These days it is difficult to think about Idaho without conjuring up images of violent youth dashing madly through their towns and cities. And when one thinks of those violent youth, one will undoubtedly then think of the single mothers who raised them. It is simply the obvious conclusion, especially if you are a fucking moron.

Turns out the Idaho House of Representatives Family Task Force is chalk full of morons. Personally, I love a good Family Task Force. Family Task Forces are the bedrock of our society, without them we would just be a bunch of animals raping and killing each other.

Let’s meet them! The Family Task Force is made up of Rep. Dick Harwood, Rep. Janice McGeachin, Rep. Marv Hagedorn, Rep. Branden Durst, Rep. Dean Mortimer and Rep. Steven Thayn. Notice there is only one lady on the Task Force. That will make more sense as we continue.

Thayn is a true nut. He is a freshman lawmaker who raised eight kids on his farm. They were all home schooled and we can only imagine, not well adjusted. Thayn has some fantastic ideas about how things should be going in our country.

Last year he suggested that Idaho reduce school hours to four a day – to save money. Turns out, he is not big on school and you can read all about it on the website of The Committee of Correspondence, a group Thayn started. I have looked at it several times and I really don’t know what the fuck is going on. I did manage to learn that they hate school.

So fucking true. And that's not all.

Right on. Fuck mercy and screw education. Just thinking about them makes my blood boil – but only because the government is involved.

Then there is this email that Thayn allegedly sent out.

Hello. I have a new favorite douche bag to keep an eye on. This guy is a treasure chest full of jackassery. I believe I will be writing many more stories about Steven before my days at SG end.

Thayn is, not surprisingly, the Chairman of the Idaho House of Representatives' Family Task Force. They believe that drug abuse, crime and domestic violence are the result of families breaking down and they want to figure out a way to get mothers back in the home and out of the workplace.

Um, change the entire socio-economic structure of America? But they have found the perfect family to emulate: The 1950s American family. Although, Thayn does recognize it was not perfect.

Someone is speaking the truth. Not until the family can shed its human form, come together in a ball of pure energy and shoot straight up to the Lord will it have achieved its “full potential.” Right now, we are far, far away from that glorious day.

According to the task force, single parent homes (moms) are causing rates of drug use and crime to shoot up, though, people living out of wedlock and divorce are also to blame.

Right. It would only take one a couple of hours perusing the state budget to see that if there were less divorces in Idaho, that would mean $200 fucking million. It’s called math. After blowing minds with that obvious statistic, the Task Force came up with an obvious solution: End no fault divorce. Make the husband or wife prove they deserve a divorce.

Heyoooo. I thought Thayn was our crazy guy. Welcome to the party, dick. (Yeah, I didn’t capitalize that.)

Some lawmakers in Idaho believe the solution is not forcing people to stay married, but rather to strengthen day care regulations and make pre-schooling part of public schools. The task force disagrees.

Also, ladies, why are you talking directly to me and looking me in the eyes?

Idaho is big on privacy and probably won’t go for the Task Force’s incredible forward thinking ideas but at least there are guys like Thayn to remind us there is always someone worse out there.

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Rage Boy, but you should have. He is very popular and has become the poster boy for radical Islam after having been photographed at many demonstrations. Over the years, Rage Boy has been photographed at protests against Salman Rushdie, the Kashmir government, Pope Benedict XVI, Danish anti-Muslim cartoons, Kashmir state elections and to stop the execution of a Muslim man. He always has the same crazy, bursting with anger look on his face and it makes for one hell of a photo.

Conservatives have jumped on Rage Boy as an example of what we are up against. It’s the face of crazy, belligerent rage! Eternal idiot Christopher Hitchens explained.

The amazingly retarded Michelle Malkin jumped on board the Rage Boy train and used his picture for her policital message. They love him over at Jihad Watch. (What idiot goes to a sight called "Jihad Watch?" Rage Boy became the visual for everything they hate and fear about Muslims.

And now you can buy Rage Boy T-shirts, mugs, clocks, shorts and bumper stickers. He’s the perfect symbol of everything those Islamofascists are and what we should fear. The comments on the right wing message boards show the lemmings eat it up.

I’m sure it does. Too bad Rage Boy’s real story doesn’t match the right wing created monster.

A reporter for the Daily Mail went to the city of Srinagar in Kashmir and found Rage Boy, whose name is Shakeel Ahmad Bhat. Bhat has not had the best life in the world. He was raised in a religious family who followed a tolerant form of Islam called Sufi. His father taught him to spread Islam by peaceful means.

He dropped out of school at 10. When he was 13, Indian soldiers broke into his home looking for militants and threw his 18-year-old sister out a window. She died four years later from her injuries, which included a broken spine. Bhat decided to join the rebels fighting India.

He went to a training camp and fought, but never killed anyone. He even tried to talk his fellow militants out of killing people, which is bad if your profession is killing people.

At 16, he was arrested and tortured. Ever since, he has been unable to lift anything with his right arm, which means he relies on his family to survive. Today he is 29, not married, unemployed and does not know how to read or write, but he does love a good protest.

Dude loves to get a bunch of people together and shout, who the fuck doesn't? He didn’t think Rushdie should be knighted because he is a “Muslim basher,” big deal. Sounds like something Christians here in America would say -- after their “War on Christmas” ends. He hates to hear about terrorist attacks.

After his face became the poster boy for the right wing, he began apprearing appearing on T-shirts and mugs, the local cops asked him to stop going to demonstrations. That is pretty harsh. What the fuck else is Rage Boy supposed to do? Did I mention he doesn’t have a job, a wife, or know how to read or write? And now you want him to stop screaming in the street? Fuck off.

Although, one officer did offer Bhat a government job with a wife tossed in and he turned it down. (Now I’m worried about him.)

Bhat is aware of his fame because friends have shown him the pictures, many of which have been photoshopped in some not so flattering ways. And it kind of bums him out.

See, now I want to hug Rage Boy. This dude is just uneducated, poverty stricken and handicapped. I guess the right wing will have to find another poster boy for Islamic rage. Or, maybe they won't.

Right, you totally got the gist of it, you right wing asshole. A reporter went to a dangerous place and actually did his job and you call him a liar. At the same time you totally miss the point of the article: He’s just a fucking human being who has had a shit life and is a threat to nobody. He is a political activist who actually goes out and starts protests against shit that pisses him off, like police brutality and people talking shit about his religion. And because he takes a great action photo, he has become the symbol of something he is not. I kinda like Rage Boy, myself, and I'd like to extend an invitation to Thanksgiving.

Since Hollywood writers like myself went on strike this week, I thought I would share with you the biggest Asshole Fuckface studio heads of the week. They are inherently Asshole Fuckfaces, but during a strike we can shine a light on their hideous acts of greed and inhumanity.

Studio fat cats Les Moonves and Peter Chernin are Asshole Fuckfaces of the highest order. Chernin is just a straight up douchebag because he works for Fox. Moonves is best known for the brilliant move of losing Howard Stern to satellite and being a failed actor. (Maybe if he had been able to get a job here and there and actually received residuals, we wouldn’t have to deal with his cunty moves at the negotiating table). Anyway, Les and Pete managed to pull a move so deceitful and idiotic, that it may prolong the strike far longer than anyone could have ever anticipated.

Les and Pete “deliberately duped” the Guild by making a backchannel deal and then pulling out of it at the last minute. On Sunday, the two told WGA negotiators that if writers gave up DVD residual demands, then the studios would give a little on Internet downloads. Since that is what the WGA is after, the negotiators went for it. When the WGA arrived at 10 am Sunday morning, they took their 4 cents DVD increase demand off the table. The studio heads then went off to discuss how to respond.

Eleven hours later they returned. Eleven fucking hours. Coincidentally, eleven hours later is exactly what time the strike was supposed to begin on the East coast. Here was their answer:

Uh, what? The Guild made a back channel agreement (the way all negotiations are handled in Hollywood), took a massive demand off the table and then you told them to fuck off and now you are asking them to suspend the strike? How big off assholes can you be? Oh, it turns out they can be bigger assholes.

The timing just happened to coincide with the news cycle. The studio heads fired off a press release claiming they were making progress but the WGA refused to call off the strike. (Because all writers are banging away at midnight on a Sunday) The WGA was completely shocked and was not prepared to send out a press release, so the next day it appeared that the WGA had fucked the negotiations by being stubborn. In reality, they had Les Moonves’ fist crammed up their assholes.

Had the producers actually responded to the WGA’s removal of the DVD demand, then the strike could have been called off. A deal at that point could have been days away. That is what happens when you actually negotiate. Now the WGA refuses to meet until the producers offer something.

In the meantime, as you watch your favorite shows die off and thousands lose their jobs, remember two names: Les Moonves and Peter Chernin. They are top notch Asshole Fuckfaces.

The studios obviously are attempting to break the union, thinking they would split us when we were told that the negotiating committee had removed DVDs and gotten nothing in return. The problem is they use press releases to make their points. Hey grandpa, there’s this new thing called the “Internet” and on the “Internet” there are bloggers, reporters and email getting the real story out. So you keep at it with your “press releases,” by the time we read them, we already know the real story.

Next up, there are the little guys, toiling away behind the scenes and some of them manage to be tremendous Asshole Fuckfaces.

On day one of the Writers Strike, a very nice man I know was run over by an Asshole Fuckface who works at one of the studio lots.

