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Today's front page:
Terminator V. Crip: Game Over
Happy Holidays From The Disunited States of Dumb: joy to the world?
Give The Gift of Stupid
Michael Ledeen: Meet Satan's Fluffer
Media Pinheads of the Week: Burt Prelutsky on why Jews suck

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM THE DISUNITED STATES OF STUPID

I just caught Bush being interviewed by Brian Williams on NBC news. Brian raised the touchy subject of New Orleans and whether racism affected the retarded federal response to the disaster. Bush responded with "you can call me anything you want, but don't call me a racist." Now that's what I call open season. Click below to call Bush anything you want. Except a racist.

It is Chriskwanzaachanukaeidmas once more. It's that time of year to exchange gifts and wish joy to the world's myriad, multi-colored peoples. So put down your AK-47s, your missile launchers and finish burying the family. It is time to rejoice!

Whether you're celebrating the birth of the Son of God, reaffirming your commitment to pan-African unity, sparking up the menorah or just ending Ramadan with a marathon couscous blow-out, this time of year is for everybody. Even atheists get a day off work to bitch about the egregious melding of church and state as we all blow our wads on half-baked tokens of faux generosity.

And, verily, 'tis Christmas in the White House too. On December 25, George will be on his knees praying for the baby Jesus. He'll be mouthing carols at church and wishing everybody a merry one. Ah, Christmas! That magical day when we all feign giving a rat's ass about other people.

But there's nothing special about the holidays for the 22,000 people around the world destined to starve to death like every other day of the year. While George is busy assuming the role of God's number two and turning dollars into war, around 8 million human beings die annually of hunger in various fly-blown corners of the planet. Of course, he'd love to help out... but sorry, skinny folks, we've got two wars going and our resources are spread a little thin right now.

Of course, only a crazed hippy would suggest we should have not invaded Iraq and maybe used the money to end world starvation instead. That's just not realistic. But here's a thinker: just 2.8% of the entire Iraq war spenditure could have saved all who have starved in the world since the war began and fed them every day since. Only a pathetic two-point-fucking-eight percent could have ended starvation and made the world a significantly less hellish place.

But I guess that wasn't in God's plan.

[For anyone sceptical with regard to my statistics, please refer to these sites: NationalPriorities.org | The Hunger Project | BorgenProject.org. My calculation was based on monthly deaths from starvation (.666m) multiplied by cost of emergency daily rations (29 cents) for 33 months expressed as a percentage of the total cost of war in Iraq to date ($225 billion).]

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"I also believe that our senior military leadership betrayed their oaths to the constitution (not to the Commander-in-Chief) by not resigning in protest over the ill-advised adventure put upon them by Messrs. Cheney and Wolfowitz."
(Jim Bradner, former intelligence officer)

GIVE THE GIFT OF STUPID

It's sometimes difficult to think up new ideas for Christmas gifts. So here's a selection of demented crap currently available in dingy, obscure corners of the internet mall to give you a few ideas of what not to get. Some are stupid, some are offensive, some are stupid and offensive. Enjoy.

Chick Tracts are those weird Christian comic strips with the creepy cartoon stylings that happy-clappy freaks at bus stops often press into your hand. They're the work of Jack Chick, one of the oldest and most prolific intolerance mongers around. Chick is more 'get your bags packed for hell' than 'Jesus loves you'.

According to Chick's famous tracts, all Catholics, Freemasons, Gays, Jehovah's Witnesses (sounding familiar yet?), Evolutionists and just about anyone who isn't Jack Chick, is headed for the fiery pit.

So show your young 'uns you care and scare the bejeezuz out of the little tykes this Christmas. Buy some Chick Tracts and make sure they grow up pale, depressed and psychically malformed.

Chick wants his miserable message to reach everybody. Who could anyone resist this pitch for 'The Sissy' from his Web site:

"Duke thought Jesus was a sissy, until a trucker explained to him the horrible price Jesus paid so his sins could be forgiven. Then Duke saw that Jesus had more guts than anyone who ever lived. Great for truckers and bikers!"

Pictured is a spread from 'Doom Town' — Chick's disturbing (for none of the reasons it was meant to be) tract on the destruction of Sodom. With all the finely rendered bearded drag queens, butch gays and devil worship, you can't help wondering if Chick was actually getting his rocks off a little while he was drawing this one.

If your kids are into hip hop and, therefore, too far damned to be saved by misanthropic psychos masquerading as evangelicals, why not try a little aversion therapy? Buy 'N.W.A. Explicit Content Only' and overload them with enough 'bitches', 'niggaz' and 'fucks' in just a few minutes to make them bored with cussing for the rest of their lives.

Some guy with a sound editing program, and too much time on his hands, has turned the concept of censorship on its head. He's edited down N.W.A.'s debut album so there's nothing left except the profanity.

