Etta James

Music. The incredible Crispin Sartwell and I had a brief discussion of Etta James over at his blog “Why the Selection of Newt Gingrich for Pope is part of my master plan to save the universe?” Crispin’s Blog is highly recommended if you’re looking for a IFC sort of always on, sort of off philosopher with a rock and roll bent. (Except for the damn card tricks, which can rapidly devolve to the level of cat pictures.)  Basically, we agree that Etta James was incredible as a performer although, as with many blues and rock and country and grunting Tibetan throat singers her earlier, simpler stuff was better. Some of her producers were like second rate Chet Atkins adding strings and horns to something that just needed more bass, stronger rhythm and more reverb! There are exceptions to this general rule – musicians mature and get better and more interesting and versatile. Marianne Faithful falls into this category, I think as do The Allman Brothers, Emmy Lou Harris and Steve Earle. But as her range decreased and her weight ballooned and plummeted– cocaine, heroin, abuse, and gastric by-pass add up to a helluva drug combination – she remained a great performer but a different one.

Etta James is definitely in the Edith Piaf-Billie Holliday-Tammy Wynette tradition of female singers on the edge –victimized and exploited but never a victim.  I refuse to see her death as tragic. Pretty sure she ran out of steam – pneumonia, diabetes, dementia, high blood pressure, kidney failure and dialysis –and is no longer in pain. The behavior of her family in fighting over who was going to control her estate testifies to something about human nature…as a general rule, people suck.

In general, 2011 and early 2012 have not been great for the Blues. Lots of incredible talent has died—what I find interesting is that they seem to be surviving to ripe old ages which is kind of re-assuring. Etta James was 73; Johnny Otis was in his late 80s; Hubert Sumlin was in his 80s. While there have been some really smart band leaders like Howlin’ Wolf and Robert Earl Keene over the years who made their musicians pay into Social Security and Medicare, the traditional musician ends up either so rich it doesn’t matter or more likely – very much more likely – dead broke or surviving based on income from some other source like Matt Murphy and Blue Moon Marini, working as fry cooks in a catfish diner.  The Blues Review has a good summary of the folks who crossed over to play in St Michael’s Blues Band in 2011.

Heaven Called

Afghanistan. Norman Mailer wrote an allegorical novel in the late 60s called Why are we in Vietnam? Basically, the answer seemed to be because we can. Not a great answer to an important question, but despite the geo-political nonsense, it really seems that ultimately that was the answer. Somebody had a great fucking idea, and then it went sideways. Well, if Vietnam went sideways, Afghanistan has spun into an entirely different dimension.

You know, the Russians advised us against this; Russian officers asked both formally and informally if we were fucking crazy or what? Well, Afghanistan made sense to destroy al Queida and to kill Bin Laden. Trying to add the Afghans to the ranks of the Muslim Jeffersonian Democracies that the Neocons were inventing in Central Asia was batshit crazy and stupid. The last successful strategic victory in Afghanistan was by the Moguls who just waged a war of virtual extermination and conversion. That was a while ago. The British got their ass handed to them, continuously; the Soviet Union was destroyed as a result of their fun and games — Stinger Missiles and the Muhajadeen did more to make Gorbachov tear down the wall than Reagan was awake for — and now we’re stuck. The Brits are leaving; the French are leaving; the Dutch are leaving. We should be going and get gone.

FFL Anthem from Vietnam and Algeria

Look, some Afghans wanted us to toss the Taliban out and to have some cultural and economic liberation. They got it. Now they want us to leave. The people who wanted us to leave still want us to leave only more so. The people we’re training, arming, feeding and supplying in the Afghan Army and Police Force want us to leave, express hatred for us and are shooting NATO trainers. Karzai is threatening to make a seperate peace with the Taliban and fight with Pakistan against us. Pakistan is having fun cutting the lines of communication. Anybody in the mood for The March of the 10000?

We’re stuck and losing soldiers, money, prestiege and influence in a war we don’t understand and can’t win. Outside of waging a war of extermination and then paving the goddamn place so Pakistan and India can use it as a parking lot, there is no up side and no effective strategy going forward. The war made slightly more sense at the time and was less costly than the Iraq debacle. That didn’t make it a good idea; and every day we’re not withdrawing a lot and figuring out how to disengage is a really bad plan on our part. Afghanistan has been broke since Alexander visited it in 400 BC or so; why did we choose to pick up the Pottery Barn receipt on this one?

