The Funny Farm
Where life is beautiful all the time and I'll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats...
Adventures of a Basic Force For Good in Our TimeTM
I just managed to find the time to watch the start of the new season of Real Time with Bill Maher, and I hope that some of the rest of you managed to catch it as well. Michael Moore, Kim Campbell, and two Repugnicant stooges - one live, and one via satellite hookup - both filling as much time as they could with their little Conservabot talking points. A former Prime Minister of Canada calling out pRezNit Prozac on the telly. Moore and Maher on their knees begging Nader - live in the studio - not to run, and he refuses to listen. And then Kimmy calls Nader out for wasting his ability to influence the dialogue - and Nader falls back onto sound bites in response. Other major points of interest here at the Funny Farm were a clip of Andre 3000 talking to Barack Obama one on one in a convention backroom, and noticing that the Repugnicant in the studio bailed on the show before it ended - he couldn't sit there and take it when people said bad things about his Chimperor!.
A powerful hour of infotainment. Hope you get to see it one of these days!
[Ed. Note: I see that fellow wild-eyed coalition member Hoffmania did the same thing (recorded Real Time and watched it Saturday night - are we both that much in need of a real life?*), as well as adding a few specific snarks about the Repugnicant shill in-house, who happens to be the co-chair of the Pinhead / Pencil Dick campaign. Nicely skewered, my friend...
I would also highly recommend that you continue on down the web page , once you get finished with the HBO synopsis over there. Hoffmania points out a number of things that everyone needs to be aware of, about the latest outrages pRezNit Prozac has added to his pile.
* - or is this really so good that it inspires such a strong immediate reaction? The opening intro, with Mikey spoofing F911 while Bill reads a book in front of a bunch of kids, was also a nice touch tha we didn't point out above. And more than worth the price of admission...
Yeah, yeah - I know there's a few extra exciting events going on this week. But I'm not one of the Kool Kids who got invited to the party. Good thing, too - I wouldn't have talked about anything but how much (insert your most hated TV talking bobble head here) drank / snorted / smoked last night, yet still managed to make it onto the set the next day. So there's that...
But there really have been a couple of interesting things going on this week that qualify as news here at the Funny Farm*:
Uberblogger Atrios has finally been identified to the public. Dude, hope you like all the extra attention you're going to get in the airports from the Bush goons enthusaistic new hires in airport security. Start checking the post offices for your picture...
pResident Can't Ride A Bike is trying to hide the fact that he has given this great nation a record deficit this year, only four years after we had a record surplus. Thanks, Putsch!
Oh, yeah - it's official (kinda sorta). We have our first pRezNit Prozac! That large grain of salt you should be taking with this report is from Capitol Hill Blue.
In case you were wondering if the television networks that have bothered to cover the convention at all were actually imapartially reporting the news, as opposed to merely mouthing soundbites designed to mislead the public, you should have been watching Faux News and the Conservative News Network's coverage(cough) of the convention. Ralph Reed providing commentary on CNN about Edwards' speech? What, was Rush Limbaugh busy then? Or just tripping out on the OxyContin?
Even conservatives are getting nervous: CNN Money reports this morning that Americans' incomes fell for two years. That should actually read the first two years of the Bush administration, because they haven't got any numbers for the last two years of this walking disaster yet - but, hey, at least they haven't spiked the story...
And now for this week's call to FReep the polls at CNN:
Today's front page poll asks: Do you know what John Kerry stands for?
Today Lou Dobbs wants to know: Which is your preference for voting in the next presidential election? Paper ballots, Absentee ballots, Electronic voting, or Electronic voting with paper receipt?
That's all for now. Except for this lovely cartoon from Aislin which we got a chance to see last night:
 |
* - we knew about Barak Obama before the convention even started. Even before his opponent decided that Jeri Ryan wasn't, um, outgoing enough to be his wife (and before we knew she was a Nazi stooge for the Repugnicants, too!). So the ongoing Democratic orgasm was a little more than we expected, but not much more.
Then again, we don't wait to form our opinions until PigBoy or Faux News tells us what to think.
Please put down anything you might be drinking, consuming or otherwise handling, and finish what you are currently doing, before going to the LandSnark's place and seeing One of these four is not like the others.....
