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
Well, the Miami Dolphins have won this year's Futility Bowl. Great - so we don't even get the first pick in the frelling draft now. And all the rumor mill could tell us this weekend was that Ricky Williams was going to announce his return to the 'Fins (long story short - if he would've done that this weekend, he would be ineligible to play this year due to a pending four game suspension for liking the gange a little too much, but would serve his time and be ready to play next year, according to the armchair quarterbacks we discussed the situation with). Unfortunately we didn't hear anything but wild innuendo on the subject, so we guess the Dullphins won't be utilizing Ricky's services anytime soon. Sigh...
* - Thanks to George Carlin for providing us with the title for this post.
No need to worry about a draft, kids. After all, there's probably lots of Vietnam veterans who will still be available to be called up for Oil Gulf War Too.
What was that, you say? They couldn't possibly be considering conscripting Vietnam veterans? Well...
Vietnam veteran, 53, called to active duty.
Hmmmm. Maybe we could check up on a couple of others while we're at it. We hear there's this guy - a rich son of a Congresscritter at the time - who deserted the National Guard after only fulfilling four years of a six year commitment. Maybe we could ship his ass over into the line of fire, too? They say he's in great shape - so there shouldn't be any problems getting him back up to speed. We also hear that he likes to kill people - he jokes about sending people to their deaths all the time - so he's got that winning military attitude, too!
Thanks to Hoffmania for leading us to this informative article.
A public service feature from the Funny Farm News Burro
we don't want to focus on the dissapointing news about our favorite football team (Jason Garrett? You've got to be kidding...you're not? D'oh!). Nor are we particularly interested in all the gory details of the Tabbies' humiliation yesterday (we were busily stuffing oursselves with turkey, and missed the debacle on the idiot box).
No, we are here today to provide you with a translation of the propaganda news coming out of the Associated Press today in an article called Army Uses NASCAR in Recruiting Effort:
By JOHN MILBURN, Associated Press Writer FORT RILEY, Kan. - Joe Nemechek is "G.I. Joe" to many NASCAR fans, a nickname stemming from the GoArmy.com logo on the hood and bumper of his Chevy Monte Carlo. Every lap he leads and every pole he wins puts the Army in millions of living rooms nationwide. Sponsoring Nemechek (with taxpayer money?) is part of a military recruiting strategy, which includes advertising at football games and rodeos, aimed at maintaining the all-volunteer force during the "We have to get the best young men and women in the Army to continue The program's success is open to debate. A federal General Accounting Office (news - web sites) report concluded last year that the military — even though its advertising spending rose from $299 million in 1998 to $598 million in 2003 — couldn't truly evaluate such campaigns because "joining the military is a That was true for Pvt. Shannon Cooke, 19, of Newport News, Va., who joined the Army to "My mother was in the Army; I always knew I wanted to come," said Cooke, with Fort Riley's 24th Infantry Division. But the logos on Nemechek's car helped coax Pvt. Terrence Bartholomew, also with the 24th Infantry, to enlist in February. The 22-year-old from New Orleans acknowledged he's not really a NASCAR fan but, "I saw the car two times on TV." Nemechek said he tells the recruits he meets they are doing a great honor for their country "I'm trying to After missing recruiting goals, the Army launched a program in 2000 to transform its image. The branch wants to be seen as an attractive career The program began with the National Hot Rod Association, sponsoring Tony "The Sarge" Schumacher. The Army sponsors a national high school football all-star game each January in Texas, a contest broadcast on NBC-TV. This year, the Army started pouring Sports marketing now consumes $40 million of the Army's $212 million annual advertising budget (huh? Didn't we just see that the Army spent $598 million in 2003 on advertising? Is this more of that fuzzy math?) in an era when finding new soldiers can be tough (maybe you should stop killing them, then?). "As the economy gets better, there will be more Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton, the ranking "It's a matter of striking a responsive chord," Skelton said. "You will not find them at golf tournaments." The Army met its 2004 goal of recruiting 77,000 new soldiers in the 12 months ending Sept. 30. Other branches fell short, including a fellow NASCAR Nextel Cup sponsor, the Army National Guard. Richard Stark, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the military has to be flexible in recruiting and offering benefits to reflect the times. He views the military as competing successfully for recruits but added frequent deployments by the Army and its reserves Each branch is Tiernan declined to disclose exactly how much Nemechek's sponsorship cost the Army but said it was less than $10 million. Maj. Dave Geiesmer, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Recruiting Command in Quantico, Va., estimated that its NASCAR sponsorship provides the same exposure as $15 million in television advertising. "We get value every time the car is mentioned," he said. The Army has a traveling exhibition for NASCAR events, filling four semitrailers and covering 12,000 square feet, giving recruits a version of Visitors can view the latest Army equipment, including uniforms and weapons, said Guy Morgan, Army account director. Other activities include laser target shooting and a challenge involving changing tires on a stock car. Everyone who enters the exhibition area must sign a At all events, the Army also hopes to meet parents who may be reluctant about their children enlisting. "When senior officers are out there, they can talk to parents and |
Does anyone else remember the recruiters from Fahrenheit 911? For some strange reason, we can't help but be reminded of them when reading this drivel article...
