Dr. Mike Adams in: "Walking Tall 2: The Smirkening"

Hey kids, Dr. Professor Mike Adams is back!  Okay, to be honest, Dr. Mike -- like herpes -- never actually goes away, but it's only recently that the flare-ups have become noticeable, and this week he delivers a blistering eruption of logic which proves that bullying -- a misunderstood but essential form of natural selection -- should be encouraged, because it can take an effeminate, potentially homosexual second grader and turn him into prime breeding stock.  How does Dr. Mike know?  Because it worked for him!

So read on, and discover how Dr. Mike went from cringing, pants-wetting wuss to the Buford Pusser of Mrs. Humphey's Home Room.

The Bullied Gene

Yesterday, when I was arguing with a liberal...

...which is Dr. Mike's euphemism for "dry-humping the Resusci-Annie I filched from a dumpster behind the Community Health Center."

he told me I was entirely too harsh in my assessment of today’s youth.

Their refusal to go back to Dr. Mike's cabin and inspect his gun collection is actually a feature, not a bug.

He told me specifically that I needed to be aware of the fact that in 21st Century America one out of five boys gets bullied in school on a “regular basis.” I don’t know where he got that statistic but it really made me ashamed of my country. We need to do better. When I was a kid back in 20th Century America everyone got bullied in school.

Everyone got bullied?  Who bullied the bullies?  Presumably it was their fellow bullies, but did they take shifts, or was it handled through some kind of violent daisy chain?

Those really were the good old days.  

Why is it that people who don't believe in evolution are invariably the most enthusiastic social Darwinists?

My most memorable experience with bullying came during the 1972-73 school year when I was a student at Whitcomb Elementary School in Clear Lake City, Texas. The highlight of the year was Mrs. Ogden who was a total babe (sorry for the antiquated language but I’m telling a story about the 1970s). 

Speaking of the 70s, Dr. Mike, your praise of a woman's attractiveness seems every bit as genuine and unforced as the language in a Tiger Beat cover story.

The lowlight of the year was dealing with some punk named Brian...Brian was constantly bragging about how tough he was – probably because he was short and had a Napoleon complex.

In second grade?  So I guess he'd just given up on his pituitary gland and was pumping iron every day during nutrition break?

Eventually, Brian’s bragging about his fighting ability got old – even for Brian. So, one day, he challenged me to a fight on a specific day at a specific time in the schoolyard. Like a wimp, I faked being sick that day so I could stay home and avoid the confrontation. That strategy backfired. After wimping out on my scheduled confrontation with Brian he issued another challenge. And that led to another absence from school, which was excused by another fake illness. My mother was beginning to catch on.

Fortunately, this experience helped Mrs. Adams grow accustomed to disappointment early on in her career as a parent, so that by the time Dr. Mike's adulthood rolled around, she had skin like an armadillo.

I got to spend the summer at home and away from the bully in my second grade class. My parents even sent me to a baseball camp at nearby San Jacinto College where I would be instructed by real college baseball players. I wasn’t aware that Brian’s best friend Mike would be attending the same baseball camp.

Coincidentally, 1972-73 was the first season of ABC's Afterschool Special, from which I'm pretty sure Dr. Mike stole this entire story.

I wasn’t really expecting it when Mike came up behind me and shoved me in front of a bunch of the other little league players – many of whom were also my schoolmates. But the second I turned around and saw him I knew that he had shoved me for one reason and one reason only: His best friend Brian had told him I was a wimp who wouldn’t stand up to a bully. So I did the only thing I could do under the circumstances. I punched him in the mouth.

I'm sure that's how you remember it, Dr. Mike.

After Mike put his hand to his mouth and realized he was bleeding there was a real look of horror on his face. So I punched him again – this time in the nose. And after Mike sunk to his knees and started waving his hands in surrender I began to hit him with a barrage of uppercuts until he was lying on his back in the middle of the outfield crying like a little girl. 

 Oh, my mistake.  It wasn't an Afterschool Special.  Dr. Mike is just cribbing from A Christmas Story.

By the way, Dr. Mike -- and no offense to your theft of intellectual property reminiscences of childhood -- but I spent a fair number of years teaching karate to school kids, and "a barrage of uppercuts" is not in the average second grader's martial repertoire.

The next spring when I was standing in line for a snow cone after a game in Bay Area Park I saw Mike and Brian in the line ahead of me. Mike acknowledged me and asked if everything was “cool” between us. After I told him it was “cool” Mike turned to Brian and said “He really beat the crap out of me last summer.” So we all became friends and no one bullied anyone after that. 

Then they all went on a journey to find the dead body of a boy, and they almost got run over by a train, and had fights and arguments, and got sucked on by leeches, but then they confessed their insecurities and confronted their fears and learned hard lessons about life and stuff.  It was the best summer ever.

That’s how we dealt with bullying when I was a kid. Someone picked on someone until he got fed up and learned that he had to defend himself. It was all a part of learning to be a man.

Yeah.  Again, no offense...but Dr. Mike, the gun-coddling misogynist, is to manhood what the penis pump is to virility.

When the inevitable fight was over the bully and the bullied became friends. And no one really contemplated shooting up the school in retaliation.

However, if the 8-year old Dr. Mike had had as many handguns as the 48-year old Dr. Mike does, it might have been a different story.   Frankly, it still might.

But today things are different. The state is increasingly seeing itself as the agent responsible for stopping bullying.

This strikes me as more of a solution than a problem, Dr. Mike.  But then, I've experienced bullying, so I may be biased.  In fact, I suspect you'd have to survey quite a few of kids getting punched in the head before you found one who was a real stickler for federalism.

And they are increasingly interested in monitoring bullying throughout all levels of the educational process. At my university, there is actually a guide that directs students to various government resources that can help students who are experiencing bullying.

Coincidentally, the same day I read Dr. Mike's ode to intimidation, I saw this article:

When Sirdeaner Walker found out her son was being bullied and called homophobic slurs, she told his school about it.

"I thought they would handle the situation," she said. It turned out, "the school just didn't know how to or they weren't equipped to handle it. I thought it had stopped, but it continued and escalated."

Her son, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover committed suicide in 2009. He was 11 years old. As she grieved, Sirdeaner received letters and cards from parents all over America whose children were also bullied.

Not that I mean to diminish Dr. Mike's formative and character-building violence, but even though getting pushed at a baseball camp (which your parents are paying for, and whose proprietors could be counted on to break up a fight before it threatened their liability insurance) is serious business, it's maybe not quite in the same league as getting called "fag" and "queer" every day, elbowed and tripped in the halls, shoved into lockers, and punched and kicked by a gang of would-be toughs behind the backstop.

And even though I was never subjected to the degree of abuse many gay and lesbians kids endure, there were certain scary times in my school career when I would have welcomed government intervention (or just the sight of a teacher), no matter how much it might have offended the Tenth Amendment; and even if it would have robbed me of the chance to grow up to be a man like Dr. Mike Adams.

Interestingly, the guide defines bullying as “the act of intimidating a weaker person to make them [sic] do something.” Since other campus programs focus on the disproportionate bullying of homosexuals this seems to be a tacit admission that homosexuals are indeed “weaker person(s).”

Or gays and lesbians are seen as safe targets, partially because of the implicit disapproval they receive from authority figures like Dr. Adams, and are therefore disproportionately picked on.

In other words, the implications of their approach to this topic have not been well-thought-out. Few things are “thought” through in higher education today. People generally “feel” their way through problems.

At least, that's how Dr. Mike explained his pedagogic methodology to the last co-ed he tried to pick up.