Remember - we warned you!
Oh, yeah. Now Tbogg is putting pictures in his blog, instead of linking to them like he used to. So you should pretty much be on Open Victuals Alert whenever you go there. Just so you remember next time you visit there (cough)
We haven't been hanging around some of our usual haunts as much as we'd like to of late. But it's good to see that, now that we truly do have the Pravda on the Potomac and the Izvestia on the Hudson, at least a portion of the citizenry has their BS meters set on read between the lines. Is it time to long for the journalistic integrity of the 1890's yet?
The President of the Senate telling a member of the Senate to go f^(k himself on the Senate floor during official government business
is the same as
the wife of a presidential candidate telling a wrongwingnut journalist to shove it after being harrassed by said journalist.
Just like
a drunken cokeheaded fratboy who deserted a cushy spot in the Air National Guard during war
is the same as
a conscientious objector who refused to serve in the military.
Just like
a murdering pinhead sending soldiers to their deaths half a world away so he can rule the world (in his own mind)
is the same as
a philandering con man getting a blowjob from someone who is not his wife while bringing peace and prosperity to the world.
Yes, I can see how that makes sense...
in a PigBoy's eye.
...going on around here. A lot of personal things, including a surprisngly good concert by Missing Persons, The Fixx, and The Knack, on Saturday night for five bucks apiece (yeah, I know - some of you think I still threw my money away. And you'd be wrong! - my good friend Lew treated me and the Sig-O to the concert). And a touch of some type of stomach ailment that is causing me minor distress in between the trips to the vomitorium bathroom today. But I digress...
Of course I've been outraged about Ronstadtnacht and the gay innuendo about Kerry and Edwards and the latest smear and deflect tactics of the right (not to mention the latest Wilson propaganda directly or anything like that). But it's all just white noise around here. And of course the only thing we bother watching much on the telly is sporting events of some excitement (read - not bowling, golf, fishing, auto racing, baseball, or any of the psuedo sporting stuff like adult cartoons pro wrestling and Sunday morning pontification political shows) and occasionally a movie on HBO (the extended version of The Two Towers is in the rotation now) - so we are definintely not a harbinger of the latest in hip fashion and rampant rumor.
But we still manage to get a few interesting emails from time to time. Like this one from the Alliance for Retirement Prosperity:
Dear (: Tom :) Jack Kemp, Dick Armey, and Dorcas Hardy invite you to join them in the most important reform the U.S. will undertake in the 21st century -- Personal Retirement Accounts. You have heard that the Social Security system is broken. It is. The good news is we know how to fix it. But the politicians won't do it. That's why we have formed the Alliance for Retirement Prosperity and why we need every working American like you to help. Yes, it's true that by the end of next decade, Social Security will be out of funds. Yes, it is true that Social Security is a "scheme" and that we can only keep it going by raising taxes again and by cutting benefits. We know what makes America and freedom so great is that crisis can be transformed into opportunity. We have a great opportunity today. The bankrupt Social Security "scheme" can be transformed into a real retirement investment program for all workers. The Alliance is fighting to bring this transformation about so that you can save half the current payroll tax (FICA on your paycheck) in a Personal Retirement AAccount that you own and control. Visit us on our website to get more information: http://634770000000000040773c6680e21e5d.cyberdiplomats.com. Join ARP today and help us change the world. Saratoga Capital Management proudly sponsors the Alliance for Retirement Prosperity. The attached email is being sent to you based on permission provided in the past. If you feel as if this message has reached you in error, or if you would like to be removed from future distributions, please contact us at abuse@cyberdiplomats.com or write to us at: 1775 Pennsylvania Avenue, 11th Floor, Washington, DC 20006. All Claims and views expressed in this message are made soley by the Alliance for Retirement Prosperity. |
Now, I don't know about you, but when I see that I received an email due to permission provided in the past without being told too much about that permission, and then I go and see what www.cyberdiplomats.com is all about (it doesn't exist) and then see what cyberdiplomats.com is all about (it doesn't exist, either - with or without the http:// lead-in) - you know, to sort of get an idea of who might be trying to hack into my computer talk to me this time - when something like that happens, I tend to get a little curious.
