Pancake City

This just-released, extended preview of Star Wars: Episode III is very entertaining, although it contains so many scenes from the movie that it may spoil the movie for some of you (link from MicheleBoing).

The helmet to protect people you don’t really love (link from BoingBoing).

Yes, this blog has degenerated into a collection of links I find on other blogs.

Degenerated? More like evolved. Hooooo!

Shut up. I created you. I can destroy you.

Destroy me? You can’t even find your car keys. Besides, I’m a manifestation of your psyche. An incorporeal being, unlike your ear hair. How are you going to destroy me, drive a spike through my brain?

I could watch four hours of VH1’s “I Love The 80s” where a bunch of C-list comics make fun of D-list musicians and actors from the 80s who used to be considered B-list artists and are now remembered for a few A-list works, the relevancy to their own lives of which is lost on the C-list comics whose stand-up acts consist of popping a few pills of E before going to stage to tell F-laden jokes about the difficulties of finding a woman’s G-spot that will go over crowds five years from now like an H-bomb, if the comics are lucky enough to be shown on “I Love The 00s”.

Okay. I’ll be good.

This photo of Cheney at a ceremony commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz is like a reverse “Where’s Waldo?”

I say “Coatgate” in jest–his attire is a faux pas, and calling it more than that is blowing the error out of proportion. But there is something absurdly funny at seeing the Vice President of our country sit in a sea of somberly-dressed mourners in a coat that looks like he bought it five minutes ago at a ski lodge.

It’s the type of thing that lends itself to comedy. Robin Givhan wrote a snidely humorous article about Cheney’s outfit. And, with a chorus of complaints against the Bush administration of being insensitive over the past several years (e.g. Rumsfeld auto-signing condolence letters to the families of dead soldiers, Wolfowitz not knowing how many Americans have died in Iraq, Bush not expressing his condolences to the tsunami victims until the third day) this image may be more symbolically powerful than one would at first guess.

On a tangential note, has anyone noticed how wardrobe malfunction is no longer used ironically? Who made the decision to take the air quotes of that one?

Sometimes I wonder if James Dobson, leader of the religious nutjob group “Focus on the Family”, is secretly an athiest trying to tarnish religion in general. Every few months, he makes some loonly anti-gay comment under the name of God and it gets spread out through the entire media.

You may have heard of his recent attack against SpongeBob SquarePants and other cartoon characters for appearing in a children’s video designed to promote tolerance of all people, including EVIL GAYS.

The United Church of Christ came out with a hilarious response to him. I wish more religious organizations would repudiate Dobson as publicly.

Faith is restored! The Blue Bitches have been smacked!

They put up a good game, those 15-0 Duke Blue Dev–oops. My bad. Let me just get my electronic pen out.

15-0

So the 15-1 Duke Blue Devils–hold on a sec.

Blue Devils

It was a close game, but eventually the Maryland basketball team pulled away from the 15-1 Duke Sucky Sucks. What’s the deal with Nik Caner-Medley? He used to be the doofus with double the last names and half the talent, and now he’s the team’s best player. When did the Beast with the Least become the Beast from the East?

Maryland has been playing poorly most of the season, and this may end up being their only marquee win, but who cares? I don’t think anyone was expecting them to win. They were on the path to missing the NCAA tournament and now their season has life. Duke may have a rough second half of the season as they still have to play UNC, WF, and GT twice (for non-college-basketball fans, that’s the Unruly Neat Co-op, Wiggle Freaks, and Gem-Tron, the basketball team from the 24th century).

Say what you want about the Bush administration, but give them credit where credit is due: providing the best fodder for comics and cartoonists than any administration in decades.

And for D.C. residents: this.

(A sketch I wrote.)

A shabbily-dressed man with a crazed look slowly stumbles across the stage. CITIZEN, reading a newspaper as she walk, heads towards him. The man grabs her.

SHABBY MAN: Please, miss. What day is it?

CITIZEN: January 27th.

SHABBY MAN: What year?

CITIZEN: [puzzled] Year? 2005.

SHABBY MAN: [stunned] You’re the first person I’ve seen in over twelve months.

CITIZEN: Where have you been?

SHABBY MAN: I was trapped under L’Enfant Plaza. I fell down a pothole and a car parked over me. The meter ran out. Five seconds later, it got a boot.

CITIZEN: Oh my God. It was there the whole time? How did you get out?

SHABBY MAN: A larger pothole took the car. I climbed out by standing on top of it.

CITIZEN: That’s horrible. Can I get you something? What can I do?

SHABBY MAN: Please, just tell me what I missed.

CITIZEN: Where should I start?

SHABBY MAN: Anything. Sports. How are the Redskins doing?

CITIZEN: Well, Joe Gibbs came back.

SHABBY MAN: [gasps] The Gibbsiah. Are we in the Super Bowl?

CITIZEN: Um, no.

SHABBY MAN: Damn. We lost the Conference Championship.

CITIZEN: Not exactly.

SHABBY MAN: Second round?

CITIZEN: Hmmmm…

SHABBY MAN: Wild card?

