Moondoggie:

Sometimes I think my head is so big because it’s full of dreams…
…Then I remember it’s the size of a tennis ball…

And Riley:

Look, when we say Cat Blogging we mean CAT blogging…
Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go mock Jonah Goldberg’s latest LA Times column…

Wild Things | 3 Comments »

According to Reuters…

KINSHASA (Reuters) – Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men’s penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Somewhere, in an undisclosed, but no longer secure location, Dick Cheney jerks awake in a cold sweat…

Reports of so-called penis snatching

Well that — oh forget it. I’m not even gonna bother….

are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.

…and where most gynecological exams are performed by dentists.

Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo’s sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows

Unfortunately, Rush had a guest host that day. Apparently he was detained at the airport after returning from a recent golf outing in sub-Saharan Africa.

MORE good news! | 16 Comments »

From the weekend box office totals at Deadline Hollywood Daily:

The only other newcomer in the Top 10 was conservative commentator Ben Stein’s documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed which makes the intelligent design argument. Playing in 1,052 theaters, the pic distributed by Rocky Mountain Pictures fell over the weekend from 8th to 10th place after earning $1.2M Friday and $989K Saturday for a $2.9M weekend. But the per screen average for Friday was a low $1,145 and for Saturday $940 (and $2,830 for the entire weekend), showing there wasn’t much pent-up demand for the film despite an aggressive publicity campaign on right-wing media. So much for the conservative argument that people would flock to films not representing the “agenda of liberal Hollywood”. (Just for comparison purposes: left-wing Michael Moore’s most recent Sicko did $4.4 mil its opening weekend from only 441 theaters, and his Fahrenheit 9/11 did $23.9M its opening weekend from 868 venues.)

That aggressive publicity campaign may actually be to blame for the disappointing turnout, setting expectations for an action-packed, high octane rollercoaster ride of a film that no adenoidal ex-Nixon staffer could possibly satisfy. For instance, World Net Daily’s story on the film was titled: Ben Stein to battle Darwin in major film.

Now that’s a movie I’d pay to see, even if the headline turned out to be literal, and the film involved nothing more than Ben Stein rolling around on the floor with Darwin’s worm-eaten remains for 90 minutes, because I’m pretty sure he’d still get his ass kicked. Instead, we get this:

In the movie, Stein, who is also a lawyer, economist, former presidential speechwriter, author and social commentator, is stunned by what he discovers – an elitist scientific establishment that has traded in its skepticism for dogma. Even worse, say publicists for the feature film

Well, I guess we’ll never know what was worse, because the preceding six words are the universal signal to STOP. READING.

Waaah! | 41 Comments »

Finally, Abstinence Only sex education reaches its logical conclusion with this exciting new program!

You know, life is short, and masturbation is not the answer, especially when there’s a skeleton with a giant clock watching you wank, because, you know, talk about performance anxiety!

Just look around you, time is moving very fast without stopping ,
The clock is ticking are you listening to it?
Just look back when you were a child, was it far away in the distance past?

No, no it was almost like yesterday. Time is moving so fast that you can wake up and you will be 70 or 80 years old and without realizing it.

Life is very short.
Finally, find the truth about Masturbation and what you can do to stop it.
Learn how to make the most of your life now!

While you’re whacking off, Vietnamese moppets in Ho Chi Minh City are making our sneakers, Indians in Mumbai are processing our credit card payments and applications, and Romanians IT guys are taking our tech support calls. In today’s fast-paced, global economy, you just can’t afford to take the time to masturbate, unless you’ve got some efficient, reliable porn that allows you to successfully rub one out while your bagel is toasting.

But let’s not panic. Perhaps you’re not one of those sorry wretches in thrall to the Goddess of the Manual Arts, squandering the precious moments of your life in a squalid, squelching slick of bodily fluids and artificial lubricants. But you’d better take the quiz just to make sure (check all statements that apply…)

I want to know the real effect on my health of frequent masturbation. Is it “ok” or does it really destroy my health, as I feel it does. I want to find a scientific answer to this, and if it affects my health negatively I want to know how to overcome it.

Sounds like you need the kind of scientific answers that only an e-book sold exclusively through a poorly spelled website can provide!

I am masturbating

As we speak? Man, you have got it bad!

and I feel inside my self that it is wrong , however I can’t stop doing it. After I masturbate I feel guilty I want to overcome this habit.

