The Root Of The Decay Of America

What ever happened to taking responsibility for that which you have spawned?

The Tear-Jerking Tale Of The Week Award goes to this story, about a boy named Deamonte who had the misfortune to be born to the worst excuse for a mother ever, and subsequently died of a brain infection caused by an abscessed tooth.

That isn't how the article is written, of course. It's supposed to be news, but it reads more like a weepy editorial, or a puff piece endorsement of socialized medicine.

Here are some facts, quoted directly from the article.


The Driver children have never received routine dental attention, said their mother, Alyce Driver.

When Deamonte got sick, his mother had not realized that his tooth had been bothering him.

DaShawn {that's a younger brother} saw a dentist a couple of years ago, but the dentist discontinued the treatments, she said, after the boy squirmed too much in the chair. Then the family went through a crisis and spent some time in an Adelphi homeless shelter. From there, three of Driver's sons went to stay with their grandparents in a two-bedroom mobile home in Clinton.

But she had to cancel after learning Jan. 8 that the children had lost their Medicaid coverage a month earlier. She suspects that the paperwork to confirm their eligibility was mailed to the shelter in Adelphi, where they no longer live.

After more than two weeks of care at Children's Hospital, the Clinton seventh-grader began undergoing six weeks of additional medical treatment as well as physical and occupational therapy at another hospital.


So, let's summarize:

Alyce Driver had five sons.

She never saw to it that they received dental care.

She signed them up for "free" dental care eventually.

The "free" coverage lapsed because she did not keep a current address on file with the state.

One of her sons died because she neglected his oral health for so long that the infection from an abscessed tooth spread to his brain and killed him.

She was unaware that his tooth was bothering him until it was far too late.

The hospital-to-morgue process took about seven weeks, and was taxpayer-funded.

Sorry, folks, but there's no way to spin this one. The author of the story tried, but it didn't work. What we have here is a clear case of child neglect. It's not the government's fault. Deamonte Driver would be alive today if his mother wasn't such a fuck-awful excuse for a parent.

Does that sound harsh? Well, it's meant to. I thought, at least in civilized countries, that you humans were past the point where you had to have a huge hoard of kids in case some of them died. I also thought you were past the point where parents were too fucking stupid to avail themselves of all the "free" shit that they can get in order to take care of said hoards.

Really, Alyce, shut the fuck up with the excuses about how HAAAAARD it was to find a dentist who accepted your "free" dental coverage. Because frankly, I don't give a shit. You (and a few milliliters of jizz) made those kids. It is YOUR JOB to do whatever it takes to care for them, even if that means dealing with bureaucracies and long bus rides.

Oh, but they weren't even all in your custody, were they? That three of them were living elsewhere, and you only had to fret about two of them, makes your slothfulness when it comes to your kids even more inexcusable.

And where the hell is the father (or fathers) in all this? I realize the nuclear family is passé. But FUCK. That's a lot of kids without fathers for one entitlement-minded mother to be expecting the government to take care of.

Anyway, Alyce, here's some life advice. Find a hobby besides fucking and making babies. A really nifty one might be teaching your kids about brushing their teeth and using dental floss.

Also, get off your dead ass and take the little bastards to the dentist. It takes many months, or even years, for an abscessed tooth to spread to the brain. That gives you a nice window to not kill any more of your sons.

Finally, if you do decide to have more children, do them a favor and put them up for adoption. They'll thank you for it.

Of course, if there was any justice in the world, this would all be moot, because Social Services would take Ms. Driver's remaining sons away from her before she neglects them to death like she did Deamonte. But that's not going to happen. Cuz, ya know, it's the government's fault, and ol' Alyce has already suffered enough.

Bet she hasn't suffered half as much as the son she killed, though.

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Take A Roll On The Wild Side

The Supreme Court just heard a VEEEEERY interesting case.

--Victor Harris zoomed at 80 to 90 miles per hour in his Cadillac covering nearly nine miles in six minutes with a deputy sheriff hot on his tail. But when the chase ended in a violent crash that left the 19-year-old driver a quadriplegic, the roles reversed.

Now it is the deputy sheriff being pursued – by lawyers who say the officer violated the teen driver's constitutional rights when he forced the speeding Cadillac off the road.

Tuesday, Mr. Harris's case arrives at the US Supreme Court where the justices must decide whether drivers who speed and disobey police commands to pull over nonetheless are constitutionally protected against having their cars rammed by law-enforcement officials in high-speed chases. The Fourth Amendment prohibits police from using unreasonable tactics during arrests.--

First, let me say that it sucks this dude ended up paralyzed. That's gotta be an awful way to live. Can't even take a piss without shoving a catheter up your pecker. It doesn't get any less dignified than that.

That being said, it's not the officer's fault the poor bastard rolls instead of walking. No one made him put the pedal to the metal and try to outrun the cops, at night when the roads were wet. (Mmmmmmmmmm... wet.)

Ahem. As I was saying, the decision to not stop was made by Mr. Harris. The reason he gave was that his license was suspended, and he didn't want to go to jail. Then somewhere along the way, he decided he would stop, but not until he got home, because he didn't want his car impounded.

In other words, the decisions he made that night were all about him. Therefore he really oughtn't to be suing because things went caddy-whumpus.

This is not to say that you humans should stop doing stupid things. Making mistakes is how you learn, and how you grow. Wheelchair Boy was young, dumb, full of piss and vinegar, and ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE that he was invincible. That's not unlike many other nineteen year olds. It's kind of a wonder that so many of you get to adulthood with all your digits and limbs intact and no brain damage.

Unfortunately, not everyone is so lucky, and this guy was one of those less-than-fortunate ones. Yes, it's sad. But again, no one made him drive in excess of ninety miles an hour in the dark on damp pavement. He chose to do that all by his little ol' self.

Which is why I think the Supremes are brain damaged if they find that excessive force was used. This dude passed when the center line was yellow double solid a few times, and ran a few red lights to boot. Thus, the cops were screwed whether they tried to stop him or not.

If he'd killed somebody during his little joy-ride, the public would scream bloody murder, and the police would get sued. They attempted to stop him, it went wrong, and they get sued. Can't win for trying, huh?

Don't get me wrong. I'm no fan of cops in general. Honestly, they scare me, because so many of them are people of very average intelligence, who went into police work because it was the only way someone like them could achieve any real power.

But they've got a suck-awful job. And it's also a job where their very lives depend on making split-second judgement calls. You - and the justice system - can't look back at those hair-raising moments with the benefit of hind-sight and say, "Well, they should have done THIS instead."

Actually, you can. It would just be wrong.

So if the Supremes decide to say that bumping the ass end of ol' Victor's speeding Cadillac in an effort to make him stop was inappropriate, well, that would be wrong too. And it would also unleash a torrent of other would-be Victors on the road, knowing that all they had to do to ditch the cops is accelerate to an unsafe speed.

And that would be bad on a number of levels. I don't think I'd ever go for a ride with my people again. I'd be too scared.

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Monday Monkey-Spankings

Today's "What in the FUCK?!?!" moment is brought to you by this story, telling us that high school students are getting stupider, but at least their grades are improving.

--Two federal reports out Thursday offer conflicting messages about how well high-schoolers are doing academically.

One showed that seniors did poorly on national math and reading tests.

The other -- a review of high school transcripts from 2005 graduates -- showed students earning more credits, taking more challenging courses and getting better grades.--

Well, well, well. Now why does that not surprise me? With all of these efforts to shore up the self-esteem of the little bastards, it's not exactly a shock that while they appear to be learning more in school, their IQs are falling like Skylab.

I continue to fear for the survival of your species.

Next we have an unfortunate accident involving chicken. As in, 60,000 pounds of it all over the road.

It's apparently the second time this month that a truck full of chicken parts has scattered its load in that same location. I suspect fowl play.

In other animal-related news (this time the kind of animal who's not dead), there's a beaver in the Bronx. (No, not that kind of beaver, you fucking perverts.)

--Beavers grace New York City's official seal. But the industrious rodents have not been seen in the flesh here for as many as 200 years -- until this week.

Biologists videotaped a beaver swimming up the Bronx River on Wednesday. Its twig-and-mud lodge had been spotted earlier on the river bank, but the tape confirmed the presence of the animal itself.--

Take it from a moose who's been living around humans his whole life, little beaver. They're a pain in the ass, but basically good-hearted creatures. So find yourself a girl beaver (a beaver beaver, even), and enjoy your stay in New York.

This little weep-fest is an opinion piece by George F. Will about Down Syndrome. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has revised its recommendations regarding screening for the disease. They used to say women over thirty-five. Now they're saying doctors should offer the testing to all pregnant women.

What's changed? Nothing, really, except the screening has become simpler, less expensive, and more widely available. So the snatch quacks figure a woman would rather know than not know.

Mr. Will is alarmed because about 85% of the parents who receive a diagnosis of Down Syndrome choose abortion. He is afraid the disorder will disappear if the rate of pre-natal diagnosis approaches 100%.

Certainly, if nearly all pregnant women choose to have the screening, and the abortion rate of 85% holds, the number of Down Syndrome babies born in this country every year will fall drastically, to perhaps even as low as five hundred. George thinks that would be sad, because he knows a very high-functioning Down syndrome guy named Jon.

