Irrit8

There's Something About Sarah

2008-10-11T01:14:00.000-07:00

It’s not the freakish, shrill non-answers she gives in the
few not-quite interviews by not even close to journalists. It’s not the hard
core fundamentalism, sugar-coated to create an illusion that she supported her
unmarried teenage daughter’s “choice” to carry her fetus to term, when she
would have insisted on it regardless -- even if the father was her husband, who
had raped her. After making her pay for the sex assault kit. And firing anyone
who sought funding to cover the costs for said rape kits.

It’s not her inability to avoid sounding like a
malfunctioning former beauty pageant contestant robot when responding to
questions about serious topics around foreign policy experience -- by
regurgitating talking points about mavericks. Like Senator McCain is a
maverick, Charlie, and like world peace, like, such as.

It’s not her strong affinity to pastor Thomas Muthee and the
Assembly of God Church, parading their tragically comical “former gays’” for whom
all powerful God, apparently in between warding off evil, car accident-causing href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl4HIc-yfgM">witches, is able to cure
of homosexual urges, although seemingly incapable of curing their limp wrists.
A sad testament to the inefficacy of lisping in tongues.

It’s not her Greta Van Susteren moistening[1] husband, the “First Dude” of
Alaska, Todd, wrecking the Tundra while the underage kids binge drink and snort
Oxycontin, nor the precision with which she was able to strong-arm the supposed
father of her child’s child, a self-described child-averse redneck, from a
carefree hockey playing teenager into a brooding, neutered mute destined to
loathe and resent and blame Bristol for the rest of his life for her mother’s
commitment to someone else’s at the expense of his.

It’s not the over-amped, Aderall fueled, slightly manic data
dump that all but immersed debate moderator Gwen Ifill, who McCain suggested
had racist intentions based on her writing of a book about Obama, perhaps in an
unsuccessful attempt to distract those of us who remember his buddy, Don Imus,
referring to Ifill as a “cleaning lady.” McCain would make sure Sarah wasn’t
intimidated by any nappy-headed hos[2].
Anymore than he would refer to his wife, Cindy, as a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOl4iT46Eec">cunt.[3]

It’s this freak of nature. The anti-Christina of Feminism.
This aw shucks automaton that will earn Tina Fey an Emmy, and elevate
the ratings of Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, gives me the chills in ways I don’t
quite understand. The notion that after nearly eight years of George w. Bush,
America still believes that they’d rather have a President who they could knock
back a beer with than one who might be able to string together a coherent
sentence. The Tits on the Ticket personification of America’s racist undertone, allowing the narrowest of minds the perfect conduit to get away
with voting for the bitch rather than the nigger and still look progressive.

Sarah Palin has managed to undo years of feminist progress, despite
intelligent arguments to the contrary by the likes of Camille Paglia. Whether
it’s the Black movement, the Women’s movement or the Gay Movement, the ultimate
mark of progress is demonstrated by a new generation at liberty to simply
accept and demand the rights and freedoms they deserve without any appreciation
of the blood, sweat and tears sacrifices made by the activists that came before
them. Sarah Palin could pursue her ambitions – from pipe playing beauty pageant
contestant to Alaska governor – unapologetically without playing the victim
card. Good for her. But make no mistake, Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton, Benazir Bhutto or Winnie Mandela.

Her interviews with Katie Couric of CBS News set the bar for
the one and only Vice Presidential debate so extraordinarily low that the fact
that she didn’t sound like a lobotomized drunk was enough for Pat Buchannan to
declare that conservatives across the country were heaving a collective sigh of
relief, and the rest of America to declare her performance a success. But, as
Maureen Dowd pointed out, “she dangles gerunds, mangles prepositions, randomly
exiles nouns and verbs and also — ‘also’ is her favorite vamping word — uses
verbs better left as nouns, as in, ‘If Americans so bless us and privilege us
with the opportunity of serving them,’ or how she tried to ‘progress the
agenda.’”

The problem is not how low Sarah Palin set the bar for the
debates, however. It’s how low she has set the bar for the Vice Presidency, and
given John McCain’s precarious health and age, the Presidency. Contestants for
American Idol are given more scrutiny than Sarah Palin’s vetting process and
subsequent media access combined.

As we head into the final stretch, Sarah Palin has
transformed into an attack dog, zoning in on Obama’s supposed ties to 60s
radical William Ayers. “Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists
who would target their own country," Palin told a group of donors in Englewood, Colorado. "This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America. We see America as a force of good in this world. We see an America of exceptionalism."

A strange strategy, given Palin’s own dubious ties with the
likes of pastor Thomas Muthee, or her links to an Alaskan group that wanted Alaska to secede from the United States.

In response to her less than adequate performances,
particularly with her Katie Couric interviews, Palin stated: “The Sarah Palin
in those interviews was a little bit annoyed. It's like, man, no matter what
you say, you are going to get clobbered. If you choose to answer a question,
you are going to get clobbered on the answer. If you choose to try to pivot and
go to another subject that you believe that Americans want to hear about, you
get clobbered for that too."

No, Ms. Palin. You aren’t being clobbered for answering a
question. You’re being clobbered for the pivoting. The notion that you somehow
know better what American’s want to hear about as opposed to the Americans
asking you the actual questions.

In the days leading up to the election, we are not going to
learn anything more from Sarah Palin. She will continue to regurgitate talking
points that contradict others she has made – less government, but more
oversight, a fresh, energetic start that excludes an old Washington insider
like Joe Biden, but not John McCain, Obama’s inexperience compared to her
ability to see Russia from Alaska – and it’s the best we can expect from her.

Say it ain’t so, Sarah! There you go spewing talking points again
like a senile Arizonian senator... Now, doggone it, let’s answer just one
fucking question and tell Americans who and what the hell you are. You mention
this imaginary media filter, and I’m glad you did. They are a pathetic bunch.
But with your genuine belief in evil witches and the Flintstones, a little
clarity from you is not asking too much now, is it? God help us. Our reward for
your ascendancy is in hell, right?”

My only fear, and this is why Sarah Palin gives me the
chills, is that for America, this inadequacy masked as mediocrity may just be
good enough.

FOOTNOTES

[1]In perhaps the most embarrassing
interviews ever aired, setting female journalists back a good few decades,
Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren interviewed Sarah Palin’s husband, Todd, gushing
like a nun at a prison rodeo, with in-depth, probing questions like “Go back to
this ‘First Dude.’ I mean, who came up with ‘First Dude’? It's a great name. I
mean, who came up with ‘First Dude’?’ This, at a point where Palin had
expressed his refusal to comply with a subpoena in the unfolding href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Public_Safety_Commissioner_dismissal">Troopergate
scandal – the firing of the Public Safety Commissioner for the State of
Alaska, Walt Monegon by Governor Palin.

[2]
Following the suspension and then firing of radio personality, Don Imus, from
ABC and MSNBC respectively, after he referred to the Rutgers basketball team as
“nappy headed hos,” John McCain was one of the few politicians to stand behind
him, and was the first to appear on his new, albeit, castrated radio show.

[3]Cliff Schecter's book, href="http://rawstory.com/news/2008/McCain_temper_boiled_over_in_92_0407.html">The
Real McCain, recalls an incident in front of aides and consultant Wes
Gullett in which McCain’s wife Cindy joked about his thinning hair. The ever
even-tempered McCain is said to have responded, “At least I don't plaster on
the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." McCain’s excuse was that it had been
a long day. The generic excuse for Cindy’s tolerance is also known as
hydrocodone.

Idaho, No You-da-ho!

2007-09-06T22:05:00.000-07:00

I don’t usually write about my sex life. But to all those who asked, or plan on asking me questions about secret codes in the wake of Senator Larry E. Craig of Idaho’s sex sting arrest in a Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport bathroom, from people who just assumed I would know, I thought I would lay it all out.

Let’s just say I’ve been around the block once or twice.

I couldn’t possibly count the number of people I have had sex with. Math was never my strong suit. I’m not bragging or strutting my prowess. It’s simply a fact.

I’ve done it everywhere. On a plane, in a car, on a beach, in a forest, in a park, in a parking lot, in the ocean, in a pool, in a hot tube, in a sauna, in a steam room, in a school toilet (I was a student at the school at the time).

I’ve had sex with a Fedex carrier, a plumber, an electrician, a painter, a mechanic, a yoga instructor, a personal trainer, a film star, a porn star, a politician and almost every other profession under the sun in almost every city in the many countries I’ve visited over the years. There have been twosomes, threesomes, foursomes, and fivesomes (and higher numbers too, but who’s counting?) There’s hardly a porno fantasy that I’ve seen that I haven’t actually experienced myself.

Yet even the times that I did it in a public place, the likelihood of being caught by anyone was slim to none. The thrill, you see, wasn’t about getting away with a risky situation, but rather unwillingness to deprive oneself of an opportunity that was presenting itself right there and then.

Maybe it’s just an innate sixth sense, but I’m pretty good at picking up what the score is. Even without the help of the Internet, (or travel guides before that), I can usually sniff my way around until I find the most conducive spot, where the attainment of my desire has the highest probability.

Perhaps this is why my friends assumed I would automatically know what happened to Senator Craig in the airport bathroom.

But in all my years, and uncountable encounters, never have I known about a foot-tapping code in a public restroom, nor the bizarre signal of sliding one’s hand under the stall of the intended, neighboring target. While I am astounded that Senator Craig seemed to be so familiar with the conduct he denies ever happened, it makes sense that a closeted person seeking an anonymous encounter would need to be familiar with such codes.

Who would have thought that there was something new to learn in the cruising for sex realm from an anti-gay, conservative, closeted, Republican senator? Why hadn’t I ever heard of nor encountered these tawdry mating rituals?

Had I been in the stall next to Senator Craig, I would likely have mistaken his foot tapping for impatience at his bowels for ignoring the pressing time restraints of his tight flight schedule.

Maybe it’s because I don’t need to do an elaborate, toilet-inspired tap-dance to get laid. It’s not that I consider myself unusually good looking by any means, but I do know what it’s like to be objectified, and to be desired for my looks alone, my brilliant mind, alas, having no bearing on the situation whatsoever.

Could it be that I don’t feel a need to conduct my sex life in the shadows, embarrassed over who I am? Maybe it’s because I haven’t half-heartedly taken sacred vows and fraudulently committed myself to someone who expects my shrill rhetoric about “protecting” families and hatefully embracing of “values” that “strengthen” marriages to match my conduct.

Yet gleeful as I am about the uncomfortable plight of an anti-gay politician, who doesn’t believe gays are fit to serve in the military (but fit to service him in the john), and as unconvinced I am about his denials, and his supposed “wide stance” that would have him “mistakenly” touch the foot of the man in the next stall (would love to see him demonstrate this seemingly acrobatic stance that would qualify him for a role in Cirque de Soleil) his arrest is disturbing because the whole purpose of a code is to determine a level of interest from someone who, by virtue of merely understanding the code, is likely looking for the same thing.

So when Senator Craig determined that Sgt. Dave Karsnia, the arresting officer, was not responding to the foot-tapping, either by foot-tapping back, or making some other gesture that demonstrated his interest, he should have had the common sense to quit. That's why there are codes, idiot! It’s that clouded judgment, along with immediately pleading guilty to make it “all go away” that suggests he is ill equipped to serve as a representative of the people of Idaho, let alone in any leadership role.

Since I would never find myself in the same position as Senator Craig, I tried to imagine what I would do from Sgt. Dave Karsnia -- the entrapper’s -- point of view, or if I was minding my own business in a bathroom stall and some strange, liver-spotted, gnarled hand swept across the underside of the stall. My guess is I would probably yank off the wedding ring, and walk out, making sure to flush first. Etiquette always.

But then again, if I was Sgt. Dave Karsnia, I would be too busy thinking about what to tell my family when they ask me how my day was, or what to tell my kids if they wanted to inform their peers what their father actually does as a “first responder.”

“Well actually I spend my life pretending to be taking a crap, hoping some desperate closet queen will tap his foot in the stall next door. And then, respond I do.” The self-actualization he must feel is heart warming.

I understand addictions and compulsions, and recognize that for some, seeking to satisfy these urges includes the risk of a dangerous encounter – like a public toilet at a busy airport. For me, there is no excitement in that sort of risk, just like there is no joy in trying to convert someone who is sexually predisposed to a different gender; no matter how attractive they may seem on the surface, or committed to pleasing me.

As I write, criticizing the players in this sordid drama, I’m sure my many critics will jump at an opportunity to condemn my immoral behavior, and the extent to which I indulge my hedonistic urges for what I term first-encounter sex (not to be confused with anonymous sex, which in turn is not to be confused with sex in a public place). While some will chalk up my promiscuity to my fear of intimacy, (many close friends already do) I prefer to see it as rather disenchantment with repeats or dissatisfaction with third encounters of the close kind. Metaphorically, to the extent that there are new, ravishing delicacies yet to be tasted, why would one keep on eating the same meal, no matter how good, over and over again?

Senator Craig saw fit to announce on the floor of the senate, that Valentine’s Day happened to be the anniversary of the first date he had with his wife Suzanne. “Am I a romantic? Well, maybe just a little bit,” he said coyly. One can imagine the romantic gift. Glade toilet spray?

"I am not gay. I never have been gay," Senator Craig doth protested defiantly following a news conference after the story first broke. A week later, as his adult children make the rounds on national television, defending daddy’s honor (and exacerbating mommy’s humiliation), proclaiming that his specious explanations had addressed all their “tough” questions to their satisfaction, Republican hypocrites like Trent Lott, Mitch McConnell, John McCain and Mitt Romney (to name a few) are now sweating like whores in a church at the prospect of Senator Craig retracting his “intended” resignation, and fighting to not only have his plea changed to “not guilty” but to retain his seat in the senate.

Senator Craig, who is up for re-election next year, will never be able to erase the screaming subtext from whatever façade he chooses adopt as a campaign theme or slogan, and politically and strategically will have no choice but to, once again, acknowledge who he isn’t and apparently never has been.

“Larry Craig for Senate 2008. I’m not gay; It's just my stance.”

Having Read The Fine Print......: Truth Telling

2007-05-09T01:32:00.000-07:00

Having Read The Fine Print......: Truth Telling

A worthy read from BLACKAMAZON

Total Recall

2007-04-25T03:17:00.000-07:00

Resignation Seems to Be the Hardest Word
By Alberto Gonzales
(Sung to the tune of 'Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word')

What have I got to do to make you fire me?
What do I have to do if I don’t care?
What do I have to do if no one trusts me
And I can't remember when or why or where?

What do I have to do if no one believes me?
What if the truth just simply won't be heard?
What if faith in me is non existent
And resignation seems to be the hardest word?

It’s bad, so bad
It’s a bad, bad situation
And although my memory’s blurred
It’s sad, so sad
My tenure’s never over
Oh it’s clear to me
That resignation seems to be the hardest word

What can prosecutors do to keep on working?
What self-integrity cost will be incurred?
What is it I do? What did I say to who
When resignation seems to be the hardest word?

When You Puke Upon a Star

2007-01-17T11:30:00.000-08:00

While Dick Cheney busies himself pouring over the private financial records of innocent American civilians, the fugliest man on the planet, (or just behind Cheney, as my friend Jayne argues), Donald Trump was dealt a number of blows this last week, none of them coming from Rosie O’Donnell, mind you.

To compensate for -- how do I say this delicately – an obviously very small penis, this delusional clown revealed his Achilles heel, by revealing his ever-so-desperate need to belong, to feel part of something he’ll never be part of. Laying out a minimum of $15,000, The Chump bought himself a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. No matter how successful The Apprentice was once upon a time, long ago, acting it wasn’t. Nasally sneering “You’re Fired,” looking as ugly as is humanly possible wasn’t exactly a stretch for someone already as ugly as is humanly possible.

Despite The Chump’s hate-filled attack on O’Donnell, the ratings for the newest season of The Apprentice were pitiful. Almost as embarrassing as a man getting his wife and daughter to attack a woman on his behalf, because his own catty claws weren’t drawing any blood.

Watching Mensa…er …Melania and Ivanka Trump both berate and urge Rosie to get help was kind of like watching Dina Lohan chide Lynne Spears for failing to intervene in Britney’s bloated, self-destructive spiral into drug-induced, career-crashing oblivion.

Then came word that Katie Rees, the “dethroned” Miss Nevada, who The Chump determined did not get a second chance, (for antics just slightly less vanilla than former Miss USA, Tara Conner’s, exposing his hypocritical, double standards for what they are), signed a lucrative two-year, $2 million-plus deal to host a revival of an "Beacher’s Madhouse" variety show at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. Essentially laughing all the way to the bank whilst simultaneously telling Trump to take his “second chances” and double standards and shove them up his lily-white, saggy ass.

What is this loser’s problem?

Could it be that he looks like a frightful, bloated, pale multifarious horror blend of a frog, a fish, David Gest, Tim Russert, John Bolton and Big Bird with lips that look like they’ve been bludgeoned with a Botox-filled syringe and then slammed up against glass?

Or could his bitter misogynistic outburst be retaliation for an interview his former wife Ivana Trump gave a while back, touting the virtues of her new, young, handsome, virile boyfriend whilst expressing gratitude for no longer having to share a bed with a man donning what looks like a spray-on comb-over to rival Richard Simmons’ pubic perm? Her elation that sex no longer manifests itself as an unpleasant exercise of Viagra-supported, performance-deficient, wheeze-inducing duty, degraded further by groaning and back pain whining? Enter Don Imus.

The final sledgehammer of desperation from The Chump was an appearance last week on the Don Imus show. Imus, the loud-mouthed, misogynist buffoon who’s homophobic, mid-life crisis morning radio show is simulcast on MSNBC, and who despite extraordinary lengths to position himself as a cowboy, looks like an aging, cocaine-dry-wrinkled cross between the late Ann Richards and Miss Piggy.

Edged on by Imus and his sophomoric crew, The Chump continued his high-school girl tirade against O’Donnell. “I happen to like my hair,” The Chump told Imus. Like an anorexic beauty pageant contestant given a “second chance” claiming to love her cellulite.

I’m not some avowed, die-hard Rosie O’Donnell fan, although I do appreciate her humor from time to time. And this whole ratings-inspired Donald O’Donnell fiasco is a perfect distraction from our President’s not-so-idle threats to Iran and Syria.

It’s just that if Donald Trump has an urge to prove his manhood, challenge someone like Barry Bonds. Threaten to find and catch Osama Bin Laden. Uglifying the Golden Globes and bashing Rosie O’Donnell and Barbara Walters just isn’t that impressive.

Holding up his nine month old son Barron at the ceremony forever cheapening the meaning of the already cheap-meaning stars, The Chump offered these barren pearls: "He's strong, he's smart, he's tough, he's vicious, he's violent — all of the ingredients you need to be an entrepreneur, and most importantly, hopefully he's smart because smart is really the ingredient."

Just what the world needs. Another violent, vicious, arrogant, self-obsessed, nouveau riche asshole with delusions of grandeur and an unhealthy sense of entitlement. Why not skip the charade and buy the little brat his own star too? Hey why not pick out a wife for him to betray while you're at it?

And should you, in the meanwhile, happen to be in Los Angeles and step in dog crap, feel an overwhelming urge to defecate or urinate in public, or puke upon a star (as opposed to being puked upon by a star), there’s a certain star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame…

If News Corp. Did It

2006-11-27T13:45:00.000-08:00

Amidst the cries of censorship and the frenzy surrounding the OJ Simpson/Judith Regan/Fox News saga, people seem to be confusing censorship with public backlash.

Despite a long-winded screed defending her decision to publish O.J. Simpson’s hypothetical confessional, If I Did It, Judith Regan’s attempt to garner sympathy appears to have come from the Linda Tripp School of Redemption. In fact she almost sounded like Linda Tripp in her infamous, “I am you” speech, claiming that she did it for all the women who had been abused, herself, front and center.

News Corp. the Rupert Murdoch owned media empire that owns both ReganBooks’ parent, Harper Collins as well as Fox News, and who stood to benefit by this grisly cross-promotional cheap-shot grossly miscalculated how swift and ferocious the backlash would be.

Even I, on Annoy.com, took News Corp. to task, but not with the kind of hypocrisy that the holier-than-thous at MSNBC and CNN et al. saw fit to cover the story. Taking a graphic image of Nicole Brown Simpson lying in a pool of blood, her slashed throat covered by a promo of O.J. s new book and the News Corp. logo and tag line, mocking Judith Regan’s claim of domestic abuse solidarity and whitening her skin in much the same way Time magazine had once made O.J.’s darker, the piece was titled, using the same font as the book, If We Had Ethics. The irony is that I am posing the question as much to myself as I’m applying it to News Corp. After all, we are exploiting a tragedy in almost the identical, gratuitous way. The main difference though, is that ours is a commentary, and we aren’t making any money from it.

The ferocious response from the outraged public, as advertisers warned of pulling ads amidst rumors of consumer boycotts, as Fox affiliates jumped ship, refusing to air the interviews, and bookstores refused to sell the book, News Corp. bailed. Not because of a sudden pang of conscience and instantaneous recognition of the bad taste they were exhibiting, but because in totality, the endeavor was doomed to cost them, not make them, money.