CITIZEN: I’m not sure how to put this…

SHABBY MAN: 8-8?

CITIZEN: 6-10.

SHABBY MAN: [spirit crushed]. I can’t believe it. They’re worse than the Wizards.

CITIZEN: Actually, they’re doing pretty good.

SHABBY MAN: And the Caps?

CITIZEN: How are you feeling right now?

SHABBY MAN: Not well.

CITIZEN: Let’s switch to something else.

SHABBY MAN: [thinks for a moment] Bennifer! Are they–?

CITIZEN: I’m sorry.

SHABBY MAN: Oh. Brad and Jennifer?

[shakes head no]

SHABBY MAN: Britney and Jason?

CITIZEN: Who?

SHABBY MAN: Britney Spears and Jason A. Alexander. They got married in Las Vegas. I fell down the manhole the next day.

CITIZEN: They broke up after 55 hours.

SHABBY MAN: [looks away, stares off] All this time I thought I was living a dream. But it was really a nightmare. What about the gays?

CITIZEN: They still can’t get married.

SHABBY MAN: Yeah, that makes sense.

CITIZEN: Are you interested in politics?

SHABBY MAN: The election! What’s been doing on with the economy?

CITIZEN: It’s still in a slump.

SHABBY MAN: Iraq?

CITIZEN: On the brink of civil war.

SHABBY MAN: The debates?

CITIZEN: Bush got creamed.

SHABBY MAN: So who’s the new President?

CITIZEN: George Bush.

SHABBY MAN: What? Howard Dean still lost?

CITIZEN: Actually, it was John Kerry.

SHABBY MAN: Who?

CITIZEN: Exactly.

SHABBY MAN: Is there any reason to stay out here?

CITIZEN: Uh, American Idol is coming back for another season?

SHABBY MAN: I’ll be in my hole.

They released a television search engine (limited capabilities for now).

Ten to 20 years from now, when the totality of Google’s business plan comes to fruition, I think they will be regarded as one of the most visionary, important companies, offline or on, to ever exist.

If you are on the borderline between going to heaven and hell, why not remove the guesswork and laugh at this.

South Park’s Version of “The Aristocrats.” (explanation in link)

If you want to get fired, this is the perfect video to play with the speakers turned all the way up.

Ford should buy this fake Volkswagen ad and show it nationally.

“Inch of snow cripples North Carolina’s capital.” Finally. A city that even D.C. can make fun of.

Police Probe Allegation Against Bill Cosby” (read the 1st two paragraphs and check out the photo they chose)

Although I have deep doubts based on the past four years that his actions will match his words, President Bush expressed some noble sentiments in his inauguration speech today. Sentiments that, if you take them at face value, are the heart of liberal internationalism. A few snippets:

“All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.”

“We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.”

What Bush is saying is amazing, actually. He is stating that the ideal of spreading liberty and fighting tyranny by itself is a worthy enough reason to use the diplomatic and military power of the United States.

Rarely in American history has any foreign policy action been sincerely argued solely for idealistic reasons. For Iraq, the administration focused on propping up Iraq’s ties to Al-qaeda and WMD capabilities, i.e. tangible practical reasons.
If the Bush administration argued that we should invade Iraq solely because he was a brutal dictator and forgoed the WMD and Al-qaeda angles, do you think he would have gotten as much support for the war?

Bush’s argument is as liberal as it gets. Human rights as reason enough for international action is the argument of organizations like Amnesty International. Yet, in essence, this is what Bush said.

Yes, it is very likely this is just an attempt to increase support for the war in Iraq by downplaying the previous rationales and playing up the one good rationale we have left. And the many alliances the Bush administration have made with repressive regimes in the past four years would leave one to be extremely skeptical that the President means what he says. But it is a worthy (and surprising) sentiment nonetheless.

The writer of a political web site I read occasionally posted a humorous “Republican Dictionary” that was compiled from reader submissions by editors of The Nation, a liberal weekly periodical.

I read it, found a smattering of the entries funny but thought that the entry writers didn’t have enough distance from what they were mocking and often eschewed a more clever route for a political jab. For example:

OWNERSHIP SOCIETY, n. Bush is a jack-ass!

See? Not very funny. So I embarked on one of my most obnoxious comedy ventures ever and started rewriting their dictionary.

CONCEITED, adj. 1. Thinking you are funnier than everyone else without actual proof. 2. Bush is a loser!

“Woah, this is harder than it looks.” But I plowed on, getting up to “E” and fairly happy with what I wrote before going to bed.

I wake up today, open the file at my computer and…I got nothing. The entries whose heavy-handedness inspired me to rewrite them now seemed acceptable, some of them even funny.

This may either be a temporary lapse in creativity or a premature end to my grand plan. Regardless, here is A-E in the revised Pancake City Revised Republican Dictionary. Modified entries have an asterisk before them. You can see the original here.

*ACTIVIST JUDGE, n. A judge who is for women voting blacks voting gays voting…what? They can already vote? Fuck.

*ALARMIST, n. Scientist interviewed on NPR.

*ALLIES, n. Foreigners who do what we tell them to do in exchange for…um, I don’t know. Surplus Twinkies?

*ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES, n. 1. Part of President’s visionary plan to free America of her lifelong dependence on foreign oil by financing private-sector fuel cell companies coupled with a conservation-based energy policy that will—who are we kidding? Let’s club some seals.

*BALANCED, adj. 1. A fundamental property of the universe that states for every anti-Bushon created in our universe, two to three pro-Bushons must be created in a separate universe. Also in this separate universe, all the life forms scream at each other and accuse their friends of jiggling the balls of terrorists.

BI-PARTISANSHIP, n. When conservative Republicans work together with moderate Republicans to pass legislation Democrats hate.

CIVIL LIBERTIES, n. Unnecessary privileges that you aren’t afraid of losing unless you are a God-hating, baby-killing, elitist liberal who loves Saddam Hussein more than your own safety.

* CLARIFY, v. The exact opposite of what the President said yesterday.

* CLASS WARFARE, n. The noun cited when a Republican is asked if there is any warfare he doesn’t like.

* CLEAN, adj. A powerful modifier that saves Republican legislators hours of time from having to write good environmental legislation.

* CLIMATE CHANGE, n. An air-tight explanation of global warming based on Newton’s Fourth Law, “Shit happens,” that is also based in one of the pillars of Republican philosophy, personal responsibility.

* COALITION, n. The United States of Britain with Special Guest, Banana Town.

* CONVICTION, n. What would have happened to the Bush administration if the Democrats controlled the investigative arm of Congress.

* CULTURE OF LIFE, n. By inference, a culture that is a lot better than the Democrats’ condom-based Culture of Death.

* DEATH TAX, n. An absolutely horrible, cruel and unfair tax, if anything like its name suggests actually existed.

* DEMOCRACY, n. Holding a $40 million inauguration party in a time of war while forcing the people who voted 9 to 1 against you to foot the security bill. Suck it, D.C. If you don’t like it, you can complain to your Senator…oh, that’s right [snicker].

* DEMOCRATIC ALLY, n. Britain, Australia, Pakistan, Brazil…wait a minute. Pakistan? Almost-stared-a-nuclear-war-with-India Pakistan? Who unlatched the velvet rope for those nuts?

* DEREGULATE, v. A Republican meat processing plant owner’s wet dream.

* DETAIN, v. An awesome new procedure that lets you hold someone as long as you want as long as you think he’s a terrorist but never actually charge him as one.

* ECONOMIC PROGRESS, n. A condition that occurs when the following three criteria are met. 1. People in the upper class are better off than their parents. 2. People in the middle class are better–huh? Sure, I’ll play racquetball. No, it’s cool. I’ll finish the rest later.

ECONOMIC RECOVERY, n. When three out of five software engineers who lost their jobs to outsourcing are able to find part-time work at Wal-Mart.

ELECTION FRAUD, n. Counting every vote.

* FAIRER, adj. Another modifier, similar to “clean”, that is critical for any legislation to be successful. Example: “The Clean Fairer Death Tax Freedom Act of 2005″

That’s what I would be writing about, if it weren’t for the following post on Social Security. And being gay.

After thinking more about what I wrote a few days ago about President Bush’s plan to partially privatize Social Security, I have come to two conclusions.

1. There is no way I can pass up the awesomely pretentious opportunity to link to one of my own posts. In fact, one day I hope to construct an entry made solely of links to other entries while I sip a grande mocha cappuccino from Starbucks and complain that no one reads my page.

2. I covered a very small number of the dynamics that will decide the eventual success or failure of President Bush’s Magic Mystery Proposal and Tour Bus (details coming soon!). Since writing the post, I have thought of at least half a dozen factors I didn’t consider at the time.

I think what I wrote is applicable to President Bush’s aim to paint the Social Security system as being in crisis, but not to the overall effort to partially privatize Social Security. I’m not confident in predicting how it will turn out, primarily because I don’t know how much importance to assign to the power of misinformation.

The Bush administration has been extremely successful exaggerating the truth, exploiting self-imposed boundaries of the press and using rhetorical techniques to manipulate people. In short, they synthesized the principles of advertising with politics more effectively than any administration before them. (I would be surprised if future Presidents, Republican and Democrat, do not follow their lead.)

The result of this heightened mix is that the debate over the correct course for Social Security may be determined much more by people’s preconceptions and misconceptions than reality and fact. What these preconceptions are, how widely they are held, how easily they can be played upon and changed–the pieces are just starting to come together.

Some of this misinformation may even hurt Bush’s efforts, like an AARP campaign saying his plan will be financed by killing 1 in 10 elderly people and selling their heads to punk kids to use as basketballs.

I hope facts have a strong role to play in this debate, but I’m doubtful. If they don’t, I’ll just have to comfort myself by remembering three simple principles:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

RYAN SEACREST DOESN’T SUCK

At an anti-war protest in the run-up to the Iraq war, I saw a banner that said, “One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. –MILK.”

“Wow,” I thought, “That’s really neat of milk to come out against the war.”
Then the wind rustled the banner and I realized I misread the end. It said MLK.