Friday, June 28, 2013

Oh THAT Deserves a Proclamation, Yer Honor

Be with you in a second...just making a bet with myself that the same folks who claimed, at volume, that Bloomberg's Big Gulp ban made him Hitler on the Hudson will rise in full-throated defense of the Littlest Billionaire over this:
Mayor Bloomberg: NYPD ‘Stops Whites Too Much And Minorities Too Little’ 
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the police department’s controversial stop and frisk program during a radio interview on Friday morning, and complained that the NYPD was stopping too many white people.
Bloomberg's money shot:
"One newspaper and one news service, they just keep saying ‘oh it’s a disproportionate percentage of a particular ethnic group.’ That may be, but it’s not a disproportionate percentage of those who witnesses and victims describe as committing the [crime]. In that case, incidentally, I think we disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little. It’s exactly the reverse of what they’re saying. I don’t know where they went to school, but they certainly didn’t take a math course. Or a logic course."
However...
The statistics are overwhelming. An independent study of the city’s stop-and-frisk program found that 87 percent of the 685,724 stops in 2011 — a record high — were of blacks and latinos. Young black men between the ages of 14 and 24 were stopped 106% of the time — as in, there were more stops of young black men than the entire population of young black men.
"I'm very pleased and honored by this... Wait a second...This Proclaims me an asshole!"

Anyway, it's all academic now.  Under pressure from a civil suit filed against the NYPD and the Bloomberg Administration, the Mayor has directed the Police Commissioner to replace the controversial stop-and-frisk with a new program: stop-and-frisky.
Under this new system, adopted from a successful program introduced last year in Britain, subjects detained by police may not be searched without probable cause, but may be required to spontaneously "frolic, caper, or gambol." Statistically, most people take this as a cue to dance, according to Metropolitan Police Service spokesperson Brince Funnelwidth.  "Some people go low impact, of course; just do The Robot, or Prancercise.  But most choose to get jiggy with it, especially if they've got some Belgian New Beat or speedcore on their mp3 player. Irish stepdancing is the most effective for dislodging weapons and contraband of course, particularly the Treble Hop Back move, but really any high energy dance style is sufficient to provide an officer with probable cause.  One constable told me about a subject who performed a rapid series of stag leaps and chaînés that sent concealed bags of meth flying as far as six, seven meters away."

British police point to polling which suggests the public actually prefers the new program to being frisked.  "It's less invasive," says Sergeant Funnelwidth, "And allows more room for self-expression.  It's been such a success, in fact, that most members of the public now leave their homes dressed to move, and with a two-minute song prepared."

Some lawyers concerned with civil liberties point out, however, that stop-and-frisky has actually led to increased racial profiling.  Statistics show that minorities were involved in 91% of all stops, whites in only 6% (the remaining 3% involved stops of bollards, mannequins, and Nelson's Column by constables who were "more than ordinarily drunk"at the time).    Funnelwidth concedes that Stop-and-Frisky has not eliminated all problems of ethnic bias, but believes the disparity has been overstated by plaintiffs' attorneys, and even echoes Mayor Bloomberg's belief that Met officers stop far too many whites.  "Have you ever seen them dance?  It's bloody awful, mate."

Thursday, June 27, 2013

And You Are There

Lincoln, Nebraska:  Photographer J. Hanover Whitscomb captures the earliest known use of the "Wet Willie," by Johann Bernauer, retired farrier, on Arthur Millstone Bagby, prominent corn factor (February 11, 1910).

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Scientific American

All right, we went five rounds with Philosophy in our last post, now it's time to give Science! a chance to kick our ass.  (But just regular Science!, not the Sweet Science, because I think that'd probably give it an unfair advantage in the ring).  So who's on the card today?  An old ham 'n egger familiar to regular fans of World O' Crap's Underground Bloodsport Kumite and Souplantation -- James (The Ravagin' Rationalist) Lewis, who in his previous bouts (examples here and here), modestly allowed that he's "a scientist by trade, and carps as a hobby about the passing parade of human fraud and folly".  James is wearing blue and brown trunks with white trim, representing the muddy, but patriotic color scheme of American Thinker.
An Uncontrollable Ego 
IRS. FBI. NSA... Under Obama they consistently exceed their previously understood legal powers. Yes, there was technical consent by the secret FISA court for massive NSA spying. In times of national threat the FISA court is a pushover; just imagine if they said "No" and we had another 9/11/01.
When has the FISA court ever not been a pushover?  Hell, I've got a partially herniated disc and a torn rotator cuff and I could throw it up against the lockers and take its lunch money.  But as we shall see, it's not the mere technical legality of NSA and FBI spying that troubles Mr. Lewis.  Nor is it the fact that the IRS didn't really spy on anybody, but James needed one more three initial agency and he's hoping you won't notice that he just sort of tossed it in there like a fistful of corn starch to thicken up his thin sauce of an opening sentence.  No, what bothers him most is that the organs of U.S. intelligence gathering and Federal law enforcement are now under the control of a Negro -- which is the exact same nightmare J. Edgar Hoover once had after catching a dollar matinee of Watermelon Man at the Uptown Theater.

But first, James will demonstrate his mastery of the scientific method by imagining Supreme Court Justices piercing the Bill of Rights with phallic symbols:
So they drove a dagger into the U.S. Constitution rather than stand for principle, the way Chief Justice John Roberts helped damage the Constitution by voting for ObamaCare, and the Burger Court shafted the Constitution and ruined millions of young lives with unrestricted abortion.
I was hoping it wouldn't happen so soon in the post, but I'm afraid my lack of scientific training is already beginning to tell, because I'm confused about whose "young lives" were "ruined" by abortion after Warren Burger poked his penis through the parchment at the National Archives.  I mean,  I'm used to right bloggers complaining that abortion "kills millions of babies," but I don't agree that it ruins a young woman's life if she's not forced to bring an unwanted pregnancy to term.  Or maybe James has access to secret scientific studies which indicate the "abortion is murder" trope isn't getting as much traction as they expected, and is just trying out a new spin:

