Welcome to another round of “Name Robin’s Condition”! Here is your summary of Robin of Berkeley’s latest presentation:

The Enemy Within

We all go through it: the harsh wake-up call that things aren’t as they appear to be. [...] Just this week, I’ve been dealing with people undermining me whom I thought I could trust.

As a recovering liberal, I’ve had the shock of a lifetime learning that many of the threats to our country come from within. [...]

With the sabotage going on in my life, last night I couldn’t sleep a wink. I lay in bed disturbed, thinking of these people who want to harm me.

Yes, the correct answer is “paranoia.” Congratulations if you diagnosed this one correctly.

Anyway, over at Sadly, No!, D. Aristophanes has done some very good scholarship on the The Lost Prophesies Of Nostradamus. That inspired us to come up with one of the Lost Limericks of Wingnutland. Here you go:

There once was a therapist from Berkeley
Who claimed that progressives acted quite jerkily.
She would rant and she’d rave
To make them behave.
We hope the Thorazine makes her feel much more perkily.

If you want to write your own, we certainly can’t stop you.

Contests | 23 Comments »

Our friend David E. wrote to say:

My favorite pron movie title (I haven’t seen the movie, but the title will forever stay with me): Lezbollah.

Maybe we need a new contest, for best conservative pron title? Like, Why Don’t We Cuddle in the Road or Exit Only: The Story of My Anus?

I think that’s a terrific idea; let me see if I can help get things started.  How about:

Daddy’s Purity Balls

Two Wetsuits and a L’il Dildo

Larry Craig’s List #2: Knockin’ On Heaven’s Stall Door

Please submit your own nominations for the AFI’s 100 Greatest Conservative Porn Films, and possibly win a valuable prize (probably a Seka movie on Betamax — we haven’t worked out all the details with Doghouse Riley).

Contests | 86 Comments »

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 the Teen 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 absolutely nothing 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.

Contests | 20 Comments »

This Facebook ad reminded me to flack our Out-Weep A Wingnut! contest.  The rules are simple:  imagine the kind of gushing, gouting, spurting tributes that rightwing bloggers will be delivering in honor of Bush as the sunset of his presidency draws nigh, then come up with your own encomium to our 43rd President, trying to outdo the usual suspects in rage, delusion, lachrymose self-pity, and grotesquely inappropriate grandiloquence.  It can be wistful and poetic in the manner of a Mary Grabar, paranoid and pugnacious after the fashion of Andy McCarthy, bitter, vengeful, and vaguely threatening, alá Michelle Malkin(s), or straight-up bukkake in the style of John Hinderaker.  Submit your entries to the comments of this post.

The winner will receive a World o’ Crap mug and a signed copy of our book, (which would make a lovely re-gifting idea for the holidays), and his or her tribute will be posted here on Inauguration Day.  So let’s get hagiographying!

Contests | 1 Comment »

Historic occasions deserve words of historic value; inspiring, enduring speeches, such as Lincoln’s Second Inaugural (“with malice toward none, with charity for all”), Martin Luther King’s, “I Have a Dream,” speech, and Miss Teen South Carolina’s Address to the Pageant (“I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps”).  Today is one such occasion.  Not merely because we have elected Barack Obama president, but because we are about to bid farewell to George W. Bush.  But is it possible for mere words to do justice to this man, and the giant-asteroid-from-Armageddon-like impact he has had on this nation over the past eight years?  Personally, I would think a horsewhip, barrel of tar, or federal indictment would be a more apposite testimonial; nonetheless, I suspect that even now, all across Wingnuttia, grown men and women are biting down on their quivering lower lips, and putting pen to tear-stained foolscap.  And you know what that means…

It means another World O’Crap contest!  Brought to you by our friend, David E., who sent me this prescient email on July 14:

I’m thinking ahead, as many of us are, to Jan. 20, 2009. In the cinema of my mind, I see Obama approaching Bush on the tarmac in front of the helicopter waiting to take Bush away. Bush reaches out his hand to shake Obama’s. Obama starts to lean in, but then pulls his hand back and knees him in the groin.  The movie usually ends there, but I suppose after the credits, Michelle could kick him in the face with a spiked heel. And then Sam Jackson could appear just because it would be cool.

But I digress. I got to thinking about how our seriously nutty friends in the right-wing blogosphere will summarize the Bush presidency. What rhetorical flights of fancy they will use in the verbal fellatios. What will the encomiums be? Hinderaker’s going to have work hard to top his “Bush is like a misunderstood genius” post of years ago, which won him the coveted World O Crap Top Wingnut award (or whatever we called it). But I think between him, and Pam, and Malkin and K-Lo and Ace and Confederate Yankee, they’ll make a run for it.  My visions run along the lines of, “Fly, little sparrow. The world will come to appreciate the wonders you worked, to see your healing power. You did unite us, whether we know it or not. Our hearts are forever transformed. America has the chance to be reborn in your wake.”