Well, it might ease your guilt if you didn’t dress like a nun whenever you beat off.

I have been masturbating for many years now

Braggart.

and I want to get rid of this habit. I tried many times to stop it, but always, after a few days, I come back to watch pornographic content on the Internet and in movies. I have a sincere desire to stop it.

…until they update Candid Cameltoe again.

I masturbate often while watching pornographic sites on the net.

Yep. Sounds like you’ve grasped the concept all right.

I spend much valuable time which prevents me from doing other important activities. I feel that it is time to overcome the habit of masturbation.

If setting aside sufficient time to accomplish your goals is the issue, may I suggest you read The 7 Habits of Highly Horny People?

I want to know if it is a “good” or “bad” thing to masturbate.

Depends how you’re doing it. If you’re chafing, it’s probably “bad.”

I want to know with a scientific rather than a dogmatic explanation.

Dude, you are so making me hot.

After masturbation I feel exhausted , like I have lost my strength. I understand that this is not a positive situation, and I want to do something to overcome it.

If you’re winded after jerking off, time management may not be your biggest problem.

After I masturbate I become aggressive to my partner and often this leads me to destructive and negative actions. I am the cause of this, since after masturbating I become more anxious and nervous.

That must be an interesting household…

“Hi baby, I’m home.”

“Fuck off!”

“Wha–? Have you been masturbating?!”

“I…I don’t know what you–Augh!! Make the skeleton stop looking at me!!“

I see successful people and want to become like them. I understand that I spend most of my time in masturbation and that they don’t and I am willing to take action to overcome this habit once for all.

“To begin with, I’m going to widen my stance…”

I want to watch pornographic content on the Internet all the time although I don’t masturbate.

I’m just a connoisseur of ass pimples.

I know inside myself that this habit is not a positive one because it is taking the time that I could use to do something which is more fulfilling and constructive.

Like listening to music with my speakers off.

But is masturbation really a problem? Especially if your mom doesn’t catch you?

The Problem of Masturbation

• Masturbation destroys your health

• You waste your valuable time on masturbation

Actually, as any reader of this blog will tell you, my time isn’t really all that valuable.

• Weakens your ability to make money (since you spend most of your valuable time watching pornographic content and then masturbating)

• Destroys your marriage or your relationship with your partner

• Makes you feel guilty after masturbation (inferiority complex)

“I’m a lousy masturbator. I couldn’t masturbate my way out of a damp grocery bag…!”

• Prevents you from having better sex with your partner

• Creates a negative psychology that can affect your business life

“I was going to sign the contracts, Mr. Stevens, but I just can’t help thinking that at some point, you’ve been swabbing the knob.”

• Prevents you from making your life’s dream come true (since you spend most of your valuable time watching pornographic content and then masturbating)

“You’re complaining about masturbating 8 hours a day? Why, when I was a kid, I had to quit school in the fifth grade and start masturbating to help my family. I jerked off 14 hours a day, 6 days a week, and you think that was easy? We didn’t even have internet porn in my day! Why, all I had to work with was a brief glimpse of a dowager’s ankle as she stepped into a brougham!”

• Successful people are not addicted to the habit of masturbation simply because they spend their time doing what is important for them and their loved ones and not in masturbation. Are you willing to take the action and stop the habit of masturbation? or Will you allow this habit to destroy your life completely?Remember life is very short.How many times did you find yourself in a situation like this? When part of your self understood that this it is wrong to sit and spend hours of your unique valuable time browsing or watching pornographic films or websites, but at the same time you couldn’t do anything to avoid doing it?

  You feel and you know that it is not a good thing to do it, but still you are doing it.

And just remember that whenever you masturbate, somewhere there’s a skeleton with a huge Flava Flav clock timing you.

Really? | 31 Comments »

Is it a subdural hematoma? Is it his boyish enthusiasm for oddly named sandwiches? Is it an odor?

Well, whatever it is, Matt’s not letting the miasma of idiocy that surrounds him at all times like a Grand Banks fog deter him from asking the questions that were even too stupid for Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos:

What is it about Obama that Attracts Hamas, Communists, and Domestic Terrorists?

In the 1990s, it was often noted that a great many of Bill Clinton’s friends were either dead or in jail.