It’s a brutal, awful theo-klepto-psycho-cratic place. So, have a wide open asylum program for people who want the hell out. As for the rest, isolate it like the geo-political virus it represents and let them cheerfully kill each other. Let WWIII start somewhere else. Lillehammer is nice, I’m told.

Who’s worried about us?

What the Hell is Going on With the Republican Party? Well, damned if I know, but I suspect that we’re getting to see a rare instance of devolution. I find the symbolic nature of South Carolina’s “war with the Federal Government” to use Rick Perry’s phrase interesting. There most be something about the water in the Gamecock state. I heard a member of the executive branch of State Government say that he’s an Evangelical Christian, a Tea Party Member and a Romney supporter…ok, how can you call yourself a Christian and be a Libertarian? I asked that question on Twitter, wondering if there was some special version of the Bible for these people. Some one responded to me to the effect that there was, most of the Old Testament. Well, Lewis Black had put that to rest a couple of years ago, despite everything else. “Why does he believe that? He read it in the Old Testament which is the book of my people, the Jewish People…which wasn’t good enough for you Christians…was it!?”

Fossil showing and throwing from Lewis Black

So, assuming that it’s possible to somehow be a Christian and cheer for executions and letting people die and not caring for the poor, indigent and helpless but to focus on stoning women and using the bible to spread Free Enterprise, how can you be a Christian-Libertarian and a Romney supporter?

Now, I kinda liked Michelle Bachmann. She’s insane, of course, and kind of attractive in a depressed-MILFy-madwoman kind of way. An evening with Michelle Bachmann would be like taking a car ride with Lucy Jordan on amyl nitrate and Ecstasy…and lots of ritalin. Jon Huntsman seemed like a reasonable guy with a lot of great ideas compared to whatever the hell Perry, Santorum, Paul and Romney had for ideas. But, what the hell, he started babbling in Mandarin, and these people are largely opposed to things like public education…what was he, some kind of Metrosexual Communist? After watching and listening to Santorum a bit, I wonder if he doesn’t realize exactly how crazy he is; could Rick Santorum be a double-agent of the devil, trying to give Evangelical Christians who are Catholics a really bad name?

So, the obvious non-Romney face of the Republican party is actually Newt Gingrich. Barney Frank has     been on the record saying that he had not thought that he had lived a good enough life to deserve a presidential campaign where Newt Gingrich was going to be the Republican nominee. Well, there’s a way to go yet, but I’m betting Barney has a bunch of angry Catholic friends lighting candles all over Boston and Cambridge because nothing short of divine intervention explains the second coming of Newt Gingrich. And now, the third.

Now, as a lifelong Democrat, I have to admit to staying home for the first election I could vote in, George McGovern in 1972. Nor did I vote either time for Jimminy Carter, which I kind of regret. Nor Mondale. Nor Dukakis. However, by the time Clinton ran, I had come to accept that by not voting I was voting — not caring was allowing the greater of two evils or an actual evil or an innocuous with good intentions to triumph with my ok. So, I started voting…but, the Democrats had gone through a period of ideologically driven purity and pie in the sky social engineering dreams that were insanely unsupportable and unelectable. So, a lot of us stayed home for a couple of decades. Well, the left-center-moderates should be able to see and understand what that did for us really well after the Congressional debacle of 2010. It’s really kind of simple — in normal circumstances not including defeating totalitarianism or preserving the union — government will occur best when it’s plus or minus 20-40% from the middle. The pendulum will swing, and the wider the variation from the national consensus the crazier will be the correction.

Squares Make the World

Now, Barrack Obama has advocated policies and programs and legal solutions to the right of Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, (two famous American communists, just ask the John Birch Society) which seem to some to radically socialist and Kenyan. Among the some is, of course, Newt Gingrich. Mr. Meglomania. Gingrich is using racial buzzwords, playing to the old Southern Strategy…How can you be Black and a Republican? How can you be Gay and be a Republican? How can you be Mexican and be a Republican? How full of self-loathing do you really have to be? Or how unaware?

The Master of Disaster…so, I think the Republican Party is wandering around in the conspiracy-paranoid riven ideological desert that the Dems spent the 70s and 80s in. Could get interesting…should get interesting…might even get better. For a while…but then you have Democrats cutting education in their Tea Party state budget proposal by $53M but tossing Noah’s Fun’s Family Fun and Dinosaur Theme Park a $50M tax break. How full of self-loathing does a Democratic Governor have to be to recommend some insanity like that? I suppose it might create a few low paying park attendant jobs, more than making up for the loss of teaching positions. Now, if Rand Paul and Yertle Turtle McConnell can get Kaintuck an exemption from the Fair Labor Standards Act they can probably hire pre-teens to work there and in the schools for 30 cents an hour. Kinky will have to update his version of El Paso...Cretin from Kentucky?