Now, that doesn’t sound that out of the ordinary; a guy gets hit by a car. Happens all the time. Maybe it was a mistake, right? Nope. After speaking to several of my friends who were working with Tom, it turns out the vehicular assault was deliberate. The driver pulled up in his amazing Honda Element, got out of his car and yelled:

He then got back in his car and floored it. There was no way for Tom to avoid the vehicle. (If you saw Tom you would quickly understand. He is far from athletic.) The car struck Tom and dragged him for a bit. The driver then attempted to drive away but other writers descended upon him and took away his keys. He was then escorted away by studio security.

Johnson's black tennis shoe was still lodged under the front passenger tire as he was taken away in an ambulance.



Tom spent the day in the hospital. He now has one leg that he cannot bend at all and another that is a complete swollen mess. Thankfully, neither leg was broken, but a lot of things can go wrong in a leg.

Not surprisingly, the driver was an editor. They are a mole-like people who spend hours in dark rooms in front of monitors and they hate writers. Why? Because we have a vision of how we want things and we tell them how to do it. They often think they know the right way and they are just as often, sadly mistaken. The fact that an editor ran over a writer will go down in editor folklore, told to their children and their children’s children.

Most surprising of all, the editor was not arrested. Apparently it is the policy of the Los Angeles Police Department not to arrest people who attack picketers. If any of the writers had attacked the driver after he ran over Tom, well, that would have led to an arrest. Which leads me to my next Asshole Fuckface: The WGA.

The Guild has been using Tom as a publicity piece. They made sure to mention him at a rally Friday in an attempt to appeal to the member’s unity. They have sent out emails explaining what happened and saying Tom made a great sacrifice. They have had members at all picket lines sign cards wishing him well. His attack is being used as a pawn in a game of chess. What the Guild has not done in this case is protect one of their own. They have not approached the mayor’s office, the District Attorney’s office or the police department to question why a man can run someone down after making a threat and not be arrested. A far as FearTheReaper is concerned, it is more than disgusting of the people who are supposed to be protecting him during this time.

Finally, every studio head gets the label of Asshole Fuckface.

The studios began firing assistants from shows two days into the strike. They made sure to tell every low wage employee they fired that it was the writer’s fault. On DAY 2. Yeah, the studios had lost so much money on DAY 2 that they had to let the people making the least amount of money go. Gotta stop that DAY 2 bleeding, and the only way to do it is by letting the guy who makes four hundred bucks a week go.

Classy move. It would be like me getting into an argument with another guy and then going and punching his baby, then telling the baby it’s his Dad’s fault. You chose to fire them, you rich Asshole Fuckfaces and it’s on your head.

Finally, I’d like to end with a January 2007 quote by Les, a man who today claims he doesn’t know how CBS will make money on the Internet.

None of this week’s Asshole Fuckfaces will receive a prize because they have all the money.

Saturday. Vlad the Impaler said just before he died that the reason he committed such heinous acts was because he wanted to make it into the Asshole Fuckface Roundup, just once. When told it did not exist yet, he slumped and said, “Son of a bitch. What a waste.” Vlad was way ahead of his time, but luckily for this week’s Asshole Fuckfaces, they are not. Every week I drag my way through the news to find the worst of the worst, the sub humans, the monsters and then I deliver them to you on a silver platter (also known as a titty site). So, put on your raincoat, because this is going to be ugly.

If you are a white person and you think it is okay to put on blackface for Halloween, then you can expect forever to be known as an Asshole Fuckface.

Unfortunately, we don’t know the name of this Asshole Fuckface because the Department of Homeland Security won’t release it. Yeah, he’s an employee of the Department of Homeland Security. What else would he be?

So offensive that she decided to smile as she had a picture taken with the “offensive” man. Also, Julie, if it was so offensive, why were you one of three judges who “praised the costume for originality?” The photo was originally posted online, but was quickly removed after other employees complained

So what did dude dress up as? A prisoner! He wore a classic stripped prison outfit, had dreadlocks and…darkened his skin with make up. Because all prisoners are black! I did mention he is a white guy, right?

Best of all was the reason for the party: It was a fundraiser for the Combined Federal Campaign, a government collection of charities. Nothing says “Charity” like blackface!

Julia Myers is still waiting for the Senate to confirm her to be the head of ICE. They have yet to do so because her Dad used to be the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and America is a bit tired of Bush giving jobs to people who don’t deserve them.

This next Asshole Fuckface story scares me.

It scares me because robots scare me. They are all Asshole Fuckfaces. Sure, a lot of you are going to read this and say, “Hey, robots are okay.” Really? Have you ever seen a fucking movie? They are all going to kill us, first chance they get, especially when we make them medical slaves.

That is what is going on in the futuristic world of Louisville, Kentucky.

RUN!

Ugh. The last thing I want to see when I am sick is a robot. Just kill me. Apparently the robots are going to become a common site, allowing doctors to observe patient monitors, check heart rates, blood pressure and read sonograms. There are 130 medical robots in use worldwide.

Really? What about when the robot wants a vacation or is tired of doing the bidding of its flesh and bone masters? What about when it gives our Mom an overdose of methadone? Robots will kill us all and they will always be Asshole Fuckfaces.

Next up, an old favortie: FEMA. The great thing about FEMA is that they are constantly producing Asshole Fuckfaces. Sometimes it seems that FEMA is the source of Asshole Fuckfaces

FEMA sent hundreds of thousands of trailers to the victims of Hurricane Katrina who had lost their homes. People continue to live in the trailers, years after the storm, because they still do not have homes to go back to. Unfortunately, people living in the trailers have been getting sick because of excessive formaldehyde levels.

The formaldehyde problem is so bad that FEMA does not want employees entering the trailers after people have moved out. They don't care about the people still living in the trailers, they just don't want FEMA employees to step inside for a moment and get a tummy ache.

Nice. That is some quality work, right there.

Hey, whoa, Mr. Liberal. FEMA says that isn’t so. The Asshole Fuckfaces at FEMA are now claiming that the emails were only about trailers that people don’t live in, the ones that are sealed in storage.

Of course, back in July, FEMA told Congress that they would begin to “study” the toxic formaldehyde issue. Now it is November and they have not tested a single trailer. Not one. That’s how they know there is not formaldehyde in the trailers people are living in, because they have not checked. Fucking Asshole Fuckfaces

Next up, if you bite off part of someone’s face, you are always going to find yourself on the Asshole Fuckface Roundup.

Laura Cutler and her ex-boyfriend, Thomas Brummel, were making out at their home south of Seattle on Wednesday. They kissed for a while and it apparently got hot because she bit off his lip and spat it out. She must be a hellcat in the sack!

That is a very bad kisser.

Shockingly, Cutler was drunk when the cops arrived. The couple lives with two other people and they are all recovering from drug addiction. It is a “clean and sober” home, as well as a “bottom lipless” home. The other roommates did not see the attack.

Cutler has been charged with second-degree domestic-violence assault and been named as an Asshole Fuckface.

My final Asshole Fuckface of the week has actually, for the first time, left me without words.

I can’t even congratulate this week’s Asshole Fuckfaces after that. No one gets a prize.

Tomorrow there will be a special Asshole Fuckface Writer’s Strike Edition.

After reading David Brock’s memoir Blinded by the Right a couple of years ago, I came away with the impression that right wing hatchet job writers were awash in filthy lucre. Before founding liberal media watchdog group Media Matters, Brock was a right wing junk journalist, specializing in character assassination and invective. He bounced from plum gig to plum gig at conservative magazines and think tanks, with fat paychecks provided by Clinton-hating gazillionaires like Richard Mellon Scaife.

Brock made being a conservative writer in the ‘90s seemed like the easiest, most lucrative writing gig in the world, aside from maybe being Steven King. Judging from recent bellyaching by conservative writers, it looks like things have gotten a little harder since.

This week, five conservative writers brought a lawsuit against the right wing publisher Regnery. The authors, whose books include Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised America’s National Security and Shadow War: The Untold Story of How Bush Is Winning the War on Terror, claim that Regnery’s owners, Eagle Publishing, distributed books in ways that screwed their authors out of cash.

There’s something deeply satisfying for liberals about how the literary source of swift boating is getting screwed out of what he believes he deserves for screwing America out of having Bush as a single term president. But, as Jane at Firedoglake points out, there’s a lot of room for doubt about whether the swift boat dude or his cronies were getting screwed at all.

Without Regnery’s blanket exposure, authors like Richard Miniter (Losing bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror) probably wouldn’t have been asked to appear on “1000 talk radio shows” or have become a “widely sought speaker” as Miniter claims he has on his Web site. Still, that doesn’t mean he’s above painting his publishers as commies for the New York Times.

Well, the simple answer to that question is that they’re acting that way because they are a Marxist cartoon of a capitalist company. Well, maybe more of a vintage Bloom County cartoon; according to their Web site, Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak is on Eagle Publishing’s board of directors.

I was sitting around at work the other day when one of my co-workers asked me if I’d heard that a tanker had struck the Bay Bridge. I said I hadn’t and, with the memories of the 35-W bridge collapse in Minneapolis fresh in my mind, I asked if there was any damage to the Bridge. “No,” he replied, “but I guess there was a minor oil spill. Something like 150 gallons, so not too bad. Best to avoid the beach for the next few days anyway just to be safe.”