"What happens when you've got a souffle in the oven and you open the door too soon?  The souffle is ruined!  Well, the same thing happens when you've got a bun in the oven..."
Perhaps the most damaging Leftist assault ever was reverse discrimination to make up for white racial sins going back to the slave trade that ended in 1865; that racialist revenge narrative still drives reverse discrimination, forty years after the start of "affirmative" action. It will never end, as long as there is a penny to be made on racial blackmail.
Hm...there seems to be something missing from Mr. Lewis's data set.  Maybe some trend or social order that existed between the end of the "slave trade" in 1865, and the beginnings of affirmative action in 1965.  Maybe something having to do with state and local laws....of a race-based nature...?  Had kind of a short, catchy nickname...You know what I'm talking about, right, Jim?
The equal protection clause is gone. 
Suddenly, there was no trail.  No clause.  No monster.  There was nothing in the tunnel but the puzzled men of courage who suddenly found themselves along with shadows and darkness.  So I guess the joke's on us.
Every time the left imagines another victim group, that gaping wound in constitutional protections grows larger and larger
Anytime anyone who isn't a white man uses a constitutional protection, it's like giving the 14th Amendment an episiotomy.
 -- first on behalf of American blacks, then for all "people of color," then women and gays, and now, illegal immigrants.
Those are all great, very imaginative victim groups, but I'm thinking we can push the envelope a bit more. 
"What about, like, super hot Silvan Elves who earn only 73 cents on the dollar compared to a Man of the West?"
 Reverse racial discrimination has empowered an unelected political class growing fat and thuggish on a new spoils system. With ObamaCare, racial spoils may capsize our elected ship of state, leaving only an EU-type corruptocracy.
Affordable healthcare leads to obesity and The Poseidon Adventure.
The Left has pushed against the Constitution beginning with the Wilson administration and World War I.
Which was pretty stupid of them, because it says clearly right there on the Constitution, "Pull."  But what do you expect from a perpetually stoned Yippie like A. Mitchell Palmer?
 What's different about Obama is his Leninist grandiosity, combined with amazing oppositional-defiant disorder.
So, Mr. Science, you're diagnosing our 51-year old President with a behavioral affliction common to children?  Why don't you just call him "Boy" and get it out of your system?
 In street language that means his f-u attitude.
Thanks for the translation, it saved me a trip to Urban Dictionary, but I'm a little surprised The Street is so squeamish about profanity.

MAN:  Can I have a sip of that?
STREET:  No!  Get the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks away from my M-Fing ice tea!
Obama takes pleasure in waving his finger in the air while violating our most precious values. Obama's narcissism and oppositional-defiance therefore control his official actions.
While Supreme Court Chief Justices are using the Constitution as a Fleshlight, Obama is out there flouting our precious belief that high government officials shouldn't mime prostate exams.
The week after Obama's first inauguration, commuters in New York City were shocked when Air Force One buzzed the Statue of Liberty. When the White House was queried nobody took responsibility. But only the President of the United States can override standing orders and FAA safety rules in that symbolic act of giving the middle finger to the whole country, within sight of the ruined Twin Towers.
Presidents of the United States must always travel with two briefcases: the "Football," which contains the nuclear launch codes, and the "Shuttlecock," which contains the phone number of the FAA, just in case the leader of the free world gets a yen to make Air Force One buzz around lower Manhattan like it's a big-ass Cox Mustang.

In fact, it was some guy in some office in the White House who approved the flyover of a plane that wasn't actually Air Force One, so they could snap some pictures, which the FAA doesn't actually seem to have any rules against, and which most people have completely forgotten about, since it happened back in 2009.  But James appears haunted by Obama's middle finger, whether literal or symbolic, so you can see why this kind of thing would have lodged inside his consciousness, at least up to the second knuckle.
Today the Europeans are genuinely afraid of Obama. If you doubt that, look at these two news photos. The first shows Frau Merkel looking with fear and doubt in her eyes at Obama in Germany this week. 
I'm no expert in psycho-photo-analysis, but all I see is a picture of Chancellor Merkel looking German.  Maybe a little extra German, but it could just be that her plastic ear thingy is pinching.
Merkel started life as a communist in East Germany, but seems acutely aware of personality cults like Stalin's and Obama's. She fears what she knows.
But she knows what she likes, and you can tell she's thinking, "If I wasn't a frau I would tear that up."
The second photo shows Britain's David Cameron doing that little head bow that politicians do around Obama. Both photos show fear of Obama's arbitrary temper and rage, which is by now understood by governments around the world.
Yes, you can see the Prime Minister has gone rigid with terror, and appears to be releasing a cascade of urine down his leg in the hopes that if he can only hold this pose, Obama might mistake him for the Manneken Pis fountain and just take a snapshot.
Merkel's look is particularly revealing, because it was her job this week to protest against Obama's unbounded NSA spying against Germans and other Europeans, who have known Obamas before --- Mussolini, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and a raft of other control freaks who became enraged when their orders were not followed. Led by our loathsome media, many Americans took the public revelations about Obama's abuses of power with a shrug. The Germans did not, because they still suffer from earlier generations of Obamas.
Obama's "Show Trials" may lack the authenticity of Stalin's purges, but thanks to the President's dupes in the entertainment industry, they do feature jazzier Show Trial Tunes.
The Muslim world has come to the same conclusion. The farcical Arab Spring started after Obama told Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak to leave office, arbitrarily, in the single most blatant act of public imperialism in American history.
It's the total arbitrariness of Obama's decision-making that's so frightening, because you never know when he wakes up if he'll order a Denver omelet and a glass of grapefruit juice, or demand the resignation of a world leader and then just grab some Sanka and an Eggo frozen waffle.

Even more mystifying is the fact that protests erupted in Cairo on January 25, and by February 8, the President was still refusing to call for Mubarak's resignation.  So in order for Obama to have started the Arab Spring by firing the Egyptian President, he would need a time machine, which explains why James sounds less like he's doing Science, and more like he's writing fiction -- because he's actually doing both.  It's Science Fiction!
Based on his own messianic authority, Obama has brought nothing but war and suffering to the Middle East.
Okay, Obama hasn't been the best messiah we've ever had in the Middle East, but to be fair, George W. Bush, Prince of Peace, is a hard act to follow.
The Saudis fear him as a wild man who has brought Mecca and Medina within easy range of Iranian nuclear weapons. Israel has not been damaged so far, but they don't want a wild man running U.S. policy either.
I'm guessing James' field is astrophysics, since he seems to have discovered a mirror universe where everybody sports goatees.
Politics is worse today than it has been for decades, because of the rise of the Boomer Left, culminating in Obama the Messiah.
Which, when you're expecting Jesus, is sort of like when you open the door in a game of "Mystery Date" and get the sloppy beatnik instead of the crewcut guy with the corsage.
Wise policymakers understand the limits of their power and end up practicing the rule of "First, Do No Harm." We now have a U.S. president who has turned that upside-down: First, do some harm.
Please do not reveal the incredible twist ending to James' previous paragraph.  Especially if M. Night Shyamalan is within earshot.
It hasn't worked, and it won't. Obama is a loose cannonball. He has only one guiding principle, the aggrandizement of his own ego. But just one Nobel Peace Prize, just one presidency, can never be enough for his insatiable needs. Obama will always need more. 
Obama wants to control everything except himself. That has always been a formula for tyranny, and Obama is no exception. 
Character is destiny.
It would also appear, James, that cartoon character is destiny -- especially if you're destined to write for American Thinker.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Plato's Retreat

