Once in a great while, there comes a time when various unseen natural forces- the alignment of the stars, the ebb and flow of the tides, the balance of philosophik Quicksilver in the earth, and so on- conspire to bring about a truely shocking, thought-provoking event of great significance. We call this phenomenon "The Perfect Storm," and we thought of the name long before George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg met their watery graves at the hands of Wolfgang Petersen, thanks very much.

In any case, a new breeze is starting to pick up, causing shutters to creak and weathercocks to shift uneasily in the wind. Yes indeed, folks. You have been selected to be one of the lucky few to receive front-row tickets to witness this momentous event- nay! this very epoch unfolding before your very eyes. The irresistable force? The insurgency in Iraq. The immovable object? Opinion columnist and sometimes-politician Nibras Kazimi. The result of this unholy cataclysm? A little peice entitled "Iraq is Succeeding," courtesy of the New York Sun and World Net Daily.

But first, let's take a look at the auteur at work in this peice. From one of his official biographies:

Nibras Kazimi is a visiting scholar at the Hudson Institute. He also writes a weekly column on the Middle East for the New York Sun. Previously, he directed the Research Bureau of the Iraqi National Congress in Washington DC and Baghdad, and was a pro-bono advisor for the Higher National Commission for De-Ba'athification, which he helped establish and staff.

For your reference, I have provided a glossary.

New York Sun: Hack newspaper, best known for its excellent coverage of the arts and exceptional crossword puzzle.

Iraqi National Congress: Iraqi "Opposition party" founded by convicted embezzler Ahmed Chalabi and staffed almost exclusively by Iraqi expatriots living abroad, some of whom have never traveled to their native land. Recipient of over $8 million a year in CIA funding and in exchange helped provide intelligence regarding Iraqi WMD programs, including the now-infamous "bioweapons" trailers which turned out to be oversized helium tanks for weather baloons. Originally groomed as a shoe-in for the deposed Saddam, Ahmed Chalabi is now on the outs with his former American handlers and is one of the most hated men in Iraq today. The INC does not hold any seats in the Iraqi National Assembly.

De-Ba'athification: The idea championed by Viceroy Paul Bremer (among others) that the best way to pacify Iraq would be to disband its entire army and kick out of government anyone who had ever been a member of the Ba'ath party, including teachers, college professors, and dog catchers (and thus the only people who had any actual practical experience in running the Iraqi infrastructure). Except of course for in the oil ministry where things progressed more-or-less as they always had.

Pretty good so far, eh? Anyway, let's get to the article in question, shall we?

Iraq is Succeeding

There are legitimate concerns over where things stand in Iraq. Those who are genuinely worried about the welfare of the Iraqi people as well as about America's long-term interests should be commended for fretting over what is a fatefully decisive issue.

No kidding.  Some of us were...how did you put it...fretting over the war all of about FOUR YEARS AGO WHEN THIS ALL STARTED TO GO DOWN!  But thanks for coming to the conclusion that such fretting is commendable.  Too bad you didn't think so back then.

However, these anxieties are being preyed upon and manipulated by dark and cynical forces whose affirmed goal, from the very beginning, was to declare the democratic experiment in Iraq a "failure." 

Hey, man.  If you loudly announce that you are going to hit yourself in the head with a hammer until we all see little yellow stars orbiting your dented, bloody skull, its our right to say that we think it's 1) a freaking stupid idea and 2) never going to work.  You can accuse us of being dark and cynical all you want, but don't come crawling back to us, pointing an accusing finger and claiming that somehow we were behind this all along.  That and that we'll all see those stars eventually.  Once the hemorraging stops and you can make your hands obey you, that is.

Inside Washington, these forces include some who are in the pay of the Saudis, and bureaucrats safeguarding their careers. 



Hmmm...

The " Iraq is a failure" crowd is not only craven but also mistaken. If pressed to the wall to give a verdict on Iraq, I'd say that Iraq is succeeding.

See, that's the thing about Iraq.  Because if there's anything we've learned from the lessons of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, its incredible what you can make Iraqis say when you use all sorts of creative interrogation methods.  And they didnt even have to waterboard him to do it.

A strategic corner in the counterinsurgency campaign has already been turned, but the tangible results will take longer to register in the public mind. 

I think Dick Chaney said that we were turning the corner in Iraq back during the 2004 presidential campaign.  I don't think we're turning the corner so much as we're running in a giant hamster's wheel.  Now matter how many times you make the wheel spin...you havent really gotten anywhere.

Iraq is succeeding because the Iraqi state has weathered the worst of the insurgent storm and survived, and because the Sunni insurgency is fatigued. "What about all the bodies? What about all the bombings?" Indeed, it's the worst it has been, but not the worst it can be.

And I think we can all agree that if a situation is currently "the worst it has been, but not the worst it can be," we are making significant progress no matter which measuring stick is used.  So until Godzilla rises up from the sands and starts devouring Baghdad, we will continue to be successful in Iraq.

I see many hopeful signs that cannot be dismissed. To me, the numbers of the dead — painful as they are — are not as critically dangerous as a much talked about shift in American strategy away from the goal of securing a democratic Iraq.

In short, while I am sad to see so many people dying in our bungled, corrupt, and hopelessly misguided attempt to create a puppet American satelite state in the Middle East, it saddens me even more when people suggesting we abandon the project.

Insurgencies are about perceptions, not about hard facts on the ground.

