Sadly, No!

Leading internet morons are all atwitter over Mike Huckabee’s highly controversial questioning of Mormon doctrine:

Above: Which I guess would make
him Jesus’s nephew

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In an article to be published in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, Huckabee asks: “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?” According to the AP, Huckabee asked the question after saying he believes Mormonism is a religion but doesn’t know much about it.

Assembled-from-corpses right-wing fruitfly Dan Riehl in particular has been all over this story, in between laughing at shooting victims and endorsing candidates who have violated the Geneva Conventions. Dan cites Huckabee’s comments as further proof of his intolerant nature, previously evidenced in remarks by Huckabee about homosexuality. Or, as the not-previously-known-for-his-defense-of-gays Dan Riehl calls it, “sucking cock.”

Most of the attention, from both the left and the right, seems to be focused on the notion that Huckabee, by asking if Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers, is denigrating the faith. Honestly, I don’t see what the big deal is; I mean, don’t Christians believe that Jesus and Satan exist? That seems pretty nutty to me just on its own, so I don’t have an additional problem with anyone who wants to make that leap to saying that they’re brothers. (From my perspective, the money shot in that interview is Huckabee’s claim that he believes that Mormonism is a religion.)

Yet, not since Ronald Reagan visited Central America and said “You’d be surprised — they’re all individual countries down there” has someone been so impressed by his own ignorance.

…and somewhat influential.

Excerpted from one of TBOGG’s “America’s Worst Mother” posts, more or less picked at random:

Life is back to normal for America’s Worst Mother™ and, for us, that means that Meghan (and the kids: Miasma, Pinot Noir, Gravitas, and Mersault) hit all of their marks[.]

The somewhat funny Bob Rybarczyk of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

My 10-year-old daughter, Gustavo, was uttering them. And if Gustavo (not her real name) says she thinks she’s going to throw up, well, that gets my attention.

Here’s why: in my house, we have two distinct gastro-intestinal tribes, the barfers and the non-barfers. Colette, her daughter Melon Ball (not her real name), and my younger daughter, Chi Chi (not her real name either), they’re the barfers.

[And again.]

Ahhh.

Let’s see what Don Surber, proprietor of the #2 most informative blog, has been doing since yesterday afternoon, when last we heard sentences falling from his perch at the Charleston (WV) Daily Mail.

NYT and the concept of time

Headline: “C.I.A. Chief Says Others Decided Fate of Video”
Reality: Tape destroyed before he became CIA chief

If you are going to constantly decry the Bush administration as competent, shouldn’t you be competent enough to understand how time works?

And so we leave our Boswell of the Vandalia, deep in the pleasures of thought.

Hugh Hewitt, reporting as always from the front lines of the terror war, recently interviewed presidential contender/plunger enthusiast Rudy Giuliani on his radio program. As part of our ongoing public service (to which we were sentenced for drunkenly teepeeing the Dominican Republic last St. Patrick’s Day), we are pleased to offer a translation of highlights from the interview into English, from the original Hootian in which they appeared on Hewitt’s website.

Above: Hugh Hewitt, carrying the weight of the world by his nipples

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HH: I’m wondering, Mayor, is that going to be your strategy as a general election candidate, and if you’re elected as president, go right at the mainstream media for as long as they want to talk?

RG: Oh, absolutely. That’s what I did as mayor of New York. One press conference a day.

TRANSLATION: If Giuliani wins the presidency, we can look forward to all the exciting developments we have come to expect from his press conferences, including having reporters arrested, announcing that he will be divorcing his wife, and claiming that the Constitution gives him the right to declare a police state, but it does not give you the right to make dirty filthy art.

Above: Rudy Giuliani, because when you’re good to mama,
mama’s good to you

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RG: But I think us, Republicans, have to over-communicate, because we have 70-80% of the who are against us. We’ve got to just over-communicate.

HH: Excellent idea. I agree with that.

TRANSLATION: If there’s one thing Republicans are good at, it’s over-communicating. Also, apparently, the surviving members of the Who will be voting Democrat next year.

HH: Do you think the Bush administration has, is to be faulted for their communication strategy on the war, Mayor?

RG: Well, you know, I admire his strategy on the war so much from the point of view of principle and courage, and sticking with it against (laughing) sometimes almost horrible attacks.

TRANSLATION: Horrible attacks are hilarious.

