Or your pride in that little twaddle cup you carry around? Why do the heathen rage, boyo? Whatever gave you the idea that your puny half-literacies can accomplish what God doesn’t? Need help with that log? A lift to the recruitment office?
Your hostess, by the way, is, on her worst day, ten times the Christian you’ll ever be. Not that you’d have bothered to check first, of course.
I simply find it amazing at how much imagery related to war, combat, battle, etc. is applied to a day that was supposed to celebrate peace, hope, and love. Granted, I gave up on Christanity over 10 years ago, but I seem to remember that being the primary tenet of Jesus’ words. Then again, what do I know?
Wait, I have more questions! How is it that Joseph, a Galilean, was answering a Roman census when Galilee wasn’t under Roman rule? Why was he carting his pregnant girlfriend along when she (being female) was little more than chattel? If I ask the greeter at Wal*Mart do you think she’ll know?
Besides, the over/under on ‘Replies after departure’ is 13.
Go with that, Herr Doktor.
Once again, we don’t care if you say Merry Christmas to everyone you meet in every circumstance, starting about November 1. Seriously. Don’t give the faintest damn. Enjoy yourselves.
Many of the rest of us, though, have other greetings we prefer, either because we don’t celebrate Christmas, or because it’s, you know, November, or because we know the person we’re addressing doesn’t celebrate Christmas. How is “Happy Holidays” offensive, anyway? Christmas is a holiday. So’s Thanksgiving and New Year’s, which I understand you guys also recognize.
If you guys hang around till the end of the month, you’ll probably see us all wishing each other a Merry Christmas here in the comments, as well as a Happy Hannukah, a Happy Kwanzaa, a Happy Yule, a Happy Cephalopodmas, a Happy New Year, and anything else we can think of. We’re like that.
Personally, what I find particularly ignorant and pathetic is the “Please, just give us back our holiday” comment. Because I want to destroy Christmas? Not really. Mostly because I know who you stole your holiday from in the first place, and did it so comprehensively that you don’t even have to know it happened, nor does the culture–which is to a large extent your culture–accept that anyone else has a right to the season.
If you’d like to consider that jealousy, okay. But it’s jealousy in the same way that I’d be jealous if your family took my family’s land and then started bitching a hundred years later that an endangered species was found on it and no fair, you can’t build a mall there now, someone’s stolen your property! By which I mean, you know, not at all.
Seriously, why is it in any way offensive to make room in your now-three-months-long season for the rest of the world? Do you really think wishing us Merry Christmas for two months and making us do the same to you under threat of boycott and petulant newspaper column is going to convert anyone?
And if you don’t like the rest of us screwing up your holiday, shouldn’t you be making sure you only wish Merry Christmas to other Christians? Personally, I don’t invite people into my home and then insist they spend the evening on the floormat in the front hall. Why? Because it’s not my home? Because I like mud on my carpets? No, just because it’s rude. If I think someone’s going to steal the flatware, I don’t invite them in.
Children are rude to their friends. Children don’t share. Children insist everything must be about them. Children take their ball and go home when the game doesn’t go their way. Children try to control everything around them. Children demand people say the magic words to them. Children assume everyone thinks as they do and wants what they do. Children think the decorations and the presents are the point.
Adults, on the other hand, share. They are civil to people who are different from them and who don’t agree with them. Adults try to make sure no one is left out. Adults know that sometimes they will not get their way, and do not refuse to participate because of it. Adults know the thought is more important than the present. Adults know that tradition and custom are not more important than people.
So, it seems pretty clear who the children are.
Incidentally, would any of you like to address our blogger’s comment that Easter, not Christmas, is the most important holiday on the Christian calendar? Because that seems like an excellent point, and one that is overlooked in the whole War On Christmas hype.
Sweet Graham cracker, TCG has come back once again to announce that he’s leaving and never coming back. He’ll probably be back before I finish typing this. Has anyone ever done an actual study on the brain dysfunctions and dependencies of attention whores? ‘Cause now I’m curious.
FOX News? Well, that explains a great deal right there, doesn’t it?
“I’ll see you guy in the winners circle.”
Grammar quibbles aside, that’s typical neocon-bootlickism. It’s even easier to declare victory in a war that doesn’t exist than a real one; all you have to do is fend off the nonexistent Evil Ones until January 2nd or so and start crowing. Oh, but watch out for next year!
You should make yourself a “Mission Accomplished” banner to stand under with a sock stuffed in your pants. (No, in FRONT, moron.)
Oh dear, I’m bringing up Iraq again. TCG kinda dropped that whole “real war” thing and reverted back to his fantasy “war on Christmas” a few posts ago. Shame on me for once again exposing his idiocy and hypocrisy.
Corporations, pseudo-religion and gov’t are merely quid-pro-quo whorehouses sold to the highest bidder. When the gov’t needs illegal wire-taps, Verizon and Sprint allow them secret rooms to listen in on calls. When Haliburton (and KBR) need more revenue, the gov’t hands out no-bid contracts. When the gov’t dislikes literature, Amazon and Wikipedia ban the book “America Deceived”. When corporations need more profits, they pump Christmas out earlier and earlier. We lost our gov’t, lost our people and lost our soul.
Final link (before Google Books caves to pressure and drops the title):
http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?&isbn=0-595-38523-0
You know what the saddest thing to me about this whole War on Christmas nonsense? There’s all these good, moral Christians wasting all this time, energy and money on nothing when they could be directing that good will into doing things like feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, and hey, maybe even ensuring that economically disadvantaged children can enjoy the season to the fullest. Doesn’t that seem like a better use of one’s time?
