Do you believe that clean air, unpolluted water, and pure, untainted food are good for you? Then you are the kind of illiterate, inbred, simple-minded whiner who makes John Stossel want to puke, and you need to read his lastest book, Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel � Why Everything You Know is Wrong, and Why I Hate Your Guts.
An even better solution to your appalling stupidity would be for you to read the ABC News excerpt of the book, because that way you won’t have to pay for it, and you can use the money you save to buy lots of DDT, gasoline, and Agent Orange.

But if you are too lazy to do even that, here’s a (slightly paraphrased) redaction of that excerpt — it will still teach you how ignorant you are, but will save you a few minutes.

So, here we go:

* * * * * * * * * *

Chapter One: Clueless Media

The media sucks. I should know, since I have been working in the media for thirty-six years, most of that time while wearing clothes. So, you should trust me when I tell you that reporters lie to you all the time, and they use all the tricks in their cynical armory to get you to believe such untruths as “The Moon is Made of Green Cheese,” “Tainted Meat is Bad for You,” and “Dow Chemicals Doesn’t Really Have a Wonderful Plan for Your Life. ”

MYTH : The media will check it out and give you the objective truth.

TRUTH: Everybody in the media but me is clueless, amoral, and out to deceive you. You must trust only me.

The media spits in your coffee when you’re not watching. The media is sleeping with your wife while you’re at work. The media laughs at you behind your back. Plus, its members never talk to the right scientific experts.

For instance, there are experts who work for the tobacco industry who will tell you that smoking is actually good for you. Does the media ever report their views?

NOOOO!

These experts never get interviewed because they don’t advance the media’s pet belief that smoking can cause cancer. See, the media just wants to scare you, so it can keep all the sweet, sweet cigarettes for itself. Don’t let it!

MYTH: Pesticide residues in food cause cancer and other diseases.

TRUTH: The residues are largely harmless, depending on how you define “harmless.”

A scientist I met at the Pesticide Trade Association told me that pesticides may actually help to cure cancer, as far as you know.

Besides, vegetables make toxic chemicals to keep off insects, so every vegetable is 5 percent of its weight in toxic chemicals. These are Nature’s pesticides. Celery, alfalfa sprouts, and mushrooms are just chock-full of carcinogens. Yes, vegetables hate you and are trying to kill you, and we must nuke them into submission if we don’t want to be conquered by a race of evil carrots!

MYTH: Radioactivity is deadly; keep it away from food!

TRUTH: Food irradiation saves lives.

See the above info about the threat from the evil carrots.

Also, some expert I met on a street corner told me that the broccoli army plans to invade us via our porous Mexican border, and will then rape our women and enslave our children. Food irradiation may be our only hope.

MYTH: Chemical pollution is the cause of the cancer epidemic!

TRUTH: There is no cancer epidemic.

It’s just something you imagined. Sure, the incidence of prostate and breast cancer is up, but that’s only because there’s more early detection these days. When cancer detected while it’s treatable, it’s not really cancer, for all practical purposes, and so it shouldn’t be included in studies of cancer rates. That’s another thing the media doesn’t want you to know!

See, we think there’s a cancer epidemic because we hear more about cancer. Cancer is a disease of an aging population, and fortunately, more people now live long enough to get cancer. More talk about it too. Many years ago people who got cancer were secretive about it, like God intended. And we liked it that way!

So, if people would must stop getting their cancer detected, and would shut their damned traps about their conditions, then chemical pollution wouldn’t always be unfairly blamed for causing cancer, and it could hold its head high once again.

While I’ve been a reporter, I’ve been asked to do alarmist reports about hair dye, dry cleaning, coffee, chewing gum, saccharin, cyclamates, arsenic face powder, radioactive fallout, and Dr. Sommerby’s home X-ray booths. I refused to do most of those stories, and now I have to ask, if the scares were valid, where are the bodies? Unless I personally see corpses stacked like cordwood in somebody’s basement, I refuse to believe that any product produced by our benign corporate masters could be bad for us. And I’ll kill you if you say differently!

MYTH: DDT causes all kinds of cancers, and nearly wiped out every bird in the world.

TRUTH: DDT saves lives, and is also a tasty alternative to ice cream.

Malaria will kill more than one thousand children before you finish reading this book. So, when you get near the end, start over, so that you never finish. Think of the children!

You are probably saying, “Is Stossel hitting the crack pipe again? DDT is awful!” But it isn’t. DDT is the kindest, fairest, most caring friend you could ever have. You just don’t know that, because some people, including reporters, are jealous of DDT, and spread lies about it.

Here’s how it happened: Fifty years ago, Americans sprayed DDT everywhere. Nobody worried much about chemicals then. People at picnics just sat and kept eating while trucks sprayed thick white clouds of DDT on top of them. In fact, when the trucks came to spray, some people ran toward them-as if an ice cream truck had come–they were just that stupid back then. And now they’re all dead. But it’s not DDT’s fault!

It turns out DDT itself wasn’t the problem–the problem was that much too much was sprayed. When will people learn to enjoy their deadly insecticides in moderation?

And when will the U.S. State Department start buying DDT for poor kids in Africa? Does it WANT these kids to die? Are the USAID officials all racists who hate little kids? Dow Chemicals wants to know.

MYTH: Gas prices are going through the roof.

TRUTH: Gasoline is a bargain.

The media periodically get upset about “record” gas prices.
Then drivers assume what they see at the pump confirms what they’ve heard on TV, and they come to believe that $4 a gallon for gas is a lot.

The public is just so gullible that it makes me sick!

Actually, we should marvel at how cheap gasoline is–what a bargain we get from oil companies. We should contemplate how unworthy we are of the miracle of gasoline, and we should realize that it would be cheap at a hundred times the price. We should all bow down to the oil companies, and worship them at the church of our choice.

After all, think about what it takes to produce and deliver gasoline. Oil has to be sucked out of the ground, sometimes from deep beneath an ocean. To get to the oil, the drills often have to bend and dig sideways through as much as five miles of earth. What they find then has to be delivered through long pipelines or shipped in monstrously expensive ships, then converted into three or more different formulas of gasoline and transported in trucks that cost more than $100,000 each. Then your local gas station must spend a fortune on safety devices to make sure you don’t blow yourself up, because you’re such a moron. At $2.26 a gallon (about forty-six cents of which goes to taxes), gas is miraculously cheap! But what we heard from the clueless media was, “Gas prices are at record highs!” What a load of crap!