From what I can tell, he trots "Jon" out every time he writes about screening for birth defects. Jon loves sports, has his own apartment, knows how to ride the bus, works three days a week, and is "sweet." That's all good and well, but for every Jon, there's a bunch of much lower-functioning Down syndrome folks who won't ever do any of those things, even the "being sweet" part.

And it's a crap-shoot. You don't know if you're getting Corky or total gorky until the kid is a few years old. Chiding parents who don't want to roll those dice is mean-spirited and unfair. Only the parents involved know what they and the rest of their family can handle.

So go ahead and judge the people who have genetic screening, and those who abort defective fetuses, George. They're too busy making tough choices to listen to boneheads like you.

Today's "Well THAT sure didn't turn out like we thought it would" story is about a sorority whose national leadership kicked out all the women that were fat, ugly, and/or weird.

--When a psychology professor at DePauw University here surveyed students, they described one sorority as a group of “daddy’s little princesses” and another as “offbeat hippies.” The sisters of Delta Zeta were seen as “socially awkward.”

Worried that a negative stereotype of the sorority was contributing to a decline in membership that had left its Greek-columned house here half empty, Delta Zeta’s national officers interviewed 35 DePauw members in November, quizzing them about their dedication to recruitment. They judged 23 of the women insufficiently committed and later told them to vacate the sorority house.

The 23 members included every woman who was overweight. They also included the only black, Korean and Vietnamese members. The dozen students allowed to stay were slender and popular with fraternity men — conventionally pretty women the sorority hoped could attract new recruits. Six of the 12 were so infuriated they quit.--

Oops.

It's a tough problem. The Greek system cannot survive without attracting new members, and no one is going to be tripping over themselves to join the "socially awkward" sorority. If the house was only half full, the chicks on the national level had to do SOMETHING.

Maybe they should have just thrown in the towel, and revoked that chapter's charter. But I'm sure they figured that as long as there was a core group of the "right" kind of gals, those that remained could oversee the rebuilding.

I'm also sure they didn't count on half of that group quitting.

Ah, well. It's nice to know that in the 21st century, at least half of the sorority babes are still incredibly shallow. Now let's just hope that they're easy too, and that they give good head.

Our final story is pure fun. (We need some of that after the stupid students, spilled chicken, and retards.) There's this dude who goes around breaking strange records, and his latest was the squat thrust record. (I find the phrase "squat thrust" to be highly arousing.)

Ahem. Anyway, what's really interesting about the record is that he shattered the old one, and he did it on the back of an elephant.

--New Yorker Ashrita Furman looked around for a record he could break, and settled on doing the most squat thrusts in one minute. Then he decided on a place -- the back of an elephant in northern Thailand.

He achieved both goals Thursday as he climbed onto a platform on the back of an obliging pachyderm in blazing heat and powered through 40 of the vigorous kicks in a minute. The previous squat thrust record -- achieved on level ground in Britain without an elephant in sight -- was 30.--

Ashrita, my hat is off to you. I don't think I could do that many squat thrusts in a week, let alone squat thrust my way to victory on an elephant. You've got style, dude.

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I Love That Joe Rogan Guy

He's the one that's at war with Carlos Mencia.

I feel bad that I'd never heard of him until recently, but the truth is, I lead a sheltered life, that mostly consists of masturbating while I fantasize about licking single-malt Scotch off the nipples of big-breasted hookers. So it's not surprising that he's new to me.

Here's his website, and here's his MySpace. His blog tells a very sad story.

Joe Rogan is something of a crusader. He outs comedians that steal other people's work. One of his more high-profile targets is Carlos Mencia. I wasn't terribly familiar with him, either, so I did some research on the internet. The consensus seemed to be, unless Mencia's saying "Dee Dee Dee," he stole it.

Rogan and Mencia, whose real name apparently is Ned Holness (which sounds like some kind of Ukrainian bakery item), had a big smack-down a few weeks ago. Even though he's on the side of the angels, Mr. Rogan has paid a huge price for taking a stand.

According to his blog, his long-standing gig at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles has been cancelled. His agent and he have come to a parting of the ways. (I liked the part where the agent offered him the opportunity to make it right by apologizing to Carlos. That could truly have been a great phone call. "Hey there, Carlos. I'm sorry. Really. I mean it. I'm sorry you're a pathetic piece of shit.")

I don't understand folks who take someone else's work and pass it off as their own. What drives it? A desire for recognition, money, success? And if that's the reason, is it worth it? How do people people like that feel, late at night, when they can't sleep because their brain is swirling with thoughts about how they cheated to get there?

I dunno. My big-titted secretary said she's had people swipe her stuff and claim authorship. Nothing important, just things she wrote for the internet. She says the most common reason people give her when she busts them is, "Because I wish I had written it."

Well DUH. There IS a path to writing good shit that doesn't involve theft. A romance novelist named Cindy Dees offers the following advice: "ABC! Apply Butt to Chair! The only way to learn how to write or how to write better is to do it."

(Nah, she's not the first person to come up with that nugget of wisdom. But my big-titted secretary insisted I use that example because her hunky Air Force friend Steve knows Ms. Dees. Gotta keep the ladies happy, right?)

Point being, if you're that sad sack staring at the ceiling wondering why you suck at your craft, why other people can do it and you can't, well, buck up, little camper. The answer to your suckatrociousness is within the reach of your grubby dick-beaters. Set your ass down at the computer with an Arrogant Bastard Ale, and don't get up until you've done something interesting and original.

Yes, Carlos Ned Mencia-Holness, I am talking to YOU.

Getting back on topic, it just seems like in other "creative" fields, if you steal other people's shit, the hammer comes down hard on you. Look at that Indian chick (Patel Motel Indian, not Lun-Can-Sur Smoke Shop Indian), Kaavya Viswanathan, who wrote that "brilliant coming of age novel."

It was called How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life. It should have been called How I Kiped From Megan McCafferty, Salman Rushdie, and Everyone In Between.

So what happened when the campus paper at Harvard, the Crimson, outed her for stealing other people's work? Her publisher yanked the book out of stores and cancelled her contract for a second novel, plus her movie deal also went bye-bye. And I somehow doubt she'll ever be able to find a publisher for her work again.

Now THAT is how theft of intellectual property should be dealt with.

I get that there are subtleties in stand-up comedy regarding "borrowing" that don't exist in the written word. But none of those subtleties appear to be part of the Mencia saga. There's plenty of evidence that he just unabashedly light-fingers other peoples' material.

Yes, he flatly denies it. But to quote Agent Mulder, "The truth is out there." We live in an electronic age. So dude, you're busted. Time to do the right thing. Either develop your own funny stuff, or if you can't, buy it from people who can.

I guess there's a third option. Keep doing what you're doing, use your real last name, and change your first name to Ass.

Anyway, three cheers for Joe Rogan, crusader, hero, and damn funny guy. You've got a fan for life, dude.

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The N-Word Conference

What in the fuck? A four day conference about the word "nigger"?

--With a debate swirling nationwide over the n-word, a historically black college in Alabama has set aside four days to discuss the racial slur.

Participants at the conference, which began Thursday and ends Sunday, discussed topics ranging from the origins of the epithet to whether juggling a few letters makes it socially acceptable at the "N" Surrection Conference at Stillman College.

Organizers said the goal of the event is to challenge the use of the n-word "through the use of intelligent dialogue and a thorough examination of black history."--

Um, okay. How exactly is this going to go?

Host: "Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to our conference about the word nigger."

Participant A: "Hey! You can't say nigger! People shouldn't be allowed to say nigger!"

Participant B: "I disagree. I think it's okay if black people use it. But not crackers or spics."

Participant C: "You're wrong. Nigger is always bad, but nigga is fine."

Host: "Gentlemen, if you could just calm down, and let me finish my opening remarks..."

Participants A, B, and C: "Fuck you, nigga!"

Seriously. You might better try to get a group of feminists to agree on something. This is chaos in the making.

Oh, what I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall for THAT little dust-up.

But on to the serious subject of "offensive" words, and later the controversial notion of "reclaiming" them.

I guess I'm just not sure what these people hope to accomplish, if they can't even reach a consensus as to whether or when a word or its derivatives are offensive.

I mean, I think we can all agree that a Klan meeting full of inbred rednecks chanting, "Kill the niggers!" is offensive. Or can we? What if it's done as depicting such a meeting in a film, in the context of events that happened at another time in America's history?

Okay, so that might be acceptable. Let me find another example.

I think we can all agree that a white businessman who elbows his way in front of a black businessman to get a cab on a busy New York City street while shouting, "That's my cab, nigger!" has said something offensive. Aside from the fact that that's an unlikely event, it'll work for what I'm about to say.

The obvious instances don't answer the questions. What about black people who don't want to hear the word nigger? Should they wear a special pin or have it tattooed on their forhead or something so other black people will know not to use it? How about the ones who think nigga is okay, but object to nigger?

What about the use of nigger and other racial slurs in entertainment? Is that okay? Cuz, like, I can't imagine Blazing Saddles being very funny if they substituted "african-American" for "nigger."

And what about non-black folks who have been told by their black friends that they don't mind if said friends use the word nigger around them? And what about bi- or multi-racial people? Is, say, their 75% black allowed to bless their 25% white to say the word?

And then there's the "Is the person saying it trying to be mean and/or hurtful?" question. That's where some of the non-black folks get confused, I think. They know that when a black person calls them a honky or a cracker, the black person doesn't mean it in a nice way. (Although frankly, I don't think anyone's ever actually used the word honky except on the television and in movies, but you catch my drift.) But whereas a black person saying cracker is always meant to not be nice, the same person can say nigger/nigga with warmth and affection.