"My findings for 'Straight Outta Compton' show a 7.4% rate of explicit content." He says. This means that the potty-mouthed ghetto rage classic is still nearly 20 seconds long even after all the superfluous, non-offensive words have been removed. But the reduced version of 'Fuck Tha Police' is even more impressive with a mighty 12.3% of the entire track consisting of nothing but profanity. You gotta hand it to Ice Cube and Eazy-E, those dudes really knew how to turn a motherfuckin' phrase.

For all those who think hip hop would be better without the bad language, Godlessness, and black folks, you could do worse than check out Toby Mac. Like many rappers, Toby hangs with gangs and glamorizes gang life in his lyrics. Unfortunately, Toby's gang is the Christian right.

Toby is the only 'rap artist' shifting units on that seminal source of slammin' new beats: Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network Web site (in your face, Ice Cube). Not only does Toby look like a fucking twat (see left), but you will be relieved to know he sounds like one too. Listening to this garbage is like having your inner ear prodded rhythmically with a dog turd. Sample rhyme:

"Got hip to Kiss and I tripped on Zeppelin
So Mr. Therapist, why did I go this direction?
God had a plan to end all my schemes
I had a dream He said to be extreme."

But maybe you get a tad Jesus'd out at this time of year. He's 2000 years old for crying out loud, enough celebrating already... Maybe it's time we gave the other side a look in just for the sake of fairness? Not sure when Satan's birthday is (not having access to Dick Cheney's reminders calendar), but this unusual specialty clock 'ideal for the home or office' would make a great Satanmas gift for the devil worshipper in your life... "Wow, it's five already? I've got black mass in half an hour."

Talking of devil worship, you can say what you like about conservatives, but you can't fault their knack for ridiculously inappropriate promotional products. Bill O'Reilly Christmas tree ornaments? Dick Cheney thongs? There must be some freaky chemicals leaking into the red states' groundwater thanks to Bush's laissez faire pollution policies.

You could be a complete dick this year and buy some genuine O'Reilly Factor Christmas tree ornaments to say screw your Chanukahs and your Eids, heebs and towelheads, it's the season of Christian charity for me. Thank God Bill O'Reilly is there to remind us of this with his annual rants on F(Oxymoron) News. His egocentric diatribes are now as beloved a part of the magic of Christmas as trees, gifts and fat alcoholics in red suits. The funny thing is, however, it's not the 'liberals', or the 'secularists' or the ACLU that ruins whatever vestigial holiday spirit I may still possess, it's the red faced fucks like O'Reilly whining about how everyone wants to spoil Christmas that spoils it for me.

But for the ultimate in total moment-ruining, it's hard to imagine anything with less erotic potential than a Dick Cheney thong. Unless, of course, Dick was modeling it himself. Really, who on God's earth would want to own such a miserable and disturbing item? Are there really red neck chicks out there sporting these things?? Jeez, I think I'd rather find herpes down there...

And what would Christmas be without giving substandard books as gifts? The Christmas buying frenzy is a time when book stores jack up prices and lure in those folks who wouldn't know a good book from a hole in the head. If you want books guaranteed to offend and appall, look no further than the ironically named Religious Freedom Coalition. Imagine, for example, snuggling up beside a roaring fireplace, tree glittering in the corner of the room and Nat King Cole crooning in the background to read... "Islam Revealed" ("An eye-opening look at the Deadly Beliefs of Every One in Five People on Earth"), or "Islamic Invasion" ("Confronting the World's Fastest Growing Religion"). That, for me, is what the spirit of Christmas and, for that matter, religious freedom is all about.

The RFC also carry a selection of inspirational socks, Holyland soap ("handmade in the Holy Land by Christian Palestinians"), and, naturally, the pathetic "George W. Bush, Faith in the White House" hunk of poop video which is now being sold as "the alternative program to Fahrenheit 9/11". We may or may not be living in the end of days, but we sure as hell are living in the end of good sense and reason days. What the fuck are 'inspirational socks' anyway?

With all that festive freedom flying around, I might just feel tense enough to want to buy myself an Enron stress ball. At only $3.99, it's a bargain price to own a piece of shame. These chachkis were given away to commemorate the opening of Enron Field, home to the Houston Astros, before Enron's board relocated to federal prison and the stadium was hastily renamed.

Vacations are also a great way to offload some nagging stress. Why not surprise that someone special with a romantic vacation and get away from the drear mid-winter? Hawaii, The Caribbean, Europe... they're OK, but for a real exclusive destination why not try an Iraqi vacation? As much a sit may sound like a sick joke (and in this context it is), some people are actually choosing war-torn Iraq as an alternative vacation destination:

"There I was, outside the Palestine Hotel, sitting in front of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle and sipping an Amstel tall boy," recalls 35-year-old Texan Derick Williams of his first hours cruising wartime Baghdad, in April 2003. "Then somebody started shooting at us. It was a little surreal." Probably so. At the time, Baghdad had just fallen and was rife with looting and potshots. Some 135 U.S. soldiers had been killed and another 495 reportedly wounded. Williams wasn't in town as an aid worker, journalist, or human shield—he was a freelance risk enthusiast, making him a prime candidate to be shot or arrested. But Williams, a burly Dallas home restorer, didn't mind at all. "I went for the adventure," he says, "and I just felt like everything would be OK." (Away.com)

The Rough Guide to Iraq begins with this enticing prelude: "This spring, a quarter of a million Americans took a trip. It was noisy, hot, and violent. Accommodations were poor. Some of them didn't come back."