Some people believe the government should stop bullying because we have so many defenseless effeminate young men in the public school system.

And so many overcompensating, infertile closet cases at the state college faculty level.

But I believe we have so many defenseless effeminate young men in the public school system because people believe the government should protect them from bullying. That’s the difference between the liberals and me. And I’m pleased to offer my advice at no expense to the taxpayer.

Proving once again that you get what you pay for.

Put simply, the question of whether one will or will not be bullied is largely a matter of choice.

The same applies to getting mugged.  Or shot.  Or cancer.  Choose wisely, Dr. Mike.

You can either remain the boy who is bullied or you can become the man who fights back. I don’t think the former are restricted by what is in their genes. More likely, it’s just what’s missing in their jeans.

When I got roughed up by some kids in elementary school, my Dad didn't shame me, but he did offer to show me how to block a punch, and how to throw one.  Confronted with the same situation, Dr. Mike would probably cut to the chase and just tell his son to "Turn your head and cough."

So remember parents:  start your kids on violence early -- it's the vaccine that inoculates boys from the virus of homosexuality.  However, even after reading through Dr. Mike's column, I still don't know what a girl who gets abused by her peers is supposed to do.  Punching her tormentor in the mouth seems unladylike, and would probably only increase the risk factors for dykehood, so maybe she should just elect not to get pushed around.  I hear that when it comes to violence in schools, bullies -- like Dr. Mike -- are very Pro-Choice.

Massie Murder

You may remember Mychal Massie from this post, and if so, you might want to look into getting that procedure Jim Carey had done in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  But for those unburdened by such recollections, Mychal "holds degrees in education, business/real estate, theology and pastoral counseling," and though he's not -- nor does he appear to have ever been -- in the military, he's "interested in killing all the enemy radical Muslims I can."  So you can understand why Mychal is so upset by the gruesome events in Oslo; there's no harm in fantasizing, even about really hideous and creepy things, but when some clown goes out and actually does it, in public, suddenly all the innocent daydreamer believers look like creeps by association.

Compare Oslo with Islamic terrorism?

Yes, it's true that the first reports of the horrific shootings that took place in Oslo, Norway, led us to believe that Muslim terrorists were responsible.

But then, that's pretty much Mychal's answer for everything, including "Who took the last Yoo Hoo?"

So, it was understandable that they and their sympathizers would attempt to use this single instance as proof of their persecution. It is also true that there are other instances of mass shootings that weren't committed by Muslims. But let's not confuse those situations as being even remotely the same as the violent, murderous acts of Islamists.

It's a pity Mychal wasn't present in Oslo to comfort the dying.  I imagine him kneeling beside a youthful victim as her life ebbs away, saying soothing things like, "Think how much worse you'd be feeling right now if you'd been shot by a Muslim," or, "A sucking chest wound administered by a Lutheran bullet just feels different, doesn't it?  So much less confusing."

 There is a difference between the gang-related shootings that took place this past weekend at a low-rider car show in Seattle and the family-related roller-rink shootings in Texas.

I guess so, in the sense that only at the latter crime scene would you have been likely to hear the Olivia Newton John hit "Xanadu."  I suppose what Mychal is really saying is that anyone shot at a low-rider car show deserves to die for fiddling with their shock absorbers, but I'm not sure how that relates to the Oslo tragedy, unless he's implying that the youth camp victims were asking for it by joining a gang of Labour Party delinquents, or as Glenn Beck put it, "The Hitler Youth."

I do not apologize that, based on the early reports, I believed the Oslo killings to be the work of Islamists. There's a systemic animalism that is endemic to Islam that traces back to Ishmael.

Although many of the early reports that Ishmael had been "mocking," were later recanted, and it turned out Sarah had only seen him "voguing." Still, I wonder how many generations of Mychal's family we'd have to trace back before we found one who wasn't a fabulous lunkhead.

No matter how Islam is portrayed, there is nothing pastoral or peaceful about it, nor is there anything reverential about it. Islam's practitioners are religious only to the extent that one is religious about terrorism, threats, murder and mayhem.

Every member of the world's second-largest religion is in on the biggest con job in human history!  (I know, pulling off such a massive and complex swindle seems impossible, but don't forget, they're using the high-tech organizing principle of Systemic Animalism!  And best of all, the whole incredible story is Soon to be a Major Motion Picture Starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Ocean's 1.4 Billion.)

People may not like what I say, but it's time we stop dancing around this issue. We must take them as serious threats that warrant thorough watching and investigation.

Of course, while we're watching and investigating Them, some of Us might slip in and slaughter a few hundred people here and there, but like Sammy Davis, Jr. urged in the theme song to Baretta, you gotta keep your eye on the sparrow.

Muslims are a fanatical threat, and they take pride in that fact. They are proud of the fact that they can gain access to what they want through threat and intimidation.

Mychal is not letting the fact that he was completely wrong about the crime and its perpetrator slow him down in the least.  He's still as imitation tough as ever, and he's going to fake-kill as many fantasy Muslims this week as he usually imagines he does.

It's not fear mongering to argue that we must be concerned with the increasing number of Muslims coming here – especially those being converted in prisons and those coming here illegally.

Wait -- Muslims are coming to here to be converted in prison?  (And I thought that agri-tourism fad in Italy was weird.)  So if they go into jail as Muslims, what do they come out as -- Star-belly Sneetches?

 In my column "It isn't fanaticism – it's evil," 

I thought it was DiGiorno.

I wrote: "...Their hatred is an anathema to all rational consideration. They have but one goal: to subdue the world under the rule of Islam." (WND, Aug. 12, 2006)

As Mychal would say, there's a difference between Muslim hatred, and the calm, orderly process of ratiocination by which one arrives at hatred for Muslims.

The question becomes, will America take steps to protect our people or will we wait for the "tah-lee-bahn," as Obama pronounces it, to defile our courts with Shariah law?

Whenever a blond, blue-eyed, right-wing Christian massacres a hundred Norwegians, it's inevitably the signal for illiterate, right-wing religious fanatics from Afghanistan to destroy America by filing frivolous lawsuits in Small Claims Courts, and then the next thing you know, we're all dhimmis, and the Taliban are demanding that our President show submission to Islam by talking in Harry Belafonte's accent from The Banana Boat Song.

The facts are there for all to see. 

Well, they're not exactly "facts," but you've definitely pulled them out for everyone to see.

We don't need a president who can pronounce Arabic words better than he can speak English (remember "corpse" instead of corps); we need a president who realizes that these people are not our friends and that they are a threat to ourselves and our way of life.

I suspect Mychal wrote this column when "based on the early reports, [he] believed the Oslo killings to be the work of Islamists," and discovered to his delight that his original conclusion was immune to subsequent refinements in the data.

Which means we should restrict their ability to immigrate here and we should watch them like Janet Napolitano recommends our "white middle-class" be watched – because, she has determined, they could very likely be terrorists.

Just to sum up:  A white, conservative Christian commits mass murder in Scandinavia, which must prompt the United States to revive the Chinese Exclusion Act, except for Muslims this time, and especially the Uyghur, who have the effrontery to be Chinese Muslims, which is like slapping Chester Alan Arthur right in the muttonchops.

Happy Birthday, Heydave!

Dance the pagan fertility dance, for it's fetus harvest season here at WO'C.  All around the country, the pregnant women are ripe and ready to drop, while on the sunny, fecund plains of Iowa, the ears of corn and spleens of wheat are waving in the breeze, rich and good and ready to be reaped.  But it's one ex-fetus in particular who concerns us today: our old friend, the irrepressible (in that one rarely hears him yelling, "Help!  Help!  I'm being repressed!") Heydave.  Please join me in wishing him a sinfully festive natal anniversary.