Earlier this week, on some medium somewhere, I read that a local entrepreneur was holding open auditions for proposed Christian videos, TV shows and Movies. My initial reaction was, By Bless Tiffany’s left tit, what a joke. However, turns out it’s real, and I’m going to cover this as an unpaid staffer for the Crossroads of Opportunity’s Alternative Newspaper, the Mojave Free Press. This will be my first foray into true Gonzo journalism, so we’ll see how this plays out. I’ve seen some “Christian” stuff, and what they lack in aesthetic quality, they make up in perky white-anglo evangelical zeal and nonsense. So, I’m curious as to what is going on here – Why Barstow? A lot of things are filmed around here; for example, Clint Eastwood used the cave systems in the local mountains to film “Letters from Iwo Jima” and I think there are some local shots at various points in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. But, the average Barstonian is neither Biff nor Muffy  and doesn’t conform to the traditional California image. It’s a small, poor, grungy blue collar town that depends on a couple of military bases, a lot of fast food restaurants and hotels, and the Burlington Northern to continue existing. So, this is either some local who spent too long in the sun or it’s a scam.

Next, I was somewhat surprised to discover this morning that it had taken this long for the Lindsay Lohan spread to leak from Playboy. I was more surprised when I followed the link on HuffPo to the pirated material. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if  Playboy’s editorial and marketing staff figured they  could get more of a bump from publicizing her and the leak as opposed from waiting for the reviews of the spread, so they leaked it all.  I feel sorry for Lohan in some ways – she is kind of pathetic. She had lots of potential I guess, as a American Hailey Mills 40 years later. However, we need to remember that the old studio system prevented a lot of nonsense from the child stars. They may have had problems later, but when Walt ran the place, the kids didn’t get into lots of trouble as soon as they were old enough to drive. And, despite obviously dysfunctional situations—Jackie Coogan, Jackie Cooper, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Danny Bonaduce, Patty Duke and so on – for the most part these people hit 21 with livers, brains and bank balance more or less intact. Lohan’s situations have been weirder by far than her films; and, she doesn’t seem to get it. The Star System in Hollywood has been gone for a long time; what sells now is bad press.

Anyway, the Playboy spread might have been considered sexy and titillating back in the mid-60s. While Playboy is still less graphic than Penthouse, it’s long since started showing public hair and related anatomy. While there are people still who claim to read the damn thing to read the articles, not so much these days. I suspect that Ms. Lohan might have been willing to show more and do more for more money although maybe she has finally gotten some advisors who realize this could degenerate quickly. Her career is teetering; appearing at times like a meth-addled hag with an absolute inability to control her behavior, desires or bodily functions combined with the spoiled diva sense of entitlement that puts a lot of people’s teeth on edge. The pictures are lifeless, continuing her Marilyn Monroe meme and while more risqué than the Vanity Fair shoot, she doesn’t work as well as she did in those photos. So, if I’m Playboy, my thoughts looking at these thing s would have been how tosqueeze the most value out of these things…frankly, she looks embalmed. So, stage an act of piracy of intellectual property and raise hell without ever getting anywhere. Perhaps there’s more stuff, better stuff in the magazine; possibly not. But, this will amp up their sales and possibly the positive impact on her career.

Perhaps she should come to Barstow for the open audition.

