Photoshop Love: Blue Gal Contest, Round 2!

Okay, Round 2 of Blue Gal's Contestation with the McCain picture.

Check out the last post, if you haven't seen it, for the original photo, concept.

I was feeling a little Dickens, or Dick Cheney I should say. Whole lotta Bah Humbug goin' on!


Click for bigger. All the cool kids are.

But McCain as a professional actor? Well, that's just...



*groan*

Okay, okay, so to bring this train to its proverbial yet inevitable wreck:



This is where I get off...

Photoshop Love: A Contest! A Contest!

I was perusing the world of Blue Gal today and found the McCain Photoshop/Caption Contest. Yummy.

We start with this image:



So...many...thoughts...

And I finally settled on one.

Meet Emo John:




Emo John is sad. The world hurts so much. He hurts so much. Sometimes he cuts himself just to feel. It's hard - so hard - running for president when there's so much pain in the world.

And I saw that it was good.

But why so surprised, Emo John? Why the look of awe and wonder? What makes someone who dwells in the deepest depths of suffering say "Wow!"

And while Blue Gal doesn't have an animated portion of the contest, I felt Emo John needed some impetus behind that gawking maw:



And that's my story.

I may make an update or two depending on my available Photoshop time before the deadline.

UPDATE: Round Two is Here.

No Cable, No Popcorn, No Patience

Fuck Time Warner in the ass with a white-hot, rusty, steel-splintered crowbar. Yes, the rounded side is wider and turns into a hook out the out-stroke! Yay pain!

This morning, I noticed the cable wasn't working. The internets is alive and breathing somehow through the same cable line, but none of the bright-flashy-stare-thingy TV. So tonight I miss Jericho. Tonight I miss Bill Moyers. Tonight (snizzleshit!) I miss Lost.

And this whole process would be much more serene with one less agitation: Our phone number is one digit from the cable company's phone number. As I'm sitting here, stewing in not being connected to a couple of my TV shows, I get to tally up almost 20 phone calls "Um, is this Time Warner?" "Yes. You and all the other thousands of idiots ringing the cable company will get busy signals until, one time, they answer. And they will say 'hello.' No, retard. Wrong number." No, I never actually said that. But I could. I only need wait another ten minutes.

Funny level 2 (in the past) is when they ring the house, no one's home, and they hear "Hey, you've got Ricky, [Mrs. Shambles], and [Rickina]. Please leave a message." And I hit the button when I get home and hear "Yeah, my cable's been out for about four hours. When you gonna get the trucks out here? Call me back!" High larious. Almost makes me forget about crowbars and asscheeks.

So in lieu of actual content, I guess I can give a local commercial since I've been bulking up the Bad Business blog next door.

I give you Frank Myers Auto Maxx.



Weep for our children.

Crap, I gotsta go. Phone's ringing.

Bill Moyers: Buying the War

It's popcorn time! Tonight at 9pm EST, Bill Moyers Journal showcases how the media was complacent in selling the war to us, how, exactly, we bought into it, and how we're still getting sucked in.



Watch!

Save the Radio on the Internets!

The RIAA's at it again, trying to squeeze blood from a stone, not quite realizing that by raising royalty rates so damn high that no one can pay them, no one will pay them and stream on the sly or just stop. That means less - not more - money. Douchebags.

I recently put this little piece of love into the left column:



It's my first ad, and they're not even selling anything!

Why do I care? Besides the fact that they're a bunch of douchebags, I maintain what hold I have on sanity while at work through Pandora.

And it really will die. The fee structure is scheduled to go into effect on May 15th, 2007. It will be retroactive from January 2006. I can't even imagine the fees. I can imagine the RIAA rubbing their sweaty little carny hands together, drooling over the prospect.

I'm not selling anything either. Check out the info at SaveNetRadio.org. Contact congress. Get a banner. Get the RIAA out of internet radio so they can go back to suing 12-year-old girls.

This is important.

Christ on a Bun! American Family Association: WTF?

It's a two-fer; CoaB and WTF!

I haven't officially done the WTF Award thing lately, but the American Family Association gets that today. Pulled from Think Progress today, these "idealists" (Common causes: Put the Jesus in school, God hates fags) are blaming all school shootings on the fact that we don't have the Ten Commandments as required viewing, that "satanic" music is popular.

And they made a movie.

Watch this. Know what the opposition to a free-thinking society actually thinks. Get motivated.

