• commentary
  • THURSDAY JUNE 19 2008 6:00 AM

Kickassiest Senate Race, Ever

The Idaho Senate race is a smorgasbord of win. Does any other state have a senator retiring because he tried to fuck a guy in an airport shitter? Does any other state have a conservative in the race just because another guy in the race killed his elk? How about a candidate who changed his name to Pro Life? No, they don’t. Idaho wins.

Everyone knows about Larry Craig.


Sen. Larry Craig said he "overreacted and made a poor decision" in pleading guilty to disorderly conduct after his June arrest following an incident in a Minneapolis, Minnesota, airport bathroom.
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A police officer who arrested him June 11 said Craig peered through a crack in a restroom stall door for two minutes and made gestures suggesting to the officer he wanted to engage in "lewd conduct."
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After he was taken for questioning, the police report says, Craig pulled out a Senate business card and asked the officer: "What do you think of that?"


I think you’re awesome, Larry, and I will miss you. Obviously, a right wing state like Idaho can’t have a senator who likes to blow dudes in public bathrooms, so Larry is retiring. And now the Democrats actually have a chance to pick up this seat. Seriously. I know, it’s actually more surprising than a Senator blowing a dude in a bathroom, but it’s true. Democrats could actually win this.

The Dems are fielding former Congressman Larry LaRocco and the GOP is putting up Lieutenant Governor Jim Risch. This is not a great year to be a Republican candidate anywhere, so Risch automatically has that black mark by his name. In addition, his comfy relationship with radioactive toxic waste is not doing him any favors.


At New West this week, Jill Kuraitis reported that 6,700 tons of soiled Kuwaiti sand is in the process of being shipped to Idaho as we speak. The sand, contaminated with depleted uranium and lead, is bound for a hazardous waste storage facility near Grandview. The reason for the shipment, according to the project manager from the American Ecology facility, "It's not something you want laying around in Kuwait."


Right. Wouldn’t want that shit laying around in Kuwait, when it can find a nice home in Idaho.


American Ecology Corp., operator of the hazardous waste dump 70 miles southeast of Boise that’s about to get 6,700 tons of uranium- and lead-contaminated sand from Kuwait, has been a generous donor to Idaho politicians’ campaigns. Most recently, the firm’s PAC, AEC PAC, gave $2,300 to Idaho Republican Jim Risch’s U.S. Senate campaign.

The company CEO Stephen Romano is not stingy with his own money either. Since 1998 he has given the Idaho congressional delegation $4,457 from his own pocket, including a $1,000 contribution this cycle to Jim Risch's Senate campaign.


Even though Idaho is a big time red state, odds are they aren’t big on importing radioactive waste from the Middle East. The Iraq war will also hurt Risch, and he has been very quiet on the issue. Also, Idaho Republicans are more libertarian leaning than other states, which means they are not happy with the GOP’s stances on civil liberties. LaRocco has been pushing the civil liberties issue, big time.

Risch is currently ducking debates, which will not go over well in a Senate race, especially with what is at stake. Strangely, he has also been walking around DC with Larry Craig, getting to know everyone. Note to Risch: Don’t spend time with the guy who is retiring because he wanted to blow a dude in a bathroom. Meanwhile, LaRocco has a strong grassroots campaign going, Democrats have a lot more money to spend and Obama will probably have coattails, unlike McCain. And finally, during the primary, 35% of Republican voters punched their ballot for fringe candidates, instead of Risch, the former governor and current lieutenant governor.

Those are the issues and the stats. Now we get to the best part of the race. The right wing independent candidates are fucking fantastic. Let’s start with my main man, Pro-Life.

In 2006, organic strawberry farmer Marvin “Pro-Life” Richardson ran for governor, but the state wouldn’t let him list his middle name on the ballot, because they don’t allow slogans. Marvin is no idiot, so he officially changed his name to Pro-Life. And holy shit, is he pro life.


Pro-Life holds strong views on abortion. He said doctors who perform abortions and women who get abortions should be charged with murder. He also said the pro-life movement should use the word “murder” whenever referring to abortion.


Good luck with that. Pro-life activists are actually concerned that voters will become confused and vote for Pro-Life, not knowing it’s a dude. In 2006, he received fewer than 2% of the vote, but with his new name he is hoping for 5%, mostly via confusion.


“I think it’s just and I think it’s proper,” to have “Pro-Life” on the ballot, Pro-Life said. “If I save one baby’s life, it’s worth it.”


Well, then it won’t be worth it, Pro. Can I call you “Pro?” Or "Mr. Life?" Or insane lunatic? Whatever, I love you. Deeply.

My favorite candidate is Rex Rammell.

I love a guy who runs for Senate out of spite. Rammell is simply running to stop Risch from winning, because Rex hates Jimmy. The feud between the two started back in 2002, when some of Rammell’s elk escaped from his ranch. Risch was acting governor and he ordered state wildlife officials to kill them. 89 elk and 20 calves were killed. Risch had his reasons.


The elk were untagged and officials feared they might spread disease to and possibly breed with wild elk, which some wildlife experts claimed could produce a weaker genetic strain of the animals.


Rammell, a veterinarian, did not agree with the states new elk laws, which had been changed in 2001. He didn’t understand why elk ranches needed a license, but sheep, cow and horse ranches did not. The stand off ended in the death of many of his herd and an undying hatred for Risch was born. He vowed to make sure Risch was never elected to office again. And he's a pretty serious dude. At one point, Rammell took part in a sit in - on top of a dead elk.


Rammell allegedly assaulted a young hunter for killing an escaped bull elk and was cited Sept. 29 for obstruction of justice after sitting on the carcass of a bull elk and refusing to get up when asked by conservation officers with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.


Rammell was acquitted of the obstruction of justice charge. He successfully argued the dead elk was his property and he could do what he wanted with it. Take a moment here, close your eyes and picture Rex laying on top of a dead elk. Now picture him running for office. Nice, isn't it?

The feud even trickled down to the Miss Idaho USA contest in 2006. Rex’s daughter, Amanda, won the pageant, but refused to be photographed with Risch, who was the governor.

Holy shit, I just linked to Pageant Cast News.


She says she respects the office of governor, but has little respect for the man serving as Idaho governor.


Word. So, whom do you think the Libertarian leaning Idaho Republicans will vote for? Hint: Ron Paul won 20% of the vote during the primary. But that’s not all. Rammell is also a Mormon. They typically vote for the GOP candidate, but with an independent Mormon running, they might switch.

Due to all of these factors, Idaho could actually be a pick up for Dems. This is the reason Republicans desperately wanted Larry Craig to retire last year. It’s turned into a bit of a perfect storm situation. If the Dems do win Idaho – they’d be looking at a 60-vote majority.

  • commentary
  • TUESDAY JUNE 17 2008 6:00 AM

Get Your VP On #2

Last week, I broke down the Democratic vice presidential possibilities and this week I’m going to cross the aisle to where the demons live and break down the horrible people McCain will be choosing from. Sadly for McCain, any candidate he chooses will make him look older, unless he picks a 90-year-old.

First up, Charlie Crist, governor of Florida.

Pro:

Crist is high up on the list of McCain’s choices. He is a somewhat popular governor and served as the state Attorney General for four years. He also served in the state senate. He is a good-looking, personable man – and has an awesome fake tan. He would put Florida in the win column for McCain, which has quite a few electoral point thingies.

Con:

Gay. You read that right. Everyone seems to think he is gay. Crist is a 51-year-old bachelor who was married 30 years ago for an entire six months.

No one has ever produced any proof that Crist is gay, but a dude or two have claimed they fucked him and he apparently has a long-term partner, who is also a convicted felon. Loving sweet cock would obviously be a negative for any GOP candidate and if McCain picks Crist, it means he is in trouble. McCain should win Florida easily, if he needs Charlie’s help, it’s not going well. Hardcore right-wingers are McCain’s problem; bringing Crist on board would just drive them away further.

Haley Barbour, Governor of Mississippi.

Pro:

Barbour is considered to be a very successful governor. He was given high marks for picking up the pieces after Hurricane Katrina. Unlike Crist, conservatives really love him – and he’s well liked inside Washington – which is something McCain needs help with. Barbour used to be the head of the Republican National Committee, worked for Reagan for six years and is a former lobbyist. As I’m writing this, I’m wondering why he didn’t run for president. Oh, right…

Con:

He’s got some racism problems. Barbour has connections to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group of serious racists. That would certainly be awkward when running against a black guy. And Barbour doesn’t come from a battleground state, which is a big problem. And finally, Obama is running against Washington politics, a term that defines Barbour.

Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana.

Pro:

Conservatives love Jindal because he’s a brown guy who is also a Republican. They go ape shit over that sort of thing. Jindal is an Oxford University Rhodes scholar who has been working in various government jobs since 1994. He was elected to Congress in 2004 and became governor of Louisiana in 2007. I mentioned he’s got brown skin, right? Jindal’s parents are from India. He’s also a religious conservative’s wet dream. He’s against emergency contraceptives for rape victims, abortion (obviously), stem cell research, loves the Patriot Act, intelligent design, off-shore oil drilling and has the highest rating from the Gun Owners of America. Sounds pretty great for a Republican VP, right?

Con:

He performed an exorcism in college. Seriously.


In an essay Jindal wrote in 1994 for the New Oxford Review, a serious right-wing Catholic journal, Jindal narrated a bizarre story of a personal encounter with a demon, in which he participated in an exorcism with a group of college friends. And not only did they cast out the supernatural spirit that had possessed his friend, Jindal wrote that he believes that their ritual may well have cured her cancer.


Holy fucking shit. Look who just made Bush look normal. From this day on, every time you look at a picture of Jindal, I expect you to picture him screaming, “OUT DEMON!”

Kay Bailey Hutchison, Senator from Texas.

Pro:

Let’s be honest, Kay is only being considered because she has a vagina. Republicans are desperate to make it appear they are not a group of rich, white men. They always have been. Now that Obama is the candidate and Hillary nearly won, they really want America to know they have ladies and minorities also. Other than that, she brings nothing to the table.

Con:

She doesn’t come from a battleground state. She’s too old. She has zero executive experience and is an incredibly boring speaker. Also, she has been accused of corruption on more than one occasion. All of which means he will probably pick her.

Mitt Romney, rich guy.

Pro:

He is certainly well known and is a decent debater and speaker. Conservatives seem to like him, because he flip-flopped on almost every position when he decided to run for president. He has a great background as a businessman, which gives conservatives giant hard ons. And, Romney had a successful run as the governor of Massachusetts, which included implementing a state universal health insurance plan. Romney on the ticket could swing Massachusetts because Irish people are notoriously racist.

Con:

Cheesiest man alive. He seems like a central casting version of slimy politician. He flip-flopped on almost every important issue. Romney and McCain appeared to hate each other during the primaries. Oh, and he’s Mormon.

Mark Sanford, governor of South Carolina.

Pro:

He’s a hero of conservatives because of his budget cuts in South Carolina and actually fought against other Republicans to get them done. Sanford has a very solid conservative voting record and stuck to a self-imposed term limit and left Congress. In 2000, he campaigned for McCain. Sanford would fit right in with McCain’s “bloated government” philosophy.

Con:

I had never heard of him until I started researching this article. South Carolina is not a battle ground state and he won’t do much to help McCain in the mid-western battle ground states. Oh, and he lives on a plantation. He’s lived there since high school. A fucking plantation owner running against a black guy. How’s that sound? Like change? Did I mention he supports South Carolina flying the Confederate flag? AND THAT HE LIVES ON A FUCKING PLANTATION?

Mike Huckabee, crazy religious guy.

Pro:

The crazy religious right would come out in droves to vote for a ticket with Mike Huckabee on it. He’s funny, personable and a decent speaker. He is a rag to riches story that hopefully peaked when he was governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007.

Con:

He’s sort of living in the year 2. His religious beliefs are frighteningly backward, which would not help with Catholic voters in battleground states. If you think what Wright said is bad, as soon as Huckabee became VP, you can bet a shitload of heinous material would spring forth. That’s why Baptist ministers don’t become president. Huckabee is never going to be VP, so quit talking about it.

The Curve Ball:

Jodi Rell, governor of Connecticut,

Pro:

She has a vagina. Rell is incredibly popular in Connecticut, with approval ratings around 80%. She served 10 years in the state legislator, then three as Lieutenant Governor and finally was elected governor in 2004. She knows how to work the system. She is a breast cancer survivor and appeals to suburban voters. Oh, and she’s married to a Navy pilot. Along with the heinous Lieberman, she could possibly swing Connecticut to McCain.

Con:

Went to but never graduated from college. She is moderate Republican, which won’t help McCain with conservatives. Other than that, she’s kind of a blank slate and doesn’t bring a lot of baggage. If McCain wants to pick up some of the angry middle-aged female Hillary voters, Rell is the way to go.

That’s it. Anyone not on my list has no fucking chance. I’d put my money on Rell.

  • news
  • MONDAY JUNE 16 2008 8:00 PM

King George W. and the Habeas Corpus

Louis, by the grace of God, King of France and Navarre, to all present and to come, greeting from the year 1708:

One of the most useful tools of an absolute monarch like me are lettres de cachet, which may be translated as “seal letters”. You might not be familiar with this term. In my time, a seal letter (in its narrow sense) is a direct order from the king by which a subject is sentenced without trial and without an opportunity of defense to imprisonment in a state prison or an ordinary jail, confinement in a convent or a hospital, transportation to the colonies, or expulsion to another part of the realm. It’s a common practice – not a practice I’m particularly proud of, but sometimes necessary to lock away potentially dangerous individuals and maintain the power of the crown. In other terms, it’s the standard procedure to dungeon political prisoners. This is how absolute monarchy works.

However, most of you are living in a democracy, and your time considers seal letters symbols of the abuses of what you call “absolutism”. That’s why the founders of your democracies invented the writ of habeas corpus, which is basically a legal procedure through which a person can seek relief from unlawful detention of himself or another person. It has been praised as being one of the cornerstones of individual freedom and democracy. Leaders have now to justify themselves when they dungeon someone. This is how democracy works.