Another striking bit of weirdness this week revolves around Karl Rove and the Republican establishment. Rove’s disinformatia operation, American Crossroads decided to go all in on the Scott Brown re-election bid, and ran an ad  in Massachusetts 12 months before the Senatorial election trying to portray her as some kind of progressive reformer in league with the Regulators and OWS and probably the Illuminati and the Communist Internationale to encourage violence, disruption and scare away the “Job Creators.” Well, the complaints were very much over the top – Dr. Warren was a Harvard Professor at Harvard Law and was asked to come into government to administer and regulate TARP. She did and then began lobbying for a consumer protection agency focused on protecting those of us who are buying the financial products the banks and brokerages are dealing. The idea that Massachusetts is populated by tea-sipping, chardonnay bathing, Pekinese sodomizing commie pinko fags is actually pretty funny. Get past Newton, and you’re in pure rustbelt, redneck country. However, it’s a well-educated and pretty smart bunch of rednecks, who may not be politically correct but are pretty savvy. The sole reason that Scott Brown won the special election to replace Ted Kennedy was that the Democrat ran a wretched campaign based on a sense of electoral entitlement. After all, it was Teddy’s seat, so the voters would give it to the anointed Dem…not hardly. Teddy Kennedy always campaigned and campaigned fiercely. So, given the choice between a guy identified as a favorite of the Hedge Fund Managers and somebody who gives the Hedge Fund Managers nightmares, and Dr. Warren has a tremendous following. It helps that she can explain this crap in plain English. So, Rove’s over the top attack ad didn’t have the desired effect. It improved her standing in the polls.

So, they next roll out some bizarre thing about how she’s buddy-buddy with the bankers. Yeah. That will work well – in this age of new media, social networks and a nascent political uprising of progressives united with a pissed off middle and working class, attacking Warren and then being identified with Rove is not terribly helpful. Saying things that are factually absurd is even more damaging. I suspect next, to Dr. Warren’s and her husband’s surpise, Rove will accuse her of either being gay or being anti-gay. We can only hope…

Karl, if you’re listening, Jon Stewart cocking an eyebrow and calling this bullshit will hurt Brown more than this ad could ever help.

Then there was the shock about Albert Pujols not signing with the Cardinals or the Nationals or the Marlins but with the Angels. How could he do that? Fairly simple – he’s an excellent defensive first baseman but I watched the play where he broke his forearm this summer. He’s not stupid, the Angels are in the American League, and they have the designated hitter as an option. They also are in a huge media market and have the money, a quality manager who has National League roots and pretty decent team in a fairly weak division. He could have signed with the Cardinals at any time, but they either didn’t pursue him or they didn’t realize that the guy had alternatives. I’m wondering where Prince Fielder goes, but batting him fourth with Ichiro and Dustin Ackley in front of him would probably give the Mariners another ten or so wins with no other improvements.

Finally, I must say I’m really tired of these “Gambling in Casablanca? I’m shocked, shocked. Arrest the usual suspects…”We’re sending drones over Iran and this is a surprise? To whom? Rick Perry? Michelle Bachmann? John Boenher? Katarina van der Heuvel? A drone malfunctions and the Iranians recover it and try to make it a big deal.

Hell, this is where our media’s occasional lack of historical context and limited attention span come into question. Of course, it was over 60 years ago, but the USSR were able to shoot down a U2 and capture the pilot. Eisenhower caught hell from the nonaligned nations and the world’s press, and the poor CIA contractor-pilot, Francis Gary Powers was vilified for not following the Geneva convention and breaking under interrogation.  But seriously, the shock was that the Soviets had the capability to engage high altitude air craft. If we had the capability to collect intelligence and didn’t then we’d have been wrong.

I’d rather they played this newest iteration of the great game with drones and technology than with human beings. Got enough problems on that front already.

I used to read the Times of London primarily for the book reviews and Jeremy Clarkson’s columns until Murdoch decided to overcharge for the privilege. I do still pull up The Guardian for a variety of reasons. One is that Ana Marie Cox, the equally lovely, younger,equally red-haired version of Dulcinea Dowd who would have been a lot of fun listening to chat with Molly Ivins about Michelle Bachman, has returned to professional blogging and is now doing it for The Guardian. Very cool. The other is that they frequently have columns like this one — the author’s defense of his belief, nay conviction, that the Prime Minister of Great Britian is a slithering reptile.

I do not know why we can’t routinely get it this right… Here are some of the great lines from the piece that should be printed out and posted on every thinking person’s desk when looking for inspiration on how to effectively eviscerate the trolls toiling the bells of American economic justice and freedom.

… writes vividly and from the heart and, if his byline photo is anything to go by, appears to be a perfectly reasonable man (specifically, Ross Kemp). He deserves the benefit of the doubt. But I fear in his rush to reprimand the “Modern Left”, he has overlooked one key fact: David Cameron is a lizard. Yes, David Cameron is a lizard. A lizard that devours live foals in its lair. And as far as Archer is concerned, it’s perfectly fine for this limbless, non-human, Cameron-reptile-beast-thing to squirm across the stone floor of its den merrily excreting the bones of its victims, yet I’m “depraved” simply for writing about it. This is the tragedy of the Modern Right. They’re idiots. Well, let me spell it out: You cannot dehumanise a lizard. Not without humanising it first, by giving it a little top hat, say, or a monocle. Maybe put some lipstick on it. And a wig. Teach it to walk sexy. That’s the way. (Mike’s comment — Like a pitbull, or a momma Grizzly!)