And since Mary and I are going to see Captain America tonight (because I've heard from Big Hollywood's John "Dirty Harry" Nolte that it's subversive and too ashamed of American Exceptionalism to fully satisfy Dirty's fantasies by showing the Super Soldier Serum swelling Cap's muscles, while the Vita-Rays turn his scrotum red, white and blue), I've decided just this once to forgo the traditional Ann Coulter portrait, and instead shoehorn in a shot of Hayley Atwell, who plays Steve Rogers' gun-toting gal pal, Peggy Carter.

Happy birthday, Heydave, and thanks for hanging around in a disreputable joint infested with bad wingnuts and even worse movies.  Speaking of which, please excuse me...I've got to get back to Yor, the Hunter from the Future...

Post-Friday Beast Blogging: The Oh-Oh Edition

Moondoggie:  Oh, Blanket...I don't know were you stop and I begin..!

Riley:  Oh, Thigh...I don't know where you stop and I begin...!

Riley:  What a second.  That sounded kind of fruity...

Happy Birthday, Preznit!

Please join me in wishing the happiest, most beeriest of natal days to WO'C old-timer (but young at heart) preznit giv me turkee.

Now, in addition to being a witty commenter, preznit is also savvy and farsighted enough to block images at World O' Crap on his birthday, so there's no point in my posting the traditional Ann Coulter photo.  Instead, here's a picture of the lovely and Oh So streamlined Coulter's Department Store on the fabulous Miracle Mile of Wilshire Boulevard, circa 1939:

Here's another...

So far as I can tell, there is no connection between Ann Coulter and the department store, although they both date back to 1878.  Anyway, have a great one, prez!

Ladies Who Lynch

You may remember James Lewis from a previous appearance on World O' Crap ("Dr. Lewis, Your Penis is Calling"), in which he revealed that he's “a scientist by trade, and carps as a hobby about the passing parade of human fraud and folly," and in which he also defended Sarah Palin from "the feminist lynch mob."

Well, the Loose Women with the Noose are practicing their grim profession again, and James won't have it, for he simply cannot abide the thought of a word without Palin's "looks, charm, and eloquence."  But unlike Rich Lowry, James is not about wink-activated erectile tissue; no, he loves the Guv for her mind.  "Personally I like Palin for her ideas, but then I’m a policy wonk."

Which may be why he takes an unusually literary approach to his complaint, beginning with a lengthy quote from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, specifically, the scene in which Colonel Sherburn shoots an obnoxious drunk in lukewarm blood, then later turns back an aspiring lynch mob with nothing but fluent scorn and a double-barreled shotgun.  You can see how this applies to feminist disagreements with Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin's Grace Under Pressure

That's the John Wayne scene you've watched in a hundred Westerns, but it's now happening in reality. I think Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, and the other conservative candidates are the Ronald Reagans of our time. It's not just a Hollywood flick.

They're not like some movie actor.  They're like a bad movie actor.

We are living in a poisonous time in American politics. The source of that poison is very clear. In case you were wondering, it's not the polite and well-behaved Tea Partiers.

There was some speculation last time about which scientific discipline James pursues in his day job.  Turns out his field is alchemical-etymology, or the transmuting of irony into actual iron.

Democrats have turned into ranting demagogues again, just like the Jim Crow South. In the last hundred years they have changed nothing but their scapegoats. You can easily pick out the shameless ones among them. They don't hide it. This is what Michael Barone calls "gangster government."

Thanks to recent technical advances, alchemical-etymologists can now take two unrelated words which don't describe what they're talking about, and combine them to make their point even more obscure.  Previously, an invisible force, which some scientists called "logic" and others dubbed "shame" caused the words to repel each other like magnets; but James and his colleagues achieved a breakthrough when they realized that dissimilar words could be forced to couple if the first one was a movie genre.  This is a phenomenon scientists now refer to as "slasher theosophy."

The Undefeated is a stunning documentary about Governor Sarah Palin against the lynch mobs of the left.

This is true; the film has been proven to have the same effect on the audience as a Taser.

These are not overly polite Adlai Stevenson liberals.

They actually win sometimes.

They are radical throwbacks to Saul Alinsky and Jozef Stalin. They follow Alinsky and the ACORN rules. These are the same people who have made our schools ungovernable. They are not just "stuck on stupid." They are stuck on the systematic abuse of power.

Translation:  "Young Pioneers!  Comrade Stalin Exhorts You to Build an Ungovernable State of Anarchy and Chaos in Your School with Iron Discipline and Unflagging Dedication!"

Political leaders who stand up against the media mob deserve a badge of courage. That goes especially for Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Herman Cain -- because in some perverse way the left reserves special abuse for the women and blacks it tries to control. It's the slavemaster's rage at liberated slaves.

I wonder how Adlai Stevenson would have expressed his slavemaster's rage.  Politely, no doubt.

Over three decades, I've seen lynch mob mentality rising in our colleges and universities, beginning with the Alinsky left. Every teacher and professor in this country has his own memories of that. 

Except for Associate Professor Doug Mullay, who teaches Diesel Technology and Dance at Truckee Meadows Community College, and who can't remember the lynch mob mentality rising at all since 1981.  But let's face it, TMCC is a total party school, and back in the lawless Clinton years Associate Professor Mullay was known to mix O'Douls and Dimetapp.

A few years ago the liberal president of Harvard was fired by the witch-hunters of the left for blurting out an innocent question about math talent and gender. That was far and away the most shameful moment of my lifetime in academic life.

And that innocent non-witch was never heard from again, if you don't count the part about him becoming a top White House official. 

Other than the global warming fraud, that is. Witch-hunting and global frauding are closely related.

In Colonial New England, Puritan communities would often have to purchase carbon offsets before they could burn a witch.

In an atmosphere or free speech on campus, no self-respecting scientist would let the global warming fraud to survive for a moment. Global frauding is a side-effect of an atmosphere of fear and intimidation in the schools and colleges.

It's only the fear of the Witchfinder General that prevents James himself from putting the entire staff of the NOAA under citizen's arrest.

The biggest fraud in the history of science is losing ground today. But if we do not defeat the totalitarian left on campus, a different eco-fraud will take its place. 

Spruce trees will begin emailing you, pretending to be the Nigerian Oil Minister.

None of this behavior belongs in a civilized society. Civilization is the ability to control the primitive side of human nature, the part that explodes in lynch mobs. If we allow this to go on, civilization will be the loser. 

Every time a Prius is sold, Barbarism hoots derisively at Civilization and makes an "L" on its forehead.

Around the world, hyenas from a thousand years ago are already circling for the kill, because they can see our moral weakness. Europe is practically gone already.

I'm sure I'm not the only one here who is desperately hoping that someone, somewhere, is working on a summer blockbuster about ancient zombie hyenas attacking Luxembourg.

Alinsky prescribed hateful agitation to overthrow civilized society, just like the imams of radical Islam. There's nothing "progressive" about the left. They are a purposeful throwback to chimpanzee mobs. 

Which are known for their propensity to lynch in the wild, as detailed in the 1971 Jane Goodall book, The Chimp-Bow Incident.

Unfortunately, Alinsky Rules are Obama's rules.

That's why the coming election will be the dirtiest since Jim Crow.

Chimps will lynch Republicans, while thousand year old members of the New Hyena Party will circle the polling place, attempting to intimidate Sarah Palin voters.

Today, conservatives take risks when they speak in public. That is intolerable in a free country. There is no free speech if you are afraid to say whatever you want. 