My friends, we've been getting away with this gentle mockery and spoofing buffoonery for a good many years now, but it had to happen sooner or later, and I'm afraid World O' Crap has finally met its match.  At first I thought this would be merely another wingnut scouting report, yet another toe-dipping test of the tepid waters at Townhall.  But then I reached the bottom of the article, and realized-- too late! --  that I had locked horns with a professional philosopher:
Jack Kerwick received his doctoral degree in philosophy from Temple University. His area of specialization is ethics and political philosophy. He is a professor of philosophy at several colleges and universities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Jack blogs at Beliefnet. ... Kerwick has taught a variety of philosophy courses as an adjunct instructor for nine years at a range of schools. He is now seeking a permanent residency as he continues his research into classical conservatism.
Personally, I like the idea of an itinerant philosophy professor, pushing his cart through the cobbled streets at dawn, crying "Syllogisms and peritropes, alive, alive, oh!"  But I'm just a Right Brain slob who never trained in critical thinking, and am clearly unequipped to match wits with a skilled rhetorician.  Unfortunately, I'd already cut 'n' pasted his post into my browser, which is the blogger equivalent of lifting your hand after moving a chess piece, leaving me in a logical cleft stick from which I had but one way out...

All right, Prof, let's get our proofs on!

Amnesty Nonsense
Let’s be blunt: anyone who endorses anything remotely resembling the “comprehensive immigration reform” currently bandied about in Congress is either a fool or a liar.
And since everyone is Congress is a fool and a liar, this postulate cannot be disproved! Please proceed, Professor...
Amnesty — and make no mistakes about it, “comprehensive immigration reform,” “a pathway to citizenship,” and whatever other euphemisms its apologists invoke do nothing to change the fact that it is amnesty that they favor — is a fool’s errand of epic proportions. This becomes obvious once we consider it in light of an analogy from everyday life.
Whew, an analogy. I thought he was gonna beat me about the head and shoulders with a more complicated rhetorical device, like an allegory, or a metalepsis.
You’re married.
True, but I wish you'd keep my personal life out of this.
Chief among the obligations inherent in marriage is that of fidelity.
And putting the cap back on the damn toothpaste.
Your spouse has chronically failed to fulfill this most basic of duties. 
Exactly!  Am I the only one around here who cares that the mouth of the tube is clogged with a petrified geyser of Crest?
Finally, you’ve had enough. Upon threatening your philandering spouse with divorce, she acknowledges that your marriage is “broken” before swearing to not only change, but change radically
I could tell she was trying to spice up our apolitical love life when I found she'd placed a copy of Saul Alinsky's marriage manual, Rules for Red Hot Radicals: A Prurient Primer for Fornicating Fabians in the magazine rack next to the toilet.
Not only will she stop cheating, she promises to transform herself into the epitome of the loyal and loving wife.
So you're saying June Cleaver was heating up the house with torrid sexytimes while Ward was off doing his vague job in his nondescript office?  No wonder she always had a pearl necklace.  (By the way, was it Lumpy?  I always suspected she had something going on the side with Lumpy.)
While you would doubtless want to believe this, you could not do so.
The italics simply would not let you!
Unfortunately, none of the good sense on display here is present in this debate over amnesty — even though the reasoning for the latter is identical to the reasoning of the unfaithful wife.
I don't know why they don't just scrap the immigration reform bill and pass Lady Chatterley's Lover.  Since the current legislation apparently requires that our spouses slut around behind our backs, this would have the same effect, with the added benefit that it'd be one of the few bills Congressmen would actually read, albeit in the Cloakroom.
It is among the most basic obligations of a government to secure its country’s borders. As fidelity is essential to preserving the integrity of marriage, so too is border security essential to preserving the integrity of a nation. Indeed, a government that fails to secure its borders is unfaithful to its citizens.
Therefore, it is incumbent upon our representatives to immediately appropriate funds to build a fence around our wives' vaginas.
First, if the government can’t or won’t fulfill its most basic and simplest of obligations in securing the country’s borders now, there is zero reason to accept its assurances that it will fulfill this duty as well as a bunch of new duties later. As my old martial arts instructor used to say, you’ve got to learn how to walk before you can learn how to run.
I like how smoothly he slipped in that reference to his training in the manly art of fisticuffs and footicuffs, but I gotta say, if that's the kind of advice his martial arts instructor was dispensing, the Professor wasn't getting his $65-a-month's worth.
With respect to this issue, our government hasn’t yet learned how to walk or even crawl. But the Gang of Eight and their accomplices in the media would have us believe that with the stroke of a pen, the federal government will instantaneously become a marathon runner.
I also like how the terms of debate have changed from "immigration is adultery" to "I took karate!" to "Congress is a toddler that lacks the cardiovascular conditioning to compete in distance running events!"  You have to admit, that is one flexible analogy.
Second, border security is as big of a non-negotiable in governing as fidelity is a non-negotiable in marriage. 
And now we've veered wildly back toward the swarthy gardener who's humping his missus.  You know what, Professor Kerwick -- why don't you stop the analogy and let me off here.  I'll walk the rest of the way to your point.
The citizens of the United States should no more have to negotiate with their government to secure its borders than spouses should have to negotiate with one another to refrain from engaging in adultery. Spouses owe it to each other to be faithful. Similarly, the government owes it to its citizens to secure their borders.
Unfortunately, our government is a newborn that can't even crawl yet, so it's not likely to outrun immigrants darting across the border.  Also, somebody should turn Congress onto its back before it smothers.
However, when Marco Rubio or Chuck Schumer or any other politician favoring amnesty tells us that, in order to secure the border we must first place millions of illegal immigrants on a “pathway” to citizenship, what they are essentially saying is that we, the people’s elected representatives, will not discharge our constitutional duty unless you go along with what we want.
What do we want?  Emphatic typeface!  When do we want it?  Now!
Finally, when Chuck Schumer, Marco Rubio, and their allies in Washington inform us that our immigration system is “broken,” they admit, albeit unwittingly, that they, Republicans and Democrats alike, broke it. 
Not necessarily.  It might have been that Not Me asshole.

Only now, after decades of breaking the system apart piece by piece, they expect for citizens to trust them to construct a new system that is better than ever, a system that will magically solve all of our immigration related issues once and forever.
Oh, I doubt most Americans believe this solution, even if it works, will prove effective for eternity, because we've all shopped for crap in this country and realize our entire system is based on planned obsolescence.  I am intrigued, however, to discover that the Gang of Eight is dabbling in sorcery (I imagine them all wearing black tights, powder blue jerkins, and big flowy capes like Dr. Strange as they ensnare Subcommittee witnesses in the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak).