And then, when I go and check out the Alliance for Retirement Prosperity, and find out that they're ostensibly a non-profit organization with a completely different URL than the email I got, and I find out that I am refused persmission when I actually try and use the URL they supplied me with the great big key code number combination in the front, well then the alarm bells go off. I guess I'll have to say no to the Saratoga Capital Management company's request to manage some of my money. And I would strongly encourage anyone who might have some extra capital floating around to consider other firms before considering using the services of this one.
Bogart Caught Mid Yawn Cleo the Drama Queen Mugging For The Camera  |
The Funny Farm salutes (cough) Jesus' General on becoming a target of the latest version of COINTELPRO. The more things change...
[warning : this post contains poker-specific jargon and is at least marginally about the vice of gambling. We may well try to be as confusing about it as possible... and we don't profess to be a professional in this area of expertise. Certainly not during the course of the events about to be relayed to you today (cough)]
Well, a quick jaunt, relativistically speaking, for a road trip (almost exactly 300 miles) was made by the intrepid staff of the Funny Farm in the No Longer Quite So New Cop Car over the past weekend, as I mentioned briefly yesterday. Chief nagravator and refreshment co-ordiinator (as well as beloved Sig-O) Ally the Roulette Queen was witness to a rough ride to and fro from the passenger's seat. Rain, rain and more rain, almost all the way from east of Lansing to the Indiana border on the way there, and from just after we got out of Chicago all the way home. And quite a few different types of rain as well - a couple of torrential downpours on both trips at the very least. We did manage to make it there in decent time, and survived the Skyway slowdowns and the unforgiving Chicago city traffic.
Ally and I managed to make it to the designated meeting place in time to be fashionably late to the show. Easy enough to find, if you've listened to any BartCop Radio programs; Bart was helping everyone understand how much of a Disaster Monkey the Torturer in Chief is - so all we had to do was follow the sound of his voice, and we were suddenly surrounded by rational, intelligent people. People who have the cojones to call a bunch of lying, arrogant punks who are screwing our country up right royally the Republic Party of America. People willing to point out the unbridled greed and unprecedented arrogance of the current junta - even though that sort of attitude generally meets with resistance when it is noticed by someone getting all of their news from the Murdoch Media Empire. People who are unafraid to feel compassion for their fellow man (without finding out what's in it for them first). Also, it was personally amazing to me that I could walk in to a gathering such as this, say "I run the Funny Farm", and have most (if not all) of my compatriots not only know about this blog, but have more respect for me because of what they read on these pages. I cannot tell you how satisfying it is to feel that I'm not screaming into the void all the time. So, thanks to all of you for making an old man feel like he's making a difference...
I made a conscious decision to avoid playing at the same table as Ally during this tournament. I figured that a real student of the game might be able to watch Ally and I read each other, figure out our tells, and take us both apart at the tables. So Ally took a seat at the red table for round number one, and I stayed on the sidelines. We were both hoping that we would not be the first out during any of the games. A modest goal that we both felt was within our grasp.
Ally and I have both played poker before - I used to play dealer's choice with a bunch of people back when I was young and foolish, and she has been playing online at partypoker.com for a couple of months, anyways. And she was playing in the Yahoo game rooms a bit - more euchre there than poker, but still playing at least a few games every other day for sure - before she got into the partypoker site. We have both become infected with Texas Hold-Em fever, and watched Chris Moneymaker turn online experience into early retirement. Plus we managed to get a few games in with a couple of card sharks from the Great White North (well - one card shark, and one friend who practiced playing different styles of betting techniques, so that we could get a feel for playing against different types of players) over the weeks leading up to the tourney.
Said tourney which also faced a conundrum. We were supposed to be starting out with 300 in chips each:
2 Black (value=50) 2 Yellow (value=20) 10 Red (value=10) 15 Blue (value=5) 40 White (value=1) |
Well, you can see the problem to start out with - we got 355* in chips each. But no one was really getting much of a chance to question the accuracy of the proceedings - Bart was busily breaking out the chips from the luxurious padded cases that he brought them in, and the rest of the bunch were just hanging around, talking to each other. These chips looked and felt like the real thing, too - unlike the somewhat larger plastic chips we have here at the Funny Farm.
