I Will Never Think James Lileks Is Anything But A Prick Again. Never, Never, Never

Since this is, apparently, catch-up-on-shit-I-missed-during-my-unannounced-hiatus day, let us take a look at an interesting post by America's most beloved humorist, James Lileks.

Just kidding. Erma Bombeck was America's most beloved humorist. James Lileks is merely a cheap imposter with less talent and, if his unpredictable bouts of savage anger at everything around him are any indication, more bowel trouble.

Regardless, the line I saw quoted several times last week referred to the Democrats, and went thusly:

"I will never trust these people with national security again. Never, never, never."

Being in possession of a fine appreciation for the absurd, I am amused by this, as it is an impressive attempt at adding rhetorical weight to his ideas by making it seem as though he were making a principled change of position.

Riiiiiight, James. Because you were completely onboard with the Democrats before their opposition to the Iraq war. It's too bad they've disappointed you so much that you had to change from a fervent supporter of George Bush into a...um...fervent supporter of George Bush.

Well, like most other cheap rhetorical tricks, two can play that game.

I will never vote for a man as dishonest as George Bush again. Never, never, never.

Also, I will never trust in the good intentions of Tom DeLay again. Never, never, never.

And finally, I will never support the repackaging of Rightwing objectives as anti-terrorism measures again. Never, never, never.

In a later post, he clarifies things a bit, saying that by "these people" he means "those whose default mode consists of turning the American people away from the war so they can get their committee chairmanships back."

Hmm.

"This isn’t necessarily a partisan thing," he adds.

Right. Because "get their committee chairmanships back" refers to the party in power. Or, you know, not.

Someday, I will write up a list of reasons why I dislike James Lileks; for now, I will conclude by noting with derision his definition of strength in a President:

"by strong I mean just that, not the “strength” that comes from writing up interminable treaties with belligerent tyrants and believing that we’ll be safe behind a mound of paper."

It must be nice to not remember anything before the fall of the Soviet Union, when a complicated web of treaties, agreements, and other such mounds of paper prevented a war the scale of which can only be described using words like "Biblical" and "apocalyptic."

Of course, if I really wanted to pop James' little Bush = He-Man bubble, I'd mention a certain incident involving a spyplane and the not-at-all belligerant tyrants who run China, but it just seems cruel to swipe the legs out from under his conception of the leader through whom he has been vicariously tough and manly. I get the strong impression that those aren't feelings he gets to experience very often in real life, so who am I to ruin it for him?

After all, it's not easy being a walking ripoff of a woman who's been dead for seven years.

Jonah Goldberg Is A Badass

Congratulations to Jonah Goldberg for winning VeryVeryHappy's coveted "Funniest Mental Image of the Week" award (10/19/03 - 10/25/03)!

The winning entry:

"Q:If you're a new inmate in a rough prison, what's one of the smartest things you can do?
A:Pick a fight with the biggest, meanest cat you can -- but make sure you can win."

I'm not particularly expert on the ins and outs of prison survival, but a friend of mine who is confirms my suspicion that while Jonah may go in to prison with that attitude, he would come out with false teeth, a funny walk, and a Pavlovian response to the phrase "Yo, bitch."

Seriously, if the thought of Jonah Goldberg as an ass-kicking sumbitch doesn't make you laugh out loud, you have no soul.

Nuclear Warhead Detonates in Baghdad - 100,000 US Military Casualties

~ "Huzzah!" cries delighted President, "We have won the War On Terror!" ~

At the rate things are going, my ability to experience surprise will soon be so diminished that such a headline would rate only a Reynolds-ish "Indeed" from me.

After all, a person can only go through the cycle of "That's terrible! Surely no one can disagree that this is a Bad Thing! Even the Press Secretary would be too ashamed to say that they aren't doing something wrong. Wait a minute...what did he just say? I cannot fucking believe he just said that with a straight face. He cannot possibly be a reasoning human being" so many times before they learn, rolled-up-newspaper-to-the-snout style, to not assume that this administration has even the merest wisp of shame.

"Surely he isn't claiming that those aluminum tubes were for use in weaponizing uranium. The IAEA has already debunked that!"

WHACK!

"There's no way he can say that those hydrogen trailers were proof of an existing bioweapons program."

WHACK!

"There's no way in hell he's going to say that the mounting death toll in Iraq does not conflict with his prewar rhetoric!"

WHACK!

"He's not going to say that that single vial of harmless botulinum B bacteria proves him right about Iraq's threat to the United States."

WHACK!

"I absolutely refuse to believe that he will call the sophisticated, nearly-successful assasination of the heavily-guarded American government official largely responsible for the war a sign that we are winning."

WHACK!

Ahh...sweet numbness flowing throughout those portions of my brain dedicated to registering shock.

Mom, if you're reading this, now would be the time to tell me that I was actually raised by wolves, or that my brother is secretly a baboon, or anything of that nature that you've been hiding from me.

Andrew Sullivan Says Nice Things About Paul Krugman

In the future, of course, for the sake of consistency.

Today:

"DARK DAY FOR KRUGMAN: Americans' job prospects are looking up."

Which means that when the job market goes back down, as it has consistently done with only a few exceptions since January, he will write that Krugman has been proven correct. Also, he will make a note of the few thousand additional lost jobs that weren't counted this week, but will be added onto next week's report, just as they have been every single week for many moons.

Ha ha, just kidding. What he'll actually write is some bullshit about the LA Times and his beagle.

Liberal Bastards Broke My Blog

Due to the massive influx of traffic VVH received because of the Nicotrol post, I apparently exceeded whatever bandwidth allowances my image hosting service has, and my account has been terminated.

That is why my picture and my FAQ are out of service.

Therefore, I ask once again: Does anyone happen to know of a free image hosting service I could use? A relatively high bandwidth allowance would be very nice, just in case that anonymous bastard Atrios, or that MSNBC bastard Alterman, or that snarky bastard Roger Ailes ever link to my site again.

I ask because I've finally gotten around to fixing this damn thing - you'll notice the email address and the updated "posts of note" section on the sidebar. I'd like to finish the job, so any suggestions are welcome.

Definitive Proof That The Corner Is For Idiots

Courtesy of the irrepressible K-Lo, we get a letter from a reader with a firm grasp of the facts:

"I am living proof of the need for Prop. 54 to be successful. On Sunday I got an automated call from Jesse Jackson urging me to vote no on the recall, which I believe he said was a right wing power grab coup. Monday, Bill Clinton called then Al Gore. At first I was thinking they picked numbers through zip codes. Then my buddy down the street told me she received an automated call from Republican Daryl Issa. Then another neighbor said that she had only received calls from Republicans. Why are they calling me, I am a registered Republican and I have given to the GOP?
Oh I know, my last name is Lopez (actually Lopez-Lopez, my husband says he always did find his best dates at family reunions) . A Portuguese Lopez and a Honduran Lopez, but a juicy Lopez to the Democrats I guess."

Prop 54 was about the collecting of racial statistics by the state. Our astute Corner reader seems to think that she was called because her name is Lopez. That's entirely possible. But that has nothing to do with the collection of racial statistics. It has to do with using a fucking phone book. Does she perhaps think that Prop 54 would force the telephone comnpanies to take a redacting marker to the phone book, blacking out any name that doesn't appear on the passenger manifest of the Mayflower?

Idiot.

Fortunately, Prop 54 is dead dead dead, and Ward Connerly is now forced to take his voodoo prescription for healing race relations to other states where he is mocked less forcibly than he was at the hands of California voters yesterday.

Cubs

Say what you will about Sammy Sosa's postseason performance, he came through when it counted last night. Too bad the pitching staff dropped the ball two innings later.

We'll see what happens when the big gun Ray Liotta Kerry Wood takes the mound later in the series.

Fuck The First Amendment, Time To Outlaw PETA

Walking down the street the other day, I happened to see an older fellow cross to the other side of the street before he got to the corner. Just before he made it to the other side, he was blindsided by a dumptruck.

I immediately ran over to him, and took him in my arms, unsure whether or not he would survive the next few minutes.

"You fucking idiot!" I screamed, "You jaywalking son of a bitch! You got what you deserved! The street is for cars, moron, not people! I hope this teaches you your fucking lesson!"

Ho ho. Notice my fine grasp of ethics and basic human decency.

Perhaps I should join PETA, to be with others who share my principled view of the world.

From a letter faxed by PETA to the hospital room of Roy Horn, recent victim of a severe mauling by one of his tigers:

"Perhaps Friday’s frightening incident will make you realize that a brightly lit stage with pounding music and a screaming audience is not the natural habitat for tigers, lions, or any other exotic animals. The only natural thing that happened on that stage was that this majestic animal lashed out against a captor who was beating him with a microphone because he wouldn’t do a trick. No matter how much you say that you love the wild animals whom you have confined continents away from their natural homes, you are still the men who have subjugated their wills and natures to further your own careers. "

For those who didn't catch it the first time, this was faxed to Horn's hospital room. You know, the one in which he is currently fighting for his life, because he lost so much blood he had a stroke.

"You are now in a unique position to show the world both that you have lived and learned and that you have true respect for animals by leaving them some shred of the life that nature intended."