Call me cynical, but I really don’t see the Christmas soldiers doing much of that. There’s too much vitirol, too much anger, too much pride. Just look at TCG’s comments. “I’ll see you guy in the winners circle.” Ugh. That’s just loathesome, and I’m supposed to believe you have the moral high-ground.
Show some dignity, at least.
Christmas guys,
If Faith crumbles under the words “Happy Holidays”, Faith needs to get a backbone.
Besides Antichrist Coulter’s bizarre rant, most of what is going on on this little blog is not the mocking of Christians who care about this stuff but rather the mocking of anyone, left or right, who cares about this stuff. We are sick of everyone’s delusions of persecution. We are using humor to bring the ceaselessly grim and humorless down off their high horses a bit. Conservatives made the same jokes about political correctness, and they were right.
Lastly, I would like to propose a New Rule for the comments section: No poetry.
Lastly, I would like to propose a New Rule for the comments section: No poetry.
Why? No one’s posted any yet.
Oddbert,
Anntichrist’s rant is much less bizarre if you know that she and her “evil, Christmas hating cohorts” have spent the past year travelling back and forth to New Orleans to bring aid to Katrina refugees, gut destroyed homes, and rebuild broken lives and the past several weeks trying to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to help a cancer victim without medical insurance get a life-or-death operation.
Meanwhile, The Christmas Warriors dedicate all their time and effort drumming up support, donations, and media time for a meaningless publicity stunt propped up by rumors and lies and bigotry…and they get to lay claim to “the real spirit of Christmas”?
Yeah, I’m siding with Annti on this one.
Fuck the Christmas Warriors.
Fuck them and their whining anntention-getting antics.
Christmas belongs to the people who actually show love to their fellow men, who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless, comfort the sick and sad-hearted.
Who the fuck cares if Wal-Mart “honors Christmas” when people are dying? What difference does it make if your child has red and green napkins at a party when other children in the same city go hungry?
Do you honestly think Jesus would care?
And if he did, why the hell would you worship him?
*applause*
Dorothy, I could not agree more. The Christmas Warriors who skip in here and whine that we can’t know anything about God or Christmas are an insult to the people here who I’ve watched donate time and money to all sorts of causes, often on the basis of only a few paragraphs from someone they’ve never met. And when these sorts of comments come from people who clearly believe that it’s more important to have people saying the right things than doing the right things, the contrast couldn’t be more marked.
Jesus told a story, as I recall, about a man with two sons whom he asked to work in the vineyard. One refused, but later felt bad and did it anyway. The other agreed, but never did. Possibly you learned this in a Sunday School class somewhere along the way, but the lesson, you might remember, is that it is more important what you do than what you say.
By which definition, many here must be far more pleasing to a god some of them don’t even believe in than the Christmas Warriors who worry more about what’s on an ad than who’s in a shelter. It’s a category that absolutely includes Anntichrist Coulter, however put off you may be by her chosen nick or her way of speaking, and I’m delighted to count myself among her friends.
Also, I like limericks.
Woot (monsieur Marley should learn to use his interrobangs–that way, je can wedge twice the question marks and exclamation points into the same space )‽
In using that tired “WO’C indeedy, ‘cos crap it IS!!1!1!,” I feel somewhat personally insulted by the delightfully-named Bob Marley, and you all know what that means…
Kisses for everyone!
Um, no, not that kind of kisses. The chocolate type!
I had some left over from Halloween.
The little bagettes are getting dusty, so I want to be rid of ‘em.
.
.
.
Oops. All this nervous energy had to have some outlet–I just ate the last one. Offer rescinded.
And I’m still not offering M. Marley the other kind of kisses. Feh.
“[...]it is a national holiday and its OK to say Merry Christmas.”
“[...]Left by The Christmas Guys on December 5th, 2006″
OK, I know you “Christian”-types aren’t very detail-oriented (I mean, how could you not notice the self-contridictions in the Bible? Heck, even the varying numbers and names of the disciples in the various gospels doesn’t seem to bother you much). But a word to the “wise:” it isn’t Christmas yet. When you start shouting, “Merry Christmas” the day after Thanksgiving, or worse-yet, Halloween, you sound like someone who has suffered significant cranial trauma, or to put it in a less P.C. way, a retard.
Save the “Merry Christmas” for December 24th and 25th.
Otherwise, stick to “Happy Holidays” or “Seasons Greetings” or suchlike. Thanx!
Dalton, darlin’, the heathen child was found, cradled not in a manger but in the crotch of a tree, 20 feet off of the ground, cold, skeered shitless, mute, but alive nonetheless. Thank you all so much for caring about my wayward Boy.
A major Amen! to everything that Doghouse said about our wonderous hostess here, ’cause she does more for other people and critters in one day than these pompous posturing pieces of pudendum pustulence (afterbirth with legs) have ever accomplished in their entire wasted lives.
Dorothy & D., my darlings, I could not even begin to properly express appropriate thanks for your having my back when we are assaulted by guys who would prolly prefer to attack, say, Karl Rove’s “back,” if they had the opportunity (’cause face it, they’d never be good enough for our Marq or Bill S. or any of our guys, who are WAY too good for such lowlife pud-pullin’ sticky-keyboard “warriors.”).
I cannot possibly accomplish all that S.Z. does on a daily basis, but I do try, when I can. And I betcha that the trolls ’round here didn’t flinch even the TINIEST bit when the world learned that Pat Robertson had stolen not only from Katrina victims, for his OWN enrichment, but also from STARVING CHILDREN IN AFRICA, so that he could prop-up his FAILING GOLD AND DIAMOND MINES.
