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Archive for May, 2007

Dick Cheney Eaten By Feral Cats

Posted by scott on May 21st, 2007

These cats are now being treated for severe hypertension and high cholesterol.  And you think that comes cheap?  Well, just ask our good friend Anntichrist Coulter, whose tongue-lashings are administered by a cat o’ nine tails made from genuine tongue, and she’ll be more than happy to set you straight.

As many of you know, Annti (who is coping with the pain of broken hardware in her previously broken back) has nonetheless been out trapping, spaying, and/or neutering members of the feral cat colony which lives near her rustic, Walden-like retreat.  Some may quibble with her time management skills (personally, if I had broken shards of surgical steel poking holes in my spinal column, I’d spend less time rescuing semi-wild cats, and more time shrieking like Fay Wray), but she can use our help.  If you have a moment, follow this link and take a look at the cutie-wootie little kitties she’s caring for, and maybe drop a few bucks for a good cause.  (The Paypal Donate button on the post doesn’t seem to work, but the one on the sidebar does).

Thanks.  The more feral cats who are spayed and neutered today, the fewer bitter, homeless kittens will be hogging s.z.’s computer chair tomorrow.

Quote O’ The Day

Posted by scott on May 21st, 2007

Just in case you were getting woozy from the combination of gaseous Reagan nostalgia released by the recent Republican debate, and the fumes of hagiography rising from Jerry Fallwell’s body before it’s even had a chance to a’moulder in the grave, Doghouse Riley turns on the bathroom fan:

“If Reagan and Falwell’s balloons floated on somewhat different admixtures–and still do, to varying degrees–and if Falwell’s notorious difficulties with Reality included claiming that Dutch owed his prominence to Jerry rather than vice versa, well, it proves only that the little Republican tent was still large enough to support more than one hot air vendor.”

You May Get Vertigo On This Ride

Posted by scott on May 20th, 2007

…so please use the Grabar when entering and exiting the car.

In response to the recent assault by “tolerant” atheists, I am going to explain why it is necessary to maintain our Christian heritage in order to sustain our democracy.  This is for the benefit of the “scientists” who presume themselves the authorities on everything

Including the “proper” use of ”scare quotes.” 

and who have penned tomes with such ostentatious titles as The God Delusion, Letter to a Christian Nation, God: The Failed Hypothesis, and other works that rehash the arguments from ages past.

I hear ya, lady.  I am so tired of these MIT types continuing to insist that Uranus didn’t really lose to the Titans on the battlefield, but was “stabbed in the sack,” when they ought to be home, looking for evidence of high temperature superfluidity in a fermionic condensate.

Judging by the comments in reply to my column “Letter to a Stupid Atheist,” I have to conclude that this is one of the most miserable groups of people on earth.

And touchy, too!  Jeez.

And as my adjective for them implies, they are not very smart, for there is no analogy between a female dog and a columnist, a claim they make through the name they call me in their blogs and letters.

Mary, no offense, but I find it hard to believe that any of these people really called you a columnist.

But more importantly, whenever they assault Christianity, we need to remind them of the foundations of their freedoms.  First, the fact that they live in a country founded upon a belief in “inalienable rights” imparted by their Creator should give them a hint.

Well, that phrase comes from the Declaration of Independence, rather than the Constitution, and it was written by a guy who wasn’t exactly a Christian, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t think Jesus was his creator.  But more to the point:

“Inalienable” (or “unalienable”) is a term borrowed from English common law. Some property rights were alienable (they could be sold or granted) and some were inalienable (they could only be inherited according to fixed rule). The distinction between alienable and unalienable rights was introduced by Frances Hutcheson (philosopher) in his A System of Moral Philosophy (1755) based on the Reformation principle of the liberty of conscience. One could not in fact give up the capacity for private judgment (e.g., about religious questions) regardless of any external contracts or oaths to religious or secular authorities so that right is “unalienable.”

Hm.  “[P]rivate judgment,” “liberty of conscience.”  Sounds like the kind of crap they’d talk at a “free-thinkers meeting.”

The very notion of democracy is based on Christian principles—a historical fact, though one not really emphasized in our public school system.

Awfully prescient of Solon and his cronies to anticipate the teachings of Jesus by 600 years.  That’s nearly as clairvoyant as those Baptist cavemen in “B.C.” 