Yeah, the same thing was often noted in the 1980s about Nelson Mandela’s friends. That joke never gets old…

Similarly, Barack Obama seems to curry favor with some very questionable characters … Granted, in some cases Obama disavows them (he sort of did this with Rev. Wright’s comments).

Yeah, he kinda gave a speech or somethin’.

In other cases, he has not sought their endorsement (such as anti-semite Louis Farrakhan) –

…but they’re both black, so they gotta know each other.

…but ultimately, people have to wonder what it is about Obama that attracts the support of Hamas, Communists, and domestic terrorists to him ….

That’s a pretty diverse group of interests, so I’m going to guess that Obama is either a uniter, not a divider, or maybe it’s his Hai Karate.

This subject came up in last night’s debate when a question was asked about Bill Akers. Obama served on a board for an anti-poverty group with Bill Akers of the Weather Underground.

To be fair, Obama misheard the introductions and thought he was meeting Angus MacLise of the Velvet Underground.

But of course, he’s a changed man, right? Wrong: In 2001, he told the New York Times, “I don’t regret the bombings.” Last night, Obama responded to questions about this by saying,

This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who’s a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He’s not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.

… But, of course, they don’t really know each other that, well, right? Well, last February Obama’s Chief Strategist David Axelrod told Politico’s Ben Smith this:

“Bill Ayers lives in his neighborhood. Their kids attend the same school … They’re certainly friendly, they know each other, as anyone whose kids go to school together.” (Ben Smith, “Ax On Ayers,” The Politico’s “Ben Smith” Blog, www.politico.com, 2/26/08)

Well, I was going to support Obama, before Matt provided this incontrovertible evidence of the Senator’s chicanery: Obama says that Bill Akers lives in his neighborhood and he knows him, and Obama’s own Chief Strategist stabs him in the back by confirming his account! But for some reason, Obama doesn’t see fit to mention that their kids go to school together, and as everyone knows, PTA meetings are hotbeds of violent treason. I remember when I was in Junior High, my mom finally quit the Booster Club in disgust because she wanted to hold a raffle to raise money to buy new marching band uniforms, while all the other mothers only wanted to bomb the Phone Company and levitate the Pentagon.

Well, if domestic terrorists aren’t enough reason for you to raise a red flag about Obama, former Sandanista Rebel Leader Daniel Ortega praised Obama’s campaign as “revolutionary.”

Really? There’s an African-American with a serious chance of being elected to the Presidency of the United States, and Ortega considers that “revolutionary?” Hey, Mustache, you might wanna turn down the hyperbole.

But then, generations of TV pitchwomen said the same thing about laundry detergents with enzymes, and that stuff only made things whiter.

Also, during an interview, a top Hamas political adviser essentially endorsed Obama, saying: “

We don’t mind–actually we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will (win) the election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy, great man with great principle, and he has a vision to change America to make it in a position to lead the world community but not with domination and arrogance…”

… So why do all these people like Obama? Is it that they think he’s amenable to their agenda? Or do they just see him as “green” and inexperienced and malleable?

The question is: Do Americans want someone who — at best – is obviously viewed as so naive and easily influenced running the show, really?

Personally, I’m more comfortable with them blogging about lunch:

My Day

So what’s up with me??

Well, I’ve been following all the news about last night’s Dem debate, as well as the Pope’s visit.

Oh yeah, I also spoke to a group of journalists/politicians from Sweden. That was pretty cool. Following that, I had lunch with Jim “The Show” Eltringham at Lawson’s deli. I had the sandwich called the “Young Republican” (chicken salad and bacon. yum).

I had a very good blog afternoon over at Townhall. Posted like 5 good posts. This gives me a feeling of accomplishment. One of the good things about blogging is that office work often lacks immediate rewards. Unlike someone who “builds” something (a chair, a house, etc.), a lot of time, you can work in an office for weeks without having anything to really “show” for it. But if you post a blog — well that’s one thing you did. (At least, that’s what I tell myself).

I’m looking forward to The Office tonight (did I mention I have an entire blog devoted to that show?).

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? I don’t know. But I do know that whoever the guardians of the democratic process are, they sure do like bacon.

I Pity the Fool | 11 Comments »

Katherine Jean Lopez peers out from her cloister and espies some women spoiling the pope’s reception with complaints about ecclesiastical inequality, and mutters darkly, “Who will rid me of these turbulent bitches?”