So, I propose a contest. Let W’oC readers submit their own parody encomium of the Bush years. Put them up as a gallery . . . and then let’s compare to the actual ones that start emerging from the swamp. Winner goes to any W’oC reader that can make one in parody that is more saccharine and sentimental than the worst of the actual ones.  I’m not sure it can be done.

But I certainly think it’s worth trying, don’t you?  Last night I received this email from Sheri:

I was just scrolling through “the Corner,” looking to see how the election results were going (I figure the Cornerites are like canaries in a mine), and I saw this:

While We’re Waiting   []

o be honest, when I saw the headline, I thought this was going to be a sniffy, “thanks alot for getting us into this mess” kind of piece. But no, it is genuine thanks to a President who did a few really important things, because they were the right and not the popular thing to do. And he did them with the sure knowledge that his thanks will come when he is long gone. I join Andrew Breitbart in still believing, despite all the domestic failings, despite the policies that leave conservatism in a heap on the ground, awaiting revival, that George Bush is a genuinely decent man, with very solid instincts in the War on Terror — the signal issue of his terms. Keeping us safe is not a small thing. So thank you, Mr. President, indeed. We hope your successor does as well.

It has begun . . .

And I just stepped in this, over the the WSJ:

Just as Americans have gained perspective on how challenging Truman’s presidency was in the wake of World War II, our country will recognize the hardship President Bush faced these past eight years — and how extraordinary it was that he accomplished what he did in the wake of the September 11 attacks.The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.

Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty — a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.

True, this is actually more pouty than weepy — Americans are a bunch of snotty ingrates who don’t deserve to have a man like Bush do our presidentin’ for us — but I’m sure David is right, and as the day of his departure draws nigh, the retrospectives will grow increasingly lachrymose.

So here’s the rules.  Write your own encomium to Bush, Cheney, their administration, accomplishments, and legacy, and make it as teary, over the top, and choked with rage and self-pity as possible.  Post it here in comments, and the winner (announced January 20, 2009) will receive either a valuable prize, or a Wo’C Mug and an autographed copy of .

Contests | 32 Comments »

Whiskey Fire is displeased by the insipid mulligan stew they’ve been serving up over at Townhall, and is inclined to send it back to the kitchen:

Nothing illustrates the extent to which “conservatives” have so much absolute nothing going on nowadays is how hard it’s gotten to make fun of them.

Even Townhall is just plain boring nowadays. I mean, here’s Kathleen “I Like Big Fuzzy Balls” Parker talking about… Wimbledon (sigh), straining manfully (or the lexical equivalent) to infuse the proceedings with sufficient priapism

But Kathleen manages to salvage an otherwise disastrous presentation when she rolls out the dessert cart:

Though you have to admire the imagery here:

“Throughout, both men were mesmerizingly fierce and yet imperturbably calm. At crucial points they were like gladiators playing chess.”

Kind of hard to envision anything more disappointing than that, isn’t it?  Here you show up at Circus Maximus in your best toga, all ready to watch two beefy, oiled up titans slowly hack each other to death, and instead you get a couple of contemplative, egghead Hercules sitting in the middle of the Coliseum, chins resting on their knuckles like Rodin’s The Thinker, and staring silently at a chessboard for minutes at a time before finally deigning to shift a pawn.

Now maybe it was a lucky accident, maybe it was pure serendipity, but somehow Kathleen managed to construct a simile which not only declined to convey her meaning, it actually rose up and bludgeoned the rest of her sentence to death with a balpeen hammer, then dragged it down to the basement and buried it under that freezer full of trout.
I don’t know about you, but I find that inspiring.  So in the spirit of the Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest, I’d like to challenge you, the reader, to craft the most heat-efficient, self-immolating metaphor, simile, comparison, conceit, synecdoche, allegory, or trope you can.  Because America needs your worst ideas now more than ever.  Look around you; we are currently at the mercy of Townhall, WorldNetDaily, RenewAmerica, and other members of the Wingnut Cartel to supply us with cheap laughs and bargain schadenfreude, and recent events have shown the importance of weaning ourselves from our addiction to foreign (and failed) figures of speech.  Write your congressman a really poorly worded letter insisting that we must drill down into our lizard brains now if we ever hope to achieve independence in lamely executed literary devices.

Join us, won’t you?  Thank you.

Contests | 15 Comments »

Yes, it’s time once more to exercise your franchise.  And since we’re no longer permitted to vote for President of the United States — or at least, we’re politely rescued from such impudent acts of lese-majeste by having our ballots spirited away from polling stations and respectfully interred in a composting toilet in the basement of a condemned ice house owned by the Republican National Committee – your franchise needs all the exercise it can get, if it’s not going to develop a pair of Hugh Hewittian man tits.