But I noticed as I was reading an article in 1999 in The Atlantic Monthly by Francis Fukuyama: “In the West, Christianity first established the universality of human dignity. . .” Yes, the Greeks had a democracy, but it was not a democracy for women and slaves. It was the radical Christian notion of equality–that there was neither “Jew nor Gentile,” and that even prostitutes could repent–that forms the basis of our democratic values.

As opposed to all those women and slaves who flocked to the polling place in 1789.   Although I’m not entirely clear on how someone renouncing prostitution affects the availability of the franchise, except insofar as it presumably removes Karl Rove from the equation.

This of course presupposes the notion of sin

Of course. Wait–what? 

or if you don’t like that old-fashioned word, imperfection. Christianity acknowledges the universality of human sin in addition to the universality of dignity. Therefore the Christian recognizes the limits of government because of the limitations of the (fallen) people who make up the government.

Or at least the present Administration. 

The ultimate arbiter is God, not man the Scientist. Who is the ultimate arbiter for the atheist?

Simon Cowell? 

Sam Harris? Richard Dawkins? Adolf Hitler? To whom will they appeal when they cannot decide their infernal debates?

For attractive female atheists, I recommend bikini Jello wrestling, two falls out of three.  For Sam and Richard, I would advise they settle their differences through some form of binding arbitration, and for Adolf, I would suggest consulting a Magic 8-Ball, since he was into that occult stuff.

The atheist, nonetheless, against all evidence, believes in the “progress” of science.

Whereas the clear-eyed observer can tell that science is actually moving backwards!  Look at the cover of the October, 1939 Popular Mechanics!  We used to have flying cars!  Robot butlers!  And elevators were replaced with personal pneumatic tubes! 

He believes it can replace religion.

I think what you mean is, he “believes” it can “replace” religion. 

And he believes that we are marching towards perfection.

After the last six years, I think it’s more likely that he’s stumbling towards the bar. 

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that. But what do we do before we reach perfection? Which scientist do we turn to to save us? How do we make decisions now?

Judging by the rest of your column, I’m guessing that “using the brain” isn’t an option. 

Or if we mistakenly believe we have arrived at The Answer Through Science do we form our culture to that formula? But how do we know it’s perfect? Doesn’t each generation believe itself the most advanced? Didn’t the flappers? Didn’t the hippies? What do we do about the past generations that made mistakes?

Remember when the flappers tried to take over the world with their fleet of death ray-equipped autogyros and massive war zepplins, only to be foiled at the eleventh hour by the even more technologically advanced hippies, with their patchouli-powered personal jetpacks and Wham-O Air Blasters?

The atheistic world view, since it does not allow for sin, does not allow for forgiveness.

Well, it doesn’t allow for forgiveness by a god.  But I suspect that even the most committed atheist would probably accept an apology for returning your Garden Weasel a week late, if it was really sincere.

Instead, each successive generation smugly thinks of itself as more “advanced” than their predecessors.

For instance, the way Glenn Reynolds sneers at his parents’ analog, nanite-free bodies has made the last few Thanksgivings a little tense.

Grievances build up and with them a desire for retribution. Think about the demand for reparations, the young flocking to the despot Louis Farrakhan, the incessant “reminders” of “injustice” through music, art, and literature.

If there’s one thing I hate worse than injustice, it’s someone “reminding” me of it.  I don’t mind someone jogging my memory, I just wish they didn’t have to be so ironic about it. 

The ruse has to be kept up. Revenge is called for, revenge even for the great-great granddaughters and sons.

Wait, wait.  How did we get from smug flappers who think they’re the pinnacle of evolution to angry Black Muslims slaughtering whitey for his failure to deliver 40 acres and a mule?

And thus we have groups who claim superiority—the opposite of the idea of equality.

Like, oh, I don’t know…certain Christians who think they hold the national pink slip?

The aggrieved form the privileged, and superior, group, and thus we have the ridiculous notion that a black person or a Native American “cannot be a racist.”

Hey, this is America – in this great land of opportunity, anybody can grow up to be a racist.  And often the host of a show on CNN Headline News, too.

Under the atheistic, secular view, only certain groups can be guilty of sin, and only certain groups deserve dignity.

Okay, you lost me again.  I thought the atheists didn’t believe in sin. 

Such race-based favoritism is opposed to the Christian notion of fairness.

But as certain Christian theologians have pointed out, what do you expect from the Sons of Ham? 

But atheists believe in the Power of Their Own Minds and reforming society to bring about a utopia.