If anyone thinks Rupert Murdoch’s statement was about a sudden cathartic recognition that the toilet paper garbage he produces globally is too damaging and unfair, wake up and smell the ink. His was the business equivalent of President Bush realizing in 2004 that Iraq was a mistake and pulling out. That’s why Rupert Murdoch will be around longer than President Bush.

No matter what, this was not censorship. There was no government involvement in this whatsoever, and truthfully, News Corp. has the right to say and publish what they want.
The market, however, can also tell a corporation where to get off, and they sure as hell did.
But don’t be fooled into thinking the Diana-chasing is over. Not by a long shot.

Stewing Lame Ducks

2006-11-18T12:58:00.000-08:00

If you’d been part of the president’s motorcade as we’ve shuttled back and forth...the president has been doing a lot of waving and getting a lot of waving and smiles.

I think he’s gotten a real sense of the warmth of the Vietnamese people and their willingness to put a very difficult period for both the United States and Vietnam behind them.

Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, bragging to the New York Times whilst conceding he had not had any direct contact with ordinary Vietnamese on his whirlwind visit for this weekend's big summit of Asia-Pacific leaders in Hanoi.

The problem with living in a bubble is that you miss the most basic of signs. Grimaces are mistaken for smiles and birdie-flipping is mistaken for waving.

Given the President's penchant for traveling (he had only been on one trip outside the United States before becoming President) the only thing he really knows about Vietnam aside from the increasingly similar parallels to his war in Iraq is how to avoid it. And his speeding motorcade and whopping 15 minute visit to the Joint P.O.W./M.I.A. Accounting Command couldn't better reflect it.

On August 29, 2006 the local Hanoi city paper, Labor, reported that two ducks were found to be infected with the bird flu virus. While there hasn't been a new major outbreak, Vietnam is appropriately weary.

So it's unlikely that the visiting lame duck will be eating any on this trip, as he clucks around the conference, fastidiously avoiding contact with South Korea's Roh Moo Hyun, who, to the anger of the Bushies appears to have taken a softer line on North Korea, and who in turn holds the Bushies accountable for their Northern neighbors going nuclear.

Back at home, the President's sinking popularity forced him to bring back Daddy's friends to help him get out of his Iraqi quagmire. The over-arching message of the recent elections, despite already going unheeded by the administration, showed the world where America really stood on the Iraq war. And unlike this President, global leaders read the news and understand public moods.

Against this backdrop, Bush's presence at APEC will be tinged with pity as global leaders posture against a sitting lame duck.

It’s a pity Daddy couldn’t help him get out of Vietnam once again.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Swaggart Haggard Faggot Priest

2006-11-04T22:31:00.000-08:00

Of all the excuses we’ve heard of late, even going back to Bill Clinton’s, "I never had sexual relations with that woman," nothing quite beats the latest excuse from Ted Haggard the president of the National Association of Evangelicals who appears to have a propensity for crystal meth-enhanced gay sex. This latest FOK (friend of Karl) finally sheds some light on how James Guckert aka Jeff Gannon got into the White House press room.

Haggard resigned on Thursday after a Denver escort named Mike Jones claimed to have had many drug-fueled trysts with Haggard – for cash. In an interview with MSNBC, Haggard, looking as haggard as his name, sheepishly claimed that he bought crystal meth from Jones, but didn’t use it (a kind of sniffing it without actually inhaling it variation) and threw it away, resisting the temptation that had led him to the gay hooker for "only a massage" to begin with.

Having tried crystal meth myself, (I’ll try anything once) I assure you, the only massage happening involved a penis and a prostate (with release).

From disgraced congressman, Mark Foley, to pathetic Ted Haggard (and the unfortunate Gayle Haggard), the biggest problem facing religious zealots and homophobes, is that their own worst enemy is one of their own creation. The closets they want gays to stay trapped in, are invariably the cause of their undoing. Healthy, self-expressed gays and lesbians won’t be brought down by revelations as to who they are if they’re honest to begin with. Hypocrites, adulterers, liars and cheats, on the other hand...

If Jesus exists, he’s having a pretty good laugh right now.

Sorry Motherfuckers

2006-11-01T10:15:00.000-08:00

Harold Ford Jr., the never-having-served-in-the military, closet Republican (angling to be the Democratic Mark Foley, perhaps), was among the first of the Democrats to turn against Kerry, demanding that he apologize to the troops. So did, of course, Republican senator, John McCain, and the beleaguered, page-scandal tainted Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, who managed to wheeze a demand for an apology between bucketfuls of lard.

What about apologies for leaking the name of CIA operatives, sending the educated troops into an undefined, unwinnable quagmire, lying to the families of dead servicemembers, aiding and abetting the enemy by a misguided, preemptive attack that enabled Al Qaeda to morph into Medusa-like, decentralized, terrorist cell blocks that are more violent, bent on destruction, more difficult to penetrate and are making recruiting gains in direct contrast to the United States military who can only try and meet their recruiting goals by lowering the standards of education and ethics of its recruits?

John Kerry's unfortunate gaffe on Monday, where he suggested that a failure to work hard and get an education, was seized upon by desperate politicians from the Republican President to the sycophantic Democrat, Harold Ford, Jr., trailing in the Tennessee senate race.

First off, I'm not a big John Kerry fan. John Kerry, after giving a forceful response Tuesday, fucked it all up again on Wednesday by appearing on the Don Imus show, and scheduling an appearance on CNN with the pot-bellied, bellicose Wolf Blitzer.

Harold Ford, Jr., who relished the opportunity to engage the race card after the Republican National Committee gave him a fee pass by suggesting he fucks white women (rather than white men) is a frequent guest on the racist, homophobic Don Imus show, renowned for their nigger and faggot ridicule. (Ask Serena and Venus Williams, or Anderson Cooper). To that end, perhaps, more than anything else, Harold Ford, Jr. owes his self-hating facade an apology when he looks in the mirror, supposing he can stand to.

Missing in the fray, seized on by not just Fox News, but MSNBC, CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC and every other corporate owned media shill and shell, is the harsh, bitter reality, that the prosecution of the war in Iraq, the egregious, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, the extended tours of duty, the sinking morale and the Stop Loss policy preventing those who have completed their obligations from honorably leaving the military have resulted in dangerously low recruiting goals.

'Tis the Treason

Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), the national, non-profit legal services, watchdog and policy organization dedicated to ending discrimination against and harassment of military personnel affected by "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and related forms of intolerance, estimates that by the end of 2005 it will have answered 900 calls for assistance made by military personnel. Of those, it intervened to save three dozen military careers in 2005.

Many of the professionals we're discharging are fluent in languages such as Farsi and Arabic, who are able to intercept communications, interpret messages and in essence, make sense of the intelligence that it so important it requires pissing on the constitution to acquire it. All the while, the Pentagon admits to a shortage in these fields, and is having the toughest time ever meeting recruitment goals in all branches of the service.

To meet recruiting quotas in all branches of the military, standards have been lowered to include felons and idiots. While the military can boast the best and the brightest (when they're not discharging them for being gay), their lowering of standards is apt to produce a new generation of uneducated idiots, who, yes, will end up in Iraq, if we continue along this path. More Abu Ghraibs to follow by those who are uneducated, don't know better, and are caught in a leadership vacuum.

Democrats. Engage in this strawman at your own peril.

Apologies indeed. Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney. Don't trip over yourselves on your way to the podium, you hypocritical pigs.

TXU's First Amendment Pollution

2006-10-27T11:27:00.000-07:00

In an example of corporate bullying and one of the more frivolous threats filed by a corporation, Texas energy giant TXU is threatening an environmental group, Downwinders at Risk, alleging trademark dilution.

According to Public Citizen, an organization with a strong history of protecting the First Amendment:

TXU objected to the group Downwinders at Risk's use of the TXU logo, along with the logos of other pollution-causing corporations, on a float depicting Gov. Rick Perry kissing a dirty smokestack. The float was part of a protest to represent the close political and financial relationship between the governor's office and the energy industry. TXU threatened to sue the organization for trademark infringement and dilution unless it removes the logo from its float and any published materials.

David Poole, TXU’s executive VP and general counsel, ignoring the first lesson over-zealous inside counsels are apt to miss, drew national and international attention to TXU’s polluting history by warning that TXU would “have no choice but to protect its trademark from infringement and pursue all available legal remedies.”

Public Citizen’s Paul Levy reiterated in a press release similar objections to TXU’s actions as he did in a letter to TXU’s Poole:

TXU's claim that this grassroots group must ask the company for permission to depict and criticize it is patently absurd. The company's real motive is to use the threat of costly and intimidating lawsuits to stifle the political participation and free speech of citizens who are legitimately concerned about the effects of TXU-caused pollution.

In a predictably idiotic comment, TXU spokeswoman Kim Morgan told The Dallas Morning News TXU was “very hopeful they will simply stop using our logo.” As hopeful perhaps, as Downwinders at Risk is that TXU will refrain from building new coal-fired power plants.

My gut feeling is that TXU, David Poole and Kim Morgan have already done more than enough damage to TXU’s brand and they’ll slink away with their smoky tail between their legs rather than continue on this ridiculous path.

Surely their money would be better spent on Rick Perry’s campaign than fighting a small environmental group, bringing all this attention to their bullying, frivolous campaign to silence their critics, and creating a whole new breed of critics in the process. (Cough, cough…)

Additional materials:

To read TXU's demand letter, visit
http://www.citizen.org/documents/txudemandletter.pdf.
To read Downwinders' response, visit
http://www.citizen.org/documents/darlettertotxu.pdf, and to view Public
Citizen's response, visit
http://www.citizen.org/documents/responsetotxu.pdf.

Human Rights Campaign - Staying the Course

2006-10-26T10:09:00.000-07:00

According to the New York Times, an employee of the liberal gay rights group, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) was responsible for first posting the adolescent-like email messages from former disgraced Republican Representative Mark Foley.

Rights Group Fires Publisher of Foley E-Mail

A liberal gay rights group said Wednesday that one of its employees, acting anonymously, had created the Web site that first published copies of unusually solicitous e-mail messages to teenagers from former Representative Mark Foley, which led to his resignation.

A spokesman for the group, the Human Rights Campaign, said it first learned of its employee’s role this week and immediately fired him for misusing the group’s resources. The scandal surrounding Mr. Foley, a Florida Republican, has been a burdensome distraction for members of his party in the month before the midterm elections, and some Republicans have speculated that the e-mail messages were planted by a Democrat.

The rights campaign’s spokesman, David Smith, said the employee, whose name he declined to disclose, was a junior staff member hired last month to help mobilize the organization’s members in Michigan. “The minute we learned about it we took decisive action,” Mr. Smith said.

Those tactics sucessfully unhinged a Republican election strategy just before a midterm election. This anonymous newbie at the HRC should have been promoted to fucking Executive Director. Amazing how the HRC would distance itself from the only effective thing they've ever done.

If they weren't so busy sucking Foley's hypocritical, metaphorical cock to begin with they would have uncovered the and exploited the scandal themselves. These are the dirty tricks Lucianne Goldberg wet-dreams about. Stay the course, HRC. Stay the Course.

The Tragic Oppression of Mel Gibson

2006-10-13T21:09:00.000-07:00

"Now even before anyone saw a frame of film, for an entire year, I was subjected to a pretty brutal sort of public beating," he said. "And during the course of that, I think I probably had my rights violated in many different ways as an American, as an artist, as a Christian, just as a human being."

The poor, victimized Mel Gibson attempting to explain his anti-Semitic outburst to ABC’s Diane Sawyer in an interview broadcast Friday, October 13, 2006.

Guess what, you fucking retarded piece of horse shit. Next time you’re making a movie based on Mein Kampf, the likelihood that you will have your “human rights” violated before anyone actually needs to see a single frame, is pretty high.

Yes, you have a human right to be a fucking jackass, as do others have the human right to call you the anti-Semitic, dunk, homophobic, cowardly, holocaust-denying fruitcake that you are.

Keeping Eyes on the Balls

2006-10-10T11:15:00.000-07:00

Keeping Eyes on the Balls

By CLINTON FEIN
October 8, 2006
Annoy.com

The Mark Foley IM sex scandal, (which revelation after revelation confirms the scandal itself has been anything but instant) is shining a spotlight on all things creepy about congress and the special interest groups to whom they pander.

Democrats, who have long been smarting over the Republican's unwelcome intrusion into Bill Clinton's office peccadilloes, are gloating over the prospect of pointing a moral finger at the conservative Republican power players (hoping to even steal some of their Evangelical base).

Despite the inability of Democrats to successfully counter that it wasn't Bill Clinton's innovative use of Cuban cigars that distracted America from focusing on Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda, but Henry Hyde, Kenneth Starr and the predatory Republican sharks that sought to punish him for it, they seem determined to make the same mistakes as their Republican counterparts.

Revenge is sweet, and there is nothing more satisfying seeing a hypocritical pig at the pinnacle of his power taken down by the very laws he, as chairman of the missing and exploited children's caucus of the House of Representatives, crafted. But the desire to savor his downfall appears to be trumping the most basic common sense.

First and foremost, is the question of legality. Did Mark Foley's conduct violate any laws, federal or otherwise, and under what jurisdiction is his conduct examined? If he sent IMs from Washington DC, where the age of consent is sixteen, or West Palm Beach, Florida, do those locations have jurisdiction, or do the locations of the page rather, determine where the law might have been violated, or both?

Foley, alas appropriately but seemingly unintentionally, operates with the aplomb and finesse of a fifteen year old that keeps making the same desperate mistakes, oblivious to the uncomfortable cues that his younger, more mature targets offer in response. But is cybersex (or failed attempts) actually sex?

Creepy, socially retarded and sexually immature as Foley's online persona is, is there really anything that wrong with fantasizing about getting it on with an anatomically developed teen brimming with sexual curiosity?

Why is there such a demand for videos titled, "Barely Legal," in which adults over the age of eighteen, but who look anywhere from fourteen to sixteen? Does the underage appearance of half the college girls in Girls Gone Wild undermine its massive success? Yeah, right.

The double standards are mind blowing (no pun intended). Why not the same revulsion over the twenty-four age difference between Don and Deirdre Imus or the thirty-three year age difference between Jack Nicholson and Lara Flynn Boyle? The misogynistic patriarchy that is America had a more difficult time with the fifteen year age difference between Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, but doesn't flinch at the notion of Deirdre Imus working on Don Imus' Viagra-dependent shriveled old penis.

Any member of the House of Representatives, male or female, gay or straight, faced with the option of the presence of anatomically mature pages, male or female in tight white pants as eye candy, (as Foley is alleged to have enjoyed), or Dennis Hastert sweating, waddling and wheezing about the chamber, should think twice before terminating the page program. There's nothing wrong with aesthetics. After all, Dennis Hastert himself seems to have enjoyed gawking at young men in spandex wrapping their thighs around one another's heads. Why else would you become a wrestling coach?

While many minors are indeed ill-equipped to deal with predators, equally many sexually active seventeen year olds are probably not that put out by telling an obviously desperate older guy that they prefer fucking people their own age and to take a hike. Especially virtually.

What makes Foley's actions reprehensibly different, and the facts on this are yet to be determined, is his position as a member of congress and his association with the page program itself. If his liaisons, online or real-time, were with former pages over the age of consent, there is no foul and no story here.

By all appearances, and despite breathless headlines in the Los Angeles Times to unapologetically liberal online amateurs like RawStory, the fact that Mark Foley had sex with a former page who was no longer associated with the page program and who was over twenty one is not only not news, it's nobody's fucking business. Even if the former page was male, and even if the former congressman was closeted.

Predictably on cue, the gay haters rose to the surface like flies to fresh shit. Pat Buchannan, the MSNBC firebrand, who hates gays only more than he hates Jews, appearing on the show of MSNBC's equally hate-filled former congressman, Joe Scarborough (he of dead interns in his office), referred to Foley as a "flamer" and incorrectly accused Democratic House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, of marching with NAMBLA (North American Man Boy Love Association), a group of pedophiles intent on changing age-of consent laws, and are about as helpful to gays as Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kansas is to Christians.

Tony Perkins of the ironically named Family Research Council, who spends more time than most gays and Mark Foley combined thinking about gay sex in every variation, blamed Foley's predatory conduct on his sexual orientation. When the conservative Republican, Daniel Crane of Illinois actually fucked, not just IM'd, a 17 year-old female page (for which he apologized to the House in 1980), if it wasn't his heterosexuality, as Perkins would have us believe, it must have been his religion or his Republicanism.

Ignoring the impact, perhaps, on the pages themselves, claiming that Democrats have been involved in sex scandals far worse than the Mark Foley scandal, former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, told a Greenville, South Carolina crowd gathered for a Republican fundraiser: "What we don't have to do is allow our friends on the left to lecture us on morality...There's a certain stench of hypocrisy." Indeed! The same kind of stench emanating from this habitual divorce who, like Foley, wrote the Defense of Marriage Act whilst in congress, and yet who terminated his relationship with his wife as she lay in bed riddled with cancer. Till death, insensitivity or hypocrisy, do us part.

Republicans, following the misguided cue of one truly familiar with closets, news aggregator Matt Drudge, are attempting to deflect attention from their cover-up by accusing Democrats of having engineered an "October Surprise" just before a mid-term election. Although there is no evidence to support the claim, and plenty to refute it, the tactic itself misses the point entirely. Who cares? If Foley engaged in illegal behavior or ethical misconduct, and Republicans covered it up or failed to act on it, those facts remain. Had they acted appropriately, or investigated further, the Democrats wouldn't have a weapon to brandish, regardless of the timing.

Democrats aided and abetted by the breathless twenty-four-hour news cycle, and left-wing and liberal bloggers foaming at the mouth in a feeding frenzy to unseat Republicans, are playing a dangerous and hypocritical game that feeds straight into the hands of the very lawmakers they are trying to undermine. Instead of adopting the same stance they took when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke, Democrats are simply switching roles.

If Mark Foley did not engage in illegal conduct, and it may well turn out that he didn't, and if he was a heterosexual, this scandal would have been over already, the focus would be on the sharp spike of deaths on Americans serving in Iraq or the credible and increasingly growing threat of terrorism against America.

The real issue is that Mark Foley may have abused his position of power to intimidate those younger and more vulnerable, and that is what is objectionable, regardless of his age or his sexual orientation. Instead of focusing on that, and clarifying that consensual banter between two individuals over the age of consent is private and legal, and unless evidence emerges to reveal otherwise, perhaps Mark Foley deserves the benefit of innocent until proven guilty, Democrats would rather adopt the hypocritical position of their Republican counterparts.

As my friend Daniel pointed out, it's not that Democrats are challenging the Republican position on homosexuality and questioning the legitimacy of their claims to the guardianship of faux family values, but are simply accusing Republicans of being unable to live up to those standards.

The real lesson here, of course being missed by just about everyone, is that this is exactly what Don't Ask, Don't Tell breeds. The same way as the United States military adopts a incomprehensible policy that forces gay servicemembers to lie about their sexual orientation in violation of every tenet the military teaches in terms of honor and integrity, so too does the antigay agenda of the so-called religious right and the Republican Party demand the closet of the complicit gays that pepper its ranks.

If Mark Foley had the option of being open about who and what he was, rather than living in fear of its disclosure, and could enjoy the possibility of either fucking, dating or settling down with a consenting partner in an environment that supported and nourished his choices as an adult, rather than condemn and judge them, perhaps there would be none of the shame enveloping this incident from every angle, and perhaps Foley wouldn't have felt the need to cowardly race like a frightened rat into rehab, coming out as a gay, a drunk and a victim of molestation by a priest along the way.

For Republicans, the Mark Foley scandal is as much about the embarrassment of having a high ranking homosexual in its party as it is a predator in its fold, for each are equally reprehensible to them. For Democrats, it's more about revenge of the Republicans than it is about questioning their supposed values to begin with. For right-wing fanatics, it's more about equating homosexuality with pedophilia than it is about protecting allegedly vulnerable pages. And for gay activists, it's more about clamoring to defend itself from those very accusations and the likely vilification by Republicans than it is about simply distancing itself from a congressman whose only possible crime is being a predator, not a homosexual, and for whom the issue is no more relevant than it is for Alcoholics Anonymous.

For one or two of us, it's about waiting for investigations to determine if any laws were actually broken or whether Mark Foley is not a criminal, but simply a boozy hypocrite and a creep. As well as be forced to stomach the incredulous reactions that emerge from a commission finding following the next terrorist attack that reveals that while the entire country, Democrat and Republican alike, focused on Mark Foley's irresponsible, possibly illegal behavior, al Qaeda laughed knowingly as they plotted.

The Putrid Stench of Newt Gingrich

2006-10-05T22:49:00.000-07:00

Direct from the You Can’t Make This Shit Up Department.

Claiming that Democrats have been involved in sex scandals far worse than the Mark Foley scandal, Newt Gingrich told a Greenville, South Carolina crowd gathered for a Republican fundraiser:

What we don't have to do is allow our friends on
the left to lecture us on morality…There's a certain stench of
hypocrisy.