However, the habeas corpus can be somewhat unhandy when dealing with politically motivated arrests, for example, of supposed terrorists. That’s why the U.S. Government had this really great idea: build a prison outside the U.S. borders such that they can imprison people without any trial. I’m the last one who could condemn political imprisonment - but, as far as I understand, this is not how democracy works.

Now it seems that democracy strikes back. In the case Boumediene vs. Bush, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed on June 12 the habeas corpus rights of detainees in Guantanamo:


(…)Our basic charter cannot be contracted away like this. The Constitution grants Congress and the President the power to acquire, dispose of, and govern territory, not the power to decide when and where its terms apply. Even when the United States acts outside its borders, its powers are not “absolute and unlimited” but are subject “to such restrictions as are expressed in the Constitution.”

(…) Because our Nation’s past military conflicts have been of limited duration, it has been possible to leave the outer boundaries of war powers undefined. If, as some fear, terrorism continues to pose dangerous threats to us for years to come, the Court might not have this luxury. This result is not inevitable, however. The political branches, consistent with their independent obligations to interpret and uphold the Constitution, can engage in a genuine debate about how best to preserve constitutional values while protecting the Nation from terrorism. (…).

(…)We hold that petitioners may invoke the fundamental procedural protections of habeas corpus. The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times. Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law. The Framers decided that habeas corpus, a right of first importance, must be a part of that framework, a part of that law.

The determination by the Court of Appeals that the Suspension Clause and its protections are inapplicable to petitioners was in error. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed. The cases are remanded to the Court of Appeals with instructions that it remand the cases to the District Court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.


The full text as PDF

Whereas I feel with King George W., Rex Christianissimus Americae, that he can no more sign lettres de cachet, I have to admit that this court decision is a victory for democracy. As you might have guessed, I’m not a big fan of democracy - but, if you do it, you should do it correctly. If you give the power to the people, you can’t take it away with the other hand. And, luckily for you, democracy has mechanisms like the Supreme Court to prevent political leaders to undermine its very basic principles.

This is how democracy works.

Given at Versailles in the month of June, in the year of grace 1708, and of our reign the sixty sixth.


  • commentary
  • SATURDAY JUNE 14 2008 6:00 AM

Asshole Fuckface Roundup #50

The Roundup is celebrating its semi-centennial and here you are reading it. You lucky son of a bitch. You are actually reading the Asshole Fuckface Roundup. That’s about as good as life gets and is considered to be a more pleasurable experience than an orgasm. (US News Reports, issue 42, Nov. 2005.)

The Asshole Fuckface Roundup has been giving people this pleasurable feeling for centuries, ever since my ancestor Seamus O’Whitey began keeping tabs on the bastards. Now the torch has been passed to me, and each week I scour the news looking for the worst human being alive. When I find them, I give them the worst label any human could ever receive: Asshole Fuckface. So, put on your giant trash bags – as a matter of fact, double bag that shit – because this is going to be ugly.

This week we start with some amazing Asshole Fuckfacery taking place in Zimbabwe.

In March, President Robert Mugabe was defeated in a national election by Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC, but Mugabe has not left office. Instead, he claimed Tsvangirai did not achieve the necessary majority, which necessitated a runoff. The runoff is scheduled for June 28th. Until then, it appears Mugabe will make life hell for his opponents.

Currently 4 million Zimbabweans rely on food aid from foreign countries. But now some of the aid has taken a bit of a detour.


Zimbabwe authorities seized a truckload of American food aid intended for hungry children and gave it out to government supporters instead.


“Vote for me, here’s some needy children food.” That’s one way to do it. Hey, politics is rough. And it’s even rougher for members of the MDC.

Brian Mamhova of the MDC was elected councilor for the Harare South District council in March. Turns out, not such a great move for him. In the middle of the night last week, three truckloads of Mugabe’s thugs showed up and attacked Mamhova’s house – and entire neighborhood.


“They locked the door where my wife was. They smashed the windows and threw petrol inside. Then they lit it,” he said. “Inside the house, my young brother broke the door. I thank God, otherwise they would be burnt, all of them. He took my nephew out of the room. Then he went back into the room and he took my wife, but it was late. She got 80 per cent burnt. My son was burnt to pieces.”


"Burnt to pieces." That's about as fucked up as it gets. But they weren’t done yet.


“Then they beat everybody there, my neighbors, everyone. Many of them are in Chitungwiza hospital now.”


Sure, kick the shit out of the entire neighborhood. Mamhova is now in hiding. His wife died from her burns. She was 18 weeks pregnant. Mugabe also arrested Morgan Tsvangirai, his opponent in the upcoming election. It looks like the Asshole Fuckfacery in Zimbabwe has not even begun.

Next up, some good old fashioned American Asshole Fuckfacery.

The California Highway Patrol in Oceanside broke some horrible news to some local high school students last month.


On a Monday morning last month, highway patrol officers visited 20 classrooms at El Camino High School to announce some horrible news: Several students had been killed in car wrecks over the weekend.


How horrible is that? Imagine sitting in your high school history class, when a cop suddenly comes in and announces one of your close friends has been killed – by a drunk driver.


Classmates wept. Some became hysterical.


In all, drunken drivers killed 26 students. Holy shit. How drunk was this guy? And what was he driving? Turns out, not drunk at all and not driving anything. It was just an awesome story to keep kids from drinking and driving. None of the kids were actually dead, it was just a magnificent scare tactic to keep kids from drinking and driving - by telling them their alive friends were dead.

Some of the kids learned it was a delightful fake DUI massacre right away, when their teachers saw their reaction and told them. For others, it came a bit later.


Others, including many who heard the news of the 26 deaths between classes, were left in the dark until the missing students reappeared hours later.


Okay, those kids are lucky they were not considered zombies and beheaded. That’s what I would have done. The kids who suffered through the “your friends are all dead” scenario are a little pissed, but school officials still think it was an awesome idea.


"They were traumatized, but we wanted them to be traumatized," said guidance counselor Lori Tauber, who helped organize the shocking exercise and got dozens of students to participate. "That's how they get the message."


Awesome. The only message they got is that you are an Asshole Fuckface. Hopefully, your doctor will tell you that you have colon cancer, then let you go through a few rounds of chemo, before telling you it was a game he came up with to make you eat more veggies. You’d really get the message, wouldn’t you, Lori? You soulless Asshole Fuckface.

Next up, some Japanese style Asshole Fuckfacing.

A Japanese teacher came up with his own punishment for a high school student who nodded off during class.


The boy was taken to the staff room of the school in Fukuoka City, southern Japan. The 40-year-old male teacher handed the boy a box-cutter and paper and told him to write an apology in blood.


Um. What ever happened to detention? Why can’t he write it in urine or semen? Anyway, I’m sure the kid blew the teacher off.


The teacher left the student, who then cut his finger and began to write an apology using his own blood.


Nevermind. Just when you think Japan can’t get any crazier, they go and make kids write apologies in blood. Of course, after it was all over, the teacher threw himself on his sword, so to speak.


The teacher later went to high school principal Hiroaki Dan and confessed what he had done.


That must have been a fun conversation. The teacher then apologized to the kid and his parents.


My bad.


I think he’s going to have a hard time finding a job, after this.


The boy was back in school, and neither he nor his parents had asked to switch teachers. The teacher involved is expected to resume classes in a few days.


Um. I, uh. Cue Godzilla.

Next up, you’re going to be surprised. I actually found an Asshole Fuckface appointed by President Bush.

J. Robert Flores is the administrator of the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention. The OJJDP gives out grants to different groups around the country that implement effective programs for kids. Naturally, being a Bush appointee, he doesn’t provide funding based on whether or not a program deserves it, but instead, on political connections and religious beliefs. And the nation’s youth suffer.


A senior Justice Department official says a $500,000 federal grant to the World Golf Foundation is an appropriate use of money designed to deal with juvenile crime in America.

"We need something really attractive to engage the gangs and the street kids, golf is the hook," said J. Robert Flores.


Totally. When I think of kids who are shooting each other on the streets of LA, I picture how much their life would change if they were lugging around a bag full of golf clubs and hoofing it to the local course. Hey, I wonder how Flores settled on that golf program?


The honorary chairman of the First Tee program is former President George Bush. On a videotape presentation, the former President Bush praised the program for "serving others and building character and building values."


At least try to hide it, you Asshole Fuckface. But hey, maybe the program does actually help kids.


The director of the golf program, Joe Louis Barrow Jr., said the program would help teach inner city children because "golf is a game where values such as honesty, integrity and sportsmanship are essential."


Um, that dude has never played golf. For me it promoted values like drinking, smoking pot and urinating in public.

Thankfully, Flores denied grants to highly rated programs in order to give money to religious organizations.


Another program, designed to train adult guards to deal with teens in custody, also was denied federal money even though it was ranked by the staff number 2 out of 104 in its category.


A Washington, D.C. program, Best Friends, that promotes abstinences was awarded $1.1 million by Flores even though it ranked 53rd on a list of 104 applicants.

Best Friends is run by Elayne Bennett, the wife of Bill Bennett, a former Republican cabinet member and now political commentator.

"We're really about positive friendships," she told ABC News at a recent charity gala that included many of Washington's GOP elite. "A good, solid friendship is a beautiful thing," she said.


Word. Solid friendships are important. And, I guess abstinence helps keep kids out of trouble – at least, in retarded opposite world. And don’t worry, Flores has only given out $1.5 billion in grants. He’s a good man.


His former employee, Scott Peterson, said Flores holds daily prayer sessions in the Justice Department office and frowns on giving grant money to organizations that provide sex education or condoms to teenagers.


Fucking condoms. Gang bangers need to understand the emotional gains from making love to one woman - during marriage. Condoms won't do that.

And finally, the Asshole Fuckfaces at Fox News strike again.



Yes, they used a term that implies Michelle Obama is the unwed mother of Obama's child. You know why? Because Fox makes Mayonnaise look beige. Naturally, they brought in their "we're going to talk about minorities" pundit Michelle Malkin. (She's brown.) Here's what pundit Malkin was saying while the graphic was running:


Where backlash would come, is if people make gratuitous and cheap shots at her that have nothing to do with the substance of what she is saying. So far, Republicans and conservatives who have opposed Michelle Obama’s statements have not made those kinds of cheap shots.


Seriously. Fucking amazing.



Republicans seem to be fascinated by these mysterious black people. Expect more and more of this kind of stupidity.

Congrats to all of this week's Asshole Fuckfaces. You will each receive a FearTheReaper mitten. Just one.

  • commentary
  • THURSDAY JUNE 12 2008 6:00 AM

Get Your VP On

Now that we have finally picked our candidates, after a horribly long and unnecessary primary season, it’s time for the nominees to choose their Vice Presidential candidate. Barack Obama has some decent selections to pick from. I will now list them and explain why they are all horrible people. Enjoy.

First up, Hillary Clinton.

Pros:

She supposedly will help Obama with white, working class voters – a group that has not voted for the Democratic candidate since 1964. (Why people think a woman will win over a bunch of stupid, white guys, I don’t know, but that’s supposed to be a “pro.”) Also, The Clinton team is ruthless and will fight a tough battle against Republicans. The Clinton name also brings up memories of a rosier time and Americans like to think happy thoughts. She will bring a boatload of rich fundraisers with her and Obama could actually win Arkansas with Hillary. And finally, there are quite a few angry older ladies who might sit this one out unless Hillary is on the ticket.

Cons:

She’s a demon. And there’s more. Having Bill Clinton associated with the White House would undermine Obama constantly. Hillary totally lacks any National Security experience and would therefore highlight Obama’s major weakness. She undermines Obama’s entire campaign because she is a Washington insider. During the primary, she repeatedly said McCain has the experience to be president, but Obama does not. Republicans have already turned it into an ad and would only turn up the flame if she were on the ticket. Finally, Hillary is the right-wings wet dream. If she is on the ticket, it will cause more depressed Republicans to turn out and vote, which will have a negative effect on Democratic pick ups in the Senate, Congress and on down the line. Also, she’s a demon.

Kathleen Sebelius, governor of Kansas.

Pros:

She has one of those vagina things, which seems to be important to many Clinton supporters. Sebelius is very popular in Kansas and could swing the state. She also has ties to Ohio, where her father was governor and could be very helpful in that horrible state. Sebelius is popular with conservative Democrats and some Republicans, but is a liberal. Most importantly, she has a good economic record. In 2005, Time named her as one of the nation's five best governors for balancing the state’s $1.1 billion budget deficit without raising taxes or cutting funding for education.

Cons:

Um, who the fuck is she? She may be a rising star in the party, but nationally she is completely unknown. If she were selected, it would be a horribly obvious move to pacify Clinton supporters, which would just enrage them. They’ve already said as much.


Pick Sebelius or Evan Bayh, then you are just saying you did not want Hillary Clinton. And that is a problem. For Obama.


Right. You let me know what you won't get upset about, you angry freaks.

The NRA is also very, very opposed to Sebelius because she vetoed a bill that would have allowed crazy gun owners in Kansas to carry their weapons concealed. The NRA would have a field day with an Obama/Sebelius ticket, which could cause problems in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. She won’t help with white men, which is the demographic Obama needs to chip away at. Sebelius also has zero foreign policy experience and that’s a serious problem.

Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico.

Pros:

Hello Latinos! Richardson could swing states like Texas, Nevada, Colorado and Florida by bringing in an overwhelming number of Latino voters. Those are big states, right? He has been very successful as a governor. Richardson’s foreign policy experience is unparalleled – on both sides of the aisle. An experienced diplomat would fit in perfectly with Obama’s platform and it is what the country needs right now. He’s been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times. He’s a former Energy Secretary – something we seem to have a bit of a problem with right now. He fits in well with Obama’s “change” platform.

Cons:

Holy shit is he bad in a debate, and my God does he make the occasional really stupid comment. Can America handle a “double ethnic” ticket? Some people think it’s a negative – I disagree. Other than that, not a lot of negatives to Richardson.

