Post-Friday Beast Blogging: The “Benefits of Seniority” Edition

We’ve had Moondoggie for a bit over two years now, but he’s still the new meat, still a trifle insecure, and not above making the occasional effort to be a stimulating companion in our postprandial discussion salon.

Whereas Riley has tenure, and clearly isn’t sweating the results of her annual review:

“Yeah…?  What’s your deal?

Posted by scott on Saturday, August 22nd, 2009 at 1:41 pm.

Technical Difficulties

Thank you for the many kind wishes on the occasion of our anniversary; as s.z. and I frequently marveled, the World o’ Crap commenters are the smartest, funniest, kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human beings in the world — and I’m not just saying that because Angela Landsbury suggested I play solitaire.  She’s not the boss of me!

Second, I’d like to apologize for not demonstrating my gratitude in a more tangible fashion; say, with a new post, perhaps?  Internet and cable have been out since yesterday, but Time-Warner is sending a technician, and with any luck we’ll be back on the air by this afternoon.

Posted by scott on Saturday, August 22nd, 2009 at 8:51 am

Now Accepting Gifts of Sugar and Iron

I see from my Wingnut a Day calendar that today is World o’ Crap’s sixth anniversary!

Yes, it all started on August 20, 2003, at a small 500-watt Radioland blog in Fresno, California, with an introductory and oddly spelled post by the mysterious entity known only as “s.z.”  Very quickly, her true identity became the cause of much debate in the blogosphere; some felt she was a gay man — well, that’s what Vox Day thought — others believed her to be Thomas Pynchon, B. Traven, or an Artificial Intelligence program which had passed the Turing test and escaped into the Internet and where, like Neo in The Matrix, it resolved to Fight the Power by poking gentle fun at wingnuts.  When pressed, or bored, s.z. would admit to being an astronaut, spy, and supermodel, but as we would later discover, only one of those jobs is actually on her resume.

So I was thinking, as a tribute to our absent friend, what say we bring out an old favorite…How about a little Pastor Swank?

OBAMA MOB HYSTERIACS PUSHED BACK BY BRAIN ALIVE CITIZENRY

Thinking heads throughout the Republic are finally getting some headway, particularly regarding Obama’s Whack Non-Health Blanket.

I tried diagramming this sentence, but it wound up looking like thosedick drawings that John Madden doodles on the screen during football games.  So let’s just see if we can untangle it instead.

Okay, “[T]hinking heads” suggests that they’re disembodied, so this is probably a reference to the 1963 documentary, They Saved Hitler’s Brain.

This would make sense, since Obama is basically synonymous with Adolf Hitler in the public imagination.  Next, “throughout the Republic,” is obviously a sly reference to the upcoming Star Warsgame, The Old Republic, which is highly anticipated by conservative gamers, because Dick Cheney is a playable Sith.

“[F]inally getting some headway,” probably means it was the Pastor’s birthday, or wedding anniversary.

“[P]articularly regarding Obama’s Whack.”  Swank realizes that Obama is black, and obviously feels that his point is important enough that he should attempt to communicate with the President in his native tongue, while “Non-Health Blanket” is clearly an reference to the smallpox-infected blankets the U.S. Army bestowed upon the Plains Indians, and which, according to the House bill, will now be a part of your grandmother’s Medicare benefits.

Whew.  Really getting into the substance of Pastor Swank’s prose, with its rich and allusive language, is like trying to read Joyce’s Ulysseswithout annotations.  Maybe we should just skim.

Obama is pained due to recent right-thinking citizens howling loudly and long enough. Grassroots town halls have screeched at Congress. The mob hysteriacs who voted in a celebrity rather than a free enterprise, constitution-friendly statesman are losing ground.

So the mob hysteriacs who voted for Obama are being shouted down by the new, right-thinking mob hysteriacs, who also screeching because Congress didn’t invite them to the Saved By the Bell reunion.

As for Obama wanting a Canadian cloned health-blanket, Canada’s health care stinks. My cousin needed immediate spine care. His Halifax Nova Scotia doc was brusque, mean-hearted and just plain crude in his response to my relative’s plea.

Canadians are notoriously rude to people who can’t be bothered to keep their spines in working order.