I betcha it didn’t even make a dent in their solid-concrete noggins, ’cause THAT’S EXACTLY THE KIND OF “christians” THAT THEY ARE.
All talk, no walk. All P.R., no action. All mouth, no good deeds, not even the tiniest drop of compassion for another human being, whether they’re being murdered in Iraq by the so-called “president” that these SCHMUCKS “elected” or starving/freezing to death on the streets of this country.
Camels, needles, you get the gist. It’ll be a sub-zero day in hell before these cocksucking phonies ever lift one bulbous FINGER to “live” the christianity that they TALK.
Oh, and Marq, if, indeed, xmas ever did actually happen, it was more likely in the early fall. I don’t have the links/refs at hand at the moment, but in the original Hebrew & Greek, etc., xmas was not set on the day of the year when retailers need that last big push before tax time.
I know that there are people out there who really believe, who really try to be like this Jesus guy, and they have my sympathy, but then, they’ve let moron fucktards like THESE douchebags hijack their religion, so maybe they are accomplices by inaction. I’m not saying it for sure, but if I belonged to a particular belief system and/or cult, and people were making MY entire life basis look like FLAMING PILES OF HORSESHIT, I’d stand up and say something TO those motherfuckers and let them know that the Sit the fuck DOWN and shut the fuck UP light is ON!
Just a thought.
Now, now antichrist, rest your neck, before you you hurt yourself.
I believe my visit today will keep you fired up for awhile.
Merry Christmas Anti-Christ
One more thing, I see a lot of rage over a simple cause like saving Christmas, however, where is your sanctimonious rage when a black muslim stands up in America and calls for the extermination of the white race, globally I might add with out consequence. It is the arrogant ramblings of your ilk that creates a forum for such audacity. You will be the undoing of us all.
Merry Merry Merry Christmas
Let me say this here as well, we like to plagiarize, we don’t have to be to analytical of you guys because you have a category all your own. Therefore, with our busy schedule, it allows us to give homage to those wise people, and allows us to reiterate quickly, what is already known but might have been forgotten. Now this just wasted 2 minutes of my valuable time.
goddamn, haven’t you left for good about 100 times?
I like it here, you guys have made a new friend. This is tantalizing for a lot of people merlallen. I keep egging you guys on and the world gets a clearer picture of what you are truely like. You guys should not pick on little kids. You should be ashamed of yourselves, however, I think the word ashamed is lost here.
Mr. Christmas Guy Person:
The rage you think you see is due to you and your kind’s insistence on being blissfully ignorant and wholly hypocritical. If you truly believe in what you’re attempting to preach at us, then please, for the love of all you profess to hold true, take the time, energy and money you’re wasting on this fake “war” and put it to actual good use.
There are human beings without homes, food, water, heat, health care and basic sustenance — right here, right now — in America. Actually, throughout the world. But, you can start here in America. Maybe your goodwill would spread to the outer reaches of what you deem the more heathen portions of our world a wee bit better if you lived what you pretend to believe.
Walk the talk. Quit being a pompous ass. Learn some humility. Then maybe, just maybe, you can come almost close to being as decent and compassionate a human being as s.z. or Annti or scott or any other person on this post you’ve insulted with your false greetings and blessings.
Christmas and Christianity don’t need saving. Christmas, like *real* faith, can’t be touched, hurt, threatened or destroyed.
Peace be with you.
Shorter The Christmas Guys:
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Hey dog-breath, that remark will get you disenfranchised from the human race. But what can you expect from a nitwit right, that just demonstrates further how vial the left really is.
And this is exactly why we cannot converse with you and your ilk. I hope you forever piss into the wind and always whittle toward yourself.
Merry Christmas Roving idiot
“And this is exactly why we cannot converse with you and your ilk.”
..and yet YOU KEEP COMING BACK FOR MORE!
What a couple of self-obsessed masochists you are (snicker).
what can you expect from a nitwit right
Hey, we have something in common after all! I’ve also been wondering what next to expect from the nitwit right.
Because nothing says “Merry Christmas, let’s celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace” better than a name-calling, clumsy thinly-veiled threats, and braggadocio.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Craps on the Op-Ed Page

Elder care obligations have kept me on the run this week, but I see that Jonah Goldberg left his mark on the Los Angeles Times Opinion page yesterday.  So did my parakeet, but Jonah clearly outperformed her by managing to cover twice as many column inches while still working with the same basic materials.

ONE THOUSAND three hundred and forty seven days.
Jonah’s head has now officially been up his ass longer than America was involved in World War II.
That’s how long the United States was involved in combat in World War II, and Monday, the U.S. passed that “grim military milestone,” as one TV anchor called it. This factoid has become a fixture of respectable talking points about the futility of the Iraq war. Newscasters and pundits note its gravity with sober foreboding and slight head-shaking.

The only thing they don’t note is the grotesque stupidity of the comparison.
And when Jonah wants to talks about “grotesque stupidity,” it’s like a bearded sea captain in a yellow sou’wester who wants to tell you about his 3 Way Chowder and Bisque Sampler.  Trust the Gorton’s Fisherman.
Let us start with the obvious. World War II may have lasted 1,347 days, but it cost the lives of 406,000 Americans and wounded 600,000 more. Losses among Allied civilians and military personnel stretched into the tens of millions. Whole cities were razed, populations displaced, economies shattered.
All that and it still took less time than George Bush’s Outward Bound excursion to Baghdad.
The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq remains much less than 1% of our WWII losses.
Amazing!  Unless you continue with the obvious, and observe that we have roughly 135,000 troops in Iraq, while there were over 16 million men and women in the Armed Forces during World War II.