Yeah!  Just imagine the kind of smack James would be talking right now if he actually had any balls.

What we are seeing in the Age of Obama is not normal politics. It's certainly not the end of race-baiting. We are seeing a throwback to a much more primitive time.

They said it couldn't happen here. They said it was just the stuff of fiction, or paranoid fantasies, but we are all -- all of us! -- living through the same despair and horror experienced by the astronauts in It's About Time.

Mark Twain knew about lynch mobs in the South. But lynch mobs have been stirred up by radical left agitators going back to Karl Marx. Ottoman mobs killed Christian Armenians, Russian and Polish mobs killed Jews, white segregationist American mobs lynched blacks, Hutu mobs killed Tutsis. It's not race.

"Except for all the examples I just provided that shows it is."  Still, James has a good point, because occasionally, as in the case of Leo Frank, white segregationist American mobs would lynch a Jew, just to prove they weren't racists.

Since the left rose to power in America, new form lynch mobs have made a comeback -- with a vengeance, as the saying goes. "Vengeance" is the word.

I don't mean to quibble, but I believe "Grease" is the word.

 Lynch mobs have to feel aggrieved, and they have to find a target for their rage. They do not think. Facts don't matter. All they need is a scapegoat is vent their rage. 

So, you're recruiting?

The morons of Hollywood now specialize in lobbing dirt shells against decent Americans. The big media are run by billionaires who like to combine radical ideology with self-serving narcissism. These are not good people. They are malignant.

And as long as they're shelling us, they should probably go the extra step and load their ordnance with explosives instead of potting soil.  Otherwise I just feel like they're not taking me seriously as a potential source of collateral damage.

Not many elections are a genuine struggle between good and evil.

Especially Republican primaries, which are usually a genuine struggle between dumb and dumber.

Lincoln's election just before the Civil War was one such. Churchill's election in pre-War Britain was another. Good vs. malignant elections are rare, but they happen.

Well, Churchill wasn't elected Prime Minister, he was appointed by the George VI, so I guess that means his opponent in the House of Commons by-election for Epping was malignant.  Probably a Death Eater, too.

 If Sarah Palin doesn't get elected president, she should at least get an Academy Award for bringing back the vivid memory of Ronald Reagan and Good-versus-Evil morality movies. 

Or at least an AVN Award for "Best MILF/Necrophilia Dry-Humping Release (Non-Foreign)."

Most times are mixtures of good and bad. 

(Here James is reaching back into the Western Canon again, and quoting Charles Dickens' rejected opening line for A Tale of Two Cities.)

Palin is only one hero today.

But if you get her wet, or feed her after midnight, there could be half a dozen of her by tomorrow.  So beware.

Won't Someone Think Of The Children (As A Blunt Instrument)?

 We haven't talked much about Dave Blount before now, despite his rather fruitful and peripatetic career as a wingnut polemicist, largely because we haven't wanted to blow his secret identity.  As Moonbattery, he leads a secret life as a champion of the perpetually aggrieved-feeling, fighting back against impudent blackamoors and cultural barbarians with borrowed Photoshopped images and arch homophobia.  Also that scary voice he effects when some cornered malefactor drizzles the remains of his courage down his inner thigh and squeakily demands to know "Who are you?!" and Blount yanks him close -- close enough that the quaking victim can feel the heat coming from his unblinking, laser-like gaze, and smell the lingering aroma of Horsey sauce from a recent Bacon, Beef 'n' Chedder Roast Beef sandwich on his upper lip -- as he grows, "I'm Moonbattery!"*

But Dave has adorned his blog with a self-portrait, and regularly posts on Right Wing News under this own name, so clearly he's burst out of the closet and is now committing assault and moonbattery in broad daylight.  In this week's episode, he's combating sodomites who are threatening to cut off the Vatican's access to their most vital resource: the ability to make orphans suffer because someone, somewhere is having butt sex.

Homosexual Agenda Used to Close Catholic Adoption Services

The obscene travesty of homosexual “marriage” is a priority for liberals not only because undermining holy matrimony helps corrode the family...

(Now here I must differ with Mr. Moonbattery.  Recently, when Mary and I became concerned about the amount of rust and corrosion on our family, we called around to various local contractors, and got a terrific estimate from a gay couple in West Hollywood; and not only did they zinc-plate our marriage for a very reasonable price, they galvanized our cats for free.  In fact, I was so satisfied, that I'm thinking of having my in-laws seal-coated for their anniversary.

...but because it creates a powerful legal weapon to be used against another of the few remaining roadblocks on the road to totalitarianism, the Catholic Church.

When you're looking for someone to defend freedom of conscience and fight rigid, authoritarian hierarchies that demand unquestioning obedience, who's the first guy you think of?  The Pope, natch.

The state that gave us Barack Hussein Obama shows how it works:

The state has declined to renew its foster care and adoption contracts with Catholic Charities across Illinois, possibly ending a historic partnership initiated by the Roman Catholic Church a half-century ago and potentially severing the relationship between nearly 2,000 foster children and their caseworkers. …
In letters sent last week to Catholic Charities in the dioceses of Peoria, Joliet and Springfield and Catholic Social Services of Southern Illinois, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services said the state could not accept their signed contracts for the 2012 fiscal year. Each letter said funding was declined because “your agency has made it clear that it does not intend to comply with the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act,” which the state says requires prospective parents in civil unions to be treated the same as married couples.

That is, the Church is expected to place vulnerable kids in the hands of cohabitating homosexuals. This has entailed children being used as sex toys.

And threatened depletion of the Vatican's Strategic Jailbait Reserve.

If it’s this bad now, imagine the situation after Illinois imposes state-sanctioned homosexual “marriage” as in New York, where Archbishop Timothy Dolan warns that a redefinition of marriage to allow for multiple sex partners is coming next. 

That would be this Timothy Dolan, who also predicted that passing marriage equality in New York would turn the United States into North Korea, and eventually reduce our rump civilization into a chaotic failed state on the order of the UK or Canada.

Now, given that the Catholic Church has been promoting ritual cannibalism for two millennia,  I guess it should come as no surprise that Archbishop Dolan also practices the dark art of fortune-telling.  But if I'm going to have reasonable confidence in his predictions about the coming of multiple sex partners (sorry), I'd like to know a little more about his methods of forecasting.  Does he prefer Tarot cards?  Ceromancy, the divining of patterns in melting wax?  Perhaps he's a practitioner of gastromancy, or "stomach-based ventriloquism," in which the dead speak through farts and gas pains?

Hmm...that last bit sounded kind of harsh.  I hope Mr. Moonbattery doesn't accuse me of arguing in bad faith and engaging in an ad hominem.

Pat Quinn carries on the Illinois tradition of governors who exude slime from every pore:

Quinn, a practicing Catholic, reiterated his support of the civil union law and the state’s decision to sever ties with Catholic Charities.

No one who supports the homosexual or abortion agendas is a Catholic in any meaningful sense. To preserve its integrity, the Church has an obligation to excommunicate backstabbing advocates of degeneracy like Nancy Pelosi and Quinn.

Nope.  Looks like I'm safe.

Just as the homosexual agenda is destroying Catholic adoption agencies, the abortion agenda can close Catholic hospitals.

As can the Archbishop's habit of scavenging through bins of medical waste in order to finds entrails that will help him foretell the future of proposed legislation in Albany.

The Church has two choices: stand for what’s right, in which case Big Government will denounce it as politically incorrect and break its legs with “civil rights” laws shoved through by the militant homosexual and abortion lobbies; or knuckle under and participate in the depravity, in which case it will rot away and deservedly disappear.