You could buy celebrity autographs — a unique gift and a sound investment. How about a signed Paris Hilton publicity shot, looking like she's suffering from PMS, for a very reasonable $25? (Notice unusual signature style and placement — almost as if she were trying to deface her own picture with a hastily scribbled fellated wang). At only $25, I wonder if Paris would be crestfallen to know that Saddam Hussein's autograph is currently worth nearly ten times that? And that's for a contemporary one — not even from the height of his career when he was doing all his best work. The fickle hand of fate indeed.

Merry Chriskwanzaachanukaeidmas one and all! (top)

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether mad destruction is brought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"

Mahatma Ghandi

MICHAEL LEDEEN: MEET SATAN'S FLUFFER

"Most Americans have never heard of Michael Ledeen, but if the United States ends up in an extended shooting war throughout the Middle East, it will be largely due to his inspiration."
(William O. Beeman, Alternet)

This former Pentagon big wheel and Iran-Contra orchestrator may well be the most dangerous man alive. As one of the architects of post 9-11 American policy he has the ear of government and regularly tutors such notables as Cheney and Rumsfeld in ever more extreme and divisive ways to flip off the rest of the world. Ledeen's world is a terrifying place where war is a creative process and fascism is not aberrant, but a vital, revolutionary force. In 2003, the American Conservative published an article about Ledeen entitled "Flirting With Fascism" which accused him of spearheading a revolutionary fascist hijacking of the American conservative movement. According to Ledeen, "Creative destruction is our middle name. We do it automatically ... it is time once again to export the democratic revolution."

The current 'creative destruction' underway in Afghanistan and Iraq is small beer compared with Ledeen's greater plans for war with Iran, Syria, North Korea and China. As a trigger-ecstatic, militarist (who has never served), Ledeen pushes war through his 'conservative' op-eds and White House brainstorming sessions. His 'revolutionary' urge to seed death and destruction around the planet in the pursuit of American hegemony is probably the least conservative and most un-American ideology ever embraced by American conservatives. Of course, bombs over Pyongyang and Tehran would give any self-respecting neocon a hard-on, but surely no amount of Bushco Kool Aid could make this insane motherfucker taking a pop at China seem even half-way reasonable?

Jonah Goldberg of National Review is a fervent supporter of the Ledeen doctrine which he sums up as "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show we mean business."

Ledeen himself is a little classier with his phraseology, but the gist is the same: "Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. … [W]e must destroy them to advance our historic mission."

Back in the preamble to the Iraq invasion, Ledeen was suspected of cobbling together the forged documents that Bushco claimed to be proof of Saddam's uranium shopping in Niger. Former CIA head of counterterrorism operations, Vincent Cannistaro, talked about the Yellow Cake fakery in April this year on Radio KPFK, Los Angeles:

QUESTION:
Do we know who produced those documents? Because there's some suspicion ...

CANNISTARO:
I think I do, but I'd rather not speak about it right now, because I don't think it's a proven case ...

QUESTION:
If I said “Michael Ledeen?

CANNISTARO:
You'd be very close...

Obviously the affair has since been rigorously investigated and the perpetrator punished. In Bizarro World.

God knows I am no fan of Pat Buchanan, but you've got to hand it to Pat. He tried to warn his party about Ledeen's crazy-ass neo-Fascist agenda in a 2003 article for the American Conservative entitled "Whose War? A neoconservative clique seeks to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America's interest." Jeez, this bastard even scares Buchanan? Give Pat his due, he may like Hitler, but he thinks Ledeen's too much. What does that tell you?

If regular citizens pose a clear enough danger to themselves and/or others through reason of insanity, it is possible to have them committed. But when it comes to krypto-fascist satanic scum like Ledeen, who pose a danger to themselves and/or the entire planet, they get to bloviate on Fox News and whisper sweetly in the Vice President of Torture's ear. For regarding Ledeen's pronouncements as something more profound than the mad yappings of a rabid chihuahua, Bushco has shown it really knows how to put the 'error' in the War on Terror.

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"We're no longer a superpower. We're a super-duper power."

Tom DeLay
(More dumbassery straight from the horse's ass)

TODAY'S IRONIC TYPO(S):

"hi big fan... i loved the way you did kill bill your a grate writer, and director. i'm a bit of a writer myself"
(Random dude who thought he was posting on Quentin Tarantino's blog)

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