Matt and Trey, you make my day

South Park pulled out the howitzer from their bag of punches for last night's episode.

As a long-time fan, I knew it was going to be hard-hitting, but Jesus Christ....I almost cried, it was so beautiful.

The cliff-hanger of the two-part episode was whether or not Comedy Central would allow a simple, innocuous rendering of Muhammed to be shown. Trey, in his exciting, dramatic voice-over , asked: "Will television executives fight for free speech? Or will Comedy Central puss out?"

The answer to that question:




They did, however, allow Matt and Trey to beam something else out to all of us in the cozy sanctuary of our Christian-nation living rooms: animated images of George W. Bush and Jesus shitting on each other and the American flag under a big, smiley yellow American sun.

And of course, that's not anywhere near as offensive as an animation of Muhammad standing in a doorway.

So, well played, Comedy Central! You dodged a bullet.

Christ, I am plum warred out

The War On Easter is officially on.

This one is heating up.

Still burning hot is the War on Terror, including the War in Iraq and the War in Afghanistan. Cooling down slightly, but still greatly impacting the Homeland's prison population & street crime levels, is the War on Drugs. The War On Poverty rarely gets talked about, but we've still not declared victory, so it's still raging somewhere, I guess. And wasn't there a war on Illiteracy at one point? There probably is. And in November, after the elections, probably, the War On Christmas will probably heat up again.

And don't forget, tomorrow night is the exciting conclusion of South Park's 2-part episode entitled 'Cartoon Wars'.

Chicks ain't nothin' but bitches

Big, strong Norm at onegoodmove has provided a link to a story that's got little ol' me all a'twitter.

It's about a MISS Ruth Maholtra. She's a 22 year old student at Georgia Tech University, ardently conservative, and, judging from her many documented cases of rabble-rousing, I think she's a little bit addicted to the thrill of creating controversy.

In her latest audacious display of very undainty aggression, she's fighting against her school's policy of protecting homosexuals from hate speech.

Speaking as a proud Libertarian, I agree that laws protecting ANYONE - gays, blacks, women, dumb-fuck Christians - from hate speech are ridiculous. Human beings are, by nature, hateful, judgemental creatures, and any attempts to legislate that out of us is bound to fail.

It does nothing but create a warped sense of entitlement from those being protected, and hostility and resentment from those who are stifled. Forced sensitivity has not worked thus far. And it never will.

But the interesting thing I've discovered in my brief research of MISS Malhotra, is that she's a living, breathing stereotype of the contemporary young conservative; very religious, pro-Bush, anti-abortion, advocate of traditional families, etc. In short, she, like the rest of her clean-cut cohorts, are hippies in reverse. The times, they are a-changin', indeed.

I fully accept the ebb and flow of the social pendulum. That whatever popular mind-set was once on top, will eventually be trampled upon, only to rise up again one day. But what I just can't understand about these New Lady Conservatives (Official Motto: You're going backward, baby!) is their vein-bulging, reactionary hatred of the women's lib movement. These dames just despise the bra-burners of the 60's and 70's.

It strikes me as odd because, essentially, all the major players of the era, Greer, Steinem, et al, and the movement itself have strategically been marginalized. They play almost no role in the public discourse any longer, apart from being the target of scorn and derision and blamed for almost everything that's wrong in contemporary society.

Here is what MISS Maholtra has to say about Betty Friedan:

Friedan, rooted in radical activism, provoked her generation of women with anti-male sentiment, denigrating the traditional role of women and redefining the structure and composition of the American family. Freidan’s initiative spawned numerous national organizations, which continually distort facts to generate support and seek to establish a gender-neutral society without any respect to intrinsic biological and social differences. On campuses the ripple effect is obvious, as young women question the validity of traditional values and unwittingly opt for the attractive escapism offered by the feminists.

Clearly, Betty was a cunt. And, evidently, a powerful one if she's still rippling in the world of academia.

But MISS Maholtra needs enemies to rail against. And I guess that gays, atheists, Howard Dean, and people who drink and/or do the Hustle at wedding receptions just aren't enough.

So this egregious little whippersnapper will spit in the face of the very thing that most certainly helped provide her with many of the opportunities she enjoys this very day. Who cares that it was, at it's heart, sincere, but, like everything else, including her current utopian vision, ultimately imperfect?