Well, there's a third choice.  The Archdiocese of Chicago stopped providing foster services back in 2007 after they lost a lawsuit over child abuse, and no insurance company would touch them, so, you know, that's a viable option.

It’s a win-win situation for liberals. Too bad for the cause of “social justice” that their Soviet forebears didn’t think of this line of attack against John Paul II.

The Soviets could have won the Cold War with civil rights laws, if only they'd hired homosexuals to scatter fetuses around the lobby of the Vatican so the Pope would slip on an abortion and break his legs.

I bet Gorbachev feels like the perfect ass right now.

*For the record: I realize that "Moonbattery" refers not to the author of the blog, but its subjects.  Call it my contribution to the growing body of "aptly named World O' Crap" literature.

Boy, the 70's Were Weird!

I guess that's sensual. I'm just worried about what would happen if one's actual nipples got...you know...noticable. I mean, if it was a cold day or something! You would go from "Sensual" to "4 Nippled Freak" in no time!

Give Me the Lease. I'm signing it Right. NOW.

So, the Black Plague has hit our household. We will be back to regular blogging shortly, or we'll be bringing out the dead. Until then, enjoy an oldie, but a goodie:

A Formal Dining Room AND Hardwood floors?! This place really does have the best amenities!

Harry Potter and the Flaming Moron

A friend called last night to remind me that "it all ends here," and I figured I must have forgotten her birthday or something -- it's not the first time she's threatened me.  But it turns out she was just calling to say that she'd bought us tickets for the July 15th opening of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, or as we call it around here, The Potterdammerung.

And for some reason this reminded me of WO'C's old friend Thomas Carder of the ChildCare Action Project (or "CAP Alert"), the self-appointed pastor whose "ministry" involves him watching vaguely dirty movies so you don't have to, or watching fairly clean movies and finding all the hidden dirty parts.  The former always confused me; I could understand him seeing G, PG, and even PG-13 films, so he could warn parents who might otherwise be lulled into a false sense of security by the MPAA's lax rating scheme, but Thomas watched an awful lot of R-rated movies too, which his presumably evangelical readership wouldn't be inclined to see in the first place, let alone take their Dugger-sized families to, and s.z. and I began to wonder if he had simply realized that dream of every cyberspace-dwelling slacker: subsidized porn.

But like all congregations, ChildCare Action Project (not quite sure why Care is capitalized rather than hyphenated) lived off the collection plate, and every week Thomas threatened to lock the doors of his virtual church because you -- the freeloading parishioner -- had failed to donation sufficient funds to cover his Milk Duds, and extra large Mr. Pibb, which in his faith serves the same function as the Eucharist.  Thomas had no other job but Apostle to the multiplex, although he claimed to have a rich and varied C.V.  As s.z. wrote in 2005:

We've previously discussed our fondness for Thomas Carder of CAP fame. We like him for his horribly mangled prose, his loony pronouncements, and his cluelessness. One of the highlights of our life was when mistook an Onion story about children joining covens after readiing the Harry Potter books for a real news item, and claimed that it vindicated his claims that grade-school children were turning to Satan as a result of J.K. Rowlings' work -- and then, when Thomas was flooded with email pointing out that he had been fooled by a fake story, he said that this was how Satan worked: by making us think that the truth was a lie. Oh, and he also cited a Paul Harvey story he remembered hearing 20 years ago which said that most missing children are eaten by witches.

But we especially like Thomas's stories about his life. It seems that before making his living by taking in a passel of foster children (and by pleading for donations to his "movie ministry"), he used to be: a drug counselor; a safety inspector, a martial artist; and a nuclear power technician (no, not at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant -- I think he said he worked for Oak Ridge or Area 57 or something).

The impression that one gets from Thomas's stories is that Thomas hasn't been especially successful at anything, and so naturally drifted into trying to make a buck from the combination of religious fundamentalism and the internets.

So I visited CAP Alert, thinking it had must have long since faded away.  Instead, I found the place was thriving, although the design was so remarkably unchanged since we last saw it that I can only suppose it wound up on the National Registry of Historic Websites as a pristine example of mid-90s GeoCities architecture, and now the Landmarks Commission won't let Thomas change his font.

There are, of course, lots of legitimate film critics on the Internet, and no shortage of amateurs with passionate opinions and a good wifi connection, but that's the thing -- they're just opinions.  CAP, on the other hand, is the only review site which uses a Scientific Model of Film Criticism, precluding the possibility of error or bias:

During the development of the CAP Numeric Analysis Model, the developer observed our culture and society for examples of unacceptable activities and behavior -- unacceptable in accordance with the teachings of Jesus -- examples of activities and behavior which are potentially destructive to wholesome morals, values, and principles. At developement's end, the examples of unacceptable activities and behavior were incorporated into the CAP system as Investigation Standards.  The Investigation Standards were partitioned into six Investigation Areas:

Wanton Violence/Crime
Impudence/Hate
Sexual Immorality
Drugs/Alcohol
Offense to God
Murder/Suicide

But the best part?

There is little room for subjectivity in the CAP system...The CAP Model relies on fact, not speculation -- it is as objective as any human evaluation system can be. Either an example of unacceptable activity or behavior was present during the investigation or it was not. The CAP Model makes no attempt to evaluate whether any justification for an unacceptable activity/behavior was present.

Examples of such self-evident behaviors include "woman in tub with sensual maneuvers and music," "tease dress," and the unmistakable "suggestive eye movements."  All of the above occur in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (which I clicked on only because I'd seen it), along with "much use of camera angle to force viewer on private part," (the part in question was a bit of side-boob, and to be honest, the camera didn't really have to twist my arm), "offer of booze," and "great fall" (I don't actually remember it being that great, but my standards are much more subjective than Thomas's). 

Anyway, I wondered if Thomas had applied his infallible system to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I, and I was not disappointed; although sadly, it seems that Thomas was.

I do not remember much about the story and plot since it has been almost three weeks since I viewed the DVD but I'll share with you what I remember. Fortunately, that I don't remember much about the story and plot is meaningless to the CAP Analysis Model (the Findings/Scoring section). Our model procedures require the investigator to annotate his/her findings on a specially prepared form while watching the film so memory is not needed to generate the listing of findings or the scoring distribution.

So using the CAP Numeric Analysis Model, even Guy Pearce's character from Memento could write a review -- it's that foolproof.  Of course, he'd probably forget to submit it, unless he inked the text onto his body, and really, who wants to go around with the words "Sexual Immorality" and "Offense to God" tattooed on your butt cheeks.

HP7 Part 1 (2010) was rated PG-13 by the weak sisters at the MPAA, but according to CAP it earns a [Hard R-13*] .

Wanton Violence/Crime (W) - Zero out of 100
Each of the previous six episodes earned a R-equivalent (54 and below out of 100) Wanton Violence/Crime investigation area score. This one is no different. Thus, all of the Harry Potter films so far have been R-equivalent in violence.

"Stand back -- I'm about to make a suggestive eye movement!"

Impudence/Hate (I) - 23 out of 100
The language impurities [Col. 3:8] and matters of hatefulness [Rom. 12:18] in each of the seven episodes seem to hover around the demarcation between R and PG-13 equivalent (54/55 out of 100). In addition, the entire film, indeed every Potter film, oozed a theme of teens in control with adult involvement only when "politically correct" or when adult involvement suits the aims and goals of the teens. A rather impudent comment used by the filmmakers was "Magic is Might." Bloodlust, planning to kill and lies added to the "up yours" parts of the plot. [1 Pet. 5:5, Rev. 21:8]

Thomas has put his finger on what I most dislike about drama:  all the conflict.  Sure, it's the villains who say "Magic is Might," and it's a philosophy which the heroes fight against with every dram of courage and determination they possess, but that's the problem.  You give heroes something to fight, and they're going to fight it, which makes them unholy and frankly, just bad role models.  You don't see any conflict or violence in the Bible, do you?

