Mel Gibson's 10 tips for sexist monsters

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford.

Herein, some tips for those looking to hone their own personal ranty hatemongering sexist jerkface skillset:

1. First, last and always: Make lots and lots of money. I mean, truckloads. Mountains. Even more than you are imagining right now. No, no, I mean even more than that. Look, take that amount, multiply it by 100, then smack yourself in the skull with a petrified copy of "Lethal Weapon 4" until swarms of that amount are swirling around your head like bees. We're talking giant, obscene piles of it, strewn about Mel's personal Holy Family Catholic cult compound like piles of James Caviezel's trashed career.

In the parlance of the rich and repellant, Mel's millions -- a large portion of which he made on the sick success of "Passion of the Christ" -- is called "f-- you" money. It completely inures you from the slings and arrows of outrageous bloggers, creditors, film investors and divorce attorneys. It's the kind of money that allows you to do whateverthehell you want, because no one can touch you. Even if the lawyers take half, you'll still have plenty left over to buy lots of Russian hookers, vodka and the femur bone of Michael Jackson.

I've got my 'Eff You' money. Not as much as Gibson, so I have to say it a little more quietly, as in 'barely audible' and then only on special occasions like in this blog.

True sexist prickmonsters know that to attain true monsterhood, you gotta combine various evils. Stack them high and proud. This is the only real path to lasting disrepute. Try this: Sexist racist anti-Semitic drunk wife-beating verbal abuser sadomasochistic misogynist extremist religious bonk job with a torture fetish. See? Much better. All that's missing is raging homophobe. Wait, it was there before. Hmm.

4. Remember all the countless thousands of fundamentalist Christians and confused old people who numbly trucked in by the busload to watch "Passion of the Bloodbath" over and over again, often hauling their bewildered, horrified children along with them to witness what is easily one of the most grisly, disgusting, masochistic slasher-porn flicks masquerading as a "true" religious tale in the history of film?

They're the ones who basically made #1 possible. Which in turn, enabled #2. So on the path to monsterhood, be sure to toss a big, juicy bone to the fundamentalists, for believing so blindly in your nightmare vision of what amounts to about two lines in the Bible. Remember: Fundamentalism is always an excellent foundation for monstrous madness.

I knew that.

7. Do you know who else treats women like trash and blames them for being desirable, and claims that if they get raped, maimed, even killed, they probably deserved it for being so evil and enticing? The Taliban. Al Queda. Iraq. Most of Saudi Arabia, in fact. Radical Islam. Women are stoned to death, beaten and raped, and it's often their own fault, for being female, for being so tempting that weak, pathetic men can't control themselves.

I've said this before and I'll keep saying it: All right-wing fundies are the same the world over, from the Vatican to Mecca to you name it - pure evil. They cause most of the trouble in the world and we'd be a helluva lot better off without them.

Please read the rest.

Jon Kyl gives away the game on deficits

Ezra Klein, with video of Kyl defending the rich:

"[Y]ou should never raise taxes in order to cut taxes," Jon Kyl said on Fox News Sunday. "Surely Congress has the authority, and it would be right to -- if we decide we want to cut taxes to spur the economy, not to have to raise taxes in order to offset those costs. You do need to offset the cost of increased spending, and that's what Republicans object to. But you should never have to offset cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans."

What's remarkable about Kyl's position here is that it appears to be philosophical. "You should never have to offset cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans," he said. Never! This is much crazier than anything you hear from Democrats. Imagine if some Democrat -- and a member of the Senate Democratic leadership, no less -- said that as a matter of principle, spending should never be offset. He'd be laughed out of the room.

Back in the real world, tax cuts and spending increases have the exact same affect on the budget deficit. This sort of comment is how you tell people who care about the deficit apart from people who are interested in exploiting fears of the deficit to shrink the size of government. It's also the sort of comment that makes clear that the deficit commission's work is doomed, even if they do go with three-quarters spending cuts. Democrats won't accept an unbalanced product and Republicans won't accept a balanced product.

Shorter: We have to offset spending increases that do something for the great unwashed, but we don't have to offset tax cuts for the wealthy as that is simply their due.

All this 'deficit' talk from the Repugs is pure bullshit. Their hypocrisy is at least out in the open now.

Headline of the Day Zwei

The Attack of the Real Black Helicopter Gang: The IMF Is Coming for Your Social Security

They will get my Social Security when they pry my check from my cold dead hands...

Headline of the Day

From the Christian Science Monitor, of all places:

Could a $1.50 marijuana joint doom Prop. 19 in California?

Same theory as "Could 79¢ gas doom a coherent energy policy?"

Kabuki Despair

Here's a few ¶ out of a 'must read' by P.M. Carpenter quoting Alterman and Tomasky:

"America's most irresponsible, incompetent and ideologically obsessed presidency not only left most of these political and economic crises on its successor's plate, it often masked significant problems that received virtually no attention, so prominent were the crises it caused....