Yeah. The same kind of stench from the habitual divorcé who wrote the Defense of Marriage Act whilst in congress, and who terminated his relationship with his wife as she lay in bed with cancer. He thought the “in sickness and in health” vow related only to his sick and twisted mind. Sure, Scott Peterson was worse than him, perhaps, but only marginally.

A stench indeed. Maybe if you stopped talking, that smell of shit might disappear from your nostrils, you hypocritical piece of aborted afterbirth. Go back to the gutter you were sent to in disgrace. It suited you better. Weren't you supposed to have died or something equally fabulous for humanity?

Tony Perkins and Pedophilia

2006-10-02T20:59:00.000-07:00

Tony Perkins enables pedophiles. What on earth would want to make a man who runs the Family Research Council do such a thing? Actually, it’s quite simple.

Tony Perkins claims to be an expert on gays and homosexuality. In order to be such an expert, you either have to experience it yourself, or spend an incredible amount of time studying it and thinking about it. And Tony Perkins has done just that. In fact, it seems, there’s little else he thinks about. When, or rather if, he fucks his wife, he imagines what gays must do when they fuck. Especially when they fuck younger men, or even better, younger boys.

You see, gay expert, Tony Perkins, believes that the reason Republican congressman, Mark Foley, engaged in pedophilia is because he is homosexual and that’s supposedly the “real issue”.

Of course, when the conservative Republican, Daniel Crane of Illinois actually fucked, not just IM’d, a 17 year-old female page (for which he apologized to the House, not the girl, in 1980), it wasn’t his heterosexuality, it must have been his conservatism.

But Tony Perkins loves thinking about gay sex. And abusing children. Whatever you do, keep him as far away as possible from your kids. Sick minds do sick things.

Tony Perkins needs help desperately, and should not be trusted alone with children.

Being Mark Foley

2006-10-02T15:00:00.000-07:00

Fresh from Annoy.com. Using former Republican congressman, Mark Foley's own words, a collaboration that is sure to sicken the sane.

Being Mark Foley: The Love Poem

By Clinton Fein & Mark Foley

Won’t you suck my cock, young man?
And do you jack off in the can?
Do you do it in your bed?
I think I’d like to give you head

Cute butt bouncing in the air,
Come work with me, I’ll take good care
In Pensacola...had to catch a plane
I want to taste the towels you stain

How my favorite young stud doing?
Imagine how cool if we were screwing
Love to watch those great legs running
To stroke your underage cock so stunning

Well don’t ruin my mental picture
The page system’s notorious fixture
Did you spank it this weekend?
I want to fuck your tight rear end

Dennis Hastert’s busy eating,
And you and I, our cocks are beating
Is your Mom or Dad near by?
I want to suck your young cock dry

Do you really do it face down?
And when you cum, do you smile or frown?
Where do you keep your sweaty jocks?
Do you love pussy as much as I love cocks?

I always use lotion and the hand
Same hand I sign legislation for the land
My congressional colleagues look away
Don’t even know that I am gay

Well I have a totally stiff wood now
Sexy kid, just tell me how
To get you to rub it in my face
No campaign worries, I’ve won that race

Is your little guy limp...or growing?
How do we keep your folks from knowing?
So tell me when your reaches rock
I want to suck your teenage cock

What you wearing, handsome boy?
I want to play you like a toy
Love to slip them off of you
And eat your ass before we screw

I’m stroking mine, proceeding gaily
At your age seems like it would be daily
Get a ruler and measure it for me
You horny kid, come play with me

Keep this a secret, don’t divulge
You naked, um so a big bulge?
Did any girl give you a hand job this weekend?
I’ll fuck your hole; I’ll be your friend

I want to make your tight ass ache
I want to grab your one eyed snake
I hope she didn’t see anything
Your Mom’s around, you cute young thing

It must feel great spurting on the towel
I’m the fairest man, there’s nothing foul
I’m your favorite Republican congressman jock
You hot young man; I am hard as a rock.

Evil and inhman Muslims!!! What about Faggots and Jews?

2006-09-17T11:40:00.000-07:00

Popina Benedict XVI is finding herself in hot water, and this time it’s not because of her red Prada slippers.

Nope. The satin and silk clad “former” Nazi, women-hating, fag-bashing hypocritical pussy-wannabe has angered a few billion Muslims by quoting from texts recounting a conversation between a Persian and 14th century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II who characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed, Islam's founder, as ''evil and inhuman.''

That the Pope would quote medieval texts to support his medieval positions is about as surprising as another trip to the hospital by Lindsay Lohan. The bullshit being spun as an apology is about as authentic and credible as Senator George Allen’s apology for calling a member of Democratic challenger, James Webb, “macacca”. (He meant malakas, or perhaps malakia, ironic coming from such a hypocritical wanker).

In a speech on Sunday, Popina’s excuse for her outburst was that her words ''were in fact a quotation from a medieval text which do not in any way express my personal thought.''

Much like her quoting passages of Mein Kampf would reflect her “personal thoughts,” just her convictions.

Just say sorry for being a fucking asshole dipshit, and the quicker everyone can move on.

Let's Bankroll

2006-09-08T21:45:00.000-07:00

By Clinton Fein
Annoy.com
September 11, 2006

Five Years

(With apologies to David Bowie)

Pushing through the gaping hole, so many workers choking

Time enough to wipe the tears, and to even give up smoking

Anchors from Katrina (now soft hearted and soft spoken)

Offer up their platitudes, a paltry little token

We heard horror and glory, glamorized on TV

We heard lies and excuses and we watched ABC

Our cynicism stretched so taut, no sweet sentiment this season

No action, nor reaction, no rhyme and no reason

The consumption enablers selling anything that goes

As they milk fading tragedies to stuff up their nose

And rape our confusion to cover the blows.

Children left orphaned are fed political feces

Given greed masked as kindness, we humanitarian species

So soon they’ll be old enough to send off for the killing

Returning home in their coffins as the blood keeps on spilling

I found myself trapped in a mindless haze, lost in fantasy, fact and fiction

Wasted on promises, gorging lies by the package...my insatiable addictions.

There was fake all around and I groped for compassion

There was none, it was gone, like the towers once crashing

The taste, the waste, the inevitable so soon

The bitterest of products to the ugliest tune.

It’s been five years, nothing has changed

Five years, just more deranged

It’s been five years, so much damage has been done

Five years, and yet nobody’s won.

It’s been five years, so boldfaced we lied

Five years of reality denied

It’s been five years, now the world wants to trade

Five years, now there’s money to be made.

It’s been five years, destruction and terror

Five years our response a deadly error

It’s been five years, this will never end

Five years, there’s still money to spend.

Fascism & Liberation

2006-08-30T09:10:00.000-07:00

Like a doddering old delusional douche bag, Secreatry of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told the American Legion that critics of his war in Iraq were inept in their understanding of history and likened them to those who sought to appease Hitler. “With the growing lethality and the increasing availability of weapons, can we truly afford to believe that somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased?,” he stated.

As if to underscore the theme, the other architect of the failure in Iraq, Dick Cheney, who, five years later, amidst mountains of evidence and a distinct rebuttal from the President himself, still sees Saddam Hussein’s ghost in the rubble of September 11th, contributed to the new attempt to liken their national and international failures to the glory of World War II victory.

“This is not an enemy that can be ignored, or negotiated with, or appeased…And every retreat by civilized nations is an invitation to further violence against us. Men who despise freedom will attack freedom in any part of the world, and so responsible nations have a duty to stay on the offensive, together, to remove this threat.”

No fuckface. Civilized and responsible men and women have a duty to mitigate the threat posed by terrorism in addition to dealing with the additional threat of lunatics sending people to war and killing thousands upon thousands of innocent people based on deliberately cooked intelligence and marketed and packaged with lies and deception. You, Mr. Cheney have neither the record nor the moral authority to even speak on the subject.

Mr. Rumsfeld’s assertion that critics of his bungling of the war in Iraq can be framed as fascist and compared to the appeasement of Hitler is almost as ludicrous as the suggestion that its consequences, unlike the efforts of the allies in World War II, and characterized by a violent and deadly sectarian war, can be referred to or is perceived as, liberation.

Fuck All that You Can Fuck…in the Army!

2006-08-20T02:55:00.000-07:00

A six month investigation by the Associated Press found that over 80 military recruiters across all branches of the military were disciplined for misconduct with potential enlistees in 2005.

Under Rumsfeld’s watch. In 2002, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld disbanded the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS), the only entity that provided a modicum of oversight to the rampant sexual harassment in the military.

Aside from lowering the recruiting standards in both physicality and intelligence – a decision that has already begun to bear fruit given the rise of neo-Nazis and other self-styled militia that will produce and churn out gangs of Tim McVeighs – Rumsfeld’s miscalculation of every step in the Iraq war has left America’s military worse off than ever before, despite more than 1.5 billion allotted to recruiting efforts this year.

In essence, under Rumsfeld, we now have sick, over-stressed, under-paid assholes recruiting women leading to a situation where, according to Associated Press, “Women were raped on recruiting office couches, assaulted in government cars and groped en route to entrance exams.” The report also found that “at least 35 Army recruiters, 18 Marine Corps recruiters, 18 Navy recruiters and 12 Air Force recruiters were disciplined for sexual misconduct or other inappropriate behavior with potential enlistees in 2005.”

Like Cheney’s “last throes of the insurgency” predictions that precipitated an all-out sectarian war, you still have enablers like Defense Department spokeswoman Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke insisting that the Pentagon takes these things very seriously

Elaine Donnelly, President of the Center for Military Readiness, has her head so far up her dry cunt she can’t see the forest from the bush. She told Associated Press reporter Martha Mendoza "Let's face it, these guys are handsome in their uniform, they're mature, they give a lot of attention to these girls, and as recruiters they do a lot of the same things that guys do when they want to appeal to girls. There's a very fine line there, and it can be very hard to maintain a professional approach."

Perhaps Ms. Donnely has a difficult time keeping her panties on for anyone who might be handsome and pay attention to her, but for most sexually functional people, this is hardly an adjustment. It’s a social norm. It probably also explains why Ms. Donnely is such a vociferous opponent of openly gay servicemembers serving in the military. Guess who wouldn’t be able to contain herself in the showers?

With Rumsfeld killing DACOWITS, and people give credence to the likes of Donnely’s Center for Military Readiness, who don’t seem to mind the odd rape or five hundred, but would sooner boot out a gay servicemember who’s fluent in Arabic and helping to save the lives of his comrades on the ground in Iraq, what do we expect? It’s surprising they haven’t used an image of a very pregnant Lynndie England as a recruiting poster.

“Not only do you get to see the world, you get to torture it, and get laid!”

These are the people we are entrusting to enlist the best and the brightest, and we wonder why we end up with Abu Ghraib and Haditha.

JonBenet Ramsey - The Sequel

2006-08-17T12:35:00.000-07:00

By CLINTON FEIN
August 17, 2006
Annoy.com

Almost ten years ago, as we prepared to launch Annoy.com, a young girl was found murdered in her family home in Boulder, Colorado on Christmas morning. By the time we were ready to go, filing our federal lawsuit on January 30, 1997, there wasn’t a person on the face of the earth who did not know who JonBenet Ramsey was.

In what would become our trademark, our first image that evoked shock, outrage and ultimately hate mail, depicted Jon Benet’s head on a “Tickle Me Elmo” doll, to accompany my editorial, The Gruesome Marketing of JonBenet.

On the heels of the OJ Simpson debacle, but prior to the death of Princess Diana, the frenzied media reaction to JonBenet’s murder was unprecedented.

Like an uncontrollable virus, the hoards cut and pasted every detail they could find. JonBenet specials, inside scoops, latest updates, interviews with friends, neighbors, maids, aunts, cousins….exclusive interviews, exclusive photos, exclusive obituary. The almost comical, but depressing accusations by tabloids of tabloids. Web sites, parasitic, sprung up like warts, feeding on one another and perpetuating each other's relevance... beauty queen JonBenet, not really child, not really real, not really everyday… and we the gullible and the beguiled bought it hook, line and sinker, while our six year old daughters still wonder why it's okay to murder and rape those less fortunate…perhaps black, perhaps poor, perhaps ugly.

As the media zoomed their lasers on the bizarre world of children’s beauty pageants, with endless clips of a heavily made-up JonBenet striding down a catwalk, the inherent racism and the increasing lack of distinction among legitimate vs. tabloid news was striking. It became all too easy to point fingers at the Ramsey parents, John and Patsy, who, after all, not just allowed but encouraged their 6-year-old daughter to parade herself like an underage child porn star.

Nothing, however, matched the endless, breathless, round-the-clock exploitation of the news media, churning out books and spawning careers in the punditry of misery. As Jane Pauley inadvertently summed it up in an interview with Lawrence Schiller, author of a book on the JonBenet Ramsey case, on NBC's Dateline, “It’s like you had a hundred different facts in a party game.” And, from Dan Abrams to Larry King and back, play they did.

Mrs. Ramsey died in June 2006 of ovarian cancer, never quite vindicated in the eyes of the public. With the arrest of John Mark Karr in Bangkok, America can prepare for the next onslaught to distract from the civil war in Iraq and tenuous ceasefire in Lebanon.

John Ramsey is unlikely to forget who his friends are, and hopefully will keep the media at bay, as they prepare to dig up, piss on and shred JonBenet’s memory once again. And hopefully he won’t succumb to the too-little-too-late, inevitable, post-mortem re-varnishing of Patsy Ramsey’s memory either.

Alas, for the Ramsey family, resting in peace does not seem like an option.

MSNBC - More Shit Nothing But Crap

2006-08-15T23:32:00.000-07:00

The desperation at MSNBC is excruciating.

From annoying “MSNBC Reports,” endless “investigative reporting” by John Seigenthaler of prison inmates and security procedures and the newly branded, much touted “doc blocks” , and other crappy stories about husbands killing their wives, seem to be the new focus, prodigiously breeding, of what was once a news channel. The names blur: Captured, The Iron Hand of Justice, The Stench of Journalistic Desperation.

And while it’s a relief not to have to listen to Rita Cosby wheeze the news of the day or breathlessly compete with Greta van Susteren (literally) over Natalie Holloway coverage, the only choice among Hickville's hellfire Nancy Grace; cunt dunk falafel adulterer, Bill O’Rielly; pudgy pansy, Tucker Carlson; or spit-spewing, high-pitched bitch, Chris Matthews, is suicide.

Joe Scarborough, the former Republican version of Gary Condit (dead interns lying around his office and stuff) who, like Geraldo, fights hurricanes ala Don Quixote, has now resorted to cussing and beeping to boost his ratings, unable to even compete with the osteoporotic, hunched-shouldered Larry King. Yep, the same Scarborough who nearly had a nervous breakdown over what to tell his young sons who saw Janet Jackson’s nipple (what did he tell them about the dead intern?) has no qualms telling them about assholes by behaving like one. Or acting like a big, fat, but unfortunately floppy, dick.

All of this follows the startling decision by the powers that be at NBC Universal to hire Dan Abrams, the little-boy-man, wet-behind-the-ears (and probably still a virgin until he finds the right guy or grows facial hair) to take over from MSNBC Chief, Rick Kaplan, the asshole that MSNBC hired (after CNN gave him the boot in 2000) and then fired in June.

The only thing consistent about MSNBC through all these depressingly obvious attempts to be something is that they still consider dried-up coke whore, Vicodin-popping, Howard Stern wannabe, Don Imus, a newsman. Brilliantly disguised as an Ann Richards lookalike grocery salesman, pawning salsa, coffee and old-man stink.

Oh that there was dedovshchina -- the abusive system used by the Russia military -- to discipline these fucking morons. Ease our pain by broadcasting theirs.

Now there’s a ratings slam dunk.

The Fashion of the Christ

2006-07-29T01:03:00.000-07:00

"A woman should be home with the children, building that home and making sure there's a secure family atmosphere."

So said actor Mel Gibson in 1991. As opposed to getting fucked up on alcohol and racing his 2006 Lexus LS 430 on the Pacific Coast Highway at 87 miles-per-hour in a 45-miles-per-hour zone.

When this hypocritical fuckwad was arrested, his blood alcohol level was 0.12 percent. Significantly over the legal limit. And about as Godly as Rick Salomon's cock being chafed and scraped by Paris Hilton's teeth.

Aside from endangering the lives of anyone else -- humans or pets -- on the roads in Malibu, this 50 year-old prick seems to be providing a real secure family atmosphere. The actor and director of, most recently, The Passion of the Christ, (the thinly-veiled anti-Semitic blockbuster that had Pope Benedict XVI creaming in his Satin vestments) preaches family values and brags about his spiritual superiority. And no doubt believes gays would wreck the sanctity of the institution of marriage.

Yeah right. This piece of shit loves his wife and family so much that he would risk wrecking his mariage and destroying their lives, and is so spiritually evolved he thought the blood of Jesus could be sucked out of a bottle of Grey Goose.

Like Rev. Michael Jude Fay, the priest who resigned from the affluent St. John Roman Catholic Church in Connecticut, and is accused of having misspent upwards of 1.4 million in parishioner donations to fund his hotels, jewelry, Italian clothing and a Florida fucknest which he shared with “good friend” Cliff Fantini, these men of God are too busy eating ass, downing vodka and sucking cock to recognize their flagrant hypocrisy.

This story is still fresh, but Gibson will find a way to weasel his way out of it. Maybe the money-grabbing bastard who poured him his tenth glass to drown his spiritually evolved happiness was Jewish.

Jesus fucking wept indeed and lucky for the thirstily religious Mel Gibson, bled a fine Chianti.

UPDATE - Yep, I was right about the anti-Semitic tirade. Seems like Gibson's true colors were revealed in his repsonse to the arresting officer, published by TMZ. Apparently, the drunk who claims to "own Malibu," screamed: ""You motherfucker. I'm going to fuck you," before moving on to, "Fucking Jews... The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. Are you a Jew?" (see unredacted statement).

Despite the The L.A. County Sheriff's Department's attempt to cover up the original 8 page report, details of Gibson's drunken anti Semitic tirade were leaked to the media (although clearly none of the outlets on Yahoo News! who were a day late and a dollar short with this story. Thankfully there's TMZ.)

Apologizing for his "despicable" statements to deputies, and claiming to have said things he did "not believe to be true," Gibson issued a long-winded screed through his publicist, Alan Nierob, who sure as hell has his work cut out for him. Among the gems, "I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested...I disgraced myself and my family with my behavior and for that I am truly sorry. I have battled with the disease of alcoholism for all of my adult life and profoundly regret my horrific relapse." You didn't act like a person out of control, cocksucker, you were a person out of control.

Headbutt Diplomacy

2006-07-23T02:04:00.000-07:00

By CLINTON FEIN

July 22, 2006

Nothing captured the world's attention quite like the World Cup which culminated in a dramatic clash between Italy and France in which French captain, the gifted Zinedine Zidane, better known as Zizou by those in the know, head-butted Italy's white trash, trouble maker, Marco Materazzi, in the chest after he called Zizou "the son of a terrorist whore" according to published reports, albeit speculative.

As the realities of an Israeli incursion into Lebanon threaten to ignite the already volatile Middle East, the nationalism inspired by World Cup fervor suggests that in sports, like diplomacy, there is only one thing that counts. Winning.

The United States' embarrassing 2-1 loss to Ghana in the first round demonstrated, perhaps metaphorically, how little influence the United States seems to wield these days, and the irony of France making it to the finals could not have been lost on hawks and doves alike, especially the macho, beef-chomping, Bud-swigging chumps who see the French as cowardly, foie gras-nibbling, Champaign-sipping appeasers.

[Read Full Editorial]

No to Snow

2006-07-20T01:17:00.001-07:00

Listening to White House Press Secretary, Tony Snow, this morning was so excruciatingly painful it was like being hit over the head with a baseball bat. Beginning with an apology for being “froggy-throated,” he should have apologized for being foggy-minded. He wouldn’t characterize the war in the Middle East as war, but as hostilities.

In response to a question from NBC’s David Gregory, as to why this is not our war, Snow responded, “Why would it be our war? I mean, it's not on our territory. This is a war in which the United States -- it's not even a war. What you have are hostilities, at this point, between Israel and Hezbollah. I would not characterize it as a war.”

Given that logic, the non-war in Iraq isn’t really ours, since it’s not our territory either.

When asked to talk about the level of support Iran is giving Hezbollah in this current crisis, Snow claimed that even if he knew, he wouldn’t tell, since talking about specifics would get into the disclosure of intelligence, which is a fair enough answer, but rather than stopping there, he added, “Good for me, I don't know, so I don't have to worry about faking it.”

This is the problem with hiring a Fox News reporter as White House Press Secretary. At Fox News, faking the news under the guise of “fair and balanced” is a not only a modus operandi, it’s a marketing campaign. The real world, however, expects the White House to tell the truth. Faking the intelligence about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction is responsible for thousands upon thousands of deaths, and diminished credibility and leverage to deal with the current crisis in the Middle East.

