Whiskey Fire

The Parasites, The Bugs of Gold

Poem for the Internet:

9/11 conspiracy theories are stupid.
Ron Paul is stupid.
Macs suck ass.
Amanda Marcotte!

Entrance into the Butchery Pools

by Molly Ivors

Ah, Thanksgiving is over and the preparation for the holidays has begun. The housing market is in the shitter and wingnut Fred Thompson is complaining that the wingnuts at Fox don't want him in their club. Clearly, we are descending into an anarchic frenzy. Order, people, Order!

Whew! How comforting that Real American™ Michelle Malkin has decided to take a break from masturbating with the turkey neck to take a swipe at people whose position she fundamentally disagrees with by making shit up.

Believe it or not, Michelle (or, you know, Jesse), I was horrified to read this too:

The unpleasant scenes broke out at Leatherhead Leisure Centre in Surrey when the wounded veterans, who are at Headley Court Military Hospital, had to use the 25-metre public pool because the hydro-pool at the defence rehabilitation centre is not big enough for swimming.

The servicemen were about to begin their weekly swimming therapy in closed-off lanes when they were verbally abused by the swimmers.

One woman in her 30s was said to be infuriated by the lane closures saying the soldiers did not deserve to be there when she had paid.

It was also reported that others complained that limbless servicemen were scaring children at the centre.

The atmosphere was said to be so tense that the soldiers' instructors removed them.

Rude, of course. In poor taste? Absolutely. Moonbatty? Not on your turkey-fucking life.

The Malkins interpret this event:

Britain has a potent strain of moonbat virus going around. What would Churchill do?

Now, I know that she thinks the answer to the rhetorical question is run the treasonous bitches over with tanks, but let's examine this, shall we?

Some of the other articles linked from the Telegraph piece include complaints about an underfunded military, people dropping out of the service as their terms come up rather than returning to Iraq and Afghanistan, Lords slamming the Rumsfeld doctrine of war on the cheap, and a promise that returning soldiers will get preferential treatment at the NHS. (I'll return to that last one in a moment.)

So Michelle looks at these harridans in Little Whinging and notes that they must be liberals (that's "Labour" over there, Michelle), completely without a shred of evidence. (Though the calls to "out" the women must have made the serial invader of other people's privacy weep with pride.)   

Why were the soldiers in the public pool? Why because the pool at the rehab center wasn't big enough. Boy, it sure is a good thing *our* veterans have top-notch health-care! (As John Amato pointed out last spring, Michelle used the Walter Reed scandal to rail against national health care, ignoring that many services at Walter Reed had been privatized.) In other words, they're not putting their money into caring for their vets either, and this is the result.

The Malkins love them some trinket veterans, seeing the physically wounded as some sort of authorization that The War is Good. I guess that's good for them (the Malkins, I mean, not the vets) because, as I noted a couple weeks ago, there are 16 wounded vets for every dead soldier, so there's no shortage of trinkets, assuming of course they'd want to live in Michelle's purse with the Mentos and Halcyon and crumpled-up tissues and the Saturday Night Special, to be produced when it's politically expedient and hidden otherwise. The other ones, the ones with traumatic brain injuries and PTSD, well, they're no doubt some of those fakey-fake IVAW vets she loves to out, so they probably deserve it, or they're just pussies to Michelle. (Funny, I know a bunch of IVAW vets, and they're all real soldiers. Go figure. Of course, many of them don't have health insurance and are locked into the never-ending cycle of the underfunded VA, but thank christ they don't have to deal with the NHS! Much better and more patriotic to have no coverage at all, isn't it, Michelle?)

Placing this national shame at the feet of people who argued against this war from the beginning, then argued that we need to rescue our vets from squalor, fund them properly, and live up to our responsibility for the damage this war has caused is not only intellectually dishonest: it's evil. The Malkins and their ilk demanded that our soldiers to do a stupid job to guarantee the wealth of a few dozen cronies of the president, then kept moving the goalposts so that the same soldiers are caught in an endless spiral of violence caused by people who just want to live their own lives in their own country. And maybe, you know, keep their oil revenue to rebuild all the shit we broke, rather than handing it off to one or the other oil conglomerates for pennies.