Which leads us to the "reclaiming" issue. That's a tough one on a lot of levels. Again, ostensibly it would require a consensus. And I don't really see that happening. The late Tupac said N.I.G.G.A. stands for "Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished." And cries of "Bullshit!" have rung loudly ever since.

(Somehow I also have trouble with Tupac sharing his thoughts on ignorance, but maybe that's just me. Back on subject now.)

Not to mention, most efforts to reclaim words are abject failures. Look at "bitch" and "cunt." The drive to reclaim them has been fierce, and still, many women find them offensive and unacceptable. Are they (and their feelings) to be disregarded?

Obviously everyone who's been listening knows my stance. Words only have the power to hurt you if you let them. And everyone should say whatever the fuck they want. Pussy-footing around never got anyone anywhere.

None the less, I wish the nigger conference people luck with deciding when it's okay for who to use what word when.

Have a nice conference, kids.

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With Liberty And Justice For All...

I was reading an article about a man who was killed while riding a motorcycle. It doesn't matter where it happened, or who he was, because the story is always the same:

Someone in a car turned left in front of him, he died, and the driver of the car was given a minor citation.

The penalty for taking a human life because of indifference and carelessness is about fifty bucks in most states.

It's kind of sad, especially since you know if it was someone riding their politically correct bicycle, or some sproggie in a crosswalk, they'd find something serious to charge the person who did the killing with. But this? It's "just" a biker.

Granted, motorcyclists have an image problem. When people think "motorcycle," they think "Harley-Davidson" and "Hell's Angels." That's like saying that all gay men talk with a lisp and use the word "fabulous" in every other sentence. Those are the ones you notice, but they're not necessarily the mainstream.

It's the same with motorcyclists. For every outlaw biker, there's two dozen aging chubby hippie professionals whose "gang" is the Harley Owners Group. Then there's another fifty (or more) motorcyclists that don't even ride a Harley.

Why doesn't anyone ever think of them when the conversation turns to motorcycles? Well, because they're not the ones who are having a shoot-out in a casino in Laughlin, or the ones involved in a huge meth bust, or even the noisy, smelly ones with the loud pipes rolling down the streets of your town.

So everyone gets lumped in with the scum, and thus when a good man dies, the response is, "Oh well, it was just a biker," when it was far more likely to have been a responsible, upstanding citizen whose friends and family are devastated.

It wouldn't surprise me if the grieving friends and relatives of a fallen motorcyclist wanted the person who killed him drawn and quartered and left for the buzzards. And that's understandable, but it's not going to happen. Even when breaking traffic laws results in death, we don't punish those people the same as we do other types of killers.

But I really think most people would agree that if drawing and quartering is too severe a penalty, a fifty dollar traffic ticket is far too light a punishment for indifference and carelessness that took a human life.

A good jumping-off point for this discussion is the American Motorcyclist Association's Justice For All campaign. They ask the question:

"What is a reasonable penalty for a car driver who kills or seriously injures a motorcyclist, bicyclist, pedestrian, or even another car driver?"

The AMA's proposal, involving license suspensions and steep fines, is a step in the right direction. I don't think it goes far enough, though. I mean, you can go to jail for driving more than twenty miles per hour over the speed limit, but there's no jail time if you run a stop sign and kill somebody?

*Cuckoo! Cuckoo!*

So I'd like to offer Danny A. Moose's counter-proposal. Along with the fines and license suspensions outlined, causing serious bodily harm should get you sixty days in jail. And causing death(s) should get you 364 days in jail. (That keeps the confinement at the jail level rather than prison, which is too nasty a place for careless fucktards who are otherwise good people.)

And I've got another proposal, that may sound kind of harsh, but it would certainly make sure that those who kill while driving never lose sight of how careful one must be when operating a motor vehicle.

I propose that each state issue a "skull & crossbones" license plate to those who kill while failing to obey the rules of the road. Require that the driver sport this plate on any vehicle he operates, for a period of five years.

Does that sound cruel? It's not meant to be. It's only meant to remind the driver who killed that it was his sloppy driving that took a life. And it's meant to remind the rest of you just how fragile life is, how often fatal accidents happen, and exactly how careful you have to be when you're driving.

Nobody listens to the moose about stuff like this, but you should. People will keep dying until the penalties for driving like an asshole and then killing someone are more than a love tap on the buttocks.

This has all been very depressing. I'm going to go rub myself on a Bourget or something until I feel better.

Oh, one more thing before I go. Rest in peace, Motorcycle Dude.

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Joe Knows How To Live

Well. This ought to be interesting.

--Lieberman Says War Vote Could Prompt Party Switch

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut told the Politico on Thursday that he has no immediate plans to switch parties but suggested that Democratic opposition to funding the war in Iraq might change his mind.

Lieberman, a self-styled independent who caucuses with the Democrats, has been among the strongest supporters of the war and President Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,500 combat troops into Iraq to help quell the violence there.--

There are a lot of people - okay, a lot of democrats - questioning Lieberman's motives.

Some say he continues to support the war over his party's objections due to wanting a U.S. military presence in the Middle East because he's Jewish. They claim that he doesn't really believe what we're doing is right, but merely thinks having them there - for any reason, good or bad - is what's best for Israel. If that is what's on his mind, he's probably not too far off the mark.

Others say he's getting back at the democrats. Their Vice Presidential nominee in 2000, he couldn't even get backing in the primary from his party to retain his Senate seat in 2006. He ran - and won - as an Independent. (Talk about a giant "Fuck you!" to the folks that hung you out to dry. Way to GO, Joe!)

Now if that is why he's doing this, it's no surprise. I'd be pissed off too if my party abandoned me because I wouldn't toe their line.

Yet somehow, I don't think that's why Joe Lieberman is contemplating a switch of parties. I think it's something much simpler, and much more profound.

I believe that Senator Lieberman is an honest man. Yes, I know, the notion of an honest politician is almost absurd. It defies reality. You humans are so used to the convoluted double-speak, the masturbations... er, pontifications on what the meaning of "is" is, that you may not be able to see it. But I don't think I'm wrong.

And obviously he WASN'T willing to be dishonest about his support of the war in Iraq, or he would have done so during the 2006 election season. His steadfastness in his beliefs came at a great cost, so I really doubt he's bluffing.

So here he is, faced with his honesty and personal convictions. And he's surrounded by a bunch of mush-mouthed liars. What to do, what to do?

What he did was throw down the gauntlet. The stakes are enormous (like my penis). Considering that as long as that one Senator is still drooling in a hospital in South Dakota, the democrats hadn't been able to exercise their majority anyway. A Lieberman party switch would be the death blow to that putative majority.

So he is being honest, and drawing his line in the sand. He's saying he'll continue to support the war, and that if they fuck with him enough, he'll fuck the democrats right back but good.

Somehow, I'm sure they heard him. After all, what's he got to lose? They have no leverage over him. What're they going to do? Turn on him like a hoard of rabid weasels?

Oh, wait, they already did that.

Ya know, if I could vote, and this Lieberman dude was running for something, I might just vote for him. I don't agree with him on a lot of stuff. But at least he's got integrity, which is more than can be said about most of the Beltway Assclowns.

Failing that, I'd love to have lunch with him. Jewish deli food is really good.

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Hump Day Hilarity

From the "Okay, that's just WRONG" files, we have the story of two circus clowns, who were cancelled while they were clowning.

Two clowns were shot and killed by an unidentified gunman during their performance at a traveling circus in the eastern Colombian town of Cucuta, police said Wednesday.

The gunman burst into the Circo del Sol de Cali on Monday night and shot the clowns in front of an audience of 20 to 50 people, local police chief Jose Humberto Henao told Reuters.

One of the clowns was killed instantly, and the second died the next day in hospital.

Just goes to show ya, not everything having to do with clowns is funny.

Seriously, though, why does so much fucked up shit happen in Columbia? Is it something in the water?

Rest in peace, clown dudes.

From the "Did you hear?" files comes the news that Gallaudet University is in danger of losing their accreditation.

--The nation's only liberal arts university for the deaf could lose its accreditation unless it addresses concerns about weak academic standards, ineffective governance and a lack of tolerance for diverse views, an education oversight group warned.--

Lousy academic standards and shitty graduation rates are bad enough, and reason enough for this school to lose its accreditation. But what's really fucked up is the way the militant deaf folks treat the other hearing-impaired students.

The deafness nazis think the only way deaf people should communicate is via American Sign Language (ASL). Any hearing-impaied individual who wants to talk to others in a fashion that doesn't resemble a gorilla fending off a wasp attack is "audist." (Yeah, I love those made-up terms too. *Gag.*) The deafness nazis also oppose hearing aids, cochlear inplants, lip reading, and attempts to speak. And they swear that deafness is not a disability, but rather, a "culture." (To which I say, see your doctor about that "culture" in your privates before it's too late.)

Ahem. What I'd like to point out is that the deaf nazis can't have it both ways. If deafness is not a disability, then why is it considered one under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)? These people would scream if they lost their legally required closed captioning and their enormous educational expenditures, and then still have the chutzpah to blink prettily and say not being able to hear is a CULTURE?!?!

What the fuck ever.