Someone needs to remind this jackass that faking information has far more dangerous and wide-reaching consequences than covering up Bill O’Reilly’s propensity to fantasize over the phone with employees about fucking them with falafels.

Diplomatic Dipshit

2006-07-19T11:53:00.000-07:00

George W, Bush’s arrogance is superseded only by his ignorance. His lack of curiosity is not simply embarrassing to Americans the world over, but critically dangerous.

Yes, President Fuckface was caught on video, mouth full of dinner roll, telling British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to tell Kofi Anan to get Hezbollah to “stop this shit,” and indeed one can only shudder at the thought of the manners this culture maven might display at a tea with the Queen at Buckingham Palace, but far worse is his inability to recognize how ineffective marketing campaigns disguised as policies play overseas.

Unhappy to Be Ex-Gay or Ex-Happy to be Un-Gay?

2006-03-30T13:44:00.000-08:00

When idiots who flagrantly attempt to violate the First Amendment rights of others are attorneys, I feel a special sort of disdain for them. The latest display of idiocy goes to Mathew D. Staver, Esq. of the ironically titled Liberty Counsel.

A cease and desist letter was sent to a Santa Rosa, California blogger, Justin Watt of the blog Justinsomnia after he parodied a billboard advertising Exodus International, the notorious ex-gay organization that believes it's possible to change one's sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. The original billboard read “Gay?, Unhappy? www.exodus.to.” Watt modified the image to read “Straight? Unhappy? www.gay.com.”

Frowned upon by most rational psychiatrists and psychologists, and the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychoanalytic Association, the World Health Organization, and most other professional medical associations, the ex-Gay movement has been plagued by scandals that are ridiculously predictable. The most well-known of which occurred in 1979, when two conference organizers, Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper, left the ministry to be with each other, becoming possibly the first open ex-gay-former-heterosexual-gays.

Having confronted a couple of ex-gays in my time, the most striking thing about ex-gays is how unconvincing they appear to be as heterosexual. And, you would think, those who are truly happy, would be more inclined to enjoy their happiness rather than feigning it by recruiting others to participate in what is, in fact, their misery.

Since the ACLU Foundation of Northern California and the national ACLU Foundation’s Lesbian & Gay Rights Project has agreed to defend Mr. Watts, Exodus International stands more chance of turning Richard Simmons straight than prevailing in this legal battle.

Still, I can’t help but think that electro-therapy might be just the remedy to sleazy lawyers filing frivolous cease-and-desist letters rather than using it to abuse children exploring their sexual identities.

Who the Bloody Fucking Hell Are You?

2006-02-23T12:27:00.000-08:00

Far be it from us to denounce vulgarity. But when hypocrisy slaps you hard enough in the face, a response is usually necessary. Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, defended a new advertising campaign, “Where the Hell Are You?” launched by Australian Tourism Minister Fran Bailey. Howard told reporters in Sydney:
"I think the style of the advertisement is anything but offensive but is in fact in context and I think it's a very effective ad."
What makes it so incredibly eye opening, is that this is the same blood-lusting Iraqi War Bush sycophant – an original “Coalition of the Willing” cheerleader, who complained to reporters last month about the decline of good manners in Australian society.

"I think we have seen a marked deterioration in good manners…I think it's time that the television networks put a curb on the increasing use of vulgarism on television."
We’re not sure if this is allowed in Australian society, but we have a polite question for Mr. Howard: Who the Bloody Fucking Hell Are You?

Black and White and Yellow All Over

2006-02-08T20:11:00.000-08:00

American media’s response to how to cover the Danish cartoon furor has been eye opening. Aside from the Philadelphia Inquirer, the only major newspaper to run one of the images to date, (and a few smaller publications in California and Wyoming), most newspapers have chosen to tell the story without using the images.

The executive editor of the Washington Post Leonard Downie Jnr. said the cartoons "wouldn't meet our standards for what we publish in the paper … We have standards about language, religious sensitivity, racial sensitivity and general good taste."

No one can deny that the issue is complex, and that careful consideration of the cultural and religious ramifications is warranted.

And whether a publication decides to publish or not to publish is the prerogative of the powers that be at any such publication.

In an update by Joe Strupp in Editor & Publisher, Anne Gordon, Philadelphia Inquirer managing editor, chided the Associated Press for independently withholding the cartoons claiming it was not AP’s decision to make on behalf of all newspapers.

Kathleen Carroll, executive editor at The Associated Press, asserted that any publication of the cartoons does not add to the news coverage of the issue. She added: "If people want to find them, they are easily found."

Doug Clifton, editor of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, told Editor & Publisher that he did not “see a need to insert ourselves in that fight." But Clifton said his paper will likely place a link to the images from another site when it runs an editorial on the issue over the weekend. "They will have the option to see it if they choose," he told Editor & Publisher.

That is unquestionably the most cowardly and pathetic response I have seen to date. It’s one thing to state, albeit disingenuously, that publication of the images is not germane to the telling of the story, but its quite another to claim that as an excuse to mask a fear of reprisals or to capitulate to pressure.

Since Clifton believes that the story doesn’t warrant running the images, is unwilling to take a stand, and genuinely believes the story doesn’t warrant it, how about demonstrating how good he is at articulating the story without them? The “choice” he’s offering is not in his editorial control.

What Doug Clifton is doing is riding on the backs of others who are taking significant risks in standing up for their principles and having the courage of their convictions.

Clifton’s yellow approach is the moral journalistic equivalent of jacking off during a gang rape.

Sticks and Stones Can Break Your Bones, But Cartoon Flaps Can Kill You

2006-02-04T05:24:00.000-08:00

The global furor over the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad as violent seems as inappropriate as the tepid condemnation over Pat Robertson’s call to assassinate Hugo Chavéz.

Calling for the beheading of an artist for creating a caricature depicting a religion as violent is about as hypocritical as assaulting or killing a woman for appearing in a degrading beauty contest. Or like amputating Ann Coulter’s legs for her immodest vagina flashing on Fox News. Or castrating and sodomizing men who rape.

As fanatical, intolerant Muslim clerics continue to incite violence over the depictions of violence, and as Israeli Jews deliberately incite riots by building unauthorized new structures in settlements, America’s religious righteous -- armed with justifications from their churches, mosques and synagogues -- are mincing into gay bars with machetes and guns and opening fire. Others are frantically preparing to picket Coretta Scott King’s funeral because she supported gay rights. The Pope, lost in the haze of his Nazi Youth is too busy purging the symptoms of his dysfunctional, homocentric Church -- in between satin dress fittings and Prada shopping sprees -- blissfully oblivious to the blatantly obvious causes. The one certain thing all of these Torah-touting, Koran-killing, Bible-bashing, Scripture-screeching religious zealots seem to share, is an unbridled lust for violence.

While all the world’s major religions -- Judaism, Christianity, Catholicism, and Hinduism – shoulder responsibility for fueling extremist factions spewing hatred, violence and intolerance, Muslims do need to drop the victimization act and realize that just as they condemn and judge others with impunity, so too must they learn to cope with being subject to criticism.

Until people stop, in Allah's name, stoning woman to death, killing homosexuals, cutting the hands off children stealing food to survive, flying passenger planes into skyscrapers, car-bombing innocent people, forcing their religious convictions onto others, and other such atrocities, and until Muslims loudly and clearly reject and condemn the violence perpetrated by those who have hijacked and perverted their religion, the likelihood of cartoonists depicting Muhammad as a gentle, olive-branch carrying dove is not particularly high.

A Million Little Fleeces

2006-01-27T17:12:00.000-08:00

Whilst not strictly a First Amendment issue, the controversy raging over Oprah Winfrey's surprising defense of author James Frey, by calling in to CNN's cartoonish Larry King, culminated in a public apology yesterday by Winfrey.

Winfrey's own First Amedment history relating to the beef industry, as well as the greater debate as to what distinguishes fact from fiction, opinion from reporting and other such "thin lines" makes the debate relevant here.

For those living in a bubble -- or outside America -- in a nutshell, James Frey cooked up a story called A Million Little Pieces, which was apparently rejected by his publisher as a fiction, and subsequently repackaged as a memoir. Not to be confused with an autobiography, which suggests a factually accurate, verifiable recalling of events, but simply a memoir, which is a non-fictional, but far less scrutinized recalling of events by the author. What Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert might call “truthiness.” (Add that word to your word-processing dictionary). Memoirs sell better than fiction does.

The enterprising sleuths at the web site The Smoking Gun on a quest to find Frey’s mugshot to add to their considerable collection of celebrity mugshots, found themselves ensconced in a six-week investigation, uncovering details that made James Frey’s memoir as an alcoholic, drug addict, and criminal as convincing a non-fiction as the White House propaganda that prompted the Patriot Act and apparent congressional relinquishing of their role as a constitutional balance of power.

What made the story even more juicy, is that America (with a literacy rate, incredibly, of 97% according to the CIA) was induced to read a book by Winfrey’s powerful book club, arguably the most powerful there is, which shot it straight to the top of the New York Times (and every other noteworthy) best-seller list.

What bothered me most about Oprah’s defense of James Frey was compounded by a recent profile in Newsweek in which Oprah, in her words, attributed her entire success as a woman to being truthful. I readily admit that there is no one truth and that truth, in and of itself, is a subjective concept, but the distinction between one’s perceived truth and a blatant embellishment is clear enough. A redemption tale presented as a factual account but predicated on lies and embellishments is far less inspiring than a fictionalized tale presented as such.

Winfrey’s defense of Frey on Larry king bothered many, including yours truly, who included references to it in my Cry-Baby piece, featuring Martha-Ann Alito and disgraced congressman, Randy “Duke Cunningham”. Some felt it was much ado about nothing.

In addition to frying Frey, Winfrey attacked Doubleday publisher Nan Talese, who seemed to wither under Winfrey’s relentless showdown, (enhanced by a televised appearance of a smug, purse-lipped New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, wagging an accusatory finger at all concerned, urging Winfrey to withdraw the endorsement of her book club.) Doubleday, later released an apology.

However, cynical as I am, Oprah Winfrey redeemed herself yesterday, and restored her credibility. She is the first American public figure in the eighteen years I’ve been in the country that was so quick and so unequivocal in admitting she was wrong, had made a mistake, and was sorry about it. It’s so unbelievably rare and refreshing I am surprised at how quickly my scorn and cynicism turned to forgiveness and appreciation. She may be a lot of things, and her quest for publicity may be all-consuming, but authenticity is authenticity, and she deserves a hat tip here.

James Frey -- his long-drawn, stumbling, piecemeal confession in the wake of some fine investigative journalism by the The Smoking Gun notwithstanding -- on the other hand, doesn’t quite have the balls.

The truth in a memoir is not quite the same as the truth from our government. With cooked intelligence leading to a pre-emptive war, domestic eavesdropping, a culture of absolute corruption, the leaking of names of CIA operatives and a media culture that makes it impossible to differentiate the National Enquirer from the Los Angeles Times, are we simply being distracted yet again?

Fudgepack in the Morning

2006-01-26T13:29:00.000-08:00

Poor old Imus. Once again, the Manhattan shock-jock who has delusions of being a cowboy -- an image about as convincing as his kids-with-cancer ranch is an exercise in altruism -- and who looks more like Ann Richards than John Wayne, is having a hard-time (Viagra notwithstanding) dealing with the whole Brokeback Mountain thing.

Notoriously homophobic, Imus and his gang (including the equally unconvincing heterosexual sidekick Bernie McGuirk and the ever effete Charles McCord) have resorted to calling the movie Fudgepack Mountain (which of course, made GLAAD hysterical, following an exchange where MSNBC’s slobbering pantywaste, Chris Matthews, and Imus segued from a manly discussion about their weighty hips to discuss the gay cowboy movie).

The wit in this sophomoric insult was so subtle that it could only be communicated through repletion, again today – Imus screeching, “Fudgepack Mountain, Fudgepack Mountain, Fudgepack Mountain” to NBC’s Andrea Mitchell. Mitchell, whose sole experience in male sexuality is garnered from fucking (or not) the oh-so-virile Alan Greenspan for the last eighty years or so. Do these MSNBC anchors have no self-respect?

Imus, McGuirk and your girly gaggle of hanger-ons, it’s this simple. You don’t want to see a movie that is about two guys who are in love, and yes, (whether GLAAD wants to acknowledge it or not), fuck each other, bareback in a tent, don’t go.

Who cares? Jesus Christ, like the whole world gives a shit that little Bernard McGuirk is going to have to look in the mirror and deal with his unspeakable woody over two guys getting it off. Get a life dudes. Fuck your wives a little harder, if you must, if you think that will help your fixation -- Deirdre Imus kind of looks like a male version of Laura Ingraham anyway – but for those of us who are secure in our sexuality, frankly, the only things unsexy about the notion of Fudgepack Mountain are the hysterical, homophobic closet cases shrieking about it.

See also:
Who Is the Bigger Homophobe?

Pushback Mountain

Of Mice and Cowards

2006-01-21T03:07:00.000-08:00

In 2001, the ERLC's [Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission] annual report called for Disney to cease its promotion of "Gay Days" at its theme parks; halt the publication of pro-homosexual books; refrain from advocating the "radical homosexual agenda" through its broadcast venues; and "establish an advisory committee of Southern Baptists and other evangelicals" to provide Disney "advice and counsel" on their entertainment projects. (The accompanying image by Clinton Fein was created in 2001.)

Now, five long years later, ABC executives have canceled "Welcome to the Neighborhood" – a reality show about a gay couple and their child that moves into a neighborhood whose residents “overwhelmingly identified themselves as white, Christian and Republican.”

According to the New York Times, ABC claims to be “concerned that viewers who might have been appalled at some early statements made in the show - including homophobic barbs - might not hang in for the sixth episode.”

In an annual letter to shareholders in 1998, Walt Disney Chairman Michael Eisner said he "always will defend the right" of the company to make entertainment that some might find offensive." He also pledged to "fight attempts by groups like the Southern Baptist Convention to change the content of Disney products."

Not only is the current act of cowardice the weakest cop-out imaginable – but when ABC’s decisions are applauded by the likes of James Dobson and Gary Bauer (with their barely-veiled threats to derail evangelical Christian support for "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"), it’s obvious that greed trumps anything else, and the sniveling little rodent still has no balls.

Toying with Annoying

2006-01-12T17:07:00.000-08:00

The interest in this story has been so phenomenal that I have added some additional updates, and will likely add more as time goes on.

The annoying thing about hastily and ill-crafted legislation is that it forces one to be pedantic, muddying rather than clarifying the law, inviting legal challenges and outright violations. Remember, it depends what is is.

Assuming for argument’s sake that this law is designed to deal solely with conduct rather than content issues, so its not that someone sends you content you find annoying, but sends it hundreds of times, which you find annoying.

If the language as amended above is to be taken on its face, the first problem is with the word utilizes, since it doesn’t clarify whether utilizing it has to be for its intended telecommunication purpose.

Loudly setting off the alarm of my cell phone every two minutes whilst attending a ballet doesn’t change the fact that the device CAN BE USED to originate communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet. Or that I have not revealed my identity. Or that I have not annoyed many people. Similarly, if I was to hold up my cell phone, displaying an aborted fetus as the background image, and point it at doctors entering or leaving an abortion clinic, without revealing my identity, would that constitute *utilizing* a prohibited device and thus a felony?

And if one is to assume that the device or software must indeed be used to *originate* telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet, then the question of what is transmitted becomes unclear. With Annoy.com postcards, for instance, the sender uses the service to create a message which is then published on Annoy.com’s servers and inaccessible to the public. What is actually transmitted to the recipient is a notification that they have been sent a communication and provides them with a unique key that allows them to retrieve it if they so choose.

In fact, with CNet, I was able to forward their very article to me, containing theoretically annoying content by spoofing Arlen Specter, and CNet (like most news publications that facilitate emailing content, but unlike Annoy.com) actually sends the self-generated content in the email notification itself, only linking to the story.

Ironically, a remaining provision of the CDA is what actually protects third party content providers, and since Annoy.com does not monitor or approve postcards, and therefore intent cannot be established, prosecution is unlikely. Annoy.com’s overall stated intent to annoy is content based.

Nonetheless, I believe the law requires too many assumptions and remains vague enough to warrant a constitutional challenge.

ADDITIONAL LINKS

FAQ: The new 'annoy' law explained
CNet
Janaury 11, 2006

Declan McCullagh clarifies...

Perspective: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail
CNet
Janaury 11, 2006

Declan McCullagh's Original Article

With Intent to Annoy!

2006-01-09T18:45:00.000-08:00

On today's CNet, Declan McCullagh commented on congress' newly passed law, insidiously buried in the Violence Against Woman and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act, which criminalizes the sending of annoying email messages without disclosing your true identity.

Buried deep in the new law is Sec. 113, an innocuously titled bit called "Preventing Cyberstalking." It rewrites existing telephone harassment law to prohibit anyone from using the Internet "without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy."

For the last nine years I have owned and run Annoy.com, which among other things contains a postcard service that allows people to send postcards without being required to furnish their identity. Not unlike most news organizations that allow you to use "Send to a friend" features to distribute their content and enable you to include a message (possibly an annoying one) or the United States Postal Service, which allows you to send any content (even annoying to some people) by simply requiring a stamp. No identity checks at the local corner post box. Yet.

On January 30, 1997, I filed a federal court action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief challenging the provisions of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996 that criminalize any "indecent" computer communication intended to "annoy" another person.

The Justice Department did not attempt to defend the provisions as written. Instead, Attorney General Reno argued that the statute did not criminalize "indecent" speech at all, only "obscene" material. She represented to the court numerous times that the Justice Department would not and could not prosecute ApolloMedia for communicating merely "indecent" material. She persuaded the three-judge court to adopt her statutory interpretation.

The government's argument - that was bought by both the Ninth Circuit and the by the United States Supreme Court to whom I appealed - was that the string of words indecent, lewd lascivious, filthy and obscene, all only meant obscene and that congress was not trying to criminalize indecent speech, even if it was annoying.

However, obscenity, which is not protected by the First Amendment, would remain unprotected, essentially rendering the intent provision useless. Obscenity is not protected regardless of whether intended to annoy or not.

Although this new law is not clear, it appears similar to how the Communications Decency Act broadened §223 beyond telephones to communications transmitted by computer, restricting a medium that is significantly less intrusive than the telephone. A ringing telephone intrudes into private space and carries the ability to harass or annoy even if no content is communicated, especially when the calls are repeated or come in the middle of the night. But computer communications are silent and, importantly, they are read only if the recipient chooses to read them.

It appears, with Sec. 113, that one is guilty of a crime if one were simply to "utilize" a telecommunications device "with intent to annoy" a person. Regardless of the content, or even in its absence. A conduct rather than a content crime. Perhaps waving a Blackberry in someone's face. Or annoying someone by using their cell phone as a vibrator.

Let's assume for a minute that the new law is based on not only conduct but speech as well. In 1973, the Supreme Court attempted to define obscenity in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 24 (1973), by establishing a three-part test for obscenity: "hard core" sexual material that appeals to the prurient interest; is patently offensive under community standards; and lacks serious literary or other value. Each of the three parts of the Miller test must be met to criminalize even obscene speech.

Assuming it was possible to actually define content as annoying (perhaps unanimous agreement by Rush Limbaugh and Al Franken) using a similar standard to Miller, how on earth do you decide whether, when or where a particular piece of content is annoying? Is it annoying in a particular community?

Perhaps an annoyingly erroneous news dispatch on the cover of the New York Post in Sago, West Virginia might be more annoying there than it would be to the poor person reading it as fact on the subway in Manhattan. And therefore, if someone chose to send the story anonymously to Rupert Murdoch, expressing their outrage, which community would decide the appropriate level of content annoyance to legitimize a federal lawsuit by Mr. Murdoch?

Further, assuming it was determined that the content was likely annoying enough to Mr. Murdoch in Manhattan, would the content become less annoying if Mr. Murdoch was to sip on a scotch, smoke a joint or pop a Xanax?

And what exactly constitutes the annoyance. Is it the fact the email was sent to him at home rather than the office? Or that it was sent by Ted Turner? Or whether the sender's intent was to gloat at Murdoch's mistakes, or communicate them in the hope he remedy them?

Like the difficulty inherent in defining the "prurient interest" part of the obscenity provision, the notion of annoyance lies within the eyes and mind of the beholder, not the content. Because I find Christmas songs annoying, doesn't mean the songs are annoying. It means I find them annoying. Similarly, that the recipient of an email is annoyed does not necessarily mean that the sender intended for the communication to be annoying, and would a felony be an appropriate punishment for someone who intended to annoy the recipient but was unsuccessful, instead making the recipient laugh?

Another huge problem with this legislation is that it fails to take into account the different types of electronic communications available. As McCullagh points out, you can flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog, so long as you do it under your real name.

Then there's enforcement. On June 17, 1999, I received an order entered by the Honorable Marcia A. Crone (Under 18 U.S.C. § 2703(D), a Texas magistrate, requiring me to produce records pertaining to the sender of certain email messages from Annoy.com's postcard service within three days, along with an order not to "disclose the existence of the United States' application or [the] order, or the existence of any investigation" to the sender of the email messages "or to any other person" until further order by the Court."

