The Onion's Soldier Holiday Greetings

May not be around until Christmas. Enjoy this from The Onion News Network:


Our Troops Send Holiday Wishes For Peace, Goodwill, And Body Armor

Huckabee's Phantom Cross

Everyone's talking about it, so here it is:



Huckabee says it's just a bookshelf.

I'm an actor of 20 years with both film and television in my background; I have a solid understanding of what happens during a shoot and in post-production. Two possibilities here:

1. The production team hired to film a national commercial for a leading presidential candidate cleverly lit part of a bookshelf brighter than the Christmas tree or even Huckabee himself to in order to not-so-subtly bring a cross into the image to reflect the message of God Bless and Merry Christmas, and everyone is lying about it.


2. The production team hired to film a national commercial for a leading presidential candidate are talentless, legally-blind hacks who errantly lit a bookshelf and, according to the Huck's story, not only didn't notice a blaring cross during the shoot, but didn't notice it in post-production, and only oh-my-gosh'ed when the public saw it.

I don't believe for a second that it's the latter.

Holy Nintendo!

Who likes Nintendo? You do. You know you do. You miss the old school nostalgia of the 8-bit walking pixelations and furiously blowing into the cartridge, then the system, then the cartridge.

You can have it again! Nintendo8.com is your new friend. Here's 100 games, played through the magic of Java, right in your browser. Then click ALL and behold the all-some.

From Astyanax to Bionic Commando to Shadowgate to Zombie Nation (seriously, try it - whacked). Not safe for work because you will not work.

Digging into the Kucinich Blackout

Still no real answers, but plenty of questions.



[Alternative YouTube Link]

Because Ocelots are Friggin Sweet

I did this up for a search engine experiment for my real job. If it works, I'll report back in on the boring techie details. Just something tasty for Monday.

Know What I Love About Wal-Mart?

12-year-old Chinese children working 15 hour days, 7 days a week, at $0.26 an hour to make Christmas ornaments for the Big-Box Monster. That's the holiday spirit!

From Mother Jones:

With the help of the National Labor Committee—the American outfit famed for shaming Kathy Lee Gifford for her line's exploitative labor practices—the teenagers have brought to light yet another scandal with big implications. Turns out the Guangzhou Huanya ornaments factory in Guangdong, where the high school students worked, employs children as young as 12, who are forced to work 15 hour days, 7 days a week to make Wal-Mart's Christmas ornaments in time for the holiday season. It might come as no surprise that the wages paid by the big box behemoth's manufacturers are paltry, but these kids earn only half of China's minimum wage—just 26 cents an hour.

Anyone else just want to throw up? If you haven't figured it out yet: It doesn't matter how good the deals are; stop shopping at Wal-Mart. If words won't do it for that shopping itch, the whistle-blowing teens were able to get some pictures:



What is anyone still doing shopping there?

Dennis Kucinich Axed in Iowa

It's starting to happen with more severity and urgency: The media is shutting down anyone who is not at the head of their personal popularity contest. The last two debates we were told that Mike Gravel was not important to be heard. Today, as noted by Kate, Dennis Kucinich was added to the ranks of the uninvited.

From the Kucinich campaign:

The highest polling Democratic Presidential candidate among the Party’s progressive, grassroots, activist base, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, has been excluded from the Des Moines Register-sponsored Presidential debate here on Thursday because his Iowa field director operates from a home office rather than a rented storefront.

Despite being the top-ranked Presidential candidate in polls conducted by Democracy for America (DFA), Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), and one of the country’s leading progressive publications, The Nation, Kucinich was not invited to participate in the debate because “It was our determination that a person working out of his home did not meet our criteria for a campaign office and full-time paid staff in Iowa,” according to a statement from the newspaper’s top officials, including editor Carolyn Washburn.

What? Are you serious? A storefront? Who even ...what? I didn't watch the debate, but I also heard that CNN applauded the exclusionary move. This is the type of story that makes me sad and makes me angry and makes me lose faith in our system of government.

Who likes to make noise? Feel free to contact the Des Moines Register.