Jim Webb, Senator from Virginia.

Pros:

He would cancel out McCain’s war hero status. Webb is a Vietnam vet who is walking around with two Purple Hearts, two Bronze Stars, the Silver Star and the Navy Cross. That’s some serious shit, there. Webb can attack McCain’s bullshit votes against soldier’s benefits in ways Obama never will be able to. Webb also worked in the Pentagon under Reagan, who is some sort of right wing God. (I think because he was insane with Alzheimer’s.) Some people also believe Webb could help Obama with the Appalachian states – I think they are fucking crazy. Finally, Webb is considered to be a “brilliant legislative tactician.”

Cons:

#1 and huge reason: Removing Webb from the Senate is not a good idea. He’s from a red state, if you take him out of the Senate, there’s a decent chance that seat goes back to the Republicans. Also, he is terrible on the campaign trail – and he will look even worse in contrast to Obama. His background could seriously hurt Democratic chances. Webb is basically a right wing nutjob.


Liberals are Marxists.


The upper crust of academia and the pampered salons of Hollywood are waging war on American traditions.


Affirmative Action is state sponsored terrorism.


Holy fucking shit. And there’s more. In 1979, Webb wrote an article in The Washingtonian called, “Women Can't Fight." I don’t need to go into that one, do I? He was still attacking feminism in 1997.

Giving Webb the nod would be a massive slap in the face to Clinton supporters – so it’s a no go. Webb will not be VP – and he shouldn’t be. His articles did a lot of harm to women in the military.

Wesley Clark, retired general.

Pros:

Again, he’s got the military thing going, something Obama needs. He is also in the Clinton camp and this would help with Hillary and her supporters. He’s run before, so he’s been vetted a bit and probably won’t make too many mistakes. But the only reason to pick Clark is his national security credibility.

Cons:

Sucks at speaking. Just sucks. People were pretty excited about the idea of a general running in the Democratic 2004 primary – and he had his clock cleaned because he sucked. And Republicans have some serious criticisms of his time in charge in Kosovo.

Ted Strickland, governor of Ohio.

Pros:

Look at cons.

Cons:

He just said this:


"Absolutely not. If drafted, I will not run; nominated, I will not accept; and if elected, I will not serve," he said in an interview scheduled to air Tuesday night. "So, I don't know how more crystal clear I can be."


Joe Biden, Senator from Delaware.

Pros:

Wit. He can turn a phrase better than anyone out there. Biden can slam and destroy opponents with his tongue. For a VP candidate, that’s invaluable. As far as qualifications, he’s loaded. Very few Democrats know more about foreign policy than Biden – and he loves to mix it up with Republicans on the issue. He’s the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and the former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which would help with upcoming Supreme Court nominations. And, he’s an experienced campaigner and comes from a blue-collar background.

Cons:

Well, his sharp tongue sometimes goes bad. Oh, and there’s the fact that he is a massive corporate whore, which means he optimizes everything Obama is against.

Those are the current front runners, but many other names are in the wind. I’m sure in the end, Obama will pick someone crazy and we will all be shocked. Like, myself, for instance.

Next week: McCain's options.

  • commentary
  • TUESDAY JUNE 10 2008 6:00 AM

McCain: An Amazing Douche

John McCain is an insanely rich man. Johnny and his wife own eight houses. That’s pretty sweet. How many houses do you own? The wife is an heiress to the third largest Budweiser distributor in America. The company is worth $300 million, which makes Cindy McCain worth a sweet $100 million.


As heiress to her father's stake in Hensley & Co. of Phoenix, Cindy McCain is an executive whose worth may exceed $100 million. Her beer earnings have afforded the GOP presidential nominee a wealthy lifestyle with a private jet and vacation homes at his disposal, and her connections helped him launch his political career — even if the millions remain in her name alone.


Wow. A private jet. That’s some serious common-man shit right there. And just like most guys, the family owns a piece of a major league baseball team.


Cindy and her children own a minority stake in the Arizona Diamondbacks.


Groovy. I’ve bought a few baseball tickets, so we’ve got quite a bit in common. Oh, and Johnny likes to entertain the press at his modest estate.


John McCain held a barbecue recently for reporters at a two-story cabin near Sedona, Ariz., that sits on 15 acres owned by his wife's family trust and a real estate partnership in her name. The property includes four single-family homes and is worth nearly $1.8 million.


Of course, the majority of this information was released with Grandpa’s tax return information to the press. John apparently lives on a paltry salary.


McCain's Senate salary and book royalties amounted to $215,304 in 2006 and $258,800 in 2007. In 2006, the senator paid $72,771 in federal taxes and $84,460 in 2007.


They probably use his salary to tip the staff.

Now, you’re probably wondering why I’m bringing up the incredible wealth of Mr. and Mrs. McCain. It’s no crime to be rich, even if you keep calling your opponent an “Elitist.” Well, what about a guy whose family is worth over $100 million who is taking yearly Navy benefits of $58,358?

That’s how much McCain took in last year for injuries incurred as a Vietnam POW. He sort of forgot to list it in the tax return he released to the media, but that’s probably because the benefits not taxed. How sweet is that? Fifty-eight thousand tax free. Might actually mean something if he wasn’t a crazy rich millionaire.


On Monday, McCain's staff identified the retirement benefit as a "disability pension" and said that McCain "was retired as disabled because of his limited body movements due to injuries as a POW."


His body is so “limited” that he hiked the Grand Canyon in 2006. Actually, his staff described him as “technically disabled," the poor bastard. Actually, McCain did experience some horrible injuries. When his plane went down, he had a broken leg and two broken arms. The Vietnamese then hung him from his broken leg for a while, which is totally not cool. Maybe that was why Johnny sung like a bird when he was in captivity – after a whole 13 days.

McCain was shot down on October 26th, 1967. By November 9th, he was giving interviews to foreign correspondents, providing information on his prior command, casualties and tactics, which is kind of in direct violation of the Military Code of Conduct. But, hey, he was tortured. He spent 5 ½ years as a POW. I’m sure some of you are saying the guy deserves the cash.

He would, if he wasn’t a hypocritical douche. See, Senators Jim Webb and Chuck Hagel wrote a new GI bill last year that would increase troop college education benefits. Considering how royally we are fucking over our troops, it’s pretty much a no brainer to increase their education benefits.

Well, not for “58K A Year McCain.” Even though Webb practically begged him to support the bill, McCain opposed it.


Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, seemed to give a thumbs down to bipartisan legislation that would greatly expand educational benefits for members of the military returning from Iraq and Afghanistan under the GI Bill.

McCain’s opposition comes a day after petitions from 30,000 veterans arrived at McCain’s Senate office, urging him to support the modernized bill to offer veterans a college education.


Nice. He didn’t even bother to show up for the vote. See, he knows what it is like to be a soldier. Like most soldiers, he returned home, divorced his model wife because she had become fat and married a multi-millionaire. Now he collects a sweet 58 thousand a year while opposing a needed increase in education benefits.



So, why does McCain oppose the bill? It’s actually the most disgusting reason you could think up.


I want to make sure that we have incentives for people to remain in the military as well as for people to join the military.


John doesn’t want to give soldiers incentive to leave the military. The Pentagon is opposed to the bill – and Bush will veto it – because…


Officials in charge of Pentagon personnel worry that a more generous and expansive GI Bill would create an incentive for troops to get out of the military and go to college.


Oh, the horror. We can’t have that, now can we? So, every time you look at McCain, think about how that millionaire is taking in $58,000 a year, tax free, while opposing an increase in education benefits for our soldiers, because it will keep them stuck in the military.

McCain is a class A cunt.

  • commentary
  • SUNDAY JUNE 8 2008 9:00 AM

Invasion of the Body Scanners!

In the never-ending battle to stop terrorists from hijacking planes, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) keep coming up with innovative ideas to improve security. It seems, though, that with every innovative idea we as citizens of a free country lose more and more of our privacy.

The latest innovative idea that the TSA has come up with is the full body scanners that have been installed in ten high-traffic airports.

Airports in Dallas, Detroit, Las Vegas and Miami will be added this month. Reagan National Airport near Washington starts using a body scanner Friday. A total of 38 machines will be in use within weeks.


Just looking at the image, it reminds me of a movie:



Unfortunately it's not some high-tech movie whose great intelligence impressed me. I keep thinking of the part in Idiocracy in which citizen 'Not Sure' is being scanned by an incompetent healthcare worker that can't remember which probe is the rectal and which probe is the oral.

Anyway ...

The scan doesn't take long. After walking through the regular metal detector, you are then directed into the booth.

Passengers who went through a scanner at the Baltimore airport last week were intrigued, reassured and occasionally wary. The process took about 30 seconds on average.


Not bad. This is actually quicker than the old system, and it removes the human error of the TSA Scanner. Evidently, in tests held prior to this, human scanners were missing things like weapons, chunks of wire, and parts that could be used to assemble a bomb once on the aircraft.

Of course, the system does have some drawbacks. There is a way to conceal things from the body scanner, using simplistic items.

The scanners do a good job seeing under clothing but cannot see through plastic or rubber materials that resemble skin, said Peter Siegel, a senior scientist at the California Institute of Technology. "You probably could find very common materials that you could wrap around you that would effectively obscure things," Siegel said.


Cool. The TSA's innovative new toy can be defeated with a piece of plastic or rubber. Impressive. Good thing they put that in print and made it public knowledge, too; that way the terrorists don't actually have to think on their own as to how to defeat this scanner.

So, after reading about the weaknesses and gaps in security of this new innovative idea, I came across something else that really disturbed me:

The TSA says it protects privacy by blurring passengers' faces and deleting images right after viewing. Yet the images are detailed, clearly showing a person's gender. "You can actually see the sweat on someone's back," Schear said.


So, in order to get on an aircraft, the TSA needs to basically view me naked, along with the sweat on my asscrack. This makes sense. This really leads me to believe in the whole "land of the free" phrase. Maybe, just for the hell of it, during TSA Screener training we can teach the screeners how to say, "Show me your papers!" with a thick German accent.

I am supposed to trust the TSA, who isn't well known for its grand implementation of past policies, and has a record of blatantly sloppy record keeping to delete these images immediately after they are taken?

Why don't I feel safer?

What makes the situation even worse is that most people passing through this booth, along with the TSA Screeners operating the booth, really don't even know what is going on.

Darin Scott of Miami was annoyed by the process.

"If you don't ask questions, they don't tell you anything," Scott said. When he asked a screener technical questions about the scanner, "he could not answer," Scott said.


No way?! An improperly trained and educated TSA worker? There's something new!

There are many problems with this system. One of them being that we normally call the police if someone is acting in a voyeuristic manner in our neighborhood, but we give the government the right to do it? We are willing to give up rights we normally protect in any other given situation, just to travel within our own country?

I am all about making air travel safer. I don't, however, believe that this innovative new idea is a step in the right direction. Treating me like I am the terrorist, and figuratively and physically stripping me of my personal rights as a human being, is never the answer to making something safer.

The TSA has repeatedly failed the nation in providing the citizens with proper screening. From the unqualified and improperly trained individuals who actually do screening all the way up the ranks to the people in charge of the TSA.

Rather than repeatedly coming up with innovative ways of stripping me of personal rights, they should come up with ways that still protect my rights and my security.

DevilsReject just doesn't want the world to know that he is phallically-challenged

  • commentary
  • SATURDAY JUNE 7 2008 6:00 AM

Asshole Fuckface Roundup #49

Merry Asshole Fuckface Day. This is the day you look forward to all week, because it makes you feel better about your life. The Buddha was the first guy to say, “You know what? We really need to look down on some fuckers.” And then Jesus said, “No shit, bro.” That’s how the Asshole Fuckface Roundup started. True story.

Each week I scour the news to find the worst people on the planet. Then I display them in all their glory for you to mock and imagine throwing rocks at. They are hideous beasts and we are better than them. Hoorah. Now, wrap yourself in several layers of newspaper and prepare yourself mentally, because this is going to be ugly.

My first Asshole Fuckface probably shouldn’t be breeding.

Meet Stacie Marie Davis, 29, of Cookeville, Tennessee. She’s the mother of nine-month-old daughter, Autumn. Last week, Stacie and Autumn were sitting on the kitchen floor, when the baby bit Davis on the forehead. Wow. Shocking. Imagine that. You’re just sitting on the floor with your baby when it lashes out and tries to eat your head. What to do?


Police said Davis and her child were sitting on the kitchen floor when Autumn became cranky and fussy. The child bit Davis on the forehead.

"So, I bit her back," Davis said.


Fuck yeah, you did. Don’t take no shit from that baby! If she hits you, punch her soft skull. You want some of this shit, baby? Huh? Cause I got more where that come from. You've got to teach that little bitch a lesson, even though she doesn’t have the ability to understand reason yet.

Stacie was arrested after a family member snitched. When the police investigated nine hours later, Autumn still had teeth marks on her arm. You know, from where HER MOTHER BIT HER. Autumn has been placed with her father, but Stacie is going to fight to get her daughter back.


Davis still interacts with the child. She said she made a foolish mistake, one she won't do again.

"I'm going to be strong for her and I'm going to her back. I'm going to go to court and do what I have to do and I love her," she said.


Super. And don’t chew on your baby anymore.

Thankfully, Davis seems to understand it was wrong.


"It was the wrong thing to do. I got some bad advice and I feel bad about it," she said.


Bad advice? What the fuck? Someone actually recommended this? Hello mystery Asshole Fuckface. Welcome. Now, please bite yourself in the face. (I don’t know, either.)

Hopefully, the father isn’t Asshole Fuckface Marquis Lee of Newport, Virginia. If that is Autumn's Dad, she’s totally fucked.


A 26-year-old man is charged with child abuse after authorities say he threw his 10-month-old daughter at a police officer in a desperate attempt to escape arrest for an earlier incident.

The officer saw Lee walking past, carrying the couple's daughter. When the officer tried to arrest him, Lee allegedly tossed the child at him and tried to run away.


Bad week to be a baby.