I'm also interested to learn that when his strawman argument fails, the trained philosophy professor will accuse his opponents of witchcraft.  Then maybe throw one of those ninja smoke-bombs at the floor and vanish like Lee van Cleef in The Master.
To take seriously such a claim is to expose oneself as a fool. To ask others to take it seriously is to expose oneself as a liar.
And to study the writings of Dr. Jack Kerwick, migrant philosopher and cuckold, is to learn that these two things are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Father? Yes, son? I Want to Kill You

By Bill S., World O' Crap's Bad Breeders of the Big Screen Correspondent



It's Father's Day, and time once again for my annual look at the Worst Dads In Movies & Television (for previous editions, see here and here). I doubt there's any fictional dad who's worse than the real-life one I reads about who showed up for a custody hearing dressed in a Nazi uniform, but perhaps a few of them do come close.

WORST MOVIE DADS:

Johnny Nolan (James Dunn) in A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (1945):  A tragic figure in the story, to be sure, but one of the ways he's a tragic figure is that he's an undependable lush and a screw-up. (This classic movie's not available on DVD. Think about that next time you're at a Redbox poring over the selections desperately searching for something to watch, before settling on Furry Vengeance or Just Go With It.)

Frank Stark (Jim Backus) in Rebel Without a Cause (1955): Such a clueless, ineffectual mound of wussyburger, you wonder how he managed to even conceive a child at all, much less James Dean.  Bonus bad dad: Judy's Father (William Hopper). When Judy (Natalie Wood) tries to give him an affectionate kiss on the cheek, he slaps her. (WTF???)

Alfred P. Doolittle (Stanley Holloway) in My Fair Lady (1964): Upon learning his daughter Eliza (Audrey Hepburn) is living with a man, he tries to profit from the situation by shaking down Professor Higgins (Rex Harrison) for money. It's debatable whether he's trying to pimp her out, since he only asks for five pounds, as he knows the Professor's intentions are honorable. For less honorable intentions, he'd have charged fifty.

Mac Sledge (Robert Duvall) in Tender Mercies (1983): Duvall makes this list for the third year in a row, this time for his portrayal of country singer Mac, a recovering alcoholic and deadbeat dad. Mac was absent from his daughter's life for most of her childhood. When they're finally reunited, she asks him to sing the song he used to sing for her when she was little (her one happy memory of him), and he pretends not to know it. We know he's pretending, because the song in question is "Wings of a Dove", and a country singer who doesn't know that one would be as likely as a rock musician who doesn't know "Heartbreak Hotel", or an R&B singer who's never heard "Respect". When she dies in an auto crash, Mac barely registers any emotional response to the tragedy at all, while his ex-wife (Betty Buckley) breaks down in hysterics. (No wonder she dumped him.)

Bender's Dad in The Breakfast Club (1985): We never actually see him, but we can deduce from the fact that he burns his kid with a cigarette and smacks him (and his wife) around that he's something of a bastard.

Martin Chernak (David Strathairn) in Dominick & Eugene (1988): Strathairn returns to our list for the second year (he also played a pedophile priest in the made-for-TV movie Judgement, but that's a terrible father of a different kind). Martin beats his son on a daily basis, and one day, knocks the boy down a flight of stairs, killing him. When he learns that Nicky (Tom Hulce) a man afflicted with brain damage, is the only witness, he threatens to kill him too. Bonus bad dad: Dominick and Eugene's father, who we learn was the cause of Nicky's brain damage, sustained from the beatings he gave his son as a boy.

Daniel Hillard (Robin Williams) in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) I find Daniel's drag alter ego amusing on its own terms, and perhaps you do too. So it's easy to lose sight of why he had to resort to this ruse: because as a father, he's an irresponsible goof. Worse, when his wife Miranda (Sally Field) complains about having to always be the grownup, he has the nerve to complain that she's no fun anymore. Of course she isn't, she's the one paying the bills. Imagine trying to get out of work, racing to get home for your kid's birthday, and finding the house has become a zoo, literally, and your husband  telling you, "We were gonna clean it up before you got home!" (On the assumption she'd be working late. Thanks for that dig, asshole. No wonder she dumped him.)
[side note: Mara Wilson, who played the Hillard's 6 year old daughter, wrote a very sharp, funny column about her experiences as a child actor. It's worth checking out. ]

Guy Quoyle (John Dunsworth, played by Andrew Fowler in flashback) in The Shipping News (2001): Made his son feel worthless, even when the kid nearly drowned while learning to swim. He was also a terrible brother, having raped his sister when she was twelve, which explains her treatment of his ashes after he dies. He was also universally despised by the entire town, so there's that.

Tom Lagatos (Steven Charles Fletcher) in Dorian Blues (2004): So reactionary he made the Great Santini seem like the dad on "Family Ties". When his son Dorian, at age seven, begins having anxieties about the possibility of one day going to war, his father assures him, "You're not going to Canada. You're GOING TO WAR. And you might get killed, but you'll get killed like a man!"

Gerry Ryan (James Caan) in Mercy (2009): Advice to father's out there: when your son is grieving the death of his fiancee, which he feels responsible for, and wants to talk about it, the appropriate response is not to complain about the way he's being a buzzkill.
(a special thank you to Anntichrist S. Coulter for recommending this sleeper to me. Thanks, Annti!)

Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) in There Will Be Blood (2007): Adopted a deaf orphan to improve his standing as a businessman, using the boy as a prop, more or less. When the boy grows up to be an adult with ideas of his own, Plainview mocks his son's handicap and reveals his origins -- "There is none of me in you!" which can only be a compliment, considering what a rat bastard he is. There's also the matter of beating his son's brother-in-law to death with a bowling pin, which is bound to make the next Thanksgiving dinner a bit awkward.

WORST TV DADS:

Chester Tate (Robert Mandan) on "Soap":  A serial adulterer and embezzler, he also murders his daughter Corinne's boyfriend, and, at the wedding of his daughter Eunice, hooks up with (and eventually marries) the maid of honor. When he's missing and presumed dead, the family holds a memorial service, and nobody -- including his children -- can think of one good thing to say about him.

Don Draper (Jon Hamm) on "Mad Men": It's a close call between him and ex-wife Betty (January Jones) as to who the worse parent is, but I think Don has the edge, if only because he's spent a lifetime deceiving his kids with a false identity. (The only thing Betty pretends to be is happy, and nobody buys it.)  Small wonder then, that when daughter Sally catches a woman breaking into the apartment, she half-believes the woman's claim that she was Don's nanny. When she calls her father to see if the story checks out, she sighs, exasperated, and realizes, "I don't know you at all." Words I'm sure she'll live to regret after the latest episode where she caught him banging the next-door neighbor.

(Hey, that's two shows featuring a character named Peter Campbell.  I don't know what that signifies, just thought I'd note the coincidence.)