If you don't die, you filthy bastard.

As I have mentioned before, PETA can go fuck itself. You lousy jackasses make the rest of us liberals look bad.

Shifty Figures

The ever-endearing K-Lo at the Corner:

"John Lott adds numbers to the Rush/ESPN debate."

OH! Well, if John Lott has numbers to back him up, he must be correct!

Next up: Mary Rosh holds forth on the Negro conspiracy to vote in the 2000 election.

The Only California Recall Post I Will Lower Myself To Write For The Foreseeable Future

- Arnold Schwarzenegger's win really doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot to me. I know that there are Democrats out there who see this as a major setback, but it's not. The recall has been a circus from start to finish, a freakshow that gave erections to news organizations and disdainful fits of laughter to the rest of us. But it's not indicative of anything. Reynolds is already crowing about how Schwarzenegger and McClintock together pulled in 60% of the vote, and how this is bound to scare the living hell out of Democrats.

Funny, I'm not scared. Why? Because, despite a string of utterly atrocious movies in between True Lies and T3, Arnold is a freaking movie star. Moreover, you couldn't build a movie star more suited to appealing to the Republican base demographic of the white male, particularly the white male who doesn't follow politics. A lot of people who don't pay attention to politics came out for this election and voted for Arnold because they like watching him shoot things. The "R" next to his name didn't do it for him - the diehards to whom that "R" means everything voted for McClintock. His existing celebrity, his apparently liberal stance on social issues, and an incredibly shortened campaign ideal for temporarily shuffling his many major flaws under the rug is what won it for him. It was indeed a winning formula, but it also one that cannot be replicated - not for the GOP, and not, I suspect, for Arnold.

Of course Arnold was going to win. We all knew that as soon as he announced. Sure, a lot of Democrats got their hopes up when Bustamonte started doing well, but hey, as soon as the recall petition hit critical mass, pretty much everyone was sure that Davis was out and a Republican was in. In fact, a lot of people, including myself, saw it as, if not a good thing, at least a thing we could tolerate. Boot a Democrat that makes the party look bad, dump the fiscal disaster in someone else's lap, say hello to Governor Cruz in 2006. The worst case scenario, that of an utter wingnut like Issa winning, has been avoided. So I don't see the point of getting worked up over something we all resigned ourselves to two months ago.

- CalPundit is right, Kos is wrong. Any Democrat who wants to recall Arnold before the 2004 Presidential election is thinking with his balls and not his brain. While I am a big fan of taking the fight to the GOP, another media circus in California drawing attention away from the Presidential race is something that Karl Rove wants so badly he would fund the petition to recall Schwarzenegger himself if he didn't think he'd be caught. Why do you think the plan is to run a lightning two month campaign starting in September? Why do you think Bush has very, very little direct interaction wth the press?

Because the longer you look at Bush, the worse he appears. Rove would give his left nut to have California pull a giant "Hey! Look over there!" on the country at exactly the point when a Presidential incumbant's record is given the most scrutiny.

- While Schwarzenegger may have dodged the bullets that are his personality, his behavior, and a campaign so substance-free it made Libby Dole's look like a theoretical physics dissertation, he will not get a second term - unless the economy rebounds and magically fixes the budget crisis, or he shoots somebody.

- A lot of commentators who dismissed the sexual harrasment allegations against Arnold as an evil plot by Davis should be ashamed of themselves. Yeah, the timing is mighty suspicious, and Davis may very well have played a role in it. I keep hearing about what a bombshell that LA Times article was, but that's crap - a lot of people have known about Arnold's behavior for a long time. It didn't really matter when he was just a movie star, because...well, for whatever reason it is that we allow our celebrities to act appallingly by continuing to support them even after we know what shits they are.

But he's a politician now, a public servant. It's a whole new ballgame, and if anything, it's amazing that that article wasn't written two months ago. If Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds are right, and Gray Davis did have a hand in delaying that story until just before the election, they should be thanking him, not condemning him. Had the allegations had a month to pick up steam, they might have really hurt him; as it was, they were too little, too late.

The overall point, though, is that all indications point to Arnold being a scumbag, and regardless of the timing of any given article, he should be condemned for the way he treats women.

And, for the record, all of those commentators who have taken the opportunity to defend Arnold's behvior and bash various feminist figures at the same time (you know who they are) are scum.

- I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Mickey Kaus is a cocksucker.

- California will not go to Bush in 2004 no matter who reigns in Sacramento, unless it's part of a Mondale-type landslide, and due to the "no foreigners" clause of the Constitution, Governor is as high as Arnold goes on the totem pole. So who cares? California is largely populated by crazy people, beautiful people, and pussies who are afraid of snow, so I say fuck 'em.

- Arnold Schwarzenegger is the Governor of California. Now that's funny.

Update: Andrew Sullivan's constant referral to Schwarzenegger as "the Eagle" officially makes him, among all the other unkind things I have called him, a huge fucking dork.

A Brief Pause For Mild, Dignified Celebration

BEARS WIN! BEARS WIN! BEARS WIN, MOTHERFUCKER! BEARS WIN!

Woe Unto Those That Condemn Rush Limbaugh

~ For I too have felt the steely grip of vice ~

Some people are addicted to sex.

Some people are addicted to illegal drugs.

Some people are addicted to massive quantities of prescription painkillers.

These people have it easy, compared to me.

I am addicted to Madden 2004 for the XBox.

A few of you have perhaps wondered why it is that posting here at VVH has been scant for the last month - or more accurately, since the Nicotrol post that garnered 16,000 hits over the course of a week and a half and momentarily made me a much more popular blogger than my efforts here usually merit.

Why, Christian, why would you not capitalize on this opportunity to massively increase your readership by at least posting a few tidbits to keep some of those new visitors coming back?

The answer is simple: as an addict, all of my free time (and some of my not-so-free time) has been devoted to satisfying my craving.

To be clear, I would be addicted to this game regardless of the actual progress of the real football season. However, the progress of my favorite football program has driven me further and further into the dreamworld that my faithful XBox creates for me at the press of a button.

Consider the following possibilities:

Kordell Stewart, a masterful QB, roaming in and out of the pocket, driving defenses crazy as he runs for the first down if the defenders cover the receivers too tightly, and passing for the first down if they break off to stop him.

Anthony Thomas, pro-bowler and regular season MVP, rushing for 1750 yards and gaining 300 yards worth of receptions.

David Terrell, master of the fly route, accelerating past defenders to catch for 1300 yards.

RW McQuarters, a cornerback that strikes fear into the hearts of quarterbacks everywhere, pulling in 13 interceptions, six of which he returns for touchdowns.

An offensive line featuring four (yes, four) pro-bowlers, ready to stomp all over puny defensive linemen and make linebackers cry for their mommas.

And the Bears, making it to the conference finals two years in a row only to lose in heartbreakers, favored to win the 2005 Superbowl.

All of these things are true when I turn my XBox on; when I turn it off, I return to reality - horrid, horrendous, excruciating reality.

Is it any wonder I choose Madden over blogging?

I thought not.

Anyway, I have a few ideas for increasing my posting here - we'll see if any of them work out, eh?

In the meantime, I have to go trade my worthless, can't-catch-jack-shit fullback for Mike Alstott.

Ahh, fantasy.

What Else Can We Blame On Those Pesky Homosexuals?

Prison rape!

Edit: Link fixed.

Cheap Shots

Rush Limbaugh: Donovan McNabb is not a particularly good quarterback.

Someone who has actually watched McNabb play: Are you fucking high?


Ba dum bum.

Brett Favre Should Be Fed To Aaron Gibson. And Then We Throw Aaron Gibson Off A Building

Ugliness. Shame.

It's bad enough that tonight's game was a pummeling.

It's bad enough that tonight's game was a pummeling at the hands of the Packers.

It's bad enough that tonight's game was a pummeling at the hands of the Packers at home.

It's bad enough that tonight's game was a pummeling at the hands of the Packers at the home-opener.

But the fact that tonight's game was a pummeling at the hands of the Packers at the home-opener that also happened to be the first game in the new Soldier Field, and in front of a national audience on Monday night... that hurts.

When I first heard that the Bears had acquired Kordell Stewart, I was extremely excited. I know that he is one of the more maligned quarterbacks in the league, but it seems to me that that is because he's so damn talented that when he screws up, it seems a lot worse than when someone else screws up (see: the idiotic "is Brett Favre washed up?" theme that the sports media was throwing around after the Pack's opening loss).

I still like Kordell - a lot. He's easily the best QB Chicago has seen since...well, shit. Since as far back as I can remember. He's fast, he's athletic, he's got a hell of an arm. With the new start he's been given in Chicago, away from all the baggage he had with the Steelers, he should do well. On almost any other team, he would.

Unfortunately, he is on the Bears, and so is being protected by the worst offensive line in professional football.

He's shown flashes of brilliance, explosive running ability, and good throwing sense (you'll notice that almost every incomplete pass that wasn't dropped in the last two games was underthrown - a smart reaction to his multiple interceptions against San Francisco, as underthrown passes are much harder to intercept than overthrown passes).