Now, I’m a man of many hobbies, but hanging out at the beach is definitely not one of them. I’m pasty by design, and I like to keep it that way thank you very much. Plus, do you know how hard it is to mix a good appletini with sand in the shaker? It’s a nightmare! Anyhoo, I didn’t figure that avoiding the beach would be a problem, so I promptly forgot about it and went back to thinking about more creative ways I can sell out to the establishment.

Well, it turns out that the initial estimate of 150 gallons spilled was a wee bit off. Just a smidge, though.

Um… what? Fifty-eight thousand?! Did they forget to carry the five or something? I mean, I’m not a math person, but that’s like four times as much!

It’s a whole fuck of a lot. And it turns out that it’s doing some really nasty things to the SF Bay ecosystem.

Those swirling questions include the obvious one alluded to above. Namely, why on earth was the initial leakage estimate so much lower than it turned out to be?

In other words, it took them almost 12 hours to release the information to local authorities that the biggest ecological disaster in over a decade had just happened in the San Francisco Bay. Meanwhile, they were telling everyone “no biggie.” And why?

Ok then. So in addition to making sure the Coast Guard responds to problems of this scale more quickly, we need to get them a better PR guy. That much is clear.

While the Coast Guard and local environmental organizations have begun a frantic race to clean up the oil as quickly as possible and minimize damages, state and local officials are pretty righteously pissed off.

The question of who is ultimately responsible could be more difficult than you’d think. The ship’s pilot, John Cota, was tested for drugs and cleared. Of course, he wasn’t tested by the Coast Guard until 24 hours after the spill (apparently the Coast Guard was kind of busy or something) so who knows how accurate that test was. Moreover, the dude doesn’t exactly have a spotless safety record.

To be fair to Cota, Wednesday was a heavy fog day. Of course, we have heavy fog days all the time around here. They’re so common that one could even call S.F. “Fog City” if one were so inclined. Or he might just not have known that the Bay Bridge was there. It’s only been up for 70 years. He might have been working off an old map. It could happen.

Even if they find that Cota personally was not at fault, that won’t necessarily relieve the owners of the ship from liability for the accident. The problem is that actually locating these owners is often difficult. That's because the owners of these ships often bury themselves in so many layers of sub-contracts and chartering agreements that it becomes a tangled mess of jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, the tales of damage done to wildlife, particularly migratory birds, are heartbreaking. Beaches have been closed to the public as rescue workers scramble to pick up as many live birds as they can before they are killed by the toxic sludge in their feeding areas.

If nothing else, it’s an ecological tragedy with a sense of timing, and not just because our state is trying to kill us. Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to review a $2.5 billion punitive damages award against Exxon for their inhumanly reckless and reprehensible conduct leading up to the 1989 Valdez spill. The Court took up not only the question of whether the award was unconstitutionally excessive, but also whether Exxon should have to pay punitive damages at all. Awesome. Wouldn’t want to punish someone for practically criminal conduct leading to the worst ecological disaster of the modern era, would we?

Luckily, the S.F. situation is nowhere near the level of the Valdez spill (which pumped an astonishing 11 million gallons of crude into the Alaska shoreline), but it’s still going to take a whole lot of work to get under control. Hopefully, the Coast Guard isn’t too busy to see things through.

In 2005, Congress passed one of the worst bills in the history of our country: The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. It was crafted by the credit card industry and passed with bi-partisan support, then shoved up our collective asses.

In 2005, 1.6 million Americans were filing for personal bankruptcy protection. The process is similar to corporate bankruptcy and allows debtors to come up with creditor-reviewed and court approved plan to write off some debts, pay off some and get a fresh start. But that obviously wasn’t working for credit card companies. After years of giving cards to unworthy recipients, they wanted them to become financial slaves instead of changing their lending practices. The bill basically rewarded the credit industry's egregious behavior, and encouraged more of the same. The bill did nothing to rein in credit card solicitations or put caps on interest rates or late fees, over-the-limit fees and other penalties. Congress has held hearings on the deceptive practices that credit card companies use to default on agreements and FearTheReaper has officially designated them as “Motherfuckers”.

So, the bill forced more people to file under Chapter 13, which forces consumers to pay back debt over five years. They had been filing under Chapter 7, which allowed them to keep some assets, while getting rid of debt. The Senate rejected 25 Democratic amendments to lessen the impact on bankrupt Americans, including one that would let people keep their homes if their debt was the result of medical expenses.

Not surprisingly, this has affected people who live on the edge, take home a paycheck, still barely get by every month, can’t afford any sort of hiccup in their lives and quickly fall into debt if their car breaks down or they get sick.

Ah, check out that last sentence there and focus on these words: Home mortgage lending. Anyone noticed a problem in that area lately? Turns out when you fuck people over, you get fucked back just as hard.

Two words, Washington Mutual: Suck it.

People are paying their credit card debt over their house payments because they really don’t have a choice. They can’t declare bankruptcy anymore and save their home, so they are walking away from their homes.

Even when they do declare bankruptcy, the mortgage rates are resetting six months later to a level that they cannot afford. That then hurts the mortgage companies, some who are the same who lobbied for the restrictive bankruptcy bill, like Washington Mutual.

You made your bed, big companies, now lie in it.

Yep. Me. Subrosa. I’ve been referred to around here as a knee-jerk, bleeding heart, San Francisco liberal (emphasis intentional) more times than I could count, and here I am supporting a group of snot-nosed, spoiled chicken hawks like the College Republicans.

Not only am I supporting them, but I’m supporting them in their lawsuit against none other than my undergraduate alma mater, San Francisco State University. Now, for the most part I loved my time at SFSU, but I did have one extremely bad experience with their administration. It is for that reason that I back the College Republicans unequivocally and think that the SFSU administration should be fired, tarred and feathered, run out of town and ultimately deported. I’m sorry, but that’s just the reality of the situation.

Oh, wait… sorry. I thought I was writing for the Culture board there for a second.

In all seriousness, I do support the SFSU College Republicans in their lawsuit against SFSU. Not because of any bad experience I might have had while on campus, but because the College Republicans are absolutely fucking right. I know, I know, I’m as shocked as you are.

For those of you unfamiliar with California’s university system, it is comprised of primarily two different “levels”. There’s the UC system, which is comprised of name schools like UC Berkeley, UCLA and UCSD and is designed to be the “upper” level where only elite students shall be admitted. When people talk about California’s world-class university system, they generally mean the UCs. Outside of that are the California State Universities, which tend to focus their studies on more vocational pursuits that UCs don’t offer. For example, I declined several UCs to go to SFSU in part because they offered a journalism major. My sister did the same because Fresno State had a good nursing program. The “thinking” goes on at the UCs, but the “doing” goes on at the CSUs. (Or so I tell myself, at least. I’m nothing if not a homer.)

Anyway, because the student communities at CSUs tend to be more transitory and less campus-centered (SFSU, for example, only houses about 5-10% of their students on campus), on-campus activities are downplayed and control of them is more localized. The administrations at CSUs for the most part don’t have to worry about massive student movements so they are freer to attempt to exert control. This is what happened with the College Republicans at SFSU.

First off, if should be pointed out that SFSU is probably the most liberal university of its size in the country. Berkeley gets all the press for being insanely leftist, but that’s mainly lip service from when the students there were actually active in the '60s and '70s. With their high ranking and inability to engage in affirmative action, Cal’s student body has been trending closer to the political center for decades. As a result, many of those liberal minority students who didn’t get into Berkeley and want to stay in the area ended up at SFSU, pushing it further towards the political left. Whereas the Berkeley chapter of the College Republicans is one of the biggest in the country, the SFSU chapter is and always has been pathetically toothless. To be fair, I went there during the Clinton presidency, and things were universally awesome then so maybe their numbers have rebounded a bit since. I don’t know.

Regardless, when they held that political rally against Hezbollah, Hamas and (later) al-Qaida, they weren’t exactly out there protesting abortion rights or carrying “Dick Cheney is my hero” placards. Not that it would matter to this case at all if they had, but they picked some politically safe targets and staged a rally where flags were stomped on. Big whoop.

Unfortunately for them, an opposition student group or two (read: nearly the entirety of the politically active student body) filed a student complaint saying that in stomping on those flags, they violated SFSU’s conduct code, specifically California Code of Regulations tit. 5 § 41301, which states in part that students must “be civil to one another and to others in the community…” The SFSU administration took the complaint and ran with it, engaging in a 5 month long investigation into the students’ actions, despite protest letters from the aforementioned conservative organizations like the ADF and FIRE, as well as other right wing hit-groups like the ACLU.
In March, SFSU finally dropped their investigation. In June, the College Republicans filed suit in federal court, arguing (among other things) that by subjecting them to prolonged scrutiny for their constitutionally protected political actions, they have effectively chilled the discourse of dissenting political opinion and violated their rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Last week, a federal magistrate agreed.

This is where it gets down to brass tacks for why I support the College Republicans’ lawsuit and why it doesn’t matter to me one bit if they knew or not that the Arabic writing on those flags said “Allah.” It’s pretty clear to me from the facts of the rally (particularly the part where they made attempts to black out the word “Allah” when it was brought to their attention) that the Republicans’ intent was not to intimidate Muslims. Rather it was to make a political statement against what they regarded to be terrorist organizations. Regardless of whether or not we think their message is trite or needlessly fear-mongering, that message is still constitutionally protected political speech. Thus, when you have a code of conduct that legitimizes months-long formal inquiries into legitimate political expression, then we’ve got a problem.