Essentially, I was being told to turn over the identity of people, for whom, as far as I knew, there was no evidence had committed any crime, who had sent communications using Annoy.com and who had a reasonable expectation that their communications were not being scrutinized by the government. And to shut up about it.

Even creepier, was the fact that the "privacy" argument the government used to impose the gag order on me, was to protect the identity of the alleged victim, although the victim and any information pertaining to her was under seal, inaccessible to me or anyone else.

Since I was unable release the identity of the sender with any degree of certainty, and was not prepared to release all of ApolloMedia's records, I could not comply, but turning the tables against the United States, sought to have the record unsealed to see if I, or Annoy.com, was under investigation, and to remove the overly broad and unconstitutional gag order, which represented an unconstitutional prior restraint.

Before their final defeat in oral argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, the government sought to retain the gag insofar as it pertains to releasing the identity of the alleged victim in the criminal investigation that launched the case (which had been declared inactive by that stage). They also sought to prevent me from making mention of the institution - the University of Houston - involved in the unmasking of an anonymous identity and upon whose behest they supposedly were acting. They were unsuccessful. The record was unsealed and the gag order was removed.

With the help of my attorneys, my hard fought victory to prevent undue governmental secrecy while protecting and balancing both the public's right to know and an individual's privacy is one of which I am extremely proud.

The current legislation passed by congress is unconstitutionally vague and not worthy of the institutions and their members we elect to protect our constitutional freedoms. Although I am still assessing the future of Annoy.com's specific role in relation to this legislation, I remain committed to exercising the freedom for which I, and so many before me, have worked so hard to ensure.

The Coal Miners Slaughter

2006-01-04T21:05:00.000-08:00

There’s no denying that the mining disaster in Sago, West Virginia was a tragedy. And there’s no denying the pain and anguish that relatives, friends and loved ones of the victims must have felt, particularly after rumors that all but one of the miners had been found alive circulated – only to be crushed three long hours later, turning jubilation into sorrow, anger and fury.

But from the beginning, the evocation of miracles by Governor Joe Manchin III, Bennett K. Hatfield, the chief executive of International Coal Group, the mine's owner, and many in the media set the stage for disappointment.

A miracle is essentially defined as a marvelous event manifesting a supernatural act of God. The rumors that first circulated suggested that all of the miners except for fire boss, Terry Helms, whose body was discovered first, had been found alive. It must have been awful for the family of Terry Helms to listen to the jubilation of the other families, officials and news media and wonder what their family member had done that would separate him from the list of those for whom God decided were worthy of a miracle.

As the news media gushed on about miracles, from a breathless CNN’s Anderson Cooper to a wheezing Rita Cosby on MSNBC, it seemed that God still had one or two nasty tricks up his sleeve. Their atrocious display of almost instant piety following the emergence of the truth completely ignored their own role in fueling the rumors, let alone failing to verify the truth from official channels before reporting it as fact or exercising a iota of caution.

Except for reporter Becky Wagoner with local The Inter-Mountain newspaper of Elkins, W.Va. who told Editor & Publisher:

"A lot of the media left to go to the church where family members were located, but I stayed put because this was where every official news conference was given--and we never got anything official here," she said. "Something was not right. Then we were hearing reports that 12 ambulances had gone in [to the mine area] but only one was coming out. There was so much hype that no one considered the fact that there was no [official] update."

Live broadcast coverage is not the only culprit. A failure to check the veracity of the reporting did not stop newspapers like USA Today either. As blogger Freedom Rider pointed out:

"Today the Times hedged, a little, but not enough. Their version of bad reporting was '12 Miners Found Alive, Family Members Say.' They were a tiny bit better than the New York Post and Daily News. Their headlines screamed, ALIVE!, MIRACLE! Perhaps tomorrow they will say OOPS! or IS OUR FACE RED!."

Even after the truth emerged, the use of the word miracle by officials continued to dominate their language. "Despite our grief and despair at the loss of our 12 co-workers, we want to celebrate the one miracle that was delivered," said Bennett Hatfield in reference to the one remaining survivor, miner Randal McCloy Jr.

In fact, Governor Manchin's incessant use of the word miracle is what contributed to the confusion and miscommunication. The New York Times reports that according to the Governor's aides, "on his way to the command center the governor was asked 'Is it a miracle?' and responded 'Yes, miracles can happen.' But while friends and family members who were at the scene last night said today that the governor had been part of the confusion, none of the abundant anger was directed at him."

From the Pentagon this morning, President Bush said:

“We send our prayers and heartfelt condolences to the loved ones whose hearts are broken. We ask that the good Lord comfort them in their time of need.”

If He was the one responsible for bestowing and then revoking the miracles to begin with, the question is, why would He offer comfort now? And if this is indeed the work of God, why bother investigating International Coal Group?

It’s time for public officials to comment on and for the media to report on facts, and facts alone, and leave evocations of miracles, God and the supernatural to the privacy of those who have faith in them. Apparently, miracles do happen.

Gender Genre

2005-12-29T21:45:00.000-08:00

Set against the backdrop of an impossibly breathtaking Wyoming, Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee’s movie based on the E. Annie Proulx short story about two cowboys, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, (played by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal respectively) who share a forbidden, passionate and enduring relationship that transcends the inevitability of their circumstances. What makes this movie a cultural milestone is that the homosexuality of these men is so low key that it’s difficult to determine whether their rugged masculinity serves as an extension of their deep-rooted repression or its perfect foil.

President Bush, who has attempted to model a populist image by clearing brush on his ranch, donning Air Force drag with a strategically fashioned bulge accentuation, pandered to his religious base by calling for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage that would irrevocably deny the kind of relationship yearned for by Del Mar and Twist.

From a man who avoided combat and was MIA for much of his brief National Guard stint, who has been captured primping and preening with make-up prior to a televised speech, who can’t seem to ride a bicycle or eat a pretzel without hurting himself, and is surrounded by gossipy aides the contradictions are startling. The most anti of the anti gay crowd – the Lou Sheldon, Gary Bauer, James Dobson, Pat Robertson types – appear like shrieking, hysterical variations of Tammy Faye Baker, while denouncing men who actually herd livestock or fly bombers.

Gender Genre

Detainee Delight

2005-12-24T12:32:00.000-08:00

You couldn't make this up. The top headline in today's New York Times online, reads: "U.S., Citing Abuse in Iraqi Prisons, Holds Detainees."

The commander of American-run prisons in Iraq says the military will not turn over any detainees or detention centers to Iraqi jailers until American officials are satisfied that the Iraqis are meeting United States standards for the care and custody of detainees.

"Bottom line, we will not pass on facilities or detainees until they meet the standards we define and that we are using today," the commander, Maj. Gen. John D. Gardner of the Army, said this week from Iraq.

In related news, the United States has hired Michael Jackson to head Child Welfare at the Health and Human Services Department, and is in talks to hire Ann Coulter to replace Karen Hughes to improve America's image in the Middle East.

A Poof in Prada and Immaculate Misconceptions

2005-11-27T01:14:00.000-08:00

The Lady Doth Protest Too Much. It has become too difficult to refer to Pope Benedict XVI in the masculine gender. When men flurry about in satin dresses, generally we refer to them as drag queens.

Frequently we love drag queens, and find them deserving of the highest form of adulation and worship. At the risk of stereotyping, the most fabulous of drag queens – admittedly a rare breed -- are gorgeous, with razor sharp wit to match their immaculate make up and trend setting fashion. Sometimes there is sadness beneath the surface, not because they hate themselves, as some may posit, but simply over the burden of having to constantly navigate their lives and choices through the relentless ignorance, fear and derision of others. Anyone who hasn’t been on the receiving end of the gifts and wisdom bestowed by a true drag queen hasn’t really lived. Pope Benedict XVI, however, is just not that type of lady.

The New York Times, November 24th, reported on the disclosure of a new Vatican directive that deters most gay men from joining the priesthood including a clause that says spiritual directors and confessors in seminaries "have the duty to dissuade” candidates "who show deep-seated homosexual tendencies" from joining the priesthood. Would that not turn the confessional into a Catholic version of Operation TIPS, the ill conceived program proposed by the Bush Administration that encouraged citizens to rat on their neighbors if they thought they displayed “terrorist tendencies,” like skin color darker than Ann Coulter?

While a directive in the form of a homophobic screech that is designed to mimic the unworkable, impossible to fairly enforce, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” will hurt the Church more than anyone else, it shows where this Pope’s mind is toiling. “Out damn spot,” didn’t work well for Lady Macbeth, and the Pope’s unnatural focus on homosexuality is not going to be a cruise either.

Policies that confuse people like Michelle McCusker:

I don't understand how a religion that prides itself on forgiving and on valuing life could terminate me because I'm pregnant and choosing to have this baby.

The 26-year-old preschool teacher was fired last month from St. Rose of Lima in Queens, and is represented by the New York Civil Liberties Union in a lawsuit filed Monday against the school and the Diocese of Brooklyn.

Diocese spokesman Frank DeRosa, in a news release commented:

This is a difficult situation for every person involved, but the school had no choice but to follow the principles contained in the teachers' personnel handbook.

Message to Catholic girls who fuck before they marry – as rare as gay priests – is simple. If you want to keep your job in this forgiving religion, make sure you abort the baby before you put on any noticeable weight, and you’ll be just fine. Or else claim it was conceived immaculately.

Amidst all the brouhaha over faggots and whores tainting the pristine reputation of the Catholic Church, where does the leadership stand? Whilst impossible to ignore the opulence of the Catholic Church, even after the bankruptcies resulting from the moral bankruptcy of policies like the latest one, designed to create liars and attract perverts, the Pope is setting an atrocious example for those attempting to find spirituality outside the material.

It turns out that Papa Razi, or Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger or Popina Benedict I, rather than emulating Pope John Paul II, is fashioning herself after Diana. Gallivanting in designer sunglasses and red Prada slippers, the Petty Pope is raising plucked eyebrows by her extravagant fashion choices.

Popina Benedict I is said to have thrown a diva tantrum after Annibale Gammarelli, whose firm has been serving the Vatican since 1792, was dropped after Popina was forced to appear in a cossack that revealed her lily white ankles. Oh the horror.

According to CNN, "Alessandro Cattaneo, and the 20-year-old religious-fashion house of Raniero Mancinelli, which has provided the pope with dazzling new vestments (some with shimmering, sequinlike details)" are the new fashion darlings at the Vatican.

As Madonna becomes Kabbalist Esther, it seems the Pope wants to become Madonna. Who's the material girl now?

Ordinarily we would wish her well, but actually we wish her hell. Someone has to say it, so here it is: the Pope is a bitch.

Shameless Smear and Leaking Dick

2005-11-22T03:34:00.000-08:00

Sounds disgusting. The chicken hawk Vice President -- under who’s leadership CIA operatives are outed, Halliburton scores billions in government contracts in "rebuilding" Iraq, and under whom the CIA was pressured to shape intelligence to conform to his twisted neo-con desire to control oil in the Middle East, the human cost be damned -- has the audacity to declare politicians complaining about the trumped up intelligence of engaging in "revisionism of the most shameless variety." Is there another kind?

As if this sneering, leering, incontinent incompetent is capable of any conduct that isn't shameless anyway, and as if we are supposed to trust revisionism of a different variety. Revisionism of a duplicitous variety perhaps? Video clips clearly illustrating contradictory and conflicting accounts suggest that the Vice president is either lying yet again, or is senile or suffering from Alzheimer’s that clouds his recollection.

Despite initial criticisms by him and President Bush -- of the vicious and shameful variety -- both are quickly changing tune and tenor when it comes to Representative John P. Murtha, the powerful Pennsylvania Democrat who called for an early withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. The “dishonest and reprehensible” Cheney called Murtha "a good man, a marine, a patriot."

Given Cheney’s draft-dodging and his role in sending young servicemembers to die under false pretenses, how he thinks he can discern a good man or a good marine is typical of the arrogance resulting from isolation in undisclosed ivory towers. The President, who was chugging on gallons of Jimmy Beam and AWOL from the cushy National Guard stint organized by his Daddy, while Murtha earned a Marine veteran with two Purple Hearts, the Bronze Star with Combat "V" and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, also attempted to smear Murtha.

Days earlier Murtha was criticized by President Bush spokesperson, Scott McClennan -- the credibility depleted Press Secretary who defended Karl Rove and Scooter Libby as having no role in the outing of Valerie Plame -- as having embraced the polices of Michael Moore, clearly intended as an insult.

By Sunday it became apparent that the Swift Boat smearing of Murtha was not about to wash over well with Americans, fed up with the lies and corruption of the administration as Iraq violence spills over into Jordan and more and more of their children are being blown to irretrievable bits -- too much to even be brought home in body bags. The retreating President managed to eloquently sputter that Murtha is a ''fine man and a good man."

When the gun-toting, bull dykish Jean Schmidt, or “Mean Jean” the wet-behind-the-ears, tight and taut Ohio Republican who grew up sniffing armpits in auto racing pits called Murtha -- a marine for a mere 37 years -- a “coward,” all hell broke loose. The loose-lipped amateur with the cultural sophistication of a yet-to-be-neutered pit bull, breached the last vestiges of decorum in the House, stooping to personal insult and treating the hallowed halls of congress as a NASCAR pit stop.

"To me, energetic debate on issues facing our country is more than just a sign of a healthy political system, it's also something I enjoy. It's one of the reasons I've stayed in this business," claimed the credibility deficient Veep in a speech delivered at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

AEI boasts such credible fellows as the scandal plagued, disgraced Richard “the ‘cakewalk’ to Baghdad” Perle, who was forced to resign as head of the Defense Policy Board and Lynne Cheney, the author of Sisters, the smutty girl-on-girl sex, dime store novelette, as well as a children’s book on, incredibly, patriotism. (Given her family dynamics, her knowledge of lesbianism is likely far more credible than her knowledge of patriotism.)

Actually what Dick Cheney meant to say was this:

"To me, openly debating issues on energy policies facing our country is more than just a sign of an unhealthy politicized environmental system, it's also something I enjoin. It's one of the reasons I've strayed in this business."

Black Sites and Digital Rights

2005-11-16T21:30:00.000-08:00

The fabulous thing about a culture that rewards those who shirk responsibility and accountability is that it engenders such arrogance that the self-absorbed perpetrators do a better job of digging their own graves than anyone else could ever wish to. Cases in point. Let’s begin with Sony BMG, who arrogantly decided to secretly install a rootkit -- a hacking tool widely considered to be spyware -- in the computers of their consumers (without their permission) as a component of XPC, the digital rights management technology they used, developed by a small but arrogant upstart start-up in the UK, First 4 Internet.

All it took was one smart and enterprising expert by the name of Mark Russinovich to reveal the sneak attack by Sony – and make no mistake; this was nothing short of an outright attack on its own customer base. And under the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which can carry fines and prison terms for anyone who "knowingly causes the transmission of a program ... and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage, without authorization, to a protected computer," Sony’s attack is not simply malicious, it’s criminal.

Thomas Hesse, Sony BMG's Global Digital Business President, dismissively downplayed the violation before an avalanche of negative publicity forced Sony to not simply apologize, but to withdraw the CD’s containing the XPC and offer compensation. (If not to ward of criminal and class action civil lawsuits). "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?" he said in a November 4, 2005 interview on National Public Radio's Morning Edition. Where oh where is Courtney Love when one needs her?

While Sony BMG deserves every piece of shit flung their way, it should be remembered that their CEO since August 2004, Andy Lack, a virgin in the music industry, but a well-used whore elsewhere, previously served as President and Chief Operating Officer for NBC, overseeing among other things, entertainment, news and MSNBC. This is the asshole who claims to have redefined “news” by exploiting JonBenet Ramsey more in her death than she was in her short little life.

Sony is already trying to distance itself from First 4 Internet from whom it licensed the XCP malware. The regret -- being caught fucking consumers up the digital ass without protection or consent -- is best expressed by the pomposity of First 4 Internet's CEO, Mathew Gilliat-Smith, who told CNET: “I think this is slightly old news… Obviously there are a lot of people who don't like the technology, and we will take note if we need to.” Take note, fuckface – you do need to.

As if criminal activity that might have occurred is lessened by the passage of time.

As a matter of fact, aside from making your hard drives vulnerable to gang rapes, the other technology First 4 Internet develops is called ICA (Image Composition Analysis) which they market as being the closest thing to artificial intelligence in terms of filtering “pornographic” and “inappropriate” content, by supposedly using text, image and context filters. But at the end of the day, this too, will fall short of the hype or deliver the wrong result and the wrong message. Yep, those exercising inappropriate conduct have designed technology to discern inappropriate content.

They believe, for instance, that they can differentiate between Dirty Daisy and Ann Coulter, even if Daisy is sitting demurely with her legs crossed in a men’s locker room, or Ann is sitting, typically, in a mini skirt with her legs open on the set of Hannity and Colmes. And yes, they know the difference between Michelangelo’s David and Chi Chi LaRue’s David because Michelangelo’s David is so inadequately endowed it would probably be tagged as kiddie porn.

I haven’t studied their technology with the precison of a Mark Russinovich, but let’s just say I’m skeptical. If First 4 Internet or Mathew Gilliat-Smith doesn’t like what I have to say, I’ll take note if I need to.

When Washington Post’s Dana Priest recently reported on the existence of a "covert prison system" or “black sites” set up by the CIA four years ago, her use of confidential sources sparked outrage – particularly as Washington is still reeling from the Valerie Plame CIA outing.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) fired off a strongly worded request that a bicameral investigation into the disclosure be convened immediately. Until fellow Republican, Trent Lott, suggested Republicans were most likely the source of the leak (again!). Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) followed, suggesting waiting until the Justice Department completes its own inquiry.

The “black sites” are nothing short of Stalin style gulags where the CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe. Instead of worrying about the reports of illegal detention, cruel and inhumane torture and other horrors that further damage America’s frayed credibility, Frist revealed where his real concerns lie: “I am not concerned about what goes on and I'm not going to comment about the nature of that… My concern is with leaks of information that jeopardize your safety and security – period. That is a legitimate concern."

President Bush insists America does not torture. As he threatens his first ever veto if congress refuses to exempt the CIA from "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" of detainees. And as Dick Cheney trolls the back halls of congress, browbeating and ripping the toenails off any senators that opt for humane treatment of prisoners by the CIA. The senate voted 90 – 0 to include the CIA in America’s policy regarding the detention and interrogation of prisoners, both at home and abroad.

We’re not sure if that includes the “black sites” but no matter. When Abu Ghraib II opens wide at the box office, we’ll simply trot out Karen Hughes to pretty up America’s image, along with Jerry Bruckheimer. Maybe the White House can hire Ann Coulter instead.

Or perhaps we can just take a page from the Sony playbook/station...most people don't know what a covert CIA gulag is, so why should they care about it?

Rootkits and Bootkicks

2005-11-16T02:48:00.000-08:00

Despite America’s attempts to downplay the revelation by the Washington Post that the CIA has been hiding and interrogating al Qaeda captives at a secret facility in Eastern Europe -- part of a covert global prison system that includes sites in eight countries, President Bush insists America does not torture. As he threatens his first ever veto if congress refuses to exempt the CIA from "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" of detainees.

The senate voted 90 – 0 to include the CIA in America’s policy regarding the detention and interrogation of prisoners, both at home and abroad. The secret installations, or “black sites” have not been officially acknowledged by the CIA, but Republicans are already threatening an investigation to find out who leaked the information.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says he is more concerned about the leak of information regarding secret CIA detention centers than activity in the prisons themselves. Fellow Republican Trent Lott intimated that it may be his own GOP colleagues could be to blame for the possible leak.

Secret installations, false and misleading assurances, lack of appreciation of the consequences? Perhaps the White House and Sony BMG should rethink their priorities and their PR.

Bill O'Reilly - Coition Deprivation Threatens Coit

2005-11-14T02:42:00.000-08:00

A furor has arisen in San Francisco following comments on his radio show by Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, the married man who writes children’s books on ethics when he’s not engaging phone sex with his employees. While most intelligent people don’ take this rapidly aging, perhaps prematurely senile hypocrite seriously, his comments – that Al Qaeda should go ahead and blow up San Francisco’s Coit Tower, suggests that like Pat Robertson, his speech crosses the line to inciting violence.

If Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, 'look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.

In 2001 terrorists sent anthrax to the New York Post (also a News Corporation company), but unfortunately Bill O’Reilly didn’t open the letter. Perhaps if he had, he wouldn’t be so quick to make thoughtless, callous comments that endanger Americans, incite violence and disrespect first responders. Coit tower is a tribute to none other than firefighters. (Lest anyone forget, those are the people that raced into the World Trade Center on September 11th, while TV hosts gushed from the safety of their studios).

John Hanley, San Francisco’s firefighters union president, who identified himself as both a third-generation San Franciscan and military veteran to San Francisco Chronicle’s Joe Garofoli commented:

Who is this guy, O'Reilly?...I've got guys fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm a veteran myself. What's he talking about?