There were a few 'house' rules for the day: the aforementioned chip values and startup sets; a list of small and large blinds:
small blind = 1 / large blind = 2 small blind = 2 / large blind = 5 small blind = 5 / large blind = 10 small blind = 10 / large blind = 20 small blind = 20 / large blind = 50 small blind = 50 / large blind = 100 small blind = 100 / large blind = 200 small blind = 200 / large blind = 400 |
and the rule that blinds were to increase every fifteen minutes to the next level. Most folks (us included) were used to upping the blinds when somebody went out, as opposed to within a particular time frame.
Saint Mrs. Bartcop (Our Lady of Infinite Patience) was getting name tags and Chicago Jim and various other players were introducing themselves and getting ready for the game. A case of Red Stripe and a case of Heineken, as well as the usual liquid refreshments, were available at the bar. The venue looked like a wonderful place to hold a wedding reception and dance, or a company party.
Anyways,... there weren't enough white chips to outfit both tables with 40 chips each per player. So Bart had a novel idea for handling the situation: the second table would start ½ hour after the first table. By that time, the first table would be switching to minimum bets of 5 each - and they could cash in all of their white chips so the other table could use them. It worked out very well for the preliminary rounds of the day.
Ally and I were glad to finish the day without being the first to exit our game(s). But just barely - Ally was the second one out at her table in round three, and neither of us finished in the money until the very end. I can't quite remember where I finished in the second round (which only had nine people, as opposed to the ten sitting at the other table in round one) over at the white table. I can tell you that the eventual winner of the second round, Ryan, was sitting to my right. And that we mixed the players up between rounds two and three, so that the same players weren't facing each other all day. And that Flagstaff - who finished second in round four (with nine players, once again at the white table), was also seated to my right when he cashed in (figuratively speaking).
The problem of the white chips was solved in the final round by eliminating their use, and starting the small blind at 5. Both tables were filled in this round, which had everyone in it - ten at the red table and nine at the white table to start. Once there were only ten players left at both tables, we consolidated the round, and put all ten remaining players at the red table
Ally and I never did manage to face each other at the poker tables - she didn't make it to the consolidation of the two tables in the finals, and we started out at different tables in the finals, too. But I did manage to make it to the final showdown, where I was stared out by LARick. And we did manage to make it to the Tequila Roadhouse for the after party. But we didn't stay too long - Ally had had a long day of alcohol over-consumption, and I decided it was in our best interests to get to sleep relatively early (around 1AM local time) and get ready for the drive home.
All in all I would have to say that the Chicago Pokerfest was a big success, and Ally and I are definitely interested in testing our abilities once again. Extreme thanks go out to the multitudes brave enough to attend. It was wonderful to meet each and every one of you, and I hope you all had as much fun as I did. We are definitely considering attending the September Seattle Pokerfest, especially if a definite date for it can be determined early enough so that we can get plane tickets at a reasonable price. Not all of us can get last-minute fares for 10% of the regular price of the ticket...
[Ed. Note: Minor alterations due to rented fingers made after the fact.
The players by round (please feel free to correct me if I messed anything up) - these are not quite in seating order (I think) at the table I was sitting at. All bets are off for the other tables]
Round 1: 10 players at the red table
Buck (second) Round 2: 9 players at the white table Trevor John F left early Round 3: 10 players at the red table Deb the Poker Queen (wiener) Round 4: 9 players at the white table Buck Finals: 10 players at the red table Matt 9 players at the white table Deb the Poker Queen |
* - We mistakenly reported it as being 305, not 355 - with a Bachelor of Mathematics hanging on our walls, no less!) and we were corrected by our long time friend Stu from the Great White North. Thanks, Bud!
That makes two in a row...
I was fortunate enough to attend the Bartcop Pokerfest in Chicago on Saturday, July 17. Besides meeting a bunch of upstanding citizens who are at this moment dedicated to getting the Chimperor out of the WhiteWash House, visiting one of the finest cities in America today, and getting lots of kudos for wearing a T-shirt that says Vote Bush Out, I managed to hold my own at the poker tables.