The cousin ended up at Lahey Clinic, Burlington MA, for state-of-the-art surgery that responsibly corrected the problem.  Thank you, America!

Great, so we’re already paying for the health care of illegal immigrants?  I demand to see an itemized bill.

Mob hysteriacs put Obama the Anti-America President in control. But as we are now realizing, the hysteriacs, though many are still loyal space cadets in the brain space, are losing hold. The ground is slowly giving way to the brain alive citizens of this country.

This isn’t a particularly good argument against health care reform, but it is, I admit, a great plot synopsis of Fiend Without a Face.

As a Christian, I believe that what is happening right now is God inserting His powerplay into societal happenings for God has a vested interest in this particular country.

Although now that God actually owes more on America than the country is worth, he’s considering just mailing the keys to the bank and walking away.

This is the only nation ever created by biblical believers seeking a land where they could worship Christ and live by the Bible.

The Crusader kingdoms don’t count, because technically they were just pre-season exhibition countries.

Those founders prayed with their blood.

Services were messy.  James Madison made a point of bringing extra Wet-Naps for Benjamin Franklin, while Alexander Hamilton always wore a large bib to church.

Their petitions are still very much alive and well at heaven’s throne. With God, a thousand years is as a day and vice versa.

Which is why God hasn’t smote Canada; waiting 8 weeks for a hip replacement doesn’t really seem all that unreasonable to Him.

Couple the founders’ prayers with the earnest biblical believers’ cries present-tense and you have a mighty call-out to the divine going on 24 / 7. God is responding to those sincere pleas.

Through His call center in Mumbai. As the Lord sayeth, “Your earnest biblical believers’ cries are very important to Us.  Please stay on the line, and your mighty call-out will be answered by the next available cherub.”

We biblical Christians have just begun to witness the divine thrust retrieving our nation for its foundation’s sake.

Hey, what you do behind closed doors is your business, Pastor.

Anyway, a mighty call-out to Sheri for getting all this nonsense started.

Posted by scott on Thursday, August 20th, 2009 at 5:00 pm

Roger’s Rules of Ordure

Over at Pajamas Media, Roger Kimball makes a plea for a dignified public discourse by comparing Obama’s town hall meetings to the Two Minute Hate from Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.  Long time readers will recognize this as just the kind of fresh, but informed commentary one would expect from a serious critic and thinker, the co-editor of the New Criterion, and a man whose signature bow ties invariably evoke the gravitas of an Orville Redenbacher.

Channeling your inner Goldstein: Obama’s Renewable Two Minute Hate Fest

Readers of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four will remember the character Emmanuel Goldstein, Enemy of the People. […]

Every day at 11:00, work would stop as people congregated around the ubiquitous two-way telescreens for the ritual two-minute hate…

In his inaugural address in January, Barack Obama promised to put “an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.”

I hope you’ve noticed how free from petty grievances, false promises, recriminations, and worn out dogmas public discourse has been since that glorious new dawn, 20 January 2009.

What, you haven’t noticed the promised political metanoia? Confidentially, I haven’t either. And I suspect at least part of the reason was dramatized by Orwell’s dystopian novel. The Obama administration and its PR enablers are addicted to blaming others for their own difficulties and failures.

Although Bush had eight years to fuck up the country, Roger has decided that Obama only gets eight months to straighten it all out — even though Roger has had over half a century to master that bow tie knot and hasn’t quite managed it.  I guess it’s sort of the same rule that applies with stabbings: if you shank some dude in the back, I think we can all agree that he’s morally entitled to point the finger at you.  But if he survives, and a year later he’s still holding you responsible for that lost kidney, well that’s just playing the blame game.

The President likes to refer the economic crisis as a “mess” that he inherited from George Bush. But how does explain that the deficit was some $400 billion under President Bush and is projected to be about $2 trillion — $2 trillion — this year?

He doesn’t explain it. He blames others, especially President Bush.

Exactly.  Say you’re standing at the top of a cliff, admiring the view, and George W. Bush comes by and gives you a push — that’s not fatal, people push kids on swingsets all the time, all he did was give you a little horizontal momentum.  If at some point subsequent to this incident you happen to wind up dead and broken on the rocks below, then I’m sorry pal, but your beef is with gravity.