Actually, I think you’re confusing atheists with Scientologists, but by all means, go on… 

Their Own Minds have come up with affirmative action, as well as forced euthanasia to “alleviate suffering,” concentration camps, and communism.

Whereas Christians in the Bush White House have used Their Own Colons to come up with tax cuts for the top 1%.  (On the other hand, who knew that euthanasia could alleviate communism?) 

Thus the state replaces God and those with the physical or economic power dominate. They all presume that this is the “general will.”

Um, I don’t mean to carp, but don’t those with the physical and economic power dominate now?  I mean, especially now? Just how big an atheist do you think Bush is, anyway?

Nonetheless, even as the systems presumably march on toward perfection, anarchists, who believe that they have the answer stir and fume.

Meanwhile, the Fabians, who believe that they have the answer, wash and wipe. 

So in spite of the fact that virtually all conservative faculty members and texts have been eliminated in English departments, “resist and refuse” posters grace the doors of securely entrenched tenured radical English professors who make up hiring and curriculum committees. Somehow injustices still remain!

And I thought we were perfect by now!  Except for all the racist Native Americans, and revenge-seeking Blacks, and “advanced” hippies, and fuming anarchists.

And these radicals call for even more drastic changes, and finally anarchy. The fact that English professors cannot just stick to their jobs of teaching about the great literary traditions is evidence of the overweening hubris of the atheistic mind.

The Canterbury Tales is a gateway drug that leads straight to an anarcho-syndicalist collective. 

As the youth, taught by these radical atheists, search and search and look into the void, they find that they—in spite of the arguments of the atheists—have a spiritual need. Schooled in relativism and multiculturalism, they turn wildly to such things as paganism or radical Islam to fill a vacuum. I’ve had a student tell me about pagan rituals involving the drinking of human blood. Indeed, stupid atheists are responsible for taking away the spiritual bulwarks against internal jihad in our schools.

“Yeah!  Why do they always have to ruin everything, with their stupid blood-drinking, and their vacuums and their internal jihads?  Dumb, stupid atheists…” 

The atheist prides himself on his feelings of fairness and empathy but refuses to acknowledge the culture from which he has inherited these attributes. Such notions are as prevalent as the air we breath (thanks to Christians)

The Lord may have created the Earth, but he subcontracted the atmosphere to Jesus. 

At one time, women could be stoned to death and babies and the elderly left exposed to die. To what will the atheist appeal when we dispense with such notions?

Well, thanks to our invasion of Iraq, religious- and sectarian-inspired stonings and honor killings of women are up in Iraq, so I guess that’ll show those atheists!

But as I stated in my previous column, atheists are stupid. As George Santayana said, “Wisdom is the first philosophy, both in time and in authority, and to collect facts or to chop logic would be idle and would add no dignity to the mind, unless that mind possessed a clear humanity and could discern what facts and logic are good for and what not.”

Dr. Santayana then nodded his head toward Dr. Grabar and discreetly coughed several times.

Well, the atheists are smart in a limited way. They can function at their technical jobs. But they cannot see or think outside of that box. They cannot do philosophy.

Okay, there was Nietzsche, but he only got a C+ in Philosophy.  His best grades were in Social Studies and Gym. 

They are incapable of seeing that their empirical method is really just a limited function, for limited tasks. And that its limitation comes ironically (for them) from the notion that man’s knowledge is limited. Philosophy is the larger investigation.

Man, I’m telling you, that empricism jazz is for squares!  It’s a rocket to nowheresville!  Philosophy is where the action is! 

But because of his limited vision the atheist is incapable of seeing beyond the material world; he sees society as a giant organism.

I see it as a large hat, or maybe an oversized bucket of grenadine. 

He sees it in a Darwinian manner, sees the part for the whole and does not even know that Darwin himself recognized the limits of his investigation. To atheists the world is a big organism and they fancy that they know everything because they see the world as a big organism.

I can’t stress that big organism thing enough. 

They do not know where this organism came from or what its ultimate purpose may be. Whether it’s the Big Bang theory or the reproductive habits of the amoeba, the atheist fancies that he has found the answer to EVERYTHING.

Except for why birds suddenly appear every time you draw near.

Someone needs to clear the atheists of their confusion.

And someone needs to clear the gutters before the next storm instead of sitting around all day obsessing about big organisms!