World War II ended when the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japanese cities, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. Were it not for those grave measures, the war might have lasted for another year or two and cost many more lives. So maybe those wielding the WWII yardstick as a cudgel would prefer we gave Sadr City and Tikrit the Hiroshima-Nagasaki treatment?
Well, Jonah promised grotesque stupidity, but I have to say, he delivered well beyond my wildest dreams.  This is the H-Bomb of Strawman Arguments, and earns the coveted Order of the Wicker Man with Screaming Christopher Lee Cluster:

That would surely root out even the most die-hard insurgents and shorten the war.
Yeah, I can’t see any of the other Sunni and Shiite communities in the region getting all worked up just because we expunged a couple of Sunni and Shiite cities in Iraq with nuclear weapons.  Tony Snow might have to take a little chin music at the next presser, but I predict it would be a 24 hour story, tops.
The phase of the Iraq war that was comparable to World War II ended in less than three weeks.
That would the phase where we weren’t sucking like Jeff Gannon on an overbooked holiday weekend.
Remember “shock and awe”?
Yeah.  Principally, I remember that it sounded pretty stupid.  But now – and I gotta admit, props to Jonah – it sounds grotesquely stupid.
As far as such things go, the conventional war put WWII to shame.
Yeah, all the Allies had to do in WWII was to fight a multi-front war spanning the globe from Scandinavia to the South Pacific.  In Iraq, we had to fight our way from Kuwait City to Baghdad, a distance of 344 miles!  (And it sounds even more impressive when you count it in kilometers!)
the U.S. military victory was akin to defeating all of Italy in less than a month.
Wellll…If you don’t count the fact that Italy was muddy, mountainous, and defended by both Fascist troops and a well-equipped, battle-hardened German Army that didn’t collapse at the first sound of gunfire, then yeah.  Sure.
The current phase of the Iraq war — whether we call it post-occupation, reconstruction, civil war or whatever — is really a separate war.
Donald Rumsfeld’s greatest innovation:  The Modular War.  Today…Iraq.  Tomorrow…Ikea!
It’s at once a Hobbesian nightmare in which chaos rules as well as a complex, multi-front battle between various regional factions and their proxies.
I can see why Jonah is so prone to defend it.  Who wouldn’t want to hop on some of that sweet action?
But as insurgencies go, it hasn’t lasted very long at all or cost very many American lives.
At least, it hasn’t killed any of the people Jonah meets for crumble cake and vanilla mocha lattes at Starbucks.
The man who probably deserves the most credit for the low number of American deaths in Iraq is Donald H. Rumsfeld. The outgoing Defense secretary decided from the outset that U.S. forces would have a “light footprint” and would opt for surgical efficiency over the kitchen-sink approach that characterized World War II.
Jonah has a point.  If there’s one gripe I have with our strategy in WWII, it’s that we simply had too many men.  It wasn’t sporting, and it made us look like big insecure bullies.  Imagine how much more respectfully the Nazis would have received us if, instead of rolling into Germany with 3 separate armies and millions of troops, we’d tried to occupy them with, say, 150,000?  Now that would have been a fight!  Face it, people like to get their money’s worth; nobody likes a knockout in the first round.  And if we’d only followed the Rumsfeldian “light footprint” doctrine, why, we might still be fighting the Nazis today.  Just imagine the pay-per-view possibilities!
Rumsfeld’s way is better, at least on paper.  All else being equal, it’s better to have a long war with fewer casualties than a short war with more of them. That’s why the World War II comparison is so frivolous: Days don’t cost anything, lives do.
Except when we’re losing 2 or 3 or 4 lives per day, every day we stay in Iraq.  But who cares?  Sands through the hourglass, and all that.
Given the enormous scope of World War II, it was a remarkably short war. (Just think of the Hundred Years War by comparison.)
Given the enormous amount of traffic it carries, Fifth Avenue is a remarkably short street.  (Just think of the Pan-American Highway.  Or the distance from the Sun to Uranus.)
 

(Okay, I admit, now I’m just cherry-picking the juiciest fruits of stupidity.)
Indeed, when partisans claim that the American people are fed up and want our troops home, they’re deliberately muddying the waters.
Which Jonah objects to on principle, except when he’s using your Jacuzzi.
The American people have never objected to far-flung deployments of our troops. We’ve had soldiers stationed all over the world for decades.
Not getting shot at and blown up on a daily basis, but still…They’re definitely out of earshot.
What the American people don’t like is losing — lives or wars. After all, you don’t hear many people complaining that we still have troops in Japan and Germany more than 20,000 days later.
Even though you can’t get from Tempelhof to the Unter den Linden without your taxi getting hulled by a .50 sniper rifle or dismantled by an IED, people still support our occupation of Berlin.  See?  It’s all just a matter of perspective.  Grotesquely. Stupid. Perspective.


Just when I think a man cannot be more obtuse than his last op-ed piece proved, Jonah steps up to the plate and knocks it out of Edison’s Densely Obtuse Park.
“or cost very many American lives”
I’m sure that the three families from my county who lost their kids or my cousin’s son who just got back and saw more than his share of death will be relieved to know that. Jonah, you’re a fucking piece of shit.
(Okay, I admit, now I’m just cherry-picking the juiciest fruits of stupidity.)
Don’t stop on our account.
Sheesh, Jonah Goldberg and history. You can pretty much throw a dart at the paper and hit something he gets wrong.