Hopefully I'll feel like going into greater detail about the whole shebang a little later today. In the meantime, thanks to everyone I met for being levelheaded, intelligent, polite, and most of all liberal in their attitudes and behavior. It was a privilege and an honor to be part of the Bartcop bunch this weekend.
Now it's back to the regular weekly grind. Back later...
Cleo the Drama Queen Sleeps One Off Bogart Poses With the Latest in Coalition of the Wild-EyedTM Fashion  |
Gay Marriage Opponents Pin Hopes on House. I mean, it's not like we have a scandal plagued cabal hijacking the national debate. Or a number of wars of aggression against other nations. Or a number of wars against ideas like terror, drug abuse, wanton fornication, and whether the worship of an Invisible Cloud Being should be mandated as a law of the land. Or an economy precariously balanced between stagflation and depression. While the fat cats are stealing what we managed to almost put aside for one another in our old age.
But, let's forget about that, and focus on enshrining a piece of religious insanity in the law of the land. After all, it's not like we have anything else to do or get ready for or anything like that. Priorities, people!
By the way, I should mention that I have other things that I consider to be important enough that I can waste my time keeping up with what's going on in their particular field of interest. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Time to go earn that daily bread once again...
Thanks to all of you who have managed to make it here to The Funny Farm due to the massive advertising campaign (cough) on Air America Radio we joined along with Bartcop and a few other hidden jewels over here on The Fashionable Left Bank of Blogistan. As of 21:13 EDT we have received over one thousand visitors today. Hope you enjoyed your stay. We're going to utilize a few of our fellow advertisers for some of our needs, and we hope you will consider patronizing them as well. Take care!
I see that the Torturer in Chief and the Serial Cat Molester are whining about activist judges not elected by the American people destroying the institution of marriage.
Would that be the activist judges who ignore Roe v. Wade (that were appointed by the Chimperor)? Or the activist judges who state in their judicial rulings that Roe v. Wade should be invalidated (that were appointed by the Chimperor)?
Or is it that any judge who adheres to the law of the land when that law doesn't suit Drinky McDumbAss and the God Squad is an activist judge?
[Ed. Note: content slightly altered due to my PigBoy-like (shudder) stuttering error when originally posting this. D'oh!]
It's been a while since this feature was run around here. Or pretty much anywhere of late. So go to CNN's home page, scroll down to the bottom right hand corner, and vote on this poll (before they take it down):
Should there be a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages? |
While you're at it, go vote over on Lou Dobbs' poll too. It frames the question slightly differently:
Do you believe the issue of same-sex marriage is appropriate for inclusion in the U.S. Constitution? |
This is a Funny Farm original which - as is often the case with our art (cough) - is quite primitive in its' use of Photoshop and utilizes various comics from another artist. In this case, our hero Tom Tomorrow, who has put out This Modern World for quite some time now, supplies the base material. But we think that, even with all of its' lack of complexity, it gets the job done:
 |
By the way, in case either Mr. Perkins or his compatriot in arms (and damn good comedian, Jeopardy champion, world traveler and debonair man about town, Bob Harris) are within eyeballing of this cartoon, please be informed that I emailed Dan a few years ago when I put this together, and asked him what he thought. I never received a response, so I'm guessing it might have got lost in the ethernetical nodes of the Web. Or you think it's okay, Dan. Or you just don't give a rat's @$$. As long as I haven't particularly offended, and I've gotten my point across, life is good...
Funny Farm Traffic Advisory: Go around Boston if you have to go around there towards the end of the month, or avoid the area completely if at all possible. Unless you can get some of the Daily Show cast in with your bloggers credentials (not to suggest anything to our fellow OSP bloggers who are going to be giving us live feeds from the convention or anything like that...). Make sure you can get some outtakes for the site. I might have some bandwidth you can borrow...
Dumb question here: why is there not a Repugnicant river of slime outcry and focus on increased traffic in the Gentler Arts in, say, Boston around the end of this month? Or is there some place that might have a little innuendo gossip about the goings on? Hasn't Drudge's boyfriend spilled any of the beans (so to speak) yet?
* - This title inspired by the fourth book in the HitchHiker's Guide To The Galaxy trilogy, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish.Chapter 15.