HH: Front page of the Washington Post, Mayor, waterboarding broke Abu Zubaydah, and he gave up information that stopped attacks. Your reaction?

RG: Well, I guess that answers the question as to not whether it’s torture or not, or whether it’s right or not, or whether it’s fair or not. But apparently, it works.

TRANSLATION: Torture – 1; Entire History of Civilized Society – 1,000,000: torture wins! USA! USA!

HH: On Sunday, a private citizen who had volunteered to provide security at the Colorado Springs New Life Church stopped a maniac who had already killed four and wounded more. What does that episode tell us about guns and law abiding citizens?

RG: It tells us that we should keep guns out of the hands of criminals, and that we should respect the rights of law abiding citizens to bear and carry arms. And if we can’t respect it, we should at least respect the Constitution who gives them that right.

TRANSLATION: The private citizen didn’t actually stop the maniac, and the gunman wasn’t a criminal, but aside from our two major talking points being incorrect, I’d say this is quite a well-informed discussion of the issues we’re having, wouldn’t you agree, sir?

HH: What about that, Mayor?

RG: I believe that what I was doing as mayor of New York City was to reduce crime in New York. I had a terrible problem. I had 1,800-2,000 murders a year. I reduced shootings by 74%, homicides by 67%.

TRANSLATION: Just because my statements are proven false on the front page of the New York Times doesn’t mean I’m going to stop making them.

Huge, huge thanks to all who have donated to my quest to attend CPAC and get thrown out by Michelle Malkin’s weedy husband. Astonishingly, in less than 24 hours, y’all have helped me raise almost half the jack I need to crash this conclave of gasbags. I’ll keep you posted as to the progress of my moochery, and of course your questions for selected moonbats are welcome, but don’t stop giving now! (Naturally, there should be no conflict between my subversive excursion and real needy people. If you have limited funds, let ’em go to Christmas in the City; they’re genuinely deprived kids who can use your help, while I’m just a cheap yutz who wants to spill his martini on Doug Giles.) Remember, any $ over and above my travel expenses will go straight into the Sadly, No! coffers, and look what we’ve brought you just since I posted my begging letter: Gavin has stripped gargantuan Objectivist clamdigger Megan McArdle to her pure essence, brought us the latest battlefield footage from the never-ending war on pornography, and been reduced to Bizarro Superman #1-level incoherence by the invincible idiocy of Don Surber; and Bradrocket has enlightened us all about cutting-edge developments in stench-based dating. If that ain’t worth some pocket change, I don’t know what is.

Above: Don Surber

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Let’s see what’s up with Charleston (WV) Daily Mail columnist Don Surber.

His blog is ranked the #2 most informative blog.

We will go.

To his blog and look at it.

The Wile E. Coyote left

Once again, American lefties talk themselves into a frenzy and cry, “Wolf!”

When the story broke over the weekend about the CIA destroying some videotapes, I heard the cry, “Wolf!”

Hence the title. Wile E. Coyote was like a wolf.

He was like a wolf who cried “Wolf!”

People not on the right are consistently wrong and perpetually outraged. It is like a being-wrong frenzy with them.

Where shall I place it, I wondered. Certainly behind the “outing” of Valerie Plume. Hubby named her in his “Who’s Who” entry. Ah, narcissism.

Oh no, where is my ass? Give me that flashlight.

Oh no, where is my ass?

Hold the flashlight. I need both hands.

My ass! Where is it?

Oh there it is.

Knowing somebody’s maiden name is the same as knowing if they are undercover in the CIA.

Oh my God, wait, no.

That wasn’t my ass. Where is my ass?

But this scandal seemed above the white phosphorous-is-chemical-weapons thing. But below the flushed-Koran thing. Really, I liked that one. So absurd. Ah, Newsweek’s anti-American editors are so entertaining.

If white phosphorus* was a vegetable, would we next hear complaints about vegetable weapons? Ha ha! Absurd.

What is the real Koran story, according to official accounts? The Koran was actually urinated on from someone taking a whiz outside an air vent. And the urine blew in through the vent and went splash! onto the indoors Koran. By total accident, as happens all the time!

And that means no other things happened.

The absurdity of non-official accounts is delectable to me, as I orbit the coffee machine in my heavily-farted brown slacks, searching for a hearer for the latest Hillary Clinton rumor I got from a forwarded mass email.

OMG! I forgot I was near an air vent.

Now I am covered in urine.