Lee has been charged with assault and battery, resisting arrest, child abuse and neglect, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. I guess there is no specific law against “baby throwing.”

Next up, an Asshole Fuckface judge.

Oh, Texas, why so batshit crazy?

This week a family in Cameron County sued a judge – not for cash, they just want the Asshole Fuckface removed from the bench. Why? Well, it seems their 14-year-old daughter was appearing in Gustavo Garza’s court on a charge of truancy and the judge got all Singapore on her ass.


The family alleges that Garza told Zurita to strike his 14-year-old stepdaughter repeatedly on the buttocks in open court. It says the judge told Zurita the girl would be fined $500 if she wasn't paddled.

Zurita said in an affidavit that he didn't feel as though he had a choice and that when he was done, the judge told him he had not struck the girl hard enough.


Um. That’s great for a young girls self image. A nice public ass paddling always does a teen girl good. I’m sure she won’t be in court for truancy again, mostly because she’s still curled up in a ball in her shower.


“The word 'club' could be fairly used as a substitute for the word 'paddle' here as it appears to be something which may have been cut from a (2-by-4) piece of lumber," attorney Mark Sossi wrote in the family's petition.

"The paddles provided by the judge are of such heft and weight that an individual striking an animal with one might be reasonably reported for cruelty to an animal.”


I guess it really depends on the animal. For instance, a hamster would be pretty fucked, while a cow wouldn’t even bat an eye. But neither of those animals are familiar with shame, like a 14-year-old girl.

The judge has refused to say whether or not other people have been spanked in his court – and if he jerks off under his robe while the spankings take place. Yesterday, a hearing on his spanking restraining order was postponed so the Asshole Fuckface could find a lawyer. (Apparently, Judge Spanky McSpankerman didn't know he'd need a lawyer.)

Next up, some California tax happy Asshole Fuckfaces.

We here in California are seriously retarded when it comes to taxes. Thirty years ago we approved the horrible tax cut Proposition 13, which has caused our state to turn to shit. Our roads suck. Our schools are a fucking disaster. Every year we cut back on more health services and more and more people suffer. While our idiot lawmakers make sure there are no taxes on luxury yachts, some of them are campaigning to implement a massive tax on porn.

Meet Asshole Fuckface Democrats Cathleen Galgiani and Charles Calderon of the California State Assembly. They think porn is bad and they want it to be taxed – like cigarettes and alcohol. They have proposed a 25 percent tax be levied on strip club fees, pornographic movies, pay-per-view films, sex toys and more. If it gives you a boner, or makes your vagina moist, you should have to pay.

The bill would actually be applied to anything that falls under our 2257 Section 18 laws. What does that mean?


Any item, including but not limited to a book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape, digital image or digitally or computer-manipulated image that includes "sexually explicit conduct."

Sexually explicit conduct is defined as "sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex; masturbation; sadistic or masochistic abuse; lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person."


So, basically, fun. They want to tax fun.

Asshole Fuckface Calderon has been touring the state with ex-porn stars, who explain how horrible porn is and why it should be taxed. This might be a good time to mention that what an ex porn star thinks of the effects of porn doesn’t fucking matter. Then again, we are so fucking moronic, maybe we had ex-brewers tour the state when we were implementing our last alcohol tax.


Shelley Lubben, an ex-porn star who now campaigns against the industry with the group Pink Cross, said a tax is justified because of the ill effects porn has on performers and consumers. Everything from addiction to drugs or sex itself, assault, disease, rape and prostitution can be counted as side effects of the industry, she said.


Here’s a tip: How about a psychologist or a medical doctor who has some sort of proof of the negative effects of porn? Oh, you can’t find anyone? Well, good luck because for some reason, the “I used to fuck on camera” lady doesn’t really persuade me that I should have to pay more to jerk off.

And that’s really what we are talking about here. They are trying to compare it to alcohol and tobacco, but there is no comparison. Porn makes you want to rub you little man in the boat, or tug on your Johnson. It doesn’t cause cancer – unless you’re doing it really, really wrong.

Asshole Fuckfaces Calderon and Galgiani believe the taxes could raise $665 million a year. And who is going to stand up for porn? It's a huge boner kill.

Finally, we come to our video Asshole Fuckface of the week.

John McCain’s campaign continues to show the world how horribly inept they are when it comes to the internet. It is really astounding how old gramps and his people look every time they come near the crazy world of tubes. This week, they started an online contest to find the best person in the world, or some shit like that.



Holy fucking shit! Dude, you can actually tape that shit more than once. You don’t have to go with the first try. And congrats on the lamest contest, ever. Seriously, that should be awesome if you are able to build a time machine and go back about twenty years. I’m going to be very inspired by the idiots on You Tube nominating their moronic neighbors because of the perceived right wing “selfless” acts.

Of course it will lead to the horrible, inevitable posting. Check out this Asshole Fuckface submission:



Asshole Fuckface, indeed.

Congrats to all of this week’s Asshole Fuckfaces. You will each win a FearTheReaper engraved hammer to hit yourselves in the face with.

  • commentary
  • FRIDAY JUNE 6 2008 9:00 PM

China's New Olympic Rules

Ahh, the Olympics: the traditions; the majesty; the competitive spirit; the graceful athleticism and the...the political restrictions?

That's right. China, not satisfied with infringing on their own citizens' rights to protest against the government, or cracking down on claims of independence of different areas, now they have released a list of rules for foreign visitors coming for the Games. These include:


  • No printed material that is critical of China

  • No rallies or demonstrations

  • Olympic Tickets do not necessarily mean an entry visa will be issued

  • No smuggling in Opium
  • (since there's no history of opium in China)

  • Do not insult the Chinese flag or other national Chinese symbols

  • No religious or political banners


Some of these make sense, like the rules of what to do if you get food poisoning, and I'm sure that plenty of host countries have refused entry visas to some people who had Olympic tickets. But some of these count as suppression of what are considered basic human rights.


“A person’s ability to express his or her opinion is a basic human right and as such does not need to have a specific clause in the Olympic Charter because its place is implicit,” said Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, at a meeting in Beijing in April.



It should be noted that Olympic rules have, for over 50 years, included a ban on political, religious, and racial propaganda on Olympic sites, but that is more about suspending political differences and descriminations than China's version:

The advisory issued by the Beijing Organizing Committee includes a ban on bringing into China “anything detrimental to China’s politics, economy, culture or moral standards, including printed material, film negatives, photos, records, movies, tape recordings, videotapes, optical discs and other items.”



China was supposed to, as part of their winning bid in 2001, improve their human rights records.

We're still waiting.

  • commentary
  • THURSDAY JUNE 5 2008 6:00 AM

Internet’s Slow Death Begins

If the Internet must die, I’m okay with it happening in Texas first. Texans deserve some sort of suffering for inflicting George Bush on the rest of the world. And Texans do love freedom – freedom for companies to do whatever the fuck they want. So, the fact that Time Warner will begin metered Internet use in Texas is very fitting. This is kind of like watching rapists fuck child molesters. Sadly, it will only be implemented in Beaumont, Texas, so it’s more like rapists fucking child molesters in a cage.

The plan that will be implemented is much like cell phone billing, the worst and most fucked-up consumer contracts going. Texas will be the nation’s guinea pigs and if all goes well, the metered billing will spread to the rest of the country. And it’s a great plan. Rather than investing and keeping up with the pace of Internet use, like most other western countries have done, our Internet providers have decided to attempt to stifle use. This plan will monitor how much users are uploading and downloading and make them pay accordingly. Time Warner is the first company to implement metered pay, but expect the others to jump on board immediately if it goes well.

Time Warner claims 5% of its subscribers use half of the company’s capacity. They neglect to mention that in the future, most users will be downloading and uploading content regularly, so they’d like to capitalize on it now with some pre-rape. Time Warner says the new billing won’t affect most users, but only the out-of-control downloaders. But make no mistake about it, this isn’t about who is using what now, it’s about how people will use the Internet in the future. It will greatly hobble services like TV, movie and music downloads.

Here's the plan:


Pricing: Time Warner's tiers will range from $30 a month for 768 kilobits per second and a 5-gigabyte monthly cap to $55 a month for 15 megabits per second and a 40-gigabyte cap. Those prices cover the cable portion of subscription bundles that include video or phone services. Both downloads and uploads will count toward the monthly cap.

Fees: Those who go over will be charged $1 per gigabyte.

Heavy Users: Web surfing and email won't get users into trouble, but movies and TV shows might....a gigabyte is equal to about 3,000 Web pages, or 15,000 e-mails without attachments. But a standard-definition movie can take up to 1.5 gigabytes, and a high-definition movie can be 6 to 8 gigabytes.


Suck it, Pirate Bay.

First, let me say, “Take your bundling and shove it up your Warner hole.” I fucking hate bundling. It creates an environment in which a company can let the quality slide on one of its services. Oh, you want our great Internet service? Well, you’re going to have to take our shit phone service, too. Blow me. A couple of years ago I had Comcast broadband. One day I received a notice that my broadband was going up $30 bucks a month if I didn’t bundle my Internet with my cable. Wow, thanks for the extortion! I told them to fuck off. Everyone should have done the same, but most people are not as smart as I am. It’s a curse.

As far as the numbers are concerned, expect them to change. Right now it’s $55 bucks a month for a 40-gigabyte cap. Expect the price to creep up and the gigabytes to creep down. That’s how these fuckers work. And people who use services like Netflix could quickly find themselves over their limits and paying large overage fees. Think you'll be alerted when you go over your limit? Nope.

And in an amazing coincidence, Comcast will also begin fucking with “heavy” users today. Up until today, the company had been slowing the connections of people who use BitTorrent, but now the big evil C is going to try something different.


It will test new devices that will keep track of Comcast users and assemble a blacklist of heavy users. Those on the blacklist will find that all of their online activities may slow down at peak times: from downloading movies to checking e-mail.


So, instead of charging customers for more use, they will attempt to drive heavy users away. Thankfully, Comcast won’t tell you if you are on the blacklist, or what actions will lead to you being placed on the blacklist. It’s just a giant, invisible, “Fuck You.” The blacklisting will start today in Chambersburg, Penn., and Warrenton, Va. It will be extended to Colorado Springs, Colo. later in the summer. How awesome is that?

The worst aspect of this bullshit is how it will harm online business. Online video businesses are just taking off. Metered billing and slowing connections would obviously crush innovation. We would be left in the dust compared to other countries.


Cable companies have regional monopolies and are able to extract excess profits from these monopolies. Innovation and the health of the ecosystem are dependent on a competitive marketplace. If one part of the market falls behind (and we’re already behind in broadband penetration and average data speeds), it becomes very difficult for the ecosystem to remain competitive.



There’s obviously only one solution: Net Neutrality. I don’t expect much out of Beaumont, Texas. Americans have come to expect and, it seems, actually enjoy a good corporate anal rape. We vote for politicians who will fight for companies to screw us over. When companies do make heinous policies, we sit on our fat asses and cry like a bunch of spineless cunts. This new policy only applies to new users, but if every Time Warner customer in Beaumont and every Comcast customer in Warrenton cancelled their broadband on Friday, this shit would be over immediately. But they won’t. They’ll just apply more lube. And don’t think it’s a crazy coincidence that two massive broadband companies are starting these plans on the same day. These cunts are gearing up to fuck all of us over and they are doing it together.

  • commentary
  • TUESDAY JUNE 3 2008 6:00 AM

Mrs. Voorhees Was Decapitated

Some kids went through hell at Camp Crystal Lake in the summer of 1979. By “hell,” I mean a crazy person named Pamela Sue Voorhees murdered them. Pamela was still smarting from the death of her son, Jason, in 1957. The kid supposedly drowned in the lake while the camp counselors were having a cabin party, enjoying pot, alcohol and each other’s genitals. Pamela then murdered a couple of the counselors and the place was shut down.

For years, she lived near the camp, watching to make sure it would never open again. See, Pamela was trying to save any innocent children from meeting the same death as her precious Jason. (He was a lunatic, by the way.) In 1979, when it appeared the camp would open again, Pamela killed seven people. She did this to save others. It’s what good people do. But eventually, Alice Hardy cut her head off with a machete. As far as the Democratic Primary is concerned, Hillary has been trying to save Democrats from the doom of nominating Obama. Thankfully, we have finally reached the point where Hillary Clinton meets her demise on the lake beach. All horrible monsters meet their doom, just ask Ghidorah.

It’s been obvious, for months, to anything with a brain in its head (including rabbits) that Hillary was finished. She lost the race some time ago, but decided to continue on in a Voorhees charge for the nomination. Now signals are coming from her campaign that the end is nigh. On Sunday night, after a small island a couple hundred miles from Florida, which is not allowed to vote in the general election and is not even a state, voted, the two candidates exchanged a phone call. Nobody knows what was said. The Obama camp claims he called to congratulate her. Right. He called to congratulate her on Puerto Rico after over 45 primary elections without a call exchanged. Uh huh.

Now, a phone call from an opponent is not much. Trust me, I’ve gotten quite a few in my life that don’t mean shit. (I'm looking at you, Ron Jeremy.) But there are other signs, like a fateful email went out on Monday night to all Clinton advance staffers.


There are strong signs the Clinton campaign may be preparing for the end.

Late last night an email went out to advance staffers -- the folks who usually prepare sites for future Clinton campaign events. The memo indicated that there was nothing on Sen. Hillary Clinton's schedule beyond a speech scheduled for the AIPAC conference on Wed morning in Washington.

The email told staffers this was not goodbye but there were no plans and therefore no locations where their services would be needed for now.


Certainly one could say there are no more primaries, so why would she plan any events? But anyone who would say that is a dipshit. If Hillary were to continue on, she would need to make her case day after day, hour after hour, until the convention. It appears she has no plan to do so. Good.

Oh, and Hillary has asked her staffers to get the books in order.


Clinton Campaign staffers and former campaign staffers are being urged by the Clinton campaign's finance department to turn in their outstanding expense receipts by the end of the week. That's a sign, to them, that the campaign wants to get its affairs in order soon. If Clinton were staying in the race, there'd be no real reason to collect these receipts now; she'd still be raising and spending money from the same primary campaign account. The campaign is in arrears to the tune of about $11 million.