And after all, there are still some areas of urgent public policy in which our voices can and must be heard!  To wit:  we can stand up and be counted in the do-or-die race to select Jonah Goldberg’s ghost writer.  So please review the entries submitted in this thread and vote here for your favorite Fake Page From Jonah’s Imaginery Book.  And remember, Jonah’s reputation as a groundbreaking political thinker and exhaustive researcher are at stake, so think about it for a couple of seconds before you cast your ballot.

We had some wonderfully funny (and eerily prescient) entries, and they deserve to be recognized, if only because the people who posted them spent far more time and effort on Jonah’s book than he has.  As previously threatened announced, the winner will receive their choice of either Better Living Through Bad Movies, or a World O’ Crap mug.  (Initially, because some of our contestants are in early middle age, I had planned to award either a copy of Liberal Fascism, or a coupon good for 10% off the Early Bird Special at Denny’s, but unfortunately, the odds of their surviving until the actual publication date seem a bit grim.)

Contests | 17 Comments »

Roger Ailes (The Non-Evil One) pointed out the other day that the release date of Jonah Goldberg’s hotly anticipated book, Liberal Fascism, has receded so far into the future that it’s now being edited by a Morlock. At the same time, Wo’C reader Kathy suggested that we stage another of our lame contests as a way to avoid coming up with any original content, and the thought occurred to me: Why not marshal the power of the blogosphere, and write Jonah’s book for him?

But before we can stage this literary barn-raising, we should probably acquaint ourselves with the subject and style of Jonah’s magnum opus, so that we can do justice to its groundbreaking scholarship, and sober, yet striking cover art:

Unfortunately, Jonah has been as cagey about the contents of his book as the Office of the Vice President has been about the actual number of people Dick Cheney has shot in the face while staggering around various game ranches, cranked to a frenzy on a cocktail of digitalis and Rumple Minze.

Fortunately, Jonah was moved to reveal certain, peekaboo details, when Tim Noah at Slate threw a little chin music his way. Unfortunately, Jonah was evidently in a Star Trekian mood at the time, channeling Captain Kirk from the “I” episode of The Original Series. (When Spock is unable to adequately classify a giant menacing space amoeba, Kirk rejoins, “If you can’t tell me what it is, let’s use reverse logic — Perhaps it’ll help if you tell me what it isn’t.“) And that’s exactly how Jonah describes his forthcoming (or, more accurately, eighthcoming) tome:

My book isn’t like Dinesh’s latest book. It isn’t like any Ann Coulter book. It isn’t what the Amazon description says or what the Economist claims it is. Or what Frank Rich imagines it is. It is a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care.

And just to underscore what ruthless charlatans his publishers are, here’s the bottle of snake oil they’re trying to palm off as Jonah’s book:

Since the rise and fall of the Nazis in the midtwentieth century, fascism has been seen as an extreme right-wing phenomenon. Liberals have kept that assumption alive, hurling accusations of fascism at their conservative opponents. LIBERAL FASCISM offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg shows that the original fascists were really on the Left and that liberals, from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton, have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler’s National Socialism.

Goldberg draws striking parallels between historic fascism and contemporary liberal doctrines. He argues that “political correctness” on campuses and calls for campaign finance reform echo the Nazis’ suppression of free speech; and that liberals, like their fascist forebears, dismiss the democratic process when it yields results they dislike, insist on the centralization of economic decision-making, and seek to insert the authority of the state in our private lives–from bans on smoking to gun control. Covering such hot issues as morality, anti-Semitism, science versus religion, health care, and cultural values, he boldly illustrates the resemblances between the opinions advanced by Hitler and Mussolini and the current views of the Left.

Impeccably researched and persuasively argued, LIBERAL FASCISM will elicit howls of indignation from the liberal establishment–and rousing cheers from the Right.

So. Whatever you write, make sure it doesn’t contain any of that stuff.

So here’s the deal. Write a page of Jonah’s book and post it in the comments. The first page, the last page — whatever you prefer. And remember, he probably triple spaces, so it doesn’t have to be the length of an actual page. Just make sure that it’s serious, thoughtful, detailed, and caring. And that you outsource all the research to your readers.

Good luck to all. The winner will receive their choice of a copy of , or a World O’ Crap mug. Go forth and procrastinate.

Contests | 58 Comments »

I have something to confess:  Lately, I just don’t feel like I’ve been doing my part in the War on Christmas.  Oh sure, I’ve served as an air raid warden, and I’ve bought war bonds and saved bacon drippings, and I take part in all the paper drives, scrap metal drives, and rubber-meets-the-bat drives.  And sure, I stopped Mr. Potter from taking over the town, but even though my sore ear keeps me out of combat, I can’t help feeling that I should be doing more.