Though bear in mind that if the facts on the ground supported my analysis, I'd whole-heartedly use them, instead of ignoring them when convenient.  Like that story about the $75 million police academy we built for the Iraqis which rains pee and poo all over cadets lodged on the lower levels.

Modern times afford modern insurgencies another option: They have an unprecedented chance to mold global perceptions.

Yeah.  That's never been done before.  Nope.  No-siree.  Not ever.

Imagine how the battle of Stalingrad would have been covered by today's press and broadcast enterprises. The Russians ended up executing 14,000 of their own for desertion. About 50,000 Soviet citizens fought alongside the Nazis. Civilians continued to live in this most ferocious of war zones. A lot of negative spin could have been generated to weaken Russian resolve, at a time when the Stalinist regime deserved to be bad-mouthed. But even evil is relative, and it was clear who should have won and did indeed win.

Well, you do realize that the only reason these casualties and atrocities were not reported on was because of the penalties attatched to "espionage" in the Soviet Union under Stalin, right?  It's hard to spin something when you're lying on the plank floor of a Siberian cabin, your teeth scattered in various directions or still embedded in someone's rifle butt.

Saddam Hussein has been brought to trial over two crimes so far, the relatively minor incident of Dujail and the genocidal campaign against the Kurds

If by relatively minor  you mean the arrest, torture, and murder of 148 suspects from the town of Dujail after an assassination attempt on Saddam was thrawrted, you have some serious problems mate.  But don't worry.  You were probably in New York or Washington back when that all went down.

I was pro-liberation and anti-occupation, but at least I could see that the American occupation of Iraq was the "nicest" such occupation in the history of mankind. 

I dunno.  Our work along with the UN and NATO in the former Yugoslavia was pretty good, and that didn't involve secret prisons, torture of suspects, and the like.  In fact, so was our 1995 invasion of Haiti.

The campaign was well intentioned, and the mistakes made resulted from ignorance rather than from malice.

Some of us would also add arrogance, naivete, and incompetence to that list as well.

Aberrations such Abu Ghraib were quickly punished and apologized for[.]

Really?  Last I heard a half-dozen low-level reservists had been discharged and imprisoned for what they were caught doing on camera.  Oddly enough, no officers, including the General in charge of the facility (Janet Karpinski) were ever disciplined for the participation, or at the very least criminal negligence in the matter.  Oddly enough, the Abu Ghraib prison is still in operation today.  

The insurgency is confronting its limits. It is finding that replenishing expertise, personnel, and the treasury is getting harder and harder. They are also finding that the Iraqi state and the Americans are getting better at fighting them through enhanced intelligence and an increased sense of confidence. 

Eh, so long as the insurgents have the Saudis, and the Saudis have the crude, they will never have to face their funds drying up.  Something to think about next time you're at the Texaco, eh?  As for the increased confidence, all those polls conducted by various research agencies seemed to suggest 90-plus percent of the Iraqi public wants the US out of Iraq immediately.  How's that for confidence?

Oh well.  This goes on for pages and pages and after a while gets tedious. So now I'm going to end it, but not before leaving you with a graphic which I feel best illustrates Mr. Kazimi's outlook on Iraq.  Now if we could only find a no-bid contractor to make and sell these to the Iraqi police cadets, we'd be in business.

Finally!  After weeks of poking around the satanic backwash and rectal seepage that is the real of Right Wingnuttia, I am glad to say that I have been officially labeled as worse than Osama Bin Laden, Hillary Clinton, and Barak Obama by the right wing nut jobs over at the American Federalist Blog.  While I must say that I am honored that they hold member of NAMBLA in higher regard than me (and do so they must...after all, in order to hate pedophiles as much as they hate socialists, it would require them to ditch the likes of Mark Foley, and we all know how much Republicans loves them those votes), I am somewhat disappointed that all I did in order to find myself in their hell was prove to them what a behemothic pile of tommyrot libertarianism- that which is their most cherished set of beliefs- really is.

While I do admit that at first I was a little intimidated by their numbers- after all, three dunderheads are still a formidably loud (if not particularly bright) force with which to be reckoned- once I got past my mistaken belief that their ability to publish a blog was a sign of minimal intelligence, I got to work and happily destroyed them in short order.  They were apparently under the impression that stupidity sounds better in stereo.  

I suppose my only tactical mistake was to assume that these Federalists were of the garden-variety Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, a group of similarly-minded Yale law students who decided to band together and fight to preserve their white, christian, male, upper-class, higher-income self-identified tribe from the relentless persecuation and discrimination they faced at the hands of liberal school administrators and proponents of diversity.  No, in fact these Federalists are really quite ordinary- at least in the sense that they are quite mundane: two bankers and a construction worker.  

Now while I do normally have some respect for construction workers, seeing how they actually work for a living and tend to have to face things like getting their limbs hacked off by machinery- I fear I have nothing but loathing and contempt for bankers.  For, as anyone who has had experience with banks post the 1970s and 1980s Savings and Loans scandal and deregulation can tell you- modern banking is a job best suited to shaved monkeys in miniature business suits.  

And so, American Federalist Blog, I bid you adieu.  I will not waste my time with pathetic little internet memes cribbed from one of your friends' more popular blogs.  Instead, I will design my very own hell just for you.  While I can't give you too many details as of yet, I will leave most of it to your imagination.  Let's just say it will involve all three of you, a gian pit, and a never-ending stream of collectively-owned dump trucks loaded high to the brim with pig shit.  Enjoy!