There must be some sort of reverse Murphy's Law at work here - within an hour of our previous post, one of our cousins who we haven't seen since we (briefly) talked this summer invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner. Thanks, Ralph!
We're guessing that would be us this year. And, since we have quite a bit of the fluffy white stuff strewn about our lawn, this picture is doubly appropriate for us today:
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We mentioned that we are truly favored by the gods because we have quite a few good friends that care for us, and managed to bring us back from the fringes of sanity. Or maybe they just let us know that we are good people in their eyes, and they are glad to be in our company from time to time (much as we consider ourselves lucky to be worthy of their friendship). We'd just like to take a moment and say thanks to Doug, Stu and Mary,Doc and Judy and Andrew and Alan, Mark and Nat and the Rugrats, Joe and Heather and their clan, Brother Joe and Sister Sandy, Manda and Brett, Will and Suzette, and especially Candace for taking the time to talk us through these personally trying times. We're not sure where we'd be right now if not for them, and we don't really want to pursue that train of thought any further, because it would probably get very ugly very quickly. But we'd like to dedicate this little snippet of a song to them:
This is the secret you will keep to yourself, and are never to forget - One sees well only with the heart for what truly matters is invisible to the naked eye |
Our best wishes go out to these and the many others we are proud to call our friends. We hope that someday we can find a way to show them how much they mean to us...
This post is dedicated to the memory of all the good people we have been fortunate enough to run across in our lives so far, and especially to Leslie Steinberg (nee Bryant), who is celebrating her 44th birthday today. We hope that she and all she holds near and dear to her are happy, healthy, and as proud as we are to have been part of her life.
[Editors' Note: We're dropping out of the third person for this post]
I'd just like to take a little time and say thanks to those who have been there for me over the last month and a half - one of the most difficult times I have had to deal with that I can remember. You have helped make the void a little less lonely, and helped me find the strength to try and deal with the horrible injustice served upon me by those who were (at the time) near and dear to my heart. In my folly and my hopes, I had neglected many of you - and yet you were there when I called. I am also proud to have found good friends here on the Fashionable Left Bank Of Blogistan. Your words of wisdom and kind thoughts have been an unexpected treasure that kept me going through some of the darker days. I would especially like to single out Not So Mediocre Fred for pointing out that it isn't as bad as it seems - that this, too, will pass.
I wish I could find a way to express how much your kindness and consideration has helped me make it through the difficult days. But words fail me. Maybe these lyrics from the Moody Blues will come a little closer than my meager scribblings:
Lovely To See You
Wonderful day for passing my way. Lovely to see you again my friend. Dark cloud of fear is blowing away Lovely to see you again my friend. Tell us what you've seen in faraway forgotten lands Wonderful day for passing my way. Lovely to see you again my friend. |
Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time to scream at the walls once again...