But none of that means shit when the defense is able to roam the backfield virtually at will.

The same applies to Anthony Thomas. His performance in tonight's game should be enough to shut up his critics who keep harping on his lackluster performance last year. His two big runs showed that he has excellent agility and hardcore speed (on his first touchdown run, the nearest defender had a step or two on him, but Thomas accelerated right past him in the open field - absolutely burned him).

Unfortunately, Walter Payton himself would have had trouble running it straight up the middle (the running play Offensive Coordinator John Shoop is most fond of, regardless of the advisability of said running play on, say, 2nd and 13) if his offensive line was being pushed back two feet behind the line of scrimmage. You're supposed to get a forward push on a run - that's how gaps are created, gaps that your running back can run through and gain, you know, yards.

One of my greatest fears for this season is that Bears management will get it into its head that the Bears' lowly performance is due to poor play by Kordell and Thomas, and will get rid of either or both of them, thus resuming the cycle of futility we have experienced at those two positions for...well, shit. Since as far back as I can remember.

And speaking of Bears management, Jerry Angelo has been looking more and more brilliant for his decisions to

a) release veteran right tackle James Williams (twelve years with the team, knows the system, damn good lineman) and replace him with Horrendous Fatass Aaron Gibson

b) allow New England to outbid him for linebacker Roosevelt Colvin (most sacks last year and in 2001 - good compliment to Urlacher)

c) trade defensive tackle Ted Washington (paired with Keith Traylor, made running it up the middle virtually impossible for opposing teams, as well as keeping those unpleasant offensive linemen tied up, freeing Urlacher to do what he does best - beat the snot out of whoever has the ball) to New England in return for fuck all. Urlacher has been fighting off blocking linemen all season long, and offenses have taken advantage of the fact that he's tied up for a few crucial seconds. During the Vikings game, I saw O-linemen get to him untouched on several occasions, allowing a big run. Pathetic.

Jerry Angelo, Genius of Our Time.

Bonus Jerry Angelo: As Gregg Easterbrook pointed out a few weeks ago, Ted Washington was one of Coach Jauron's favorite guys, which means that the decision to trade him was almost certainly made over his objection, which in turn means that, once again, management is in conflict with the coaching staff. Hot damn! And down the toilet we go...

Tommorrow, I get to the offensive line. If I haven't had a stroke by then, of course.

TMRM Returns

Tonight's the night.

Bears vs. Packers at Soldier Field. Kickoff at 9:00 pm EDT.

Game commentary (and then regular commentary/mockery/nonsense) after the game.

Until then, Bears vs. Packers bullet point (singular, as there is one specific thing that makes me want to tear my hair out and set myself on fire):

• Watch Bears right tackle Aaron Gibson. What do you notice? For one, he is fat. Incredibly fat. As in, never-stand-in-his-shadow-because-he-could-have-a-heart-attack-and-fall-on-you fat. But hey, he's an offensive lineman- he's supposed to be huge. Unfortunately, it appears that his fighting weight of 375 (reached after dieting and losing 30-60 pounds) is a bit too much for him to handle. Watch his stance on the line. It's subtly different on run plays from his stance on pass plays. I'm assuming that this is because his girth prevents him from properly performing both kinds of block from a single stance. But really, the reason doesn't matter. The point is, HIS STANCE ON RUN PLAYS AND PASSING PLAYS IS NOT THE SAME. The Bears' head coach might as well hold a neon sign above his head on every down informing the defense whether they should expect the run or the pass.
  
  Hopefully, after two weeks of watching game film, the coaching staff realized this problem and took appropriate steps (my favored solution is running a light scrimmage, and hitting Gibson with a baseball bat every time the defense can tell what kind of play is about to be run). If not, enjoy the sight of Kordell Stewart doing his damnedest to not be killed, because if the first two games are any indication, there will be an average of two defenders in the backfield within a second of the snap on virtually every play.
  

Edit: I was wrong. Gibson does not weigh 375 after losing 30-60 pounds. He weighs 375 after losing 70 pounds. Fucking hell. Are there any slow-moving sideline reporters that have gone missing recently? Because I think I know who we should X-ray in order to find them.

Nicotrol For Right Wing Blog Addicts

As a public service, we here at VeryVeryHappy are proud to offer the following generic entries to several popular Right wing blogs to stave off whatever twisted cravings you might have to read the real things.

InstaPundit:

HERE'S AN INTERESTING POST by a guy named Steve from Des Moines. He highlights the direct connection between the modern Democratic Party and the National Socialist German Workers Party. Some incriminating stuff here. Of course, you wouldn't know this if you only watched CNN...

posted at 05:43 PM by Glenn Reynolds

THE NEW YORK TIMES IS FULL OF SHIT because they quote unreliable sources and make things up.

posted at 05:17 PM by Glenn Reynolds

James Lileks:

Gnat was adorable today. I know that's a standard dad thing to say (average in the way that a gray tabby cat is average - familiar, but still aggressively likable. "Like me! Purr! Hiss!"), but it's true.

"Why can leprechauns get to end of the rainbow but we can't?" she asked with an impertinent grin.

The sheer cuteness of it floored me.

And you know what? I couldn't help but be reminded - by this precocious little girl who still doesn't know what wonders and complexities await her in this world - of why the Democrats are traitors and the Left seeks to destroy all that is beautiful.

I don't know, Gnat, I don't know. Let's find out together.


Andrew Sullivan:

IT LOOKS LIKE I WAS RIGHT: The only people blown up today are foreigners. America's shores are safe for you and me. George Bush is a genius.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: "As a proud member of the Communist Party, I have to say, the madness needs to stop!

I would describe myself as very liberal. I support nationalization of industry (without compensation), mandatory taxes ranging from 60-97% of all income, and the rehabilitation of endangered species by feeding them aborted fetuses. I also believe that war is wrong, and no person should ever do violence to another, for any reason.

I still believe strongly in most of those things, but the terrible tragedy that struck our nation two years ago has made me realize that I was wrong about war. The incredible leadership of President Bush during this time of crisis has opened my eyes.

It is with these stances in mind that I say: The Democratic presidential candidates are way too far Left for me!

I cannot describe to you how turned off I am by the disgusting, repetitive nature of their anti-Bush rhetoric. I can't say I agree with everything the President does, but he has proven himself to be courageous and strong in the face of the worst crisis ever to face our nation. He does not deserve the vile things that these nine nobodies are saying about him.

This, combined with their poilicy positions (which are so liberal they scare me!), forces me to conclude that none of them deserves the nomination. Unfortunately, one of them will get it.

And therefore I will be proud to vote for George W. Bush in November 2004.

P.S. - I am not Andrew Sullivan pretending to be an emailer.

P.P.S. - Really."

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: Dan Rather did tonight's newscast without a flag pin on his lapel. Pretty convincing proof that Bernie Goldberg was right. Bias indeed. But I'm sure Eric Alterman can come up with a nice-sounding excuse about how this has no bearing on his ludicrous "What Liberal Media" thesis. We're waiting, Eric.

- 2:47:23 PM

Little Green Footballs:

We must fight anti-Semitic tendencies wherever we may find them, for we must never forget the horrors of the Holocaust.

We must also kill all suspicious-looking Muslims.

Now quit taking my words out of context.

posted by Charles at 3:44 PM PST

The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler:

I am so fucking enraged I think my head is going to explode!!!

For any of you asshated illiberal moonbat fucknozzles that are reading this, here are The Rules^TM that Loyal Citizens (REAL Americans to you, you bedwetting shiteating fuckwits) live by:

If some dried-up Commie sympathizing whore from the Irritating Retarded Shitdogs (I.R.S.) tells you that they haven't stolen enough of your money, you shoot her, because she's a cunt.

If you are in the Gestapo city of Chicago and one of Mayor Fucktard Daley's SS troopers pulls you over and gives you a ticket, you shoot them, because Nazi scumfuckers deserve to be Horrendously Hollowed out by Hollowpoints^TM!

If I ever see a crowd of foolish felching fuckweasle hippies, there'd better be cops in between me and them, because otherwise I'd tear their fucking midget-dicks off and shove them down their putrid throats! Or I'd shoot them.

And never, ever include the letter "o" when spelling "G-d", because that's a sin.

Posted by Emperor Misha I at 03:27 AM

50 K

Well, I'll be damned. This evening, VeryVeryHappy officially hit 50,000 page views.

This is, of course, absolutely ridiculous, as I'm just some guy writing on the internet (with decreasing frequency, I know...I'm working on that).

Anyway, I think it's pretty cool that something I made has been looked at 50,000 times. Pretty puny when compared to the big boys, but seeing as how my posting has dropped to a trickle since roughly April, I'm quite pleased.

For the people who've been dropping by since February, I salute your endurance. For those who have jumped on my little bandwagon since then, I appreciate you sticking around. And to everyone, thanks for occasionally taking a few minutes out of your day to check out VeryVeryHappy, and for dropping a comment or two.

Now start visiting on weekends too, you ungrateful bastards.