Seriously, we need to spend time practicing to be this good. There is an art, a craft, a honed skill to political commentary and invective, and these awful people deserve the best of that art.

I’m not sure that any of them are left except in the careerist types who went to work for Republican causes like some folks went to work for General Motors, but the rational Republican who rode the Tea Party/Bush/Cheney clown car as a career choice has got to be having second thoughts.

Gone, Gone, Gone[youtube _JCcP-eeC6I nolink]

The news that the only rational person in the Republican field — Jon Huntsman — polled a 0% in the Value Voters thing was kind of amazing.Of course, he’s a Mormon, spells his name wrong if you check the Bible, and actually understands things like, oh, China, trade, economics, oil and has a serious character flaw on top of that. Jon Huntsman has refused to pander to the nutcases and nimrods. I find that admirable…why is this man still a Republican? Ron Paul and the Herminator were the big winners, with Paul winning in a Landslide while Cain came in second by 14 points. Between the two of them, they actually had a majority, 51%. Now, they’re both crazier than Daffy Duck on acid, but hell, at the moment they’re the leaders of this pack of bubble heads. Personally, I think the R’s  need to draft Nikki Haley and either of the pinheads from Oklahoma, but a Paul-Cain ticket would bring clarity.

I was noticing that the junior Senator from Massachusetts was babbling about Elizabeth Warren questioning his appearing in Playgirl while he attended the school of hard knocks. Scott Warren went to Tufts, which is a small, private, elitest school in Boston. He then went to Boston College Law School, which is a an excellent litagator’s school and is private. Very expensive — both of them. Elizabeth Warren went to the University of Houston, which is a working person’s school with very low tuition at the time. She then went to Rutgers Law, a public university. On a scholarship. We need to take a deep breath and laugh loudly at Brown’s claim to be from the school of hard knocks. Remember, he drives a truck to haul his daughter’s horses around. He is a twit, a tool and a weasel. He fits in well in the rear seat of the clown car.

So, once again, I need to leave the last word to Monty…Our surrogate Everyman.

A few months back I read about a truly mind-blowing scandal involving the Bureau of Alcohol Firearms and Tobacco. Apparently the organization had been supplying guns to Mexican drug cartels which – unsurprisingly- had since been used to kill people.

Now in many parts of the world you would assume that corrupt members of the ATF were boosting their income by moonlighting as arms dealers. In Mexico the police, government and gangs are closely interlinked, and nobody is shocked.  In the 1990s some Russian soldiers sold weapons to the Chechen militants they were fighting. Why? Everybody knew: to supplement their miserable earnings.

But America is more complex than that. Apparently the ATF was “walking” the weapons to Mexico to… well, I’m not sure what exactly. I think they were trying to see if American guns were reaching the murderous barbarians who run the cartels. Well obviously they were, because the ATF itself was sending the drug lords THOUSANDS OF GUNS.

But not for cash, no… they wanted to prove a point…. Maybe the ATF was trying to trace the routes by which these weapons made it into Mexico. I’m not sure, the whole story makes so little sense. Tell you what, I’ll Google it. Back in a jiffy…

… alright, I just checked, and it still doesn’t make any sense. According to CNN:

“…the ATF allowed people suspected of being straw-purchasers of weapons to sell their weapons, hoping to build bigger cases against Mexican criminal organizations.”

You got that? They were going after the big fish in another country by selling them lots of lethal weapons. Nah, it still doesn’t make any sense, especially as the US government had neglected to inform the Mexican authorities, and has no jurisdiction over crimes carried out in Mexican territory anyway.

I also take it as a very bad sign that the ATF called this gory farce Operation Fast and Furious, after a very poor Vin Diesel film about cars. I mean, Vin Diesel? At least choose a film from the oeuvre of a major action star such as Schwarzenegger, or Bruce Willis, or Stallone. You know, like Operation Predator or Operation Die Hard or Operation Cop Land.