"The result of this malign neglect is that post-Bush America is one disaster waiting to happen after another, all of which—when they do—are laid at the feet of the current president, regardless of whether addressing them is consistent with his policy agenda. For if he does not find a way to do so, they will likely overwhelm it....

"Faced with countless challenges merely to restore some sensible equilibrium to US policy regarding say, long-term deficits or financial regulation, Obama faces the conundrum of a system that, as currently constructed, gives the minority party no strategic stake in sensible governance. [...]

"We grew up with a set of assumptions. If you were born in the United States between, say, 1945 and 1965, you were raised in a basically liberal political culture when liberalism was the default position....

"When Reagan came, you thought: aberration....

"Thirty years later–actually, about 27 years later, or three or so years ago – I started to ask myself: What if all these presumptions I grew up with were wrong? What if Reagan wasn’t an aberration? What if Roosevelt and Johnson were the aberrations?...

"Think of this: We’ve experienced the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s, and the only mass movement to emerge from that reality is a right-wing populist one. [...]

I think 'right-wing populist' is a cruel oxymoron. Get the loonies all stirred up by promising you'll give the fucking morons what they want and hope they are loud enough to suck in enough people to get you elected and then back to business as usual and try to get all the money for your real bosses. Fuck 'em and forget 'em.

"I say that a perhaps paradoxical comfort can be taken in these facts. If we insist on thinking of Obama–and in our personality-driven political culture, it’s so hard not to do this–as liberalism’s redeemer, he will always disappoint, as redeemers usually do. But if we think of him as one piece on a vexing historical chess board in a match that will take years to play out, we can exhale, and see the true shape of the tasks ahead of us."

Shorter: There was so much damage caused to this country in the Reagan-Bush years that we're screwed for the foreseeable future.

Did BP Free the Lockerbie Bomber?

Daily Beast

BP CEO Tony Hayward was taken by surprise Tuesday by several U.S. senators' call for an investigation into BP's role in seeking the premature release of Abdel Basset al Megrahi, convicted in 2001 for the bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie in Scotland. Beleaguered by the continuing Gulf oil spill caused in part by the legacy of John Browne, BP's former CEO, Hayward finds himself stuck with another poisoned inheritance from Browne—who personally flew to Libya several times with MI-6 officers to secretly negotiate access to Libya's oil. The deal, announced in 2004 by Tony Blair, was hailed as a breakthrough.

[...] Sen Frank Lautenberg has called for an investigation into whether BP lobbied the British government to prematurely release al Megrahi as part of a deal to get access to Libyan oil. The corporation admits mentioning al Megrahi's continued incarceration as a block to an oil deal.

Al Megrahi was released by the Scottish government under pressure from then-British prime minister Gordon Brown. Currently BP lacks the political clout in Washington to fight the senators’ campaign, but will urgently seek help from allies.

Apparently, letting the terrorist bastard die in jail like he should have stood in the way of a big money deal. After all, we can't let blowing a coupla hundred people out of the sky get in the way of the bottom line.

I hope someone at BP has to answer for this, but they probably won't.

Indeed!

Ol' Fez:

This is an outrage, if television shows can start saying "fuck", "rimjob", "bukkake" and even "Jonah Goldberg" without fear of penalty then one of the unique joys of blogging has indeed been diminished.

...

No doubt. When I start going on* with "fuck this", "fuck that", and "fuck them" in polite conversation, I can usually expect a kick in the shin from the Mrs. under the table. Blogging is safer. Heh ...

*Which usually means I shouldn'ta had that last drink. Heh ...

I never liked the guy ...

But the man was one of NYC's most interesting characters. I'll miss George Steinbrenner (not because of what he did for the Yankees, but for what he did for NYC) and so will a lot of people he helped out over the years. He brought "asshole" to an art form but he was also one of the most generous NYers.

...

Steinbrenner also had a soft side. He sometimes read about high school athletes who had been injured and sent them money to go to college. He paid for the medical school expenses of Ron Karnaugh after the swimmer's father died during the opening ceremony at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

Steinbrenner kept older friends from his football days on the payroll, had a way of rehiring those he had once fired and liked to give second chances to those who had fallen from favor, such as Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden.

...

Nevada Senate Candidate Sharron Angle Is a Fucking Retard, Too

As you know, I'm only a few miles from Nevada and am taking immense schadenfreude watching this idiot step on her dick. I'm convinced she's a Reid plant. All the way from Noo Yawk, The Rude Pundit is watching too. A good read, with links.