Sexual Immorality (S) - 85 out of 100
This one has gotten bold enough to show Harry and Hermoine making out in a misty nude scene. 

I didn't even know Misty Mundae was in this movie.  I must have gone out for Raisinets during the three-way.

Harry gets to zip up the dress over the bare back of Ginny (Bonnie Wright) when there were no adults around, of course. She could not do it herself, of course. That would seem to scream that since she had to have help this time she probably never has been able to zip it up herself, of course. And since her mom or another female was not around … This begs the question, why was she dressing in front of Harry in the first place?

Nothing more salacious than helping a girl get less nude.

Other than the above, characters in underwear and female underwear on a male were all that there were to the Sexual Immorality content of this episode of Harry Potter.

Can anyone help me with the "female underwear on a male"?  I've seen this movie a couple times, and I'm drawing a blank.

Because so much contempt for sexual humility in and as entertainment has been built up over the years we have become insensitive to God's will for our sexual purity. God tells us many things in His Word about what is and what is not sexually acceptable.

Thou shalt not zip up a girl's dress.  Or button it, if you're Amish.

Offense to God (O) - Zero out of 100
The content regarding offense to God's Word is intense. As with violence, the evil/unholy content is so thick to even summarize it here would be unproductive. Please rely on the listing in the Findings/Scoring section for a detailing of the content of the film found by this investigation area.

By all means.  Let's check out the Numeric Analysis section (you may use a calculator for this next section).

Wanton Violence/Crime (W) - Zero out of 100

recruiting assistance to kill

Killing with friends or co-workers, while often a good team-building exercise, is extremely unholy.  Biblical killing is invariably accomplished by one man, alone, armed with only a sling, or the jawbone of an ass.

animal consumption of human (unseen)

The animals in question were rats, the human was Ernest Borgnine, and it was unseen because it happened in an entirely different movie, Willard.

injury gore, repeatedly

threat to face

battle using unholy magic, repeatedly

strongarm tactics to force performance 

(I understand the impulse behind this last one, but believe me ladies, it only increases performance anxiety. )

sculpture of crushing many people 

Now he's an art critic.

explosive startle

long pursuit to kill by unholy magic

I'm not sure why the length of the pursuit to kill by unholy magic matters, unless Thomas is concerned that brooms get poor mileage and release a lot of chlorofluorocarbons.

Impudence/Hate (I) - 23 out of 100

six uses of profanity, five by a teen

wanting to be chosen to kill a teen boy

theme of teens in control 

Well, to be fair, #2 would probably solve #3.

animate argument, twice

torture to force admission 

I predict Thomas is going to pan the crap out of The Dick Cheney Story.

Sexual Immorality (S) - 85 out of 100

female underwear on male

teen girl asking teen boy to zip up her dress

teen boy in underwear

teen boy and teen girl making out in misty nudity 

Just wait til you see what they do in The Opening of Misty Beethoven.

Drugs/Alcohol (D) - 93 out of 100

booze, repeatedly 

Yep.  Since about the third paragraph.

Offense to God (O) - Zero out of 100

evil sounds with tissue decay

This also describes the average Wayne Newton show.

gathering of sorcerers, witches, etc., repeatedly

I think this refers to that scene where Harry addresses a meeting of the Hogsmeade Rotary Club.

broom riding, multiple 

with clear and repeated violations of the helmet law.

riding demon beast 

I thought my wife was the only one who called it that.  Hmph.

levitation on motorcycle 

You meet the nicest people levitating on a Honda.

shape-shifting, repeatedly, once to falsify identity

You know what I hate most about werewolves?  Half the time they go through that hideous transformation not to eviscerate humans, or to spread their unholy curse, but just to steal your PIN number.

multiple flashbacks of evil 

I've experienced this before, but usually only when I get an invitation to my high school reunion.

calling a sorcerer the Chosen One [Luke 23:35]

moving still photos, repeatedly 

Now that you mention it, the pictures on the screen at the movie theater were also in motion.  I don't mean to lock the barn door after the horse has run away, but I certainly hope someone had the foresight back in 1888 to burn Thomas Edison at the stake.

unholy medallion

unholy manifestation, repeatedly, some graphic

transport by unholy magic, repeatedly, some graphic

I can't believe those weak sisters at the MPAA didn't have the guts to give this piece of trash an NC-17 for scenes of explicit transportation.

unholy healing

Also known as "Obamacare."

attitude control by unholy magic 

That was the scene were wizards and witches were all pointing their wands at each other and shouting the incantation, "Zoloft!"

text appearing by unholy magic 

My iPhone is apparently a horcrux.

Christmas without Jesus 

Otherwise known as "Black Friday."

inexplicable voices 

Turns out it was just that "Pants on the Ground" guy.

fire by unholy magic 

King Arthur: Who are you who can summon fire without flint or tinder?

Tim: There are some who call me... Tim. 

So there you have it.  Attend a screening of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 at the risk of thy immortal soul.  Unless you watched a lot of Bewitched reruns when you were a kid, in which case you're going to Hell already, and would you like something from the Snack Bar?

Happy 4th of WOLVERINES!

First, thanks to everyone for the very kind anniversary wishes.  WO'C is blessed by some of the smartest, funniest readers around, and whenever I muse on the high caliber of people who choose to waste their time here, I swell with pride.  Usually Charlie Pride -- which I'm told is nothing to be alarmed about, although I should probably make that appointment with the urologist first thing on Tuesday -- but in honor of the 4th I've decided to swell with Pilgrim's Pride.

And to commemorate this most patriotic of holidays (and the forthcoming remake of that most patriotic of motion pictures), we thought we'd offer an encore presentation of our Red Dawn review from Better Living Through Bad Movies.

Red Dawn (1984)
Directed by John Milius
Written by John Milius (the semen stains on the screenplay confirm this) and Kevin Reynolds. Story by Kevin Reynolds

The story of Red Dawn is familiar to anyone who had a C. Thomas Howell-induced wet dream during the mid 1980’s: Russians and Cubans invade the United States after the Soviet Union suffers its “worst wheat harvest in 55 years,” which somehow allows them to conquer the world. I found this perplexing but inspiring, since I was recently fined for putting a Rubbermaid storage tub on my balcony. Taking a leaf from the Commie playbook, I poured a bottle of Round-Up into the planter in the courtyard and killed the hydrangeas, which should permit me to conquer the Condo Board and rule the Homeowners Association with an iron hand.

Anyway, this lurid peek into John Milius’ porn collection clocks in at a surprisingly epic 1 hour and 54 minutes, which admittedly sounds long until you actually watch it, at which point you’ll swear that sometime prior to the closing credits the Sun collapsed into a neutron star and humanity evolved into a species of pure energy.

Our film opens in South Park, Colorado. It’s a typical all-American commuity, except they apparently  don’t have cable TV, which means that 1) nobody has been able to switch on CNN and see that the Red Army has invaded America, and 2) they won’t be able to enjoy this movie when it eventually enters heavy rotation on HBO with Ice Castles and The Beastmaster.