The Ladies of Little Whinging bear more resemblance to the Malkinesque supporters of the Super Happy Fun War We Are Always Winning, where the damage of war is invisible and life goes on as though there is no war, because mentioning it, noting that it has costs, well, that's just bad taste.

Hey Michelle: more power to you, baby! This one's called "The Hero"!

Music for Soundtracks

Molly I & I went to see Across the Universe tonight. Across the Universe is the heartwarming tale of how an illegal alien seduces a nice young white girl, introduces her to drugs, and makes her say hi to a lesbian. Then this innocent white girl shows us what her left tit looks like and gets involved in anti-war activities. Apart from that, a bunch of shit happens, all of it staged to very slow-moving covers of Beatles songs. Bono is in it, if you enjoy that sort of thing.

I don't know why this film was made, but I do know that it is nine and a half hours long, and that watching it, you feel like you've just all at once eaten two wedding cakes and a half gallon of liverwurst. It's a bit rich. On the whole an entirely shameful and vulgar display of shameful vulgarity.

Notwithstanding, certain sequences are visually compelling.   

Burpin' Up an Epigram

by Molly Ivors

Well, I suppose this was inevitable.

Would-Be President Matlock, who only wants to be president so Bubbles his child bride can turn the White House into her Barbie Dream House (and because Reagan told him the naps were Teh Bomb), has turned on his Republican rival, Rudolf "Il Duce" Giuliani.

BRISTOL, N.H. — Presidential hopeful Fred Thompson said Friday that New York City isn't a model for the rest of the country and that Rudy Giuliani should stop basing his stances on his time as that city's mayor.

Thompson, campaigning at a New Hampshire gun store with stuffed moose and deer overhead, told reporters that Giuliani too often turns to his time as New York mayor to explain his support for stronger gun restrictions.

"He relates everything to New York City. Well, New York City is not emblematic of the rest of the country, I don't think. I think the sentiments of those people in the rest of the country are in support of the Second Amendment _ which is where I've always been and I don't think he's ever been," Thompson said.

Just after 9/11, Thers was extremely skeptical of the new I ♥ NY fervor sweeping America. "These people hate New York City," he correctly noted.

Remember, it was only a year and change earlier, in 2000, that the proudly ignorant cracker John Rocker had defined NYC for the masses: "It's the most hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the 7 Train to the ballpark, looking like you're riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It's depressing." Oddly, many people on the 7 Train found riding next to a paranoid hate-monger depressing as well.

I have to admit, I'm a small-town person (as opposed to Thers, the dazzling urbanite), and though I occasionally find NYC's self-regard a little comical, I'm not panicked by the fact that there are people who don't, you know, look like me there. That's a good thing. Shit, there are people who don't look like me *here*, and I'm okay with that.

But it's sad how predictable it was that the anti-NYC rhetoric would be flung at Giuliani. For the people Thompson hopes to reach with this crap, living in NYC is like showing Escape 2000 on a loop: a burned-out dystopia suitable to those who are not white, not straight, not native speakers of English, not Christian, and some, not even Republicans. I hear they even let Wolcott live there! And why would anyone want to be America’s Mayor© of that shithole?

Of course, this doesn't actually mean Giuliani *can't* use his experience as America’s Mayor© as a campaign issue. I mean, if NYC is the evil opposite of America, and everyone there hates his fucking guts (except in Staten Island, natch), then logically, he should be as popular as a baseball hero everywhere else in America. Or at least in Enchanting New Mexico.

The Nymphos Sweetly Played

It's Thanksgiving: the turkey has tryptophan, the Jets offense sucks, and a Townhall columnist talks utter crap. I cannot say that I am thankful for these things, exactly, but at least none of them come as altogether startling.

The Townhall column in question is by Phil Harris, whose blog you can examine here, if you like. There you will discover that he wants you to buy a clock that has a picture of his face on it, and that he believes liberals "think it is just petty of me to try and manage a woman's private reproductive decisions." What woman in her right mind wouldn't want her private reproductive decisions managed by a maniac who sells clock-pictures of himself online, I'd like to know. Ding! Two o'clock, sweetheart! The serial killer-looking-dude on the clock says it's time to... OVULATE! I strongly recommend that Mr. Harris diversify and create a line of frowny-faced time-released tampons that go "beep" when they're done.