The problem here, which seemed to be articulated by the magistrate, is that the code of conduct is overbroad. While there is certainly some benefit to having a code that requires some level of civility (i.e. no harassing or intimidation), the term itself is far too over-inclusive to provide any meaningful limit on it. Does a prohibition against incivility reach garden-variety insults (“your opinion is fucking stupid”)? We don’t know. Even more troubling is the fact that the administration had to think for even a split-second about whether the civility requirement could be used to punish the College Republicans here. If its even arguably applicable, then the regulation is going to chill legitimate expression. And that, my friends, is constitutionally unacceptable.

So yeah. Go College Republicans. For once.

It is a great time to be a kid. When I was young, my parents didn’t buy me date rape drugs as a present for Christmas, which means I couldn’t fall into a coma and wake up with no memory of what happened. Life sucked like that. We did have lead, but it was mostly in paint, not in toys, backpacks and dishes. Now lead is blowing up big time and it’s everywhere.

Yesterday we learned that a popular toy named Aqua Dots contains little beads that, if ingested, turn into “hydroxy butyrate,” a date rape drug.

It’s called teaching kids how to party young.

The toy is also very popular in Australia, where it is called “Bindeez,” because they are weird. It was named toy of the year at some Australian toy function. But they also like the boomerang, so whatever.

Aqua Dots is a very hot toy for Christmas. I think China’s plan is to kill us with shoddy products, so obviously we should bomb them.

Exactly when does this end? Are the Chinese going to spray cyanide on lollipops?

The recalled products include:

Great, I've been rubbing "Big Red" on my balls daily for about a year. Lead is especially harmful to young children and can cause brain damage. Brains are sort of important. Putting lead paint on the surface of toys that kids love to shove in their mouth and up their anuses is a pretty bad idea. Last year Mattel recalled 21 million Chinese toys.

Now Consumer Reports is recommending people immediately stop using a variety of products.

Some of the items Consumer Reports listed have not even been included in recalls.

Huh, I wonder if any caps didn’t end up in a kid’s mouth?

Consumer Reports used lead testing kits that people can buy for home use. After a positive result, they did more testing in a lab. It’s obviously great to have a private business telling us which products we should avoid, but wouldn’t it be even better if our government stopped these products before they reached little Timmy and he sucked on them for 2 years, turning him into a moron? If only we had an agency called the Consumer Product Safety Commission, none of this would happen, right? Well, not in our “Business get to do whatever it wants" world.

Mmm, smell that? It’s the Ron Paul no government world. Ask that baby how it feels about no regulation after it wakes up from its coma. The CPSC has chosen a brilliant path of allowing businesses to impose “voluntary” standards and not to take legal action against companies that refuse to recall dangerous products. They work for you!

Bush’s choices to lead the CPSC have been, as expected, business folk. Current director Nord was a corporate lawyer for Kodak and previous director Stratton created a foundation, which advocates limited government and supports free-market economic principles. Yay! Ron Paul 08!

Not surprisingly, the CPSC is now blatantly disregarding governmental regulations. But, hey, what agency under Bush isn't?

And make no mistake about it, this is something we can lay at the feet of our terrible president. Under Clinton, the chairman of the CPSC only traveled at the expense of the agency or a media organization that wanted the chairman there to announce a recall.

The great thing about CPSC is that under Bush the agency seems to have taken a new role: Actually helping businesses to harm people.

The guys who worked under Clinton were a bit shocked.

But don’t worry, George Bush is going to protect us.

Maybe you shouldn’t put the people who spent their careers working for corporations in charge of agencies who fight for consumers against corporations, you fucking asshole.

It is very difficult to explain what occurred yesterday in Congress, but I’m going to do my best. It all began with Dennis Kucinich bringing articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney, which led to the Repuplicans playing games and the Democrats actually voting to stop it, so they would not have to DEFEND Cheney on the House floor. Seriously. That is how pathetic the Democrats are.

First Kucinich read his articles of impeachment into the record and it was covered by C-SPAN.



The Democrats then moved to kill the resolution by tabling it. This move forced the House clerk to have to read the articles of impeachment again, which was also covered by C-SPAN. The vote to table the resolution then was held and it went on much longer than anyone anticipated. Suddenly, Republicans started switching their votes from yes to no. They were attempting to force the Democrats to debate the possible impeachment of Cheney, live on C-SPAN. Oooo, scary!

Nancy Pelosi, in her infinite wisdom and amazing leadership judgment has repeatedly claimed, “Impeachment is off the table.” Which is a brilliant move because it means Cheney and Bush can do whatever the fuck they want without ever being held accountable. Democrats suddenly realized what was happening: Republicans were attempting to force them to take to the floor on national television and argue against impeaching Cheney. This is the kind of shit that happens when you run Congress like you are the greatest pussies ever to step foot on Capitol Hill.

The motion to table the resolution was defeated 170-242. The spineless Democrats still had a chance to say something of substance about a man who has lower approval ratings than Satan. But that can't happen! So, House Majority leader Hoyer then made a motion to refer the resolution to the Judiciary Committee. Thank fucking God! What if Congress actually had to speak about Cheney’s wrong doings? Oh, the horror!

But then Kucinich asked for a vote on the decision to refer to committee. Oh, shit! That little fucking angry Hobbit is ruining everything! Can’t he see the Democrats don’t want to step onto the political landmine of talking shit about the least popular man since Hitler? Kucinich must have freaked out Hoyer, because he withdrew his motion to send the resolution to committee. Then a few minutes later he un-withdrew his motion. He did everything but run around, screaming, “Mommy!”

A vote was then held to determine whether or not Kucinich’s articles of impeachment against Cheney should be sent to committee. America and Democrats were spared the embarrassment of taking a stand against the political version of Ed Gein by a vote of 218-194. No time limit was given for the Judiciary Committee to report back. Oh, and the bill has already been in the Judiciary Committee for months, so it is officially dead. Murdered by scared Democrats.

In the end, 86 Democrats voted to support impeachment today by voting not to table the resolution. At least on the first vote, on the second one they caved like the Democrats they are. The second time around, only five Democrats stood their ground: Filner, Kaptur, Kucinich, Waters and Towns. I guess it shows some sort of movement. Eighty-six Democrats are feeling so much heat from their constituents that they grew temporary spines. And now the media is more aware and the public is more aware of the growing movement to impeach our version of Vlad the Impaler.

Because motions to impeach are considered “highly privileged,” Kucinich can introduce it again and again. And he should, if for no other reason than it was fun.

In March, 2001 the Taliban destroyed two giant Buddha statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. The Bamiyan Buddhas were carved into a sandstone cliff and stood 50 meters tall. They were built around the second century, when Afghanistan was an important stop along the Silk Road. But the Taliban destroyed them to stop the worshipping of “false idols.” And now Islamic radicals are at it again.

Pro-Taliban militants have attempted to destroy the next largest Buddhist statue in the world in Northwest Pakistan.

Recently, the area has experienced attacks against anything that is “un-Islamic.”

Last week, militants blew up 60 music, video and cosmetics stalls at a market when the owners refused to close down after being labeled “un-Islamic.” And now the Buddha statue has been attacked and it is not in a remote area. It located along the main road in the valley.

Pakistani archeologists had repeatedly asked local authorities to protect the statue, but they refused to do so, even after a previous failed attack. The militants carried out their brazen attack in the morning and it was not exactly a quick job. On Tuesday morning the armed men drilled holes in the statue, put dynamite inside and blew it up.

Thank God. Or Buddha. Although, you're not supposed to thank Buddha for stuff like that, so thank faulty Taliban engineering. Or anti-engineering. Just fucking thank something, the statue survived. Of course, if you look at the image, the face is gone, which I would consider messing up the statue a bit.

The statue was only saved because it is located on a steep ridge and was difficult to reach. The statue is 2,200 years old and now the largest in the world. But Buddha statues have never faced such a horrible enemy and may soon be wiped out. It’s like a giant Buddha statue genocide.

Ten years ago, the Pakistani’s living in the area were said to be proud of the statues and would take visitors there to show them off. But now, the Taliban has been driven out of Afghanistan, into the mountains of Pakistan and the area has been radicalized. It’s called progress.

Television and film writers will officially go on strike one minute after I post this. 12:01 AM, Monday. This will probably be an ugly strike and you will hear a lot of nasty things said about writers. We will be portrayed as spoiled brats who are putting an entire industry out of work to make a couple extra bucks. By the time the strike is over America will think we all sit around feeding our white Persian cats freshly killed Tuna, while throwing diamonds at our pool boys bottom as we are being fed caviar by our personal chef/masseuse, Armando.

The truth is, most writers in the guild are middle class or below. The median income is about that of a schoolteacher. Do some writers make a fortune? Of course. Are there writers who barely scrape by? A lot more than the ones making a fortune. But you won’t be hearing that story because we are fighting against media companies. How fairly do you think this strike will be reported on channels owned by Disney, Fox or Viacom? So, expect to hear a lot about our Land Rovers, Porsches, Armando and all of the crew people we are putting out of work by striking.

Already, we are being attacked by the masses for our greedy stance, which is the way the new America operates. Everyone seems very happy to allow those at the top to make as much money as possible and anyone who asks for a tiny bit of the billions is greedy. Meanwhile, the companies making billions by firing employees and cutting pensions are somehow honorable. It is bizarre and idiotic thinking, but that is where we find ourselves.

