Hating the Republicans

So it wasn’t bad enough that they spam the hell out of me for donations.

I’ve been getting calls that show up as 1-000-000-0000 on my caller ID for weeks, and ignoring them. I had a shitty day today, so I was finally pissed off enough to answer it. And the first words after verifying my identity are “Hi, this is the Missouri Republican Party. We’d like to…”

Which I interrupted with, “No. You need to get a phone number that registers on caller ID” and hung up.

Seriously, bitches. This is serious. I’m already never giving you another donation. Do it again and you’ll never get another vote from me, either.

Picking Hate Over Funny

I love (LOVE) Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death. There was a time shen I considered it my favorite movie. It’s funny and campy and clever and adorable, and Adrienne Barbeau kicks so much ass.

So it’s personally crushing to me, to see what Bill Maher has devolved into. He has the ability to be so funny, but he chooses to just be angry and ugly and hateful instead. And it’s not because he opposes my personal beliefs, because I find Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert hilarious (most of the time).

Maher was in town performing last night — and the Post-Dispatch returns to its liberal roots, and treats him to their typical sycophantic slobberfest.

At the Fox Theatre on Thursday night, comedian Bill Maher imagined what his critics must say about him. “There goes Bill Maher, hating America first,” he said. “But I don’t hate America first. I have my coffee, burn an American flag, perform five abortions, and then I hate America.”

He was joking, of course.

Uh huh. The fact that he follows up later with a statement that Americans are so gullible that they believe “anything you write on the Internet is true if you don’t add LOL” kinda makes me question the hilarity of that observation.

Some of the lines quoted in the article are actually pretty funny, but of course a stand-up routine has to be presentable to a wide audience. Here’s what he sounds like when he’s not performing for Mr and Mrs Midwest:

– At the debate in New York with Coulter, he said that “if it wasn’t for the two coasts, this country would have been sold off to China thirty years ago” (But he loves you, St Louis!) and called Nancy Reagan “batshit crazy.”

– On Larry King, he said that America is “a stupid country with stupid people who don’t pay attention.”

– And last month, on his own show, Maher said “Can anybody tell me why in 2009, we still have more than 50,000 troops in Germany and 30,000 in Japan? At some point these people are going to have to learn to rape themselves.”

Yep. Hi. F’ing. Larious. No America hater, he.

Saturday Morning Lessons

The timing of this is awesome, because I had that old Bod Squad song about teeth stuck in my head this morning — “Canines tear, molars chomp, incisors bite right through!” — and was wondering if the other Saturday morning songs had ever been re-released like the Schoolhouse Rock ones were.

Kevin’s collected three of the best America Rock ones, to remind us of what this funny little experiment of a republic was all about.

Go watch them all. It’ll be a quirky reminder of what it was like to be a kid back then — when you could ride your bike until 8pm, Jim Henson was teaching you the world’s greatest puns, and it wasn’t embarrassing to be an American.

Note 1: Somebody needs to re-record “No More Kings” with slightly different lyrics right now. I’m looking at you, YouTubers.
Note 2: Circa 2006, at least one blogger (maybe two) heard me sing the Preamble song in their car. I’m still expecting blackmail.
Note 3: While you’re there, watch the Bob Hope video in the top left corner. Hee.

Clothing Budget: $200

Oh brother.

Kit Bond won’t seek 5th term as Missouri senator in 2010

In unrelated news, I’d like to announce my candidacy for… No, just kidding. A few too many skeletons that I’m happy to have remain faaaar back in the closet. Under the old wrapping paper box and that blanket that smells funny.

This does worry me, though. Missouri barely went red this election, after a whole lot of counting and recounting — and in the end, fewer than 4000 votes separated the candidates, as I recall. Only St Louis and Kansas City are typically blue. Usually the rest of the state is, like, crimson, so this is a little alarming.

But obviously, the state usually swings with the country: thus the ‘bellwether’ label. I’m just not sure I’m prepared to swing that widely, myself. I suspect this is just an open door and a big cheerful ‘Welcome’ sign for another Carnahan — but hopefully I’ll be living elsewhere by 2010, anyway. :o)

I Will Fight

Not any particular commentary on the issue, exactly. The words just struck me immediately when I heard them, and it amused me.

Rod Blagojevich, on his current state of infamy, and his plan for dealing with it:

“Thank you very much. I’m here to tell you, right off the bat, that I am not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing, that I intend to stay on the job, and that I will fight this thing every step of the way. I will fight. I will fight. I will fight.”

Hee. Nice choice of wording, there, Rod.