What was unseemly in January is almost risible now. When will Obama take responsibility for failures that occur on his watch?

Well, Bush had been in office for a month longer when 9/11 happened, so presumably you think August is still well within the Presidential probationary period.

This is where Emmanuel Goldstein comes in…Orwell’s two-minute hate fests provide an uncomfortable analogue to the Obama administration’s amalgam of compulsory virtue and its inevitable concomitant: scapegoats. (Those who notice that “Goldstein” is a Jewish name might wish to ponder the Obama administration’s policies towards Israel.)

I must have missed the speech where Obama called Bush a “rootless cosmopolitan.”

For reasons I have never completely understood, George Bush is the scapegoat-in-chief, the Emmanuel Goldstein of the piece.

Maybe it’s because he traipsed around with “Commander-in-Chief” embroidered on every article of clothing?

It’s like his mom sent him to camp and didn’t want him to wind up wearing some other kid’s underpants.

I’m sure you’ve seen it in action. And no doubt you’ve noticed that it is infectious. Consider, if you will, theextraordinary reaction the very name “Sarah Palin” elicits.

I have to give Roger credit for cojones, or cluelessness, because he stops his column cold at this point to demonstrate the veracity of his political insights…by linking to a piece from last September, the bulk of which he spent gloating over McCain-Palin’s ineluctable victory:

What worries me is how the Left is going cope come the election. Their hysteria about Sarah Palin simultaneously shows that they know deep down that something has gone terribly wrong with Obama’s Children’s “Yes-we-can” Crusade and that they are unable to acknowledge the damage. Their hysteria signals both their panic and their blindness. I predict that on the morning of that fateful day in early November they are going to be like Pauline Kael the day after the 1972 election when Richard Nixon won 49 states: “How could that be?” a bewildered Kael asked. “I don’t know a single person who voted for Nixon.” The disillusionment this time will be even more bitter. I suggest that caring Republicans consider establishing emergency telephone hotlines and outpatient trauma centers in demographically susceptible areas–New York City, for example, Ann Arbor, all of the states of Massachusetts and Vermont, etc.–in order to cope with the shock that their burst bubble will undoubtedly cause.

I admit a sudden curious about the tone of the Kimball household last November 5th.  Perhaps the residents had adopted a general mood of good humored fatalism, I don’t know; but I’m pretty sure that at some point during the morning, while his eggs were cooling and his cup of cocoa developing a skin, Roger had the single most jarring revelation of his life, when he discovered that it’s nearly impossible to hang yourself with a bow tie.

Posted by scott on Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 at 10:50 pm

G.I. Blows

NOTE:  Comments are working again.  Our apologies for the inconvenience.

Our old friend Bill S. has once again generously used his vacation time to hunt down some previously undiscovered species of wingnut.  Here’s his field report:

Before I return back to work (Stomping my feet and whining, “I don’t wanna!”) I thought I’d share a discovery I made last week:Parcbench.  It appears to be a mainstream entertainment and pop culture site — there’s even a style section, with sample titles that include “I Wear My Sunglasses At Night!” and “D.O.G. (Death of the Gladiator Sandel).”
But then I ran across this little gem, reporting on an incident at theTeen Choice Awards:

Dane Cook was booed at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards on Sunday after joking, “Vanessa Hudgens! Girl, you gotta keep your clothes on!” He was referring to the second nude picture of Vanessa Hudgens that was leaked onto the Internet recently.

Dane, don’t you know that you almost got attacked by hundreds of teenage girls because they hold their pop icons higher than liberals hold their Messiah, Obama? We’re glad you were able to escape with your life.

Now that’s some creative wingnuttery, and it gives me an idea for another Wo’C contest.  But more on that in a moment…

The author also misquoted Cook; what he actually said was, “Girl, you gots to keep yo’ clothes on!” I was going to link to video footage to illustrate this, but I think we’ve all suffered enough, haven’t we?