Ryan Howard (B. J. Novak) on "The Office":  He didn't become a father until the final episode of the series, when he turns up at Dwight and Angela's wedding with a newborn in tow. When he reunites with ex-girlfriend Kelly (Mindy Kaling), the two decide to run off together, and he ditches the baby, leaving him with one of the guests, who, understandably, calls child services. Considering what a complete and utter little shit Ryan was throughout the series, we can't help thinking the baby might be better off.

and last, but not least:


Janie's dad.

Happy Father's Day to all the World O' Crap dads out there. I promise you did a better job with your kids than those guys did!

-Bill S

Saturday, June 15, 2013

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a serial killer!

Director Zack Snyder and screenwriter David S. Goyer promised a "darker" look at America's archetypal superhero in Man of Steel, and I have to confess that as a lifelong comics fan I was thrilled by the notion of a Superman who could exist in a relevant and recognizable -- if not necessarily realistic -- version of the world we live in.  And if that vision meant accepting a Clark Kent who was not a mild mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, but a furry-faced bum from the reality TV show Deadliest Catch, and a Man of Tomorrow who doffs his iconic red underpants and goes commando, then so be it. What I wasn't prepared for, however, is an uncompromising Superman who collects gruesome trophies from his victims.
"Get the point, Lex?  Or do I have to start stringing a necklace out of dicks?"

There's precedent for this, of course; in The Dark Knight Returns, it's strongly implied that Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow, began killing white collar criminals who were beyond the reach of the law, prompting Superman to tear off the archer's shooting arm.  That may seem out of character for the Man of Steel, a hero with a well-known bias against killing, but Queen survived, so Superman merely maimed him, and no doubt even administered prompt first aid by cauterizing the gushing stump with his heat vision.  Plus, it just seems natural that if any DC character would turn out to be a corporate stooge, it'd be Supes, because he's spent the last 75 years proving that his powers and abilities to whore himself out are far beyond those of ordinary men.
Still, I hate to think the worst of people -- especially people who can rip my hand off -- so perhaps there's a more benign explanation for this macabre phalanx.  For instance, the display of severed hands could simply be evidence of a new and exciting super power.  As any comic book fan can attest, Superman has a familiar and unvarying skill set, preternatural abilities that are stimulated by exposure to Earth's yellow sun, which include super-strength, heat vision, x-ray vision, flight, invulnerability, and sanctimony.  But he also possesses a series of impromptu, short-lived, and quickly forgotten super powers that are stimulated by lazy writing and looming deadlines, including super-ventriloquism, super-knitting, and the ever popular super-friction.  Most important of all, he occasionally, when the plot demands it, shows signs of super telepathy, which I believe he's using in the photo above to mentally command an army of Things from The Addams Family.

After all, Superman is a joiner (Justice League of America, Legion of Super-Heroes, League of Titans, etc.), and even though Man of Steel is a solo project, I suspect he got lonely and decided to form a team drawn from the traumatically amputated appendages of his foes, allies, and casual acquaintances -- a sort of dismembered Super-Friends.

So remember, if you wake up in an ice-filled bathtub and find a note from Superman explaining that he took your kidney, it doesn't necessarily mean he's an organ trafficker, it may just mean he wants you to be his Pal (and if you're lucky, Superman's previous Pal, Jimmy Olsen, might let you wear his Superman Signal Watch, because at least you've still got a wrist).

What do you guys think?

Friday, June 14, 2013

E Pluribus Anus

Judging by the symbol above the door,  Greendale Community College has opened a satellite campus in our neighborhood.  Or perhaps it's the Asterisk Luxury* Apartments.
*Not actually luxurious.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Kraftabulous Abs!

Via our friends at Truth Wins Out, it seems that Kraft has produced an awesome print ad featuring, well...this:
Yowza!  That's not Kraft, that's Kraft-Ebing!

Predictably, OneMillionMoms have (or has, since I suspect it's One Mom sending out the same email a Million times) been overwhelmed with a titanic case of the vapors and are (is) encouraging the American people to "take action" in response to the ad. I completely agreed, until I realized MillionMom didn't mean it as a cute euphemism for masturbation. Nevertheless, they (she) have (has -- okay, I'll stop now) gone to all the trouble of writing out a handy-dandy form letter for us to get cranky with Kraft:
As a parent and a member of OneMillionMoms.com, I am highly offended by your company's decision to feature a nude model in your "Let's Get Zesty" ad campaign.  Your decision is disrespectful to me personally, and to my family. If Kraft continues to use such poor taste and inappropriate marketing choices, I will make a conscious effort to shop for products other than yours. 
Your current ad is soft porn, and I find it extremely offensive. It is also degrading and harmful to impressionable young men and women. Your 2-page ad resembles a centerfold! 
Kraft is pushing away loyal, conservative customers with this new ad campaign. I will not be able to buy Kraft dressings or any of your products until your company cleans up your advertising. The consumers you are attempting to attract – women and mothers - are the very ones you are driving away. Who will want Kraft products in their fridge or pantry if this vulgarity is what they represent?  
Currently, it is embarrassing to be associated with Kraft by owning their products. As a consumer, I urge you to no longer use sex to sell your products. Kraft is better than this and doesn't need to stoop so low to sell products. This disgusting advertising campaign needs to be discontinued immediately. I look forward to hearing from you regarding my concern.
Well, this prefab email form-letter is just one big Mad Lib to me, so I altered it as I saw fit, then emailed it off right away:

As a parent of two cats and a delighted spectator of OneMillionMoms.com, I am highly offended by your company's decision to feature a nude model in your "Let's Get Zesty" ad campaign, because if there's one thing I despise it's false advertising, and clearly this man is only mostly nude, since his naughty bits are concealed beneath a convenient, if not improbable, triangle of gingham.  Still, despite this visual obstruction, it's not hard to imagine that somebody's got quite the Chicken in their Biskit (and when I say "chicken" I mean "rooster."  And when I say "rooster" I mean "cock.")  And while we're on the subject, what's the damn deal with that modesty panel in the picnic blanket?  The thing has four corners, plus a pie-shaped flap you can flip over your Claussen in the event you spot a photographer crouching in the tree above you?

Your decision is disrespectful to me personally, although my family seems to enjoy it (by which I mean my cat Riley has taken to rubbing the ad all over her face, repeatedly.  I can only assume you treated the page with the musky pheromones of a rampant male in full rut.  Still, it smells better than those perfume ads in Glamour -- and most of your products, now that I think about it.) If Kraft continues to use such poor taste and inappropriate marketing choices, I will make a conscious effort to ensure I'm alone in the house the next time I flip through a People magazine.

Your current ad is soft porn, and I find it extremely pointless, because I for one won't spring for Creamy Bleu Cheese until I see penetration!  I don't care how zesty your Italian is, although I wouldn't kick him out of bed for eating Lunchables. On the other hand, your 2-page ad resembles a centerfold! Well Done!