Fortunately, money talks and bullshit walks. Gallaudet can either clean up their act, or lose $100 million a year in funding.

Gee. I wonder which path they will choose.

On a much lighter note, stupid lottery winners make me laugh.

--A couple who won a $2.6 million lottery jackpot and spoke of helping young people fight drug addiction and alcohol abuse are facing a lawsuit alleging they held four months of parties with public sex, fights and signs of drug dealing.

The city lawsuit against Elizabeth and Samuel Howard also detailed allegations of an assault on a neighbor, slashed tires and loud music.

Samuel Howard, 54, denied the allegations.--

Okay, so you pocket $871,000, you use $285,000 of that to buy a house, and then you piss the balance away on a four-month orgy of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll.

Sounds like a plan to me.

*snicker*

And in our occasional



updates, we have gawk-worthy material on O.J., Anna Nicole, and Britney.

Fred Goldman and O.J. are at it again, with Goldman being awarded The Juice's royalties, such that they are, and Machete Boy being told AGAIN to stop spending so much money.

Given O.J.'s lawyer's taunting of ol' Fred about "knocking on closed doors," the eventual and inevitable scragging draws ever nearer.

In Anna Nicole Smithnews, there was some sort of creepy viewing of her body early this morning, and they're having some sort of hearing to talk about what to do with said body before it rots. Because, ya know, people who have been dead almost two weeks have a bad habit of decomposing, no matter how much everyone tells them to just chill.

Inconsiderate bastards.

And in the latest Britney blow-up, she did the In & Out at rehab again. Checked out early this morning, less than a day after checking in.

Okey dokey. Somebody REALLY doesn't want help.

Congratulations, Brit. Besides securing your place as Mother Of The Year, you've done something I didn't think was possible. You've made K-Fed look like the good guy.

I mourn for the inoocent school girl Britney that made me box my clown over and over and over.

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Dear Illegals: Please Fuck Right The Hell Off

From beautiful Tucson, Arizona comes this steaming pile of shit opinion piece about how America is a big rotten meanie poopie-head for raising immigration-related fees in order to fund the various agencies that oversee the process.

--Karen has been in the United States three years. She has applied for a work permit four times, paying almost $300 each time. Her petition has always been denied. She works — without a permit — as a waitress in Miami, earning $300 a week.

If she were to qualify for citizenship, she would not hesitate to make the sacrifice, work extra hours and pay the high cost of becoming an American, but if her petition were again denied, it would take a toll not only on her finances, but on her spirit.--

Someone call the waaaaahhhmbulance, because ol' "Karen" sure needs it. And so does the ding-dong who wrote the article.

What, exactly, would be the point of the government subsidizing the cost of immigrating? To ensure that even more unskilled labor from third-world-esque countries floods in?

C'mon, people, you're smarter than this. You claim you are the very best Darwin's theories had to offer. I'm here to tell you, Uncle Chuck would be hella disappointed by now.

The opinioneer's thought is that any expenditures funding the agencies that make illegals legal will be more than offset by their future contributions in the form of taxes.

*bullshit*

*cough*

*bullshit*

The people who can't afford the fees associated with immigrating will always always ALWAYS consume far more in resources than they ever ever EVER contribute in taxes. Is your under-class so low in numbers that you feel the need to recruit additional members from other countries?

Nah, I didn't think so.

I dunno. Maybe y'all should let more people in. But perhaps those people should be highly talented individuals, not uneducated dullards devoid of any skill that is marketable in this age of technology.

After all, as I have already pointed out, it's not like there's some huge shortage of native-born bottom-feeders.

I really think you guys need to take a long hard look at how much you are willing to diminish your own standard of living in order to feel good about propping up those who weren't lucky enough to be born here.

Just my advice, and I'm only a moose, not one of you highly evolved humans. So take it for what it's worth.

--The American Immigration Lawyers Association is appalled by the proposal to increase the rates. It is unacceptable, the association says, to promise a 20 percent improvement in processing times by the end of 2009 and ask applicants to pay approximately 66 percent more for services that they will most likely not be receiving.--

Uh oh. Time to call the waaaaahhhmbulance again. The lawyers are pissed.

Hmmmmm... Wonder how much THEY charge the poor illegals?

.

Happy President's Day

Today, we are celebrating two VIPs - Very Important Presidents. (One of them is rumored to have been a Very Impotent President as well, when it came to the ladies, but that's between him and the Log Cabin Republicans.)

Ahem. We are gathered to honor George Washington, the first President, and Abraham Lincoln, who was the Big Cheese that emancipated the slaves.

I think it kinda sucks that they have to share a day. it didn't used to be this way. They each had their own, a couple of weeks apart. But then with MLK Day being late in January, something had to be done, so they tooled Washington and Lincoln.

You know what else sucks? How come Washington and Lincoln have such shitty monetary denominations bearing their likeness? I mean, c'mon. The One and five dollar bills? That's sort of chintzy.

Although to be honest, George gets tucked into strippers' G-strings in titty bars, so maybe being on the one dollar bill isn't all bad. But Lincoln totally gets the shaft.

I can't believe I just went there.

Ahem. Presidents and money.

George's place is secure on the dollar bill, because every attempt to introduce a dollar coin has been an utter failure. It didn't help that the people gracing the two latest attempts - Susan B. Anthony and a woo-woo named Sack O'Weebles or something - were women. And not attractive women. No, these gals were serious uggers.

Damn. I feel my moose wang shrinking just thinking about those coins.

And now, the Treasury is going to try again. There's going to be dollar coins with pictures of all the dead Presidents on them.

--Coin enthusiasts and casual collectors lined up Thursday morning at Grand Central Terminal in New York for the first opportunity to get the $1 presidential coin - but the new coin's widespread adoption is far from guaranteed.

The coin features George Washington and will be followed this year by coins featuring John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Four new coins will be introduced each year featuring presidents in the order they served.--

So every President will get his turn.

That's nice, but can you see anybody actually USING these coins? As opposed to, say, collecting them and putting them in one of those little coin holder things that has a space for every dead President, and continuing to use paper bills?

Yeah, me either.

Oh, well. Not my Milky Way. If your government keeps trying to ram a dollar coin up your ass, and you keep refusing to use it, maybe the HMFICs will eventually give up. And then they can move on to more pressing matters.

Like figuring out how in the hell horny titty bar patrons were going to use coins to tip the strippers.

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God Bless America And The Daytona 500

They call the Daytona 500 the Great American Race. I'm down with that. NASCAR is a purely American sport, and Daytona is its crown jewel as the first race of the season, the one everyone wants to win, and just a totally cool event.

But before I share my thoughts on today's race, I want you to watch a video. C'mon. It's only five minutes out of your life. And it will make you feel something about your fine country.

Click me.

Are you crying? Me too, and that's odd for me, because I'm a cold-hearted moose bastard. But hey, I love you guys, so let's cry together.

About that video, yeah. And also about the THREE FUCKING HOURS of mostly abject stupidity that led up to the green flag that started the Daytona 500.

Who the hell was that ugly bitch with the fat ass and the stringy badly colored hair that they had singing? She was more of a boner-killer than Rosie O'Donnell.

Some of the driver interviews were interesting. But some of them were just a lot of dick-sucking. All I wanted was to hear the magic words:

"Gentlemen, start your engines."

It was a hell of a race. None of that cars all bunched up and a caution flag every ten laps shit. And most of the wrecks that did happen only took out a car or two. (I still don't quite get why Kurt Busch ended up apoligizing to Tony Stewart, when Stewart was the one who got sideways in front of Busch, but whatever. Maybe he gets a boner when he apologizes to fat-faced jackasses.)

So, I was lovin' every minute of it, right up until the end. The race was red-flagged with five laps to go, which meant a green-white-checker finish. I don't much care for those anyway, but what happened during those two laps was beyond the pale. (I'm not real sure what "beyond the pale" is actually supposed to mean, but whatever it is, it sounds really really bad.)

Mark Martin was leading, Kevin Harvick was trying to make his move, and then all hell broke loose. Baby Brother Busch wrecked, and it started a chain reaction of other wrecks, involving a bunch of cars.

And the caution never came out.

Let me repeat that for emphasis. Cars were doing a serious smash-up derby, including one that was UPSIDE-DOWN AND ON FIRE, and there was no caution flag.

Harvick edged Martin by a nose. Congrats, Kevin, but you know you didn't really win that race. Mark Martin did, if NASCAR would have just followed their own fucking rules.

Yeah, yellow flag finishes suck harder than a desperate hooker. But with everyone still racing full-bore in the middle of a huge wreck, someone could have gotten seriously hurt. Picture Clint Bowyer, inverted, flaming, and getting T-boned. The only reason that didn't happen is sheer blind luck.

So hey there, NASCAR, this moose wants you to hear something loud and clear. Give me a suck-ass yellow flag finish over that cluster-fuck any day.

Still, I love ya, NASCAR, and I love your crown jewel of a race. Makes me proud to be an American moose, no matter how bad you guys fuck up sometimes.

Still, your sport needs some fixing, and you know it. Feel free to call me if you need any pointers about how to do that. After all, I do have all the answers.

Let's end this with a shout out to the bravest Americans. No, not NASCAR drivers, but the men and women in the military. The ones in that tear-jerking video. I do remember you, and I do love you.

And anyone who's laughing at the soft and squishy moose right now can just bite my ass.