I think it started when Madalyn Murray O'Hair complained she didn't want any prayer in our schools. And we said "Okay."

...or, as it may be better known, "In 1960, Madalyn Murray O'Hair said required readings of the Bible in public schools was wrong. We fought her tooth and nail. The Supreme Court of the United States said we were retards." (Good job on the AFA stealing the Wikipedia pic.)

The AFA ends this video with the idea of reaping what you sow.

They are sowing ignorance, bigotry, idolatry (worship the "top 10" stones, not the god), and overall separation from reality.

Get your Armor-of-God Faith Shields at the ready.



That's a hail of intolerant bullets waiting to happen.

God Bless America.

Christ on a Bun! It's Mufasa Time!

Sometimes, the interwebs can perplex and bore us with its drivel and triteness. And then sometimes the great Sarlacc erupts to reveal its mucous-coated insides out of which drops a sacred beozar:



Ha ha ha ha! This golden gem of our lord emerged from a surprisingly short amount of MySpace friend hopping.

So Mufasa's in the clouds (duh!), and Jesus on the cross is a symbol for Simba. What the hell is the lamb?

(Dinner.)

VT: Light a candle, light a motive, step down, step down...

Blue Gal's got a soulful post on the shooting, far more impressive than my dumbfounded verbal pratfall. And she also has a link to light a candle in memory of the tragedy. It's quite nice. Very peaceful.

And because I'm a web guy and, no, we can't have anything nice, you can also light a candle for something far less serious.

Straight to hell, I tell ya.

Do you think Kucinich Could Take Cheney?

Dennis Kucinich is not the most attractive or least awkward man running for president. But he's from my home state of Ohio and I've got a happy little place in my heart for him.

How can you go wrong with Dennis? You can't; look at the issues. He has an outlined plan for withdrawal from Iraq, he's a green guy who says "no thanks" to the Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind, and NAFTA. He says "Yay!" to Right to Choose, Civil Rights, and Universal Health Care.

Ideas abound, but Mr. Kucinich will probably not win the 2008 election. He's just too dang cute. He won't take the presidency in '08, but could he take down this one? That's what he's proposing. From the Plain Dealer's blog:

Cleveland congressman Dennis Kucinich sent his Democratic colleagues a two-sentence email this morning announcing imminent plans to introduce "Articles of Impeachment with respect to the conduct of Vice President Cheney."

"Please have your staff contact my office," the missive continued,"if you would like to receive a confidential copy of the document prior to its introduction in the House."

Kucinich press secretary Natalie Laber refused to comment on Kucinich's email or to provide any more information about his efforts to push for Cheney's impeachment. The Plain Dealer obtained the email from a different Democratic congressional office.

Go Kucinich, go Kucinich, go Kucinich go!

Now, in a fight where Kucinich and Cheney's right hands were bound and a single knife were thrown in the dirt at their feet, Kucinich would probably lose because as he lunged for the knife, Cheney would begin devouring his face like a meth-addled zombie.

But that's all speculation. Legislatively, I think DK might just have a shot. If only politicians didn't take such pleasure in posturing and the media meted out attention judiciously. If only.

Support him, cheer for him, send him an email to say "thanks." Go Dennis Kucinich!

Shootings at Virginia Tech

After wondering about whether or not to write on this through yesterday, I found myself particularly, surprisingly affected by some of the stories told by students on NPR this morning. Especially Tina Harrison's (Click the Listen Icon - much more in-depth than the copy). I'm still affected. My thoughts, my prayers, my tears are with them.

And to think Michelle Malkin and FOX are focusing on gun control. That makes me want to cry for a whole other list of reasons.

Not Another Reason for Freedom Fries...

Reuters (through MSNBC) is reporting that the French knew about September 11th. Headline Report: France knew of al-Qaida hijack plot.

Oh, Jesus. We already have plenty of douchebags that hate France because they were actually smart to keep the hell out of our Iraq debacle. And they will inevitably read that headline while choking down their Freedom Fries, hack potato chunks onto their monitor and let lose a fury of ignorant cussin' suitable for someone who lives in a county with one high school and fifteen churches. And they won't read the article.

They won't read how (remember?) hijacking didn't mean "blow up the Twin Towers" in 2000, that reports of possible plans to divert a plane for ransom were ubiquitous. They won't see that France turned over the report to the CIA - and it somehow never made it into any 9/11 commission reports. And they won't link it to any of the other disastrous, awful decisions by the United States that piled upon each other, allowing the window of opportunity and confluence of actions to result in the tragedy it did.