Kraft is giving loyal, conservative customers unfamiliar and unwanted tingly feelings in their dank and mildewy nether regions, and now they will not be able to spread a thick blob of Miracle Whip on their Oscar Meyer Bologna without thinking about the Weinermobile pulling into a one-car garage.

The consumers you are attempting to attract – women and mothers - are the very ones who love this kind of advertising. I mean, who do you think is buying all those issues of Cosmopolitan ("Seven Sexy Secret Uses for Roquefort Dressing That'll Have Him Tossing Your Salad!")?  Who will want Kraft products in their fridge or pantry if this vulgarity is what they represent?  Probably people who don't look to a line of condiments for ecclesiastical advice on sexual morality (and whatever you do, don't seek a serious, long-lasting relationship with Kraft American Singles; the name alone says they're just looking to get laid).

This disgusting advertising campaign needs to be discontinued immediately and replaced with ads from earlier decades, when good corporate citizens like Kraft maintained high standards of public propriety, and only sold their non-dairy processed cheese substitute with pictures of naked chicks.
I look forward to hearing from you regarding my concern.  In the meantime, I'll be in my bunk.

Monday, June 10, 2013

The Answer My Friend, Is Ablow

You know, it's been awhile since we last consulted one of the many distinguished headshrinkers who specialize in distance-diagnosing President Obama and his liberal enablers -- far too long, in fact.  So set your 50-minute timer, grab a box of Kleenex, and let's all have a breakthrough!

According to his bio, "Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatrist and member of the Fox News Medical A-Team."  He also looks like a cross between Terry O'Quinn and Telly Savalas -- kind of a John Lockjak, so don't be surprised if during your session he sucks on a lollypop or gets possessed by the Man in Black (or vice versa).  Anyway, if you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the Fox News Medical A-Team.  They seem kind of whorish and not very picky.

Dr. Ablow's credentials are surprisingly legit for a man in his field ("He received his Doctor of Medicine degree from Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1987, and completed his psychiatry residency at the Tufts-New England Medical Center") although some of his more recent ventures have sharply veered off the high road, plunged down an embankment, and exploded in a fireball, as mandated by the 1975 Supreme Court ruling Monza v. Mannix.
During May, 2011 Ablow launched Dr. Keith Ablow Life Coaching, offering a team of life coaches trained by him who are experts at applying the content of his books Living the Truth: Transform Your Life Through the Power of Insight and Honesty and The 7: Seven Wonders that Will Change Your Life. The Life Coaching business ultimately failed, and was discontinued due to a lack of interest, as it is no longer an option on his website.
I've never been quite sure what a "life coach" does, but I assume they sit across from you with a megaphone yelling "Breathe!  Breathe! Breathe!" and if you die, they gruffly order you to "walk it off."  Actually, now that I think about it, life coaches probably explain this influx of zombies we've been having lately.

Anyway, since Dr. Ablow wrote an entire book about Truth and Honesty (I haven't read it, but I'm assuming he took the "pro" position), we can expect that the following piece will be one of the rare Foxnews.com articles which eschews tendentious arguments and confines itself solely to proven facts.
Is Obama waging psychological warfare on Americans?
I must admit, that's a pretty provocative question, but I'm not really in the mood to wade through an 825 word article, even if it does mean discovering the truth about whether the President is at war with my psyche.  Fortunately, Foxnews.com is well-acquainted with the attention span of its average reader, so the question is answered in the first thirteen words:
I believe that the Obama administration is conducting psychological warfare on conservative Americans. 
And there you have it.  Okey doke then, I guess you can all go on about your business now.  Thanks for stopping by, have a good day...
Not only that...
Sigh...
but it is also waging this war on all Americans who previously viewed themselves, their country, their Constitution and their overwhelming belief in God as a force for good in the world.
So...I guess that means the conservative Americans mentioned in the first sentence view themselves, their country, their Constitution and their overwhelming belief in God as a force of evil?
"What?  Oh, uh, just receiving another tax deductible donation for my 501(c)(4) social welfare organization."
The psychological warfare began with an apology tour in which President Obama publicly “confessed,” presuming to speak for all of us, for the shortcomings of America and our supposed contributions to tyranny and all manner of evils around the world.
At first, this Certs-like combination sentence/paragraph struck me as gibberish.  Then I remembered that "Ablow co-founded the New England Brain-Mind Institute"...
As seen in the motion picture Bowfinger...

...which uses hour-long doses of the veterinary anesthetic ketamine to treat mental illness; so in an attempt to the meet the same high standards of journalistic rigor that Dr. Ablow demonstrates, I went to Wonderland on Cahuenga and scored a hit of Special K.  Now I'm following his argument perfectly, although not that paramedic's finger that's moving slowly back and forth in front of my eyes.
This confession planted in the American mind the notion that our values and beliefs might not be in line with freedom and truth.
Yes, Obama spilled the beans, but to be fair, the secret that our values and beliefs might not be in line with freedom and truth almost got out in 1787, when they started passing the Constitution around the states for ratification; fortunately, nobody squealed to the ladies and the slaves.
The president, with the help of his administration, is attempting to conduct psychological warfare on Americans who value autonomy and free will.
I guess we should have expected that, since he promised several times during the campaign to "mind-fuck everyone but the Calvinists."
It was reinforced by the first lady stating during the 2008 presidential campaign that she had never felt pride in our country.
Wow, that's an oldie. It's like I've tuned into the Classic Rock station of right wing b.s.
These statements were seemingly shrugged off by Americans who, collectively, seemed to be telling themselves that they were hearing discontent channeled from disenfranchised groups in our nation who, nonetheless, loved the country—and all of us, too.
Look, I like you as a country, but I feel like we're moving a little too fast...
But, deep inside the American psyche, something more malignant could have been planted—the seeds of self-hatred and self-doubt. And I no longer believe that those seeds were planted unintentionally by people as smart and capable as the president and first lady.
And what's the first thing Michelle Obama did when she got her hands on the Executive Mansion? She "broke ground on the largest and most expansive vegetable garden to date on the White House lawn" and immediately planted seeds of self-hatred and self-doubt, then dug a nice celery trench.
The psychological warfare has continued, I believe, with other opportunities the president has had to make American’s question their individual freedoms and autonomy.
He's cleverly undermined American's faith in proper apostrophe placement!
This has included misrepresenting horrific crimes, such as the one which unfolded in Newtown, Connecticut, as evidence of the need for gun control measures, when they clearly evidenced a need for revamping our mental health care system.
We don't need to disarm our jittery, violent citizens when we can simply release roving bands of psychiatrists to accost them on the street and shove cameras in their face:  "Ablow also performs (as a 'documentary' style television experience...he terms 'Street Therapy' wherein he approaches apparent strangers on the street with a camera crew and engages them in conversations about their personal problems on camera...There are a number of ethical concerns regarding this practice. However, Ablow is no longer a member of the American Psychiatric Association...and is therefore no longer bound to uphold those standards.")