The Writers are fortunate to have received the Teamsters backing. While not ordering their members not to cross picked lines, the teamsters have been told they may honor picket lines and their union will back them up. Studios have reacted by calling teamsters in to their offices in groups and asking them if they planned to cross the line. They have been threatened with unemployment if they do honor the line, which would violate the studios contract with the teamsters. Teamsters have it written into every contract that they cannot be punished for refusing to cross a picket line. It is a huge sacrifice if they do honor the line and they didn’t come to this decision lightly. But they understand the larger implications: This dispute is not just about writers. We are the first union that is fighting for our rights and equal pay when it comes to the Internet. What we do now will affect every union in Hollywood.

Here is one Teamsters opinion on the strike.

The studios would like the world to believe we are fighting over the money we receive for DVD sales. That is completely untrue. The fight for DVD money ended years ago. Currently writers receive 4 cents for every DVD sold. We’d like to increase that to 8 cents. DVDs cost 10 bucks. Aren’t we a bunch of money grabbing bastards?

The reason the focus will be on DVDs is because years ago the Guild agreed to a terrible contract on home media sales. The studios told us that DVDs and home videos were not yet an established business. They claimed they couldn’t set up a payment system for writers until they knew whether or not it was successful and how it would fall into place. They were, of course, lying. Writers were then stuck with a terrible contract for twenty years. Now the studios are saying the EXACT SAME THING about the Internet. Again, it isn’t an established business, so how can they commit to a payment plan? Blah, blah, blah.

What the producers did not understand was the deep feelings of anger that writers have had for years over the DVD contract and how we were taken advantage of after negotiating in good faith. Every time we look at a DVD on a store shelf, we are reminded of how we are getting screwed. And now the anger has a place to go because the producers are giving us a chance to win a battle we have been simmering about for 20 years. Way to bring to union together, fat cats.

I’ve never seen the Guild this unified. Two weeks ago we voted to authorize a strike and 90% supported the action. On Thursday night we had a meeting and Guild members were completely behind our negotiating team. Not one member voiced their opposition. We know whom we are fighting. We understand the battle we are fighting.

This is not an average negotiation. This is a 20-year negotiation. In the '40s the Guild was formed after a strike threat. In the '60s the Guild walked for health, pension and residuals. In the '80s the Guild walked for Cable coverage, DVD payments and home video. Now there is a new medium and if we don’t take a stand, many writers will lose their ability to survive. As will actors and on down the line.

This is all about Internet streaming and downloads. The Guild has put forth an offer of 2.5%. That is 2 and a half cents for every dollar. Producers have countered with ZERO and will not come back to the table until we agree to that generous offer. So, basically they will not negotiate until we agree to not negotiate. Producers claim they are not making any money off of the Internet, that it is just “promotional.” In the proposal they offered, they stated “promotional” includes shows that are “aired in entirety” and for which they “receive a fee.” (NBC made $15 million “promoting” shows on iTunes last year.)

So, why are we so concerned with this money? Residuals are the name of the game for writers. We aren’t employed constantly and it allows us to survive during the rough times, which we use to write scripts and come up with pitches. Guess who profits off of that system? The studios. If we agreed to their demands, the studios would be killing their own product, plain and simple. No one would have time to write because they would have day jobs, which would mean far less new ideas being pitched. The money ABC has made of off Desperate Housewives is probably more than the residuals paid to the entire Guild over that same period. A writer was living on residuals when he created the show.

The poor producers claim they’re not making money off of the Internet, even though they show commercials during shows and charge for downloads in a medium that costs them almost nothing in overhead. At the same time, they are boasting to their shareholders how profitable the Internet will be and that that they ARE already making money. So, which is it?

To date the producers have been nothing short of disgusting in their approach to negotiations. We wanted to meet in early July. They waited until mid-July. They then gave us a 30-page proposal that had nothing to do with the issues at hand and wanted writers to take massive pay cuts. (Way to unify Guild members, idiots.) Then they wouldn’t meet until late September. Since September, producers have yet to even discuss any of our demands. They just refuse to talk about them. We took 9 of our 25 demands off the table, important substantial demands, and the producers responded with NOTHING. They simply refuse to negotiate. All they have been doing is attempting to use the media to undermine our negotiators in hopes of splitting the Guild. Their actions give us no alternative but to strike.

How long wills it last? Nobody knows, but I would expect it to go on for some time. I think writers will lose homes, the California economy will suffer and then the entire country. (Entertainment makes up 7% of the US economy.) But we will hold strong, for the simple fact that we are really, really angry and have been for quite some time. Many shows that began this season will die miserable deaths. Shows with declining audience numbers that are difficult to follow, like "Lost", may disappear as well.

What the studios seems to not understand is that it is their best interest to keep the writers working for them. They are following a plan that has completely undermined the music business. Treat those you count on like crap and those people will find their own way. I have one word for studios to mull over: Radiohead. If they don’t think writers will use this time to figure out a way to take their product directly to consumers via the Internet, they are out of their minds. We will and at that point they can remember fondly that 1% download money they saved.

Welcome to the world of creepy and awful: It’s Big Brother in South Africa. Things went horribly wrong during the filming of South Africa’s second season of Big Brother. A woman got incredibly drunk, passed out, at which point her housemate sexually abused her. And to top it off, producers apparently thought it was totally okay to air.

Ofunneka Molokwu is a 29-year-old medical assistant who decided to spend the day drinking. She black out after an extended period of vomiting. That’s when 24-year-old housemate Richard Bezuidenhout decided to take advantage of the woman. As another housemate begged him to stop, Bezuidenhout “penetrated her vagina with his fingers” while Molokwu lay unconscious. He then sat down in a chair across the room and sniffed his fingers for a while. Seriously. This actually happened on television, while people watched at home.

The pay-TV channel insists that no such attack took place, even though people watched it occur. The channel took the high road.

Riiiight. I guess that is why producers called paramedics after the attack and cut the live feed, because all was well. Oh, and go fuck yourself.

In South Africa a woman is assaulted every 40 seconds. Bezuidenhout’s actions constitute rape under South African law. Bezuidenhout decided to top the assault by being an even bigger asshole when he opened his Neanderthal mouth to explain his actions to his other housemates.

Well, then maybe we can get you killed by a lion.

Now, in an even more hideous turn of events, the controversy is being called "Fingergate." Seriously.

Barf.

Saturday. The day Muhammad came out of his tent and said something that no one could hear because there was a sand storm or some shit. But historians believe it was "Let there be an Asshole Fuckface Roundup." So, now I do the will of Allah weekly. Now I will probably be killed. But so be it, I am a truth teller. This week I have sifted through the worst humans on our planet and filtered it down to the bottom four. They are subhuman and should be treated as such. Check out their horrible acts in this week's Asshole Fuckface Roundup.

As of Thursday, four Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have publicly stated that they would vote against Michael Mukasey to become the next Attorney General.

Their reasoning is that until Mukasey can define whether or not waterboarding is torture, he should not be allowed to serve as Attorney General. They are obviously right. Waterboarding is torture, which is why it was used during the Spanish Inquisition. On Thursday, giant baby/Asshole Fuckface Bush jumped into the fight for his boy Mukasey.

Really, George? Osama bin Laden? Here’s what you've said about him in the past:

Which president disbanded the CIA bin Laden unit? Oh, shit it was you, Asshole Fuckface Bush. But now that you need him to scare people, be sure to pull the name out of your twat.

Reporters pushed Bush on this bullshit.

Super and totally irrelevant. The Committee wants to know if the highest law officer in the country believes an obvious crime is a crime. What about popping people’s eyeballs out with spoons? Can he answer that question, or should he avoid it because he doesn’t know whether or not it is a technique we use?

Of course, the president also cannot answer the question.

Because it's a crime and you’re an Asshole Fuckface.

And now Bush says if he can’t get his way, then there won't be an Attorney General! Waaaaa. Baby in Chief, this is how it works: It’s called compromise and if your "terrorism expert judge” can’t define waterboarding as terrorism, then he is not qualified to the US Attorney General. Try to quit governing like a 4-year-old, you Asshole Fuckface.

I do have a solution, though. We should waterboard Mukasey so he can make a determination if it is torture or not.

Next up, the Asshole Fuckfaces who are supposed to be protecting our country. They are inspirational.

Britain's first Muslim minister, Shahid Malik, was invited by the Department of Homeland Security to be a keynote speaker at an event dealing with extremism and defeating terrorism last November. When he arrived at JFK airport, he was detained and searched by Department of Homeland Security officials. After the incident, US authorities apologized and assured him it was a mistake.

This week, Malik came back to America for a series of meetings on terrorism. But this time he was going through Dulles airport in Washington DC on his way back to England. Again, it did not go well.

Hey, at least you weren’t searched on your way in!

Well, yeah, there are no white Muslims. Right?

Get in line, bitch!

Next, there is something worse that an Asshole Fuckface who screws dead people and that is an Asshole Fuckface who screws old, dead people.

Anthony Merino was employed as a lab technician at Teaneck Hospital since June. But he was fired on Sunday night after a security guard saw Anthony “engaged in sexual activity” with the body of a 92-year-old woman.

Okay, you don’t have to call him Mister anymore. Creep totally works. As does Asshole Fuckface. On the other hand, who leaves a 92-year-old body around and doesn’t expect it to get fucked? That’s irresponsible.