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The Thought Police

Those europeans are queer folks. Their latest foray into What-The-Fuck-ism is throwing some poor bastard in prison for five years for questioning the facts of the Holocaust.

--A German court on Thursday convicted far-right activist Ernst Zundel and sentenced him to five years in prison for Holocaust denial in a case that underlined Germany's determination to prosecute people who claim the Nazis didn't murder six million Jews.

The 67-year-old Zundel, who was deported from Canada in 2005, was convicted on 14 counts of inciting hatred for years of anti-Semitic activities, including contributing to a Web site devoted to denying the Holocaust - a crime in Germany.--

I get that the Germans are sensitive about Hitler killing all those people. But FUCK! Putting people in prison for saying it didn't happen, or that less people were killed than is generally thought?

I'm sorry, but that's just wrong.

Isn't the whole point of being a free society that people are, well... FREE?!?! And doesn't that include the freedom to have wrong or misguided thoughts, and to express those thoughts?

Hell, there's lots of people that disagree with me. After all, I'm a moose with a 'tude. I shudder to think what my world would be like if I couldn't say exactly what was on my mind at any given moment. I'd probably explode, leaving nothing behind but a pile of singed fur and a pair of charred antlers.

Yeah, some people might like that. But I treasure the ability to speak, and to be heard.

Oh, and canada, surprise surprise, is right up there with europe in the Thought Police sweepstakes. They have "hate speech" laws that tell you what you can and cannot say in public. To my extreme shock - NOT! - they are the country that deported Mr. Holocaust Denier so that he could get his ass slung in prison in The Land Of Beer And Sausage.

I'm not sure what these countries are trying to accomplish. I mean, if it's conformity of thought, well, that's just not going to happen. If it's everyone managing to walk through life without ever being offended, then sorry Butt Wheat, that's not on the horizon either.

But there's something more insidious about the Thought Police that these touchy-feely encounter group countries don't seem to grasp. If the government controls what you can and cannot say, then whatever political faction is in charge gets to decide what's on the approved and unapproved list.

Your species claimes to be the most highly evolved on the planet. Can you not see the folly in letting an ever-changing government tell you what thoughts you are allowed to express? Fuck, I'm only a moose, and it's clear to me. Why isn't it equally obvious to you?

Clearly, America is a bit different, in that the First Amendment protects free speech. But really, y'all aren't that far behind the canucks and the krauts. Look at how many universities - PUBLIC universities - have a "speech code," where you can be expelled for saying nigger, kike, faggot, or "Yo mama's a republican!"

Okay, the last one was a joke, but you get my point. Requiring sanitized speech means that whomever is in charge gets to decide what everyone is allowed to say. And that's a bad bad BAD idea, no matter who's running the show. It just gets worse when some asshole is at the helm.

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Friday Fornications

Oh, so much interesting stuff, so little time.

Here's a book I'm not going to read:

The Deserter's Tale: The Story of an Ordinary Soldier Who Walked Away from the War in Iraq

By Joshua Key

As told to Lawrence Hill

Or, as they might refer to it in my circles, "I turned chicken and deserted to canada, and I'm too stupid to write my own book."

You know what? You guys should tell canada in no uncertain terms that you don't want cowardly trailer-trash losers like this back, and that you are revoking his citizenship, so they can't deport him.

From Tennessee, the lovely state that gave us the Anna Mae He story, we have this little dust-up where some idiot on strike from a muffler factory winged a rock at some poor bastard who crossed the picket line.

So here's what I don't get. Assaulting people and/or damaging their property is against the law, right? So why is it tolerated when it's in the context of a labor dispute? Yes, this guy was criminally charged, but the general sentiment in Ass Badger, Tennessee seems to be that the jobs belong to the folks who vacated them, and those who offer to fill said jobs "deserve what the get."

How come? They're just trying to get by, like everyone else.

On to some weird shit of the local variety.

--A woman has been arrested on suspicion that she tied up a man during sex, then stabbed him repeatedly with a knife and told him she likes to drink blood, police said.--

Okay, that just makes me want to take my massive moose-meat and go into hiding or something.

Public Service Announcement: Kids, don't fuck crazy people. And DON'T LET ANYONE YOU DON'T KNOW REALLY WELL TIE YOU UP!

In today's your tax dollars at work news, we have a cheating scandal at one of the service academies.

--The Air Force Academy said Thursday that 24 freshman cadets have now admitted cheating on a test and 12 others are under investigation but have denied wrongdoing.

The school originally said 19 students had admitted cheating and nine others were under investigation.

Two-thirds of the cases involve athletes, Air Force Academy spokesman Johnny Whitaker told The Gazette. The academy did not say what teams were involved.--

This incident apparently involves a test that doesn't even count towards the cadets' grade point average. I shudder to think what they're doing to cheat on the tests that are difficult, and actually matter.

And why does it not surprise me that two-thirds of the cheaters were athletes? They always think the rules don't apply to them.

Attending a service academy is a great honor, one that these douches are clearly not worthy of. Expell 'em all.

In our Anna Nicole Smith update, the dumb bitch didn't revise her will after her son died, so it says all her assets go to him.

Also, the Paternity Count is up to four. Christ in a sidecar. Four men who are tripping over their dicks to claim paternity. That's, like, some sort of pop culture record.

I just find it creepy that so many of the people whose lives Anna Nicole "touched" (and I mean that in a hands on the glands way) end up pushing up daisies. She's worse than that Murder She Wrote chick.

And just so we have our "What in the fuck?!?!" moment for the day, there's a rumor afoot that Britney Spears checked into rehab, then checked out the next day and went to get a tattoo. Um, Brit? You're making Paris Hilton look normal.

No, scratch that, because Paris doesn't have kids that she's publicly careless with. Brit, you're making Judy Garland and Joan Crawford look normal.

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In Praise Of Cotton-Heads

Here's the hierarchy of the universe:

Dogs rule, kids drool, and old people are cool. (oh, and Frasier is a tool, and Chapeau is a fool.)

Seriously, old folks totally rock. Yeah, they can be annoyingly stubborn and set in their ways, and they've been known to make mountains out of molehills. But what's better in life than hearing their stories, helping them out, and just plain old hanging around them?

Yeah, that's right. Nothing.

There's this old lady I'll call Grandma. She's the epitome of a cool old person. She rocks, she rolls, she rules.

Yeah, she rides herd on her dogs a little hard sometimes. But she doesn't do it to piss anyone off, canine or human. She does it because, well... That's just how she is. It's a combination of age and personality and world-view, and it is by-god harmless.

She's of an ethnicity and an era that make her, um... thrifty. And that's really cool, because it means chocolate eyeballs for Christmas.

No, that's not as weird as it sounds. Let me explain. There's always candy left over from Halloween, including those spherical chocolates that are wrapped up to look like eyeballs. Grandma is frugal, thus she would never waste said candy. So on Christmas, when she's putting together the goodie bags for her loved ones, she puts the eyeballs in with the Nestle Crunch bells and the Ferro Rochers.

It's cute, and charming, and very Grandma.

Grandma also tells cool stories. And she steals steins from German beer gardens. And she orders huge dinners in restaurants, and hoovers down every bite.

How can you NOT love someone like that?

And she's not alone. The world is full of old folks, with their eccentricities and their wisdom and their great old-people ways. Sometimes those closest to said old people find them annoying, and I guess that's understandable. They are the ones who have to deal with them, day in and day out.

But, ya know, children are a lot more annoying than senior citizens, and yet everyone's expected to be all smiley-nice with the sproggies. Somehow it doesn't seem fair that it's okay to be short-tempered with the oldsters, but the youngsters get a pass. Far as I'm concerned, Grandma has earned her right to do whatever the fuck she wants to. Bratley and Snotley have earned no such right.

So here's to every day being Cotton-Head Appreciation Day. Love 'em while you got 'em, folks. They won't be around forever, and you'll miss everything about them when they're gone.

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The Angina Monologues

Feminists give me a deep pain in my heart.

Okay, actually, they don't. They give me a deep pain in my ass. But I couldn't think of a word for rectal pain that sounded like vagina, so I went with the angina metaphor instead.

Anyway, happy Valentine's Day to all of you. Except those of you that call it V-Day, and go to performances of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues. Because that whole scene is sort of creepy and man-hating.

V-Day is supposed to be about preventing violence against women. Okay, I'm down with that. But that ain't how these V-Day things go. They turn into male-bashing festivals.

And ya know what? Male-bashing is stupid. All that gender war stuff is stupid.

Have men done lots of ugly stuff to women? Yes, and they didn't deserve it.

But women have done lots of ugly stuff to men, and they didn't deserve it either. (But when a male moose, say one named Danny, does ugly stuff to another moose, say one named Chapeau, it's all totally deserved, because he's a doo-doo head. Trust me on that one.)

Anyway, Valentine's Day is a holiday celebrating love. I think it's harmful and narrow and destructive to try to co-opt an event that is about positive emotions, and turn it into some sort of bull-dyke pity party.

So today, I am asking you to ignore the nattering feminists, and hug someone you love. Don't worry about any differences you may have. Those are normal, and add spice to your coupling.

Oh, and you chicks who are single this Valentine's Day? I have a little advice for you. Don't do the man-hating thing. Just present the best version of yourself that you can. Oh, and stop looking for a "sensitive male." Seriously. If you throw your lot in with one of those, you'll wake up one morning and ask yourself, "How the fuck did I end up married to a woman with a penis?"