Editor Carolyn Washburn (515) 284-8502.
Laura Hollingsworth President and Publisher (515) 284-8041
Randy Brubaker Managing Editor (515) 284-8590
Randy Evans Assistant Managing Editor (515) 284-8118
Letters to the editor e-mail: letters@dmreg.com

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Blog

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, has a blog. It's been up since August of 2006 and it covers some Where in the World stuff, American meetings, and the "freedom and liberty" enjoyed by Iranians in a non-inflammatory and rather boring tone, especially with the "In the Name of Almighty God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate" heading off every entry. It would've been better if it were actually "frank" as is apparently his aim. And if he posted more than 5 times in the last year.

Fav excerpt? The "Hay GuyZ!1!" tone in defense of the time he is spending on the blog.

Since my last post on the blog, a few months have passed. But this doesn't ‎mean that I have not been keeping my promise of spending fifteen minutes per week ‎on it. As a matter of fact, I have spent more than the allocated time on the blog. The ‎magnitude of the reception and acclamation from the viewers was beyond ‎expectations.

Oh, quit your bitchin'!

At first I thought this was a Fake Steve Jobs kind of thing, but then I realized how absolutely lacking in creativity, humor, and content Mahmoud's site is.

Kudos to the first infidel who can trade blogroll links with Iran's President!

God Sends Gunman, Defender to Church?

On Sunday, December 9th, a man armed with "an assault rifle, two handguns and a backpack with more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition in clips" dropped a smoke grenade at one entrance to a Colorado Springs megachurch, circled around, and opened fire at the exiting crowd, killing two people. Twelve hours earlier, he had killed two others at a missionary training school in Arvada.

He then entered the church, took a couple of shots, and was gunned down by security guard Jeanne Assam. Jeanne's take on the situation? "It seemed like it was me, the gunman and God," she said.

I'm sorry, Jeanne, but God was not anywhere in the vicinity that day.

It was just you and a home-schooled kid who had become entrenched in the pseudo-religio-society that is megachurch Colorado Springs and was subsequently ostracized from his reality when he was booted from the Youth With A Mission school a few years ago (Space cadet check: Police said 3 years, the school said 5, and the church affiliated with the program? "Senior Pastor Brady Boyd of New Life Church said the gunman had no connection to the church.").

In the actual definition of "begging the question," God in the world of the extremely devout works something like this: Why does everything happen for a reason? Because God is infallible. What proof do you have that God is infallible? Everything happens for a reason.

He's got a pretty good racket going. Win the lottery? God's blessing is upon you! Have an addiction or horrid money problems or both? God's just challenging you to make you strong. Jump out of your burning apartment, break both your legs, and watch your mother die by immolation? God's blessing you survived and Jesus needed Mommy in Heaven.

And in this case, the security guard attributes her trained ability to fire a weapon at a target to God when the result of it was the taking of a human life in the house of God.

I understand the role of religion in people's lives, but blind, unquestioning faith and using God as a tool of rationalization is simply turning 'living a life' into absurdity.

Soulja Boy's "Crank Dat" Not So Appropriate

As my 11-year-old daughter (and the rest of her 6th grade class) is in love with the song "Crank That Soulja Boy" by Soulja Boy, I was keeping up with propriety and checking the artist out to make sure that it was something appropriate for an 11-year-old. I ran across a fan site that had the lyrics.

From the song:
I'm Jocking On Yo Bitch Ass
And If We Get The Fightin
Den im cockin on ya bitch ass

And then there's the song "Bootymeat."

Needless to say, the music is not appropriate for my daughter. What surprised me more was:



"A Positive Direction for Young America."

Isn't this kind of the opposite of that?

Nebraska Shooter Caps 8, Saves One for Self

As a man of sometimes-supreme excess, I spend most of my work-from-home day listening - that's right, listening - to Headline news or some other network iteration of force-fed prioritized reality. Yesterday was no exception, and CNN Headline News was the source of my information as the shooting in a Nebraska mall was rippling through the newsosphere.

Early, but the last point I was paying much attention, the live afternoon anchor stated that the shooter was wearing a green army jacket. Then: "the shooter is an African-American male."



Wait a second: that guy isn't black!

Perhaps a poor man's rendition of Tom Cruise in Risky Business, but he's no Cuba Gooding, Jr.

Wait a second: black people don't wear green army jackets! Wait a second: there's no black people in Nebraska!