In the run-up to Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the United States, there was a tremendous display of unseriousness at the National Press Club, followed by a sacrilege at a nearby Washington, D.C., church.

…and then bars and punch in the Fellowship Hall.

A misguided group called the Women’s Ordination Conference held a protest — a press conference and an all-woman “mass” at a local Methodist church. The group, as the name suggests, wants to see “the ordination of women as priests, deacons and bishops.” Sadly, the group doesn’t understand women or the Catholic Church.

I have to agree with K-Lo; the vast majority of my relationships failed because the girls — try as I might to explain it to them — just didn’t understand women, and it led to many tearful confrontations. Which is why I now exclusively date octogenerian bachelors with a taste for hierarchy and high fashion, because 1) if you’re looking for a top, you can’t do much better than an ex-Nazi and former head of the Catholic Inquisition, 2) what woman could pull off red Prada slippers with a ten gallon mitre, 3) if opposites attract, then who is better equipped to really understand and appreciate a woman’s needs than a celibate old man who rules a patriarchal city-state?

“In the three years of his papacy, Pope Benedict XVI has made a few encouraging statements about women, but he has done nothing that suggests willingness to open the discussion on women’s ordination. That’s why for his 81st birthday, we are offering the pope a present: the gift of women, their leadership, talents, experiences and unique perspectives.” The group trailed the pope mobile to papal events with a billboard truck that asked: “Pope Benedict, How long must women wait for equality? Ordain Catholic Women.”

As they are stuck on their version of “equality,” the fundamental problem with the group and its message is that whatever Benedict says or does will not be enough for them.

You know how it is. You come home late from the Conclave, you’ve had one chalice of benediction too many, and you eat all the cookies left out on the kitchen counter in an effort to sober up, but it turns out they were supposed to be for the reception at the parish house after Mass, and then you throw ‘em all up in that stupid potpourri bowl she keeps on the coffee table. And the next morning or afternoon or whatever the hell time it is when you can finally get off the toilet you make a special trip downstairs to apologize, and is it enough?

No. It is not.

They are not open to listening, but to dictating an unworkable agenda. If they were open to it, they would hear and see the Roman Catholic Church’s embrace and celebration of women. Women will not be priests, but they will always be an essential part of the Church.

Every foot needs a sandal.

Pope John Paul II may have been best in articulating the Catholic perspective on women — with great love, appreciation and, to use a popular word, empowerment. He wrote in his 1995 encyclical “Evangelium Vitae” (“The Gospel of Life”): “In transforming culture so that it supports life, women occupy a place, in thought and action, which is unique and decisive. It depends on them to promote a ‘new feminism’ which rejects the temptation of imitating models of ‘male domination,’ in order to acknowledge and affirm the true genius of women in every aspect of the life of society, and overcome all discrimination, violence and exploitation.”

In other words, don’t start getting any big ideas about treating us the way we’ve been treating you for the past two millenia.

During a speech in Rome this February, Benedict reiterated John Paul’s message: “In the face of cultural and political currents that attempt to eliminate, or at least to obfuscate and confuse, the sexual differences written into human nature, considering them to be cultural constructions, it is necessary to recall the design of God that created the human being male and female, with a unity and at the same time an original and complementary difference. Human nature and the cultural dimension are integrated in an ample and complex process that constitutes the formation of the identity of each, where both dimensions — the feminine and the masculine — correspond to and complete each other.”

Men and women both have brains, hands, hearts, and can each work many wonders. But you’ve got to have a dick if you want to wear a dress and pass out wafers.

John Paul the Great…

I’m glad that they’ve finally decided on a postmortem honorific for John Paul, although I cast my call-in vote for “King of Pop” at the end of last week’s American Graven Idol.

…and the former Cardinal Ratzinger have not been reinventing a women-hating church.

Why reinvent the wheel when there’s a Pep Boys down the block?

They have been reiterating what Christ taught and what’s at the very heart of the Catholic Church.

I’m no biblical scholar, and even less qualified to comment on Catholic dogma, but I don’t recall Jesus spending a lot of time assigning duties based on sex. But apparently Mary Magdalene wasn’t invited to the Last Supper, which was something of a sausage fest if you believe the frescoes, and theologians have inferred from this that Christ’s motto was therefore “Bro’s before Ho’s.”