Deputy Johnson Tells Prison-Bound Paris To Sack Up

Posted by scott on May 19th, 2007

 

Deputy Clementine Johnson of the Reno Sheriff’s Department offers Paris Hilton many useful tips on surviving the joint.

Quote O’ The Day

Posted by scott on May 18th, 2007

“Two hundred years ago we had Jefferson, Washington, Ben Franklin and Tom Paine, and there were 4 million people. Today we have 220 million and look at our leaders. Darwin was wrong.”

–Mort Sahl

World’s Worst Movies In 3 Minutes Or Your Money Back

Posted by scott on May 17th, 2007

White Star Line Taps New Titanic Captain

Posted by scott on May 15th, 2007

After a frustrating search for a new master to assume command of their latest and largest vessel, ABC News has learned that White Star Lines President G. Walker Bush has chosen Captain Sir John Felching for the role.  Felching will report directly to the president, but as the new captain of the Titanic, he has been assured a free hand in dealing with what a White Star spokesman referred to as “certain persistent, moisture-related challenges.”

“A lot of people want to pack it in,” Felching told reporters shortly after his appointment was announced.  “It’s true that the Titanic’s maiden voyage hasn’t gone as smoothly as we might have liked, but that’s no reason to just cut bait and abandon ship.  If we pull our survivors out now, the icebergs will follow us home.”

Filling the position had become a priority for White Star executives after a handful of former shipmasters told the president they did not want the job.  Among them was retired Captain Sir Holmbert Queef, who proved an embarrassment to management after he wrote a skeptical letter to the Times.   In his missive, Sir Hombert questioned the veracity of a press release which claimed that the ship’s original master, Captain Edward John Smith, had died of “natural causes associated with old age, aggravated slightly by respiratory distress caused by damp conditions typical of the North Atlantic.”

“What I found in discussions with current and former members of White Star management,” Queef wrote, “is that there is no agreed upon strategic view of the Titanic’s problem.  Some feel that she began the voyage without the necessary resources (like lifeboats).  Others believe she was stabbed in the back by the Carpathia, while still others attribute the current difficulties to a ship’s company demoralized by a constant stream of criticism and second-guessing by Fleet Street penny dreadfuls.  Personally, I think it’s the ruddy great gash in her hull.”

Felching will set sail on Monday aboard the White Star clipper Exculpate to join his new command, insisting that while ”there are obstacles ahead, and an unacceptable amount of water damage in the First Class salons, we fully intend to guide this noble ship to her original destination.”

When a reporter asked Captain Felching how he planned to cross a thousand miles of ocean in a ship with a hundred meter-long hole below the waterline, the Captain was gently pushed aside by White Star board member Professor G. Harlan Reynolds, who trained a gimlet eye upon the assembled scribes and boldly declared, “Float.”

Oh How The Mighty Have Fallwell

Posted by scott on May 15th, 2007

Jerry Fallwell has died at age 73.

In a totally unrelated development, Gehenna Garden and Patio Supplies in rustic Lake O’ Fire reports a sudden jump in the sales of charcoal briquettes.

Oh, Nazis Used The Swastika Too? No One Told Me…

Posted by scott on May 15th, 2007

Kevin Drum (D-Can’tSeeWhatAllTheFussIsAbout) slicks back his cowlick, pops his eyes wide, and utters a heartfelt “Garsh!” at the sight of certain hypersensitive little pantywaists taking umbrage at this cartoon:

 

As Alfalfa writes:

Now, if you capitalize this you get Stab In The Back, which is famous as a popular German rationalization for their loss in World War I: i.e., the real reason they lost was because the German army was “stabbed in the back” by various actors, including politicians and the public. Hitler later adopted this as a populist rallying cry during his rise to power.

Ramirez may or may not know this history. He probably does. Nonetheless, this from Mark Kleiman seems overboard to me:

I know that supporters of the currently ruling coalition of crooks, warmongers, torturers, incompetents, and theocrats are deeply, deeply hurt when they and their pet politicians are compared to Nazis. But could someone suggest to them — politely, of course — that it would help if they stopped borrowing Nazi iconography and phraseology?

But look: the phrase “stab in the back” is a common idiom. Everyone reading this has probably used it dozens of times in their lives without once thinking about its German roots. It’s simply not a phrase like “Final Solution,” which clearly became exclusive Nazi property after the Holocaust.