So, I order you to drive your SUV over the bodies of the clueless media to teach them a lesson about defaming gasoline. Do it now!

* * * * * * * *

Well, that’s probably enough Stossel for today. But until next time, consider these falsehoods that you undoubtedly believe, and try to wrap your puny mind around the concept that you are WRONG about everything:

MYTH: Satanists regularly kidnap and eat Christian babies

TRUTH: They only do this for special holidays

MYTH: Women are all saints, and men are all the scum of the earth.

TRUTH: I once interviewed a man who seemed nice, so you are WRONG about all men being jerkwads. And I suspect that some women lie about some stuff, thus proving that you are also WRONG about women! But the media doesn’t want you to know any of this, since they want to keep all the sweet, sweet men for themselves.

MYTH: Quiet loners who keep to themselves are currently the biggest threat to your safety. You stand a 95% chance of being murdered by one in the coming year.

TRUTH: Once again, this is just something that the media want you to believe, since it helps them sell papers. In truth, you face just as much danger from bushy-haired hippies who belong to murderous cults, teens who are all hopped up on hard rock music played backwards, and Scott Petersons.

Etc.

Wingnuts | 38 Comments »

I’ve never been able to work up much interest in the whole question of Tom Cruise’s sexuality, since he’s probably too busy choking his own Body Thetan to deal with anyone else’s alien ghost ridden corpus (although I have to agree with Kathy Griffen’s observation, “Have you noticed that the gays don’t want Tom Cruise anymore, now that he’s crazy?”)

But earlier today I took my 90-year old grandfather to see Mission Impossible: III for Mother’s Day (don’t ask) and it had the unforseen side effect of pretty much settling the issue.

Tom Cruise shaves his armpits.

‘Nuff said.

Tinsel Town Talk | 7 Comments »

Leafing through the LA Times over lunch yesterday, I saw that Bruce Tinsley�s Mallard Fillmore (the scheming, two-faced Eve Harrington to Howard the Duck�s Margo Channing) continues his Cassandra-like efforts to expose the War on Junior Petite Beef-Ts. The first few days of his campaign were dedicated to strips that shouted, �Can you believe that kids are being expelled in Denver for wearing star-spangled Tuffskins?� The last couple days have been devoted to panels like the one above, which bleats:

�To all those readers still writing me to say I�m making up stories about schools banning students from wearing �patriotic clothing�� Please pick up a newspaper sometime, or go to Townhall.com!�

Um, okay. Just curious, but where does Bruce think the vast majority of readers encounter his trenchant, Mencken-like social criticism if not wedged between Mary Worth and Beetle Baily? Does he think he�s podcasting? And this is the second time in a week that Tinsley has forgone even his usual wan simulacrum of a joke in favor of driving traffic to the screedosphere; on April 30th he climaxed his hectoring with a demand that we go to FreeRepublic.com now and learn the truth! Even though we can�t handle the truth! (When it comes to the use of italics, Bruce subscribes to the Stan Lee every-third-word-regardless school.)

Anyway, there wasn�t anything about Bruce�s bete noir in the newspaper I was already holding in my hand, so I went to Townhall, and lo and behold, there wasn�t anything there either. But after scrounging around in the Search window, I found a piece by rookie A-ball sensation FredMaidment entitled What Are We Teaching Our Children?

So a cadre of patriotic teens were ejected from school for wearing t-shirts that said �God Bless the U.S.A.� or �These Colors Don�t Run� or �Proud to be an American�? As Fred put it:

To be clear, these actions were taken in response to people wearing American patriotic clothing. At Shaw Heights Middle School in Westminster, CO, the school banned �clothes with political messages or flags of any sort,� according to Denver�s CBS 4 News. Principal Myla Shepherd said that �tensions over the immigration issue were apparent when more than 20 students came to school wearing camouflage jackets and pants, apparently to show what they call their patriotism and American pride.�

The CBS 4 News website quotes one of the students:

“It upsets me that we cannot support our troops — the military,” said Kirsten Golgart, an eighth grader who was told she’d be suspended if she didn’t change her clothes. “We can’t support our country. If we’re American, I think we should be proud to be an American.”

I frequently miss the memo, but when did fatigues become our national costume? I would have guessed it was bluejeans, or cheeseheads, or visible bra straps or something. Or if we�re talking about quaint native garb, the equivalent of kimonos or leiderhosen, wouldn�t it be cowboy duds, or some other Village People-y faux Western getup? If I see a civilian dressed in camouflage pants it�s usually a pissed-off Vietnam Vet if he�s in his 50�s, or a thin, jittery, Klebold and Harris wannabe if he�s in his teens. Or a doughy Sunday afternoon Rambo on his way to a paintball range if he�s in his 30s.

Myla Shepherd, the principal, said that tensions over the immigration issue were apparent when more than 20 students came to school wearing camouflage jackets and pants, apparently to show what they call their patriotism and American pride.

“We started seeing name calling,” Shepherd said. “Safety is my first concern, so I’m going to do things to keep us from getting to a point where anybody is hurt or being suspended for fighting.”

She said the dress code alteration diffused the tension immediately.

“I don’t think that’s a solution, though because you’re punishing 400 students because the action of 100,” said Eric Golgart, Kirsten’s father.

As I freely admit, I�m abysmal at math, but 100 out of 400 sounds like kind of a lot. That�s basically a quarter of the student body, isn�t it? But Eric makes a good point. What about Kirsten�s rights, and the rights of all her likeminded, camo-clad classmates? Yeah, sure, they could �support our troops � the military� by organizing a blood drive for the Armed Forces Blood Program, or holding a fundraiser for Soldiers’ Angels or anysoldier.com or volunteering time at the VA hospital in Denver, but that wouldn�t be nearly as effective as swaggering around the Quad in camouflage pants and a surplus field jacket and giving hard looks to all the Hispanics.

Oh wait, I was wrong, Bruce did close with a joke:

“This has been a public service announcement to inform aging “radicals” that they are now “the man.”