I thought that there were a few more pics from the weekend, but all I gots to show ya is this shot of the sun going down over the St. Clair River. We were taking the ferry from Walpole Island (Indian land under Canadian jurisdiction) to Algonac, Michigan:
Sunset at the Border |
Just like most good times, it was over all too soon, and there was no excitement to speak of. I would like to offer my thanks to Doc and Judy and Andrew and Alan for their company this weekend, and Stu and Mary for the poker lessons (among other things). It's a shame I have to come back to the real world once again...
We're not sure how wondrous the weather was in the zone here, because we managed to sneak out for a wondrous weekend watching cool jazz bands (scroll down to the last three dates in July) and checking out classic cars up in the Great White North. More details should be forthcoming after we manage to bag some heavy pillow interaction and the regular Monday morning work routine. Weather wonderful - all at Number 42*.
It is our fervent hope that some of you had at least half as much fun as we did, and that no one had too much to endure. We heard of some wondrously horrid experiences during out travails, too, and wish the McConnell clan well in their new home, as well as congratulating them on making it through the move in the rain, and the jaws of the mortgage dilemma they were forced to deal with at the last minute. We hope it gets better from now on...
* - No, we weren't singing silly Spanish songs, or complaining about the food, or barging in the queues. We didn't have to be at our table spot on seven and there was most definitely no bowl of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, which is not an item on any of our menus of international cuisine...
Can the Repugnicants and the media whores cover up another Drinky McDumbAss disaster like they did in 2000? Or will no one care this time around, too?
Will there even be any debates, or will we have a Faux Snooze scripted media event, complete with mike-downs and O'Really?-style shouting matches? I hear Jerry Springer is running as a Democrat this year. Perhaps we could utilize his show business expertise here...
Will the record pace of slime and mislead exhibited by the Repugnicant Party this year cause some of the proles to burn out on this sort of marketing? Or is this the new bread and circuses for the new millennium?
Cleo the Drama Queen Has Her Morning Coffee and Cigarette Bogart After His Queer Eye For The Straight Kitty Makeover  |
What will Pencil Dick say when Edwards asks him about his Halliburton ties and backs up his questions with documentation?
Will John Edwards point out the hypocrisy emanating from the current Veep's crypt command center during any sort of debate between the two?
Can Kerry mention that for every press conference the Chimperor has had, the questions were submitted to the Torturer in Chief's handlers beforehand, during any of the potential presidential debates?
Or will he be required to submit his debate questions to Homeland Security the Repugnicant National Committee pRezNit Who Cares What You Think?'s advisors for approval?
What to do, when you're only fifteen hundred times* as personally wealthy as the average peon American currently owing undying fealty to your wealthy reign, instead of being sixteen hundred times as wealthy as the common man like your opponent is. Such a problem for a wealthy individual who's also an unelectable miserable failure. It's as if he thinks that because he's obscenely wealthy, he should have his own wealthy rules that let his wealthy @$$ get away with anything and everything. And then, the obscenely wealthy PigBoy , and the obscenely wealthy media whores on Faux News, and the obscenely wealthy media whores at CNN, and the obscenely wealthy media whores at the New York Post (who can't tell who the Democrats are going to be running as Veep in November...), and the obscenely wealthy media whores over at Scaife Smears Inc., and the rest of the obscenely wealthy who mindlessly support more for themselves at the expense of the rest of us, all sit around and talk to us about how obscenely wealthy the Chimperor's opponent is, instead of talking about how the obscenely wealthy Torturer in Chief is becoming even more obscenely wealthy by stealing wasting taxpayer money on George's Excellent Middle Eastern Adventure.
It's all a frustrating mess for those of us who aren't quite as obscenely wealthy as Smirky McWarHardon.
* - No, we don't know if pRezNit Takes Hostages is actually 1500 times as wealthy as the average American. We're pretty sure it's a multiple in the hundreds, if not thousands. The point I was trying to make was that both of the candidates are wealthy compared to the regular person. So it would be really hypocritical if someone who was wealthy (especially if they were obscenely wealthy compared to the rest of us), or his handlers, were to say things about how wealthy their opponent is, without mentioning how wealthy they themselves are.
[Ed. Note: Spelling and grammar corrections and slight modifications in wording have been made to this post by the Funny Farm Editorial Staff]
Enticing new customers to use your service isn't going to work out too well when your telemarketers hang up on the people they are trying to solicit on your behalf.