The Gospel tells us that the people left standing at the foot of Christ’s crucifixion were women — no weaker sex, but stalwart supports. Women are building the foundation, which is carved into the walls of the Church. When I recently toured St. Peter’s Basilica for the first time, my group of traveling American female commentators noticed the overwhelming presence of women in the home of St. Peter and his papal successors. Female saints and virtues portrayed as women: Charity, Truth, Prudence and Justice. Charity is presented as a mother nursing a baby, with additional children at her feet. I thought of the many stay-at-home moms doing the grassroots work of civilization-building. Perhaps the most famous work of art in St. Peter’s is the “Piet,” a moving tribute to a mother’s sacrificial devotion and love, depicting the Mother of God with her dying child in her arms.

So please stay out of our club, unless we’re sick or dying, then please come in and make us soup and give us a sponge bath and pick up the place.

There. Don’t you feel empowered?

Why Can't A Woman Be More Like A Man? | 14 Comments »

Moondoggie and Riley:

“All I said was you could paint a white stripe down your back and I might get into a skunk costume and speak in a French accent, and then possibly chase you around the entertainment center while making kissy sounds like Charles Boyer, but fine! Forget it!

That’s what I get for putting that woman up on a pedestal…”

Wild Things | 1 Comment »

We continue our look at how Golden Age Hollywood supported, rather than undermined, America’s war effort by producing films featuring stirring, patriotic themes, casual racism, and stories about draft-dodging, leotard-clad bachelors and their adolescent life partners. This week, it’s Chapter 9 of the 1943 Batman serial: Sign of the Sphinx!

Let’s recap: When last we left The Batman, The Robin, Ming the Merciless Miner, and Linda and Her Amazing Jiffy Pop Hair-do, they had all gone to Knott’s Berry Farm and were roughhousing with some dapper thugs in the Calico Mine ride. The Japanese spies (actually, American mobsters who are serving as private sector security forces for Japan after receiving a no-bid contract) had taken Ming at gunpoint to his mine where they planned to steal his radium and drink his milkshake. “But,” the narrator breathlessly exclaims, “Batman arrives in time to give the enemy some real opposition!” And he does! If by “opposition” you mean “a tubby, ill-dressed punching bag who falls down more frequently than a fainting goat.”

One of the criminals trips and falls on the detonator and there’s a huge explosion (don’t you hate when that happens? This is why I baby-proof my detonators). And when I say “huge explosion,” I mean “an off-camera stagehand listlessly flings a handful of dust at the set.” But that’s good enough for Daka’s ruthless minions, and they pronounce The Batman dead, without bothering to peek around the corner and check. A quick back-of-the-envelope tally shows that while the bad guys have now pronounced Batman dead in all nine chapters, and have been wrong every single time, they still have quite a way to go to beat William Kristol’s record on Iraq.

Robin, as he does every episode, runs and pulls some crap off the Batman’s head and helps him to his feet. Then our hero hoists an unconscious Linda off the ground and holds her at a weird angle like a rag doll, letting her neck loll alarmingly from side to side, just in case she had any crushed vertebrae.

Suddenly, Alfred runs in shouting, “Master! Master!” Thanks to the head injury he sustained at the end of the last chapter, Alfred now thinks he’s Renfield. On the bright side, they find that one of Daka’s men has survived the explosion, and immediately decide the best thing to do with a trauma victim is to tie him up and stuff him in a small, windowless U-Haul trailer and drive around the desert.

Back at the lair, Daka is peeved that yet another of his schemes for world conquest has gone tits up, and threatens to use “drastic measures” in order to motivate his malingering staff. The new chief thug (who by the way looks exactly like the old chief thug, except this one didn’t call Daka a yellow-skinned “squint-eye” and then get eaten by alligators) points out that they did eliminate The Batman. The brilliant Oriental spymaster decides to believe this, even though it’s never been true before, and there are still five chapters to go. But now Daka has to replace the two men who died in the mine explosion, and testily orders one of his underlings to post a want ad on Mobster.com.

Meanwhile, back at the Dark Knight’s combination Batcave and Cubicle, our hero sits at his desk and interviews the surviving thug. Coincidentally, the Batman also threatens to use “drastic measures” if he doesn’t get what he wants, causing Daka to get all pissy and accuse the Batman of copying off his torture memo.

The Batman leaves the quisling trussed to a chair, remarking ominously, “A few hours alone with our vampire friends may cause you to change your mind.” Which explains why the erstwhile sophisticate Alfred Pennyworth is now shouting “Master!” and eating bugs.