Holy Christ, Donald Luskin Has Lost His Mind

No, this is not news. But I at least thought that the NRO editors would have the decency to try to cover it up a little bit. You know, snip a faulty premise here, cut a multi-word personal insult there. Something. This man goes on television, for God's sake.

But no. His increasingly disturbing stalking of Paul Krugman has been thrown into high gear after Krugman's appearance on Russert's show last night.

Highlights:

"Are you surprised that Krugman's publisher, W.W. Norton, has repeatedly refused my requests for a review copy of the book?"

No. If I repeatedly said "Donald Luskin is an idiot" in a prominent liberal publication, and then asked Luskin's publisher for an advance copy of his book so that I might call him an idiot while quoting it, I would expect to be told to go fuck myself.

So Donald, go fuck yourself.

"For the next month or so, it's going to be all Krugman all the time. It's going to be painful to have to listen over and over to all the trademark Krugman talking points we've all come to know and hate so well. [...] In recent weeks I had been feeling pretty depressed with this prospect. [...] But when I saw the interview with Russert on Saturday night, I stopped worrying. And now I'm hoping that his 15 minutes of fame will be his undoing. In situations where he's separated from the prestige and credibility of his New York Timescolumn — and when people can talk back — Krugman will no longer seem the Great and Powerful Oz. He'll stand revealed as nothing more than the man behind the curtain."

Seriously, I've paid less attention to girls I wanted to have sex with than Luskin does to Krugman.

"The nervous, stammering, shifty-eyed, twitching, ill-tailored, gray homunculus slumping across the table from Tim Russert Saturday night..."

Excepting only the lyrics to a handful of White Snake songs, this is the most pathetic thing I have ever read in my life. Even more pathetic than when Luskin started calling Krugman's responses to him "elephant shit" (what, "bullshit" does not properly convey how much you disagree? Fuck it, lets's go whole hog and say "blue whale shit!" Ooh! My post compares what you say to the feces of an animal many times larger than a bull! You can't handle this! You can't handle this!)

I mean, if you're trying to appeal to the "false sense of superiority due to a vast overestimation of one's grasp of rhetorical skills and devices" demographic by going for the unfunny insult string, at least make it interesting. Make me get out a dictionary, Don. This one sentence is the ultimate (though I dare say not the final) proof that anything he writes about Krugman should be taken slightly less seriously than anything Roseanne and Tom Arnold say about each other, and so he could at least be good enough to let me break even in intelligence gained/lost --after having my IQ damaged through exposure to this and similar columns-- by learning some new words.

No lie. I read this column today, and now I can't do math.

Perhaps excessive proofreading of his own columns is the cause of Luskin's repeatedly-demonstrated innumeracy?

"And I'm delighted to report that, as you will see, the Krugman Truth Squad had a key role to play in the wheel-removal process. In fact, I think we may have to make Russert an honorary member of the Squad."

You have to be pretty arrogant when your estimation of yourself is greater than Rush Limbaugh's. Hell, you need to be Napoleon for your estimation of yourself to be greater than Limbaugh's. But Donald manages to pull it off. Congratulations, I guess. The big difference between the two, though, is that while Limbaugh's "talent on loan from God" thing has worn exceedingly thin, he can at least fall back on it being a supposed self-parody.

Luskin is apparently serious when he talks about how Big and Important he is. He has skillfully managed to create an online persona that seems -- to him -- to be witty and cunning and always victorious, a persona that -- to everyone else -- seems rather obviously to be massive overcompensation for being picked last for kickball when he was a child.

Maybe if we all just call him Home Run Luskin for awhile, he'll be able to heal those long-festering psychic wounds, and kindly go the hell away.

"Coming out of the commercial, after doing the obligatory flash of the book jacket for the camera (operators are standing by), Russert opened with,

RUSSERT:The National Review Online has the Krugman Truth Squad.

KRUGMAN:Yeah.

RUSSERT:They monitor every word you write. And they will pick apart every column, and say 'He no longer is just an economist. He's an ideologue, and he just is trying to twist facts in order to prove a political point.' "

Holy hell, I can hear Luskin's erection. And I'm half a continent away from him.

"Let's really savor this. Coming out of an awesomely long pause — a pause you just never see on television, one that probably had some guys in the CNBC control room really twitching — Krugman said, 'I think that given, given that I'm writing 100 columns a year, uh, the number of things they've actually been able to make stick is pretty small.'
A mind-boggling defense. Actually, it's not a defense at all — it's a confession.He is confessing that he lies — but, he has an excuse: He had to write 100 columns a year! He was too busy to tell the truth. "

Wow. Paul Krugman is a bit introverted and uncomfortable on television. He must be killed immediately.

Luskin's...unique...interpretation of Krugman's statement is not unexpected. Why do I get the impression that Krugman could have read The Iliad for an hour and Luskin would have called it a confession of his abominable sins?

Oh, that's right. Because I am right, and Donald Luskin is approaching terminal velocity in his descent toward batshit crazy.

"Was he also too busy to tell the truth about the number of columns he writes in a year? In the last twelve months he's written 93 columns, not 100."

I do not say this lightly: Jonah Goldberg is too good to be associated with an institution that publishes Luskin on a regular basis.

Think about that.

"In the last six months, the Krugman Truth Squad has uncovered dozens upon dozens of lies, errors, distortions, and misquotations within Krugman's columns, but the Princeton professor has only countered with lame self defenses on his personal website. "

Someone really should get around to letting Donald know that even conservatives are embarrassed by how thoroughly Krugman has shredded Luskin on those occasions when he actually stooped to responding to one of Don's columns. I mean, come on. After the third round of one of those slapdowns, Luskin was reduced to writing an entire column that consisted largely of creative rephrasings of "I am right and you are wrong."

"Krugman got to take his microphone off and pull the little rubbery disposable earphone out of his ear and go back to his hotel room and mutter about how terrible it is to be "stalked, uh, intellectually," and tell himself that his book will probably sell pretty well anyway, despite the conservatively biased media."

I can be accused of many things, but fantasizing about my enemies' preoccupation with me is not one of them.

And Krugman whispers about Luskin late at night alone in his room? Am I the only one who detects erotic undertones here?

Maybe Krugman should just let Luskin fuck him and get it over with.

I close with a comment I left at someone's site a few weeks ago that seems particularly appropriate today:

Luskin becomes more and more unhinged every time I read him - which, admittedly, is not particularly often...just enough to track his downword spiral toward raving madness and adjust my bet with myself over the exact date on which he will accuse Krugman of secretly being John Hinckley. Currently, I'm going with September 17th, 2004, when election mania hits a fevered pitch and poor Donald's psyche cracks like an egg.

I think it is time to adjust my bet once again.

Announcement

Never in a thousand years will I forgive John Edwards if the Democrats wind up with 49 or 50 Senate seats after the 2004 election.

Memos From The You've-Got-To-Be-Fucking-Kidding-Me Dept.

Colorado Republicans, at the behest of famous Detached Observer With No Agenda At All David Horowitz, are looking into ways to tie state funding for public universities to the hiring of more conservatives at said universities. Keep in mind that this means "conservatives as defined by David Horowitz."

For various reasons, this will never happen, but just the fact that politicians are willing to talk to reporters about this kind of thing is absolutely apeshit crazy.

I'm trying to decide whether or not I am depressed about the fact that the most important message that needs to be presented to the American people is "These People Must Be Stopped."

"What Do You Think Of Your Team's Execution?"

Disaster and doom and very bad things.

We will discuss the horror show that was the Bears-49ers game later this week, but tonight I am going to listen to Def Leppard and Motley Crue, mouse up my hair, and pretend that it is 1985 ("Man...Jim McMahan is so awesome!"). Otherwise, I would cry myself to sleep.

Q: Which would be more effective at stopping the pass rush, the Bears' offensive line, or a large block of cheese?

A: Who cares? They both should be fed to the rats.

It Wouldn't Be A True Presidential Speech...

If the illustrious InstaPundit didn't take the opportunity to lie about people he dislikes:

"It was an outright challenge to the neo-McGovernites, and even more of a challenge to those wafflers (and several are beginning to appear) among the Democratic presidential candidates, specifically mentioning Somalia and Beirut (bipartisan bugout history there), and noting that lessening our commitment would be a disaster, and play into the terrorists' hands."

The McGovern thing is cute - especially since the only candidate even vaguely supporting immediate withdrawal of all our forces from Iraq is Kucinich (unless, of course, Glenn has taken Chris Suellentrop's unusually dunderheaded misreading of Dean's statements at the Democratic debates to heart).

We're in Iraq for the long haul, and all of the serious contenders for the Democratic nomination acknowledge that; indeed, I do believe that one of the primary premises of even the anti-war crowd was that if we invaded Iraq, we would be obligated to rebuild it at the cost of several years and hundreds of billions of our dollars.

To snidely claim otherwise is a "lie," in the same way that Glenn Reynolds is "the best argument for storing nuclear waste in Knoxville."

Balls

Bush certainly has them, yes indeed.

Some of the more reasonable sorts have been wondering just how Bush would manage to ask for international help in Iraq without looking like the kid who trips you at recess but then tries to talk you out of your twinkie at lunch.

The President has kindly answered that question for us: by demanding it.