...If you've seen Just Wondering over at Cup O'Joe my good friend JoeVe's site. It's an interesting take on things...
Courtesy of Follow Me Here, Matthew Gross points us to this very insightful (especially to us these days) article called the Politics of Victimization by Matthew’s wife, Mel Gilles. Yes, we will survive... and thanks for expressing these feelings for us so eloquently.
To quote rather liberally (cough) from the article (just so's we can point out a few of the highlights:
On measures of psychosocial well-being, school functioning, and romantic relationships and behaviors, the teens with same-sex parents were as well adjusted as their peers with opposite-sex parents. The authors found very few differences between the two groups. A more important predictor of teens' psychological and social adjustment, they found, is the quality of the relationships they have with their parents. "This is the first study that has looked at adolescents with same-sex parents in a national sample, and it shows clearly across a wide range of variables that they're doing pretty well," said study author Charlotte J. Patterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The research, published in the November issue of Child Development, draws data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a school-based study of the health-related behaviors of kids in grades 7-12. Dr. Ellen C. Perrin, a professor of pediatrics at Tufts School of Medicine and an expert on the development of children with gay or lesbian parents, said that few studies have focused on adolescents of same-sex parents. What data there is has been subject to attack. Critics complain that the studies reflect researcher bias and non-random participant selection. "In this case, neither of those critiques are valid," Perrin said. The new study uses data from a broad population-based survey conducted for entirely different reasons. "That makes it very clean, so to speak; no one could argue that there was any bias involved." [Editors' Note: But you know they will.] Estimates of the number of teens living with same-sex parents are hard to come by. As of 1990, 6 million to 14 million children were living with a gay or lesbian parent, says the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse, a service of the U.S. Administration for Children and Families. Perrin believes that a majority of these children were born into heterosexual families. "Only recently have there been increasing numbers of kids born or adopted into already stable same-sex couples," she explained. The study sample included 44 children, 12 to 18 years old, parented by same-sex couples and an equivalent number of peers with opposite-sex parents. The two groups had an equal number of girls and boys and other similarities, including ethnic background, family income, and parents' level of education. Overall, researchers found no significant differences between the two groups. Teens with two moms, for example, were neither more nor less likely than their peers with two opposite-sex parents to report having been involved in a romantic relationship during the past year or ever having sex. Both groups were generally well-adjusted, with relatively high levels of self-esteem, relatively low levels of anxiety, and good achievement in school. The study reveals a minor difference: "The kids of same-sex parents said that they feel more connected at school," Patterson said. In other words, they felt their teachers were more open to them, and that people at school were fair and cared for them. "I think that may be a chance finding, frankly," she said. While family type wasn't a factor in how teens fared, family relationships were. When parents reported more positive relationships with their teenagers, for instance, the teens reported lower levels of depressive symptoms. "The qualities of teenagers' relationships with their parents are much better predictors of their overall well-being," Patterson noted. |
Brother Joe, could you please take those blinders off, and look at those who are interested in intimate relationships with members of their own sex as normal people* just like the rest of us? Is there anything you would be willing to consider that would cause you to even question (let alone reconsider) the homophobic indoctrination you have received since childhood? All we're asking here is that you listen to the evidence with an open mind.
Thanks to Bartcop for pointing this article out to us the other day.
* - and, yes, we know that we have little referent when talking about normal people. Maybe I should have said that those in the GBLT community are just like us, and leave the whole normality concept out of the discussion. Because quite often it seems like normal people is a contradiction in terms. Even to heretical pagan heathens like us...
Well - we just happened to turn on Faux Snooze this morning (for the first time in, well, years), and what do our wandering eyes see?
Sears, KMart to Merge in $11 Billion Deal.
For some strange reason, visions of the Daimler-Chrysler merger are running through our head. And this joke from those heady (cough) days:
Q: How do you pronounce Daimler-Chrysler? A: The Chrysler is silent. |
And we wonders: who is going to be silenced in this merger? Since the new company is called Sears Holdings, we're very much afraid of the answer...