As soon as he’s alone, the thug wriggles loose. He quickly surveys the Batman’s office, then decides to use the phone to make a personal call. Even worse, he makes a bunch of copies of his resume and charges it to Marketing, then sends an unauthorized fax.

Bruce disguises himself as a tough guy by applying a banana-shaped schnoz and a unibrow, although in my opinion he looks less like a hoodlum, and more like Lucille Ball in that one episode where she was hiding from William Holden and accidentally lit her putty nose on fire.

Posing as a mook named “Chuck White,” Bruce goes to a waterfront dive called the Sphinx Club. Inside, Chief Thug 2.0 observes “Chuck” through the world’s largest peephole and finds himself curiously but deeply moved by this strapping stranger and his trunk-like proboscis. He invites the newcomer into the back room and, seeing as they have an opening, interviews him for the position of Seditious Goon. But he warns “Chuck” that they’ll have to check his references, and frisk him to A) make sure he’s not a cop by checking to see if he’s carrying a badge, and B) make sure he’s not a stool pigeon by checking to see if he’s carrying a pigeon.

At last, the Caped Crusader is poised to insinuate himself in the bosom of Daka’s organization and crack the spy ring wide open! So naturally he panics and pulls a gun, shrieking, “Nobody’s gonna frisk me!” Right. They can pummel the Batman in the face and roll him up in his own cape and whack him with carpet beaters until he’s whizzing blood, but nobody’s gonna pat him gently beneath the armpits!

Bruce levels his gat at the roomful of hoodlums, then backs up to the Giant Peephole so it can open and somebody can reach through and knock the gun out of his hand. Instantly, the mobsters hogpile our hero, violently groping and squeezing and spanking him everywhere! Now this is more like it, since, judging by Bruce’s expression, he likes his frisking to be a little more frisky.

Now, to the casual observer, acting suspiciously, pulling a gun, and getting beaten to a bloody pulp by the people whose confidence you’re trying to win may seem to make no sense at all, but it’s all part of the Batman’s brilliant plan to gain the trust of Daka and his minions. Let’s watch…

Outside the Sphinx Club, Dick has slipped into his costume. He flings a rock through the window, shattering the bare, hanging bulb inside the room where Bruce is being gang-frisked, then Robin switches on a flashlight, throwing the Bat Signal onto the wall.

“It’s the Batman!” Chief Thug 2.0 shouts. Or a mischievous 8-year old with a Kenner Give-a-Show Projector. In either case, they run outside to kill him.

Robin skulks around some crates, but his stealthiness is compromised by the cinematographer, who apparently forgot to put the day-for-night filter on the lens, making it appear likely that if a fight breaks out in this gloomy, midnight-shrouded alley, someone’s going to get sunstroke.

Then Bruce runs outside and trips. At this point, I’m going to drop all pretense and just come right out and say it: I really don’t understand the Batman’s plan. I mean, I’m sure he’s got one, but it sort of seems like a Bush Administration strategy, where you plan for a bunch of stuff that doesn’t happen, and then you trip.

The gangsters shoot at crates and barrels, no doubt ruining thousands of dollars worth of moderately priced stemware and home furnishings. Then Robin bursts onto the dock and runs up a gangplank and boards a ship.

Okay, that’s gotta be part of the plan, right?

Suddenly, the Batman appears on a rooftop somewhere and shouts, “Over here!” Then he jumps off, and thanks to the editing, lands on the crooks, who immediately start punching him in the face.

All right, so he put on an elaborate disguise and pretended to be a mobster named Chuck White so he could slip back into his costume and get smacked around like he does every episode? If this trend continues, by next chapter I fully expect to see the Batman naked except for his utility belt and getting spanked with a cricket bat like Kevin Bacon in Animal House. I’m just saying.

Meanwhile, Robin gets chased around the deck of the ship, pausing momentarily to pose with arms out-thrust in the prow and scream, “I’m king of the world!” Ah, at last, the plan is bearing fruit, and the trap is sprung!

Wait. No. Check that. Robin just panics and jumps into the harbor. But suddenly we hear the whine of approaching police sirens, and the thugs realize that – as fun as this has been – it’s time to make the Batman fall off something so they can clock out and start pounding gimlets at Boardners.