As you can see from Anthony’s Myspace page, he is quite the ladies man.

Fuck, yeah you do. And by “party,” you mean, “fuck dead, old ladies.”

Bergen County has charged with sexual penetration upon deceased human remains. Bail has been set at $400,000 and he has been ordered to undergo a psychological exam. Anthony could get 10 years in prison, just for trying to show a dead old lady a good time. WFT?

I think we are all thinking the same thing: Did he make her cum?

There is always room in the Asshole Fuckface Roundup for guys who beat children, but this guy gets a special mention for his excuse.

First, the day he moved in, Juan kicked the toddler out of the way and squeezed his face. Three days later, he punched the boy in the face twice. He was diagnosed with bleeding around the brain later that day and he had severe bruising on his face and back. (Note to mothers: If a guy kicks your 2-year-old while he is moving in, don’t let him move in)

This week Juan had his day in court and he proved himself to be an Asshole Fuckface of the highest caliber. The judge asked him if this was how he always treated 2-year-olds.

Uh. What? I hope your cellmate rapes you. Seriously.

Arreola was ordered to undergo psychological and psychiatric evaluations, which is pointless because I have the diagnoses: He is an Asshole Fuckfacerist. Juan could receive up to 20 years in prison.

Congrats to all of this weeks winners! You each will receive a FearTheReaper bathroom rug!

Warren Buffett is one right motherfucker. The man is worth an estimated $52 billion. That is approximately $52 billion more than I am worth, give or take eight dollars. And he didn’t become a really rich guy by being a moron, turns out he understands how business works, it is something he was born to do.

When he was six years old, he bought six-packs of Coke from his grandfather’s store and sold them for five cents each, making a five-cent profit. When I was six, I was staring at the television and playing with Hot Wheels. By the time Buffett was 11 he was buying stock and turning a profit. I’m pretty sure I was still playing with Hot Wheels. Buffett went on to be a stock market genius, amassing an incredible fortune.

Now he says Bush’s tax cuts are bullshit and should be altered. Buffett thinks he should be paying more taxes and that the tax structure in America is wrong.

Oh, it is definitely not appreciated, especially when the rich are benefiting economically from the war, while the middle class and poor suffer.

Buffett conducted a survey of his employees and found that he pays 17.7% in payroll income tax, while his employees pay 32.9%.

Buffett believes the difference comes down to lobbyists.

That is one way of looking at it, but I prefer a completely different theory. If you have a moral code and some sort of humanity, then you wouldn’t need a lobbyist to tell you what to do. Our politicians have no conscience, which allows them to fuck over the working class with ease. Plus, they are all millionaires themselves, so why not give themselves a break?

The debate over tax cuts is still raging in Congress. Democrat Charlie Rangel wants to give a tax break to 90 million lower income families. That would mean raising taxes on the rich. Republicans want to continue Bush’s tax cuts that are due to expire in 2010 and say any increase would hurt “small businesses and farmers.”

Because if there are two things Republicans care about it is small businesses and farmers. They do not care about big businesses and agribusinesses.

I’m going to take the word of the really rich genius over the asshole Republicans, thanks.

Those of you following the Genarlow Wilson case in Georgia over the past two years know the general gist of this shocking story. For those that haven’t, here’s a quick refresher:

After his conviction, Wilson’s attorneys spent the next two and a half years trying to secure his release. They used legal channels (which were thwarted each time by Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker, whose single-minded determination to keep Wilson in prison has made him seem like a tremendous asshole), but also made appeals to the legislature and the press on behalf of their client. The press picked it up and ran with it. Because Wilson was a promising prep athlete and the story seemed so sensational, ESPN.com even did an lengthy piece on it. Presidential candidates and political pundits made statements in support of Wilson’s cause.

The good news for Wilson is that all of that attention has finally paid off.

Wilson’s release has been hailed as a long overdue triumph of justice and humanity.

Everyone’s happy now, right? Even Tightassed A.G. Baker said he would respect the decision of the court and hoped it would put the issue to rest. We can move on, and Wilson can pursue his dream of a college education. Huzzah!

In the immortal words of Lee Corso: Not so fast, my friend. Judicial “Conservatives” and “strict constructionists” (which is a fancy name for people who think the Constitution is not a living document and should be interpreted only by its meaning in 1789) are pretty pissed off. Not because they necessarily want Wilson to rot in jail for his youthful transgression, but because they’d rather the court system not do their jobs.

Let me explain: In April of 2006, largely in response to the negative press that the state had generated for their draconian laws and how they affected Wilson, the Georgia state legislature amended their child molestation law to insert a “Romeo and Juliet” provision. The provision made an exception where if the “assailant” was less than four years older than the “victim” and the sex was consensual, the crime would be treated as a misdemeanor rather than a felony. But when they enacted the law, they specifically declined to make the law apply retroactively. In other words, all future 17-year-olds who get hummers from 15-year-olds aren’t going to see jail time, but Wilson is shit out of luck because he blew his wad before the legislature blew theirs.

So, how did the Georgia Supreme Court manage to free Wilson last Friday? According to some commentators, they engaged in *gasp* judicial activism! The horror!

Oooh, heady stuff from the Editorial Board at the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The law says this and therefore that. Simple, right?

As with most everything else that judicial conservatives and “strict constructionists” rant about, they’re wrong here as well. Let’s actually read the opinion of the Georgia Supreme Court, shall we? Did they overturn Wilson’s appeal on the basis of the Georgia legislature’s new law? No, they didn’t. Rather, they overturned it because it was cruel and unusual and a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s 8th Amendment. In making that determination, they looked to the reasons why the Legislature made the change, not the text of the change itself.

In other words, whether a sentence violates the 8th Amendment is an entirely separate question than whether the sentence should be applied retroactively. That question can be informed by the actions of the legislature, but it is (by its very nature) a question for the Courts and the Courts alone to decide.

The guys at the AJC are none too pleased at that, either.

Well, there’s a ton of relevance to the question of what other jurisdictions do in this situation, of course. The words “cruel” and “unusual” are intentionally vague. When they were inserted into the Constitution it was intended that judges would consider them through the lens of current societal standards. It’s impossible to truly determine what those societal standards are without looking at the rest of the fucking society. It’s not rocket science here, people.

In short, this case and the reaction to it by judicial conservatives demonstrate how blindingly wrong the strict constructionist movement is. The law is supposed to have a human element to it. There is supposed to be some room to maneuver within constitutional boundaries. The Georgia Supreme Court understands this. It’s a shame not everyone does.

It is very interesting to watch Democrats make the same mistake they made in 2000 and 2004. During both of those election campaigns, Democrats choose candidates who were so poor at debating that they ended up losing to the pathetic George Bush. Al Gore was so fucking boring and wooden that it was insane. Watching him lose the first debate to "barely able to speak sentences" Bush was startling. Then came John Kerry, who wouldn’t know a sound byte if it crawled into his anus and set up a Starbucks. (Who would? That doesn’t even make sense.) Anyway, Kerry is a blow hard. His inability to make points concisely was a disaster. But both suffered from one common, glaring problem: They were unlikable. After watching last night’s debate I can tell you the most unlikable person on the stage was the Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton.

First I’ll run down the candidates and how they faired.

John Edwards was clearly the best candidate on the stage, from a debating perspective. He was very good with his answers and counter attacks. He was never ruffled, made his points with conviction and has a commanding stage presence. He is one cheesy motherfucker, though.

Edwards hit Clinton hard all night long, with jabs like this about Hillary's recent vote on Iran.

Joe Biden also came across very well. He was authoritative, made his points and was at times funny. He slammed Giuliani with a fantastic sound byte.

Nicely done. Biden is one hell of a corporate whore and I would never vote for him, but you cannot disregard his likeability factor.

Chris Dodd. Dodd could play a president in a Hollywood movie. He just has that look. He sounded intelligent, clear and was very well spoken. Dodd is less likeable than others on the stage, which may be why he is in the position he is today because on the issues he is just what liberals are screaming about.

Bill Richardson. I think he was running for Secretary of State. He spent the entire evening running his diplomatic resume, at one point saying he had negotiated the release of six US soldiers remains from North Korea earlier this year. Congrats on getting those dead guys back! He also asked everyone to play nice and stop picking on Clinton, which was the most pathetic brown-nosing attempt to get a job I have ever seen. Richardson is a likable guy, though he seems more fit for someone you would want on your bowling team.

Barack Obama. About as likable as they come with a voice that commands attention, too bad there is nothing to back it up. Obama started off strong but then began to trail off as the debate went on, probably because he hits the same note over and over. Yeah, yeah, we all should get along. We get it. You are the great healer. Maybe he doesn’t realize this is the exact shit Bush was saying in 2000. For Democrats, after years of being shit on by the opposition, it is time to fight, but Obama wants to orchestrate a group hug.

In the Sunday New York Times, Obama was quoted saying that it was time to get tough with Clinton for acting like a Republican. During the debate, Russert asked him directly about that assertion. It was a softball question that should have been hit out of the park. Obama’s answer:

Nice. Try to find a way to appear weaker, because it is exactly what America is looking for right now. Obama went on to make a joke about boxing and how he is all for "big meaningful change." Fuck off.

Dennis Kucinich. He is very small. Small people don’t get elected to be the "leader of the free world." End of story. Oh, and he admitted to having seen a UFO years ago.