To begin: he picked up the Yahoo News! story, or something similar, and copied down the casualty figures. Which amounts to a week’s research for him under ordinary circumstances. But the fact is that the 406,000 killed is total military deaths, combat and non-combat. The combat figure is 292,131. This is not important in terms of the sacrifices men and women made–a lot of people who come home “uninjured” have their lives changed forever nonetheless–but for Jonah’s macabre alegbra it’s of some importance. Non-combat deaths in WWII were mostly from disease, mostly in jungle environments. We do not have anything like that problem in Iraq.
It’s true, the raw figure for combat deaths is less than 1%. It’s 0.85%. It’s also true that the total number of troops in theatre in Iraq is just 1.3% the size of our WWII forces. Making those KIA numbers look a little more significant, especially given the relative scope of the task.
This is somewhat misleading. The WWII-era army was considerably less automated, less lethal, and men served for the duration. But that’s the point–it’s a stupid and misleading comparison in the first place.
It’s no surprise Jonah omits non-mortal casualties–they weren’t printed out for him in the article. But then those of us who actually give a shit about lives wasted in combat understand that the incredible advancement in combat medicine has meant that many many injuried soldiers are saved who would have died even in Vietnam. So much so that with 1.3% of the troops we had in WWII we’ve suffered 6.9% of the non-mortal casualties. (Those interested in the history of science might recall that penicillin was not available in quantity until around the time of D-Day.)
One of the saddest things about this whole sad enterprise is that we knew ahead of time that this cannon-fodder approach to the people who do the fighting, the killing, and the suffering was precisely the attitude of the human flotsam, like Jonah Goldberg, who were most anxious to get it all started so they could celebrate their political ascendancy. But we seem to have to learn the lesson over and over again.
One more historical note: in WWII, like the Great War before it, we were quick and relentless in uncovering and punishing war profiteers. Would we would start doing so now. Would the Doughy Pantload take his rightful place on the list.
One sentence really jumped out at me: “All else being equal, it’s better to have a long war with fewer casualties than a short war with more of them.”
I seem to have misplaced my Hundred Years War casualty figures, but I’d be willing to bet extremely large amounts of money that it “cost the lives” (I’ve always loved that construction) of fewer than 406,000 Americans. Not to mention the tens of millions of other deaths. (Jonah is kind enough to limit his statistics just to the good guys.)
I’m not even going to try to understand what he means by “all else being equal”, but on whatever cosmic scale he’s designed, apparently the Hundred Years War is “better” than World War II.
Good to know.
Because, yeah. Necessary wars for actual reasons, stupid unnecessary wars fought over nothing that don’t accomplish anything either, why split hairs. Bottom line, wars are cool in general and who cares about the cannon fodder or the residents of the country that we randomly elected to tear apart.
So maybe those wielding the WWII yardstick as a cudgel would prefer we gave Sadr City and Tikrit the Hiroshima-Nagasaki treatment?
Jonah is liking numbers today, so I’ll trot one out: There are 270 million people in the U.S., and 269,999,999 of them would not write something that stupid in a nationally syndicated column.
As a taxpayer, I’d like a refund on the portion of public moneys spent to educate Mr Goldberg.
You know, Jonah, the current rationalization for Operation Enduring Clusterfuck is that we were trying to liberate the Iraqis, and the theory currently goes that the insurgents are terrorists, not, you know, standup voting Iraqi citizens, who apparently are just delighted to have us there and painting schools. As such, at the very least, the dead Iraqi civilians count as “war dead” anyway. Unless you’d like to admit that this is an invasion and an occupation and a war of oppression against the civilian population of a country that was not threatening us in any way?
World-O-Crap… I just wanted to say you people are good. I sent a friend up in Quebec the links to your review of Zardoz and she laughed so hard that she wanted to watch the movie again. But I’m not lending my DVD to anybody.
If ever there was a column needing the WoC treatment, it is this one:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53191
The most amazing part is that the author could have found enough time in those breaks between marathon sessions of watching Red Dawn and masturbating to write it.
That column was so stupid it may have bent space and time, and as a result the Doughy Pantload may be floating through space…
Never mind. It’s all good.
Your deft chracterization of Pantload covering the same amount of newsprint with the “same basic materials” as your parakeet made me roar with appreciative laughter.
Oh G-d, oh mercy, just a tossed-off line like that makes me a bit more comfortable that idiots like Jonah have cozy op-ed nooks–as long as there’s YOU and my few other favorite bloggers to deftly cut these blowhards’ carotid arteries. Sadly, cuts are made only in cyberspace…
but I see that Jonah Goldberg left his mark on the Los Angeles Times Opinion page yesterday. So did my parakeet, but Jonah clearly outperformed her by managing to cover twice as many column inches while still working with the same basic materials.
considering that the doughy pantload is several orders of magnitude larger than your parakeet, you should offer her services to the LATimes as an opportunity to insource. even money sez she’ll even work for less than the DP
but the 100 Years War inspired some damn good Shakespeare. WWII inspired, ok, “Saving Private Ryan” but also “Hogan’s Heroes” and “McCale’s Navy” so its record is mixed…
Best. Title. Of all time.
Sweet Lordy-Gordy, I lose my Internet service for three days, and THIS is what I come back to?
Have mercy!
*nudges Serge* Book. Book good. Good gift, also. Link, on home page. Back and to the left. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left.
That sounds familiar, somehow.
D.Sidhe… Oh, I already have the book. But you’re right, my feminist-SF-writer-who-has-way-too-many-cats buddette up in Quebec would love it. I’d better call my friendly-neighborhood Borders tomorrow.
Goldberg gets paid for this.
He gets paid for this.
HE! GETS! PAID! FOR! THIS!!!!!!
Yes, that is a scary thought, Christopher. Here’s a scarier one: the person who thought paying Jonah to write was a good idea, still has a job.