You can actually see the moment that Fox "news" host Neil Cavuto loses his will to live. It's at about the five minute mark in his interview with Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle. Cavuto can't get his mind around Angle's allegation that Senator Harry Reid somehow did something wrong by helping MGM Resorts not go bankrupt by making a few calls to banks to give the mega-employer in Vegas more leeway in its loans as it builds the massive City Center. Angle had previously said that federal stimulus funds were given to MGM, which was an ignorant lie.

And here she was, on Cavuto's show, and Cavuto told her it wasn't a stimulus, asking, "Were you not aware that the company did not receive any stimulus money, but that Harry Reid was just phoning lenders on behalf of a big employer in your state?"

To which Angle replied, "Well, truly, he was exercising his influence to do a bailout, if you will, of MGM, at the expense of others."

He was doing his job.

Angle is a less-evolved Sarah Palin, who knows to never say anything specific about anything unless you fill your speech with random buzzwords for obfuscation. But this is what you get, GOP, when you allow a power-hungry twit with cash run the joint: a bunch of teabagging nuts who are Team Palin, her "Mama Grizzlies" and others, men, who apparently aren't going to be called "Papa Grizzlies," since male grizzly bears are assholes. By the way, fun facts about grizzly bears: human hunters in places like Alaska are their greatest threat, and, unlike Sarah Palin, Mama Grizzlies have a low reproduction rate.

Angle, though, is a very special bear, indeed. And you could see the despair in Neil Cavuto's eyes and hear the doubt in his voice when he said to the candidate, "[T]his wasn't a bailout, right? This was simply just having its loans extended. No federal money was involved." You could tell he was saying, "Please, please, take my hand on this one or Rupert will make me blow his dog for his amusement again."

Film at 11? Wheeeee!

Weakly, he continued in desperation, "MGM Mirage is very big employer, if not the biggest, in your fine state. So, U.S. senator, if you were duly elected, wouldn't do that? You wouldn't be doing everything possible to keep that big employer employing people?" Angle said, essentially, "Nope."

Ahh, Neil Cavuto, being Sarah Palin's bitch is not as fun as you were led to believe, is it?

Probably be more fun if she took the nails outta her whip and quit lending it to morons.

Bored Tuesday Weird Repug Shit

TPM must have a guy who just looks for weird Repug shit. I think I found him.

GOP Candidate: Obama And Carnahan Want To Take Away Your Chance To Find The Lord (AUDIO)

Un-fucking-believable, but people'll fall for it.

And this jewel:

Palin Spent Almost $4K On Supporters' Sausages

Normally I wouldn't touch that line (much less Moosebreath!) with your sausage, but I liked this photo that was in the piece:



That's a beautiful Winchester Model 94 (I think) she's holding. It's some kind of commemorative edition, way too pretty to beat up in a saddle scabbard. Probably in .30-30, reputedly one of the best and most rugged short range brushpoppers ever. I had one of those that I had to send back to the factory because I couldn't hit jack shit with it. I think they straightened the barrel or something. I sold it to a buddy for what I had in it and he filled his freezer with it every year up in Idaho. Probly still does. If it was still as inaccurate as it was when I had it, he'da had to hold up liquor stores with it to eat...

Maybe they use the bad barrels for commemorative editions, probably rightly figuring folks'll hang 'em on the wall and never shoot them.

Absolutely fitting for Palin: a tarted up plain jane, symbol over substance, costs more than it's worth, and inerringly shoots wide of the mark. They should get her nips hard, then freeze her and hang her on the wall. Best use.

I don't know what that is right behind her. Coffin fulla reindeer jerky, maybe.

Bizarro Headline of the Day

Shrimps 'becoming hooked on Prozac that is flushed into the sea'

I get this awful visual of a stoned shrimp saying the shrimp equivalent of "'Sup, duuuuude?" as he climbs into my shrimp cocktail...

Headline of the Day

I think our theme so far today is low- and mis-information pols and people without whom the Repug party could not exist.

From BuzzFlash:

"Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana says he supports conservative organizations challenging President Barack Obama's citizenship in court." What do you expect from a guy who wears diapers when patronizing prostitutes?

I expect he pays extra for poopy drawers sex.

We don't need no stinking facts ... el segundo

Tony Peyser

GOP Insists Boehner’s Recent Streak Of Blunders Are Part Of A Cunning Plan To Regain Power

In related news, Mel Gibson’s latest tirades

Are not something one would call pretty

But were cleverly aimed to gain attention

From the Nobel Peace Prize committee.

Also see "'Speaker Boehner'? GOP Leader Steps It Up While Stepping In It" at TPM.

It's Repug Opposite World - it doesn't matter what any of 'em say or do. What's important is what they tell their unbending low information base what to think (for lack of a better word) about what they say he said.

See "We don't need no stinking facts ..." just below.

We don't need no stinking facts ...

We know we're right. A troubling post by Digby sorta confirms what I've been feeling for a while.

...

In the end, truth will out. Won’t it?