Kucinich handled the question well and he brings up some very important points, but he is unelectable because he is a Hobbit.

Lastly, Hillary Clinton. Seriously, this is what you guys are going with? She could not have sounded more like a Republican. Her answers were broad, completely lacking details and there was no sign of leadership anywhere. She made it very clear that she does not like Bush and his policies and kept saying she would do the opposite. She’s going to “bring smart people together” to come up with ideas and whatnot. Super. Thanks for more of the same.

The inescapable reality of Clinton was highlighted at the end of the debate. Elliot Spitzer, governor of New York, is working on a controversial bill regarding giving illegal immigrants drivers licenses. Clinton had told a group of editors that the idea made sense, so Russert asked her about it. She blathered.

Great, now do you fucking support it or not? You actually can’t do a poll right in the middle of the debate, so you have to make a choice. An actual decision.

Chris Dodd stepped in and said he did not agree with the idea. At that point, Hillary the follower got worried that she might have actually said something of substance.

Dodd responded that she had just said the plan made sense. Clinton then said that the plan contained three different types of licenses. (Which was the compromise, not the original bill that she was asked about.) Clinton then accused them of playing “Gotcha” with her.

Today her campaign said she totally supports the bill.

Get used to moments like this being a common sight if Democrats choose Clinton. She is not and has never been a good debater. Her inability to give an opinion that she believes in without consulting a poll will devastate her, just as it devastated Gore. It is one of the reasons she comes across as unlikable. Standing up for what you believe in is a very attractive quality and Clinton does not seem to be able to do it.

Hillary Clinton also arrived at this stage in a very different way than the other candidates. All the other Democrats in last night’s debate started their careers winning little elections, making their way up the ranks until they achieved rather impressive victories. Barring Kucinich, that means a body of people wanted to be represented by that particular candidate and chose them. It happened again and again, until they reached a higher office. Likeability is an inherent factor in that equation. Sometimes unlikable people squeak through, like Gore and Kerry, and for whatever reason Democrats are incredibly attracted to them as presidential candidates. I offer the following as proof:

Kerry
Gore
Dukakis
Mondale

Talk about charisma! That's like lightening in a bottle, right there. Hillary is more of the same.

Hillary came to the scene as the wife of a president and from there jumped directly to the Senate. That means she came in with a massive war chest for her New York campaign and had a name that people loved. She ran against Republican fill-in candidates, who entered the race after the original GOP candidates dropped out late. Basically, she won races that were tailor made for a victory and has not proven yet that she can beat a politically savvy, likable candidate. Does she have the smarts? Absolutely. But I think we’ve seen with Gore and Kerry that smarts do not mean shit. They were both beaten by a likable retard. Hillary is certainly intelligent, capable and corrupt enough to take over the job. She’s just not likeable enough.

Look at that, voters don't want a Republican, but in a head to head, they don't really want Hillary either. She has the two perfect qualities that could lead to a loss: She is unlikable and she represents the right wing of the Democratic party. Why not just vote for a Republican instead of a Democrat who is acting like a Republican? At least he will seem like a nice person.

Get used to polls like this. The Democrats are about to elect the only candidate who could possibly lose.

I think my feminist wife put it best:

Actually, she's worse.

Sometimes I have to admit I don’t know what the fuck is happening. Today is one of those days and I am confused because one KKK group hates another KKK group for being too mean. You see where I’m coming from, right? You would think they could bond over their common goal of white supremacy.

A few days ago, Cullman, Alabama approved a permit for the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan to hold a protest in front of the courthouse. The National Knights plan on holding an anti-immigration rally on November 10th, which is a great idea because it is very timely and they can scream about bad brown people. The only problem is the Ku Klux Klan of Alabama doesn’t like the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

Ken Mier, of the Alabama Klan, contacted the local paper and said they planned to protest the National Knights. Mier, an “investigator for the Alabama Klan,” said his organization is against the National Knights protest tactics. Apparently, because they are mean.

And, white power!

Athens. It all goes back to Athens and the September Trail of Tears ride. Last month, the National Knights held an anti-immigration protest in Athens, Georgia while motorcyclists held their annual ride, the Trail of Tears. The Alabama Klan showed up and held a “silent protest” against the National Knights. They officially became the biggest pussy Klan in the nation on that day. Look, I applaud the lamest Klan tactics ever, but why not just go all the way and drop the “Klan” name? The Alabama Klan seems to think they are really, really nice people.

I did love the good old non-violent Klansmen of yesteryear. They were awesome. All they wanted was for all black people to be gone. They would dress up all in white to appear like ghosts and ride around on horses, scaring freed slaves. But in a totally non-violent way! From the Ku Klux Klan website.

Exactly. They didn’t use harsh language and racist taunts, like these National Knights characters. They were just a tight knit group of fellas riding around and “scaring” folks by yelling, "BOO." It is sad to see the Klan splinter apart like this. Why can’t everyone just get along and hate black people like they are supposed to?

Now the Alabama Klan will also need a permit to protest the National Knights Klan. Cullman Mayor Donald Green says he will not stand in their way because everyone has a right to free speech, even if they are retarded.

Volume 10 of the FTR series in which he puts the word "fuck" in front of a presidential candidate's name.

The presidential primary races are beginning to heat up a bit and one asshole has actually been gaining support: Mike Huckabee. Which forces this incredible writer to have to take the time to show you that Mike Huckabee is a horrible, horrible man.

Huckabee began his professional life as an ordained minister, serving at different churches in Arkansas and he is a former president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. His political career began shortly after he felt the power of ruling the convention. In 1993 he was elected as lieutenant Governor of Arkansas and then as Governor in 1996. He left office earlier this year. But it is not like The Huck wanted to go into politics, rather, he was dragged, kicking and screaming, by God.

And now Mike is hoping we can support him and do what is right for America.

Oh, good, he’s never read The Constitution or a history book. But we can all take solace in the fact that he has read one book. He has called on conservatives to vote on the “social issues that are undermining” the wall between church and state. You know, the wall the Founding Fathers built so nutjobs like Huckabee would not be able to impose their religion on everyone else.

Oh, then maybe you should keep working as a minister instead of running for president. We should all be very afraid of a man who believes that only by following his religion can we solve the problems of our society. And we should be even more afraid of a man who got into politics to promote his religion as the solution.

During a recent Republican debate, Huckabee said most of the “signers of the Declaration of Independence were clergymen.” This is classic Christian re-writing of history and the man is said it during a debate, on live television. It is what attracts other religious nuts to his campaign, because it is what they want the truth to be. It is not the truth.

“Most” = 1 out of 56, or 1.8% for those of you who love percentages. But the truth should never get in your way when you are using The Bible as your platform for change.

And he has done what he can to legally inject his religion into our society. One example of his work is the Convenant Marriage Act of 2001. Covenant Marriage laws have been passed in three states: Arizona, Louisiana and Arkansas. It is completely ridiculous for the government to be involved in such marriages, and a bit creepy.

What a fucking joke. You need a legal reason to come to this agreement? Our government really needs to pass a law for something that is clearly a personal and religious decision? But that is the Huckabee way and I’m sure he believes he did a lot of good getting that religious law passed.

The Huck, of course, also does not believe in evolution.



He's got some solid reasoning, though.

Well, that is why you should send your kids to Christian school, nutjob. There are a shitload of other fairy tales we could teach as the beginning of mankind as well, but we don’t.

Huckabee was given a chance to explain his beliefs on evolution in a later debate.



Does not make me feel better, sport. And way to stick up for your Christian beliefs and dodge the question, just like Jesus would have.

Being a religious man, one would think that The Huck would run a squeaky clean government. Instead, he went with being a corrupt asshole.

One retired Arkansas government official summed up Huckabee nicely.

Well, then he fits in quite well with the new breed of Christian politician like George Bush. When Huckabee left office, he made sure no one would know the shit he had been up to.

Yeah, because no one had thought of writing a law forbidding the crushing of computers. Nice work, douchbag. Oh, and I'm sure Jesus used to crush computers, too.

And Huckabee did his best to represent Arkansas with dignity.

Way to go, you are a classy man, Huck.

Of course, being a Christian, The Huck is in love with our crusade against the filthy Muslims.

I’m actually reminded that al Qaeda did not exist in Iraq before 9/11 and our war there created a training ground for future terrorists, as well as largely increasing their numbers. But you keep thinking whatever you need to think, God boy. Mike is one of those candidates you should support if you want eternal war.

Uh, hey, “whatever it takes” could mean nukes, you psycho. No man who is as religious as Huckabee should be allowed to hold the office of president during this time of war. He should be disqualified because of his biases and his desire for Jesus to return after Armageddon. Most important of all are the words of support he had for Bush’s surge.

Really? Here’s a list of leaders who were stubborn: Saddam Hussein, Ayatollah Khomeini, Stalin, Hitler, Franco, Mussolini, Emperor Hirohito, Napoleon and Idi Amin, just to name a few. And I agree, you shouldn’t change the course of a military every time there’s a new opinion poll, you should change it when you are getting nowhere and it is obvious to everyone in the world.

The Huck also doesn’t think the president needs Congressional approval to go to war, like it says in that thing called The Constitution.

He was speaking as if Iran had grabbed the items necessary to make a nuclear weapon, dashed across the border and then started building it as fast as they could. The reality is that Iran is years away from a nuclear weapon, according to all experts that are not part of the Bush administration. Worse of all, he called seeking Congressional approval a “luxury.” Madison would have kicked the shit out of this guy.