That’s what you do when you’re wrapping it up. Next, Bill Clinton also made an interesting statement yesterday in South Dakota.


I want to say also that this may be the last day I'm ever involved in a campaign of this kind. I thought I was out of politics, 'til Hillary decided to run. But it has been, one of the greatest honors of my life to go around and campaign for her for president.


That’s a “good bye” speech. Thanks for ruining your legacy, Bill, and don’t let anything smash your asshole on the way out, or whatever that cliché is. Go back to your life on the "Fuck Jet."

Hillary has also planned an event for Tuesday night in New York. It will be the first night since the primary began that she has not held an event in a state that is voting, or will be voting. Invitations have been sent out to staffers to come to New York.


They can use a plane ticket to fly to NY for a party on Tuesday night where Clinton will address supporters.


All of her top donors and fundraisers have also been invited to the event, yet her campaign continues to say it’s just a final primary party. Too bad all the donors aren't on board with that explanation.


"This has never happened before," one donor said, referring to the personalized request by email to attend the event in New York Tuesday night.


Of course Hillary and her people continue to state that they are going to fight on until there is a nominee, just as Pamela Voorhees probably would have said she was going to keep killing – until her head was removed from her body. If Hillary doesn’t pull out on her own, the Democratic Party is sharpening the machete.


The remaining Democratic senators who have yet to pick a side in the party's presidential nomination fight will meet this afternoon at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's headquarters on Capitol Hill to plot strategy for the coming days, according to Democratic sources.


And her big political peeps are telling her to take a walk. One of her campaign’s national co-chairs, former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, laid it out.


It does appear to be pretty clear that Senator Obama is going to be the nominee. After Tuesday's contests, she needs to acknowledge that he's going to be the nominee and quickly get behind him.


And superdelegates are coming out and telling Lady Voorhees to back her shit down.


"It would be most beneficial if we resolved this nomination sooner rather than later," said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, a high-profile superdelegate who backs Clinton. "The more time we have to get through a general-election period and the more time we have to prepare in advance of the convention, the better."


"She'll do the right thing for America, and I don't think we're going to fight this at the convention," said Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell, a top Clinton supporter and party superdelegate, speaking on CBS. "Because even were we to win it, unless it's going to change enough delegates for Sen. Clinton to get the nomination, then it would be a fight that would have no purpose."


Alice Huffman, a member of the rules panel and a superdelegate committed to Clinton, said she would not support an appeal if Obama had clearly won the delegate fight.

"What's the point for a challenge, if a challenge doesn't change the status of anything?" asked Huffman.


Hillary may not bail on Tuesday night, but she will be gone by the end of the week. Her last chance to grab the nomination was dashed when the Democratic Party decided this weekend to give Obama more than zero Michigan delegates. Everyone knows it’s over now. That’s why her supporters are losing their fucking minds.



The most telling piece of information came yesterday morning on a conference call with the Clinton campaign and her top fundraisers.


Clinton strategist Harold Ickes spoke in very conciliatory terms about Obama, in contrast to his tougher rhetoric in public and on television, according to sources. He told the participants that Clinton wants to "significantly" help Obama, but he did not go so far as saying that she will announce withdrawal -- that is the prerogative of the candidate.

Ickes told the group to "take a deep breath" and let Clinton proceed in her own fashion.


Um. Done that.

If you live in California, go vote today. No on 98. It's very important. Very, very important. - FTR

  • commentary
  • SUNDAY JUNE 1 2008 10:00 AM

Welcome to Canada, We (Used to) Have Rights.

If you read this article, every last word, let it all sink in deep and then ask yourself one question.

What are you willing to do, peacefully, for your rights and freedoms?

Like most Canadians, I live a pretty simple life. Work fills most of my time, and my personal time is filled with whatever I can. I keep to myself, hang out with friends, and generally don’t worry about a single thing in my life. We live in one of the best countries in the world; there are our issues, but slowly those are being dealt with. When it comes down to the grit of it, there isn’t much to worry about, and we can somewhat ‘trust’ our government to do us well. This was until a few days ago when I first learned of ACTA -- the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

Upon seeing it on Wikileaks, I took a quick peek, but nothing really registered. I mean, from the title, it’s all just about bootleg DVDs, and knock off Gucci, right? Since then, it’s hit a few newspapers, few blogs, and has gotten a little attention ... and all of the attention I have seen it garner on the internet and in newsprint has been very bad.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a proposed plurilateral trade agreement that would impose strict enforcement of intellectual property rights related to Internet activity and trade in information-based goods. The agreement is being secretly negotiated by the governments of the United States, the European Commission, Japan, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Canada, and Mexico. If adopted at the 34th G8 summit in July 2008, the treaty would establish an international coalition against copyright infringement, imposing a strong, top-down enforcement regime of copyright laws in developed nations.


For a while now, the United States has allowed their border guards to go into people's personal items and search the data on their digital devices. Every time I hear of this, it makes me chill slightly as I would love to not only visit that country, but live there someday. It is my general hope that the next President of the United States alters this approach, and puts the U.S.A. back on track. This proposed agreement would put those same rules in my country. This means that when traveling, I would have to deal with those same issues of having my laptop, cellphone, or iPod “looked at” or copied to make sure that I am not harming anyone's “special interests.”

If you download the document and give it a read, it’s going to come off as a lot of legal jargon, and for the most part not that bad. Dig into it just a little deeper and you’ll find that the majority of the Act is all about going after single persons, not large groups or organized criminals that want to profit from large scale operations. It would effect anyone going through the border, persons at home who are sharing data, and, as one last “fuck you”, to any sites that host links to torrents. I’m not going to name any of those sites, as I’m sure anyone here can find one, and more so we’re all good little persons who don’t copy anything.

Here is a fun shortlist of what would become law in Canada (and the other countries listed) if this is signed. I say ‘signed’ and not ‘passed’ for a reason, as I found out digging in a article that federal trade acts in Canada DO NOT see the House of Commons or the Senate. Once they are signed, we either uphold them or face financial penalties or who knows what else in this case. See NAFTA, or the Softwood Lumber Agreement for details. No offense to Americans, but we Canadians generally hate both of those agreements as we got the short stick which was thus lit on fire.

  • Internet Service Providers: Would be “protected” from lawsuits, provided they cooperated with law enforcement to assist in the removal of infringing material.

    Translation: If someone captures your IP as sending out data they don’t want sent, ISPs would then give up said information, without warrants, to police.

  • Internet Piracy: Significant willful infringements without motivation for financial gain to such an extent as to prejudicially affect the copyright owner.

    Translation: Remember those sites that I mentioned? Those would be what they are talking about. However, in another outlook that could also be applied to Wikileaks, or any other website that chooses to take up the same charge.

  • Border Guards: They would now be charged with the search/seizure (possible destruction) of digital devices that carry such items that are deemed illegal. Also, be given the right to put ‘deterrent penalties’ on persons involved. I’m going to guess that isn’t for tea and biscuits.

  • Civil Enforcement: The worst one of all. Authorities would be granted the right to go after people breaking said laws without any complaints from the rights holders.


  • Still here? Not too shaken, I hope. Possibly even going through that document yourself with a legal dictionary on hand to really dig into the meat of the document?

    Hopefully, you are, as this isn’t going to be a document that will effect only a few of us, it’s going to be sea to sea to sea. While I have no issues with impacting those that make money off of the proliferation of counterfeit items (in the Act, so far, there is only one sentence that does that), I have issues with going into people's personal laptops for songs copied, without any proof that it’s not a legal copy. There is no definition, that I can find, that covers a “legal" copy, which leads me to think the persons having this document pressed into service expect people to buy the digital along with the physical copy.

    This document - this ‘Act’, as it were - gives too much power to many individuals. In my mind, too many. I now have to think that if/when I go traveling overseas, I’m going to have to wipe my laptop and cellphone, and leave my iPod at home, lest I want to travel at all. When it comes down to it, this isn’t something a minority government should be able to agree on, or press into a full act for my country. I am also surprised, but not completely shocked, that trade agreements do not go through our House of Commons, or the Upper House (Senate), which, in my mind, they bloody well should.

    When the Conservative Party of Canada ran in the last election, they had a simple plan: saying they would make the government more transparent, to remove it more out of the lives of Canadians. They got their items mixed up, because as it stands they just put the government more into my life, and made it that much harder to find out what’s going on. Go digging for information on this document and all you will find is PR spin from the government, and a whole lot of articles/blogs against it. Reporters who have tried under the Freedom of Information Act to get more information only get a title, with everything else blacked out. This, to me, is not a more transparent government - this is the exact opposite of what I was told.

    Don’t give me your stupid violent comments regarding this matter, give me your open discussion and your passions instead. Tell the masses in this country what is going on and let them know what their government plans for them without any support of the House of Commons. For once, I want to see my country's men and women use their voice to tell the government what they do not want.

    This isn’t hard to do, but it would take time and some effort.

  • Pass this article (or any others you find) onto your friends, family, co-workers, and teachers.

  • Email newspaper editors regarding this matter and ask them why they are not covering it at all, or not covering it more often.

  • Call local radio shows and bring it up with them. There's no better way to get the word out to a few hundred listeners.

  • Write letters to the following: the Prime Minister's Office, the Leader of the Opposition, your local MP, and Provincial MPs.


  • Yes, I said write letters, the ones you mail.

    Stop laughing.

    Done now?

    Good.

    Emails are nice and dandy, but letters are much harder to ignore. In this day and age of spam filters, and the ever-so-delicious delete key, it’s easy for someone to get rid of them. A few hundred emails are easy to get rid of, a few hundred paper letters, on the other hand, are not.

    To get you started and make things a little easier, here’s information on who to write to, some advice on writing a letter to an editor, and a good list of email addresses for newspaper editors. Also, here is information on how to find your local MP, and, last but not least, a good list of radio shows to call into.

    Truly, I only want one thing from those who read this ... to stand up and use what you were born with.

    Your freedom of speech.

    • commentary
    • SATURDAY MAY 31 2008 6:00 AM

    Asshole Fuckface Roundup #48

    Asshole Fuckfaces don’t just drop out of trees. They are created through years of suffering and hate. At some point, they burst through, like a hideous, moist, disgusting mushroom, for all to see. To be an Asshole Fuckface, you really must do something spectacularly wrong. My ancestors began writing the Asshole Fuckface Roundup when paper was invented. Before that, they used their own stool to write on caves. (That was a bummer for everyone.) Today, I carry on the family tradition of locating and shining a light on the Asshole Fuckfaces of the world. It’s a sickening job and often I smash my head into a wall until I become unconscious. But when I come to, covered in my own vomit, I go right back at it. Why? Because I love America. So, put on your favorite leather apron, because this is going to be ugly.

    My first Asshole Fuckfaces of the week are a couple of dudes who enjoy methamphetamines a bit too much.

    This week was not so good for dudes who like to make bombs, do meth and drive mini vans. In North Carolina, a couple of meth heads decided to make some pipe bombs. So, what do a couple of Asshole Fuckfaces do after they’ve made pipe bombs? How about ask their lady meth head friend for the mini van, then head over to the local school and try to blow up some kids?

    How’d do you think that worked out?


    Sampson County deputies found a Chevrolet minivan outside Sampson Regional Medical Center with a side window blown out and blast marks on the outside of a door.

    Inside the hospital emergency room, Martin Bryant Boyette and Julio Frentez Morales were receiving treatment for injuries from a bomb blast, authorities said.


    Thankfully, the two geniuses blew themselves up when they tried to throw the bomb out the window of the mini van as they drove past Hobbton School.


    The bomb went off in Morales' hand, seriously injuring him, and a piece of shrapnel hit Boyette in the back of the head.


    Police found another pipe bomb when they searched Boyette’s house. Then they searched the woman who owned the mini van and discovered she was holding two grams of meth. Wow, that’s surprising. And another guy “involved” in the attempted school bomb toss was also arrested for holding one gram of meth.

    They’re all in jail – except for the blown up Asshole Fuckface, who is in the hospital. Hey kids – don’t do meth.

    My next Asshole Fuckface is the worst motivational speaker of all time.

    Meet Russell J. Simon Jr. He helps kids by spreading his message “TEN SECONDS CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOREVER." Russell believes anyone can “become the kind of person you want to live with for the rest of your life.” And he should know. Russell, 45, is a convicted felon and drug addict who travels the country speaking to kids about the dangers of drugs and a criminal lifestyle. He explains to teens how he beat his demons and turned his life around.

    According to his website,


    His is message is especially effective for:

    - Students
    - Youth groups
    - Parents
    - Teachers and education professionals


    But his demons seem to still be hanging around a bit.

    On May 14th, Russell went to a few bars with his ex-prison buddy Todd Paulson and then they went back to Simon’s house to keep the party going. Then they had an argument. Then Russell took off his clothes. Then Russell and Todd started fighting. Then Russell hit Todd in the face with a John Wayne statue.

    Did I mention Russell was living with a lady and her kid? Yep. At this point, she became involved, probably because her boyfriend was naked fighting with an old prison buddy. That’s when Russell pulled out a .380 handgun and chases his lady and Todd down the stairs, while shooting. He shot six or seven times – but didn’t hit anyone. Todd managed to run out of the house, but Russell’s girlfriend didn’t want to leave because her nine-year-old son was still inside.

    She called the police. At that point, Russell showed what motivational speaking is all about. He pointed the gun at his lady’s head and told her to blow him or he would kill her and her son. She did. Her son witnessed “most of the events.”

    The police eventually were able to arrest Russell without incident. He is being held on $1 million bail – because when he was in prison he called his ex-wife and threatened her. This dude is seriously motivated.

    My next Asshole Fuckface is a shapeshifter.

    Last week in Nigeria, there was a rather disturbing incident. Three cats were crossing a road in the city of Port Harcourt, when a motorcycle hit one. That’s when the Asshole Fuckfacery occurred. It seems the cat was not a cat at all, but a woman.