Hot dog, victory cabbage, freedom fries. These are the people that thrive on headlines.

Don't be that guy. Don't be that girl.

Calling Bullshit on Imus Firing; Am I Alone?

Where's your fucking ACLU now? Casually commenting about the corpse.

I'm calling bullshit on his firing. And apparently I'm alone.

Yesterday I had the "joy" of catching pieces of Hannity, Savage, and Beck. And to my surprise, they were all right. Every damn one of their rants over Imus was right. They were all ringing the red bell, warning us of the coming invasion. They're doing it because it's wrong, but they're also doing it because they're scared out of their fucking pants. I would be too.

It's days like this that I cringe at the label "liberal," and I cry for our country. We done bad. The gun went off, Rover's brains are splattered in the dirt, and I've got a shovel and a roll of paper towels. That's how sad I feel.

File this piece of history under "sanctimonious bullshit."

Now, a little more to the damn point. Imus was wrong to say what he said, both in the past and about the Rutgers U girls. He humiliated himself by declaring "you people" on the "I'm Sorry About What I Said About Black People XXXII" episode of the Rev. Sharpton Show. He's a curmudgeon, an old, dirty, "Stop chewin' my shorts and let's go to the rave music fest" kinda guy.

And if you don't agree with what he says, change the fucking station. I've been saying that for years about religious attacks on television and radio. Change the fucking station. Turn the damn thing off.

And books. You don't like what it says? Don't read it, asshole!

Because in America, we have the right of free speech. It's that buggery first amendment thing. And, although some of us don't like it, it swings both ways. It keeps the President from arresting us for protesting or being Muslim (perhaps marginally), and it also protects the retards in the KKK when they march.

Sanctimonious bullshit. Don't like Imus? Continue to not listen to him. If you do listen, stop. Radio's a privilege that can be revoked - in the American Capitalist way we like to revoke privileges. What happened overnight would've happened over a couple weeks: ads pull out, listeners drop, the man is fired.

But shout and whine and complain and before you know it shows are being pulled for "insensitivity." Then shows are pulled for not saying the right thing. And then there are no shows. And then everyone's afraid of America.

Even Americans.

Liberals (and yes, that's me too): Stop the Lame.

Hannity Shenanigans: Let Freedom Ring!

One road trip, and right wing radio does the rest. White House is "losing" emails (who didn't see that coming?), Kurt Vonnegut died (*sigh*), and India can nuke Beijing (so if they don't take gold in the 1k relay, they have recourse). How about some shenanigans instead?

Everyone knows that Sean Hannity is America. And if you aren't convinced, he has a couple of gimmicky reminders, such as the music that opens the hour: Martina McBride's "Independence Day."

Let freedom ring, let the white dove sing let the whole world know that
Today is a day of reckoning let the weak be strong, let the right be wrong, roll
The stone away, let the guilty pay, it’s independence day

Hell yeah! Sean Hannity's taking up the fight for us Americans and those haters of freedom and liberty be damned!

But like much of Sean's information, the song is horribly incomplete, portraying a small piece of the truth. Only the chorus is played. But if you're familiar with the song or would care to read the lyrics, you would discover that "Independence Day" is a song about a mother and daughter from the daughter's perspective. They are abused by the woman's alcoholic husband and one 4th of July, the woman burns down the house, killing the husband. The child ends up in foster care.

So that's how we take back America: with fire! Thanks, Mr. Hannity!

Secondary analysis note: when the day of liberation comes, the "right" is "wrong." I think my colostomy bag just burst, I'm laughing so hard.

Class dismissed.

American Flag Burned, Glenn Beck Whines at Yale

Mr. Beck! No!

I was listening to Glenn Beck on Monday (right wing radio keeps the blood pumpin' on those long car rides). Mr. Beck was angry. He was angry at non-citizens; he was angry at Yale; he was angry at Yalies. And he was yelling.

Here's the setup:

Two of the Yale students who were arrested early Tuesday for burning an American flag hanging from a Chapel Street home remained incarcerated this morning, but the third student has paid bond and was released yesterday.

According to court records, Hyder Akbar '07, Nikolaos Angelopoulos '10 and Farhad Anklesaria '10 were charged with multiple counts of second degree arson, first degree reckless endangerment, third degree criminal mischief and second degree breach of peace. Angelopoulos was released on $25,000 bail Tuesday according to officials at the Connecticut Correctional Center.