But whose?!?!
Read the rest of this entry »

What was I thinking this weekend when I wasted my time trying to pick up chicks with a slickly-worded press release? Instead, I coulda paid some crazy assholes to hook me up with the best-smellin’ womens in the Boston area (my emphasis):

If body odor is a key to romantic attraction, a Florida company claims to have the first scientific way of finding true love.

A new dating service that says it’s the first to use DNA matching to find that “perfect someone” is scheduled to launch in Boston Tuesday.

ScientificMatch.com promises its technology will use DNA to find a date with “a natural odor you’ll love, with whom you’d have healthier children and a more satisfying sex life.” […]

The DNA collection technique will look familiar to viewers of “Law & Order” and “CSI”. The company sends sealed cotton swabs and instructs customers to swab the insides of their cheeks. The company promises to keep the genetic information private by giving its labs only customer numbers, not names. […]

Woman who take birth control pills, use hormonal patches or implants aren’t good candidates. The hormones, the company said, leads women to be attracted to different people than those using other forms of contraception.

Finding one’s soul-mate doesn’t come cheap. The service costs $1,995, which includes the DNA matching and a background check on prospective dates.

Some practical issues need to be raised at this point:

Issue #1: The pool of people who are willing to pay $1,995 for any dating service is exceptionally small. This service is essentially targeting wealthy widows or widowers or lonely drug lords. Either way, people who can afford to shell out $1,995 for a dating service generally don’t have problems finding dates unless they smell really bad or something. Which brings me to…

Issue #2: The pool of people who would pay $1,995 for a goddamn smell-based dating service is limited to both the insane and the criminally insane. And since the dating service takes away the fun by screening out the criminally insane (any prospective dater who’s been “convicted of a sexual offense, a violent crime or an Internet crime” can’t join in the reindeer games) you’re not even likely to have an interesting first date with your new smell-mate.

Issue #3: People are, both behaviorally and physiologically speaking, not dogs. Most of us don’t go around smelling the behinds of our fellow humans and say, “Well sheee-yot, you done sniff like a good ‘un! I’ma tap that azz right quick, pardnah!” Instead, we value physical attraction, a shared sense of humor, common philosophical outlooks, intelligence, interesting conversation, and so forth. Smell is important if someone doesn’t bathe regularly, sure. But on Brad’s Scale of What He’s Liked in the Womens He’s Done Dated, I’d rather date someone with an imperfect scent than someone who, say, turns tricks for glue.*

Issue #4: Seriously, would you want to go out on a date with someone whom you initially knew only as “Odor 56349?” I didn’t think so.

*No, I’ve never dated a glue whore before. But if one existed, I’d probably give it a shot. What would I have to lose? Other than glue, I mean?

We give up. We’ve taken it all, from the Katrina Kraven DVDs to the midget-porn magazines, and left it in a trash can by the curb. It will never be of any use to us again.

Because, you know, putting that picture there was really the genius stroke.

Above: modeling Triangle™ shirtwaist

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Hi, I’m Megan McArdle. In this Christmas season, and believe me, I love Christmas, having lots of memories as I do of magical, snowy taxi rides from my parents’ cozy and ribbon-bedecked cottage to Dean & DeLuca and back, as well as skating at Rockefeller Center and everything else that makes Christmas magical to a girl with deeply proletarian roots — like René Lalique ornaments and Marc Jacobs under the tree, and a Christmas stocking with a white truffle in the toe the size of an orange, except these days most of the recipes I use call for the black kind which are French while the white ones are Italian, and I forgot what I was saying.

Oh, tree. No, stocking. I think what I really want this year is a small, purebred dog, perhaps a Chinese Crested Hairless or Chihuauserdoodle or similar breed, that I can — okay, actually tree, not stocking. Because I’ve noticed that many girls will exaggeratedly nurture a small, purebred dog in a serio-ironic way with several layers of sincerity and camp stacked one on top of another, as a hedge against the howling loneliness of single, urban girlhood, in which life is, in fact, a stage, and one’s most intimate relationships are managed and transitory with all experiences measured according to how well they approximate an imaginary culturally-determined and media-programmed ideal — next to which one is perpetually and irredeemably lacking.