Denver-area High School Principals: America’s Stalinists. “You call it a gulag. We call it…Detention.

My Country Right, Wrong or Decline to State | 36 Comments »

And speaking of wingnutty books, here’s an excerpt of the ABC News excerpt of Mary Cheney’s Now It’s My Turn. I did punch it up a little, since it was kind of tedious, but I think you’ll find it remains true to Mary’s vision (i.e., get a $1 million advance for a 200-plus page memoir dealing basically with one comment from the 2004 presidential debate).

So, happy reading!

Chapter One � The Decision

Early in the summer of 2000, Dad invited me to go with him on a trip to South America. We spent a week sitting in duck blinds in Argentina, hunting pen-raised perdiz in Uruguay. Sure, these dove-like birds may look harmless, but they would peck out your eyes and rape your daughters if they got the chance! Besides, Dad had intelligence from Doug Feith which said that they were linked to Al Qaeda. Or maybe he heard that later. In any case, we killed a bunch of them. Then we shot some peons, just for sport. Good times, good times.

And when we weren’t killing God’s creature, we spent time talking about typical father-daughter topics: my plans for starting business school in the fall, how the rest of the family was doing, whether Mom would ever publish Sisters 2: Titillating Threesomes of the Old West, and whether or not we would be able to get the Death Star operational in time to crush the Rebel Alliance for Memorial Day.

It wasn’t until we were halfway into the flight home that he turned to me and asked, “What do you think about me running for vice president?” The question caught me so off-guard that at first I thought he was kidding. I mean, geez, who would vote for him? Besides, he and my mom were happily living in Dallas, Texas, where he was the CEO of Halliburton, a Fortune 500 company which was raking in billions thanks to the government contracts which Dad was able to steer their way, courtesy of his evil cronies. And he was doing the kinds of things that former politicians do, like helping Governor George W. Bush, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, find a running mate. And learn to mate. Stuff like that.

Besides, at first glance, my dad seemed like an odd choice for vice president. He was old and mean and scary, and nobody liked him. And he’s not even an American citizen! It had been twelve years since he last ran for office, and while he led an active and vigorous life, his android body needed frequent repairs, and unless we could secure some foreign oil fields, it would be too expensive to keep him running. In addition, he was from Wyoming, a state that nobody had ever heard of. And even there, the voters hated him. Nominating Dick Cheney to be vice president violated just about every piece of conventional political wisdom (and the principles of every religious and ethical belief system) I could think of.

Once the initial shock wore off, however, I realized that he wasn’t joking. He was crazy.

But he was doing what he does so often, bringing up a subject he’d given a lot of thought to � but that no one else would have guessed he was pondering. That’s why he always won our family games of “Guess What Dad is Pondering or Get No Allowance for a Year.” I’d spent the last week with him and didn’t have a clue. I still don’t. I blame my mother and her lack of nuturing.

I spent the rest of the flight home from South America talking about what a run for national office would mean for our family, particularly for me. A national campaign would subject everyone in our family to intense media scrutiny, and he was concerned that people would target me and my sexual orientation in an attempt to attack him. However, since I didn’t know that I was a lesbian until John Kerry announced it during those 2004 debates, I had no idea what Dad was talking about. In fact, I didn’t even have a sexual orientation at that point in time. But I volunteered to get one, just so Dad could be outraged if anyone brought it up, and thereby distract people from the fact that no WMDS would be found in Iraq.

“Personally,” I told him, “I’d rather not be known as the vice president’s lesbian daughter — unless I could get a million dollars writing a book about it, of course. But, if you’re going to run, I think the country would be lucky to have you. Well, some country would — have you considered trying out for the job of vice president of Belize? Anyway, I want to do whatever I can to help out on the campaign … as long as you pay me handsomely for my services. In return, I will happily support George Bush when he calls for a federal amendment which would prevent people like me from getting married. Because that’s how you raised me, Daddy. But you’d better win!”

To Be Continued . . . Or Will It?

Wingnuts | 9 Comments »

First, let me add my kudos to everyone who entered our “Write Like a Wingnut” contest. In my book (about which you’ll be hearing more in the future), you’re all winners … except that we don’t have to give you a mug. So, you’re the BEST kind of winners.

But special congratulations go out to Simon for an entry that is sure to get him a Regnery book contract.

So, here’s MY idea for a contest: come up with a title for a book that would sound right at home at Regnery, Crown Forum, WorldNetDaily Books, Nelson Publishing, or their ilk. To help you out, here are some actual, real* titles of recent or future releases from these presses:

1. Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity : Get Out the Shovel–Why Everything You Know is Wrong
by 20/20′s John Stossel

2. Godless: The Church of Liberalism
by Ann Coulter

3. The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life
by Ramesh Ponnuru

4. The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised As Freedom
by David Kupelian

5. War Crimes : The Left’s Campaign to Destroy Our Military and Lose the War on Terror
by Robert “Buzz” Patterson

6. Whitewash : How the News Media Are Paving Hillary Clinton’s Path to the Presidency
by L. Brent Bozell, Tim Graham

7. Warriors for the West : Fighting Bureaucrats, Radical Groups, and Liberal Judges on America’s Frontier
by William Perry Pendley

8. The Global War on Your Guns : Inside the UN Plan To Destroy the Bill of Rights by Wayne LaPierre

9. The Shadow Party : How Hillary Clinton, George Soros, and the Sixties Left Took Over the Democratic Party
by David Horowitz, Richard Poe

10. Culture Warrior : How I Personally Saved Our Culture by Saying Mean Things About Activist Judges, Non-Activist Judges, Godless Liberals, Film Critics Who Don’t Like Mel Gibson Movies, Department Stores Who Made Baby Jesus Cry, Rappers, Women Who Tape My Harassing Phone Calls, and the Entire Mainstream Media
by Bill O’Reilly

And so on. (I think you’re starting to see the pattern.)

Now it’s time to make up your own title. The winner won’t get an actual prize, per se, but may get a gig as one of the ghost writers for O’Reilly’s book.

*Okay, I made up part of the title of Bill’s book, because he violated wingnut literary protocol by failing to use a colon. He should be ashamed of himself!