    WHAT could be described as a fairy tale turned real on Wednesday in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, as a cat allegedly turned into a middle-aged woman after being hit by a commercial motorcycle on Aba/Port Harcourt Expressway.


    Well, that’s just wrong. Anyone who is running around in the shape of a cat is up to no good.


    According to a source who witnessed what happened, the cat-woman said she and the two other cat-fellows had traveled from Abuja to Port Harcourt to kill three people. “The woman said they came to Port Harcourt from Abuja and that they came to kill three people. She said they had succeeded in killing two people, but the third person, whom I guess might be a pastor, was difficult for them and that they were preparing to go back to Abuja.”


    Well, there you go. The woman was a murderer/cat. One of the other two “cats” escaped, while locals beat the third to death. It retained its cat shape throughout its beating and death. Locals also beat the Asshole Fuckface cat that turned into an Asshole Fuckface woman.


    The cat-woman was seen sitting on the ground with blood all over her body. The right side of her face had a deep cut from what was gathered to be from a cutlass. She was later taken to a hospital for medical attention. It took the intervention of policemen to prevent the mob from killing her.


    Ordinarily, I don’t support beatings, but when someone comes to town in the form of a cat with the intent of murder, I believe violence is the answer.

    Police are keeping an eye on the shapeshifter.


    She has been taken to Teme Clinic. Police will still be guarding her so that she will not disappear.


    Good. Oh, and I’d like to do a quick Asshole Fuckface reversal. Everyone in this story who was not called an Asshole Fuckface is now an Asshole Fuckface and vise versa.

    Next up, why leave Africa when the place seems to be loaded with Asshole Fuckfaces?

    The country of Gambia has a president who makes most Asshole Fuckfaces seems like angels. Last week, President Yahya Jammeh told gays to leave the country – or he would have them beheaded.


    "The Gambia is a country of believers ... sinful and immoral practices (such) as homosexuality will not be tolerated in this country," the president told a crowd at a political rally on May 15.

    He went on to say he would "cut off the head" of any gay person caught in The Gambia.


    That’s some pretty serious homophobia, there, Yahya. Look, if you want to suck a cock, go for it. Don’t take out your self-loathing on every gay person in Gambia.

    After Yahya made the speech, he made sure the local paper followed up.


    "We have said it before and we will say it again. This is a Muslim and Christian country. Both the Koran and the holy Bible condemn homosexuality - pure and simple," the paper wrote on Monday.


    Is this a weird time to tell you to “suck it?” The Gambia economy brings in a lost of money from tourism. How about we all stop going there?

    Congrats to all of this week's Asshole Fuckfaces. You will each receive a FearTheReaper bred hypo-allergenic cat.

    • news
    • THURSDAY MAY 29 2008 6:00 AM

    Great. We Have To Torture Us

    We are in a bit of a quandary. For years now, the U.S. has been at war with terrorism – which is weird, because terrorism is a tactic, not a thing. But, whatever. Our war on terror has been going on since 9/11. We’re losing. We’ve pretty much made every wrong move possible in this “global conflict” and the blow back will be severe and horrible. One only needs to look at 9/11, which was blow back for our involvement in the Russian-Afghanistan war and the first Iraq War, to see how it can come back on us. But today we find ourselves in a really terrible position. I think we actually have to bomb and torture ourselves. Why? Because we’re terrorists.

    A terrorist group called Jundullah operates in Balochistan. You may not have heard of Balochistan. I have. I remember reading about it in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq. Seems an odd connection, right? Balochistan is like Kurdistan - a people without a country. Bolachistan is in Iran, Afghanistan, but mainly Pakistan.

    Balochis were a small part of the decade long, neo-con push to invade Iraq. According the propaganda I read, Balochistan was one of the most inhospitable places on Earth. People raised there were incredibly tough sons of bitches – which is why they were recruited by a certain Saddam Hussein to do very bad things. TO AMERICA!

    Yeah, neo-cons created an almost comic book origin for a super breed of terrorists. It was pretty retarded, but they went ahead with it anyway. According to our right wing lunatic friends, Hussein recruited the Baloch to destroy America. It was a mysterious scary place and the men coming out of Balochistan were scary people.

    Today, years after the Iraq War lies have been put to bed, Balochistan is back in the news. But this time, the terrorists aren’t working against the U.S.; they’re working for the U.S. Shocking, huh? When has the U.S. sponsored terrorism? I mean, besides forever.


    A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News.

    The group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Balochi tribe and operates out of the Balochistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran.


    Yeah. That’s how we do.

    Jundullah is responsible for many kidnappings and executions of Iranian soldiers. Their leader, Ragi, has admitted to killing Iranians with his own hand. Many of the executions are video taped for the world to see, which is pretty nice of them. There are several hundred Jundullah fighters, many of whom are ex-Taliban.

    You may recall hearing about some of their recent work, a bombing in the Iranian city of Zahenda. A car bomb was detonated near a bus carrying Iranian soldiers. 18 people were killed. Jundullah took credit.

    Now, this is where it gets fun. We support Jundullah the same way we supported the Contras in the '80s.


    A senior U.S. government official said groups such as Jundullah have been helpful in tracking al Qaeda figures and that it was appropriate for the U.S. to deal with such groups in that context.

    Some former CIA officers say the arrangement is reminiscent of how the U.S. government used proxy armies, funded by other countries including Saudi Arabia, to destabilize the government of Nicaragua in the 1980s.


    Well, that only led to shitloads of dead Nicaraguans and destabilized a region of the world, so why not?

    Of course, much like the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan Administration, the president doesn’t know anything about it.


    U.S. officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "finding" as well as congressional oversight.

    Tribal sources tell ABC News that money for Jundullah is funneled to its youthful leader, Abd el Malik Regi, through Iranian exiles who have connections with European and Gulf states.


    Um. Yeah. So, we just tell someone else to give them money. "Hey, Saudi Arabia, while we're giving you all those planes and weapons, could you do us a favor?" We’re aiding terrorists. It’s just that they’re our terrorists. So, now we have to change the name of the War on Terror to the War on Certain Terror.

    Thankfully, things are starting to heat up with our terrorist buddies. Pakistani police arrested six members of Jundullah last week and they are planning to extradite them.


    In another sign of growing tensions with the United States, Pakistan is threatening to turn over to Iran six members of a tribal militant group Iran claims are "spies" for the CIA.


    They would probably be executed. But don’t worry, we’re doing everything we can to help these terrorists.


    U.S. officials tell ABC News U.S. intelligence officers frequently meet and advise Jundullah leaders, and current and former intelligence officers are working to prevent the men from being sent to Iran.


    Now the U.S. is actively trying to block extradition of terrorists. This means we have to put ourselves in Guantanamo and waterboard each other. What a fucking mess.

    This should work out great! The last time we funded and aided Islamic guerillas in this region it ended up awesome. Go CIA! Go America!

    • commentary
    • TUESDAY MAY 27 2008 6:00 AM

    Enjoying Your Gas Rape?

    Gas prices are now over $4 a gallon. Shocking, isn’t it? Who would have thought having an oil man in the White House would lead to crazy high gas prices? Being a Californian, I never thought something like this would happen, especially after Enron and other energy companies completely raped my state state in 2001, while the president sat back and watched.

    Later we learned energy companies had manipulated the market, starting with lobbying for deregulation in the late '90s and ending with using the new rules to anally fuck the entire state of California. Even though it was quite obvious what was happening at the time, the Bush administration did nothing, even as our state government (Democrats) begged for help.

    Now the same is happening with oil. This isn’t a supply and demand problem. Anyone who believes that is a fucking moron. We are paying high prices due to speculation. Over the past decade there has been…wait for it...yep, the development of unregulated international derivatives trading in oil futures. That has led the rich to create an oil bubble, so they can make up for all the money they lost during the real estate bubble burst. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer.

    Sure, they tell us it’s all due to the dwindling world oil supply. Of course, most of the sources of that information are the same guys who will profit from just such a situation. Much like the manufactured Social Security “crisis,” this is all about a certain group of people who are trying to make more money. And now, they are.


    "Millions of new households will suddenly have straws to start sucking at the world's rapidly shrinking oil reserves," wrote CIBC analyst Jeff Rubin.


    Oh, scary.


    "It's not going to be a one-year blip and go away like the Internet bubble," said Joseph Dancy, who manages the LSGI Venture Fund in Texas. "This is a matter of economics, and it's going to take a decade to work through."


    I bet.

    See, those two assholes are making shitloads of money driving up the price of oil. They are speculators. They desperately want us to believe that India and China suddenly began sucking up all our sweet oil. But that’s just not true. Sure, oil use is going up, but it does not justify the insane rise in prices we have seen here in the US.

    The first culprit is our dollar. What a giant, hideous turd our dollar has become. The Bush plan to fight our economic woes is to drive down the price of the dollar. He’s hoping that will stimulate exports and tourism, which will make everything A-okay. He’s obviously a fucking idiot. The devaluing of the dollar is part of the reason gas prices have been shooting up, which causes the price of everything, food, goods, to shoot up, was well.

    On the supply side, we’re doing fine.


    In the U.S. alone, stockpiles of oil climbed by 11.9 million barrels in the month preceding the Energy Information Agency's May 7 inventory report; they were up by nearly 33 million barrels since Jan. 1. At the same time, MasterCard's May 7 gasoline report showed that gas demand has fallen by 5.8%, while the government suggested that gasoline consumption might have fallen by slightly over 6%.


    And yet, prices keep going up, up, up. I’m not saying prices shouldn’t be going up. They should. A bit. But doubling and tripling, and I get that 2001 California déjà vu feeling. This is rape, all over again.

    Congress is going to start looking into this latest rise in prices this week, but I don’t expect much to happen. Our presidential candidates, like Hillary Clinton, are running around blaming OPEC. That shipped sailed a long time ago. Control of oil prices is now in the hands of Wall Street. In 2006, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations issued a report on “The Role of Market Speculation in rising oil and gas prices.” What they found was a giant loophole in the regulation of oil derivatives trading.


    "There's a few hedge fund managers out there who are masters at knowing how to exploit the peak [oil] theories and hot buttons of supply and demand, and by making bold predictions of shocking price advancements to come, they only add more fuel to the bullish fire in a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy." (The Role of Market Speculation in Rising Oil and Gas Prices, U.S. Senate, June 27, 2006).


    And now those “few hedge fund managers” are taking advantage of that loophole while they can, while Bush is still in office and before Democrats gain a massive advantage in Congress. We’re in the middle of a greedy binge and it’s not going to stop until next year – because the only people who can do something about it don’t care.

    The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is mandated by law to ensure prices reflect supply and demand, rather than market manipulation or speculation. Right now, the CFTC is a no show, just like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission sat on its ass during the California energy crisis. But you tend to not do anything about a crisis when it's all your fault. That’s how the Bush government works.

    In January 2006 the CFTC changed the rules of oil futures speculation – and I know you’re not going to believe this, but the CFTC actually changed the rules so there is no oversight. Crazy, huh? The US government energy futures regulator made sure there would be no regulation. Who would have thought such a thing would happen under Bush? At this point, people within the US trading crude oil, gasoline and heating oil futures can avoid ALL oversight requirements by routing their trades through London instead of New York.


    It may just be coincidence that the present CEO of NYMEX, James Newsome, who also sits on the Dubai Exchange, is a former chairman of the US CFTC.


    Huh. Shocking. When CFTC changed the rules in January 2006, the price of oil was $60 a barrel. Now it is up to $134 a barrel. There is now no way to actually detect price manipulation because daily reports are no longer required. From the 2006 Senate report:


    “The CFTC's ability to detect and deter energy price manipulation is suffering from critical information gaps, because traders on OTC electronic exchanges and the London ICE Futures are currently exempt from CFTC reporting requirements. Large trader reporting is also essential to analyze the effect of speculation on energy prices.”


    Basically, you’re getting F’ed in the A, and there is nothing you can do about it. This is the point where I laugh at all the lower income idiots who voted to put an oil man in the White House and thought it would work out great. Fuck you. You deserve this.

    It’s gotten worse as of late because now the hedge funds, banks and other investors are jumping in. Now these speculators are driving up the cost of oil. The market does not see a difference between a barrel of oil being purchased by a speculator and a barrel being purchased by a refiner, or some other user of petroleum. Basically, around 50% of the price of oil is due to pure speculation. But no one really knows, because Bush deregulated the whole thing. We have very high supplies of oil and high oil prices. How awesome is that? It’s like the diamond business - only we don't all NEED diamonds.

    • commentary
    • MONDAY MAY 26 2008 9:00 PM

    Defining Wounds in Modern Warfare

    Today is Memorial Day, a holiday to honor the lives lost and sacrifices made by America's servicemen and women. The President visited Arlington National Cemetary and gave a speech honoring our veterans past and present.. Others took the occasion to try to score cheap political points. Over at Real Clear Politics, someone thought it was an ideal occasion to address an issue that isn't getting a lot of attention. The question raised is 'Purple Hearts for PTSD?'

    Since the 1960s the combination of the antiwar and non-serving sectors of academia, the media, the leaders of various peace causes, the "allergic-to-combat" upper income sector of society and the “shrinkocracy” have made various cases with various levels of proof that try to establish that not only was the old Mothers for Peace poster correct that "war not healthy for children and other living things," but that it causes far more casualties than are normally counted.

    Veterans have always found war downright hazardous to their health. But now their own lobbying groups such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, and Vietnam Veterans of America, and employees of the Veterans' Administration itself have decided to facilitate a blizzard of dubious veterans' benefit claims worse than the wildest dreams of any welfare queen.


    Wow, what an incredible asshole. All anti-war sentiment is from people too scared to serve in uniform or overly obsessed with psychoanalysis. Better yet, all those Veterans groups you thought existed to offer support and assistance to veterans trying to readjust to civilian life are just out to scam Uncle Sam out of your tax dollars.