Yeah, but, Bill, it’s likely to be someone who’s related to Jonah, so it’s not necessarily someone who thought it would be a good idea, maybe just someone who wanted to make him stop moping around Thanksgiving dinner.
Serge, I actually figured you did, since you’re a regular here and presumably knew all about it, but it seemed like the best chance I was ever going to get to use that joke. I should have resisted, probably.
Let’s all chip in and buy Jonah a nice cuttlebone for his cage!
…it seemed like the best chance I was ever going to get to use that joke. I should have resisted…
And resistance is futile. OK, I should have resisted that one.
Mr. Goldberg .. err .. umm .. err .. reminds me of back at the Univ. at Maine at Orono in 1984 and the delightful “college republicans” who went on endlessly about how apartheid was actually “good” for black people in South Africa and anything else but “good things” about apartheid was just venomous, wicked Soviet disinformation and propaganda designed to enslave our tender, naive ears.
Oh yes. I forgot. The entire at-home apologia for the Vietnam War consisted of the same “numbers” game Mr. Goldberg lectures on like a Nazi Emeril/Martha Stewart morph cooking meth while snorting rails of PCP before a live studio audience of lobotomized Third Reich octagenarians and hang gliding accident victims. It was all about the “kill ratio” and they had pie charts and bar graphs showing how the “kill ratio” in Vietnam was far better than WW II and somehow this actually meant “we” were winning and “they” were losing and this “proved” the Vietnam War was definitely “going way better” than World War II; and was actually, if you look at the numbers, possibly the most successful and spectacular goddamned war in the history of all humankind, so why mess with such great f-ing success?
 

Sociological Research the Stossel Way!

John Stossel’s latest episode of TV “investigative journalism” has revealed that liberals are cheap. Here’s the Corner’s Jack Fowler to distill the Stossel wisdom into one paragraph:
Liberals Are Cheap! [Jack Fowler]
John Stossel’s 20/20 special last night – “Cheap in America” – was a great program, as usual for him, and had a wonderful segment comparing charitable giving between Red and Blue states, pitting Salvation Army bell-ringers in San Francisco (in front of a Macy’s) versus Sioux Falls, SD (in front of a Wal-Mart). At the end of the day, the folks in Sioux Falls’ had given twice as much money as Nancy Pelosi’s constituents. More of Stossel on conservative generosity/liberal cheapness here.
And by going to “here,” we can learn how John himself explains his research methodology:
To test what types of people give more, “20/20″ went to two very different parts of the country, with contrasting populations: Sioux Falls, S.D. and San Francisco, Calif. The Salvation Army set up buckets at the busiest locations in each city — Macy’s in San Francisco and Wal-Mart in Sioux Falls. Which bucket collected more money?
Well, Jack already revealed the surprise, but it’s clear that Stossel’s little experiment conclusively proved that liberals are cheap – after all, there’s no other explanation for why a bell-ringer in Sioux City would collect more than one in San Francisco . . . except that maybe San Franciscans objected to the religious discrimination the Salvation Army practices against its employees, and so chose to give their charitable contributions to other groups. Or maybe the San Franciscans give their contributions to the SA via payroll deduction or generous checks mailed to the regional office, and didn’t give anything more to the bell-ringer because they don’t carry around cash. Or any of a number of other reasons.

But considering these variables wouldn’t help Stossel to do what he set out to do: prove that it’s a big, stupid myth that liberals “care more about the less fortunate” than conservatives do. After all, that’s what makes great TV.

Anyway, tune in next time when Stossel will demolish the myth that liberals are smarter than conservatives by stopping passers-by outside the Macy’s in San Francisco and the Hooter in Midland, Texas, and quizzing them on NASCAR trivia.

Posted by s.z. on Friday, December 1st, 2006 at 4:42 am

24 Responses to “Sociological Research the Stossel Way!”

Yeah? Fucking tell that to Annti, you fuckwit Stossel. You don’t get to define charity, and you sure as hell don’t get to define helping out people with needs, ’cause you don’t believe in either, you libertarian toad, and you sure the fuck don’t believe in a social safety net.
Liberals are some of the most generous people I know, and they are *thoughtfully* generous. They think about who needs help and how to provide it, and they actually make an effort to do it, rather than tossing their register change in a bucket as an afterthought because they just spent five hundred bucks in the mall and don’t like having forty eight cents rattling in their pockets. Can’t you feel the compassion?
Personally, I can’t tell if he’s getting stupider or nastier or both, but God knows he’s making even less sense than he ever used to.
That would be the “Hooters.” They almost alway appear in pairs.
Of the top 25 states where people give an above average percent of their income, 24 were red states in the last presidential election.
This is utter horseshit on so many levels. God only knows where Stossel and his enablers like Arthur Brooks get their stats, but the only reliable data I’m aware of that tracks charitable giving as percentage of income is tax returns. According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics, (see the pdf file for 2004 for example) the average percent of income for charitable contributions for the U.S. is 2.4%. There were only 15 states with a higher than average percent (16 if you count D.C. at #2) and at least a third of these are certifiably Blue. (Note, this data eliminates non-itemized returns altogether.)
Moreover, as reflected in the #1 state, Utah, charitable giving includes church contributions, and this will skew any percentage, especially in areas where people tithe upwards of 15% or more of their annual income. Plus, in actual total dollar amounts of giving, the Blue states, and urban areas in particular, have it all over the Red.
Not to mention that Stossel has previously agreed with Cypress Semiconductor CEO and über-liberloon, T.J. Rogers’ expressed opinion that charitable giving is immoral when it is much more altruistic to use the money for captal investment that will allegedly create jobs.