Expanding upon the Stallone theme perhaps Operation The Expendables might have been a better choice as the ATF inadvertently caused the death of a Border Patrol Agent named Brian Terry. He was gunned down in Arizona in 2010 by a gangster using one of the guns his ATF colleagues had kindly sent across the Rio Grande, one of an estimated 1,400 (out of 2,000) that remain in circulation. The weapons trafficked by the US government south have been linked to 179 crime scenes in Mexico. One of them was even used to shoot at a Mexican military helicopter. Great work guys!

As I said, I first heard about this in June when a Congressman named Darrel Issa chaired hearings into the debacle. Apparently ATF agents had been intercepting the weapons on the way south, only to be told by their superiors to let them through. The thing is, nobody seemed to know who was ultimately responsible. When questioned by the Issa panel, Obama’s hapless Attorney General, Eric Holder, denied all knowledge of his subordinates’ scheme.

At this point I expected the story to explode, since clearly somebody very high up was lying. But as usual I underestimated the servile nature of the press, at least when a Democratic administration is in office. Instead the story went down the memory hole. How is that possible, you ask? I’m not sure myself. It just disappeared.

Conservative bloggers attempted to fan the flames of the scandal, but the White House ignored their criticisms as politically motivated. The Right’s paranoid theorizing that the Fed’s plan was to permit Mexican gangsters to buy guns as an excuse to clamp down on the E-Z access to guns US citizens so enjoy was a little too tinfoil hat for people who do not share their assumptions and values.

And thus you see the perfect alchemical marriage of a cosmically incompetent Federal bureau and a criminally complacent media class acting to shield one of Obama’s key lieutenants from a potentially career destroying scandal.

Recently however a reporter at CBS realized that a Federal Agency supplying Mexican gangsters with thousands of guns is actually a major news story and uncovered documents revealing that the Attorney General had been briefed on the operation in May 2010- which directly contradicted his claim (made under oath) that he had only heard about it a few weeks before Issa’s hearings began.

Isn’t that called perjury? According to CBS news, Holder’s office says no:

“Holder misunderstood that question from the committee – he did know about Fast and Furious – just not the details.”

…this in spite of the fact that he received weekly briefings on the subject starting in July 2010. Guess he was too busy playing The Great Gatsby for Nintendo online. It’s so implausible even ‘serious’ journalists are starting to take notice. We may get to the bottom of this baffling scandal yet.

Originally published at RIA Novosti, the home of awesomeness

10. When Sarah Palin said U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords should be “targeted,” she meant targeted with a surveyor’s scope

9. Sarah Palin used the term “blood libel” in a completely non-Jewish Christian context, referring to people who claim that wine in church isn’t really the blood of Christ

8. When Byron Williams, who got into a gunfight with police trying to attack members of the Tides Foundation in San Francisco, said he had been influenced by Glenn Beck, he really meant the singer Beck (“Odelay”)

7. When Sarah Palin complained that the shooting in Arizona had been unfairly politicized, then suggested that the gunman was perhaps a “left-leaning criminal,” she meant one of his legs was shorter than the other

6. When the mother of Gregory Lee Giusti, who was convicted of threatening former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, blamed Fox News, she actually meant the news that Redd Foxx had died

4. Tea Partier Sharron Angle’s suggestion of “Second Amendment solutions” for an out-of-control Congress was a misquote; she actually referenced the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments

3. Sarah Palin’s use of the phrase “don’t retreat, reload” was a reference to wash loads

2. When a relative of Charles Wilson, who was convicted of threatening Sen. Patty Murray, said he was “under the spell that Glenn Beck cast,” he really meant he’d been drinking Beck’s beer.

1. Whenever Sarah Palin uses the term ‘Democrats,’ she of course means ‘shitheads who should be taken out’
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Recently I have had nothing but grave news. Two weeks ago I was describing to friends how it was our hour of need as the Norskies defended the peak of the gold medal mountain in the new Cold War, in Vancouver. Then it was just last week that my clarion call was sounded regarding the now 7-year-war against wild animals (10/03/2003 — Never Forget). These two very serious issues were weighing on me heavily. And then I heard that the Earth’s day is now shorter.

The earthquake in Chile changed the axis and sped up the Earth?! What? I’m sorry, come again? Why hasn’t there been much gnashing of teeth and such? The fifth most feasible way to destroy the Earth is to overspin it until it tears itself apart! Think of this as spinning a basketball on your finger. Of course you would have to paint it like the globe because the Earth doesn’t have an NBA logo on it… yet. Anyway, you’re spinning it on your finger and you flick it with your other hand to speed it up. Well, where you hit it is where the earthquake was. Japan and Haiti were just the next places where God spun the ball painted like a globe and flicked it. Each time we get flicked we spin a bit faster… and faster… and faster… until we reach critical mass (speed) and cannot stop the Earth from flying apart.