    Claims of injuries from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are being used to grossly inflate the casualty rate and establish a whole new class of dubious "victims" out of veterans who served their country and are now being induced to serve themselves by both those who hate the American military while, of course, ritually praising their "service," and veteran lobbyist groups who claim to speak "for veterans" while increasing their ability to sell veterans on the benefits they get by paying for membership.


    Which brings us to the questions that prompted me to post this. How do we define PTSD? The author or the piece, Thomas Lipscomb, obviously believes it isn't quite a 'real' injury and shouldn't be treated with the same seriousness as combat wounds. PTSD is tricky all around since, as a disorder, it's only been recognized within the last twenty five years. NPR discusses the history of PTSD and some of its effects here.

    When Jack Smith returned from Vietnam twenty-five years ago, there was no tidy explanation for the feelings he was having.


    We know that as far back as World War I soldiers have experienced shell shock, various strong emotional and occasional physical symptoms to the stresses of combat. However, as the NPR piece notes, there were many challenges with the diagnosis of what was once called Post-Vietnam Syndrome, including soldiers being misdiagnosed with schizophrenia, some were even subject to shock treatment. Eventually, PTSD was listed in the DSM II, although it is still a controversial issue. As the NPR and Thomas Lipscomb both mention, it is the most commonly 'faked' disorder. Sometimes, those attempting to collect VA benefits for it aren't even soldiers.

    From Lipscomb:

    In doing so, they [Veterans Groups and psychologists] have helped veterans and in some cases people who simply claimed to be veterans make hundreds of thousands of PTSD injury claims in what military records fraud expert B.G. Burkett calls "by far the largest collection of military disability fraud cases in the history of the United States, all alleging PTSD."

    Seventy percent of the disability claims presented to the Veterans Administration come through what is called "a membership representative," who often works for one of the veterans' lobbyist organizations and helps applicants with the difficult paperwork. One of the recent candidates for president of the Vietnam Veterans of America had to disqualify himself when it was revealed that he had admitted drawing up phony claims for disabilities by VVA members to the Veterans' Administration.

    Since a 100% disability payment for PTSD can be worth more than $30,000 a year for life, it is not surprising that a high percentage of veterans working for the VA also receive payments for PTSD themselves. It also makes the grantee eligible for a 50% disability payment under Social Security. Together they total over $40,000 a year, tax free and inflation-indexed.


    So, we know that among any group as large as the United States Military there's going to be a few trying to scam the system, but if the system can't even decide what PTSD should merit in terms of benefits, it creates a lot of grey area as to who is scamming and who is actually looking for help. And, worse, there's evidence that the Veterans Administration is aware of PTSD's scope and scale and wants to find a way to avoid diagnosing it.

    The message, dated March 20 and titled ''Suggestion,'' said: ''Given that we are having more and more compensation seeking veterans, I'd like to suggest that we refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out. Consider a diagnosis of Adjustment Disorder, R/O PTSD.'' R/O stands for ''rule out.''

    ''Additionally,'' it said, ''we really don't or have time to do the extensive testing that should be done to determine PTSD.''


    So, on this Memorial Day, let's ask ourselves what we can and should be doing for the troops that serve and protect our Nation and its interests. As evidence mounts of not just PTSD, but also epidemic suicide rates among soldiers returning home, we have to ask what the true costs of this war are. How are we defining our wounded and what can be done for those whose scars are psychological and not physical? How can we do right by those that have served, while preventing dubious and unscrupulous people from profiting from falsified illnesses and disorders? How do we do right by those that have sacrificed so much for us?

    • news
    • MONDAY MAY 26 2008 10:00 AM

    Won't Someone Think of the Children?

    Imagine a middle aged man, taking pictures of adolescents in various stages of undress, some fully nude. Some of those pictures have at least a tinge of eroticism about them.

    Imagine those pictures being circulated for widespread viewing. What happens next?

    Well, the man is Australian photographer Bill Henson. He's been taking photographs of this nature for some time now, and he's had exhibits in galleries ardound Australia and the world. At home we have a collection of postcards of some of his images that we bought at the Art Gallery of New South Wales not so long ago.

    To set the scene, here's Sydney Morning Herald columnist Miranda Devine opining about the exhibition due to open last Thursday.

    Opening tonight at the elegant Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in the heart of Paddington is an exhibition of photographs by Bill Henson, featuring naked 12 and 13 year-olds.

    The invitation to the exhibition features a large photo of a girl, the light shining on her hair, eyes downcast, dark shadows on her sombre, beautiful face, and the budding breasts of puberty on full display, her hand casually covering her crotch.


    Devine is not pleased, but the article is not about Henson, except as an example of the pressing problem of The Sexualisation of Children. This is the current Big Fear in certain circles, as our deeply ingrained collective puritan impulses do battle with strongly inculcated libertarian ones. It's one thing to say that adults should be free to choose what they do as long as they're not harming anyone else, but children? They need to be protected!

    It's one thing to raise one's eyebrows at tween pop starlets gyrating in skimpy gear in music videos targeted at adolescent girls. Or to have girls of the same age wearing G-string underwear. Let's agree, at least for now, that it's not censorious or puritanical to be concerned about that, and to want to have a sensible and rational discussion of such things. And in a world where 18 year olds and up can join Suicidegirls.com, or go to a spring break resort somewhere and watch (or participate in) wet t-shirt contests or be filmed for the latest Girls Gone Wild DVD, let's agree that the 6-8 years before legal adulthood ought to be an area where we tread carefully. It's not exactly prudish to be concerned when the latest HiltLoSpears floozy is photographed sans knickers getting out of a car on her way to a Hollywood nightclub.

    Hell, there's even a Senate Inquiry going on into the sexualisation of children in the media. Devine notes (snootily) that the academic authors of recent study The Porn Report (or see here) put in a submission to the inquiry. In Devine's worldview, any academic saying the sorts of things that the authors (McKee, Albury and Lumby) do means that they are untrustworthy libertines, driven by some postmodern cultural studies agenda in which anything and everything goes.

    (It's OK, Miranda, I have some problems with postmodernists myself, but let's not go overboard. They've actually been doing some empirical research here.)

    Back to Henson. It's not clear that his work is in anything like the category of a raunchy music video. It's not that there's no discernable sexual energy contained in his images, but they are hardly raunchy.

    But Devine's conflation of all these things was just the start. After a phoned-in complaint to police, pictures were seized from the gallery that was to host the exhibition, and threats of criminal proceedings were made.

    At 3pm yesterday police announced charges would be laid under both the NSW and Commonwealth Crimes acts for publishing an indecent article. The NSW action could involve the hung work and promotional material while the Commonwealth action involves internet catalogues. It was unclear whether Henson or people from the Roslyn Oxley9 gallery in Paddington, which published several of the controversial images on its website and on promotional material, would be charged.



    The Angry Brigade got self-righteously nasty, as the art world just got (rightly, perhaps) self-righteous.

    Threats were left on an answering machine at the gallery as the owners prepared to reopen the exhibition without the controversial works.



    Now, even naked bubbas in nappy (diaper) adverts are suspect.

    What's all this really about? What's at stake? I'm going to invite you to join me in a short let's-confront-our-fears exercise.

    One fear about the "sexualisation of children" is that we're encouraging perverts. Pedophiles prey on children, and here we go, encouraging them. It's as though there will be creepy guys in long coats wandering the galleries, looking on lasciviously at Bill Henson's images and then running off to a private spot to, uh, fantasise. The more indirect version of this argument is that we're "normalising" kiddie porn by saying some such imagery is OK. (So, apparently, says the pervert, if those images are OK, why not the two thousand naked kiddie images on my hard drive?)

    Those of us who like self-determination don't hold much truck with these kind of abstract arguments.

    Another fear is that somewhere in the actual making of these images, innocent kids were harmed. (Or at least, put at risk.) Spake complainant Hetty Johnson of Bravehearts:

    "I asked them to prosecute, both the gallery and the photographer, but I'd like to see the parents as well looked in to. What parent in their right mind would allow their 12- or 13-year-old to strip off naked and display themselves all over the internet? That's not in the interests of the child. What's happening here is that the arts community have felt that they've been able to get away with this under the guise of art for a number of years, and I think this is the community drawing a line in the sand and saying, 'Enough's enough'."



    I don't know how Bill Henson gets the consent of his models and their parents. What I do know is that he's been doing this for a while, without horror stories emerging.

    This story is unfolding. Charges have yet to be laid, at this stage, and maybe they won't be. The exhibition is going ahead without the confiscated works, and Bill Henson has gone to ground. I'll post updates here as they happen.

    • news
    • SATURDAY MAY 24 2008 2:00 PM

    Which Creeps Run Your State?

    National Elections are up and coming in November. They will be here before you know it. While doing some research online about local issues I continuously ran across an organization known as Citizens for Community Values (CCV) based out of Cincinnati, Ohio.

    I finally decided to research them a little bit, considering they are a major force in Ohio politics. I started browsing their site and reading up a little bit on what they consider "Community Values".

    It made me want to stab my eyes out.

    I scrolled across the Issues menu selection and Homosexuality appeared, with another side menu that said Where do we stand?

    I began reading and was pretty much just started rubbing my eyes when I got to this part:


    First, CCV definitely is not "against homosexuals," those who practice homosexual behavior. We know that homosexual behavior is destructive to the individual and sincerely reach out to assist those individuals caught up in this behavior.


    "Destructive Behavior" was the first thing that caught my attention. I am not quite clear on how being Homosexual is considered destructive behavior. Being with the person you love and desire to spend time with never really seemed destructive to me.

    But hey! They said this:


    Further, while disagreeing with the behavior, we firmly believe that those individuals are entitled to all the rights and freedoms offered to citizens of this community, state and nation. Compassion, respect and sensitivity mark our relationship to those trapped in this behavior.


    "Trapped in this behavior"? So they don't have problems with homosexuals, they just don't want you to be homosexual and will help you do whatever you need to do to repress your homosexuality in so much that you gain a stomach ulcer, go bald, grow old and unhappy, join a right wing organization and then enforce ignorant policies on the rest of the citizens of your state. They have to get members somehow, right?

    After reading (and chuckling) a little more about Homosexuals being an outright threat to the decency of my life, and realizing that they could have summarized the whole page with one sentence that read, "God hates fags!", I headed back to the Issues tab and found how billboards are harmful to our children. According to CCV, billboards should not:


    Present children in a sexual pose or situation.


    I agree with that one! (it was one of very few things I agreed with on this site)


    Show contours of male genitals pressing against underwear or other tight clothing.


    No penis on our billboards please. Errr, uhm "male genitalia". We definitely don't want our children knowing that men have penises. Actually teaching them about this would be too much, rather than talk to our kids, we should just remove all ads for men's underwear.


    Focus on or emphasize the genital or pubic area, buttocks or female breast.


    Tits and ass are just unacceptable. While I have yet to see a billboard with a giant vulva, giant boobs, or a giant ass on it yet, it's probably because I am doing better things than running around checking to make sure that the billboards are free of tits and ass.

    Mostly, because even as a single-father, I just don't care. If my daughter saw a scantily clad man or woman advertising something, and she asked me about it, I would actually talk to my daughter and explain it to her, not hide her from it.


    Show, give appearance of, describe or suggest urination, excretory activities or explicit sexual conduct.


    Ha! Wait. WTF? Uhm. Beyond a couple low-talent hack DJ's in our area that might attempt something like this, I am pretty sure we don't need to worry about seeing people do this on a billboard. The majority of the billboards around here are owned by bigger corporations, that just wouldn't want the hassle from people beyond CCV.

    To tell you the honest truth, there are so many billboards around here that I have for the most part, zoned them out. I don't really even pay attention to them. So technically, I could drive past a billboard with two people defecating on each other and not even know it. Actually, probably not, because the majority of the billboards around here are for McDonald's anyways.

    Then I finally found the Holy Grail on their site. Pornography. Seeing that SuicideGirls could be deemed soft-core porn or art, depending on who you talk to, this caught my eye:


    "Soft-Core" pornography is not prosecuted by law enforcement even though it is more harmful than hard-core pornography.


    Damn you SG for sending me straight into Satan's lair! I knew this subscription was a bad idea, now I am going to have to suffer in the after-life burning in Hell while being poked and prodded with a giant pitch-fork by an over-sized red guy in a loin cloth who has hooves and horns.

    CCV prides themselves on their site for cleaning up the Cincinnati area. They speak proudly of having removed strip-clubs from that area, and how they helped get stricter stripper legislation passed in all of Ohio. They have even gone as far as launching a "Dancer Hotline" in which you can call to help an exotic dancer leave the industry that is supposedly killing them.

    They're patting themselves on the back for keeping gambling and casinos out of Ohio. Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia, Michigan, Indiana, all the states that border Ohio have casinos. But not in Ohio!

    Thank you CCV for protecting the decency of my life by preventing companies that could potentially supply thousands of jobs for Ohioans from coming here. Thank you for saving me from that evil money that is spent at casinos, and driving it out of Ohio to the surrounding states. Thank you for protecting me from the deviant homosexuals and strippers. I feel much safer.

    While CCV continues to battle these issues and congratulate themselves on removing jobs from Ohio, wonderful blogs and articles like this one continue to come out.


    According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Ohio had 209,400 fewer nonfarm jobs in December 2007 than it had in December 2000. This loss of 3.7 percent of Ohio’s jobs is the worst seven-year loss in state records that begin in 1939 as the Great Depression was ending.


    So while Ohioans are attempting to find work, the CCV does everything it can to prevent jobs from coming into the state, and are destroying jobs that are still in Ohio.

    I strongly suggest that if the CCV wants to improve things, that they start within their own community before preaching to me and pushing legislation on how I should live my life.

    What's the point of all this? While states like Oregon, which elected an openly gay mayor and California which legalized gay marriage take huge strides forward with organizations that promote self awareness, states like Ohio continue to take huge strides backwards with organizations that continue to oppress people due to their lifestyle choices.

    CCV strongly backed Mike Huckabee, but since he dropped from the race, it seems they will continue to support Republican candidate John McCain, while attempting to get him to change his policies and views in order to keep the organization backing him


    Dobson wants McCain to change his position on embryonic stem-cell research. “[Y]ou can't really call yourself pro-life if you're in favor of killing those babies,” he said.