"I recognize that not all of our friends agreed with our decision to enforce the Security Council resolutions and remove Saddam Hussein from power. Yet we cannot let past differences interfere with present duties. Terrorists in Iraq have attacked representatives of the civilized world, and opposing them must be the cause of the civilized world. Members of the United Nations now have an opportunity -- and the responsibility -- to assume a broader role in assuring that Iraq becomes a free and democratic nation. "

Damn.

"Hey, Dave, I think I smell gas coming from that house."

"Really? I don't."

"Yeah, definitely gas. We need to go in there."

"Dude, that's somebody's house. We can't just break in there. We should call the cops."

"Dave, you pussy! I'm going in! You can screw yourself."

"Okay."

[Smash! Crash! Shatter-tinkle-CRUNCH!]

"Hey, Roger, you okay in there? I'm still not smelling any gas."

"Screw you! It's in here! I'll find it!"

"Okay."

[Time passes. Flames shoot out of front window.]

"Um...Roger? Is that flame from the gas?"

"No. That...um...that was me. Hey! Listen. You have to come in here and help me put this fire out."

"What? Why?"

"It's your duty. I know we had some disagreements in the past, but you must now acknowledge your responsibility for what has happened here, and you must now help in the long and dangerous process of putting out this fire that I started while doing something which you advised me not to do."

"Um...have you found gas in there yet?"

"I'll get back to you on that one."


Balls.

Whither Art Thou?

Mr. Davies?

Does anyone know where the hell D² has been for the last month? His last post was August 6th. He hasn't even posted at Crooked Timber since August 5th.

I will be very upset with him if he is dead or something.

(Oh, the irony of my being annoyed at someone for having an erratic posting schedule...)

Andrew Sullivan - Finally Seeing The Light?

"THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER LANDING: Can we all now agree that that was the dumbest political gesture of the last two years?"

Wait a minute...scroll down a few paragraphs...

"SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: [blah blah blah]"

Nope. Still a prick.

Friendly Reminder (best post ever)

I just think that it's good to be reminded from time to time about things one may have forgotten.

Like, say, the borderline-subliminal "Rats" ad that the RNC ran during the 2000 campaign. You know, the one that flashed the word "rats" when talking about Al Gore?

"[Ad designer Alex] Castellanos said he flashed the word -- part of "bureaucrats" -- so it would look more visually interesting, and that it was just a coincidence that the letters appearing first spelled out 'rats.'"

It's not that I don't believe Castellanos (liar), it's just that it seems that in a Presidential election (stolen), one should be a bit more careful about the image one projects (bumbling idiot). After all, what does it say about your potential Presidency (disaster) if it looks to people like you're trying to manipulate them (state of the union)? That's just no damn good (dick cheney). Granted, this was several years ago (surpluses), but I don't see any evidence (WMDs) that this administration has chosen to take the moral high road (kissinger) since it came into office. Bush should do what's right (go back to texas) and actually start living up to the "straight-shooter" image that so many people (inbreds) seem to have of him.

The Mighty Banality Man

One of the things I've noticed when arguing with conservatives is that more than a few of them seem to be angry at George Bush for not being conservative enough.

This kind of talk always makes me want to take a backhoe to the street leading up to these peoples' houses and scream "Get the Invisible Hand to fix it, fucker!" And then mail their diaries to John Ashcroft. And then replace their condoms with pocket Bibles. And then send their paychecks to Steve Forbes (assuming they make less than $100,000).

Regardless, one argument for Bush's "centrism" (or liberalism, if you're a complete idiot) that I have seen repeatedly: the massive spending increases that have taken place on his watch.

"How can you guys hate him so much? He's spending, spending, spending away, just like a liberal!"

I'd like to take this opportunity to issue a blanket rebuttal to this, and any of the hundred variations of it which I have seen (and for the record, I cannot believe that this needs saying): This may surprise some of my conservative friends, but liberals don't actually like big budget expenditures for big budget expenditures' sake. The only good things about big budget expenditures are the benefits that come from the programs that they fund. And so, if Bush is spending lots and lots of money on things we don't like, then of course we aren't going to like him. In fact, we're going to like him even less for not only doing things we don't like, but for putting our country in dire financial straits by so doing.

Seriously, it's like being mystified because Jerry Falwell doesn't enthusiastically approve of your donations to an Episcopalian gay rights group. "But Jerry, don't you like it when people donate to religious organizations?"

I hope that clears things up. I know it gets too confusing to use actual "thinking" when valiantly battling us evil Statists. Godspeed.

Pre-emptive Response to the Obvious Smartass Remark About The Title of This Post: You're right, that does perfectly describe me! Don't I feel stupid! Ha ha!

It's Not Like We Didn't Know...

That the InstaPundit would be unable to resist the temptation to make a UN-bashing joke while reporting the bombing of the UN headquaters in Baghdad that has killed at least 17 people:

"Maybe the bomb was planted by environmentalists, angry at the U.N.'s complicity in ecological devastation under Saddam"

Fuck Glenn Reynolds and the blog he rode in on.

A Definitive Post On Political Ideology

MY IDEOLOGY: For those of you who care to know, I'm a Godtoldme-ist. It means exactly what it says.

-God told me that Fox News is biased.

-God told me that people who scoff at the charges of human rights organizations like Amnesty International but then self-righteously wag their fingers at those who opposed the war when justifying the invasion of Iraq based on Saddam's murderous record are not "humanitarians", they are "crass opportunists who should be ashamed of themselves."

-God told me that a lot of Republicans are arrogant pricks.

-God told me that Bush is a very, very bad President.

-God told me that so much opinion on the Right is based more on Clinton hatin' than on intelligence.

Should give you an idea of what a "Godtoldme-ist" is.

Oh, and God told me that Michael Demmons is a dipshit.

Taking Advantage

I'm watching Gov. Bill Richardson on Larry King Live right now, talking about all things blackout.

Here's the funny thing: he seems to be stressing rather forcefully the need for the President to propose a massive energy bill, and is saying that it is absolutely critical for Congress to pass such a bill.

I will refrain, for the moment, from pointing out the sudden flood of drool issuing forth from the President's major financial backers at the prospect of massive national support for a comprehensive energy bill drafted by the current administration.

Instead, let us focus on the major soundbites Gov. Richardson has been desperately attempting to imprint on my mind. Our infrastructure is massively out of date. We're barely wheezing by. We need to massively overhaul our infrastructure. We have a woeful lack of capacity. We need to increase energy production and build all kinds of new modern production facilities. We need to fight the local utilities tooth and nail in favor of...well, that part isn't quite clear.

These seem reasonable enough. But something about his manner piqued my curiosity. He seemed far too eager to convince me to demand that Congress immediately pass massive legislation with huge potential ramifications (and massive payouts to various players in the energy business), the necessary public discussion of which could not possibly take place in any but the most superficial form were Congress to actually pass it as quickly as he seems to want.

So I decided to take a slightly closer look at Mr. Richardson.

Courtesy of Disinfopedia.org, I see that the Governor has some very interesting friends. When he ran for Governor of New Mexico, he resigned from a number of corporate boards, among them American Energy Group, Inc., Energy Investors Fund Group, Diamond Offshore, Valero Energy Group, TerraSolar (a solar power company), and Venoco (an oil and gas company).

Hmm. Interesting. But those were probably just honorary positions. No big deal.

So let's look at sources of income over $5,000 (the disclosure of which was required by New Mexico state law): Terra Solar, Intersate Natural Gas Association (trade association of the natural gas pipeline industry), EIF Management (Energy Investment Fund), Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc., and Valero Energy Corp. [among others]

Fucking shameless.

Power Outage

So far, things seem to be going as well as can be expected given the situation. This is good.

But I'm curious. Every news report seems to stress the fact that it was not the result of a terrorist attack. Well, fair enough. I'll admit that that was the first thing I thought of, and it's good that they are trying to reassure the public.

When we think of a terrorist attack on a power plant or a power grid, we think "bomb." As in, somebody bombed a key chokepoint in the grid.

But here's my question: Am I the only one whose first thought was "computer attack"?

Here's why I think that a computer attack (not necessarily terrorist-related) is not completely outside the realm of possibility:

- 21 seperate power stations went down in a three minute period. That just seems strange to me. I know that everyone's talking about cascade reactions from an overload on the Mohawk grid, but that seems somewhat implausible. I mean, these places have safeguards to protect against this sort of thing. Right?

- Power demand could not have been at record levels- it's summer, and it's hot, but there aren't any major heatwaves anywhere. The temperature in New York today was in the low 90s; hot, yes. Unusual, no.

- No one has been able to point to a specific place and say "There! This is the power station/node/ relay station that started it all." I'm not saying that those in charge should already know the exact cause, but doesn't it seem unlikely that they don't at the very least know where the problem occurred?

Anyway, I don't claim to have any special knowledge here...in fact, it's because of my lack of knowledge that I'm asking questions.