That aside. At Townhall Mr. Harris decides to begin his argument about women's reproductive rights and the Constitution of the United States by talking about his Magic Hat.

No, really. He says he has a Magic Hat. See for yourself.

I am thankful for my constitutional scholar hat, which I am wearing at this very moment. It is a magic hat, of course, because I am not a constitutional scholar. To make it work, I sprinkle a bit of common sense powder and a dash of logical thinking on the inside of it. Then when I put it on, BAM!!!

The standards for introductory paragraphs at Townhall.com are not especially rigorous, but even so this is, um, special. Haberdashery metaphors often sit ill with those related to cuisine. Which is not to deny that Harris has a right to slather pomade on his hoagies. It's just that he is a shitty writer. Extra bonus points for the Emeril joke a decade past its expiration date!

Of course, I'm not a Constitutional Scholar either, and my closet is utterly devoid of Magic Hats. (Though I do have an Enchanted Jockstrap.) So perhaps I'm just going to have to trust him on his thesis, however absurd as that may ultimately be. My friend Scott does seem to have read the Constitution at some point and to have pondered its relation to women's reproductive rights, but I'm afraid it's an open secret that he owns little more than a Mystical Toque.

These are deep waters.

For all of you front-end baby boomers, the answer is no. Common sense powder is not a hallucinogen, and no, I do not buy my logical thinking in a bottle imported from Mexico. I realize that many of today's social realities were conceived in that manner, and that our liberal politicians lost far too many brain cells during their period of enlightenment, otherwise known as attending college in the '60s.

This is all very lucid. Pray continue.

Unfortunately, those were the brain cells that contained wisdom, passed down from parents, grandparents, and educators; not yet infected by the viral scourge of hedonism. Even in the poorest of communities, a fierce pride was maintained in the fight to provide for the family. Values and character were instilled in children by parents with as much urgency as the struggle to provide food for their bellies.

We used to eat steak. Now, all we have is placentas.

There are no problems that must be overcome before children can be saved from the abortionist's cold instruments of death. What has to be done is that we must rewind to the point in time before the issue was veiled in absurdity.

Cue Goblox. "This reminds me of... A SEVERELY LONG STORY about how the chickens became a master race through a freak accident involving radiation and interestingly enough to me... marshmallows."

The reason slavery had to be corrected by constitutional amendment, was because slavery was codified into the Constitution, albeit barely....

Abortion must be ended with all due haste, and the idea that a handful of states should allow the evil to continue is absurd. This is no less urgent than was the abolition of slavery, and in fact it is even more urgent.

When a man is enslaved, his inalienable right to freedom and the pursuit of happiness has been violated. Yet, the slave can be set free, his rights restored, and he will be once again made whole.

This does not hold true for the human child that has been aborted. Once the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has been interrupted, there can be no righting of the wrong. The child is dead and no one has the power to change anything.

Harris actually deserves intellectual consistency points for avoiding the "throw it back to the states" dodge. If you think abortion is murder you should say so and admit you don't think it's a matter to be determined by plebiscite. Of course, if you don't think a fetus is a "child," the argument holds no water, and, you know, Harris is holding as self-evident something that rather notoriously isn't -- but at least he is a consistent jackass, which is better than we usually encounter. Give him a biscuit.

Slavery was in fact worse than abortion, by the way, for those of you playing along at home. The paragraphs below notwithstanding...

You see, there never was any justification to declare that a child in gestation was devoid of personhood. The question of when a human child becomes a person should never have been a serious question, because there is never a moment in time, from conception through to the end of a human life that the entity is anything but a human being.

Even from a scientific vantage, the genetic code of the fertilized human egg remains unchanged for the entire lifespan of that individual. A human being is forever in a state of change, and the period of gestation is but a range of change that cannot be seen with our eyes.