.

It's The Economy, Stupid!

I buy Playboy for the articles.

Okay, no I don't. I buy it for the pictures of naked chicks. But the articles really are usually pretty good too. They tend to have a very liberty-oriented slant.

Of course, every once in a while they fuck it up so royally that I fear their next centerfold is going to be Nancy Pelosi. And the March issue contains one of those leftwardly stupid fuck-ups.

The Playboy folks assembled an august panel (you have to pronounce it ah-GOOSED in a snotty, pretentious voice to capture the essence of exactly how special these dudes are) of putative experts to talk about the the economy.

Their names are Robert H. Frank, David Sirota, Paul Stiles, and Louis Uchitelle. Their credentials range from university professor at Cornell (where any thought to the right of Che Guevara is considered reactionary conservatism), to writer for the New York Times, that agenda-less bastion of objectivity.

*snicker*

Now, discussing the economy is kind of like believing in Jesus - you start with a conclusion, then bend the facts to fit. When you're talking about Jesus, that's totally harmless. When you're dealing with the economy, though, it gets sort of scary.

Ronald Reagan presided over a period of great prosperity, in spite of having inherited Jimmy Carter's fucked up economy. He accomplished this by lowering the marginal rate on "the wealthy," and pumping up the levels of government contracts in the defense arena and what not.

You can say what you want about The Gipper, and the Greedy 80s, but it was a good time for pretty much everybody in the country. Yet this magical time is roundly criticized by the eco-freaks of the round table. Yes, the middle class did better, but... GASP! The rich got even richerer!

The econ-augusts have similar criticisms of the current economy. Yes, unemployment is low, and so are interest rates, putting home ownership at an all-time high. But it's all wrong and bad, because the rich are getting richerer still!

Their solution to stifling all this prosperity is to adopt a more european economic model, including "free" healthcare for everyone, and steeply progressive taxes.

Yes, that should really help. I mean, employers in europe have the government so far up their ass regulating them, that unemployment is extremely high, and new job creation is almost non-existent. Why on earth would we not want to emulate such a perfect situation?

And their big bad over-taxed selves do not have a better standard of living than we do. They just redistribute the mediocrity more evenly. America is the only country in the world where "poverty" is having a 19" television instead of a big-screen.

And I guess people don't really grasp that "free" universal health care means you'll pay more in taxes, but get less in services. Gone will be those expensive, exotic procedures that your employer-provided insurance used to cover, unless you can afford to pay for it yourself.

I mean, Uncle Sam will become a giant HMO. And HMOs are charged with minimizing costs. So if, say, you lop your arm off with a chainsaw, your "free" health care won't pony up the tens of thousands of dollars for the micro-surgery to sew it back on. They'll just make sure you have a nice stump.

Is this really what you folks want? REALLY? Or would you rather have the opportunity to find an employment situation where the company-provided insurance agrees that the less cost-effective solution is more, oh, I don't know, humane?

And let's take a moment to address the eco-gurus' observation that lifespans in the United States are actually falling. They want you to jump to the conclusion that this is because of inadequate access to medical care.

Except, that would be the wrong conclusion. The reality of the situation is, America has the most advanced technology of any country in the world, and the vastest array of pharmaceuticals to cure all your ills. Yet people's lives are getting shorter. Why?

Well, mostly because in this country, even the poor people have enough money to clog their arteries, ruin their livers, and give themselves lung cancer. And all this fancy modern medicine can ameliorate (Rhymes with masturbate! Everybody drink!) the effects of a lifestyle full of shitty choices, but it can't completely undo the onslaught.

So people die younger, fatter, and sicker, all because they can afford a cheeseburger, a fifth of bourbon, and a pack of unfiltered Camels.

Anyway...

Contrary to what the econ-augusts say, the market always speaks. And when the powers that be tighten down the screws too much in this country, all those free-spirited entrepreneurial Americans fight back.

Which leads me to the one thing the econo-dudes got right in their little conversation:

Political results are bought and paid for. And who has the money to buy those results? Why, gee. The very same "evil corporations" that our leftist friends want "the government" to micro-manage.

I rest my case.

I'm a moose, with nothing in the way of formal education. It's amazing to me that what I see clearly is a mystery to all those PhD types.

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In Praise Of Lawn Darts

Today, I was going to write about the economy. But I changed my mind, because a far more provocative subject came up:

Lawn darts.

I knew that lawn darts weren't readily available for sale in the United States. But I didn't realize they were banned. I thought they were like those glass "clacker ball" things, where they'd been taken off the market voluntarily.

Boy was I wrong. It would appear that some seven year old kid kid got a lawn dart lobotomy back in the 80s, and that was the end of that.

You know, America is a funny country. It's okay to have lots and lots of guns, but it's not okay to have lawn darts. Contrast this to the United Kingdom, where even the police don't have guns, but by god they can have lawn darts.

(Please do not think that this is an indictment of firearms, because it isn't. It just seems funny that you can buy a semi-automatic rifle with a thirty round clip, but you can't buy some fucking lawn darts.)

Compare that to, say, the sixteen children that croaked in 2004 alone from various other toys. Four of them choked on balls. (Don't even go there, you fucking perverts.) Four died in tricycle accidents, two of those by drowning. (How in the shit does a trike cause a drowning?) One choked on a balloon, and another on a set of dice. Another suffocated under a pile of stuffed animals, and one poor bastard even strangled himself on the reins of his hobby horse. (I'm seriously channelling The Rocking Horse Winner here. I love masturbating on my hobby horse, but EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW...)

Yet there's no demand for balls, dice, tricycles, balloons, and hobby horses to be banned.

Matter of fact, speaking specifically of choking, over the last twenty years 449 sproggen have bought the farm from getting ballons, balls, Happy Meal prizes, and other random objects in their airway. It's a tragedy, of course. but it falls squarely under the category of "Shit Happens."

Yet one lawn dart fatality, and OH MY GOD they need to be banned!

I guess just being careful, and not winging lawn darts in the vicinity of your small children, would have been too sensible a solution. A ban was clearly the only way to go.

*moose eyes rolling*

But, there is hope! And fittingly, it comes from the UK, where you can have lawn darts but not guns. This site informs us that my big-titted secretary my be able to purchase the set of lawn darts that she has long lusted for.

"...Great News for our North American customers…"

Up until now, we have not been able to supply our Crown Darts sets to the US and Canada on account of Lawn Darts being banned there since 1987.

HOWEVER… Great News! People living in the US Citizens and Canada can now order spare parts FREE to make up themselves and this does not class as a set of Lawn Darts!

Yeah, it's about twice as expensive as being able to just order the sets. But where there's a will, there's a way.

I just love that my people aren't afraid to spend money in order to make a statement. I also appreciate the fact that they understand the coolness that is lawn darts.

Now I just need to figure out how to get Frasier down-field when the dart throwing starts.

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Happy Birthday, Little Miss Big Tits

It's the big-titted secretary's birthday. So this is my way of showing my appreciation for everything she does for me.

She has the most important job in the world. She listens while I express my interesting, accurate, insightful (and inciting) thoughts, then she types them up for me. I would do it myself, but I can't. No one has invented a hoof-friendly keyboard yet.

So I rely on the secretary. And she has never let me down.

Don't get me wrong. She's not perfect. For example, she laughs really loud when Frasier cock-blocks me. That's just wrong. Everyone knows Chocolate was meant to be mine, and giggling and finding mirth when that pompous white asshole gets in my way is just mean.

And sometimes she's real stubborn. When she thinks I'm wrong, or behaving badly, she digs in her heels like something straight out of one of those truck pull things that dentally challenged rednecks go to.

(Obviously, I am never wrong. My profile still says so. So don't any of you think my heel digging big-titted secretary changes that. Just thought I'd make that clear.)

You all kinda wish you had a big-titted secretary doing your bidding though, don't you? Especially one like mine. Even when she's disagreeable, she's all fun and spunky and smart and kinda hot.

Yeah, admit it. You're jealous. Well, sorry. You can't have her. She's MY big-titted secretary, warts and all.

So happy birthday, Little Miss Big Tits. Thanks for making this moose who he is. I couldn't have done it - and can't do it going forward - without you.

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A Tale Of Two Annas

By now, everyone who doesn't live under a rock or in a third-world country knows Anna Nicole Smith is dead.

And, of course, the media (and pretty much everyone else) are having a field day with it. The jokes and comments and criticisms are flying fast and thick. It's kind of sick and sad.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm all for making sport of stupid people, and I have been known to revel in the misfortune of others.

But this is different. Making fun of Anna Nicole going tits up is kind of... I dunno. Wrong. It's the equivalent of drop-kicking a puppy or something. It's just not sporting.

I mean, she was just a sad, sad, SAD individual. Her life was a mess, and her death is an even bigger mess. Look at all the shit that's going on as a result of her untimely demise. There's a pissing contest about her kid. Three men all claim paternity. (How fucking bizarre is that? Lots of times you can't even find one man to cop to the knock-up.) There's a pissing contest about the house she was living in. And there's an on-going pissing contest about that fossil she married then fucked to death all those years ago.

(You know what the squickiest outcome of the paternity thing would be? That the rumors of her having used frozen sperm from the dead geezer to make the baby turn out to be true. That would just be... Ugh. There are no words.)