Contests | 49 Comments »

Back in the glory days of , one of Martin Short’s gem-like offerings was a unforgivingly accurate parody of Jerry Lewis. Not the wailing, adenoidal, “LaaAAAAAAdy!” Jerry of the 50s, but the lachrymose, lanolin-haired, latter day Jerry, the one who haunted TV variety programs and the Merv Griffin Show, and seemed to stalk the land like a dark spectre in aviator glasses and a stale-looking tux. Short relentlessly hammered home every detail — the steamroller solipsism, the weepy, braying song stylings, the shtick that was both perfunctory and needy — until it seemed less like an impression and more like an assassination.

Then, a decade and a half later, I saw Short hosting some evening of female comics on basic cable, and he was doing the same type of tired, hacky shtick — mugging, pratfalling, and hawking up lame gags with all the care and craft of a loogie. And it dawned on me: sooner or later, we become the thing we parody. Which seems to be what’s happening to the lions of the wingnut bloggotocracy.

For years (going all the way back to the Reagan administration for some of them) rightwing pundits have been mocking the shibboleths of the left, railing against “sensitivity” (which somehow manages to be both a sign of weakness and a tool of totalitarianism at the same time, and which can cover everything from school regulations against bullying, to actual–gasp!– informed commentary about the Middle East, to corporate rules against Bill O’Reilly sexually harrassing people) or the musty, “do your own thing”-style hippie tropes that they seem to think are on the lips of every placard-waving anti-war activist. And now karma (not quite Instant Karma, but pretty damn close) has caught up to them, and they find themselves reduced to delivering the same rhetorical jabs over and over again like a Rhode Island Red dutifully squatting over her nest to deliver the daily speckled brown.

The rightwing luminaries of the blogosphere like to point out, ad nauseum, that liberals are bereft of ideas, or captive to discredited policies like progressive taxation, balanced budgets, or Communism. And yet, speaking as one who is not averse to grabbing a Wiffle bat and whacking at the lowest of low-hanging fruit, the easiest people to parody are invariably the most mannered, lazy, and predictable (“Can I get a HEH! Ho! Can I get an INDEED! Ho!) The contestants in our first annual Write Like a Wingnut contests are all smart, funny, talented people, and one of the things that made this such a difficult challenge is that nowadays, most wingnuts seem to come with a Self-Parody setting. The bloviations of the Malkins, Coulters, Hannitys, et al are the literary equivalent of Scrubbing Bubbles — they lampoon themselves, so you don’t have to.

Actually, when s.z. announced the contest, I figured we’d be inundated with faux-Coulter pieces, but most people didn’t bother. Perhaps because Ann’s act is rapidly coming to resemble the 70s-era Jerry Lewis–we know all the jokes before she even opens her mouth. More and more, her columns seem less like they’re written, and more like they’re assembled . Like Mad-Libs. Plug in the words liberal, terrorist, traitor, homosexual, and the untrustworthy or undeserving ethnic group de jour, and you’ve got her next speech to the College Republicans. In order to stay even inches ahead of her parodists she’s had to start openingly calling for the death of her political enemies, which takes her out of the realm of TV talking heads and makes her, basically, Saddam Hussein with a smaller following and a bigger sack.

All of which is a painfully roundabout way of saying that if feels like something may be about to change; as though Instapundit and Roger Simon and Little Green Footballs and Hugh Hewitt are all headlining on the Keith-Orpheum Vaudeville circuit, and living the high life, but it’s October 6, 1927, and The Jazz Singer just opened down the street. Which isn’t to say they’re about to go the way of the dinosaur–Jerry was still packing them into Vegas only a few of years ago–but it doesn’t really seem as though they’re poised to sweep the nation with a 20-year old act that’s even beginning to bore Branson. Of course, I’ve been wrong before, but I’d still recommend that at the very least they hit a few Open Mikes around town and try out some new material.

And as for the intentional parodies we’ve been enjoying for the past few days, kudos to our contestants , all of whom managed impersonations that were both hilarious and mildly nauseating. It seems, though, that the People have spoken, and this year’s favorite is Neil Cavuto-manqu� Simon Waugh. To quote commenter A cranny mint: “May his oil continue to soften and crisp.”

Congratulations, Simon, we hereby crown you Miss Write Like A Wingnut 2006! Click on the Contact link at the top of the page and tell us where you’d like us to send your Wo’C mug, or just wait until Michelle Malkin posts your name, address and phone number.

Contests | 18 Comments »

While doing other stuff (cleaning the kitchen, ministering to injured cat, feeding the dogs, sticking head in oven), I happened to catch most of yesterday’s “Hannity & Whoever.” It wasn’t as full of wingnutty goodness as CNN’s Glenn Beck show, which featured Glenn telling a designated Mexican that he didn’t appreciate invited guests peeing in his living room (which was apparently a metaphor of some sort, possibly about high gas prices). But it did offer two scions of influential conservative families peddling their lame-o books.

First up was John Podhoretz, who was there to sell his work, .

The main thing I got out of the interview was that Mr. Podhoretz has gained a lot of weight since he posed for that photo which TBogg likes so much. (Apparently, JPod is on the the same diet as Rush Limbaugh: you know, the one that allows you to have a shake for breakfast, a couple of pizzas and a whole cow for lunch, and a sensible small town for dinner.)

But we should probably take the high road, and ignore John’s appearance to instead focus on his words — except that it would be kinder to just make fat jokes about Mr. Podhoretz, since he came across as the kind of buffoon whom even Sean Hannity can count as his intellectual inferior. (But in case you’re interested, the gist of JPod’s message in this interview was: “Help, Mom, There’s a Hillary Clinton Under My Bed.”)

So, instead of speculating about what Midge and Norman think about the depths to which their only son has sunk, let’s read some of what John’s publisher has to say about his latest book:

It�s the ultimate nightmare scenario for conservatives: to awaken on the morning of November 5, 2008, to the news that the last swing state has been colored bright blue and Hillary Rodham Clinton is the President-elect of the United States.