 I was going to come up with my usually witty and brilliant line of snark for the introduction but then it occurred to me that when you actually encounter a piece of Evangelical apologia with a title like “Mystery Goo,” well, why reinvent the wheel? Especially when the author in question is none other than Kirk Cameron, the grown-up version of the adorable, moody Mike Seaver on the hit 1980’s TV show Growing Pains (which I’m sure was responsible for more that it’s fair share of mystery goo back in the day). Take it away Mike!

Mystery Goo

Kirk Cameron

Posted: 10/16/2006

Chelsea and the kids and I had been out to dinner. I returned home and was walking down the hall toward my bedroom, when I almost stepped in it. I looked further down the hall and saw another small pile of "don't step in that". How many more might there be? 

Whereas a sane, logical person might be driven to such self-reflective questions as “what the fuck is that?” and “how did it get here?” Kirk’s first response was to ponder how much more there might be cleverly secreted in all corners of the house. Ah Kirk, please know that the rest of humanity draws comfort from the knowledge that you will always be there for us, always ready to ask the tough questions.

I found more on the kitchen stove. Another one on the top of the living room chair. Like Sherlock Holmes, I searched for clues and followed the trail and found more on my bedroom rug.

Well call me a crazy, paranoid, overly cautious city slicker type, but I think this alone provides sufficient grounds for entire Cameron household to be quarantined and the building condemned and razed to the ground. Or at least provide me with sufficient cause to politely decline any future dinner invitations on the part of Mrs. Cameron.

I turned toward my daughter's bedroom and noticed things were a little more disheveled than usual. As I tiptoed into a dimly lit bathroom, I found lotions, papers, and other various things strewn all over the floor with more mystery goo in both sinks. Whoever the intruder was, I was closing in on him.

I’m not sure if my views are representative of those of the general public, however, I think it’s fairly safe to say that Mr. Cameron seems strangely unconcerned with the dishevelment of his daughter’s bedroom, as well as the presence of “lotions, papers, and other various things” complete with a glazing of mystery goo in all the right spots. Just a thought.

I flipped on the lights. Suddenly, from behind me, I heard a sheepish "Braaaaaaaaaak, brak, brak, brak..." I turned around. It was "Whitey"- one of our pet chickens! She sat perched upon the edge of the tub, blinking her eyes as she adjusted to the bright lights, and had an incredulous look on her face[…]

Well, for a chicken. I guess.

I laughed, picked her up, and carried her out to the rest of the family, and demonstrated my macho, manliness by declaring that Dad had "solved the mystery once again, and the Cameron family could safely return to their rooms."

Whew! Thank God that crisis was finally resolved! Now that the case of the mystery goo has finally been closed and Encyclopedia Brown has collared the suspect, I guess life in the Cameron household can return to normal. A very feathery, chicken-shit-splattered KIND of normal, but nevertheless well within the margin of error of what constitutes an acceptable semblance of domestic life in the house of Mike Seaver. Regardless, I hear their chicken pot pie is delicious.

I know what happened. Whitey, not content to peck and scratch in the backyard with the other chickens, ventured up to the house, saw an open door, and made her bold move. She entered the forbidden territory. No sooner were her feet in the door when a savage beast (our dog Sadie) lunged at her with teeth barred! Fearing for her life, she let out a squawk and flew to the top of the stove! Then to the chair, down the hall, into my bedroom, into the bathroom, up on the sinks, kicking everything off the counters, trying to find a safe place from the vicious enemy. (Obviously, the reason she left so many piles of converted grass and bugs in my house was because she literally had them scared out of her as she fled for her life.) 

Fifteen minutes listening to Inspector Cameron and I swear, it’s like Jack Webb and Dragnet loses all its appeal. “The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Honest. You think we could make this kind of shit up?”

There are times, as a Christian, I've felt a lot like Whitey.

You trespass onto other people’s property, and then flap your arms, shit yourself, and hide in their bathroom whenever someone has a problem with it?

I'm often discontent with the typical Christian lifestyle and instead look for an adventurous life lived on the edge of faith. Specifically, I want to step out of my comfort zone to seek and save the lost. So I rub shoulders with sinners.

Interacting with the remaining 90% of humanity. Damn Kirk, that’s taking your faith to the extreme.

Every time I do this, I enter forbidden territory--the enemy's domain. All of a sudden, out of nowhere I'm attacked by the savage beast of fear.

So…you do trespass on other people’s property and end up shitting yourself? Damn, it takes a real man to admit that. Mad props, homes.

It lunges at me, and I panic! In my mind

I chime in with a/“haven’t you people ever heard of/closing the God-damn door?”

For the love of Christ, just when you think this column can’t get any more blissfully unaware of its sexual undertones, it takes another nose dive. At least there hasn’t yet been a reference to what goes down in highway rest stop bathrooms.

Like an unrelenting hound, fear has even sent me running into the bathroom to pray.

Whoops. Spoke too soon.

In case you are wondering, Whitey is doing just fine. In fact, I think she's even bolder now because of the experience. I have no doubt that she will enter the forbidden territory again, because it's in her very nature to do so.

It might also be because chickens are without a doubt the single least intelligent species left on the planet since that gigantic asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. To say that a chicken has half a brain is to overestimate the chicken’s intelligence by at least an order of magnitude. Fortunately for the rest of humanity, unlike the distant runners-up in the epoch-ending stupidity contest, chickens are not gifted with vocal cords and the capacity for speech. There is only enough room in this galaxy for one Fox News.