Maybe not. Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

...

We will have a Republican House (at the least) come January.

A man of the people ...

Now, get the fuck out ... finally:

A year after railing about the high tax burden on wealthy New Yorkers, Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio talk-show host, is severing one more tie with New York, selling his lushly decorated Fifth Avenue penthouse to an undisclosed buyer.

Mr. Limbaugh's 10-room condominium, which features a 30-foot-wide living room with fireplace and four terraces overlooking Central Park at East 86th Street, went into contract Thursday for a bit under the final $12.95 million asking price, brokers said.

...

Yeah, just a regular guy with a $13mln condo overlooking the Park. At least he's finally leaving.

Great thanks to Watertiger for the link.

Update:

Heh ... Res Ipsa:

...

That's one less jerk roaming our streets. Now if we could just send Joe Scarborough packing.

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Holy Foreskin!

Sometimes I run across stuff on topics that make me wonder if everybody but me is crazy and then I remove all doubt and go crazy too.

Bad Latitude @ EssEffChron

If you've ever wondered what it took to make mild-mannered travel guru Rick Steves utter the phrase "Jesus' penis" (and seriously, who among us hasn't wondered that?), author Dave Farley knows.

The answer: Spend five years in Rome and an odd-ball nearby village writing a book about, among other things, "the Holy Foreskin." (Steves, who has whimsy to spare, featured Farley, a New York-based travel writer, on his radio show, managing to hit almost every euphemism possible for the topic.)

Farley's book, "An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church's Strangest Relic in Italy's Oddest Town," answers every question you might have had about "the only piece of flesh (Jesus) would have left on Earth when he ascended into Heaven."

Oy. There's more and even funnier. Apparently this is a huge item of discussion in the Vatican, experts on penises to a man. The part that makes the most sense:

(Editor's note: Under new Federal Trade Commission guidelines, it should subtly be disclosed that Farley gave me a free copy of the book -- and that we discussed the topic over Guinness and tequila shots in a New York nightclub before the discussion turned to finding a bar that had a mechanical bull. I think.)

Alcohol and bull. Now that I believe.

BTW, I almost titled this post "Tip of the Day", but I restrained myself.

Addendum:

I actually got to thinking about circumcision yesterday. I was trying to do an end run around the (very) high cost of a spark arrestor for my trials bike by making one myself. I was using parts from different things I had laying around - old Hodaka motorcycle, a shovel with no handle, and a tea strainer - and I was cutting one part off a little at a time to get an inside diameter that would fit over the muffler end. I was being careful and trying to avoid having to say the one thing you don't want to hear from a mohel: "Oops. Sorry, Shorty!"

Ask? Do tell!

El Rude-o:

Five Questions Deleted from the Pentagon's Survey of Soldiers on Don't Ask, Don't Tell:

3. If you are at war and under fire and the only service member who can assist you is gay, do you:

A. Just let yourself get killed.
B. Allow yourself to be assisted and then call the service member, "Fag" or "Dyke."
C. Are you fucking kidding? Straight, gay, I'd go down on him/her all night if he/she saved my ass.

4. If you were to have anal relations with a service member of the same sex (which may or may not involve a dildo), would you be:

A. Pitching
B. Catching

5. Can we watch?

Fox legal analyst: Bush should have been indicted

Raw Story

Fox News' senior judicial analyst made some surprising remarks Saturday that may go against the grain at his conservative network.

In a interview with Ralph Nader on C-SPAN's Book TV to promote his book Lies the Government Told You, Judge Andrew Napolitano said that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should have been indicted for "torturing, for spying, for arresting without warrant."

There's a sane person at F**Noise. Imagine that. I bet he won't be there much longer.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

In Last Decade, Extreme Weather Deaths in U.S. Outnumbered American War Casualties
Despite government's best efforts.

Glenn Beck Starts Own University
Offers graduate degree in Paranoid Studies.

Early Humans Settled in England 800,000 Years Ago
Evidence: fossilized overcooked vegetables.

Study: Rich More Likely to Default on Their Mortgage
And move into their beach house.

Vocabulary Builders

Victory n. hanging around until nobody is paying attention anymore and you can go home.

Post it!

Avedon:

...

You worked hard and played by the rules, and now people in expensive suits who sat in offices recklessly gambling with other people's money want to stop you from being able to retire.

They exported jobs to other countries and made it harder to start new businesses to create new jobs. They slashed government spending to the point where even schools are closing. They failed to honor contracts that said they would put money into your pension fund, and now there is no pension fund. And now they want your unemployment insurance so they can gamble that away, too.

They say you need to tighten your belt to pay for their mistakes.

Well, why should you?

You paid for insurance to protect you from this. Demand what you paid for.

Social Security: You paid for it. We have the money. You earned it. You deserve it. And they don't.

...