I remember that ep (“The Ultimate Nightmare Scenario”) from the old “Outer Limits” series. It’s the one where Robert Culp volunteers to be surgically transformed into a scary alien in order to unite all the people of earth. Interestly enough, that seems to be the gist of JPod’s plan too: scare the troops with the spectre of a scary Hillary Clinton which he made himself, in order to unite the Republicans. (And if his book were to be made into an old-school “Outer Limits” ep, JPod could guest star as a grotesque alien from a heavy-gravity planet, and it might be kind of cool.)

But here are the details of his exciting ten-point plan:

After shaking Republicans out of their complacency, Podhoretz lays out the precise strategy conservatives must deploy to stop Hillary dead in her tracks. His groundbreaking ten-point plan of action reveals:

� How to expose the real, ultraliberal Hillary

Let’s just say that Ashton punks her good.

� How to “smoke her out” and prevent her from hiding on key issues
� How to make her denounce popular Republican programs�and defend unpopular liberal ideas

Challenge her to a game of “Truth or Dare” while you and the boys smoke cheap cigars,

� How to use her Senate seat as a weapon against her

MacGyver pops in to demonstrate this one. He then makes a bird feeder out of some suet, a couple of raisins, and a couple of strands of hair from a hairbrush — but in an ironic plot twist, Midge Decter gets it confused with her son, and takes it home to cherish and belittle.

� How to overcome the Republican Party�s own problems

I’m not sure if JPod’s plan involves a Stalineque purge of most of the Party’s leadership, or a craftier deal with Satan.

� Whom the Republicans should nominate (and the choice may surprise you)

Since Ronald Reagan is dead, you may indeed be surprised at JPod’s recommended candidate.

Conservatives can�t avoid the Hillary problem any longer, or else the nation will be forced to endure another Clinton in the White House.

Another four or more years of prosperity? NOOOO!

Fortunately, John Podhoretz is here with the detailed blueprint that will spare the country from that disastrous turn of events, in a book as puckishly lively as it is sobering

Yes, fortunately John “Puckishly Lively” Podhoretz has saved humanity once again. Or rather, he will save us, if only we will heed his words, and follow his ten-step plan. Tell your friends! Keep watching the Pod!

Anyway, the other featured middle-aged conservative trading on her family name was our favorite li’l sell-out, Mary Cheney. The main thing I learned from her “Hannity & Nonentity” appearance was that she bears a really unfortunate resemblance to her father. (The fact that she’s a woman makes her plight all the more tragic.)

But once again, we should take the higher road and discuss her words instead of her appearance. And her message is : “I hate it that the only reason anybody pays any attention to me is because I am the Vice President’s lesbian daughter. So, I wrote a book telling what it’s like to be a lesbian whose father is the Vice President.”

We’ll talk more about her book later, but I need to get some sleep first, because, frankly, her tome is pretty boring. (Shorter version: “My daddy is the bestest daddy in the world. And stop paying attention to me because I am Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter, and instead pay attention to me because, um, I work at AOL.”

But until then, here’s a quote from People Magazine’s interview, which they called “Mary Cheney Opens Up on Dad, Gay Marriage.”

He [Dick Cheney] also taught you to hunt?
My dad and I go hunting a couple of times a year for pheasant and quail.

Who bags more?
That is the source of constant father-daughter competition.

Yes, just spend the morning thinking about the constant father-daughter competition between Mary and her dad about who can bag the most elderly lawyers, and I’ll get back to you soon.

UPDATE FROM SCOTT C:

There’s been some curiosity about the title of this post. A bit of philological spadework reveals that s.z. was writing in the North British Dialect, and as many wordsmiths who have aped the Poet Burns can attest, such an enterprise can aft gang aglay.

Wingnuts | 30 Comments »

Before we begin the screening, we’d like to remind everyone to please vote in the thread below for the 2006 Write Like a Wingnut Contest, because after wading through Christopher Lambert in Druids you’re going to want to kill yourself, and we are legally enjoined from tabulating any ballots cast by dead people outside the limits of Cook County, Illinois.

And now, in honor of Springtime we present:

Druids (2001)
Directed by: Jacques Dorfmann
Written by: Jacques Dorfmann

Tagline: His people made him a leader. The empire made him a renegade. History made him a hero.

Facts made him a loser. This film is better known in Europe, were it was a huge hit, as Vercingétorix, the name of an ancient Gallic leader who is apparently much revered in France for getting his ass kicked by Caesar. And according to Christian Spotlight on the Movies, Jacques Dorfmann is actually not a filmmaker (quelle surprise) but a historian who dramatized the Gallic Wars with a scrupulous attention to period detail.

So, the story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed, because they?re all really stupid (Vercingétorix? Dumnorix? Why not Archaeoptyrix? Or Aviatrix? Or Trixareforkids?)

As with all films about First Century pagans, we begin in space, where a spermatozoa the size of a Schwan’s truck is attempting to fertilize the moon. This goes on for awhile, with the jizz rebuffed by each object in near earth orbit (although it does manage to get to second base with the Hubble) until it finally mistakes the Sun for an ovum and dives into the corona screaming “Yeeeeee-HA!”

The viewer may well wonder about the relevance of giant orbital sperm to a film about Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul, but the significant becomes clear when auteur Jacques Dorfmann appends the words, “For my Father” to the credits, and we realize this sequence is actually his family’s earliest home movies. (“I had a happy blastocythood. As a zygote, I idolized my father, but was tormented by doubts that I could ever be even half the man is was, since it would require growing about 8 trillion more cells?”)

Finally, the camera makes its way to Earth. It’s the year 60 B.C.; white muslin robes are all the rage, gods are plentiful, and Stonehenge still has that new henge smell. A querulous pagan buttonholes “Arch Druid Bukkake” (well, that’s what it sounded like) and says, “We?re dying! What should we do?”

Bukkake points out the space spooge passing overhead and cries, “Behold! The sign of the coming of the king!”  Because even though all men (except Ben Shapiro) spill their seed, only royalty can get that kind of hang time. The Arch Druid declaims: “Every people, every tribe needs its legend. And every battle needs its hero.” He doesn?t go on to specify that every party needs its pooper, but the implication hangs heavy in the air. He then says, “I must go seek him out!” and hails a passing canoe.

It’s now some years later, and we find ourselves in Gergovia, which, judging by the glazed terra cotta roofs and stucco texture coating, appears to be a Master Planned Community somewhere in the O.C. Probably off the 405 near Irvine.