O’Reilly was commenting on the passage on Measure H, the second amendment bashing measure banning handguns authored by the misguided, attention-seeking Supervisor, Chris Daly, as well as a resolution opposing military recruitment in public schools. And like his lack of understanding about second amendment issues, Daly suggested O’Reilly be fired. One day, Mr. Daly will realize that in the real world we approach a problem by addressing it head-on, not by legislating it away that threatens the constitution.

Meanwhile note to O’Reilly, paraphrasing that First Amendment loving former North Carolina Senator, Jesse Helms, who threatened President Clinton in 1994 – if you come to San Francisco, you’d better bring bodyguards.

Handguns may be banned by then, but this city that allows gays to marry and doesn’t want the military in their schools may just vote to allow for the "taking out" of cable TV show hosts that threaten our citizens and our landmarks. (Thank you, Pat Robertson, for such nuanced phraseology.) But seriously, O’Reilly, don’t even come here. We’d sooner welcome Robert Mugabe.

Maybe we should be more forgiving of this retarded jackass. This is a guy who pretends to have been in the military. (Maybe having phone sex with a servicemeber's wife, for him, qualifies) This is a guy who, while his subservient wife, Maureen McPhilmy, stays home with her betrayal, her vibrators and her cucumbers, is trying to seduce employees in sexually explicit phone sex.

His first mistake – confusing a loofah with a falafel. His second mistake – assuming a saggy-titted, gravity succumbing, osteoporosis-ridden, ego damaged asshole with a chip on his shoulder, asking a woman to stroke her pussy with a loofah is a turn on.

No wonder the guy is so fucking frustrated, and no wonder this fossil probably hasn’t got laid since the dismantling of the Berlin Wall.

Please, whatever you do Mr. O’Reilly, don’t apologize to San Francisco or to firefighters or patriotic Americans or to victims and families of terrorist attacks. We don't want it or care for it. But please, feel free to kill yourself. How about suicide-bombing yourself in Tora Bora, Afghanistan? Your first real combat, putting your money where your big, fat mouth is and actually doing something useful. We'll pay for the ticket.

Bernie McGuirk: Foul Mouth or Meth Mouth?

2005-11-11T22:32:00.000-08:00

Poor Bernard McGuirk. The executve producer of Imus in the Morning - the same twat who was supposedly hired to do "nigger" jokes, and who is emasculated by Don Imus on a daily basis is looking a little worse for wear. Maybe the constant homophobic comments are designed to cover up what looks like a suspicious weight loss, but this increasingly skinny runt is looking a little meth mouthed of late. (Meth mouth is an informal name for the tooth decay and poor oral health seen in many cases of methamphetamine abuse.)

We're not saying this homo is a meth addict -- former sports guy Sid Rosenberg held that honor -- but if he's not, maybe the dude should consider a dentist. This is why simulcasting WFAN on MSNBC is not such a good idea. Don Imus, Chris Carlin, Charles McCord and trailer-trash-toothed Bernie McGuirk have the looks better suited to radio. On TV, with the racism and homophobia, it's all just a little too ugly.

No Guns and Roses in California

2005-11-09T10:26:00.000-08:00

While California punished Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger by defeating all of his propositions last night, San Francisco punished itself by voting to ban handguns.

Aside from the flagrant violation of the Second Amendment, the proposal, Measure H, which bans possession, sale and manufacture of handguns and ammunition within city limits, is so tough that it will leave residents of San Francisco weak and defenseless against those who happen to live across the bridge or anywhere else.

The measure makes it illegal for city residents to possess handguns, and those that already do, to turn them in to police by April 1, 2006.

Hate groups and criminals that live in San Francisco are sure to stand in line to hand in their guns. There’s more chance of DHL not losing a package and actually delivering it to the right place on time.

The measure was authored by San Francisco City and County Supervisor Chris Daly, who knows as much about crime prevention and law enforcement as Michael Brown does about emergency preparedness. This dizzy, lefty, wingnutty, anti-everything liberalism can be a pain in the ass sometimes. Or worse, a bullet to a defenseless head.

Perhaps Chris Daly, (and Schwarzenegger), should be required to personally cover the court costs of this symbolic measure that will not withstand a legal challenge.

Krauthammer and Nails

2005-11-03T15:43:00.000-08:00

Amazing that America was duped into believing that the Harriet Miers nomination was ever intended as a serious proposal.

It's little wonder she didn't bother answering anything seriously. The Administration played the game so well, the nomination of Samuel A. Alito Jr. has been met with far less opposition than had he been nominated from the outset.

Of course I'm not the only one thinking along these lines. The ultra-conservative columnist, Charles Krauthammer, in a column, Saving Face, on October 21, 2005 suggested exactly such an exit strategy. My only question, is whether such a strategy wasn't Plan A from Day One, but kept under wraps to allow conservatives to throw the predictable hissy fits they did. In fact if I wasn’t such a trusting individual, I would viciously suspect that Charles Krauthammer, like Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher, was actually paid by the White House to opine in such an editorial so that no one would suspect the conservative drama wasn’t planned from the very beginning.

For a nominee who, unlike John Roberts, has practically no previous record on constitutional issues, such documentation is essential for the Senate to judge her thinking and legal acumen. But there is no way that any president would release this kind of information -- ``policy documents'' and ``legal analysis'' -- from such a close confidante. It would forever undermine the ability of any president to get unguarded advice.

Which creates a classic conflict, not of personality, not of competence, not of ideology, but of simple constitutional prerogatives: The Senate cannot confirm her unless it has this information. And the White House cannot allow release of this information lest it jeopardize executive privilege.

Hence the perfectly honorable way to solve the conundrum: Miers withdraws out of respect for both the Senate and the executive's prerogatives, the Senate expresses appreciation for this gracious acknowledgment of its needs and responsibilities, and the White House accepts her decision with the deepest regret and with gratitude for Miers' putting preservation of executive prerogative above personal ambition.

In the meantime, The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has prepared a document that reflects the nominee’s First Amendment record, and despite the many troubling aspects of this nominee, his First Amendment decisions are not as horrific as expected.

When the Going Gets Tough the Pussy Posse Goes to Camp David

2005-10-28T17:55:00.000-07:00

The 43rd President today acted like the press on the tarmac knew how small his dick is. Georgie read a 45-second very prepared speech about Libby’s label, label, label. Then he ran away from reporters yelling; “Mr. President is this an embarrassment for you?”

The almost in tears pussy-boy hurriedly boarded the good ship lollipop followed by his Nanny (Harriet Miers) who was holding what appeared to be a triple ripple remote control butt plug with the presidential seal on it.

Mr. Cheney was swamped with emergency calls to his brokers (Exxon, BP, and Chevron) so he could only issue a brief statement via one of his Zombies about the incitement, not quite the expected reaction from Caesar’s wife who is supposed to be above suspicion.

Things Fall Apart

2005-10-26T02:57:00.000-07:00

Clinton Fein slams Republicans and Democrats alike in his latest editorial on Annoy.com, Things Fall Apart. From Karl Rove and Scooter Libby to Judith Miller and Hillary Clinton, nobody emerges unscathed.

Given the downward spiral of women’s rights in the new Iraq, (and Laura’s long-forgotten commitment to women in Afghanistan), all that’s needed to complete this branding of American feminism is the introduction of a sexless, frigid, religious virgin to mandate morality whilst sipping from Diet Coke cans with Clarence Thomas.

Enter Harriet Meirs – the most unqualified sycophant ever! The woman George W. Bush has nominated to replace Sandra Day O’Conner on the Supreme Court is a shallow, forgetful, inconsistent brownnose who believes the control of women’s bodies ought to be shaped by men with delusions of piety, and in imaginary, sandal-clad martyrs watching protectively from the heavens.

Not since Mr. Bush himself was appointed to the Presidency has a nominee been so extraordinarily unqualified to hold a position. When Monica sucked President Clinton’s cock she ended up with a soiled dress and a lousy job at the Pentagon. Harriet Meirs kissed George W. Bush’s ass and was offered a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

Things Fall Apart: The Full Editorial

Intelligent Resign

2005-10-21T02:24:00.000-07:00

In a straight-faced article in the New York Times about Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld's, trip to China, Thom Shanker wrote the following incredulous eye-opener:

He said other nations had a right to question whether the Chinese government was forthright about its spending on troops and arms, and the motivation for its growing arsenal.

He questioned why China and Russia had joined diplomatic forces to try to prompt Central Asian states, especially Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, to evict United States and allied forces from bases on their soil.

For someone who referred to allies Germany and France as "Old Europe," it seems like Rummy is reminiscing for an "old war," namely a Cold War. Or is hoping to provide job security for former nemesis, Condoleezza Rice. Perhaps he would understand it better if the Chinese lied about their expenditures under oath like Rumsfeld does.

Or perhaps senility has caused him to forget the blueprint America provided for defending one's nation, namely unilateral, preemptive force.

Of course if he wanted real transparency from foreign nations, he could once again try to set up a manipulative Office of Strategic Influence, so that lies and deception can be filtered from one nation to another using the same methodology.

Isn't it time this old, rotten stinking dinosaur evolved? Clearly, in this instance, there is no such thing as intelligent design. But there should be intelligent resign. Get rid of it already.

A Pitbull in a China Chop

2005-10-18T01:24:00.000-07:00

Those of us in the United States and in other countries around the world, free countries, hope that the choices they make are choices toward a more open society, a more transparent society.

Brace yourself. That was Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, oh his first official trip to Beijing as Bush's Defense Secretary, warning that China must deal with "evident tensions between its desires for sustained economic growth and restrictions imposed by the communist government that limit openness and the free-flow of information."

This coming from the incompetent, incontinent fuck fart who proposed the Pentagon’s “Office of Strategic Influence” created shortly after September 11 to publicize the U.S. government’s “perspective” in Islamic countries and to generate support for the U.S.’s “war on terror,” by deliberately lying to and misleading journalists. (In retrospect, one has to wonder why they needed a “special office” when stooges like Scott McClellan, and whores like Maggie Gallagher, Armstrong Williams, Jeff Gannon etc. were doing the filthy work for them.) Not to mention Judith Miller!

Since the pot had decided to call the kettle black in the transparency department, it’s strange that Mr. Rumsfeld chose not to raise Chinese torture methods on his trip to China. After all, dripping water on hooded prisoners with electric wires attached to them is simply torturous!

Semen in the Seminary

2005-09-15T12:01:00.000-07:00

The goose-stepping cunt known as Pope Benedict XIV, or Papa Razi, has instructed the Church to spend resources to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Joking!

According to the New York Times:

Investigators appointed by the Vatican have been instructed to review each of the 229 Roman Catholic seminaries in the United States for "evidence of homosexuality" and for faculty members who dissent from church teaching, according to a document prepared to guide the process.

The Vatican document, given to The New York Times yesterday by a priest, surfaces as Catholics await a Vatican ruling on whether homosexuals should be barred from the priesthood.

After spending millions and millions settling child abuse cases, in some cases forcing parishes into bankruptcy, Catholics of faith must be enamoured to know that their donations are being so well spent.

Get out of your satin dress Benedict, you closeted fuck, and go help some flood victims. Playing with your lily-white dick as you fantasize about who's doing what in the seminaries isn't actually helping anyone, least of all Catholicism.

Pat Robertson: Terrorist and Murderer

2005-08-25T03:11:00.000-07:00

Is it right to call for assassination? No, and I apologize for that statement. I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the U.S. is out to kill him.

So spoke Pat Robertson, the retarded leader of the 700 Club who continues to broadcast live despite his obvious Tourette's Syndrome. After the angry global reaction to his Christian-like suggestion to assassinate Hugo Chávez, the cowardly shit-stain chose to first deny what he had said, and then finally apologize. Kind of like Jeffrey Dahmer apologizing after stabbing and eating humans, or Ted Bundy after raping and killing young women. Pat Robertson is a dangerous and sick psychopath who should be lobotomized, institutionalized, given electro-therapy, or for the sake of humanity and true Christianity, aborted retroactively. His shallow apologies come a little late. Osama Bin Laden loves America more than this sick pigfuck does.

So long as the Family Research Council, Christian Coalition, Traditional Values crowd – the James Dobson, Lou Sheldon, Beverley LaHaye, Gary Bauer, screeching hypocrite crowd -- remain “too busy” to condemn this blatant call for murder, their pro-life protestations look woefully disingenuous.

Never trust people who pretend to care about fetuses when they would advocate murder. If there’s anyone who should be “taken out,” he’s the cowardly asshole preaching to your children on television, teaching them that murder is okay.

Just Say No...It Takes Balls

2005-08-23T01:16:00.000-07:00

Lance Armstrong's weekend love fest with President George W. Bush, imaginatively dubbed, Tour de Crawford, is nauseating. Talk about squandering goodwill, following his unprecedented and inspirational seventh Tour de France victory. Said the ever witty President:
There are certain things that age brings with it, and not wearing the formfitting Lycra short is one of them, if you know what I mean.

Although Armstrong has voiced his opposition to the war (in terms of costs and allied support rather than criticizing a doctrine of preemptive occupation), his choice of friends leaves much to be desired.

Much fuss has been made over Bush’s newfound love of cycling since he injured his knee, and Armstrong’s visit offers a great PR opportunity for a President whose popularity is in a freefall.

Surely Armstrong understands that he's not just a fellow Texan -- he's a brand, and right now, a Bush association is about as good for branding purposes as Michael Jackson would be for repairing the Catholic Church's image in the wake of their global pedophile scandals. Said Armstrong:

It's a dream scenario for me. Now that President Bush doesn't run anymore, he rides his mountain bike fanatically. People wonder why he's stays at the ranch so long, it might be the mountain bike trails.

With all the bloodshed in Iraq, perhaps everyone can start adding red plastic arm bracelets to support dying, maimed and tortured Americans and Iraqis devastated by The President’s War on Terror.

George and Lance’s Excellent Adventures.

Rick's Smeared Dick

2005-07-18T22:55:00.000-07:00

It is entirely unacceptable that my staff’s personal lives are considered fair game by partisans looking for arguments to bolster my opponent's campaign. Mr. Traynham continues to have my full support and confidence as well as my prayers as he navigates this rude and mean-spirited invasion of his personal life.

Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum in response to the outing of his gay aide, Robert Traynham , his main spokesman and deputy chief of staff for the Senate Republican Conference, which Santorum chairs. This from a man whose entore political career is based on fucking with the private life of others. Guess what the most hilarious part is, Santorum? That you genuinely think that what is or isn't acceptable to you means a fucking thing for me or anyone else really. Who cares what you find acceptable. Be on notice that if there are any other fuckwads working for you, they will be exposed. Get used to it. Not all of us are convinced about who exactly is fucking you up your dirty, hypocritical ass. We sure have our suspicions though.

Terror and Taranto on the Thames

2005-07-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

It seems fair to observe that there is something of an ideological convergence between the nihilists who ran riot in Scotland this week and those who committed mass murder in London this morning.

Who else, but OpinionJournal’s James Taranto, comparing protestors with poignant and legitimate grievances exercising dissent – a cornerstone of democracy – with the gruesome bombing of civilians in London.

Yes, some protestors resorted to violence, erasing the message and actions of many who did not. Taranto’s pathetic, high pitched vitriol seems more like fanatical Muslim extremism than anything the protestors in Scotland might have said or done.

Stupidity, hatred and ignorance, whether spouting it on Al Jazeera or on the web site of The Wall Street Journal, are dangerous and deadly. It seems fair to suggest the victims in London send thank-you cards to James Taranto.

The Don Imus Tucker Carlson Catfight

2005-06-14T01:47:00.000-07:00

The only thing more pathetic than Tucker Carlson's new show on MSNBC, perhaps is Don Imus' old one. In a bitchy catfight on the Imus show yesterday, the bow-tied chump angered the dried up coke whore by taking the side of Contessa Brewer, who Imus called an idiot/slut/moron because she called him an old fool and mocked his ranch for a very special few kids for a few days a year with cancer. Bragging about his altruism, Imus recalled sending one of his assistants to buy one of the kids extra socks and underwear from Wal-Mart, because the kid's parents couldn't afford it, or didn't know better than to send the kid with just one of each item. How fucking generous. Jesus motherfuckking Christ, the only shocking thing is that Imus didn't make the kid work an extra hour to make up for the haute couture.

Following a typically bitchy tirade, Imus told his chubby son, Wyatt, “You’re not a sissy in a bow tie, you’re a cowboy.” While dried up cocaine addicted alcoholics are not the first image one conjures when imagining cowboys, Don Imus -- in his cowboy hat and Wranglers -- is as deluded as Michael Jackson thinking he’s Peter Pan. The only upsetting thing is that if Carlson’s show fails, or rather when it fails, Imus will be stupid enough and arrogant enough to take the credit.

In the endless MSNBC promos, Carlson says, “You have to be dead to be a legend.” Feel free to do what you have to, you self-absorbed fuck. We’ll be happy to provide the blades.

Beef Jerk

2005-05-25T09:45:00.000-07:00

Makes me want to eat meat!

The rupulsive geritatric, radio shock jock, Don Imus, upon seeing the new Paris Hilton commercial for Carl's Junior. The thought of this wrinkled, has-been wheezing and gasping for oxygen as he eats the odiferous Deirdre Imus is enough to turn any red-blooded American into a lifelong vegetarian. Like an untalented and ugly version of Mick Jagger, someone should let this pathetic, delusional cowboy wannabe know that it's time for him to hang up the mike and head for the retirement home.

Pretty Tits and Alcholic Twits

2005-05-19T01:33:00.000-07:00

She won't look so pretty when she's bald with one titty.

Sid Rosenberg, the retarded alcoholic on the Don Imus show, responding to the news that entertainer Kylie Minogue, has breast cancer. Now granted, Kylie's music is enough to inspire suicide bombers who would sooner blow themselves up than have to suffer through it, but for Rosenberg to mock a cancer victim on a show that abuses women and minorities to raise tax-exempt revenues for a kiddie cancer ranch (aka an Architectural Digest retreat for Don, Deirdre and Wyatt Imus) is pushing the envelope from the gutter into the sewer. With Rick Kaplan heading MSNBC, one has to wonder how any respecting politician will appear on this show, as Clinton Fein did in his Imus and the Flies editorial. And Bill Gates wonders why education in this country sucks. It's partly because of what kids listen to on your partly owned news station on the way to school. Sid Rosenberg should be hog tied and dragged through Manhattan, but cleaning up the dregs would be a waste of soap and water.

Maybe Sid won't be so crass with Zyklon B up his ass.

Taranto's Treponema

2005-05-18T19:23:00.000-07:00

The press's power--its ability to influence events--is inherent in the practice of journalism; were it not, dictators would have no need to restrict press freedom. But the press's power, especially in a free society, rests on its credibility--that is, on the reader's trust that the press is telling the truth. When the press falls short of that trust, as Newsweek has done here, it diminishes its own power.

Oh the fucking irony. OpinionJournal’s James Taranto, possibly the reason Daniel Pearl had his neck severed, asserting Scott McClellan’s constitutional right to express himself by using the podium of the Presidency to pressure Newsweek into behaving the way the Whitehouse would like the publication to in the wake of their unconfirmed story about the Quran being shoved in the toilet at Guantanamo Bay. Taranto would know though. He is the festering gonorrhea on the cock of journalism. Perhaps he is simply saddened that such a silly report by Newsweek could sully America’s immaculate Abu Ghraib reputation.

Move Over McCarthy

2005-04-28T11:52:00.000-07:00

un-American

The term used by Secretary of Education, Ms. Margaret Spellings, to discredit her adversaries who are challenging the failures of the President's No Child Left Behind policy. This arrogant bitch, who pilloried PBS for showing a lesbian couple making maple syrup but can't even keep a marriage together, should be fucking forced to go back to school to learn some common sense and decency. Rather than bragging about her "Princess of Darkness" cape to the New York Times, she should be forced to fuck the Prince of Darkenss, Richard Perle, since ignorance, violence and stupidity seem to be the cornerstones of her sex education policies. Do us all a favor and go bury your head in a Texas oilfield, where you belong.

Bernie Wants Some Ass

2005-04-18T13:58:00.000-07:00

Diving for hairy ass

Benie McGuirk, the resident homo homophobe on Imus in the Morning this morning discussing his favorite topic -- man butt, men's assholes -- sending the the supposedly sober crack whore, Sid Rosenberg, into fits of girlish hysterical giggling. These poor assholes wouldn't even get laid in any respectable gay establishment, but their schtick does keep Don Imus amused. The big questions is what do these men's wives do to get it on?

James Taranto to Head to Iraq?

2005-04-12T12:45:00.000-07:00

What can we say but "Semper fi"?

The royal we being James Taranto of Wall Street Journal's polemic OpinionJournal commenting on a letter apparently written by Marc Fencil, a senior at Ohio University who is also a Marine currently stationed in Iraq and published in The Post, the student newspaper. Fencil, sarcastically criticizing students who had staged a "die-in" to protest the “liberation” of Iraq, invites them to shower, shave and head on over for a real “die-in.”