Awww, shit. It's 3am and a couple of kids get into some mischief. No, not just mischief; if the cops hadn't seen the flag on fire, somebody might have gotten hurt. They did something inexcusably stupid and put people's lives in danger. Not only that, but it was an American Flag that they set on fire, their names are hard to pronounce, and two of them aren't even citizens of our country. Xenophobic rage? You're up.

Immigrants, aliens, America-hating infidels! Deport them all! Well, I didn't go to Yale and Yale sucks; they'll have rallies supporting their right to burn a flag by the end of the week! Elitist liberals!(I'm paraphrasing here.)

Why is Glenn Beck spitting so much verbal diarrhea at the Yale Daily News? He let it out himself: Yale had a panel about Mormon businessmen. Beck was included. The paper, while covering the event, questioned Beck's participation.

Glenn Beck said they "got all the facts wrong." But if you look at the Yale Daily News article, the question raised is Why is it appropriate for an off-the-hook, right-wing-nut radio talk show host to be moderator on a panel entitled "The Mormon Way of Doing Business?" To listen to Glenn, you'd think the YDN did a front page piece on why he's such a tremendous douchebag. But most of the article was about the actual panel, and Beck was barely mentioned.

"I was surprised to see him invited here to serve in a moderating position when 'moderate' is about the last thing Glenn Beck is," Frick said. "I assume there are hundreds more positive influences in the Mormon community than a man who questions whether lesbians are really women and said Barack Obama may as well be white."

These are the only "facts" that might be in question. But, as you can imagine, the two links above lead to verification that those statements about what Glenn Beck said are totally valid.

He's a whiny little bitch. With a radio and TV show. Lucky.

And where is the insane, irrational liberal outcry over this case? It doesn't exist. Anyone of a rational mind can see that setting someone else's property on fire is probably a bad idea, American flag or not. In fact, Gregory DuBoff, in his article Claims of xenophobia have been overstated, takes it directly to the point:

Ultimately, this case is not a political issue unless the students are treated differently because of their foreign nationalities. It is harmful to public discourse and politically dishonest to use this event as an opportunity to spew one’s own ideological beliefs.

...which is exactly what Beck did.

Sometimes they're so good at self-sabotage, I wonder why I need to write.

Photoshopless: Cheney's Hot for Teacher

So Bush almost blew himself up on Saturday plugging into the wrong hole (Iraq, Laura, I'm seeing a pattern here). This image is making its rounds.



But wait...


Cheney's got the laser eyes of a robot, and they're trained directly on the President's posterior. Back dat ass up!

Smackdown on Iran: No Dice

I wrote on Thursday about the possibility of Iran being bombed by us on Good Friday, as it was reported by the Israelis as it was "discovered" by the Russians. Just wanted to fess up and say: "My bad."

"Russian intelligence" is obviously as blatant an oxymoron as I first suspected. They're rocking out at the assassination aspect of the former USSR, but have yet to get their spying up to snuff.

And the Israelis propagated the myth because, well, they'd really like to see us bomb the crap out of Iran. Mahmoud makes them uneasy.

I'll keep my ear to the ground. Yes, I know. Horses, not zebras.

Blog Against Theocracy: The Crazy Capital Lawn Fiasco

I was thinking today about theocracy in America and all the ills that it provides. I was thinking about creationism in national parks, Sean Hannity, and our rights as believers - or non-believers - in America. I concomitantly came back to the same recent idea about Church and State: for the love of all things human, make it stop.

Recap: 40 members of congress held a press conference to pray on the Capital Lawn. These are the members. Although they maintained they'd taken their leave on "lunch," our elected officials lead a prayer revival at the Capital. Click the link. The embedded mp3 will make you shiver.

But the overwhelming question is: Are our elected officials, on lunch or not, allowed to congregate and preach Chronicles 7:14, which is the biblical scripture associated with the group:

if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

How do we, as freedom-loving Americans, possibly devoid of Bible or scripture or religion but possible belief in all, deal with this theocracy?

Is it right for our elected officials to use the Capital lawn as a spawning ground for Jesus Hallelujah?

No, it is not.

Free speech is protected, and on that angle, whatever they feel they need to talk about is fine. But using our time and our airwaves and our lawn to spawn a religious revival is not right.