Except, my God, I’m approaching 40. Do I want to be the dog lady? Or rather, can I finesse being ‘the dog lady’ even while knowing that I actually am the dog lady? Will only my gay friends truly get it — and why are there so many more of them today, proportionally, than only a few years ago? Oh wait, dog. I’ll dress it up in clothes and cook its meals and bring it to doggie day camp, like many girls do. It will silence this ticking, ticking, ticking of a hateful clock that I dare not name. Plus if I don’t want a dog after all, or if it’s irresponsible by barking too much or acting needy, I can give it to the ASPCA or the Chihuauserdoodle rescue or one of those places. I think they would be glad to have a purebred dog for free, or at a discount of its retail value.

I see Mr. Leonard Pierce has already asked for donations to send him to CPAC. This is fortunate because I came here to warn everybody about the S,N! annual charity drive to subsidize a huge Christmas party for homeless kids and their parents, with presents and a giant turkey dinner a bunch of free-riders who have made poor life choices.

You may argue that they are just ‘children,’ but at some point children, like dogs, have to take responsibility for themselves. Encouraging these miniature bums with visions of a collectivist Santa will only incite them further to parasitize those in society who, like myself, have worked for every morsel of Zabar’s Cacio di Bosco al Tartufo or $38/lb Fairway line-caught Chinook salmon gravadlax that we now enjoy or were given as children — except I personally came to appreciate the capers traditionally served with the gravadlax more and more as my palate grew more sophisticated. Because okay, are there no prisons? Are not the treadmill and the Poor Law in full vigour? I think America has a Poor Law, and it seems to me that it might be in effect. Matt, Ezra, can you check this for me?

Moreover, as I understand the sub-prime mortgage situation, there will soon be a significant jump in the supply of available homes. If these looters and moochers have any ambition at all, surely they can take advantage of this.

Going to this Amazon list and picking out a toy for a homeless kid is exactly what I was saying all along.

I promised you people a big announcement on Monday. Now, of course, it’s not Monday anymore, and this isn’t so much a big announcement as a begging letter disguised as a big announcement, but are we ones to split hairs? I think not. I think very much not.

Now, I wish to tread carefully here, because I know that many right-wingers frequent our lovely little home here on the internet, trolling about for reasons to think ill of us. Therefore, I am going to cleverly encode the message below. When you see Gallant, and read regular text, you will know I am telling the whole truth to you, my fellow socialist homo-symp leftist stooges. When you see Goofus, and read text in boldface, you will know that I am directing a false message to the conservative blogosphere to throw them off our trail. (I am confident that they won’t transfer this information into long-term memory, because it does not contain any anecdotes about how Muslims are trying to bake our freedoms and feed them to us, or any combination of the words “Hillary” and “Hitler.” Well, except for that one.) Ready?

Ladies and gentlemen, a great tragedy has befallen your humble exposer of the wrongs of the right. Last night, during a violent winter storm in my home town of Bugtussle, AL, my beloved combination bird-feeder/weather station/plastic explosive detector was blown over and rolled down a hill, where it accidentally decapitated my neighbor’s lawn statue of Lee Atwater. Not only are damages estimated in the high four figures, but until repairs are effected, I will be unable to continue my important work of keeping local dark-breasted rosefinches well-nourished, keeping my white neighbors informed of impending deadly hurricanes, and keeping Islamo-Nazi homicide bombers well-stocked with maps to the White House and information on how to deactivate its security systems.

I‘m going to CPAC this year*. CPAC, as you may know, is the Conservative Political Action Conference, which is basically a huge science fiction convention attended exclusively by right-wing crazies. You may remember it as the location of many a deranged speech by presidential no-hopers like Alan Keyes, or the venue chosen by the ever-charming Ann Coulter to call a United States senator a faggot. In addition to this being an election year (which means that people like Fred Dalton Thompson will be there, personally threatening to stave in a Muslim’s head with an entrenching tool), all the wingnuts worth their wings will be in attendance, thinking up new and exciting bullshit to feed their Cheeto-chested devotees. And I want to be there too, a viper in their midst, a fly in their ointment, a turd in their punchbowl. I want to say something to Michelle Malkin that will make her tongue swell up. I want to start a betting pool about when Ann Coulter will call someone a sand-nigger. I want to listen to a live Musclehead Revolution podcast and count how many correctly pronounced words in a row they can manage. I want to describe to Ben Shapiro what sex with a lady is like. I want to get drunk and liveblog the whole sorry scene, and I want to do it on your dime.