Though I don't know for a fact, I tend to doubt Miss Maholtra is married. I imagine she, like many of her kind, is far too busy defending traditional feminine values from constant attacks to actually participate in them herself. Ironically, another freedom she enjoys thanks to the very women she derides. If this were 1955, she'd be pitied and dismissed.

And there's also something else:

"Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society."

Rush Limbaugh said that. And in a final bit of irony, I've seen Miss Maholtra's picture. Oh, she definitely owes feminists a debt of gratitude.

You do it to yourself, you do, and that's what really hurts

The gigantic pair of brass balls that the collective of this Bush administration have swung with such arrogant force seem to be shrinking. The poll numbers are rolling in fast and furious, and each one seems to be a teensy bit worst than the last.

Isn't it time they pulled out a threat level upgrade? Oh, wait - they're gonna save that til a month or so before the midterm election, aren't they?

Project Vote Smart to the rescue!

Apathy is, arguably, the biggest threat of all to our country. We citizens need to be more involved, and to be more aware of what fat-cats are doing in our names with our money. Too many of us aren't.

Project Vote Smart is a non-partison, citizen-driven effort to promote and help enable American citizens to make more educated choices at the ballot box.

It is very easy to understand why people are confused, or bored, or turned off to politics these days. Most of us get our news from screeching, partisan harpies on the 24 hour cable channels. And what has Ann Coulter ever truly inspired apart from contempt from her foes, smugness from her admirers, and the need to turn the channel from everyone else?

And politicians certainly aren't falling over backward to encourage their constituents to wise up. It's easier for them when we're passive, ankle-deep in Doritos crumbs, on the couch, watching Elimidate. So long as their campaign ad is the one that we remember at the polls, it's all good, baby.

So the good people at PVS are doing a noble thing. And they deserve gratitude and support.

Here at Project Vote Smart, Americans young and old volunteer their time, take no money from special interest groups, and have committed themselves to an extraordinary effort that, if successful, will provide their fellow citizens with the tools for a reemergence of political power not known for half a century. Their idea is one you may have thought of yourself. It is a deceptively simple concept but enormously difficult to achieve and would not be possible without the collaboration of citizens willing to lay their partisan differences aside for this one crucial task.

This project is an historic undertaking. Citizens come together, not in selfish interest or to support one candidate over another, but to defend democracy. It is an extraordinary gathering of people committed to one purpose: to strengthen the most essential component of democracy -- access to information -- even as it suffers grave attacks from candidates and political parties, many who are now willing to manipulate information and deceive voters.

In essence, what Project Vote Smart's interns and volunteers have done is ensure that tolerance will no longer be the only option available to the millions of us who are tormented by the issueless rhetoric and often misleading attacks that define contemporary American politics.

This just in: Matt Drudge Enjoys Fueling Gay Speculation

Bush: Et tu, Salt Lake Tribune?

It's not often a political cartoon evokes a lump in the throat.

This one sure does, though.

Am I alone in thinking that was an odd choice of words for Condoleeza? A woman so well-versed in practicing very, very careful deception? Thousands.

A year or so ago, one Sunday morning, I was sleeping on the couch with the TV on. I woke up for a couple of minutes, and heard Condi's voice on Meet The Press still trying to sell this fucking war - despite it being already two years old.

"But Tim, everyone, not just the United States, believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction..."

"But Tim, the Iraqi people are FREE now..."

"But Tim, we just don't give one leap-frogging fuck about any of the other tyrants and despots that are sprinkled around the globe..."

blah, blah, endlessly nauseatingly blah.

And now she slips up (or, perhaps, is following orders and changing her tactics in the big effort to spike GW's poll rating ) and actually tells us something that lacks the usual arrogance and seems dangerously close to the truth.

But regardless of whether this is just a case of bad wording, or whether it is a calculated move, it doesn't matter. She, and the rest of this crew of maniacs are finally, FINALLY feeling some pressure.

The Jedi Mind-Trick is losing it's power. The fog of blind panic and fear from September 11th is starting to dissipate. Critical thought and reason are returning, like patches of blue sky peeking out through the clouds.

And Condi's reward for her "honesty" is the starring role in an editorial cartoon that punctures like a nail bomb.

Fortunately for her, only in the figurative sense.