As a Christian, you have been given a new nature. You desire to enter enemy territory and sharing your faith, but perhaps in the past you have allowed fear to keep you from even getting your foot in the door. Take a lesson from my pet Whitey and just go for it. Make a bold move and fight the good fight of faith for the sake of the lost. Put it all on the line for someone you love. God is with you. You may feel like a chicken, but the experience will make you bolder in the end.

And if worse comes to worst, I am sure that your legs, thighs, and breast will be positively delicious deep-fried, sprinkled with Old Bay seasoning, and served in a bucket with a side of Cole Slaw and a buttermilk biscuit. You may have died pointlessly, but in the words of my good friend and associate Edmund Blackadder “He may have been a third-rate captain, but he was a first-rate second course.”

May it be said at our funerals and written on our tombstones, "Here lays a faithful servant of Jesus Christ, a truly courageous chicken."

“Life will never be as gooey without him!”

Wachovia Bank blows. I'm too pissed off right now to go into it. Let's just say that if you're into currency speculation, it might just be your bank. If you actually want a realistic idea of just how much cold hard cash you have in your hands, you'd be better off putting it in your matress. Next time I make a withdrawl, I'm doing it with a duffelbag, ski mask, and AK-47. That is all.

While I know that you are all no doubt eagerly awaiting the second installment of "The Little Ghost: Tales from the World of Head Trauma," I'm afraid I came across an article so deliciously idiotic that it almost makes me wish the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had a special unit to help deal with viral outbreak of Neurosa Winguttia, colloquall known as teh stoopid. Their first stop along the wingnet? The World Net Daily Office. The cause of the quarantine? This latest stinker. It's from Kevin McCullough, and it's called "How Liberals are Like Satan."

Okay, okay, I was joking. It's actually called "Why Liberals Channel Lucifer." It is, however, still written by ken McCullough. Take it away, K-Mac!

Why liberals channel Lucifer
Posted: October 13, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern


Damn, that guy had a lot of Cheetos stuffed in his desk!

Thinking they are like the very angel of light, liberals have taken to forked-tongue talk of late. And though they drone in pleasant tones, the bile their words create are some of the fiercest deceptions ever spoken.

Yeah well, fork-tongued or not, at least we don't have a speech impediment of the brain. Carry on, oh transcendental muse, lest the spirit of Phobos leave you unable to speak at all!

Biblically literate people understand that before Satan fell, he shared an exalted place in close communion with God. But through his pride and lust for power he foolishly attempted to think himself equal to God.

Whereas those who are simply literate will recognize the Bible for what it is: a collection of myths and legends of a primitive tribe of Near Eastern herdsmen thousands of years in the making. While it may certainly contain valuable moral lessons and is important in terms of its historical significance, taking each and every word literally is tantamount to looking for the exact glade wherein Gilgamesh slew Humbaba, guardian demon of the Cedar trees. It short: teh stoopid.

He so deceived himself in the matter that ultimately he believed that he might be able to manipulate God. In my brand new book, "MuscleHead Revolution: Overturning Liberalism with Commonsense Thinking," I argue that these are the exact same tactics used by modern liberals.

Let's see if I can find my copy of the Liberal Playbook here..hmm..let's see...ahhhh, yes!

4-Step Liberal Plan for America
Step 1: Find God
Step 2: Become all-powerful angel
Step 3: Trick God into giving us what we want
Step 4: Retake congress and fashion it in our image.

Pure freakin' GENIUS!! I only wish McCullough was on our side instead of those without the cleft tongues.

Where they disagree with the Almighty, they simply dismiss Him.

Let's see here.

"When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you may nations...then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy." Deuteronomy 7:1-2, NIV.

Hm. Guilty as charged. Next!

As I first reported last week in this column, Ms. Magazine went on a national campaign this past Tuesday to get women who've had abortions to "come out" and talk about what a great thing it was. They asked some 6,000 women to make public the act of butchering, stabbing or washing in acid their innocent children – and worse yet, to call it good. Ms. Magazine also made it perfectly clear that they had no interest at all in hearing from the millions of women who now regret just such an experience.

I'm sure that you and I are just as shocked, shocked! to discover that not only is abortion one of the greatest genocides (or, since I guess they're not really human yet...xenocides?) in the history of mankind, but that there are actually WOMEN who play an active role in the murder of these children. Fetii. Cells. Whatever.

Not only that, but these hussies actually have the courage to come out of the closet and instead of being horrified at their actions and presenting themselves for a public stoning, actually maintain that they don't feel so bad about what they did and that they are comfortable with their decision- happy in the knowledge that they have control over their own bodies and a consitutionally guaranteed right to privacy.

Well maybe we're not shocked, but Kevin McCullough is, and he's thrice damned if he's going to let an abortion happen to him!

Responding to some of the controversy surrounding this declaration of murder and the supposed liberation it brought to women's lives, Eleanor Smeal, the magazine's publisher was asked in an interview this week with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, "Forty-five percent of the American people favor banning abortions in their states, except to save the life of the mother. Forty-five percent, that's a lot of people. Are those people, in your opinion, bad people?"

Her responses.
1) Bill, you're full of shit.
2) Bill, you're full of shit
3) Forty-five percent, huh? Doesn't sound like a majority to me. Ain't democracy a bitch?