I didn't quite catch the gentleman's name who was calling - possibly one reason why that particular individual had no problem being rude to me over the phone - maybe it took too long for me to show signs of considering their offer or something. Which I never did manage to find out about...
I found some good stuff in The Talent Show's comments about a particularly juicy Crossfire clip where Novakula has the unmitigated gall to declare
I know how emotional and relentless and mindless is the hatred directed against George W. Bush. |
These are the little spins that the neocons use to frame the debate. For almost twelve long years now (since he won the nomination at the 92 convention), the wrongwingnuts who have hijacked the Republic Party have engaged in a relentless, emotional, ruthless crusade against the ClenisTM, mindfully spiteful of the rules of civilized politics. As one of the torchbearers in that crusade, Novakula knows full well what he does when he tosses this little stiletto into the fight. And it deflects opponents from calling the Republics on their emotional, relentlessly spiteful hatred of all things Democratic.
But, I'm not writing this to talk about that. Or Greg's lovely slicing up of the bully getting called on his kimchee.
I will mention another piece of particularly stinky bile that Novak palms off in the intro to the Crossfire show in question to try and reframe the question that Begala brings up:
[emphasis of every type courtesy of the Funny Farm Editorial Staff]
ANNOUNCER: Live from the George Washington University, Paul Begala and Robert Novak.
(APPLAUSE) ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: Welcome to CROSSFIRE and the start of a Fourth of July weekend. Believe it or not, we're just four months away from Election Day, four months away from renewing President Bush's lease on the White House and continuing America's economic recovery. (APPLAUSE) PAUL BEGALA, CO-HOST: Well, actually, Bob, just four months today, on November 2, America will declare its independence from King George the Appointed and replace him with a real New England patriot, my man John Kerry. (APPLAUSE) BEGALA: But first, let's fire up the Fourth of July grill with the best little political briefing in television, our CROSSFIRE "Political Alert." The Labor Department announced today that job growth has slowed dramatically. The American economy added just 112,000 jobs last month. Now, 112,000 people is a good number, say, if you're talking about attendance at a University of Texas football game. But in a country with over eight million people unemployed, 112,000 is what my daddy would call spitting in the ocean. He actually didn't say "spitting." He would use a different word, but it's a family show. (APPLAUSE) BEGALA: President Bush, though, insisted today that the economy is "strong and getting stronger." No wonder so many Americans think our president is out of touch. We are losing our high-paying jobs, but Mr. Bush praises the outsourcing of jobs. Healthcare costs are up 43 percent, but Mr. Bush has no plan to control costs. And there are 1.1 million fewer Americans working today than were working on the day Mr. Bush was installed by the Supreme Court. Perhaps it is time for George W. Bush to experience the joys of looking for a new job. (APPLAUSE) NOVAK: Seems to me I've heard that song before. You know, Paul, you and the other compatriots in the Clinton gang, in 1992, convinced the American people that they were worse off than they really were. I don't think you can fool them twice, because things are getting better. I know you -- you rich people don't do it, but you ought to go to one of these franchise places and stand in line. (BELL RINGING) |
but just in passing, as it were*. No, I was compelled to write this so I can show you this comment:
Limbaugh, Savage, and a multitude of right wing propogandists sing from the same hymnbook, and the most vicious of them say what they want, Limbaugh packages it, and Novak just refers to it so he looks genteel. It won't change until Americans realize the entire Reagan-Bush-Bush II feel-good campaign is an ongoing criminal conspiracy against their own interests and decide to either participate in their own supposed democracy and enforce its precepts or eat the dren** that Novak, Safire, Krauthammer, et al., ad nauseum, are more than willing to feed them.
posted by: bigfoot at July 2, 2004 11:56 PM |
The Funny Farm salutes the wisdom of bigfoot's comment, and encourages you to grok it in all its fullness.
* - the class is left to its own devices to come up with an object lesson in political jujistsu which can be applied to Novakula's fat @$$ at a convenient time in the near future.
** - comment slightly edited by the Funny Farm. We try to avoid potty-mouth within these pages... or at least make it creative when we seem to be forced to use profanity. That way it may confuse the automagic mechanisms...