Anyway, Anna Nicole Smith's life was a train wreck. Her death and its aftermath are just as much of a train wreck. Seriously, people. Leave her alone. Pick on someone who isn't quite so pathetic.

Then there's the other Anna: Anna Mae He. I wrote about her a week or so ago. The Supreme Court of Tennessee said she should be with her mom and dad, Jack and Casey He.

Naturally, her idiot foster parents wanted to keep that from happening, so they filed two motions, one to stay the ruling for thirty days, and another requesting the Court to re-hear the case because their decision violated the laws of the state of Tennessee.

The Court didn't just say no. They said FUCK NO.

I truly love how the Supreme Court of Tennessee keeps spanking these idiot fucks. The Bakers, the lower court judges, the Bakers' lawyers - no one has escaped the scathing tongue of the court that finally did right by this little girl.

So, motion to rehear the case - DENIED. Motion to stay the transfer of custody - DENIED. That puts Anna Mae He one step closer to being back with her family.

One sad Anna story and one happy one. I guess the universe is in balance.

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Humans Are Insane

Seriously. You are. You're all bat-shit loony-toons.

Look at yourselves. You create amazing societies, then you flush them right straight down the fucking toilet.

The other day, I watched a movie called V For Vendetta. It was set in the not too distant future, and the limeys had given away all their freedoms so they could be "safe."

What a crock of shit, right? No one would do that.

Except you already have. Americans, europeans, everybody who has built a basically free society... You have ALL done it to a greater or lesser extent over the last several years.

Are you all so fucking stupid that you do not understand that freedom carries risks? You're supposed to be the most evolved species on the planet. Surely you can grasp a simple principle that's no mystery to this moose.

If an animal lives in a zoo, he gets fed regularly, and he has no liberty, and faces no risks. If he lives in the wild, he has to find his own food, he is completely free, and he has to worry about all the things that might hurt or kill him.

Which is better?

Well, I reckon it depends on your definition of "living." To me, living prophylactically isn't living at all. I know there are many who think I am wrong, who say that it's better to be alive and fenced than liberated and dead.

Sorry, I don't agree.

I've got no idea how many of you believe that it's okay to give up your rights in the name of fighting terrorists or evil or whatever the cause du jour is. (Yeah, I know you love it when I do that french thing.) But all of you who think that are dead fucking wrong.

I know, that's not what you wanted to hear. You want to think there can be some sort of compromise. Where you don't give up everything, but some things, and in exchange, your government keeps you safe.

I'm so sorry to be the moose that informs you that it doesn't work that way. Once you subjugate yourself (Hey! I used another five dollar word that rhymes with masturbate!), there is no going back. Those rights and freedoms will never be restored to you.

I don't even know why I bother writing shit like this. You've already done it, and most of you seem okay with it. And by "you," I mean Americans, the inhabitants of the best society your human species has ever seen. I also mean all your allies. Even the french, no matter how bad they smell.

Think about what you are doing, people. Your tacit acceptance of government intrusion into your lives will NOT protect you from Mohammed Zmed, Evil Terrorist. But it certainly WILL be the ruination of your once-glorious societies.

And that would be sad, because you guys are truly emblematic of the best that humans can aspire to. And if you fall, and crumble to dust, what's left? Are the fucking cockroaches going to take over after all?

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"Ethnic Studies" And Dead Illegals

Today, I present to you two stories that have damn little to do with each other on the surface.

First, we have a columnist whining that Arizona needs to spend lots and lots more money on little mexican kids who can't speak English. She also wants "Mexican-American/Raza" studies taught in public schools in border states.

Then, we have four masked bandits robbing and killing illegals.

The first story is an opinion piece, something I rarely write about, since my opinion is the only one that matters. But In spite of my normally mild-mannered moose nature, a couple of things about it pissed me off.

One is, I think you humans are out of your fucking minds spending all the money you do trying to teach kids to speak English. They're kids, for shit's sake. They absorb language like a fucking sponge. Don't believe me? Next time you're mad at your spouse, call them a "chuju" in a loud, angry voice. Do this twice, and you will discover to your delight that your offspring will suddenly be using the Polish word for "dick" as part of their daily vocabulary.

Studies show immersion works better than dull rote learning in a classroom. Throw it on the shore and see if it eats or dies.

The other issue this Valdez lady talks about is "ethnic studies." By ethnic studies, she means teaching mexican history to the little mexican kids who are going to school in America. Yes, some of them are American, but only in the loosest sense of the word. The correct term if you're born here but your parents aren't citizens is "anchor baby."

Anyway, for some reason, this chick thinks we should be wasting valuable school time instructing these kids on the history of their homeland. Now, I don't necessarily object to teaching the little bastards the history of our interaction with mexico over the years, as a small part of a comprehensive American history class.

But providing the equivalent of "chicano studies" just because there's a lot of mexicans in the school? No, sorry. If mommy and daddy want them to know all about the country they came from, let 'em teach it at home. School is for reading, writing, and 'rithmetic.

(And yes, I would feel the same way if schools in Minnesota and North Dakota started offering "canadian studies" classes, so don't even go there. At least canada is interesting. They have mooses. And beavers. And Bob and Doug McKenzie.)

This is a good segue into our second story, which is sad, in a "illegal and stupid behavior sometimes has tragic consequences" sort of way. Maybe the folks involved just needed more ethnic studies when they were growing up.

--Gunmen confronted nine or 10 undocumented immigrants in a vehicle along a known smuggling corridor northwest of Tucson, killing three men Thursday and injuring at least two other people, authorities said.

One man was found dead on a dirt road frequented by human smugglers near the Silverbell mine more than 20 miles northwest of Tucson.

Authorities later found two more men dead a few miles north in the cab of the pickup truck that had been carrying the migrants, said Rick Kastigar, the Pima County sheriff's criminal investigations chief.--

The perpetrators of this crime were wearing ski masks, so no description is available. But it will certainly be interesting to find out who did this. A certain faction of the population (always easily identifiable by their left-wing views and Howard Dean spanky-pants) is already predicting that it was craaaaazy white suprmacists or similar types.

That's possible, I suppose, but it would certainly be a departure, since virtually all of the problems the border-crossing desert-walking illegals have are visited upon them by their fellow mexicans. As the article points out:

--Gangs of armed bandits have been known to roam border areas and prey on illegal immigrants as they cross into the country. Feuding among smuggling organizations also is not uncommon, where one group will steal a load of migrants from another, essentially kidnapping them and demanding ransoms from their relatives to gain their freedom.--

I guess there's just no honor amongst criminals anymore. I mean, who would have thought that engaging in criminal acts, surrounded by criminals, in an area known to have large numbers of criminals, might lead to one becoming a crime victim? These illegals should have been as safe as someone who joins the Hell's Angels. After all, that's just a club for middle-aged motorcycle enthusiasts, right?

Or, as they say in the vernacular, when you lie down with dogs, don't be surprised when you wake up with fleas.

And no, I don't think we're going to find out that four rednecks named Smith, Long, Cox, and Jones did this. My money is on the bandits having names like Martinez, Arroyo, Hernandez, and Garcia.

If I'm wrong, I'll eat Chapeau's hat. (I'd rather eat Chocolate, but that's a whole 'nother conversation.) Not to mention, the moose is never wrong. It says so in my profile.

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Wednesday Wankings

Today, boys and girls, we begin with another Katrina story.



No! Wait! Be patient! This is the funniest one yet.

--In the neighborhood President Bush visited right after Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. government gave $84.5 million to more than 10,000 households. But census figures show that fewer than 8,000 homes existed there at the time.

Now the government wants back a lot of its money.--

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Good luck with that one, Uncle Sam. Those "poor victims" spent that money the day after you doled it out. Even if you could find the people who light-fingered your dough - which you most likely can't - they are as poor now as they were the day they sang and danced with glee because the government was giving away "free" money to hurricane victims.

Read the whole article. It's a hoot, especially the part where some people can't get any aid at all, because another person already used their address to scarf up some bucks.

And, uh, remind me again why we're obligated to help these idiots in the first place?

In a shocking new twist on the old "africans are stupid" theme, we have a bunch of african christians pissed off by a display involving Turkana Boy.

--Deep in the dusty, unlit corridors of Kenya's national museum, locked away in a plain-looking cabinet, is one of mankind's oldest relics: Turkana Boy, as he is known, the most complete skeleton of a prehistoric human ever found.

But his first public display later this year is at the heart of a growing storm -- one pitting scientists against Kenya's powerful and popular evangelical Christian movement. The debate over evolution vs. creationism -- once largely confined to the United States -- has arrived in a country known as the cradle of mankind.--

Young-earth creationists are funny. But it's even funnier to find them in africa, where the fossil record is so clear and so... available.

I don't get what the big deal is anyway. I mean, I don't mind sharing a common ancestor with my antlered brethren of other species. Well, except for Chapeau, because he's a dork, but you get my general drift.

Besides which, even if this "God" dude did create the Earth like in the bible, who's to say he didn't also set evolution in motion so he could watch it play out while eating popcorn and laughing his ass off.

And in the "Don't the Congress-critters READ this shit before they vote for it?!?!" category, we have a plan to collect DNA from illegals.

--The Justice Department is completing rules to allow the collection of DNA from most people arrested or detained by federal authorities, a vast expansion of DNA gathering that will include hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, by far the largest group affected.