Patrick Swayze drops his brother Charlie Sheen and Some Other Guy off at South Park High, whose football team is named…the Wolverines. (Pay attention! Later in the movie this seemingly trivial detail will become an extremely important source of irritation.) It finally dawns on the oblivious townsfolk that something is amiss when Soviet spetsnaz troops parachute onto the campus and blow up the cafeteria. (Apparently their battle plan read: 1) Secure major access roads. 2) Detain local authorities. 3) Destroy all stockpiles of Sloppy Joes and Sporks.)

In the midst of the invasion, Patrick roars back into the parking lot to pick up Charlie and Some Other Guy. Bullets and rocket propelled grenades are flying around the school, teachers are being cut down by machineguns, busses are exploding and burning, but none of the kids seems all that upset, since this basically gives them the equivalent of a Snow Day.

Cut to: a bumpersticker that reads, You’ll Get My Gun When You Pry It From My Cold Dead Hands. Pan down to the vehicle’s owner, who is lying dead in the street with a gun in his cold hand. A kindly Russian soldier pauses to make the corpse’s dream come true.

Patrick collects a motley assortment of future direct-to-video stars and drives them to a service station/armory run by C. Thomas Howell’s dad. Suddenly, there’s an explosion in a distant vacant lot, and Patrick realizes the special effects crew is closing in on them. Under Dad’s expert guidance, they quickly gather up survival gear (soup, toilet paper, a football) and weapons (.38 revolvers, Red Ryder BB guns, Jarts) and pile into Patrick’s pickup.

They get about ten feet before the truck breaks down. The only way to fix it?  Urinate into the radiator. (Although the truck bed is overloaded with supplies, no one thought to bring a bottle of water. They do have several crates of New Coke, however). It should also be noted that co-scenarist Kevin Reynolds again celebrated the salutary effects of man piss ten years later in Waterworld, where the Kevin Costner character is introduced gulping down his own pee like a Jello shot. Anyway, having voided their bladders for the cause of freedom, the daring neo-Minute Men of Red Dawn resume their panicky flight.

Meanwhile back in South Park, the Soviet day players are conquering the hell out of the town. Suddenly, through the billowing fog of war strides Cuban revolutionary Ron O’Neil as Commandante Super Fly! A breathless subordinate tells the Commandante that U.S. Army tanks are approaching the town!

Super Fly doesn't care -- main battle tanks are easy.  What really worries him are the local Tea Party patriots who might just decide to open a can of Second Amendment whoop-ass; for the Commandante knows that these doughy, middle aged men have honed their predatory instincts through many a half-drunken Saturday afternoon spent firing randomly into clumps of sagebrush in an effort to wing a pen-raised quail. The Commandante orders a couple of loitering soldiers to go stop the Third Armored Division, while he routs the real enemy by sorting through paperwork at the sporting goods store.

How did it come to this? U.S. soil, invaded and occupied by the Red Army and the Buena Vista Social Club! Well the movie was made in 1984, which means the invasion took place during the end of Ronald Reagan’s first term of office, a time when the President was admittedly having trouble focusing on details. (He later delivered a stirring mea culpa: “A few months ago I told the American people I did not let Russians and Cubans invade the United States. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.” Good enough for me, Dutch!

Still, you have to wonder why we didn’t annihilate the invading Soviet forces with any of those tens of thousands of thermonuclear weapons on our ICBMs, B-1 bombers, and submarines. Well, the answer to that is two little words: Good sportsmanship. Or we were so busy watching The Fall Guy and Finder of Lost Loves that we didn't notice we'd been invaded until the Russians were waiting for their luggage at the Denver Airport.

Meanwhile, the Band of Brothers and Other Guys have reached the mounains, and are camping beside their piss-powered 4x4. Severak of our sniveling heroes suggest that the only rational course is surrender, but Patrick Swayze is visibly a’swell with the spirit of patriotic defiance, and will brook no whisper of capitulation. He delivers a spine-tingling oration that puts Henry V’s St. Crispin’s Day speech to shame, with lines like “Here, haul ass, take your shit!” and “This is your chance—git walkin’!” Patrick and Charlie Sheen spontaneously hug. Patrick shakes hands with Richard Beymer from West Side Story, then they all snuggle in close as Patrick explains that he and Charlie have been coming up here to Brokeback Mountain for a lot of years, and they can hunt and fish and avoid the invading Soviets and their increasingly suspicious wives for a long time.

It’s now October. Patrick, Charlie, and C. Thomas are all heavily accessorized with pine boughs and ferns (apparently they took time out from the insurrection to appear in the second season of Project Runway). The camouflage suggests that these nascent guerrillas will use their command of wood lore to approach their enemies unseen, or  else we caught them in the middle of some cosplay fantasy in which Treebeard gets it on with that talking apple orchard from The Wizard of Oz.

C. Thomas shoots a stag, and Patrick and Charlie haze C. by making him drink its blood. “You gotta do it,” Patrick says, handing him a cup full of steaming gore. C. gazes queasily into his beverage as Charlie solemnly nods and murmurs, “Then you’ll be a real hunter.” Well, then you’ll be an easily browbeaten moron with a mouthful of bloodborne ruminant parasites, but let’s not quibble.

C. obligingly chugs it down and then grins at them through his blood mustache, and they all exchange manly, plasma-soaked handshakes. Charlie leans in close and confides to C., “My dad said, once you do that, there’s gonna be somehing different about you.” Yeah. It’s called Lyme disease. Enjoy.

As the group opens its last can of Campbell’s Chunky Smoked Chicken with Roasted Corn Chowder, they figure, hey, it’s been a month; they really ought to head to town and find out what happened with their families and that whole invasion thing.

As they approach South Park, Patrick, Charlie and Other Guy are shocked to see that people are strolling around freely, the streets are safe and quiet, the stores are open, and unlike, say, Baghdad in 2003, the town apparently has running water and more than 3 hours of electricity a day. So the main thing I learned from Red Dawn is that George W. Bush should have subcontracted the invasion of Iraq to the Russians.

Our heroes learn that the Soviets have rounded up local men in violation of the Geneva Convention, and thrown them into a makeshift camp where they rot away without due process. Fortunately the prison is at the drive-in, so the boys can visit their impounded families and still catch that double feature of Blame It on Rio and Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment.

But when they approach the camp under cover of darkness, the boys are aghast at the conditions. Prisoners are beaten mercilessly during interrogations and kept outdoors in a chain link enclosure like animals.  A voice drones constantly over the loudspeaker, “America is a whorehouse,” while soul-crushing propaganda images flash on the screen, interrupted occasionally by that “Let’s All Go to the Snack Bar” commercial.

Patrick and Charlie find their father, Harry Dean Stanton, who observes that his sons are alive and rather smugly says, “See? I was tough on you—did things that made you hate me at times.” But apparently his unique brand of discipline—the verbal abuse, the floggings with extension cords, the forced chugging of doe blood—it built character. So I guess the joke’s on them.

Dad sternly orders Patrick and Charlie to never to cry again for the rest of their lives, before he’s dragged away, shrieking, “Avenge me! AVENGE ME!”  The boys turn and saunter off, their body language seeming to say, “Yeah. Sure. We’ll get right on that, Pop.”

After the motivational death of their dad, Patrick, Charlie and C. head on over to Old Man Exposition’s farm, where they learn that South Park is "O.T.," or "Occupied Territory," while the far side of Brokeback Mountain is “F.A.” or...something. "Fat Albert"?

Old Man Exposition tries to cheer up C. by revealing that the Russians shot his Dad on account of all the guns and Fresca they took from his gas station. C. tries to feign a convincing breakdown by screaming into his hands, but it doesn’t really work, so he turns to the farmer’s wife and buries his face in her wizened décolletage (which is as close as we ever get to sex in this movie).