In light of some of the more terrible recent events: Hurricane Katrina; Earthquakes in Haiti, Japan and Chile; the rise of Miley Cyrus; I made some preliminary calculations… mainly using my fingers, but like I said, they were preliminary. I figured that we will reach critical speed on or about 21 December of the year 2012. Now I wasn’t saying the Earth will end on that day… simply that the Earth will start inexorably destroying itself on that day. On that day it will become unstoppable.

So you can imagine how troubling this was for me all week. We were fighting two wars. One in the North against Norway and the other a counterinsurgency against all the wild animals of the world. Things were looking pretty bleak. And then, as I sat ruminating in my own darkening thoughts, I heard what could only have been the voice of God saying to me, “I close my eyes – Only for a moment and the moment’s gone – All my dreams – Pass before my eyes with curiosity.” I was transfixed with rapt awe.

As I struggled to understand the grandeur and meaning of what was being said, the following words filled my heart with comfort and light: “Now don’t hang on – Nothin’ lasts forever but the Earth and Sky.” I know! I felt exactly the same way! With tears of joy filling my eyes it all clicked into place. God was speaking to me through Kansas’ hit single “Dust in the Wind,” which peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1978.

Well, of course, my mind was racing with the meaning of all of this. The Earth and Sky will last forever… so sayeth Kansas/God? Then that means the Earth cannot be destroyed in 2012… or any other date for that matter. And Kansas is the geographic center of the contiguous (or conterminous) United States/Earth, as was proven scientifically by balancing on a point a cardboard cutout shaped like the U.S. And we have made great strides in the new Cold War by finishing the latest battle with a record number of medals. And I still eat meat, so wild animals are on the run.

My reservoir was renewed. Instead of doom and gloom it was all peace, love and good happiness stuff. All of my fretting and worrying was blown away like so much dust in the wind.

Recently, President Obama signed an Executive Order immunizing the five-person Interpol office in New York City from a handful of federal laws.

Gadzooks!

Read the order yourself, if you dare, though your eyes may burn with tears and your gentle heart burst with outrage:

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (22 U.S.C. 288), and in order to extend the appropriate privileges, exemptions, and immunities to the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), it is hereby ordered that Executive Order 12425 of June 16, 1983, as amended, is further amended by deleting from the first sentence the words ‘except those provided by Section 2(c), Section 3, Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6 of that Act’ and the semicolon that immediately precedes them.

The semicolon, too? Monster.

Sure, you could think that this is a matter continuing a courtesy first extended by President Reagan to help Interpol continue its vital job of disrupting the worst scumbags on the planet — child pornographers, terrorists, human traffickers. You might buy that the order is intended to reflect the reality that Interpol records are the property of more than one individual nation, and therefore ought to be given a modicum of the protection afforded to thousands of other international organizations, if only to avoid confusion about jurisdiction.

Sure, you could believe that. If you totally hate America. Luckily, Chuck Norris doesn’t:

While many in the conservative world have accused Obama of extending Interpol’s legal exemptions for the purpose of empowering a global police force, I believe there’s a much closer goal and strategic reason he gave this presidential edict. And it dawned on me when I read the seven words of Rachel Billington, an Interpol spokeswoman, who explained to the New York Times the applicable location of the president’s executive order: “It’s only for the New York office.”

“Only for the New York office”? Mmmmm.

Is it merely coincidental that Obama signed this executive Interpol order and that New York is the feds’ city of choice to place 9/11 terrorists on trial in federal court?

Is it merely coincidental that Obama signed this executive Interpol order and that, if for any reason the White House can’t give terrorist detainees U.S. constitutional privileges by being tried in civilian courts, they now have the close proximity of Interpol archives that are exempt from American legal or investigative discovery?

Is it merely a coincidence Obama signed this executive Interpol order that now makes Interpol exempt from Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, requests by U.S. citizens?

Is it merely coincidental that Obama signed this executive Interpol order and that the feds want to try these 9/11 terrorists in civilian courts rather than military courts, and undoubtedly don’t want to lose the cases in public opinion by the dissemination of the trials’ details and evidence?