Her answer said it all: "I think we should get away from good and evil and talk about public policy."

Bah! Another one of those Commie Islamosecularists! Next thing you know, she'll argue that the entire concept of Good and Evil is be definition based off of religion and as such has no place in the public domain. And then, who knows what will happen to our blessed, blessed bans on eating Shellfish?

Also on "The O'Reilly Factor" this week, the "Reverend" Barry Lynn of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State in promoting his new book, "Piety and Politics," argued for the definition of marriage to be returned to "individuals, who are making choices, based largely on their own 'theological' views about what marriage is."

Oooooh, that tricky bastard. Trying to make marriage an issue of individual choice and conscience. Nice try pal, but as we all know, religion is based solely on religion. And when I say religion, I really mean Christianity. Next?

Both Smeal and Lynn sat with smirks plastered on their faces enduring what I'm sure they felt were pedantic questions from the host on the morality of such issues.

Either that or they were amused at the prospect of being challenged on issues good and evil by a man with such a sterling record regarding his own sexual purity and morality. That and the shape of his falafel.

And in their calm and calculated ways they attempted to make the arguments in baldfaced lies that defy reason.

Yeah! Only losers with something to hide remain call and try to win you over using calculated arguments! What a bunch of lying liars! (Mind you, this is coming from the man who in his previous column accused feminists of being morally equivalent to pedophiles, child molesters, and mass murderers. Just sayin')

But the rationale for both is easily revealed in Smeal's remarks.

For both Lynn and Smeal to even begin to make the case, an important step must be taken – the removal of morality. To "get away from good and evil" is more than half the battle.

In other words, once the liberals and secular humanists try to reframe the arguement in a non-biblically based, non-religious context, they've taken away your most valuable tool: the blind appeal to authority and tradition. The writing is on the wall here, folks. Don't let it happen to you!

To remove the moral boundaries about an issue as vital to the stabilization of society as what defines a human being, and furthermore what defines a family unit, is the hugely necessary step for their arguments to even begin to hold water.

I think this sentance is plagarized. Kevin McCullogh claims he wrote it, but a quick Google search, confirmed my suspicions.

THIS was written in 1955, by one MC Escher. And I think you will agree, the two are virtually identical. Now normally I would put McCullough on notice, warning him about future instances of cheatig, but what the hell. Plagarism is like bread and butter to a wingnut: if you haven't had at least one by breakfast time, you're already behind schedule.

Yet it is an impossible act to perform. Every decision we make has moral consequences to it. Every policy we advocate for does as well.

I thought about wearing by black dress shoes today, but then I was like "screw it. Those shoes can burn in hell for all I care." Was there a moral consequence to it? I don't know, but I'm comfortable with it either way.

Smeal does not wish to even mentally entertain the issue of good and evil as it relates to abortion because every abortion would be deemed an evil act that takes the life of an innocent living human being.

Fascinating. Until recently, I was under the impression that only the lesser developed creatures saw in black and white. This can only mean two things. Either that K-Mac is sub-human, or that K-Mac is not human. You pick.

We are to understand that school shootings are murder for the same reason – and all agree.

Administrating a drug cocktail to halt the development of a cluster of cells invisible to the naked eye? Po-TAY-to.
Grabbing an asault rifle and gunning down 10 or so school girls in the head? Po-TAH-to. Same difference.

Lynn's remarks, while they sound even downright democratic, falsely portray the ultimate outcome of tearing down the one institution free society is dependent upon for its survival – heterosexual marriage.

I thought that was free love, drugs, and rock...

Not that liberals have any interest in truly understanding people of faith in America, because they don't. But if they did, they would never be able to handle the structure of rational, truth-based, common-sense thinking that pervades the communities of the devout today.

So you're saying it's not free love, drugs, and rock? Colour me disappointed.

So all that's left is to call us "stupid Bible thumpers" or "zealous right-wingers."

Ready? On three everyone! ONE!

But that's OK, because the false prophets, which is in essence what liberal spokespeople are today, called Jesus much worse.

TWO!
What is important for we "thumpers" to remember is that our convictions, standards, beliefs and morality are standing upon something much longer lasting than the latest politically correct wind.

THREE!!!!!!!

And if we wish to leave behind a decent and moral world for our children, it is important that we not waiver when the name-calling begins.

***STUPID BIBLE-THUMPERS AND RIGHT-WING BIGOTS!!!!!!!!!!***

Hehe, this is fun. I wish I did it more often.

Ok, let's try this again. Once more, from the top!

Our guest today is Jack Chick, world renown carricature artist, born again Christian, Evangelist extraordinaire, and owner of the unfortunately named www.chick.com. But there's something really stuck in his craw this Halloween season. Hmm. I wonder what all the hubub is about...

Let's take a look at his website- specifically, this article entitled "Soul Winner Spook Satan on Halloween," from the October 2003 issue of Battlecry Magazine.

As we come up on "Satan's holiday" (Halloween), mankind is increasingly gravitating to the occult. Dr. Rowan Williams, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the 70 million Anglican and Episcopalian "Christians," has been made an honorary Druid. On the internet, a search for the word "Wicca" returns over half a million web pages.

Conversely, a Google search for the term "Cross-eyed Moron" only generates about 27,000 hits. I can see why the Chick crowd feels threatened.

Many soul winners have tried to keep their children out of the trick-or-treat scene by refusing to be involved in Halloween. Churches have held "Harvest Festivals" on October 31 to provide an alternative for Christian families.