Stossel is a fucking liar, in every respect. Nothing more.
(Sorry to be so lengthy, but I really loathe the creep.)
Not to mention that there might be just a few more Salvation Army bell-ringers in San Francisco than there are in Sioux Falls, and there might be a few other opportunities to give a couple of bucks to either organised charities or even directly to people in SF. Unless Stossel managed to shut down all charitable activities in both cities during his little experiment.
Ugh. What an idiot.
I don’t carry a lot of cash when I’m in a big city- and as fuyura says, there are lots more opportunities to give. I took names from the Salvation Army Silver Angel Tree, 2 kids and one “Grandpa”. Now I live in Nevada, but used to live in SF. A lovely, fun city.
I actually make it a point to avoid the bell ringers, if only because it’s annoying and contrived. So Stossel’s got me there. Someday, maybe he’ll ask about my other charitable giving. I doubt it tho; it wouldn’t fit into his perfect little red/blue picture. Can’t have that now, can we?
Forbes says Stoessel’s a liar. (surprise, surprise) Their list of the top ten states for charitable giving:
1) Utah (red)
2) Maryland (blue)
3) New York (blue)
4) Connecticut (blue)
5) California (blue)
6) Hawaii (blue)
7) New Jersey (blue)
8) Georgia (red)
9) S. Carolina (red)
10) N. Carolina (red)
Final tally: 6 blue, 4 red.
I used to give to the SA, but not after I found out that they spend a lot of money loobbying against anti-discrimination legislation. Sorry, but that’s not where I want my money to go. I iwsh some other organization stood out on the street so I could throw them a few bucks, however.
:::blushing astonishingly daintily:::
Awww, D…. You do my heart such good… but then, you and those magical cranes are works of wonder from another universe, as it is. And I feel highly privileged to know you all.
Now, granted, I am highly offended by the way that the Salvation Army has been known to shove bibles down the throats of the homeless as they’re ponying-up the sandwiches, not to mention that they DO discriminate against non-christians in employment, just like those nazi cocksuckers at Chik-Fil-A (I love their ad campaigns, but I hate their guts).
BUT: Even as the most stringent and fervent atheist that I know, I cannot forget that, while the American Red Cross was pulling their puddins in hotel rooms in LaPlace, Louisiana, for SIX FUCKING DAYS, while awaiting *permission* from the STIL-VACATIONING King George to go into Jefferson, Orleans, and St. Bernard Parishes — The Salvation Army food wagons and all their volunteers were in there, THE DAY THAT THE STORM HIT. And they STAYED. The WHOLE FUCKING TIME. They never “bugged out” with all of the other late evacuees from Charity Hospital and every other source of help/comfort/food (except for Andrea from getyouracton.com & her dear hubby & their animal-rescue & soup-kitchen in the 9th Ward).
So, while I will never patronize the Salvation Army or their bell-ringers if I can help it (although they used to have a KILLER thrift store on Jefferson Highway, but it’s long gone, unfortunately), and I do not support their xian bigotry that they think is “exempt” from EEOC laws or enforcement — I will never forget that they were THERE in New Orleans when nobody else was.
Please return to your discussion, I just hadda throw my two cents’ worth in.
And yes, the Leolathon is still in progress, kids. Please keep passing the good word for us, will y’all? She’s going to Shreveport to see that specialist on Tuesday, so cross yer fingers, light yer candles, make wishes to the fairie wood sprites, whatever works. Hopefully after that, we’ll have a more accurate idea of what can really realistically be done, which program/hospital will best suited for her needs, and when we can get the surgery to actually HAPPEN.
And tell Stossel and his pseudo-libertarian trolls to stick THAT in their porno moustaches and smoke it.
The simplest explanation is that Wal-mart had more traffic than Macy’s that day, and so there were more people to drop money in their buckets.
I give only to secular charities.
I think I did one of my first-year college students a grave disservice. He recently wrote a paper where he used one outside source and some loose and very loaded personal observations as his data. Instead of explaining that he needed more research to make his case (which, unlike Stoessel’s, was pretty interesting) and he needed to rethink his support, I should have told him he was now qualified to take over John Stoessel’s job (well, he still needs to grow the moustache and become considerably dumber).
Stossel’s methodology is flawless, his conclusions incontrovertible.
Did I mention I ride a unicorn, and have the power of invisibility?
Ha, you can’t see me!
“I can’t tell if he’s getting stupider or nastier”(D. Sidhe)
Well, that nastier he gets, the stupider he gets.
Fair enough. Actually, I would think the most logical explanation is that people aren’t mostly buying Cheez Whiz and CDs at Macy’s and therefore tend to put stuff on the credit card. Coming out of Wal*Mart, odds are good you’ll have more change in your pocket than you did when you went in. Last I looked, bellringers don’t take Visa.
Really, all this proves is that liberals are *smarter* than conservatives, or at least smarter than John Stossel and Jack Fowler.
Annti, I got your card. :-) You know it’s going to take freaking *forever* to hang those, right? There’s a reason I don’t string the damned things. *Way* too much work.
I sort of assumed, for the record, that Stossel wouldn’t give a fuck about abandoned animals, which is a shame, since S.Z. is one of the most generous people I know, too.
My midwestern heart just wants to point out to Tbogg that “Sioux City” is in Iowa and “Sioux Falls” is in South Dakota. I know they are both in fly-by-land for you librul coastal, latte-sipping, Macys-shopping folks in San Diego/Fransciso/Antonio and other places with major sport franchises but we like to keep them distinct.
OK, back to bashing the Idiot With The ‘Stache.