But then, couldn’t we all be doing more?  Hey, I know!  Let’s all work together, and I bet we can make this the best War on Christmas ever!  Just list your nominees for the worst Christmas movie ever made.  Candidates need not be limited to films that are badly made or poorly acted, but may also include films that reek of cynicism or ennui, in that perfunctory, Hallmark Hall of Fame sort of way.  And the movie need not focus on Christmas, so long as it’s bad enough and there’s a defensible connection to the holiday.

Post your nominations in the comments.  We’ll select one to receive the Better Living Through Bad Movies treatment, and we’ll post the winner…loser…whatever…on Christmas Eve.  And you can keep the Sneaker Phone as our free gift to you.

(The two MST3K holiday episodes, the Mexican Santa Claus and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians are ineligible for this contest.  Odds of winning are based on number of entries.  Void in Utah.)

Contests | 82 Comments »

For those of you keeping score, here are the results of our recent “Who Said It?” contest. (This round was more difficult that most, because it required a thorough knowledge of NewsMax spam, which is an exceedingly narrow intellectual niche — and while I plan to obtain a Ph.D. in it, I can understand why some of you might not have the same fascination with it as I do.)

But on to the answers, winners, and smart alecks:

1. Everyone’s favorite “news man” John Stossel.

The first to name that fraud was Bill S.

And a style point goes out to Tara the anti-social social worker for her response:

1. Friday, still mad at Robinson Crusoe for calling him icky. Friday�s conversion from liberalism occurred right after �Dragnet� ended

2. Everybody’s favorite “outspoken author,”Ann Coulter.

First to name that alien life form was D. Sidhe.

Style points to Pete, for guessing “Matt Drudge.” (Because we’ve always suspected that Ann is really just Matt done up in drag.)

And another point to Tara, for her response, “The anti-Christ, still miffed at Jesus�s rudeness to his money-changers (thus the need to slander Jesus).”

3. Everybody’s favorite NRA Executive VP, Wayne La Pierre. Wayne is also the author of “The Global War on Your Guns: Inside the U.N. Plan to Destroy the Bill of Rights,” which is about how we must all band together and protect innocent, vulnerable guns Hillary Clinton, who is the REAL Damien Thorne.

Nobody got this one, so as a public service, here’s a little more from Wayne, courtesy of a recent NewsMax interview:

“George Soros is like a new toxin that is polluting American politics. These people consider themselves earthlings first and citizens of any other country second. They eat breakfast in London and dinner in New York and fly around the world in their jets.

“It is increasingly infecting American politics like a germ, and we are going to have to deal with it – including the national and international media.”

George Soros is the disease, guns are the flu vaccine! (Or however that tagline went.)

4. This was spam from everybody’s favorite Satanic affiliate, The Republican National Committee.

This was another one which nobody guessed correctly. I guess none of the rest of you received this missive from “David Rexrode, National Director of Coalitions,” which means that I really should have followed David’s instructions and forwarded his email to each of you. Darn.

But style points to Pete, for guessing “Roberta, Sabina, Catherine, Moira, and Elizabeth Forbes,” and to Tara, for her guess, “The Grim Reaper, trying to blame his grimness on taxes.”

5. Everybody’s favorite orgy prober, Peter King.

First to get this one was everyone’s favorite gunsel, Mr. Doghouse Riley. (Mr. Riley also gets a style point for giving King’s full identification, “US Representative Peter ‘The Amityville Congressman’ King.”)

And we think that Tara was close with her guess, “JimmyJeff GannonGuckert. How could those ingrates hold a hooker orgy and not invite him?!”

6. Everyone’s favorite band of Christmas warriors (and evil minded busybodies), Don Wildmon’s American Family Association.

First to name that bunch of whited sepulchers was R.Porrofatto (we do give credit for multiple choices).

I believe the person to get the most correct answers in one post (three) was King Spirula. Congrats to the King!

All of today’s winners get WSI points, which, as you know, can possibly someday be redeemed for fictional prizes, or one of the following BRAND NEW KITTENS:

1. Hoss, a sweet-tempered, very cute, extremely large, black-and-white kitten (who was formerly known as “GodzillaKitten,” until we got tired of that moniker).

2. Brad Kitt, a very handsome celebrity kitten who has markings similar to those of a blue point Siamese (but a stocky build and fluffy hair), and who thinks the world should revolve around him.

3. Runty, a plucky, brave, very cute, undersized gray-and-white tabby kitten with a lot of heart.

4. Squawky, a sweet-faced, very adorable tabby dictator kitten with a loud cry and a plan to RULE THE WORLD!

So, keep saving those points, and one of these hand-raised kittens could be yours!

Contests, Wingnuts | 5 Comments »