As you know, it’s not easy — or cheap — supporting our terrorist masters in Pyongyang and Beirut. Every dollar I earn from my job as assistant to the regional manager of a thriving local crack cocaine dealership goes to maintaining this very expensive blog. And, like most left-wingers, I cannot accomplish anything on my own, so I am predictably reduced to begging others to help me accomplish what I cannot on my own, just like Ayn Rand said in that one book she wrote that went on and on and on for millions of pages.
 
 

Actually, I’m going no matter what. I make decent money and I can afford it, but I do enjoy it when people give me things for free, and since I’ll never qualify for wingnut welfare like certain doughy pantloads, screeching harpies or gun-toting grill enthusiasts I could name, I’m reaching out to you fine folks to see if you’d like to lend a hand. The total cost of the trip — hotel, tickets to the event, and plane fare, plus a free breakfast with Newt “Far-Out Space Nut” Gingrich — will be around a grand, and I’ve already raised enough to cover the travel costs, so I’m about a third of the way there. If you have a couple of extra bucks lyin’ around, pitch them my way, and I can do this up right and still have enough money to buy enough martinis to be so drunk that I don’t think too hard about the fact that I’m actually helping pay for these dipshits to have their annual festival of dingbattery.

So won’t you please help? Click on the PayPal logo below and I can buy a new grill I can get back to abetting Islamic extremism, helping queers marry each other in our public parks, and blaming everything on our President. For your generous donation, I promise to impregnate white women and then pay for their abortions, impregnate nonwhite women and NOT pay for their abortions, and attempt to impregnate human males and quadrupeds of either sex while donating money to the Viva Fidel! Fund for Communist Cuban Abortions.
 
 

So won’t you please help? Click on the PayPal logo below, which is lame but I don’t know how else to do it, and I will go to CPAC, where I will write many a Sadly, No! entry for your amusement about the unfolding parade of mental dysfunction all around me. This will be a gift that keeps on giving, as I will receive many hilarious begging letters from conservative causes, bring back tons of crazy right-wing nut literature, and take your suggestions for embarrassing questions to ask your favorite CPAC panelists, Scaife Foundation mooches, and Town Hall charity cases! Why not just pay for the whole thing myself? I don’t want to. And that’s where you come in! This I promise you, in all seriousness: like most of you, I’m unspeakably grateful that Sadly, No! exists, and every goddamn penny I get over and above my legit travel expenses will go straight to this site, and that’s on the real. So the more you give, the more you help out S,N!.

CPAC is the first week in February of 2008. (Details are here.) Confirmed guests so far include baby-drowning tax-loather Grover Norquist, antifeminist crone Phyllis Schlafly, professional virgin Ben Shapiro, terror-appeasing immigrant Dinesh D’Souza, all-star race hustler Roy Innis, screeching dingbat Michelle Malkin**, and all-around horrible human being Richard Viguerie. And that’s just for the first day! Come on, folks: a chance like this doesn’t come around every year. Well, okay, actually, it does. And here it is! If you’re pro-fun and pro-giving-money-to-a-total-stranger, SEND ME TO CPAC. I promise you I won’t regret it!

* Despite humorous content of rest of post, this is for real. I really am going to CPAC, and I really do encourage you to donate $ towards my appearance as Sadly, No!’s man on the inside.
** Do you know what the panel that Michelle Malkin hosted at last year’s CPAC was about? “Accuracy in media.” Michelle Malkin hosted a panel on accuracy in media. No, really.

Blogspot can no longer contain the somewhat popular TBOGG; teh tboggan has slid over to a new home at FDL.

Because we love, we thought this would be a great time to…well, make his head explode. So to honour TBOGG, the balance of this post will be in Canadian English, which we’ve noticed makes him bloody well annoyed when he encounters it — or approximations of it — in the leaden prose of The Jane Galt Centre’s Randroid Blogging Programme, Ye Olde Charmaine Yoest (Infection), or, especially, America’s Worst Mothre — er, Mother.

Oh, he’s wincing! Well, steady ol’ chap. Because — wot’s this, eh? — we have still more to hurt his soul! Oh yes. While it’s not meh’ul by any means, nor orchestral manoeuvres in the light or the dark, it’s a vid guaranteed to make the world’s funniest blogger hate us forever.

It’s TBOGG favorite, Aimee Mann…with Canadia’s finest rock band, Rush!

Bwahahahaha! We love you, man!