As the internet grew in prominence during the late 90's, talk of securing our "electronic frontiers" grew more and more frequent; after 9/11, we heard about it a bit more, but the possibility of an electronic attack was largely glossed over in the media in favor of coverage of things that seemed more personally threatening (nukes, anthrax, dirty bombs, etc). But one of the primary focuses of any discussion about digital terrorism was the threat it posed to our power networks.

So why isn't anyone on any of the major networks at least raising the possibility, especially given the lack of any real information coming out of the government as to what actually caused this?

Edit: For the record, I'm not saying that I think that it is definitely an electronic attack of some sort (again, terrorist or no). I don't even know if it's at all likely. I'm just wondering why I haven't heard anyone even ask about the possibility, when this is a scenario that has been put forward before when discussing America's electronic vulnerabilities.

The End Of The Line

After reading a certain Freeper thread, I got into a bit of a groove. The need to mock foolish people was like a primal urge...I just had to keep coming back to the computer, interrupting a damn fine viewing of "Field of Dreams." I'm better now. To fully appreciate the last two hour's worth of posting, I suggest you start here and scroll up. Chronological order and all.

Jesus, Freepers suck.

Drunken Messages On God's Answering Machine

Sometimes it's best to just let it ring...

"I will literally be on my knees praying tonight that people learn about this neo-socialist being appointed by the Bloomberg Candidate."

Doesn't Iran Have Enough Weapons?

Freeper advice for handling life's little problems:

"WWRD (What Would Reagan Do)"

"Round" Two: "Fight"!

Freepers v. History:

"The U.S.S.R. had plenty of "Rich" guys that endorsed the "system", they were protected."

The Horror

"People should know that most of [Buffett's] wealth doesn't come from shrewd investing, but cleverly avoiding taxes and as I said, those insider connections into government and business."

Irony slashes Freepers' tires on the way out of the stadium.

Round One: Fight!

Freepers v. History:

"I would compare Buffett to the industrialists of WWII Germany...getting rich by means of capitalism, but utterly owned by the socialists and their ideology."

Instant Campaign Commercial

"Maybe I could get behind Arnold. I love his movies, and one never knows what can happen once someone gets in office."

Shit! They're Breeding!

"Okay. I hereby revoke any positive statement made regarding Ahnold. Warren Buffett is a socialist. WTF is going through that guy's head?" [emphasis mine]

If God Loved Me, He Would Grant This Man's Wish

"At least its not Jimmy Buffett, although that would be cool, we could all get drunk, listen to music and forget about it." [emphasis mine]

(Help me, I can't stop...)

Game, Set, Match

"Wonder how [Buffett] weathered the Enron debacle."

Irony leaps over net, smashes Freepers with racket, runs into stands to wild cheers of adoring crowd, walks off with supermodel on each arm.

Goddamn Hippies!

"This could be about energy..."

Irony 2, Freepers 0.

Thank God Arnold Can't Be President!

"The other consideration is that he will use Buffett's extensive knowledge of the electric ultility industry (and monopoly in the West) to try to turn around California's energy mess. I sure hope this isn't going to lead to firesales whereby [Berkshire Hathaway] gets first dibs..."

Irony 1, Freepers 0.

Like A Burning Bush, But With Commercials

God confirms the Freepers' fears:

"This is also being reported on Fox. I don't think it is a rumor."

Free Blow For All!

Sayeth the Freepers:

"Milton Freidman, Larry Kudlow and other supply siders know how to fix California. It is no big secret what to do." [bold mine]

Warren Buffet + Freepers = Fun

"Warren Buffett is the greatest single enemy of the unborn in the world today."

So, what, did Satan get demoted?

(Couldn't help it...I could blog for a month with this material. Priceless, I tell you, priceless!)

Embarrassingly Easy

Yeah, I know, making fun of Freepers is like shooting fish on the sidewalk, but I'm afraid I may suffer an aneurysm if I do nothing about this response to the news that Warren Buffet has signed on to be Arnold's economic advisor in his attempt to become California's top dog:

"Buffett is a frickin' socialist."

Go ahead. Read it again.

No, you aren't hallucinating.

The man who has arguably benefited more than anyone else in history from the free market is a socialist.

Seriously, though, I wonder how liquored up I would have to be to say something as mindbogglingly stupid as that. I think my liver would just leap out of my abdomen and run away first.

(link to this wonderful thread via Atrios)

Fair And Balanced

VeryVeryHappy: Fair and Balanced in the presentation of the fact that Fox News sucks and is making your children dumb and that Fox News is teaching your children that it is okay to steal, as long as you do not get caught.

If The Almighty Ever Decides To Grant Me All Of His Powers, I Shall Drop A Big Rock On Brett Favre

~In which we discover The Mighty Reason Man's hometown~

As some of you may have noticed, I have been rather cagey here on VVH about disclosing where it is, exactly, that I'm from. A handful of alert readers have probably figured it out based upon a few references here and there, but for the most part, my origin -- like Batman's -- is shrouded in mystery.

The reason behind my reluctance to disclose this information is somewhat unclear, even to me. It just seems like bad policy to give out all sorts of random information about yourself online. Most of us, I think, would be surprised by how much information can be pieced together about any given person just by performing a few google searches - and as any William Gibson/Bruce Sterling reader knows, there are all sorts of nefarious ends towards which even the most innocuous-seeming digital information can be used.

If that sounds excessively paranoid, don't worry; my varied and murky reasons for geographical anonymity had more to do with allowing everyone to think that I'm from their own state -- and therefore somewhat more interesting than some guy half a continent away -- than with fears of having my dog killed by vengeful Republicans.

But with the commencement of the NFL preseason, I feel it is both necessary and proper to inform anyone who happens across VeryVeryHappy that they are going to get their asses stomped by My Boys this year- and that certainly wouldn't be any fun if no one knew who My Boys are.

And so, at the risk of exposing myself to the predations of real-world versions of the Dixie Flatline, I humbly announce that I have lived in and around Chicago my entire life, and Da Bears march with God at their side.

So, for all you non-Bears fans (especially you NFC types), why is it that every time you consult your Ouiji board lately, it keeps spelling out "F-E-A-R-T-H-E-U-R-S-I-N-E"?

I'll tell you why. Simple math:

1. Brian Urlacher + healthy Ted Washington + healthy Keith Traylor = No Run For You.

2. Rookie of the Year + horrendous sophomore slump = a pissed off Anthony Thomas willing to take his anger out on your defense (I'm looking at you, Green Bay - especially now that there's going to be a Gilbert Brown-sized hole in your front line)

3. Bears - shitty third-rate QBs + Kordell Stewart = an offense with both running and passing (which, incidentally, won't be nearly as easy to crowd in on given Kordell's running ability)

4. Bears - 2 hour drive to Champaign for home games + renovated Soldier Field = Hometown Karma (applause to Mayor Daley for refusing to allow those bastard McCaskeys to sell the naming rights to Soldier Field; "Charles Schwab Stadium" or some such bullshit would most assuredly have caused God to rain the Holy Cleansing Fire down upon the Windy City, and everyone in the suburbs would be turned into a pillar of salt)

5. Michael Haynes + Richard Dent as Assistant Defensive Line Coach = an indentation in the turf the size of your quarterback's ass

6. McQuarters/Azumah/Brown + Tillman = a secondary with a bit of depth, finally.

7. Da Bears = Great

8. The rest of the league = Losers


Any questions?

Sidenote: Keep in mind that just because you know my hometown and most of my associated sports loyalties, doesn't mean you know in which state I currently reside...

Ho ho.

Back, To A Degree

So, I turn on my computer for the first time in a week to discover that Tom Tomorrow linked to VeryVeryHappy - adding me to his links page^*, no less.

And here I am, in the middle of one of my much-reviled undeclared hiatuses with a handful of shoddy, mostly irrelevant posts at the top of my page. How embarrassing.

My explanation for being away is simple: overtime. It's a pain in the ass, but time and a half pays for a lot of beer. In the matter of Beer v. Blog, Beer wins every time, regardless of the ideological makeup of the court. I trust everyone understands and accepts my apology.

That being said, I'm seriously considering taking a (gasp) declared hiatus of anywhere between two weeks and a month. Not just yet, as I have a few things I'd still like to post about this week (I also have to perform some much-needed maintenance on the site itself - I like all my links to work, dammit), but soon. When it happens, I'll say so, and set a tentative date for my return. It just seems like the polite thing to do.

So. I'm still alive, I still know my Blogger password, and I still think that Republicans are Bad.

Just so everyone is aware.


* Good Lord, what a fantastic group of bloggers in which to be included for this round of inductions into Tom's links section. If VeryVeryHappy ever gains even a small fraction of the respectability of some of those sites, it will have exceeded by several orders of magnitude anything I expected when I started it. Thanks, Tom.

Good Thing I Can Run Fast And My Bookie Is Fat

After accidentally clicking on one of my archive links, I came across an old post from April in which I jokingly started a pool on how long it would take for 40% of the population to believe that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Syrian.

Apparently, I just lost a few days ago: "Come on, July 13-19! Daddy needs a new pair of shoes. "

JoeF is out; so is JimMA. doesn't matter loses a side bet, and catalexis has a month to go (although, given that Iraq has proven to be a bit more of a chore than the administration predicted, I don't think this one's going to pay off for him [her?]).