In addition to its many other charms, this site offers up movie reviews, and since I’ve reviewed movie reviews here in the past (I was going to link to them but I think we’ve all suffered enough, haven’t we?), I thought I’d have a look at Chris Yogerst’s critique of the box-office hit G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra.  I should confess that, as of this writing, I have not seen the movie and its HoYay! title notwithstanding, I have very little interest in seeing it. In the first place, I’ve always had rather mixed feelings about Channing Tatum. I think it’s because his name makes me think of Carol Channing and Tatum O’Neal, a combination too horrifying to think about. In the second place I’m not a fan of live-action movies based on old cartoons or toys, and this movie is both. That’s a more unfortunate combo than the lead actor’s name.  But whereas my expectations for the film arer low, Chris seems shocked! to learn that:

G.I. JOE IS AWFUL

Gi: Joe: The Rise of the Cobra is a watered down version of the Joe that we once knew.

I knew it as a doll that was, sadly, anatomically incomplete, and as a crappy cartoon that began airing in 1985.

The film was marketed as if it could be a pro-American “hoorah” kind of action film. Watching this film, I kept forgetting it was GI Joe. Then, I remembered an angry feeling came over me. How could they ruin GI Joe?

When there’s no place to go but up?

John Nolte said it best: “If it wasn’t for resentment I wouldn’t have felt anything.”

He just summed up every wingnut pundit who ever got a column published.

The end of the film leaves a door open for a sequel; in case Hollywood wants to offend America again (we can bet on that!) If Paramount green lights a sequel, let’s hope Michael Bay directs it. He may be a lot of things…

A hack, a douchebag, the Antichrist…

…but one thing he would never do is strip the patriotism from GI Joe.

Storytelling and character development maybe, but patriotism? Eh, not so much.

As a youngster in the early 1980’s, I remember loving the GI Joe cartoon and action figures immensely. ‘GO JOE” rings through my head.

Oh, that’s just too sad to make fun of.

There is nothing wrong with a group of people from different backgrounds working together, which is what our armed forces are anyway. But why can’t GI Joe still be an all American dream team?

Well — this is just a guess, mind you — perhaps it’s because a multimillion dollar movie might sell better in foreign markets if it were a little more universal in its appeal.

Everything American has been stripped from GI Joe and what we have is a melting pot of politically correct garbage.

Uh…dude? Grow up. Please. You put way too much thought into this. Look, I have fond memories of the Saturday morning cartoons I watched as a kid, but if I learned that there was going to be an expensive, live-action adaptation of Hong Kong Phooey, I think I’d probably just shrug and go, “Well, there’s a waste of time and money.”

I guess the site has a ways to go before it matches Big Hollywood, but there’s some definite potential here.

Now, back to that slam at liberals and Obama in the Teen Choice Awards story…Yes, it was an amazingly bizarre non sequitur, but I think that we, the readers and staff of World O’ Crap, can do better; so I propose a writing contest: find a bit of lite news that has absolutelynothing to do with the President, or political issues of any kind, and find a way to connect it to the wingnut outrage de jour.

What do you think?

–Bill S.

Posted by scott on Monday, August 17th, 2009 at 11:43 pm

Bloggin’ Is Sure Easier When Ya Make Stuff Up

Erick Erickson is “a Deacon at Vineville Presbyterian Church and maintains his bar license.”  He’s also the “managing editor” of Redstate.com, a small-time Georgia ward-heeler, and a scion of the cherry small cigar empire.  But more than that, he’s a magician who can conjure outrage out of thin air, much as a chronic masturbator can summon an orgasm at will.

Valerie Jarrett is Barack Obama’s Senior Advisor to the President and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Relations and Public Engagement. You’d think as Barack Obama’s Senior Advisor for Public Engagement, she’d show some more class to our soldiers.

But not today.

Flying home to Washington, D.C. today after speaking to the left wing online activists gathering in Pittsburgh, Ms. Jarrett’s flight had an Army Private in uniform on the plane.

Ms. Jarrett, the President’s Senior Advisor for Public Engagement never even acknowledged the Army Private, though she clearly saw him.

No links, except to Valerie Jarrett’s Wikipedia bio.   So how do we really know that “Ms. Jarrett’s flight had an Army Private in uniform on the plane” and that “she clearly saw him”?  Because the Georgia Peach told us so.  And you can trust him too, because Erick (Small Cigar) Erickson once saw Jim Nabors standing in line at the Cinnabon in the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport and went out of his way to thank the man for his service in the United States Marine Corps.

Speaking of small cigars, here’s proof that everything in the 70s looked like a porn film.