As a consolation prize, Old Man Exposition gives the boys his granddaughters (Lea Thompson and Jennifer Grey) as a free gift. He also gives them horses; Jennifer gets her own stallion, but Lea has to ride behind C., and she mounts up with a look that seems to say, “As soon as they yell ‘cut!’ I’m calling my agent and accepting that Howard the Duck offer!”

Our heroes finally start the revolution by murdering three Russian tourists who were in the midst of comically mistranslating a Forestry Service dedication plaque). But they do a crappy job of it, and only succeed in maiming the unarmed men.  However, Patrick corners one of the helpless victims, and summoning the courage of his frontier forefathers and the 46th Vice President, shoots him in the face. (And then presumably drinks his blood. Rules are rules.)

Jennifer and Lea also prove their mettle by catching up to another seriously injured man as he crawls on his hands and knees, and shooting him in the back with a submachinegun. Apparently, this baptism of fire turns them into radical lesbian feminists, because later they angrily refuse Charlie Sheen’s suggestion that they do the dishes. Charlie can’t understand their righteous indignation, but for the sake of their survival as an effective fighting unit, he grudgingly tries to make peace by offering to pay them for sex.

The Russians line up two dozen townspeople in front of a firing squad, either in reprisal for the Wolverines' attack, or because they're singing a rendition of “America the Beautiful” that’s really off-key and grating. (Here’s a tip for future victims of Russo-Cuban atrocities: When you get to the “above the fruited plain” part, never go up an octave on “fruited” if you just don’t have the range for it.)  Commandante Super Fly hastily orders the civilians gunned down before they get a chance to belt out that stupid “O beautiful for Pilgrim feet” line.

Charlie observes the massacre while dressed like a sheave (with the coming of fall, our heroes have naturally switched from ferns to wheat and wild grasses to preserve that Fashion Forward look). When he later returns to Brokeback and reports the mass murder, he breaks down and weeps bitterly until Patrick grabs him and screams, “Don’t cry! Don’t you ever cry again as long as you live!  Don’t do it!” He tells Charlie, who just saw their father murdered, to let his grief “turn into something else.” Perhaps a butterfly, or a Pop-Tart—he doesn’t specify.

Back to the uprising. Jennifer Grey destroys a Soviet tank by giving the crew a booby-trapped picnic basket (as seen in Yogi Bear: The Final Conflict). Then, “the greatest pro-gun movie ever” proves that your deer rifle really ain’t gonna cut it come the Conquering Commie Horde, because suddenly our heroes have rockets and grenade launchers, Kalashnikovs and .50 machine guns. They proceed to
slaughter the highly trained Soviet paratroopers, pausing only occasionally to below, “Wolverines!” (Originally the insurgents called themselves “The Magilla Guerrillas,” but the brand performed poorly in focus-testing.)

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any more tedious, the Russkies shoot down Top Gun Colonel Powers Boothe (callsign “Backstory”), who tells the kids that America was conquered by illegal aliens. Apparently, itinerant farm workers opened the door and “the whole Cuban and Nicaraguan armies just waltzed right in” and took over the whole country. I don’t know about you,
but my support for that UFW grape boycott is over!

The seasons pass. In real time. The snows come, and Patrick takes to wearing a white burnoose like Lawrence of Arabia. Some tanks suddenly appear and things get confusing: Ralph Macchio dies, and he wasn’t even in this movie.


Richard Beymer goes to town, and in an astonishing twist, he’s betrayed by his own father, captured by the Russians and tortured until he swallows a tracking device that will lead the invaders right to the Wolverines! Finally! Something exciting happens—too bad it all happens off screen and we just get to hear about it later. Oh well.

Patrick decides to shoot Richard in the face, because frankly, he does one thing, and he does it well. Later, he sits alone and sobs, the little hypocrite, while mooning over a picture of two 8-year old boys in Little League uniforms. This is never explained, which I think is all for the best.

The Russians decide to insult the Wolverines' intelligence by pushing crates of food off moving trucks to lure them into a trap, and they decide to fall for it. Our heroes collect and devour the provisions—providing further proof, as if any were needed, that there is nothing more exciting in an action film than the sight of people eating cornflakes--while the director seizes this belated opportunity to give his characters a shred of personality by having Jennifer Grey squeeze orange juice onto Patrick’s head.

Suddenly, a Soviet attack helicopter appears and shoots Jennifer in the gut, which is tragic, because only moments ago she was so alive, dribbling citrus juice on a mediocre actor’s do-rag. Patrick shouts, “Nobody shoots Baby in the gut!” and throws her onto his horse and rides away, but accidentally drops her.

C. thrusts his rifle in the air and bellows, “Wolverines!” which the Russians take as a request to shoot him with a variety of projectiles until he is primarily a stain. Meanwhile Jennifer, despite taking a small rocket through the sternum and falling off a galloping horse is still alive, which seems kind of cruel (what the hell do you have to do to get out of this movie?) and she quite reasonably asks Patrick
to shoot her in the face. But suddenly he’s too much of a whimpering little pussy to pull the trigger.

“Give me a grenade,” she whispers. “I don’t want to be too cold.” Yeah.  That’ll warm you right up. She explodes, taking one of the Russkies with her.  Unfortunately, when it comes time to put her together again after the stunt, they can't find her original nose and she has to go with a loaner.

Back at Red Army HQ, tender, haunting music plays while Commandante Super Fly writes a voice over to his wife, complaining about the weather. It's a beautiful and moving scene, surprisingly evocative of Ken Burns' The Civil War.  ("My Dearest Consuela...Snow blankets this place in the chill mantle of death.  My heart is heavy for want of you, and my soul is sick with the desolation of war.  So many of my comrades lie dead or wounded, the people stare at us with the dull, sullen gaze of caged beasts, and all of our radiators smell like piss.")

Patrick and a Russian Colonel face off in a Wild West style shootout. “You lose,” Patrick sneers, just before the Colonel shoots him to excess.

Although Patrick's lungs now contain a lavish assortment of bullets, he still manages to lift the wounded Charlie -- who's losing a lot of tiger blood -- and carry him to a playground, while Commandante Super Fly watches and whispers, “Vaya con Dios.” They die together, embracing by a swingset.

Meanwhile, Lea and Some Other Guy re-enact the end of The Sound of Music and walk over the mountains to F.A. (turns out it stood for "Free America"). Then she turns into John-Boy Walton and sums up the Third World War with a pithy and listless voice over:  Even though everybody’s dead, we won.

WOLVERINES!!

A Day of Love and Crust

Happy anniversary to D.Sidhe and her partner!  And to the lovely maryc, who's been putting up with me on a daily basis for a good half decade.  (Frankly, what with all the gay marriage going on lately, I thought that by now our bonds of matrimony would have just sort of dissolved, like stitches, but Mary insists that no, we're still married, and yes, Maggie Gallagher is a stupid bitch.)

I consulted Emilypost.com for traditional gift ideas, and learned that five years is your pizza anniversary (or it is now that Emily is dead, and her starched rules of etiquette can be impulsively revised just like Wikipedia).   Actually, five years is "wood" or "wood object," which sounds just as cheap, but much less useful than pizza.  Plus, I haven't forgotten what happened to Edward Woodward when his wife got him a Wicker Man for their fifth.

And for those who may have missed it, here's a heartwarming tale of one man who got more than he ever dreamed or wanted for his 15th anniversary, courtesy of the sublime Bloggess:  And that's why you should learn to pick your battles.

Now if you'll excuse me, I hear Cupid knocking at my door, with a quiverful of passion-tipped arrows, and a large sausage and pepperoni, extra cheese.