Erm, as a former South Dakotan I have to partially corroborate what jpj just said, but also correct it. Sioux City has a presence in Iowa and South Dakota. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, there’s a part of the city that’s in Nebraska too.
Macy’s in San Francisco and Walmart in Sioux Falls? Walmart is pretty much the only place to go in Sioux Falls (there’s a Target too, but they don’t have the bell ringers any more).
The only thing Stossel did was just prove once again what a tool he is.
Conservatives, especially religious conservatives give a larger PERCENTAGE of their income to charity. Check your facts based on Percentage of Income not total dollar amount by state. Also, you might want to read the book by Arthur C. Brooks. “Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism ” to see some hard facts about this issue.
Book Description
Surprising proof that conservatives really are more compassionate–and more generous–than liberals
We all know we should give to charity, but who really does? Approximately three-quarters of Americans give their time and money to various charities, churches, and causes; the other quarter of the population does not. Why has America split into two nations: givers and non-givers?
Arthur Brooks, a top scholar of economics and public policy, has spent years researching this trend, and even he was surprised by what he found. In Who Cares, he demonstrates conclusively that conservatives really are compassionate-far more compassionate than their liberal foes. Strong families, church attendance, earned income (as opposed to state-subsidized income), and the belief that individuals, not government, offer the best solution to social ills-all of these factors determine how likely one is to give.
Charity matters–not just to the givers and to the recipients, but to the nation as a whole. It is crucial to our prosperity, happiness, health, and our ability to govern ourselves as a free people. In Who Cares, Brooks outlines strategies for expanding the ranks of givers, for the good of all Americans.
About the Author
Arthur C. Brooks is professor of public administration at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He is the author of numerous articles and books on topics relating to charity and civic life, and his work appears frequently in the Wall Street Journal and other publications.
Besides, Left-Wing Liberals are only generous with other people’s money. (Can you say Socialism?)
Yeah, Arthur C. Brooks also belives that political opinions are genetic:
But the data on young Americans tell a different story. Simply put, liberals have a big baby problem: They’re not having enough of them, they haven’t for a long time, and their pool of potential new voters is suffering as a result. According to the 2004 General Social Survey, if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If you picked 100 conservatives, you would find 208 kids. That’s a “fertility gap” of 41%. Given that about 80% of people with an identifiable party preference grow up to vote the same way as their parents, this gap translates into lots more little Republicans than little Democrats to vote in future elections. Over the past 30 years this gap has not been below 20%–explaining, to a large extent, the current ineffectiveness of liberal youth voter campaigns today.
I would hazard to state that Republicans have a bigger baby problem, in that the head of their party is a big baby.
Winch that beam out of your own eye first, Prof.
Real sociological studies state that (1) rich people generally give the LEAST amount to charity, as a percentage of income, and (2) Republicans give the next least. In addition, I don’t consider money “tithed” to churches as “charity” unless the money actually goes to soup kitchens and the like. Stossel wouldn’t know a real sociological study if it bit his mustache off.
Yeah JFreak, every conservative I know who complains about having to pay 2 cents in taxes is extremely willing to give money to charity. Well, not really, but they would be if they didn’t have to pay any taxes. Trust them. They’re *only* not giving because they just give so much to the gummint and they should use that money for the poor, except that would be welfare and those people are just a bunch of lazy parasites who should die before they’ll lift a hand to help them, and what help do they need anyway they live the high life on our money and they’re lucky because they don’t have to pay any taxes–but, only because they have to pay those damn taxes. Otherwise, they’d be more than willing to help out the subhuman parasites, in between going up to the homeless and brightening up their days by saying mean things to them. Really.
JFreak,
I know this is too late in the thread to help your poor soul but the National Center for Charitable Statistics link posted above details charitable giving as percentage of income, based on actual tax return data, and the result contradicts both Brooks and Stossel. Learn to read.
n addition, I don’t consider money “tithed” to churches as “charity” unless the money actually goes to soup kitchens and the like.
Amen. Tithe money that goes to building and grounds upkeep and living expenses for religious staffing is not charity any more than homeowner association fees or greens fees or private school fees. It’s a straightforward business transaction: in exchange for your money, you get a minister and a place to worship and a classroom, all things that must be paid for by someone if they are to exist at all. If you use these things, you have some obligation to help pay for their availability. It’s not charity, just like it wouldn’t be charity to hand over six hundred bucks every week to rent a ballroom at the local Ramada in which to hold services.
Also, it is not charity for you to demand your employers donate time or money to your pet causes. Nor is it charity to put up a food drive barrel in your grocery store with the expectation that customers will buy food and put it in, nor to promise to donate ten cents to cancer research for every one of your yogurt lids your customers mail to you.
Or, rather, these things are charity, but they are not *your* charity. They are acts of selflessness on the part of people who have, in most cases, less than your company does, and are willing to share what they have, knowing that in exchange for this they will likely get from you a perfunctory pat on the back while you reap PR benefits. (What was that about socialism?)
And, just for the record, if these vicariously philanthropic businessmen claim any of this charity-by-proxy as a tax benefit, they are quite simply fuckweasels.
Ooooohhh, Annti. The shame you should feel. You just made me hate the Slaveation Army slightly less. Ever since I read that they asked the Shrub Administration specifically if they could employment-discriminate against gay people, I have vowed to never, never drop another penny in their effin’ x-mess kettles. Never. Then you had to write that about New Orleans. Damn, damn, damn! Well, at least I’ve held back from chewing out the poor monkey manning the kettle–after all, he isn’t the “decider!” Though it’s likely he agrees with their decisions. Feh. :(