While Fencil does make some great points, humorous too – and while it is easy to take aim at annoying, pampered university students who have never seen a day of combat resort to staging “die-ins” while real people are being blown to bits -- he goes beyond that, unfortunately weakening his argument and revealing his own lack of understanding about what he’s doing there.

There is a man here, we just call him al-Zarqawi, but we think he'd be delighted to sit down and give you some advice on how you can further disrespect the victims of Sept. 11 and the 1,600 of America's bravest who have laid down their lives for a safer world.

Actually, protesting the war in Iraq has as much to do with disrespecting victims of September 11th than America’s stated desire to rid the world of evil dictators has to do wit the “re-election” of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. The widely publicized report by the 911 Commission found no tie to Saddam Hussein and September 11th, despite the foul-mouthed Dick Cheney’s protestations to the contrary. Marc Fencil may have good reasons for choosing to become a Marine, and his motives may well be admirable, but his sacrifice is of his own choosing. Fencil fails to appreciate that the “die-ins” might also be designed to draw attention to the perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians who are maimed, dead or orphaned, for whom the opening of a school means precious little. To characterize those sentiments as somehow disrespectful to the victims of September 11th is not only a stretch, it’s simply delusional.

And while students staging protests against a war must appear as a joke to servicemembers fighting, it shouldn’t be forgotten that thousands of American students peacefully protesting for the release of Nelson Mandela, while not quite the same as laboring in lime quarries on Robben Island for twenty five years, eventually did have a collective impact on world opinion and Mandela’s eventual release.

Fencil also writes that if Michael Moore “can shave and lose enough weight to fit into a pair of camouflage utilities, then he can come too!” If a pampered, overweight “journalist” like James Taranto could fit into a pair of camouflage utilities perhaps he too should head on over. Unlikely though. This clown prefers to inflame Muslim extremism so that Wall Street Journal writers end up being treated like Daniel Pearl rather than Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena.

Without minimizing the sacrifices made by Marc Fencil or his choice to fight for his country, it’s disheartening to think that he’s been successfully duped into thinking September 11th has anything to do with Iraq.

Little Eichmann Jurists

2005-04-07T17:14:00.000-07:00

I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen
some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in - engage in violence.

Senator John Conryn, in a sickening justification for the violence perpetrated against judges by cold-blooded murderers. The same justification Tim McVeigh used for the violence against those in the Alfred Murrah federal building. Or Ward Churchill referring to the victims of September 11 attacks as "little Eichmanns". Well all you killers and murdereers out there, you now have a congressionally-sanctioned excuse. Show those Nazi, activist judges what you're made of. Why, with rhetoric like this from an eleted official, who needs to eliminate the right to fillibuster after all? Bill Frist should be really relieved. This is what a "culture of life" looks like folks. Pretty, isn't it?

Uh Oh. Try Not to Breathe Falwell

2005-03-30T14:44:00.000-08:00

Doctors upgraded the Rev. Jerry Falwell's condition from critical to stable on Wednesday and removed the Moral Majority founder from a ventilator.

Falwell, 71, has fluid in his lungs and doctors say he suffers from congestive heart failure, although a cardiologist, Dr. Carl Moore, said testing showed "his heart is strong" and he had not suffered a heart attack.

Ron Godwin, Falwell's executive assistant, had said Tuesday that Falwell had suffered a recurrence of the viral pneumonia he had suffered from weeks earlier. But doctors said Wednesday he did not have pneumonia.

Falwell, who was admitted late Monday, heard from President Bush, who wished him well, a spokesman for Lynchburg General Hospital said at a news briefing. Details of the phone call were not released.

Uh oh. Of course Mr. Bush phoned him. This is the same dimwitted, hypocritical twat who accused Tinky Winky of being gay (what was he doing watching that show anyway?), and who blamed September 11th on queers, women and liberals. We hope you recover, you sick fuck, but only so that you might relapse again so that you suffer for a while longer before you go. May you rot in hell.

Crooking for Kids and Cowboys?

2005-03-28T17:08:00.000-08:00

I've got a penthouse apartment in New York and a $30 million mansion in Westport. Why would I go someplace that I can't breathe?

Don Imus, the decrepit radio shock-jock, following a Wall Street Journal article by Robert Frank about an investigation by Eliot Spitzer into the Imus Ranch -- a lavish ranch where kids with cancer are offered an opportunity to be vegan "cowboys" (at a cost of almost $3000 a night). Uh...why did you build it in a place you can't breathe? (He semmed to have little difficulty spewing hot air from said location). For more detail on the Don and Deirdre Imus ranch scandal, read Imus and the Flies on Annoy.com.

Pain in the Butt(iglione)

2005-03-23T14:18:00.000-08:00

The United States' unanimous defense of life is impressive; it's a stop to euthanasia from one of the most advanced, modern and wealthy countries. That should make us think.

Italy's European Affairs minister, Rocco Buttiglione, applauding U.S. leaders' actions in intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo. From one of the few countries who went into Iraq with a "bomb now, check the facts later" policy, it is nothing if not amusing. What would Mussolini have thought?

Ahem

2005-03-23T13:34:00.000-08:00

The legal issues, I grant everyone, are complicated, but the moral ones are not. What will it hurt to have a federal judge take a fresh look at all this evidence and apply it against 15 years’ worth of advances in medical technology? We have a bill – the Palm Sunday compromise – that will give her that chance. It is bipartisan and bicameral and has overwhelming support in both houses. It will eventually pass. We just hope the objectors let us vote on it before it’s too late.

This coming from Tom Delay, of all people, following an unusual attempt by Congress to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo, who suffered brain damage in 1990 when her heart stopped briefly from a chemical imbalance believed to have been brought on by an eating disorder. Court-appointed doctors say she is in a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery, and her husband Michael has fought to remove the tube, allowing her to die and not live in this condition, as she purportedly expressed to him. Take your Palm Sunday compromise and shove it up your corrupt ass, you hypocritical pig. Funny how none of these so-called Terri supporters are willing to give up eating and rely on a feeding tube for the rest of their lives.

The Ferocious Fuckfest of Senator Ted Stevens

2005-03-16T11:18:00.000-08:00

"As a matter of fact, I’ve only been married for 25 years and I’m going on my honeymoon a week from today. Coming back from that honeymoon we’ll stop in at the cable convention and talk to them," said Ted Stevens, Chairman of the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation on March 11th in response to a question as to whether he was still considering expanding the Broadcast Decency bill to include cable.

If only I had been told first, damn it! I could have prevented sordid, lascivious remarks from cluttering my mind and email box.

Given the current laws and current cultural and political climate, the vulgar remarks Senator Stevens makes above clearly violate the most basic standards of decency. In light of the fact that Senator Stevens refers to his marriage of twenty five years, one can only assume that he is heterosexual, since only Massachusetts permits gay marriage, and only since recently. Heterosexuality, by definition, relates to, or is characterized by a tendency to direct sexual desire toward individuals of the opposite sex. Usually this lewd tendency is actualized by inserting an erect penis into a moist vagina. Honeymoons, typically, (and especially in an age of abstinence before marriage), are suggestive of the consummation of the marriage in which sex, which could also include anal and oral sex as well as foreplay where sticking all sorts of appendages into all sorts of orifices, is high if not top of the agenda.

Despite my best intentions and desire for pure thoughts at all times, all I can think about when I read the response is a lily-white, wrinkled, bare-assed Ted Steven greedily popping Viagra and Vioxx cocktails, slapping on some good old-fashioned KY jelly and pounding the missus (or Mrs. Ted, as he refers to her on his web site - her actual name is Catherine Ann Chandler) in a tawdry hotel room to the muffled sound of some cheap, soft-core porn channel.

Did Chairman Stevens honestly feel it was relevant or appropriate to inform an unsuspecting public, via a prurient government-issue press-release, that he'll tackle cable decency only after he's fucked his wife?

Drunk Nick at Night..er..Very Early Evening

2005-03-09T01:17:00.000-08:00

"Nick Carter deeply regrets the current situation. He is on doctor prescribed medication and was unaware of its interaction possibilities."

Carter publicist Juliette Harris in a statement Monday following the drunk driving arrest of the 25 year old member of quintessential boy band, Backstreet Boys. I mean give me a fucking break. Someone should make Carter and this amateur hour bitch, Juliette Harris, tour a cemetery or two and visit a family or two who have lost loved ones to drunk assholes on the road. Had the guy said, "You know what, I fucked up and I'm really sorry," it would have been slightly better than this lame-assed, take-no-responsibility-it-was-the-Vicodin kind of crap excuse. If this is what one pays a publicist for, consider giving the money Mothers Against drunk Driving (MADD) instead.

Taking Heat

2005-03-05T01:54:00.000-08:00

When Jeff Gannon tossed President Bush a softball question that made even NBC’s Tim Russert look hard-hitting, he essentially outed himself as a fake news reporter writing for Talon News, a publication that primarily added frills to press releases (as if no others publications do that), the world learnt who James Guckert really was. A hysterical clamor of left wing bloggers revealed Mr. Gannon was also a low priced call-boy, offering his shaved balls for a mere $250 an hour or “weekend specials.” No doubt Talon News paid less. Not only had Gannon been lobbing softies to the Prez and Scott McClellan under his assumed name, but to Ari Fleischer before him. Who was getting soft and who was getting hard from all of this remains an open-ended question, and even though Gannon’s moonlighting has barely any relevance to his job as a journalist, to position himself a top on sites like www.hotmilitarystud.com, whilst posing with his ass cheeks spread wide apart is simply inexcusable. Ari Fleischer’s book “Taking Heat” simply corroborates that there’s always only been one top at the White House, and her name is Karen Hughes.

Zucker the Mucker Fucker

2005-03-03T02:27:00.000-08:00

I think there's a lot of incredibly important lessons to be learned in that report. . . . We learned lessons at NBC more than a decade ago when we had an issue with 'Dateline.' And we instituted an enormous number of safeguards that would never have allowed something like this to happen...Nothing like that could have gotten through at any level because of the safeguards that we instituted more than a decade ago.

NBC Universal president, Jeff Zucker, during the Television Critics Association press talk in January, brazenly trashing CBS for the Dan Rather scandal related to President Bush's mysterious National Guard service. A holier-than-fuck attitude is not such a good idea though, when words can come back to haunt. Consider this Brian Williams exclusive on March 1, 2005.

There is word from Baghdad this evening -- confirmed by NBC News -- that the presiding judge in the trial of Saddam Hussein has been assassinated.

Except that he hadn't been. Turns out it was another judge. As Jon Stewart of the Daily Show pointed out, images of the judge who was not assasinated, had been deliberately blurred by all television news broadcasts to protect his identity. However, NBC, thinking he was dead, didn't bother to blur his image. Out damn spot!!!On March 2, 2005, Williams had to back-pedal:

Last night here on this broadcast we had news of a judge's murder.Â At that time U.S. sources believed the victim was the presiding judge in the Saddam case. We later learned and reported it was, in fact, a member of the Saddam tribunal

Brian Stelter of TVNewser has all the gory details, which include Zucker references to a copycat acts by Fox. Referring to Fox's copycat tactics at the Television Critics Association, at least Zucker got one thing right. And Scott Pierce of Deseret Morning News predicted this would happen as early as February 10th in his NBC exec should never say 'never' about scandal ! An obvious prediction, yes, but no one else did it.

Pussies and Faggots at MSNBC

2005-03-02T04:31:00.001-08:00

I know that these Susan Sarandon types at the ACLU are going to complain like the pussies and faggots they are.

Rob Bartlett, a fat wiseass "comedian," on MSNBC’s Imus in the Morning this morning, pretending to be Attorney General Gonzales. While there’s room for political incorrectness and humor, to call people pussies and faggots at 7.30 am on a supposed “news” channel is ridiculous. Does Don Imus refer to his wife Deirdre as a pussy to his son Wyatt? Is Carol McGuirk, executive producer Bernard McGuirk’s wife a pussy or a mother to her children? Is Suzanne Wright, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, NBC Universal, Bob Wright’s wife a pussy? Is Caryn Zucker, married to Jeff Zucker, President of NBC Universal Television Group a mother or a pussy to her three children or is Susan Falco, wife of Randy Falco, President of NBC Universal Television Networks Group a pussy or mother to their three children?

Bill Gates recently decried the current state of education in America. How about focusing on the state of journalism? Or do these executives think it’s appropriate for kids who watch the news with their parents in the morning to hear "news personalities" refer to women and men fighting for civil liberties as pussies and faggots?

Born or Inbred

2005-02-28T01:51:00.000-08:00

John Derbyshire knows sex. A self-appointed “Carrie Bradshaw,” this superstud not only gets us thinking as to whether homosexuality is a genetic chance or a behavioral choice, but sweetly opines as to how homosexuals should behave in light of his current understanding. Is there a difference whether I write that John Derbyshire is a verbose, self-deluded prepuce, or whether I preface it with “he appears to be”?

I’m not entirely used to the notion of blogging yet. While I’ve been editing and publishing Annoy.com for over eight years – providing commentary and a mechanism to respond – it still seems to me that blogs, for the most part, are self-referential, self-obsessed meanderings of people who seem to think that their every thought or uttering (like “my pee was slightly darker than usual, but maybe it’s because it was slightly darker than usual when I woke up”) is of enormous significance.

Until I chanced upon an article written by a jerk – sorry columnist – by the name of John Derbyshire. Now anyone who writes for National Review should generally be ignored anyway. This is, after all, the publication that hired Jonah Goldberg simply because his mother, Lucianne, convinced Linda Tripp that taping private conversations was nobler than sucking dick for $200 and hour. However, the unfortunate looking Mr. Derbyshire wrote a diatribe that was so snide and holier–than-thou, that I decided to dissect his piece, smegma stinky as it was – point for point. Particularly after he delighted how the “magic of the Internet” freed him from the constraints of brevity in the application of his ill-will and confusion.

And to whet my appetite of what blogging enables, I decided to let rip. No niceties, neatly editorialized, but with all the ad-hom this arrogant twerp warrants. And the only reason his sorry looks are relevant to the topic at hand, is because when you’re talking about sex and sexuality, a frame of reference is usually helpful. Mister Hand, doesn't count. Further, he cloaks his middle class moralistic mendacity in “science” and pontification, when sometimes a hard-on is just a hard-on.

Why, one may ask, would I even waste my time on some loser that no one probably reads anyway, giving him and his retarded opinions more weight than he or they really deserve? He even seems to think that “everyone” hates him, like we all have nothing better to do, (just me), than dissect his crap. So yes, Mr. Derbyshire, go ahead and allow my trashing of your article to feed your ego. Looks like you need it. And perhaps it’s just because my pee was darker than normal this morning, although it could have been because it was darker than usual when I woke up.

Mr. Derbyshire's piece of shit, Metaphysics, Science, and Homosexuality, which was a response to his National Review article, in its entirety, can be read here. My responses are directed to him and at him. Maybe if there really is a God, she'll ensure he responds.

So jackass, first, assuming the religious basis for most of your points mattered an iota to someone who is not religious in a country that has a First Amendment to the Constitution that doesn't require any more respect of who you pray to in the privacy of your living room than who blows me in the privacy of mine, you offer nothing new or constructive. Sugar-coating shit simply sugar coats it.

In the first place, the main point I was making was not about homosexuality, but about current attitudes, and the metaphysics that underlies them. Whether homosexuals are indeed "born that way" is one question; whether it is "taken for granted" in modern society that they are is a separate and independent question. Either could be true without the other's being true.

Who cares? Whether it's innate or because holy Father Fuckface made young Charlie blow him too often in the confessional when he was a kid, it's still a perfectly legitimate social choice. You don't like it, don't do it. That you would offer Satan as a "respectable" let alone possible "scientifc" theory is almost enough to stop right there, but let's go through your list.

(1) Satan. Homosexuality may be a manifestation of Satan's work. While the least scientific of current theories, this one is probably the most widely believed, taking the world at large. Most devout Muslims, for example, believe it, and so do many Christians.

When people commit crimes because they "heard voices" they're either punished or institutionalized. Some of us don't base our behavior or actions on imaginary devils, fairies or mind conjuring. If homosexuality is Satan's work, feel free to thank me for a job well done.

(2) Social Construction. There is no such thing as homosexuality. There are only heterosexual and homosexual acts, which different cultures regard differently. The notion of "homosexuality" as a personality attribute is a 19th-century invention.

Not a bad point. Pity perfectly capable, spectacularly trained, intelligent men and women with a patriotic duty to serve the country they love can be discharged from the military for simply stating they are gay. Thus, even in the absence of "acts" where speech equals conduct, homosexuality as a personal attribute is very much a reality.

(3) Brain damage. Some insult to the tissues of the brain, perhaps at birth or in infancy, causes homosexuality.

Stupid premise. Perhaps you're confusing it with homophobia. An "insult" on one's intellignece however, could be inflicted by offering them this a "reasonably scientific" theory to explain homosexuality.

(4) Choice. People choose to prefer their own sex over the other.

Damn right. Some people prefer to listen to imaginary men wearing sandals in the sky when determining the gender they choose to fuck.

(5) Family influences in childhood. The Freudian belief is that having a weak father and/or dominant mother can form the child's personality in the direction of homosexuality.

The much debunked Freud is hardy a yardstick by which to measure anything tangible. Very 1976. Especially from someone suggesting homosexuality might simply be a 19th century invention. It doesn't take into account those of us with perfectly healthy, strong relationships with our fathers who were very present in our formative years, or mothers who were loving and supportive without being over-bearing.

(6) Social stress. Rats kept in overpopulated environments, even when sufficient food and access to females are available, will become aggressively homosexual after the stress in the environment rises above a certain level.

Hilarious. Perhaps you can kill them with kindness then. Just think, no homophobic torturing of kids, allow gays and lesbians to happily serve their country, marry who they like, and before you know it, the stress-free social environment will turn them all straight. Perhaps you should test it out.

(7) Imprinting. The individual's early sexual history can "imprint" certain tendencies on animals and humans. Many homosexuals report having been same-sexually molested in childhood or youth.

Indeed. And many of those imprints are made by priests and other religious adults in positions of authority. But then again, so what? How does that explain gay people who weren't molested, or straight people who were?

(8) Socialization theories. The high levels of homosexual bonding in some ancient and primitive societies suggests that the common mores of a culture have some power to socialize large numbers of people into homosexuality.

Nope. All the "high levels of homosexual bonding in some ancient and primitive societies" suggests is that it is highly unlikely to stop any time soon, no matter how many they try to electro-convert. And in some cases, there but for the grace of them, go you.

(9) Genetics, direct. Homosexuality is the expression of some gene, or some combination of genes.

Gee, I see how you would rate this along with Satan on your scale of "scientific respectability," but assuming it's a genetic issue, in your world view, your God either intended it that way or he fucked up. Choose.

(10) Womb environment - too much of a good thing. The presence of certain hormone imbalances during critical periods of gestation can have the effect of hyper-masculinizing the brain of a male infant. Paradoxically - there are plausible biological arguments - this might lead to the infant becoming homosexual.

And you believe that this "hyper-masculinizing" of the brain is a good thing? What is your paradox? You can't decide whether Richard Simmons or Mark Bingham hung out too long in the womb. Maybe Mr. Bingham would have got up and danced to oldies on Flight 93 and Simmons would have rugby tackled overweight housewives in sweats? Or would have Simmons slapped the hijackers? Plausible indeed. What's your excuse?

(11) Infection. Homosexuality may be caused by an infectious agent - a germ or a virus. This is the Cochran/Ewald theory, which made a cover story for the February 1999 Atlantic Monthly.

Don't sneeze on the baby or he'll be predisposed to suck cock? Sorry my daughter loves pussy, but she caught it by biting her nails. OJ made darker on the cover of Time, Kerry chooses Gephardt on the cover of the New York Post. As it so happens, the Atlantic Monthly said of me and my site in 1997: "The site is worthy of exploration for its irreverent use of interactivity, and there are also other kinds of provocative material here -- in particular, cogent essays on media and social issues that are as edgy as anything on the Internet." Do you believe them?.

(12) Genetics, indirect. Homosexuality may be an undesirable (from the evolutionary point of view) side effect of some genetic defense against a disease - analogous to the sickle-cell anemia mutation, a by-product of genetic defenses against malaria, negative to the organism but nothing like as negative, net-net, as susceptibility to malaria.

No more than it may be an undesirable (from the evolutionary point of view) side effect of some genetic defense against over-production of ignorant, narrow minded blow-hards who make sex sound as pleasant as fucking razor blades. Ignorance causes disease. Not sexuality. I beleive it was Margaret Cho who said "anyone who thinks homosexuality is a disease, has it."

(13) Womb environment - too much of the wrong thing. Here the effect of the rogue hormones is to feminize the brain of a male infant. (I assume that there are theories corresponding to 10 and 13 for female infants, though I have never seen them documented.)

Again, your notion of right or wrong makes so little sense, you need not have bothered differentiating 10 from 13.

The confusion between "genetic" and "inborn" is epidemic among the general public, however, to the despair of science writers. To readers suffering from that confusion - an actual majority of those who wrote to me suffer from it - I recommend the purchase of a good dictionary.