In other news…When we last looked in on the Astute Bloggers, they were having trouble grasping the concept that summer in the Northern Hemisphere means winter in the Southern Hemisphere, and lovers of low comedy will be happy to hear that they’ve now brought the same neutron star-like density to their thoughtful analysis of health care.

Liberals love to make the following argument: “Europeans spend half what we do per year - per capita. And they live longer.  We spend twice as much - and have 46 million uninsured.”

Hm, no link again.  So is that a quote, or is it just an “air” quote?

They say this to promote SOCIALSM and the takeover of 1/7th of our economy.

Exactly.  From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.  And apparently, one of those working class parasites needed an extra “I,” so SOCIALSM had to make the sacrifice.

It’s WRONG; it’s based on errors, fallacies and lies.

And lions, tigers and bears, which leave Reliapundit feeling bewitched, bothered, and bewildered.

ERROR 1 - conflating health insurance with health care.Every person in the USA is entitled to healthcare in a hospital regardless of his ability to pay - IT’S FEDERAL LAW. All hospitals which accept federal tax dollars for support - and almost every single one does - must treat EVERYONE. LIBERALS ARE WRONG OR LYING WHEN THEY SAY OR IMPLY AMERICANS AREN’T GETTING HEALTHCARE.

Lack of insurance doesn’t mean lack of care.

It just means no care unless you’re hemorrhaging from a gunshot wound — it’s such a great loophole it’s a wonder more people don’t go without health insurance!  After all, whenever you do show up with, say, blood in your stool from that ulcer you’ve been ignoring because you can’t afford to see a doctor unless you’re dying, they’ll promptly treat you after five or six hours of waiting because you’re possibly dying.  And then they’ll bill you — or your survivors — thousands of dollars for it, ensuring that everyone — not just middle class people who think they have adequate insurance — can go bankrupt and lose their homes due to medical bills.  That, my friend, is a little thing we like to call “equality.”

ERROR 2 - conflating per capita/per year spending and average life-spans with efficiency of public health.

People die.

Every single one.

Sooner - or later.

If the French health care system is so great, how come they’re not immortal?  How come people in England still die?  Huh?

Okay, admittedly some of their Scottish Highlanders don’t die, but you can still kill them by cutting their heads off, and I bet the NHS doesn’t insure against “loss of Quickening.”

This doesn’t always have to do with healthcare.

Sometimes it has to do with jumping out of an airplane with an improperly packed parachute, or going hunting with Dick Cheney.

(AND IT DOESN’T HAVE TO DO WITH HEALTHCARE INSURANCE COMPANIES REAPING HUGE PROFITS BY CHARGING A LOT AND DENYING CARE - AS THE LIBERALS WOULD HAVE YOU BELIEVE! THEIR PROFITS ARE ONLY ABOUT 2%!)

Actually, it’s 2 to 10%.  “The top five earning insurance companiesaveraged profits of $1.56 billion in 2008 and reported spending an average of “more than 18 percent of their revenues on marketing, administration, and profits.” That year, CEO compensation for these companies ranged from $3 million to $24 million.”

Length of years has a lot to do with OBESITY AND DIET. And VIOLENCE.

We don’t need health insurance.  We’re fat and violent, we’re doomed anyway!

A group of people which has MORE fat people with bad diets who shoot at each other will have shorter life-spans than a group of people who are slimmer, eat better and shoot each other less.

Exactly.  Insuring morons like us is like playing Russian roulette with five loaded chambers.

(ALSO: The USA counts extreme preemies who die within months as DEATHS where in many European nations they do not; they call them failed pregnancies. This makes our nation’s infant mortality rate higher and average life-span shorter.)

Of course, if you count “under five” survival rates, we’re still 33rd in the developed world, behind Iceland, Cuba, and Cyprus.

And a group of people which cares more about its health and is MORE NEUROTIC about its health and appearance will spend more on its healthcare OVERALL - BY PURCHASING MORE SERVICES - than a group of people who do not, OR WHO CANNOT BECAUSE THEIR HEALTHCARE IS SOCIALIZED!

It only seems like we pay more for health care because we buy so many more boob jobs than Slovenia.

WE SPEND MORE IN PART BECAUSE WE CAN!