The Huck is a delusional asshole, who paints a rosy picture of anything that is horrible, as long as it’s not happening to Christians. This summer he had some wise words about how the prisoners in Guantanamo were being treated.

Oh. Uh, okay. Here are some details of how awesome it is at Guantanamo from an FBI report.

I bet The Huck would say the same thing if Guantanamo were holding Christian prisoners, right?

Mike Huckabee is a religious lunatic, plain and simple. If he wants to be president of a Baptist organization, I’m all for it but he has no place being the president of the US. We already have experienced 7 disastrous years with a born again running the country and it has clearly not gone well. The last thing we need is another 4 more years of crusades. The man clearly has no understanding of The Constitution or history.

I'm actually starting to view Ron Paul's existence as dangerous. He's not a joke anymore. We can't go oh-funny-ha-ha-Ron-Paul-supporters-lol, because they're so pervasive, so confrontational, and so one-sidedly ignorant that they become, as representatives of a larger issue, dangerous. He's a real threat to discourse and compromise in American political culture.

Earlier tonight, I went to a Halloween party that was particularly and brazenly insufferable. There was no beer, the music sucked, there were a grand total of ten people there, and each one of them (including my friends) was a stuck-up snob.

The night essentially ended with a heated argument with a friend of a friend, and I mean it was a doozy. The friend of a friend, who is a Ron Paul supporter, insists that the Federal Reserve (which was a decentralizing institution) is a pinnacle of centralized control. That "The Banks", in this case an abstract and horrifying specter of the impending doom that awaits us all, control The Dollar, a fantastic and revolutionary idea to be had for sure, and that all money that we spend goes back to the banks, which as we all know is the basic principle - a self-contained, recyclous process - and that "The Banks" controlling The Dollar equates to "The Banks" controlling me. And he argued that the Federal Reserve should be eradicated because it connects "The Banks" to The Dollar in a horrifying way, and is a fascism.

My response was this: What if we get rid of the Federal Reserve? What would happen to "The Banks?" They'd stay put. They wouldn't go anywhere, and would operate unfettered. However, there would be absolutely nothing preventing them from monopolizing and putting an even greater fascist control over the dollar - after all, the Federal Reserve is fed by twelve regional banks by law, and if we remove the Reserve, we remove the principle of the separation of banks. Essentially, it would be a vehicle to one huge horizontally integrated Superbank, a singularity and thus a far bigger threat of fascism.

He responded by telling me I don't know how the economy works. He stated that everyone in America is controlled by the banks systems, and the fact that no one admits to it only strengthens its truth.

I responded by stating that everyone in America is controlled by Martians, and the fact that no one admits to it only strengthens its truth.

I went on to say that Ron Paul is a fascist.

He laughed at me.

I said, no seriously. If Ron Paul is elected President, how will his policies be implemented? The Congress is controlled largely by moderate Democrats, and will be for a good six-or-so years, and any extreme right-wing policies that he would attempt to implement, including his horrific privatization enterprise (talk about economic fascism), would be cast aside. They would not become law. And if Ron Paul runs his platform on eliminating the Federal Reserve and completely overhauling the economy, any attempt to implement it would be dead in the water. Even if it was the right thing to do - which, it should be said, it is not - it still wouldn't be ushered through by a largely democratic Congress. I asked him if this made sense, and he nodded and started to say BUT-

And what would happen then, I continued. One of two things would happen. On the one hand, Ron Paul would sell out his political beliefs and his fierce and vocal following (the numbers of which, it would have turned out, weren't imaginary) by moderating his viewpoints and engaging in active political discourse. On the other, he would circumnavigate the Courts and the Congress and implement them anyway. In other words, he'd be a dictator.

Why else would you run for President on a platform that so few people recognize as cognizant thought? Why else would you attempt to be the leader of the free world, and representative of 200 million people, if your political views only cater explicitly to less than twenty percent of them? (The statistic, of course, was enlarged to fit his egomaniacal assertion that these polls do not show Ron Paul's support realistically. Ha-ha-ha.) If he had any hope of putting his promises of overhaul of the entire United States economy into practice, he would have to do it himself, without approval from the Courts or the Congress. And that, I told my friend's friend, is the most severe form of fascism.

And in the face of this pure logic, the poor guy went apeshit. He spat at me. He told me I was blind. He yelled and screamed obscenities claiming that I was the problem. And quite frankly, I was shocked. I hadn't expected this kind of action at a simple Halloween party.

He was, in his overblown Paultarded response, emblematic of a larger problem that in a way, we should thank Ron Paul for illuminating us to. He is the explicit representation of the total and complete lack of even the willingness to engage in political discourse in the United States.

Many Ron Paul supporters point to the fact that he is endorsed by both extreme Liberals and extreme Republicans as a disproof of this. They say, "How can he be poisonous to discourse if he is endorsed so readily by both Democrats and Republicans? Is he not a unifier?" Again, discounting completely the imaginary numbers they assign to his popularity among voters, there's a simple answer that is deeply rooted in complex political history.

The assertion that since Ron Paul is endorsed by both parties that he is a symbol of unification can be summed up by analyzing what qualifies, to a Ron Paul supporter, multi-party political endorsement. To them, the two-party system can be summed up through the following crude, Microsoft Paint-created diagram:



They think the only intersection between the beliefs of Liberals and Conservatives occurs at the state of moderation. That somehow, since Paul is endorsed by both Liberals and Democrats, he represents all parts of the political spectrum instead of just the Conservative agenda. Which is, of course, wrong. And it is an interesting problem to consider. Why do so many self-proclaimed (or otherwise) Liberals even give Ron Paul a second of their time? He stands for "States' Rights", privatization, opposition to Roe v Wade and any number of other policies and beliefs that, in any other vessel, they'd scoff at and deride.

The problem is in the diagram. They view the political spectrum as a bar, with two sides and two extremes. On the left are the Extreme Liberals, completely and totally isolated from everyone else; in the middle are the Moderates, who are willing to work together, and on the right are the Extreme Conservatives, also completely isolated and left to their own devices.

The real diagram looks something like this:



It is amazing how similar, historically, the Radical Left and the Radical Right have acted. Their actions, beliefs, and causes overlap so frequently that it is often impossible to discern the difference between the two.

Take for instance the Weathermen. They were a leftist organization in the mid-to-late '60s that began as a simple protest organization, printing fliers, organizing rallies, etc. But as they became more and more radical, they became more and more violent, until during the infamous Days of Rage, they became purely a militant organization. Their end came when the dynamite that several prominent leaders were making went off accidentally, killing three.

They were a leftist group, to be certain. But they were exceedingly militant, in many ways without regard to human life.

Now take for instance the individuals throughout history who have taken it upon themselves to prevent abortions from occuring. They often stand in front of clinics, refusing to let people inside, they hold up violent images of mutilated fetuses to protest; they cause general Constitutional civil unrest.

But some resort to violence, even blowing clinics straight off the face of the planet. Complete and utter disregard for human life that they claim to protect.

Do I see any difference between those two types of people?

No.

They are merely two examples, and there are countless more (for instance, the dictatorships - some Leftist (like Castro), some Right-Wing (like Hitler), but all dictatorships nonetheless, and the most extreme form of extremism, so to speak. But they serve the basic purpose to illustrate my point that the political spectrum is not a road, or a bar, but a circle, and an endless one. There are two points at which the political ideals meet. And Ron Paul supporters meet at the very bottom.

They are all extremists. Most are hipsters. Most are arrogant. (As all extremists and radicals tend to be.) And because they view the political spectrum as a straight line, and because they see both ends of the spectrum endorsing this candidate, they see him as a moderate of some kind; as someone who can bring everyone together under his kindly smile.

Which is why, when one points out Ron Paul's flaws or asserts that he has no chance of winning, or makes note of his obvious insanity (Thank you, FearTheReaper, your services shall not go unnoticed), his supporters become more and more vehement. Owing to the fact that they see him as a political umbrella, encompassing many different viewpoints, they see those who do not agree with his policies as being unfair or irrational. They're quick to anger with someone they perceive as not "getting it" or being, in their eyes, unreasonable in their opposition to the candidate.

Like that friend of a friend.

It's a tremendous danger to the American political system to act in the juvenile, vindictive right-or-wrong manner that Ron Paul's most vigorous supporters do. Flooding message boards. Spitting at those who disagree with them.

American politics are based on the simple principle of compromise. That two (or more) bodies can come together and make a deal, substituting some of the more radically Liberal policies for some of the more moderate Conservative, etc etc etc. Ron Paul supporters consistently refuse to even acknowledge the legitimacy of opinions that aren't their own. (Which is especially interesting when you meet Ron Paul advocates who vigorously endorse a three-party system. How in God's name will they accommodate two other parties when they refuse to entertain any and all opposition as being logical or true?)

Ron Paul is a threat - or at the very least, an emblem of a threat - to American politics. He embodies everything that's wrong with the modern political assertion that we never compromise and never negotiate, not with terrorists, not with anyone. If you throw out the fact that he is a complete and utter lunatic, that itself is enough to convince you not to vote for him, but to ignore him completely and hope he goes away by the middle of next year.

But if that doesn't work, you could always mock him.

Formus knows, in his heart, the right thing to do.