I must say that despite Chick's rabid Anti-Catholicism, it is nice to see that Evangelical Christianity also shares with the Catholic Church in the historic tradition of co-opting pagan holidays in the hopes of winning converts.

However, some bold Christians have turned the night into a major neighborhood outreach by including gospel tracts with the candy they give out. Chick Publications has received reports of many highly creative ways that customers have turned the night around to God's glory.

Some simply give out tracts along with the candy. Others have set up tables with an assortment of tracts that kids can choose from.

That's right kids, just when you thought getting a handful of Jolly Ranchers, stale tootsie rolls, and Dum-Dums couldn't get any worse, Jack Chick and his merry band of Christian malconents go above and beyond the call of duty to provide you with an ever greater awe-inspiring act of sucktitude for your pillowcases this Halloween: Chick Tracts!

In any case, lest you have any doubts of the exact, precise nature of this drivel, here is one of the Jack Chick-reccomended tracts suitable for use on Halloween. It's call The Little Ghost and is by far the scariest thing you will encounter all evening.

Roll on one!

Act 1, Scene 1
Setting: A country lane, one Halloween night.

In the opening scene, little Joey confronts little Suzy with the time-test watch phrase of Halloween, to which she responds with incredulous horror. Wether this is the result of her being hard of hearing, Bobby;s invisible doorknob getting in the way, or the fact that its Halloween night and all she could find for a costume was Peppermint Patty's vest and a vest made out of a shrimping net remains unknown at this time.

Undeterred (and, judging from the bags under his eyes and wild, trembling hands- entirely too stressed out), Joey tries again, only this time while pretending to wrestle with an invisible sterring wheel. An alternate interpretation is that following a horrible motor vehicle accident on the way to a trick-or treating party, Joey has suffered a traumatic brain injury and developed Wernicke's aphasia, severly limiting his ability to speak in coherent sentaces. Undeterred, he is nevertheless rebuffed once more by Shrimp Net Girl, who doesn't seem to think that blood-shot eyes, tremors, and mono-syllabic sentances is a particularly frightening experience.

However, this tedious little exercise in elementary Emergency Medical Care and interventive neurology is cut short by the arrival of the second major character in our morality play, the Devil, (who for some reason seems to have appropriated a Ronal Reagan costume for the occasion) and his Dog, who while not wearing a costume has decided to disguise his tail as a circular saw blade.

Incidentally, Joey's physical state seems to have deteriorated even further than in the last panel, with the internal cerebral hoemmorage now causing a marked area of distendage on his upper left cranium. Anyway, Suzy has good reason to be confident, because just when it seems she's about to be outnumbered and outgunned by the two Godless heathen Satan Worshipers, she calls on the mystical forces of...

The J-man...which, judging by the vapid, empty look on Satan's face and the rather self-reflective question on the part of Joey, is someone who hasn't exactly done a whole lot of traveling in this part of the world. Fortunately, Joey's head trauma seems to be improving by the minute, despite his bulging eyes and permanently akimbo limbs. Perhaps driven by a sense of companionship, or the feeling that Joey is about to keel over any second and provide him with a good source of succulent man-flesh, kitty moves in and begins tenderizing his prey.

Having already established the fact that Joey is suffering from Wernicke's aphasia and that Satan apparently has more than a slight touch of teh krazy, Suzy obviously now feels comfortable to drop all pretenses and reveal her own dark, twisted secret. Tourette's syndrome, viz.:

See what I mean? Spooky.

To be continued...

No time for an introduction! I've just come crawling back from our listening post out beyond the barbed wire and have some critical intel that I must deliver to HQ as fast as humanly possible. My God, it was a dreadful couple hours I spent out there in the cold and rain, far away from our lines, within spitting distance of the Right Wing trenches and having to endure the constant discomfort of the weather, the occasional bursts of gunfire, as well as the near incessant outbursts of profanity and flatulence coming from the GOP dugouts as their sense of dispair grew more and more palpable with each Fox News bulletin.

But I've no time to get into this now. This crucial information was gleaned from my hurredly scribbled notes out there in the spider hole as I listened to an unidentified Wingnut officer lanch on his latest tirade against The LEFT. I couldn't get a good look at him, what with the dark and everything, but in glare the occasional glow of a parachute flare or the odd muzzleflash nearby, I could identify the particular officer as one Joseph Farrah, a lower-ranking wingnut of low repute who nevertheless commands a fair amount of respect and attention from his Reich Wing colleagues. It was either him, of someone doing a rather poor Grouch Marx impression as filtered through the lenses of a 1970's porn star. I'll leave it to the boys over in Analysis to make the definitive identification later.

But first, a little background to familiarize ourselves with Mr. Farah's lifes' work. His bio, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Farah made a name for himself in 1990 when he became editor of the Sacramento Union newspaper under the ownership of Daniel Benvenuti Jr. and David Kassis when the three turned the paper in a more conservative direction.^[1] Benvenuti and Kassis bought the newspaper from billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife who was also a conservative and would eventually fund the Arkansas Project to bring down Bill Clinton. After 15 months as editor of the Union, Farah stepped down, in part from the 30% decline of the paper's circulation. (The Sacramento Union was bankrupt by 1994, but became an online a monthly magazine in 2004.)^[1] From there he moved to Los Angeles to become the executive news editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner (now closed) and served as editor-in-chief for various California dailies and weeklies.