Is it merely coincidental that Obama signed this executive Interpol order and that Interpol’s U.S. central operations office is under the umbrella and within our own Justice Department offices? (Interpol, which was started in 1923 and is made up of 188 country members including the U.S., has a bureau in the Department of Justice.)

Is it merely coincidental that Obama signed this executive Interpol order and that he often goes out of his way to sympathize with and advocate pro-Muslim culture, beliefs and issues?

What is it about the phrase “Is it merely coincidental” that conveys such gravitas, such depth of character?  I’ve got to start using it more often, in order to earn great respect and admiration.

Anyway, you’ve been warned: when President Obama decides to destroy democracy, tear asunder all that we cherish, and turn over Mom and apple pie to a horde of moral Decepticons, the master plan will be hatched in a secret vault in a shabby midtown high-rise by a half dozen pimpled archivists who probably wear fat-sweaters in summer and boast about their highest scores in Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.

Go ahead, rend your garments in horror. Me, I’d be pretty worried too, if not for three things:

Chuck Freaking Norris.

In my inaugural post here at WFTC, I openly begged for a “God Helmet” this Christmas. Today, I present some gift ideas for your holiday shopping list.

It’s no ordinary list, though, because these are not ordinary times. These are times that try men’s souls, as Thomas Paine once said. To bastardize Paine’s eloquence:

[Christmas], like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

Shop ‘til you drop, fellow travelers of the apocalypse. It’s X-Mas 2009. Here is your deep-fried dystopian gift guide.

Bed, Bath and Beyond

• The remarkable tauntaun sleeping bag speaks for itself. Use it in tandem with a lucid dream kit or transcranial magnetic stimulator. The mind machine might be worth pursuing too.

• No foreskin? No problem! Sen-Slip‘s got you covered, pun intended. It’s the artificial, retractable foreskin for circumcised men. Put it on in the morning and take it off at night. “Just like a shirt.”

• The pocket urinal is a godsend. For the fairer sex, there’s the Ladybag.

Casual Wear

• Newsflash: the fashion police will never be able to stymie the Soviets. (Proof positive: the Russian Seaman Singlet.)

• Skirted swimmers can get wet-but-not-wild via Wholesome Wear.

• For the paramilitary sociopath, there’s the Tactical Series G1 Night Vision Binocular Goggles,Viper Grenade Pouches or Sniper Ghillie Suit.

• Flatulence-filtering underwear and truther beanie caps are other apparel options.

Cuisine, Edible Items & Dining

• Some toast ephemera: Toast Bandages, Toast Wallets and Inflatable Toast.

• What kind of sicko wouldn’t love caffeinated beef jerky? Along similar lines, there’s energized sunflower seeds, which have the endorsement of baseball Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn. They’re infused with caffeine, taurine, lysine, and ginseng.

• Mr. McCooker looks like a solid contraption, provided you can get beyond the countenance of its terrifying product mascot.

• A gift certificate to some adventurous eateries shows you care. Anyone down for some Magic Loaves or Esoteric FroYo?

• For your pen pal in the hoosegow: the Prison Cookbook.

• Global warming denialists can’t deny the burst of flavor in each Climate Change Chocolate Bar.

Forteana

• You can’t go wrong with the Abduction Lamp. Light sources are practical gifts, and the Abduction Lamp has light-emitting diodes, a “removable bovine abductee,” and a durable steel body.

• Hook your life partner up with an alien thought-screen helmet. (You can make your own if you’re willing to buy Velostat by the yard.)

• Important: don’t overlook the gift of indemnity. It comes in no greater form than alien abduction insurance.

Literature

• Stuff those stockings with some light reading. “The Science of Sex Regeneration” is a good appetizer, “the Brutal Art of Ripping, Poking and Pressing Vital Targets” is a nice main course, and “How to Live With a Bitch“ sits high atop the dessert tray.

Odds & Ends

• If gift finding becomes too burdensome, you can always donate to a good cause on someone’s behalf. Help dolphins become a sovereign people at Cetacean Nation.

• Badger fat is the Cadillac of Russian home remedies.

• In today’s hyper-partisan political scene, neither the left nor the right has much tolerance for ambiguity. Thus, the addition of an angry mob to your shrill partisan’s toy collection carries serious symbolic weight. (Via Radley Balko at Hit and Run.)

• The gift of unrelenting brutality is always practical. What if your spousal equivalent absolutely, positively needs to kill someone tomorrow? What then, smart guy? You’ll be glad you consulted this list, I assure you.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Get your gears off my love handles you damned dirty machines!