I have this rather lovely piece of artwork to show you today:
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No, it doesn't stand for Scotch Whiskey Appreciation Group, except tangentially - because my good friend Doc, who is responsible for the first birthday gifts of the year (unless you count the rather nasty surprise given to me a little over a month ago. Please, Reality, no more 'presents' like that for a while, okay?), is a card-carrying member of that group. But here's what I wanted to show you today:
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There will be much more to show you from inside that book. And we gots some other kewl swag to show you, too! But not today...
My, my, my. You don't seem to react very well when someone questions your treasured tome of unblinkered Philistine ravings, er, the Bible. That's what you get for elevating a fictional cult classic like that to revered status.
Why does your Invisible Cloud Being require you to send fifty million spam emails with your trite little Jeebo Fascist propaganda indoctrination wisdom in them for poker-rooms-777 (which of course does not exist) to this site? Do you think it will help your cause to act like farging iceholes?
Your spam has been deleted, old comments are now closed (and will be as a matter of policy here at the Funny Farm from now on), and all of your IP addresses have been blocked. We hope that there is a particularly toasty spot in your own hell waiting for you when you depart this mortal coil. Bastiches!
And if you thought religious insanity* got short shrift around here before... you ain't seen nothing yet!
* - once again, we apologize if we offend any who are truly spiritual. We're not talking about you - we're talking about the card carrying members of the God Squad who feel they are entitled to throw stones (so to speak) at the heathens, and hypocritically use their religion as a weapon...
We see that Cobb County, Georgia biology textbooks now proclaim "evolution is a theory, not a fact."
Putting aside the confusion caused by making it seem as though a scientific theory is not as close to being true in every conceivable situation as is humanly possible to test, I wonder how the Jeebo-Fascists would respond if someone started putting stickers on the inside covers of Bibles proclaiming The Invisible Cloud Being God is a theory, not a fact?
(a Day Late And A Dollar Short post from The Funny Farm)
So, we finally got around to watching last Friday's Real time With Bill Maher. And I could not believe the crap I heard from the Repugnicant representatives on the show.
First, Alan Simpson (R-Hypocrite) has the balls to call out Maher for some jokes he made, and some slightly rancorous statements directed at the religious right and flyover country. This prick has the gall to talk about the hatred of the Left and how it caused people to turn away from the Democratic Party. Excuse me, what about all the bashing of the Hollywood elite and the liberals that was going on for a year and a half* before the election? The senile old fart seems to have ignored all of that. I guess it's easier to look at the flaws of others instead of trying to do something about your own incendiary rhetoric.
Then, Andrew Sullivan (Independent (cough) - Smirk's Butt Boy) gets into the game by immediately taking offense over Maher's remarks as well. Perhaps you've forgooten the Swift Boat Liars campaign of the past few months? The constant lies about how liberal Kerry was? You want the Democrats to stop saying all those mean things, and ignore the rhetoric from the right, which was worse by orders of magnitude? Go Cheney yourself, icehole...
After that shameless exhibition, Sullivan went on to put words into Noam Chomsky's mouth (I don't recall Noam saying that America was evil. Do you?). Chomsky called into question the motivation behind the Oil Gulf War Too, and of course Sullivan accused him of lying about the motives for the war. What I don't understand is: when Sullivan went to that particular well, why didn't any of the non-conservatives on the show (Bill Maher is moderate at best, Pat Shroeder is a flaming liberal, but D.L. Hughley don't trust nobody and is only Democratic because he feels there is no alternative right now) immediately ask him to tell the audience that, when the war started, the only thing the Americans guarded was the oil fields and Saddam's disinformation ministry. They let looters take five thousand years (at least) of irreplaceable history, weapons caches (which the government wouldn't even let us know about until pRezNit Pinhead was re-electorated), and almost every other damn thing in Iraq. That would tend to suggest to some (coughcoughthewholefreelingrestoftheworldcoughcough) that it was all about the oil. Yet another example of the lies of the Repugnicants getting broadcast unchallenged. That's why we keep losing to these vile creatures, people!