But the Batman is too clever for them! Yes, they knock him out, but instead of falling off something, he falls under something – the gangplank. By a strange coincidence, one of the mobsters is standing several decks overhead with a fire axe, and he severs a rope that makes the gangplank fall on the Batman’s face and crush his skull.

I love it when a plan comes together into a tight ball of collapsed matter so super-dense that not even light can escape it.

Just us next time for Chapter 10: The Flying Spies!

Movies | 10 Comments »

Moondoggie and Riley:

Humor him.  He thinks he’s stalking me… 

Wild Things | 4 Comments »

Updated Below…

Instaputz points out this bit of mythbusting from that gimlet-eyed iconoclast and champion of intellectual honesty, Hugh Hewitt:

I played excerpts from Hillary’s speech from today, in which she references “hurling” her “bookbag” across her room at college on hearing of the assassination of MLK, as well as wearing a black arm band in a protest march in Boston in the aftermath of the murder.

Listeners are e-mailing skepticism about their being bookbags and arm bands in 1968. I have no opinion, being 12 at the time. E-mail evidence to

As for the first charge, Hugh is clearly right to be chary; a girl would never dream of putting her books in a bag, since lugging them around loose allows any lanolin-haired passing sheik to lay his raccoon coat over the puddle at her feet and and offer to carry her burden home. And that’s a possibility no smart co-ed could afford to foreclose, even at an all-female college.

Update:  Tom Maguire calls Hugh’s willful cluelessness “a drollery” (he visited our comments to make the same point, because how often do you get to use the word “drollery” in a single day without getting slapped?).

World O’Crap appears irate and delivers photos of armbands from the 19th century.  Well researched!  But WOC is a bit light on the bookbag controversy – all we are offered is a Times piece from last fall that may be recycling Hillary’s lies.

A fair point.  However…smart folks over at Instaputz have unearthed archaeological evidence of bookbags that predates living (or at least Hugh’s) memory. Here, for instance, is a 1950s-era Roy Rogers signature bookbag for sale on ebay:

Commenter William Ockham goes for the Classics approach, with this quote from Horace:

Although he ( my father) was a poor man, with only an infertile plot of land, he was not content to send me to Flavius’s school which the burly sons of burly centurions attended, carrying their book-bags and writing tablets slung over their left shoulders and paying their few pennies on the Ides.

While Maryc, in our own comment thread, posted this photo of Tom Brokaw modeling the latest in late 60′s biblio-transportation technology:

As for the second charge, that this whole black armband craze came in right around the time of Kangas and phat pants, Wikipedia offers this 1865 painting by Ford Madox Brown:

Poor orphans depicted wearing a makeshift black armband to mourn for their mother.

A commenter at Instaputz linked to this photo, proving that Jonah Goldberg was right: FDR was too obsessed with the latest fashion trends to bother solving the Great Depression.

Even worse, last September The New York Times joined Hillary’s conspiracy to send a remorseless, indestructible android back in time to scatter evidence of black armbands throughout our previously armband-free history, thus altering the timeline and putting Mrs. Clinton in the White House…

In the Turmoil of ’68, Clinton Found a New Voice:

The day after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was slain, she joined a demonstration in Post Office Square in Boston, returning to campus wearing a black armband.

…

When Dr. King was killed on the balcony of a Memphis motel on April 4, 1968, Ms. Rodham was devastated. “I can’t take it anymore,” she screamed after learning the news, her friends recalled. Crying, Ms. Rodham stormed into her dormitory room and hurled her book bag against the wall. Later, she made a telephone call to a close friend, Karen Williamson, the head of the black student organization on campus, to offer sympathy.

Ms. Rodham, who met Dr. King after a speech in Chicago in 1962, had admired his methodical approach to social change, favoring it over what she considered the excessively combative methods of groups like the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee…

After Dr. King’s assassination provoked riots in cities and unrest on campuses, Ms. Rodham worried that protesters would shut down Wellesley (not constructive). She helped organize a two-day strike (more pragmatic) and worked closely with Wellesley’s few black students (only 6 in her class of 401) in reaching moderate, achievable change — such as recruiting more black students and hiring black professors (there had been none). Eschewing megaphones and sit-ins, she organized meetings, lectures and seminars, designed to be educational.

Meanwhile, in the long hot summer of 1968, Hugh Hewitt organized a letter-writing campaign to protest NBC’s decision to cancel The Monkees.

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