A dictionary? You're presenting homosexuality being the work of Satan as a reasonable scientific theory and telling others to purchase a good dictionary. You should purchase a big fucking dildo.

From what I have seen of the scientific literature, I should say that numbers 12 and 13 currently hold the strongest positions, with much, though I think declining, interest and research in 9 and 10, modest but growing interest in 11, and some lingering residual attachment to 6, 7, and 8. The other theories are not taken seriously by anyone doing genuine science, so far as I know. If anyone has information to the contrary, I should be interested to look at it - though I should only be interested in research written up in a respectable peer-reviewed journal of the human sciences.

You'll only deign to read "respectable peer-reviewed journals of the human sciences"? Read this, bitch. Last time I checked, St James' peers had some issues with some of his interpretations, but maybe that was just the evil work of the wicked witch, or could it have been Santa Clause?

I'm fascinated at what biological or psychological phenomenon might induce you to think that anyone gives a flying fuck about which of these theories is your favorite, any more than they care about whether your breath stinks, whether you scratch dicks with your teeth when you give blowjobs or what you think about when you masturbate.

(Lab studies - measuring sexual arousal caused by various kinds of images, for instance - confirm that the great majority of people everywhere are, in their inner lives, heterosexual, however they may express themselves under the constraints of their immediate environment.

I assume you can present or link to these lab studies, or at a minimum inform which labs and what experiments were conducted, by whom etc. Interestingly, my inner-heterosexual, ironically, is signaling that you should keep your inner-homo as far away from me as possible.

The "choice" theory, which most of my correspondents seem to cleave to, has as its main supporting evidence the fact that some people have been "converted" from a homosexual lifestyle to a heterosexual one, usually by counseling, often by religious conversion. I don't myself find this very impressive. The numbers involved are small, and these conversions seem to fall into the category of fringe phenomena you are bound to get when investigating something as complex and variable as the human personality.

Oh you clever, generous little twerp. Pray tell me what a homosexual "lifestyle" looks like. Homos only listen to Madonna while driving their pink SUV's to pick up their kids from soccer practice? What is a heterosexual "lifestyle'"? Lorena Bobbitt, Paris Hilton or Ann Coulter? Bill O'Reilly or Charles Manson? Do you think every gay person is predisposed to undulate on gay pride floats in gold thongs hysterically waving rainbow flags? Hopefully you're not referring to your own, tedious little white-picket fence, nuclear-family structure as a 'lifestlye" That represents neither life nor style. That's about as quaint as a fucking Geneva Convention. Usually it's those with weak personalities or who aren't successful at getting laid, or who are petrified of the stereotypical "distant or absent father" that claim to be suddenly "converted". Have you ever met any of those people? It's not pretty. At the end of the day, who cares? If someone chooses to be gay, con-fucking-gratulations. Unless you plan on participating in this choice, what's it to you?

You don't seem to be a "hate figure" to me. I don't give a rat's ass whether you're a homosexualist or homosexual, buddhist or like fucking chicks with dicks in Nazi uniforms. For my unsolicited two-cents worth, you appear more like a pompous asshole who writes for a publication where the likes of effete girlie-men like William F. Buckley make me wonder how you can even discern the nuances of masculinity in half the theories you advocate above, and Jonah Goldberg, which makes me wonder how you can discern what "respectable" is, let alone writing.

Because I am a strong First Amendment advocate, I believe you have the right to your fantasies and religion, as well as to the cowardly expression and insidious cloaking of your fear and insecurity. Your trite "it seems to me arrogant and unkind to tell people that they are 'called to chastity' if they do not hear the call themselves," for instance, is about as authentic as your "appropriate modesty," while you wallow in your distorted sense of self-importance.

I think, (and I know you care because it said so in the Psychology 101 handbook), that pseudo-moral hypocrisy is a far more social negative than homosexuality. Heterosexuality, even if you deem it "the bedrock institution of all societies," is absolutely merely one of a number of possible, and equally moral, "lifestyles." It's not that difficult to mimic either, so trying to lay claim to procreation as a justification for the exclusivity of marriage as a heterosexual institutionstituiotm is not yours to claim. If marriage is just about procreation, annul the marriage of Bob and Elizabeth Dole, and rethink Viagra as an insurance benefit.

If, as you assert, "male homosexuality is the source of public-health problems, (and was so even before the rise of AIDS)" why are so many women and men, straight or gay, who are engaged in breast cancer and other disease treatment and prevention causes, emulating the strategies initially formulated by gays and lesbians during the American white male AIDS crisis? Blame and ignorance are a far greater health hazard, and my hands don't appear to have any blood on them. How about yours?

I would even go so far as to day that if the fatal damage you refer to results in fewer arrogant twats spouting their vitriolic, holier-than-thou "moral" emptiness, the better off society will be. If your bedrock, centuries old institution can't hack it because two guys or two girls decide to make a commitment to one another, then let it fucking crumble. It's already a failure, and you can't even blame gays yet. It was on its way out long before Britney Spears trailer-trashed it.

If homosexuality inconveniences you, dig your beady eyes out and blow your eardrums, or shoot yourself in the head if you don't have the capacity to mange otherwise. Or get some fucking therapy. However, exercise a bit of restraint, discretion, reticence and a decent respect for those of us who don't give a shit about your fumbling, incapable and error-prone God and your glib, worthless judgments.

If marriage is the bedrock you so proudly claim represents a celebration of heterosexual pairing, reconsider asking why gay people might feel pride in something they can't help. While, of course, you vomit your bargain-basement bravura, moral hypocrisies and pseudo science to high-school children. Assholes like you make gay people who don't actually give a shit about mimicking your dismal, woefully inadequate institutions want to get married just to fuck it up that much quicker for you. You want a gay agenda asswipe, there you have it.

I don't know what century you're trapped in, but your superiority complex is ridiculous as your essay. All this highfalutin crap when after all is said and done, you think you' re a better parent, citizen, educator and morally superior human based purely on the tightness, moistness and location of the orifice you stick your tired shriveled dick into. Get the fuck over yourself.

[John Derbyshire can be contacted at olimu@optonline.net]

Profiling Prejudice

2005-02-24T22:57:00.000-08:00

After receiving this annoying email from countless people I know a few weeks back, and then twice again today, I though I'd counter it to demonstrate the idiocy. (FWIW, I am an American white male between the ages of 17 and 40).

Do you remember?

1. On September 15, 1963, 11-year-old Denise McNair and three 14-year-olds: Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins were killed when a dynamite bomb exploded at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama planted and detonated by:

a. Olga Corbett
b. Sitting Bull
c. Arnold Schwarzenegger
d. American white males between the ages of 17 and 40

2. In the May 4, 1970 shooting at Kent State that stunned America and galvanized the anti-war movement , four American students were shot and killed by members of the National Guard comprised of:

a. Superman
b. Jay Leno
c. Harry Potter
d. American white male between the ages of 17 and 40

3. Serial killer Ted Bundy, who between 1974 and 1978 raped and killed young women in Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, and Florida confessing to 28 murders happened to be a:

a. Lost Norwegian
b. Elvis
c. An 80-year-old women
d. American white male between the ages of 17 and 40

4. On March 3, 1991, black motorist, Rodney King, who, while videotaped by a bystander, was struck repeatedly by Los Angeles police officers (LAPD) during a police stop, triggered the Los Angeles riots. The LAPD officers were primarily:

a. John Dillinger
b. The King of Sweden
c. The Boy Scouts
d. American white males between the ages of 17 and 40

5. Andrew McDonald, pseudonymous author of the "Turner Diaries" (the hate literature in the form of a diary about Earl Turner, a "righteous, upstanding Caucasian" who joins an underground resistance movement after the "Jew-Negro" conspiracy completed its overthrow of the United States government) was actually written Dr. William Pierce, founder of the white supremacist organization known as the National Alliance, who happened to be:

a. A pizza delivery boy
b. Pee Wee Herman
c. Geraldo Rivera
d. American white male between the ages of 17 and 40

6. The biggest act of mass murder in U.S. history, prior to the September 11th attacks, was the Oklahoma bombing by Timothy McVeigh whose homemade truck bomb killed 168 people, almost all civilians, including 19 children and infants. The person responsible for this brutal attack was:

a. The Smurfs
b. Davy Jones
c. The Little Mermaid
d. American white male between the ages of 17 and 40

7. It took the FBI 17 years to track down Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, who, terrorized Americans with mail bombs, killing three and injuring 29. Born May 22, 1942, the Unabomber sent the first mail bomb in late May 1978 to Professor Buckley Crist at Northwestern University. At the time his killing spree began, Ted Kaczynski was:

a. Captain Kidd
b. Charles Lindberg
c. Mother Teresa
d. American white male between the ages of 17 and 40

8. Eric Robert Rudolph, the man responsible for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing during the Olympics in Atlanta, in which one woman was killed and over a hundred injured; the 1997 bombing of a women's clinic in Sandy Springs, and a gay nightclub in Midtown; and the deadly 1998 bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama abortion clinic, in which one police officer was killed, and a nurse severely injured was:

a. Scooby Doo
b. The Tooth Fairy
c. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid
d. American white male between the ages of 17 and 40

9. In 1992, U.S. federal government conducted a military siege of a rural Idaho family at Ruby Ridge, ultimately killing Randy Weaver's dog, son and wife. The four hundred armed federal agents included:

a. Richard Simmons
b. Grandma Moses
c. Michael Jordan
d. American white male between the ages of 17 and 40

9. On April 20, 1999, 13 student were gunned down by Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris in cold blood at Columbine High School in Colorado who just happened to be:

a. Mr. Rogers
b. Martha Stewart, to distract attention from George W's credibility problems
c. The World Wrestling Federation
d. American white males between the ages of 17 and 40

10. Johnnie Walker, --the mujahid of Marin County-- who was able to join -- and did -- the Taliban and become a confidant of the Al Qaeda network was also:

a. Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd
b. The Supreme Court of Florida
c. Mr. Bean
d. American white male between the ages of 17 and 40

11. In 2004 professional footballer turned Ranger, Pat Tillman, was killed in Afghanistan by:

a. Enron
b. The Lutheran Church
c. The NFL
d. American white males between the ages of 17 and 40

12. In 2005, Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr. who was sentenced to 10 years behind bars for physically and sexually mistreating Iraqis in the first court-martial stemming from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, an embarrassment to the U.S. military fueled by the release of graphic photographs is:

a. Bonnie and Clyde
b. Captain Kangaroo
c. Billy Graham
d. American white male between the ages of 17 and 40

Nope, .....I really don't see a pattern here to justify profiling, do you? Let's just profile people because their names are Muhammed or their skin is darker than Ann Coulter's.

Mandates and Candid Hates

2005-02-23T13:21:00.000-08:00

Clinton's Karlrovini Fraud image from the Mandates and Candid Hates cover is being bombarded. Here is a mirror to help divert traffic.

Mandates and Candid Hates

Karl or Jeff or now could it be James?
A White House full of fun and games
Tasty Male hookers, Ari Fleischer’s pride
Testy McClellan’s got nowhere to hide

Talon News Talent and Blogger Baby Claws
Maggie Gallagher memos for columnist whores
Press credential cachet for horny male sluts
Presidential cash to purchase ethical cuts

Cum guzzling Armstrong doing business in bed
Teaching the sinful how to get right ahead
Fantasy buttocks, hard on crotch on the mind
Leaving sanctity sacrosanct, leaving no child behind

Pretzel Pig Pansy, Presidential Insight,
Hating man mandate, hotmilitarystud web site
Softball diversions from Solid Rock Cock
From the Unmarried Queer to the Cheerleader Jock

Oscar season sanctimonies as the stories get loud
From the lynching of Churchill to the columns of Dowd
The Summers at Harvard where women woe scores
While the men at the White House get access as whores

Dead media mainstream asleep at the wheel
With Brad and Angelina to keep it all real
Imus in the Morning in malfunctioning cities
Blitzer of the blunderbuss pinching Michael Powell’s titties

Once West Wing blowjobs commanded attention
Now as quaint and as fashionable as a Geneva Convention
Karl Rove and his Filthy Boys Minding the Store
As he squats for his Jesus, and kneels for his whore

Yes, the image is based on the Barberini Faun that Maureen Dowd referenced in her New York Times, February 17, 2005 editorial.

2005-02-23T04:32:00.000-08:00

"Million Dollar Baby" is a brilliant piece of propaganda that works because it is based on something deeply true: Human beings are afraid of physical debilitation; we are naturally repulsed by suffering we cannot cure. Science may tell us that after an adjustment period, quadriplegics are about as happy after their accident as they were before. No matter. The idea of living life trapped like that horrifies. Out of our horror, we dehumanize those who suffer. And then we celebrate murder as an act of love.

Maggie Gallagher, the prostitute columnist who took tax dollars better used for almost anything else, to promote marrige in 'BABY'S' MESSAGE DISCOUNTS VALUE OF HUMANITY
Tue Feb 15. So how much were you paid to tout the "value" of humanity, Magge? What makes you think you are in a position to even address it? Are you even aware that many, many people consider you, at best, disgraceful and ethically challenged? How must it feel to be considered as lowly in an industry that already has no integrity? The only merit your story has is that you probably know more about "fat, lazy, good-for-nothing cheats" than most. Your every word drips with hypocrisy. How unfortunate am I to have unwittingly stumbled upon your self-righteous diatribe? You should hang up your pen wherever it was you prostituted your credibility.

2005-02-23T01:22:00.000-08:00

Had Mr. Lott done his homework, however, he might have held his tongue in deference to his self-hating host's proclivities, although unlikely. Four years later, Mr. Lott's complimentary comments about an imaginary presidency under former segregationist Strom Thurmond forced him to resign as Majority Leader, and, like a toilet unflushed, dumped Bill Frist on America.
As usual, Clinton's editorial is bringing up an irritating memory of a bloody past! Who wants to be reminded of these bigots!

A Doctor or a Ho?

2005-02-22T10:50:00.000-08:00

In a Feb. 14 AIDS article by Dr. Lawrence K. Altman, the paper (New York Times) reported the following:

"Laboratory tests in Dr. Ho's laboratory and elsewhere have shown that the strain from the man whose case started the investigation is resistant to 19 of the 20 licensed anti-retroviral drugs."

The Times also said:

"The second virus is from an unidentified patient in San Diego who was apparently infected before the New York City man. It was found by scouring the records of a commercial laboratory, ViroLogic Inc. of South San Francisco, and portions of its genetic makeup closely resemble the molecular pattern of the New York City man's virus, Dr. Ho said.

"Dr. Ho's team sent the partner's virus to ViroLogic for testing. Doctors from around the country send thousands of H.I.V. specimens to the company for testing." (Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/14/health/14aids.html?pagewanted=1)

The Times failed to mention that AIDS expert David Ho, MD, sits on the Scientific Advisory Board of the ViroLogic company; a fact that should have been reported by Altman.

I believe it is a conflict of interest for Ho to cite ViroLogic as an entity without informing Times readers of his connection to the biomedical firm.

Michael Petrelis, San Francisco Activist. While these connections do not necessarily reflect ill-intent on behalf of any of the players, the lack of transparency and failure of media entities to understand the importance of them is mind boggling.

For instance, consider a ViroLogic Inc. press release which states: "Understanding the clinical utility of Replication Capacity in the management of HIV-infected patients is currently the subject of a $1.5M grant awarded to ViroLogic by the National Institutes of Health."

In light of interference of the current administration with regard to education related to health, particularly its emphasis on abstinence as opposed to condom use, makes these associations all the more insidious.

If, as Michael Bates, M.D., Vice President of Clinical Research at ViroLogic Inc. is insisting, the case of the current AIDS patient in New York "reinforces the importance of resistance testing in the management of HIV patients, including those individuals who have not received prior antiretroviral treatment," it can't be all that bad for business if ViroLogic Inc. is touting its own technologies as being responsible for identifying the highly pathogenic isolate of HIV. Further, ViroLogic's boasts that its analysis confirmed the data from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center (ADARC), and "importantly, revealed therapeutic options that informed the selection of a drug regimen for the patient."

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that based on the business objectives of ViroLogic Inc. (or any biotechnology company) as well as the nature of their 1.5 million grant from the NIH, the existence of this new strain represents a fantastic opportunity for the company, both in touting the value of their products and technologies in the identification and treatment of the new pathogenic isolate, as well as legitimizing the government grant. Money well spent.

In this perfectly fair world we live in, perhaps after ViroLogic Inc. makes its first $1.5 million directly attributable to the fear and hype surrounding this new resistant strain of HIV, they'll donate the equivalent of the NIH grant to a program that promotes condom usage or teaches children how to protect themselves from viruses. The NIH certainly won't, and nor, it seems will Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who is terribly preoccupied preventing children from witnessing the devastatingly dangerous spectacle of lesbians making maple syrup.

In the meanwhile, PBS can start preparing a show where the animated bunny named Buster visits the hospital wards of youngsters dying from AIDS to learn how parents, friends and families deal with the grief and sadness resulting from failed policies and misguided priorities. It appears these "lifestyles" are more in keeping with Margaret Spelling's perceived constituency. Perhaps Merck will have fast-tracked and released a new potent anti-depressant for kids and parents by then -- and a sponsorship to ensure the airing of the episode.

For now, at least we have you to help quell the imaginations of conspiracy theorists and cynics by demanding responsible disclosure from the media, who with a few rare exceptions, as Randy Shilts once taught us, don't have the faintest clue. Thank you Michael.

2004-07-07T13:16:00.000-07:00

The Stench of Democracy

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 7 — Iraqi officials announced a new national
safety law today that allows Iraq's prime minister to declare emergency rule in
any part of the country threatened by instability.

Prime Minister Iyad
Allawi on Tuesday signed the law of broad martial powers that allow him to
impose curfews anywhere in the country, ban groups he considers seditious and
order the detentions of people suspected of being security
risks.

2004-05-12T14:22:00.000-07:00

It's time to put up or shut up. If the media wants to advance the Abu Ghraib story rather than wallow in it, its course is clear. It can help Americans "appreciate" the Nick Berg beheading by showing it over
and over. I don't know if that would be a good idea, but at least the press would be consistent.

James Taranto, OPinionJournal's idiot, whose rabid, insulting, juvenile ranting probably had more to do with Daniel Pearl's execution than his being Jewish.

2004-05-12T13:59:00.000-07:00

CBS should be ashamed for running those photos...But these pictures are so inflammatory, so offensive to Muslim and American sensibilities, whatever news value they have is far, far outweighed by the damage they are doing. "Context" — the supposed holy grail of responsible journalism — is lost in the hysteria and political grandstanding.

Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online. Yeah, fuckface. CBS should have, instead, hired your Mom to cajole busybodies like Linda Tripp to sneak in and tape the detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib. Go visit Fallujah on a convoy asshole.

2004-05-03T19:12:00.000-07:00

I was told he admired me but it's the reverse...Pat's journey, that's the American dream and he sacrificed that. That to me is a real hero. My uncle once said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." You, Pat, have lived those words.
First Lady of California, Maria Shriver, reading a letter from her husband Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and quoting her uncle, former President John F. Kennedy, in a tribute to Pat Tillman, the former NFL Cardinals starting safety who was killed in Afghanistan after walking away from a multi-million dollar contract to serve his country. Since he's the only person in the U.S. military to have put his life and career on hold, we're all expected to measure ourselves against such altruistic heroics, and feel lower than the abusive guards at Abu Ghraib for our lack of courage and patriotism. Hey Pat, we're sorry you chose to become canon fodder for Neocon Empire Building, but if your government really gave a fuck about you, they would have been supporting you with more troops and resources in Afghanistan, not distracted and confused in Iraq.

2004-04-21T22:16:00.000-07:00

Other than assassination, all we can do is censure her

The New Mexico Republican Central Committee chairman, Richard Gibbs, following a vote to censure the Sandoval County clerk and fellow Republican, Victoria Dunlap, who issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Say, fuckface, there's a bridge across the Euphrates missing a charred ornament. Don't you have some food to deliver to tropps in Fallujah?

2004-04-21T10:12:00.000-07:00

No. Look, we understand that there are some domestic issues involved here. And we respect King Adbullah's decision to postpone it, postpone the meeting for a couple weeks. And we look -- the President looks forward to meeting with him the first week of May.

Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, Aboard Air Force One En route Buffalo, New York, upon being asked if President Bush feels snubbed by Jordan King Adbullah's decision to postpone a meeting with him, following his unprecedented support of Ariel Sharon's Middle East policy that differed from his original "roadmap" and excluded Palestinians. Aside from the question being stupidly phrased, the reality is that regardless of whether President Bush feels it or not, he was snubbed. Tough shit Tootsie.

2004-04-20T21:30:00.000-07:00

Why shouldn't we ask all of our citizens to bear some
responsibility and pay some price?...our citizens to understand the intensity
and depth of challenges we face.

Republican Senator, Chuck Hagel, to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on post-occupation Iraq. Maybe because "your" citizens hold the idiots they elected accountable for nothing short of a colossal fuck up in planning, strategy and management. Tell you what, fuckface. Go drive a convoy in Fallujah. That's the price you ought to pay for your part in greenlighting this war.