Registering assault weapons and banning high capacity magazines will have absolutely no meaningful impact on gun violence in this country.  Our only rational hope of preventing another movie house, college campus, or elementary school massacre lies in identifying mentally unstable and heavily armed American's, then soothing them with shouted interrogations about their toilet training and masturbation habits, conducted on public street corners in the harsh glare of TV camera lights.
Gun rights are inextricably entwined in the American psyche with freedom to defend oneself. Attacking gun rights, I believe, is an element of the psychological warfare on the American belief that force is justifiable when confronting evil.
...or at least when trying to impress Jody Foster.
My belief that psychological warfare is being deployed on Americans by this American president and his administration has been solidified as news has come out of the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS.
It's fortunate for your side in the war, Doctor, that your beliefs don't require evidence to be solidified, only news.  Must really shorten your supply lines.
This black ops targeting doesn’t just have the effect of slowing the financial momentum of these groups. It has the goal of dispiriting them and making them feel helpless to achieve their goals.
This was the secret mission of Seal Team Six the night they landed in Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad -- to fill him with a sense of futility and ennui.  But due to a garbled text message from Command (thanks, Autocorrect!), they misunderstood their orders and filled him with lead, thus depriving the world of a clinically depressed criminal mastermind who would train a new generation of emo terrorists that wouldn't really get much done in the bombing and shooting department, because why even bother killing people, when they don't care about us?  Nobody cares about us!  All our potential victims are such phonies...
If liberal Americans stand by and do not seek swift and severe justice for those who perpetrated these acts, then they will have tacitly been victimized, too.
You know what we do in these parts to folks who dispirit Tea Party organizations, and make their members suffer feelings of helplessness and loss of financial momentum?  We hang 'em!  Of course, that means gettin' a lynch mob together, but I can't seem to find my phone tree list, and most folks are at work this time of day anyway, and traffic's kind a bad right now 'cause they got things tore up over there where they're putting in the bypass, and...ah hell, what's the point?
Because they will have tacitly agreed that it is acceptable for their government to target certain political movements for persecution—and that will have fundamentally changed the psyche of America.
I'd love to see Dr. Ablow's prescription pad ("Take two tax breaks with food and save the receipts, because the meals are also tax deductible.")
Seen through the lens of psychological warfare, the failure to defend our embassy in Benghazi need not be understood simply as a screw-up.
As a writer, I'm naturally fascinated by the methods employed by other members of the profession, and after careful study, it appears that Dr. Ablow goes about constructing a logical argument by imagining that his subject -- in this case, the Obama Administration -- is the eponymous mammal in a game of Whack-A-Mole.
 It could reflect an actual strategy on the part of the administration to reinforce the notion that homicidal violence born of hatred toward America is understandable—even condonable—because we have generated it ourselves and are reaping the harvest of ill will we have sown. In other words, we should take our punishment.
I don't know about that, but somebody needs to take their medicine...
The president said as much when he blamed the murder of our Ambassador to Libya on a film that criticized Islam.

This misstatement may disclose not just incompetence and may not just be evidence of a cover-up, but may be evidence of exactly what I am theorizing here: that the president, with the help of his administration, is attempting to conduct psychological warfare on Americans who value autonomy and free will and free markets and small government, by convincing them that they are wrong-minded, prejudiced and pathological and should deeply question their beliefs—including some ensconced in the Constitution.
Chief among them is the 7th Amendment, which guarantees the inalienable right to make YouTube videos without getting hassled by the Man.  Or Chico for that matter.
The wiretapping of journalists would be, then, just another black ops technique in an ongoing war against our freedoms.
It's even worse than you think, Doc.  The Administration has not only wiretapped journalists, they also spied on a guy who works for Fox News!
There will be those that say that many American leaders have sought to target groups hostile to their views. Some will point to President Nixon or Senator McCarthy or J. Edgar Hoover. And that debate can be had.

But I assert that this administration is engaged in a coordinated attempt to dispirit, disarm and disenfranchise large portions of the American population and to weaken our founding principles through what is best understood as psychological warfare.
Again, as an aspiring writer I take every opportunity I can to learn from my betters, and I notice that Dr. Ablow has now used the phrase "psychological warfare" eleven times, demonstrating that he can drive home a point the same way John Henry drove steel (although he doesn't seem to possess an equivalent flair for drama, or he would have realized that this would be the perfect point in the essay to drop dead).
And with that statement in the public domain, let us, at least, be aware and notice how many events unfold in-keeping with it, over the next months and years.
I honestly don't know what "unfold in-keeping" means, but I'm guessing it has something to do with motel owners who pass the time by sabotaging origami.
The enemy of psychological warfare is the knowledge of what is really happening to us and remembering who we really are.
I don't actually have a joke for this, I just wanted to make sure you guys got an even dozen of psychological warfare (although the next time it's my turn, I think I'm gonna bring glazed crullers, or maybe chocolate-dipped maple logs instead).

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Sundays With SZ: Let's Go Dutch!

Housekeeping note:  Our friend Thers is having a pledge drive over at Whiskey Fire (details here).  If you have a few plinking nickels rattling around that coffee can, please consider making a contribution to keep our national conversation on the great social and political issues of the day well supplied with the word "fuck."  Thank you.

Originally published October 25, 2003.

"Ketchup is a Vegetable!"

Matt Drudge has apparently obtained a copy of the script of the upcoming miniseries "The Reagans", and provides more examples of how the bio-flick fails to properly reverence its subjects (Drudge on THE REAGANS) : 
Actress Judy Davis's portrayal of Nancy Reagan appears to be inspired by the Joan Crawford camp biopic MOMMIE DEAREST; wild mood swings, dramatic lighting, and tart-mouth insults are hysterically delivered by Davis.
[The showcase line "Ketchup is a vegetable! It is not a meat, right? So IT IS a vegetable" is likely to become the "No wire hangers ever!" camp highlight of the season.]
Well, I wasn't going to watch this show, but if it's got Nancy chanelling Mommie Dearest and advocating ketchup, then I am so there!
One camp scene shows Nancy and Ron both standing nude [wrapped in towels] when they first learn from NBC's John Chancellor they have won the election.
Ewww!  Maybe I'm not there after all.
Per Drudge, the movie also shows Nancy popping pills, and slapping a young Patti.  Matt claims that Nancy "has reached out to Hollywood heavyweights, including Merv Griffin, to somehow stop" the upcoming movie. 