How disappointing. I was so hoping for another invasion before the weather gets too nasty to enjoy it.

Semantics For Fruitcakes

After reading CalPundit's post about the ridiculous GOP allegation (that I have seen bandied about a bit on a few Rightie blogs, but now made official by Rep. Mark "I'm not Gay Because While Republicans Have Nothing Against Gays My Constituents Would Throw Me Out On My Ass If I Was" Foley) that Pete Stark's use of the terms "fruitcake" and "cocksucker" in the House dustup the other day was homophobic^*, I started wondering about the term "bumfuckery", which has been a favorite of mine recently (in real life). As in:

Bumfuckery - n. 1. craziness, lunacy 2. Foolish, stupid. usage: This situation is utter bumfuckery.

As this isn't a term one would use in reference to a specific person, context usually renders a homophobic connection tenuous at best, and I know that an anti-gay connotation is not my intent, I'm inclined to think that it's fine - but I'm biased, as I've grown somewhat attached to the word recently, and plan on remaining so until I get a new favorite curse word.

Thoughts, anyone?

* A charge that is, of course, ridiculous. Any male over the age of sixteen knows that "cocksucker" is merely a synonym for asshole; it's roughly equivelent to "motherfucker", only slightly more extreme given "motherfucker"'s overuse. "Fruitcake", in ye olde days, was a common synonym for "nutcase." Given modern connotations of the word "fruit", a (very weak) case could be made that fruitcake is a homophobic slur now (although, given this dustup, I have a feeling it's going to be making a grand re-entrance into bloggers' lexicon - in fact, it already has, and it is now most definitely a term for "stupid"), one can hardly blame an old man for the shift in (possible) connotation of an innocuous word.

Also, given the number of times the word "cocksucker" has now been used in the comments section of that post, CalPundit should expect a bit of an increase in traffic over the next few days. Someone should start a contest to guess the first search term involving "cocksucker" that some search engine is going to direct his way. My money is on "Mickey Kaus is a cocksucker."

Bad Ideas, And The Mocking Of Those In Favor Of Them

This is the most fun I've had all week. About as satisfying as beating up a ten year old, and somewhat juvenile, I suppose, but amusing as hell nonetheless.

(A slight explanation, since I refuse to link to this man's actual blog because I'd feel dirty: This is the comments section of a post in which he argues that we should detonate a nuclear bomb on the moon as a warning to terrorists. No, I'm not joking. And neither, judging by his rather irate responses, is he. )


Update: There are some people that it is simply best to let be; while it may initially be fun to provoke them so as to laugh at their inevitably ludicrous responses, such amusement -- for me at least -- only lasts so long before it fades to disgust, then to contempt, then to pity.

In retrospect, I find my whole conversation with this man distasteful in the extreme.

I like arguing with people who think differently than I do. It's fun and, usually, educational - to one degree or another. Even when such an argument turns vicious, I'm more than happy to go round after round.

But when someone unabashedly acts in a manner that most people find repulsively juvenile, it is impossible to continue to engage them and not look foolish yourself.

It's somewhat like arguing with a young child: nothing you say makes the slightest bit of difference, their responses do not change, they unselfconciously hurl insults that you would demean yourself to return or even acknowledge, and you look bad for simply participating in the first place.

I decided to end my initially amusing game of tweak-the-lunatic when he posted a response that, were it not for the photo of himself he has displayed on his site, I would not credit to someone older than 12 - and that is likely an insult to most twelve year olds. As cliche as it is to call childish someone who disagrees with you...well, read it if you like. All I could do was laugh at the ridiculousness of it- and then I grew embarrassed, the way one feels embarrassed for someone who does something humiliating but doesn't seem to have the sense to realize it.

But fuck it. I can't help feeling sorry for someone who's so unhappy that such pettiness makes him think himself anything but laughable to the vast majority of people - but that doesn't mean I have to talk to or about him again.

Anyway, the overall point is, I apologize for this post - as I've said, I initially thought it was quite funny to see the outlandish responses to a bit of firm disagreement and thinly-veiled contempt, but eventually it simply became disagreeable.

Live and learn, I guess. That applies to the blogosphere as well as anything else, it seems.

Because I Have Been Criminally Remiss

...in not mentioning that you should, for the love of God, go buy The Great Big Book of Tomorrow.

No. Seriously. If you are reading my site right now, go buy it.

And while you're at it, send a note to The Daily Show and politely request that they have Tom Tomorrow (or Dan Perkins, if you want to get technical about it), on the show sometime soon - tell them that it's a perfect time to bring him on, as his new book was just released.

It would probably also be helpful to mention that he won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for cartooning this year. For the second time (the first time was in 1998).

The email address is:

thedailyshow@comedycentral.com

The real mail address is:

The Daily Show
513 West 54th Street
New York, New York, 10019

Just doing my part. Mucho gusto, Tom.

More Libertarian Fun

This isn't relative to anything that's new, but since I'm thinking about libertarians today...

Any libertarian who has ever groused about the "tyranny of the majority" (you know, the whole being against "six people making five people do exactly as they wish" thing), and who also approves of the Republican attempts to remove the filibuster as a parliamentary tool in the Senate needs to immediately admit that they are merely flacking for the GOP, and then never speak in public ever again. This includes the internet.

Property Rights

Tangling with libertarians is occasionally amusing, but usually annoying and frequently infuriating.

However, like the urge to constantly tongue a sore tooth, the urge to listen to them and occasionally argue with them is a powerful instinct of mine, for reasons that are quite beyond my ability to explain.

And so, in response to a minor side-discussion in the comments section for a D²-inspired post over at DeLong's site about whether property is a natural right (as in, something that you have unless it is taken away from you, such as life or free speech) or something granted to you by the government, I sat back and thought for a few minutes, and came up with my own tentative answer.

It seems that the entire concept of "property" cannot exist without government, because without some sort of official body that has the ability to recognize and help enforce your claim to a certain plot of land, property is nothing more than that bit of land that you are physically capable of preventing others from trespassing upon, which would render any claim to a certain piece of land dependent upon your presence within or in close proximity to that piece of land. "Ownership" of land, in that case, would be impossible; the nearest equivelent would be temporary control of a piece of land, a control that would be invalidated whenever you left that land without leaving behind someone to protect it in your absence.

I'm trying to decide how much this can be extended beyond land ownership to ownership of other things (food, tools, donkeys, etc.). As I now need to immediately run an errand, I will have to discuss that a bit later.

For My (Three) Right-Wing Readers...

Why America is so great:

Because we're not France! HA HA HA!

Suck it, Froggies. Have fun waiting ten days for your Independence Day, losers.

See? It's funny because France sucks.

Turnabout, Fair Play, and Watching Their Asses

What a wonderful thing to read about on the Fourth of July...and how appropriate.

From Wired:

"Researchers at the MIT Media Lab unveiled the Government Information Awareness, or GIA, website Friday. Using applications developed at the Media Lab, GIA collects and collates information about government programs, plans and politicians from the general public and numerous online sources. Currently the database contains information on more than 3,000 public figures.
The premise of GIA is that if the government has a right to know personal details about citizens, then citizens have a right to similar information about the government."

Can I get a "Hell yeah!"?

(via Slashdot)

Very Very Geek

After walking out of the video store a few minutes ago, I realized that I had just rented a Star Wars movie and a Star Trek movie while wearing an old drama club t-shirt.

At least I didn't have my bagpipe CD blaring out of my car, as I tend to do from time to time.

Terminator 3

~Spoiler Free, assuming you've seen the trailor and Terminator 2~

There are a lot of movies that are generally good but are ruined by their endings.

Terminator 3 is not one of these. It is, in fact, the exact opposite- a generally mediocre film (albeit with superb, cutting edge special effects) which is made great by its ending.

I was very, very afraid when I went to go see this movie. I didn't see how it could possibly live up to Terminator 2, which I consider to be a true action/scifi masterpiece.

Terminator 2 was as damn near perfect as an action movie can get. Great plot, great dialogue, great characters, great acting (an unfeeling robot is, after all, the ideal role for Arnold), great action sequences, and great special effects, all rolled together with a damn good orchestral soundtrack and an ending that conveys hope in the face of fear that still makes my spine tingle.

Why would someone fuck with that and make a third installment that couldn't possibly live up to its predecessor?

My fear grew much worse when I realized, during the credits, that James Cameron -- writer and director of the original Terminator and writer, director, and producer of T2-- apparently had no role whatsoever in T3. This was a Bad Sign.

Fortunately, my fear was unwarranted, and this is definitely a movie I would recommend to people who like this sort of thing (although not the squeemish, due to one particularly memorable scene).

As today is the first day of general release for the film, I will include no spoilers, but rather a rundown of the important aspects of the movie:

Overall plot - Feels somewhat stale- "Oh no, SkyNet has sent an evil robot into the past to eliminate John Conner! Again! And the Resistance was able to send back a lone protector to defend him! Again!" Seriously, if I'm ever in charge of sending an assembly-line robot back in time to defend the leader of my people from a super-robot that's trying to kill him, I'm sending back a hundred Arnolds, so they can all gang up on the super robot, straight up Agent Smith style.