What our government officials are doing is nothing less than giving firm credence to a religious belief (they are all Christian). They are quoting the Bible and using our time at the center of the United States to say "Jesus is Lord!"

This is a problem. And we should use any and all resources we have to fight against it. Email those members of congress. Call them. Tell them that a theocracy is wrong. Tell them that, regardless of their focus or intuition or faith, that this is wrong.

As the First Amendment states,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the exercise thereof...

This is the first step. Make Congress take pause. Make a difference.

Amen.

Drudgery: Homo-tagging San Fran's Mayor

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Coming Smackdown on Iran: Good Friday?

The crazy train's shuttling down the track, spitting whispers of border buildups and planned attacks. Who's in on it? Who are we to believe? I'll report. You decide.

Iran Ascared

Iran is afraid of being attacked by the US and Israel, which it calls "warmongers." I'm not saying they're wrong.

Actually, there's a date and time floating out there. Not that we're living in the tangible world of completely plausible reality, but Israeli news sources (J-Po) are reporting that Russian intelligence says that not only is there a buildup of activity on Iran's borders, but that from 4am to 4pm (Tehran time, I'm guessing) on Good Friday, there's going to be some tactical-grade ass-whoopin' goin' down.

British Gift

Did Mahmoud Ahmadinejad give this "gift" to Britan as a bribe not to get bombed? Everyone's looking sunshine and roses as he releases the British troops. But will it matter?

Isolated Iran?

Here's something else from Global Research: Iran is isolated

Iran is politically isolated. Unilateralism prevails within the corridors of the UN as well as within the Middle East war theater.

The US sponsored resolution in the United Nations Security Council received unanimous support. Proposed amendments to the draft resolution were discarded, following US pressures. The text of the resolution was adopted unanimously.

Neither Russia nor China, which have extensive military cooperation agreements with Iran, exercised their veto, nor did they abstain.

All that shows is that China and Russia are either wusses or they're guarding their cards.

Imagine, if you will, a bully. Let's call him Sam. And that bully is threatening, well, pretty much everyone except the lanky British kid (Nigel) in the corner. You and your friend tell the bully you won't help the little Iranian kid, Ahmed - even though you told him you guys were BFF - even if Sam starts beating him up.

Sam's feeling pretty damn good. So he goes over and smacks Ahmed. Once. Twice. You wait. Then Ahmed winds up to give some back and - oh shit, he just elbowed Abrham in the eye. They both go after Ahmed, you and Vlad jump in, and everyone, seeing Sam finally on the ground, in the sand, either pretends they aren't looking or goes in for the attack.

I'm not saying that's how it's going to go down. But it might.

Bush's Plan?

Perhaps Bush is planning a push-ahead with a military action so he can turn the argument into "Yeah, well you Congress guys better get your stuff together now because you're gonna hurt our troops big time if you keep delaying money now that we're in Iran. Big time, I say."

Whatever the strategies or tactics or whateverthehell, if these reports are correct, at 8:30pm ET, the missiles will launch.

And that was okay with one of Sean Hannity's callers yesterday, Donna from New Jersey:

DONNA: Hello Sean, I'm happy that the sailors will be returned to Britain but I think when they are safely home we should still lob a few bombs into Iran and let Iran know it's a new day and we're the boss, we're gonna set the rules, and we're gonna take action. And if anything like this should happen again, we shouldn't even negotiate. We just strike.

SEAN: Well, the problem is - and they know this - that we value life, and that at all cost, we don't want to do things that would result in the death of innocent people, in this case, these 15 British sailors and marines.

Did he just say we avoid civilian casualties at all costs? No, really. Oh, man.
**tear**

Remember: Pop your popcorn. Fireworks at 8:30 (or not and you can turn Survivor back on).

Christ on a Bun! - Blog Against Theocracy

All Christ on a Bun kidding aside, as I've talked about some in my last post and over at All Things Democrat in detail, we need to maintain our freedom of religion, our right to worship, or not.

If you're reading this and you're a blogger, please take part in the Blog Against Theocracy Blogswarm April 6 - 8.

What's a blogswarm? You blog against theocracy in your own personal fashion. You tell someone (Blue Gal in this case). Your post is compiled along with others around the world. For more information, check the Blog Against Theocracy official page.

Also check out First Freedom First's site. The following spot comes from them. Warning: tears may flow for love of country. (Thanks to Blue Gal for the enlightenment.)