But Drudge's real outrage over the whole business seems to be that Mr. Barbra Sterisand, James Brolin, is playing Ron, and so has a conflict of interest -- not because Barbra is a known an ultra liberal, but because . . .well, here's Matt:
An immediate member of the Brolin/Streisand family is currently suffering from HIV, according to press reports.
During a scene in the film which his wife pleads with him to help people battling AIDS, Reagan says resolutely, "They that live in sin shall die in sin" and refuses to discuss the issue further.
Actor Brolin delivers the uncorroborated words with extra confidence.
And you know Brolin's just doing that as political payback -- he should say the words with REGULAR confidence, to prove that he's not using his acting as some kind of political vendetta against Reagan for not taking any action against AIDs.  In fact, no actor with a family member suffering from HIV, or anybody who even KNOWS somebody who has (or had) HIV, should allowed to appear in a movie about Ronald Reagan.  It's a conflict of interest, like Matt says.

Anyway, Drudge's report has the usual far-right mouth-frothers in the expected uproar.  But let's here from a new one!  Here's 14-year-old pundit Kyle Williams (WorldNetDaily's even younger version of Ben Shapiro) -- he balances the fact that he hasn't actually seen "The Reagans" by also denouncing Runaway Jury for portraying gun manufacturers as being "white men" whose "only drive is money" (Hollywood: Dangerous to America):
Matt Drudge aired numerous clips of the film on the "Rush Limbaugh Show" on Friday. The entire thing is a hatchet job on the Reagan Revolution, the revolution of modern-day conservatism. This is nothing short of a retaliatory strike on the GOP.
The entire thing is completely despicable. Although news stories report on a film that has yet to air, I'm confident that the final product will turn out worse than expected. It's another example of the dangerous power of the media.
No, talk radio is not dangerous. National Review, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan, et al are not dangerous. When readers and listeners take in their opinions, they know they are opinions. They can choose to accept them, reject them, consider them or do whatever they want.
With "Runaway Jury," moviegoers let their guard down and open their minds to what promised to be an exciting, suspenseful movie. With the upcoming "The Regans," television viewers, no doubt, will expect an interesting movie and hope to learn some insights into the life of the Reagans, but instead will see liberal propaganda.
Ah, to see the world with the innocent eyes of a child, and to honestly believe that big companies like CBS do things like deliver retalitory strikes on the GOP.  (Kyle never says what the GOP did to make CBS want to retaliate, but I suspect that the network is trying to punish Republicans for not watching David Kelly's "The Brotherhood of Poland N.H.") 

And not to rag on Kyle or anything, but one would have to be naive indeed to think that a movie based on a Grisham novel was going to be exciting and suspenseful.  

But Kyle does have a point about how somebody could go to the movies, trustingly leave their mind open, and so be reprogrammed by the evil Hollywood liberals.  I can see this poor sap now, coming out of the multiplex and telling his wife, "Now it all makes sense!  Gun manufacturers smoke cigars, rig juries, and ARE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY!  No WONDER they charge for their products!"  And then, just like in the climatic scene of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, his wife is forced to shoot him, because he's become one of THEM!

In any case, I admire Kyle's confidence that "The Reagans" will be even WORSE than he thinks it will be, because "it's another example of the dangerous power of the media":  the power to read your mind, ascertain your overwrought, Matt Drudge-fueled fantasies, and then surpass them by making a movie that is even LESS reverential to the Reagans than you could imagine.  Maybe by having Ronnie back a wacky space-laser system named after a George Lucas movie, or something. 

But I kid the people who weren't alive in the '80s.  And since Kyle has written a book (Seen and Heard) which "takes on the establishment, offering clear evidence that a leftist agenda is at work in our nation," I guess I shouldn't mock him for his youth.  But I will say that a home-schooling program that exposes him to Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter constitutes child abuse.  I hope the authorities are looking into this.
And speaking of people who grew up never learning the valuable interpersonal skills that public schools can provide, let's check in with Blowhard Bully O'Liar, to get his take on the reported "live in sin, die in sin" line.  Bill uses his Talking Points Memo to says that it's now Ronald Reagan's Turn to know the pain of being defamed -- albeit it not as horribly as Bill O'Reilly has, of course.  I've annotated it, for your convenience:
Talking Points realizes this drum has been pounded again and again by us, but it's worth saying again.  America is becoming a defamation nation where the worst accusations imaginable [e.g., that Bill O'Reilly lied about having won a Peabody award] are acceptable in the elite media [i.e., the media that isn't Fox News].  CBS has big problems here. There's an outcry over the situation. There's plenty of time to cut it out of the film.  If CBS doesn't do it, malice will be charged [by Bill O'Reilly -- the guy behind that Fox lawsuit against Al Franken].
Many Americans have an emotional attachment to Ronald Reagan. They don't want to see him smeared in a TV movie [and many American have an emotional attachment to Bill O'Reilly, and don't want to see Al Franken smear him by pointing out that Bill lived in Westbury, not Levittown].  And there are enough things that Mr. Reagan did wrong that can be legitimately portrayed as with any president.
There comes a time when society has to make a decision.  Right now, defamation is selling and smear merchants of all kinds [i.e., Al Franken] are making big money.  The public is responsible for that [the public will burn in hell for buying Al's book].
If CBS includes that defamatory scene about Ronald Reagan in the movie, I'm not going to watch it.  If every American did the same thing, CBS wouldn't have any viewers.  And believe me, the defamation would be removed. [If every American didn't watch "The Reagans," then CBS would know it wasn't what America wanted to watch, and they wouldn't buy any more programs about the Reagans or conservatives.  Problem solved.  However, the defamation would still be there, even though nobody watched it.  So, new plan: nobody watch ANY programming on CBS until they promise to remove the defamation.  And let their sponsors know that you're going to do this, so they will add to the pressure on the network.  And in the meantime, while you're not watching CBS you'll have more time to enjoy all the fine programming on the Fox News Channel --a channel wihich would NEVER defame anybody!]
But young Kyle and old Bill will be glad to hear that "The Reagans" accepts Ron's assertion "that he knew nothing of the illegal diversion of funds to the contras fighting in Nicaragua"-- at least, per the elite media NY Times.  

However, Reagan does reportedly say to Oliver North, "Hypothetically, if you really wanted to help me out, you would sell some arms to Iran and divert the profits to the Contras; but don't tell me anything about it!  And don't tell George anything either, because he's such a wimp."  And Reagan says this while nude!  But if we all boycott Fox News, I bet CBS will take all this out before they air the program.

So, "The Reagans."  I think everybody should spend a lot of time and energy worrying about this television miniseries, and forgot about the problems in Iraq, the Plame leak investigation, exactly who oversold the Iraq threat and why, etc.  And you should boycott all the television networks, all Hollywood movies, and ketchup, just to be on the safe side.

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