Respectfully submitted as your meme for this Independence Day:
F9-11 CHANGED EVERYTHING |
With much thanks to Ally the Roulette Queen for helping out with this particular spark:
John Kerry should go on the Howard Stern show while the |
By way of my good friend XOverboard we see United States Secretary of State Colin Powell dressed as a member of a parody of the Village People, singing YMCA. Seriously:
Colin and The Diplomats Perform YMCA  |
| Dancin'... Dancin'... Dancin! He's a Dancing Machine...*  |
* - with all due respect (cough) to the King of Pop.
A Day Late and Dollar Short post from the Funny Farm
I've been a little busy with a problem of my own (scroll down to the bottom for all the gory details), so I haven't had time to do my regular daily constitutional around The Fashionable Left Bank Of BlogistanTM. In a related aside, the Funny Farm Canada Day celebration has been cancelled this year. D'oh!
So you can imagine our, um, discomfort, while reading a few posts once I finally got things settled down around here.
Or, if you'd rather not imagine our discomfort, you can keep on reading, and learn about some things you might not be aware of, but could impact your everyday life:
The Daily Kos shows us a post by feloow Michigander (I'm guessing by the name of) DHinMI about The Real Catholic Policy on Kerry and Communion. Apparently some religiously insane Repugnicant has filed heresy charges against the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts because he's a pro-chice Catholic. There's no word on whether this is a charge of heresy by thought, heresy by word, heresy by deed, or heresy by putting the knee in the groin. There is also no word on any parallel proceedings by the Catholic lawyer against the Gropenfuhrer or Puff Rudy Gee or any of the other pro-choice Repugnicants out there. Government officials declined to respond to Funny Farm queries as to whether this would be considered one of those frivolous lawsuits that are poisoning the court systems of this great nation...
The Hamster points to the story of a Female Dispatcher Fired For Living With Boyfriend. Apparently it is still against the law for unmarried, unrelated adults of the opposite sex from living together in a number of states, including Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia. Further, in North Carolina, The statutes also contain a law against "opposite sexes occupying same bedroom at hotel for immoral purposes; falsely registering as husband and wife.". Strike another state off of the tourist destination list...
XOverboard updates everyone on the evil twin to the Coalition of the Wild-Eyed, The Digital Brownshirts. Seems that an organization called Focus on the Family decided that the only reasonable means of protest for Fahrenheit 9-11 was to publish Michael Moore's home address. Of course, being the upstanding paragons of virtue that they are, I'm sure the Digital Brownshirts will be denouncing this underhanded personal attack with their usual wit and wisdom...
And finally, the Modulator tells us he's not too happy about the new premier security screening avaliable to some guests of the airline during their travelling experience. Fellow OSP member (I think) Mark A.R. Kleiman provides the details...
Bogart after a little too much fun  |
Cleo unsure of which direction to turn  |
Liz getting ready to bolt once again |
The main PC for Funny Farm ops has been infected with a rather nasty virus (on a related note: don't go to the first site that comes up in Google when you search on Canada day graphics [not to mention www.hellasmultimedia.com by name or anything] unless you want to deal with the same situation) and so blogging may be a little sparser than it has been around here of late.
Hopefully we will have some luck in fixing this problem and will be back to our usual quality offerings to all and sundry...
[Update: This looks like an oldie but a goodie (cough) - TROJ_SCTHOUGHT.C - whic has imbedded itself in a .CPY zipfile in a .CAB zipfile in my (hidden, protected and somehow mysteriously active) _RESTORE folder. It looks like it won't be too much of a problem to take care of now that I've found some practical instructions on how to take care of the problem. (Thanks to Trend Micro for hosting this virus encyclopedia. Truly a Basic Force For Good In Our Time!)
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some work to do before I have some work to do, if you catch my drift. There may be some additional kittypics put up during the repairs, and of course we reserve the right to update spelling and grammar as we catch it.]
Sorry about all those extra jobs lost. Look on the bright side (cough) - there's almost 700,000 more people who have run out of benefits, and no longer qualify for unemployment fewer who already qualify for a week of benefits and remain on the jobless rolls! What a country...
Now get back to work!