Also, the film is not divided up into several acts; you know, lulls in the tension so everyone can get up to speed on what's going on, and rest up into between battles. Consequently, the movie seems like it moves along unrealistically quickly. "Oh, we have to go here? Okay. Oh, we have to go there? Okay. Oh, we have to go there? Okay."

The ending, however, as I've said, makes up for it, in spades. It was not what I expected, at all.

Characters/Acting- First thing's first. I want to sleep with the lady Terminator. She can kill me afterwards, I'm cool with that. But man, whoever that girl is, she is extremely hot.

But that doesn't mean she made a great Terminator. Oh, she was all right, but I just couldn't shake the feeling that she was an actress trying really hard to act cold and tough. As far as scary goes, she doesn't hold a candle to the T-1000 from T2 which, as played by Robert Patrick, was frightening because of how human he acted when he needed to, and how smoothly that transitioned to robotic indifference when the need for pretenses was over.

The kid who played John Conner annoyed me for most of the movie. It was only at the very end that he started doing a decent job. However, I don't think the actor can really be blamed- he wasn't working with a really great script.

Claire Danes: she's still attractive, she's still a good actress, and she makes some truly bad lines come off not nearly as poorly as they could have. Props to her.

And, of course, Arnold: the more human they try to make his character, the worse he does. Fortunately, there wasn't much emotional conflict for him in this movie, and when there was, it only lasted for a minute or two.

Dialogue - The making and the breaking of all movies. No one notices average dialogue, good dialogue cannot usually salvage a bad movie, and bad dialogue makes a good movie excruciating.

With that in mind, we here at VVH judge the dialogue to be: Average, with a few bad lines to spice things up. The references to the first two movies were a nice try, but fell flat and ended up temporarily "breaking the spell," which is a bad thing.

Special effects - Damn.

The effects definitely did not disappoint. While none of them had the jaw drop factor of the Hundred Agent Smiths scene in Matrix Reloaded, this movie finally perfected several common movie effects that, until now, have always looked fake. no matter what movie they were in.

For instance, when a rocket-propelled grnade hits the Terminatrix, it really looks like it hits her, as opposed to an editing room parlor trick. And when she and Arnold start throwing each other around, it has a speed and violence that look damn convincing. For the first time, when Arnold tossed her through a large tombstone, it didn't look like the tombstone was a breakaway prop- it had a look and feel that really made you believe that a pair of thousand pound robots were tossing each other through solid rock.

This is one of the key areas of computer generated effects, and one that, until now, hasn't been particularly satisfying: the interaction between live actors and CGI objects. We are coming damn close to the point at which it is impossible to tell at which point in a particular shot the actual actor and the prop are replaced by computer generated images that then do whatever it is that happens, and then when they switch back to the actual actor and the prop.

So. The bottom line is, go see this movie. It's worth it.

Apocalypse

I have blogrolled a Republican.

As in, someone who reads National Review Online and supports George Bush. Without laughing.

Go say hello to Max, who has been a VeryVeryHappy honored correspondent since mid-February, when I introduced myself to him by trashing one of his posts and he responded with class and good humor.

His is a smart Rightie college blog, and while he is of course Wrong About Nearly Everything, I don't hold it against him, and neither should you. Besides, I suspect he would say the same thing about me.

It seems to me that, in the interests of true bipartisanship, I should approvingly link to his Ann Coulter post. He says nice things about Jonah Goldberg, but the thrashing he gives to Ann more than makes up for it.

So. Party on.

Explanation

For those of you curious as to why my contribution to Appropriate Michael Savage's Name For Your Own Purposes Day is broken up into two posts, the explanation is simple: Blogger frickin' sucks. For whatever reason, it won't allow me to publish the whole thing as one post (this after not allowing me access to my own damn blog all day yesterday while they fiddled around with their user interface).

Hence, two posts. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Riding In Cars With Weiners, Part 1 of 2

~A Real^* Conversation With Michael Savage~

(Dedicated to Neal)

I’m still not entirely clear about the circumstances that led to my driving through the middle of Chicago in a rented convertible with Michael Savage riding shotgun.

I was driving through Wrigleyville on my way to the Cubby Bear to meet some friends. As I sat at the light at Addison and Clark, I started to hear what sounded like an angry mob.

Assuming that a Cubs game was going on, I ignored the sound and casually turned my head to get a better look at the girl in the car next to me and a little behind. To my surprise, I saw that the sounds of an angry mob were in fact emanating from an actual angry mob that was making its way up Clark, chasing what looked like Dom DeLuise if Dom had been a KGB agent out of a noir spy thriller.

I was weighing the risks versus the rewards of blowing the red light to get out of the way when the round black-clad gentleman leapt into my backseat from behind, cannonball style. He shoved his face between the two front seats and said, “Rat stinking pinko verminist journalists!”

“Is that who those people are?” I asked.

Instead of responding, he heaved himself up and into the passenger seat, his legs dangling out the side of the car.

As he tried to right himself, he frantically motioned for me to drive. I was about to lean over, open the door, and shove him out when a hardcover book sailed right past my head and cracked the rearview mirror.

“Dammit! This is a rental! You’re paying for that, jackass!” I screamed at the mob. Then I saw the cover of the book, and I understood.

“You’re Michael Savage!” I accused my new passenger, who had managed to pull one leg into the car while at the same time wedging his head under the ashtray.

“I am a visionary,” he grunted, grabbing his headrest to pull himself up.

I started to kick him in the ribs, trying to force him out.

“Get out of my car! Crazy people are not welcome here!”

Since I was sitting down, I wasn’t getting much leverage, so he managed to grab my leg and hold on.

I started to panic, because the mob was closing in. I repeatedly tried to pull my leg back to hit the gas, but his fear gave him strength, and he desperately clung to the leg with all fours, resembling nothing so much as a massive black-coated mutant Chihuahua in heat.

When I woke up that morning, I hadn’t planned on having my leg humped by Michael Savage while a kill-crazy mob howled for his blood, but sometimes life gives you little surprises like that.

After careful consideration, I decided that I really didn’t want my friends and family to open up the papers the next day to find the headline “Young Man Performs Deviant Act With Right Wing Radio Host In Public, Torn Limb From Limb By Righteous Citizens” with my driver’s license photo next to it. That’s a bad way to go out.

So I hit the gas with my left foot, and away we went.

After much swerving and avoiding of pedestrians, we were out of sight and far away from the mob. I pulled over.

“Get off of my leg.”

His only response was a hog-like grunt and a snarled “Pinko!”

Given the circumstances, I wasn’t thrilled about having this man associate my leg with the color pink, so I grabbed the tire iron that was conveniently laying on the floor of the backseat and proceeded to pry him off of me.

Once we were both situated in our own seats with a comfortable two feet of space between us, I asked him what had started the riot in the first place.

“Damn judges side with the perverts instead of the boyscouts.”

Deciding that this was the most coherent answer I was going to get from him, I left the matter alone. I was thinking about calling the police, but with a speed that I would not have thought physically possible for him, he grabbed the tire iron from me, waved it in my face, and demanded that I start driving again. I did.

“You have to escape, huh?” I asked.

“There is no escape,” he replied, “Today in America, we live in a she-ocracy where a minority of feminist zealots rule the culture.”

“I see. So, what is it you want me to do, then?”

“Go to your nearest CD store and buy some crack music. Just put some crack music on about raping women, killing police, and burning down houses.”

“Um…I have Disco Inferno on a CD right here in the car. Is that close enough?”

He was distracted then by something we passed, so I decided to comply with his request, trying to soothe his nerves. I popped in the CD.

“Look at the bisexual clothing stores,” he sighed, “Look at the multi-colored condom stores. Look how the young mallrats rush to assume the Calvin Klein waif-on-drugs or Abercrombie & Fitch lesbo of the month club persona.” He sounded tired, like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

“Back when America was still moral and whole, our meatballs were big, soft, and tasty. Today, thanks mainly to the Demoncats, the libs, and the Commu-Nazis who rule the courts, America’s meatballs are small, hard, and tasteless. In other words, we have replicated the Swedish meatball, which is what Socialism brings.”

I definitely did not want to be discussing balls of any sort with this man, so I tried to change the subject.

“How about that Pledge of Allegiance, huh?” I said.

Brandishing the tire iron, he muttered something about the “Ninth Jerk-it Court of Schlemials.”

Thinking of how heavy that tire iron looked, I laughed nervously, and tried to sound convincing when I said, “That’s a good one.”

“Comedy is what I sometimes do,” he shrugged. “That’s what God gave me the gift for.”

“Sure did!” I said, too loudly.

He looked at me suspiciously, then continued.

“You know, the kind of stuff you see at comedy workshops, where they talk about bodily functions – that’s not comedy. That’s just stupid vaudeville. That’s what passes for humor and comedy.” He paused. “It’s like one of those Turd World countries.”

I thought perhaps he was being ironic, so I chuckled.

Bad move. He started hitting the dashboard with the tire iron, screaming about “certified, dyed-in-the-dung liberals.”

Burn, baby burn… went the radio.