12-year old Vercingétorix is showing off the barn to 10-year old Joey Potter, and assuring her that when he is king, as prophesized by Arch Druid Bukkake, all this will be hers (“What, the curtains?”). But before he can convince her to play doctor (or barber, I guess), Vercingétorix’s dad is locked in a biffy by his brother and set on fire. Father and son make eye contact as Dad gets broasted alive, and young Vercingétorix glares at his uncle and declares, “I will kill you, Gorbaniccio. I will kill you,” in the same vague, distracted way a kid playing Madden NFL 06 promises to the mow the lawn as soon as he finishes the game.

Dissolve to the adult Vercingétorix (Christopher Lambert of Highlander infamy). Chris sits staring into a fire, repeating his oath of vengeance and reliving his father’s horrible death by immolation; considering he lives in a society where open flames are omnipresent, he must relieve it about 50 times a day, which probably accounts for the utterly bored look on his face.

Chris leaves his hut, a traveling bag thrown over his shoulder, and emerges into daylight, giving us a chance to fully admire his Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer wig. Arch Druid Bukkake notices the bag, and can immediately tell from Chris’s expression that he’s overdosed on Botox.

“It?s time for me to do what I must,” declares Chris. But Bukkake says, “You’re not ready.” Considering that Chris is 44 years old, and Vercingétorix was 26 when he died, he may actually be a little bit past his shelf life. But since the movie started in 60 B.C., and it’s now 45 B.C., they probably figured they could just wait while he aged backwards far enough.

Anyway, the “you’re not ready to face your destiny” speech leads to the inevitable training montage, as Bukkake takes Chris to meet Yoda (at this performance, the role of Yoda will be played by a tall, rangy French MILF). Naturally Chris gets his ass kicked, as the Amazonian warrior skillfully out-edits him. (The alternating use of speeded up and slow motion footage during the duel makes the film look like a combination of Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V and The Benny Hill Show.)

Chris decides that getting his ass kicked in 30 seconds by a girl means he’s ready to take on the Roman Empire. Bukkake sighs, “Just don’t abandon the path of knowledge when you take the road of action.” Chris is deeply moved by this admonition, and swears that no matter what the cost, he will get his G.E.D.

Chris thumbs a ride with Caesar, and they have one of those “We’re going to be mortal enemies one day so let’s be BFFs now so it’s totally poignant when I kill you” conversations. After a discussion of public works (Caesar points out that all roads lead to Rome. Also aqueducts. Also roads. And uh — roads), Chris thanks the big guy for the horse and takes the next off-ramp to Gergovia, where his destiny lies.

This is the moment he has trained and studied for all his life.  The ultimate test of his manly honor and warrior’s prowess as he confronts his uncle — the man who killed his father – and decides the fate of their people in a titanic struggle to the death.

Turns out, Vengeance is a breeze. Chris rides his horse into the Cheiftain’s Hall, borrows a spear from one of the guards, approaches his uncle’s throne with the air of a guy delivering a bouquet of carnations and a Mylar birthday balloon, and basically says, “Hi! I’ve come to stick this thing in you. Is that okay?” His uncle sits there with a mildly perplexed expression that seems to say, “Really? Stick me with a spear? What could he mean by that? Is that even a sentence? And shouldn’t the horse be outside?” Then Chris listlessly jams the spear into the old man’s shoulder, while the other nobles seated at high table exchange vague looks (“Um…Was that Vengeance? Or has the floor show started? And where’s our mozzarella sticks?”).

Meanwhile, all the tribal chieftains of Gaul are gathered in Boulogne, where Caesar is hosting a Britain Invading Seminar, and selling his self-motivational scrolls. Chris shows up, having acquired an army of followers and Hulk Hogan’s mustache. Caesar invites him over for potluck, where Chris is reunited with the now grownup Joey Potter, who has been taken prisoner by the Romans and brutally and repeatedly dubbed.

Then a bunch of First Century B.C. politics goes on, which manages to be both Byzantine before there was a Byzantium, and incredibly boring, sort of like sitting through a Druidic Zoning Commission meeting (“Next on the agenda is item #417, an amendment to Section VIII-A of the Building Code requiring that all new henge construction (defined as any work for which a county permit was issued between Lughnasadh-3 and Dublachd-5) will meet the attached standards mandating a minimum vertical clearance of 13 rods…”) The upshot is, Chris finds out that the Romans were responsible for his father’s slow-roasted, fire-brewed taste, and he retaliates by sending Caesar’s horse back to him, saying, “Return to Caesar that which is Caesar’s.” (So!  Considering that this is roughly the year 45 B.C., it seems that Christ stole that line from him.)

Chris returns to his birthplace of Gergovia, but the villagers close the gates and pretend they’re not home. Bereft, Chris goes to see Yoda, who tells him that Arch Druid Bukkake has gone to that Great Japanese Fetish Website in the Sky, even though he’s standing right there and insisting that he’s not dead. Ignoring him, Yoda says, “Brother and sister of the sword!” This is a signal for she and Chris to stab their own hands, take a sip of blood, and start to make out.

Chris musters an army of peasants with twigs and demonstrates his military genius by conquering Gergovia in a swift, bloody assault while still somehow managing to avoid an action sequence. (Except for a shot of Chris wanly hacking through a succession of whisper-thin chorus boys from the Gergovia Light Opera production of “Dames at Sea.”)

The raped and wounded villagers are so grateful to Chris for sacking them, that they immediately declare him king by waving cleft sticks in the air, which was apparently the First Century B.C. equivalent of those giant foam fingers. Personally, I can’t get that worked up about it, but they seem excited so — okay. Fine. That’s our big finish. Enjoy your gumboils and cholera. Now where’s that Netflix envelope?

Oh crap. Apparently being the king of Loserville isn’t enough, and now the bewigged, Botox-faced nitwit wants to go get all up in Caesar’s grill. Great.

Chris decides to drive the Romans back across the Alps. In order to win the trust and loyalty of the other tribes, and inspire all of Gaul to rally ’round him, he burns down their homes and destroys all their crops. (In 2003, President George W. Bush was seen boarding Air Force One with a copy of Vercingétorix’s seminal treatise on War, “Love Me or I’ll Tell My Army to Set You on Fire.” Now a Major Motion Picture!)