The new forensic DNA sampling was authorized by Congress in a little-noticed amendment to a January 2006 renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, which provides protections and assistance for victims of sexual crimes. The amendment permits DNA collecting from anyone under criminal arrest by federal authorities, and also from illegal immigrants detained by federal agents.--

Personally, I think this sounds like a pretty good idea. I just think it's funny as shit that people are whining NOW about a law that was passed more than a year ago. Uh, do-gooders? That horse done left the barn a LONG while back.

In the words of Ricky Ricardo, "Luthie, you got some essplainin' to do." Don't be surprised when your constituents are pissed, do-gooders.

In the "Krazy Kalifornians" realm, we have a County Clerk who is going to issue Certificates of Inequality to gay couples on Valentine's Day.

--They will say, "I issue this Certificate of Inequality to you because your choice of marriage partner displeases some people whose displeasure is, apparently, more important than principles of equality."--

You know, I'm all for letting gays marry. But I think ol' Freddie the County Clerk (A chick named Freddie? Anything you want to tell us, Freddie?) does the cause more harm than good with stunts like this.

It's kind of like those Gay Pride marches where you see shit like a flaming homo running aound naked, with his nut-sack painted bright pink and rabbit ears attached to his dick. Dude, no one wants to see your junk done up like the Easter Bunny, and it sure doesn't do much to bolster any claims that gays are "Just like everyone else, and want the same things straight people want."

Sorry, no. Straight guys don't want to deck their grnitals out like rodents.

Similarly, Freddie's little stunt isn't meant to advance the cause of gay marriage. It's intended to piss people off, and it's going to work, and that will be a set-back even in fruity California.

Freddie's time would be better spent writing letters to her elected representatives.

And our "Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww!!" moment for the day goes to the revelation that most faux fur is dog hair.

--Many fur or fur-trimmed jackets sold in the United States as having "faux fur" -- or not labeled at all -- are actually made, at least in part, from dog fur, the Humane Society of the United States said at a Capitol Hill news conference Wednesday.--

Gee. I didn't know "faux" and "Rin Tin Tin" were synonyms. You learn something new every day.

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Ohferfuck'ssake... Snickers Bars And Homo Outrage

By now everybody has heard about the great Snickers Commercial Controversy, brought about by a Super Bowl commercial. And here I was maligning this year's crop for being safe and tame just the other day. Little did I know.

Anyway, in the ad, two auto mechanic dudes eat a Snickers bar, one starting at one end, and one the other. They gobble their Snickers, and their lips end up touching. They freak out because they kissed, and decide they must immediately do something manly. So they rip handfuls of their chest hair out by the roots.

Ouch.

Snickers also had a website (no point in linking to it because it's gone now) where you could view the reactions of some of the Bears and Colts players. You could also look at three alternative endings to the commercial, and vote for your favorite. The winning spot was to air during the Daytona 500.

But all that's been called off now, because a bunch of buzz-kill homo advocates raised a stink.

Here is what the late Matthew Shepard's mother had to say:

“I am outraged that Mars, the NFL and these players would promote such an anti-gay message. This campaign encourages the same type of hate that led to the death of my son Matthew. It essentially gives ‘permission’ to our society to verbally or physically harass individuals who are gay, lesbian or bisexual,” said Judy Shepard, Executive Director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation. “In particular, I am dismayed that these players, who are role models to our young people, would participate in perpetuating such discrimination and prejudice.”

Oh, what the fuck ever. Look, lady, I'm sorry you lost your son. But a couple of caricature rednecks drinking motor oil, or doing the equivalent of that hillbilly dance from the Bugs Bunny cartoon, is not what killed your boy.

Let's face it. Those commercials were not condoning violence against homos, or even laughing at homos. They were poking fun at straight guys, yokels so concerned about their "manliness" after an accidental contact with another man, that they were willing to do downright silly things to ensure that they were still manly.

I thought the over-reactions were rather extreme, and thought that even more so when the entire campaign was dropped.

Then I read the official statement from Masterfoods (kind of like "masturbates," but with edible items).

As with all of our Snickers advertising, our goal was to capture the attention of our core Snickers consumer.

Feedback from our target consumers has been positive. In addition, many media and website commentators of this year’s Super Bowl commercial line-up ranked the commercial among this year’s top ten best. USA Today ranked it #9 of its top ten pick.

We know that humor is highly subjective and understand that some people may have found the ad offensive. Clearly that was not our intent. Consequently, we do not plan to continue to air the ad on television or on our Snickers website.

And I started to wonder if maybe it was deliberate. I mean, nobody's talked this much about Snickers bars since... Well, since ever.

So this tiny germ of an idea popped into my brain. Maybe cheesing off the homos, and galvanizing the beer-drinking, football-loving, NASCAR-watching fans was the plan all along. Maybe the marketing whizzes truly batted one out of the park, by alienating a small demographic that's not a big consumer of their product, in exchange for getting their core Snickers-eating audience all fired up.

Far-fetched? Perhaps. But people are still talking about a commercial that wasn't THAT memorable, and a multi-million dollar advertising campaign that was scotched twenty-four hours after it was launched due to pressure from the gay lobby.

Either way, planned or accidentally, the Snickers execs have hit the jackpot with this one. People who had stopped caring about a product that has, let's face it, been around a LONG time, are going out of their way to eat Snickers bars to "show those homos that they don't run things around here."

Now THAT is the kind of brand loyalty you just can't buy.

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Anna Mae He... Hee Hee Hee

Normally when you crazy humans give a kid back to its biological parents after a long stint with someone else, I roll my eyes and wonder why you're all so retarded sometimes.

But the case of Anna Mae He is different. Her mother and father - Shaoqiang "Jack" He and Qin Luo "Casey" He (heretofore to be refered to as Jack and Casey, because there is no possible way I could stuff enough liverwurst in my mouth to pronounce their chinese names) - appear to be hard-working people and good parents. They just ended up being taken advantage of by a "good christian" couple.

The story is long and complicated, but you can read a brief article about the situation and the decision here.

--The Tennessee Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for a Chinese couple to be reunited with the daughter they placed in foster care with an American family nearly eight years ago.

The court overturned a decision by a Memphis judge who had taken away the parental rights of Shaoqiang and Qin Luo He, ruling that they had abandoned the child. That decision attracted widespread publicity and was criticized for ethnic bias.

Their daughter, Anna Mae He, has been living with Jerry and Louise Baker in suburban Memphis since she was 3 weeks old. Anna Mae turns 8 later this month.--

{Moose's note: She turned eight on January 28th.}

By way of background, Jack He came here on a student visa, to pursue a PhD in economics. Now, let's think about this for a moment. If he was a useless piece of human detritus, would he be part of an academic program that I'm sure thousands of other chinamen would have gone all kung fu on someone to be involved with?

And his wife came here on a spouse visa. And they were too poor to afford any entertainment besides fucking, and OOPSIE! She ended up knocked up. The baby, Anna Mae, was a preemie, and Mom & Dad were having financial and legal problems, so they temporarily placed her in foster care. And that's when all hell broke loose.

The Bakers wanted to adopt the cute little asian kid. No big shock there. What IS shocking, though, is the lengths they were willing to go to in order to achieve their goal, and the sheer meanness of their methodology. I mean, threatening to sic the police on a chinese couple who have expired visas and a sketchy grasp of the English language? That just ain't sporting, kids.

And getting a no-contact order, then claiming that the wee sproggie was abandoned by her parents because they didn't see her for four months? Christ on a pogo stick. Is that what passes for justice in Al Gore's home state?

Oh, by the by, the no-contact order was issued because the Hes wouldn't turn over Anna Mae's passport, and the Bakers were afraid if they had a visit with the kid, they'd jump on a plane to china and never look back.

Well DUH. Would you have blamed them? They tried to do what was best, and got seriously anally reamed without lube in the process.

Fuck, Jack and Casey did everything right. They knew they were in over their heads, and they reached out for help. Unfortunately, the "good christians" who got ahold of them were about as christian as islamic suicide bombers.

What's most disturbing about this case is, you know that either money changed hands, or favors were called in. Because the only things Jack and Casey He did wrong were being chinese, and poor. Grad students are SUPPOSED to be poor. They are the indentured servants of their professors and faculty advisors. Jack He was no different than some over-privileged white douche in any advanced degree program in the country, except that it's easier to take advantage of some poor asian bastard.

At the end, the Bakers tried to claim that it was in Anna Mae's "best interest" to stay with them because she had no relationship with her real parents. And, uh, whose fault is that, you ignorant inbred cocksuckers? YOU are the ones who kept her away from her parents for YEARS.

Even if that argument had validity, the poor little girl shouldn't be left with the Bakers. That would be rewarding them for unethically (and possibly illegally, going by the rebuking the Chancery Court judges got in the decision) interfering in Anna Mae's relationship with her mom and dad for a VERY long time.

Sadly, that's not all.

The Bakers fucked this kid up but good. She says she wishes she wasn't chinese, and would love to have blonde hair and blue eyes. I'm sorry, but she didn't come to those tragically sad thoughts about her heritage on her own. Those are ideas that (cruel, vindictive, piece of shit) adults put into a child's head. And I'm pretty fucking sure the adults in question are named Jerry and Louise.

Maybe her parents, who love her so much that they never gave up, can heal her wounded spirit. Good luck, little Anna Mae. This moose is keeping you in his heart.

Now everybody forget that you saw me get all soft and squishy again, or I will hunt you down and beat you to death with my antlers.

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