    It is almost like extortion.

    The 2008 Election will be historical, regardless of the winner. I just hope that the religious fanatics, racists, sexists and otherwise ignorant people don't make up the majority of the United States. Regardless of who people vote for, I hope that people base their decision on issues that matter rather than issues that don't, like race, gender or sexual orientation, I am just not sure it's possible.

    I hope this helps explain Ohio a bit better politically. While it's no excuse, it may help you scratch your head less when trying to figure out what the population of the state is thinking.

    DevilsReject went through 12 years of Catholic School and no longer believes in religion or God, but is highly amused by Raptor-Jesus

    • commentary
    • SATURDAY MAY 24 2008 6:00 AM

    Asshole Fuckface Roundup #47

    Merry Asshole Fuckface Day. This is the day during which righteous people such as yourself can laugh at and mock the miserable fucks that inhabit our sweet Earth. That’s where I come in. I drag the hideous beasts from their caves and into the light of day, for all to see. It’s not an easy job. Sometimes I sit in a corner and weep for 17 hours straight. Other times I angrily masturbate, while crying tears for the children. So goes the life of an Asshole Fuckface exposer. It’s what my father did and his father before him. It’s the life we Reapers have chosen and we do it with pride. So, go grab your umbrella and cover yourself in thick grease, because this is going to be ugly.

    First up, some Asshole Fuckface lady keeps saying stupid shit.



    Oh, fuck. Can you please stop saying the dumbest shit ever? Or how about if you just refrain from bringing up the assassination of Ted Kennedy’s brother the week he was diagnosed with a horrible brain tumor?

    There are only two options with this little verbal gem. Either she thinks she should stick in the race because Obama might be assassinated pretty soon, or she thinks the assassination of Robert Kennedy is a great comparison to her campaign. Either way, she’s an Asshole Fuckface. Maybe later she can go pee on Ted's skull.

    Oh, and she’s made this comment before.


    TIME: Can you envision a point at which--if the race stays this close--Democratic Party elders would step in and say, "This is now hurting the party and whoever will be the nominee in the fall"?

    CLINTON: No, I really can't. I think people have short memories. Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. My husband didn't wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly unusual.


    So, it wasn’t a slip. It was a talking point. Nice.

    Next up, another Asshole Fuckface said something while there was a microphone around.

    As many people don’t know, John McCain worked very hard to get the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee. He visited Hagee many times and finally the nut was cracked. Hagee gave McCain his Jesus-like endorsement and all was well for John with a few crazy Christians. Then a few liberal bloggers began posting the insane rantings of Hagee, which included blaming gays for Hurricane Katrina. Of course, the media ignored those comments, because a black man in Chicago was saying something bad. McCain did disavow the comments, but not the Pastor - that is until now. It was only a matter of time until someone unearthed an incredibly heinous Hagee speech.



    Wow. Someone just made Jeremiah Wright look like a hero. There’s really nothing like saying Hitler killing 6 million Jews was God’s work. Welcome to the Asshole Fuckface hall of fame, creep.

    McCain was forced to reject Hagee’s endorsement.


    John McCain on Thursday rejected the endorsement of televangelist John Hagee after it was reported that the pastor once argued the Nazis operated on God's behalf to root out Jews in Europe and get them to Palestine.


    Nice. That was just too much for John. The “gays caused Hurricane Katrina” shit was totally cool, though.

    My next Asshole Fuckface… said something horrible. Go figure.

    Michael Savage is the most vile, right wing radio host in America. I would actually have a hard time arguing that he is human. I think he’s more of a physical form of pure hate wrapped in flesh. This week, Savage decided to make fun of Ted Kennedy and his newly diagnosed brain cancer.



    Ha ha. Get it? The Dead Kennedys. Ted has a deadly brain tumor. GET IT? Fucking hilarious. And cutting in Arnold’s “It's not a tumor” line is genius.


    "As a general rule, at 76, without the ability to do a surgical resection, as kind of a ballpark figure you're probably looking at a survival of less than a year.”


    Hee, hee. Isn’t that a hoot?


    Glioma is an aggressive form of brain cancer, in which the average survival rate can range from less than one year to about five years. About 20,000 people are diagnosed with this type of cancer, and half die in 18 months.


    Giggle, giggle.

    How Michael Savage is allowed to speak into anything other than his own shoe is amazing.

    Finally, my last Asshole Fuckface may be the worst parent, ever.

    Meet Try Sienghym. He’s a Cambodian mechanic who isn’t very good at playing with his son. Apparently, Try was having a good time with his five-year-old in the shop, when he decided to play “tire.”


    A Cambodian father and mechanic learned the hard way not to inflate children when he inserted an air hose designed to fill car tires into his 5-year-old son's anus and blew him up.


    “Learned the hard way not to inflate children.” Just let that soak in for a minute. Dude actually thought he could inflate his child, like a Road Runner cartoon. Let’s take this picture a bit further. He grabbed his child, and I assume pulled down his pants, then rammed an air hose into his asshole and turned that fucker on. Fun.

    Oh, and I think the kid actually is the one who “learned the hard way.”


    The paper said the child's stomach became distended and his concerned mother rushed him to hospital, where he remains in a stable condition and is expected to make a full recovery.


    For those who don’t know anything about our digestive system, it goes like this: Anus, rectum, colon, the large intestine, the small intestine and then the stomach. (And that’s backwards – stuff is supposed to go the other way) So, Dad blew air all the way through his boy’s digestive system and into his stomach. But, he is sorry.


    "The father very much regrets playing like this now," the paper quoted a family member as saying.


    I bet. He’s also now the village retard.


    Police were not expected to take action against the father, blaming the incident on pure stupidity, against which there is currently no law.


    Yes, but he gets something worse. He will forever be known as an Asshole Fuckface.

    Congrats to this week's Asshole Fuckfaces. You will all receive a FearTheReaper marble statue.

    • commentary
    • THURSDAY MAY 22 2008 6:00 AM

    Middle Aged Lady Rage

    Middle-aged women are pissed. Their great hope is going down in flames and losing to a black man, which is causing them to lose their minds. They are popping up on websites, in news interviews and on radio shows. Many of them say the same thing; they won’t vote for Barack Obama. I think their unofficial spokeswoman is Geraldine Ferraro, who this week told the New York Times she might not vote for Obama if he were the nominee.


    “I think Obama was terribly sexist,” she said.


    Uh. Wait. What the fuck? Ferrero made one of the most racist comments during this primary, and now she is…Holy Fucking Shit, what is wrong with these people? Seriously, does she ever say anything that is not mind-bogglingly retarded? Nope. Not as of yesterday, anyway.


    All the surrogates that they had out there, from the black journalists — you know, have you read Bob Herbert recently in the past six months? There wasn't one column that had anything decent to say about Hillary.


    Uh, yeah. It was the “black journalists” fault that Hillary ran the worst campaign since Rudy Giuliani. Why did we ever teach those Negroes to write? By the way, Gerry, have you watched Hillary in the last six months? There wasn’t anything decent to say, period.

    Mass delusion seems to have set upon this country’s almost-old ladies. They are now blaming Obama for the media’s sexist attacks against Hillary – while at the same time completely ignoring the Clinton’s heinous and repeated racist attacks on Obama.


    Nancy Wait, 55, a social worker in Columbia City, Ind., said Mr. Obama was far less qualified than Mrs. Clinton and described as condescending his recent assurances that Mrs. Clinton should stay in the race as long as she liked. Ms. Wait said she would “absolutely, positively not” vote for him come fall.


    Oh, so he should have told her to get out? Hey, He Can’t Win Sally, shut the fuck up. Is Obama supposed to just not answer a question that is asked 100 times a day? Should he have made an “I’m locking my mouth and throwing away the key” move? Sorry what you expected to happen didn’t happen. Welcome to grown-up land. You know how many times my favorite candidate has become president in my lifetime? Zero. I still have yet to turn into the world’s biggest infant. You know why Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney were pressured to drop out? Turns out it wasn’t because they are women, but because there was no way they could win. If any of these women had a legitimate excuse to not vote for Obama, I’m all ears, but what I’m hearing now is just is bitterness crammed in between stupidity.


    Cynthia Ruccia, 55, a sales director for Mary Kay cosmetics in Columbus, Ohio, is organizing a group, Clinton Supporters Count Too, of mostly women in swing states who plan to campaign against Mr. Obama in November. “We, the most loyal constituency, are being told to sit down, shut up and get to the back of the bus,” she said.


    Wait. Your Democratic candidate was beaten by another Democratic candidate, so you’re going to do what you can to make sure a Republican wins the White House? What a fucking lunatic. I can totally understand her not wanting to vote for Obama because he doesn’t represent her views. That is what you are supposed to do in a Democracy, but this goes so far beyond that. They are planning to actively fight against what they believe in to help elect someone who greatly opposes their political beliefs. And they are doing so because of a self-created fantasy that involves them being told to “shut up and get in the back of the bus.” Which is weird, because that actually makes me want to tell them to shut up and get in the back of the bus.

    I used to be a daily reader of a blog called TalkLeft. It’s actually an interesting blog because a lawyer created it and the two main bloggers talk about subjects from a liberal legal viewpoint. Up until a couple of months ago, I was a daily reader. But the sight became one of the few liberal blogs that supports Clinton. (The creator is a middle aged lady - go figure.) Going to the site and reading the comments is like taking a trip into an alternate universe. It is, quite simply, mind-boggling.


    Why couldn't Obama have just let Hillary run and wait his turn? He's been in Washington about a minute and half. No one knows anything about him and he has sooooo little experience. I worry about who he would appoint to important jobs like State department and Defense and others.


    Right. He might appoint Sinbad as Secretary of Defense.

    I find comments that Obama should have waited his turn to be insulting. He’s supposed to wait for her? Why? Because she’s an “experienced woman?” And experienced women get to go before black guys? Does the experience part include voting the wrong way on Iraq? Because that’s one of the main reasons a lot of people aren’t supporting her. Just think how Hillary supporters would take this statement if the situation were reversed; if the black man was behind and telling the woman to wait her turn. They’d lose their fucking minds. Although, they are already losing their minds.


    Tuesday Obama will try to steal the nomination in much the same way that Bush stole the 2000 election. He will declare victory when there is none.

    He sees victory slipping away and is clinging to hope out of desperation.

    His superdelegate endorsements have slowed to a trickle, if even that.

    He is behind in the popular vote if we still value democracy and this is still a country made up of 50 states.


    Well, no, no, no, no and no.

    I realize I am just plucking messages off a board, but it's fun and easy -- oh, and they are examples of the mass delusion that seems to have overcome Clinton supporters. And Hillary is leading them on this path. Yesterday her campaign began this “stealing the election, count all the votes” drive. It is the most destructive path she can go down, which means she will. She is actually now running around comparing the Florida and Michigan situation to the Gore/Bush Florida 2000 election fiasco. Amazing.

    The most annoying comment of all is the most often repeated comment.


    You can’t handle a strong woman.


    Totally. I’ll tell my wife, the doctor, I can’t handle her and I need her to stop making so much money, being so successful and shut the fuck up. Part of equality means taking the good with the bad, which means accepting when people judge a female candidate on her character and policies – not her sex. It's actually a step backwards for feminism not to do so.

    Some of us can actually say “no” to a candidate because we don’t believe she’d be the best president – and that actually has nothing to do with the fact that she has a vagina. I understand some people are always going to have a problem with the idea of a woman president. But guess what, some people are also always going to have a problem with a black president.

    And, while we’re at it, if the reason Hillary didn’t win is because of sexism, then how is it she won the white, working class male vote in most states? Please explain. How are men holding her back by voting for her? But her followers won’t even contemplate such a thought. It’s time to rage. It’s time to scream in anger that Hillary was the right candidate but the wrong gender, and completely ignore the obvious truth that she was the right gender but the wrong candidate.

    Now, I’m not denying she took her share of lumps. Chris Mathews and his insanely sexist comments come to mind. And there were articles written about what she was wearing. They were incredibly sexist. The media would never do such a thing to a man and certainly not to a candidate from South Carolina who got an expensive haircut. No way a newspaper columnist at a political conference called him a “faggot”. That kind of shit only happens to women, because the country is sexist. Political pundits definitely wouldn’t call a Governor from Massachusetts a pretty boy, would they? Perish the thought.

    Obviously the reason Clinton lost is because she is a woman. I mean, Obama has less experience than Hillary. Why would anyone pick the candidate with less experience, unless they were afraid of a strong woman? That’s why America chose Obama over Edwards, Richardson, Dodd, Kucinich and Biden – because they are all women. They had more experience, but they also had vaginas. And that’s why the less experienced Kennedy beat a female named Nixon, and less qualified Carter beat Lady Ford, and inexperienced Bill Clinton beat Granny Bush.

    Now we will have to wait to see if these women carry out their threats.


    We have a plan to campaign against the Democratic nominee. We have the (wo)manpower and the money to make our threat real. And there are millions of supporters who will back us up in the swing states. If you don’t listen to our voice now, you will hear from us later.

    We're just at the boiling point. Women will sit back and be quiet about things for a while, but we've had enough. Unless Hillary Clinton is our nominee, we are not going to support the nominee.


    Succumbing to threats is always the best way to choose a candidate. They are putting their lifetime of anger into this one political campaign and if it doesn’t happen, well, then they are going to kill everybody. This is different than past inside party conflicts. This is very different than John McCain against George Bush in 2000. This shit goes deep, this is a lifetime of rage and we’ve gone past the tipping point.

    We are now into the scorched Earth phase. This idea is coming from the top. Hillary and her campaign have been pushing the sexism excuse for a week. They are combining it with “election theft” by saying the DNC conspired to make sure a man won the nomination. You’ve got to wonder how many more wounds she can open and dig into before this race is over. I’m starting to yearn for the days when she was launching vicious attacks on Obama, as they were probably less damaging.

    The fascinating thing about this whole mess is that if Hillary were a man, she’d be gone by now. Long gone.

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