Wow. So he's like King Midas of ancient lore. Only instead of turning everything he touches into gold, it instead turns into shit, rancid goat meat, and those disgraceful "Purple Heart" bandaids they handed out at the GOP convetion in 2004. Yikes, this could get ugly.

Shit, another Joseph Farah Column. Masks on, boys!

Outrage in the GBLT caucus
Posted: October 4, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

Do you think the Democrats are really incensed about Rep. Mark Foley's instant messages to congressional pages?

Oh yeah. And when mixed in with the tastier, more exotic elements of a well-publicized right-wing coverup, the newfound and belated GOP concern with policing its own ranks, the hipocrisy of having one of America's Missing and Exploited Children's "greatest advocates" exploiting children, and the generally pathetic attempt to assign blame and bury the whole story before the November elections, you betcha. Though I will admit that it's proving to be a lot more fun than I anticipated as well, watching the Repubs squirm. What do you think, men?

Pirate Chrous (to the sound of rattling cutlasses, the occasional gunshot): "YAAAARRRRRRRRRR!!!!"

Do you think the party of Barney Frank and Gerry Studds and Bill Clinton has finally had enough with powerful old men who use their positions to gain sexual favors from much younger and inexperienced pages and interns?

If by "younger and inexperienced pages and interns" you mean consulting adults, then aside from the ethical implications, the answer is no. Especially considering the fact that our politicians recognize their failings, accept their censures, and go on to get reelected multiple times, instead of sticking pepperoni rolls in their ears and screaming "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!" every time some staffer tries to bring up Representative Gropey McGrabenstein's lewd behavior towards men a quarter their age. But I suppose you can be forgiven for that oversight, Joe. After all, Barney Frank and Gerry Studds' scandals both date back to the previous Republican adminsitration (in Studds' case, the reign of Blessed St. Ronald the Forgetful).

Frankly, if I hear one more Democrat call for House Speaker Dennis Hastert's head, I think I'm going to scream. And that's coming from me – a guy who believes Hastert should resign for mishandling this sicko under his authority.

Translation: "Goddamn it, libs! Criticism is only appropriate when we do it! GAWD!!!"

I don't know who his Haster guy is, but I sure like the sounds of that. I'd love to see the GOP give us Haster's "head." The very though of him "mishandling" "sickos" who are "under his authority" gives me goosebumps. I don't know about that Hastert guy though. He doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who can go for multiple rounds before the ticker goes out, if you know what I mean.

Rep. Gerry Studds and Barney Frank got slaps on the wrist (oooh, they probably liked that!)...

One look at that sentance, and you just know that Joseph Farrah is the king of guy who calls gay people "fags" and African Americans of a certain dress and speech type "niggers" behind their backs. When he's not busy surpressing his own homoerotic curiosity, that is.

As for that miserable attempt at a snide little jab aimed at democrats, liberals, and homosexuals in general, its really no surprise it fails so utterly miserably. The ultimate problem with conservatives in general and Republicans in particular is their lack of any palpable sense of humor. This, coupled with the earth-searing rage which infuses virtually every aspect of their lives, means that when they do attempt to infuse a few choice bons mots into their polemics, they fall straight on their faces and end up looking like angry, sputtering imbeciles.

Those of us on the other side of the political aisle, however, as a general rule do not suffer from this condition. As such while our little outings into the world of well-placed snark slide effortlessly into the fatty flanks of bolivating dunderheads with the same crisp professionalism of a well-placed, diamond-ground tendon knife, similar attempts on the part of people like Joseph Farrah only result in embarassment and aukwardness. This as the failed verbiage which passes for drollery on the right side of the aisle is clumsily excreted in the midst of an already seething paragraph, its corpus all aglisten- a slimy turd just forced out of the pundits inflexible yet capacious bowels, leaving onlookers agog and more than a few wretching.

I am not here making excuses for Foley.

Says the man who just spent the first half of his article attempting to distract the audience by referring to "even worse" Democratic scandals. Hell Joe, yo may not think you're making excuses for a pedophile, but when the cops come for that odd uncle of yours, it doesn't exactly make you look good when you start accusing the Police of ignoring their own bad apples 20-odd years ago.

Like I said, Hastert should be forced out of power for not smoking this weasel out a long time ago. That's incompetence. That's malfeasance.

C'mon Joseph, you can't do that. If your party made it a habit of forcing out from its ranks every corrupt, incompetent and malfaesant lawmaker in power today, the GOP would cease to exist as a viable political entity and would join the ranks of the Anti-Masonic Party and the Know-Nothings. I mean, congress we could handle. But who would occupy the White House?

Here's the way I see it.

The problem is not just pedophiles and would-be pedophiles. Because if that's the only problem we face morally, the Democrats will soon change the age of consent to remove that taboo.

How they plan on doing that when the Republicans control all three branches of government is beyond me. Besides, the fact that all of the Democratic scandals you mentioned involved people of legal consenting age, I fail to see what you're getting at. If anything, it seems to be the Republicans who have this thing for the forbidden fruit of underage children. Not to mention that until recent, the age of consent in many Red States was as low as 14.

The problem is not just old powerful men using their positions to get sexual favors. Because if that's the only problem we face morally, the Democrats have already exonerated the No. 1 perpetrator of all time – Bill Clinton.

Alexander the Great and King David excluded.