Our recording got cut off before the show ended, so we were unable to catch the sight of Andrew Sullivan playing with his ass on national television. Unfortunately, someone else did. Now my appetite is ruined for another day...
Thanks to Tha Fashionable Left Bank Of Blogistan's Uber-blogger Atrios for linking to the video snippet, and for his insightful commentary about the show over at Eschaton.
* - we have seen Repgunicant hatred for more than twenty years now, but we (like all good liberals) give the opposition the benefit of the doubt, and are only focusing on the increased level of hatred that started up when the 2004 presidential campaign got under way.
Thanks to everyone's favorite landsnark for finding this gem:
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"There is too much broken. There is too much screaming and too little listening. There is too much vitriol and too little charity." The Big Dog |
We would also like to take this time to wish one of our favorite songstresses a happy birthday. Joni Mitchell turns 61 today.
Yeah, yeah, I know...But it just struck me that the Montreal Canadiens are tied for the best record in the NHL right now!
File this post under the looking for any silver lining in the dark cloud following me around category...
Here's the latest cartoon from our favorite Canadian political cartoonist:
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Talk Left makes a statement regarding the farce election The other day. the Funny Farm would like to applaud Jeralyn Merritt for her brave stand against the Torturer In Chief. We would also like to add:
The thought that in all probability pRezNit Who cares What You Think? will also pick the next Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board gives us the willies. Think about Grover Norquist in that position (and don't tell me that this is a far-fetched idea);
The possibility (cough) that abortion will only be available to the wealthy illegal;
The now near-certainty that anyone under the age of 50 will not see a penny of Social Security benefits in their lifetime;
The continuing deterioration of America's forests, wetlands, and water and air quality;
The continuing dependence on oil and an oil-based economy;
and, the continuance of our disastrous foreign policy under the Now-Electorated Moron.
These are just a few of the reasons (besides the ones our favorite legal beagle gave us) to continue to point out the obvious failings of The Texas Souffle. Maybe we'll have to move to Canada to express them here on this site - but we plan on expressing them as often and as loudly as possible. We hope you, dear reader, will also do everything in your power to point out (logically and reasonably) the constant screwups of the junta as often as you can.
Report: Troops Watched Al-Qaqaa Looting . By an amazing coincidence of timing, this story - which may have slightly influenced some people's opinion of pRezNit Yellow Stain - gets released two days after the election?
Is anybody else scared yet?
We've been waiting for an appropriate time to put this up on the site (since we've seen it in so many other places). but it seems to be quite appropo right now:
pResident Who Cares What You Think? shows us some more compassionate conservatism at work |
For some strange reason, I seem to be getting a lot more spam than I was even a month ago. Not that it will make a huge difference to the dozens (cough) who tune in regularly here - but we may be requiring some sort of validation for comments soon.
Just thought you'd like to know...
There's no way that the election should even be close. Do the American people really want this much mismanagement in their lives for another four years? And are they really that dim and that ignorant to install this thugocracy for another term?
We also see that Tom Delay (R - Ruthless Vindictive Bastard) and his illegal gerrymandering of Tax-Ass worked out well for the Republics. Another shining example from the United States of how lying, cheating, stealing, and being a weaselly hypocrite are the kind of qualities we look up to.
We have also noted that the Media Whores are even more of a bunch of partisan hacks than they were in 2000. This election would not have even been in contest if they had been doing their jobs. We heard promises that nothing would be called by the networks until they were sure about the result. Guys, you forgot to tell us that you would only be doing that when Kerry was ahead. Maybe we should have assumed that. We certainly will be doing so from now on...
It is indeed a sad day here at the Funny Farm. We wish all of you luck in surviving this administration*.
* - quick tip: evangelical Christianity might be something to pick up in the days to come...
Quit calling me at work! Besides, I already voted - so your feeble efforts to fearmonger sway my opinion are useless! Silly kniggots...
Xoverboard reported to us yesterday that a federal judge blocked all poll challenges in Ohio. However, Reuters tells us this morning that the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals is allowing voter intimidation Repgunicant challenges at the polls. What a surprise!