I thought about getting a new radiator so the car would stop overheating, but finally decided I’d really rather spend the money on subsidizing a new Blue Shield call center in Lahore.

• Error 3 - We spend more per capita per year than Europeans because of the unbridled greed of unbridled insurance companies and unbridled pharmaceuticals.

Liberals are essentially arguing that we spend more because a lot goes into the pockets of insurers and not to doctors and nurses or actual care.

This is a lie.

As I wrote above, insurance companies do not make very large profits. That’s just a plain simple truth.

As one can see from your extensive links and documentation.

And pharma companies spend BILLIONS developing a SINGLE drug and many do not pass muster. To pay for the research which leads to life-saving and life-extending medicine, they need a high return on the drugs which do pass muster.

After Pfizer developed Viagra, Eli Lily had to spend billions to create Cialis, or they would have been left holding the short end of the stick.

Killing Big Pharma would NOT kill greedy capitalists; it would be committing GENOCIDE against people who need new drugs to be developed.

Remember:  More people with health insurance means fewer people able to afford drugs.

• Our healthcare system is great.

• Our doctors and nurses are the best.

• Our pharmaceutical industry is fantastic.

• REPEAT: Our healthcare system is great.

Hey!  That one guy in the back isn’t repeating the slogans!  Beat the crap out of him!  Then he can see how great our healthcare system is firsthand.

We mustn’t let the Democrats and the vultures and parasites they represent destroy it.

When your child asks, “what did you do in the war against health reform, Daddy?” you can look her in the eye and say, “Honey, I protected insurance company profits, and the erectile dysfunction drugs of tomorrow.”  And then you can explain to her that her underpants are full of blood because — even though she’s only six years old — the milk she drinks is laced with hormones thanks to Big Pharma, so it’s probably just the onset of menses, and there’s really no reason to go down to the E.R. and wait twelve hours to get misdiagnosed by an exhausted intern.  Instead, let’s just…

REPEAT:  Our healthcare system is great.

Ahhh…I feel better already.

Posted by scott on Sunday, August 16th, 2009 at 10:44 pm

Grandma Kills the Death Panels

We’re adding a new blog to the roll: Margaret and Helen.  It’s a conversation between a pair of octogenerian gals who are fed up with all the stupidity they see around them, and who’ve taken to calling “bullshit” in the most doily-draped, ladylike fashion.  Here’s a sample of the latest post: I remember an America where black men didn’t grow up to be President.

I remember that America.  In that America people screaming at public gatherings were called out for what they were – an angry mob.   Of course, they wore sheets to cover up their bad hair.  Let’s be clear about something:  if you show up to a town hall meeting with a gun strapped to your leg, the point you are trying to make isn’t a good one.  Fear never produced anything worthwhile.

And what’s all this crap about killing your grandmother?  Are you people honestly that stupid?  This has become less an argument about healthcare reform and more a statement about our failed education system.  Margaret, I don’t know what plans you’ve made up there with Howard, but down here with Harold, we have living wills to determine how we will leave this world when the time comes.  Mine states that unless the feeding tube is large enough for a piece of pie, I don’t want to be hooked up to it.  Harold, of course, says his can only be connected to him if the other end is connected to a bottle of single malt scotch.

The entries below are well worth the scroll.  For instance, the post entitled Sarah Palin Called a Family Meeting and the Rabbit Lived…

Margaret, I watched Sarah Palin’s resignation speech and all I have to say is, “What the hell was that?”   My God that woman is an idiot.  I have said this before, but I feel the need to say it again.  Her problems did not come because the media was against her.  Her problems come because every time you stick a microphone in front of her mouth a whole lot of stupid falls out.

Things are getting tough and once again she is trying to hide behind that dysfunctional family of hers.  She actually stood there and talked about how the Palins had a family meeting and everyone agreed it was time for her to step down as Governor.   Well, I call bullshit.  The only family meetings the Palins have usually involve someone peeing on an early pregnancy test stick.

They don’t post daily, but a couple of salty old gals who personally experienced a good chunk of the 20th century offers a perspective, if not an antidote, to the historiography of scholars like Amity Shlaes and Jonah Goldberg.

h/t to The Bloggess’s Twitter feed.

Posted by scott on Sunday, August 16th, 2009 at 11:04 am