The problem is not just politicians hiding pecadillos, pretending they are something they are not, closeting their neuroses. Because if that's the only problem we face morally, the Democrats sooner or later will "out" them all.

Translation: Just because we've made "defense of marriage" and gay bashing one of our main platforms over the last 15 years doesn't mean we can kick them out of the party. We need their votes and besides, the libs will always end up outing them eventually. Why worry? On liberals worry about shit like hypocrisy.

No, the real problem we face, not just in the halls of power in Washington, but throughout the popular culture, in the schools where more and more children are molested every day and in the workplace, can be summarized in one word. Sin.

Translation: It's bad to molest kids because its a sin.

Marc's Prediction for the Way This Article Is Headed: And- wait for it- liberals have been trying to get rid of the concept of sin. So if you tilt your head, screw up your nose, and keep your eyes half closed, its easy to see that this is all the ACLU's fault! By encouraging sin and forcing us aChristians to treat fags like normal human beings, they have weakened our resolve to fight Sin and as such are ultimately responsible for the erosion of moral value and clarity which has resulted in this tragedy.

Moral of the story: Why take personal responsibilities for your failings when you can always blame teh Clenis(tm) instead!

That's an old-fashioned word that politicians don't like to hear about. People in the media scoff when you use it. It's a word you probably can't even utter in public schools without fear of a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union.

But, nevertheless, it's the root of the problem.

*BING!* Sweet! I'll take easily-reduced fantasies for $1200, Alex.

Mark Foley doesn't need to enter a drunk tank for rehab. He needs to get down on his knees in a church. He hasn't done anything for which he won't be forgiven if he is truly repentant.

I think I accidentally stumbled on an "adult" film that sounded remarkably similar to this. I think it was called Rep. Philip Buster and the Dickleration of Independance. Oddly enough, it also involved a disgraced politician getting down on his knees. While the premise was interesting, I admit I was more interested in bikini Babes from Burbank 9 and so can't comment on its relevance.

We're all sinners in this world. But some of us have recognized that. Others have decided that there is no such thing as sin and have attempted to elevate sin to some kind of inalienable right.

And that is the mentality that will bring us more and more Mark Foleys and Barney Franks and Gerry Studdses and Bill Clintons. If we keep rationalizing bad behavior and moral depravity, guess what? We're going to get more and more of it.

I hate to say it, but that is exactly what the Democratic Party has done in the last 30 years. It has turned sin into a civil right.

Says the man who just spend the remaining half of his article rationalizing bad behavior, moral depravity, and blaming it all on the democrats. I swear, every time I think this is about to turn into a full-fledge parody...it doesn't. And that makes me sad. Such talent, such waste. It's almost as if Sir Isacc Newton, while right on the very cusp of discovering the physical principles behind the laws of gravity and thermodynamics decided that that sort of academic lifestyle just wasn't for him and burned his manuscripts in order to take up a job selling those oversize turkey legs at a Renaissance Festival. Mr. Farah, you could have been contender! And now not only have you turned your back on what could have been one of the greatest and most entertaining comedic roles of all time, but are now reduced to approximately the same level of existance as a Galapagos Tortoise: slow as a pile of bricks, as dense as battleship's anchor, and as well endowed in the brain-pan as a Stegosaurus. Good night, and good luck.

In Germany, B-movie directors don't have to take online crap-talking lying down- oh, no siree. Just take the recent experience of Uwe Boll in Vancouver, for example. Not only does he challenge four of his greatest online detractors to a fight in real life, but he proceeds to knock out all four of them. And who can argue with statements such as the following?

"I feel great. I feel like a very angry German man punched me in the head repeatedly," said the 30-year-old CEO for the Something Awful website.

Which is more or less what happened, you doughy, brickheaded ponce.  Now you know how the rest of Europe feels.

"Nothing will sway my opinion about 'House of the Dead,' 'Alone in the Dark' and 'BloodRayne.' Nothing. But I knew I would develop some kind of sick, twisted admiration for this guy," Alexander said, laughing. 

The fact that you actually spent time (and presumably money) to actually watch not one, but THREE of these films- AND admit to the fact- is a testament to your intestinal fortitude, sirrah.  It just pains me to see that you weren't beaten so badly your mouth ceased functioning.

"I wasn't a big fan of 'House of The Dead' or 'Alone in the Dark,' but after what he's shown me of 'Seed,' I think it's fantastic," Minter said.

I'd be interested in knowing wether this newfound admiration for Mr. Boll's films came before or after the fight.  I know its counterintuitive, but I think I'd probably enjoy a Boll movie better if I had just been deafened and blinded as well.  

Regardless, I must say I am impressed with the Germanic approach to film studies and cinematographic film criticism.  Facing one's own worst enemies and defeating them one at a time in a bloody bout of single combat is so very...Teutonic.   My only regret is that Ed Wood died many, many years ago and is no longer eligible to participate, even if Cinekreig (as I have taken to calling it) does cross the Atlantic.  However, on the plus side, once it does arrive we will certainly have plenty of suitable candidates for the festivities.  

Mr. Peter Jackson?  I believe you have a telephone call to make.  

(And yes, I am well aware that the above statement means I will burn in fanboy hell forever.  Guess what?  I don't care.  If worse comes to worst, I will extinguish the flames with your salty, salty tears. xoxo ~M)

Because if there's anything we've learned over the last thousand miles of retreat, it's that Soviet agriculture is in dire need of mechanization!