I know. It’s a vague link without any reference. Just trust me and listen. :o)

[via Hot Air, with the R.B. video]

Heaven Knows

Listening to this indescribably beautiful album to calm my nerves lately (as one does), I’m reminded of something that I’ve noticed a zillion times, but I don’t think, ever publicly questioned:

Malcolm X, a later-in-life reformer to Islam, stole one of his most famous lines:

We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us.

from a 1930’s-era gay, white, (and unutterably lovely) male composer.

If today
Any shock they should try to stem
‘Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock
Plymouth Rock would land on them.

Deliciously ironic? Discuss.

Good Men

I’ve had this in my head for a while, since I started getting nasty emails about this post. And I’ve been trying to write down my rationale coherently, and giving up. But now other people are talking about it, so let me try to say this in as non-condescending a way (to either side) as possible…

Obama strikes me as the kind of man who’s never had any real friends. Real friends. Where you sit up until 4am laughing about old times and bad dates and embarrassing memories, and telling goofy or overly-complicated jokes, and trying to go home but getting caught up in one last thing, and just maybe drinking too much. And then you laugh about that night, years later.

We never see pictures of him subtitled “Barack Obama laughs with his lifelong friend, Joe Schmoe.”

(And, correlatively, that’s why he thinks this is funny. Because he doesn’t have any frame of reference.)

And I don’t mean that as negative against him. He spent his childhood abroad, moved around a lot, and he’s pretty nerdy. It’s hard to make real, lasting friendships when you live like that. I can tell you from experience. And it’s lonely.

So he accepted the “friendship” of people who used him, and he ended up with jerks and losers and thugs as his entourage. There are times in your life when that’s better than being alone, trust me. But you do outgrow it, when you find a real friend.

I’m not making excuses for him. He could have ignored his ambitions, and made friends with other hilarious and awesome nerdy people. Ahem. People with no ulterior motives.

But I don’t think that his bad judgment necessarily makes him a bad person.

He clearly adores and respects his wife, and worships his kids. He’s obviously a workaholic, which, as an objectivist, gives him a point or two from me. And I believe that he loves this country — the people, if not the recent administration(s) — even though he has a patently retarded way of showing it. And, you know, he isn’t as in touch with his sappy, doofus side as I am, about it.

Yes, he’s apparently at least a theoretical socialist. And you will never see me defending higher taxes or rewarding suckers of the welfare teat with the benefits of my hard work. Ever.

But painfully naive ideals do not preclude being a good man.

My grandfather was a socialist, and he was a very, very good man.

I could easily be proven wrong in January, and I’ll have no hesitation in admitting it, if that happens. But I have to give him the benefit of the doubt, at least until he gives me good reason to take it away. Because that’s who I am.

In the meantime, if you’re one of those praying types, please send one out that he finds a real friend in someone sensible like Petraeus.

That’s probably too much to ask, actually. Let’s go with Lieberman.

More Importantly

All of you that are expending all of your energy on useless wailing, rending, gnashing, etc? Could you channel some of that fervor into changing the primary election rules, to make them party only, instead of open?

You know, so the democrats and independents don’t pick our candidate for us again, next time?

Great, thanks.

From The Mouths of Babes

Hee.

“I was talking to a friend of mine’s little girl, and she said she wanted to be President some day. Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, ‘If you were president what would be the first thing you would do?’ She replied, ‘I’d give food and houses to all the homeless people.’

‘Wow - what a worthy goal,’ I told her. ‘But you don’t have to wait until you’re President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the grass, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I’ll pay you $50. Then I’ll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food or a new house.’

She thought that over for a few seconds ’cause she’s only 6.’ And while her Mom glared at me, she looked me straight in the eye and asked, ‘Why doesn’t the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50?’ And I said, ‘Welcome to the Republican Party.’ Her folks still aren’t talking to me.”

Thanks for the smile, MVRWC.

So Much For Absolute British Law

Call me paranoid, but I find this alarming.

Islamic law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.

The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.

Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court.

I predict this will only last until the first divorce decree in which the wife is found guilty of adultery, and the sentence is death. Hopefully it’ll be called off before the execution, but since the government is saying that it’s “enforceable with the full power of the judicial system,” I don’t know how they could legally stop it.

The article does say that it’s only binding if “both parties in the dispute agree to give [the tribunal] the power to rule on their case,” but married women are typically spoken for legally by their husbands, in strictest Islam. If that’s still the case (and these courts are not, I presume, going to be attended by the modern, moderate, pro-western-ideal Muslims with whom we all work and share cookies in the lunchroom), doesn’t that mean they “both” agree to the tribunal, when the husband agrees?

And even if the wife is allowed to refuse the tribunal, how many will do so, knowing what they’ll likely face at home, for disobeying their husbands?

I find this line particularly ominous, though the reporter doesn’t seem to agree with me:

In each case [of domestic violence], the women subsequently withdrew the complaints they had lodged with the police and the police stopped their investigations.

That sounds like it’s working splendidly so far, right?