Ah, but I jest.

Two questions rattle the brain cage:

1. How did grunge teen angst with the bouffant a la Journey get described as an African-American male?


2. Why can't these people just go down with their own ship? Someone plese spread this generalization: suicide is a private event.


3. When will there be broad recognition that antidepressants can actually cause depressed people to drop even further into depression?


4. Do any black people live in Nebraska?

Okay, that was more like 4 questions. You know.

At least there's LOLcats.

I Don't Think Anything Predated Christians

"I Don't Think Anything Predated Christians."

That's what Sherri Shepherd said on The View. Check the clip here until it's yanked, but be forewarned that for anyone with any sense whatsoever about history will be in physical pain after the 42-second exchange, not just for Shepherd's idiot comment, but for the complete lack of certitude used to contradict her statement:



And this is television on your planet? Yes, Mr. Alien, this is television. (That's longhand for being embarrassed for humanity.)

(h/t to Phil at Bad Astronomy)

TV Stations Sites: Can I See Some ID?

I was going to mention this story about a man who was shot with a taser as he stepped out of his bathtub. The man was deaf.

But I became increasingly frustrated at the website as I glanced and scanned and checked it out: where the hell are we?

In a world of ever-growing, worldwide internet presence, I'm continually surprised by how lacking local news stations are in one very simple item: city and state. I can tell you KWCH is west of the Mississippi River, and reading the entire article places the deaf man in Wichita (call letters are similar), and working through the menus shows me we're in Kansas. But are we? I've gotten this far by a lot more deduction than I should be expending simply trying to figure out where the station posting the article is based.

Summary for every local news station in America-

Your Local News Internet banner should contain the following:

• Your call letters
• Your city and state
• The pretty faces we would see were we living locally and turned on the news
• A generalized, trite, non-descriptive slogan that you think sets you apart from the rest of the local news stations in your market (optional)

So hurry up and get your web guy/gal on it! And while you're making phone calls, call the cops and tell them to stop tasing deaf and/or pregnant people.

Kucinich 2008 - Fundraising Push December 15th

Dennis Kucinich is focusing a blast of fundraising on December 15th, the historical day on which the Bill of Rights was adopted by America.



Are you tired with the War in Iraq? Support Dennis.

Do you support equal (not separate) rights for same-sex couples? Support Dennis.

Are you tired of corporations running America? Support Dennis.

Are you tired of struggling to pay ever-increasing premiums as the insurance companies the world over post record profits? Support Dennis as the only candidate who proposes universal, not-for-profit health care.

We (and that includes me) sit around our dinner tables or barroom tables and we shoot barbs at the system or talk about how we need to take action and change America. This is our chance to do just that: stop bitching about the itch and scratch it for God's sake!

"But Ricky, Davis says $100 in the video and it's almost Christmas and...." You know better than that. Is $100 ideal? Yes. Would the Kucinich campaign raise their noses at $50 or $10. Hell no. Every piece helps. Do what you can.

Support Dennis Kucinich.

It's time to make a change in America. And that starts with me and you. So shelve the plans for la Résistance for a minute and let's see what we can do through Dennis.

Religious Hatred for Islam from Muslims

Last week, British teacher Gillian Gibbons was convicted of religious hatred for letting her Sudanese class name a bear "Mohammed." Last I heard, while Mohammed is a popular name for males in Sudan, it's not to be used for an animal. Or, apparently, a stuffed animal.



In a related story that I just made up, the Sudanese people were also convicted of religious hatred because mobs of people, some wielding large knives and other weapons, calling for the execution of a Brit, make the rest of the reasonable world hate Islam.

As a liberal, I am more than willing to give religions the benefit of the doubt in the depth and breadth of the belief of their followers. Unfortunately, when a mob forms about giving the name of a prophet to a stuffed bear, and they want to kill not the namer but the off-nationality teacher who let it happen, I have to say to Sudanese mob: Hey, you! Get your shit together! You are making Islam look very, very bad and irrational to a world that is already open to that interpretation!

And I don't even like exclamation points.

The Sudanese government needs to either rein in this catastrophe or give the hidden Gillian time served for surviving hiding out and let her go home.

No, I don't like whackjobs of any flavor.