That's some scientific vantage. From blob to blogger -- what's the difference? This argument is arbitrary, though not wholly inelegant. Dumb, sure. But not inelegant.

Perhaps I should deal with one more point that is sure to come up, which is the question about rare cases when the life of a mother is "truly" in mortal danger, due to a continued pregnancy. The answer is; this does not deviate at all from cases that involve the rest of us, especially where lethal force is necessary.

Whew.

When a police officer is confronted by an armed criminal, the police officer is justified to use deadly force in order to protect his own life. The death of any human at the hand of another is tragic, but we are familiar in our system of justice with death that is justified. Again, the point to note is that the child in gestation can be afforded the same justice as the rest of us; no more, but certainly no less.

"Dammit, McClane! You're a pain in the ass, but a magnificent OB/GYN!"

Hey… I can't get this crazy hat off.

No shit....

The rock video version of every Townhall column ever is below.

Roofers' Union Fight Song

You cross a fucking picket line, you are dead to me.

That said, by and large the debates have been completely fucking moronic, so for whatever reason if there are no more of them... it's a win fucking win!

But whatever. A fair deal is a fair deal. Support the WGA. They deserve a fair deal.

Father Logic Sometimes Gets Cosmic

by Molly Ivors

So I watched the Macy's Parade this morning. Well, not so much watched as listened while cleaning and cooking and stuff. If you're wondering what the demographic is, let me assure you that three year olds LOVE the parade. It's a little more hit-and-miss for those more dependably potty-trained, however.

But something struck me as I zoned out to the freaked-out chatter of Doogie Howser and similar: over and over and over, they noted that the weather was so warm that the crowds were huge. Three and  half million people, according to Mayor Bloomberg's office. Three and a half million.

So I got to thinking: the Macy's parade route is what, 40 blocks or so? And spectators are basically from the buildings to the street.  Three and half million people on 40 blocks, just on the sidewalks.

How, then, is it possible that thirty blocks of blocked-off avenue, with people from building to building, and thousands shunted off onto side streets and forced away from the protest proper... how is it possible that that crowd numbers between 100,000 and 400,000? It's a fucking miracle.

Maybe we need fewer bloody George Bush puppets and more Pikachu puppets.

Happy Little Babies

So the 1 and a 1/2 year old has learned that after he defecates it's just more comfortable to fling off his diaper and then resume ordinary activities, such as scribbling on the walls, throwing shoes at the computer, and rubbing food in his hair. His discovery has for him the added benefit of opening up whole new horizons in the joys of taking a leak on the carpet. So he poops, drops Pampers, and then scampers around cheerful as anything, thighs stained brown, cheeks-a-bobbing, and I get to worry if that's merely a Cocoa-Puff on the floor or something... less appetizing.

Our Thanksgiving plans are to stay home and cook lots of food and then consume it. Taking the whole circus parade that is our progeny out anywhere is a distressingly stressful proposition and we just don't have the psychic wherewithal right now to even contemplate such an enterprise. Patton went to Africa with less equipment than we need to get all the kids in the van for a ten minute drive. Neither  do we wish to have people over as that would involve cleaning, something we typically do not attempt without the certainty that we will first receive Superfund money. Phooey on that.

Have a happy Thanksgiving. My advice to you, if you are going to have to put up with an annoying wingnut relative at your family holiday get-together, is to get stinking drunk and then beat them stupid with a drumstick or a can of cranberry sauce.

Look It Up

My good friend Phila draws our attention to the Liberal Intellectualism page of Conservapedia, the self-billed "Trustworthy Encyclopedia." The whole page is great, but I somehow like this the best:

Stephen Jay Gould: Antioch College graduate (geology major), his work is riddled with contradictions.

I can only hope my career may someday be so elegantly and succinctly summarized.

UPDATE: Well, not an update. Just to show Molly I that I can do powerpop criticism too: the video below is The Shit. In my opinion.

   

Rifle Games for 7-Year-Olds

Oh good.

Because nothing leads to more productive and enlightening discussions on the Internet than the gun issue.

UPDATE. In comments Bas-O-Matic suggests "Mac v. Windows." He's right. That, and "Kirk v. Picard" or "Israel v. Palestine."