God knows I have plenty of reason to dislike Ramirez since I had to put with his swill for years when he was the editorial cartoonist for the LA Times. What’s more, the “stab in the back” myth that Republican war supporters have been ginning up for the past couple of years is both odious and unsupportable. As an idea, it’s worth fighting tooth and nail. But that still doesn’t make it “Nazi iconography.” It’s a common phrase, commonly used, and I’ve never heard a suggestion that it’s no longer suitable for ordinary conversation. Unless we’re ready to make that argument, we should probably call off the language police on this one.

Yeah, looking at this cartoon and seeing a parallel to the Dolchstoss myth really demands the kind of concentration and effort required to make yourself see the unicorn in one of those “Magic Eye” pictures.  Same thing goes for, say, putting a on a Happy Face.  No serious-minded person would leap to the conclusion that the use of these images mean that anybody is calling anybody else a Nazi.  First of all, it’s not like the National Socialists were particularly known for a reliance on symbols or iconography (I doubt that, if you polled even members of the High Command, you would find more than 2 or 3 of them who were comfortable using Photoshop.)

Secondly, this is, as Kevin points out, a “common phrase, commonly used,” (I must use it five or six times a day: “No!  I did pay a lot for this muffler — Midas stabbed me in the back!“…”Excuse me, do you have the time?  No?  Thanks for stabbing me in the back!“…”Say, do you mind if I work in here on the leg-press machine, or would you prefer to just stab me in the back!“).

Of course, we’re not talking about the phrase so much as we are Ramirez’s use of the image, and the Nazis would have had to have frequently and shamelessly employed something similar before you could legitimately get all bent out of…

 

Hm.  Well, I’m sure that’s just an outlier.  It’s not like they made a big deal about blaming Jews and liberals and politicians for the German loss in the War…

Although traditional anti-Jewish stereotypes remained virulent in the Weimar Republic, racial antisemitism became increasingly prominent following the war and revolution. Numerous völkisch and nationalist parties and associations added antisemitic elements to their manifestos. Antisemitic propaganda reached broad sections of the population through more than 700 newspapers and countless publications. 

 

Germans, think about it!”, Postcard, around 1923

With the “stab in the back legend”, the myth that the German army were unconquered in the field, antisemitic propaganda blamed the breakdown of the Kaiserreich on “Jewish revolutionary forces”. This caricature shows the Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann raising a dagger behind the backs of the soldiers. He is receiving the approval of Matthias Erzberger from the Centre Party. Wealthy Jews are pictured in the background as the alleged perpetrators of the deed. 

Alright, fine.  But for Ramirez to have been exploiting the concept of Dolchstoss would only make sense if there were a movement afoot in the wingnut world to blame our inevitable failure in Iraq on Democrats and certain fellow-traveling, weak-sister Republicans in Congress.  And yet, have we seen any such evidence?  Sadyno!

 

 

 

Ward, I’m Worried About The Beaver

Posted by scott on May 14th, 2007

Roy has discovered, through testimony from a totally dispassionate, nonpartisan source, that the modern junior high school is no longer merely a trial-by-adolescence-and-acne, but has metamorphosized into a nightmarish ordeal of unceasing (and meticulously diagrammed) blowjobs!  In the bathrooms!  In full view of the lunch ladies in the cafetorium!  Behind the popsicle-stick model of the U.S. Capitol made by Mrs. Merrill’s 5th Period Social Studies Class!  To quote Roy’s source: 

And the middle school kids were giving, and getting, blowjobs all day.

Backbreaking labor, no doubt, although I don’t think it’s the first thing I’d choose to write a blues song about, if I happened to inherit Leadbelly’s 12-string.  Still, all these complaints about the lost innocence of our nation’s middle schoolers reminded me how difficult it is to get a contemporary twelve year-old to appreciate the gravity of a boner.  Why, back in the day, boners were serious business!  A deftly-timed boner, thrust heedlessly and repeatedly into a delicate situation, could foil even the Batman and Robin, as the proprietor of Superdickery.com points out in his Seduction of the Innocent series:

Let’s work together to staunch this eruption of premature blowjobs, and create a world where our adolescents are once again free to take a pure, simple, childlike delight in such healthy and traditional pastimes as Duck Duck Goose, Red Light, Green Light, Queenie, Queenie, Who’s Got The Ball?, and Mother, May I (Sleep With Danger?).

Do it for the laughter.  For the love.  For the boners.

UPDATE:  Okay, I give up.  I just do.

Or the “money shot,” as the case may be.