UPDATE: Either the folks in Sudan read my blog or I write unquestionable reason and common sense that needs not be read to be understood: British teacher pardoned. Or, as is true in most of the world, a bundle of whackjobs does not the masses make, much like a Bill Donahue and a Pat Robertson, while inflammatory and offensive and even representative, do not stand for the compassion that many of their followers hold dear.

Pope Benedict Criticizes Atheism in Encyclical

This past Thursday, I railed against Pope Benedict for paying lip service to preventing AIDS - one day before World AIDS Day - when Catholic doctrine is strictly against the use of condoms.

Today I almost sharted when I read the story about Pope Benedict's Encyclical attributing the "greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice" ever known to atheism, citing Marx and Lenin. It is followed-up by the Pope's "self-critique" of Christianity:

"We must acknowledge that modern Christianity, faced with the successes of science in progressively structuring the world, has to a large extent restricted its attention to the individual and his salvation," he wrote. "In doing so, it has limited the horizon of its hope and has failed to recognize sufficiently the greatness of its task."

Yes, that piss-poor, job-interview-esque "what's your greatest weakness" of an answer is what the Pope considers "self-critique" of Christianity.

I reiterate what I wrote to the Pope concerning condoms and AIDS: How fucking dare you?

How about the treatment of non-Christian Romans after Constantine adopted Christianity? How about the Spanish Inquisition? How about the burning of witches? How about Hitler was raised Catholic and did continue belief in Christianity during his killin' days? How about that self-critique? And since Popehat is specifically targeting atheism, how about all the wars in the history of the world that were fought, not because the other tribe or ethnic group or country didn't believe, but because they believed something different?

I'm not very fond of organized religion, but I recognize the value it has in billions of lives and the potential good that it can do. And while I see Catholicism specifically as an anachronistic, non-bending, slowly sinking ship in the 21st Century, Bill Donahue take note: I do not hate the Catholic Church. But for the Pope to state that atheism is the cause of pain, war, tragedy, and horror in the world past and present is like King Henry VIII of England berating Bill Clinton for his indiscretion, and is way beyond the scope of pot/kettle territory.

The Encyclical, appallingly entitled "Saved by Hope," can be viewed online at the Vatican website.

So shame on the Pope and shame on AP Reporter Victor L. Simpson for (writing the article and) blindly being his mouthpiece.

I-35: Holy Highway to Batshit Crazy

I-35 goes from Loredo, TX to Duluth, MN. And due to a "series of prophesies, dreams, and visions," many Midwest ministries believe I-35 is the road mentioned in Isaiah 35:8 (it's even Isaiah 35 - OMGLOL!!1!): "And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness."

This 5 minutes may not make you dumber, but you may sustain some damage banging your head against the wall after watching it. The man presiding over the insanity he calls a "report:" none other than the deliciously batshit crazy Pat Robertson, prime backer of Rudy Giuliani.



Ironically, watching this video makes me want to pray for our country.

Putin's Little Soldier

In a rare and candid moment, Russian President Vladimir Putin admits that his penis is, in fact, quite small.


(image source was Drudge front page, unaltered - Russians wear the wedding ring on the right hand)

Notes on the Republican CNN YouTube Debate

Last night I sat through the mental poo-bomb that was the Republican debate and yadda, yadda, let's get on with those notes.

• Approximately 3000 questions were asked for the YouTube Democratic Debate; 5000 for the YouTube Republican Debate. This is probably attributed to everyone from the first debate, 1900 new Democrats desiring to zing the Repubs, and 100 Republicans who were able to figure out a camera, Windows MovieMaker, and the YouTube on the internets.


• I thought Anderson Cooper looked rather dapper in his black satin tie, but then again I've always found him a handsome man.


• The sparky exchange that started out between Giulianai and Romney left Giuliani defeated and looking like a fool for his comments about Romney's workers and wide-open for his non-answer of New York as a sanctuary city. And he was the first booed by the audience.


• Every boo in this debate was an ecstatic spark of schadenfreude.

Jesus Has Nads!

Yesterday I focused on a talented group of people making art out of balloons in the name of Christ. Today I show you why we can't have anything nice.



Yes, I just did that.

And even Hillary is talking about it.