Chris shows up at Avaricum (Latin for “Bird Sperm”) and tells the residents to evacuate before he burns the place down. A young woman with a baby in her arms says, “A life for a city.” She tosses a knife to Chris and invites him to stab her son, which makes no sense because killing the kid isn’t going to keep the Romans from conquering the place and destroying it anyway. Unfortunately, Chris caught the knife by the blade, and he’s concentrating so hard on not screaming and bursting into tears that he’s having a hard time doing the math.

The predictable happens: Chris spares the town and Caesar kills every man, woman, and child living there, so enraging the Gauls that they dispatch the Oak Ridge Boys to tell Chris he’s a moron.

Even worse, the Romans besiege Gergovia, but the valiant defenders strike back by dropping chickens on them, and the battlefield is reduced to a nightmarish cacophony of screams and clucks.

The Romans regroup, but the woman of the town pull up their shirts and flash their boobs at the attackers, and suddenly it’s Gauls Gone Wild! The charge fails, as distracted Centurions scramble around looking for more quarters, or pause to shout, “Put ‘em on the glass!”

Chris wins, but later his closest friends and advisors are massacred by Teutons, who are apparently cheesed off because their tribal henna rinse turned out way too carroty and left them looking less like fierce northern warriors, and more like the late 60′s-era Lucille Ball.

Reeling from grief, Chris enters a room where his surviving retainers are engaged in a theological discussion of the local deities. He stares at everyone for a moment, and then says, “You crack yourself up, Fancy Helmet?”

I’ve watched this scene about five times now, and I still have absolutely no idea what this sentence means. But you know what? I don’t want to know.  It’s perfect just as it is.

Trapped by the encircling legions, Chris sends word for his troops to rush to his aid and meet the Romans on the field of honor, and at last secure freedom and dignity for all of Gaul, but they’re washing their hair. Desperate, Chris hatches a last-ditch plan for victory; it’s crazy, but it just…might…work! Except it doesn’t and the Gauls suffer a team wipe.

By this point the movie has been grinding on for over two hours, and simple logic suggests that they wouldn’t put us through all this if the story of Vercingétorix didn’t ultimately lead to an uplifting conclusion. And finally it does, when Chris surrenders to Caesar (I mean really grovels — face in the dirt, ass in the air) and Caesar has him killed.

We now return to space, where giant orbital sperm will think twice about forecasting the coming of a king with Tor Johnson’s range of facial expressions, Donald Rumsfeld’s grasp of military tactics, and Ron Perlman’s hair from Quest for Fire.

Movies | 13 Comments »

Thanks to all who contributed their doppleganger drivel. The deft evocation of right wing tropes and stylings prove that Wo’C commenters lead the world in the field of Wingnut Studies, and we are hereby awarding all contestants a Ph.D which we’re pretty sure is just slightly less legitimate than the doctorate awarded to the Scrawcrow at the end of The Wizard of Oz, and slightly more than the one awarded to Mike Adams.

The only problem is that the quality of the entries was a little too good, making it very difficult to cull the herd. So we’ve doubled the number of finalists to 6, and without further ado, we proudly present them for your delectation:

First up in the Junior Spokesmodel Competition — Tara the anti-social social worker channels Michelle Malkin:

Mr. Jose Garcia, a Mexican and therefore presumably an illegal immigrant and potential terrorist, was spotted at the Quaker party to celebrate the deaths of American soldiers. To prove they were celebrating the deaths of Amercian soldiers, here’s a picture of Mr. Garcia smiling.

Mr. Garcia lives at 123 NotAWingnut Street in Podunk, Idaho. His phone number is 555-5555. His email is SaveMeFromWingnuts @Heeelp.com. He started wearing a bulletproof vest after seeing me, but there’s a gun shop at 225 KillEmAll Street that sells armor-piercing ammo.

I do not condone death threats.

Next up: John of What Culture War also feels the Maglalang Magic!

I’d like to try my hand at a Malkin blog entry, except please try and imagine where the links go yourselves. It isn’t tough.

MOONBAT ILLEGALS MARCH

More unhinged moonbats:

(pasted text about one specific illegal immigrant who said something unsavory)

Don’t forget about this. Or that guy who said this.

Allah Pundit gets it:

Holy fuck, do I hate these illegal aliens.
More here. BigJim has posted some pics of illegals. LaShawn Barber agrees, and gets it.

More here.

Wonder if the MSM will cover this? I’m not holding my breath.

By the way, click here to see those Muslim cartoon from a few months ago.

LaShawn Barber still gets it.

WaPo. Reuters. Sports Illustrated. CNN. Pottery Barn.

Reader Janet is fed up:
�
I advocate the killing of all illegals, and I’m not kidding.
�

Let’s see if the MSM advocates the killing of all illegals. I’m not holding my breath.

PREVIOUS
Moonbats on parade
Look at these moonbats
Illegal moonbats
Illegals: “We exist”
Look at me make a big show about disagreeing with President Bush
Goodnight, Moonbat
I’m not holding my breath

Our third contestant Mark feels his E.D. has reached the point where he can take on a Ph.D. I think it would go a little something�like this:

Dear Dr. Mike

Why do you hate women so much?

Dolores

First of all, Dolores, did you ever realize your name rhymes with clitoris? When you become a prostitute, you could probably work that.
Second, since you obviously hate men, what kind of hooker are you going to be? Are there that many lesbians willing to pay you to perform the �vagina monologues� on them?

THis reminds me of the time I tried to poison one of my colleagues�I mean�when one of my leftist colleagues accused me of trying to poison her. She was one of those man hating feminazis who never shaved (she could grow a better mustache than me!) who, though she was �supposedly married,� was undoubtedly really a butch lesbian who regularly had her lesbian students over and they would eat each other�s pussies and strap on enormous dildos and

Oh, I�m sorry, where was I? Oh, be sure to get Ben Shapiro�s Porn Generation, where he disects how porn ruins peoples� lives, especially that lesbian porn, with that hot, hot, lesbian sex, which drives me so fucking crazy that I can�t take

[Townhall editor: Please submit your non-vagina related questions to . Questions should be brief and to the point and contain no references to any parts of the female anatomy.]

And speaking of Dr. Professor Mike�s BFF, the Bishop of Best Western, Doug Piles pulls the 4×4 around, tosses in the doe estrus, .30-.06, and the styling mousse, and sets off to bag hisself a ten-point metaphor:

Would Jesus, if the Big Guy could hop into a gyroscope or other kick-ass space vehicle and pop down to ther green �n� blue to �check out� the state of the world and not get a faceful of lesbo-feminist armpit hair for his troubles, like Liberals? No. He�d make like Vanilla Ice and exit stage left, pausing only to Christ-slap a few girly-manical, testosterone-deprived, metrosexual, mascara-laden focus-group Ted Kennedy wannabes mano-a-mano and maybe pick up a pound or two of antelope jerky for the return trip. It�s like I said to Ted �the Nuge� Nuggent when we were punching hammerhead sharks in the cojones before chapel, JC never mentions socialist healthcare or Brokeback Mountaineering once during the Old Testament. It�s enough to make you rip the head off a bear to hear the furry buttock�d WHY-men of the bra-burning left jabber like a flock of costive hyenas about peace and love when you know the chances of them giving you a �piece� of �love� is about the same as Archie Bunker giving Paula Abdul a hickey. And that�s my clash point, as I haven�t said for a while.

Belatedly informed that the fancy-schmancy-Nancy Boy poodles running this contest are trying to emasculate his clash point with a cat�s cradle of red tape, Doug remarks:

Oh, there were rules, eh? Well Jesus kicking liberal ass is always news as my friend Kathy Ireland said after we gutted thirty marmosets yesterday. Nude!

And what would a compendium of Wingnut greats be without the owl droppings of Fox News hooter Neil Cavuto. Simon Waugh tells us how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie center:

�You might think that what brought my Irish mother and my Italian father together was the fact that they were both immigrants and that they were both Catholics, but there was something else that made them stick to each other.
And that something else was oil.
Whether it was holy oil or olive oil it was sacred to them both.
Oil was life.
It softened the pasta and fried to a crisp the potatoes and unidentifiable animal parts that fed us
And if it hadn�t been for the oil, I probably would never have been born.

Today millions of immigrants claim that they are the oil that lubricates the US economy. And in the past few days they have tried to stop that flow of �oil� just like OPEC did in the 70�s.
Jimmy Carter of course caved to the blackmail, and restricted our freedom of choice and the country fell into recession. That�s what happens when Democrat�s try to wield executive power.
But Reagan stood up to the oil cartel and turned the crisis into a victory. His stance killed the sales of fuel efficient cars from the Europeans and the Japanese and restored jobs to American auto workers.

As the son of immigrants I think I can claim a bit more knowledge about this subject than the average Liberal whose typical lineage is communist euro-trash of the type we Americans cast off in the War of Independence.

These days we are facing another War of Independence�independence from illegal immigrants who, with their ridiculous low-riding pimpmobiles are illegally consuming the oil that legal patriotic citizens need to support the oil industry that helps pay for the War On Terror.

So when you hear these immigrants claiming that they want to be Americans, don�t believe a word of it.
If they really wanted to be Americans they should first learn English and then get a real job instead of sponging off the generosity of this great nation and siphoning billions of dollars back to their Stalinist leaders like Hugo Chavez.

But how do we fight this illegal immigrant army?

We remove the reason they come here in the first place which is of course welfare and all the other social programs that the liberals won�t let George Bush reform.
Then we round up the illegals and force them to compensate for all the money and oil they�ve stolen by making them build a 300 foot high border wall supervised by Halliburton/Bechtel.
Then we form a new agency called The Illegal Agency which will mandate that all the liberals who let the illegal immigrants cross the border escort them back, supervised by experienced contractors such as BlackWater and Custer-Battles.
Once we�ve secured our borders and are safe behind their walls America will no longer be exploited by foreigners and we can return to the real business of America�the business of freedom.

And that�s just common sense.”

And finally, David E. brings us perilously close to uncovering the origins of Pastor Swank�s Muppety syntax. Can we handle the truth? Let�s find out:

HOMO NUPS LEAD TO SUFFERING

Readers of papers such as the New York Times learned today that competing ballots measures conflict with voters in Colorado on whether to allow the homo nups. I say unto them that they must vote to prevent it. No one can claim they cannot do their part to defeat the homosexual agendaists: do or do not � there is no try.

Named must your fear be before banish it you can. We have no reason to fear God, except when he is wroth, and believe me that wroth he is at the thought of sweaty, crusty mansex. I know that the homo agenda can be tempting, with its musical comedies and high-quality fabrics, but resist it you must. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.

Size matters not. That is, the size of your commitment to fight the homo nups. If you do not, that is why you fail. We cannot allow homo nups to happen, for then the dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see the future is. Already know that which you need, to shove the hot throbbing truth down the throats of the homo. Always in motion is the future. This fight we can win. Must win. Bad feeling I have about this.

The nups have even appearing on the Sopranos, with a homo mobster and they said they would �pay for therapy� instead of killing him. So in summaration, you must confront Colorado. Only then, a Christian will you be.

And those are our finalists. Now it’s up to you, the gimlet-eyed Wo’C reader to crown the winner of the First Annual Write Like a Wingnut Competition (made possible by a grant from the Mobil Corporation). Please vote for your favorite mock screed in the comments, and we’ll announce the winner on Wednesday.

Contests | 50 Comments »

We’ve had some admirably unhinged submissions to the first annual Write Like a Wingnut contest, but there’s still time to rage on behalf of the machine. Deadline is this Sunday at midnight (PST). Three finalists will be announced on Monday, and then you, the World O’Crap reader will cast your vote for the winner. Balloting will be interrupted on Tuesday when Republican staffers cram into the hall outside screaming “Stop the fraud!” and “Let us in!” Voting will then resume, and the Supreme Court will annoint the winner on Wednesday. The prize is a prototype World O’Crap mug:

This diswasher safe beverage delivery system is lovingly machine crafted and anti-American made at our maquiladora in Laos.

Contests | 6 Comments »